Meditation on Seven Last Words of Christ.
I Thirst
Found:
http://www.christchurchnewbrunswick.org/04.2.10.graham.Good%20Friday%20Reflection.pdf
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Monday, October 20, 2008
19 October 2008
19 October 2008
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Year A
“My presence will go with you.”
In nomine...
To see God's face. Moses asks some pretty lofty things in today's reading from Exodus. He asks to know God's ways and to see God's face. To see God's face? Instead, God's declares that the people Moses is responsible for, the chosen people of Israel will be in God's presence. God said that his presence would be with them. Moses was thought this was so important that he asked “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.” The children of Israel were God's chosen, and they knew this because they were in his presence.
Like the children of Israel, Moses was also chosen. Moses was God's prophet who led Israel out of Egypt. The verses from the narrative, just before those read from Exodus today, talk about a tent that was pitched in the desert where God and Moses would chat. Moses had the opportunity to be alone with God and to be in God's holy presence. They were so close that Moses thought it appropriate to ask God if he could see God face. And while this request was denied, God let his goodness pass over Moses. Moses, like many who went before him, had an intimate relationship with God, in a way that few of us could really expect.
But what of the church? The church is also chosen. In this salutation and introduction to Paul's letter to the Thessalonians Paul writes that we, as the church are God's chosen people too. “For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God” he writes “that he has chosen you.” Paul writes of the communities in Macedonia and Achaia that seem to be thriving. But clearly by then Christ has died and risen, and the relationships like that between Moses and God don't seem to happen much anymore.
Now, when writing a sermon, I believe that sermons should fit in with the rest of any service. That the music, the time of year, parish happenings, et cetera are all important things to consider. When I started to write this sermon I was bit unsure how to begin. Karin, being organized and responsible as she is, emailed me copies of today's bulletins on Wednesday. When I looked at the service music I had an audible groan. There is one hymn that we are singing today that I really really wish we weren't. Its one of those old favorites, but theologically, it just drives me batty. And that is “I come to the garden alone.” [LEVAS 69, read v 1, chorus 3 at 8am and 11:15am].
I come to the garden alone. I don't believe you are ever alone. To say that you are going to the garden alone says that God is hanging out there waiting for you, and I always thought God's presence is always with us – that God is bit like Santa – he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, and so on.
And then there is the last line of the chorus “And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.” “Like none other has known?” Like you're so special. If this was sung as the Easter hymn that C. Austin Miles wrote it as – about Mary Magdalene seeing the stone rolled away and confusing Jesus as a gardener, I might deal with it better, but most people don't know that context.
I also feel that this hymn makes God a solitary activity. When Paul writes of Christians in his day, he almost always writes of them and to them in communities. Like this letter: From Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to The Church of the Thessalonians. Doing church and doing God's work is a community activity. While in many of his letters he does refer to personal beliefs and behaviors, there is also a degree of holding each other accountable. Indeed, in our society in which many people say they are “spiritual but not religious” and that their “spirituality is private,” we have to remember that Moses' personal relationship with God was for a purpose. It was to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt.
I sometimes fear that this idea of coming to the garden alone where God walks and talks with me makes us forget that God in Jesus said that “when two or three are gathered in my name I am in the midst of them.” And that we can also work in a soup kitchen with others or take part in the CROP walk this afternoon, living out our relationship with God in or out of the garden. And really, why the garden anyway? Why, if God is everywhere, with all of us together, bringing all of us, like the Hebrew people to a new life. Working together to restore God's created world. Who needs to go to a garden?
While Moses' call was to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, clearly he didn't nor could he have done this on his own. This could not have been imagined if he and the Hebrew people were not in God's presence. But knowing that he was in God's presence wasn't enough, he needed that personal relationship he had with God – he needed that time with God not only to know what to do and what to tell the Hebrew people, but also for his own strength – so he could feel God's goodness pass over him. If he hadn't had that he wouldn't have been able to serve God in the community.
Its a balancing act of sorts and reminds us that we can all fall victim to focusing too much on our personal relationship with God or focusing too much on our communal relationship with God. At such a bright and vibrant church as St. David's, as with many other parishes, including my own, I can imagine it can be easy to get very involved with the communal activities of the parish but to lack the personal time with God. I recall hearing a Sr. Warden of a parish who was also a youth group leader and chorister say that she wished that she had a relationship with God or that she wished she had time for that.
Perhaps that's the wrong way to look at it. Perhaps that's backwards. Perhaps taking that time with God can help strengthen our ministry. In stewardship sermons we are always asked to give - the three T's usually.. time, talent, and treasures. I know I sometimes feel like I need to give so much and have the opportunity so much to so many places – work, school, church, committees, and other groups, that I don't feel like I can have time for myself, that putting aside personal time for me, or for me and God is somehow selfish.
Every Sunday we are asked to “lift up our hearts” and we “lift them up to the Lord.” But are we? Are we taking time to be stewards to ourselves? Are we lifting up our spiritual hearts to God? Are we lifting our physical hearts to God? Keeping our bodies, made in God's image, in the best shape we can? Or do we just not have time?
I agree. I don't really have time for much of anything. But a few months ago I decided to try to make time. I was stressed, didn't have time to get done what I needed to get done, didn't know how I could make everything fit, so I started going to the gym. Just an hour, two or three times a week. I also started put aside time to talk to God. Just ten minutes. And always alone. And somehow, everything fell into place.
Mind you, I'm still drowning in schoolwork, work work, and committees and such, but by being a steward to myself, I have been able to better be a steward to the world – and better take part in a communal relationship with God.
The last time I was here I was about to leave for England to staff Lambeth – the decennial conference of Anglican Bishops. If any one wants to hear about my experience I will be more than happy to chat about it after the service, but I will tell you though, wonderful, it was near, if not the most stressful and trying experience of my life. And truly, it was only when I could get away from the conference – when I would leave campus for a ten minute walk and sit behind a stone garden wall, and just sit with God that I could pull myself back to a useful place.
As many parishes do, a parish I used to attend keeps a prayer vigil between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday morning every year. They move some of the pews and set up a garden in the back of the church. And I will admit that it is the time each year that I felt closest to God. At 2:30 in the morning, with the warmth from the many candles on my skin and the smell of the flowers around me, alone in the garden, with God and God's presence.
So I suppose maybe there is something to be said for that hymn. Something to be said for going out of your way to go somewhere to intentionally be alone with God. To be rejuvenated and healed. To see the dew on the roses, and listen to birds hush their singing, to listen to the sweet, low, voice of God, until he bids us go, knowing that we are chosen to serve God in the world and are always in his presence.
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Year A
“My presence will go with you.”
In nomine...
To see God's face. Moses asks some pretty lofty things in today's reading from Exodus. He asks to know God's ways and to see God's face. To see God's face? Instead, God's declares that the people Moses is responsible for, the chosen people of Israel will be in God's presence. God said that his presence would be with them. Moses was thought this was so important that he asked “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.” The children of Israel were God's chosen, and they knew this because they were in his presence.
Like the children of Israel, Moses was also chosen. Moses was God's prophet who led Israel out of Egypt. The verses from the narrative, just before those read from Exodus today, talk about a tent that was pitched in the desert where God and Moses would chat. Moses had the opportunity to be alone with God and to be in God's holy presence. They were so close that Moses thought it appropriate to ask God if he could see God face. And while this request was denied, God let his goodness pass over Moses. Moses, like many who went before him, had an intimate relationship with God, in a way that few of us could really expect.
But what of the church? The church is also chosen. In this salutation and introduction to Paul's letter to the Thessalonians Paul writes that we, as the church are God's chosen people too. “For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God” he writes “that he has chosen you.” Paul writes of the communities in Macedonia and Achaia that seem to be thriving. But clearly by then Christ has died and risen, and the relationships like that between Moses and God don't seem to happen much anymore.
Now, when writing a sermon, I believe that sermons should fit in with the rest of any service. That the music, the time of year, parish happenings, et cetera are all important things to consider. When I started to write this sermon I was bit unsure how to begin. Karin, being organized and responsible as she is, emailed me copies of today's bulletins on Wednesday. When I looked at the service music I had an audible groan. There is one hymn that we are singing today that I really really wish we weren't. Its one of those old favorites, but theologically, it just drives me batty. And that is “I come to the garden alone.” [LEVAS 69, read v 1, chorus 3 at 8am and 11:15am].
I come to the garden alone. I don't believe you are ever alone. To say that you are going to the garden alone says that God is hanging out there waiting for you, and I always thought God's presence is always with us – that God is bit like Santa – he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, and so on.
And then there is the last line of the chorus “And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.” “Like none other has known?” Like you're so special. If this was sung as the Easter hymn that C. Austin Miles wrote it as – about Mary Magdalene seeing the stone rolled away and confusing Jesus as a gardener, I might deal with it better, but most people don't know that context.
I also feel that this hymn makes God a solitary activity. When Paul writes of Christians in his day, he almost always writes of them and to them in communities. Like this letter: From Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to The Church of the Thessalonians. Doing church and doing God's work is a community activity. While in many of his letters he does refer to personal beliefs and behaviors, there is also a degree of holding each other accountable. Indeed, in our society in which many people say they are “spiritual but not religious” and that their “spirituality is private,” we have to remember that Moses' personal relationship with God was for a purpose. It was to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt.
I sometimes fear that this idea of coming to the garden alone where God walks and talks with me makes us forget that God in Jesus said that “when two or three are gathered in my name I am in the midst of them.” And that we can also work in a soup kitchen with others or take part in the CROP walk this afternoon, living out our relationship with God in or out of the garden. And really, why the garden anyway? Why, if God is everywhere, with all of us together, bringing all of us, like the Hebrew people to a new life. Working together to restore God's created world. Who needs to go to a garden?
While Moses' call was to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, clearly he didn't nor could he have done this on his own. This could not have been imagined if he and the Hebrew people were not in God's presence. But knowing that he was in God's presence wasn't enough, he needed that personal relationship he had with God – he needed that time with God not only to know what to do and what to tell the Hebrew people, but also for his own strength – so he could feel God's goodness pass over him. If he hadn't had that he wouldn't have been able to serve God in the community.
Its a balancing act of sorts and reminds us that we can all fall victim to focusing too much on our personal relationship with God or focusing too much on our communal relationship with God. At such a bright and vibrant church as St. David's, as with many other parishes, including my own, I can imagine it can be easy to get very involved with the communal activities of the parish but to lack the personal time with God. I recall hearing a Sr. Warden of a parish who was also a youth group leader and chorister say that she wished that she had a relationship with God or that she wished she had time for that.
Perhaps that's the wrong way to look at it. Perhaps that's backwards. Perhaps taking that time with God can help strengthen our ministry. In stewardship sermons we are always asked to give - the three T's usually.. time, talent, and treasures. I know I sometimes feel like I need to give so much and have the opportunity so much to so many places – work, school, church, committees, and other groups, that I don't feel like I can have time for myself, that putting aside personal time for me, or for me and God is somehow selfish.
Every Sunday we are asked to “lift up our hearts” and we “lift them up to the Lord.” But are we? Are we taking time to be stewards to ourselves? Are we lifting up our spiritual hearts to God? Are we lifting our physical hearts to God? Keeping our bodies, made in God's image, in the best shape we can? Or do we just not have time?
I agree. I don't really have time for much of anything. But a few months ago I decided to try to make time. I was stressed, didn't have time to get done what I needed to get done, didn't know how I could make everything fit, so I started going to the gym. Just an hour, two or three times a week. I also started put aside time to talk to God. Just ten minutes. And always alone. And somehow, everything fell into place.
Mind you, I'm still drowning in schoolwork, work work, and committees and such, but by being a steward to myself, I have been able to better be a steward to the world – and better take part in a communal relationship with God.
The last time I was here I was about to leave for England to staff Lambeth – the decennial conference of Anglican Bishops. If any one wants to hear about my experience I will be more than happy to chat about it after the service, but I will tell you though, wonderful, it was near, if not the most stressful and trying experience of my life. And truly, it was only when I could get away from the conference – when I would leave campus for a ten minute walk and sit behind a stone garden wall, and just sit with God that I could pull myself back to a useful place.
As many parishes do, a parish I used to attend keeps a prayer vigil between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday morning every year. They move some of the pews and set up a garden in the back of the church. And I will admit that it is the time each year that I felt closest to God. At 2:30 in the morning, with the warmth from the many candles on my skin and the smell of the flowers around me, alone in the garden, with God and God's presence.
So I suppose maybe there is something to be said for that hymn. Something to be said for going out of your way to go somewhere to intentionally be alone with God. To be rejuvenated and healed. To see the dew on the roses, and listen to birds hush their singing, to listen to the sweet, low, voice of God, until he bids us go, knowing that we are chosen to serve God in the world and are always in his presence.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
29 July 2008
A Sermon for St. David's, Cranbury
29 June 2008
Proper 8, Year A
Hi. I'm Allie. And I'm a Christian. Doesn't that sound a bit like the beginning of a 12-step meeting? I'm Allie, and I'm a Christian. I don't know about you, but as an Episcopalian, sometimes it can seem like that hard a thing to admit.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to live in a secular world. A few of my friends are religious – most aren't. Of those, some are Christians – some aren't. And those “aren'ts” in both categories seem to have bad associations with those who consider themselves Christians. I actually have some friends who call themselves “Christ Followers” because they don't want the normally inaccurate associations that go along with calling oneself a Christian.
But I'm proud to be a Christian... quietly.
But what does that mean – to be a Christian quietly? How does that work? How can we, as Paul wrote “be slaves to righteousness” while being effective – and not completely obnoxious? I'm sure everyone here has experienced the... embarrassment... of being around one of those stereotypes? The “Christians” who are completely self-righteous and convinced of their own salvation (and everyone elses damnation) while being generally mean, rude, or otherwise annoying people. Like those who drive their hummers while sipping a latte, talking on their cell phones, with no regard for your or my life... with a Jesus fish on the back of their car? Yeah.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote “Do you not know that if you PRESENT yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey?”
“If you PRESENT yourself to ANYONE as obedient slaves... you are SLAVES to the one whom you obey.”
But does to whom we present ourselves equal to whom we are obedient? I'm not so sure.
Can we present ourselves as slaves – giving our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength to God, but actually be slaves to, what Paul calls wickedness?
Now, we normally hear that we are servants of God. But Paul writes that we are slaves. Once you’re a slave to a master, you ARE a slave to that master. So once we are slaves to God, to righteousness, even though we may fall, we are still slaves to God. If we find ourselves as slaves to sin, we risk falling deep into temptations and lusts that leads us away from God – it can lead us to “wickedness.” And when we fall into wickedness, and when we act as, what Paul calls “instruments of wickedness” rather than “instruments of righteousness,” people suffer. We suffer, our relationships suffer, and people around the world, all of our brothers and sisters in all socio-political situations suffer.
But what does it mean to be “an instrument of righteousness” or to be “obedient to righteousness”? I'm not about to tell you that it has to mean giving up all the things you want - that that the driver I mentioned earlier doesn't have to give up the hummer, the latte, the cell phone AND the Jesus fish decal- but it does have to mean respecting God and respecting God's creation – which does sometimes mean giving up what we want.
But we are giving up what we want in exchange for what God wants for us – and what we are told results in righteousness, in sanctification or cleanliness, and results in life.
In the reading from Genesis, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his “only” son. To give him up to God. As the story was written, Abraham didn't think to say “no.” He didn't question, he just went ahead, after he had just banished his only other son, Ishmael, – he was ready to sacrifice this one with no question or thought of saying no.
Um.
I don't think this ever happened in the bible after that. Any reading about Moses or any of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures or even Jesus involves a lot questioning... and whining.
God knows we aren't always happy with choices we have to make in his service. He, like any parent, knows that we often don't like what we feel we have to do. And like the driver of that car, its often painfully clear how simple it would be to take the easy way out – the “I take Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior” okay now I'm done method. But as we know, the entire gospels of Matthew and Luke (beatitudes) tell us there's more.
But what is that more? Because there is so much that “more” can be – in word as well as in action.
A few weeks ago I attended a conference at Princeton University called Envision: Scripture, Politics, and the Future. It was aimed at Christians who want to make a positive difference in the world. There were multiple workshop tracks, and I attended the one on International Human Rights. This is a broad topic, so none of us knew what to expect.
It covered a variety of issues, but at one point the woman leading the workshop – an evangelical from Texas, was talking about some of her organization's work in a region of the Sudan (not Darfur).
As she was talking she spoke of how many bibles they had managed to get into the region. How they had gotten a copy of the film “The Jesus Story” in the regional language to a local pastor, as well as a computer on which to play it into the area, and how many new people had made professions of faith.
As we left the session, a Mennonite boy started ranting to me. He couldn't understand how this was so important. Why aren't we talking about how to stop organized rape, or how we can get food to people in North Korea? Why not about ending sex trafficking?” he said. I have to admit that I had many of these thoughts as well.
But as we talked, I had to wonder. Consider two missionaries: one is bringing the bible to people and bringing them to Christianity. Another missionary, also from a church group, is bringing food and teaching skills in an underdeveloped nation. This one, however, decided not to discuss the religion that was his impetus for the trip as to not offend or for fear of appearing to force it on those he was helping?
Who's the better Christian? The one bringing food and skills, or the one sharing a religion of hope?
I honestly don't have an answer. I leave that to you.
But I can tell you the second – the food and skills – would be a lot easier for me. I find talking about my faith to people I don't know absolutely terrifying. I would rather volunteer in a dangerous inner city or work on building projects. In speaking about Christ, there is a vulnerability – an opening for judgment. It’s so much easier to say “my faith is private.” That's so much safer. Speaking makes me so uncomfortable. But that's the point, isn't it?
Our faith isn't supposed to be comfortable. Our faith isn't supposed to be safe. It isn't supposed to be stagnant, static. It isn't always supposed to give us warm fuzzies. This is not to say that the warm fuzzies we will hopefully get in a few minutes when Geneva and Corbin are baptized aren't from God, but Christ didn't die in a painful, gruesome manner for warm fuzzies. In today's gospel Christ spoke of prophets, righteous men, and unvalued. These groups of people weren't “comfortable” they didn't have comfortable situations and yet the gospel spoke of the rewards that we receive from receiving them, and the rewards we receive when we receiving Christ.
Our faith can't be what we want – sitting around doing our thing.
Have could you better serve God? Have you ever spoken with a close friend about your faith? Have you ever tried to figure out what YOU actually believe? For most of us, it isn't EXACTLY what's in the back of the prayer book or in the creeds. Have you tried writing your worldview or your own theology or idea of what God IS down on paper. Really, set aside some time and actually write it down. It may be surprisingly different from that which you think. And may lead you places that you didn't think it would take you. Even beginning to write it down can be a very uncomfortable thing to do... but our faith isn't supposed to be comfortable.
Have you done mission work? Built anything, far or locally? OR do you really hate being hot and sweaty. Do you think you might be called to volunteer for that sort of thing anyway? There are a wide variety of opportunities for all different skill sets and skill levels.
A comfortable faith leads to stagnation and temptation, and away from Christ. But we are called to be Christians, to be slaves to Christ... even if its, hard, uncomfortable, or we're occasionally hypocritical, and at times, like the prophets - whiny. But unlike most forms of slavery, through the grace, mercy and never failing love of God, we will be given sanctification and eternal life. And I can't think of a more comforting thought or reality, than that.
29 June 2008
Proper 8, Year A
Hi. I'm Allie. And I'm a Christian. Doesn't that sound a bit like the beginning of a 12-step meeting? I'm Allie, and I'm a Christian. I don't know about you, but as an Episcopalian, sometimes it can seem like that hard a thing to admit.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to live in a secular world. A few of my friends are religious – most aren't. Of those, some are Christians – some aren't. And those “aren'ts” in both categories seem to have bad associations with those who consider themselves Christians. I actually have some friends who call themselves “Christ Followers” because they don't want the normally inaccurate associations that go along with calling oneself a Christian.
But I'm proud to be a Christian... quietly.
But what does that mean – to be a Christian quietly? How does that work? How can we, as Paul wrote “be slaves to righteousness” while being effective – and not completely obnoxious? I'm sure everyone here has experienced the... embarrassment... of being around one of those stereotypes? The “Christians” who are completely self-righteous and convinced of their own salvation (and everyone elses damnation) while being generally mean, rude, or otherwise annoying people. Like those who drive their hummers while sipping a latte, talking on their cell phones, with no regard for your or my life... with a Jesus fish on the back of their car? Yeah.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote “Do you not know that if you PRESENT yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey?”
“If you PRESENT yourself to ANYONE as obedient slaves... you are SLAVES to the one whom you obey.”
But does to whom we present ourselves equal to whom we are obedient? I'm not so sure.
Can we present ourselves as slaves – giving our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength to God, but actually be slaves to, what Paul calls wickedness?
Now, we normally hear that we are servants of God. But Paul writes that we are slaves. Once you’re a slave to a master, you ARE a slave to that master. So once we are slaves to God, to righteousness, even though we may fall, we are still slaves to God. If we find ourselves as slaves to sin, we risk falling deep into temptations and lusts that leads us away from God – it can lead us to “wickedness.” And when we fall into wickedness, and when we act as, what Paul calls “instruments of wickedness” rather than “instruments of righteousness,” people suffer. We suffer, our relationships suffer, and people around the world, all of our brothers and sisters in all socio-political situations suffer.
But what does it mean to be “an instrument of righteousness” or to be “obedient to righteousness”? I'm not about to tell you that it has to mean giving up all the things you want - that that the driver I mentioned earlier doesn't have to give up the hummer, the latte, the cell phone AND the Jesus fish decal- but it does have to mean respecting God and respecting God's creation – which does sometimes mean giving up what we want.
But we are giving up what we want in exchange for what God wants for us – and what we are told results in righteousness, in sanctification or cleanliness, and results in life.
In the reading from Genesis, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his “only” son. To give him up to God. As the story was written, Abraham didn't think to say “no.” He didn't question, he just went ahead, after he had just banished his only other son, Ishmael, – he was ready to sacrifice this one with no question or thought of saying no.
Um.
I don't think this ever happened in the bible after that. Any reading about Moses or any of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures or even Jesus involves a lot questioning... and whining.
God knows we aren't always happy with choices we have to make in his service. He, like any parent, knows that we often don't like what we feel we have to do. And like the driver of that car, its often painfully clear how simple it would be to take the easy way out – the “I take Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior” okay now I'm done method. But as we know, the entire gospels of Matthew and Luke (beatitudes) tell us there's more.
But what is that more? Because there is so much that “more” can be – in word as well as in action.
A few weeks ago I attended a conference at Princeton University called Envision: Scripture, Politics, and the Future. It was aimed at Christians who want to make a positive difference in the world. There were multiple workshop tracks, and I attended the one on International Human Rights. This is a broad topic, so none of us knew what to expect.
It covered a variety of issues, but at one point the woman leading the workshop – an evangelical from Texas, was talking about some of her organization's work in a region of the Sudan (not Darfur).
As she was talking she spoke of how many bibles they had managed to get into the region. How they had gotten a copy of the film “The Jesus Story” in the regional language to a local pastor, as well as a computer on which to play it into the area, and how many new people had made professions of faith.
As we left the session, a Mennonite boy started ranting to me. He couldn't understand how this was so important. Why aren't we talking about how to stop organized rape, or how we can get food to people in North Korea? Why not about ending sex trafficking?” he said. I have to admit that I had many of these thoughts as well.
But as we talked, I had to wonder. Consider two missionaries: one is bringing the bible to people and bringing them to Christianity. Another missionary, also from a church group, is bringing food and teaching skills in an underdeveloped nation. This one, however, decided not to discuss the religion that was his impetus for the trip as to not offend or for fear of appearing to force it on those he was helping?
Who's the better Christian? The one bringing food and skills, or the one sharing a religion of hope?
I honestly don't have an answer. I leave that to you.
But I can tell you the second – the food and skills – would be a lot easier for me. I find talking about my faith to people I don't know absolutely terrifying. I would rather volunteer in a dangerous inner city or work on building projects. In speaking about Christ, there is a vulnerability – an opening for judgment. It’s so much easier to say “my faith is private.” That's so much safer. Speaking makes me so uncomfortable. But that's the point, isn't it?
Our faith isn't supposed to be comfortable. Our faith isn't supposed to be safe. It isn't supposed to be stagnant, static. It isn't always supposed to give us warm fuzzies. This is not to say that the warm fuzzies we will hopefully get in a few minutes when Geneva and Corbin are baptized aren't from God, but Christ didn't die in a painful, gruesome manner for warm fuzzies. In today's gospel Christ spoke of prophets, righteous men, and unvalued. These groups of people weren't “comfortable” they didn't have comfortable situations and yet the gospel spoke of the rewards that we receive from receiving them, and the rewards we receive when we receiving Christ.
Our faith can't be what we want – sitting around doing our thing.
Have could you better serve God? Have you ever spoken with a close friend about your faith? Have you ever tried to figure out what YOU actually believe? For most of us, it isn't EXACTLY what's in the back of the prayer book or in the creeds. Have you tried writing your worldview or your own theology or idea of what God IS down on paper. Really, set aside some time and actually write it down. It may be surprisingly different from that which you think. And may lead you places that you didn't think it would take you. Even beginning to write it down can be a very uncomfortable thing to do... but our faith isn't supposed to be comfortable.
Have you done mission work? Built anything, far or locally? OR do you really hate being hot and sweaty. Do you think you might be called to volunteer for that sort of thing anyway? There are a wide variety of opportunities for all different skill sets and skill levels.
A comfortable faith leads to stagnation and temptation, and away from Christ. But we are called to be Christians, to be slaves to Christ... even if its, hard, uncomfortable, or we're occasionally hypocritical, and at times, like the prophets - whiny. But unlike most forms of slavery, through the grace, mercy and never failing love of God, we will be given sanctification and eternal life. And I can't think of a more comforting thought or reality, than that.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
18 March 2008
Wisdom. Wisdom. Who doesn’t search for wisdom?
For knowledge, for understanding.
Who doesn’t desire to be wise, to be knowing to be
the person others seek for advise, to understand?
And as many seek to understand God, to understand the world
and analyze it, and make sense of it,
it all simply doesn’t seem to – work.
We see suffering and pain
and can feel an inability to do anything about it.
World Religions 101 and Sunday school teach us that
the God is omniscient, and loving, and benevolent,
yet, so much pain and horror are done in the name of God.
And we go through life, and when we sometimes see something good
we jump up and praise God.
It can make it hard to like him.
In tonight’s reading from the Gospel of Mark
God, in the form of Jesus proclaims that
[his] house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations.”
Doesn’t that sound so foolish –
that any house could be a house of prayer for all people-
that god, knowing how differently all the groups
would interpret his messengers,
knowing how much pain trying to serve him would cause
that all the nations will pray in one house –
doesn’t that seem foolish?
foolish…
Doesn’t it seem foolish
that a man would be willing to die in pain and shame
without immediate results
for an eternity of people he didn’t know.
Doesn’t it seem foolish…
God in the form of a man, Jesus,
died on a cross for our eternal life.
Take a moment to think about that.
PPPAAAUUUSSSEEEE (30+ seconds)
Last night Amy spoke about the woman
Who anointed Christ’s feet with expensive ointment
how she gave all she had
That woman was accused of being foolish –
but not by God.
But what of Christ, who was fully God
and fully human.
Who gave up his life
Truly everything he had
For an uncertain future.
Doesn’t that seem foolish… foolish.
Paul writes: For God’s foolishness is wiser than
human wisdom
that, on a bad day, God is wiser than we could
hope to be on the best day –
that we could hope to be ever.
We don’t have to “get it” or understand it,
or even like it,
and that’s okay.
And Thanks be to God
For because of God’s wisdom
in the face of our attempts towards wisdom
because of God’s wisdom and foolishness
we have eternal life.
For knowledge, for understanding.
Who doesn’t desire to be wise, to be knowing to be
the person others seek for advise, to understand?
And as many seek to understand God, to understand the world
and analyze it, and make sense of it,
it all simply doesn’t seem to – work.
We see suffering and pain
and can feel an inability to do anything about it.
World Religions 101 and Sunday school teach us that
the God is omniscient, and loving, and benevolent,
yet, so much pain and horror are done in the name of God.
And we go through life, and when we sometimes see something good
we jump up and praise God.
It can make it hard to like him.
In tonight’s reading from the Gospel of Mark
God, in the form of Jesus proclaims that
[his] house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations.”
Doesn’t that sound so foolish –
that any house could be a house of prayer for all people-
that god, knowing how differently all the groups
would interpret his messengers,
knowing how much pain trying to serve him would cause
that all the nations will pray in one house –
doesn’t that seem foolish?
foolish…
Doesn’t it seem foolish
that a man would be willing to die in pain and shame
without immediate results
for an eternity of people he didn’t know.
Doesn’t it seem foolish…
God in the form of a man, Jesus,
died on a cross for our eternal life.
Take a moment to think about that.
PPPAAAUUUSSSEEEE (30+ seconds)
Last night Amy spoke about the woman
Who anointed Christ’s feet with expensive ointment
how she gave all she had
That woman was accused of being foolish –
but not by God.
But what of Christ, who was fully God
and fully human.
Who gave up his life
Truly everything he had
For an uncertain future.
Doesn’t that seem foolish… foolish.
Paul writes: For God’s foolishness is wiser than
human wisdom
that, on a bad day, God is wiser than we could
hope to be on the best day –
that we could hope to be ever.
We don’t have to “get it” or understand it,
or even like it,
and that’s okay.
And Thanks be to God
For because of God’s wisdom
in the face of our attempts towards wisdom
because of God’s wisdom and foolishness
we have eternal life.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
15 July 07
15 July 07
Proper 10C
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.
In nominee…
Success. We all want to be successful. I mean, success can come in a lot of forms, but, in general, we tend to want to do well. Today’s first two lessons speak of the word as providing means to success.
In today’s lessons Moses reminded the Jews that the Lord “would make them abundantly prosperous in all their undertakings – in their bodies, and families, and land - as he did to their ancestors – he would make them SUCCSSFUL when they followed the law and turned their hearts and soul over to the Lord.
And Moses reminded them, they knew the word of the Lord,
That it was in their hearts and in their minds already. And that as hard or annoying as following that law may seem, turning our heart and soul to God is dealwithable,
its not too hard, not in heaven, not “over there”, here, we can do it, here, and now.
The second lesson presents the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Colossians.
Paul writes that hope and prosperity are in the gospel -- that the gospel is bearing fruit for the whole world. As in Deuteronomy this lesson says that following and turning to God leads to success. In Deuteronomy Moses directs the Jews to turn to the law, their covenant with God, Paul reminds us to look towards the gospel in Christ – our new Covenant.
Today’s readings not only serve to remind us to turn fully turn our hearts and souls to the Lord, but also reassure us that although it may not seem easy, It is not too hard. That we are capable. Paul specifically reminds us that we must be patient. We must be open, that we must be filled with God’s will and spiritual understand, strong with his strength and patience.
Lofty thoughts. Sounds hard, I mean, why bother? Filled with God’s will? Strong with God’s strength, and patience, and God’s spiritual understanding? But, God’s God. Man, that sounds hard, and, and annoying.
But taking a look at today’s Gospel, Paul makes a good point. I mean, God really raised the stakes, and his expectations.
In today’s gospel a lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Just as Moses reminded the Jews that they knew the law in their hearts, Jesus confirms that the lawyer knew the “correct” answer, and the lawyer responds that you must love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.
At this point I’m sure most of us here know the story by heart – the lawyer asks “who is my neighbor” and Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan - its one of those stories that tends to pop-up. Like the Prodigal Son and the Lost Sheep, this story seems to turn up in every Vacation Bible School curriculum and illustrated children’s bible. We learned it as children and though it gives us that warm comfy feeling inside, we can kinda of, click off, when we hear it.
A Jew is hit up by robbers. He’s left for dead. A priest passes by, but doesn’t stop so as to retain ritual purity. A Levite passes by but doesn’t stop either. Then a Samaritan passes the injured Jew - a person with a reason not to stop by – and he stops. He puts the man on his own animal, gets him to an inn, and leaves him with money.
Given the time, it would have made more sense for the Samaritan to pass by. Actually it would have made more sense for him to kick the guy while he was down. Samaritans and Jews at the time held extreme animosity towards each other.
A Jew would not have expected a Samaritan to stop and help him. To be honest, the Jew might not have even wanted the Samaritan to stop. Not only was the Samaritan not expected to stop, but it may have reflected badly upon the Samaritan for doing so. The Jew didn’t live near the Samaritan and it is highly doubtful that he considered the Samaritan to be his neighbor.
But Jesus told us that the Samaritan was a neighbor to the Jew. That if we are to love our neighbor as ourselves we have to be there for those whom we do not want to. Not when it hurts, not when its scary. We have to put ourselves aside for this – far away neighbor?
Sometimes it can be hard enough to put ourselves aside for those whom we love voluntarily. A friend who needs you when you had scheduled a date, sick relative when you are already stretched thin with other tasks. And yet, to “inherit eternal life” we must love those whom we want hate?
We can’t be vengeful. We, we as students can’t stand by children dying every day of curable diseases and not work to fund the MDGs while going out partying every weekend and say we love our neighbor. We can’t not teach our children that Americans put Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II because they looked different, cause it makes us feel embarrassed. We can’t drop bombs on hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and say we are loving our neighbor.
Who is our neighbor? According to Jesus, to a Jew it was all of the priests, the Levites, and the Samaritans. The last of whom had all the reason in the world to be angry, and vengeful, and leave the man, but instead gave him money and lodging, and hope.
It’s hard isn’t it – to not only turn the other cheek, but to turn to a person when everything in us is feeling anger and hatred. When we want to call out against a person because of their clothing, religion, or their believes, or those that we suppose they have when we look at them. Doesn’t it hurt?
Doesn’t it hurt to know that Jesus died on a cross for us to have eternal life – but for us to earn it the gospel says we have to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our minds and that to do that MUST love neighbor as ourselves – that we have to sacrifice our pride, our prejudices, our fears and self-protection to truly see beyond what we want to see and see what is.
That in order to truly inherit that which God has promised, we must turn ourselves over to the Lord our God to be filled with his will, strength, spiritual understanding, and PATIENCE.
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.
In nominee…
Proper 10C
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.
In nominee…
Success. We all want to be successful. I mean, success can come in a lot of forms, but, in general, we tend to want to do well. Today’s first two lessons speak of the word as providing means to success.
In today’s lessons Moses reminded the Jews that the Lord “would make them abundantly prosperous in all their undertakings – in their bodies, and families, and land - as he did to their ancestors – he would make them SUCCSSFUL when they followed the law and turned their hearts and soul over to the Lord.
And Moses reminded them, they knew the word of the Lord,
That it was in their hearts and in their minds already. And that as hard or annoying as following that law may seem, turning our heart and soul to God is dealwithable,
its not too hard, not in heaven, not “over there”, here, we can do it, here, and now.
The second lesson presents the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Colossians.
Paul writes that hope and prosperity are in the gospel -- that the gospel is bearing fruit for the whole world. As in Deuteronomy this lesson says that following and turning to God leads to success. In Deuteronomy Moses directs the Jews to turn to the law, their covenant with God, Paul reminds us to look towards the gospel in Christ – our new Covenant.
Today’s readings not only serve to remind us to turn fully turn our hearts and souls to the Lord, but also reassure us that although it may not seem easy, It is not too hard. That we are capable. Paul specifically reminds us that we must be patient. We must be open, that we must be filled with God’s will and spiritual understand, strong with his strength and patience.
Lofty thoughts. Sounds hard, I mean, why bother? Filled with God’s will? Strong with God’s strength, and patience, and God’s spiritual understanding? But, God’s God. Man, that sounds hard, and, and annoying.
But taking a look at today’s Gospel, Paul makes a good point. I mean, God really raised the stakes, and his expectations.
In today’s gospel a lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Just as Moses reminded the Jews that they knew the law in their hearts, Jesus confirms that the lawyer knew the “correct” answer, and the lawyer responds that you must love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.
At this point I’m sure most of us here know the story by heart – the lawyer asks “who is my neighbor” and Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan - its one of those stories that tends to pop-up. Like the Prodigal Son and the Lost Sheep, this story seems to turn up in every Vacation Bible School curriculum and illustrated children’s bible. We learned it as children and though it gives us that warm comfy feeling inside, we can kinda of, click off, when we hear it.
A Jew is hit up by robbers. He’s left for dead. A priest passes by, but doesn’t stop so as to retain ritual purity. A Levite passes by but doesn’t stop either. Then a Samaritan passes the injured Jew - a person with a reason not to stop by – and he stops. He puts the man on his own animal, gets him to an inn, and leaves him with money.
Given the time, it would have made more sense for the Samaritan to pass by. Actually it would have made more sense for him to kick the guy while he was down. Samaritans and Jews at the time held extreme animosity towards each other.
A Jew would not have expected a Samaritan to stop and help him. To be honest, the Jew might not have even wanted the Samaritan to stop. Not only was the Samaritan not expected to stop, but it may have reflected badly upon the Samaritan for doing so. The Jew didn’t live near the Samaritan and it is highly doubtful that he considered the Samaritan to be his neighbor.
But Jesus told us that the Samaritan was a neighbor to the Jew. That if we are to love our neighbor as ourselves we have to be there for those whom we do not want to. Not when it hurts, not when its scary. We have to put ourselves aside for this – far away neighbor?
Sometimes it can be hard enough to put ourselves aside for those whom we love voluntarily. A friend who needs you when you had scheduled a date, sick relative when you are already stretched thin with other tasks. And yet, to “inherit eternal life” we must love those whom we want hate?
We can’t be vengeful. We, we as students can’t stand by children dying every day of curable diseases and not work to fund the MDGs while going out partying every weekend and say we love our neighbor. We can’t not teach our children that Americans put Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II because they looked different, cause it makes us feel embarrassed. We can’t drop bombs on hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and say we are loving our neighbor.
Who is our neighbor? According to Jesus, to a Jew it was all of the priests, the Levites, and the Samaritans. The last of whom had all the reason in the world to be angry, and vengeful, and leave the man, but instead gave him money and lodging, and hope.
It’s hard isn’t it – to not only turn the other cheek, but to turn to a person when everything in us is feeling anger and hatred. When we want to call out against a person because of their clothing, religion, or their believes, or those that we suppose they have when we look at them. Doesn’t it hurt?
Doesn’t it hurt to know that Jesus died on a cross for us to have eternal life – but for us to earn it the gospel says we have to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our minds and that to do that MUST love neighbor as ourselves – that we have to sacrifice our pride, our prejudices, our fears and self-protection to truly see beyond what we want to see and see what is.
That in order to truly inherit that which God has promised, we must turn ourselves over to the Lord our God to be filled with his will, strength, spiritual understanding, and PATIENCE.
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.
In nominee…
Sunday, June 10, 2007
10 June 2007
10 June 2007
Proper 5 Year C
1 Kings 17:17-24
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
Please be seated.
Once you are dead, you are dead. Right? Well according to today’s lessons, not so fast.
Today’s first lesson recounts the story of the raising of a young man from the dead. Incidentally, the gospel has the same theme, however, lets stick to Kings for now.
When I first read over this lesson I was struck by what seemed to be the apathy of God. In earlier chapters of first Kings we learn that the city where the widow and her son live is going through a drought in part because many there are worshipping false Gods. This poor starving widow agrees to take in Elijah and soon after her son grows ill and dies.
The response of both the widow and Elijah is to get angry at God for bringing this misfortune upon the family, especially after she showed faith in taking in Elijah. Elijah cries “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”
The story then recounts Elijah praying three time and God listening to the voice of Elijah and the life returning to the dead son.
When I read that, my first thought was “man, God seems mean. Doesn’t care about the widow or the son. Not my kind of guy.”
(sarcastic pause)
There’s this traditional line of thinking that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is angry while the God of the New Testament is nice. The God of Justice vs. the God of Mercy.
Elijah has to ask God three times before God responds.
In today’s Gospel Jesus approaches the widow’s son and heals him – no request, no questions asked. Nice guy, right?
I’ll be honest, I’ve always been skeptical of the God of Justice vs. the God of Mercy bit. Wasn’t it the God of the Hebrew scriptures who gave the 10 commandments, and who gave the law to the Jews? God so loved his chosen people that he gave to them a set of rubrics that would provide for the most righteous life for them until a later time, the coming of the messiah. It was only when they stopped doing the most basic of these commandments: “have no other Gods before me”, that things weren’t really working out. The law, to the Jews, was an outward and visible sign of Gods love and care for them. When the people in the reading from Kings turned away from this commandment, they turned away from God, and ultimately, their own happiness.
Okay, now a shift.
Paul.
Paul wrote today’s letter from Galatians.
Paul, as we all know, was a Jew. And if we didn’t know this fact before, today’s epistle tells us this. Paul was a Jew who persecuted followers of Christ.
Paul says that he was “called through God’s grace” to have Jesus revealed to him. He left his life of tradition in Judaism and recognized Jesus as the fulfillment of his own scriptures. Which God was it who called him to this new life? As a Jew, was it his God, that many consider to be annoying, almost irresponsible, in the Hebrew Scriptures, or was it the loving, kind God of the New Testament?
While clearly both are the same God, this example blatantly breaks up the assumed dichotomy of Justice vs Mercy.
That just and merciful God that brought Paul to new life in Christ, truly
brought the two boys from today’s lessons to new life.
Imagine what that must be like: Your son, or daughter, or cousin, or best friend who had died, now brought back to life. What a tangible recognition of the power and love of God!
Yet, clearly, this is not a common occurrence. I mean, I can think of very few people who were raised from the dead:
"The boy in Kings was raised from the dead, the man in Luke was raised from the dead, we all know about Lazarus of Bethany. Aslan, the lion in C.S. Lewis's novels "The Chronicles of Narnia was raised" Joe Pendleton in Heaven Can Wait was given another shot and in The Princess Bride the character Westley was raised by Billy Crystal. Albus Dumbledore - oh wait, we don't know that for sure yet – must believe. Anyhow, I feel like we are leaving someone out… oh yeah… Jesus.
Sometimes it really seems as if Jesus’s resurrection is a really good IDEA.
I mean, imagining a deceased close friend or family member alive is so, so tangible, and Christ’s resurrection often seems INtangible – so very far away. We know it happened, we believe it happened, yet, we often forget it happened, it almost seems somehow, irrelevant.
And yet, it is because of Christ’s resurrection that we can, with full hearts repeat from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “O Death where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory?”
It is because of Christ being raised from the dead that we, as Christians, no longer need that law as God set it forth in the Hebrew scriptures.
In our heads we know that, as with Paul, in Christ’s resurrection we are given the opportunity for a new life. We are invited to eternal life – something that is a lot better, fulfilling, long lasting than one person being raised, until they die again from natural type reasons.
As always, we are left to wonder, why these two boys, why not another man or girl who was dead. Where is God’s MERCY in letting the other people remain dead. Why that son, why not my best friend.
And yet, what if it was my best friend, and not one of these boys, what if it was my relative and not Jesus.
I keep using the example of my best friend because she was the closest example I can think of. When she died I remember thinking the same thing that Elijah and the widow said “why did you take her away from us, after all she did, all we did.” Praying three times didn’t bring her back. But, I know she is alive in the risen Christ.
There is something to be said for instant gratification. We all love it. Its here, its now, it satisfies us. So of course, for what is best, we have to wait. In the chapter from Kings, the village was being punished because they were worshipping false Gods. Those gods were gods who promised more instant things – rain, fertility, etc.
God wants us to wait.
In Christ’s resurrection we are promised a lot. A lot that is to come later.
That we have to wait around for. Some of what we receive later that will be very tangible, but now seems very intangible.
What we have to remember is that Christ’s resurrection, and the effects thereof are just as real and tangible as the raising of those boys or Joe Peddleton, or Westley. As I questioned at the beginning of the sermon, once we are dead, we are not dead. Only, unlike the movie characters, we have the opportunity to live in Christ’s resurrection, though the justice and mercy of the one true and loving God who lives and reigns forever and ever.
Amen.
Proper 5 Year C
1 Kings 17:17-24
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
Please be seated.
Once you are dead, you are dead. Right? Well according to today’s lessons, not so fast.
Today’s first lesson recounts the story of the raising of a young man from the dead. Incidentally, the gospel has the same theme, however, lets stick to Kings for now.
When I first read over this lesson I was struck by what seemed to be the apathy of God. In earlier chapters of first Kings we learn that the city where the widow and her son live is going through a drought in part because many there are worshipping false Gods. This poor starving widow agrees to take in Elijah and soon after her son grows ill and dies.
The response of both the widow and Elijah is to get angry at God for bringing this misfortune upon the family, especially after she showed faith in taking in Elijah. Elijah cries “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”
The story then recounts Elijah praying three time and God listening to the voice of Elijah and the life returning to the dead son.
When I read that, my first thought was “man, God seems mean. Doesn’t care about the widow or the son. Not my kind of guy.”
(sarcastic pause)
There’s this traditional line of thinking that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is angry while the God of the New Testament is nice. The God of Justice vs. the God of Mercy.
Elijah has to ask God three times before God responds.
In today’s Gospel Jesus approaches the widow’s son and heals him – no request, no questions asked. Nice guy, right?
I’ll be honest, I’ve always been skeptical of the God of Justice vs. the God of Mercy bit. Wasn’t it the God of the Hebrew scriptures who gave the 10 commandments, and who gave the law to the Jews? God so loved his chosen people that he gave to them a set of rubrics that would provide for the most righteous life for them until a later time, the coming of the messiah. It was only when they stopped doing the most basic of these commandments: “have no other Gods before me”, that things weren’t really working out. The law, to the Jews, was an outward and visible sign of Gods love and care for them. When the people in the reading from Kings turned away from this commandment, they turned away from God, and ultimately, their own happiness.
Okay, now a shift.
Paul.
Paul wrote today’s letter from Galatians.
Paul, as we all know, was a Jew. And if we didn’t know this fact before, today’s epistle tells us this. Paul was a Jew who persecuted followers of Christ.
Paul says that he was “called through God’s grace” to have Jesus revealed to him. He left his life of tradition in Judaism and recognized Jesus as the fulfillment of his own scriptures. Which God was it who called him to this new life? As a Jew, was it his God, that many consider to be annoying, almost irresponsible, in the Hebrew Scriptures, or was it the loving, kind God of the New Testament?
While clearly both are the same God, this example blatantly breaks up the assumed dichotomy of Justice vs Mercy.
That just and merciful God that brought Paul to new life in Christ, truly
brought the two boys from today’s lessons to new life.
Imagine what that must be like: Your son, or daughter, or cousin, or best friend who had died, now brought back to life. What a tangible recognition of the power and love of God!
Yet, clearly, this is not a common occurrence. I mean, I can think of very few people who were raised from the dead:
"The boy in Kings was raised from the dead, the man in Luke was raised from the dead, we all know about Lazarus of Bethany. Aslan, the lion in C.S. Lewis's novels "The Chronicles of Narnia was raised" Joe Pendleton in Heaven Can Wait was given another shot and in The Princess Bride the character Westley was raised by Billy Crystal. Albus Dumbledore - oh wait, we don't know that for sure yet – must believe. Anyhow, I feel like we are leaving someone out… oh yeah… Jesus.
Sometimes it really seems as if Jesus’s resurrection is a really good IDEA.
I mean, imagining a deceased close friend or family member alive is so, so tangible, and Christ’s resurrection often seems INtangible – so very far away. We know it happened, we believe it happened, yet, we often forget it happened, it almost seems somehow, irrelevant.
And yet, it is because of Christ’s resurrection that we can, with full hearts repeat from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “O Death where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory?”
It is because of Christ being raised from the dead that we, as Christians, no longer need that law as God set it forth in the Hebrew scriptures.
In our heads we know that, as with Paul, in Christ’s resurrection we are given the opportunity for a new life. We are invited to eternal life – something that is a lot better, fulfilling, long lasting than one person being raised, until they die again from natural type reasons.
As always, we are left to wonder, why these two boys, why not another man or girl who was dead. Where is God’s MERCY in letting the other people remain dead. Why that son, why not my best friend.
And yet, what if it was my best friend, and not one of these boys, what if it was my relative and not Jesus.
I keep using the example of my best friend because she was the closest example I can think of. When she died I remember thinking the same thing that Elijah and the widow said “why did you take her away from us, after all she did, all we did.” Praying three times didn’t bring her back. But, I know she is alive in the risen Christ.
There is something to be said for instant gratification. We all love it. Its here, its now, it satisfies us. So of course, for what is best, we have to wait. In the chapter from Kings, the village was being punished because they were worshipping false Gods. Those gods were gods who promised more instant things – rain, fertility, etc.
God wants us to wait.
In Christ’s resurrection we are promised a lot. A lot that is to come later.
That we have to wait around for. Some of what we receive later that will be very tangible, but now seems very intangible.
What we have to remember is that Christ’s resurrection, and the effects thereof are just as real and tangible as the raising of those boys or Joe Peddleton, or Westley. As I questioned at the beginning of the sermon, once we are dead, we are not dead. Only, unlike the movie characters, we have the opportunity to live in Christ’s resurrection, though the justice and mercy of the one true and loving God who lives and reigns forever and ever.
Amen.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
3 April 2007
3 April 2007
Evening Prayer
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Wisdom. Wisdom is a goal for which we all strive. To understand. To see things – clearly. Wisdom may be why some of us are here tonight. We hope to gain it … we hope to learn it – or hear it. We want to be all knowing and to understand. To be like, our grandmothers, loved teachers, the omnipotent narrator in stories. To understand ourselves, to understand suffering and love, to understand the world around us.
And yet today’s reading from Corinthians appears to tell us that human wisdom is folly.
“Where is the one who is wise?” We hear from Paul:
“ Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.”
My initial reaction to reading this line was confusion and frustration. Isn’t that why I’m in college – to learn stuff? To become wise? We are taught to shy away from that which is foolish. We watch the Discovery Channel and read the NY Times. We do crossword puzzles and sudoku and play games and make decisions that thrive on logic. As kids we are told to act logically and as we get older, dreams we had – our foolish thoughts-get crushed or morphed into more practical and mundane matters. The logical hold themselves above the foolish and rest tend to agree.
“Has not God made the foolish the wisdom of the world?”
Paul goes on to say that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…”
As much as I am trying to get away from it, my mind keeps jumping to a line Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella:
“For the world is full of zanies and fools who don’t believe in sensible rules, and won’t believe what sensible people say. Because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes impossible, things are happening everyday.”
Cinderella, a plain country girl, alone and abused believes this woman who appears to her, and she eventually becomes a princess.
While, as Paul points out that we shouldn’t be looking for signs or miracles, there clearly is something to be said to stepping back from the logical – and what’s considered to be the wisdom and logic of the time. There is something to be said for stepping away from logic and believing the improbable.
Paul writers “God has chosen what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” He writes “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
Maybe it’s the foolish who really know what’s going on.
The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.”
That is really comforting in many ways, but it can also be discouraging. We are raised to want to be smart. To want to get away from foolishness. Children play games to act and dress like adults (and are then told they are being foolish) in hopes of wisdom.
We want to be in control. We want promotions. We want proof. We want to be certain. And here we are being told that we can never be the wisest, we can never be the smartest or be on top, and that quite frankly,
WE SHOULDN’T WANT TO BE!
Add what you want to think
That’s God’s job. God is the wisest, God is the strongest. God is wiser and stronger than anything we can imagine, study, or comprehend.
God is really so much bigger than we are. God is so much wiser and so much stronger and so much our father and mother and grandmother and teachers and storyteller that we can ever imagine.
We can’t control or comprehend or understand or know everything. It is in trying to understand everything that we lose the mystery of the Word Made Flesh – that we lose the comfort God can provide for us – it is in trying to understand everything that we lose understanding.
Cinderella believed the impossible – she believed that a plain yellow pumpkin could be come a golden carriage and that a plain country bumpkin and a prince could join in marriage.
The gospel of Christ crucified – the story that we are walking is very week asks us to believe the foolish. It asks us to believe a 2000 year old story that circumvents many of the rules of medicine and physics. It asks us to put aside what we have studied to consider wisdom and instead believe - and in that believe we have life.
Evening Prayer
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Wisdom. Wisdom is a goal for which we all strive. To understand. To see things – clearly. Wisdom may be why some of us are here tonight. We hope to gain it … we hope to learn it – or hear it. We want to be all knowing and to understand. To be like, our grandmothers, loved teachers, the omnipotent narrator in stories. To understand ourselves, to understand suffering and love, to understand the world around us.
And yet today’s reading from Corinthians appears to tell us that human wisdom is folly.
“Where is the one who is wise?” We hear from Paul:
“ Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.”
My initial reaction to reading this line was confusion and frustration. Isn’t that why I’m in college – to learn stuff? To become wise? We are taught to shy away from that which is foolish. We watch the Discovery Channel and read the NY Times. We do crossword puzzles and sudoku and play games and make decisions that thrive on logic. As kids we are told to act logically and as we get older, dreams we had – our foolish thoughts-get crushed or morphed into more practical and mundane matters. The logical hold themselves above the foolish and rest tend to agree.
“Has not God made the foolish the wisdom of the world?”
Paul goes on to say that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…”
As much as I am trying to get away from it, my mind keeps jumping to a line Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella:
“For the world is full of zanies and fools who don’t believe in sensible rules, and won’t believe what sensible people say. Because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes impossible, things are happening everyday.”
Cinderella, a plain country girl, alone and abused believes this woman who appears to her, and she eventually becomes a princess.
While, as Paul points out that we shouldn’t be looking for signs or miracles, there clearly is something to be said to stepping back from the logical – and what’s considered to be the wisdom and logic of the time. There is something to be said for stepping away from logic and believing the improbable.
Paul writers “God has chosen what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” He writes “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
Maybe it’s the foolish who really know what’s going on.
The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.”
That is really comforting in many ways, but it can also be discouraging. We are raised to want to be smart. To want to get away from foolishness. Children play games to act and dress like adults (and are then told they are being foolish) in hopes of wisdom.
We want to be in control. We want promotions. We want proof. We want to be certain. And here we are being told that we can never be the wisest, we can never be the smartest or be on top, and that quite frankly,
WE SHOULDN’T WANT TO BE!
Add what you want to think
That’s God’s job. God is the wisest, God is the strongest. God is wiser and stronger than anything we can imagine, study, or comprehend.
God is really so much bigger than we are. God is so much wiser and so much stronger and so much our father and mother and grandmother and teachers and storyteller that we can ever imagine.
We can’t control or comprehend or understand or know everything. It is in trying to understand everything that we lose the mystery of the Word Made Flesh – that we lose the comfort God can provide for us – it is in trying to understand everything that we lose understanding.
Cinderella believed the impossible – she believed that a plain yellow pumpkin could be come a golden carriage and that a plain country bumpkin and a prince could join in marriage.
The gospel of Christ crucified – the story that we are walking is very week asks us to believe the foolish. It asks us to believe a 2000 year old story that circumvents many of the rules of medicine and physics. It asks us to put aside what we have studied to consider wisdom and instead believe - and in that believe we have life.
20 August 2006
20 August 2006
Proper 15 Year B
Come, eat my food and drink the wine that I have mixed. In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit…
Wisdom built a house. It was hewn from seven pillars. Being that a standard house used to have four pillars, Wisdom, a name of God, built a large house. According to our first lesson, she invites the simple to her house to eat her food. This lesson said that Wisdom’s food gives understanding. Jesus draws a parallel. He says that his food gives life. Well, actually, he says that whoever eats the flesh and drinks the blood of he who came down from heaven has eternal life, and that he will raise them up on the last day.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. Strange. We hear this phrase often on Sundays during the preparation of the altar before we receive communion and somehow, it just makes sense. But when thrown back into the gospel, there is so much in these few lines.
Jesus makes it clear that neither the manna God gave during the Exodus nor the food and wine mixed by the Wisdom which gives understanding, none of this is so necessary as eating the flesh and drinking of the blood of Christ. Those who ate the manna died, he says, but those who eat his flesh and drink his blood have eternal life.
Wow. That’s a lot to chew. Eep. But, as we can tell from last week’s lessons, the people who heard Jesus’ words weren’t so thrilled either. What seems interesting though, is that those who heard, those who grew up with him weren’t questioning the body and blood as a means to salvation, but that Jesus came down from heaven.
We all know the Christmas story and are familiar with the doctrine of the Incarnation. It’s a strange thought, but they weren’t. The people who lived near Jesus knew him as the son of Mary and Joseph. Jesus didn’t come from heaven, Jesus came from Mary and Joseph. It must have been quite strange to hear this guy who you grew up with saying that his body and his blood could grant eternal life. That’s like the kind of guy you tell your kids to stay away from.
He’s telling his audience that the hopeful and inspirational story they grew up with – that mortals, stuck in the desert, ate the bread of angels as God gave them manna from heaven - was no longer the – the big wow, that- that he was that wow – that he was the way.
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; your forefathers ate manna and died but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Scary words. The promise of eternal life by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of he who was sent by God. .
A son of a carpenter was sent by God for the redemption of the world, and the Father, through body and blood of Jesus grants eternal life. This is a new covenant to supercede prior covenants. A covenant with the promise of eternal life.
There are five great biblical covenants – or agreements with promises on both ends. The first was to Noah: God promised to never destroy the world again by a flood. The second was to Abraham: that his descendants would be blessed and would be God’s special people. Next was Moses: This was a temporary one directed at the people of Israel and giving them the special gift the law. The last of the covenants described in the Old Testament was given to David: this covenant said that David and his descendants were established as the royal heirs to the throne of the nation of Israel.
The scope seems to be getting narrower and narrower. Narrower until it gets to one man. Jesus.
As Christians, we believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant – that he is that decedent of David. Hence those long genealogies at the beginning of the gospels. But, suddenly the scope widens.
This promise isn’t to the heirs of David, or the people of Israel, or the descendents of Abraham, it is to all of us. Maybe this explains that house hewn from seven pillars. It is there for all of us. This is a large all encompassing covenant. And it isn’t promising (though upholding) not to destroy us by a flood or to make us his special people or even to be royalty over a land, no, we are being promised eternal life. Eternal life. Through the body and blood of Christ we will be raised up and given eternal life with God.
Proper 15 Year B
Come, eat my food and drink the wine that I have mixed. In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit…
Wisdom built a house. It was hewn from seven pillars. Being that a standard house used to have four pillars, Wisdom, a name of God, built a large house. According to our first lesson, she invites the simple to her house to eat her food. This lesson said that Wisdom’s food gives understanding. Jesus draws a parallel. He says that his food gives life. Well, actually, he says that whoever eats the flesh and drinks the blood of he who came down from heaven has eternal life, and that he will raise them up on the last day.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. Strange. We hear this phrase often on Sundays during the preparation of the altar before we receive communion and somehow, it just makes sense. But when thrown back into the gospel, there is so much in these few lines.
Jesus makes it clear that neither the manna God gave during the Exodus nor the food and wine mixed by the Wisdom which gives understanding, none of this is so necessary as eating the flesh and drinking of the blood of Christ. Those who ate the manna died, he says, but those who eat his flesh and drink his blood have eternal life.
Wow. That’s a lot to chew. Eep. But, as we can tell from last week’s lessons, the people who heard Jesus’ words weren’t so thrilled either. What seems interesting though, is that those who heard, those who grew up with him weren’t questioning the body and blood as a means to salvation, but that Jesus came down from heaven.
We all know the Christmas story and are familiar with the doctrine of the Incarnation. It’s a strange thought, but they weren’t. The people who lived near Jesus knew him as the son of Mary and Joseph. Jesus didn’t come from heaven, Jesus came from Mary and Joseph. It must have been quite strange to hear this guy who you grew up with saying that his body and his blood could grant eternal life. That’s like the kind of guy you tell your kids to stay away from.
He’s telling his audience that the hopeful and inspirational story they grew up with – that mortals, stuck in the desert, ate the bread of angels as God gave them manna from heaven - was no longer the – the big wow, that- that he was that wow – that he was the way.
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; your forefathers ate manna and died but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Scary words. The promise of eternal life by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of he who was sent by God. .
A son of a carpenter was sent by God for the redemption of the world, and the Father, through body and blood of Jesus grants eternal life. This is a new covenant to supercede prior covenants. A covenant with the promise of eternal life.
There are five great biblical covenants – or agreements with promises on both ends. The first was to Noah: God promised to never destroy the world again by a flood. The second was to Abraham: that his descendants would be blessed and would be God’s special people. Next was Moses: This was a temporary one directed at the people of Israel and giving them the special gift the law. The last of the covenants described in the Old Testament was given to David: this covenant said that David and his descendants were established as the royal heirs to the throne of the nation of Israel.
The scope seems to be getting narrower and narrower. Narrower until it gets to one man. Jesus.
As Christians, we believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant – that he is that decedent of David. Hence those long genealogies at the beginning of the gospels. But, suddenly the scope widens.
This promise isn’t to the heirs of David, or the people of Israel, or the descendents of Abraham, it is to all of us. Maybe this explains that house hewn from seven pillars. It is there for all of us. This is a large all encompassing covenant. And it isn’t promising (though upholding) not to destroy us by a flood or to make us his special people or even to be royalty over a land, no, we are being promised eternal life. Eternal life. Through the body and blood of Christ we will be raised up and given eternal life with God.
28 May 2006
28 May 2006
Gospel Reading: John 17:6-19
Please be seated.
Jesus prayed – That is how this week’s gospel begins – with these two words. Earlier this week, as I was reading these lessons, I found myself stopping there. Each time I tried to read on I kept going back to these words: Jesus prayed. I was astonished. I was surprised. I was – awed.
He prayed. Prayer. Prayer implies asking and thanking, and hope. I find one of the better ways to describe it is with the somewhat archaic verb “beseeching,” which means asking with humility.
In an earlier part of John’s gospel he makes it clear to us that Jesus is God incarnate – God in flesh. So- in this week’s lesson God in the world is –praying- to God outside the world. Jesus actually makes this clear in today’s gospel. He refers not only to being sent by the heavenly Father, but also, among other things, he prays for his desire for the Christian community to be one, using his and the Father’s oneness as the example.
Mhm.
Prayer. We have spent the morning praying. We will soon continue to do so. Every night before I go to sleep I pray, usually asking God to help sick or troubled friends, ask that my boss stop being psychotic (or that she at least aim at someone else), pray for sustainable and just peace in the world, and thank God for “everything.” I try to remember or find time to say morning devotions out of the Prayer Book, it occasionally happens, and I pray with friends when they ask. Usually, however, I end up feeling like an idiot when at people’s homes who say grace after I’ve started eating. So I guess I have a pretty laid back but I’d say typical prayer life. The Gospels of Matthew and ??? give us the Lord’s prayer. A basic outline of how to pray. Some of us sing, some meditate, some dance, some run, regardless of whether a prayer of petition, thanksgiving, desire, meditation, whatever, its all prayer. We pray.
Jesus prayed, Jesus’ prayer is interesting. It’s very different from his familiar Lord’s prayer. The focus of this prayer appears to be on his Christian community – most prominently his hope that they are protected – and that they can remain safely in this world while remaining not of the world. He asks for their protection from the evil one, who lives distinctly in our solid material world.
As I mentioned earlier, Jesus also prays for the Christian community to experience the same oneness that Jesus and the Father feel. In the gospel Jesus referred to one glorifying the other – God the Father glorifying God the Son. In this way the church glorifying the church
Jesus’ next request is an interesting one – that by hearing his teaching his joy may be made complete in the Christian community. Living in a world that did not approve or believe in the early Christians’ words, teachings or lifestyle – though today we believe them as the truth – must have been painful. As Christians – as a resurrection people we know God’s joy is imperative to the “Christian message.” The realization of the importance of Jesus’ joy as well as its necessity for a long-term Christian experience is remarkable.
