“[Jesus] said to them, ‘Do you not know
that I must be in my Father’s house?’”
(Luke 2: 49)

Feast of St. Joseph (transferred)
Jan Robitscher
All Saints Chapel
CDSP
March 31, 2008
2 Samuel 7:4, 8-16
Psalm 89:1-4m 26-29
Romans 4: 13-18
Luke 2: 41-52

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.
When I was a child I used to listen to my father’s LP collection, which included a wonderful Christmas recording by the Robert Shaw Chorale, happily now on a CD. I remember listening (and trying hard to imitate) the wonderful contralto, almost tenor voice of Florence Kopleff singing The Cherry Tree Carol to the beautiful Kentucky Harmony tune.
When Joseph was an old man.
an old man was he,
he married Virgin Mary
the queen of Galilee.
He married Virgin Mary,
the queen of Galilee.
(from The Cherry Tree Carol)[1]
I’d love to sing it all, but that would make a long sermon, indeed! Not until later did I discover other versions of this carol, my other favorite being one sung by King’s College Choir. I was Presbyterian, and it was through this carol that I became acquainted with Joseph as an important biblical character in his own right. Perhaps this seems strange, as the carol (with it’s many versions) tells a story much embellished over the scant biblical accounts--but it was a way into the lives of Mary and Joseph, whose feasts (transferred) we celebrate today and tomorrow. We will hear much more about Mary tomorrow. For now, let’s take a moment and dwell on Joseph.

Joseph was a man of royal lineage, from David. In spite of this, he was a person of humble work as a carpenter. So he has become the patron of workers, especially appropriate on this Cesar Chaves Day. He is only mentioned some 15 times in the Gospels and, at that, is silent. In the Western Church, Joseph was almost completely absent from the celebrations of Christendom until the 14th century, and only added to the Litany of Saints in 1729. In 1870 he was named Patron and Protector of the Universal Church, and many churches and cities bear his name, including our own San Jose. He still remains in the background of Eastern Orthodox spirituality (where he is called Joseph the Elder), though he does appear in iconography and his supporting role is considered essential to the working out of the divine plan.[2] In the Counter-Reformation, however, his image was recast as a younger, more vigorous man, but this never really “took”.

That we know so little about him may be the reason behind the profusion of apocryphal stories, carols and customs about him, among them that he was a widower before marrying Mary. He is often pictured with a walking staff with lily blossoms, indicating that he was divinely chosen. And customs range from the “Joseph Table” which Italians and others used to to thank St. Joseph for favors granted and to feed the poor, to burying a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in your yard to sell the house!

So what is it about Joseph that we are celebrating? What draws us to him?

Throughout the biblical narrative, Joseph was open to hearing the voice of God and was obedient, without knowing the final outcome. When the angel of the Lord revealed to him in a dream that Mary was with child “from the Holy Spirit” and that he would be called Jesus, he immediately and without question took Mary for his wife and took up his role as Jesus’ foster father. (Matt. 1:20-21) So he is also the patron of fathers, families and doubters.

When the angel warned him again of Herod’s impending slaughter, Joseph gathered his family (the name Joseph means “God gathers”) and fled to Egypt until he was told it was safe to return.

Joseph respected God. He went to Jerusalem to have Jesus circumcised and took Mary and Jesus to the Temple for her purification. And every year they went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
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In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the story of young Jesus in the Temple, with his parents searching for him “in great anxiety for three days for him. (Luke 2:48). Jesus’ own explanation “...I must be in my Father’s house” must have been bewildering and even hurtful for Joseph--as for any parent who wants to give their child “roots and wings”--or perhaps by then he understood who and whose Jesus was. That Joseph treated Jesus as his own son is attested in several places where the people of Nazareth say of Jesus, “Is this not the son of Joseph?” (Luke 4:22)

Perhaps most of all, Joseph was a person who, through his own love for Jesus, gave him the primary metaphor for God: a patient and loving Father.

We have no record of Joseph during Jesus’ public life, his death and resurrection, so most historians believe he died sometime before then. For this he is the patron of a “happy” (or peaceful) death.

Of all these qualities of openness and obedience to God, compassion and faith, what is it about this simple, silent man that attracts us to him? In the end, it is Joseph’s self-giving love that draws us most: Love of his family in spite of the stupendous circumstances that brought them together; Love of the honest work of his hands, which dignifies all labor; love of Jesus, who was himself Love Incarnate. Would that we could all be mirrors with such a reflection!

