Holy Names

 

A Reflection/Poem for Feast of the Holy Name               All Saints Church, Southern Shores, NC

Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher                                    January 1, 2023

    Numbers 6:22-27         Philippians 2:5-11         Luke 2:15-21         Psalm 8

Holy Names

When I was a student at UNC Chapel Hill, they taught me so many things. One of those important lessons was a fight song for cheering on the Carolina Athletics teams: “I'm a Tar Heel born/I'm a Tar Heel bred/ and when I die, I'm a Tar Heel dead!/ So it Rah, Rah Carolina- lina/ Rah Rah Carolina/ Rah Rah Rah!

Actually, despite what I sang at the time, technically I was not born in North Carolina, but my parents had met and fell in love at Chapel Hill, so “I am a Tar Heel born” in proxy, but there was never a doubt in their mind that I would go to UNC. I was bred at Carolina by: learning how to sneer at other school's athletic prowess, learning semi- pornographic chants about Duke and absorbing worshipful biographies of some of the historic racist governors and Confederate warriors whose names decorated buildings on Campus. But at the same time I was challenged to look deeper, past the propaganda and to work for a new future where I could take the best of Carolina into a new life, until that time, closer than I ever imagined then, that I would be a “TarHeel dead”. As David Brooks in his this Thursday's New York Times Opinion Column reminds us; “As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre once observed, you can’t know what to do unless you know what story you are a part of.”

It is like any relationship; first there is the attraction, then there is the acceptance on the limits and then you grow. It is what Jesus does in being a Jew. He was born and raised by a couple of devout Jews. On the 8^th day, which we celebrate today, he was given the name Jesus, a Greek translation of the Hebrew “Yeshua”, meaning “God saves”, a reminder that there are limits to any merely human endeavor, without the power of one greater than ourselves. When he was circumcised, his blood was shed for his Jewish heritage. He was raised with daily Jewish prayers. He was taught the Hebrew Scriptures in his synagogue and community; maybe a Yeshiva. He probably had said over him daily the Aaronic blessing in today Hebrew Testament lesson

God bless you and keep you,
God smile on you and gift you,
God look you full in the face
    and make you prosper. ( Eugene Peterson, The Message Translation}

Jesus felt God looking at him full in the face and deep into his heart. He learned the Jewish tradition to love the neighbor and to care for the poor. In a hope in life in, and with, God; he drew the outlines of his ministry from the paths of the Jewish Prophets. In the end, he continued by giving his blood by dying underneath a sign sarcastically proclaiming he was the “King” of the Jews. He was, as the old song could have gone,”born, bred and dead a Jew”. He knew what story he was part of.

There is an interesting story in the papers about a recently elected House of Representatives member, who, it was found, lied about his educational experience, employment career, and about his religion. When the lies were uncovered, he tried to say that while he was really raised a Roman Catholic; he was, an interesting word, “Jew-ish”. I know it sounds a little like my Proxy explanation about technically not being born in North Carolina. Maybe I could find solace in being “TarHeel-ish. In popular culture, with its latent and sometimes blatant antisemitism, almost all of the pictures of, and movies about, Jesus show him as a Northern European, One of the faults of Christian thought is that many of the Conservative wings, think of Jesus not as a Jew but “Jew-ish”. As was stated before Jesus was “born, bred and dead a Jew.”

Jesus took his Jewish heritage seriously, but is was more than going to “worship services”. Frederick Buechner wrote: “Phrases like 'worship service' and 'service of worship' are tautologies. To worship God means to serve God.'” Jesus , Mary and Joseph saw life as serving God and not just as attending religious services.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 20^th Century Protestant Theologian warned us about what “serving God” means;

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

The apostle Paul, a 1^st Century fellow Jew, wrote in today's Epistle lesson to the church in Philippi, about what Jesus did and how we are called to daily follow;

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. ( Eugene Peterson, The Message Translation.]

Yet, in the mist of “selfless obedient” life, there was a trust that all things could be redeemed. While he was “a man of sorrows', to use Isaiah's phrase, there was also a joy in life. With the number of jokes he told in the parables, there has to be, to use a phrase I read in a new mystery book I was reading on the day after Christmas about a detective, “ a man whose deepest creases in his face came from laughter.”

