The following is a draft of the sermon I'm giving this Saturday at our monthly English service. Your comments and criticisms would be appreciated.

Sermon for Proper 13, Lectionary Year A 

(Isaiah 55:1-5, Psalm 145:8-9,15-22, Romans 9:1-5, Matthew 14:13-21)

The Gospel reading today contains one of the most famous stories of the New Testament: the story of the loaves and fishes. The symbol of the loaves and fishes, like the mosaic on the cover of the bulletin, is one of the oldest associated with Christianity, perhaps older even than the Latin cross that most people think of when they have our faith in mind.

The reading from Isaiah also wonderfully foreshadows the loaves and fishes story. The prophet says, »Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.«

If you look at only those two readings, shorn of their context, and take them at face value, you’d get the impression that Christianity is really just some sort of all-you-can-eat buffet. Free food for the masses, no coupons required, offer limited where prohibited by law, no purchase necessary.

But like so often when reading the Bible, taking the texts out of context and at face value is a very bad idea, because indeed it leads to false conclusions. We need a bit of tradition to understand them. We need to take the entire Bible and use it as a foundation to understand each and every bit of it, and we need to look at it through the lens of the traditions handed down to us.

So what are the loaves and fishes all about?

There is a phrase in the story that gives us a clue. The phrase is this: »Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds«. Does that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck? It should, because it is a strong echo of another phrase from the Gospel of Mark that we will hear shortly during the Eucharistic prayer: »For in the night in which he was betrayed, he took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ›Take, eat, this is my Body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.‹« The parallels in the text are too strong to be a coincidence. Jesus breaks the bread, and gives it to His disciples.

Meanwhile early Christians came up with a symbol to represent Christ, one that many Christians use today – the Jesus Fish. The reason is of course that the Greek word for »fish« – ichthys – happens to also stand for the Greek words iesous christos theou huios soter, which in English simply means »Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior«. But the fish was also, like bread, a staple food in the Levant.

To really drive the point home, Jesus also says in the Gospel of John, »I am the bread of life«. When we receive the Eucharist, we are given the consecrated bread with the words, the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven. 

So what Jesus is doing in this story is foreshadowing the Eucharist that we celebrate today. Thus the loaves and fishes come to represent nothing less than Christ Himself, and His infinite love. There is always enough love to go around. Love is that which fills the deepest holes in our hearts. Jesus is love, the spiritual food for our selves that we need just as much as bread and fish for our stomachs.

The psalm offers yet another bit of foreshadowing: »The LORD upholds all those who fall; he lifts up those who are bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon you, O LORD, and you give them their food in due season.« God as Love is what gives us strength to go on; love is what feeds our hearts. And indeed Paul talks about how he has »great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart« – his feeling of emptiness will sound familiar to anyone searching for answers in our lives. But then »comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever« to fill that void.

It is also, I think, no coincidence that the leftover bread filled twelve baskets. The number twelve should be ringing big bells in our heads: the Apostles, who were filled with the bread of life, with the love of Christ, to go out into the darkness of the world and spread that infinite love. The Apostles are the beginning of our church, our community of love. The twelve baskets are the Church, feeding the multitude.

To go back to the Eucharist, one area of disagreement amongst us Christians is the question of what »happens« in the Eucharist, particularly in the bread and wine. Roman Catholics have their principle of transsubstantiation, that is, that the bread becomes the substantial body of Christ; we Anglicans and Old Catholics stick with a more generalized »Real Presence« of Christ; many Protestants say that  Christ is only present spiritually; still others says it’s just a memorial.

What does all of that mean? What relevance does it have?

Some of you will have noticed that people genuflect in front of the aumbry or tabernacle, where the Reserved Sacrament is kept – consecrated bread stored in case of need, such as for the sick. Is it only bread that’s in there? Why kneel before bread?

Well, the Eucharist is the ritual and quite real expression of Christ’s love. What really makes the Eucharist happen is love. It can only take place in an atmosphere of love, of unity, of sharing community and Communion. While the priest is necessary for the consecration of the bread and wine, we all participate in its transformation. By praying together with the priest, by joining together as one body, we participate in a process that fills the bread with God’s love. By the power of the Holy Spirit, by God’s power, this is made possible. God is love.

So what we have in our hands after the completion of the Eucharistic prayer is not the result of hocus-pocus. It’s not magic at all. It’s God in our hands, but in particular it is love in our hands: love of all Creation, love of one another, love of God. We keep what looks like bread in a tabernacle and kneel before it because we acknowledge the limitless power of love. Amor vincit omnia: Love conquers all.

When you take the Eucharist in your hand later on, I’d like you to look at the bread for what it really is: the fullest expression of love – and food not for your stomach, but for your heart. Amen.

The following is translated from German – I mention that because there are a few spots where the phrases don't translate well into English. This was the sermon I gave yesterday when I was subbing for our priest, who's on a trip this week.

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Isaiah 55:10-11, Psalm 65:10-14, Romans 8:18-23, Matthew 13:1-23)

I don't know who of you likes to work in the garden or in the fields, but if so, then today's readings are just for you. The opening hymn, Morning Has Broken, fits this theme. All that's missing are the chirping of birds and perhaps as a Communion hymn the "Morning Mood" from the Peer Gynt suite.

Today we hear about seeds, sprouts, blooms and grains. That all has something to say, a mystical meaning, a message for us. Unfortunately for us modern people, we tend to associate different things with gardening: mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, pulling weeds, maybe spray against bugs. It's all about appearances, largely a façade for the neighbors – so that everyone in the neighborhood knows that no slobs live here.

