After three years in seminary followed by three years as an assistant rector, I was eager to serve in my own parish. Starting in August 2001 at a parish in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC, I found a case of embezzlement during my first week on the job. The parish was in total disarray from the reconstruction following a devastating fire that struck six months before my arrival. Next came 9/11, and a tornado hit a few weeks later. By the time Christmas rolled around, I was truly eager for some good news.

First up on Christmas Eve, the children’s pageant went off with all the chaos and charm of a Garrison Keillor story. Parents were snapping pictures. Everyone was happy. A heavy wet snow was beginning to fall outside.

Because of all the reconstruction from the fire, electricians had rewired the old parish hall and entry ways to the church just a few weeks before. Around 9 pm the junior warden organized a work crew to clean up the snow on the sidewalks and put down salt. I was inspecting the entryways when I found that a single light fixture over a darkened entry had a burned out light bulb. “No big deal changing a light bulb”, I thought to myself.

I found a bulb in the closet and realized that I could not reach the light fixture. There was a wrought iron railing on either side of the entry so I stood on the bottom rail to give myself just enough extra height to reach the light fixture. My legs pressed against the top rail wet with snow. Light bulb in hand I stretched and reached up to insert it in the fixture. Before I could insert the bulb my hand touched a metal part of the fixture. I could feel electricity coursing through by body into my hand and out through my legs touching the top of the railing. I shook violently for what seemed to be an eternity before my body reflexively threw itself off of the light fixture and railing. My back slammed into the matching rail on the other side of the entry.

Later we would determine that the electricians had wired the fixture incorrectly. My back had striped bruises that matched the railing pattern. That Christmas Eve, in a blinding flash, I got the true Spirit of Christmas .

Today we celebrate a pagan festival that was overlaid with a Christian observance in the 4th century in order to make it easier for the majority pagan Europe to convert to Christianity. People throughout Europe had partied for centuries around the winter solstice, and they were not about to give up their festivals after they converted to Christianity. The declaration by Pope Julius I that Jesus’ birth would be celebrated on December 25 was a shrewd and obviously successful move to win more converts to Christianity.

Our present-day commercial Christmas may be just another example of a good thing gone too far. Some Christian churches refuse to celebrate Christmas, and they are correct that Christmas today is way too commercial and the holiday itself did not originate with the early church. But like those European converts, we Episcopalians aren’t about to give up our Christmas festival – not to mention all the parties that go with it. In the middle of all the tinsel, the colored lights, the crowded shopping malls, the endless parties, what we need to recover and what we really need to find and celebrate IS the true spirit of Christmas. From Titus chapter 2 we heard that

… the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

If we combine this reading with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that all should not perish but have everlasting life”, we just might have all the ingredients for the true Spirit of Christmas.

In human flesh, with us, the grace of God appears on this night making spiritual health, wholeness, healing and salvation freely available to everyone. The very notion of salvation means simply “to be made whole.” In return, what are we to be and what must we do?

We should all know that we cannot DO anything to earn God’s grace. But God clearly wants us to have grateful hearts for the gift of Jesus Christ who came and lived as one of us. God wants us to be truly glad for the gifts we have received and for us to behave towards others out of our gratitude and gladness. This is what Titus means that we might be purified as a people of Christ’s own. So how are we to behave in gratitude and gladness?

In the first half of the 19th century Clement C. Moore, son of a wealthy New York family, taught ancient languages at General Seminary in New York. For years his wife roasted a dozen turkeys for distribution to the poor at their local parish. On Christmas Eve 1822, she discovered she was one bird short of the usual number so she sent her husband by a horse drawn sleigh-taxi to the butcher for another turkey. As they rode to and from the Jefferson Market (now the Bowery section of the city), Moore listened to the sound of sleigh bells and horses trotting in the snow. On this trip he penned most of the poem he titled A Visit from St. Nicholas or what we now know as The Night Before Christmas.

Professor Clement Clarke Moore and his wife were indeed zealous for good deeds. They lived the true spirit of Christmas.

So on Christmas and all the days that follow, out of your own deep gladness that Jesus Christ has come into your life, share something you have with others. Do something for other people especially those you do not know. Like the Moore family roasting turkeys for the poor, when you are “zealous for good deeds” you will find the true Spirit of Christmas.

One of the things you learn in seminary is: when you are studying the text to preach on a given Sunday, if something bothers you, you need to dive into that until you understand exactly what it is that bothers you. With that understanding you just might have a sermon. Today is one of those days. Christ the King bothers me enormously. The concept always has bothered me. Let me share some observations to help illuminate the source of discomfort.

At a clergy conference one year in the Diocese of Washington D.C., the bishop arranged for author Bruce Feiler to speak. Mr. Feiler has written some very popular books such as “Walking the Bible” and “Abraham.” He is Jewish. The bishop also arranged for a distinguished Arab studies scholar from American University to speak. Akbar Ahmed is Muslim. Also invited that weekend were the rabbi of a large Jewish congregation in Washington and the imam of a large Muslim congregation. As the clergy interacted with these religious leaders in other faiths, we reached one of those “aha” moments collectively as if a great truth had been revealed.

