St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
August 14, 2011
Year A: Proper 15, the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 45:1-15
Psalm 133
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
More Than We Can Ask Or Imagine
Many of you know that one of the first things I did when I arrived in Gainesville last year was to start offering Morning Prayer each weekday at the chapel – or, actually, in the chapel garden.
I did that for a couple of reasons but mostly because like everybody else I can get a little lazy. But, I realized that if I put Morning Prayer on the schedule then - no matter how lazy or busy I was - I had to start my day with prayer.
At the end of Morning Prayer the officiant may say one of three verses from Scripture. My favorite of these verses is from Ephesians. It begins:
“Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine…”
That’s a beautiful description of how God is at work in our lives.
If our hearts are open, God takes us to unexpected places.
If our hearts are open, God brings amazing people into our lives.
If our hearts are open, God uses us to heal our broken world.
“Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine…”
I’ve been hearing that verse from Ephesians in my head as my time here with all of you in Gainesville draws to a close. Over the past year God has done more in my life than I could ever have asked or imagined.
And I’ve also been hearing that verse in my head as I’ve been reflecting on this week’s lessons, in which, as usual, God does more than anyone could have asked or imagined.
You may remember that last week we heard the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. They were jealous that Joseph was his father’s favorite. They were angry that Joseph had dreams in which they bowed before him. And, don’t forget, they were irritated that their father honored Joseph by giving him a fancy robe with long sleeves.
Ah, family!
To make a long story short, Joseph did very well in Egypt, rising to a position of great honor and power.
The rest of his family didn’t do as well. Things got so bad that during a time of famine, Joseph’s brothers go to Egypt looking for help.
At first, Joseph played some mind games with his brothers who don’t recognize him. The last of these games was demanding that Benjamin, the youngest and Joseph’s only full brother, stay behind in Egypt as a slave.
In an act of great courage and love, Judah, who had been primarily responsible for selling Joseph into slavery, offers to take Benjamin’s place because he knows the loss of both Joseph and Benjamin would devastate their father.
It’s a powerful moment and an amazing reversal. It’s so powerful and amazing, in fact, that in the passage we heard today Joseph breaks down and reveals his identity to his shocked brothers.
The healing of a family broken by jealousy, deceit and violence begins.
“Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine…”
If our hearts are open, God takes us to unexpected places.
If our hearts are open, God brings amazing people into our lives.
If our hearts are open, God uses us to heal our broken world.
Today’s lesson from the Gospel of Matthew might, at first, seem a little disjointed.
It begins with Jesus challenging the teaching of the Pharisees, who usually get a bad rap in the New Testament. We don’t know as much about the Pharisees as we’d like but it seems that they were interested in sanctifying everyday life. So, they intensified some of the demands of Jewish Law, for example requiring ritual hand washing before meals.
There’s nothing wrong with those kinds of practices unless of course they become more important than the way we actually live our lives. In the gospel, Jesus emphasizes that it’s not our rituals but our moral behavior that makes us clean or unclean.
Important words for the Pharisees and for us - and then almost immediately Jesus is challenged to put those important words into practice.
Jesus goes into the non-Jewish territory of Tyre and Sidon where he encounters a pushy and persistent Canaanite woman. She honors Jesus when she shouts to him, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
Now, this is a familiar scene. Throughout the gospels we see Jesus in these kinds of situations – people begging him for healing. But, in this case, Jesus acts in an un-Jesus like way.
After all, she’s both not Jewish and a woman. So, Jesus and any other Jewish man shouldn’t have anything to do with her.
The disciples want to get rid of her – undoubtedly her shouting was attracting a crowd in this foreign land. Jesus offers a very narrow vision of his mission when he says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
The woman persists, “Lord, help me.”
And then Jesus does something very un-Jesus like. He insults the woman:
“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Yet, even after this ugly insult, the woman not only persists but is quick-witted:
“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
And then, impressed by her faith and maybe her wit, Jesus relents, and heals her daughter instantly.
This is a difficult passage for us to hear. It’s often interpreted as a story about faith and persistence – and, in part, it’s certainly about that. But, if that’s all that this story is about, what does it say about God? Would God’s attitude towards the woman really be, “If only you had gone back at Jesus after he insulted you then your daughter would have been healed! Too bad you didn’t have more faith and persistence!”
No, this passage isn’t so much about the Canaanite woman. This story is much more about Jesus. There has always been a tendency in the Church to overemphasize either Jesus’ humanity or his divinity. I think in our time the tendency is to focus so much on his divinity that we lose sight of Jesus our brother, a flesh and blood human being who had to learn and grow like we all need to learn and grow.
In this passage we glimpse a flesh and blood human Jesus who was challenged by a persistent Canaanite woman to put his important words into practice.
The rules say no contact with this woman. But this quick-witted woman seems to have reminded Jesus that our conduct is far more important than our rituals.
And maybe in that encounter Jesus had the nearly overwhelming realization that his identity and his mission were far greater than he had previously believed.
Maybe Jesus’ heart was opened to realize that he wasn’t only the long awaited Messiah of Israel, but he was also the Savior of this Canaanite woman and her daughter - and the Savior of the whole world.
Maybe in that encounter with the persistent woman, Jesus recognized that in him and through him, God was doing more than this Jewish peasant from Nazareth could have ever asked or imagined.
And now it’s our turn. We’re all aware of the challenges we face in our lives, our families, our community and the world. But, God is at work today in Gainesville just as God was at work when Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers and when Jesus chose healing over rules and regulations.
If our hearts are open, God takes us to unexpected places.
If our hearts are open, God brings amazing people into our lives.
If our hearts are open, God uses us to heal our broken world.
“Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.”
Amen.
Showing posts with label St. Michael's - Gainesville FL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Michael's - Gainesville FL. Show all posts
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Little Faith
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
August 7, 2011
Year A: Proper 14 – the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33
Little Faith
Last Sunday we heard Matthew’s account of Jesus feeding the multitudes. The crowd had followed Jesus, hungry for his teaching and maybe a healing or two. The only problem was now there were thousands of people in a remote place. As the day grew late the disciples grew concerned about how all of these people were going to get fed. They tell Jesus to send the crowd into the villages so they can buy food.
Instead, Jesus tells the disciples, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
The disciples have very little. They are only able to offer five loaves and two fish. It certainly doesn’t seem like they have nearly enough.
Yet, Jesus is able to take their little offering and transform it into food that feeds a multitude – with baskets of leftovers completing the picture of God’s abundance.
Today we picked up right where we left off in the Gospel of Matthew – the story of Jesus walking on water and calming the storm.
Matthew drew upon the earlier Gospel of Mark when he wrote his own account of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Since there’s so much of Mark in Matthew, it’s interesting to note when Matthew adds some additional details to what’s in the earlier gospel.
For example, Matthew’s account of Peter’s “little faith” isn’t found in Mark.
Peter isn’t sure if it’s really Jesus or if it’s a ghost. But, he bravely says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
After getting the word, Peter – a fisherman who knew the dangers of the turbulent sea all too well - bravely gets out of the boat and takes a few steps on the water towards his Lord.
When he gets understandably frightened and begins to sink, Peter cries out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reaches out to him, catches him, and says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
“You of little faith” is the usual description of the apostles in the Gospel of Matthew.
“You of little faith” sounds like a put-down, but I’m not so sure.
After all, God seems to be very good at making something awesome out of something very little.
God is good at taking tiny mustard seeds and growing trees that provide shelter for many.
And we just saw God’s ability to turn little into awesome in the miracle of feeding the multitudes when Jesus took the little offering from the disciples and transform it into food that satisfies a multitude – with baskets of leftovers.
Actually, all God seems to require of us is “little faith” – the faith that leaves us open to God’s power working within us – the faith that leaves a small space in our hearts where God can do the work of transforming us and transforming the world.
And it’s noteworthy that it’s Peter who is of little faith. Peter is often depicted as kind of a well-meaning bumbler. And, as we know, he will let Jesus down in his greatest moment of need – abandoning and denying his crucified Lord.
Yet Peter’s little faith is enough to get him out on the water – Peter’s little faith is enough to get Peter to take a few steps toward Jesus – Peter’s little faith is enough for him to cry out to Jesus for help.
And we know that God will take Peter’s little faith – and working from that small place in the fisherman’s heart - transform him from bumbler and coward and denier into an apostle who gave his life for Jesus and the Gospel.
So, I don’t think “little faith” is a put-down.
But, if we’re honest, I think we all wonder if we have even Peter’s little faith. Would we really take even a step or two out onto the water towards Jesus?
Does our doubt crush our little faith and close off the small space in our hearts?
Like Peter, our doubts become most apparent in turbulent times.
And we are certainly living in turbulent times.
The loss of life caused by the shooting down of one of our helicopters in Afghanistan on Saturday is a reminder that our country is involved in wars that, despite the bravery of our troops, we know will end not with victory but, at best, ambiguity.
Our economy and many economies around the world continue to sputter -leaving so many of us unemployed or underemployed or frightened that we are about to take a place in the long lines of people looking for work. Unemployment benefits are running out and there doesn’t seem to be the money or the will or even the compassion to extend them.
For the first time in our history Americans really believe that their children won’t have it as good as they did.
Over the past few weeks the world watched as leaders of both parties made a spectacle of themselves in dealing with the debt ceiling – a spectacle for which we’ll all pay. But, that was really just one example of the dysfunction and corruption that prevents our elected officials in Washington and Tallahassee from setting aside ideology and self-interest for the good of the people.
And then there is the turbulence in our own lives.
Like every community, some of us here are facing serious illness or worried about the health of someone we love. Some of us are battling addiction. Some of our relationships are strained or have ruptured. Some of us feel guilty about things we’ve done or things we’ve left undone.
And there is the turbulence that comes when a priest gets ready to leave. What will happen to the church? What will our next priest be like? Will the next priest be in place before momentum is lost and people begin to drift away?
In turbulent times it’s easy to doubt - and hard to have even little faith.
Actually, though, our idea of doubt might not be exactly what Jesus meant.
When Jesus asked Peter, “why did you doubt?” he wasn’t asking Peter why he was skeptical that a man could walk on the surface of a turbulent sea.