Jesus the Jew goes deeper into his faith. Too often “going deeper” is an academic term to go narrower and become an expert in minutiae. I remember taking Greek classes in Seminary in order to find the right definition to particular words. But the deeper I got, the more I discovered that there were multiple definitions based on the context; the words became bigger, wider. I came to appreciate that the “WORD” was not a technical science of facts which limits imagination; but a complex poem of love to be shared. In the same way, for Jesus the Jew, it meant going wider and expanding the message of reconciliation with enemies, with strangers, with sinners, with outcasts. The Kingdom of God no longer had rigid boundaries. I, and most of you, are gentile followers of Jesus the Jew, who loved enough to love even us more than we can imagine.

As we begin this new year of 2023, let us please ask ourselves, how we can expand the boundaries of our faith. Let us know more fully what story we are part of. Let our New Year take on New Life in which we can enter further into a selfless, obedient life until we then die a selfless, obedient death.

Holy Names

Singing Tar Heel, born, bred and dead,

was once a way I hoped to define me.

Giving a way to fit in for others to see,

if they could be fooled by words I said.

Jesus had a bunch of names to him given,

living into them, trusting where it'd take

him in a mission to do a creation remake:

earth to no longer separated from heaven!

His mission led him deeper than just walking,

but something else was going on in his head,

in his path as good Jew, born, bred, and dead

meant shedding his life blood as his talking.

His life was his Word.

Oh pray it's daily heard!

.

CENTURIES LATE, SHEPHERDS VISITING A MANGER

 

A Poem/ Reflection For Christmas Day       All Saints Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC

December 25, 2022                                                           Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher

Isaiah 52:7-10 Psalm 98 Hebrews 1:1-12 John 1:1-14

                                              Centuries Late, Shepherds Visiting A Manger

In the prologue to John's Gospel, the writer from the Johannine community proposes that many people saw Jesus but did not understand him or receive his message. Later he will suggest that we need the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Guide of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes. We can see things with our eyes, but it takes the Spiritual guide to help open our minds and hearts

Popular Historian David McCullough, who died this year, came several times to the Outer Banks while researching his book on the Wright Brothers. He said that History is more than reading the official records. He spoke of the need to read the thoughts of the people in their letter and diaries. He spoke about the need to visit the places where history was made; to be exposed to the culture and feel of a place. That had been the subject of his previous book The Greater Journey: Americans In Paris, about the generations of Americans in the 19^th Century who had traveled to Europe and different places as a way of deepening their understanding of the how their culture had been shaped and as a renewal of their art and appreciation of life.

There was a slowdown in the traffic during the Civil War due to increased danger and the awareness that both France and England seemed to favor the Confederate Cause. But after the war with the resulting post-war economic prosperity in the North many flocked to be alive again.

One of those people was Phillips Brooks, at that time the young Rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. He had spent the war working with families who had suffered losses, including his own younger brother. Beyond his Parish, he lobbied hard for the Abolition of Slaves. He also worked hard in ministering to the needs of the soldiers of the Black Union Troops stationed outside Philadelphia. After the War, after the assassination of Lincoln, after the War ended in 1865 he sought a break and took a Sabbatical to Europe and the Holy Land. He visited the Little Town of Bethlehem on Christmas Eve and wrote to the children of his Parish about the experience. Three years later in 1868, he wrote a poem for his Sunday School class reflecting on that experience. The organist of the Church took the poem and set it to music and it was sung at the Christmas Eve service and we sang it today.

More than a century later, I took a my first Sabbatical leave from my parish in Lynchburg. The church had grown significantly and had dealt with my divorce and later remarriage. We had a building program doubling the size of the plant, which I swore I would never do another. My daughter had gone off to college and graduated and living far away. My older brother had died. I was exhausted. The sabbatical was planned with a week in Paris, a month in Jerusalem, studying at St. George's College in East Jerusalem on the “Palestine of Jesus”. We studied the historical and archeological sites, the different religious expressions of Islam, Judaism, and Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican Christianity. We visited Palestinian Arab families in refugee slums and visited fully armed Zionist Settler Compounds on the West Bank. Walked the desolate Jericho road of the Good Samaritan and so much more. Then Pat and I spent 10 days traveling in Egypt before heading back home loaded with gifts, books, notebooks and souvenirs. After a year of watching my parishioners roll their eyes during the sermons when I would say, “Back in my Sabbatical . . .” I accepted a call from a Church in Georgia where I could bore them about how much I though I knew.

