Look
Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
The Feast of the Epiphany
January 5, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
My daughter called a few days ago and asked what my word is.  She has this thing about New Year’s and the incipient tradition of making resolutions.  She has a better way to look forward, which is nice because the whole resolution thing is based on a reasonable urge to be more: healthier, kinder, structured, organized, or disciplined.  If we watch whatever is being advertised, we can use that as a bellwether for what the vast swath of humanity seeks.  This time of year, it is diet and exercise.  Somebody somewhere told me that 98 percent of all resolutions relate to that.  That sounds about right when I see Weight Watchers, Whole 30, Keto, Noom, Peleton, and gym membership promotion dominate the mass of marketing.  Does anyone else find that exercise mirror that sees into your home workout to be a little creepy?  The irony, of course, is that to be less, we are supposed to get and do more to be more.
 
Rather than all of that, my daughter asks me what my word is.  Just come up with one word, she urges, that encapsulates a need, a quest, and longing as reminder.  Write it down.  Post it at home to see daily.  Use it to frame prayers, thoughts, actions, and intentions.  Brilliant.  Simple.  Free. And freeing.
 
We begin the season of Epiphany today.  There’s a word.  It is a word of new light and new revelation.  An epiphany is an “aha” moment.  It is a sudden understanding brought on through an everyday observation, that somehow made makes deep truth clearer and more poignant.  This is completely apt and appropriate for a new year and all that is to come.  The Church’s observation of the season begins with the old story of the wise men, the magi, strangers from the far east, arriving at the court of King Herod.  They have seen a star rising and interpreted it as a sign for them to seek the child king who is to save the world. 
 
So, there they are, in front of the literal King of the Jews, Herod, interpreting his own tradition for him, and telling him that there is one greater than he now born into the world.  This does not go well for the political King’s ego and aspirations.  Herod sends for the traveling party and asks them when exactly this sign appeared and tells them to go on a mission for him and send word when they find this child, so he may also go and pay him homage.  Of course, he does not want to do that.  He wants to root out any threat to his power and authority.  He tries to co-opt the wise men as stooges for his scheme.  Such is the way in the nefarious world of pretense and posturing.
 
Nevertheless, off they go, and when they find the child, they worship, celebrate, and give symbolic gifts:  Gold for kingship, frankincense for prayer and worship to God, and myrrh as an embalming spice to cover the stench of the death he will die.  That is a lot for a little kid, and hardly practical, but these guys are in the foreshadowing business as seers and seekers.
 
All of this is part the holy “aha” of Jesus’ birth.  Mary found out when Gabriel told her about her expectant condition.  Joseph found out in a dream.  The shepherds found out when the angels came to them in the fields.  And now, those who were nowhere near the same zip code at the time of the birth, those who are not of the Hebrew faith or tradition, those who do not have a stake in the politics of Herodian succession arrive and see for themselves.  And their delight and amazement come through this new look at power and authority.  Love in person is made personal.  This Jesus is not a local phenom, particular to one religious tradition.  He is the cosmic force of God.
 
Their story is a powerful nudge for us to look at our story.  We come to Church for all kinds of reasons.  We come here to anchor our lives in prayer and praise.  We come here to be together and life one another up to light and life.  We come to eat breakfast and/or nosh at coffee hour.  In all of this we touch something far greater and far more crucial.  We come to accept the power of a living Christ in our lives.  And as we do so, there are epiphanies aplenty to be found in living our lives differently. 
 
About now, we have looked back over a year of many challenges and changes.  We have contemplated the transition from one decade to the next, or for some, argued about whether the decade really changes this year or next.  No matter, the world has changed, is changing, and will continue to spin on its uneven axis of malformed priorities, outsized expectations, and false fronts of power and success.  And at this moment, this Epiphany, we have the opportunity to throw all of the useless calls for more on the trash heap of idolatry, and claim the One, the Source, the Christ as the center and ground of all our being and becoming.  God does not love if because we of what we do.  God loves us because that is what God does.
 
To get hung up on the world and its weary ways is to join in old Herod’s mania of scarcity, threats, and self-serving manipulation.  But in the words of a great James Taylor song:
 
Those magic men the Magi, some people call them wise or Oriental, even kings.
Well anyway, those guys, they visited with Jesus, they sure enjoyed their stay.
Then warned in a dream of King Herod's scheme, they went home by another way…
Maybe me and you can be wise guys too and go home by another way.
We can make it another way, safe home as they used to say.
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high and go home another way.
 
A word of encouragement I received this season really stuck with me through much of other noise of retrospectives and resolutions.  It is this: “Remember that you once dreamed of being where you are now.”  Certainly, my life and none of our lives are not perfect, but the life we have is what we have been given as gift, sign, and opportunity.  To be here among you is a gift.  Look at this place and at you all.  The sign of hope is our common and growing life as Jesus people.  Look at our mission and ministry, growing in joy.  The opportunity is to live that out with fierce love, dogged acceptance, and deep peace.  Look how different we can be without acquiring or doing more.

I have really thought about my word.  My word is look.  I have written it down.  It is on the bulletin board with the pictures of family and friends, the calendar, and the save the date cards for family weddings.  It is a good word that I need to see every day for faith, wellbeing, and wonder. There is much to see, and I will to look up, look out, and look alive in Christ.  My word is look.  What is yours?  

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Christmas Eve, 9:00PM
December 24, 2019
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
It was a large and diverse parish church with many, many children from overachieving families.  Long before I served there, the leadership had made the decision to have a no rehearsal, high participation pageant on Christmas Eve.  It was a brilliant theological happening.  We had a new, young family who had had an October baby play Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.  They took their places and as we told the story, we invited anyone who wanted to participate to come forward.  We advertised ahead of time for children to come as whoever they wanted to be in the Christmas story.  We had a big trash can full of shepherd’s staffs, boxes of halo head pieces, and, lots of glittery stars on long sticks to hold up and twinkle.  We had the acolytes prepared and placed strategically to heard and help as necessary.
 
