In the early eighties, an Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba, became very popular among young spiritually inclined people. As well as being a spiritual teacher, Sai Baba had some unusual abilities. He could produce candy, watches and other trinkets, and more importantly an unusual scented holy ash called Vibhuti from his fingertips. Many of my friends in Scotland started to become his devotees. He appeared to them in their dreams, and his photos manifested small piles of Vibhuti.

Sai Baba did not come to me in my dreams. He did not call me to be his devotee, his disciple. He did not send me Vibhuti. I felt left out and a little unwanted. I longed to have a spiritual teacher who could teach me how to be deeply spiritual myself.

Of course what I didn’t understand, and probably didn’t want to know because it wasn’t glamorous, was that I had a spiritual teacher already - Jesus the Christ, with the Holy Spirit and our Creator.

In today’s reading from Matthew we hear Jesus at the beginning of his ministry calling some of his disciples. “he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”

We are here this morning because Jesus has called us to be his disciples. And on some level, whether immediately like Simon and Andrew or rather reluctantly and slowly, like me, we have heard his call.

What does it mean to be Jesus’ disciple today?

In our conversation on Wednesday morning, theologian Marcus Borg, said that Jesus had two focuses in his teaching – the Way and the Kingdom. The Way is the spiritual path of deepening our walk with God, being devotees of Jesus and being transformed more and more into Christ-like beings. The Kingdom is our work of bringing the reign of God into manifestation in this world, as we pray in the prayer Jesus taught us, “thy kingdom, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.” It is living the values of the reign of God here and now and working for social justice, working for the Great Shalom, where all beings live in peace, justice and dignity.

Which is very different from the world we are living in, and the one Jesus lived in. The fighting, beatings and the death of protestors we are seeing in Minnesota today would have been familiar to him, living under Roman rule in a brutal society which hit first and asked questions later, if ever.

The essence of Jesus’ life, teaching and death shows that a system based on blaming others, a system based on violence, does not bring life or human flourishing. Jesus conquered death. Jesus came back. Yet he did not blame or shame – he was the perfect self-giving victim – the one who was blamed for the unrest in Jerusalem. The one who was blamed, not just by the Roman authorities but by his very own people. Just like those who have been killed in Minneapolis Jesus was described as a ‘domestic terrorist.’

None of us wants to be blamed. None of us wants to be scapegoated. But it is part of human nature. In order to feel better about ourselves we humans gang up on others, belittling them and excluding them. Yet this is not the way of the Kingdom. in the reign of God people forgive one another, not holding grudges and making negative judgments against each other. In the reign of God power is in self-giving love, not in belittling, in violence and victimizing.

It seems that we have entered a time when the rule of law is questioned, when blaming and retribution are commonplace, where might is right. Which requires us as disciples of Jesus to be ever vigilant and refuse to be drawn into it. To resist the dominant language, the dominant mindset, of our culture.

It is hard. But discipleship is hard.

The culture around us is like a great river and it is easy for us to get swept along in the current. Then as we are pulled down the river it is easy to get caught up the detritus which is flowing down – the negativity and divisiveness; the self-aggrandizement and desire to take care of number one, the willingness to lie and to accept lies in the place of truth. Turning around and swimming upstream is difficult and that is for us the cost of discipleship.

Jesus’ disciples were living with him to learn from him, just as Sai Baba’s devotees flocked to his ashram in India to be close to him. We have the privilege of the Holy Spirit living with us to teach us in every moment. And one of the ways that the Holy Spirit works is through each other, which is why faith communities such as St Peters are so very important. One of the functions of faith community is to help us stay conscious. To help us remember our values. To help us remember the Jesus we follow.

I am deeply grateful for this community of faith. I am grateful to each one of you who shares your life, your glimpsings of God, your ideas and your inspirations.

There are many false prophets today who teach a Christianity which is not based on the teachings of Jesus. They argue that America was founded as a Christian country and should return to its roots but they forget that Jesus ate with prostitutes and sinners, they forget that he talked to women, to Samaritans and foreigners. They forget that Jesus never called anyone scum, that Jesus preached love and inclusivity and that he was a rabbi grounded in the Hebrew scriptures which repeatedly call for care for the stranger and the foreigner.

The great light which Isaiah foretold is in the gospel of Jesus – the non-violent Savior – who did not blame or shame but who triumphed over the evils of this world – the evils of victimization and violence. The gospel of Jesus the Christ who emptied himself in his human life and in his death on the cross.

This is the Jesus we follow, this is the Jesus we seek to imitate. This is the one who leads us in the Way and in the Kingdom.

Being the disciples of Jesus does not reward us with holy ash or with candy and trinkets. It rewards us with a deeper and deeper knowledge of the God who is life itself. We follow the greatest spiritual teacher of them all who makes himself known to us in creation, in scripture, in the eucharist and in the community of his beloved, the church.

