“We ♥ Charlottesville”

Homily for the Feast of St Mary the Virgin       13 August 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

In the Name of God, lover of justice and peace. Amen.

Charlottesville.

When white supremacists and neo-Nazis are emboldened — as they were this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia — this is what you get: racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, violence.

You get what we got: a heinous domestic terrorist attack. A 32 year-old woman dead. You get 19 peaceful counter-protesters — a rainbow of people standing up to white-bread bigotry — injured, some of them critically.

You get sides. “Many sides, many sides,” as the President — absent a moral compass — shamelessly sputtered.

What you don’t get: moral parity … because you’ve got bigotry vs resistance in Charlottesville. And by saying “many sides” are to blame for the violence — and no violence (neo-Nazi or counter-protester) ought ever to be condoned — but by saying “many sides” are to blame for the violence, you are conveniently blaming no one, least of all, yourself. You are giving equal weight to bigotry and resistance. And by doing so, you are providing cover to the bigots, the white supremacists, the neo-Nazis.

Moreover, to assign equal blame for the death of one woman and others' injuries on all parties (white supremacists and counter-protesters) is to miss the point. Or it’s a deep-seated desire not to want to get the point … because of deep-seated racism or worse, a deep-seated strategy to “Make America Great Again” for one race alone.

Because the point is: Any notions of racial superiority and its inherent divisions, discrimination, and violence are utterly at odds with the principle — consistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ — that all people are created equal and created with equal rights.

To deny, then, that principle and those rights through bigotry and, from some corners, religious bigotry? It’s just not Christian … because when did Jesus ever give equal weight to bigotry and resistance against bigotry? No, really. Show me. You can’t. And you can’t because Jesus resisted.

That’s why our bishop, Alan Gates, has called the people of this diocese to prayerful, peaceful resistance. In a message late last evening, he wrote:

We condemn the hatred behind Saturday’s gathering in Charlottesville of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other purveyors of bigotry, which is equally un-American and un-Christian.

We affirm, with the bishops of Virginia, that as followers of Christ “we have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation ... [and] cannot remain silent in the face of those who seek to foment division.”

We pray with and for those who have sought to maintain peaceful witness in Charlottesville.

In the face of continuing volatility there, all congregations are urged to pray on Sunday (August 13) for peace, and for the courage to maintain our gospel ideals in the face of racism, anti-Semitism, and all forms of hate-mongering.

The Rt. Rev’d Alan M. Gates
Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts

And in that spirit — on this day when we commemorate the Feast of St Mary the Virgin — we ask for the intercession of the Queen of Peace, the mother of the Prince of Peace, on behalf of our country:

We pray for those killed and injured in the violence in Charlottesville and for their families, loved ones, and friends.

We pray for those who are afraid because their immigration status or race or sex or religion or physical ability or the gender of the person they love makes them a target of hate.

We give thanks for those clergy and peaceful protestors who continue to stand firm as witnesses for God’s justice.

We pray for people who are so threatened by the equality Jesus lived that they feel they must resort to violence, fueled by misguided notions of racial superiority.

We pray that God would open the eyes and minds of the highest office-holders in this land to ensure that we as a people will once again hold high the Lamp of Liberty.

We ask God to give us the strength to stand up against hate whenever and wherever we witness it.

We ask that, even in the shadows of torch-lit violence, we ourselves will be brave beacons of God’s love.

Let us pray.

O God, you have made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son:

Look with compassion on the whole human family.

Take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts.

Break down the walls that separate us.

Unite us in bonds of love.

And work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"Cold Comfort"

Homily for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost       2 July 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”                                                                                                 Matthew 10:45

Pearl, penny. Candle, camel. Rooster, rock. Widow, wolf. Jesus is imaginator extraordinaire as he uses all these images and many more galore, less to entertain and more to make a point, make it stick, make it perfectly do-able 8 o’clock Monday morning.

With so many to choose from, how do Jesus’ images stack up? In a contest, the not-quite-invisible-to-the-naked-eye mustard seed — stand-in for how a smidgen of faith can pack a world-changing punch — usually gets top billing as the lowest-of-the-low, teensiest-of-the-teensy image in Jesus’ repertoire. The little sparrow might be a not-so-close second. And then, there are the hairs of our head Jesus claims are numbered.

Lots of competition in the race to the bottom. The bottom, of course, being not really such a bad thing in Jesus’ book, when you think about all things last reordered to first and first things bumped to last.