As the whole thing unfolded, we had numbers of young people in bathrobes, some with painted on sheep noses, and some good cow costumes complete with utters.  But because we invited all comers, we had many princesses, three Power Rangers, one Spiderman, two Supermen, a Ninja Turtle, and a lobster.  That night stands out as unforgettable for this veteran priest and pageant director.  And in the end, I do not believe that experience was as far from the heart of the Christmas story as we might think.
 
Our pictures of the manger scene are particular, traditional, and artfully arranged.  Renaissance artists depict a decidedly European looking holy family, a fat cherubic Christ Child, and a cleaned up bunch of shepherds.  Our crèche scenes depict a lonely and isolated couple in the manger, with reclining bovines and a few fluffy white sheep.  For sure, Joseph and Mary bore the hardship of traveling just before the delivery, and they were far from home when the time came.  Adding to that, their encounters with dreams and angels, telling them of the miracle of this child’s conception left them amazed and wondering, while their friends and relatives were, more likely, skeptical.  So their solitude in carrying this part of the story is poignant for sure.
 
There is another line of sight into the crèche, though.  In first century Bethlehem, homes were two to three rooms at most.  There was the family room where everyone sheltered and slept.  And there was the other room, where the animals were housed and fed.  If there was a third room, it was a luxury for visitors and extended family that did not fit in the main lodging.  Some homes had that additional space on the roof.  The inns of the day were more like air b and bs. For travelers in a culture noted for its hospitality, a few spare rooms were let out, but mostly, there were just provided gratis for guests or travelers.
 
As the story goes, Joseph and Mary went down to Bethlehem to be enrolled.  We know they were not orphans, and as they made the trip to be counted with their family, it is likely that they had a large and extended one, as almost all people did back in their day.  Quirinius’ census was really just a big, bureaucratic invite to a family reunion.  No wonder there were no rooms in the inn, or the guest room, or spare room or wherever.  The stable where Joseph and Mary lodged was overflow shelter before the days of air mattresses.  And it makes sense that this stable where Jesus was born was part of the extended family’s home.  And if Jesus birth was like any other first century birth there would have been village midwives helping out, uncles and aunties listening from the other room, and lots of squealing children awaiting an new cousin.
 
While the script focuses on the main characters, the part we might consider here is that there were lots of extras on the scene.  Births were then as they are now, occasions for concern and celebration all at once.  The addition to new life in a family is always life changing and more than a little miraculous.  And birth is one of the most faith-affirming moments, assuring us that our Creator God is not done with humanity, but still working miracles among us.
 
This birth of Jesus, the child of the Holy Spirit, God made human, Emmanuel, God with us, is a particular and unique event that changes human and history so much -- that we mark all of time around its happening.  Jesus’ otherness is what we will see and experience as we tell and live with the rest of his story.  It is a matter of theological mystery a lifetime of faithful wonderment.  The greatness of Jesus is also his us-ness: his birth and belonging in an extended family, his vulnerability in being delivered through skilled and compassionate hands, and the fact that from day one, he is surrounded by those who help him thrive and care for him as one of us.
 
So this Christmas, why not add to the crèche scene. Add an extended family, a few health care providers, and excited children, dressed as whoever they want to be.  And while we are at it, we might include our own likeness in there was well.  For this child Jesus to grow and thrive in this world, God needs us too.
 
If you come this evening as a regular or a guest, welcome to your family of God.  We all play a part in this pageant.  No role in bringing Jesus to life in this world is ever insignificant.  And if we ever think that God has given up on the world, we tell God’s birth story and affirm that hope is still being born, awe and wonder are very much alive, and God is still delivering love in person.  Amen.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Advent IV, Year A
December 22, 2019
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
This is the only time of year that I really look forward to going to the mailbox.  During the rest of the year, the box is filled with waxy advertisements, bills, and things pretending to be personal letters that are trying to sell me insurance or a reverse mortgage.  But this time of year, we receive missives from the far reaches of the many places we have lived, from dear friends, and family we do not see as much as we would like.  It is good time to catch up and correct our address list.  It is a good time to remember good times and important connections through the years.  And of course, we love to see the family photos.  Aside from big funerals and weddings, this is our most connective time of year.
 
Inevitably, we receive a number of Christmas letters: you know, those narrative annual family biographies that catalog fabulous trips, successful children, and over achieving grandchildren.  My dear friend, first boss, and mentor, The Rev. Dr. Matt Currin used to write his unabashedly proud letter about his life, ministry, and family, until the year he died.  He devoted a paragraph to his dear wife, and one for each of his three sons and their families.  All of them received completely glowing accolades.  The final paragraph, he wrote about himself, but he maintained the third person voice as if some outside reporter had crafted the letter.  It would go something like this:  “This year, Matt has finished a new book on the history of the parish, exceeded all stewardship goals, quit smoking (again), and lost over three inches on his waist.  He continues to be a leader as the senior clergy person and longest serving rector in the diocese.”  Of course, I teased him unmercifully, about his style and revisionist perspective.  I called it ‘the epistle from the holy family of Pensacola.’
 
I should not cast too many stones here.  I have written such letters and attempted to hit the high points of our family life.  At Thanksgiving for many years, we have shined up the kids, brushed up the dogs, and made ourselves look merry and bright for the annual Christmas card shoot.  Many of you have done the same, as you should, for we have much to celebrate in gratitude.
 