Instead, when Jesus asked Peter why he doubted, he was asking why didn’t he hold steady? Why didn’t he remain steadfast? Why didn’t he keep going?
Peter had heard Jesus teach and had seen Jesus heal and had seen Jesus feed the multitudes. So why he didn’t Peter trust that the Lord would hold him up and keep him afloat?
In this turbulent time, you and I are like Peter trying to walk on the turbulent sea.
During my year here I’ve gotten to know you well enough to know that you’ve seen the power of Jesus to teach, heal and feed. So I know you’ll hold steady. I know that doubt won’t crush your – our - little faith. I know that doubt won’t close off the small space reserved for God in our hearts.
We have little faith – we make a small place in our heart – when we hold steady, when we remain steadfast, when we keep going even when we’re frightened or tired or bewildered.
We have little faith – we make a small place for God in our heart – when we stick together, make time for prayer, extend peace and forgiveness to our neighbors, sing our hymns, and take the Body and Blood of Christ into our bodies and into our hearts.
With all his flaws and failures, Peter still had little faith and made a small place in his heart for God. And God used that little faith and that small place to transform Peter and to transform the world.
As usual, God made something awesome out of something very small.
The good news is that what was true for Peter is just as true for us – what God did for Peter, God can do for all of us - for all of us of little faith.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
August 7, 2011
Year A: Proper 14 – the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33
Little Faith
Last Sunday we heard Matthew’s account of Jesus feeding the multitudes. The crowd had followed Jesus, hungry for his teaching and maybe a healing or two. The only problem was now there were thousands of people in a remote place. As the day grew late the disciples grew concerned about how all of these people were going to get fed. They tell Jesus to send the crowd into the villages so they can buy food.
Instead, Jesus tells the disciples, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
The disciples have very little. They are only able to offer five loaves and two fish. It certainly doesn’t seem like they have nearly enough.
Yet, Jesus is able to take their little offering and transform it into food that feeds a multitude – with baskets of leftovers completing the picture of God’s abundance.
Today we picked up right where we left off in the Gospel of Matthew – the story of Jesus walking on water and calming the storm.
Matthew drew upon the earlier Gospel of Mark when he wrote his own account of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Since there’s so much of Mark in Matthew, it’s interesting to note when Matthew adds some additional details to what’s in the earlier gospel.
For example, Matthew’s account of Peter’s “little faith” isn’t found in Mark.
Peter isn’t sure if it’s really Jesus or if it’s a ghost. But, he bravely says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
After getting the word, Peter – a fisherman who knew the dangers of the turbulent sea all too well - bravely gets out of the boat and takes a few steps on the water towards his Lord.
When he gets understandably frightened and begins to sink, Peter cries out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reaches out to him, catches him, and says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
“You of little faith” is the usual description of the apostles in the Gospel of Matthew.
“You of little faith” sounds like a put-down, but I’m not so sure.
After all, God seems to be very good at making something awesome out of something very little.
God is good at taking tiny mustard seeds and growing trees that provide shelter for many.
And we just saw God’s ability to turn little into awesome in the miracle of feeding the multitudes when Jesus took the little offering from the disciples and transform it into food that satisfies a multitude – with baskets of leftovers.
Actually, all God seems to require of us is “little faith” – the faith that leaves us open to God’s power working within us – the faith that leaves a small space in our hearts where God can do the work of transforming us and transforming the world.
And it’s noteworthy that it’s Peter who is of little faith. Peter is often depicted as kind of a well-meaning bumbler. And, as we know, he will let Jesus down in his greatest moment of need – abandoning and denying his crucified Lord.
Yet Peter’s little faith is enough to get him out on the water – Peter’s little faith is enough to get Peter to take a few steps toward Jesus – Peter’s little faith is enough for him to cry out to Jesus for help.
And we know that God will take Peter’s little faith – and working from that small place in the fisherman’s heart - transform him from bumbler and coward and denier into an apostle who gave his life for Jesus and the Gospel.
So, I don’t think “little faith” is a put-down.
But, if we’re honest, I think we all wonder if we have even Peter’s little faith. Would we really take even a step or two out onto the water towards Jesus?
Does our doubt crush our little faith and close off the small space in our hearts?
Like Peter, our doubts become most apparent in turbulent times.
And we are certainly living in turbulent times.
The loss of life caused by the shooting down of one of our helicopters in Afghanistan on Saturday is a reminder that our country is involved in wars that, despite the bravery of our troops, we know will end not with victory but, at best, ambiguity.
Our economy and many economies around the world continue to sputter -leaving so many of us unemployed or underemployed or frightened that we are about to take a place in the long lines of people looking for work. Unemployment benefits are running out and there doesn’t seem to be the money or the will or even the compassion to extend them.
For the first time in our history Americans really believe that their children won’t have it as good as they did.
Over the past few weeks the world watched as leaders of both parties made a spectacle of themselves in dealing with the debt ceiling – a spectacle for which we’ll all pay. But, that was really just one example of the dysfunction and corruption that prevents our elected officials in Washington and Tallahassee from setting aside ideology and self-interest for the good of the people.
And then there is the turbulence in our own lives.
Like every community, some of us here are facing serious illness or worried about the health of someone we love. Some of us are battling addiction. Some of our relationships are strained or have ruptured. Some of us feel guilty about things we’ve done or things we’ve left undone.
And there is the turbulence that comes when a priest gets ready to leave. What will happen to the church? What will our next priest be like? Will the next priest be in place before momentum is lost and people begin to drift away?
In turbulent times it’s easy to doubt - and hard to have even little faith.
Actually, though, our idea of doubt might not be exactly what Jesus meant.
When Jesus asked Peter, “why did you doubt?” he wasn’t asking Peter why he was skeptical that a man could walk on the surface of a turbulent sea.
Instead, when Jesus asked Peter why he doubted, he was asking why didn’t he hold steady? Why didn’t he remain steadfast? Why didn’t he keep going?
Peter had heard Jesus teach and had seen Jesus heal and had seen Jesus feed the multitudes. So why he didn’t Peter trust that the Lord would hold him up and keep him afloat?
In this turbulent time, you and I are like Peter trying to walk on the turbulent sea.
During my year here I’ve gotten to know you well enough to know that you’ve seen the power of Jesus to teach, heal and feed. So I know you’ll hold steady. I know that doubt won’t crush your – our - little faith. I know that doubt won’t close off the small space reserved for God in our hearts.
We have little faith – we make a small place in our heart – when we hold steady, when we remain steadfast, when we keep going even when we’re frightened or tired or bewildered.
We have little faith – we make a small place for God in our heart – when we stick together, make time for prayer, extend peace and forgiveness to our neighbors, sing our hymns, and take the Body and Blood of Christ into our bodies and into our hearts.
With all his flaws and failures, Peter still had little faith and made a small place in his heart for God. And God used that little faith and that small place to transform Peter and to transform the world.
As usual, God made something awesome out of something very small.
The good news is that what was true for Peter is just as true for us – what God did for Peter, God can do for all of us - for all of us of little faith.
Amen.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Wrestling
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 31, 2011
Year A: Proper 13 - The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 17:1-7, 16
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21
Wrestling
For seven years before I went to seminary I was a history teacher at my alma mater, an all-boys Catholic school. For the most part, I loved teaching there. The students were bright and eager to learn. I taught alongside fine colleagues, some of whom were also close friends.
One of my favorite parts of the day was homeroom – which we had first thing in the morning. Always having a freshman homeroom, I tried to help these boys get acclimated to the challenges of their new school. Each year I tried to create a little homeroom community – a place where they could feel safe and welcome at the start of their four years of high school.
I have to admit, though, that starting the day with a roomful of 14 year-old boys could sometimes be too much. One of the things that drove me up a wall was when the boys would come into my classroom and talk with great excitement about the wrestling matches they had watched on TV the night before.
Remember, this was the peak of so-called professional wrestling. Night after night my students would watch mostly men in outlandish costumes with silly stage names exchange insults and toss each other around the ring.
The kids were savvy enough to know that for the most part the cartoonish violence they were watching wasn’t real – but they still loved it and loved retelling the stories in my classroom first thing in the morning.
It got so bad that eventually I issued an “executive order” banning any discussion of professional wrestling in my classroom.
Meanwhile the school had a wrestling team. Its matches against students from other schools couldn’t be more different from what the kids were watching on TV. This wrestling wasn’t flamboyant. The wrestlers really were vulnerable to their opponent. This wrestling was much more subtle than what was on TV. If you weren’t paying close attention you could easily miss how exactly one wrestler ended up pinned to the mat. And in this kind of wrestling the lasting effects were all too real.
Living a life of faith requires wrestling – wrestling with ourselves, wrestling with Scripture, wrestling with the Church, and even, as we heard this morning, wrestling with God.
Although I haven’t mentioned Jacob in a couple of weeks, we’ve continued to hear the highlights of his story. You may remember that so far we have seen Jacob for the most part as a dishonorable person – as a trickster and a fink who cheats his slightly older twin Esau out of his birthright and out of their father’s blessing.
Yet, God has big hopes and plans for this unsavory character.
Two weeks ago we heard the story of Jacob dreaming of a ladder bridging the gap between earth and heaven – a ladder that allows angels to travel back and forth.
At the end of the dream God appears to Jacob and says, “the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
Last week we glimpsed some of the goodness in Jacob when we heard the story of his love for Rachel – and his willingness to work seven years for her father in order to have her as his wife.
Now Jacob and his entourage are making their way back to Canaan. There is, however, a shadow over what might have been a joyful homecoming – Esau. Jacob knows all too well that his brother remains furious at him because of the betrayal.
Jacob has tried to reconcile with his brother by sending gifts ahead. But, he knows that Esau has a real grievance against him – and that Esau may very well kill him and his family.
Like many of us, when feeling guilt and fear, Jacob just wants to be alone.
Yet, like all of us, Jacob is not alone. God keeps the promise to be with Jacob.
And God isn’t only with Jacob. God is willing to wrestle with Jacob – God is willing to challenge Jacob in order to transform him – to transform Jacob into the person he was always meant to be – to transform Jacob into his true self.
