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This sermon was preached on Sunday, December 16, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, where Fr. Funston is rector.
(Revised Common Lectionary, Advent 3, Year C: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9 (The First Song of Isaiah, Ecce Deus, Isaiah 12:2-6); Philippians 4:4-7; and Luke 3:7-18. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.)
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Did you pay attention to the words of the song we just sang as our sequence hymn? Listen to them again:
Comfort, comfort ye my people,
Speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning ‘neath their sorrows’ load . . . .(Hymn 67, The Hymnal 1982)
These are God’s words to the prophet Isaiah; we find them in the 40th chapter of Isaiah. They are God’s instructions to Isaiah, but I think every priest hears them personally when we are called on to minister to someone in times of trouble and loss. “Comfort, comfort my people; comfort those who are in sorrow.”
Since Friday morning when I, like many others, sat in stunned silence struggling to understand the horror of what had just happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, I have had a recurring vision of Christmas presents under Christmas trees in darkened homes, presents that will never be unwrapped. I see mothers and fathers sitting in that darkness mourning beneath a load of sorrow I don’t think I could ever comprehend, and I wonder if I as a priest or as a friend could speak any word of comfort to them. I have known the pain and brokenness of losing loved ones; I have known the sadness that comes with the death of parents and siblings. But I can only imagine (and I’m sure completely inadequately) the grief and agony a parent must feel when his or her child has been murdered; I can only imagine how broken those parents’ hearts must be, how broken they must feel. I don’t know if I could offer any comfort to them.
I have spent the past 48 hours following the news reports, weeping, screaming at the television, reading the statements of bishops and other clergy, enraged at the injustice of it, angry because as a society we seem unwilling (not incapable, unwilling) to do anything about the epidemic of gun violence that seems to sweep unchecked across our country.
This is not the way we are supposed to be on this, the Third, Sunday of Advent! In the tradition of the church, today is known as Gaudete Sunday or “Rejoicing Sunday” because in the medieval church the introit, the first words of the Mass, was Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete, the first words of our epistle lesson this morning: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice.” The same theme is struck in the Old Testament reading from the Prophet Zephaniah and in the Gradual taken from the Prophet Isaiah; these readings are meant to emphasize our joyous anticipation of the Lord’s coming. “Rejoice and exult with all your heart,” Zephaniah cries out, but when our hearts are broken how are we to do that? Here in the depths of dealing with a senseless act of brutality, there is damned little rejoicing in our broken hearts, there is damned little comfort. We are in the midst of a murderous gun violence epidemic and I find it hard to rejoice.
Consider what has gone on in just the past week: last Sunday a man fatally shot his security-officer wife, tried to kill another person, and then killed himself in an employee parking lot at Cleveland-Hopkins Airport; on Tuesday a masked gunman killed two people and seriously injured another in a Portland, Oregon, shopping mall; on Friday, the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings, the second worst mass shooting at a school in U.S. history; and yesterday, a gunman shot three people in a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. Earlier this year we saw fatal mass shootings in Minneapolis, in Tulsa, in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, in a theater in Colorado, in a coffee bar in Seattle, and in a college in California. It is painfully clear that this is an epidemic of violence, that all is not well in our country. Like our hearts, our society is broken.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are about 31,000 deaths from firearms annually in our country. Of those, 500 are accidental; another 300 or so are considered “legal” as the result of law enforcement actions; and the nature of about 200 cannot be determined. That means that about 30,000 intentional, illegal, fatal shootings occur in the United States in a year’s time; 62% of those are suicides; 38% are murders.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.
As someone who, everyday, tries to speak the word of God to people who need to hear it, I don’t know that I can do that! I don’t know if I could comfort those parents mourning beneath their dark load of sorrow, and I don’t know how I could tell you that our warfare, our plague of gun violence is over! Our warfare is not over; the slaughter goes on . . . one or two people here, thirteen theater-goers there, twenty children in Connecticut . . . the massacre continues more than 11,000 times a year. Yes, it is painfully clear that this is an epidemic of violence, that all is not well in our country. Like our hearts, our society is broken.
