Author: John Drymon

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

Yesterday Victoria and Joanie reaffirmed their Baptismal commitments and became card carrying Episcopalians, for which we congratulate them and will fete them at coffee hour today. Because the notice of yesterday’s deanery-wide confirmation service came rather late, I subjected them to a marathon class last week instead of several sessions. Anyway, one of the things that I always need to emphasize when we’re going through the church history portion, particularly since it’s such an uncomfortable part of our own Anglican identity, is the long history of conflict between religious and secular authorities in Western Europe.

Lest we think Henry VIII’s venality and concupiscence was an isolated incident, it’s important to realize that this was and remained a long-standing issue. This was particularly a problem with regard to the appointment of bishops and other prelates. The ancient practice of diocesan clergy or cathedral chapters electing bishops had been slowly but surely replaced by one of two alternatives–either the bishop of Rome (i.e., the pope) made the appointment, or the emperor or king or prince over the see in question did. Thus, there was constant wrangling between the Vatican and whoever happened to be on his bad side at the time–the Holy Roman Emperor or the King of France or the Grand Duke of Lithuania or whoever.

Naturally, the English were frequently on the naughty list, which reached a head during the reign of bad King John (of Robin Hood fame) whose spat with the Pope over the latter’s appointment of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury in A.D. 1208, led not just to the former’s excommunication but a general papal interdict–meaning that for six years all churches in England and Wales were closed, administration of the sacraments was forbidden except to those nearing death, and even those fortunate souls could not be buried in the churchyard. Just imagine how awful it would be to be deprived of the solace of the church’s ministrations for so long. Thus when the barons confronted King John at Runnymede and made him sign Magna Carta (the document itself having been drafted by Archbishop Langton) the provision that the Church of England should remain free, meant it should be free from the King’s meddling, not the Pope’s. So, it’s not comfortable for me as an Anglican to admit, but three hundred years later Henry VIII established a scheme which was clearly unconstitutional, the exact opposite of what a “strict constructionist” might define as the Church of England’s freedom. All that said, as an American Episcopalian, I am relieved that the bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction here and equally relieved that the only authority King Charles III has that touches on our common life is that he technically still appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury, though in practice the monarch just chooses whoever a church commission tells the prime minister to tell the king to appoint.

The relatively new feast day which we celebrate today, Christ the King–which only came about in the Roman Catholic Church in 1925 and in our own in 1979–comes from a similarly messy history. While secularism and even atheistic regimes like the then-recently founded Soviet Union were genuine threats to the church’s flourishing (and religiosity more broadly) perhaps the most pressing concern which led to the establishment of Christ the King Sunday was the so-called “Roman Question.” The unification of Italy into a single kingdom in the Nineteenth Century had meant the church’s loss of secular authority and control of large swathes of territory and eventually the fall of Rome itself. Thus the pope was said to be a prisoner within his own, now extremely circumscribed domain, which would come to be known as Vatican City. Rapprochement only occurred with the Lateran treaties in which the church was given a rather raw deal by King Victor Emmanuel III and his Prime Minister, Benito Mussolini. In any event, the reiteration of Christ’s kingship with the establishment of its own festival day was meant as a not-so-subtle reminder to the faithful that whatever secular authorities might claim, Christ’s authority was supreme.

That being the case, we must note that even those insisting on the church’s freedom from secular control sometimes missed the point themselves, particularly considering the Roman Church’s claim to more than spiritual authority against the Kingdom of Italy. You see, the sort of Kingdom which is God’s and the sort of kingship which is Christ’s is not a mere argument for church authority in temporal affairs. It is, rather an entirely different sort of reign. Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel make this much clear. Pilate would not have understood what sort of kingdom Christ was claiming, his view of power being entirely concerned with control over men and nations. Christ’s Kingdom is different. It is not of this world or its values.

The King of Glory is a King whose law is love, and (as I’ve said from this pulpit before) Christian love is not about warm, sentimental feelings; it’s about treating those people we call brothers and sisters as if they really were our brothers and sisters. It’s about comforting the weak and feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and putting the stranger’s needs before our own.

the Kingship of Christ is not only different from the kingship of the emperor; it is diametrically opposed to the spirit of our age- the spirit which revels in individualism and so-called enlightened self interest. There is no place in the Kingdom for ethical egoism. I am not sure which is worse: an Emperor in Rome or a king in every man’s self-estimation. Whichever is worse, the latter is the contemporary sin, and it is more dangerous than the former at least as it regards our souls.

