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.

God's Future

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

February 23, 2020

Year A: The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Exodus 24:12-18

Psalm 2

2 Peter 1:16-21

Matthew 17:1-9

God’s Future

            When I was a kid – when I was a kid – when I was a kid, the future was exciting.

            I think in my case the future was exciting because, as many of you know, I was (and remain) a fan of the best TV show ever, Star Trek.

            The original Star Trek, created and aired in the second half of the 1960s, offered a hopeful and inspiring vision of the future – one where human beings were able to finally defeat the old demons of hatred, greed, and ignorance – and boldly go out into space where they worked together to explore strange new worlds,  overcoming all sorts of challenges.

            When you think about when that show was created, it really is amazing to think of the crew we saw working together in every episode, a crew that included an Asian man, a Russian man (America’s adversary, just like today), a black woman who was not a servant or comic relief but an officer, and, yes, a half-human pointy-eared alien.

            Seeing that show over and over and over again impressed on me and on millions of others that it was possible – it was expected – that in the future we would set aside our differences and do great things together.

            That show convinced me and millions of others that the future was exciting – that the future was going to be peaceful and filled with technology that would improve our lives in so many different ways.

            And, as I was growing up it seemed like that future was happening.

            Although far from the utopia of Star Trek, the truth was that slowly but persistently we were breaking down the barriers that kept us apart and we developed technology that soon made the world of Kirk and Spock seem downright quaint.

            Over the course of my childhood, handheld calculators went from being something that stores displayed in a glass case under lock and key to something so cheap that they were sold for a few bucks or even just given away as a promotion.

            It was during this time that clever human beings invented personal computers, the Walkman (!), the Internet, cellphones, and so many medical marvels.

            A few months ago when I first visited one of our parishioners at the Neuro ICU at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, I thought this place feels familiar – and then I realized that with all of its high-tech wizardry it looked a lot like Sickbay on the Starship Enterprise.

            Over the course of my childhood and young adulthood we dramatically cleaned up the environment.

            When I was a kid – when I was a kid – we had almost no access to the Jersey City waterfront, which was filled with abandoned rail yards and warehouses – and even if you could get to the water most of nature had long since been smothered or driven away by pollution.

            It’s so much different today.

            This past Monday it was such a beautiful day that I walked downtown and wandered along the water, marveling at all of the nature – all of the life - all around me – including, unbelievable to me, a pair of swans gracefully swimming along the Morris Canal Basin.

            So, yes, for a while there, many of us had good reason to be excited about the future, believing that we might finally be able to set aside our differences and do great things together.

            Well, a new Star Trek series started a few weeks ago and it offers a much less hopeful, less optimistic, and certainly less than utopian, vision of the future.

            And, that’s no surprise because the show is simply reflecting our own time.

            Unfortunately, it turns out that the old demons of hatred, greed, and ignorance were not defeated but were just waiting for an opportune time to strike again.

            Hatred and violence are on the loose, as we have experienced all too painfully here in Jersey City.

            It breaks my heart to think of an entire generation of children who have been traumatized by active shooter drills in their schools – and I’m feeling a little traumatized myself as our church and all of the churches in our diocese have been required to create a safety plan, preparing as best we can for what in a sane world would be unthinkable.

            Once again the environment is under threat as the rules that led to cleaner air and water are being torn up.

            I wonder how much longer those swans will be able to swim in the waters off Jersey City.

            And, I’m sure you’ve seen on the news the downright balmy weather in Antarctica that is melting more ice, speeding up the rising of the seas.

            We’ve gotten used to the wonders of technology, no longer awed by the latest inventions, which now mostly just seem like minor refinements of old technologies, really just ways for us to spend more money.

            We’re told we live in good economic times but the gap between rich and poor continues to grow and so many people, so many of our own parishioners, live every day on the edge of losing everything.

            And, racism, which, as you know, never died, but is now expressed openly, not just by bigots after a couple of drinks, but by people in positions of authority, people who receive applause and sometimes even awards and votes for their hatred.

            I could go on… but it’s no surprise that, unlike when I was a kid, the future is not too exciting for young people today.

            So, I’ll always love Star Trek.

