The Gift of Sight

The Church of St. Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

March 22, 2020

Year A: The Fourth Sunday in Lent

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm 23

Ephesians 5:8-14

John 9:1-41

The Gift of Sight

            One of the less important, but still real, effects of our present crisis is that it is getting hard to keep track of what day it is.

            That’s true in our personal lives – and it’s true for church, too.

            Fortunately, today we have a big change in liturgical color – from purple to rose (not pink!) signaling that we have reached the Fourth Sunday in Lent, offering us the hope that soon our Lenten journey will end in the garden where women will discover the empty tomb and the disciples will soon understand that love does defeat hate and life conquers death, once and for all.

            For this reason, the Fourth Sunday of Lent is usually called Laetare Sunday, from a Latin word meaning “to rejoice.”

            Rejoice! It will soon be Easter!

            But.

But, this has been the most extraordinary Lent of our lives, a time spent focused not so much on the usual Lenten business of giving up pleasures like chocolate or taking on the holy work of repentance, but instead it’s been a time shadowed by worry, illness, and loneliness.

            So, this year a liturgical color change is probably not going to be enough to get us rejoicing.

            This year, even the knowledge that Easter is just a few weeks away is probably not going to be enough to get us rejoicing.

            But, I believe that by gathering together today even in this less than perfect way, by saying these familiar words, and, most of all, by hearing and reflecting on God’s Word, we can find the joy that we so desperately need.

            Because today – just like every day – God offers us the gift of sight.

            As we did last Sunday, today we heard a lengthy and complex lesson from the Gospel of John.

            There is a lot going on here.

            There are the disciples who see a blind man and ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

            And there’s Jesus who gives the challenging and uncomfortable answer that this poor man had been born blind “so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

            And there’s the concern among some that Jesus gave the gift of sight to the man on the Sabbath – the day when no work was allowed, not even healing, unless it was a matter of life and death.

Now to be fair, Jesus’ critics do have a case to make, since this poor man had been blind his whole life and could surely have hung in there for a few more hours – but, it’s a strange argument to make since it really misses the point

My God, a man born blind has just been given the gift of sight!

            And, even stranger is how people give this newly-sighted a man a hard time, asking him seemingly irrelevant questions, asking the same questions again, instead of just marveling at the miracle that has occurred.

            You’re really blind if you can’t see a miracle, like that, right?

            I mean, short of raising someone from the dead, it’s hard to imagine anything more miraculous than giving sight to someone who has never seen.

            It’s a miracle – and even with people giving him a hard time, even with his parents playing it cool and keeping their distance – it was by far the best day ever for this man.

            You know, in the Gospel of John, these wonder works of Jesus are actually not called miracles.

            No, instead, John calls them signs.

            Because as wonderful as gaining sight was for this one man, in fact what Jesus does is offer a sign – a sign that points to a deeper and essential truth not just for one person but for us all.

            Today – just like every day – God offers us the gift of sight.

            God offers us the gift of sight – the ability to see with our eyes, of course – but also the grace to see with our hearts – the blessing to see with our souls.

            God offers us the gift of sight to see the beauty and goodness all around us, to see God’s works revealed.

            And, as disorienting and distressing this time has already been, God is giving us the gift of sight right now.

           

            A few stories:

So, the other day an elderly parishioner who lives on her own texted me with news that she described as miracles.

            Like a lot of people, this woman was getting concerned that she was going to run out of toilet paper, and she asked if I could buy her some. I went to the supermarket to look, but, no surprise, the shelves were empty.

            But, it turns out I wasn’t the only one looking.

 Now this woman has not been to physical therapy for many months and yet her physical therapist got in touch with her, asking how she was doing, asking if there was anything she needed.

Toilet paper.

And so the physical therapist took the time and, yes, the risk to look all over Jersey City, finally finding a precious twelve-pack at a 99-cent store and dropping it off at the woman’s apartment.

And then, the next day the maintenance man of her building knocked on her door, yelling, “Look at your door!” and left.

When she opened the door she found a bag with ten more rolls of toilet paper!