The author, the rabbi, the scholar, and the imam all held very open views about their respective holy scripture. They made no claims that their religion was the only way to salvation. They did not hold a vision that their religion, when spread across the globe to 100% of the people, would usher in a thousand years of peace and prosperity. And they did not believe violent conquest was sanctioned by their scripture for winning converts.

The Episcopal clergy gathered began to realize we had much more in common theologically with the Jewish and Muslim leaders at that conference than we do with many of our counterpart leaders in other Christian denominations. Everyone gathered talked about the difficulty of maintaining an open position about scripture and salvation in the midst of a culture that wants easy answers and a quick fix. We will return to this momentarily.

I recently read an article about Christian mission featuring a 32 year old pastor who took a small church in Alabama to 8,500 members in four years. The church now offers courses on how to replicate this kind of growth. I was intrigued so I jumped in. Every pastor or rector would like to find the quick fix for growing a church. I fired up the website and read about the courses they offered. In the middle of all the description, the courses required that participants must be “in agreement with the following basic statement of faith.” I read it carefully.

It was a curious amalgamation of Roman Catholic doctrine blended with statements from the Nicene Creed and laced together with exclusionary, rabid “my way or the highway” Christianity. I was dismayed. Apparently the way to grow a mega church is to circle the wagons, waving the flag of “We’ve got the only ticket to salvation.” Is there any room in this world for tolerance, peace, doubt, and ambiguity I wondered?

When I sit down with a religious leader from another faith, whether it is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Baha’i, Druze, Hindu, or Buddhist, one of the first things I want to understand is his (or her) concept of growing their faith. What growth means to them. What they THINK their scripture commands them to do. What they are willing to admit they do not understand.

At the clergy conference in Washington we found that there are religious leaders who, while devoted to their particular faith and teachings, are willing to admit that there is a lot they do not know, especially when it comes to other faiths. A few leaders will admit that there may be other ways to salvation. They may acknowledge that other scriptures could provide a path to know God. The handful of religious leaders in this camp will also condemn violence done in God’s name or in the name of a religion. They will refuse to point at other religions saying they are “in error.” Some of these religious leaders are hated by clergy in their own faith.

It seems that growing a mega congregation in any religion can be accomplished with the following recipe: Divide the world into us and them. Hold up a single, narrow interpretation of scripture as the authoritative word of God. Emphasize that converting others to this brand of religion is connected to individual salvation. Do not allow anyone to ask questions.

Ironically this approach is not about religion as much as it is a response to social change wrapped in religious clothing. This approach is manipulative, exclusionary, and divisive, often resulting in violence. The World Trade Center, the Middle East conflicts, and even the Oklahoma City bombing are all end products of applying this recipe to religion.

When any religious leader starts drawing lines between sinners and the righteous, or makes claims that his or her scripture interpretation is the only valid interpretation, look out, because this recipe manipulates people and as groups grow it becomes coercive. Christ the King Sunday was created by Roman Catholic leaders in 1925 as their response to growing dictatorships in Europe. They wanted a real king for people to follow. A king that manipulates and coerces is NOT one I want to follow.

In all world faiths and in all Christian denominations this recipe for growth also benefits the religious leaders, giving them more income, more attention, and more power. For Christians this clearly runs against the grain of the Gospel where John tells us that Jesus Christ must increase and the individual must decrease. Following Jesus often leads to reduction in worldly power, social power, wealth, prestige, etc. If there is an image of Jesus as King that I want to follow, it is the Christ mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns, and hung on a cross.

When we put kingly purple robes on Jesus along with a European jeweled crown and all the other earthly symbols of office, we manipulate people just like the recipe for growth. THIS king Jesus is superior to THAT king or dictator of your country. Don’t you want to follow THIS Jesus? Dressing Jesus in royal robes robs the cross of its power. We are actually making God in the image of man.

If instead we believe that we are made in the image of God, then we are required to see the face of Christ in everyone. WE are to look at everyone else, including people we don’t like, as equally made in God’s image. WE are to understand that God is big enough to love us all. How can we deny that Christ may have been sent to people in the Persian desert or the Samoan Islands? How about the bowlegged 70 year old woman squatting in the sun harvesting garlic in Korea? Is God big enough to make Jesus known to her in some way that WE fail to understand?

I am sorry to tell you but I do not have and this church does not have easy answers to life’s toughest challenges. Neither do we offer a quick fix for everyone’s problems. We simply offer a Jesus present in the outstretched arms, hands, feet, eyes, and ears of everyone in this church. We offer a Jesus who simply accepts people, wherever they are in their journey. We offer a Jesus who loves without condition the Muslim, the atheist, the Jew, the Baptist, and the Episcopalian. We offer a Jesus who teaches us that we lead others by serving them and sacrificing ourselves for them. I would like to put a crown on that Jesus and make a big fuss about him – but I won’t.

I’m just here to follow him with the rest of you.

I saw a bumper sticker a few years ago that said “Jesus is coming, look busy.” Advent is upon us today, but why do so many Christian denominations have such difficulty with this season? Many churches skip right by the four weeks of Advent and begin celebrating Christmas with the rest of the commercial world the day after Thanksgiving. Skipping Advent is like skipping Palm Sunday and Good Friday and going straight to Easter.

