Jesus in the gospel reading is accused to be a “friend of sinners,” along with the charges of “a drunkard” and “a glutton.” Jesus also receives criticism of his feasting and not fasting like John the Baptist. A number of his parables describe banquets, weddings, parties, and celebrations, and it seems that he considered meals to be special occasions to enact the celebration of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness. The gospels, in particular Luke, portray Jesus going to meals or coming from them. His eating with sinners is mentioned frequently, and they form an important part of his ministry. Jesus scolds scribes and Pharisees for their table manners by taking the best seats. It is interesting that Jesus, who has no house of his own, enters another’s home and immediately takes over the household as the host of the meal.

The gospels associate him with disreputable people, tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes. The scribes, connected to the Pharisees and the Temple priests, ask, “For what reason does he eat with tax collectors and sinners.” (Mk. 2:16) How do we answer the question?

Jesus first deliberately seeks out disreputable sinners and people; they are colorful folks. I understand that too well; overly religious people can be boring and snobbish. Disreputable people have colorful lives, they are interesting sinners. .
Secondly, have you ever noticed how righteous religious folks are always concerned about sin and sinners? This is true in Jesus’ time and our own. They are obsessed with sins of the flesh and ignore the sinful conditions that lead people into poverty and homelessness, the desperation of prostitution especially in patriarchal societies when women have little opportunity to earn a living. Or in our own time, the victims of war and disease, people denied basic human rights, undocumented workers, environmental degradation and racism, the exploitation of the planetary resources and consuming fossil fuels and releasing vast amounts of carbon and other toxic chemicals resulting in global warming.

I have a theory why self-righteous religious folks are concerned about sinners: First, it separates the pious from the sinner. Remember Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:   “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Lk. 18:9-14)

You can just here the sneer in his voice as he looks down with despise at the tax collector. By putting someone down and separating yourself from them, you have made yourself better than those people.

The religious self-righteous always excuse themselves from the need for repentance when they compare themselves with what they consider as sinners, the wicked, or the impure outsider. The tax collector, however, never repents or reforms his life; he humbly acknowledges himself a sinner and asks God for mercy. Jesus commends the tax collector who is a sinner.

Jesus ate and drank with sinners; he was proud of the title—“friend of sinners.” Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.” ( Mt, 21:31) Jesus claimed that sinners were closer to the reign of God than the righteous religious people. But I want you to pay attention to the fact that Jesus seldom tells individual sinners to repent or reform their lives. He never concentrates on sexual sinners of prostitutes nor does the expected extortion and corruption of tax collectors.

There is only one story where Jesus says to the women caught in adultery. He defends the woman from her male accusers whose hearts are hardened against he. Jesus writes in the sand, indicating the law is written in sand and not hardened in stone. He tells the accusers, “Let anyone among you without sin throw the first stone.” The self-righteous accusers fade away, and Jesus comments,

“Has anyone condemned you?” She says, “No one sir.” Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” (Jn 8:10-11)

The earliest manuscripts of John’s gospel does not have this story, and it was added as a floating story that made second or third generation followers of Jesus uncomfortable at his compassion with sexual sins. I suspect “from now on do not sin again” was added by a scribe in John’s community. Why do I say this? It does not fit in portrait of Jesus and his relationship with sinners in the other three gospels. It seems a third generation Christian addition when Christians were trying to prove that they were very moral to fit in the Roman Empire.

The other three gospels portray Jesus as befriending sinners with requiring repentance. Jesus generally does not single out common sinners, and his call to repentance is a generalized call to repentance to society in the opening of Mark’s gospel: “The time is fulfilled and the reign of God has drawn near. Repent and believe in the good news.” (Mk. 1:15)

Jesus frequently directed his message of repentance at the scribes, Pharisees, Sabbath fundamentalists, and or Temple priests or religious folks of high status. He engages actively in conflict with them, criticizing hypocrisy, religious abuse, oppression of the poor and the elderly, and the rich. He condemns such behaviors that abuse power or exploits the poor and the vulnerable. He challenges Sabbath fundamentalists who are upset with his violation of the Sabbath law to heal the afflicted or those lacking compassion for the sick and the poor. Jesus affirms that common sinners will enter God’s reign before them.

There is no question that Jesus upset the religious self-righteous and powerful because he did not require sinners to repent in the traditional manner of sin offering sacrifices. Jesus tells his holy critics, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (Mt. 9:11) On one level, Jesus is criticizing his accusers for their lack of compassion, and on another, he challenges their exclusionary practices and requirements for sin offerings. God’s forgiveness is already there in his meals celebrating God’s unconditional love.

Sinners and self-righteous both called Jesus “friend of sinners.” A closer look at the term helps to understand what is really going on when he does not require repentance of common sinners. He invited sinners into fellowship with himself to celebrate God’s forgiveness of sins. I want to share a quotation from the book Sinners by Greg Carey:

Jesus’ companionship with sinners opened the path for people to challenge his uprightness. Some people, perhaps many people, believed that a respectable religious leader like Jesus had no business cavorting with sinners. Yet Jesus identified himself with sinners. And some sinners joined his movement. That is how the Gospels tell it, perhaps, because early generations of Christians identified with the sinners of the stories.

So “friend of sinners” not only a title given to Jesus and his ministry, it also was his method of reaching out to sinners and bringing the good news of God’s unconditional acceptance and forgiveness of them.

I have left discussion of centering prayer reading from Sinners until last. The boy Brian imitates his father’s violence and threats of his mother by pulling a gun out of the gun cabinet and placing the barrel his mother’s chin, saying “If you say another word, I’ll blow your fucking head off.” Brian imitates his father’s violence with his sister over eating the last of the cereal and takes a gun and shoots his sister dead. His action is horrific, and he is sent to a youth home for his crime. A counselor tells him one day that he is a neat kid. Brian replied, “you wouldn’t say that if you knew why I am here!” And the counsellor said, “Of course, I do; we all do.” And Brian breaks down sobbing confronted with unconditional love and acceptance.

Jesus chose the method of companioning with sinners; he did not have to require them to repent. He proclaimed that God had forgiven them. They were beloved children of God, and God accepted them unconditionally, forgave them unconditionally, and love them without any string attached.

