The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A - Rev. Frank Senn - March 26, 2023

Text: John 11

We have been chanting the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, in our liturgy on the Sundays in Lent. These “ten words,” as they’re called in Hebrew, are given as God’s design of life for his people’s life together in the Book of Exodus. They’re repeated as a catechetical text in Deuteronomy.

Back in Lent of 1957 I was finishing my two-year confirmation class with the pastor by memorizing the texts and explanations of the Ten Commandments, the three articles of the Apostles’ Creed, the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, and the four parts each of Baptism, Confession and Absolution, and Holy Communion, all in Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. On the Fifth Sunday in Lent my confirmation class would be publicly examined by the pastor in front of the congregation. We would be confirmed on Palm Sunday, join in the full Order of Public Confession on Maundy Thursday, and received our first Communion on Easter.

When we stood before the congregation on the evening of Lent V, we would be called on in turn to recite the portion of the Catechism the pastor asked of us. Augustine of Hippo had to go through a similar examination or scrutiny by his pastor, Ambrose of Milan, in preparation for his Baptism at the Easter Vigil in 387. He admitted that he was a nervous wreck. So was I.

After a hymn and a prayer, the pastor began. “Judy, what is the first commandment?” She answered, “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me” “Good,” said the pastor. “Frank, what does this mean?” (I breathed a sigh of relief; this one is easy.) “We are to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”

I’ll stop narrating my Christian initiation ordeal here. The questions did get harder as we went through all the parts of the Catechism. But I want to note that the texts of the catechism, which are basic for Christian life, also have to be internalized as articles of faith. So, for example, is it really so easy in life “to fear, love, and trust in God above all things?”

Our Gospel today has a catechetical character. It’s full of questions that require a faith response. Jesus’ question to his dear friends at Bethany, who were mourning the death of their brother Lazarus, was simple enough. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. Do you believe this?”

As in the Catechism, the answer was simple enough. “Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God; the one whose arrival the world has been waiting for.”

Answering that question was easy. Seemingly, so was the next question.  “Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

OK, “Roll back the stone. Open the tomb.”

“What?!”

“Open the tomb.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s a body in there that’s been dead for four days.”

“Open the tomb.”

“Come on, Jesus. It’s hard enough to view the dead before burial, let alone digging up what is decomposing. Don’t make me do this.”

“I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord. I believe.”

“Open the tomb.”

“It’s going to stink to high heaven in there. We’ll all be sick. That stone is in place for a good reason. It’s not healthy to expose people to what’s in there. Just leave it be.”

“I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord. I believe.”

“Open the tomb.”

“Can we talk about this? Okay, I’ll admit it. It’s not just the stench I’m afraid of. There’s more to it than that. It’s what it would mean for me. Sometimes when things are laid to rest
you’ve just got to let go and move on. It’s not healthy to keep raking over the ashes. Sometimes you have to shut yourself off, sever the emotional ties and stop dwelling on the past to protect yourself against the pain. You’ve got to let go of the ‘if only’s---“if only you had been here”---and accept that those hopes and dreams are gone, that that chapter is closed, and you’ve to get on with life as it now is, poorer perhaps, but with both feet firmly on the ground. I’ve just started to cope with this loss. Don’t make me have to start all over again in my grief.”

“I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord. I believe.”

 “Open the tomb.”

“Lord, please. Can’t we just leave it alone? Can’t we just walk away? Can’t we let the dead rest in peace? Maybe some of what’s dead in there, died because I gave up too easily. Maybe he didn’t need to die. Maybe if you’d been here with me, my brother wouldn’t have died. You could have done something. But it doesn’t matter now. He’s dead and buried. Why look on the horror of it all now? Why dredge up the misery, the shattered dreams, the agony of lost hopes. Oh, my God, he was too young to die. Why?”

“I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord. I know all that. I know you are the Messiah that was coming into the world.”

“Open the tomb.”

“I can’t. Don’t you understand what it would cost me to go back in there? Don’t you know what it’s like when something within you dies? When you abandon hope? When you turn off the life support system and watch your brother slip away? You steel yourself against the pain. You bite you lip and fight the tears. You pretend you’re better off without him to take care of, because that’s what everyone else thought anyway. Do you know what it costs to close that tomb
and return to living life as though nothing had happened? Life must go on.”

“I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord. I believe it. I’ve got it all down pat. I learned the Catechism.”

“Open the tomb.”

“Do you have any idea what you are asking me to do? To open it up again? To make myself vulnerable again? What if it just opens up all the old wounds and everything is just as complicated as before? What if it undoes all the good progress I’ve made? What if I believe again, trust again, open myself up again, and just get destroyed again? What if I just get my heart torn out and trampled over again? I couldn’t face that.”

“No, just let him rest in peace in the tomb. He’s safe. I’m safe. You’re safe. You go raising the dead and it will be the last straw. Don’t you know Caiaphas is out to get you. He’s just looking for an opportunity. Don’t go stirring things up again. I lost my brother. I don’t want to lose you. Just let it rest in peace. If you put flesh back on those bones and breathe life into that body, everything will be raw and vulnerable and terrifyingly alive with possibilities…and questions…and challenges…and passion.”

“I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord. I believe.”

“Open the tomb and, yes, I will call the dead to life. Open the tomb and let your faith be more than words, more than theoretical answers to a question. Open the tomb!”

“Yes, Lord.”

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even though he die, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”

(shouting) “Lazarus, come out!” (silence) “Unbind him. Unbind him from the grave wrappings signifying his captivity to sin and death.”

In another two weeks catechumens will enter the tomb of the font and will be unbound from captivity to the old world of sin and death. This was symbolized in antiquity by removing all clothing and jewelry and going into the water naked before God. The neophytes will emerge from the water as new-born creatures, forgiven and enlivened by the Spirit of God.

Do you believe that this is what happens in Holy Baptism? The faith of the Church has been transmitted to us. But like Martha we want to insulate ourselves from the immediate claim it has on our lives. The resurrection and the life of the world to come will concern us only later in something oddly called the “afterlife.” We’re not ready just yet to “walk in newness of life” or to consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

But in the Baptisms and the renewal of baptismal vows at the Easter Vigil we too are confronted with the probing question, “Do you believe this?” “Do you believe in God the Father, creator of heaven and earth?” “Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died and rose again?” “Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit, who gives new life and raises the dead?”