Advent focuses not only on Jesus coming as a little baby but EQUALLY upon the second coming of Christ in judgment. It is this judgment and its commandment for us to “do justice” that poses such difficulties for many Christians. On top of that, we have the image of Christ the King from last week, and today Jesus tells us that God will come to us like a “thief in the night.” How can the all powerful, all loving God be BOTH king to us and a thief?

The classic approach to this text is to explain it along the lofty ideals of God’s love and mercy for us. Doing so converts God into a benevolent ruler, and his son Jesus becomes just a really nice guy to know. Reducing Jesus to your best friend with a beard and long robes while ignoring the Advent aspects of God’s judgment and justice reduces our faith to milk toast. If you want your faith to grow deeper, then you must grapple not with some warm fuzzy notion of God, but with a God that is downright difficult and maybe just a little scary.

The results of Christ’s judgment are not necessarily our ticket into heaven. We do not get an end of life report card from God. As part of our life in faith, God wants us to know how well we have done with the ONLY measure of our faith found in both the New and Old Testaments – justice. Put simply, justice is God’s primary concern for us and is determined by how well we treat one another and the environment. The Bible commands us to be especially concerned in our treatment of those who are the most vulnerable.

You can find people who will minimize or write off either justice or judgment while emphasizing one over the other. For example, some groups will emphasize the wrathful judgmental character of God, but they ignore the Bible’s demands for social and environmental justice. For this group, the judgmental God is all they need in a personalized religion. Doing justice by serving the most vulnerable is not important to them.

You can find people on the other extreme who minimize or write off God’s judgment while holding up social and environmental justice as the primary focus of the Bible. The scary notion of God coming like a thief in the night to judge us is simply too bizarre, scary, or violent, so this group discards God’s judgment as a quaint product of old time religion. Judgment for this group is no longer relevant to the modern life of faith.

But that’s not what the Bible says, is it? We don’t get to cherry pick our scripture or the commandments for a faithful life. We must take the whole package. In practical terms, this means that while we scramble around this month preparing for Christmas, we MUST hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people and prepare for CHRIST –because Christ will come again to judge us.

I have visited people on death’s door that were truly prepared for what comes next. They would not find this Gospel scary at all. Two people will be in the field working. One will be taken and one left in the field. Two women will be grinding. One will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore because you know not on what day your Lord is coming.

Those who spend their lives eating, drinking, and partying may indeed find this passage scary, because the Son of Man is coming to judge us at an unexpected hour.

Our God is not always the easy, warm fuzzy God of love and compassion. Sometimes we need to be shaken up a bit so we stay awake. If faith were easy it wouldn’t be faith. Judgment can be a bit scary. God might not even seem safe at times. Here is how C. S. Lewis conveyed this idea early in the story of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”

In this scene the children have just learned that Aslan is not human but is a lion. They are frightened by the prospect of encountering a lion. With quivering voice Susan asks, “Is he… quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous meeting a lion.” Mrs. Beaver replies, “That you will, dearie – and no mistake, if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else silly.” Next Lucy wonders, “Then he isn’t safe?” Mr. Beaver now chimes in, “Safe? Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

God commands us to doing justice by serving the least in our society, and at that unexpected hour when the Son of Man comes, we will be judged specifically for how we have cared for the needy. At the time of year when we want most of all the warm fuzzy Santa Claus God and the tiny little baby, we are told to be prepared for a scary encounter with God.

This God is not safe at all. But this God is good. He’s the King, I tell you.

There is one more thing to wrap this up.

Finally, this idea of God’s judgment at an unexpected time forces us to live in the present. We cannot live in the past when our health was better, family was closer, etc. Just before she died, columnist Erma Bombeck wrote a farewell column where one of the things she regretted was not getting out her best china and using it more often. Living in the present means that we also do not try to save ourselves for some better future. Do not hold back. Use that china tonight. Call those estranged relatives. Write that overdue letter to a friend. Live the life God has given you RIGHT NOW.

Today we have an oracle from a prophet six hundred years before Jesus and we have yet another puzzling teaching from Jesus challenging to us in our stewardship season. After all who wants to think of themselves as a worthless slave?

We will connect the dots between the righteous, the life of faith and the life of gratitude. Since college football is upon us these days, I want to give you an image I have of Jesus sitting in the bleachers cheering for us. (Nebraska joke) Next I must tell you a story that is mostly 1.

This is a story about the medieval church where bishops were political appointments and corruption was rampant.

Two brothers grew up in the same small farming village. They learned the value of hard honest work from their parents. The older brother eventually left the farm to attend the university. He studied hard and seemed to have a knack for learning. He studied all the classics in Greek and Latin. His teachers were always impressed with his writings and scholarship. After years of schooling he was ordained a priest. He liked the role of a parish priest. He had excelled in school by organizing everything around him and in the parish he organized and controlled every aspect of the parish. Nothing happened in his parishes without his finger on it. He prided himself in his service of God.

