Hostages, Holiness, and a Navy Seal

All Saints Day.-09 All Saints Church
When Thomas Merton was a young man,
he lived an undisciplined, aimless life
in New York City.
That life left him lonely and empty.
So he started reading about Christianity.
It fascinated him, attracted him, puzzled him.
It was like something from another place and time.
But he knew it was going to change his life.

One day he was taking with his best friend.
Merton described his sense of being called to something different
– not just to do something new, but be someone new.
His friend said, “Tom why don’t you just say it?
You want to be a saint.”

Merton immediately disagreed and tried to dismiss the idea.
But it wouldn’t go away.
Years later he admitted his friend was right.
Once we accept the gospel of Jesus,
we are called to become saints.
Did Merton become a saint?
He became a monk.
But he was a grouchy monk with irritable bowel syndrome.
He wrote books that changed countless lives.
But he struggled with pride in his writing.
He was a bold voice for peace and justice.
But he struggled with rigidity and moralism.

Thomas Merton wasn’t perfect.
But he was entranced by the perfection of God,
and he longed to be made whole.
He wanted to become who God intended him to be.
I believe he was a saint.

None of the saints have been perfect.
Paul was overbearing and tempestuous.
Peter was a unstable.
The list of saints includes masochists, misogynists, and misanthropes.
St. Bernard was a war monger obsessed
with destroying the career of Peter Abelard,
the greatest theologian of his time.
So what makes a saint?
Thomas Mann wrote a novel based
on an epic poem from the 12th Century.
It’s called The Holy Sinner.
The title tells the story.

It’s about Gregory, a young man born
of an incestuous relationship and given away
to hide his parents’ shame.
When he learned his origins,
he set out to overcome his birth
by doing good in the world.
He tried to do good out of his own good will.

He not only failed.
He repeated his parents’ mistake
by engaging in incest himself.
That’s when he gave himself over to God,
and wound up as a great Pope.


The author’s point is that Gregory was holy
not because he was without sin,
but because of how God turned his sin
into humility, wisdom, and gratitude.

There are two lessons for us here.
First, holiness is not for a few super heroes of the faith.
It’s for all of us.
We are all called to holiness of life.
The name of this Holy Day and this Church
reminds us that we are all called to be saints.

The second point is that holiness isn’t something we do.
It’s what God does in us if we just allow it.
God finds us in our broken state
and makes us new people.
As one of our prayers says, “God works in us that which
is well pleasing in his sight.”
God does it. We just do our best to stay out of the way.


God makes us into better people than we could have been
if we had not been morally and spiritually broken.
When we consecrate the bread, when we make it holy,
we break it.
The breaking is a part of the act of making holy.
Our brokenness is part of how God makes us holy.
God does that by joining us in it.

In his book, Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller repeats a story
he heard from a folk singer.
Miller doesn’t know if the story is true.
It really doesn’t matter.
What matters is the point.

It’s about a hostage rescue.
A commando team of Navy Seals were sent to rescue
hostages who had been held captive
by terrorists for a long time.
The Seals broke into the dark, filthy basement
where the hostages were cowering in a corner,
huddled together, shaking.
The sounds of gunfire had not given them hope.
They were sure they were about to die.

The Seals broke open the door.
They had to hurry to evacuate the hostages.
So they stood there in commando gear
carrying semi-automatic rifles
and shouted orders to the hostages
“We’re here to rescue you.
Come with us. Now!”

But the hostages did not move.
The Seals shouted louder. “Come with us now. Hurry.”
The hostages did not move.
They thought the commandos were just more terrorists.

So one of the Navy Seals took off his helmet.
He put down his rife.
He went over to the hostages and sat down with them.
He huddled together with them in the darkness and the dirt.

No terrorist had ever done that.
No terrorist would ever do that.
After awhile he said, “It’s ok. We can go now.”
Then they followed him to safety and to freedom.

Brothers and sisters, we are not heroes.
Saints are not heroes.
Saints start out as hostages to sin, addiction, fear,
and all the pain that makes being human so hard.
Is there anyone here who is not such a hostage?
I know I am.

But then Jesus comes into our prison.
Jesus joins us in the darkness and the dirt.
Then after a little while, he says,
“It’s ok. We can go now.”

