We are adrift in perplexing times.  My parents, stalwart Republicans to the core, would be aghast that a president of this nation would be cozying up to a former KGB killer running the Kremlin – especially a Republican!  That we would take his side over that of NATO.  That this president would believe the KGB guy over our own intelligence agencies.  That we would be adrift at sea with a would-be king.

Yes, after the Orange Felon put the kibosh on the Manhattan congestion pricing tolls, he posted a picture of himself sporting a golden crown with the words, “Long Live the King.”[1]

To which the governor responded that New Yorkers were under a king over 250 years ago and had to kill a lot of British soldiers to get rid of him; and we will not be bending the knee to one now.

Yes, in these disturbing times, what is the way forward?  Or are we just too numbed to contemplate anything more that the fetal position under the covers?

But revelation does come.  Maybe not on any mountain.  But if we are listening, there are moments of inspiration, especially in times of extremity – if we but wake up.  When we’re at our wit’s end – revelation.

When I was adrift, an academic disaster at Cal State Long Beach, I was lying out on the grass soaking up some rays, deep in distress.

Coming across the green was an old friend, Dan, who had been a fairly close friend in junior high.  We began catching up on news.  He was now an American history major.  I was a floundering geology major.  As a new transfer I had not made any friends yet.

Out of the blue, he asked me how was my love life.  “Nothing going on,” I responded.  I was lonely and despondent.

He suggested that I might want to attend the Methodist campus group, Wesley Foundation.  To which I replied that I had had it with the church – just a bunch of social climbing hypocrites. 

He said that there were some “mighty fine-looking women” who were part of the group.  “When do they meet?” I asked.

My life in those brief, shining moments was transfigured, exactly as Christ’s.

Revelation!  I was at my wits’ end – then my burning bush moment.  Bright and shining — transfiguration!  And I never looked back.

All true, such Spirit-filled revelation and transfiguration leads to God – transforming life-enhancing Torah values and Gospel goodness.  That’s certainly where mine led.  That’s where Jesus will lead.

The scene on the Mountain of Transfiguration is the culmination of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain – a restatement of the Beatitudes.

This passage from Luke for the last Sunday in Epiphany, Transfiguration Sunday, is a summing up of the teaching of Jesus, placing it in the Torah and prophetic fabric of Israel.  It is Moses and Elijah who join that assemblage on the Mount of Transfiguration and Revelation.

And of course, true to form, the disciples are completely dumbfounded.  Peter wants to enshrine the moment.

“Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’ – not knowing what he said.”

That’s not the plan, not the point of the moment.  Certainly not Jesus’ plan.  As a cloud envelops them, there is that voice, the same sentiment spoken at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my Son, my Chosen,” with the add-on, “listen to him.”

Yes, Listen!

The mission is to come down off the mountain and enter the messy trials and suffering of those down below — Of us down below.  It is in those struggles — our struggles — that all shall be revealed.  Even on a cross.

I’ve been reading a memoir by a woman who came out of an evangelical expression of the faith.  An expression she now rejects.  After her experience with her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and her suffering the effect of the condemning theology of that brand of Christianity, she broke free.  It’s a marvelous story of transfiguration as she frees herself from cult-like, destructive religion.[2]

Anna Gazmarian was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2011.  While the diagnosis provided an explanation of the mind-wrenching swings of depression and manic activity, it created real problems in her evangelical community.  The stigma attached by her church, interpreted theologically, condemned her as lacking faith, or worse, demon-possessed.

If she would just pray, read the Bible more, all would be okay.  The condition was her fault; the bromides of her “friends” were no better than those of Job’s “friends.”

“Always look on the bright side of life,” that was the theology of her mother and those in her church community.  If one only had a sufficiently strong faith, one could will cheerfulness.  To do otherwise was sin and rebellion against God.  The nostrum was more Bible reading and prayer.  Little thought that such severe depression was an organic disease of the brain.  Nothing to do with demons or Satan.

Anna writes, “For people living with bipolar disorder, a single thought can turn into obsession.  Racing thoughts become repetitive, sometimes moving from subject to subject, almost out of nowhere.  What stands out for those with bipolar disorder is that these thoughts are unceasing.  Every coping skill imaginable, like breathing[3] exercises or long walks, fails to provide an end.  You become trapped in your own mind.”[4]

It was only later that Anna recognized that her faith rested in the decision to get the real help she needed – a compassionate psychiatrist who understood and could treat her affliction.

After Anna is sufficiently stable, she decides to try college one more time.  She had already suffered through four attempts.  At Hope College, a more permissive Christian environment, she ends up in a poetry class.  Her guidance councilor felt this might be a good fit for Anna. 

This became a moment of transfiguration for Anna.  Sitting in the professor’s office, Anna announced that she wanted to become a poet. The professor, Dr. Glidsan saw through to Anna’s soul, to the true gifts in her writing. 

The professor threw her hands up in the air, exclaiming, “You already are one.  I think you should be a creative writing major.”[5]

Anna is not sure what the professor sees in her. 

“Dr. Glidsan placed her hand on her chin.  ‘You notice the small details,’ she said.  ‘You notice things that a lot of people miss or ignore.  Those details should be like the best whisky we keep on a shelf, only to bring out when people come over.  When you write your poems, you bring out those details.  That’s you.  That’s your vision.  I want you to write what only you can write.’”[6]

Anna sat there transfixed in a moment of pure Grace as she tried to keep the mascara from flowing down her cheeks.  Transfiguration – bright shining as of the Glory of God.  Right there in that professor’s office.

Days later, when Dr. Glidsan introduced the class to Elizabeth Bishop and her poem on loss, “One Art,” Anna came to another epiphany.   Losing as an art, is one that could be mastered.

Memories flooded in as Anna recalled all she had lost.  In her diagnosis she had lost her sense of self.  She’s lost her faith.  She’d lost her home.  She’s lost friends.  She’d lost her boyfriend Hunter.  She’d lost her belief in the world as a safe place.  So many losses.

She gasped as classmates turned to stare.  As one girl handed her a tissue, she knew something about loss.

In retrospect, Anna could see that her time at Hope was a beautiful moment of Grace.  Hope was different than what she had imagined college to be.  It didn’t quite fit the slick promotional brochures she had read.  Anna admits that her experience wasn’t “brochure-worthy, it was still meaningful, even beautiful.”  She continues, “moments of grace can be hard to come by, and even when they do come, the feeling can be fleeting…After years of searching, I was surprised to discover, in the eyes of my teacher and in the words of those poets, that I’d already been found.  That here were things only I could say.  That all the little details, the things that mattered most to me, might also matter to God.’”[7]

“In reading and writing poetry, I no longer needed to think of every bad thing in life, every loss, as being part of God’s plan.  Rather, I started to see my losses as things that could be named, honored, and, through art, brought into the present, transformed.”[8]

In the small poetry workshop groups of threes the professor set up, Anna found the freedom to share her struggles and hopes.  And there found an acceptance she had never felt in her faith communities.  Grace abounding!

