Light shines brightest in the dark. February 23, 2020 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Matthew 17:1-9

“Joyful, joyful, we adore thee.” It’s a great hymn set to great music, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” He composed it for the last movement of his last symphony, the Ninth. It’s a magnificent work, and Beethoven was the first major composer to use such a chorus in a symphony. He wrote the piece for a large orchestra, and it demanded 90 singers to balance the strength of that orchestra. It is widely considered to be one of Beethoven’s masterpieces. And he was almost completely deaf when he composed it. At the much anticipated premiere in Vienna in 1824, Beethoven could not conduct but he insisted on setting the tempos, even though he was deaf. So to honor his wishes the conductor allowed him to stand next to him and do that, but he instructed the musicians to ignore him. So as the conductor led the orchestra and chorus, Beethoven dramatically set the tempo to the music playing in his own mind. Eye-witness accounts describe him gesticulating wildly as the symphony reached its powerful climax, bounding up and down like a madman, one person wrote. But he didn’t hear the concluding chords: he didn’t hear anything. So when the piece ended, he kept on beating time in front of a stunned crowd until one of the soloists went over to him, stopped him, and gently turned him around to face the audience. And as they cheered they threw hats and handkerchiefs up into the air so that Beethoven could see the applause he couldn’t hear. 

It was a moment of great glory and terrible heartbreak at the same time — and thus so human. It never ceases to astonish me how radiant people can be when they are most vulnerable, whether it’s a mother comforting her sick, frightened child in a hospital room at night or civil rights marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma even though they see the men with clubs waiting to beat them on the other side. The light shines brightest in the dark. And I don’t think there is any way to understand the experience described in our Gospel today without remembering that. We give that event a fancy name, “the Transfiguration,” which might imply that we somehow have it all figured out. We don’t: it is wondrous, mysterious, and perplexing. One thing we can say for certain, though, is that in the Gospel narrative, it’s a glorious event that begins and ends in suffering. Right before this passage, Jesus has told his disciples that he will be crucified. Peter insists that can’t happen, and Jesus, in the strongest rebuke he ever gives anyone, says to Peter, Get behind me, Satan. Jesus is going to suffer and going to be killed, and there is no escaping it. Having made that clear, Matthew then recounts this remarkable story of Jesus transfigured, a story which then ends with these words: Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. There is no way to understand what happens on that mountain apart from the crucifixion. The light shines brightest in the dark, or as one modern songwriter puts it, “the shadow proves the sunshine.”

But like Peter, we might well prefer our glory straight up, undiluted by any pain or suffering. And clearly Jesus knew that most people would prefer that, which is why he orders his disciples to tell no one about this event until after he has been crucified and raised. If we just had this story without the crucifixion, we might be tempted to think that God’s glory is only reflected in sunny days and smiling faces. Don’t get me wrong: sunny days are great, and the world could use more smiling faces. But if as people of faith we think that is the primary or only way that God’s light shines, we’re going to miss something crucial — literally, we will miss the crux, the cross, of the matter. This is the problem with happy-clappy versions of Christianity, like the so-called “Prosperity Gospel,” which is always about winning and being successful and blessed. Such a faith cannot see God in weakness or failure.

Bur according to the New Testament, that’s exactly where God’s light shines the brightest. In John’s Gospel, the greatest moment of glory is the moment Jesus is lifted up on the cross. This is a message the Apostle Paul preaches relentlessly: We have this treasure in clay jars, he tells the Corinthians, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us (2 Cor. 4:7). My grace is sufficient for you, the Lord reveals to Paul, for power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). And so it is that on the road to the cross, in the shadow of suffering, when he is most vulnerable, Jesus shines like the sun.

