Author: Fr. John

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In September of 1864, a treaty was established with the Cheyenne Nation; however, in November of that same year, a Methodist minister who was also a Colonel in the Union Army broke that treaty by attacking a Cheyenne village in Sand Creek, Colorado. One hundred and fifty Cheyenne were killed, one hundred of which were women and children. A general in the Union Army declared the event “a cowardly and cold-blooded slaughter, sufficient to cover its perpetrators with indelible infamy and the face of every American with shame and indignation.”

As a result of the attack, a seventeen-year-old Cheyenne warrior from Oklahoma, by the name of “Making Medicine,” declared he would revenge his people. In 1874, he and many others attempted that revenge, but their attack eventually ended in failure. Later, in 1875, Making Medicine was captured, along with many others, and put on railroad cars to St. Augustine, Florida. The time between these events and his death in 1931, demonstrate exactly how dramatically the Lord, working through one person, can effect so many. For Making Medicine went from declaring his revenge, to becoming a deacon in the Episcopal Church. Most of you know him by his Anglicized name, David Pendleton Oakerhater. You all know his history better than I do, but he went from the battlefields, to seminary, and returned to Oklahoma where he ministered among his people for thirty-six years as a deacon. For ten of those years, he was the only Episcopal clergy person in Oklahoma. He started schools for his people and baptized every member of his tribe, including his mother.

Today we heard in the Psalm:

Sing to the Lord a new song; *
sing to the Lord, all the whole earth.
Sing to the Lord and bless his Name; *
proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations *
and his wonders among all peoples.

From the very first days he arrived back in Oklahoma, Deacon Oakerhater sang that new song. He declared to a gathering of Cheyenne leaders: “You all know me. You remember when I led you out to war I went first, and what I told you was true. Now I have been away to the East and I have learned about another captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is my leader. He goes first, and all He tells me is true. I come back to my people to tell you to go with me now in this new road, a war that makes all for peace, and where we have only victory.”

Today is actually the feast day of Paul Jones (Oakerhater’s was officially this past Saturday, but you can’t be an Oklahoma Episcopalian and not celebrate him). Paul Jones was a great advocate for peace during World War One and the years following, up until his death in 1941. I believe that he and Oakerhater would have gotten along quite well, as they were both ones who sang this new song of peace.

When so many cry for war, it can be difficult to stand for peace, but these two—Oakerhater and Jones—are witnesses to us and to the world of peace and reconciliation, and today we give thanks for their witness.

The podcast is available here.

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Following morning prayers at the monastery, an older monk prostrates himself before the altar, and cries out, “O God. Before You, I am nothing!”

A second monk is so moved by this demonstration of piety that he immediately follows suit, throwing himself to the floor beside his brother and crying, “O God! Before you, I am nothing!”

In the ensuing silence, a shuffling is heard in the back of the chapel. A third monk jumps from his seat, prostrates himself in the isle and cries, “O God! Before You, I am nothing!”

Seeing this, the the first monk turned to the second and whispers, “So, look who thinks he’s nothing?”

Just when you thought you were being humble… you humiliate yourself.

Like all of Jesus’ teachings, today’s Gospel is like pitching a stone into a pond: the ever expanding ripples speak to more and more people, until we find ourselves caught up in the message.

At first glance, the parable of those jostling for the best seat appears to be about table etiquette and humility, but this is not a new teaching, especially to the religious leaders who were gathered around the table.  Knowing the scriptures, they would have immediately recalled Proverbs 25:6-7:

Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence

    or stand in the place of the great,

for it is better to be told, “Come up here,”

    than to be put lower in the presence of a noble. 

Good advice and etiquette.  Got it.  And wouldn’t you hate to have been the guy that pushed his way to the front so that he could have the best seat at this particular dinner party.  Jesus’ words might have stung that person a bit, but given the context and the audience, everyone would have felt a sting, because they all knew that just a short time before this gathering Jesus has said, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.” (Luke 11:43)  Not only were the religious leaders pushing themselves forward in the eyes of others, but they also pushed themselves forward in the eyes of God.  As we learn in the Gospel lesson we hear on Ash Wednesday: the religious leaders like to sound the trumpets to make a show of their giving, they pray loudly in the synagogue and on the street corners, when they fast, they make a big show of their ‘misery.’  All of this to say, ‘Look at me world, look at me God, and see how special I am.  I deserve a seat of honor at the table.’  But the sting of this teaching does not stop there.  It takes in even more.

