Holy Comforter Episcopal Church

Sermon for First Sunday in Lent Sunday, February 17, 2013 Luke 4:1-13 We’ve all seen those pictures of Jesus. Nice, calm, serene. Not wanting to upset the apple cart. Just getting everybody to be nice to each other. But then Jesus says something that makes your hair stand on end. “Give everything you own to the poor and follow me.” Uhhh, what? “Love your enemy.” Excuse me, Jesus? “Forgive others for as many times as it takes.” Jesus, you can’t really mean that, can you? In today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke, we read about one of Jesus’ most controversial and impossible deeds of all time: he took forty days off work. Forty days! I mean, who can just tell their boss, “I’ll see you in a month and a half. I’ll be off praying in the desert.” And I don’t know about you, but I have trouble finding forty minutes that are free. Sometimes it seems that even forty seconds are precious. And here’s Jesus, knocking off for forty days to spend time with God. That’s nuts. That might be the hardest thing Jesus ever did for us to mimic. And the situation isn’t getting any better. There has been a steady trend in the American workplace for the last generation. American workers are taking fewer vacation days. And when we do go on vacation, we are still plugged into our email accounts and Facebook updates; we still take calls from work on our cell phones. Americans do a terrible job of getting away from it all. We succumb to the temptation to fill our lives with more stuff, more work, more responsibilities. We stay at work rather than take a vacation day. We answer that one last email before bed instead of spending time with the family. We look at the text message that came in, because we just can’t stop thinking about it. We in the church aren’t much better about it. We pile on more things. More ministries, more groups, more stuff. Rarely does the church actually provide a time that we can just be quiet, be unplugged, and be away from it all. Satan came to Jesus and tempted him in the wilderness. Satan tempted Jesus with power and authority and might and comfort. Satan tempts us too. But Satan usually doesn’t come to us with hooves, horns, and a pitchfork. Satan comes to us with our to-do list. We are tempted with that inbox with pages of unread emails. Satan tempts us in the guise of another Facebook status update, one more Tweet, one more quick text message that turns into yet another pressing priority. This is a temptation because it fills our lives and distracts us from what is holy. All of the sudden, we are “making time for God” rather than “making time for work.” It’s all backwards. And then Lent comes around and smacks us in the face. Wham! On Ash Wednesday, we spent a long time on our knees during that service. And today, as you will have noticed, the service is different. It’s quiet in the beginning, we kneel, we reflect. We take an extra moment to pray and to be with God. Even if it’s only an extra forty seconds. Lent is a blessing from the Church. Really, it’s an excuse and a reminder to slow down, to listen, to be with God. Typically, this is where the preacher begins to rail against the evils of email. To denounce the iPhone and Facebook. This is where most sermons would exhort you to cut yourself off, and retreat into the wilderness with Jesus. Become a hermit! Pray in silence for an hour every day! But that’s not this sermon. See, I think most folks read this passage about the temptation of Jesus as a bad thing. He goes off into the wilderness and is tempted by Satan and it’s awful and miserable and all of that. But read this text carefully - who drives Jesus into the wilderness? Is it the devil? Is it Satan? No! It’s the Holy Spirit! Jesus is led into the wilderness precisely because he is filled with the Holy Spirit. And I believe the Holy Spirit can work through the very things that tempt us. God is clever enough to take the temptation to stay busy,

Sermon for Ash Wednesday Wednesday, February 13, 2013 Psalm 103 It was a cold, cloudy day in southern England. Maggie and I were walking around the ancient city of Canterbury. Did I mention that we had been walking? Like so many pilgrims and tourists, our feet were weary and our legs were tired. Our walking pilgrimage took us to St. Martin’s Church in Canterbury. St. Martin’s is the oldest church in England. Christians have been praying and worshiping on that hallowed ground since the sixth century. The earliest recorded worship of the Lord Jesus took place there in 597. And on that cold, cloudy day in southern England, Maggie and I took a rest at St. Martin’s. We sat in the chilly graveyard of that ancient church. We rested our bones among the bones of Christians who have been buried there for the last fifteen hundred years. As we sat, and as we prayed, we noticed something. We noticed that graves were on top of graves. Centuries ago, the members of St. Martin’s church had run out of room in their graveyard. So they started stacking their deceased brothers and sisters. Over a millennium’s worth of bones were squeezed into a quaint little English graveyard. Grave on top of grave on top of grave on top of graves. All completed with masterful indiscrimination. Saints on top of sinners. Men, women, boys, girls. The infamous with the unknown. The noteworthy on top of the nobodies. Criminals and cops, priests and parishioners, soldiers and villains. Stacked, squeezed, and crammed into that holy little space. Psalm 103 came to mind: “For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust. Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower of the field; When the wind goes over it, it is gone, and its place shall know it no more.” We are dust. You are dust. Through the course of our short lives we may rise to prominence. We may even rise to greatness. We may attain holiness. Or we may remain blessedly anonymous. More likely, like me, you’ll struggle with sinfulness. But regardless of what you are, you are only dust. Heroes and kings. Cowards and losers. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. All of them dusty. We may flourish like a flower of the field; like one of a great carpet of bluebonnets on a scenic Texas highway. Magnificent and yet dainty. But when the summer heat comes, the flowers wither and die. The ground dries up, the sun is unrelenting, and the hot southern wind from the Gulf of Mexico blows them away. All of them dusty. And their places are remembered no more. Like the bluebonnets, like the thousands in that little graveyard, your time will come. You may have many Ash Wednesdays left to you, or this may be your last. No one knows. This is the somber reminder on Ash Wednesday. That we all go down to the dust. Centuries from now, our names will not be remembered. We will be forgotten among the lips of humanity. We are all just ashes, and we make our way down to dusty death. Yet with the somber reminder of this day, comes an everlasting resolution: God will remember. As Psalm 103 promises, “The merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever on those who fear him.” God will remember you - not because you were a prince or a pauper. God will not remember you because you were buried in a special graveyard or because you had riches, or because you died penniless. The promise of this day, the firm resolve from our Savior, is that God will remember us because he is the very one who created us. And redeemed us. God is so great, that even ashes like us can be loved and remembered for all eternity. A final reflection from the St. Martin’s graveyard: not a soul buried there took any earthly possession with them beyond death. All the earthly treasure they had worked for and accumulated over the course of their lives was forgotten in the dust of the grave. During this holy season of Lent, I implore you to reflect on this question: what is really important?

Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany Sunday, February 10, 2013 Luke 9:28-43a Looks like somebody has some good news. We are famous! We were in the Houston Chronicle for Drive-Thru Ashes! Let’s take a moment to congratulate ourselves! This is good news! [Here's a link to the article: http://goo.gl/jd4bb] And I’ve got some more good news. Jesus is Lord! Transfigured into dazzling array, Jesus is hailed as the Son of God. The Chosen One. This is good news, because it means Jesus is Lord. It means that there is life, and life eternal. It is also good news that Jesus confers with Moses and Elijah on the mountain. It is good news that Jesus can heal the sick, even those haunted by demonic convulsions. This is good news - that the Lord we follow, Jesus Christ, is God. That is what this passage is trying to tell us this morning. That Jesus Christ is Lord, and his transfiguration is a sign of his most gracious rule. This is good news. It’s good news because the king of this world is not a tyrant, but a lover. Now, in speaking with Moses and Elijah, Jesus discusses his “departure.” The literal translation of that word is “exodus.” Exodus. Jesus is speaking of his exodus. His foreseeable death by crucifixion. Jesus, yes, the Lord of this world, is openly discussing his betrayal and murder by this world. He’s talking about leaving. Jesus is talking about leaving the safe place on the mountain, and going to where things aren’t so safe. And that’s exactly what the Houston Chronicle is saying about us. We are leaving. We are leaving our church walls and going out to proclaim that Jesus is Lord. We are making our departure, our exodus. We are taking what we do in here, out there - out there where things aren’t so safe. It is here, on Sunday mornings, that we encounter the transfigured Jesus. This is our mountain, and we worship God here with joy and beauty. And I know, because I’ve felt it myself, that this place can be transfigured. I’ve met Jesus here. My heart has burned with passion for the Lord. And I’ve seen Elijah and I’ve seen Moses. This is our mountain. And sometimes, I just want to camp out here and stay forever. I just want to kneel before that altar and soak in God’s goodness. With Peter, I want to bask in the glory and the radiance and the love that we feel in this place. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not the best thing. Because we’ve heard the voice. We’ve heard about our leaving. I’ve listened to the voice of the Spirit, and you’ve listened to the voice. And even though we’ve climbed all the way up this mountain, we have to go back down. We are going to make our departure, our exodus. With this Drive-Thru Ashes thing - we are making our exodus, our departure from this mountain of holiness to face the world. We are going out there, out to where the people are to tell them that yes indeed, Jesus is Lord and Jesus loves you. Jesus can even love you in your car. Jesus can even love you when you’re hurrying to work. Jesus even loves you if you’re afraid to step foot inside a church. Now, for Jesus, his exodus took him pretty far. In Luke’s gospel, he wanders around Israel for ten chapters. That’s a lot of walking. The coolest thing about Drive-Thru Ashes, is that our exodus isn’t taking us very far. I mean, it’s just out to our parking lot. I’m willing to bet money that this is the shortest mission trip in the history of Christianity. We see God here, so we are taking God there. It’s that simple. We are leaving. Now, when Jesus made his departure, and set his face to Jerusalem, he encountered some obstacles. There was some difficulty. They scoffed at Jesus. They mocked Jesus. They wagged their finger at Jesus for breaking the rules. And then they crucified Jesus. All because he left, he made his departure, he went down the mountain. In the last few days, since the newspaper printed our good news, I want you to know that we’ve had some critics. Not from parishioners,