We must answer for ourselves, out of the heart where alone transformation and new and eternal life begins. Jesus Christ does not give eternal life as a thing, like a ticket to an amusement park which we can put in our pocket for use at a later date. He Himself is eternal life. He is the resurrection and the life now, and we share this life through our belief and trust in him, our immersion into his death and resurrection in the waters of the font, our ingestion of his body and blood---his very life---into our flesh, our participation in his body on earth, the Church. Christ in our lives gives us the power to meet all our sorrows, burdens, disappointments, failures, breakdowns, fears, doubts, and uncertainties.

“If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give new life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11). Amen.

Pastor Frank C. Senn

PENTECOST 11 (Year C, Proper 16) - August 21, 2022 - Rev. Frank Senn

Texts: Isaiah 58:9b—14; Luke 13:10—17

You sometimes hear people say, “nothing is sacred anymore.” They mean that respect is not paid to institutions and things that were once venerated. Probably the biggest recent violation of a sacred institution was the attempt by a mob incited by the former president to disrupt the constitutional orderly transfer of the office of president, a mob which also ransacked the U.S. Capital Building that is called “the people’s house” and “the citadel of democracy.”

Documents like the U.S. Constitution and the Bible are regarded as sacred or holy. Places like the Capitol or houses of worship are regarded as sacred or holy. Times like anniversaries of historical events or weekly occurrences like the Sabbath Day can be regarded as sacred or holy. People such as heroes and saints can be regarded as sacred or holy. We speak of sacred music and sacred art.  But what do we mean when we say that something is sacred or holy?

Basically, we mean that something bears the marks of God. That it has a quality about it that somehow enables us to sense the presence of God or that connects us to God. That somehow in this place or at that time or in these people earth and heaven seem to kiss; reality becomes transparent, and you can see right through to things far deeper and more mysterious than what we encounter in ordinary life. The sacred may also include aspects of ordinary life, like childbirth or marriage or a vocational calling or death.

Some sacred things we just encounter by surprise (like when Moses encountered the burning bush) or by common consent (like a burial place). But other things are sacred because God says so. “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” That means to keep it set apart for God.

But it’s not just a commandment. The Isaiah writer after the Babylonian exile (sometimes called the Third Isaiah) says to the Jews who are reconstructing their common life after seventy years in Babylon that if they refrain from attending to their own business on the Sabbath Day, it will become a day of genuine joy. They will rejoice in Yahweh, and ride upon the heights of the earth. Worshiping the Lord will be an ecstatic experience that they will find uplifting.

Gathering on the Sabbath, the sacred day, in the local synagogue, the sacred place, with your fellow people of the covenant, the sacred people of Abraham, became the hallmark of post-exilic Judaism. The Sabbath rest is a gift from God. The new institution of the synagogue that emerged during the Babylonian exile when access to the Temple was cut off is a gift of God. The community of the covenant is a gift of God to God’s chosen people.

But what happens when somebody tries to control the sacred? That’s the issue in the Gospel reading we heard today. In the story from Luke’s gospel, we saw what happens when somebody tries to control the sacred. Tries to regulate it, to guard it, to restrict access to it. The leader of the synagogue, a man to whom the handling of sacred things has been entrusted, has so lost his ability to see beyond the rules that were intended to protect the holy that he couldn’t see a holy action taking place on that particular holy day. It’s not that God breaks his own commandment, but rather than God shows how the promise of Sabbath wholeness can be fulfilled.

A woman comes into the synagogue, a woman who has been crippled for eighteen years and is bent over, unable to stand up straight. What does the synagogue leader see? An outcast. Something grotesque and distorted. Hardly human.

But what does Jesus see? He sees a woman, a person of dignity and worth, a beloved child of God, a daughter of Abraham. In short, he sees a sacred being – someone who bears in her very being the image of God. He sees her disability too, but only as secondary. He sees her as a sacred bearer of the image of God who just happens to have a disability. He can, however, see that the disability has marginalized this member of the covenant community. Her disability has caused her to be shunned, her sacredness denied.

And so, Jesus commits a sacred act. A sacramental act of healing – one of those acts that pulls the veil back and allows us to see for a moment the reality of God that permeates the world. He heals her. He said “Woman, you are free,” and laid his hands on her back (probably because her face was toward the ground), and up she came, as strong and straight as a mountain ash.

But the synagogue leader, not able to see the holiness of the woman and not able to see the holiness of healing, is indignant. This breaks the rules. This is not allowed. There are times and places for these things to be done, and this is not it. This is the Sabbath, a holy day, and this is a holy place where the Torah is studied. You can’t do that sort of thing here today.

Talk about missing the boat! What could be more appropriate than a holy act for a holy person on a holy day. Those who try to regulate and control the holy rapidly lose their ability to even recognize the holy. They blind themselves to the presence of God even in the times and places and among the people that God himself has declared holy.

What is the Sabbath? It’s the day on which God rested from all his work of creation that he had pronounced “good” and “very good.” It was a day to celebrate completeness, wholeness. We Christians don’t celebrate the Sabbath in the same way as the Jews. But we must still remember it, because without the seventh day of rest we would not be celebrating the eighth day, the day of resurrection, the Lord’s Day. This is a day on which we rejoice in a new creation. The One who, by his resurrection, is making all things new, made this woman, this daughter of Abraham, whole and new, completing the wholeness of the God’s creation and anticipating the new life of the resurrected body.

Central to our faith is Jesus’ suffering and death and resurrection on the third day. Our hope is the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. We confess this in our baptismal creed, and we affirm it as the mystery of faith in our Eucharist.

Unfortunately, we are not without Christian leaders today who would withhold the sacrament of Christ body and blood from Christ’s baptized people because of decisions they must make and actions they must take because of their responsibility in the world. I think of our very Catholic president being threatened by some Catholic bishops with excommunication – being barred from receiving Holy Communion – because of his support of abortion rights. What about “the gifts of God for the people of God?” Or, in the Eastern liturgies on which this Prayer Book formula is based, “Holy things for the holy people.” (Of course, these statements are not in the Roman Mass, so the bishops are not reminded that the things God made holy by the holy words of Christ---sacramental elements---are intended for the people God made holy in Baptism.)

