Driving today. The sun is bright, but the air is cold. November in southern Wisconsin and the cranes are figuring out its time to go while the rest of us start to hunker down.

Thoughts of Christmas long ago. The excitement of the times. The lights over the street in downtown Wausau. The color pages of the J.C. Penney catalog where all the toys were. Hoping it would snow so we could make some money shoveling the neighbor’s sidewalk. Wet clothing from playing in the snow and the smell of my mom’s homemade fruitcake.

Back and forth I go from the past to the present. The present is busy, a working time for those who serve the Church. Arrangements, schedules, so many things to do. The past beckons with something simpler, more idealized, a world where people sang carols from the heart and it was okay to believe in Santa Claus.

The cold winter nights seemed so much easier then. Each one marked not the collapse at the end of a busy day so much as the progress towards that day, Christmas day. I discover in the autumn of my life that I still want to open a box with a toy inside. I still crave a piece of fruit cake spackled with butter. And oh, how I miss the orange in my stocking and the wonderful slippers my grandmother knit for us each year.

Christmas is a place in time, and I want to go back there, just for a moment, and be a kid again. I want to see family long gone. I want to be with my friends on the block where I grew up. I crave the wonder of those days. They were not perfect, but somehow, they seemed better than now.

Ah, the daydreams of a middle-aged man with a life of responsibility! My calendar calls and I snap back to work. Still, to be a child again, pajamas with feet, eyes locked on the boxes under the tree, corny movies on TV, and so much hope. I would do it again if I could. But, for now, there are only echoes and I cup my ear to hear them because their sound brings life to me, the pleasant dreams of older age that even if they seem sloppy and sentimental seem to mark the return of wonder, and how I need such wonder in my heart and soul as I keep on walking all the way Home.

At 62 I’m rounding the corner on the way to a quarter century in the Orthodox Church.

Scandals? I’ve seen them, more than I want to see. If you’re looking for a community of perfect people this isn’t it, myself included. I’ve seen leaders fall, people leave in grief, and those I thought were deeply rooted vanish into this world’s night. Sometimes I get tired because the troubles of one can touch us all.

Glory? I’ve seen even more of that. The great beauty that drew my senses has never disappeared. The ancient rhythms of faith and life that stabilized my soul through the storms of this life continue to do their holy work. Ancient hymns lift my soul. Wise words from the ages grant me understanding. I live in a modern and fragmented word but by Faith I have something whole, transcendent, and beyond.

At times I’ve felt frustrated but never disconnected, challenged but never totally overcome, and weary but never completely exhausted because I stand in a flow of strength beyond mine.  Perhaps a cup cannot pass from me but the God who gives it also fills the last drop with life and resurrection.  And always there is mercy to stand, poor, naked, and covered in sores before the holy altar with only God to protect me and only His strength in the face of my fragility.

And always there is the connection to Christ, not just the historic one, the liturgical one, or the succession by laying on of hands but the assurance of belonging, as much as is possible, to the enduring community of His followers from the beginning to the end of time.

I envy the people who are raised in this good path, who knew nothing else from before they were born. So many of us traveled a long and sometimes hard way to find what our children have been freely given. I wonder what would have been different if this Faith had been mine in the same way. Yet it seems that it was God’s good pleasure to call some from the first hour and others later in the day. Still, we’ve all arrived.

This is the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the day when we recall how the Church, faced with Islamic invasion without and heresy within boldly gathered to reaffirm that which had always been and what needed to be restored. Holy icons, images of Saints and our Lord which call to mind the eternality of Jesus and His glory which shines in and through His holy ones.

It’s so easy in the rush of work and home and job to forget this beautiful path on which we tread. So easy to take for granted the riches we’ve been given. So easy to forget our inheritance in Faith. A thousand bright shiny voices and more than a few dark ones call out to us along the way, selling us distractions and trinkets so much less valuable than what we already have in hand.

This Faith we have, with its still, small voice, even in all of that noise calls us to something higher, better and transcendent. In the world but not captive to it. No system or structure devised in human thought can completely define it or claim its glory, purpose, and worship for its own. No time of darkness can completely extinguish its light. Wars have come, famine has ravaged the land, sin becomes law, and yet it remains. Despots rage against it sending millions to prison and death and yet its candle is never put out. False teachers critique it and sometimes its leaders fail to live its promise, yet it endures.

