AUGUST 5, 2001 - THE NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

FATHER BARRY WOODS

THE FIRST READING: HOSEA 11: 1-11

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes. My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. They shall go after the Lord, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west. They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.

PSALM 107: 1-9, 43

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
and his mercy endures for ever.

2 Let all those whom the Lord has redeemed proclaim that he redeemed them from the hand of the foe.

3 He gathered them out of the lands;
from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

4 Some wandered in desert wastes;
they found no way to a city where they might dwell.

5 They were hungry and thirsty;
their spirits languished within them.

6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.

7 He put their feet on a straight path to go to a city where they might dwell.

8 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy and the wonders he does for his children.

9 For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

43 Whoever is wise will ponder these things, and consider well the mercies of the Lord.

THE SECOND READING: COLOSSIANS 2: 6-15

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

THE HOLY GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO LUKE: 12: 13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

This is a tough parable that Jesus tells. It is a tough one for me to preach on, because the rich landowner, who seems to be the culprit of this story, sounds an awfully lot like me. He sounds like me, and he sounds like my friends, the guys that I play golf with almost every morning. Now think about this landlord. What he does is that he works hard. He saves his money. He wants to retire, and he wants to do three things; he wants to eat, drink, and be merry. Well, that sounds like me, and, as I said, it sounds like me and the guys that I play golf with. We worked hard. We saved our money. We retired, and now we do three things. We call it the Rancho Mirage Triathlon. It has three events: golf, lunch, and nap.

It is a tough Gospel for me, if I had to preach about the landowner. But, I am not going to. Instead, I want to focus on the nameless person in this story, the young man from the crowd who asks Jesus to go to his older brother and try and shake him loose from some of the money that he has. That is the guy I want to focus on, because it is in response to him that Jesus issues the warning in the Gospel this morning.

The warning: Be on your guard against greed of all kinds.

If you and I are to have any response to that warning at all, then we need to have some ideas in our mind about what constitutes greed. And so, this morning, let's try and find the three clues that we can use later on to determine whether or not we are, in fact, greedy.

The first thing that we can reasonably assume about this nameless person in the crowd is that he is not rich. He is not a wealthy man. He is most likely a younger son of a family where the father has died, and all of the wealth of the family has gone to the oldest son, which was the custom and law of the times. So, this guy is not rich. He wants to be, but he is not. And it is a reminder for you and for me that greed is a condition of the heart, not a financial condition. Poor people can be greedy or not greedy; rich people can be greedy or not greedy; and anywhere in between. Greed is not something that is determined by the balance sheet. It is something that happens to the human heart and makes it dry up and shrivel, to the point where it is, in many ways, no longer a human heart. So that is the first thing that we can look at with this nameless man.

Now, the second thing is to look at the fact that, what he is trying to do is get a hold of some stuff - some wealth - and he is trying to do it by using coercive, manipulative, little strategies. He is not going to go directly to his brother and say, "Hey Bro. How about sharing?" He is not going to do that. He is not going to go to his brother and say, "O.K. I will work honestly for you the way the law says that I should." He is not going to do that. He is going to try something a little bit funky! He is going to try and get a hold of this money by using Jesus' influence and power upon his brother.

It is a reminder, I hope, to you and to me, that there are two signs for greed. One of them is just the quantity of "stuff" that we have, or think we need. But, the other sign is - How do we go about getting the "stuff" that we need? How do we do it? Did we do it up front, honestly, earning it? Or did we use these devious little get-rich-quick schemes that surround you, me, and our lives today. How do we get a hold of the "stuff" that we have? If that was done in some way that was the slightest bit devious or manipulative or coercive, then maybe that is a sign that we have been infected with the disease of greed.

Thirdly, the one thing that we have no idea about from this story is how the man in the crowd responded to Jesus' warning. We are not told. Maybe he simply made an excuse and said, "Uh-uh. I'm not greedy. Not me!" Maybe he said to himself, "Well, maybe I'm greedy, but that is how the world is. You have to be greedy to get ahead, so that is my excuse." Maybe he ignored the warning altogether. Or, maybe, he went home, and shut his door, and looked inside his own heart, and said, "I wonder if I am a greedy person, or not?"

