Proper 12, Year C

July 25, 2010

Luke 11:1-13 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”   He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”  And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;  for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’  And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’  I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.  “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.  Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?  Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”  “Ask, and it will be given you;  search, and you will find;  knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

“Ask, and it will be given you;  search, and you will find;  knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

I don’t know about you, but that seems to contradict most of my real-life experience!  No matter how sincere I may be, no matter how fervently I may desire a particular thing or a particular outcome in my life, praying or asking does not always bring the desired result, seeking does not always open the door to my wishes. 

“Ask, and it will be given you;  search, and you will find;  knock, and the door will be opened for you” does sound, to some extent at least, more like childhood fantasy than real-life reality;  like a promise out of Mary Poppins. 

Now some Christians may hold that the reason we do not receive when we ask, or find when we search, is that we haven’t enough faith.  Some would even go so far as to say that all sickness and disease could be cured if we had enough faith, with the implied accusation that those who are sick are simply sinful or lacking in faith.  Now I believe that faith does allow God to heal;  but even St. Paul, with all his faith, was not healed of his “thorn in the flesh”, as much as he prayed that it be removed.  (2 Corinthians 12:7) 

C.S. Lewis wrestled with the question of whether God answers all our prayers.  He wrote:  “If an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them.  Invariable ‘success’ in prayer would not prove the Christian doctrine at all.  It would prove something much more like magic—a power in certain human beings to control, or compel, the course of nature.”  (The Joyful Christian, pp.97-98)

In other words, God is infinitely wise, and we are finite, bound by time and space, not always able to know or to see what is best.  Will not, then, our heavenly Father, who does see and know what is best, and loves us infinitely, say “no” to some of our destructive requests?  One wise person (Jean Ingelow) wrote, “I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.” 

As to the idea that our prayers are not answered because we are not pious or faithful enough, C.S. Lewis writes:  “In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from him.  It did not.  After that, the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed.”  (Joyful, p.98)

Prayer, then, is not a vending machine, into which we place our desires like coins, push the button and receive in return the requested prize.

“Ask, and it will be given you;  search, and you will find;  knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” 

I think it interesting that there is, in each of these phrases, something missing:  the specific object of the verbs.  “Ask and it will be given you.”  But what is “it”?  “Seek, and you will find…”  But we are not told what we will find.  “Knock, and the door will be opened for you…”, but we are not told what will be behind the door.  Similarly, we are told that no parent would give a child a scorpion if the child asked for an egg;  but we are not told that the parent would necessarily give the child the egg which was asked for.  We are only told that human parents know how to give “good things” to their children.  A child asking for an egg may get a piece of bread instead, or an egg salad sandwich – something good, to be sure, but not necessarily the exact thing for which the child asked. 

I believe that the promises of Jesus in this passage are graciously open-ended.  Jesus is saying, “God will give to those who ask, to those who come to God with open hands and open hearts, receptive to receiving.  Our heavenly Father will never turn away anyone who comes to him truly seeking, knocking, asking.”  That does not mean that God always gives exactly what we ask for. 

Medieval mystic Julian of Norwich wrote, “This is our Lord’s will… that our prayer and our trust be, alike, large…” (Revelations of Divine Love)  Prayer that demands only a certain answer is likely to be both small prayer and small trust.  That doesn’t mean that we should never pray for specific things, but rather that in our prayer, our hearts and trust are open to receiving other than what we pray for.  “Think of the last thing you prayed about --” wrote Oswald Chambers, “were you devoted to your desire or to God?... ‘Your Father knows what you need before you ask him,’ [Jesus said]. (Matthew 6:8)  The point of asking is that you may get to know God better.” (My Utmost for His Highest, March 20)

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is not so much telling his disciples what to pray for;  he is not even telling his disciples so much how to pray.  Rather, Jesus is telling his disciples about the God to whom they pray.  He is saying that our God is a loving Father who will supply all of our needs, all that is best for us.  We may not receive the answers we desire to our petitions;  we may not find the solutions we seek;  a different door may be opened when we knock.  But Jesus assures us that the God to whom we pray is a Heavenly Father who loves us without bound, and who is always there for us, with us, within us. 

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give – the Holy Spirit! – to those who ask him!”  Note again the absence of a direct object:  the heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask – but ask for what?  Ask for the Holy Spirit?  Ask for an egg?  For a fish?  Maybe so!  Theologian John Shea says that the Holy Spirit is really the only gift God has to give, for it is the gift of God’s Self!  And so whatever we might specifically ask for in prayer, we will get in response the same thing:  the Holy Spirit.  God is not a means to an end;  God is the end.  There is a difference between prayer and wishes:  wishes are simply expressions of our wants, but prayer, by its very nature, moves us into relationship with God. 

“Ask, and it will be given you;  search, and you will find;  knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

We may not find exactly what we are looking for.  Instead, we may find the greatest gift God has to offer:  the Holy Spirit, God’s very self.          

AMEN

Proper 11 Year C           July 17-18, 2010           The Rev. Merle M. Harrison

Luke 10:38-42  Mary and Martha  Luke 10:38 (NRSV) Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." 41 But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

I want to focus on our Gospel reading today, because it applies so directly to our lives,  as much in our day as in Jesus’ time.  A lot of people, maybe including many of us, tend to have a kneejerk reaction to this reading, depending partly on which one of the sisters we identify with.

Both are good, and both their ways of serving are good.  We can’t really judge between them because both are needed,      When I was in the Navy some years ago, at dinner the officers were seated at tables of six, in the order in which we arrived in the wardroom; if we went there with friends we were seated together but the table was filled out with those we probably didn’t know.  We were required to dress for dinner, but most of us chose to go in civvies, with the guys in sport coats and slacks and the gals in dresses.  But even without the identification of a uniform, we could tell within a very few minutes who was Navy and who was a Marine there for flight training (the Marine Corps is part of the Navy).  Naturally, we gave each other a hard time about which was the better service, but we all knew without question that the skills and abilities of both were equally necessary to protect our country.

Both the contemplative life centered on prayer and the active life focused on translating prayer into action are good, and we need both in our church and in our community – and in our lives.  We are each Mary and Martha at different times.  We may lean toward one or the other but we need to do both.  Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright states that “Action and contemplation are of course both important.  Without the first you wouldn’t eat, without the second you wouldn’t worship.”

There are many kinds of spiritual gifts, and what matters most is that we use them in service to God and to one another.  We’re not to be envious of someone else’s gift, wishing we had that one instead of what we were given.  No gift is better than another – it’s what we do with it that matters! – and no, we can’t trade it in on another one we think we might like better; we are called to use the gifts which God has chosen for us – being wonderful cooks, sewing beautiful hangings for the altar, teaching Sunday school, providing praiseful music, welcoming others with Christian hospitality, organizing groups for specific tasks, caring pastorally for those in need....The list of the gifts possessed and used by this congregation could go on and on.  Paul tells us that the Fruit of the Spirit is love, and these are just some of the many ways of expressing that love.  Many clergy, especially priests, are adept at preaching, teaching, celebrating the sacraments, and they are rightly honored for these gifts – but it also takes the gifts of a great many people working behind the scenes to make the worship service go smoothly: altar guild, ushers, acolytes, lectors, musicians, chalice ministers – all are equally important, both in the worship service and in the eyes of God..

As we go through the seasons of life, our focus changes as our circumstances change, as our lives change.  There are times when we concentrate on doing what we need to do; for instance earning a living and taking care of our family.  These responsibilities may bring us a lot of joy, and often do, but they’re necessities in any case.  The time and energy they require may preclude our doing many other things that we postpone till a later time.  At other times, perhaps when our children are older or we’ve retired from full-time work, we can spend more time doing what we most like to do.  We’re not given just one gift – but we might focus on one at a particular time and on a different one at another time in our life.  And it’s quite likely that we will use a particular gift or talent in different ways during our lifetime, depending on our age and our circumstances at the time, or on the opportunities to use that gift.

If you grew up with a sister or brother, or have more than one child, you know about sibling rivalry;  it crops up pretty early in life.  And it’s about a lot more than who got the bigger piece of cake for dessert.  The younger child wants to do what the older one can do, to have the privileges that come with being older,  and the older one thinks the younger one gets away with things he wasn’t allowed to do at that age.

We’re not told which woman in our Gospel was the older, Mary or Martha.  I tend to think that Martha is older, the one dutifully doing the chores that need to be done, and Mary is the younger, following her own wishes and doing more what she feels like doing.  But my bias is showing – I was the older one in my family with more rules and expectations and my younger sister was the one who got away with everything. Of course that’s not what she’d tell you.

Sometimes it takes courage to use a particular gift in the way we feel called to use it; we may have to buck society’s ideas of what is appropriate for a person to do, depending on whether they’re young, old, or in-between, on whether they’re male or female, on the particular culture of which they’re a part.  Mary is a good example of this, upsetting those in her culture who felt that her actions were quite inappropriate for a woman, even as Jesus put his seal of approval on what she was doing and the choices she made.  The restrictions that many of these past boundaries caused have been greatly loosened in the last several decades – we seldom hear any more, “Oh, that’s a man’s job,” or “That’s woman’s work,” for instance.  Not too long ago Wendie and I could not have been ordained, and our hospitals and nursing homes would not have male nurses, as they often do now.  At the same time we need to be cognizant of the fact that men and women are different, psychologically and emotionally as well as physically, thus they may have different ways of using the same gift.  And that’s all right.  People in need are then served in a greater variety of ways, some of which may be more appropriate for them, when we are allowed to serve in the way which is most meaningful to us, in the way we feel called to use our particular gift.  Father Michael and I are co-chaplains at PCC, but we don’t necessarily interact with our residents in the same ways.  Both our styles seem to work, though, which is what matters.

Sometimes we lose sight of why we do what we do. We get lost in the details instead of looking at the bigger picture. That was Martha's problem, she focused on the details, failing to seize the unique opportunity to sit at Jesus' feet and learn from him.  There is nothing wrong with working hard, it’s good and it’s necessary, but there are times when we have to sit and rest and spend some quiet time with the Lord. Jesus knows this, and he calls us to have balance in our spiritual lives.

Since this story doesn’t fit here either geographically or chronologically, Luke may have placed it where it is in his Gospel to help illustrate part of the double Great Commandment – Love of God and love of our neighbor.  Last week we heard the story of the Good Samaritan, demonstrating the love of neighbor, and our Gospel this week is the story of Mary and Martha, in which Jesus stresses the importance of taking time to focus fully on God and our relationship with him as we put our love for him above all else in our lives.

There are at least two other important lessons for us packed into this short reading: that we live fully in the moment, not letting ourselves be distracted by details or worry about things other than what we’re doing at the time; and as we serve, honoring the spiritual gifts we have, not to do so out of duty and obligation, but to use the gifts God has given us, with joy and delight.

Amen.

Proper 10, Year C                                                The Rev. Mark D. Meyer

July 11, 2010

Luke 10:25-37  Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”  He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”  But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’  Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

In our Gospel reading today, it is interesting to note that the first question the lawyer asks Jesus is a question to which the lawyer already has the answer.  “Teacher”, he asks, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus responds, “You’re the expert in the Jewish Law.  What does the Law of Moses say?”  The lawyer answers, “The Law says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus says, “You have answered rightly;  do this, and you shall live.”  

So often in our lives, we already have the answers – we just don’t put them into practice;  we don’t live them.  Mark Twain said that it wasn’t the parts of the Bible he didn’t understand that bothered him;  it was the parts he did understand.  He understood them;  he just didn’t follow them.

The lawyer asks Jesus a second question:  “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus answers by saying, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.”  Half dead.  An interesting choice of words!  The image that comes to my mind is that of the proverbial water glass:  is it half full, or half empty?  It all depends on how you look at it.  This man in the parable:  which half of him do we see -- the dead half, or the living half? 

The priest and the Levite pass him by;  we can assume that what they saw was the dead half of the man.  According to Jewish Law, anybody touching a dead body would defile himself, becoming ritually unclean for 7 days (Numbers 19:11).  The priest and the Levite might have feared becoming ritually unclean.  They might also have been afraid that the robbers who beat this man were still lurking around, so they better not stop.  They might have been afraid that if they stopped they would be late for an important appointment.  And so they choose to see the man as dead.  Whatever their reasons, the priest and Levite see someone who is half dead, while the Samaritan sees someone who is half alive, and he identifies himself with that life.  The Samaritan looks at the half-dead man and sees someone who is like himself – and the Law says you should love your neighbor who is as yourself.

In a powerful documentary on the life of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge tells of a time when Mother Theresa found a baby who had been abandoned in a garbage pile.  Weak and dying from exposure, the child lies limp and motionless in Mother Theresa’s hands, barely breathing.  “Do you see the Life in this child?!”  Mother Theresa beams.  Muggeridge admits that before she had pointed it out, he could not.  All he could see was death.  It was only by seeing through Mother Theresa’s eyes that he could see life in that dying baby. 

Mother Theresa and the Samaritan both see someone half alive, not half dead.

What about you and me?  We look out onto a world where selfishness, greed, lust, violence, and sickness abound.  When we look at others, what do we see?  Do we see God’s image, God’s life – which we know is there?  Or do we see only the sinful part, the violent part, the sick part, the dead part (which we all have)? 

As most of you know, I have been visiting an inmate in prison for the past 3 years.  I must admit that when this man’s mother first called me and asked me to visit her son, and told me the crime he was accused of, all I could envision in my mind was the crime – and I drew a mental picture of the kind of malicious criminal who would commit such a crime.  What I discovered instead was an intelligent, gifted, scared human being who had his internal demons, yes;  but then, so do you and I.  Our justice system is, by design, an adversarial system.  The district attorney, representing “the people” (us), focuses on the sinful side of the accused person – the “half-dead” side, trying to portray the accused in as negative a light as possible, as an irredeemable threat to society, not as a human being with whom any of us could identify.  “The People vs. John Smith” is the way the case is presented.  Is John Smith not one of “the People”, not a person, like any of us? 

That is a key question posed by our Gospel.  The lawyer has just stated that one must love one’s neighbor who is as oneself;  but then he asks Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”  The lawyer wants to know whom he has to love, and whom he doesn’t have to love.  Who is “the People”, and who is not?

What do we see in people – the half-dead, or the half-alive?  The sinful part, or the part created in the image of God? 

The Samaritans were hated enemies of the Jews.  If Jesus were retelling this parable to 21^st-Century Americans, perhaps he would substitute the term “radical Muslim”.  Hear the parable again, and make that substitution:  it is the “radical Muslim” who has compassion on the man who is half-dead. 

And perhaps that half-dead man is you.  You are the man robbed, stripped, and left half-dead in the ditch.  It is a matter of life or death.  Is the radical Muslim your neighbor – is he a person, a human being like any of us, a child of God like any of us – half-alive, like any of us?  Or perhaps for you there is a different group of people whom you want nothing to do with.  Republicans?  Democrats?  Any of the thousands of prisoners behind bars in our county?  If you were left half-dead in a ditch, and it were a matter of life or death, would you accept help from any one of these?  Would such a person be your neighbor?

It is a question to which we already know the answer. 

AMEN

Proper 8, Year C

Jun 27, 2010

Luke 9:51-62   When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.   And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him;  but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.  When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”  But he turned and rebuked them.  Then they went on to another village.  As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”  Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” 

In our Gospel reading for today, we hear of three would-be disciples whom Jesus challenges regarding their priorities and the depth and strength of their conviction.  They are not named;  they could easily be any one of us.

We don’t know what motivates the first man to come forward and say to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  The man’s pronouncement may reflect the kind of impetuous passion which often follows when someone has just heard a stirring speech, or attended a tent-meeting revival.  He is excited by what Jesus has said, or by the miracles Jesus has performed, and so he pledges to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go!”

But he doesn’t get much encouragement from Jesus.  Perhaps Jesus sees through the emotion of the moment and tries to make very clear to the man the hard reality of truly following him:  “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests;  but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  Discipleship is costly, Jesus explains, and he throws the cold water of reality onto the burning fervor of the moment.  Better to face the truth from the start:  discipleship is not a bed of roses.

The second man offers an excellent-sounding reason for not immediately accepting Jesus’ invitation to follow him.  “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  But Jesus replies, in what sounds like a terribly uncompassionate response, “Let the dead bury their own dead;  but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”  Many commentators on this passage believe that Jesus’ response is not as harsh as it first sounds.  It is likely the man’s father is not yet dead, for if he were, the son would be at home tending to the funeral arrangements, not out on the road listening to an itinerant preacher.  What the man is possibly saying is, “My father is aging.  Let me go home and take care of him, and in a few years, when he dies, then I’ll become your follower.”  

Now, to care for one’s aging father is a good thing, is it not?  Yet Jesus understands that there are infinite “good” things which can keep us from following him.  If I am biding my time until the circumstances are just right before committing my life to God and to discipleship -- waiting until I have more time, ‘til the kids are off to college, or I finish this major project, or my life is more settled -- then what I am really doing is deferring or postponing the most important thing in life:  my growing relationship with God.  

The third man says to Jesus:  “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”  Jesus responds, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” 

Theologian John Shea puts an interesting interpretation on this speaker’s request.  He writes:

(The man) does not propose to go back to his family for a final farewell party.  He wants to return to his family for their blessing on what he has decided to do.  If they do not bless his traipsing after Jesus and he follows Jesus anyway, he will be caught looking over his shoulder.  The kingdom is about steadfastly moving into a future that people must desire more than anything else.  Seeking permission avoids the question of personal decision.  However, it is only sheer individual resolve that will overturn the [hard soil] significantly enough for the seed of the gospel to be planted.  A determined hand on the plough is Jesus’ concern.* 

How many of us give inordinate weight to the approval of others, which can easily cause us to waver in our Christian path?  I know I do.

Canon Fletcher Lowe says this about our tendency to make excuses for not living out our Christian faith:  “Sometimes we are seduced into a ‘convenience store’ brand of Christianity,” he writes.  

In we go, picking and choosing what we want our discipleship to be like, what our relationship to the Lord is to be about -- on our terms, following our agenda.  Or we sometimes play the “Yes, but...” brand of discipleship...

“Yes, Jesus, I want to be a follower of yours, but, you know, my job is pretty demanding…  You know that I need my job to support my family, and you know how important that is.  Don’t make me subordinate my job to you”.... “Yes, Jesus, I want to be your follower, but -- I really can’t tithe.  After all, you know I’ve got these obligations and I need to be responsible to them.  And besides, I’m not really sure the church knows how to use my money”...  “Yes, Jesus, I really want to be your follower, but make it on my terms.  I want to set the conditions, so that in reality, you are serving me and not me serving you.” (from Sunday Sermons)

A major part of the problem is that there are countless “good” things in the world which can keep us from a life of devotion to God.  There are endless opportunities for self-improvement, good deeds, and hard work.  Oswald Chambers put it this way:

Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good.  It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of natural virtues, the more intense the opposition to Jesus Christ.     (My Utmost, for His Highest, p. 344)  

We are experts at giving excuses for not answering God’s highest call on our lives.  We give lip service to making Jesus Lord of our lives, but in reality, we ask him to take a number and wait his turn while we are busy with more pressing obligations.

Living a Christian life means holding nothing back, giving our best and first to God.  We at times need to be shocked out of our own prideful satisfaction with living good and virtuous lives, rather than surrendered and obedient lives.  In our Gospel reading, Jesus shocks three would-be followers.  What would he say to you and me?

We all have a world of excuses why we don’t yield our lives to God’s sovereign love and forgiveness;  yet the wonderful paradox of Christianity is that in surrendering control of our lives to God, we receive more of ourselves back in return.  Freed from the tyranny of self-centeredness, we are able to bring more life and meaning to our jobs, our families, our interests.  

We will never know what happened to those three potential followers of Jesus in our Gospel;  but we do know that the call which Jesus made to them is the same that he makes to us:  to follow with singleness of heart him whose service is perfect freedom, through whose death we find the fullness of Life.   

AMEN

*John Shea, The Relentless Widow, Collegeville, MN:  Liturgical Press, 2006, p. 182

The Power of Promises

A sermon by Lewis Smedes*  [shortened]

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”  --Exodus 3:14

He said. . . “I will be with you.”  --Exodus 3:12

Somewhere today a woman is saying, “I would like to chuck this marriage and start over with somebody who knows how to love me;  God knows the clod I married has not given me the love I need.”  But then she remembers a promise that she made and decides to stick with her marriage and try to make it work.

Somewhere today, on this Father’s Day weekend, a father is saying to himself, “I want my impossible daughter to get out of the house and never come back;  God knows she has driven me out of my mind.”  But he remembers a promise he made to her when she was born, and he decides to hang in with her in hurting love.

Somewhere today a minister is thinking, “I am going to give up my calling and find a line of work that pays off in a little more appreciation;  God knows this congregation has given me third-degree burnout.”  But he remembers a promise he made to God when he was ordained, and he decides to renew his spirit and stick with his vocation.

Yes, somewhere people still make and still keep promises.  They choose not to quit when the going gets rough because they promised once to see it through.  They stick to lost causes.  They hold on to a love grown cold.  They stay with people who have become pains in the neck.  They still dare to make promises and care enough to keep the promises they make.  I want to say to you that if you have a ship you will not desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you will not abandon, then you are like God.  

What a marvelous thing a promise is!  When a person makes a promise, she reaches out into an unpredictable future and makes one thing predictable:  she will be there even when being there costs her more than she wants to pay.  When a person makes a promise, he stretches himself out into circumstances that no one can control and controls at least one thing:  he will be there no matter what the circumstances turn out to be.  With one simple word of promise, a person creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty.

When you make a promise, you take a hand in creating your own future... When I make a promise I refuse to surrender my relationships with people I love to the wayward drives of my subcon­scious.  When I make a promise I act in freedom.  I am not a hunk of clay waiting to be shaped by my culture.  I am free to create a future of my own.

And an identity of my own.  I create my identity as this woman’s husband and that child’s father and that man’s friend.  Our culture tries to tell us we can be real selves only if we claim our right to self-satisfaction and self-fulfillment.  A free self knows he becomes a genuine self by making commitments to other people — promises that he intends to keep even when keeping them exacts a price.

Some people ask, “Who am I?” and expect an answer to come from their feelings.  Some people ask, “Who am I?” and expect the answer to come from their accomplishments.  Other people ask, “Who am I?” and expect the answer to come from what other people think about them.  A person who dares to make and keep promises discovers who she is by the promises she has made and kept to other people.

What you feel is not what you are.  Feelings are flickering flames that fade with every fitful breeze.  What you desire is not what you are.  Desires rise and fall and change so fast that they can only tell you what you want at any trembling moment;  knowing what you want is not the same as knowing what you are.

…We are our promises, and we lose hold of ourselves when we take no pains to keep them.

There is a paradox here.  The freedom we demonstrate in making commitments is the freedom to limit our freedom.  When you make a promise you limit your freedom so that you can be there with the person who trusts you to keep your promise.  “The person who makes a vow,” said Chesterton, “makes an appointment with himself at some distant time and place, and he gives up his freedom in order to keep the appointment.”  You freely tie yourself down so that other persons can be free to trust that you will keep your promise to them.

On this sort of trust, the whole human family depends.

The future of the human race hangs on a promise.  Is there a happy ending to the human romance?  It depends completely on a word spoken, a promise made.  One thing can assure us that the story of mankind will not end in global disaster.  One thing can assure us that this shining globe will not turn into a global garbage heap.  One thing gives us hope that one day the world will finally work right for everyone and that the human family will discover peace and love and justice and freedom together.  That one thing is a promise made and a promise kept.

Stopped in his tracks by a flaming bush that did not want to stop burning, Moses came to attention at the voice of an invisible, ineffable Someone calling him to lead his neglected people out of slavery.

Moses was skeptical.  “What is your name?” he asked the invis­ible Stranger.  “The people will need some identification.”  The name came from behind the flame;  it came in a word of our cryptic Hebrew consonants that have defied confident translation.  “I am who I am,” the metaphysically – bent scholars have rendered it.  But Moses was not a metaphysician.  He was a level-headed Hebrew who knew that everything depended on whether this Stranger God could be trusted.

And what the Stranger God wanted to tell Moses was that he was a God who made promises and kept the promises he made.  So the most likely translation of his name goes something like this:  “I Am the One Who Will Be There With You.” This is God’s identity, this is who and what God is:  a promise-maker and a promise-keeper.

No one on earth at that moment could have predicted the rises and falls of the people who heard and believed the promise.  Moses led them out of Egypt, but once in the land of promise, they acted like a people with a national death wish.

One thing kept them going — the promise of the Stranger in the wilderness, the “One who will be there with you.”  And one day, in a most unpromising time, when it seemed as if the Stranger had surely forgotten who he was and what he promised, a man came out of Judea saying strange and wonderful things about being Immanuel.  In the end he let his blood flow over God’s good earth, and with that shedding of blood sealed again the ancient promise:  “I am the One who will be there with you.”

Will he be?  This is the peg on which the future hangs.  What will come of it all in the end?  A global garbage heap?  Or a new earth that finally works right?

...And what comes of our own communities, too, is settled by the power of our own all-too-human promises.  Our friendships.  Our marriages.  Our families.  Our neighborhoods.  These are the communities that matter to us now.  And every community we live in is born and bred by promises made and promises kept.

What else keeps a marriage together?  When two people get married, they take on two new identities.  Each of them says to the other what God said to Moses:  “I am the one who will be there for you.”

This sort of promise is countercultural these days.  We have, in our culture, decided to make contracts instead of promises.  What passes as a promise reads like a deal:  “I will be there for you – as long as you provide me with all the satisfaction I have coming.”  This is not a promise;  it is a contract.  The difference is this:  we keep promises even when we are not getting what we have coming.  

Take the family for another instance.  What is a family but a community of promises made and promises kept — no matter what?  A family is not just two or more people related by blood who happen to live under one roof.  A family is not a management device by which two adults shuffle children around to the various experts who do the real rearing.  A family is a community of people who dare to make a promise and care enough to keep it — no matter what.  A real parent has the same name as God does:  “the one who will be there with you.”

A family is held together by promises:  where promises fail, families fail.  The rebirth of the family can begin only in the rebirth of promise keeping.

When you get right down to it, everything we do together, from a nation conceived and born in liberty to a family reunion — every­thing hangs on the thin thread of promises made and promises kept.

…

If we do not keep our promises, what once was a human community turns into a combat zone of competitive self-maximizers.  We are at sea, loose-jointed, uncertain, leery of each other, untrusting.  Nobody can trust her neighbors.  And without trust, no law, no police force, no legal contracts can keep a community human.  The fact is that we are a people who can join together in a permanently free society only if we are a people who can keep promises together.

Let me conclude by repeating what I have been trying to say.

Our human destiny hangs totally on whether God will retain his identity as the One who will be there with us.

You and I can create an identity for ourselves in the promises we keep to each other.

You and I will experience genuine human community only if we keep our promises to each other.

In short, life begins and ends with those who dare to make a promise and care enough to keep the promise they make.

AMEN

* Lewis Smedes, “The Power of Promises”, from A Chorus of Witnesses, Thomas G. Long & Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., eds., Grand Rapids, MI:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994, p. 156

Proper 6, Year C

June 13, 2010

Luke 7:36-50  One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him--that she is a sinner.” Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.” ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Simon is a good man.  He tries his best to do what the Law of God requires, and he does a good job.  He goes to church each week;  he tithes his income.  He gives to the poor;  he says his prayers.  He is widely respected in the community for being a model citizen, and a devout believer in God.  If you asked Simon what it is that he most wants, he would answer that he wants to be a righteous man.

And so when word comes that the teacher Jesus of Nazareth is in town, and that reportedly he has performed a miracle in bringing a widow’s dead son back to life, Simon wants to meet this man.  Perhaps he is a true prophet;  and if so, Simon could learn much from him, could grow in his quest for righteousness.  And so Simon issues Jesus an invitation to a banquet at his home.

The day arrives, and as is the custom in that time and place, the guests at the banquet recline on cushions around a low table, with their feet toward the wall.  According with tradition, the door to the courtyard is left open, and passersby are allowed to enter and sit along the wall, as long as they do not approach the table or disturb the invited guests.  After the guests leave, these uninvited folk -- many of them poor -- will be allowed to eat the scraps off the table.  The devout Jew can thus fulfill his duty to care for the poor.

All is going well until a woman, infamous in that town for her immorality, enters the door.  Simon watches in horror as this woman approaches his guest of honor, sobbing heavily, and lets down her hair -- an unspeakable social impropriety for any respectable woman of that time.  She takes perfume and pours it on the feet of Simon’s guest of honor.  As Simon looks on, she kisses Jesus’ feet, and wipes her tears from them with her hair.

Her scandalous behavior is exceeded only by Jesus’ apparent permission for her to touch and kiss him while he eats.  It is an offense to all the invited guests.  Simon’s opinion of Jesus plummets.  Certainly if this man were a prophet, he would know this woman’s sinfulness, and never let her touch him!

Jesus knows what Simon is thinking, and confronts his host.  “Simon, do you see this woman?” 

Of course he doesn’t. 

All he sees is a representation of everything he has patterned his life against:  immorality, lack of responsibility, the dark side of his own soul which he is working so hard to escape.  He doesn’t see the woman at all.  He sees only an archetypal sinner, someone who is far from the path of God which he, Simon, has worked so hard to travel.

How does Jesus see the woman?  Jesus sees someone who has heard his message of divine love and forgiveness, and has accepted that message for herself.  And out of profound gratitude for that forgiveness, she has emptied all her past sins, all her gratefulness, all her emotions at Jesus feet.  That’s how Jesus sees the woman.

And to teach Simon how to see her, Jesus uses a parable.  “Simon”, he says.  “A certain creditor had two debtors -- one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them.  Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.”  “You have judged rightly,” Jesus replied.

Jesus is confronting Simon with his lack of gratitude for his own forgiveness.  For Simon, too, is a sinner, “just a higher class, more respectable, not so obvious [sinner] — and a lot harder to reach.” (Lectionary Homiletics, 1995, p. 27)  Jesus is convicting Simon of a lack of love.  Simon believes that righteousness is something one earns by doing the right things, following the Law, living a moral life, working hard.  Jesus says that that is not what righteousness is about.

Righteousness is not so much a matter of goodness as it is a matter of humility before God.  Righteousness is more a relational term than a juridical or moral term.  Paul states it clearly in our epistle:  “a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ”, or as some translators have it, “through the faith of Jesus Christ.”  One commentator brings the lesson of this passage home to roost, saying:  “The passage speaks to the legalistic churchgoing person... We, too, try to erase our sins through [good] deeds, or excuses, or technicalities.  We, too, judge others... [P]ride, stubbornness and willpower can impact us all.” (Ibid., p. 24)

We would like to identify with the woman, for she receives the greater sympathy from Jesus.  And a part of us is that woman, to the extent that we recognize our sins, accept God’s gift of forgiveness, and respond in grateful release and joy.  But a part of us is also Simon the Pharisee, working hard to achieve our own righteousness, and so focused on our task that we fail not only to acknowledge and respect others who are not so upright as ourselves, but also fail to accept with gratitude the forgiveness and love showered so freely and undeservedly upon us.  

And so we see another perspective on this story:  not only does it contrast how Simon views the woman and how Jesus views the woman;  it also contrasts how Simon views Jesus and how the woman views Jesus.  From this perspective, the story is not about righteousness at all:  it is about hospitality, kindness, and generosity of spirit.

Simon is focused on his own path of “rightness”.  He invites Jesus to dine at his home hoping that Jesus can give him some hints on being more right.  To be honest, isn’t that why many of us come to church – to get hints on being more virtuous, or on how to get to heaven, or to reassure ourselves (and others) that we are upright and honorable and pious?  But in his preoccupation with his own uprightness, Simon has neglected the common courtesies of hospitality normally afforded an honored guest in that culture.  An honored guest in a home might have his feet washed by a servant;  at the very least, a basin of water would be provided for the guest to wash his own feet, soiled from the road.  An honored guest would be greeted with a kiss, and anointed on his head with oil.  So focused is Simon on his own agenda regarding what he could receive from Jesus, that he neglects to receive Jesus himself, Jesus the person, rather than Jesus the dispenser of wisdom and holiness.  13^th Century mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote:  “Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love him as they love their cow – they love their cow for the milk and cheese and profit it makes them… They do not rightly love God when they love him for their own advantage.”  

“I entered your house,” Jesus tells Simon;  “you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.  You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.”  Jesus cares enough about Simon to confront him with his own sin:  that of not receiving Jesus with the love and deep gratitude which the woman so lavishly displayed.

Simon is a good man.  Like many of us, he tries hard to do what is right.  But all the rightness, all the morality, all the family values in the world will not save us, will not heal us, will not bring us into right relationship with God.  We are justified as we love.

AMEN

Trinity Sunday, Year C

May 30, 2010

Psalm 8

John 16:12-15   [Jesus said to his disciples on the night before his crucifixion:]  "I have many more things to say to you, but they are too much for you now.  But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you into all truth. He will not speak his own words, but he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is to come.  The Spirit of truth will bring glory to me, because he will take what I have to say and tell it to you.  All that the Father has is mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take what I have to say and tell it to you.

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday.  The doctrine of the Trinity is our feeble human attempt to explain the nature of God.  On Trinity Sunday we look to understand, however inadequately, this God whom we love, and who loves us more than we can ever imagine.

The author of our psalm today speaks with awe and praise of the transcendent majesty of God:  “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, What is man that you should be mindful of him?”  That is one of the messages of Trinity Sunday:  that God is transcendent.  God is God, and we are not;  and in the presence of God’s perfect love, we become aware of our own imperfection.  It is appropriate then that today, the Easter season being over, we return to the confession in our liturgy, for in the face of the majesty of the Trinity, we become aware of how small and broken we are, apart from God.

Making us aware of our need of God is one of the purposes of the Holy Spirit, of which Jesus speaks a few verses before our Gospel today, saying:  “And when [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will prove to the people of the world that they are wrong about sin....  He will expose their sin because they do not believe...”  Our unbelief, our distrust of God, is our chief sin, our principal alienation.  The Holy Spirit comes to us to remind us that we are not independent, self-sufficient beings, though we often live as though we were.  We are mortal, fallible, dependent creatures who have no Life apart from God.  And so when we, in our arrogance, put our own egos on the thrones of our lives, the Holy Spirit comes to convict us of our arrogance, to expose our pretense, and to reveal the truth of who we actually are in God – sinners, who nevertheless are created in the image of God. 

For the Holy Spirit plays both sides of the courtroom:  not only does the Spirit serve as our chief accuser, convicting us of our conceit and exposing our self-centeredness;  but the Holy Spirit also serves as our chief Advocate (Paraclete), to lead us into all truth, to be the interior presence of Christ in us, and to speak Jesus’ voice daily to our hearts.  “[The Holy Spirit] will glorify me,” Jesus says in our Gospel, “because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Many of you have seen that wonderful movie, Forrest Gump.  One of the things that strikes me about Forrest Gump is that although he is a very simple person and not very bright, he gets by and succeeds in large part because he remembers what his mother told him.  “My Mama always said life is like a box of chocolates:  you never know what you’re going to get.”  “My Mama always said... My Mama always said...”  The words of Forrest Gump’s mother keep coming back to him to guide him and direct him.  Jesus says this is another of the roles of the Holy Spirit for us:  to remind us of all that Jesus said, to be the Word of God to us and within us.  Earlier in this same discourse, Jesus told his disciples “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26)  And again in today’s reading:  “the Spirit of truth... will guide you into all the truth;  for he will not speak on his own...”

“He will not speak on his own...”

The Holy Spirit will not speak on his own because the Holy Spirit is one with the Son and with the Father.  Again, earlier in this same discourse in John’s Gospel Jesus says, “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own...  believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me...” (John 14:10b, 11a)  The Son will not speak on his own because he is one with the Father.  The Spirit will not speak on her, his own (the Spirit is variously described in Scripture as feminine or masculine) because she is one with the Father and the Son.  They are distinct persons, and yet they do not speak or act on their own, because they are one.  The Son is always pointing to the Father rather than to Himself, the Spirit is always pointing to the Son rather than to Herself.  That’s the way it is in Trinitarian life:  no one points to herself or himself, but rather to the other.

So what does all of this have to do with you and me?  What difference does it make if we believe God to be three-persons-in-one, as we Trinitarians believe, or whether God is simply a single being, like the Unitarians or Jehovah’s Witnesses believe?  I would offer that it makes a great deal of difference, because we are created in the image of God, and if relationship among Persons is at the heart of the Godhead, then relationship among persons is at the heart of humanity, also.  If one of the Persons of the Godhead does not speak or act on his or her own, then we who are in the image of God do not speak or act on our own, either.  All that we say and do affects others – either positively or negatively.  Whether we praise or whether we gossip, what we say and do affects others.  We are all in this together, by the simple fact that we are created in the image of God.  “Let us create humankind in our image,” God said in the Book of Genesis.  In OUR image—the image of the Trinity, the Three Persons so lovingly related that they are One.  In the words of Alan Jones, Dean emeritus of Grace Cathedral (San Francisco):  “God is not solitary;  God is friendship, and if we are to be truly human, we have to exist in relation one with another... [T]he mystery of God is the mystery of... relationship, how you can be you, and I can be I, and how we can be one and yet not absorbed into each other.  That’s what love is about... The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine about a community of persons so in love with one another… that they are completely one.”  (quoted from a sermon on Trinity Sunday, 1991 at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco)

This Memorial Day weekend, I would like to call to mind that compelling story of the American F-16 pilot who, on June 2, 1995, when the war in Bosnia was extremely tense, was shot down over Bosnian territory.  After many days, during which it was uncertain whether Captain Scott O’Grady would ever come out alive, his comrades successfully located him and daringly flew under enemy fire to bring him out.  Shortly after the rescue was completed, President Clinton called Captain O’Grady “a true American hero.”  I must admit that I was a bit skeptical at first, thinking that it was weakening the word “hero” to use it to describe someone who was simply, after all, saving his own life.

But I was wrong.  The day after President Clinton proclaimed him a hero, the news stations broadcast Scott O’Grady speaking publicly at the U.S. Air Force base in Aviano, Italy.  His first words were words of thanks to God, Who—Captain O’Grady was certain—was behind his rescue.  The second words out of his mouth were thanks to his fellow service men and women who had risked their lives to bring him out.  “They are the real heroes”, Scott O’Grady proclaimed.  And then he went on to say that there was never one moment in those six days behind enemy lines that he doubted that his fellow service men and women were doing all in their power to rescue him.

And by those words, the young pilot showed the character of the Trinity:  giving thanks to God above all;  pointing to others and not himself;  and never forgetting that he was not one person alone, but rather a member of a much larger body of people who cared for him and would not forsake him.  Scott O’Grady is a true hero, in my book:  not because of his courage in the face of danger to his own life, though I admire him greatly for that courage;  but rather because he shows the essence of the Trinity.  He points to God and to others instead of to himself;  and he knows that he is not simply one individual in a world of individuals, but rather a member of a unity of persons organically linked together by our common relationship to one loving, Trinitarian God. 

To even attempt to speak about the nature of God, St. Augustine said, is like trying to pour the ocean into a hole in the sand on a beach.  But God has revealed to us some truths about the Divine:  that God is God, and we are not;  but that nevertheless we are made in the image of the Trinity, created for relationship, created to be united with God – individual parts of one Whole joined together by divine love. 

AMEN

Pentecost Day, Year C

May 23, 2010

John 14:8-27 

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father; that is all we need."  Jesus answered, "For a long time I have been with you all; yet you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Why, then, do you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe, Philip, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I have spoken to you," Jesus said to his disciples, "do not come from me. The Father, who remains in me, does his own work.  Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. If not, believe because of the things I do.  I am telling you the truth: those who believe in me will do what I do—yes, they will do even greater things, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask for in my name, so that the Father's glory will be shown through the Son. If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it. "If you love me, you will obey my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you forever. He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him, because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him, because he remains with you and is in you. "When I go, you will not be left all alone; I will come back to you. In a little while the world will see me no more, but you will see me; and because I live, you also will live. When that day comes, you will know that I am in my Father and that you are in me, just as I am in you. "Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. My Father will love those who love me; I too will love them and reveal myself to them." Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "Lord, how can it be that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and my Father and I will come to them and live with them. Those who do not love me do not obey my teaching. And the teaching you have heard is not mine, but comes from the Father, who sent me. "I have told you this while I am still with you. The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you. "Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid.

When I lived in Plainview, Texas, I visited a retirement home once a month and lead the residents in singing hymns.  Being Texas, we naturally used the Southern Baptist hymnal.  One of the hymns, which many of you may know, was called, “Trust and Obey.”  The chorus goes simply: 

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

The author of that hymn (written in 1887) may have been reading today’s Gospel, for trust and obedience are major themes. 

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” Jesus asks Philip [and his other disciples] on the night before he will be crucified.  “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me;  but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.  Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do…”  Believe, believe, believe, believe – four times that word is used in these verses.  Now, you have often heard me say that the Greek word which is translated “believe” is a verb form of the word “faith”.  Since we do not have a verb form of the word “faith” in the English language, the Greek word is most often translated “believe”.  But there is another word which is frequently used to translate that Greek verb:  “trust”.  And I much prefer that translation, for “believe” is a “head word”, while “trust” is a “heart word”.  One preacher states, “We don’t need more insights, knowledge, and understanding.  What we need is more trust.  The Christian life in a single word is trust.”*

The Christian life in a single word is “trust”.

In the talks we have been listening to in our Adult Class, Richard Rohr says that just believing in God in our heads, or believing the Creeds, is no big deal.  St. Augustine pointed out that even the Devil believes in God and in the Creeds.  But do you put your whole trust in God?  You have heard me many times use the example of the tight-rope walker, hundreds of feet above the ground, who asks the crowd below, “Do you believe that I can walk across this high wire wheeling a wheelbarrow in front of me?”  “We believe!” they shout.  “Then who will get into the wheelbarrow?” the tightrope walker asks. 

That’s the difference between believing and trusting.

Now, we often give lip service to trusting God.  Americans over the past 50 years have argued vehemently over whether “In God We Trust” should be removed from our currency and government buildings.  A 2003 Gallup poll showed that 90% of Americans favored keeping that motto on our currency.  To be quite honest with you, I care very little whether “In God We Trust” is on our currency;  rather, I care whether we in fact trust God with our lives, day in, day out.  If 90% of Americans were to climb into God’s wheelbarrow every morning, trusting God with our very lives, what would our nation – our world! – be like?  More like the Kingdom of God, to be sure!  “In God We Trust” can be emblazoned on all our currency, all our public buildings, and on the masthead of every newspaper, but if we don’t in practice trust God with every aspect of our lives, love him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength, and die to ourselves that we might live in him, then “In God We Trust” is nothing but a catchy slogan, no different from a slogan in a beer commercial.

And Jesus is telling us in our Gospel that we can trust God with our lives.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he tells us, “and do not let them be afraid.”  In fact, he tells us that he is sending us a helper, encourager, supporter, advocate to be with us always – the Holy Spirit.  The only question then becomes, “Will I let the Holy Spirit into my life, to guide and control my actions, my will, my decisions?  Will I listen to, will I obey, this Holy Spirit?” 

That is the second part of the old hymn’s chorus:  “Trust and obey.” 

Now, “obedience” is not a very popular word in our day and age.  “I should be able to do what I want, when I want,” we tell ourselves.  “I don’t want anybody telling me what to do!”  And yet look at how often Jesus uses that word or idea in our Gospel reading!  The Good News Bible reads: 

“Those who love me will obey my commandments, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”  Obedience, far from being an onerous thing, is related to Jesus and his Heavenly Father making their home in us!  And again Jesus tells us:  “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. … Those who do not love me do not obey my teaching.  …The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you.”  Jesus himself is obedient!  In the last verse of our Gospel reading he says:  “the world must know that I love the Father;  that is why I do everything as he commands me.”  Obedience.  St. Paul says that Jesus “became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”  (Phil. 2:8)  When Jesus commands us to obey, he is only asking us to do what he himself does.

Now again, we love to give lip service to the Biblical commandments.  Fights and lawsuits erupt all over, from time to time, about whether the 10 Commandments should be posted in public buildings.  But again, it makes little difference if we place the 10 Commandments, or the Two Great Commandments of Jesus, on every public building and on every bumper sticker in the nation, if we don’t keep Jesus’ commandments in our lives.  “Those who love me will obey my commandments, and my Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with them.  Whoever does not love me does not obey my commandments.”  Jesus does not tell us, “Those who love me will post the 10 Commandments in the County Courthouse.”  He could care less whether his words were posted in every public building in the nation;  he wants them lived out in our lives.

Do you see a pattern here?  We put our religion “out there”, on our currency or in government buildings, rather than “in here”, in our hearts and in our lives.  That sounds suspiciously like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, whom Jesus accused of putting on a good show on the outside, while not trusting or obeying God in their lives.  Now, the Pharisees weren’t bad people;  and neither are we.  It’s just that we have a tendency to deceive ourselves by thinking that in simply doing the outward things we are trusting and obeying God.

Trust and obey – major themes of today’s Gospel;  a way of life which Jesus modeled for us utterly.  And he sends us the Holy Spirit to empower us to live likewise.

AMEN.

*Dr. J. Howard Olds, “Faith Breaks:  Thoughts on Making It a Good Day”, Christianglobe Networks, Inc., 2008

Easter 7, Year C

May 14, 2010

John 17:20-26

(After the Last Supper, Jesus prayed for his disciples.  He then spoke to his Heavenly Father):  “My prayer is not for them alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:  I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.  “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.  “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

The setting is the Upper Room, immediately following the Last Supper and Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet.  Jesus is nearing the end of his long farewell talk to his disciples on this night before his crucifixion.  He concludes with an extended prayer – for himself, for his disciples, and – for us.  “Heavenly Father,” Jesus prayed, “I ask not only on behalf of these [disciples of mine], but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word…” 

That’s you and I, my friends.  We are the ones who believe in Christ through the word his followers have passed down through the centuries.  On the night before he died, Jesus was praying for us.  And what was he praying for us?  “… that they may all be one.  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… so that they may be one, as we are one:  I in them and you in me.  May they be brought to complete unity…”

A seminary professor writes:  “There is a lot of talk these days about multiculturalism, about diversity, [but] not much talk at all about unity.”  (citation lost)  And yet Jesus’ great concern on the night before he died – his farewell prayer – is a prayer for unity:  unity between himself and us, between us and God, between us and one another.

We should not find that surprising, for during his three years of earthly ministry Jesus had spent enormous time and energy trying to build a community of disciples;  yet even they had shown signs of division.  In Luke’s account of the Last Supper, during that most holy meal, the very night before Jesus would be crucified, the Disciples were arguing among themselves regarding which of them was the greatest.  (Luke 22:24)  

How does that unity for which Jesus so earnestly prays happen?  How do we truly become one, as Jesus and the Father are one?  I believe it comes both as a gift and as a responsibility.

First and foremost, the unity for which Jesus prays is a gift.  We have seen that in today’s Gospel Jesus is praying to his Father for us.  “The glory that you have given me I have given them [us],” Jesus prays, “so that they [you and I] may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you... have loved them [us] even as you have loved me.”

Our unity comes first as a gift of God’s love in Christ.  We are linked one to another by Christ’s love for us all.  We are linked one to another by the gift of Christ’s life and his death on the cross for our sake, reconciling us to God and to one another.  We are linked one to another by the gift of our baptism, in which we are adopted as children of God, and united into one family, the Church.  We are linked one to another through the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who breathes Life into us all.  We are linked one to another by our common worship, sharing the body and blood of Christ each week in a common, sacramental meal.

All of these things linking us together are gifts which we have done nothing to deserve.  We are one as a Church because Christ has made us one body;  we are members one of another because of his gifts of pure grace.

But if we take these gifts and store them in the attic, or in the cellar, or on a shelf somewhere, if we don’t use the gifts we have been given, then the unity which they embody is left unexpressed, unfulfilled, and unrealized.

The story is told of a woman who got married, and immediately after the wedding, moved to a cabin in Canada by herself.  There, far away from her husband, she lived out the rest of her days, thinking wonderful thoughts about her husband.  “We’re married”, she would think to herself.  But she and her husband never talked to each other, never held each other in their arms, never worked to build a home together, never made love to each other, never raised a family together.  She had been given the gift of marriage, but she never lived it out.

That’s a story about our oneness in Christ, about our being the bride of Christ, the Church.  We are made members one of the other, made members of Christ’s body, the Church, through our baptism;  but how do we live that out?  Do we simply go about our lives as usual and think nice thoughts about Christ from a distance, saying to ourselves, “I am a member of Christ’s Church”, and yet never talk with Christ, never work with him to build the family of the Church, never share with others how important Christ is to us, never tell him how much we love him, or how awed we are at his love for us?  Just as that bride in Canada needed to live out her marriage instead of simply thinking nice thoughts of her husband from afar, so we who are the bride of Christ, the Church, need to live out the gift of our unity, and all that that means.

It means praying regularly, talking with Christ.  It means showing outwardly our love for him as we meet him in others.  It means gathering together, worshipping together, working together to build and strengthen the Church, the family of Christ.  It means reaching out to others who are in need, willingly giving of our time, talents, resources, and selves, even before we are asked.  It means bringing a friend to church or youth group, calling on a member we have not seen in a while, telling others how special they are.  It means treating our co-workers with love and respect, saying a kind word when it is not required, remembering that our unity in Christ does not end with our parish family.

It means holding up for each other images and values which reflect a Christ-like, sacrificial love and kindness:  images more like Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood than Jerry Springer’s neighborhood.  Images more like Forrest Gump than “Die Hard with a Vengeance”.  Images of the Gospel.

It is not easy.  The images with which we and our children are bombarded each day often exploit our sinful temptations toward materialism, self-righteous anger, and partisanship, rather than encourage our compassion, generosity and self-sacrifice.  Be attentive, the next time you watch television, or see a movie, read a novel, or listen to the proceedings of Congress on C-span.  What part of you is the screen writer appealing to?  What part of you is the author trying to hook and reel in?  What part of you is the politician appealing to?  Your compassion, generosity, and willingness to sacrifice for the good of the whole, or your baser instincts—your lust, greed, self-righteous indignation, or desire to get even?

How desperately we need to hold up for each other and for our children the Gospel images of love, truth, humility, self-offering!  How desperately our world needs those images, those values, those truths lived out among us—signs and expressions of the love of Christ which we have been given as a free gift of grace!  How desperately the world needs us to be the Church, to be the bride of Christ, not just in name, but in word and deed!

We are one, all of us brothers and sisters in Christ, sharing the love and forgiveness which is his gift, won for us on the cross.  We are one, by the gift of grace;  but Christ prays for us to live out that gift:  to be his bride, not just in name, but in flesh.

AMEN

Easter 6, Year C

May 9, 2010

John 14:23-29 Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

Later this month, we will honor our graduating high school seniors, Stephanie and Sydnee. 

Now, we all know the mixture of feelings which come when you graduate from high school or college.  There is the excitement of accomplishment:  “I finally have my diploma!  All the years of hard work have at last paid off!”  There is the self-satisfaction of knowing that you are growing up, or entering a new stage of life.  All that you have learned has prepared you to take this next step.

And yet part of you is not sure you want to take the next step on the sometimes frightening path of growth.  Once you graduate from Middle School or High School or College, you cannot go back and be a student there again.  There is no return to the old way of life.

I think that Jesus’ disciples must have felt the same way in the scene described in our Gospel reading today, in which Jesus says his farewell to his disciples.  Jesus has been their teacher, coach, and mentor in the school of Life.  Now he tells them that he is leaving them.  There will be no return to the way of life the disciples have had for the past three years:  following Jesus day by day, sitting at his feet as he teaches them, soaking in his loving and powerful presence.

What in the world will they do when he is gone?

Jesus knows the sense of loss his disciples are already experiencing as he speaks of his impending departure to return to his heavenly Father;  and so he reassures them that they are not losing him – they are graduating.  Just as Sydnee and Stephanie take with them the words of their teachers who have taught them, so Jesus’ graduating followers take with them the words that Jesus has taught them.

“Those who love me will keep my word,” Jesus says, “and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The disciples have learned much from following Jesus in his 3 years of ministry on earth.  But God’s ultimate will for them is not that they live their whole lives walking around in Jesus’ shadow.  God’s will for them—and for us—is that we become the presence of Jesus, that we embody the words of Christ!  St. Paul writes that our goal as Christians is that all of us come “to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13)  

But maturity is a difficult thing;  life beyond graduation is not so easy.  No longer do you take tests of your knowledge on paper;  you are tested in life.  You must use the skills you have learned to make a living on your own.  You must use the values you have learned to live a life of integrity.  Maturity means that you no longer simply talk the talk, but walk the talk.

It is true not only for those graduating from High School or College, but for each of us who desires to be a mature Christian.

It is easy to come to church each Sunday and hear what Jesus says, figuratively sit at his feet, and then go back home again and forget about Jesus’ words until next Sunday.  It is easy for our weekly worship service to become in effect what Jesus’ physical presence was for his disciples:  as long as Jesus was there, he had all the answers.  He could solve all the problems, answer all the questions, so they didn’t have to.  I wonder whether the “institutional” Church or the ritual of our worship doesn’t play that role for many of us?  As long as the “institutional” Church is there for me, it has the answers, it has the Life-giving sacraments;  and so, I don’t have to live out the answers in my own life.  I don’t have to become a living sacrament of Christ’s presence, since the sacrament is kept safely in the tabernacle behind the altar, ready to meet my needs.

I don’t have to take Jesus’ words too personally – I hear them each Sunday;  that’s enough.  I don’t have to keep his word.  Keep – the word [in Webster’s dictionary] means “to apply oneself to”.

When I was in college, I took three semesters of Calculus;  today, I don’t remember one thing about the subject.  “Use it or lose it” the saying goes, and since I have not used it, I have lost it.

The same is true of Jesus’ teachings – though there is a huge difference between “keeping” the teachings of calculus as a part of my life and keeping the teachings of Jesus a part of my life!  Keeping Jesus’ word is in some way bound up with God’s love for us, intertwined with Jesus and his Father making their home in us!  Jesus says in our Gospel:  “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”  

Keeping Jesus’ word, holding fast and applying oneself to Jesus’ commandments, is a most fundamental trait of the graduated Christian, the mature Christian, the person who loves God.  This is stated over and over again in St. John’s writings.  Here are just a few verses – I substitute Webster’s definition for the word “keep”:  Jesus says, “Whoever holds to my commandments and applies himself to them is the one who loves me...” (14:21)   “...Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we apply ourselves to his commandments...  Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not apply himself to his commandments is a liar… but whoever applies himself to his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.” (1 John 2:3-5a)  

It is a custom at graduations that some notables (often the school principal, the valedictorian, and the graduation speaker) give a “charge” to the graduates:  a solemn and wise instruction to those who are embarking on a new stage of their lives.  In effect, this is what Jesus, in our Gospel, gives to his disciples:  a charge.  It is, for the disciples, graduation time. 

In his charge, Jesus says this:  If you love me, you will apply yourself to my word... and my Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our home with you.”  After he physically leaves them, Jesus can make His home not among them, but within them:  within their hearts and souls.  If his words live in them, if his commandments live in them, then Jesus lives in them – his Life lives in them.

And that is our goal as mature Christians:  that Christ live in us, and we in him.  St. Paul wrote to the Galatians (2:20):  “... it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”  To live in us, not simply among us, is the reason Jesus must leave the earth and return to his heavenly Father.

Whenever we have a baptism, we renew our own baptismal vows, along with the baptismal candidates and the godparents.  I would ask that we do a similar thing today.  As Stephanie and Sydnee prepare to graduate, and as we read of Jesus’ Disciples’ graduation, let us accept, with them, the graduation charge which Jesus gives:  “Keep my word.  Hold it fast in your heart and ponder it.  And apply yourself to my word every moment of your lives.  For my word is not onerous, it is not burdensome;  it is a gift which, in receiving and using, brings both me and my heavenly Father into the home of your hearts.”

“Hear my word;  but more importantly, do my word, every day of your week, every week of the year, every year of your lives.  For if you don’t use my word, you will lose my word.”        

AMEN

Easter 5, Year C     

May 2, 2010

John 13:31-35  When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.  If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.  Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, "Where I am going, you cannot come.'  I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

At first, I didn’t like Mrs. Mohler.  To start with, she was by far the oldest teacher at Lombard Jr. High, and that made her seem so “un-cool” to us who were at that age where being cool means so much.  The “cool” teachers were the young ones, the ones who knew the slang of the day, who could dish out witty remarks even faster than the smart-alecks in the class, who even dressed like us Jr. High students dressed.  And Mrs. Mohler’s subject matter was the epitome of irrelevance to a Jr. High student:  English grammar.  No Jr. Higher cared a whit about English grammar.

But after I graduated from Jr. High, and the years went by, I found myself dropping in to visit Mrs. Mohler at her home when I happened to be walking by her house.  You see, somewhere inside of me, I began to realize that Mrs. Mohler had given me a gift far greater than any of those younger, “cool” teachers had.  She had been concerned that I learn;  and I did.  I learned how to diagram sentences with the best of them, and, by some dark magic, she taught me to enjoy diagramming sentences, enjoy using proper grammar.  What I realize now is that, though she seemed at the time to be tough and uncompromising, and though she seemed to be so uncaring toward what was most important in an 8^th grader’s life – namely, looks, image, joking around – in reality, she cared far more for us, indeed, loved us more, than those teachers who tried to be “cool”.  She cared more about being a good teacher, helping us be the best we could be, than she cared about whether she was a popular teacher.  Indeed, the popular teachers were the ones who gave little homework and demanded little from us, in hopes that we students would like them for it.  And we did!  But that was not love on the part of those teachers;  it was their own self-centered desire to be liked.

“I give you a new commandment”, Jesus said to his disciples on the night before he was crucified, “that you love one another.”

But wait a minute – that’s not a new commandment!  We see it in one form or another throughout the Old Testament!  “Love your neighbor as yourself” is straight out of Leviticus.  Why would Jesus say this is a new commandment?

I believe the answer is in the next sentence:  “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  You see, the first clause in that sentence is actually a dependent clause of the second.  (Mrs. Mohler taught me what that means.)  Jesus is not simply telling us to love one another;  rather, he is telling us to love one another just as he has loved, in the manner that he has loved.  And that is a new thing altogether!  

Jesus loved people so much that he constantly desired them to live to the greatest of their potential (like Mrs. Mohler did).  Often this meant that Jesus’ words and actions of love were not what people wanted to hear or see.  He displayed his anger by turning over the tables of the moneychangers because they were corrupting a holy place of prayer.  He did so because he knew that it is important for us human beings to understand that some places and things are holy and sacred.  Jesus yelled at his disciple Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” when Peter tried to convince Jesus to take the easy road rather than the road of truth and self-sacrifice.  He confronted the rich young ruler with the necessity of giving up the riches which held him captive, in order that he might be truly free in his heart.  He brought down the wrath of the Pharisees and scribes when he pointed out to them the painful truth that they obeyed the outward letter of the Law while they ran roughshod over the meaning and spirit of the Law.  Jesus loved people so much that he wanted them to have fullness of life, abundance of life, life in all its truth, meaning, and depth.  To that end, he comforted the afflicted, but also afflicted the comfortable, relentlessly.  He loved human beings too much not to want them to change, to grow in maturity, truth, and love.  

Jesus was not motivated by a need to be liked by others, as so many of us are, as I so often am.  He was not trying to be a “buddy” to his followers;  rather, he was trying to be their teacher, to show them the path of life.  

Jesus may be our “friend” in the sense that he is always on our side;  but that does not mean that he won’t challenge us, convict us of our sins, and ask us to lose our own selves for his sake and the Gospel.  As Mrs. Mohler showed me, a good teacher often cannot be a “buddy”, cannot be a “friend” to her or his students, just as you parents know that you are called to be your children’s parents and not your children’s friends.  If we truly are to love as Jesus loved, we will constantly want the best for the other person, and that may mean speaking a truth the other person does not want to hear, but needs to hear.  As Oscar Wilde said, “A true friend always stabs you in the front.”  To truly love as Jesus loves may mean establishing and enforcing rules our children think unfair, but which we know will create the firm boundaries necessary for strong character development.  It may mean giving up something which is dear to us out of love for another.  Thomas Merton said “love seeks one thing only:  the good of the one loved”.  

But don’t we already know this?  We’ve heard it before, and we know in our hearts it is true.  What makes it all so difficult to put into practice?  Why can’t we, who claim to be Christians, pull it off?  Why can’t we love as Jesus loves us?

Perhaps one reason is that we do not accept that we are loved.  Some of us, if truth be told, are so starved of love ourselves that all we can think of is where we will get our next taste, our next morsel of love, our next “fix”.  So we tell people what they want to hear rather than the truth, because we think that that way we will gain their affection.  We grasp for love in all its artificial forms, we purchase love in all its hyped and merchandised substitutes.  But like Sweet and Low or Splenda, substitutes for real love taste sweet for the moment, but have no nutritive value.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you...”

The first step in following the new commandment Jesus left for us is to know his love for us.  Such is not always an easy matter, for we often fail to recognize the love of another, as I found with Mrs. Mohler’s love for us students.  Love does not always look like love, or feel like love.  I doubt that Peter felt loved when Jesus called him “Satan”.  We often don’t feel loved when people speak to us a truth we don’t want to hear.  We may not feel that God loves us when bad things happen, or when things aren’t going our way.  And yet Jesus, who knows all our warts, all our sins, all our pettiness, shows us his unconditional love supremely on the cross.  “No greater love has any man than this,” said Jesus:  “that he lay down his life for his friends.”  (John 15:13)

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

But how can we possibly love like that?   

It begins with our allowing Christ to love us “to the end”.  (John 13:1)  In receiving his love, we are empowered to love.  Our Lord would not give us a commandment he did not also give us the ability to carry out.  Which means that we are capable of loving one another as he loves us!  We can be honest with one another, wanting what is best for the other even more than we want approval.  We can be truly loving parents to our children, even when it means our loving discipline draws their resistance and anger, even when it means we cannot be both parent and friend.  We can make a difference among those with whom we live and work, seeing them as Christ sees them, and loving them as he does, wanting only the good of the one loved.

And as we strive to follow his new commandment, perhaps we will begin to see Christ’s love more clearly in those around us.  Perhaps there is a Mrs. Mohler in our lives, whose Christ-like love we have yet to recognize.     

AMEN

Easter 4, Year C

April 25, 2010

John 10:22-30  At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem.  It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.  So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”  Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe.  The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me;  but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.  My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one will snatch them out of my hand.  What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.  The Father and I are one.”

In George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan, Joan of Arc is always hearing voices from God, and the king is angered by this.  He complains to her, “Oh, your voices!  Your voices!  Why don’t your voices come to me?  I’m the king, not you.”

“They do come,” she replies.  “But you do not hear them.  You’ve not sat in the field in the evening listening for them.  When the Angelus rings, you cross yourself and have done with it.  But if you prayed from your heart and listened to the trilling of the bells in the air after they stopped ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do.”

In our Gospel lesson, the Jewish religious authorities demand that Jesus tell them plainly whether he is the Messiah.  Jesus responds, “I have told you, and you do not believe… because you do not belong to my sheep.  My sheep hear my voice.” 

The voices speak to Joan of Arc’s king;  but he doesn’t hear.  Jesus speaks plainly to the religious authorities;  but they do not hear.

Theologian John Shea believes that when the religious authorities push Jesus to “speak plainly”, what they are really complaining about is that Jesus doesn’t use the conventional words and concepts which they use.  They want him to speak in their own religious language and theological categories.  But Jesus has his own voice.  He does speak plainly;  but not in the vocabulary, in the manner, or within the pre-ordained categories the religious authorities demand.  He doesn’t always follow the Prayer Book.

Fr. Shea writes:  “Those of us who grew up in Christian traditions learned to talk about Jesus in inherited language.  It may have been the language of Jesus as a personal Savior, or the language of Jesus as true God and true Man, or the language of Jesus as Giver of the Spirit, or any other designations Christian denominations have developed.  Although this language had been hammered out over the centuries and was necessary for community life and worship, it was basically somebody else’s language.  Often when we tried to use it, it was obvious we were borrowing another’s voice.

“I think it important,” Fr. Shea continues, “to have official [church] language.  But I also think believers should find their own voice about what they receive when they hear and meditate on the Christian [story] and ritual.”  (The Relentless Widow:  Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels, Liturgical Press, 2006, pp. 132-134)

Could this be what the problem is with the religious leaders in our Gospel:  that they know all the church language, all the church laws, all the church creeds, and think that is enough;  so they cannot hear anything outside that language or those particular laws and creeds?

All too often, I think, when we speak of our faith, we only use the words we have inherited.  If I am asked what I believe, I say, “Why, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen…”, etc.  And yet, if we are to struggle with a faith of our own, we must find our own voice to speak about what we are experiencing of God, not what the writers of the Nicene Creed experienced 1700 years ago.  We can always consult the faith tradition, and learn from others.  But “parroting [back] ideas we do not [fully] understand will not help our faith development.  We must trust our own path and the provisional yet real voice that is emerging.” (ibid.) 

Your experience of God is unlike anybody else’s experience of God, and so cannot be adequately and fully communicated through anyone else’s voice but yours.  The same is true of my experience of God.  And yet you and I – and most Episcopalians, I think – tend to use others’ voices to describe our experiences of God.  The voice of the Prayer Book.  The voice of the Creeds or Catechism.  Written prayers.  In my case, constantly quoting other people in my sermons.  Oh, we have lots of reasons why we do this, some of them even halfway good reasons:  “The Prayer Book language is so much more eloquent.”  “Other people’s thoughts and prayers are so much more insightful and profound than mine.”  “I might get it wrong, so I’ll quote the Bible or the Prayer Book, or pray somebody else’s prayer.”  These are halfway good reasons, but they are also halfway bad.  Yes, the Prayer Book’s language may be more polished and eloquent;  but it may not speak with your voice.  Yes, other people’s thoughts and prayers may seem more insightful or profound;  but those other people cannot speak from the perspective of your own unique experience of God.  Yes, you might get some things “wrong”;  but so did the great saints of the Church.

My friends, I think this is one of the reasons that we Episcopalians are so poor at Evangelism:  we don’t know how to speak about our own, personal faith.  When it comes to our faith, we haven’t found our own voice.  We can recite the Creed by heart, but we can’t speak about our own experience of God.  And not only does this impoverish the world, which will forever lack that revelation of God which we uniquely carry, it also stunts our own growth.  For just as love grows as we give it away, so does faith – our own faith, as well as others’. 

From time to time someone will come up to me and say, “You know, I’m not sure I believe that particular phrase in the Nicene Creed.”  Now, sometimes that person is simply trying to be argumentative or contrary (if you can imagine such a thing!);  but often that person is trying to test the words of our tradition with his or her own experience of God.  Tradition and traditional language then become not definitive, but rather templates, patterns within which there is room for much individual expression, and many unique voices.  “In my Father’s house are many rooms,” Jesus said.  He did not say, “There is one huge room with enough space for everybody.”   When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, different languages were not wiped out and replaced with one universal language;  each person heard the Spirit speak in his or her own language. 

No two people experience God in quite the same way.  We each have our own experiences within that great template which is Jesus Christ.

And so, if you feel that you can never color outside the strict lines of the Nicene Creed, nor vary from the Prayer Book language, for fear of losing your salvation, remember that Jesus most definitely colored outside the strict lines of the purists of his day, and spoke with such a different voice that the religious leaders could not even understand.  I’m not saying that everything is relative;  it isn’t.  I’m not saying there isn’t an objective reality to God and the world;  there is.  But perhaps you and I need to consider, contemplate, and reflect more upon our own unique experiences of God, for both our own sake and the sake of others.  Perhaps you and I need to find our own voice within that Great Template, and speak.

AMEN

CHILDREN’S SERMON  A lesson from a $20 Bill

“Who would like this $20 bill?  I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” 

[Crumple the dollar bill up.]  “Who still wants it?  Well, what if I do this?” 

[Drop it on the ground and grind it into the floor with your shoe.]

“Now who still wants it?  My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson.  No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value.  It was still worth $20. 

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.  We feel as though we are worthless.  But no matter what has happened or what will ever happen, you will never lose your value in God’s eyes.  To Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless.  Don’t ever forget it!

Easter 2, Year C

April 11, 2010

John 20:19-31  When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."  But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."  A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."  Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."  Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"  Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

When I was a baby, I suffered an accident and had to have surgery.  I bear the scar of that surgery to this day.  Later in my childhood, I fell and cut my wrist on a broken bottle.  You can still see the scar.  When I was in high school, I got a severely infected cyst on my neck, which had to be lanced, and a drain put in.  You can clearly see the scar today – especially when I’m sunburned!

If you have ever read Homer’s Odyssey, you may recall that Odysseus, the main character, leaves home to have some pretty exciting adventures.  When he finally gets back home, he disguises himself as an elderly beggar so no one recognizes him... until an elderly lady, who was his nursemaid, bathes him and sees the scar on his leg that he got when just a boy.  Then she knew it was he.  Our scars identify us.

On Larry King’s television show many years ago, one of my favorite actors, Harrison Ford, was a guest.  In introducing Ford, King said, “When Harrison Ford was twenty-one years old, he ran his car into a telephone pole and his chin hit the steering wheel.  Because he hadn’t had a lot of money at the time, he didn’t get proper treatment.  That’s why he has the scar.  But he wouldn’t get it fixed now,” King said, for it’s become his trademark.

As a priest, people sometimes tell me about their wounds, their scars, significant things which have happened to them in their lives which left lasting psychological or emotional wounds.  They may be healed, but the scars are still there, and they show themselves especially when these people are “sunburned” – stressed or wounded again.

You see, scars always carry a story.  And if we had time today, I imagine that just about every one of you could show-n-tell about some scar you have and just how you got it.  Some of those scars we can see because they are on the outside.  But others are inside, aren’t they?

A scar is the visible evidence that something has wounded us in some way - perhaps just a cut, or something much more traumatic.  It serves to remind us of that event.  So whenever I see the scar on neck or my wrist, I remember how it got there.

When Jesus first appeared to his disciples, they didn’t recognize him;  then he showed them his scars, and they knew it was their Master.  Thomas was not with them that day.  When they told him, “We’ve seen the Lord!”  Thomas said that he would not believe unless he saw and touched those scars.  So the next time they came together, Jesus came to be with them, and invited Thomas to touch the scars.  Whether Thomas actually touched them or not, we don’t know.  But upon seeing the scars, he fell on his knees and said, “My Lord and my God!”

The Risen Christ still had the scars of his crucifixion on his body.  He had a new, resurrected body, yet he still had the scars.  And he still bears those scars today.

All you Harry Potter fans out there [look at the youth] remember that Harry bears a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, a constant reminder of the sacrificial love of his mother which saved him from certain annihilation by Lord Voldemort’s death curse.

I believe the Risen Lord kept those scars as a reminder of his love for us, saving us from sure annihilation from our own destructiveness.  Those scars remind us of his story, of what he went through for us.  The scars on his brow are there to remind us of the crown of thorns mockingly pressed down there...for us;  the scar on his side, to help us remember the Roman spear that pierced his side....for us;  the scar on each hand and foot, there as reminders that the Son of God was nailed to a cross...for us.

Some of you may have read the story of Bob Stearns.  One day he was driving on the interstate in northern Virginia when he saw a woman have an accident.  Her car flipped over and caught on fire.  Without thinking of himself, he stopped his car, ran over to her, reached through the windshield, ignoring the flames, and pulled her out, and then, with the help of some others, put out the fire burning on her.  It was only a few minutes later that he realized that his arms were severely burned.  The picture in the newspaper showed him in the hospital receiving treatment.  She would have surely died had he not done that.  And for it he would be scarred for life.  But I can tell you for a fact that when that woman sees those scars on him, or when his family or friends see them, they will not see the ugliness of the scars, they will see his self-sacrificing love, they will remember what he did.

In a way, each time we gather to celebrate Holy Communion and partake of the body and blood of Christ, it reminds us that the Lord we serve is a scarred Savior.  It’s a call to look upon his scars and remember that he loved us so much that he stretched out his hands and feet on a cross, for us.

One other thought about scars...

A scar is a wound that has healed!  The scars on my wrist and neck are no longer wounds, they have healed.  Scars are signs that some healing has been happening.

The Risen Christ showed his disciples his scars;  and he still has them today, and they show us that they are healed and that through him we can have healing.  The scars on the body of the Risen Christ are there to show us that Jesus went through everything this world could throw at him, even crucifixion, yet he was victorious, and is now alive!  No wonder Thomas and the others could then go out without fear and so courageously serve him!  They saw the healed scars to prove that even death could not take him away.  And the disciples burst through those locked doors and took the world by storm with renewed courage and faith.

So we, too, can come to Christ with our doubts, our wounds, our scars, confident that he has been through everything we could ever experience, and more.  He knows our wounds.  He knows the stories behind our scars... because he’s been there.  He’s got the scars to prove it.  You see, quite often God begins to heal us through someone else who has been wounded, who has lived where we have lived, experienced our pain.  And then, out of their own woundedness, they are able to understand us, to love us, to help move us to healing.  Wounded healers are the very best healers.  Jesus is the Supreme Wounded Healer.  As First Peter says (quoting Isaiah), “By his wounds you have been healed.”  

Our Risen Lord still bears his scars, and he will not take ours away from us.  But he will help us use them to make us more sensitive, more caring for our wounded, scarred neighbors.  He will help us bring some healing to them from our own woundedness... and in the process continue to bring healing to us, ourselves.

Amen

(Much of the above was inspired by, or taken from, a sermon by Mitchell Bass)

April 4, 2010 – Easter Day

Year C

Trappist Monk Father Basil Pennington tells of a retreat he once attended at which he had a private meeting with a Zen Buddhist teacher.  Pennington says that the Zen teacher sat there smiling from ear to ear and rocking gleefully back and forth.  Finally the teacher said:  “I like Christianity.  But I would not like Christianity without the resurrection.  I want to see your resurrection!”  (retold by the Reverend Marilyn Omernick)

Basil Pennington says about his encounter with that Zen teacher, “With his directness, the teacher was saying what everyone else implicitly says to Christians:  You are a Christian.  You are risen with Christ.  Show me (what this means for you in your life) and I will believe.”  That is how people know if the resurrection is true or not.  Does it affect how we Christians live? 

In a sermon preached at her parish, author and lay Episcopalian Nora Gallagher talks about practicing resurrection.  She wonders whether we spend too much time in the church discussing whether we believe in the resurrection or do not believe in the resurrection.  By doing this, she thinks, we may miss the point.  She writes:

When I think about the resurrection now, I not only wonder about what happened to Jesus.  I ponder what happened to his disciples.  Something happened to them, too.  They went into hiding after the crucifixion, but after the resurrection appearances, they walked back out into the world.  They became braver and stronger;  they visited strangers, and healed the sick.  It was not just what they saw when they saw Jesus, or how they saw it, but what was set free in them... What if the resurrection is not about the appearances of Jesus alone, but also about what those appearances point to, what they ask?  It’s finally what we do with them that matters;  make them into superstitions, or use them as stepping stones to new life.  Maybe resurrection, like everything else, needs to be practiced.

The good news of Easter is that Jesus Christ, who was crucified, has been raised from the dead.  This belief, this truth, changes everything.  It means that cruelty is not the last word.  Sin and evil are not the ultimate powers of the universe.  Death does not get the final laugh.  Forgiveness and love and life are the ultimate realities.  New life is possible, now, here, today.  But for all that to happen, you and I need to practice resurrection.  

Anglican Bishop Tom Wright, a favorite of our Women’s Bible Study, notes that “the stories in the Gospels do not say, ‘Jesus is raised, therefore we’re going to heaven,’ or ‘therefore we’re going to be raised.’  They say ‘Jesus is raised, therefore God’s new creation has begun and we’ve got a job to do.’”  (emphases mine)  Now that Jesus has been raised, and we have been raised with him and empowered by his Holy Spirit, our job is to put resurrection into practice in our lives. 

At the end of one of his poems, Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins evokes the ongoing power of the resurrected Christ.  In prayerful words, he implores, “Let [Christ] easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us...”  (“The Wreck of the Deutschland”)  Hopkins turns the noun “Easter” into a verb – “let him easter in us”.  That’s what we need:  to change Easter from a noun to a verb, from a long-ago event to an ongoing practice, from a day of the year to a life-force.  Easter as a verb penetrates us, transforms us, and moves us out to be “a dayspring to the dimness of us”.  When Easter becomes a verb, that Zen teacher will see our resurrection, and new life will be breathed into our exhausted world.

In Jim Wallis’ book, God’s Politics, he tells of a time, years ago, when he traveled to South Africa.   It was at a time when Nelson Mandela was still in jail, and apartheid still had a strangle-hold on power.  Desmond Tutu was presiding at an ecumenical service at the Cathedral of St. George when a group of the notorious South African Security Police broke into the service.  Wallis writes:

Tutu stopped preaching and just looked at the intruders as they lined the walls of his cathedral, wielding writing pads and tape recorders. … They had already arrested Tutu and other church leaders just a few weeks before and kept them in jail for several days. … After meeting their eyes with his in a steely gaze, the church leader acknowledged their power ... but reminded them that he served a higher power than their political authority.  Then, in the most extraordinary challenge to political tyranny I have ever witnessed, Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the representatives of South African Apartheid, “Since you have already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!”  He said it with a smile on his face and an enticing warmth in his invitation, but with a clarity and a boldness that took everyone’s breath away.  The congregation’s response was electric.  The crowd was literally transformed by the bishop’s challenge to power.  From a cowering fear of the heavily armed security forces that surrounded the cathedral and greatly outnumbered the band of worshippers, we [were changed, and] literally leaped to our feet, shouted the praises of God, and began dancing.  We danced out of the cathedral to meet the awaiting police and military forces who, not knowing what else to do, backed up to provide the space for the people of faith to dance for freedom in the streets of South Africa.

Wallis reflects that apartheid did not die on the day Mandela was released from prison or on the day he was inaugurated President, but that it died the day of that celebration in the church, when they danced for freedom in the streets of South Africa.  Those worshippers became practitioners of resurrection.

Is it possible to practice resurrection in our own lives, in our cities and streets?  

The promise of Easter is that we can.  We don’t need to go about looking for the dead among the living, and we don’t need to go about living like the dead among the living.  Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead.  He is alive!  And because he is the first fruits, we can be assured that a similar future awaits us.  We need to be reminded of the truth of the resurrection over and over again.  But we also need to practice resurrection.  The truth of Easter is that the promise of new life doesn’t just await us in the future, but that we are able to live new lives, here and now, by the power of the resurrection.      AMEN

(Much of the above is taken from sermons by the Rev. Dr. Joseph S. Pagano, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland)

Easter Vigil, 2010

Summer is not far away now.  It is a time when many people travel.  If you are going to some popular vacation spot, and have told people about your trip, I am sure you have gotten a lot of advice on where to stay, where to eat, and what to see.

I don’t know if you have ever thought of it this way, but the Bible is a book of advice for travelers.  Everyone in the Bible is on a journey.  In the Old Testament they are journeying to the Promised Land.  In the New Testament it is to the Kingdom of God.  According to the Bible, all of us are travelers.

There are some books in the Bible, such as Exodus, that read like a travel journal.  There are other books that give flat out advice on how to get along on your journey, like the Book of Proverbs.  

In the New Testament it is pretty much the same.  Jesus said, “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  That meant that he was always moving, he had no permanent place.  He recruited people by saying, “Follow me.”  

One of the best pieces of advice in the Bible is the advice that St. Paul gives to the Corinthians.  He said all you need on this journey is, “faith, hope, and love;  and the greatest of these is love.”  That’s all.  Travel light.  (1 Cor. 13)

Travel light.  Don’t get bogged down with your baggage.  Don’t get preoccupied with the wrong things.  Don’t get concerned about things that are on the periphery of life, the things that are not essential to life, because you will miss the joy and meaning of the journey.

The central story in the Old Testament is the story of the Exodus, the people of Israel traveling across the desert wilderness for forty years, the story which we read earlier.  We heard that the people did not walk alone.  God accompanied them all the way.  He was with them:  a “pillar of fire by night, and a cloud by day.”

No sooner did they get settled down in the Promised Land, than they had to pack up and go on another journey, this time into exile, to Babylon, a trip that nobody wanted to take.  To their amazement they discovered that God accompanied them on that trip, too.  That is why the psalmist sings,

Where shall I go from your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from

 your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!  If I make my bed in hell, you

 are there! 
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts

 of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold

 me.                                                                  Psalms 139:7-10

That is the second thing the Bible says about your journey – you’ll never travel alone.  And that is exactly what the Bible says the Resurrection means.  It says that now we don’t travel alone.  The Lord is with us “always, to the very end of the age.”  (Matt. 28:20)

(The above was taken in large part from a sermon by Mark Trotter, Christian Globe Networks, Inc., 2007)

Our Easter Vigil service is a travel narrative.  If we read all of the nine suggested Old Testament readings tonight, we would get a sense of the sweep of God’s saving history – from the Creation of the world, to our disobedience in the garden of Eden, God saving Noah and his family from the flood, God delivering us from slavery into freedom that first Passover, God raising up life for us when we are as good as dead, dry bones;  God replacing our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.  Throughout these Old Testament readings, we can see that God was always with us in our journey (for we are the people of Israel, also).  He saved us from our own sin, saved us from slavery in Egypt to bring us to freedom in that first Passover.  And in our baptism, he unites us with his Son Jesus Christ in his journey from death into life.  For this evening is our Christian service of Passover.  As St. Paul writes:  “Christ OUR Passover is sacrificed for us.  Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and wickedness;  but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”   (1 Corinthians 5:7-8) 

Now, we hear “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us;  therefore let us keep the feast” at every Eucharist;  but we never finish the sentence, which tells us what the feast means, and what it means to keep it.  “Keeping the feast” doesn’t mean that we are diligent in observing the Eucharist.  If that’s all it meant, then a tasteless wafer and tiny sip of wine would make a poor feast, indeed.  No;  the feast which Paul speaks about is partaking in the life of our Risen Lord, who through the Paschal Mystery of his suffering, death, and resurrection brings us with him from the old leaven of malice and wickedness into the unleavened life of sincerity and truth.  THIS is OUR Passover feast – living in the Risen Life of Christ, which is the very meaning of our baptism.      

AMEN

Good Friday, 2010

On December 6, 1829, George Wilson robbed a United States mail carrier in Pennsylvania.  He was subsequently captured, tried, and found guilty of six criminal acts, which included robbery of the mail and putting the life of the driver in jeopardy.  On May 27^th, George Wilson received his sentence:  Execution by hanging.  The sentence was to be carried out in five weeks – on July 2nd, 1830.

Shortly before the execution date a number of Wilson’s influential friends pleaded for mercy to the President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, on behalf of their friend.  President Jackson issued a formal pardon.  The death sentence charges were dropped.  For the remaining charges, Wilson would only have to serve a prison term of twenty years.

But George Wilson refused the pardon.

According to the official report, THE UNITED STATES VERSUS GEORGE WILSON (Peters 7 Report Sections 150-163), Wilson was returned to court as lawyers attempted to “force” the pardon on him.  It is recorded that George Wilson chose to:

“...waive and decline any advantage or protection which might be supposed to arise from the pardon...”  Wilson himself stated that he “...had nothing to say, and that he did not wish in any manner to avail himself [of the pardon] in order to avoid sentence ...”

The case reached the United States Supreme Court.  Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the following in the Court’s decision:

A pardon is an act of grace… a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential;  and delivery is not completed without acceptance.  It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered;  and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.  (emphases mine)

A pardon is an act of grace… a deed… and delivery is not completed without acceptance…

We hear that true story and we wonder what kind of crazy person would refuse the pardoning of a death sentence, refuse the gift of life!  Imagine yourself, condemned to be put to death in 5 short weeks.  Knowing the day you will die – one minute breathing, the next minute dead.  Memories flood your mind – a lifetime of memories.  Dreams that will never be realized.  Children whom you will never see grow up. 

And then the word comes to you in your prison cell that you have been pardoned!  The sentence of death has been dropped! 

How would you feel?  The word “euphoric” might come to mind.  Perhaps disbelieving.  Stunned. 

When you recover from the shock, what is your response?  “No, I don’t think I’ll accept the pardon”? 

And yet, like George Wilson, you and I do this, over and over.  We refuse the gift of life.  Oh, I don’t mean physical life – I’d be willing to bet there isn’t a person here who wouldn’t choose to live rather than be hanged.  What we refuse is the gift of life in relationship to God, the kind of life Jesus was referring to when he said, “I have come in order that you might have life—and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)  It’s this kind of life that we refuse to accept.

Why do we do this?  When it comes to the gift of Life in God through Jesus Christ, why are so many of us George Wilsons?

We might begin to answer that question by remembering what we said last night, when we spoke of the meaning of the foot washing.  We said that in washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus was being a host, inviting his disciples into his home, which is his Father’s heart, to share life in a new relationship.  In addition, we said that if the foot washing was the inauguration of a new relationship with Jesus, it was at the same time the inauguration of his passion – his suffering and death.  If we accept the invitation to enter relationship with God in Christ, we cannot avoid suffering.  As St. Paul wrote:  “we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, provided that we share his suffering, so as to share his glory.”  (Romans 8:17) 

Joint-heirs;  sharing his suffering, so as to share his glory.  The Life which comes with this new relationship with God in Christ is, like all good relationships, shared, mutual, not one-sided. 

This means we may have to re-assess our understanding of what Jesus’ death on the cross means for us. 

The dominant model in America for what the cross of Jesus means is that his death was a sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins.  But that is not the only model – nor is it a model which would be supported by the Gospel of John, which is our reading tonight.  While the word “forgiveness” is found in 7 verses in Mark, 12 in Matthew, and 15 in Luke, it is found in only one verse in John.  And as we have seen in our Adult Class these past few months, St. Paul doesn’t use the word “forgiveness” in any of his undisputed letters.  Never.  Instead, when Paul speaks of the cross (which he does all the time!), he describes it as a means by which we are reconciled with God through Christ.  Reconciled – as when relationships are broken and are then reconciled. 

John, in his Gospel, sees things in a similar way.  Jesus’ death on the cross isn’t a sacrifice which forgives all our sins.  As we discussed in our Lenten classes, one person can forgive another person even when that other person doesn’t repent – even when the relationship between the persons is not reconciled.  Jesus’ death on the cross, then, could forgive someone’s sins even though that person’s relationship with God is never reconciled. 

