Liturgy – Page 3 – Peculiar Faith

Down by the Riverside: Divine Solidarity and Radical Hospitality

Wading into a river presents a range of bodily sensations: the water might be cool and crisp, it might quickly or only gently swirl around your calves, and the riverbed itself could be slippery clay or a sandy silt, or a combination of the two with some gravel thrown in.

Depending on its composition, standing on that riverbed might mean sinking into it—up to your ankles, or maybe a bit farther, and it might be challenging to lift your feet out of the muck.

These bodily sensations are important to recall when reflecting on the story about the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. Most Christians always hear some version of this story on the first Sunday after the Epiphany each year, and many of us can’t help but think of neat and tidy sanctuaries with just a shallow dish of water tucked away somewhere for our baptismal rituals.

Back in the first century, by contrast, baptism would have been a full-bodied experience and likely with feet sinking into a muddy riverbed.

More than just historical context, the bodily imagery of a river matters theologically, spiritually, even socially and politically.

The imagery I mean includes this: When Jesus was baptized it was not merely a sprinkle but was an immersion experience, a plunge into the fragility and vulnerability of human existence as well as its beauty and tenderness and fierce resilience.

I never really thought much about this Gospel moment other than how it serves as a kind of storytelling preface, a way to begin the ministry of Jesus with a ritual of initiation. In more recent years I’ve come to appreciate just how profound this moment is. On display here is nothing less than divine solidarity—I mean God’s own communion with creaturely life.

The humid air Jesus likely breathed on that riverbank, and the water of that river on his skin, and the silty mud into which his feet likely sank—this is an image of God’s own full-bodied experience of God’s own creation.

This year especially I have come to imagine the image of a river as equally important as the image of a manger to symbolize God’s bodily presence among us in Christ. Indeed, a river with its movement and depth enhances the significance of the manger itself: the union of God’s Word with Jesus is not merely superficial and not crudely transactional but fully immersive.

Baptism, especially in a river, evokes this astonishing sense of God’s full embrace of God’s own creation, to the muddy depths and sparkling gems of human existence, our mortality, our courage, our terror, the ecstasies and vexations—all of it.

For reasons I’m likely unable fully to name, it strikes me powerfully at this moment just how much Creation, Manger, and Baptism should be read together, and for the sake of the life-changing claim that God is fully with us—never against us, but always fully with us.

Yes, and that preposition “with” is probably not strong enough for this claim, which I started to realize when a seminary colleague back in Berkeley introduced me to the work of Danish theologian Niels Henrik Gregersen.

Gregersen retrieves an ancient theme in classical Christian traditions for what he calls in his work “deep incarnation.” He wants us to see God’s purpose in Jesus as nothing less than to give a future of thriving to a world now marked by decay and death.

This way of framing the incarnation as “deep” is meant to suggest that God enters the material conditions of all creaturely existence (the “flesh”), shares the fate of all biological life forms (as in the ubiquitous biblical images of the “grass” and “lilies” of the field), and also experiences the pains of all sensitive creatures (the Gospel “sparrows” and “foxes”), and God does all this from within—not on the surface, not only “alongside” but to the very depths and from within.

Gregersen pushes this even further: in Jesus, Creator God actually enters the very process of biological evolution on this planet, all the way down to the cellular level, for the sake of guiding the process forward with love and toward flourishing—imagine the mighty flow of life on this planet as river: God plunges into its depth.

That is certainly not how I was taught how to think about Christian faith as a child, and it’s probably not how most people think about God. I’m guessing most church-goers hear the stories of birth and baptism as mere prologue to what matters most—the saving work of Christ on the cross.

And of course death and resurrection—the cross and the empty tomb—are central to the Good News of the Gospel. Yes, and the Gospel writers would urge us to place “salvation” firmly in Christmas and Epiphany just as much as we do in Holy Week and Easter.

I am increasingly convinced that the transactional character of how the Church generally presents the saving work of Christ merely denigrates nearly everything about our bodily life together–we’re not saved from being human but rather for the sake of living a more fully human life. It’s high time the Church embraced a theological mashup: The religious symbols of Manger and River belong together with Cross and Empty Tomb for the fullness of God’s embrace of what God has made.

All four Gospel writers would likely endorse that mashup with vigor; each of them feature this baptismal story, including the bodily appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove, as if the Spirit herself shows up to point dramatically at this watery moment and endorse its significance, to bathe this encounter down by the riverside with the light of the grand arc of God’s creating and redeeming work.

God comes to us in the flesh; joins with us in our creaturely existence; immerses God’s own self in the material rhythms of God’s own creation.

That key claim about God carries some concrete and practical consequences—liturgically, socially, and politically. Here at All Saints’ Parish in Saugatuck, for example, we have continued the Eucharistic practice that began during the COVID-19 pandemic: the ministers come down from the altar area to the head of the center aisle to distribute the Eucharistic elements.

We have continued that pattern even beyond the crisis of Covid for the sake of performing liturgically the good news of the Gospel: God comes to us.

Our Eucharistic worship reminds us every single week that Creator God does not remain sequestered in a far-off Heaven, not even on a mountaintop, and certainly not behind any walls or fences. The God of Jesus comes to us, right where we are; God comes in search of us, and wants to be in loving solidarity and gracious communion with us, and as far and as deep as our creaturely existence runs—all the way down to the riverbed and beyond.

The social and political consequences of worshipping this Eucharistic God extend well beyond church walls, perhaps especially in a world of alarming xenophobia, tribal segregation, threats of mass deportation, immigrant-blaming, and the relentless bodily shaming of basically everyone who isn’t white and male. Those Eucharistic consequences can actually take root in our sanctuaries: Our worship as Christians ought to form and shape us to live as a community devoted to bold hospitality.

How people are welcomed, whether people feel safe and embraced, the tenor and tone of our greetings and interactions are not incidental to Christian faith; especially in the world today, radical hospitality is likely the most important thing Christians can do to live as witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to embody the good news of the God who always and without fail comes to us with the promise of healing and the hope of flourishing, for all.

So, shall we gather at the river? Yes, please…

Peculiar Strangers as Divine Gifts

Strangers from the East presented extravagant gifts to the child Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). This became known as “The Epiphany,” but I’m realizing these days that those strangers, the “Magi,” are the gifts to us—and not a moment too soon in a xenophobic world of rampant white supremacy.

Reading the Magi as themselves gifts is thanks of course to the Gospel writer known as Matthew, who is the only one of the four canonical gospelers to include the story. It’s worth pondering why that story mattered so much to Matthew, or more significantly, to Matthew’s community, and now also to us—on this very day when many Christians celebrate the Epiphany, just as my parish did yesterday in worship.

We might recall, first, that each of the four accounts of the Gospel emerged from its own particular community of faith, each with its own demographic profile, colorful characters, and distinctive perspectives on God and Jesus. These communities had access to a variety of stories and traditions about Jesus, and eventually someone in each of these communities—or perhaps a small group—decided to write it all down and create a “gospel.” These writers adapted and revised those stories to meet the needs of their respective communities, and this helps to explain the variations among the four canonical accounts.

Scholars generally agree, for example, that Matthew’s community consisted mostly of Jewish followers of Jesus. A classic indication of this is the “Sermon on the Mount”—just as Moses brought the covenant to the people on Mount Sinai, so Matthew’s Jesus preaches about the “new covenant” on a mountain. Luke’s Jesus does this instead on a level place, a “plain.”

By noticing how these gospel writers connected traditions about Jesus to the particular issues facing their own communities, we can do the same work today—and not just theologians, pastors, or preachers, but the whole community. The Church is a “community of interpretation” where all of the members prayerfully discern how to read our sacred texts for the shared ministry to which God is calling us today.

How, then, might we read the iconic story from Matthew about the so-called “wise men” from the East, the ones who followed a star to Bethlehem and presented gifts to the child Jesus?