Sermon for the the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany Sunday, February 3, 2013 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 The San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens. This is it. This is the Super Bowl. Think of what the players have done - the grueling summer workouts, the exhausting regular season schedule, the nerve-wracking playoffs. The now famous, “Flacco Fling” and that wonder-kid, Colin Kaepernick. All the hard work, all the emotions - it all comes down to four quarters of good old fashioned football. We all have our plans - the ribs, the buffalo wings, the chili, the nachos, the “beverages.” It’s game time. It all comes down to the players and the coaches. Well, until the referees get involved. Ugh, the referees. The zebras. You football fans - do you remember how poorly this season started with referees? Remember the infamous “Touchception” debacle in that game between the Seahawks and the Packers? When the referees couldn’t make up their minds if it was an interception or a touchdown? When it seemed as if all the rules were just tossed to the wind? In football, as in life, there are rules that we have to play by. There are rules that we need to follow. This isn’t news, right? There are rules everywhere. Stop signs. Paying your taxes. Or in football, you can’t pull on a facemask or block in the back. At your home, you might have rules with your kids: finish your vegetables, no TV until you’ve done your homework. Today, being Scout Sunday, we have a whole crop of rule-followers here in church. For Boy Scouts, the Scout Law and Oath are the set of rules that everybody agrees to follow. That a Scout is, among other things, trustworthy, loyal, brave, obedient, thrifty, clean, reverent. And that a Scout must, on his honor, do his best. And just as the refs will throw some yellow flags tonight at penalties, I know that the adult leaders of these Boy Scouts make sure that all the boys follow these rules as best they can. Rules are great and all, until we want to break them. Until that linebacker wants to dish out a late hit. Until we really want to lie instead of being trustworthy. Until we really want to blow through that stop sign because we’re late for work. Rules are great and all, until we want to break them. And strangely enough, we hear this morning, that it’s okay to break the rules. In St. Paul’s beautiful poem we heard on love, the passage from 1 Corinthians that is read at just about every wedding, we hear about tearing down the norms, and by living with a new rule. See, the prophetic powers, and the knowledge of mysteries, and the boundless faith are good and all, but they’re not the greatest thing. Love is. Love is what matters, not the rules or the things that are nice to have. You Boy Scouts, you know that following the Scout Law is a good thing. But because I’ve been camping with the Boy Scouts a lot in my life, I know that sometimes, you’re going to break the Law and Oath. For instance, I know that in Boy Scouts, you’re going to get a little dirty. Being clean is good and all, but sometimes you have to get a little dirty to build a fire or pitch a tent. Being cheerful is good and all, until you have to tell somebody bad news. Do not be concerned so much with following the rules. But focus on doing what is right. As Christians, we know this at our very core. Love is our guiding principle. All the rules take a backseat to loving our neighbor, loving our enemy, and loving God. And sometimes it would be a whole lot easier if we didn’t have to love. If all we needed was to understand some “spiritual mystery,” that would be easy! Sunday School would solve all our problems. But it’s this loving my neighbor as myself thing that’s tough. Even that neighbor that blasts hip-hop music until four in the morning. If all we needed was faith to remove mountains, that would be easy! We would just need to show up at church more often. But it’s this loving my enemy thing that’s tough; even loving a terrorist.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany Sunday, January 27, 2013 Luke 4:14-21 Some of you watched the Inauguration Day proceedings on Monday, and some of you did not. I always make a point to watch all the pomp and circumstance, because eight years ago, I was a part of all that pomp and circumstance. Along with the rest of the Longhorn Band, Maggie and I marched in the George Bush’s second inaugural in 2005. Snow was on the ground, it must have been about twenty degrees. As a way to remember that day, I always watch the whole inauguration, regardless of who is elected. And I remember, eight years ago, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue on that bitterly cold day, thinking to myself, “This is a monumental day. People will remember this day for generations. And I am a part of it.” But then I went back to Austin, and I went back to class, and went on living again. The whole thing - the parade, the speeches, the oath of office - it all seemed like a dream. Like it didn’t really happen. Life happened again, and reality set in. Eight years passed. Two presidential elections happened. Mid-term elections happened. I stopped remembering the swearing in and the speeches of that day I was in Washington, D.C. It all just faded out of my memory. To show my point, let me give you all a pop quiz: How many of you, Americans, remember anything from Martin Van Buren’s inaugural address? Who can quote a line from Millard Fillmore’s inauguration? Or what about one of the most divisive presidents in our history - Andrew Jackson. Can anybody here remember what he said in either his first or second inaugural address? Of course not. Because time passes on. Presidents come and go. Nations rise and fall. Empires wax and wane. It’s tempting