Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

At one point, each CPE student constructs a set of personal and professional goals. One of my goals was to become less emotionally reactive in particularly tense situations. Needless to say, I felt very vulnerable at that moment. My colleagues were invited to comment. One did. Instead of offering encouragement, my colleague restated the need for such a goal and how he had to save me in a situation where I apparently went off the deep end.

Well, the next thing I know, I am enraged. I felt judged, betrayed, and misrepresented. My anger took full control, Herschel was simply a passenger. This was the moment my educator had been waiting for. I remember her excitement, “Whew, now we are getting somewhere!”

“What was the source of that anger that carried me away?” she asked. My response, “HIM!” She persisted along her lines of inquiry. I persisted in my finger-pointing. The back and forth ended with a verbal undressing. “Worrying about him will not heal your wounds nor help you achieve your goal. You got this.” She was right. I had some work to do. The new focus on me was the beginning of a profound journey of transformation, self-discovery, and spiritual growth. Healed, I engaged differently with the world. In many ways, I was living in a different world.

 I have this idea of who we are.  A narrative that I've been raised with that is deep in my bones and my blood and I hold it sacred.  The people of Israel that we hear in the story that we hear week in and week out about Jesus and his interaction, it's with his own people. They have a story too. They have this narrative and today we see Jesus attacking that narrative Directly,  I'm not sure if you saw it.

We almost miss it because it's right in front of us,  but he says Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. Jerusalem is not just a city. Jerusalem is a symbol and a promise. Jerusalem stands for all that God has promised God's people. Jerusalem is the embodiment of the promise that God made to Israel.

Jerusalem is the realization of that promise.  Jerusalem is their hopes and their dreams. of freedom and uniqueness and power. Jerusalem is where the temple is, where God dwells. Jerusalem is their spiritual identity as a people. And Jesus says, Oh, I know Jerusalem. That's where all the truthtellers go to die. 

 I am convinced that the next 40 days are some of the most radical and honest days that we hold as a church.  In the face of a culture that tries to deny death, hide our fragility or the fragility of others, and cover up our brokenness, we,  the church, are ready. 

have literally marked out the next six weeks  to stare at our mortality, our fragility, our limitations, and our mistakes right in the face,  both as individuals and as a collective whole.  It is a powerful, truth telling time of year.  Lent is also the time of year that we enter into counter empire practices.

of self examination, repentance,  prayer, fasting, and works of love.  These Lenten practices are not, as I used to think,  about making ourselves look good enough for God,  or for each other,  or for ourselves.  Rather,  these practices are an invitation to us to return.  To return again to the God of all mercy,  and to return again  to our identity  as beloved children of God. 

Though this Lenten season does come each year, I'm not going to pretend that things feel normal in our world right now.  Everything feels so incredibly full of change, violence, and disconnection.

 But in our daily lives, when we look for love. Anywhere  in our life,  we are listening to Jesus.  When you look for the love that is present, that surrounds you, in whatever way you are able to find it, when you look for the love that is all around you, when you see that love, you are finding Jesus in your daily life.

And when you follow that love, you are listening to Jesus.  Listening to Jesus does not have to be an abstraction, and it doesn't have to be about something that happened a long time ago. Jesus is living, and active, and present in our lives. Jesus is working for our salvation, our healing, and our reconciliation.

Our lives are filled to the brim with the love of God. It is not for us to pretend it's not there. It is for us to listen, to see, and to recognize. We don't have to go to the top of a hill to find Jesus. Jesus is living. with us.

 And pictures of that burning monk  were on the front page of almost every newspaper in the world.  It, the photograph documented this radical and horrific event  that many people in the United States did not understand.  And one of those people who did not understand this  was Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King had struck up a friendship with another Vietnamese monk  named Thich Nhat Hanh.

And  both King and Hanh were working for peace within their different contexts in that common goal of striving for peace. gave them a bond of friendship,  and even though they only met once in person, they exchanged letters with one another, encouraging each other to keep up their holy work.  In one of those letters, Han explained to Martin Luther King what was going on behind these monks setting themselves on fire. 

Han told King that these monks wanted their oppressors to stop hurting innocent people,  but they did not want to commit violence  against their oppressors in order to do that.

Let me give you an example. I am a four on the Enneagram. My sin is envy, which originates from seeing myself as fundamentally flawed. Others possess “things” that I do not and cannot possess. As a result, we go out of our way to be different; we do so to be loved and to feel significant. We are called “The Individualists.” A strong drive to be different has sometimes been counterproductive, resulting in self-inflicted isolation and loneliness. Self-image is sometimes a problem, so much so that my talents did not cross my mind until now. 

You can see that my work has been cut out for me when it comes to discernment. Discerning poorly may have left me stuck in self-pitying, self-destructive, and self-absorbed states of envy. However, with continued work and discernment, type fours such as myself can shed the sin-attached false self who is always longing to be loved, to be enough, to be loved by God for who I am.  

But of course, Jesus says, do not be afraid in direct response to Peter, who upon seeing this miracle and realizing God's presence and understanding on some level, the magnitude of God's power, drops to his knees and says, get away from me because I'm not worthy.  And boy, if that might not be the greatest fear we have, that God will show up, that God will call each of us into a life of love, and that we might not be worthy of the task.

Who am I?  Who am I to be part of God's transforming, reconciling, and healing plan?  I'm just Phil.  I'm just trying to get by, and you're inviting me into a mission?  Into living a life with a deeper purpose for the sake of loving and healing others?

You're saying you're going to transform the way I experience the world so that I see the world with different eyes and I experience love differently, and then I go along with you and love and heal this world too? Why me? Not because I don't want to, but you have way better people to pick.  And here's, oh, here's what I love about Jesus.

He doesn't care.