That is the reminder to you and to me that we, and the best people in the world, can get really devious when it comes to making excuses for ourselves about how much "stuff" we have. Even the best people in the world, people who are so honest about everything in the world, when it comes to deciding whether or not they are greedy people, they are capable of playing all kinds of games. People who would no more think of lying to God than flying in the air, will, all of a sudden, get really clever with God when it comes to explaining their "stuff".

And so, today, this third reminder or sign: We are so infiltrated with greed in our lives, that, if we are going to figure out whether or not we have been infiltrated ourselves, it takes real effort, because we can fool ourselves so very, very easily.

Now, this morning, it is not my job (thank you, God, that it is not my job!) to go through the congregation and say, "Yes, you are greedy. Oh no, you are not." It is not my job to decide who is and who isn't. And thank God! It is not even my job to threaten you with all kinds of dire consequences if you do not heed Jesus' warning about greed. That is not my job either. Frankly, I am not sure what the consequences are. Often there do not seem to be any. But, it is my job to try and encourage you to go home and search your heart for these signs of greed. Just between you and God, as honestly as you can possibly be, just search for signs of greed. I guarantee you it is worth it. It really is a very subtle thing, and it is very pervasive in our culture; but it is incredibly destructive. It destroys your relationship with yourself. It destroys relationships with other people, and it can be very harmful to your relationship with God. It is worth the time to go home and search your heart for signs of greed.

This morning, be careful. Heed the warning. Be on your guard against greed of all kinds.

September 2, 2001 - The 13th Sunday after Pentecost - Father Barry Woods

THE FIRST READING: JEREMIAH (2: 4-13)

Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves? They did not say, "Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that no one passes through, where no one lives?" I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, "Where is the Lord?" Those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit. Therefore, once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children's children. Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look; send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, sys the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

PSALM 81: 1, 10-16

1 Sing with joy to God our strength; and raise a loud shout to the God of Jacob.

10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."

11 And yet my people did not hear my voice, and Israel would not obey me.

12 So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts, to follow their own devices.

13 Oh, that my people would listen to me! That Israel would walk in my ways!

14 I should soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes.

15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last for ever.

16 But Israel would I feed with the finest wheat and satisfy him with honey from the rock.

THE SECOND READING: HEBREWS (13: 1-8, 15-16)

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." So we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

THE HOLY GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

ACCORDING TO LUKE (14: 1, 7-14)

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place', and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

By now, your worst fears are realized, as you begin to understand that the Rector is not preaching this morning. The bulletin says he is, but he ain't! Instead, you have in front of you this stranger - this guy, Barry Woods, whom no one knows, and, of course, I know so very few of you very well. We will correct that, over time, as long as Andrew allows me to stay here, but it will take some time; and we will just have to work on it - getting to know each other better and better as time goes by.

One of the things that you will find out about me, quite early on, is that I am fiercely proud of being a graduate of the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, widely known as "The Seminary". You will come to know this. As a matter of fact, there is already - even so early on, there is already a rumor in the parish. The rumor is that I said that clergy who did not go to Virginia Seminary - which, of course, includes the Rector - the rumor is that I said that clergy who did not go to Virginia Seminary would not go to heaven. I need to set the record straight right here and now - I never said that! I would never say such a thing! What I said was that, of course they would go to heaven, they just wouldn't fully understand what was going on there. (And, if I still have a job after this, I will be lucky!)

The Gospel for this morning bids us remember that there are some very important differences between life, the way we live it now, and the Kingdom of God, as it will be. The Gospel specifically reminds us this morning that there are three differences. Those who have been exalted in life will be humbled in the Kingdom. Those who have been humbled in life will be exalted in the Kingdom. And, those who have been excluded from the great banquets and parties of life will be welcome, wholly and completely, into the Great Heavenly Banquet in those days.

Now, the meaning of this Gospel is very clear for two kinds of people. The meaning of the Gospel is very clear to notoriously bad people. It is very clear to people who have clawed their way up the ladder of life, using, lying, cheating, stepping on other people, coercing, and manipulating. To the really bad people of the world, the message of this Gospel is very clear: If that is the way you exalted yourself in life, you are in big trouble in the Kingdom.