But that's not at all what is meant in the readings. Most people today in Europe or North America no longer have a close connection to Mother Earth. Gardens are a thing of hobbies or for show. Tilling the fields is just a thing for farmers, while we go and buy our food at the supermarket. Fresh food from the garden is uncommon, sometimes even a burden: anyone with a friend who gardens will no doubt be showered with extra zucchinis and apples and cherries until you can't stand them anymore. But our existence certainly doesn't depend on it.

Back then, in Jesus' time, it was different. The overwhelming majority of people had to till the fields so that they had anything to eat. Even those who did not have to work in the fields were intimately aware of the work required and how it was going. Everyone knew if the harvest was good: you couldn't just go and get bananas from Central America or apples from Spain or asparagus from Greece. If the harvest wasn't good, you went hungry, and everyone else you knew did, too. In times of starvation, whosoever didn't grab a farming tool didn't eat.

Whoever works in their garden today thus only gets a tiny inkling of the enormous labor required to get nourishment from the fields. For tilling the soil is of necessity communal work. Alone, one can't sow the seeds, milk the cows, cut the fruit trees, and so on. Out in the fields, community is necessary, even vital. It's no coincidence that the earliest mighty civilizations – Egypt, for example – crystallized around agriculture. The first states – the first societies capable of survival – were primarily for encouraging and managing agriculture, and were made possible by agriculture's own existence.

Society itself is like a plant. It needs a bit of "tender loving care", as we say in English. It needs love. Plants may not think, but they need love anyway. Whosoever cares most for his plants will bear the greatest fruit.

I hear from some people that it's not necessary to go to church every Sunday, that the institution of church itself is a load of crap, that they feel turned off by organized religion (which sounds rather like "organized crime", and maybe intentionally). Such people like to say that nature is their church.

What the images in today's readings show us, however, is the exact opposite. Nature, life itself, needs community to flourish and grow. Whosoever cares most for his plants will bear the greatest fruit. Whosoever works most in the fields will reap the greatest harvest. Nature needs this care, this attention, this work so that it is useful to us. Society benefits when we all work together.

Further, it's of course the case that we can "meet God" anywhere in the world, whether in church or on the highest mountain or the deepest valley. But the question is rather, how and where can I most likely meet and experience God?

It is perhaps the case that Nature can be a church. But the truth is, society – the Church – is our nature.

In the community – communion – we celebrate Nature, and indeed our nature. Just as the individual can't bring nature to its fullest flower without the community, so too can one not bring oneself to the fullest flower without community. Naturally I get annoyed with things in the church's institutions. You have no idea how angry I get about the church, whether it's the recent vote on female bishops in the Church of England, or the fighting over our own central common funding scheme, or the latest pronouncements from Rome or Constantinople or Moscow. Nevertheless this community is vital for finding our own fulfillment, so that our nature finds its fulfillment – so that the Kingdom of God gets ever closer. It begins by going to church on Sunday, but also must continue with deaconry and social welfare, personally caring for others while also donating to worthy causes. It's work. Back-breaking work even. But if we want to reap the harvest, we have to till the fields.

In nature's fields, we are ourselves the seeds. We need this attention, this tender loving care. We bloom ourselves. The celebration of Holy Communion is an important part of this care, where we both in a mystical as well as literal sense water and feed ourselves, so that we can be a rich harvest.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Whosoever cares most for his plants will bear the greatest fruit. If we love one another and work for and with one another, then the harvest will be truly great. Amen.

Sermon for Proper 9, Lectionary Year A

(Zechariah 9:9-12, Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-19,25-30)

Today’s Gospel has an interesting idea in it, one of the better-known sayings of Jesus as the closing line: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”. The image of the yoke is an interesting choice, because it contrasts a bit with another well-known statement Jesus makes elsewhere, in the Gospel of John: “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free’.”

Freedom on the one hand, and yokes on the other. Is there a contradiction?

A frequent criticism I hear from non-Christians regarding the concept of Christian belief is the notion that by submitting ourselves to the restrictions and laws of our God, we make ourselves slaves. By believing in an all-powerful, all-seeing God, the parallel to a totalitarian state is made. God as Orwell’s Big Brother. All pretty threatening, worrying stuff. And indeed in some parts of the Church, the requirement to do private confession does have an aftertaste of the police state about it. So what is the meaning of freedom?

Most of us in Western countries, countries of the Enlightenment, tend to think of freedom mostly in the sense of “freedom to”. We are free to say what we want. We are free to live where we want. We are free to meet whom we want. And so on. We believe strongly in a free will and a free conscience. All those are good things.

So when someone comes along and talks about a yoke as a good thing, it’s a bit of a shock to us. If I came to you and told you to wear a harness so you’d feel freer, you’d think I was completely mad. So what is Jesus talking about here?

Well, freedom isn’t just “freedom to”. I think the best and most concise definition of basic human freedoms was made by Franklin Roosevelt in 1943, which went on to form the basis of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. These “Four Freedoms” are as follows:

1. Freedom of speech and expression
2. Freedom of religion
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from fear

Note that the first two are “of” freedoms or “to” freedoms — freedom to think, say and believe what you want. But the next two are “freedom from”. To achieve these “from” freedoms, a bit more cooperative effort is necessary – a society to maintain and protect these basic freedoms and to give them meaning. “Society” means some basic set of rules of the road, rules of conduct, ethical rules, things that govern how we treat each other and ourselves.

The yoke of Jesus is a metaphor for the Law, and the New Covenant that Jesus represents. It is a set of rules we voluntarily agree to in order to realize the potential freedom they bring. If we follow those rules in good faith and in good conscience, but also of our own free will, then unimagined potential in our society can be released. But there is another word in there that is easily forgotten: the burden of this yoke is light. In contrast to other belief systems or religions, the Christian message has a very simple, clear basis: love God and love one another. From these twin ideas flow everything else. The rules don’t get much simpler than that, even if we often miss the target. The burden is light because we bear it willingly and reap its rewards in this life as well as the next.

