Monthly Archives: February 2012

Sermon – The First Sunday in Lent 2012

Transcription of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The First Sunday in Lent
February 26, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.

I have to wonder, I have to wonder about what it must have been like to be in that ark. Noah, the eight are there, they’ve gathered all the creatures, and they’re in the ark following God’s commandment, and they’re on the water. I just have wonder. I mean, I’ve been in a rather flat-bottomed big boat, a ferry that took me and my family across from Long Island to Connecticut in rather turbulent weather. And the ship went up and down, and up and down: It was not a pleasant time. So for all the jokes we might have about Noah and his family caring for the animals in there, I’m imagining the reality of floating on that water, water that is most likely not placid but filled with the tempest of a storm. And I would wonder and I would speculate that perhaps by about the, oh the twentieth day or the twenty-fifth day it got a little old. And they may moved from the joy of God contacting them and giving them a blessed opportunity to, well, finding a little bit of hurt, and fear, and anger: maybe even despair.

So they’re there, and then, then of course, forty days, the raven is sent out, then the dove, and the dove comes back, then the dove is sent out seven days later, and the dove returns with a blade of grass or something green. And they know their journey is at the end. So I’m sure some big smiles came on their faces at that time: they were filled with joy. It’s as if joy overcame their despair.

We have a passage of scripture for us in the gospel text, which seems, seems very familiar. Actually a part of it was read to us on the First Sunday after the Epiphany; when Jesus comes forward for the baptism in the Jordan River. And if you recall, as he comes up out of the water, God says, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And we hear that today opening up our gospel. And I have to wonder, and I have to kind of imagine, what must it have been like for Jesus to come up out of the water and hear this voice coming down. I have this sense, that just maybe, just maybe, his body, his human body, got all tingly, as if he felt gold glittering down on top of him. And just how would you portray it in a movie? It would be just a glorious a sense of peace and wonder and joy.

And then as the scripture tells us, forty days, he goes out into the desert to be tempted in every way as we are, for Jesus is fully human. And I have to wonder, I can speculate that maybe as he is being tempted, the human part of him is being pulled, perhaps, in a direction away from God: But he has that moment when the father’s, God’s love, so showered upon him, that he could remember that joy.

Now remember, Jesus is fully God and fully man. We’re somewhat fortunate in the way the canons were set-up that we only have four accounts, not five. If the gospel according to Thomas had wound up in there, we would have had a lot of stories of Jesus as a little boy. The only thing we actually have in scripture of Jesus, as a younger one besides his birth, is when he decides to be on the edge of being a teenager. And he decides to stay in the temple when the caravan leaves, and worries his mother and his father. He sounds a little bit mouthy when he says I was supposed to be his Father’s house. But then he became totally obedient. I’m trying to remind you just how hard it must have been to balance fully God and fully man. I can almost imagine, as if I was writing a part of the gospel of Thomas now, so this is made up, Mary talking to Jesus as a little boy, and saying to him, “I don’t care if you’re the Son of God, go clean your room.” I’m sure we can relate to that.

Archbishop Cranmer, in the 1500’s, wrote The Great Litany, which we prayed to begin our Lenten worship on this, the First Sunday in Lent. It’s almost as if Archbishop Cranmer wanted each and every one of us to don a hair shirt, or taking a whip to the back. Because by the time we were done praying it was a pretty long list of the things we do to pull ourselves away from God. We’re entering into 40 days, perhaps, of pondering those things, those temptations.

I’m going to offer you this: in a few minutes we will pray the Eucharistic prayer. We’ll prayer Eucharistic Prayer A today, and I have choice of two prefaces. The first one goes like this: “Through Jesus Christ our Lord; who was tempted in every way as we are, yet did not sin. By his grace we are able to triumph over every evil, and to live no longer for ourselves alone, but for him who died for us and rose again.” The operative word is “grace.” The second one continues to point us to where Lent leads: “You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you.” Again, the operative word is “grace.” And then found beneath that is when we enter fully into that grace: we find joy. We find joy in the life that we live. We acknowledge how hard it is for us to be us. It gives us a sense of what Jesus might have been struggling with in his forty days in the desert.

