sermon

From the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | 5th Sunday in Easter, Year C,  April 24, 2016 

Jesus says to his disciples: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Love one another. That’s why we are here today…to strive to follow that commandment. Just as I have loved you, so you should love each other, Jesus says. We are to love as Jesus loves.

It is a little strange that our Gospel reading today, the fifth Sunday in Easter, comes from the night before Jesus dies. Why have we gone backwards in the story to the last supper? Perhaps it is because now that we have witnessed Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can understand Jesus’ command to love more deeply. Jesus says he gives a “new” commandment, but there’s nothing new about love. God has been telling people to love each other for a long time. Jesus’ ability to love in the face of his death on a cross, his willingness to forgive, casts the command in a new light. Love is not simply caring for each other. The love of Christ is a faithfulness that cares when others do not, that is devoted when others betray. The love of Christ affirms even those who have denied us. The love of Christ blesses those who curse us. The love of Christ draws its power not from dominance but from compassion. The love of Christ is willing to die, but it refuses to stay dead. The love of Christ rises again and again and again. This is how we, too, are called to love.

Frankly, it sounds almost impossible. How are we to love as Christ does? The Church, in its wisdom, over the centuries, has lifted up the example of saints who have revealed something of the love of Christ. The saints give us hope. The saints show us that folk like you and me can love like Jesus. Thus, we name our churches after these exemplars of faith, hope, and love, that they may inspire and motivate us to follow Jesus by their example. Yesterday, April 23, was the feast day of St. George, for whom, of course, this parish is named. It is a good time for us to remember this brave Christian.

Yet, I wonder how many of us actually know that much about George? We might know that he is the patron saint of England and many other places. The facts we know about his life are few. There are many legends. Briefly, George was a Roman military officer in the service of the emperor Diocletian around the end of the third century of the common era. His father had also been a military officer, and his parents had raised George as a Christian from birth in what is now Turkey. When the emperor decided that the Christians were becoming too much of a threat, he decreed that all Christian soldiers in Rome’s military be arrested. Either convert to the pagan religion of Rome or be executed. George refused to convert. The Romans tried to get him to change his mind, because George was a high ranking officer from a prominent family and a valued member of his guard. George refused their bribery, and he was condemned to torture and death. Before his execution, George gave all his wealth to the poor. Legends abound about how many trials he endured before he was finally beheaded. One story says his grace in the face of suffering led the emperor’s wife and at least one other person to renounce the pagan gods right then and there, and they, too, were executed. George’s faithful endurance, his generosity, and his conversion of others make him a compelling character. He shows us that faithful love, the love of Christ, is possible for us, even in the face of unspeakable hardship. This is probably why he became patron saint of soldiers.

But the story that is most famous about George is not about his tenacious faith or his endurance of torture and death. If people have heard of Saint George, they most often associate him with…a dragon. According to legend, Saint George slew a dragon. Yes, it is most likely a legend, a mythological story that was adapted several hundred years after his death to include Saint George. According to the legend, George is more of a medieval, chivalric knight than a Roman tribune, and he saves a town (and a maiden in distress) from a hungry dragon. It is a rather gruesome story, perhaps not suited for the pulpit. And for those of us who actually like dragons as amazing mythological beasts, it is not the most positive story in that the dragon is killed at the end. We don’t want to imagine the cute dragon on our St. George’s preschool sign skewered by George’s lance! So why do we even bother to bring this story out of the closet? Why fly a dragon kite in our church procession today? Why display our banner with George battling the beast? How could this story possibly relate to loving the way Jesus loves?

