The Doubts of John the Baptist

Who was John the Baptizer? We know so little about him. There is this huge gap in his story…


Born to Zechariah and Elizabeth, John was born into privilege. He was the son of the High Priest in Jerusalem, the son of the man who was chosen to enter the Holy of Holies. Zechariah was a Levite, of the priestly lineage. Only one man was chosen to enter the room that was considered the most holy. Only one man on one day out of the whole year. And it was Zechariah who was chosen.

As the son of this high priest, John would have known every privilege. He would have been educated by the best rabbis. He would have known his Scripture. He was born as an only child to parents who had longed to have a child and had even given up hope. They must have doted on him, cherished him. He would have had so much love. He would have had everything that a child could need or want.

Then there is this huge gap in his life story. The Scripture tells us only the essentials. And the next time we see John, he is living as a homeless man in the desert. He is dirty. He wears animal skins for clothes and he eats bugs for dinner. What happened to him? I would love to sit down and hear his story.

What was it like to leave everything behind? What was it like to disappoint his parents? When did he leave? When did he realize that God had something else in mind, something more than just being a temple priest, something much harder? And did he miss the comforts of Jerusalem? Was he ever lonely? Did he ever wonder what he had done?

John the Baptizer seems so powerful, screaming about repentance. He must have had this incredible charisma, for people would have walked long distances to hear him. And he baptized people in the River Jordan, urging them to confess their sins and get ready for the Messiah who is to come. It is clear to me that somewhere on the road to the high priesthood, John encountered God and God told him that he was to leave his family, his wealth, his city and find God alone in the emptiness of the desert. And that experience was enough to propel him into the desert.

John was so charismatic that many people thought he was the One, but he was clear that he was not the Messiah, even though he clearly had a following and even disciples who followed him everywhere. He seemed to be such an authority that people were drawn to him. He seemed so sure of God’s will.

When Jesus finally arrives at the River, John recognizes him immediately. In the presence of Jesus, John asks his first question. For the first time, he seems unsure. “Shouldn’t you be baptizing me?” he asks.

After the event of the baptism, we hear little about John. Again, there is a gap. The next that we see him, he is in prison. We do not know why or how John was imprisoned. I imagine that his prophetic nature and the fact that he believed Jesus to be the Messiah eventually got him in trouble with the Roman authorities. We do not know how he got there, but one thing we do know…that, in prison, John began to doubt.

John sends some of his disciples to Jesus with the following question,

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?

In other words, Did I make a mistake?

What happened to this incredibly powerful man in prison? What led him to begin to doubt that Jesus was the one? It sounds from his question like he is questioning his whole life. Was Jesus the one that he had been waiting for? And if Jesus was not the one, was there ANYONE who would come? What in the world was he doing, hanging out in the wilderness hollering about salvation? Weren’t his parents right when they told him that he was out of his mind leaving all that they had given him? What if he had made a terrible mistake?

Terry Waite was imprisoned years ago in Lebanon. He was working for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he was trying to broker negotiations so that the Lebanese government would release foreign prisoners. They captured him and he spent four years in prison. Much of the time, he was in solitary confinement. Alone in the dark, he would go through the liturgy of the Holy Eucharist in his head to delineate one day from another. As a boy, he had loved the prayer book so much that he had memorized it and he would later write that it was God’s words in liturgy which held him from the brink of insanity and despair.

At other times, his captors would chain him to a radiator or transport him in a refrigerator to new sites. Many times, they set up an execution and he thought that he was going to die, but they were only mocking him.

Waite would later talk about the doubts that ran through his mind in prison. We all have them, we human beings. It seems that it is part of our nature to doubt, not just God, but also ourselves. And when we are treated badly or hated by others, the doubt can easily turn to despair.

‘Help me, Jesus,” John was saying, “I am having doubts.”