She would later meet a young fellow who completely accepted her even with her mental health struggles.  This, all through a madcap adventure involving a garden gnome purchased on a lark at Walmart.  An improbable grace-filled journey leading to marriage and the birth of a son.  Read it.  It is nourishing soul food for Lent.  Such is how Easter arrives.

Transfiguration can be a sudden change or it can creep up on one as if on little cat’s feet.

What we celebrate through this season of Epiphany is the transfiguration of the Church from the timidity of cowering in an upper room into a bold, prophetic expression of God’s will for us all.  A kin-dom that binds us together.  “In Christ there is no north or south, no east or west” – all brothers, sisters we.  And in the Together is God.  We, like Christ on the Mountain of Revelation, like a chance occasion on a college campus green, like an appointment at a professor’s office — Transfiguration!  Amen.

[1] Benjamin Oreskes, “‘Long Live the King’: Trump Likens Himself to Royalty on Truth Social,” New York Times, February 20, 2025.

[2] Anna Gazmarian, Devout: A Memoir of Doubt (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2024).

[3] Op cit., 34.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Op cit. 82

[6] Op cit.

[7] Op cit., 83-84.

[8] Op cit., 85.

March 2, 2025
Last Sunday after Epiphany
Transfiguration Sunday


Exodus 24:29-35; Psalm 99;
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

“At Our Wits’ End”

This Sunday we approach two significant events:  The celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday and the Eastern Orthodox celebration of Epiphany, as manifest by the turning of water into wine.  Both, events of Epiphany.  Both occasions manifest the mighty presence of the divine.

Too often, when it comes to the end result of fine wine, what we so often end up with is sour vinegar, or in the case of one story, just plain old water.

When I was priest at St. Andrew’s in Petersburg I received a call one day from my friend, Fr. Gary, priest at St. John’s in Ketchikan.  A reasonably sized city down the coast of the long strip of Alaska along the west of British Columbia.

They had a seamen’s center there and the director Bob wanted to get up to Juneau.  Fr. Gary’s request was, did we have any place he could stay overnight while he waited for the ferry to leave Petersburg?

I told Fr. Gary that I had a couch in my office that pulled out to be a bed – just for such occasions.  He could stay there overnight.  He would need to keep to himself and be quiet because that Tuesday evening we had an AA group that met in the church.

Bob responded that would be wonderful – he would be able to make his meeting for the week.

The following Sunday when one of our altar-guild women was preparing for communion, she came over to me with a puzzled look.  She was perplexed that the wine didn’t look or smell like wine.  Being a tea- teetotaler, she asked me to taste it.

She was right.  It was water.  Our guest had turned the wine into plain old water.

I told Fr. Gary that he had given this fellow poor instruction.  The water supposed to be turned into wine.  His seminary education was greatly lacking.

Unfortunately, we humans are very adept in turning fine wine into vinegar and worse.

This is true of our heritage found in the Declaration of Independence and in the Bill of Rights.  Dr. King so eloquently urged us to live up to the promises of our founding documents in his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Poor People’s March in 1968.

Unfortunately, the remnants of prejudice and Jim Crow continue to turn the fine wine of those ideals into vinegar for far too many – the poor, people of color, those in impoverished rural America and in our inner cities.

I share the journey of Bettina Love, now a professor at Teachers’ College at Columbia University.[1]

She tells of her public-school education in Upstate New York.  She writes of her experience as a young girl and that of her friend Zakia, whom everyone called Zook – both were Black. 

Growing up in the eighties and nineties, they were “labeled disposable because of our zip code, test-scores, and Black skin.”

Her friend, who finally managed to transcend a troubled childhood, told Bettina this shameful thing.  “She told me that through thirteen years of schooling, she could not recall a single teacher who ever took an interest in her or positively impacted her life.”[2]

But as a gifted athlete, Zook could remember numerous coaches who supported her.  She could still rattle off their names.

But not one of her teachers ever took an interest in her! 

The fine wine of our public education turned to vinegar, worse than just water.  The American dream gone rancid. Failure is also an occasion for an Epiphany.  A wake-up call.

Epiphanies can be understood as eye-opening experiences.  Ah-ha moments.  We have them all the time.  If we’re awake to what’s going on around us.  If we have a care.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Miracle of Water into Wine was the ah-ha tip-off that Jesus was not any ordinary guest at that wedding.  Something much more was going on.

And why was this incident so central to the memory of the gospel writer and the early church?  It was precisely because the spirit of the Risen Christ continued in their midst to turn their meager efforts into fine wine.  Fine wine to the Glory of God.

We celebrate Dr. King’s birthday because he turned the rancid vinegar of failed promises and Jim Crow into the fine wine of a vision of Grace for all God’s Children.

And that’s where we come in.  The Holy Spirit is NOW HIRING.  Seeking recruits for the Jesus Movement to carry on the work of our Baptismal Promises – our Baptismal General Orders, if you will.

We are the making of fine wine – fulsome with a robust bouquet of rich flavor.  The sort of followers Jesus needs at this moment.

All about us we see such folks in action.  For the Epistle of James tells us that is where the vintage shines forth.

Like my friend who is going through his closet up in Bakersfield gathering up everything he has not worn in a while or grown out of and getting it to a church that will take it down to the Rose Bowl to be distributed to those who have lost everything.  Fine wine, though he’s now a teetotaler. 

The ordinary stuff of H2O turned into a delicious drink by those who every week work at our San Bernardino Food Bank, distributing the stuff of nourishing meals at St. John’s Episcopal Church.  And those working our garden at St. Francis, providing the fresh vegetables from seeds now being planted this week.  And water is definitely being turned into that nourishment.

It is those folks working now to elect candidates who will restore dignity and truth to our politics – working to mitigate the potential harms of this incoming administration — headed by a criminal with the morals of an alley cat.  Surrounded by a bunch of incompetents and billionaires out to line their pockets at our expense.

One thing my late friend John Cobb had said of the first iteration of the Orange Felon – John mentioned what was good about his election – first, there will be no lack of work for those of us who believe in an America that works for all.  Secondly, he said that a whole lot more folks will now be paying attention to what their government is doing.  Yes!  And to the Fox News political hacks, billionaires and incompetents running it.