John the Baptizer warned the people who came to him that all was not well in their society, that it was broken. “Do not,” he told them, “begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor.'” Don’t think that because you are who you are that all is well and that all will be well; it is not and it will not be. Our society is broken! “And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?'” John’s answer was simplicity itself – do what you know to be right. If you have two coats, if you have extra food, and your neighbor has none, share. If you have taken on the job of tax collector, or if you are a soldier entitled to ask citizens for support, collect no more than you should, ask no more than is proper. Just do what you know to be right, do what you know ought to be done.
Every time one of these mass shootings occurs there is an outpouring of public grief, and there are expressions of sorrow and sympathy. Every time this has happened, however, we have been told that it is not the appropriate time to talk about strengthening our nation’s gun control laws; we are told that it is too soon to talk about doing something about gun violence; we are told that we have to give the families of the victims time to heal. But as John the Baptizer said to those who came to him at the Jordan, the time is now – “Even now,” he said, “the ax is lying at the root of the trees . . . .” There is no time like the present to do what we know to be right, to do what we know ought to be done.
I believe that that talk about time to heal is a sham. I don’t think anyone ever “heals” from the death of a loved one; one remains broken. I know that I have never “healed” from the deaths of my parents or of my brother or of any other person I loved; forever, after each death, there is a part of me that is and will always be broken. As a parent, I am very sure I would never “heal” from the murder of my child; I would be forever broken. But I know that life goes on and, through the grace of God, we are given the strength to live it, even as wounded, as broken, as broken-hearted as we may be. As Isaiah said, “Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and he will be my Savior.” The one who was broken on Calvary’s tree was broken that I, in my brokenness, might be made whole. Through his brokenness, in our brokenness, we are given the peace of God which passes all understanding.
Life goes on, and by the grace of our Savior we are given the strength to live it, and in it to do what we know to be right, to do what we know ought to be done. The only question is whether we have the will to do it.
Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain;
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign.
Have we the will to do what we know to be right, to make what is crooked straight, to make what is rough plain? Are our hearts, broken though they may be, true and humble as befits our Savior’s holy reign?
Many of you know that I’m a great fan of the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and many of you are familiar with his song Hallelujah. In it there is this great line:
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
And again, later in the song, the singer says of love,
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
In the funeral liturgy of our church, near the end of the service, the priest stands at the body of the deceased and says, “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” When each of those twenty children, each of those seven adults are buried, their families will hear those as cold and broken Hallelujahs! But as our Advent hymn reminds us in its conclusion,
For the glory of the Lord
now o’er the earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that the word is never broken.
Our hearts may be broken; our lives may be broken; our society may be broken, but God’s word, God’s promise is never broken. The Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, he was broken . . . broken on the Cross that we might be made whole. Risen unbroken though still bearing the scars of our brokenness, he will return again so that we might sing not a broken, but a whole Hallelujah, a holy Hallelujah, so that we might “rejoice in the Lord always.”
I still don’t know if I could comfort those grieving parents, but I do know that I believe in God, that I believe God’s promise, and that I believe in Jesus Christ, the One who was broken that we might be made whole. It is his birth and its promise of wholeness that we prepare to celebrate in this Advent season. And because I believe, I know that I could, at least, be with those families in this time of grief, that I could sit with them, and that I could assure them in words just slightly changed from the end of Mr. Cohen’s song . . . .
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah.
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And even though it all went wrong
We’ll stand before the Lord in song
With nothing on our tongue but Hallelujah!
Although from a modern perspective, the prayer of the Pharisee is rather bigoted, but we should try to see it from his perspective and from within his culture, which Jesus shares. When we do so, we can see that Jesus is not criticizing the individual, but rather condemning an entire system of religion which divides and categorizes people. Jesus is denouncing any system, religious, social, or political, which separates people on the basis of bigotry and fear.
Doing that which is right in the face of an opposition which has tradition and law on its side. That’s what this gospel story is about. This is not simply another story of Jesus’ healing someone. 