But one contender gets overlooked for its apparent insignificance. It may as well be just a drop in the bucket: “a cup of cold water.” Take that a step lower. “Even a cup of cold water” … the low-cost, low-investment, high stakes, high impact gift of even a cup of cold water given by any of us to any of the “little ones.”

The “little ones.” What’s that about? Thirsty kids … parched height-challenged folk … or perhaps the desperate-for-a-drink “little people” with their Lucky Charms?

Well, first, who’s Jesus talking to?

This is one more chapter in Jesus’ bestseller “How To Be a Disciple” for Dummies. Actually, it’s not a chapter per se, because what we have here are the untidy scraps of an arbitrary, chapter-long string of odds and ends — random sayings of Jesus — the Evangelist Matthew has dumped here. They don’t cohere, but Matthew thought they were too good to consign to the Cutting Room floor.

And yet, taking saying by saying, it’s possible to discern that Jesus is coaching the disciples, prepping them for the coming day they leave the nest, test their Moxie, and reveal their “inner Jesus” to the wide, wide world — but especially to the “little ones”: those closest to Jesus’ heart, persons easily and chronically ignored by their neighbors with exponentially-deeper pockets. Pockets untouched by charity at its most basic and humane.

Add that to all the dizzying wordplay Jesus indulges in here — “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me,” doing this or that in the name of a prophet or a disciple and so on: It’s all charity-based connections.

Meaning: When Jesus’ succession planning succeeds, the disciples’ own work catches on, and the people whose lives they touch begin working their inner disciple, their collective work can be described in the most positive — and, at the same time, most diminutive — of terms: giving even a cup of cold water to the “little ones.”

You have to admit, that's setting the bar low.

Triggering another image — a Bizarro-World image — the negative to the glass of water shared. An image not explicit in Jesus’ stories and teachings, but no less potent in shock value blitzing video and media coverage a week ago: D.C. police arresting, dragging — and, as videotape shows, dropping — dozens of protesters in wheelchairs, some bloodied — dragging them from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office.

What were they protesting? The American Health Care Act, the Senate’s version of the health care bill passed earlier by the House. And because, according to nonpartisan analysts, the Senate’s bill literally will result in the deaths of thousands of our society’s most vulnerable — the disabled — activists from the disabled community themselves staged a “die-in” right there on the spot.

An unforgettable image. The arrests, the manhandling of persons Jesus called the “little ones.” And nowhere in sight not even what Jesus would call the equivalent of “a glass of cold water.”

Now, it’s easy to say, this is “just politics.” But it’s not. This is morality (or the lack of it). This is values.

It’s easy in the heat of debate to get caught up in the data. But these persons — tossed about and discarded — aren’t data. They’re the very people Jesus has sent our way to love and treat as neighbor.

And yet, there’s telling and compelling data behind their protest. More data behind the American Health Care Act, data familiar by now: According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the commonly-called Trumpcare bill now before the Senate would cover about 22 million fewer people by 2026 than Obamacare.

And 15 million will lose the Medicaid their health depends upon.

Complication: “Many of those rendered uninsured would be older, low-income people in some of our country’s poorest states, places hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, violence, and other public health problems,” according to the University of Chicago’s Harold Pollack. He’s the go-to guru on public health policy.

Now, it’s also common to say — as I just did — that these 22 million will lose their health care insurance, that 15 million will lose their Medicaid. That’s not true, charges California Sen. Kamala Harris. At least, it’s not accurate. Our neighbors won’t be losing anything. Their health care insurance — their Medicaid — will be taken away from them. That's the galling and glaring opposite of the giving instinct Jesus mandates for each of his followers.

But a clarification: There is giving in the bill. Gobs of giving. Not to the “little ones,” but to the “yuuuuge ones”: the 0.4 percent wealthiest Americans. Not the 4 percent wealthiest Americans. The 0.4 percent wealthiest Americans … amounting to a giveaway — to the already wealthy — of half a trillion dollars in tax cuts.

Now, Jesus was no math wiz, that I’m aware. Sure, he could toss around figures like 7x70 in a forgiveness exercise. But there’s something cockamamie — something anti-christian — about bottoms-up redistribution of wealth like Trumpcare’s tax cut windfall for the gold-plated set. It just can’t be reconciled with the Gospel — the Good News Jesus proclaims to the poor, the disadvantaged, the ignored.

And, as we mark once more the Founding of the Republic, I don’t think it can be reconciled with the American ideal ... an ideal expressed by no less a patriot than John Adams (and President No. 2):

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.

“And not for profit of any one class.” The American ideal.

