Good and Eternal

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
April 27, 2020
Psalm 36 & 39; Col. 1:1-14; Matt. 3:7-12

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.

Many of you know that I have a hard time with these passages on Judgment. And I feel like saying, “God, life is hard enough right now. I don’t need these kinds of passages. There are days when producing any fruit - whether it be the laundry, the groceries, the schoolwork or my own work - is hard enough. Now you are telling me it has to be “good” fruit or else? Nope. Can’t take it.”

That is always my first instinct. To read this passage as some kind of impossible standard God is holding up for us to attain. Somehow we have to be perfect or the consequences will be dire. Then I take a deep breath, and I look again. And I hear the voices of wise and wonderful people in my life. I hear them gently asking me to look at the text again and to wonder whether the image of a wrathful, vengeful God holding me to an impossibly high standard is really what this text is saying or does it fit with the God I know and love.

Um, no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t fit with what I know of God. And I also think about the resources I have valued when I have grappled with these texts previously. One of my favorite resources that really helped to transform my thinking about these judgment texts is a collection of essays written by Eugene Kennedy in the wake of 9/11. Kennedy writes of those who died on 9-11 (and I think this could apply equally to many large scale and individual losses in our lives and our world): “Their voices, taken from phone calls and emails and the recollections of friends, blend now into one message, one voice like a canyon echo coming back to us out of the ruins: ‘I love you,’ said in a thousand ways is the true harvest of these good people’s lives. The good grain so overflowed that it covered over the patches of human stubble in their lives . . . They defined themselves and what life and faith are all about in the commitment to the relationships in their lives.” When we look at all those people from all sorts of walks a life - a real cross section of humanity - who perished on 9/11 or in any other context, we should see the good - the overwhelming good in them, for as Kennedy goes on to say, that is what ultimately matters to God. Kennedy writes, “What is good and bad in us grows together. On judgment day, God harvests only what is good in us, for that is what is eternal, and ignores the weeds that belong to time.”

Right. There is where our focus should be. On what is good and eternal. It is so easy in these times (or any time when we feel stretched thin or overwhelmed or fearful) for those voices to be dominant in our minds and hearts. It is so easy to focus on what is wrong, on what is missing, on what is lost. But as wise people know, that is not a life-giving place to be. Endlessly focusing on what is missing will leave us disheartened, and we will miss out on the abundance that is right in front of us.

Of course, in these times we are aware of what is missing. We cannot be with our friends. We cannot gather as the faithful people of God in person. We cannot just hop in our car or on the subway and go about what used to be a regular routine. Those are the losses of our daily lives. We are also grappling with the more significant grief of losing people we know or to whom we are connected in some way. The losses of this pandemic are not merely numbers on a screen. They have human faces and lives that tell stories just like those who died on 9/11. The losses are significant and real in these days.

And while we can and must acknowledge the magnitude of our grief, we cannot live in that place. We cannot stay there. We must not allow our vision to be solely focused on loss. There are many, many blessings in our lives for which we can be grateful even in this time. Technology to stay connected. Not just having jobs, but having the opportunity to do inspiring and meaningful work. The gifts of collegiality and friendship. As our General Thanksgiving says, “the loving care which surrounds us on every side.” Health, enough to eat, the beauty of the natural world. The list goes on and on.

Mystic and theologian Meister Eckhart is known for saying that if our only prayer is “Thank you” that will be enough. Indeed. In the midst of all the challenges we are facing, in the midst of all the fear and uncertainty, may we keep finding the words and the ways to express our gratitude. May our eyes and hearts continue to be open to see the tremendous beauty of our world and the resiliency of the human spirit. AMEN.

Ascension Day Homily

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Chapel of our Lord, Episcopal Church Center

Ascension Day, May 30, 2019

Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53; Psalm 47

“Thus it is written . . . that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Repentance and forgiveness of sins. Wait. Isn’t it still Easter? Why does it feel like we're going back to Lent. Why is this one of the last things Jesus tells his followers? Because it matters. Repentance matters. Forgiveness matters. They both matter a lot to our own faith journeys and to our lives as a community. If we are not practicing repentance and forgiveness then we are not following Jesus, and we are not building authentic community.

I believe our Gospel today offers us an invitation to check in on our own spiritual lives. How are we doing? Are we practicing repentance and forgiveness? Notice that the two of them are lumped together. I don’t think this is an accident. Think about some of the most familiar words of our tradition. Think of the Lord’s Prayer. What very important conditional statement do we pray nearly every time we gather as followers of Jesus? We pray that our sins, our trespasses will be forgiven AS we forgive those who sin against us. Our forgiveness is contingent on our ability to forgive other people. There is a complicated dialectic there. Our relationship with Jesus is not a solo endeavor. It is not just about how we as individuals relate to Jesus or whether or not we have accepted Jesus as our personal lord and savior. The only way this works, the only way we grow more deeply into relationship with God is through community. It matters how we treat each other.

It is a subtle thing and the language of the Lord’s Prayer is so familiar we can lose track of the importance of single words or turns of phrase. We are called to live daily into this cycle of repentance and forgiveness. I am guessing many of us don’t struggle with the first part so much. Repentance can come easily. In our performance driven society that seems to thrive on competition and comparison, it is all too easy for us to be aware of our own shortcomings.

