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COVID Retreat - The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Sermon from the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel for the Second Sunday of Advent.
Today's readings are:
Malachi 3:1-4 Philippians 1:3-11 Luke 3:1-6 Canticle 16
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/HolyDays/...
Please join me in the spirit of prayer.
So early on in my quarantine when I was suffering from Covid these last two weeks (I've had a negative test and I'm completely safe) I decided to turn my quarantine and convalescence into a spiritual retreat. Covid is definitely a Wilderness moment. What does one do with that? Well, one turns it into a retreat where I could take the solitute and the isolation and the loneliness and the misery and use it as a refining fire, as it says in Malachi, to put my soul before God and let God do God's work. That's what a retreat is after all. We get rid of all the distractions and routines and buzzings in our head and the attachments in our hearts so that we can simply put ourselves before God and say, "Work this out in me."
It's an act of surrender in some ways. And that turned out to be a very good use of Covid actually. I could simply say, "God, here I am in my struggles and my frustrations and my failures, and my fallings short, my sins and my confusions and my contradictions." I could put it out there without excuse. "And before you are a merciful God, I can do that." It starts with this gratitude, that we know we can approach God in our full contradictions and find a companion and someone to help sort us out.
So I had a quarantine retreat. I was quarantined into the bedroom and bathroom, with no company and dinner and lunch on a tray.
And what came to me as an image was this cheap toy I found once in a science museum. I've always loved the gift shops of science museums and this was a plexiglass box - a rectangle - and it was filled with iron filings, and the kit came with a number of magnets and the fun you had, such as it was, was applying the magnet to the filings. And of course when you apply the magnet to the filings they go from a disorganized mass into a wonderful organized set that follows the magnetic field of the magnet.
So from this jungle you get this wonderful pattern of the iron filings following the magnetic field of the magnet you apply.
This image came to me as a gift, because I realized that left to myself, I'm a pretty chaotic pile of filings. I'm going off in every different direction. I'm going off in contradictory directions at the same time. I cause myself suffering and angst and anxiety and worry. I fall short and I sin. It's that same pile that I bring into God's magnetic field of love and care and mercy, and then in God's magnetic field of love and care and mercy, my life finds enlightenment, and finds a pattern that is healthy. A pattern that is humble. A pattern that is connected to God most of all. And as we enter into Advent, I want to recommend to you, however you can do it - hopefully without the Covid part - to have some Wilderness time and put your chaotic pile of filings in front of God and let the love of God and the care of God and God's mercy sort them out and help you find your shape again.
Today on the second Sunday of Advent I am very very grateful for the example of Zechariah and Elizabeth and John and Mary and Joseph. These humble, humble people who are so far off to the side of history, the underside of history compared to Tiberius and Pilate and Annas and Caiaphas. All these key names that Luke spreads across the story are all known in the Mediterranean world and then off in this little corner is where the real action is happening. The Empire might spread good news of sorts, but the good news of God is happening in these humble folks, who give us the clues about how to live in the love and the care and the mercy of God that ushers the presence of Christ into the world.
When we look at the Song of Zechariah or the Song of Mary, we look at these humble folk who ushered in our Lord. They were prepared to know God and to welcome God and to receive God because they were immersed in the story of God. We look at the Song of Mary and this incredible Song of Zechariah, and we see people who knew the promises, who held onto the promises of God, who knew that God was a God of liberation, a God of mercy, a God of forgiveness, a God whose tender mercy at the dawn breaks from on high on those who sit in darkness. A God who doesn't forget God's people. A God who is available for us to bring our whole lives to. They were people who lived in the magnetic field of God's grace. And so we immerse ourselves in the worship and the study of the scripture and prayer to be like them: people receptive, people prepared, people ready to see our God return.
We see St. Paul at his most pastoral in the letter to the Philippians where he's just gushing with love for his community, and I so relate to him, because when I read that passage I think of you. I just love being with you in prayer. I just want you to know the completion of grace. He's like a good pastor, wanting his people to be ready for the day of the Lord, the day the Lord returns. Every day is that day. That's the secret. As we live everyday in the day of the Lord, God is always completely present. God is never present in part. God is only ever fully present - we are absent. We are distracted. We are missing what God is doing.
But we are called to this wonderful reckoning where we can be in God's presence fully. Fully, complete, whole, actualized as the people god has called us to be, because we've been prepared. Because like those magnetic fields, we've been aligned with God. And this is our hope, this is our proclamation, this is what we live for in the season is to know that we can live our lives before God, live our lives in the presence of God on that day when God is fully present with us, which is every day in every moment. Thanks be to God.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org
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By St. Martin-in-the-FieldsSermon from the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel for the Second Sunday of Advent.