The divine presence in Jesus is shown to these gift-bearing strangers who were probably something like astrologers or perhaps those who practiced what we might call today an “earth-based religion.” The Greek word for these “wise men” in Matthew is magoi and it’s related to a Persian word for “powerful” (it’s also at the root of our word “magic” and “magician”). Some have suggested that this might have been a title given to Zoroastrian priests, an ancient monotheistic religious tradition that emerged from present-day Iran and Iraq. That tradition was devoted to connecting cosmic powers to earthly affairs—thus the appearance of an unusual star in the sky would have caught their attention.

Matthew’s story is often interpreted as a depiction of the global significance of Jesus—the meaning of his humble birth extends beyond Judea, and will have influence beyond the people of Israel, and reaches beyond standard borders to the East, to outsiders and foreigners. That sounds rather benign, but recalling that this is Matthew’s story, and that Matthew was likely embedded in a Jewish-Christian community, this story of the Epiphany would have been startling and should be read as both encouraging and scandalous at the very same time.

To live as inheritors of ancient Israel’s traditions and as followers of Jesus, as Matthew’s community apparently attempted, was often a complex religious undertaking. It was not always clear to which kind of religious or social category one belonged, or where one should belong. In many ways, those first-century Jewish Christians were boundary crossers—just like the Magi.

Those foreign astrologers traveled a long way, probably crossing a number of geopolitical borders. They were not Judeans, not even Israelites, so they were crossing a religious boundary as well. And these religious outsiders are among the very first to encounter Jesus—and by doing so because of the appearance of an unusual star, perhaps Matthew is suggesting that God deliberately called foreigners as witnesses to this profound moment.

Outsiders with privileged access to God’s own self-revelation: that’s a scandal that turns out to be a comfort.

Imagine Matthew’s community of Jewish Christians hearing this story: If God can lead peculiar border-crossers to God’s own presence in the flesh, then perhaps our own shifting and jumbled religious borders can be a source of insight for us as well.

Matthew’s approach to the quandaries faced by his own community seems to me quite compelling for every human community. The story about the Magi encourages us to look for epiphanies in unlikely places and among unexpected people, maybe even other species. But Matthew takes that encouraging scandal even further.

The gifts these Magi present to Jesus are not just random but function as symbols for the way Matthew wants to tell the rest of the story: myrrh was an embalming oil, prefiguring the death of Jesus; frankincense—an aromatic incense derived from medicinal plants—evoking the priestly prayers Jesus offers for our healing and thriving; and gold, representing the sovereignty of the risen Jesus, who appears on a mountain once again at the end of Matthew’s account of the Gospel, where he claims “all authority in heaven and on earth.” That mountaintop moment uniting the skies above and the ground beneath is precisely the moment those Zoroastrian Magi had dared to hope for.

Set aside those particular symbols for a moment and notice Matthew’s story-telling strategy for his community of Jesus-following Judeans: foreigners can help us navigate our own and often disorienting history.

Right there, in that strategy, is where Matthew’s Magi become gifts to us. This is the insight they embody: we need strangers and outsiders to help us interpret our own story.

Matthew’s strategy is not easy to embrace, of course, and it challenges the all-too common human tendency to gather only with those who are just like us. This is actually a cautionary tale from Matthew, warning us about borders: the walls we build for “self-protection” can instead prevent the insights of strangers from reaching us for our thriving.

The journey of the Magi offers a wonderful image for embarking on a journey into 2025, and for at least two reasons. First, the Magi were brave, setting out with only the light of a star to guide them to an unknown destination. We cannot know what’s ahead in the coming weeks and months, but the Magi themselves would encourage us with the courage of companions, and to make the journey together, trusting in divine guidance.

The second reason fortifies the first: the journey of the Magi led them to a place, Matthew says, of overwhelming joy. Whatever the coming year might hold for us, it will certainly require from us some hard work, careful discernment, and courage. Yes, and the journey itself will lead us toward joy.

Perhaps now more than ever, we need the divine gift of peculiar strangers to inspire trust on a journey toward joy. I know how trite that sounds, and this even more so: Matthew’s story can guide us along this path, like a bright star in the night sky—trite perhaps, but also vital for what it means to be “church” in an age of anxiety. Our shared faith and our brave companionship is the starry light we need.

Turn Around and Build a World with God

Imagine Luke the Gospel writer as a filmmaker. In the snippet we heard from Luke this past Sunday (3:1-6), the camera is zooming way out for context: there we see the Roman Emperor Tiberius in the fifteenth year of his reign; zooming in a bit, we see that Pontius Pilate is the Roman governor of Judea (a province of the Empire) while Herod is the ruler over Galilee; this was the time when—zooming in further—Annas and Caiphas were the high priests of the temple in Jerusalem.

Time and place matter to Luke—they matter theologically and spiritually and not merely as scenery on the stage. The Gospel is “good news” precisely because of this: it deals directly with the material circumstances of human life and society—from the temple just down the street, to the governor on the hill, and all the way to the emperor on his throne.

To put this in another way, the Christian Gospel does not support a disembodied faith and it cannot be detached from messy entanglements with the wider world (as much as I would sometimes prefer it could be). To suppose that Christian faith is a matter of private and interior piety emerged only recently in Church history, mostly in the modern West, and among people who were perfectly comfortable with the way the world is.

But for people who believe the world must change, the Christian Gospel proclaims the God who is with us in that shared struggle for a better world—and the time is now to get to work.

That’s the good news Luke wants to tell as he launches the ministry of John the Baptist, which will prepare the way for the ministry of Jesus, and Luke frames this moment with the short glimpse into first-century geo-political realities and imperial rulers (along with a few clergy thrown in for good measure).

For Luke, “preparing the way” for Jesus stands in stark contrast to the way already charted by the likes of Herod, and Pontius Pilate, and Tiberius—and this is essentially why repentance is at the core of the message John the Baptist preaches.

Luke is the only gospel writer to give us substantial backstory for John—not only John’s familial connection to Jesus (they were something like second cousins), but also about John’s elderly mother, Elizabeth (who thought she would never have a child), and also his elderly father, Zechariah, who was a priest in the Jerusalem temple. John was born into a professional religious family, in other words, but oddly he did not follow in his father’s footsteps.

Or perhaps that’s not so odd—children of religious parents, especially clergy, tend to resist and even reject the religion of their youth. John did this rather dramatically: he didn’t just sidestep the temple; he fled Jerusalem entirely.

John goes out to the wilderness—Luke doesn’t say for how long, and he may have lived there with a community of religious radicals and social dropouts (think “hippie commune in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in the 1960s,” that kind of community)—he goes out to the wilderness, exactly where so many of the prophets of ancient Israel went to discern what God is calling God’s people to do at that time and in that place.

And that’s where the lectionary picks up the story this past Sunday. God calls John back from the wilderness to go to the towns and villages of Judea, to the river valley region referred to as “the Jordan”—which was, not just coincidentally, the seat of both religious and political power in that imperial province.

God calls John to preach repentance in those towns and villages—not out in the wilderness, but in the public square and in houses of worship.

I always find it helpful to recall that the Greek verb we usually see translated as “repentance” is not merely about remorse for having made a mistake. To “repent” means to change your mind and alter your course. You’ve been headed the wrong way—it’s time to turn around!

To “prepare the way of the Lord” means turning around when you’ve been following the way of Herod, Pontius Pilate, and Tiberius.

To “prepare the way of the Lord” means removing the mountains of social privilege for a few that block access to a life of thriving for all.

To “prepare the way of the Lord” means raising up the valleys of despair to make a path of companionship for the brokenhearted.

All of this is classic prophetic language, a plea to change course, and especially for the sake of the most vulnerable among us. And all four Gospel writers weave John into that long lineage of prophetic witness, especially Isaiah.