This Sunday let us celebrate two occasions of Epiphany – first, that each of us is offered the opportunity to become the finest wine as we yield to the promptings of the Spirit.  Secondly, for the life and ministry of Dr. King who, following Jesus, has blazed the trail.

The Spirit is now hiring. May we all have such Epiphanies and put our shoulders to the plow and don’t turn back.  Don’t turn back.  Amen.

[1] Bettiina L. Love, Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2023).

[2] Ibid, 1.

January 19, 2025
2^nd Sunday after Epiphany

Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10;
I Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

“Now Hiring”

When I was inducted into the Army, we were issued what were known as General Orders.  These were standards and directives as to what we should be about if we became separated from our unit or our leadership was killed.  These were to be memorized without fail.

Common sense directives such as: stand my post.  Secure all government property.  If isolated from my unit, report to the first officer I contact.  Obey any special orders given.  If captured, use any means to escape.  All common sense. 

When we go through the waters of baptism, we all make a pledge similar to those general orders – General Orders of the Jesus Movement.  We make that pledge or the sponsors on our behalf of the baptismal candidate make that pledge.  As adults we accept those promises as our own upon the rite of confirmation.

What are they?

In part, they are our promises in the Baptismal Covenant.  They are what we pledge or our sponsors pledge on our behalf if we are infants:

It is to resist evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.

It is to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.

It is to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.

These are our General Orders for all of the Jesus Movement.

In short it is to be a living version of Gospel Goodness.  As one mentor said, “You may be the only version of the Gospel that another person sees.”  Be about living it!

So let me begin with the pledge to resist evil.

The devastating wildfires throughout Southern California have not only brought out the best in many of our citizens, they have also brought out the worst.

Evil is the only word I can use for those demented souls who have added to our misery by setting more fires.  Arsonists are the worst of the worst in my book. 

Right up there with them are looters and those who have over the years stolen hundreds of fire hydrants from the streets of Los Angeles.

Yet, the Orange Felon is now trash talking about the dry hydrants in Pacific Palisades.  “Here we have a president-elect mouthing off and showing his ignorance in a barrage of vindictiveness and insensitivity as thousands of people fled their lives and hundreds of homes blazed into ashes.”[1]  SHAME. SHAME. SHAME.  We resist such utter nonsense and call it out.

Hoarders and price gougers rate a third place in my book of infamy.

Resist.  Resist.  Support those arresting these perpetrators and those who would bring them to the bar of justice.  Support those who would bring therapy to these demented souls.

Resist the Orange Man, now the Orange Felon as of this Friday when Judge Merchan pronounced sentence and lowered the gavel. 

And a big NO to the Orange Felon, Hezbollah did NOT cause the January 6th riots.  You did!

Today, I open the Times to discover that according to the Orange Man, we have to get rid of all Mexicans because they are bringing disease into the country.[2]  Surprising, that they must be the only ones.  Who would’ve thunk it???

We have a far greater disease, the disease of a jaded public that has by-and-large given up on our democracy.  Certainly, given up on rational thought.  Our founders clearly stated that the fate of this republic was dependent upon an educated electorate.

Resist easy answers and platitudes.  Resist demagogy and the blame game.  No – Hilary’s emails did not cause the L.A. Inferno.

Turn to the Light.  Remain constant in the Breaking of the Bread, the prayers and the fellowship with those in the Jesus Movement.

Every morning before I throw back the covers, I grab my 3 X 5 card and ask the Spirit to lead me in what I can do for the benefit of myself, for the benefit of my community, for the benefit of the greater creation.

Within minutes that card is full on one side, and often half filled on the other side.  This is what I call the discipline of the 3 by 5 card.  It is only possible through those few moments of prayer, what I call spiritual daydreaming.

Begin the intentional discipline of that 3 by 5 card and you will be useful to the Jesus Movement.

Support those who have engaged the battle – for, my friends, we are in deep spiritual contest.  This is for all the marbles, the soul of our nation – the soul of the Jesus Movement.  The call is clear: Which side are you on?  Lackadaisical will not cut it.  Get off the couch.

Yield to your inner yearning to be part of some cause, some duty greater than yourself.  In dying to yourself you will live.

I thought of a dinner out. But now I’m sending that small amount to the Red Cross.  Won’t be much, but combined with the gifts of others also moved by the Spirit, it will add up.

The Spirit shouts, “Go and do thou likewise.”  Do something — anything.

As St. Augustine says, “Faithfulness in the little things is a BIG thing.”

Finally, prayfully join with others who have been moved by Gospel Goodness to be Cooperators with God for the thriving of the “Least of These” here on earth. 

Here’s just one example of how these baptismal General Orders work out when put into practice.  When they become a sacramental reality of a deep spirituality.

I lift up a small college in Kentucky, Berea College.  Begun by folks who may be a bit more theologically conservative than me, they, in fact, are doing the Lord’s work better than I.

Their students from rural Appalachia and around the world graduate with little or no student debt.  They draw from the most underserved, impoverished communities with poor schools and bleak futures, lifting these students out of poverty, out of lack of privilege, and often from families of violence and addiction – raising them out of dust – to be people of worth.  God’s Grace incarnate.

These people at that institution are Gospel Goodness.  They work from the beginning with applicants to make college a reality.  No matter what the starting point.  As their director of philanthropy puts it, when it comes to those woefully ill-prepared, those normally excluded from higher education, “For our students, it doesn’t matter where you start; it matters where you finish.”

The job of all at Berea College is to get every possible student across that graduation platform.  And they do it well, better than most.  Gospel Goodness, indeed.  These people are definitely following their baptismal General Orders.

Some come to me wanting a small, private ceremony to ensure that through baptism preformed as if it’s some magic act, that their child will be protected from hellfire and the evil one.

Folks, that’s not how it works.  Baptism is the initiation into a journey, a journey, which if taken with utmost seriousness, prayer and action, will lead to a life blessed with Gospel Goodness.  In the end, wrapped up in the loving arms of their maker.

You will be led beyond your comfort and convenience zones, sometimes far, far beyond.  You may end up in “good trouble, necessary trouble.”  Holy trouble!

As St. Paul puts it:

“Ever dying, here we are alive. Called nobodies, yet we are ever in the public eye.  Though we have nothing with which to bless ourselves, yet we bless many others with true riches.  Called poor, yet we possess everything worth having.”[3]

Everything of worth – that is the Gospel Goodness to which we of the Jesus Movement are drawn.  It is where the General Orders of Baptism lead.  May it be found to be true for all of us.  Amen.

[1] George Skelton, “Trump mouths off about fire hydrants amid L.A. inferno,” Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2025.

[2] Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz, “Inside Trump’s Search for a Health Threat to Justify His Immigration Crackdown,” New York Times, January 6, 2025.

