Tis the season

We’re going to take another week in this season of Christmas before we return to reflection on the Sermon on the Mount. While the culture has been celebrating Christmas since Labor Day, the church sees December 25^th as just the beginning, with a season of observance that lasts until January 6.

It’s a season filled with special feast days, and if you’re looking for more holly-jolly, you might be disappointed. We got a hint of this when we observed the Feast of St. Thomas, of doubting fame, right before Christmas (Dec. 21). And this week, there are a few special days that make us realize why we so desperately need good news of great joy which shall be to all people.

Today, we observe the feast of St. Stephen (as mentioned in the carol “Good King Wenceslaus”). Stephen’s story (not Wenceslaus’) is first told in the book of Acts. As one of the deacons of the church, one of the folks set aside by the church to address the needs of the poor, Stephen was the first martyr of the church. St. Paul was cheerleading those who stoned Stephen to death.

Tomorrow, we observe the feast of St. John, apostle and evangelist, who by tradition was exiled to the Isle of Patmos. Though he seems to be the only one of the twelve disciples that didn’t give his life for the sake of the gospel in some gruesome, violent way, he had his own experience of persecution. That may have made the book attributed to him, the Apocalypse (a.k.a, the book of Revelation) all the more vivid.

Day after that comes the feast of the Holy Innocents, which marks the day when King Herod put all two year old boys in Bethlehem to death. I will always remember doing a funeral on this day for an 8-year old boy who died of brain cancer. I loved that kid. The feast reminds us that the suffering of innocents continues. Why is it so often the children who bear the brunt, especially the brunt of foolish and heartless political leaders?

Later in the week, we observe the feast of St. Thomas a Becket, that troublesome priest that King Henry II wanted to get rid of. The king thought he had succeeded when murder took place in the cathedral. Of course, Thomas is remembered with reverence. Henry, not so much.

And then comes a lesser known feast as we recall the life, ministry and witness of Frances Joseph Gaudet, an African American woman born in Mississippi in 1861 (just those facts indicate a challenging life). She dedicated her life to prison reform, coupled with provision of education for those who would otherwise not receive it. Her death in 1934 marked the conclusion of a life dedicated to prisoners, a reminder that our culture that seems to think the solution lies in mass incarceration needs to hear the good news of the liberating love of Jesus.

I’m not sure what the thinking was way back when to fill the Christmas season with these stories reflecting the challenges that mark the human condition. It’s a season filled with martyrs, a word which is loaded in our culture. We often think of a martyr as some unattractive, whining self-righteous person who says something like “Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here in the dark corner by myself.” But martyr means witness, someone who shows that the good news of Jesus, the news of that loving, life-giving, liberating Lord is news of greatest value, more valuable than life itself. That’s news we all need to hear.

Maybe your life is free of challenge. Maybe you’ve had no encounter with the hard heartedness of our world and its people. Bless you if that’s the case. But if you’re like most of us, you know that life is difficult, that there’s a crack in everything God has made. The Christmas season tells us that that is where the light can shine through.

Of course, saints lived not only in ages past. There are hundreds of thousands still. And we lost one of the great modern saints in this Christmas season. Desmond Tutu showed us what it meant to meet the ugliness and injustice of our world with love and joy. He countered the love of power with the power of love. May God grant him peace as the Archbishop sought to bring peace to the world. And may God grant comfort to those who mourn, and to those who look for others to continue the fight against injustice.

Each of these saints call us to be witnesses of the light this week, which comes to us with grace and truth. Perhaps we can resolve to be that kind of witness in the coming year, in the new year, in all the days ahead.

What might that look like in your life?

-Jay Sidebotham

Good Book Club to start 2022 with Exodus

Start the new year with a renewed spiritual practice of reading God’s Word. Forward Movement, with support from partners from around the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion, will celebrate the time of Epiphany with a new round of the Good Book Club by reading the first half of the Book of Exodus.

Exodus recounts the journey of the Israelites from slavery to freedom. We hear the great stories of Moses, from his discovery by Pharaoh’s daughter on the bank of the river to the burning bush to his presentation of the Ten Commandments. Along the way, we encounter God’s covenant and explore the grand theme of redemption.

This year, we have a bonus time of scripture engagement: the Good Book Club will dive into the first twenty chapters of Exodus from Epiphany, January 6, to Shrove Tuesday, March 1. For those who want to keep reading, we’ll offer a daily reading guide and an overview of the second half of Exodus. That reading period will conclude on Easter.

The full schedule, including the list of daily readings is available at www.goodbookclub.org.

Sign up to receive updates on Exodus.

Joining the Good Book Club is easy: Open your Bible and start reading!

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

-Matthew 5:23-26

I’m told that this passage from the Sermon on the Mount provides scriptural basis for the exchange of the peace in our liturgy. In that liturgy, the sequence is clear. Before we can come to the table to receive bread and wine, we need to come to reconciliation with each other. So we exchange the peace before the offertory.

Covid has made us rethink this part of the liturgy, not only how we exchange the peace and remain socially distant. Covid has also made us think about what it means. That’s a good thing. What used to involve handshakes, hugs and even the kiss of peace has morphed into a long distance wave or bow or peace sign. This sits just fine with some. I remember a story about the reintroduction of the peace in one church some years ago. (It hasn’t always been part of the liturgy.) An earnest young parishioner turned to a mink-clad matron in the same pew, extended his hand ready to exchange the peace. She looked down her nose at him and said: “Don’t even think about it.”