When during a marriage liturgy and we pray these words over the couple: “Give them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of their common life, that each may be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.” And the other prayer that we would pray would be: “Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.”

Think about these as if it’s in the relationship we have with Christ which is truly the foundation of how these prayers are offered in a wedding service: To guide the couple forward. Give us wisdom, O Lord, and a devotion to you that you may help us order our lives; that your strength, your grace, may be the counselor we need in perplexity, the comfort we need in sorrow, and may we always recognize you as a companion in our joy. May we know that you are with us, so that your relationship with us allows for unity to overcome estrangement; forgiveness, your forgiveness, heal our guilt; and that we always know that in you joy will conquer despair.

You see, when we pray a set of prayers like The Great Litany, or the Litany of Penitence from Ash Wednesday, or a snippet of psalm 51 “Create in a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” We can put on that hair shirt to such a degree that we forget that God bids God’s faithful people to prepare with joy for the Paschal feast.

I printed a small reflection in your bulletin; you might take home. I’m going to read two or three pieces from it. It’s called this, this may guide you to have this proper balance:

Lent is a time for fasting and feasting.

Fast from judging others: Feast on Christ dwelling in them.

Fast from words that pollute: Feast on speech that purifies.

Fast from discontent: Feast on gratitude.

Fast from self-concern: Feast on compassion.

Fast from worry: Feast on faith.

You bid your faithful cleanse their hearts. Indeed, we are about that work during Lent. And we are also about the work of preparing with joy for the Paschal feast. My hope and prayer as you go through your devout and holy Lent, you hear God’s love in the same strong words that God said over Jesus, “This is my son, you are my children, the beloved, truly, for all you are and for all you do, I am well pleased with you.”

All these words I offer in the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Homily – Ash Wednesday 2012

Transcription of the homily offered
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
at 7:00 am on Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the homily.

In a few moments, you will be invited to come forward to have the sign of the cross placed on your foreheads. And it will be placed on your foreheads using ashes that will come from palms that were used to celebrate Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. And then, of course, we know what happened the rest of that week and how all turned on him. And, so, they are a marvelous symbol of the Great Faithfulness of God: The cross that is put on your forehead.

You see, it is this cross that Jesus goes to. And if you think about it, there is another cross that’s already been put on your forehead, put on at baptism, when you are marked as Christ’s own in the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit.

Now, over the course of the day, something may happen to this marvelous sign of God’s faithfulness. Perhaps you’ll put a hat on like I will. It’s cold out. And it will get a little smudged as the day goes on. Now, perhaps, what happens with this smudge, you can begin to think of it as the same type of smudge that’s on your heart: That speaks, perhaps, to our unfaithfulness to God.

 We’re entering into a season when we can reflect on how faithful God is to us, how steadfast God’s love is to us always, and how easy it is for us to let our hearts be smudged, covered with grit and dirt. And today, as part of what we do, we make clear that we recognize how far and how easy it is for to fall away from our faithfulness when we cry out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” When we pray the Litany of Penitence, and we basically take a very thorough inventory of how easy it is for us to fall away.

 But the important thing to remember is this: The mark that is on your forehead that has become marred or smudged as the day goes on is really, simply, that outward sign of the hidden sign of the cross that was put on you in baptism: The cross that Jesus freely went to. And it also reminds us of the new life that comes after death that we will find in the resurrection on Easter Day. So our journey reminds us of how easy it is for us to fall away, but it should also remind us how tremendously God will never let go. That is the Great Faithfulness of God. I pray you find that faithfulness in your journey of Lent.

 All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon – The Last Sunday after the Epiphany 2012

Transcription of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 19, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.

Through the years as I have encountered the scripture that we proclaim on this the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the day when we as Episcopalians read the scripture of the Transfiguration, I realized that I have had a narrow entrance into it. I have entered into it from the phrase that Peter says, “Master, it is good that you are here. Let us build three dwellings (or three booths): One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” I’ve always been struck by that fact that it’s Peter trying to capture the moment because it is pretty awesome. Jesus has been transfigured. He has been shown as to who he is, whiter than white. And so Peter is trying to do the best that he can as a human to capture it. So my joke has evolved over the years from being “Lord, Lord, wait a minute, “til I can put some film in the camera” to “Lord, Lord, wait a minute, the batteries are dead, I need to put some new batteries in my digital camera.” So you can see how he wanted to take a picture to capture what was going on.