And if you are wondering by now what the connection is between St. Joseph and the Easter season. Well, there isn’t any--at least not directly. We will find it in another version of The Cherry Tree Carol. Several years have passed since Joseph married Mary and, by a miracle, she had her cherries from the tree. Joseph has faded from the scene. Mary asks Jesus “how the world will be”. He foretells his death and then says:

4. On Easter Day My mother
My rising will be,
O the sun and the moon, mother,
They shall uprise with Me.[3]





The Cherry Tree Carol
Kentucky Mountain Ballad[4]


When Joseph was an old man,
An old man was he,
He married Virgin Mary
The Queen of Galilee.
Then Mary spoke to Joseph,
So meek and so mild:
“Joseph, gather me some cherries,
For I am with child.”

Then Joseph flew in anger,
In anger flew he:
“Let the father of the baby
Gather cherries for thee.”

Then Jesus spoke a few words,
A few words spoke He:
“Let my Mother have some cherries,
Bow low down, cherry tree.”

The cherry tree bowed low down,
Bowed low down to the ground,
And Mary gathered cherries
While Joseph stood around.

The Joseph took Mary
All on his right knee,
“What have I done Lord?
Have mercy on me.”

Then Joseph took Jesus
All on his left knee:
“Oh tell me, little baby,
When thy birthday will be.”

“The sixth day of Januar[y]
My birthday will be,
When the stars in the elements
Will tremble with glee.”




[1] transcribed from a field recording by John A. Lomax in the Archive of Folk Culture, Library of Congress, AFS 1010 Al, Joseph and Mary, sung by Jilson Setters (James W. Day) at Ashland, Kentucky, 28 June 1937. From Elizabeth Poston and Malcolm Williamson, A Book of Christmas Carols. (New York: Prentice Hall, 1988).
[2] Sandra Miesel, Finding St. Joseph.
[3] The Cherry Tree Carol Part 3: Mary's Question Terry: Words (adapted) from various collections. Melody traditional.
[4] from Christmas with the Robert Shaw Chorale , CD from the Musical Heritage Society.

“...for indeed our God is a consuming fire.”
(Hebrews 12:29)

Year C Proper 16
Isaiah 28: 14-22
Psalm 46
Hebrews 12: 18-19; 22-29
Luke 13:22-30
Trinity Parish
Seattle, WA
August 26, 2007
Jan Robitscher

With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
(The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot)
In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of living in a seminary community (actually I live in two: Church Divinity School and the School for Deacons) is hearing sermons on a daily basis. Over twenty years I have heard many and preached a few. For most, the theme was some nonjudgmental aspect of the love of God, and in a very few the theme was our love of God. They all meant well, I am sure, but somehow God always came off as being too tame. But on a cold January afternoon I sat in Westminster Abbey at Evensong and heard Canon-in-Residence Collin Semper preach on this very text from the Letter to the Hebrews:

For God is a consuming fire.

No, it was not in any way a “fire and Brimstone” sermon. In fact, Canon Semper’s voice was both quiet and emphatic and his sermon touched me to the core.1 And in case you are wondering--no, you won’t hear a “Fire and Brimstone” sermon from me, either--well, at least not ultimately.

For God is a consuming fire.

Why did you come here? Because you wanted to, or because you felt you had to? Did you come because you love God or because you need to experience the love of God? Did you come because you love the beautiful language of Rite I or the Renaissance music we are doing and hearing today? I do. Did you come because you are searching? Perhaps because you are worried about the present divisions in the Church or in the world (I am) or about the future? Did you come in brokenness and wanting healing? Canon Semper made the surprising statement: that it is “precisely why we have come to church--because our God is a consuming fire.”

Yes, we come searching, broken and--if we come in the right way, wanting to present ourselves as we are and as best we can to God. But then we are startled by the ‘Consuming Fire”! We encounter the presence of God in a prayer, a hymn, a reading or even a sermon and hear our name in it! And that’s only the beginning...

For God is a consuming fire.

From Genesis to Revelation, the Scripture has used Fire as denoting the presence of God. Whether that Presence is benign or not depends upon the circumstances, and upon whether those involved intended a closer relationship to God or were fleeing in fear. Consider these examples:

Moses noticed the bush with flame coming from it and
turned toward it and encountered the living God. “Come no
closer!” said God. “Remove your shoes from your feet, for the
place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Moses hid
his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3: 4-6)

From this benign yet terrifying meeting came the story of the Exodus--the very story we hear at the Great Vigil of Easter huddled around the Paschal Candle, lighting the room with our little candles... Or consider these:

In Leviticus, God accepts burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and what is left is to be “consumed by fire”. (Lev. 19:6)

In Advent we hear that God will come

“like a refiner’s fire... and he will purify the descendants
of Levi...until they present offerings to the Lord in
Righteousness.” (Malachi 3: 2ff)

Just last week we heard the words of an impatient Jesus:

I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I
wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49)

We celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit appeared over the heads of the Apostles as “tongues of fire” (Acts 2:3)

And in the book of Revelation we hear about the seven flaming torches which surround the throne of God... Rev. (Ch. 4) and of how all evil will one day be thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 21: 8) and there will be new heavens and a new earth--the heavenly Jerusalem, where “the glory of God is its light, and the lamp is the Lamb--the final redeeming of fire. (Rev. 21:23)

