Baptism of the Lord

Preached at the Basilica of the Assumption, Baltimore Maryland.

Readings: Isaiah  40:1-5, 9-11; Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

St. Paul writes, “Beloved,
the grace of God has appeared…”
There is a certain kind 
of confusion concerning grace 
that we Christians can fall into,
a tendency to think of the appearing of grace
as a kind of supplemental help from God
popping up unexpectedly in our lives,
allowing us to overcome particular challenges.
We can think of grace sort of like 
a power-up in a video game:
something you come across 
that bolsters your powers 
so you can get past an obstacle,
like the Super Mushroom 

in Mario Brothers.

We might think that we get 
an initial cache of these power-ups
when we get baptized, 
and for us serious players—
for those who want to be able 
to complete the tasks and challenges
necessary to win the game—
it is important to find 
more power-ups along the way.
So we go to Confession 
and we receive the Eucharist,
or we get anointed when sick 
or, if we want to make 
our own power-ups
to share them with others,
maybe even get ordained.

I wouldn’t say that God 
never gives us power-ups—
in fact, the Church even has 
a Latin term for them: gratiae gratis data.
But these are gifts God gives us
for the benefit of the Church as a whole,
not as a means for us to complete the game ourselves.
The problem with the power-up view of grace
is that it can leave Jesus out of the picture
and make us masters of our own destinies:
life is our task to accomplish, 
our race to run, 
our quest to complete.
We are the players who will win the game,
if only we are clever enough to make use
of the Super Mushrooms 
that the game designer has left 
lying around for us.

We have confused notions about grace
because grace is confusing,
and it is confusing to us
because it is something far stranger
than any scheme that we human beings 
could ever imagine.
“The kindness and generous love 
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds 
we had done
but because of his mercy.”
What has appeared is not a Super Mushroom
but kindness and love and mercy
in the form of a person: Jesus Christ.
It has appeared

not because we have discovered
the sacramental power-ups 
that God has built into the game,
but because he who is

kindness and love and mercy
has come searching for us in our lostness
to tell us that our exile is ended
and our guilt has been expiated.
We are confused about grace

because God’s grace 
is something so strange
that we can scarcely fit it 
into how we think the world works,
because we have a hard time imagining
that love could be so freely given.

This great feast of the Baptism of Jesus
offers us occasion to ponder
the strangeness of grace.
John appears, Luke tells us,
“proclaiming a baptism of repentance 
for the forgiveness of sins.”
But why then should Jesus,
the sinless Son of God,
undergo a baptism of repentance?
What is he doing when he enters
the waters of the river Jordan?

Water itself is a powerful symbol.
It represents life and purity,
making things grow 
and cleansing from stain,
promising life and renewal. 
In the book of Exodus, 
God brings forth
life-giving water from the rock;
in John’s Gospel, Jesus says 
that he will give water 
to those who believe, 
which will become in them 
a spring gushing up to eternal life;
and in the book of Revelation
the water of life, bright as crystal, 
flows from the throne 
of God and of the Lamb.

Water is promise, but it is also peril.
This past fall we saw vividly
the perilous power of water
as hurricane Helene swept away
life and livelihood in western North Carolina.
In the creation story, 
God must muscle the waters into obedience, 
containing them within the oceans of the earth
and beyond the dome of the sky;
in the story of Noah and the great flood,
those same waters are unleashed
to purify the earth, but also to destroy it;
and in the Gospels Jesus rebukes the sea
that threatens to swamp the boat of his disciples.

When Jesus enters the waters of the Jordan
he enters into the promise and peril of human life;
he comes searching for us in our joys and our hopes,
in our fears and our anxieties,
he plunges into the waters of our humanity
not to plant a power-up for us to find,
to leave behind some grace that will help us
to navigate the game once he has gone,
but to make of us disciples and friends
who join him on his quest of promise and peril, 
the quest to manifest ever more 
the kindness and generous love of God.

This is why Will and Claire have brought Judah
to the waters of baptism on this morning.
We see all that we hope and all that we fear
perhaps most clearly when we look at our children,
so full of promise and so subject to peril;
and we bring our children for baptism
so that Jesus can meet them in the waters
of promise and peril 
and take them to himself,
so that they might be his own,
they might join him on his quest,
they might become heirs in him 
of hope eternal.

Grace can be confusing 
if we think of it as something we get
rather than someone we meet:
Grace is not a power-up but a person.
In the waters of baptism we meet Jesus
who has come to seek us there
so that we might enter into friendship with him,
not because we are kind or loving or merciful,
but because he is.
He offers himself to us without cost,
for which of us could pay the price 
of so great a gift?

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes 
take the water of life as a gift.”
And may God, 
who is kind and loving and merciful,
have mercy on us all. 

Epiphany

Preached at the inaugural evening Mass at Corpus Christi Church as it begins a new life as an Oratory of the Basilica of the Assumption.

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

The story of Christmas is a tale of mystery:
the mystery of the birth of Christ
for us and for our salvation.