One day our class took the Bus from St. George's College  to Bethlehem. Going down the Hill, the darkness turned to light as the neon light fired from the Il Bambino Gift Shop, a couple blocks away from Manger Square. - filled to the rim with religious toys, aids  and junk made out of olive wood - souvenirs for the pilgrims to take back home to their churches, offices, dens  living rooms or closets all over the world.

The Bus parked and we walked to Manger Square. There is a compound of Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Roman Catholic Monasteries; three of the Branches of Christianity in charge of the churches and Holy sites. They squabble all the time just like they do at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre complex in Jerusalem, about who is responsible for what repairs and the cleaning of what parts of the buildings, about who is in charge of what percentage of collections etc. Underneath the Basilica of the Nativity, which has had hundreds of additions and improvements since the time of Constantine in the 4^th Century, is a grotto where, it is claimed, the place where the manger was is an old cave which might have been the stable for animals. The Holy Site is full of layers of Byzantine, Crusader,  Counter-Reformation and 19^th Century decoration, which I thought was tarting up the place so it looked like a religious brothel. There is a small opening in the floor surrounded by what seems like scores of hanging lanterns with a star surrounding the hole. This is place where Mary is supposed to have laid the Baby Jesus.

So I am here, on this proclaimed “Holy Place”, but I was in no mood to be religious. Thinking “I am here in a religious entertainment Disneyland for the pious.” I start saying prayers for my cynicism to be healed. Then, God opened the door and I stopped formula prayers when I saw a Palestinian Arab father with his very young son, probably 4 or 5 years old, kneeling by the star, placing their hands into the hole. Then the father places his hands over his son's hands to form a gesture of prayer. He then was teaching his son the words to say at such an occasion; teaching his small son how to pray. All I could think of was Joseph, as I was being whisked back centuries in my imagination, teaching his son Jesus how to approach the Holy. I saw with new eyes the centuries of love and devotion poured out in this place. This was a gift of the Spirit of God to open my eyes to see the holy, the Word made flesh, all around and in me.

In that moment I though of Brooks' poem and our Hymn, “O Little Town Of Bethlehem”

How silently, how silently,
The wondrous Gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell:
Oh, come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Immanuel!

I understood that Jesus is constantly being born and adored by those who approach with an open heart, calling to “come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel.”

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of humans, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”

Centuries Late, Shepherds Visiting A Manger

Coming from Jerusalem, down the final hill,

to come to worship at the site of the Manger;

Il Bambino Gift Shop lights way for stranger

as place for souvenir buyers to get their fill.

All those baubles made by so devout countless

from all over the world, for very special price,

helping make it easier to ask heavenly advice

when, as so often, the mysteries confound us.

The Holy Site's a hole in the undercroft floor,

all covered with centuries of pious decoration;

holiest is Arab father teaching a son adoration,

kneeling, shaping hands, to do the holy chore,

of whispering ancient words, to the One Holy,

continuing, sharing Sprit in life with us lowly.

Love Means Living Into Hard Promises

 

A Poem/ Reflection for IV Advent                        St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Gatesville, NC

December 18, 2022                                                Thomas E Wilson, Guest Presider

Love Means Living Into Hard Promises

Isaiah 7:10-16 Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-25 Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

We begin with a look at the Hebrew Testament lesson from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. The King of Judah, Ahaz, who was 20 years old when he became King is in trouble with two of the Neighboring Kings from Damascus, Syria and Samaria who are urging him to join a coalition of defense against the Assyrian Empire.

The Prophet Isaiah tells Ahaz to call upon God for help in what to do. Ahaz refuses to ask, and makes it sound noble “I will not put God to the test.” Isaiah points to a young woman who he says will bear a child who will, be called “Immanuel”, God is with us. Immanuel (or Emmanuel) means living into hard promises, but we are not alone.

