Like Cures Like

At the beginning of the Book of Numbers, the children of Israel are in Sinai, having emerged safely from Egypt and Pharaoh’s cruel grasp via the exodus. Their journey in Numbers takes them through an arduous forty years of wandering as they move towards the Promised Land.

We can understand why the children of Israel became impatient. They had recently been through quite an ordeal as they escaped the clutches of a tyrant. Now, they simply wanted to be home.

And so, as usually happens when a group of people are journeying together, they become tired and hungry, and they grumble. The past was so much better, wasn’t it? How easily we forget about our former frustrations when we emerge into new territory.

There is not enough water to drink, but back in Egypt, there was at least water. The food before we left was tasty, but now we can find nothing to eat. Moses, as the fearless leader, takes the brunt of these grumblings.

Can’t you just hear what they say to him? It could even be a page taken out of the book of parish life in so many places. “Well, people are saying that the food we used to have at coffee hour was so much better.” “When we used to do things that way, everyone was happier.”

The story of God’s children trudging through the wilderness for forty years speaks to us as well in the wilderness of a pandemic. Many haven’t even made it a full year of wearing a mask before grumbling that their glasses are fogging up and they’re uncomfortable. The human condition is prone to complain, especially when we become impatient for an immediate result to satisfy our needs or provide a quick fix for our quandaries.

But all those times when God’s children mumbled with discontent, and all those times when we do as well, God provides, even if it’s not as we expect, want, or predict. This is the dilemma of human trust. Do we really believe that God will provide? But God sent quails in the desert, and made water appear for his children making their way to the Promised Land. And in a most striking way of countering snakebites, God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, and tell anyone who had been bitten by a snake to look upon it. And miraculously, the person was healed.

Isn’t it a bit uncomfortable when we hear God’s healing power equated with magic? It seems random and beyond our reach. It seems, quite frankly, false.

The bronze serpent cure has been described as a form of homeopathic healing.[1] The source of the affliction—the serpent—was the visualized source of healing. Curious indeed.

And it is curious indeed that John the Evangelist incorporates the image of the bronze serpent in close proximity to some of the most beloved verses in the entire Bible. If you are puzzled by the juxtaposition of the allusion to the bronze serpent from Numbers and the image of the Son of Man being lifted up, you are not alone. And yet, if we continue further with this unusual juxtaposition, we might have something to learn about salvation.

Let’s return to the explanation of the bronze serpent in Numbers as a homeopathic treatment of illness. This alternative form of medicine rests on the principle of “like cures like.” In other words, something that causes illness to someone who is healthy can also be a source of healing in that person. The cause of the illness becomes the means of a cure.

The children of Israel who suffered from snakebites looked on the bronze serpent, which wasn’t even a real serpent, and they were healed and survived. Magical homeopathy, you might say. What does this have to do with the Son of Man? Our salvation is bound up with Jesus being lifted up on a cross. The cross is the sign that rises above the sin and tragedy of the world to point to our healing in Christ. But is something else happening here? Are we not called to look upon the agony of the cross, with the epitome of self-emptying and sacrifice, as precisely the thing that does heal us?

Many of us also probably know how John’s words have been so vastly misinterpreted over the years. Generations of Christians have hitched God’s love conditionally to a mechanical affirmation of belief. God’s love has been twisted into a rescue operation that hinges on a one-time personal declaration of faith. We are seen as needing to be saved out of something rather than brought into something.

And what this engenders is something little more than magical thinking.[2] Similar to looking on a bronze serpent as a means of saving one’s life, it is now common to call upon Jesus’ name as a magical incantation. We are told by some that all we need to do is feel a certain warmth in our heart, make a simple profession of faith, and we are fixed forever.

The gift of eternal life available to the entire world is then reduced to a formula. And it is a formula that has been used to great harm, to keep people out rather than welcome them in.

If belief in God and in the saving works of Christ is reduced to a mere homeopathic remedy, akin to looking at a bronze serpent, it is possible that we will lose the gravity of what salvation really is.

Suppose, though, that the homeopathic analogy does have some relevance for us, minus the magic. If, indeed, like cures like, there is some theological truth to John’s use of the image. It is true that our salvation is accomplished in Christ as the one who took on the human condition. Only salvation by one who is fully human can heal us. St. Gregory Nazianzen told us that when he said that what has not been assumed cannot be redeemed. Precisely because of Jesus’ sinless humanity, he is able to heal us.

And if like cures like, then there’s something else to it as well. We look upon the cross and see our own call to take up the cross to be Jesus’ disciple. We see the need for humility and self-emptying. We see that the Son of Man lifted high upon a cross is far more than a magical cure for our brokenness. It is far more than a vaccine against sin. It requires something of us.

Because if like cures like, and we look at the cross, we find that the way of the cross becomes the means of healing. It is only when we sacrifice our own desires and self-serving interests that we find salvation. It is only when we die to self that we gain eternal life.

This is where we come face to face with the difficulty of the Christian journey. Like our spiritual forebears in the throes of forty years of wilderness wanderings, we long, perhaps, for the quick cure. We want the bronze serpent to gaze upon and heal us with no effort on our part. We yearn for that precise moment when Jesus rescues us from the sinful human condition and ushers us into a place of safety and security.

But if we gaze upon the cross, we know that it is not so easy and that it is more complicated than we might want to think. There is no cheap grace. Accepting the gift of salvation requires us to be transformed. If like cures like, then the cross shows us who we are to become.

Even when we accept the claim of the cross, we will continue to fall short. There is no pill to be taken for our salvation, because our own personal healing and salvation is not the full story. It is about something much more. This cross, when held before our eyes, is about nothing less than the healing of the entire world.

The individual bronze serpents that we long to instantly heal us can so easily become weapons to condemn others and beat them into submission and repentance. The cross, too, can become a way of intimidating others into being rescued by Jesus.

But if we gaze long and hard at the cross, and the Son of Man hanging high upon it above the horrors of the world, we will perceive that it is precisely the opposite. Only what has been brought down can be lifted up. We must die to our old selves to rise again to new ones. The cross requires that we change.

And the best part is that when we get to the point of change, we realize that we are not alone. We find ourselves among billions of people living the human condition, also in need of repentance. We are one of many who experience the suffering that is part of the fabric of this earthly life. But when we are brought down by the pain and vicissitudes of human existence, we can be lifted up by the cross. And we discover that this is precisely how God brings salvation and life to the world.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 14, 2021

[1] Commentary by Terrence E. Fretheim, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 221.

[2] See Samuel Cruz. Commentary on John 3:14-21, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-314-21-4

A Most Unusual Sign

A couple of years ago, I was involved with a ministry that was being established in an abandoned church in Philadelphia. The church, which had a rich history, had been closed some years before, and the ministry of which I was a leader was seeking a home. We were also hoping that the ministry would bring life to an abandoned church.

I will never forget my first venture into the church. It was in shambles. I had half expected to find disarray, but I was cut to the heart when I entered the sacristy. It looked like it had been ransacked. The drawers that formerly held vestments had been opened and left bereft of their contents. The drawers were still hanging out from their cabinets. Debris from a crumbling ceiling was all over the floor. I walked gingerly on portions of the floor, wondering if the floorboards would hold my weight. I was both angry and sad. This space, which was meant to be a holy place of preparation for Mass, was a disaster zone.

Nearly a year later, as our ministry was getting off the ground and we were preparing for an opening event, I donned a face mask, months before a pandemic was in our sight. I wheeled a vacuum cleaner into the sacristy and began a painstaking process of cleaning it up. I swept. I vacuumed. I closed opened drawers. I tidied. I couldn’t bear the thought of this holy place sitting in such chaos. I considered it an act of prayer.

But perhaps most poignant about this abandoned church was that it was left hanging in the lurch. It had been stripped of its furnishings. Its sacristy drawers had been divested of their vestments. But no one even bothered to close the drawers before they left the building. It was heartbreaking.

We are accustomed to a certain amount of disorder when we read Holy Scripture. From disordered nothingness, God created everything that is. When creation moved from order to disorder, God renewed it once again. When the human race had gone off the rails, God sent a flood to destroy all but a remnant and then re-created. When God’s people went astray into anarchy, God sent them judges to bring back order. He then permitted them to have kings to aid the effort. When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by foreign nations, God nevertheless sent the Israelites out of exile and back to Jerusalem to rebuild. The pattern is clear: there is a natural tendency to fall into disarray, but God gives order.

What was so disturbing to me about the abandoned church was that it was caught in the middle. Stranded in time between vibrancy and a possible future, it had never moved past its closing. The sacristy had been left in chaos, but nothing had been rebuilt.

Why should this make us uncomfortable? Are we okay with disorder and destruction, to a certain extent, if order and re-creation quickly follow? Perhaps we are less comfortable when God seems to be the agent of chaos or destruction.

The story of Noah and the flood is, in fact, such a story when it starts out. We often focus on the animals, Noah’s family safe on the ark, and the renewed creation after the flood. But what about those who perished? We know the Jerusalem Temple was ultimately rebuilt after the exile, but what about those invading armies seen as agents of God sent to wreak havoc on a people gone astray?

And what about Jesus, the Son of God, entering the holiest place in Jerusalem and overturning tables? Do we not wince a bit at the Prince of Peace overturning tables, emptying the moneychangers’ coffers onto the floor, and wielding a handmade whip in a sacred place? This is a side of Jesus that is bound to make any of us uncomfortable. The response is often to let Jesus’ zeal inspire us to prophetic ministry, where we lust after the overturning of the tables of injustice among us. We use it to justify righteous anger, claiming the example of Jesus himself.

And yet it might be that Jesus’ fiery behavior on the cusp of the Passover hits too close to home because his actions pierce into our own lives. Those confronted by Jesus’ actions in the Temple that day demanded a sign of Jesus. “Jesus, if you are going to wreak havoc in this holiest of places, you better have a good reason for it. Prove it. Show us a sign.”

Right before this point in John’s Gospel, Jesus has already shown his first sign. He has turned water into wine at Cana. Could it be that Jesus has in fact just given a second unusual sign by overturning tables in the Temple?

John has begun showing us a Jesus who is the living Sign of God’s visible presence. Jesus himself is the Word made flesh, Truth revealed in the world. And now this human Sign has just offered a sign that will make anyone squirm just a bit. He has caused a certain amount of destruction in the Temple in a fit of rage. He has left a sacred space in disarray.

But a sign always points to something. Jesus shows signs to make visible who he is and what he is bringing into the world. So, how has his act of violence in the Temple been a sign?

Jesus offers us a clue. As he told those in the Temple that day, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus knew that his life was a sign of something that people would only understand after his resurrection. His life, with the fullness of God’s love, truth, and peace, was unable to be fully held by the world. A world distorted into its own image of hate and enmity would offer a stone wall to the convicting presence of the Son of God. Without even intending it, the Son of God’s very life wreaked havoc on the harmful bent of the world. And when God is finished with such a world, it will be left in shambles.

What do we do with this uncomfortable truth? How do we marry a God of peace with disorder and destruction? What do we do when God enters our lives, disrupts them, and we are left in shambles?

When we let him in, Jesus enters our hearts, those temples of the Holy Spirit, and begins to clean house. Old furniture is thrown out. The worn chairs in which we have become ensconced in our sloth are tossed out, and we are left standing in the room with nowhere to rest. The dirt and debris that have been disturbed when God comes in to clean are enough to make anyone cough. The demons that we have entertained and made our false gods are chased out by Jesus’s whip. And we are left alone, not knowing where to go.

This is so often where we get stuck. Indeed, we have been stuck since before the house cleaning ever began. Like the moneychangers in the Temple, we have been seated at our comfortable tables, engaging in the commerce of the world, without ever evaluating whether it is even ethical or giving life. Jesus’ whip then drives us out of our comfort zones, but we seem to have no roadmap.

What we see is a scene not unlike that church sacristy I encountered. Our lives have been ransacked. Drawers are left opened. But the old things are not there. And nothing new has replaced them.

Or at least this is how we think things are. If we stopped with the scene from John, chapter 2, we would miss the whole story. We would miss the fact that God does not leave things there.

This is what Jesus is saying as a reflection on his most unusual of signs. When those in the Temple demand a justification for his reckless behavior, Jesus offers a mysterious explanation that only makes sense after his resurrection from the dead. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The story is just beginning. It has not yet ended.

Can we remember the pattern that is all over the pages of Holy Scripture? Disorder, then order. Disintegration, then a new creation. Death then life. When we are caught in the middle, between destruction and rebuilding, and death and life, it is hard to see the future ahead. But Jesus gives us a sign that this is where God is leading us.

In the Temple, amid squawking birds fleeing for their lives and neighing cattle, amid tables left in splinters and moneychangers running out of the door, the story is not yet finished. It is only beginning. It will not make sense until the third day and the empty tomb.

God enters our lives, if we let him in. God finds our inner state to be one of stasis. God finds us digging our heels into our old ways, when the old ways no longer work. God finds cold, hard hearts of stone, and he knows that the only way to give us new hearts is to break the old ones down.

But rest assured with this good news: God will not leave the sacristies of our hearts in permanent disarray. God will not leave the vestment drawers yanked out, full of dust and dirt, and God will not leave the room without sweeping the floor and closing the drawers again. God will not leave before kissing our aging heads in love.

God will take the shambles of our lives and piece them back together again. He will heal our broken bones. And when our bodies have been ravaged by death, mark my words: God will raise them up again.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday in Lent
March 7, 2021

Unfinished Business

My eighth-grade American history teacher was determined not to give up on me. I wasn’t a bad student or poorly behaved. My teacher did not need to summon great patience to keep me in line or motivate me to do my work. My teacher chose not to give up on me because I was painfully shy.

Each day I entered his classroom, where he stood at the door as gatekeeper while also monitoring the sometimes-unruly hallways. And each day, my teacher insisted that, before I entered the room, I was to engage in some kind of small talk with him. It could be about the weather or a topic we were studying in class. But the deal was that it had to be more than a simple hello.

As I recall, I was more than a little irritated with this demand. I had no say in the matter, really. My teacher would be giving me a grade in the class and was my elder, and so I had little choice but to acquiesce to his request that I come out of my shell just a little bit.

At the time, my teacher’s actions seemed a bit over the line, even perhaps cruel. But in hindsight, I see that his actions were intended to help me. My teacher rightfully discerned that I had difficulty speaking freely with others, especially authority figures or strangers. I also suspect that he saw something in me that he felt could eventually benefit from being less reticent.

My teacher was determined not to give up on me, as much as I struggled to come up with small talk that wasn’t merely about the weather—which was always the same in southeast Texas, hot and humid.

I’m especially grateful for my teacher’s foresight, especially since I have been called to ministry where it’s important to speak comfortably and freely with all manner of people and inhabit pulpits like this one. My teacher could never have known how my life would end up. But I suspect he saw that there was some seed of potential that he might play a small part in shaping. He intervened in my life when I didn’t ask for it or want it. He was never finished with helping me live into a future that perhaps he alone could see.

Who was that person in your life, the one who never gave up on you? Who was the person who was never finished trying to help you or make you a better you? Or when was the last time that someone did give up on you? When was the last time that someone threw in the towel and made it abundantly clear that they were finished with you? And did you ever perceive that the person who was finished with you was God? Worn down by suffering or unanswered prayers, have you ever sensed that God has given up or been too busy to make time for you?

I wonder if Abraham, at age ninety-nine, felt that God was finished with him and Sarah. When God chose to appear to Abraham at his ripe old age, he and Sarah had certainly been through a lot with God. At age seventy-five, God appeared to Abraham and summoned him to a distant land, and Abraham and Sarah, along with their family, got up and went—no small feat. They even fled to Egypt to avoid a famine, all because God had them leave their homeland in the first place. Abraham and Sarah stuck with God.

And although God had already promised Abraham and Sarah a legitimate heir, at age eight-six, Abraham had come to doubt whether this would ever happen. At Sarah’s bidding, he took Sarah’s slave girl, Hagar, and with her had a child, Ishmael. I suppose that Abraham thought that God had reneged on his promise of an heir or was finished with him. So, he and Sarah took matters into their own hands.

But God was not yet finished with them. Full of gray hair, aching limbs, and a full life lived in faithfulness to God’s initial calling, Abraham and Sarah had settled in for their retirement years. Unbidden, God chose to appear once again to Abraham and announce that he and Sarah would have a son. And not only that. Abraham and Sarah would be the progenitors of a fruitful lineage, through which God would establish his covenant.

To mark this new beginning, even at age ninety-nine, God gave Abraham and Sarah new names. This renaming signaled God’s intention of a prosperous future for Abraham’s progeny. The very names God gave them manifested God’s intentions for Abraham and Sarah. Abram, or “exalted ancestor” morphed into Abraham, or “ancestor of a multitude.” Sarah would be a “princess” of kings and influential people. Abraham’s name change showed that God did not see Abraham as a moribund relic of the past but as the beginning of a new line of people blessed by God. Abraham’s new name was not backwards looking but positioned towards the future. Like God’s own Name, that would be revealed to Moses, Abraham’s new name was dynamic, bearing the seeds of generations to come who would be called to serve the Lord.

