Please mark your calendars. The Annual Meeting of St. George’s Church is scheduled for Sunday, February 12, 2012.

There will be one service of Holy Eucharist at 9:00 a.m., followed by a brunch and the annual meeting.

January 22, 29 & February 5: The Mechanics of the Holy Eucharist
Presented by Father Paul Allick

Do you ever wonder how the Sunday service gets put together? What are the components and where did they come from? We will go through the liturgy for Holy Eucharist in the Book of Common Prayer to understand how it came to be and what it means for us now.

January 22: Overview and Origins of the Prayer Book Holy Eucharist
January 29: The Liturgy of the Word
February 5: The Liturgy of the Table (Altar)

Many of you know that I’m always talking about the Saints. You might here me say of a certain date, “Oh, that’s the Feast of Saint so and so.” You hear me quoting the saints and telling their stories in sermons. Why this obsession with the Saints? Why do I know when Saint so and so’s feast day is? Isn’t that a “catholic” thing?

By “catholic” I assume we mean Roman Catholic. Anglicans and Lutherans like the Romans and the Orthodox observe Saints days. Look in your Book of Common Prayer and you will see a whole calendar of them.

I follow the Saints because I want to know how to follow Jesus better. We don’t “pray to saints.” We remember their lives and how they served the Lord. We can ask them to pray for us so that we will learn how to serve the Lord.

Today I am thinking St. Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus. This third Sunday of Advent is called “Rose Sunday” or “Refreshment Sunday.” It is a time when we break our Advent fast. It is traditional on this Sunday to sing or recite the Magnificat, the Song of Mary. It is the song she sings in the Gospel of Luke after she accepts the call to be the mother of the Messiah. We recite the Magnificat daily at Evening Prayer.

Mary begins her song, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.”

Every baptized person is a saint and every saint is a servant of the Lord. To be a saint doesn’t mean to be perfect; it means to be striving to be a faithful servant of God. We don’t simply honor other Saints, we imitate them.

Through our Baptism we join a long line of the Lord’s servants. It begins with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then the whole people Israel became the Servant of the Lord. Their vocation was to witnesses to all
nations that there was one God Almighty. They were evangelists of his Law. They were witnesses to a new way of life in a covenantal relationship with God.

Then came Jesus Christ, the pure Servant of the Lord. In his Gospel he gives us the way into the kingdom of God. Now we have the Baptismal Covenant so that we would know how to live in a wholesome relationship with God and each other.

Now we as a whole people become the Servant of the Lord. We are the Church, Christ’s Body on earth. We are a holy nation and a royal priesthood. Now we are called to witness to all nations baptizing them  in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

So each of us, like Mary, are now an individual Servant of the Lord within a whole community of servants. Mary being part of the people Israel and we being part of the Church. We are individual Servants of the Lord within the whole Communion of Saints, bound together in sacrament, prayer and praise.

The Prophet Isaiah tells us what it is to be a Servant of the Lord. We are anointed to go out and to heal, to build, and when necessary to rebuild, the community and the holy places. We are to be known as the holy people of God.

We servant saints are called to be different than the world around us. We treat each other differently. We gather on special days and celebrate the Holy Eucharist. We see life and death differently.

The Body is only as strong in its witness as its individual members. St. Paul gives instructions in how to stand out as a Servant of the Lord. He writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” We never let our spirits be quenched because God’s Holy Spirit can never be quenched.

Paul prays for all of us servant saints, “May the God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our souls proclaim the greatness of the Lord and our spirits rejoice in God our Savior because he has fulfilled his promise. He has sent Jesus Christ into our lives. Living now with Christ we are not perfect. We are striving to serve him and each other as he serves us.

The most important aspect of being a Servant of the Lord, both as individuals and as a community, we learn from St. John the Baptist. People are asking him, “Who are you? Are you Elijah? Are you the Messiah?” John says, “I am not the light. I am the servant of the light. None of my work is about me. I do it all in order to lead others to Jesus. I’m just here baptizing with water. Wait until you see what he can do for you. Jesus must increase and I must decrease.”

This Season of Advent begins the New Year in the Church. In this new year each of us is invited to renew our commitment to be a Servant of the Lord. He is about to re-enter our lives at Christmastide. Are we ready to serve as he serves?

Don’t you love it when something dawns on you? You are trying to figure something out: a technical problem with a machine, a conflicted relationship, or trying to remember something and then it dawns on you. What a feeling of relief! I’ve got it!

This is what we are invited to be about during Advent. We are waiting for all of the creativity, logic, and truth of the universe to dawn on us. We are waiting to understand what God is about and what he wants from us. We slowly light these Advent Candles, week by week, waiting until all the light dawns upon us and we spark the Christ Candle. Then it all makes sense again.