Reflecting on this experience, here is what she wrote to me: “So, out of the heavens, not manna, but toilet paper fell to earth and landed at my feet!”

God offers us the gift of sight to see the beauty and goodness all around us, to see God’s works revealed, right here and now.

Another parishioner posted a beautiful story on Facebook about reconnecting with an old friend.

Years ago, they had worked together and become like sisters, but then, you know how it is, people move, phones are replaced, numbers are lost, and before they knew it, they hadn’t talked for about two years.

Then, out of the blue, the other day the parishioner’s friend called, explaining that she had been trying to call for a long time but had gotten the message the number was “not available.”

When they heard each other’s voice, the parishioner said that they “screamed with joy”.

Our parishioner wrote, “We almost cried and hugged each other from the heart.”

God offers us the gift of sight to see the beauty and goodness all around us, to see God’s works revealed, right here and now.

And then there have been our daily prayer services over the phone – “Church By Phone” we’re calling it.

When we started on Tuesday I wasn’t sure if it was going to work, not sure if anyone would call in, not sure if these unusual services would be satisfying, but I have to say they have been just so beautiful.

Although we can’t see each other with our eyes, I feel like we can see each other with our hearts as we hear some very familiar voices and sense of the depth of the prayers that are being offered.

One of the things I realized right away is that there is a lag time with conference calls and so I’ve been forced to speak and pray much more slowly than usual.

Normally, I’m kind of in a rush and the words go by and then I’m on to the next thing.

But, not this time.

And, so in a way that I never have before, I’m seeing the words of these prayers – words like these from the Lord’s Prayer:

“Save us from the time of trial.”

And, in a way that I never have before, I’m seeing all of you praying with so much heart, and longing, and faith.

And, right now, yes, it’s only Sue and me here in church this morning, but somehow I’m seeing all of you more clearly than when we’re all here together.

 I’m really seeing all of you, gathered around your screens, hungry for the Word, hungry for the Bread of Life, hungry for the community we love so much.

God offers us the gift of sight to see the beauty and goodness all around us, to see God’s works revealed, right here and now.

Long ago, Jesus gave sight to a man born blind, giving that man the greatest miracle – the best day - of his life.

But, for the rest of us, that one miracle is a sign – a sign that points to a deeper and essential truth:

Today – and every day – God offers the gift of sight.

And for that, especially in this time of trouble, we should rejoice.

Amen.

Thirsty People

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

March 14, 2020

Year A: The Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 95

Romans 5:1-11

John 4:5-42

Thirsty People

            So, there are some thirsty people in today’s lessons.

            In the first lesson, we find the people of Israel in the midst of their long exodus out of Egypt and they are experiencing – and expressing – some serious remorse about following Moses into the wilderness.

            The people aren’t at all shy about criticizing their leader, saying, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”

            Moses is frustrated and worried. He complains to God, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

            God comes to the rescue, instructing Moses to strike a rock with his staff. Water gushed out of the rock, quenching the thirst of the people.

And then there’s a kind of haunting end to this story.

Moses names this place Massah and Meribah because it was there that the people asked, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

“Is the Lord among us or not?”

            At the start of today’s long and complex gospel lesson, it’s Jesus who is thirsty.

            That’s surprising. We don’t usually hear about Jesus’ physical needs.

And it’s also surprising that Jesus is in the land of the Samaritans.

            Now, because of the famous parable we tend to think of Samaritans as “good” but back in the time of Jesus, Jews and Samaritans did not get along at all.

            It’s a long story, but Jews and Samaritans were related, they were kin, so it was a kind of family squabble and many of us know how bitter those can be.

            Jews and Samaritans shared the five holy books of the Torah, but disagreed about pretty much everything else, especially about the right place to worship – an issue that comes up in the conversation at the well.

            So, it’s surprising that Jesus is in Samaria and it’s really surprising that Jesus strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan woman.

She is certainly surprised, asking, “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

But, instead of just asking for water, taking a drink, and leaving it at that, Jesus begins to teach her, hinting at his identity and telling her that he offers “living water.”

