Mark 9.2-9 The first thing

Roy W. Howard

The first thing we have to say in all honesty is we don’t know what actually happened on that mountaintop with Jesus and his three disciples. We do know what the gospels tell us – Jesus took three of them up the mountain, a cloud descended, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus fully revealed between them in dazzling light, Peter wanted to freeze the glorious frame forever with them in it, The VOICE sounded – and then it was over. Down the mountain they went back to all that is ordinary, including the suffering of people all around them. Is it any wonder we speak of those rare moments that are so extraordinary as mountaintop experiences?

These extraordinary moments actually can happen anywhere, and do, but we refer to them as a mountaintop experiences because of the frequency in scripture that they happen on or near mountains. Moses goes up the mountain to receive the law. Elijah crawls into a mountain cave for shelter from the storm and there he hears that still small voice of God. Martin Luther King Jr. declared he “had been to the mountaintop and seen the promise land.”

It’s no accident that when Mark tells this story, he wants us to understand something important about Jesus through this particular occurrence on this mountain. Just what is it and what are we to do about it?

I find it interesting that at the moment of transfiguration when Jesus is revealed bathed in radiant light as the beloved Son of God the divine voice does not say, look at him! After all, I would think the spectacular light illuminating Jesus, setting him apart from Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, would be the one thing that captures their attention. Set your eyes on this! But that’s not what happens. The voice in the cloud, the same one last heard at Jesus’ baptism, tells the disciples, “listen to him.” The spectacular vision becomes background, what becomes most important is listening to Jesus. I find that interesting because listening to someone makes a connection but looking at someone doesn’t really require much of anything except maybe admiration. I can look at someone and keep a safe distance between us. (Okay, the wonderful exception is the Avatar world where they greet with one saying, “I see you.” There seeing and listening become one.) When I listen, truly listen, I have to pay attention to the person speaking. We are in relationship, connected.

Maybe I’m saying this all backwards, with the accent on the wrong thing. It’s not simply listening that is important. That is something we do. What is even more crucial is the subject of our listening. The voice that came from the cloud was precise: Listen to him. This is crucial, but it is also troublesome and not a little difficult. As the theologian Brian Gerrish says, “the world has grown larger, and we ask ourselves, How can we possibly reconcile our undivided loyalty to Christ with out awareness that there are, after all, many masters– that lots of people who are at least as wise and good as we are turn from him and place their trust in someone else?” I the most honest interfaith discourse is when there is utter clarity and honest about one’s ultimate allegiance. In this story, Moses who represents the law has his revered place and Elijah who represents the prophets is honored. Yet, when the cloud descends, they disappear and primacy is given to Jesus Christ the revelation of God. Listen to him, says the Divine Voice.

I think this is a summons to faith in the living Christ. Faith not as religious knowledge rightly recited, but something deeper, richer and more life transforming. This faith is seeing the world differently because one sees with the heart God’s presence. It’s more like perceiving the mystery that God is truly with us in Jesus Christ, and choosing to live in that perception. The divine voice is asking the disciples to enter into relationship with Jesus by faith, grounded in authentic listening.

We live in a noisy world. It’s hard to listen when there is so much information is coming at us 24 hours a day, from radio, television, iPhone, iPod, iPad and Internet. That make it even more important to discern what I need to ignore, because not all information qualifies as knowledge and not all knowledge qualifies as wisdom.

Lately, though I have noticed something else. In a 24-7 world of noise and information, the background noise is becoming foreground, the noise is all consuming. As a consequence, there is more and more hearing and less and less true listening to what is actually most important. We are filled with information and lacking in wisdom. We are more connected to one another than ever and yet still deeply hungry for true connection, true relationship. We hear one another, but seldom have the time to listen to each other. We have so much static in air all the time that it’s harder to listen to each other.

Listening is not impatiently waiting, fingers drumming, for the other person to finish her sentence so that I can say what I have planned to say anyway. What’s the point of that; we might as well have dual monologues sent to one another.

Listening is to be vulnerable with another, attending to what is spoken before judging, censoring or dismissing. Listening in this way is to risk being changed by the relationship that might occur when I am fully open to another person. When the Divine Voice says, “Listen to him,” I think it’s a call to risk listening in a vulnerable way to the living Christ. One can do this by attending to scripture in an attentive, prayerful way. One can do this by listening for the voice of Christ in that of another.

