August 3, 2025

Many little things, often to some degree, there's a little bit of a construction to them, but they so often can also communicate truths that we remember in our lives. I have this rather hazy and vague memory of being eight or nine years old. I remember my brother was a toddler, and we were headed to Disney World from Arkansas. We had driven down through Louisiana to the coast and going across Alabama, Mississippi, into Florida. We were with my mom's parents. And at some point in that journey, this ostensible vacation time, we had our AAA triptychs out. We were trying to find a gas station. We were somewhere right along the coast. And I remember how beautiful the ocean looked. But there was all this freneticism because we were trying to find a gas station to fill up the car. And also my grandfather, my dear beloved grandfather, was insistent that we find a place with a payphone so that he could call and check his messages from work.

Now, that was not a singular occurrence. The best we were ever able to do was to get him to relax for about three or four days, often in the context of a multi-week vacation. And then the rest of the time, he was strategizing and thinking about work-related things. And it's notable because he himself was a career minister. He was a Southern Baptist missionary administrator. And then after he retired from that, he created a business helping churches build their buildings. But he always had this very strong sense that his call and vocation in life was to work for the greater good of the gospel. But it also, there was a tension and a problem in that. Especially if we pay close attention to the lessons and readings we hear today. And he's not the only one that has fallen into this trap. There's a long history in our culture in the United States of this so-called Protestant work ethic. I'm sure many of you have heard that usage of that term. But this idea that our faithfulness, our righteousness in the kingdom is in some way dependent on what we produce. How effective we are at doing things, having productivity. That gets really warped in extreme ways in some modern context with this idea of the prosperity gospel. That your wealth and your riches are an indicator of your righteousness. But in big ways and small that continues to kind of capture and enslave us to the things of this world.

And I want to invite us this morning to really take to heart the invitation we have across all of our readings to find this time and place of respite, to get outside of our heads. To work as hard as we can to stop this frenetic process of doing and acting, and to be, to be in the present moment, and to listen deeply for the presence of God and the ways that God is calling us into deeper relationship with Him. As we look back at our Ecclesiastes reading, we have this fascinating position or reflection by the teacher. This frustration with the seamless worthlessness of the actions. All of this dizziness and what has it gotten me? All of these things that I have done and yet I am chasing after the wind. I've given up my heart in despair concerning all the toils of my labors. You know, it never quite seems to be enough. Never quite seems to get quite there. And I think about that. I think about the man who we hear about in this parable for Jesus. Because one of the things not said, but I think is so often the conclusion of experiences like this, is that our soul is never satisfied.

You know, he says to himself, I'm going to build an even bigger structure and then I can rest. Then I can take it easy. And how many of us have said that to ourselves? And then we get there and we say, ah, but it needs to be just a little bit bigger. We need to do just a little bit more. We're not quite satisfied with where we are. We can't stop and rest. We can't take that moment of peace. It's a never-ending battle unless we take that opportunity to really and truly disconnect. I think about the position of these readings in the context of where we are in the year, and I have to wonder if the framers of our lectionary chose the readings from last week, the readings for this week, some of the other readings that we'll hear in the coming weeks ahead in specific appreciation for the fact that this is the time of respite and relaxation for so many of us in our cultural context. An implicit teaching to us that rest, vacation, taking time off are important things to do. We have, too, this reading from Colossians, and I want to remind us something that I have brought up before, that every time we encounter Paul's epistles, we have to remember that they are written to a specific community with specific issues that they are wrestling with, that they are struggling with.

And we hear today Paul admonishing against these various vices, fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, etc. But I wonder for us, in our context today, what are those earthly desires that keep us trapped? They may not be the same, but they nevertheless have the same impact. What might it be for us to create our own list of vices, of workaholism, of lack of rest, of frenetic doing in a space and time where we need to be more conscious of listening and stopping and being present? Just like last week's gospel passage, where we have the story of Mary and Martha. As I mentioned, it's not a complete bifurcation of wholly one being right and wholly the other being wrong. There are times that we are called into action. But there are times, too, where we are called into rest and deep listening. And what would that be for us today? To prioritize that, in this moment in time where so much seems to be driven by what we are to do and how we are to act and what it means to act and do.

And in that I want to invite us to consider another element of what we hear both in last week's gospel but also in this week's. Throughout Jesus' earthly ministry, there are encounters that he has with people, but also framings and parables that he teaches where we have a consistent theme of people demanding an outcome or requesting with passion a certain outcome. We have last week Martha not just saying, I am frustrated by what my sister Mary is doing, but demanding of Jesus that he correct Mary. This week we have this teacher, or this man coming to Jesus, demanding that Jesus decide this dispute he has with his brother. Tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. And again and again, we have Jesus reframing these moments. And showing the folly of this kind of demanding nature. We certainly are to bring our petitions to God. To ask of God the things that we need in this life. The great prayer that Jesus teaches us. Petitions God to give us our daily bread. That there are places and times for that asking. But also, we are called not only in that moment, a petition, to give space for God's responsiveness to us. Not just what we want, God, but what is your desire for us? So often the trap is that we demand or require of God the things that we think are the right outcome or response or result.