So what are we being freed from? Simply put, sin. What is sin? I think the most basic definition of sin is when we fail to fulfill those two basic commandments – we fail to love God and one another, and we fail to follow through on that love. I would go a bit further and equate love with life itself. When it says “the wages of sin is death”, this reversal of working to allow life – our life – to flourish is made clear. Life itself is holy; damaging life is not.

Paul notices this in his Epistle as he notices his own failings: “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me”. This failure, this listening to the wrong voices or impulses, shouldn’t make us just feel bad or disappointed. It should motivate us to try harder to bring those two basic commandments to fulfillment in ourselves and in our society. The reality that we make mistakes or don’t live up to the high standard that God’s Law implies isn’t a reason to give up. It’s a reason to keep trying. It’s a reason to work for life itself.

Thus the ironic discovery we make here is that by voluntarily obeying some very basic rules, rules of love, we liberate ourselves. We choose life. As Paul says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

My yoke is easy, my burden is light; I am the way, the truth and the light; and the truth shall set you free. Amen.

Our rector is currently on vacation, so yesterday it fell to me to plan and run the Sunday service in German. Here is a translation of the sermon I delivered. It has more or less the same starting point as the previous one because of the way the lectionary works.

Sermon for Proper 6, Lectionary Year A

(Exodus 19:2-6a, Psalm 100, Romans 5:6-11, Matthew 9:36-10:8)

In the readings in the Bible, we are confronted repeatedly with imagery that is clearly intended to illustrate the Christian message. The image that is perhaps most common is that of a journey: Abraham and Sarah leaving their homeland in what's now Iraq to go to Canaan, today's Israel; Noah and his Ark; Moses and the tribes of Israel on the way from Egypt back to the Holy Land; Mary and Joseph searching for a place to sleep, or indeed the Wise Men from the East searching for the newborn Jesus; Jesus wandering for forty days and forty nights through the wilderness.

In those times where Israel was held captive, whether in exile in Babylon or in Egypt, its people longed to go on a journey, back into their homeland, back into God's embrace.

In today's Gospel, we see this again. Jesus speaks of "lost sheep". For us today, that image isn't so pregnant as it was for people of those days, because most of us don't experience firsthand what a shepherd does. Most people, I think, have an image of the shepherd sitting there on a grassy hill watching over his flock. But shepherds rarely sit still. Mostly they are in constant motion, from one meadow to the next, and they have to pay great attention that all stay together -- for protection, for a feeling of safety. So Jesus asks the Twelve to find the lost sheep in His name and bring them back, so that all -- so that we -- can walk the same path together.

The psalm also mentions this idea: "we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture". Each of us is a sheep, and each of us sometimes gets lost or leaves the way -- we go in the wrong direction, separate ourselves from others and from the group that provides us protection and comfort. We have a word for that: sin. Sin is that which separates us from God, but also from each other.

Paul has the solution for us, but also a reminder. He notes that we human beings are not normally ready to stick out our necks for others. We don't like to sacrifice ourselves and seek first and foremost our own advantage. We do, however, have an example that leads us back together: Jesus Christ, who made the ultimate sacrifice, His own life. He did it so that we could reconcile ourselves -- so that we learn to get along; so that we learn to overcome our differences. And sometimes it's necessary that we forgive ourselves, so that we can forgive others and reconcile. When we are enemies of each other, we are enemies of God.

When we have problems with one another, it's very, very hard to admit our own error. That is a sacrifice that very few are willing to make. We lose face, or so we think. But in reality it is a thing that brings release and relief, just as it brings release and relief to admit our own sin. We say casually "nobody's perfect", but we don't take those words to heart. We can't manage to reconcile ourselves to others if we can't bring ourselves to admit our own faults clearly and openly -- and then the other is more willing to do the same.

So that we come together, whether it's in the family, at work, or indeed in ecumenism, we must all make sacrifices so that true community and reconciliation can take place. Holier-than-thou fingerpointing may feel good at first, but it doesn't really help us at all.

This is why we have to learn to accept and deal with the idea of sin. We don't like to admit error, certainly not in public. It's embarrassing. Others make fun of us. But it takes courage -- the courage to admit our faults and to work on them, to improve ourselves for the future, without harping on (or even noticing) the faults of others. Once we forgive ourselves, forgive our friends and neighbors, and reconcile ourselves to one another and with God, we can fulfill the mission given us by Christ in today's Gospel: go to the lost sheep of Israel, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God is near. For when we do this, the Kingdom comes ever nearer. Amen.

The following was the sermon I wrote for tonight's English church service at our parish. Needless to say, there was a lot of suppressed chortling and WTF looks, which is just the way I like it. :-)

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Sermon for Easter Season/Ascension(Acts 1:6-14, John 17:1-11)

The Easter season has, for the untrained yet modern eye, a lot of odd things going on. On Good Friday we have a rabbi being falsely accused and executed for saying we should be nice to each other. Then he comes back from the dead. Then, as we heard at the last English service, he does a vanishing act after walking along with some of his disciples – he breaks some bread and »poof!«. And now today we have Jesus doing his very own forerunner of »Beam me up, Scotty«.

Now I’m not going to remotely suggest that Jesus Christ went up to some Starship Enterprise waiting on him. But that’s what the text of the first reading sounds like at first glance: Jesus is »taken up into Heaven«, as if Jesus is up there in the stars and galaxies swirling above us, doing warp eight. Maybe the two guys in white are the landing party. As for us, we even use the word »heavens« as if the sky – or outer space – is indeed where Jesus went when he left his disciples.