Now, the Senate bill — forged tellingly in secret and kept from the timely scrutiny essential to an open, fact-based, and informed democracy — lacking sufficient support to pass, has been withdrawn for a vote until after the July 4 recess. But zombie-like and just as carnivorous and brain-dead and heartless, come back it will.

And once more, we will be left to conclude that, as has been shown, the American Health Care Act: It’s not an American act. It’s not a healthy act. And it’s not a caring act.

Read: It is an “act.” An act of meanness, pettiness, greed, and light years from the society Jesus calls his followers to create, one that is based on a crystalline principle … a principle that requires each of us — of whatever political party — to choose the Jesus option for health care policy:

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these” will have their reward taken away.

Amen.

“Care-Free”

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter       7 May 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

“All who believed were together and had all things in common.”                                                                                                                    Acts 2:44-45

For Richard and Dawnell Baptista it was a double whammy. Dawnell’s kidneys were failing. So was their marriage.

To save both his wife and his marriage, Richard donated one of his kidneys to Dawnell.

But the Baptistas’ story doesn’t end there. Dawnell recovers. The Baptistas’ marriage doesn’t. Three years after the operation, Dawnell files for divorce.

Complication: Richard now wants his kidney back. But he’ll settle for its estimated worth ($1.5 million).

Triggering the question: In a divorce, who gets the organs?

And leading to the conclusion: In the sense that the kidney here is shared, you can have things in common … until you don’t.

Like the early Christian community. Luke records, “All who believed were together and had all things in common” until, as history proves, they don’t.

That is where we find ourselves today in debates about rights popping up just about everywhere, including Christian-identified communities: The right to discriminate on so-called “religious liberty” grounds. That tired and tiresome racist canard: states’ rights. And hot off The Congressional Record press, the right to affordable health care.

But that first-of-its-kind Christian community — the camaraderie, the extensive welfare programs made possible by redistribution of property and wealth? Obviously, except as Utopian fantasy, it didn’t last.

Why? Success. As the Church expanded, the interests of one group (let’s say, the original Jewish Christians) competed with those of others (newer and more numerous non-Jewish Christians). And the sticky-sweet ditty ─ “They shall know we are Christians by our love” — so popular at the beginning, acquired a tinny edge as time wore on.

And yet, history doesn’t diminish the merits of the design, as early followers of Jesus — fresh off their in-the-flesh experience of Jesus — challenge a society marred by rampant inequality, a society that failed to provide what each and all are owed: dignity, opportunity, security.

In other words, the early followers of Jesus dreamed, organized, and worked to replace what they saw as a death-spiral, profit-driven system of hoarding “possessions and goods” with a human-needs-based system. “They would sell their possessions and goods,” Luke says, “and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” Any. No one left behind. As any had need.

Now, the elephant in the room: Was it socialism (“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”)? Not exactly, because of its limited scope. Did it showcase socialistic tendencies? It’s fair to say so.

Is that a bad thing? If you benefit from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or ever hope to ─ socialistic programs by any honest assessment — you be the judge.

But, if the early Christian community isn’t full-blown socialism, what is it? I’d call it “conspicuous communality.”

Conspicuous: highly-visible charity floating in a sea of brutal uncharity.

Communality: community created and sustained by sharing and enjoying as much as possible in common, while expanding the circle of the common good. The organizing principle that drives virtuous communities and governments worthy of our support.

That kind of community is what we’ll be talking about in a few moments when we welcome Logan Harris as a newly-baptized person. “We receive you into the household of God,” we will state without reservation.

Prior to that, we will align Logan’s future to opportunities emanating from our Baptismal Covenant. Note to our visitors: The Baptismal Covenant is a major thing for Episcopalians. It's yuuuge, a Gold Standard of commitments that make “conspicuous communality” possible.

Moreover, we will answer on Logan’s behalf — and recommit ourselves by answering — questions that leave the quality of life of all our neighbors and the planet hanging in the balance. Questions like:

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

Your response? “I will, with God’s help! I will, with God’s help! I will, with God’s help!”

But, you know, there’s one question we won’t be asking this morning. That’s because it didn’t make its way into the Baptismal Covenant:

Will you endeavor to betray the vulnerable when they most need your help?

Puzzling, no? … because in the debate about the “American Health Care Act” passed by the House on Thursday, when it comes to affordability, one rep (Mo Brooks of Alabama) was uncharacteristically candid.

