In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We come to church this
morning, and we notice that everyone is wearing
blue. The servers, the priests, the deacons,
the covers are blue, and before us is the winding
sheet of the Theotokos, and the icon of her adormition
is there at the center, and a loy decorated in
flowers, and it dawns on us that we are still.
in this feast of the falling asleep of the Theotokos
of St. Mary. St. Mary is held very highly in
humanity because she gave birth to God. That's
like a mouthful, it's like mind -boggling. In
the Troparion that is sung, it says that she
is the mother of life, life with a capital L.
She is the bearer of God, the mother of God.
And she is held in a very high place because
of her obedience. When she says to the Archangel
Gabriel, she doesn't say to the Archangel Gabriel,
this is my life and I want to go to college.
Who are you to tell me how to live my life? Rather,
she says, be unto me according to thy word. We
also hold her in very high regard because she
beautifully and quietly and peacefully lived
into that obedience. She lived in a world like
we do, a world where the kingdom of God was entering.
The kingdom of God is coming. into a world that
is fractured, broken, and fallen. And in that
meeting of those two worlds, there is a great
measure of, and the word I'm going to use is
tension. Maybe there's a better word. But where
the kingdom of God is coming into this fallen,
fractured, broken world, there's this tension.
And she lived in that tension. beautifully, peacefully,
quietly. It's that place where divine glory meets
human suffering. Where revelation meets rejection.
Where beauty meets mess. There's a lot that we
don't know, but we can imagine. We can imagine
these things. That she... followed her Lord,
her son, our Lord, through the valley of human
misery that she saw the pool of Siloam where
all the paralyzed and blind and demon -possessed
and crazy people were all gathered there waiting
for the waters to be stirred. And when they were
stirred, they all rushed in, shoving each other
and screaming at each other and cursing each
other to get to the waters that were just stirred.
She was there. She saw that human misery. But
she also saw Zacchaeus come down from the tree.
She would have heard the Sadducees, the elders,
the scribes, the Pharisees, always with their
envy, their anger, their vitriol toward God.
But she would have also seen that woman who had
that hemorrhage for 12 years. Walk away that
morning with new life. She would have seen the
rich young ruler. Who walked away from eternal
life. Because he had many possessions. But she
also would have seen the woman give her two mites.
In holy week. She would have seen the anger.
The hatred. The betrayal. But she also would
have seen that sinful woman. Pour out her heart.
Her tears. Her ointment. and dry our Lord's feet
with her hair. She lived in that tension, that
tension of the kingdom of God coming into this
broken, fallen, you want to say like stupid world.
Now, somebody could ask this. They could say,
and it's actually, it's a good question. Like
if the kingdom of God is coming into this broken,
fractured, fallen, stupid world, Why doesn't
it just overcome all of this? Like all of this
injustice, all this innocent suffering. Why doesn't
it just make the world what it was meant to be?
The church has an answer to that question. Before
I share the answer, I'm going to say two things
about the answer. Well, three things about the
answer. First of all, ironically, there is no
answer. But I'll get to that in a moment. There
are some people, maybe even many people in the
world, who find the answer to be unacceptable.
For those of us in the church who are in the
faith, if we can catch this answer and hold it,
hold it long enough so that we can appropriate
our lives to it, that we can begin to live in
function of it, if we can integrate it into our
hearts, then we're home free. We've got it. The
answer, which ironically is not an answer, is
the kingdom of God coming into this world is
not an answer. It's not a solution. It's not
a fix. It's not a program. It's a person. It's
the person who was born from the fleshy womb
of the Theotokos. It's a person. who is a persecuted,
crucified, risen, and glorified Messiah. It's
a person who did not come into this world, nor
ever will come into this world by force, bulldozing
our humanity and our freedom, who doesn't come
in a way of saying to fix our humanity or to
erase our humanity, but to heal it, to invite
us into healing our humanity. There's this tension
that we live in of the kingdom of God coming
at us with an invitation for healing while we
live, work, breathe, eat in a fallen, broken,
fractured world. And we live in that tension.
That tension is the overarching structure. Of
St. Matthew's gospel. The tension of the divine.
And the human. And St. Matthew's gospel. We're
in the season right now. Of St. Matthew's gospel.
It's the summer gospel. It begins at Pentecost.
Right after Pentecost. We close John's gospel.
And we open Matthew's gospel. And it carries
us through the summer. All the way until next
month. When we celebrate the exaltation of the
cross. When we then jump to Luke's gospel. But
Matthew is the summer gospel that has this tension,
this overarching tension of the kingdom of God
coming into the world, into a fallen, broken,
fractured, stupid world. And it doesn't resolve
that tension, but it says, enter into that tension.
