Holy Rest in the Age of Overfunctioning

'After Jesus and his disciples left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.'

-Mark 1: 29-39

Bible pop quiz! How many commandments, or mitzots, are there? If you said 10, you’re wrong; the grand total is 613. Let’s try another one: which is the fourth commandment? “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” For our Jewish siblings this refers back to God’s own sabbath – or shabot, which means “rest” in Hebrew. Genesis, chapter 1 tells us that God rested on the seventh day after the six days of creation, thus the observe of a time of rest from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, because in God’s time a new day begins at dusk, not dawn. This commandment is given in Exodus, chapter 20, verse 8 and again in Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verse 12. It’s not a suggestion, it’s an expectation.

God resting

It is on a Sabbath day that we find Jesus, after having exorcised a demon in the synagogue at Capernaum. This was technically a violation of that commandment because it constituted work, and one isn’t supposed to do any work on the Sabbath day – just ask Walter from The Big Lebowski. As if that’s not enough, Jesus goes to the house of Simon Peter, whose mother-in-law is sick, and Jesus heals her – working again – and in doing so causes her to also break the law when she starts serving food to Jesus and his friends. Such a delinquent Jesus is!

Those who would criticize Jesus for breaking this part of the Jewish law weren’t wrong, though we sometimes vilify them. Sabbath is a commandment, an expectation that is held with as much regard and respect as only worshipping this one God and not cheating on your spouse.

Here's the thing: Jesus doesn’t break the commandment about Sabbath, it’s just that the commandment itself is largely misinterpreted. The Sabbath is not a day. It’s not Saturday, and it sure as heck ain’t not Sunday. Ancient Hebrew has no articles – no “A’s” or “The’s”. The more appropriate way to read the fourth commandment might be  “Remember Sabbath day.” No ‘the.’ Remember to keep rest holy. 

And this Jesus does, quite often. In today’s Gospel, after being bombarded by people bringing to him folks who were sick in body, mind, and spirit, Jesus gets up while it’s still dark and goes, away to what the Greek calls ἔ¦ρη¦μον τό¦πον, a lonely, solitary, secluded, or deserted, place. He goes off to be by himself, to rest and to pray. This is the first time we see Jesus take his Sabbath, his rest, and it sure won’t be the last. 

Sabbath isn’t a specific day, and Jesus understood that better than anyone. Many Christians have been shamed for missing a Sunday morning’s worship because the preacher said that that’s what remembering the Sabbath was about, remembering Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and coming to church, even though Sunday is the first day of the week and not the seventh. But this isn’t what’s at the core of the gift of Sabbath that God gives us. Sabbath is a mindset. Sabbath is intentional, it’s crafting time to rest, maybe to set oneself apart from others, just you and God. It’s a time of being, not doing, and it’s mandatory.

The truth, brothers and sisters, is that we live in a time and in a country that has little use for Sabbath, for rest of any kind: 24/7, 365. We’re all expected to be Waffle House, open for business all the time. This mindset has plagued the Church, especially since the advent of the internet and smart phones. Sure, we can reach more people than ever before, but now clergy and other staff are expected to be “on-call” at all hours, constantly checking texts and emails and providing everything to everyone everywhere all at once. During the pandemic this was especially true because clergy and church staff everywhere felt the increasing anxiety of holding our communities together during that crisis, which resulted in a lot of what clinical and social psychologists call overfunctioning – we used to call it being a workaholoic. The result of that behavior is burnout, and at its root is a lack of rest, of self-care, of Sabbath.

Only one thing should ever be available 24/7.

Before 2021 I was a certified overfunctionist. I can remember in my first church job my rector telling me that if she saw me on site on my day off that she would kick me off site! So I often snuck in to my office without her knowledge – it was in a different building. I took St. Paul’s approach from I Corinthians 9: 22, to be all things to all people, so that I could do my part in sharing the Gospel. I suspect Paul was an overfunctionist! It took a pretty hard wakeup call for me to change that, bnow I try to be more diligent in my observance of Sabbath, which is why my email signature says that I won’t be seeing or replying to any messages on Fridays, the day I take off . It’s a spiritual practice to observe Sabbath, and because it’s a practice it’s something we sometimes fail at but that we keep coming back to and trying again and again. Practice, after all, makes perfect.

Brothers and sisters, it is so important to our emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being that we find ways to observe Sabbath rest in our own lives, and as churches it is vital to the health of the community for our clergy and our Vestry members to model Sabbath rest for everyone else, and if they’re not, then for folks to let them know that that is an expectation. Our culture glorifies overfunctioning and calls rest lazy. It puts the whole onus on our shoulders. Sabbath helps us give that burden to God and trust God’s abilities above our own. We might overfunction because we care so much – I can relate -  but in order to care for others, we have to care for ourselves first;  don’t forget those demonstrations on planes; we put our own mask on first before assisting others. 

Jesus understood this, which is why he went away so often to be alone with God, to rest and to pray. Sure, people still found him, like they do in our Gospel today: “Where’ve you been?!” But Jesus doesn’t give in to that anxiety. He keeps that practice. If Jesus could do it, well, what’s our excuse?

