These writings are designed for preaching on the Sundays that correlate to the scripture listed in the Lectionary of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. As of Advent 2010, these are no longer the texts selected for use in most Episcopal Churches. But mine does.
Each sermon links to the scripture that influence it.
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No Sugar Tonight
A sermon for Proper 15: Year C (1979)
I look to the publication, “Forward Day By Day” almost everyday for daily scripture reading and inspiration, and some historical information as well. It’s full of different prayers _ for the World, for the Church, for your family, for the sick, for giving thanks and from the Prayer Book of St. Augustine. All are great in their own rite. But the two prayers that I gravitate toward every day and feel that hold the most prominence are the prayers for “Today” and “A Morning Resolve”.
The prayer for “Today” is asking God to stand with me, and help me to not be recreant, help me not to lose faith, help me to stay kind even when others are not.
“A Morning Resolve” is me telling God what I will do. It’s similar in nature to the phrase in our Post-Communion prayer “… and do all such good works as thou has prepared for us to walk in;” in that _ go out into the world and be a good person to yourself and others. And how this ties in with today’s readings is the part of that prayer that goes on to say, “In particular I will try to be faithful in those habits of prayer, work, study, physical exercise, eating and sleep which I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me to be right.”
When I combine these two prayers, it’s as if I’m forming my own personal daily covenant with God. And as part of that, I need to fulfill my part of the agreement. And this is the discipline that I hear that is expected of us. I know that if I stay up late binge watching some TV show, or eat too much sugar at night, I’m going to get bad sleep. Bad sleep for me has a snowball effect _ the next day, I won’t want to even think about exercising, or give 100% at work, or worse spend time praying.
In those times, Jesus is saying to me, “why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” In other words, Jesus is sayin, “You’re old and experienced enough to know better. What are you doing with your life?!!!” (And by the way, during these time Jesus’ voice sounds a lot like Olympia Dukakis’ as Cher’s mother in the movie, Moonstruck.)
Chances are during those moments I was avoiding. I didn’t want to be responsible. I did not want to be an adult. I wanted to pretend that work and school don’t exist. That my actions don’t have consequences. I wanted to be a child. I wanted to act with no sense of discipline.
But today’s readings are not for children even though we are addressed as children. It’s for us to hear as adults and recognize that we have a responsibility to hold up as our part of the bargain, to act responsibly, to be disciplined in this world. And that discipline is to do all the things, that as the prayer says _ “which I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me to be right”.
I’m glad that Jesus says he’s stressed in today’s gospel. I have to admit, I have a little bit of schadenfreude when I read this because I’m stressed too, and why should he get to go through life without stress. But kidding aside, Jesus is stressed. He’s got A LOT ON HIS PLATE. At this point in his life, he knows he’s the Messiah and he doesn’t have a lot of time left on Earth. And the schadenfreude goes quickly away when I realize my To-Do List will never ever be like his.
So that’s really the message here. No matter how busy we think we are, as Christians we made a deal with God. If you know the Kate Bush song, it may be to “swallow places”. It may be to metaphorically do an infinite number of things that you call God to do.
But like any deal or agreement, you have a role to play too. And Jesus notes he’s dividing the world from those who are living up to their part of the agreement and those who are not. And to live up to that deal or agreement requires discipline.
As the scripture says, “Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
And with that in mind, we can fulfill the Mission of our Church to unify mankind. So go forth with your deal with God and “try to be faithful in those habits of prayer, work, study, physical exercise, eating and sleep which you know the Holy Spirit has shown you to be right”.
Or at the very least, like me, don’t eat too much sugar before going to bed.
Referenced scriptures:
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Go-Bag of Faith
A sermon for Proper 14: Year C (1979)
“You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Gee, that sounds ominous and somewhat unnerving. It reminds me of the 1970’s TV Show, Welcome Back Kotter and one of Horshack’s famous lines (besides “Oohh Oohh Oohh”), “When you least expect it, expect it.”
But letting Jesus’ words about the unexpected hour ping inside my head for a couple of moments and letting that message travel from my amygdala to my central cortex _ as there always is _ there’s a message of wisdom to halt us. And that message is not ‘Be afraid’, but to ‘Be prepared’.
When I think of being prepared, I think about being prepared for disaster, and mitigating the inconvenience of the disaster as much as possible. At home, we have a Go-Bag. Our cats have a Go-Bag. The car has supplies if we break down. We have an escape ladder for the 2nd floor of our house. We have fire extinguishers at home. I regularly check my credit score and credit card statements for fraud. And I balance my checkbook to the penny.
Outside of wrapping bubble wrap around myself and our house, I feel prepared. But I’m smart enough to know that when that lightning-strike-moment occurs _ we’ll be making use of our supplies, and my spouse will ask did you pack X or Y or Z. And at that moment, I will think _ I should have thought of that.
In the business world, they call this continuity of operations. To the extreme, the recommendation is to prepare 100% redundancy for your business. Conceptually, you should already have another location rented, full of everything you need (internet, phone, computers, desks, etc.) and when disaster strikes one workplace, you simply go to the other workplace.
Can you imagine setting this up for yourself and your family and having to sustain a complete duplication of your life? If you’re doing this, one might say you have too much time on your hands, or that you are truly blessed.
What I’m getting at is that no matter how much effort you are in being prepared, you’re probably going to miss something.
But that’s OK, we’re just humans. We weren’t created to think of everything. God knows there are infinite possibilities of situations to be prepared for. And God doesn’t expect us to be. But God expects us to do our best to prepare. And that Go-Bag is full of faith, prayer, and trust.
Is that enough though? And who has time for this? Are earthly lives are made up of obligations, responsibilities, and commitments. “My house is flooding, a chemical spill is in the air, and someone is using my credit card. I don’t have time for the ethereal future.”
People want quick answers. They want to read the Bible once, pray once and be told they have a ticket to heaven. They got stuff to do. They want to know exactly how much faith, prayer, and trust that their Go-Bag needs.
My favorite part of today’s readings is from Genesis. Abraham is worried about the future. He’s worried that Sarah and he are too old to procreate. At their respective approximate ages of 90 and 100, who would blame them. He’s worried that he hasn’t prepared enough.
But God tells Abraham to, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” The image that I conjure when I read this is an endearing one of God standing next to Abraham with one hand on his shoulder and the other hand pointing up to the night sky, and Abraham silently in awe.
Through this simple moment of God directing Abraham to look up, it’s comforting for Abraham to learn he has the right amount of faith in his Go-Bag.
Remember today’s psalm, “Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, for in his holy Name we put our trust.”
So don’t worry that you’re not prepared enough. Simply look up to the stars and listen for God and let the awe overtake you. With that, you will have the Go-Bag of Faith that you need.
Referenced scriptures:
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Who Owns Who?
Sermon for Proper 13: Year C (1979) scriptures:
Today’s Epistle, Gospel and Psalm reminded me of a quote that I think about frequently, “The things you own end up owning you.” This quote comes from Chuck Palahniuk’s book “Fight Club” which was made into movie with Ed Norton and Brad Pitt.
In the book, this is a pivotal point for the unnamed protagonist. An explosion in his apartment destroyed all his earthly possessions. He’s unsure what to do next and calls a person he barely knows whose name is Tyler Durden and meets Tyler at a bar who upon hearing this poor man’s story, Tyler utters this quote, “The things you own end up owning you”.
Spoiler alert here because the reader or viewer (and the protagonist), think the protagonist is talking to his new friend, Tyler. But we all eventually discover that the protagonist is instead talking to himself. Or as I prefer to say, talking to someone who’s not there (or sometimes ‘talking to someone who’s not there yet’).
What’s happening here is a revelation for this character. Before the explosion the protagonist confessed to striving to possess more and more. Getting that last piece of IKEA furniture was going to make him “complete”. But now his new voice, Tyler, points out to him the power the possessions had over him. Because no matter how much was consumed, it provided no long-term satisfaction, and it would never make him “complete”.
But instead, it made him more splintered.
All in all, to me when I think of idol worship in these current times, this is what I think of. And my concern is that our ‘things’ or our relationship with our things holds more importance than our relationship with each other and with God.
Peter Kreeft in his book, “Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing,” asserts, “Since an idol is not God, no matter how sincerely or passionately it is treated as God, it is bound to break the heart of its worshipper, sooner or later,” Kreeft asserts. “Good motives for idolatry cannot remove the objective fact that the idol is an unreality. Moreover, you cannot “divine joy from non-divine things.”
Or as the proverb says, “You can’t get blood from a stone’. And you can’t get love from one either. And I’m fairly certain if you think about all of the possessions you love, not one of them loves you back.
So, what are we supposed to do _ give away every possession, and begin a life of walking the earth like David Carridine in ‘Kung Fu’? Not necessarily. It’s not a sin to be rich. But it is a sin for that wealth to be your God. It is a sin to let yourself be bound by their weight and let their power reign over you.
Jesus warns in today’s Gospel, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions”. And note, this is not a decree to give it all away, but instead to watch for signs of greed.
And a way to do that is from today’s letter from Paul, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience … clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony”
From here, the Church asks us to be good stewards. Much in the way we expect our governments to be good stewards of our tax dollars, God wants us to be good stewards of our wealth.
And our wealth is made up of more than how much money we have in the bank. It is “Our personal response to God’s generosity in the way we share our resources of time, talent, and money. Stewardship reflects our commitment to making God’s love known through the realities of human life and our use of all that God has given us. It is also our service to God’s world and our care of creation.” *
Our true wealth is measured in our “commitment to ‘working, praying, and giving for the spread of the kingdom of God’” **
Back to the start of the sermon, the character Tyler Durden’s second line of imparting wisdom after stating “The things you own end up owning you” is_ “it’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.” To me, this means if you can lose the shackles and weight of your possessions, you’re free as God intended us to be, to live in his image, “to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God.” ***
Referenced scriptures:
*from “An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, A User Friendly Reference for Episcopalians,” Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum, editors.
**(BCP, p. 856)
***(BCP, p. 845)
Wired For Faith 
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