Ahaz does not believe that having Immanuel- God with him, is of any value, because Ahaz basically has already made up his mind to trust Tiglath-Pileser III the King of Assyria. Ahaz trusts himself and Assyria grows even stronger by destroying the Syrian Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Ahaz will try to appease the Assyrians by adapting some of the practices of the worship of the God of Assyria for the Temple in Jerusalem. His plan to depend on his own “wisdom” . When Ahaz dies, his son Hezekiah, under the tutelage of the Prophet Isaiah understands “Immanuel” - God is with us and it gives him strength to cleanse the worship in the Temple and stand firm against the military siege of Jerusalem by the Grandson of Tiglath-Pileser, Sennacherib. Hezekiah knows first hand what Immanuel means in his life.

This is the 4^th Week of Advent. Each Week in Advent has a theme Faith, Hope, Joy and Love. A couple weeks ago, I got Pat to sit down to watch a movie “Love Story”, a 1970 film based on the Erich Segal's novel of the same name. I had seen it decades before I ever met Pat and I thought it might be fun. It is not a great movie but it has a line: “ Love means never having to say, “You're sorry!” The reality is that for me, Love means that always having to say I'm sorry. That is Pat's problem; she is married to a fallible human being who keeps messing up. The line should be “Love means that forgiveness begins before you ask for it.”

Oswald Chambers wrote “God and love are synonymous Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, love is.” The Gospel story for today of Joseph and his love for Mary is a story about God filling hearts with love. If we hear the word Immanuel- God is with us- we can hear that the power of God's love can can help us overcome so many difficulties,

Luke 's story of Mary begins in Nazareth where Mary lives and is focuses on Mary's love for God. However, Matthew begins with another story, and the way he tells it, the story begins in Bethlehem where Mary and Joseph both live and with Joseph's love of Mary and obedience to God. Matthew has the Wise Men come to the House in Bethlehem, Luke has the Shepherds come to the stable by the Inn. After the visits Matthew has the Family flee to Egypt, Luke has the Family go up to Jerusalem for a Purification Ceremony. So which is the true story? The answer of course is “Yes”. They are written decades after the earthly ministry of Jesus by two different communities of Christians, both passing on different traditions with different emphasis, where facts are much less important than love. The Gospels are not rigid histories, Gospels (Good News) are statements of faith and love. Matthew's Community is interested in helping Jewish followers of God to understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of Faith in God. Luke's Community is interested in Gentiles being open to whole new way of looking at the world.

Reconciling two stories reminds me of the song “I Remember It Well” from the Lerner and Lowe musical. GIGI, when two old lovers sing about their first encounter:

We met at nine, we met at eight, I was on time, no, you were late
Ah, yes, I remember it well
We dined with friends, we dined alone, a tenor sang, a baritone
Ah, yes, I remember it well

In Matthew's Joseph story, Joseph is a righteous man and is engaged to Mary. He finds out that she might be pregnant,. In Matthew's story, Joseph is a devout man and and realizes that his duty is to call the engagement off. He is also a loving man and want to spare the woman he loves any scandal; indeed she could be accused of Adultery and thereby be sentenced to be stoned to death.

God comes to Jospeh in a dream and I think that God is always speaking to us in dreams. In our dream states, the left side of the brain which does all the words, technical stuff and calculations, goes off line, our ego is put to sleep and we are open to seeing the world without looking at the world as something to exploit. However, the right side of the brain, which can deal with symbols, emotions, insight, images, memory and imagination, is free to be open to the pre- and un conscious where the spiritual lies.

Joseph's dream tells him Immanuel- God is with us. Here Joseph is able to take strength and knowing he is not alone, he is to be able to face the shame and blame for Mary's pregnancy. That is the way of love: you do what you need to do to help the other. Immanuel- love, God , is with us. Mary and Joseph are two ordinary people doing extraordinary things for God and with God.

Dorothy Day a 20^th Century Catholic Activist, wrote:

If everyone were holy and handsome, with “alter Christus” shining in neon lighting from them, it would be easy to see Christ in everyone. If Mary had appeared in Bethlehem clothed, as Saint John says, with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head, and the moon under her feet, then people would have fought to make room for her. But that was not God’s way for her, nor is it Christ’s way for himself, now when he is disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth.