St. Paul and St. John would never see the power of the cross as anything less than the power to reconcile the broken relationships between human beings and God. 

But reconciliation (restoration of relationship) involves both parties.  Yes, as we heard in our Epistle yesterday, Christ did not count equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking human form, becoming obedient even to an agonizing death on a cross. (Phil. 2:8)  God could not have gone further to reach out to, identify with, offer reconciliation to alienated humanity.  But that offer is not enough;  it must be accepted.  As Chief Justice Marshall said in the case of George Wilson, “A pardon is an act of grace… a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential;  and delivery is not completed without acceptance.”  Christ’s death on the cross is far more than a pardon;  it is an invitation into the heart of God.  And God invites us into that relationship with him;  he doesn’t hijack us.  He knows that that relationship cost his son everything, and that it will likewise cost us.  Jesus took upon himself the fullness of humanity, with all its joys, sufferings, and deaths, and if we are to unite ourselves with him, we cannot avoid the fullness of humanity ourselves – with all its joys, sufferings, and deaths.

This past Monday, the Associated Press reported that 43-year-old Russian mathematics genius Grigory Perelman had just been awarded a prize of $1 million by the Clay Mathematics Institute for solving a problem that had stumped mathematicians for a century.   

Perelman hasn’t decided yet whether he will accept the prize. 

The cross of Jesus invites you into something far more valuable:  new life in a transformed relationship with him in the heart of his Heavenly Father. 

Will you accept?

AMEN

Maundy Thursday

April 1, 2010

In our Gospel reading this evening, Jesus comes to Peter to wash his feet;  and Peter (who represents us) says to Jesus, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

It’s a reasonable question to ask!  Jesus was his disciples’ teacher, and they were his students;  he was their leader, and they were his followers.  It was logical to be surprised – even shocked! – at this action of Jesus, and to ask, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Wouldn’t we feel the same way?

Jesus answers Peter (who represents us):  “What I am doing, you do not understand now…”  He is, in effect, saying to Peter, “Trust me.  You may not understand in your head, but trust me in your heart, and receive from me the gift I am giving you.”  But Peter says to Jesus, “No.  You are never going to wash my feet.” 

Now, we may think Peter a little insolent here, but can’t we understand his reaction?  He is only acting the way a disciple should – serving his Lord.  If anyone is going to assume a posture of humility here, it’s going to be Peter.  If anyone is going to be the servant here, it’s going to be the disciple, not the Master! 

And don’t we – Peter’s descendants – continue to do the same thing in our lives today?  We tell Jesus, in effect, “We’ll kneel at your feet, Lord, but you will never kneel at ours.  We will serve you, but you will never serve us.  You gave your life for us;  now it’s our turn to serve you, to sacrifice for you.  We did nothing to deserve the price you paid, and we could never settle the debt;  but let us at least pay what we can.”    

You hear what’s going on?  It’s the language of transaction.  “Lord, you paid the price for my sins, and so the least I can do is try to pay you back – by tithing my income, fasting during Lent, attending church regularly, doing good deeds, praying daily.  These are such small things I can do, given all that you’ve done for me.  Lord, I’ll kneel at your feet, worship you, praise you, glorify your name.  You gave your all on the cross;  now I must give back.”

The language of transaction.

Peter – who represents us – misunderstands.  He thinks that washing feet is a matter of the appropriate roles of master and servant.  And on one level, Jesus says he is giving us an example of servanthood which he wants us to follow.  But Peter would understand Jesus giving him an example to follow!  Jesus says that there is a deeper level of meaning going on here that Peter cannot now comprehend, for it goes against every cultural and religious teaching or tradition he has ever known.  Far more profound than a reversal of roles, Jesus is redefining his relationship with his disciples. 

In the First Century Mediterranean world, washing feet was a service a host provided for his guests.  In washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus is being host – in effect, inviting his disciples into his home.  Yet the home into which he invites them is not his physical home, but his spiritual home – and that home is in his Heavenly Father’s heart.  In this symbolic act of foot-washing, Jesus is inviting his disciples to live with him in his Heavenly Father’s heart.  He will instruct them later this same evening, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.” (John 15:4, JB)  The foot-washing is an intimate, sacramental act by which Jesus invites his disciples into full relationship with himself and God.  In the words of scholar Gail O’Day, “It draws the disciple into the love that marks God’s and Jesus’ relationship to each other and to the world… If one removes oneself from this [symbolic] act, then one removes oneself from Jesus and the promises of God.  To have Jesus wash one’s feet is to receive from Jesus an act of hospitality that decisively alters one’s relationship to Jesus and, through Jesus, to God.”  (The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, p. 723, emphases mine) 

Decisively alters one’s relationship to Jesus and to God.  It is the need for a transformed relationship with God, and the means by which that transformation occurs, that Peter cannot understand – and so often, I think, that we cannot understand.  Perhaps that is why John devotes 5 chapters in his Gospel to describe what happens in that upper room that first Maundy Thursday evening.

Later that evening, Jesus tells his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends… No longer do I call you servants… but I have called you friends.”  (John 15:13-15) 

We can only scratch the surface of what it means to be friends with Jesus (and I cringe at the superficial “Jesus my buddy” sentimentalism this has engendered);  but at the very least it means that there has been a radical realignment of Jesus’ relationship with his disciples, and by extension, with us.  There is no hierarchy of servanthood among friends – friends serve friends.  The Master will serve the disciple, and the disciple the Master, if they are friends.  That truth is lived out in the foot washing, that act of hospitality in which Jesus “draws the disciples [and us] into the love that marks God’s and Jesus’ relationship to each other and to the world.”  For Peter or us to say that Jesus will never wash our feet is to reject this hospitality which radically transforms our relationship with Jesus, God, and each other.

Under this new relationship, it makes little sense to say, “Jesus, you gave your all for me;  and now it’s my turn to give my all for you.”  That’s the language of transaction!  In true friendship, one friend may make a huge sacrifice for a second friend, such that the second friend feels forever in the first friend’s debt;  but that doesn’t mean that the first friend stops serving the second friend.  True friendship always involves mutual servanthood. 

What this means for us is that, while we are forever in Jesus’ debt, we can never say to Jesus, “You’ve served me enough;  I’m not going to let you do that any more.  It’s my turn to serve you.”  Our relationship with Jesus, God, and one another radically changed with that first foot washing – though, like Peter, we may not yet understand.  We still call Jesus “Lord” and “Master”, and Jesus says it is appropriate to do so (John 13:13);  but that added relationship of “friend” means that there is a mutual servanthood:  Jesus, our Lord and Master, will continue to serve us, even as we serve him and one another. 

There is, however, another aspect of this new relationship which was inaugurated by the foot washing.  Being drawn into union with God and Jesus means for us what it meant for Peter and those first disciples:  that we are also drawn into the mystery of his suffering and death, the Paschal Mystery, the whole sweep of these three days:  betrayal, abandonment, agony, death, and resurrection.  If the foot washing is the inauguration of a new relationship, it is also the inauguration of Jesus’ suffering and death.  And we – as his friends, united in him – cannot escape suffering and death, either.  As St. Paul wrote:  “we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, provided that we share his suffering, so as to share his glory.”  (Romans 8:17) 

Soon we shall remove the trappings of the feast, and leave the altar bare and cold, for tonight is the night of betrayal, and tomorrow is the day of despair.  But he has called us his friends, and we must watch with him…  We must watch and pray that the bond of charity may hold us firm as his friends, and friends of one another.   (citation lost)

AMEN

Lent 5, Year C

March 21, 2010

Isaiah 43:16-21

Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior;  they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:  Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing;  now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches;  for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

Philippians 3:8-14

More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own;  but this one thing I do:  forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Throughout the Old Testament, God’s chosen people are exhorted to remember.  Remember.  Psalm 106 reads, “Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wonderful works [O God];  they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love… they soon forgot [Your] works...” (vss. 7; 13).  Deuteronomy cautions, “...take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.” (4:9)  

Throughout Scripture, God calls us to remember that He created us;  to remember His promises;  to remember the mighty, saving works He did at the Red Sea, His provision of meat and manna in the wilderness, His giving of the Law to Moses at Mt. Sinai, His bringing Israel into the Promised Land, His covenant with David.  And these are not just stories of the ancient Israelites;  they are our stories, stories of who we are as inheritors of the promises to Abraham and to David.

In the New Testament, we are also called to remember.   Some time after the multiplication of loaves and fish, Jesus asks his disciples, “Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?” (Matt. 16:9)  At the empty tomb, the angel tells the women, “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” (Luke 24:5-7)  After his resurrection, Jesus tells his followers, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)  You and I must recall our faith stories over and over, for we are so likely to forget who we are, to forget our covenant in baptism, to forget that everything we are and have comes from God.  “Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus told the Twelve at the Last Supper, and we gather here at this table to re-member that meal, that closeness to Jesus, and the gift of his life for us.

Remember;  remember.  It is one of the most important things we can do in our spiritual journey! 

In our Old Testament lesson today,  Isaiah writes, “Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters…”  Isaiah is calling us to remember God’s mighty deliverance at the Red Sea.  But then listen to what God says next:  “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing…”  

What is going on here?  First, Isaiah calls to our remembrance God’s deliverance at the Red Sea;  and then we are told to forget all the former things!  

What is Scripture calling us to do:  to remember, or to forget?

In our Old Testament reading, Isaiah is addressing the Jews who are in exile in Babylon.  They know by rote the stories of their ancestors.  They know that after the exodus from Egypt, their forefathers wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, zig-zagging through the Sinai desert.  They grumbled at Moses and at God because there was nothing to eat;  and so God sent them manna.  They murmured at Moses and God because they had no water to drink;  and so God told Moses to strike a rock, and water came forth. (See Psalm 78!)  Forty years wandering.  But God saved them;  and that salvation became the very foundation-stone of Jewish faith.  Are the Jews exiled in Babylon now to forget that salvation?

No!  Never!  They must always remember!

But God is about to perform a new exodus – their release from captivity in Babylon.  This exodus will be different;  it will be better!  No wandering in the desert for 40 years;  God is going to build a highway in the wilderness, from Babylon straight to Jerusalem!  They won’t have to drink water from a rock;  God is going to cause rivers to spring up in the desert!  New, marvelous things!

St. Paul writes in our Epistle, “whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ...  I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value – the far more important value – of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...  forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

My friends, God does not want us to forget what he has done for us in the past!  He wants us to remember those times in our lives when we have felt His presence strongly;  those times when we have thrilled to His majesty;  those times when He has breathed on us His Spirit, when he has touched us with His healing touch.  And he wants those remembrances to encourage us, uplift us, strengthen us.  But he wants us to know that He is never constrained, never limited by the past;  and we must never live in the past.   

In one of the most poignant moments in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, the bleeding, beaten Jesus falls under the weight of carrying his cross, and his mother Mary runs up to comfort him.  Exhausted, collapsing under his burden, what does he say to her?  “Mother, behold:  I make all things new.”

I make all things new.

Remember God’s promises and God’s gifts to you in the past.  But if you expect God’s blessings in the future to be re-runs, forget it!  God is doing a new thing, a better thing for all of us who are open to receive it.  That is the very meaning of the resurrection of Jesus, toward which we look throughout this holy season of Lent.  That is the very meaning of our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ:  new life!

Do you think you know what this coming Easter will bring, since you have experienced scores of Easters in the past?  Forget it.  God has something fresh and new, something even better in mind, if you are open to receive it.

Think you know what it is that you will receive when you come forward to the altar rail today, since you have done so thousands of times before?  Forget it;  or you will not be open to Christ’s presence coming to you in new, life-giving ways. 

Think you know what will happen tomorrow?

Perhaps you do.  You have your day all planned out;  you are in total control.  You will do what you want to do, when you want to do it. 

But what if you wake up tomorrow and instead of asking yourself, “What am I going to do today?” you ask instead, “God, what new and wonderful thing are you doing today?  And how might I be part of it?”            

AMEN

Lent 4, Year C

March 14, 2010

Luke 15: 11-32  Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons.  The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them.  A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.  When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.   So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.  He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.  But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;   I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."'  So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'  But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;  for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.  Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.  He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.  He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.'  Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.  But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!'  Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"

The parable of the Prodigal Son is at the same time one of the most encouraging and most disturbing stories in our Bible.  It is encouraging in that it shows us the mercy and forgiveness of God;  but it is disturbing in that it seems to violate our sense of what is fair. 

A man’s younger son comes to his father and asks for his share of the inheritance.  Now, we know that normally one inherits one’s father’s possessions after the father has died;  in asking for his inheritance while the father is still living, the younger son is taking away part of what the father is living on.  But God always gives us the freedom to make good or bad decisions, selfish or noble, and the loving father gives his younger son what he asks for.

Jesus says this younger son then squanders all the inheritance in loose living, and ends up feeding pigs ‑-­ animals which, according to Jewish law, are unclean, and which no proper Jew would ever come near.  The son finally comes to himself and decides to return to his father.  On his way home, he composes in his mind his confession of sin.  But the father doesn’t even let him get all the words out of his mouth before he forgives him and showers him with gifts showing his status as a treasured son – the father’s own robe and signet ring, and shoes (for only slaves went barefoot).  What is remarkable is the father’s instant (and, some would say, foolish) forgiveness with no strings attached.  In the words of one preacher, “There were no extra steps between the younger son’s return and his welcome home party:  no heart‑to‑heart with the old man, no extra chores, no go‑to‑your‑room‑for‑a‑week‑and‑think‑about‑what-you‑have‑done...” (Lectionary Homiletics, March 1995, p. 37)  Just kill the fatted calf, “for this my son was dead, and is alive again;  he was lost, and is found.”

In the meantime, the older brother is coming in from the fields, hears the music and the hubbub, asks a servant what’s going on, and finds out that his renegade brother has returned.

Barbara Brown Taylor describes the elder son’s thoughts this way:

Let the penitents come home, by all means;  but let them come home to penance, not a party.  Where is the moral instruction in that kind of welcome?  What about facing the consequences of your actions?  What about reaping what you sow?  What kind of world would this be if we all made a practice of rewarding sinners while the God‑fearing folk are still out in the fields?

I mean, what do you have to do to get a little attention around here?  The church thrives on its ministries to the poor, the [hurting], the sick ... but what about those who are holding their own?  What about those who are burning their candles at both ends, trying to serve God and keep up with their other responsibilities, too?   What about those who work hard to keep their jobs and stay in their relationships and take care of their health and pay their dues but never seem to get any credit for it, while the [wayward] and the addicted and the downtrodden get all the attention?  What do you have to do to get a party around here?  Do you have to go off and squander your inheritance before you can come home to be embraced, and kissed, and assured that you belong?” (Ibid.)

In our lives, we seem to choose paths by which we hope to gain acceptance, worth, and love.  Some of us, often the first‑born, are conformists, trying to win approval by obedience and conformity to the accepted family pattern:  take over the family business, go to college, be successful.  Others, often the youngest, give up trying to compete with the excelling older sibling for attention and a sense of accomplishment.  Those of us who fall into this category may see rebellion and nonconformity as the only way to get the attention we so desperately yearn for.  And it is so easy to construe attention as love.

You may have sought love in your own family by being dutiful, obedient, or overachieving;  or, perhaps, by being rebellious, causing a stir, demanding attention in that way.  Most of us probably fell somewhere in between.  But is not the goal nevertheless the same:  to gain love and acceptance?  We are unsure of our worth, so we build up our defenses against being seen as deficient in some way.  We create a façade, a “false self’, a persona with which we feel comfortable and which we come to believe is who we really are.  We can live with that persona most of our lives, having no inkling of our true identity – the person God sees us to be and loves.

In our parable, we see a powerful reversal.  The younger brother, the rebel, now returns home with a humble servant attitude, knowing his own sinfulness;  while the older brother, the obedient conformist, now stands rebelliously outside the house refusing to enter into the fellowship of the family.  Having felt that he was loved and accepted because of his obedience, compliance, and conformity, he now feels all his efforts to gain his father’s love and favor have been cheapened:  his father’s love and favor, which he had purchased at the price of hard work and years of faithful compliance, are now being given away -‑­ freely ‑‑ to his younger brother, who did nothing to deserve them. 

“[The elder son] wants his father to love him as he deserves to be loved ‑‑ because he has stayed put, and followed orders, and done the right thing.” (ibid.)  But it appears the older son did all the right things for the wrong reasons.  “I have slaved for you all my life,” he tells his father, “and I have never failed to do a thing that you have asked me to do, but you never gave me so much as a goat for a party with my friends.” 

Do we believe that our living a life according to God’s desires is being God’s slave?  Do we never take any joy in doing God’s will, never celebrate such a life?  Is our obedience such a burden?  Can it not pour forth from a loving relationship with our heavenly Father?  Or are we only interested in our “just desserts”? 

If we demand that God treat everybody “fairly”, heaven help us.  If God treated me as I deserved, and not with mercy and forgiveness, what hope would there be for my life?  Is not the very definition of grace “God’s undeserved favor”? 

Each week during Lent, we have heard this “Comfortable Word” – a quote from Paul’s first letter to Timothy:  “This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”  It is interesting to me that that quotation is an unfinished sentence, only part of the verse.  The whole verse goes like this:  “This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.”  If St. Paul is the worst of sinners, what am I?  What are you? 