So our response to the Kingship of Christ is pretty simple. It is in loving sacrifice that we involve ourselves in Christ’s Kingship. It is in that remarkable paradox in which we see Christ reigning not only from His Throne of Glory, but from the Cross of Shame with a Crown bejeweled by thorns. Our own Glory, our own Kingship is bought on that more shameful throne with that most heavy crown, and our acceptance of the reign which Christ wishes to give us is a condition of our willingness to take up that Cross, put on that crown and follow.

+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.

It is only once in our whole three-year lectionary that we get to hear from the Prophet Daniel, so as wonderful as this morning’s Epistle and Gospel are, I feel I should focus on this strange Old Testament book. You’re likely to have heard some more well-known incidents from the book—the fiery furnace and the lion’s den and so forth—but it’s the truly weird bits, like Daniel’s dream of the four beasts and that interesting character, the Archangel Michael, whose first appearance is in this morning’s lesson which are perhaps more interesting.

Like many hopeful tales, Daniel was written in the context of desolation. After the death of Alexander the Great the Eastern Mediterranean world got divided up to his forebears, and by the 2^nd Century B.C. the King Antiochus Epiphanes came to rule over Israel. Antiochus instituted a program of hellenization, conforming the customs of conquered peoples to the Greek standard. This included mandatory worship of the Greek pantheon rather than the God of Israel, and imprisonment or even death for those who failed to comply. Needless to say the Jews were not happy with this state of affairs, and although a number gave into Antiochus’ pressure, a faithful remnant remained true to God despite certain persecution. A goodly number, despite the personal cost, stayed true to the words of the psalmist:

Their libations of blood I will not offer,*
nor take the names of their gods upon my lips.

It was in the context of this upset that the book of Daniel was written. It’s a strange book, and in some ways out of place in the Old Testament. Large sections are written in Aramaic rather than biblical Hebrew, the only proto-canonical Old Testament book to use a more modern dialect. It was, you see, written for the people alive then to read. Daniel is neither straight prophecy nor standard history, like so many of the other books, but allegory, much like the New Testament book of Revelation.

The author of Daniel was most assuredly writing about the struggles of his people in the present, during the Greek occupation, but he placed the story in an older context, the days of the Babylonian captivity. Instead of Antiochus Epiphanes he wrote about Nebuchadrezzar and Belshazzar. The very present reality which was implied underneath the text would have been apparent to the faithful Jews suffering under the yoke of foreign rule, but it was not explicit enough to get the author or his readers into more trouble with their imperial overlords (just like, as you may know, John used coded language in Revelation in order to speak about the Romans without being explicit enough to get his readers crucified themselves).

And the similarities between Daniel and Revelation do not end with the fact that both are obscure and symbolic. Both books are written in the context of horrendous persecution, but both are among the most hopeful books in the bible. Revelation presents us with the vision of a new heaven and a new earth in which God has put all things right. Likewise, Daniel presents a remarkably hopeful vision in the midst of a situation which would lead most to despair:

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, [it says] some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

This is the first explicit mention in the bible of the Resurrection of the dead, the great hope which Jesus himself would define and enable. It was only in the midst of an apparently hopeless situation that the most hopeful message in the history of humankind was revealed.

So it is for so many of us. Christian mystics throughout the centuries have recognized that great hope and joy comes out of apparently hopeless situations. St. Teresa of Avilla wrote about aridity, dry periods which seem always to precede spiritual breakthroughs; St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote about the twin experiences of desolation and consolation, the former being the precursor to the latter; and St. John of the Cross wrote of the “dark night of the soul”, a period of pain and fear which preceded his own spiritual awakening.

This is not to say that God causes pain. God did not will that the Jews should suffer under the yoke of the Babylonians and the Greeks, that early Christians should be put to death by Rome, that all the nasty experiences that we might suffer in our lifetime should have visited us. However, God can and does use those experiences as a means for revealing his glory and love. Just as Jesus said to his disciples in today’s Gospel: “do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come… This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.” May we, then, recognize that in the midst of our own troubles, God is still at work, bringing about a new and better creation; let us pray for patience in the midst of these trials, knowing that at the end of every death comes the light of resurrection.

+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.

