A Beautiful Dwelling Place for God

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

August 26, 2018

Year B, Proper 16: The 14th Sunday after Pentecost

1 Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43

Psalm 84

Ephesians 6:10-20

John 6:56-69

A Beautiful Dwelling Place for God

Last Sunday we said our farewells to Rev. Gary (though, fortunately, I suspect we’ll still see him from time to time), and we also said goodbye to King David.

For much of the summer we’ve been hearing the story of David’s reign over Israel, the highlights and also some pretty terrible lowlights. We’ve been hearing the story of this great king chosen by God who made many big mistakes.

After David died, his son Solomon succeeded him as king.

Solomon is remembered today for his great wisdom and also for constructing the first Temple in Jerusalem.

You may remember that a few weeks ago we heard the story of King David realizing, to his credit, that there was something not quite right about the fact that he was living in a grand palace constructed of cedar while God was living in… a tent.

Reasonably enough, David proposed building a dwelling, building a palace for God.

It sounded like a pretty good idea, but God objects, more or less saying to David, “You are going to build me a house?!?”

But now, God goes along with this idea, allowing Solomon to build the great Temple, recognized as one of the wonders of the ancient world.

In a way, it seems like God will no longer be on the move in a tent but instead will stay put in the great Temple.

Now, if that idea makes you a little uneasy, you’re in good company. In fact, we can hear discomfort with the idea somehow “housing” God in today’s text, when Solomon himself asks,

“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!”

That was about three thousand years ago. Today, there’s still that same kind of unease, or even tension, that Solomon experienced and expressed when he unveiled his grand house for God.

On the one hand, our churches, including our own church, are built to be houses for God. We sometimes talk that way, right? We often refer to the church as God’s house.

And, so it is.

            And, because God dwells here in a particularly special way – because God dwells here in our community – because God dwells here in the Word – and, most of all, because God dwells here in the Body and Blood of Christ that we are about to receive – because God dwells here in a particularly special way, we come here, hoping to leave behind the many troubles of our lives and the many cares of the world – or, better yet, maybe, we come here to bring and place our troubles and cares at the altar, to let God handle our many problems.

            Because God dwells here in a particularly special way, we come here to draw closer to God – to allow God to draw closer to us.

            “Will God indeed dwell on the earth?”

            Well, we make every effort, invest a lot of resources, into making this - and keeping this - a beautiful dwelling place for God.

            But, there’s that same tension, that same unease that Solomon experienced long ago, right?

            Because, although it’s true that God dwells here in this beautiful place in a particularly special way, the truth is that God dwells out there in the world, too.

            God dwells with refugees and migrants fleeing for their lives.

            God dwells with people living in cities and towns all across our country where the stores on Main Street are all boarded up, where factories are closed and rusting, and where most of the young people with talent and ambition have moved on.

            God dwells with the prisoners and detainees locked up in our own county jail and with others incarcerated all across our land.

            God dwells with the coal miner fearing for his job -and with those whose water has been contaminated with coal ash.

            God dwells with the people huddled at the homeless drop-in center, and those drinking or getting high at Journal Square or along Bergen Avenue, day after day.

            God dwells with Republicans and Democrats and with those of us who are confused and sickened by the whole circus.

            As you’ve probably heard by now, Senator John McCain died yesterday. In the days leading to his death, there’s been a lot of reflection on his life, especially his heroism, his selfless devotion to duty, honor, and country.

McCain once wrote, “Nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone.”

 For Christians – especially for Christians who get fed so well here in this beautiful dwelling place – the cause bigger than ourselves is to share the love – it’s our responsibility and privilege to do our best to make our little corner of the earth a beautiful dwelling place for God.

            Not easy, for sure, but with God’s help, we have everything we need.

           

            As I’ve mentioned to you about a hundred times by now, one of my most favorite things to do is to show off our beautiful temple to people who are here for the first time.

            Maybe you remember the first time you walked through those doors. I know I do.

            People usually remark that the church is a lot bigger than it looks from the outside.

            They comment on the beautiful wood and how well cared for it all is.

            And, they sometimes take an interest in the beautiful rose window behind me, above the altar.

            As you can see, it has a sword and a book – meant to represent the Bible – and the words, “Spiritus Gladius.”

            It’s Latin for “the sword of the spirit” and it comes from today’s second lesson, from the Letter to the Ephesians.

            That passage is a stirring and vivid call to spiritual arms:

            “Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

            So, yes, we come here to God’s beautiful dwelling place for rest and refreshment, but the truth is that God dwells out there in the world, too.

            God dwells out there in a world that is broken, angry, fearful, and so hungry for the Good News of Jesus Christ.

            With God’s help, our cause is to spread the love – to do our part to make the whole earth a beautiful dwelling place for God.