And, there is another group of people for whom the meaning of the Gospel is very clear - the very, very, very good people of the world - the people who have consistently given up all of the world's goodies, the people who have consistently humbled themselves and taken low positions in life in order to be of service to God and to others, the people who have been really good and have really humbled themselves - the message of the Gospel this morning to them is clear: In the Kingdom, you will be exalted to the right hand of God, where Jesus sits.

So the message is clear to the really, really bad folks and to the really, really good folks. But what about us? What about those of us who are neither? What about those of us who occupy that huge area in the middle of the bell curve of goodness and badness? What about us? What does this Gospel say to us?

I don't know about you, but I have spent all of my life, that I can remember, exalting myself. That is what I was trained to do, from as early as I can remember. I went to school, and I worked hard to get good grades, so that I could exalt myself above the other students. I didn't do anything bad or dishonest. I didn't trample on anyone. It was just the nature of what was given to me to exalt myself. After school, I went to work in a variety of different professions and places, and, everywhere I went, it was just a natural thing for me to do - to try to exalt myself, to advance, to do the best I could in whatever it was that I was being called to do. I didn't trample on anyone. I didn't do anything bad. I didn't lie, or cheat, or steal, or do anything bad. It was just the way I thought life was and should be - to try to do your best, to strive, to exalt yourself. And, I don't know about any of you. Maybe I am the only one here who has lived his life that way. I don't know, but I don't think so.

And, one of the things that I discovered (and, if you are like me, you have discovered it also), is that, as we strive to exalt ourselves, we experience incredible levels of anxiety. We are always out there investing ourselves and pumping energy into whatever it is that we are trying to exalt ourselves in, and we pump all of this energy into it, and then comes the sleepless nights and the restless days, when we ponder and try to figure out, "Have I done it? Have I succeeded? Have I exalted myself? Have I made it?" If any part of what I am describing fits you in your life, then the Good News in this Gospel, for you and for me - as we sit here this morning having pumped all of this energy into life and having had all of this anxiety and stress about whether or not we were going to succeed and exalt ourselves - this morning, you and I have the Good News before us that says, "In the Kingdom, you don't have to do that anymore. You don't have to prove yourselves anymore. That part of your life is over. The Kingdom of God is a stress-free zone."

And then, again, I don't know if this rings true for you, but, for me, I have no idea how to humble myself. I don't have the beginning of the vaguest conception of what that means in life. Everything I have tried to do in life, as honestly and as well as I could do, was the opposite of humbling myself. I don't know how to humble myself, and I don't think that a lot of you do, either. It is just not something that is a part of us in the way we have been brought up and with what life demands of us. We don't know how to humble ourselves. But here, again, if you are like me, then you know that you don't have to humble yourself - life will often do it for you! We don't have to go through all kinds of self-flagellating exercises in order to humble ourselves - life will do it. Life will give us failure. Life will give us disappointment. Life will give us sickness. Life will give us the loss of people we love. Life will give us bodies that don't function the way they used to and the way we want them to anymore. Life will give us minds that are no longer bright and shining, but are cloudy and confused. Life will humble us. The Good News this morning is that, when life lays you low, God reaches His hand into your life and raises you to His right hand. With all the best people in the world, He raises you. He exalts you to sit beside Him or near Him on his heavenly throne.

And, I don't know about you, but when I give a dinner party or a luncheon, I don't invite the poor, and the lame, and the crippled - those who cannot return the invitation - I don't do that. I invite my friends and my family. Actually, my wife does the inviting. We invite people we know. We don't invite them because they would invite us back, but we know that they probably will and can; and we ignore all the nameless faces of the poor, who cannot repay us. And so, in the midst of our entertaining in this life that we live, there is this thing - this little voice in the back of our brain that says, "Now, there are a lot of people that aren't here today, Barry. There are a lot of poor and lame and crippled and suffering people who are not here." And, there is that little thing - that little prick of guilt - that says, "They should be." And, if you are like that, then the Good News for you and for me this morning is that at God's table, when He gives His heavenly banquet in those last days, all will be there. We won't have to go out and try and invite people that we don't know. He will do it for us, and we will be together at His heavenly table.