The collection of various writings in the one book we call Isaiah stretches across several centuries, from a time of warning about impending political disaster, through the catastrophe of Israel’s exile in Babylon, and to the return of God’s people to their homeland.

Anticipating that moment of joyful return is what the lectionary gave us from the prophet Baruch on Sunday (Baruch 5:1-9). Baruch was the scribe for the prophet Jeremiah—not an enviable position, needless to say. Jeremiah was constantly getting into trouble for denouncing both the religious and political establishment of his day, and Baruch had to write it all down.

But Baruch drafted his own prophetic texts as well, beautiful texts that encourage God’s people to live with joy, the kind toward which Jeremiah’s lamentations could only point.

Here’s the truly astonishing thing: Baruch is writing to the exiles still in Babylon as if they are already returning to Jerusalem. “Take off the garment of sorrow,” he says. “Your people stand ready to rejoice at your return.”

Note this carefully: prophets have a very strange sense of time. They are not interested in predicting the future. As Baruch seems to suggest, we build the promised day to come by living it now.

We build the promised day to come by the way we live right now.

John the Baptist belongs to that long line of Hebrew prophets with precisely that posture, preaching preparation not prediction. The vital implication here is this: the future is actually wide open. Contrary to the religious formation of my youth, there is no cosmic blueprint with which world events are aligning; there is no heavenly timetable to which prophets have special access; there is no pre-determined plan unfolding in elections and markets and wars.

Quite honestly, I often think a detailed plan would make life a bit easier, especially when a radically open future feels scary. Facing an open future means we have some serious decisions to make about how we live, decisions that will shape the kind of world we will inhabit.

That word “world” can mean, as it did for biblical writers, both small and large realities—the world of one’s own faith community, or the world of the neighborhoods in which we reside, or one’s own country as a world, as well as this planetary world of many countries.

What kind of world do we want to inhabit?

That’s the urgent question prophets always ask. It’s the question religious traditions urgently pose, which they can help us answer, and then shape us to live that answer as a community of God’s people.

As I reflect on Advent this year, and the prophets, and the world in which we currently live, I am increasingly convinced about a crucial way to frame Christmas. It’s this: the coming of Jesus is God’s offer to collaborate with us on what the future will look like.

God has hopes and dreams for God’s own creation. God’s will is that all would thrive and flourish. And God is always calling and then equipping communities of faith to make these divine dreams a reality. It’s time, as John would say, to turn around and build a world with God.

John’s father Zechariah sang a song of praise for this world-building God, whose manner of arrival surprises every generation (Luke 1:68-79). That song—which Luke actually calls a “prophecy”—has since then become a Prayer Book canticle, and the lectionary invited us to recite it in worship on Sunday.

That prophetic song of praise is offered for this: God arrives not with military strength, not robed in royal majesty, and not armed with anything we might expect to be useful for a world-changing mission; God always arrives in “tender compassion.”

The “dawn from on high,” Zechariah sings—that light which will guide our feet along the way, along the good road we build together and with God—that dawning light is tenderness and compassion.

Advent invites us to live as if God has already arrived and is always arriving, not with doomsday predictions but to inspire us and to work with us to build a world to inhabit with joy—a world of peace, with justice, and thriving for all.

That work—that great work—begins with our own hearts, with our hearts being cracked open by the tender compassion of God.

The Art of Love in the Advent of God

Disaster movies make a lot of money for Holly wood producers and movie studios. It’s also oddly the case that real-life disasters sell more newspapers and increase the ratings of television news channels.

Human curiosity is heightened and intrigue sharpened in moments of disaster, far more so than in situations of joy. Why is this? Researchers from various fields have noted that humans are generally fascinated by what can kill us, injure us, or even end the world, a fascination that occurs for a simple reason: evolution.

Those who pay attention to potential threats and prepare for them, especially those who cooperate with others to manage the threats, they are the ones most likely to survive actual disasters.

This evolutionary advantage, however, diminishes dramatically in what some researchers have called “apocalypse anxiety”—being so paralyzed with worry about disaster that we do nothing about it, except perhaps to engage in incessant “doomscrolling.”

Yesterday, on the first Sunday of Advent—one of my favorite days on the church calendar—the lectionary assigned a portion from Luke’s account of the Gospel (21:25-36) where Jesus describes disaster preparedness: when disaster appears on the horizon, he says, “be on guard” so that it will not catch you unexpectedly, “like a trap.”

The lectionary always assigns apocalyptic and world-ending texts like this for the first Sunday of Advent—and that’s pretty weird. How odd to begin the new liturgical year with the “end”! But the apocalyptic character of this day is not just peculiar; it has always been deeply challenging, and for multiple reasons.

For certain types of Christians, passages like this one from Luke are treated as predictive timelines for world events—that’s how I grew up hearing them in the Evangelical tradition of my youth. This approach invites ways to map global politics to biblical prophecies, but of course this kind of “mapping” can easily treat our precious Earth as disposable, not to mention particular groups of humans.

Another problem with predictive timelines is the perpetually delayed “end” they seem to predict but which never arrives. We’ve been living with these apocalyptic texts for nearly 2,000 years now and I seriously doubt that this very moment, right now, is the culmination of biblical prophecies (even though Luke’s Jesus sure sounds like he’s describing the effects of global climate change in yesterday’s passage).

Other types of Christians have mostly dismissed these apocalyptic passages entirely as rather crude and ancient mythologies that more rational people have outgrown. Some early twentieth-century scholars tried to “demythologize” these texts and then psychologize them instead: the apocalyptic moment refers not to world events but to an individual’s moment of crisis, a moment of decision about whether to live a fully authentic life, for example.

This approach has its own set of problems, not least the tendency to detach Christian faith from the wider social world of political and economic concerns.

Those on both ends of this spectrum overlook something terribly important: world-ending moments actually happen quite regularly. Worlds of meaning and beauty and also tragedy and conflict—whole worlds come and go all the time.

The advent of AIDS in the 1980s made this pattern shockingly plain, which having World AIDS Day land on the first Sunday of Advent compellingly invites us to remember. To see young and otherwise healthy men, and then children, and also women waste away into death was a rude reminder—just like Polio had been, or bubonic plague, or more recently Covid-19—a rude reminder indeed of our mortality and what it looks like when worlds end.

The point of these apocalyptic texts is not how to predict when those world-ending moments will occur, but rather how to prepare ourselves to live in them; and to bear witness to faith, hope, and especially love while those moments unfold; and to proclaim by the way we live that God is with us—always.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus makes absolutely clear to his disciples that they must not try to predict when the end will occur. Jesus instead urges them to live with hopeful expectation—not for any unraveling, or ending, but for the coming of redemption.

Honestly, I rarely heard that note of hopefulness growing up in my thoroughly apocalyptic religious tradition—these texts are not proto-scripts for the latest Hollywood disaster movie; they are like textual vitamins to nurture a life of hope. Luke’s Jesus was especially clear about this yesterday: When you see all the shit going down, raise your heads! Your redemption is near!

Reading a recent essay on Thomas Mann’s classic German novel, The Magic Mountain made that apocalyptic hopefulness poignantly clear. That novel was published exactly 100 years ago last month; Mann had begun working on it in 1913 but then put it away during World War I.

The “mountain” in the title of that novel was in the Swiss Alps where Mann’s characters were convalescing in a tuberculosis sanatorium. For Mann, it was the kind of place where one learns things that only disease and death can teach you.

“The Hotel Schatzalp” (inspiration for Thomas Mann; photo, Jules and Bear)

But then, lost and isolated in a blizzard while skiing, the main character in this novel has, what was for him, a startling realization—and this occurs nearly in the precise middle of the novel, a pivot point for the whole story: the only thing that can stand up to death, the only thing strong enough, is love.

Needless to say, Mann was not a romantic sentimentalist. By “love,” Mann did not mean a “cozy feeling” but rather the arduous work of forging bonds with each other, not from a sense of shared doom, but with the enlivening conviction of our shared humanity.

This turn in the novel represents a dramatic shift for Mann himself. He was a German loyalist and a supporter of the Kaiser in the First World War. But his entire philosophy changed after that war (as it did for many). He was dismayed to see the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and he was stunned to see how quickly and how deeply that party was able to divide Germans against themselves, and to turn dear neighbors into monstrous enemies.

Witnessing this horrific turn of events in his homeland, Mann insisted that the only kind of love that can stand up against death is the love of an artist.

Living as I now do along the so-called “arts coast” of West Michigan, this caught my attention and it’s worth noting: for Thomas Mann, the kind of art that truly matters is the kind that excludes nothing that is truly human—all of our complexities and ambiguities, all of our moral failures and triumphs, each of our joys and sorrows alike—the artist must gather all of this and then bind all of it together with love.

The lectionary was kind enough to make this same point yesterday in a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Thessalonica (1 Thess. 3:9-13). Those Thessalonians were terribly distressed that some of their friends had died—which they didn’t think would happen after they became Christians. That distress is what prompted Paul to write them a letter.

The cycle of life and death will indeed continue, Paul tells them, even as we wait for the glorious coming of Christ with all the saints. All the more reason, he says, for you to “increase and abound in love for one another and for all.”

I couldn’t help but tie all of these various texts together—from Luke and Mann to Paul—and imagine our worship at the Eucharistic Table yesterday as a gathering on the “Magic Mountain”—a place for healing and insight.

But like Mann’s characters, we don’t stay in that sanctuary. We are sent out from that Table—we go back down the mountain—fortified by the hope for the healing of the world.

This world of flourishing will emerge not from our own efforts alone but from changed hearts and minds, from making ourselves open (and vulnerable) to the transforming power of God’s love.

This is the God who comes not just once, centuries ago in Bethlehem, nor only for a second time, at the so-called “end of time,” but the God who is always arriving, always appearing, always as the God of Advent, always ready to remake us with love, and then always sending us out with that love for the healing of the world.

“Be on your guard,” Luke’s Jesus says, “so that your hearts are not weighed down…”

“Increase in love,” Paul says, “for one another and for all.”

The King of Love for a Realm of Healing

After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the House of Windsor has seemed to me less like a “royal family” and more like a group of related British celebrities. When I think “king” I don’t usually think “Charles.”

“Kingship” always taps my childhood fascination with Arthurian legend, and my ongoing love for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I used to daydream of living as one of Arthur’s knights at his round table, or following Aragorn to this throne in the restored kingdom of Gondor. Those parts of me love the Feast of Christ the King.

The last Sunday after Pentecost—the very last Sunday of the liturgical year—is often celebrated with the image of Christ as “king,” an image for Jesus that has deep roots in Christian traditions even if the liturgical feast itself is mostly modern.

The lectionary continues its apocalyptic tenor for this feast and with some startling biblical texts, like the one from the Hebrew prophet Daniel (7:9-14), which includes a vision of the One who will come with the “clouds of heaven,” and who is given dominion and glory and kingship. Those heavenly clouds appear again in a vision from the Revelation to John (1:4-8), a vision of One whose coming every eye will see, and who is the ruler of all the kings of earth.

These are certainly the kinds of texts we might expect for a celebration of royal power. But something a bit deeper seems to be lingering beneath these splashy images of kingship. There’s an ancient desire percolating in all of this, a deep-rooted ache that stretches across both time and culture—the yearning to see wrongs made right, to restore wholeness in a world of fragments: the lost, found; the forgotten, remembered; the wounded, healed.

The Prayer Book collect for yesterday’s feast named that desire. In a world divided and enslaved by sin, that prayer affirms God’s will to restore all things.

That notion of “divine restoration” reminds me one of my favorite Greek words: apokatastasis. I actually devoted an entire qualifying exam in my doctoral program to that one word, and to the ongoing role it has played in Christian traditions—and that word has had quite a colorful career indeed.

The word itself appears only once in the Bible, in the Acts of the Apostles (3:21). Peter is preaching in Jerusalem about the resurrection of Jesus, the crucified but risen Lord who will come again, he says, at the time of “universal restoration.” That’s usually how apokatastasis is translated, and it captured the imagination of Origen, a second-century Greek theologian.

Origen argued that God will one day bring all beings back to their source, where they will be restored to union with God—not only all people but even the Devil and all his fallen angels! That is the day when God will be “all in all,” as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

That’s a startling declaration: God will not cease loving God’s creation, not ever, and God shall not fail in uniting all things in a gloriously divine communion of love—every single being, no exceptions.

Apokatastasis is in that sense not only startling but also apocalyptic—which is to say, a deeply revelatory word. The Feast of Christ the “King” reveals the underlying meaning of the whole liturgical year, that grand arc from Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, through Lent, Easter, and Pentecost—all of it reveals the unwavering purpose of God to restore, renew, and heal with love.

As I do every week, I spent some time searching online for visual images that might capture these complex desires and hopes. After entering the words “restore all things” in the Google search engine, images began popping up of the painstaking process involved when museums try to restore old paintings.

I actually find such work both fascinating and beautiful, but those images made me realize just how precarious the notion of restoration really is, maybe even spiritually dangerous: Was there ever a time when all peoples were unified? Can any of us name a distinct moment in the past when everyone flourished? Are we really pining for a perfect world that we somehow lost long ago and now we want to recover and restore it?

No—that’s going backward; we need to travel forward. The disciples asked the risen Jesus about this very thing in the first chapter of Acts (1:6): Is now the time you will restore the kingdom to Israel?

No—resurrection does not return to how things were but moves forward to God’s own vision of how they should be.

As I sorted through the online search result (without much to inspire me), I decided to use one of my favorite icons, one that depicts Jesus harrowing Hell between Good Friday and Easter morning. Part of what I love about that image is the effort Jesus seems to be making to yank Adam and Eve out of their tombs on that day. The past matters in this dramatic moment, and nothing and no one is left behind. But the momentum here is definitely forward, not backward.

The Harrowing of Hell (apse in the Chora Church, Istanbul)

Adam and Eve signal that momentum for us in their apparent reluctance, as if they are thoroughly disoriented by the whole prospect of an Easter Jesus. This is not a moment of restoration, of returning to a known past—Jesus is not putting them back in the Garden of Eden; he’s raising them to new life.

That’s the paradox of all theological symbols—they are rooted in the known to help us imagine and anticipate the unknown.

The familiar, well-known symbol of Christ as “King” must point beyond what we now know of kingship and toward something new. And that’s why it’s so important that the lectionary included a poignant moment for yesterday’s feast from John’s account of the Gospel (18:33-37).

This moment in John is not one of splashy glory or heavenly pyrotechnics. To the contrary, Jesus is standing before the Roman Governor Pilate, a vignette that disrupts our usual assumptions about royal power.

“King of Glory: By Water and by Blood,” Carol Grace Bomer

The contrast between these two figures could not be more stark—Pilate robed in imperial power; Jesus with no power at all over his own fate and on trial for his life.

Pilate wants to know if Jesus is a king.

“My Kingdom is not from this world,” Jesus replies.

While some have taken this response to mean that Jesus is concerned only with some far-off heavenly realm that has nothing to do with Earth, that’s not the substance of John’s Gospel at all. “For God so loved the world,” John famously wrote, not to condemn it but to save it.

Moreover, the encounter with Pilate is but the culmination of a whole series of encounters in John, moments of contrasting the power of “this world” to destroy Earth and the power of God to heal and renew Earth.

“My Kingdom is not from this world,” Jesus says, “if it were, my followers would fight.”

Heavenly power on earth will never be established with weapons and violence but only with the truth. This is why I was born, Jesus says, this is why I have come, to “testify to the truth.”

In a world of coercive deceptions and brutal violence, the truth of the Gospel is just this: only and nothing else but love will save us.

Love is not weak.

