In Advent we expectantly wait, in hopeful anticipation, with cheerful preparation, for God to break into our lives. Advent 1 Yr C Nov 29 2015

An updated version of the Advent 1 sermon I preached in 2012. Why a repeat? Because it's still true and, in my bones, I feel it is what needed to be heard. 

+Advent gets short shrift. Most folks want to zoom by it and go right into Christmas. Other people are so maniacal about adhering to Advent that they refuse to listen to a Christmas carol until Christmas Eve. I’m here to tell you, blaring Christmas carols in your car is fine, setting up your Christmas tree is fine, wishing people a Merry Christmas is fine. We can celebrate Advent even though the secular world is all about Christmas. It’s all ok. What’s not ok is just considering Advent to be a countdown to Christmas, because that short-changes Advent. And Advent deserves better than that. So let’s take some time to consider what Advent is…
Advent is:
expectant waiting. You know that kind of waiting when waiting for someone you love very much. It’s standing at the airport craning your neck to catch the first glimpse of your beloved. That’s expectant waiting.
Advent is:
 hopeful anticipation. You know when you’re opening a present and you think you know what it is, you hope you know what it is….that’s hopeful anticipation.
Advent is:
 cheerful preparation. It’s one thing to clean the house because it NEEDS to be cleaned. It’s a whole other thing to clean the house because you’re getting ready for a grand meal, or a big party, or a family reunion. When we’re getting ready for something good, for a special guest? That’s cheerful preparation.
In Advent we expectantly wait, in hopeful anticipation, with cheerful preparation, for God to break into our lives. Big time.
You see, God taking on flesh and plopping smack dab into our lives is a REALLY BIG DEAL.
Because when God becomes human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, EVERYTHING CHANGES--
Every moment, every place, every thing…
Jesus  changed everything when he came the first time, Jesus will change everything when he arrives the second time and today, on this first day of Advent 2015, Jesus is going to change everything again.
That is, if we let him. See that’s the wondrous and miraculous thing about the incarnation of God in Christ: it only turns our world inside out and upside down if we allow it to. It only changes everything if we welcome God here and now—Emmanuel--- into our hearts, our minds and our souls. Again and again and again.
That’s why we have a “church year,” why we go through the cycle of Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension each and every year. Because the redeeming work of God through Christ is a process. It’s not an event.
It’s a dynamic, alive, “always revealing more” process of bringing Jesus’ message of Loving everyone, everywhere, no exceptions to fruition.
Advent is a lot of things.
It’s looking ahead and it’s also looking behind.
On the one hand Advent is about preparing us for the coming of the Christ child, but on the other hand, Advent is about us looking at all the work that remains unfinished and getting busy with the work we’ve already been given to do.

Work that, frankly, isn’t all that easy. Work that, frankly, a lot of you may wish I’d stop talking about.
The world is a mess. Paris, Beirut, Syria, Iraq.
Racism, Intolerance.
Out of control gun violence, the most recent of which included a gang hit on a 9 yr old boy in Chicago and a madman entering a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. People who think the only way to deal with their personal issues of intolerance and fear is to lash out in violence against innocents.
On a more personal level I know that each and everyone of you has a whole host of worries and concerns on your plate. Job troubles, family issues, relationship problems, health concerns.
Life is challenging, life is scary, life is fragile.
We all deal with these issues differently—sometimes we deny them, sometimes we tackle them, sometimes we avoid them, sometimes we just plain worry about them.
But, and here’s where our readings for today come into play. When everything seems to be at it’s worst, when everything seems to be at it’s darkest, when the “signs in the sun, the moon and the stars…cause people to faint from fear,” when we can’t seem to find our way out of whatever mess we find ourselves in …
lo and behold, God appears. God always appears.
Advent is about having hope. Having hope even when the days are dark and the world feels cold and the future seems precarious.
Advent is about trusting that the light will always follow the dark.
Advent is about knowing---deep down in our gut—that a leaf will sprout from the righteous branch of David.
Advent is about remembering that God isn’t finished: not with us and not with the world.
Creation and redemption are not once and for all,
over and done with acts of God.
In and through us, God keeps creating and creating and creating.
God in Christ acted to redeem the world and God in Christ keeps on actively redeeming it.
As Jeremiah says “. . . [The Lord] will execute justice and righteousness in the land,” and until that’s done,
God’s not done.
So as we step into these four weeks of preparation, of waiting, of hoping we must prayerfully open ourselves up to this plain and certain fact:
As long as God isn’t finished, neither are we.
As long as the redeeming work of God through Christ is still working in this world, we must keep working here---in Buffalo New York, at the CGS and the COA---~~working to bring the light of Christ to all we encounter.
~~Working to BE the light of Christ in this world. ~~Working to make sure that we, in expectant waiting, in hopeful anticipation and in cheerful preparation remain the instruments of the Loving, Redeeming, and still working God who came to be among us over 2000 years ago.
Advent is a process for us and a process for God. You see, God becoming human only works if we accept God into our lives---wholly, fully and totally.
That’s what we’re getting ready for, my friends. We’re getting ready to welcome, to accept and to embrace the best guest. Ever.
So let’s get moving. Not one of four short weeks but a journey for all time, ending when that righteous branch of David returns, joyously announcing that there is, once and for all and forever, Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward and for All.
Amen

