Let It Be Done Unto Me According To Thy Word.

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16Canticle 15 
Romans 16: 25-27

Luke 1: 26-38

A Sermon Delivered on Advent IV, 2014 at St. Thomas' Church, Whitemarsh, PA. 

Behold the handmaid of the Lord!
Let it be done unto me according to thy word!

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. 
Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. 

"Annunciation" By Henry Ossawa Tanner
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Over time many millions of faithful people have begun their day with those words at the sounding of the church bells, as people pray the Angelus with the chiming in of the morning.    

And yet it seems we have, at times, a fraught relationship with the Virgin Mary.  So many of us struggle with who she was, what she means, and how she has been perhaps misused over time, by both Protestant and Catholic alike.  

So who exactly is Mary, and why is she so important?  We don’t after all, celebrate the birthday of First Mother Mary Ball Washington, or have a holiday for the feast of St. Francis’ mother. Giving birth to a child and surviving the ordeal, particularly at that time, is certainly a miracle, but it’s not really the kind of miracle that usually gets one regarded as the second most important person of the New Testament, behind the Christ himself.

But there is more to the Blessed Virgin than that, and more she has to offer than simply being the theotokos, the God-bearer.

Let’s think back briefly to Abraham and Isaac.  God created a covenant with Abraham, promising to be faithful to him and his children forever.  God, testing Abraham, making sure he would be as faithful to God as God was to him, asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved.  You recall that Abraham did not withhold even his own son, but God stayed his hand, sparing Isaac.  And Abraham’s faith had been reckoned to him as righteousness. 

But though God stilled Abraham’s hand, he did not stay Pilate’s.  But it was not Pilate’s Child that had been condemned.  It was God’s own.

And a sword pierced God’s own heart also. 

But though it was the Son of God who died, it was not the Lord only who lost a child on that fell day.  In fact, no matter how shattered and heartbroken Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John may have been, there was only one other who lost an innocent child. 

And it strikes me (as one so newly priested) that on that day Mary stood at the foot of the cross just as the high priest would stand at the altar in the temple. And better than any other of our order could she offer her sacrifice for the good of the world saying: “This is my body.  This is my blood.” 

And we know the benefit of that sacrifice, for by it God redeemed us and the whole of his creation, for we celebrate it again and again every week.  But it came at great cost, not only to God in the person of Jesus, but to the person who carried the Christ within her body for nine months, to the one who brought forth into the world through her straining and gasping and her desperate and bloody work the holy divinity of our Lord, the fullness of God enrobed in flesh, enrobed in her flesh. 

And I get the feeling that when Gabriel cried out “Χαῖρε, Ave, Hail!” that Mary didn’t imagine she would wind up standing on Golgotha at the foot of a cross. 

But she did.  And she did because of her grace-filled submission to God.  “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done unto me according to thy word.”   I can’t help but think that someone must have taught Jesus to say in all things “thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

But we do not only venerate the Blessed Virgin for feeling the pain of the loss of a child, for that pain is far, far, too common in our world and there is not one single romantic thing about it.  We don’t venerate her for teaching her child well, because truth be told, I have to think raising Jesus was probably a relatively easy task, at least compared to raising, I don't know, someone like me. 

No, we hold up Mary because when an archangel appeared in her room crying “Hail, Mary,” her response was “let it be done unto me according to thy word.”  Regardless of cost, let it be done; regardless of pain, let it be done; regardless of difficulty, let it be done.  

And oh, how we need the Lord’s will done.  You’ve heard over the last three weeks all three of your clergy and our Bishop address from this pulpit the painful happenings around our country.  And Lord knows, all of us would much rather be talking about cute babies and oxen and donkeys.  And yet this morning the families of Officers Liu and Ramos in New York City are waking up four days before Christmas unconcerned with presents or tree trimmings because their loved ones have been taken from them, shot without warning or opportunity for defense.     

Only minutes up the road, an entire family has been killed, and even that incomprehensible tragedy has been pushed out of the headlines by other terrible news.  

This is why it is why Our Lady is perhaps more important now than she has been in a very long time.  Because violence is what happens when we impose our will by force.  Violence is what happens when we decide that we should be the ultimate arbiter of justice.  Violence is what happens when we in our limited, clouded, imperfect judgement decide we are worthy to usurp God’s will and supplant it with our own. 

Violence is what happens when we fail to say “Behold the servant of the Lord!  Let it be done unto me according to thy word.”  Let thy will be done.  Not my will.  Not my will.  But your will.  Your peaceful will, your sacrificial will, your loving will, your redeeming will. Your will where the proud are scattered in their conceit.  Your will where the mighty are cast down from their thrones and the lowly are lifted up, your will where the hungry are filled with good things, your will where you remember your promise of mercy.  

We need Mary because we need a reminder of the beauty of holiness, of the good that comes when we submit to God’s will.  We need the example and the prayers of the Queen of Heaven, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head, the one who brought Christ into the world because we so desperately, desperately need Christ brought back into the world again. We need the power of God to overshadow us. 