I don’t know how God’s glory will be manifested in the world to come, but the story of the Transfiguration shows how it is manifested in this world. Two weeks ago in the Gospel we heard Jesus tell his followers, Let your light shine. The world needs the light of Christ to shine through us. But that light will not shine through our moral perfection. It will not shine through our self-righteous piety. It will not shine through our material success. It will shine through us only insofar as we give ourselves to love as flawed people in an imperfect world. And that really is awesome, because that’s what people yearn for: it’s in the darkness of everyday life that people most need to see the light. I can’t speak for you, but I don’t need to hear fairy tales about plaster saints who never struggled, who prayed effortlessly, and whose feet never seemed to touch the ground. I need real people through whom Christ really shines. I need people like my first spiritual mentor in college. He was a monk, and a very human one. He was a recovering alcoholic who could be difficult and tricky. He wasn’t a great preacher, he struggled at times with his vocation, and he made lots of mistakes. But he loved God and he loved me and he conveyed the light of  Christ to me at a dark time when I really needed it. Each one of us can shed that kind of light. Forget about perfection. Forget about keeping up pious appearances. Forget about avoiding struggle. Just show up: pray as best you can, believe as best you can, trust as best you can, love as best you can. The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

The musician Leonard Cohen was no Beethoven, but his song “Anthem” is moving and it speaks the truth:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

And that’s how the light shines through.

Bound together in relationship. February 16, 2020 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Matthew 5:21-37

Yikes! Is Jesus serious? Anger and harsh words, the moral equivalent to murder? Stray thoughts the same as adultery? Anything except the complete and honest truth, evil? Add to that the part about removing an eye or a hand or anything else that causes us to sin. What is Jesus talking about here? Let me tell you if he is looking for perfection then I’m out!

I’m probably not the only one. For if we separate Jesus’ words from Jesus himself then we are all in trouble - big trouble. But, thank God, these words are uttered from The Word made flesh. The one who is God with us, who seeks to heal and to save by entering into every nook and cranny of our lives. We fool ourselves if we think that following Jesus is just about following certain rules of behavior. I didn’t murder anyone today, I didn’t commit adultery, I didn’t tell any outright lies. That’s not what Jesus wants for us. Jesus didn’t come into our world to make us “good boys” and “good girls.” Following the rules isn’t the goal here it’s only a means to the real goal God has for each and every one of us, and that is life - full, rich, abundant life.

But how is taking some commandments from the Old Testament and upping the ante on them really a means to life? It’s a means to life because ultimately this isn’t about creating stricter rules but cultivating real relationships. The first one being the relationship with ourselves. Jesus is calling us to live authentic lives. To live in such a way that our outward actions match up with our inward truth. For there is no life when we are divided and fragmented - when we are one person on the inside and another on the outside. Real relationships always begin with honoring the truth of who we are which then enables us to honor the truth of another.

For starters that means that we are to treat each other with respect which includes, but is not limited to, the way we talk to and about one another. We are called to seek reconciliation not just with those we have a problem with, but with the ones who have a problem with us. We are to cease from objectifying and dehumanizing others - which goes way beyond the sexual realm. And we are definitely not to treat others as disposable or without value. That’s the heart of what Jesus is getting at when he speaks about divorce. Because, remember, this is a time where the man held all the power to keep or end a relationship. A woman was at her husband’s mercy and if he divorced her, she became extremely vulnerable - economically, socially, physically. Jesus makes it clear that no one, in any kind of relationship, is to be treated as a throwaway. And then there’s the part about swearing oaths which, if you think about it, the whole reason we swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is because we know that in our daily lives people can and do lie. That’s not the way we are to operate. In order for relationships to flourish there must be honesty. We are called to speak the truth in love.

And that is exactly what Jesus is doing here - speaking truth to us in love. Now, granted, he is using extreme language but that’s because what he is talking about is extremely important. The truth that all relationships matter and when it comes to our relationship with God it is never independent from others. For what we do at the altar of God, the gifts we bring, are bound together with the relationships we have with one another. 