And saints down through the centuries have encountered God the consuming fire in the experience of contemplative prayer. A Renaissance saint, Teresa of Avila, wrote this:

“The fire of divine love is more quickly enkindled
when we blow a little with our intellects. Since
we are close to the fire, a little spark will ignite
and set everything ablaze. Because there is
no impediment from outside, the soul is alone
with its God; it is well prepared for this enkindling.
[I would like you to understand clearly this manner
of prayer, which, as I have said, is called recollection.]
(The Interior Castle, Chapter 28)

Now if we admit that we come to Church as we are to encounter the living God, we must move on to a harder question: Why do we stay? In the face of the issues of human sexuality dividing our church, some have decided to leave and for the rest of us it could seem a tempting escape. But that issue is, for some, a cover for other issues. Some, on the conservative end, are still arguing still over the ordination of women and the Prayer Book. Others, on the liberal end, argue over inclusive language or the necessity of baptism or the irrelevance of the parts of the Bible they don’t like--perhaps including today’s lesson from Hebrews! We may have no choice, given the possibility (though not likely) that the Episcopal Church in the United States might be thrown out of the Anglican Communion. In the end, these issues--all of them--pale before God the consuming fire. But let us not panic! How can we find the courage to to stay?

Consider the reasons why folks leave. Either the Church is:

1) too conservative (THEM)
2) too liberal (US) OR
3) our spiritual life has gone flat (ALL OF US)

Which brings us back again to our reading from Hebrews. This letter was written very early--before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D.--to encourage Jewish Christians not to abandon their new-found faith in Jesus. In addition to arguments from the Hebrew Scriptures they knew, St. Paul (or more probably a student of St. Paul) warns them that they do not come to worship “something that can be touched”, but to nothing less than the “heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering...and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant. ( Hebrews 12: 23-24) The warning continues: See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking to you...

For God is a consuming fire.

The real question is not the whether the Church is too conservative, too liberal, or just not meeting our needs. It is whether we are ready and willing to recognize the presence of God in recollection, as St. Teresa says, and in community. We are in the Church because it is the Body of Christ, and the Word of God is a consuming fire because if we hear it, it either challenges or frightens us. If we don’t hear it, something is blocking it and we need to allow the Holy Spirit’s fire to burn away those things which are blocking it. We must do this because if we flee from it, then the Word of God will indeed consume us in a more destructive way.

But this is not the end of the story. On the other side of for God is a consuming fire, the author of Hebrews goes on to say this:

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...Let
marriage be held in honor... Keep your lives free from the
love of money and be content with what you have... Remember
your leaders... [And finally]-- Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today and forever.

The surprise is that the author of Hebrews says that the fruits of an encounter with God the consuming fire--for those who intend a closer relationship with God--are not fear and death and destruction, but love, hospitality, intercessory prayer, community life (summarized by, but not limited to marriage)--all the things we do when we come together for worship that prepare us for the moment of Communion--when, as St. Augustine says, in receiving the very life of Jesus, we become who we truly are: the Body of Christ. Here, in the consuming of bread and wine-become-Jesus, is the place where we most closely encounter God the consuming fire.

Where is the Good News in all this? If we come to God honestly, not afraid to bring whatever we have: our searching, our longing, our brokenness, our love--then we can have the courage (by God’s grace) to remain in the presence of God the consuming fire and be transformed by it into the Body of Christ. Therefore, says the Letter to the Hebrews:


... since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot
be shaken, let us give thanks,by which we offer to God
an acceptable worship with reverence and awe;

for indeed our God is a consuming fire.
(Hebrews 12:29)

Let us pray:
Come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful people
and kindle in us the fire of your love;
Send forth your breath and we shall be created
and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.

“Lord, teach us to pray...”
(Luke 11:1)

Year C Proper 12
Genesis 18:20-32
Psalm 85
Col 2:6-15 (17-19)
Luke 11:1-13
St. Andrew’s
Brechin, Scotland
July 29, 2007
Jan Robitscher

Be careful of simple words said often.
“Amen”: We are present. We are open.
We hearken. We understand.
Here we are. We are listening to your word.1
(Barbara Schmich)

First, I would like to thank Ursula for inviting me here to preach. I have just come from singing at Lincoln Cathedral and then at Durham with the choir of St. Mark’s Church, Berkeley, California. Our week (and a bit more) of leading people in sung prayer has been an experience both exhilarating and exhausting. St. Benedict was right--prayer really is the “Work of God”! At home, during term-time, I am an Instructor at the Episcopal School for Deacons, an intensive program for the training of vocational deacons for all of the diocese of northern California and beyond. Ursula suggested that I speak about this, and I think there might be a connection between our readings--especially the Gospel-- and the ministry of deacons, though it may not seem obvious at first.