But let’s not fool ourselves.  We all know that just before that tie got tied or that hair was perfectly arranged, there were threats, arguments about wardrobe, and endless retakes while the turkey and stuffing got cold.  He pinched her, she punched him, the dog had just thrown up a piece of a deer carcass, and we could not figure out how to work that ten second camera delay so that last person to make it into the picture.  And if we wrote the letter, in first second, or third person, we left out personal and professional disappointments, lackluster grades, theater parts not received, and the inevitable college rejection letters that go along with the acceptances.
 
Added to the normal pressures of life, we find ourselves in a driving narrative of curated perfection and achievement.  Tools that used to be reserved for glossy airbrushing magazine photographers are now simple apps, wherein glow can be enhanced and wrinkles can be faded through a simple filtered setting.
 
As we approach the beauty and grandeur of Christmas, we do find a whole tradition of art and imagery that is also glorified and scrubbed clean.  The Christmas card that we sent all of you depicts a perfectly pudgy Christ child, swaddled in bright white, and clean, full, and lively adoring faces.  We send and receive serene images of winter scenes and good wishes for peace on earth and good will to all absent any sense of rancor, division, or stress.  Such images transmit the beauty and calm we seek and that for which we hope and long.
 
And yet, our gospel story for today, reminds us that all was not calm, all was not bright, all was not neat, tidy, and perfect, at least not in the process of bringing God to earth in person.  As the story goes, Mary and Joseph were engaged, but not cohabiting.  Mary was found to be with child.  Scandal, impropriety, and shame generally followed such a discovery.  Ordinarily, Mary brought to account and, potentially, stoned publicly.  But Joseph was a good guy.  He conceived of a subtle and gentle separation.  But then, he had a dream, not a burning bush, a whirlwind, or a thunder from heaven, but a dream, telling them this child was of the Holy Spirit, fulfilling an ancient prophecy predicting the birth of God among all humanity.
 
We are so used to that part of the pageant that we underestimate how much of a load both Mary and Joseph had to bear publicly and privately.  They had plenty of friends and lots of extended family, as all people did, and they were not learning of this from annual letters or curated photos, they were all around them.  Can you imagine Joseph telling his buddies at the carpenter shop that Mary’s baby was of the Holy Spirit?  Yeah, right, tell us another one Joseph.
 
Matthew starts this telling with the heads up “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.”  And Matthew is particular about the no marital relations business right there in the Bible. And this getting married anyway, is what we would call a shotgun wedding.  This is not all beatific looking, is all really messy.  That’s right, the way Jesus the Messiah, that glowing little Christ cherub came to be in the world was and is a matter of biological impossibility, even for the first century folk who definitely knew where babies came from.  It took a leap of faith, hard questioning, and deeply embarrassing appearances that had to be maintained and sustained against all standard and acceptable practices and norms.  Our Holy Family was stuck together with bailing twine and duct tape on the hope of a dream and a revelation to Mary that no one else saw or understood.  And that is where God is, right there in the messiness of unknowing and questionable provenance.
 
We are right there with them too.  We are not Hallmark people and our homes are not those of Martha Stewart or Real Simple design.  The God of all creation -- the God who sees us, seeks us, and saves us -- comes to us and lives among us in the context of all kinds of crazy circumstances.  We are not perfect, and we are not called to be perfect, rather we are being brought to perfection because God loves us enough to meet us where we are.
 
On Advent IV, the Sunday before Christmas, we might as well go ahead and curate imperfection as much as we seek to look good on the outside.  It is not only ok to embrace the messiness of life, it is right in line with the story we so revere.  As we gaze on those beautiful families who send us greetings, as we hear of fabulous vacations, and milestones attained, we do well to remember that we are all a mixed bag of holiness and humanity.  There is always a backstory that is more complicated than we see.  It was true for Mary and Joseph.  It is embedded in the one called Emmanuel – God with us.  It is our story too. 

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Advent 2, Year A
December 8, 2019
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
As the sunlight faded on the Friday after Thanksgiving, a few of us were here preparing for a David and Arline’s wedding.  As we discussed details, four young people came in the front door of the church.  I assumed that they were coming for the wedding, but they were not dressed for it.  As they entered, I greeted them and introduced myself. 
 
One of them said “We saw the lights on, and this beautiful church, and decided to stop.  Is it ok if we come in and look around?”
 
“Of course,” I said, and then asked them about themselves.  It turns out they had met up in Charlottesville to carpool back to college at American University in DC.  What struck me was how at ease they were together and in talking with me, a perfect stranger, in a collar.  Not only that, they looked like a poster for the United Nations.  One was white and blonde, another was black, another was Asian, and another was Hispanic.  I inquired further and they said they were all friends from school and of different faiths.  And finally, I asked, “What made you stop here?”
 
“Well,” one of them said, “we were are headed back to school to take exams, we have been with our families for several days, and we all agreed that we needed to seek a little peace.” 
 
At that, I told them to seek away and left them to wander.  They came up front and looked back at the organ.  They walked up to the altar and looked up, wide eyed, and out the window.  They stood silently for a time and then talked quietly among themselves, and after a few minutes they thanked me for the welcome.  I walked them outside and paused with them to ask a prayer for God’s peace and blessing on their journey and they headed back to college.
 
Now, I am not much of a magical thinker, but I am just mystic enough to believe God sends us messengers on our journey of faith.  After I had spent the week before reading somewhat dismal Pew Research statistics on young people and their relative disaffiliation with faith, in come these really diverse young people seeking peace – in church!  Reflecting back, I was reminded that Church really does have something crucial to offer our fragmented culture.  We make spaces for reflection, reconnection, and aspiration.  We offer a message of love, reconciliation, healing, and helping in a far too callous and sound bit pattern of public discourse.  For some good reason, the Spirit intervened in these young people’s lives and brought them here -- to receive a message of peace, but also to remind me of its sticking power and importance.
 