I have a friend who spends 30 minutes each day in prayer. She sits with scripture laid out before her, just a brief passage each day. I ask her what she is doing and she says, listening. Just listening. “Do you ever do any talking?” I ask. “Not very often, only if there is something to say. Mostly I listen, so I will know what to do next.” What she does next is in response to the scripture she has read and the voice she has heard speaking there. I think she has been doing these each day for nearly 60 years. Just listening and walking in the way. I want to be like her. Perhaps you do to; and maybe today is the day to begin listening to Jesus – if not thirty minutes, try 10 minutes a day, just listening to him in scripture.

I know people who make it a habit of listening carefully to the cries of the poor, the questions of the hungry, the stories of prisoners, the groans of the sick, and the plight of the homeless because Jesus once said he is present in the very least among us. When they listen to the least ones, they truly believe they are listening to Jesus and responding to him as they respond to their neighbor or offer hospitality to the stranger. I want to be listen like they do.

The Divine voice said, Listen to him.

How will you begin listening?

Amen.

Mark 1.29-39

holistic ministry

February 5, 2012 The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany

Roy W. Howard

Jesus heals. He touches the afflicted with the gracious love of God.

Jesus prays. He steps away from the crowd to rest his soul in God.

Jesus proclaims God’s reign. He declares the ways of God to a disordered world.

Jesus casts out demons. He confronts disfiguring forces with power and grace.

Before I go any further, let me just skip to the end. It seems to me that this ministry of Jesus gives shape the ministry of the congregation that seeks to follow him in the world.

But before we ask what that might mean, let’s do some unpacking

The setting is Capernaum is perfect for a mass rally. Jesus is the talk of the town; to some a prophet healing their deepest wounds, to others a curious phenomenon. His fame has preceded him and the crowds with all their mixed motives run after him. It’s an aspiring politician’s dream. He teaches with such startling authority that demons flee. Why doesn’t Jesus set up shop in Capernaum?

Rather than bask in the gaze of the astonished crowds, Jesus leaves them to go home with Simon and Andrew. That’s odd. Did they discuss the ongoing preaching tour?  Did they talk about crowd control? Maybe Jesus simply collapsed in exhaustion in the spare bedroom letting the disciples worry about such things. All we know is he walked away. Soon Jesus learns of Simon’s mother-in-law suffering with fever. He holds her hand and her fever vanishes with his touch. She is whole again.

Mark says,  “She rises to serve them”.  No fuss, no glory, just service.

It’s the last we hear of her in the gospel.  I wonder how many others there are with untold stories of healing in Jesus presence. (Okay this is where we all note that she is rising, like so many women before her, to serve the men in the kitchen. We could say a lot about that fact. But that’s not really the point here.) I think her capacity serve is a sign of wholeness, the evidence of healing.

There is only so much one can say in a sermon. So let me say this briefly that the word here for healing is closely related to the word for salvation and they both are often translated by the world wholeness. That which is broken is made whole. The kind of healing Jesus brings is not always or necessarily a physical cure of some ailment, but is always wholeness of spirit.

I’m aware of those one who respond to the sustaining presence of Jesus in their lives quietly in simple acts of compassion: like visiting someone in prison or the nursing home and hospital, tutoring children whose parents are working three jobs to survive; checking on frail, isolated neighbors, or as one woman said to me, I may not be able to get around any longer, but I can pray for you every day. She rises to serve, says the text. Like the ones who teach Sunday school, help with the youth, sustain good stewardship of our land, keep hoping alive, and participating in worship. They rise to serve.

This is what Christian discipleship means. Those who encounter the presence of Jesus respond by serving, loving our neighbors, sharing the light that is Christ.

The elders and deacons recently gathered for our annual retreat in which we had long conversations about how to lead our congregation into just this vision of an integrated life in which service arises from an abiding relationship with Christ.

So let us speak plainly. Our hope is that every person in our congregation will encounter the living Christ, find wholeness in him and as a response rise to serve. Not for the sake of the institution; but for God’s sake. On my office wall is a framed quote by Albert Sweitzer, “The most joyful people in life are those who have sought and found a way to serve.”