Transformation is not easy. And so we have this ancient, powerful and mysterious story of Jacob wrestling with a man, a supernatural being, maybe an angel or maybe even God.
Regardless of the exact identity of Jacob’s opponent, there’s nothing cartoonish about this wrestling match. The stakes are real both for God and for Jacob.
Jacob proves his strength and persistence not to God - but to himself. Jacob is marked forever by the encounter. He is marked both by his limp and he is marked by his new name. Before he was Jacob – the supplanter – and now he is renamed Israel “the one who has striven with God and with humans and has prevailed.”
Early commentators streamlined the meaning of the name Israel into simply “the man who saw God.”
The rest of Jacob’s life was transformed by this mysterious divine wrestling match. But, that doesn’t mean that he always had an easy time of it or that he and his family lived happily ever after.
His reconciliation with Esau will be only partial. His daughter Dinah will be raped. And his son Joseph will be sold by his brothers into Egyptian slavery.
But throughout all the trials to come I’m sure Jacob remembered the night he saw God and knew that God would be with him through it all.
We Christians see God most clearly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if we take seriously the teachings and example of Christ, then we’re likely to wrestle with ourselves, with Scripture, with the Church and even with God.
It’s going to take some wrestling to really love and trust God.
It’s going to take some wrestling to resist evil and, when we sin, to repent.
It’s going to take some wrestling to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
It’s going to take some wrestling to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as our self.
And it’s going to take some wrestling to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.
The first disciples did a fair amount of wrestling as they tried to absorb the message Jesus was teaching them through his word and example. We hear a little bit of that wrestling in the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes.
We’re told that many thousands of people have followed Jesus and the disciples to a deserted place. Now, it’s evening, and the crowd is hungry.
How do the disciples respond? They tell Jesus to, “…send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
Obviously they still don’t get it. But now the disciples are challenged to wrestle with what it means to trust God and to follow Christ. Jesus tells them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
On that night, one miracle was Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes, providing more than enough for the many thousands of hungry people. But, another miracle was the wrestling challenge given to the disciples – the challenge that transformed the disciples from selfishness to self-sacrifice.
Like the first disciples we are challenged to wrestle with what it means to trust God and to follow Christ.
We are challenged to wrestle with our selfishness, our small-mindedness and our fears.
For us today, the miracle is seeing the face of God in Jesus Christ and seeing the face of Christ in one another and the people out there – the people who are hungry for a good meal – the people who are hungry for the Body and Blood of Christ – the people who are hungry for healing and reconciliation – and the people who are burdened by fear and guilt.
Just as God was willing to wrestle with Jacob long ago, fortunately God is willing to wrestle with us – to mark us forever and to transform us into the people we were always meant to be – to transform us into our true selves – to be, like Jacob, the people who have seen God.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 31, 2011
Year A: Proper 13 - The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 17:1-7, 16
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21
Wrestling
For seven years before I went to seminary I was a history teacher at my alma mater, an all-boys Catholic school. For the most part, I loved teaching there. The students were bright and eager to learn. I taught alongside fine colleagues, some of whom were also close friends.
One of my favorite parts of the day was homeroom – which we had first thing in the morning. Always having a freshman homeroom, I tried to help these boys get acclimated to the challenges of their new school. Each year I tried to create a little homeroom community – a place where they could feel safe and welcome at the start of their four years of high school.
I have to admit, though, that starting the day with a roomful of 14 year-old boys could sometimes be too much. One of the things that drove me up a wall was when the boys would come into my classroom and talk with great excitement about the wrestling matches they had watched on TV the night before.
Remember, this was the peak of so-called professional wrestling. Night after night my students would watch mostly men in outlandish costumes with silly stage names exchange insults and toss each other around the ring.
The kids were savvy enough to know that for the most part the cartoonish violence they were watching wasn’t real – but they still loved it and loved retelling the stories in my classroom first thing in the morning.
It got so bad that eventually I issued an “executive order” banning any discussion of professional wrestling in my classroom.
Meanwhile the school had a wrestling team. Its matches against students from other schools couldn’t be more different from what the kids were watching on TV. This wrestling wasn’t flamboyant. The wrestlers really were vulnerable to their opponent. This wrestling was much more subtle than what was on TV. If you weren’t paying close attention you could easily miss how exactly one wrestler ended up pinned to the mat. And in this kind of wrestling the lasting effects were all too real.
Living a life of faith requires wrestling – wrestling with ourselves, wrestling with Scripture, wrestling with the Church, and even, as we heard this morning, wrestling with God.
Although I haven’t mentioned Jacob in a couple of weeks, we’ve continued to hear the highlights of his story. You may remember that so far we have seen Jacob for the most part as a dishonorable person – as a trickster and a fink who cheats his slightly older twin Esau out of his birthright and out of their father’s blessing.
Yet, God has big hopes and plans for this unsavory character.
Two weeks ago we heard the story of Jacob dreaming of a ladder bridging the gap between earth and heaven – a ladder that allows angels to travel back and forth.
At the end of the dream God appears to Jacob and says, “the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
Last week we glimpsed some of the goodness in Jacob when we heard the story of his love for Rachel – and his willingness to work seven years for her father in order to have her as his wife.
Now Jacob and his entourage are making their way back to Canaan. There is, however, a shadow over what might have been a joyful homecoming – Esau. Jacob knows all too well that his brother remains furious at him because of the betrayal.
Jacob has tried to reconcile with his brother by sending gifts ahead. But, he knows that Esau has a real grievance against him – and that Esau may very well kill him and his family.
Like many of us, when feeling guilt and fear, Jacob just wants to be alone.
Yet, like all of us, Jacob is not alone. God keeps the promise to be with Jacob.
And God isn’t only with Jacob. God is willing to wrestle with Jacob – God is willing to challenge Jacob in order to transform him – to transform Jacob into the person he was always meant to be – to transform Jacob into his true self.
Transformation is not easy. And so we have this ancient, powerful and mysterious story of Jacob wrestling with a man, a supernatural being, maybe an angel or maybe even God.
Regardless of the exact identity of Jacob’s opponent, there’s nothing cartoonish about this wrestling match. The stakes are real both for God and for Jacob.
Jacob proves his strength and persistence not to God - but to himself. Jacob is marked forever by the encounter. He is marked both by his limp and he is marked by his new name. Before he was Jacob – the supplanter – and now he is renamed Israel “the one who has striven with God and with humans and has prevailed.”
Early commentators streamlined the meaning of the name Israel into simply “the man who saw God.”
The rest of Jacob’s life was transformed by this mysterious divine wrestling match. But, that doesn’t mean that he always had an easy time of it or that he and his family lived happily ever after.
His reconciliation with Esau will be only partial. His daughter Dinah will be raped. And his son Joseph will be sold by his brothers into Egyptian slavery.
But throughout all the trials to come I’m sure Jacob remembered the night he saw God and knew that God would be with him through it all.
We Christians see God most clearly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if we take seriously the teachings and example of Christ, then we’re likely to wrestle with ourselves, with Scripture, with the Church and even with God.
It’s going to take some wrestling to really love and trust God.
It’s going to take some wrestling to resist evil and, when we sin, to repent.
It’s going to take some wrestling to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
It’s going to take some wrestling to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as our self.
And it’s going to take some wrestling to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.
The first disciples did a fair amount of wrestling as they tried to absorb the message Jesus was teaching them through his word and example. We hear a little bit of that wrestling in the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes.
We’re told that many thousands of people have followed Jesus and the disciples to a deserted place. Now, it’s evening, and the crowd is hungry.
How do the disciples respond? They tell Jesus to, “…send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
Obviously they still don’t get it. But now the disciples are challenged to wrestle with what it means to trust God and to follow Christ. Jesus tells them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
On that night, one miracle was Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes, providing more than enough for the many thousands of hungry people. But, another miracle was the wrestling challenge given to the disciples – the challenge that transformed the disciples from selfishness to self-sacrifice.
Like the first disciples we are challenged to wrestle with what it means to trust God and to follow Christ.
We are challenged to wrestle with our selfishness, our small-mindedness and our fears.
For us today, the miracle is seeing the face of God in Jesus Christ and seeing the face of Christ in one another and the people out there – the people who are hungry for a good meal – the people who are hungry for the Body and Blood of Christ – the people who are hungry for healing and reconciliation – and the people who are burdened by fear and guilt.
Just as God was willing to wrestle with Jacob long ago, fortunately God is willing to wrestle with us – to mark us forever and to transform us into the people we were always meant to be – to transform us into our true selves – to be, like Jacob, the people who have seen God.
Amen.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Branches
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 24, 2011
Year A: Proper 12 – The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11,45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Branches
For the past couple of Sundays we’ve been making our way through a collection of Jesus’ parables recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.
Two weeks ago we heard the Parable of the Sower – Jesus’ powerful image of a persistent and hopeful God casting seeds all over the place – casting seeds on good soil and, more often, casting seeds not such good soil.
Last week we heard the parable of the weeds and the wheat.
And now today we have a collection of shorter parables beginning with the parable of the mustard seed.
This is one of the best known and most beloved of Jesus’ parables – giving us a glimpse of what the kingdom of God is like.
The kingdom of God begins in tiny, nearly invisible, easy to miss, ways. And yet, under the right conditions from these small beginnings the kingdom is manifested in ways that are a blessing for many.
In thinking about this beautiful and profound parable, I was reminded of a movie from France that came out last year, but Sue and I only caught up with it a couple of weeks ago.
The movie is called Of Gods and Men. It’s set in the North African country of Algeria during the 1990s.
It tells the true story of a small group of French monks who live in a monastery in a rural village in that predominately Muslim country.
In the movie’s early scenes we see the monks going about their daily tasks, living out their vocations. Like monks and nuns everywhere their days and nights are punctuated by times of prayer and worship in the monastery chapel. They eat their meals in silence listening to one monk read some spiritual writing. They wash their dishes. They scrub the floors. They gather firewood. They tend their crops and bring their products to sell at the local market.
