Who are "you"?

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 11, 2009


I’ve always enjoyed almanacs – you know those small publications filled with weather forecasts and homespun wisdom and important facts like sunrise times and when you’ll find stars in what part of the sky. I suspect the Three Magi might have used an almanac if they’d been around back then.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac is the most well-known, but I’ve bought two or three almanacs every year for … well, for a long time. I even used to write a column called the Times Almanac a long time ago. I consult almanacs when I plant vegetables, as have my parents and my grandparents before me.

Perhaps the most famous almanac writer – far more famous than I – was Benjamin Franklin, who wrote under the pen name Poor Richard. And in Poor Richard’s Almanack appeared many sayings that were catchy and wise, and many of them are remembered today.

Franklin said things like:
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Nothing but money is sweeter than honey.
Cheese and salty meat should be sparingly eat.
Kill no more pigeons than you can eat. (Not very catchy, but written before the extinction of the passenger pigeon because of over-hunting, so there really was something to this one.)
One of my favorites: Fish and visitors smell in three days.
And, of course, A penny saved is a penny earned.

Folks don’t read almanacs like they used to, but these catchy aphorisms haven’t gone the way of the passenger pigeon. In fact, they’re probably as popular as ever. And where do you find them? On church signs. Clever and not-so-clever sayings designed to make you stop and think.

The classic is the one you see in a summer heat wave: Think it’s hot here?
During the election season, you saw this one: God loves you, and God approved this message.
There’s Wal-Mart isn’t the only saving place.
And I like this one: Under the same management for over 2000 years.

Don’t worry. Our sign isn’t going in this direction. But I’ve been thinking about such church signs this week when I read one right down the street. It says, “Everything that you do, you could do better.”

Not the most obvious sign in its meaning, and certainly not one of those clever jokey ones. “Everything that you do, you could do better.” It’s probably doing its job because it’s had me thinking. What could they have meant by it? And perhaps more important, what sense do I make of it? A mystery.

My first thought was that perhaps it points to our inherent sinfulness, since it says “you could do better,” and sin is about our imperfection. But the more I thought about it, that didn’t sound very convincing. A simple sign saying “Repent” would be more effective.

So I puzzled on it some more. Then I thought that it meant we ought to redouble our efforts to do good, to work harder to perform Christian acts of mercy. But the more I thought about it, that didn’t make much sense, either. You just don’t see the theology of works on a Protestant church sign. Luther wouldn’t approve.

So I started all over. Unlike those others, this sign was doing what it’s supposed to. It had me thinking theology all week! And then it struck me that maybe it was a sort of trick – that maybe the answer actually lay in the grammar. That the form of address had me barking up the wrong tree!

It said, “Everything that YOU do…” I was reading it as singular, as “Everything that I do.” And maybe there’s something to that – maybe I had found the clue. Maybe the “you” ought to be plural, like “you all, y’all.” Everything that you do alone, you all could do better together.

You see, what struck me is that I’m not alone in this life. I’m surrounded by my Christian family. So what’s accomplished at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is never my doing – it’s a collective work. The painting of the church, which was completed this week, was not paid for by me and me alone. When visitors and new members come, it’s from the gracious invitation and the warm welcome of many. There are those who cook and clean and vacuum and mow. There are those who teach and sing and visit and pray.

Ah, those who pray.
The thought of prayer got me further down this track. The “you” must be plural, “you all could do better” But not just us here in this church, physically present. What we do, especially through prayer, is accomplished in the company of those who came before, those whose faith laid the groundwork for us. So many saints, many of whom lived and toiled right here. Those whom the New Testament calls a great cloud of witnesses. Their faith informs us. They are with us in our faith, in our actions. What we do, what we accomplish, has been made possible by their faith. And by the prayers of those who surround us in this life, as well. The saints and angels and the mighty army of those who pray – that’s a lot more than little old me.

Now, as true as this is – as right as all this is in our theology, I still felt that there must be something else. And then I read the Gospel lesson for this week.

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.”

And there it was. The clue I was looking for. The message hidden in the puzzle. And it came right down out of heaven like a dove. It was the Holy Spirit. There is nothing I can do alone. There is nothing we can do alone. There is nothing worth doing that we can do without the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul found a group of John the Baptist’s followers in the town of Ephesus. They’d been baptized and were there in a group, supporting one another in their faith. And Paul asked them about their baptism. Was there a preacher? Check. Hard to beat John the Baptist. Water? Check. You always baptize with water as the sign. Holy Spirit? “No,” they said, “we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

They had not seen the sign. They had not heard the news. They were on the right track, but were not fully living the faith. They had heard of God and repented of their sins in his name. But they had not heard of the Holy Spirit. And they had not heard that the Messiah had come, that Jesus Christ had died and had risen again.

The “you” in them was not big enough. They opened their hearts and became complete: They accepted Christ and they were baptized with the Holy Spirit.

When we baptize today, three things are necessary. First, water. Second, the words “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The third we barely think about: There has to be another to do the baptism, in our tradition an ordained minister. We cannot go it alone. And we cannot go it without the Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

We are animated by the Holy Spirit, who lives in holy community with the Father and the Son, together in one Godhead. We are animated to live in our own community – with others in this church, in our faith, in our world.

Everything we attempt on our own, outside that community, is destined to failure.

Everything we do in community – with the prayerful support of others, in the midst of the great cloud of witnesses, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit moving within us– everything that we do in that community is destined for greatness. The greatness of life in the Spirit, of a life lived for Christ, of the assurance of life with them in the world to come.

I truly believe this. I believe it because I’ve seen the sign.
Amen.