In our fallen world all of us have had to make decisions that we wish we didn’t have to make. You’re faced with this in your own life and work and family. Pastors have to give counsel they wish they didn’t have to give. I know I have. I once had to absolve a woman who wanted a child of aborting a child that would not survive birth.

No matter who you are, no matter how bent and twisted you may have become, no matter how low you’ve gone, that image of God is implanted in you. You are still a sacred being. We all have, by virtue of being people baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ and equipped with the Holy Spirit, a calling to minister to bent and twisted people. We have words and gestures by which to set them free.  Sometimes the gesture is no more than holding a hand.

The sacred is all around us, in every place, in every moment, potentially in every person. And the sacred is always within us, calling us to embrace our God-given destiny as sacred bearers of God’s grace in a sacred world, a world God pronounced “good” and “very good.” Amen.

Pastor Frank C. Senn

Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year C) - March 27, 2022 - Frank Senn

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT Year C

Text: Luke 15:1—3, 11b—32

We hear today one of Jesus’s most well-known parables, as it is told in the Gospel of Luke. It’s a story in three parts. Part one is about a son who demands his inheritance in advance, squanders it in loose living, ends up destitute, and decides to return to his father and ask for a job. Part two is about a father who welcomes his wastrel son home with open arms and throws a lavish feast to celebrate his return. Part three is about an older brother who begrudges his father’s mercy and grace to his younger brother. You could easily get a three-point sermon out of this parable. Better yet would be to get three sermons out of it, so rich and suggestive are the details in this story. Today at mid-point in the season of Lent I will focus mainly on the first part: the younger son’s waste of his inheritance, repentance, and return home.

We could let our imagination roam over the younger son’s reasons for wanting to leave the family farm. He wants to experience the wider world. He asks for his share of his inheritance to fund his adventure. We could ponder why the father would give in to this demand. He must have surely perceived an irresponsible streak in this boy just from his behavior around home. Was it not irresponsible of the father to give into the son’s request, knowing that it might not be put to a good use?

The son is oblivious to the fact that everything he has came from his father: the clothes he wears, the food he eats, the house he lives in, the many possessions he has already acquired. His father could give all this to him because the family farm was productive. But his father is aging. Wouldn’t the younger son be needed to assist his older brother in managing the manor? Wouldn’t taking his share of the inheritance in advance eat into funds that might be needed for the care of his father in his old age?

The son does not consider any of this. Nor does he use his inheritance – the capital his father gave him – to buy his own farm or start his own business. He simply lives off of his inheritance, and he’s not frugal about it. This is why he is called “the prodigal son,” the wastrel son. He lives high. He throws wild parties for his friends. The story invites us to imagine his loose living. His older brother later charges him with squandering his father’s inheritance on prostitutes.

But then came a time of famine. There were food shortages. The prodigal son had to spend his money on food, goods, and services with inflated prices because of the shortages. Not having another source of income, he eventually runs down his bank account and must find a job. He has worked on a farm. So, he applies for a farm job and ends up feeding pigs. Pigs! Can you imagine? Isn’t this a Jewish boy? How low can he get?

Sitting in a pig sty, sharing the food given to the pigs, he comes to his senses. He forms a plan in his mind. He knows the workers on his father’s farm eat better than this. He will return home and throw himself on his father’s mercy, begging for a job on his father’s farm. He rehearses his speech. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” Is he being sincere?

Before going further, I want to insert us into the story thus far. Don’t we all have an inheritance that we have squandered? What that inheritance is, is suggested by the condition that created the crisis for the prodigal son: famine. Famine is caused by drought, nature not cooperating with our desire for Earth’s produce.

Is it not our inheritance the very planet we live on? Is it not a planet that makes life itself possible, situated at just the right distance from the sun so that it’s not too hot or too cold? Earth provides an oasis of air. The atmospheres of other planets, at least in our solar system, are not conducive to the life forms we know because their atmospheres are too toxic. I won’t go into the geological history of our atmosphere’s formation, or the evolution of the life forms Earth has produced with the right balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide. I’ll simply point out the symbiotic relationship that has formed between animals and plants. Animals like us humans take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. Plants like trees take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Life is maintained in a fragile balance on this island of life in our solar system.

But now we are experiencing an imbalance of too much carbon emission into the atmosphere which is producing global warming. Changes in the atmosphere are contributing to an increase of natural disasters like droughts and floods, forest fires and tornados, warming waters and hurricanes. And our human habitants are in the way of all these upheavals.

We’re past the point of debating whether we’re experiencing global warming, or that human activity has contributed to it. But we haven’t reached the point of repentance whereby we act to mitigate the threats to life. We haven’t even begun to act in our own self-interest, like the prodigal son did. We continue to burn fossil fuels and cut down rain forests. Too much carbon goes into the atmosphere and not enough oxygen is produced to counter it. The nations of the world act in the-interests of their own economic development. They lack the political will to work together. It seems we’re not going to tackle the ecological issues. This can lead us to despair.

Despair is hopelessness. We have no reason to hope for a turn-around, for repentance, because it hasn’t happened yet. Nations can’t even follow through on what they agreed to do. Diminish our reliance of fossil fuels such as Russia offers to European nations and cease acts of deforestration in the Amazon to make way for more agriculture and benefit the logging industry. The temptation is to resign ourselves to the inevitable consequences of our prodigal ways.

But our Gospel today offers a reason for hope. In the face of the great crisis facing the prodigal son, he looked realistically at his situation and was ready to turn around. He was ready to go home. It was in his self-interest to do so. It is in our self-interest to go home also.

What is home for us? Eucharistic Prayer C in The Book of Common Prayer, which has an ecological theme, speaks of “this fragile earth, our island home.” This prayer was written in the 1970s. You would think that after fifty years of use it would be dated. Lamentably, it’s not.

Before the prodigal son even has a chance to make the speech to its father that he has rehearsed in his mind, “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran out and put his arms around him and kissed him.” It’s as if the father was waiting for his son to return. Our Creator, too, waits for us to come to our senses. God waits for our return with open arms.

Now I’d love to talk at length about the lavish welcome home feast and the grumbling older brother. As I said, each of these is worth a sermon in itself. But I do want to note that the father directs the servants to put the best robe on his son’s naked body, sandals on his feet, and a ring on his finger. The ring is a sign of kinship in the family and authority. When the partying is done, the father has work for his son to do in the management of the farm.