It’s not all up to us. Thank God for that! How we make Sabbath looks different to everyone, but it is essential because we’re human beings, not human doings. Remember Sabbath day. Remember rest and keep it holy. 

On Demons and the Church's Response to Mental Illness

'Jesus and his disciples went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.'

--Mark 1: 21-28

One Sunday shortly after I was ordained I went to lunch at Chipotle, because I was brainwashed into thinking that stuff was good for me! As I stood in the line, the server asked me if I was a real priest, and though I later wished I’d had a snarky comeback, I was hungry and just told him that, yeah I was. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask a priest,” he said. Oh boy. “Have you ever done, like, an exorcism?!” “No,” I said, “I’d have to call my bishop.”

That is, actually, what we’re supposed to do. Our Episcopal Book of Occasional Services, from which we get the likes of Tenebrae, Lessons & Carols, and Stations of the Cross, has a total of three sentences in the section called Concerning Exorcisms, and the instruction is clear that a priest is to tell their bishop, who then determines if an exorcism is needed and who will do it. And that’s that. I can’t say I’ve ever made that call, though I’ve been somewhat tempted. The ancient church even taught that in baptism an exorcism actually takes place when the catechumen is washed in the holy waters; this is still the teaching of the Orthodox faith, and I’ve even heard many of my Episcopal colleagues share it.

There’s a whole film industry based around exorcisms, with The Rite (my personal favorite), The Conjuring, and of course the SEVEN films in The Exorcist saga. What is it about these stories that captures our minds? Maybe because we want to believe that true evil does exist, which helps explain how a world that God pronounces as “very good” can be assaulted by the likes of war, famine, poverty, and injustice? Maybe we are drawn to them because in the end the demons are defeated, at least until the next movie? 

Poster for The Exorcist (1973)

The first miracle performed by Jesus in the synoptic Gospels is an exorcism. In the synagogue at Capernaum, a place in which Jesus spent so much time that there’s a sign there today declaring it the “Town of Jesus,” a man with an unclean spirit, a demon, suddenly shows up. His first words are directed at Jesus, tinged with fear, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” The demon even knows who Jesus is, the Holy One of God. In a scene that could’ve been directed by William Friedkin, Jesus calls the demon out of the man, leaving everyone there amazed. 

We don’t know the nature of the man’s demon, though in this and other examples throughout the Gospels – like the Gerasene demoniac called Legion whom Jesus casts out into a herd of pigs – modern scholars have speculated that what the ancient world called demons were in fact very real medical conditions like paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar, or dissociative personality disorder. We don’t talk often about mental health in the Church - we should - and when we do we don't often do so with the pastoral sensitivity that fully respects the dignity of those for whom mental illness is an ever-present part of their lives. Regrettably, the institutional Church for centuries dealt with people suffering from and living with such conditions as if they were, in fact, possessed by demons, curable only through exorcisms in the name of Jesus. And when the exorcisms didn’t fix the problem society, with the backing of the Church, resorted to treatments like shock therapy, or throwing folks into sanitariums that hid the mentally ill away from the world, the way Jesus’ own society often cast people away into the catacombs, out of public view. 

In reading this story of Jesus’ first exorcism, I’m struck by the way he engages the man. We can imagine the people there having a number of reactions – some looking away, some eager to kick this guy out of their house of prayer and study, some terrified that he’ll hurt someone. Jesus, though, meets the man, not with fearful violence, but with compassionate conviction. He doesn’t see a stranger, an “other,” he sees someone in need of mercy. 

A very old, unknown Greek icon of the exorcism at Capernaum.

Consider that the man asks if Jesus has come to destroy him. Perhaps he has sought help from the rabbis and other learned people in the synagogue, only to be sent away time after time. I wonder if he showed up that day knowing that Jesus would be there, hoping that maybe this man could help him. He throws up to Jesus a cry for help, a rock-bottom, if you will, and like most of our own cries for help it’s not as simple as, “I’m having a problem, please help me,” but instead it’s an agonizing plea of fear, which no one but Jesus understands. In the example of this man, we are reminded that there is no weakness, no shame, in seeking out someone out for help.  We are reminded that houses of prayer, study, and worship should be the very places where folks in such states should find rest, comfort, and support. And our prayer is that we may meet a brother or sister in pain the same way Jesus does, without judgment, shame, or fear, and with compassion, mercy, and love.

I do believe demons are real, but I believe they have more to do with power, prestige, and possessions than real psychological and emotional conditions that fearful folks – including church leaders - have called demonic because they don’t want to actually face them. It seems they're fine with the demons that fill their bellies, prop them up as "big deals," and maintain their positions of authority.

There are folks in churches every week who have struggled for many, many years. We might, at one time or another, have even used the word “demons” to describe those struggles: mental illness, addiction, PTSD, trauma, the list goes on, though it should be reiterated that such conditions are not, I repeat, not demonic. It’s taken me years to come to terms with my own PTSD and various traumas, and I’m still working on them, but when I finally managed to seek help I found it, in therapists, spiritual directors, and people who met me with love. There is no shame in what has happened to me, or to any of you, and there is no shame in asking for help, though sometimes, like the man in Capernaum, we may be afraid that asking will destroy us.