Finding a way to serve becomes a grateful response and a joyous adventure of those who are being drawn into the God-centered life, following Jesus Christ. Spirituality without some from of social practice is self-indulgence. And social practice that is not rooted in God soon becomes graceless and moralistic and usually ends in burn out.

Jesus offers at different way.  It may surprise you.  He prays.

At a time when the work is most demanding, when the presence of human need is greatest and expectations most high, Jesus intentionally turns aside to find a place of solitude. Mark says, early in the morning while it is still dark, he slips away to pray.

Years ago one of the members of my congregation was a federal judge in Kentucky – the first woman appointed to her post. At the time she and her husband had two young children. They were always on the front row of the early worship service.  How do you manage this life I asked her. She said, “every morning I wake early to read the bible and pray. My husband knows that is my time and so do my children. I’m alone with God. Without that time, I can’t survive and certainly can’t do the work I do well.”

Time alone with God need not be an escape from humanity; it gives rise to the capacity to enter into solidarity with all who suffer. It also gives spiritual depth to the mission of the Church whenever we practice a deep commitment to worship and prayer.

When the world was busy, Jesus turned aside to a lonely place to pray.  Perhaps he prayed for direction. We need to do the same. Maybe he needed courage to carry on his mission.  We need the same. Maybe, he simply needed to be alone with the Source of Love. We need the same.

Jesus returned from solitude and the demands had not ceased. Nothing changed. But he was certainly clear about his purpose. He began to say NO so that he could continue to say Yes. Jesus said No to those searching for him in Capernaum; no to those crowds astonished by his preaching and healing power; no to the growing fame.

He said no to nearly everything and everyone, in order to say yes to his central purpose in life. That’s what spiritual discernment means. When our life is rooted in God and focused on discovering God’s purpose, we are better able to say no, so that we may say yes to our deepest call.

Jesus went on proclaiming the radically good news that God’s reign has come among us. And as he did, the demonic forces against God’s reign were cast out.

Jesus heals. He touches the afflicted with the gracious love of God.

Jesus prays. He steps away from the crowd to rest his soul in God.

Jesus proclaims God’s reign. He declares the ways of God to a disordered world.

Jesus casts out demons. He confronts disfiguring forces with power and grace.

That seems like a pretty good assignment for a congregation that wants to follow Jesus.

Don’t you think?

Amen.

]]> http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/2012/02/sermon-february-5-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/2012/01/sermon-january-29-2012/ http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/2012/01/sermon-january-29-2012/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:10:23 +0000 admin http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/?p=868 ]]> http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/2012/01/sermon-january-29-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/2012/01/saint-mark-messenger-february-2012/ http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/2012/01/saint-mark-messenger-february-2012/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:15:21 +0000 ehagner http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/?p=827 Saint Mark Messenger February 2012

Marked for life

January 8, 2012 Baptism of the Lord

It wasn’t the only thing that marked Harry Potter but it was the one thing that he couldn’t hide; unless, of course, he put on his invisibility cloak, but that came much later. At his birth, Harry was marked on his forehead with a wound shaped liked a lightening bolt. Much has been made of the symbolic importance of this distinguishing mark that cannot be hidden and through which he feels acute sensitivity to the presence of evil. In fact, the Evil Voldemort was present at Harry’s birth seeking to destroy him and in the ensuing battle was nearly killed when the lightening bolt curse rebounded on him. In JK Rowling’s wonderful saga, the permanent wounding mark on the child’s forehead becomes the symbol that Harry is wounded for a purpose: to defeat evil and restore what is good to human life. He is literally marked for life. What is intriguing is that this mark on his forehead becomes the very spot where he feels sharply the pain of others as well as the lurking presence of Voldemort. The Scar also signifies that Harry is the Chosen One of the Prophecy, the one to vanquish the Dark Lord. Here is the physical place where compassion and spiritual discernment enter his body and form his life calling. This is why Harry’s birthmark is so important to his human vocation.

Stay with me.

When Jesus comes to John the Baptizer for baptism it is a cataclysmic event. He is not struck by lightening, but the heavens do rip apart and as he rises from the water the physical sign of the Holy Spirit descends upon him as a dove, while the voice of God the Father identifies Jesus the beloved Son of God. Jesus’ baptism is quite a Trinitarian splash upon creation marred with sin and destruction. As if to make it all the more emphatic, the divine voice proclaims simply: listen to him!  Jesus is literally marked for life – though it remains hidden from our eyes.

For centuries, the early Church struggled with the question of Jesus’ baptism. After all, John’s baptism is for the forgiveness of sins and repentance; it’s a cleansing ritual much like other cleansing rituals of the time. Why then Jesus? But the better question is why not Jesus? Surely it is no accident that Jesus the Jew from Nazareth, the Beloved Son of God, wades into the muddy river; where else could he be? Jesus is God’s Beloved Son who stands in the river with sinners, not against us, but for us and with us. We call this the incarnation: God with us!

For what purpose is this mark of baptism? Nearly before he has dried off, Jesus is confronting the Evil One in the wilderness who continues to assault him throughout his life. One could say that this baptism marked his vocation in the world: defeating evil and healing the wounds of the world. He is marked forever as God-With-Us, in whom humanity finds salvation. And before his life is over those marks will be visible on his wounded hands and feet.

Still with me?

On the border of Ethiopia and Sudan live the Nuer people who are known for their rituals of symbolically scarring the body to mark their identity. When I visited with them some years ago, I spoke with a man who had a horizontal wound across his forehead. It marked him as a member of the tribe, but he had recently become a Christian and wanted to be marked differently. He wanted a way to indicate his changed life and his inclusion into a company that was much larger than his Nuer tribe; the universal company of God’s people of every race, nation and language. He tried to remove the horizontal scar with various painful methods but that proved impossible and only made his scar more visible. He was marked for life – but he wanted to be marked for a different life. He asked if a vertical mark could be cut into his forehead that would form a cross.

The Church leaders said no, there is a better, wholly different way that Christians mark their lives as a new people. We are baptized into Christ, as those who live in Christ, by whose death and resurrection we find new life. Then he recited to me the words that he had memorized from his baptismal service when the pastor had poured water on his forehead and gently touched him with the sign of the cross: you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. As he said those words he made the sign of the cross on his own forehead over the scar as if to say I now belong to the tribe of Christ with you.

Are you with me?

In baptism Christians are marked for life. This is the sign of our human vocation as God’s people who are now set apart for a purpose: life!  It is not a physical scar on our foreheads that marks us it’s the abundant waters of baptism and the sign of the cross. Our old lives in the tribes of this world are dead; we now live in the Body of Christ whose members span every race, tribe and language. As the Apostle Paul put it: once you were no people, now you are God’s people. Once you were dead in your sins, now you are alive in Christ.

Today we will ordain people to the office of ruling elder and deacon. This ordination will set them apart for the service of Christ. We will lay hands upon them as ancients have done for centuries and bless them for this calling. Yet, we remember that the original ordination for Christians is our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ. This is the sacramental wound – the mark – through which the compassion of Christ enters our bodies and shapes our lives. Let us then remember our baptism as we celebrate the ordination of these persons today.

Amen.

Is change every comfortable?

Advent 2 December 4, 2011 

Change is difficult. Even small change can be uncomfortable. At our annual Thanksgiving feast with my in-laws, someone had the temerity to suggest we distribute the food differently. Rather than each person holding their plate and asking others around the table to dish out the dressing and corn and sweet potatoes, turkey, gravy and oh yes, cranberry – this year, we would pass each plate one by one. You must keep your eye on it as it passes around. Well, that was the suggestion anyway. We got started with the new way. I kept my eyes on my plate, politely requesting more dressing, and yes I want gravy with my smashed potatoes. But the new way didn’t go over very well. Rebellion and grumbling quickly ensued. Randomness returned. We all laughed. Change!? Who wants it?

The happy couple discovers that one likes to sleep with the windows open, while the other doesn’t like the sounds of the neighborhood commuters driving away at 4 in the morning. Something is going to change and someone is going to be uncomfortable.

You’ll remember the cartoon of the two people facing one another. One says to the other, “I’ve been thinking a great deal about our relationship and I’ve come to the conclusion that things will be much better if you would only change.” Right.

In the few years I’ve been here I’ve discovered a consistent pattern among politicians. Brash and often loud leaders frequently come to Washington DC declaring themselves bold agents of change. Within days the smarter ones realize that change doesn’t come easy, if it comes at all. A great deal of the talk about change is mostly about what others must do. It’s much more comfortable that way. But real change which effects one down to the core? That’s difficult. Social change is every more demanding and difficult. It’s not clear that we really want it if it means actually changing how we live in some fundamental way.

That, of course, is what makes this story of John the Baptizer alarming. He is more than a little disturbing. It’s not just that he is so odd standing there in the Judean desert eating strange food and dressing weirdly. We could handle that – after all, some of the Occupiers camped at McPherson Square are fruitarians that look like John the Baptist at Woodstock. John the Baptist was the original fruitarian. Seriously. I’m just saying – it’s not the clothes or the food that disturbs us, it’s something else that makes us uncomfortable. Standing in the great tradition of the Hebrew prophets who came before him, John the Baptizer rudely interrupts our lives in this festive season with this annual reminder that the Advent of God is close at hand. On the one hand, it’s a joyous message coming from a strange but familiar voice. Glad tidings of the Christ who makes all things news and whose coming we eagerly celebrate. What’s not to like?

Well if this were merely a history lesson at Christmas time about an odd prophet – sorta like your weird uncle Bob – down by the Jordan River screaming Repent! we could all relax and join the fun. It’s part of the holiday season, like watching Peanuts, or It’s a Wonderful Life.

Only this is not just history nor is it an exercise in religious nostalgia. It’s what we might call history that is alive, joyfully alive. Thank God! Yet, it’s also history that is terrifying alive because it means John the Baptist is still pointing our hearts to the Advent of Jesus Christ who comes to make all things new. What’s so terrifying about that? [pause]

In word: change. Serious change is in order and not just for all the others. That makes us uncomfortable.

But, I suspect what makes us most uncomfortable is the haunting fear that the change John calls for is actually impossible. We know ourselves enough to know the habits that are entrenched, the comforts that we will not relinquish and the sins that hold us captive against our own will. These are the things we will not say to one another but our hearts say them to us, when we actually listen to our hearts long enough for our secret sins to be known in the light of God. There in that radiant light, we see ourselves as we are. Often that is not comfortable.

But notice again what the prophet in the wilderness says – “I am not worthy to squat down and fasten his sandals. He who is coming will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.” John the Baptizer is pointing away from himself toward the One who is coming, who is able to make all things new by his own Spirit. Jesus Christ to whom John points is the Good News. He is the one upon whom we fix our hopes. He is the One in whom the world discovers salvation – the healing of the human heart. As long as we focus solely on our meager capacity to remedy our condition, we are paralyzed by our failures. Advent becomes an exercise in futility.

John’s cry repent! is not a summons to futility nor is it a call to grit your moral teeth so you can change all your naughty habits to nice ones before Santa arrives. No. That way leads to spiritual paralysis. The call of John the Baptizer is a call to turn our attention from ourselves toward the Good News – the One who makes all things new.

So is there any change that actually brings comfort and joy, not just disturbance?

Yes! True repentance – turning our attention away from our futility toward God – is our true comfort. Here we find Joy! not in abilities, but in God who is merciful and mighty to save.

Alleluia! Amen.

Advent 1 – November 27, 2011

stay awake! be alert! pay attention!

The Advent season that begins today may be the most demanding of all the seasons, yet it also the one that dazzles the most. The great themes of the season demand our imaginations to be fully engaged, summoning us to glimpse what is visible only to the inner eye. As the daylight decreases and darkness descends, we sing hymns of light dawning on the horizon that will be radiant light for all the nations. We heart the ancient stories of prophets foretelling a future that is at once both fulfilled and still coming, a vision that boggles the mind while stirring the heart. Our texts encourage us to imagine a new world coming into being and invite us to be alert for its presence. When all is frantically busy and filled with nostalgia, if not depression masked as holiday cheer at the office parties, we are given the gift of a season to listen long enough and honestly enough to sense the yearning in our aching hearts for the glad tidings of Jesus Christ visible once again. The world is broken and we know it, but Advent calls us to remember the great gift around of the incarnation of God in Jesus that has been given and still being given to make us whole. It’s a demanding season and a dazzling, joyous one for those who choose to enter it fully with heart and mind, allowing the twinkling candle lights that deck our homes and windows during these dark days remind us of the one Light that enlightens all things.