We need her example so that we might look at Christ in the same way and with the same love she did, loving Christ and his teachings as a mother loves her children, as any parent loves their children.  We need her because we need to see God not only as the one enthroned in heaven surrounded by the elders and the tribes and the martyrs, but among us and amidst us in the blood and flesh and grime and dirt and hay and the humanity all around us.  Because it is only in our recognition of the incarnation of God here with us that we can understand what God’s will is.  And it is only then that we can truly pray for God’s will to be done. 

So this year more than most I find myself celebrating not just the beatific scene of Mary serenely smiling and holding her beautiful, cooing newborn, but the strain and pain and effort Mary undertook to wring out of her own body the presence of God, and aspiring myself to reflect that, and to take this new year to more frequently say: “let it be unto me according to thy word.”

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God. 
That we may be made worth of the promises of Christ.

Sermon on the Feast of the Transfiguration

The Transfiguration of our Lord
Source: http://www.stjohnsepiscopal.com

A blessed feast of the Transfiguration to you!  Today we commemorate the day in which Jesus and Peter and James and John went up on a mountain and there they glimpsed Jesus’ true nature.  They saw that Jesus’ appearance had been altered. 

They’d seen him do great things, but until now, Jesus probably looked pretty much like just about every other 1st century middle-eastern Jewish man.  But this time, he looked…  different.

When they saw him this time, though, there was more there.  He was talking, with Moses and Elijah.  Talking about exodus, about departure.  

But not only were Moses and Elijah there, his clothes had changed.  He looked the same way the scriptures described Moses as looking when he came down off of the mountain.  He looked radiant, full of glory, as of the father’s only son. 

And then there was the voice.  That voice had been heard before, but not by Peter and John.  It had been heard at Jesus’ Baptism.  “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  Standing there with the radiant Christ, John and James and Peter heard the holy theophany, the very voice of God, telling them, actually the voice of God, telling them, that the rabbi they have been following is not just a rabbi, not just a prophet, but the Son of the Divinity that set all things into being.

Today is an important day because it is a day where we get a special glimpse of just how different this Jesus is.  Because, and I don’t want to sound too heretical, but it’s important because if we put ourselves in the disciples place, they don’t know what he is yet yet.  We have the benefit of hindsight, we have the benefit of knowing how the story ends.  We know, like Desmond Tutu says, that we shouldn’t get discouraged.  We’ve read the end of the book.  We win!  We know this.  

But Peter and Andrew, and John, and Thomas, and James, and the other seven apostles, don’t know this.  They've been following this guy.  And they know he’s different.  

But healing someone doesn't make you the messiah.  Curing the lame doesn't make you the messiah.  Telling people you can forgive their sins doesn't make you the messiah. 

And come to that, being the messiah doesn't necessarily make you the son of God.  These guys know that Jesus is special.  He’s different. They’re sure he’s a prophet.  They know that he has something to teach about God, and Peter’s already convinced that he’s the Messiah.  But even so, this prophet of theirs is headed to Jerusalem.  And they know what happens in Jerusalem as well as anyone else.  It ain’t good.  Not for the followers, and definitely not for the prophets. 

But this experience throws a bit of a wrench into the works.  They’d signed up to follow a prophet, but now they see Jesus in a new light.  A radiant light.  And he’s standing there, full of glory, the glory as of a father’s only son.  And this holy theophany rocks them to the core of their being… “This is my son.”

And there standing before them is the son of God.  God physically present among them.  

Just like it’s hard for us to sometimes remember how differently things looked to the disciples, because like Bishop Tutu says, we know how it ends, it’s hard for us sometimes to remember just how incredible this transfiguration is. 

We know that Jesus is the son of God, that Jesus is God, but while we perhaps shouldn't be surprised, we should be every bit as overawed as Peter by this fact.  And we should be this overawed every time we come before the altar to celebrate the last supper, because a transfiguration every bit as miraculous occur at the mass. 

On the mountain, it was revealed to Peter and John that the son of God was physically standing before them.  And even more incredibly, we get to experience the same thing!  We don’t get to hear the holy theophany each week, or to see Moses and Elijah discussing exodus with Jesus, but Jesus will be every single bit as present in the host at the Eucharist as he was on that mountain.  

I think it’s easy for us to think of Eucharist as our shared meal.  And it is.  It certainly is that.  But it is also so much more.  It is through the Eucharist that we commune not only with each other, but with God in Christ.  It is through the Eucharist that Christ is made physically present to the community, that God’s faithfulness is demonstrated.  It is through the Eucharist that we join Peter and John on that mountainside, overcome by the voice ringing out almost beyond comprehension, stunned that the man we are following is so much more than we thought he was.  It is through the Eucharist that the veil between heaven and earth is torn, when “This is my Body” and “This is my blood” don’t just bring Christ to us, they elevate us to the heavenly realm where we stand amid the crowned martyrs and the choirs of angels and the crystal sea and the elders before the throne, just as present with Christ as Peter and John.  

So today, on this Feast of the Transfiguration, take a moment to marvel at the presence of the glorified Christ with us in this room.  Let the veil tear, let the verity unseen radiate throughout your being, recognize the wonder of standing in the sanctuary in the very presence of God. 