We are a people who walk in darkness. We are forever trying to figure out the practical, emotional and spiritual challenges of our lives. We come here to find God’s direction. His direction is here but it doesn’t always come magically or in an instant. More often it unfolds slowly as we give our hearts over to Jesus.

The Word of the Lord, the logos, all of the sincerity and authenticity of the universe is coming to us in the person of Jesus Christ. In Advent we practice waiting for it. It comes to us over and over in our lives. But we have to prepare a way for it.

St. John the Baptist was sent into the world to show us how to prepare the way for the Lord to come into our hearts. He cries out to us. He warns us to repent, to return to the Lord. Turn back from that road of self-reliance you are on and give it all back to God. He tells us to confess our sins. Only when we admit our own failings can we see how much we need God. It’s easy and ultimately destructive to see the sins of others. It’s difficult and ultimately liberating to admit our own.

John came into the world through a miracle. His parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah were an elderly couple. Like Sarah and Abraham they were well beyond their child bearing years.

Zechariah did not believe the vision he received that he and Elizabeth would have a son who would proclaim the coming of the Messiah. Like most of us, Zechariah did not agree with God’s methods. He could not conceive in his heart and mind that God would fulfill his promises in any way God saw fit.

Zechariah was struck silent. He could not speak until after John was born. Perhaps the Lord had decided that Zechariah had done enough talking. Now he needed to listen. He needed to wait for this truth of God to unfold.

As soon as the boy is born and Zechariah gives him the proper name, his lips our opened again. He sings out a song about his son and about God. It is the Benedictus we recite at Morning Prayer: Blessed be the Lord…he has come to set his people free just as he promised by his prophets of old. (Book of Common Prayer 1979, pp. 92-93)

Zechariah now understands that the wisdom of God which the prophets of his people had been trying to explain to them was now coming in the form of a man. Jesus Christ, God incarnate in human language and action, would reveal God’s direction. Zechariah was forced to get quiet, to watch and wait. Now it is all coming clear.

Zechariah sings about his son: John you are going to give the people knowledge of salvation by showing them how to confess their sins and get right with God again. The dawn from on high is going to break upon us and shine on all of us who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. Now our feet can be guided into the way of peace. (Book of Common Prayer 1979, pp. 92-93)

St. John tells us that one is coming who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit. It is the same Spirit that hovered over the waters bringing forth creation and giving us breath. It is the same Spirit spoken through the Prophets.

The Prophets of old were not fortune tellers. They were not handing out horoscopes. They were signaling warnings. They told the people, “This is where you are in our lives. This is how far you have drifted from your relationship with the Lord. You need to re-examine your priorities.” The prophets told the future in the sense that they warned of the coming consequences of not staying in a devoted and reverential relationship with God.

This Season of Advent can be a time of prophecy in our own lives as we examine our spiritual health. We need to get quiet and listen to the Lord, to ourselves and to others.

The life of faith is a process. As we keep turning back to the Lord his truth keeps dawning on us. As we turn back to the Lord, we come to understand ourselves and others in a new light. This is the process until that final day when we stand before our heavenly judge with all of the saints and angels. With them we sing, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.”

When we get there we want to be able to say, “Eureka! I get it! The dawn from on high has broken upon me! Lord Jesus, I am so glad I put you first in my life while I was on earth!”

I am not good at waiting. When I was a child waiting for Christmas was pure torture. When I am at an appointment and people are late I start tapping my feet. But lately, with the help of a steady prayer life, I am learning to take to take advantage of waiting.

When I am sitting in the doctor’s office and the wait is getting to me I’ve learned to take the time to breathe and think about God. Waiting in a grocery line I’ve learned to enjoy watching all the children of God around me to see what they are up to. Waiting in traffic I’ve learned to say a memorized prayer or to enjoy some music.

Waiting is becoming less of an aggravation for me and more of an opportunity. It is a chance to stop, get still and remember the goodness of God.

In this Season of Advent we have an opportunity to practice waiting on the Lord. We are for the birth of Christ. How do we wait and what are we waiting for?

In the Gospel today Jesus’ disciples are anxious; they are tired of waiting on him. When is it all going to be fulfilled? When will his kingdom take hold? Jesus can’t tell them. Only the Father knows the time. They must keep awake. They must hurry up and wait.

He tells them that his generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Is Jesus wrong? Certainly those disciples have long ago passed away and the kingdom has not come on earth. Jesus is not wrong. God does not see time and space the way we do.

We are still in the generation which Jesus speaks of. Jesus left this earth 2,000 years ago but what is that to God? What is a generation to God? We are living in the generation in between Christ’s birth and death and his coming again.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in the 12^th century, taught that there are three comings (or advents) of the Lord. First he comes in our flesh and our weakness to offer us redemption. Second he comes in a hidden way, in spirit and power to offer us consolation. Third he comes in glory to offer us an irrevocable eternal life.