You Won’t Have Our Hate Christ the King Sunday Now 22, 2015 Yr B

+Today is the last Sunday of the church year… known as the Reign of Christ-- Christ the King Sunday..is a day when we reflect on the penultimate Christian hope---that day when heaven and earth are one, when the peace and perfection of paradise exists everywhere, for everyone.
“King” is a difficult term for us because we think of King from the perspective of this imperfect world instead of from the perspective of the perfect version of existence God has intended since the beginning of time. It IS a difficult concept to grasp (probably because we are so far from it) but today’s a day of great joy because we, as Christians, know that just as we live in sure and certain hope of our own eternal life, we live in sure and certain hope that through the Love of God as given to us through Jesus Christ, the joy and peace of paradise will reign through all and for all and in all on the last day. It’s what we’re working for—the perfection of God’s creation. And when that day is reached, we believe that Christ will be at the head of that perfect existence, Christ will be the King of that Creation. Hence, Christ the King Sunday. Not a King like Herod, or George or Abdullah, a King unlike any we have ever known.
It’s not the easiest concept to grasp, for us or for Pilate.
In today’s Gospel, Pilate is confused and reluctant. Pilate’s a government bureaucrat in the Roman Empire---he has no beef with this traveling preacher who makes outrageous claims to his small band of followers--- but a big part of his job is to keep the major player in the region---the Temple authorities, happy---or at least QUIET. The authorities have worked themselves up something fierce about Jesus—they want Jesus’ head, Pilate wants peace, and the whole thing comes down to the exchange we hear in today’s Gospel. Pilate’s trying to understand the claim that Jesus is King of the Jews and Jesus wants no part of claiming that “bound by the limits of human understanding” moniker.
Pilate can’t wrap his head around who Jesus is because he was looking at Jesus from the perspective of this world and the perspective of this world is limited and deeply flawed.
Jesus says he’s not the King of anything that originates from this world. Because if he was, he continues, he and Pilate wouldn’t be having a calm and reasoned conversation. Jesus is saying, “If my kingship originated in this world, there’d be fighting, violence, and chaos.”
Exactly.
Look at our world.
In this world we fight, we respond in, with and through violence. And as long as we keep doing that, Christ won’t be the King of anything.
This week Antoine Leiris (Lay’ree) reaction to the death of his wife in the Paris attacks went viral. Why? Because Mr. Leiris told the terrorists that they could not have his or his now motherless son’s hate, saying, “I don’t know who you are…[but] if this God for whom you kill blindly made us in [God’s] image, every bullet in the body of my wife is a wound in [God’s] heart. So no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you...”
Mr. Leiris is a prophet. He gets it. Violence begetting violence, hate begetting hate, intolerance begetting intolerance never, ever works. Neither does closing our eyes, our ears, our hearts, our minds, our souls, or our borders
There’s tremendous violence in this world and violence is fed by and through hate. The only surefire antidote to hate is Love.
Early last week, in the immediate aftermath of the eruption of violence in Paris and Beirut, Peter Van Buren , a blogger and political commentator wrote an open letter to France. In it he said “the attacks in Paris are not about the murder of 150 innocent people---that many people die nearly every day in Iraq and Syria. The true test for France is how they respond to the attacks in the long game---that’s the king in all this.”
How true. The King of this world is our response to hate, fear and intolerance---when we respond “in kind” following an “eye for an eye” we stay stuck in the imperfections of this world, promoting and promulgating more and more violence. It leads to nothing but terror.
What if we responded in peace? What if we responded with Love?
We know what happens when we don’t.
But what, what if we really followed Jesus, what if we followed the actions of Antoine Leiris? What if we faced violence with peace? Hate with Love? Fear with hope?
Well, we’d change the world. Forever.
Imagine that for a moment.
There can be peace on earth.
And it begins with us.
Here and now, as we end one church year and begin the next, will you promise to be the agents of change?
Will you promise to denounce violence and promote peace?
Will you lead with love not hate?
Will you live in hope and not despair?
Will you, in all that you do, seek joy?
Because the truth of the matter is, the world is not changed by Kings and Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers.
The truth of the matter is, the world is changed by you and by me.
So help usher in a new kind of kingdom, the kind that is fueled by love, the kind that is promoted in peace, the kind that Jesus taught and lived and died and lived again to lead.
This is the truth: if we here, now, commit to leading lives of hope, justice and love. If we, here, now, commit to rejecting fear, hate, intolerance and violence then we, here, now, will change the world.
The world’s not going to change from the hallowed halls of Washington, or The Hague, or the UN, or the Knesset. It’s going to change from 96 Jewett Parkway and hundreds of thousands places like this across the world.
As we enter the newness of Advent and the dawn of a new creation through a baby born in a barn, say no to the Kings of this world and say yes to the King of Heaven, our King. Our Savior. Our Lord, Our Hope Our Promise, Our Way, Our truth and Our Life: Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Big Faith Breaks Through Hannah and Breaks Down the Old Order Proper 28 Nov 15 2015