And they operate a rudimentary clinic that seems to be the only medical facility in the village. Each day young and old gather outside the monastery door waiting to see Luc, the monk who is also a physician. Each day he dispenses medicine, along with the occasional pair of shoes and, at least once, advice to a young woman from the village on matters of the heart.
In 1991 an Islamic party won Algeria’s first multi-party election. More secular elements in the country, including the military, refused to accept that result -sparking a decade-long brutal civil war.
In the movie, at first the violence seems far away from the rural village where the French monks and their Algerian neighbors live in harmony. But, soon enough, it becomes clear that their village, including the monastery, will not be spared bloodshed.
Unlike most of the villagers, the monks have a choice. To save their lives, they could close up the monastery and head back to France.
The monks are divided. Some want to stay while others say they went to Algeria to live, not to die.
Talking with one of the villagers, a monk describes himself and his brothers this way. He says,
“We are like birds on a branch. Uncertain when we’ll leave.”
But the villager gently corrects him, saying,
“We’re the birds. You’re the branch.”
Although the monk had lived at the monastery and among the villagers for years, he had not recognized how important the monastery had become for the little village. The monastery had started as a small seed in very inhospitable Algerian soil. Thanks to the faithfulness of the monks day after day, year in and year out, that little seed had grown into a life-giving tree where the people of the village were able to make their nests in a dangerous world.
As we heard in the parable of the sower two weeks ago, God is planting seeds all over the place – in the most unlikely and inhospitable places.
And God is certainly planting seeds in us all of the time.
The only question is how do we respond to these divine seeds.
Like the monks in the movie, despite our flaws and weaknesses, do we do our best to faithfully nurture God’s seeds?
Even when we’re tired or bored or are just feeling dry and uninspired, do we still drag ourselves here week after week just as the monks punctuated each of their days with common and personal prayer?
Like the monks, despite our fear, do we come out from behind the walls of our church and our homes to walk side by side with our neighbors, with our brothers and sisters – especially those who are poor and who suffer in mind, body or spirit?
It seems to me that the only thing that prevents us from nurturing the seeds that God plants in us is fear – fear that we might have to give more than we expected – fear that we might lose what we think is most important.
The French monks in Algeria were afraid, some more than others. The threats of violence, pain and death were very real.
In the movie there’s a scene when the abbot talks with one of the monks who is afraid of losing his life. Essentially the abbot tells the monk that he has already lost his life. He lost his life when he gave it to Christ. He lost his life when he gave it to serving God and serving God’s people. He lost his life when he gave it to doing his best to nurture the seeds that God had planted in him.
You never know, but I’m guessing that no one here is called to be a monk or a nun.
But we are all called to lose our lives by giving them to Christ.
We are all called to lose our lives in service to God and God’s people.
As Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
Fear alone prevents us from nurturing the seeds that God plants in us. The monks in Algeria suffered a great deal. And there has been and there will be real suffering in our lives. But, ultimately, we can be sure of God’s love through every challenge and ordeal.
St. Paul – who knew a lot about suffering - wrote to the church in Rome, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
There’s no guarantee that the tiny mustard seeds planted by God in each of us will ever grow into trees with branches strong enough for birds to make their nests.
With God’s help, through our openness and faithfulness the kingdom of God can take root and grow in Gainesville, in Algeria, and throughout creation.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 24, 2011
Year A: Proper 12 – The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11,45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Branches
For the past couple of Sundays we’ve been making our way through a collection of Jesus’ parables recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.
Two weeks ago we heard the Parable of the Sower – Jesus’ powerful image of a persistent and hopeful God casting seeds all over the place – casting seeds on good soil and, more often, casting seeds not such good soil.
Last week we heard the parable of the weeds and the wheat.
And now today we have a collection of shorter parables beginning with the parable of the mustard seed.
This is one of the best known and most beloved of Jesus’ parables – giving us a glimpse of what the kingdom of God is like.
The kingdom of God begins in tiny, nearly invisible, easy to miss, ways. And yet, under the right conditions from these small beginnings the kingdom is manifested in ways that are a blessing for many.
In thinking about this beautiful and profound parable, I was reminded of a movie from France that came out last year, but Sue and I only caught up with it a couple of weeks ago.
The movie is called Of Gods and Men. It’s set in the North African country of Algeria during the 1990s.
It tells the true story of a small group of French monks who live in a monastery in a rural village in that predominately Muslim country.
In the movie’s early scenes we see the monks going about their daily tasks, living out their vocations. Like monks and nuns everywhere their days and nights are punctuated by times of prayer and worship in the monastery chapel. They eat their meals in silence listening to one monk read some spiritual writing. They wash their dishes. They scrub the floors. They gather firewood. They tend their crops and bring their products to sell at the local market.
And they operate a rudimentary clinic that seems to be the only medical facility in the village. Each day young and old gather outside the monastery door waiting to see Luc, the monk who is also a physician. Each day he dispenses medicine, along with the occasional pair of shoes and, at least once, advice to a young woman from the village on matters of the heart.
In 1991 an Islamic party won Algeria’s first multi-party election. More secular elements in the country, including the military, refused to accept that result -sparking a decade-long brutal civil war.
In the movie, at first the violence seems far away from the rural village where the French monks and their Algerian neighbors live in harmony. But, soon enough, it becomes clear that their village, including the monastery, will not be spared bloodshed.
Unlike most of the villagers, the monks have a choice. To save their lives, they could close up the monastery and head back to France.
The monks are divided. Some want to stay while others say they went to Algeria to live, not to die.
Talking with one of the villagers, a monk describes himself and his brothers this way. He says,
“We are like birds on a branch. Uncertain when we’ll leave.”
But the villager gently corrects him, saying,
“We’re the birds. You’re the branch.”
Although the monk had lived at the monastery and among the villagers for years, he had not recognized how important the monastery had become for the little village. The monastery had started as a small seed in very inhospitable Algerian soil. Thanks to the faithfulness of the monks day after day, year in and year out, that little seed had grown into a life-giving tree where the people of the village were able to make their nests in a dangerous world.
As we heard in the parable of the sower two weeks ago, God is planting seeds all over the place – in the most unlikely and inhospitable places.
And God is certainly planting seeds in us all of the time.
The only question is how do we respond to these divine seeds.
Like the monks in the movie, despite our flaws and weaknesses, do we do our best to faithfully nurture God’s seeds?
Even when we’re tired or bored or are just feeling dry and uninspired, do we still drag ourselves here week after week just as the monks punctuated each of their days with common and personal prayer?
Like the monks, despite our fear, do we come out from behind the walls of our church and our homes to walk side by side with our neighbors, with our brothers and sisters – especially those who are poor and who suffer in mind, body or spirit?
It seems to me that the only thing that prevents us from nurturing the seeds that God plants in us is fear – fear that we might have to give more than we expected – fear that we might lose what we think is most important.
The French monks in Algeria were afraid, some more than others. The threats of violence, pain and death were very real.
In the movie there’s a scene when the abbot talks with one of the monks who is afraid of losing his life. Essentially the abbot tells the monk that he has already lost his life. He lost his life when he gave it to Christ. He lost his life when he gave it to serving God and serving God’s people. He lost his life when he gave it to doing his best to nurture the seeds that God had planted in him.
You never know, but I’m guessing that no one here is called to be a monk or a nun.
But we are all called to lose our lives by giving them to Christ.
We are all called to lose our lives in service to God and God’s people.
As Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
Fear alone prevents us from nurturing the seeds that God plants in us. The monks in Algeria suffered a great deal. And there has been and there will be real suffering in our lives. But, ultimately, we can be sure of God’s love through every challenge and ordeal.
St. Paul – who knew a lot about suffering - wrote to the church in Rome, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
There’s no guarantee that the tiny mustard seeds planted by God in each of us will ever grow into trees with branches strong enough for birds to make their nests.
With God’s help, through our openness and faithfulness the kingdom of God can take root and grow in Gainesville, in Algeria, and throughout creation.
Amen.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Good Soil
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 10, 2011
Year A: Proper 9, The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The Good Soil
Back when I was a teacher it was a never-ending challenge to find methods and approaches that would get my subject – in my case history – across to my students. Some students did best with the old-fashioned chalk and talk method while others preferred to read on their own and come to class eager to discuss or debate. Others were visual learners – doing best with photographs, charts and films.
It was tough to find the right approach – and like all teachers sometimes I succeeded, and sometimes not so much.
Jesus is often held up as the greatest of all teachers because he was able to teach about the most important of subjects – the kingdom of God – in ways that still inspire and challenge us all these many centuries later.
Jesus taught by using parables – very short stories with double meanings – to give his first followers and to give us today an inkling of what God is like and what life is like in God’s kingdom.
And from the Gospel of Matthew we just heard one of the best known of Jesus’ parables – and one he probably retold many times to many different audiences: the parable of the sower.
It’s called the parable of the sower although most of the parable is about how the seeds interact with the different types of soil they land on.
Obviously agriculture in First Century Palestine was much less sophisticated than what we’re capable of today. Sowing seeds was imprecise and very risky – even under the best conditions the return was not good – and a failed crop was a matter of life and death.
So Jesus’ first audiences must have been shocked by the fact that the sower in the parable is amazingly indiscriminate – the sower tosses seeds on the path where birds can get at them, on rocky soil where they grow too fast and are scorched by the sun and among choking thorns – the sower tosses seed everywhere.
No surprise that most of the seeds are never able to take root and grow.
Yet, where the seeds do take root in the good soil, the return is astonishing – Jesus says, “Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Most scholars believe that the explanation of the parable that we heard in the second part of the lesson comes not from Jesus himself but from the early Church as it reflected on and struggled with the meaning of this and Jesus’ other parables.
Whatever its source, from an early date there’s been an understanding that the different types of soil are a metaphor for how we receive Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God.
So, who are we in this parable?
Are we the ones who hear Jesus’ teaching, but since we don’t understand it the evil one is able to snatch it right out of our hearts?
Or are we the ones who first receive Jesus’ teaching with great joy but since we don’t nurture it, we fall away during times of trouble?
Or are we the ones who hear Jesus’ teaching but we’re so concerned about our lives and our material possessions that the Good News gets choked in our hearts?