You and I live in that time of his second advent. It is an intermediate time. St. Bernard says it is like a road we travel in between the other two advents.

We are in a generation which hopes and watches. We are in a generation in which we rely on a continuing revealing of Christ and who we are as his Church. Jesus told us to watch for signs of the kingdom now. It is just like watching the trees lose their leaves, and then we know that winter is on its way.

So how do we live well as this generation? We learn how to wait on the Lord. We learn how to do this well as we practice it in little ways. We practice in the doctor’s office and in traffic. Then we move onto the more important forms of waiting.

Waiting on the Lord means being devoted to our religious life. Our whole waiting on the Lord is what we do in our ongoing participation in the life of Mother Church. We wait well as we fully engage in the seasons, feasts and fasts of the Church year. We wait well as we offer our communal worship in dignity and beauty. We wait well as we work to advance the mission of the Church. And all of this waiting well is dependent on the strength of our private prayer life.

St. Paul prayed for the Christians in Corinth that they would lack nothing in spiritual gifts as they wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are being enriched in Christ in speech and knowledge of every kind as they faithfully live out their religion together.

St. Bernard said that we wait well in this in-between time by keeping God’s word close to our hearts. Jesus says that everything will eventually pass away but his words will never pass away.

We gather around his word in this Holy Eucharist. We encounter his word as we come together for prayer and study. We want to be ready for his third coming.

The prophet Isaiah prays on behalf of the people Israel. They also were in an in-between time: in and out of exile; building and rebuilding the Temple. He prays to the Lord, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” This is our prayer as we traverse this veil of tears, this life that gets so frustrating and painful sometimes. We, too, get tired of waiting on the Lord to act.

We are in-between. We are in-between the works of darkness and the armor of light, in-between Christ’s great humility and his glorious majesty, in-between this mortal life and rising to our life immortal.

It is hard to wait here but Mother Church has given us so many good gifts of prayer, worship, study and fellowship to do it well. Let’s not see this waiting as a burden but enjoy it for all that it offers for the illumination of our souls.

Reference: From a Sermon by St. Bernard, Abbott

                   Liturgy of the Hours, Volume I, pp.169-170

                    Catholic Book Publishing Corp., New York 1975

The tyrants are at it again. We’ve seen them all through history. The tyrants of today are on display in the news. Their brutality and insanity shock and disgust us. The one in Libya has been murdered by his own people. Assad in Syria is being challenged by the leaders of the Arab League.

Brutal dictators have one thing in common: they are their own gods. They see themselves as the one person who knows what is best for all people.

In 1925 Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical establishing the Feast of Christ the King. This is the Feast we observe today. This day started in the Roman Communion but the rest of us, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians have adopted it.

Pius established this Feast out of concerns in his time. He was concerned with the rise of secularism and nationalism. He was concerned that throughout Europe respect for the authority of the Church was waning while nationalism and the rise of dictators were growing. People seemed to be leaving off faith in spiritual matters and putting all of their hope in the power human leaders.

Pius wrote, “The kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things.” He explains how one enters the Kingdom. It is, “one which men prepare to enter by penance, and cannot actually enter except by faith and by baptism, which, though and external rite, signifies and produces an interior regeneration.”

When we repent, accept Christ as our Savior and then are baptized we are accepting Christ’s rule. We no longer are the lord of our lives. We open ourselves to an interior regeneration; we are transformed into something new.

The heart of sin is following our own wills instead of God’s will. All of the tyranny and brutality of this world is born in the human heart. It begins small, inside each of us. We begin to think that our wills are superior to everyone else’s. We fall into a toxic individualism. We no longer see our neighbors as children of God. We no longer see their hopes and dreams or their hurts and fears. We see only our needs and worries. We become little tyrants causing havoc all around us.

And in the end it all comes back on us.

Jesus tells us that he is returning in the end to separate the sheep from the goats. I’ve been around sheep and goats. Sheep are docile and obedient. Goats are fiercely independent and extremely unpredictable. Goats operate on their own will. Sheep wait for the voice of their shepherd to show them where the good pasture is. Sheep find it and are fed with good things. Goats roam around the yard eating metal cans and clothes hanging on the line.

Goats say, “I don’t follow any official doctrine or religion. I’ve picked what I like and put together my own spirituality.” Sheep have the good sense to follow the one who knows what they need. Sheep give themselves over to doctrine and belief and try to understand it. They are not fearful of authority or of obedience.

We pray as Jesus taught us: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” To know and to become part of Christ’s kingdom is to know and become part of God’s will. Every major decision we make, every conflict we find ourselves in, and every joy we experience should be turned back to God through prayer.

This is exactly the kind of obedience Jesus showed toward the Father.