In a typical mystery tale, 
the mystery is wrapped up and solved 
once the story has been told.
But the tale of mystery 
that is the Christmas story
is a story still being told and retold, 
and the mystery only grows deeper
with each telling of the story.
Each time our minds run through
the events of the Christmas story—
the annunciation, the visitation, the birth, 
the proclamation of peace to the shepherds,
and the journey of the Magi—
each time our lips repeat the words of this tale,
we discover new mysteries hidden there.
And this is because its mystery
is a theological mystery:
the mystery of the infinite and eternal
force of love that we call God,
a tale of mystery that only ends
in the fulness of God’s reign,
when God will be all in all. 

One facet of the mystery 
that is the story of Christmas
is that it is a story 
not just about the birth of Jesus,
but also about our birth in him,
our birth into his body through grace.
Pope Leo the Great, back in the 5th century,
said, “In adoring the birth of our Savior, 
we find we are celebrating 
the commencement of our own life, 
for the birth of Christ 
is the source of life for Christian folk, 
and the birthday of the Head 
is the birthday of the body”
(Serm. 6 In Nat.).

The birthday of the Head
is the birthday of the body.
These words for me land 
with a particular force
as we are inaugurating a new phase
of life and ministry in this place
dedicated to the Body of Christ, 
Corpus Christi.
Just as the newborn Jesus was,
as the prophet Micah puts it,
one “whose origin is from of old”
so too we are seeking here a new life 
that is somehow something that is not new;
what we are seeking is the life of the Spirit 
that has been lived out in this building
for one-hundred and thirty-four years;
the life of the Spirit that has been lived out 
by Catholic Christians for over two millennia;
the life of the Spirit that came to birth in Bethlehem.
For the birthday of the Head
is the birthday of the body.
The body of Christ took form in Mary’s womb
through the working of the Holy Spirit.
and the body of Christ takes form ever anew
in new times and new places
through the work of that same Spirit.
The story of Christmas 
is the tale of the mystery of Jesus, 
but it is also the tale 
of the mystery that we are,
the story still unfolding 
that will not reach “the end”
until all of Christ’s members 
are gathered into God’s reign.

Today our scriptures focus our attention
on the Magi who come from afar,
bringing their gifts to the newborn Christ.
They come from afar 
not just in terms of where they live,
but in terms of who they are.
For they are Gentiles,
those who live outside of God’s covenant,
who seemingly have not been part 
of that mystery tale of God’s steadfast love
shown to Abraham and his descendants. 
But now, suddenly, here they are,
right in the middle of the story;
as Paul writes to the Ephesians:
“in Christ Jesus you who once were far off 
have become near by the blood of Christ.”
And they come bringing unexpected gifts,
gifts that the Holy Family probably would not
have put on their birth registry—
gold and frankincense and myrrh—
but which, I am sure, 
Mary and Joseph 
gracefully received with thanks.
And the Magi leave having received in turn
an even greater, more mysterious gift:
the epiphany in time and space
of the eternal God.

But the birthday of the Head
is also the birthday of the body,
and the unexpected arrival 
of the gift-bearing Magi
in the midst of the story of Jesus
is a plot-twist that has happened 
again and again 
in the story of Christ’s body.
Who could have foreseen the gifts
that the early Jewish followers of Jesus 
would receive from the Gentiles 
who became inheritors with them
of the covenant story, 
“members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise 
in Christ Jesus through the gospel”?
Who could have foreseen the gifts
of philosophy, literature, art, and music
that Christ’s body has received 
down through the centuries
from the various cultures in which 
it has become incarnate?
And even today, who can foresee the gifts
that the body of Christ receives
from every person emerging newborn 
from the watery womb of baptism,
who becomes part of the mystery tale
that the Holy Spirit is spinning?

At this moment in the history of this place
it is hard not to think of those 
who may be coming from afar—
as far as 409 Cathedral St. or MICA 
or some other exotic land 
we cannot now imagine—
bearing unexpected gifts
that might not be 
what some of us would have asked for,
but which we are bidden 
gracefully to receive with thanks.
It is hard not to wonder 
what they will receive in turn,
as the epiphany of God
happens in this place.
Part of what it means
for the birthday of the Head
to be the birthday of the body,
for the story of our common life
to be grafted onto the story of Jesus,
is that we are now living a mystery tale 
that can only be solved by living through it,
and it can only be lived through
if we have faith that God’s Spirit is with us.

Of course, this is true not simply 
of this particular place 
at this particular moment;
this is true of the whole of our lives.
None of us knows 
any of what the future holds,
except that we can trust 
that what God said
to the ancient Israelites
God says also to us:
“you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea 
shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations 
shall be brought to you.”
The mystery is unfolding before us;
let us step forward into it 
in faith, hope, and charity,
and pray that God, who is merciful,
will have mercy on us all.

Christmas Day

Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-5, 9-14

Perhaps it is simply a matter
of the particular feet I have known—
my own and others—
but I generally don’t think
of feet as beautiful.
St. Thomas Aquinas says that beautiful things
have three qualities—
wholeness, harmony, and brightness—
and that beauty can be defined
as what is pleasing to us when we see it.
While most of our feet are whole,
in the sense that they are not missing parts,
they are rarely harmonious or bright,
and at least mine 
are not very pleasing when seen.
People can spend a lot on pedicures,
trying to make their feet beautiful,
but I suspect it’s a losing battle;
feet are simply too battered by the work 
of taking us from place to place,
too calloused and prone to bunions,
for it to ever be a gratifying experience 
to gaze upon them.
Maybe like me you got socks for Christmas,
which is probably the best chance we have
for making our feet beautiful.