 But, you know, people created the vision of Star Trek, people who assumed that in the future we would somehow be able to defeat our old demons, and that we could create a kind of paradise.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Because what’s missing is God.

            In today’s gospel passage, we heard the story of the Transfiguration – one of the most important moments of Jesus’ life – one of the all-time great mountaintop experiences – a foretaste of Easter when love defeats hate, when life defeats death, once and for all.

            It’s at the Transfiguration when the God of Moses and Elijah announces that:

            “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I well pleased; listen to him!”

            “Listen to him!”

            “Listen to him!’

            My favorite part of this story is that Peter wants to stay – wants to build dwellings there for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.

            Who wouldn’t want to stay there, right?

            It was a taste, a glimpse, paradise.

            But the point is that Jesus and his friends need to come back down the mountain to the “real world” and face the future – a future that will take Jesus and the others to Jerusalem and to the Cross – the place where it would seem that all hope was lost, but in fact the God of new life was just getting started.

            Listen to him!

            And, in a way, you and I are about to come down the mountain, too – about to enter the holy season of Lent.

            Lent can be beautiful but it’s also hard work.

            It’s when we’re called to give up whatever is stopping us from really listening to Jesus, whatever is preventing us from hearing his call to love one another, especially the people we don’t like, the people we fear, the people we see as “other,” as aliens.

            Lent is when we’re called to take on the work of being a follower of Jesus, of praying a little bit harder, of offering a little more of ourselves, of forgiving, of asking forgiveness.

            Lent is meant to help us listen – to really listen to Jesus.

            And when we do that – when we listen – we won’t zoom around the galaxy on the Starship Enterprise, but we will help to create the future that God has always dreamed of, the beautiful and peaceful future that God has always intended for us all.

            And, what could be more exciting than that?

            Amen.

Jesus Present / Presenting Jesus

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

February 2, 2020

The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord

Malachi 3:1-4

Psalm 84

Hebrews 2:14-18

Luke 2:22-40

Jesus Present / Presenting Jesus

            Today, on the Feast of the Presentation, we get a rare glimpse into the life of Jesus and his family. In this little story, Luke provides some of the only information we have about Jesus during the decades between his birth and the start of his ministry.

            It’s always good for us to be reminded that Joseph and Mary – and Jesus - were faithful Jews, and as faithful Jews Joseph and Mary traveled to the Temple in Jerusalem to fulfill two requirements of the Law of Moses.

            Forty days after the birth of a male child the mother was required to go through a purification ritual, offering a lamb to be sacrificed in the Temple. Or, if she was poor, as apparently Mary was, she could offer a pair of birds instead.

            The second requirement was that the firstborn male child belonged to God, and so the “presentation” in the Temple was a sign of that important relationship.

            So, on one level this was routine, right?

            New mothers were probably coming to the Temple to be purified all the time and new parents were probably presenting their firstborn sons all the time.

            But, we know that this is no ordinary child.

            Mary and Joseph know that too, of course, and it turns out that two other people in Jerusalem that day are also able to recognize Jesus.

            The first is Simeon who recognizes that this child is the long awaited messiah.

            And, appropriately enough, Simeon bursts into song, rejoicing that now he can die in peace. He sings that this child is a gift not only to Israel, but for the whole world.

            And the second is Anna, a prophet, an old woman, who has been living a life of prayer and fasting in the Temple and when Jesus is presented she is able to recognize him, too – and while we’re not told if she also sang, she did start spreading the word about this holy child.

            It’s a beautiful story, isn’t it?

            I love how it’s ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.

            A family is just going about their business of following the Law as faithfully as they can, but because their child is Jesus something extraordinary is happening, and at least some people are able to recognize that something extraordinary is happening – that Someone extraordinary is in their midst.

            Jesus present.

            Presenting Jesus.

           

Today is also the day of our annual meeting when we take stock of where we are as a parish, looking back on the past year and also making some changes and setting goals for the year ahead.

There will be a lot of information spoken and even more information included in the printed annual report, which I very much hope you will take the time to read.

But, with so much information, so many words and numbers, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture.

Happens all the time.

            One of the things we started working on last year but haven’t yet finished is creating a new mission statement for our unified parish.