+Last week and this week’s gospels are set inside and just outside the Temple. In the days of Jesus the Temple in Jerusalem was the most magnificent structure anyone had ever seen. Some of the stones were 40 ft. long…. JUST ONE STONE. Most of the western wall, plus some of the northern wall, from a later incarnation of the temple, still exists today. Even these remnants, small in comparison to what the disciples are marveling at in today’s Gospel, are pretty impressive. When I prayed at the Western Wall back in 2012 I was moved to tears, thinking about all the prayers offered inside that place, when it was standing and outside, at the remaining walls, after it’s destruction.  It’s an amazing and formidable place. To the disciples--- fishermen, tentmakers and stonemasons from rural Galilee--- it must have seemed equally incredible.
But it wasn’t just the sight of the Temple that blew them away, it was Jesus’ outlandish claim that it would be toppled, that those 40 ft. long stones would be destroyed. Ludicrous, it was just plain ludicrous!
And ludicrous is exactly what Jesus was going for. Along with awesome, incredible, amazing and unbelievable.
Now, remember, this part of the Gospel comes toward the end of Jesus’ earthly life…it was early in Holy Week, probably Monday or Tuesday…Jesus’ description of the temple falling as a foreshadowing of his death wasn’t some “long in the future prediction”…it was happening… soon! Today’s Gospel was written through the lens of Holy Week yet we read it through the lens of the coming Advent as well as the lens of the seeming apocalypse taking place in our world right now.
Welcome to pre-Advent, my friends. As I’ve mentioned before, Advent used to have six weeks, just like Lent, so these two Sundays before the official start to Advent have much the same feel as our Advent readings: lots of end world imagery, lots of violence, lots of chaos. You see Advent isn’t about 24/7 Christmas music on the radio, or making your list and checking it twice, Advent is all about a beginning emerging out of an end, it’s about a new creation, it’s about turning what we know inside out and upside down. Advent is about the coming of a savior, of The Savior.
Advent is about new birth.
And giving birth isn’t pretty. It involves ebbs and flows of pain, fear, hope and peace.
Birth is mind-blowing, overwhelming and scary.
Giving birth changes everything.
Just like the coming of Jesus.
Once Jesus arrived and even now as we anticipate Jesus coming again, the world order is being changed.
With the Coming of Jesus comes a clean slate, a fresh start, a beginning to the creation of a new world where Love replaces Hate, Courage replaces Fear, Tolerance replaces Intolerance, Hope replaces Hopelessness and what we’ve known is turned inside out and upside down.
But getting there is just like childbirth---painful, scary, messy and at times, overwhelming.
Preparing for the messiah requires perseverance, fortitude, grit, spunk and persistence. It also requires faith.
Big Faith.
The kind of Big Faith found in Mary, the mother of Jesus, the kind of Big Faith found in Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, the kind of Big Faith found in Sarah, Judith, Esther and Tamar and the kind of Big Faith found in Hannah.
The Big Faith of the matriarchs I just mentioned isn’t big in the usual sense. It isn’t loud, it isn’t flashy, it isn’t all that apparent to the casual observer. What makes their faith Big is the breadth and the depth of it. You see these women really got it.
They understood that professing one’s faith means nothing if the faith isn’t lived. They understood that shouting their faith from the rooftops meant nothing if deep within their homes, deep within their souls they weren’t living it.
Hannah had that type of faith. Her life wasn’t easy…. each and every time her husband made the obligatory sacrifice at the temple she was subject to the disdain and the disgust of his other wife---the one he didn’t love so much, but the one who was fertile.
If you’ve ever wanted—desperately wanted---to have a child and were unable to you know the anguish, the deep in your gut anguish of not being able to do so. That was the anguish of Hannah.
When confronted with such a burden, such anguish you have two choices:
bitterness or grace.
Hannah displayed some bitterness early on in today’s reading but she let go of that fairly quickly when she decided, once and for all, to turn the whole mess over to God. It’s a show of great grace, it’s an example of Big Faith when Hannah stands up for herself—and her faith—by telling Eli that what he assumed was drunkeness was, in reality, fervent and faithful praying. Hannah, in the same vein as the Woman with the Hemorrhage and the Woman at the Well teaches the judgmental male in the story a thing or two.

