Taller Children

'When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”'

--Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16

'Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”'

--Mark 8: 31-38

I do not have any children, but I have witnessed enough small humans in my time to gleam a few things that appear to be common among nearly every single one of them. First, and they’re always awake when they should be sleeping, but are always sleeping when they should be awake. And second, they get really excited when they are seen. Like, really seen. Picture a baby playing peek-a-boo and the expression they have when they’re seen, or a toddler who throws a sheet over themselves pretending to be invisible but then screams with joy when the sheet comes off and their parent sees them. Children want to be seen for who they are.

To borrow a song title from Elizabeth and the Catapult: we’re all just taller children. We all want to be seen for who we are. Is there any more gratifying and empowering experience for any of us than for another person to see us and affirm our authentic selves? I seriously doubt it.

Album cover for Elizabeth and the Catapult's Taller Children.

As we’ve observed, this Lent our readings from the Hebrew Scriptures all deal with the various covenants that God makes with humanity. Last week it was Noah, this week it’s a wandering Aramean named Abram and his spouse Sarai, who enter into a covenant relationship with God and in doing so their true selves are seen and God gives them new names, their real names: Abram – whose name meant ‘exalted ancestor’ – becomes Abraham – meaning ‘ancestor of a multitude’ – while Sarai – whose name meant ‘princess of a family - becomes Sarah – “princess of a nation.” What is remarkable in this exchange is that it is God who sees these two elderly folk for who they really are before they themselves do; in fact, in the very next verse after the reading we just heard, Abraham doubts the promise and laughs mockingly at God. It takes him a while to be faithful, to trust what God has promised, but even when he and Sarah can’t see their destiny, their true selves, God does. How reassuring that promise is for us when the world around us can’t see us, but God always does!

There are times, though, when others around us can’t do that, and such a moment occurs in the life of Jesus. Mere moments after Simon Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah Jesus paints the picture for him and the rest of the apostles of what is going to happen to him: he will be rejected, suffer, and die. And rather than have his closest friends stand with him, he experiences the first rejection. Simon Peter rebukes Jesus for what he’s saying, and like an elder brother putting his sibling in a headlock, tells him, “Don’t say things like that!” In that moment he reveals his own fear, even though somewhere under there is love. Jesus’ response is that Peter isn’t seeing Jesus’ whole self, he’s not seeing the way God sees. 

"Get behind me, Satan!"

How hard it must have been, how much it must have pained Jesus to reveal to his closest friends this deeply important part of who he was, the truth that he was leading them on a path that was going to bring suffering, rejection, and even death! I suspect Jesus figured they might have a tough time accepting that truth, but I wonder if he thought they’d be as clueless as they were, insistent that this mustn’t happen to him, that they somehow understood things better than he did – understood him better than he understood himself. It must have been tough for him.

It's not a stretch, I think, to say that we want our friends and family not to worry, not to dread what lies ahead, and yet we also want to be able to be honest, fully known and accepted and seen for who we are and who God is calling us to be. We want to come out of hiding and break down the walls between us and let ourselves be seen and known for who we truly are. When being seen causes pain, what then?

The pain and disappointment that Jesus must have felt was held gently in his heart, which was attuned to God’s own heart, allowing him to feel it without reacting to it. There is a kind of pain that Simon Peter feels in this story, but it comes from not being able to listen all the way, not being able to fully see Jesus. He hears nothing after the words, “and be killed.” So afraid is he of facing the pain that he misses the rest of the story, he misses the “rise again” part. The soul of the matter, the really good news is there, if he will let himself listen to the whole story and see what God is up to, rather than just his own feelings that get stirred up or how the matter affects him.

It is in our covenant relationships with God that we discover our true selves. Sometimes, like in the case of Abraham and Sarah, that discovery leads to a new name, a new identity – or rather, one that is new to everyone else but known and held dear by God. It’s a powerful experience for anyone who has known it, but for those who haven’t, those who have been like Simon Peter, who love the other person but can’t see past their own experience, it can be difficult, they may even feel hurt by this new revelation, and in doing so hurt the very one they love, sometimes, again like Simon Peter, because they think they’re trying to protect them. But all that person really wants is to be fully seen and known as God fully sees and knows them. Just like Jesus.

The institutional Church has had a history of rejecting people when they come to us and proclaim who they really are, who God has called them to be. This has been true for a great many of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-binary siblings. It has also been true for numerous folks who have felt an authentic call to ordination, only to share the most vulnerable parts of themselves, parts that God has always known and treasured and used for transformation, only to be told that that’s just too much sharing, too much for us to deal with. Sounds like a certain apostle, doesn’t it?. If you are anyone who has been denied, unseen by the Church for who you really are, I am sorry. I pray we do better. 

