Author: John Drymon

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I realize that one of the dead horses I continually strike is the lectionary’s unfortunate editing of biblical passages such that we can sometimes miss the point that I think we’re supposed to take from some particular part of scripture. I hate to do it again, but this morning’s Old Testament lesson from Job suffers so much from the editing process in this regard that I cannot ignore it.

Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever! For I know that my redeemer lives.

It seems simple enough. Job wants his realization of the General Resurrection and the victory of God recorded, right? Well no. In the twenty-two verses which precede our lesson, Job presents a litany of complaints. It’s a long passage, so I won’t read it to you in its entirety, but here are some examples of what comes right before the reading we heard a few minutes ago:

How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words? … Know that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net about me. … He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree. … My kinsfolk and my friends have failed me; the guests in my house have forgotten me. … I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother. … All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

Job’s words at the beginning of this morning’s Old Testament lesson do not express a desire that the good news be recorded. Rather, they show Job’s desire that the depth of his suffering be recorded, that posterity might read it and learn how rotten his life had become and how angry he was at God for making it that way.

This makes the words which follow particularly striking:

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

Why this sudden turnabout? Why the instant transition from despair to hope? There are a few possibilities. These are just three theories, and there may be others, but I think they’re the most likely, though you’ll see why I think two of them are unacceptable.

First theory- maybe Job was bipolar. This is not my favorite explanation, but let’s consider it. Perhaps he’s swinging from a depressive to a manic episode before our eyes and ears.

This might be a particularly comforting theory for those who struggle with mental health issues, but I think it’s a problematic theory. We can easily get into trouble by imposing modern categories on ancient people. One could take any of the prophets and view them through the lens of psychopathology- if Job was bipolar, maybe Jeremiah was depressed and Ezekiel was schizophrenic. It’s interesting to think about, but it either requires that we reject the biblical prophetic tradition or assume that God uses mental disorders as a means of communication. The former is not an option for a believer. The latter isn’t impossible, but then we’ve got all sorts of sticky questions about suffering and divine agency which are better avoided if we have an alternative to hand.

Second theory- the only way Job could get over the perceived injustice of his situation was to imagine a God who is ultimately just and who will set all things right in the end. This is a popular way for anthropologists and other social scientists to view the development and persistence of religion. The idea in a nutshell is that life is unfair (which I think is pretty self-evident), and that religious sentiment is an antidote to despair about this fact. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do some enjoy security and wealth and health and others don’t? Why is there so great a discrepancy between well-being and worthiness? Because, God’s gonna fix it all in the next life, so don’t get too upset about it.

On the one hand, we can see why this might be the genesis of religious commitment. Just looking at our own Judeo-Christian tradition, the most profound messages of hope we find in scripture were written in times of extreme difficulty- famine, war, and especially foreign rule and diaspora. It makes sense that in the midst of terrible situations, the only thing to do is to imagine that something greater is at work, that everything will get better, that there will be pie in the sky when we die, by and by.

But if that’s all there is to it, then Marx was right- religion is the opiate of the masses. It keeps us calm and prevents revolution, because it’s only a matter of time before we die and get to finally enjoy life. Maybe Job resorted to wishful thinking, because that’s all he had. That’s not a kind of religion I’m interested in, and I don’t believe it could possibly be the kind of religion professed by the saints who fought and died for the Lord they loved and knew. But it is a possibility. It is my least favorite of the three theories (I’d rather Job were mad than religion were just a pablum), but it’s a very popular way of thinking among the critics of religion. I think our response to those who espouse this theory is to admit the possibility that it’s true and then live our lives in a manner that disproves it- by living faithfully even when every potentially selfish end seems illusive.

Third theory- Job was neither mad nor deluded. God came to him precisely when he needed him the most. In his darkest hour, the Holy Spirit spoke his word of encouragement, literally inspiring him, filling him with the Truth to lift him out of despair. When all around is death and loss and malice, Job was given a vision of the life and joy and love that is the inheritance of God’s people. I’ve not got any empirical evidence for this claim. I cannot rely on psychology or anthropology or any other discipline in the modern intellectual tradition to prop up the third theory. I don’t think there is anything from those fields to help us here. They might prove faith and spirituality to be useful or maladaptive, but not whether or not it’s True. That’s where faith comes in.

