Christmas Eve 2009

Let us pray. O Holy Child, grant us sincere humility, even as You exalt us by calling us God's Children. Amen. (TLSB)

This, the 2009th year of our Lord has not been an easy one for many of us. Whether our concerns and anxieties have been economic, familial, vocational, or spiritual, the winding down of this year and this decade evokes not simply the mirth of Christmas but the sighs and sorrows of deaths, lost opportunities, personal failures, dashed hopes, fractured relationships and all the other particular ways in which our old Adams and Eves seek to be cast out of God's presence yet again. Sad though it is, Christmastime does not erase the many and varied ills of our lives. And while, I admit with some shame, I am wont to tear up when I hear the line from "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" which goes:

From now on, our troubles will be out of sight...

I know that this sentiment is simply and sadly a pipe dream. I have wounded people and have wounds myself that cannot be bandaged by a Santa hat.

This is not a cheery way to begin a Christmas meditation, but what a wondrous thing that God confronts us this night, we who deal in sin and the wages of death every day, what a wondrous thing that tonight God confronts us with a baby. With a holy family, a man far from his home, a woman in the last moments of pregnancy, and finally with their child. And, by confronting us with this holy child God proclaims the redemption, healing and reconciliation of humankind.

What an absurd thing.

As contemporary Americans, we're trained to expect results. Now. As people who are living through recession we are being trained to not be lavish with our expectations, because they'll probably come to naught anyways. I wonder if our contemporary experience is unwittingly training us to be innkeepers, who haven't the space, time, or compassion to be hospitable to pregnant woman, weary man or lowly newborn.


What, after all, does this newborn accomplish?

The brokenness of our experience indicates that he may in fact accomplish nothing. Or perhaps the infant's only job is inspire within people the urge to try to be warm and outgoing for the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas day.

Meditating on this quandary, Fr. Luther asserts:

The Christian faith is foolishness. It says that God can do anything and yet makes Jesus so weak...

Foolishness, we're spending an hour and half celebrating foolishness tonight sisters and brothers. Blessed foolishness. Divine foolishness. Foolishness that looks upon the muddled mess of humanity and proclaims with angelic strains:



Glory to God in the Highest Heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours.

Foolishness that chose humble Bethlehem rather than mighty Jerusalem. Foolishness that looks upon the sin of the world and offers a babe. To our eyes God's ways are foolish. God does not get the job done the way we might want him to. But get the proverbial job done God does. Himself. Tonight of all nights we are invited to ponder most intimately the mystery of the Holy and Blessed Trinity, to wonder at the fact that God the Father in heaven sent God the Son to be born of Mary by the power of God the Holy Spirit. And while space may appear to separate the three persons, they are yet one in nature and bound by love so deep that it defies human sensibilities.

God, the eternal Word of the Father is born for us.

What an absurd thing.

That God can defy the laws of physics as we describe them, sure. But that God does so for us? Amazing. Have you met us? Have you wondered at whether we even are redeemable? And if we were redeemable shouldn't we be so through some program of self-improvement. Shouldn't God want us to be getting better all the time?

But God's answer is a baby. God's answer is his own divine self laid in a manger, no crib for his bed. No wetnurse. No heat. No painkillers for the holy Virgin.

A baby. Born in a cave-stable, anticipating his cave-tomb. God looks at our human woes and sends us a baby. Sends us a lowly Lord. Sends us our Christ. And by his birth we see that our redemption comes not by our willpower or strength or righteousness or any amount of bootstrap-pullin' but by God's weakness, self-sacrifice, humility, and littleness. Father Bonhoeffer meditated on this mysterious reality as he languished in a Nazi prison cell during Christmastime in 1943:



That misery, suffering, poverty, lowliness, helplessness and guilt look very different to the eyes of God from what they do to man, that God should come down to the very place which men usually abhor, that Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn - these are things which a prisoner can understand better than anyone else.



While Father Bonhoeffer was in literal prison, what enlightening words these are too all humankind as we languish in the prison of sin. God's ways are not our ways. They are infinitely more gracious and infinitely more compassionate. Listen as Father Luther unfolds Bonhoeffer's thought:

The Kingdom of Christ is a proclamation of peace and grace, as the angels sang that he should be the Saviour of the whole world to free his people and save them from their sins. That he has done and still is doing. He is not the sort of Lord who fights with the sword... this is a fair, dear, and precious assurance to troubled and tormented consciences laden with sins, that to them and to us all a Child is born who will rule and vindicate, who will help, and not destroy...