Which brings me to the Passing of the Peace. Contrary to what it may look like, the part of our service where we pass the peace with one another is not the church’s equivalent to a 7th inning stretch. No, it really is an essential part of our worship because the Passing of the Peace doesn’t happen out of the blue. It comes immediately after the confession and absolution. The time where we confess that we have fallen way short in our relationships, ask for God’s mercy, and then hear the Good News of God’s forgiveness. At that moment we are at peace with God. But that’s not enough because, again, our relationship with God is not just a couple relationship, it’s communal. Having made peace with God, we now share that peace with others and, when necessary, to make peace with another. Here’s one of my confessions, there were times in my previous church - not here of course - when a relationship with a parishioner would become strained. On those occasions I was compelled to seek that person out during the peace with the intention of letting my hard feelings go. Sometimes that worked better than others, but the intention was there and the attempt was made. So it is that once we have peace with God and with one another we come to the altar offering the gift of ourselves, our souls, our bodies and in turn receive the body and blood of Christ in communion with one another. 

This is the abundant life that Jesus wants for us. If it feels almost impossible to do all that Jesus is saying that is exactly the right response. Jesus’ words are meant to take away any confidence we have in our own individual goodness. As Paul in the letter to the Romans puts it we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). Once we really know that we are set free to turn from ourselves to God. Instead of worrying about following the rules we can surrender our whole selves to God’s Spirit who seeks to transform us and all of our relationships so that we might have life in Christ. For Jesus didn’t come to make us good. Jesus came to make us alive.   

You are the light of the world. February 9, 2020 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Matthew 5:13-20

You are the salt of the earth. 

You are a city built on a hill. 

You are a ragtag assortment of fishermen, peasants, tax collectors, prostitutes, and ordinary, sinful people. 

You are the light of the world.

When I hear these words from the Sermon on the Mount, I cannot help but think of the people Jesus is addressing. He is not speaking to the priests in the temple or some spiritual elite, if there is such a thing. He is talking to his disciples and the crowds that have surrounded them, a hodgepodge of humanity. And he speaks such exalted words to them. You are the light of the world. You.

And since those words are also addressed to us . . . we are the light of the world, the motley assortment of people we are. I won’t ask for a show of hands, but I’d be curious to know if any of you ever think of the light shining in you. I wonder if you ever want to shine. And if we do want to shine, what would that mean? How would we do it? We could be super religious, go to church every Sunday, get involved in all sorts of church activities. Would that do it? We could volunteer out in the community — in hospitals, schools, soup kitchens, the jail. Would that do it? We could become activists and work for social justice, promoting policies that help the poor and disadvantaged among us. Would that do it? We know our righteousness has to somehow exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, but what does that mean? We are ordinary, sinful people, and Jesus says that light shines in us — or at least it can. 

And I think Paul shows us how. He is writing today to the Corinthians, a fractious and unruly congregation if ever there was one. And Paul says to them, When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. Paul could have focused on the resurrection, and certainly that is essential to his Gospel. He could have made life in the Spirit the centerpiece of his teaching, and certainly that is a crucial component of it. But Paul makes the crucified Lord the center of everything. Why? Because it reveals like nothing else can the nature of God’s love, a love which is at once so vulnerable and so powerful. Jesus goes through life unguarded and defenseless: he encounters the pain of the world with an openness and tenderness that is transformative. How Jesus died on the cross is the just ultimate expression of how he lived on earth. And if Paul is going to proclaim the Good News of Jesus in a way that is faithful to Jesus, then he must show that same kind of love. And so that’s what does. He doesn’t just teach about the crucified Lord, he knows him and lives him. And so he comes among the Corinthians in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. Paul is real, he’s vulnerable, he’s transparent — and the light of Christ shines through him.