In making this journey through Advent, we hover in the already but not yet-ness of God’s interaction with the world.  The reason we slow it down is to listen.  And this week’s lessons are all about listening to some of God’s messengers.  Isaiah talks about a shoot or sprout coming out of the long left for dead legacy of the great King David.  St. Paul echoes the Isaiah text and gives the persecuted church in Rome a pep talk on believing in the future even if things seem dark and difficult.  And then we get to John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness.  He is not the kind of guy you want at your family dinner party as lays waste to anyone who believes their family, tribe, nation, or particularized theology guarantees them a spot on God’s good side, automatically.   John’s rant sets up a future where the world to come is turned inside out and upside down.  He is right about the radical thing God will do in sending Jesus.  But the Holy One he predicts we will come to know is not exactly what he portends.   John is a little harsh about that God’s judgment and notably short of God’s grace, but hey, he is on a roll, and he gets everyone’s attention.  He is a messenger, but he is not the message.
 
When I was an undergraduate college student at the University of the South, we had this crusty old athletic trainer that had been there for at least 60 years.  He was not of the modern sports medicine ilk of athletic trainer, he was of the rub your ankle, tape you up tight, and put you back in the fight kind of athletic trainer.  He was more like a combat medic than anything.  Nevertheless, he was legendary.  He had recalled when our little division three college was a football powerhouse in the South (In 1899, Sewanee went 12 and 0, beating Texas A&M, Texas, Tulane, LSU, and Ole Miss in the span of six days… and as the story goes, on the seventh day, they rested).  As much as our trainer took care of athletes, he was also a teller of stories and a keeper of history.
 
Inevitably, sportswriters and students would ask the trainer about the most important game the University ever played.  With an encyclopedic knowledge of the past, eyewitness experience, and generations of contests he had seen, without hesitation he would say;  “The most important game for the University is the one coming up.”  He may have been nostalgic, but he was also practical.  Every season, on just about every team, that message was delivered like a mantra.  The most important challenge we face is the one coming up.
 
It is not a long leap to apply this to the messengers of Advent.  While they are rooted in a rich and deep tradition of covenant worship of the living God, they tell us that God is about to do a new thing.  In the person and work of Jesus, God grabs hold of us, showing us different ways to think about power, different ways to live in faith, and challenging ways to be people of love.
 
We worship in a parish that began meeting in 1860.  The buildings were built over time, and renovated over more time.  There have been 19 rectors.  Some stayed only a few years because the money was not there.  Others stayed for many years and ministered through generations of people.  Even though they have long since moved on Marston and LaRue and are folks many of our people remember.  I feel a kinship with them already as I have read their stores and memoirs.  Together with Mulally and Garcia, they are part of our story and part of our history. And that is just the clergy.  George Ellinger is 106 years old and living in Waynesboro.  He was a local realtor and Senior Warden in 1942… and about 30 years after that!  This was before term limits.
 
The messengers of Advent: the young people who came here seeking peace last weekend, the prophets of old, the gospel of now – all of them urge us to a deeper and most important purpose.  Our mission is to seek, serve, and glorify God in Christ in the world that is now and the world that is to come.  With past as prologue, we are the people God has at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Greenwood, Virginia.  Our message is that of peace, healing, and help for a broken world so desperately in need of God’s grace.  It is good work.  It is God’s work.  It is our work too.  Amen.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Advent 1, Year A
December 1, 2019
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
For a number of years, we lived in Sewanee, Tennessee.  Sewanee is an interesting place.  It is a mix of Appalachia and academia with an Episcopal boarding school, an Episcopal liberal arts college, and an Episcopal seminary, all on top of a plateau in an impressive collection of gothic sandstone buildings.  The “Chapel” there rivals most cathedrals in its beauty.  The whole rhythm of the place flows the church year as much as the academic calendar.  I refer to it as the nations only Episcopal theme park.  It is almost too much at times.
 
While I was head of the prep school, we lived in this tight little community among undergraduates, professors, seminarians, and a reputable group of biblical and theological scholars.  Among them was the legendary The Rev. Dr. Robert Hughes, an immensely tall man with an Abe Lincoln beard and a stern visage.  Hughes taught New testament Bible and Preaching, but everyone there knew him as the chief of the Advent police force.
 
A little background:  Advent is our season before Christmas wherein we light candles and hear lessons of waiting and anticipation.  Unlike much of the culture, we do not do Christmas before Christmas.  We do simple greenery.  We keep it quiet and reflective. 
 
Dr. Hughes, the chief of the Advent police in Sewanee was deadly serious about observing Advent.  Our gospel lesson for today, Jesus warns “you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  If you were an unsuspecting seminarian in Sewanee, you may be waiting for Jesus, but you would also be watching for Dr. Hughes.  That’s right, he drove around in seminary housing village, and if he saw the slightest little twinkly light, a red bow, or, God forbid, a Christmas tree, he would knock on the door and shout “Advent before Christmas.  ABC.”  Sometimes the second and third years would hide that fact from first year seminarians just to witness the spectacle.  I guess that is what passes for hazing in a seminary.
 
On this first Sunday of Advent, I am sure that many disciples of Dr. Hughes inhabit pulpits all across the Church, insisting that their congregations remember that Advent is a season of preparation and that Christmas is a 12 day season beginning on December 25 at the stroke of midnight.  I have colleagues who will not be putting up a tree until Christmas eve, and who will lambast those who do as cultural sell outs, claiming some Anglican high ground of liturgical and theological purity.
 
The basic point is a good one.  Advent is a reminder for us not to buy in, literally, to the hype, the noise, and all of the glittery sentimentality Hallmark has to sell us.  The way we observe the season is to slow it down, light a candle, pray expectant prayers, and make room in our lives for Jesus to be born anew.
 