For Jesus’ critics, his companioning with sinners was offensive because it violated the purity laws with which they wrapped up their religious self-righteousness. Sin is after all very contagious; it will spread like a disease unless we guard against it. He proclaimed God’s forgiveness to them without requiring them to reform their lives with the traditional means of paying for a sin offering at the Temple. In fact, Jesus celebrated with sinners God’s forgiveness and unconditional acceptance in his meals; they celebrated God’s presence and forgiveness dining together.

Does the method of becoming a friend of sinners without repentance work? Many of his disciples were sinners—Levi the tax collector, Simon the Zealot, and Mary Magdalene. They changed the directions of their lives and became disciples as they experienced the blessing of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness. They changed their lives because they encountered God as love.

We companion with people who are hurt, oppressed, different, undocumented, and considered outcasts because our mission as disciples to become vehicles of God’s unconditional love to others. Often people change their lives by the radical unconditional love from God, and we become disciples to make the mission of Jesus as friend of sinners alive today. But we also are very conscious that we too miss the mark often and that we too are sinners but live with the climate of God’s extravagant love and grace. Many sinners, including myself, became followers of Christ as we felt God’s tender mercies and unconditional love for us.

As we read in the First Letter of John 4:7-11,
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love is was revealed among us in this way: God sent God’s only Child into the world, so that we might live through hi. In this love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent God’s Child…. Beloved since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
Jesus gave us an example of loving our enemies with unconditional love despite their hostility to us. God send us into places where are considered sinful because there we can be companions to the one Christ who was a friend of sinners.

Go and companion with sinners. Be friends and exude the unconditional love of God has for all sorts of sinners.

The 2nd century North African Christian writer, Tertullian, wrote, “Christ is never without water.” Of course, you can say that Jesus’ body contained 60-65% water as an adult. I believe that it is significant that we as adults all contain water averaging between 55-65% of our bodies. New born infants contain about 75% water. Water is as important as blood in our bodies. And all life is connected with water.

In fact, the entire Bible is full of water images, for water plays a vital role from creation to the crossing of the Jordan River to the baptism of Jesus. There is a vital interconnection between water and all life for flourishing and survival. Water and its relationship to God in the Bible suggest the care of the Creator for creation, and water becomes the potential site of engagement with God’s Spirit. We frequently encounter God in or near water.

Today’s gospel reading narrates the story when Jesus is baptized in the waters of the Jordan River by John the Baptism Let me look at the baptism of Jesus. Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist has made Christians uncomfortable, for John baptized folks for the forgiveness of sins. Christians have been uncomfortable that Jesus was baptized for the forgiveness of his sins. They have had to rationalize Jesus’ baptism. For example, the 4th century bishop of Alexandria Athanasius declares: “When the Lord, as man, was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in him and by him.” Athanasius shifts the focus of the baptism to Jesus representing humanity in the waters of baptism. That may be a good theological after thought.

However, if we look carefully at the baptism of Jesus, it is more than John’s baptism for forgiveness of personal sins. When Jesus merges from being immersed in the waters and as he grasps for breath, he experiences an epiphany of God. It is a revelation whereby God in the form of dove or the Spirit descends upon Jesus in the Jordan waters with these words: “You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus is born from the cosmic waters of the Jordan as the Spirit hovered over the waters of creation in Genesis. Jesus is born as the beloved child from heaven and earth. His baptism inaugurated his ministry of the reign of God. The Spirit’s descent upon Jesus as he emerged from the water dripping down his forehead, beard, and his hair wet transforms him into the beloved child of God. It was the Spirit who overshadowed the womb of Mary as Jesus was conceived. It is now the Spirit who transforms Jesus with God’s grace into the beloved child of God, commissioned to preach God’s kingdom in our midst. And Jesus’ baptism gives a new content to the baptism for forgiveness of John the Baptist.

There seems to be a very strong correlation between the water of baptism and water for daily use. The water of baptism represents life, the grace of God, renewal and hope. What better natural symbol for God’s life-giving grace! The yearning of Christians for baptismal water at whatever cost reflects an equally deep yearning in us for water for ordinary use. Our thirst for water is great metaphor for our thirst for the Spirit.

Jesus—as God’s incarnation—unites heaven and earth in himself. He is interconnected with the waters of creation and all life, and this is made clear in a theological insight by Edward Echlin:

When Jesus enter the Jordan, the waters and creatures dependent upon water, re sanctified by the presence of God’s word made flesh. All waters are connected—water is like the blood of the earth. All waters are cosmic. Sanctified, recreated, when the Spirit again moves of the waters at the Jordan at Jesus’ baptism.

If all waters are connected through the baptism of the beloved child of the earth and heaven, I like to repeat Tertullian’s observation: ‘Christ is never without water.” Christ’s grace—like living water– reaches every pore of our bodies, the bodies of creatures and plant-life, into the soils of the earth, with the rains from heaven falling on to the soil, in the wells and oasis streams, in bubbling springs and rivers, lakes, and the oceans that comprised much of our planet. The orthodox Syrian bishop Jacob of Serugh claims that “our Lord went down to the Jordan, and the whole of nature of water stirred with joy.” Many Christian writers have comprehended the baptism of Jesus as the beginning of the new creation. They understood water as an ever present symbol of God’s grace in Christ.

God’s grace is there in our baptism whether the waters are sprinkled on your forehead or you are immersed in the waters. You are immersed in the grace life of God. You become part of the body of Christ—connected by the Spirit to the Earth and all life and adopted as beloved children of Abba God. We and all life become virtual baptismal waters of Christ. We are Christ’s virtual water. The Holy Spirit is always about change, new life and transformations through grace, union with Christ and all creation.

Echlin again writes,

The faith of the church, with which baptized Christians are entrusted includes appreciation of the world’s waters, and the virtual water of the soil, because, in Jesus, God descended into the living Jordan, setting the waters afire. (Echlin)
All the waters of the Earth were set afire by the Spirit, the Spirit connected Christ to all waters.