That’s the starting point if you want to buy into this theory. You’ve got to have trust enough in those little experiences of grace and love that you experience from time to time that you can see the hand of God moving your heart and the hearts of your sisters and brothers. You’ve got to trust that a power greater than us can make sense of all this mess. I think this is how it happened, or rather I believe this is how it happened, for Job and how it can happen still for us. Even in our darkest moments, God can break in; God will break in if we’re open enough and trusting enough to hear the Spirit’s Word of peace.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sign of the difficulty currently besetting the publishing industry, several magazines in recent years have enticed potential subscribers with a free gift subscription for the primary subscriber to pass along. So, we have given a subscription of The New Yorker to a friend for a few years, and just this week, said friend shared with us a gift subscription to The Atlantic. So I got the Atlantic app installed on my phone, opened it up, and the very first article that loaded up meant I had to read it right then and there. The title: “How Is the Israel Hamas Ceasefire Deal Like an Anglican Wedding?” That’s “clickbait” for a very particular type of person, and I am he.

If you’ve ever been to a wedding here or in any Episcopal Church, you may remember that after the couple exchange their “I do-s” (or actually, “I wills” in our service) there is a question for the congregation: “Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?” And we respond “we will.” Why do we say “we will”? Because it’s printed in the book. Do we mean it? I try at wedding rehearsals to say to everyone gathered there that they will say “we will” because they mean it; because they are themselves making a solemn promise to support the couple over the course of decades, and I hope that they take that seriously. I’m sure some (maybe several) do, but I’m not sure everyone does. We say it, because the rubrics in the book instruct us to do so.

The writer of that piece in the Atlantic assumed that very few at your typical wedding do, though, and he feared that those who helped broker the increasingly fragile ceasefire in the Middle East—the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris, maybe the Americans—won’t hold to their own vows when things get tough. And unlike your average marriage, which typically takes some years before the couple want to murder each other, there will be no honeymoon here. I hope he’s wrong. I just don’t know.

But I really want to focus neither on Holy Matrimony nor on Gaza this morning. I bring it up, because there’s another time when we are called upon to make a similar solemn vow. At every Baptism we are asked this question: “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ.” And we answer “we will.” Are we just saying it because it’s on the page or do we really mean it?

We are in the business of making saints. Or rather, God is in the business of making saints, and we have the privilege of helping a little insofar as he gives us grace to do so. You’ve heard me say a thousand times that there is a difference between the majuscule and the miniscule, the “upper-case S” Saints and the “lower-case s” saints, and that all of us and all of those whom we’ll remember in a few minutes during the litany are probably in the latter category (though I encourage you to prove me wrong about that). I guarantee there will be no processions through the streets for St. John Drymon of Findlay day fifty or a hundred years from now. There are the famous men and women of whom the writer of Ecclesiasticus speaks and those who have no memorial.

But there is something which fundamentally connects all of us in the church—militant, expectant, and triumphant. Each and every one of us has been washed in the saving laver of Christ’s Blood. Life may seem a great tribulation sometimes, but we’ll all be clothed in white on that last great day, bearing branches of palm in our hands. The blessedness of the poor and the meek and the persecuted and the downtrodden will be ours then, and in can be ours today to a greater extent than we might imagine.

God being our helper, we can not only reach out to that crown of triumph even now when we allow him to work through us in supporting each other in growth in holiness, in upholding all our sisters and brothers in keeping the vows they made or that were made on their behalf and thus grow in holiness ourselves. This can be a virtuous cycle, and in that sense the church militant here on earth can serve as a sort of school for virtue, educating us, leading us toward the God who is love that we might become a bit more loving. All this can be accomplished when we take that baptismal vow “we will” as seriously as we ought to do.

And if you look around and scoff and say, “this peculiar lot is meant to teach me how to be holy!?” look again. You might be astounded when you sit in this classroom long enough. And ever give thanks that we can also look up to that great cloud of witnesses—the church expectant and the church triumphant—both for their examples and (I believe) for their intercessions for us before the throne of God. Thank God for them, and thank God that we’ll have an eternity of fellowship with them as we praise God together unto the ages of ages.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God only loves one type of person: sinners. Thank God we’re all sinners. Sometimes the trick is just acknowledging that’s what we are, and that’s what the tax collector has over the Pharisee. The full force of this parable might be dulled a bit for us because we are so accustomed to viewing the Pharisees as the “baddies” since Jesus frequently had run-ins with them. But not all Pharisees were like the ones that were trying to entrap our Lord. Most of them were just very faithful, very scholarly Jews who concerned themselves with following the Law as well as they could do. These were, as the late great Robert Farrer Capon said, the sorts of people from whom we’d be pleased to receive a pledge card, and we’d probably ask them to consider standing for election to vestry. If we had a Pharisee in the congregation today, I’d probably ask him to lead Sunday School for me this morning, because I know he’d do a better job than I, at least in terms of having all the relevant biblical information front of mind.