Just like Nicodemus last week didn’t get it, at first the Samaritan woman doesn’t get it either.

And who can blame her? Living water? That’s some big talk about living water for a guy who doesn’t even have a bucket!

But, unlike Nicodemus who seemed closed off to what Jesus was saying, the woman is intrigued and curious and, yes, thirsty for this living water, this living water that will somehow quench her thirst forever.

And then Jesus throws a curveball, asking her to go get her husband, revealing that he knows that she has had a rather complicated marital history.

The woman is understandably impressed – how could he have known all of this? And, she expresses her faith in the coming messiah.

And then in the most surprising twist of all, Jesus reveals his identity to this Samaritan woman.

It’s the first time in the Gospel of John that he has spoken so openly!

Jesus reveals his identity to this woman who seems to have been a loner – maybe even an outcast - drawing water all by herself under the heat of the noonday sun – this woman with a complicated and maybe even scandalous past.

Jesus quenches the thirst of this woman who maybe had been thirsty for so long she didn’t even know anymore just how thirsty she was!

And what does she do?

She immediately puts down her water jar and goes to share the living water of Jesus with everyone in her city, a city filled with people who may have looked at her with scorn, a city that I’m sure was filled with lots of other thirsty people.

It’s quite a story.

And now here we are today in a time of crisis.

You’re all out there at home and Sue and I are alone here in church.

People are frightened and even panicked, rushing to the supermarket to hoard all kinds of items, some that make sense, some that don’t, but giving very little thought to neighbors who also need diapers and formula and baby wipes and milk and water and, yes, toilet paper.

We look at each other cautiously and even suspiciously as potential sources of contagion or we deny the whole thing is happening and live recklessly, putting everybody else at risk.

We are taking extraordinary actions that I’ve certainly never experienced before, emptying out office buildings, closing schools for weeks, and, yes, something I never thought I would do: closing churches – closing churches for three weeks and maybe even longer than that.

And, like the people of Israel in their long ago time of crisis, maybe we are also asking, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

“Is the Lord among us or not?”

Well, I’m here to tell you that the Lord is very much among us in this time of trouble.

I can’t tell you how many people here in our own community have reached out to me asking if anybody needs help, offering to give up time and their own money, to lend a hand, to quench the thirst of people they know and the many more they don’t know.

Yesterday morning I was walking back home along Duncan Avenue when a neighbor stopped me to talk. Of course, we talked about the coronavirus and she shared with me how frightened she is and listed all of her risk factors related to age and health and then she surprised me by saying that she has some extra canned food that she will leave on our porch so that I can give it to people in need.

The Lord is among us indeed!

Times like these are very difficult for us all but if we pay attention they also offer us some important lessons.

In our case, there are two important lessons that I hope we will learn.

First, there are so many thirsty people among us.

There are so many people, including right here in our own parish, who, in the best of times, live right on the edge, whose cupboards are never full - and get awfully empty during the second half of the month.

There are so many people who work really hard and yet earn so little – who work so hard but can barely pay the bills and certainly don’t have enough to buy two weeks worth of groceries and medicine, who don’t have anything saved for a rainy day let alone rainy weeks or months, who can’t take sick days, who don’t have health insurance and so rely on the ER for healthcare, or just take their chances.

We’ve known that there are thirsty people around us, but now we really know.

And the second lesson is another one that we knew already but somehow need to learn again and again. It’s what our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said:

We are all in this together.

For too long we’ve kidded ourselves that as long as I have a job, as long as I have health insurance, as long as I have food in the cupboard, as long as I have money in the bank, then it didn’t really matter that the person next to me on the train - or the person beside me in church - didn’t have all of those things.

For too long we’ve made the big and sinful mistake of thinking that there’s “us” and there’s “them.”

You know, the Jews and Samaritans shared history and heritage and belief.

They lived next door to each other.

            But often they didn’t get along with each other and maybe didn’t even care if the other lived or died.

They had a hard time imagining the other as “good.”