When we are dismissed each week from the eucharistic feast, we have work to do in our fragile and broken world. We can’t be stymied by the inaction of governments and corporations. Our motivation to act comes from the fact that we are children of our Creator, siblings of Christ our Redeemer, animated by their living Spirit. We are sent out into the world to fix things, without even knowing what the consequences of our actions will be.

Have you heard of complexity theory? It teaches that in the chaotic zone between two attractors (let’s say despair and hope), tiny perturbations can have huge, unpredictable effects. For example, I read in the New York Times about a young man named Caulin Donaldson, who joined Tik Tok in December 2019 to chronicle with good humor his daily efforts to pick up garbage from the beaches near his home in St. Petersburg, Florida during a twelve-day Trashmas, and then how he furnished his new apartment using secondhand goods, framing it as a scavenger hunt. By October 2020 he had a million followers. Today, it’s up to 1.4 million.

Climate change is not all gloom and doom. Who can predict the effects of little things we might do to clean up our planet and reduce our consumption of resources? Like Caulin Donaldson, we can all be influencers.

Whether visible or not, acts that come from a stance of faith and hope send powerful ripples that surface in the visible world. This season of repentance as the daylight lengthens gives us an opportunity to try doing some things that will influence the renewal of this fragile Earth, our island home, as we obey the first command our Creator gave to us humans: tend the garden of the Lord. Amen.

Pastor Frank C. Senn

Ash Wednesday - March 2, 2022

Nadia Stefko - Ash Wednesday: 2 March 2022 - Sermon for St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church

No matter how much we prepare for it, Lent always seems to arrive abruptly.

There’s nothing subtle about it. It comes mid-week. It comes with a big, dark smear of ash on the face.

Perhaps you know that the ashes are meant to have a two-fold meaning. Two distinct, though related, meanings. Mortality, and penitence. There’s a line in the Anglican Church of Canada’s Ash Wednesday liturgy that captures this particularly well. It says,

We begin our journey to Easter with the sign of ashes, an ancient sign, speaking of the frailty and uncertainty of human life, and marking the penitence of the community as a whole (Book of Alternative Services, 282).

*           *           *

Two weeks ago, I started to think about what I would say today.

And I grappled with how to handle the mortality theme at a time when 900,000 Americans—6 million people worldwide—have died from COVID, since it first came on the scene, two Ash Wednesdays ago. I realized you don’t really need to be reminded today about “the frailty and uncertainty of human life.”

I did not anticipate, 2 weeks ago, that it would be that other big theme of Ash Wednesday—penitence—that would loom even larger. I did not anticipate that we’d arrive at this day A People At War.

That instead of 900,000 American dead, the figure we’d be watching grow exponentially is the 700,000 refugees spilling over the border of Ukraine, in the snow.

War has broken out. War that is Premeditated. Unprovoked. Unjustified. (Do any of those adjectives matter, when it comes to war?)

It broke out in the middle of the week last week. And here, in the middle of this week, we hold a special service to call God’s people to repent.

It’s what the prophet Joel was doing in today’s first reading. The historical setting for the book of Joel is a bit vague. It lacks some of the context clues that most of the other prophetic books have. But the presenting cataclysm is clear enough. The previous chapter reveals an unprecedented plague of locusts. The locusts have destroyed the crops. The crop loss has decimated the livestock. And now the people are starving.

And desperate. And Joel stands up and calls them to return to God, with all their hearts.

I wonder…if they wondered…what he could possibly mean by that?

Because I’ve thought about it, and I don’t know exactly what it means to repent in the face of natural disaster. (At least, not in the times before we knew about the complexities of human-caused climate change.)

Perhaps there was some grounds for self-examination and atonement in Joel’s day about the ways the famine hit some within society harder than others? Like how the COVID pandemic has brought us face-to-face anew with the inequities of our healthcare system. And the disparities of our economy. I don’t know.

At any rate, the grounds for penitence seems so much clearer with the human-caused disaster of war we now face. Of this war of Russian aggression exploding in Ukraine.

It is a stark reminder that we humans are prone to act in self-interest. Prone to greed, and violence. Murder and war. Prone to that utterly false and dangerous claim that says, “if I am truly made in the image of God, then you must be less so, and therefore, are more expendable.”

The mirror that war holds up is a bitter pill to swallow this Ash Wednesday. And it invites our even deeper reflection on the question of why this conflict seems to merit more of our attention than all the others roiling around the globe?

Is it because the people look more like us?

Is it because the weapons are even bigger than in other places?

(Is it because most of us were better taught the history of this region than others?)

Is it because the aggressor is what we call a super-power?

Is it because we’ve barely begun to recover from the grief and the trauma of the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan?

I want to be clear that I ask these questions not because I think I know the answers.

In fact, I’m not at all certain that they even have answers. I ask them because I think they are Ash Wednesday questions.

They are questions to contend with on this day when we place the bitter-pill-truth of our sinful, mortal nature alongside the equally stark, and profoundly hopeful reminder of this day:

That God loved us into being out of ashes.

That God lifted us from the dirt and breathed life into us, and breathes new life into us even still. Even now.

In just a few minutes, we will pray together the Litany of Penitence appointed for this day. We will confess some heavy things:

Our indifference. Our ambition. Our self-indulgent ways.

Our negligence. Our waste. Our contempt toward those who differ from us.

We confess them, and we know that God knows them.

And we trust that God loves us lavishly in spite of them.

We marvel at the mystery that nothing will separate us from the love of God. And we commit to return to God. To give our broken hearts to the One who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And we ask God to shape us. To breathe new life into us. To teach us how to live in light of that love, in a world at war.

Lord, have mercy upon us. And grant us grace.

###

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY (C) - JANUARY 23, 2022 - FRANK SENN

Third Sunday after the Epiphany. Year C. January 23, 2022

St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Wilmette, IL

Texts: Nehemiah 8: 1‑10 & Luke 4: 14‑21

We’re still early in the new year and people are making resolutions to undertake some project, like toning up or reading the Bible from cover to cover. With the uncertainty of gyms being open due to the omicron variant of COVID-19, sitting in a chair to read the Bible on a cold winter night, sounds like a more certain exercise. But exercising without a trainer can result in body hurts, and unguided Bible reading can result in spiritual damage.

