This Sunday's sermon

Who do you say that I am?

 

        Today we find ourselves in the city of Caesarea Philippi.

          Just a short aside about Caesarea Philippi because it is a fascinating place—it is north of the Sea of Galilee, near what is now the border between Israel and Lebanon. Prior to being named “Caesarea Philippi” by the Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Philip (to honor Caesar Augustus and…oh, himself…) the city was known as Banias in Hebrew and “Paneas” in Greek. It was the site of a shrine to Pan, the god of mirth and drink and debauchery (God bless him!). But it didn’t stop there: there were shrines to Persian gods and Roman gods and to Caesar, who was worshipped as a god, and even shrines to the Pre-Greek gods of that region. Caesarea Philippi was a veritable panoply of worship and sacrifice. And besides all that, the water that flows through Banius from Mount Hermon is the headwaters of the River Jordan. So it was a terribly holy place for Jews as well.

          So, in this remarkably holy, sacred place, Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

          I want to go on record as saying that is one of the most audacious, outrageous, daring and vulnerable questions anyone can ask. Who in their right mind would ask it? What rational person would want to know the answer when it came?

 

          Think about it for a moment—WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

          Is that something you really, truly, honestly want to know? From an acquaintance? From a close friend? Even from someone who loves you? Do you really, truly, honestly want to know “who they say you are?”

          Let me talk about me for a moment….I’m not sure I want to risk the pain and disappointment and confusion that hearing “who someone else says I am” would cause me.

          Two examples, if I might.

          First of all, I’ve had any number of people who have come to know me and love me tell me that when they first met me they thought I was “arrogant”. That’s the word they’ve all used—arrogant.

          WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM? I could have asked them when they didn’t know me well.

          YOU ARE VERY ARROGANT, they would have answered.

          Of all the things I think about myself—about WHO I AM—about the last thing would be “arrogant”. I’m always using so much energy trying to please people and make them like me and show them how honorable I am, that I would never imagine they’d think I was arrogant. I’ve spent hours and hours trying to understand why people would think that’s “who I am….”

          And I would have been bereft, deeply pained, stung to the core.

          It is a very risky question to ask: WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

          Who would want to know? Who would be confident enough to hear the response?

          Secondly, I know myself better than anyone knows me. I know all my dark and secret places, all my aching places, all my shame and fear and brokenness. Why would I ask someone WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM? For fear of hearing the “truth” about what I know about me…..

          My greatest fear is that someone will “figure me out” and know what a phony, what a fake, what a hypocrite, what a sham I am.

          So why would I ever ask someone: WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

 

          Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian murdered by the Nazi’s at the end of WW II. One of his books was Letters and Papers from Prison and contained this poem. Listen. Listen carefully…. 

            

WHO AM I?

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a Squire from his country home.

 

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my wardens

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though they were mine to command.

 

Who am I? they also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

 

Am I really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were

Compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

 

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others

And before myself a contemptable, woebegone weaking?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in distain from victory already achieved?

 

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.

 

 

 

 

I had a friend who was a priest in West Virginia with me for five years. He was a great guy, very funny. But he always ran himself down—about his problems and short-comings. We went our different ways—I went to CT and he went west. Then, a dozen or so years later, he was elected Bishop. I went to his consecration. Hearing what people said about him in the reception, when I talked with him I said, “don’t ever run yourself down again—I heard what those people said about Who You Are.

So, maybe who people say we are can challenge us to live into their words.

There were many opinions about ‘who Jesus was’, but Peter nailed it--“you are the Messiah!” Jesus told him, “You are the Rock (petros in Greek) on which I’ll build my church”. Then he told them to tell no one who he was.

There are many voices, both inside our heads and from those around us that have an opinion about who you and I are.

But Bonhoeffer nailed it—whoever we are, we belong to God.

We are God’s beloved children. And what we need to do with that is to live in the world as the hands and hearts and voices and actions of Jesus. We are to be Christ’s Body to this darkling world.

We have to. We just have to.

We must…. We must….We must.  

 

       

 

A strange Sunday

Today seems strange since I didn't go to church to celebrate and preach.

I only do 3 Sundays a month--but when I'm off--it feels very, very strange.

Once someone asked me why I became a priest and in a moment of complete honesty, I said, "So I would go to church."

And it's true.

I never think of 'going to church' when I have a free Sunday.

But it feels odd not to be in church since I've been ordained for 40+ years.

I don't mind strange feelings--they're just 'strange'.

 

Getting old has one advantage

As I age, I tend to forget books I've read. Which means I can read them again and think they're new!

David Rosenfelt benefits most from this.

I'm almost sure I've read all his Andy Carpenter Mysteries.

But I keep checking them out of the library after reading the summery and they seem new to me.

Luckily, he's written lots of them, so I can read through them over and over.

I recommend David Rosenfelt with joy. And most of his novels have to do with court and dogs.

What could be better than that?

