Reflections on Baptism, Judgment, and Hope

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Grace, Hartford, CT

Baptism of our Lord, January 9, 2022

Psalm 29; Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

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

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” These lines from our first reading from Isaiah are heartening and comforting in the midst of all the challenges we are facing - in our own lives, in our community, and in the world. Rising case numbers - practically everyone we know is ill, quarantining because of an exposure or recovering from COVID. There are real worries about whether essential services will continue to be available in the days ahead with so many people out sick. And then there are all the systemic issues that we were already facing as a world before this current surge - climate change, poverty, injustice, systemic racism . . . the list goes on. 

I would really like to just stop right there in that passage and hold on to those affirmations. The rivers will not overwhelm us. The flames will not consume us. I need those truths because there are moments, and there are days when it feels overwhelming. How can we possibly deal with one more thing, one more challenge, when we are already exhausted from the last two years?

I was doing okay, until I got to the Gospel. At first I am thinking, Feast Baptism of our Lord, that’s good. Always good to be reminded of our baptism. Always good to be reminded that just like Jesus, we are beloved of God. Goes well with our passage from Isaiah, an affirmation of God’s love and care for us. And then we get this line: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” And I want to start arguing with God with the author of Luke, with our Lectionary Committee, with whoever might listen.

Wait a minute! What is this bit about unquenchable fire and judgment in the midst of a happy story about Jesus baptism? Lines about fire and judgment make me nervous. As many of you know, I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. I take my mistakes, my errors, my sins very seriously - a bit too seriously most of the time. I don’t find passages like this helpful because they feed my perfectionist tendencies . . . after reading a passage like this my perfectionist self can say “See! It does matter how you behave! Watch out, you better be the wheat or else!” NOT HELPFUL! I am quite capable of giving myself a good guilt trip without adding on the fear of judgment and fire and punishment. 

I have often struggled with the theme of judgment and punishment in our Scriptures. Especially since the passages seem to show up right alongside times of joy and hope. Advent is quite a mix of joyful expectation and stories of judgment. It is tempting to just focus on the comforting parts, like those lines from Isiah, but the questions of judgment and punishment are right there in the Gospel, and I believe in facing my fears, so I can’t just let them slide by. 

Shortly after 9/11 I read a book of essays by Eugene Kennedy that helped me think about these passages of judgment differently. As you likely remember there was lots of talk of judgment in the days and weeks following 9/11 - who was to blame? who was now burning in hell for their sins? But Kennedy says that we have got it all wrong if we think that the wheat or the fruitful trees are one set of people and the chaff or the unfruitful trees are another. 

Kennedy writes of those who died on 9-11: “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 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 of life - a real cross section of humanity - who perished on that day, 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.” 

Reading these words lifts a weight from my shoulders. They comfort me because they remind me that God can see the big picture - and God pays much more attention to who we are and how we live a life of love - than to the times we messed up. They also give me a much more hopeful picture of Judgment Day. I have always struggled with the idea that God sends people to hell as a punishment. The image Kennedy offers fits more with the understanding of judgment that I have developed over the years, with thanks to theologians like Julian of Norwich, C.S. Lewis, and Rowan Williams. While there may be a moment of reckoning, a moment of cleansing when we come face to face with God at the end of our lives, we need not fear it. God is not some arbitrary judge. God is the God we know and love. God is loving and merciful - ALWAYS. Hell is not eternal damnation for our sins; hell is a choice we make. God is always reaching out to us, always offering mercy. Always willing to remind us that we are beloved - just as we are. We are beloved because we belong to God. And God has given us free will, so we have the option to accept that mercy or to reject it. If we choose to turn our back on God, then we will know hell, for hell is the only place where God is not. 

In the end, there actually is solace and hope for us in all our readings today. We can trust that the fire will not consume us, nor will the river overwhelm us. Rather they will merely take away that which does not serve us. That which does not serve God. That which is not eternal. We can indeed trust in the truths of our faith. The beautiful truth we celebrate this day is that we are beloved of God. God is with us. Always. May moments of struggle or challenge or tragedy never blind us to all the good there is in the world, and in each of us. May we always remember that the good, the light, the beauty will last, for our faith affirms again and again that nothing in this world is stronger than the love of God. 

AMEN.

Good and Bad Fruit

 

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

June 23, 2021

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18; Psalm 47; Matthew 7:15-20

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. 