But I’ve begun to realize that that is actually too narrow a place to start. It’s as if their senses, Peter, James and John’s senses were just totally overwhelmed. I mean inundated with new data, new images, new feelings, new thoughts. It’s like when an artist paints a beautiful painting or creates marvelous music: They’re tying to gain an entrance into something that they get a piece of, but, maybe, not all of it. But just enough to say, “I sense something.”

I want to give a sense of what it might be to be so overwhelmed. And this is going to be one of those generational references, I’ll have to explain it just a little bit. When FedEx, Federal Express, was getting started as a company, they ran an ad campaign in the 70’s and I think the 80’s, where they wanted to explain how fast their service was. So they found this man, named John Moschitta, who could speak, as I am going to do in just a minute: really fast! He could talk so fast that you would know that the package would get there, instantly, quickly, etcetera, etcetera. And he could cram into a sixty second advertisement almost twice as many words. And you could actually understand him. So we were kind of overwhelmed by how fast he spoke. And that got our attention.

Or another cultural reference from, gosh, dare I say, even the late 60’s. Some of you babies from then, can raise your hand. When the Smothers Brothers were on TV, they would run from time to time, and I’m pretty sure we could find it on YouTube: Mason Williams’ Classical Gas. He was an incredible guitarist. And it would be a wonderful piece, but what really made it set apart was the number of images they edited together to go to the guitar classical piece. And it would overwhelm you to trying to capture all of them. It would just blow by. This was before you could just pause your DVR and look at them. Okay. It would just go by and you would get overwhelmed by them.

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon and stood on the edge? And either looked north or south, up and down: that is overwhelming. More than anyone can take in.

So I want to get a sense of what it must have been like for Peter, James, and John to be given a rare gift of something that would literally blow them away.

What begins to happen when you think about this, we have Elijah and Moses are there. Moses, I think, gives us an insight to what it’s like to the gift that Peter, James, and John were given. We know that Moses, this is a great scholar question, EfM folk listen up, that it’s attributed from some that Moses actually wrote the first five books of the bible. Which is somewhat problematic because his death scene is at the end of the fifth book. When he is up on the top of Mount Nebo, Moses is not going to get to go into the Promised Land. Frankly, all the people that went through the Red Sea, aside from maybe Joshua, are not getting to go. They’ve either died or: Forty years! Moses primarily because he stamped his staff a couple of times at the wrong time and didn’t listen carefully to God. But God gives Moses an incredible gift. On the top of Mount Nebo, Moses can see the Promised Land. It’s as if he’s been given a 360 twirl, and can see the full promise of everything God has in store. Moses can see the Promised Land. And then the people will go into the Promised Land: Overwhelming, and gift of love from God.

I believe, now, that Peter, James, and John were given a gift when they looked at Jesus, and they realized, perhaps by Pentecost, with the descent of the Holy Spirit, but they had the beginnings of an inkling: THAT JESUS IS THE PROMISED LAND. That was the gift God was planting in them. And now they come down from the mountain and they start to go on the walk towards Jerusalem. And they are going to be with Jesus when he dies. And he says to them, don’t tell anybody what you’ve seen until the resurrection. And then the understanding starts to come in.

If you recall, if you were here on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, I talked a little bit about, God says as Jesus comes up out of the River Jordan, after accepting a baptism he doesn’t need, he’s without sin, the clouds open up, and God says, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And I pointed out that there was a tie-in with that to the scripture we heard today. Because as the cloud which uncovers and goes away, and Elijah and Moses are gone, its just Jesus, God speaks again, clearly for Peter, James and John, and now us to hear: “This is my son, the Beloved, listen to him.” If you want to enter the Promised Land, listen to him. If you want the fullness and richness of all God has to offer you, LISTEN.