Yet the prophet Isaiah proclaims this morning:
“How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings glad tidings.”
How beautiful the feet of those
who announce peace, 
bear good news,
proclaim salvation to those 
whose world lies in ruins. 
How beautiful the feet 
that walk the path that leads 
from heaven to earth and back again,
bearing tidings that rejoice our hearts.

And what are those glad tidings?
“The Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us, 
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.”
The Word of whom St. John speaks
is the agent of divine artistry,
the source within the life of God 
of the wholeness, harmony, and brightness
that belongs by right to God’s creation,
this world that so pleased God 
when God saw its goodness.
But this world’s wholeness 
had been shattered by human sin,
its harmony had gone out of tune,
its brightness had faded.

The glad tidings of the Word made flesh
is that the creation grown
fragmented, discordant, and shabby
has been invaded by the beauty of its creator
and made whole, harmonious, and bright
once again.
For though past messengers 
spoke in partial and various ways,
in these last days the Word of God himself—
the refulgence of the Father’s glory,
bearing the very imprint of God’s being,
the source of creation’s primordial 
wholeness, harmony, and brightness—
restores our ruined nature in himself,
retunes our hearts to the music of the spheres,
brings his brightness to our darkness.
The artist who first created the universe
has come to us to restore his great work of art. 

The glad tidings of Christmas
are the glad tidings of beauty recovered.
In recent weeks, many of us marveled 
at images of the beauty of the restored 
cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris;
that a structure so tragically damaged
could be made whole again.
But as glorious as such restoration is, 
it is only a dim reflection
of what God has done for the world
in Jesus Christ,
if we but have the eyes to see it.
For the eyes of faith,
what is broken will be made whole,
what is twisted will be made straight,
what is dimmed will be made bright.
For the eyes of faith, light shines 
in the uncomprehending darkness
and the world even now bears the image 
of divine beauty, ever-ancient, ever-new.

These glad tidings are given to us
to be given to others.
Though the world is restored in Christ,
we still must journey toward his final victory
through times that are troubled, 
and on our pilgrimage through time
our hearts, like our feet,
can grow calloused and battered;
the light that shines in the world’s darkness
can seem to grow dim as we grow weary;
the sound of glad tiding can become
a fading echo in our ears.

But how beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of those who brings glad tidings.
The faith that allows us to see and hear
the beauty Christ has restored to the world
grows in us as we share it with others
through words and actions
of wholeness, harmony, and brightness.
Not just our weary, journey-worn feet,
but even our weary, journey-worn souls,
are made beautiful by the tidings of beauty
that we bear to the world.

Let the joy of this day’s tidings ring out 
in wholeness, harmony, and brightness
for God has come to dwell among us,
full of grace and truth and mercy.
And may God, in his mercy,
have mercy on us all.

Advent 4

Readings: Micah 5:1-4a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

“He shall be peace.”
He shall be peace for the citizens 
of the defeated kingdom of Judah,
held captive in a foreign land,
longing to return to the land of God’s promise.
He shall be peace for the anxious souls
seeking to appease the wrath of God 
with sacrifice and offerings.
He shall be peace for Mary,
unexpectedly pregnant at a very young age,
and for her kinswoman Elizabeth,
unexpectedly pregnant in her old age,
and for all who anxiously ask, 
“how can this be?”

He, whose origin is from of old, 
shall be peace through the centuries
as nations fall and rise and fall once more,
as prayers are uttered in faithful desperation,
as minds are torn apart by incoherent events,
and hearts are darkened by fear.

He shall be peace in Ukraine and Gaza,
in Sudan and Syria,
and in the streets of Baltimore.
He shall be peace for those 
who flee their homes in fear,
for those seeking work
and those without shelter,
for the lonely and the lost,
for the child in the womb
and those reaching life’s end.
Who could this be?
Who could be peace 
for such a world of sorrow?

The prophet Micah does not say,
“he shall bring peace,”
but “he shall be peace.”
The one whom we await is peace itself
and to find peace is to find him.
He will not be like the rulers who say
“Peace! Peace!” where there is no peace,
who promise what they cannot deliver.
For he is not a promiser of peace,
but is himself the peace that is promised.
He will not be like those peace offerings
that we place between our sins and God’s wrath,
hoping that they might shield us,
that they might turn away God’s anger.
For he is not the price we pay for peace,
but gives himself as the peace 
that the world cannot give.
He will not be like the therapies we employ
to calm our anxieties and cope with calamities,
therapies that can never resolve 
those perplexities of the heart 
that make our lives so unsure.
For he offers no technique 
that leads to peace,
but is himself God’s gift of peace 
that passes understanding.

We have been waiting 
during this season of Advent,
during every season of Advent,
during every day of human history,
not for the right political leader,
nor the right religious practice,
nor the right therapeutic intervention,
but for Jesus.

We have been waiting for Jesus 
not because he will give us peace,
but because he is peace.
If Jesus merely gave us peace
then we might simply take it from him
and say “thank you very much”
and go on our way.
And if history teaches us anything
it is that we soon would squander that peace.
We would find new wars,
new fears,
new anxieties
upon which to waste it.
But because Jesus is himself peace
the only way to receive that peace
is to receive him,
to accept his invitation of friendship,
to love him as the peace our hearts desire,
to say to him, as we sang in our psalm,
“let us see your face and we shall be saved.”