Let me take your through a tour of the gospels of Jesus and water. It tells us much about Jesus’ baptismal ministry and our water discipleship.
But I think of all those places in the gospels where Jesus and water interact. I want to do a quick water tour of the gospel to understand the ministry of Jesus and its connection to water.

First there is Jesus walking on the waters of Sea of Galilee and invites Peter to join him, and of course, Peter sinks like a rock. Or there is Jesus, who awakes from a sleep in the boat with his disciples during a storm and calms the storm. Jesus is connected to the water ways of Galilee, its wells and streams, and beyond: the Jordan River and Sea of Galilee. By the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus feeds five thousand plus folks with the multiplication of the loaves and the fish.

In John’s gospel, Jesus and water are connected more than any other gospel. There is Jesus first miracle at the Wedding of Cana, where he turns large barrels of water into wine. Water is transformed into wine for the merriment and joy of a wedding banquet. Weddings are fertile.

With the secret visit of Nicodemus at night, Jesus tells him: “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” (Jn. 3:5) He connects water and Spirit together in a spiritual rebirth for the closeted disciple Nicodemus. The primal waters of creation are connected to the hovering of the Spirit, and ever since the symbolism of water for Spirit has been part of the Jewish and Christian traditions. The Spirit is the midwife of creation bringing life and renewed energy.

And in the next chapter, there is the marvelous scene between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, telling the woman if she knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (Jn. 4:10) Jesus goes on to say: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn. 4:14)

In the discourse between Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4:7-15), we see the Samaritan woman asking for the living waters. Yes, she needed the water from Jacob’s well, but she also needed the living water even more. God gives Jesus to the world as the water of life, and Jesus offers himself to the world as the living water. This living water figuratively represents a blessing that reproduces itself, and like a spring, it is never exhausted. Through those suffering from water poverty, Christ in person of the poor is still begging for something to drink, for water, for the living water. Are we willing to share a cup of living water. In the upcoming season of Lent, as we deny ourselves comforts in order to feel the pain of others, may we come up with practical ways of standing in solidarity with the many who are still crying, give us water … the living waters! We might practice a little further personal restraint in our over consumption of water. The average American uses 100 gallons per day while the Navajo uses 7 gallons.

Water was scarce in Jesus’ day, yet water was as much a necessity for life then as it is today. Half of the world’s population today lives in arid regions where is not readily available nor clean water accessible. Just as the physical body needs water to continue living so does humanity and all life needs the water of the Spirit.

Jesus at the Festival of Booths in Jerusalem proclaims: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ”Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” (Jn. 7:37-38) The heart is the place of faith, for when we place our hearts in God, we connect to God, heart to heart. Jesus’ prophecy comes true, for when he dies on the cross and the centurion stabs Jesus in the chest with his lance, water and blood flow from the open wound on the dead body of Jesus. Water and Spirit are identified earlier in the gospel, and the gospel takes the flow of water with blood as a fulfillment of Jesus’ earlier prophecy that rivers of living water will flow from his heart. Jesus’ glorification by Abba God has begun with death, for he handed over his Spirit. Jesus says earlier in John, “When you lift of the Child of Humanity, then you will realize that I AM.” (Jn. 8:28 f) And the water represents the beginning of his pouring out his Spirit.

There is a Homeric legend in the Iliad that the gods did not have blood in their veins but a type of blood mixed with water. In epic poem, Aphrodite– in combat before the city of Troy–is wounded, and she bleeds a mixture of water and blood. And this signifies the divinity of Aphrodite. This is how Gentile converts would understand the stabbing the side of Jesus.

At the Last Supper, Jesus strips off his cloak, and like a slave or woman, he washes the feet of his disciples. This act of foot washing has often been connected to baptism and the death of Jesus. Jesus performed this servile action to prophesy that he would be humiliated in death. He has acted out a parable of humble service for his disciples which they must be prepared to imitate. He is reminding them “no servant is more important than his master.” Christians have connected baptism to the death of Jesus, his resurrection, and his gift of the Spirit. If we die with Christ in the waters of baptism, we are baptized into the risen Christ.In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is asked by his disciples where he wants to celebrate the Passover. He gives this very strange instruction:

Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you, follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house. “The Teacher asks, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” (Mk. 14:13-14)

It would have been socially improper for a man to do this type of women’s work of drawing water and carrying it back to his master. Some commentators have said this is the equivalent in our times of Jesus instructing the disciples to look for the gender bending man—cross-dressing, wearing a wig and with make-up. While it would be anachronistic to suggest this man may have been queer-identified in our modern sense, he was certainly transgressing a strict gendered boundary in his behavior. Jesus seems to be aware of this gender variant man. It is interesting to speculate about his relationship with the man carrying the water jar.

My inclusive imagination goes wild over these couple of lines in Mark’s gospel. Was there a location in Jerusalem where one met gender variant males? Jesus was certainly comfortable with eunuchs when identifies with eunuchs in his statement: “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”(Mt. 19:12)

If so, it points to Jesus’ inclusive experience of these gender variant males and eunuchs, and more importantly, his inclusion of gender variant folks into his ministry is wider than we could even imagine. Did Jesus and his disciples eat his Last Supper in a location that would scare many religiously conservative and purity conscious Pharisees would cringe at the thought?

Jesus preached while sharing a cup of water; he fed 5000 near the waters of the Sea of Galilee, he described himself as the living water. He healed the blind at pool of Siloam and instructed him to wash his eyes from the waters of the pool.
Water symbolizes the transformation born of us as children of God into a new creation—an inclusive community connected to the waters within the cosmic Christ. Next time you take a drink of water, understand that you drink the waters of Christ. It is a form of communion, and you have born like Christ as child of heaven and earth. And the water you drink connects you to all water and life.
Finally, when we were baptized, we understand that we were baptized with Christ and into the mystical body of Christ. We become beloved children of heaven and earth, and we have a responsibility for the waters of the Earth and all the life containers carrying virtual water of Christ. Our water discipleship is born of our baptism. And we honor the Christ in all waters have a responsibility to water justice around–to make sure all have access to water and clean water.   Water justice starts with us and our conservation here in Southern California even on a rainy weekend!

