"So Much Wasted Time"

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City

December 3, 2017

Year B: The First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 64:1-9

Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

“So Much Wasted Time”

            I’m sure that pretty much every adult in the room thinks that kids today – kids today! – spend too much time looking at screens, too much time on their phones or on the computer, too much time playing video games.

            Of course, lots of adults are doing exactly the same thing, but let’s set that aside for now.

            There have even been studies done showing that all that time looking at screens is changing how kids learn how to relate to other human beings. In some cases, kids are having trouble reading facial expressions because they are not used to having a simple face-to-face conversation.

            This is concerning, of course. And, I’m not one to give parenting advice, but parents should probably consider limiting just how much time their kids spend staring at screens.

            But, at the same time, if I’m honest, I have to admit that when I was a kid – when I was a kid! - along with pretty much my whole generation, I spent a ton of time looking at a screen, too.

            Of course, it wasn’t a computer or a cellphone or a videogame device.

            It was TV.

            Now, even as a kid, I was a pretty avid reader – I loved to read books.

            But, I’m sure that if I could somehow add up all of the waking hours of my childhood, I’m sure that I’d find that I spent way more time with my eyes glued to the tube than I did with my nose in a book.

            Probably I spent more time just watching Star Trek than I did reading!

            As I’ve thought about this, I’ve remembered those seemingly endless weeks of summer vacation when I spent a lot of time at home watching reruns of such educational programs as I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, The Munsters (or, if I was feeling more intellectual, The Addams Family), My Three Sons, Green Acres, The Partridge Family, and, well, I could go on.

            Since these shows were on every weekday, we’d see the same episodes over and over again – and we could use a kind of shorthand with one another: “the one when Lucy gets into a fight when making wine,” “the one when the Brady’s go to Hawaii,” and so on.

            And, thanks to that repetition, the actors who starred in these shows became so very familiar to us, so familiar that we fooled ourselves into thinking that they were the characters they played, fooled ourselves into thinking that since we “knew” them so well they must somehow “know” us, too.

            We kind of “get involved” with these actors and with newscasters, too, who also play a kind of role, so it can be upsetting to find out that they aren’t the characters they play on TV, can be very upsetting to find out how flawed they can be – as we seem to be discovering just about every single day.

            And, it can also be a very emotional experience when we meet some of these stars, which I can attest to having encountered William Shatner several times in person – each time with tears in my eyes.

            In real life, he’s an elderly Canadian actor who doesn’t know the first thing me or, I’m sorry to say, care about me one bit. Of course, right? But, although I know it’s not real, on some other level, he is Captain Kirk and we’ve been on so many adventures together on the USS Enterprise.

            And, that’s why some of us get quite sad when these actors die.

            For example, many people – especially many women of a certain age – were grieved when David Cassidy, the star of The Partridge Family, died a couple of weeks ago.

            Back in the early ‘70’s he was an incredibly huge star, a teenage heartthrob, the first crush for many girls, but, as often happens with celebrities, he didn’t do so well after his moment passed, and, in fact, suffered from alcoholism for many years.

            After David Cassidy died, his daughter shared with the media her father’s last words:

            “So much wasted time.”

            Today is the first Sunday of a new church year, the First Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday of this brief but holy season – a season when we are called to prepare, yes, for the birth of the Son of God in an out of the way and very poor place – a season when we are also called to prepare for the last day, when we will be judged on how well we served the King and the Kingdom.

            So, while out there in the world so many people are caught up in what they think is the “Christmas Season” with its frenzy of materialism and also, unfortunately, the annual and fake “culture wars” about what cashiers are supposed to say and what Starbuck’s should print on its holiday cups, here in church the message and the focus is supposed to be quite different.

            And, we certainly heard that in today’s Gospel reading, where there was no Christmas cheer at all, right?

            Instead, Jesus looks ahead to the last day – a day that isn’t marked on our calendar – a day that only God knows – the day for which we must prepare.

            So, the message of Jesus to us is quite clear: “Keep awake.”

            Or, to put it another way, “Stop wasting time.”

            Now, Jesus isn’t calling us to be sleep-deprived or to deny ourselves rest and recreation. Not at all.

            But, Jesus is saying that since we don’t know the day or the hour, we must not postpone doing the work God has given us to do.

            We must not postpone loving one another – must not postpone telling one another, “I love you.”

            We must not postpone welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and lonely, and comforting those who mourn.

            This brief and holy season of Advent is a good time to take stock of how we live our lives – and, an opportunity to spend even just a little bit less of our precious time staring at screens and spend more time looking into the eyes of our brothers and sisters, the people we may think we know so well but maybe haven’t really talked with in a very long time.