And so, as I take this parable to heart, my prayer is this:  I thank you, most merciful God, for pouring your grace and love upon me, an undeserving sinner.  And I thank you that you continue to shower your grace upon all your children – self-righteous older sons and wayward younger sons alike.  I thank you that you don’t give us what we deserve, but what we need – your astonishing love. 

AMEN

Lent 3, Year C

March 7, 2010

Luke 13:1  At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.  He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.  Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."  Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.  So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'  He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.  If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

The kids in the youth group sat down to share supper together.  It was a very tasty meal, but also very gooey, and the appearance of the food elicited a commentary by one of the youth:  “It reminds me of what we’re dissecting in Biology Class,” this youth observed, and then she proceeded to go into graphic detail about the dissection.  Another youth made a gagging sound, and said, “Please, I’m trying to eat!”  It was the kind of conversation each of us can probably remember from our own more playful teenage years. 

But it got me to thinking:  Do we – much older and more refined (we tell ourselves) – still carry on similar conversations?  Oh, we don’t talk about dissecting frogs in Biology class;  but do we not practice other kinds of dissection?  Do we not still play the role of the student standing over the dissecting table:  a critical, uninvolved observer taking apart some thing, some one, some situation, and examining it, criticizing it, comparing it with our own “superior” position?  Take politics, for instance.  We might say, “Notice that Senator’s amphibious thinking.  Totally motivated by primal instincts – obviously a less developed nervous system.  See that part stained green over there?  The influence of money.  My highly developed consciousness and high ethical standards mean that I have evolved beyond such primitive motivations.”   It is what happens all day long on the radio and TV talk shows, in blogs on the Internet, in unspoken thoughts mulling through our minds, and at times even at Coffee Hour in church:  We stand objectively removed, as if over a dissecting tray, and take apart other situations, other events, other people.  We do not put ourselves in the equation;  we are the “wise, objective observer” who sees the situation clearly. 

In our Gospel lesson, some people come up to Jesus and tell him:  “Did you hear?  Pilate has just killed some Galileans while they were preparing their ritual sacrifices to God!  The blood of the Galileans was mixed with the blood of their offerings!”  They expect Jesus to fire off a scathing attack on Pilate, who is one of their favorite scapegoats for all the problems they are experiencing.  Or perhaps what they are expecting is some theological critique:  “Those Galileans must have sinned badly for God to punish them like that!”  Typical talk show fare. 

But they get none of that from Jesus.  Instead, he responds:  “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  No, I tell you;  but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  Wait a minute, Jesus;  let’s not get personal!  We were talking about those Galileans;  not about ourselves!  Don’t drag us into this!  Remember, we’re the objective ones doing the dissecting here!”

But Jesus is relentless.  He goes on:  “Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you;  but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” 

Now he’s gone from preachin’ to meddlin’!

Jesus knows that no one is ever spiritually transformed by focusing on “those others”.  No one is changed by the question, “What about them?”  Jesus is telling his listener:  “Stop seeing yourself as the student standing over the dissecting tray, who has nothing in common with that poor animal cut open in the tray.  Instead, look at the situation in which others find themselves and ask yourself:  “What does this mean for my life?  What do these tragedies which have happened to other people call me to be and to do?” 

By responding the way he does, Jesus turns the tables on the questioners, putting them in the dissecting tray!  They themselves become the focus.  And that is precisely what Jesus wants:  for no matter how much attention is paid to the cruelty of Pilate, the most thorough dissection of Pilate will change no one, unless we ask ourselves, “What does this mean for me?”.  No matter how much attention is paid to the possible sinfulness of those on whom the tower fell, it will change no one, unless we realize, as Jesus points out, that “There, but by the grace of God, go I.”  “Look at yourselves,” Jesus tells us – and in the most shocking language he can think of!  For we need to be shocked out of our entrenched “objective observer” mode – in our worship (take to heart our Exhortation this morning), as well as in our lives – if our thoughts, hearts, and actions are going to be transformed, more and more, into the image of God.

Writer Elizabeth Sherrill says that she came to the realization of the meaning of repentance, and our need to change our own lives, while reading a book on preventing osteoporosis.  One sentence in the book read:  “Like all living tissue, bone is constantly being broken down and reformed.”  Sherrill remarks:  “The words seemed to apply not only to our bodies but to the perpetual Christian emphasis on brokenness.  Repent!....  It’s living tissue that is continually torn down and rebuilt.  As long as my relationship to God is alive, this biological fact seems to suggest the tearing-down process will be part of it...” (from “Journey into Rest”, Christianity Today, Vol. 35, #7)

As long as my relationship to God is alive, the tearing-down process will be part of it. 

And yet, if you are like me, you resist this life-renewing process with every fiber of your being.  You shore up your old sinful behaviors, tuck-point your character flaws, fill in the cracks in your defensive walls in a frantic effort to keep any part of you – even your greatest sin – from being torn down. 

We don’t like to have any part of us torn down!  And yet, is this not, at least in part, exactly what Jesus is telling us, in our Gospel lesson, needs to happen?  To tear down the barriers which keep us “objective observers” dispassionate students standing over the dissecting tray?  Jesus forces us to climb into the dissecting tray, to identify with that poor cut-open animal, to realize that the people whom we dissect are no different from ourselves.  What happened to those hapless Galileans killed by Pilate, or the Jerusalemites crushed by the falling tower, could just as easily happen to you and me.  And unless we repent, Jesus says, we will likewise perish—not by being slaughtered at the altar or having a tower fall on us;  but spiritually.  Without the ongoing, living process of tearing down the old, hard tissue of our heart and having it re-created more and more in the soft and vulnerable image of God’s heart, we perish spiritually.  Our heart becomes stone.

The good news is that repentance is largely gift.  It comes to us out of the compassion of God—like the compassionate gardener in the second half of today’s Gospel.  But we must be willing to have the barriers torn down, the hard soil at our roots broken up and turned over, the sometimes-unpleasant manure spread around us, and our sclerotic hearts gradually replaced with the soft, vulnerable tissue of God.  Yes, God will help us repent;  but God will not do it against our will.  A.W. Tozer said, “God will take nine steps toward us, but he will not take the tenth.”  Yet God takes those nine steps first, before he expects us to take the tenth.  As Paul wrote to the Romans, “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  Our Heavenly Father does not wait for us to repent before he makes his move.  God, in Christ, has already taken the nine steps toward us.  We lack only that tenth step, that willingness to have the barriers down, the barriers which keep us as objective observer, detached onlookers standing above the dissecting tray. 

AMEN

Lent 2, Year C

Feb. 28, 2010

Luke 13: 31-35  At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus], "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you."   He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.  Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.'   Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!   See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

“It is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem.”

A scholar once said that “the prophets are the beating hearts of the Old Testament”;  and he was right.  The Old Testament prophets were the carriers of zeal for God, and transmitters of God’s passion for his people.  And in our Gospel today, Jesus identifies himself with these prophets, the beating hearts of the Old Testament.

Jesus seems to be driven by a passion, a single-mindedness, a zeal.  Given the disturbing news that Herod, the ruler of Galilee, wants to kill him, Jesus is undeterred.  He is consumed with his calling, his mission, and nothing – including a death threat from King Herod – will stop him from fulfilling it.  He says to the Pharisees:  “Go and tell that fox [Herod], ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach my goal.’  Nevertheless, I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day;  because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  See, your house is left to you...’”

It is a lament of God – so similar to other laments proclaimed by those beating hearts of the Old Testament!  A lament of God, for our Heavenly Father grieves over all his failed efforts to bring his children into his household, into his loving care, into communion with him;  failed efforts because we refuse Him, over and over again.  Jesus paints the powerful picture of Himself as a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings for care and protection – and yet the chicks, God’s beloved children, refuse to come, refuse relationship with God, the loving, protective mother hen.  “How often have I longed to gather your children together... but you were not willing!”  What more can God do?  What more can any parent do with children who refuse to receive the gifts the parent offers? 

I recently came across a poem entitled, “A Parent’s Love”.  It is a poem about a mother wanting to give everything to her child, but discovering the disconnection between her wanting to give and her child’s wanting to receive.  Here is an excerpt:

I gave you life,

but I cannot live it for you. 

I can teach you things,

but I cannot make you learn.

I can take you to church,

but I cannot make you believe.

I can teach you right from wrong,

but I cannot always decide for you.

I can offer you advice,

but I cannot accept it for you.

I can give you love,

but I cannot force it upon you...

I think that is how God feels about Jerusalem, God’s people – about you and me!  “I can offer you advice, but I cannot accept it for you.  I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you...”  And so God’s people will have their choice;  we will have our choice.  Of all the creatures in God’s creation, only human beings can say no to God.

If we have been given the awesome gift of free will, it follows that we must live with the results of our choices.  And so God tells Jerusalem, tells the people, “See, your house is left to you to live in as you have chosen.  You have rejected me and my messengers, [and so] you will live without me [as you have chosen]…”

“Surely not!” you might say.  “God would never leave us with the consequences of our poor choices!”  Yet, as the parent in the poem cannot force her child to receive the love she offers, so God cannot force his divine love upon us.  We are free to accept or reject, and we live with the consequences of our choices.  I believe this is what is meant by God’s judgment:  nothing more – or less – than the consequences of our choices.  

But having said all this – all of which I believe to be true! – there is still something troublesome about today’s Gospel lesson.  Yes, Jesus speaks the words of a prophet, telling Jerusalem – God’s people (perhaps us!) – that their own house will be left to them because they have rejected God’s repeated invitations to relationship, God’s offers of love, God’s prophets.  The message seems crystal clear. 

But... 

But Jesus is saying this even as he resolutely heads toward Jerusalem for the purpose of saving God’s people, which will mean his rejection and death, just like the prophets before him.  In other words, Jesus is prophesying that God will leave his own people to the consequences of their own choices, even as he is resolutely pouring out his life and love for these same rebellious people – for us!

What kind of God is this, who will not stop offering his very self, even after we have said, “No!  No!  A thousand times, no!?” 

Did you not hear us, God?  We made a choice!  We said, “No!”  You have given us free will to decide for ourselves;  will you not leave us to live – or die – with the consequences of our decision?  We have rejected you!  Why do you continue your journey to the cross?

AMEN

Lent 1, Year C

February 21, 2010

Luke 4: 1 - 13  

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.  The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."  Jesus answered him, "It is written, "One does not live by bread alone.'"

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.  And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."  Jesus answered him, "It is written, "Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, "He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and "On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"  Jesus answered him, "It is said, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

“Lent: Humbug!”

Such is what a good number of us Christians think these days.  Lent is of no more use to us than Christmas was to Ebenezer Scrooge.  

The reasons for our finding Lent somewhat meaningless are varied:  we resent being told we must discipline our lives;  we cannot afford to take on any extra chore or spare any time;  we refuse to change the habits of our lives;  we don’t want to reflect on our motivations;  we are afraid of facing our inner feelings;  and on and on.  But mostly, I think, we tell ourselves, we simply don’t need Lent.  We lead fairly decent lives, and are fairly good people;  we don’t need to fast, pray, give alms, and repent.

Repent of what, after all?

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” St. John wrote in his first Epistle.  We human beings seem to have an infinite capacity to deceive ourselves. 

I’d like to explore with you this morning three common reasons we may believe we have little of which to repent.

The first reason we may think we are not sinful is that we tend to shirk responsibility for the wrongs that are done in our lives.  Many of you remember the character Geraldine on the Flip Wilson Show many years ago, whose favorite saying was, “The Devil made me do it.”  We laughed at that because we could recognize our tendencies to deny responsibility for our own actions.  The Devil may be at work, to be sure, but do we not – most of the time, anyway – have the choice of whether or not to listen to the Devil’s temptings?  There is a deep and powerful desire within each of us to assign blame anywhere else but with ourselves.  Whenever we find ourselves in a pickle, we are frantic to point the finger at someone, or something, which caused us to end up in the brine.  Since it wasn’t our fault, we have nothing of which to repent.

Several years ago, a Creighton University football player cut classes and missed appointments with a tutor – and then sued the University because he could barely read or write!  He skipped classes and missed appointments with a tutor, and then it was the University’s fault that he could barely read or write!

An extreme example, perhaps, but I think it reflects a general tendency in our society not to take responsibility.  Each of us must ask ourselves how it is we might be avoiding responsibility for our lives, our decisions, how we use our time, talent, and treasure, and how we treat others.  

A second reason we may believe that we have little of which to repent is that we think our right to freedom implies that we should never have to preclude any options in our lives—even when those options are sinful options, selfish options, hurtful options.  We hear a lot today about our “rights”, but not so much about what is right.  To a great extent our “rights” have taken precedence over what is “right”.  In a Frank and Ernest comic strip, Frank tells Ernest, “I don’t mind fleeing temptation, so long as I can leave a forwarding address.”  St. Paul writes to the Galatians:  “...you were called...to liberty;  but be careful, or this liberty will provide an opening for self-indulgence.” (Gal. 5:13)  Anglican clergyman, author, and teacher Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875) revealed a real truth when he wrote:  “There are two freedoms...the false [freedom] where a man is free to do what he likes...;  [and] the true [freedom], where a man is free to do what he ought.”  We demand for ourselves the false freedom to do what we like;  therefore we have nothing of which to repent.  So we resent the Lenten call to repentance.

A third reason we may think we are not sinful is that we are, by general societal standards, good people.  We are not convicted felons, rapists, murderers, thieves—we don’t even use foul language (at least not much).  We are good people.  But the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were good, insofar as they obeyed the ethical standards and laws to the letter.  Were we living in their day and age, we would consider them upstanding citizens.  Yet Jesus criticized them for outwardly appearing and acting righteous, while inwardly they were filled with iniquity, like whitewashed tombs.  Oswald Chambers writes powerfully of the difference between being morally good and being a follower of Christ:  “Christian character is not expressed by good-doing but by God-likeness,” Chambers writes...  “It is not sin that keeps us away from Jesus, but our own goodness... (repeat)  To experience the loss of my own goodness is the only way to enter into communion with God in Christ...  It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best...  Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good.  It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ...”  In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus is not tempted by Satan to do anything morally wrong:  eating bread when you are hungry is good;  wielding power, if done for the right cause, is good;  trusting in God’s angels is good.  What is wrong is the means by which Jesus is tempted to achieve these good ends.  

What about us?  Do we justify any means to achieve good ends?

The Church has patterned our 40 days of Lent after Jesus’ 40 days of fasting, prayer, and temptation in the wilderness.  Mark’s Gospel tells us that the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, so important were the struggles of those 40 days.  There, Jesus found that he could truly trust himself and his mission completely to the grace of his Heavenly Father.

The Holy Spirit does not drive us into the 40-day wilderness of Lent.  The Church, the body of Christ and the tool of the Spirit, invites us to enter into a holy Lent, and to reflect on where we have sinned:  either by refusing to take responsibility for our thoughts, words, deeds, or lack of deeds;  by claiming our right to a false freedom;  by striving to be “good” instead of transformed;  or in whatever other way we distance ourselves from God any moment of our day.  As one commentator notes, during Lent “we should ask what it means to be ourselves;  not only who we are, but what we are becoming, or failing to become.  Such an inquiry can be a pretty daunting undertaking, but if the sackcloth of honesty and the ashes of openness of heart and mind are at the start of our journey of Lent, something like Easter may be at the end of it.” (Synthesis, 1992)

AMEN

Last Sunday after The Epiphany, Year C

February 14, 2010

 Luke 9:28-36 (ESV)

Now about eight days after Peter confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.  And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.  And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.  And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”— not knowing what he said.  As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.  And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”  And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.

Go to the Holy Land today and you will be struck by all the churches built on the traditional sites where various events occurred in Jesus’ life.  Go to the place where some say the Sermon on the Mount took place, and you will find the beautiful Church of the Beatitudes.  Go to the spot on the Mount of Olives where it is said Jesus cried over Jerusalem’s waywardness, and you will find the Church of Dominus Flevit, meaning “the Lord wept”.  Go to the traditional spot of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, and over that spot is the Church of the Nativity.  Churches are built over the traditional places of the Crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb, the miracle of changing water into wine, the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Annunciation of the angel to Mary, and of course, the Transfiguration, of which we hear in our Gospel today.  There seems to be an innate desire for us humans to memorialize pivotal spiritual events by building structures over the spots they occurred.

In our Gospel today, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain.  We read:  “Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep;  but when they became fully awake, they saw His glory and [Moses and Elijah] standing with [Jesus].”  Then, just as Moses and Elijah are departing, Peter says to Jesus, “‘Master, it is good for us to be here;  let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’ – not knowing what he said.”  The Message translation reads:  “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, this is a great moment!  Let’s build three memorials:  one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’”

“This is a great moment!  Let’s build three memorials…”  There we have it again – that compelling desire to memorialize, to institutionalize powerful religious experiences.  We don’t want to lose those experiences;  we want to hold onto them, to recall them, to experience them again, to pass them on to the next generation.  And so we ritualize them or institutionalize them.  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing;  it can be a helpful and powerful way of transmitting spiritual reality, as the Jewish Passover feast, or our own Holy Communion, at their best, prove.  But when the institution or the ritual takes the place of religious experience or reality, takes the place of the life of God lived out in our lives, then those rituals or institutions can become roadblocks, rather than pathways, to God.  We Episcopalians, more than most, must be wary of this idolatrous tendency.

Martin Luther lived the first half of his life trying to gain righteousness;  and yet he found that he failed, over and over.  One day he was meditating on Romans 1, verse 17.  The first part of that verse states:  “In the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed…”  Luther became angry as he read this, writing, “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.”  But then he read the last part of the verse, wherein St. Paul writes:  “The righteous will live by faith.”  Luther wrote of the epiphany which came to him:  “Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith [not works].  Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.  The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the justice of God had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love.  This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.” 