Let us resist the swirling current of our culture of increasing violence and return again and again to following the one who is the Prince of Peace.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 

Who remembers the sermon I preached on the 4th Sunday in Easter last year. Anyone?  No – I had to look it up myself. I remembered that we had talked about Jesus as the Lamb of God and I didn’t want to repeat myself, though one of the fun things about having this whole year together is that we have the opportunity to delve deeper into things so some important themes come up more than once.

Back in Eastertide we read about Jesus the Lamb in the Book of Revelation and we approached the Lamb from that perspective. Today we heard the only time in the gospels where Jesus is called the Lamb of God. Scholars think that the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation were written about the same time so I think we can assume that “Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” was an important theme in the church around Greece and Turkey sometime between the years 90 and 100 CE.

But what does it mean to us today?

I know from our conversations that most of us experience God as primarily loving, rather than judgmental or violent, and that certainly goes along with Jesus’ teaching and with the epistles of John which boldly declare, God is Love.

Yet the idea of Jesus dying for our sins is often interpreted in a way which seems less than loving on God’s part. We have been told that the wages of sin is death and that as a result of our sin, God requires the death penalty. Jesus’ death on the cross paid our penalty and so we get to have eternal life. Thus Jesus took away the sins of the world.

I am not alone in having difficulty reconciling a loving God with the God who requires death as a penalty for sin, even though everyone of us is prone to sin. Surely a loving God would find another way to reconcile us to Godself without anyone having to be killed. Remember the story of Abraham taking Isaac up a mountain to offer a sacrifice? Abraham thought he would need to kill Isaac, but instead God provided a ram who was caught in the thicket. If God can provide Abraham with a sacrificial ram on the top of a mountain, surely God can work out a way not to kill his own Son!

I am hoping that during Lent we can go more deeply into the ways that Christians have understood the work of Christ on the cross. So you might consider this discussion today to be a preview of a coming attraction!

Let us assume for now that God is Love, and that consequently God is not violent and does not condone or demand child sacrifice. How then are we to understand “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”? Isn’t the lamb led to the slaughter, the one who is to be sacrificed, killed to appease God?

What if we rephrase it as “God’s Lamb who takes away the sin of the world”? That changes things for me. In every situation of sacrifice in ancient religions, it is humanity who provides the animals for the sacrifice. The effect of the sacrifice may be to appease a god or to thank a god or even to be reconciled with a god, but in every case it is the humans who bring the sacrifice. The sacrifice is usually a blood-sacrifice in that someone living is killed and their blood released, then the meat is cooked and eaten by the gods involved and by their priests and sometimes by everyone. Often it is the blood – the life of the creature - which is seen as the powerful agent of healing.

This gift of a creature to a god is totally turned around in our Eucharist. Certainly it is the humans of the altar guild who faithfully bring the bread and the wine, but in some way, it becomes for us the Body and Blood of Jesus, God’s Lamb. In this ritual of reconciliation, of becoming more and more God, it is God who provides the real, spiritual food. Let me repeat that. It is God who provides the real, Spiritual food.

So this is unlike anything that went before. God provides the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, not us.

Now listen up because this is a bit of mind-bender.  Jesus did not die on the cross because God is violent but because we are. Jesus did not die because God required a sacrifice. Jesus did not die because it was the only way to reconcile us to God. Jesus did not die to get rid of our sin, but because of our sin. It was human violence, human anger which led Jesus the Christ to his death. And God allowed it to happen. God allowed Jesus to become the sacrifice for the sacred meal, for our reconciliation and ultimately the reconciliation of all Creation to God.

Yesterday on NPR I heard an interview with a woman who has been part of the protests in Iran. She said, “We are empty-handed, standing in front of the bullets.” That made me cry. And I wondered if I would have the courage to protest non-violently, there or even in Minnesota today.

Yet that’s what Jesus did. He stood empty handed in front of the bullets of hatred and the pain of the nails. He took the worst that humankind could do in its violence and allowed himself to be killed.

But that wasn’t the end.

And that is why we are here today. It wasn’t the end because God brought Jesus back from death and the grave. And we are here today because Jesus shows us that God takes the worst of our violence and comes back up loving us.

As disciples of Jesus, we too are called to live non-violently.  We are called to live “empty-handed, standing in front of the bullets.” Because Jesus did not retaliate and Jesus told us to pray for our enemies. And that transforms the world, soul by soul, from one based on violence to one based on love.

This was the genius of the civil rights movement, that they chose to follow the path of Jesus, to love those opposing them and to stand empty-handed in front of the bullets. And we know that many, including Martin Luther King Jr. were killed. We also know that their work is not complete. We do not yet live in a world where skin color doesn’t matter.