You know, the great parable that Jesus teaches of Lazarus and the rich man. You have this rich man descending into sheol, into the place of death, and he never is able to get beyond that framing. Because even when he petitions Abraham, he demands that Abraham tell Lazarus to do things for him. It is never, what can I do to transform myself? Here is the place of stuckness I am in. I don't want to be here, God. Please help me. But in helping me, what is your desire for me? What is your place of transformation? How can I do something different? And our invitation in this place of rest, in this place of relaxation, is not simply to sit on our laurels, not simply to take time to recalibrate, but to take time for that process of reflection, of deep listening, of discerning in the quiet moments what God's desiring is for us today.

So in this season of rest and relaxation, may we find in our own connection and reconnection with God a space of rest and relaxation. An opportunity to listen more deeply, listen more fully, prepare ourselves more completely for what it is that we will be called to do and the times and places in which we will be called to act. I think about the great athlete, Scottish athlete, Roger Bannister in the middle of the 20th century. He was the first man to ever run a sub-four-minute mile. And he had gotten incredibly close on a number of occasions in the mid-1950s. But he had never quite gotten there. He would get down to like... four minutes, three seconds. Four minutes, two seconds. He just could not get below four minutes. And so what he did is after this extended period of time of training and preparation, he set a date, the 6th of May, 1954. And then he went on vacation. He went to the Scottish Highlands. He slept. He rested. He went for hikes in the woods and in the mountains. And then he came back. And he ran. And he beat that four-minute mile. But it took that time, what we now call interval training and that knowledge that we have about the importance of rest. In preparation for big events like this, he took that time to prepare himself, to listen to his body, to understand what he needed to do in order to execute most fully the call that he had, the desire that he had, the opportunity that he had to do this world-defining feat.

And so, even when we are on the precipice of great and mighty things, as we look ahead to September, to the rest of the fall, to the time ahead of us where we have all of these activities and events and important work that we're being called into as a community, as individuals within this community, let us also take this time, this moment, to be mindful of rest, to be mindful of relaxation, to be mindful of deep listening. And then finally, on one other point here, so often when we get ourselves tied into knots in these times of deep listening, or these times of deep action and activity where we aren't listening, we aren't resting, we aren't relaxing. We can get ourselves tied up into knots intellectually too and be incredibly concrete thinkers where we bifurcate and categorize our lives into this and that dichotomies. And so much of our freneticism today can be driven by these polarities and divisions. These points of conflict. And yet when we take opportunities to stop and disconnect ourselves from that, we so often find a space of new wholeness and new connectivity and new ways of being in relationship across the differences and divides that we encounter.

It's amazing when we take those opportunities to recalibrate, how little seems to be of those vital importances that we get so tied up in knots about. And how much more expansive the love and presence of God seems when we have that opportunity to be present in a restive and restorative way to the world around us. And so may we take this time in rest and relaxation, refocusing our energies on the listening and deep presence of God, letting the things of this world that so often get us tied up in all these complicated emotions, let those things fall away for a moment. So that we may rest and hear and reconnect with our God, so that when we are called into action, we may step into it most fully and most completely, ever more manifesting God's will for us in our lives and in this place. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

July 27, 2025 Sermon

Traditions are funny things. In the scrubby, dusty hill town of Nazareth up in Galilee, there are two separate locations venerated for the Annunciation, the Gospel passage where the angel Gabriel comes to announce to Mary that she will be with child. The first is the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, and it is located over the ancient and still present wellspring in Nazareth, where everyone would come and draw water on a daily basis. The presumption there is that Mary, as a young woman, would have been the one in her family to retrieve water from the well for their daily usage, and it was there at the well that Gabriel came to her. You probably have seen images depicting this scene.

The other, just across town, is the large Roman Catholic Basilica of the Annunciation, and it is centered over the grotto home, hewn out of rock, that is historically associated with the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Anna and Joachim. And so there is, in the Western Christian tradition, this association of her parents with the Annunciation.

Now, where Anna and Joachim come from is a little bit of a tenuous connection. We don't have their names anywhere in scripture, but as early as the second century and maybe possibly even late first century, there's an association of those names with the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a veneration of them in their role in raising her up. We also have traditions sort of like Elizabeth and Zachariah of Anna and Joachim being of an advanced age themselves when they conceived the Blessed Virgin. So there are all sorts of echoes and kind of memories of history and the past as well. One reason why we hear this great narrative of Abraham and Sarah, that is a motif throughout Scripture, of faithfulness being rewarded even at a latter and late stage in life.

But when we come to ask what the impact of their life, of their witness has on us today, that is the witness of Anna and Joachim, I think we're kind of left with an uncertainty there, especially if we limit ourselves to the Annunciation. More provocatively, more profoundly, I think we know something of them in a passage that comes just after this. A little bit later on in the first chapter of Luke, Mary leaves this experience of the Annunciation and travels down into Judea to visit her cousin Elizabeth. And there, at that moment of the two connecting, we have what is referred to as the Song of Mary, the Great Magnificat.