The older brother held himself and others to high standards. His conduct of the liturgy was flawless. His work running a large parish was noticed by the bishops. He considered himself a tough but fair judge when it came to evaluating the work of other priests and staff working under his administration. He did have a bit of a temper and would sometimes fly into temper tantrum if others did not work exactly according to his plan or if things beyond his control forced a change of priorities. His superiors tended to discount his anger issues because his job performance as a priest was stellar in every possible way.

The older brother was a poster child for “elevation” to the status of bishop and he was eventually consecrated bishop in the church. He was a self made man and proud of it. Portraits of him could not hide his smugness and self satisfaction. He was an important figure in the church.

The younger brother saw his older brother’s path and would have nothing of it. He stayed behind helping his parents with farm work until they passed on. When his parents died he sold the farm and gave the money to the church. He joined a monastery working in the kitchen and in the fields. Although he could read and write from his basic education, he often commented that reading the Gospel was all the education he needed.

He summed up the good news in this way: “God became human in Jesus Christ and the world crucified him for who he was. In rising from the dead Christ shows us there is hope for everyone. We cannot do anything to earn God’s favor. We must believe and live by our faith.”

Even after many years working in the fields and kitchen of the monastery and attending daily prayer services and mass the younger brother refused even to be accepted a member of the religious order. He only wanted to serve others in the kitchen in his life of faith. To the day he died his service and his writings revealed a heart that saw God’s blessings in everything including the hardships. He was deeply grateful for everything God had given him – a six by eight foot cell, a bed, a Bible, a set of clothes and a job in the kitchen.

Most of us have far more worldly possessions than the younger brother. Most of us have jobs that we might consider more edifying, more interesting or even more important. Do we view our possessions as things that we have earned and as things that we own? Or do we see them like the younger brother as gifts and blessings from God that we neither earned nor deserve? Do we see our possessions and accomplishments as a temptation to push God out of the picture while inflating our own sense of self importance?

Living a life of deep gratitude is the life of faith. The prophet today says the righteous will live by their faith. Jesus tells us we are to live as slaves in the kitchen. We are to recognize God as the source of all that we are and we are to give thanks for that. When your sense of deep gratitude grows, your faith grows AND the church grows.

By the way, the older brother faded away in history as just another bishop in a medieval European church. We really don’t know much about the bishop because he really didn’t do very much. We know the younger brother today centuries later.

The writings of “Brother Lawrence” (even though he never became an official member of the religious order) are classics in Christian spirituality and teachings.

Your stewardship challenge and in fact your faith challenge is to choose which brother you will pattern your life after. Jesus is sitting out there in the bleachers cheering for you to make the right choice. “Increase our faith.” … Indeed!

Mark Twain once wrote, “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a human being.” As part of our month of stewardship we will unpack this story of the ten lepers along two central themes: First is seeing and recognizing Jesus. Second is giving thanks LOUDLY. As my favorite Missouri author pointed out, we don’t want to be so ungrateful that we bite the hand that saves us.

When I read about lepers or disabled people or other kinds of outcasts in the Bible, I immediately think about the homeless in our time. Forced to live on the streets by their wits, rejected by society and with no real prospects for improvement we encounter people like this frequently. Most of the time we look the other way or find a way to get rid of them. But people on the streets are not fools. They observe, they listen and they talk. They know what’s going on.

These lepers have seen thousands of people come and go. They have begged for money and food most of their lives. I think they have also heard about the itinerant rabbi named Jesus. They know about his healing power but amazingly they do not ask for healing. They call him by name saying “Jesus, master, have mercy on us.” Out of the hundreds of nameless people they have seen that day, they see Jesus and recognize him. If we saw Jesus at the mall would we recognize him?

The very next word slips right by modern readers. The title “Master” only occurs four times in the Gospels and outside of this passage it is only used by the disciples. The term does not carry the meaning we have in English of master-slave relationship, but is more military in nature indicating one who has complete authority over another. If you are a private you obey what your sergeant orders you to do.

Jesus sees these lepers maintaining their distance and pleading for mercy so he gives them a command. “Go to the priests and show yourselves.” By Jewish law the priest was the one to certify that a leper was healed and was clean and permitted to re-enter normal social life. There is only one catch. The last time a leper was healed before this was 700 years earlier. The priests and rabbis thought that healing a leper was on a par with raising the dead. The lepers must have known this impossibility too so the fact that they obeyed Jesus’ command instead of laughing at him indicates that they were indeed disciples, followers. They already had faith.

The story moves quickly. We are told that as they went they were made clean. They heard Jesus. They obeyed his command, turned and started to walk towards the priests. In their doing this they were cured of their disease. When they realized what had happened to change their lives, they must have exploded with tears of joy and laughter. They were cured of a lifelong scourge, but only one turned back.

The ten lepers have not yet reached the priests for their certification as clean. This has suddenly become unimportant to the one leper who turns back. I imagine Jesus in his great love and compassion standing their watching these lepers throw off their rags jumping for joy. Jesus surely must have shared the moment and the laughter. Nine continue to do as they are told but one turns back praising God with a loud voice and giving thanks to Jesus. The exact word the leper used to say thanks to Jesus is “eucharist.”