Or are we the ones in whom the teachings of Jesus take root and bear abundant fruit that is a blessing to many?
A clergy colleague suggested that at different points in our lives we provide all of these different types of soil for the Good News of Jesus Christ.
That seems about right to me.
Sometimes we feel so distant from God – our faith seems like just a cruel pipedream – that we can’t see all the many ways that God is at work around us – all the ways that God is planting seeds even in the most inhospitable soil.
Sometimes we come to church and get so inspired by the service, the music and the fellowship, that it feels like we go flying back out into the world. But then during the week we do nothing to nurture our faith. We don’t set aside time for prayer or reflection. We quickly get caught up in the cares and occupations of our lives and the experience of worship becomes a faint memory.
And then sometimes we feel so close to God. We can feel God’s love and presence. We can recognize God at work even in the most ordinary experiences of our lives. And sometimes we can even feel God using us to plant even more seeds, to spread the Good News of the kingdom.
Yes, for many of us, over the course of our lives it’s all of the above.
Fortunately, God doesn’t have just one planting season. Unlike us, God doesn’t get discouraged. Instead, God the persistent farmer is constantly at work - pouring an overflowing abundance of seeds into all of us.
Despite our failings and flaws if we’re open just a little, God can find the good soil that’s been inside of us all along.
Throughout the Bible there are examples of God finding the good soil in people with very big failings and flaws.
In today’s Old Testament lesson, we heard about the birth of the twins Esau and Jacob. In some ways it’s a familiar story of sibling rivalry – a rivalry that seems to already exist in the womb as we’re told Jacob is born grasping on to his slightly older twin’s heel.
In fact, the name “Jacob” means “heel-grabber” or “supplanter.”
We’re told that, although they are twins, Esau and Jacob are very different. Esau is “a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.”
In my previous parish the last time I preached about Jacob people laughed when I referred to him as a fink – but often that’s what he was. In these early stories he’s a trickster and certainly not a very appealing or honorable character. In today’s lesson we heard the story of Jacob bartering a bowl of stew in exchange for his older brother’s birthright.
And later, Jacob (helped by his mother Rebekah) will trick blind old Isaac into giving his blessing to him instead of Esau.
This is all pretty unpleasant business. Jacob does not distinguish himself as an honorable person.
Yet, eventually God is able to find the good soil in Jacob - gradually transforming this fink, this trickster, into a blessing.
God is able to find the good soil in Jacob, transforming this deceiving younger brother into the good father of the twelve tribes of Israel.
If God can find the good soil in Jacob, then God can definitely find the good soil in each of us.
All we need to do is give God a little space, just a small opening.
We give God a little space by being here each week, hearing God’s Word, taking Christ’s Body and Blood into our bodies and hearts, and by sharing God’s love with each other.
We give God a little space each week by setting aside a little time – even just a minute or two – for prayer and reflection – even maybe just a plea for help or a cry of thanks for being alive.
We give God a little space when we give of ourselves however and whenever we can – maybe by sharing our plenty, maybe by listening to a friend in distress, or maybe by just giving a shoulder to cry on.
And when we give God a little space, eventually God the persistent farmer will find the good soil that’s been in us all along.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 10, 2011
Year A: Proper 9, The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The Good Soil
Back when I was a teacher it was a never-ending challenge to find methods and approaches that would get my subject – in my case history – across to my students. Some students did best with the old-fashioned chalk and talk method while others preferred to read on their own and come to class eager to discuss or debate. Others were visual learners – doing best with photographs, charts and films.
It was tough to find the right approach – and like all teachers sometimes I succeeded, and sometimes not so much.
Jesus is often held up as the greatest of all teachers because he was able to teach about the most important of subjects – the kingdom of God – in ways that still inspire and challenge us all these many centuries later.
Jesus taught by using parables – very short stories with double meanings – to give his first followers and to give us today an inkling of what God is like and what life is like in God’s kingdom.
And from the Gospel of Matthew we just heard one of the best known of Jesus’ parables – and one he probably retold many times to many different audiences: the parable of the sower.
It’s called the parable of the sower although most of the parable is about how the seeds interact with the different types of soil they land on.
Obviously agriculture in First Century Palestine was much less sophisticated than what we’re capable of today. Sowing seeds was imprecise and very risky – even under the best conditions the return was not good – and a failed crop was a matter of life and death.
So Jesus’ first audiences must have been shocked by the fact that the sower in the parable is amazingly indiscriminate – the sower tosses seeds on the path where birds can get at them, on rocky soil where they grow too fast and are scorched by the sun and among choking thorns – the sower tosses seed everywhere.
No surprise that most of the seeds are never able to take root and grow.
Yet, where the seeds do take root in the good soil, the return is astonishing – Jesus says, “Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Most scholars believe that the explanation of the parable that we heard in the second part of the lesson comes not from Jesus himself but from the early Church as it reflected on and struggled with the meaning of this and Jesus’ other parables.
Whatever its source, from an early date there’s been an understanding that the different types of soil are a metaphor for how we receive Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God.
So, who are we in this parable?
Are we the ones who hear Jesus’ teaching, but since we don’t understand it the evil one is able to snatch it right out of our hearts?
Or are we the ones who first receive Jesus’ teaching with great joy but since we don’t nurture it, we fall away during times of trouble?
Or are we the ones who hear Jesus’ teaching but we’re so concerned about our lives and our material possessions that the Good News gets choked in our hearts?
Or are we the ones in whom the teachings of Jesus take root and bear abundant fruit that is a blessing to many?
A clergy colleague suggested that at different points in our lives we provide all of these different types of soil for the Good News of Jesus Christ.
That seems about right to me.
Sometimes we feel so distant from God – our faith seems like just a cruel pipedream – that we can’t see all the many ways that God is at work around us – all the ways that God is planting seeds even in the most inhospitable soil.
Sometimes we come to church and get so inspired by the service, the music and the fellowship, that it feels like we go flying back out into the world. But then during the week we do nothing to nurture our faith. We don’t set aside time for prayer or reflection. We quickly get caught up in the cares and occupations of our lives and the experience of worship becomes a faint memory.
And then sometimes we feel so close to God. We can feel God’s love and presence. We can recognize God at work even in the most ordinary experiences of our lives. And sometimes we can even feel God using us to plant even more seeds, to spread the Good News of the kingdom.
Yes, for many of us, over the course of our lives it’s all of the above.
Fortunately, God doesn’t have just one planting season. Unlike us, God doesn’t get discouraged. Instead, God the persistent farmer is constantly at work - pouring an overflowing abundance of seeds into all of us.
Despite our failings and flaws if we’re open just a little, God can find the good soil that’s been inside of us all along.
Throughout the Bible there are examples of God finding the good soil in people with very big failings and flaws.
In today’s Old Testament lesson, we heard about the birth of the twins Esau and Jacob. In some ways it’s a familiar story of sibling rivalry – a rivalry that seems to already exist in the womb as we’re told Jacob is born grasping on to his slightly older twin’s heel.
In fact, the name “Jacob” means “heel-grabber” or “supplanter.”
We’re told that, although they are twins, Esau and Jacob are very different. Esau is “a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.”
In my previous parish the last time I preached about Jacob people laughed when I referred to him as a fink – but often that’s what he was. In these early stories he’s a trickster and certainly not a very appealing or honorable character. In today’s lesson we heard the story of Jacob bartering a bowl of stew in exchange for his older brother’s birthright.
And later, Jacob (helped by his mother Rebekah) will trick blind old Isaac into giving his blessing to him instead of Esau.
This is all pretty unpleasant business. Jacob does not distinguish himself as an honorable person.
Yet, eventually God is able to find the good soil in Jacob - gradually transforming this fink, this trickster, into a blessing.
God is able to find the good soil in Jacob, transforming this deceiving younger brother into the good father of the twelve tribes of Israel.
If God can find the good soil in Jacob, then God can definitely find the good soil in each of us.
All we need to do is give God a little space, just a small opening.
We give God a little space by being here each week, hearing God’s Word, taking Christ’s Body and Blood into our bodies and hearts, and by sharing God’s love with each other.
We give God a little space each week by setting aside a little time – even just a minute or two – for prayer and reflection – even maybe just a plea for help or a cry of thanks for being alive.
We give God a little space when we give of ourselves however and whenever we can – maybe by sharing our plenty, maybe by listening to a friend in distress, or maybe by just giving a shoulder to cry on.
And when we give God a little space, eventually God the persistent farmer will find the good soil that’s been in us all along.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
Sunday, July 03, 2011
"Dependence Day"
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 3, 2011
Year A: Proper 9 – The Third Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45: 11-18
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
"Dependence Day"
For many people across the country this weekend is a time for barbecues and fireworks, and a very appropriate time to give thanks for the liberty we enjoy as Americans.
As Christians, maybe Independence Day is also an opportunity to reflect on America’s civil religion and how well or not so well it matches up with Christianity.
There are lots of different definitions of America’s civil religion, but here are some of its key features:
There’s the idea of American exceptionalism – the idea that America is fundamentally different from all other countries – the idea that God has given the United States a unique role to play in the history of the world.
There’s the idea that in our country if you work hard and play by the rules you’ll get a fair shot at success – and by success we mean a comfortable middle class life.
And at the core of America’s civil religion are the twin ideas of individualism and self-reliance.
We don’t call our big holiday Independence Day for nothing! This is a generalization, but in America there tends to be a heavy emphasis on the rights and interests of the individual and a bit less concern for the common good. Deeply rooted in our sense of nationhood is the idea that the greatest good will be produced when we are all free to pursue our own self-interest.
What about God? How does God fit into America’s civil religion?
Maybe the answer to that question can be summed up by quoting America’s favorite Bible verse, “God helps those who help themselves.”
We’ve all heard it. Many of us have said it. Some of us believe it. There’s just one problem: “God helps those who help themselves” isn’t in the Bible. In fact, when you stop and think about it, that familiar phrase contradicts one of the great themes of Scripture: We are made to depend on God.
We hear what happens when we think we’re in control and when we try to help ourselves in today’s passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. He writes, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Paul’s recognition of his and our helplessness reminds me of the first steps in Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs.
As I’m sure some of you know, the twelve steps begin with an admission of our own powerlessness, a recognition that only a higher power can help us, and a willingness to turn over our wills and our lives to that higher power.
It’s never “independence day” at an AA meeting. Instead, it’s always dependence day – but instead of depending on alcohol or some other substance, at recovery meetings people are encouraged and challenged to recognize their life-giving dependence on God and their liberating dependence on one another.
And what’s true at a recovery meeting should be even truer for us.
I’m glad to live in a politically independent America – but on a deeper, spiritual, level we are not made for independence. And when we try to be independent – independent of God and independent of one another – we end up exhausted, making a huge mess of our lives, a mess of the lives of those around us and a mess of our country and planet.
But, for many of us, it’s not easy to admit our dependence on God and our dependence on one another. For many of us it’s not easy to trust God or to trust other people.
I’ve been reading a book about loneliness and in it the author suggests that lonely people to some extent prefer their aloneness over taking the risks involved with forming deep and complicated relationships with others. Yet, lonely people don’t enjoy their loneliness – don’t relish their independence. It’s not what we were made for.
Today’s Old Testament lesson gives us an example of the costs and rewards of dependence.
Last week you’ll remember we heard the story of the almost-sacrifice by Abraham of his son Isaac. Now a little later on the authors of Genesis tell the story of Abraham sending his servant back to his kinfolk in Haran to find Isaac a suitable wife. It’s a story sometimes called the wooing of Rebekah.
The servant makes a solemn oath to Abraham that he will carry out his mission. There’s more than a little magical thinking in the servant’s approach to finding Isaac a wife, but there is also deep dependence on God to help him find the best wife for his master’s son.
After meeting her at a well and after a very brief discernment, the servant decides that Rebekah – described as “fair to look at” and also kind and generous– is the one for Isaac. The part of the story we heard today picks up with the servant meeting with Rebekah’s brother, who seems to be in charge of the family.
We glimpse a little of the negotiations that were involved – and in many parts of the world still are involved - in arranging a marriage. We might find these kinds of negotiations distasteful, but they do reflect the reality that in a marriage it’s more than two people who are united – two families are forming a bond of mutual dependence – a real but often an uneasy process.
Thinking about these premarital negotiations I was reminded of a wedding I officiated at a few months ago. In some ways it was a very modern and somewhat complicated situation. The groom had been married before and has a young son. To make things easier, the couple could have just gotten married at city hall in a simple ceremony that would have taken a few minutes. But, instead they created a prayerful service reflecting their dependence on God, on one another and on their families and friends.
The most powerful expression of this mutual dependence took place when the bride and the groom along with the ex-wife and their son stepped forward and in front of everyone poured different colored sand into a glass jar – symbolizing mutual dependence and the new unity between and among their families.
This little ceremony was a powerful reminder that marriage is not just about two individuals – it’s about the mutual dependence of families and the mutual dependence of the whole community.
We didn’t hear it in today’s excerpt, but, naturally enough, Rebekah’s family wanted to hold on to her for a little while longer. But, here’s an amazing thing – they ask Rebekah to decide for herself. They ask her, “Will you go with this man?” And she answers, “I will.”
Rebekah boldly chooses to depend on God and to also depend on the servant and to depend on a man she has never even met.
It’s a great story of dependence.
The questions for us today are:
Will we fool ourselves into thinking that we can be independent of God and independent of one another?
Will we make the big mistake of thinking that somehow through our own efforts we can help ourselves?
Will we misunderstand the whole story of God and humanity and somehow think that God helps those who help themselves?
I’m sure we all answer yes to those questions, at least sometimes.
But, trying to go it alone, depending only on ourselves, is exhausting and ultimately self-destructive. So, in today’s gospel Jesus offers us rest. Jesus offers a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.
Jesus offers us the chance to be part of the Body of Christ – where we depend on God and depend on one another.
Accepting Jesus’ offer doesn’t mean we’ll have an easy time of it. No, there will still be plenty of challenges and failures and suffering.
But accepting Jesus’ offer of rest and an easy yoke and a light burden does mean we can live the kind of joyful lives that we were always meant to live – the kind of lives that God still hopes we will live – lives dependent on the God who loves us more than we can imagine – and lives dependent on one another.
So, I hope everyone has a safe and happy Independence Day!
But I also hope that we Christians remember that for us every day is “dependence day.”
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
July 3, 2011
Year A: Proper 9 – The Third Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45: 11-18
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
"Dependence Day"
For many people across the country this weekend is a time for barbecues and fireworks, and a very appropriate time to give thanks for the liberty we enjoy as Americans.
As Christians, maybe Independence Day is also an opportunity to reflect on America’s civil religion and how well or not so well it matches up with Christianity.
There are lots of different definitions of America’s civil religion, but here are some of its key features:
There’s the idea of American exceptionalism – the idea that America is fundamentally different from all other countries – the idea that God has given the United States a unique role to play in the history of the world.
There’s the idea that in our country if you work hard and play by the rules you’ll get a fair shot at success – and by success we mean a comfortable middle class life.
And at the core of America’s civil religion are the twin ideas of individualism and self-reliance.
We don’t call our big holiday Independence Day for nothing! This is a generalization, but in America there tends to be a heavy emphasis on the rights and interests of the individual and a bit less concern for the common good. Deeply rooted in our sense of nationhood is the idea that the greatest good will be produced when we are all free to pursue our own self-interest.
What about God? How does God fit into America’s civil religion?
Maybe the answer to that question can be summed up by quoting America’s favorite Bible verse, “God helps those who help themselves.”
We’ve all heard it. Many of us have said it. Some of us believe it. There’s just one problem: “God helps those who help themselves” isn’t in the Bible. In fact, when you stop and think about it, that familiar phrase contradicts one of the great themes of Scripture: We are made to depend on God.
We hear what happens when we think we’re in control and when we try to help ourselves in today’s passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. He writes, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Paul’s recognition of his and our helplessness reminds me of the first steps in Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs.
As I’m sure some of you know, the twelve steps begin with an admission of our own powerlessness, a recognition that only a higher power can help us, and a willingness to turn over our wills and our lives to that higher power.
It’s never “independence day” at an AA meeting. Instead, it’s always dependence day – but instead of depending on alcohol or some other substance, at recovery meetings people are encouraged and challenged to recognize their life-giving dependence on God and their liberating dependence on one another.
And what’s true at a recovery meeting should be even truer for us.
I’m glad to live in a politically independent America – but on a deeper, spiritual, level we are not made for independence. And when we try to be independent – independent of God and independent of one another – we end up exhausted, making a huge mess of our lives, a mess of the lives of those around us and a mess of our country and planet.
But, for many of us, it’s not easy to admit our dependence on God and our dependence on one another. For many of us it’s not easy to trust God or to trust other people.
I’ve been reading a book about loneliness and in it the author suggests that lonely people to some extent prefer their aloneness over taking the risks involved with forming deep and complicated relationships with others. Yet, lonely people don’t enjoy their loneliness – don’t relish their independence. It’s not what we were made for.
Today’s Old Testament lesson gives us an example of the costs and rewards of dependence.
Last week you’ll remember we heard the story of the almost-sacrifice by Abraham of his son Isaac. Now a little later on the authors of Genesis tell the story of Abraham sending his servant back to his kinfolk in Haran to find Isaac a suitable wife. It’s a story sometimes called the wooing of Rebekah.
The servant makes a solemn oath to Abraham that he will carry out his mission. There’s more than a little magical thinking in the servant’s approach to finding Isaac a wife, but there is also deep dependence on God to help him find the best wife for his master’s son.
After meeting her at a well and after a very brief discernment, the servant decides that Rebekah – described as “fair to look at” and also kind and generous– is the one for Isaac. The part of the story we heard today picks up with the servant meeting with Rebekah’s brother, who seems to be in charge of the family.
We glimpse a little of the negotiations that were involved – and in many parts of the world still are involved - in arranging a marriage. We might find these kinds of negotiations distasteful, but they do reflect the reality that in a marriage it’s more than two people who are united – two families are forming a bond of mutual dependence – a real but often an uneasy process.
Thinking about these premarital negotiations I was reminded of a wedding I officiated at a few months ago. In some ways it was a very modern and somewhat complicated situation. The groom had been married before and has a young son. To make things easier, the couple could have just gotten married at city hall in a simple ceremony that would have taken a few minutes. But, instead they created a prayerful service reflecting their dependence on God, on one another and on their families and friends.
The most powerful expression of this mutual dependence took place when the bride and the groom along with the ex-wife and their son stepped forward and in front of everyone poured different colored sand into a glass jar – symbolizing mutual dependence and the new unity between and among their families.
This little ceremony was a powerful reminder that marriage is not just about two individuals – it’s about the mutual dependence of families and the mutual dependence of the whole community.
We didn’t hear it in today’s excerpt, but, naturally enough, Rebekah’s family wanted to hold on to her for a little while longer. But, here’s an amazing thing – they ask Rebekah to decide for herself. They ask her, “Will you go with this man?” And she answers, “I will.”
Rebekah boldly chooses to depend on God and to also depend on the servant and to depend on a man she has never even met.
It’s a great story of dependence.
The questions for us today are:
Will we fool ourselves into thinking that we can be independent of God and independent of one another?
Will we make the big mistake of thinking that somehow through our own efforts we can help ourselves?
Will we misunderstand the whole story of God and humanity and somehow think that God helps those who help themselves?
I’m sure we all answer yes to those questions, at least sometimes.
But, trying to go it alone, depending only on ourselves, is exhausting and ultimately self-destructive. So, in today’s gospel Jesus offers us rest. Jesus offers a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.
Jesus offers us the chance to be part of the Body of Christ – where we depend on God and depend on one another.
Accepting Jesus’ offer doesn’t mean we’ll have an easy time of it. No, there will still be plenty of challenges and failures and suffering.
But accepting Jesus’ offer of rest and an easy yoke and a light burden does mean we can live the kind of joyful lives that we were always meant to live – the kind of lives that God still hopes we will live – lives dependent on the God who loves us more than we can imagine – and lives dependent on one another.