The Church, this place, you and I, when we gather together, whether it is for worship, or for meetings, vestry meetings, Bible classes, prayer groups - the Church, this place, you and I, when we gather together, we are called to be a kind of a preview of the Kingdom of God. We are not very good at it. We are not as perfect as that Kingdom will be, but we are called to do the best we can to be a kind of sample, a foretaste, a preview of what the Kingdom will be. And, one of the great things that means, I think, is that if you are one of those who, out there in the world, is constantly striving to exalt yourself, and you are all up-tight about whether or not you are succeeding, and you have pumped all this energy and anxiety and restlessness into exalting yourself in life, when you come here, you don't need to do that anymore. You don't need to stand out from the crowd, either. You can go ahead and relax and just be a face in the crowd, knowing that that face is individually, monstrously precious to our God. And, if you are one of those people who has come here this morning, or who comes here once in a while, and life has laid you low, and life has just done you in by either failure or sickness or any of the other things that can humble us in life, then, when you come here, you can feel God touching you and raising you and exalting you to His Presence.

And, in a few minutes, you and I will, once again, come to this table, where, once again, the old familiar ritual is a preview of that great day when all those out there who are not with us today - especially those who are not here now, especially those who are lame, poor, crippled - will be there.

October 28, 2001 - The 21st Sunday after Pentecost - Father Barry Woods

THE FIRST READING: JOEL 2: 23-32

O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the Lord, am your God, and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame. Then, afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood, and fire, and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

PSALM 65: 5-14

5 Awesome things will you show us in your righteousness, O God of our salvation, O Hope of all the ends of the earth and of the seas that are far away.

6 You make fast the mountains by your power; they are girded about with might.

7 You still the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the clamor of the peoples.

8 Those who dwell at the ends of the earth will tremble at your marvelous signs; you make the dawn and the dusk to sing for joy.

9 You visit the earth and water it abundantly; you make it very plenteous; the river of God is full of water.

10 You prepare the grain, for so you provide for the earth.

11 You drench the furrows and smooth out the ridges; with heavy rain you soften the ground and bless its increase.

12 You crown the year with your goodness, and your paths overflow with plenty.

13 May the fields of the wilderness be rich for grazing, and the hills be clothed with joy.

14 May the meadows cover themselves with flocks, and the valleys cloak themselves with grain; let them shout for joy and sing.

THE SECOND READING: 2 TIMOTHY 4: 6-8, 16-18

As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing. At my first defense, no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever.

THE HOLY GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO LUKE (18: 9-14)

Jesus told his parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

Faith. Hope. Charity.

For the last 6+ weeks, my life, like yours, has been filled with things that I don't like it to be filled with. Like your life, my life has been filled with confusion, uncertainty, anger, and fear. I have tried to live my life, day to day, the way I always did before; and I have gone through the motions of that life, day by day, over these last weeks. And I think everything is O.K., and, during the day, everything seems to be all right; and then I come home at night, and I turn on the television set, and, once again, I am assaulted by bombs, and buildings, and airplanes, and anthrax, and deadly mail, and all the rest of it. And the confusion, and the fear, and the anger increase; and uncertainty becomes something that used to be a strange emotion to me, but now it marks every fiber of my being - uncertainty. And I try to get away from it; and I try to do something, but, every morning, I wake up, and I read the paper, hoping for some news that all of this is about to end, and it's not there. And, every night, I come home, and I turn on the television, hoping that there will be some news that this is all over, or is about to end, and the news is not there. And the cycle begins again; and the uncertainty and the fear and the anger increase; and then, the next day, I go through the day, and I notice that, no matter what things look like, that cloud of uncertainty hangs over me. There is a little pocket of fear in the back of my brain and a knot of anger in my stomach; and the uncertainty makes me dissatisfied with my life; and the fear gives me trouble sleeping; and the anger leaks out on the people that I love and that are close to me. And the cycle goes on and on and on, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it to end, and no end seems in sight.