That being the case, the Church’s voice should not be one of shame and rebuke.  We observe Advent with all due respect, anticipation, watching and waiting, but this is a great moment for us, Church folks, to welcome the culture that yearns for what we have to offer not just in this season, but for the whole year.  If the wider world recognizes that selfless giving is a virtue, this is a good thing.  If people want to crowd into our pews and take our usual places on Christmas Eve, it stands as our opportunity to be welcoming and loving and encouraging.
 
A recent Pew Research study finds that more people than ever do not identify themselves as Christian.  Given the way some Christians judge, exclude, and act hypocritically, this is understandable.  I suspect that this survey reveals that more loosely affiliated folks are willing to admit their skepticism where they might not have before, and that is not such a bad thing.  As a thinking person’s Church, we have an amazing opportunity in this season.  With the searching, serving, and saving life and work of Jesus to proclaim and emulate, we have a great gift to offer a self-centered, callous, and cynical culture.  Wielding all manner of technology that is supposed to bring us together, we are more and more isolated and anonymous feeling than ever.  But what we do here is a profoundly low-tech antidote as we gather, love, pray, and care for one another.
 
In our inaugural Advent collect today we prayed:  “Almighty God give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.”  Those are powerful words that stand the test of time and stand out as a clarion call for us.  In this season where the physical darkness is longer and darker, in a time when dark deeds and motives are as part of the daily news cycle, and in a season where the darkness of depression and anxiety is most prevalent, twinkly lights are a nice reminder that all of the darkness there ever was cannot stand against the light of God’s grace.
 
If you are of the purist Episcopractice and hold fast to a strict Advent observance, go ahead and you be you.  But for God’s sake, let our message to the world not be one of scorn or indifference to those who seek to come in from the cold.  Because Jesus birth brings us joy, we will tell that story.  Because God chooses to come among us a human, we can know God and live closer and closer to God’s will for our lives.
 
As a young man, I was a Boy Scout.  And one of the adventures my troop made was to spend two days caving in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee.  For two whole days, we were enveloped in total darkness, squeezing through caverns and listening to the dripping sounds of water as the only background noise.  As an anxious and somewhat paranoid youth, I was deathly afraid of the dark and of cramped spaces, but part of being a scout was making tackling such fears in the company of others.  I will never forget waking up in the middle of the night, unable to see anything with my eyes wide open.  But when I switched on my tiny penlight, it pierced the darkness and chased away most of my fears.
 
Light has that power.  And we are sent to be light and life for the world in the name of Jesus.  And so we begin our Advent again.  Don’t tell Dr. Hughes and the Advent Police on this priest, but as for me and my house, we are putting up some twinkly lights this afternoon – casting away the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light.  Amen.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Feast of Christ the King
November 24, 2019
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
After a gospel like that, the normal response is silence.  When we read that on Good Friday, we don’t even try and respond.  The two thieves on Jesus’ left and right at the crucifixion are bit players in a large drama, but in just one brief exchange, they reveal the gambit of human responses to God, and reveal less of an explanation of how salvation works than they do the pure grace that is Jesus personified.
 
Today is called Christ the King Sunday.  And those who have a problem with the relativism of monarchy, monarchical language, patriarchy, and all the worldly baggage that comes with kingship or kinghood call it The Reign of Christ Sunday.  Whatever, of all of the traditions we observe on the churchy calendar, this one is a relative newbie.  One of the Popes Pious claimed this focal point in 1925.  It is the end of the Church year.  We start over in telling the story of Jesus with Advent that starts next Sunday.  I know, who has time for Advent when we are busy getting ready for Christmas, but that is next week’s conversation.
 
Back in 1925, good old Pope Pious the wateverth, observed that we had seen plenty of the mess that the principalities and powers of the world had wrought on humanity.  In the Great War, we had seen such great advances in technology that we had more and more effective ways to destroy humanity quickly and efficiently.  We had seen nationalism provide people with great reasons to hate whoever was not on their team.  We saw particular ethnic and religious groups being singled out as the cause of all problems.  We saw a fragile peace, born of idealism, crumble and disintegrate in the economic and territorial power grab that forged unholy alliances.
 
What started in the Roman Catholic Church caught on across the faith spectrum.  For sure, it was time to come home, as it were, and acknowledge that there must be a higher order of loyalty and priority.  Rather than running to kindred, tribe, and nation, we were pointed to the eternal Truth of Jesus as the one and only unity for humanity.  And because we are loath to get that, we return again to Jesus at the cross, blowing up whatever earthly images of power and glory we misappropriate as celebrity and authority.
 
It is a brief snapshot of Jesus’ last hour.  The bit players are thieves: one on the right and one on the left.  Various traditions have named them Dismas and Demas, but that is unimportant.  What matters is their very human reactions to meeting God in a moment of desperation. 
 
The first says: “Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us.”  He raises a good point, recognizing that Jesus has the power to work wonders.  But he wants a temporary magical savior, one that leverages his God powers to give him what he wants.  We have all been there.  We ask God to get us out of a jam, to prove that God is on our side, and alleviate our immediate need.  We call those arrow prayers, shot to heaven to fix whatever vexes us.  Such prayers tend to reveal more about us than God.
 
Before Jesus can respond, the other thief snaps back.  Recognizing that they are being duly punished for their crimes, he commends Jesus complete innocence, only asking to be remembered when he comes into his kingdom.  Tradition calls him the honest thief.  Anyone else recognize the irony in that moniker?  Nevertheless, he is the one who owns his own fate and sees Jesus for who he is: an innocent, suffering servant.  His prayer is not for earthly goodies, rather for belonging with the one who is pure love.
 
Jesus replies: “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”  Lots of folks assume he is speaking to the one “honest thief,” – the one who repents, or at least confesses his guilt.  But in reality, Jesus is speaking to the both of them, to everyone the cross, and through time and sacred memory, to us.  What makes Jesus King of all is not that he hands out golden tickets to heaven only to those who say the right things, say all of the right things, or follow all the right signs.  His words and his embrace are wider and deeper than that.  What he shows and tells in this crucial moment is that we are with him forever in paradise -- not because of who we are, what we do, or what we say, but because of who Jesus is for all of us.  We can show him to door, slam the door on him over and over, and even nail him to the door, but he will not leave us for dead.
 
Good old Pope Pious thought we needed to remember that one and central fact regularly, so he slid in this observance as a reminder.  Given the events of the past week, as our various elected officials scratch and claw at scions of earthly power, a good hard look at purity, true love in person, is important and formative.  If we place our faith in whatever governors we believe or support, if we plow our energy into backing flawed humanity as salvific, we are bound to be disappointed.  As we look to the Lord, the King, the Servant of All, none of the power titles really fit completely, but the person and work of Jesus is does: as real authority, true goodness, and all grace embodied.
 
As we go to the Thanksgiving tables of our homes and families, may we keep Jesus in mind in our gratitude.  We worship and celebrate our belonging not to a particular clan, but to a God of all: One who is crazy about us and for us.  We are, all together, and bound for Glory.
 
Then we sang this as traveling music….
Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light:
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.
 
Amen.

The following is a reflection from ME Via, our longtime Diocesan Convention representative on our experience this past week.  
Good morning!
It was my pleasure to represent Emmanuel at the 225th Annual Convention this weekend with Anne Dagner (Convention alternate), John Savage (the Chair of the Committee on Budget) and our Reverend JT Thomas. The theme of this year’s convention was “Wonder in All”. As in years past, there were many shared “Stories of the Diocese”.  We have a lot of wonderful things happening here and all around us. For that I am thankful and grateful. There were also many reports and opportunities to learn about things that have happened in the diocese in the past year, as well as things that are still in progress. I am offering here an abridged version of the highlights.  All the information will be posted on the Diocesan website – www.thediocese.net.
Continuing with the “Wonder in All” theme, Bishop Goff’s pastoral address highlighted the wonder in light, life and joy. It also included a special video message from Presiding Bishop Curry.
Wonder in Light
Bishop Goff reminded us that Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” He lights up our way.  In the light of Jesus, we are loved and his light shines on us - and on our wounds. This helps with reconciliation. There is a lot of reconciliation that is indeed happening, and there is more that is needed. Jesus also said “You are the light of the world.” Bishop Curry reminds us that we are light. How are you using your light in the world?
Wonder in Life
Highlighting the wonder in life, John 10:10 says “I have come in the name of life so that you may have it abundantly”. We are privileged to live in an area that has a lot of abundance – the beauty of God’s creation is everywhere.  Our church family is all around us.  Jesus shows us the wonder of life in seeds, water, and laborers who make things grow. Things we are privileged to watch in the agricultural regions around us. We must remain good stewards to make sure all resources are used wisely.  This was also highlighted in Resolution 1 that requests discontinuing the use of single use plastics and foam as well as single use bottled water at diocesan churches and facilities.  We have been given true abundance.  Bishop Curry says that we know life and challenges us with the question “How do you share life abundant?”
Wonder in Joy
John 15:11 says “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Our wonder in joy comes from things like meals with friends. Coffee hours. Shrine Mont family retreats. Helping at Bread Fund. Simple things in life. Our gorgeous earth and all its wonders. As we discover joy, we can face obstacles, disappointments and whatever happens in life.  The church is the living, breathing body of Christ. He gives us joy to face changes - making joy the antidote to fear. As Bishop Curry says, we share joy. How do you know joy in Christ?
Wonder in All
There were many workshops that discussed a wide variety of topics and many helped highlight the Wonder in All: Planned giving. Communicating clearly. Engaging Parish property. Roles and responsibilities in a Changing World. Leading from Within. A commitment to follow Jesus thru The Way of Love. Rural Ministry and Language Diversity.  We also had an opportunity to hear from Brian Sellers-Petersen and a discussion of his book Harvesting Abundance: Local Initiatives of Food and Faith.
John 15:2 says “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Jesus wants us to love others as he loves us – abundantly. Be the light, have joy so the world can see Jesus’s love and joy in you.
Also during Bishop Goff’s address, she announced that she will call for the election of the 14th Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia in November 2020, with an election happening in spring of 2022, followed by the Consecration later that summer.  This will overlap with Bishop Goff for a while until her retirement in 2023.
Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson was also introduced and welcomed into our Diocese. The bishops that have been helping to serve our diocese were all thanked for their hard work and dedication.  Bishop Goff will work to appoint a third part time bishop to live in Northern Virginia.
The three other resolutions this year included the following. 

• One which amended the Diocesan Alcohol Policy.  This policy reflects a deeper understanding of the impact of alcohol use in our parishes and in our lives.
• Another protests the construction of anything that would degrade or disturb sacred grounds.
• And the final one highlights clergy pay equity – specifically equity between the men and women who serve our Diocese.

There were twelve courtesy resolutions that commemorate the service of ministers, deacons, bishops, parishioners, as well as honoring major church anniversaries.  One of these courtesy resolutions commemorates the service of the Reverend Deacon Donald Cady who served our parish from 2012 - 2014.
There were three amended Canons:

• That input of the Standing Committee be included for sales and transfers of property owned by the Bishop or Ecclesiastical Authority of the Diocese.
• That more accurately describes the role of Deacons – using more modern language.
• And the last adjusts the due date of the Diocesan pledge to align with the changed timing of convention.  It is now due no later than 30 days before the Convention.  The issue was raised that many churches have not completed Stewardship campaigns by that time – including us.

