rev.stephen.setzer

An Episcopal Priest at Christ Church Christiana Hundred in Wilmington, Delaware.

[stephensetzer]

There’s a lot of things happening in the Maundy Thursday liturgy — the washing of feet, the bread and the wine, and the abrupt end with the stripping of the altar.

But I want to focus on the one thing which happens every week in worship throughout the year — the bread and wine; one thing which finds its historical referent in the Maundy Thursday liturgy.

Jesus and his disciples went to a house, and Jesus washed their feet. Then they went to the upper room. And that’s where the story begins to take on a richly symbolic and timeless meaning. A few years later Paul, the apostle, will tell the Christian community in Corinth, “On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.’”

There is very little that we are required to do as Christians. Two of those things are found in tonight’s liturgy.

1) In John 13 Jesus gives a new commandment and says simply To love one another.

2) And in the Upper Room Jesus breaks bread and pours wine and says, “This is my body . . . Do this in remembrance of me.”

Do these things, Jesus says: Love one another so well that your love brings people together to eat bread and drink wine, my body and blood, so that you can remember my love for all of you.

From the very beginning early Christians celebrated this act of communion that we call The Eucharist very simply because Jesus told them to do it. And they celebrated this act of communion that we call The Eucharist because they believed Jesus when he said, “This is my body. This is my blood.” In the tradition of the Church there has been quite a lot of philosophizing about just how bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. For example, Thomas Aquinas talks about them in terms of “accidents” and “substance.” The “accidents” being the physical attributes of the bread and wine. And the “substance” being the deeper reality of the bread and wine — that they become the body and blood of Christ. It’s from this language of “accident” and “substance” that we get the Roman Catholic teaching of “transubstantiation.” 

In the Anglican/Episcopal Church the teaching around The Eucharist has never quite reached the detail or consensus that it has in the Roman Church — Anglicans have historically been content with simply acknowledging the words of Jesus and believing them to be true — “This is my body; this is my blood,” We acknowledge both the meaning and the mystery of The Eucharist, that in it we encounter the real body of Christ, not a mere symbol, but the reality of Christ himself.

There’s a great story about the southern writer, Flannery O’Connor, who was taken to a party at the home of Mary McCarthy, ex-Catholic and ex-believer, a sophisticated and accomplished novelist, essayist and critic. What follows is O’Connor’s description of the encounter:

We went at [8 PM] and at [1 AM], I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing in such company for me to say.... Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. Well, toward the morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. [Mary McCarthy] said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most “portable” person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, “Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” That was all the defense I was capable of.

From the beginning, Christians have celebrated and we continue to celebrate The Eucharist because Jesus told us to do it. And we celebrate The Eucharist because we believe that Christ is really present in the bread and wine — that it’s more than a symbol — it’s a reality of God’s presence with us. And if it’s not, then like Flannery O’Connor I say, “To hell with it.”

Do you know why Flannery O’Connor said that? Do you know I say that? 

Because symbols are great and they are meaningful, but symbols alone cannot save us. 

It’s like me telling you that I’m hungry and you giving me a plastic piece of bread and saying, “I know you’re hungry, take this symbol of food and feast.” No! I’m not symbolically hungry, I’m literally hungry! The same is true of The Eucharist. We do not need to be saved symbolically, we need to be saved literally! We need nothing less than the body and blood of Christ to transform us and to save us from ourselves and from our sins and from the reality of evil which seeks everyday to destroy us.

Over the course of it’s history, the Church has often complicated the message of Jesus and, like Pharisees, has made faith more cumbersome than it actually needs to be. Tonight we’re reminded that Jesus gives us very little to do but what he gives us is non-negotiable — 1) Love one another and 2) Remember him in The Eucharist. And neither one of those are meant to be done symbolically. We gather here tonight because we have come to learn that mere symbols, though beautiful they may be, cannot save us in themselves. Because for our bodies to be saved, we’re going to need a real body to save us.

[stephensetzer]

Click here to watch the sermon.  

Well his parents always knew he was a little different, a quiet boy, always ready to run into the woods on a Saturday morning to play. But unlike other boys John the Baptist usually chose to play alone. Like an old man who’d rather not be bothered, he used to just wave his mother off when she tried to pack him a sandwich for his solitary adventures into the woods. “It’s okay mom,” John said. “I’ll find something out there.” 

“John, what are you talking about?” his mother Elizabeth questioned. “You’re going into the woods. There’s no food out there. You’re going to get hungry.”

“Mom, it’s okay. I’ll find something.”

So Elizabeth did what any loving mother would do — like a spy she followed him into the woods to find out what exactly he was doing and, more importantly, what exactly he was eating!

We don’t know much about John the Baptist, and really nothing at all about his childhood. But every Advent we get a heaping portion of this man, what little bit there is, and God do I love him. However, to say that he’s a bit eccentric would be putting it mildly. I mean, I doubt Christ Church would be interested in hiring him as the newest addition to the staff. Doubtless, we’d welcome him into the pulpit. Can you imagine him at the Green Show Preview Party? A brave parishioner, I imagine, would amble over to say hello to their new priest when he would rear around with a handful of locust dripping with honey: “Hey there Tom! Want some locusts? They’re fresh; I just dipped ‘em in honey myself!” Talk about a party foul. John the Baptist would violate all of our social sensibilities and just downright embarrass us.

But nonetheless there’s something about this colourful character that I love. And I think it’s because of the way he talks. Now, lauding someone for their being a “straight talker” has been a little bit overdone in the 2016 political election. However, there is a virtue in speaking in a way that is clear and direct and honest and humble. And John has cultivated that virtue masterfully. He minces no words when he speaks of the coming Messiah: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

One of the great problems in contemporary culture and in the contemporary church is that we’ve lost the ability to speak virtuously and in a way that is clear and direct and honest and humble. We’ve lost the ability to speak in a language that is ripe with religious vocabulary using words such as sin and repentance and grace and redemption— words that are connected to some of the deepest elements of our humanity.

Perhaps, that was why John attracted such a crowd out in the wilderness. Perhaps, that is the reason why he attracts me in 2016. Because I get wearied by the all the Christian mumbo jumbo, the I’m-okay-you’re-okay, paper-thin, theologically-shallow, and morally-vapid way of being and speaking in the world of Christianity. That’s why John’s voice is so surprisingly fresh, because he goes out into the wilderness and dresses in a way that’s offensive and eats food that is repulsive and speaks directly about the Messiah who is coming. Jesus, the Son of God who’s ax is lying at the root and who’s winnowing fork is in his hand. This God who’s coming doesn’t appear first as meek and mild in a manger, but rather as the one who holds the scales and who’s judging the injustice and the sin that plagues our lives and that has plagued the world from it’s beginning until this very day. It’s a message that is strangely attractive, like locusts dipped in honey.

John’s message is clear: The Messiah is coming. And he’s coming for two things: judgement and salvation. He reminds us that we cannot have Jesus in only one form, as a little child lying in a manger. He reminds us that we cannot have Jesus as speaking only the things we want him to say. Clad in camel’s hair and speaking like a wild man, John reminds us that we cannot make Jesus into our own image. The Messiah is coming and he’s coming for judgement and for salvation.

These words are a little old-fashioned aren’t they? Judgement and Salvation. We don’t hear them much any more just like we don’t hear words like sin and repentance and grace and redemption very much in contemporary culture. However, these words have never been more important than they are today. And I’ll tell you why. Despite being more individualistic than any culture in history, much of our society finds great difficulty with bearing responsibility. It’s a result of our being less communitarian. I flee from moral responsibility like it’s the plague. If you don’t believe that, then just ask my wife. I say that jokingly, but also with biting reality that those who know us best likely see us better than we see ourselves.

