The other triduum

Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day. These three days can be called the other triduum of the Christian calendar. Rather than being days that take us through the reality of Jesus’ suffering and death, they are days that point us toward our own mortality and the finite nature of our own lives. What a good idea. No really.

There are lots of ways we could talk about the death defying nature of American culuture, from the statistics about how many Americans die in hospitals or institutions (death is no longer a part of our home lives) to the amount of money spent on healthcare in the last few months of someone’s life. Or just look at the articles and advertisements in a men’s or women’s magazine next time you are standing in line at the grocery store. Most will be offering some variation on “a life free from suffering in ten easy steps” or “simple home remedy to keep you looking young.” We seem to be willing to go to enormous lengths to pretend that death does not exist  least to try to pretend that it won’t happen to us.

Except on Halloween. On Halloween we, Americans, immerse ourselves in reminders of the mortal nature of human existence. And for those of us who are Christian, we spend two more days honoring the faithful departed, both the famous saints everyone knows and also those whose remarkable deeds are only shared in family stories at Thanksgiving dinner. We willing surround ourselves with death. The question is, will we really let it sink into our souls?

I believe there is a gift in acknowledging our mortality. Sure, as with all things we can go too far, and become depressed and fearful. Or we can choose to let the knowledge of our own death inspire us to live life more fully. We can stop saying, “Oh, I’ll do that next year.” The only guarantee we have is the here and now. 

Let us carry our mortality from this triduum into the coming days and weeks. May the reality of death be inspiration to live more holy lives that are filled with joy and gratitude.

On humility, generosity and thermodynamics

 View from my childhood home 

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT
October 29, 2017
Proper 25A, Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-46

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

My mom spent her whole professional career as a teacher. She started her career teaching math to elementary students and ended it teaching writing and literature to high schoolers. In between, and for much of my childhood, she spent it teaching adults how to build their own houses. She and my dad built the house I grew up in, and then she joined the faculty of that school. They hired her because she has gifts for teaching and because she has an undergraduate degree in history. They wanted a teacher whose professional training was not as an architect or an engineer or a carpenter. The mission of the school was to show people that anyone could take the three week course and learn to build their own house; it did not require any previous training. My mom taught Heat, Climate, and Foundations. In one particular session, she had a student who was a kind and thoughtful older gentleman who asked insightful questions during her lecture on the varieties of ways one could heat a house and what were the most efficient options for various locations. After the lecture he came up to chat with my mother. It turned out he had a PhD in Thermodynamics and was a professor at an Ivy League University. He had spent decades studying and teaching. He was far more qualified to give the lecture my mother had just offered. He could have hijacked her class or he could have spent all of the lunch break telling my mother what she did wrong. He did neither of those things. Instead, he complimented her on how accessible she made the material and offered a few polite suggestions on things that might be helpful to consider for future lectures.

My mom and I have talked often about that thermodynamics professor and what a wonderful example he set of humility. He was by far the expert in the room that day, but he did not need to announce that to the class. He didn’t ask those “questions” that were really just an opportunity for him to show the class how much he knew. That professor understood a very important truth: it wasn’t about him.

I thought of this story again this week as I reflected on our readings for today. Our readings also remind us of that all important truth: it is not about us. It is about God. It is about loving our neighbor. These are truths that Moses and Paul understood well. Poor Moses. He spends all that time leading the Israelites through the wilderness, hearing them complain about how life was better in Egypt, trying to help them and get them to understand God’s desires for them. He gets to lead them to the Promised Land. He even gets to see the Land in all its glory and beauty. But he does not get to go to it. God tells Moses, “I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” Now, we can imagine that Moses might have wanted to rant and rave about that. How unfair! He spent all that time and energy getting the people to this point, and he does not even get the reward of even a day in the Promised Land. We could easily construct a whole monologue here, but Moses doesn’t say any of that. Because Moses knows that it is not about him. Moses is a faithful servant of God. He understands that it is not about his own desires or his own glory. It is about God. It is about the people of Israel. Moses’ mission in life was not to achieve personal greatness, it was to give glory to God and care for the people.

And Paul knows this truth too. He tells the people in Thessalonica, “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.” Paul is willing to give of his very self for the people. He fully understands that living a faithful life means taking your ego out of the equation. It means letting go of our own desires for personal glory. It means seeking the good of the whole community above all. As our Gospel today reminds us, we are called to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. There is the key. We are called to LOVE.
If love is our motivation then we cannot be solely focused on ourselves. Love requires relationship and giving of oneself.