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Really? We have to go here? All this judgment and condemnation. Where is the reassurance, the comfort, the inspiration we are all seeking in the midst of these uncertain and challenging times. Things seem “back to normal” in so many ways, and yet if we pause and reflect, even for a moment, we know that there is not really any “going back.”  The world, and we, will never be the same again. This past year has been a crucible, an experience of challenges and struggle, an experience that has reshaped our understanding of the world and of ourselves. We may feel comfortable eating in restaurants and getting on airplanes, but we are fooling ourselves if we think we have just picked up where we left off in March of 202o.

So, as we try to navigate our way into this new, maybe we can say “post,” Pandemic way of being, I find it hard to hear this text. Hard to think of God judging us so harshly. Wasn’t one of the central lessons of the past year how much it matters to be compassionate? We are all in this together. Everything will be better if we can show each other more grace and care. How do we square those important lessons with texts that seem to divide the world into good fruit and bad fruit?

As I think I have shared with you all before, when I encounter one of the judgment texts, I return to insights gained from psychologist Eugene Kennedy who wrote a book of reflections after 9/11 entitled, Meditations at the Center of the World. In it he talks about some of the various judgement passages in Scripture - how we often get this theme of bad fruit or chaff being thrown into the fire. Instead of seeing it as dividing the world into good and bad people, Kennedy invites us to see and have compassion for the complexity of ourselves and other people.

We are fruit, mostly good and with a few bad spots. Or perhaps better yet we are the barrel of apples. So much good, and also the occasional bad apple.  We are the whole stalk - the wheat and the chaff. None of us is all good or all bad. Life is just not that simple. 

What Kennedy also reminds us of is that what is good in us is real, it is what is eternal. It is what lasts. God’s “judgment” of us is not wholesale. It is about helping us come to see ourselves fully and to let go, to throw into the fire that which does not give life. That which impedes our ability to grow in relationship with God and with each other. That is what should be cast into outer darkness. That is the fruit, the chaff that should be burned. 

Hopefully one of the gifts that has come our way in the midst of this pandemic has been a sense of clarity about ourselves and the world. A sense of clarity about what really matters to us. Where are our priorities? What are the things that we put down that we don’t actually need to pick back up again? What are the things that we can let go of? We picked up plenty of new anxieties and challenges in the last year, and hopefully we also discovered more clarity about what brings us joy and where we want to invest our precious time and energy. 

So, my friends, I hope that you will see in today’s Gospel an invitation rather than a condemnation. An opportunity to pause and reflect as the world reopens and we do more and more things. There is new life possible out of all the pain and loss of this past year. We are an Easter people. That truth stands at the heart of our faith. May you find this time of transition to be fruitful and life-giving. May it offer you an opportunity to grow, in all the various roles you inhabit. Most importantly may it offer you the opportunity to say yes to a path that affirms your identity as a beautiful and beloved child of God. Amen.

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.

Wisdom, Judgment, and Thomas Aquinas

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Chapel of our Lord, Episcopal Church Center

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, January 28, 2020

Psalm 119:97-104 ; Wisdom 7:7-14 ; Matthew 13:47-52

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.

So, perhaps like me you are having trouble reconciling the combination of texts we have for today’s feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. The reading from Wisdom seems quite appropriate. It is one of my favorites, actually. Such a good reminder of what really matters in life. The most important things in life are not things. Learning, gaining wisdom, deepening our relationships with God and each other are what really matters. Then the psalm continues that trend by affirming the value of following God’s law and how growing in the understanding of God’s law helps us to gain wisdom and just to be better people. Understanding the rules God has set out for us does indeed help us to be better followers of Jesus. This all seems to fit quite well for the Feast of Aquinas, one of the most revered scholars in the Christian tradition who helped us to understand how the writings and teachings of Aristotle could further enlighten our own Christian faith. Aquinas certainly has helped us to grow in wisdom. 

But then we get the Gospel reading, which is all about Judgment. It feels a bit out of left field. It is a harsh text - with its talk of fiery furnaces and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Yikes! As I have discussed with you all before, texts like this make me nervous. They do not sit well with me. I do not hold to the image of an angry, vengeful God who seeks to punish us for all eternity for our misdeeds and shortcomings. I believe in a just, merciful God who desires abundant life for each and everyone of us. So, how do we reconcile these texts? How do we reconcile Justice and Mercy with a fiery furnace? 

The key for me in understanding here comes from how I have come to understand hell. As I think I have shared with you all, my favorite definition of “hell” comes from Rowan Williams’s book Tokens of Trust. In it he describes hell as God eternally knocking on a door we are struggling to hold shut. I like this definition for a number of reasons. It does not discount the reality of hell. It also emphasizes God’s mercy and desire for each of us to know the depths of God’s love for us. And it does not shy away from holding us accountable for our actions. The choices we make do indeed matter. 