When Jesus hears of John’s question to him, he does not just send back a yes, he tells the disciples to relay to John everything that Jesus is doing. Tell him that the lame are walking, the blind have been given their sight. Tell him that you saw Scripture being fulfilled, for these are the things that the Scripture tells us the Messiah will do. Jesus knows that his actions will speak louder than his words and he wants to reassure John that he is, in fact, the Messiah and that John’s life was not lived in vain.

As John’s disciples go away, Jesus turns and tells the crowd about who John really is. He tells them that John the Baptist is about as close to God as anyone can be. “I tell you,” he says, “Among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist…” No one.

This man, who suffers in jail, who wonders if his life was worth anything at all- this man was the greatest according to Jesus. This man was closest to God. What does this tell us, you and me?

It tells us that even the greatest saint has doubts. It tells us that God does not fault us or get angry at us when we wonder if any of this is true at all. It tells us that perhaps our greatest doubts lie not in God but in ourselves, whether we really are loved, whether we really are worthy. It tells us that we are not alone when we find ourselves wondering about the decisions that we have made and if we have done as well as we could.

John the Baptist had doubts. He doubted God’s plan and he doubted himself.

Think of Mother Theresa in all her incredible work. Only after she died did we discover that she was suffering, not able to experience the presence of God. Even Mother Theresa, the most saintly person that I can think of in my lifetime, even she struggled.

What is it that makes us think that doubt is bad and certainty is holy? What makes us question ourselves when we wonder how the Universe really was made and if we are following God’s will for our lives? Why do we see questioning as a sign of weakness?

The human being cannot see God. We live in darkness. Light penetrates us from God in many ways, in the love of others, in prayer, in worship. But we cannot see clearly. And when we suffer or when we are treated poorly, the curtain is pulled even more tightly over our eyes and we wonder if God loves us at all, or if God is out there at all.

But to doubt and wonder does not make us any less loved. As it turns out, some of the prophets of old doubted. John the Baptizer, who devoted his entire life to waiting for the Messiah, even he wondered if he had made a mistake.

So learn to live with your doubts and your worries. They are part of the complexity that makes up the human being. Do not berate yourself or try to fix them. Do not try to silence these doubts or believe that if you just prayed enough, they would go away. They are part of your nature and you can still worship and follow Christ even in the midst of them. John did.

You are a beloved, marvelous, doubting, questioning child of God.  And so was John.

King of Kings

On Friday night, I had the pleasure of watching The Women of Lockerbie, a play about the Pan Am Flight that was blown up over a small Scottish town in the late 1980’s. The play was at Florida State Community college and was directed by Ken McCullough, one of our beloved choir members. In an hour and a half, these brilliant college students took us into the horror and grief that developed as a result of this tragedy. They sobbed on stage, portraying aspects of grief that are rarely seen and never discussed in public. It was a play about the depths of human sadness and the way that love can begin to help it heal.

A 20-year-old boy was killed in the crash. His mother cannot recover from his death. She questions God. She questions everything. The boy’s father, her husband, concludes that God must be simply absent from this mess of a world. After all, how can God be in charge when things are so broken?

This is the question, isn’t it? If indeed God is King, Lord of all the Universe, then why does God allow the tragedies that occur? Why allow us to suffer? And why is the suffering so random, so unpredictably dispersed? Some people have such difficult lives while others of us seem to know such blessings. What kind of a system is this? Maybe God just danced with us at the beginning, in the creation, and then sent us off spinning into the Universe by ourselves…

Today is the final Sunday of the Christian year. Next Sunday, we will begin the season of Advent, or the coming, when we wait for the coming of Christ. But today we culminate another year of worship and prayer . This Sunday is called Christ the King Sunday. It seems that at the final Sunday of the Christian year, the Church recalls that God is in fact in charge.  God has the final word.

Of course, the title King came originally to Jesus as slander. The term King of the Jews was used to mock him when he hung naked and helpless on a cross. It was a name that was designed to make Jesus feel shame. After all, he wasn’t being treated as a King but as a common criminal. King of the Jews. It was the name that was meant to get under his skin, the kind of name that you and I have been called, the one that plays again and again in our minds like a broken record when we don’t feel good about ourselves. King of the Jews. King of the Jews.