On Tik Tok and YouTube, you see an increasing number of videos made by former Christians who tell their stories of how reading the Bible turned them into agnostics or atheists. The problem is that in church services and Sunday School they were only exposed to the nice Bible stories. Once they get into reading the whole text, they find the parts that were left out of their education.

Maybe they had a picture of Noah and his ark with all those sweet animals two by two in a painting above their bed. They didn’t read about Noah getting drunk and passing out in his tent when he got off the ark and one of his sons taking advantage of his nakedness. They don’t want to wrap their heads around all humanity, men, women, and children, wiped out by the flood.

They had a picture book with heroic young David felling an ugly giant with his sling shot. They didn’t read about all eight of his wives and innumerable concubines and the sinful deeds he committed to get what he wanted. Was this the Lord’s anointed from whom Jesus was descended?

We hear gospel stories about Jesus healing the sick and casting out demons. But driving merchants out of the Temple with a whip and uttering visions of apocalyptic disasters presents another side of our Lord.

And forget about St. Paul, who tells women not to speak in church and proclaims that God in his wrath allowed unbridled human passions to turn men and women over to their worst sexual depravities. Yet we miss that Paul also said not to be judgmental, because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Oh, did I mention the Holy Wars in which Yahweh as Israel’s commander-in-chief wanted all of his enemies slaughtered? No, it’s best not to read those stories. They cause people to lose their faith.

Yet we have them. Muslims include Christians, along with Jews and themselves, as “people of the book.”  People of the book find their source of authority in sacred scripture, in holy writings.  We have bundled these writings into one collection variously called Tanakh, Bible, and Koran and we read them aloud in our assemblies.

In our First Lesson today, from the book of Nehemiah, an enormous public gathering was held that centers around the reading of Holy Scripture; in this case, the Torah, the five books of Moses, what we know in our English Bible as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In fact, it tells us in verse three that Ezra the Priest read the scriptures to the people from early morning until midday “with interpretation.” Anyone want to try a half day scripture reading with homilies along the way in the worship service?!

But the real point here is not how long they listened, but why. They were seeking to renew their covenant with the God of Israel after their Babylonian exile, to reestablish their identity as God’s chosen people, and they recognized that listening to the words of this book was central to their identity and to the living out of their covenant with God. This book told the stories of their people, the stories that give them their understanding of who they are and how they are related to God and to the world around them. It told the stories that had been told and read to their ancestors for generations before them, the stories that bound them together across the years, from Moses until the present day. And these stories had been preserved and continually read precisely because the continual reading of them prove to be the glue that bound them together in a covenant relationship with God. The reading of scripture continued to be an epiphany, a revelation, an encounter with the living Spirit of God. And so, when they had gotten off track and needed to renew their relationship with God, they knew that they needed to return to scripture and to the practice of gathering together to hear and open themselves to the Word of God that comes from what we hear.

The synagogue emerged from this time after the exile as a place to study the Torah. In the reading of Scripture in the synagogue, there would be commentary on what was read. Guidance would be given to what was heard. We see this in the Gospel reading today. Jesus himself is invited to stand up and read from the scroll in the midst of the gathered assembly. This time it is not a big national assembly after a time of catastrophe, but the small regular weekly gathering of the local synagogue congregation in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. Jesus reads from the scroll presented to him by the attendant, a section from Isaiah, and he is expected to comment on what he read.

I want to break in here with some guidance for your reading of the Bible so that you don’t hurt yourself too seriously if you undertake a spiritual workout with it (although dealing with some of these passages is real spiritual strength training).

First, the Bible is not a book. Biblia means library. The collection is a library of books written over a span of 1500 years. Like any library, it contains all kinds of literature: myths, history, law codes, poetry, a novel or two, oracles, gospels (a unique genre), diaries, letters, apocalyptic visions, etc. So for starts, you need to know what kind of book you’re reading and interpret it accordingly. You don’t read poetry the same way as you read court chronicales.

Second, never pull a single Bible verse out of its context.  People who do that end up using the Bible for their own purposes, not to hear what Scripture says to the people of God. This is called “proof texting,” because it uses scripture to prove a point.

Third, the whole of Scripture points to what God was doing in the Christ. We can’t understand the Jesus of the Gospels apart from the words of the prophets in the Old Testament. This approach to Bible read is called prophecy/fulfillment. We see it in today’s Gospel. Jesus reads from the Scriptures and says, “Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s the sermon. Whatever you hear in Scripture is fulfilled in Christ.

Jesus here speaks of himself, of his own identity. But he also points us again to this ancient book, the primary witness to God’s self‑revelation in Jesus. It’s as if Jesus was saying, “If you want to be my people, my disciples, then keep gathering around the reading of this book, because it is in the reading of this book that you will hear what I am doing among you. It is in the reading and hearing of this book that you will learn what I am bringing to fulfilment right here, right now, in your midst.”

So we gather in an assembly to hear the prophetic and apostolic word because the communal reading and hearing of scripture is an event, an event in which God has promised to be present as a living Holy Spirit to speak and to guide and to form those who hear as a holy people. We do not cease to be that holy people when we gather in a study group or sit at home in our reading chair. Whether together or alone, God is forming a holy people, not just a loose coalition of interested individuals. We are formed by the Word of God that comes to us in the Scriptures, in the homily of the preacher, in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. Word and Sacrament proclaim Christ, who abides with us and dwells with us, our Lord Immanuel. By reading Scripture in this context, faith may be challenged. But that’s an exercise that strengthens our faith, it does not weaken it. You grow strong in faith and understanding by wrestling with the biblical texts. Amen. – Pastor Frank C. Senn

Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo - Frank Senn - Aug. 29, 2021

The Commemoration of St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Wilmette, IL

August 29, 2021

Texts: Isaiah 26:6—9; Psalm 87; Hebrews 12:22-29; John 14:5—15

How do church buildings and congregations acquire their name? Maybe it’s their geographic location (Corinth). Maybe it’s a numerical designation (First). Maybe it’s a theological affirmation (Trinity). But if it’s named after a saint, it implies that something in the life, thought, or work of the saint is an example for the congregation. With St. Augustine of Hippo, it could be all of these.

