March 23, 2022

For about the past five months or so, a dedicated group of people took on the task of studying the book of Revelation – more properly, The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John. Chapter by chapter and verse by verse we made our way through this last, strange, and mystifying book of the Bible. It is full of symbols, visions, fantastical beasts, portents from heaven, and cosmic battles. And if you're paying attention, it also has a Christmas nativity story that, not surprisingly, does not grace the cover of any Hallmark Christmas card.

We wrapped up our study this past Sunday with a general debriefing. What did you learn? What surprised you? How has your opinion of Revelation changed? It was a good discussion as we reflected on how this last book of the Bible was a beautiful and appropriate bookend to the first book of the Bible.

There were three specific things that came out of that discussion that I want to share with you all.

First, Revelation is not a revelation of horror but a revelation of good news. In this book we hear from the victorious Jesus Christ, he who is and who was and who is to come, he who is the slaughtered Lamb yet who lives for ever. We hear this eternal Christ say, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them . . . let everyone who hears say, 'Come.' And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”

In these and other passages, we hear of an overflowing love of God to his people and a desire to be reunited with humanity. That is a revelation of good news.

Second, over and over we are given glimpses of worship. In the midst of chaos, in the midst of war, at times you don't expect, angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven gather to worship the Lord. In these glimpses of heavenly worship we also see glimpses of our own earthly worship. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty . . . blessing and honor and power and might . . . and the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God . . . Amen.”

We are reminded that the main activity of the Church is to worship. In both good times and bad, we worship the Lord with the saints and all the company of heaven in the beauty of holiness. May you remember that we are all surrounded by and part of that heavenly host every time we worship.

Third, Revelation is a book of victory and comfort. In the chaos and wars and oppression that we see in this world on a daily basis, we can take comfort in the words of Desmond Tutu who, in the midst of apartheid, said, “I've read the book . . . and We Win!!” That doesn't mean that we don't struggle or that we can cease to work for good, but that Revelation reflects a transcendent view of all eternity and puts it all into perspective. It reminds us that we live lineally, but God exists now. God is and was and is to come, therefore his name is I AM. And in Revelation we glimpse the intersection of linear time and eternal time.

As we continue to move through our time and through the Season of Lent, may you remember that the Lamb who was slaughtered is the Lamb who reigns for ever and ever. And may you remember that, no matter how bad things get, we are both partners and victors with Christ in the eternal good. Amen.

March 16, 2022

Mark and I meet every Tuesday afternoon to discuss and plan Sunday services. In some ways this is not a hard thing to do because our liturgy is prescribed by the rubrics of the Prayer Book. But there are still hymns to select, optional readings to consider, and movements to plan for.

As we (hopefully) begin to come out of the COVID pandemic, and as restrictions begin to ease, Mark and I have a variety of things to consider in preparing for the service. For big services – Christmas, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints' – we pull last year's bulletin to see what we did and if there are any changes we need to make.

Yesterday he came into my office with last year's bulletins so we could look at Palm Sunday. The problem here is that this year will not look like the COVID-infested service of last year. Things are different. We are on the hopeful cusp that things will also be more open. In trying to plan for a more open service this year, we could not use last year's COVID-driven bulletin. So we asked Melonie to print the bulletin from 2019.

As he and I looked at that bulletin we came to realize that Palm Sunday 2019 happened in Year C. Palm Sunday 2022 will take place in Year C. Our “normal” Palm Sundays were interrupted by three years of some very abnormal Palm Sundays. It was hard to comprehend that it had been that long. There was also some sense of comfort as we knew we could get back to doing what we did best without having to be innovative or protective.

Hopefully we are beginning to come out of the grip of COVID. We have spent three years wandering in that wilderness looking to be nourished while also looking to remain the people we once were.

But the reality is that the wilderness changes you. It changed the Israelites from a people of slavery to a people of freedom. It changed Jesus from a carpenter's son to an itinerant preacher who proclaimed the nearness of the kingdom of God. It has changed us. We may not know to what we have been changed, but none of use have come out of the pandemic unchanged.

The Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter Day services will all feel familiar this year. There will be a comfortable feeling that we have returned to life as it was before COVID. But I challenge and warn you to avoid the temptation to return to life as it was. COVID has given us reason to question the necessity of how we do things – not only our liturgy, but things such as pay rates, prescription drug costs, and housing issues. Woe to us if we haven't learned anything from our COVID wilderness and are simply eager to return to how it used to be.

Lent is a 40-day wilderness experience. It is a time that we learn new things about ourselves and about the world around us. It is a time when we are changed. And woe to us if we come through the Lenten wilderness simply eager to return to how it used to be.

May this Lent change you, and may you live into that change as a new creation in the Lord,

Todd+

March 9, 2022

When I was in driver's ed I remember being told to “drive defensively.” In other words, I should be ready to react to any possible situation that might lead to an accident. But the more I thought about driving defensively, the more that didn't make sense to me. In almost every sport the defense reacts to what the offense does. Or, to put it another way, the defense has to wait for the offense to do something before it can act. So I began driving offensively. That is, instead of waiting for something to happen and reacting to it, I would be proactive in anticipating what might happen and plan my moves ahead of time.

This has actually saved me on more than one occasion where I was able to plan ahead so that I could proactively avoid an accident instead of being surprised and reacting to a situation, possibly making things worse.

Lent is the season of self-examination and repentance and of making right beginnings as we turn back to the Lord. In Lent we confess our sins at the beginning of the service as a way to both symbolically and honestly begin our worship in a state of absolution and grace. At other times in the year the Confession happens immediately before the Peace as a way to symbolically and honestly examine our lives and conduct so that we may share rightly in the celebration of Holy Communion.

I got to thinking about Lent and driver's ed. In a sense, the Confession is reminding us that we live our lives treating sin defensively. We react to sin by reciting the Confession: we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

This is living defensively. This is reacting to sin.

But, instead of playing defense and reacting by confessing our faults after we have sinned, what if we attacked sin offensively? What if, instead of using the Confession as a clean up after the fact, we used it as an offensive game plan? We obviously can't do this all the time; but I'm willing to bet there are a few places in our lives where we know sin lies in wait for us. Maybe, as I've said before, we know our car is possessed by the devil and we drive and/or gesture in very un-Christ-like ways. Or maybe we know our phones or computers are fertile grounds for straying from God's ways.

It might be helpful to place a copy of the Confession in those places where we know we struggle. Tape a copy to your steering wheel or to the top of your laptop. Maybe make the Confession your home/wallpaper screen on your phone. By doing this, you just might be able to proactively avoid sinning in your immediate future. By doing this, you just might be able to put sin on defense.

May you have an offensive Lent,

Todd+