Sermon — Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

“As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our sins from us…
For he himself knows whereof we are made;
he remembers that we are but dust.”
(Psalm 103:12, 14)

I’ll never forget the conversation I had in a hospital room one day in Connecticut, when I was in seminary. I was visiting a woman who’d been suffering for years with various health problems. She’d been in and out of the hospital several times over the last few months. She was sick, and she was tired. And after a few minutes of introductions and small talk that felt like pulling teeth, she looked at me with her eyes full of despair, and said, “I just don’t know why God would do this to me. I thought I was a good person my whole life. I always tried to do the right thing, and I thought I had. I guess I was wrong.” I suddenly realized why she wasn’t so happy to have a chaplain dropping by her room: she really believed that God was punishing her for something, but she had no idea why. And it broke my heart to hear that the spirituality that could have helped alleviate her pain made it worse instead.

I don’t know where along the way through life she’d learned this idea. Maybe she was taught as a child, by teachers or parents trying to get her to behave, that if she followed the rules, God would reward her in this life, and if she broke them, she’d be punished. Maybe she attended a church where preachers told her that mortality was Adam and Eve’s punishment for their primordial sin, or where they hammered home Paul’s statement that “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Maybe it was just her own anxiety in the face of suffering, the need to have control, the need for things to make sense, the hope that if we can simply be good enough, nothing bad will ever happen to us. More likely, it was all of these, and more. It takes a lifetime of experiences to learn these kinds of ideas. And it takes more than one hospital visit from a shiny new seminarian, however charming, to unlearn them.

You might think at first that our Ash Wednesday service could be part of the problem. On Ash Wednesday, after all, our liturgy combines the two themes of sin and death, of repentance and mortality. Its two special features are the imposition of ashes and the Litany of Penitence. With one breath, we remind one another that we are dust, and to dust we shall return; with the next, we confess that even for creatures made of mud, our lives are pretty messy, and we acknowledge the many ways in which each one of us falls short. And I can certainly understand how someone might think that there’s a causal connection here: that if “the wages of sin is death,” then it’s my individual failings that explain my own suffering.

And yet I can’t help but notice that in our Scripture readings tonight, things seem to work the other way around. I think in part this is because we’re living in a very different world. The ancients assumed that misfortune was the result of divine punishment, from one god or another, for sins known or unknown or simply because the gods were cruel. But the prophet Joel spends his time saying something else. Joel doesn’t say that the people have sinned, or that God will punish them, but that God will forgive them, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” It’s never too late, Joel says; “even now” you can return, and God will embrace you as her own. (2:12–13)

Fast forward a few hundred years, and when Paul talks about sin and suffering, it couldn’t be further from what my poor patient learned long ago. For Paul, the difficulty of his life, the depth of his suffering, is not an act of divine punishment or a sign of hidden wrongdoing; it’s the proof that he’s doing something right. If suffering in this life was a measurement of God’s love, then Paul’s is a world turned upside down, in which “we are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see!—we are alive.” (2 Cor. 8–9) Paul is left with nothing, and yet, by the grace of God, he finds himself possessing everything.

But for me, the “aha!” moment, the link that finally makes sense of this connection between sin and death, repentance and mortality, comes in the psalm. “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,” the psalmist says, echoing Joel, “slow to anger and of great kindness… He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.” So far, so good. We can always use a reminder, especially on Ash Wednesday, that God’s capacity for grace and mercy are far greater than our capacity for sin. But then this: “As a father cares for his children, so does the Lord care for those who fear him. For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust.” (Psalm 103:13–14) And it’s that “for” that gets me.

God is full of compassion and mercy. God does not deal out a punishment that fits our crimes. God has removed our sins from us, God cares for us like little children, FOR God knows whereof we are made; God remembers that we are dust. It’s not that we are mortal and fragile, sick and suffering because God is punishing us. That’s not the case at all. We are mortal, and we are fragile; we get sick and we suffer. And God sees us, and God loves us, and as far as the east is from the west, God removes our sins from us, for God knows that we are but dust. Our suffering is not the result of God’s wrath; it’s the source of God’s compassion, God’s choice to come alongside us, and help us bear the load.