Love is not merely sentiment or a cozy feeling.

Love is not a last-ditch, stop-gap measure by liberal snowflakes when otherwise real-world practical strategies fail.

Love is brave, risking all for what matters most, willing to lose everything to gain what cannot be lost.

Love is fierce and strong—stronger than even death.

Love incarnate stood before Pilate.

And so we Christians celebrate that embodied moment of “known royalty” for a realm still unimaginable. Most of us do so at the Eucharistic Table—where we move from the known to the unknown, from the familiar to the strange, from memory to hope.

At the Table, we try as best we can to put Gospel truth into practice, bearing witness to a world where all welcome, no one is forgotten, and everyone is healed by love—everyone, no exceptions.

Hold Fast and Stay True

The horizon before us is looking a bit apocalyptic.

I suppose that could refer to the apocalyptic character of current events, but I have especially in mind the tone of the lectionary; it likely works for both.

As the liturgical year winds down, the lectionary starts assigning dramatic readings about the so-called “end” of the world. When the new year starts on the first Sunday of Advent—on December 1 this year—these apocalyptic glimpses become full-blown visions of scary times to come.

Now would be a good time to recall what that powerful word “apocalypse” means. It comes from a pretty ordinary Greek verb, actually; it means something like removing the lid from a jar. Doing that reveals or discloses what’s inside.

Eventually, this otherwise simple Greek verb wandered into religious texts where it came to mean “divine revelation,” or making hidden things visible and known.

At this time of year, the lectionary always gives us a series of biblical texts with apocalyptic themes, with moments of disclosure, and of unveiling, and often rather vivid if not also disorienting revelations.

It is of course very common to suppose that apocalyptic texts are by definition oriented toward disaster; Hollywood loves that approach for blockbuster movies. And we still use it in ordinary speech when trying to name a moment that seems particularly catastrophic.

Usually overlooked or mostly forgotten in these cultural appropriations is the energy of hope that nearly always accompanies an apocalyptic text.

“Hopeful apocalypse” now seems like a contradiction in terms, even though these ancient texts were written to be a source of comfort for communities in trouble. These communities needed to be reassured that their own moment of anxiety, even fearfulness, perhaps also threats of violence or depravation, maybe even signs of war on the horizon, that such a moment belongs to a larger and still meaningful story.

That reassurance, that sense of “meaningfulness,” might be anchored in a notion of divine design, or attached to an enduring sense of providence, or more generally the reminder of God’s own faithfulness to God’s own creation. This could easily be the very key to the whole letter to the Hebrews. In the passage assigned for yesterday, many of us heard a wonderful declaration about God: “the one who has promised is faithful” (10:23).

Apocalyptic writers want to reveal that faithfulness, to offer signs of that divine presence even in the midst of seemingly random events and figures—no, it’s not just chaos; God is still present even in the most unlikely circumstances.

Yesterday’s Gospel reading came from what is often called the “mini-apocalypse” in Mark (13:1-8). This chapter usually grabs our attention when Mark’s Jesus refers to the darkened sun and moon and the stars all falling from the sky. But first-century hearers would have been just as startled (and dismayed) by the fate of the temple.

Jesus describes the coming destruction of that holy place—not just how it will be damaged, but how it will be utterly demolished, without one single stone remaining on another.

To appreciate the level of shock this caused, we need to understand something about what was one of the wonders of the ancient world, this temple built during the reign of King Herod.

It was built on the top of a small mountain with a plaza of roughly 350,000 square feet. The walls supporting this plaza were made of enormous stones, some of them weighing as much as 400 tons each. No mortar was used between these stones, and yet no daylight passes between them. Modern engineers are baffled by how ancient builders pulled this off; even modern machines can’t move stones that big with that kind of precision.

The plaza and the temple itself could be seen from a long distance away; it would shine brightly in the sun as many parts of it were overladen with gold and the rest built with bright white granite. (Herod himself, by the way, undertook this project with over 10,000 laborers because he wanted to secure his own “eternal remembrance—it apparently worked since we still refer to it as “The Herodian Temple.”)

The destruction of such a massive structure dedicated to the very presence of God was literally unimaginable.

Whatever Jesus thought he was doing by describing the temple’s destruction, let’s be clear that he was not rejecting Judaism, the religion of his own people. He was urging instead a kind of reorientation, to remember that toward which the temple was originally meant to point—a divine purpose that had been corrupted by social and economic injustice.

We might recall in that regard the story that comes immediately before this passage in Mark: the story about the determined and defiant widow in the temple’s outer court. Her poverty put the corruption of that system on display. Jesus calls it out, denounces the religious leaders, and then bewails the failure of the temple to embody its God-given mission.

The temple was never supposed to be an end in itself; religion is never itself the point but rather what it points toward, what it evokes, what it inspires, and especially the community it’s supposed to shape and form as God’s people in the world.

Most scholars believe Mark wrote his account of the Gospel right around the year 70, shortly after the Roman Empire crushed a Jewish rebellion and then did indeed destroy the Herodian temple—which was never rebuilt.

That unthinkable disaster shapes how Mark tells the story of Jesus: the story of what truly counts and what finally matters, the story of what is worthy of our trust.

In that sense, Mark’s entire account of the Gospel and not just this one chapter is thoroughly apocalyptic—he wants to reveal and disclose genuine reasons for hope.

Do not despair, Mark’s Jesus says, even when events seem grim and dire. Even when traditional structures crumble and heroic monuments fade—especially when this happens—God will, even then, and especially then, bring something new to light, as if the turmoil were the labor pains of childbirth.

At those very moments, God is calling God’s people to the work that matters and which will not fade—God always calls God’s people to this world-changing work, of course, but it seems most important to remember this when it the work is most needed, like right now.

Hold fast to that calling, and especially to the God who calls us to do the work of repairing the world, and healing the rifts, and making peace with justice, and loving the stranger, and caring for the orphan and widow. We do that work confident that God will be with us in that work.

“Hold fast to that confession of hope”—that’s the wonderful phrase that also comes from yesterday’s passage in the letter to the Hebrews, and it has roots in nautical culture.

“Hold fast” was the command given to sailors on deck as a storm approached. Historically, more than a few sailors tattooed that command across their knuckles, a kind of lucky charm for safety, but also as a way to remember the command while they gripped the rigging as the ship was tossed about by the wind and the waves.

It’s also important to know which parts of a sailing vessel are suitable for holding fast—some of the ropes are “working lines,” the ones that move and operate the sails and spars, and you don’t hold on to those! You hold fast instead to the “standing rigging,” which is firmly attached to the deck and the mast, and which will support you as the ship heels and rocks.

“Hold fast” was usually paired with a command to the helm: stay true. Storms can quickly blow a ship off course, and it’s not always possible to discern your course by looking at the sea, or when the horizon disappears behind banks of clouds. “Stay true” is the reminder to use the compass and to keep your heading true through the storm—precisely because the only way out is to go through, whether the storm is meteorological or political.

Whatever the weeks and months ahead might bring, now is the time to embrace an apocalyptic posture: what is being revealed and disclosed?

Now is also the time to embrace once more a traditional image of the Church as a ship and the life of faith as a journey on the sea: the standing rigging—that which will keep us steady and stable—our standing rigging in the church is our worship at the Eucharistic Table; our heavenly course is set by the Gospel, and it takes us into a world longing for hope and healing.

Let us then hold fast and stay true; God is with us even on turbulent seas.

Fierce and Faithful, Persistent and Poor: Walking with Widows on the Gospel Road

In the Gospel reading yesterday morning, the road to Jerusalem in Mark’s account of the Gospel at last brings Jesus and his followers to the Holy City.

It’s worth remembering when we read this story in the U.S., where “church” and “state” seem separated on paper only, that first-century Jerusalem was the seat of Judean religious power and also Roman imperial power for the province; these two forms of power come together at the temple treasury in the story from Mark (12:38-44).