But Jesus turned that name around. With the power of the resurrection, he turned what was a shameful death into the ultimate act of power and forgiveness and we have been calling him King of the Universe since.

Do you remember the words of Handles Messiah, the Halleluia Chorus?

King of Kings


Lord of Lords.


He shall reign forever and ever.

Back in Jesus’ day, the best form of government was a peaceful kingdom, a kingdom ruled by someone who truly loved his subjects. A true king could bring peace and prospertity, like David and Solomon once had done. A king was someone who could literally change the world and make it a better place in which to live. The ideal king would be so smart, so almost divine that he would know how to make the most difficult of decisions and could render justice and instill goodness in the hearts of people. Under a true king’s rule, all things would be righted.

We no longer have this concept of kingship. It is just a fairytale to us. We just hope that our Presidents will boost the economy and not make too many horrific mistakes. We take the time to gossip and gawk as Prince William finally proposes to Kate Middleton, but its nothing that could effect our lives. It;s nothing more than something to gossip about, a beautiful wedding on TV.  We certainly don’t believe that a king could fix anything. Kingdoms are usually either purely ceremonial or else corrupt and backward these days.

Think back to when you were a child, to the time when someone read you a fairytale. Think back to the good man who became King, married the beautiful Queen and rode off into the sunset. It was happily ever after when a good king came, remember? Sometimes, we can catch glimpses of this at the movies or at the Magic Kingdom, but it is hidden under special effects and sales pitches. So you must use your imaginations today to think of what a benevolent king could do and mean for a kingdom, and to reach back to understand what such a term meant in Jesus’ day.

But if Jesus is in fact the King that we all have been looking for, why do we suffer? Why do those who agree to submit to his rule still have bad things happen? What kind of a king lets his subjects suffer? What kind of a king allows cancer and hunger, homelessness and helplessness? There is so much beauty in the world, yes, but there is also so much pain.

At the beginning of the service, every week, we say Blessed be God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. And Blessed be the Kingdom, now and forever. Amen. Where is the kingdom? Does God rule here or not?

To realize that Jesus is King is to admit that Christ is in charge. And in order to admit that God is in charge, we must admit one more thing as well.  We must admit that we do not understand that rule, that we do not have the answers.

People often ask me if their prayers make a difference. Will God do what I ask? They inquire. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, I say. But God does answer every time, often we just don’t see the answers. God does reign, but how exactly, we do not know.

Why is it so hard for us to admit that we do not know? Does God make cancer, no, I do not believe that, but cancer is part of what happens to many of us here. Here is what I believe it means when we say that Christ is King.

It means that despite all the things we do not understand, that everything will be alright. It means that we cannot see clearly here on this earth. One day, as St. Paul says, we will see face to face and everything will become clear, but until that time we are to trust, for subjects often do not understand the ways of the one who reigns, we are simply not capable. Christ’s kingship means that everything will be OK, that we too will one day live happily ever after. Maybe that is why the fairytales mean so much to us.

There is a beautiful video on YouTube. The Knight Foundation decided to fund a project called Random Acts of Culture. They hired opera singers, a conductor, and an incredible organist. This past October, on a random Saturday, they pulled off a random act of culture at Macy’s in downtown Philadelphia. The place was packed with shoppers getting a jumpstart on their Christmas shopping, as the camera runs, you see the crowds, the impatience, the anxiety as money is changed hands. And then something happens to break into the world of the mall.

All of a sudden, the organ begins to play. The organ at Macy’s in Philly is one of the most famous pipe organs in the world. And then, random people all over the store begin to sing The Halleluia Chorus from Handle’s Messiah. KING OF KINGS they sing! And LORD OF LORDS. KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS. AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER.

All of a sudden the store changes. It becomes a vision of the Kingdom of Heaven. People begin to sing along, the smiles are huge. A baby is lifted into the air to dance. Old women and young children are looking up with radiance in their eyes. Some conduct. And oh, the smiles, the looks on the faces of these people. They are so beautiful.