On this day God is present. One of the things we will do later in the service is to exchange the Peace.The Peace of the Lord be always with you- or to say it another way “Immanuel- God is with us, in the space between us”. It does not mean that you like that person, or approve of what they have done, But it means that you see them as an Image of God, beloved by God, as one for whom Christ died, of one who Joseph would have forgiven and Mary would have given birth for. Any act of love between people living together, or love shared with strangers, or of a caring for any part of God's creation, or of forgiveness means that God has made God's self visible to the eyes of faith. Immanuel- God is with us.

Love Means Living Into Hard Promises

Joseph heard Mary hadn't been to the Red Tent,

in several months, meaning new life is growing.

He had to make a decision before she's showing,

otherwise they'd be saying he gave sin an assent.

Nightly dreams came telling him to suck it up,

what he thought as sin, is a much higher promise,

if he could trust the One whose words are honest,

meant publicly drinking deeply from a bitter cup.

Making the promise to Love, Honor and Cherish.

Love's more than “having hots” for each other.,

and this is that “long as both shall live” bother,

which means daily promises for them to nourish.

Immanuel, God is with us, power behind love

gives strength to live into promises from above.

JOY ARRIVING BY CHOOSING INTENTION

 

A Poem and Reflection for III Advent                          St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Ahoskie, NC

December 11, 2022                                                       Thomas E Wilson, Guest Presider

Isaiah 35:1-10 James 5:7-10 Matthew 11:2-11 Canticle 15 Luke 1:46-55

Joy Arriving By Choosing Intention

Mary sings from the Magnificat,:     My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord  my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; * for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

Lets take a look at what is happening to her in her life. Mary is a teenage girl and she is pregnant, there is no father in sight. Her parents send her to her cousin's house far away from Nazareth with the pretext that she is being sent there to help out this cousin who is having her first child. 

What happens is what used to happen often when I was growing up in upstate New York. In the 10^th or 11^th grade, a girl, who had started gaining a little bit of weight, would break up with her boyfriend and would take a leave from school to “help” out a relative in another part of the state or nation, and live with that family for the rest of the school year. Good manners required that we take the story at face value. I have a hard time thinking that any of those girls would be singing thanksgiving. For many families, a girl being sent away would be a cause for our parents to give us adolescents a revisit of the “TALK”, about how to be VERY Careful.

Two thousand years earlier, Mary is singing about her joy. Her reputation is shot in that small town. Her parents have sent her away; and yet she is full of joy. Her song is a variation of Psalm 113 and the Song of Hannah in the Book of Samuel, both songs of finding Joy in the midst of difficulty.

Joy is the theme for this 3^rd Sunday of Advent. Joy is not happiness, when things are going your way. Happiness is dependent on people, places and things; People - giving approval or distinction, Places - giving a sense of safety and pleasure, Things - to satisfy a need or desire. Joy is independent of people, places and things. Let me share with you a moment when I learned Joy Is independent of Happiness.

A little over 41 years ago, I had been a Social Worker for 13 years. I quit my job after three and a half years as Assistant Professor and Chair of the Social Work Department in a college in Virginia, we had gotten the program accredited and I had struggled with a call to Ordained Ministry. The college was Moderate Baptist in tone and I had taken several courses in theology in my spare time. The Dean of the College and the Chair of the Social Sciences both wanted me to stay and continue while they would arrange for me to adjust my schedule and take courses at the Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest which would be in easy driving distance. Unfortunately the Seminary was having a lot of tension as the Board was trying to move the school into a more fundamentalist camp.The easy path was now unavailable.

So I sold my house, packed up my stuff and my family and I moved to the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. After I unloaded the U-Haul, I felt a lot of pain, but being a male I tried to ignore it. Finally it got so bad that I went to the small local Hospital where they told me that I had some Kidney Stones which were too big to pass; I would need to go to a larger Hospital in Nashville, where I would have surgery. This would mean that I would miss the first week of school. I would be behind and I would need to catch up.

The seminary was in a mess anyway since the Dean, Urban T Holmes, one of the finest minds in Theology, had suddenly died a couple weeks before. So here am I in a hospital room with lots of pain pills waiting to go to Nashville. I was not happy. I knew I would be behind my classmates. I had fantasies that I would be the brightest and most prepared theology student. If I had only stayed safe where I had been, was the thought I beat myself up with. Happiness is really just another word for ego gratification.