            It’s an important exercise, forcing us to reflect on why we are here, what we do here, and what is it we would like to be and do, or should be and do.

            The story of the Presentation that got me thinking about our mission statement, because in that long ago ordinary and extraordinary story maybe we see what we are meant to be about.

            Jesus present.

            Presenting Jesus.

            Why do we come here week after week?

            Why do you come here?

            The days of being expected to go to church are long over, so I think for most of us it’s not about obligation.

            So, why do we come here week after week?

            I’m sure there are somewhat different answers for all of us, with some coming for a few minutes of peace, some are here for the music, some because they love the tradition, some to see friends, to enjoy some time together, some because it’s what they’ve always done.

            Those are all good reasons to show up week after week, but most of all, we come here because this is where Jesus is present.

            Sometimes people say to me – and I’m sure you’ve heard this, too - that they don’t need to go to church to pray or to feel close to God, and that is absolutely true. Many of you know that I feel very close to God and do some of my best praying while on early morning walks through the streets and in Lincoln Park.

            But, Jesus is present here in a different way, an even deeper way.

            Jesus is present here in the Word that we hear, in the peace that we exchange, in the community made up of so many different kinds of people, and most of all in the Bread and Wine that is broken and poured out for us.

            Jesus present.

            And then our task, our challenge, our call, is to present Jesus to the world.

            So, when newcomers come here, we welcome them to church and, yes, coffee hour, welcoming them as if he or she was Jesus himself.

            We present Jesus to the world by not being just like everybody else, but striving to be less judgmental, less selfish and more forgiving, more loving.

            We present Jesus to the world by going out into the world and standing beside and standing up for the least and the lost, the people the world looks at as losers, as not worth the time, and maybe even dangerous.

            In a sermon a few weeks ago I mentioned in passing about my hope of reaching out to some of the kids, the gang members, who hang out in Triangle Park, where we have our community center.

            That line got more reaction than I usually get – and it was very touching that so many of you were worried about my personal safety.

            Thank you for that.

I don’t think I would actually be in much physical danger, but I am well aware that a white middle-aged priest who doesn’t live in that neighborhood trying to somehow “save” those young men is probably not going to work – certainly not on my own and without spending a lot of time and effort building community and relationships.

 But, if we’re going to present Jesus, then we must at the very least respect the human dignity of those guys, some of them still really only children, remembering how much God loves them, and trying to find a way of reaching at least some of those kids, offering a different way, maybe even a way out.

Jesus present.

            Presenting Jesus.

Long ago Joseph and Mary traveled to the Temple in Jerusalem to present their holy child, a child recognized by Simeon and Anna.

It’s a beautiful story about faithful people, but there’s something else that we need to remember: there was a lot of tension and fear in the background.

In those days Jerusalem was an occupied city and there were plenty of Jews who hoped and expected a messiah – not one who would preach peace or turn the other cheek - but a messiah who would oust the Romans from their land and finally restore the kingdom of David.

The Romans knew all about this Jewish hope and expectation, so needless to say they were eager to get rid of any would-be messiahs as quickly and ruthlessly as possible.

In those days, there were a lot of crucifixions.

So, there was some risk when Joseph and Mary presented Jesus.

 And there was definitely danger when Simeon recognized Jesus as the messiah and sang his song – a song of rejoicing but also a song of rebellion.

And there was danger when Anna went around telling everyone about the holy child she had finally met.

And there is danger today, too.

You may have noticed that lately I have avoided commenting on current events in my sermons. I feel like we all know only too well our situation. And, maybe at least some times, church needs to give us a break from all of that. And, by now I think I’ve said all that I have to say about the state of our land, where the cruelty and ugliness that was usually at least a little below the surface has now risen to the top, and many of our institutions are proving to be not as strong as we had always assumed, not strong enough to withstand corruption, ignorance, cowardice, and shamelessness.

So, once again, there is tension and fear in the air.

I don’t know exactly what this year is going to bring, but I do know that, no matter what, no matter what, no matter what, Jesus will be present with us here, just as he has always been.

And I know that, like Joseph and Mary, like Simeon and Anna, you and I are called to present Jesus to a world that needs him so desperately.

Jesus present.

Presenting Jesus. 

Amen.