The Kingdom was there all along, hidden in the midst of their harried lives. And when the music began, it was awakened. For a few moments, they knew as we know, that God is in charge and that everything will be OK.

Amen.

The Obstacle Course

I was one of those kids that went trick or treating far too late in life. I was fourteen and still out there, pounding the pavement, hoping to get gobs of candy. Maybe it was the fact that my mom was a healthfood freak. Maybe it was the fact that I loved costumes. But whatever the reason, I went out there every year far into my teens.  I was one of those kids that people dread appearing, who comes late in the evening with a huge sack full of sweets.

This one year my girlfriends and I were carrying pillowcases and we had been out for hours. It was pitch dark and we were on the edge of a park. We had just climbed the stairs to the home of an old woman, who had opened her door and was about to reach towards her candy bowl when someone came up behind us. The old woman let out a shreak and shut the door in our faces. We turned around to see three young men with nylons over their faces. “Give us your candy,” they said.

One of the girls with me was named Julie Getman. Julie had red hair and she was someone that you didn’t want to mess with. Julie was not at all mean, she was just tough. She would tell it like it was and she did not put up with anything. When Julie wanted something, she usually got it. She was incredibly tenacious.

One of the young men grabbed Julie’s pillow case and tried to yank it from her. Well, he chose the wrong girl. She held on for dear life. That young man dragged her down the street for almost half the block before he gave up altogether and Julie was wearing really high heels! But she was NOT about to give up that great candy that she had worked so hard to collect. No Way. She just held on.

Zaccheus had a lot in common with my friend Julie. He was a short guy with enormous will and tenacity. Zaccheus got what he wanted and, for most of his life, what he wanted was money.  He worked his way up as a tax collector, collecting money from his brother and sister Jews no matter how poor they were or how much they begged him. He gave out loans, sometimes cheating people. After all, the people were so gullible.  It was easy for him to make an easy buck. He lived in a nice home and had every kind of comfort in life. But something was missing.

One day, Zaccheus heard that the great teacher Jesus was coming. When he heard the news, something in him became hungry. He longed to see Jesus fiercely, though I doubt he could have articulated why. Somehow it became incredibly important that he be able to look upon the face of this prophet, this man who was so close to God.  Zaccheus was hungry to encounter Christ.

On the day that Jesus came through Zaccheus’ home town of Jericho, the crowds were out in full force. Zaccheus could not see a thing. He was surrounded on every side by people, pressing in and talking, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Rabbi, the man who had performed miracles. Zaccheus could not stand taking a back seat, so he did whatever he could to see the face of Jesus. He ran up ahead and climbed a tree.

I can just see the little man, scrambling up a tree in his fancy robes. Like a lizard, he must have climbed with enormous skill and dexterity. He was no longer concerned with appearances or what people might think of him. He just focused on getting up there, so that he could catch a glimpse of the holy man. From the tree, Zaccheus could finally see. He watched as Jesus walked toward him. And to his surprise, Jesus stopped under that tree and spoke.

“Zaccheus,” Jesus said. “I want to come and eat at your house today.”

Zaccheus scrambled down the tree. Everyone must have been staring. Here was one of the most hated men in town.  Loathed by all, he was always alone, a social outcast. And Jesus wanted to go eat in his house, the home of one who had robbed and cheated most of the population of the city? What was Jesus thinking? It made everyone angry. How could a holy man eat with such a sinner?

But Zaccheus pursued Jesus with the same intensity that he had pursued his wealth. And once he saw Jesus, his money meant nothing to him. “Lord,” he said, “I will give half of everything that I own to the poor and if I have cheated anyone, I will give him four times as much.” And so, a sinner was found.

Zaccheus was found, but let’s look at what it meant for him to be found. For Zaccheus, to be found by Jesus meant a lot of work. He had to give stuff awa.  He had to face a lot of angry people and make ammends for the things that he had done in the past. He had to admit that he had cheated and offer to repay those whom he had hurt. Zaccheus was entering into a life-long journey of sacrifice and service. This meeting with Jesus, this was only the beginning.