            So, we come here to this temple not just for our own peace of mind but also to receive the Bread of Life.

We come here to this temple to get the shield, and the helmet, and the sword of the Spirit – all the things we’ll need when we go back out into the world.

            We come here to this temple to receive all that we need to go back out there and do our small but essential part in making the whole earth what it was always meant to be – to make the whole earth a beautiful dwelling place for God – and, a beautiful dwelling place for us all.

            Amen.

God the Baker

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

August 12, 2018

Year B, Proper 14: The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

Psalm 130

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

John 6:35, 41-51

God the Baker

            If you’ve been here in recent weeks, you know that we’ve been tracking the highlights and, more often, the lowlights in the life of the man remembered as Israel’s greatest ruler: King David.

            We’ve heard the story of David and Bathsheba – how David took the married Bathsheba for himself and arranged for the death of her husband, Uriah the Hittite.

            And, last week, we heard how David was forced to face his terrible sin and to recognize that he and those close to him will endure harsh consequences because the king had taken who and what he wanted.

There will be discord in his kingdom and there will be strife in his own family.

            Which brings us to today’s rather disjointed and probably pretty confusing Old Testament reading, which focuses on one member of David’s family: his handsome and ambitious son, Absalom.

            The ugly drama in David’s family has continued – it’s really bad and I’m not going to get into details here, but if you want to know more take a look at Second Samuel, Chapters 13 to 20.

            In a nutshell, Absalom killed one of his brothers (with good reason, but, still, murder is murder) - which led to a falling out with his father.

            Absalom went into exile and then leads a rebellion against his father, aiming to overthrow him and make himself king.

            Absalom almost succeeds, but in the end the forces loyal to David defeat Absalom’s troops, and, contrary to the king’s orders, as we heard today, Absalom is killed.

            After he receives the news of his son’s death, we’re told that King David was deeply moved and wept:

            “O my son Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

            Over these past couple of Sundays, in addition to hearing about David’s life, we’ve also been hearing a lot about… bread.

            (In fact, at this point I think we’re starting to run out of “bread hymns”!)

            It started two weeks ago when we heard the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes, starting with just five loaves and two fish.

            And then last week, we heard what happened the next day when the crowd woke up, maybe with rumbling stomachs, and went looking for Jesus – went looking to be fed by Jesus once again.

            Jesus tells them not to work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.

            And then Jesus makes the bold statement:

            “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

            And, that’s where we pick up today.

            Bread.

I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that I don’t know much of anything about bread. I’ve never baked my own bread but I’ve sure eaten a lot of bread baked by others!

Obviously, “somebody” has to gather the various ingredients we need for bread – “somebody” need to gather the wheat or other grains, the yeast, the salt, and the water, mix it all together and then bake – not too short and not too long – and then, if everything goes right, “somebody” produces delicious bread that smells and tastes so very good.

            When we turn from our stomachs to our souls, God gives us all the ingredients we need to be bread for the world – and, on top of that, God even does all the baking.

So, unlike flour and yeast who get no say in the matter, all we really have to do is be open – to say yes to God, and God the baker takes it from there.

And, for us, Jesus of Nazareth – Jesus the Son of God - is the supreme example of perfect openness.

God the Creator gave Jesus all of the ingredients he needed to be the bread of life – to be bread for the world.

God gave Jesus the ability to love and listen, to see and heal, a conscience, and an ability to sacrifice all that he had in service to others.

And, because Jesus was faithful and obedient  – because Jesus was fully open to God - God was able to bake the most amazing bread in and through his life, death, and resurrection – bread that continues to feed us, right here, right now.

And, since you and I are the Body of Christ in the world today, God the baker has given us all the ingredients we need to be bread for the world.

All we need to do is be open to God.

Which, let’s face it, is not so easy – and, we might even think is impossible for seemingly ordinary people like us.

I know I think that way more often than I care to admit, and that’s one of the reasons I like to read and learn about holy women and men who have been so open to God – so open to God that God was able to bake the most amazing bread in and through their lives.

For example, this past Thursday was the seventy-fifth anniversary of the death of Franz Jägerstätter.

Franz was born in 1907, in the Central European country of Austria.

He suffered terrible loss early in his life – his father was killed during World War I.

As a young man he seems to have been kind of wild, fathering a child out of wedlock (unusual and scandalous in that time and place), loving to ride his motorcycle and even leading a gang whose members got arrested in 1934 for brawling.

Eventually he settled down, first becoming a miner, and then after he got married, he became a farmer.

Thanks to the example and encouragement of his his deeply religious wife he became a very pious Roman Catholic.

 So, it looked like that was going to be the shape of his life: a simple ordinary man, going about his business, devoted to his wife and three daughters, and also devoted to his Christian faith.