Our reading from St. Luke’s Gospel speaks to us of prayer. It is notable that Jesus knows how to pray, how to have an intimate conversation, speaking and listening to and with God, his Abba, his Father in the closest sense. But his disciples must ask to learn how to pray, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.” So if, as St. Paul says, we are buried with [Christ] in baptism and raised with him through faith (the Early Church Fathers would say, “Christians are made (through baptism), not born”) then prayer is more taught than caught. It is something we teach our children. One of my earliest memories is of my Presbyterian mother saying bedtime prayers with me, which always included the Lord’s prayer. And we hone our “prayer lessons” over the days and years of our lives, growing in our relationship with God; listening more and speaking less. Sometimes, however, we encounter dry times, or simply take our prayers for granted, or fail to pray at all. Fortunately for us we have little excuse, for there is not a service in the Prayer Book (whether of the Episcopal Church of Scotland of of the Episcopal Church in the United States or anywhere else in the Anglican Communion) that does not have somewhere within it the Lord’s prayer.

Be careful of simple words said often...

Jesus’ prayer reflects his deepest desires: for reverence for God as Father (or loving parent, if you prefer); for the coming of the Kingdom in which God’s will is perfectly reflected from heaven to earth and back again; for everyone to have what they need to feed body and soul each day; for reconciliation with God and each other; and for our safety in times of trial. To pray as Jesus prays is to make Jesus’ deepest longings and desires our own.2 But this is not just a little theological nicety or a pious thought. Jesus’ prayer makes demands upon us that affect the way we live our lives in the world. Which brings us to the second part of our Gospel lesson--and to the School for Deacons.

Perhaps the disciples’ next question after “Teach us to pray” was “And what does this prayer have to do with us”. So Jesus tells this little parable about a persistent friend and what it means to persevere in prayer. That someone would get up in the middle of the night to give his neighbor some bread for his persistent friend--daily bread--this could be called “applied theology”--what it means to pray in the real world.

Each weekend at the School for Deacons students engage in course work which focuses on all the normal seminary subjects, but with an emphasis on the service of deacons to the poor and marginalized, which is the essence of the diaconate and will comprise a large part of their ministry. They apply this knowledge in Field Education, Hospital Ministry, in many ministries around the diocese and in their home parishes, as well as in their secular jobs which they will continue after graduation and ordination. But there is also a regular schedule of worship, in which every student participates and where the liturgical ministry of deacons is modeled. To form deacons, we engage them in a constant conversation between ministry in the church and in the world. We try to teach them, as Gail Ramshaw says, that:

When [the deacon] who works with the poor also
proclaims the Good News, calls on the people for
prayers of compassion and waits on the table and
the people recognize the connection between the
deacon’s ministry without...and within, liturgy forms
the people of God in a life of Christian service.3

The final part of the Gospel reading speaks of the overwhelming desire of God to shower good things upon us--even more than a parent wanting to do good his or her children. This is how God is. God has no need of our prayers, yet desires that we take up Jesus’ own words, and then to shower upon us everything we ask, encompassed in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now if you are thinking that there is a large gap between Jesus’ desires and our own, between what we ask of God and what God gives, you are right. We have only to look at a verse in the Psalm for today to see this:

Mercy and truth have met together;*
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
(Ps. 85:10)

I love this verse and only wish it would come to pass. On one of my previous trips to the U.K. I visited Westminster Abbey, a favorite place. Someone pointed out to me (really too far for me to see) that there are four statues: Mercy, Truth, Justice (Righteousness) and Peace: the Four Virtues. At Evensong, I heard a sermon from the then Sub-Dean which pointed out that the statues of Mercy and Truth actually look away from each other. How far from a perfect alignment with God we are! Yet we persevere in prayer, just as Abraham of our Old Testament reading, or the neighbor of Jesus’ story, or as the disciples who wanted to learn to pray. But we must remember that it is God who gives us the desire to pray in the first place, which makes our prayers a reflection of God’s work in us.
Be careful of simple words said often...

In a few minutes we will say the Lord’s Prayer--our final act of preparation before receiving the very life of Jesus in Holy Communion. When we place our “Amen” on that prayer, we take upon ourselves Jesus’ desires and we allow him to take our “Common Prayer” and make it holy. We take all of the pain of our lives and of the world, all of the divisions in our Anglican Communion and we offer them to Jesus for healing and reconciliation. We take all of the service of our lives and offer it to Jesus, asking for strength and grace and safety. We take all the thanksgivings of our lives and offer them to Jesus for praise. And to Jesus’ prayer (and returning to the poetry of Barbara Schmich) we say:

“Amen”: We support. We approve.
We are of one mind. We promise.
May this come to pass. So be it.

Amen. Amen.