Sermon Synopses - 2011

Sermons at Trinity are usually ex tempore, that is done without notes...Please enjoy our "Sermon Synopses" or short summaries of sermons preached at Trinity

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Sermon for Friday, March 25, 2011
Feast of the Annunciation
Luke 1:26-38

“Annunciation moments.” Every Sunday in our catechumenate sessions, we begin by asking the question, “How has God been active in your life since we last met?”  And I love hearing how God has shown up in our every day lives in the past seven days.  I suspect that all of us can look back at our day or week and pick out times when we sensed God’s presence.  Perhaps it was a beautiful sunrise, a moment with our child or loved one, a rare moment of quiet in the midst of a hectic day.  Are these moments of God’s revelation “Annunciation moments?”  God does indeed seek to reveal himself to us, and our hearts can “pick up his signals,” if we are attentive.  But what I might call “Annunciation moments” are more complex.      

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, the feast that commemorates God’s making himself known to Mary.  And God did show up in Mary’s life, to be sure – but he did not show up in such a fleeting way as a sunrise, a cherished moment with a child or a still small voice in the midst of a storm.   God showed up for Mary in such a way that was long-term, life altering and, at best, extremely inconvenient – God announced to her that she would be a mother!  What was Mary’s reaction, I wonder, “off the record?”  Yes, Luke tells us that Mary was quite compliant:  “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”  But can you imagine how Mary’s life was forever changed – to be pregnant, to be pregnant and young and unwed, to have her young life suddenly be intruded upon by another yet younger life, to have to carry around that extra weight in the Mediterranean heat, to not know if she would survive childbirth; and then after Jesus was born to have to wake in the night, to feed him, to deal with his having gas, change his soiled clothes, blow his runny nose, try to keep him clean, and all the while trying to run a household and make ends meet.  And, as if that weren’t enough, soon a strange old man in the temple named Simeon would tell her how her son would be the occasion for the rising and falling of many in Israel, and how a sword would pierce her own soul, too.  I wonder if she ever regretted saying “Yes” to the angel.  Or I wonder, if she were to show up at our catechumenate sessions several months later, and were to tell how God has been active in her life, what would she say?  Would she have glowing reports of how things were going and a close sense of God?  Would she be tired and stressed and maybe burst into tears?  Would she be angry – “This is not what I had in mind.”    

Though I suspect we can all point to moments in our days and weeks when we sensed God’s presence – and thank God, that he seeks to reveal himself to us and that we are developing the spiritual eyes and ears to see and hear him! – “Annunciation moments” are moments that call for great courage.  “Annunciation moments” – moments such as giving birth, making vows, receiving a difficult medical diagnosis, the dissolution of vows, the death of someone close to us – are moments when God is present … and it’s not going to be easy.  These “Annunciations” in our lives will be with us long-term, they will irrevocably change us, and they will not be convenient.

Vocation. Perhaps the best way to think about “Annunciation moments” is in terms of vocation, something God is calling us to.  “Vocation” – from the Latin vocare, “to call” – is something God gives to all of us.  We often speak of vocation in terms of the priesthood or religious life, but vocation in its truest sense encompasses whatever way God is calling us to serve him in the world.  Our “vocation,” then, can be: to be a parent, to be a spouse, to live with illness or debilitation, to care for someone with illness or debilitation, to be an attorney, to be an organist, to be for a time in spiritual “darkness,” to be for a time financially strapped, to make your neighborhood a better place, to feed the hungry, to teach…. The list could go on.  God is calling all of us to serve him in this world, to carry out his mission to restore all people to unity with him and with each other in Christ.  Sometimes God calls us gradually over time – sort of like the angel appearing to Manoah and his wife multiple times, announcing the birth of Samson.  Sometimes God calls us all of a sudden, like Gabriel to Mary.  And there will no doubt be times in our vocation – as there were certainly times in Mary’s life with Jesus – that our vocation brings us extreme joy.  Imagine, Mary’s pride when Jesus learned to walk or talk, when she could see in his interactions with others his compassionate heart, or how he continued to grow in wisdom and years.  Likewise, as in any vocation, there will be seasons of difficulty, when the sword will pierce our own heart, as it must have Mary, to bid Jesus goodbye when he set off on his public ministry, to see him rejected in his hometown, and eventually to see him on the cross.