Mark wastes no time in setting the stage for violent conflict in Jerusalem. Mark’s Jesus quickly clashes with every possible authority group in that capital city; in yesterday’s encounter, it was the “scribes,” the interpreters of Mosaic Law—the religious lawyers, in other words.

Mark’s Jesus has been arguing with these scribes about a wide range of issues and his patience has simply run out. Many Christians are familiar with Mark’s rendering of that moment, but probably not with an exasperated Jesus. While rich people drop big sums of money into the temple’s donation boxes, a poor widow contributes two small coins—all the money she has.

The lectionary compilers know quite well that late autumn is the time for fundraising campaigns in most churches—thus the readings about money at this time of year. But the temple story from Mark is far too often and too crudely used to guilt people into giving more money: If even a poor widow can give all she has to the Temple, then surely you can give a bit more to the church…

Mark would be horrified by using his story that way. The poor widow in this story is not the poster child for stewardship campaigns; she is, rather, the shining emblem of God’s own commitment to a world of justice. (Ched Myers provides an invaluable resource for interpreting Mark in the frames of social and economic justice; I am indebted to his analysis of this Markan story.)

As Mark’s Jesus continues his teaching in the temple, he issues a warning: “Beware of the scribes,” he says. Beware of the religious lawyers who tell you what the law means but then “devour” the houses of widows.

That rather strange phrase refers to a first-century legal practice regarding estate management. When the male head of a household died, his estate was given over to the religious scribes to administer because the widow, as a woman, was considered unfit to do so. (And by the way, lest we look down with smugness on that ancient practice, let us not forget that women in the United States were not allowed to have a credit card or take out a loan in their own name until 1974.)

Back in the first century, the scribes were compensated for their estate services by taking a percentage of the estate. As you might imagine, abuse was common in this system, forms of embezzlement to the point of impoverishing the widows—or as Mark’s Jesus puts it, the houses of widows were devoured.

“Beware of these religious scribes,” Jesus says, and then he sits down “opposite the treasury,” Mark says—a phrase we should read as not merely about geographical location but moral orientation: over and against it, as opposed to the temple treasury, where this social and economic abuse of widows is on display.

Quite honestly, after many decades of reading and hearing this story, I have consistently failed to see Mark’s point in telling it. The reason the widow is poor in this story is because the scribes have stolen her money—some of which they were putting in the offering plate, right in front of Jesus! These religious experts would have known that the Mosaic Law they claimed to interpret explicitly provided for the care of both widows and orphans; it was a divine commandment.

But right there, in the temple of God’s presence, the scribes no longer protect the poor but crush them, and then flaunt it. Right there in the outer court of the temple, economic oppression is on display and barely concealed with “long prayers,” as Mark puts it.

Jesus is outraged.

Despite all the pietistic sermons I have heard (and yes, preached) in the past about this impoverished woman giving all she has, Jesus is not commending the widow for her religious piety; he’s calling out the scribes for their religious hypocrisy. Jesus then leaves the temple in disgust, and, it turns out, for the last time before he is arrested and killed.

Among the four gospel writers, Mark is especially keen to address economic injustice as a vital component of the Gospel. Mark is also eager to point out how religion gets used to support the financial inequities of social systems—systems that are almost always designed to favor men.

When Mark’s Jesus insists that the poor widow has actually given more than all the rich people, he is not congratulating her or recommending this practice; he’s drawing attention to the injustice of a system in which the poor contribute proportionally far more to the system than those who are wealthy, a common dynamic in nearly every human society throughout human history—including the United States.

This kind of social and economic analysis can make most of us deeply uncomfortable, including me. But that is precisely the “discomfort zone” the Gospel calls us to inhabit, and I am fairly confident that this will increasingly be the case in the weeks and months to come.

Given the rocky road likely ahead of us, it’s worth remembering that the road to Jerusalem in Mark is the good road of the Gospel, the one that leads not only to the Cross but also the Empty Tomb. The good road of the Gospel marks a journey of costly discipleship for the sake of flourishing—for all. The good road of the Gospel is not easy to find, but just ask anyone on the margins of a wealthy and powerful world; they will have a map.

The many books of the Bible, written over many centuries by different communities, are remarkably consistent about this: care for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger is religiously non-negotiable; and resisting unjust systems of oppression is the very definition of discipleship—not because people on the margins deserve our pity (that tired old noblesse oblige of the wealthy West) but because the excluded and forgotten can usually show us the best road home.

Yesterday’s lectionary texts all confirm this—from the story in the Hebrew Bible about Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, a city of Gentiles and outsiders (1 Kings 17:8-16); or from the psalmist who praises God for giving justice to the oppressed, care to the stranger, and who sustains the orphan and widow (Ps. 146); and of course from Mark, whose story in the temple I now read quite differently than I ever have before: the poor widow embodies a fierce faithfulness, the persistence to live with the dignity God gave her while living with virtually nothing that the world should have given her.

Searching for appropriate visual images for worship this past week, I did a Google search for “poor widow,” and the usual suspects appeared immediately. But scrolling down the screen I stumbled on an odd match: “The Calla Lily Vendor,” by Alfredo Ramos Martinez. I still can’t figure out why Google included this one, but I’m glad for it. The “poor widow”—too often a frail old lady in my imagination—is just as likely a determined single mother doing whatever she must to care for her children as she is a demure recipient of social security checks.

“Calla Lily Vendor,” Alfredo Ramos Martinez (1929)

The stubborn faithfulness of widows—my own dear mother embodied this to the very day she died—showed up in all sorts of guises in recent days. A gay friend of mine posted on social media last Wednesday morning, the day after the election. He wrote about waking up disappointed and also afraid. “But then I realized,” he wrote, “that I woke up with the same two arms and the same two hands that I had yesterday. I realized that no election can take away my capacity for kindness, and love, and service.”

He noted that this election might very well take away his rights as a gay man; it might take away still more rights from women, who are already afraid for their safety. While this election might very well cause harm in countless ways, he wrote, “I will continue to choose kindness and love and service.”

That’s exactly the good road of the Gospel God always calls us to walk but especially right now. Mark’s story in the temple offered me a powerful reminder about how we learn to walk that Gospel road: in solidarity with the poor in a rich world; and with women in a patriarchal world; and therefore and also with LGBTQ people in a world of bullies.

Standing in solidarity with all those on the margins is a Gospel posture.

Walking with them is the way of discipleship.

Offering kindness and love to each other on the road is our service of healing.

This is always true, and that has always been how disciples of Jesus walk the Gospel road home, regardless of election outcomes.

Yes, and, I think it is especially true right now.

Who are “We” at the Table Now?

How could this happen? I am absolutely gobsmacked, not only that he won but even more that the vote wasn’t particularly close. Even those who support him are a bit surprised. What do we make of this? How did we get here? Who are “we”?

I’m not a political pundit, but I am invested in politics, as every religious leader should directly admit. “Politics,” a word deriving from the Greek polis, or “city,” refers to all the many different ways we structure our societies and negotiate with others for resources and strategize for ways (hopefully) to advance the common good. In that sense, religion is by definition thoroughly political (as all of the ancient Hebrew prophets and also the Christian Gospel writers demonstrate, as well as the liturgical texts in The Book of Common Prayer).

It’s from that perspective that I’m inviting the parish I am privileged to serve to reflect on this moment in American cultural and political history and how we should now live our faith in public. I would have likewise invited this reflection had Ms. Harris won the election, but the invitation now feels laced with urgency, especially as the “common good” seems alarmingly fragile.

Who are we? I keep returning to that question, in large measure because an individual does not a social movement or a political party make. This is often difficult to keep in mind concerning Donald J. Trump, whose sheer force of personality fills a room—or an arena. Quite honestly, I haven’t wanted to suppose that Mr. Trump represents anything other than himself, someone whose public statements and moral character—in all frankness—I find reprehensible.