Stories are a powerful and wonderful way that we express our deepest truths. Our parish fellowship weekend at Shrine Mont this fall, by the way, will focus on stories and storytelling. Our theme is “Go tell it on the mountain.” For the storytellers in the Middle Ages, putting George in this story was powerful in that it showed how faith can live in the face of danger. George makes the sign of the cross and is able to defeat the monster. For medieval story tellers, beasts and darkness were not simply imaginary threats. The world was a dark and scary place. For George to ride in on a horse with a sword and overcome chaos was indeed a sign of God’s love and faithfulness. As a result of the dragon’s defeat, the legend says that George convinced all the villagers to be baptized. It was a powerful story for centuries. For us, now, though I think it probably sounds more like a fairy tale. Entertaining perhaps but not transformative, not enough to inspire us to love like Jesus did. But what if we change the story a bit? We are not talking about changing Holy Scripture; this is a different kind of story. What if, like the ancient bards who added to their stories in order to tell a greater truth, we add something to this tall tale?

What if, after its death, the dragon was raised? What if, after having terrorized the village for so long, the dragon was given a new life, a life dedicated to wonder and amazement, to loving and flying in glorious splendor? What if the dragon needed to die in order to truly live? You see, the dragon was caught in a never-ending cycle of hunger. It would eat the sacrificial lambs and then be ravenous for more. It would devour the innocent and never be satisfied. What if saint George came along not to destroy a monster but to redeem it? What if George killed the dragon to put it out of its misery, to interrupt its violence so that it could love? …And so some say, after the dragon was slain, St. George knelt down to pray that God would bring it back to life so that it could delight instead of terrify. And that’s just what happened. The dragon was raised and no longer terrorized the village. In return the villagers made sure it had food to eat. And George was the first to cry “hallelujah” when he saw the magnificent creature, raised from death, stretch its wings and fly toward heaven. The end!

The poet Rilke wrote in a letter to a young poet: “Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” The story of St. George and the dragon has always been about facing fears with God’s help. The good news that we need today, perhaps, is less about vanquishing our fears and more about learning to love them so that they can be transformed, love them so that they can die and be resurrected as wonder and hope. When we learn to love our fears, when we learn to love those whom we fear, the cycle of endless devouring and destruction is interrupted. This is the love of the risen Christ. The love that casts out all fear. The love that casts away all resentment and bitterness and revenge. The love that interrupts the cycles of violence in our world. The love that will not recant and cannot be bought. The love that binds us to God and each other so strongly that no empire, no tyrant, not even death itself can undo it. Thanks be to God for Jesus who gave us anew the commandment that we love each other as he loves us. Thanks be to God for blessed George, and for all the saints whose witness and love helps us hope for new life.

From the Rev. Joe Hensley, Rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | Easter Sunday Year C March 27, 2016 

Welcome happy morning! Happy Easter! Today we celebrate the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ from the dead. It is the principal of principal feasts in our Christian calendar. It has been said that without Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, we don’t have a reason to be here. So on this day we ring bells and sing Alleluias and feast (and hunt Easter eggs?….I’ll come back to that later) and celebrate that love could not be killed, the son of God could not be shut up in a tomb. What looked like powerlessness on the cross was actually the beginning of the greatest act of power the world has ever known.

And we got it wrong. We got it wrong. Now when I say, “we” I am talking about human beings. We did not understand who Jesus was and why he came. Some of us got it so wrong we thought Jesus needed to die. Others got it wrong in that even though Jesus told us what was he was up to, we did not really believe him or understand what he meant. So on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee came to…the tomb.  Why were they at the tomb? They thought Jesus was dead, and they were wrong. And then these two men in dazzling clothes appear and tell them, “He’s not here. He has risen, just like he told you. Remember?” And then when these women, Mary Magdalene and the rest of them, when they realize their misunderstanding and tell the other disciples, the disciples think they are crazy. The disciples are always getting it wrong. Peter, at least, runs to the tomb to see for himself, and he is blown away by what he finds, no dead body, the linen burial cloths, empty. And the text tells us, he went home, amazed. He was probably thinking to himself, “where did I get it wrong?”