Into this moment came Retired Bishop Girault Jones, a short little man with a giant faith. He had retired from being a Bishop for 20 years in Louisiana and had moved to Sewanee, building a house which he and his wife called, “Meanwhile”, a comment that it was to be the place for them to be faithful in the time between his retirement and their death. Bishop Jones was asked to fill in as Interim Dean after Terry Holmes death. He was at that time a year older than I am now. He also continued to Volunteer as a Chaplain at the Sewanee Hospital and do a weekly Chapel Services of Communion and deliver the Sacrament to patients. He came in to my room and told me that he would bring me the sacrament, but if the Doctors were working on me, he would stop outside the door and say a little prayer that I would have received the sacrament by “INTENTION” The idea is that the bread and wine were only outward signs, what was important was God's Grace and Love were already being present, pregnant within me, when I opened my heart and had the Intension of being united with the Divine.

The presence of the Divine is in every part of creation. This is the message that Jesus is bringing in the Gospel Message for today; the deeper reality is not measured by looking at the surfaces but looking for the in-breaking of the Kingdom of the Heavens in everyday life, where we are pregnant with God's joyful Spirit.. The poet Mary Oliver, in her poem, Wild Geese, wrote about that awareness of joyfully connecting to everything that has the fingerprints of the creator:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

In trying to remember the incident, I really cannot remember if Bishop Jones gave me the Bread and Wine, but it is really not important, for I remember that in the middle of things going wrong, when happiness was a pipe dream, there was a rumbling of a pregnancy of Joy. I knew that God was Intentionally with me “announcing my place in the family of things.” My ego had to be put aside and I needed to be faithful to the Divine presence, of which I was an exceedingly “lowly servant”, that is always here.

Today, may each of you know the Greatness of the Lord, who looks intentionally on you with favor; wherever you are, in whatever circumstance, God's joy is present for you.

Joy Arriving By Choosing Intention

In Hospital huddled and bummed out, 

When Interim Dean dropped in to proffer

Communion from Chapel service’s offer,

As gift of Grace even to a partially devout.

If Docs were not working on inpatient me,

It would be a piece of bread, slug of wine,

Outward signs of  connection to the Divine, 

Allowing me to go beyond present and see,

A deeper reality, beyond happiness, to joy,

If the docs were busy with me; by “Intention”

Would I receive. Grace brooks no prevention,

From inadequacies of Priests or religious toy.

Intended joy set sail in space between this world,

And words, sailing with once tight faith unfurled.

PEACE IS AT HAND

 

Peace Is At Hand

Dust, slowly collecting on picture frames,

Tells me I need to get really, really busy,

Before people come over in a big tizzy,

Throwing around “needing help” claims.

“No.”, I sigh, “ Don’t be bullied by them,

For I have more important things to do,

Like writing a poem all the way through,

Before Shepherds arrive at Bethlehem.”

I am where I should be right now; Peace

Is at hand. Just breathe, accept the fact

That perfection is Angels doing their act,

And trying to please others has to cease.

Right now, I’ll stop trying to be in control,

Leaving God to gift Serenity in my soul.

HOPE'S STILL HERE

Reflection/Poem for the 1st Sunday of Advent               St. Thomas, Gatesville, NC

Thomas E Wilson, Guest Presider                                   November 27, 202

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

HOPE’S STILL HERE

One night, last week I got out of bed, no longer able to sleep. I am an old man so I do get out of bed for many reasons, but that morning at 2:45 there were so many things going through my mind. I decided to do something useful and detour the mental traffic inside my skull by looking at the lessons for the 1st Sunday of Advent. My eyes stopped  at the passage from the Epistle for today in Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome: “the night is far gone, the day is near”. I had this vision in my head about Paul sitting at a table, at 3:00 in the morning after deciding that God was calling him to get out of bed and quit the cycle of worrying by writing to his friends in the community in Rome.

Like my vision of Paul, I had so many things swirling in a cesspool of worry about things I had no control over, that the only way out was to find a message of hope to live faithfully. I was reminded of the prophet Zechariah’s invitation “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.” 

I reflected on all the things I was worried about. There were people, places and things in the past that I had no power to fix. People, places and things in the present, that I must learn to accept and live with. Then there are people, places and things looming that will come up in the future over which I will have no control.