It is often surprising when God chooses to appear and bless us. Sometimes unbidden, perhaps especially in those moments when we believe God is finished with us, God comes into our lives and announces a new future for us. For some, God was seen to have given up a long time ago. Years of tragedy and perceived abandonment lead some to give up on God when he has never really given up on them.

For others, a life of prosperity and immense blessing may mistakenly cultivate a sense that God is finished because everything is perfect with life. God has done his good work in us, we have responded, all is taken care of, and we are set for our eternal reward. God is finished, and so are we.

Sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, many go their own ways, convinced that the deed is done, their fire insurance received, and the journey is ended. But God’s relationship with Abraham and Sarah reminds us that the work is only beginning when we are washed in the waters of baptism.

God knows, much better than we usually do, that we will wander. We will go astray, sometimes stubbornly and deliberately, sometimes inadvertently. Years might be spent in the wilderness, experiencing loneliness and despair. But God does not leave. Always, always, God noticeably enters our lives and announces a new future for us.

It is understandable why some are convinced that God is finished with them. They have either done all the good they think they can do, or they feel too tired and too old to try anything new. Some settle in for the long, slow decline. We are told that the Church is fighting futilely against a secular age, and so we may as well throw in the towel and hand it over to God. Parishes reduced to crumbles by conflict and strife imagine that the doors will soon close forever. God is finished, and we cannot change its course.

Like Abraham at eight-six, when we perceive that God is finished with us, we might still recall his promises of old. We sense that God has something good in store for us, but God seems to be seriously procrastinating. We take matters into our own hands to help God along. But look what happened to Abraham and Sarah. Ishmael aside, God stepped in, belatedly and unbidden, and announced that he had a different future in store for them.

It is not different for us. We know that God has not given up on us and is not finished with us because God was not finished with Abraham. God told Abraham that he would make an everlasting covenant with him, marked by the sign of circumcision. Generations and generations to follow would be a part of this gesture of God’s blessing. Precisely when we are too tired and burned out and have given up hope is the time to recall the seal of our baptism and to remember that God is never finished with us.

There will be times when we will laugh like Abraham and Sarah. God, what are you doing with this tired, old body? God, how can this small parish with financial challenges ever get back on its feet again? And we laugh sometimes to avoid the responsibility that we know God is laying on our shoulders.

But God is not offended. God hears our laugh and understands that in our human frailty, it is simply too difficult to maintain our trust in him. We too often measure God by human standards. One too many acts of betrayal or human neglect are projected onto God.

God, though, is never finished with us. God never gives up on us. Time and again, God has appeared unbidden into the story of humanity and given us new names when we have become too ensconced in the malaise of our old ones. God always has a new future in store for us. The story is never finished.

You may not remember when the waters of baptism were poured on your head. Or perhaps you have not yet had that experience. But in those waters, God reminds you of your past and tells you about your future. God seals your place in that great lineage of people sired by Abraham at the ripe old age of ninety-nine. God gently accepts your laughter at his intervention in your life and changes your name anyway.

God has never given up on you. God is not finished with you. God is always reminding you that he has a glorious future for you.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Second Sunday in Lent
February 28, 2021

Life in the Wilderness

On July 30, 2020, the Mars rover Perseverance was propelled into space via an Atlas V launch vehicle. Perseverance soon began making its way to the Red Planet, and this past Thursday, landed on Mars at 3:55 p.m. Eastern Time. When Perseverance was launched back in July, it was not assured that the rover would ever make it to the surface of Mars. It was a harrowing final seven minutes on Thursday as Perseverance entered the atmosphere of Mars and descended to the planet’s surface, while mission control waited for news of an arrival or a disaster. Although there have been other successful missions to and landings on Mars, Perseverance is the first vehicle equipped to assess whether life has ever existed on Mars.

This rover has been sent into a wilderness land. Perseverance and its companion helicopter Ingenuity will venture into a strange place with a difficult terrain, and extreme weather conditions. The space vehicles that are now on Mars are equipped to withstand bitterly cold temperatures and conditions unlike anything on Earth. Perseverance and Ingenuity will trek into lonely territory where no life appears to exist, guided only by a space center some 128 million miles away.

Propelled from the hospitable conditions of Earth into a wild, foreign land, this Mars mission is in search of life in a place that seems to have none. And the question remains whether this wilderness will ever be able to sustain human missions. But life can blossom in the most unlikely of places, even in the wilderness.

Journeys into the wilderness, whatever they may be, are not for the faint of heart. Most people try to avoid them. We have been told that the wilderness is a dangerous place. No one wants to be stranded in a wild place, left out in the cold or heat with no provisions. We all know how such stories usually end. We can only imagine the intensity of Jesus’ wilderness experience, forty days and nights in a barren place, where water is hard to come by and where wild beasts prowl, looking for prey.

The wilderness we might envision is one of a dark forest with impenetrable vegetation and strange animals crying in the night. One can easily become lost in such places. But the wilderness of Jesus was the Judean desert. This sandy, dry, vast stretch of land east of Jerusalem is indeed a dangerous place. Water is hard to come by. The weather is harsh. It can be bitterly cold at night and scorching hot by day.

This wilderness is also terrifying because of its loneliness. You might travel for days without encountering a living thing, except for the wild beasts and tenacious plants.

But it’s the silence of the wilderness that is perhaps the most intimidating of all. When one is thrust into the wilderness like Jesus, one is alone with one’s thoughts, the wild beasts, and the demons.

It is a strange sequence of events that lands Jesus in the Judean desert. And with Mark’s fast-paced storytelling, it’s even more disorienting. Jesus suddenly appears on the scene in the first chapter, miles from his hometown of Nazareth, and he is baptized by John. In this moment, the heavens part—as the Temple veil will be rent at his death—and the Spirit descends on him like a dove. God affirms Jesus’ exalted status as his Beloved Son.

A strange twist emerges when the same Spirit that descends on Jesus at his baptism soon propels him into the wilderness, where he spends forty days and is tempted by Satan. Mark gives us few details, but we know it must have been an agonizing time.

Why does the same Spirit who rests on Jesus at his baptism also send him into the wilderness, where he is abandoned to wild beasts and the presence of evil? Mark makes no explicit causal connection between the Spirit sending him out into the desert and the temptations that follow. But in reading this story, one almost feels like God is casting his Beloved Son into the wilderness in order to be tempted.

We are so used to assuming that wilderness experiences are the result of our own making. We are either not well-prepared, or we are being punished. We think that if we are abandoned to wild beasts and demons, we have done something to deserve it. Or we imagine that God is testing us and deliberately building up our stamina so that we can withstand temptation and grow closer to him. No one wants to be in the wilderness by choice. It is a difficult place.

We have been journeying through a wilderness over the past year. Countless times, I have heard people compare the pandemic to a wilderness experience. And I suppose that it is, to a certain extent. Some make easy correlations between the devastation of a deadly virus and God’s intentions to test humankind.

But I wonder if something deeper is going on. Being in the wilderness can be a sign that we are entering more fully into holiness. It is no coincidence that Jesus’ wilderness sojourn immediately follows his anointing as God’s Beloved Son. Could it be that the wilderness is precisely the place where God is doing his most holy work with us? Could the wilderness be the place where we are called to find life?

When we are propelled into a wilderness, we usually try to escape as soon as we can. No good can come from a time in the wilderness. It can end only in death or in a bare escape back to civilization.

Right now, on Mars, Perseverance and Ingenuity are searching for signs of life. It may not be existing life, but they are looking amid the harsh conditions of a foreign planet for evidence of past life. Sometimes, in the most unlikely places, life can be found. And where it has thrived before, it can possibly thrive again.

When Jesus was propelled into the Judean wilderness for forty days and nights, he found life. He discovered his identity as the Beloved Son of God. He learned, as everyone in the wilderness eventually does, that we cannot live on bread alone. When fasting and confronting temptation, the securities that usually cushion our lives are of no help. The wilderness strips all that away and leaves us either dead through our attachments to the world, or alive and exposed to God.

It is, of course, to the wilderness that the devil goes to find Jesus, because that is the place where Jesus is up to his most holy work. It is only Jesus and God in that dangerous wilderness, other than the wild beasts and demons. We learn from Matthew and Luke, that the only ammunition the Devil could employ against Jesus was precisely what the wilderness ensures that we forsake. The lure of material things, power, and false idols stand out in relief in the wilderness, because it is a lonely, barren, and silent land. But these things cannot be grasped in the desert. They cannot give us comfort in the wilderness.

The wilderness is a wild and foreign place because silence has become anathema. We don’t know how to handle being alone with ourselves, with our haunted thoughts and vulnerable insecurities. We don’t know how to rely solely on God without putting our trust in an overabundance of resources. And so, the devil wants us to believe that the wilderness is a place to be avoided, hence all the temptations.

But God wants us to venture into the desert so that we can lose our lives to find our lives in him. The wilderness is where we will find ourselves drawing closer to God.

 It is possible that Perseverance and Ingenuity will discover evidence of past life on Mars, even in its harsh climate. The name of the Mars rover is apt, because in the most forsaken and desolate of places, nothing short of perseverance will lead to the discovery of life. And it might be that in the most unlikely places, the seeds of life are found hiding under a rock.

So, too, for us, the wilderness is not a place to be feared or avoided. It is a place where we can be changed and where we can find life. When we are alone with our thoughts and our self-obsessions, the wilderness is frightening, because there is nowhere to hide and there is nothing to feed our usual preoccupations.

But we know that it’s not just the wild beasts and the demons who flock to the wilderness experiences of our lives. When God draws us into holy places, the angels are ready to minister to us, for God has defeated the evil powers that feed like lackeys on the clutter of our hearts. If we persevere in the wilderness and overturn a rock or two, we might find the rivers of the water of true life, ready to nourish us so that we’ll never be thirsty again.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The First Sunday in Lent
February 21, 2021

Corrected Vision

When our new livestream equipment was installed in the church last week, one of the final challenges was determining where to mount the camera. After some tinkering, the camera was placed just above the west doors. Once the technicians from the installation company had departed for the day, I finally looked at the computer image of the livestream. And I realized that it was a mirror image of reality.

Everything looked normal until you suddenly noticed that the pulpit was on the right side of the nave, and the lectern on the left, and the same was true for the organ and credence table. It was disorienting. In my quest to figure out why this was so, I examined the camera on the back wall of the church, and I saw that it was upside down. It had been hung upside down in order to allow for a better, less obstructed view of the high altar through the rood screen.

The company installing the equipment, of course, knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that the mirror image showing on the livestream could be altered, and so they knew they could hang the camera upside down to achieve the camera angle they desired. It turned out that with a couple of clicks of the mouse on the computer screen, the image was automatically corrected. When you view the livestream for the first time on Sunday, everything will appear as normal.

Technology has us well trained to expect easy changes when something is wrong. Simply click the mouse or punch a few buttons, and you can often get a desired result. And this is often how we approach God in prayer.

When things are wrong in the world or in our lives, when up is down and down is up, we get on our knees, clasp our hands in a pious posture, and hope that by clicking a button, we can summon what we want. We expect a change, and usually this change is expected of God. If we say our prayers just right, or if we adequately express our repentance, we can change God’s mind. We can wring something from the hands of God.

But Church tradition has historically maintained that God does not change. God’s very nature is unchanging. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, even though the witness of Scripture, especially passages like the one we heard from Joel this evening, suggest that God’s mind is capable of being changed. What are we to make of this?

Joel, like much of the witness of the Old Testament, seems to correlate disaster and God’s judgment for wrongdoing. It’s not clear what the people in Joel have done that is so bad, if indeed they have done anything to deserve the horror of their circumstances. What is clear is that things in the world have gone very wrong.

There has been devastation in the land. Joel looks upon a landscape where crops are withering, water has evaporated, and there is a threat of future disaster, with enemies on the horizon. In some sense, as Joel describes it, all of creation groans in the pains of this barren time.

And Joel is hopeful that these dire circumstances and the possibility of additional disaster in the future can be made right with the click of a button. All the people need to do is return to the Lord. If they will but look to God again, with fasting, weeping, and mourning, God might change his mind.

Joel believes two things: that acts of repentance are efficacious, and that God is, at heart, a merciful God. All it takes is for the people to stop in their tracks, make an about-face, and trust in God’s kindness. But in order to see results, one thing is sure: the people have to change their ways. They must do something.

Joel keenly feels the need to plead with God to change his mind. And he takes this even further. Joel bargains with God to redeem his honor. Joel feels the need to change others’ minds about the nature of God. Joel is concerned about those who do not believe in his God. He is worried that if the people of God appear to have been forsaken, other nations will scoff, “Where is their God?”

Joel employs his reasoning tactic with God. “God, if you will repent and show your mercy, others will see that you do not forsake your own. You will be able to defend your honor and prove your righteousness.” All it takes, Joel seems to suggest, is a click of the button. If the people change their ways, if they plead with God for mercy, God might just do it. God might change his mind, relent, and spare the people.

How often do we come to the altar of God at the beginning of Lent and identify to some degree with Joel? Is there not a part of us that takes time out of a busy work week to get to church or tune in online so that we will obtain something from God? Who knows if God will not change his mind after all, if this Lent, we begin anew? Why not make this Lent the time to let go of some of our resentments? Why not forgive the former friend against whom we’ve harbored a grudge for twenty years? This is the year to clean up our house.

This Lent, we might feel an even more uneasy resonance with the Book of Joel. Joel looked upon his contemporary situation and saw doom and gloom, even systemic ecological disaster. This Lent, we survey the landscape and mourn the uncountable deaths from Covid-19. We see the rapidity of alarming deterioration of the environment. We feel the raw wounds of violence fresh in our national history and know the wounds are still festering. We imagine the anxious uncertainty of our future—of virus mutations and variants, of delayed vaccinations, and of a future yet unrevealed. We sense that a corporate failing of humankind has gotten us to this place, and we wonder exactly where we went wrong. We accept the invitation to a holy Lent because if we press the right buttons by saying the right things and making the right kind of self-denial, we might get God to change his mind after all.

Like Joel, perhaps we even try our hand at bargaining with God. God, do not let your enemies see us forsaken! God, prove that you have not neglected your people and left them helpless against a pandemic! God, show at least some small sign that you care for your children!

How can we not feel a bit defensive for God’s sake, when one natural disaster after another lends ammunition to those who see no reason for God’s very existence? How can we not want to protect God from one more televangelist who claims a link between the latest tragedy and the sins of some segment of the population? Or maybe we are the ones who believe that our sickness is God’s punishment for our own sins.

But there is a refrain that we hear, time and again in Scripture, a refrain that is repeated even when God is portrayed as angry and capable of change. It is the leitmotif that shines throughout the Bible and that makes itself visible in the person of Jesus Christ. And this refrain is that God is merciful and full of compassion. As today’s collect reminds us, God hates nothing he has made. God is not the one who needs to change when we push all the right buttons. We are the ones who need to change.

This is the reason for getting to church on Ash Wednesday. This is the reason for accepting the invitation to a holy Lent. This is the reason for renewing our life of prayer, engaging in self-examination and repentance, and embracing spiritual practices. It is so that we can change, not so we can beg God to change his mind.

We don’t need to defend God’s honor to others. God can take care of himself. God would not be the merciful God that he is if he expected us to grovel in order to win his forgiveness. God calls us to return to him because God knows it’s good for us. And by being good for us, it is in turn good for the whole world.

In God’s gracious providence, the camera can be mounted upside down or right side up, and God can still render the correct image. God knows that. We give ourselves too much credit by assuming that we are responsible for God’s reactions. But when God acts, we are a part of what he does, because God made us and calls us good. God, in the unfathomable mystery of his providence, uses our prayer and actions for the life of the world. And God knows that our prayer and actions will change us, too, so that our view will change. When we come out on the other side of Lent, maybe the images will all be sorted out for us, because by turning to God, our vision has been made right.

As we approach the altar of God this night in full confidence of God’s boundless mercy, we accept an invitation to change. Let us thank God that our inconstancy can be conformed to God’s changelessness. And let us rejoice that in all the instability and change of our world, one thing forever stays the same. God looks upon us, smiles, and welcomes us home. There’s no need to press any buttons. Just turn around and see God waiting for you to come home.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
Ash Wednesday
February 17, 2021

I Will Never Leave You

On a Sunday morning in 1784, a group of black members of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia walked out en masse. The number of black members of the parish had grown, due to the evangelistic endeavors of existing members, such as Absalom Jones and his friend Richard Allen. This disturbed the vestry, and so they decided to segregate the black members in a separate gallery in the church.

But the black members of the church were not going to settle for this. The walkout of Absalom Jones and other black parishioners at St. George’s Church in 1784 eventually led to Absalom Jones being ordained as the first African-American priest in the Episcopal Church. And the rest is history.

Today, one day after Absalom Jones’s name appears in the Episcopal Church’s calendar of feast days, our bishop has asked that parishes in the diocese commemorate Blessed Absalom Jones. After all, this was his diocese, where he served as priest and founder of St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, now in Overbrook in West Philadelphia.

 Try to imagine with me the courage of Absalom Jones and his fellow Christians. Many of them, like Jones, had perhaps bought their freedom from slavery. But as they tried to make their way into the ordinary rank and file of society, even in the North, they found themselves in a liminal place: neither having real rights and yet legally free in some respects.

Imagine their tenacity as they clung to their heartfelt belief in God’s natural disposition towards the oppressed and forsaken. Imagine knowing the very real truth of God’s gracious care of the lowly that is evidenced time and again in holy Scripture, and yet not witnessing its manifestation in the Church. And imagine their heartbreak and sorrow as they had to walk away from their own church to claim their dignity. They stuck with God even when the Church turned its back on them.

Now, examine with me, the witness of the prophet Elijah. Throughout the First Book of Kings, Elijah clung fast to God’s holy word, revealed to him. As a prophet, it is to this word alone that he would cling, no matter the cost. In his prophetic zeal, Elijah faced formidable adversaries as he cried out against Baal. He ran from the dreaded Jezebel and heard God’s still small voice speaking to him in isolation. He raised a widow’s son from the dead, and he was ministered to by angels in his forty-day sojourn to Mount Horeb. And these among other things. But through it all, Elijah knew that he must hold fast to one thing: God’s word of truth.

His successor, the younger Elisha, went from being a farmer to following Elijah. And when we encounter Elisha today, he knows that, even though he has clung to Elijah in pursuit of God’s word, Elijah will soon be taken from him.

Elisha knows this, even though the sons of the prophets twice tell him that Elijah will leave him. Elisha knows that he will soon be bereft of his mentor, but he is more concerned about following Elijah than in beginning to separate himself from him. Elisha clings to Elijah out of zeal for God.

Even Elijah himself encourages Elisha to stay behind as he makes his way successively to Gilgal, Bethel, and then Jericho. But Elisha repeats his mantra of dedication each time: “I will not leave you.”

It might seem that Elisha is clinging in an unhealthy way to Elijah. Elijah is merely a human after all, even if he is a prophet. He will soon be mysteriously taken up by God. Where is Elisha’s sense of self-differentiation? But perhaps it is more complex than Elisha being a fanatical devotee of Elijah. What if Elisha is really sticking with God’s word and God’s voice of justice spoken by the prophets through the ages? Elisha knows that in following Elijah, by never leaving him, he is somehow following God’s truth. And yet, ultimately, he will have to let go of Elijah to follow God.

Elisha may be something of a zealot, but he knows what is proper and good in God’s eyes when he sees it, and he will do anything possible to follow that righteousness. So, too, with Elijah. With Jezebel’s forces hounding him, he ran in fear, but he nevertheless was not afraid to speak the challenging word to godless power.

Elijah and Elisha seem to understand something that not even Jesus’ own disciples would at first understand. In Jesus’ transfiguration before Peter, James, and John, the disciples are seeing a foreshadowing of glory to come. But they do not yet see that the road to glory is paved with suffering.

The disciples instinctively want to preserve glory in amber. But their suggestion to create three booths is not heeded. And Jesus forbids them from telling anyone what they have seen. Jesus knows that the disciples and most of his own followers are still clinging to all the wrong things.

Maybe it’s the same with us. We are poised today at the top of a mountain with Jesus. We have been shining with the light of Christ, basking with his revelation to the magi at Epiphany. But now we are looking on the other side of the mountain to the long season of Lent, where we are vividly confronted by our own mortality. We might wish to jump ahead to Easter or to cling only to glory.

But Lent will reveal the unhealthy things to which we hold fast. Lent will unearth our own pride, our conceited projects, our desire to be in control, our tribalism, and those things that comfort us the most. Lent will dredge them up to the surface and expose them to God’s cleansing light. And if our wilderness journey in Lent has any effect, we will emerge at Easter knowing exactly what it is we should really be clinging to, perhaps having let go of the rest of it.

It is clear that Elisha was perturbed by the impending departure of Elijah. He was experiencing beforehand the loss and pain he would eventually feel, plunged into a solo career or prophetic ministry without his mentor. And Jesus’s disciples clung to their own preservation as Jesus approached the cross. As they did so, they began to let go of Jesus until he was the only one awake in the Garden of Gethsemane in anguished prayer.

We, too, know the discomfort that comes with letting go of our own idols and attachments. And as we fear losing our security, we cling more closely to those things that do nothing but make us more dependent on them. At the end of the day, we might even sacrifice the truth for our own pleasure, because we can only find reassurance in the idols of our own making. Sometimes an idol is our very own image of God, made in our own image.

But now imagine with me if we placed Elisha’s words to Elijah in the mouth of God. What if we heard God saying what is easily doubted from time to time: “I will not leave you.” Elisha stuck with God by sticking with Elijah because he knew that he was following God’s holy word, even if it meant the loss of his mentor. Elisha seemed to sense that God would, in fact, not leave him.

And Jesus’ disciples eventually learned that God would not leave them comfortless. The end of Jesus’ earthly ministry was not the end of his presence with them. And so, too, Absalom Jones and his fellow Christians knew that by letting go of their church and even something of their past, they were sticking with God. By walking out of their church in the face of injustice and disrespect, they were saying that God would not leave them. They knew that God’s words to us are always, “I will not leave you.”

We still hover in the midst of a pandemic on the precipice of Lent. The snow still falls, and spring might seem a long way off. And Lent calls to us from the valley below and beckons us to let go—to let go of those things that have consumed our lives, to let go of our resentments, our envy, our individualism, and our antagonism. Lent calls us to stay only with God’s holy word and to walk into his open arms.

The degree to which we stick with God may vary, but the degree to which God stays with us, loves us, and cares for us does not. Imagine if we stop talking at God, stop even trying to cling to him in a possessive way, and instead listen to his still, small voice, as Elijah once heard it. If we could but quiet the raging weather around us, we might hear his beautiful voice saying, “I will not leave you.” I never have. I will not now. And I never will.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 14, 2021

Whose Story to Tell?

Good storytelling is all about the pacing. An experienced storyteller carefully scripts the increase in tension until the climax of the plot is delivered, and the denouement leaves everyone basking in amazement at the marvelous rendering they have just experienced.

It’s frustrating when others try to interject comments into the storyteller’s sequence of events. Those who know how the story will unfold egg the storyteller on, as if she needs their help. And of course, this simply destroys the craft of the storyteller and ends up annoying everyone.

I confess that I am sometimes one of the annoying intrusions into the art of storytelling. I don’t mean any harm by it, but I am so excited about the end of the story that I find myself trying to barge in with details. It is not helpful.

There are more serious examples of storytelling for which an interruption or interjection could give great offense. Victims of unspeakable crimes deserve the respect afforded their stories. Because of what they have been subjected to, they are the only ones who can relate their stories with integrity. For anyone to interrupt the telling of their narrative would be utterly disrespectful.

Each of us has our own personal stories to tell, and when we do so, we are vulnerable. It is our story to share, not someone else’s. We share something of our past or our present to which only we are privy. No one else really has the right to interrupt those stories or to tell them for us because we are the ones who have experienced what we are going to share.

And so it is not surprising that when Jesus casts out demons, he does not let the demons speak. They are trying to interrupt the story of his ministry, but it is not their story to tell.

This is the second week in a row in which we have heard of Jesus’ ministry of exorcism. If we can, let’s try to enter into this spiritual world. The modern mind, conjuring up grotesque images from the movies with heads spinning around, has all but dismissed the possibility of demonic spirits. But Scripture and our tradition tell us otherwise. And it hardly seems reasonable to assume that only the age of Jesus knew the reality of evil forces.

Earlier in this chapter of Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit, the demons cry out. They call Jesus by name and boldly claim to know who he is. But Jesus rebukes and silences them. Today, we hear of many demons that Jesus casts out, and whom he again does not permit to speak. Jesus has a story to tell, and the demons, as hard as they may try, do not have the right to tell this story. They do not really know the story. And they certainly don’t know how to tell it.

In the first chapter of Mark, we are already beginning to get a sense of something mysterious about Jesus, which some have called the Markan secret. He does miraculous things and yet does not want anyone to speak of them. And this applies to the demons, too. When the demons correctly identify him as a holy man, he silences them. It is not for them to tell his story. They want to share the end of the story, but it’s only the beginning.

The crowd, too, is wowed by Jesus, so much so that at one point in his early public ministry, the entire city gathers around the door of the house where Jesus has just healed Simon’s mother-in-law. And on the next day, when everyone is trying to track Jesus down, he suggests to his disciples that they move on to another town. Jesus is not ready for the spotlight yet. He is not ready to be crowned as Messiah because no one is ready for the kind of Messiah that he will be.

The bottom line is that Jesus has a story to tell. It is a story so profound, so shocking, and so unbelievably full of good news that Jesus must tell it in his own good time. He must tell it through his life. He is the storyteller, and no one else should impede on the structure of its plot line.

But there’s something else to it as well. Jesus knows that early on in his story, to try to sum it up in a few words would be to dishonor its depth. The demons who want to interrupt Jesus’ story want to proclaim his identity to the world too early in the game. The crowds who press in on the door of the house seem to desire the benefit of his healing, but are they really prepared to encounter the profundity of his narrative? They seem more interested in his miraculous deeds than in the full trajectory of his life, which will end in abandonment on a cross and ignominy.

And Jesus’ story will not be told simply in extravagant words but will be voiced also through his deeds: his healings, his miracles, his feedings, his breaking bread with others, his humility, and ultimately the laying down of his life for those who persecute him. This story will take time. To understand this story will take patience built in community. Jesus’ story is not just in the dramatic healings that cause people to break the door down to reach him. There is something deeper beneath it all.

For the demons to assert his identity too early in the story is for them to try to make Jesus’ story their own. If they steal the story, they will deceive the spiritually immature. They will claim a false power through their strident voices and deflect attention from Jesus. They want to channel their anger against the power of goodness that is so much stronger than they are. And they want to distort the message of the Messiah.

Not long before Jesus begins silencing the demons, he emerges from his temptation in the wilderness. We know that in the anguished time of desert solitude, the devil used Jesus’ authority and status to tempt him to abuse that authority. And Jesus did not give in.

Nor will he give in to the death gasps of the demons who recognize that a force greater than they has emerged on the scene. They want to interrupt his story out of fear. But this story can only be told by Jesus.

In our own day, who is commissioned to tell this story? With the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, we know the story does not end. It is we who have been authorized to tell this story, and what a tall order it seems that we have his story to tell.

And with that great commission comes so much risk. This story is so sacred that it must be handled with care. It must be protected from those who would disrespect its magnitude or use it for their own ends.

We should be cautious of the bellowing voices who try to hijack this beautiful story and make it their own and not Jesus’. These voices will rush to glory far too soon. They will focus on the miracles and healings and the empty tomb, but they will forget about the sufferings and gory agony of death on the cross.

They will take a truth and twist it to buttress their own authority. These voices do not have the humility to let Jesus tell his story through us, as Jesus had the humility to let God tell his story through him. False voices want to assert Jesus’ identity as a way of building up their own perceived authority. They want to have the upper hand, the last word. And this is precisely why Jesus shuts down the voices of the demons. He is the only person who can tell his story, which Jesus knows is actually God’s story.

If we are going to authentically share the story of good news with which we have been entrusted, we are going to have to speak from our own experience of the good news. And this experience comes with the frustrations of life that ground us ever more in the depths of humility. This experience will mature as God strips away all our pretenses and accomplishments to hollow out a receptacle for his grace to fill us to the brim.

The story we share will not be a recounting of our own accomplishments and projects to which we attach God’s Name but of how God has redeemed our struggles, misdeeds, and missteps time and again through his unbounded mercy.

Notice how the demons are drawn to the drama of Jesus’ ministry. Notice how the crowds flock to Jesus when he is obviously working miracles and able to do something for them. And notice how they all flee when he drags his cross to Calvary.

So, what voices will we allow to speak, and which ones will we silence for the sake of the Gospel? We should fully expect to hear screaming and anguished cries when God is up to goodness among us. When God’s holiness cuts to the quick of life, the demons cry out. When God’s grace is at work, be on your guard for the wiles of the Evil One.

Gently notice this, and then move on. Because if there’s one thing we learn from Jesus’ encounter with the demons, it’s that there is a power and authority far greater than that of evil. And the demons know it, which is why they cry out in a last grasp at control.

We know that there’s a story that has changed the world for over two thousand years, and it is still being told. When it was first told, many chose not to hear it. And today, there are still many who choose not to hear it. But it still needs to be told. And we have been charged with continuing to tell this story.

This is not a story for impostors to tell. This is not a story for one sitting. It is not to be condensed into blanket promises of prosperity, and it should never be interrupted by bullying voices who want to mold the story into their own creation.

This story will cause the demons to cry out, and it will evoke rebellion from many. It will require patient telling. It will demand wisdom, discernment, and knowledge of the depth of suffering.

But it has an ending so glorious that we will be changed forever. Don’t interrupt the story. Let it play out in your lives. Let it sink into your bones. Let Jesus tell this story in you.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 7, 2021

To Be Governed by the Child

There is a section of the print version of the New York Times that always amuses me. As I make my way through the various sections each weekend, I often find myself reading this part, even though it has a disclaimer at the top: “This section should not be read by grown-ups.”

Truth be told, it takes me a few seconds of reading before I realize that I’m in the category of those who should be avoiding this section. Although it’s intended for non-adults, this kids-only section does not necessarily avoid challenging topics.

This past weekend’s edition covered everything ranging from the January 6th capitol attacks, unemployment, the Covid vaccine, and wildfires in California. I have found that this kids-only section is fairly straightforward and direct. Information that the adult sections present in more nuanced and yet flowery language are stated with surprising bluntness for kids. The truth is not veiled under political concerns. It is stated with unabashed honesty. You should read the section on the events of January 6 if you want to get a glimpse of this.

All of this has made me wonder if adults should, in fact, be reading this section. When I discover, a few seconds in, that I’m reading a kids’ section, I usually somewhat guiltily place this portion of the paper down. It somehow feels off-limits to me, as if I’ve intruded onto the scene of an innocence that I have lost. Am I now too jaded to appreciate the honest clarity of a children’s-only section of a major newspaper? That is perhaps a better question than imagining that news for kids is too infantile for me as an adult. The longer I live, the more I know how profoundly untrue that assumption is.

Today, we celebrate what it means to be taught, indeed, governed by a Child. I am particularly moved every time I hear the Alleluia verse assigned for today’s feast. “The old man carried the Child: but the Child governed the old man.” This verse encapsulates one of the great mysteries revealed to us on this beautiful feast of the Church.

This evening, in our celebration and in our encounter with the Gospel passage from Luke, we are taken into a kids-only section of our story of faith. It should indeed come with a warning that we will be challenged. But rather than discouraging adults from reading this section, the warning should tell every adult to pick up the story immediately and feast on it.

St. Luke is marvelous at upending expectations. Mary’s song, the Magnificat, epitomizes Luke’s theology of the Great Reversal. In Christ, the poor are lifted up, the haughty are cast down, the hungry are fed, and the meek are exalted. This is a theology that is quite difficult for many adults to grasp. But I think children are capable of getting it immediately. They can teach us to be more porous to the hard truths we tend to deflect.

And so in the story of Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, we find this theology of the Great Reversal wending its way into our hearts and imaginations. In this cherished story, the Savior of the world enters the human story with a piercing sword to splice through deceit, vainglory, oppressive power, and rigid self-preservation.

Jesus doesn’t trample down religious systems and human customs, but he carries a light into the midst of them that shines through the darkness of resistance and closed minds. With no story of the magi, Luke presents Jesus’ revelation to the world from the midst of the requirements of Jewish law.

Jesus’ family conforms to the law, and Jesus enters the world under the obligations and structures of that law. God’s ways do not stomp things down from on high but restructure our existing order from below and within. Jesus enters the human story under the guardianship of two parents who were not wealthy enough to offer an expensive sacrifice at the time of his presentation, but had to settle for two turtledoves, the offering of the poor.

And when Jesus is brought into the Temple precincts, he finds some surprising people waiting for him. They are not simply adults ready to learn from the perspective of a child. These adults are quite old, Simeon on the verge of death, and Anna, well into her eighties.

The first words of Simeon upon taking Jesus into his arms are to call him Lord or Master. The old man may have carried the Child, but Simeon knows that this Child is governing him. This Child is his master. He needs this Child as his master. And Simeon is wise and humble enough to learn from this Child.

Anna, too, seems to defy our expectations that she may be tired after eighty years and unreceptive to this young Child brought into the Temple. She immediately connects this infant with the restoration of good fortune for Israel. Anna and Simeon do not seem too ashamed or to elevated in their thinking to learn from a page in the children’s section of the paper.

But this Child, of course, is no ordinary child. And Anna and Simeon know this. Simeon states this knowledge with startling clarity to Mary: “this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”

The Savior of the world’s presentation in a Temple will be a wondrous subversion of the usual order. In this story, Jesus enters a world run by adults but that really needs to be governed by a Child. It is a world run amuck. Jesus’ parents, in their poverty, would have known all too well the sorrow of living under oppressive rule. Anna and Simeon, too, must have felt the burden of the times, because they knew that the entrance of this Child into the world would bring a seismic shift in the social fabric.

And it is to the voice of this Child that we must turn as well. We inhabit a world conditioned and governed by the distorted ways of adults. We live in a world of YouTube, where videos are marked as intended for children or not. And the truth is that, rather than perpetually deciding what the children need from us, we could benefit from what we can learn from the children, and especially from that holy Child who continues to govern our lives. We need to be living in a world of the Child who speaks an uneasy truth with crystalline depth and whose word is so sharp that the proud will fall and the humble will rise.

This is not a truth that is easy for grown-ups to take. Old ways die hard. The systems of our own construction are built to buttress our own needs and desires, and this often comes with a terrible cost. And too often, we ignore the kids-only section of the newspaper, because we much prefer the highfalutin articles that justify our own comfort and safety and speak around the truth. And children frequently speak directly to the truth with remarkable candor.

Today we celebrate the uncomfortable truth that we, as Christians, are called to carry a powerful Light into the world. Like the candles we lighted earlier in the Mass, our selves, our souls and bodies, are lights that are to shine forth a greater Light into a world that is covered in darkness.

The darkness of this adult world does not usually like to confront the light. The light shines on all its sordid corners and reveals all the things we like to stash away in the closet. This light is too much for pupils that have been dilated from years spent in the dark.

And even though this adult world does not know it is in need of the light, it is. We are the bearers of this light. Although we carry this light, it is the light that governs us.

What will you do with this light that is shining in your soul? Will you bring it forth into the darkness or will you hide it under a bushel basket? Will you let it shine, or will you try to extinguish the candle? Will you be ashamed of its innocent clarity and bold truth, or will you let it govern every aspect of your life? Will you speak the truth, or will you talk around it?

There is a whole host of adults out there, beyond the walls of this church, who are longing to see this light. Some know it but don’t know where to find it. Others prefer the cover of darkness but would be changed if they came face to face with this light.

This light is burning in you. Whether you let it shine or try to hide it, it is governing you. It will be the cause of the fall of many and the rise of so many others. It will pierce souls. It will break some hearts. But Simeon reminds us of its real purpose. It will dismiss us in peace. It will send us into a redeemed world not governed by adults but a glorious world whose master is a Child.

Now, go in peace. Take this light into the world. Let this Child be your Master. This section of our collective story, is written by a Child, and it most definitely needs to be read by adults.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple
February 2, 2021

Down to the Studs

A few years ago, a local resident in Bryn Mawr purchased a small house just down the road from the rectory on County Line Road. Positioned right next to Bryn Mawr Hospital, this small dwelling was in a bad state at its purchase. When the new owner undertook a renovation, he surprisingly discovered a 300-year old house beneath five layers of exterior material.

The bones of this house date to 1704, making it one of the oldest houses in Pennsylvania. The original house was a log cabin, but after centuries of neglect and barnacles of building materials hiding the real skeleton of this property, the original wood of the cabin was rotting and in poor condition. So through a fastidious renovation, the owner ultimately restored the house, using eighteenth century wood and carefully preserving certain historic features.

Today, the house is easily lost in the more modern houses surrounding it, not to mention in the shadow of the towering hulk of Bryn Mawr Hospital next door. But the newly-exposed edifice is a visual reminder of the historic epicenter of what is now the village of Bryn Mawr.

In a 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer article, the restorer of this house noted the significance of the historic structure amid “the concrete jungle” surrounding it. He described the cabin as “the house where all that came from.”[1] Sometimes, you have to get down to the bones to remember where you came from.

Reading the apostle Paul is something like discovering the bones of where you came from. Paul has been unjustly maligned over the years. He has been labeled a misogynist and homophobe. Many struggle to read his words because they can’t get past the barnacles of interpretation and anger pasted onto his words over the centuries.

Without denying some of Paul’s particular viewpoints, with which we might not agree, we would yet benefit from going down to the bones of what he has to say. Like a 300-year old cabin hiding beneath years of more modern external material, the core of Paul’s theology brings us back to our roots if we strip everything down to the studs.

We might use Paul’s own words to help us in this theological excavation endeavor. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” The translation we have been given even puts knowledge in scare quotes to interpret Paul’s own assessment of this supposed knowledge. In other words, what many perceive as knowledge is really not knowledge at all. Those who think they are wise are really lacking in true knowledge. Knowing God usually has a way of popping the bubbles of our conceit.

But love, Paul tells us, builds us. If we strip everything down to the studs, we will find an original love. It will not be some sentimental product marketed by Hallmark, but a self-giving, sacrificial love that puts others before self. This true love comprises the bones of our communal edifice, whose sole foundation is Christ.

Diving into 1 Corinthians, like any Pauline letter is like listening to one side of a phone conversation, to quote one of my seminary professors. Paul is confronted with a particular problem posed by members of the Church in Corinth, and we hear his side of the phone chat. The question is whether Gentile converts to Christianity could still partake of food that had been offered as sacrifices to idols in pagan worship. Those who claim to have “knowledge” and know full well that such idols do not really exist had found no harm in eating the sacrificial meat. They knew that there was no merit to idol worship. But Paul strips everything down to the studs and goes deeper than mere “knowledge.” It’s really not about knowledge after all.

Paul seems to doubt whether the self-righteous Gentile converts were as sophisticated as they supposed. Paul grants that the idols have no reality in relation to the one, true, living God. Paul even suggests that whether we eat certain foods or refrain from eating them does not really matter. What really matters is how the actions of certain members in the community affect others.

Eating meat sacrificed to idols might not be in and of itself sinful, but if eating such meat has adverse effects on others who are not as spiritually mature, then it is indeed sinful. For Paul, sin is often less ontologically defined than it is contextually defined. The root of sin is failure to abide in love with others, in spite of differences.

For Paul, the presumed knowledge and spiritual maturity of those who have no regard for idols are puffed-up layers of self-importance and arrogance that have papered over the bones of the house of love. Paul reminds us to dig beneath the layers of sophisticated information to the bones of the house, where there should be nothing but the studs of self-giving love.

It turns out that when the owner of the 300-year old house in Bryn Mawr got down to the studs, they were in a poor sort and rotting from years of neglect. And it’s the same with the studs of our communal edifice. We have become so used to papering over our shared life with individualism that when we strip things down to the studs, we find the skeleton of our collective edifice desperately in need of attention.

The moisture and fungi of fear, greed, and human conceit have gradually eaten away at the supporting structure of our shared house. Evil and great tragedies follow when perceived rights take precedence over the common good. Individual wills ramrod their agendas and self-righteousness over the well-being of others, and the loser is the common good.

And yet Paul is clear that no matter how many layers of pride and knowledge are piled on top of our original house, one day the rotting skeleton of our once-strong house will be exposed to the daylight. It’s just a matter of time.

In some sense, this seems to be where we are now in the Church. Our foibles and sins have been shown to the world. We are ever reminded that we live in a fish bowl. What we do and how we live matters because people take note, and the future of others’ souls is somehow connected to our actions. No matter how convinced we are of our faith and knowledge of God’s ways, if our actions do not build others up, we have sinned against them and against God.

To call oneself a Christian and then to perform atrocities that are utterly anti-Christian is to sin. To proceed blindly with one’s own desires based on one’s own perceived spiritual maturity is to become a stumbling block to the weak.

It is perhaps we first-world Christians who are most in danger of offending the weak. In our quest to claim God’s will based on our sophistication, we risk shutting out the rest of the body of Christ.

But thankfully, our house is not built solely on our own efforts. Our house is built on one foundation alone: Jesus Christ himself. And this foundation is comprised of the original love that can be layered over but never extinguished. When everything has been stripped down to the studs and the rotting timbers have been exposed to the light of day, there is yet hope for the house to be rebuilt.

And we have to start with the foundation. Our foundation is God who has revealed himself in Christ. He has revealed himself as the One who is nearer to us than we are to ourselves, as St. Augustine tells us, and as the ground of our being who knits us all together into one. No piece of wood in the frame of the house can be compromised without affecting another. No crack in the edifice can exist without potentially having disastrous results for the rest of the structure.

There is no question that we live in a world that has largely forgotten this. We, in fact, seem to live in a Church that has forgotten this. Too many self-professed Christians live only to themselves, rather than to God and one another.

It could be that the reason some do not like the apostle Paul is that he speaks an uncomfortable truth. Offense at his perceived bigotry may be no more than a puffed-up excuse for disliking a man who tells us exactly what we need to hear. And it’s a truth that pierces to the bones and hurts.

The Gospel that Paul preaches actually does us a favor. It cuts through our layers of deceit, pretense, and self-importance and exposes the studs of our collective house. It shows them to be in dire need of attention, but it also lets us know that our common house can survive. It will survive by God’s grace, if we listen to Jesus’ Gospel.

If we are going to live in it together, we are going to have to see one another, learn to love one another, and make room for one another’s messiness. We are going to have to find a way to put our own self-interests aside out of concern for the well-being of our neighbor. We are going to have to learn that it’s not all about me, but all about we.

Yes, the house will survive. Its studs might be in bad shape at the moment, but its foundation is certainly sure. And God is not going to let this house fall down.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
January 31, 2020

[1] The Inquirer, July 3, 2017, https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/montgomery/bryn-mawr-man-finds-300-year-old-log-house-beneath-stucco-facade-20170630.html

No Time for Procrastination

It was the eighteenth-century French philosopher Voltaire, quoting an Italian proverb, who said that “the best is the enemy of the good.” We often hear this as an admonition not to let the perfect be the enemy of good. Another possible translation: stop procrastinating and get to work.

We all probably know people who completed years and years of education, coursework, and comprehensive exams but could not bring themselves to finish their dissertations. Right there on the precipice of receiving a terminal degree, the academic endeavor halts. The prospect of imperfection wins over the completion of the task.

Some of us might put off writing the paper because we don’t know the perfect way of beginning the essay. Or we delay tidying the house because it will simply get messy again. Really, which of us is not, in some sense, a procrastinator?

The tendency to procrastinate is no stranger to the spiritual life. And there may be good reasons for it. We feel intimidated by our task. We are born, tradition tells us, with original sin or with an innate tendency to do the very thing we know we shouldn’t do, to paraphrase the words of St. Paul. How does one even begin a journey towards holiness when we know it will be imperfect? And on top of that, St. Matthew gives us words from the mouth of Jesus himself that urge us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. This is a tough order. No wonder people procrastinate when it comes to their spiritual housekeeping.

Members of the Church have found other ways to procrastinate, which appear to be getting things done but, instead, merely kick the can farther down the road. This often involves the words “taskforce” or “special committee.” We decide that some action needs to be taken, and so we invite members to a special decision-making group that spends yet more time delaying any kind of action.

In the face of unconscionable injustice or evil, we can be quite adept at spending hours of our time talking about things and never actually doing anything about it. It is tempting to use a false grace/works dichotomy to justify our procrastination. We can’t save ourselves but can only be saved by grace, and if we try to work too hard, we’ll all be little Pelagians, trying to earn our salvation by our own works. So, better to wait for God to bring it all home on judgment day. Pray fervently for the end to come, because in that next life, it will all be so much better.

These sound like hyperboles, but we all know that there is truth in them. Whether it’s a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from reality or an oppressive sense of helplessness, we humans are adept at procrastinating.

Which is all the more reason why St. Mark’s account of the calling of the first disciples is so striking. We are perhaps accustomed to Mark’s terse prose. His Gospel is the shortest and all the action happens with such immediacy. There is little room to ponder and imagine. St. Mark spends no time on the birth narrative or on Mary pondering things in her heart. Mark is primarily concerned with the urgency of the Gospel. There is very little time or opportunity for anyone in Mark’s Gospel to procrastinate.

Nor do Simon, Andrew, James and John dawdle when Jesus walks by them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is almost comical. Simon and Andrew’s fishing endeavor is arrested by Jesus’ abrupt command to follow him and his cryptic statement that he will make them become fishers of people. They simply drop their fishing gear and go with him.

Likewise, for James and John. Not only do they leave the nets they are readying to fish, they leave their father and the hired hands in the boat, and they go with Jesus. It all sounds so improbable. Who would ever be so naïve as to do such a thing?

And perhaps this is precisely what Mark is trying to say. The rapidity of all the action in Mark’s Gospel is a shocking prod out of the tendency to procrastinate, think things over, or form a taskforce before taking any kind of action. It would even seem that Mark is encouraging impetuous, maybe even foolish, behavior. But Mark gives us a clue as to why there is no room for procrastination and why, even impetuous action might be needed for the sake of the Gospel. The kingdom of God has drawn near.

There is no reason to wait. There is no time to form a committee and think things over. There is not even time to get things perfect before beginning. Jesus is very clear: The kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent. Believe in the Gospel.

Could it be that procrastination and an exclusive focus on the end times is merely an excuse for avoiding the difficult work of repentance and believing the Gospel in the present? Is eschatological fascination used to justify spiritual procrastination?

Mark never denies an end time where God will bring all things to their perfection in him. It is just made acute within the present urgency of the Gospel. Now is not about perfection. Now is about letting God draw us, right now, into the power of his sanctifying grace and saving acts. Now is the time for God to make us holy.

I seriously doubt that the first disciples avoided any kind of deliberation. I doubt that they didn’t have second thoughts about dropping everything and following Jesus. I am unconvinced that things were as simple and straightforward as Mark’s prose suggests. But this is not the point. Mark shows us in no uncertain terms that there is no time to waste. The kingdom of God has drawn near. It is here. And it’s time to get to work.

So, too, for us. The kingdom of God has drawn near. It is, in some mysterious way, right here with us, even if we don’t see it. And for that very reason, it’s time to get to work.

We, like those first disciples, are ensconced in a moment of time that is pregnant with the possibility for God to act in unimaginable ways. We are in a time so charged with possibility for repentance, change, and belief that we should hardly be able to stand it. We should be bouncing off our feet to respond to God’s call and to follow Christ, whether it seems rash, foolish, or delusional.

There is an urgency among us that is so often ignored or taken for granted. And here are the bare facts that we know. There is a Gospel that has upended the world and that needs to be proclaimed, by you and by me. There are many people, not in some other neighborhood or country, but right in our own streets and communities, who are desperately longing to hear the Gospel, even if they don’t know it. There are wounds oozing the puss of years of neglect and mistreatment, of racism, hatred, and enmity, and they need to be healed right now by the balm of the sweet Gospel. There are chasms in our midst that need to be bridged but around which people have circumnavigated for far too long. And these chasms need to be closed by the reconciling power of the Gospel.

But it seems like it is never the right time in the face of fear, caution, and complacency. There is never enough money. There are never enough helping hands because the congregation is too small. The task appears far too great to be undertaken with the meager resources of the Church. The odds are all stacked against us, so it’s better not to try but rather to play it safe. Perfection becomes the enemy of the good or a justification for malaise.

We have heard for far too long that if things don’t change in the Church, there will be no Church in a few decades. But every minute spent lamenting our current circumstances is a minute wasted for the sake of the Gospel. An obsession with declining numbers only results in people sitting around twiddling their thumbs and giving up on ever getting anything done.

But hear what Mark tell us. There is an unbelievable urgency to the Gospel that we cannot ignore. There is work that God is doing and ready to do, and we are called to follow. The kingdom of God has drawn near. Repentance is needed to move from past evil to future healing. There is a Gospel waiting to be believed. There is a Gospel waiting to change lives and the world.

I, for one, do not despair over the state of the Church. It does no good for us to sit still and count our sorrows. It does no good to let perfection be the enemy of the good. The manic exigency of Mark’s Gospel can be enough to wake us from our spiritual torpor and light a fire among us.

We will never get it just right. We will never be perfect in this life. We will try and fail. We will need to get up, lick our wounds and move on. But if we never get up, nothing will ever happen.

So hear the demand that Mark makes on us. There is no better time than now. The kingdom of God has drawn near. It is ready to yank us from our slumber. There is a Gospel that is meant to be proclaimed and shared, and there is so much need for it. The time has been fulfilled, and now’s the time to get up and do something about it.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 24, 2021

Handle with Care

I’ve recently been reflecting on the Godly Play curriculum, which we use in our new children’s formation ministry. In Godly Play, the stories of our faith are told in a simple but profound way. At the moment, we are making our way through Jesus’ parables on Sunday mornings.

When parables are introduced to the children, the storyteller begins with the same sequence of questions and observations that invite wonder from the children. One of these observations is that when approaching parables, you need to be careful, because if you’re not ready to handle them, you can break them.