Two witnesses. I see in the Feast of the Annunciation two witnesses to us.  1) One witness of Mary and the Annunciation to us as we are carrying out our vocations in the world is that vocation is like pregnancy and child bearing.  God plants a seed within us, and we can feel it grow gradually, over time becoming aware of the new life to which he is calling us.  God calls us to bear this life into the world, and to continually nurture it until it reaches maturity.  As we look back on the things in our lives we might call our vocations – marriage, parenting, a particular career or way of volunteering – we can likely tell how we have had to persistently nurture our vocations.  Vocation is a long-term, patient thing, calling for us to be nurses and mothers to bring it to bear.  2) Another witness of Mary and the Annunciation to us as we are carrying out our vocations in this world is that “nothing will be impossible with God.”  God will call us through some deep waters in our vocations – never for the sake of hindering us, but so that he can bring us to a place where he can more fully show us his glory –  and as we go through these waters, so long as we are with God, nothing will be impossible.  With God, we will get through.  God will not deliver us out of our trials, but God will help us get through them.  God may allow us to be tested to our limits, but God will not let us be tested beyond our limits. 

Closing. What have been the Annunciation moments in your life?  How do these moments continue to bear upon your life today?  I invite you on this feast of the Annunciation to take a look at these moments.  What have they been like for you?  What has your journey been?  Where has God shown up for you as a result of these Annunciations?  And I encourage you to ask Jesus for the courage to persevere in the long haul of our vocations, the courage to open yourself to what God seeks to work in you – to bring to bear in you – through your Annunciations, and the courage to trust that God will not let us be tested beyond what we can bear, but will bring us through the experience of the cross on to the empty tomb.

Sermon for Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Gregory the Illuminator
Acts 17:22-31
Matthew 5:11-16

Whenever my son hears the story we heard today from Acts 17, the story of Paul preaching in the Areopagus, he says, “Dad, we were in the Areopagus.”  “We stood in the place where Paul preached.  Remember?”  We were indeed, and I’m proud that Shaw still remembers that trip, given that he was only 5.  And when you stand in that spot in the Areopagus in Athens, on that enormous rock just downhill from the Acropolis in the agora, with the centuries-old steps carved into it (steps that were already old when Paul preached there) you can imagine the many idols against which Paul preached: their pillars and pedestals, torsos and limbs are, if not lying prone in the agora, standing in the nearby museums of Athens.

This text from Acts and the text from Matthew are fitting texts for today’s feast of St. Gregory the Illuminator, whom we are told was a powerful preacher and who turned the people of Armenia from idolatry to Christianity.   Though we know almost nothing else about Gregory’s life – the extent of what we know I just ready to you before the service – Gregory does bear witness to us of two things:  idolatry, and being the “salt of the earth.”

Though we might think of idolatry as something rather quaint and outdated, idolatry is still very much alive. As we are well aware, we are routinely tempted to bow down before things that are not God, putting our trust in them:  money and possession and power are perhaps the most obvious, but also things like time, our need to be perfect, our sense of entitlement, our need to accomplish – and I’m sure we can all think of other things that we let rule our lives, that we let become our gods! And bowing down to them, we become like them, our hearts numbed to the living God and turned to stone. These idolatries, however small, mis-set the compass of our lives, hindering us from finding and following Jesus Christ fully and in a way that satisfies our soul.

When with God’s help we are able to hear the gospel preached and to turn and follow rightly, then we can become, like Gregory, salt of the earth and lights of the world.  When we worship Christ, we become the people God created us to be, our lives are put right, and through us others have the chance of tasting the “saltiness” of God and seeing the way in His light. 

We live in a world just as “unchristian” as Gregory’s.  It requires great courage for us not to worship this world’s idols, and to worship God and to live rightly in this world.  I hope that we may hear the gospel as clearly as Gregory preached it, that we may have the courage that Gregory did to follow, and that God may use us, as He did Gregory, to be the salt of this earth and the lights of this world.