So we get up and follow him.
He doesn’t bark the order “Follow me.”
He says it gently, as an invitation.
He says it kindly as you might say it to a child, “Follow me.”
Saints are just hostages who have followed Jesus.
The prison he leads us out of is not just a situation.
He leads us out of the smallest, darkest prison of all.
He leads us out of the prison of our own darkened selves.
He lifts us up from our guilt and our shame.
He makes us new.
Who would not want that?

We are our own worst enemies, you know.
Mohandas Ghandi once said.
“I have three enemies.
First, is the British Empire.
But I can handle them easily.
Second, is the Indian people.
They are considerably more difficult.
Third, is a man named Mohandas Ghandi.
With him I can do nothing at all.”

Self-improvement does not work.
It’s a dead end.

For 40 years, the bookstore shelves have been filled
with self-improvement books.
We keep buying them because the last dozen we read
didn’t change anything.
We can’t do it. The self cannot fix the self
anymore than a broken car can fix itself.

But Jesus can change us.
God gave us his solemn promise in Ezekiel.
“I shall sprinkle clean water upon you
and you shall be clean . . . .
A new heart I will give you
and a new spirit I will put within you.
I will remove from your body the heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put my spirit in you . . . .”





God puts the Holy Spirit in us if we let him.
That’s what a saint is – an ordinary person
with the Spirit of God inside,
a hostage who has followed Jesus
out of the prison.
He says it to us gently, mercifully, every day,
“Follow me.”
Amen.

Every Breath I Take

Convention Sermon.09
The deep truth of things is like the Amargosa River.
It flows along mostly unseen, underground.
But once in awhile it bubbles us as a spring or a stream.

We can’t conjure up the deep truth at will.
It emerges into our consciousness whenever it chooses.
Our part is to keep an eye out for it;
then remember and be faithful.

Some truth has been especially clear to me
these past few weeks.
It has been clear and on my heart in a good way.
The truth is that every breath I take is a gift of God.
I have no claim on this life of mine.
I have not earned it. I have no right to it.
If anything, I have failed to use my life
to God’s glory so often,
that it is only by God’s compassion and mercy,
that I have been given this new day.


I have no right to this life.
I have no guarantee of a future.
But, God’s generous heart keeps giving me
sunrise after sunrise, sunset after sunset,
and people to share it all with.
I have not a clue why God does this.
All I know is that God is like that.
God does this sort of thing.
God does it for me. God does it for you.

“I am the vine and you are the branches,” Jesus said.
Our life comes from him.
Without our connection to Jesus,
we wither inside.
We may keep putting one foot in front of another,
but it isn’t real life.
The loving energy, the creative spark, isn’t there.





But when we put our trust -- not in our own power --
but in his generosity and mercy,
then we are strong.
Then we can work wonders in the name of Jesus
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
“I am the vine. You are the branches,” he says,
Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.”

To abide in Jesus means to trust in his love,
not our own cleverness, charm, and hard work,
to sustain us in life.
Do we own real estate and mutual funds?
Their value goes up and down.
We can own it but we can’t count on it because it isn’t grace.
But the steadfast love of the Lord abides forever.
“Though the mountains fall and the hills turn to dust” Isaiah says,
“the love of the Lord endures.”

“Surely it is God who saves me.
I will trust in him and not be afraid.
for that Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense
and he will be my Savior.”
There is nothing subtle about this.
Without God’s grace, we can do nothing.
With God’s grace,
there is no limit to what we can do.
“Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.”

Bearing fruit means living a life that counts,
a life that means something.
Different people bear different fruit.
For one person it is making art that doesn’t just decorate a room,
it touches someone’s soul.
For someone else, it is saving lives by sending
mosquito nets to Kenya.
For someone else, it may be teaching a child to read,
or keeping a neighborhood safe from crime
or helping a person in recovery stay sober.

God is the life force behind anything we do that is worth doing.
Sometimes we know that. Sometimes we forget it.
Sometimes we are blessed as I have been recently
by a heartfelt awareness that we are floating in grace.
But we lose that sense of grace. It slips out of our minds.
The first mission of the church is to help us remember.
The church is the tangible place we abide in Jesus’ love.
We hold out our hands for his body and blood.
We kneel and pray for his blessing.