But they were family – they were kin.

And so are we all.

So, just like Jesus the Jew - Jesus the Messiah -entered Samaritan territory and offered living water to a very thirsty woman, in this time of crisis let’s share the living water of love with the many thirsty people all around us.

Amen.

Meeting Jesus in the Dark

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

March 8, 2020

Year A: The Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 12:1-4a

Psalm 121

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

John 3:1-17

Meeting Jesus in the Dark

            Last Sunday afternoon one of my all-time favorite people died.

            Her name was Lyn Foster and although you didn’t know her she has touched your lives because I know that she prayed for me and for all of us here, week after week.

            Lyn was a parishioner at my former parish, Grace Church in Madison, for decades.

            She and her husband Bill were quiet, unassuming people, but very much part of the fabric of that church.

            I arrived at Grace as a newly ordained deacon, not really knowing what the heck I was doing and feeling insecure with maybe a little chip on my shoulder about the suburbanites I’d be living among and serving.

Anyway, a couple of months after I started at Grace, Bill and Lyn’s adult daughter Beth was diagnosed with a return of cancer.

I had never met Beth, but one day Bill Foster pulled me aside and asked me to go visit his daughter in the hospital, adding, “I think the two of you would hit it off.”

            And so began one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.

            Over the next week, during what turned out to be the last week of her life, I experienced what felt like a lifelong friendship with Beth that was compressed into just a few days, a few incredibly painful and yet somehow still beautiful days as a woman still full of life recognized that she had reached the end, as a family endured what seemed unbearable.

            After making that journey together, Bill and Lyn and I had forged a strong bond, one that I will certainly never forget - a bond that helped to shape the best parts of my priesthood.

            Lyn and I kept in touch over the years – that’s how I knew she prayed for us – and I was able to visit with her a few days before she died, able to hold her hand and thank her for her friendship and support.

            But, it isn’t only Lyn’s death that has gotten me thinking even more than usual about my days at Grace Madison.

            The recent dramatic fluctuations of the stock market is also bringing back a lot of Grace Church memories.

            I arrived there at the end of the summer of 2007, just in time for the financial crisis that shook everybody’s life, but especially people in that generally affluent suburb where many people, especially the men, worked on Wall Street or elsewhere in the financial industry.

            These were men who had known great success in their careers, who had built prosperous lives living in beautiful homes, able to provide their families with so much.

And now, suddenly, shockingly, all of that was at risk.

            I remember one time being in the local bagel shop with a bunch of the guys from church and they began listing the names of men they knew who had lost their jobs, speaking in hushed tones as if remembering the dead, as if saying it too loud might bring the same fate upon them.

            Despite not really understanding their world – it was a running joke that I didn’t know the first thing about investing - I tried to reach out to these men as best I could.

I invited them over to our house for occasional Men’s Group “meetings,” which were really just times to be together for food and drink, providing a safe place for them to share their fears and frustrations.

            And, you know, those were scary days and it wasn’t easy for many of these men to share their vulnerabilities, but some of them did.

That time was a gift for me, a time when I came to see that people who seemed to have it all were in fact just as lost and frightened as the rest of us.

Whatever doubts or prejudices I had about these suburbanites quickly fell away as I realized that we were all in this together.

            And now, all these years later, I look back on those hours in Beth’s hospital room and the hours with guys sitting around our living room and I realize that, somehow, in those dark places, I met Jesus.

            Meeting Jesus in the dark.

            In today’s gospel lesson we heard the poignant and important story of Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a leader of his people, who came to Jesus by night.

I love the character of Nicodemus, someone who must have been well educated in his faith, a man of authority respected by the people around him, a person who others must have seen as having his act together, and yet…

I imagine him consumed by his questions and uncertainties, unable to set them aside, unable to rest.

Maybe out of fear or doubt he’s unwilling or just can’t see Jesus in the light of day.

Instead, one night he meets Jesus in the dark.

If the stakes weren’t so high, we might say that this scene with Jesus and Nicodemus is kind of funny.