for us to think of today as the most important day that has ever happened. We can succumb to the idea that this day, or some big event like a presidential inauguration, has a life of its own. That today will live on and on forever and ever until the ages of ages Amen. But I’ve got news for you. It won’t. Days like Monday’s Inauguration come, and they go. Though Monday looms large in our contemporary world, the memory of Monday will some day be forgotten. The pomp, the circumstance, the speeches, the oaths, the whole shebang, will one day be relegated the dust bin of history. Along with all the inaugurations of every president. Human leaders come and human leaders go. So what will stand the test of time? What words, what inauguration will be remembered by generations to come? The words of Jesus, from the gospel of Luke. His inauguration in a synagogue in Nazareth have rung out for two thousand years and they will continue to ring out for generations to come. The setting is just like what took place on Monday. Jesus arrives at the appointed time and the appointed day, and says the words from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” Those words from Isaiah are the oath of office for Jesus. These words spell out his ministry and his mission. With right hand raised, Jesus promises to fulfill these duties. Then the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him. Just as the eyes of the National Mall are fixed on whoever happens to be taking the presidential oath. And Jesus gives his Inaugural Address: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” See, it is that day, the day that Jesus took his oath of office that gives meaning to our lives; because on that day, God made a promise. The Presidents who are inaugurated on days like Monday, who will be inaugurated four, eight, twelve, sixteen years hence, all make promises. They all take the oath. They all give a speech. But every single one of them will break their promises. Democrats, Republicans, whoever,

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany Sunday, January 20, 2013 John 2:1-11 We all have that friend. You know what I mean, we all have that friend. That friend who is just a little off their rocker. That friend that just seems a little cr...

Sermon for First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ Sunday, January 13, 2013 Psalm 29 (Singing in italics) “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all.” This quaint little songs goes on to talk about the little flowers and the little birds. The serene little river, the pleasant summer sun, the ripe fruits in the garden. Isn’t it just great how God made everything so beautiful? And we hear this all the time. “These cute little puppies tell me all I need to know about God.” “I worship God in the beauty of my backyard.” Or perhaps my favorite, “I’m closest to God when I’m walking on the beach at sunset.” It’s all so quaint. So perfect. So serene. None of us really questions that we can see the beauty of God in kittens and butterflies. How...bright and beautiful it all is. But, but I have to ask - what about the scorpions? What about the black widow spiders? Puppies are great and all, but what about God and the killer bees and the killer whales and the killer sharks. And perhaps most sinister of all - what about the mosquitoes? Did the Lord God create them too? And how come there aren’t any quaint little hymns about tornadoes and floods and earthquake and hurricanes? They were created by God just as much as the little flower that opens and the little bird that sings. So I propose a new chorus to that old hymn: “All things dark and dangerous, all terrors great and small. All things hard and horrible the Lord God made them all.” Doesn’t quite sound right, does it? We want God to fit in a box. We want a God who behaves nicely and has good manners. We want a God who delights in golden retrievers and butterflies, not a God who created electric eels and fire ants. Now, I invite you to pick up your pew sheet and look at the psalm we just read, Psalm 29. The way we said, sort of dreary and boring like, doesn’t quite fit what’s being described. What the author of the psalm is describing is God in a thunderstorm. Look at verse 3: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.” This is not a God of kittens and butterflies, this is a God of power and might and thunderous strength. “All things dark and dangerous, all terrors great and small. All things hard and horrible the Lord God made them all.” Psalm 29 challenges us. Psalm 29 challenges us to face up to the reality of God. A God who splits the flames of fire and shakes the wilderness. This is not some tame God who fits in a box and who paints beautiful sunsets. This is a God of immeasurable power and strength. This is a God who has the power to shake us. This is the Lord whose voice makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare. Psalm 29 is a challenge. Psalm 29 challenges us to assess how God acts in our lives. Is God quaint, or does God have the power to shake us? This psalm stands as a mirror and asks us - is this the God we know? One day last year, I walked into a local Christian bookstore. I had just used up my last notecard, and I was looking for some new stationery. The stationery I found at this Christian bookstore dismayed and disturbed me. There were notecards with pictures of Jesus, with perfectly combed hair hanging out on a meadow with a rainbow. The Jesus who was nearly drowned in the Jordan River by John the Baptist was not there. On the sympathy cards, there were sappy sayings like, “God wanted another angel in heaven;” nothing about how our Lord died too. Everything about God was just so cute and perfect and kitten-like. There were no lightning bolts or flames of fire or writhing oak trees. Psalm 29 was not around. So I went up to this an employee and said, “Hi.