Jesus’ final plea is that the church be sanctified. He states that – those in the church belong no more to this world than he does – and asks that the church be made holy, that the holy presence will protect and spread throughout the Christian community.
This is what Jesus prayed.
I think back to my prayers – that friends be made well, here, for peace, here, and thank God for things, here. Jesus’ prayer asks instead that WE be protected, that WE remain joyful, that WE remain in this world and yet not of this world. That we focus not on here, but on there – on God.
By the time Jesus prayed this, he knew his time in this world was drawing to a close. In today’s gospel he again makes that clear, stating that his time here is short and that he did what was expected of him. And yet he prays. While my prayers did at first seem rather trite and superficial next to his, the more I thought about it, I wasn’t so sure. Both prayed for the wellbeing of those we care about as well as for some version of peace. But more than that, we were both praying.
All of us are taking part in an action that was done by God incarnate. Yes, when we participate in the Eucharist we are enacting the events of the last supper, remembering them and thanking God for his sacrifice.
But through prayer we are doing an action, the action that Jesus did.
We have the opportunity to take part in an activity that we can do just as fully as Jesus did it. Jesus is God incarnate – he didn’t need to talk to God the father this way. But he did. Jesus was fully God and fully human – he embraced his humanity and he prayed. Jesus prayed. Allie prayed. Albert prayed. Edie prayed. We pray. Jesus prayed. How amazing is that. We have the opportunity to take connect to God in the way Jesus did. John didn’t write “Jesus talked” or “Jesus asked.” No, John said Jesus prayed – Jesus prayed, we can pray, so let’s go do it.
Gospel Reading: John 17:6-19
Please be seated.
Jesus prayed – That is how this week’s gospel begins – with these two words. Earlier this week, as I was reading these lessons, I found myself stopping there. Each time I tried to read on I kept going back to these words: Jesus prayed. I was astonished. I was surprised. I was – awed.
He prayed. Prayer. Prayer implies asking and thanking, and hope. I find one of the better ways to describe it is with the somewhat archaic verb “beseeching,” which means asking with humility.
In an earlier part of John’s gospel he makes it clear to us that Jesus is God incarnate – God in flesh. So- in this week’s lesson God in the world is –praying- to God outside the world. Jesus actually makes this clear in today’s gospel. He refers not only to being sent by the heavenly Father, but also, among other things, he prays for his desire for the Christian community to be one, using his and the Father’s oneness as the example.
Mhm.
Prayer. We have spent the morning praying. We will soon continue to do so. Every night before I go to sleep I pray, usually asking God to help sick or troubled friends, ask that my boss stop being psychotic (or that she at least aim at someone else), pray for sustainable and just peace in the world, and thank God for “everything.” I try to remember or find time to say morning devotions out of the Prayer Book, it occasionally happens, and I pray with friends when they ask. Usually, however, I end up feeling like an idiot when at people’s homes who say grace after I’ve started eating. So I guess I have a pretty laid back but I’d say typical prayer life. The Gospels of Matthew and ??? give us the Lord’s prayer. A basic outline of how to pray. Some of us sing, some meditate, some dance, some run, regardless of whether a prayer of petition, thanksgiving, desire, meditation, whatever, its all prayer. We pray.
Jesus prayed, Jesus’ prayer is interesting. It’s very different from his familiar Lord’s prayer. The focus of this prayer appears to be on his Christian community – most prominently his hope that they are protected – and that they can remain safely in this world while remaining not of the world. He asks for their protection from the evil one, who lives distinctly in our solid material world.
As I mentioned earlier, Jesus also prays for the Christian community to experience the same oneness that Jesus and the Father feel. In the gospel Jesus referred to one glorifying the other – God the Father glorifying God the Son. In this way the church glorifying the church
Jesus’ next request is an interesting one – that by hearing his teaching his joy may be made complete in the Christian community. Living in a world that did not approve or believe in the early Christians’ words, teachings or lifestyle – though today we believe them as the truth – must have been painful. As Christians – as a resurrection people we know God’s joy is imperative to the “Christian message.” The realization of the importance of Jesus’ joy as well as its necessity for a long-term Christian experience is remarkable.
Jesus’ final plea is that the church be sanctified. He states that – those in the church belong no more to this world than he does – and asks that the church be made holy, that the holy presence will protect and spread throughout the Christian community.
This is what Jesus prayed.
I think back to my prayers – that friends be made well, here, for peace, here, and thank God for things, here. Jesus’ prayer asks instead that WE be protected, that WE remain joyful, that WE remain in this world and yet not of this world. That we focus not on here, but on there – on God.
By the time Jesus prayed this, he knew his time in this world was drawing to a close. In today’s gospel he again makes that clear, stating that his time here is short and that he did what was expected of him. And yet he prays. While my prayers did at first seem rather trite and superficial next to his, the more I thought about it, I wasn’t so sure. Both prayed for the wellbeing of those we care about as well as for some version of peace. But more than that, we were both praying.
All of us are taking part in an action that was done by God incarnate. Yes, when we participate in the Eucharist we are enacting the events of the last supper, remembering them and thanking God for his sacrifice.
But through prayer we are doing an action, the action that Jesus did.
We have the opportunity to take part in an activity that we can do just as fully as Jesus did it. Jesus is God incarnate – he didn’t need to talk to God the father this way. But he did. Jesus was fully God and fully human – he embraced his humanity and he prayed. Jesus prayed. Allie prayed. Albert prayed. Edie prayed. We pray. Jesus prayed. How amazing is that. We have the opportunity to take connect to God in the way Jesus did. John didn’t write “Jesus talked” or “Jesus asked.” No, John said Jesus prayed – Jesus prayed, we can pray, so let’s go do it.
8 January 2006
8 January 2006
Epiphany Sunday
Well, today we celebrate Epiphany, the feast day which recognizes the visit of the wise men to young Jesus. Epiphany is surrounded by far away majesty, mystery, and myth. Indeed, a crèche of poor shepherds and animals are joined today by colorful men in rich robes.
What we read in today’s gospel is almost all that is biblically said about these wise men. So clearly, much of what we “know” and “love” about Epiphany indeed has no biblical reference.
Superficially, I question the term “wise men.” The gospel mentions that these men went to King Herod to ask for direction. What, were they nuts? I’ve yet to meet a man who will ask for directions.
That aside, they asked a power hungry king where they could find a new born king of the Jews. Is there any way that could have been a good idea? As many of you know, a few days after Christmas we observe a feast day called “Holy Innocents.” This day recognizes the babies who were killed by Herod after these so called wise men mentioned Jesus’ birth.
There are still many other aspects of Epiphany which we are ‘sure of’ which do not hold biblical reference. Let me start with the hymn “We three kings.” In all honesty, I’m not really a fan of this hymn. Though the dirge-like tune does have a bit to do with my dislike, I tend to be even more perturbed at the phrases in this hymn which have become common beliefs about this day. Now mind you, this hymn did not begin any of these myths, however it has served to perpetuate them.
From the beginning, this hymn begins “We three kings of Orient -are.” Three… kings. The gospel says nothing about three nor about kings. Three. In the gospel these men knelt down and paid Jesus homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Three gifts. Three gifts, then three kings.
Maybe.
But - my godmother gave me a pair of black socks, a pair of maroon socks, and a gift card for Christmas. Three gifts, one person. Likewise, from a family of three, I received a nice perfume scent. Three people, one gift.
In all reality, these gifts could have been from any number of people. The Venerable Bede (the historical person, not the vicar’s cat) is the first finding of the use of the names Balthazar, Casper, and Melchior, that I could find though I couldn’t exactly where he pulled them from. According to the song, these men were from the Orient. Why? Because the Orient is to the East. And the gospel says they were men from the east. Now as we all know, there is other stuff to the east of Bethlehem. Russia, India, Persia, and other parts of the Middle East. No, they didn’t have those names then, but they still were not called Orient.
Next, kings. Yeah, that’s just weird. Three wise men, who spent their time staring at stars wandered west to Bethlehem. That’s a long walk – ride, whatever. Traveling from the east to the west takes a while. Historically, this isn’t the sort of trip kings made – visiting poor children born in a manger. If they would even respond to such a rumor as the birth of the new king of the Jews, they would have most likely sent lackies.
Similarly, the bible tends to be really good at mentioning kings. Today’s gospel clearly refers to Herod as a King and the gift-bearers as men. Yeah, no title here. These men are actually believed to be astrologers – as they were reading the stars – they “observed Jesus’ star rising”.
If these kings, nay, wise men, nay astrologers were sent to find the one born king of the Jews, and were later saved Herod’s wrath by a warning in the form of a dream, then the celebration of the Epiphany is no longer a sign of glamorous adoration by wealthy kings, but a sign of mercy and promise to sinners.
Through looking for meaning in the stars these astrologers, these heretics, were led to the young Son of God. Now, when we think of astrologers we think of those people who write for the local newspapers or people like Miss Cleo with strange infomercials. It wasn’t much different then. The Magi were quite possibly Zoroastrian astrologers. If you don’t know, Zoroastrianism was an early semi-monotheistic tradition.
Even at Jesus’s time Jews were warned not to consult astrologers. Jewish leaders said that they were idolatrous and deceiving, much as we as Christians are told today.
Yet somehow, these idolatrous deceivers, these quacks and whack jobs were certain enough of what they saw to follow the stars, and were led to the young son of God. God led these astrologers – these men who were blatantly working in direct contrast to God’s will – to Jesus. This really is rather odd.
God welcomed, indeed God brought these men to stand beside the Messiah. These men, along with the shepherds. Not Sadducees or Pharisees, though clearly as a Jew, eight days after Jesus was born he was in the presence of Jewish religious leaders. Not kings. But regular people who just happened to bring clearly odd though awesome gifts.
So where does this leave us? Does the deconstruction of much of the myth and mystery surrounding Epiphany leave it meaningless? Or do we become sad because it’s another beautiful faerie tale gone. Or does the humanization of these so called wise men leave us, relieved?
God chose foreign sinful men to be with Jesus during this holy time. Not the rich or high in statue or moral value, but those who needed it most. Indeed, this trend continues through out the gospels in such cases as Jesus eating with tax collectors and cripples, yet seems to have been most forgotten in the form of a few men who traveled a long distance to find this new born king of the Jews.
PAUSE
We all know on some level – whomever or wherever we are, that God calls to us and that God wants us to follow him and be his. Sometimes, however, this is hard to remember. It is hard to remember that even when we do something that appears to be in contrast to what it seems God would want, he still calls to us. God wants us. We can repent and we can go to the Lord. When ever we fall short, we have to remember God wants us and loves us,
And like the wise men, still desires us to adore and be close to Jesus.
Epiphany Sunday
Well, today we celebrate Epiphany, the feast day which recognizes the visit of the wise men to young Jesus. Epiphany is surrounded by far away majesty, mystery, and myth. Indeed, a crèche of poor shepherds and animals are joined today by colorful men in rich robes.
What we read in today’s gospel is almost all that is biblically said about these wise men. So clearly, much of what we “know” and “love” about Epiphany indeed has no biblical reference.
Superficially, I question the term “wise men.” The gospel mentions that these men went to King Herod to ask for direction. What, were they nuts? I’ve yet to meet a man who will ask for directions.
That aside, they asked a power hungry king where they could find a new born king of the Jews. Is there any way that could have been a good idea? As many of you know, a few days after Christmas we observe a feast day called “Holy Innocents.” This day recognizes the babies who were killed by Herod after these so called wise men mentioned Jesus’ birth.
There are still many other aspects of Epiphany which we are ‘sure of’ which do not hold biblical reference. Let me start with the hymn “We three kings.” In all honesty, I’m not really a fan of this hymn. Though the dirge-like tune does have a bit to do with my dislike, I tend to be even more perturbed at the phrases in this hymn which have become common beliefs about this day. Now mind you, this hymn did not begin any of these myths, however it has served to perpetuate them.
From the beginning, this hymn begins “We three kings of Orient -are.” Three… kings. The gospel says nothing about three nor about kings. Three. In the gospel these men knelt down and paid Jesus homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Three gifts. Three gifts, then three kings.
Maybe.
But - my godmother gave me a pair of black socks, a pair of maroon socks, and a gift card for Christmas. Three gifts, one person. Likewise, from a family of three, I received a nice perfume scent. Three people, one gift.
In all reality, these gifts could have been from any number of people. The Venerable Bede (the historical person, not the vicar’s cat) is the first finding of the use of the names Balthazar, Casper, and Melchior, that I could find though I couldn’t exactly where he pulled them from. According to the song, these men were from the Orient. Why? Because the Orient is to the East. And the gospel says they were men from the east. Now as we all know, there is other stuff to the east of Bethlehem. Russia, India, Persia, and other parts of the Middle East. No, they didn’t have those names then, but they still were not called Orient.
Next, kings. Yeah, that’s just weird. Three wise men, who spent their time staring at stars wandered west to Bethlehem. That’s a long walk – ride, whatever. Traveling from the east to the west takes a while. Historically, this isn’t the sort of trip kings made – visiting poor children born in a manger. If they would even respond to such a rumor as the birth of the new king of the Jews, they would have most likely sent lackies.
Similarly, the bible tends to be really good at mentioning kings. Today’s gospel clearly refers to Herod as a King and the gift-bearers as men. Yeah, no title here. These men are actually believed to be astrologers – as they were reading the stars – they “observed Jesus’ star rising”.
If these kings, nay, wise men, nay astrologers were sent to find the one born king of the Jews, and were later saved Herod’s wrath by a warning in the form of a dream, then the celebration of the Epiphany is no longer a sign of glamorous adoration by wealthy kings, but a sign of mercy and promise to sinners.
Through looking for meaning in the stars these astrologers, these heretics, were led to the young Son of God. Now, when we think of astrologers we think of those people who write for the local newspapers or people like Miss Cleo with strange infomercials. It wasn’t much different then. The Magi were quite possibly Zoroastrian astrologers. If you don’t know, Zoroastrianism was an early semi-monotheistic tradition.
Even at Jesus’s time Jews were warned not to consult astrologers. Jewish leaders said that they were idolatrous and deceiving, much as we as Christians are told today.
Yet somehow, these idolatrous deceivers, these quacks and whack jobs were certain enough of what they saw to follow the stars, and were led to the young son of God. God led these astrologers – these men who were blatantly working in direct contrast to God’s will – to Jesus. This really is rather odd.
God welcomed, indeed God brought these men to stand beside the Messiah. These men, along with the shepherds. Not Sadducees or Pharisees, though clearly as a Jew, eight days after Jesus was born he was in the presence of Jewish religious leaders. Not kings. But regular people who just happened to bring clearly odd though awesome gifts.
So where does this leave us? Does the deconstruction of much of the myth and mystery surrounding Epiphany leave it meaningless? Or do we become sad because it’s another beautiful faerie tale gone. Or does the humanization of these so called wise men leave us, relieved?
God chose foreign sinful men to be with Jesus during this holy time. Not the rich or high in statue or moral value, but those who needed it most. Indeed, this trend continues through out the gospels in such cases as Jesus eating with tax collectors and cripples, yet seems to have been most forgotten in the form of a few men who traveled a long distance to find this new born king of the Jews.
PAUSE
We all know on some level – whomever or wherever we are, that God calls to us and that God wants us to follow him and be his. Sometimes, however, this is hard to remember. It is hard to remember that even when we do something that appears to be in contrast to what it seems God would want, he still calls to us. God wants us. We can repent and we can go to the Lord. When ever we fall short, we have to remember God wants us and loves us,
And like the wise men, still desires us to adore and be close to Jesus.
July 10, 2005
July 10, 2005
Romans 8: 9-17 (NRSV)
In nomine…
There are many misconception people have about various words in the bible. Some of these misconceptions stem from bad translations, some from church legend, and others simply lose part of their meaning as the culture of the word fades away. Somewhere in the middle today’s reading from Paul, Paul speaks of us crying “Abba! Father!” to God. To most of us this may be dismissed as normal, typical, church speak, however, it’s not quite that simple. First, by Paul, who was writing in Greek, specifically using the term Abba followed by the term Father he was making a definite statement. In using these two terms he was using two languages, Abba-Father, was Hebrew followed by Greek. In doing this Paul is making it clear that all people are capable of being heirs to God- not just Jews as many people of his time assumed.
Also, however, the use of the term selected is interesting and important. Abba, is NOT as many people seem to think, exactly the Hebrew word for Father. Its connotation is not FATHER, but is more of, DADDY!! Abba is the word Jewish and Israeli children scream when they want their dad and is who they say goodnight to. Likewise, while many of the words we use for God – like Lord, and master, often referred to as Dominus in Latin, were the same words slaves used to address their masters, the word Abba was forbidden to be used by slaves in this way.
So according to this reading, when we are crying out to Abba, we are crying out to our dad… we are not, in this case, slaves to God, but we are truly God’s children. What it means to be God’s child however, can mean many things. This section of Paul’s letter emphasizes our position as joint heirs in God’s kingdom. This is an interesting idea… I mean, as a child of my parents I’m their heir, well, if we are God’s children – children of God in such a position that we find ourselves being told to refer to God as Daddy, then this heir thing becomes interesting… So, what do we inherit… I mean, what exactly does a child of God, inherit from a Father who is the creator and sanctifier –who is Lord of all?
If, Paul says, we share in Christ’s suffering, then we have the opportunity to, as joint heirs with Christ, be glorified with God. How vague. “We can be joint heirs with him if we suffer that we might be glorified with him? What does that even mean? What was Paul thinking? It sounds good – well, not the suffering part, but the being glorified with God part – I mean, usually its just God who is glorified… this seems kinda cool.
The dictionary defines being glorified as honor, praise or admiration being bestowed, or to elevate to a celestial placement. Hmm, this could sound good –being glorified – but, the passage also says that we have to suffer with Christ. Suffering with Christ doesn’t sound very inviting, but we all know its necessary… in so many places in the bible we are told we have to pick up our cross and follow, that we must turn the other cheek and do all sorts of things which we do not want to do. However, as Paul points out, we have to suffer to be with our Father – to be with Daddy.
God, often seems very far away – being told that we have to suffer to be glorified with him almost seems like it’s not worth it sometimes. But then I have to stop, and think. When I was younger I would do anything for my Daddy. I thought Dad was the coolest and best person in the world – actually, I still do, but that’s beside the point. I would try my hardest to please him and really liked to spend time with him. Sometimes spending time with him would require me to do things that weren’t my favorite – like sitting still in the car- and visiting my mentally ill grandmother, but I didn’t care.
Well, here our other dad- the father who created our fathers – apparently has this opportunity. We can be glorified with him. Cool, I mean, I thought my dad was awesome, but this dad, our dad can create things out of nothing, can cause massive floods, can raise people from the dead - can grant everlasting life and loves us mercifully and eternally. Wow… sounds good to me –and we can be glorified with That.
In an odd sort of way though, thinking of God as Dad seems kinda wrong. It seems almost disrespectful. We use all this flowery language in our prayers and in our thoughts about God, and now, all of the sudden, we are hit with this reality that God is Dad. God really is the grownup to all of us children. The ever watchful parent, rolling their eyes at the children’s misadventures- God is the creator, raising us as his children. Caring about us, wanting us to grow, learn, and love. Like a parent he must watch his children, as we learn to trust and love through receiving love and as we learn strength, perseverance and value through both love and through suffering. Then, it requires our suffering, our learning to live and continue and to not waver in our faith to achieve this – glorification that Paul speaks of.
Abba wants us to cry to him and rejoice in him. To praise him and turn to him – and if it takes us doing some things that aren’t exactly inviting to achieve this, then, well, so be it. If the great feeling I got from spending time with my dad when I was younger is any indication, then this is so worth it. In nomine…
Romans 8: 9-17 (NRSV)
In nomine…
There are many misconception people have about various words in the bible. Some of these misconceptions stem from bad translations, some from church legend, and others simply lose part of their meaning as the culture of the word fades away. Somewhere in the middle today’s reading from Paul, Paul speaks of us crying “Abba! Father!” to God. To most of us this may be dismissed as normal, typical, church speak, however, it’s not quite that simple. First, by Paul, who was writing in Greek, specifically using the term Abba followed by the term Father he was making a definite statement. In using these two terms he was using two languages, Abba-Father, was Hebrew followed by Greek. In doing this Paul is making it clear that all people are capable of being heirs to God- not just Jews as many people of his time assumed.
Also, however, the use of the term selected is interesting and important. Abba, is NOT as many people seem to think, exactly the Hebrew word for Father. Its connotation is not FATHER, but is more of, DADDY!! Abba is the word Jewish and Israeli children scream when they want their dad and is who they say goodnight to. Likewise, while many of the words we use for God – like Lord, and master, often referred to as Dominus in Latin, were the same words slaves used to address their masters, the word Abba was forbidden to be used by slaves in this way.
So according to this reading, when we are crying out to Abba, we are crying out to our dad… we are not, in this case, slaves to God, but we are truly God’s children. What it means to be God’s child however, can mean many things. This section of Paul’s letter emphasizes our position as joint heirs in God’s kingdom. This is an interesting idea… I mean, as a child of my parents I’m their heir, well, if we are God’s children – children of God in such a position that we find ourselves being told to refer to God as Daddy, then this heir thing becomes interesting… So, what do we inherit… I mean, what exactly does a child of God, inherit from a Father who is the creator and sanctifier –who is Lord of all?
If, Paul says, we share in Christ’s suffering, then we have the opportunity to, as joint heirs with Christ, be glorified with God. How vague. “We can be joint heirs with him if we suffer that we might be glorified with him? What does that even mean? What was Paul thinking? It sounds good – well, not the suffering part, but the being glorified with God part – I mean, usually its just God who is glorified… this seems kinda cool.
The dictionary defines being glorified as honor, praise or admiration being bestowed, or to elevate to a celestial placement. Hmm, this could sound good –being glorified – but, the passage also says that we have to suffer with Christ. Suffering with Christ doesn’t sound very inviting, but we all know its necessary… in so many places in the bible we are told we have to pick up our cross and follow, that we must turn the other cheek and do all sorts of things which we do not want to do. However, as Paul points out, we have to suffer to be with our Father – to be with Daddy.
God, often seems very far away – being told that we have to suffer to be glorified with him almost seems like it’s not worth it sometimes. But then I have to stop, and think. When I was younger I would do anything for my Daddy. I thought Dad was the coolest and best person in the world – actually, I still do, but that’s beside the point. I would try my hardest to please him and really liked to spend time with him. Sometimes spending time with him would require me to do things that weren’t my favorite – like sitting still in the car- and visiting my mentally ill grandmother, but I didn’t care.
Well, here our other dad- the father who created our fathers – apparently has this opportunity. We can be glorified with him. Cool, I mean, I thought my dad was awesome, but this dad, our dad can create things out of nothing, can cause massive floods, can raise people from the dead - can grant everlasting life and loves us mercifully and eternally. Wow… sounds good to me –and we can be glorified with That.
In an odd sort of way though, thinking of God as Dad seems kinda wrong. It seems almost disrespectful. We use all this flowery language in our prayers and in our thoughts about God, and now, all of the sudden, we are hit with this reality that God is Dad. God really is the grownup to all of us children. The ever watchful parent, rolling their eyes at the children’s misadventures- God is the creator, raising us as his children. Caring about us, wanting us to grow, learn, and love. Like a parent he must watch his children, as we learn to trust and love through receiving love and as we learn strength, perseverance and value through both love and through suffering. Then, it requires our suffering, our learning to live and continue and to not waver in our faith to achieve this – glorification that Paul speaks of.
Abba wants us to cry to him and rejoice in him. To praise him and turn to him – and if it takes us doing some things that aren’t exactly inviting to achieve this, then, well, so be it. If the great feeling I got from spending time with my dad when I was younger is any indication, then this is so worth it. In nomine…
June 26, 2005
June 26, 2005
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 10:34-42
In nomine…
Today’s gospel seems to have some really strong language – “I have come not to bring peace but a sword.” I mean, this isn’t exactly what we are used to hearing from Jesus. “I’ve come to set son against father, daughter against her mother, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (like we needed Jesus for that last one). Anyhow, normally, we think bible, parents, honor thy father and mother – but this reading seems to be changing that – now don’t get excited - its still honor thy father and mother, but only this now seems to be saying only honor thy father and mother insofar as doing so doesn’t get in the way of honoring God – and Jesus -- God, is asking a lot. God demands that the love we feel, hold for him - God, must be stronger than the love we have for our family. This reading says that if we love our family – our children or our parents more than God, then we are not worthy of God. Indeed, it goes on to say that if we do not take up our cross and follow we are not worthy. Those are some lofty and seemingly controversial things.
Yet looking at today’s second reading from Romans, the theme is rather similar. Those who believe in what God has done through Christ, those who obey, will die and be resurrected with Christ and be freed from death. Obedience then, like love, must be first and foremost to God, and then to everything - everyone else.
As I continued reading the second lesson for today, I started to realize just how it easily it all came together with the gospel, and how well both the reading and gospel pieced together.
The lesson from Romans first starts with the words “do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death,” and later talks about the necessity of being buried in baptism with Christ to rise with Christ. As most of us have experienced, baptism is an important step in the journey of an Episcopalian. It is something in which ones family is usually involved. The Baptismal Covenant which is on page 304 of the Prayer Book, as I’m sure most of you are familiar, poses questions which are asked of the candidate, of the candidate’s family and friends, as well as of the congregation. These questions ask such things of the congregation as resistance from evil, the proclamation of the gospel, and serving Christ in all persons.
As I started to look over these questions, I realized that these questions are really telling us of ways to love God and of ways to take up our cross. Indeed, if we are not loving God more than anything else, more than our family, more than our desires other than God, then we cannot strive fully to resist evil, we cannot truly proclaim the gospel, we cannot fully serve Christ in others, indeed, without God at the top of our list not only do we not have the strength to fulfill the Baptismal Covenant, but we are unable to love our parents, our siblings, our children in the way that we really want to. Indeed, unless we love God first, and in loving God do all those thing which are asked of us in the Baptismal Covenant only then are we able to love our families as fully and truthfully as we so desire.
But how? I mean, there are just so many ways to make this idea not work. I mean, for starters, our families are right here. That makes it easy to love them, well, for the most part. Our parents, children, siblings are close y making demands that upon us, making tangible requests of our love and tangibly reciprocating. God, however, to many of us, is far away and intangible. God’s love for us and God’s demand of our love is less sure. Yes we know God loves us… like in that horrid children’s song “Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so.” But, sometimes, that seems like the only reason we know God loves us if even that. We love God, but sometimes that love is in the back of our minds.
Our families being visibly present is also another key base for Christ “bringing not peace but a sword.” Our families tend to influence our religious belief system and background. I’m sure many of you are “cradle Episcopalians” and that your families have been Anglican for generations. One of my good friends, for example is from an Orthodox Jewish household. His family has always been Jewish, and I mean JEWISH. My friend’s older brother never goes out without a keepah, he wears long pants and shirts made of only one material, sports a full beard and even wears the traditional four corners of fringe. At twenty-two he and his not girl-friend because they don’t date except they are also always wears long skirts and the two go to great lengths to ensure they don’t touch each other as these laws that God gave the Jews, also forbids them to touch members of the opposite sex outside their household. These laws have existed for thousands of years. Not only does the Jewish law influence the way they dress but also what they eat, how they spend their money, and even when they can drive their cars. My friend’s brother and the rest of his family are very sincere in their following of God’s law to the Jews. My friend however, doesn’t particularly buy it all the way. He tends to keep a keepah in his pocket for when his mother is around, but in all honestly, he just doesn’t find that this will lead him to spiritual fulfillment.
When I first read today’s gospel, he was one of the first things that I thought of. My friend is clearly moving away from a religion that just isn’t doing it for him, and it is in this case that I believe we can most clearly see Jesus handing someone the sword. My friend clearly wants to take part in religious exploration, but he feels that he can’t. He would go against his family and his culture and he isn’t willing to do that, but according to the gospel, that means that he isn’t worthy of God. He has a choice between hurting his parents or possibly finding Christ, or spiritual fulfillment, he’s making his now. If my friend, or anyone, is stagnating in their spiritual fulfillment, in their faith, in our love of God, then how they grow internally. And if we don’t grow spiritually, if we don’t love God, if we don’t love Love in the forefront with all our hearts, minds, and souls, how can we expect ourselves to be able to love our family with the truth and blatantness and fullness that they deserve.
So by Christ bringing a sword, he seems to really be bringing the opportunity for peace – the opportunity for love, so only by love God more and first can we love our families in a manner that is stronger, more present, more full and tru
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 10:34-42
In nomine…
Today’s gospel seems to have some really strong language – “I have come not to bring peace but a sword.” I mean, this isn’t exactly what we are used to hearing from Jesus. “I’ve come to set son against father, daughter against her mother, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (like we needed Jesus for that last one). Anyhow, normally, we think bible, parents, honor thy father and mother – but this reading seems to be changing that – now don’t get excited - its still honor thy father and mother, but only this now seems to be saying only honor thy father and mother insofar as doing so doesn’t get in the way of honoring God – and Jesus -- God, is asking a lot. God demands that the love we feel, hold for him - God, must be stronger than the love we have for our family. This reading says that if we love our family – our children or our parents more than God, then we are not worthy of God. Indeed, it goes on to say that if we do not take up our cross and follow we are not worthy. Those are some lofty and seemingly controversial things.
Yet looking at today’s second reading from Romans, the theme is rather similar. Those who believe in what God has done through Christ, those who obey, will die and be resurrected with Christ and be freed from death. Obedience then, like love, must be first and foremost to God, and then to everything - everyone else.
As I continued reading the second lesson for today, I started to realize just how it easily it all came together with the gospel, and how well both the reading and gospel pieced together.
The lesson from Romans first starts with the words “do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death,” and later talks about the necessity of being buried in baptism with Christ to rise with Christ. As most of us have experienced, baptism is an important step in the journey of an Episcopalian. It is something in which ones family is usually involved. The Baptismal Covenant which is on page 304 of the Prayer Book, as I’m sure most of you are familiar, poses questions which are asked of the candidate, of the candidate’s family and friends, as well as of the congregation. These questions ask such things of the congregation as resistance from evil, the proclamation of the gospel, and serving Christ in all persons.
As I started to look over these questions, I realized that these questions are really telling us of ways to love God and of ways to take up our cross. Indeed, if we are not loving God more than anything else, more than our family, more than our desires other than God, then we cannot strive fully to resist evil, we cannot truly proclaim the gospel, we cannot fully serve Christ in others, indeed, without God at the top of our list not only do we not have the strength to fulfill the Baptismal Covenant, but we are unable to love our parents, our siblings, our children in the way that we really want to. Indeed, unless we love God first, and in loving God do all those thing which are asked of us in the Baptismal Covenant only then are we able to love our families as fully and truthfully as we so desire.
But how? I mean, there are just so many ways to make this idea not work. I mean, for starters, our families are right here. That makes it easy to love them, well, for the most part. Our parents, children, siblings are close y making demands that upon us, making tangible requests of our love and tangibly reciprocating. God, however, to many of us, is far away and intangible. God’s love for us and God’s demand of our love is less sure. Yes we know God loves us… like in that horrid children’s song “Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so.” But, sometimes, that seems like the only reason we know God loves us if even that. We love God, but sometimes that love is in the back of our minds.
Our families being visibly present is also another key base for Christ “bringing not peace but a sword.” Our families tend to influence our religious belief system and background. I’m sure many of you are “cradle Episcopalians” and that your families have been Anglican for generations. One of my good friends, for example is from an Orthodox Jewish household. His family has always been Jewish, and I mean JEWISH. My friend’s older brother never goes out without a keepah, he wears long pants and shirts made of only one material, sports a full beard and even wears the traditional four corners of fringe. At twenty-two he and his not girl-friend because they don’t date except they are also always wears long skirts and the two go to great lengths to ensure they don’t touch each other as these laws that God gave the Jews, also forbids them to touch members of the opposite sex outside their household. These laws have existed for thousands of years. Not only does the Jewish law influence the way they dress but also what they eat, how they spend their money, and even when they can drive their cars. My friend’s brother and the rest of his family are very sincere in their following of God’s law to the Jews. My friend however, doesn’t particularly buy it all the way. He tends to keep a keepah in his pocket for when his mother is around, but in all honestly, he just doesn’t find that this will lead him to spiritual fulfillment.
When I first read today’s gospel, he was one of the first things that I thought of. My friend is clearly moving away from a religion that just isn’t doing it for him, and it is in this case that I believe we can most clearly see Jesus handing someone the sword. My friend clearly wants to take part in religious exploration, but he feels that he can’t. He would go against his family and his culture and he isn’t willing to do that, but according to the gospel, that means that he isn’t worthy of God. He has a choice between hurting his parents or possibly finding Christ, or spiritual fulfillment, he’s making his now. If my friend, or anyone, is stagnating in their spiritual fulfillment, in their faith, in our love of God, then how they grow internally. And if we don’t grow spiritually, if we don’t love God, if we don’t love Love in the forefront with all our hearts, minds, and souls, how can we expect ourselves to be able to love our family with the truth and blatantness and fullness that they deserve.
So by Christ bringing a sword, he seems to really be bringing the opportunity for peace – the opportunity for love, so only by love God more and first can we love our families in a manner that is stronger, more present, more full and tru
29 May 2005
29 May 2005
Proper 4
Based on Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28
Matthew 7:21-29
When we were (are) children, we always had our parents telling us what to do – and when it wasn’t our parents, then it was our teachers – and with our teachers, not only did we have to do what the teacher told us to do, but we had to do it her way. Whether it was forming our alphabet letters properly or solving a math problem, it didn’t matter if we thought we understood it, or we thought we had the correct answer, if we didn’t do it Mrs. Whoever’s way, it was still wrong.
Based on today’s second lesson and gospel, God, likewise has given us specific instructions. Today’s gospel comes at the tail end of the well-known Sermon on the Mount. As a quick refresher, the Sermon on the Mount starts in Matthew chapter 5 with the beatitudes. It then goes into such ideals as keeping promises, loving your enemy, letting your light shine, fulfilling God’s law, not murdering, not committing adultery, and turning the other cheek. In this section Jesus also gives the Lord’s Prayer and discuses giving to people who are needy and fasting among other things. These ideals are known as the “new kingdom ethics.” The ethics is a radically new interpretation of law- of God’s will. God’s law had been something very different for Jews, such as his disciples, before this new interpretation through Christ. These new ideals give a high reaching but direct explanation of what is expected of Christians. Indeed, in today’s gospel Jesus points out that it is not those who did extra ordinary things – not those who healed and prophesied in Christ’s name who gained entrance into the Kingdom of God, but those who did the quieter, but much more difficult tasks – those tasks assigned – dictated by God - who were given that blessing – it was given to those who lived the steady and constant life of God’s will – those who continued the law, not the same literal, day by day instructional law that the Jews followed to obtain righteousness, but God’s will as observed through this new lens of Christ.
Like with students in a school classroom, like the school teacher, it is not a matter of getting the answer to a math problem correct once or twice, but of understanding the formula – of understanding what the teacher wants – of understanding what will always give you the correct and sure answer.
Paul’s letter to the Romans, however, brings in a new element: human frailty. Indeed, the ethics – the ideals set forth in the Sermon on the Mount, such as those I mentioned earlier were, and quite frankly are – well, at least for me, for the most part completely unattainable. Indeed, as Paul points out, simply by being human we fall short of the glory of God. And, there isn’t really fully anything we can do about this – I mean, God’s glory is quite high, but God understands this. Indeed, as we cannot reach God’s glory ourselves, it is through God’s merciful gift of grace that we can be made righteous.
Paul speaks of God’s grace being offered to all, both Jews and Gentiles alike. He also speaks of the law of the Jews remaining a law for the Jews. This does not, however, get us off the hook. Paul’s concept of grace becomes alive through faith. Indeed, for Paul, the law by itself doesn’t even cut it anymore; it takes faith in what God has done through Christ to be able to utilize that grace. This grace lets us turn to God; it makes us want to turn to God and makes us want do those things set forth in the Sermon on the Mount. Grace as a response makes us want to do these more difficult things – it makes us want to have that house that Jesus speaks of in today’s gospel the one on the rock and not on the sand. True faith turns us to God, and turns us away from ourselves, and allows us to become righteous. Thus, according to Paul, faith, by grace to become righteous.
In both the gospel and the lesson from Paul, we hear of people boasting – in Paul’s letter, those that boasted, boasted that they did some part of the Jewish law and in the gospel those boasting were boasting that they healed and prophesied in Christ’s name. These people, these people are trying to do the right thing, but missing the mark – they have heard the law – indeed, many of those mentioned in the gospel surely heard the law many times, but they did not do the law. Indeed when one truly has faith, we can finally turn past ourselves and turn to God, we can manage to both hear the law, and truly desire to do the law – to do God’s will . Yes, we can never manage to keep God’s will perfectly, but that’s the point of grace. God knows us, and our desires, and makes us righteous ???
You have to realize, I mean, God wants the world redeemed. It isn’t God’s goal to have his creation condemned. Creation has fallen short of God’s glory, and now, through God’s gift of grace, creation is being given a great opportunity. God is offering us the opportunity to become righteous, it is through faith that we can aspire to this righteousness, and through faith that we can desire to do all the things that God told us that he wants us to do. This kind of faith seems hard though… doing all that stuff that Jesus said we should do in the Sermon on the Mount is difficult. I mean, forget about being difficult to execute, quite often, I just don’t want to do some of that stuff, yeah, turning the other cheek sounds like a great thing, but when someone does something mean to me, sometimes, just sometimes, you just want to get them back. Or when you’re fasting, or doing something difficult, say, in Lent, and you see someone, oh I don’t know, eating a big piece of chocolate cake, and they offer you some, or even if they don’t, its like, what you want to say, or at least what I want is say, is “Well, no I can’t have some of your chocolate cake, because I’m fasting.” But, Jesus has clearly told us not to do that. So yeah, while those ideals that he has set forth for us are great and desirable things to do, sometimes, you just don’t want to do them. So where does this leave us?
It leaves us well, in great need of said merciful grace. Like the gospel said, do we want to build our houses on a rock or on sand? Do we want to trust in ourselves, or in God? Do we want personal glory – the glory we get from telling of our accomplishments and loudly proclaiming what we have done, whether asked of us or not, or to quietly do that which we are told? Do we want to get the answer to our school teacher’s question correct one time, or do we want to understand the formula? Don’t we want to know what the teacher expects of us for the long haul – regardless of whether it’s the easier way, the most popular way, or the way we want to live our lives? We have to have faith – faith in what God has done through Christ, and in God and his merciful grace that we can desire to fully turn to him and live God’s way throughout the day.
Proper 4
Based on Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28
Matthew 7:21-29
When we were (are) children, we always had our parents telling us what to do – and when it wasn’t our parents, then it was our teachers – and with our teachers, not only did we have to do what the teacher told us to do, but we had to do it her way. Whether it was forming our alphabet letters properly or solving a math problem, it didn’t matter if we thought we understood it, or we thought we had the correct answer, if we didn’t do it Mrs. Whoever’s way, it was still wrong.
Based on today’s second lesson and gospel, God, likewise has given us specific instructions. Today’s gospel comes at the tail end of the well-known Sermon on the Mount. As a quick refresher, the Sermon on the Mount starts in Matthew chapter 5 with the beatitudes. It then goes into such ideals as keeping promises, loving your enemy, letting your light shine, fulfilling God’s law, not murdering, not committing adultery, and turning the other cheek. In this section Jesus also gives the Lord’s Prayer and discuses giving to people who are needy and fasting among other things. These ideals are known as the “new kingdom ethics.” The ethics is a radically new interpretation of law- of God’s will. God’s law had been something very different for Jews, such as his disciples, before this new interpretation through Christ. These new ideals give a high reaching but direct explanation of what is expected of Christians. Indeed, in today’s gospel Jesus points out that it is not those who did extra ordinary things – not those who healed and prophesied in Christ’s name who gained entrance into the Kingdom of God, but those who did the quieter, but much more difficult tasks – those tasks assigned – dictated by God - who were given that blessing – it was given to those who lived the steady and constant life of God’s will – those who continued the law, not the same literal, day by day instructional law that the Jews followed to obtain righteousness, but God’s will as observed through this new lens of Christ.
Like with students in a school classroom, like the school teacher, it is not a matter of getting the answer to a math problem correct once or twice, but of understanding the formula – of understanding what the teacher wants – of understanding what will always give you the correct and sure answer.
Paul’s letter to the Romans, however, brings in a new element: human frailty. Indeed, the ethics – the ideals set forth in the Sermon on the Mount, such as those I mentioned earlier were, and quite frankly are – well, at least for me, for the most part completely unattainable. Indeed, as Paul points out, simply by being human we fall short of the glory of God. And, there isn’t really fully anything we can do about this – I mean, God’s glory is quite high, but God understands this. Indeed, as we cannot reach God’s glory ourselves, it is through God’s merciful gift of grace that we can be made righteous.
Paul speaks of God’s grace being offered to all, both Jews and Gentiles alike. He also speaks of the law of the Jews remaining a law for the Jews. This does not, however, get us off the hook. Paul’s concept of grace becomes alive through faith. Indeed, for Paul, the law by itself doesn’t even cut it anymore; it takes faith in what God has done through Christ to be able to utilize that grace. This grace lets us turn to God; it makes us want to turn to God and makes us want do those things set forth in the Sermon on the Mount. Grace as a response makes us want to do these more difficult things – it makes us want to have that house that Jesus speaks of in today’s gospel the one on the rock and not on the sand. True faith turns us to God, and turns us away from ourselves, and allows us to become righteous. Thus, according to Paul, faith, by grace to become righteous.
In both the gospel and the lesson from Paul, we hear of people boasting – in Paul’s letter, those that boasted, boasted that they did some part of the Jewish law and in the gospel those boasting were boasting that they healed and prophesied in Christ’s name. These people, these people are trying to do the right thing, but missing the mark – they have heard the law – indeed, many of those mentioned in the gospel surely heard the law many times, but they did not do the law. Indeed when one truly has faith, we can finally turn past ourselves and turn to God, we can manage to both hear the law, and truly desire to do the law – to do God’s will . Yes, we can never manage to keep God’s will perfectly, but that’s the point of grace. God knows us, and our desires, and makes us righteous ???
You have to realize, I mean, God wants the world redeemed. It isn’t God’s goal to have his creation condemned. Creation has fallen short of God’s glory, and now, through God’s gift of grace, creation is being given a great opportunity. God is offering us the opportunity to become righteous, it is through faith that we can aspire to this righteousness, and through faith that we can desire to do all the things that God told us that he wants us to do. This kind of faith seems hard though… doing all that stuff that Jesus said we should do in the Sermon on the Mount is difficult. I mean, forget about being difficult to execute, quite often, I just don’t want to do some of that stuff, yeah, turning the other cheek sounds like a great thing, but when someone does something mean to me, sometimes, just sometimes, you just want to get them back. Or when you’re fasting, or doing something difficult, say, in Lent, and you see someone, oh I don’t know, eating a big piece of chocolate cake, and they offer you some, or even if they don’t, its like, what you want to say, or at least what I want is say, is “Well, no I can’t have some of your chocolate cake, because I’m fasting.” But, Jesus has clearly told us not to do that. So yeah, while those ideals that he has set forth for us are great and desirable things to do, sometimes, you just don’t want to do them. So where does this leave us?
It leaves us well, in great need of said merciful grace. Like the gospel said, do we want to build our houses on a rock or on sand? Do we want to trust in ourselves, or in God? Do we want personal glory – the glory we get from telling of our accomplishments and loudly proclaiming what we have done, whether asked of us or not, or to quietly do that which we are told? Do we want to get the answer to our school teacher’s question correct one time, or do we want to understand the formula? Don’t we want to know what the teacher expects of us for the long haul – regardless of whether it’s the easier way, the most popular way, or the way we want to live our lives? We have to have faith – faith in what God has done through Christ, and in God and his merciful grace that we can desire to fully turn to him and live God’s way throughout the day.
22 August 2004
August 22, 2004
Proper 16 Year
In nomine…
The Hebrew leaders scoffed at the Lord. They outright rejected him and his prophet Isaiah. The Hebrew leaders turned instead to
Death (with a capitol D), and to Sheol, the underworld, making a pact with them. The Hebrew leaders claimed this pact would make them safe- that they would be protected from the soon coming “overwhelming scourge.”
There is no basis for this trust in Death however. The Lord offers a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone. He offers justice and righteousness, and promises that those who believe will not panic.
God is clearly stronger than Death as well- God speaks of hail sweeping away the refuge of lies the followers of Death have sought, and says waters will overwhelm their shelter. Their agreement with Death will be annulled and their pact with Sheol will not stand. And, as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews puts it: God is a consuming fire… and I want the consuming fire on my side.
However, Death and Sheol do make protection seem easier… cheap ideas and promises still seem like a better deal to them than aligning themselves with God by following God’s laws. You see, for Jews, like those who rejected God in the first reading, or well, actually, not like those Jews, the way to become closer to God is by doing mitzvot- completing commands, or laws put forth by God in various texts, including Torah, Talmud and Mishnah. Indeed, though not all laws apply to everyone, these laws, which number somewhere around 613, discuss everything from the behavior between boys and girls, to the studying of religious texts, to even going to the bathroom in the morning. Orthodox Jews of today still live by these rules.
But Christians believe that the Messiah has come in the form of Christ Jesus- now we have a new covenant- NOW all-we-need-to-do-is believe! Yet, in today’s gospel, when this question is posed to Jesus: Will only a few be saved? the answer is NOT a resounding no! The rules have been ridiculously simplified – Jesus says that all we have to do is love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength --yet we hear of people who are like us, sitting and listening to Jesus’ teachings, and who are still stuck at the doorway.
Because the Hebrew leaders were not aligning themselves with God, they were aligning themselves with “NotGod” or Death. Specifically, in this case they were aligning themselves with the Egyptians in a war against the Assyrians. You see, Isaiah had prophesied earlier that their only safety was in the Lord. BUT, the Hebrew leaders knew better in aligning with Egypt – this seemed like a safer idea – they could rest more easily, rest much more easily than they could only hoping that this faraway god was paying attention.
They were hiding behind their fear, and fear gives bad judgments, as it did in those times, in Jesus’ time, and it does now.
We are taught that all we need to do to be saved is believe, yet, quite often when we are afraid, or insecure, that doesn’t help us. The Jews have their laws to hold onto, physical actions they can know they are doing properly to be close to God – we too want something tangible – so we turn our trust away from God and barricade ourselves in huge houses, expensive gimmicks and attractive cars. We ally ourselves with those whom we feel will help us get where we want to be the most, as we hide in our neatly sided, bricked, stoned homes.
Deep inside, we know that when the scourge, whatever it is, comes, these barricades, whether physical or interpersonal, will seem feeble at best, but somehow, they let us sleep better –, they let us sleep much better then we would if we really trusted in the ultimate protector!
All we have to do is believe, we have to focus on what’s beyond the narrow door.
If we are carrying all these barricades, how can we even dream of fitting through the narrow door?
We also have to wonder, if it’s not God we are following with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul, what are we following with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul? It MUST be something… are we following insecurity, or our desire to “look big,” or does it all really melt down to following our own fear- with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul?
God is our protector, our shepherd, and our leader. He is guiding us to the narrow door- but we have to be willing, ready - trusting enough to feel open, exposed, willing to bes totally naked to the world- dropping our barricade to just squeeze through the narrow door- remembering always to keep God in focus.
I mean, we live in a hard world. These barricades, are, in various forms being thrown at us all the time, and quite often, we don’t even realize we are turning away from God when we embrace these, things.
But, God is there for us. Like I said, we have to keep him in focus- never let ourselves fall too far back—when we think something we want is making us turn away from God, we really have ask ourselves if we are still loving God with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul— or if our heart, or mind, or soul is on something else- on “NotGod.”
It’s not easy, well-meaning friends, neighbors, and all sorts of media advertisements try to overload with these unintentional barricades, but if we are so weighed down with burdens, how can we see over our load to see God- to follow God?