He stated in no uncertain terms that only “good” people deserve low-cost, affordable health care. Yes, “good” people. “People who lead good lives. They’re healthy,” he said. “They’ve done the things needed to keep their bodies healthy. They’ve done things the right way.”

Just gobsmacking.

Because Jesus, a "good" person by most accounts, was in the health care business. He even made it affordable. And at a price few, if any, could refuse: free. Nary a nano-nickel.

What’s more puzzling — given that some people who tout their Christian credentials support this callous legislation — Jesus is notorious for refusing to throw “not-good” people under the bus for causing their own health problems.

Sure, running your body into the ground is a terrible idea. I get that. But before he sets out to heal anybody — and at no cost — does Jesus ever ask: “What’s your Body Mass Index? Will you submit to a urine test? How much fiber is in your diet?” And certainly no questions about Pilates.

For example, when Jesus heals a blind person and the American-Health-Care-Act types of his day protest because either the man or his parents — they charge — caused his pre-existing condition, what’s Jesus’ response? He doesn’t back down … which is his way of saying, “For God’s sake. Be happy for the man!”

So, can you imagine there ever being a single instance when Jesus denies health care to anyone with a pre-existing condition?

Actually, there is one. A distraught woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter of a catastrophic disease. Now, we probably think this shouldn’t be a deal-killer, but mother and daughter aren’t Jewish.

That turns out to be a problem … because Jesus (the Jewish Messiah) balks at treating non-Jews (gentiles). At this point in his career, Jesus sees gentile-ness as a pre-existing condition not covered by his services.

Channeling his inner Ebenezer Scrooge — I was going to say Paul Ryan, but thought better of it — channeling his inner Ebenezer Scrooge, Jesus goes so far as to dismiss the woman, calling her a “gentile dog.” I’m not making this up. And I’m not making up the woman’s response: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Ouch!

Good news: Jesus finds her argument persuasive, and he summarily heals the woman’s daughter … providing fodder to those of a Christian bent bound and determined to mount organized resistance to this legislation — legislation that will cause kids born with heart defects … women with breast cancer … and long-in-the-tooth folks (like me) who dare live so long … to lose their health insurance. And — make no mistake about it — all to finance a hefty tax cut for the gold-plated rich.

Where. Is Jesus. In a scheme like that?

Bottomline: In the debates and blogging and pushback from all sides in the days ahead, when it comes to a matter so dear to Jesus’ heart — affordable healthcare for all (that just might look like a single-payer system) — the demands of Christian community — the needs of our neighbors — compel us to ask:

Who is going to pay?

Who is going to pay what?

Who wins?

Who loses?

Who will thrive?

Who — like the hapless kidney donor Richard Baptista — who will sacrifice that others may live?

Amen.

"Top Secret"

Homily for the Third Sunday in Lent     19 March 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”                                                                                                                    John 4:29a

Itzhak Goldberg is a professor of radiation oncology at Yeshiva University in the Bronx. His business is generating data — medical data — that uncover truths about patient health.

It was that commitment to truth — coupled with a healthy appetite for sleuthing — that drove him to solve a mystery: a family secret his father, a Holocaust survivor, seemed to want revealed, but only long after his death.

As Bruce Feiler tells the story in Secrets of Happy Families, Itzhak Goldberg inherited his father’s watch: an 18-karat gold Patek Philippe in a red box.

Tucked inside the box, in the folds of the manufacturer’s guarantee, Itzhak discovered a tiny, yellowing photograph of two women he didn’t recognize, roughly a generation apart.

With the door on what looked like a skeleton in the family closet left ajar, Itzhak couldn’t rest until he had tracked down the identities of the women in the fading photograph.

What did he learn from the online records of Yad Vashem (the Holocaust memorial in Israel) and follow-up research?

The older woman in the picture: a woman named Chaya. Turns out she was married to Itzhak’s father before the war. The other woman? Their daughter — also named Chaya. Both gassed by the Nazis at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland.

Revealed, then, a marriage. A secret family. A family secret.

Reflecting on the Goldberg family secret, Bruce Feiler suggests that Itzhak’s father understood that ultimately, “certain truths” — too painful to discuss — “deserve to be shared.”

“Certain truths deserve to be shared.” That’s how Jesus sizes up a total stranger he meets — a Samaritan woman — as he breezes into alien territory at high noon.

Picture this: Jesus risks tripping alarms when, trying to take a short-cut from Jerusalem to Galilee, he crosses the frontier between Judea and Samaria, two mutually-exclusive No-Fly Zones.

What’s that all about? A North-South feud-without-end. And in that part of the world, memory is long. History as immediate as yesterday.