A baby, a fair, dear and precious baby who brings peace and grace. Who by his birth filled in the chasm dividing God from humankind. Who by his birth dismissed the angels who guard paradise with fiery swords. Who by his birth shows us the foolishness of our ways and the wisdom of God.






Tonight, sisters and brothers, I hope we will be awash in Christmas cheer. God knows we need it. But when we get into our cars and drive home and as the days pass and the cares and concerns of life again make it so there is no room at our inns for the Christ child, may we all take a deep breath and luxuriate in the manger. Luxuriate in the promises of God fulfilled. Luxuriate even though it is cold in the cave and even though Mary and Joseph are scared. Luxuriate with the only ones who consented to be present, the smelly livestock and rank shepherds. Let us luxuriate in the presence of God become human, for reality is not what we see each day, not what we do, not what we earn, not what we fail to do, not how we are seen by mundane eyes. No. Reality is a baby. Born in the cold in Bethlehem. Born for me, born for you. Born for all humankind.


In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent 2, 2009

Prepare the way of the Lord... more than just a song from Godspell, this word spoken first by Holy Isaiah and echoed by the forerunner cuts to the heart of what it means for us to be disciples of our incarnate Lord. 

Now, as Lutherans, we are unwilling, like so many of our sisters and brothers in the Church, to simply assign an ethical meaning to this command. Rather, the call sounding forth from the Baptist's mouth this morning is the summation of the Old Testament, the last prophetic word spoken by the last of the prophets. For what is the scriptural record of the Old Testament if not a preparation for God's breaking, physically, into this world? What are all the paths walked by our ancestors if not the path to Bethlehem?

Abram and Sarai were called to walk a windy path from Chaldea, Iraq, to the Holy Land.
Joseph's path began in a pit and led to Egypt.
Moses, Aaron and the Israelite host wandered along their path for 40 years.
Ruth and Naomi walked the path from Moab to Jerusalem.
Elijah ran and hid in Aram, Syria.
David wandered from the sheepfold to the citadel of the Lord in Jerusalem.
After the exile, Ezra and Nehemiah came to the home of their ancestors from far off Susa, the capitol of Imperial Persia.
Even the holy family had to make the trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem. 

In all they did, these mothers and fathers of ours, prepared the way of the Lord.

Not by being good people. Abram failed to trust God and had a child by his servant-girl. Moses failed to trust God and wasn't allowed into the promised Land. The Israelites cast a golden calf to worship. Naomi seduced Boaz in the stillness of the night. David had Uriah killed so he could sleep with Bathsheba. And on and on.

No, this dubious pack of liars, cheats, misfits and opportunists prepared the way of the Lord by the Lord's fiat, by the Lord's Word. In a very real way our ancestors in the scriptures are more important for the promises that God made to them rather than how they responded to the promises.

So it is also with our mothers and fathers in the ends times of the Church. The moral and practical lessons taught us by generations past are largely fine and good for our daily living. But more important is the baptismal covenant that God made with them and, through them, has made with us. In a very literal way, our parents prepared the way of the Lord by bringing us to the Font, where we were baptised not just for repentance but for new life. Hear Origen, third century teacher of the Church:

Coming down and rushing in full flood is the river of God, the Lord our Savior, in whom we were baptized. This is the real, life-giving water, and the sins of those baptized in it are forgiven.

What an odd way to prepare... to hear, to receive. To dwell in the unfolding of God's Kingdom. Fr. Luther is so plain the catechism as he discusses the petition 'your kingdom come:'

The kingdom of God comes indeed without our prayer, of itself; but we pray in this petition that it may come unto us also.

It's almost as if God has his own absolute plan that is unfolding that embraces all people and redeems all sin and will make whole every broken part of us. It's almost as if God's grace is bigger than we are. It's almost as the path is being made straight and level and smooth before us. Of course, don't trust my whimsy, let's listen to the Holy Forerunner again:

...all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Saint John the Baptist echoes the words of Simeon, whose song we sing after receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord, ' My eyes have seen the salvation which God has prepared in the sight of every people...'