[3]The New Testament in Modern English, J.B Phillips 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. II Cor. 6:9-10.

January 12, 2025
The Baptism of Our Lord

Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29;

Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

“General Orders”

In the bleak midwinter, as most of us are burnt out on politics and much of anything else that would rouse us from slumber and cause us to toss back the covers, life yet continues.  Our duties weigh upon us.  Meals are to be prepared.  Dishes to be washed.  Bills are to be paid.  Families or employers are counting on us to make our appointed rounds and to be at our desks.  Christmas was a brief respite from it all.  But all too short.

Nastiness creeps through our capital hallways.  Vengeance and retribution on the lips of many.  And with all the worries piling up, why on earth would the incoming administration be thinking again of buying Greenland?  Or annexing Canada as the next state?  Let alone sending in an armed invasion to take back the Panama Canal.  Nastiness as foul-smelling as anything that ever oozed out of a putrefying swamp.

What we need here is a little Light – if we’re awake enough to see it.  Or, as Amanda Gorman put it, “brave enough to see it…brave enough to be it.”

As we remember the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza, we recall Jeremiah’s tragic message, reprised in Matthew. 

“Thus says the Lord; A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.  Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”[1]

The vast number of casualties from that brutal slaughter being women and children.  Devastation paid for with American dollars.

Such darkness sometimes seems overpowering – surely overpowering for the victims of Gaza.  Tragedy upon tragedy with every Israeli bombing.  Rachel indeed weeps for her children this day.

Darkness will have its day.

Newsflash: Homelessness has increased 18% over last year.  Among families it has increased by 40%.

Newsflash: Israel has loosened restrictions on bombing.  It’s now permissible to kill up to 20 civilians to get one low-level Hamas target.

Newsflash: Global warming produced the hottest year on the planet ever for the last year of measurements.

Newsflash:  Are we really thinking of invading Mexico to eliminate the drug cartels and fentanyl labs?

Yes, there is much to despair.  We are tempted to just tune out, overwhelmed by it all, not sure our children and grandchildren will have a livable world.

In the midst of such darkness, we have the audacity to proclaim that a Light does shine.  A Star has risen.  We behold its beauty.  We behold its challenge.

There’s a story of a policeman coming upon a drunk at 2:00 in the morning.  The poor, besotted fellow is crawling around on his hands and knees obviously looking for something under a corner streetlamp.

The officer asks him what he’s hunting for.  The fellow replies that he has lost his keys.  “Is this where you lost them?” the officer asks. 

 “No,” the drunk replies, “They’re over there somewhere.”

“Well, why are you looking for them here?” the officer asks.  “Because, this is where the light is,” replies the man on his hands and knees.

This is where the light is.

Maybe that’s where we need to start.  Let’s start where there is light.  And there is Light to behold!

Our various faith traditions burn brightly with such Light.  Scripture is always a good beginning place to look for God’s Light.  The Hebrew prophets proclaim illumination in the cause of Torah Righteousness – God’s will for restoration and flourishing – as impossible as that sometimes seems.

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.  For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord shall arise upon you, over you.”[2]

Originally this was a prophecy solely meant for the people of Israel, but its meaning has later been understood to include all people.  Just as Rachel’s weeping was understood as a metaphor for all of Israel’s tragic history, and now for all creation.

So, this prophecy of restoration is also meant for the whole of creation.  Pure, unmerited Grace for all.

Such is the Epiphany Star those wise seekers spied.  As they beheld and recognized the moment of absolute Grace in the birth of a helpless infant born to parents in poverty.  The Light dawned.  An Epiphany.

We’ve all had moments of lesser epiphanies.  When something clicked, became clear.  The ah-ha moments in life.  Moments of light, sometimes moments of absolute divine Light.

Yes, there is much darkness yet enshrouding our world — our days lost in confusion, hatefulness and despair.

But, I say, even on our hands and knees, let’s hunt for deliverance where there is light.

One place I sometimes find smidgens of divine light is in the writing of David Brooks.

He recently had an op-ed piece in the New York Times on his journey from atheism to faith.[3]

He talks of faith in terms of desire, holy desire.

“Sometimes I feel pulled by a goodness that seems grand and far-off, a divine luminosity that hovers over the far horizon.”

“Sometimes I feel pulled by concrete moments of holy delight that I witness right in front of my face – the sight of a rabbi laughing uproariously as his children pile over him during a Shabbat meal, the sight of a Catholic priest at a poor church looking radiantly to heaven as he holds the bread of Christ above his head…I’ve found that the most compelling proofs of God’s love come in moments of radical delight or radical goodness—in the examples of those who serve the marginalized with postures of self-emptying love.”[4]

“…if the object of your desire is generosity itself, then your desire for it will open up new dimensions of existence you had never perceived before, for example the presence in our world of an energy force called grace.”[5]

All of such existence is to live a life illuminated by shards of light from that Epiphany star.  The same star that yet enlightens seekers of faith.   Now burning brightly from within hearts and minds. 

Sometimes it’s the beauty of connection that shows forth God’s luminosity.  And that is often light enough.  And, maybe, just maybe, that’s good enough.  The best we can expect — a few precious slivers of Epiphany Light.  We are now those ancient sages who continue the journey to the desire of our hearts to this holy moment.

I stumbled upon a book, The Amen Effect, by Rabbi Sharon Brous of Los Angeles.  Just looking at the reviews on the book jacket, I sensed not only illumination, but Holy Light.[6]

She opens her book with the story of a child who goes walking in a forest.  As he climbs through thickets and nimbly steps across streams, enjoys the sun filtering through tall tree branches, he delights in what he comes across.  Spiderwebs, fallen leaves, mossy rocks.

As he tries to make his way out, he begins to realize that he doesn’t quite know the way.  In fact, he’s thoroughly lost.  Each step leads him deeper into the woods.

As the sun begins to sink below the tree line, he fears that he might not ever find his way out — wondering if he’ll ever make it home.  But just then he sees another child approaching from far off.

His heart swells with hope as he cries out to her, “I’m so glad to see you.  I’m lost.  Can you show me the way out of here?”

“I wish I could,” she answers.  “I’m lost too.  But take my hand and we’ll find our way out together.”

Together is Holy Light!

When I approach the communion rail and gaze upon the uplifted faces, not knowing what fears, what hopes, what moments of joy or sorrow are brought to this holy moment at that rail, I am assured that whatever the week has brought, together we can bear it, we can share it.  Light, Holy Light.

In these moments, an Epiphany takes up residence within our little group of pilgrims here at St. Francis.  In that moment, whatever the darkness, a Holy Light has overcome. 