The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ January 6, 2013 Matthew 2:1-12 One of the most classic movie scenes of all time is from “A Christmas Story.” I’m sure many of you know it by heart. All the little boys and girls are out on the playground on a ...

Sermon for First Sunday after Christmas Sunday, December 30, 2012 Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7 I wonder if you all have heard the term - “cradle Episcopalian?” Cradle Episcopalians are those of us who were born into this church, and don’t know anything else. I know we have some in this church - people who were confirmed by Desmond Tutu, whose lineage as Anglicans go back to Henry himself. And I would like to think that I am right up there with the best cradle Episcopalians. I was baptized at St. James’ Episcopal Church. My grandfather baptized me. And I have every reason to believe he used this Book of Common Prayer and that he wore this stole when he did so. Though I didn’t go to church much as a kid, I was confirmed on the Feast Day for St. Augustine - who was the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Here is the certificate to prove it. You can’t get any more Episcopal than that. God called me to the priesthood when I was sixteen after reading Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.” In college, one church service on Sunday was not enough. I went to one Episcopal church for morning services, and then to the college Episcopal church for evening services. And also to Wednesday night worship. And I took communion to shut-ins. And I was on the Vestry during college. I served as Senior Warden. Because that’s what cradle Episcopalians do. Then the bishop sent me to Virginia Theological Seminary for my training to be a priest. That’s the seminary where Texans have gone since before the Civil War - not to that upstart seminary in Austin. Here is my diploma to prove it. I was ordained to the diaconate. Here’s my proof. And when I was ordained to the priesthood, I wore this same stole. And here’s my proof for that. And here’s my proof that I’m the rector of this church. I can count on one hand the number of times I have worshipped in a church that was not an Episcopal Church. I have memorized large swaths of the Prayer Book, even those dreary, boring, historical documents in the back. When I sing in the shower - which I do often - it’s usually from the 1982 hymnal. My resume as a cradle Episcopalian is rock solid. If anybody has a birthright to this church - it is me. So what does all that stack up to? The legacy, the history, the documents, my love for this Church? Well, not much, really. Because none of us are born into the Church of God. The Church does not grow through birth. Our Church will not sustain itself if we just have more children who grow up to be Episcopalians. No. The Church grows through adoption. Saint Paul gets this. To use a modern day metaphor, it works like this: God is a father. And, he has one son that was born to him - that’s Jesus Christ. But God isn’t done being a Father with Jesus. What happens is that God wants more children. But he wants children through adoption. God wants children who don’t really know what it’s like to have good parents. God wants children who have lost hope and faith. And to get more children, God created his own adoption agency. The firstborn Son, Jesus, set this adoption agency into motion, and adopted the first twelve children for God. And then those first twelve began telling others that they could also be adopted. So the coolest thing happened - because God sent Jesus as his only Son, those adopted children also became sons and daughters of God. And now because they were sons and daughters of God, even though it was through adoption, they received the same rights and privileges and benefits as the natural born Son. In other words, Jesus received an inheritance of blessing and peace and everlasting life from God because he was God’s Son. But because God and Jesus are so graceful and generous, they decided that the adopted children would also be written into the will. So that everybody could receive an inheritance of blessing and peace and everlasting life. Or as Saint Paul says it: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman,