This is the day that the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
This day lives right now between what we know about yesterday, and what we hope for tomorrow. This day has a name and a number on the calendar and some will fill it with work while others may enjoy leisure. But first we name this day as God's creation.
It is a gift: let us rejoice and be glad in it.
I am especially glad on this day to meet you and to stand with you in Trinity Church as we begin a relationship as rector and the people of God. We have been getting acquainted on paper for months and now we meet for the first time in prayer and liturgy. You have lived in my imagination as I have lived in yours. Today it is a blessing to look out and to see your faces at last. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
On this day the scriptures claim our attention in a particularly vivid way. With breathtaking imagery the words call out to us as if to say, "Pay attention! Listen up." Of course, you know that the scriptures are inspired by God, and were written by humans. For this reason we find familiar literary tools used by the ancient authors to bring the text to life. The Bible uses everything you learned in English 101: metaphor, poetry, and today, rich hyperbole, dramatic, over-the-top illustrations to make us pay attention.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, God's word is like a piercing sword. It probes and reveals our thoughts and the intentions of our hearts. "Pay attention," it demands. God is like a surgeon who examines and repairs us.
Turning to our second lesson in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus claims the crowd's attention by referencing a camel slipping through the eye of a needle. Who ever heard of a camel going through the eye of a needle? Of course it is an outrageous notion, intended to startle. It got the people's attention, which was exactly what Jesus wanted. And this is not the only time this particular exaggeration is used. The Jewish Talmud makes a similar comparison to an elephant going through the eye of a needle. It seems that even in biblical times, preachers had to work to keep their audiences' attention. "Pay attention," our scriptures cry. Listen for a deeper truth about God and about yourself.
Claiming our full attention in today's world is complicated and requires more than camels and swords. Our lives are filled with distractions. The newspaper columnist, Thomas Friedman, wrote in the New York Times in July of our fractured attention spans. Perhaps you will recognize a bit yourself in his description of a person who surfs the Internet, talks on a cell phone, watches TV, types a document and answers a loved one's question, all at the same time. Friedman writes,
"...you are multitasking your way through the day, continuously devoting only partial attention to each act or person you encounter. It is the malady of modernity. We have gone from the Iron Age to the Industrial Age to the Information Age to the Age of Interruption."
The age of interruption: here we are. The age of interruption happens even in the Church. It is very easy for people of faith to be distracted from God with all the complex demands of our time. In this era of multi-tasking we often move in one direction while our hearts and minds are going somewhere else. The man that met Jesus in today's gospel was also moving in many directions. His was going through the motions of faithfulness in his external behavior, but internally his real devotion was to his money. Naturally this contradiction created a barrier in his relationship with God. Perhaps this explains why the man did not just walk, he ran to Jesus.
Notice what happens in the story: it says that Jesus looked at the man and loved him. Jesus reached out to this person whose inner life was a mess. Jesus, looking at him, loved him. Before Jesus challenged him, before he instructed the man, Jesus simply looked at him and loved him.
How often we miss this important first step in our life with God. Before anything else is required of us, God looks at us and loves us. The Creator continues to look at creation and declares that it is good. To be sure, God probes us and reveals the intentions of our heart, just as the scripture says. There is plenty there to be examined and repaired, especially when we put our love of money before our love of God and our neighbor. But first of all, God loves us. So pay attention: God's love is the beginning of everything that follows. When we truly attend to our life, we will find God. Indeed, paying attention is the first step in prayer. The poet, Mary Oliver has written:
I don't know exactly what a prayer is
I do know how to pay attention...
She is on to something important. When we begin to pay attention, and we see that God loves us, we have begun a life of prayer.
My attention has been claimed in many ways during my first days here at Trinity Church.
I want to share with you one image in particular that has taken root in my prayer and imagination. The first time I walked out the front door of Trinity, I discovered the line where the brick changes in Copley Square. Take a look when you go outside today and you will see it: the brick changes color just beyond our front steps.
I know that it marks our property line, but I see something else there as well. I see a practical yet mystical point of transition, a distinction between the sacred and the secular, the church and the world. We are almost, but not quite, inseparable. And I wonder: what happens where the brick changes in Copley Square? What happens there: where the church meets the world and the world encounters the church?
What are the possibilities there, where we lean into one another in this great urban space? Where is God calling us as the brick changes ever so slightly beneath our feet? Will what we do in here sanctify the world out there? And what of all the life, and hope, and the tears of the world that flow into this holy space. Will they bring us new experiences of God's grace and redemption? I imagine God's arms embracing this square, calling us into relationship with one another and with our city neighbors. Jesus looks at us, all of us, and loves us.
Let us pray then that we will receive with thanksgiving everything that God brings to us here at Trinity. And then let us return to the public square with generous hearts, shaped by the blessing and formation that we experience in this church. We must pay attention, so that the love of God we experience in here becomes a love for justice in the community beyond our doors. We come into the city today from all over the Boston area. We enter the very heart of God's creation, with all of its pain and beauty. It is not just a setting; the city is our calling at Trinity Church. The city is filled with metaphor and hyperbole and demands our best attention, just like the words of the Bible. So listen up, pay attention, God's love searches us and makes everything possible for us. God's love and energy fills our church, pours out the door, and spread across the brick of Copley Square. Pay attention, and witness the love of God that is all around us.
This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
AMEN | 