(As I surveyed scripture readings for this sermon on MCC United Church of Christ’s 42nd anniversary, I was reminded that I asked all who preached on our anniversaries to imitate the last lecture series popularized several years ago. I just made it the criteria: imagine and preach your last sermon—the sermon and message that you would want to pass on to folks with your last words.)
I would like to describe myself as a heart specialist: not in any medical definition, nor in one of the match making or dating services online. A heart specialist functions to bring healing to the world or to channel to others what has been abundantly and excessive given to me. I do actions for others. Why do I try to be compassionate and loving?

Each Sunday as I take communion, I practice a meditation from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition—called tonglen. It means “taking and sending” or “receiving and giving away.” I take on the burdens and sufferings of others, and I send out what graces I have received from God for others. These are the words you hear as I take the host—Christ’s body and God grace to us. “I take this communion and offer the grace for those who are hungry, for the homeless living on the streets, those suffering from war and oppression, and for the Earth which has been oppressed and ravaged by humanity. I offer this grace for healing.” I vary my words occasionally.

My tonglen communion practice is a meditation to connect myself and yourselves with suffering —our own and the suffering of the world that we livein. It is a heart practice that dissolves the tightness in our hearts and opens our hearts to the suffering around us. It unites the suffering and death of Christ whose words at the last supper form the core practice and in fact spiritual participation in his own death and resurrection. “This is my body broken and given for you. And this is cup of my blood, shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.” Whenever we remember the words and Christ’s inclusive hospitality at table, we are connected to the suffering and death of Christ and more.
My communion practice of tonglen connects the suffering and death of Christ with the suffering of people, other live, and the Earth. It is meant to awaken our compassion that we experience with God, who experiences the death of Christ and experiences the suffering of the world. It is the flow of God’s grace offered to us through Christ but that flow does not stop within our hearts or within us. What we receive we send to the suffering in the world. We never keep any gifting from God for our own but pass it on to those in greater need.

I chose Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. It most exemplifies my opening words about tonglen communion practice. The story incarnates Jesus words in his sermon on the plain in Luke’s gospel: “Be compassionate as your Abba God is compassionate.” The context of the parable is the question to Jesus: “who is my neighbor?”

Jesus’ parable is an example that answers the question of neighbor. There ia man who travels from Jerusalem to Jericho but is mugged by robbers—who strip him, beat him, and leave him for dead. A priest is traveling the same direction sees the stripped body and deliberately goes out of his way to avoid the body. He does not even approach to see whether the man on the ground is still alive. Similarly, a Levite passes by the unconscious body as well; he disregards the body as well.

A Levite is a religious functionary who serves the priests in the Temple with their religious duties. They are like deacons, assisting the priests in their purifying hand washings and sacrificial role of killing and offering a portion of that animal to God.

Both priest and Levite are required by religious regulations to avoid occasions of impurity or defilement. Coming into contact with a dead corpse or nearly dead body would generate defilement so that they could not perform their religious duties in the Temple.

The third traveler–a Samaritan—despised by the Jews ethnically and religiously—sees the beaten body. He is moved to compassion, he treats the beaten man’s wounds with oil and bandages his wounds, places him on his own mount and brings him to an inn.

And the next day the Samaritan took out two denarii and the gave them to the innkeeper and said: “Take care of that man and whatever more you spend, when I return will give back to you.”

The details of the story have more depth when we look closely at the story. When I ask which character in the story I most identity with? I hope first for the Samaritan, but certainly not the priest and Levite, and perhaps most with the innkeeper. I will explain why momentarily.

The Australian poet, Henry Lawson, wrote a poem about the Samaritan. Listen to the third stanza:

He’s been a fool, perhaps, and would
Have prospered had he tried,
But he was one who never could
Pass by the other side.
An honest man whom men called soft,
While laughing in their sleeves —
No doubt in business ways he oft
Had fallen amongst thieves.

Lawson describes the Samaritan’s giving a foolish type exchange. From a business perspective, the exchange is not even an investment, it is a squandering of monies spent on someone already half dead and probably a sinner. How often is charitable giving is enclosed in businesss language of investment? Donations are given with strings attached. Or it is considered throwing the investment away unless it brings a return to the giver. Here Lawson characterizes the gifting of the wounded man by the Samaritan from a sense of compassionate care as an act of foolishness. From a business perspective, it is foolish giving with no return, squandering valuable capital on a poor investment.

On one level, the Samaritan in the parable is the Abba God of Jesus who attempts to compassionately love us. The Samaritan represents the God, who reaches out compassionately to the wounded man and relates to us as the good Samaritan. God compassionately offers extravagant life-giving care and hospitality to the wounded man left half dead.

When I reflect upon my experience of God’s love for myself, for you, and all life, I come up with: “extravagant hospitality” as the Father in the prodigal son parable rushing out to greet his returning son, “abundant love and unconditional love, and excessive compassion.” All these phases describe Hod’s giving to myself and yourselves.

What God gives us is excessive—more than we need or can use. We have life, the givenness of the world, friends, a community, companion animals, and more even if we think we have less.

God’s giving is not random—that is, a hit or miss display of love. It is prolific and wanton and directed at each of us. Its excessiveness generates our own giving. In the parable of the prodigal son, the son asks for inheritance and his father bestows upon himself. He goes away and squanders it on himself. The father gives the prodigal son his share of capital and property even knowing that his son will squander it. When he has lost everything, he returns home. And his father runs to meet him throwing his arms around him to welcome him. What the father has still is his son’s. The son not only learns about profound forgiveness and compassion from his father, but also learns that the joy of his father’s giving and giving again..

Excessive acts of kindness encourage more giving away. God’s giving always precedes us giving. God is love, and God’s love directed at us occurs before we are even aware of that divine gifting. But God’s giving always means that we who receive God’s excessive compassion and extravagant hospitality need to pass the gift on. When we pray in Lord’s prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is not merely prayer for daily bread for ourselves, for it is a prayer to receive bread to share with others. Whatever God gives to us, God gives for us to share and pass on.