Well, there it is! Bigger than life! Free will! Of course, I know that as an Anglican I am not supposed to use this text, or any part of the Deuterocanon, to settle matters of doctrine, but only read them ” for example of life and instruction of manners.” [Articles of Religion, Article VI, BCP 1979, page 868] But come on! There it is!
It’s a darn good question, “Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I tell you?” As we come to the last month of the 2012 political campaign, it is one which needs to be carefully considered by many Christians on all sides of the political divide. Are the values on which Christian voters are making their decisions those taught by Jesus, or are they cultural values dressed up in Christian clothing? One-issue voters in particular should take a broader look at their choices; just because a candidate supports your position on a question of particular importance to you does not mean his or her overall platform conforms well to the values of the Gospel, or does what Jesus told us to do.
It’s a puzzlement! 
This short passage from the Book of Acts describes the sort of world Jesus intended. Not just the sort of church . . . . the sort of world, the sort of human society, a complete community in which no one claims private ownership (it’s all God’s remember) and where there are no needy persons because what is needed is distributed equitably.
OK. I know I shouldn’t get into this . . . I know that someone is going to give me a hard time; I can almost predict that someone will tell me they are planning to “leave the church” over this. But here goes. 
These are the words spoken by the great crowd of Jews and others who thronged the streets of Jerusalem for the Festival of Shavu’ot when the Twelve, empowered by the Holy Spirit, begin to tell the story of Jesus in languages they had never before spoken. Shavu’ot is a celebration with both agricultural and historical significance in Judaism. It is known as the “festival of the first fruits,” a harvest feast when the first fruits were brought as offerings to the Temple; it is also known as the “festival of the giving of the Law,” a celebration of the handing down of Torah on Mt. Sinai. It was called Pentecost, a Greek word meaning “fiftieth”, because it always falls on the fiftieth day after the Passover. That year it fell on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection and, thus, the Christian feast of the Holy Spirit carries that name, as well.
We all know how this one goes. The owner hired more workers at various times throughout the day, finally hiring some who worked only one hour. At the end of the day, he paid all of the workers the same wage regardless of the time they worked. The earliest hired thought that was unfair and complain, to which the owner replied, basically, that he paid them what they agreed. Jesus ends with the famous aphorism, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” ~ Every time I read this passage the words that strike me most are “I will pay you whatever is right.” The definition of “right” in this circumstance, it seems to me, depends on who one is in the story, especially if it is set in our modern capitalist society. Perhaps not in Jesus’ time and place, but in our time and country with religious pluralism and economic disparity the definition of “right” is a variable thing. For the employer, a “right” wage would be that which maximizes his profit. For the supervisor in the vineyard, a “right” wage might be a perhaps larger amount sufficient to keep the workers happy and working. For the worker, a “right” wage would be enough to support his or her family with some for saving and a little left over for discretionary spending. For the government, a “right” wage would be at least enough to keep a worker off the public dole and to allow the worker to pay sufficient taxes to fund necessary public services. What is “right” is a hard thing to know. ~ In fact, I can’t imagine a modern worker accepting an employment contract that simply said, “Worker will be paid what is right”! Can you? Most employment agreements need to include a set starting wage in dollars-per-hour and a description of non-salary benefits including health insurance, pension or profit-sharing plan, vacation allowed, and so forth. Whatever is “right” needs to be carefully laid out. ~ Why should that be? Why isn’t there at least some universal notion of “rightness”? Shouldn’t there be some normative standard for the moral treatment and compensation of employees? Shouldn’t workers be able to trust their bosses to do what is “right” for them? I think there should be . . . but the truth is that human nature is “fallen”, that humans (both workers and employers) are greedy, that (as I’ve said) “right” is not always obvious. That’s why we have laws. That’s why we have regulations. That’s why government in a world where corporations are multi-national or trans-national or global (or whatever term you want to use for “great big and humungous”) cannot be “small”. Government needs to be big enough to lay down rules for how “whatever is right” can be determined in a pluriform society. ~ And the church and her members need to be “big enough” to speak up for what is “right” when others in our society – whether individuals, or big corporations, or the government – would do what is “not right”. If something is “not right”, speak up and say so! Be the first to do so, not the last.