Yet it was not long before this powerful religious experience of Luther became memorialized, institutionalized, and the Reformation which he initiated became somewhat hardened and, in places, lifeless – or worse.

And we have seen that process repeated, over and again down through the centuries, both in Christian denominations and in other religions, as well as in parishes.  A powerful experience of the Spirit of God becomes, with all good intentions, institutionalized and ritualized, and then those institutions and rituals become ends in themselves, empty shells which no longer hold or convey the dynamic, powerful, living Spirit of God which gave them birth. 

Fred Craddock, one of the greatest preachers of our day, writes:  “As with all practices that become regularized, however sincere and prayerfully motivated at the outset, the dangers of empty routine and false display are never far away.  One detects, for example, a hollow ring in the instruction given in an early [2^nd Century] Christian document:  ‘fast on Wednesday and Friday and not on Monday and Thursday as the hypocrites do’ (Didache 8:1).  It is the endless business of the church to keep its words and acts alive, appropriate, and toward God...” (Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year B, p. 117)

Roman Catholic priest Richard Rohr states, “The ritual can become a substitute for the reality.  Do we keep performing the ritual of body broken and blood poured out, all the while domesticating it into a consumer object, a devotional practice to maintain our positive self-image?  Does it make me feel good about myself in the morning instead of defining my action for the day?”  (from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction)

“Church stuff, building programs, the care and feeding of the institution:  these are merely means to an end, and are prickly and dangerous because they can consume our attention, and we can miss the whole point.  Frederick Buechner [a Presbyterian minister] was right when he said:  ‘Maybe the best thing that could happen to the church would be for some great tidal wave of history to wash it all away – the church buildings tumbling, the church money all lost, the church bulletins blowing through the air like dead leaves, the differences between preachers and congregations all lost too.  Then all we would have left would be each other and Christ, which was all there was in the first place.”  (The Clown in the Belfry, San Francisco:  Harper San Francisco, 1992, p. 158)  (quoted in Pulpit Resource, Vol. 28, #4, p. 32)

On some days, I cannot help but think that Buechner is right.  Oh, I believe that there are such things as holy places and holy buildings;  and I believe that liturgy and ritual can powerfully communicate God in ways which words cannot.  I would not be an Episcopalian if I didn’t believe these things.  But I also know what it is for buildings, institutions, and liturgies to get in the way of God;  I know what it is for us to worship buildings, Prayer Books, Bibles, institutions, liturgies, and the trappings of religion in place of God.

“Master, this is a great moment!”, Peter says.  “Let’s build three memorials…”  Notice that Peter does not say, “Master, this is a great moment!  My heart is changed!  My life is transfigured!”  What Peter fails to realize, as many of us often do, is that what is important is not so much that Jesus is transfigured, but that we be transfigured.

Which is why, I think, this Gospel story of the Transfiguration is read every year on the Last Sunday after The Epiphany.  Yes, it is perhaps the “epitome of epiphanies”, and is thus appropriate as the culmination of the Epiphany season;  but it also ushers us into the season of Lent, wherein our mission is to be transfigured into the likeness of the resurrected Christ.

But how do we accomplish that mission?  I suppose the simple answer is, “We don’t;  God accomplishes it within us.”  But there are some things we can do to allow God better access to our hearts.

The traditions of the Church provide a wealth of possible Lenten tools for our journey into Christ.  Our Prayer Book mentions a few:  self-examination and repentance;  prayer, fasting, and self-denial;  reading and meditating on God’s holy Word (p. 265).  Here at Christ Church we offer Stations of the Cross and Lenten classes;  opportunities for almsgiving;  devotional booklets and other tools.  Our Prayer Book also provides special liturgies, litanies, and other ancient traditions, which can be very powerful – but also very dangerous.  For their very power and the beauty of their language can lure us into a fascination with, and attraction to, the liturgies themselves;  and we are never moved past them to being drawn into a closer relationship with the Living God.  The ashes on our foreheads can make us feel holy and righteous;  but feeling holy and righteous does not make us so.  The Decalogue can make us nostalgic for the old Prayer Book;  but nostalgia does not bring us closer to God.  The Exhortation, the Great Litany, and the Stations of the Cross can make us feel penitent without being penitent.  Like the 3 Disciples on the mountaintop, we watch the transfiguration without being transfigured ourselves.   

“Master,” we say, in effect, “this is a great moment!  Let’s create moving liturgies and beautifully-worded prayers!” – without ever intending to change our lives.  That is the great danger of this powerful and holy season.

Lent can be a wonderful pathway to a transfigured life;  or it can be a distraction which keeps us transfixed upon surface appearances, memorials built to events which happened 2000 years ago. 

It is my prayer for us all this Lent – and always – that we not be transfixed with the liturgies, but be transfigured into Christ.

AMEN

Epiphany 5, Year C

Feb. 7, 2010

Luke 5:1-11  

    On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.  Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.  And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."  And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! Nevertheless, at your word I will let down the nets."  And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.  They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.  But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men."  And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

It has not been a good day for Peter and his fellow fishermen.  They have worked all night, and don’t have a single fish to show for it.  It is now morning;  they’ve come ashore and are cleaning their nets.  I imagine they can’t wait to get home, climb into bed and rest their weary bones. 

But it is not to be.  Jesus, the strangely compelling preacher who has just arrived from Nazareth, gets into Simon Peter’s boat and asks him to put out a little way from the shore.  Exhausted from the night’s fruitless work, Peter nonetheless complies.  We don’t know how long Jesus teaches the crowd, but each minute he speaks means it will be that much longer before Peter can get some sleep.  Finally Jesus finishes the sermon;  but instead of directing the fishermen to return to shore, he tells them to strike out into deeper waters and lower their nets!  Peter objects.  They have toiled all night long, using all the skill of their profession and all their knowledge of this Sea of Galilee;  and yet they have caught nothing.     

You’ve been there, have you not?  Despite your best efforts, things just don’t seem to work out.  You’ve tried everything you know – and you know a lot! – but you fall short.  The project you have been working on for so long fails, or turns out to be a dead end.  Your grades in school do not improve, even though you have worked so hard.  That New Year’s resolution you made doesn’t make it past January.  You told yourself you weren’t going to spend so much money, yet your spending habits haven’t changed.  Your efforts to lose weight, get more exercise, pray for 10 minutes a day, practice piano, invite that friend to church with you, help out your neighbor, be kind to everyone you meet – all fail.  Discouraged, you eventually stop trying, telling yourself you’ve done everything humanly possible, and it is not enough. 

When Jesus tells Simon Peter to head out to deeper water and let down his nets, Peter must have thought to himself, “We’re not going to get anything.  Why try?”  Remember, Peter doesn’t know Jesus very well at this time.  It is the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry;  he hasn’t called his Disciples yet.  This is only the second mention of Peter in Luke’s Gospel.  And so Peter has every right to be skeptical.  And after all, Peter is the fisherman by trade, not Jesus, and Peter’s own expert judgment is that there are no fish to be caught;  he has tried.  Besides, he is exhausted.  Simon Peter has no earthly reason to do what Jesus says, and every reason not to. 

Yet notice how he responds:  “Teacher, we toiled all night long and caught nothing;  nevertheless, at your word I will let down the nets.” 

Nevertheless.  One word that makes all the difference:  a word of faith in the face of all evidence to the contrary.  “Everything I know,” Peter must be saying to himself, “tells me it is hopeless to try again to catch fish.  Nevertheless, at your word I will…”

Oswald Chambers once talked about making “elbow room” for God.  That’s what Peter does:  he gives Jesus elbow room.  Peter could easily have said, “Look, teacher, I let you use my boat to preach from, gave you all the time you needed.  But I’m the fisherman, and you’re not.  There are no fish out there, and I’m exhausted;  I’m going home to bed.”  No elbow room, no miracle.

“Nevertheless.”  It isn’t much of a statement of faith!  But Jesus doesn’t need much.  Just a little elbow room.

Our modern lives can be so tightly scheduled!  Our calendars are full.  School activities, social activities, church activities, grocery shopping, doctors’ appointments, hair appointments, appointments with the dog at the vet – and all these things must be worked around our full-time jobs.  On top of all the scheduled events are the unscheduled happenings.  The water heater goes out, flooding the floor, soaking the carpet.  We come down with the flu.  Aunt Gertrude calls at the most inopportune time and talks for an hour.  We get caught in a traffic jam, or we hit every red light on our way to Home Depot.  

We complain about our hectic schedules, yet we can’t seem to do anything about them. 

Or perhaps your situation is not a matter of a busy schedule.  Perhaps your day centers around dealing with failing health.  Your arthritis never lets up, and keeps you from doing what you want to do or need to do.  Your eyesight is failing, or your hearing is failing.  Your doctor seems unable to regulate your high blood pressure or your heart problem.  You fall and break your arm or your hip. 

You get cancer.

Or perhaps your situation is not a matter of a busy schedule or health problems.  Perhaps you have financial problems, relationship problems, business problems, church problems, problems in school or in your family – fill in the blank.  Whatever your situation, you can relate to Peter, who toiled all night long and got nowhere.

But can you learn from Peter?  Can you face your situation realistically and honestly, and then say, “Nevertheless…”

Nevertheless.  It is an admission that there just might be a deeper reality waiting beneath the surface, pregnant with promise and hope.  Life is anything but predictable!  As much as we think our nets can only come up empty – our situation has hit a brick wall – human nature is not fixed and settled.  We live under hope – hope that is rested in God, not in the situation in which we find ourself.  There is a whole other reality which permeates everything that is.  There is a powerful, loving, compassionate Person whom it is so easy to ignore, yet who stands ever ready at our side.  All he needs from us is an opening.  “I have toiled all night and come up empty.  All my experience, all my knowledge tells me things are hopeless.  Nevertheless…”

Oswald Chambers writes:   “We have to learn to make room for God – to give God ‘elbow room.’  We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come as he chooses… Expect him to come, but do not expect him only in a certain way.”

Do not expect him only in a certain way.  It may be that our nets will still come up empty;  that does not mean he hasn’t come.  The point of our Gospel reading is not that if we do what Jesus says he will give us nets overflowing with fish.  For you see, that is not the miracle.  That is not the miracle.  Jesus didn’t come to change empty nets into full nets, but to change empty lives into full lives. 

The point of our Gospel story is that Peter is changed.  He falls down at Jesus’ knees and pleads, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”   The acknowledgment of our brokenness, our emptiness, our sin fractures our defenses and opens our lives to make room for God.

First the tentative “Nevertheless…”;  then the falling at the knees of Jesus in confession.

But Jesus won’t let Peter stay on his knees.  He commissions him.  He turns him away from his own problems, and focuses him on his call.  For Peter’s life is not about him.  It is not about his problems.  It is not about his successes.  It is not about fishing for fish;  it is about fishing for people.  It is about others.   

And the same is true of you;  the same is true of me.

My friends, I know how easy it is to get caught up in the situations of our outward lives.  Oftentimes, those situations are not as dire as we imagine.  They may require our attention, to be sure!  But not our undivided attention.  We must always be open to that word from our Lord:  “Put out into deeper waters, spiritual waters.  Reach down deep into them, for you do not know – you cannot know – what you might find.  But rest assured, it will not be the emptiness you expect.” 

When you get so wrapped up in your own situation, your own problems, your own schedules, your health matters, relationship matters, job or school matters, stop yourself and say that one word:  “Nevertheless…”  Give elbow room for God.  Expect him to come, but do not expect him only in a certain way.  He may deal directly with your situation, or he may not;  the situation is not the ultimate issue. 

Changing your life is.

AMEN

Epiphany 4, Year C

January 31, 2010

ANNUAL MEETING SUNDAY

It is always wonderful to gather together with the whole parish family – those who normally attend worship on Saturday evenings along with those who normally worship at 7:30 or 10:00 Sunday mornings.  For although it may seem at times that we are three separate congregations, that is not true.  The reality is that we are one people gathered together as one church. 

Today, of course, is Annual Meeting Sunday, and one of the things we do at our Annual Meeting is receive reports – reports from the Rector, Deacon, ECW, Altar Guild, Treasurer, etc.  Such reports can help tell the story of our life as a parish family in ministry together. 

But there are other ways to tell that story. 

We tell the story of our life together as we recognize and honor the faithful ministries performed by various members of this body of Christ down through the years;  as we share Eucharist or a potluck meal;  as we struggle with our finances together;  as we celebrate our youth and children;  as we reach out to the needy in our community and in Haiti;  as we laugh together;  as we forgive one another;  as we challenge one another to greater growth in Christ;  as we pray together;  as we sing together.  All these are ways we tell the story of Christ Church;  all these are ways we “report” to the Annual Parish Meeting, to one another, to God. 

It is important to keep this larger perspective on our Annual Meeting, and on our life together, for without such a comprehensive view it would be easy to focus our attention on only one or two aspects of our parish life and ministry – perhaps those areas we are most involved in – thinking that those aspects tell the whole story.

There are some who may highlight the financial aspect of our parish life and ministry.  From that perspective, we are struggling – that is simply fact.  Some may highlight church attendance, looking at all the empty pews on Sunday morning.  From that perspective, also, we are struggling;  again, simple fact, which we cannot deny.  Are there things we can do in the year ahead to address these needs?  Most assuredly;  and I would encourage each of us to do what we can.  To neglect these areas of our common life – our budget and our attendance – is to stick our heads in the sand.

But while a faithful “report” to Annual Parish Meeting is not one which views everything through rose-colored glasses, neither does it see everything through dark shades.  A close examination of our life together will reflect amazing vitality and a variety and depth of ministries the likes of which are not found in many parishes with much larger budgets and much greater attendance.  I believe that, no matter how involved you are in our parish, you will be surprised at all the ministries which take place among us which you never knew about, or hadn’t thought much about.  A faithful report to the Annual Parish Meeting is one which sees the whole landscape as clearly as possible:  our failures and challenges as well as our many, many accomplishments and blessings. 

A faithful report to the Annual Parish Meeting also brings to mind the spiritual reality which permeates and undergirds all that we can physically see.  That spiritual reality involves the faithfulness and prayerfulness of each of you;  but even more importantly, it recognizes the faithfulness of God, whose Life gives our church its life. 

In our Old Testament reading, God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;  I gave you as a prophet to the nations…” (1:5)

Before Jeremiah knew God, God knew Jeremiah.  Before we know God, we are known by God.  

What a difference it makes if we begin our church’s story there!  So often, when we tell the history of Christ Church, Canon City, we begin by relating how some of the forefathers of this town gathered over a hundred years ago to hold a service of Morning Prayer.  But you see, the story of Christ Church doesn’t begin there – any more than the story of Jeremiah begins with his birth.  The story of Christ Church begins with God.   

In modern America we tend to be so very self-referent!  But God is not part of our story;  we are part of His. 

“Before you were born,” God tells Jeremiah, “I set you apart.”  “This calling gave Jeremiah spiritual shape even before he was biologically formed.”*  Similarly, can we not see that God gave Christ Church spiritual shape before this building took shape?  Before there was a Canon City?  Before there was an Episcopal Church?   

“Is this not God's way with [all of us]?  Long before we are good for anything, God determines that we are good for what God is doing.”*  Later in Jeremiah, God will say, “For I know the plans I have for you…  plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (29:11)  A faithful report to Annual Parish Meeting cannot fail to include God’s intentions and promises to His people.  This is not looking through rose-colored glasses;  it is seeing the deeper, spiritual reality beneath outward appearances.

“Before you were born,” God tells Jeremiah, “I gave you as a prophet to the nations.” 

“I gave you,” God tells each and every one of us, “as  ­­­­­­­­­­­­_________ to the nations.”  Maybe not prophets, but God does give us as some gift to the nations.  What is your gift which God wants given to the nations?  And who is “the nations”?  The word the Bible uses meant “anyone not a Jew.”  We might rephrase it as “anyone who isn’t one of us”.  Anyone who isn’t part of our crowd – our friends, our 7:30 or 10am Eucharist crowd, our age group, our nationality, our political persuasion, our denomination, our social class – you name it, that’s whom God has given you as a gift to. 

“I cannot be a prophet to the nations,” Jeremiah says;  “I’m just a youth – I don’t know how to speak prophetic words.”  And who among us hasn’t made some similar excuse to God for why we couldn’t do what God is calling us to do?  “I’m not skilled enough.”  “I’m too young.”  “I’m too old.”  “That’s not my thing.”  “I want to do what I want to do, not what God wants me to do.”  “I did my ministry for the church;  now it’s somebody else’s turn.”  God has heard them all.  “But generosity is God’s nature, and He gives us for others.  He makes no exception.  All of us are given by God for others.”*

Look around you in your pews:  you are God’s gift to that person five pews over.  That person whom you don’t know – perhaps someone new, or perhaps someone who attends another service – that person is God’s gift to you, and to the whole Body of Christ which is Christ Church.  And as we saw in last week’s Epistle, each part of the body is necessary for the body to be whole.  Without each of us doing the part God gave us to one another to do, the body is ailing, and Christ Church itself cannot be the gift to the “nations” – to those who are not “one of us” – which God intends us as a parish to be.

There are all sorts of ways to “report” to the Annual Parish Meeting.  One could list all the “accomplishments” of the past year, believing that when all the accomplishments of all of us members of Christ Church are put together, the story of this parish in 2009 would be told.  But that would be an incomplete story, a misleading story,