At times in our minds we’re challenged by the difficulty of the path, the words and call of Jesus that are sometimes hard to hear and understand and yet instinctually we know there is truth here and words of life and sustenance. Within our Faith heaven exists even in the face of death, glory in humility, strength in weakness, and providence in the barren night of the soul. The calling is high but there is grace to accomplish it and forgiveness when we fall. The mystery is great and yet the Holy Spirit makes the fisherman wise, the unlearned perceptive, and that which seems foolish to the world eternal wisdom.

Each one of us who embarks on this journey is a miracle, even if we don’t feel that way at any given time. God is working in us, despite our messiness, and weaving a tapestry in our lives of our broken threads made beautiful by grace and His skillful hands. The potter sees the finished beauty even if we only, for the moment, see the clay. One pause to contemplate is all that’s needed to see this good thing, this life alive in us, this hope which nothing in the world can extinguish.

It’s the Sunday of Orthodoxy and in a few hours we’ll gather with our icons to process and proclaim, to worship and remember, to celebrate and ponder. Never forget, never let the dust of this world cover the beauty of our treasure, and never cease to walk towards the light on this well-trod path. The Faith that established the universe is ours as well. Let us rejoice in the gift, share the largesse, and follow this beautiful path all the way home.

Homily

February 12, 2023

There are days when you think about what you could’ve done, what you should’ve done, the chances you missed, and how everything got so messy so quickly.  That’s shame for you.

I’m not speaking about the kind of shame people put on you to manipulate, coerce, or control. There’s a different kind, the real stuff that comes from somewhere deep inside and you own it because you made it happen and there’s no one else to blame but the person you see in the mirror every morning.

It’s the shame of hungover Sunday mornings, miscellaneous flings, bad choices made in the heat of the moment, words that just came flying out of your mouth and stuff you thought was so right until the moment it blew up in your face. Some of it was the foolishness of youth, some, perhaps, was force of habit, a fair amount was just being dumb, and perhaps a little bit was being a rare combination of stubborn and arrogant right before the whole thing went south.

And when it hits it hits like a double shot of pain and regret with an embarrassment chaser. Now what? Is there a way out? Can this whole pile of junk be fixed? What am I going to do?

Come on home.

It’s true, God knows you’ve made a mess of things, so have I. God knows you stepped in it big time and there might be consequences. God knows you’re embarrassed and perhaps a little bit angry and overwhelmed. God knows every bridge you’ve burned, every heart you’ve broken (including your own) and everything you no wish you hadn’t done even if it was all done on the downlow. You, and I, we’re open books to God and every game we think we could play with others doesn’t work with Him.

Still, come on home.

You see while you and I were out there just inventing stupid and sinful things to do and be He was waiting in the distance for the moment we’d come to our senses. When we were playing our games and working our hustle God’s heart was still with us. When we were degrading ourselves with sin and idiocies of our own design, He never shook his head and walked away. As we were, in our own ways, wasting everything we had on just one more hit on the world’s dirty glass pipe He was keeping a room ready for our return.

So, just come on home.

It’s okay if you feel bad about it all because that means you’re coming to your senses. When you start to realize your clothes smell of pig and none of your good time friends care about you after the money is gone it’s a sign that the good inside of you hasn’t completely been killed. Realizing you’re hungry is the first step in being filled with good things and the emptiness inside is the very space that God will fill with every step you take on the road back.

Get up and come on home.

Because the God you ran away from, the God you may have cursed to His face has never given up on you. Every day while you were away, every moment you were gone, He was waiting for the first glimpse of you on the road, and, seeing you He began to run, not away but towards you with a welcome like you’d never left in the first place. Maybe you didn’t want Him as a Father, but He never stopped wanting you as a son.

Please, come on home.

If you’ve been away from God for a while. If your love has grown cold. If you’re bitter or angry or unforgiving or you’re just so tired let this Lent be your road back. If life has roughed you up a bit, and who hasn’t that happened to, let these holy days ahead be holy oil on open wounds. If everything seems so uncertain and frightening we have beautiful weeks in front of us where you can come, take on His yoke, and find rest.