John’s message is ripe with religious language and words like sin and repentance. In fact, repentance is at the very heart of John’s message. And that’s really good for us to hear. Do you know why? Because it dredges up a deep awareness that I am responsible. I am morally responsible. For example, to say that I sin is to say that there is a goal for how I should exist with myself and in relationship with my community and with God, and sometimes I fail to reach that goal, individually and socially. To speak of sin is not exclusively negative, but it’s also idealistic! It admits that there is a goal for myself and for my community. And to speak of repentance is to speak of change and transformation. It is a recognition that there is a goal and that I often do not reach it. Repentance has at its heart recognition and responsibility, two things that I desperately need as a person living in contemporary society. And grace is the deep knowing that even when the goal is not met and even when I am late to recognize responsibility for my sinfulness, there is an abundant and undeserved love descending from God which makes my life full of meaning in spite of myself.

John reminds us that the Messiah is coming for judgement and salvation. He preaches a gospel of repentance, which calls his wilderness listeners to recognize their sinfulness and to repent and to receive the Messiah who offers an abundance of grace. It’s a message that’s not easy to hear in 2016 and even harder to follow, but one that is desperately needed in our world. I know it’s desperately needed in my life. Thank God that there’s grace along the way.

[stephensetzer]

Fifteen years ago to the day an event occurred on the island of Manhattan that would define a generation. If I were to ask, “Where were you? Where were you when it happened?” The majority of us would know. I was in 9th grade, standing by the lockers after my first period class when a friend from senior high told me what happened. For the rest of the morning we sat with a group of teachers watching the events unfold. I spent some time this weekend watching the live coverage of that morning. There was an interview with a woman who was describing what she had witnessed. With a trembling voice and frantic tears she said, “They’re jumping out of the windows!” It was almost impossible to comprehend what she was saying. “People are jumping out of the windows?”

But almost immediately after the smoke had cleared we began to hear story after story of people who risked everything and stories about some who gave all to save the lives of others.

We remember those who died today. And we give thanks for those who sacrificed everything so that some might be saved. Amen.

Some people believe that religions exist to make us good. Some people believe that the church exists as a place to learn good morals. Some people believe that the whole reason Jesus came to earth was to show us how to live a perfect life. Some people believe that the whole mission of God is to make the world a more moral place, a place where we sin less and do good things more. I’ve been in the church literally all of my life — there’s the southern expression which says, “I cut my teeth on a church pew” — and I have had conversations with people about Christianity from church pews to bar patios and pretty much everywhere in between. And this is the most common rationale in popular culture for why Christianity matters — to make people good.

But I’ve gotta tell you that if we believe that; if we believe that the whole mission of God is to make us more moral then we will run the risk of being supremely disappointed over and over again.

There was a movement in American Christianity at the end of the 19th and early in 20th century in which Christian preachers and teachers talked a lot about how the world was getting better. It was an optimistic movement called the Social Gospel. One of the cornerstones of the Social Gospel was that the Kingdom of God would come to earth through social transformation, and as the world got better and better, more and more moral, then Jesus would return to a perfected world. While this movement was incredibly important for American protestantism and while it did much good in its focus on the poor the Social Gospel ultimately failed. And one of the reasons why it failed was because as the 20th century aged, the world began to experience death and destruction on scales previously unimaginable. There was World War I and the Armenian genocide, global poverty which rose during the Great Depression, the near extinction of the Jewish people during World War II and the palpable evil of Nazism. With the rise of Communism in Russia and China, the rates with which people were exiled or killed was staggering — tens of millions dead. In a world such as that it’s hard to make the case for global optimism. And even in our own generation, the simple randomness of death and destruction is, at times, hard to comprehend. Like listening to the trembling voice and frantic tears of the woman in Manhattan on September 11, “They’re jumping out of the windows!” — impossible to comprehend.

One of the lasting critiques of the Social Gospel was this — it did not fully account for the reality of sin in the world.

If we believe that the whole mission of God is to make us more moral then we will run the risk of being supremely disappointed over and over again. Why? Because sin always turns us in on ourselves, whether that be individuals or social groups or nations — sin causes us to choose ourselves over others time and time again until there is nothing but a wake of destruction and a wasteland of despair.

In a world where sin continues to turn people and social groups and nations in on themselves we need the Gospel. We need the Gospel that comes to us this morning in the form of a story, a story about sheep.

So Jesus told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

I love this story, and I love this Gospel because I find it overwhelming with love, but not the paper-thin-kinda love that sometimes gets tossed around. This kind of love is courageous and passionate and zealous; this kind of love is unrelenting until it finds what it’s looking for. Like a mother who’s looking for a lost child, she’s oblivious to the conditions around her. She would do anything to find her baby. Or like a fire fighter in a burning building, you know that the higher you climb in the tower the greater your chance of never getting out. But you would do anything to find that one lost person.

Sometimes in my life I feel like that lost child or like a lost person in a burning building. Sometimes I feel lost because of conditions which were completely beyond my control. But other times I feel lost because of conditions which were completely within my control — like I’m at the bottom of a hole that I dug for myself. 

I once had a friend who, because of my selfishness, I had hurt badly. This person wasn’t a Christian and didn’t go to church. And one day I received a text message from that person who said, “You know, Stephen, you’re the reason I don’t go to church.” When you’re a priest and have made a life of being in church, text messages like that can be very discouraging. And it was particularly discouraging because I knew it was true.

Because of moments like that I need a God who is unrelenting in his search for sinners like me. But our God goes further — because when he has found us, he lays us on his shoulders and rejoices.

Ever thought about that before? God doesn’t first spank the lost sheep or put the lost sheep in time out. He doesn’t scold the lost sheep for being lost. No, he put the lost sheep on his shoulders and rejoices.

Because the truth is: When we are at our worst. God is at his best.

When you are at the bottom of the hole that you dug for yourself, God leans over the edge and says, “I’ll be right there, don’t you worry.”

In a world where sin continues to turn people and social groups and nations in on themselves we need the Gospel. And the Gospel is not about making us good or teaching us good morals or showing us how to live a perfect life. No, the Gospel is that even when you are not good or when you have no morals or when you are imperfect God will come looking for you and rejoice when he finds you.

I wish that I could believe that there will come a day in our lives when we will reach perfection, when this world will be perfected, when we will no longer be lost. As a person particularly prone to sins of selfishness I wish I could believe that, but I can’t. But I can believe that even when I am at my worst, God is at his best. And I can believe in the Gospel of The Unrelenting God that would do anything to find that one lost person, even it if it meant dying on a cross. We can believe that no matter the cost, this God would do anything to find us. And when does, he will rejoice with laughter and tears and shouts of joy. 

This is the Gospel of The Lord.

[stephensetzer]

This Gospel is a funny one. Jesus says, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all.”

[stephensetzer]

Ever wondered what Jesus meant when he said, “Store treasures in heaven?” This sermon explores what Jesus might have meant when he said this uniquely provocative statement in the Gospels. 

[stephensetzer]

I have the great privilege of being married to a writer. Yoana’s a storyteller. In fact, when we first met it was in a small group of people who were all artists of some sort — musicians, painters, writers. (You’re probably wondering why I was there. Well, it’s simple — there was free food, and I’ve always been really good at crashing someone else’s party.) I can still remember the morning after our first date. She had given me a few of her short stories to read and I woke up early on that Saturday morning to read them. I was living in a small house in East Dallas and I had this old, green, kinda-velvety recliner on my front porch — yep, you read that right, I had an old, green recliner outside the house on the front porch. I remember sitting in that bug-infested-eye-sore of a recliner and reading all of her stories in one sitting. The rain was falling and contributing to the growth of mildew in that ol’ recliner, but I continued to read.

I had never been a great reader of short stories. However, after I fell in love I began to read voraciously. I spent evenings reading Salinger and Vonnegut and Flannery O’Connor. I even took a course on short fiction at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. I mean, I went over the top. I became so cultured that I had to get rid of that old, green recliner on the front porch.

I suppose that’s what love will do to you. It’ll make you go over the top.

But in the process of my falling in love I came to really enjoy the reading of these stories. I found them particularly interesting because the author has such limited space to tell the story. When you only have ten pages you had better grab the reader’s attention from the first line. And you had better use an economy of words and a precision of language. It’s a difficult craft, but when reading a skilled writer it’s utterly enjoyable.

You know, it occurs to me that Jesus, among other things, is a writer of short stories. And he’s quite good. He knows how to get your attention from the very first line.

One day a lawyer approached Jesus and asked the question,

“Teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?” “What does the Law tell you to do?” Jesus asked. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself,” responded the lawyer. “Yeah, I think that’s about right,” Jesus said. “Do that and you’ll be good.” 
 At that point the lawyer got a little snarky and popped back with the question,

“Yeah, but who’s my neighbour.”

And the story begins…

When I lived in East Dallas I had this neighbour named Rosa. She lived in a small house next to mine with her son and her husband. They spent most of their evenings sitting on their front porch drinking copious amounts of Corona and listening to Tejano music, which they played so loudly that it was shared with the entire neighborhood. Rosa and I used to talk over the fence line that divided our two houses. And I got to know her reasonably well. One Saturday evening she invited me to come over and sit with her. She began to tell me about her life. She’d been abandoned as a child and spent the majority of her early years on the streets. She had few teeth left in her mouth and the marks of poorly applied tattoos on her arms, yet she exuded a unique kind of grace. It wasn’t soft or gentle. It was hardened, but it was grace nonetheless. As the evening progressed she began to describe her relationship with the homeless people of East Dallas; her friends who roamed the streets just as she once did as a child. She told me that when her husband was away she invited them into her home to eat and to shower.  

Rosa knew no stranger. That night as we sat outside eating chili-covered limes a man walked up. I stood to introduce myself and heard Rosa say, “Stephen, this is ‘vecino,’ that means neighbour.” I smiled and shook the man’s hand and asked him for his name to which he responded, “Vecino.” I just assumed that he was confused so I didn’t ask again. Later, however, I met another friend of Rosa’s and asked her name only to hear Rosa’s voice once again, “Her name is vecino,” she said. “Stephen, everyone is vecino!” And then she laughed with a rasp that had been brought on by years of smoking. But as she laughed something was made very clear to me — Everyone is neighbour. Proper names become insignificant when you have love like that. White, black, brown, rich, poor, American, Mexican — Neighbour; everyone is neighbour.

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.”

Ears began to perk up when Jesus said, “Now by chance there was a priest who was walking down that road.” (People started nudging each other, “The priest is going to help him,” they muttered.)

But Jesus continued, “And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.”

Two religious leaders passed by and nothing. They didn’t lift a finger to help the dying man.

Then Jesus said, “But a Samaritan passed by and was moved with pity.”

One of the greatest storytellers of our generation was a man by the name of David Foster Wallace. And David Foster Wallace once wrote, “We need [stories] like we need space-time; it’s a built-in thing.” He wrote this in an essay where he observed that modern people living in a technological age were daily barraged with what he called, “Five hundred thousand discreet bits of information.” Stories, he said, help us to make since of the bits.

I think that this week we just need to hear the story. We need to get to the end and hear Jesus’ final question to the lawyer when he asks, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

The one who showed mercy.

I think that this week we just need to hear the story. This is a week for stories. Because it’s been a hard week for the facts. The facts that two black men were killed in two different cities but under very similar circumstances. Two deaths that called people into the streets of Dallas for peaceful protest until gun shots were heard coming from a person who later said, “I was just trying to kill white, police officers.” Five dead.

This is a week for stories because it’s been a hard week for the facts.

“Who is my neighbour?” the lawyer asked.

“Everyone!” Jesus responds, “Everyone is your neighbour.” 

Proper names become insignificant. Politics become indifferent when everyone is neighbour.  

I don’t know what to do after a week like this one. I don’t know what to do after what feels like five hundred thousand discreet bits of information that all lead me to the same place of despair. I don’t know what to do other than just listen to the story and then look around. I don’t know what to do other than just try to open my eyes to look at the person with me right now. And then try tomorrow to open my eyes once again. And then try again until I begin to see everyone — to see everyone is neighbour.

[stephensetzer]

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”

There was a crowd of hundreds, maybe thousands who were gathered in Jerusalem that morning. Their attention was directed to Jesus when they began to shout: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” They were shouting this over and over again when the religious leaders came to Jesus and said, “Tell them to stop shouting! Tell them to stop speaking those words.” And Jesus responded, “If they stop shouting; if they stop speaking, then I tell you, the very stones will cry out!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

It’s one of the most significant mistakes that we can make in our faith; it’s one of the most significant mistakes that I make on a day to day basis and this is it: Choosing to believe in a small god.

You know the small god that I’m talking about right? 


The small god who is the manager of low expectations. 

The small god who cannot intervene in our lives and in our world. 

The small god who is more like a butler, simply waiting on me to speak to him.

If there’s a sin that is greater than any other in my life, then perhaps it is this: Choosing to believe in a small god.

“Hosanna in the highest,” the people shouted. And the religious leaders said, “Jesus, make them stop.”

Then he looked at them and said, “If they stop shouting; if they stop speaking, then I tell you, the very stones will cry out!”

In the Old Testament, God is often spoken about in this way: The Most High. In ancient cosmology the role of the divine was taken for granted in all cultures. Believing in gods was not a problem for their “premodern” minds. So when confronted with Jewish peoples, ancient civilizations didn’t doubt that the Jewish God existed. They didn’t doubt that the Jewish God was powerful. What they doubted was that this God was more powerful than their gods. 
Thus over and over again in the Old Testament you will read that the Jewish God subverts the Egyptian gods and the Babylonian gods and the Persian gods to ultimately prove that this God is the Most High God. He is the God that is above all other gods. He is the Most High. To choose to believe in this God is to choose to believe in a Big God.

This morning Jesus is riding through the gates of Jerusalem and he’s riding a donkey. He doesn’t look very powerful. And if you come back on Maundy Thursday for one of the evening services, then you’ll see Jesus on his hands and knees washing the dirty feet of his disciples - He won’t look very powerful. And if you choose to return on Good Friday, then you’ll see Jesus stumbling along a path beneath the heavy burden of the cross; you’ll see him stripped naked; you’ll see him hanging high for all to see - He won’t look very powerful.

But lest we are tempted by this appearance of powerlessness, lest we are tempted to stop shouting, lest we are tempted to stop speaking, may we remember the words of Jesus to the religious leaders, “If they stop, then I tell you, the very stones will cry out.”

This is Palm Sunday and let’s not stop shouting “Hosanna in the highest!” Because the power is in the perspective and next Sunday is Easter. Lest we hear the voices of stones begin to cry out, let’s keep shouting until the stone is rolled away.

[stephensetzer]

John 12:1-8 

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Of all the things in this life that cause us anxiety, money is probably at the top of that list. For those who don’t have it, they often worry about how to get it. For those who have it, they often worry about what to do with it. For those in the middle, they often worry about both - how to get more and then what to do with what they have. It’s a problematic exercise to be quite sure. Money is not the root of all evil; but the love of it certainly is. And whether we are rich or poor, we all spend a lot of time worrying about money.

Perhaps that’s why I understand Judas Iscariot. In our Gospel reading this morning the most strange thing happens. A woman named Mary presents an expensive bottle of perfume to Jesus, pouring it on his feet, and then wiping it with her hair. And Judas mumbles somewhere in the back, “Should’ve been spent on the poor.”

It was a mismanagement of funds to do what she did. By many scholarly accounts, Mary likely saved for months, maybe over a year to buy this one bottle of perfume. And then when she had it, she poured it on someone’s feet!

Maybe it’s just me, but I understand Judas Iscariot; I understand why he mumbled what he did. It makes no sense to do what Mary did when there were so many people in Israel who were poor; so many people who were hungry; so many people who were homeless. And she spent all that money on perfume just to pour it on someone’s feet. Feet that were going to leave that evening and walk along a dusty road to Jerusalem. Feet that were going to dangle on the side of a donkey on Palm Sunday while riding through the gates of Jerusalem. Feet that were ultimately going to have nails driven through them just before the cross was raised on Good Friday. All that money spent on perfume when the dust of the road and the stench of a donkey and blood were just going to cover those feet, masking any scent of an expensive bottle of perfume. 



I understand Judas when he mumbled, “Should’ve been spent on the poor.” In his opinion and in mine it seems like a mismanagement of funds.

“Mary, what are you thinking?”

But Jesus won’t hear of it. He looks up to Judas and he says, “Leave her alone.” And then he says something that is most strange: “You will always have the poor. You will not always have me.”

This is not a moment when Jesus reveals his more narcissistic self, nor is it a moment when he fails to maintain his moral code. Rather, it’s a moment of clarity when he sees himself through the eyes of a woman who cherishes him as something of great value. It’s a moment when he sees himself through the eyes of a woman who regards him as worthy of a great expense.

Jesus is not disavowing his love of the poor or his concern for their well being. His mission in the world was that he would bring “Good news to the poor!” But if the world is to be saved and if the poor are to be lifted up, then he must be cherished as something of great value. He must be regarded as worthy of a great expense.

I have worked with the poor in many places. I taught students in one of the poorest nations on earth and certainly the most violent; in Honduras, where one student lived in a household of more than ten in a shack with dirt floors and where that same student died the following year precisely because he was poor. I’ve seen the homeless on streets in Tegucigalpa and prostitutes in the red light district of San Jose. I’ve sat with the urban poor in East Dallas and drank coffee and had conversations with first nations’ people in Toronto where they suffered from a poverty worse than we can imagine - a poverty that reaches into their souls because their oppression has been so extensive and seemingly invisible to the rest of us.

And if there’s one thing that I believe to be true it’s this: Jesus was speaking truth when he said “The poor will always be with you.” 

But he said this not as a prediction, but as a reflection, a reflection on humanity, a reflection on you and on me.

He said this because he knows that there’s something endemic in the human race that motivates us to choose ourselves over the other.

He said this because he knows that there’s something endemic in humanity that wants to subjugate one person or one group so that I might be lifted up.

He said this because he knows that there’s something endemic in the human race that will vilify people to the point of violence just so that I can win an election.

Yes, we will always have the poor with us, precisely because we humans have a perverse perception of power.

That’s why Jesus rebukes the Judas in me that says, “Should’ve been spent on the poor.”  

Enough of Judas, Jesus is trying to make more Marys. 

Because billions of dollars by the billionaires may rid the world of malaria, but it will do nothing to rid the world of our propensity to elevate ourselves over the other. All the money in the world cannot change the hearts of humans that are oh-so-adept at turning the other way when faced with oppression, racism, violence, and ecocide. 

Enough of Judas, Jesus is trying to make more Marys. 

To cherish him as something of great value. To regard him as worthy of a great expense.

Enough of Judas; Jesus is the only one who will be lifted up on Good Friday, so that the world might be raised to new life with him on Easter morning. 

That’s why we cherish him as something of great value and regard him as worthy of a great expense. He’s the only one of can raise the poor from poverty. He’s the only one who can save oppressed from the violent. He’s the only one can us from ourselves.

[stephensetzer]

How To Keep Money From Messing Up Your Marriage

Finances are among the things most likely to cause discord in a relationship, whether you're just starting out or have been together for years. Here are some ways to avoid common conflicts.

For all us newly married couples out there, this is a very helpful resource to begin thinking about money together! 

[stephensetzer]

Cheryl Strayed is the author of the autobiographical novel Wild: From Lost to Found on The Pacific Coast Trail. In the opening chapter she writes about her mother and her mother’s struggle with lung cancer. She told the story of how when she was young her mother would gather the three kids together and ask them the question: “How much do I love you? This much?” Spreading her hands wider and wider until they were as far as they could be from each other, the children would respond, “Bigger!” until they would all erupt in laughter. Cheryl Strayed tells about hearing the first opinion from the doctors in Deluth, Minnesota, and how she hated them for saying that her mother’s cancer was too advanced for treatment. She just knew that things would be different after traveling to the Mayo Clinic where they would find in her words, “real doctors.” Yet the response came back even more severe: “You’ve only got a year to live,” they said. In fact, Cheryl Strayed’s mother would be dead within the next forty-five days. Cheryl was paralyzed with sorrow. 

“In the mornings,” she writes, “I would sit near her bed and try to read to her . . . . but I could not go on. Each word I spoke erased itself in the air. It was the same when I tried to pray. I prayed fervently, rabidly, to God, any god, to a god I could not identify or find. I cursed my mother, who’d not given me any religious education. Resentful of her own repressive Catholic upbringing, she’d avoided church altogether in her adult life, and now she was dying and I didn’t even have God.”

Someone once said that there are three movements of life:

(from) Being securely oriented; 

(to) Being painfully disoriented; and 

(then to) Being surprisingly reoriented. (Walter Brueggemann) 

We might say that this is life, death, and resurrection. Oriented Disoriented Reoriented

Cheryl Strayed found herself as a young woman in the painfully, disorienting room of a hospital at the beside of a dying mother with no words to speak because she “didn’t have God.” Stated more clearly, it wasn’t that she didn’t have God, but rather she didn’t have a language. She didn’t have a language of lament.

Lament: To express sorrow, mourning, or regret, often demonstratively; to regret strongly; to mourn aloud.

We find ourselves this Sunday in the jarring season of Lent. I say that it’s jarring because there’s something about this season which seems a little disjointed with the rest of the year. Ash Wednesday seems to appear out of nowhere and before we can get two months past Christmas we’re already having to prepare for Jesus’ death. It at times can feel almost intentionally sorrowful, like we’re dramatizing suffering. At times it may even feel a little insincere.

But one thing about Lent is true,    it is a time for us to dramatize suffering,    and yet it doesn’t have to be insincere.

Because Lent is the classroom in which we learn a language of lament; because it teaches us about the categories of prayer and one of those categories is lament.                          My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It’s one of the most important aspects of religious life, learning the language of lament. Because when we become disoriented to the point of hopelessness we’re going to need words and language with which to cry out.                          My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Even when we’re feeling A-Okay and everything’s in order as it should be; even when we feel like we’re securely oriented, it’s good to be in Lent, because it reminds us that no one makes it to the end without sorrow and suffering. So we walk through Lent and enter it’s classroom until we hear Jesus Christ on the cross exclaim,                          My God, my god, why have you forsaken me? Only then does Lent come to an end. Only then does the sorrow and suffering give way to resurrection on Easter morning.

Three movements: Secure orientation - Painful Disorientation - Surprising Reorientation                          Or Life - Death - Resurrection

Cheryl Strayed, sitting at the bedside of her dying mother, needed a language of lament with which to cry out to God in desperation: “My God, my God, what’s happening? What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Who are you? Where are you?”

These words were there already. They’re deep in all our hearts as human beings. But what she needed was to recognize that these words are biblical words, they are holy words, they are right words for the moments in our lives when we are disoriented.

They are the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 22 when King David cries out,

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? 
 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”

They are the words of Jesus on the cross when he lifts his head to the father and cries, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

They are our words, the language of our lament when we cry out, My God, my God . . . .

A few weeks ago on Ash Wednesday I walked into the chapel for the first service of the morning at 6:30. The place was a little sleepy, silent and still. There were only a few people scattered about, all sitting at different pews. But there was one person who caught my attention, a little boy. He was sitting there with his father. I watched them as we approached the part of the service when Ruth invited us to the altar rail to receive ashes. I wondered what he was thinking when she rubbed that ashen cross on his forehead with the words, “From dust you were created and to dust you shall return.” I wondered what his father was thinking. I wondered what his friends would say when he went to school later that morning. I wondered what he would tell them. 


But the more I thought about that little boy and his father and the ashen cross and the words about returning to dust, the more I thought that what he experienced that morning was a lesson, perhaps not his first, in learning the language of lament. Even though this young boy has his whole life ahead of him, the lesson to be learned is that sorrow and suffering will confront him at some point. And when it does, he’ll need words and a language with which to cry out to God. And when those moments occur and when he utters those words, he’ll know somewhere inside that the language he speaks, this language of lament, is a biblical language, a holy language, and a right language.

It’s the language of lament. And God is listening.

[stephensetzer]

Thomas Merton was a Roman Catholic monk, born in France, educated at the universities of Cambridge and Columbia, and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1941. Monks by their very nature are obscure individuals. They are people who choose not to marry or to live in the world. They are people who choose to live a life of solitude in contemplation and prayer. They are people who consider the pursuit of God the noblest of endeavours, so that everything else serves that one goal. Monks by their very nature can be quite obscure. However, when I say the name, Thomas Merton, you may likely know who I’m talking about. A Google search will leave you with ample resources about this man. He’s the author of the surprise bestseller, The Seven Storey Mountain. Even a few months ago there was an article in The New Yorker entitled, “Thomas Merton and The Eternal Search.” For a monk of the strictest order, Thomas Merton is well known to the world. And he is well known as one of the 20th century’s greatest spiritual writers.

The Abbey of Gethsemani lies about 90 miles southeast of Louisville, Kentucky. One day in 1958 Thomas Merton found himself in Louisville at the corner of a busy intersection. A few moments transpired and Thomas Merton just stood there looking at all the people - walking along the sidewalks, shopping bags in hand, bustling from one location to the next, smiling and laughing, their voices muffled by the sounds of passing cars. And it was at this moment that Thomas Merton had a realization: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people . . . . It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are . . . . There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun . . . . If only we could see each other that way all the time.” It was an epiphany when Thomas Merton saw people “shining like the sun . . . as they really are.”

In our Old Testament reading this morning we encounter three things: A man, a mountain, and a light. It’s one of the most well known stories from the Old Testament where Moses goes up a mountain and he comes back down shining like the sun.

You’ll recall that the people of Israel had been enslaved for 400 years. And after centuries of bondage they are lead out of Egypt by God working through a man named Moses. The familiar story describes thousands of people leaving Egypt walking across the Red Sea on dry land. The familiar story describes the birth of a nation, when Jews receive the Law. They walk out from Egypt across the Red Sea only to gather at a mountain, the Mountain of God, Mount Sinai. God tells Moses to gather the people around the mountain so that they may hear his voice. And his voice is thunderous. A dark cloud descends over the mountain and the people see a glow of light and they hear the voice of God and they are consumed with fear. So much so that the people exclaim to Moses, “You’ve gotta go up the mountain and listen to God, because we can’t do it!” Fear had overcome them. So Moses goes up in a series of journeys to the summit where he received the Jewish Law, those instructions which would constitute and govern the people of Israel from that moment until the present day. And something very interesting happens when Moses comes back down the mountain, his face was shining. Because he had been with God on top of the mountain, his face was shining like the sun.

There’s an abundance of metaphors at our disposal in this transitional moment from the Season of Epiphany to the Season of Lent.

There’s the metaphor of the wilderness where Jesus goes for 40 days and 40 nights and is tempted by Satan.

There’s the metaphor of the dark path which Jesus walks toward Jerusalem and to his death upon a cross.

And then there’s the metaphor of the mountain.

Lent is a time when we listen. When we listen for the voice of God. When we just may hear him say, “Come up, come up to the mountain.”

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like the people of Israel. I say, “I don’t wanna go up the mountain; I can’t. You go up for me. You listen to the voice of God and then you tell me what you heard.” Sometimes I feel like I can’t climb the mountain, it’s too high, the way too steep. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got other things to do, seemingly more important than going up the mountain. And sometimes I just don’t want to listen to the voice of God. I like the sound of my own voice.

If left to myself I will think of 1,000 reasons why I can’t go up the mountain! If left to myself I will forever be content to remain at sea level.

And yet, what God offers us on the mountain is a moment to hear him, a moment to see ourselves, and a moment to see others as they really are - shining like the sun. What God offers us on the mountain is nothing less than an epiphany.

Now, I don’t suggest that we put on our climbing boots and leave church and head to the nearest mountain (I don’t know if Delaware even has any good mountains to climb!). Because, this metaphor of the mountain is just that, a metaphor. It’s meant to help our imaginations in conceiving of a way that we can listen to God. And we can encounter mountains in many different ways. For us at Christ Church there’s one mountain that I hope we all decide to climb together this Lent. On Wednesdays we’re going to spend some intentional time doing three things: eating together, having spiritual conversations about how to better hear the voice of God, and praying together in a special candlelit service called Compline. We’re calling this program Growing a Rule of Life and it may be the only mountain you decide to climb during Lent. The one thing you choose to do. The one spiritual practice which helps you to hear the voice of God.

Yet to be sure we can encounter mountains in many different ways. Sometimes they may appear like physical mountains towering into the sky. Sometimes like a Lenten practice that helps us to hear the voice of God. Sometimes we may find ourselves on a mountaintop while walking the streets of Wilmington, in an epiphany recognizing that everyone around us is shining like the sun.

To be sure we encounter mountains all the time. The question for us this morning is this: Will we choose to climb?

[stephensetzer]

Yesterday we celebrated an ordination. Amy Molina-Moore became a priest in God’s Church. And then just a few hours later we came back to Christ Church and celebrated a wedding. Ruth, our rector, was married to David Charles Beresford. It was a beautiful ordination and a beautiful wedding. The day was punctuated from beginning to end with celebration and joy. And thankfully at yesterday’s wedding we had enough wine for the entire evening!

And it seems like incredible good fortune that after two celebrations on Saturday we get to keep the party going into Sunday morning with another wedding at Cana of Galilee. But this wedding is more than just the celebration of two people joined together in love. This celebration is Jesus’ coming out party. It’s the moment when Jesus performs his first miracle; when people begin to look upon him as something more than just a man from Nazareth; “[when Jesus] revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

Now, these disciples believed in him because what they witnessed was a miracle. Water into wine. Miraculous. Over the course of their ministry with Jesus there will come a time when he gathers his disciples together and sends them out to the work of God. He will bestow gifts on his disciples: Healing the sick, making the lame to walk, giving sight to the blind, even casting out demons! But turning water into wine, that wasn’t one of them.

You know at some point, one of the twelve had to have asked: “You know Jesus, remember that wedding we all went to a few years ago? Where was it? Cana… yeah, Cana of Galilee. Man, that was fun wedding. And you did that, uh… that thing. That thing with the water and the wine. That was pretty cool. Hey, so me and some of the boys… we’ve been thinking. We’ve been wondering if uh… you know… maybe do that too?” 
 I don’t know who asked that question, but someone had to have asked! (It was probably Judas.)

Yet, of all the miracles that Jesus performed. All of all the gifts that were bestowed upon the disciples. Turning water into wine wasn’t one of them! I find something very interesting about this story from John’s Gospel. I’m very interested that Jesus would come out at a wedding and that his first miracle would be this miracle of turning water into wine.

When you think about the life and ministry of Jesus you are consumed with the attention that Jesus gives to bodies, particularly to broken bodies. As I said above, he will heal the sick, he will make the lame to walk, he will give sight to the blind, he will even cast out demons. But before he does any of that. Before he heals any broken bodies, he turns water into wine.

This is certainly a miracle.

Yet, you have to wonder that there might have been someone at the wedding with arthritis keeping them from the dance floor. You have to wonder that there might have been someone at the wedding suffering from an illness. You have to wonder that there might have been any number of people who could have used some healing from a broken body. Yet, Jesus turns water into wine.

We’ve all been to the party where there’s the last call; where the music begins to soften; where sleepy eyes begin to dream of sleep. And we’ve all been to the party that was so good, we didn’t want it to end. This could be an actual party. A post-ordination celebration or a wedding reception. Or it could just be moments in our lives when we feel like the party is coming to an end. Moments when the joy seems to give out like wine that gives out at a wedding. “I had better do something quick,” I tell myself. “Because I don’t like the feeling when the joy gives out.”

There’s something profound about this moment at the wedding when Mary says to Jesus, “They have no wine.” And there’s something profound about his turning six stone water jars into wine. It was an inordinate amount of wine! Too much wine! And yet it was the best wine!