Jesus’ words in the Gospel make it sound like that as well: He’s returning to the Father, going to Heaven, leaving the world. Live long and prosper.

The name of this particular season doesn’t help: Ascension Day. Christ »ascends« into heaven. The German word is even worse, Himmelfahrt, as if Christ gets into a car or spaceship and – zoom! – off he goes.

That’s not really what is happening, so I’ll stop weirding you out with that. I’ll weird you out with something else: Merry Christmas!

You may not see any Christmas trees or greenery, and the weather sure doesn’t look like a White Christmas outside, but today we celebrate Christmas – or more exactly, the fulfillment of Christmas. You see, Christmas is when God became incarnate. He walked the Earth as one of us. That says a lot about God and a lot about us.

To paraphrase from a sermon I once read, let’s say we heard that there was a cat that had died and then came back from the dead by God’s power, and used that power to do great things to help other cats. We’d know two things: One, that cat was pretty special, and two, God thinks cats are worth saving, because after all, He sent a cat to help kitties all over the place.

Of course, Jesus wasn’t a cat or a dog or a fish or a cow, but a human being. God sent His son to be with us and to show us the Way. He cares about us: as the Bible says, »for God so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten Son«. Not only that, but because God became human, God knows what it’s like to be human. When we suffer, or go through rough times, it’s reassuring to know that God isn’t just putting us all through this, He went through it Himself, even death. God loves us very much and knows just how we feel.

So on Ascension, this Christmas incarnation stuff comes full circle: Jesus returns to His Father, and the cycle is complete. Not unlike the spinning of a galaxy coming full circle. Life is a series of cycles, of things coming to fruition. Ascension is the completion of such a cycle, just as our own lives are smaller cycles inside far greater ones.

Ascension is thus a reminder: First and foremost of God’s love and transcending power. But also of ourselves and our need to keep moving, to keep growing, to keep learning, as Time’s Arrow pulls us on and on along life’s path. What kind of a path, though?

The path of Ascension is not about is physical laws or literal senses of direction. Christ did not take a celestial elevator and certainly did not get beamed up. To think in such terms of »where is Heaven« is to fundamentally misunderstand the whole story of salvation. We can’t fly to Heaven any more than Jesus could.

There are, however, yet again hints of a journey in Jesus’ words, of travel. Over and over again, Jesus uses motion and travel to express what He is about. »I am the Way and the Truth and the Life«. Indeed the Christian Church itself in the early days was simply called »The Way«.

So Ascension is a story of progress, of growth, of achieving higher states of being. Not in a literal sense, as if taller people are closer to God than shorter ones. Rather, we reach a higher spiritual plane, of traveling higher and higher within ourselves to discover more about us. The more we explore and improve ourselves and shine light within the darkest recesses of our minds, the more we see and learn, the closer we get to God. Most importantly, we pass on the knowledge and insight that we find on to the next generation, and the cycle begins anew. Each of us has been given the power to ascend, to get ever closer to Truth.

Today’s archaic-sounding liturgy is also a reminder of that journey. Ancient people went before us, and we follow in their footsteps. As an old Anglican once said – Sir Isaac Newton – we stand on the shoulders of giants. As we recite the same prayers our forebears did, we remind ourselves of the Way of Christ. By looking backwards, we also force ourselves to look ever forwards. We learn.

Thus the Church is The Way. As we sit here together, sharing Communion with one another, teaching and learning from one another as well as from the wisdom handed down to us over the generations, we walk on Christ’s Way – a path that leads ever upwards, higher and higher, until we can reach the proverbial stars. Amen.

Your comments would be appreciated, as this is a work in progress for Saturday's English service at our parish. Funnily enough, its development ran parallel to some of our recent discussion. ;-)

Sermon for Lent

(John 9:1-41)

As many of you know, I suffer from a host of health problems. I won’t get into all the various illnesses I have, but suffice it to say that lately I’ve had a lot of health issues to deal with. I told this to a colleague earlier this week, and his reaction was to ask if I’d been cursed or if I had walked under a ladder or something.

In today’s Gospel, we have a man who was born blind, and the disciples have a similar sort of reaction. What sort of sin did this man commit to have been born blind? Or did his parents do something so terribly wrong that God punished them by making their son blind?

So we have to ask, does God make us suffer?

The »problem of suffering« is a common idea that is used to attack the very nature of belief in God. The premise is that an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God would not or even could not allow suffering, therefore there is no God.

The counter to that occurs to me as a parent quite easily. My children are very young and don’t understand very much yet, so my attempts at raising them will often seem irrational to them, even cruel. Here is my daughter enjoying herself tremendously as she draws on the walls and furniture, and along comes Daddy to take away the magic marker and tell her off, spoiling her fun. Not very easy to understand for a two-year-old. So from her point of view, Daddy makes her suffer sometimes, and she is as yet unable to see the greater good – the fact that Daddy is just trying to teach her the rules of social interaction, among which is not to draw with magic markers all over Mommy’s valuable lamp.

Jesus, insightful as always, points this out. He says, the man »was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him«. So what we perceive as suffering has a larger purpose that we simple-minded short-term-thinking human beings have difficulty seeing or appreciating. We see our short-term pain – like my daughter being yelled at by Daddy – and fail to see the long-term gain. We don’t think very well in terms of long spans of time, certainly not in generations, centuries or even millennia.