Never could I have imagined a convicted felon and instigator of insurrection running for President of the United States (much less actually winning), a man who mocks disabled people, advocates violence, and sexually assaults women.

But no, putting my attention there, on one person’s moral failings is a mistake. The election wasn’t about him; it was and still is about our neighbors. Focusing entirely on him risks distracting us from the vital work ahead in a deeply divided country—I mean, the work of trying to understand our neighbors, and in this case, “neighbors” for me refers to those who voted for Mr. Trump.

The week before the election, the New York Times Magazine published an essay on the work of Robert Paxton, a leading historian of fascism, whose award-winning 1972 book on the French collaborators with Nazi Germany analyzed the emergence of Vichy France during World War II.

Paxton was at first reluctant to apply the term “fascism” to the MAGA movement in the Republican Party but now believes we should, though with caveats (the character of this moment in world history is not the same as it was in the 1930s, for example). Whatever else we want to say about “Trumpism,” Paxton said, we need to note carefully that this is a “mass phenomenon” from below, and the “leaders are running to keep ahead of it.” This isn’t really about Donald Trump at all—he’s mostly a convenient means to an end. Paxton’s point about this is quite startling (if not alarming): “Trumpism,” he notes, has a much more solid and broader base of support in the American electorate than either Hitler did in Germany or Mussolini did in Italy.

Paxton also cautions against thinking of fascism as an “ideology” or a kind of “party platform.” That approach obscures the action-oriented character of a movement that is not rooted in any coherent philosophy but instead fills the void in a cultural system that has broken down or failed. This is why, in part, Paxton is still somewhat hesitant about the fascist label, which implies more stability for a cultural moment than likely exists. This, it seems to me, is a large part of what makes understanding my neighbors so challenging: not everyone votes the way they do for the same reason.

While David Brooks urges us to see in this election a resounding No to “liberal elites”—and there is likely some truth to that analysis—I worry that this framing of the outcome reduces our social complexity to a single cause, or even worse, perpetuates what has been a long trend of American anti-intellectualism, as if “education” leads inevitably to tribal betrayal.

As Paxton would suggest, this moment is manifesting a multiplicity of convictions, grievances, aspirations, and motivations, some of which likely stand in opposition to the others even though they all inspired the same vote. The working poor in rural America may feel mostly abandoned by politicians but that’s hardly cause for common cause with high-tech billionaires who want to erase government regulations.

As I sort through all of this (and more) for my work as a parish priest, I keep returning to what has always been the focus of my vocation: the Eucharistic Table. While it’s important to keep saying that “all are welcome, no exceptions” (which I say every single Sunday at the beginning of worship), I now worry in ways I haven’t before about whether this invitation covers over the differences among those who gather at the Table—and some of the differences are clearly deep and profound.

I worry, in other words, about turning the Eucharist into a ritual of avoidance, a kind of shared denial about what keeps us separate and segregated. (This has of course always been the risk concerning racial differences in a white supremacist society as well as the differences of gendered sexuality in a patriarchal world.) If table fellowship amounts to merely a superficial unity, then “church” is not much more than a cultural cliché.

I certainly do not mean that how one votes matters for how we gather at the Table, but I do mean that how one lives matters after we leave the Table. And that’s why the difference between “partisan” and “political,” though subtle, remains so vital.

I believe Eucharistic formation shapes Christian people to stand in solidarity with the poor, advocate for the vulnerable, work for peace with justice, and commit to a lifelong path of ongoing conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ—whose body we ourselves become at that Table as Christian people. The Table also reassures us of divine forgiveness when we fail to live as Christian people, and also the never-failing love of God, which is always freely offered regardless of how we live.

More succinctly: Eucharist welcomes everyone and leaves no one unchanged.

Eucharistic fellowship is, apparently, just as complex as American electoral politics. This has likely always been true, but now, perhaps, we know it in a new way.

But who, exactly, are we?

Unbound and Unbinding

The energy and anticipation were palpable yesterday morning as the choir rehearsed and the liturgical ministers began to vest. We gathered on a hill overlooking the Kalamazoo River, that leads into Lake Michigan, that great inland sea. We gathered as All Saints’ Parish for the 156^th celebration of All Saints’ Day.

We celebrated a rich history of prayer and service on that shoreline hill, a legacy we prayerfully seek to honor by the way we live today and the witness we bear to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have recently been using the image of the “good road” to describe this journey we are on together as a parish, and that road is both inspiring and challenging.

All Saints’ Day marks the beginning of Native American Heritage Month, for example, a November observance in this country that started back in 1990. Modern Western society needs to retrieve at least part of this truly rich heritage of indigenous peoples for the sake of ecological healing in a world of climate chaos and for a healthier relationship with the land.

At the same time, we have started recently to confront more directly another part of this heritage, both as a country and as The Episcopal Church. I mean the painful legacy of residential boarding schools for indigenous children—this isn’t only part of our distant past; some of these schools just closed in our lifetimes.

Stories from these schools were in the news just a week ago when President Biden formally apologized for the government’s role in creating them. The collusion between church and state represented by these schools—this collaboration to erase the cultural traditions of an entire people—this is a gut-wrenching chapter in American religious history, our history.

Telling the truth and hearing the truth about this history is the only way to begin healing the trauma of that history. That kind of truth-telling is part of what it means to travel together on “Creator’s good road,” especially with the healing power of love.

Speaking the truth in love has always been the saintly work of God’s people. In John’s Gospel alone, this vital significance of the truth is mentioned no fewer than twenty-one times. Jesus is the “Word made flesh,” John says, “full of grace and truth” (1:14).

John’s Jesus himself declares that he is the “way, the truth, and the life” (14:6) and promises to send the “Spirit of truth” who will guide us into all truth (16:13) Because, John’s Jesus says, when you know the truth, the “truth will make you free” (8:32).

This healing and liberating power of God is on dramatic display in the familiar story from John assigned for the celebration of All Saints’ Day (11:32-44). Lazarus, a dear friend of Jesus, has died. Lazarus may well have been the closest friend Jesus had, and he was part of an intimate circle of friends that included the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, and a wider circle still of the village of Bethany, where they lived, just outside of Jerusalem.

So this family of friends, this village, gathers to grieve the loss of Lazarus. Jesus himself is so deeply moved that he begins to weep. Mary speaks some hard truth: If you had been here, she says to Jesus, Lazarus would not have died.

As many will recall, Jesus responded by raising Lazarus from the dead. But what many of us don’t often remember is that this moment is not the end of the story, perhaps not even the climax; notice what happens next. The dead man came out of the tomb, John says, and his hands and feet were bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus then said to them—to that family of friends, to that village—“Unbind him, and let him go.”

What a strange moment in this already dramatic story! It’s as if being raised from the dead is not enough, somehow not sufficient for embracing new life. Indeed, as he is walking out of his own tomb, John still refers to him as “the dead man.”

Unbind him, Jesus says, and let him go.

Lazarus is wrapped in a burial shroud—tightly wrapped. That’s how they embalmed a dead body in that society, securely bound by heavily spiced linens soaked in aromatic ointments.

I think John is imagining more here than only the burial shroud of a first-century Judean. John is likely urging his readers to consider that we—all of us—might still be clinging to death even in the midst of life; that we—all of us—might still be in death’s enchanting thrall even as we hope for life; that we human beings have trouble, often deadly trouble in letting go of death.

Whatever keeps us attached to a violent system, whatever binds us to hateful speech or traps us in spirals of bodily shame, whenever we are entangled or enticed by bitter resentments—even a burial shroud can seem appealing when soaked in sweet-smelling herbs—whatever prevents us from the fullness of life needs to fall away.

Unbind him, Jesus says, and let him go.

That is the moment of love’s healing power in this story, and that’s always the work of all the saints, to unbind—to release and to liberate, to let the captives go free from whatever form of death shackles them to the past.