Throughout his ministry, Jesus will heal broken body after broken body, but before any of that, he turns water into wine.

Jesus seems to know something profound about our lives. Our bodies may break, but when the joy gives out, everything is over. So in the very beginning, before he addresses the brokenness in our bodies, Jesus will address the brokenness in our souls.

Later in Jesus’ life he will gather his disciples near to him just before he’s taken to be killed. He gathers his friends near to him and he says these words:

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

I don’t know about you, but I long for my joy to be complete. Oftentimes, I feel as though I can walk from moment to moment and from time to time seem to grasp joy as something to be possessed. I feel as though I have it and when I hold it in my hands, I feel as though it will never leave. But to live a human life, is to know something about loss. Sometimes I lose my joy.

This Jesus who performs his first miracle at the wedding at Cana will know something about loss. This Jesus says to his mother, “My hour has not yet come.” What does he mean by this? 

This phrase, “My hour,” occurs many times throughout the Gospels, many times throughout the life of Christ. It signifies his ministry as the Son of God. It will ultimately signify his death upon a cross. A moment when Jesus hangs upon a cross and cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This Jesus will suffer in his body and in his soul. He will feel the pain of loss, the pain of betrayal, the pain of estrangement. Of all the people who have ever lived, this person, Jesus Christ, knows something about loss. He knows something about the depth of our need for joy. A joy that perdures beyond the fleeting moments of our lives. He knows something about the depth of our need for a joy that goes from everlasting to everlasting. A joy that never gives out.

The question that might be lingering in your mind (because it’s lingering in mine) is this: How? How do we obtain this joy that goes from everlasting to everlasting? How do we have this joy that never gives out?

Let me offer one feeble attempt to understand this problem of joy.

Joy begins with hope. And hope is not optimism.

One theologian has said that optimism has to do with good things in the future that are latent in the past and the present. The future associated with optimism is an unfolding of what is already there. So I can be optimistic about certain things because there’s a particular probability that makes them believable.

But the future associated with hope is a gift of something new. “Even though the doctors say there’s no chance we will have children, I hope.” “Even though I broke the last bit of trust that was left in my marriage, I hope.” “Even though my dearest friend died, I hope that I will see them again.”

The future associated with hope is a gift of something new.

Because long before joy gave out, all hope was lost.

Jesus seems to know something profound about our lives. Our bodies may break, but when the joy gives out, everything is over. So in the very beginning, before he addresses the brokenness in our bodies, Jesus will address the brokenness in our souls. He will give us something to hope for. Like new wine spilling over six stone jars, so he will create in us something new; a joy that goes from everlasting to everlasting; a joy that never runs out. And all of this will happen because, as we proclaim the great mystery of faith: Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

[stephensetzer]

Election Year Politics and The Baptism of Jesus

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting.

I must confess to you: I love politics. But not the theoretical kind, the theatrical kind! It’s a sort of guilty pleasure. Some people eat chocolate ice cream. I consume all things polemical in this political season. So, of course, this election year I’ve been gluttonously feasting on the CNN updates and the FoxNews pundits’ predictions and even the Tweets from candidates themselves. To be quite sure, for those who love the theatrical nature of politics, this year will prove to be one of the best election years in recent history.

Now I don’t deny that there’s something a little insidious about my love of theatrical politics. There is. However, this love is more akin to infatuation than anything else; an infatuation that has been nurtured by having grown up in the age of digital media and having that digital media at my fingertips and having it there all the time. It’s like an episode of reality television from which I simply cannot turn away. And yet, this love or infatuation or whatever it is is also something more. It is a sort of political nihilism. I cannot turn away from the theatrics, yet the more I watch, the more desensitized I am to the actual content. My tolerance has grown, thus I need more and more and more, but my fulfillment grows less and less and less. I watch out of compulsion, not actually believing anything to be true or virtuous. Thus I am left in the ditch of despondency because I’ve become inebriated and gone beyond the point of enjoyment. My compulsion for the theatrics has consumed my confidence that political change can actually happen, much less a political change that is just and virtuous or simply kind.

That’s why I need water. And in this election year, we’re all gonna need some water.

You may think that Jesus has nothing to do with politics. You will certainly think that this first Sunday of Epiphany has nothing to do with politics. But it does. In fact, Jesus on this first Sunday of Epiphany is very political. This is the Sunday in which we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus. You know, that story about how Jesus walks up to his cousin John and then they both walk down together into the Jordan River. It’s an ol’ fashioned baptism. John dips him underneath the water and then something very interesting happens. The clouds roll away and a dove descends down toward Jesus and the voice of God speaks and says, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

In a very real way, God elects Jesus before all the people in this moment. Jesus is the Chosen One of God. From this moment onward, Jesus is going to be exerting his God-given power over the forces that bring sickness and death to the people of his day; he’s going to be exerting his God-given power over religious leaders that stifle just and virtuous belief and action; he’s going to be exerting his God-given power over the political leaders that will eventually wipe their hands of his blood and sentence him to death. He will bring a real politic that is grounded not in an ideology, but rather in the God who created and who sustains and who will bring to fulfillment the whole world. 

The Mission of God is the Election of Jesus Christ. 

In him all things will be made right. And it all happens first in the water of his baptism.

That’s why I need water. The water of baptism.

We still have the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire and the campaign ads and the debates and the election in November, but at least on this day we know who has already been elected Lord through the water of his baptism. And on this day may we remember our own.

[stephensetzer]

If you haven’t read Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates you need to.

Coates is an award-winning journalist for The Atlantic and the author of The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir.

Ta-Nehisi published Between The World and Me as a letter to his fifteen year old son, Samori. It’s a letter saturated with fatherly affection and worldly wisdom about being black in America. Between The World and Me is not a history text chronicling Slavery or Civil Rights nor is it an interpretation of current events in Baltimore or Ferguson or Chicago or any of the places where black men, women, and children have been attacked unjustly. No, this book’s goal isn’t that lofty, rather it’s rooted in the beautiful and bitter world of the body. If anything this book is a philosophy of embodiment about being in a physical body in space and time, particularly about being in a black body in this space of America and in this time of 2015.

There’s no more gripping paragraph for me than the one I’m about to read to you. Ta-Nehisi speaks bluntly to his son and describes how our words and our language can sometimes confuse our perception of a physical reality. He writes,

“It’s hard to face this. But all our phrasing - race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy - serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscles, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”

I’ve read that paragraph over and over and over again and every time I read it, something in me trembles. Later in the book he will write: “I believe that when they shatter the body they shatter everything.”

This book by Ta-Nehisi Coates makes me think about embodiment and it certainly makes me think about the black body in America in 2015. But this book, Between The World and Me, also makes me think about my body and this world and how I can only experience this world through this body of mine. 

Every feeling, every impulse, every thought, every touch, every pleasure, every pain: Everything I know I experience with the flesh and blood of my body.

There is power and potential in these bodies of ours. Power to protect other bodies or to destroy them. Potential to know and to be present with other bodies in love and in suffering. Like a mother holding her newborn child skin to skin, these bodies of ours communicate something to us about how we exist: We exist in relation to other bodies, and that we exist in relation to other bodies for other bodies.

I can only experience this world and I can only experience you through this body of mine. With all of its power and potential and all of its frailties and limitations and all of its beauty and loveliness, it’s all we have. This body of ours.

This body is one reason why I find the Christian experience to be so sublime. This body of religion which speaks of a young mother’s womb which holds the unborn body of Jesus. We hear Elizabeth exclaim to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” She declares, “You’re feminine body is blessed because in it the Saviour and Redeemer of the world is gestating even now. And in your body you will birth this child who will take away the sins of the whole world.”

The bodily emphasis in Christianity occurs over and over again in the pages of Scripture. The writer of Hebrews will repeat the words of Psalm 40 when he writes, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.”

God seems to understand the ultimacy of our bodies and how we come to experience the world and other bodies through this body of ours. God seems to know that we experience not only the joy, but the brokenness of the world through our body. Thus, someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates can write: “I believe that when they shatter the body they shatter everything.” God seems to understand that if we are to be saved, then we must be saved in this body. Through this body. For this body.