To add some more depth to the story, Jesus is once again confronted by the Pharisees, the learned ones who think they know it all. As is typical for them, they can’t see the forest for the trees, so rather than praise God for the blind man’s healing, they nitpick about how Jesus supposedly broke the Sabbath. They too lack the insight to see the bigger picture. They even assume the blind man must have been »born into sin« to deserve being blind.

So Jesus points out what by now is plain to us. The Pharisees, for all their learning and intellect, may see physically, but they fail to see spiritually. They are blind – far blinder than the »blind« man ever was.

Thus the key to understanding our own suffering, and to appreciating God’s work in our lives, is to open our inward eyes and truly see what is going on around us – to see that short-term pain as a learning opportunity, as a chance to care for one another, as a chance to show compassion and sympathy, as a chance to be healed. In so doing, we open our eyes to see the true light of the world, who is ever in our midst when we need Him. Amen.

Unfortunately I never got a chance to write down my sermons from the last two months -- for All Saints' and Advent -- but here's the one I delivered at today's monthly service.

Sermon for Epiphany
(Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12)

Happy birthday, Jesus!
Let’s have a big birthday bash for our Lord!
And look, there’s three Wise Men bringing presents!

Is that what’s going on in today’s Gospel? A birthday party? Or maybe a baby shower? One could be forgiven for thinking so, though one wonders just what a young couple with their first child would do with gold, incense and myrrh. The gold of course could be used to buy some diapers, but incense? Myrrh? How many people even know what myrrh is? And how do we know this baby, of all the babies ever born, is so special?

Fans of Monty Python will of course remember the Life of Brian, where the Wise Men knock on the wrong door and enter Brian’s stall, not Jesus’, and the mother is a bit perturbed by these three strange men barging in on her. She says to the wise men, »Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o’clock in the morning? That doesn’t sound very wise to me.« They protest that they must see the babe, that they are astrologers, travelers from the East. She tells them to »Go and praise someone else’s brat«, until they inform her they have presents, so she changes her mind, and is again perturbed when she finds out what the presents are. »Gold. Frankincense. Myrrh.« She asks »What is myrrh, anyway?«, and they tell her it’s a valuable balm, which she thinks is a furry animal that might bite her baby.

Of course, the beauty in this satire is that such a scene is more or less what many people think happened. Mary and Joseph are about to settle down for the night after having dealt with the shepherds showing up unannounced when three kings barge in with oddball presents for a baby. The problem is that the scene is torn from its context and a caricature of it has been fixed in people’s minds, so the deeper meaning is lost. (For one thing, we don’t actually know how many »kings« there were, and they weren’t kings, but Magi, wise men, learned ones.)

The Old Testament reading gives us a hint as to what is really going on. It says, »Arise, shine, your light has come!« and continues with the prophecy »They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.« This is Isaiah speaking, the prophet of the Israelites writing at a time of great peril and desperation for Israel, when Israel was beset on all sides by invaders and is badly divided amongst itself, wondering when Israel’s bondage and oppression and wars will end. He’s speaking of the Messiah, which means the Anointed One (just as the word »Christ« does), the Messiah being the person who will break those bonds and that will bring light and peace and hope into the darkness of our world.

These things take time. Making peace in this world takes time. Just imagine, Isaiah was writing around 750 years before Christ was born. And indeed the text of a Christmas chant makes the passage of time clear:

In the beginning God created the world.
Billions of years had passed since our Sun and Earth came forth,
millions of years since life arose on this Earth and humanity came into being,
many thousands of years since tribes, peoples and cultures arose,
two thousand and fifteen years since Abraham was born,
one thousand five hundred and ten since Moses led Israel out of Egypt,
one thousand twenty-three since the anointing of King David,
in the hundred-ninety-fourth Olympiad,
in the seven hundred fifty-second year after the foundation of Rome,
in the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus,
at that time all the Earth was at peace.
It was then that Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the Father,
desired to come into the world and sanctify it by His coming.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months after His conception
He was born in Bethlehem in Judea,
made man of the Virgin Mary.
We celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in our own flesh.

That chant gives us another hint as to what’s going on in the Christmas season. It doesn’t sound much like a birthday party, does it? And it makes us feel pretty small compared to the vast sweep of time. Christmas isn’t about 2,000 years ago; it’s about millions and billions of years ago. And it’s about the years ahead of us, on the long road to the Kingdom of God.

The »presents« the Magi bring offer another hint. Gold is a present that was considered fit only for kings. Frankincense is a special kind of incense, a present only given to a High Priest, to be used in the Temple. And myrrh, that strange substance Brian’s mother couldn’t identify, is indeed a valuable balm – used for healing and was given to those who practiced medicine. So what the Magi were saying wasn’t »here’s a gift certificate for diapers and while we're at it a free pacifier« or even »your baby’s a Capricorn that will be prudent and wise and patient and all that«. They were hailing this baby as being the King of Kings, the High Priest, and the healing Savior who will, with time, heal all the wounds of this world. Those three gifts are a profound symbol of the meaning of Christ’s birth.

So where was Christ born? Well, in the literal sense He was born in Bethlehem in a manger, but as the Logos, the Son in the Trinity, he of course was never »born« like you and me; He always existed, even before Time itself. Christmas 2,000 years ago was just the point where He entered our world. And Christmas today is thus not an anniversary or a birthday; It’s a rebirth, a birth in ourselves, in our hearts, so that step by step, generation for generation, we fulfill the promise of peace Christ brings us. That’s the real present this Christmas. Amen.

This is the sermon I gave for yesterday's English service at our parish.

