Incense and Toilet Paper

Matthew 13:54-58

Sermon for Friday Eucharist Bexley Hall

10/23/09 James the Just

 

Good morning! I have titled this sermon "Incense and Toilet Paper!" after the email Audra sent out to the entire community earlier this week. It seems to me that those two things, which seem so contradictory in their symbolism and use, speak a lot about today, the feast of St. James, the brother of Jesus.

Incense: Today we have incense because today is a big deal on our church calendar, a Red Letter Day! James the Just, the brother of Jesus, was a pillar of the church in Jerusalem. He didn't believe in his brother before Jesus died. Like most brothers, I suppose, he saw his slipups: those times he tried to turn water into wine but just got grape juice; the first times he tried healing a blind man and had to do it a couple of times before it "took"; and he was probably outside that little house where Jesus was teaching, with his sisters and his mother, telling Jesus to stop all this teaching nonsense and just come home. Jesus was probably talking to him, and probably hurt James' feelings when he said: "My brothers and sisters are those who hear the word of God and keep it." And we hear it in today's Gospel, "they took offense at him …where did he get all this...isn't he the carpenter's son?" This is what sometimes happens when you go home. …

And we are told by Paul in our second reading today that after his resurrection Jesus appeared to James—and James did believe in him. James believed in him so much that he became head of the church in Jerusalem. He believed in Jesus so much that others looked to him for leadership in the early church; James was even regarded by the Pharisees as a good and holy man. The Pharisees!!

And so we use incense today to remember that this is a special day, special smells, great people remembered, pillars of the church, that still hold us up today.

Toilet paper—You may think of toilet paper as the most vulgar of things, made to be used in the most vulgar of tasks and then thrown away. But imagine life without it …imagine having to get by on one roll a month, just one roll. Now imagine someone in the house is sick with the runs and you still only get one roll per person. Oh, yeah, your grandparents used to kid that you could always use the Sears catalogue—but they don't print that catalogue anymore, and my Boy Scout sons will tell you that wiping with leaves can be a risky business if you can't spot poison ivy!

There are people today who can't even afford toilet paper, people in Columbus, Cincinnati and all over the country who used to be able to afford lots of things and now are wondering where their next meal is coming from. I heard their stories all summer when I worked at the food pantry at CAIN, attached to St Philip Episcopal Church. I was shocked, stunned and some days I went home and cried because the stories I heard were of people that couldn't figure a way out of poverty—and I couldn't help them. If I were in their situation, I wouldn't be able to figure a way out either. Oh, I could give them some food, some toilet paper and toiletries but I couldn't figure a way out of the cycle. It seemed like just a tiny Band-Aid on a huge gushing wound that was their life—and it made me very sad. One day when I was in charge of the pantry so a staff member could get a night off, one of the volunteers came to me to say that someone had stolen a package of toilet paper—a big package of toilet paper. She was so angry that someone had gotten around the system and stole the toilet paper—how could they be so low. I tried to calm her down, told her it was alright they must have really needed it, but she was still incensed—incensed! Someone was so desperate they had to steal toilet paper—they must have been desperate! I was incensed that someone was made so desperate they had to steal toilet paper—why can't you buy it with food stamps—it surely is a necessity. How can anyone get by on one role? (I have told this story at St. Barnabas, my home parish, and I've had several women tell me that now they can't see a roll of toilet paper without thinking of me—and of people trying to get by on one roll a month! They can't see a roll of toilet paper without thinking of me … I think that's a compliment—isn't it?)

In today's reading from Acts, we have the pivotal Council of Jerusalem, in which James plays a leading role. They are discussing a theological question that is, in essence, a bodily question—do the Gentiles have to be circumcised in order to become Christians? And James says, no; we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. I think James, in that moment could have been an Anglican. They say, our Anglican "Divines" do, that we are very Incarnational in our theology. And when they say Incarnation, they don't only mean Jesus but our incarnation—our body—we encounter God in our bodily existence. We do not seek to subdue the body or transcend it—we experience God in our bodily existence—God in our flesh. We experience God in the hug of a loved one, in the birth of a child, in sickness or bodily healing, in walking, running, or a glass of wine…and a loaf of bread.

Incense and Toilet paper—It can be easier sometimes to encounter God in church, with song and words and incense. It's easier for us modern folks, to encounter Jesus as "fully God", resurrected with a glorious body, sitting at the right hand of our Creator—out there somewhere—glorious--yet distant—immortal--unapproachable! It's much more threatening, I think, to remember and to encounter the "fully human" part of Jesus—God Incarnate—God in the flesh. I am sure Jesus has not forgotten what it was like to be in the flesh. I am sure that Jesus has not forgotten what it was like to have a body … what it was like to have a brother, who wrote you off as a crazy person. I am sure Jesus has not forgotten what is was like to fall down and be hurt, to be lost, questioning and tempted. And I'm sure Jesus remembers what it was like to have to urinate and defecate and to have the runs—and he understands our modern need for toilet paper. He taught us to pray for bread, that most basic of human needs—he knew what it was like to be hungry, to be thirsty, to be in want, to be in need. And he knew what it was like to die—the most universal of all human experiences. He knew what it was like to gasp for breath, to be abandoned, to be abandoned with nothing, not even God….How very human …

I invite you into that place today, that place that is within you that is filled with the humanness of Jesus; the place of smells, good and bad; the place of desires, sacred and profane; the place of feelings, easy and hard. I invite you to ponder with me, the 'fully human' of Jesus; that humanness in Jesus that we encounter in each other each day, whether we like it or not; to experience today that in the incense that we raise to the all powerful, all knowing, impenetrable God—is also found the God who humbled himself to be the servant of all; that the "fully human" Jesus shares all your humanness, and wants you to share it with him as well. I invite you to experience the Jesus who is closer to you than your very breath, your gasping for breath, the panting of your breath. That there is nothing too mundane to ask for: bread, incense, toilet paper. That in the incense we do not distance ourselves from Jesus, but rather know that with each breath, pleasant or not, he is with us, closer than in the smoke in our nostrils, more intimate than the roll of the toilet paper to a sick person. Intimate….Incense …Toilet paper….Let us take a moment of silence right now to be present to our bodies, our breath and that life of God that fills us and surrounds us each and every day of our life.

(Silence)

Amen.