So, I hope everyone has a safe and happy Independence Day!
But I also hope that we Christians remember that for us every day is “dependence day.”
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Offering Hospitality to God
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
June 26, 2011
Year A, Proper 8: The Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
Offering Hospitality to God
If you were in church last week you know that we heard a very long passage right from the start of the Book of Genesis. It was the creation story – or, actually, the first creation story - found in the first book of the Bible.
For the authors of Genesis, creation reached its crescendo when God created human beings – made in God’s image and likeness, and declared by God to be very good.
We didn’t hear what happened next, but we know the story. In the beginning, God and human beings were this close. And then because of our sin and selfishness and disobedience the close relationship between God and humanity got broken.
Human beings hid in shame from God – God who comes looking for us, asking, “Where are you?”
In some ways we’ve never stopped hiding. But, the best news of all time is that God never stops looking for us - God never stops reaching out to us - and God never stops wanting to be in relationship with us.
The entire sweep of the Scriptures is a restoration story. It’s the story of God reaching out to us – wanting to restore the very good bond between us – the bond that had been broken so long ago.
Jesus is at the center of that restoration story, of course.
But, others have played their part. One of the towering figures of God’s restoration story is Abraham.
In our first lesson today we heard one of the best-known and most disturbing Bible stories: the sacrifice – or rather, the almost sacrifice – of Isaac.
It’s a troubling story because taken out of context it makes God seem sadistic – testing Abraham by challenging him to offer his beloved son Isaac as a burnt offering. In telling the story, the authors of Genesis brilliantly build excruciating tension - until finally we’re told, “Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son” and was stopped only by a last second intervention from an angel of the Lord.
Now, let’s be honest - if this story were all we knew about God I doubt any of us would be here today.
But, of course, Abraham already knew a lot about God before he received this bewildering request – and thanks in large part to Jesus, you and I know a lot more about God than what we heard in this story.
So, what is this odd and disturbing story all about? Where’s the Good News in this tale of testing, trust and sacrifice?
To answer these questions we have to look at the life of Abraham as a whole. In the Book of Genesis, Abraham is presented as a model of faith and as a friend of God. One biblical scholar describes Abraham as living “a life that stands open to God’s direction.”
And God’s close relationship with Abraham is a glimpse of the kind of relationship God wants to have with all of us.
Abraham is a model for us because even under difficult and bewildering circumstances, Abraham usually remains open to God - Abraham usually welcomes God into his life - Abraham is usually hospitable to God.
For us, Abraham’s story began at age 75 when God told him to leave his home and with his wife and his nephew travel into the unknown new land of Canaan.
Abraham could have said no - I’m old, I’m tired, I don’t want to leave home. But, instead Abraham welcomed God into his life – Abraham was hospitable to a sometimes bewildering and challenging God.
Abraham is a great role model for us in part because like us he’s imperfect. There’s the story of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt when he passes off his wife as his sister in an effort to save his life – not exactly his best moment! For a time she became one of the Pharoah’s wives until God blows their cover and Abraham and Sarah are expelled from Egypt. To make matters worse, we’re told Abraham pulled the same stunt a second time in a place called Gerar where the king took Sarah until God told him the truth in a dream.
Like us, Abraham sometimes gave into fear and stumbled, damaging his relationship with God and the people closest to him.
Mostly, though, Abraham lived a life open to God’s direction – he had come to know that God cared for him and that God kept God’s promises.
At the same time, Abraham lived in a time and place when and where it was not unheard of in times of great distress for people to sacrifice their children to appease the gods. And the greatest sacrifice of all would be to give up an only son.
So God’s request to sacrifice Isaac would have been very difficult, but not unprecedented.
Let’s look at today’s passage more closely.
First we’re told, “God tested Abraham.”
For me, this is the hardest part of this passage. I could be wrong and you don’t have to agree with me, but I don’t think God tests us like this. After all, God already knows us better than we know ourselves. So, if this is a test it may be not so much a test for Abraham but rather a test for God – a way for God to make a little more progress restoring the broken relationship with humanity.
As this story unfolds we learn more about God than we do about Abraham.
We already know that Abraham is a friend of God.
We already know that Abraham was willing to give up his past – he did just that when God called him to leave home. Now, God was asking Abraham to give up his future by sacrificing his son. Although it’s an excruciatingly difficult request, we can be pretty sure how Abraham would respond to the God he had welcomed into his life – the God he come to know so well and trust so much.
In fact, Abraham doesn’t seem to think he’s being tested. He hears God’s call and he doesn’t hide in fear. Instead Abraham answers God, “Here I am.”
He could be faking it, but throughout the story it seems like Abraham has at least some confidence that God isn’t really going to make him go through with this.
Abraham tells the other young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.”
Abraham tells a confused Isaac, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
But, if God does make him go through with this, Abraham seems to be confident that God must plan to bring out some good that he can’t foresee.
At the last moment Isaac is spared and given the chance to play his own role in the restoration of the broken relationship between God and humanity.
In this test we learn that God doesn’t want us to sacrifice our children. And although a ram is sacrificed in the story, the truth is God doesn’t need or want us to sacrifice animals either.
Instead, because God loves us what God wants – what God has wanted all along – is for us to be like Abraham – to let God into our lives, to offer hospitality to God - to live a life that stands open to God.
What would offering hospitality to God look like for us today? What would standing open to God look like for us today?
Although you never know, it’s unlikely that God will speak to us quite as directly as God did to Abraham thousands of years ago. But, like Abraham we need to be prepared to let go of our past and be ready to radically change our future in service to God.
Most of the time, though, living a life that stands open to God is much simpler, less dramatic but no less challenging, than what Abraham faced.
In today’s gospel lesson, we heard Jesus describing what the church – the Christian community – should look like. Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
It’s when we practice hospitality to everyone – to the rich and poor, people of every race and color, gay and straight, the smelly and the well-scrubbed, people we really like and people who drive us up the wall – it’s when we practice hospitality to everyone that we offer hospitality to God.
When, like God’s friend Abraham, we offer hospitality to God, then through us God continues repairing the bond that was broken long ago.
When, like God’s friend Abraham, we offer hospitality to God, then through us, God continues the great restoration story.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
June 26, 2011
Year A, Proper 8: The Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
Offering Hospitality to God
If you were in church last week you know that we heard a very long passage right from the start of the Book of Genesis. It was the creation story – or, actually, the first creation story - found in the first book of the Bible.
For the authors of Genesis, creation reached its crescendo when God created human beings – made in God’s image and likeness, and declared by God to be very good.
We didn’t hear what happened next, but we know the story. In the beginning, God and human beings were this close. And then because of our sin and selfishness and disobedience the close relationship between God and humanity got broken.
Human beings hid in shame from God – God who comes looking for us, asking, “Where are you?”
In some ways we’ve never stopped hiding. But, the best news of all time is that God never stops looking for us - God never stops reaching out to us - and God never stops wanting to be in relationship with us.
The entire sweep of the Scriptures is a restoration story. It’s the story of God reaching out to us – wanting to restore the very good bond between us – the bond that had been broken so long ago.
Jesus is at the center of that restoration story, of course.
But, others have played their part. One of the towering figures of God’s restoration story is Abraham.
In our first lesson today we heard one of the best-known and most disturbing Bible stories: the sacrifice – or rather, the almost sacrifice – of Isaac.
It’s a troubling story because taken out of context it makes God seem sadistic – testing Abraham by challenging him to offer his beloved son Isaac as a burnt offering. In telling the story, the authors of Genesis brilliantly build excruciating tension - until finally we’re told, “Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son” and was stopped only by a last second intervention from an angel of the Lord.
Now, let’s be honest - if this story were all we knew about God I doubt any of us would be here today.
But, of course, Abraham already knew a lot about God before he received this bewildering request – and thanks in large part to Jesus, you and I know a lot more about God than what we heard in this story.
So, what is this odd and disturbing story all about? Where’s the Good News in this tale of testing, trust and sacrifice?
To answer these questions we have to look at the life of Abraham as a whole. In the Book of Genesis, Abraham is presented as a model of faith and as a friend of God. One biblical scholar describes Abraham as living “a life that stands open to God’s direction.”
And God’s close relationship with Abraham is a glimpse of the kind of relationship God wants to have with all of us.
Abraham is a model for us because even under difficult and bewildering circumstances, Abraham usually remains open to God - Abraham usually welcomes God into his life - Abraham is usually hospitable to God.
For us, Abraham’s story began at age 75 when God told him to leave his home and with his wife and his nephew travel into the unknown new land of Canaan.
Abraham could have said no - I’m old, I’m tired, I don’t want to leave home. But, instead Abraham welcomed God into his life – Abraham was hospitable to a sometimes bewildering and challenging God.
Abraham is a great role model for us in part because like us he’s imperfect. There’s the story of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt when he passes off his wife as his sister in an effort to save his life – not exactly his best moment! For a time she became one of the Pharoah’s wives until God blows their cover and Abraham and Sarah are expelled from Egypt. To make matters worse, we’re told Abraham pulled the same stunt a second time in a place called Gerar where the king took Sarah until God told him the truth in a dream.
Like us, Abraham sometimes gave into fear and stumbled, damaging his relationship with God and the people closest to him.
Mostly, though, Abraham lived a life open to God’s direction – he had come to know that God cared for him and that God kept God’s promises.
At the same time, Abraham lived in a time and place when and where it was not unheard of in times of great distress for people to sacrifice their children to appease the gods. And the greatest sacrifice of all would be to give up an only son.
So God’s request to sacrifice Isaac would have been very difficult, but not unprecedented.
Let’s look at today’s passage more closely.
First we’re told, “God tested Abraham.”
For me, this is the hardest part of this passage. I could be wrong and you don’t have to agree with me, but I don’t think God tests us like this. After all, God already knows us better than we know ourselves. So, if this is a test it may be not so much a test for Abraham but rather a test for God – a way for God to make a little more progress restoring the broken relationship with humanity.
As this story unfolds we learn more about God than we do about Abraham.
We already know that Abraham is a friend of God.