What makes it almost comical is that they are talking on two very different levels, right?

Jesus is teaching about the need to be reborn – to be reborn in the water of baptism, to be reborn by the Spirit.

And well-educated and highly respected Nicodemus hears this talk about rebirth and tries to figure out how exactly a grownup like him is supposed to get back into his mother’s womb and start life all over again.

Now, he’s a bright guy so I’m guessing it’s not that he didn’t understand.

I suspect it’s that he didn’t want to understand, knowing that if he gets it then he’ll be faced with the choice of a lifetime: hold on to what he has or risk everything by following Jesus.

In the dark, Nicodemus met Jesus.

And that encounter has the potential to change everything.

If you were following along in that gospel passage, you may have noticed that there is a shift towards the end.

What had been a faintly comic but deadly serious conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus now becomes a statement of fundamental Christian belief.

The Evangelist John writes those well-known words:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

And then there’s the equally important John 3:17 that we often forget:

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

God loves the world so much that God gives us Jesus, not just once, not just two thousand years ago, but all the time, especially when the world and our lives are darkest.

In the story, Nicodemus goes to Jesus in the dark – in his time of darkness – but it’s been my experience that Jesus doesn’t wait for us to come to him.

 When it’s dark, Jesus just shows up.

So, it was dark when cancer struck a smart and talented and much-loved woman in the prime of her life, but Jesus was there.

It was dark when all of the structures and prosperity and hard work and talent that people always counted on suddenly seemed to fall apart and left some of us feeling vulnerable and afraid, but Jesus was there.

And now today, it’s dark when an epidemic spreads, and we look at hands and doorknobs and our brothers and sisters right here as potential carriers of contagion, but Jesus is here.

It’s dark when the stock market is a rollercoaster, risking our retirements, threatening the financial health of our church, but Jesus is here.

It’s dark when we are bitterly divided into political camps, no longer listening to each other, no longer agreeing on basic facts, and always assuming the worst of one another, but Jesus is here.

God so loves the world, even at its darkest – especially at its darkest - and that’s why we meet Jesus when we’re grieving and afraid and angry – when we’re confused like brother Nicodemus.

God loves the world - all of it - and wants to save it.

And, that’s why we meet Jesus in the dark, a meeting that has the potential to change everything.

It’s an important lesson I learned in Madison, a long time ago.

Famished

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

March 1, 2020

Year A: The First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm 32

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

Famished

            Last week we experienced one of the most dramatic shifts of the church year.

            On Tuesday evening, many of us gathered in Carr Hall for our pancake supper, when we stuffed ourselves with delicious food, enjoyed the many talents of our parishioners (even a magic act by Virgil the Magnificent!).

Plus, our kids battled it out in the pancake-flipping contest, and, thanks be to God and to many hands, the cleanup was amazingly fast and thorough.

            It was a great time.

            And then, after a quick night’s rest, it was Ash Wednesday and the start of the holy season of Lent.

            During Lent we try to make enough changes to the look of the church and to the order of the service so that you’re not completely disoriented but you can feel that this is a different time, a quieter time, a time for prayer and penance, and, maybe, for some of us, a time for fasting.

            On this First Sunday in Lent we always hear the story of Jesus’ wilderness time.

            Three of the gospels – Mark, Matthew, and Luke – all remember that right after his baptism, Jesus goes – or is led as Matthew says – into the wilderness.

            We are told that he was there for forty days and forty nights, reminding us of the forty days that Noah and his family and the creatures of the earth were on the ark – reminding us of the forty days that Moses was on Mt. Sinai – and reminding us of the forty years that Moses led the Israelites through their own wilderness time.

            At the end of his forty days in the wilderness, we’re told that Satan – who, by the way, seems to know the Bible quite well – tempts Jesus.

            Jesus is tempted to use his power for his own wellbeing and glory – tempted to worship Satan to gain the world, but lose everything that really matters.

            Jesus resisted these temptations – he knows the Bible, too – and Satan leaves him, at least for now.

            I’m sure this wasn’t the first time that Jesus had been tempted – and it surely won’t be the last either.