That’s actually what makes faith Big.
Faith is Big when those who witness it are changed by it.
Eli was changed by Hannah’s faith, Jesus was changed by the faith of the woman at the well, the woman with the hemorrhage and the woman who birthed him, to name a few.
In this ever darkening world, where evil appears to be gaining a terrifying foothold, we must---we absolutely must--- have a faith that is so Big people are changed by it.
We need to have a faith so big that when people see us negotiate the changes and chances of this world—like the horror three years ago that was Sandy Hook, the continued horrors of Ferguson, Baltimore and Mother Emmanuel AME church and now the new world war we appear to be embroiled in most recently acted out in Beirut, Paris and Baghdad—we must have a faith so big that we face the encroachment of darkness, evil and fear with grace, dignity and hope in the promise of a new life, a new Jerusalem, a world where the mighty are brought low and the low are lifted high.
We need to have a faith so big that our very being can’t contain it.
We need to have so big, it spills over onto all those we encounter.
A faith so big it can’t help but be shared.
 So welcome to this season of pre-Advent, the season of expectation, the season of apocalypse, the season when Big Faith comes to us in the unexpected person of a peasant baby who turns everything, from that magnificent temple in Jerusalem to the cafes of Paris, the dust, dirt and grime of refugee camps, the inner cities of Baltimore, Chicago, St Louis and Buffalo to you and to me, inside out, upside down and finally the right side up that is the world God envisioned and we achieve in God’s name.
Amen.