Dining with Jesus, looking at him, changed Zaccheus’ life forever. But the story did not end there. The story had only begun. Zaccheus was saved, he was found, as Jesus said. But being found by God means a lot of work. Believe you me, I don’t think that life for Zaccheus was free from obstacles or pain. But no matter what the road blocks, I believe that Zaccheus mastered them, after all, he was a climber.

I met an incredible man this week. His name is John Baxter. He is an Episcopalian, a member of St. Mark’s Church here in Jacksonville. He retired from a successful business and found himself asking a question of Jesus: “What can I do to follow you?” Broken-hearted by the racial disparities in this city, he asked some black leaders what he could do to help. They told him that he could do nothing for their generation, but please, help the children.

So John began to look into building a school. He visited with churches and leaders in the city and began to get the impression that perhaps a charter school might be best. He visited with KIP schools across the country, but they refused to come to Florida for a variety of reasons. Determined to let nothing stop him, John began to fundraise and to dream. Today, Tiger Academy sits on the North West part of the city. By partnering with the YMCA, John was able to build an incredible new school. I walked its halls on Friday. It is truly amazing. The children are so happy and so much learning is taking place. When they see visitors, they make the sign of a tigerclaw by reaching out their fingers and then pulling them back. I never saw so many smiles.

The story of Zaccheus didn't end when Jesus dined with him, it was only just beginning. And your story does not end here at the altar, it begins here. Out there, God has asked you to follow into a world that is FULL of obstacles, crowds that obscure your vision, people who dislike you, failure, you name it. The Christian walk is not a stoll, it is an obstacle course. Believe me, it is an obstacle course.

So please, do not think that you are doing anything wrong if you come to church and when you leave this place, life is no easier to you than before you came. Believing in Christ does NOT make your life easier, if anything , it makes it harder. How we came to assume that the Christian walk was peaceful and easy, I will never know. He brings us a SWORD. He asked us to follow him and then he walked to Golgotha to die.

If you are not challenged by what you are giving and how you are serving, then you are not doing enough. The Christian life should leave you afraid almost all the time. You should be doing things, stretching yourself in ways that feel almost too much. Life with Christ is that way, it is a series of trees to be climbed. But the joy that comes along with the fear is great. Oh, it is great.

As I drove back to the Cathedral from Tiger Academy, I could see two things in John’s eyes. I could see light and joy and I could see fatigue. And when I asked if he would be willing to serve on the Board of our Cathedral School, he said Yes. Even though he didn’t know if he could make all the meetings, even though he is tired, he said YES.

The I Dont Wanna Syndrome

Naaman the Syrian was a sick man. He suffered from leprosy, a terrible disease in which the skin of a human being becomes white and flakey and falls off, eventually maiming whole limbs and killing a person. Highly contagious, leprosy was a form of social suicide. To contract the disease meant to be forced to live an isolated life. Whenever a leper entered the village, he or she had to call out ahead “LEPER! LEPER!” so that everyone who was in the vicinity could run away.


Naaman must have been some kind of a soldier, because the King of Syria demands that he stay and continue to lead the army in battle. Naaman tries to go about his daily life, but the pain of the skin disease plagues him daily, hourly. He begs God to be healed.

As in so many of our lives, God speaks to Naaman through people. In this case, God speaks to Naaman through the servant of his wife. And Naaman shows what an incredible man he is by listening. It was unheard of to speak to a servant and take their advice in those days, let alone a servant from another foreign land. And she was a woman to boot, less than human and considered stupid. But Naaman listens to her and his healing begins.

Often our healing, the righting of our life with God, begins when we finally give up on our way and begin to listen. God may be telling you something, but you have to be willing to listen to the voices all around you, including the ones that you may have written off.