And I want to suggest to you all today that in listening closely to Mary's song, we have a sense of the values that Anna and Joachim held, the ways that they shaped and formed her in her faith so that she would be able to be the person that God needed her to be. Beginning in verse 46 of Luke's Gospel, in the first chapter, we hear, "And Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the mighty one has done great things for me and holy is his name. His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants forever.'"

So what do we hear in all of that? First, we have this sense of proper orientation. The place of departure for everything else is worship, is magnification of the Lord, is rejoicing in God's presence, in the creative power that has brought us about, in experiencing that love, honoring it, and worshiping it. But then, we have the second turn towards humility. "The mighty one has done great things for me." That it's not what we do ourselves. It's not the accomplishments we have in our lives. It's the places in which we can be humble and open to God's presence in our lives and the things that that presence, that work on us brings about. And what is that work of fruitfulness when we are humble? When we are open? When we are the vessels that God asks us to be? They are the fruits of justice: of lifting up the lowly, of scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, of filling the hungry with good things.

Those are acts of God, the power of God righting the wrongs of this world. But so often, that act of God is manifested through us, through us, the church, through us as individual Christians, being the humble vessels of his work in our lives, the motivation, the activation of us to do those works of charity and love that we are called to do. And then it is a return after humility, after action, after care. It is the return to remembrance, to the memory of what God has done and what God will continue to do in the future. The promise that he has not made just in the past, but the promises he continues to make for us going on forever.

It's remarkable that we have this profound and powerful commitment and promise because not unlike what we experience today in our current climate and world, the first century Palestine that Jesus was born into, that Mary was raised up in, was one that was very and difficult in its own way. The Jews of the first century were very much under the oppressive thumb of the Roman Empire. It was very much a time of struggle, of pain, of suffering. And there's an easy impulse to be cynical in those moments of fraughtness. But instead of cynicism, Mary expresses optimism. Optimism for the good things that are promised, the good things that can be, and frankly, the good things that are in the very moment of this present state in her life. When it would be so very easy to be angry, to be distressed, to give up, she turns that into goodness, into charity, into love and celebration. And Anna and Joachim, the unnamed hidden forces in the background, surely must have formed and shaped her to respond in that very way.

And today, as we celebrate and honor them, and as we lift up especially our patron mother, Saint Anne, I invite us to be present to those places in our lives where not only can we hear and be instilled with the values of the Magnificat for ourselves, but to be mindful of the way that we shape and form others and the values that we express to them and how we lift them up and make them better attentive and better responders to the work that God is doing in their lives.

Many years ago now, when I was in my mid-twenties, I had a passion job. I was the religious outreach director for the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. I've talked some about that before. It was me, an Episcopalian, a young Jewish guy who was our executive director and the legal force behind the work, and then a whole bunch of really salty and hard-edged Roman Catholic nuns who kept us focused on what we were doing. But that job, in as much as I loved it, didn't pay very much. So I was a barista at Starbucks at the same time. It got me insurance, it paid the bills. And I happened to befriend one of my co-workers. I have to admit, I actually don't even remember his name. It was the kind of thing that I would go and do for a few hours, then go home and focus on the place that really brought me nourishment and fulfillment.

So all of that period of life ends. Julie and I move out here. We start graduate work. And sometime after we had moved out here, we went back to Arkansas for a friend's wedding. And during the reception, this same young man came up to me. I had really not even paid attention and had kind of forgotten him. I didn't recognize him when he addressed me. And apparently, in those conversations and talks that we had, in that little side gig I had at Starbucks, I profoundly impacted him. He had decided to go back to college and finish his degree. He had gone on and really focused on the things that were valuable and meaningful in his life. And he profusely thanked me for the ways in which our time together had helped him see the clarity of what he was called to do.

I was floored. I hadn't given him a second thought. It had been a totally unintentional and inconsequential experience for me. And yet, I had very much impacted and shaped his life. And I think in some ways we can very much be that same kind of presence in the world around us. Sometimes we are the Anna and Joaquins, the silent, sometimes forgotten presences. That even in our humility and faithfulness and the work that we do, the work that may go unrecognized, nevertheless has an impact far beyond us, a goodness and grace that exudes out in waves far beyond what we are capable of seeing or imagining.

And so this morning as we celebrate their legacy, as we memorialize them and lift them up as the faithful servants that they were, may we glorify in the things that they show us through their daughter, our mother, the Blessed Virgin. But may we too take inspiration from their humility. See the places of impact that we can have, even if they're seemingly inconsequential or unnoticeable. May we have the faithfulness and humility to keep on doing what we are called to do. And recognize that in our witness, there may be ripples and effects that long outdate us, that go far beyond what we can even imagine. And may we have the charity of spirit, the fulsomeness of faith, to honor and respect that. And never more come back to the memory as the Blessed Virgin does of God's promises, remembering that even in dark times, even in uncertain times, he will be with us. His mercy will extend over us. And the promises he made to our ancestors remain the promises to us now and always. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.