The tax collector, on the other hand, is a bad hombre. He’s a traitor to his own people because he extorts money from them on behalf of the Roman Empire. He survives on a twisted form of commission, whereby his livelihood consists of all the extra shekels he can wring out of the Judaean taxpayer which he doesn’t actually owe but which he thuggishly extracts anyway. So he knows he’s a bad guy, and that’s why he realizes he can’t save himself. The Pharisee can’t save himself either, but his own good works and respectability blind him to this reality.

Several Protestant churches observe today as “Reformation Sunday” which has always made me a bit uncomfortable, and I’m grateful that it’s not a feast on our calendar. Some sort of church reform and realignment was no doubt necessary in the Sixteenth Century, but I for one have always viewed this as a necessary evil, the reality of church disunity is a sadness and a scandal which we should pray God will heal in his good time, and it baffles me that the schisms which gave us so many “flavors” of Christianity should be celebrated.

So, I have issues with Martin Luther (and with Henry VIII for that matter, lest you think I can’t see the beam in my own eye). That said, he had some ideas that I think were pretty good, and I particularly like some of his most shocking statements—not being a controversialist myself, I guess I enjoy living vicariously through historical figures who stirred the pot. So, in order to spite the devil who wants nothing more than for us to trust in our own righteousness and thus despair, Luther suggested one should commit a small sin from time to time, just to remind ourselves that we’re covered by Grace. I would not personally recommend this approach, because I think we’re going to sin whether we make our minds up to do or not, but I do appreciate how edgy he was being.

More famously (or infamously), Luther is charged with saying “sin boldly.” Well, yeah, if you take two words out of context, this sounds bad. But here’s what he actually wrote:

If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are in this world we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day

In other words, consider the publican whose sin can convict him, who can be convinced he needs a savior. Thus, our own good deeds can become a stumbling block. The Pharisee’s approach is all well and good so long as he is perfectly righteous, so long as he is not a sinner. The problem is he is a sinner, he was born that way, he just can’t see it.

We often twist this parable by imagining that in being justified, the tax collector goes on to lead a virtuous life. He gets better, he acts more kindly, perhaps he pays back all those people from whom he extorted money. He certainly resigns from his inherently dishonest career. But Jesus doesn’t say that. That’s not part of the story. What if, instead, after a day or two, or maybe just as soon as he left the temple, he roughed up another taxpayer? And then the next week he shows up again praying for mercy. He can’t escape his wickedness. His chosen profession gives him plenty of opportunity for sin, yes, but he’d sin no matter what he was doing. Does he leave the temple justified after every penitential visit?

Yes he does, and we don’t like that. We love stories about reformed sinners who have a conversion and never mess up again in some way, large or small. But those people don’t actually exist. What we really want is for the tax collector to become the Pharisee. That satisfies our desire for fairness, but it deprives the publican of the possibility of justification.

There is a rubric in our prayer book which allows for the occasional omission of the general confession. I’ve known of places that omitted it for the entirety of the Easter season, which in my opinion suggests a gross misunderstanding of the meaning of the word “occasional.” Anyway, I understand why one might choose to omit it on Christmas and Easter Days, but I won’t do it because maybe those who only show up on Christmas and Easter could use the opportunity for confession and absolution as much as the rest of us. (On the other hand, maybe the people who only show up a couple times a year do so, because they’re so holy they only need that much church, unlike you and me.) I, for one, benefit from a daily reminder of my own sin and God’s amazing grace in calling me worthy in spite of it. Maybe I’m a slow learner. Or maybe I am, maybe we all are, a bit more like the tax collector than we’d like to think. And I’m actually glad of that, because, like I said at the beginning—God only loves one type of person: sinners. Thank God we’re all sinners.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.