In times of uncertainty, sorrow, perplexity, we reach out for another’s hand.  And in that Light, we’ll find our way towards home.  This is how we roll at St. Francis.  Amen.

[1] Jeremiah 31:15, NRSV.

[2] Isaiah 60:1-2, NRSV.

[3] David Brooks, “My Decade-Long Journey to Belief,” New York Times, December 22, 2024.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend our Broken Hearts and World (New York, Avery, 2024), xi.

January 5, 2025
Epiphany Sunday

Isaiah 60:1-6, 9; Psalm 72:1-2, 10-17
Ephesians 31:7-14; Matthew 2:1-12 “Star Light, Star Bright”

No sooner had Herod heard of a possible usurper to his power than he sent his “men of might” to take care of business.

The Holy Family, having been warned, according to tradition, set out for Egypt where they would find refuge from Herod’s wrath.  Much as Haitians are presently fleeing gangs and their corrupt police collaborators.

Utterly vulnerable.  Not speaking the language.  No shelter.  No source of income.  Cold, frightened and so very much exposed.

In our country we now find ourselves at the tender mercies of oligarchs and plutocrats who will assume power in 2025.  Gazillionaires who have no more concern for us than Herod most likely had for those living in far off Nazareth.  Vulnerable, exposed.

Even if never having been a refugee, we’ve most likely had moments of such vulnerability.

Peter Marty recounts such moments when going to an outpatient surgical center for a minor procedure.[1]

“…a nurse hands you some nonslip socks and one of those open-in-the-back hospital gowns.  They then instruct you to head to a changing room, take off your clothes, and place them in a tiny locker.  The locker key you’ll be given will look about as sophisticated as a screwdriver.  Once you manage to tie the neck cords of your gown into a bow, a task that always challenges me, you’ll step into a large room.

“The instant you look around that room, some version of four uncomfortable words will rattle in your psyche.  I feel extremely vulnerable.  Six or eight other patients, facing you from their own bays (with their privacy curtains half-drawn or not drawn at all) sit in recliners just like the one assigned to you.  Aware that your own backless gown resembles your health insurance plan in a conspicuous way—every time you turn around you discover something that’s not covered—you’re eager to have a seat.

We’ve all been there.  What I’ve discovered when recently in the hospital and then at our Pilgrim Place skilled nursing facility, is that any pretense to modesty is out the window.  Any attempt to maintain some modicum of control over my vulnerability was futile.  Utterly.

Exposed as much as undergoing a colonoscopy.

Such vulnerability is the essence of the Christmas story.  God dares precisely that vulnerability. 

Quoting Frederick Buechner, Peter “calls the divine descent into the ‘ludicrous depths of self-humiliation.’”  This is the “nakedness of the incarnation.”  God in God’s birthday suit!

The Miracle of Christmas is not about Santa, elves and reindeer, not about who gets the most goodies under the tree.  Not about bloated waistlines from too much turkey, mashed potatoes and wine.

Christmas is about an invitation to join this tiny Christchild in his vulnerability, to be born anew into a new way of life.  No safety net.  Yes, radically outside your comfort zone.

It’s about being in solidarity with those who are homeless, stateless, cold and unsheltered — the very Christ we encounter daily on our city streets and at our food banks.

Even if the most you can do is to drop a pittance in that kettle where the volunteer rings a tinkling bell to get your attention.  Or serving in the Christmas dinner line at a local shelter.  Visiting a shut-in at a nursing home, or simply by acknowledging the presence of a homeless person at their tent on the sidewalk with a hello and maybe a small donation.  A fiver will buy a hamburger at most fast-food joints.

Remember the Jewish proverb, “To have saved one life is to have saved all of humanity.”  Maybe, beginning with the humanity in yourself.

But more than such small acts of charity and mercy, Christmas is the invitation to be in solidarity with the vulnerable, no matter how it shows itself: hunger, loneliness, sickness, political estrangement.   It is developing a new mindset.  It’s about “not conforming your mind to the standards of this world, but letting God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.”  Then you, like Dickens’ fictional Scrooge, will burst forth, Christmas incarnate.  Indeed, it will be most merry.  Joy to the World and the Angels from on High will sing you from slumber.

   God, in all God’s nakedness will find rebirth in your heart, and may you in your being radiate Christmas blessings your whole life long.  That’s the Christmas present awaiting you under the tree.  Merry Christmas.  And God bless us everyone!  Amen.

[1] Peter Marty, “Sheer Vulnerability,” Christian Century, December 2024.

December 24, 2024
Christmas Eve

Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96;
Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

“Jesus Was an Undocumented Immigrant”

Due to our reaction against our Roman Catholic heritage, especially in the times of the Reformation, Mary has always been a problematical figure for Anglicans.

We viscerally reacted against the questionable doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary.  We frowned on the statues of her in niches or up by the altar.  We were uncertain as to the efficacy of prayers directed to her.  We pray straight to God or in Jesus’ name.

There’s a story told of a small middle-America town Baptist church.  Like many congregations going through extensive remodel, there was much to disagree about.  But the flash point came near the end of the project – what color should the new carpeting be?

Some wanted red as that seemed to be traditional and would brighten things up.  Add nice color.

Another faction proposed blue.  Soft pastel blue was what Mary wore.  (Never mind that no one knows what Mary wore.  Didn’t come up until much, much later in church tradition).

The Red-Carpet faction sarcastically asked, why are we as Baptists concerned that much about Mary.  That’s a Catholic thing.  We’re again’ it.

The Blue-Carpet group responded that Mary is the Mother of God.  She’s somewhat important.  She gave him birth and received his body from the cross.

On and on it went.  Until…Until…

There at the crossroads of this small community there are now two Baptist churches on either side of the highway.  One with red carpet and the other with blue.

Mary — as I’ve said before, it is important to our spirituality how we view her.  Is she, shy, demure – yes, and in pastel blue – the model for proper women of faith to be submissive to the demands of society and husbands?

Or does her song, the Magnificat, give us another spirituality?  When she belts this out, we see her as one tough woman, willing to bring a revolutionary message no matter the cost.

She will not be a little submissive milquetoast vessel for whatever.  She tells that intrusive angel, as she takes one step back, “If this is how it’s going to be, hold my beer and watch this!”  Hold my beer and watch this, indeed.

“Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, holy is his name…

“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts…

“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;

“He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away.”[1]

This is the Mary on whom nothing is wasted. This is the Mary who bears the Savior of the world; who, in the words of one great saint, is God’s gate, the mother of Heaven’s king.  Her entire being swells with the blessedness of the angel’s greeting.

Mary has been described in many ways, but first of all, I think it is the fullness of the blessing she has received.  God in that annunciation filled her being rim-full.