If we experience “hell,” it is because we are choosing to ignore God’s persistent invitation to us to move deeper into relationship, to understand God and ourselves more fully. Now it may seem a silly thing to say that we “choose to ignore” God. I mean, why would you do that? Who could possibly choose to ignore God? It is GOD after all. But here’s the thing. Invitations from God do not always come on embossed stationery with clear descriptions and a reply card. They do not come in packages that clearly indicate they are from God. And indeed, the evil one, can be very cunning and very tricky. Sometimes we can be fooled into thinking that we are following God’s invitation, but really we are following our own self-interest. We can be fooled into thinking that achieving a goal or completing a task is more important than a relationship. We can be fooled into thinking that the “abundant life” must be the easier way, and so we choose the path of least resistance. But the abundant life can indeed be a challenging path, as is any path that invites us to grow in wisdom and to deepen our relationship with God. 

So, if the evil one is so cunning, how do we know which path to choose? I think we have some good answers in our Scriptures today - we seek the path that is in line with God’s laws, God’s commandments to us. We seek the path that will enable us to learn and grow. As our Presiding Bishop has so succinctly put it, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” So, we see the path that is loving and life giving, even it is the harder path. Even if it requires confronting difficult truths. For, as out text from Wisdom reminds us, “All good things came to me along with her, and in her hands uncounted wealth.” 

I invite you to follow in Aquinas’s footsteps -  to seek out wisdom in unexpected places, and to never stop seeking to deepen your knowledge, your understanding, your connection to God. No doubt the gifts that will come from accepting God’s invitation are many. AMEN. 

A little bit of light, a little bit of hope

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Grace Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT 

Advent 1A, December 1, 2019

Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44; Psalm 122

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. 

Beginning when I was in third grade, my mom and I started a tradition we called “People Trips.” I loved to read biographies. We would spend the winter reading biographies about someone and then plan a trip to where they lived and worked. We did trips on John F. Kennedy, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables), Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, and Eleanor Roosevelt. That last one being  was probably my favorite and the most memorable. In addition to visiting Hyde Park and Valkill, we spent one afternoon riding in a cab around New York City. My mom had dutifully made a list of all the places Franklin and Eleanor had lived in the city. And then we ended with a stop to her memorial on Riverside Drive at the United Nations. Emblazoned on that memorial is a quote from Adalai Stevenson about Eleanor. He said, “She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.” Indeed. 

As I read our readings for today, I could not help but think of this quote. Paul, in our letter from Romans, and our Collect invite us to “put on the armor of light.” I don’t know about you all, but I really appreciate that our readings this time of year focus on increasing the light. Of course, for those of us in the Northern Hempisphere, this fits exactly with what we are experiencing. We are only a few short weeks away from the longest night of the year. We are quite literally aware of the increasing darkness, and I would guess that most of us are craving more light. 

There can be a certain coziness to this time of year. More time spent inside, reading, cooking, playing board games. More sleep! But I would imagine that for most of us, it isn’t just the literal daylight that we crave. We crave a world that more deeply reflects the light of the Gospel. There are acrimonious divisions among our politicians, we are country deeply affected by the sin of racism, there is so much violence in our headlines, natural disasters seem to be an almost weekly occurrence. If we want to point to things that make the world feel dark and scary, there is no shortage. And it would be easy to just keep up the litany of complaints, to keep pointing out what is wrong with the world. It is the pastime of humanity from the dawn of time, complaining about the state of the world (see Genesis 3 and Adam and Eve’s first conversation with God, see the Israelites grumbling in the wilderness, etc.) You get the idea. Complaining is easy. 

Signing up to be a part of the solution? Take the initiative to choose a different path? Those are more challenging. Sin and evil are real. The devil likes nothing more than to paralyze with fear or to  get us to think that we are powerless to change something. We are not powerless. Not by any means. And we are going to be held accountable for our actions. That is what our Gospel reminds us of today. What we say and do matters. How we live our lives matters. We have power. We have a choice. We can give in to complaining or we can choose to live lives that light up the world. We can choose to live lives that share the light of Christ, share the Good News of God’s love with the world. We don’t have to do everything or fix everything. We do not bear this light alone. We just need to do our part. 

Think about the image of a candle. Think of how one small flame pushes back the darkness. Think about what happens when you use that single flame to light other candles. Pretty soon the whole room is full of light. All it takes is a little bit of light, a little bit of hope. 