In this country, Black men are imprisoned at six times the rate of white men, and Black women twice as often. And Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, at least 31 states have passed 115 restrictive voting laws. 

The work of the Civil Rights movement is not yet complete, and neither is the work of the Lamb of God. Today as we gather at the table for eucharist, let us continue the work of the Lamb as we accept the free gift of God, reconciliation and healing through the life of God’s Lamb, not just for comfort but also for strength. Strength to stand empty-handed in front of the bullets.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 

Matthew 3:13-17
 
Ten years ago, in 2016, I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of about 20 Episcopalians led by monks of the Society of St John the Evangelist, which is a monastery in Cambridge Massachusetts. It was the most amazing and inspiring trip I have ever made. Every day I was filled with awe as we entered the stories from the gospel. We walked on the field where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount, we sat at the well where he shared water with the Samaritan woman, we went on a little replica of the boat on at the Sea of Galilee, and we celebrated the Holy Eucharist on the shore of the Jordan River.
 
At the Jordan, the location of today’s gospel, I lifted up my long black habit and waded into the river and looked up into the sky imagining the Dove coming down and the words we just heard, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” I longed to stay there all day, maybe lay down and let that water wash over me. But all too soon our leader called us back on the bus.
 
The image of the Dove as the Holy Spirit is my favorite Christian symbol. In fact, I had it tattooed on my arm on my 60th birthday. The dove is also the bird that Noah sends out from the arc to see if there is land yet. The first time it comes back with nothing but the second time the dove has an olive branch in its beak letting Noah know that that indeed the land is back and a new life can begin.
 
In today’s gospel the dove is the Spirit descending from God to his Son.  The symbol of the new era and the public endorsing of who Jesus is.
 
Jesus walks humbly into the water with others who have come to have his cousin, John the Baptist, renew them in the Jordan River. I wonder, does Jesus need the affirmation of his Father – to hear that his Father is proud of him to begin the work that is ahead? Isn’t it what all humans long for – to hear their father say these empowering words, words that express pride in their child?
 
Many of us, including me, did not receive encouraging words from our earthly fathers. I now know that my father loved me, but he didn’t know how to say it or express it. He was emotionally absent and never spoke to his daughters about anything of consequence. I never once heard the words “I love you.”  My sisters and I have adapted to the lack of fathering in different ways, but we recognize that we never once felt that he was proud of us.
 
Having been a prison chaplain for 18 years I know that most men and women behind bars have what we call the father wound. They did not have a father who told them they were special or proud of them. For most of us, with this deficiency we didn’t develop a sense of self-worth which is so critical in navigating life in a successful way.
 
Not knowing that you are worthy is a deep wound that can drive some to addiction or reckless behavior. It seems to be passed down generationally. If the father doesn’t value himself, he is not likely to show his appreciation for others, especially his children and so on it goes.
 
I have witnessed many incarcerated men and women turn to God to find the Fatherly love they long for. It becomes God who believes in them and inspires them to live a moral and upstanding life. They seek to live lives pleasing their heavenly father. I have seen countless men and women transform themselves and this ripple of goodness infects others including their families. Some find that their growing faith and longing to live right is challenging for their families of origin. But over time their sincerity and higher vibration elevate everyone they encounter.
 
I have also found that anyone who has been exposed to childhood trauma needs more than religion. The wounds do not magically disappear with improved behavior and attendance at church. Brave excavation of past experiences is required to live the best version of ourselves, otherwise we continue to be triggered by the past and to cause harm even when we don’t intend to.
 
I have taken this walk of healing, and it is now the work God has called me to. I facilitate a 16-week program in the California Men’s Colony prison that helps the men develop compassion for what they endured in their traumatic childhoods and an understanding of the impact it has had on their bad choices. As we say, “hurt people hurt people.” And believe me no one is as damaged by life as the men and women who live behind bars. This deep dive into the past is coupled with an honest accountability for harm caused.  This is the call to repentance that John the Baptist insists on as he offers a new life to his flock.  It isn’t easy to look back but it brings about healing and even freedom. The goal is to become healed people who heal people.
 
Friends, these are very difficult times we are living in. The teachings of Jesus to care for the least is no longer what many of our Christians siblings promote, rather the opposite, there is an actual attack on empathy.  And yet it is all too easy to vilify others. It is tempting to cast players into the roles of good people and bad people. I encourage you to remember that hurt people hurt people. I am not saying that we don’t stand up to the domination systems just as Jesus did in his time.
 
How do we navigate such times as these?  
 
I think we must be honest with ourselves. Are you becoming numb? Do you feel overwhelmed and burned out? Do you have compassion fatigue? Do you feel furious? Do you feel inadequate, like nothing you do can really help? Or are you feeling enlivened by seeking justice, making calls and protesting with signs? Whatever you might be feeling I want to suggest you double down on prayer and love of God.  Now more than ever having a robust prayer life, and a life centered on the Divine is crucial.
 