We know that following Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Christianity began to spread, however, it was primarily a sect within Judaism, but in the Acts of the Apostles we see how it began to spread among the Gentiles.  As more and more Gentiles became believers, the Jewish Christians began to ask themselves, ‘What are we going to do with them?’  There were many arguments over whether or not these Gentile converts needed to practice the Mosaic Law, be circumcised and so on.  We know how it worked out in the end—Paul became the great Apostle to the Gentiles and even Peter came to understand that the faith was open to all, but initially, the Jewish Christians thought they were ‘better’ than the rest.  After all, they were first.  They were the Chosen People, therefore, they should have the seat of honor.  So Paul would have to teach: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:23)  There is no seat of honor, you are all honored because of Christ Jesus.

It is a good thing that we are not like this.  We never see ourselves deserving of the seat of honor above others.  How does it go?  “The Church of England: Loving Jesus with a Slight Air of Superiority Since 597 a.d.”  I’m pretty sure the same can be said of Episcopalians, just change the year to 1789.

We push to have ourselves ahead of others and to have the seat of honor, but, in all this, there was one question that kept coming up in my mind: what’s so bad about the lowest seat?  That one that’s in the back of the banquet hall next to the bathroom door that squeaks every time someone goes in or out.  No, perhaps it is not the best seat in the house, but why can’t we be happy with it?

Some of you will likely roll your eyes at the fact that I’ve never read or heard of this guy before: David Brooks.  He is a commentator that writes for the New York Times.  In 2014, he participated in a Christian forum, The Gathering, and gave a talk titled, “How to be Religious in the Public Square.”  He says, “In 1950, the Gallup organization asked high school seniors, ‘Are you a very important person?’ And at that point 12 percent said yes. They asked the same question in 2005 and 80 percent said, ‘Yes, I am a very important person.’”  He goes on to say that there is this “great desire for fame. Fame used to be low on a value. Now fame is the second-most desired thing in young people.  They did a study, ‘Would you rather be president of Harvard or Justin Bieber’s personal assistant, a celebrity’s personal assistant?’ And of course by 3 to 1 people would rather be Justin Bieber’s personal assistant.”  He adds, “Though to be fair I asked the president of Harvard, and she would rather be Justin Bieber’s personal assistant.”  His conclusion, “This is an achievement culture. A culture of people striving and trying to win success.”  A culture of people striving and trying to win the seat of honor.

Brooks then goes on to discuss the book Lonely Man of Faith, by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who talks about two opposing natures, referring to them as Adam One and Adam Two (not to be confused with Adam 12).  The Rabbi states, “Adam One wants to conquer the world. Adam Two wants to obey a calling and serve the world. Adam One asks How things work. Adam Two asks why things exist and what we’re here for.  Adam One wants to venture forth. Adam Two wants to return to roots.  Adam One’s motto is ‘Success.’  Adam Two’s motto is ‘Charity. Love. Redemption.’” (Source)  In the context of our Gospel reading, Adam One wants to sit at the head of the table, next to the guest of honor… No.  That’s wrong.  Adam One wants to be the guest of honor, to be famous and only if that fails, will Adam One be satisfied with being in near proximity of fame and perceived honor, i.e. Justin Bieber’s personal assistant.  Adam Two doesn’t care much for Justin Bieber and will happily take a seat anywhere. 

What is the difference between the two?  The obvious answer (and a correct one) is humility.  From the book of Proverbs: 

The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom,

    and humility comes before honor. (Proverbs 15:33) 

Where does humility begin?  With God.  Humility is a grace from God that allows us to submit our lives to the Lord.  Most pray for such a grace everyday, although we may not recognize it as such: “Thy will be done.”  Humility begins by submitting your will to the will of God and saying with Jesus, “Not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)  It comes, as humbling as it may sound, by recognizing that perhaps God’s will, at this stage in your life, is for you to be at the table next to the bathroom door.  

Adam Two seeks only the will of God.  Adam Two recognizes their place in the world—and understand this isn’t about societal status, money (or the lack there of), things of that nature, but is about being comfortable in your own skin—Adam Two finds happiness in who they are and where they are, whether being served in the seat of honor or in the kitchen, standing over the sink and eating leftovers.  My friend Thomas à Kempis writes about this.  Speaking to God the Father, he says, “Anyone who loves You … would be as peaceful and satisfied in the last place as in the first, and as willing to be despised, unknown and forgotten, as to be honored by others and to have more fame than they. He should prefer Your will and the love of Your honor to all else.” (Imitation of Christ, Bk. 3, Ch. 22)  Put another way: Adam Two, doesn’t care where he sits, he’s just happy to have been invited and he’s delighted to see you, whether you’re sitting next to him or at the head table.  The joy and happiness comes in recognizing that no matter what table you are sitting at, the Guest of Honor, Jesus, is sitting next to you.

Don’t worry about the seats of honor, instead, humble yourself so that you may seek, know, and follow the will of God.  In God’s will is wisdom, peace, and the true happiness you are searching for.

Let us pray: Lord, if what we seek be according to your will, then let it come to pass and let success attend the outcome. But if not, let it not come to pass. Do not leave us to our own devices, for you know how unwise we can be. Keep us safe under your protection Lord, and in your own gentle way, guide us and rule us as you know best.  Amen.

The podcast is available here.

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In the year 313 a.d., the Roman emperor, Constantine, issued the Edict of Milan.  In it was stated, “The Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best; so that that God, who is seated in heaven, might be benign and propitious to us, and to every one under our government.” (source)   From then on, Christians enjoyed a much easier time throughout the Roman Empire and Christianity would go on to be recognized as the official religion.  Eventually the Empire would begin to crumble and in the year 410 a.d., the Visigoth’s, a Germanic tribe, would invade Italy and conquer Rome.  Who did the people blame for the fall?  Why the Christians of course.  The complaint: if we had been able to keep the old gods, none of this would have happened.

Sixteen years later in 426 a.d., St. Augustine of Hippo published a response to the allegations: The City of God.  “Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, ‘Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.’ In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all.” (source)

St. Augustine, who we celebrate today, wanted the people then to understand that the first city is the City of Man, where humankind rules and worships it own image and creations, and that the second city is the City of God, the city to come and the city of those who believe, helping Christians to understand that even though Rome has fallen, their future in the City of God is still assured and should be their greatest concern.

It would be nice to see how we’ve changed.  That the vision of St. Augustine’s City of Man no longer exists and that we are ushering in the City of God, but we know that is not the case.  This City of Man seems to be circling the drain more and more rapidly each day.  With that being the case, we could become discouraged, wonder why we put up any effort or resistance at all, but, as with those in the time of Augustine, it’s not over.  In the face of so much upheaval, remember the words of the Lord, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

St. Augustine died on this day in the year 430 a.d.  He was perhaps the greatest theologian to have ever lived and is responsible for much of what we believe and understand about our faith.  In The City of God, he would have us know and understand that our hope is not in humankind, it is in God alone.  “So,” as the Apostle Paul writes, “we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen… including the City of God… are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

The podcast is available here.

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You all are very kind when it comes to comments about the sermon (at least the ones you say aloud!)  However, that’s not always the case with every preacher.  A parishioner came up to Jason Spears and said, “Coming from my other church and my former pastor to here listening to you is like going from filet mignon to ground beef hamburger meat.”  Following the comment, he said, “Unfortunately, in my youthful insecurity, the next week I handed her a small bottle of A1 steak sauce and encouraged her to go back if she saw fit.”

Sometimes, preachers just aren’t sure as to how to take a comment:  Jeff Chandler reports, “I was new to my first church and someone said: ‘You’re not like most pastors; when you say that you sin – we believe you.’”  And Vince Torres said, “A guy in my church approached me after what must have been a personally convicting sermon and said, ‘Great teaching.  But don’t you ever talk to me like that again.’”  However, it was a comment made to Dan Donahue that got me to thinking.  A parishioner told him, “I saw a documentary on Hell and thought of you.”

As I’ve shared with you in the past, I’ll go back and review sermons to see where we’ve been, so I took a look at these last few weeks, and although I’ll stick with the things I’ve said, there’s been a lot of talk about the “Son of Man coming as judge,” “Be prepared so that your not found lacking,” “The last day,” “Good soldier,” and so on.  All true, but really just a round about way of telling you to get your act together or you’re going to Hell.  Now, there are some of you that need to hear that on a regular basis (I’m not naming names, _____), but our Gospel reading today says that there is also a need for “the rest of the story.”

