Staying at the Tomb

At least three things are necessary in a mystery novel. The first, of course, is a crime. The second is a detective. And the third is a slate of possible suspects. But what makes a great mystery novel is a crime that is vexing and impenetrable. Add to this a detective who is brilliant, insightful, and persistent, and the mystery genre is taken to a whole new level. If you ask me, the best mysteries are those in which the evidence has been staring you right in the face from the beginning, but identifying the culprit is essentially impossible until just enough suspects are eliminated. And the astute detective is the one who saves the day.

Mystery novels are not really designed to be read twice, and if they are read more than once, the experience is completely different. The challenge of trying to identify the culprit has lost its verve. A second reading is more about seeing how you missed all the right clues the first time around.

John’s Gospel account of the discovery of the empty tomb is rather like this. There is no mystery to be solved, but once the ending of the story is known, it takes a lot of imagination to identify with the confusion of Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the Beloved Disciple.

First of all, why would Mary not have peered into the tomb when she saw the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. Why did the Beloved Disciple not enter the tomb? And when Peter went in and discovered the curious state of the burial shrouds, what did the Beloved Disciple finally believe? Because we’re told that neither he nor Peter understood the Scriptural predictions of Jesus’s eventual resurrection from the dead. But perhaps the most bewildering part of this story is that after finding an empty tomb and abandoned grave clothes, Peter and the Beloved Disciple returned home.

Let’s just pause right there. They did what? They went back home? Something does not add up here. With the advantage of hindsight and knowing the real end of the story, it’s very difficult for us to understand how Peter and the Beloved Disciple could not comprehend what had happened. Jesus had already given a long discourse on going to a place where they could not themselves go. And hadn’t Jesus revealed enough clues for people, especially two of his closest disciples, to put two and two together?

They ran to the empty tomb to corroborate Mary’s story. They found it empty with discarded grave wrappings, and then they went to their homes. This is very odd. Something does not quite pass the smell test here.

Which is why Mary stays. This is the amazing moment in story. It’s a crucial moment indeed. Mary is like the classic detective in a mystery novel. You know the type, don’t you? The master detective who is pitted against every local yokel small town sheriff who finds the quickest way to identify a culprit, even if that culprit is not really the culprit at all. The master detective stays around with the scene of the crime, pressing every corner until the most vital clues reveal themselves. The master detective doesn’t look for the easiest way to a solution; the master detective sticks with the case until the truth is found.

But Mary is hardly a detective here, and there is no murder mystery in today’s story. Mary is not looking to solve a crime. Mary is seeking the truth. After Peter and the Beloved Disciple have gone home from the empty tomb, we find Mary still there at the entrance to the cave. She doesn’t know what has happened. But something doesn’t add up.

In fact, it’s not entirely clear that Mary even knows what she hopes to find or discover. Does she even know what she’s looking for? But in her mind and heart, some truth is waiting to be revealed, and she waits for it, beside an empty tomb and discarded grave clothes. This is different from what happened to Lazarus. At the very least, maybe Mary could find Jesus’s body and return it to its place of burial. These are all practical things she must have considered.

But I suspect that there was something more. We don’t know what encounters Mary had had with Jesus before, but we must assume they were transformative. She was at the foot of the cross. She saw Jesus take his last breath. And now, at the empty tomb, she is sticking it out until the bitter end, longing to find her Lord’s body, whatever the cost.

It’s because Mary stays with this perplexing situation until the end that she has the first real definitive encounter with the risen Christ. In her confusion, she is looking and probing. She is weeping. She is there, fully human, truly befuddled, and yet unable to move. And there, her Lord comes to her. When the Good Shepherd, now risen, calls her name, she finally discovers who he is. This is the clue she has needed. It’s the clue that neither Peter nor the Beloved Disciple wait long enough to find. Mary, who has remained with Jesus until this very moment, can now go and proclaim the true meaning of the resurrection.

It is Mary who can bring the real good news: I have seen the Lord. This is far richer than reporting that you have seen an empty tomb. This is on a wholly different level than announcing that grave clothes were abandoned, and the body was gone. Mary’s proclamation attests to the real presence of a Lord whom death could not bind and who is fully alive. This proclamation announces that even after death, the Good Shepherd lives to call us each by name and to continue to be in relationship with us. All of this is revealed because Mary stuck with it. She stayed to the end.

It’s difficult for many in our modern world to imagine such a commitment, where allegiances are so often shallow. It’s hard to imagine sticking with a crucified Lord after the tomb is empty and no answers are in sight. In such a world, it’s not easy to stay with a Lord whose presence is revealed in absence. It’s not easy to persist with some sense of faith when life hands you a bad hand or when your deepest loves are taken away. It’s a challenge for many to recognize Jesus calling their names when the world strives viciously to take their names away. How do we persevere, searching for our Lord, amid our weeping? Could we dare to think that if we stay at the tomb long enough our Lord will find us, too? Maybe staying there and waiting is our way of finding him.

The easier road is to see the empty tomb and then go home. It all ends there, so we think. The resurrection has been established as fact. And we can go home with this knowledge, certified in our faith. This is the path of religion that offers easy answers. This is the temptation to a simplistic faith with only a head nod to Jesus’ resurrection but no underlying commitment of discipleship. The easier road is simply to go home rather than stick with it.

But Mary couldn’t simply go home. Something about that empty tomb didn’t add up. She had known her Lord, and she had been changed. This Lord, who had taught and healed and preached and claimed astounding things about himself couldn’t just be gone. The evidence was in his life. So, Mary waited at the tomb, not rejoicing in some triumphalist assertion of life over death, but weeping, distraught in her grief. There had to be more to this story. That’s why she stuck with it.

And so, year after year, even with all our questions, we return to the empty tomb. We might say that we have been here all along. We have been waiting all this time. At times, perhaps in the past, perhaps now, we have been weeping. We have been weeping at the cruelty of a world that hasn’t stuck with the message proclaimed over two thousand years ago. We sit at the entrance to the tomb, bringing the confusions of the past year: the lost loved ones, the lost jobs, the financial challenges, the never-ending pandemic, the war. Whatever it is, we bring it all to the empty tomb. And I suspect that because we are here today, we have wanted to stick with it. We have sensed that there was something more to this story all along. There was an empty tomb and an absent body, for sure, but there was something else as well.

If we have stuck with it this long, then we are sure to discover the real meaning of what is happening today. He is risen, that is certain. But something else is also certain. He is alive. He is with us. He meets us weeping, or laughing, or even numb with pain, as we keep vigil at the door to the tomb. Listen. He is calling our names, the names of every one of us. He has gotten our attention. So, we turn, and we see that he is there. He is still with us. And now, we must run, not home, but into the world with this good news to proclaim. The tomb was empty. Our Lord is risen. He is still alive, calling our names. We have seen the Lord!

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day
April 17, 2022

On the Other Side

In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, Baby Suggs, an enslaved woman, is offered an opportunity to gain freedom. Her son Halle works it all out with Mr. Garner, Baby Suggs’ master. Halle’s desire for his mother to find freedom surpasses Baby Suggs’ own desire for freedom. She, after all, doesn’t want to leave still in bondage her sole surviving child, of nine, the rest of whom are absent from her life and are likely dead.

And so, after Baby Suggs “crosses the river” into freedom in Cincinnati, it is a disconcerting, utterly novel experience. It is described this way in the novel:

“[W]hen she stepped foot on free ground she could not believe that Halle knew what she didn’t; that Halle, who had never drawn one free breath, knew that there was nothing like it in this world. It scared her.

Something’s the matter. What’s the matter? What’s the matter? she asked herself. She didn’t know what she looked like and was not curious. But suddenly she saw her hands and thought with a clarity as simple as it was dazzling, ‘These hands belong to me. These my hands.’ Next she felt a knocking in her chest and discovered something else new: her own heartbeat.”[1]

On the other side of the river, Baby Suggs finally discovers not only freedom, but herself. Only there in the land of the living does she become aware of her heartbeat. On the former side of the river, in the land of numbness and of death, it was as if she were not even alive.

This is the night for us to become alive once again. This is the night for crossing over. It is the crossing from death into life, from slavery into freedom, from chaos into order, from numbness into awareness of a living heartbeat. The journey is as old as creation itself. It was God who, in the beginning, made the heartbeat of creation sing. From the primal nothingness, God created an ordered, vibrant creation. From a world scattered into chaos and disorder by sin, God sent waters of the flood to wash everything anew and revive the heartbeat of all creation. From the chest pains inflicted by Pharaoh’s cruel grip, God let the Israelites cross over into freedom, where they could once again hear their collective pulse. Into the dry bones of a people living in exile, God could breathe new life and give a new heart of flesh. To a people unable to sing a song in a strange land, God could bring them back home again, where they could see their hands as their own once again and hear the thumping of life in their chests. On this night, the Christian Passover, we learn yet again what it’s like to hear our own heartbeats, beating in sync as one living Body of Christ. We learn what it’s like to move from the land of the dead to the land of the living.    

When we started this evening, the death of Good Friday lingered in our minds and hearts. We entered the darkness of this church as if coming to the tomb. There we were, with the women, who went early on that first day of the week. Those women, perhaps like us, were prepared only for death. They came bearing spices to anoint Jesus’s dead body. They went into the dank tomb, ready for the aroma of their gifts to overpower the stench of death. But they discovered something else. And it caught them off guard.

On the other side of an empty tomb, those women, like us here tonight, found something unexpected. With minds and hearts numbed by the tragedy of death, the women could not see beyond the tomb into the future. They couldn’t see beyond the tomb into the past. They were frozen in the death grip of a bleak and stagnant present. But then something happened. They remembered.

The terror and surprise of finding an empty tomb, along with the assistance of two angels, revived their memories. Now, they recalled the words of their Lord, that Jesus had already told them the end of the story. They had already known this, but they couldn’t understand it until they had moved to the other side. It was their memory that ferried them across to the other side. And in doing so, they became aware of their heartbeats. They came to the tomb prepared only for death. But to their amazement, they crossed over into life.

There is always the danger of forgetting. These women were not the first ones in salvation history to forget. The whole history of humanity in relationship with God is a struggle to avoid amnesia and reclaim memory. In the covenants of the Old Testament, God’s people deliberately recited words to remember what God had done for them. They repeated words to recall what God said he would do for them, time and again, lest they forget. We do the same, every time we gather to celebrate Mass, lest we forget that Christ is with us in the breaking of bread.

But too often, we think that God is the one who needs reminding, as if it’s our job to help God be faithful to his promises. We obsessively recall God’s words of promise lest he forget what he said he would do. In the face of a brutal war or human trafficking or subway bombings or a tiresome pandemic, we wonder if God has indeed forgotten to be gracious to us. We wonder if he will indeed save us.   

But God has not forgotten. It is we who have forgotten that when it seems like we are living on the death side of the river, we are never really there. God has already helped us cross over. We have been living all along on the other side, where there’s life.

It is we who need that reminding, like Baby Suggs, that our hands are our own, that we can do something with our hands. We need reminding that our heartbeat is there, that we are alive in Christ Jesus and that our individual heartbeats can sound together for the good of the world. We need to constantly remind ourselves that we have already been brought from death into life.

Every year, on this night, we follow a small light, our pillar of fire by night, to remember that we have already been brought onto that other side. On that side, we are amazed anew that a recalcitrant people whom God has helped to cross the river are still called very good. This is the night to remember with dazzling clarity that God will never again let the earth be destroyed in the waters of a flood, and that those waters will be the source of new life in Christ in baptism. This is the night for our memories to recall that even when the Israelites had crossed over into freedom and still got testy with God, he yet sent them manna. God brought them to that promised land in spite of their complaining. This is the night to hear anew that when the Jerusalem Temple was reduced to rubble, God would bring his beloved back home and make them living stones to bear his truth into a dark world.

There is no tragedy or war or human evil that can bring us back to the death side of the river. The current will always want to pull us back, but that side of death no longer has any power over us. For this is the night to remember. It is the night to celebrate that the victory has already been won. We may have come to the tomb decked with spices and prepared only for death, but we have discovered once again that deep within us, our heart beats with new life in Christ.

This is the night. Christ has brought us over into freedom. This is the night. Our hands are ours to give flesh to his Gospel in the world. This is the night. Our hearts beat with Christ’s life. Why do you look for the living among the dead? There is not death on this side. Only life. For he is not here! This is the night. He is risen, that we may rise again, too. Thanks be to God!

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter
April 16, 2022

[1] Toni Morrison, Beloved (New York: Vintage, 1987, 2004), 166, Kindle edition.

Unanswered Questions

Does Good Friday leave you with more questions than answers? Even yet, is there not some small hope each Holy Week that we will find a hint of an answer to our deepest questions when confronted with the mystery of the cross? Is there not something definitive about this day, of all days, that might offer us answers?

If we look to St. John’s Gospel itself, we are not reassured. Look at how many questions are unanswered in this Passion narrative. There are many, many questions, and as is so typical in John’s Gospel, few are answered directly. It seems like everyone is talking past one another.

In John’s account of the Passion, only two of the questions posed are answered directly. When Jesus is confronted by those coming to arrest him in the garden, he asks, “Whom are you looking for?” And the answer is clear: “Jesus of Nazareth.” The answer may seem direct, but don’t you have follow-up questions? Do those coming to arrest Jesus really know whom they are seeking? Other than some historical figure named Jesus of Nazareth, do they understand who he truly is?

The other question is really a series of three questions that are posed to Peter, in which he is asked about his relationship with Jesus. “You are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?” Peter’s answer is definitive: no, he is not one of Jesus’s disciples.

So, according to John’s rendering of Jesus’ Passion, two answers to two questions are clear: Jesus of Nazareth is being sought for arrest and trial, and one of his closest disciples denies him three times.

But the rest of this narrative leaves us with so many other unanswered questions, either stated or left unsaid. And I would guess that we all bring our own questions to the foot of the cross this day, longing for answers to them. Last evening, on Maundy Thursday, we entertained the possibility that perhaps we come to the liturgies of Holy Week each year expecting to be able to do something for God. Can we offer our heartiest repentance this year? Can we turn Peter’s clear denial of Jesus into our own definitive affirmation of him as our Lord? Can we at least put ourselves in some place of deep sorrow and hurt to watch for just a minute with our Lord, to share in some small part in his suffering?

But the questions keep coming. We can’t avoid them. How could Jesus have been denied by his closest followers? Why did the cross have to be the means of our salvation? Did God abandon Jesus on that cross, and if so, why?

And sometimes, the questions become much, much more personal. Isn’t today the day when we face head-on the mystery of suffering, especially that of our own lives and of our loved ones? How can we not bring to the foot of the cross today the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine, of innocent lives lost, of homeless refugees, and of destroyed cities? How can we not bring to the foot of the cross today the unholy divisions in our own nation and the desperate cries of anguish in our own communities? Today, at the foot of the cross, how do we repent for and respond to centuries of horrifying and heinous acts of violence and murder against our Jewish brothers and sisters in this holiest of weeks and on this day in particular?

The questions go on and on. We cannot keep them out. If we hope that this day will be a day for answers, we are sorely disappointed. There is even a mute resignation on this day that avoids superlatives. But shouldn’t this be the day for superlatives? Is not this day, on which Jesus accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished for the salvation of the world, the day for a superlative? Is this not just a Good Friday but the most excellent Friday, the best Friday there ever was? Or is this the worst Friday because of the manner in which our salvation had to happen?

There is, it seems, not much we can say this day except nothing at all. Maybe we can only accept a half-hearted acknowledgment that this day is good and stop there. Superlatives fail. Words fail. And meanwhile, the questions keep coming.