Lent is a good time for us to ask ourselves: who is it that we’re not seeing? Whose experiences are just too much for us to handle? This season is helpful for examining our blind spots and asking why it’s so hard. There is always hope, though, if we can move closer, into relationship with those who are asking to be seen. There’s power in just doing that.

Covenant relationships with God lead us down paths that can be tough for others to see and understand, but through them we discover who we really are, we discover our true selves, the selves that God has always known. May we not only have the grace this Lent to open our hearts to discover our true selves in this covenant relationship we have with God, but may we fully see and affirm the true selves of others – God already has, will we ; after all, we’re all just taller children, and in the end to be seen and known is all we really want or need.

On Covenants

'God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”'

--Genesis 9: 8-17

'In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now 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.”'

--Mark 1: 9-15

Let’s talk about covenants. That ain’t exactly a word we use nowadays – “I made a covenant with Bill that if the Tar Heels lost to Syracuse I’d paint his kitchen.” I didn’t actually do that, thank God since Carolina did lose on Tuesday, but the point is we don’t talk like that, do we? We promise, we even swear, but nobody makes a covenant anymore.

A covenant’s unique and more than just a mere promise; it’s a two-way street. It is explicitly relational. In a covenant both sides make promises that they intend to keep, and while the intention is for that commitment to be everlasting, covenants can be broken; ideally, by both parties but in some extreme cases one party can break it if it is clear that the other has violated the agreed upon terms that were set forth at the start.

God makes a variety of covenants with humanity, and during the season of Lent we will be hearings stories each week of how these covenants were established or renewed. I’m not saying you’re getting a sermon series because that ain’t exactly something Episcopalians do, but I’m not NOT saying that. 

And we start today with the story of Noah and the Great Flood – or, rather, the nice part after the whole mass genocide of every living creature on the planet. For what it’s worth, I asked a rabbi friend of mine once how Jewish folks interpret this story because Christians have a really hard time reconciling the God of love with, ya know, THAT! She told me the story is an allegory, for one, not meant to be factual, but she also told me that whenever it is retold, the emphasis is not on the destruction but on the promise made afterwards, the covenant God makes not only with Noah and his family and the creatures that come out of the ark, but with everyone and everything that will live on the earth after them. The promise is to never again wipe out life in such a manner, and the sign of this covenant is the bow in the sky, the rainbow – think of it like this: God hangs up the bow, a weapon; an act of disarmament, to show God’s mercy. Today we still get a warm feeling when we see one in the sky, don’t we? As if God is reminding us of that promise – and when there’s a double one, then folks lose their minds! Go YouTube ‘Double Rainbow Guy’ to see for yourself.

Double rainbow in Hawaii in January of this year.

Fast forward a few millennia and Jesus of Nazareth comes to the waters of the River Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John. Why would he do this, if John is proclaiming a baptism for the forgiveness of sins and Jesus is the sinless one? In Jesus’ case it’s not about that, but it is about participating in this relational moment with God – in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells John that he must do it because, as he says, “we must fulfill all righteousness.” Upon being baptized, Jesus sees a vision and hears a voice – meant for him, it seems, and not those around him. The voice speaks directly to him: “You are my Son, my Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” The covenant is made between God and Jesus. Or as the Church would come to explain it, the relationship between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity – Father and Son – which has existed since before time itself, is reaffirmed in the flesh in this moment.

And what happens as soon as that covenant is made? Jesus is whisked away into the wilderness, into the dessert, where he is tempted by Satan – which is a Hebrew word meaning ‘adversary’ – but the angels waited on him; or, as Preston Epps translates it, they “ministered to him.” It’s after these 40 days of temptation, fasting, and fighting with the devil, that Jesus returns to Galilee and begins his own ministry.

Come to think of it, I said that folks don’t make covenants anymore, but we do. I’d say nearly everyone here has made at least one because of your baptism. Your baptism wasn’t that much different from Jesus’ if you think about it. You were claimed by God as beloved in those waters. You have been tempted because life itself is full of temptations. You’ve been ministered to by angels, perhaps in your churches or elsewhere. And you have been called to engage in your own ministries, proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ by word and example. 