We got it wrong about Jesus. We got it wrong about a lot of things. And yet, on Easter, this is not bad news. Fr. James Alison, a Roman Catholic theologian wrote a book about the resurrection with a strange and wonderful title: “The Joy of Being Wrong.” The joy of being wrong. Not the agony of being wrong or the humiliation of being wrong, but the joy of being wrong. And what he means is that we need to celebrate that we have gotten it wrong. Isn’t it wonderful that Jesus was not in the tomb where the women expected him to be? Hallelujah! Isn’t it great that the religious leaders put Jesus to death on the cross, expecting him to stay dead, and he didn’t? Fantastic! They got it wrong. It’s like thinking you were going to have a heart attack and then realizing that it was only gas! Awesome, I was wrong! We, as human beings, have grossly misjudged the power of God. We have misunderstood ourselves as God’s beloved children. We have been limited in our understanding and imagination, and we can be glad that God is right and we are wrong.

The trouble is, we usually do not like to be wrong. To even say the words, “I was wrong,” conjures up feelings of failure. When someone tells us, “you’re wrong,” it is probably not so that we will feel joyful. We try to avoid being wrong. And we like to be right. Four of the happiest sounding words in the English language: “I told you so.” Oh there is joy in those words – but there is also misery. So often we say them knowing full well that although it feels good in some twisted way, they will likely make life more miserable overall. Most of the world’s suffering, the wars, the cultural battles, terrorism, violence…can probably be traced back to someone wanting to say to someone else, “I told you so.” “I’m right and you are wrong.” So we may find it hard to believe that there can be any joy in being wrong.

On Easter morning, the angels at the tomb do tell the women, “He told you so.” They remind the women that Jesus had indeed predicted his death and resurrection. He was right. But the message is not intended for their humiliation. It is intended for their joy. Jesus is not around the corner ready to pop out and say, “I was right.” He’s not there waiting to exact his revenge on us. He’s not there at all. He’s too busy being alive again.

The fact that Jesus lives again does not just mean we were mistaken about what would happen. We missed the boat entirely. The fact that Jesus lives again is proof that we have been wrong about the truth of our whole existence. We tend to think that life has to end in death. And because of that understanding, we have often used death as a tool to get our way. We have killed or threaten to kill in the name of being right. We have threatened to kill, threatened to hurt each other so that we would not have to be wrong. So for Jesus, the one whom humans unjustly killed, to be alive again, shows that death is not always the end. It changes the whole equation. Death exists, but it is not necessarily inevitable. And for Jesus, the one whom humans unjustly killed to be alive again and not seeking revenge, shows that retribution is not always the end. Therefore the culture of death and punishment that we have created is not inevitable. What is inevitable is love and forgiveness. Love wins. Jesus does not live again after being killed in order to say, “I told you so” and beat us down. Jesus lives again to raise us up with him, to reveal our belovedness, to forgive us. Jesus lives again to show us that we are not defined by death and violence any longer. We do not need to threaten and hurt each other any more. And if we have been wrong about who we are and who God is, it does not really matter, because God’s love was never a test. God’s love was and is a gift, a gift that continues in spite of death, a gift that is revealed through death and resurrection. So hallelujah! We got it wrong, and the joy of our being wrong is that we see now the amazing gift of God being right.

The next time we are tempted to say, “I told you so,” the next time we think we are right and we are tempted to put someone else down, remember that Jesus was raised up. Remember that because Jesus lives again, we do not have to deal in humiliation and violence and death any more. Because of God’s gratuitous love and grace, we are not being punished for being wrong. We have been given a way out of being wrong, and it is not about being right. It is about being forgiven. The way is not about holding on, it is about letting go. In letting go, we are empowered by the risen Christ to hope, even when there is so much wrong with the world. Death will still exist, but we do not have to fear it or be controlled or defined by it any more. Death and violence no longer have a claim on us.

I said I would get back to the eggs…We have a cemetery outside this church. And this morning, the children will hunt for Easter eggs there. The youngest of us will walk in and among the oldest stones of those who have died already but who live in Christ. It is an Easter image. They will walk in and among the saints and the flowers (be careful around the flowers!) without fear. We have that cemetery not as a reminder of death but as a reminder of eternal life. But don’t get it wrong. Inside those eggs is not just candy or treats. Inside those eggs is wonder. Inside those eggs is amazement and delight, a token of our delight in God and God’s delight in us. Because God delights in us, Christ has died. Christ is risen. And Christ’s love, Christ’s forgiveness, Christ’s mercy and power will come again and again. May we crack open the delightful, sweet joy of being wrong. Alleluia! With God’s help, we are becoming right.

From the Rev. Deacon Carey Chirico, Director of Outreach, St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA | Advent 4 Year C,  Dec. 20, 2015.

Arms thrown wide in welcome. Joy shining from her face, welcome in every fiber of her being.

This is how I picture Elizabeth on that Judean morning. Mary, face flushed from the walk to her cousin’s home, is shy and streaked with tears. Surely this is not the greeting she expected. Pregnancy as an unmarried woman opened her the gossip, criticism and censure of her community. Once again God’s grace and mercy abound. She is to be welcomed when all social conventions say she should be turned away. She is to be welcomed with blessing and song and dancing: Once again, God’s grace is at work and shame is reversed and the shameful is welcomed.

I have deep, deep respect for Joy and the healing power of Joy in our lives—The kind of Joy that comes from an opening ourselves to God, the kind of joy which opened Elizabeth to knowing the truth of Mary’s encounter with God.

This scene became so very real to me during my sabbatical in eastern Africa. I had been asked to lead a conference on the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd with the Mother’s Union in the mountains of Matana in Burundi. We had arrived the night before as had some of the participants. The women took their responsibilities to as church leadership very seriously and they came from their farms and their businesses in their most serious dress and decorum. Now the mountains of Burundi are remote and beautiful. People work hard, many subsistence farmers. Families are large. Childbirth frequent. Maternal and infant mortality is high. Women’s lives are difficult and full of responsibility for all generations. Women’s friendships bring a moment of respite and happiness that is evident from most meetings. Yet even with the difficulties and stress of life, the joy that accompanies each birth is profound. Each child is treasured and welcomed joyously.

In fact the word often used for ‘grandson’ means “grandmother’s finance”. There is a wonderful celebration when a child is old enough to be carried on a mother’s back at which they are named – the timing heralds the child’s passing through a time when many newborns die.

At this particular meeting, I was very formally introduced and welcomed with gifts and speeches. The women then began to go around the room to introduce themselves. As we arrived at one modestly dressed woman, she stood and said in her best French, her name and then added that she was about to become a grandmother. Well the room erupted into cheers. Everyone got up and sang and danced and celebrated as only a group of women can do for at least five long minutes before order returned and we proceeded with our meeting.

This is how I picture Elizabeth, standing on top of a hillside ready to welcome her cousin.

Elizabeth, herself elderly and without children yet. She above all others knows the shame and social stigma of a woman who is barren or who is pregnant and unmarried in a culture which one’s status is based on patriarchy and assigned roles. Suddenly expecting a child when it was least expected, she above all knows that God’s grace is actively working, reversing, reordering.

So here she stands, arms out stretched and begins to prophecy and to bless. “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Eulegemenos in Greek, is a word which invites blessing onto someone. But Elizabeth’s use of this word conveys more, she recognizes that this blessing has happened and in the choice of her words conveys that indeed – Mary, herself, is a blessing to God.

Elizabeth, older and childless, is the first to proclaim the great news of the incarnation. Indeed she says, when I heard your greeting the child within me leapt – John the Baptist, the child growing within her is already filled with the Holy Spirit and has leapt with gladness.

Joy, laughter and delight are so powerful because they abolish conventional divisions- boundaries are crossed and proper roles abandoned, say the Christian mystics.