When the answers do not arrive, and when our words are fragile, sometimes poetry is our friend. Poetry understands that sometimes to speak to a truth, we must speak around it, knowing that we can never express the ineffable. It is on this day, where words are inadequate, that we might savor the words of the Welsh priest and poet R.S. Thomas, who attempts to give voice to our confusion. We are like the unnamed person in one of his poems. There, in a lonely church, is a solitary man. “There is no other sound/In the darkness but the sound of a man/Breathing, testing his faith/On emptiness, nailing his questions/One by one to an untenanted cross.”[1]

Are we in that place today? Is there anything more we can do than sit in the darkness of a world being rent apart daily by sin? Can we do anything other than breathe into the silence, where sometimes no answers come? Can we do anything more than venerate a cross, seemingly tenanted by a corpus of our crucified Lord but truly left empty because he has risen and now reigns with God? Can we put up with nailing our questions, one by one, Good Friday after Good Friday, day after day, to a cross where we find no answer but the knowledge that on Easter Day, the tomb was empty?

Maybe this day is one in which we stop trying to answer all the world’s questions and even our own. Maybe this is the day to sit with the one answer that reigns above all and that towers above this ravaged earth, which is littered with our questions. And even when our fiercest questions clutter an untenanted cross, there is one question that we so often try to answer ourselves, as if we are the ones to answer it. But what if we posed this question to God himself? We have already heard this question today: Whom do you seek? And here we find the most definitive answer in the world.

Because the cross is untenanted, we know this answer is true. So, we direct to God the question that we usually try to answer ourselves. Whom do you seek, God? And God responds, you, my beloved child. On Good Friday, the one answer we can be certain of is that our crucified Lord, now risen and ascended, is constantly seeking us. On this good day, he is the Good Shepherd, the one who never stops looking for us, even when we get lost in our questions. He has left the cross untenanted so that we can nail our questions there, and his way of answering is to find us, in whatever desert land we have wandered to and in whatever hole we have dug ourselves into.

And although we will continue to breathe into the darkness and test our faith by nailing question after question to an untenanted cross, and although we may not hear the answers we want in return, we know this: the Good Shepherd has called us each by name. And if we ever doubt that we can hear his voice, we must recall the place where we can hear it most clearly: at the foot of the cross.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
Good Friday
April 15, 2022

[1] R.S. Thomas, “In Church”

Brought Up Short

When was the last time you were brought up short? We all know these moments, I’m sure. You wax eloquently on some subject in order to demonstrate your intellectual prowess, only to discover that you have revealed your lack of knowledge to a vastly smarter group of people. Is it merely a moment of humiliation or a call to humility? Then there’s the well-meaning phone call placed to a friend, which offers her the chance to note that it would have been nice had you called when her mother died. Do we sulk after such an encounter or learn something about ourselves? What about the rejection letter to a choice university after a long string of acceptances, which dredges up plenty of self-doubt. Is it another occasion to make excuses, or is there a blessing in it?

Whatever the experience is, being brought up short is a eureka moment, one in which our safe and proud worlds are disoriented. We question our values. We seek someone to blame. We wander aimlessly without a purpose. We are confused about what to do next. Or we see an invitation to be changed.

Were you brought up short this past Palm Sunday? Did you find any self-conviction in the distortion of hosannas into calls for crucifixion? Have you been disoriented this week as you journey with Christ to the foot of the cross, hoping to find salvation somewhere along the way?

This evening, we are reminded of Jesus’s new commandment to love one another as he loves us, and so it’s perfectly natural to want to devise a strategy for selfless love. Emerging from the haze of distorted hosannas and blood-curdling cries for crucifixion, tonight, Jesus seems to offer us a practical plan.

Wash the feet of others as Jesus has done for us. Serve as Jesus has served us. Be humble. Take on Jesus’ model of servant leadership. Now, this is precisely the kind of action plan that satisfies our urge to do good and to do the right thing for God.

But something about this rings shallow, doesn’t it? Jesus’s commandment feels straightforward enough, but there’s a hidden risk. If we’re not careful, we will mistake this new commandment with seeking out the nearest soup kitchen, making a few generous online payments to a charity, or trying to smile a bit more at the disgruntled grocery store clerk.

It’s not, of course, to say that any of those things are bad or wrongheaded. But if we really listen carefully to this evening’s Gospel text and if we let the footwashing in a few minutes captivate us in some way, we might find that instead of receiving an action plan this evening, we have once again been brought up short.

At least, I certainly have, because I can’t get past what has just happened to Peter. I see myself in him, for I know that I would have done precisely what he did. Had my Lord deigned to wash my filthy and unattractive feet, I would have resisted. No, my Lord, you will never do so. In fact, I would have added something Peter never does say, but which perhaps he left unspoken. Lord, you must let me wash yours.

Yes, I would have been embarrassed to show my unshod and unshapely feet to Jesus. I would have felt some compunction, even guilt, at seeing Jesus stoop to delicately bathe my feet. I would then have worried about what others would have thought if I had let Jesus wash my feet. And then, my hasty offer to wash Jesus’s feet instead would have been more about my avoiding judgment from others than about a desire to serve. If I had been in Peter’s shoes and had any inkling of who Jesus was, I would have felt extraordinarily guilty sitting idly by without doing something for him.

Is it Peter who also brings you up short as well? If we entered this night looking for an action plan that would allow us to set ourselves right with God, Peter does bring us up short. Peter reminds us of the temptation to use our sinfulness as a shield against being vulnerable with God. Peter reminds us that our extravagant humility before God is its own kind of sin—the sin of pride. Peter reminds us that it is deliciously tempting to create our own spiritual strategies to make ourselves righteous before God.

Peter points to the ways in which we try to hide from the God from whom no secrets are hid. Peter is an uncomfortable reminder of our willingness to cling to our mistakes and failures as a way of keeping God at bay. Because when we let God in, there is no telling what will happen.

If we have been brought up short this night, and if we are indeed brought up short in a few minutes when feet are exposed to the light and bathed by an unfamiliar hand, then maybe it’s a blessing. Maybe it’s a blessing rather than yet another moment to become mired in our guilt and a sense of our unworthiness. Perhaps by bringing us up short, God is getting our attention and showing us another way.

Yes, the great temptation of this Holy Week is to focus only on doing all the right things in order to please God. But instead, it seems, that by bringing us up short, God has inverted our thinking. This night is the night in which we are vividly reminded that God is here to do something for us, because we desperately need that from him.

Only when we receive God’s gift of himself and let him in can we begin to understand Jesus’s new commandment of self-giving love. Jesus has modeled this perfectly for us. He has accepted the Father’s glorification of himself because it is the Father’s will. Jesus did not use false humility as a reason to evade glorification. He accepted the Father’s gift, and in doing so, he was able to offer himself up freely for the salvation of the world. And in this mystery, he is able to come to us, to wash our feet, and to teach us to receive his gift so that we can then offer that gift to others.

Undoubtedly, it brings us up short to recognize that there is nothing we need to do for God. God doesn’t need us to wash his feet. God doesn’t need our praise or anything we offer, but we do it anyway. Because when we accept God’s gift of himself, repentance, prayer, and praise are indeed our appropriate responses.

There is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy to come to this Altar tonight and to accept God’s gift onto the throne of our hands. The hardest thing to accept is that, worthy or unworthy in our own estimation, God has invited us here. God comes to us, always, frequently, and without reservation to be known to us in the breaking of bread.

Now, let God wash your feet. Let him come to you in the Sacrament of the Altar. Let God do something for you so that you can do something for the world.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
Maundy Thursday
April 14, 2022

The Last Word

Who has the last word in the account of Jesus’s passion? Is it Jesus’s dying words on the cross? Is it literally the last spoken words in Luke’s passion story, on the lips of the centurion who professes Jesus’s innocence? Is it the unspoken words of the women watching from a distance but who will discover the empty tomb in a few days’ time? In the drama of this story, it’s not clear where the final word lies.

The traditional seven last words of Christ are themselves a conglomeration from all the Gospels: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
Woman, behold thy son.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
I thirst.
It is finished.
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
Three of these traditional last words are from Luke. So, which is the last word?

Are any of these really the last word? But there is another last word that seems to speak with a finality transcending musical settings that are brought out of the library each Holy Week. There is a last word from Jesus that comes not in his dying moments but early in his final steps towards the cross.

You can certainly be forgiven for not noticing it. There is so much happening in the Passion Gospel. But hidden in this overwhelming drama is a last word from Jesus that has little power of eloquence but rather speaks a profound truth that lies at the heart of his death on the cross.

Jesus’s final hours bring to the fore the grating dissonance of a world oriented towards retribution and violence. If it were not so, he would not have been put to death. When the status quo is threatened and earthly power is questioned, the voice that turns over tables must be silenced, and in the semantics of such a broken world, only violence, both literal and spiritual, will do.

Violence, anger, hate, and meanness seem to be the lingua franca of not just first-century Palestine but of our own day. It is sometimes even the language of the Church. Governments know of no other formula to settle disputes than force or threatening words. People know of no other response to a biting comment or hurtful action than reciprocating the same. Institutions know of no other means of ensuring conformity than heavy-handedness.

The disciples show themselves to be as inept as we in learning this new language of Jesus, the language that is the source of that profound final word of his earthly life. When Jesus warns them of the danger of discipleship to come, they mistakenly think he wants them to buy real swords for their mission. They simply don’t understand. Nor do we. After years of speaking a language where words are used as swords, how can we so quickly learn another that is vastly different?

Which is why perhaps the truest final word of Jesus is buried in today’s long Passion story. Our minds and hearts may have settled for a moment on what Jesus said and did, but I imagine, we quickly moved on to other gorier scenes.

Did you catch it? It’s early in the Passion Gospel. Judas has entered the scene to do his dirty work of betrayal with a kiss, and suddenly, those around Jesus now understand what is taking place. They know of no other language to speak in response to this wicked deed than to use a sword to cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave. It might elicit within us the satisfying response of the bad guy in a movie getting his comeuppance. It’s the delight of schadenfreude when a sworn enemy hits rock bottom. We all know this language deeply.

But into this horrible language of human sin, Jesus speaks a last word of truth which expresses most vividly the meaning of his passion, death, and resurrection. This word will not be remembered for elegance or lyricism. It matters not what English translation you use. This word goes beyond mere speech and moves into the realm of action, the apex of which is the Lamb of God sacrificed for the salvation of the world.

No more of this!, says Jesus, when the slave’s ear is severed. This is the last word. It is a command both for that gruesome moment in the first century and for ages to come. It is also a statement of what Jesus accomplished for us in his life, passion, death, and resurrection. And it is emblemized in Jesus’ next action, where he touches the ear of the wounded slave and heals him.

This is it. In this we can begin to see the meaning of this holiest of weeks. In this we catch a glimpse of the mysterious heart of salvation. This is how God’s power manifests itself, which is so incomprehensible in the language we usually speak. This is the last word, the final word, the word that exchanges healing for violence.

But it seems quite the opposite, doesn’t it? How can this have been the final word when it was followed by so much evil? How can that have been the final word in the face of war? How can that have been the final word when suffering, like the poor and oppressed, is always with us? How can that have been the final word when so much is left unhealed?

It is this perplexing question itself that paradoxically attests to the truth of Jesus’s final word. For this word’s finality comes not through heavy-handed power but through quiet confidence and persistence. This last word doesn’t assert its strength by yelling down other words. This last word reveals its power in the silence of Jesus’s own submission to his Father’s will. It reveals itself in Jesus’s healing of a severed ear. It reveals itself in Jesus’ forgiveness of those who put him to death. It reveals itself in Jesus’ dying words on the cross, by which he surrenders everything, including his own life, for the sake of the world. It reveals itself in the Eucharistic feast in which the disparate members of Christ’s Body are made whole again. It reveals itself in Jesus’s kiss of peace given to us, which is the opposite of Judas’s kiss of betrayal.

This is the final word that dispels the cycle of retribution. This is the final word that conquers death by breaking the cycle of violence which is death’s only weapon. This is the final word that still speaks, albeit in a different language, after death has killed the body. This is the final word for us, as we enter this holiest of weeks.

It is the only word that can bring us from death into life. It is the only word that offers true freedom. It is, at its heart, the only word that matters. And in the midst of the world’s incoherent babbling, it speaks the only language that can have the last word.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
April 10, 2022

No Waste at All

If you want to understand what Gothic architecture is really about, start with the highest vaulted roof or the most obscure corner. Examine the finials on a cathedral tower. Notice the finest details on the hand of a saint poised above the doors to a church. Or research the structural proportions that render mathematical ratios symbolizing the perfection of God. The real meaning of Gothic architecture is found in those places usually invisible to the human eye.

If you really want to understand the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, move beyond the beautiful counterpoint and adventurous harmonies of this musical giant. Look to the hidden messages encoded in the music, those cryptic compositional features that most people never know are there. You will find Bach’s own name spelled out in musical letters or the shape of a cross created by inverted musical lines of a sacred work.

If you really want to understand the culinary arts, before you shovel a piece of food into your mouth at a fine restaurant, notice the arrangement of the food on the plate before you: the visual appeal of contrasting colors and textures, the carefully dripped sauces in patterns, the precisely measured portions of food.

In a functional and mechanistic world, it is perhaps only the arts that have retained the wonder of play. Art, at base level, still prizes the creation of beauty for beauty’s sake: not to win a prize or make money but to offer something beautiful to a demystified world. In most universities, arts programs are the first ones to have funding cut when there are financial challenges. Many parents are quick to redirect their children to other disciplines when they want to study music, art, or dance. What’s the purpose of spending money on college to study the arts when you will never have a financially lucrative career? To artists, making art is a vocation, while to the rest of the world it seems like a waste of time and money.

Of course, medieval sculptors assumed that they would be the only ones to behold the exquisite details on the claw of a gargoyle perched hundreds of feet in the air. I’m sure J.S. Bach knew that few people would be able to decipher the musical codes in his compositions that rendered his own praise of Almighty God. Most chefs assume that the average restaurant patron will immediately destroy and devour their culinary creations. But the point is not so much in customer value as it is in creating art for art’s sake.

For the medieval artisan or J.S. Bach, it takes on another meaning. Art is prayer. Art is praise. Lavishing hours and hours on a work of art that will only ever be seen by the artisan and by God can be nothing other than an act of prayer. But if this is considered a waste, it is very much a holy waste.

There is perhaps no better Scriptural image that represents such seeming wastefulness than Mary anointing Jesus’s feet with oil. Jesus has just raised her brother Lazarus from the dead, and he is the dinner guest of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Everything about what Mary does is utterly extravagant. She uses a pound of oil, worth nearly a month’s wages, if we insist on putting a numerical value on it. It is pure, unadulterated nard. There is no functional reason for this anointing. Jesus has no need of it, nor do his feet. Mary wipes his feet dry with her hair, which means that now her hair is oily and reeking of perfume. Indeed, the entire house is permeated by the smell of this oil. Mary has even risked her own good image by engaging in such an intimate act.

What purpose could this gesture have served? We can’t help but see in it a foreshadowing of Jesus’s own washing of his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, as well as the anointing of Jesus’s dead body after his crucifixion. But in that moment when Mary anointed Jesus’s feet, there were undoubtedly starving people on the streets of Bethany and nearby Jerusalem. And the smell of nard threatened to overwhelm the smell of the food prepared for Jesus. And Jesus was less than a week away from death, so what purpose could Mary’s anointing have served except no real purpose at all? It was a waste unless you could see it from the eyes of Mary, who wished only to honor Jesus for his own sake and enjoy just a few moments of his glorious presence.