Advent is an opportunity to spend more time looking - really looking - at the faces of those who cry out for mercy and compassion, those who hunger for a sign of God’s love in our broken and terrified world.

            I’ll close with one of the most beautiful blessings I’ve ever heard. It’s a call, a prayer, to stop wasting time:

            “Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us. So…be swift to love, and make haste to be kind. And the blessing of God, who made us, who loves us, and who travels with us be with you now and forever.”

            Amen.

           

           

           

           

            

"Available to the Kingdom"

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

November 26, 2017

Year A: The Last Sunday after Pentecost – Christ the King

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Psalm 95:1-7a

Ephesians 1:15-23

Matthew 25:31-46

“Available to the Kingdom”

“The Kingdom of God is available to you in the here and now. But the question is whether you are available to the kingdom.”

            As most of you know, for the past few months the leaders of St. Paul’s and Incarnation have been discussing the unification of our two churches early next year.

            Since we still have a few big and kind of thorny issues to work out, I haven’t said much publicly about it, yet. But, I’m happy to report that our “unification Committee” conversations have been positive, cordial, and productive.

            During our meetings, I have felt God’s Holy Spirit present and at work, creating genuine unity out of longtime division.

            One of the really nice side benefits of this process has been the opportunity to think about what’s essential about our life together here, at St. Paul’s.

What are the distinctive core characteristics of our church?

What makes St. Paul’s St. Paul’s?

If you’ve been around for a while you know there have been a lot of changes here these past few years but our core remains the same.

Here in church we are formal, but friendly.

We are traditional, but not stuffy.

That’s been kind of our niche here among the Episcopal churches in Jersey City and I don’t see it changing much no matter what happens next year.

As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

Since we are formal (but friendly) and traditional (but not stuffy), our worship is very similar to the way Christians have praised God for many centuries.

We observe the liturgical seasons of Lent and Advent and the great feast days just as Christians have for hundreds and hundreds of years.

If we could somehow transport Christians from the earliest days to St. Paul’s, they’d be confused and dazzled by lots of things, right? But, they would recognize the basic shape of what we do here week after week, listening to the stories of God and us and then gathering around the table and remembering Jesus blessing the bread and the wine, offering himself to us, offering himself for us all.

But, one thing that would probably puzzle the earliest Christians is the feast day that we celebrate today on the last Sunday of the church year: the Feast of Christ the King.

Christians from the past simply took Christ’s kingship for granted, would have understood in their bones, in their hearts, that since Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords then all the others who claim to rule – all of the Caesars past and present – are pretenders, are frauds.

For the early Christians this was all so obvious that there was no need to have a special day to celebrate Christ’s kingship.

It would be like sun worshipers setting aside a special day to remember and celebrate the warmth of the sun!

Well, sure enough, the feast that we celebrate today – the Feast of Christ the King – is, in fact, one of the newest additions to the church calendar.

The Roman Catholic Church only added it to the calendar in 1925 and then moved it to the last Sunday of the church year in 1970 – and many other churches followed suit, including, obviously, the Episcopal Church.

The feast was added to the calendar because the Church realized that, unfortunately, a lot of Christians were placing their faith not in Christ, but in other “kings.”

Back in the 1920’s, the Church could plainly see that Christians were trusting Communist “kings” like Marx and Lenin – Fascist “kings” like Mussolini and, soon, Hitler – and many Capitalist “kings” who taught that money and the newest product can and will make us so very happy.

That was a long time ago, and it would be wonderful to say that nearly a century later we Christians have learned our lesson, but of course that’s not true.

Let’s face it, so many of us Christians still place our ultimate faith in the “kings” of today, whether that’s a military or political leader who singles out certain people as our enemies and promises a return to past glory, or maybe some new technology that does indeed bring miracles but also presents new and serious problems for us to figure out.

So, yes, I’m pretty sure that our ancestors in faith would be surprised – shocked even – that so many Christians fall for these pretenders, but they wouldn’t be surprised by the basic problem - because Christ is a king like no other and his kingdom is not the kind that the world celebrates or even expects, even after two thousand years.

On this final Sunday of the church year, our gospel lesson looks ahead to the last judgment, when we will be judged on how well we served the King and his Kingdom.

And, perhaps to our shock still even after all this time, it turns out that the Kingdom is Bergen Avenue and Christ the King is out there right now, begging for change or a bite to eat.

It turns out that the Kingdom is the homeless drop-in center where Christ the King is hanging out with his buddies, trying to keep warm, hoping for something more nutritious to eat than a cheese sandwich.

It turns out that the Kingdom is the nursing home where Christ the King is lying in bed, alone, forgotten by his family and friends.

It turns out that the Kingdom is among refugees fleeing from oppression and violence and Christ the King is right there among them wondering what kind of welcome he will receive from people who claim to be his followers.

It turns out that the Kingdom is in apartments all around us, where Christ the King lives alone and isolated, friendless, barely remembering the simple pleasure of breaking bread with a brother or sister.

And, it turns out that the Kingdom is right here at St. Paul’s, tucked away and easy to miss on a side street, formal (but friendly) and traditional (but not stuffy), where all different kinds of people meet just as our spiritual ancestors did and tell the old stories, where we gather at the table and remember Jesus blessing the bread and wine, offering himself to us, offering himself for us all.

I started today’s sermon with a quote from the great and wise Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. He’s obviously not a Christian but he certainly gets it:

“The Kingdom of God is available to you in the here and now. But the question is whether you are available to the kingdom.”

And, as the church year draws to a close and as we find ourselves living during difficult days, days not so different from the 1920s, when people put their faith in other kings and other kingdoms, that really is the question for us Christians.

Do we make ourselves available to the kingdoms of the earth, the kingdoms ruled by the Caesars of today, by the many pretenders with their false and destructive promises?

Or, do we make ourselves available to the Kingdom of God, God’s kingdom that is right here and now, a kingdom ruled by Christ the King who doesn’t live in a palace or a mansion but dwells right here among us, most especially with the poor and the outcast?

“The Kingdom of God is available to you in the here and now. But the question is whether you are available to the kingdom.”

How we answer that question will make an eternal difference.

And, who knows, if we give the right answer, maybe some day we will be able to drop today’s feast from the calendar – able to drop it because it will be obvious to everybody that Christ is indeed our King – as obvious as the warmth of the sun.

May it be so.

Amen.

God's Holy Team

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

November 5, 2017

Year A: All Saints’ Sunday

Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm 34:1-10, 22

1 John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

God’s Holy Team

            On Wednesday night I watched a little bit of the seventh and final game of the World Series, between the LA Dodgers and the Houston Astros.

            If you follow baseball at all, you know that this was a particularly exciting World Series, with lots of twists and turns, but ultimately the Astros won, earning the first championship in the team’s history, and a good boost for a city that’s had a rough time of it lately.

            Watching the game, I thought about how much excellence was on display, as some of the best players ever to play baseball battled it out. Pitchers were hurling incredibly fast pitches, on average well over 90 miles per hour. Somehow, hitters were sometimes actually able to make contact with those balls, which must look like just a blur as they race towards them over the 60 short feet from the pitcher’s mound to the batters’ box. And, fielders were able to run, dive, throw, and catch, able to make exceptional and exciting plays.

            Thanks to extraordinary natural ability and a lot of practice, even the worst players on these teams are far more excellent than pretty much anybody else, at least when it comes to baseball,.

            In recent years baseball’s popularity has faded a little bit (for one reason, it’s probably too slow for a lot of people today), but when I was a kid it was still the “national pastime” and most of us boys played Little League baseball.

            Some of my teammates were really good, and a few even had dreams of playing in the big leagues. And, then there were others who were not so good at this at all. There were those who went out onto the field each game just hoping that they wouldn’t embarrass themselves too much.

            Want to guess which group I belonged to?

            Well, honestly, I think may have been the worst.

            I don’t think I had much natural ability but I did try, at least somewhat. I can remember playing catch in the park with my patient father, and practicing on my own in our backyard with a device called “Johnny Bench’s Batter Up,” which is a little hard to describe but was basically a ball tethered to a pole. The idea was you would whack the ball and then it would swing back in the opposite direction and you’d try again, and again, and again.

            But, despite giving it a try, and despite being told that I sure looked like I should be able to hit the ball (good stance, good swing), when it came time for a real game with another kid pitching to me, even at speeds much less than 90 miles per hour, my eye-hand coordination would fail me, and I just couldn’t hit that ball to save my life.

            And, eventually, with some embarrassment and regret, I quietly dropped out of Little League and put it behind me.

            Well, today is All Saints’ Sunday, the day when we give thanks for the holy women and men of Christian history, those who’ve been officially recognized by the Church, and also those unofficial saints who have been the holy people in our own lives, people whose saintliness may only be known to a few, or maybe even known only to us.

            And, you know, I love the saints. Growing up as a Roman Catholic, their images, their statues were all around me. I still love learning about them. I love preaching about them at our weekday services, sharing stories of their faithfulness, prayerfulness, generosity and their courage, awed by their excellence in Christian living.