Let’s go back to my identification with the innkeeper. The Samaritan gives the innkeeper a small subsidy or down payment in advance. The Samaritan entices the innkeeper to give more and provide generous care for the wounded man. The innkeeper gives again because he has received a gift. Is that not what God does with us? God call us to be innkeepers. God gives excessively and abundantly, and we as innkeepers are shaped by Good’s bountiful and over generous giving. In passing on God’s giving to us, we participate in God’s gifting by passing it onto others. God’s excessive acts of kindness are encouraged by a promise of repayment provides the opportunity to the innkeeper to pass the gift along to the wounded man.

Jesus holds up the Samaritan as a model of surprising generosity as Samaritan. It startles and shocks his Jewish audience. What Jesus intends to teach us is that God’s gifting creates a community of givers who empower others to give and in their cultivation of generosity and in gratitude to give again.

Stephen Webb, in his book, The Gifting God, writes:

Passing the gift along transforms the static and ambiguous obligation of gratitude into a joyous participation in the life of that gift. What we most give to others is to help them discover, develop, and deploy what they have to give, and sometimes this means that we must give up our own gifts, as did Jesus Christ, and learn how to receive.
For learning to receive God’s excessive gifts, God’s extravagant welcome and hospitality, God’s unconditional love is to learn not to hold onto the gifting but to pass the gifting away. We become channels of God’s gifting and, in turn, that gifting is passed on to others.
It stretches our imagination, for giving as God extravagantly gives to us becomes a goal and ideal for Christians. Religious sociologist Robert Wuthnow writes, “Helping others may not lead to a better society, but it allows us envision a better society.” We understand what Jesus’ parable presupposes: a new world where not only the barriers between us and them are dissolved, but that we realize that a stranger or even a supposed enemy can come to aid of one of us.
I believe with my whole heart and being in that dream of God for a better world shaped by God’s extravagant giving. Such actions in serving others, living and fighting for justice of people, other life, and the Earth

I am like everyone else I hate paying taxes for a number of reasons but I am realist that many of our services, that I expect, would be curtailed or non-existence. Taxes are a necessary part of living in the US. I do dislike the fact that taxes are unfair, especially on the poor and the middle class, when the very wealthy can pay at a lesser tax rate than many of us. The billionaire Warren Buffet has called attention to the fact his secretary pays a higher rate of taxes than he does as a billionaire because of the tax loopholes and deductions that are available to him but not to his secretary. I dislike how corporations shift monies overseas to pay reduced taxes and pay rates less than any of us.

Today’s gospel appears to be about taxes, but I want to suggest that the issue is more than taxes. The first clue is that the Pharisees joined the Herodians to entrap Jesus. You see the Pharisees and the Herodians are enemies, they are political parties frequently in conflict over their goals. In this case, they unite against Jesus. They become convenient friends to go after Jesus.
The Herodians developed their power from the Roman occupation. They were named after Herod the Great—the king who tried to kill Jesus in Bethlehem. His son Herod Antipater killed John the Baptist. Herod made life difficult for Jesus, and we can safely assume that Jesus was itinerant, constantly moving around Galilee and in and out Galilee, escaping the troops of Herod. They were the landed gentry who practiced their Jewish religion with explicit allegiance to Rome. They were Hellenized Jews who practiced the religious cult to the Emperor. The Roman Empire kept them in power as they oppressed Galilean peasants.
The Pharisees represented the purity party that supported the Temple and chief priests. They built a fence around the Torah regulations with a series of oral traditions to keep as pure as the Temple priests. Yet the Pharisees collected the Temple tithes and reinforced a boycott of those who did not pay there Temple dues. Out of necessity, they deferred to Roman authority because the Temple cooperated with the Romans.

The Herodians represented the interests of the Roman Empire and its system of control while the Pharisees represented the Temple interests. The Herodians felt Judaism’s future belonged to Rome and the Herods installed as rulers by Rome. They supported the Roman system of taxation that was burdensome and kept the Jewish peasants poorer. The Herodians became money launderers for the Roman tribute, and they profited from the money exchange of Jewish coinage into Roman coinage.

The Herodians stood by Herod Antipas in Galilee. Herod had killed John the Baptist, and here was another popular charismatic prophet causing trouble. In fact, people from the circle of Herod Antipas found their way to this charismatic prophet. Joanna, the wife of an administration official in Herod’s court, became a disciple of Jesus.

The Romans levied a grain tax, taxes on all produce, sales taxes, occupational taxes on certain trades and guilds, custom taxes, temple taxes, transit taxes. These revenues from conquered peoples supported Roma and its citizens. The Pharisees represented the alternative religious tax system that took 10% of all that the peasants produced plus the requirements for sacrifices for forgiveness, annual feasts and festivals in Jerusalem. 95% of the Jews who lived in Palestine suffered from the burdensome taxes.

These two groups come together in their opposition to Jesus. Jesus disturbs the religious and political powers with his message of God’s reign. We have seen where religious and political groups align themselves together against an opponent. In 2008, the Mormons, the Catholics, and the Evangelicals came to support Prop 8 because of their opposition to same-sex marriage while despising each other.

They intend to ensnare Jesus on the question of taxes. Will he deny the taxation system of the Roman Empire or the Temple? In the coinage collected by Roman officials and their proxies, they collected denarri with the image of the Emperor Tiberius, son of the divine Augustus Caesar. The Pharisees would objected to the denarii or foreign currency. For the Temple taxes and offering had to be exchanged for coins without the image of Caesar or acknowledging any national god outside of the Jewish God. The Jewish God was the only God. The Pharisees advanced the view that any payment to the emperor with denarii coins was idolatry. The Pharisees rejected foreign currency because it violated the first commandment against graven images. In Judea, the Temple authorities minted coins in Hebrew creating an alternative religious currency. Jewish coinage or coinage without any image of Caesar or god was acceptable.
Payment of Roman taxes meant paying tribute to Rome and its divine ruler and gods. The Pharisees did not want to accommodate with the Greco-Roman culture nor with paying tribute. But they were forced since ending the tribute would have brought dire consequences of the Roman military, further enslavements and punishments.

