Tag Archives: Repentance

When Exile and Words of Comfort Meet – A Sermon on Isaiah 40:1-11, Advent 2B

Posted on December 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

The collect and readings for today, The Second Sunday of Advent, may be found here. The following sermon focuses on Isaiah 40:1-11.

“Comfort, o comfort my people.” These are God’s ancient words to his people; spoken through the prophet Isaiah in the 6th century b.c. Their relevance and timeliness, however, are not lost on us today. It is not hard to find people in discomfort, lives in exile, and a world in turmoil. God’s words ring true in every age, place, and life because exile happens in every age, place, and life.

Exile takes us to the wilderness. In the wilderness the mountains are high, the valleys are low, and the ground is rough and uneven. Many of us have climbed the mountains of arrogance, ego, and pride. Likewise we have descended into the valleys of despair, depression, and fear. We have travelled the rough and uneven ground of sorrow, loss, and pain. The wilderness is not so much about the geography around us as it about the landscape within us.

That’s not just a description of our lives and our world. That is also a description of Israel in today’s Old Testament reading. Foreign armies have defeated the Israelites, taken them prisoner, and carried them off to a foreign land. Their home land has been overtaken by others and their temple has been destroyed. God, however, did not do this to them. They did it to themselves. Their own choices, ways of life, and sinfulness have brought this about.

Every one of us could tell a story about a time when we were in exile, alienated from life, our self, those we love, and our God. Some of us may be in exile now. Exiles live in a foreign land: a land of guilt and regret, fear, sorrow, despair. That is never where God intended us to live. It is not our true home but sometimes that is where we are. Thoughts, words, deeds, things done and left undone are the roads by which we came to this land of exile. Sometimes we intentionally choose those roads for ourselves. Other times it seems as if we have no choice. We do the best we can at the time but we are ignorant of a better way, a different way; God’s way. There are many paths into exile but only one way out, the way of the Lord.

Like ancient Israel we long to hear words of comfort. We want to know that one more powerful than us is coming. Not the one who overpowers us but the one who is able to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We want someone to love us, forgive us, heal us, and take us home.

Imagine the darkest place of your life; the fear, the anger, the hurt. Wondering when, or whether, it will end. You carry guilt and regret like a worn out suitcase wherever you go. The days are filled with “should’ve” and the nights with “if only.” Over and over the past is replayed to the point that you can see no future. Exile, alienation, wilderness.

That is the situation into which God speaks words of comfort. Even when you see no way out, no hope, and you think that all is lost God cries out to you, “Comfort, o comfort!” Those are not sentimental patronizing words. God does not put his arm around us saying, “There, there. Feel better.” They are words of God’s presence, encouragement, and strength. They make possible what God asks of us. In those words God says, “I have never forgotten you. I heard your cries. I saw your need. My heart broke for love of you. I am sending one to bring you home, one who is more powerful than you.”

God sends Isaiah to carry his words of comfort to Israel and to us. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” he instructs Isaiah. God knows that life in the wilderness is fragile. This is not a time for condemnation, judgment, or ridicule. Sometimes exiles are holding on by a thread. They need words of comfort, encouragement, and hope. Isaiah is to speak softly to their heart. He is to call them home. That is after all what repentance is about. It is about coming home. When John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance he was echoing Isaiah’s words. “It is time to come home.” Repentance prepares the way of the Lord. It prepares the way home.

God’s promise is that the mountains will be made low, the valleys will be lifted up, and the rough and uneven ground will become a level plain. The way will be prepared. This is not so that we might get out but so that God in Christ might get in. God is always coming to us. There is no situation in which God cannot come to you. Isaiah (sounding a lot like Diana Ross) reminds us that there is no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no ground rough enough to keep God from coming to you.

“Here is your God,” Isaiah exclaims to Israel. In the foreign land of exile “here is your God.” God comes to us in the worst places imaginable. He gathers us in his arms and carries us in his bosom. God’s words of comfort come to us in our exile. Our wilderness is the geography of new beginnings, reconciled relationships, and salvation. It all starts with repentance.