When can you remember such a spiritual fullness?  Probably, as in that children’s story, The Polar Express.  When we were young, we were indeed able to experience the utter joy of Christmas.  It’s the story of Scrooge being reborn – living for the first time as he never lived before.  Joy just exuding from his soul.

This is how Mary invites us, even us cynical adults to enter into the gift of the Nativity.

Mary has been described as many things within Scripture and in our tradition, but for me – Blessedness is the beginning.

It’s the blessedness that filled my soul when I held the hand of a young, demure woman in a lovely white wedding dress at the altar and said I do with all my heart.

It’s the blessedness that filled my soul when I asked Christopher and Alexis, “Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?”  “Do you to take this man to be your lawful wedded husband,” and both came up with the correct answer: “I do.”

It’s the utter blessing I felt when a student we had sponsored called with the news, “Mr. Forney, guess what!  I got a free ride into Harvard.  Everything paid!”  Tears welled up in my eyes.

At the moments of the birth of my boys, that I could actually be present for those incredible events – it was all blessing.

It is the blessedness that filled my soul when hands were laid on my head at the altar and the bishop pronounced, “Take thou authority.”

It is the blessedness I know each time I experience when I get on the internet machine and bring up the K.I.N.D. Fund to send desks to schools in Malawi – to provide a scholarship for a girl to attend high school in that impoverished nation.  That I am able to offer such a priceless gift as education on behalf of some Christmas recipients is a moment of joy flooding my soul.

We’ve all known those fleeting moments when we were filled to the core of our being with overwhelming affirmation.  You’ve known these precious moments.  Just take a silent trip down memory lane.

That’s in part Mary’s song.

But this blessedness of Mary was more than an individual event.  She embraces her entire community with it, embraces all creation with this rich blessing.

God is in that moment lifting us weak out of dust, is filling those in need with good things.  In that moment returning creation to the lowly as the haughty are cast down.

This blessedness extends far beyond her, extends down through the ages to a community gathered beyond the limits of time and place.

Speaking of the powerful – Elon Musk comes immediately to mind.

To think that a private individual of ginormous wealth would have the ability and be in the position to overthrow the regular order of our legislative process is beyond the pale.  Madison and Jefferson must be rolling over in their graves.

For now, he may be able to threaten any lawmaker with an opponent armed with millions in cash to primary them – it’s absolutely surreal.  Certainly not the stuff of any viable democracy.  Preposterous!

Naively, I thought that with a rocket company and car company to run, he would have had his hands full.  Apparently, not so much!

And now Rand Paul is proposing him for Speaker of the House.  Wow!

But Mary has proclaimed it.  The days of the oligarchs and plutocrats will draw to a close.  These mighty will be cast down. Ordinary citizens, you and I, will be back in charge. 

She, in her song, embraces her community, especially the “least of these.”  In her blessing, God’s preference is proclaimed to be for the poor, the marginalized and cast-out.  The little guy or woman who will not benefit at all from this coming tax cut, or much of anything in the Project 2025 agenda coming down the pike.

Yet, in the little things let us rejoice with Mary.  In her pronouncement there is much joy to embrace all.  A silent, spiritual revolution!

As the French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin proclaimed: “By means of all created things, without exception, the Divine assails us, penetrates us and molds us.”  That is the message of Mary to each of us this Advent as we would dare approach that Holy Manger with awe and trembling.  Amen.

[1] Luke 1:46 ff., NRSV.

December 22, 2024
Advent 4

Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15 – the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55);
Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 “Mary’s Song”

This Sunday the collect begins with the words: “Stir up your power, O Lord…”

In Merry Old England, this was the prompt for women to begin stirring up their Christmas puddings.  And at the Forney house, my wife makes the most delicious persimmon pudding with hot lemon sauce.  To die for!

It is also Gaudete Sunday.  From the first word in Latin that begins the entrance antiphon – sort of like our Collect.  Gaudete – Rejoice.  And will we ever.  We’ll light the pink candle on the Advent wreath.  And we’ll have our Christmas dinner after worship.

We rejoice in our work with St. John’s Food Bank.  Soon looking to have winter vegetables planted.  A big round of thanks to all at St. Francis and St. John’s that bring this ministry to those in need.  Gaudete – Rejoice.  It comes under the rubric WWJD.  Feed the multitudes, though our project is not quite up to the legendary 5000 Jesus fed.  But, then, we’re just not in his class.   But we do what we can.  Gaudete – Rejoice.

We’re not left without resources, however – “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…”

This last Thursday Inland Congregations United for Change, of which St. Francis is well represented, held a meeting on Sanctuary Congregations. 

After a presentation from some of us who had been active in previous sanctuary operations, ICUC decided to make that a key objective for the coming year.  This spurred on by the announcement of those of the incoming administration to instantly deport all “illegals” on Day One.

Stir up your power, O Lord, for our undocumented brothers and sisters need our solidarity.  Stir up your power, indeed!

We bear the scars of the previous iteration of this hateful policy of family separation.

Recently, in the New York Times – yeah, I know, the fake news – a young boy told of the trauma he faced and emotional scars he now bears as having  been jerked away from his father.

“Pried from his father’s arms by federal agents at the southern border, José was one of thousands of migrant children separated from their parents under a Trump-era crackdown that came to epitomize the former president’s harsh immigration agenda.”[1]

José was taken when he was five years-old and placed with a foster family.  Today he is in the sixth grade and trusts nobody but his immediate family.

He is excelling academically and plays in the school band, mastering guitar.  He is an avid soccer player.  He has earned high praise from his teachers.

“’You possess all the qualities to take you very far in life,’ his English teacher, Ms. Keller, said in a handwritten note to him dated October 2.”

Cruelty was the point.  The objective was to so scare parents that they would not cross the border.

Many parents and children, some as young as only months old, have been separated for years.  Some 1400 children to this date remain apart from their parents.

It was only through the heroic efforts that any lists were saved, fragmentary as they are.  Some wanted them destroyed.

Record keeping was so haphazard that it’s difficult if not almost impossible to reunite these children with their families.  Orphans forever.  Imagine if your child were ripped from your arms, only months old.  Not only would your son or daughter be permanently scarred, so would you.  For the rest of your life, never knowing what happened to them.  Where they now were.

Cruelty is the point.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among us.  Give those seeking to reunite these families perseverance and the strength to continue their heartfelt mission.  Stir up your power, for our sins as a nation stink to the high heavens and weigh heavy upon us.

Stir up your power and give José healing for his invisible wounds.  Raise him up among us to be a mighty warrior for justice.

The wounds are deep and the scar tissue virtually impenetrable. 

His foster mother relates the trauma of that young boy.