The servant girl is from Israel. She tells Naaman to go to the King of Israel, that there is a prophet in that land who can heal him. So Naaman takes her advice. He sends a letter ahead telling the King of Israel that he is coming to be healed of his leprosy.

The King of Israel is distraught. Here was this four-star general from an enemy nation coming to his land to be healed. What would he do when they could not heal him? This seemed like a terrible idea. The king was scared stiff.

But the prophet Elisha was not scared. Send the General to me, he said. So Naaman travles a great distance with a huge entourage of servants and camels and donkeys, right up to the door of Elisha's humble abode. Naaman is seeking some difficult treatment or penance to bear so that he will be healed of this terrible sickness. But Elisha doesn't even come out of his house!  He sends a message to Naaman instructing him to go and bathe in the river Jordan.  In other words, all that Elisha says is Go and take a bath.

Naaman is mad. How dare Elisha be so condescending!  Why didn't he come out of his house and wave his hands around and perform a miracle, something that befit a great man. Naaman asks himself, "Why couldn’t I just bathe in my own rivers? Is my land not good enough?" And he refuses to do what Elisha asked.

Sometimes we fight God when God is trying to help us. Do you realize that? Do you fight God sometimes?  Sometimes we believe that we should have better treatment, like a direct word from God now and again or some impressive miracle.  Why should we just do as the Scriptures tell us?  That just seems so mundane, not special enough for you or me.  Sometimes we just don't want to let God help us.

Check out my hand. See how badly scratched up it is? On Monday of this past week, I was driving home when a neighbor stopped me. My cat, Ms. Meow, had her collar stuck in her throat. It was gradually choking her, the tags were lodged in her mouth. She was in pain and she would not let the neighbor near her.

I got out of the car and approached Ms Meow. She knows me and loves me. After all, I feed her and she understands what a gift that is. Ms. Meow was once a stray, living off a fish pond at a tiny church in Kansas. We found her and adopted her. She is an inside, outside cat, a fierce hunter but she can snuggle with the best of them.

Ms. Meow let me approach her. She stayed still as I came closer. The neighbor had scissors to cut off her collar, if I could just hold her still. But when I tried to pick her up, she scratched at me and bit me. She ran away, but just a short distance, her mouth forced open in agony.

Oh, honey, I am just trying to help you. I said. I reached for her again. She bit and scratched, but I didn’t let go. I held on to her and the neighbor cut off the collar quickly and skillfully. Ms. Meow was free but my hand was a bloody mess. I had to go on an antibiotic for ten days and get a tetnus shot.

Ms. Meow knew that I was trying to help her, but she couldn’t seem to help fighting me. That is what Naaman did and that is what many of us do with God. We say, Help me! And God says, Come to church. Give of your resources. Pray. And we say Well, I’ll come when I can. I will pray, but I can’t give money. I just don’t want to. Why do I have to? I don’t wanna!

What God asks of us is so simple. Practice the faith. Pray, Worship, Give. All three. But we want to do things our way, and then we wonder why life doesn’t seem to go as we wish that it would.

Go and bathe in the Jordan says Elisha. I don’t wanna! Responds Naaman. But luckily, his servants talk to him again. How hard can it be? They say. Why don’t you try it?

And so he bathes, and he is made clean. He is changed.  The Scripture says that his skin is like the skin of a young boy.

Oh God, he says, Thank you. What can I give you?

Do you want to be made well? The recipe is clear and simple. Practice your faith. You are Christians. Do what Jesus instructed. Pray every day. Worship with your community here at the Cathedral. And, the hardest part, give some of your money. Give it away. Give to the church and Greenpeace and Universities and whatever is of God. Just give it away.

The Vestry has made a statement that hangs in Talliaferro hall. It is a Rule of life. Together with me, they vowed to worship every Sunday, pray daily and give of their resources. It is a simple statement. If you agree with it and want to join us, sign it. We left rooms for lots of people to sign with us.

In the gospel, Jesus heals seven lepers but only one comes back to say Thank you. Giving is our way of saying Thank you. Thank you for healing me. Thank you for creating me. Thank you for enabling me to walk and talk and see and speak. Thank you.