So the question posed to Jesus by the Herodians and Pharisees: “Teacher, we know you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”

When Jesus asked for the coin, he realized his challengers asked him to make a choice between two taxation systems, fraught with political consequences. Did he publicly side with the Herodians or the Pharisees? Or, did Jesus side with the accommodating Herodians who saw relations with Rome as the future? If he agreed with the Pharisees, the Herodians could charge him with rebellion against Rome. If Jesus agreed with the Herodians, the Pharisees could charge him with idolatry. And this would end the week-long challenges of Jesus in Jerusalem and discredit him in the eyes of the people.

Jesus asked for a coin. When Jesus asked for the image and the title on the coin, he made the Pharisees and the Herodians face up to the choice they gave him. Rome or the Temple? Jesus cleverly sidetracked the political trap.

Jesus renders his verdict as they produce a coin. He says to them, “whose head is this and whose title is this?” They concede, “The emperor’s.” Then Jesus says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When two options are presented in Aramaic language, it is always the second that holds importance. In this case, he says pay the taxes to Caesar but recognize that ultimately the greater allegiance belongs to God. Jesus probably remembered the prayer in the Psalm:
The earth belongs to the Lord, and all that is in it,
The world and those who live in it.

Jesus prohibits unquestioning loyalty to Rome, and a few days later in his demonstration in the Temple, in his prophetic action of overturning the table of the money-changers, he pronounces his verdict, “My father’s house has become a den of thieves.”

Loyalty and allegiance to the Roman Empire or to the Jewish Temple are secondary to the reign of God. Unquestioning loyalty to the state or to the church are dangerous at any time. Jesus message about God’s reign takes precedence over all claims. The guards at the Nazi concentration camps considered themselves loyal Germans and good Christians. And look at the atrocities they did in crucifying Christ in the concentration camps

(Youtube Clip from Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtEzV9jTpvI

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his writings are studied in many mainline seminaries and universities. In the early 1930s, he studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City with the famous theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a member of of one of the earlier churches that formed into the United Church of Christ in 1957, and Bonhoeffer participated in the Abyssinian American Baptist Church in Harlem and enjoyed African-American Spirituals. He was on collision course with the Nazi politics of his native Germany. He joined the resistance. Next week after service we watch the movie—Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace. But today I want to show you a clip from the movie when the Gestapo come into church, informing Bonhoeffer that he can no longer teach, preach, or lead worship. The Gestapo intimate the congregation to profess the Nuremberg Confession:

The pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

Let’s not delude ourselves that if we take the loyalty oath to Hitler it means they’ll let us worship in peace. The Nuremberg laws are an attack on Christianity itself. Adolf Hitler demands nothing less than total commitment. He’s the elected chancellor, yes. But more than that, he considers himself de Fuhrer, and as “the leader,” he craves to be the conscience of every living German. But his claim upon us is a claim that a Christian can only accept from Christ Himself.

There are times that our conscience informed by the Gospel of Christ and our God may lead us to realize that there is a higher allegiance than Caesar or Hitler or corporate greed. I tried to think of one, and my thought is on the Tar Sands pipeline from Canada. Should it be approved, thousands, if not tens of thousands of people who love and care for the Earth, will stand and obstruct the construction of the pipeline which will cross the largest aquifer in the heartland of the US. A major spill could effect the water supplies of millions of Americans and American farming. It is folly to construct this for greed for fossil fuel. I will stand with Sierra Club and peoples of faith in civil disobedience to such a construction project. It will harm the Earth and life. Here is a more contemporary example of rendering to God.

This parable originates with Jesus and against the backdrop of conflict with the Jewish leadership of the Temple. It was perhaps the last week of Jesus’ life. This is called the parable of the “murderous tenants.” The vineyard is a typical image for Israel with God as the absentee landlord. The servant who are sent to collect the revenue or portion of the produce of the vineyard at harvest time are the prophets. One is beaten, another killed, and the third stoned. The landlord sends his own son, “They will respect him.” But they seize him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him for his inheritance.

Jesus addresses a crowd in Jerusalem, asking them: “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” The crowd answers, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at harvest time.”

Two things stand out immediately in this parable. The first is the courage of Jesus telling this parable about his fate and expected death in Jerusalem the week before his crucifixion. How many of could tell a story about our impending murder and death? The second is that the Pharisees and the priestly leadership of the Temple hear this parable directed at themselves.

In the gospel today, the temple leadership realizes that Jesus’ parable undermines question their leadership abilities over the vineyard. There has been a series of confrontations and oral conflicts this last week in Jerusalem. They may have been seething with anger but the crowds temper their anger public display of anger. The crowd viewed Jesus as a prophet.

But what does Jesus mean telling such a gloomy and prophetic parable? This is certainly not God’s reign with the tenants killing the vineyard owner’s son. Is the reign of God with God coming end wreaking vengeance upon the murderers of his son?

If we leave at the end of the parable, we might make some sense of the story as the opposite of God’s kin-dom. This is not God’s kin-dom, this is the way of the Roman Empire and the empires of the world. These are the actions of religious folks in Jesus’ time and in our time.

For his audience, there is hope that the temple leadership will get their due for their greed, oppression of the poor, and desire for power. There is a glee in their fate and punishment. But the landlord portrayed is not the God of Jesus and his ministry. It is a vengeful God taught by the temple leadership. This is how the world works and how God deals with such a world from traditional religion. God punishes the wicked, even vengefully.

But Jesus throws a curb into his story with the addition: He says, “Have you never read in the scriptures: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes?” Jesus goes on: Therefore I will tell you, the kin-dom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who produces fruits of the kin-dom.” He disturbs his own story with how God will genuinely act to overcome the evil of the murderous action of the tenants. God will undermine the vision of the world that promotes violence and killing as the only solution.

Jesus quotes a verse from Psalm 118:22-23 that changes the parable. Jesus affirms God often changes the circumstances even when they are tragic and horrific. He affirms that even his own death is the ultimate violation warranting the vengeance of death. God, however, works differently from human empires and religious institutions. God will restore the stone that is foundational for the kin-dom and rejected by the tenants. That is how God works with surprises and unexpected ways. There will be a new people who will bring the reign of God, and it will neither be the Romans nor the coopted Temple leadership. It will be people of the resurrected one who trust in God with their hearts even when all odds are against them.