Sermon for Proper 17, Year C

(Epistle: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14)

There’s an old phrase we like to use in the American South: “Southern hospitality.” Being from the South myself originally, naturally that phrase makes me swell up with pride. Traditionally, Southerners are very particular about being hospitable, generous to our guests, welcoming and friendly and courteous. We love to invite people over, and we love to chat. Pull up a chair on the veranda and sit a spell, and let’s chew the fat, as we say.

So naturally today’s readings bring a little smile to this Virginian’s face, because that’s just what they are all about – hospitality. But they take it to an even deeper level than even the most hospitable of Southerners take it. What do we mean by “hospitality”, anyway, particularly as Christians?

The most basic level of “hospitality” is of course just being a good host – providing enough to eat and drink, stimulating conversation, being friendly and gracious and so on. A good host makes the guest want to come back again. It also goes the other way, though. The guest plays a part in the delicate dance of hospitality. You don’t overstay your welcome, and you most certainly don’t take advantage of the generosity of your host. You also want to be invited back. And neither wants to cause embarrassment or shame to the other.

So the Pharisees who invited Jesus over for a little chit-chat weren’t being terribly good hosts, because they were trying to set a little trap for him. Like the Pharisees did over and over again throughout the Gospels, they were testing Jesus: They were watching him closely to see what “place of honor” he would take at the table. Jesus, however, showed grace by taking the lowest and humblest spot instead. He set an example of being a gracious guest, by allowing other guests to have a better spot.

He also gently reminds his host that he shouldn’t be lavishing his generosity on those who don’t need it, but rather on those who do. Generosity is otherwise wasted. It seems like common sense to hear it said that way, and indeed Jesus says a lot that is common sense – but it is so easily forgotten, and we often need reminding.

Paul also talks about this in his letter to the Hebrews. He says pretty prosaically, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it”. I like that turn of phrase, entertaining angels without knowing it, for it captures a hidden truth: We don’t necessarily have celestial beings in our midst, but we do have people with hidden gifts whose talents might otherwise be lost or put to less use if it weren’t for our generosity saving them from ruin.

Who knows what potential lies hidden in people – or their children or families – waiting to be unlocked if we would only open up to one another, showing that generosity that Jesus and Paul talk about. We all have angels in us, the better angels of our nature: our hospitality and our generosity, directed towards those who truly need it: the downtrodden, the needy, the homeless, the careworn, the poor. As Paul says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’” For no matter how badly each of us feels, there are others who feel worse and need our care – and they in turn can be the angels for others.

So that delicate dance of hospitality I mentioned earlier comes full circle. We are all hosts, but we are all guests at the table. As we selflessly think of others, we ensure that others selflessly think of us. With that delicate dance, we dance our way into the kingdom of God. Amen.

Tomorrow is the English service at our church. Here is the sermon I wrote for it for your enjoyment.

Sermon for Proper 13, Year C

(Epistle: Colossians 3:1-11, Gospel: Luke 12:13-21)

One of my favorite songs is by a rock band called Kansas from 1977. The song is very popular in America and has become almost a cliché because it is so popular, while many miss the intended Christian message hidden in the words. It ties in very nicely with today’s readings. The song is called “Dust in the Wind”, which I’d like to quote for you now:

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
[Now] Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, and all your money won’t another minute buy.
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.

As it happens, the Old Testament reading today, if we had done the full three readings, would have been from the book Ecclesiastes, which echoes that song very strongly and probably inspired it. The Teacher, as the writer of the book calls himself, says: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.”

Paul and Jesus also remind us that we are only here for a short time. We don’t have much time on this mortal Earth to do whatever it is we are here to do. So when that someone in the crowd shouts out to Jesus, “tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me”, you can almost hear the exasperation in Jesus’ voice: “Who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And Jesus continues on with a parable of the rich farmer hoarding his grain in ever larger barns, only to have it rot when he dies suddenly. The grain serves no one, and the farmer dies a fool.

True wealth is thus not in money or stored up grain or other treasure, but in what we have in each other. It is when we share with one another that our material belongings become truly useful and worthwhile. It is by connecting to one another that we create the community of God. Vanity is setting ourselves apart, for whatever the reason. Vanity is division. Vanity is the walls between us that we build every day, whether we realize it or not. Paul points this out by saying we should tear down the walls between ourselves – there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all. We are all Christ when Christ is within us.

This is also the symbol we make as we join together in the Eucharist, the spirit of community and of Communion. We join together as one before God as God is born within us. That is the true incredible precious gift that lasts forever, spanning generations: the community we build and share, the true inheritance that that voice calling to Jesus overlooked.

Like the song says, all your money won’t another minute buy. Dust in the wind. But our fellowship, our communion with one another and with God: that’s what buys us eternal life. Amen.

Since our priest is still on short-term leave due to the arrival of their third child, I ended up planning tomorrow's service and writing a sermon on the fly, though he will at least lead the service. Here is the sermon, translated into English.

Sermon for readings Genesis 18:20-32 and Luke 11:1-13

In the readings today from the Old Testament and the Gospel we have two apparent opposites. Both are examples of prayer. In the first story, Abraham is praying for mercy for the just people in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; in the Gospel, we see the words of the Lord's Prayer, as Jesus teaches it to us. In the first story we have the wrathful God apparently about to destroy whole cities; in the second, we have the loving God who seems to tell us we can have anything we pray for.

The opposites go further. Abraham prays for others -- he prays for the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, whom he wants to save from the wrath of God. But Jesus teaches us to pray for ourselves. »Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you«. Abraham talks to God; Jesus Christ is God. And so on.

But both stories have a common message. God keeps His word. God keeps His promises. He does what He says. He is faithful and He is merciful. He would rather spare the many wicked than harm the few innocent, and He hears what Abraham says to Him. This is what Jesus is referring to when He says, »Ask, and it will be given to you«.