The church holds each of us in the awareness of grace
so that we can bear much fruit
in our daily life and work,
so that we can live lives that count
each in our own unique way.

But the church can only hold each of us in the awareness of grace,
if the church itself lives by grace,
if the church itself trusts God to empower us for mission.
That’s why Bishop Wes and Bishop Katharine
insisted that we are about mission, not maintenance.
We do not exist to keep church doors open,
but to “bear fruit,” as Mother Theresa put it,
to “do something beautiful for God.”



If we do that, God will keep the doors open.
If we don’t bear fruit, if we don’t live boldly for the gospel,
keeping the doors open isn’t worth our effort.

Paul says in our Epistle lesson,
“Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry,
we do not lose heart . . . .”
We do not lose heart. Our wills are not weak. We are not timid.
We do not fret over keeping doors open.
We dare to save souls from addiction and despair.
If we trust in God’s mercy, we take risks.
We move from maintenance to mission.
We do something beautiful for God.

His grace abounds, Brothers and Sisters.
Otherwise we would not be here.
Grace abounds. Look at our Old Testament lesson:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return until they have watered the ground
making it bring forth and sprout
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in that for which I sent it.”

Who do we think planted the church in Nevada?
It was God.
And God put us here for a purpose.
It isn’t just keeping doors open.

In a place where despair is a deadly epidemic,
by God’s grace, we offer hope.
Where addiction holds our people captive,
by God’s grace, we offer freedom.
Where the school dropout rate is one of the nation’s worst,
by God’s grace, we give children a future.
We are the word sent forth from God’s mouth.
We will accomplish the purpose for which God sent us.




It will not be by our own power or our own merit,
but by the grace of God
remembered and received in the sacraments.
It will not be with our own resources
but with God’s gifts received and yet to come.

All we have to do is abide in the love of Jesus.
Sometimes we cringe in fear of the future.
Sometimes we dwell in old hurts and grievances.
Neither fear of the future nor replaying old wars
will glorify God, save a child,
or make a meaningful life.

Abiding in the love of Jesus will do all that and more.
Brothers and sisters, I tell you this from my heart.
Do not take your next breath for granted.
It is a divine gift. It is a miracle and a wonder.
It is a sign of God’s love.




Live a life worthy of the grace you have received.
Just so, this diocese and each congregation in it
is a gift, a miracle, and wonder.
If we remember that every day,
we will live a life that counts.
We will bear fruit.
We will do something beautiful for God.
Amen.

Wash Your Hands And Study

Proper 19.Grace in the Desert
I don’t want to take sides on any political issues
because I don’t want to offend either Fr. Dale or Fr. Sherm.
But sometimes public events are good jumping off places
for religious points.

This week the President gave his welcomed
the nation’s youth and children back to school.
He made two basic points:
Students should wash their hands frequently
and study hard.

His remarks were controversial.
Some commentators were surprised that anyone
such a speech could be divisive.
But, as one who has worked in the church for two decades,
I was not surprised at all.


Just last Spring, during the first wave of swine flu anxiety,
I sent a letter to our priests urging them
to wash their hands.
It immediately sparked a controversy.
Some felt I had gone too far.
Others thought I had not gone nearly far enough.

So I am not going to talk about hand washing today.
For one thing, our Scripture lessons are not about it.
For another, from what we can find about hand washing
in the Bible, it looks like Jesus was against it.

So we will not talk about hand washing.
That leaves us with studying.
Our Old Testament lesson is about study.
There are actually things we need to know
in order to live the Christian life.


When one of our priests, Fr. Vince O’Neil,
was in the second grade, his teacher was a nun.
She would make little Vince stand at his desk
and grill him on his catechism.
“Vince,” she would say, “Why did God make you?”
And Vince would answer “To know, love, and serve him.”
She would say, “That is correct. Now notice what comes first.
Knowledge. Knowledge is the basis.
So study, Vince, study.

Sometimes in the Eucharist we recite the summary of the law.
It comes from an exchange between Jesus and a lawyer.
But the same summary of the law is in the teachings
of Jesus’ contemporary, Rabbi Hillel.
Someone challenged Hillel to summarize
the entire law while standing on one foot.