Jesus invites us to be the family of God. We are all baptized into the Beloved community. We need to really take in that we are Beloved of God just as we are at this very moment. We can open our hearts to own this truth and live in an ever more life-giving union with Divine Love.  We can metaphorically stand in the Jordan River and receive God’s Spirit of love and imagine hearing the words, “In you I am well pleased.”  And from this truth we can find the strength and courage for a challenging time.
 
The Reverend Sister Greta

Today we celebrate Epiphany – we are a couple of days early since the feast day of Epiphany is on Tuesday. Epiphany is the season of revelation – the time when we think about how Jesus was and is revealed to be the Word, the Son of God, the True Light, and we start that process today with the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles in the form of the wise men from the East.

My good friend Ann, who is our musician this morning, thank you Ann, asked me the other day what I would be preaching about and I said that although its commonplace for us today, the inclusion of Gentiles in the revelation of God must have been mind-blowing for the Jews of the time.

And that’s very true – that the light of Christ is not just for the physical descendants of Abraham but for all people – is astonishing. But if we go there today we miss something rather darker and yet just as important.

You know that this year we are reading from Matthew’s gospel which is the only gospel that talks about the wise men. It tells us that they defied Herod by not returning to Jerusalem but “left for their own country by another road.” And - we skip this bit in our Sunday readings – Herod is not pleased, to put it mildly. Herod is so threatened by this baby that he sends his soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all the male children of two years or under.

But he misses Jesus, because Joseph has a dream in which God tells him, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then, we are told, Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. 

If we focus on the coming of the light to the Gentiles, we miss this important backstory of murder and flight, of fear and migration.

If this were a movie we might be tempted to call it “The Clash of the Kings” Except it isn’t really a clash – Herod is lashing out and Jesus is taken away.

Perhaps “The Babe against the Tyrant King” or “A Tale of Two Kingdoms” might be better titles. Over this next year we will hear Matthew talking a lot about the kingdom of heaven. It’s a phrase which appears over 30 times in this gospel but not at all in the other three. And in this story about Herod’s anger, he’s setting up the context, beginning to develop the theme of the contrast between the kingdom of human empire grounded in violence, and the kingdom of heaven which is grounded in love.

They are quite different. The politics and economics of human empire depend on division and inequality. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, those who can, bullying those who can’t. In contrast God’s politics and economics – the kingdom of heaven – is about healing all the divisions that keep us in conflict. It is about establishing true justice with equity for all God’s children and God’s creatures, indeed it is about the flourishing of all creation. It is about mutual service among equals, never about oppression of the weak by the strong.

That’s why the Son of God didn’t just appear on earth, but was born as a human baby with all the same dependence on his parents for food, hygiene, safety and love as any other baby. That’s why he was born in a stable. Because God identifies with, we can even say he has a preference for, those who are weak, those who are outcast, those who are poor, those who are running for their lives. If God were to incarnate today we might find him in Gaza or Sudan or Somalia or Venezuela or in a displaced persons camp.

It is just so counter-intuitive that the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, would be born not in New York or Geneva but among the poorest of the poor, the least powerful in a world where power is worshiped.

But Jesus broke the mold. Jesus offers an entirely new way of being human. That is the king the wise ones came to see and to worship – a king whose kingdom is not of this world, a king who does not fight but whose power is in non-violence, in humility and patience. Whose people dream dreams and hear the Spirit leading them.

This is our calling, people of God, followers of Jesus.

We are called to be an entirely different kind of human. We are called to cultivate peace and humility in our hearts and our lives. We are called to forgive our neighbors, our enemies, and yes ourselves as well. We are called to respond to events we can scarcely take in with compassion not only for the victims but also for the perpetrators.

And that is why we are here today. We are not here just to see our friends, though that is a joy; we are not here just to sing, though that is good for our brains and our immune systems; we are not here just because people who go to church live longer!

We are here to be transformed. We are here to learn how to follow Jesus. We are here to be sustained in our journey by the presence of God in this place, in one another and in the eucharist. And we are here to pray.

Prayer is our superpower. Prayer is what lets the light in. Prayer is how we align ourselves with Spirit and how we invite Spirit into our hearts and into our world and into Congress and the White House and the Pentagon. And that is powerful. So powerful.

The wise men, the Magi, followed the star which led them to Jesus. We don’t need a star, we can come directly to the throne of God, to the feet of the one who is both our big brother and our Savior. And there we can ask for grace, which is always freely given. Grace to love where we have never dared love before.

Because that is who our God is. Our God is light and our God is love and our God shows us in Jesus an entirely new way to be human. And by deep, gentle, humble loving we become the light of the world. God moving in us and through us can do more than we have ever imagined possible.
Alleluia!

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall