"A Wider Perspective"--A Sermon for Trinity Sunday

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne,

high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.”  Isaiah 6:1

            Erik Mebust and I had coffee together last weekend, and we talked about all his exciting plans for the next several months.  Erik will be studying literature for a term at Kings’ College in London, and I was able to give him some advice about museums, historical sites and churches.  He also has two or three weeks after his term finishes to do some travelling around the rest of Europe, and a big list of places he’s dying to see.  There’s Paris, of course, and the Rhine Valley in Germany, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the Alps, and he has a friend spending a term in Montpelier, down on the Mediterranean Coast.  And I was trying to slow him down a bit.  You don’t want to spend half of your time on trains, after all, and you might well be able to go back again later in life and try some of what you will need to miss this time. 

But of course, by American standards, all these places are really quite close.  This is part of the wonder of Europe to an American.  In a few hours you can travel between places whose languages, histories, foods, music, and architecture are completely different.  New York State really isn’t all that different from Minnesota.  But Spain and Poland are a world apart, and the distance is really about the same. 

"Holy Ghost, Come Down!": A Sermon for Pentecost

“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”  Acts 2:17

The story is told of a travelling evangelist who made the circuit of little Southern towns a few generations ago.  A dramatic preacher, he knew just how to bring the crowd to their knees.  His great method was to call out, at the height of his sermon, “Holy Ghost, come down.”  He had conveniently stationed a little boy up in the rafters with a dove in a cage, and at that signal, the boy would open the cage, and the dove would flutter down upon the assembled congregation.  

Well, the preacher had made the customary arrangements one sweltering Sunday evening in June, and when he had his crowd just where he wanted them, he shouted out, “Holy Ghost, come down.”  There was silence.  Again, “Holy Ghost, come down.”  The preacher cleared his throat and glanced nervously toward the ceiling, and—“Holy Ghost, come down.”  Finally, a little voice chimed from the balcony, “The yaller cat done ‘et the Holy Ghost.  Shall I throw the yaller cat down?”

For Meditation: There and then this Lamb shall mary me

From my morning reading, John Donne's sermon preached at St. Clement Danes (May 30, 1621).  The sermon was delivered at a wedding, and in this section Donne considers the marriage between Christ and each member of His Body.  This passage imagines that, as in the Church's marriage liturgy, there might be a moment in the contracting of the spiritual bond in which others might justly object.

"This is a mariage in that great and glorious Congregation, where all my sins shall be laid open to the eye of all the world, where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleannesse, and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations, and all the Confessors see all my double dealings in Gods cause; where Abraham shall see my faithlessnesse in Gods promises; and Job my impatience in Gods corrections; and Lazarus my hardness of heart in distributing Gods blessings to the poore; and those Virgins, and Martyrs, and Confessors, and Abraham, and Job, and Lazarus, and all that Congregation, shall look upon the Lamb and upon me, and upon one another, as though they would all forbid those banes, and say to one another, Will this Lamb have any thing to doe with this soule? and yet there and then this Lamb shall mary me, and mary me In aeternum, for ever, which is our last circumstance"  (82-83).

For Meditation: In Every Tentation

From my morning reading, The Sermons of John Donne:

"In every tentation, and every tribulation, there is a a Catechisme, and Instruction; nay, there is a Canticle, a love-song, an Epithalamion, a mariage song of God, to our souls, wrapped up, if wee would open it, and read it, and learn that new tune, that musique of God."

Donne, Sermon Preached at Lincoln's Inn (58).

"In His Glory"--Sermon for Easter 7

“All mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.”  St. John 17:10

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

“She was in her glory today.”  That’s what my father would say when he was describing my grandmother at a family reunion, carrying out the groaning platters, a baby cradled in one arm, beaming for all the world to see.  It’s how he described my brother that time the bases were loaded and he sent the ball over the left field wall.  I remember him teasing my mother, returning home from a day shopping with her friends.  There were a few more bags in the back seat than he had been expecting, and that’s what he said—“well, I can see you were in your glory today.”   I think it’s a rather old-fashioned expression these days, but we still know what it means.

To be one’s glory means to feel deep happiness, a sense of fulfillment.  We are in our glory when we are doing that thing we are truly made to do, when our distinctive talents are put to use, and others respond to us with respect and admiration.  We smile when we are in our glory.  A kind of light seems to shine from our faces. 

Commentary: With Christ in God by Shirley C. Hughson, OHC

For more than a decade, my spiritual life has been nurtured through association with several of our Episcopal religious orders.  I am a priest associate of the All Saints Sisters and of the Community of Saint Mary, and I have visited both communities regularly to share in the daily prayers, to make retreats, and to receive spiritual guidance.  These are not easy times for Anglican religious orders, and both communities live, in some ways, amid the signs of former grandeur, while also holding fast to our faithful God and pushing on in the simpler vocations He has given them today.   They operate fewer schools, hospitals and mission houses, but remain devoted to enriching the Church’s life through unceasing praise of God and sharing what they have learned about following Christ.

The Community of Saint Mary is blessed with an extensive library, a relic of the days when dozens of women were trained in the novitiate at a time.  On my last visit, after speaking with the mother superior about some spiritual challenges I was facing, she asked me if I had read any Father Hughson.  I had not, something she insisted must be remedied.  I departed with a copy of With Christ in God (among several other treasures from the shelves), and now can understand just why she was so enthusiastic. 

For Meditation: Jesus is Angling for You

From my morning reading--Cyril of Jerusalem, quoted in John Laurence's The Sacrament of the Eucharist.  

"Perhaps you did not know whither you were coming or in what kind of net you are taken.  You have come within the nets of the church.  Be taken alive and flee not.  For Jesus is angling for you, not in order to kill, but by killing to make you alive.  For you must die and rise again."  (20).