“When Janice Barbee, who fostered José, picked him up at the Grand Rapids, Michigan airport in May of 2018, ‘all I could see was fear and confusion in those beautiful brown eyes,’ she recalled.  He did not cry.  He would not hold her hand.”[2]

Janice Barbee continues, “Even as he seemed to grow more comfortable, José guarded two small pieces of paper – a stick-figure drawing of his family and a sketch of his father in a cap.  He carried them wherever he went during the day and tucked them under his pillow at night.”[3]

“’One day, José had a meltdown, all the while clutching the family drawing…He held onto it as he cried and wailed on my kitchen floor,’ she said.”

“In that moment I wondered if he would ever heal from this unimaginable trauma of separation.”

His father, in the meantime, feared that he might be put up for adoption.  Worried that he might not ever see his son again he refused to be repatriated back to Honduras.  He would not leave José behind, no matter what.

If there is any happy end to this story, father and son were finally reunited after enough public outrage caused the administration to change course.  Five months after they were separated.

And of course, the trauma affects parents as well.  José’s father has been too frightened and distrustful to seek the assistance and support to which he is entitled.  As a result, they have not received any of the benefits provided under the legal settlement of this policy.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among these parents with wings of healing and empowerment.

José is aware of the coming election.  When asked about it he responded, ‘Trump doesn’t like immigrants.”  And added, “I can’t vote.”

But in 2026 we can!  We’ll hope for the best and see how this administration staffed with misfits, sexual abusers, the incompetent and grifters plays out.  Let us pray for them that they might grow into their responsibilities.  AND….AND… we’ll have the chance for a new Congress that might be willing to stand up to any malfeasance.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among us for our republic is teetering on the edge.  Stir up your power, O Lord, and give us the will, if necessary, as John Lewis urged, to “Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.” 

For the sake of our vulnerable brothers and sisters in their hour of need — Solidarity Forever.  And light that pink candle.  We are not without Power from on High.  Gaudete!  Amen.

[1] Miriam Jordan, “He Never Forgot the Border Agents Who Took Him From His Father,” Los Angeles Times, October. 30, 2024/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. and following quotes.

December 15, 2024
Advent 3

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6);
Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18 “Stir Up Your Power”

I was naïve enough to think that with the election over, my in-box would empty out.  No more political announcements or pleas for contributions.  No such luck.  The campaign now goes 24/7, 365 days a year.  To preserve my sanity, I just delete these messages wholesale.  Gone.  You’re done!

Only…only to now be besieged by Christmas messengers urging me to buy everything under the sun.  As one wit put it:  We are asked to buy a bunch of crap for people we don’t know and don’t care that much about that they don’t need and we can’t afford.

All to the nasal tunes of cartoon chipmunks crooning insipid tunes to trite words.  How is it that in this season of Peace on Earth has been transmogrified into a blizzard of annoyance?   Definitely these are not messengers of Peace and Goodwill to all people on earth.

The Old Testament reading comes from Malachi.  Actually, that was not his name.  It is a title.  It means in Hebrew, “My Messenger.”

Malachi prophesied in that time when the Hebrew exiles were returning from Babylonia to Jerusalem, sometime from 515 to 445 BC.  Jerusalem lain in ruins.  The culture of Judaism was dismantled with the destruction of the temple.  Not one stone resting upon another.

Malachi was God’s Messenger sent to these despondent and wayward returnees.  Much remained to be rebuilt.  The question was where to begin. 

That is the question for America following the 2024 election.  Many folks with many answers now appear.  Which one or ones should be listened to.

Of all the messages on various and sundry issues, how do we discern those that might have divine residue?  Those which build up?  Those which give hope?  Those which tell needed truth?

There’s an old song from Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, folk singers of the sixties.  Pete Seeger grew up in a Protestant home and much of his music caries the ethic of his early religious teachings.

This song most of us sung at rallies and on marches – known as the “Hammer Song.”  The verse I refer to goes:

“If I had a song
I’d sing it in the morning
I’d sing it in the evening
All over this land
I’d sing out danger
I’d sing out warning
I’d sing out love between
My brothers and my sisters
All over this land, oh”

“Well, I’ve got a hammer
And I’ve got a bell
And I’ve got a song to sing
All over this land
It’s the hammer of justice
It’s the bell of freedom
It’s a song about love between
My brothers and my sisters
All over this land”[1]

I believe that messages like this protest song that relate danger, warning and a universal love between all our brothers and sisters are of holy import.  They convey divine impact.  They are God’s Hammer.

That was the message of Malachi.

“See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.  The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight – indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.  But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”

“He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descents of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.”

He will refine the descendants of Cranmer and Wesley, Augustine and Calvin.  Who can endure the day of his coming?  Her coming?

The Hammer Song gives us criteria for Holy Discernment of the many messages that besiege us.  Warning, Hope, Love – the key.

One of the messengers bearing the hope of Advent is Dr. Jamil Zaki.  His new book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness[2], relates recent research underlying the case for hope.  In most of us there is an innate goodness and trust in our fellow human beings that wins out.

He relates the tale of a boy who should have grown up cynical and distrustful as a result of early trauma from a rejecting mother.[3]

When Emile was born, this event changed his mother’s life completely.  After giving birth, Linda was plagued by “cruel, demonic voices that mocked and accused her – the torment of schizophrenia.  Trapped in her own mind, she left Emile and Bill, her husband, and lived on the streets of Palo Alto.”[4]

Disheveled, unsheltered and alone as a twenty-five-year-old woman she was subject to unspeakable abuse.  From time to time she would appear in Emile’s life but the relationship was extremely insecure.

Emile survived because his father went to extraordinary lengths to provide a loving household.  Being poor and single, Bill was an excellent, loving father.  “…Bill was doggedly present with his son, offering the ’underbearing attentiveness’ that Emile cherished.”

And amidst the uncertainty of the relationship, over the sporadic visits, it was clear that Emile and Linda cared for each other.

“Outside his house, just before the two would meet, she would sometimes be visibly distraught, fighting the voices.  Then, through force of will, she’d compose herself for as long as they were together.  Family members recall their reunions as peaceful and affectionate.  Mother and son carved out a small space, away from the devils in her mind.”[5]

When Emile was in his thirties, his mother Linda died.  By then she lived across the country and Emile flew back East to be with her in her last days.  He advocated for her with the doctors and others who attended her in the hospital.  He slept by her bed on the floor.  He provided the mothering to her she was unable to provide for him.

“After her death, Linda lived on in his memory, not despite her pain but because of it.  He lacked a ‘normal’ mother but had found a hero, and the beginnings of his world view…Linda marked him with inner ‘superpowers.’”