One of the things we learn from the New Testament is that outwardly perfect people, people who seemingly have it all together, people like the scribes and Pharisees, often don’t shed very much light. It’s the other people, the broken people, who shine. And that has been true in my experience as well. One of the people who has most deeply influenced me was a man named Andrew Wissemann. Andrew was a retired bishop and he served as my spiritual director when I lived in Massachusetts. He was a bishop and so had been “successful” in the church, but that’s not why I loved him. For years he made it safe for me to open up to him because he was so open with me. He freely shared his own struggles and failures over the years. He had weaknesses and quirks, and he knew it: he could laugh at himself. He understood, in a world that prizes technical skills and the ability to make money, how useless priests can feel because he had felt it himself. He once told me that clergy are really just the “offscouring” of society. He was a prayerful and learned man, but he was very honest about the doubts and uncertainties he felt. As he approached his own death, he would describe being awake at three in the morning and looking up into the darkness and saying, “I’m planning on resurrection, Lord. I hope you are, too.” He was real and vulnerable and transparent — and the light of Christ just shined through him. He accepted me and loved me as I really am. I miss him.

If we hear this Gospel today as an exhortation to achieve perfection and somehow produce light for God, then we will certainly fail. It’s not our light that matters, but the light of Christ shining through us. And it’s not our perfection that transmits it, but our transparency. And if we are going to be transparent enough for the Christ light to shine through us, then we need to be real and vulnerable. We are all of us flawed and wounded people. And we are all of us forgiven and loved unconditionally by God. If we are vulnerable enough to receive such love and vulnerable enough to share it, then divine light will pour through us. So I urge us all to practice compassion: practice receiving it and practice giving it. Every person we encounter this week, every single person, will be flawed and wounded. Every person we encounter this week, every single person, will need love. And to love them, we don’t need to be perfect — we’ll never be perfect — we just need to be real enough and vulnerable enough. And if we are, the light of Christ will shine. It may happen while we are taking care of a sick child; it may happen while we are advocating for humane immigration policies. But as long as we are open to it, the light of Christ will shine through us. And that light changes lives, as I know so well.

In essence, I’m asking all of us to take the cross seriously. Like Paul, we need to know Jesus Christ and him crucified. The one thing we can offer the world, the one thing we can offer the people we meet each day, is the real and vulnerable love of Christ. If we don’t let down our defenses and show that kind of love, who else will? Who else can we count on? 

We are the light of the world. Let it shine.

                                                                                          

We don’t ring alone: A Reflection by Carolyn Voldrich

As hand bell ringers, we don’t play alone and can’t practice by ourselves. We need each other playing together to hear the entirety of the piece and figure out where our bell notes fit within the whole. So there is a good deal of trust that needs to happen in bell choir…trust that everyone shows up to rehearse, that we do our focused  best, that we don’t give up and leave, that our director knows how to lead the rehearsal.

Playing bells takes me out of my comfort zone. Feeling in control and relying on myself is how I function best, along with avoiding mistakes at all cost (sound familiar?).  Relying on others is always risky.  And yet… I can’t play alone, and my mind and spirit are made whole because I do this bell choir thing on a regular basis. Totally crazy, right?

So here are steps that help me endure bell choir – and as it turns out – make it possible to live a somewhat sane life:

Show up: Get to rehearsal, get out of bed, be on time.  Make sure courage and sense of humor come along.

Listen and follow your director/Director. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or wonder what the heck is going on.

Be brave, willing to fail, and know you are not alone. Pray for strength to do this!

Be flexible and ready to play any part that is needed.

Pay attention to your own part/life and resist the urge to comment on anyone else’s.

Mistakes happen – move on! Be OK with not being perfect, and strive to do better next go around.

Give thanks to God for your fellow ringers and those who travel the journey with you.

_________________________________________

My fellow bell ringers in the COOS Canterbury Bells and our fearless leader, Tom Dixon, are just the best. How lucky am I to share in the disarming discomfort of creating beautiful music with them!

You can hear us play next on Sunday, February 23, at the 9:00 and 11:15am services.

Showing Up: The Holy Act of Presentation. February 2, 2020 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Luke 2:22-40

Did you know today is a feast day? And, no, I’m not talking about the mass quantities of food that will be consumed during the Super Bowl this evening. What I am talking about is that today, February 2nd, is a feast day in the Church known as the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple. It’s a celebration of one of the major events in Jesus’ life which makes it a principal feast in the Church.