I have seen tremendous faith displayed by my siblings in Christ who have lived much of their lives on the outskirts of society, made to feel shame and weakness, or, God-forbid, told they are possessed, because of their conditions, even by religious leaders. If you are someone who has been wounded by the institutional Church in such a fashion, I am sorry. I pray we learn from and honor the courage that it takes to face and deal with struggles of all kinds, to heal from them, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. I would like to think that the man in the Capernaum synagogue received all three of those healings that day from Jesus.

Whatever kinds of struggles you might be facing, brothers and sisters, I pray you will have the courage and the humility to ask for help, and the grace to show others around you how to do the same. And if you are one of the people who are “well” – whoever that may be, I don’t know – perhaps you will see the fears and struggles of others for what they truly are, something to be commended and uplifted, rather than pitied or feared. May you meet anyone who is struggling with the same compassionate conviction of Jesus, and love one another through our wide variety of complex and complicated struggles. For all of us, that is good news

The Kingdom of God Has Come Near (No, Really!)

'The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.'

--Jonah 3: 1-5, 10

'After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.'

--Mark 1: 14-20

He said that the Kingdom of God has come near.  Really?  Are ya sure, Jesus?  I look around and sometimes have a really hard time believing that. I see a world, much like the one Jesus knew, where the poor are beaten down, the rich just keep getting richer, and the measure of a nation is the size of the might if its military, not the size of mercy in its heart, where folks with great power, privilege, and possessions lord those things over others and generations are caught in cycles of poverty, war, and injustice.  I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that the Kingdom has already come.  

But that’s what he said.  The very first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the very first Gospel is this:  the Kingdom of God has come near.  The Greek word that’s used here is engizo, which is a pre-sent-tense verb that means something is here, it’s present, it is at hand. This is why translations like the King James Version or the English Standard Version say that the Kingdom is at hand.  It’s here, Jesus is saying, right now!  You don’t have to keep wishing and hoping for it in the far off future. You just need to live your lives as if it were a present reality.

So much of what we hear preached and taught about our faith seems based on the promise that the Kingdom is coming; after all, we say it in the Lord’s Prayer—“thy kingdom come,” future tense—and we have the promise of it in our Nicene Creed—“his kingdom will have no end.”  It’s sort of engrained in us to look to the future, as though the Kingdom of God is something that is far off, distant, and on the horizon. Someday it will come, we say, and so we keep waiting and hoping while we resign ourselves to remain here in this cruel, suffering world.

A wise teacher once admonished a would-be student.  “All his life has he looked away to the fu-ture, to the horizon,” said the teacher, poking the student with his cane.  “Never his mind on where he was, what he was doing!”  The student’s name was Luke Skywalker, and the teacher’s name was Yoda.  Luke had always dreamed of something bigger than himself, some grand and glorious destiny as a galactic hero, but what he didn’t realize was that what he was looking for was right there inside him all along.  He wanted to gain knowledge of and strength in the Force and become a great Jedi, but the Force wasn’t something to obtain.  It was something in him and around him.  He just never let himself see it because he was looking so far off.  If you’ve seen the Star Wars sequel trilogy you know that, even as an old man, Luke still has a hard time seeing the reality that is right in front of him.  

Teacher and student.

Brothers and sisters, the reality that is right in front of us is that the Kingdom of God is not some far-off, distant dream for which we hope and pine.  No, it is here!  It is in you, and it is around you.  You don’t have to travel far to find it, and you don’t need to sit around and wait for it to be revealed to you. We can all know the present reality of the Kingdom.  We can be participants in it if we only allow ourselves to do so.  I wonder:  do you know that the Kingdom is already here?

I know that the Kingdom of God is here whenever I see someone in tears as they find comfort and solace from one of our St. James' prayer ministers. I know that it is here when I’m together with folks from a variety of worship communities at a Black Pentecostal church proclaiming with tambourines, dancing, and ‘Amen’ after ‘Amen’ that justice will roll down like waters. I know it is here when a stranger walks up to me in the bakery or coffee shop and asks for a prayer or even, as one random person did, hand me $20 and say in that wonderful northeastern accent, “Here, Father, this is for the church!”without even knowing which church I am affiliated with.  Yeah, the world is filled with cruelty and suffering - and we pray for an end to that cruelty and suffering when the Kingdom comes in its fullest form -  and yet even still I know the Kingdom is here in these and so many other examples. What's more, I know that there is nothing on this side of the Kingdom that can change that fact! 

The thing about Greek that I find so cool is that a present-tense verb doesn’t just mean that some-thing is happening exclusively in the present moment, but also that it will continue to happen into eternity until something compels it to stop.  So when Mark uses the verb engizo to say the Kingdom has come near, he means it’s come and it’s going to continue coming, on and on, into eternity.  The Kingdom of God is here, and it ain’t going nowhere, brothers and sisters!  We need only have eyes to see it and ears to listen for it.  Kingdom senses, if you will, to participate in it.