Next Saturday we will give thanks for our new ministry together. The service used to be called the “Installation of a New Rector.” One member of our congregation has been teasing me this week saying it was a “coronation.” I keep correcting her saying “No this is OUR new ministry not MY new ministry.” Whatever we do we will do it together. It is a celebration and renewal of OUR ministry together. To do ministry together; to be involved in worship, outreach, pastoral care and fellowship is to walk the path to wholeness. As individuals and as a community we are always striving for peace within ourselves – with our bodies, minds, souls and relationships with others. To be at peace in this way is to be whole.

We have all seen the sober alcoholic who stopped drinking years ago yet continues in the exact same patterns of behavior. The person has stopped drinking but still has the disease. In the same way we sometimes see people who have had long term medical problems corrected yet they persist in thinking of themselves as victims maintaining a dependent lifestyle. Finally most of us have encountered someone who suffered some trauma in their life and never got over it. In these situations the people may or may not have their medical or physical situation rectified but the focus of the church is to see that you are made whole. To be made whole is the literal meaning of the term salvation.

You may be suffering from a debilitating illness but how you live now and how you are able to demonstrate your faith to others is a choice you get to make. If you are like the leper who turned back to give thanks LOUDLY you will be made whole. You will be at peace with your body, your soul, your life and with others.

If you have suffered the most horrific of traumas sometime in your life, whether you remain victimized and angry at the world or whether you thank Jesus with a loud voice is a choice you get to make. Thank Jesus and you will be saved.

My job is to help you recognize Jesus in your everyday life. The other half of my job is to help you develop a life of gratitude; of thanksgiving. When necessary I need to lead you up to the edge where you can make a choice. This can happen in counseling, in fellowship, in the Eucharist or any number of places. When you do in fact turn and thank Jesus in a loud voice in spite of whatever may afflict you, I can promise you that Jesus is there smiling, laughing and embracing you saying “Welcome home.”

National Public Radio is running its fall fund drive right now. One of their pitches for their continued existence goes like this: “We have all seen the malaise in journalism. Journalism is becoming watered down. It is hard to tell what is real journalism and what is not. Is someone sending a Tweet from their cell phone doing journalism on the fly?” Etc., etc. Having established that journalism is going to pot they conclude the pitch by stating that National Public Radio is a standard setter for journalism. “You can depend on quality, accuracy and professionalism at NPR therefore you should give to NPR.”

I am not telling you this to get you to give to NPR or even to the church. I share this with you because I think that the Episcopal Church in general and Grace Church in particular are standard setters too. The very words in 2 Timothy that many churches nearby hang their hats on:

“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness”

are followed in the next paragraph by something everyone should pay close attention to:

“For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth.”

You can attend churches that will tell you belief in Jesus Christ will heal your life threatening diseases. You can attend other churches that will tell you believing in Jesus means you will become wealthy and prosperous. You can attend churches and have the you-know-what scared out of your children by preachers who focus on the sinfulness and depravity of humankind. Every one of these is a heresy and they have been preached in different churches for two thousand years.

But even heresies have their place. I believe the diversity of church belief including the heresies is a gift because the diversity of belief and church practices provides a wide open door for people at all stages of faith development to enter the church. We just pray that as people progress, they will turn away from false doctrine and a few of them will come through our doors.

What does a standard bearer church like Grace do that differs from the others?

1. We are not a pumped up feel good religious energy shot. We don’t try to sell you salvation by making you feel jazzed up every Sunday. Instead we provide spiritual space where people can express and experience a wide range of emotions. Jesus was fully human. Our church should be too.

2. We follow a lectionary for our Sunday readings. Over a three year cycle you will hear most of the Bible. In general the church must adhere to a set of scripture assigned for each Sunday. We do not follow the pastor’s top 52 picks for scripture every year. Ironically you may hear more of the Bible at Grace Church than at so called “Bible” churches.

3. We follow a worship pattern that was in place BEFORE Jesus and has been refined for two thousand years. For deep effectiveness and long-term viability it’s hard to top this with Power Point and a praise band.

4. The purpose of vestments is to minimize the individual. Bishop, priest, or acolyte we are all here to serve. The congregation must focus on Christ, not the individual personalities conducting the service.

5. We have a line of accountability and authority for priests and bishops and it works. This means that no matter how good or how bad a given parish leader may be, the parish and diocese are bigger than the individual. Our church survives the test of time. We are here for the long haul. We are here for Jesus Christ. We are here for you.

6. We could add to this list of five serious topics Robin Williams’ list of ten reasons to be an Episcopalian. Taken together you wonder why anyone would go anywhere else!

Grace Church is a stable church of sound doctrine that has been followed for 17 centuries. We are the hands, feet, eyes, arms, and heart of Jesus to our parishioners, to newcomers, and to the community around us. Looking at our sparse attendance for the past month, I must echo Jesus’ question in our Gospel this morning, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith in Muskogee?”

In other words, who is our competition? And what are we called to do about it?

Last weekend Joan and I attended a Frank Sinatra tribute at a local theatre. That evening we learned that at one time Muskogee had six large theatres, two of which seated over a thousand people. Times have changed since then. People have many more things to do; perhaps too many. The real competition for Grace Church is not other churches; it is the world around us.