We are called by God to lives of generosity. We are called to lives that are holy. We are called to live lives that point to God, because as Moses, Paul, and that thermodynamics professor knew, it is not about us. It is about God. It is about living lives that are grace filled and humble.

I trust that each of you have stories like my mom’s, stories of someone who has inspired you by the humble and loving way they have lived their lives. I hope you will share these stories with each other, and whenever possible, tell the person who inspires you too! The world can always use more stories that inspire us to live more generously.

I hope each of us will keep these stories of grace and humility in our minds as we go about our daily lives. In this stewardship season we, the Cathedral community, are called to reflect on how we can live more generous lives. How can we be more generous with our time, with our hearts and with the material wealth with which we have been so richly blessed? Because, after all, it is not about us. It is about God. It is about loving our neighbor. It is about being generous so that our neighbors can thrive.

May each of us find enumerable ways in the coming days and weeks to live more generous lives. And may we draw daily on the depths of God’s love and grace, so that we can be a people of love and generosity in the world.

AMEN.

Render to Caesar . . . Sermon for October 22, 2017

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Grace Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT

October 22, 2017

Proper 24A, Matthew 25:15-22

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's. Render to God that which is God's."

Probably one of the most familiar passages in Scripture. But as one of my seminary professors said, "Never confuse familiarity with understanding."

And so I find myself trying to see this passage with new eyes and to figure out what it is this passage is saying to us, the people of Grace, at this time.

It could be that is just a reminder to do our civic duties and to be faithful citizens who exercise their right to vote, to make our beliefs and values known to our elected officials, and pay our taxes. Those are important things indeed. I do believe we are called to be participants in our common life and in our republic. Participation is part of the privilege and responsibility of living in this nation.

And I find myself wondering if the text isn't also trying to tell us something deeper as well. I wonder if there might also be an invitation here for us to do some deeper reflection about who we are, what we value, and where our priorities are.

I don't know about you, but I find the questions of values and priorities resonating with me right now. Whether it is the scourge of gun violence in our nation, the seeming unending news headlines about natural disasters - hurricanes, fires, floods and earthquakes, the continued political polarization in our government and our society, or the budget crises in our state and our city, not mention whatever challenges and losses we are facing in our own lives, I have times of feeling adrift or even overwhelmed.  The magnitude of human suffering we witness in the news and on our own social media streams can seem like too much to bear.

I am grateful for this text because it invites me to pause and reflect. It invites me to think about what is actually my responsibility and what can I let go of, what I can turn over to God.

"Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's. Render to God that which is God's."

Render to God that which is God's. Hmm. That which is God's. Well, if we think about it, what is God's is actually quite a lot. What do we say when the gifts are brought to the altar? "All things come of thee O Lord, and of thine own have we given the." ALL things come of thee O Lord. All things indeed.

And so, I find this text being an invitation to let some things go. An invitation to remember whose we are and the finite nature of our own existence. To put it bluntly this text puts us in our place. Of course, it could be easy to let that fact depress us and to complain that we don't want to feel small and insignificant. But I think there is actually a lot of freedom here.

The good kind of freedom - the kind that means we are free from bearing all the burdens and responsibility. The sheer magnitude of human suffering we have witnessed in recent weeks - from Texas to Puerto Rico to Las Vegas to Somalia and Afghanistan and so many other places - can seem positively insurmountable and beyond the pale. There is no way any one of us can possibly fix all that seems wrong with the world. The very good news for us today is that we don’t have to fix everything. We can turn it over. We can give our heavy hearts to God.

Now, this doesn't mean we are off the hook, as though we get to just wash our hands of everything and go on vacation. We are still called to be responsible citizens. We are called to be participants in civic life, to share our resources for the benefit of the common good. And of course, ultimately, we are still called to be followers of Jesus, and as such we are commanded to love God and to love our neighbor.

Now it might seem that there cannot be much freedom in being “commanded” to do something, but it is worth remembering that we freely chose to be followers of Jesus and that God commands us not ought of spite or anger, but out of love. Yes, God is commanding us, but it is like the command of a beloved mentor or coach. God commands us to strive toward a higher standard, because God believes we are capable of achieving it. God commands us to live holy and righteous lives and to live lives that exemplify love in the world, because that is who we are, because it is what we were created to do.

And so I hope we can all find a way to hold on to the challenge and the invitation in today’s Gospel. I hope we can simultaneously feel inspired and strengthened by God’s command to be faithful people in the world, people who live lives that show God’s love to the world. And I hope that we can feel a bit unburdened by the invitation to turn things over. I truly believe that we can live out more faithful, grace-filled lives when we are willing to let go and turn things over to God. May we have the strength and courage to do so each and every day.

AMEN.