If all of this demanding, dazzling, joyous invitation were not enough, we have little apocalypse of Mark’s gospel to add to the mix. It’s a mostly frightening scenario that contains very little that we can easily comprehend other than the repeated summons to stay awake and be alert for you know not the hour when God shall appear. Frankly, if I were to choose a spiritual discipline as the most important it would be this call to be alert, stay awake, pay attention. Living mindfully is a way of being fully alive to the present moment. Out of the cacophony of images in Mark’s vision of the coming of the Son of Man, this is what I believe we can take away for the living of these days – be mindful, pay attention and be alert.

Which is to say that in this season of Advent there is much to distract you from what matters most, particularly the opening of your heart to the presence of God in subtle disguise. It is this opening of the heart to God’s subtle disguises that is the most important thing. There will be many distractions some of your own choosing and most of the culture that is ramped up for consumption. For instance, the first thing I noticed in my stack of mail when I returned from Haiti was the cover of the December issue of Washingtonian magazine. On it is an attractive young women, fully naked, with her arms crossed to cover most of her breasts and her legs provocatively position to suggest what is hidden. The cover said, “December – Christmas – is the perfect time for a little nip and tuck.” Really.

This is only one example of what can distract us this season. So the gospel says watch out, stay alert, pay attention. After all, we are preparing to celebrate the coming of God in the strangest disguise of all – a child born a Jew in poverty to a young mother who opened her womb with a simple confession of faith.

Some years ago, the band REM famously sang “it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” In between that refrain were images of all the changes occurring the world that signaled the end of one and the beginning of another still unknown. It’s that ironic “I feel fine” that puzzles me. What does that mean? I don’t know if the Michel Stipe consulted Mark’s gospel when he wrote that song, but I don’t believe that “feeling fine” is the best way to describe the transformation that must occur when worlds end and a new one begins. I don’t believe the new world that we await with hope and faith is simply more of the same. It is a truly a new world.

For instance, in Haiti where I have been with our team for the last week, the earthquake of January 12, 2010 marked the end of the world as they knew it. And nobody was feeling fine; nobody is feeling fine now either. In fact, walking through the tent city on the central plaza nearly two years later is what I imagine Christ faced when he descended into hell.

If anyone knows what it means actually to live on the edge of the Advent tension of hope and fulfillment it is the people of Haiti. Karl Barth once said that the world is filled with parables and we must train our minds to perceive the presence of God in these ordinary human parables. Let me give you a few that I perceived while in Haiti.

At Wings of Hope, the home for severely disabled children with whom we are in missional partnership, we met Lazarod standing erect strapped to a board that supported him. It was disturbing until we learned he could not stand at all were it not for this board supporting him upright. This boy, whose name echoes that of Lazaurus, is severely afflicted with cerebral palsy. Though they love him dearly, his impoverished parents could not care for him, so they brought him to Wings of Hope. I stood next to him with his occupational therapist as Lazarod strained to control his spasms to touch just the right key on the keyboard. The therapist restrained himself from doing it for him. The courage and hope on Lazarod’s face broke my heart. When he completed his sentence on that keyboard with a delightful shriek and a twisted smile, I wanted to cry. I witnessed him experiencing the sharp borderline of hope and fulfillment. In this respect his is my mentor. He is a parable of hope pressing on beyond what anyone considers possible. And this is our calling too.

At St. Joseph’s Home for boys in Petionville, we spend several days hauling away rubble from the site of the new building. Ours was a bucket brigade, receiving the rubble from those digging it out. It was unglamorous work in the hot sun, yet absolutely necessary. At one point it occurred to me that this is the resurrection from the rubble, one bucket at a time. We all laughed at that thought, then I realized that it was true: on January 28, 2012 the new St. Joseph’s Home for Boys and Leadership Center will be dedicated! This is how the resurrection occurs in ordinary life – not glamorous or heroic, but one bucket at a time. Much of life, including the spiritual life, is lived one bucket at a time.

We pay attention to these moments with Lazarod and with each another day by day carrying our buckets in one large bucket brigade. This is how life is lived as the old world falls away while a new one is coming into being. God’s way is always hidden in one disguise or another.

There is much to distract us this Advent season. Much that will keep us from entering deeply into what matters most. So brothers and sisters, let us encourage one another to Stay awake, be alert, pay attention.

Amen.