The core affirmation of Jesus is that God’s resurrection of himself and resurrection in general tells us much about the gracious God of the universe and how God deals with evil and tragedy in life.

Jesus recognizes that there is a lethal price to pay in Jerusalem for the week of conflicts and confrontations with the religious authorities. He will pay dearly with his life, crucified to a cross by the Romans.

I want to turn your attention to the not too distant past when several folks who bore witness to Christ and God’s kin-dom and care for the poor against the military rulers, the rich families that supported the oppressed the poor and hungry, and the church bishops who refused to speak out. Archbishop Oscar Romero, a moderate bishop in San Salvador, who cared about his people spoke up against the military violence and injustice against the people. In the movie, Romero, he is a poor village, and his cassock is torn by the military officer, and the Archbishop starts to preside at a mass on the spot. He lives the gospel of Christ in the midst of persecution.

Here are his words:

It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualized word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts. What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine Church, is the word that, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims and accuses; proclaims to the people God’s wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God’s reign.

Romero mirrors the ministry of Jesus God’s Christ in the last week before his death in Jerusalem. He– like prophets sent to the tenants– was murdered at the altar by a military assassin while celebrating mass. He knew in his heart that in following Christ he would be killed. Even today the Catholic bishops of El Salvador have blocked the investigation into the death of Romero because of the Catholic Church’s complicity in his death. The tenants of the vineyard are still alive.

I find myself in admiration and awe of Jesus for telling this parable about himself and his placing his trust and heart in Abba God. It raises a question the title of a book written by the Jewish rabbi Harold Kushner—When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He wrote the book because his three year old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and would live only into his early teens. He writes as heart-broken parent and rabbi. There are no easy solution to the doubts, fears, and questions when tragedy or something terrible happens. This is a question that impacts all of us who have been challenged by various cancers, health challenges, tragedies, and harm perpetrated against us.

According to John chapter 9, Jesus was unable to answer a question why a man was born blind. He rejected the Temple authorities and Pharisee’s explanation that the man was born blind because of his sin or the sins of his parents. Jesus refused to accept the explanation. Evil and tragedy may strike you and spare your neighbor or person who is just the nastiest person imaginable. This mystery has bewildered the understanding of human beings from the very beginning of history. There is no easy answer, Jesus felt that on the cross when he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”

Let me push this problem to another example of horrific proportions.

Another Jewish author, Elie Wiesel, who authored the book The Trial of God, explores this issue in massive death. It takes place while he was imprisoned in Auschwitz. A group of rabbis in the concentration camp placed God on trial during the worst possible nightmare of death and horror they could imagine—the extermination of Jews and other peoples by the Nazis.

If you have ever gone through a Holocaust Museum, you will understood part of the magnitude of evil and horror. I went through the Holocaust Museum in Washing D.C. I was speaking at Georgetown University on gay theology, and the hos that I was staying with arranged for me to go through a VIP tour of the Museum. You can choose a real live person to follow through the concentration camp. I chose a gay man who was interred and died the gas chambers in Auschwitz. My mistake was going through the experience alone. I witnessed the cattle car that housed and shipped a hundred people to the camp. I saw a real gas chamber, the art of the children murdered in the chambers, and the smelled the decaying shoes left over and brought from the camp. At the end of tour you end up a quiet space to feel the intense emotions evoked by the experience. There were several people in the room in tears, including myself.

Going back to Wiesel, several rabbis place God on trial for God’s silence about the experience at Auschwitz. The issue is the questioning of God by Job on the justice of God. Is God apathetic because does God not care or is God powerless to save us?

In this case, the trial is how can the rabbis understand God to be just and good in light of the innocent suffering and massive death around themselves? If is truly God, why does God limit God’s power in this situation of horror and the many horrific events in history. At the end of the trial, the rabbis find God guilty of silence, but they take some hoarded bread crumbs to celebrate the Friday Sabbath service. They are faithful to observe the Sabbath and placed their faith in God despite the guilty verdict.

Elie Wiesel often retells the story about two Holocaust survivors, one a rabbi, who meet after liberation of the camps by the Allies. The survivor asks the rabbi how he can still believe in God after all he witnessed and experienced in the concentration camp. The rabbi responds by asking how, after all their experiences of the horror and death that has happened, can he not believe in God.

The question of evil and its meaning when it strikes—such as diagnosis of cancer or a terminal illness or the horrors of death of AIDS in the early stages of the pandemic—remain unanswerable. We can look to the faithfulness of the rabbis who attested that God may be silent but God was with them in their suffering and impending death.

Or we as Christians can look to Jesus. He answers, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” He points to his trust he has in Abba God and the resurrection. God may allow his creatures to do evil actions and crimes, but God experiences our suffering, knows what it means to abandoned and betrayed, arrested, flogged, scorned, the pain of crucifixion, and the last and painful breath of Jesus as he dies. We may not have the answers when bad things and evil strike us, but we know that God is with us each step with us and God will raise us to life with God’s self.

James Stuart is a Druid/Wiccan priest and dear friend of our church. He preached with husband Michael on St. Francis of Assisi Sunday. Enjoy the message..

A friend shared an interesting story on facebook just last Sunday. It chronicled what happened when wolves were intentionally introduced back into Yellowstone National Park in 1995. The Deer and Wapiti population had exploded in the park due to a human created lack of natural predators and were completely disrupting the ecosystem. Some areas had been grazed and browsed down to a near desert like status. When the wolves re-entered the ecosystem, they killed and ate a few deer, culling the herd. But the changes didn’t stop there.

The deer stopped frequenting open areas where they were easier prey, in particular the open over-grazed valleys. These areas almost immediately began to sprout new growth, inviting back birds, squirrels, insects, and reptiles. Within a few years, barren plains had become meadows and were turning into forests. Existing trees previously kept stunted by the browsing deer, shot up an astounding five times their height in just a few years. These trees then became an attraction for beavers. The dams built by the beavers created a welcoming environment for returning fish, amphibians, ducks and otters.