Bishop Curry sited the hymn “Oh God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.” The vision of Bishop Curry is a continuing conversation for us as a congregation.  Living a life in Jesus and sharing his joy. “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”
I respectfully ask that you show your love. Share your light; share your abundant life; and, share your joy. Amen

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
November 10, 2019
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
It all started when I climbed up on the step stool in front of the hot stove.  Grandmother Taliaferro gave me an oversized apron, a long handled wooden spoon, and put me in charge of stirring the gravy.  She kept it on low, and while she cubed loaves of white bread and chopped celery and onions, I stood sentinel, assuring that the simmering brown goodness thickened, but did not stick to the bottom or sides of the pan.  Even talking about it brings back the smell of memory.  Her kitchen was spotless and efficient and I loved that I was the only one allowed in her domain.
 
That started a life-long love of cooking that I have nurtured and studied ever since childhood.  My mother says the cooking gene skipped a generation, and through the passing of generations, I have become the marshal of our Thomas family feasts.  What this means in this season is that requests for the Thanksgiving menu have started to come my way.  With a vegetarian daughter, a brussels sprouts loving wife, a corn pudding loving son, an oyster dressing loving mother, and a growing guest list of attendees from all corners of our tradition, the planning requires careful allocation of casserole dish assets, precious oven time, and the age-old question as to how to and when to cook the turkey.  Brine and baste? Deep fry and crisp the skin?  Stuffing or dressing?  And then, there is the procurement and preparation of the best Virginia ham (and that is another whole sermon).
 
The one unifying and absolute constant is my grandmother Thomas’s icebox yeast rolls.  While everyone has their favorite dish, the rolls bring it all together.  And that smell, that heavenly scent, is the perfect harbinger, the sweet incense of all kinds of goodness and memory.  And yet, the rolls are the biggest challenge.  We use the recipe from the stained and spotted index card written in her own hand.  It calls for a ball of shortening about the size of an egg, sugar, warm water, yeast, and flour.  The exact proportions, proving, and cooking times are a matter of constant debate and experimentation.  The quest to get as close to what she produced with such ease and regularity throughout her life is illusive at best. Her light arthritic touch may have had as much to do with the perfect product as anything.  We can imitate, and get pretty darn close, but we will never duplicate exactly the perfect browning of the outside and fluffy light insides.  Be that as it may, no one requests biscuits or cornbread.
 
Remembering is a key feature of this approaching season.  Like all families, we are complicated and evolving, but the steady stream of sweet yeasty memories is like glue that attaches us across time.  Like so many memories, the arguments and tensions of growing up and apart fade into the constants of a table gathering.  So, we strike out again this year with hope and anticipation in quest for a more perfect yeast roll despite our distances and differences.
 
When we gather here each week, we do much of the same things to bring constancy and steadiness to the vicissitudes of our lives.  We tell connected parts of God’s story in relationship to all of us through time and space.  And today we opened with a peculiar and odd ancient tale: back in the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, when the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai.  Haggai is not a prophet we know so well.  His book is really short and stuck near the end of the Old Testament.  For context: the great and glorious Temple had been destroyed, they had been carried off into slavery and exile in Babylon, and generations later, they have been allowed to return to their land and have sought to rebuild and reshape their common lives and faith.  It would be like coming home after years to find your old home place in ashes and rubble with only a few charred objects to remember former greatness.
 
In this setting, Haggai delivers an important pep talk.  He them that God is still their God and that same God of their remembered glory is on the move among them.  Haggai tells them not to dwell on the past with mournful regret, but to expect God to do a powerful new thing among them.  In hindsight, we cannot help but hear this as foreshadowing the living God in Jesus Christ who is to come, and will transform the power and presence of God from being confined and located in a particular time and place, like a Temple, to a living and powerful force of love and grace that transcends time and space.  That is a lot for an ancient Israelite to get their minds around, but there it is.  The lesson is paired with a psalm of praise and hope, again, envisioning God acting in ways we cannot predict, contain, or, even, comprehend fully. 
 
The clear message is that we are not completely and fully equipped to understand God and God’s ways of constant and persistent creation.  All we can do is watch and wonder.  When the Psalmist tells us that God’s ways are not our ways and our ways are not God’s ways, it is an understatement.  And while we would like to understand and know as God knows, that was never part of the guarantee. 
 
It is often said that life is lived looking forward, but better understood looking backward.  The lessons for today from Haggai, from St. Paul, and in Luke’s gospel are all about that.  When the Sadducees challenge Jesus about the woman who was married seven times and ask whose husband she will be in heaven, they are trying to play the game of applying earthly standards to a completely different plane of existence.  Their literal demand is a trick question and stands in the way of their embrace of mystery and promise.  Naturally, Jesus points to God being a God of the living: a living that extends beyond what we see and experience in the here and now, into what ancient Christian mystics called “the cloud of unknowing.[1]”
 
All of these texts are the stuff of memory.  They represent encounters with big questions at key moments, none of which make sense to those standing at the edges of something completely new and different.  When we look back on them, we see a bit more clearly, but not completely.  As we consider our own place and circumstance in history, it helps to look back to help make sense of what might be and what is to be revealed in time.
 
Remembering is at the heart of sacramental living.  As faithful people, we gather around the table of the Lord and affirm the feast of life.  We tell the story of sacrificial, self-giving love that unites us in the ongoing life of Jesus among us.  What we do is more than memory, though.  In holding on to the essentials, the biggest of the big picture is affirmed.  It is impossible for us to know completely what the present means and what God will do with what is happening now, but we know from looking back that God is always making things new, and God is always at work in God’s faithful people.  Once again, we remember.  We get around the table.  We break the bread.  We pass the cup.  We do this to affirm the present presence of God, to quiet our fears of unknowing, and lift up our lives to hope.  Amen.