What are we called to do about it? I take my cue directly from 2 Timothy, “As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.” Sometimes I have to work hard in order to be positive.

Your work is all about decisions, priorities, and invitations. We know that Christ will return at an hour when we are least prepared. So when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith in Muskogee?” Grace Church is here. Your rector is here. The rest is up to you.

Next week you will be given pledge cards. I will, of course, preach a magnificent guilt-free sermon about stewardship and everyone will be moved to pledge enough to Grace Church that we can actually grow and move forward. Today, however, you just need to understand why we give back to God in our giving to the church. The prophet Sirach says simply, “Give to the Most High AS he has given to you, and as generously as you can afford.” Today I want you to sit back and listen to a true story.

About ten of us packed into the back two rows of the little church in the mountains. Built out of concrete block and painted white inside and out the little church that seated perhaps a hundred was a castle by local building standards. At 8,000 feet in November, the weather outside drops below freezing at night, 40s in the daytime. We are less than a thousand miles from the equator yet it is colder in the Guatemalan highlands than in Washington DC. The people of the village shuffle into church barefoot, and, as it happens everywhere, a few minutes after the bell. There are no roads and no cars. Everyone lives within a thirty minute walk from church. There are lots of children of all ages.

Someone in front of us notes that there are yanqui visitors this morning. They scurry off to a corner cabinet and return giving us brand new copies of El Libro de la Oración Común and the himnario. The church can only afford a dozen copies of these books. The villagers know the service by heart, AND they know ALL the words to all the verses of every hymn sung. The books are reserved for visitors and are rarely used. The people sing heartily because they know the music by heart. I think to myself, “Now this is the way church should be everywhere.”

The sermon is bilingual, running back and forth between Spanish and their native Mayan tongue of K’iche’. The prayers of the people are loud and long. Many names and situations are prayed for in the community. When we first saw this third world village on Saturday, most of us were in shock. I have been in the barrios of Tijuana, the slums of the Gaza Strip, as well as rural and urban poverty areas across North America. None of that prepared me for Bronze Age people living with sparse electric lighting in the mountains. They have lived here for thousands of years.

The women die in their 40s of respiratory diseases because they spend most of their time in their kitchens with a fire ring on the floor and a hole in the ceiling for the smoke. Women and children spend their lives covered in soot and smelling like a campfire. Although the floors are dirt, at least the kitchen has some warmth. The living quarters are all at outside temperature.

Everything a family consumes for food is grown on the mountain slopes within two hundred meters of the back door. The sophisticated norteamericanos survey the scene taking in the smell of ever-present wood smoke and we think to ourselves “Dear God, can’t we do something to help these people?”

The mission group from the parish in Annapolis, Maryland, has been working there twice a year for fourteen years. Healthcare and education have been markedly improved for this village of 1200 people. I was invited there to help celebrate the first high school graduations ever. Still those of us “first-timers” spent the first day or so thinking that we were there to help them.

In the Eucharist the priest emphasizes that Christ abides in us and we abide in Christ. Prior to that I had drifted off thinking how glad I was to return home in a few days to a warm shower, comfortable bed, and all the creature comforts of North American society. The priest’s words shook me. The love of Christ dwells in each one of these people the same as the love of Christ dwells in rich North Americans. (North Americans are all rich by comparison) We are equal in God’s eyes.

Of course we all understood this intellectually, but when we come face to face with people living in enormously different standards of wealth and consumption, everyone is tempted to draw comparisons and set up distinctions of superiority. And when we divide the world into two groups, us and them, even the thought of our relative blessing when we see someone else down on their luck – making these divisions means that WE ARE DOOMED.

Unwittingly we have entered the world of the Pharisee who says, “I’m glad I am not like that Guatemalan peasant.” … “I’m glad I am not like that guy who lost his job.” … “I’m glad I am not like …” and on and on it goes.

Back in Chijulimul Guatemala, Felipe and Pedro adopted us. Eventually the entire village would be on their feet smiling and clapping for our presence with them. We were accepted in spite of the fact that we simply could not walk up and down the rocky trails as fast as the locals did without shoes. We were accepted not as conquering Euro-Americans, not as rich norteamericanos but as part of the body of Christ. We came bearing the love of Christ and we left feeling like we had been immersed, baptized into the love of Christ. Forget about us helping them. We were transformed by the radical hospitality of people who by the world’s standards had nothing. But by God’s standards they had everything they needed.

God is ready to accept us not for what we have accomplished in life, not for our net worth, not even for our faithfulness, but simply because we have accepted God into our life. We know beyond human knowing that there is something bigger than our own egos. We know that love of God which surpasses human understanding LOVES US.

This love of God is right here at Grace Church. We learn to make no distinctions. We are transformed by this amazing grace and THAT is why we must give back to God and give to our church.

At a recent meeting, one person spoke passionately wanting to know what plans we have for youth so that we can grow again. At another meeting someone else pondered tearfully why certain faithful members drifted away and never returned. At an online meeting discussing the decline of mainline denominations someone insisted the principle cause of our general decline was that Protestant churches no longer stand for anything. These are the comments and questions I encounter on an average week. Could they be related?