His life? We sang his biography in the sequence hymn today. He wrote his own life story in his Confessions, which is a pioneering work in depth psychology. Augustine probed the libido long before Freud. What was he desiring in his sexual and intellectual dalliances? What did his restless heart desire? He concludes: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

His thought? He was involved in some important theological controversies in history. Probably the most important was taking on the Irish monk Pelagius, who was a celebrated preacher in the early fifth century. Pelagius held that every person faces moral choices like Adam and Eve did and would be held accountable for their choices as Adam and Eve were. This implied that people could make the right choices of their own free will. Augustine countered that humanity is tainted by the original sin of Adam and Eve, and in every moral decision we are turned in on ourselves (incurvatus in se), seeking our own desire in everything. That’s what sin is.

Because we sin in all our thoughts, words, and deeds we are dependent on grace as the unearned gift of God for our election and salvation. We receive God’s grace through the sacraments, the means of grace. Affirming this required Augustine to counter the Donatists in North Africa who held that sacraments administered by unworthy ministers are invalid. Augustine argued that whether it is Peter or Judas who baptizes, it is Christ who gives the sacraments to us. The validity of the sacraments is not dependent on the ministers.

Augustine’s teachings on sin and grace were highly regarded by the Protestant reformers, including the Anglican ones.

Augustine’s work? That’s what I would like to focus on today. He was the bishop of the small port city of Hippo Regius on the coast of what is today Tunisia. If you think it’s hard to be a pastor in today’s world, try pastoring in the Roman province of Africa in the early fifth century. Do we have problems with racism? Augustine had to hold together a congregation of poor native Berbers and wealthy Roman colonists. Do we experience political instability? Try living at the time when Rome, the Eternal City, was sacked by the Goths in 410. Only fifteen years earlier, in 395, the Roman Emperor in Constantinople, Theodosius, made Christianity the state religion of the Empire. After the sack of Rome, the conservative Roman senators blamed Christianity for the unimaginable catastrophe and called for a return to the ancient gods of Rome. Augustine was on his deathbed in 430 as the Vandals, in their sweep across North Africa, were attacking Hippo Regius. In the last eight months of his life, he lived in a city besieged by land and sea, crowded with refugees and awaiting the final catastrophe. In a way, it seems not unlike the situation of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. We name “vandalism” after the Vandals for good reason. The Catholic clergy especially had good reason to be afraid of a Vandal takeover.

Let us remember that those Goths and Vandals who overran the Western Roman Empire, they were not pagans; they were heretical Christians—Arians. They were radical monotheists who believed that the Son is subordinate to the Father. If you believed that the Father is revealed in the Son, as Jesus claimed in today’s Gospel, if Jesus is the way to God, as Augustine preached, you have a different view of God than the Arians, and probably a different and more tolerant political outcome as well.

How did Augustine the bishop and theologian respond to all this? By writing the most massive revisionist history ever written: The City of God. He began it the year of the sack of Rome and completed it three years before the Vandal siege of Hippo. Revisionist history is threatening to establishment identities. Today we’re arguing about critical race theory as a new lens through which to view American history. Augustine reviewed the thousand-year history of the so-called glories of Rome through the lens of biblical revelation and demonstrated how inglorious those glories were. He sought to demonstrate, much as Edward Gibbon did in his classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, how the endemic evils of the Empire brought about its demise. Except that while Gibbon blamed the church, Augustine blamed the pagans.

As for Christian life then and now, Augustine taught in The City of God that we live in a fallen world in which we have here no abiding city—not Rome with its world empire, not the U.S.A. with its corporate empires either. We are citizens of the eternal city of God who make our way as pilgrims through this world, besieged as it is by evidence of our fallen humanity. We are beset by racism, failures in foreign policy, lack of love for the neighbor by those who refuse even the minimal inconveniences of wearing a mask and getting vaccinated to help collectively to ward off this COVID plague. We sin in every choice because we are curved in on ourselves.

As we gather week after week in this church named after Augustine of Hippo, we take seriously the life of pilgrimage to which his spirituality invites us. Augustine spoke of the Christian life as a journey. We journey through this world following Christ who has gone ahead of us to prepare a place for us in the heavenly city. We enact this pilgrimage in our liturgy, which the late Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann called “a journey into the dimension of the kingdom.” Our eucharistic liturgy begins by blessing the kingdom of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Have you ever wondered why traditional Gothic-style churches have a long central aisle? It’s because we have a ways to go to get to that place prepared for us. We are “called out” of the earthly city—that’s what “church” means, ekklesia, “called out.” We come in from the world through the narthex, pass the place of our baptism by which we are made citizens of “that kingdom that cannot be shaken,” hear the word of God, and form the pilgrim procession “to the altar of God,” where Christ gives himself to us as the satisfaction of our heart’s desire.

In our earthly liturgy we are replicating the heavenly liturgy. As we heard in the Epistle to the Hebrews: we have “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all,…and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant…”

We come to the altar of God and receive bread and wine. As Augustine said to the newly baptized, “That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive.”

We receive and become the body of Christ and are dismissed to return to the earthly city. How shall we live in the earthly city as citizens of the city of God? Our patron saint gives us one more pithy quote that I leave with you: “Love and do what you will.” He wasn’t advocating free love like a 1960s Hippie. Behind this statement is the affirmation that in spite of original sin, we retain the image of God the Trinity. Augustine defined the Trinity as love: the Father is Love, the Son is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is act of loving. The Trinity of love is the template for earthly society. Only by loving the neighbor can the earthly city flourish. So we Christians act in love to work for justice, to shelter refugees, to promote health of body and mind, and (may I add) to work for a habitable Earth, over which God made us stewards. This is, after all, God’s creation, not ours. We love and do what we will to erect signs in this earthly city of the eternal city of God. We may not always make the best choices, but we live by grace. That’s what this doctor of the church taught us. Amen.

Pastor Frank C. Senn, STS

EASTER 6A, SUNDAY, MAY 17 - THE REV. ANDREW SUITTER-BENTLEY

Sunday, May 17, 2020, the 6th Sunday of Easter, St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church
Andrew’s last sermon as Associate Rector

May the word of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

I believe that one of the most powerful exercises we can do as adults, is to write a letter to our childhood selves. To the child who was awkward, or traumatized, to the child who was shy, or precocious, or spoiled, or anxious—and let them know not only what you’ve learned about life—but what you wish someone had told you way back then.

What would you want to tell your younger self?

Would you want to confront the unkind thoughts you learned to believe about yourself?