You see, when God makes a covenant with people, God doesn’t expect them to just sit by idly. Whether it’s Jesus at his baptism and Noah and his family this week, or Abram next week, or Moses and the people the week after that, in every case God’s promise leads to human action. It is no different for us now. Saint Theresa of Avila once said that God has no hands, no feet, but ours. We are the agents by which the world comes to know this loving, liberating, and life-giving God. A whole bunch of people have been told about a different kind of God, a judgmental, bloodthirsty God, so it’s all the more important that we, recalling the covenant God has made with us through those baptismal waters, show them the Truth.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy, even if we have been claimed by God in this covenant relationship. It certainly wasn’t for Jesus, or Noah, or Moses, or Abram, or John the Baptist, or anyone else. The path to the deeper journey of understanding our call in this covenant relationship with God is not for our prosperity and ease. The way is not without anxiety, and the rewards often come years after we are gone. Yet this is why God calls us, not merely for our own sakes, but for the sake of those whose lives we touch and those whose lives will be impacted by the world that we leave behind.

At no moment in the Scriptures does God ever dissolve one of God’s covenants. Not ever. Sure, God makes new ones, but that doesn’t mean the previous ones are done for. Christians have, sadly and incorrectly, interpreted the new covenant with Jesus to mean that the old one with Israel is null and void – this is a sin called supersessionism. God has never dissolved a covenant in Scripture, nor has dissolved the covenant God made with you at your baptism. So where will you allow God to lead you? Into what wilderness? God often chooses adventure over safety. May you be adventurous this Lenten season, as you remember your own covenant with God and live more fully into it. 

On Wretchedness, Lent, and Breaking Binaries

Many of you have heard me talk about my great-grandfather, Preston Epps, who was a Greek professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and whose translation of the Gospel of Mark we will be hearing as a dramatic reading during Holy Week. Granddaddy loved music, especially Amazing Grace, and he had it played at his funeral. But there was an oddity. He changed the words from “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me” to “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound to a believer’s ear.” My dad asked why Granddaddy did that, and my great-grandmother replied, “Well, he just didn’t really think of himself as a wretch.”

In the Collect that begins the liturgy for Ash Wednesday, we asked that, “lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, we may obtain of the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness.” It does hit pretty hard, doesn’t it, the notion of our own wretchedness, that we are, in fact, wretches. 

In the spirit of my great-grandfather, I do not believe we are wretches, nor do I believe that it is helpful for the Church to tell folks they are; something about noticing the speck in our neighbor’s eye and ignoring the log in our own. But it is disingenuous to think that we are not capable of wretchedness, that any of us here today, myself included, have not sinned, have not missed the mark and offended our God who loves and forgives and calls us to do the same. 

It seems at times that we Christians – especially in the mainline denominations– find ourselves caught between a binary: on the one hand you have churches that preach total depravity and the idea that we are all just miserable, horrible people who deserve nothing less than to spend eternity in the dung heap of Gehenna; and on the other hand you have folks who are slow to condemn any action at all for fear of offending someone, preaching a Gospel that God only wishes for us to follow our bliss, regardless of the consequences. Binaries aren’t cool, and as usual, we humans forget that God doesn’t operate within them but instead is always calling us to find the Middle Way between such extremes. 

This is what Ash Wednesday and Lent call us to consider. No, we are not horrible, miserable people, nor do we get a reward if we fast to the point of being physically ill. And, we are flawed, we are broken, we do hurt one another and ourselves and we do need to own up to that and clean out the cobwebs within ourselves. Lent isn’t an either/or, it’s a both/and.

The prophet Isaiah, speaking for God calls out people who fast only for the purpose of being noticed by God (Isaiah 58: 1-12). This is something Jesus later condemns in his own day (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21). Neither disapproved of the actions themselves - fasting, giving alms, praying, etc. - but rather the motivations that caused people to do them. These were the folks who followed the letter of their Law, but their heart weren't in the right place. The fast God wants, the prophet declares, is one from injustice and oppression. The rending God asks for is of your heart, not your clothing. Modern audiences, though, have often heard these words and interpreted them to mean that Isaiah – and by extension God – doesn’t think physical actions are necessary at all – they’re just ‘works’ they say -  so let’s just forget them entirely, be they fasting, confession, taking up ashes, or even praying; after all, it’s a fast of the heart, of the spirit. Some even take this mindset to its logical conclusion, that if it’s all just spiritual jargon, then the resurrection itself isn’t a literal, bodily one, but merely an ideological or spiritual one. 