Jewish law prescribed that forty days after the birth of a first-born son the child be consecrated as “holy to the Lord.” And so Mary and Joseph, being faithful Jewish parents, make the trek from their home to Jerusalem so that Jesus can be presented in the temple. By all accounts this  was going business as usual until, that is, a man named Simeon swooped in and scooped up the child Jesus into his arms. 

Simeon, Luke tells us, was a “righteous and devout” man to whom the Holy Spirit had revealed that he would see the Messiah, the Christ, the one whose name means salvation, before his death. Which meant that every day for weeks, months, years, probably even decades, Simeon waited and wondered. “Will this be the day? The day that I will see God’s promise of salvation?” Surely during those years of expectation there had been some hopeful prospects - prophets, teachers, healers, and the like. Simeon had seen them all come...and go. Yet he hung in there. Simeon kept on showing up day after day, year after year, with openness, expectancy, hopefulness that God was at work even if he couldn’t see it.

We know what that’s like, don’t we? Who among us has not lived for a time in that place of anticipation - waiting for life to change, for grief to subside, for a prayer to be answered? Hoping for joy to return, for direction to come, for healing to happen? In fact, I bet even today each one of us has shown up here holding in our hearts some sort of hope, some kind of need, some degree of expectation just like Simeon who on that one fine day, after all those years, was led by God’s Spirit to the temple.

How wonderful it must have been to hold the long-awaited Messiah in his arms, to see God’s salvation with his very own eyes, and then to be set free to go in peace. Although it must of felt to Simeon that he had been the one waiting lo those many years for the Messiah to finally show up what if it was really Jesus who had been waiting for Simeon all along? No doubt that Simeon thought it was he who was presenting the child Jesus to God that day. But I wonder if perhaps it really was Jesus who was actually the one doing presenting of the man Simeon to his Father in heaven? And not just on the one day in the temple, but maybe Jesus was presenting him on all the days of his life. All those days that Simeon showed up with hope, with need, with expectation and went to bed night after night continuing to trust God.

That is hard work and faithful worship. Hanging in there even when nothing seems to change. Keeping the faith when there’s more questions than answers. Staying in relationship when nothing is clear. That is showing up. The showing up that Simeon did. The showing up that we are all called to do. For when we show up we are engaged in the holy act of presentation.

At our 8:00 service in the Rock Chapel we use the Rite I liturgy for Holy Eucharist. Now as you may know, all Rite I services use traditional language like thee and thou along with wording that reflects the religious sensibilities of the 16th century Anglican Church. And there is a part of the Rite I that resonates deeply inside of me. It happens when the celebratant is praying over the bread and the wine. The amazing mercies of God have just been recounted. And then come the words, And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee. Just as a side note, much of what we pray in our prayer book comes directly from the Bible and this is no exception. This part comes from a verse in the book of Romans (12:1) where Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Showing up to God with hope, trust, and faith along with all of our needs, doubts, and failures is spiritual worship. It is the act of presenting our selves, our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice to God. A God who never rejects such an offering, would never say something like, “Yuck! Don’t give me that. Clean yourself up first!” Rather we present real and true selves to a God who is love, who is mercy, who is safe. A God who wants all of who we are to show up in the temple of our lives and be presented. For that is the means through which God fulfills his promise of salvation to Simeon, and to us.

We may think that we are the ones who are doing all the hard work of showing up and then waiting for God. But the truth is actually the opposite. God is the one who is always present, always with us, always showing up and waiting for us - waiting expectantly, hopefully, with anticipation that today will be the day that we are able to see more fully God’s promise of salvation. Salvation that is being fulfilled right before our very eyes. So that upon seeing it our lives are transformed, healed and made whole, and we are set free to go in peace to share the salvation of God with the world.