What can be far more challenging is the practice of forgiveness, the spiritual practice of letting go of our anger, our frustration, our guilt, our shame. Remember, our call to forgiveness is not just about how we treat each other, it is also about how we treat ourselves. Notice there is no asterisk, no brackets on Jesus statement that the disciples are to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to ALL nations. Jesus doesn’t say, “Except you. Or except this person or that person.” God forgives everyone who repents. Everyone who owns up to their own challenges and struggles.  Everyone who falls short. Everyone who gives into temptation. God forgives. Period. So who do we think we are to withhold that grace from ourselves or from others? God makes no exceptions, so neither should we.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote a book about his experience of chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. It is entitled No Future Without Forgiveness. If you have not read it, I recommend it highly. It is a challenging, beautiful, and inspiring book. And its title applies just as much to us as it did to post-Apartheid South Africa. Indeed, there is no future without forgiveness. If we cannot let things go, if we cannot choose Love, if we cannot be open to the healing redemptive power of God’s love in the world, in our communities, and in our own hearts. If we cannot do those things, then we will be stuck. We will be stuck looking back and holding on to the past. To move into the future, we do indeed need to practice forgiveness.

Now, I think it is important for us to remember that practicing forgiveness does not mean condoning evil. It does not mean we are excusing or approving of sinful behavior. If we have been the victim of an injustice, the truth, the reality of that injustice still stands. The choice for forgiveness means that we are taking back control of our own lives. We are subverting the power dynamic. Think of Jesus on the Cross. What does he say? “Father, forgive them.” The powers and principalities wanted to have domination over Jesus. They wanted to punish him. They wanted to come out on top. But rather than fighting back, Jesus forgave them. He sucked the wind out of their sails, and flipped the whole situation on its head. Jesus took back the power by claiming his right to offer forgiveness to his persecutors.

That is what they did in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa too. They broke the cycle of hate by changing the power dynamics. The process allowed victims to claim back their power through the act of forgiveness. Practicing forgiveness is about claiming our freedom and claiming our dignity. May we always have the courage to do so. AMEN.

Trinity Sunday 2018

At our son's preschool on December 14, 2017

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT

Trinity Sunday, May 27, 2018

Psalm 29; Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

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.

Ahh. Here were are on the oddity known as Trinity Sunday. It is the only feast day where we honor a doctrine, a belief of our tradition, rather than some particular event in the life of our Lord or a particular Saint of the Church. For those of us who love a good intellectual argument, it can be tempting to add to all the ink that has been spilled over the years trying to define the Trinity or trying to find an adequate way to put the mystery of who God is into a neat and tidy metaphor or formula.

As you might guess, I do love a good intellectual argument, so it is tempting to do that, and if any of you would like to do that, I would be happy to have a discussion after the service or to recommend some of my favorite reading on the Trinity. But given the state of our lives and the world, it seemed to me it would be a better use of our collective time today to focus on the Good News that in our readings today.

In fact, perhaps the best thing I can say about believing that God is Trinity (besides that it is a mystery, of course) is that we know God is Trinity through our experience. We know God as Creator through the incredible beauty of this world and through our relationships with each other. And our relationships, particularly the moments of joy and beauty in our lives, show us that God is present in the midst of us as the Holy Spirit. And, of course, we encounter the fullness of who God is through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

I don’t know about you all, but I need some experiences of God in my life right now. I need that tangible connection that grounds me in the midst of chaos or challenges. The news is getting to me. I am weary and heartbroken at the story of yet another school shooting. I am disheartened by the ways in which our society seems polarized. And as our clergy conference recently reminded us, the sin of racism is far too real in our nation. If I really let the news get to me, I could be overwhelmed. It could be tempting to become a pessimist and to give into a belief that the good cannot win. But that is not the way of Jesus. That is not what we believe. We are a people of Hope. We are a people of Love.

This is what our readings remind us today. Our reading from Romans reminds us that we are beloved children of God. We have been blessed by God’s spirit. And that spirit is all about love for the world. Our beautiful, familiar Gospel passage reminds us that Jesus came into the world, precisely because of how much God loves the world. Really. God loves us so much that he is willing to send his only son to prove it. God is willing to turn his Son over to the worst humanity can do just to demonstrate to us that Love always has the last word.

There it is. That is what we need to hear, or at least what I need to hear. I need to be reminded and grounded in the all important truth that God’s love is more powerful than anything else in all creation. All evil that humanity can create. All those things in the news headlines that fill our hearts with fear or pain. None of them are more powerful than Love.

And it would be tempting to stop here. To withdraw from the world. To just rest in that truth of the reality of God’s love. It would be tempting to say that since God loves us so much, and God is in charge then we can just rest and wait on God.

But then we have our reading for today from Isaiah, where Isaiah says: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’” Uh oh. No resting for us. We don’t just get to turn it over. We are called to join God’s work in the world!

This is gd news for those of us who aren’t very good at just waiting, we get to funnel our anxiety into activity! Ultimately there is a profound and beautiful gift in our call. It is indeed a gift to be about the holy work of building up God’s kingdom.

Ultimately there is a holy invitation in all of this. It is an invitation to imagine the world differently. As Bishop Curry so inspiringly stated in his sermon at the Royal Wedding:

“When love is the way, then no child would go to bed hungry in this world ever again.

When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.

When love is the way, poverty would become history.

When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary.

When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside

to study war no more.

When love is the way, there’s plenty good room.  Plenty good room. For all of God’s children.”

There we have it. An invitation to imagine a different world. And an invitation to be a part of creating that world. Here we are. May God send us forth from this place renewed, to be about the holy work of transforming our world into one where Love is the Way. AMEN.