When Elizabeth encountered Jesus,
hidden within the womb of Mary,
she felt her own child leap with joy;
she was filled with the Holy Spirit;
she cried aloud in praise and wonder
that God’s own Son would visit us 
in such humility.
As we approach the days of Christmas, 
let us look to Elizabeth
for how we ought to welcome 
the one who shall be peace,
a peace that seems often 
hidden in our world.
Despite continuing conflicts, 
and the grief that we might rightly have
at the pain and sorrow of the world,
let us feel new life within us leaping for joy.
Despite our sins, 
and the fear that we might rightly feel
before the overwhelming holiness of God,
let us be filled with God’s Holy Spirit.
Despite uncertainty, 
and the anxious hearts that we might rightly have
over the days and months and years before us,
let us cry out in praise and wonder.

For the peace whose origin is of old
has clothed himself in time and space,
and enfolded in himself
our sorrows and fears and anxieties;
he has become what we are 
so that we might be what he is:
for he is our peace
and calls us to be peace
in the midst of a world at war
with God and itself.
Let us pray in these waning days of Advent
that the peace that the world cannot give
will come this Christmas to dwell among us
and that God, in his mercy,
might have mercy on us all. 

Advent 1 (Vespers)

This homily was given at a Vespers service at Corpus Christi church, in the hiatus between its final Mass as a parish at the end of November and its first Mass in January as a site of ministry to students and couples seeking marriage.

Reading: Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

“People will die of fright 
in anticipation of what is coming 
upon the world.”
These seem disturbingly timely words. 
We’ve all got lots of things to worry about:
wars in which nuclear-armed nations are in play;
climate change and extreme weather;
a nation divided by politics and ideology,
and an incoming administration
that excites great hope in some
and great fear in others.
What is coming upon the world?
What does the future hold?

But more locally, for us,
there is the question of 
what the future holds for this place,
this house of God
that has been our house.
What is coming for Corpus Christi?
Can we build something here
that will draw upon 
what has come before
but be open to new challenges 
that the Church faces?
I will admit, I have a lot of trepidation. 
In some ways we have been given 
a go-ahead for our new ministries
with students and young couples
precisely because these are two groups
that no one quite knows what to do with.
And we don’t know either,
but we were foolish or desperate enough
to say “let us give it a try,”
and so the Archdiocese said,
“sure, let them try.”

The prospects are daunting.
Religious disaffiliation 
is common among the young
and there doesn’t seem to be 
any magic formula for drawing them in.
Should we try updating things
or returning to the deep source of our tradition?
Do we make marriage preparation more user-friendly
or do we make it more demanding and rigorous?
Do we have meetings for students 
on Tuesday nights or Wednesday nights;
do we feed them pizza or tacos?
I’ll tell you, I have not a few sleepless nights
churning these questions over in my mind.
As I've nodded off in the afternoon

after after a sleepless night,

I’ve come to know how literal Jesus was being
when he spoke of our hearts growing drowsy
with the anxieties of daily life.

And I’ll be honest with you:
I have no idea if we can pull this off,
if we can build something new here
that will give this beautiful and storied place
the chance to feed generations to come
with the spiritual food of Christ’s body—
Corpus Christi.
I just don’t know.
But what I do know is that, in the end,

what happens does not depend on me or Andrew,
or even, though we cherish your support, any of you.
It depends on the never-failing providence of God.
 
There was a moment 
on the twisting and turning path
that has led us to this moment
when I felt that I could see 
how God’s providence was working.
I felt I could see a pattern
in how everything was coming together
out of seemingly unconnected events:
my three decades working with college students;
Andrew’s year spent shepherding this parish
and learning the mysteries 
of sound systems and bank accounts;
my transfer from Corpus Christi to the Cathedral, 
where, during the Covid-19 shutdown,
I served Mass with the Archbishop each week
and had an opportunity for him
to get to know me personally;
my last-minute decision to attend a deacons’ retreat
where I met Bishop Lewendowski,
who happened to be leading the retreat
and who was spearheading parish reorganization.
All of these things seemed to be coming together
to make it possible to get a hearing for this place
to continue as a site or worship and ministry.
So this, I thought, is what providence looks like. 

The next day Andrew and I got an email
saying that it had been determined
that the building was too expensive to maintain
and that Corpus Christi would be 
put on the market and sold as soon as possible.
When I recovered my senses—
which took a minute—
I somehow had the grace to think,
“Ah, I guess this, too, 
is what providence looks like.”
 
We’ve gone through several more 
twists and turns since then,
and sale of the building is not imminent,
though it is still a possible future.
But what I learned in that moment
is that none of us knows 
how God’s providence works
or what the future holds,
but at every moment we must ask 
for the grace to say, 
“this, too, is what providence looks like.”
And now what lies before us—
before all of us— 
is the work God has given us to do.
We who have loved this place
must trust that whatever happens
God will be at work
in us and through us,
as long as we can get out of the way
and let providence have its way.
So let us labor in hope,
and pray in this season of hope
that God who is merciful
will have mercy on us all.