Each of the four weeks of Advent Season has a theme: hope, love, joy and peace. I realized that the reason I got out of bed was I needed to reconnect with hope. This 1st Week of Advent week is about hope. By instinct I went to Emily Dickinson’s poem: Hope is the Thing With Feathers:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

The process of hope is to change worry into wonder. Like the heroes of Fairy tales, we move from fear into action. G.K Chesterton  wrote;” Fairy tales are more than true - not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten,”

Too often we associate Hope with wishes. The problem with the commercialization of Christmas is that hope gets hijacked into what we want for Christmas. When we too often wish for things that we want for Christmas; we tell Santa Claus or Amazon  or some other higher power for wish fulfillment of being able to grasp more things to fill an emptimess in our souls..

When I typed out the last sentence, the computer suggested that I had a mis-spelling and it was a “M” instead of a “N” in the word “emptiness” so it was “emptiMess”. That is what psychologists call a “serendipity”- when two things happen at the same time and while they are unconnected; we ascribe meaning to it. I think my soul is not really empty- it just feels like it is; BUT- it is a mess that I need to spend more time cleaning up.

Before Jesus was born  his parents and their neighbors longed for a Messiah that would kick out and humiliate the enemies  and restore the Jewish Community to military glory. However, the hope that God gave in Jesus was not about fulfilling the wants of the people but to fulfill the desire of God to dwell in the hearts of all of God’s children; friend and enemy alike..

The hope of God was that God’s children knew that the indwelling Spirit would change their lives so much, that love and forgiveness would break out in communities. That the people would be the hands of God in comforting the broken, feeding the hungry, healing the breaches in communities, doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with each other.

Today, what is your real hope in your soul? Please pray for God to be born in your heart again.

HOPE’S STILL HERE

“Well, what do you want for Christmas?”

I’d be asked as a child and later as lover, 

to come up with a thing able to smother,

emptiness, to be cured by some business.

As ordered by suggestion; presents came,

In time to try fulfilling that empty open void,

which gifts often failed. I became annoyed,

with playing that old magic giving game.

However, suppose I gave and shared hope,

Not from a store, but from a love freely given,

And passed through one who, being forgiven,

who’s able to see with  a much larger scope.

Hope is still here, turning worry to wonder,

Amazed when God tears greed asunder.

 

Christ the King Sunday 2022

 

Poem/Reflection for the Feast of Christ the King    St. Thomas Church, Ahoskie, NC

Thomas E Wilson, Guest Presider                November, 20, 2022

Jeremiah 23:1-6      Canticle 16          Colossians 1:11-20         Luke 23:33-43

 Christ The King Sunday 2022

There is a line that Frank Sinatra sang in the standard, “New York, New York “ 

“I wanna wake up in a city that doesn't sleep

And find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap”

What a desire to be the King above all the rules! I remember a time, in the spring semester of 1965, almost seven years more than half a century ago, when  I was trying so hard to be Sinatra. There is a line “You can always tell a Sophomore, but you can’t tell him much!” I was a second semester freshman and I was sure I knew everything that needed to be known. I had turned 18 over the Christmas Break and returned to have my first legal beer and wine in North Carolina. Some friends and I went out to eat at a restaurant. At the next table there were these pretty girls and I decided that I would demonstrate how cool I was. I started slowly swirling my glass of wine, to show while I was only 18, I had more sophistication than sense. I was so cool. Until, my friend, Ted Simpson, leaned over and  whispered, “Tom, you are spilling your wine.” Sure enough my white long sleeved shirt’s cuffs were being loaded with red wine. My other two friends laughed. Over half a century later, I still shudder at the fear that the beautiful girls might have rolled their eyes. I would not be the last time I tried, and failed, to be cool like the King.

The Feast of Christ the king is less than a century old. It began under the rule of Pope Pius XI who was elected in 1922. The world he had grown up in had changed.  When he was growing up and in his Priestly career, wherever he looked there were Kingdoms. Except, the 20th Century had changed the social and political alliances. World War I had swept away the Hollenhauser German Empire, dismantled the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, swept away the the Romanov Czars of the  Russian Empire, dismantled the Ottoman Empire giving most of their territory to British, French and Saudi zones of interest, with a Republic of Turkey that continued the genocide of Armenians.  The war saw the Chinese Quig dynasty fall apart with feuding warlords and the Empire of Japan picking over the carcass. The War played havoc with the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the victors losing a generation on the slaughter yards of battle and southern Part of Ireland in the Irish rebellion to become a Republic.