Would you want to confront how hard you were on yourself or on others?

Would you want to love on the child who sought hope and encouragement from every adult?

Would you want to love on the child who had constant disappointment, anxiety, or pressure?

Would you want to comfort the child who grew up too quickly—or not fast enough—and struggled to find their place in the world?

Scripture is full is letters. Today, we come across a letter from Peter. Peter is a fisherman, turned disciple, and it is believed that he is writing this letter to those of the faith, who live in the area we now call Turkey. Peter’s chief concern here, is that believers understand that even in the midst of their suffering—God doesn’t leave them, but that God loves them, and that it’s not at all God’s will that they experience pain—but if they do—God will lead them through that pain. 

Now our gospel reading today, while not exactly a letter, is part of a section of scripture called the Farewell Discourse. The Farewell Discourse is what we know to be the final teachings of Jesus given to the disciples on the night before he died; and in some places, it too reads like a letter highlighting some essentials of the faith that we can often forget about.

In this first section, Jesus reminds the disciples that while he is going away, the Holy Spirit will come and be their advocate. He reminds them to love one another—and that their love for one another should mirror the love that is between Jesus and his father. He also gives them several reiterations of “love thy neighbor.” Jesus goes on to remind the disciples, “I will not leave you orphaned… I love you and I am coming for you.”

What we have here is Jesus telling the disciples, who are at all different points in their faith, that the way to God is through loving one another, and loving oneself. He teaches that this is the very essence of keeping God in the center of our lives—both in our heart and in our bones. 

Given the themes and the context of these lessons today, I wanted to write a letter to you, my beloved St. Augustine’s, particularly as we respond to the Holy Spirit, and her leading each of us down new paths in the season ahead. So, here I write, a letter from my heart.

Dear. St. Augustine’s,

Over the last few occasions I’ve had to preach, I have wanted to convey to you all that is in my heart knowing that our time was soon coming to an end, and that my relationship with each of you would be changing into something else.

I have wanted to convey my deep well of love for you; my hope for your glorious future; and the gratitude I have for your welcoming me as your pastor and priest, and sharing your lives with me these last three years. There was not a better place to be. 

You have invited me to wade with you into both the great and joyful, and challenging and sorrowful parts of this life; you gave me a place to hone my voice and to further develop my gifts and skills as a pastor; and for all of this, I am so grateful.

Not only did you welcome me, but you also welcomed my husband, Parker, with open arms, and celebrated with us an occasion and commitment in the form of our wedding that we never thought would be part of our life’s path. St. Augustine’s will always be that special and beloved place where we were married. We have been so happy here and so proud to call you our family and our home. 

I have been so fortunate to call you my flock and to be called your pastor. Now, you send me out into the world as a priest which you have helped form. 

For you have taught me about generosity, compassion, kindness, and justice in ways that I was not anticipating. You continue to model these gifts when you offer our building and our resources for homeless families. You continue to model these gifts when you gather and deliver food to food banks, write grants for agencies doing fantastic justice work throughout the world, and when you offer one another pastoral care throughout life’s seasons, and so much more. You do not let an occasion to party go uncelebrated—and you enjoy one another—and care for one another—in a way that is foreign to many parishes. For all this and more, I give thanks.

Goodbyes are not easy—especially when the people you are leaving have your heart. Together, we have buried beloved members and cried together. We have welcomed new babies, baptized new believers, married glowing couples, given food and drink to the destitute, all the while expanding our knowledge of scripture, our history, and our tradition.

You have proven time again that love rises even from the dust of the grave, and that our true beauty exists in how we love one another. You cultivate a life that welcomes Jesus in the most peculiar ways, and we rejoice together in those moments when our hearts are strangely warmed.

Moving forward, St. Augustine’s will experience a cultural shift by going to one priest. As I leave you, I see a gifted and well equipped laity, and you should feel empowered to step up and serve in new ways when you see a need and when you are called upon. And to be fair, some things may go on the back burner for a while until one day when you are ready to call a second priest once again. 

What good, capable, and loving hands I leave you in. I have every confidence that Nadia will love and serve you as a pastor and priest should—and that you will share in a good, rewarding, and far-reaching ministry together. I cannot wait to see the fruit that this will bear. 

After today, there will be some changes in how we relate to one another. The primary change is, I will no longer be your priest. What this means is, any kind of communication about pastoral needs or concerns, or matters concerning St. Augustine’s, can no longer come to me; and that any visits in the future, according to well thought out diocesan policy, must be at the invitation of the rector. However, what I do hope to have after today, is something I already treasure so deeply, and that is your friendship. And what might this look like? Well, pray for us.

In this first year, I ask that you give Parker and me the time and space we need to settle into our new call, so that I can devote the same care to Sudbury, as I did with all of you here in Wilmette. Seeing your updates on Facebook, or receiving an occasional note are things that would delight and encourage us in this first year of putting down roots in a new place. While our communication cannot be what it is now, know that I will continue to pray for you just the same... for the love is deep though the distance is far. 

If there is anything else left that I would want to say, it is this my friends:

Remember that God loves you infinitely more than you can ever ask or imagine. 

Remember that you are marvelously made; and that happiness is allowing your gifts to meet the world’s needs. 

Remember that God weeps when you weep, and rejoices when you are glad. 

And finally, remember to hold on to one another, and hold onto your faith, for God never fails.

I love you, and I give thanks to God for our time together.

May the blessing of the God of Abraham and Sarah, and of Jesus Christ born of our sister Mary, and the Holy Spirit, who broods over the world as a mother over her children, be upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2020 - Pastor Frank Senn

The Presentation of our Lord and the Purification of Mary. February 2, 2020

Text: Luke 2:22-40

Happy Ground Hog Day! Happy Candlemas! Both observances are on February 2. Is it a coincidence? Not at all. Medieval folk lore connected Candlemas and its theme of “light to enlighten the nations” with weather prediction. An English rhyme said, “If Candlemas be fair and bright,/ Come, Winter, have another flight;/ If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,/ Go, Winter, and come not again.” German folklore added weather-predicting animals. Sometimes it was a hibernating badger or bear that awoke to see if spring was on the way. This lore was brought to North America by German settlers in Pennsylvania, who continued the tradition by watching the behavior of the hibernating ground hogs on their farms. If the critter emerged and saw its shadow, it would go back to sleep for another six weeks. But if it saw no shadow, it stayed awake because winter would soon be over. German Lutherans as well as German Catholics observed Candlemas on February 2. Perhaps the German Reformed and Anabaptists in Pennsylvania knew the folk lore about animal weather forecasters without observing the feast.  Episcopalians retained the feast day without the animals...until everyone was into ground hogs. 