Sisters and brothers, as we wait this Advent for our Lord's return, we wait as people on the path prepared by God himself. Now, our humanity does have a nasty habit of straying from the path, it is true and lamentable that we seek to forge our own ways through the thickets of lust and greed and untruth and lack-of-trust. But God has even prepared ways back from such wanderings, through the sacrament of confession and absolution - as your Pastor it is profound and humbling to speak God's words of forgiveness - and through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which is itself given for the forgiveness of sins. In these last days, it is the spoken Word, that leads us along the royal highway, even back up its steep banks when we fall off the sides.

And so, if the path of our most ancient ancestors was towards the humble stable in Bethlehem, and if our Lord's path was towards the cross, then is our path not ultimately leading towards the new Jerusalem? The words of T.S. Eliot ring true for us:

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

With the drawing of the Holy Trinity's perfect love and the calling of the Word made Flesh we will, sisters and brothers, we will, with eyes to see, gaze on the paradise of our first parents, but remade. No longer watered by the four rivers but watered by the living water that flows from the throne of God. No longer confused by the slithering of the serpent but adorned by the snaking throngs of the redeemed bringing the wealth of the nations into the Kingdom. No longer lit by the star around which we orbit but basking in the light and warmth of the only Son.

The path is made straight, let us rejoice. Let us see that is not our steps that prepare the way but rather that the way is prepared for us, and God has a destination in mind.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

First Sunday of Advent, 2009

Jesuit theologian from the last century Pierre Teilhard de Chardin offers us this insightful reflection as we enter upon our Advent journey:

Expectation - anxious, collective and operative expectation of an end of the world... - that is perhaps the supreme Christian function and the most distinctive characteristic of our religion. Historically speaking, that expectation has never ceased to guide the progress of our faith like a torch... We persist in saying that we keep vigil for the Master. But in reality, we should have to admit, if we were sincere, that we no longer expect anything.

Is Fr. de Chardin to harsh. Do we expect God's return soon? Or do we go about our daily lives no longer expecting anything? I think the response to Fr. de. Chardin's assertion is a complicated one, but I do think that we lack the fervor of our mothers and fathers in the faith. Unlike St. Paul, I don't tend to pray that my beloved ones will be:

...blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

Nor is my prayer life ultimately guided by our Lord's admonition that we:

...be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.

I tend to pray for more immediate things. "God, look after so and so. Lord forgive me for the sin I committed earlier today. Jesus, help me to be more humble." Et cetera. Going deeper than my prayer life, I worry that my actions bespeak my blase outlook. Have you ever been engaging in something you know to be wrong and wondered, "What if Jesus show's up now?" Have you ever been in the midst of sin that you know is offensive to God our Father wondered what the divine mind must be thinking of you? I have. Could it be that I no longer expect anything? Have I lost my will be a vigil-keeper? Have I become a foolish virgin, who will not "my lamp with gladness take" when the bridegroom comes?

Perhaps. Though I pray not. Fr. de. Chardin is correct that the expectation of our Lord's return is the torch that leads the Church through the night of this world. The Light of Christ is a light that draws us forward in time, towards the day, towards the end, towards the Advent of the only Son of God who will come again to judge the living and the dead.

So what does this mean? Simply we can take our Lord's admonitions to mean simply, "Stop!"
Stop sinning. Stop loving material things more than God. Stop being so selfish, thinking you know best for the world. Stop treating your neighbors as though they bear no reflection of the image of God.

Now, all these things are true. The law commands us to stop our sinning so that we may increase and abound in love, so that our hearts may be strengthened in holiness.

But we're not very good at stopping. The devil cut the brake lines back in the garden, and first gear will only slow us down so much. Our human capacity to be good is severely limited, in spite of the message of all the feel-good movies of Christmastime. Indeed, Christmastime highlights so many of our less-than-holy qualities, consumer lust, gluttony, and desire. Even more insipidly, Christmastime can highlight the losses and broken relationships in our lives, a absent family member, a meal that devolves into argument rather than fellowship. 

We're not good at stopping, sisters and brothers. We're content to leave our lamps dry of oil. In too many ways, we have come to no longer expect anything.

But in the midst of our lack of expectation, Jesus' return is immanent. Close at hand. Indeed, every Sunday Jesus' returns to be grasped in our hands, in a preview of "the day" Christ is present every Sunday, his flesh and blood given for us to eat. In a very real way we:

... go until the halls we view where you have bid us dine with you.

in a very real way, in the Lord's Supper, Jesus comes with all his saints. We feast with them. We join in one worship with the faithful departed along with all the Church throughout the world. And we do so at the Lord's behest. We come to share in the proto-apolcalypse of the supper not because we are worthy to, or because we have stopped sinning but because Christ the physician commands us to. He shatters the division between the created order and the divine order and he judges us worthy to receive him based on his own merits, not based on ours. We are "well prepared," as Fr. Luther says in the catechism, when we " believe these words 'for you' and 'for the forgiveness of sins.' We are worthy of a glimpse and taste of Christ's return when we trust his word, his Word, which will not pass away even when we don't trust.