And when we have Kingdom senses, unbelievable, unimaginable things can happen. Take the story of the people of Nineveh. The reluctant prophet Jonah proclaims that in 40 days they will be destroyed. Without any call for repentance from Jonah the people, of their own accord, let their eyes and ears be opened and choose for themselves to repent and seek divine forgiveness. They admit their faults. They say they’re sorry. They perform the customs of the day, taking on sack cloth and ashes and fasting. And something unbelievable, unimaginable happens: God’s mind is changed. It doesn’t happen anywhere else in the whole Bible! And it serves as an example for us that nothing is impossible when we have eyes and ears and hearts attuned to the Kingdom; for if God’s mind can be changed, so can ours; if the people of Nineveh, capital of the oppressive Assyrian Empire, can repent and change their ways, so can we. There is nothing that is impossible when we have Kingdom senses and we know that it is in our midst.

It is especially tempting during times of transition to, likewise, look to the future for the Good News to come our way, to pine and hope for long-term stability, for the perfect scenario that will be everything ok. That’s totally natural during any such times of our lives, and yet even still, brothers and sisters, I pray you know that the Kingdom has come near to you. In moments of grief, as well as joy, the Kingdom has come near. Sure, we wrestle with the already-not yet, the tension that the Kingdom is coming in its fullest version later yet while still being a present reality. But what would it look like for you if you knew in your heart that the Kingdom has come near to you? Maybe you’ll know deep in your soul, despite all the anxiety and fear around you, that God is good—all the time!—which means that all things that come from God are good.  This world is good.  You are good.  And the Kingdom, which is here right now, is very, very good!  

So where have you seen the Kingdom?  Who are the folks who have shown you glimpses of it? Maybe you’ll hold them in your prayers today. What unbelievable, unimaginable things can you start to believe and imagine are possible? What you seek is not so very far away, but it is right here, and it is good.  The time is fulfilled, Jesus said then and still says to us now, and the Kingdom of God has come near.  

Let's Get Down to Business

'The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God, had its beginning in this way.  It was written in Isaiah the prophet:  "Behold!  I am sending my messenger before you to prepare your way.  He is the voice of one proclaiming in the wilderness:  make ready the way of the Lord; make his paths straight!" 

Now it happened that John, the one baptizing in the wilderness, was proclaiming a baptism, based on repentance, for the remission of sins; and all those dwelling in Jerusalem and in the region of Judea were going out and being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  John wore a cloak of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey.  He said also in his proclamation:  “There comes after me one that is mightier than I, the strap on whose sandals I am unworthy to undo.  I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

--Mark 1: 1-8 (P.H. Epps Translation)

There’s a lot of reasons why the Gospel of Mark is my favorite. My great-grandfather translated it, for one. It’s the earliest, and a great many scholars suspect, the most accurate retelling of the story of what is sometimes called the Jesus Event. Also, Mark wastes no time getting into the story; I’m probably dating myself here, but one of my favorite albums just out of high school was The Eminem Show by the rapper Eminem, and one of the first songs on the album is called "Let’s Get Down to Business." That’s Mark’s Gospel, getting right down to it because, to quote a line from that song, Mark “ain’t got no time to play around.” 

Cover of the 2003 album 'The Eminem Show.'

Unlike the Gospels that would come later, Mark wasn’t written, at least not initially. It was a performance piece, done in the same style as the Iliad or the Odyssey. Someone would stand in the middle of a town square and shout: “Ἀρ¦χὴ τοῦ εὐ¦αγ¦γε¦λί¦ου Ἰ¦η¦σοῦ Χρι¦στοῦ.” and launched into the story. This is why Mark’s attribute – the symbol that is used to represent this Gospel – is a lion, because it begins with all the force of a roaring lion. In case you can’t tell, when it comes to talking about Mark, I can do this all day!

I find it somewhat humorous that in this week's Gospel we hear Mark start off with a proclamation that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but we don’t actually hear from Jesus. Instead, we are introduced to John the Baptizer, a person we will learn later in the Gospel of Luke, is Jesus’ cousin, himself born to parents who had given up all hope of that ever happening. John, we’re told in these opening moments, appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance – the Greek word is metanoia, which means to turn oneself around. John was likely part of a group called the Essenes, which, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, were a group of Jews with their own ideas and practices, and in their case, they had grown weary of city life and its various corruptions, and moved into the wilderness because, after all, that’s where the Israelites had met God in the first place (remember Exodus?). The ascetic practices of the Essenees fascinated the folks left behind, and so they headed out to seek wisdom from these desert-dwellers like John, who compelled them to be baptized – the Hebrew word is mikvah, a ritual bath that cleansed a person, both on the inside and outside.

An Eastern icon of Saint John the Baptizer

To be sure, John wasn’t exactly patient, or even friendly. Not many folks, I suspect, would want to call John the Baptizer as their Rector! He called people out for their hypocrisy and warned them against merely coasting by on what they thought to be true. But in Mark’s introduction of this itinerant preacher, there’s something that characterizes John’s proclamation to the people, and that’s hopeful anticipation. John looks ahead to the promised time of one coming who was more powerful than he, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit, as John had baptized with water. 