So tonight, this Ash Wednesday, remember that you are but dust. Your greatest achievements, the things in life of which you are most proud, will one day be dissolved. Your youth, your health, will crumble into ash; if they’re not already long gone. Even the most powerful legacy will be forgotten one day. But the same is true of your flaws. Your deepest shame, your darkest moments, the ineradicable issues you wish that you could fix, but can’t, will one float away, like so much dust on the wind. There is no shame that you can carry that will last forever, no mistake that can never be undone. God sees you as you are, and God cares for you as you are, because God knows whereof you are made, God knows that you are but dust; and God wants to love you nevertheless: for God is “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” Amen.

Sermon — February 11, 2024

Pia Bertelli

Lectionary Readings

So, Jesus takes Peter and James and John, and leads them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. We know from Luke’s version of the Transfiguration story he took them up there to pray in peace away from the crowds. I imagine it might have been like heading out for a family trip where the parents know where the family is going, but the children haven’t been told all the details yet. Everyone gets packed into the car and you’re no sooner out of the driveway, or in the case of Jesus and his disciples, headed up the path, when someone says, “How far are we going?” “Why are you taking us up here Jesus? Did you bring any snacks? Peter would’ve been complaining the loudest no doubt.

We don’t know if Jesus had any idea of what was about to happen up on the mountain – the vision, the revelation, the inevitable change that would occur in them. Imagine with me it’s you and your friends or family – you’ve climbed Mt Monadnock or maybe closer the Great Blue Hill. You get to the top. It’s a clear day so, as expected, you can see for miles. In one direction you see the iconic Boston Skyline. From the Great Blue Hill, you see Houghton’s Pond and Ponkapoag Pond. From Mt Monadnock you may see the Green Mountains in Vermont or the White Mountains in New Hampshire. It’s inspiring. You might not be compelled to get down on your knees, (you are after all an Episcopalian and don’t want to create a spectacle), but at least you bow your head and say a prayer of thanks to God for this glorious day, your health, and being with the people you love. You share a snack and descend the mountain, changed perhaps. You have a new awareness, a deeper appreciation.

The mountain top where Jesus and the disciples were must have been a thin place though – a place where earth and heaven are close. They arrive at the top and as they are praying, Jesus is transfigured before them and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. Thankfully, Clorox has not co-opted this image for a commercial.  Elijah and Moses appear, and he was talking to them. Certainly, at this point the three disciples must’ve been startled. I imagine Peter wide-eyed, fretfully running to and fro, wringing his hands, as he tells Jesus that it is good for them to be there and suggests they make a dwelling for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. They have had this close encounter with God and Peter wants to stay up on the mountain and savor this numinous experience.

Peter is speechless afterwards, for they were terrified. And, if this experience of dazzling light hasn’t affected them, a cloud comes over them and from the cloud a voice saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Got your attention now? If you’re a Trekkie, the line “Resistance is futile” comes to mind.

While I haven’t heard God speak to me from a cloud, (I’m not sure I’d be here today to tell you about it if I had), I did have an experience once while taking communion. There were several hundred people to communicate so the ushers ensured the procession up to the altar was orderly and efficient. I knelt, took the bread and the cup, and then became rooted to the kneeler. I envisioned a javelin of light entering my head and traveling through my body pinning me before the altar. People around me left and another set came. I knew I should move on, but just couldn’t. Thankfully no one tried to shuffle me along and eventually I arose and made my way back to my pew. I couldn’t tell you in what liturgical season that happened or exactly what was happening in my life, but I can tell you that I never took the eucharist the same again. I was altered. I was more intentional as I prepared to line up, more cognizant of what I was partaking in. I was more open to the holy spirit working in me as I accepted the sacrament. More pensive about what it meant to be fed by the body and blood of the lamb.

Back to our story of the disciples on the mountain top. After seeing AND hearing God, Jesus must get the disciples off that mountain. Jesus knows they cannot build a dwelling and live a top this mountain like an ascetic might. His work to proclaim God’s love is down below with the people. On their way down, he gives them a glimpse of what is to come and what he wants them to do. He orders them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 

Elisha also has a dazzling experience. He knows Elijah will soon be taken and he is sticking close to him even though he knows exactly where Elijah is going, and they will be traveling a long distance. His devotion is remarkable and for his constancy he asks for a double-share of Elijah’s spirit. He wants to continue Elijah’s work and is not afraid to ask for what he needs. Elijah tells Elisha if he sees him taken, he may inherit what he asks for, if not, he may not. It is in the hands of God. A chariot of fire and horses of fire come, separates the two and Elijah is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha has been steadfast and experienced the vision he needs to be changed. He responds in grief and tears his clothes in two pieces. I’d say come back next week to learn if God has indeed granted him a double-portion of Elijah’s spirit, but it’s not the scripture for next week so I’ll tell you.