The widows: lessons in trust and dignity Proper 27 Yr B Nov 8, 21015

+Fred was a 62 year-old mentally ill and developmentally disabled man who was my client when I was a very young psycho-therapist working in a community mental health agency that offered reduced fees for clients. Fred’s fee was 10 cents…a dime. Each and every week, Fred would get off the bus, walk into the center, and proudly pay his fee. Several months after he began counseling, the County Mental Health Department decided that anyone with a fee below $5 would no longer have one, because the cost associated with processing those small fees was greater than the income generated through the fees. From the perspective of the bean-counters, this was a kind and prudent move—“Look you now don’t have to pay ANYTHING.” But instead of it being viewed as a gift, Fred was despondent. It was important to him that he PAID for the counseling. Not having a fee took away his dignity by reducing the value of what he could contribute to the world around him.
There’s a lot to be said for convenience and being fiscally prudent, but at the end of the day, there is nothing as important as respecting the dignity of another human being. For it is in and through dignity that we most fully emulate Jesus, the one who offered dignity to the most surprising of characters.
Widows in the time of Jesus and before were not offered much dignity. Or, actually, any. The widow in 1st century Palestine was so far an outcast no one NO ONE noticed them. Except, of course, Jesus. That Jesus, he was always looking where no one else could see, he was always seeing where no one else would ever look. He noticed the “poor widow” from Mark’s gospel story today and he was somewhat awed by her demonstration of dignity as she gave “everything she had, even what she needed to live on” to the temple.
For generations preachers have used this Gospel as a stewardship campaign mantra….”look at how this woman gives out of her abject poverty, how much more can we all give out of our comparative abundance?”
And sure, that is one perspective, but this week, while living with this Gospel something seemingly small but incredibly profound (at least to me) popped out. Mark writes,
‘Many rich people were throwing in lots of money. One poor widow came forward and put in two small copper coins worth a penny.”
The so-called “rich people” were throwing in lots of money
The widow came forward and “put in” two coins.
Throwing vs. putting.
Tossing vs. placing
With nary a thought vs. intentionality
To me the “rich people” are just tossing in money without thought or notice.
The poor widow, on the other hand, is giving her last two coins—how can that be done without thought? How can that be done without careful deliberation and consideration? The widow put all she had into the temple coffers.
The widow was “all in.”
She gave all that she had, all that she was to God.
It’s not about how much one gives—and I’m talking about so much more than money here---rather it’s about from where one gives.
The widow gave from a position of absolute trust. She should have held onto those last two coins to see if she could eek out enough food to keep herself going. She should have held onto what she had for it was so little. She should have held on, right?
But instead, she LET GO. She gave it all over. We don’t know what happened to her. Perhaps she returned to her home and starved to death. Perhaps she panhandled, perhaps someone took pity on her and gave her enough to make it through another day—we don’t know. All we know is that she gave all that had and all that she was in dignity and faith.
Of course today we don’t have just one story about a widow we have two…
In our reading from Kings, we hear about the widow in Zarephath…she and her son are down to their very last food…a bit of flour and a touch of oil with which she will make two cakes of bread, after which, she tells Elijah, she and her son will die. But Elijah, either because he is the most entitled prophet of all time or because he had incredible faith, tells her not to worry, but to go make him a loaf of bread and then…later on…she can make food for her family. He assures her—The Lord says, the flour and oil will last until the drought is over and food will again be plentiful---and somehow, someway, she BELIEVES him. She trusts God enough to believe that all will be well.
So let’s review, we have the widow at the temple giving everything she had, even what she needed to live on, away. And then the widow of Zarephath giving all that she had to live on away because some crazy prophet told her not to worry, it would be ok.
The voice of God comes to us through the voices of these women today: against all human logic, against all survival of the fittest instincts, these women have a profoundly simple lesson for each and every one of us:
When we give to God through Jesus Christ all that we are and all that we have, amazing, miraculous, astounding things happen. Flour last for days, the Savior of the World notices your faithful intent and most important of all, we learn that trust in God is not something we work up to, trust in God is something we work out from.
And when we do that, as demonstrated by the widows of our readings today, when we put our trust in God, with grace and dignity and intent, all will be well.
So my friends, as our parishes step into a new era, may each and every one of us throw our shoulders back, hold our heads high and in the company of the widow of Zarapheth, the poor widow of the temple and my old friend Fred face the future with dignity, hope and full trust in the God who creates, redeems and sustains us, come what may. Amen.