Do you realize that you won the lottery? There were over a million possible people who could have been born in your body. The possibilities of chromosomes were so vast as to be mind boggling, but, out of all those possibilities, God chose to make YOU. God wove you together in your mothers womb and the fact that you exist at all is such a miracle that you cannot even begin to wrap your mind around it.

When will you stop charging forward, doing things in your own way, and turn around? When will it be time to stop and look at the face of Christ and say, Thank you. Thank you for making me, for sustaining me. Thank you for the eyes that I have that work so that I can see light and color. Thank you for the friends that you have given me. Thank you that I can hear music. Thank you for life, God, thank you for life.

Why does it take illness for us to appreciate health? Why does it take poverty for us to appreciate wealth? Don’t wait until the end of your life to say thank you to God. Listen to the voices of those around you, listen to God’s call to you, and give of yourself endlessly in an act of thanksgiving.

Thr Better Question

My friend had a little boy who was absolutely adorable. He was clearly smart as a whip and at six months old, he would smile and laugh out loud. By the time he was well over a year old, he still had not uttered a word, and his mom began to worry. “Maybe his has some learning disability, maybe he is socially unable to speak or has anxiety…” She, like lots of young moms, was a worry wart. So she went to the pediatrician.


“Well,” the doctor said. “This boy seems happy and healthy to me. Let me ask you this…Do you give him everything that he needs?”

“Oh, well, I try. I feed him when he seems hungry. I know when he is tired. I try to take care of his every need…”

“Try something for me,” the doctor said. “Try not giving him everything he needs. Start with food. Give him a bit but then wait and let him begin to express his own wants and needs. Do not fulfill his needs before he asks. Otherwise, you give him no incentive to speak…”

That afternoon, my friend sat her son down in his highchair and put a few cheerios on it for him to munch on while she did the dishes. He ate them quickly and then gestured for more, but she didn’t put more on his plate. She just stood there staring at him. She told me later that it just about killed her, not just getting him exactly what she knew and he knew that he wanted. But she stood her ground.

Her son’s first word was “MORE.”

I used to bring my sons Luke and Jacob to the nursing home with me when Luke was two and Jake was just a baby. The residents loved my children! If I forgot communion, well, that was not such a big deal, but if I forgot to bring the babies, well, they would be furious. They loved to hold Jake and rock him. And Luke would wander around the room as we did the eucharist together, singing Amazing Grace every week and the Old Rugged Cross.

As a young, frazzled mother, I would often arrive full of diaper bags but missing one thing or another. One week, I forgot the wafers. I called over one of the nurses assistants who brought saltines. So we proceeded with the service. Luke had a bad day and was mad and was hungry. He wanted the service to be over. As I began the holy words, he started yelling, “I don’t want to do a service! AMEN! AMEN!” Then, once we got to the communion, and he saw the saltines, he yelled “MORE CRACKER MORE!!!”

The disciples want more. They have experienced Jesus and the love that he has for God and they want to be more like him. They want more faith, more devotion, more intimacy with God. “Increase our faith!” they demand. Give us more of the good stuff. We want it now.

I am so often struck by how much we are like the disciples. Human nature has not changed one iota since Jesus’ time. They might as well have said, Jesus, Supersize me! I want bigger everything, bigger faith, more devotion. The disciples were able to take the best thing that they had going, namely their relationship with Jesus, and cheapen it. Instead of giving thanks for what they had, they said,” I want more. What you have given me is not enough.”

We do that here in America without even blinking. When is there ever enough? We are constantly saying to ourselves, I want more food, more clothes, more money, more time. We ALWAYS need more of something. We have so convinced ourselves of our need that we can no longer distinguish between needs and wants. Our obeisity rates are the highest in the world because we don’t seem to know when we have had enough food. People who already have weight issues will go to buffets and eat and eat and eat.