Repentance is not so much about the guilt of our past but a present hope that reveals a new future. Love and new life cannot be sustained by the same old ways, the ways that took us into exile. There must be a conversion, a change of heart. If new life and love are to last we must call into question our usual ways of being and doing. We must be willing to grow and change. We need to orient our life in a different direction and live at a new level of consciousness. We must face the truth of our life; not as the final judgment of our life but as the foundation for our hope, expectation, and longing for the one who is more powerful.

Name the places of alienation and exile in your life and your will also name the opportunities for repentance and homecoming. Repentance happens when exile and words of comfort meet. We do not repent so that we can hear God’s words of comfort. God speaks words of comfort so that we might repent. “Comfort, o comfort my people.”

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Who Cares? A Sermon on Matthew 3:1-12, Advent 2A

Posted on December 6, 2010 | 1 Comment

The collect and readings for the Second Sunday of Advent may be found here. The appointed gospel is Matthew 3:1-12.

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Did you hear what John said? The wrath of God is coming. It doesn’t matter who our family is. The ax is out and ready. Right now the blade is against the tree. And the chopping is about to begin. Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is being cut down and burned. The unquenchable fire is raging, waiting to be fed the chaff. And that’s just the beginning. He said a greater one is coming, one more powerful than himself is on the way.

After listening to John it’s tempting to look at the advent wreath, with its two lit candles, and see the season of Advent as merely the countdown to Christmas. Let’s leave this wild man behind. We know Christmas came last year. It will come again this year just like it has for almost 2000 years. It’s only a few more weeks away. So maybe we can dismiss John’s message as allegory, metaphor, or symbolism. Maybe it’s the rambling of a guy who’s spent too much time by himself in the desert eating grasshoppers. Or perhaps we hear the message and think about all those other people to whom it applies. You know, the Pharisees and the Sadducees; someone other than us.

But we can’t do that. The Church says this viper sermon of John’s is the gospel, the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew. For most of us, though, threats, anger, and judgment are not good news.

We would rather hear and think about sweet baby Jesus. But John’s not preaching a Christmas sermon. John doesn’t mention a beautiful night with a bright shining star to guide us. There are no humble and gentle shepherds guarding their flocks by night. No wise men bearing gifts from afar. John’s not looking at a manger scene where the little Lord Jesus lays down his sweet head. He seems to have forgotten the innocent but faithful Virgin. And the name Jesus isn’t even mentioned in today’s gospel. This is Advent, the season when wrath, axes, and unquenchable fire are talked about as good news.

John is looking for God to do something drastic right now. John’s message is, “Repent – turn or burn!” His refrain is, “Wrath, axes, and fire. Wrath, axes, and fire.” God’s coming and God’s going to get you.

I suspect that part of our discomfort with John and his name-calling, his preaching of wrath, axes, and fire is, or at least should be, that at some level we know he’s right. When we look around our world, read the newspaper, watch the evening news, or examine our own lives we’re confronted with the reality of John’s sermon. Our world and our lives are not as they should be, as they can be, as God wills them to be. We could each name the sinful or broken places of our lives and world: anger, violence, greed, poverty, homelessness, war, lives controlled by fear, years of guilt that have crippled us. The list could go on and on.

There’s only one sin worse than the evil itself and that is indifference to that evil. Indifference is more insidious than the evil itself; more universal, more contagious, and more dangerous. Often we live such busy, exhausted lives that we have become indifferent to what is happening in the world, indifferent to the needs of another human being. Maybe our world view, even our church view, is so small that if something does not directly affect our lives or those we love then it is of no consequence to us. Sometimes the pain and fear in our lives causes us to be indifferent to those relationships that need forgiveness and reconciliation. Maybe you have become indifferent to yourself and can no longer see the original beauty with which God created you. Perhaps indifference has convinced you that your life is meaningless. Indifference comes in many different forms. It is always sneaky, often disguising itself as freedom or independence.

John’s cry of repentance is the call to turn away from our indifference to engage, at a life-changing level, the coming kingdom and the way that kingdom reorders our relationships and priorities. John’s words are words of interrogation. Do we care enough to change our lives and the world in which we live? Do we love enough to get angry about the suffering and plight of other human beings – even if we’ve never met them?