But, unlike most ordinary or even extraordinary people, after Austria voted to unite with Germany, Franz spoke out publicly against the Nazi regime, which he recognized as satanic. And, although he had served for a time in the military, ultimately he refused to serve in what he determined was an evil cause.

In 1943, he was called to serve in the military again, but he refused to take the loyalty oath to Hitler and was imprisoned.

Trying to convince him to change his mind, his local bishop pointed out that many other Catholic men had left their homes, their families, to go and fight and sometimes die in the war.

Even his own priest urged him to just take the oath and to serve, quite reasonably urging him to think of his wife and children, who would suffer if he was imprisoned, or worse.

But, despite all the perfectly sensible pleas to be reasonable and responsible, Franz with his deep openness to God, stood firm. He wrote,

“I have considered my family. I have prayed and put myself in God’s hands. I know that, if I do what I think God wants me to do, he will take care of my family.”

On August 9, 1943, Franz Jägerstätter was beheaded and his remains were cremated.

(For the record, his wife Franziska and their daughters survived the war and, in fact, his wife lived to be 100 years old.)

As I think about the remarkable life and sacrifice of Franz Jägerstätter, I’m struck by the fact that he did all of this as a “nobody.” as a seemingly ordinary person whose life certainly mattered to those who loved him but whose death would be barely noticed beyond his home.

Franz gave away his life fully aware that it would make no difference to the Nazi regime or to the outcome of the war.

And, sure enough, he was quickly forgotten by almost everyone – until twenty years later when a sociologist happened to stumble on this incredible story and began to share it with the world.

Today he is in line to become a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and his story continues to spread, inspiring countless others who find themselves trying to be faithful Christians while living under oppressive regimes.

Thanks to the profound openness of Franz Jägerstätter to God, God the baker has been able to create the most amazing bread out of his life and his sacrifice, feeding countless people through Franz’ deep faith and through his willingness to give away his life rather than collaborate with evil.

Today’s stories provide quite a contrast, right?

On the one hand, there’s the blood-soaked, bitter, and regretful lives of David and his son Absalom. They had all the blessings, all the advantages and luxuries of the world, and yet no peace.

And on the other hand, there’s Jesus the Bread of Life and there’s also Franz Jägerstätter, good bread for our own time.

 We will probably never face as stark a choice as Franz Jägerstätter did.

Though, you never know.

But, no matter our circumstances, we are the Body of Christ in the world today.

And, God the baker has given us all the ingredients - the ability to love and listen, to see and heal, a conscience, and, yes, the ability to sacrifice – all the ingredients necessary to be bread for the world, right here, right now.

All we need to do is be open to God.

Amen.

           

An Appetite for God's Blessings

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

August 5, 2018

Year B, Proper 13: The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a

Psalm 51:1-13

Ephesians 4:1-16

John 6:24-35

An Appetite for God’s Blessings

            If you were in church last Sunday, I bet that you remember our Old Testament lesson: the juicy, shameful, and ultimately deeply disturbing story of David and Bathsheba.

            “Previously on ‘David and Bathsheba’”:

            We’re told that King David was lounging at home in his cedar palace while his army was off fighting the Ammonites.

            Taking a break from lounging, David takes a walk out on his palace roof, from where he spots the beautiful Bathsheba as she was bathing.

            Bathsheba was married to one of David’s officers – Uriah the Hittite - but that little detail doesn’t stop the king from simply taking Bathsheba for his own pleasure.

            The ugly story could have ended there – yet another powerful man taking who and what he wants - but Bathsheba gives David the unwelcome news that she’s pregnant.

            David calls Uriah the Hittite back from the front, offers him a little “shore leave” with his wife, but, in solidarity with his fellow soldiers off fighting in the war, Uriah refuses the comforts of home.

            The frustrated and desperate David sends Uriah back to the front, giving orders that Uriah should fight in the frontlines, where, sure enough, as David hoped and expected, Uriah is killed in battle.

            We didn’t hear the next part of the story, but when David receives word of Uriah’s death, at first he’s sort of philosophical, kind of fatalistic, about it. He says,

            “The sword always takes its toll.”

            David may be cool about Uriah’s death, but not Bathsheba. We’re told that she “lamented” him.

            But, we’re told that after her time of mourning was over, David sent for Bathsheba, making her his wife, and then she bore him a son.

            Perhaps David thought he had gotten away with his terrible sin. But, as we ay at the start of each service, there are no secrets hidden from God.

            Sure enough, God is displeased with what David has done and so God sends the prophet Nathan to David to let him know just how unhappy God is with the king.

            Nathan cleverly tells David a parable – a parable about a rich man who had so much – who had been so abundantly blessed by God – a rich man who, nevertheless, took for himself the little that belonged to a poor man.