So, my invitation to you today is to reflect on how you can put on your armor of light, of how you can stay focused on light and hope, even when we feel profoundly aware of the darkness that surrounds us. I invite you to think about, and keep at the forefront of your mind, whatever it is that fills you with hope. Maybe it is time spent with children? Maybe it is witnessing or doing small, simple acts of  kindness? Maybe it is knowing what a difference the feeding ministry and Christmas giving programs make here at Grace? Maybe it is a conversation with a good friend whose presence and voice just lift your spirits? Maybe it is the beauty of creation? Maybe it is time spent in prayer or reading Scripture? Whatever it is in your life that brings you joy and fills you with hope, I invite you to do more of it. To help you have a tangible reminder to have more light in your life and to be God’s light to the world, I have baskets of candles in the Narthex and here on the front pew. It is just a small battery operated tealight (so you can use it anywhere), and I hope that it will be easy to place on a windowsill or bedside table. Somewhere you see it often. May it be a reminder of the power of a single flame to push back the darkness. May it be a reminder that there is always a reason to hope. AMEN.

Reflections on Judgment

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Chapel of Our Lord, Episcopal Church Center 

August 7, 2018: John Mason Neale

Psalm 106:1-5; 2 Chronicles 20:20-21; Matthew 13:44-52

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

“So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Lines like these make me nervous. On multiple fronts, first there is the global front. Particularly in the wake of the horrific events of the weekend, it is tempting to latch on to judgment texts like these as a vehicle for our pain and anger. We can use them to condemn the perpetrators. . . But if we do that we are joining in the cycle of hate and violence that is a part of why mass shootings seem to be such a regular occurrence.

Then there is the personal front, if I weren’t standing up here reading those lines, I’d be squirming in my seat. I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. I take my mistakes, my errors, my sins very seriously - a bit too seriously most of the time, and so passages like this make me nervous. And I don’t find them helpful because they feed my perfectionist tendencies . . . after reading a passage like this my perfectionist self can say “See! It does matter how you behave! Watch out, you better bear good fruit or else!” NOT HELPFUL! I am quite capable of giving myself a good guilt trip without adding on the fear of the eternal flames of hell.

I have often struggled with the theme of judgment and punishment that are present in our Scriptures. It is tempting to put our Gospel aside and focus on the mercy and steadfast love that are more prominent in our other readings today or to just focus on the life story of John Mason Neale whose life we remember today, and his example of good works in founding the order of St. Margaret. But the questions of judgment and punishment are right there in the Gospel, and I believe in facing my fears, so I can’t just let them slide by. 

Shortly after 9/11 I read a book of essays by Eugene Kennedy* that helped me think about these passages of judgment differently. As you likely remember there was lots of talk of judgment in the days and weeks following 9-11 - who was to blame? Who was now burning in hell for their sins? Not all that different than some of the rhetoric we are hearing today as well. But Kennedy says that we have got it all wrong if we think it is all a dichotomy, that there are simply good people and evil people, or as it says in some of our other texts on judgment, the wheat and the chaff or the fruitful and unfruitful trees. 

Kennedy writes of those who died on 9-11 (and I think this could apply equally to all those who have been victims of mass shootings in recent years): “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 all the mass shootings, 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.” 

Reading these words lifts a weight from my shoulders. They comfort me because they reminded me that God can see the big picture - and God pays much more attention to the times we get it right - the times we lived a life of love - than to the times we messed up. They also give me a much more hopeful picture of Judgment Day. I have always struggled with the idea that God sends people to hell as a punishment. The image Kennedy offers fits more with the understanding of judgment that I have developed over the years, with thanks to theologians like Julian of Norwich, C.S. Lewis, and Rowan Williams. While there may be a moment of reckoning, a moment of cleansing when we come face to face to with God at the end of our lives, we need not fear it. God is not some arbitrary judge. God is the God we know and love. God is loving and merciful - ALWAYS. Hell is not eternal damnation for our sins; hell is a choice we make. God is always reaching out to us, always offering mercy and forgiveness. Always willing to pay more attention to the good that is in us. And God has given us free will, so we have the option to accept that mercy or to reject it. If we choose to turn our back on God, then we will know hell, for hell is the only place where God is not. 

So, today as we are invited to reflect on our lives, it can be tempting to start tallying up all the times we have done something harmful or foolish. But, perhaps, that is not how it is meant to be. What if, like John Mason Neale, we focus on how we can do good to help others? What if we try to see ourselves as God sees us: as beloved children who are capable of generous acts of love. What would it look like to have those be the defining acts of our lives?

AMEN.

*Eugene Kennedy. 9-11:Meditations at the Center of the World. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 32-3.