Christ the King

Readings: Daniel 7:13-14; Revelation 1:5-8; John 18:33b-37

The exchange between Jesus and Pilate 
is one of the New Testament’s 
most politically charged moments:
Jesus is called upon 
to testify in his own defense before Pilate, 
the agent of Roman imperial power,
his life seemingly hanging in the balance.
It is an exchange concerning 
the nature of power
and the place of truth.
We have arrayed before us an alternative:
truth that is based on power
versus power that is based on truth.

The exchange is reminiscent
of a story from the Book of Esdras
that is set in the court of the Persian king Darius
Darius controls the land of Israel
and is hemming and hawing 
about letting the Jews return from Babylon
to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.
Three of Darius’s bodyguards have a contest,
each arguing which thing in the world is the strongest,
the king having promised that he will grant the winner 
whatever it is that he requests.
The first bodyguard, probably trying to be witty, 
says that wine is the strongest thing in the world.
After all, he says, “It leads astray 
the minds of all who drink it. 
It makes equal the mind 
of the king and the orphan, 
of the slave and the free, 
of the poor and the rich.”
The second bodyguard, undoubtedly flattering Darius, 
says that kings are the strongest thing in the world,
because when they command others must obey:
“If he tells them to kill, they kill; … 
if he tells them to lay waste, they lay waste; 
if he tells them to build, they build.” 
The third bodyguard, an Israelite named Zerubbabel, 
maybe trying to bring Darius down a notch,
says that women are the strongest thing in the world.
After all, as powerful as a king might be,
it is still a woman who gives him birth,
and a woman whose beauty can easily turn his head.

But then Zerubbabel says that actually
the truth is stronger than any of the other three.
For wine can be unrighteous
and kings can be unrighteous
and women can be unrighteous,
but truth can never be unrighteous;
all of these things will pass away 
in their unrighteousness,
but “truth endures and is strong forever 
and lives and prevails forever and ever.”
Then, Zerubbabel the Israelite adds,
“Blessed be the God of truth!”
The people acclaim Zerubbabel’s answer
and king Darius must grant his request
that he be allowed to return to Jerusalem 
and rebuild the temple.

Was Jesus thinking of Darius as he stood before Pilate?
Pilate too sees power as the capacity
to tell men to kill and have them kill,
to tell them to lay waste and have them lay waste,
to tell them to build and have them build.
For Pilate, it is the power of Caesar that defines the truth,
for with his armies and his wealth and his empire
Caesar can make you bow before him
and worship him as a god.
Caesar’s word is truth because…well…
he is Caesar and he can kill you.
When Pilate asks Jesus, 
no doubt with a sneer in his voice,
“Are you the king of the Jews?”
he is really asking, 
“Where are your armies, Jesus?”
“Where is your wealth?”
“Where is your empire?”
Because, for him, these are the things
that display one’s power;
these are the things that will make people
believe the words you speak are true;
these are the things that will make people 
bow down and worship you as a god.

And when Jesus replies,
“My kingdom does not belong to this world”
he is saying, my power is not the power of armies;
my power is not the power of wealth;
my power is not the power of empires.
My power is the power of truth,
the truth of righteousness,
the truth that can never pass away. 
You may have the power to destroy my body,
but I have the power to take my body up again,
to rebuild the Temple of God’s dwelling 
that he has pitched in the midst of humanity.
Because “For this I was born 
and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.” 

This exchange between Jesus and Pilate
should make us pose for ourselves 
the most fundamental political question:
is truth defined by power
or is power defined by truth?
Is truth stronger than kings,
stronger than armies and wealth and empires?
If Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega—

the truth of our beginning and the truth of our end—
and if he “has made us into a kingdom, 
priests for his God and Father,”
then we are to be like him 
faithful witnesses to the truth

in a world of lies.

We are today constantly confronted
by assaults on truth,
particularly in the realm of politics.
Typically, our politicians don’t ask us 
to bow down and worship them as gods,
but they do behave as if the power they wield
allows them to bend the truth to their will.
This sometimes takes the form 
of blatant and obvious lies,
which would be almost comical 
if they were not so widely believed. 
But it also takes the form
of more subtle assaults on truth
that employ euphemism and inuendo.
A dead civilian becomes “collateral damage”;
doctors killing patients becomes “death with dignity”;
torture becomes “enhanced interrogation techniques”;
the nascent heartbeat of an embryo becomes “cardiac activity.”

If we are to be servants of Christ the King,
if we are to be bearers of his truth,
then we must resist lies both blatant and subtle.
Like Jesus before Pilate,

we must hold fast to the power of truth,
and we must be vigilant where truth is undermined,
particularly where this threatens those 
who are most vulnerable.
We must trust that the dominion of Christ,
who is the way, the truth, and the life,
is an everlasting dominion,
because truth is stronger
and truth will triumph.
May God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45

St. Thomas Aquinas once said 
that the death of Christ, 
for us and for our salvation, 
“is so tremendous a fact 
that our intellect can scarcely grasp it.”
In the midst of the horror of death
the mercy of God manifests itself;
divine love and compassion 
burst forth from within an act
of human hatred and condemnation.
As the hymn “How great Thou Art” puts it,
“And when I think
That God, 
His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die,
I scarce can take it in.”