 

Fruit flies

 Michael on our face-time Tuesday with 5 others, reminded me of something I'd forgotten about.

Michael had been a Roman Catholic deacon who remarried after his wife died and the church did not approve.

He became an Episcopalian and then a deacon and then a priest.

He followed me as Rector of St. John's after I retired.

I mentioned fruit flies in our house and he told the story of my doing a Eucharist and waving above the chalice from time  to time.

He asked me what my motions meant, thinking they were Episcopal ritual.

And I said, "fruit flies around the chalice."

I'm so glad for that memory.

Fruit flies are everywhere--one just flew past the screen and I was typing this....

Confirmation class

There are several folks at Trinity that was to be confirmed or renew their baptismal vows down the road at the church in Litchfield.

So, on Wednesdays we're doing confirmation class.

I'm pretty laid back about it all but there are some things I want folks to know.

We walked through the Prayer Book for a couple of weeks--most people never look at anything but Morning Prayer and Holy Eucharist. That was enlightening to people.

We got half-way through the Catachism today--it is boring but people should read through it and know what's there.

We'll spend September doing other things since the service is October 8.

It amazed me that so many folks there are in advanced age and haven't been confirmed!

Who knew?

 

Dream injury

On Sunday night I had a dream (don't remember the details) in which my right thigh got hurt somehow.

Monday morning I woke up and my right thigh hurt like something crazy.

Can a dream injury come into real life?

I would never had believed that.

But even with pain killers and 'Icy Hot' ointment, my thigh still hurts.

Weird, huh?

Go figure.

 

Lee's sermon

This is the sermon I preached at the funeral of Lee Howard at St. Paul's in New Haven, long after I left there.

On September 2, I will do the funeral of Hanna, Lee's divorced wife, but though divorced, she was in his choir.

Amazing.

Lee’s Sermon (September 3, 2016) St. Paul’s/St. James, New Haven

          I chose the gospel today—the discussion between Thomas and Jesus about where Jesus is going and how the disciples know where he is going—because of all the Biblical characters, Lee reminded me most of Thomas. Lee, like Thomas, would be the one raising his hand and saying, “Hold on, Jesus! We don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

          Lee was a Thomas kind of guy….

 

          A sense of urgency.

          That’s what I remember from my first ever encounter with Lee Howard—a sense of urgency.

          Since he was a Southerner, I had expected him to be slow moving, slow talking, laid back. But not Lee….

          Whenever I was in his presence, I felt a ‘buzz’, a kinetic energy. Eating lunch with him in his apartment, which I often did, I would feel like I was in a bubble while Lee was in motion, talking non-stop, having more to say than time to say it, bringing out plates and glasses, food and drink from the jumble of his living space. Urgency.

          Until the last years of his life, when thoughts and speech and movement slowed down on him—until then there was this…”urgency” about him.

          But now that I think about it, maybe the right word is “passion”. That’s more accurate I think. My experience of Lee was on his ‘passion’—for music, for people, for ideas, for life.

 

          That sounds right. The Lee Howard I knew was a person of ‘passion’.

          I would watch him work with the choir. It was like he was juggling one more ball than he should have been but he kept them all going through his strength of will.

          I know he was passionate about music…no question there.

          And he was also passionate about people—about his family, his children, his friends, his fellow musicians, his ex-wife.

          In my 41 years of ordained ministry I’ve seen lots of divorces. And in my experience, one of the things involved in the divorce agreement—besides money and property—was ‘the church’.

          In every divorce I’ve known about, one of the couple got “the church”.

          Not so for Lee and Hanne.

          I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. How both of them held on to St. Paul’s. I don’t imagine I’ll ever figure it out, but it gives me hope.

 

          Lee was passionate about his children. Helen, Lee Jay and John came up in most every conversation we ever had—even if we were supposedly talking about the music for Lent!

 

          It has been a couple of decades or more since I had a close relationship with Lee. We were on different journeys. But we did share the road for over 5 years. And when I look back on that time, what I remember about Lee was his ‘passion’.

 

          Lee’s journey is over now. But I know his passion lives on in those he loved. And his passion lives on in the music we hear this day, played in his honor.

 

          The words of the Burial Office and the Eucharist are full of hope and life and possibility. I give thanks for that. And the priest, at a funeral, wears white—the color of Easter, not the color of mourning. We Christians are called to believe that Death is not ‘the last word’. Death is the ‘penultimate’ word (I believe Lee would appreciate having “penultimate” being part of his funeral sermon! He had a passion for words). The LAST WORD we say today in prayer and music and liturgy is HOPE and PROMISE and LIFE.

 

          St. Francis of Assisi once wrote, “Death is not a door that closes, but a door that opens and we walk in all new”.

 

          That is our hope and prayer for Lee this day. Even though Death seems to be a closed door that keeps us from those we love—our prayer and hope for Lee is that the door of Death opened and he walked in ‘all new’ into the presence of the One who loved him best of all. All new. All new. All new and full of passion.

Amen.