We know, as we read the history post-Moses, that the people chosen had a hard time listening. Heck, Adam and Eve had a hard time listening, too. Jesus, as Paul writes, is the new Adam, he’s going to correct everything. We, of course, as you will figure out, all have the same problem: I’m at the first of line working on it. As they go through their period with God, they say to God, “This confederacy idea, where we’re really supposed to talk to each another” (you can find this in Kings and Judges, they talk all about that in the Old Covenant, in the Hebrew Scriptures), they say, “We want a king, a king will tell us what to do.” And they get Saul, which doesn’t work out so well. They get David, which is kind of okay. Solomon does a pretty good job. Then it all goes pfffffsssst, not very good at all. And then, they get a good king in Josiah.

Now, one of the problems in the Promised Land, when Joshua took everybody through, even in the times of the Judges, even in the times of the Kings, there were other cultures there. And they were interacting with other ideas. And sometimes they would buy into them. And by the time of good King Josiah, they had so bought into them; you couldn’t tell that the temple was the temple because it had too much stuff in it that wasn’t what God would want. And they were doing a renovation and they knocked a wall down. And guess what they found: They found the books that Moses wrote, or supposedly wrote. They found the first five books, which had gotten lost. And they read them, and they realized what they had done as a people, how far they had fallen away from God. How they had not listened. And they tried to clean up their act. Clean the temple up. But here’s what happens again: Josiah leads them in battle. The good King Josiah, remember, not a lot of good kings, leads them into battle against an enemy. And Josiah dies. And eventually, they get enslaved. It’s another way of saying, their conversion was only an inch deep.

We have a gift coming up for us during Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday, this Wednesday: To take a deeper look inside, and then to proclaim to ourselves “What does it mean to walk with Jesus, to Jerusalem, to his death, to his resurrection, and then to receive the power of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.” You see, we are people who are post his death, post his resurrection, post the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We are receptors of the gift that is being proclaimed to us today fully on the mountaintop. It’s been given to us, others have gone before to proclaim it to us. If we take a look at Jesus’ early disciples, the early apostles, the twelve that were finally pulled together just before Pentecost: We don’t know this for sure, but it’s pretty darn close to true, best as we know, eleven of the twelve died as martyrs, only one died in the comfort of his bed. But they died with that same Peace that comes without understanding because they knew they were fully in God’s love. They were, as we can claim, they were, they knew Christ and were making Christ known. It was a little bit like, at their death, they were like Elijah, being lifted up: There was no pain even though it was a painful death because they were clearly in the Promised Land; because they clearly listened; because they clearly were obedient.

This is what Jesus models for us in the Jordan River. This is what Jesus models for us on the cross. This is the gift that Jesus gives to us in the resurrection. This is the gift we receive in the power of the Holy Spirit. And all we need to do is remember to do it: two ears, one mouth, listen. Listen to him and we will find the Promised Land.

And the Promised Land is something that we proclaim in different words. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.” The Promised Land becomes real when we share that same love that God shares with us in Jesus Christ. When we go forth to know Christ and make Christ known: when we listen to him.

I invite you in to a devout and holy Lent: To listen carefully to God in your life, to celebrate God’s love and to share it.

All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon – The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany 2012

Text of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 5, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.

We live in an age of constant media scrutiny. The internet has made it possible for everyone with computer or cellphone access to be a reporter and a commentator. If you check your pocket or your purse you will probably find a recording instrument capable of rendering the most powerful of people ineffective. All you have to do is what I am doing now. No, not preaching, using your recording device, as I am doing now with my iPhone to capture what I hear and see: I now have a visual record of who was in church today. I am even able to use the zoom feature and see clearly the inhabitants of the choir loft as well as pews in the back of the church. As I turn to the altar, I now have proof positive of the wonderful work of our altar guild. I can even takes notes in real time on this device. I can immediately post what I write, including videos and pictures, on Facebook or Twitter or a website of my own choosing. Others can then react and do the same. News collection agencies such as TV stations, newspapers, cable news channels, (oh, the list goes on!), now use such postings as qualified sources when they try to “scoop” each other. Sometimes a lively, funny or touching story goes “viral” and we laugh or cry: such as cats confounded by sheets of paper pulled into a home printer. And often, it seems, manipulation is at the core of spurious allegations: either to tear down or repair a reputation.