As a friend would remark, “He understood from early on that wonderful people could end up in terrible circumstances through no fault of their own.”[6]

This psychologist, in telling reality-based stories of hope and the attendant research, is certainly a Messenger of God, every bit as much as Malachi, every bit as much as all Holy Messengers, Attending Angels, sent to us down through the eons of time.  Every bit as much as those visitors who had appeared before the opening of Abraham and Sarah’s desert tent.[7]

Daily we’re attended by such.  Echoes of the Holy One we yet await.  Who are they?  I end with a portion of poem, “A Song of a Man who Has Come Through,” by D.H. Lawrence.[8]

“…. Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.”

Yes, admit them this Holy Advent.  Amen.

[1] Pete Seeger, Lee Hays first released “If I Had a Hammer” on Hootenanny Records in August 1, 1950.  Later to be picked up and further popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1962.

[2] Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2024).

[3] Ibid, 38-39.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Genesis 18.

[8] D.H. Lawrence, Selected Poems, “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through (New York: Viking Press, 1959), 74/

December 8, 2024
Advent 2

Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 16 (Luke 1:68-79);
Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

“Many Messengers in Real Time”

There’s a story the dean of Grace Cathedral, Alan Jones, told of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s in London from 1621until his death in 1631. 

You may not immediately know the name, but you know one of his famous lines, “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls.  It tolls for thee.”

Much of his poetry and writings were considered by some, including King Henry VIII, to be of dubious orthodoxy. 

The story goes that the king was concerned enough to announce his attendance at St. Paul’s on a coming Sunday.

That Sunday in the pulpit, John Donne soliloquized to himself, “John Donne, be careful what you say today, the King is present this morning.  John Donne, be careful what you say today, the King of Kings is present this morning.”

I believe that every morning I enter this pulpit, the King of Kings is present.  Therein lies my first loyalty and duty to speak our first loyalty and duty is to speak the unvarnished truth and give voice to the fervent hope in Christ Jesus.  Especially in this dark, uncertain time.  To do so is to be “putting on the armor of Light.”  So let it shine!  The King of Kings is in our midst — our armor of Light.

So, to begin, let us be absolutely honest concerning the darkness that presently enshrouds our days. 

God’s Grace so often pierces the darkest times.  At the very time the Light of Christ breaks into the world, the Church remembers the Holy Innocents slaughtered by Herod.

You know the hymn, “Lully, Lullay.”  The second verse,

“Herod the King, in his raging/charged he hath this day.
his men of might, in his own sight/all young children to slay.”

And this wanton slaughter of the innocents continues unto this day in Gaza and Lebanon.  Paid for with American dollars.  Putin continues to target the innocents in Ukraine.  For want of care, Holy innocents are killed and brutalized by gangs and famine in Haiti and Sudan.

Friends, these are dark, dark days indeed.

But so often in the midst of such wretchedness, God breaks in and works wonders.  Wonders in an out of-the-way place in a no-account village.  Wonders in a freezing outdoor manger.  Child of impoverished parents.

Such miracles were also wrought out of the dreary cruelty of slavery.

I’ve picked up the autobiography of Frederick Douglass this season for inspiration.  In this season of despair, I turn to such luminous souls who have confronted the darkness and blazed a path to hope.  They sustain us.

Frederick Douglass had been separated from his mother when he was but an infant.  His father was a white man, most likely his master, a consummate master of cruelty. Douglass relays the trauma he suffered as a young boy witnessing his aunt stripped naked to the waist, and whipped until her back was bloody.

“After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose.  He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook…after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor.  I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet.”[1]

This trauma lived with him the rest of his life.  How he got beyond it is indeed a miracle.

Later he was sold to a naive, young mistress in Baltimore, who against the convention of the time, taught him a few basics of the alphabet and reading.  

Her husband absolutely forbade any further instruction.  It was unlawful and unsafe.  Douglass relates the warning given to that young wife.

“If you teach that N. (speaking of myself) how to read, there will be no keeping him.  It would forever unfit him to be a slave.  He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master…It would make him discontented and unhappy.”[2]

The more vehement the master was against reading; the more certain Frederick became concerning the necessity of reading.  The words of that admonition sank deep into Frederick’s heart and impelled him forward.

From this rudimentary instruction, he tricked white boys into teaching more of the letters and soon taught himself to write.  He continued working on his reading every spare moment he had to himself.

When coming across the abolitionists and reading of them in newspapers he would stash away in secrecy, his mind exploded.

(And I remembered my abysmally ignorant teacher in the fourth grade, when asked about the treatment of slaves, telling us students that “they were happy because they were treated so well.”)  I’m sure she never read Frederick Douglass or any other slave narratives of that period.

In the bleak, dark cruelty of that savage institution, a most brilliant, heavenly light burst forth in Douglass’ mind.  Freedom!

He continues the narration of the opening of his mind in this journey towards the Light.

“The words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought.  It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain.  I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty – to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man.  It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly.  From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.  It was just what I wanted and I got it at a time when I least expected it.”[3]

Frederick Douglass would escape to the North and in time become one of the leading intellectuals of his age.  His essays and columns would be widely disseminated by the northern press.  President Lincoln would esteem his presence.

Would that we might also value the heritage of our education so highly.  But alas, a large percentage of Americans can only read at a fourth-grade level or below.  Half of my eighth-grade history students could not read the text.

Sometimes it takes a while to perceive and prize the light of learning — the Christ Light of innate potential.  For me that light didn’t dawn until the fifth grade.  Out of the raw material of my failure to care and my lack of industry, the light finally dawned when I came across my father’s college entomology book.  Yes, insects!  Bugs absolutely fascinated me and through those creepy crawlies I became hooked on reading. 

Almost as hooked as Frederick Douglass became on the idea of his own innate worth and his striving for freedom.  “The whole armor of light.”

In our darkest times, this season – in the midst of Herod’s raging over “wokeness,” tariffs and stolen elections — we at St. Francis have an inextinguishable hope — the coming of the bearer of Light Eternal.

Yes, let us be careful how we live.  In the fearsome presence of Caesar, let us also be mindful that each day the King of Kings is present to hallow our days.  Let the Light of Douglass’ perseverance and courage enlighten our Advent days.

Amanda Gorman, poet laurate, expresses the hope of our Advent this season:

When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Amen and Amen.

[1] Frederick Douglass, Autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, My Bondage and My Freedom, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (New York: Library of America, 1994), 19.

[2] Op. cit., 37.

[3] Op. cit., 37-38.

December 1, 2024
Advent 1

Jeremiah 33:14-16 Psalm 25:1-9;
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

“Putting on the Armor of Light”