This observation does not just apply to parables, though. It applies to so many aspects of our faith: if we approach the mysteries of God with recklessness or carelessness, we play with danger. If we are not mature enough to handle the things of God, we can even get hurt or hurt others.

It’s not that we need to be afraid of God, as if God is unapproachable or requires us to tiptoe around him, like walking on ice. Rather, when we bring inattention and irreverence to the things of God, we are more prone to turn God’s gifts into instruments for our own manipulation or power. In turn, we damage ourselves and we harm others. Godly Play seems to know this deep truth.

And Scripture has much to say about using holy things for unholy purposes. We are frequently warned to stay clear of those false prophets who wield God’s word like a dangerous weapon to bully others with their own agendas. God’s word is like fire; it should come with a warning label because when one tries to control or manipulate its true purpose, it can backfire.

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow.”[1] God’s word cuts through the layers of human deceit and pretention, and its sanctifying pruning is painful if we are not ready to receive it.

Reverence for God’s holy word is what distinguishes true prophets from false prophets. Samuel, as we learn today, is a true prophet. He is called by God in a time when, we are told, “there was no frequent vision.” This translation does not do justice to the original language. But the King James version brings us closer: “The word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.”

Not only was God’s revealed word somewhat scarce; it was like a rare, precious jewel. It was like a parable contained in a gold box, which can easily be broken if we’re not careful or ready to approach it.

In Samuel’s initial call from God, he is drawn into a more mature understanding of God’s ongoing revelation. Samuel comes to understand just how precious God’s word really is when it pierces through the heavenly veil into his world.

His foil, of course, is poor old Eli. Eli is a priest in the temple, but he is no prophet. Over the years, he has become tired, perhaps inured to the sparkling mystery in whose presence he spends his time. He has lost all sense of the risk associated with handling God’s word. His eyesight has grown dim. To him, the word of God has been clouded over with opacity. The word of God in those days was precious, but Eli had lost an appreciation of just how precious it was. To him, the word of the Lord had become dull.

There is some irony in the fact that God works through bored, tired old Eli to reveal his precious, living word to Samuel. It is Samuel’s response to the gift of God’s word that shows he is a true prophet.

Samuel does not immediately assume that God is calling him. He is young and inexperienced, but he also does not seem to be full of himself. And he does what the apathetic Eli tells him to do: when God calls him by name for the final time, Samuel responds that he is listening. He is ready to hear what God has to say. He does not presume to tell God what he thinks he should hear or what he wants to hear. And what God tells him is not entry level information. It is a difficult word.

God explains that he will seek retribution on the house of Eli because of the immorality of Eli’s sons. These scoundrel sons have failed to appreciate how precious God’s word is. They have not handled the things of God with care. They have abused their proximity to holiness. And Eli, God says, is culpable, too, for lacking the spine to restrain his own sons’ deplorable behavior.

Samuel shows that he is a true prophet because, ultimately, he does not hide God’s convicting word from Eli. He is afraid to tell Eli, but he does so anyway. Samuel knows that God’s word is too precious to hide. Samuel proves himself worthy of being a prophet, and, we are told, as he grew into his prophetic calling, he “let none of [God’s] words fall to the ground.” For his prophetic ministry, Samuel carried the words of God into the world like precious jewels or fragile glass, knowing that his call as a prophet was to be a custodian of those beautiful words.

I often wonder if we are living in times similar to those of Samuel, where the word of the Lord is rare, as precious as a breakable, fine jewel. In the middle of a raging pandemic and of civil unrest in our country, it is easy to imagine that God is deliberately making himself scarce or intentionally hiding his word from us. But could it be the other way around? Could it be that God’s word is fully available, right now, distilled into the concentrated, radiant brightness of a precious, fine jewel? Could it be that we just don’t know how to handle it with care?

It’s becoming all too clear what happens when God’s word is not handled with care. It gets broken and it breaks others. The glass display case of the precious jewel is shattered, the jewel is stolen, and it is pawned off for illicit purposes.

What is intended to be a life-giving jewel for the life of the world is turned into a weapon. It might be that those who break into the display case and take the jewel do not even realize what they are doing. In their zealotry, they coopt the brilliance of a precious jewel in the name of a religion they profess but that has little resemblance to the Gospel we know.

On one extreme is the passionate alliance of a personal agenda with God’s word. Strong leaders are mistaken for prophets. False prophets bully others into following a way they peddle as God’s way. Others know full well the truth, but when it is hard to hear, they fail to speak it. They hide the truth. They let God’s words drop to the ground.

Others take their cue from Eli. They once knew the precious quality of God’s word shining in their lives, but through the years, their eyesight has become dimmed. God’s word no longer captivates them with its vibrant energy. They have grown bored, and at worst, they have lost their nerve. When they know God’s word of truth is yearning to be spoken, they yet remain silent.

But all these examples are so unlike the prophetic leadership of Samuel. Samuel knows that we must be careful when we handle God’s word. Samuel understands that God’s word is too precious and valuable to ignore. And if we don’t handle it with care, we can break it. We can break others. We can break ourselves.

And so Samuel speaks. Not one precious word from God is allowed to fall to the ground and shatter. Samuel gives voice to truth, even if the truth hurts. Samuel speaks from the mouth of God, even when he risks offending his own mentor Eli. Because the word of God is too precious to hide. It is too valuable to let it fall to the ground.

Because he is a true prophet, Samuel lets God speak, while he listens, ready for the word to change his life. Samuel is an open slate on which God’s word of truth can be written. And Samuel speaks that precious word, whether people want to hear it or not.

Samuel knows that God’s lamp never goes out in the temple. Even when the word of the Lord seems scarce and rare, it is always shining in our midst, waiting to be cradled and borne into the world like a precious jewel.

There are many voices crying for us to buy their jewels. But there is only one precious jewel worth having, and it cannot be purchased. It is always available to us as a gift. But it requires handling with care. It cannot be manhandled. It cannot be sold off for profit. It is fragile, too. We must hold it carefully when we take it out into the world with us.

It is God’s gift to us, unsolicited and unbidden, and sometimes it is hard for us to receive. But it is worth it. And when we choose to receive it, we must be careful with it. And whatever we do, we should treat it with such reverence and care that it never, ever is allowed to fall to the ground.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 17, 2021

[1] Hebrews 4:12.

Once Upon a Time

Sometimes when everything around us seems mired in chaos and disorder, it’s best to go back to the beginning and hear the story again. Once upon a time, in the beginning, God began to create. Tradition tell us that this act of creation was from nothing. Scripture describes the emergence of a recognizable, visible creation from a formless void. God forms, first, light and then separates it from the darkness. Genesis tells us that in creation, God took nothingness, unorganized darkness and chaos, and gave it shape and order.

Over the formless waters, over chaos, the Spirit of God brooded. It is a haunting image of order emerging from a monolithic mass of disorder, whatever that may be. Over this, the Spirit moved and hovered, calling out variety, diversity, and ultimately, structure.

It is a compelling image, even if exactly what transpired is unclear. To this image of creation, the 4th century theologian Ephrem of Syria supplied his own wondrously vivid description. He said that, in the beginning, the Holy Spirit “warmed the waters with a kind of vital warmth, even bringing them to a boil through intense heat in order to make them fertile.”[1]

This captivating image calls to mind the slow boil of a kettle, as you hear the molecules of water moving more rapidly, ending in a loud hiss. It’s the warming of bathwater before a relaxing bath that soothes the body. It’s the fullness of life growing out of something that seems to lack any sign of life.

When we gather at the font for a baptism, as we did just a couple of months ago, we recall in our prayer over the water, God’s Spirit moving over creation in the beginning. As this prayer is uttered, it’s as if the water in the font becomes energized. We begin to realize the latent power in the water before us. This is the water that can restore life to a thirsty body, and this is the water that can bring death when someone has too much of it.

We are told that this is the water of creation, the water of the Red Sea, even the very water of the Jordan in which Jesus was baptized. Baptism is tied back to creation. Baptism is an act of creation. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the waters are given a “vital warmth” so that they might become fertile. This is the point. These waters are meant to become full of life so that they might bestow life. The waters of baptism are meant to transfer the dynamic energy of life within them to our very lives. In baptism, we are to die to stagnant death and rise to a life of vibrant service, fertile lives radiating the “vital warmth” of the Spirit’s presence in them.

In baptism, we see the chaos of our lives given order by the breath of God. The unorganized voids of our lives, where there appears to be no manifestation of God’s presence shining forth, are warmed, set into motion, so that they might take shape in Christian service.

But notice that when God summons creation into being, it is from a monolithic formlessness to a vast variety of shapes and forms. Paradoxically, the creation of order does not bring sameness, but instead creates order out of difference. The energy of God’s breath brooding over the waters of creation warmed them to incubate[2] energized life, not frenzied chaos.

Once upon a time, we knew our collective story. We understood where we came from, what we were to do, who we were to be. Somewhere in our past, we had structure in our lives, in our government, in our civic affairs. Somewhere in the past, the Church herself knew that she had to manifest God’s truth in the world, not out of the world.

But I think we have forgotten much of this story. In the past few days, we have seen attempts to dissolve the structures of democracy. We have seen attempts to wreak disorder where there is supposed to be order in government. We have beheld chilling violence to lives and to a revered, iconic building by some who call themselves Christians. We have witnessed the destruction of life itself.

The wrong kind of energy, an evil kind of energy, was deployed on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, an energy and action channeled into violence, discord, and hatred. People in positions of public trust and power heated the waters of hatred. Some in the Church did the same. They warmed the waters of civic life with a misdirected heat. The molecules energized into motion and the waters boiled with rage. It was, oddly, an unordered movement unified around sameness, the sameness of vitriol and blind defense of a monolithic claim to power. It was a movement from order to disorder, from creative freedom to stagnant chaos.

I suspect that a caldron of fear is at the root of what we have seen this week. Much of the sin and evil that disorders the creation of our lives is rooted in fear. There is the fear of losing control and power. And when fear arises, the human self goes into a reptilian mode of self-defense. We find ourselves, in fear, turning inward on ourselves, and outwardly manifesting aggression and antipathy for others, because we are scared of losing what we have, as if God doesn’t have enough to provide for us. We are afraid of losing our money, our jobs, our friends, everything that is dear to us. Our frail humanity instinctively wants to claim power for the shaping of our own lives, for the shaping of others’ lives, and for getting what we want.

And so, ultimately, we find ourselves becoming afraid of God himself, because God is the one who is constantly renewing our lives and giving shape and order to the chaos within them, and we resist the imposition of that order, even though it’s good for us. But God is the only one with real power. And when God is in control, we are not. When God is in control, shaping us and molding us from disorder to order, we have to part with those harmful things that have become our idols and dear possessions. It is painful.  

We are also afraid of losing the individuality of ourselves. We do not want to be the same as others, at heart, and we worry that when God shapes our lives, we will lose our identity. But when God takes control and molds us as a potter molds clay, we will find ourselves, more and more, becoming the unique selves God created us to be.

When we find ourselves thrown into existential mayhem, we must return to the beginning. We must start over. We must tell our story again. Today, we return to the beginning of creation and to the beginning of the new creation of our lives in baptism.

Once upon a time, there was a man who held great power but who stooped to the depths of powerlessness to show us how to live. Once upon a time, he was baptized by John. His baptism was not intended to erase any sinfulness on his part, because there was none. In his baptism, God affirmed his unique status as his beloved Son. But his baptism is an example that shows us in whom we are baptized. It is to show us in whom our lives are given order from their chaos, and whom we are to follow. It is to show us how we are to grow into the likeness of God, in whose image we were formed.

Jesus’ baptism was performed by John, whose baptisms were of repentance. Here is the clue for beginning again. Here is the clue for cooperating with God in the renewal of our lives. When we have reached a stalemate of chaos and disorder and the threshold of darkness, the answer is simple but difficult to enact: repent and turn back to the light.

It would be a violence to the Gospel itself for those of us who proclaim to be Christians to fail to tell our story, especially right now. Those of us who believe in God’s vision for the world are precisely the ones left standing who can remind the world of our story. Our story tells us that when we think that all is lost and that we have messed up beyond repair, God gives us yet another chance. There is no end to these additional chances. But we must do one thing: we must tell the truth. We must own that we have sinned and done what we should not have done, or failed to do what we should have done. Sometime the latter case is the most profound sin.

We also know that in spite of our baptisms, our lives will disintegrate, yet again and again, through our own failings, into disorder, sin, and darkness. This is the human condition. Baptism is not a vaccine for sin but a call to constantly renew the creation of our lives with God’s help and power.

It is never easy to acknowledge fault. It takes a great deal of courage to do this. But telling the truth, in word and action, is at the heart of our story. On the other side of the brave step of truth-telling is a redeemed future. And in this future, with God’s help, anything can happen.

When we turn to the light, we see as in the baptism of Jesus, the heavens part and the Holy Spirit breaks into our lives ready to brood over them and give them shape and order. That Spirit breaks into our world and broods over every font and pool of water in Christendom, ready to give the waters of our lives a vital warmth and make them fertile.

Once upon a time, if we remember our story, the Holy Spirit hovered over the water of our lives and warmed its molecules, summoning truth from the chaos of falsity and lies. Once upon a time, that same Spirit mobilized us into vibrant service and action to preach good news and spread peace.

Once upon a time, God gave order to disorder and created all manner of things and called them good. Now is the time to revisit this story. Now is the time to go back to the beginning of our story. Now is the time for God to tell this story again in our lives. And now is the time for us to tell this story to the world.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Baptism of Our Lord
January 10, 2021

[1] Ephrem the Syrian, “Commentary on Genesis 1,” cited in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Genesis 1-11. Ed. Andrew Louth (Intervarsity Press, 2001), 6 (quoted https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-genesis-11-5-3)

[2] This is also Ephrem of Syria’s word describing the Spirit moving over the waters in the act of creation.

The Right Kind of Diligence

2020 was not the year for planning trips. If your experience was anything like mine, you had to settle for Plan D of summer vacation, with some measure of reluctance. I think it was about this time last year when I began to envision the exciting possibilities for summer vacation to celebrate a significant birthday. Alas, it was not to be. As the pandemic emerged and then raged, each new iteration of plans morphed into another, each seemingly less appealing than the next.

2020 was not the year for planning, period. If you are like me and enjoy organizing, looking ahead, and mapping things out, you most likely found 2020 to be a colossal frustration. Each week looked different from the next. Here at Good Shepherd, we found ourselves inching towards a larger capacity for in-person attendance, only to find the church doors closed to public worship a few weeks ago. Not even aspects of the liturgical calendar are as entrenched as they might usually seem. Will there even be ashes this year on Ash Wednesday? Details that we had taken for granted before carry far less weight than the machinations of a biological mystery.

2020, in some ways, may have pushed us to reimagine our own estimation of diligence. For those of us who are naturally geared towards details, hard work, and excessive planning, the 2020 curve ball was a sober reminder that we are not in control. It seems that, in spite of our best laid plans, we are deceiving ourselves if we think we are the ones leading. 2020 revealed that for those of us who value diligence and planning, there are identifiable limits to what we can do. We are being led no matter how hardworking and persistent we may be and no matter how much we want to be the leaders. Who is leading us is another matter.

Something tells me that Herod would have found 2020 very frustrating. After the magi enter Jerusalem inquiring about the Christ child, Herod, gripped by fear, wants to know every single detail of this unusual birth. He first asks the chief priests and scribes where the child is to be born. He then secretly summons the magi to find out exactly when the star of which they had spoken had appeared. His parting words to them are, “Go and search diligently for the child,” and then, I can go and worship him.

We know better than to fall for this trap. I imagine the magi did, too, even before the dream. And we know how the story ends. For all Herod’s diligence, he will not encounter the Christ child. We would be fooling ourselves to imagine that, had the magi bothered to report back to him, he himself would have done the dirty work he intended. The best laid plans, it seems, are often foiled. The most diligent are sometimes the most cowardly.

And yet, we would also be fooling ourselves to think that the magi were not diligent at all. The way the brief Gospel account relays the story, the magi suddenly pop on the scene in Jerusalem and get pulled along to Bethlehem by Herod’s own diligent quest to eradicate any potential threat to his power. It would seem that every step they take is based on a random whim.

But I find this hard to believe. Do you ever wonder what made them leave their distant home in the first place to follow a star? Can you even begin to imagine how difficult the journey would have been? If T.S. Eliot’s poetic reflection is any indication of the magi’s journey, “it was the worst time of the year for a journey.” The camels themselves were recalcitrant, people along the way were difficult, and the final destination was “(you may say) satisfactory.”[1]

The magi must have been pulled along, away from their comfortable home, by something mysterious, some magnetic gravitation towards light and truth about which they could only dream. And their long quest to reach that mystery was driven by their own diligence to follow a star, not the manipulations of Herod.

The magi’s diligence is so different from that of Herod. Diligence, or industria, Church tradition tells us, is a virtue. Its opposite is sloth. Neither the magi nor Herod exemplify sloth, but their respective degrees of diligence could not be more different.

Herod’s diligence is obsessive and distorted by evil intent. The magi’s diligence is a compelling propulsion towards a mystery they don’t fully understand but towards which they must go nonetheless. Herod’s diligence devolves into mania when details are lacking and plans are obstructed. The magi’s diligence follows a zigzagging journey in spite of the uncertain terrain and unexpected waylays. Herod’s diligence ends in a brick wall of frustration and madness. The magi’s diligent pursuit of the Christ child ends in worship and then in a journey home, changed forever.

As is the case with any virtue, the essence lies in the middle place, neither too much nor too little. Diligence in our own day is rarely considered a bad thing, but it can so easily go off the rails. We are so often the victims of diligence gone awry, leading to compulsive working, obsessive buying, and laser-focused pursuit of our own goals. At this very moment, in this nation, we are witnessing the result of a diligent bent towards violence, hatred, and division. It is destructive and wrong. It is misguided and full of darkness. It has led to evil.

2020 has burst our bubble of routine and order. 2020 has led us down unexpected paths and, in the midst of the horror, hopefully revealed blessings and grace that have always been among us.

And yet the decision still remains: do we resist guidance, or do we part with control and go deeper into mystery? Could we in this new year, learn a lesson from the magi? And which star will we follow?

For there is a star in our lives that has been guiding us all along. It has been present since before our birth, our North Star towards which we have been drawn. It took us years to become aware of the presence of this magnetic force, but it has always been among us, coaxing us towards love, light, and truth. We are still learning how to follow it.

We have felt the pull of this star. The yearning stirring in our hearts for something beyond the mundane, the irresistible pull towards beauty and mystery, the attraction of peace and unity, the frustrations that remind us to expand beyond our narrow lives and embrace the aid of another.

And at some point, we realize that even the star itself is not the end of our quest. Sometimes, the star disappears for a bit. Like the magi, we find ourselves face to face with deceit and evil, with violence as we’ve seen today. And the star hides for a bit, to preserve the beautiful path forward. And then sent away from the presence of moral darkness, the star reappears, gently leading us to some unknown destination.

Finally, it stops and hovers where we are to be. We find a place, unsatisfactory though it may be, and we get down on our knees, worship, and adore. We bring out the treasures of ourselves. We offer all that we have and are, knowing that it is insufficient and unnecessary to the recipient. But we give because that’s the only thing we can do. And we worship and adore. It is what we are meant to do.

And we, too, like the magi, are changed forever. We cannot return home by the same road. Our vision is different. We have seen another light and another truth; we have seen the only Light and Truth there is.

The only thing that stands in the way of this exotic, meandering, but beautiful journey is the wrong kind of diligence. We must choose our allegiance. We can choose devotion to people and institutions that demand a warped, callous diligence, which sees us as mere pawns for immoral purposes. Or we can offer worship to God, whom we diligently seek out of love, and who gives us freedom and invites us into a blessed life. We must start with diligence in our heart, an unwavering and irresistible desire to find the Christ child. And then we let go of our control and let God take the reins.

But if we refuse to let go, if we are so bent on our pursuit of our goals, of knowing all the details, of knowing the times and places and geographical coordinates, we will miss Jesus himself.

Between 2020 and the magi, we could learn a few lessons. Diligence is not such a bad thing, but look up once in a while, survey the stars. We have a choice of whom to follow. But let our true guiding star beckon us to a wild and fantastic journey. Just know that, no matter how diligent your intent is, when you find Jesus in that lowly stable, you will be changed forever.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Feast of the Epiphany
January 6, 2021

[1] “Journey of the Magi”

The Elephant in the Room

Rising like a behemoth from the midst of the Judean desert, just miles from the Dead Sea, is the ancient fortification of Masada. On this massive plateau flanked by sheer drops of hundreds of feet, Herod the Great built two palaces for himself. Masada, which itself means “fortress” in Hebrew, speaks for itself.

If one were traveling across the otherwise flat portion of the Judean desert surrounding this gargantuan fortress, Masada would obviously need to be circumnavigated. Its towering height is a direct contrast to the nearby Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth. You can’t climb Masada without the aid of a cable car or a feat of mechanical engineering, and so you must go around it.

It’s only when one makes the journey to the top of Masada that its purpose stands out in relief. When standing on top of this geological eyrie, with stunning vistas of the surrounding landscape, it’s possible to begin to understand the paranoia of its originator.

Scripture doesn’t mince words when describing Herod the Great. He is consistently portrayed as ruthless, egomaniacal, and extremely fearful. His cruel actions and distorted use of power are tied back to the same motif of his insecurity. Only at Masada must Herod have felt even remotely secure, with a magnificent aerial view of any potential approaching threats.

Just as Masada rises from the floor of the Judean desert as a striking anomaly, so the specter of Herod the Great looms high off the pages of Scripture. And as anyone traveling the Judean desert must go around Masada, it seems that in Scripture, people must navigate around Herod’s ominous presence.

In today’s reading from Matthew, Herod is, in some sense, the elephant in the room. What we don’t hear are verses sixteen through eighteen in chapter two. These verses made their appearance on the Feast of the Holy Innocents this past week, but today, they are left unheard.

Herod is the elephant in the room not because he’s unacknowledged, but because everyone is perpetually rerouting their paths and plans to avoid him. And we might wonder why. Herod the Great was, in all actuality, a mere puppet of the Roman Empire. His claims to power were largely buttressed by his flashy building projects, of which Masada was a shining example. Herod’s claim to power rested solely on his ability to curry favor with the Roman Empire. And this he did with astounding skill.

But behind his mammoth building endeavors was a fragile ego that wielded violence to compensate for fear. Herod is why we find the magi adjusting their travel plans after visiting the Christ child. Herod is why Joseph redirects his family to Egypt in order to escape the massacre of the holy innocents. Herod is the elephant in the room around which everyone is dancing, or from which everyone is running.

No matter the year or century, some things never change. Herod was not the last ruler of his type in the course of human history. It seems that we can never part with the foreboding presence of tyrants among us, determined to build themselves up by wreaking havoc on humanity.

Oppressors of every stripe are, to our own day, the causes of people’s destroyed plans, at least, and their demise, at worst. Power-hungry despots are why many reroute their journeys into exile. They are why many people find themselves wandering in loneliness without homes and family and wondering where God is in such injustice and misery.

It is ironic that Mary and Joseph carry the Savior of the Nations back into Egypt, the land of exile, as they flee from Herod. It is as if the clock has been turned back. After God’s mighty deliverance of Israel from bondage so many years ago, after God’s presence in pillars of fire and cloud in the wild desert, after God’s journey with his chosen people from exile in Babylon back to Jerusalem, now the Holy Family itself is back in exile—and all because of one person around which everyone changes plans and cowers in fear.

Some things never change, we might also say. How did the clock get turned back in some ways, after so much progress and advancement? Why is everything spiraling out of control because of the actions of people in whose hands power is abused? How does a biological tyrant of great mystery cause so much death and destruction in spite of our numerous medical and technological advances? These are the lingering questions of our own day; they are not limited to the time of Herod.

The other elephant in the room is the question many are afraid to name: where is God in the face of looming violence and cruel oppression? How many times have you heard people speak this query? How many times, like the elephant in the room, is this question voiced silently and left unspoken and instead raging in human hearts?

It’s not a question that we can solve with absolute certainty. It’s not a question for which any mortal has all the answers. And it’s not a blasphemous question. It’s just naming the elephant in the room: where do we find God in all this?

When no angels appear to us in dreams to redirect our journeys, what do we do? When will many of our wandering, homeless neighbors finally find a place to rest? How is it possible to move on when what has been lost in exile cannot be recovered,?

These are the questions to which easy answers are dishonest, but they are the questions we need to ask. These are the questions before which we must hold a reverent silence.

And thank God for Matthew, who is trying to help us with our questions, amid the carefully crafted storytelling surrounding Jesus’ birth. He is an evangelist, after all, destined to speak some good news. Matthew does not dance around the elephant in the room. Matthew names it, takes it on, and leads us to God in the midst of it all.

In Matthew’s story, Herod’s murder of the holy innocents is the part left unheard in today’s Gospel passage. But it is there. Like Masada, it sits solidly amid a desert of questions, and it is the reason for two diversions that frame its literary position. Before this massacre, the wise men leave Bethlehem by an alternate route because of Herod’s threat. Because of the looming threat of the massacre, the Holy Family flees to Egypt. And even after Herod’s death, his cruel legacy embodied in his son leads the Holy Family to end up in Nazareth, by various peregrinations.

But what we find clear as a bell amid all the circuitous wandering of the various travelers in this story is God’s abiding presence. God’s presence finds its way into the travelers’ paths, indirectly and mysteriously. This is the way God so often works.

For Matthew’s characters, this presence arrives in dreams. For us, it may be different. This gracious hand of Providence might not be obvious while we’re wandering but only in hindsight. The merciful protection we seek might not seem merciful at all in the moment, but Scripture and tradition tell us that God is faithful and true.

It is the Christ child himself who shows us why God’s presence among us is sometimes hard to find. It is this tiny, lowly babe who reveals that the God we worship and adore does not hurl Herod from his mighty palace of Masada through the might of his own omnipotence. No, God journeys with us around the elephant in the room and gives us power to proclaim justice in all our wanderings. Sometimes, entertaining the elephant only feeds its hungry ego.

As God insinuated himself into the human condition in the flesh of a human baby, and in the face of the monolithic cruelty of tyranny and oppression, God comes to us, often as quietly as a baby moving, to take our hand and lead us around the elephants in the room, not to avoid them but to show us a subtler, more powerful way. God comes to show us what true righteousness is like. God comes to show us the path of life.

Masada still looms today over the Judean desert, a relic of a despot whose legacy is the path of terror he unleashed. But the Word of God still abides. It is living and ever moving among us, giving us grace and power to utter truth and peace in the face of Herod’s modern disciples. Unlike the transience of royal power rendered obsolete, God’s power and might do not depend on monuments and palaces but on the Word of truth. And this Word still changes the world, no matter the size of the elephants in the room.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Second Sunday after Christmas Day
January 3, 2021

The Gift of Freedom

It was the Christmas gift for which she had been waiting for months. The wrapping paper and bow had barely been torn off the gift and the brand new bicycle revealed, than she wheeled it outside for a test ride. This was a new venture for the child, because, young as she was, she had never before ridden a bicycle.

Her enthusiasm could scarcely be restrained. All she really wanted to do was pedal as fast as she could, hunch over the handlebars, and fly into the wind, free as a bird. And yet, she knew this was not possible; at least not yet.

After wheeling the bicycle outside the house, the elated child watched as her parents put the training wheels on the bicycle. With this accomplished, she could now try out the pride and joy of this Christmas.

Her parents watched as she gently but eagerly climbed up onto the bicycle seat, placed her feet on the pedals, hands on the handlebars, and awkwardly began to inch forward. Thankfully, with the support of the extra wheels, the child was unlikely to fall down, but her parents still watched nervously. They would cry, “Don’t get too close to the street!” And in spite of their mild anxiety in watching this new adventure play out, they couldn’t help but rejoice with the contagious happiness of their child.

As the months went by, their daughter became more and more comfortable with maneuvering her new toy. And before too long, it was time for the training wheels to come off and for the real test to happen. Once again, the parents ventured outside with their enthusiastic child and watched as she mounted the bicycle and began to pedal. The first attempt was what they feared. A few wobbly movements forward, and the bicycle came crashing to the ground.

But skinned knee and all, the determined child climbed onto the bicycle again and again, each time, making a bit more progress towards stability. And soon, it was as if she had always been riding without support.

As the months went by, her parents became more relaxed. They realized, at heart, no matter how much anxiety they might have, that they couldn’t strangle the freedom of their daughter forever. They were, of course, torn between seeking the safety of their child and allowing her to be happy, basking in the freedom of doing things on her own.

And so, baby step after baby step, their daughter moved towards independence. First, she could ride down the full length of their neighborhood street, supervised by her parents. Then, they mustered the courage to allow her to ride up and down the street unattended. These expeditions were followed by journeys to school with other companions, and then a bit farther afield to the houses of friends.

The parents soon realized that, while their worry and anxiety might never cease, their daughter was growing up, and they could not hold on to her forever. Their love for her was not rooted in control or smothering protection but in giving her the gift of freedom, the freedom to be a child living and playing in the world.

This freedom undoubtedly comes with risks. There is no freedom that does not carry with it the possibility of danger, whether to self or to others. There is no true freedom that is characterized by total self-isolation. And yet one who is not really free is somehow deprived of a fundamental part of being human.

The slave is not granted the dignity of making choices. This is why to be enslaved or utterly subject to another is to be relegated to a status that is inhuman. This is why it is evil. And the one who cannot grant freedom to another human being is one who is lacking in love. Because true love accepts the risks and the dangers of real freedom.

It is profoundly sad that people of faith often do not fully understand the gift of freedom they have been given. Some fear God, but as nothing more than one who grants access to heaven or eternal punishment in hell. God is simply a remote guardian who doles out rules and boundaries that do little more than restrain freedom. God is seen as so jealous for control that perpetual anger and wrath are necessary responses to such ontological insecurity.

In the minds of others, with God, anything goes, lest his heart of love be betrayed and he interfere in the private lives of any of his subjects. In this view, God condones all manner of behavior because any judgment or censure would be offensive to the truly free individual.

But St. Paul suggests a radically different understanding of God. And I wonder, is God so often rejected because many people cannot possibly imagine that they would be deserving of God’s glorious gift of freedom?

As Paul tells us, God’s reign and lordship are not exercised to enslave us but to free us and to place us in relationship with himself as his own children. Such a God, whose very nature is free, can do nothing other than love us by setting us free.

Here is a God who is not afraid to enter the depths of the human condition and risk the sorrow that comes with rejection by his own children. Here is a God who does not function as the grand puppeteer and give us the illusion of freedom while yet grasping control of the strings of our lives.

Here is a God who enters fleshly existence as a child knowing full well that it will end in suffering and death. And, in spite of all this, this God does not avoid us or stay distanced from us but instead adopts us as children and commands us to call him Father.

It would not be real love if there were no risk involved. It would not be real love if there were no relationship involved. It would not be real love if fear prevented any intimacy.

But we have been so conditioned to misunderstand freedom. We live, supposedly, in a nation based on the core principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but it’s hard to ignore the abuses foisted upon those words. Freedom has come to mean, in many cases, the lack of any boundaries, the ability to do anything without official interference, or complete libertinism without regard for the other. As such, we remain connected to no one. For others, the risk of allowing any freedom is too great a threat to control that the safer bet is to allow no freedom at all.

But our God commands that we call him Abba, Father. God is all too aware of the risk involved. God has seen his beloved children leap the boundaries of relationship, and yet time and again he has waited patiently and lovingly with outstretched arms because love is greater than control. God has, through the years, given us structure: laws and prophets to show us the way so that we are not wandering aimlessly. This God has entered into relationship with us, even to the very pangs of death, because to be remotely and safely ensconced on high would make him less than who he really is.

Even though we have been empowered to call God Father, it can still be difficult to comprehend the incredible degree of trust that God has placed in us. God has imbued us with freedom because God believes that we can use that freedom for the good of the world. God may have given us the bounds, but God will not force us to stay within them. God knows that if we are truly alive and free, we will be happy. And that is what God desires.

But when such happiness is misunderstood, a lesser happiness is chosen, wherein we appear to be free but are once again enslaved by our own obsessions, fantasies, and self-preoccupations. The risk, at times, seems too great to accept true freedom, because we might, from time to time, get hurt.

But God knows all this. God knows that we will constantly skin our knees and scrape our elbows if we are willing to take the risk of love. God understands that we will wander outside the bounds as we take advantage of our freedom. And although it pains the heart of God to see us get hurt, God lets us go. God knows that for us to be free and fully in relationship with him, he must let us pedal into the wind, even if we fall down a few times.

And there will be moments, when we need to bring the training wheels out again. When our boundaries have been obliterated and we forget from whom and whence we came, a little structure can bring us back to our roots.

This Christmas, as we celebrate the gift of Christ to us, we simultaneously rejoice in the gift of freedom. It is unlikely that many of us feel free at this time, either quarantined or staying safe in our homes, but God has allowed us to run fully into the wind, even if we occasionally get hurt through our own poor choices.

And God has sent his Spirit into our hearts, so that when we fall and are down, when we are feeling helpless and constrained, and when we do not know where we are headed, that same Spirit is praying in our hearts and urging us to turn our bicycle back around. And there waiting for us with open arms is God, who tells us to call him Father.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The First Sunday after Christmas
December 27, 2020

Look Up

This past Monday, if you were outside in the evening and bothered to look up, you may have noticed an unusual conjunction of the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter. The two planets have not been so close to one another since 1623, but in that year, the sun’s glare would have obscured the effect of the two planets’ movements. 1226 was the last time the rare proximity of Saturn and Jupiter would have been visible to the human eye.

Of all the years in recent memory, I do wonder if this is the Christmas to look up into the sky more than we might be accustomed to doing. It has been difficult to escape the survival mechanism of looking at one’s own navel or immediate household in the past nine months. And with glasses fogging up from wearing a mask, even looking at the night sky can be quite a challenge.

I confess that I do not often look up at the stars, planets, or heavenly spheres. But now that I no longer live in Center City Philadelphia, I really should make a point of doing so. It could be that precisely what we need right now is to look up, away from ourselves, at an otherworldly realm so vastly distant from us.

This, at least, was the argument made by New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye in an article last Friday, where he suggested that observing the “rare conjunction of planets” reminds us that “there is more to the universe than just ourselves.”[1]      

A look up at the night sky, at least when one can see any stars at all, is a reminder of the astounding number of heavenly bodies, bodies that are light years away. Imagine, gazing upon light that emanated from its source hundreds of years ago, as if we are looking back in time. Contemplating the heavens evokes a sober, if wondrous, recognition that our place in the universe is small indeed.

But this year has seemed much like a year of looking down. For fear of breathing in another person’s breath, we have shielded our faces. We have kept our eyes on the cracks in the sidewalk. And we have vigilantly monitored our own health for signs of a cough or congestion. We have anxiously analyzed our bank accounts, comparing them against the volatile markets. We have stockpiled toilet paper and spent countless hours staring at computer screens. How many times have you looked up this past year?

Admittedly, it has been difficult to appreciate the light this past year, for it has seemed all too dark. In some ways, the past nine months have felt like someone suddenly throwing the lights off in a room, leaving us stumbling to find the switch but unable to do so. We have grasped for the switch that would illuminate a vaccine or some revolutionary cure for a deadly virus. We have searched in the dark for ways to connect with our friends and loved ones when we couldn’t meet in person or exchange hugs or kisses.

For some, this year has been much darker than for others. There have been unfathomable losses, and to deny the reality of the darkness would be insensitive and unconscionable. The darkness, too, has extended into many areas of our lives, beyond the scope of a virus. There has been searing hatred played out on the streets of this country. Many feel stranded in the dark about what individual futures will hold, and they fear for the well-being of their children.

What has seemed permanent in the past has been rendered transient. Customs that were formerly like second nature have disappeared, and we have been groping madly around the dark room, scraping our hands on the walls and praying that we would find a light switch to illumine the darkness. But when we finally find it, the electricity is out.

So, perhaps this is why we should look up. As the light fades in the evening sky, the constant shining of the stars, the carefully scripted orbits of the planets, and the vast multitude of lights in the dark sky, remind us that we are part of something so much larger than ourselves.

Perhaps this, of all days, is the day to look up for a visible sign that St. John’s words are really true. It is on this great Feast of the Incarnation that we celebrate two contrasting things as one Truth. God is beyond time and space, and God became flesh in a tiny infant, living among the toils and tribulations of humankind. We can’t part with either piece of knowledge lest we lose some deeper truth.

When the sorrows of this earthly life have seemed too much to handle, and when the vicissitudes of life on this mortal coil have left us bewildered, looking up might be exactly the right thing to do. Looking up into the night sky, we remember, as John tells us, that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. It is admittedly hard to see this light in our worst moments. Life in the past months has seemed perilously close to the victory of darkness, if light could even be said to exist at all.

St. John writing about the beginning of time knew, of course, what the end would be like as well. John knew that the world’s true Light, Jesus himself, would be shrouded with darkness on the rough wood of a tree outside Jerusalem. But John also knew that on the third day, Light would rise victorious, because this Light could not be extinguished, not by the savage cruelty of humans, not even by the depths of hell.

This Light shines perpetually. It never goes out. Its full power is often masked by deceit, and it is true that the devil masquerades as an angel of light. It is also true that at times the frequency of this Light appears to waver, and its intensity seems to weaken. But this is only a delusion; don’t let it fool you. The Light is always beaming bright, even when it is rejected or goes unseen.

What the Light visualizes is simply what has been present in the beginning and eternally, when there was no beginning. The created light we see is just a visible sign of the one true uncreated Light, the eternal Word, that never had a first appearing, but which simply always was, with the Father and the Spirit.

When the light around us is poor, when it seems to randomly shift colors, when it forsakes us and leaves us lonely, afraid, and unable to move, we need to remember that there is a Light that never fades. There is a Light nearer to us than we are to ourselves which is also so far removed from us in utter constancy that we have to look up to recall that this Light still exists. This Light has run throughout eternity and broken into human time and space to thread its way into our bones and blood so that it could pull us into the eternal stream of life and love.

And even when we turn our backs on this Light, it is still there. Even when we try our best to blot it out through willfulness, pride, and sin, it does not change. Even when we are so turned in on ourselves that we only see the darkness of our own shadow, the Light is still there illuminating the form of our bodies.

And meanwhile, at the end of a dark year, Saturn and Jupiter are passing very close to one another as they follow their charted paths. These planets seem utterly unaware of the pain and travail here below. But there is still some time to look up and see the visual wonders they are performing in the night sky.

They signal that there is a rhythm and order beyond our understanding and control. And while we toil away in the heartache of this moment in time, there is at least some semblance of constancy about us. Even when ICU beds are filled to capacity, and we are tired of keeping to ourselves, and when we long to sing just one Christmas carol in church, even then, Saturn and Jupiter continue on their business, reminding us that when all seems unstable, there is something constant among us, something infinitely more constant than the predictable orbits of those heavenly bodies.

Somewhere, hidden in the mess of the present moment, the eternal Word still abides. Jesus, the constant Light of God’s presence still shines. Even when, and especially when, God’s care and provision seem masked by the dark, we must remember to look up to the lights shining in the darkness to remind us that in the mystery of God, the lights never go out.

And at some point, we will cease our stumbling, and, through God’s grace, our hands will find the light switch, and the room will be flooded with a brilliance that pains our eyes because we have been in the dark so long.

But meanwhile, we wait. And while we wait, we must remember to look up, to remind ourselves, that what St. John said was true. There is a Light shining in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. It never has. It cannot. And it never will. Thanks be to God.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
December 25, 2020

[1] Dennis Overbye, “The Solstice, Solace for Our Darkness,” NY Times, December 18, 2020.

From the Inside Out

If you think back to your days in high school English class, you may remember learning about the deus ex machina. When the author of a story or play becomes twisted up in an irresolvable plot of her or his own making, this literary plot device could be summoned to save the day.

The origins of the deus ex machina lie in ancient Greek plays in which an actor, representing one of the many deities, was lowered from on high using a crane or a lift. As the gods entered to perform the great rescue operation, they descended from a remote place, entered history, from the outside in, and left again, having untied the complicated knots of a gnarly plot.

Euripides is usually considered the first to consistently use the deus ex machina device. It later came to be associated with non-machine oriented literary ploys used by writers to enact a twist in a plot, to create facile resolution, or to conclude a drama with a splash. Shakespeare used this device. You’ll also find it in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies and Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.[1] Even Faux the Phoenix in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has been seen as an example of deus ex machina.[2]

Unsurprisingly, this eleventh-hour literary technique has been criticized as displaying a lack of imagination. At its worst, it could be used to salvage the most poorly written plot lines imaginable. Anyone, it seems, could pen the most fantastic plot and tie everything up by simple employment of the deus ex machina.

But there’s another aspect of this plot device that places it outside the confines of reality. Often, the hero who swoops in to save the day through the deus ex machina is a remote figure. In the case of ancient Greek tragedies, a member of the pantheon of gods and goddesses, normally distant from happenings on earth, deigns to descend from on high, rescue a situation, and then return to the comfort of Olympus. In other examples, the use of the device itself seems like an intrusion on the normal course of reality and is scarcely believable.

In some ways, it seems that, over the centuries, Christians have come to view the Incarnation as a great deus ex machina event. Perhaps you’ve heard God’s work in Christ described as the wonderful rescue operation through which the world is saved. God, enthroned loftily on high, somewhere up in the clouds, deigns to enter into mortal existence sometime around 4 B.C. God swoops down in the great arc of salvation, enters human history to save it, and then ascends far into the heavens when all is accomplished.

But there is something unsatisfactory about the way God is portrayed in this visual scheme. Somehow the Incarnation is cheapened when we see it as little more than a gargantuan rescue operation when all the world had gone down the tubes.

A more nuanced view of what we celebrate this night is offered by St. Luke. We hear, once again, as we do every year, Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. We have perhaps heard it so many times that it seems to offer little that is new. But hear with fresh ears, if you can, Luke’s account of the nativity. Luke, as he is wont to do, roots Jesus’ birth in the folds of history. During the reign of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria, God entered the most impoverished depths of human history as a little child.

Some scholars have spent a lot of ink trying to debunk the reality of a census at the time that Luke offers us. I think this misses the point. What Luke is telling us is that the Incarnation was, in fact, no deus ex machina plot-saving device in the narrative of salvation. Whether there was a census in 4 B.C. or not, Luke is telling something utterly true about God’s work in Christ through his own use of literary details. In the Incarnation, God enters the human story in an unparalleled manner, with such intimacy, that we must pause in order to appreciate its extraordinary magnificence, lest we take it for granted. God, as Luke tells us, was literally enrolled in a census along with the entire known world.

Into a world of countless subjects of a brutal empire, God came. Born amid the meager conditions of a peasant family on the move, God entered the records of a census. The Word became flesh, as Luke describes it, in a feeding trough because, presumably, there were so many others in town for the census registration that there was no more room for the Holy Family in the inn.

When the Name of God was enrolled as Jesus Christ in the annals of the ancient Roman Empire, God entered the records of human history. Into a world where many were kept anonymous by the cruel imposition of power and the incessant machine of efficiency, God entered human existence in a way that might be seen as inefficient and not necessarily convenient.

God came, not swooping down from on high to temporarily rescue a fallen race, but, instead, the Word became flesh in the womb of a human mother. He was himself given a Name in order to bestow a name to all the nameless, both of Jesus’ day and of ours. God became a statistic in the human project of statistics in order to ensure that no person would be just a statistic. God took on a human face so that no person would be faceless in the midst of the dehumanizing system of domination and efficiency.

This was no mere deus ex machina operation, as if God could only save the world by an aloof, momentary descension from on high. The salvation Luke describes is God taking on flesh, a name in a census, a life lived for over thirty years, and a death suffered under the cruel systems of human punishment. Salvation was brought to the poorest village, to the loneliest criminal on death row, to the poorest of the poor, to the forgotten homeless, to the forsaken.

In some ways, our world is no different from the day when God was enrolled in a census. On a globe of some 7.5 billion people, we are all just numbers. Even this year, many of us have been recorded in this decade’s census in the attempt to quantify a motley group of people who are essentially unquantifiable.

Every day brings new statistics of the number of COVID-19 cases across the world, of the number of hospital beds occupied, and of the number of people vaccinated. Without fail, we are constantly confronted with souls whose names are known only to God because they have no homes and because they will never be documented in any census.

Right now, those of you watching via live-stream are being recorded as a view, a simple, anonymous statistic that will be enrolled in the parish’s record of services. In a time in which we are all so seemingly connected by technology, we have become more and more anonymous to one another. In some sense, we might just feel like a number among many millions.

And this is precisely why our salvation is more meaningful than an unimaginative deus ex machina operation. This is why God was enrolled in the records of humanity: to save every aspect of our frail humanity, every detail, down to every face, name, condition, including all who never make it to the official books of history. Salvation became rooted at ground level, in the numbers of a census, in the production system of Galilean carpentry, in the cruel punishment of a Roman execution system.

There was no stalemate in the plot of human existence that required God to lower himself from the heavens, work some magic, and disappear, leaving us to work out our future with a new exit strategy. There was instead a human existence in need of salvation from the inside out. And into this existence, God became a name and number in a census.

In a year that many of us might want to see disappear quickly, this is the intimacy of salvation for which we might long. As we mourn those victims of this cruel virus, we know they were more than just numbers in a newspaper or massed percentages. We know that those lying in hospital beds right now are not mere numbers either. As we wrestle with feelings of God’s aloofness in the midst of unspeakable tragedy, we don’t need to long for another deus ex machina operation to unfold. We have already been given the mystery of God’s presence that continues to save us from the inside out.

Amid our unconscionable divisions in this country, and in the face of anger, enmity, and violence, we rejoice in our salvation by a God who entered all those conditions of human existence and redeemed them from the inside out. There is no corner of human existence that was left outside the reach of God’s saving embrace.

As the great hymn tells us, Christ was born for this.[3] Christ was born, this night, so that no feeding trough was outside the realm of salvation. No device of capital punishment was immune to his saving grace. No child of God roaming the streets this night without a home or a warm bed is beyond the scope of salvation, which works from the inside out.

This night, rejoice. Rejoice, that you and I are not mere statistics in a census every ten years. Rejoice that our salvation could not be performed by some anonymous, remote rescue operation. Rejoice, that our God was enrolled in the annals of human history, in a census over two thousand years ago so that all of us could be saved, not from the outside in, but from the inside out.

Preached by Father Kyle Babin
The First Mass of Christmas
December 24, 2020

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

[2] https://screenrant.com/biggest-deus-ex-machina-moments-in-film-history/

[3] “Good Christian, men, rejoice” by John Mason Neale

The Disturbing Gift

In one of the many rooms of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, there is a stunning depiction of the angel Gabriel’s Annunciation to the Virgin Mary. This work was painted in 1898 by Henry Ossawa Tanner, a Pittsburgh-born but Philadelphia-trained artist. Because the painting covers nearly an entire wall, it’s difficult not to be arrested by this painting upon entering the room.

Tanner’s portrayal of the Annunciation has captivated my attention since I first saw it, not because of its size in the museum gallery, but because of its rather unusual interpretation of the moment when Mary first learns that she will bear the Son of God.

In Tanner’s work, Mary is more realistically depicted than in some other renderings of the Annunciation. Tanner reveals her as a young woman, possibly as young as 12. In Tanner’s painting, Mary is sitting, somewhat hunched over on her ruffled bed in a simple, spartan room. She is clearly a native of ancient Palestine; Tanner, thankfully, makes no attempt to render Mary as an Anglo to suit romanticized Western wishes. Mary does not have her head bowed in self-deprecation or as if she is looking away from the angel’s presence. But her shoulders are slightly stooped, as if burdened with the news she is receiving and the task ahead. Her hands are clasped, maybe somewhat fretfully because of her troubled state.

But what is most striking in Tanner’s representation of the Annunciation is the appearance of the angel Gabriel. Gabriel is not a recognizable, human-like figure. If one did not know the story, it would not be obvious what was happening. There are no angel wings or Cupid-like accoutrement. Gabriel is visualized as a bright, vertical flash of white light, surrounded by an aureole of yellowish hue. To the eyes, the angel does not look like a human at all but instead like a supernatural parting of the veil between heaven and earth.

And Mary sits, undoubtedly confused and overwhelmed on her unmade bed, alone, not shielding her eyes from the light or prostrating herself on the ground, but looking directly at the brilliance before her. She doesn’t avoid the light, as much as she may feel weighed down with the magnitude of her new, unchosen future. The heavenly gift has broken into her world, and she, without making excuses or running away, accepts the gift into her life. Her life has been disturbed by God, but she doesn’t avoid the disturbance. Rather, she looks it straight in the face, if blinding light can be said to have one.

There is a tension in Luke’s account of the Annunciation, especially when compared with that of Matthew. Luke presents the virginal conception of Jesus as something to happen in the future. It’s unclear whether the outcome hinges on Mary’s response. But regardless, Mary is offered some kind of agency. She is presented with the opportunity to respond.

And she does, first, with a question of how such things can be considering her virgin state. This is followed by her assent to be the servant of the Lord. Tanner’s portrayal of the Annunciation extracts Mary from facile moves to label her as meek, mild, and overly submissive. Without question, we know that Mary said yes. But her yes has volition more than meager assent to unsolicited domination. Her yes has power because she chooses to accept the gift of God’s disturbance of her life.

The Church has sometimes tried to downplay Mary’s humanity in order to explain how she could be worthy of God’s particular favor to bear the Incarnate Word. And in doing so, Mary has, in turn, become far removed from our ability to relate to her. The magnitude of what Mary does is paradoxically downplayed. It’s Mary’s sublime expression of her humanity that is actually so inspiring for us. And her embodiment of her own humanity is what makes her so worthy of veneration and a place of honor in the company of saints. From the depths of her very humanity, in spite of her humanity, we might say, Blessed Mary was able to accept God’s disturbance into her life.

And in saying yes to God, but not glibly or easily because of exaggerated demure, Mary directs our attention back to God. Scripture provides no evidence that Mary engaged in vociferous protestations of unworthiness or displays of false humility upon being greeted by Gabriel. As far as we know, Mary didn’t fall on the ground beating her breast out of self-flagellation, and in turn draw attention to herself. Nor did she counter the angel’s message with a vigorous attempt to do something for God in order to try to repay what God had done for her. As Tanner interprets the Annunciation, Mary quietly but boldly gazes with genuine acceptance into the heavenly disturbance of her peasant world.