It was Judas who ruptured the beauty of that moment with his cynicism and false self-righteousness, but his voice rings familiar to us doesn’t it? This voice rings down the millennia to our own day mocking us for spending so much time in prayer when we could be out on the streets helping the poor. This sly voice still enters our thoughts when we are taking a moment to be with those we love rather than toiling away at a thankless job. This voice fusses when we insist on beautiful churches and organs, glorious choirs and transcendent worship. This voice argues that we could worship in a much plainer setting and spend the money on those who are hungry. This accusing voice haunts us when we set grand visions for ministry in a parish that relies too heavily on investments. Logical voices say that it would be much wiser to make budget cuts and preserve our meager savings.

Before long, this persistent voice has convinced us that we are left with a moral dilemma and an either/or proposition. Either spend money on those in need and forego art and beauty, or pour it into lavish, self-serving worship and feel guilty forever. But Scripture tells us that Judas’s critical question rang hollow from the start. We know that he had no real interest in the poor. And it reassures us that the accusing voices in our heads and in the world ring false, too. There is no dichotomous choice to be made here.

Nowhere does Jesus say to ignore the poor. Indeed, if we followed Jesus’s own statement back to the Book of Deuteronomy, we would know that because the poor will always be with us, God’s mandate is to care for them.[1] To enjoy God’s presence in prayer, praise, and worship simply for its very enjoyment is no alternative to caring for those in need. It is, in fact, the very source of that care.

The more we are extravagant with God—in our prayer, praise, and giving—the more we can’t help but be extravagant with the poor. The more we engage in holy wastes of time, we will see that lavish worship of God for no other reason than to be with him draws us out of our own agendas. In such praise, our actions are no longer directed towards some end, which often is designed to make us feel good. Wasting time with God reminds us that we must rely on God’s grace alone rather than on our pet projects and task lists.

When Mary revels in Jesus’s presence as she anoints his feet with oil, there is no other purpose than to be with him. It serves no end. She gets nothing from it except a precious moment of being with her Lord. It is an utter waste in the eyes of the world.

And this wastefulness is but a shadow of God’s own wastefulness. What kind of deity is committed to saving a group of people that so persistently turns from him? Could there be anything more wasteful than sticking with a bunch of fickle sinners? Is there anything more wasteful than an act of creation that will be marred time and again because of human arrogance and neglect? It’s all so incomprehensible, and yet it demonstrates the extravagant love of a God who seems to want nothing more than to be in our presence and to love and treasure us as we should love and treasure him.

God’s unflinching devotion to us his sinful children seems to be noticed by fewer and fewer people these days. Like the eyelash of a saint sculpted in stone on the portal of a medieval cathedral or a nod to the Holy Trinity in the key signature of an organ piece, it seems wasteful in its futility. Often, God’s wasteful extravagance goes unnoticed even by us, the recipients of his grace and mercy.

But there is no better way to waste time than to pour it all into being with a God who cannot get enough of being with us. God doesn’t do it to get anything from us, nor should we do it to get anything from God. Wasting time with God humbles our grandest human projects and our sterile mechanization of a world created by a God who longs for us to enjoy it and his own presence. God does not force false choices on us. God is extravagant with us so we might be extravagant with him and the poor and needy. If we can only enjoy his presence, then we will find that such a holy waste of time is, in fact, no waste at all.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
April 3, 2022     

[1] Deut. 15:11

The Art of Life

In a 1982 introduction to the book On the High Wire by the French tightrope artist Philippe Petit, the American writer Paul Auster wrote of his first encounter with Petit in Paris in 1971. On a Parisian street, he happened to encounter Petit as he was juggling, performing magic tricks, and riding a unicycle before a silent and captivated impromptu audience.

A few weeks later, late one night, Auster spotted Petit and a group of young people surreptitiously moving ropes, cables, and other equipment near Notre-Dame Cathedral. Auster recognized Petit as the street performer he had previously seen in action. He knew something was about to happen, but he could not imagine what. The next day, Auster discovered the answer when he came across a photograph in the International Herald Tribune showing Petit walking on a wire between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral. This was the result of the furtive late night activity Auster had witnessed. For three hours, Petit had juggled and danced on the wire before an awestruck audience at street level. He was then promptly arrested and charged with violating the law.

But Auster never forgot the photograph of Petit’s tightrope act that he saw in the newspaper. He couldn’t forget it. Auster noted that the stunt was really no stunt at all. Petit was not a flippant stuntman who sought people’s attention by risking his own life. He was not a superficial crowd-pleaser. He was an artist. And he could see art where others could only see the possibility of death.

There was something beautiful and artistic in Petit’s dangerous forays out over canyons between skyscrapers, most notably when he walked between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. And for Paul Auster three years before, seeing a tiny figure suspended between the vast towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral transformed his view of the cathedral itself. Petit had shown it to be alive in some new and creative way. Auster observed that, because of the photograph of Petit’s tightrope dance at Notre Dame, his perception of Paris itself changed.[1]

When Petit repeated the tightrope act by walking from a tower of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York to an apartment building across Amsterdam Avenue, Austen recalls that not for a single moment did he think that Petit would fall. It was simply not a part of this artistic act. Death was not—could not—be in the picture. In Auster’s words, “[h]igh-wire walking is not an art of death but an art of life—and life lived to the very extreme of life. Which is to say, life that does not hide from death but stares it directly in the face.”[2]

Philippe Petit is an artist precisely because he can see possibilities for new life and new creative impulses in places and situations that most people would only regard in an ordinary way. Indeed, most people could only imagine a devastating end to a tightrope walk hundreds of feet above a hard city pavement.

But the mark of the artist is countercultural. It’s an ability to see with the mind’s eye, to envision that a lump of clay can become an exquisite piece of pottery or that a series of white and black notes on a piano can coalesce to form a sonata. To Paul Auster, tightrope walking is an “art of life” because it demonstrates that a thin wire strung several hundred feet above the ground can be the stage for a dance that leads not to death but instead enlivens the imaginations and hearts of its witnesses.

It’s not entirely obvious what the apostle Paul means when he speaks of regarding no one from a human point of view. But I wonder if tightrope artistry might help us begin to understand. Maybe St. Paul is enjoining us to see people and the world with the eyes of life. These are eyes that are colored by the new creation instituted by Christ. These are eyes that do not look away from death but, instead, stare death directly in the face, knowing that there is something greater that always triumphs.

The mind’s eye of a new creation not only stares death in the face. It sees through death into new life.  Places and situations of fear are transformed into ones of possibility. What appears to be old is seen as new by the grace of God.

Does this seem to be an impossible thing to you? Aren’t our eyes usually tinted with jadedness? How can we see a new creation in pointless war and the slaughter of innocent lives? How can we see the image of God in a person who has deeply offended us? How can we see the potential for good in a person who is responsible for catastrophic evil? How can we see hope for the future when our past is weighed down by tragedy and trauma? And when does optimism and hope become naivete?

It doesn’t seem that St. Paul is giving us easy answers either. He isn’t summoning us to implement an action plan that will provide an easy fix for our shortsightedness. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be about us at all. It’s about what God has done in Christ. Paul’s words seem to be an invitation to recognize this and then let it captivate our mind’s eye. And then, in the mystery of God, what appears to be only death becomes an art of life.

Can we even begin to imagine that a tightrope strung hundreds of feet in the air between two towers might be art rather than a recipe for death? When we speak about original sin, we might imagine it as an  innate tendency to let our inner vision become narrow, hardened, and stagnant. We can’t catch glimpses of a new creation. Our vision is impaired because we have not owned up to what God has done in Christ. Perhaps we can’t even see that God has done anything at all.

Think of the ways in which our vision is skewed from a human point of view. We only see sinners as the sum of their worst actions, not as those who were lost and have been found. We only see God as a scorekeeper, not as One who forgives endlessly. We only see wrongs done to us as grievances to hold, not as opportunities for forgiveness.

From a human point of view, our future is self-made, not created by God. Challenges are problems to be solved, not chances to become closer to God. Death is an end, not an entrance. Our ideological and political differences are insurmountable obstacles, not invitations to conversation. From a human point of view, we only see creation as serving ourselves, not as a gift for us to treasure.

But Paul says that if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation. Everything old has become new. And while we are so used to looking to the future for newness, Paul tells us that, in some mysterious way, the new has already arrived. It is here. God has already done something beyond our wildest imagination. If only our perception could change, we might be able to see just how possible the impossible can be.

The invitation to be Christ’s ambassadors is to act as if the new has already arrived and to see the world as if it has already been made new. It is an invitation to stare death in the face and realize that God can string a tightrope across the most forbidding canyon and help us make art out of life.

In this art of life, the worst sinner can be forgiven. In this dance, the most savage enmities can find reconciliation. In this grand symphony, the deepest wounds can be healed without the difficult truth being erased. Here, the obsessive rehashing of our anxieties and resentments can be released into a more capacious future. Here, a Church that some say is dying can indeed spring to new life and be a source of inspiration for an aimless world.

It’s a bold and courageous step to walk out onto the tightrope of life and to accept its risks. It’s utterly countercultural to imagine that the entire world can be remade by the hand of God, to realize that it has in some sense, already been remade. It is almost incomprehensible to think that, in our humanity, we can still see the world with the mind of Christ and not only from a human point of view.

But Paul tells us that, with God, the impossible has become possible. The old has become new. Our broken selves can become whole. And a tightrope strung high up in the air can be more than a formula for tragic death. For the art of life is about staring death in the face and knowing that, in spite of the odds, it is only the beginning of something unbelievably and wonderfully new.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 27, 2022

[1] https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/06/03/philippe-petit-artist-of-life/

[2] Ibid.

The Gift of Time

Some years ago, over dinner with several musician acquaintances, talk turned to music studies. I happened to mention the name of my first organ teacher in college, and this prompted one of the other musicians to make a derogatory remark about my teacher.

I found myself somewhat defensive in that moment. Although I wasn’t personally being attacked, I was defensive for the sake of my teacher. Indeed, I was actually offended. One’s identity as a musician is often bound up closely with one’s genealogy of teachers. Musical pedigree and style are quite personal.

It was true that my first teacher was eccentric, quirky even, but who ever said that was rare among musicians? It was indeed some of this eccentricity that made my first teacher such a good one. So, when I found myself confronted with a snide remark about him, my hackles were raised. And what I kept repeating internally was that the person who criticized my teacher didn’t even really know him.

But I did. I knew that my teacher, an esteemed if colorful organist, had sensed the potential in an eighteen-year-old college freshman who had never studied organ before. He had seen that I could be a professional organist based merely on a piano background and musical ability. This teacher had the patience to sit with me and other students as we labored through boring technical exercises. And contrary to some people’s views, none of us played in the same way because our teacher taught us how to bring out our own inner musicality and to make real music, not as dry technicians but as artists.

I had spent three years studying with my teacher, and the person who made a negative comment about him didn’t really know him. The best quality of my former teacher was that he offered me the gift of time, to work with me and to cultivate my inner gifts. He didn’t accept me into his studio because I was already blazing through major repertoire; he accepted me because he recognized potential. This teacher was a great one because he appreciated that often strong musical talent lies dormant, waiting to be realized.

The gift of time is vastly under-appreciated in our society. We are trained from an early age to follow a path headed towards making the most amount of money in the least amount of time. Long gone are the days when faced with an unfamiliar word in a book, we would retrieve a dictionary from across the room and hunt for a word’s meaning. Now, we have all the information we need right at our fingertips.

We are an impatient people. We have been impatient for two years to take masks off. We are impatient with the volatility of the stock market. If our internet connection is sluggish, we become angry. We demand answers and solutions, and we demand them now.

Frequently, we press forward with changes, even when quite drastic, in the name of justice or whatever cause will justify our whims. But less frequently are we willing to take the time we need to listen to God’s direction, to test the spirits, to discern what is true.

God’s time, of course, is an eternity, and it seems like such. To us, three years seems like a long time. So, a fig tree planted for three years should certainly be bearing fruit. In today’s Gospel passage, we might not be inclined to fault the owner of the vineyard for being impatient with the tree. The tree, he says, is a waste of space. It’s using up perfectly valuable earth. So, get rid of it!

Thank God for the gardener, though. The gardener reminds me of my first organ teacher. Just give the tree another year, the gardener says, and then make a judgment. Don’t be so hasty. Remember that bearing fruit takes time. This little parable ends mysteriously. We don’t know what really happened to that fig tree. It seems that we’re not meant to know.

What we also don’t know is whether the vineyard owner planted the fig tree himself. Based on the Scriptural text, I’m suspecting he didn’t. He had the tree planted. Someone else did the work for him. What we do know, though, is this: he seems to have checked in only occasionally to see how the tree was doing. He was clearly not the regular tender of this plant. That was the gardener’s job.

The owner treats the fig tree in a utilitarian way. The tree is planted, and it needs to bear fruit. The owner remains at a distance, with hands clean, infrequently checking in to find the desired-for progress. But the gardener tends the soil, watches the tree every day, and buries hands in the manure to fertilize the tree. The gardener does the dirty work and journeys patiently with the tree that requires time to bear its fruit.

And it’s the gardener, the one with dirty hands that have labored in love, who sees the potential in this tree. The gardener knows the cycles of warmth and cool, the periods of sunlight and cloudy skies, the days of rain and the days of drought. The gardener has a horticultural relationship with this tree. The gardener is invested in the tree. The gardener is the only one in this parable who understands the gift of time.

In parables, we are so often tempted to allegorize. Which character is God? Which is Jesus? Which is us? There’s no easy way to do so, and I’m not convinced that’s the most helpful way to read parables. And with this particular parable, who’s who is not clear. But if I had to guess, I’d say God is much more like the gardener than the vineyard owner. And I’d also guess that many people see God the other way around.

In their eyes, God is the impatient ruler of our lives. God sits afar off, having set creation into motion, and then God drops in from time to time to check in on how we’re doing. And when there’s no visible fruit or when the fruit is spoiled, it’s time to be cut off from the vine and thrown out. Is this possibly the root of so much spiritual fear? Are we afraid that when God spies in on us, we will be found lacking and then cast off?

And if we can’t imagine that God gives us the gift of time, are we then impatient with God? When our prayers are not immediately answered or answered in the way we expect, do we assume that God is not invested in us? Do we stop investing ourselves in God?

The parable of the fig tree is intentionally juxtaposed with Jesus’s call to repentance. If we wait too long, we might miss the boat. If we constantly delay our own self-examination and grappling with our own sin, there will come a time when we will be faced with the consequences of our stubborn and foolish choices.

But this parable adds some nuance to the anxious urgency associated with calls to repentance. This parable teaches us that God is not, in fact, like the vineyard owner but more like the gardener because God gives us the gift of time.

God is invested in us because God created us. This is the same God who created our inmost parts and knit us together in our mother’s wombs. This is the same God from whom no secrets are hid. This is the same God who called the wayward human race back time and again when they just couldn’t get it right. God does not give up on us precisely because God knows us intimately. God is invested in us in a way we can’t even begin to see. It turns out that the gift of time is not an excuse for inaction. It’s permission to understand the investment that God has in us and that he calls us to have in him.

God doesn’t behave as we so often do, with our hasty judgments of others, especially those with whom we have no relationship. God doesn’t operate according to the rash moral reasoning we employ that often contains very little nuance and understanding of the complexities of life. God doesn’t have a rule of three-strikes-and-you’re-out.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Christianity today is that we profess to understand the gift of time. We claim that one bad choice doesn’t mark us forever. Because we are claimed as Christ’s own forever in baptism, we are marked towards a life full of plenteous chances to repent and turn to God. But we must first understand God’s investment in us and God’s willingness to forgive us so many times. Sadly, we usually don’t live up to what we profess, even in the Church.

