Sermon: Ordinary Matters

Pixabay Image via Creative Commons

Third Sunday of Advent, Year C

The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse,

Director of the Whitaker Institute,

Episcopal Diocese of Michigan

Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Detroit, MI

Sermon Preached on December 16, 2018

O Lord, take my lips and speak through them;

take our minds and think through them;

take our hearts

and set them on fire with love for you. Amen.

John said to the crowds,

“You brood of vipers!

Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

That really gets me. 

Especially as today is “Gaudette” Sunday – Joy!

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice!

Let your gentleness be known to everyone.”

So what is going on

with John the Baptist calling people a brood of vipers?

Vipers are really creepy –

probably because I don’t particularly like snakes –

but vipers are baby snakes that eat their mother. 

For some reason that really creeps me out. 

The teacher in me wants to say to John,

um, the way you start your sermon is a bit strong.

Don’t you know you can

catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?

Your opening line is, ahem, little off-putting:

and then you announce

what will happen at the end of time.

I mean, who can hear that?

Brood of vipers, really! 

Well, he caught our attention, right?

Today’s gospel passage is John the Baptist,

with the attention-getting introduction

to his 3-point sermon

as a drama sandwich form:

eschatology, ethics and expectation.  

This sandwich sermon

places a mild ethical teaching in the middle,

between

“dramatic eschatological warning of the coming of end times” and

the announcement and expectation of the coming messiah.”[1]

So I got curious –

is this ethical teaching really that mild?

pause

A few days ago,

I came across a brief segment from the Today show on TV.

There, the Today show explained

the results of an NBC survey

where they asked people

to rank the character traits they believe

are most important to teach their kids.

Top of the list, at 43%, was honesty,

then kindness at 29%,

then a strong work ethic at 11%.

These are the character traits

most people believe are important

to teach their kids.

And the top three align pretty closely with John’s teaching.

So ordinary,

maybe that’s why John

got their attention with that opening line.

What I found funny was

how seemingly mundane John’s offered this

ethical message.

Slipped between drama and excitement,

Was a communication

so ordinary, you might have missed it. 

Kind of like that book,

“everything I know I learned in Kindergarten,”[2]

Which “teaches how to live and what to do

and that wisdom does not come

from the top of the graduate school mountain

but in the sand pile in elementary school.

Simple things, such as:

·         Share everything.

·         Play fair.

·         Don't hit people.

·         Put things back where you found them.

·         Clean up your own mess.

John’s message, too, was so ordinary

that it’s extraordinary. Why? Because

John’s instructions

to the crowds,

to the tax collectors and

to the soldiers apply to us, too,

and every aspect of our lives. 

These instructions guide how we treat each other

– our family, friends, co-workers

and people we meet in ordinary places of our daily lives.

These instructions remind us how

we are obliged to treat one another and the world.

To the crowds who ask, what then should we do? John says

Share. Be kind.

To the tax collectors who ask, what should we do? John says

Be fair. Be honest.

To the soldiers who ask, what should we do? John says

Work hard. Be ethical.

Pause.

That’s it?  Yes.  And it’s everything.

Because everything –

everything from eschatological warnings of end times

to buzzy expectation of messiah’s coming

and boring daily ethical teachings –

everything looks different

in the light of the coming Christ.

See,

by our sharing,

by our being honest and

by our ethical lives,  

we help bring God’s kingdom on earth

as it already is in heaven.

But wait – it’s not us that’s bringing in the kingdom, it’s God. 

God is bringing in the kingdom

and we can witness God’s new realm

when we live like it’s already here:

live like we believe a new world is coming,

live like our ordinary lives matter.

Because they do!

Here’s a story about ordinary, daily lives. 

At the DTW Airport,

one of our Episcopal deacons

serves as an “airport ambassador.” 

He volunteers, helping people

find their way,

find their car,

find their baggage,

their lost keys. 

Mundane things.

And once in a while,

he gets to simply witness

the return of a fallen soldier.

When he gets a text from the airline

that the casket will be offloaded from the plane

at a certain time,

he goes to the tarmac and stands at attention.

He holds the loved one’s hand.

He shares the honest witness

of the dignified transfer of the soldier’s remains

to a final resting place.

And after a while,

when he turns around

and returns from the tarmac to the mundane terminal,

people in airport are silent. 

They have been silent.

Those people who see the returned fallen soldier

hold vigil in love,

and bond in an indescribable holy way.

And it changes everything.

Just think.

What would it be like if everyone –

politicians, police, powerful and powerless,

people on the street,

people in our grocery stores,

people at work –

what would it be like if everyone

was

honest, kind and ethical.

I think that our world might work a whole lot better

and might become more of what God dreams!

What if we, in our daily lives,

really believed (as our collect says) in God’s

bountiful grace and mercy –

and honestly, kindly, & ethically lived our lives? 

It can change everything. 

When Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and with fire,

we are already soldered together

into a new community.

That refining fire bonds us

so deeply

that we feel each other’s’ pain,

care for each other’s wounds,

share with each other our gifts and blessings,

and hold each other in love.

This is how we live as if God’s kingdom is near.

When we are one – bonded together as a community,

we fear not random acts of violence,

we fear not the impact of natural disasters,

we fear not the predicted recession,

we fear not the person we see who looks different from us,

we fear not the “powers and principalities” that oppress us.

See, we humans resist this good news of God’s grace

because of our fears,

because we think we don’t matter,

because we minimize the impact we have on the world. 

But Christ hopes for us to join with others. 

To bond with others,

to cry with others,

to share with others.

Christ hopes for us to be one.

We can participate in God’s dream

to make the world amazing.

For this is how we witness to our confidence in Jesus:

we share, are honest, and work hard. 

Simple. Ordinary.

Makes a difference.  Makes a world of difference.

See, this being Christian,

this being honest, kind and hardworking,

impacts the world.

When youth gather around and speak

honest truth to power against gun violence,

the world changes.

When the airport volunteer stands on the tarmac

in sacred witness to the fallen soldier arriving home,

the world changes.

When states agree to uphold the international climate agreement

even while the federal administration

denies climate change,

the world changes.

When ordinary people

deliver bottled water to Detroiters

whose water has been shut off,

the world changes.

When communities share in breakfast every Sunday,

the world changes.

When we pray the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples

and share the bread that he broke,

the world changes.

Today’s good news is that

God brings God’s kingdom here and now,

through us as we are,

through ordinary lives,

through ordinary human imperfections,

through God’s love and forgiveness. 

And that Love and forgiveness

is extraordinary enough to get our attention.

Thanks be to God,

we have God’s bountiful grace and mercy

and we will, with God’s help.”[3] 

Get ready for Christ’s light to shine in our lives!

Amen

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[1] Portions of this sermon inspired by David Lose, cited here on December 14, 2018: http://www.davidlose.net/2015/12/advent-3-c-ordinary-saints/

[2] Cited on http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm on December 15, 2018

[3] Portions inspired by Rev. Scott Gunn, Forward Today: Bountiful Grace cited here: http://news.forwardmovement.org/2018/12/forward-today-bountiful-grace/ on December 14, 2018

Sermon: All Saints and The Circle of Life

 

A Sermon preached in 

Christ Church, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
by The Reverend Vicki Hesse, Associate

All Saints Sunday (Year C)[i]
6 November 2016

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be always acceptable to you O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen

Listen here

For the last four weeks, we have been offering “Baptism Preparation” at the Sunday Rector’s Forum, learning with our four candidates’ families what it means to live the baptized life.  It seems fitting that today’s gospel offers us a final lesson from Jesus himself. 

In scriptural context, this lesson came after Jesus’ over-night prayer vigil on a mountain.  When morning came, he called his disciples and chose 12 apostles.  As he went from the mountain to level ground, he looked up at them and began teaching them in front of the crowd.  Like our baptism prep, the lessons were directed toward the disciples but held in front of the gathered community.

In these verses, we hear the standard toward which every disciple can strive to live.  “Blessed are you who are poor… and woe to you who are rich.”  The Beatitudes, the blessings and the corresponding woes, were (and are) meant to strengthen the lives of Christ’s followers.

We hear the sharp edges of Jesus’ teaching about God’s commitment to the poor & the oppressed, echoing the Magnificat that we recite at Evening Prayer: God lifts up the lowly.   We hear not a glorification of poverty but a declaration of God’s prejudicial commitment to people who are poor. We hear and respond. We who are not poor – not really – are confronted, then, with what it means to live the baptized life, to align ourselves with God’s priorities.

Our response to this scandalous teaching can be to repent and re-order our lives and priorities, with God’s help. This hard work can be done in our community, which is what we vow to do, with God’s help, as we renew our baptismal covenant. The Beatitudes: One of the most complicated teachings of challenge and blessing that Jesus offers.

It seems to me that we have lost the art of blessing: how to bless others through the warp and woof of life, with honesty and vulnerability in ways that sanctify.  The late Irish priest and poet John O’Donohue’s proposes that blessing is a way of life.[ii]  In a world that is harsh and negative, notice how kindness arises and what happens. Not saccharine kindness, but kindness that “echoes compassionate goodness” and “resonates within the depths of your own heart…” Kindness that suggests that your vulnerability, somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of but has become an occasion for dignity and empathy.”  {repeat}

This kindness is the heart of blessing, where vulnerability connects to divine grace.

Where more obviously does vulnerability meet divine grace than in birth, “…the first gift, the primal blessing…To be born is to be chosen. To be created and come to birth is to be blessed.”[iii] Blessings awake a future wholeness and open a window to the eternal time: God’s time, Kairos. 

Through the Beatitudes, Jesus proclaimed a blessing, a future wholeness woven from divine favor. And today, we will, with God’s help, bless those with vulnerability among us who begin their life in Christ. Also today, we will receive blessings, too, from all the saints in our lives.  Saints who have blessed us from their soul to ours. 

One of those saints, for me, was my mother.  In the last week of her life, in a fog of Lewy Body dementia and pharmaceutical halidol, she offered me a blessing, but not with words.  That day, she gingerly made her way to piano at the hospice home. Sitting in her wheelchair, slightly slumped over, she played for us Debussy’s Clair de Lune.  By heart. She blessed me that day, with music… and she blessed my life. Her music is in my bones, in my cellular make up, in my soul, in some inarticulate way.  My mother was not perfect, but she is one of my saints who offered me a future wholeness.

What about your saints?  Tell us how they blessed you, from their soul to your soul, towards a future wholeness.  Share about how they lived the sacred baptized life or were witness to scandalous teachings of Jesus. 

From these scandalous teachings, Jesus wraps up his talk with one of the hardest teachings: Love Your Enemies.  These words mold in us a Christian ethic that leaves no room for vengeance or retaliation.  Love Your Enemies.  If you want to know more, look to the next three sentences: do good, bless others, pray for abusers.  Such peacemaking partakes of the very character of God, for God’s love is indiscriminate.  This hardest teaching offers us peace that the world cannot give. Love your enemies. 

Today we celebrate the circle of life: a start of life in Christ for those being baptized and a reception of blessing by all our saints.  The good news is this: God redeems us, God blesses us, God calls us to know and receive Divine love.  So, here is your charge, Josephine, Aidan, Evan and Camden: 

Hold us accountable to uphold you in your life in Christ. 

Remind us what it is like to hear God’s whisper.  

Laugh when the Holy Spirit arises in your heart. 

Cry aloud when injustices happen. 

Recall for us what it is like, literally, to be hungry, to weep, to mourn. 

Teach us how to be completely dependent upon God. 

Know in your bones, in your soul, that God loves you. 

You bless us with your presence, little saints.

Today’s epistle reading, the letter to the Ephesians, summarizes our prayer for you:  Today, you will be marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit. 

We pray that you know deeply God’s pledge to be redeemed as God’s own and to live to the praise of God’s Glory.  We pray that God gives you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know Jesus, with the eyes of your heart enlightened.  We pray that you know God’s power in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heaven. 

We welcome you to the body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Amen

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[i] Sermon inspired by the Holy Spirit with assistance from the commentaries “New Interpreter’s Bible” and “Feasting on the Word,” with guidance from the book “What Makes This Day Different” and with clarity from John O’Donohue’s book “To Bless The Space Between Us.” Thanks be to God for this village.

[ii] “To Bless The Space Between Us”

[iii] O’Donohue, p. 186