            But, I wonder if there’s a bit of danger for us in honoring the saints – and that danger is thinking of them like they are kind of like the spiritual version of those major leaguers playing in the World Series, thinking of the saints almost like they’re super-humans, while meanwhile, you and I feel like we are the spiritual version of the uncoordinated kid in the backyard hacking away at Johnny Bench’s Batter-Up, trying, but with no chance of ever hitting the ball in real life.

            Honoring the saints is great, but there’s the danger of thinking that they are somehow in a different spiritual league, that their Christian excellence is beyond us, and, so we shouldn’t bother trying, and maybe even consider dropping out.

            But, the truth is, as children of God, we all have the natural ability to be saints.

            As children of God, we all have the natural ability to practice our saintliness in our everyday lives.

            And, the really good news is that being a saint is really about simply allowing God’s goodness and love – God’s excellence – to shine through us.

            You know, in baseball, or any other sport, or any other endeavor, our success is a result of some combination of natural ability and practice.

            And, that’s true in the Christian life, too.

            As children of God, we all have the natural ability to be saints. And, it’s through practice that we allow God’s excellence to shine through us.

            Practice when we’re on fire with our faith and, especially, when we’re not so into it.

            Practice in the good times and, especially, the not so good times.

            Practice is praying when God feels so very close and also when God feels very far away.

            Practice is giving of ourselves when we’re feeling full and generous and giving of ourselves when we feel like we have nothing worthwhile to offer and would really prefer to keep what we have for ourselves.

Practice is sticking close to one another, sticking close to St. Paul’s, especially when the foundations of our world seem to be shaking and cracking, even when violence and hatred are on the loose, even when we worry about health and money and work and our kids, and so much else.

            You know, this past week someone asked me about my vision for St. Paul’s.

            Although it’s a question I’ve been asked before, I don’t have a stock answer. But, I talked about the things most of you have heard me talk about a million times: a vision of St. Paul’s as a church that serves not only itself but offers itself in service to the community, a church that feeds people, feeds people with delicious food, good art, and a warm welcome for absolutely everybody.

            But, just like I used to replay my Little League strikeouts in my mind, I’ve been replaying that answer, too.

            And, if I could get a do-over, I would add that my vision of St. Paul’s is that we’re a team – a team with lots of different players each with our own strengths and weaknesses, a team where all of the players are encouraged and able to allow God’s excellence to shine through us, a team where we work together to build the downside-up kingdom revealed by Jesus in the Beatitudes, a team where all of us have the opportunity to be saints.

            So, today we give thanks for all the saints, the holy men and women who allowed God’s excellence to shine through them, the saints who’ve been recognized by the Church, and also those who have been saints in our own lives, people whose saintliness may only be known to a few, or even just by one.

            We give thanks for them and honor them and, yes, we stand in awe of them.

            But, meanwhile, we have all that we need to be saints.

            You and I.

            Right here and right now at St. Paul’s.

We have all we need to play in the spiritual major leagues

We have all we need to be on God’s holy team.

            Amen.

Religion of Love

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

October 29, 2017

Year A, Proper 25: The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18

Psalm 1

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Matthew 22:34-46

Religion of Love

            I’ve mentioned to you before that about seven years ago now Sue and I spent a year living in Gainesville, Florida, where I served as the Episcopal chaplain at the University of Florida and rector of a small suburban church.

            That year away was a challenging experience, for sure, one that has continued to shape my ministry, my priesthood, ever since.

            We didn’t really prepare for the big changes involved in moving from New Jersey to Florida, but even before we left we got some pretty strong clues that we were about to enter a different world.

            Just before we moved Gainesville was in the news.

            Some of you may remember that there was a so-called Christian minister in Gainesville who gained national and even international attention because of his announcement that on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks he was going to burn many copes of the Koran, the holy book of Islam.

            Obviously burning the book considered holy by millions of people was designed to be a provocative act, and sure enough, it provoked lots of controversy – and it stirred up lots of concern among our families, friends, and parishioners who worried about what kind of mess we were about to get into.

            In the end, this so-called Christian pastor ended up canceling the Koran-burning, and I’m happy to say that he did not represent any of the many people we met and got to know in Gainesville.

            In fact, one of the highlights of my time there was the opportunity to work with other campus ministers, a surprisingly diverse group that included all the “usual suspects,” Catholics and Protestants, Jews, Mormons, and…the Hare Krishna.

            Before going to Florida, I hadn’t thought about the Hare Krishna for years and I guess I had assumed that they had been kind of a fad from the 1960’s and 1970s that had pretty much died out. As far as I knew, they were no longer seen chanting and handing out flowers on city streets and at airports.

