The kingdom of heaven has drawn near. January 26, 2020 The Rev. David M. Stoddart.

Matthew 4:12-23

I have good news and bad news for you this morning. The good news is that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near — very near. I’m not talking about something that happens after we die or at the end of time, because Jesus is not talking about that. The kingdom may reach its fulfillment in the age to come, but it has come close to us now. It’s not a place, it’s not a destination: it’s a state of being in which God reigns and the values God holds dear, the values Jesus embodies — love, justice, compassion, mercy, generosity, care for all that is broken and hurting — are all fully lived out. That kingdom is close at hand: it is all around us and it is within us. Right now. That is amazing good news.

The bad news is that the one thing stopping us from experiencing it is ourselves. God is not angry at us. God is not punishing us. God is not withholding the kingdom from us. When we don’t experience it, when we don’t feel at least some of the joy and peace of it, it’s because we do not choose it and we are not living it.

Hence the importance of that word repent, which as you should all know very well by now does not mean “feel really crappy about yourself” but rather “change your mind.” In the Gospel passage today, Jesus begins his public ministry, and that ministry is all about changing people’s minds so that they can live in the kingdom of heaven now.

I want to talk about living in the kingdom today because it is the core of Jesus’ teaching and because this Gospel tells us some things that are crucial if we are actually going to do that. The first is that if we want to experience the kingdom of heaven, we need to share the kingdom of heaven. Only God can make that kingdom happen, but God makes it happen through people. And God has designed it so that we receive it by giving it away. This is why Jesus starts by forming a community of people to give the kingdom away to others. Those fishermen called today, Simon, Andrew, James, and John, will grow in love and mercy as they learn to give love and mercy to others.  And that’s not just true for the twelve disciples. We see it throughout the Gospels. Remember Zacchaeus? He’s a tax collector: everyone hates him and he has no friends. He climbs a tree to see Jesus, and Jesus calls out to him and says, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today. And Zacchaeus is so moved that Jesus wants to spend time with him, so happy when Jesus shows him that kind of love. Is that when the kingdom happens to Zacchaeus? No: it’s when he responds by paying back all those he has defrauded and giving away half his wealth to the poor. Then, Jesus says, he is really living in the kingdom. Or remember the Gerasene demoniac, possessed by a legion of demons and living alone among the tombs. Jesus heals him, which is a great miracle. But is that the end of the story? No: Jesus says to the man, Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you. That’s when he starts to fully experience the kingdom. It’s the same story over and over again. Let me put it this way: there are no consumers in the kingdom of heaven. We can’t be passive recipients of it: we can only be active participants in it. We will receive love as we give love. Doing that, being part of the endless flow of divine love, is what it means to live in the kingdom

The second thing that is so striking about this Gospel is the urgency of it. Those fishermen leave their nets immediately to follow Jesus. That may seem incomprehensible to us, but it underlines how immediately available the kingdom is. We don’t need years of study, we don’t need to “get holy,” we don’t need to do anything other than change our minds and follow Jesus TODAY.

How do we do that? Well, we can begin by accepting the fact that the kingdom of heaven has already drawn near to us, that the Holy Spirit of God already dwells in us and wants to move through us, and that our participation in the kingdom affects every single thing we do. I often think of my car as my hermitage because  I can be quiet in it, thinking and praying as I drive. So when I read an article recently that referred to a book called,  My Monastery is My Minivan, it grabbed my attention. The book was written by a woman named Denise Roy, and the excerpt I read from it goes like this: “For two decades, I have broken bread, poured grape juice, preached, prayed, told stories, bestowed blessings, taken care of the sick, heard confessions. I have been a parent. These have been the sacraments of my daily life and, I suspect, yours. These are simple, sacred acts. These are how we mediate love, as we minister to our own little congregations — children, spouse, family, and friends.” Like this woman, we can see ourselves as kingdom people. If need be, we can re-envision or re-imagine our lives today. We are not isolated beings, separated from God, trying to earn our way into heaven when we die. We are God’s beloved, enfolded in Divine Love, redeemed by Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit seeking to flow through us each and every moment, in all that we do. We are participants in the kingdom. Believing that is repentance, believing that is changing our minds, and we can do that right now, immediately, in this service.