Today's readings are:
Malachi 3:1-4 Philippians 1:3-11 Luke 3:1-6 Canticle 16
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/HolyDays/...
Please join me in the spirit of prayer.
So early on in my quarantine when I was suffering from Covid these last two weeks (I've had a negative test and I'm completely safe) I decided to turn my quarantine and convalescence into a spiritual retreat. Covid is definitely a Wilderness moment. What does one do with that? Well, one turns it into a retreat where I could take the solitute and the isolation and the loneliness and the misery and use it as a refining fire, as it says in Malachi, to put my soul before God and let God do God's work. That's what a retreat is after all. We get rid of all the distractions and routines and buzzings in our head and the attachments in our hearts so that we can simply put ourselves before God and say, "Work this out in me."
It's an act of surrender in some ways. And that turned out to be a very good use of Covid actually. I could simply say, "God, here I am in my struggles and my frustrations and my failures, and my fallings short, my sins and my confusions and my contradictions." I could put it out there without excuse. "And before you are a merciful God, I can do that." It starts with this gratitude, that we know we can approach God in our full contradictions and find a companion and someone to help sort us out.
So I had a quarantine retreat. I was quarantined into the bedroom and bathroom, with no company and dinner and lunch on a tray.
And what came to me as an image was this cheap toy I found once in a science museum. I've always loved the gift shops of science museums and this was a plexiglass box - a rectangle - and it was filled with iron filings, and the kit came with a number of magnets and the fun you had, such as it was, was applying the magnet to the filings. And of course when you apply the magnet to the filings they go from a disorganized mass into a wonderful organized set that follows the magnetic field of the magnet.
So from this jungle you get this wonderful pattern of the iron filings following the magnetic field of the magnet you apply.
This image came to me as a gift, because I realized that left to myself, I'm a pretty chaotic pile of filings. I'm going off in every different direction. I'm going off in contradictory directions at the same time. I cause myself suffering and angst and anxiety and worry. I fall short and I sin. It's that same pile that I bring into God's magnetic field of love and care and mercy, and then in God's magnetic field of love and care and mercy, my life finds enlightenment, and finds a pattern that is healthy. A pattern that is humble. A pattern that is connected to God most of all. And as we enter into Advent, I want to recommend to you, however you can do it - hopefully without the Covid part - to have some Wilderness time and put your chaotic pile of filings in front of God and let the love of God and the care of God and God's mercy sort them out and help you find your shape again.
Today on the second Sunday of Advent I am very very grateful for the example of Zechariah and Elizabeth and John and Mary and Joseph. These humble, humble people who are so far off to the side of history, the underside of history compared to Tiberius and Pilate and Annas and Caiaphas. All these key names that Luke spreads across the story are all known in the Mediterranean world and then off in this little corner is where the real action is happening. The Empire might spread good news of sorts, but the good news of God is happening in these humble folks, who give us the clues about how to live in the love and the care and the mercy of God that ushers the presence of Christ into the world.
When we look at the Song of Zechariah or the Song of Mary, we look at these humble folk who ushered in our Lord. They were prepared to know God and to welcome God and to receive God because they were immersed in the story of God. We look at the Song of Mary and this incredible Song of Zechariah, and we see people who knew the promises, who held onto the promises of God, who knew that God was a God of liberation, a God of mercy, a God of forgiveness, a God whose tender mercy at the dawn breaks from on high on those who sit in darkness. A God who doesn't forget God's people. A God who is available for us to bring our whole lives to. They were people who lived in the magnetic field of God's grace. And so we immerse ourselves in the worship and the study of the scripture and prayer to be like them: people receptive, people prepared, people ready to see our God return.
We see St. Paul at his most pastoral in the letter to the Philippians where he's just gushing with love for his community, and I so relate to him, because when I read that passage I think of you. I just love being with you in prayer. I just want you to know the completion of grace. He's like a good pastor, wanting his people to be ready for the day of the Lord, the day the Lord returns. Every day is that day. That's the secret. As we live everyday in the day of the Lord, God is always completely present. God is never present in part. God is only ever fully present - we are absent. We are distracted. We are missing what God is doing.
But we are called to this wonderful reckoning where we can be in God's presence fully. Fully, complete, whole, actualized as the people god has called us to be, because we've been prepared. Because like those magnetic fields, we've been aligned with God. And this is our hope, this is our proclamation, this is what we live for in the season is to know that we can live our lives before God, live our lives in the presence of God on that day when God is fully present with us, which is every day in every moment. Thanks be to God.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org