And if you’ve sinned, and who among us hasn’t, and the weight of it, the shame of it, and the remorse of it has gotten a hold of you, drop your embarrassment, lose the false pride, turn, and walk back to God. God already knows who you are, where you’ve been, and what company you’ve kept and none of it is so bad, so dark, or so monumental that his love is powerless before it. In our Orthodox churches we venerate the icons of people who’ve been and done worse than you can imagine but found, even in their darkness, the Light which has never been overcome. You, and we, can find it too.

Just come on home.

Homily 9/4/22

It’s both simple and beyond comprehension, historical fact and eternally significant. An ancient story still shaping the present with the beauty of a flower and the dogged perseverance of a military force.

Over two millennia ago God became part of that which He created, entering the world in real time and space so that which He’d created could be restored. There had been stories, of course, of the gods visiting humanity in ancient legends. Often these tales were of beautiful women who had aroused their passions, oracles who captured human souls as mouthpieces, or visitations to procure vengeance on those who had insulted them or falsely worshipped.

This one was different. It was about pure love for humanity and a God who, rather than seeking to wreak vengeance or satisfy lust, came instead to join with human reality even to the point of enduring death. This visitation was no momentary flash but rather spanned over thirty years and could be seen, handled, listened to, written about, and observed in the flesh. The places where He lived and walked among us are with us still and every archaeologist’s shovel reveals more and more of the reality of His presence.

And after His death, resurrection, and ascension, the story of Jesus began to be carried around the known world. First orally and then in written form the details of His life, His teachings, and the path He called His followers to walk became known to an increasing audience. In some times and places miracles confirmed the veracity. In others the very life of the people who had embraced Jesus’ teachings became the witness.

It struck a powerful chord, especially among the slaves and common people of the Roman Empire. There was one God, not many, and this God came to the poor, broken, sinners, and outcasts with a message that they were loved, they could be forgiven, and everyone could be, by grace, brothers and sisters in Jesus’ family.  Unlike the often capricious and angry gods of the Empire the God presented to them in Jesus saw humans not simply as playthings but as deeply significant and infinitely valuable. This truth shook the powers that be who had invested their lives and their fortunes tied to whose gods legitimized their physical intimidation through the spiritual intimidation of their deities.

And from that time, across the generations and throughout the world that message, that truth, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that all who believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life, has endured, enlightened, saved, transformed, and brought humanity out of the shadows.

At times the message, the One who brought it, and those who followed it have been mercilessly persecuted. Kings, overlords, and oligarchs fear a kingdom that lives within the souls of its followers, the one place their money, their militaries, and their power can’t touch.

Others have tried to twist it with heresies and distortions to make it more palatable to their moment in history. Being products of time, however, and not eternity their moments pass because they neither have, nor can give, that which lasts forever. Everything not in union with God eventually suffers the same fate.

Sometimes in the allure of the present world the children of the Gospel sell away their inheritance and compromise it for the sake of moments applause. They’ve gone along to get along with the rewards of the moment valued more than the riches that cannot be taken away.

Sadly, as well, the leaders and teachers, the ones entrusted to accurately transmit and the live the reality of Jesus, sometimes fall away into disbelief, scandal, as their lives drift farther from the Source. They kiss the master but then leave Him to His murderers as the followers flee in every direction to save themselves.

All this and more has happened and will continue to happen even until the close of history. Darkness despises the light, virtue is vice’s worst enemy, and the evil one, who is brokenness himself spares no effort to subvert those who are being forgiven and healed as he knows his time is short.

Yet our Lord, our Savior, our God endures and the message of who He is, how He loves, and where, by grace, the whole world is one day going will not be denied. In the world you will have many troubles, our Lord says, but do not be afraid for I have overcome the world.

The hope we have been given, the reality of the One who came among so long ago and is with us still, has fought off every attempt to destroy it, every effort to compromise it, every persecution, every scandal, and continues to do so every day.  The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it.

The stories told while sitting by the fires of long-ago Palestine, the stories of a Savior, of a God who loves, cherished by the witnesses and passed from person to person, writer to writer, are still fresh for the hungry souls of these days and the One who they speak of, Jesus, remains as He ever was, light of light, true God of true God. Staying true to that, and most especially to Jesus, the times, good, bad, or otherwise where the One who brought time into being directs, and in knowing this we have nothing, ultimately, to fear.

Homily

August 28, 2022

One of the most freeing things in life is the realization you’re a sinner.