And then, I come here to this place, and I hear the words: Faith, Hope, Charity. I hear those words, and something stirs inside me; and that something is very strong and is very good; and I know that, somehow, in those three words, there is a power that can give me what I need maybe more now than I ever have had in my life - the power to go through these difficult days creatively and lovingly.

Faith. Hope. Charity.

Faith. In a moment, this sermon will be over (and many of you will be pleased about that), and we will stand together; and we will recite the words of our faith in the Nicene Creed; and that will be a good thing to do, because faith always begins with words. If it ends with words, it is not really faith; but faith always begins with words, and then it goes down inside you and becomes a solid foundation that will not crack and will not crumble, no matter what. Faith begins with words, and then it goes down inside of us; and it becomes pillars that will support us, no matter what happens. And that faith and that foundation give us strong, dependable ground that we can stand on as we face the challenges of the days to come. And for us Christians, that faith is that Jesus is God, and that He came into the world as a man; and He rescued us, once and for all, from the powers of darkness; and he set us on the path toward a new life. The faith that we share as Christians is that His victory over everything - over everything that divides, over everything that dehumanizes, over everything that kills - his victory over that is absolute, total, and complete, and nothing can change it. The powers of darkness are doomed. It's a done deal! And that is our faith. And it can, if we will allow it, create in us a strong place to stand.

Hope. I have been very much taken, as I am sure you have, by all of the expressions of hope that seem to be multiplying these days - hopeful that somehow we will be successful in our war with terrorism, hopeful that somehow the economy will get better, hopeful that innocent people will not suffer from all of this, hopeful that the stock market will get better - hopeful, hopeful, hopeful. And it is good that we have these hopes, and, as Americans, we should share in them, totally and completely. As Christian Americans, we have another hope, and it is a better, stronger hope. You see, the hope that we share and the hopes that we share as Americans depend on whether or not certain events will happen; and those events may or may not happen. But, the hope that you and I share as Christians is based on an event in the future that we know will happen. It is a sure and certain and absolutely definite hope, because it is based on the promise of God that there is a day coming when Jesus will come again; and His victory over all that divides and separates and humanizes will become complete. All the great things that He started the first time He came will be completed and perfected when He comes again. And that promise is absolutely dependable. Our hope is based on an absolutely certain future, and our hope is better and stronger.

Charity. I am sure you have been impressed, as I have, with the incredible outpouring of charitable contributions in these last few weeks. It has been absolutely unbelievable to me - the response. And that is good, because that is what charity is - it is giving. It is giving, even though the recipients might be unknown to us, or undeserving, or unthankful, or ungrateful - charity gives nonetheless, and charity is good and strong and powerful. Charity is good, and strong, and powerful, because it strengthens, and brings together, and unites. The great thing about giving is that it strengthens the recipient and the giver, and nobody loses. And, as we, as Christians, try to get through these days, we can use giving as a way to get through these days. We can give our encouragement to those around us. We can give the hand of friendship to our Muslim neighbors. We can give our faith and our hope. We can give our money, our blood, our time, and our love - and, in that giving, find strength.

Faith. Hope. Charity.

I wish I could stand here this morning and say that everything is going to be O.K. tomorrow. I wish that there were some certainty that this would all come to an end soon, but we just don't know. We are in a battle. We are in a war. And, like any battle and any war, there is going to be a lot of fear, and a lot of confusion, and a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of anger, and a lot of casualties, and a lot of death. There is going to be a lot of smoke, and noise, and explosions, and everything else that goes with being in a battle, and you and I will be immersed in it, kind of, whether we want to be or not. And, it will go on and on and on, until it doesn't go on anymore. But, somehow, in the midst of all of that noise and confusion, all of the stuff of battle - what Douglas MacArthur once called "the mournful mutter of the battlefield" - somewhere in the midst of all of that, there will be lulls; there will be quiet times; there will be breaks in the action; and, during those times, it is my prayer that you and I will be able to hear that still, small voice saying, "Faith. Hope. Charity."