Sermon for Wednesday, March 13, 2011
James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti and of the Dominican Republic, 1911
Acts 8:26-39
John 4:31-38

As I read the biography of James Theodore Holly and read the lessons appointed for his feast day, I am noticing that Bishop Holly is portrayed as a man who made disciples –we are told that his diocese doubled during his time as bishop.  I am aware that many of us at Trinity say that we would like to grow as a parish.  This evening, we’re going to take a look at Bishop Holly and today’s reading for some clues as to how we can make disciples:

John 4:31-38:  Jesus tells his disciples that “the fields are ripe for harvesting,” because another has gone before and sown seed: “I have sent you to reap that for which you did not labour.  Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.” 

• Take away:  The fields are ripe!  Let’s go into the harvest!
• And… we are also to sow seed for future generations to harvest.  (Those we may bring in to Trinity are a result of someone else planting a seed before.) 
• We are called to enter into this centuries-old rhythm of harvesting and sowing seed.

 
Acts 8:26-39:  The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. 

• Passage gives ingredients needed to make a disciple:
• Scripture
• Holy Spirit
• Desire (for scripture, for baptism)
• Another Christian
• I am noticing these ingredients, but more importantly tonight I am noticing that disciples are made one by one, by other Christians. 
• If we wish to make disciples, it is up to us to do it, one by one.  We are to meet people where they are, to be with them and their questions, to help them engage the scriptures, to listen for the activity of the Spirit in their lives, and to honor their desire for God.
• Work not so much painstaking – though it can be at times – as it is rewarding; ask anybody involved with the catechumenate.
• What is important is to persevere in this work; keep at it!

Bishop Holly:

• Yes, he doubled the size of his diocese– but it took him over 36 years to do it!
• So often, we look at other churches that are growing and wonder what is wrong with us, that we are not growing so quickly.  (We have grown by 1 for each of the last three years.) 
• Not always helpful to compare selves to others. Rather,
• Focus on our own discipleship (to what extent are “discipleship ingredients” in our lives: scripture, Spirit, desire, “holy conversations” with other Christians) and…
• … persevere in the slow, steady process of making disciples:  meeting people one by one where they are, be present for them in their questions, help them to engage the scriptures, listen for the activity of the Spirit in their lives, and honor their desire for God.
• As we are faithful disciples ourselves, and as we pay attention to how we make disciples, God will use us to draw others to him, guaranteed.

“Can we make disciples quickly enough to remain a viable parish?” you might ask?  “I don’t think this is a helpful question to ask,” I would say.  “There is no way to rush this; the Spirit works on its own time.”   Whether or not past generations sowed enough seed for us to harvest is beyond our control; what we can do is to be faithful disciples ourselves, sow seed for the next generation, and trust that God will use us how God wills.

Do you wish to make disciples, like Bishop Holly, like Philip, and like Jesus asked the disciples to do in John’s gospel?  Keep in mind the lessons we learned this evening:

• People out there are wanting to be made disciples.  “The harvest is plentiful.”
• Making disciples involves patient work: of meeting people where they are, of helping them to engage the scriptures, of listening for God’s activity in their lives, and honoring their desire for God.  This patient work is up to us!
• It will take time!  It took Bishop Holly over 36 years to double the diocese; it is not realistic for us to double overnight.
• As we persevere in our own discipleship – and in harvesting and sowing – we can be assured that nothing that we do will be lost.  God will gather up our efforts, the seeds that we plant today, and will bring them to bear fruit, if not tomorrow, then in the next generation, and these grains of wheat will bear 30, 60 and 100 fold.

Sermon for Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday

Lent is an opportunity to fall in love.
Lent is an opportunity to fall in love?!?  “Miller, now you’ve lost it.  Isn’t Lent about repentance and discipline and acts of self-denial, and doesn’t it begin with ashes?  (Look at the liturgy; it says it right here!)  How, then, can you say that Lent is ‘an opportunity to fall in love?’” 

We can say that Lent is about falling in love because Lent and love are both framed by two questions…

• “What is enough to satisfy the soul?”
• “What am I willing to risk to get it?”
• Lent:  With its disciplines, Lent is a season that asks us “What is enough?” as we give things up and find out if it is “enough” without them; or we take things on hoping that perhaps they are the “enough” that satisfies the soul.  And looking ahead, the cross of Good Friday asks us what we are willing to risk to get it.
• Love:  Each of us is created a half, and not a whole.  We spend our lives trying to find the “enough” to satisfy our incompleteness.  We must take risks to find wholeness:  Am I willing to risk rejection?  Am I willing to risk laying myself bare before another?  Am I willing to risk making a life-long commitment? 
• Lent is an opportunity to fall in love because, “What is enough to satisfy my soul?”  and “What am I willing to risk to get it?” are questions both about Lent and love.

What Lent offers us is an opportunity to explore these questions and to fall in love with what can ultimately satisfy our soul – God.

• We Christians know, at least intellectually, that only God can satisfy our soul – the hole within us is a God-shaped hole, filled only by God.
• We know this at least on an abstract level.   But what Lent offers us is a chance to know this physically, intimately.
• Not only is Lent a “sensual” season in its rites and disciplines – the imposition of ashes, the washing of feet, the disciplines of fasting or the quiet of prayer bearing upon our senses …
• …but the scripture readings for the Sundays of Lent offer an opportunity to let Jesus draw closer to us, to become intimate with us.

[Sunday scripture readings]

• The Sunday scripture readings begin with Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  Jesus is in the desert; all is parched and barren.  He is alone; no one else is around. 
• The scripture readings end up on Easter Sunday morning in a garden, with the risen Lord and the beautiful story of his appearance to Mary Magdalene in which he calls to her by name: “Mary.”  (“Rabbouni!”)
• How did we get from a desert and fasting and temptation, to a lush garden and a surprise encounter with the risen Lord, our hearts pounding, as he calls us by name?
• Over the course of the weeks of Lent, the scriptures gave us the opportunity to know Jesus more and more personally, and we “fell in love.”
• At the start of Lent, “Jesus” is all about activities and ideals.  Lent is about fasting, repentance and acts of self-denial; things we do and things we are striving for.  And as we make our way through Lent – through the stories of Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus – we came to know Jesus intimately.  We sat in the desert with Jesus and watched his temptation, wincing at the subtle cruelty of the tempter; we held him and comforted him.  We sat in the dark with Nicodemus, hearing Jesus’ breath and the lovely and challenging words he speaks, with that voice there in the dark.   We encountered Jesus with the woman at the well, seeing the great fondness he has for her, almost teasing her, and we are moved to see how he accepts her even as he knows everything she has ever done.  With the man born blind we felt Jesus come close to us, this river of calm making mud and putting it on our eyes.  We opened our eyes to see him and noticed the compassion and love in his young face, and we worshiped him.  We felt the love he has for Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, how he grieved Lazarus’ death.  We were in the cold tomb with Lazarus and heard his command to come out, and we came forth to be unbound and let go.
• As we enter these scriptures of Lent, this Jesus who at the beginning of Lent is about activities and ideals is now a man whom we have come to know, and whose suffering and death we mourn deeply on Good Friday.
• Isn’t it always the particulars we fall in love with? The glint in that eye; the way he leans against the edge of the well; the way holds himself and you can tell he is proud of the disciples; that voice, gentle and playful, he uses with Nicodemus and the woman at the well; those hands as he makes mud and helps the blind man; that kind heart evident in how he relates to Mary and Martha; those bruises to his psyche from the mean jibes of the Pharisees.  It is difficult in the last week to be with him in the temple, knowing there is a price on his head, unable to help, feeling sorrow, feeling love, for this man we have watched grow. 

“Falling in love” captures the essence of what happened to us over the course of Lent. When we “fall” in love, we make the decision to leave the firm ground on which our feet presently stand and to leap for what will satisfy our soul.  And there is no guarantee that when we land again, we will do so whole and intact.  Perhaps it is this Lent in which we will have found the “enough” that satisfies the soul; perhaps it is this Lent that we will be willing to risk all to get it. 