            The truth is that temptation is all around – all around Jesus and all around us – and temptation is especially dangerous when we are… “famished.”

            “Famished.”

            It’s a great word, isn’t it?

            It’s a word that we’ve cheapened, often using it at times like when we’ve skipped lunch and are poking around the refrigerator for a bite to tide us over to dinner.

            But, Jesus has been fasting in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights!

            On Ash Wednesday, I started to feel “hangry” right around noon after just a few hours of fasting, so I can’t really imagine what it must have been like to go that long without food!

            For some of us, fasting can be a good spiritual exercise, reminding us of our total dependence on God, reminding us of just how much food – how much everything – we have.

            Fasting can be good for us, if we go into it knowing what we’re doing, knowing that we are deliberately denying ourselves for a time.

            But even if we go into it with our eyes wide open, fasting can leave us feeling famished, leaving us vulnerable to temptation.

            The timing of Jesus’ temptation is no accident – he was famished – he was weak – and it was then that Bible-quoting Satan saw his opportunity.

            Fortunately, Jesus knew what he was doing – he’s Jesus, after all - and he was able to resist temptation, although he was famished.

            As I’ve been thinking about this, I’ve come to believe that most, if not all, of us have been fasting – not us a spiritual exercise, but without really knowing it.

            I’ve come to believe that we’re famished – that we are spiritually famished - and that leaves us vulnerable to temptation, vulnerable to Satan who, as always, knows just when to strike.

            Recently Bishop Hughes gathered most of the clergy of our diocese for an all-day meeting where she talked about how too many priests have been getting themselves into trouble of one kind or another.

            It was an important, if grim, discussion.

            And, one of the most striking moments was when she described a kind of profile of the clergyperson who gets into trouble - who, we might say, gives into temptation.

            They tend to be people who isolate themselves, who don’t take care of their physical, emotional, and spiritual health, who don’t maintain healthy relationships with family and friends.

            I’m saying “they” but probably all of us in the room that day could see ourselves, at least partly, in that description.

            I didn’t think of it this way at the time, but they – we - are unintentionally fasting from all of the best parts of life, what feeds us, what gives us joy, hope, and strength.

            Famished.

            And, if “professionally religious people” like us are famished, what about everybody else?

            One time, a person came to see me in my office. And after we talked for a few minutes she cried out, “I’m starving! I’m starving!”

            She didn’t need a sandwich. She was starving for spiritual food.

            So, I think most, if not all, of us are famished.

            Not from giving up chocolate or going a few hours without eating, but famished because we’ve starved ourselves of spiritual food.

            Many of us have the heavy responsibilities of work and family.

            Many of us carry the burdens of regret, of roads not taken and bad choices made.

Many of us are anxious, especially these days with the threat of a new mysterious disease closing in on us.

            Many of us have filled up our lives with constant texting and scrolling and commenting.

            Many of us spend too much time outraged by the latest words or deeds of politicians, without actually doing anything to improve our politics or our community.

            Many of us don’t take care of our physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

            Many of us have chosen to isolate ourselves, maybe fooling ourselves into thinking that a Facebook friend is the real thing, that texting is as good as real conversation.

            Many of us set aside so little time for prayer and reflection, crowding God out of our lives.

            We’re famished.

 And temptation is all around us – and we’re nowhere near as strong as Jesus.

Temptation is all around us – yes, the temptation to do the wrong thing but even more dangerous, the temptation to give in to fear and despair.

            But, the good news is that God is always ready and willing to feed us – just as God fed the Israelites in the wilderness, just as the angels waited on Jesus when his forty days were over, just as God gives to us Jesus the Bread of Life.

            So, this Lent, yes, sure, if it’s right for you, do some intentional fasting – give up a pleasure or a luxury, skip an occasional meal, and give the money you save to people in need.

            But, most of all, this Lent and always, eat of the goodness that’s all around us – eat of the goodness that we receive here – eat of the goodness that we need - eat and drink of the goodness that God always offers to us.

            Amen.