What I’ve been thinking about this week is the fact that we exchange the peace of the Lord, and not our own peace. It’s the peace gracefully given to us by God. If I was exchanging the peace of Jay, it would probably be extended only to those I like, or those who agree with me on issues. I’m guessing it might be withheld from those who don’t fit in those categories.

But one of the distinctive (and occasionally annoying) things about the community that follows Jesus is that we don’t get to pick who gets in, who we are called to serve alongside, or who turns up in the pew with us. We sure don’t participate in a community of agreement. We enter into a community where there are people who drive us nuts, people who push our buttons, people who view life differently. Often those are the people who have the most to teach us.

In this sermon, Jesus teaches that his followers (you and me, folks) are to do the work of reconciliation with all of those folks, even and especially the irritating ones. Invariably we are going to hurt each other, as we note in the confession when we declare: “We have not loved neighbor as ourselves.” It doesn’t say if we have done that. It assumes we have, and that we do, and that we will. Our work is cut out for us. It involves taking inventory and making amends, thinking about ways, witting and unwitting, that we have caused injury, and asking forgiveness.

There is also injury that comes in interactions that leave us resentful. As we reflect on those who have injured us, we may refuse to forgive them, a violation of Jesus’ teaching in the Lord’s prayer and elsewhere. When that happens, in a way we are inflicting injury on our relationship with those folks. Injury evokes injury. When we savor resentments (they can be quite delicious), treat them like trophies (we can regard them as precious), we are injuring others, and souring our soul.

Between the injuries we inflict and the resentments we harbor, it’s a wonder any of us ever make it to the altar. In all of our relationships, I hear Jesus saying: Be reconciled. It matters, because our relationship with God, including our worship, is hampered by the brokenness of our relationships with each other. Jesus tells us that the two can’t be separated.

That’s why it’s important that we exchange the peace of the Lord, and not the peace we muster on our own. Our own capacity for peacemaking is too shallow, too compromised. As the letter to the Ephesians says, Christ is our peace, breaking down dividing walls. We are asked, week after week, to remember that we are always on the receiving end of amazing grace. As we await the arrival of the prince of peace, think about the ways you can exchange the peace with those in your life, the ways you can be reconciled. How might you approach that this week and in this holy season?

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

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You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

-Matthew 5:21-22

As I reflect on these verses from the Sermon on the Mount, I hope you will be relieved to know that I have never been charged with murder. But the truth is that I have been angry with a brother or sister (widely defined). In my own way, I have insulted the same. And there have been way too many times when I’ve at least thought someone was a fool, apparently making me liable to the hell of fire.

If Jesus was preaching this sermon today, he might refer to road rage. I have often yelled at some idiot driver. (My windows rolled up, of course, and without my clerical collar.) I would never speak that way to someone in the car with me.

If Jesus was preaching this sermon today, he might say something about social media, how easy it is to take off with dismissive language about someone else. In both the cases of road rage and social media, what is lacking is relationship (let alone compassion or empathy) with the person who has set us off. That lack of relationship can often reveal darker, toxic tendencies.

When Jesus says those things are somehow equivalent to murder, I can chalk it up to ancient near eastern hyperbole. But that misses the point, in many ways. Jesus is probing our hearts, to see where there might be murderous, hateful intent. The crowd knew the law which spoke against murder. For the most part they could say: Haven’t done that. But Jesus wants to go deeper, to say that what matters is the intent in our heart. Though we may keep it well hidden, there can be toxicity there.

If we are taking this bit of the Sermon on the Mount seriously, taking it to heart, we have to begin by admitting that we may harbor dark intentions. It’s amazing how they can even come up even among religious folks. I’m always struck that the first murder recorded in the Bible, when Cain killed his brother, was really a fight about worship. You could say it was a church fight. Once we’ve admitted that, what are we to do about it?

In today’s heated political climate, I’ve been praying about the toxicity in my own spirit towards folks who see things differently than I do. There’s a lot of hateful rhetoric being thrown around. It’s easy to respond in kind, to become what we judge.

I’ve received a couple answers to those prayers recently.

One answer came in a book I just finished called Saving Grace by journalist Kristen Powers. Give it to yourself as an early Christmas gift. The subtitle captures the aim of the book: Speak your truth. Stay centered. And learn to coexist with people who drive you nuts. I admit that subtitle may sound like mere tolerance. Her counsel is more profound than that. She speaks about how important it is to practice grace. You can get a sample of what she is up to in the column on the left.

Another answer came in a recent RenewalWorks call focused on how we can learn about prayer. A rector spoke about what she shares about prayer with her congregation. She explores a variety of ways to teach about prayer in a series of 2 minute videos. She shared one in which she speaks about praying the news. As she reads the paper, instead of fuming or despairing, she prays for the situation, including prayers for those who drive her nuts.

Finally, we can always go to the baptismal covenant, which calls us to answer these questions: Will we seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving neighbor as self? Will we respect the dignity of every human being? Note that they don’t say seek and serve Christ in all Episcopalians, or people who agree with us, or Americans, or liberals, or conservatives? Same with the dignity piece. We are called to an expansive love, which recognizes the centrality of a relationship with God and with each other.

Jesus came to give us a clean heart, to give us his heart. As we get ready for his arrival at Christmas, may we be given grace to practice grace. What will that look like for you this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

Ready to help your congregation refocus on their spiritual journeys?  Join our January cohort of RenewalWorks participants…

The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

RenewalWorks – Digital Catalog