[1] Thomas Aquinas has a lot to say about this in his Summa Theologica and I commend his exploration of embracing what we cannot know as a lens to deeper relationship with God.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
November 3, 2019
The Feast of All Saints
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
Today is a day for hagiography.  You know, hagiography.  Ok, well, it is sort of like biography, telling the story of a life, but in specific, the lives of saints.  Hagiographers are those who write and tell of great good people through whom God’s light has shined brightly.  Today we transfer and celebrate the Feast of All Saints, it is a good time for some hagiographizing (I think I just made up that word).
 
We can all name some saints, I am sure:  St. Paul, he is a biggie and we read from his epistles most every week.  He was a former persecutor of Jews who was knocked off is high horse, literally, and blinded by a great light.  As his story goes, Jesus spoke directly to him and transformed him from professional persecutor to chief promoter of following Christ’s Way.  St. Francis, we remember, came from a rich Italian family and just when established forms of money and property ownership were being codified, he renounced all of it and formed a group of folks to live together, serve the poor, and as legend has it, even the animals recognized his pure goodness.  St. Nicholas, of course, is Nicholas of Myra, another rich man who gave it all away was rumored to have put money in the shoes of poor young women so they would have enough dowry to marry.  That story is just a legend as the real Nicholas was an imprisoned and persecuted bishop in the mid-300s, but he is remembered for personal generosity, and that spawned a tradition we carry forward as stocking stuffing.  In a cultural mash up, with help from the Dutch, an American poet, and Coca Cola, we get Santa Claus, the jolly elf we are already see in store blow ups and commercial advertisements for months to come.
 
Almost all of the old school saints got to be called saints just because people remembered them and told their stories long before the printing press.  The Church being the Church, felt the need to codify saint making around the 10th century.  All of a sudden, a saint had to become a saint through someone making application, verifying something miraculous that set the person apart, and then there was an investigation and hearing and the final saint making decision was reserved for the Pope’s final approval.  Then, over the years, the Church set aside specific days for remembering each saint until the calendar ran out of days, and then books of saints were compiled and the list grew and grew.
 
The more superstitious iterations of Church used to hold on to relics of saints believing that they held some sort of physical connection to holiness.  Thus, bodies were displayed, bones and organs were preserved and embedded into church architecture, and all kinds rites of prayers and remembrance were developed to honor their legacies.  This is where we get patron and matron saint of this and that:  Simon and Jude for lost causes, Anthony for lost items, Joseph if you want to sell your house, Fiocre for gardeners, Amand for bartenders… the list is long.  Catholic Online lists 1,776 of them.
 
Prayers to and through saints resides mostly in Roman Catholic Theology and when the Reformation came about, Protestants eschewed such practice as excessive and tending toward idol worship, believing that prayer to God in Christ is all sufficient and a more direct line anyway.  Even so, if you want to sell your house, you can purchase a little statue of Joseph online complete with directions as to where to bury him in your yard for luck.
 
The Episcopal Church, being both Catholic and Protestant takes a middle way with respect to saint making and honoring such people.  We do have a process and a way to lift up lives well lived for remembering.  We have a book called Lesser Feasts and Fasts with some great stories and prayers.  The official line is this: Christ makes it possible for us to be saints as we share his life. We are washed, sanctified, and justified "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor 6:11).  On this Feast of All Saints, we dig into this, and recognize that all people, all of us, are saints in the making.  It is good to remember particular examples and thank God for them, but really, we are all a mixed bag of holiness and messiness and it is not a bad idea to affirm and celebrate when some of us get it right.
 
However well intended the saint making process is, the practice of hagiography, saint story telling is such a better idea.  Rob McSwain, a friend of mine who is a priest and professional theologian has just written a book called Human Holiness as Divine Evidence: The Hagiological Argument for the Existence of God.  That is a mouthful, but made more simple, he argues this:  The fact that people can do great and good things in God’s name shows us that God is real and present.  While we make much or sin and its ravages, and while most of the news we consume is about chicanery and misdeeds, we honor God as we tell the other side of the news and recognize God’s light shining, even through the cracks of our own brokenness.
 
God is breaking into the world in such moving and life-giving ways all of the time.  The fact that we have to process saint making shows that we can be a little slow in taking notice.  I have come to appreciate the last segment on NBC’s evening news broadcast because it is, generally positive.  They call that last report “For what it’s worth.”  I watch that news show precisely because that last word somehow helps redeem all of the mess that gets reported before it and give a little hope in humanity.
 
In that broadcast and others like it, I remember the young boy whose classmate had cancer and lost his hair to chemotherapy, so he and his buddies shaved their heads so he would not feel so weird.  I remember a woman named Osceola McCarty who took in washing for most of her life and managed to save $150,000 which she, in turn, gave to the University of Southern Mississippi to fund minority scholarships.  I remember 94-year-old Shirley Batchelder from Franklin, Tennessee who saved up all of her bingo winnings and bought five seconds of network television air time to say three words: “Love one another.”  And, she said it fast enough to be able to say it twice.  “Love one another.”
 
This past week I began listening to a new podcast about Dolly Parton.  The series is called Dolly Parton’s America and I commend it to your listening.  There I have come to know her genius, her generosity, and amazing capacity to forgive while succeeding in the cutthroat music industry.  Did you know that her song, “I will always love you,” has been a number one hit in each of the past three decades?  Did you also know that Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides free books, one a year, to children from birth to age five?  To date she has distributed more than 126 million books.  So, Dolly now goes on my list too and she centers herself on a deep faith to boot.
 
Mark Twain once said: “I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and all His works must be contemplated with respect.”  This is an apt reflection for this day.  We may not be perfect, but we are being made perfect in the One who creates us, redeems, and makes us holy.  God’s great art is creation and created humanity has such capacity for beauty and love and creativity.  If we seek God, we might want to do some hagiography.  When we doubt God, we should do more hagiography.  In the end, we cannot prove that God exists, but we can tell stories, and that is more than enough to believe.  Amen.