So, our Lord comes, Eucharist after Eucharist, offering himself, giving forgiveness freely to we his alternately expectant, alternately non-expectant sisters and brothers. Our Lord comes as our affections wax and wane. Our Lord comes as he came 2000 years ago, creator into the creation, for us.

As we walk through Advent this year, may we seek forgiveness when our steps on the way of discipleship falter. May we give God thanks when our steps are true, and God's will is done. And most of all, may we expect. May we we expect the return of our Lord, who may come at any time, but who in the meanwhile has a standing date with we, his bride, every week, here at the altar.

Amen.

Thanksgiving Eve 2009

Anybody who has ever been responsible for another person in their life knows that our Lord's advice:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear."

is bunk! Whether we're democrats, republicans, greens, independents or whatever, the foundation of our American economy is worrying about what we will eat, drink, wear, where we will live, how we will get from home to work to school and back. Insipidly, worry, or incentive, dominates our work lives and assigns monetary values to our decisions and skills and labour.

In a more familiar way, worry bonds us to our dependents and partners. Anyone who has spent a sleepless night on account of the illness of a child or spouse or parent knows that worry is the fiercest weapon of fate, against which there is no shield that can defend from anxiety, doubt and fear. In this case, to worry is to enveloped with care for another.

Worry is a part of human life. Worry is one of the constants that defines who we are because we all do it. To worry is human, and according to our text tonight, to be blase is divine.

Or is it?

How much of a worrier was Jesus? He was certainly worried with the well-being of others. He healed, he rescued, he fed. Clearly Jesus was concerned with the fate of his fellow human beings. As he continues in his teaching tonight, he moves very quickly from advice, or indeed, command, directed towards us to description, description of how his Father views our worry.

...indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things...

Look at the flowers, look at the birds, they don't worry and yet they have enough.
Except, of course, for when they don't. For we who live on the fringe of the desert know that sometimes the rains don't come and if we travel out the state poppy preserve there will be no brilliant orange landscape gracing the desert floor. We who live in a post DDT America know that the eagles out on Catalina didn't lay eggs. We who live in the midst of this recession know that God's goodwill doesn't pay the rent, when the checking account is empty and the first of the month rolls around.

Is our Lord taunting us when when commands:

...you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”

Is Jesus giving us a command we can never fulfill? If so, surely that's unkind at best and sociopathic at worst.

I've certainly failed at not worrying. I've certainly failed in having the radical trust demanded by the one true God.
But what if Jesus isn't simply giving us advice? What if he's not chastising we who were raised by dark Northern European, people who loved the films of Bergman and Rohmer, who are chronically early, who were ashamed by B+'s in school, whose natural instinct in times of trial is to go rigid and start to worry about something?

What if rather than giving us advice he's teaching us about ourselves and about God?

Sisters and brothers, on the eve of the national day of Thanksgiving, there is, on a practical level, a lot to be worried about in the world. Maybe a beloved one is sick, maybe your soul is hurting, maybe there isn't as much family as there used to be for supper tomorrow night, maybe a friendship has ended, a job has been lost, a company gone bust. Some of us embrace worry and others take it stride. But left to our own devices, the danger we face is that we will collectively break the first commandment and only see the world on this practical, worrisome level.

Tonight, our Lord Christ calls us to eyes to see the alternate reality, that God is good and God's incarnation has made it so there is, in the truest sense, nothing to worry about anymore. St. Mary the Virgin, mother of God, sang this tension: God has cast the mighty from their thrones and he has lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. Mary could never have been anything more than poor to middle class, yet she knew that the incarnate one flipped the reality of this world on its head. Mighty Herod may have built the great temple in Jerusalem, but it was thrown down by the Romans, but the temple of our Lord Jesus Christ's body was rebuilt in three days.