On the surface, we have a story of healing.  Jesus sees a woman walking in the synagogue who has been crippled, bent over for the past eighteen years.  So, Jesus, without being approached by anyone and asked to help, takes the initiative and says to her “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”  He then laid hands on her and she was healed, stood up straight and praised God.  We are never told why she was bent over, but what happens next helps us to understand the larger point Jesus was making.

The president of the synagogue becomes angry with Jesus for healing the woman on a Sabbath, or put another way, he was angry with Jesus for working on a Sabbath which was against the Mosaic Law.  Jesus responds to the accusation by saying to the president, “You as the religious leaders place huge burdens on the people.  You weigh them down with all your rules and threats.  You show more mercy to your animals than you do the children of God.”  All you do is tell them that they’ve got it all wrong and they need to change or else they’re going to hell.  You’ve weighed them down, bent them over, and you’ve forgotten to tell them the rest of the story.  And what is the rest of the story?  The same one that Jesus demonstrated to the woman and confirmed with his words: You have been shown mercy.  “You are set free.”

Consider these passages of Scripture: Hosea 6:6 – “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings”; and James 2:13 – “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”  The problem is that we can get so caught up in judgment and what to do in order to avoid hell, that our faith becomes about our actions instead of God’s actions; and God’s actions demonstrated and expressed by Jesus are all about mercy.

In The Name of God is Mercy, Pope Francis writes, “Pius XII, more than half a century ago, said that the tragedy of our age was that it had lost its sense of sin, the awareness of sin. Today we add further to the tragedy by considering our illness, our sins, to be incurable, things that cannot be healed or forgiven. We lack the actual concrete experience of mercy. The fragility of our era is this, too: we don’t believe that there is a chance for redemption: for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet. We need mercy.”  We need mercy because so much weighs us down that we live spiritually bent over lives, unable to stand up straight and give God glory.  We become so bound up in our work to avoid hell that we no longer experience the freedom that comes through God’s mercy.  Yes.  We need mercy and the freedom that comes from it to live into the joy of the Lord.  What is this freedom?

H&H is the short way of referring to the third oldest music society in the United States.  It stands for Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, founded in 1815.  In May of this year, the Boston Symphony was performing the H&H season finale concert, which was being recorded.  I’ve never been there, but looked at pictures and the symphony hall itself, built in 1900, is magnificent.  On that particular day, there were approximately 2,500 in attendance. As part of the program, Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music was played.  It was a special day for everyone in attendance, but what made it even more so, was when that particular piece of music ended.  In the silence between the last note and the time the audience begins to applaud, there was a very audible, “Wow!”  It was clearly a child.  The audience burst into laughter and applause.  David Snead, President and CEO of H&H said, “It was one of the most wonderful moments I’ve experienced in the concert hall.” (Source) “The Handel and Haydn Society, America’s oldest performing arts organization, has been performing in Boston for 204 years and we can safely say that this was a first.” (Source)

The “Wow!” was such a sensation that the orchestra went in search of who the child was and eventually, through social media, discovered that it was nine year old Ronan Mattin, which makes the story even more fun.  It turns out that Ronan is autistic.  His mother says, “I can count on one hand the number of times that [he’s] spontaneously ever come out with some expression of how he’s feeling,” (Source) 

What is this freedom that comes from mercy?  It is the freedom to spiritually walk into one of the most prestigious symphony halls in the United States, during the recording of the season finale concert, put on by a 200 year old music society, listen to piece of music composed by a master, and in the silence that follows, say “Wow!”

The freedom that comes from mercy is to understand that you are a deeply loved child of God.  A child who the Creator of Heaven and Earth desires to open to you all the joys of Heaven.  Jesus tells us, “The Kingdom of God is now,” which means we don’t have to live hunched over, crippled in this life.  Like the woman, we can stand straight and tall and give praise and glory.

Will there be a judgment day when the Son of Man returns unexpectedly?  Yes.  Yes there will be.  Will we each of us be judged on that day?  Yes we will be.  Do we need to guard and care for our souls.  Absolutely.  But don’t get bogged down in Hell.  You have been set free to live, to dance, to experience joy.  You have been set free to say, “Wow!”

Let us pray:
Lord, we believe in you: increase our faith.
We trust in you: strengthen our trust.
We love you: let us love you more and more.
We are sorry for our sins: deepen our sorrow.

We worship you as our first beginning,
We long for you as our last end,
We praise you as our constant helper,
And call on you as our loving protector.

Guide us by your wisdom,
Correct us with your justice,
Comfort us with your mercy,
Protect us with your power.
Amen