After wandering the desert for 40 years, Moses speaks to the Israelites before they cross over the Jordan. Moses of course would not be allowed to go with them. He will die before this second water crossing. Speaking on behalf of God, Moses gives them stark contrasts in the choices they can make: “Life and prosperity versus death and adversity.” “Observe the commandments of God and you shall live and multiply” or “If your hearts turn away and you bow down to other gods, you shall perish.”

Reading the Bible we tend to think of those “other gods” in quaint, distant terms like the golden calf or the wooden and stone idols carved in the Middle East. But we have an abundance of modern day gods mostly having to do with various forms of addiction – work, drugs, alcohol, rage, money, food, etc. These are many of the ways we turn our hearts away from God. Moses exhorts the Israelites to “choose life.” Clearly to turn our hearts to any of these types of addictions is to turn away from God and to choose death.

Fortunately most of us have never had the challenge of overcoming full blown addiction so it is natural to wonder, “Am I as faithful to the one true God as I should be or do I still turn my heart to other gods?” You do not often hear the dramatic testimonies of struggling with one big life threatening addiction in Episcopal churches. But at the same time we don’t spend much time talking about the less dramatic layers of what I call “little addictions” or lesser gods that get in the way between us and the one God.

How many times have you heard “I plan to lose that 40 pounds right after my knee surgery?” Or “I’m not addicted to money but I think about it all the time.” Or one of my favorites is the angry denial that someone might have “anger issues.” Very often we don’t just bow down to one lesser god, we turn our hearts to a virtual pantheon of lesser gods. Do you know any teenagers addicted to Facebook? How about those of us who must have our caffeine fix or Mountain Dew every morning before life begins?

There is one bit of truth in the critics’ charge that Episcopalians and other denominations don’t stand for anything. Officially we can point to the Nicene Creed, the 39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer but those are hardly going to be attractive to newcomers. The problem is that we DO stand for some things that are very important. We just fail to teach or emphasize them. Here are three:

Prayer – We are formed in prayer both in fixed written texts and spontaneous prayer. We have daily prayer services that trace their origins back to the earliest days of the church. We do not believe in praying for outcomes or manipulating God. We believe that prayer brings us closer to God in all of life’s circumstances. Prayer turns our hearts to God.

Community – Ours is not an individualistic faith. We’re not about “me and Jesus.” We believe that we see the face of Christ in our friends and family here in church as well as with total strangers on the street. When we follow Christ’s example of forgiveness to friends, family and complete strangers we turn our hearts to God.

Discernment – Discernment is the difficult task of getting our personal agenda and desires out of the way and then listening to hear that still small voice of God’s way guiding our life. Learning God’s desire for us demands that we pray, read scripture, attend church, and participate fully in our community because often we find that someone else speaks God’s wisdom to us. When we hear God’s wisdom for us and follow through, we turn our hearts to God.

These three items are what we stand for and they are not easy. We cannot even accomplish them as individuals. I have observed that when whole churches decide to get serious about prayer, community and discernment that surprise; many people find that their personal issues with lesser gods and little addictions all begin to diminish or even disappear. Everyone becomes healthier in every sense of the word.

Our overarching program for the next five years will be to build and strengthen these areas. When we do, people’s lives will change. When we do, people outside our doors will take notice and start coming here. Growth is not about building a gymnasium or hiring a youth minister. It is about the rough and tumble task of individual and community spiritual growth with our current membership.

Moses exhorted his people to turn their hearts to God and choose life. I want to leave you with one simple question, “Who do you want to be tomorrow morning when you get up?”

Baptisms are fun things to do. Having one deaf ear helps me in this ministry because I always put the babies with their head on my deaf side. There the baby can make all kinds of noises and I can do my job. There is a cross I wear on Sundays that is still packed away in boxes somewhere. One time when I had to hold a baby close to me for some reason I looked at his cheek after I relaxed my grip and I could see the outline of my cross on his cheek. That’s the way baptism should be though – it leaves a mark on us that lasts a lifetime.

The life of faith leaves its mark on us many times in this life. Each time we change bit by bit until we grow into what the prayer book calls “the full stature of Christ.” We grow close to the person God made us to be. Any shortcomings between who we really are and what God wants us to be were made up for us on the cross.

This weekend twenty of us traveled to western Oklahoma to see the places where Episcopal Deacon David Oakerhater lived and served. He is an official saint on the Episcopal Church calendar and his feast day is September 1. At the Whirlwind and Holy Family Episcopal mission last night we were privileged to see some of the honor dances performed in Oakerhater’s honor. The mission also had a baptism, confirmation and Eucharist as well as a dinner before the dances. His unusual name is an English version of a Cheyenne name meaning “Making Medicine.”

The years leading up to 1875 were marked by the white man killing thousands of buffalo that affected the Indians’ ability to sustain themselves. In addition white frontiersmen were stealing significant numbers of Indian horses. These actions eventually led to Indian raids and some were led by Oakerhater. The US Army finally captured some of the warriors including Oakerhater. They were sentenced to prison in Florida where a remarkable Army captain had compassion for them and treated them with dignity and respect.