This asking, knocking, seeking: These are all parts of initiating a relationship. I don't like to talk of God's Will too much and there aren't many places where I think I can say for sure what God's Will is, but this is one case where I feel pretty sure: God wants us to build a relationship with Him. Ask. Knock. Seek. Have faith in me. I am here for you.

And prayer is the spiritual tool with which we build that relationship. So we speak to God in the depths of our hearts. It isn't the dry recitations of set pieces of texts. For I don't believe that the Lord's Prayer was meant to be recited exactly as Jesus said it in the Gospel. Rather, it was meant to inspire us to similar ways of prayer. This is why Jesus moves on to make his parable of the friend and the loaves of bread, to take up the idea of our "daily bread".

This is why I'm such a fan of the Celts. They had countless prayers that were poetic and rhythmic, almost musical. They effortlessly made up new ones, and you could almost dance to each one. The closing blessing we'll use today is one such example. Prayer should thus give wing to the heart and mind, so that we come closer to God and each other. It is more than mere dialog: it is sensuality.

In closing here is one such prayer:

The hand of God hold me
The love of Christ in my veins
The strength of the Spirit bathe me.
The Three guard me and aid me,
The Three guard me and aid me.
The hand of the Spirit bathes me
Step by step, the Three aid me. Amen.

I mentioned briefly in Em's blog that I'm running the upcoming Sunday service for the first time, since our priest's family had their third child, and I'm delivering the sermon in German (the sermons I've done until now were in English). But for grins and giggles, here is the text in English.

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Sermon for Luke 10:38-42

As I was researching today's Gospel reading, I came across an old tale from Scotland in another sermon. The story goes like this: There was a poor shepherd boy who was tending his few sheep on a deserted mountaintop, when he spotted a beautiful little flower next to his foot. He knelt down, plucked the flower, and noticed that it was more beautiful than any flower that he had ever seen. He held it close to his eyes and drank in its beauty. As he did so, he heard a low rumbling sound, turned around and saw a cave opening behind him. As the sun's rays shone into the cave opening, he saw the glittering of jewels and gold and precious metals.

Clasping the flower to his chest, he went into the cave. He laid the flower on the ground and picked up as much gold and silver as he could carry. Then he turned to leave, when a deep voice boomed from the depths of the cave, saying, "You forgot the best."

He looked around, thinking he must have overlooked some special treasure, and began putting more wonderful bits of jewels and gold in his pockets until there was no possible way he could carry any more. His arms overflowed with unimaginable treasures fit for emperors of ages old. As he again turned to leave, the voice sounded again. "You forgot the best."

But he simply couldn't carry any more, so he hurried out of the cave as quickly as he could. As he left the cave, the opening closed behind him. He turned to look, and all the treasure in his arms turned to sand and dust, and the voice called out, now faint behind the wall of rock, "You forgot the best: For the flower was the key to the mountain."

In today's Gospel, we have another flower that we easily forget: Martha, the poor sister that carries the load for everyone. Jesus comes for a visit, and at Martha's and Mary's house, the household has its hands full. Martha thinks she has to deal with everything and be a good hostess, cook the food, get the drinks, and so on. (Remember in those days such work was hardly trivial.) But her sister Mary, she's so brazen, she just sits down comfortably to listen to what Jesus has to say.

You can imagine how you'd feel in the same situation. A famous person comes for a visit, perhaps the bishop, or the Queen, and you have to take care of everything, while your spouse or your sister just sits there and chats with your guest. I'd blow my stack, too. And indeed Martha snaps at Jesus. "Tell her then to help me!"

But Martha isn't hit by a bolt of lightning or cast into the pits of Hell, but rather Jesus reminds us between the lines that Martha is special, too. For Mary may be the good student and listens to Jesus the Teacher when he comes to talk, and indeed Jesus says "Mary has chosen the better part". But Jesus doesn't berate Martha or tell her to drop everything and come hither. So she wasn't wrong, either. So Martha puts what Jesus talks about into action. Mary represents the treasures of Jesus' words, to pick up our Scottish story. Martha is the flower, the key that can't be forgotten.

Both parts are necessary in life. Listening and believing -- the "better part", as Jesus says, on the one hand, represented by Mary; but also caring and giving, turning Jesus' words into real action in the here and now, caring for others, providing where there is need, represented by Martha.

Piety, faith and belief are worthless if we don't care for one another. Selflessness and sympathy are the key part of our belief. The great treasures of Godliness turn to dust if we forget that key. Amen.

Here is the sermon I wrote for last week's English service, which also may change what non-believers think about Christian prayer and our understanding of the Bible (and act as an antidote to the misconceptions that Falwell & Co. create). Indeed our "high church" Anglo-Catholic way of looking at the Bible and prayer might be recognizable to Buddhists or Taoists -- there are certainly some parallels.

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Sermon for Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

(based on reading Luke 10:1-11, 16-20)

There is a sentence in today’s Gospel reading that really grabs me whenever I hear it: »I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning«. That is an astonishing, amazing, poetic sentence, but also one that is frightening, jarring, unsettling to our postmodern ears. We are unaccustomed to talking about Satan or sin or indeed forces of nature in that immediately present way. And we are unaccustomed to that kind of spiritual encounter. How did people think of spirituality long ago?

As it happens I am a history junkie. I love to read about history, in particular medieval history, most especially about the so-called early Dark Ages period in the British Isles, when the Romanized Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes and Vikings vied for control of those lands. They too had that same way of writing about nature. It’s a beautiful way of writing that is nearly lost to us today. J.R.R. Tolkien, of »Lord of the Rings« fame, tried to revive it, of course, but even he only managed a pale imitation of what the originals managed to conjure up effortlessly (and Tolkien knew it). That phrase in the Gospel is a classic example. »I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning«.