The great Rabbi said, “Love the Lord your God with all your mind,
all your soul, and all your strength.
And love your neighbor as yourself.
The rest is commentary. Go study.”

Rabbi Hillel said the central point is simple.
But how we live it in a complex world is complicated.
So Jews don’t just have the summary of the law.
The rest of the 613 commandments are commentary.
So are the applications in the Mishna
and the interpretations in the Talmud.
So to be a good Jew, you have to study.

It is the same for Christians.
There is a lot to know.
And it all adds up to Wisdom.



The lectionary actually gives us a choice
of three Old Testament lessons for today.
One is from Isaiah, “the Lord has given me the tongue
of a teacher.”
Jesus was a teacher too. The apostles were teachers.
The Lord sends us teachers
because he expects us to be students.

The other lessons are from the Wisdom literature
of the Old Testament.
In Proverbs, “Wisdom cries out in the street;
In the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out . . .
‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? . . .
I will pour out my thoughts to you.
I will make my words known to you.”



And in the Wisdom of Solomon we read,
“for wisdom is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God . . . .”

The Jewish idea of Wisdom, hachma, in the Hebrew,
evolved into a philosophy of God.
At first hachma meant knowing how to do your craft well.
There was a wisdom of the farmer, a wisdom of the basket weaver,
a wisdom of the camel trader.
We might say there is a wisdom of the gambler,
that is “to know when to hold ‘em,
know when to fold ‘em,
know when to walk away,
know when to run.”

The writers of Scripture eventually realized
what Wisdom teacher Kenny Rogers makes so clear.
The ways of a craft can be expanded into a way of life.

Just a basket can be woven well or badly,
just so, life can be lived well or badly.
Just as you must know certain things
to be a good farmer, camel trader, or gambler,
you must know certain things in order
to be a good human being.

By the time today’s lessons were written,
Wisdom had come to mean a very part of God.
Wisdom is the order of things, the pattern of the cosmos.
Wisdom is the mind of God expressed in the world.
We learn Wisdom by keeping alert to the world.
But we also learn Wisdom from the past.

Scriptures and Tradition
– the lives of the saints are
– the teachings of theologians
– the insights of mystics
all these together are a rich storehouse of Wisdom
We can’t learn all that in Vacation Bible School
as children.
It’s a lifelong project.

That’s why the Episcopal Church has adopted
the Charter for Lifelong Christian Formation
calling on each diocese to keep educating our people
all their lives long.
That’s why Nevada has created
the Frensdorff School for Christian Formation
to teach the teachers.

And that’s one of the reasons I am so glad
that the good people of Grace in the Desert
have built your new Parish Hall.
A church is a worshiping community,
a praying community,
and a caring community.
But it is also a learning community.
This is a wonderful diocese.
We do lots of good ministry here.
But the adult education programs
of all but a few of our congregations
are woefully behind.

We have to change that,
and we need a few strong parishes to lead the way.
Grace has the critical mass of people
for a first rate adult formation program.
Grace has people with the gift and the passion to teach.
Grace has lacked only one thing:
the place to house the program.
In only a few weeks, you will have then place.
But one thing yet is lacking – the students.
That brings us to the point.



“Wisdom cries out in the street;
In the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out . . . “
God invites us to learn Wisdom’s ways
so that we can live better, fuller lives.

In our Baptismal vows we promise
“to continue in the Apostle’s teaching.”
There are two ways we can do that.
We can teach or we can study.

We need to know the Bible.
We need to know that fundamentalism
is not the old way of reading the Bible.
It was invented between 1910 and 1915.
The earliest theologians taught that each text
must be read on four different level – not literally.


Did you know that the idea that whatever happens
is part of God’s plan is a highly debated point
in Christianity?
Do you know why we bring the bread and wine
from the back of the Church to the altar?
It means something – something profoundly important.
Most of the divisions in the Church today
come from the failure to study and to think.

So, study, brothers and sisters.
It is fascinating stuff we have to teach.
It will touch your hearts as well as your minds.
It will change your life.
Wisdom’s ways are the Way of Christ.
Thanks be to God. Amen.