There is nothing to worry about. Our broken relationships, which sting so badly now will be mended by the one who is love itself. Our battered souls will be made whole by the one who breathed the Spirit into the dust. Our tired bodies will be made new by the one whose own body bore wounds but no longer felt pain. Our anxious pocketbooks will be put to rest by the one who redeemed even tax collectors.

Hear the prophet Joel again:

I will repay you for the years
   that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
   my great army, which I sent against you.

²⁶You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
   and praise the name of the Lord your God,
   who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
²⁷You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
   and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other.
And my people shall never again
   be put to shame.

Tomorrow, as we collectively give thanks, may our hearts have mundane pleasures to ease the woes of this life and to bring smiles to our faces. But more deeply, may we, who are in the midst of a worrisome world remember that God is responsible for us and that even though Jesus was only one individual, he embraced all humankind in his birth, death and resurrection. God is responsible for us, for you. Worry not, we may not always see how our Father in heaven provides for us here, but our lives are founded in God's promise, not in the world's finitude. We are beloved by God more than any of his creatures and divine grace overflows, in God's time turning promise into paradise.

Have a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.
Amen.

Festival of Christ the King, 2009

Today Samuel Newton will hear the the promise of God with his name attached to it. In fact, more than just hearing the promise of God with his name attached to it, Samuel will be transformed by the promise of God as the Triune name is spoken and water is poured over him. Fr. Luther explains:

Baptism works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.

Note some things here: Baptism does not symbolise the forgiveness of sins. Baptism does not give one the opportunity to be delivered from death and the devil. Baptism does not start one on the path to salvation. No.

Baptism works, delivers, and gives. The promises made to Samuel today are true and are powerful because God is Truth and because Christ is Lord.

As if one divine promise isn't good enough, Samuel will hear another, as he is sealed with the Holy Spirit and blessed with oil that our lord bishop set aside during Holy Week for those entering the Church.

And as if two divine promises aren't enough for one morning, Samuel is going to hear his name attached to a third promise when Marybeth and Damien bring him up to receive the Holy Supper for the first time today, and he will hear the words "Samuel, this is the blood of Christ, shed for you." The blood of Christ which we know, because our Lord told us, forgives sins.

So today, Samuel receives a three-for-the-price-of-one outpouring of the grace of God for him. For him. Take note, as we celebrate these sacraments today Samuel's individual, existential reality is going to be changed as the the universal promises of God are proclaimed particularly for him. And the great part is, he will have nothing to do with this existential change. Samuel's only contribution to the morning's celebration is to look cute, and maybe pee, and maybe fuss is things go too long - and, while peeing on Satan is a noble gesture, it does not earn salvation before the most high God.

Sisters and brothers, the amazing reality of our faith is that we are the objects of God's promises. So, while we are explicitly named and changed and forgiven and delivered and given life by the holy sacraments, they aren't all about us. They're about God and what God is really doing for us.

Of course it's hard to see what God is doing sometimes. There are plenty of us who are baptized and have been forgiven our sins, delivered from death and devil and granted eternal salvation who look and seem and act as though none of these things are true. Who daily, through our actions, deny that God even exists. In fact, if we were to poll the room, each and every one of us falls into this category, we all fit into the demographic of those who are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. St. Augustine makes this point:

Though created by the true God, everyone born of the corrupt and accursed stock of Adam is of the world.

To our everyday eyes, the world looks as it did to Procurator Pilate, who could not fathom that our Lord Christ could be King of another realm. Pilate's mundane blinders kept him from seeing the deepest reality that Christ was not king of the Jews but king of the world, the Pantocrator, ruler of all. Pilate whose deaf ears could not hear the truth that Jesus of Nazareth is the firstborn of the dead, not a petty claimant of Pilate's power.
In the midst of our lives and our failures and our brokeness, it's easy to feel like the promises God makes to us are nothing but quaint fictions created by the Church to give us just enough umph to get through lives in which toil and woe often out-compete joy and gladness. Alternately, if we conjure up the willpower to believe that God does exist and does actually make gracious promises to humankind, it's all too easy to think that those promises apply to others but not to me personally.
In the face of such doubt, trust in God is not a straightforward proposition. Trust in the one who was and who is and who is to come isn't our default position.

But thanks be to our Father, to our Brother, his Son, and to the Holy Spirit that God's default position is keeping the divine promise. We experience this gracious outpouring of God's trust sacramentally, even though our names will only be attached to the promise of God in the water-washing and oil-anointing once, we come back every week to hear that Christ's true Body and precious blood are given and shed "for you". And you, and you, and you, and you to forgive your sins again and again and again.