To give you a small example, here is a short Celtic prayer:

As it was,
As it is,
As it shall be;
Evermore, O Thou Triune of grace!
With the ebb,
With the flow,
O Thou Triune of grace!
With the ebb,
With the flow.
Amen.

You will notice the rhythm and repetition of that prayer suggest movement, water, cycles, and so much more in just a few words. So much is said with so little. When you read it aloud, you can almost dance to it – it’s entrancing. I don’t think many modern prayers can do that.

So what does this way of writing or speaking tell us about ourselves today?

Before we answer that, let’s look at another aspect of today’s Gospel. The disciples are being scattered on the four winds, two by two, to spread the Good News that Jesus has to tell us. There is an air of expectation and optimism. Nature itself submits to the disciples in the form of scorpions and demons and that flash of lightning. The message, I think, is that the power of our belief takes away our fear of the power of Nature itself.

The thing is, our modern industralized world has removed us from the immediate interaction with Nature, so we don’t feel that same sort of confrontation with the forces of Nature itself. We see a scorpion, we get the bug spray. We see someone »possessed« by inner demons, we call a psychologist or the police. We rationalize things. To use the psychological metaphor, we have moved far from the creative animalistic right side of the brain to the logical left side, and have lost touch with the more vibrant multifaceted world our forebears saw around themselves.

I’m not saying we should go back to blatant superstition, of course. But those symbols and charged atmosphere, those flashes of lightning, were bits and pieces of a spiritual toolbox that our forebears used to unlock deeper secrets in themselves and their understanding of the world in a very different way from what the rational logical world has to offer.

Prayer is the beginning of that path to rediscovering that toolbox that many of us have lost. Most of us, unfortunately, think of prayer as reciting set pieces of long, precise texts – like the Nicene Creed or the Lord’s Prayer. But the best prayers are short, spontaneous, highly personal, symbolic and heartfelt. The texts we see should inspire to new ones, not be dully recited. And they bring us inner peace and certitude – a kind of meditation or contemplation.

So in closing, I would like to offer another short prayer along these lines:

God with me lying down,
God with me rising up,
God with me in each ray of light,
Nor I a ray of joy without him,
Nor one ray without him. Amen.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, our Old Catholic parish does a monthly Anglican/Episcopal service in English. Since it was more or less my idea to do it, and since I'm the Episcopalian in the parish, it falls to me to plan the service. Our parish priest isn't so hot in English (he's OK reading the prayers, but not in speaking extemporaneously), so it quickly ended up where I would write the sermon and he would read over at it and approve it, then I deliver it during the service. A bit of an unusual arrangement (and maybe not too kosher "by the book"), but it's the only way we can do it, so oh well.

This Saturday is the next service, and as it happens it's for Trinity Sunday. Anyone who knows much about sermons will tell you that Trinity Sunday is, to put it in a colorful way, a royal bitch to write about. So here's my current draft of the sermon, for your amusement and criticism and enjoyment.

(Update)
Our priest made a few minor suggestions and tweaks that I thought were good ideas, so I adopted them and added them to the text below -- mainly to the final paragraph.

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Trinity Sunday

This weekend we celebrate Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is the bane of sermon-writers everywhere, because, well, you have to talk about the Holy Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A minefield even for experienced theologians. Oddly, the word »Trinity« doesn’t appear in the Bible, though the triune God does make cameo appearances. St. Patrick famously tried to use the shamrock – the cloverleaf you see on the cover of the bulletin – to describe the Trinity, which according to an article by some theologians I found, is actually a fatally flawed model. Wonderful. So what’s a desperate inexperienced sermon-writer to do?

This is the sort of thing where you desperately invite in the bishop for the weekend to give the sermon, then you find out he’s booked solid (because all the other parishes were much more clever than you and booked him years in advance) and you’re left thinking of a way of explaining the Trinity to your parish without causing yourself great embarrassment.

So you just change the subject.

So let’s talk about baseball.

I love baseball. Baseball is the true quintessential American sport, and like many Americans I grew up watching baseball. In the thirteen years I have lived in Germany, when I most feel homesick it is often because I can’t watch a baseball game.

Homesickness is a kind of loneliness, a spiritual feeling of being separated from other people. When you can’t share with them. Being lonely is a terrible feeling. Being unable to share your feelings is a a terrible feeling. Being unable to share them with your own child is a really terrible feeling.

One of the basic essential things about baseball is watching it with your kids. Unlike European football or soccer, baseball has a very wholesome childlike feeling to it, a tradition of fathers taking their sons and daughters to games. Now that I have two small children, the homesickness got worse, because I couldn’t take my kids to a ballgame.

So recently we got digital cable with some English channels. Thus we can now watch baseball on TV. Not quite the same thing as going to a real game, but close enough. And my son Edward clearly understood what it meant, because he was really excited by getting to watch baseball. So we shared it, and it was a great experience watching a game together. Father and son bonded, and my daughter was there too, the three of us bonding together.

We were together. The loneliness was gone. Three in one.

And that, to me, is the beginning of understanding the Trinity. God is three persons, but one being. God is never alone. God is by definition never lonely. God is infinite companionship, love and togertherness.

Thus when we are lonely, the triune God is always there for us when we need Him. The Trinity is just a way to represent His infinite love and companionship for us. But the Trinity also represents the community of God, and the community of Creation itself. God’s church is that community, the place that ends loneliness. The Trinity is thus community, community is church and we are here together, in church, sharing our time together. Nothing to be scared of.

So let’s play ball.