God gives us the gift of time because God knows that repentance needs to be cultivated, not summoned with the snap of a finger. God gives us the gift of time so that we can be more patient with him, more understanding of his role as the gardener of our souls, and ultimately more patient and forgiving of others and ourselves.

This is the message of Jesus in today’s Gospel: none of us is wasting the soil. None of us is indispensable. God gives us the gift of time to help us learn and understand this. It will take a long, long time to realize this. It won’t happen in this life, for sure. But if we’re patient, it’s well worth the wait.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday in Lent
March 20, 2022

Closing the Gap

There has been much media hype recently over meetings between world leaders sitting at opposite ends of a twenty-foot-long table in the Kremlin. The pictures of these occasions boggle the mind. Even in a pandemic, we’re not used to meetings where people are separated by such great distances when they are intending to have a conversation. One wonders how a conversation in such conditions is even possible.

We could speculate about the extreme distance in these meetings. Was there a real concern about contracting the coronavirus? Was it a powerplay? But for our purposes, let’s just focus on the image for a minute. Two powerful world leaders sit at extreme ends of a very long, ornate table—just two people, no one else in sight. It’s a helpful metaphor for the state of the world at the moment, isn’t it? There is very little real or productive dialogue happening, and not just in Ukraine and Russia. The distance between two world leaders seated at a long, long table is a helpful metaphor for the countless ways in which we, as citizens of a shared planet, are quite adept at putting distance between ourselves.

And because we are so used to human separation, do we also assume such distance exists between God and humanity? Do we assume this, too, when God enters into dialogue with chosen people in Scripture? Do we imagine God and Abram sitting at a long, long table as they negotiate their covenant relationship? God begins the conversation by telling Abram not to fear. Meanwhile, Abram sits twenty feet away wondering how in the world he is not to fear.

God has just brought him from his homeland in Ur of the Chaldeans with little more than a promise that the nations of the world shall be blessed through Abram. Abram has journeyed a vast distance, along with his family, presumably because he trusts God’s promises.

He now sits at one end of a long, long table, while God sits at the other. God is still telling him that his reward shall be great, but the only thing that is obviously great to Abram at the moment is the chasm between him and God. Can he still believe God’s words? A significant period of time has passed since God first made a promise to him, but Abram still has no biological heir. And he and Sarai, his wife, are a little long in the tooth.

Abram, still sitting yards away from God, decides to name the discrepancy between God’s promise and his experienced reality. Abram doesn’t seem terribly confident that God will make good on his promises. So, God brings Abram outside and directs his gaze to the heavens, promising that his descendants will be as numerous as the number of the stars, which are uncountable. Then we are told that Abram believes.

But Abram still wants more. At the long, long table, Abram longs for something to close the gaping hole between him and God. God, he says, how will I know your promises are true? Close the gap. Show me a sign that the land you have also promised me is my possession and will be populated by my heirs.

And God does. God doesn’t remain in the sky, distant from Abram. God touches down in the form of a flaming torch passing between pieces of slaughtered animals, enacting a covenant of promise with Abram. God gets up from his end of the long, long table, walks over to Abram, and shakes his hand. It's a done deal. My word is trustworthy.

In a cursory reading of the Book of Genesis, Abram seems like a profoundly trusting person. It would be easy to surmise that he is almost naïve in his willingness to leave his homeland based on a surprising vision from God. Time and again, when he still has no children, he continues to follow God’s call—through a brief sojourn in Egypt to avoid famine and through battles with surrounding foreign nations. Abram remains steadfast in following God, even when it seems ridiculous.

But sitting at that long conference table with God, when we encounter him today, we see that Abram’s inner state is more complicated than simple acquiescence to God’s demands. Somewhere inside Abram’s soul, there is a chasm to be crossed in belief. Will God really honor his promises? Was he stupid to leave everything that was familiar to go to a strange and foreign land? Abram wants some proof. Abram yearns for God to get up from his end of the table and to come to him, to certify that his promises are trustworthy.

Perhaps Abram is not so unlike you or me. How can faith and trust even be real if there is no gap of belief from time to time? We are told to wait on God, as if we must sit at a long, long meeting table, shouting down towards God and, if we’re lucky, we hear God respond, albeit faintly. In our prayer, we recall the powerful and almighty God sitting high and lofty. We plead, we ask, we entreat, but can we cross the mental and spiritual chasm we feel exists between God and us?

Feeling powerless before God, humans amass their own fragile power in other ways and play off the canyons of separation within the human race. We bully by email because the computer screen offers a comfortable virtual buffer. We jealously guard our choice morsels of anger and our resentments because if we hold onto them, we have something to wield over the one who has offended us.

We exercise and claim our power by widening the distance between ourselves and others. We play hard to get. We pout. We gossip. We judge. And all these things place us at one end of a very, very long table, while the targets of our meanness sit at the end. There in an empty room sit two parties, one offending and the other offended.

But in his encounter with Abram, God does something quite extraordinary that reverses all our expectations. As we so often conceive it, God sits in authority at one end of a long, long table, wielding judgment over us and deigning to heed our requests. So often the gap between us and God is silence, unanswered prayers, and loneliness.

And yet, God does something incredible with Abram. God reveals his power not by creating an unfathomable distance between himself and Abram but by closing it. God gets up from his end of the table and walks over to Abram. He comes down in a flaming torch and makes a hard and fast covenant with Abram, literally promising that God himself will be like slaughtered animals if he does not measure up to his promises.

And God does something else, too. He directs Abram’s gaze up to the heavens and teaches. Abram, it’s not I who have created a void between us, but you. You are so hyper-focused on your biological kin and on your own parcel of land to possess. But I am giving you a much larger vision. And the larger the vision is, the closer the distance is between us.

What God promises to Abram transcends the idolatry of familial ties. It transcends nationalism. It surpasses the human tendency to turn everything in on ourselves and circle the wagons with those who are like us. The human tendency is to sit at opposite ends of a twenty-foot-long table and keep plenty of distance between us so that we can survive, so that we can be powerful, so that our own interests are met.

But paradoxically, God demonstrates his power by closing the distance between himself and us and by widening his vision for us. God has made covenant after covenant with his people, putting everything on the line for a sinful and wayward people who frequently forget what he has done for them. And in the fullness of time, by sending his only Son into the world, he crossed that gap in a profound way so that the entire world could be drawn to himself.

As we sit at the table with God, we will fill up the chasm between us with all kinds of things: with our pride, with our lust for power, with our anger, with our lack of trust, and so often, with our acute fear. And because we are usually incapacitated in our sinfulness, God moves. God takes action. Time and again, God reassures us that the chasm we have created or imagined has never really been there.

God stands up from his end of the long, long table and comes to us. God has done so throughout human history and will continue to do so. And God doesn’t just shake our hand. God reaches out to us with arms wide open.

Look to the heavens and see the immensity of what I have in store for you, God says. I will help to widen what you have narrowed. I will help you trust and love. I will help you let go of your fear. If you can but believe in my promise, you will see that there is no gap between us. Believe me, because my promises are true.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Second Sunday in Lent
March 13, 2022

Contrario Modo

Tell someone that you believe the devil really exists, and they might look at you askance. A demystified world doesn’t have a lot of time or imagination for the supernatural. And even those who do have some time for the supernatural—especially when it makes them feel good—might dismiss Satan and his evil minions as antiquated superstition.

But it’s difficult to take seriously the account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness if we don’t believe in some sense of palpable, existential evil in the world. The fact that this story occurs in three of the Gospels cautions us from dismissing it as mere fabrication. And how can we not heed the latest news from around the world and indeed in our very own neighborhoods without acknowledging that there are sinister forces that appear to be affecting us and which are clearly beyond our control. So, then, why is it so preposterous to believe in a Satan or a devil or a Prince of Darkness who is opposed to the Prince of Peace?

It is to our great peril that we deny the reality of evil. And yet this is a double-edged sword. Paying too much attention to the devil as the embodiment of such wickedness can paradoxically cause us to view him as little more than fabrication. Most of us have watched one too many movies like The Exorcism or its ilk, and this can numb us to the true reality of evil.

So, to get a real handle on this thorny topic, we often have to go far back in history to earlier Christian writers who didn’t inhabit a world as demystified as ours. Earlier Christians were convinced of the reality of the devil but also believed firmly in a power of light that was much, much greater.

I want to take us back to St. Ignatius Loyola, the sixteenth century founder of the Jesuit religious order. Ignatius recognized the all-too-human problem of wrestling with doubts, especially when determining whether something is sinful or not. And Ignatius knew that the devil often assails our sensitive consciences by making us over-scrupulous.

Say, for instance, you are considering doing a good work or a charitable deed. But suddenly you find yourself questioning whether you should do said deed because it might seem like you’re being overly pious. This, Ignatius would say, is the evil one trying to keep you from doing the right thing. And Ignatius’s advice was to observe the practice of moving contrario modo, or “in the opposite direction.” In our example, the person assailed by doubts should be somewhat less scrupulous and, in fact, do the good deed.

However, a person who rarely is disposed to follow God’s will or to any kind of scrupulosity is often beset by the opposite problem. The devil will seek to make that person even less scrupulous. That person, moving contrario modo, should be more scrupulous.

The logic seems inverted, but it is brilliant. This sounds very much like modern psychology, but it is deeply spiritual. Which of us doesn’t have many doubts? Don’t many of us have overactive consciences from time to time? And have you ever been tempted not to do a good work because of an accusing internal voice?

Ignatius understood something else that modernity has lost. The devil doesn’t usually manifest himself with contortions and spinning heads but rather with sly nuances that creep into our minds and hearts. And this brings us to St. Luke’s account of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness.

The devil is not described in graphic detail by St. Luke. He is not carrying a pitchfork or even embodied as a terrifying presence. The devil is simply a constant, ominous presence with Jesus, tempting him for forty days and forty nights.

Not even the temptations themselves are what we might imagine. We are so used to thinking of temptations as attractions to do horrible things or towards horrible things. But the devil is not that simplistic. In the wilderness with Jesus, he knows that he is up against someone who is far more powerful than he is. So, he must be on his game to stand even a chance in this fight.

There doesn’t seem to be any if in Satan’s mind about whether Jesus is the Son of God, although the translation in Scripture doesn’t emphasize this. Satan knows that Jesus is the Son of God. That’s why Satan shows up. And it’s why he shows up in the wilderness, a lonely place, where Jesus is famished from his fasting.

The real temptation for Jesus is whether he will remain loyal to God the Father. The devil knows that he can’t tempt Jesus to one of the more obvious sins, so he takes a subtler path and tries to get Jesus to use his authority for the wrong reason, to summon stones into bread to feed himself and perhaps those who might be hungry. If Jesus were only to worship Satan, even the corrupt kingdoms of the world could be transferred from worldly leadership to Jesus’s reign. Perhaps even Jesus’ willingness to summon God to save him from hurtling down the side of a mountain could prove God’s words from Scripture to be true and provide some defense of God.

But Satan is no match for Jesus. Vulnerable though he may be after such a long period of fasting and loneliness, Jesus understands the real temptation at hand. It’s not some wild act of wrongdoing to which he is tempted, one that would cause others to reel in horror were they to witness it. The real temptation is not about whether Jesus is the Son of God. It’s about whether there is something conditional about God. This underlies everything that the devil lobs at Jesus.

The clue to the devil’s weakness lies in the second of the devil’s temptations. The devil promises the glory and authority of all the kingdoms of the world if only Jesus will worship him. This is the devil’s dirty little secret. The devil’s so-called power is only conditional and hinges on whether Jesus will worship him or not. And up against this sobering reality, the devil’s only ploy is to try to cause Jesus to question the reliability of God’s authority and also the unconditionality of God’s love.

It’s the same temptation for us, too, isn’t it? The real temptations that accost most of us are usually not to murder or heinous crimes. They are not usually to worship Satan rather than God. The temptations that assault us in insidious ways are those that stir up doubts within us. Will God love me if I’m not successful and recognized in my professional life? Will God forgive me yet again since I’ve made a mess of things one too many times? Will I make it to heaven if I’m not constantly busy doing good deeds, even if I have no time for prayer? Is God still active in the world, or is it all up to us, the Church, to effect the change that is needed?

Is it any wonder that we have been lured into questioning the unconditional nature of God’s love, mercy, and compassion towards us? We are conditioned by a world in which we calculate every risk. If we intervene in a war, will we provoke an aggressive power into worse actions? If I am honest with that person about their involvement in an injustice, will I lose that person’s friendship or love? If I don’t worship the god of work or academia, will I ever be able to put food on the table or make ends meet?

It’s a slippery slope from good intentions towards giving into the sly temptations that come our way. But if we return to the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola, perhaps there is something we can learn. For those of us who have come to this Altar to be close to holiness, our vulnerability lies in our own sensitivity to such holiness. For those of us who wish to do good, our potential weak spot lies in that very effort. And before long, we are doubting whether goodness is a fabrication of the mind and whether our well-intentioned acts will ever make any difference in the world.

But I think Ignatius would tell us this. When you feel those sly assaults, turn. Turn in the opposite direction. Remember the principle of contrario modo. For the sake of the good, do the opposite of your haunting thoughts, trusting that God is leading you back towards him.

And in our weakest moments, the greatest temptation of all might be to believe, even just for a minute, that somehow, we are worshipping and devoting our lives to a God who only loves us if we do things on command or if we ask for things in the correct way. It’s a terrifying thought to imagine losing the love and favor of a God who patrols our every movement and attaches conditions to our actions.

So, resist this temptation will all your strength. Remember: contrario modo. Turn the other way. Turn away from the falsity of cunning doubts and accusing thoughts. Turn towards the Light. And walk with confidence into the arms of the One who will never let you go, whose love is never conditional, and who always welcomes you back home.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The First Sunday in Lent
March 6, 2022

The Face that Never Turns Away

The Virgin of Kyiv is one of the most famous icons in the world. Although historical details of this icon are murky, it is believed to have been written in Constantinople in the early twelfth century and eventually given to the Grand Duke of Kyiv around the year 1131. Some years later, the duke’s son, after sacking the city of Kyiv, transported the famous icon to the city of Vladimir in modern day Russia. Legend says that the icon itself chose the city when the horses moving it from Kyiv stopped moving somewhere close to Vladimir. It’s likely that such a story was used to justify Vladimir’s claim to replace Kyiv as the principal city of the ancient kingdom of Rus.[1]

The icon of the Virgin of Kyiv represents what is known as the Eleousa pattern of icons. There are myriad writings of this form of icon, but the Virgin of Kyiv is perhaps the most well-known. In this icon, the Virgin Mary cradles the Christ child. Her left hand points gently up to Christ, signaling that he is the focal point of this image. With her right hand, she holds up the infant Jesus as he reaches up with his body to gaze into her face, his own face pressed snugly against his mother’s. His right hand is placed firmly on his mother’s breast.

There is so much to take in. It’s difficult not to feel a pang of poignancy in one’s chest as you see Jesus as a human child who cannot part from his own mother. Indeed, he is actively seeking her face. But then there are Mary’s eyes, which are unsettling. She looks not at Jesus but at the person gazing on the icon. Her eyes are sorrowful. Does she know her child’s fate? Does she know about the sword that will pierce her own soul, too?