God does. That’s why divine wrath, axes, and fire are good news. God loves enough to get angry. The good news is that our God is not indifferent. God is not indifferent to creation. God is not indifferent to the evil and suffering in this world. God is not indifferent to God’s people. God is not indifferent to your life or my life.

God’s concern and love for creation are the source of God’s anger. Anger is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love. The last thing we need is more indifference. The last thing we need is to hear from another that our very existence is meaningless. And God forbid that we should ever say or act as if another’s very existence is of no consequence to us.

God’s anger is the rejection of indifference. God is paying attention and present in this world, in our lives. The anger of God is a form of God’s presence and love in this world. God’s anger is not offered as a punishment but as an encouragement to change, to turn our lives around. That can be frightening and even painful. But there is an agony even more excruciating. That is the agony of being forsaken, discarded, rejected, and abandoned. It is the agony of being the object of indifference.

God’s anger is never the goal. The goal of divine anger is not punishment and retribution. Divine anger is the means, the instrument. The goal is love and relationship. Divine anger recognizes and celebrates the existence, the sacredness, and the value of every human life.

Divine wrath is God’s expression of longing for us. It is God saying to you and me, “You are worthy of my time and attention. Your lives are worthy of being judged. I care and love you enough to get angry when you settle for less than I am giving you, when you accept being less than you are called to be.”

Wrath, fire, and axes are God’s calling us to turn away from, to repent of, our indifference. Where does indifference rule our lives? How have we become indifferent to ourselves, to others, even to God? In what ways does indifference deny you the Kingdom of Heaven?

Wrath, fire and axes are not about destruction or punishment. They are about life, love, and relationship. The unquenchable fire of God’s love burns away our indifference. The healing ax of God cuts away all indifference. The wrath of God reminds us that God cares and we matter.

To name the places and ways of our indifference is the beginning of repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven has come just a bit nearer than it was before.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

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Sermon for Lent 3C: Repent, Towers Are Falling And Trees Are Fruitless

Posted on March 8, 2010 | 4 Comments

The collect and readings for today, the Third Sunday in Lent, may be found here. The appointed gospel is Luke 13:1-9.

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

6Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Many years ago a friend of mine had the opportunity to attend a retreat led by Alan Jones, the Dean of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco. Dean Jones told a story about a young man who died of AIDS. He was not gay, promiscuous, or a drug user. My friend commented on the tragedy of the death especially since the man was “innocent.” Dean Jones asked, “And would it be different if he was guilty?”

“Of course not,” is the correct answer. We know the right answer. Regardless of how or for whatever reason it comes death is always a tragedy. But if we are really honest I wonder if a more truthful answer might just be, “Yes, it would be different.” Yes, it would be different because it would help establish a sense of order, predictability, and ultimately control in a world in which those things are often difficult to find. Yes, it would be different because it would offer some reason, some way to understand this tragedy.

Every tragedy reminds us that we live in a world in which we are not in control. So when tragedy strikes – an AIDS death, an earthquake in Haiti, a hurricane in New Orleans, cancer, an automobile accident, a crime – we look for an explanation, an answer, some way to make sense of the event. If we can just find some reason for another’s suffering – their sins, choices, mistakes – we can feel a bit safer and more in control by knowing that we are not like that. We are different. We reassure ourselves with the knowledge, whether it is true or not, that we have not made the same mistakes. We have made better choices. We have not committed those same sins.

I do not think we necessarily do this because we are mean but because we are scared and know ourselves to be vulnerable to the changes and chances of life. We are not in control. So we blame the victims. We attribute retribution and punishment to God. This is, at least in part, why we hear things like the Haitians made a pact with the devil, Katrina was sent to cleanse New Orleans of its immorality, and AIDS is God’s punishment on homosexuality. That is exactly what those who come to Jesus in today’s gospel are doing.

They tell him about some Galileans who were murdered by Pontius Pilate while they offered their sacrifices to God. Jesus hears their implication. “Those Galileans must have been sinners, they must have done something to deserve this; something we have not done.” Jesus denies their logic. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you…. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”

“No, I tell you,” he says, “but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

These words sound like the distorted cause and effect that Jesus has just denied.  They sound like a threat from a demanding landowner, “Produce fruit or be cut down.” But that is not who God is and that is not how God deals with God’s people. God does not cut down life. God gives, sustains, and grows life. Rather, these words of Jesus are the words of a compassionate and caring gardener who seeks to nourish life, who is willing to get down on his hands and knees, to dig around in the dirt of our life, to water, even spread a little manure, and then trust that fruit will grow. This gardener sees possibilities for life that we often cannot see in our own or each other’s lives.

If the absence of fruit does not cause God’s retribution then neither does the presence of fruit cause God to reward. Even being sinless will not save us from suffering and tragedy. Jesus’ own life and death prove that. Fruit, for this gardener, is not a payment, a transaction, or a ransom for being permitted to live another day. It is instead the result of mutual love, relationship, and presence. It is the evidence of life.

We are right to hear urgency and necessity in Jesus’ call to repentance. This is not because God is vindictive but because life is short, precious, and sacred. It is not because God is retribution but because God is love. Jesus does not seem as concerned about why people die as why people do not live. Everyone dies but not all truly live. Too often and too easily we perish even before we die – through our fear, prejudices, judgments and condemnations, the need for control, the victimization of others, and our impoverishment of God.

Jesus’ call to repentance is the invitation to choose life. Live or perish. We choose which way we will turn. The reality is towers fall, hurricanes strike, disease kills, accident happens, and the Pontius Pilates of this world seek to destroy life. So we must decide where we place our trust – in the mechanics of a distorted cause and effect or in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who has observed our misery, heard our cry, and come to deliver us.

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An Invitation to a Holy Lent

Posted on February 12, 2010 | 3 Comments

This Wednesday, February 17, is for the Episcopal and many other churches Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. The following words come from the Proper Liturgy for Ash Wednesday:

“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church,
to the observance of a holy Lent,
by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;
and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

-Book of Common Prayer, p.265

This invitation is the doorway into Lent. Upon first hearing this invitation it is easy to think, “Well Lent is here again and these are the things I am supposed to do to get through Lent.” But what if it is not just about getting through Lent? Maybe the real question is, “How will Lent get through to me?”

We often think of Lent as a penitential season and it is. But far too often “penitential” is misunderstood and Lent often becomes nothing more than a season of blame, guilt, regret, and disappointment. That is not what Lent is about. In fact, the very first sentence of the Proper Liturgy for Ash Wednesday says, “Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made….” If that is God’s attitude then it should also be ours. St. Iranaeus, a bishop of the second century, said

“What God creates, God loves; and what God loves, God loves everlastingly.”

We need to hear these words and take them deep into ourselves. We need to hear these words as applicable to us, to those we love, to our friends and families, to those we do not like, and to those we do not even know or want to know.

The Lenten invitation is an invitation to the interior life, a call to discover and live into our true identity, our identity in God. Who we are in God is who we are. And who we are in God is a beloved daughter or son. We are no longer dependent on culture or even our own estimation for our identity.

That is where the self reflection comes in. Lent invites us to look at the ways in which we have allowed our fears, attitudes, behaviors, our accomplishments, successes and failures, as well as the opinions of others to tell us who we are, to separate us from God, ourselves, and each other. Lent invites us to repent of, fast from, and let go of those false identities and recover our true identity as God’s holy people made in the image and likeness of God.

(Re-posted from Lent 2009)

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Get Up Again

Posted on December 30, 2009 | 7 Comments

A monk came to Abba Sisoes and said:

“What should I do, Abba, for I have fallen from grace?”

And he replied, Get up again.”

The monk came back shortly after and said:

“What shall I do now, for I have fallen again?”

And the old man said to him,

“Just get up again. Never cease getting back up again!”

-  Sayings of the Elders

We fall – into sin, fear, sorrow, despair…. We can all name the many places and ways in which we have fallen. Sometimes we fall through our own doing, other times through the actions or words of another, and still other times simply by the changes and chances of life. For most of us the real question is not whether we will fall but whether we will get up again. The spiritual journey is one of continually getting back up again.

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