A Superstar

Second Sunday after Christmas
January 4, 2009


I’m glad of two things that I want to tell you about today. First, I’m glad I have a Christmas tree and it’s still in my window. Drive by at 308 2nd Avenue tonight or tomorrow night and you’ll see the lights. Today is the 11th day of Christmas and it will be up through the 12th. Tuesday is the Epiphany, when we leave the season of Christmas behind and begin to move forward into the year.

The other thing I’m glad of is that 2009 is not an election year. Of the many, many things an election season does, I especially regret the damage it does to our language, to our national conversation. You can’t even be who you really are. Everyone’s either a friend or an enemy, a Democrat or Republican. Simple language no longer suffices. A moderate in one direction is now a radical liberal, and a moderate in another direction is a reactionary right-winger.

It’s not democracy itself that does this to our language, but rather it’s our sales mentality ingrained in our politics. Overstatement is part of the pitch. You can’t have just a product – it has to be new and improved and life-changing, whether it’s a candidate or a box of cereal.

You can’t simply be an actor or athlete anymore. Play in one game and you’re a big-league star. Step onto the boards as a member of the chorus and you’re a Broadway star. Spend a minute on a reality show and you’re a celebrity – a star who’s famous just for being famous.

Everyone, it seems can be a star. Which means the word means nothing. Next will be the age of the superstar. Superstar.

In my mind, there has only been one superstar. Not from Broadway, not from Hollywood, not even from American Idol. But the star – THE star. You know the one I’m talking about. The one that led the Magi to Bethlehem. An actual star that was brighter than any other, remembered even to this day more than any other. That’s the definition of a superstar.

During this Christmas season I heard, as usual, some scientist explaining the latest thinking on what the star may have been. The Discovery Channel and the History Channel are pretty good at taking the intellectual approach to these things. There are explanations that suggest it could have been this star or that nova or perhaps a planet. Sounds good to me, I suppose.

The newest thing for me this year was hearing from an astrologer who explained what star was in what house and what it would have represented to astrologers and soothsayers of that era. Something about kings and rulers, no surprise there.

I don’t put much stock in these areas of scientific and historical research because it suggests a lack of confidence in our story, in our Scripture, in our very faith. It suggests that we need some physical proof that all this took place. That there was a Temple and a King called Herod and a manger in Bethlehem. That in the absence of physical proof, that maybe there was nothing at all. There was something of this in the medieval mania for relics. And there’s a great deal of it in our need to explain, explain, explain.

Well frankly my dear, I don’t give a flip. I don’t need this level of explanation. It’s interesting, but it reminds me of an old joke:

The chief Vatican archaeologist comes to the Pope and says, “Holy Father, we’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, we’ve found the true tomb of Jesus. The bad news is, his body is still there. No resurrection!” So the Pope calls together the world’s greatest academic theologians and gives them the bad news. They all look at each other and say, “You mean, Jesus really existed?”

I didn’t say it was a good joke – just an old one. It points to how we use proof and what we want to accomplish with it. Do you believe more because there’s a scientific explanation of the star? Or do you believe less if there’s no convincing explanation? Is the message of the star any less true or more true because of this speculation?

I’m not being anti-intellectual here – that’s usually the last thing I can be accused of. Instead, I’m being pro-understanding. The data aren’t important. The truth is. The meaning of the star is undeniable, whether it was a supernova or just a vivid imagination attached to the everyday Evening Star.

The truth is that there was something wonderful happening in Bethlehem. The greatest news ever was being published abroad. And people came to that news. Some came led by the voice of angels. Some came because the shepherds had told them the Good News. And apparently, some came because there was something unusual in the air, a heavenly sign pointing them to the stable, toward the Christ child.

There is no denying that something drew people to Christ. The shepherds came. The Magi came. Something draws people to Christ today. You and I are here.

Then, it was something supernatural. A sign – a star, perhaps. A healing. A miracle. A one-on-one experience with Christ during his ministry.

Today, is it anything less than supernatural? Just as then, it may be a sign, or a even a miracle or healing that brings us to Christ. None of these things stopped with the crucifixion.

People may be led by a sign even today. It could be a literal sign out front that welcomes you inside. But more likely it’s an invitation with a kind word from one to the other.
That sign that leads someone to Christ could be the peace in the eyes of a person who has just buried a parent, full of knowledge and faith in the world to come. It could be the look of satisfaction in the eyes of a person, tired but fulfilled from preparing for others a meal – or three hundred meals, or perhaps the sweat on the brow from raising the roof of a house to be lived in by another.

People may be led by a healing – maybe physical, maybe spiritual. We hope and pray for physical healing, and sometimes it comes in unexpected recovery. We also hope and pray for spiritual healing – perhaps acceptance of a new life situation, perhaps simple understanding of the inexplicable actions of others.

People may be led to Christ by a miracle – yes, a miracle, even today. They don’t have to be big. You may see reconciliation among long-estranged family members. You may see peace in a person whose life has gone disastrously awry. The growth and success of a child who has autism. A job, a home, a family.

Miracles all. Miracles that don’t just happen. Miracles that we pray for. Miracles that can lead a person to Christ.

To Christ because even today, there is such a thing as a one-on-one experience with Christ. Through the love of a neighbor. Through the Gospel proclaimed. Through meeting Christ in others and receiving Christ at the altar.

People may be led by all these. All these things are signs – signs of the power of Christ at work in us. Signs in our lives that bring others to Christ.

When we live in Christ and let Christ live through us, we are living signs – living stars. Stars for others to see, stars for others to follow, stars to lead our neighbors and our world into the life of Christ, into the life of the world to come.

You are the star. So shine.