Funeral Homily for Richard Cox, delivered at St Paul's Cathedral, 7 Nov 2015

+ “The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” This portion of Psalm 34 was the reading in a one of Cheryl’s daily meditation books on the day Richard took the fall that led to his death. How fitting, for Richard Cox was a lion of a man, who even in the great weakness of his final moments of this life, lacked no good thing.
Speaking of lions….on the day he died, Richard’s breathing grew nearly imperceptible and yet his heart beat on. Finally that incredible heart stopped. I remarked to one of the chaplains present how amazing I found it that in spite of not breathing, his heart continued to beat. He said to me, “It’s the men of the Greatest Generation, they’re lion hearts.
A lion heart…what an apt description for Richard Cox. He  was a man with the heart of a lion and the smile of a cub.
Even the ravages of disease and age could not and did not diminish his stature and presence. As a matter of fact, Cheryl marveled at how over the years, Richard could turn the tables on the doctors who treated him. The doctor would come into the treatment room, ready to be The Doctor. After a few minutes the roles would change and suddenly the doctor would be the student and Richard would be the teacher. Oh the doctor still treated him, but the respect Richard gained by virtue of how he carried himself in the world, was palpable. And amazing. Yes,the heart of a lion and the smile of a cub.
Richard Cox was a lion heart, a gentleman, a scholar and the Captain of his ship.
As he often remarked to Cheryl HE WAS THE CAPTAIN and she was the first mate. And the rest of you, especially his children and grandchildren? You were his precious cargo. It’s a good metaphor.
The Captain never ever abandons the ship. The Captain never ever wavers in his command. The captain is in charge, the captain is the leader. …The Captain bears a striking resemblance to the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd never gives up. The Good Shepherd never abandons those in his charge. The Good Shepherd goes to any length needed to fulfill his responsibility to his sheep.
Richard Cox, World War 2 veteran, devoted father, grandfather, friend, companion, scholar and student, faithful child of God with the heart of a lion, was most definitely the captain of his ship, the shepherd of his flock. Richard was in charge. Always.
He demanded competence and expected excellence of all those around him. That may not have always been easy, but it was probably the purest example of love any of you will ever experience.
And you know what? I think in these expectations Richard shared quite a lot with God. God doesn’t expect us to do half measures. God expects us, God created us to do much more than that. God expects us to give our best in all and for all. So did Richard.
I think God as The Good Shepherd and Richard the Captain of the Cox Family ship have a lot in common.
Can you imagine that first face to face meeting between Richard  and his Creator? Oh, I bet it was epic. No doubt he had a lot of questions for the Almighty.
And probably a lot of suggestions as well.
Richard, a Presbyterian turned Lutheran turned Episcopalian definitely had faith…but he had one frustration, maybe even a disappointment in his faith journey. As he told Cheryl, he struggled with the fact that he never experienced a personal encounter with Jesus. Now I’m not sure what Richard meant by that, but what I do know is that  as he made his journey into the fullness of God I think he was surprised. For I have no doubt that Jesus himself welcomed him and proceeded to show Richard all the times He was with him. In Europe during WW2 when Richard, the army marksman, was frightened, Jesus the Good Shepherd was there. At the birth of each of his children, when Richard was, no doubt, full of nervousness and uncertainty, The Good Shepherd was there.
When the demands of life in academia became intense, the Good Shepherd was there. When he faced the reality of what the Parkinson’s disease was doing to his body, the Good Shepherd was there.
At every crossroads of a life lived long and well, God was there. At every crossroads of a life lived long and well, Jesus was there. And at every crossroads of his 90 years on this earth, Richard Cox, the Captain of the ship was guided, loved, cherished, protected and prodded by the Good Shepherd.
Oh yes, how I wish I had been a fly on heaven’s wall as Richard, the lion-heart, the captain of his ship encountered his God face to face and found out that while Richard’s hand had been on the tillar of the Cox family ship lo these 90 years, he Richard Howard Cox was, in actuality serving as the First Mate to the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sustainer of us all—
You see this is the great lesson of our faith in the Resurrection---life for Richard has changed, not ended. For Richard life has now been fully revealed. All his questions have been answered, all his criticisms have been heard and all his frustrations have been calmed. His intense intellectual curiosity has been both peaked and satisfied. Today, as Richard takes his eternal seat at the Heavenly Banquet he is both the teacher and the student, he is both the Shepherd and the Sheep, he is both the Captain and the First Mate, for in the full presence of God, Richard your father, grandfather, companion, brother, friend, and teacher is complete. +