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.”

“Sacrifices and offerings” are a reference to a system called religion. Particularly, the writer of Hebrews is referencing the religious symbolism of Jewish temple worship described in great detail in the first five books of the Old Testament. His voice sounds critical and it is. And his voice is not alone; it is joined by the poet of Psalm 40 and the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. And you will remember this famous line from the prophet Micah: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” And does any of this happen unless it happens in the body? One will only be just if they are just in their bodies with other bodies. Kindness happens in the body towards other bodies. And there’s only one way to walk: In your body.

In the Old Testament and in the New, religion will always be critiqued whenever it elevates the trappings of belief above the body of belief. This religion is a body of religion. Before it is a building, before it is a pew, before it is a pipe organ, before it is a hymnal and a prayer book, before it is a chasuble, before it is a Creed, this religion is a body. 

A body crying in a manger, feeling the prickliness of the hay on its back. 

This religion is a body lying on the naked chest of its mother, cooed to sleep by the songs of a young Jewish woman. 

This religion is a body growing through puberty and the changes that it brings to a young boy’s voice and his body in the world. 

This religion is a body moving on the dance floor at the wedding at Cana when that body performed a miracle for the first time. 

This religion is a body that convulsed in laughter and collapsed in tears. 

This religion is a body that was beaten and bruised and broken for the body of the whole world.  

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.”  

I devoured Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between The World and Me because I found it profound for bodies in our world today, for my body. And when I read that sentence “I believe that when they shatter the body they shatter everything” I knew deep down that he was on to something very true, precisely because it resonated with me in my body. I don’t know what life is like without this body of mine. The only way I know how to live is in my body. And the only way I know how to believe is in a body, a body that was beaten, bruised, and broken for the body of the whole world.

It is through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once-for-all that we can live in our bodies and hope in our bodies and believe in our bodies that when this body is shattered not everything is shattered. “[Because] in fact Christ has been raised from the dead . . . . For since death came through a human [body], the resurrection of the dead has come through a human [body]” (1 Corinthians 15:20).

This body of religion is a body broken, and this body of religion is a body resurrected, and this body of religion is a body ready to be born again even this morning for you and for me. The question is: Will we receive this body?

Broken for us, the bread of heaven; Shed for us, the cup of salvation.

Will we receive this body of religion? 


[stephensetzer]

The Episcopal Church participates with most other Christian denominations in reading what is called the Revised Common Lectionary each and every Sunday morning. It’s divided into three years, A, B, and C. In Year A we read the Gospel of Matthew and in Year B we read the Gospel of Mark. So that leaves Year C which we begin today and in it we read the Gospel of Luke.

Now, you would expect any sensible reading of a book to begin in the beginning, wouldn’t you? Starting with chapter 1, verse 1. But that doesn’t really happen for us this morning. In fact, during the whole season of Advent and the month of December, we’ll not hear anything from chapter 1 until the very end of Advent, right before Christmas.

So, instead of beginning at the beginning, today we get another heart-warming reading from Jesus’ apocalypse, all the way at the end of chapter 21.

It’s surprising to hear this on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and after a heart-pounding weekend of shopping malls and Black Friday Deals and ears that are still ringing from Christmas music. We step into the church and are reminded that Christmas has not yet come, in fact, the words we hear are words that sound nothing like a yule-tide carol being sung by a choir. Because Jesus is not in a manger, not on the first Sunday of Advent; he’s outside somewhere near the Temple just a few days before his death and he’s speaking these words, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near . . . . So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” Advent is such a strange time in the church year, because just as we begin, we read about the ending. Jesus says, “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” We’re reading about Jesus coming down in a glorious cloud before we can even get Mary to the third trimester! It all seems so backward!

But I suppose that’s exactly the point. Backward.

Jesus has just described what we may think of as the end of the world. And certainly there is an element of finality in his words; and yet, what he says also seems to just describe another day in the life of this world, which seemingly can never have enough violence and war and disease and famine and death and destruction. Jesus seems to be describing yesterday or last week or the week before. It all seems so utterly present. And at this point, Jesus tells his disciples, “When you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, he means the righteous rule of God which will bring justice and peace to the world. It’s exactly the sort of thing you would hope for after an apocalyptic reading about violence, disease, and death. However, the Kingdom of God is something much more complex than a one-time event following a destructive cycle. The Kingdom of God is something which is born into the world through the life of Jesus and continued through the life of his followers, you and me. It’s the point of our Christianity, the reason why we’re here. It’s the reason why we pray every week, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come . . . .”

Throughout his life, Jesus will speak about this kingdom and everything that he does will attest to this kingdom - Every sermon preached about the poor, every sick person healed, every loaf and fish produced for hungry people, every storm calmed. Every time such things happen, it signals the end. And in our world every time a homeless person is sheltered or a hungry person fed or a sick person healed, it signals the end. It’s like a backward movement of Death transforming into Life. This is the strange world of Advent; the strange world of Christ; the strange world of hope that moves from the end to the beginning and gives joy to the world.

[stephensetzer]

I once worked at a parish in downtown Toronto. It sat at a very busy intersection along Avenue and Bloor St. It was across from the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto. It was an exciting place with lots of activity and the parish was in the center of it all. There were all sorts of people that attended this parish, university professors, graduate students, business professionals, government employees, and people who were experiencing various forms of homelessness.

And there was this man who stood outside the parish every Sunday. He was a poor person. And I remember that he had this puppet that he kept with him. He was a sort of entertainer. People would walk by and give him money. And he was outside our parish every Sunday. And our folks would stop and say hello. Families greeted him by name and the kids would laugh when the man would speak to them using the puppet’s voice. I don’t remember him ever coming inside the parish for a service, but he was there with us every week.

Just before Christmas 2012, our rector took some money from his discretionary account and decided to give $100 to the man as a Christmas gift. “No strings attached,” he said. The man was grateful and took the money.

When I was told this story for the first time I had a passing thought somewhere in the middle of it: “You’re not supposed to give money directly to poor people. Because you don’t know what they’ll do with it. And you can do a lot with $100.”

A few weeks later, on a cold Sunday morning in January, the man was speaking to the rector and he said, “Do you know what I did with that money you gave me?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” the rector replied, “It was a gift.”

But the man continued: “Well, I want you to know. I took the money and bought some Christmas gifts for the kids from your parish who talk to me every Sunday.”

The rector was speechless. I was speechless. I still am. _______________ There’s this rich, young man who comes running to Jesus and kneels before him with this question: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

And Jesus with his now famous response says, “Go, sell what you own, and give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

This past week I’ve been labouring over this passage, because on the surface it’s deeply troubling. For those of us with possessions and money it can be troubling. And when Jesus speaks so directly about our money and possessions, it can be troubling. In contemporary culture and in a globalized economy, the whole question of poverty can be complex and difficult for us to understand, thus adding to the trouble in our souls when Jesus says, “Give your money to the poor and you will have eternal life.”

But I don’t think that this passage is about trouble.

When this rich, young man comes to Jesus he is earnest in his desire to follow him. He is a pious, young man. Very religious. Scrupulous about his obedience to the Law. And when Mark is telling the story, he describes a particular affect from Jesus.

“Teacher,” the young man said, “I have kept all the commandments since my youth!”

And then we read, “And Jesus loved him.”

In Scripture time and time again we learn of God’s preferential option for the poor. It’s throughout the Old Testament. It’s manifested in the life of Jesus. It’s present in the early church and throughout Church history. So much so, that if you want to be near to God, then you should be near to the poor.

But we also must remember that in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus loved the rich man.

I think that this passage is not so much about trouble as it is about promise.

“And Jesus loved him.”

These words of Jesus are not so much a command, as they are an invitation to faith. “Give your money to the poor.” Grammatically, this is an imperative, but theologically it is an invitation. It’s an invitation to faith. 

Giving our money is a confession of faith. In just a few moments after this sermon is over, we’re going to stand and say The Nicene Creed. But I would suggest that a more excellent confession of faith happens when we give.