This disturbance is an unusual gift, but it’s a gift nonetheless. Unquestionably, it is clouded with what the future will hold. Mary’s eyes, gazing upon the shaft of inbreaking light, seem somewhat darkened with an expectation that the future will hold sorrow. Her eyes seem to behold the cross on the horizon. And yet, without turning from the light, she still says yes. Her yes is almost a sacramental expression of the grace operating within her. The disturbing gift that breaks into her world is unsolicited. That’s usually how grace works. But one thing is sure: it’s God’s gift.

This is how God’s grace manifests itself. It pierces the veil between heaven and earth. It disturbs our world. And the natural reaction to disturbance is fear, anger, or avoidance. We find myriad excuses to reject God’s ceaseless gifts. Could it ever happen that the distortion of our ordered ways would be God’s gift? How could it be that, of all people, God would choose me upon which to bestow a gift? How could it be that, of all people, God would choose that person to receive a gift? In this world of sin and willful negligence, is it even possible that God would deign to part the curtain between heaven and earth, much less give us something? What silliness is it for us to receive a divine gift that necessitates our bearing a burden or two!

And so, we find that making excuses for our unworthiness is easier than accepting the gift. We choose comfort over disruption. Or we throw ourselves wholeheartedly into doing things for God, who has no need of any of them, rather than standing still and boldly facing, eye to eye, God’s disturbance of our lives.

We see in the Blessed Mother no attempt to control her own fate. We see no effort at replicating the actions of her husband’s ancestor David. Rather than busying herself with offering God a house through her own endeavors, she assents for her womb to be the house of God through God’s own initiative. Unlike Peter, Mary doesn’t shun God’s stooping down to offer her the gift of grace. She simply says yes.

Perhaps what is most astonishing of all is that the gift with which God overshadows Mary might not seem like a gift at all. God imparts to her a child by the power of the Holy Spirit, conceived out of wedlock, unbidden, into poverty. The gift carries with it the potential scorn of a society enmeshed in a clear system of honor. The gift will hold near unbearable sorrow in thirty years’ time. The gift is the disturbance of a way of life, if poor, at least simple and clear. What kind of gift is this?

It is none other than the gift of God, and it is the reason we so often shun such gifts. These gifts come to us even when we don’t ask for them. These gifts poke holes in our best laid plans. These gifts cannot give us the satisfaction of repaying the Giver.

Mary makes no attempt at trying to figure out why she is the recipient of God’s favor. And she doesn’t try to buoy her self-esteem by floating on clouds of pride because she was indeed the recipient of God’s wonderful gift. She inwardly ponders, and sitting there alone in her room, on a bed whose sheets have been disturbed with sleep, she gazes into the bright light from heaven. And she doesn’t look away.

We rightly marvel at Mary’s sublime expression of her humanity. We rightly contemplate how far her example is from our meager attempts at obedience and humility. And so we, too, sit on our ruffled beds. We acknowledge the ways in which God has disturbed and continues to disturb our lives. We know how difficult it is to accept these disruptions of the status quo as gifts, but Mary teaches us to do so.

Sitting, with shoulders slightly bowed down with the weight of the world’s troubles and sorrows, we nevertheless make a bold move, with Mary as our guide. We ponder and cogitate on what manner of greeting God has chosen to disturb our lives. We even ask a question or two. But rather than retreat inward out of defensiveness, we look up at the blazing light. In the brief time that we can keep our eyes open, we see a glimpse of heaven. And we hold our gaze as long as possible. And without comforting resolution or solid reassurance of our future, we say yes to God.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2020

A Time to Dream

Do you think this might be the year for dreaming? Each of us knows that Christmas is coming soon, and when it does, it’s going to look much different than in years past. Perhaps this is the year to dream.

Maybe it’s the year to gather around the fireplace with a steaming hot beverage and delectable cookies, huddled against the cold, and with our immediate household, recount days of old. We might remember last Thanksgiving or last Christmas, or the one before that, or even a holiday twenty years ago, when the room was filled with laughter and audible sounds of joy.

In those days, all thirty people could line up at the serving table and fight over the last piece of pie. We could hold gatherings throughout the season, as many as we wanted, with as many people as we chose to invite. Those were the days, and we were glad indeed.

As we anticipate the great celebration of the Incarnation in less than two weeks, this year we know it will be different. So, maybe this is the year for dreaming. This is the year to sit still with our memories and relive them, moment by moment. If we can’t actually replicate them this year, we can dream about them. This could be the year for dreaming.

These days, I confess that most of my dreams are riddled with some measure of anxiety. One of my latest anxiety dreams involves being in a large crowd of people, none of whom is wearing a mask. Sound familiar? Perhaps you have your own anxiety dreams: arriving at the final exam for a class that you completely forgot you had registered for or being on stage to play the piano concerto you never memorized. These are not the dreams we want to recall.

But let’s try to summon up the dreams that we remember with particular fondness. Let’s dream, this Advent and into Christmas, about the days that have brought us joy and happiness in the past.

We are so often discouraged from dreaming. Have you ever been labeled a daydreamer? I remember many days in my youth of sitting on a backyard swing and dreaming away, with no worries about the time or how productive I was. But to do so as an adult in the modern age is seen as a royal waste of time.

Dreaming is for lazy people. Dreaming is for those who fail to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make a real living. Dreaming is for fools. Dreaming does nothing to stimulate productivity and efficiency. Dreaming is, well, we might as well own up to it: dreaming is for those who put their trust in God.

From the witness of Scripture, it would seem that God rather favors dreams. Think of the number of people in the Bible with whom God appears in dreams: Jacob, Joseph, and Solomon, among others. Some, like the prophet Daniel, interpret dreams. And of course, the evangelist Matthew loves dreams. Joseph learns of Jesus’ birth in a dream. Because of a dream, the magi decide to return to their native land by way of a different route after visiting the infant Jesus. And Joseph leads his family to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath after a warning in a dream.

But if you have a dream these days and take it too seriously, people will look at you as if you have lost your mind. Dreams are the realm of the fantastical. Dreams are mere fiction. Dreams are precisely where we lose our control.

The psalmist, though, understands the importance of dreams. The author of Psalm 126, either writing in the midst of the Babylonian exile or looking back on that exile, likens good fortune, joy, and laughter to a state of dreaming.

It’s unclear whether the psalmist is dreaming about a past liberation from exile or is dreaming about a liberation in the future. And this ambiguity is exactly what dreaming is like.

For a dream uncomfortably straddles the past, present, and future. Often our dreams at night can be traced to little kernels of events during the day. They conceptualize a reality beyond our grasp, something outside of time. When a dream is glorious, we wake up disappointed, because we still want to be in the realm of the dream.

But the psalmist dreams about a restoration of fortune, of rejoicing, and of God’s great actions on behalf of humankind. This dream enters into the experience of being exiled from Jerusalem for decades, with all its heartache and sorrow. This dream is also the basis for hope in God’s great actions in the future. This dream only makes sense because of something God has already done. God has already done great things. God has already made his people joyful. God has already shown his great goodness. And so the psalmist dares to dream again.

The psalm pivots halfway through from a dreamlike state to a request. The psalmist has spent time around the fire with a hot cup of cocoa, reminiscing about the glorious days of old, but outside the warm room, there is the present reality of a dark, bitter winter. The psalmist is dreaming because he desires for things to be different than the way they are.

The psalmist knows that in the past God has proven trustworthy by his actions. The psalmist is convinced that those who are weeping as they go into the field with bags and bags of lifeless seeds will, nevertheless, return one day singing with joy, and struggling to carry their bags stuffed full of sheaves.

The psalmist dreams because dreaming reimagines the present and the future in terms of the past. The psalmist dreams as the dreams compel him to petition God. The psalmist does not shy away from God. The psalmist is direct and honest. “Turn our captivity, O Lord: as the rivers in the south.” “Restore our fortunes, O Lord.” The psalmist knows that God has done wonderful things before, and the psalmist believes that God will do them again.

It could be that the reason we are so often discouraged from dreaming is because many have lost their imaginations. Everyone is so literal these days, and metaphor and poetry have been relegated to obscurity. It could also be that dreaming is frowned upon because some have simply lost hope that the future can be other than some ill twist of fate already etched in stone.

But we, who have been given so much reason to hope, know that we can dream. We know that we must dream. Our entire liturgical tradition beckons us to dream constantly. We are forever remembering what God has done for us, those things that bring us profound joy. And while we recognize that the present needs some work, or a lot of work, we dare to dream that God will restore our fortunes again. In the midst of sinning and our failures, we remember God’s mercy, as if in a dream, and we dream in the trust that God will work wonders among us again. We dream so that things will be better. And we know that they can be.

Our dreams compel us, like the psalmist, to plead with God. Our dreams urge us to be direct with God and tell him all about our dreams. Dreaming with God is a sign of our trust in him.

We dream about nine months ago, before we were locked down in a pandemic. We recall how good God was to us then, and we remember that God is still being good to us now. And we dream about an even better future.

We dream about a time, perhaps further back than we’d care to admit, when we weren’t fighting so much with our neighbors or other nations or even within the Church. And we remember that those days, if in a dream, were happy. If we dream, then we know how to call upon God, who will doubtless restore our fortunes again.

As we see truth dismantled all around us, we remember, as in a dream, that God became flesh in a human person in a tiny Palestinian village over two thousand years ago. We dream about that time when Truth walked the earth and revealed the very face of God. And while we often miss that face in the chaos around us, we dream that Jesus will come again and fill the world with his justice.

We dream because we are certain that things are not the way they should be. We dream because, at times in the past, God revealed his greatness among us. We dream because our present and our future can be different by the grace of God. And we dream because we know that God will indeed do great things for us.

Right now, we might be bracing for a lonely or disappointing Christmas. We might be utterly discouraged about entering into another lockdown. And because of that, we must dream. We must dream about picking up our bags of seed to go into the fields and sow. At the moment, we are weeping, and we have good cause to weep. But we still dream. We dream because we’ve seen it happen in the past.

We dream that, one day in the future, we see ourselves returning home from the field. And the look on our faces is not weeping but laughing and joyous singing, because on our backs are sacks chock full of sheaves. And we once again remember how good God has been to us.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday of Advent
December 13, 2020

More Time on the Exam

A month into my first semester of seminary, things began to fall apart—not with my own situation but with the seminary itself. Tension between the faculty and dean had led to a standoff and strike, and students were trapped in the middle of it all. Classes were paused for many weeks, and no one knew what the future would hold in terms of any kind of real education and formation.

As the semester end drew nigh, and when I had already made plans to transfer to another seminary, the standoff ceased, and classes began to resume. This time was traumatic for the student body. Any semblance of order and routine had been shattered in late September, and by late November, somehow we students had to think about exams and grades amid all the mess. It was the last thing any of us wanted to do.

And I will never forget the response of one of my professors. He was a wonderful teacher and a kind man. He had continued teaching his classes throughout the faculty strike, and when the final exam approached, he announced that, because of all the drama and unrest of the semester, the final exam would be open book and take-home. As I recall, the deadline was extended, too.

I will admit that as an overly conscientious student, who was committed to studying and working hard even in the midst of instability at the seminary, I was both relieved and yet a little disappointed. My weaker side wanted to be able to deliver an excellent exam in spite of all that had transpired over the course of the semester. I suppose I secretly wanted to best those other students who had chosen to slack off. They should get their due.

But what I remember most about my professor was his graciousness and mercy. He was empathetic enough to recognize that we students had been put through something painful, through no fault of our own. And his way of demonstrating his compassion, was to change the conditions of the final exam.

Truth be told, I don’t think I learned any less in preparing for the exam because of how it was structured. I may even have learned more. I still remember quite a bit from the semester in that one class. Above all, though, I remember that professor’s kindness.

Of course, my professor knew he shouldn’t cancel the exam. Grades, after all, are part and parcel of the academic experience. As faulty and potentially unhelpful as they can be, they rightly demand accountability. My professor was trying to hold two things in balance: a gentle “carrot” towards good academic performance that would hopefully be an incentive to learn and a merciful stance that acknowledged difficult circumstances.

The author of the Second Letter of Peter seems to be doing something quite the same. He wrestles with a balance between two things. He encourages holy living by reminding his audience of the reality of judgment, and he also emphasizes God’s mercy. The part of Second Peter that precedes this morning’s lesson has some rather harsh images of what happens to those who don’t follow God’s commandments. There has been too much libertinism and moral squalor, and the author knows there must be some bounds. There needs to be the prospect of judgment in order to understand the harmful effects of turning away from God. Such knowledge can incentivize good behavior. Such an understanding in and of itself reveals that God cares about humankind. God knows that holy living is what is good for our souls.

But it seems that the author of Second Peter also can’t avoid the potent reality of God’s great mercy. In spite of all the author’s harsh assessments of scoffers and false teachers, he is irresistibly drawn to God’s compassion. His explanation for the seeming delay in the day of judgment is not just that God’s time is different from ours, but that God is deliberately delaying judgment out of mercy for humankind. It’s an astounding concept!

As Second Peter puts it, God’s forbearance—his abundant and generous patience—is intentional. God is giving humanity every chance to repent. God wants no one to perish and desires that all move towards true repentance. God, it seems, wants no one to be left out.

But should this really surprise us? If we recall God’s incessant blessings of creation as good, indeed very good, why would God not wish all to repent and experience salvation? If we remember the manifold times in the narrative of salvation in which God called his people back to him after they went astray, should God’s mercy surprise us?

True, God’s judgment is quite clear in Holy Scripture. God is depicted as wrathful and punitive at times. But lest we miss the big picture, we should recall the consistent motif that runs like a thread throughout Scripture: God waits with open arms for his people to return to him. And especially when things are looking quite dire, God consistently offers a promise of something more wonderful to come.

Somehow, though, over the course of time, perhaps through false teachers or through the distorted lens of our broken humanity, we have chosen to ignore God’s mercy and focus only on God’s anger and wrath. Why is this? My own instinctive reaction back in seminary to a compassionate gesture of a professor may be some indication. To hope that all the slackers get their due, is often more about human pride than about real justice.

Is our picture of God at times an idol made in our own image? That is to say, have our own sinful desires for revenge and our animosity towards others become the characteristics we erroneously ascribe to God? If the world in which we live is any indication of our values, this might be true.

We seem to be more adept in labeling people as criminals rather than helping them transform their lives. Individual ambition and personal preservation become the reasons to put others down and to hope they in their own endeavors. We rejoice when the wicked get their due. We long for that awful person to experience the full brunt of God’s wrath and anger, because, we say, they deserve it. Fair is fair.

Or is it? How does all this square with a God whose only Son Jesus Christ came into the world not to condemn it but to save it? How does this mean-spiritedness mesh with the heart of the Christian faith, which proclaims that we aren’t out of the game after one strike, or even three, but that we are offered multiple chances to repent and turn back to God?

Could it be, then, that the human tendency to see others get their due is because we ultimately fear God more than we love God? There may be a place for the carrot on a stick to encourage good behavior, just as grades supposedly encourage learning. But at some point, it might be that we have tipped over more into what we fear rather than what we love. We have perhaps forgotten that we are first and foremost to love God, because God first loved us. Holy fear is meet and right, but it is not the same as the miserable fear we so often have of God. Seeking heaven because we are afraid of God misses the point. Then, heaven wouldn’t be heaven.

And so, because of our own insecurity about our status on the day of judgment, we long for others to feel the same. Others should get their due if we ourselves are going to get ours.

But Second Peter reminds us of something extraordinary about God that we might be prone to forget. God exhibits compassion by recognizing that it’s difficult to be a part of humanity. God seems to know that we need more time for the exam. God wants the end result to be favorable because God wants what is good for us. And God knows that by giving us the time to accomplish that, the world will be saved.

Our sanctification is not so each of us can get an A on the exam and the eventual gold star on the diploma. Our sanctification is good for the whole world, and with God’s help, it is the way we encounter a new heaven and a new earth.

What seems like painful destruction to us is evidence of God recreating the world for our own good. It’s only painful to us because we resist it. But when all the dross, sin, and evil of this world have been melted away, we awaken to a pure life where righteousness dwells.

God has provided us with a marvelous gift: the gift of more time on the exam. God knows our struggles in a life of sin. God knows us more deeply than we know ourselves, and God loves us in the same way. That precious face of yours that God so lovingly sculpted, those strands of your hair that God fully counts, and that heart of yours that longs for God without sometimes even knowing it, all of it is why God is patient with you and with me, because he made them.

God doesn’t want those features molded by his hand to perish, but through our own process of holy living, God desires that they be transformed into a new creation, where righteousness dwells, and where we fear no more, because we see God face to face. And God is patient with us as we try to get all that right.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Second Sunday of Advent
December 6, 2020