Fifty men go out looking for Elijah even though Elisha tells them they won’t find him. It is confirmed, the prophet is gone, and they are left with Elisha who does not disappoint but goes on to heal the bad water and the unproductive fields in Jericho. Next, he devises a battle plan to defeat the Moabites. 2 Kings is full of tales of Elisha successes, including the juicy story of Jezebel. He is clearly given a double-portion of Elijah’s spirit and I commend the book to you.

In both scripture readings, and in Psalm 50, where God has come in a consuming flame and a raging storm, the experience of God has been overwhelming. I cannot imagine praying to experience the countenance of Jesus and being so dazzled, but also do not want to be veiled, as Paul refers to the unbelievers in Corinth. Paul reminds the Corinthians, God said, “Let light shine out of darkness” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Paul has given the Corinthians, the disciples and us the next set of directions. Rather than telling people about the mystical experience they had up on the mountain, the disciples must show the message of God’s love. Paul tells the Corinthians they must be slaves for Jesus’ sake. He doesn’t tell them to be a slave TO Jesus but for his sake – to give up, to modify, to align oneself with the mission of Jesus to bring in God’s kingdom. We need to allow the divine in us and reflect the light out. To bring in a kingdom here on earth where everyone’s worth is acknowledged and valued. A kingdom where everyone is called to participate.    

Transfiguration Sunday, the last day of Epiphany, with scriptures recounting mystical visions and theophany, is the threshold of reading about Jesus’ life and Lent, where we focus on his journey to the cross. Today, as we prepare for Lent, I ask, how will you prepare yourself? What will your Lenten practice be – prayer, meditations, paying attention to your visions and dreams? What will you pray for – a double share of spirit? Visions from God in dazzling white? I think we need only take our cue from the Collect for today and pray to behold by faith the countenance of Jesus so that we might be changed into his likeness and live a life of transforming, redemptive love.

In the name of the one who named the world, Amen.

Sermon — January 28, 2024

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

Last week, a YouTube video entitled “Police Called to Stop Filming During Piano Livestream” went viral, receiving over 7.5 million views in five days. It’s a thirty-minute video in which Brendan Kavanagh, a British teacher-turned-YouTuber, sits down at the public piano in St Pancras Station in London and begins playing, while a friend live streams video from a phone camera. Every few minutes, you see people stop by to watch for a while as he plays, then wander on. About ten minutes in, a woman approaches and he steps away from the piano. offering her a chance to play. Instead, she asks him whether he’s been recording, and tells him that she’s part of a group who are there to record a holiday greeting for a Chinese TV station;. They’ve signed a contract that says their images and voices can’t be used for anything else, and she wants him to remove them from the video.

This is where things go downhill. She asks him not to publish the video. He responds by saying that they’re in Britain, not in China, and that he’s allowed to film in public. The argument continues, and escalates, until they accuse him of racism and assault and call the police.

Two officers respond. One of them explains to the group that if they’re in public, he has the right to film. The other officer looks exhausted. She and the piano player are on first name terms. It’s clear she’s had to deal with him before. She keeps asking him to turn off the camera so they can talk without it going on his YouTube channel; he keeps responding that they’re in Britain, it’s a free country, and he has the right to film in a public place. And around and around they go, for thirty minutes of video: “Could you please respect people’s privacy when they ask you to?” vs. “I have the right to film them”—and, by the way, the right to make money off the video. Based on the YouTube views, I’d say he’s made tens of thousands of dollars this week.

If you replaced the piano player with the Christians in the ancient city of Corinth, and the very tired police officer with the very tired apostle Paul, you’d have our Epistle this morning, live-streamed to millions of viewers. Each situation exemplifies the same simple but important truth: Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

Paul spends much of the First Letter to the Corinthians responding to some questions about community disputes, quoting parts of their questions and giving his replies. In this chapter he turns to an argument over whether it’s okay to eat meat that’s been sacrificed to idols—and at this point, your eyes may have glazed over, because this is not exactly a hot-button issue for the 21^st-century church.

So by way of context: eating meat, in the Corinthians’ world, religious sacrifice was an ordinary form of meat production. An animal would be brought to the temple of one of the various gods, and slaughtered. Some parts would be burned as an offering to the god, some parts given to the priests, and the rest used for a feast. The poorer people in the city would rarely have the chance to eat meat, except when it was distributed freely as part of a religious festival; the wealthier or more prestigious would often be invited to dine in the temple banquet hall, as part of civic or social events, which is what Paul’s mostly talking about. And this is a problem, for the Corinthian Christians, because they are just a few dozen converts living in a fully-pagan society.

Paul’s taught them to worship the one God of his own Jewish people, and to stay away from the worship of idols, from the traditional pantheon of Greek and Roman gods. But this would have a social cost. If they’re to avoid meat that’s been sacrificed to idols, the Corinthian Christians would have to stay away from family holidays and public celebrations; they’d have to turn down invitations to go out to eat.

But some of the Corinthians realize there’s a loophole. “All of us possess knowledge,” they write to Paul. (1 Cor. 8:1) We know that there really is “no God but one,” that “no idol in the world really exists.” (1 Cor. 8:4) We know, they say, that the Roman gods like Mars and Venus and Jupiter aren’t real, so we know that we’re not really worshiping them when we eat this food that’s been offered in their honor. The idols aren’t a temptation to us. We know it’s nothing but a meal. So we have every right to eat in their temples; we’re not worshiping any other god.

Now, I’m not sure their argument really works. But Paul doesn’t try to engage in a theological dispute. He simply replies: You know that it’s nothing but a meal; but not everyone does. (8:7) Your faith in the one God of Israel is strong; others’ faith is weak. You’re the leaders of the church; but what if one of the new members comes along, and sees you eating in the temple of some other god, and doesn’t realize that you’ve got your fingers crossed behind your back? What kind of an example are you setting if you lean on your deep understanding of theology to avoid having to change anything about your actual lives?

It’s pretty simple, Paul writes. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (8:1) Maybe on a theological level you have the right to eat meat sacrificed to idols, but all that does is puff you up. On the practical level you have the chance to love your neighbors, to help them turn away from idols and toward God, but you’ve chosen to make life easy for yourself instead. So “by your knowledge those weak believers are destroyed.” (1 Cor. 8:11)

The strongest Corinthian believers may well have the right to eat meat sacrificed to idols. But that doesn’t mean they should. And this incredibly specific, totally-irrelevant debate about ancient animal sacrifice turns out to be just another instance of the same rule: Even if you have the right to do something, sometimes it’s the wrong thing to do.

Paul didn’t make this idea up. It’s at the heart of the Incarnation, at the center of who Jesus is and what Jesus does. The eternal Word of God gives up everything to come down and be with us, because it’s more important to love us than to stay safe from harm. He is the Messiah, the anointed one, and yet unlike any other king, he sacrifices himself for his people, and not the other way around. Jesus has all the authority in the world; but he takes none of the power; and yet that sacrificial love turns out to be the most powerful thing of all. And—while I’m mostly spending this morning with Paul—you can see this pattern beginning in our gospel reading for today, in the story of the man possessed by an unclean spirit.

We science-minded Christians in 2024 might squirm in our seats, not sure that unclean spirits really exist. But in the ancient world, most people were convinced they did; and they might’ve expected someone with all that power to use the demons, not to cast them out. Magicians tried to control spirits and demons, to make them do their bidding. That’s exactly what Jesus doesn’t do. He isn’t a sorcerer, trying to gather an army of spirits to establish his own might. He could. He seems to have that authority over the spiritual world. But he chooses instead to use his power to heal. Given the choice between puffing himself up and building others up, Jesus chooses to help his weaker neighbor every time.

In our lives, we have the right to do so many things that are simply wrong, even though nobody could stop us from doing them. That’s half of what the meaning of freedom is: the freedom to do what we want, without anyone stopping us. We are free to things that we probably should not do. We can make a profit off a video of a confrontation with someone else. We can flaunt our wealth or our knowledge or our beliefs as proof that we are not like other people. It is our God-given right, enshrined in the United States Constitution, to be as rude as we want to the people around us, and nothing can ever take that right away.And we have the chance to do some things that are right, even though nobody can make us. And this is the other half of freedom is: the freedom to give up being right, for a minute, and do the right thing. That’s what love is, in a relationship or in a community: giving up the right to be right, for just a minute, and doing something nobody can force us to do. We are free to forgive one another, to give second and third and seventy-seventh chances that other people don’t deserve. We are free to help one another live better lives, in small ways and in big ones. We are free to follow in some small way in Jesus’ steps; to give up all the things that puff us up, so that in love, we might build other people up. And we might find, as Paul did, that if we claim to have knowledge, we turn out to know nothing; but when we choose instead to show love, God has been there, loving us all along.