I recently saw someone post this icon on Facebook as an obvious reference to the devastating war that is ongoing in Ukraine. When I read more about the Virgin of Kyiv icon, I was struck by the eerie connections with the current crisis in Ukraine. This icon represents such heart-warming tenderness, showing in so many ways the love of Christ for the human family, which is symbolized by the Blessed Mother. This icon, too, stands at the center of a centuries-long tumultuous history between historic capitals representing modern Ukraine and Russia respectively.

But what does this icon have to do with Ash Wednesday? What does a work of sacred art have to do with this somber evening, where we are reminded of our own mortality? The brittle ashes that will soon be imposed on our foreheads are scratchy reminders that from dust we came and to dust we will return.

Of all things, the Virgin of Kyiv icon has made me consider the reading from the prophet Joel. It is difficult not to think of the current war in Ukraine as Joel sounds the alarm amid his own people. Joel is using apocalyptic language, but there is also an imminent threat, vague though it may be. Is it real war? Or is it a figurative way of speaking of God’s judgment? There is an approaching cloud of gloom and doom. It seems to be from God, although nothing is certain.

Joel, like so many of us, is quick to establish cause and effect. What have God’s people done to deserve this threat on the horizon? There is clearly some state of sin for which they must repent. Joel’s command is clear: return to the Lord. Repent. Who knows whether God might turn and relent?

Joel, like so many of us, can’t help but read the crisis at hand as God’s judgment. Joel, like so many of us, reacts to catastrophe by resorting to the only tactic he feels is worth the gamble: turn to the Lord. Joel, like so many of us, is torn between two things: fear of God’s wrath and appeal to God’s graciousness and mercy.

Joel’s words may seem like nothing more than unleashed anxiety in reaction to crisis, but Joel also can’t shake a particular understanding of God’s nature. It has been emphasized over and over again in Scripture. Long before Joel’s words, we hear back in the books of Exodus and Numbers that God is full of compassion and mercy. We hear it, too, in other prophets and in the Psalms. This is nothing new. As confused as God’s people may be time and again as they wrestle with disaster, enemy invasion, and their own sinfulness, Joel reminds the people not to forget this irresistibly compelling attribute of their God.

And for some reason, this has drawn my attention to the icon of the Virgin of Kyiv. It is seemingly far removed from the words of the prophet Joel, but it is not really so far removed. In this icon, we see the face of the One who came in human form to remind the world of God’s very nature, which humanity would so often forget and still so often forgets.

=Which of us does not struggle to see the face of mercy looking into our eyes when we can’t bear to face the wrong we’ve done? Which of us doesn’t imagine God’s face somehow turned away from those on the wrong side of a war? Which of doesn’t have trouble seeing God’s face still turned in love towards a world that has gotten things so horribly wrong?

The tension in Joel’s own words between a God of wrathful judgment and a God who is steadfast in mercy and compassion and who might yet forgive is also mysteriously present in the icon of the Virgin of Kyiv. Christ does not turn from humanity in anger. In the icon, Christ is reaching up to cuddle his own face against his mother’s with endless longing. But Mary gazes at us. Representing humanity, perhaps she, like us, is trying to comprehend the gaze that will not let her go.

Is it a profoundly moving accident of history or a beautiful wink of God’s providence that the icon of the Virgin of Kyiv images the incomprehensible nature of God’s steadfast love toward humanity? This icon moved from ancient, ransacked Kyiv to modern-day Russia now sits in a modern-day Russia that is ravaging Kyiv. The only thing that can bring peace into this intractable conflict is the steadfast face of Christ’s mercy and compassion.

We, too, this day, sit in a place of so many tensions. We come knowing that we must acknowledge our sinfulness. Every Ash Wednesday is a reminder that after a year of wandering and turning away from God, we are invited yet again to turn. Frustrated by our foibles and stubbornness, by our selfish ways and easy resentments, we, like Joel, decide that it’s worth the effort. Maybe, after all, God will turn and relent.

Without realizing it, we like Joel, assume that God has turned from us. We struggle to imagine how, after all the evil the human race has done, God could still be turned towards us. It’s hard to shake this notion. But Joel reminds us that it’s hard to shake something else, too. Joel has been unable to get something else out of his head, and I pray that we will never be able to get it out of ours either. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

No matter how much we feel compelled to look away and no matter how much we can’t really believe it, Christ is grasping onto us with passionate hands of love. He’s not forcing us to look at him. But if we remember this day, as we do every year, to look down at his face, it is pressed against ours. His eyes look into ours if we dare cast them down. And we know that Joel was on to something. We mourn our sins and repent of our past misdeeds, but turning always shows us what never changes. Always, always, Jesus is looking at us, reaching up our bodies to press his face against ours and to remind us that God has always been gracious, merciful, and forgiving. And he always will be.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
Ash Wednesday
March 2, 2022

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

An Immersion Experience

A few weeks ago, I was attending a family wedding, and at the reception, one of the toasts was given in Spanish since the bride was born and raised in Spain. With four years of high school Spanish and a year from college, I rather enjoyed testing my ability to comprehend what was being said.

Writing and reading other languages has always been much easier for me than hearing and comprehending, primarily because I have never had an immersive language experience. But I love languages, and as much as I wanted to understand every word of the toast at that wedding, the reality was as I predicted. Listening to the Spanish words was like sifting for pebbles in the sand. Most of what I heard was sand, a cloud of words that rushed by too quickly for me to translate. And thrown in were little pebbles of light, words I could readily comprehend.

I found myself longing to sit with those moments where I understood a word, or if I was lucky, even a phrase. It felt good to receive occasional glimpses of clarity from the fog of another language. And in my pride, I patted myself on the back in those fleeting moments of comprehension.

Perhaps you, like me, have had dreams where you were speaking fluently in another language. These are wonderfully satisfying dreams, elusive proof that somewhere inside of us, we are capable of understanding another language. Uninhibited in the world of sleep, we comprehend clearly. In the muddle of a busy world with worries and cares, we can only glean pebbles of words.

If only translating were as simple as understanding individual words! Anyone who has studied another language knows that translation is an art. You can’t simply Google translate, literally transcribing word for word. Words have multiple meanings in some cases, and a literal translation will sound like nonsense in addition to being inelegant. Translation is not for those who like rigid clarity. It can’t be accomplished successfully without swimming in the linguistic sea of a culture different from one’s own.

I dare say that many people approach conversation with God with a literalism similar to novice translators. Listening to God’s voice feels like paddling our way through a cloud of confusion with a desperate desire to pick out one or two choice morsels of wisdom, hope, or clarity.

In Scripture, there are numerous stories where crystalline voices sound from heaven, obviously from God and unambiguously stating God’s purpose and will. These are the moments we want to enshrine in our memories and hearts. These clear glimpses of the divine are like those dreams in foreign languages that we want to hold onto forever. If only we could.

In the New Testament, we get just a few of these moments where the voice of God breaks distinctly into the earthly realm. At Jesus’s baptism, before his earthly ministry begins, the heavens part and God’s voice speaks directly to Jesus, designating him as his Beloved Son. And at Jesus’s transfiguration on the mountain with Peter, James, and John, God does it again. God speaks from heaven to earth with great lucidity, but this time to the disciples, and presumably to us as well. This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!

Don’t you long to experience one of these moments? Don’t you yearn to hear God speaking directly to you, with such transparency? And are you somewhat mystified and frustrated by God’s clear command as Jesus was transfigured before his disciples on that mountain? This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!

The command is direct; how to observe it is less so. How, Lord, do we listen to Jesus? How, through the din of war, of voices raised in anger, with ears clogged by fear can we hear Jesus’s voice? How do we know which voice is his? What does his voice even sound like? And what does it mean when we hear no voices except the incessant roar of a noisy world around us?

We are usually looking for blatant signs, whether voices or visions. Few of us are afforded what is offered to Peter, James, and John. Few of us will ever see such a vision of glory in this life. And so, is it any surprise that, in spite of his sleepiness, Peter tries to memorialize the spectacular scene before him by building booths?

Peter opts for the easy route of Google translation. He has grasped one clear morsel from heaven—albeit in a vision—and he wants to etch it in stone. But he has missed the point, for no sooner has he attempted to freeze in amber this remarkable moment in time than he is confused by a cloud. Peter has been listening to speech in another language, but he has only pulled out a few words that make sense to him. And he has thereby missed the point.

It’s only when Peter and the other disciples are overshadowed by the consternation of the cloud that a coherent command can be gleaned from this experience. Only when human confidence and arrogance are humbled by ambiguity can God’s voice ring clear in our own ears. This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!

Undoubtedly, like us in our daily lives, Peter and the other disciples were searching for answers to Jesus’s identity. And Peter himself had been so bold as to state that Jesus was the Messiah. But did he know what this really meant? Does anyone know what this really means? Do we know what this really means?

Peter represents those of us who want an uncomplicated Messiah who does not have to suffer. Peter represents those of us who want unequivocal answers to our theological queries without periods of dryness and confusion. Peter wants the ability to make sense of his faith by translating a stray word here or there from heaven, enshrining it in his memory, and calling it a day.

We who hear this story of the transfiguration have the benefit of knowing the whole story. We know that Peter missed something in his haste to memorialize the mountaintop experience, because he would soon deny Jesus. It would take him some time to learn Jesus’ language and to translate with some degree of fluency Jesus’s commands.

Which of us is not like Peter in some sense? We are instructed to follow God’s will and listen to Jesus, and our intentions are good. We want to do so. But so often it seems unclear how we are to know what God’s will is or what Jesus is saying to us. We cherry pick commands as we see fit and as they make us feel good, yet at the bottom of it all, we are missing the semantics of Jesus’s language. We have failed to immerse ourselves in it.

On the verge of Lent, we are perhaps looking for some clarity before we begin our long wilderness wanderings. Before we enter the cloud completely, can we have just a few simple and direct words?

As much as it is mystifying and mysterious, the story of the transfiguration provides us with some clues in our quest to heed God’s voice. St. Luke tells us that the setting of Jesus’s transfiguration is one of prayer. Jesus goes to the mountain to pray. It is while he is immersed in prayer, fluently communicating in the language of his heavenly Father, that this theophany happens. Might this have something to teach us?

Prayer frequently seems like uttering words into a cloud, and while we long for God to respond back to us with clarity, it is never so simple. On the mountain with his disciples, Jesus models something else for us. Jesus affirms the value of prayer as learning to speak God’s language. Discerning the results of prayer is rarely like translating random words from a cloud of confusion. It is more about conforming our lives to a different language, God’s language.

And when we immerse ourselves in that language, it may be that we can make more sense of the voices we hear, the nudges we feel, and the things we see. Unless we are steeped in the language of prayer, everything will seem like babel. But the language of prayer shapes our hearts and minds to listen and see in new and unexpected ways. When we become fluent in God’s language, we find ourselves able to heed our instincts and gut reactions more and more because we can trust they are really from God. We can trust that they are God’s words to us.

On the verge of this Lent, the noise is deafening. The cacophony of violence and the roar of evil is sickening. Voices cry in anguish and protest, and to begin to make sense of this cloud, we need the courage to enter it. God is inviting us to become fluent in his language, because God is not silent. God has never been silent. And God will never be.

 Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 27, 2022

So Unbelievable It Must Be True

A few years ago, when I was a newly-ordained priest and serving in my first parish, I led a Bible study on the parable of the prodigal son with the youth group. I was excited about an opportunity to crack open one of my favorite Bible stories. As an interactive way to get inside this famous passage from Luke’s Gospel, the youth and I created a digital story using iMovie, including images from contemporary life to relate an ancient story to a modern way of living.

Just to refresh your memories, in the parable of the prodigal son, an arrogant young man demands his inheritance prematurely from his father, and goes off, squandering it in dissolute living. When he reaches rock bottom, he comes to his senses and decides to return and admit his mistake and ask his father for a place in his household as a hired servant.

The beautiful part is that the father seems to have been waiting for him to return all along. Rather than upbraiding him upon his homecoming, he throws a lavish party for him and welcomes him back with open arms.

In my discussions on this passage with the youth group some years ago, I wanted them to see the radical nature of this parable. I hoped to relate the abundant compassion of the prodigal son’s father to God the Father’s extraordinary ability to forgive. I truly believed that this incredible story could change their lives if they opened themselves to it.

I was dead wrong. My initial fervor in approaching this beloved parable was quickly squelched as the youth responded to the story itself. Rather than being astounded by the beauty of forgiveness found in the story, one person pointed out with some measure of weary scorn that the prodigal son didn’t even seem sorry for what he had done. He didn’t really care that he had deeply offended his father by asking for an inheritance far too soon. In fact, this son simply made the only decision he could make when things got rough. He would take advantage of his father’s compassion and be welcomed home. The son had never truly repented, this young person said. And it was grossly unfair that he was given a lavish party after all he had done. The gist of her argument was that this son should have gotten what he deserved.

Having heard this, my hopes of highlighting God’s mercy and compassion were somewhat dashed. I was trying to find good news in the parable, and the youth were not seeing it. In hindsight, I realize that something far more troubling was happening. These youth, although they didn’t know it, were struggling to believe in a God that could be so extravagantly, even foolishly, forgiving.

Now, today, we are not given the parable of the prodigal son. We will, in fact, get that parable a few weeks from now during Lent. But there is a strong connection between that parable and today’s Gospel lesson. Listen to what Jesus is saying to his disciples in the continuation of the Sermon on the Plain: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. It goes on and on until we are stupefied at what Jesus is demanding in the life of discipleship.

How do you love someone who hates you? What kind of weakness of character is required to turn the other cheek when someone strikes you? Is it even ethical to do so, especially when such violence becomes a pattern of abuse? How can we possibly take Jesus’ words seriously? The problem is that we can’t avoid these words. They are from Christ, and they are meant to throw a wrench into our usual way of behaving.

In a striking blow to ordinary habits of thinking, Jesus ups the ante in what he demands of his followers. It’s not difficult to love those who reciprocate that love, so what is extraordinary about loving those who are likeable? And in a tit-for-tat world, why should one bother doing something for someone who is unkind and nasty?

The temptation is simply to write off what Jesus has demanded and settle for an easier interpretation. Jesus is speaking in hyperbole. It’s not practical. Jesus was preaching to a different world. Surely, he doesn’t really mean for us to do exactly what he says. It’s the spirit of what he suggests that matters.

It even seems for a moment like Jesus has violated his own admonitions. The measure you give will be the measure you get back, he says. It sounds remarkably like tit for tat. And before too long, we are caught in the Gospel’s trap. Jesus is precisely right! If we only respond with tit-for-tat, then we will forever be a part of that vicious cycle, exchanging good for good, and bad for bad. We treat others as we want them to treat us, and so it’s self-serving. Our understanding of what is morally right and ethically sound is now transactional, weighing one side against the other.

If we’re honest, our approach to life is so often transactional. Why should we go out of our way to speak to the person who has offended us? If someone hits me, it would be an affront to my honor not to strike back. If someone commits a crime, it haunts them forever, even when they are no longer behind bars, for it is their just deserts. If one political party leverages a tactic to their gain, then the other party has their opportunity when they’re in the majority. If someone doesn’t have enough money to afford basic resources, it’s their own fault, so why should I have to be responsible for their welfare? There is no shortage of examples, and do any of these seem wrong to you?

As I think back on that youth group Bible study of the parable of the prodigal son, I realize that I was hastily judging the responses of the youth. How could they not see the good news in that parable? How could they not see the son’s father as our loving and merciful God? But Jesus says, judge not, lest ye be judged. And I was definitely judged because I hadn’t looked deeply enough at myself.