Proof? Hundreds of years earlier, when the population of the South was carried off into exile in Babylon, the people in the North — what would become Samaria — weren’t uprooted. When the Jews returned from exile, the Northerners did all they could to stifle reconstruction in the South. It was survival of the fittest. And the South was competition.

Add to that the reliably deadly blend of theology and culture: The Jews believe God’s earthly residence is the Temple on Mount Zion — in Jerusalem. The Samaritans say God is headquartered in their territory — at a temple on Mount Gerizim.

Problem is, roughly 150 years before Jesus takes the shortcut, the Jews decide it’s payback time. They invade Samaria, level the temple on Mount Gerizim, and torch the Samaritan capital.

The Samaritans take their time retaliating. But finally — roughly 25 years before Jesus crosses paths with the woman at the well — Samaritan terrorists infiltrate Jerusalem at Passover and trigger a bloody riot.

By the time the Samaritan woman encounters Jesus — a Jew — at a Samaritan watering hole … asking for a drink of Samaritan water … under the harsh Samaritan sun … we have a scene ready-made for point/counterpoint. Because with Jesus, it’s never just about H₂O.

Complication: The rules of engagement say that neither Jesus nor the Samaritan woman should be talking to each other, much less sharing family secrets. It's a bit like the evils of Jim Crow segregation in the South: The Jewish rabbi and the Samaritan woman drinking from the same water fountain? Strictly taboo.

And yet, Jesus strikes up a conversation with the stranger/enemy. Not just a chat, but a probing back-and-forth ─ driven by the woman ─ about what constitutes a well-watered life ─ the good life — the life God wants for each of us.

Now, on the surface, it looks like Jesus wades into the morally-murky waters of the woman’s marital history: five marriages and what might be a current live-in arrangement without benefit of nuptials.

The neighbors have taken note as well. They shun her, leaving her to draw water in sun-searing isolation when most people choose the cool shade.

But the woman's dodgy history doesn’t appear to be a problem for Jesus. He knows a lot. And he tells what he knows. Not surprising, that gets the woman’s attention. Soon she realizes that Jesus sees her as she really is. In turn — through quizzing, sparring, engaging — she begins to see Jesus differently ─ as he really is.

That pushes the woman to steer the conversation away from what she has been hiding to what else Jesus can reveal.

Basically, she says, “You’ve got answers. I’ve got questions. First, where does God prefer to be worshipped after all? Who’s right? Your people, with your Jerusalem thing? Or my people, with our Mount Gerizim thing?”

Jesus’ answer? “You know, ma’am, God doesn’t really care! But God does care about honesty. God cares that we approach God together ─ Jew, Samaritan, other ─ telling the truth about ourselves … all hearts open … all desires known … no secrets hid. That’s life. That’s living.”

And then, emboldened by the breathtaking expanses of Jesus’ answer, the woman pops the question that is on the minds of everyone in that part of the world ─ Jew and Samaritan and anyone groaning under the heel of Roman oppression. “Topic: the Messiah. According to the prophets ─ and, it looks like you’re one of them ─ the time is ripe. Who will be the Messiah-Liberator? Will you identify the specific person God has sent to tell us everything about what it takes to be God’s people ─ free ─ once and for all ─ for all time?”

Read: The woman drives the conversation forward, pushing Jesus to reveal a secret about himself. “The Messiah? I … am … he.”

Cue some very dramatic music: dum-da-dum-dum-dah!

And then, in perhaps the worst case of timing in a history of ill-timed maneuvers, the disciples burst in, stepping on Jesus’ Messiah line and driving the woman off so fast she leaves behind her water jar!

But driving her off to buttonhole — euphorically — neighbors predisposed to shun her: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”

Result? The woman, her tut-tutting neighbors grudgingly admit, is reaching out to embrace a new life of openness and integrity that can withstand even the glare of God’s scrutiny.

Proving the value of “no secrets!” for people who strive to become the unfailingly straight-shooting, honest-to-God people of God.

And that striving — not coincidentally — is a particular project of Lent. We’re each engaged these 40 days in one self-examining exercise after another, confessing, for example, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” All tongue-twisting aside, these exercises can come across as self-flagellation. More positively, they generate truths about ourselves that “deserve to be shared” with God. Exercises we have in common with our new-life-discovering sister from Samaria.

Pushing us to return to Itzhak Goldberg’s quest for the truth about his father and the two women in the hidden-and-yellowing photo.

In a matter of weeks after Itzhak solved the mystery, his daughter gave birth to a baby girl. They named her “Chaya.” Yes, Chaya. “Life.”

The family secret would be secret no more.

Amen.

“Making ‘What If’ History”

Homily for the First Sunday in Lent  5 March 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted.                                                                                                                    Matthew 4:1

The book cover is enough to make an Anglophile swoon: Britain’s reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, sporting her tastefully-restrained grin, and gamely bearing up under the considerable weight of diamond tiara, diamond necklace, and diamond-encrusted badge of the Order of the Garter.

In the near distance, over her right shoulder, the Union Jack flutters — without apology — atop … the White House.

Yes, the White House. Meaning: What if we had lost the War for Independence? The fallout? At this year’s Super Bowl, Luke Bryan would have had a crack at ‘God Save the Queen.’

Improbable? Well, it’s possible in the parallel universe of alternate endings set up by What If? America, edited by military historian Robert Cowley. It’s a history of what didn’t happen.

For example, what if the Mayflower, whose original destination was Virginia, hadn’t been blown off course? Result? No Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers, no Plymouth Rock, no First Thanksgiving.

And those anti-Anglican and politically-radical Pilgrims rubbing shoulders with the mainstream Anglican gentry of Virginia, with its more forgiving climate than New England? What would be the alternate ending? The Pilgrims’ vaunted values of individualism, godly living, and hard work, coupled with their arguments for religious tolerance, according to Crowley, “might never have gathered the force and influence [they] were to achieve over the next centuries” in America.

The point of the speculative exercise, then: Pivotal moments in history tempt us to fantasize, “What if?”

Take Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness. We know how the Temptation ends. Tempted by Satan three times, what’s the score? Jesus shuts out Satan (bing-bing-bing). Nevertheless, there are haunting ‘what ifs’ hanging in the air: What if the score had ended up Jesus 0, Satan 3?

Look at the First Temptation, the “turn stones-into-bread” mini-drama. What’s the real issue? Is it the temptation for Jesus to go on a carbo-loading binge after a 40-day fast? No. The real issue is much larger. It’s about world hunger in relation to God’s love. That is, if God is all-loving, why do people — why do families — go hungry?

What if, then, it played out like this: “Jesus,” Satan purrs, “if you are who you say you are — the Son of the loving God — turn these stones scattered about into bread.” Jesus hesitates for a moment. Then — in a flash! — every pebble, stone, and boulder in sight — every pebble, stone, and boulder in on the planet — turns to bread. That’s a lot of bread. A lot of bread for a lot of hungry people. Imagine: World hunger obliterated once and for all in the blinking of an eye.

What a different story that would be for the starving children of the world, for communities that riot over food, for regions and governments that go to war over food and drinkable water and other life-essential resources.

What a different story that would be for Jesus. A Nobel Prize for the construction worker/turned-home-schooled-philosopher/turned philanthropist. Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” caught by paparazzi lounging in early retirement.

What a different story that we be for us. No soup kitchens. No outreach. No panhandlers or hand-outs. Our only need? To feed ourselves. Others’ hunger wouldn’t be our problem, because access to food wouldn’t be a problem for anyone, anywhere, at all.

What a simpler story that would be, thanks to ‘what if’: no hunger in our souls to live beyond ourselves.

But Jesus didn’t turn stones into bread, because Jesus didn’t give in to the temptation to make an idol of food. Proof? “One does not live by bread alone.” That’s Jesus’ counter-argument, the sort of thing a loving God says — the God who created whole people to be more than the sum of their appetites … because the struggle for justice, equality, and dignity doesn’t begin and end with the fight for food.

Round One: Jesus 1. Satan 0.

The Second Temptation — what we might be tempted to call the “jump as if your life didn’t depend on it” episode. Strip away the High Anxiety optics, and what’s the real issue? "Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Picture this: We’re perched atop the dizzying pinnacle of the Temple, the highest point in Jerusalem. Satan makes his pitch: “Jesus, it’s pure Vulcan logic. If God is as all-powerful and as just as you say, bad things shouldn’t happen to good people. Now, Jesus, you’re a good person. Go for it. Jump!”

Of course, we know how it turns out. Jesus stays put.

But ‘what if’? Whoosh! Jesus does a swan dive! The crowds below scream in horror. And out of nowhere, legions and legions of angels rush in to break his fall. When the dust clears, a relieved Jesus is left standing … jumpstarting the “Legend of the Jerusalem Jumper.”

What a different story that would be for Jesus. While the angels in the background mug for selfies, on the spot, the people proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Result? No agony and bloody sweat in Gethsemane … no beatings, no pierced hands, feet, or side … no pain at all … no pain ever.

What a different story that would be for us. We — good people, one and all — would have a green light, when the going gets rough, to throw all caution to the wind and test — no, dare — God. And God, who can't ever get enough of risk, would be honor-bound to bless a new, alien world in which trust without risk would be the norm.

But that ‘what if’ didn’t happen. Jesus didn’t become the Jerusalem Jumper. He did make the point that trust in God isn’t a bad thing (far from it!) … but expecting God to be our constant safety net is.

Consequently, Jesus counters Satan’s argument with “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

That makes Round Two: Jesus 2. Satan 0.

What about the third, fall-down-and-worship-Satan temptation? Distil the drama, and what’s the issue? If God promises liberation, justice, and peace to all people, why the delay? Why not “freedom now”?

Here again, we know how the scene turns out. But what if — perched on the summit Satan takes Jesus to — surveying all the political and economic power available to accomplish the outcome closest to Jesus’ heart (the liberation of the planet from all oppression and lack of opportunity once and for all, for all), seeing that it could all be his in an instant … for such a small price … a slight compromise, what if Jesus would simply grovel and kiss the feet of Satan? Isn’t “freedom now” worth it? Doesn’t a noble end like liberation justify slightly-compromised means?

What a different story that would be for Jesus. No Crown of Thorns, but an imperial crown. No mocking “Hail, King of the Jews,” but a rousing “Hail to the Chief.” No inscription over his cross (“This is the King of the Jews”). In fact, no cross at all.

And what about us? What would be the lesson for us, if that’s the way it would have gone? Answer: Raw power? Even the power to do good? Seize it, exercise it, and keep it at all costs. Because Jesus would have championed the grim fallacy that the end always justifies the means. And by all means, get power!

But that ‘what if’ didn’t happen. Jesus neither made an idol of power nor did he issue a bankrupt moral imperative (“the end justifies the means”).

Round Three. Jesus 3. Satan 0. Clean sweep!

Recap: Jesus didn’t turn the stones into bread. Jesus didn’t jump. Jesus didn’t kiss Satan’s feet.

Read: Jesus didn’t make an idol of food. Jesus didn’t make an idol of risk-free trust. Jesus didn’t make an idol of power.

And because Jesus made the choices he did, we are here today. Otherwise, borrowing from historian Robert Cowley, Jesus’ ministry — and the Church established in his Name — “might never have gathered the force and influence it was to achieve” over the next millennia.

That means we now have the burden and the opportunity to make world-in-the-balance choices doing our own riff on Jesus’ Temptation.

Bottomline: Given the choice each day this Lent to make — or not make — an idol of food or any other proxy that inhibits ourselves or our neighbors from becoming whole persons in a whole world, what will it be?

Given the choice each day this Lent to take the kind of risks Jesus took and, like him, live with the consequences, what will it be?

And given the choice to achieve good ends — like justice, peace, liberation — by good means alone … or to cut ethical corners … to tarnish noble ends with murky means … what will it be?

By day’s end, then — each day this Lent — how will history turn out for each of us? The stakes are always high, because for each of us Lent is a ‘what if’ blockbuster!

Good news: Jesus has been there. And Jesus is here … with us … in each round … each temptation … to show us the choices he would make. But the choice is always up to us: What if?

Amen.

“It’s About Time”

Homily for Ash Wednesday  1 March 2017
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!                                                                                                     2 Corinthians 6:2b

We kick off Ash Wednesday with Paul’s motivational mantra: “Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!”

In other words, Lent. It’s about time.

That’s because everywhere we look in Lent, we bump into time. Most obvious temporal factoid? Lent is roughly 40 days and 40 nights. But also, we begin Sundays in Lent — this coming Sunday — with Jesus fasting 40 days in the desert. And we continue with Jesus on his pre-meditated journey to Jerusalem — a countdown to confrontation, with fatal consequences.

And, of course, our liturgical calendar demarcates the Sundays in Lent in terms of time: The First Sunday in Lent, Second Sunday in Lent, and so on.

As Lent reaches its climax in Holy Week, we have the time-warping Triduum (“three days-in-one”): Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday — all hurtling toward the Easter Vigil — celebrated as one liturgical day.

Even more time-based number: Jesus’ hours on the cross are calibrated … from noon to 3 o’clock.