Then, come, take, and eat, and drink, and allow the glory of Christ to shine in you, that together we may become the glorified body of the risen lord right here on earth. 

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

Good Friday Meditation

Meditation for Good Friday

St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Alexandria Va, 

18 April, 2014

So the reading for Good Friday is traditionally from the Gospel of John, but there is a portion of St. Matthew’s account of the crucifixion that has gotten a hold of me, that has intrigued me for a long time.  

Matthew 27:50   

Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. 

A week ago Jesus said if his disciples were silent that even the stones would cry out.  And now the anointed one, the promised one, the savior to whom sweet Hosannas rang hangs here, abandoned. 

Nails through his hands and feet.  

A crown of thorns jammed into his head. 

His back scourged, whipped until much of the skin had been taken off.  

And a spear shoved through his side. 

The sky went dark, even the sun refused to shine.  

And his disciples had gone silent, and the stones cried out and were rent in two. 

And there on the cross God himself hung.    Dead. 

And the curtain in the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 

The curtain in the Temple separated the Holy Area from the Holy of Holies, from the Mercy Seat of God.  This was the dwelling place of God, this was literally God’s house.  

And at the moment Jesus died, God’s home was destroyed. 

From that moment on, God no longer lived in the Temple, on Zion.  God no longer dwelled between the Cherubim above the Ark of the Covenant. 

Many Biblical scholars believe that this tearing of the curtain symbolizes God breaking into the world.  But I’d say God had already done that.  God had done that thirty some years prior when Jesus was born to the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

They have said that since the Holy of Holies was considered to be like Heaven, that the tearing of the fabric marked a destruction of what kept humans apart from heaven, what kept us separated from God.  

I beg to differ.  

At least somewhat. 

I think all of that is true, or at least it became true with the resurrection of Christ.  But at this point, Jesus is still dead.  God is still nailed to the hard wood of the cross dead.  Jesus was gone.  Though we know how it turns out, The victory had not yet been won. 

God had been killed on the cross.  God’s home had been destroyed.  And for roughly 36 hours God was not in the world.  

We hear “God is dead” quite a bit.  But have you ever stopped to ponder what it was like in Jerusalem in a moment where that was actually true?

 After an earthquake and the sky going dark, even the folks that had not witnessed the execution of Jesus outside the city walls had to know something was up.  Did folks go about their business as if nothing had happened?  Did they whisper and gossip in dark corners about the mysterious occurrences.  Were they subdued, either wary of the signs that had occurred or satisfied with the “Justice” they had gotten from Pilate?  Did they go around with a nagging feeling that something was out of place, that something was not right, that something was missing? 

Did they know when they prayed, that during that one day, out of the entirety of human history, did they know that day when they prayed that there was no God to hear them?  

This is not to say God had ceased to be.  On the contrary we believe that Christ had descended to the dead and was harrowing hell.  But Jesus was not with the living, he was with the dead.  

And God’s home was destroyed.  Yes, this does mean that God is done dwelling there, and that the grace of God, held back by the curtains, held back in the temple, held back by the law… that the grace of God would pour out into all the world when Christ came back. 

But today we are standing here with a cross draped in black.  We’re standing here with an altar stripped down to bare wood.  We’re standing here with the tabernacle left open with nothing in it.  We’re standing here on Good Friday, not Easter Sunday. 

I wonder, on that day, was there more crime?  Did people resort to more extreme measures to defend themselves?  Was there an uncertain fear, an unease sitting on the hearts of those in the Holy City? Was everything to everyone just slightly off, like a photo that’s just a few degrees off, skewed enough to distract the eye,. 

I wonder if even the devout prayed and felt nothing. 

We will soon enough find ourselves caught up in the joy of Easter.  We will don white and we will shout Alleluias for the first time in a month and a half and we will cover the church in flowers and splendor.  We will celebrate Christ’s victory over the death that he suffers this day.  

And it will be easy in the midst of such joy and celebration to forget this moment.  It will be easy to forget what that victory cost.  It will be easy to forget the pain, the anguish, the suffering, the devastation.  It will be easy to forget the brutal pain inflicted on his broken body.  It will be easy to forget “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” 

And it’s true, we don’t want to dwell only on Good Friday, for our story does not end here. 

But this is a feeling we need to make the celebration meaningful.  Cheap victories are easily forgotten.  

For the next 36 hours, rend your hearts, put yourself at the foot of the cross.  Imagine a world that has lost it’s meaning.  Imagine life with no animating force, imagine how it must have been to cry out on that fell day and to hear nothing, to cry out on that fell day and hear nothing.   Imagine a world in which love itself has died.   Weep tears of pain and sorrow and suffering.  Weep for the Son of Man, turned on and destroyed by men.  Veil yourself as the sky, cry out in despair with the stones.    

Allow yourself to feel all there is that makes this our darkest day.  

And Sunday, when you awake, and you come to the tomb and find it empty, watch as the mountains of despair, and lament and pain are taken from you and thrown into the sea by the one who appears before you today in weakness nailed to a cross, but who will return triumphant in Radiant Glory.