But we want to take it in.
Our souls want to grasp such love
so that it might dwell within us.
And so, like someone 
circling a magnificent sculpture
in order to see it from all angles,
or someone listening to a symphony
over and over to find 
new nuances and hidden harmonies,
the cross of Christ, 
God’s magnum opus,
must be seen from as many sides as possible,
must be called to mind again and again,
in order to catch even a fraction
of the beauty of divine love that it reveals.
We must mediate on the cross of Jesus
so as to drink in its riches
and be transformed by the grace 
that pours forth from it.

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us
that in Jesus “we do not have 
a high priest who is unable 
to sympathize with our weaknesses.”
In taking on our human nature,
God has taken on human weakness as well.
Jesus, like us, skinned his knees as a child;
he got colds and grew hungry;
he was misunderstood and disappointed.
But most of all, 
on the cross God has taken on 
the weakness of the persecuted,
of those condemned to death by systems
that care more about the exercise of power
than about justice or mercy.
God has entered into solidarity with those
who lives are crushed by forces
that do not even recognize their humanity.
God has made himself present to the countless millions 
ground beneath the wheels of human hatred—
of war and injustice and oppression—
those whose names are lost to history
but whom God remembers.

But God’s solidarity with us 
in our suffering and weakness
is only one facet of Jesus’ cross.
As our mind moves around this great work of God,
as we listen again to the symphony of salvation,
we see that, in Christ, God not only suffers with us,
but he also suffers for us.
Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves,
by offering his life in perfect love to the Father
so that we might be freed from sin’s prison
and be reconciled to God.
Fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy of the Servant of God
who “gives his life as an offering for sin,”
Jesus tells his followers that “the Son of Man 
did not come to be served but to serve 
and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
More than simply suffering alongside us,
Jesus offers his sinless life as our “ransom”—
the price that is paid to redeem us 
from sin and death, which hold us captive.
How this exchange is accomplished 
he does not explain;
what matters is the simple fact
that he will drink for us the cup of suffering
and be baptized for us in the waters of death,
so that we might be saved from eternal suffering
and raised up from eternal death.

Yet there is still another side of all this
that we must see,
another harmony we must hear.
If on the cross the Son of God 
joins us in our suffering,
and by his love 
pays the cost of our freedom,
we now are left with the question 
posed by Jesus to James and John:
“Can you drink the cup that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism 
with which I am baptized?”
For while Jesus does for us
what we cannot do for ourselves—
gives his sinless life 
to free us from sin and death
and reconcile us to God—
we are in turn called to give our own lives
in service to God and neighbor.
We are called to imitate the love
by which we have been saved.

Thomas Aquinas wrote that
“Whoever wishes to live perfectly 
need do nothing other than despise 
what Christ despised on the cross, 
and desire what Christ desired.”
What did Christ despise on the cross?
He despised all earthly honors and riches,
preferring to be found among the ranks
of those who are oppressed and killed.
What did Christ desire?
He desired to give himself for our salvation,
a salvation bought with charity and patience, 
humility and obedience;
he desired the will of his Father,
which seeks us out in our lostness
to bring us back to our true homeland.
So we too, in turn, 
must despise earthly honors;
we must refuse to feed 
what the philosopher Iris Murdoch called
“the fat relentless ego.”
We too must desire selfless love
and endurance of suffering,
a recognition of our own poverty of spirit
and a willingness to answer God’s call.
We too must find greatness in service
and freedom in binding ourselves 
to God’s holy will.

The love of God shown forth 
in the cross of Jesus:
I scarce can take it in.
But just as we can find ourselves
captivated by a magnificent work of art
or absorbed by a great piece of music,
so too we are drawn into this great work of God.
What I cannot take in,
can take me in.
By the mercy of God,
I, unworthy as I am, 
become myself a part 
of God’s great work.
Christ welcomes me to drink 
his cup of suffering and joy;
he washes me in his baptism of death
and raises me to life in his Spirit
and calls me into God’s service.
And all this because of his mercy. 
So let us pray that we might know this mercy,
and that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.

Commemoration of St. John Henry Newman

Readings: Song of Songs 3:1-4; 1 John 4:13-21

Our two readings today seem to present us
with two very different kinds of love.
The Song of Songs presents a love
rooted in passion for the absent beloved—
a love for a particular other
for whom my heart longs
and whom I want to possess.
The First Letter of John, on the other hand,
with its famous claim that God is love,
presents us with a love
that seems not a matter 
of passion or self-fulfillment
but is a response to the generous gift 
of the God who unselfishly loves us first 
and call us to show to others 
the same sort of selfless love.
It is a love that is universal,
directed to all people.

When you go to seminary and get all smartened up,
you are taught to identify these two sorts of love
with two different Greek words: eros and agape.
You are perhaps taught that eros—
praised by pagan Greek thinkers such as Plato—
is egoistic, particular, and ultimately selfish.
And you may be taught that agape 
is the kind of love spoken of in the New Testament—
an altruistic, universal, self-sacrificial love
exemplified in the cross of Jesus
and in God’s grace shown to sinners.