There you will find Christ. There you will find
the Lord in that tension. Today's gospel reading.
takes place in a valley it takes place in a valley
because our Lord is walking down from a mountain
just a few verses before today's gospel reading
our Lord was on Mount Tabor where he was transfigured
with Peter James and John and the voice came
from the cloud this is my beloved son whom I'm
well pleased to listen to him and Moses and Elijah
were there And in St. Matthew's Gospel, it says
that his face shone like the sun. And his garments
were dazzling white. Completely, it's called
the glory of Mount Tabor. And he is transfigured,
showing his divine glory. We just celebrated
the feast a couple days ago, about 10 days ago.
And then he's coming down the mountain with Peter,
James, and John. into the valley so he goes from
the glory of Tabor into the mess of the valley
because when he hits the valley there is a desperate
father a convulsing son a clueless disciples
and a bewildered crowd from the glory of Tabor
to the mess of the valley that's the tension
that is there that we're invited to live in the
glory in the mess and that in that space that's
where we could say like The spiritual life is
worked out in that tension. If you have that
tension in your life now, and if you have a heartbeat,
you have that tension in your life right now.
It could be small, or it could be large. It could
be hidden, like you're the only one that knows
about it, you and maybe some friends, or it can
be known, like everyone's talking about it. It
could be interior, like this anger so fierce
it just sits in your chest, or a depression that
weighs like a stone on you, or an anxiety that
just won't go away. Or it can be an exterior,
a tension in a marriage, a tension in a family
that's falling apart, craziness at the workplace
where you're trying to live out your vocation
and offer your work to the world and to God.
But there's like politics and stupidity going
on. Whatever that tension is, and we're all a
part of that tension. Here's the good news. God
is with us in that tension. And if you feel like
that tension is overcoming you, it is not. You
are not losing. You are in the fight. You are
in the battle where you meet Christ. Not only
do you meet Christ, but you discover yourself.
Stripped of your pretense. Humbled by grace.
And you become your authentic self. And the thing
about the answer, being a person, is that because
it's a person, we have, and it's the worst possible
word because of our culture today and our society
today. But it's the only word that we got. Because
it's a person, it's... It's an invitation to
relationship, to enter into relationship with
that person, to enter into communion with that
person. And that's the kingdom coming into the
world. That's the glory of Mount Tabor in the
mess. And that mess is in our lives, but so is
the glory. It is not rarely given or occasionally
given. It is constant in our fallen, broken.
fractured, stupid world, the Gloria Tabor's around
us. Just that Akathist that we're all familiar
with, glory to God for all things, just read
that Akathist. It's always referencing the glory
of God that is in our everyday present life that
we don't see. It's in this liturgy, in this gospel,
in this Eucharist. It's in our family when we
sit down to eat. It's in forgiveness when we
offer each other that quiet moment when we forgive
one another and have that exchange. It's in the
beauty of, I'm from Pennsylvania, it's in the
beauty of Santa Rosa, California. It's a great
beauty. The glory of God is all around us in
the mess. And we are invited to enter that mess
to discover ourselves and discover Christ and
have that communion with the crucified, persecuted,
risen and glorified Lord. There's this passion
prediction that's made in today's gospel. It's
the second one in Matthew's gospel. He says that
he's going to Jerusalem. If you were at the liturgy
yesterday in San Francisco for the ordination
of the bishop, we heard it in that gospel reading
yesterday that Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem
and he tells the disciples, When I get there,
this is what's going to happen. I'll be turned
over to the hands of evil men and they'll crucify
me. There is a line in our liturgical worship
that once you hear it, you can't unhear it. It's
memorable. It's powerful. If you're ever in traffic,
you can just sit there and think about it the
entire time you're in traffic. I think God gave
us traffic to think about the things that we
hear in church. I can't think of any other reason
why he would give us traffic. It's from the Feast
of the Exaltation of the Cross next month, but
it's also in every Resurrection of Matins on
Saturday night. And when the clergy take the
Eucharist back into the altar after committing
the faithful, this is said, this line is, Through
the cross, joy has come into all the world. Through
the valley, the glory of Tabor has come into
all the world. Through the cross, joy has come
into all the world. As we continue to celebrate
the adormition of Mary, we would affirm this.
The valley did not have the final word with her.
Human misery did not have the final word with
her. Death did not have the final word with her.
The valley... The misery, the death in our life
does not have the final word because through
the cross, joy has come to the world. The kingdom
of God has come to us through the mess of the
valley and through the mess of our lives. May
we receive that glory. May we integrate it into
our life. May we live in a function of it. May
we appropriate it to our life so that we too
can participate in the life with a capital L
from which Mary gave birth to. Amen.