In the late 1900’s, bachelor President Grover Cleveland was accused of fathering a child out-of-wedlock. His story went slowly viral, one newspaper and one barber shop at a time. Cleveland and his aides were able to control it: truth about character was trumped by political expediency. Cleveland was twice elected President. The detail of those elections is trivia for another time.

Flip-flopping, another more modern term for political expediency, brings the question of character into every conversation. Finding just the right phrase or image to discredit is at the root of gaining and holding power. For instance, I could be seen as a credible source as I speak on this subject. After all, I earned a Bachelor of Science from the prestigious College of Communication of Boston University. However, as my children have gleefully reminded me through the years when I’m being silly or over-explaining something, Dad’s using his B.S. in communication again. Your laughter indicates that the power of my credentials has been reduced, diminished, or simply dismissed.

Imagine what we could do with the argument of the Apostle Paul if we simply sent a video around the internet of him saying, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak.”[i] Can you just hear the news: Against an unflattering picture of Paul, the newscaster gravely reports: “Dateline Corinth. The huge ego of the reputed apostle Paul of Tarsus was evident again today when he used the word “win” over and over again in a recent speech.” Cut to a full screen snippet of Paul saying only what I just read. Cut back to a tight shot of the newscaster slowly moving his head as if in disbelief. Paul is damned for being expedient and tossed aside as not relevant.

In an age when expediency trumps truth it becomes all the more important to seek the truth where it wills to be found. The Prophet Isaiah, speaking as prophets do for God, said as much in what those who pray Morning Prayer have integrated as “The Second Song of Isaiah.” I can hear the assembled voices in seminary intoning, “Seek the Lord while he wills to be found; draw upon him when he draws near.”[ii] If you recall Jesus saying in the Gospel according to John, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” you can easily substitute the word “truth” for “Lord.” Now God’s challenge to the expediency of human desire is very clear: “Seek the Truth while he wills to be found: draw upon him when he draws near.” When this construct enters the conversation, the Apostle Paul’s foundation to his argument about winning now makes sense: “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.”[iii] The sneer I placed on the newscaster’s face is undone by the genuine premise Paul uses to support winning at all costs for Christ. To the unbeliever this premise seems as ludicrous as the resurrection from the dead of Jesus. Paul is not being expedient. Paul is not flip-flopping to appease a certain group or interest. Paul knows who he is and why he does what he does: “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.[iv] I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”[v]

Paul is constant in his conviction just as God is constant in God’s love and faithfulness to us. Paul has been entrusted with a commission. And so, too, have we. We are entrusted with the Great Commission. We hear this at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew as, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”[vi] I prefer the manner in which Jesus is first remembered giving this command at the end of the Gospel according to Mark, “Go into all the world and proclaim the goodness to the whole creation.”[vii] “Proclaim the goodness by being true to “the way, the truth, and the life” that has found you, and is in you. “And remember,” as Jesus said at the close the Gospel according to Matthew, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[viii] Paul is able to speak directly to Jews, to those under the law, to those outside the law, as well as to the weak, by becoming as they are: not because Paul seeks expediency or just flip-flops to pander, but because Paul knows he speaks with the constant love and grace of “the way, the truth, and the life.”

Jesus knew what he was saying when he said, “When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”[ix] Such is the faithfulness of God to those who seek the Lord where he wills to be found. Such is the faithfulness of God when we proclaim the goodness of God to a fearful world that distorts and manipulates. Such is the power that supports those who find Jesus in the least and the lost as do we who serve in his name. We remember him entrusting us, just as he did when he commissioned Paul, to find him when he said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”[x]

The great faithfulness of God that nurtures constant conviction through grace and truth, was, and is proclaimed to us today through the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.[xi]

My friends, expediency will always be with us. The desire to win destructively at all costs will always be with us. The struggle to combat the fear that builds distrust will always be with us. This is why we boldly say in response to the questions of The Baptismal Covenant, “I will, with God’s Help.”[xii] We can stand up to the constant scrutiny of our age when we serve as Christ served. Our dedication to serving the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, those in prison and all in need, recorded or not on our pocket devices, is how we let the world know that true power is bound up in the love we share in Jesus Christ. This is what it means to proclaim the gospel free of charge.