But that isn’t the Gospel. Our God is one who uses real matter, real stuff like water, wine, wheat, and ash to get the point across because our God took on real human matter to show us how to be fully and authentically human ourselves. This is why some safe form of physical fasting is encouraged, because Jesus did it, and because it can cleanse us from stuff that shouldn’t be in there. Actual confession aloud to another human being – in a safe space in the presence of God, of course – is important to our complete well-being. These actions – yes, physical actions, not just spiritual or mental exercises – get our prayer and devotion down into our bodies. They redirect our motivations remind us that our total dependence is on God alone and that, oh yeah, God is God and we are not. They put us in our place, and honestly, that’s not really a bad thing. 

A friend of mine is a Russian Orthodox priest in Kentucky, and his congregation developed a really good self-reflection to help them prepare for the period of confession that begins what they call Great Lent. They ask themselves: how have I turned away from God and my neighbor? What are the ways I have been self-centered, the addictions I’ve fallen to, the scapegoating and blaming I’ve participated in, the resentment and rage I’ve felt toward others, the lies I’ve told, the ugly truths I’ve hid from everyone, including God, the facades I’ve hid behind, the ways I’ve tried numbing my emotional and spiritual pain, the blame I’ve placed on others for my own actions, and the ways I’ve beaten myself up and participated in self-hatred? Such a practice is not about self-pity or loathing but conversion. As the medieval Coptic Saint Isaias of Scetis put it, “The voice of God calls to us until the day we die, saying be converted today!” Not to a specific religion or denomination, but to a right relationship with God, each other, and the whole of creation. That’s a voice that is a sweet sound to a believer’s ear, right there.

The ashes we take up remind us that we will die, every single one of us. Too often humanity tries desperately to ward off that inevitability, most often in our pursuit of power, prestige, and possessions. In death we are all reconciled to God – that is what Jesus did in his own death and resurrection. By taking up the ashes and remembering our mortality, we echo St. Isaias’ words, praying we may be converted every day until all that is left of this mortal existence is the dust. 

We are imperfect, but we are loved; all of this icky, broken, material that makes us who we are. Saint Valentine himself said that we come to love not by finding the perfect person but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly. That kind of perfection comes from drawing closer to one another. This season, how will you draw closer to God – who sees your perfect imperfections and loves you through them? Will you give something up, take something on, or a combination of both? There is no right or wrong way to do Lent. It’s not about beating ourselves up but being converted each day, transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus. The ashes are not an outward sign of your piety for others. They are for you. So that as you feel them trickle onto your nose, or catch them in the mirror, or accidentally smudge them later on, you will recall the bond you share with all living things and in so doing be drawn closer to the God who is love. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Absalom Jones and Listening to Jesus

'Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.'

--Mark 9: 2-9

“Listen to him!”  the voice said.  It’s the same voice that spoke at Jesus’ baptism . At both Jesus’ baptism and here on this mountain, the voice declares Jesus’ belovedness, only now it comes with an instruction for those witnesses: listen to him.

I have to laugh because we obviously didn’t listen to him.  For proof, just go up to Mt. Tabor, to the Church of the Transfiguration, and when you walk inside you will see the gorgeous high altar head of you, and to either side you will see the chapels of Moses and Elijah.  Yeah, we built the dwelling places anyway!  We didn’t listen.  But every year this story comes around – sometimes twice in one year! – and we have the chance, again, to listen to him.

What does it mean to listen to Jesus? There’re a lot of ways to answer that, but one I suspect, would be to see every person as a child of God, a sibling, equally beloved by our Creator. To recognize the belovedness of others, however, also means acknowledging and repenting of the times when we haven’t done so, when we have missed the mark – the Greek word for that is hamartia, and it’s the word in the Bible that gets translated into English as ‘sin.’ The Episcopal Church has spent most of the last decade engaged in the holy work of racial reconciliation, acknowledging the ways we’ve missed the mark, the systemic ways in which we’ve denied the belovedness of our brothers and sisters – such as the fact that many of our churches were built on the backs of enslaved peoples and that Black folks could worship in those churches, so long as they stayed in the balcony. Through efforts like Sacred Ground and pilgrimages to holy sites of the Civil Rights Movement, this lifelong work of reconciliation has been a top priority for our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and a great many of our dioceses and parishes, including here.

In 2021 the Church established the Absalom Jones Fund, an intentional effort on or around the Feast Day of Absalom Jones – February 13 – in which folks are encouraged to lend their financial support to the only two remaining Historically Black Colleges and Universities founded and supported by the Episcopal Church: St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, NC and Voorhess University in Denmark, SC. And as we do so, to lift up the witness of Absalom Jones.