 
But the fact that the erotic Song of Songs
and the agapeic First Letter of John
are both in the canon the Scripture,
and that they appear side by side 
in our worship this morning,
suggests that this contrast between agape and eros
is one of those the teachable bits of simplified truth
that your teachers feed you,
not in malice,
but because your minds are thirsting for understanding
and simple distinctions and broadly drawn contrasts
are the most effective way to slake that thirst.
These sorts of distinctions and contrasts
are handy pegs on which to organize 
your theological hat collection,
but they also tend to collapse under scrutiny,
and we who teach theology 
pass them along to our students
with our fingers crossed
and a nagging voice in the back of our minds
saying, “Well…more or less,”
trusting that our students will supply for themselves
the nuance that we don’t have the time to convey.

And this strategy more or less works,
because simply trying to live as a Christian
teaches us that universal love of God and neighbor
is inextricably tangled up with love of particular others:
our yearning for a spouse, a friends, a child.
My living shows me that the yearning of eros 
to escape the confines of the self,
to live ecstatically within the life of my beloved
and to have my beloved live in me,
is itself a kind of self-sacrificial love. 
It shows me that it is in my yearning
for this one, this particular beloved
whom I see here, now, before me,
that fosters in me love 
for all those others
whom I cannot now see,
and ultimately love for the God
whom no one can see in this life,
the beloved who dwells 
in unapproachable light.

John Henry Newman, 
whom we commemorate today,
and whom God blessed with 
the kind of supernatural common sense 
that is a mark of sanctity,
noted that we mistakenly think 
that the yearning we feel for particular others 
is a distraction from our real task
of loving everybody indiscriminately.
Newman thought this got things quite wrong.
He thought that our natural yearning
to love and be loved by this beloved—
this spouse,
this child,
this friend—
is the ground from which 
a more universal love might grow.
He wrote, “the best preparation
for loving the world at large,
and loving it duly and wisely,
is to cultivate an intimate friendship 
and affection toward those 
who are immediately around us.” 
Newman thought that St. John,
who teaches us that God is agape,
learned this truth from the very particular love 
that Jesus shared with him.
Newman says of John,
“did he begin with some vast effort 
at loving on a large scale?
Nay, he had the unspeakable privilege
of being the friend of Christ.
Thus he was taught to love others;
first his affection was concentrated,
then it was expanded” (Sermons II.5).

On this score, Newman can teach us something
about our quest for the unity of Christians.
As far as I know, he never expressed an intellectual regret
over leaving the Church of England for Roman Catholicism,
but he was grieved throughout his life 
by the broken friendships that resulted from his decision.
Just as love is always rooted in the particular,
so too is sorrow over separation:
“I will seek him whom my soul loves.”
Though high-level theological discussions are important,
what really drives the quest 
to overcome the divisions of Christians 
are not abstractions like 
“organic unity” or “reconciled diversity,”
but a yearning for union with the brother or sister
who was reborn with me 
from the same womb of living water;
a hunger to share with this one whom I love
at the banquet of the bread of life.   
Our desire for unity must be concentrated
before it is expanded.

It was no accident that, 
upon becoming a cardinal,
Newman chose as his motto
cor ad cor loquitur—heart speaks to heart.
For it is within the heart that speaks
to the heart of a particular beloved
that the voice of God resounds.
This notion that time-bound and particular realities
are the doorway into the eternal and universal
is what Newman called “the sacramental principle.”
The brother or sister who stands before us—
who evokes our love and yearning, 
whom we seek in the nighttime of our restlessness,
whom we desire to hold and never let go—
is the sacrament of a love that expands
to encompass those brothers and sisters
whom we have not yet seen,
to compass even the God 
whom we will only see
in the light of heavenly glory.

Let us pray that God will give us the grace
to love with passionate particularity,
and selfless generosity,
to love the distant through the near
and the unseen in the seen.
St. John Henry Newman, pray for us.

Preached at an ecumenical commemoration of Newman at Duke Divinity School Chapel.

 

A Wedding Homily

Readings: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 John 4:7-12; John 15:9-12

If you do enough weddings
you can begin to feel as if 
the wedding ceremony itself is just an appendage 
to a much bigger and more important event
that includes many hours of photography 
and one or more very lavish and expensive parties,
into which months and even years 
of planning are invested.
It can begin to feel like the actual exchange of vows
in the presence of God, his minister, and his people
is something of secondary importance,
even when occurring in a beautiful setting
and adorned with flowers and music.
This is not to cast any doubt on the sincerity
of the couples taking their vows,
but it is simply to note how difficult it is
to resist cultural pressure and expectations
and what I like to call 
the Wedding-Industrial Complex,
that is devoted to finding new things 
you can spend money on.

From the first time I met with Stephen and Theresa
I knew that this was not the case with them.
They simply wanted to get married.
They did not want to host a lavish event,
or stage a photo op,
or make themselves the center of attention.
They simply wanted to vow their love to each other
in the presence of God and in the midst of people 
whom they love and who love them.
I knew that they did not just want to get married,
they wanted to be married.
They wanted to be joined to one another
in a sacrament that would give them 
the grace that they need 
to live life together 
in the many years to come.
They wanted what really matters.

This is, of course, a beautiful event:
the Cathedral is beautiful,
the music is beautiful,
the couple, in particular, is beautiful.
But the most beautiful thing here
is God’s grace.
Like the wise writer of the book of Proverbs,
Theresa and Stephen know 
that “charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting.”
They know that what matters on this day
is the one thing that is not deceptive and fleeting:
the love of God
that has become real for them
in their love for one another.