If I thought about it hard enough, I would have to ask how many times I failed to forgive myself. And each time I failed to forgive myself, did I subconsciously believe that God could not forgive me? And were the times in which I struggled to forgive others due to the same reason? The youth were no more engaged in tit-for-tat thinking than I was. I was also being judged.

What about you? Do you find it difficult to love an enemy because it feels powerful to harbor resentment against them? Is it uncomfortable to behave in the extreme and break the cycle of resentment because it feels too foolish and weak?

The truth is that many struggle to believe in a God who can forgive no matter how badly we mess up. Such a God does seem foolish and weak. It can be impossible for some even to respect a God who continues to call us back time and again when we turn our backs on him. Maybe this is why some can’t believe in God.

In response, Jesus offers a strongly compelling reason to believe in such a God. This is why he asks us to behave with such ridiculous abandon, to act in the extreme, motivated by love. If life is only tit-for-tat, it is a business transaction. And when the transaction turns sour, it leads only to evil, and evil propagates evil. But when we love recklessly, loving the enemy, praying for those who hurt us, and lending without any expectation of reciprocity, we have the power to break the vicious cycle. The world is changed by the Gospel not simply through good actions but by a profound faith in the One who lifts us beyond our cycles of human pettiness, violence, and retribution. This nasty cycle was broken supremely by our Lord’s death on a cross, where he forgave even those who had crucified him before breathing his last.

It is almost unbelievable to imagine God would never tire of loving us. It is almost unbelievable to imagine that we could begin to love those who hate us. And if we find ourselves struggling to love our enemies, it might have more to do with our inability to accept that God can love each one of us in spite of our sins.

I would love to go back to that youth group Bible study and say a few things. I now see that I shared the same struggles as those young people. If I could do it over again, I’d say this to them: you’re right. It is absurd and ridiculous that the prodigal son’s father threw a big party for him, even when he didn’t even necessarily apologize. It is unfair and even foolish that we are called to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. And this is how foolish and unfair God’s love is, because God doesn’t play tit-for-tat. It is so unbelievably amazing that perhaps the best response is simply to say thank you. Thank you, God, that you love us in the extreme. It is so unbelievable, that it must be true.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
February 20, 2022

On the Level Plain

Air travel has a way of bringing out the worst in a person. It starts with remote check-in. Long gone are the days when you paid for your ticket, were guaranteed an assigned seat, and could check a piece of luggage for free. Now, remote check-in might require you to pay an extra fee to choose your seat before arriving at the gate.

And then all the social stratification begins. At the time of boarding, the hordes are divvied up at the gate into first class, priority boarding, or some elite club based on the airline. At the time of boarding, the hordes are divvied up at the gate into first class, priority boarding, TSA pre-check, or some elite club based on the airline. Stepping onto the plane itself brings more frustrations. Do you ever feel that those in business class are pitying you as you make your way to the very back of the plane while your shoulder bag smacks people on the aisle seats? Or are you the one in business class?

Being packed into cramped seats in the economy section doesn’t do much to enhance self-esteem. You are handed a tiny packet of nuts if you’re lucky, and anything you might purchase is over-priced. You begin to feel sorry for yourself because you are subjected to such demeaning conditions. Meanwhile, the extra leg room in the front of the plane is enjoyed with some amount of unspoken gloating.

No wonder it’s so easy to begin judging others on the flight. Do you ever find yourself doing this? The person in front of you insists on putting the seat back as far as it will go, slamming your laptop up against your legs. How inconsiderate! The person seated next to you watching that show must be very shallow. And shouldn’t the mask be worn over nose and mouth?

It seems that it all started back before you ever arrived at the airport. From the point of remote check-in, you were already assigned to a social compartment. For the limited duration of your flight, you fume at those with more leg room, and they feel sorry for you as you eat your peanuts while being elbowed by your neighbor.

The superficial social stratification that is intrinsic to modern day plane travel is nothing compared to the vast chasms of inequity and inequality within our society. But being subjected to even minor inconveniences can certainly highlight our predisposition towards knee-jerk judgments, can’t it? And these hasty judgments of others usually belie just how complicated life really is.

It would be easy to make rash judgments of that vast crowd of people addressed by Jesus in the sixth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel. This motley crowd includes locals, as well as foreigners, the diseased and those possessed by unclean spirits. Presumably there are also poor folk, and hungry ones, those in mourning, and others who are judged harshly because they have followed this itinerant Jewish preacher. Many have sought out Jesus because they truly believe that there is some mysterious, potent power in this man from Galilee that enables him to heal and to cure. I imagine there are others who scoff at the supposed displays of power and who want to jeer from the sidelines. Also present are the wealthy, the well-sated, the ones who laugh easily, and those who are well liked.

In Jesus’ blessings and curses, we are prone to see a tidy Western dichotomy. It would be so easy to pit the poor against the rich, the hungry against the full, the ebullient against the mournful, the scorned against the popular. If we’re not careful, we begin judging who should be in what category based on our own shallow assumptions.

Such judgment works both ways. Surely the poor are lacking because of something they have done. Is it their sin? And the hungry? They simply haven’t worked hard enough to earn their keep. The mournful are only lamenting the consequences of their poor choices or the brunt of God’s wrath. As for those who are reviled, what can they expect in return for following this controversial rabbi?

But if you have a soft spot for the downtrodden—the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, and the scorned—the woes are particularly delicious, aren’t they? Like the downfall of the bad guy in a movie, we delight in seeing the rich get their comeuppance. We love St. Luke’s great reversals, where those who are hungry will be sent empty away. Laughter will not last forever, right? And the popular ones are no different from those phony prophets of old.

It’s the same in our polarized society. Those on the mountain can so easily rail at those below, equating their misfortune with a failure in personal responsibility or with a deserved judgment from God. And those in the valley wait impatiently for the day of vindication when the prosperity gospel is shown to be a fraud. We live in stark categories that pit us against one another: the poor versus the rich, the powerful versus the weak, the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, the privileged versus the destitute, Republican versus Democrat, the religious against the secular, the well-educated versus the uneducated.

It would be so easy to valorize one side. Voluntary poverty or hunger is the way to heaven. And those who suffer in this life are de facto blessed because of their low estate. Those who are living well here below are mere hedonists who will pay on judgment day. We are either on top of the mountain or in the valley. Where else can we be?

Is it any surprise, then, that for so many, Jesus can only be in one but not both of those places at the same time? It all depends on whose side he’s on. As Lord, he reigns from the mountain, the triumphant friend of those who have done well and received their reward. As Savior, he is with the downtrodden in the valley, shaking his fist at the oppressors above. Jesus becomes the judge that either group wishes him to be, inherently opposed to the other side.

And this easily morphs into pie-in-the-sky religion. Heaven is the escape from earthly suffering, and hell is the just reward of those who have had too much of a good thing.

But this is not the vision St. Luke gives us. St. Matthew’s Beatitudes may be delivered by Jesus on a mountaintop, but in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is neither on the mountain or in the valley. He is on a level place when he announces the blessings and curses. Jesus stands, not in the place of easy equalities and simplistic assumptions but on the even plain teeming with earthly complexities.

On this plain, Jesus knows that there is no simple causal relationship between misfortune and sin. People are more nuanced than they seem on the surface. Here, inexplicably, bad things do happen to good people and good things to bad people. Here, the gospel makes no easy promises of good fortune, but neither are the poor and hungry automatically placed in heaven. Here, people of all nations come for healing and are cured. Here, the extraordinary power of the gospel is made available to all, knowing no boundaries.

On this level plain, God’s justice asserts itself not with brute force but with truth. Jesus, as Savior, is released from the vicious cycle of human judgment that is only rooted in vindictiveness. Here, the haves and the have-nots find their common ground in mutual poverty, even if of different sorts. On this plain, rich and poor, hungry and full are fed at the same Table with the same Bread and Wine.

On this level plain, Jesus stands as the one who comes to save all of humanity, the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the hungry and the full, the popular and the unloved. Here, Jesus stands not as judge looking down from the mountain condescendingly to condemn. Instead, rooted among us in all our complexity and sin, he looks up at us with love and compassion.

Our Lord is calling you and me to stand with him on that level plain, to bring all our sorrows and joys and all our complicated humanity. He is calling us, the Church, to testify that on this level plain, all can find healing. On this plain, all nations, tribes, and races meet to learn that, in some way, they are all poor. When everything else threatens to divide us, our common poverty brings us together.

Here, on this plain Jesus has come down to meet us, just as we are. He rules as Savior and Lord not from above but on the ground with us. And he looks at us, not with condemnation from on high, but up at us with a judgment that heals. And he tells us that there is only one assumption we can make: on the level plain, we are loved by him.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 13, 2022

Getting the Order Right

Combination locks make me nervous. It all started back in middle school when I had to wrestle with them, both on my hall locker and then on my gym locker. It always felt like a race against the clock. With less than five minutes until the next class, my nervousness made fiddling with a combination lock a dreadful experience.

I’m sure you know the kind I’m talking about. 3 – 2 – 1 is apparently the trick to unlocking them. Turn the dial three times to the right to clear it and then stop on the first number of the combination. Then turn counterclockwise twice to pause on the second number. Finally, turn once more to the right, resting on the third number of the combination.

It sounds simple, but when you’re up against the clock, it’s nerve-wracking. Did I really make one full turn? Did I remember to clear the lock with three full turns at the beginning? Did I line the pointer up with the number? But just remember: 3 – 2 – 1. And above all, know that order is important.

Scripture frequently presents us with episodes where something is amiss, and then Jesus arrives on the scene to fix everything. It’s as if, until his arrival, people are anxiously fiddling with a lock, getting the sequence of numbers and turns all wrong. And then Jesus steps up, turns the dials with just the right amount of precision, and everything unlocks.

Do you remember when Jesus is with his disciples and a man brings his son for healing from epilepsy? The disciples were unable to cure him, said the man. And so, Jesus takes matters into his own hands, and the boy is cured. Then there is the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda. He has been ill for thirty-eight years and has been waiting for someone—anyone—to help him into the pool so he can experience the healing waters. But when Jesus encounters him, he skips the pool business altogether and orders the man to stand, take up his mat, and walk. And when Jesus and his disciples are faced with a large and hungry crowd of people, the disciples are anxious and doubt that there is any way to feed so many stomachs. But Jesus starts to give orders, and before long, a miraculous supply of bread and fish feeds 5,000 people, with leftovers remaining.

Jesus often appears at the right time when there is a problem, and somehow, the lock springs free. We marvel at how it happens, and we wonder just why no one else can figure things out.

It’s no different when Jesus’s future disciples are washing their nets by the side of the lake of Gennesaret. It has been a very long night, and it has been a very unproductive one. Fishing is naturally a slow-paced endeavor, but it’s absolute torture when hours of casting the nets renders no results. I imagine the disciples were forlorn, in addition to being exhausted. It must have been a sad sight, seeing their haggard appearances washing those empty nets that were bereft of any catch.

As he is wont to do, Jesus finds these disciples. They don’t know they need him, but he does. Even though a large crowd is pressing in on Jesus to hear him deliver God’s word, he is more interested in those lonely, tired fishermen cleaning their nets and probably wondering what they did wrong all night.

3 – 2 – 1. Three times to the right to clear the lock. Then twice to the left. Then once to the right. Were they casting their nets on the wrong side of the boat? Did they go far enough out into the deep? What did they miss, and how did an entire night go by without catching so much as a single fish?

But Jesus finds these disciples as if following a homing beacon. Inexplicably, he gets into Simon Peter’s boat. He orders him to push off a bit from the shore. He teaches the crowds from the boat. And then, he asks Simon Peter to go farther into the deep and let the nets down for a catch.

But, Jesus, Simon says, I already did this. I thought I did it right. Three times clockwise, then two counterclockwise, then one more time clockwise. Or perhaps I had the wrong combination? Oh, well, if you say so, Master, I’ll try again. And the lock springs.         

It begs the question, what did Simon and his fellow fishermen miss? Were they in the right place to fish? Was it just an off night? Did they fall asleep and miss their catch? Or is Jesus the only one with the ability to have any success in this fishing venture?

Yes, it is, of course, a miracle. The vast quantity of fish that ends up breaking the nets is none other than the work of God. How could such a catch have materialized the night before? It’s only God’s power working through Jesus that brings in this surprising catch of fish.

And as so often happens in Scripture, it might seem as if this is a trick question. The poor disciples are made to look like failures because they have not gotten something right or their faith isn’t strong enough. And Jesus always provides the key or the right answer.

But St. Luke masterfully presents the details of this miracle story so that we are given the key to this stubborn lock. It’s about Jesus, of course, but it’s also about something these disciples need from him. It’s not really that they’ve failed; it’s that after meeting the Christ, they are enlightened. When Peter falls to his knees and asks Jesus to depart from him because he’s a sinner, we might be tempted to think this is the obstacle. Peter just doesn’t have enough faith. He simply isn’t holy enough for God to act in his desperation.

Except this doesn’t seem to be the real answer. When Peter falls on his knees before the Christ, it’s as if he is saying, Master, I see now. It’s not that I forgot the combination to the lock. It’s not that I wasn’t trying hard enough. It’s not that the lock was defective. The problem is that I didn’t get the order right.

All night, I was fishing, hoping against hope for a catch, at least one fish. I know the fish were there. I wasn’t in the wrong place. At the time, I just didn’t understand. I was trying to go it alone and do it all by myself. I wasn’t responding to your call because you hadn’t called me yet. But when I encountered you and heeded your summons, everything changed.

Isn’t this a kind of parable for ministry? We so often profess that we are working hard and being creative as we faithfully undertake our various projects and ministry endeavors. We cast our nets, ready to haul in large catches. In many cases, we’re not even afraid of the deep water. But then we find ourselves, like those first disciples, the morning after we have tried and come up empty, wondering what went wrong.

If this story of the calling of the first disciples is indeed a parable for discipleship and ministry, we may have missed something. Could we, too, have gotten the order wrong? Perhaps we forgot the most important thing. We forgot that every series of events we undertake in the name of the gospel springs from God’s call to us. And unless we begin by responding to God’s call and asking God to help us, our nets will just be empty, time after time. The disciples came up dry until Jesus found them on that lake shore, called them, and then they obeyed.

If the order is right, if God calls and we respond by venturing out into the risky deep to cast our nets, the lock springs. We might find ourselves hauling in nets full to the breaking point. God has moved us into gospel work himself, but we need others to help us. And we invite them to share in this work with us. Community forms, and there is evangelism in the making. In addition to an overabundance of fish, God has also given us community.

This is how evangelism works. It’s not so much “build it and they will come” but let God help you fish, and others will need and want to come help. Maybe the Church’s growth lies in inviting other people into a place where they are fed by engaging in ministry that responds to God’s call. And it all starts with God’s call and a simple response of yes.

Remember: 3 – 2 – 1. Three times to the right, two to the left, and once more to the right. You have to remember the combination. But above all, order is everything, and it all starts with God.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 6, 2022

Not Taking No for an Answer

Two unrelated and diametrically opposed endeavors from the past fifteen years might have something to say to today’s reading from the prophet Jeremiah. The first dates back to 2008, probably in Japan, when rage rooms were developed. Sometimes called smash rooms or anger rooms, they are now popular across the world. A brief Google search will reveal that there are rage rooms nearby, both in Philadelphia and in West Chester.

These rooms are places where people who are presumably filled with pent-up anger pay money to spend time smashing things. Some rage rooms allow you to bring in your own boxes of things to break. Others have mock living room sets that you can delight in destroying.