And everything flows from that. Generosity is a hallmark of the kingdom, and we can be generous today. We can go online and give some of our money away to help people in need today. There’s no reason to put it off until tomorrow. Mercy is perhaps the greatest sign of the kingdom. God continually pours mercy upon us, and there are people in our lives and in our world in need of mercy right now. We can show mercy to at least one of them today. There’s no reason to put it off until tomorrow. Acting immediately shows us in the clearest possible way how immediately available the kingdom is to us, how immediately real it is. And please hear me: the goal is not to be perfect: we’ll never be perfect. We don’t need to live perfectly: we need to live purposefully, as people who say yes to the Good News of Jesus. Because the kingdom of heaven has come near: it is closer to us than our own breath. And to experience it, we only need to live it. Today.

One of us. January 12, 2020 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Matthew 3:13-17

In 1873, a Belgian priest named Damien de Veuster arrived at the leper colony on Molokai, in the Hawaiian islands. Europeans had brought that horrible disease to Hawaii, and it proved to be devastating. So in 1868, the leper colony on Molokai was established and anyone with the disease was forced to go there: they were literally dumped in the surf and left to fend for themselves. Living conditions were squalid, and dead bodies were left to be eaten by dogs and pigs. It was in this hellish place that Fr. Damien came to serve. He built a church and a cemetery, and helped people construct real homes. He lived intimately with them, caring for them, eating with them, creating a genuine sense of community, and enabling people to live and die with dignity. The transformation he wrought was extraordinary. Eleven years into his ministry, he accidentally put his foot into scalding water — and felt nothing. He realized he had contracted the disease himself. At his next Mass, he said to his congregation, “Now I am truly one of you.” And he kept on ministering among them until his death from leprosy in 1889. There are many moving things about his story, but his words in particular have been haunting me as I have thought about this sermon: “Now I am truly one of you.”

Why do you suppose Jesus was baptized? John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance: the people who came out to be baptized by John were sinners who wanted to draw closer to God. So it would seem that Jesus is the one person in the world who should not be baptized. Matthew’s Gospel has already told us that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that he is the Son of God. John himself somehow knows this, so when Jesus arrives, John says, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? But Jesus insists and says that it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness. Commentators have pondered and debated that verse for centuries, but I think it says something of ultimate importance to us: the righteousness, meaning the faithful goodness, of God can only be fulfilled if Jesus joins all those sinners in the river and gets baptized right along with them. When he comes out of the water, he can say, “Now I am truly one of you.” And it’s in that moment of complete solidarity with broken and sinful people, that the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus like a dove and the voice from heaven says, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

Let me be clear: God is pleased that Jesus identifies and draws close to people not when they are attractive, respectable, and morally upright, but when they are hurting, sinful, and in need of mercy. Jesus is on the side of those who suffer, be it from sinful choices, disease, or just bad luck. And Jesus does not draw near to condemn or destroy. He lives the words of Isaiah we heard today, when the prophet speaks of God’s suffering servant: a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench. Jesus will spend the rest of his life caring for ordinary, flawed, and hurting people until he is crucified between two criminals. Even in death he is one with sinners. We talk about being baptized into Christ, and so we are: we share in his death and resurrection, we receive his Spirit. But before we can be baptized into Christ, he has to be baptized into us. Given his mission, his life’s work, to show that God is truly one with humanity, Jesus of all people most needs to be baptized.

So what does that mean for us? I look at you and you all look great: you’re clean, well-dressed, respectable, and generally successful. And, hopefully, I am reasonably presentable as well. But I have been a priest long enough, I’ve been a human being long enough, to know that outward appearances can be deceiving. I know that many of you are struggling and hurting, because you’ve told me. I know the ways I struggle and hurt. And we would be terribly mistaken if we thought that God just cares about our outward appearances or that God just loves us when we are good or successful or perfect. That belief has caused tremendous damage to people down through the ages. The Jesus who wades out into that river with all those sinners shows us that is where he wants to be: where we are most broken, most ashamed, most unpresentable. There is nothing so powerful as being fully ourselves, with all our suffering and all our sin, in the presence of the living Christ. That’s where the Holy Spirit within us wants to go, to where we are most in need. It allows God to begin the work of deep healing and forgiveness that brings new life. This is what the love of God enfleshed in Jesus does. That’s why we call him our Savior.

And this also speaks directly to the mission of the Church, which is to meet the pain of our world with the love of Christ. We do that in physical acts of mercy, of course, like feeding hungry people. But equally important are the ways we help one another emotionally and spiritually. Perhaps the greatest gift we can give to another person is to see them as they truly are, with all their flaws and sins, and accept them as they are, love them as they are. I find that just listening to people when they are hurting and sharing in their pain is Christ-filled and healing. I know how deeply important it has been for me when people listen to me like that, with compassion and kindness. How in God’s name did the church ever get into the business of judging people? It’s not our job to condemn, it’s our job to care, and to care like Christ — tenderly, mercifully, not breaking a bruised reed or quenching a dimly burning wick.