We call this love “grace” 
because it is something God gives us 
without our ever deserving it,
just as Theresa and Stephen 
have given their love to each other
freely and generously and not really caring
if the other one has earned it.
That’s how love works,
and that’s how God works.
The beauty of God’s grace 
that we celebrate in this sacrament
is that we love God because God loves us first,
and God loves us not because we are good
but because God is good.

Stephen and Theresa, in the Gospel
Jesus tells his followers to remain in his love
so that they might have fullness of joy.
It is this love that really matters today,
and in the years of marriage that lie ahead of you
the challenge will be simply 
to remain in Christ’s love—
to abide in this eternal moment
when God gives you his love
through your love for one another.
And when life brings you hardships,
as it undoubtedly will,
when you feel misunderstood,
as you undoubtedly will,
when you wonder what 
you have gotten yourself into,
as you undoubtedly will,
return to this moment and remain in it,
for this is the moment when eternal love
shows itself in time and space
in the words of promise
that you will speak to each other.

If you remain in the love 
that God gives you today,
then your life together
will be a life of joy, 
even in the face of hardship 
and misunderstanding
and doubt,
because it will be a life 
graced by God’s love,
the one thing that really matters.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37

VIDEO

Like many people, 
I lament the conflicts and divisions of our culture
as we drag ourselves through yet another season
of the contentious sniping and truth-bending
that we call politics.
I likewise brood over ongoing and escalating wars,
the economic hardship and inequality suffered by so many,
our fear and vilification of those who are different from us, 
our unchecked consumption of the earth’s limited resources.
So much seems so wrong with the world,
and I can certainly marshal the tools 
of political science and economics and sociology
in order to try to trace out the causes
of everything that makes me lament and brood. 
But, the Letter of James cuts to the chase
and tells me that, at the end of the day,
the problem is me.

Not, I should be clear, 
me as Deacon Fritz Bauerschmidt—
I’m not quite arrogant enough to think 
that I am the unique source of the world’s woes.
What James tells us 
is that each of us must look within
if we want to really know why we live 
in a world of conflict
that makes us lament and brood,
and if we do we will find 
that we are our own worst enemies.
James speaks of “our passions”—
those chaotic primal emotions 
that rise up within us—
as the source of the world’s strife:
jealousy, selfish ambition, envy and covetousness.
These passions create not simply conflict in the world,
as we strive to assert our wills over others,
but conflict within ourselves:
they frustrate us,
they make us miserable,
they cannot deliver on the things
they make us want so much.
James tells us, 
“You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, 
to spend it on your passions.”
The world is at war with itself
because I am at war with myself.

We see this in today’s Gospel story,
when Jesus predicts 
his coming death and resurrection
only to have his disciples unable to understand
and unwilling even to ask questions.
Instead, as they walk the path to Jerusalem
where the events foretold by Jesus 
will come to pass,
they decide to bicker among themselves
about which of them is the greatest,
as if to demonstrate their lack of understanding.
The words of Jesus are confusing and upsetting;
it is so much simpler for them
to give free rein to their passions
of jealousy, selfish ambition, 
envy and covetousness,
perhaps not even realizing 
that these are the same chaotic passions
that will result in Jesus’ death in Jerusalem,
at the hand of those who say,
in the words of the book of Wisdom, 
“Let us beset the just one, 
because…he sets himself against our doings.”
The fruitless and frustrating 
jockeying for greatness
that will be displayed 
in the arrest, trial, and killing of Jesus
is enacted among Jesus’s own disciples,
just as it is enacted in me
as I war with myself and the world.

Jesus, unlike me, 
does not lament and brood over this conflict;
nor is he content simply to sit back
and take in the irony of the situation.
Rather he seeks to teach the disciples
how to end the war within themselves
that overflows into the conflict among them;
he teaches them how to desire and act 
so that they can calm the chaos of their passions
and receive what it is that they truly desire.
He seeks to impart to them—
and he seeks to impart to us—
“the wisdom from above,”
which can relieve our lamentation and brooding
because it is “peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity.”

He tells us first that our desire for greatness
will only be frustrated if it is ruled by the passions
of jealousy, selfish ambition, envy and covetousness.
As long as these passion war within us
we will never find true greatness,
but only engender conflict among ourselves.
According to the strange wisdom that comes from above,
to be first you must desire to be last;
to have true greatness you must embrace the role
that the selfish ambitions of our passions reject:
the role of servant of all.
And if we embrace the role of servant,
if we think above all of serving others
and not of serving our passions—
our jealousy, selfish ambition, 
envy and covetousness—
then we make space for the wisdom from above
to come and make its home within us 
and calm the chaos of our passions
and make us “peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits.”
This wisdom from above is embodied
in the child that Jesus takes in his arms:
one who has no greatness 
as our passions judge greatness,
one who seems to offer us nothing
that our passions might desire.
Yet in receiving that child
we receive Jesus,
and in receiving him
we receive the One who sent him,
the One who is Wisdom itself,
the One who can end the war within us
and the war between us.

We ask but do not receive,
because we ask wrongly,
in service of our passions.
Let us pray that God’s Spirit
would lead us to ask rightly
by making us the servant of all,
so that we might leave our lamenting
and be done with our brooding,
so that we might know 
the true wisdom from above,
and that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.