Rage rooms are supposedly about letting off some steam and having fun while doing so, all in an apparently safe environment. But a 2017 study showed that perhaps these rage rooms are not effective in serving as a safety valve for bottled-up emotions. They can, in fact, increase one’s anger.[1]

I, myself, have a number of questions about such rooms, even though I’ve never been to one. What is the real goal of such rooms? Is it really about letting off steam? And is breaking a bunch of glass with a hammer the most effective way to cope with stress? What happens when you leave the room? Does your anger disappear, or does it simply manifest in different ways? And when you become angry again, is it necessary to return to the rage room to deal with it?

Now, the second, very different endeavor that might tie into the Old Testament reading from today is the 2013 opening of the Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand. You may recall that in 2011, a disastrous earthquake devastated the city of Christchurch and severely damaged the Anglican cathedral. Shortly thereafter, the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, often characterized as a “disaster architect,” was invited to design a temporary cathedral that could also host concerts and civic events. Shigeru Ban came up with plans for a so-called cardboard cathedral, constructed from cardboard tubes, timber, and steel. The cathedral congregation still worships in this building to this day. Significantly, this temporary building stands on land where Anglicans in Christchurch built the very first church of permanent materials in the mid-nineteenth century.[2]

It strikes me that the production of the Cardboard Cathedral is precisely the opposite of a rage room. A rage room purports to serve a purpose by providing people a venue in which to let off steam, but I’m not sure it really does this. Rather, it seems to channel anger into wreaking destruction, even if on low-value objects. There is nothing creative about it.

But the cardboard cathedral is the result of a creative response to disaster. When faced with the mystery of human tragedy and suffering, creativity is not always the most obvious option. But when channeled properly, it enables a movement from destruction to rebirth.

Now, with these images in mind, let’s return to the prophet Jeremiah and to the very beginning of the book that bears his name. We hear Jeremiah’s call story, where God’s word comes to him, unbidden, and informs him that he has been predestined to serve as God’s prophet to the nations.

Jeremiah is wise and discerning. He knows this is not going to be easy, and so he makes excuses. He is too young, he says. It’s not dissimilar from God’s call to Moses, who hems and haws and tries to get out of a call, too. But with both Moses and Jeremiah, God is not taking no for an answer.

It seems that Jeremiah has no choice. God touches his mouth and puts his words there for Jeremiah to speak in the face of a recalcitrant people who will not want to hear these words. They will not be naturally inclined to turn back to God quite so easily.

Jeremiah is given an enormous charge. He is granted a significant amount of power to act in God’s name. He is able “to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” But lest we forget what is really happening here, we must remember that Jeremiah is merely a vessel for God to act. Even if we’re reluctant to attribute destruction directly to God’s hands, it is God who acts in the midst of tearing down and overthrowing. It is God who can then build and plant.

God has done this before, after all, hasn’t he? When God’s good creation had so lapsed into sin and evil, in the time of Noah, a flood wiped out all of creation except for those saved on the ark. And then God renewed this creation and repopulated the land.

When God’s people later turned away from him and rebelled, and when they forgot to own up to their part in their covenant relationship, God’s people fell prey to their warring neighbors. Jeremiah is writing in such a time when God’s people are forced into exile and their Jerusalem home has been destroyed.

But after a time, God’s people returned to the Holy City. They were able to rebuild, and the Temple was restored to its central place in the life of Israel. And centuries later, when God’s Beloved Son has breathed his last on the cross and when Jesus’s disciples are left, forsaken and alone, God rebuilt once again. By the power of the resurrection, God’s people were empowered by the Holy Spirit and the Church was formed from the very rubble of a Roman crucifixion. God is not absent when destruction occurs, but God is most obviously seen in the rebuilding that follows. God’s nature is creative and is inclined towards restoration.

But for us, it is indeed the immediate aftermath of destruction that is the most spiritually precarious time. This moment, in between dismantling and rebuilding, is charged with great potential. Two directions are possible: one is towards a place of eternal despair, the other is towards a place of eternal hope. In this moment, a weighty decision lies. One can choose death, or one can choose life.

And this is why the development of rage rooms and the building of a temporary cathedral in New Zealand are so very different. One act deals only with anger and a need to express emotion through violence, even if it masquerades as silly fun. The end is destruction, with no positive response to reconstruction. The other moves from devastation into creative hope, from death into life.

And the great spiritual temptation for all of us is to choose wrongly. It is satisfying to hold onto our resentment in the face of injustice. It is pleasurable to feel righteous anger and then to act on it. It’s tempting never to let our rage go or to imagine that it can ever be transformed. All of this is quite easy. It’s not difficult to tear down, but it’s much, much more difficult to build up.

God’s words to the prophet Jeremiah suggest that destruction is not the end of the story. While it’s impossible to avoid misfortune or tragedy, and while on this side of heaven there will always be some measure of pain and loss, hope does not have to smolder in the ruins.

God made it clear to Jeremiah that what follows the plucking up and the pulling down, the destruction and the overthrowing, is building and planting. God is always moving us from places of destruction to places of renewal. God is always pushing us from death into life.

God will not take no for an answer. God didn’t accept Jeremiah’s no, and God won’t accept ours. It is assumed that each of us, as we walk in the paths God has prepared for us, will face rejection. We will face opposition. We will encounter destructiveness, whether in others’ behavior or in the suffering that is part and parcel of life. We will be tempted to try to evade God’s call, like Jeremiah. And even after we’ve accepted God’s call, we will also be tempted to claim power through our rage, to mope in the aftermath of devastation, to relive our ruinous past and to resist creative transformation.

But hear the call to the prophet Jeremiah and learn from it. You and I are more than our rage or anger. We are more than the wreckage of our lives and the world. It is sometimes in the tearing down that God is able to build something newer and better. And everywhere that human sin wreaks havoc, God is waiting to rebuild and usher us into places of forgiveness and hope. 

However much we might protest or choose complacency, God will not take no for an answer. When we are faced with despair or hope, when we can go the way of death or the way of life, God is very clear about where he is sending us. God won’t accept our no. Choose life, he says to us. Choose life, and live.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
January 30, 2022

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_Cathedral

More than Luck

This past week, the New York Times featured an article on the fascinating history of how messenger RNA vaccines were created. The article begins and ends with Dr. Barney Graham, a virus expert in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Vaccine Research Center. In 2013, when the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome—or MERS—virus was killing one out of three infected people, Dr. Graham wondered if one of his lab scientists had contracted MERS while abroad. It turns out that the scientist had only a common cold. But it led Dr. Graham to an insight: maybe studying the ordinary cold virus of the lab scientist could help him with the vexing problem of creating a vaccine for MERS.

The eventual fabrication of a messenger RNA vaccine to address COVID-19 drew together the work of Dr. Graham and three other major efforts spanning over 60 years. It all started when two Pennsylvania scientists explored what seemed to be a wild idea. Maybe messenger RNA could cause cells to produce bits of a virus. It turns out that they could. The other major scientific endeavor came out of gene therapy, as scientists looked for a way to protect genetic molecules with fatty membranes as they made their way to human cells. And finally, the third piece of this large puzzle, involved the U.S. government’s massive undertaking to find a vaccine for the AIDS virus.

When on December 31, 2019, Dr. Graham first saw a report of a new pneumonia that had originated in Wuhan, China, he contacted a colleague and noted that it was time. All the complex work hitherto accomplished—the three scientific efforts spanning over 60 years and including scientists from various countries—was now coming together and could possibly be used for this puzzling new virus from China. And at the center of this astounding story was something that seemed to be a fanciful bit of intuition. A lab scientist’s mundane cold proved to be helpful in the ultimate production of a vaccine to combat COVID-19.

Dr. Hadi Yassine was that scientist from Dr. Graham’s lab, and when recently asked about how his common cold virus sparked efforts to create a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus, Dr. Yassine remarked: “You can consider it luck. . . or you can consider it a blessing.”[1]

For people of faith, to consider something as luck seems almost blasphemous. What seems to be mere luck to some can only be a blessing, even if in disguise, to those of us who believe in the power of God. Seeing something as just a bit of luck assumes that we inhabit a world of disparate pieces, randomly thrown together by fate. When the pieces align, it’s good luck. When they don’t, it’s bad luck.

But a universe governed by God, who can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine involves far more than luck. Such a universe radiates God’s blessing, even in what appear to be chance encounters. Diverse people are not disconnected from one another, duking it out in a competition for resources. The world that God has given us as our home is one where God, humanity, and all of creation are inextricably intertwined.

The apostle Paul’s metaphor of the human body to describe the living Body of Christ is so well-known in the Christian tradition that it seems almost banal. And yet I would venture to say that it’s the least understood of theological images. Isn’t it ironic that when the words of Holy Scripture cannot captivate our imaginations enough to illumine the bond of the human family, we must turn to science?

Science, which is so often unnecessarily used to combat religion, is one of the most powerful witnesses to a core precept of Christian faith: our undeniable relatedness and responsibility for one another. Look at the inseparable connections of the component parts of an ecosystem. If you can’t heed St. Paul’s words, just think of the last time your splitting headache was the result of eye strain. And if you’re still looking for evidence that none of us can exist as an isolated subject within creation, think about this horrible virus that has kept us in pandemic for nearly two years. At what point will the light bulb go on and will the human race realize that what is playing out in science is directly related to our moral cohesion as a society?

Or is it mere luck that a time of pandemic has brought into bold relief some of our societal sins? Is it just mere luck that the presence of a vaccine for the coronavirus has highlighted the gross social inequities among us, where parts of the world are heavily vaccinated and poorer parts cannot find enough shots to get into arms? Is there any connection between civil unrest and a raging pandemic that won’t leave us alone?

For those who think everything is just luck, there is no relation between the constitutive parts. These isolated incidents are simply random die thrown onto the gameboard of life. Their apparent lack of connection is just more evidence that we inhabit an aleatoric universe. The fact that there is so much chaos these days is simply another reminder that there is no cohesive meaning to our lives.

But let’s go back to the Christian view. None of this can be mere luck. There must somehow be a blessing in it all, even if it’s hidden. And if life is no more than a lucky game, then how is God working in the small details of life? Luck refuses to believe that the minor encounter of two people in the same place at the right time might be for a greater purpose. Luck could not comprehend something good or unifying coming out of a heated conversation between people with very different viewpoints. Luck has no time for the ordinary moments of life, where disparate pieces of a puzzle find their matching partners in surprising ways. Because luck is just luck. Luck has no higher purpose.

And St. Paul clearly understood this when he lectured the Church in Corinth. Paul knew that the assortment of random members, strong and weak, within the human body are not haphazardly put together. And Paul also knew that God has beaten us at our own game. God has always known that, because of human sin, we will give preference to the powerful members and ignore the weaker ones, and so God has inverted our values by bestowing dignity on those parts of the body that are most at risk of neglect.

You see, God has graced us with a built-in mechanism for looking out for one another. By linking us together as part of Christ’s living Body, God has handed us a supreme gift, if we can only recognize and accept it.

We can survey the social, medical, and environmental landscape around us and see it in one of two ways: as bad luck or as radiant with hidden blessings from God. It could appear blasphemous to expect to wring a blessing in the worst of times, but if God is truly at work among us, there is always a blessing to find.

And the blessing becomes more apparent when we realize that our ties to one another are not based on biology but on our constitution as Christ’s sacred Body on earth. If you think your presence here today is luck, think again. Have you considered that God has brought you to Good Shepherd for a very particular reason? Do you have any idea of how your own unique gifts are needed in this place for Christ’s gospel to flourish? Have you thought that refusing to share your gifts with this part of the Body of Christ can weaken the whole system? Are you thinking that you can just show up for Mass as an individual and leave afterwards as an individual? Or can you imagine that when someone in the pew across the church is hurting, you are, too? And if that person is hurting, maybe your sympathetic hurt is God’s way of healing the hurt. You see, in this interconnected universe we inhabit, nothing is random.

In such an interrelated world, science can teach us about our duty as members of Christ’s Body. In such a bound-up world, a common cold can spark insight to produce a vaccine for one of the world’s most traumatic viruses. In such a world, no person, no thing, no part of creation can say, “I have no need of you.” We all need one another. You are here today because of more than mere luck. It will take far more than luck to heal our deepest divisions. And just maybe in the most random encounters of your life, you will find, not luck, but God’s blessing.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 23, 2022

[1] “Halting Progress and Happy Accidents: How mRNA Vaccines Were Made,” Gina Kolata and Benjamin Mueller, The New York Times, January 15, 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/health/mrna-vaccine.html

The Party Goes On

Can’t you hear the music and the sound of voices? There has been dancing for quite a while now, several days, in fact. Everyone is having a wonderful time. The food has been plenteous. Until this point, the wine has flowed freely.

But now, Houston, we have a problem. There is a whisper, a rumor at first, that the wine has run out. This is unfortunate and unprecedented. It is extremely bad form and poor planning for the host not to have anticipated this possibility. The guests who have journeyed from far and wide to attend this several-day celebration will not be happy.

The rumor grows into louder voices of discontent. The wine has indeed run out. The music has come to a screeching halt. The dancing has ceased, and people are no longer just milling about aimlessly. They are threatening to riot if this problem is not solved soon, very soon.

Mary, Jesus’s mother, notices the problem. Discreetly, she finds her son, because he will know what to do. She knows that he will be able to do something. “Jesus,” she whispers urgently, “the wine has gone out.”

Jesus’s reply seems harsh, although it really isn’t. At first, he replies as some of us might be tempted to do upon learning that someone has not planned properly. “Woman, a lack of preparation on the part of the wedding host does not constitute an emergency on mine.” Fair point. Why should this crisis that stems from poor planning force Jesus into performing some miracle? He is not into parlor tricks. And besides, it is not yet the hour of his glory.

But then, after this equivocation, he does do something. Mary knew all along that he could and would. The other guests at the wedding are pretty clueless, though. Maybe the disciples know that Jesus will do something, maybe not. And, in the end, only the inner circle understands who it is that resolves this crisis and how he does so.

I wonder about Jesus’s initial comment, which seems to dismiss the request to fix the problem at hand. Is it simply his way of pushing reset on the whole situation? Jesus fully intends to do something, but he also needs to demonstrate in some way that the miracle he will perform is more than just a magic show. It is more than being a miracle worker on demand. The sign that Jesus performs is more than just a flashy display of power. The sign points not only to who Jesus is as Son of God but to God’s ability to bring extraordinary grace into situations of seeming scarcity. Jesus’s sign does not point to him. It points to what is possible with God.

The servants, whom Jesus has conscripted into his work, know the full details. This small group of servants, who do what Jesus tells them to do, have eyes that are now opened by the miracle they have witnessed. They can see that even six empty stone jars can be filled not just with water, but with the very best wine. Something that seems unrelated to the crisis at hand now becomes the means of resolving it.

Because Mary trusts in Jesus’s power, and because of God’s boundless grace working through Jesus, the party continues. The feasting goes on. The music starts back up again. This quiet miracle has transpired, unbeknownst to many at the party. But the servants have been changed. They do what Jesus tells them to do. And their vision will never be the same again.

We in the Church are in a position not dissimilar from those guests at the wedding party in Cana. For centuries and centuries, the Church feasted and partied, riding high on privilege and general favor in society. The Church counted on the party lasting forever. The food would always be plentiful. The wine would never run out. People would flock to the church in good times and in bad. All the priest had to do was ring the Mass bell and the faithful would come.

But in more recent decades, things have changed. Rumors and whispers have grown into anxious cries. The wine is running out! The guests are leaving the party! The invited guests are staying away! And those who still come are complaining that the wine has disappeared. Where are the people? The Church has lost her moorings! Things look so different than they used to! There is a crisis!