Many of our corporations are designed to create new needs. Last year, I heard of an energy bar for dogs! It is designed so that the dog will get more out of his walk. So does your dog NEED it?

In response to the disciples, Jesus a parable about a slave and his master. After the slave has worked all day in the fields, the master will not call him in and say to him, come and join me at the table, instead he will tell the slave to put on his apron and serve his master and, only after he has served, then he can sit down and eat. So we are not to assume that God will invite us to sit down and eat at the banquet. We have work to do first. We are to approach God with humility, as his slaves, grateful for whatever God gives to us.

It is a painful parable that rubs us the wrong way today. We now understand that slavery is a horrible institution that degrades the human being, but Jesus was simply using a daily, familiar reality of his time to make a point about God. He wanted to use an image that would be familiar to the disciples, something that they would see often. So he talks about a slave and his master.

This is the truth, harsh though it sounds. When it comes to our relationship with God, we are not free agents. We are not consumers or independent contractors. We cannot decide when to place our order or just how long we will live. We are slaves. We are servants. We belong to God. For us to ask for more faith is preposterous. It is simply not our place and it will get us nowhere, not because God would be offended, but because we really have no idea what we truly need. Only God knows who we truly are and what we really need.

The best question to ask God is “What can I do to serve?” Asking for more stuff does not ultimately help us in any way. Asking for happiness or peace of mind is all well and good, but what if there is something that we need to learn or experience. The truth is that we really have no idea what we need.

Jesus calls us his little children a lot. Children of God. Like little ones, we don’t always know what is best for us. We would buy stuff like crazy when it does nothing more than increase our attachment to material things. We want better lives, more peaceful or easier. We want this and we want that. But God knows that instead of wanting more, we just need to give and serve. Jesus tells us that serving others is best for us and would make us happier, more fulfilled. God knows that the secret to our spiritual lives lies in our ability to give of ourselves.

If you are feeling as if God has not given you enough: not a good enough life, not enough money, not enough friends, not enough health, or success or time with your loved ones, try giving it away.

We are spending this year listening to Jacksonville and to the roles of Cathedrals through the centuries. And I am hearing God’s call to us. It is coming through loud and clear. And it is so simple. Oh, so simple.

We as a Cathedral are being called to be servants of this city. The masters of this church, the ones who we serve, are not the clergy or the Vestry, it is the children, the disabled and the very old. We are called to serve those that are the most helpless. We are called to give the child a safe place to be nurtured and the best education that we can, for the future of this city depends upon it.

Forty percent of the children in this neighborhood live on or below the poverty line. We have taken the first step in ministering to children by starting the Cathedral School here just five years ago. And today we celebrate this school. Today is Cathedral School Sunday.

This beautiful early-learning center teaches and nurtures children from babies to age 5. The children of this school are happy and loved. I have the blessing of leading them in chapel. A few weeks ago, they decided to ask God if he might reconsider creating cockroaches. They wondered if he might want to come up with another model.

The Board of the Cathedral School is committed to growing the school, offering more scholarships to inner-city children and even growing into elementary school. We are called to serve these children. They are the masters and we are the slaves, for they hold the keys to the future of this city. If our children are loved, we will be OK.

What do you need? What do I need? We don’t need to ask for anything more. We need to give. We need to serve people like these children, the elderly, those who are in pain or need.

Friday night, Jo Hedgepeth died. Jo was one of our most faithful parishioners. She was so pivotal to this place that many of us feel rocked without her presence. The night that she died, Jo’s daughter and son were able to say goodbye and to thank her. They told her that it was OK to go. They gave her something that many people do not give their loved ones who are dying, they gave her permission.

After she died, the nurse told us that her mother had died when she was 25 and that she had begged her mother not to go. She wanted more of her mother, more time. So she begged for her to stay and as a result, her mother had a painful prolonged death. “Don’t ask for more time,” she said, “Give them the gift of letting them go.”

Who are we to ask for more? We are children, servants, slaves. We belong to God. All we can say is Thank you, God, What can I do for YOU?