God’s voice continues to call us as powerfully today as that voice did when Saul discovered his true self to be Paul. Once a persecutor of the church, once at one with the power structure of the world, Paul knew and lived the Great Faithfulness of God. We are blessed that he shared his conviction and trust in the way, the truth and the life with these words, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[xiii]

All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

[i] I Corinthians 9:20-22a

[ii] Isaiah 55:6

[iii] 1 Corinthians 9:16-18

[iv] 1 Corinthians 9:19

[v] 1 Corinthians 9:23

[vi] Matthew 28:19

[vii] Mark 16:15

[viii] Matthew 28:20b

[ix] Matthew 10:19-20

[x] Matthew 25:35-36

[xi] Isaiah 40:28-31

[xii] Book of Common Prayer Pages 304-305

[xiii] Romans 8:38-39

Sermon – The Second Sunday after the Epiphany 2012

Transcription of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 15, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon

 “Speak, your servant is listening.” This is what Samuel finally says when he realizes he is being addressed by God, that God is calling to him. I would think that as I look back upon my own Christian journey that listening has probably been my greatest challenge and continued challenge: this whole notion of listening carefully to God.

If I was to take the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator test of which some of you are familiar with, one of the polarities that comes out of this test is, in essence, are you prone to listening: although they don’t claim that as the actual question. They would say, “You’re a judger or a perceiver.” It’s what you self-select. It’s how you take information from the world and work with it. Judgers like to make decisions. They just feel better when they make decisions. Doesn’t have to be the right decision, but making a decision is a good feeling. Perceivers, if you take it to the nth degree, they want to make a decision but they want to make the right decision. And are so busy gathering every piece of data, information, whatever you want to call it, they get to the point where they don’t seem to make any decision. And you can see how, just as an aside, how frustrating it might be for a judger to be in a room with a perceiver, trying to come to grips with something. And you can see how they’re knocking heads with each other to get to one point or to another.

Well, I, as I said, test out as what they call high “J”: high judger. I like to make decisions. Now, I was talking about my, my Christian journey: What is it to access my perceiver’s side? We all have this in us. One is just more dominant than the other. Often in this type of Jungian based psychology, we wind up working with one or the other, we may find ourselves working with the one where (we) are less competent in because we don’t do enough with it. So it means building the skill, building the skill. So for me, building the skill of listening has been an ongoing journey.

We have mixed into all of our scripture today, also a sense of God calling someone: “Philip, follow me.” He finds Nathaniel: “Nathaniel, come and see Jesus.” God calling out to Samuel, Samuel saying, “(Your) servant is listening”: Samuel, a most important prophet. For me, when I heard my call to priesthood, it wasn’t because I had worked up any great ability to be able to then say, “Lord, your servant is listening.” It was if a whack on the side of the head, and I’m not going to go into the long story of how that happened, but I was in a state where I was so bereft that the only thing I could hear would be God calling me. It was like I had to let everything go, to be stripped away. And as I entered into my journey, I’ve been very, very human about how I go about almost selectively listening to God. Because I am still the sum and the make-up of all that God has created in me; all the great that could be and all the parts that just drag me down. And it’s sort of expressed to some degree in my understanding of how listen when I’m working.

For instance, I’ve come to realize that if I’m at somebody’s bedside, and this has been the case for the 22 to 23 years of my ordained life: I listen extremely well. I listen because I’m taken out of my body and I’m letting God listen for me. And I’m listening to God. I’m listening to God so carefully that whatever comes out of my mouth is appropriate. I’ve always been amazed at this, at a bedside, or when somebody is in distress or needful. I began to realize because I knew in order to do the work at that moment, that very moment, I needed God totally and completely to be there. Cause there was no way I could do it on my own. It was too huge a responsibility. It’s little like what we say (when we say), “I will, with God’s help” in the Baptismal Covenant.