Every week we approach the altar, in the midst of our sins and our subjective attempts at repentance, and we hear the words of Christ, who:

 loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father...

So, as we celebrate the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist today, as we welcome Samuel into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, let us give thanks that Christ our King has given us ears to hear his voice - and that his voice is active, proclaiming and working divine favor in us, even when we don't want to hear it. Again, St. Augustine explains:

For so has God snatched us from the powers of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son: that kingdom of which he said: My kingdom is not of this world; my kingly power does not come from here.

Today Jesus welcomes Samuel into paradise. Today Jesus shares the meal of which the saints already partake around the throne of God. Today Jesus defeats Satan, Hell, and sin. For you.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Te Deum Laudamus

This hymn comes to us from at least the 5th Century, and is mentioned by St. Caesarius of Arles in AD 498 as being used by in worship by the monks at Lerins, on the Mediterranean coast of France. The 5th Century was a turbulent time in Western Europe, as the last vestiges of Roman civilization slipped away. Part of the turbulence within the Church at the time was the conflict between catholic Christians and Arian Christians, the latter believing that Jesus was the first and greatest of God's creatures, while not being God himself. In this context, hymns addressing Christ flourished in the catholic community. The Te Deum, with its wonderful Trinitarian affirmations as well as the touching description of St. Mary's pregnancy with our Lord in verse eight, has spread from its turbulent beginnings to be used throughout the Church - by monastic communities and secular congregations alike. Fr. Luther translated the hymn into German in 1529, however Lutherans continued to sing the hymn in Latin for centuries after the reformation. Our version of the hymn in Evangelical Lutheran Worship is set to the tune of Henry Lawes, who lived in England in the 17th century. As a liturgical composer, his talents were out of favor during the Puritan Commonwealth, but when the Church of England was restored, he wrote an anthem for the coronation of King Charles II.

The text lends itself to use at the end of the Church year because of the eschatological (having to do with the end times) themes it lifts up. Verse seven begins the theme: "You Christ, are the king of glory, the eternal Son of the Father." We're reminded that the hymn was originally written in a community that wanted to defend the divinity of Christ. We also confess that Jesus is the King of kings. The following verses unfold the significance of this title. Jesus "took flesh to set us free;" "overcame the sting of death;" and "opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers." Jesus will "come again to be our judge." Here we see how the incarnation of Christ has meaning that is not simply limited to his ministry on earth, but how his life, death and resurrection have both cosmic and immanently personal ramifications. The actions of our Lord are shown to be freeing, though his role of judge of humankind is not diminished. Rather, his grace is lifted up, as it is made clear that his payment, on humankind's behalf, satisfies his righteous judgment. The final petitions, "Come then Lord, and help your people, bought with the price of your own blood, and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting," reinforces this truth. Jesus, in a happy exchange, pays for the sin of humankind in his death so that we will be judged not according to our own actions but according to his. Sinful humankind will be judged as good as the King of glory since the King was willing to be judged as sinful humankind.

As we approach the beginning of the third millenium of the end times, the time after Jesus' resurrection, we do well to remember that God is gathering humankind to himself. As we sing the Te Deum Laudimus, we can trust in God's gracious action in Jesus Christ, by which the angels, saints, martyrs, apostles, and prophets are already worshiping around the throne of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. As we sing this ancient hymn, which our mothers and fathers sang before us on earth, we join in the celestial praise, mingling our voices with the host arrayed in white, sending up one song to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Caesarius of Arles

Pentecost 23/Third-Last Sunday of the Year B

When we hear God's demands, we are driven to despair by our helplessness. We see this in the Story of Elijah and the widow.

Elijah made two demands as he encountered the widow.

'Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.’
‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’

Can you imagine the look on the widow's face when she heard him? I'm surprised that her outburst in response was so measured.
The prophet of God addressed her want, resignation and certain death with a demand for food, for himself.

She replied:

‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.’

We might think of her emphatically saying:

"As the Lord your God, your meddling God who has caused this drought just because he's angry with your King Ahab, who just happens to have married our princess from Sidon Jezebel, as your God who is rash and brash and meddling and vindictive, as your God lives, I have nothing left for my son and I, so we will eat our last meal, lay ourselves down and starve."