It is my hope and prayer that we fall in love this Lent.  It is a high hope, I know – we may not use this language of “falling in love” in relation to God; and it certainly seems a stretch that it will happen in the next 40 days, if it has not happened already in the last how-ever-many years – but I have a hunch that we all know what it is like to fall in love, that we have good memories of it, and that we want to do it again. 

I will leave you with a scene from the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  It’s a scene that takes place near the end of the movie on a porch – perhaps you remember it. George (Jimmy Stewart) is speaking with Mary (Donna Reed).  It’s a playful scene, and it is witnessed by an old man, peering over the top of a newspaper he is pretending to read. Seeing George’s cute but clumsy conversation with Mary, the older man finally looks up from his paper and says:

Old Man: Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?
George: How's that?
Old Man: Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?
George: Want me to kiss her, huh?
Old Man (rising up and leaving, in disgust): Ah, youth is wasted on all the wrong people!

I know that tonight’s ashes will remind me that my days are numbered here on this earth.  I pray that our “youth” is not wasted on us, that these 40 days will put us in touch with that which is enough to satisfy our soul, and that we will be willing to take the risk to get it.

Sermon for Wednesday, March 2, 2011
St. Chad
Luke 14:1, 7-14

St. Chad is one of my three dozen favorite saints, and I have had the opportunity to sit next to him – albeit briefly – at the great banquet of the communion of saints.  I have always been attracted to Chad and wanted to talk to him because, you see, Chad walked wherever he went. And so I made it a point one evening to sidle up to him and chat.

T:  So, Chad.  Did you really walk everywhere?
C:  Oh, yes, I did.  Or I did until Archbishop Theodore compelled me to ride a donkey, at least for the longer journeys.
T:  Why did you walk? 
C:  Most people think that I walked merely out of humility; indeed, today’s scripture readings – you know, “Friend, come up higher.” -- suggest that I walked out of humility. But the real reason I walked was deeper than that.
T:  What do you mean?  Say more.
C:  Well, you know, I spent a lot of time praying with the gospels.  And in the gospels I noticed that Jesus almost always walked.  I mean, I know he went by boat some of the time, and we all know that he rode the donkey on Palm Sunday.  But everywhere else Jesus went, he walked.  And so I thought that one of the ways I could get to know Jesus better, to really get a picture for what it was like to follow him and be with him, was to walk. 
T:  So, it sounds as though your walking was what we might call a “spiritual practice.”
C:  Yes, it was.  And because I always needed to walk, I never lacked opportunity to practice.  I did set aside time to pray and read scripture as well; walking did not replace those.  But walking was always present.  Rather than see walking as an inconvenience, I thought I might as well make use of it, using my walking to pray and imagine what it was like to be with Jesus, even as he walked.
T:  And what was it like to be with Jesus as he walked?
C:  The thing that strikes me the most about walking around and imagining myself walking with Jesus was how much he is at home in and loves this world.  He notices the beauty of the hills or the sky.  Remember how he noticed the fig tree and looked for fruit on it?  That’s how he notices everything, vineyards, fields, sheep on the hillside.  He is at home here and loves it; he loves moving about in the world he had made.  And he is always glad to meet people.  President Clinton, they say, is ever gracious to people he meets, making you feel as though you the most important person in the world, and that he was not at all in a rush, that he wanted to be with you.  It is that way with Jesus, only more so.  All those stories about Jesus encountering, say Bartimeus, or Jairus, or the widow of Nain… Well, Jesus does indeed “look on them and love them” (like to the rich young ruler).  These are his children, you see. He loves them.  I wanted something of what Jesus had, this love for the world and those in it.  So I determined to walk everywhere, just as Jesus had done.  I tried to imagine myself following him, being next to him, hearing him speak, noticing how he noticed things.
T:  What did you learn that you would like me to share with people at Trinity Parish?
C:  It’s hard to say, to explain, you know... but they can discover it for themselves.  Jesus loves them, has compassion on them, wants to be with them, wants to walk with them.  It wouldn’t take much convincing on his part, if that’s what they wanted for their lives, too.
T: What’s your secret?  Is there anything they can do, if they’d like this experience, too?
C:  “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened unto you.”

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