The wolves also killed and displaced some of the oversized coyote population, with the result that rabbits, mice, and other small rodents began to multiply again. This then, attracted their natural predators: foxes, weasels, badgers, hawks and bald eagles. Most remarkably of all, the rivers themselves, because of less erosion, and the dams of the beavers, became more stable in their courses, with less flooding or loss of topsoil to the surrounding areas. The entire ecosystem benefited. This phenomenon, where a species at the very top of the food chain has a dramatic impact upon its entire environment and beyond, is referred to as a “trophic cascade.”

This story serves to underscore the importance and value of every species in the rich tapestry of creation. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is today, understood a little of this, and was condemned for it by many of his fellow churchmen. He lived in an era when all of creation was considered by most, to be placed by God, at man’s disposal to do with what he liked, even unto destruction. Fortunately, far fewer people still believe this today. Unfortunately, some still do.

As people of faith, we are watched and judged, and followed by others. We are expected not only to speak out upon moral issues, and to take moral action, but also, we are judged by what form that action takes. We are not political leaders, who are often forgiven for committing crimes in the name of justice, waging war in the name of peace. We are not allowed such leniency, not by the public, not by our consciences, not by the Divine. Because we claim to answer to a higher power, we are held to a higher standard.

Francis too, felt that he had to speak out about what he felt was right. He advocated and took a vow of poverty, when many in the church had grown rich and fat on the contributions of the poor. These corrupt churchmen found his selflessness, and respect for all beings, human and non-human threatening. When he appealed to the Vatican to create his own order, the Franciscan, some, particularly amongst the wealthy and powerful Dominican Order tried to stop him by accusing him of an “unnatural love of animals.” The implication was, not that he understood and loved all of Nature, as God’s wonderful gift of Creation to be cherished, but that he engaged in bestiality, and was therefore the worst of sinners, perhaps even a heretic. Because he questioned and upset the established quo, he was being attacked personally.

Today, is no different. There are those who refer to those of us who speak out with legitimate concerns about the health of our planet, as “eco-terrorists” or “environmental fascists.” Nonetheless, we will continue to speak out. We cannot do otherwise.

But speaking out is not enough. We must act. Like the wolves of Yellowstone, we are at the top of the food chain. What we do as a species, even as individuals, most often has a far more dramatic and far-reaching effect upon our environment than we could ever imagine at the time. This has certainly been true of the thing which we have done with resulting ill effect, but it can also be for the better as well. Our government’s visionary, conscious and deliberate reintroduction of the wolves to Yellowstone is an excellent and awe-inspiring example. We must not lose sight of the fact, that as the primary source of change upon this planet, we have the ability to be the primary source of improvement and renewal. We can be responsible for our own trophic cascade.

In many religions, perhaps most, humanity is viewed as being the link between Creator or Creatrix and Creation itself. We have dared to believe, that though we are not quite divine, we are also somehow not quite completely a part of Creation. Indeed, it is that notion of being somehow above Creation, which has got us into this environmental mess in the first place. But, we are a part of Creation. We are not just its recipients, not just its custodians; we are part and parcel of it. And it is part and parcel of us. We are the cognitive link between the Divine which creates and that which has been created. We understand, or at least, flatter ourselves that we understand, some small part of the will of God. That notion, also, has frequently got us into much trouble in the past, but can just as well, with perseverance and some sacrifice, can also be our salvation.

In the beginning of Genesis is the Word, the Logos, also called the Divine Wisdom, the Hagia Sophia. This is the spark of all Creation, elsewhere referred to as the Holy Spirit. This is the spark which we carry within ourselves. This is the spark which we must use to ignite a wildfire of understanding, compassion, empathy, peace and harmony, especially in these troubling times, for all people, of all religions, for all beings, for all of Creation. We are all children of God. We must never forget that. If we are ever to be worthy of the unique position which we hold in this planet, we must rise to this challenge. We have very nearly been the death of Creation. We must now seek and find the Divine Nature placed by God within ourselves and become the Resurrection.

In order for you to better understand my own perspective, I will give a couple of examples from our Druid liturgy. In each of our rituals, we honor the Divine, as we see it, in all its varied forms, and we honor our Ancestors, all of those who have come before us, regardless of race, or religion.

But also, we honor what we call in Gaelic the Sprideanna na Talaimh, the Spirits of the Land, “Creatures of Fur, Fin and Feather, of Bark, Leaf and Twig, of Stone, Rock and Crystal, Creatures both Seen and Unseen.” The belief held here, is that we are all one family, and that the Spark of Creation, which we call the Awen, and which you know as the Holy Spirit exists in everything, whether it appears alive or visible to us or not. The Awen is the symbol which I wear around my neck, three tongues of flame descending from the Heavens to inspire humanity, like the Holy Spirit of the Pentecost.

Also, amongst our Sacred Hallows, we bless and sanctify a tree. It is not the specific tree which is important. We do not worship it, contrary to what some believe. It is merely symbolic of a concept, a great World Tree, which exists only in Spirit, our Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Its roots are said to grow deep into the nether realms where the dead sleep, waiting to be awakened. Its branches are said to reach high into the Heavens, beyond the Gods whom we claim to know, to touch the very Face and Breath of the Unfathomable One Who has created us all. Its trunk and branches stretch out to support and touch every being on Earth, every part of Creation. You can see why I associate it with the Holy Spirit. It is with this belief and understanding that we say in our liturgy, “Crann Naomh, fas isteeach muidsan. Sacred Tree, grow within us.”

We are asking that the Holy Spirit which connects all of Creation to God, continue to thrive and grow within ourselves, that we might become not just worthy of Divine salvation and blessing, but its very instrument. To some, this may sound a bit vain on the part of imperfect beings such as ourselves. But with all humility, I believe that it is necessary, now more than ever, and I believe that Saint Francis of Assisi would wholeheartedly agree. With that in mind I offer you this final wish and blessing: may the Sacred Tree grow within each and all of you.