Within a year Oakerhater learned to speak, read and write English. The warriors who were not accustomed to taking any instructions from women were taught English by white women. Within three years Oakerhater converted to Christianity was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church. Within eight years of his prison sentence he was ordained a Deacon in the church and returned to Oklahoma Territory to minister to his tribes. Although he had an older son, his wife and baby died in childbirth with his second child. His time from sentencing to ordination was not an easy journey.

Upon his return to Oklahoma to begin his ministry, he first encountered some of the same warriors he had led in raids against the white man. He stood before them in trousers, shoes, black shirt and white round clergy collar. This warrior turned deacon must have been a very strange sight to his former comrades in arms. He addressed them in the Cheyenne language. Here is what he said in English:

“Men, you all know me. You remember me when I led you out to war I went first and what I told you was number 1. Now I have been away to the East and I have learned about another captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is my leader. He goes first, and all He tells me is number 1. I come back to my people to tell you to go with me now in this new road, a war that makes all for peace, and where we never have only victory.”

Making Medicine ministered to his people in Oklahoma for over forty years. His home in Watonga was modest. His grave is modest. And by the white man’s measure he did not leave a vast church overflowing with people. He left his mark in much deeper ways. He bridged two cultures and his life took the best from each world as an example to others. He changed the church’s attitude about mission work and Native Americans. He gave hope to thousands of people whose hope had been shattered for generations by forced relocation, broken treaties and malice.

Baptism leaves its mark on us. We are “sealed in Baptism by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.” The question to every one of us is, Now that you have been marked what mark will you leave on the world?

Justice is never easy and it is always complicated. In the past few weeks around town I have encountered a homeless man who frankly scares me. Last Sunday Joan and I returned from a visit and when I saw him in the parking lot I drove past. I do not know what about him I find disturbing. His laugh is one part Will Smith and one part Hannibal Lector. His demeanor can change from confrontational to combative in a heartbeat. I later found out that he has been institutionalized. He is schizophrenic and my caution around him is well founded.

In another church I encountered Anne as one of the waves of homeless and dispossessed coming to the church for help. Anne probably had an IQ of 80. From a large family in rural West Virginia she was abused as a child by alcoholic parents. By the time I encountered her she had given up ten children to the state. All of them had different fathers. Anne slept in abandoned buildings. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement had gutted this manufacturing town of 40,000 manufacturing jobs, there were plenty of buildings to choose from. When she could not get food from a church, she ate from dumpsters.

I helped her with some Section 8 housing guiding her through some of the labyrinth of social service agency red tape. One time when I picked her up, she had been sleeping in an abandoned garage. She told me she woke up early that morning face to face with a snake. The garage where she was sleeping was condemned by the city and was in immediate danger of collapse. I figured the snake story was not that of a delusional homeless person.

Bit by bit Anne was incorporated into the life of this parish. She would show up on Saturdays and the altar guild would find things for her to help with. Her presence in the church and my connection with her was sometimes difficult for people. One person flew into a rage at me about the presence of this dirty person sitting in church on Sundays. I was asked why she couldn’t think well enough to get a job or at least get a shower.

As pastorally as I could muster, I let my angry parishioner know more about her life than her apparent lack of bathing. I ended by saying “If you spent restless nights sleeping in cold buildings with rats and snakes and if the last protein you had was part of a cheeseburger you found in a dumpster three days ago, you would have difficulty making rational decisions too.”

Many of us work for justice in our daily jobs and in our work at church. Almost all of us participate in doing injustice by virtue of our income level. I will not belabor the point here but like it or not, if you are middle class or above, then you benefit in many ways at the expense of the poor. At the same time the poor in our country are not clear cut victims either. Many are combative, aggressive or even criminal. As a priest I have been scammed and conned by more stories of woe than you can imagine.

Our situation differs from that of Amos in the 8th century BC. Unlike the merchants and leaders of ancient Israel, most of us do not intentionally try to cheat and steal from the poor. If anything we tend to be ignorant of the ways in which we benefit by unjust laws and social systems. At the same time when you really get to know the poor you will find that some (not all) of them will resort to anything to improve their condition. This can be drug addiction, alcoholism, criminal behavior or just plain orneriness.

Does our condition of ignorance of how our everyday lives often cause harm to the poor let us off the hook? Does the difficult behavior of some of the poor mean that they deserve to eat from dumpsters?

When we think about issues of social justice we often focus on the condition of other people. We are made in God’s image and God wants us to have Christ-like compassion for the poor. This means that the change God wants is first and foremost in OUR hearts.

How can we change in order to grow our compassion for the vulnerable? The number one way to do this is with mission projects. Whether we engage with a mission project three blocks from here or in another country, we will change. Based upon my experience taking a group of teenagers into desperately poor mountain village in Guatemala I know that when those of us with privileged lives develop relationships with those who are poor and when we get to know how they live, WE are changed forever.

We get involved doing mission work because we want to follow Jesus and become more like him. In addition we get involved in mission work because we recognize all the amazing gifts God has given us and we are grateful for what God has done in our lives. I pray that our pursuit of a comfortable life does not blind us to the needs of others.

Please, put your time and your wealth in prayer before God. Ask God to give you the heart of Christ and to guide your decisions about your time and the wealth you have been given.