Pius XI  saw the rulers who had replaced the old Kings in Spain, Portugal, Russia,  Italy and later Germany and saw authoritative rulers who only worshiped power. Pius looked at the Victors of the War and saw countries  becoming more and more secular, more and more  focused on creating individual wealth and the  neglect of the care of the poor. 

Pius feared the rot in the religious pews and called for a remembrance that our faith was centered on following the dictates and example of the Christ; to remember that while the earthly Kings were passing away, Christ was the King to follow. With this in mind Pius called for a special festival of renewal of Christ the King to be held in the last week  of October. Pius also had a less admirable motive ,because in many parts of Germany the last week of October also contained a state Holiday for the Celebration of the Protestant Reformation when many shops were closed so the Christ the King would provide competition.. Much later, in a spirit of ecumenism the Feast of Christ the King was changed to the last Sunday before the First week of Advent., which is when we celebrate today.

Jesus was given the Title of King, not by his followers but by his enemies as a mockingly cruel jest, putting a sign, “King of the Jews” and then mocking him for his lack of power. Earthly Kings and Queens don’t put up much with mockery because they always want to maintain their “Dignity”. Jesus had this habit of getting on his knees and washing feet. On the Cross, Jesus forgives and invites a convicted thief and robber  to join him in Paradise.

Kings and Queens return with interest any slight given to them, holding on to any grudges. Jesus forgives easily. Kings and Queens in their own mind, separate themselves from the common people. Jesus  did not sit on any thrones of privilege but emptied himself out at every opportunity, sitting and eating with broken sinners. It is one of those broken sinners, who on an adjoining cross, see Jesus, the Giver of Mercy, as the King of Kings. He cries, like all of us broken sinners: “Jesus remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

Kings and Queens like to control people, places and things.  Jesus redeems and sets free. Kings and Queens like to talk down to people. Jesus walks with us. Kings and Queens can be royally amused. Jesus laughs out loud. Kings and Queens make loud proclamations. The Christ whispers into our hearts to the point of tears. Kings, like Sinatra tells us, want to be on top of the heap. The Christ kneels down and washes feet.

When I became a Rector of a church, I was faced with a need for balance. One one hand I was a Rector which comes from the Latin of being a ruler. On the other hand I was a Pastor, to minister, where my life was to be a trustworthy outward and visible sign of the presence of Christ ‘s love to the community in which I served. In the churches I served as Rector: there were times I was able to keep the balance and more than a few times when I needed Christ’s, and my parishioners’, forgiveness for letting my Parishes down. The search committees of the two St. Thomas will have a hard time keeping that balance in their search to enter into a Covenant with her or him.

I want to add a note on the nature of a Covenant. The Bulletin today offers a Prayer of Thanksgiving on the Marriage Covenant Anniversary of Hugh and Dawn Davis.  British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who died this month 2 years ago, offered his view of a covenant:

A covenant is like a marriage. It is a mutual pledge of loyalty and trust between two or more persons, each respecting the dignity and integrity of the other, to work together to achieve together what neither can achieve alone. And there is one thing even God cannot achieve alone, which is to live within the human heart. That needs us.

Pius XI wanted a return to when someone seems to be in charge, he longed for a King in the Christ. I understand his fears of having things seem to fall apart. There is something that Jesus keeps saying in scripture, over and over again. The phrases, “Fear not” or “Be not afraid”, occur 103 times in the King James Version of the Bible. He says to his disciples and us: “Do not be afraid.” He says” I am with you even to the end of the age.”

Christ The King Sunday 2022

The King sign was a cruel joke of shame,

Mocking pretentious of man and nation,

For trying to raise up above their station;

Letting all know only Romans had a name.

However, centuries pass longing for a ruler

Of my passions, pretentious and appetites,

While claiming them as sovereign “rights”,

In sad quest to claim the title “Mister Cooler”.

My goal was Out Sinatraing Sinatra in cool;

Melodying my own songs, in my own way,

Posing as if  I was master of my fate, I’d say:

“I’m the only one who over me can ever rule!”

But, finding I needed greater than myself power,

Daily realizing I needed the King in every hour.