The background of all this is based in today’s Gospel story. Mary and Joseph were ready to return home to Nazareth. But not without first stopping at the Temple in Jerusalem to do what was required in the law of the Lord after childbirth. Jesus had to be redeemed from being offered to God and Mary had to be purified 40 days after giving birth. For the holy family to go through these rites is mind-boggling when you think about it. The Israelites owed God the first fruits of everything, including their first-born sons. The oldest son had to be offered to the service of God. But he could be bought back from God with an offering of two turtledoves and two pigeons. That’s all it took for the Son of God to be redeemed from God’s service.

And Mary, whose womb held the very Son of God, had to be purified for carrying him in her womb.  The old Book of Common Prayer had a rite called “the churching of women.” On the 40th day after childbirth the mother returned to society and gave thanks for the safe delivery of her child. The current Book of Common Prayer calls it Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child.

Mary and Joseph fulfilled all righteousness by doing everything their religion prescribed. As the Letter to the Hebrews says of Jesus, “he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.”

Many people today say they are spiritual, but not religious. But what the Holy Family is doing here is religious, and certainly not unspiritual. What took place in the Temple rituals was not the stuff of high religious drama. This was common faithfulness to the prayers and ritual observances that make up the spirituality of the ebb and flow of ordinary life. And it is just such faithful observance that, when carried out in a genuine response of gratitude to God, can, over the weeks and months and years, shape your soul and conform you ever increasingly to the will of God for you and for the world.

This gospel story gives us two such examples of people whose faithful dedicated day-by-day development of their spirituality has resulted in their old age in a quite extraordinary ability to perceive the subtle movements of the Spirit of God in people and in the world.

Simeon is described as righteous and devout, and as one on whom the Holy Spirit rested. You only get to be described as devout if you practice a regular pattern of devotion to God exhibited in spiritual disciplines such as prayer, scripture reading, and offering sacrifices. Simeon's years of devout practice have so opened him to the inner world of the Spirit and so attuned him to see deep beneath the surface appearance of things that when an ordinary looking couple from out of town brings an ordinary baby to the temple to do what pretty much every Israelite couple did for their newborn children, Simeon is able to pick out this one from the crowd as being different.

Most of us would have seen nothing more than one more cute little baby with its slightly bewildered parents going through a standard infant presentation ceremony. But Simeon, his perceptive faculties fine-tuned by decades of being immersed in scripture and the life of prayer, sees the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophesy. “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” The Lord has come to his Temple in this baby. Here is the salvation prepared by God. Here is the one who shall be a light to enlighten the gentiles and the glory of God's people Israel. And in a rather fitting tribute to Simeon's faithfulness, his prayer recorded here by the evangelist Luke, has been picked up in almost every Christian tradition that practices daily prayer as one of the songs sung in Evening Prayer or Compline. It‘s known traditionally by its Latin name, Nunc Dimittis, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace.”

Simeon’s words are not all sweetness and light. He sees opposition to Mary’s Son and a sword piercing her soul also. A much greater sacrifice will be required to redeem the whole world than two turtle doves and two pigeons. The sacrifice of Christ is, in this way, announced at the very beginning of Luke’s Gospel in the prophetic words of old Simeon.

A similar example of faithfulness is given to us in Anna, described as a prophet and the daughter of Phanuel. She was eighty four years of age, and widowed, probably since her mid-twenties. We’re told that she never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer day and night. She was almost certainly not on her knees twenty four hours a day for sixty years. She undoubtedly lived in staff quarters at the temple, performed various tasks around the precincts, and participated in all the various services of worship and prayer that punctuated the rhythm of each day in the temple. But like Simeon, through her life-long immersion in spiritual practices and prayer she developed the prophetic ability to see what is really going on beneath the surface of the events taking place around her. She too sees in this ordinary little religious observance by these new parents the appearance of the long expected-savior of the world.

This little stop on the way home to fulfill religious obligations has turned out to have momentous significance. This is a big day in the Eastern Orthodox calendar. It’s called The Meeting of the Lord in the Temple. The Orthodox icon for this event is on the cover of today’s bulletin. There you will see Simeon holding the child as Anna looks at him and Mary and Joseph standing aside and looking on.

It was a big day in the Western church, too. It got its name “Candlemas” because on this day all the church’s supply of candles for the year was blessed and there was a great candlelight procession as everyone, holding their candles, joined in singing Simeon’s song proclaiming Christ as “the light of revelation to the gentiles and the glory of God’s people Israel.”

In the midst of this auspicious moment in the Temple, we see a new-born baby already being introduced to the ritual rhythms and devotions of his people, an introduction that will continue as Mary and Joseph return to Nazareth, where, as Luke reports, “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”

At the other end of life we see these two elderly people, whose lives have been shaped and refined by a constant rhythm of prayer and listening to the scriptures, preparing to depart this life in peace. Simeon’s song is also sung at funerals.

So today's Gospel tells about momentous prophesies and gives us a high religious moment. But it also tells about the return to everyday life, to the concerns of raising a kid, earning a living, and maintaining a spirituality in the midst of ordinary routines. It's just here, in the matter of spirituality for everyday life, that I think this gospel has something to say to us.

With Mary and Joseph we too go back to normal, whatever that is for us, after the hype and joy of the Christmas season. That season is now complete, and you can take down your Christmas lights if you haven’t already. But having beheld the light of revelation to the nations and the glory of God’s people in word and sacrament, we have a lot to ponder as we contemplate the new year just beginning. Maybe the examples of Simeon’s and Anna’s devotion will be an inspiration to us to find a way to be immersed in liturgy, prayer, and scripture throughout our lives, so that, like them, we too will be able to perceive with clarity what God is doing in the people and events and conditions we will encounter in this not-so-ordinary time. For example, since we have shared our liturgical festival with ground hogs, we might inquire how they’re faring with climate change. Also the bees that produce wax for our church candles. There is definitely a connection between Candlemas and ground hogs and bees. Amen.

Pastor Frank Senn