Given the widow's response, according to today's therapeutic logic, how easy it is to judge Elijah as selfish, as failing to walk with the widow, as callous. Oughtn't he have commiserated with her? Oughtn't he have helped her find food? Oughtn't he have defied God and spoken out so that the drought that was causing so much misery would end?

His demand brought only sorrow, sorrow unto death, to the woman. Furthermore, Elijah's God seemed pretty shabby, capricious, jealous, and unfeeling, in the midst of Elijah's demands. After all, it was God who had declared the drought.

God's demands drive humankind to despair because in the midst of our human brokeness and our society's complexity and our individual sinfulness we are so often hapless when called upon to be saviors to our neighbors and cold when asked to love those whom God has placed in our lives. Even the most exemplary saints have been riddled with doubt, hear the words of blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who herself lived through the terrible famine in Bengal in 1946-47, in which 2 million people died:

Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.

God's demand to love our neighbors, God's demand to follow the divine will, bring us, even the most faithful, low.

Thank God that we are always given a promise after a divine demand. Elijah spoke the promise to the :

'For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.’

In a single sentence Elijah passes on the word from God that starvation will not be the final judgment for the widow, her son, and her household. Death's power is snatched away with a promise. A fantastic promise, there was nothing magical about her particular jar of meal or her particular jug of oil. They simply were changed because God's promise was attached to them.

So why is it that promises always follow demands?
Why doesn't God just give us the promise in the first place? Why does God either allow or create woe and then have the gall to demand honest, fair and just behavior from us in the midst of it?

Why is the world so complicated we often don't even know what the best way to do good is?

Sisters and brothers, we can answer these questions by getting angry with God. As blessed Teresa cried out so can we. As our Lord called out so can we, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!" "How long will these bones which you have crushed be out of joint?"

But to get lost in such anger, while a temptation, is not an option for we who walk on the way. The widow's actions are instructive for us. Upon hearing Elijah's demand for water, she went to get him some. In the middle of a withering drought. It was only when he asked for a cake that she responded with despair.

We too must seek soothing water for our neighbors, even when we are overwhelmed, even when our own sin is calling us to self-satisfaction. Even when we're angry at God for the challenges and hardships of our lives. Such is Christian discipleship in this world that is, frankly, made complicated by human actions. Remember that it as King Ahab whose antagonizing compelled God to call the drought, and what was Ahab's sin? Idolatry and warfare. Just like his king-fathers going back to Jeraboam, who led the civil war of Israel against Judah, and back to David himself who, for the sake of lust had poor Uriah killed in battle.
We make the world a rough and tumble place. Not God.

Precisely because humankind is a live and let die community God does intrude with demands and promises. Demands that we let live and promises that he will let us live even after all our failures. Here again the widow is instructive. She did not offer a great show of loyalty to Elijah. She did not make any great claim of faithfulness, saying that she would get him water and was sure that her god would provide for her. No, she complained. But God made a promise to her through Elijah anyways. She resigned herself and her household to death but God made a promise that gave her life through limitless meal and oil. Not because she trusted, not because she earned it, not because she even wanted it.

God made the promise to give life because that's what God does.
God provides. God gives freely. God gives life to the dead.

Will the world, as we experience it from day to day, continue to be a place of drought and famine? Yes. Will the world continue to be a place of inequalities and sinfulness? Yes. Will we as humans continue to choose strife and idols over the peace of God that passes all understanding? Lamentably yes.

But while the world is and will continue to be all these things, we know that there is a world yet to come. We know that the beginning of the end happened 2000 years ago as our Lord hung on the cross, for God, like the new testament widow had given "everything she had, all she had to live on,’literally in the Greek 'holon ton bion,' Christ gave his whole life.
And so while our world may not be too different from the violent, misguided and hungry world of Elijah, we know it's coming to a close. And we know that on the other side of that close is the promised new Jerusalem.

In two weeks, we will witness something similar to what the widow witnessed in our story. When Samuel Newton is baptized, we'll hear a promised attached to the water at the font. We'll hear how this promise is going to give the gift of new life, of redemption. It's a promise that won't fail. And unlike the jar of meal and jug of oil, which only flowed freely while the famine lasted, the that promise spoken, as by God's own self, is eternal. A promise that will not just care for us in the changes and chances of this world, but will carry and care for us in the next world, when we shall sit at the banquet table with holy Elijah, with the widow, her son, and her household, and we will feast at the meal that will have no end, for we will celebrate the wedding of the lamb to his church for ever, world without end. Amen.