People don’t like to hear about their soft spots, their shadows, the places where they’ve been “less than” and the reality that perfection has more often than not been absent from their lives.

It’s embarrassing. It shatters carefully crafted illusions. It makes us deeply uncomfortable and terribly afraid to be exposed. Yet you and I both, just know it, somewhere deep inside where others don’t get a glimpse we see the spiritual cobwebs, the dust that somehow escaped our vigilant attempts at cleaning, and that funny smell we can never seem to get rid of no matter how much we try.

Some will despair over this, but if understood correctly and in the light of God’s grace this knowledge will set you free. Not free to sin or affirm every dark spot and hidden corner but rather the freedom that comes when you realize, often after much trial and error, that your hope will never be in some kind of self-improvement course or stalwart resolution but rather by casting yourself, as you are, into the see of God’s mercy, His love, and His grace.

The Psalmist says “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand…” and he was as accurate then as now. None of us would be able to give an honest account of ourselves before God if the standard was the infinite holiness of God.

Someone once said “If God were truly just all of us would end up in hell…” and there’s truth to that. But like the end of the verse, I just read there is more and that more makes all the difference.

Yes it says “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand…” but it ends “Yet with You there is forgiveness.”  The darkness inside can, at times, be great but for those who can accept it even greater still is God’s mercy and forgiveness and knowing that is transformative.

No, you don’t play games with God’s mercy and forgiveness, and sin with the idea that you can somehow balance the accounts because God is obligated to show you forgiveness. That’s very dangerous and kill a person body and soul.

But yes, the realization the burdens I’m not able to carry, the darkness I struggle to hide, the dirtiness within, has been taken on by the only One who could, namely God, is the only true, real, and eternal liberation ever available to our species while we live this life. Even in the face of many kinds of human inspired oppression the person who has come to understand that God, in love, has offered to carry every kind of broken humanity on Himself will always and ever be free.

This is magnificent beyond words and beyond the grasp of thought. There is no darkness greater than God’s love. There is no sin that’s God’s mercy can’t overcome. There is no brokenness that can’t be healed by God’s tender care. It doesn’t mean we magically are immune from the trials and tribulations, failures and fallings of our lives in this world, but rather that we have something higher, better, more blessed, and wonderful to carry us through and because of it none of that has any eternal claim on us.

If all of us truly recognized the grace we’ve been given it would break our hearts to sin because we could not bear to be even a little bit away from what God has given us. Sin would seem bizarre, tedious, and foreign to us, the senselessness of a person set free from prison but pining to be returned to jail. Grace, when properly understood, makes holiness pleasant, as Jesus says “a light burden…” and rest for our souls.

This great grace would also inspire us to share it with others, even those who’ve greatly harmed us. It would flow out of us not because what one may have done to us was good or right or pleasant but rather because as grace transforms us to draw closer to the likeness of our Creator it would, like it does for God, naturally flow out to even the most repugnant among us.

In realizing that we ourselves are daily, and sometimes minute by minute, recipients of God’s mercy we could do no less then give that to others as well. What was given to us in our undeserving call out to be shared with the undeserving of others. The sins that God has forgiven in ourselves remind us to be quick to forgive the sins of others. The pattern that God has initiated of offering grace even to those who violently hate Him is presented to us as a pattern for us as well, at home, at work, in life, in our parish. Once given grace ourselves we dare not withhold it from others if given the opportunity to share. Even when we call ourselves or others to accountability the whole effort must be done with the possibility of grace, forgiveness, and restoration in mind.

And the great miracle is this. When this becomes our practice not only is the object of our grace set free but the giver as well. Forgiveness releases both the one who shares and the one who receives. Forgiveness soothes the guilt of the one who injures and the pain of their victim. It is not force or vengeance that tears down the strong fortresses of evil but mercy. It is not retribution which ultimately brings peace but rather the light of mercy that shatters a dark night of the soul.

And in doing and being and sharing all that God in the overflowing of his love, mercy, forgives, and grace, has given us we become recreators of broken world but even more than that we become the children of God.

Homily  July 31, 2022

Do you know why political campaigns produce negative ads?