Again, this passage is not so much about trouble as it is about promise.

When Jesus speaks to the young man he says, “Give your money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.”

Now we might say, “Jesus, what are you talking about? That sounds like a really, really bad investment. If I tell my financial advisor that I want to diversify my portfolio in the heavenly direction, they’re probably going to call the psychiatrist.”

But once again, this is an invitation to faith. When we give our money we make a confession that this world is good. It’s a confession that God is good. And it’s a confession that this good God will take care of his world because he loves it. And it’s a confession of faith that God will take care of us in a way, perhaps, that the stock market never will.

I’m not sure what this rich, young man expected when he asked Jesus the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” But he seems to be consumed with the world hereafter - eternal life. However, Jesus’ response makes it clear that he is concerned with the world in the here and the now. So he invites the rich, young man into the world of faith where he can give generously to the poor now, and where he can follow Jesus now. _______________ I remember that poor man standing outside Church of The Redeemer in Toronto. I remember seeing him every Sunday. I remember hearing the story about his receiving $100 and then giving it away.

I don’t know what our rector thought he was doing when he gave the man that money, but I doubt he expected the return on investment that he received.

When we give we are invited into a world of faith, believing that this world is good and that God is good and that he will love us and care for us in the most profound of ways. _______________ Let me end by saying that I believe what I said earlier about how in contemporary culture and in a globalized economy, the whole question of poverty can be complex and difficult for us to understand. Therefore, we may truly feel trouble in our souls when we’re called to give to the poor because we’re not exactly sure how to do it.

To that concern I would point again to God’s preferential option for the poor, and to reiterate that if we desire to be near to God, then we should be near to the poor. And not in a metaphorical way, but in a real, tangible way.

So, for us at Christ Church, we could speak to someone affiliated with outreach and to ask them the question, “Where can I physically be present with people?” We have so many people in this parish who are at ground zero in some of the most troubled neighborhoods and with some of the most poor people in Wilmington. Let’s go together. Let’s start an initiative of small conversations with people at Friendship House or with at-risk youth at The Cathedral Choir School or maybe do a prayerful drive through some of this city’s most troubled neighborhoods.

Begin with a conversation, like a rich, young man coming to Jesus. Expect an answer. And then be welcomed into the world of faith.

[stephensetzer]

In the past ten years there is one particular genre of film which seems to have gotten its second wind: Post-apocalyptic Film. Movies such as World War Z and television series such as The Walking Dead have cemented this genre as a signification part of our popular culture. And if you happen to be a fan of such film, then you will no doubt recognize this opening scene to one of the best post-apocalyptic movies of the past ten years.

The streets of New York City are quiet and overgrown. There’s not a soul in sight. From one street to the next the camera moves to see the same sight: Barrenness and nothingness. The city’s empty. There’s no one there. They’re all gone.

But in the distance you begin to hear the moan of a car engine. Closer and closer it comes until it screams past the camera, burning up the empty streets of Manhattan. Someone’s alive.

After several moments of the camera following the car down empty street after empty street of the city it finally comes to a screeching stop. While the Mustang GT 500 idles, the camera focuses in on one man. His name? Robert Neville, the last man on earth.

I Am Legend is one of the finest examples of this genre and simply a wonderful film to watch. In one of the most poignant scenes, Will Smith’s character goes to the city to restock his supplies. And as he’s walking through a store that has been barren for some time, you begin to notice that there are mannequins set up all over the store. As he’s shopping, Will Smith walks up to these mannequins and starts talking to them. The scene is so well done because you get to see a moment in the life of a man who is starved for human contact. Starved for human interaction. He’s willing to create community with cardboard cutouts of people just to fake conversation. It’s that important to him. ____________________ This morning we got a letter from a man named Paul. He’s a prisoner. He’s in a barren place. He’s alone. No doubt in prison he misses family and friends. He misses the familiar sights and sounds of the city. The corner bistros and the bustling streets. But in this moment and in this place he is alone. 
 There’s not a feeling in this world much worse than loneliness. It’s tears at your heart in a way that steals your breath. But I find that when I am lonely I am focused in a way that is different than at other times. I am focused on those things which are really important. Paul the prisoner seems to be focused in this way today as we read in Ephesians. He’s focused on those friends and family he calls the church. And among the many things which are important to Paul, it seems that what is most important is that they are one.

He writes, “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

For Paul this theme of unity is one of the most important in all of his writings. It’s not an option for the church. It’s a mandate. Our unity is something which distinguishes us as Christians. It’s something at which people are to look and marvel. It’s something which should cause people to ask: “Have you heard about that church in Delaware? That church in Wilmington? Have you heard how they love each other? Have you seen how they pray together? How they work together? How they worship?”

It’s the sort of unity which is a testimony of God’s love in our midst. It’s the sort of unity which is produced by love and for love.

But this unity about which Paul is writing is not for the faint of heart. It’s a rugged unity. It’s a tough unity. This unity about which Paul is writing is going to require some humility and gentleness. It’s going to require some patience. It’s going to mean that we have to hold people up even when we don’t like them. Even when we disagree with them. It’s rugged and tough and not for the faint of heart. ____________________ You know there’s something about that scene in I Am Legend that is utterly fascinating to me. There’s a real need to be with people. Will Smith’s walking around talking to these cardboard cutouts of people. You know, small talk. “Crazy weather we’ve been having.” Cardboard cutout face just looking blankly away at nothing. It’s so fake it’s comical! These are paper thin mannequins. There’s nothing to them! Theirs no conversation. No community. Nothing. They are the fake alternatives to the real thing. ____________________ I think that Christian unity is sometimes pawned off on us like a fake alternative. It’s packaged and sold to us like a cardboard cutout of a happy person. But when we encounter the real thing there can be no mistaking it. And for Paul there are two things that make Christian unity the real things: Peace and Purpose.

In the Christian life and in the Christian church there will be tension. There will be all kinds of tension. Between members of the vestry. Between the vestry and the priest. Between the priest and the other members of the clergy. Between those who have been here three months or three years or thirty years. And this tension can be caused by many different things: interpersonal problems, ideological or ethical or political disagreements. But Paul’s emphasis here is that tension be overcome through peace for the sake of unity. This necessarily means that we as the church learn to be good communicators. This means that we learn to listen to one another. And we do this “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love.” We learn to listen and we learn to speak truth. But as Paul reminds us, we always do so “with love.” There can be many sacrifices made, but unity cannot be one of them.

This unity is maintained through peace and it’s maintained for a purpose. The purpose of Christian unity is that this body of ours, this body of Christ into which we are baptized grows. This is a very natural part of our physical lives. We are born. We are children. We grow a little bit each day until we begin school. We learn about ourselves and the world around us. We learn about how we live with other people. Things we do and don’t do. We continue to grow, learning more and more every day. The body of Christ, the church is no different. Paul says, “We must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body . . . promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”

The church is in a time of transition. This parish is in a time of transition. And sometimes we are tempted to think that a new curate or a new priest or a new vestry will make the all the difference. We place a lot of faith in one person or a few people. Growth, we may think, happens because of them. But Paul would say otherwise. Growth happens when the whole church is unified through peace for the purpose of growth. Growth only happens when the whole church is together.

I think that this means something for us today. First, it means we shouldn’t be afraid of the tension. Let’s not be afraid of the problems and disagreements. Rather, let’s welcome the opportunity to be authentic with one another. To speak the truth. And to do so with love. Second, it’s means we need the whole church to grow not just the rector or associate rector or curate or vestry or a few members. The whole church. ____________________ You know I’ve still got that scene in my head where Will Smith is walking around the store talking to mannequins - Cardboard cutouts of fake people. It’s ridiculous, really, but utterly fascinating. In that post-apocalyptic world he needed the real thing and talking to cardboard cutouts of fake people was the closest he could get.

Let’s not be fake alternatives to the real thing. Let’s be the church, unified through peace and for the purpose of growth. It’s gonna take all of us real people to experience real unity and to see real growth. Amen.