This hopeful anticipation is a theme that runs through all of our Scriptures from this past Sunday. The despair of last week is replaced with the assurance that God’s mercy is soon to be made manifest in a fresh, new way. Isaiah writes in anticipation of the exiled Jews going home (Isaiah 40: 1-11). Several decades after Mark’s Gospel, the author of the second Letter of Peter reassures the faithful that, despite Jesus not having come back yet, God’s timing isn’t ours, and that that promised day of salvation is still on its way (II Peter 3: 8-15a). Even the Psalmist recalls God’s saving grace in the past and looks with hope for that to happen once again (Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13). This is the same hopeful anticipation that Mark’s Gospel roars at its listeners out of the gate.

Hopeful anticipation often starts small and then builds into something unstoppable. A great way I’ve seen this play out was with the 2011 revival of the musical Godspell. It was done at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City, which, as the name implies, is a theatre-in-the-round. The show opens with a moving number called Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord set out in the wilderness where John is baptizing. In the revival production, the baptismal waters were depicted as a single drop that came down from the rafters into a small pool underneath the stage’s floorboards. But as the song picked up, more and more people joined, and eventually that drop turned into a full-on waterfall by the time Jesus showed up to receive his own baptism. Hope may start small – like the lone voice of one wild man in the wilderness crying out for people to turn themselves around – but when nurtured by God it grows and grows until the point that nothing’s gonna stand in its way. That’s how hope works, and it is mighty powerful.

The opening number from the 2011 revival of Godspell, note the water coming down from the ceiling.

God knows we need some hope right now, something positive for which to anticipate. As the war between Israel and Gaza intensifies along with bigotry at home, we need some hope. As we hear news of yet another mass shooting, this one at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, we need some hope. As many of us prepare our hearts for the first Christmas without someone we love, we need some hope. Dare I say, we need a John the Baptizer to speak truth to power, to proclaim a hope that is more than surface-level and that anticipates God’s light and love breaking through.

I’d like to think the folks who went out into the wilderness to hear John went back into their city lives changed somehow, eager to prepare the way themselves. I’d like to think the same thing about us, we who are the ones to prepare for the second Advent as John did the first. How?

We are, simultaneously, the messengers and the message; as we say where I come from, you might be the only Bible anyone ever reads; for good or ill. We try to listen for what is ours to do, but it can be so very hard to hear, can’t it? Are we to take the lead now and call forth others to follow, or wait and see how things play out? Are we to lay down old expectations, old hurts and habits, in order to heed a new way, a new idea, a new message? This is discernment, the process of listening for our place, our call into something new that God is doing in our midst.

This Jesus, whom we love, for whom we listen and look, is quite fond of the new; and to be sure, the comfortable lives we’ve been living mean little when compared with whatever new hope God is bringing to life right now. How will we respond? 

Prepare a path for the new, you who are inheritors of the Baptizer’s message and bearers of a newfangled one. Be submerged into the waters of hopeful anticipation cannot be quenched, that cleanse you from the inside-out. Turn yourselves around and see Jesus staring back at you, you who are a roaring lion, called to fiercely proclaim by word and example the evangelion, the good news, the Gospel, of Jesus that is coming into the world. Let’s get down to business. 

The Beginning Is Near

'Jesus said, “In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”'

--Mark 13: 24-37

There is a meme that shows up around this time of year and makes its rounds on the social medias. It’s a picture of a rather dapper dressed man in a bowtie and horn-rimmed glasses, holding a piece of cardboard with the words written on it, “The Beginning is near.” I couldn’t find the origins of the image, but it seems obviously a reframing of those street preachers with signs proclaiming “The End is near,” and in that way, it’s a perfect encapsulation of Advent.

The beginning…of everything…of a new hope…of the kingdom of God, is near. Yes, preacher, we know. We’re good Episcopalians who understand that Advent not only marks the start of a new church year but also a season of preparation for the birth of Jesus. All this has happened before, and it will happen again, and the beginning of the greatest story ever told is right around the corner. We get it.

If that were the case, though, why does Advent not start on a joyful note? Instead, our Gospel fills us with something more like despair. We start the new church year the exact same way we ended the last one, with Jesus talking about a coming time that sounds anything but joyful. 

We find Jesus this week speaking with four of his apostles – Peter, Andrew, James, and John – while sitting on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple in Jerusalem. They had just been in the Temple, and one of his disciples had commented about how magnificent a structure the Temple was, to which Jesus responded that not a single stone of the Temple would be left standing when all was said and done, which prompts these four apostles to ask him what will be the signs that that time is near. Jesus borrows imagery from the prophet Daniel and paints this picture of doom and gloom – the sun darkened, the moon not giving light, stars falling, and heaven itself being shaken, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria; in fact, Jesus quotes Daniel verbatim when talking about the Son of Man coming in the clouds. It sounds pretty hopeless. Sure ain’t joyful.

Yet if we remember the purpose of this kind of rhetoric – the kind prophets like Isaiah and Daniel used and that Jesus’ own apostle John will use – it’s to reveal something to the people, to reveal hope in the midst of hopelessness. This is apocalyptic, a tearing away of the veil so that the people can see the truth. 