            To his credit, despite his own terrible sin, David does have a moral sense. He knows right from wrong, and so he insists that this rich man should die.

            And then the Prophet Nathan delivers the terrible news to David:

            “That man is you.”

            And, Nathan goes on to say that God had given David so much and yet David was so overcome by his appetite for more that he took another man’s wife – and arranged for that man’s death – and so, therefore, God is going to punish David and David’s family.

            As David himself had said earlier, “The sword always takes its toll.”

            The story of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah is a powerful and disturbing story – and it’s a story that still speaks to us today all of these thousands of years later – because, among other things, it points to the enormous and potentially destructive power of appetite.

            David wanted someone he couldn’t and shouldn’t have, and by letting his appetite get the better of him, he brought suffering and destruction into his life and into the lives of those around him.

            Of course, appetite can cut both ways, right?

            We don’t need to know the story of David and Bathsheba to see only too well the power of destructive appetites, how people’s lives and souls are twisted by an insatiable appetite for power, pleasure, wealth, fame, popularity, …

            But appetite can be positive, too.

            Maybe some of you know the 20^th Century American writer, Flannery O’Connor.

            She was a brilliant writer, one of the best of the many fine writers produced by the South, and also a most devout Roman Catholic.

            A couple of years ago, her prayer journal was discovered among her papers and then published.

            I have kind of mixed feelings about this because it was private, not really meant for publication, but that didn’t stop me from buying and reading it – and finding lots of things to ponder as I read O’Connor praying to – and wrestling with - God.

            Here’s one line that I thought of as I reflected on today’s lessons:

            O’Connor writes to herself: “God is feeding me and what I’m praying for is an appetite.”

            “God is feeding me and what I’m praying for is an appetite.”

            In today’s Gospel lesson, we pick up right where we left off last week.

            You’ll remember that Jesus miraculously fed the hungry multitudes starting with just five loaves and two fish and ending up with twelve baskets of leftovers.

            Now it’s the next day and whoever is left from the multitudes is waking up from their bread-and-fish coma and they are looking for Jesus and his followers.

            Now, I’m sure that part of this search for Jesus is because yesterday’s meal has been digested and their stomachs are beginning to growl again.

            And, I’m sure that part of this search is because the crowd is hoping that Jesus the wonder-worker is going to do another miracle, going to show them another sign, give them another spectacle.

            As we heard today, when they catch up with Jesus, they have the nerve to ask him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?

            (Kind of sounds like, “What have you done for us lately, Jesus?”)

            But, part of the search for Jesus, I think, is because the crowd has now truly experienced the “good food” of Jesus – they’ve found the good stuff – and they’ve got an appetite for more – an appetite for more signs of God’s love and presence – an appetite for more signs of God’s abundant blessings.

            The crowd is hungry for the bread of life.

            The crowd has an appetite for Jesus.

            “God is feeding me and what I’m praying for is an appetite.”

            Well, God is certainly feeding us here in Jersey City, right?

            God is feeding us with this holy place and with one another, this diverse and beautiful mosaic that disproves the wrongheaded and increasingly common idea that all different kinds of people can’t get along – that somehow we can’t love one another.

            God is feeding us with God’s Word and beautiful music – and, most of all, God is about to feed us with the bread and the wine of life – the Body and Blood of Christ.

            One of the great privileges of my life is the opportunity to administer Communion – and I’m often moved and touched and, yes, I’ll admit it, occasionally puzzled by, how people receive Communion.

            But, you know, out of everybody, more often than not I think it’s the kids who really get it – who have the greatest appetite for the bread of life, the Body of Christ.

            Almost always, they put out their hands nice and high, and look up at me expectantly, as if they’re saying, “Give me the good stuff.”

            And, finally, God is also feeding us with so many opportunities to serve one another, to serve those in need, to serve those who the world dismisses as not worth the effort, as too dangerous or too different or, even, like David, too sinful.

            So, God is blessing us with the opportunity to serve the hungry, the homeless, the lost people, right here in our community.

God is blessing us with the opportunity to stand up for the detainees held in notoriously bad conditions right here in our own county jail, as our county – which means us – as we profit handsomely from their misery.

And, as you may have seen on the news the other day, thanks to Pope Francis, God is blessing us with the opportunity and, yes, the very real challenge to see absolutely everybody – even the worst, most hardened criminal, the person we might be sure deserves to die – God is giving us the opportunity to see them as so much more than the worst things they’ve ever done, to see them as beloved brothers and sisters.

David will pay for his terrible sins, but God doesn’t throw away David.

            And, God doesn’t throw away anybody.

So, yes, my friends, there’s no doubt that God is blessing us in so many ways.

God is feeding us in so many ways.

What I’m praying for is an appetite.

Amen.