Lent, then, is about time, but time with a twist … because Lent is moving us into time that has yet to make it onto a clock — the future God is absolutely positive each of us can accomplish … if we begin each day with a twist on Paul’s mantra that plays as, “It’s about time I lived like ‘Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!’”

But what does that mean?

Take “Now is the acceptable time.” Pretty straightforward. With apologies to Elvis, “It’s now or never.” Read: What are we waiting for?

But “now is the day of salvation” is a bit more problematic. It’s that word “salvation.” It’s been pretty tarnished by televangelists and other people who market the notion that salvation is all about being “saved” from the fires of hell. Talk about making people jittery. And making jittery people open their wallets. “Our operators are standing by.”

But what if salvation isn’t being saved from something, and instead, being saved for something? What if salvation means what Jesus — and Paul in 2 Corinthians — says it means? Union with God, being reconciled to God.

In other words, salvation isn’t about “getting your clock cleaned” by God … now … or at the end of your time on earth (death) … or the end of Time itself (the so-called Last Judgment).

Salvation is about striking up and nurturing a friendship with God … because doesn’t Jesus himself say the night before his death, “I no longer call you servants … but friends”?

From the lips of Jesus: friendship with God. It’s an idea whose time has come.

Consequently, the Church’s message in each of the roughly 40 days of Lent is: “Now is the day!” Not some day when it feels just right because this “isn’t a good time.”

Not some day when we’re in the mood or when the stars are in alignment.

But now is the day — this moment and each moment of Lent — now is the time for each of us to become close-closer-closest friends of God.

What will that look like?

Hint: Over each of the next 40 days-or-so of Lent, what is the most outrageous thing you can imagine that will make you a close-closer-closest friend of God?

Re-make your own self-image — spiritually, emotionally, and, yes, even physically? Well, get off the couch and on to the treadmill, for God’s sake!

Just a related sidebar on that score: This time of year, some people like to go on a diet or restrict their carbs intake or alcohol consumption — all under the banner of “giving something up for Lent.” Naysayers pooh-pooh this approach. They wheeze, “Lent isn’t about going on a diet.”

Bull pucky. Of course, Lent is — or can be — about going on a diet. Dieting is perfectly compatible with Lent … only we don’t call it a “diet.” We call it a “fast.” Renewing a “right spirit” … in our bodies.

As long as you don’t slide into anorexia, then, I think it’s just great to diet as a Lenten discipline … as long as … as long as it answers the question: “What kind of a body will give me the energy, the joy, the zest for living that will help me love God and my neighbor more and more, better and better, longer and longer?”

So, a rigorous Lenten fast: that might be the most outrageous thing you can imagine that will make you a close-closer-closest friend of God.

Or how about:

Revitalize your prayer life? (Or consider starting one.)

Re-align your relationships? (Ditch the Dementors!)

Re-tool your calendar (your priorities and how you spend your time)?

Re-acquaint yourself with Jesus (especially in the way he welcomes outcasts and works his fingers to the bone achieving justice for all our resource-stretched neighbors)?

And then there’s this outrageous thought: Re-think how you use resources that negatively impact the long-term sustainability of the planet God has given us to take care of and enjoy, in that order? Perhaps drive your car 20 percent less. Or reduce electricity and water use by 20 percent this Lent. Think of it as a carbon fast.

Or expand on your Lenten discipline from last year. Hike it up (as Buzz Lightyear trumpets in Toy Story) “to infinity and beyond!”

Oodles of future-realizing strategies to get on your calendar in the next 40 days and nights.

Complication: How will you upload these strategies off your calendar and into your head, heart, muscles, skin, and all the rest to make “infinity and beyond!” the new “normal”?

For starters, it will take prayer. Pray each morning in Lent for the creativity, the candor, and the challenges to discover the outrageous thing God is desperate to do in your life.

Ask God, in the words of Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Sustain me with your bountiful Spirit. Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.” Start with that prayer, and the rest will follow.

If that’s what Lent might look like for you, what won’t it look like?

It won’t look like the definition of history one of my seminary professors used to delight in skewering: “one damn thing after another.” Round and round and round, just one same-old-same-old, tedious experience after another. Yawn.

It will look more like a countdown to the future, an Easter-dawning future of new life for each of us and our neighbors.

Now is the time, then — this Lent — to show up at Mass ... engage in our Lenten Learning Series (“The Five Marks of Love”), beginning Thursday evening, March 9 ... help secure the future for one of our youngsters with your Lenten Offering. Now is the time to engage your heart, mind, and soul … here … with us at Saint Paul’s.

Because there is no better time. There is no other time. “Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!”

Amen.