And the Church has responded in various ways. There have been demands. Jesus, do something! Some have resorted to parlor tricks, putting all hope in the latest gimmicks, testing God to work some miracle that will solve all the problems.

We have forgotten Jesus’s very own words not to be anxious and have drunk anxiety like it was going out of style. We have become obsessed with everything that could go wrong and that seems to be going wrong. We have let worries over money impede the proclamation of the gospel, lacking any faith that God could do something surprising among us.

And at this moment in time, our anxiety has been ratcheted up even more as we lament our ecclesiastical crisis as well as a medical one. We have good reason to worry about the party stopping entirely, because for periods of time, it seems as if it has. Just when we thought the wine was about to run out, we found more of it, and the music started again, only to be shut down in the past two months. How can we feast if we can’t gather the way we expect? Who will solve this massive problem on our hands?

We are just like those wedding guests who saw only a problem when the wine began to run out. Except that, in the end, the faithful servants who did what Jesus told them to do learned something that might be helpful to us. I imagine those servants learned that the wrong way of thinking is to see a crisis  as just a problem needing to be solved. The servants learned that if we simply shift our vision, we could re-envision our worst moments as laden with God’s potential to surprise us with his abundant grace.

It would be dishonest to conceive of our present situation as anything other than a crisis. But having settled that, we, as members of Christ’s living Body, have two options. We can respond anxiously to this crisis, or we can enter into a spirit of trust, like Mary, assuming that God will do something good and will surprise us.

Our assumption must be that the party will continue. The feasting here and now, even when it pauses for a time, will continue forever. Admittedly, this is difficult to see when people are dying and getting sick, when others are starving because the food has disappeared, and when the loneliness of this time threatens to overwhelm us.

But the Church, if she chooses, can embrace this moment to proclaim something that we have always known. It is our moment to teach the world. Even in the most incomprehensible crises, God is still working his purpose out, however mysterious it may be. Parlor tricks are not the answer to declining attendance in the Church. Praying to God is not the same as expecting miracles on demand. And when we seem to be looking at empty wine barrels and are staring at a host of empty water jugs, God can surprise us and give us wine. Really good wine.

Just as Mary knew that her son would do something, shouldn’t we expect that God will do something in the midst of our crises, even if we don’t know what it will look like? Now, is the time for the Church to pave the way for a new kind of thinking by learning from our own struggles. We can wring our hands and complain that there is no more wine while we gaze vacantly at empty water jugs. Or we can trust that the Holy Spirit, moving among us, will lead us into all truth and show us what to do when no one else has the answers. And it just might surprise us.

This is the moment for the Church. This is the moment for the gospel to break into a world that has no answers and is only trying to solve a problem. It is our task to tell the world that we can’t wait until the conditions are perfect to move on. We are to go forth boldly in trust, knowing that God will enable the party to continue. The empty water jugs will be surprisingly full by God’s grace. And the music will still play on.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 16, 2022

Giving Us Our Names Back

Two occasions from my first year of college over twenty years ago have remained in my memory. The first was during orientation week when the Vice President for Student Affairs met with groups of students from the new matriculating class. The university I attended was not especially large, but my matriculating class was still probably at least 800 students or so, if not more. When we were gathered in a room with the Vice President for Student Affairs, he then proceeded to call us each by name, without reference to photos or any other documents. At the time, I thought this was an astounding feat, and I still do. I was a shy freshman from a small town in southeast Texas at a major university. It was a vulnerable moment of transition in life, and I felt, in some small sense, valued.

The second instance I remember from my first month or so in college was being in a large sociology class. It was a popular course because of the professor, and therefore the class size of nearly 100 students was unusually large for that particular university. We were seated throughout a vast lecture hall, and this professor did just what the Vice President for Student Affairs had done. He called us each by name at the beginning of one class, without reference to any notes. He had also bothered to learn one additional fact about each of us, such as our hometown or a special interest we held.

Understandably, both these events from my college days have stayed with me. The uncanny capacity for memorization of these two faculty members was a part of student lore. But for me personally, these two stories are important not because of the phenomenal memories of two faculty members but because in a significant time of transition in my life, I felt valued. As one of thousands of students admitted to a university with a competitive application process, I found myself more than just a number. Moving from a smaller high school to a much larger university, I was more than just a statistic. I was a name. I was seen as a unique person.

Now, maybe this seems pretty straightforward. Of course, each of us is unique. Even identical twins have their own personalities, after all. Two music students studying with the same teacher and performing the same technical exercises all play differently; they play their personalities. It is no news flash that our individuality is an established part of what it means to be human.

The problem is that this common knowledge seems to be so easily ignored in society. Sometimes the most basic knowledge is the victim of collective amnesia. So, I ask you this question: do you feel like you are valued? Do you feel like you are called by name as a unique person? Do you feel like more than just a statistic or a number in the world’s vast population?

I believe it’s the extraordinary task of the Church to remind the world of what it has forgotten. That’s why the importance of being called by name is a central theme of today’s feast, the Baptism of Our Lord.

Let’s get one thing straight, though. Today’s feast is really about Jesus. It’s about his baptism, which is different from ours. It’s about his unique status as the Beloved Son of God. But because of all those things, today’s feast is also about us. It’s difficult to talk about Jesus’s baptism without talking about ours. And because of who Jesus is, and because we are baptized into his death and resurrection, we can claim something about our own identity that might seem preposterous if it weren’t actually true.

Of all today’s Scripture readings, it’s the prophet Isaiah’s words that strike me as hitting the mark here. Isaiah’s words were spoken to the people of Israel. In this passage, God speaks to his beloved children, his chosen ones, who are in exile from Jerusalem. They long to be back in their true home. How could they not believe that God had forsaken them in their current state? How could they not equate their misfortune with judgment or God’s wrath?

And into the midst of this state of despair, God speaks tender words that are profoundly personal and moving. To a nation who had been promised so much and given so much but now living in desolation, it would have been easy to think of oneself as just a number, just a number in a large host of people doomed to destruction, just a number in that long lineage promised to Abraham who were to be as numerous as the stars in heaven and the sand on the seashore but who now seemed forsaken. I imagine that the people of whom Isaiah writes felt as if they were drowning in a sea of anonymity.

But then God speaks. And God references the other surrounding nations, whose political affairs threaten to overwhelm Israel. Then the picture screen telescopes into focus on Israel, as if Israel were a singular, unique person at risk of being forgotten among the grains of sand on the seashore. God speaks: You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.

Reading and hearing these words, we feel almost as if we are intruding voyeuristically on a personal exchange between two lovers. But the speaker is God, the Almighty, the Creator of the universe. He is addressing his beloved. Yes, God, our God, speaks like this!

And we who have been baptized and adopted into the long lineage promised to Abraham, who find our roots in Israel, who are heirs of the extended promise to all nations, must be moved by God’s words so long ago to his chosen people. We can never go back in time to inhabit their specific circumstances, but we are allowed a glimpse into a delicate, beautiful moment when God zooms in on his people, as if the nation were one single individual. And God tells of his undying love for his children.

This picture window also illumines something of Christian baptism, as we understand it. In baptism, we are called by name and marked as Christ’s own forever. Our baptism echoes Jesus’s very different baptism, where he alone is called God’s Beloved Son. But because we are baptized into him, we have a right to relish God calling each of us by name. We can have no baptism without a name. The name is essential to what it means. A name is essential to our membership in the Body of Christ.

At different points in history, we might wish to linger with different moments in the baptismal rite. Usually, people like to focus on the baptismal promises, with the commitment to respecting the dignity of every human being and committing oneself to justice. But now, in 2022, in a global pandemic and living in a nation experiencing political and civic unrest, I wonder if we might rest for a while in the knowledge that, in baptism, God calls each of us by name.

For how can we not feel like a number? We all live in fear of being one of the 656,478 cases or the 1,524 deaths of the coronavirus reported yesterday. Do you long to be more than just a statistic in the workplace or the recipient of a sterile paycheck? Do you wish to be not just a student force-fed into an ultra-competitive educational system that takes your money and spits you back out into a hungry world? Look how many people are reduced to statistics of injuries or deaths in natural disasters or housefires or gun violence. At this very moment, think of how many of the aged and infirm are at risk of being forgotten and unloved in their solitary homes.

So, right now, I, for one, want to sit for just a time with the good news that I am more than just a number. You are more than just a number. Your worst enemy is more than just a number. You are honored and precious in God’s sight. You are loved. It’s a simple, obvious statement, but do you really believe it?

In this season of Epiphany, as we manifest the gospel to the world, we must learn to claim our God-given individuality and then respect that of others.

You, I, all of us are more than just a blank face in a sea of anonymity. No culture, no acts of oppression and violence, no cruel systems of injustice, none of it can take away this fact. And the good news we are called to share this season after Epiphany is that especially when the world clamors to take our names away, God always comes in Christ to give them back to us.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord
January 9, 2022

Staying in Our Lanes

Last week, driving back to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh, I spent several hours on I-76. While intermittently admiring the hilly terrain and rural countryside, I was frequently distracted by a series of religious-themed billboards. Perhaps you have seen them. They include a variety of messages, all of the same ilk.

Here are a few of them. “Where are you going? Heaven or hell?” “Jesus can free you from sin!” “Jesus: Your only way to God.” One of the more ominous ones had the following words inscribed above and below what appeared to be the squiggly line on a heart monitor, with the peaks and valleys morphing into a straight line visually signifying death. This sign said, “After you die, you will meet God.”

Now, some of the billboards I simply found hard to stomach for various reasons. But I couldn’t necessarily argue with all of them on the surface. Yes, I do believe Jesus can and does free us from sin! Yes, I can talk to God like Jesus did, although admittedly Jesus was a lot better at it than I. Yes, Jesus does offer peace and hope to us. Yes, I, do believe that Jesus is alive. If I didn’t, I would not be here in this pulpit.

The billboard I found most mystifying showed a teenager reading a Bible and had the clear suggestion that to know who Jesus is, we should read Matthew’s Gospel. Well, okay, but what about Luke, Mark, and John?

You get the point, I’m sure. I’m willing to give the benefit of a doubt that the intention behind these billboards was good, at least on some level. But to a T, what I discerned lurking in every single one of these billboards was smugness.

Every one of these messages, even if stating some truth about Christianity with which I would agree, had an implicit message. This unstated message read as follows: “Those of us who have prepared these billboards for your edification have the definitive truth, which we are sharing with you, so that one day, when you meet your Maker, you end up in the right place.” Although some of the billboard messages were more comforting than others, many of them played off an age-old tactic of fear.

The problem is that I don’t believe this kind of fear really works. I doubt many of us want to continue into the next life with a bunch of people who are scared out of their wits. I think heaven is much bigger than a holding pen for people who have been traumatized by the journey to get there.

So, what in the world do these billboards, I-76, heaven, and hell have to do with the Feast of the Epiphany? Well, I’m getting there. So, let’s go back to the Letter to the Ephesians. The author, probably not Paul himself but writing as Paul, is making a series of bold claims in chapter three. The author is claiming a special revelation from God of something radically new to the Hellenistic-Jewish world he inhabits. God’s promises of hope and salvation, first laid out in covenant after covenant throughout the Old Testament, then in the flesh of a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth, have now encompassed a new dimension. God’s promises are now shared between Jew and Gentile.

There is more: the author of the letter to the Ephesians claims to be God’s messenger to bring this good news to the Gentiles. And there is yet more, and this is where it gets even more daring: this author attributes to Paul a particular understanding of God’s mystery and eternal purpose. And finally, here’s the stinger: in Christ Jesus, all of us are reconciled to one another and God.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I notice two things in this excerpt from Ephesians. The first is that the author, purporting to be Paul, is fired up about some astounding good news, and he can’t help but share it. This news is meant to be shared by Jew and Gentile alike, and it is good news because its embrace is wondrously inclusive.

But the second thing I notice is a statement that “in former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind.” This can sound a bit exclusive, as if no one before had been able to understand anything of God’s mysterious revelation. As if anyone could fully understand the mystery at work here.

And so, we are left with a quandary. How do we reconcile a seemingly exclusive claim on truth with the inclusive vision that lies at the very heart of it? How do we hold the truth of the author’s claim and not use it to beat others down?

If we paraphrase the message of Ephesians, the Gentiles are late to the party. Not having been explicitly a part of the previous covenants between God and his people recounted throughout the Old Testament, the Gentiles are yet now described as “fellow heirs” and “members of the same body.” But, the author of Ephesians asserts, even if the Gentiles are late to the party, they are not missing out on anything. Now, all people, regardless of race or clan or tribe, have access to the full riches of Christ’s gospel. At its heart, the message of Ephesians is about the reconciliation of all people with one another and God. And at the center of this stands Christ.

And this is the first of two main messages of the Feast of the Epiphany: that in God’s manifestation to the world in Christ, we are reconciled both with one another and even with the most unpredictable and perhaps abhorrent strangers imaginable. In the way that God chooses for his Son to be revealed as light to the world’s darkness, we see all boundaries disappearing and all hasty assumptions falling away. We see in the journey of magi astrologers to the infant King that God works from within their unchristian, pagan ways to lead them to Jesus. The magi follow the only thing they know anything about—the stars—and they find Christ Jesus. But not first before confronting the evil Herod. Even here, God works through this tyrant to lead the magi on to the Christ child. You see, Christ’s epiphany is a mystery beyond our explaining. That the magi found Christ was straightforward. How they got there was less so.

As I made my journey on I-76 last week, trying to stay within the lines marked on the interstate while reading the religious signs ranging from ostensibly truthful to patently offensive, there was a paradoxical metaphor at work. Processing the implicit and explicit theology of the signs, I became more and more determined to stay within the lines God has charted for me. To be more open to God’s presence and work in the world around me, I should stay in my own lane and not attempt to control the lives of others. And yet, as God manifests the truth of his gospel to a dark world that so badly needs its light, God does not stay within lanes. God drives the vehicles of his revelation where he chooses, and his light reaches those it most needs to reach. In some way, perhaps unknown to us, we must play a role in helping that light reach those for whom it is destined.

There is a responsibility we must claim as ambassadors of Christ’s gospel. We are here because we believe it’s true. I hope we are here because the gospel has brought us life. I hope we have seen it bring life to others. I hope we all can trust that it heals and changes lives. I believe that it is what can truly heal the fractious, unruly character of this world. Epiphany is our own call to venture out into the world’s darkness to bring Christ’s light into it, to announce abundant light into overwhelming darkness.

But we are left with the puzzling paradox of staying in our human lanes to let God be God and also giving voice to the truth we know in the depths of our souls. We can’t simply reduce it to billboard slogans of fear and arrogance. So, we find ourselves confronted by the second main message of this evening’s feast: all we have is a gift from God.

We think we must come to this feast every year bearing the gifts of our lives, as the magi brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But our purpose in coming to God’s altar this night is also to worship, adore, and receive the gift that God gives us in every Mass. Tonight that gift is amplified by the knowledge that God’s manifestation to the world is pure gift. We cannot control it. We cannot wield the gospel to force others into heaven. All we can do is accept the gift of the gospel, ponder it in our hearts, manifest it in our lives, and let its light shine and speak for itself in a world that will inevitably be illumined by its radiance. Then we pray that others will receive the good news. This is our call and none other. It is pure gift.

And one final afterthought from the magi: let us stay within our own lanes with humility and reverence, because in sharing Christ’s light, we carry the mystery of the gospel into darkness. If we accept the gift, then we can let God do the driving.

Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Feast of the Epiphany
January 6, 2022