And Joy and laughter pervade this short story. Joy is about what it means to live well, self-giving and other centered.

Benedictine and theologian, Joan Chittester says that it is precisely the journey into joy that the liturgical year is about. Good news of great joy: “It is how and where we are searching for happiness that matters.” Discriminating between what is real and what is fleeting requires intention and choice.

At this moment, God has entered our world so that we might come face to face with the Divine. Soon in Jesus we will come to know the unknowable. Everything about Jesus’ life to come speaks to the wisdom lived out in this little tale of joyful welcome.

Jesus who will see beyond status, education and rank. Jesus who will teach us that it is in living lives of committed purpose, to honoring the Other in our community that brings joy to God. “I seek not do my own will but the will of the One who sent me.” (John 5:30)

In this moment, a path appears and one that will lead us to see that it is not what happens to us, not where we are born, not what we are given that brings happiness but a life lived out in joyful surrender to God’s will in our lives.

By asking ourselves how the life of the Christ child affects our own.

Here at the beginning of the year, we are shown a model of welcoming God into our lives, of being a community in which God is known to be always at work and always looking to the hope of that time when there will be no division between God’s world and this one, when God will be all in all.

I recently made a friend. A woman who has been extremely successful in all earthly measures – friends, family and financial wealth. Over dinner one night she shared with me a story – her family story of why her family of observant Jews came to give Christmas gifts each year. Her grandmother arrived in this country in the early part of the last century from Russia. Her husband had come to the United States to escape the pogroms of Russia and to make a home for his family. When he brought his wife and children from the shetel, it was to a poor neighborhood in a foreign country. Her husband worked night and day to support his young family and this young Russian mother struggled mightily to find her way, to navigate shopping, cooking and clothing children in this new world where she spoke not a word of the language. She felt isolated and shamed by her simple habits and lack of understanding and her inability to communicate.

One day and man from her shetel in Russia arrived in the neighborhood who spoke some English. Finally she was able to communicate and ask questions about this new country, to express her fears and concerns to someone who would understand. One day she asked him, why it was that in the time following the feast of Thanksgiving people who normally pretended not to see her on the street would smile at her and greet her. Shopkeepers were more helpful, people much kinder. Used to feeling Invisible to her surrounding community, she was puzzled by this change in their behavior. “I don’t know,” he said. “I have seen it too. I think it has something to do with the birth of this little child.” “Are you joking,” she said. “The birth of that little child is why there are pogroms. That cannot be right. This doesn’t make any sense.”

So the man pointed out to her that across the street from her apartment was a church, happened to be a Baptist church, and suggested that maybe they could answer her question. So she gathered her courage – so great was her curiosity, and went across the street and in broken and halting English asked the minister there if he could explain why suddenly she was treated with such kindness. Now he had been watching this young family, knew they were struggling and from a very different culture and he too was very curious about them. He answered her as best he could. He told her that the birth of Christ marks a time for Christians of remembering the great news of life stripped down to its purest sense – that God came among us to teach us to love, to teach us to care for the most vulnerable, to show us peace for all.

As she walked back across the street, she came to the conclusion that this she would support. That if the birth of this child could make us see each other and bring peace to our world, she too would support this. So each Christmas the strong Jewish mother would gather her children and eventually her grandchildren and great grandchildren and tell them this story and give them each a small token to remind them of deep joy and profound consequences that comes from caring for each other. Just as another Jewish mother held out arms to Mary, seeing past her shame to the wonder of God’s work in the world.

To this day her observant Jewish granddaughter honors her memory and this message by sharing the story personally with her family, a strong, observant Jewish family through handwritten poems and small gifts.

Her action blesses us all.

May we all live lives of joyful witness to love so profound our God would assume the face of one born into this world, may we all live trusting that God comes among us to show us the path, blessing us by taking away all shame by welcoming all our broken places.

And we may we become a community worth of such an amazing gift.

God among us.

God beside us.

God within us.