            Well, I don’t know why, but it turns out that Gainesville and the surrounding area has the largest population of Hare Krishna devotees in the whole country!

            We would often see them dressed in their colorful outfits, happily chanting away outside the university gates, chanting away in rain or shine, chanting away as passing drivers honked their car horns in support or in mockery.

            They had a thriving campus ministry called “Krishna House” that was just a few blocks away from where we lived and each weekday on campus they served a cheap vegetarian and very popular lunch called, you guessed it, “Krishna Lunch.”

            I had it a few times and can tell you that it was delicious.

            The Hare Krishna campus minister, whose given name was Carl, became a friend – and was a friend to all of us, no matter our religious affiliation.

            I remember one time he came over to our place to check out Morning Prayer (which must have seemed really dull compared to the worship he was used to!). After the service, some of us sat around talking and somebody asked him how long he chanted each day.

            He gave a sly smile and offered a very wise answer: “As much as I need.”

            The Hare Krishna seemed to be pretty well accepted in this Southern city, though I do remember one time when a couple of devotees were beaten up after a football game by some guys who were probably pretty drunk.

            All of the campus ministers and I rallied around our friend Carl and his shaken community.

            Now if you Google the Hare Krishna you’ll see that like every religious organization they’ve suffered their share of scandal and division, and there are some who think of them as a cult.

            I don’t know anything about that, but I have to tell you that from the outside they looked like the most joyful and peaceful people I had ever seen – it looked to me like they were practicing a religion of love.

            A religion of love.

            And, frankly, I thought then, and have thought many times since, that if you and I looked and acted like they do, we’d probably have a lot more people in church, or at the very least, we’d be living the kinds of lives that Jesus calls us to live.

            Real Christianity is a religion of love.

            In today’s Gospel lesson once again a religious leader, this time it’s a Pharisee who’s also a lawyer, asks Jesus a question (to test him, we’re told, but maybe he just wanted to know what Jesus would say.)

            “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

            Now, this was a good Jewish question – a necessary one in a religion with 613 commandments covering most areas of life – a good Jewish question that was asked a lot.

            And, sure enough, Jesus gives a good Jewish answer:

            He quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

            And, he quotes Leviticus 19:18,  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

            We’re not told how the Pharisees responded to Jesus’ answer but there couldn’t have been any objections to this very Jewish answer:

            The greatest commandments are to love God and love one another.

            Though I wonder how we look to outsiders, the truth is that both Judaism and Christianity are meant to be religions of love.

            St. Paul often gets a bad rap but in many ways he was an apostle of love, traveling around the known world sharing God’s love that he saw so clearly in Jesus, and calling his new Christians to love one another.

            Recently I met with a couple to talk about their wedding and when it came time to talk about the readings they were clear they don’t want Paul’s great hymn of love from First Corinthians, not because they don’t agree with Paul but because it’s read at nearly every wedding.

            And, they’re right, it is read at nearly every wedding, and for good reason, because even two thousand years later, the words of Paul still touch us:

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

We may have forgotten it. We may not always behave like it’s true, but we Christians belong to a religion of love.

And, Christian love is not so much an emotion or a feeling but an action, or a series of actions.

Love is a way, the way, of life.

And, to live a life of love it’s not necessary to dress up in an unusual outfit and chant on the street, like the Hare Krishna.

(Which is good because I’m self-conscious enough already!)

But, to live a life of love it is necessary to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked.

And, sometimes, it means responding to evil and hatred not with more of the same, but with love.

Gainesville has been on my mind lately because, as some of you probably saw on the news, a little more than a week ago a Nazi by the name of Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida.

In the days before his appearance there was a lot of understandable concern that we’d see a repeat of the violence that happened in Charlottesville. So, the governor declared a state of an emergency and the different levels of government spent more than half a million dollars for tight security.

Unfortunately, there was one shooting off campus, and few fights did break out, but the good news is that the counter-protestors far, far outnumbered the people of hate, the people who wanted to hear words of hate.

But, here’s my favorite, most loving, response to this evil and hate.

While the Nazi was speaking, a University of Florida music professor climbed eleven flights up into the university’s carillon tower and proceeded to play “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

As the bells rang out the familiar tune of the Negro national anthem across the tense campus, it was not so different from the Hare Krishna chanting and dancing in public no matter what - it must have been a reminder for everyone who recognized it – certainly many Christians and, who knows, maybe even a Hare Krishna or two, that we are called not to hate but to love.

Real Christianity is a religion of love.

But, is that what people see when they look at us?

Amen.