I encourage you this week to show Christ your least attractive self. I mean deliberately and consciously tell Jesus about your worst sins, and share with him where you are most hurting for whatever reason. And then let him love you. Let the Spirit begin to soothe you and renew you. Practice trusting that God loves you and accepts you right in that place of brokenness. The more we allow ourselves to experience such mercy, the more we, like Fr. Damien and countless believers down through the centuries, will extend that mercy to others. Because they need it. We need it. We are all in the water together, and, thank God, Jesus is right there with us.

All the gifts of the journey. January 6, 2020 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Matthew 2:1-12

Eric was six years old and, understandably, really, excited about Christmas. But being six meant that he had been around the block a few times, you know. He had a few Christmases under his belt. He knew the thrill of excitingly ripping off wrapping paper to discover a much hoped for toy. And he also knew the disappointment that came when one of those toys turned out to be clothes...socks, shirts, or worst of all, underwear. So this year was going to be different, armed with the knowledge that you never could be quite sure what exactly was in a gift box, he came up with a strategy. With every present he was given, he would pick it up carefully, hug it to his chest, and in all sincerity pray, “O God, please, please don’t let this be clothes!” Now even though as we get older we tend to appreciate the gift of clothes, my guess is that there is a bit of Eric in all of us. We may appreciate the practical and the necessary more than we used to, but there’s still a part of us that would really prefer something fun.

Now that Christmas is over and all the gifts have been opened, hopefully without many tears shed over clothes, we begin a new year, a new decade even. (Yes, I know that technically the decade begins until next year, but we’re in the 20’s so it makes sense to celebrate now.) And as we look to the future, it's natural to wonder what gifts the coming year might hold. Will there be toys or clothes for us? In other words, will this new year be filled with excitement, fun, and joy? Or will we get the stuff that we don’t really want...stuff that is less fun, disappointing, maybe even painful? We can’t be sure. But because we have been around the block a few times - with few new years under our belts, we probably already know that there will be both - joys and sorrows, toys and clothes. Now we may not pray, “O God, please don’t give me clothes.” But we all have our own unique strategies to guard or protect ourselves. It may be drinking wine or binge watch something on Netflix, eating sugar or staying “crazy busy.”  None of those things are inherently bad, but if they keep us from experiencing all that life holds then it can become an issue. For if we try to shield ourselves from getting the gift of “clothes,” the stuff we don’t really want, we will never really be open to the great gifts in life.

On this Epiphany Sunday, we remember the story of the wise men. Wise men who throughout their travels remarkably kept their hearts and minds open to receive the gifts the journey had to give. The first being the noticing of a star and recognizing it as a gift from the heavens signaling the birth of a new king of the Jews. So courageously they set on a journey without knowing exactly where it would lead them and what they might find. But they stay true during both the easy days of travel and the times when it was a slog. No doubt they experienced fatigue, bad weather, and setbacks as well as the peaceful nights under starry skies. And then upon finally reaching Jerusalem, what they must have thought was the end of their journey, they discover that, no, they’re not done. Jerusalem isn’t the place. There’s another road they must take to Bethlehem. So they keep going willingly opening all the gifts of their journey.

Surprised must be an understatement to describe how they felt when they actually found the one whom they sought. The Christ-child with his mother, not in any capital, regal palace, but rather in a backwater, humble home. Surely this isn’t what they had imagined, what they had hoped for when they set out on their journey. But they do not reject this unexpected gift. Instead they open themselves up to this encounter as they kneel and pay homage to the boy.

And then it was their turn to do the gift-giving: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Talk about getting both toys and clothes! Gold was a symbol of Jesus’ kingship - that’s cool and could be put in the toy category, for sure. Frankincense, a symbol of his priesthood - a bit more like clothes. But myrrh? Myrrh was basically embalming fluid. A symbol of death - Jesus’ death. Now, thankfully, I wasn’t there because if I was, I couldn’t have stopped myself from offering advice along the lines of, “How about you guys just give him the first two gifts and forget the third?” But that is not how life works. Nor is it how Jesus lived. We are invited, like Jesus, to open all of the gifts of this life, both the toys and the clothes. For Jesus was willing to embrace it all knowing that on his journey through this world he would both laugh and cry, rejoice and suffer. And by doing so he would create for us the path of abundant life.

So as we begin this new year, let us join the wise men on this path and set out on the journey even though we don’t know exactly where it will lead us, but staying open to the gifts that we find. Knowing that as we open the gifts of the day just as surely as there will be toys, there will also be clothes. There will be, if we are willing to enter into it, hellos and goodbyes, hopes and sadness, tears and laughter. But we need not fear or be on guard because in it all, in all of it, there will be Christ - who is the greatest gift of life.

God’s Yes. December 24/25, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Luke 2:1-20

You’ve probably noticed how Christmas comes around every year. Ready or not. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. It doesn’t really matter what’s going on in our personal lives or in the greater world, Christmas comes, year in and year out.

And with Christmas comes a particular message. We see in the stores we shop, in the music we listen to, in the mail we read, from all corners of life, it seems, the message is clear at this time of year we are to be happy, happy, happy! Which can make it hard if our lives are not totally in sync with all of that holiday cheer. When the picture is not so perfect. When instead of brimming with happiness, we may be tamping down chaos - the parts of our lives where there is struggle or fear or pain or sadness. I mean just the other day, I was part of a conversation with a group of people when someone emphatically declared,  “You know, 80% of people are faking it right now.”

Well whether or not that is true, what is true is that Christmas, the Christmas we celebrate here in church, is not about being happy, happy, happy all the time. It’s a different message altogether. A message that is a lot more real, more honest, and more true because Christmas is about life as it really is. Hear the good news - Jesus, God incarnate, God in the flesh, was born not in some sweet smelling, sanitized manger, but born into a mess. A literal mess, for sure, because birth itself is a messy ordeal even in the best of circumstances. But here comes poor Mary and Joseph, stuck in an unfamiliar town, hard-pressed to find appropriate lodging, forced to bed down in a place made for animals, labor through the night, and then use a feeding trough as a makeshift crib for their newborn son. It all sounds pretty messy to me. And then there’s the bigger picture. Jesus is born to a people living under the weight of the oppressive Roman empire. Born into an existence vulnerable to problems and pain. Born into the messiness that is life as we know it.

           

Amazingly, this is the world into which God chose to be born. A world where there has never been a perfect Christmas - so let’s just let go of that fantasy once and for all. For on Christmas, we celebrate Jesus’ birth not because it all happened perfectly. Just the opposite. On Christmas, we celebrate Jesus’ birth because everything wasn’t perfect. We celebrate that God chose to come to us, on purpose, in the very midst of imperfection. God didn’t hold back, love us from a distance and wait until the world got itself straight and in line. Rather God enters our world as it actually is - not as we would wish it to be. So whenever you are experiencing life as messy or imperfect take a moment to pause, look around, and pay attention because that is exactly the type of place where God comes and Jesus is born.

 

Far from being afraid of our messes, for the love of us, God runs into the messiness. Jesus comes to you and to me where we are, as we are, to give us exactly what we need - his very self. This is the gift of Christmas. The gift of God with us. The gift that is God’s Yes to us. For that baby lying in the manger will spend the rest of his life giving the gift of “Yes” to the world. Saying yes to the poor, yes to the hungry, yes to the sick. To the outcast, the lost, the prisoner, yes. Yes to the sinner. Yes to the suffering. Yes to you.  Yes to me. And that Yes means that God is always coming to us, always being born among us, always opening up life to us - God’s life of love, of acceptance, of healing, of forgiveness, of peace. God’s Yes is the ultimate gift that answers our deepest needs and our most profound desires. And everyone gets this Yes. No one is left out. No matter who you are. No matter what you have done or left undone. No matter what you believe or don’t believe. Jesus is God’s Yes to you and for you. It is pure gift.

So it is that on Christmas we are invited to receive this gift into our real lives, once again. To say yes to God’s Yes. To let the gift of Jesus’ life and love fill us now and always. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that the messiness of life goes away. It doesn’t. But something else happens, it is infused with grace. Although Jesus’ birth in a manger was messy, there was more to it than that. In the midst of all that imperfection there was beauty, there was holiness, and there was love. And so it is in our lives, too. In any state or manner God is with us saying, “Yes.” Yes to joy that goes deeper than superficial happiness. Yes to peace that surpasses all human understanding. Yes to hope that shines in the darkness.

This is why it is actually a really good thing that Christmas comes around every year whether our lives feel ready for it or not. It’s a good thing because we need to know of the gift that we are always being given, Jesus in the flesh - God’s Yes in our mess. Which, as the angel proclaims is, “Good news of great joy for all the people.” And on this day it is absolutely good news of great joy for us. Merry Christmas!