But then there’s that other part, that other part, where I think I’ve got great competency in doing things. I’m fairly well organized. I can find stuff. Being a Judger, I can make up my mind. I can figure things out. And consequently, I decided to listen to what I want to hear and not all that’s placed before me, that God would yearn for me to hear. Now remember, this is an ongoing story in growth and depth in Christian growth. My own rediscovery, if you will, of the Rule of St. Benedict has helped me because the word obedience, as I’ve said before, means to hear or to listen. So if you think about it, Samuel is being immediately obedient: “Your servant is listening.”

If you know the Serenity Prayer, the true Serenity Prayer, goes like this: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” The Serenity Prayer as written, and as lived by so many people and integrated into their hearts, is really a prayer about listening carefully. Listening carefully to the choices that must be made so that the very best choices can be made. Somebody coping with addiction, for instance, will know this prayer as one that says, “If I touch that bottle, and I make that bottle, Oh, I could drink just a drop, but that drop is going to take me down a path I don’t want to go, for I’m going to forget that that bottle is not by best friend.”

For me, in the world of listening, I realized I had written a different serenity prayer for me. I had written a prayer, and I had integrated it, and I had sort of done this dualistic thing. When I was doing pastoral work, at your bedsides, in the needs, it’s as if I was listening to the true Serenity Prayer. Cause there were things I could change and not change, I was seeking the wisdom to speak the words that would comfort. But in all other things, I was pretty darn sure of myself. And so, this is sort of what I think I was saying. This is my revised version of the serenity prayer: “God bless my ability to handle the things I cannot control, strength to control the things I can, and determination to make a difference.” I would almost offer to that, that’s the credo of a high “J”: one who has all these other abilities. That was another way of say, “God, step away, your busy, I’ll take care of this for you.” And what I’ve come to realize, especially over the past few years, is that I need God in everything.

There is no way for me to listen affectively or effectively as a leader in any form: especially one who stands before you as an ordained minister. If I don’t listen to God in all things as carefully as I listen to God when I’m at somebody’s bedside. So beginning realize how much I need God is a continued part of my own growth.

About a year ago I stood before you at Annual Meeting and I said that at some point in the next twelve to eighteen months I would return the keys to the wardens. That’s still going to happen. But when you say twelve to eighteen months, it sure sounds like a long period of time. In that period of time, I have been engaged in a lot of heavy duty listening. I have been talking with other parishes about what it might mean for me to come in their midst. I have been part of their need to listen. You see, all of this comes under the term “discernment.” Heavy duty listening for what God would have us do is discernment. And discernment calls for conversation. The type of conversation that means all parties are listening carefully. Hopefully listening in the spirit of the true Serenity Prayer. I must tell you that I have come very close in two or three instances of thinking that I would get a phone call that said we’ve been listening and we think you’re the one that should say, “Yes lord, your servant is listening.” But its not happened yet. All know is that I have learned much in those conversations and I have helped them refine for what they think God is doing in their midst.

And I also know, that over the last year at Saint Matthews, there has been some incredibly good listening going on for what might happen in the years to come. And we will celebrate that next week at Annual Meeting. Because the long and the short of all of this is: those who are committed to listening to God, those who are obedient, those who are willing to claim “Yes, your servant is listening,” are those who put their trust in God. Putting your trust in God calls for great faith. And let me tell you, there are moments when my faith wilts.

Those of you who were here on Christmas Eve will know I preached a sermon that I wrote, and I preached it from the pulpit, and I wrote on the Monday before Christmas Eve. And I wrote it and I declared in that sermon about what is the cost of faith. And I remembered Lamentations: the great faithfulness of God. Three or four days after I wrote that sermon, the most recent parish that I had been in close conversation with, let me know that I was not in their final two candidates. I have felt blessed by that sermon in ways you cannot understand. I felt blessed by the support and continued love I have felt at Saint Matthews for how I ought live and move forward: listening carefully not only to my needs but the needs of the parish.

If we are all committed to listening carefully to God, being obedient and trusting, then the fullness of all that God has to offer us will become apparent. I believe that fully. God is faithful. And that’s why I say to you today that I live my life as one who knows my deficits but knows where my strength comes from. I thank you for your participation in helping me find that strength.

And I close again with these words from the Serenity Prayer because I think it means to much to me but to all of us in these moments in this time:  “God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Yes, Lord, your servants are listening.

All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.