Advent is an apocalyptic season. It serves a dual purpose. The first is to remind us that, in spite of the very best intentions of the people of God, the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel to already be here, hasn’t quite come in its grandest fulfillment, and so the prayer of Advent is that Christ will come again to rule among God’s creation with grace, mercy, and justice. This beginning of this day, we hope – in the words of our Creed – is near.

The second purpose of Advent is to take us back to the beginning, back to that time of Jesus’ first Advent. And in the midst of our own times of hopelessness, to capture the spirit of hope folks felt back then, a spirit of yearning for that which some might’ve said was too good to be true: a new and unique expression of God’s intention to save this broken world was breaking through.

Capturing that spirit of hope is, I suspect, what Jesus means when he uses a fig tree as a parable for being able to observe the signs of the times. Such observing means paying close attention to all that is happening in our world, regardless of what we are afraid to see. This hope enables us to see our day’s news with the eyes of the heart, and not hide out in the fog of secular numbness or hyper-sensitivity. We often pretend to be remote or untouchable, shrouding ourselves in willful ignorance, but to read the sign of the times is to dare to acknowledge what is hidden in plain sight – what is being revealed to us right now– and to dare to find our part to play, our song to sing, our small task to fulfill in the unfolding drama of God’s Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. No, we can’t take in all of the heartache and pain we see – our species wasn’t designed for it, our brains literally can’t handle it, which is why the overflow of information that we experience creates in us anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. Yet we can find that small task in our small corner; because we’ve all got our part to play in that promised day’s arrival.

Such a day can’t get here fast enough, we might say when we see all that plagues this world, which may lead us to reading such signs less as an invitation to participation and more as a portent to something we must fear, maybe even try to predict. But, Jesus reminds everyone, about that day or hour no one knows, not even him! So hurry up….but wait?! What kind of Messiah double-talk is Jesus going on about?

It's active waiting. Sounds oxymoronic, but that’s Advent, and it’s how we operate in a kingdom that has both already come and not yet. For those of you who host holiday parties or are expecting loved ones to visit this year, think about how you prepare for those guests. You wait for them, sure, but is it passive? Lord no! I bet you’re looking out for the stray dust bunny to sweep or making sure the beds are prepared for those overnight visitors. It’s the same way for those of us living in the Second Advent, waiting actively for Jesus to be born anew in our lives, neither trying to predict when it’s gonna happen, nor being passive – but surrendering to God’s timing while actively looking for the one who is already here, finding our place in this kingdom that is both already and not yet. If your head hurts, it’s ok, means you’re thinking. Trust God.

Lately as I’ve walked by the lake behind our house, I’ve felt a surge of wind each time. It’s overwhelming, so much so that I worry it might knock me off my feet. That’s Advent, coming like wind off the lake to wake us up to the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is that all that we see is not all that there is. The truth is that you, and I, and them, are more precious and more important than any of us can ever know. The truth is that the love that came down at Christmas is as real now as it was then, and it coming again – as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

The winds are blowing. The signs are all around. So, you there, who keep falling asleep in shallow waters, floating on the surface of your life, wake up! Stop staring blankly, numb to the wonder of who you are and whose you are. The God who searches for you in the holy mundane of your life is near. The revealing of your true self, and your role in the unfolding of this kingdom, is near. The beginning of everything is near.

King of the Goats

'Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”'

--Matthew 25: 31-46

My mother loved goats. On South Fork Road, a little less than five miles from the house where I grew up, there was a hillside that, for years, had goats roaming across it. Mama used to say that someday she wanted to live with goats – that never happened, and maybe for the best, since she had no idea how troublesome they ae. One year our priest, Fran McCoy, preached on this Gospel text from Matthew 25. I was too young to remember exactly what she said, but there was something about separating sheep from goats. Likely thinking of my mother, I went up to Fran after the service and asked, “What’s so bad about goats?” Fran later told me that she knew then that I would be a priest. I’d like to think both my mama and my priest were having a nice chuckle in heaven watching me preach this past Sunday. 

Totes m'goats!

Fran never really answered my question, but I’ve come to understand that the answer was, nothing. There’s nothing bad about goats. They’re goats – totes m'goats, if you will – they only act the way God intended for them to. Living in a society of shepherds, Jesus uses the imagery of sheep and goats less because goats are evil and more to highlight how those in his audience would naturally try to keep the sheep and the goats separated. This kind of imagery is used by Jesus when giving his final parable about the eschaton, the coming of the kingdom of heaven, what is sometimes called the Second Sermon on the Mount because it’s given on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem mere days before Jesus’ death. A king, he says, will separate folks out – righteous from unrighteous - like a shepherd separating sheep from goats.  

And what is it that characterizes the righteous from the unrighteous? The righteous are those who clothed the naked, fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, visited prisoners, and all around showed care and love for those in need. In doing so, the king says to them in the parable, you did all of those things to me. The unrighteous, though, are the ones who saw such needs and did nothing, as though they were ignoring their own king by ignoring the needs of others.