The Rev. Absalom Jones

Be honest, how many of you knew the name of Absalom Jones before this blog post?  His story began in Sussex County, Delaware when he was born into slavery on November 7, 1746. It could’ve ended there, as it did for so many others, but God had other plans. Though named after a tragic figure – Absalom, the ill-fated son of King David – this Absalom persevered, using the New Testament to teach himself to read. At 16 he and his mother and siblings were sold to a farmer, who turned around and moved to Philadelphia, taking Absalom and selling the rest of his family. Like so many, they were never reunited. 

Absalom was allowed to attend a Free School, which was a nighttime school run by Quakers, and there he learned more fully to read and write. Once the door had been opened, Absalom proceeded to kick it down. He continued to read and to educate himself as much as possible, even when he was sold once again to a man named Wynkop – who was listed as a member of the Vestry of Christ Church, Philadelphia. Around the same time that he was sold again, Absalom married a slave girl named Mary King on January 4, 1770. Because children took on the status of their mother, Absalom wanted to be sure theirs would be born free, and by 1778 had purchased Mary’s freedom, though he remained enslaved. Perhaps moved by Absalom’s actions, or by the radical ideals of this new United States of America, Absalmon was manumitted by Mr. Wynkop, which is the process of an enslaver granting freedom to an enslaved person, in 1784. Afterwards he took the name Jones, which according to one story, was an indication of his fully American identity.

Finding hope and promise in Christianity, Absalom was involved in the Methodist Episcopal church and served as lay minister at St. George’s in Philadelphia, along with his friend Richard Allen. Together they listened to Jesus and established the Free African Society to aid in the emancipation of slaves and provide education, food, and other resources for newly freed folks. As a result, the Black membership of St. George’s exploded. You can probably guess what happened next. The white parishioners got uncomfortable, and the Vestry voted in 1792 to force Black worshippers to the balcony without any prior notice. When Absalom, Richard, and others came to worship and sat in their regular pews, they were tapped on the shoulder by the ushers and told they had to go upstairs. They walked out, never to return.

The truth is that tensions were high around that time after the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1789, where Methodists and Black Episcopalians were each hoping to have seat, voice, and vote at the Church’s governing body, but both groups were turned away. The result was that the Methodist Church grew to become the largest denomination in America and many Black folks decided the Episcopal Church was not for them.

Absalom and Richard wanted to found a church where Black folks could worship freely. The result was First African Church in Philly, which still stands today. While Richard wanted it to be a Methodist congregation, Absalom sought approval from William White, the Bishop of Pennsylvania and first Presiding Bishop, to admit it into the Episcopal Church. It was and became known as the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, with Absalom serving as lay leader while he studied for ordination to become the church’s rector. Richard Allen, meanwhile, founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church and became its first bishop in 1816. The two of them remained lifelong friends and collaborators.

The choir sings at the historic African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in 2019 (photo courtesy of Facebook)

In 1802 Absalom Jones became the first African American to be ordained a priest in the United States. As rector of St. Thomas he was known as a great preacher, and some white folks even said he had hypnotic powers over his congregation. He started a tradition of preaching an anti-slavery sermon on New Year’s Day and took part in petitioning Congress on multiple occasions to end the Fugitive Slave Act, which not only forced runaway slaves back into bondage but often resulted in free folks being kidnapped and sold in slave states – think of the film 12 Years a Slave. He decried the legislation and called for “some remedy for an evil of such magnitude.” Despite his pleas on the moral and ethical ground that God abhorred such an institution, each of his petitions failed. 

Absalom. though, continued to listen to Jesus. He was an outspoken advocate for the abolition of slavery as a whole for the remainder of his life and a fixture in Philadelphia, helping to found day schools for Black children because they weren’t permitted to go to public school with white kids. He never stopped dreaming, praying, and working for the Beloved Community that he heard Jesus call people to build, all the way to his death on February 13, 1818, 46 years before slavery was abolished.

I may look out from the pulpit on Sunday mornings and see a congregation of white folks, but that don’t mean this observance isn't for us; in fact, I’d say we desperately need to hold to it. We need to hear Absalom’s story and those of all of our Black siblings who have been wounded by the Church but whose love for Jesus has endured. We need to admit our own blindspots. We need to hope and work for a time when Sunday mornings are not the most segregated hour in America. This day is for all of us, in the sure and certain hope that the dream of Jesus, the dream of shalom for all God’s people, can and will be achieved. We will do it, with God’s help, when we listen to him. Blessed Absalom Jones, pray for us. 

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.