So, we have to keep questioning ourselves, remembering that God is always the protector we should turn to, that if we stumble, he will not forsake us, and lift us up, and that it is he who is leading us through the narrow door, and we mustn’t lose sight of that.
We’ll soon be singing hymn 488 “Be Thou my Vision,” which is truly a prayer to God, expressing our need and desire to have God remain our guide, and asking him to help us to keep him as our vision.
High King of heaven, when victory is won – victory over the Assyrians, over our own fear, the victory of salvation, may I reach heaven’s joys bright heaven’s Sun! Heart of my heart, whatever befall- May we know God is our trust, that God is the ONLY WAY, however exposed we may feel, Lord, Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Amen
Proper 16 Year
In nomine…
The Hebrew leaders scoffed at the Lord. They outright rejected him and his prophet Isaiah. The Hebrew leaders turned instead to
Death (with a capitol D), and to Sheol, the underworld, making a pact with them. The Hebrew leaders claimed this pact would make them safe- that they would be protected from the soon coming “overwhelming scourge.”
There is no basis for this trust in Death however. The Lord offers a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone. He offers justice and righteousness, and promises that those who believe will not panic.
God is clearly stronger than Death as well- God speaks of hail sweeping away the refuge of lies the followers of Death have sought, and says waters will overwhelm their shelter. Their agreement with Death will be annulled and their pact with Sheol will not stand. And, as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews puts it: God is a consuming fire… and I want the consuming fire on my side.
However, Death and Sheol do make protection seem easier… cheap ideas and promises still seem like a better deal to them than aligning themselves with God by following God’s laws. You see, for Jews, like those who rejected God in the first reading, or well, actually, not like those Jews, the way to become closer to God is by doing mitzvot- completing commands, or laws put forth by God in various texts, including Torah, Talmud and Mishnah. Indeed, though not all laws apply to everyone, these laws, which number somewhere around 613, discuss everything from the behavior between boys and girls, to the studying of religious texts, to even going to the bathroom in the morning. Orthodox Jews of today still live by these rules.
But Christians believe that the Messiah has come in the form of Christ Jesus- now we have a new covenant- NOW all-we-need-to-do-is believe! Yet, in today’s gospel, when this question is posed to Jesus: Will only a few be saved? the answer is NOT a resounding no! The rules have been ridiculously simplified – Jesus says that all we have to do is love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength --yet we hear of people who are like us, sitting and listening to Jesus’ teachings, and who are still stuck at the doorway.
Because the Hebrew leaders were not aligning themselves with God, they were aligning themselves with “NotGod” or Death. Specifically, in this case they were aligning themselves with the Egyptians in a war against the Assyrians. You see, Isaiah had prophesied earlier that their only safety was in the Lord. BUT, the Hebrew leaders knew better in aligning with Egypt – this seemed like a safer idea – they could rest more easily, rest much more easily than they could only hoping that this faraway god was paying attention.
They were hiding behind their fear, and fear gives bad judgments, as it did in those times, in Jesus’ time, and it does now.
We are taught that all we need to do to be saved is believe, yet, quite often when we are afraid, or insecure, that doesn’t help us. The Jews have their laws to hold onto, physical actions they can know they are doing properly to be close to God – we too want something tangible – so we turn our trust away from God and barricade ourselves in huge houses, expensive gimmicks and attractive cars. We ally ourselves with those whom we feel will help us get where we want to be the most, as we hide in our neatly sided, bricked, stoned homes.
Deep inside, we know that when the scourge, whatever it is, comes, these barricades, whether physical or interpersonal, will seem feeble at best, but somehow, they let us sleep better –, they let us sleep much better then we would if we really trusted in the ultimate protector!
All we have to do is believe, we have to focus on what’s beyond the narrow door.
If we are carrying all these barricades, how can we even dream of fitting through the narrow door?
We also have to wonder, if it’s not God we are following with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul, what are we following with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul? It MUST be something… are we following insecurity, or our desire to “look big,” or does it all really melt down to following our own fear- with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul?
God is our protector, our shepherd, and our leader. He is guiding us to the narrow door- but we have to be willing, ready - trusting enough to feel open, exposed, willing to bes totally naked to the world- dropping our barricade to just squeeze through the narrow door- remembering always to keep God in focus.
I mean, we live in a hard world. These barricades, are, in various forms being thrown at us all the time, and quite often, we don’t even realize we are turning away from God when we embrace these, things.
But, God is there for us. Like I said, we have to keep him in focus- never let ourselves fall too far back—when we think something we want is making us turn away from God, we really have ask ourselves if we are still loving God with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul— or if our heart, or mind, or soul is on something else- on “NotGod.”
It’s not easy, well-meaning friends, neighbors, and all sorts of media advertisements try to overload with these unintentional barricades, but if we are so weighed down with burdens, how can we see over our load to see God- to follow God?
So, we have to keep questioning ourselves, remembering that God is always the protector we should turn to, that if we stumble, he will not forsake us, and lift us up, and that it is he who is leading us through the narrow door, and we mustn’t lose sight of that.
We’ll soon be singing hymn 488 “Be Thou my Vision,” which is truly a prayer to God, expressing our need and desire to have God remain our guide, and asking him to help us to keep him as our vision.
High King of heaven, when victory is won – victory over the Assyrians, over our own fear, the victory of salvation, may I reach heaven’s joys bright heaven’s Sun! Heart of my heart, whatever befall- May we know God is our trust, that God is the ONLY WAY, however exposed we may feel, Lord, Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Amen
Sunday, April 8, 2007
18 July 2004
Sunday July 18, 2004
Proper 11, Year C
Preached at Trinity Church, Swedesboro
The joys of being an Episcopalian. We are busy fixing the flowers, polishing the brass, muttering of candle styles, bleaching the linens, getting babies baptized ASAP, ordering the procession, and deciding when really is the proper time to stand, sit and kneel, (and making sure one is not the first to do any of the above). The robes are clean, acolytes and LEM’s in attendance, the organ, and organist sound wonderful- yes we are good Episcopalians.
We feel we need to meet THESE expectations, and when we don’t –or when someone else doesn’t, there’s a tendency even amongst the most laid back to get a tad annoyed.
Martha would have made a good Episcopalian. Mary on the other hand, wasn’t checking all the details, finishing the food, puttering about to make these visitors stay as “pretty” as it could be.
No, while Martha was in the kitchen, removed from these important, knowledgeable people, and the amazing teacher, Jesus, Mary instead showed up.
Yes, she showed up to hear Jesus. Jesus was a teacher, and Mary understood that, and was there to learn. She didn’t clutter her head with details and distractions, and she wasn’t satisfied simply knowing that Jesus existed, simply knowing,
and being proud of the fact that he was in her home.
No, she knew she had to experience it, she had to BE there. She was given the opportunity to learn directly from God, and was not about to miss that opportunity or satisfy herself with making sure all the details were in order, missing out on this event, with the reassurance that the teaching was going on.
It’s easy to make excuses for Martha, I know- I make those excuses all the time.
The work had to get done…it was Mary’s responsibility… when things go wrong, people notice… it’s a busy world- there’s so much work and we can’t get it done on time by ourselves.
We try to come to church as much as we can- and we come when we or our children have to acolyte, LEM, or read, the babies got baptized, we know the words to the creed, the flower memorials are in-
but what if we just don’t show up?
We all know showing up doesn’t just mean getting our bodies in a pew every Sunday- showing up is also about being fully present – especially about being fully present when its so much easier not to be.
I’m sure you all know what I mean about not being fully present- like, those times during the readings, or the Eucharistic prayer, or possibly VERY OCCASIONALLY the sermon, when you just stop paying attention- you don’t mean to, it just happens.
You start thinking about-
oh- DISTRACTIONS—whether they be about work, school, sports, the church or nothing in particular, those times when we are physically here, but still not present.
WE are given the same opportunity as Mary and Martha—we are given the opportunity to learn from Jesus- Jesus, whom Paul described earlier today as the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation, him in whom all things on earth were created.
WE are given the opportunity to learn from him—cool, ain’t it?
And to think we could lose this opportunity just by not showing up? This knowledge is freely being given to us- Paul spoke later about Christ in you. This, when read in the Greek, is the plural YOU—us… Christ in community-- in the church…
This is getting pretty cool, isn’t it- so what makes us turn it down? Well, Martha was surrounded by distractions. She wanted everything to be perfect, and expected Mary both to want the same thing, and to assist in achieving Martha’s goal. Mary, however, wanted not to worry about details, but she wanted to grasp the main point…to show up, she wanted to be there, to hear what the Lord had to say to HER- I mean, this absolutely amazing guy-, who I just described, was coming to her house, and she was going to show up. Indeed, what’s the point of having God offered to you if you are too busy, making everything ELSE work if you are too busy making the details surrounding the offer, to have the offer happen properly, if your too busy with the distractions, to accept him?
So Mary, with the disciples and other followers wanted to hear what Jesus had to say—besides if Martha wasn’t working so hard, they all would have coped, it was a bunch of young guys. And Mary understood that- she knew that Christ was being offered to her, and she couldn’t blow this.
Christ is being offered to us on a regular basis all of us, newborn straight on up, - every Sunday, we come together and hear Christ’s word- and we worship God, and thank God for it all. And remembering what Paul said,
how Jesus is the image of God, and created all things, and that he’s the head of the church- don’t you think he should be praised?
Who are we, created by him, not to praise him, or not to let others, whom he as also freely offered himself, praise him. Jesus has also offered himself to the young and others who can’t drive, they too should worship God. It might be difficult, but you really can put them in your car and drive them to church with you. It does work, really... no one will mind.
But really, this reminds me of a line from the 1999 movie Dogma, the character Serendipity, a muse, is talking with the main character.
She says: "I have issues with anyone who treats God like a burden instead of a blessing …You people don't celebrate your faith, you mourn it."
Church shouldn’t be a chore, it’s a celebration… we should want to praise God. Martha was panicking, clearly upset that this important person, that her Lord was here, and everything wasn’t perfect- instead of celebrating the joy that she should have in the Lord visiting her, she mourned she was not making a proper impression, and she quite clearly felt that that the Lord visiting her created too much extra work, the Lord was a burden- and her sister was doing nothing to make anything easier.
Mary didn’t let that bother her; she was joyous at the Lord visiting their home, and recognized how blessed she was that she could be taught by Jesus.
Once a week, for one hour, we come together, robes and flowers, procession and pew aerobics, and praise this amazing creator, redeemer, and sanctifier who has offered himself to us- who loves us, and teaches us, and is omnipresent and omnibenevolent.
Upon Martha asking Jesus to tell Mary to help her, The Lord told Martha that there is need of only one thing, and Mary chosen that. Should we not chose it as well, when all we have to do, is show up?
20 June 2004
Sunday June 20, 2004
Proper 7, Year C
Preached at Trinity Church, Swedesboro
"Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people in the surrounding country asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear."
Yes, they were seized with great fear; that is understandable, Jesus is very good at that, frightening people. Indeed, seeing someone who used to be severely mentally ill calmly and sanely sitting at the feet of Jesus must have frightened them. Guards and chains had not been able to keep this man at bay, yet, a minute with this one Jew left him completely “normal”,
but I don’t think it was only Jesus’ power that frightened the Gerasenes, but also the repercussions of Jesus’ actions on them.
Though he lived among the tombs, this man, Legion, was clearly not abandoned.
The story tells that the people were active in Legion’s life, they tried to tame him, and hold him down with chains, even placing him under guard, so most likely, he didn’t hurt others, and himself, but it was his legion of demons which sent him into the wild.
This implies that many people spent time trying to care for him.
Caring for someone with extreme needs- such as Legion,
---or an aging parent, a physically challenged child, or child or spouse suffering from mental illness, is a huge task.
It takes a lot of time, and it’s common for those of us who are in these situations to neglect ourselves, or to throw ourselves so deeply into this task that it enables them to forget any other problems.
Normally, when a person either dies, or slowly becomes well, their caretakers have time to slowly reintegrate into society,
but because Legion was spontaneously healed, there was no time for that. He was, basically, gone.
This new, normally functioning man was not the “beast” who had previously lived in the tombs. What were they to do? What were they to throw themselves into?
Jesus had already ruined the business of a pig owner in town. The owner’s entire enterprise, which Mark refers to in his account of this story, as 2000 pigs,
was sitting, demon infested at the bottom of the sea.
The locals must have been afraid of what Jesus might to do next. So, they asked him to leave. He did leave, and though Legion begged, Jesus would not allow Legion to come with him.
Legion must have feared for his life-- because the townspeople were afraid, and frightened people do crazy things.
Yes he told Legion to stay because he wanted Legion to tell everyone what God had done for him.
Jesus didn’t give up on Legion,
and he was not about to give up on the Gerasenes.
Here a bit of background: The Gerasenes were not Jews, they were mostly Gentiles, pagans, in fact, they were one of the few groups of Gentiles the Gospels have accounts of Jesus visiting. Theirs was a large city, and an important one in spreading Jesus’ message. Their anger toward him was irrelevant to his helping Legion, as well as to Jesus’s commissioning of Legion, to go out and tell them what this God had done.
Today’s first lesson also speaks of an unwilling commissioning. Elijah is a totally burnt out prophet. As they didn’t want Jesus in the land of the Gerasenes, people didn’t want Elijah. But they weren’t scared, no they were just angry. There’s a death sentence over Elijah’s head, and no one wants to hear about God, because, you see, unlike in the New Testament, God’s sometimes kinda slow to act in the Old Testament, so no one really cares about God. Elijah has ticked off some important people. He’s worked really hard and no one appreciates him. Like your standard workaholic, he is in the midst of some major burnout, and now he wants out of the prophet business!
He sits under the broom tree, asking God to kill him, But, instead of killing him, like Elijah wants, God sends an angel to Elijah who gives him lunch. Elijah carries on, but still wants to die. But, like to the Gerasenes, who also wanted God out of their lives, God has other plans. God sends Elijah out to the wilderness of Damascus, where, if you read on to the end of the chapter, he is to anoint people and meet up with Elisha, so he’s not totally alone.
God just seems to have this annoying tendency to expect people to care, and go out and share that caring- Caring about each other and caring about God-
And this tendency grows even more annoying- God doesn’t have this expectation out of people who already care—no God calls all these people who would rather not care to go around caring. Legion wanted to go with Jesus, but he stuck around to tell about God, and thus making more people who don’t care have to start caring. Elijah was depressed and discouraged, but still, God sent him onward.
God’s tendency to expect people to care obviously did not end 1960 years ago. A close friend of my family, lets call her Sarah, was in a similar position. She had always been a good Christian, trying to do the best she could to follow Gods instructions. Well, she had been battling a horrid case of cancer, was having severe financial problems, had just watched her younger sister die of an illegal drug overdose, and was fighting to get custody of her sister’s adopted child from the sister’s abusive not-quite ex-husband. She and her husband didn’t know where they were going to get any money for their older son’s college tuition,
and she felt totally abandoned.
I recall her at a picnic, saying how she just wanted to quit, she worked so hard, and nothing came of it. She served God and her neighbors, and was still in deeply over her head. “I know blessed are those who suffer,” she said, “but this is ridiculous.”
Well, she was sitting her bedroom one day, and all of the sudden, there was a bright light in her room, and she felt calm. She had been a popular Sunday school teacher for years, but she had stopped that, along with many of her other activities both because of her illness and her feeling of abandonment. I remember her saying that she felt a sense of urgency, a need to get back into teaching, and basically caring- Like, it wasn’t her choice.
Happily, she’s been in remission for 5 years and her son is currently a senior in college.
I’m sure we’ve all had an experience or have known someone who has given up, who has stopped caring-
about God, about themselves, about their old hobbies, about life in general. But as we all know, sometimes what we want, plan, or care about, isn’t what God has in mind.
Like the previously demon inhabited Legion, the fearful, Gerasenes, and the burnt out Elijah, we with all our preoccupations have also been given a commission, in the words of the well-know hymn, to “heal the sick and preach the word.”
And like Legion, the Gerasenes and Elijah, as Christians, no matter how we resist, we must live our commission as well.
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