They’re not to convince voters from the other candidates to reconsider their choices because of new, and damaging, information. They’re designed, instead, to keep their own people in line by using fear, personal fear of the other candidate, fear of their character, and fear of imagined consequences should they win. If they can’t herd you by their virtue as sheep dogs, they can at least try to keep you in the flock for fear of imaginary wolves.

We live in an age of “they” and “them” of people put into easy categories often because of superficial differences and membership in these often-imagined groups comes with presuppositions about a person’s history, their mindset, and their personality. How far we’ve come from the Rev. Martin Luther King’s admonition to consider each other not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. Now everyone has to belong to a group, and membership in that group whether by race, sexuality, politics, ethnicity, any host of things, even if requires a heaping pile of intellectual sloppiness to pound the square peg into a round hole, is all that matters.

There are powerful people who want it that way because it makes it so much easier to both sell to, and control, people who think in this manner. Fear of the other is the first tool of the propagandist and the last refuge of the scoundrel. It kills humanity from the inside but makes a lot of money for people who know how to exploit it. Old men use it to wage war and young men die because of it. Those who are conditioned to be reflexively afraid of the ”other” are easy prey for slaveowners.

But what if it was different?

What would it be like if we saw everyone else in the world as Christ sees them, as objects of God’s love, as those for whom our Lord sacrificed Himself, as not “other” but neighbor, not as members of any particular group but rather as a person created, regardless of their differences from us, in God’s image?

And what if we determined that because of this we would try to, in love, help them bear their burdens, we all have them, and give ourselves, even if we had legitimate personal reservations, to their betterment, to their thriving, and most especially to their ultimate salvation?

What really would happen if we tried our best not to judge the entirety of a person by one specific characteristic, even if our standard was legitimate? How different would the world be if we saw the person who lets their dog go to the bathroom in our yard with Jesus’ eyes? And how about that politician who makes our skin crawl, you know the one in the nasty ad? Are they my enemy or are they a potential neighbor, a fellow human, and an object of God’s love even if their behavior and votes seem grievous? And the person who sits next to us in church. Do we just disagree with them or are we trying to help them bear their burdens in the spirit and love of Christ?

I can tell you what would happen.

First there would be astonishment. We’re so used to living in the world at each other’s throats, emphasizing what is disagreeable and avoiding seeing each other’s humanity in the image of God, that being well, whole, and good, looks like abnormality. Imagine if in a political debate one of the candidates, upon hearing the other’s answer, would truthfully say “Well, you know you have a point there…”   We’re so used to fighting, to hating, to blaming, to holding grudges, that any kind of effort at reconciliation, healing, forgiveness, mercy, or even gratitude seems like maladjustment.  

Yet, that astonishment would be the seed of a joyful revolution because each gracious thought directed to the other, each act of kindness, each bearing of each other’s burdens in the spirit and truth of Christ would plant the possibility of something else, something better, in the heart of the world. Hating, bitterness, doing violence, not doing unto each other as we would have done to us, is unnatural, inhuman, and debilitating to body and soul.  

Serving the other lifts us up, humanizes us, and makes us whole.

You see, as Orthodox Christians we have a different basis for seeing the people around us. All the human definitions and categories are insufficient and often dangerous ways to see each other. What we are called to see is the image of God in everyone and every other label as secondary at best, perhaps a part of who people are but often a mere stereotype. This standard applies to everyone, even those who disagree with us and even those who would do us harm. This applies even in the church where there should be no Democrats or Republicans, no masked or unmasked, no distinctions or privileges based on wealth or position, and no ethnic or racial superiorities.

Yes, we do have our teachings, our moral standards, the high calling of God that we’re not to compromise in the winds of history but at the core of each of us, central to our identity and central to that high calling is a human being, made in the image of God, broken and challenged sometimes for sure, but also never completely extinguished. It is to that image that we appeal, it is that image we respect even in those who may hate us, and it is that image of God that makes all other categories, no matter how much the powers that be may insist, that turns everyone who we’re told is “other” than us into “neighbors” and even, by grace, brothers and sisters whom we can love and serve with the fullness of our heart.

And in seeing the image of God in everyone this is how we can bear each other’s burdens, and love, and be at peace, and let go of our fears.  Rather than tearing down in endless competitions we can build up. Forsaking old animosities, we can find peace. By choosing faith over fear, we can set ourselves free from those who control us by keeping us afraid. And by rejecting the darkness we can become children of the Light.