“See,” God says, “I am making all things new.”

That’s a powerful declaration from the Revelation to John, which the lectionary assigned as well for our saintly celebration (21:1-6a). And it’s tempting to hear it as a moment of erasure, of wiping the slate clean, as if God is simply starting over and beginning entirely from scratch.

But no, our history matters. Our history that made us who we are and shaped our families and built our communities matters, and it’s not just simply thrown away.

And the indigenous history of the people we tried to erase on this continent—that history matters just as much as ours. Our shared history with them is not erased in John’s vision—it is remade with the healing power of God’s love.

That’s the good road to travel as God’s people, and yes, this road includes difficult, even heartbreaking moments of truth-telling. But this is not the road to nowhere; it actually does go somewhere, and the selection from the prophet Isaiah for All Saints’ Day says where exactly it leads (25:6-9).

The road leads, Isaiah says, to God’s “holy mountain,” a mountain where the burial shroud cast over all people is lifted, and where God—God!—wipes away the tears from every face—including, surely, the tears from the face of Jesus himself when he wept for his friend Lazarus.

Both Isaiah and John offer a remarkable vision of ever-widening circles of who counts as “God’s people”—an ever-expanding “Communion of Saints.” For both of these ancient writers, tears are wiped from all faces; no one is left out.

Personally, I needed that biblical reassurance this week, especially as the anxiety is running high about the election tomorrow. But here’s the thing: regardless of what happens, no matter who wins and what kind of future we think we might be facing in this country, the shared ministry of God’s people remains the same. As the Book of Common Prayer succinctly frames it, our work is always to promote justice, peace, and love—and that will not change.

In the historic carpenter gothic sanctuary on the corner of Grand and Hoffman Streets in Saugatuck, Michigan, we will continue that holy work and we will extend our Eucharistic fellowship outward, in ever-widening circles of God’s healing love.

And we will keep on doing this work together for another 156 years—or for however long God calls us to do it along this good road.

And what a wonderful day it was yesterday—to recall with song and flowers and food—that we are not alone on that road but accompanied by a vast communion of companion saints.

Pierced by Beauty

Contrary to most pop culture depictions, Francis of Assisi was not primarily interested in cultivating cozy relationships with other animals. There’s nothing wrong with those relationships—I enjoy one right now with an Australian shepherd dog named River. But Francis devoted his attention to the larger horizon on which such wonderful creatures of God reside.

What the world needs from the church today is mostly what the twelfth-century world of Francis also needed: a voice for the voiceless; solidarity with the abandoned; healing among the wounded; and justice for the oppressed and exploited.

Of course, the voiceless, abandoned, wounded, and exploited ones include not only other humans but also other-than-human animals. As Francis would also tell us, sometimes the only way to understand what this world needs is by paying attention to the other species with whom we share this planet.

“St. Francis of Assisi,” Kevin Pawlowkski

The complexity and also challenge Francis presents today came vividly to light when I stumbled upon a beautiful though also rather haunting image of Francis by visual artist Kevin Pawlowski. Notice the bird on his shoulder, near his ear (signifying a posture of listening to creation), and the dog in his arms (symbolizing loyalty between different species), and also the stone wall, the cross, and the subtle marks of crucifixion on the hands of Francis himself.

This is not the typical symbol set most people associate with Francis of Assisi, so a few notes about his life might bear rehearsing. We might recall that Francis was born into a very wealthy family in medieval Italy—his father was a silk merchant and his mother was from French nobility.

Francis was never entirely comfortable being comfortable; over the course of his life he grew increasingly unable to reconcile the wealth of some with the abject poverty of so many others. A familiar story from his life illustrates this very point: when he happened upon a beggar in the street, he was moved with such pity that Francis gave him all the money he had with him and even the cloak on his back.

Gestures like that enraged his wealthy father, of course, until finally Francis simply renounced his family’s wealth, his family’s estate, even the family name. He did this rather dramatically, in the middle of the town square where he stripped naked. From that day on, as he would say, he was married to “Lady Poverty.”

Disgusted equally with the opulence of the parish church in Assisi, Francis hiked out to the countryside, to a dilapidated and crumbling chapel in San Damiano. There, as the story goes, a crucifix with the suffering Christ on it, spoke to him. “Francis,” the voice said, “Francis, repair my church!”

So, Francis began dutifully rebuilding that chapel, by hand, one stone at a time, while also preaching to the peasants living in that valley (the “working poor,” as we would call them today, a population that the institutional church at that time had simply abandoned). He also began ministering and eventually living among those with leprosy—shockingly, both then and today, he not only embraced but also kissed many of those lepers as symbols of that same suffering Jesus who had spoken to him from the cross.

How in the world did someone born into such privilege and comfort decide to set all of that aside? Stories of his life offer a number of possible reasons for this, including suffering from a severe illness, engaging in disturbing service in the military, and having more than one vision in a powerful dream.

Here’s what I think, which of course occurred to along the “arts coast” of Michigan, where I currently live: I think heart-rending beauty changed the course of his life.

As strange as that may sound, there is a subtle thread of this running in the Bible and historical Christian traditions, this sense of the life-changing ache in beauty.

I’m not talking about beauty as merely “decoration” or “adornment.” I mean the kind of enticing beauty shimmering throughout what God creates—from mountains and rivers to birds and bears, sky and forests—a beauty the mystics would say awakens our yearning for communion and consummation…or whatever better words we might find for this longing that mostly defies our ability to speak.

“Ache” and “yearning” work for this, the mystics would say, because this kind of beauty feels like the absence of a lover.

Back in the second century, a Greek theologian by the name of Origen described the human soul as being naturally attracted to divine splendor; the soul is drawn to such heavenly beauty and then falls in love, receiving what he called the dart or wound of love.

Origen seems to suggest a piercing quality in divine beauty, piercing us with a longing for what will finally satisfy what we cannot name. Francis was keenly aware of this elusive desire, and even more keen to denounce our fruitless scramble to acquire all the things and stuff and wealth that have nothing whatsoever to do with it. The pierce of Beauty urges us ever onward—not superficially, or temporarily, or greedily—but genuinely and fully toward whatever “it” is that will satisfy our deepest yearning.

Right there, that’s what the world truly needs: hearts broken open by compassion and empathy; hearts capable of seeing and attending to the pain of others; hearts with the capacity to give nothing less than everything for the sake of life, for thriving, flourishing life—all this would be an offering for the truly beautiful, an offering which is Beauty itself.

And that is what Francis heard in the voice from the cross and also toward the end of his own life. Much like St. Paul wrote about in his letter to the Galatians (a passage that some lectionaries assign for the Feast of St. Francis) apparently Francis received his own set of bodily “marks,” the wounds of that cross on his own body, on his hands and feet and even his torso.

The pierced body of Jesus was for Francis the image of God’s own pierced heart, broken open by the beauty of the world and for the sake of life.

“Repair my church, Francis.”

That voice was not referring to a building, and Francis eventually realized his mistake. Rather than a building, that voice was referring to the purpose of the church in need of repair—the Church is not meant to accrue wealth to itself but to give itself away, for love, for life, for beauty.

I love welcoming companions of other species into worship with humans when we celebrate Francis. And Francis himself would whole-heartedly endorse the presence of other-than-human companions in the sanctuary—especially if the beauty of their intimacy with us breaks open our hearts, pushes the boundaries of our hearts ever outward, extending the reach of our compassion still further toward the despairing and the lost and forgotten.

In the parish where I am privileged to serve as the rector, we practice an “open table” posture toward the Eucharist: everyone is welcome at the Table, no exceptions. And I believe Francis, who was thoroughly devoted to the Eucharist, would remind us that such an invitation is only a foretaste of what is yet to come.

His Eucharistic devotion invites all of us to imagine a world where not a single living being is excluded from the blessings of divine life, not a single one, no exceptions—and that’s a beautiful thing.