It's not a stretch, I believe, to say that the entire Christian ethic for how we care for anyone in need, is right here at the end of Matthew 25. Why clothe the naked, feed the hungry, or visit the prisoner? Because in doing so we do it to Jesus himself. But did you notice one little detail? When the king in the parable tells the folks standing before him at the end of the age about the kindness they showed to him, they ask when was it that they saw him in such states? They didn’t help those people because they thought they’d get credit for it. They didn’t do it simply because it was an expectation or to assuage their guilt. They did it for the sake of being in relationship with the other, going out and meeting those folks where they were, finding out what their need was, and helping in the ways they could. Maybe if the so-called unrighteous knew this they would’ve actually done something, but that’s the point of the parable. To serve their king was to serve others, especially when they weren’t even aware they were doing so.

This past Sunday marked the end of both season we call Ordinary Time and our church year as a whole. That day we wore white to make what is known as Christ the King Sunday (or Reign of Christ Sunday, in some contexts). The Feast of Christ the King was created in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. The world was just seven years removed from the Great War, but fascism was on the rise, and in less than 15 years there would be a Second World War.  In response to the growing popularity of authoritarianism, the pope wrote in his encyclical Quas Primas, that the faithful should gain strength and courage from the celebration of this new feast, as they were reminded that Christ must reign in their hearts, minds wills, and bodies, and that the leaders and nations would see that they were bound to allegiance to Christ, not the state. It is Jesus alone who is our sovereign, the one from whom we take our cues, and the one to whom all of our praise and adoration is directed because he is the only one worthy of any of it. Something tells me we need to remember that today, as we head into an election year.

But the portrait of soverignty painted by Jesus in this parable in Matthew 25 flies in the face of what we are told authority is meant to look like. Top-down, right? Power-over?  Not so with Jesus. This is what makes the Gospel so radical. The very principles of power held by nearly every single civilization that has ever existed are turned on their respective heads in the person of Jesus.  Kings are seated on thrones in palaces, they eat at banquets and are clothed in splendor.  Not this Jesus.  Not this king.  His is power-with, not over. He dines with the riff-raff of society.  His clothing is tattered.  He covers himself with a newspaper when he sleeps on the park bench.  He reaches his hand out to us and asks us to help him.  This is our king, this Jesus, and we meet him every single day.

Homeless Jesus statue outside of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C.

The mark of salvation, according to Jesus in this parable, isn’t that we have faith it’s how we do faith. How am I – how are we – doing faith in real, meaningful ways? We hear Jesus’ words in this parable and we are prone to say, “Yeah, I’m on board with that!” and so we go out and volunteer at a soup kitchen or take donations to a second-hand store. That’s really nice, but what then? We return to our lives segregated by race, or class, or religion. How often are we transformed by those experiences and forge new relationships through them? When do we ask ourselves what’s our motivation for doing what we do? Is it simply because Jesus tells us to do things, or because we might get some merit points for the afterlife? Or, is what we do for the sake of being changed by forming relationships with people, understanding that it is in the eyes and hearts of the other that we meet Jesus, our king? What's stopping us from going out and meeting people where they are, addressing their need, and forging new, transformative relationships?

Many understand, for example, the importance of inviting people who don’t look like us to come to church, especially if there’s a guest preacher or program promoting racial equality, but what’s stopping us from going to their church to sing their songs, pray their prayers, and be changed by them there? We raise money and sometimes volunteer for charitable organizations, but why not actually spend time with the people who go there seeking help; after all, Desmond Tutu said it’s not enough to pull people out of the torrid waters, we must go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

The parish where I currently serve is next to one of the Finger Lakes. It's a gorgeous location, and very often we see folks fishing off of our lakeside, despite signs up saying they're not supposed to. But - I asked our parishioners on Sunday - what if we went out and met them, learned their names, heard their stories, and let them know they were welcome here? What might happen? What’s stopping us from going out and meeting the folks who fish off our lakeside, hearing their stories and letting them know they’re welcome here? 

Such are the places where we’ll find Jesus, where we’ll find our king, and it’s in those relationships that we forge with the other that our own relationship with Jesus finds meaning and purpose. 

At my ordination in 2012, Fran told me, “Now, Joe, your job is to go be with the goats.” Jesus has a way of bringing people into our lives at the most inconvenient times, making unreasonable requests. What is asked of us is not to fix or be someone’s savior, they already got one of those, but to just be with those in need where they are and do what we can however we can. That’s how we love and serve the Lord, serve our King Jesus. King of glory, king of peace, we will love thee!

Apocalypses Right Now

While living in New York City in 2011 you couldn’t help seeing posters saying the world would end on May 21 of that year. The group Family Radio and its founder Harold Camping were so convinced that Jesus was coming back that day, that they spent millions of dollars on an ad campaign in the biggest city in the country. Not to keep you in suspense, but it didn’t happen; in fact, I preached on May 22 at my home church of All Saints, Norton, VA and began by observing that, I didn’t know about everyone else, but I was surprised to be there. Once again, it seemed we had avoided the apocalypse. It wouldn’t be the last time.

One of many, many signs around New York City in 2011 heralding the end of the world.

Now there’s an appropriate word for today: Apocalypse. It conjures up images of pain and death. It ain’t pleasant. Yet the word itself is merely Greek for “unveiling” or, more popularly, “revelation.” Even though we don’t read from the last book of the Bible this week, it’s worth pointing out that the actual Greek title of the Book of Revelation is The Apocalypse. And just as that complex and illustrative letter from Saint John the Divine tears the veil away from the hardships faced by Christians in the 2nd century, our readings for this week also are apocalyptic in nature. But whereas we often associate apocalypse and apocalyptic literature as something portending a terrifying fate, what’s really going on is present-moment truth-telling.

'Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you want the day of the LORD? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.'

--Amos 5: 18-24

Amos is my favorite prophet. He was a poor farmboy from the southern kingdom of Judah, called by God to travel to the northern kingdom of Israel and preach this apocalyptic message to the king. On the surface, Israel was thriving. The economy was great. They weren’t engaged in any wars. But behind the scenes, if you pulled back the veil, the poor had been neglected. The widows and immigrants in the land had been forgotten, and so Amos came preaching to the king that the day of the Lord – God’s breaking through human history at the end of time – was not something for which they should look with anticipation. For them who had mistreated the marginalized, it would be a day of consequence. Amos’ prophesy was a warning, an attempt to bring the people back to living the way God intended for them, but it fell on deaf ears, and soon the northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians. 

'We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.'

--I Thessalonians 4: 13-18

Remember that most, if not all, Christians in the first three centuries after Jesus believed that the Day of the Lord – or the Eschaton, Day of Resurrection, or Second Coming - was coming very, very soon. This included the people of Thessalonica, who were afraid that when that day came the living and the dead wouldn’t get to be together. Paul wrote to reassure them that, in fact, the dead would be raised and that, in his words, “we who are alive” would join them. See what he did there? He believed, as they all did, that he would be around to see the end. For the Thessalonians, Paul’s words brought comfort that they would be with their loved ones during a time of great hardship, even though he pulled a Harold Camping.

'Jesus said, “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”'

--Matthew 25: 1-13

We’ve mentioned many times this year how the theme of the Day of the Lord runs throughout the Gospel of Matthew. This is due largely to the destruction of the Jewish Temple in the year 70 AD, which resulted in folks reading less of the Torah and more of the prophets, reinterpreting their warnings and truth-tellings in light of their own personal tragedy. Matthew, writing around the year 80, has folks asking Jesus over and over what that day would look like. In this section from the beginning of chapter 25 Jesus hearkens back to the language of prophets like Amos., warning people to be awake, to be prepared, like the wise bridesmaids who brought enough oil to get them through the night.  

An Orthodox icon of the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids.

When we read texts like these, so very long after they were recorded, are we supposed to freak out about the end or wonder if things we see happening were foretold long ago? We might feel a little less flummoxed if we accept that time is a made up construct. We literally reset out clocks last week and just pretended like that was normal. But that sort of proves the point. We invent time, and we give it meaning: what will happen in the future, we ask? But in the Kingdom, there is no future, there is no time. It’s a concept called the Eternal Now, and it’s what I’m referencing when I talk about Communion happening “round the clock” in heaven.. It’s we who fret about the future, and in the midst of crisis – like Assyrian occupation or the destruction of the Temple - folks thought they were right smack in the middle of the Day of the Lord and that the veil of time has been ripped away and the future was now. That’s apocalypse. When evangelicals and folks like Family Radio try predicting a future event using these texts, they miss the whole point of apocalyptic literature like these, which is that they speak to a present reality, not some far off future to fear.

Folks treat the prophets, or Paul, or even Jesus, as if they had some clairvoyance that let them see the future, but all they were doing was paying attention to what was happening in their time. They didn’t see what the status quo wanted to be true, but what was actually true, and their message was clear: stay on this course and it’s ain’t gonna be pleasant. They read events around them and understood the consequences of those events. It’s a wake up call, not judgment.

It's still true, even now. If you look reality in the face and fully take in what is, you’ll tear the veil away, and can see the writing on the walls. There are simply, actions – or lack thereof – that, if continued, will lead to a disastrous future. 

The insanity of the last three years has ripped the veil away, wouldn’t you say? Little mini-apocalypses have popped up – teenagers who just want to go to school without fear shouting for gun reform, people marching to remind others that Black Lives Matter, women who’ve been treated as second-class citizens defending their reproductive rights, scientists insisting that climate change is real, and doctors and nurses begging people to be vaccinated. These voices reveal hard truths about who we currently are and offer us a wake- up call for who we want to be. Even now, in the land where these texts we read, study, and venerate originated, innocent people are slaughtered, and folks, rather than paying attention to what the suffering is revealing, are taking hard sides – some even rejoicing because they falsely believe apocalyptic biblical texts say all this has to happen for Jesus to come back. We often place our trust in stories of the past, and in so doing ignore the prophetic voices, the apocalyptic messages for our own time. Not messages of doom and gloom that are far off, but cries for justice and a turning around toward the mercy and love of God right now. 

March For Our Lives, one of the many apocalyptic messages being sent in the last few years.

Where are you seeing the apocalyptic moments, revealing hard truths for the present and pointing us to a changed future? Pay heed to them, as the audiences for these holy texts of ours tried to do. Let the unveiling of our present inform the future selves that we want to be, not for the sake of the kingdom that is to come – God’s got that taken care of anyway in the Eternal Now – but for the sake of the kingdom that is already here