All Saints' Day 2015 Preached by John Harris

One day a few months ago, Sam, Maddie, Hannah, and I were driving home down Kenmore Ave. We were chatting about families. Sam and Maddie, like lots of kids their age, tend to think that the way their family is is the way that all families should be. So we pushed them on that a little bit. We asked them, who do you know that lives just with their mother? What about kids that live just with their father? They thought about each question, and they came back with good examples. Their minds were expanding, we hoped. Then we tossed in another question, who is a woman you know that is married to another woman? Maddie was putting a lot of thought into this, and then she piped out at her customary full volume, “St. Cathy and Pete.”
Now that you know about the saint in your midst, let’s talk a bit about All Saints Day and about our gospel passage. I find these readings, and this holy day, particularly poignant in light of our parish’s current situation. As we all well know, Mother Cathy will be leaving for a role with the diocese in a bit less than two months. I’ve talked to people this week about our rector’s departure, and they are talking about how much they will miss her sermons, her writing, and especially her presence, the full force of her personality that was always so much a part of, and a guiding force in, our congregation. That departure puts us in a time of transition. At times of transition, we, individually and as a congregation, have choices to make about how to approach the future.
We can, if we choose, meet the future with fear and trepidation. That is always an option, and it is an easy, natural option to turn to. Notice the first part of our gospel passage today. Mary sees Jesus, and she is in tears. She rebukes Jesus, reminding him forcefully that if he had been there, Lazarus would not have died. Something has changed, something terrible, and Mary is scared and angry.  Look at Jesus’ response, too. He doesn’t lash out at her for her tears or her rebuke. Instead, he seems to accept the naturalness, the perfectly reasonable nature, of her response.
The readings from Isaiah and Revelation highlight what Mary is going through. To pick out the language of Isaiah, a shroud is cast over her, a sheet spread over her mind, because all she is seeing is death forever. She has waited for the Lord, and he didn’t come until it was too late.
I think we should also notice that the onlookers joined in as well. They also questioned Jesus, wondering why he didn’t show up in time. In a similar manner, as Good Shepherd moves into its time of transition, we can safely assume that many in the diocese foresee problem after problem besetting our parish, just as a number of other churches in this very diocese have gone through difficult transitions of their own.
But the gospel passage doesn’t stop there, much as our parish does not stop with the departure of a well-beloved rector. In the passage, Jesus goes to the tomb of Lazarus and asks them to roll away the stone. Lazarus’ sister Martha cautions against it, because she has no hope. She knows, she knows, that the stench of a man dead 4 days will be overpowering. Jesus tells her this, though: “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see God’s glory?”
If you believe, you will see God’s glory. Imagine that. When all quite reasonably seems to be lost, when Mary has rebuked him, and Martha has reminded him that bodies start stinking after they die, Jesus calls for faith. Jesus calls for hope. And Jesus promises the glory of God.
Because our gospel passage does not end with Mary’s rebuke. And it does not end with Martha’s practical concerns about the smell. In fact, it does not end with a dead man staying dead. Rather it ends in faith, hope, amazement, and life. And I cannot think of a better metaphor for a church in transition.
To be honest, my metaphor might be a bit shaky. I think at times, this church, and even me personally, are Mary, or Martha, or Lazarus. Mother Cathy seems to slot into the role of Jesus, which is probably none too comfortable for her either. She probably feels like she is on much safer ground just being her usual saintly self. It is a metaphor with a lot of options. It’s almost as if this gospel reading was still alive, as if Jesus truly was the word of God still finding different ways to speak to us today.
But how does All Saints’ Day fit into all of this? I mentioned way back at the beginning that I was going to talk about more than just the gospel passage; I was going to talk about All Saints’ Day too. Well, the time is now. Despite the fact that my daughter has only named one person here today a saint, let me throw the window open a bit wider. We are, all of us, saints. The New Testament has a striking tendency not to use the term Christians to refer to the church. The term that St. Paul, in particular, uses with regularity is saints. Saints are the people of God in heaven and on earth. So we have gathered here today a group of saints that has to decide what this church will be like after our rector moves on to the next position to which God has called her. But as a body of saints, I think we can all say in confidence that we can move forward in the hope that Christ outlined for us, the hope of God that has power over everything, including death itself, and who can make all things new, including this church.
In the end, I think Franklin Roosevelt, quoting Jesus, put it best. To paraphrase, to some generations, or parishes, much is given. From others, much is expected. This parish has a rendezvous with destiny.