When we give ourselves over to the Lord’s will through fasting, penance and prayer then the danger of becoming little tyrants is minimized.

This past Wednesday we observed the Feast of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland. Margaret was an English princess who married Malcolm the King of Scotland around the year 1070. Her rule was not one of tyranny because she was a woman of faith in Christ. Her rule was about reform and renewal.

She helped reform the Church. She was concerned with the careless practices of the Scottish clergy. She insisted that the Church in Scotland conform to the proscribed liturgies of the Church Catholic. She encouraged the founding of schools, hospitals and orphanages.  She worked to end the bloody warfare between among the highland clans.

She wasn’t successful in all of her endeavors but her efforts and her holy life made her one of Scotland’s most beloved Saints.

So it seems that sheep aren’t timid, helpless, and ineffectual. It seems that the meek that stand under the authority of Christ actually become strong beacons of hope and renewal instead of tyranny and brutality.

It’s hard for us to become little tyrants when we already have a King of Love ruling our hearts and minds.

References:

St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1093 Less Feasts and Fasts 1997, Church Publishing Incorporated New York

Quas primas, Pope Pius XI, 1925 from the Vatican Online Library

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30
The Reverend Paul D. Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, November 13, 2011

At a Diocesan Convention a few years ago I found myself getting agitated as the debate over the Diocesan Budget was going on and on and on. Fortunately I was sitting next to a very funny priest who looked at me and asked, “Is this hell? Am I in hell?”

Perhaps this was a bit of an exaggeration but it did feel like an endless punishment. We’ve heard the saying, “This is hell on earth.” An elder in my family used to say, “Everyone is going to heaven because there is too much hell on this earth.”

However, hell is losing its popularity. More and more I hear people putting forward the idea that there is no hell. Everyone is going to heaven. I really hope this is true. But I still believe in hell. I have never met anyone that I thought was going there but I still believe it exists.

If there is a heaven and a hell how do we get there? Jesus tells us today in his parable. He says the kingdom of heaven is like a man who goes on a journey and entrusts his money to three of his servants. Two of them take the money and make more. One of them out of fear hides his in the ground. The lord is furious. He takes the one talent from the fearful servant and gives it to the one who made ten talents.

Jesus tells us that those who have will get even more and those who have little will lose what they have. The fearful, cautious servant is thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What does this all mean? It means that God has given us everything we have. Beyond all of the material things, which we tend to focus on, God has given us life. Every breath we take is a gift of God. Every breath is the Spirit of God which he blew across the waters creating life. It is the Spirit that animates us. What are we doing with it?

Even the faith we have whether it is strong and big or faint and hopeful, God gave us that as well. What are we doing with our lives and our faith? Are we multiplying our blessings or are we hiding or worse are we hoarding them?

If we don’t know how to recognize the gifts of life and faith then we are going to feel like this life is hell. We are going to be constantly experiencing weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Our Catechism teaches us that by heaven we mean eternal life in our enjoyment of God. By hell we mean eternal death in our rejection of God. (Book of Common Prayer, p.861)  So rather than being physical places, heaven and hell are states of being. Therefore just as there can be hell on earth there can be heaven too.

If we are living our lives only for ourselves we will be in hell. If our lives are based on our fears, regrets and resentments then all we will ever know is death and despair. But if our lives are given back to God, if we are constantly repenting and returning to the Lord then we will see life in a new way. If we learn how to step back and breathe instead of lunging forward in reactivity then our lives will begin to multiply and grow.

We get to choose. We can reject God in our lives. We can put our religious life on our priority list as just another item or we can put it at the center of everything else. We can enjoy God now by developing a life of prayer and by being intentionally present to our Christian community and our worship life.

The people Zephaniah is preaching to brought all of their problems upon themselves. They had left off worshipping God and started worshipping themselves and the idols of the culture around them.

St. Paul reminds the Church in Thessalonica that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. To be prepared for that day is to stay awake in hope and faith and love.

All of us already have eternal life. It began when we were born. It is now in this moment. This life isn’t hell. It is a training ground. This life is difficult because we aren’t quite to the fullness of our being yet. But we will never get to that fullness until we learn how to tap into the kingdom of heaven now.

Now, now is the day of salvation. Now is when we can learn to love others as God loves us. We can turn to him daily through prayer and study. We can join with other Christians to study his word and pray for each other. Now we can be here at every opportunity to participate in the mysteries of the Holy Eucharist.

We have everything we need inside of us to know and enjoy the Lord.

We have opportunities in this parish for worship, prayer and study.  We are here to grow up in Christ. We cannot do that haphazardly or for one hour on Sunday. We have to do it daily at home and as often as possible here in community.

I am not here today to give you hell. I am trying to give you some heaven.

Join us for a potluck brunch following the 10:15 a.m. service!

Watch for a signup sheet to be posted in the parish hall in November.