Some of you know that Annie and I enjoy the theater, but only a few hundred years ago this might have been a scandal. The theater was considered borderline unacceptable by many church people, and actors were considered the worst of the worst. There is a famous church in New York, the church of the Transfiguration, which made quite a splash by permitting theatre-folk into their church. Actors were reckoned a lowly bunch, and the bad rap didn’t start with John Wilkes Booth or even the bawdy seventeenth century plays that the puritans had banned before the Restoration. In fact, the idea that acting was a most disreputable profession can be traced back at least to the ancient Greeks, who coined an interesting word for play-actors: hupokrites. Hypocrites.

I don’t share this little lesson in etymology to deplore the theatre, which, like I said, I quite enjoy, but to help flesh out what we’re up against with the sin Jesus warns against in today’s Gospel. “Beware of the scribes,” he said, “who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

You see, hypocrisy is like malicious play-acting, putting on a performance whose audience doesn’t know is a show, for an undetermined but usually high cost of admission. And when the subject matter of said performance is religious, the deception is dangerous indeed.

And, what’s worse, the actors in the charade that is religious hypocrisy can be very good, so good that their tactics are only seen once tremendous damage has already been done. Religious hypocrites have gone from devouring widows’ houses to committing horrible acts of violence, physical and spiritual, against the weakest among us. And it’s not only the so-called “crazies”, the cult leaders of the world, but even sometimes clergy from more putatively respectable religions. “Beware the scribes,” indeed!

But let’s change the focus from these, turn around the camera which captures their shows, because nothing is easier than pointing out hypocrisy in others. Such radical forms of hypocrisy can serve as an easy distraction, because we can always say, “well, I’m not as much a hypocrite as him.” The difficult task, the hard work which we all need to do, is to search our own hearts for what apparently minor hypocrisies any of us is prone to commit.

I’m in an especially dangerous position, because, though a sinful person like anyone, my profession means that I walk around in long robes, and I do have the best seat in the synagogue (except when the bishop comes and displaces me from it). It is a short step from doing my job and exercising my authority appropriately to clericalism, and it’s an even shorter step from clericalism to outright hypocrisy.

But I am not alone in these dangerous waters, you see, for every single Christian can fall into it because of pride or simpe negligence. A good model for all of us, however, is found in the second half of this morning’s Gospel.

“Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Now, the point is neither that rich people and their contributions are bad nor that penury is a good. If all you have in the world is “two small copper coins”, I’m not advising that you put it in the offering plate this morning, because I don’t want to be accused of devouring widows’ houses. The point is quite different from this.

In both Mark and Luke, the story of the widow’s mite, as it’s come to be called, immediately follows the denunciation of the scribes, and biblical scholars will tell you that this is intentional. Both episodes are meant to be understood as meditations on the same theme, the dichotomy between authenticity and hypocrisy. This is why, though neither Mark nor Luke says it explicitly, it is believed that those putting great sums into the treasury were actually doing it with great pomp and ceremony, ostentatiously drawing attention to their generosity. In other words, they were play-acting, just like the scribes. They wanted to be seen as surpassing “holy”. Giving generously wasn’t the problem, it was giving simply to be seen giving that was. The widow did not make a great deal of her offering. She just gave it.

Money is an obvious example, because it’s so tangible. It can be both a great source of good and potentially harmful to the soul, and we can often see the effects either way, comparing those who give selflessly and those who either become miserly or who give for self-aggrandizement. But money is just the most tangible example of this dichotomy of hypocrisy and authenticity. In reality, all that we do and say has implications in this regard. When we follow the widow to the treasury, the treasury of merit as the medievals called it, we deposit all our good works. Whether what we do is authentic or hypocritical, God can no doubt use it to His own ends, but it is only a true offering and a sacrifice if it’s done for the love of God, and his people, and his Church rather than for the love of attention.

In some ways, I feel like I’m preaching to the choir, because, as I’ve said from this pulpit before, there is a great deal of selfless work done around this place and in our community by many of you. Even so, we all, myself especially, need an occasional reminder along these lines. Thank God that we have such good examples. If you look hard enough, you’ll see the little acts of loving-kindness you catch your friends furtively doing, not blowing a trumpet but toiling in the dark. You can find examples in the stories of saints long gone on to their reward who took their master’s call to heart by giving of their energy or of their wealth or of their very lives. If nothing else, you can find a very good example in the poor, nameless widow from Jerusalem who all those generations ago gave her two mites, and was, no doubt, richly rewarded by her Father in heaven.

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