We already know that Abraham was willing to give up his past – he did just that when God called him to leave home. Now, God was asking Abraham to give up his future by sacrificing his son. Although it’s an excruciatingly difficult request, we can be pretty sure how Abraham would respond to the God he had welcomed into his life – the God he come to know so well and trust so much.
In fact, Abraham doesn’t seem to think he’s being tested. He hears God’s call and he doesn’t hide in fear. Instead Abraham answers God, “Here I am.”
He could be faking it, but throughout the story it seems like Abraham has at least some confidence that God isn’t really going to make him go through with this.
Abraham tells the other young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.”
Abraham tells a confused Isaac, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
But, if God does make him go through with this, Abraham seems to be confident that God must plan to bring out some good that he can’t foresee.
At the last moment Isaac is spared and given the chance to play his own role in the restoration of the broken relationship between God and humanity.
In this test we learn that God doesn’t want us to sacrifice our children. And although a ram is sacrificed in the story, the truth is God doesn’t need or want us to sacrifice animals either.
Instead, because God loves us what God wants – what God has wanted all along – is for us to be like Abraham – to let God into our lives, to offer hospitality to God - to live a life that stands open to God.
What would offering hospitality to God look like for us today? What would standing open to God look like for us today?
Although you never know, it’s unlikely that God will speak to us quite as directly as God did to Abraham thousands of years ago. But, like Abraham we need to be prepared to let go of our past and be ready to radically change our future in service to God.
Most of the time, though, living a life that stands open to God is much simpler, less dramatic but no less challenging, than what Abraham faced.
In today’s gospel lesson, we heard Jesus describing what the church – the Christian community – should look like. Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
It’s when we practice hospitality to everyone – to the rich and poor, people of every race and color, gay and straight, the smelly and the well-scrubbed, people we really like and people who drive us up the wall – it’s when we practice hospitality to everyone that we offer hospitality to God.
When, like God’s friend Abraham, we offer hospitality to God, then through us God continues repairing the bond that was broken long ago.
When, like God’s friend Abraham, we offer hospitality to God, then through us, God continues the great restoration story.
Amen.
Monday, June 13, 2011
A Charismatic Church
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
June 12, 2011
Year A: The Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104: 25-35, 37
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
John 20:19-23
A Charismatic Church
A couple of Sundays ago I was standing outside before the start of the 8:00 service (at St. Michael’s).
A woman I hadn’t seen before pulled up, parked her car and made her way towards the church. I greeted her and we exchanged some pleasantries. She took a step closer to the church and then she stopped, looked at me with what seemed like embarrassment and said,
“Can I ask you a question?”
I said, “Sure.”
And then she said, “Is this still a charismatic church?”
As you may know, for Christians the word “charismatic” refers to the gifts of grace we receive from the Holy Spirit.
But, “charismatic” is also shorthand for a certain type of very emotional worship.
And, sure enough, that’s what she meant by “charismatic.” It turns out that she had last been at St. Michael’s about fifteen years ago when the presence and power of the Holy Spirit was celebrated in very vivid ways – ways more typical of a Pentecostal church, but certainly not unheard of in Episcopal churches.
When she asked me her question, I wasn’t sure if she was hoping the answer was yes or no.
So, I began by making a stupid joke about how I like to think of myself as having charisma, but, then said, no, nowadays St. Michael’s is pretty much a straightforward, middle of the road Episcopal church.
Fortunately, she was relieved by my answer and seemed to appreciate our quiet and dignified traditional language service.
I’ve told that story to a few people and each time it’s gotten a chuckle.
But, the more I’ve thought about it – and especially today on the great feast of Pentecost - I really regret how I answered her question.
The truth is that we are a charismatic church whenever we are open to the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen all of his followers – and that includes us.
Jesus kept his promise back in the First Century and Jesus keeps his promise today.
Although we may not speak in tongues or roll around on the floor, this church – and every Christian community that strives to be faithful to Jesus Christ – is filled with the Holy Spirit.
From the Episcopalians to the Pentecostals, every church that is open to the power of the Holy Spirit and strives to love God and neighbor is a charismatic church.
In today’s lessons we heard two different accounts of how the first disciples received the Holy Spirit.
Although John’s and Luke’s accounts of have different details, for both the essence of Pentecost is the same.
Jesus gives them – gives us – the Holy Spirit to be the charismatic church continuing Jesus’ work on earth.
In the passage from the Gospel of John that I just read Pentecost takes place on the evening of Easter. The resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples who were still afraid of the religious authorities who had helped get Jesus killed.
Notice that John doesn’t say that this appearance is limited to the apostles. John doesn’t specify how many were hiding in the locked room. The Holy Spirit is a gift for all of Jesus’ followers – not just for an elite.
And just as God had breathed life at the start of creation, so now Jesus breathes on his disciples – giving them the Holy Spirit and making them – making us – a new creation.
The charismatic church is born to continue the work of Jesus on earth.
Meanwhile, in our first lesson we heard the familiar story in the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke the Evangelist gives us a different – more public - take on Pentecost.
The details are different but the essence of the Pentecost stories is the same.
Jesus gives them – gives us – the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus’ work on earth.
In Luke’s version it’s now fifty days since Easter, but once again the disciples were gathered in “one place” in Jerusalem when suddenly they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Luke tells us, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
The charismatic church is born to continue the work of Jesus on earth.
I have no idea which of the two Pentecost stories is more historically accurate. All I know is that Pentecost happened because Pentecost happens all the time.
Pentecost happens when Christians gather together and allow the Holy Spirit to work through them – sometimes that may mean speaking foreign or even unknown languages and sometimes that may mean worshipping from a carefully crafted prayer book that links us to Christians past, present and future.
Pentecost happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, continuing the work of Jesus by reaching out in loving service to the nobodies, the outcasts, the disposable and despised people of our time.
Pentecost happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, offering forgiveness to those who wrong us.
Pentecost happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, sharing God’s love with the multitudes of people here in our own community and around the world burdened by fear and despair.
Pentecost happens all the time because the Holy Spirit is poured out on us all the time, beginning in the water of Baptism where God makes an indissoluble – an unbreakable bond – with all of us.
In Baptism, God promises that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever – in good times and not so good – when we are most faithful and when we have the deepest doubts.
In Baptism, God promises that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever – when we really do continue the work of Jesus and when we do shameful things that we hope no one ever finds out about.
In Baptism, God promises that Pentecost will happen all the time.
In Baptism, God promises that every church where people strive to be faithful to Jesus Christ will be a charismatic church - continuing the work of Jesus on earth.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
June 12, 2011
Year A: The Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104: 25-35, 37
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
John 20:19-23
A Charismatic Church
A couple of Sundays ago I was standing outside before the start of the 8:00 service (at St. Michael’s).
A woman I hadn’t seen before pulled up, parked her car and made her way towards the church. I greeted her and we exchanged some pleasantries. She took a step closer to the church and then she stopped, looked at me with what seemed like embarrassment and said,
“Can I ask you a question?”
I said, “Sure.”
And then she said, “Is this still a charismatic church?”
As you may know, for Christians the word “charismatic” refers to the gifts of grace we receive from the Holy Spirit.
But, “charismatic” is also shorthand for a certain type of very emotional worship.
And, sure enough, that’s what she meant by “charismatic.” It turns out that she had last been at St. Michael’s about fifteen years ago when the presence and power of the Holy Spirit was celebrated in very vivid ways – ways more typical of a Pentecostal church, but certainly not unheard of in Episcopal churches.
When she asked me her question, I wasn’t sure if she was hoping the answer was yes or no.
So, I began by making a stupid joke about how I like to think of myself as having charisma, but, then said, no, nowadays St. Michael’s is pretty much a straightforward, middle of the road Episcopal church.
Fortunately, she was relieved by my answer and seemed to appreciate our quiet and dignified traditional language service.
I’ve told that story to a few people and each time it’s gotten a chuckle.
But, the more I’ve thought about it – and especially today on the great feast of Pentecost - I really regret how I answered her question.
The truth is that we are a charismatic church whenever we are open to the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen all of his followers – and that includes us.
Jesus kept his promise back in the First Century and Jesus keeps his promise today.
Although we may not speak in tongues or roll around on the floor, this church – and every Christian community that strives to be faithful to Jesus Christ – is filled with the Holy Spirit.
From the Episcopalians to the Pentecostals, every church that is open to the power of the Holy Spirit and strives to love God and neighbor is a charismatic church.
In today’s lessons we heard two different accounts of how the first disciples received the Holy Spirit.
Although John’s and Luke’s accounts of have different details, for both the essence of Pentecost is the same.
Jesus gives them – gives us – the Holy Spirit to be the charismatic church continuing Jesus’ work on earth.
In the passage from the Gospel of John that I just read Pentecost takes place on the evening of Easter. The resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples who were still afraid of the religious authorities who had helped get Jesus killed.
Notice that John doesn’t say that this appearance is limited to the apostles. John doesn’t specify how many were hiding in the locked room. The Holy Spirit is a gift for all of Jesus’ followers – not just for an elite.
And just as God had breathed life at the start of creation, so now Jesus breathes on his disciples – giving them the Holy Spirit and making them – making us – a new creation.
The charismatic church is born to continue the work of Jesus on earth.
Meanwhile, in our first lesson we heard the familiar story in the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke the Evangelist gives us a different – more public - take on Pentecost.
The details are different but the essence of the Pentecost stories is the same.
Jesus gives them – gives us – the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus’ work on earth.
In Luke’s version it’s now fifty days since Easter, but once again the disciples were gathered in “one place” in Jerusalem when suddenly they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Luke tells us, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
The charismatic church is born to continue the work of Jesus on earth.
I have no idea which of the two Pentecost stories is more historically accurate. All I know is that Pentecost happened because Pentecost happens all the time.
Pentecost happens when Christians gather together and allow the Holy Spirit to work through them – sometimes that may mean speaking foreign or even unknown languages and sometimes that may mean worshipping from a carefully crafted prayer book that links us to Christians past, present and future.
Pentecost happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, continuing the work of Jesus by reaching out in loving service to the nobodies, the outcasts, the disposable and despised people of our time.
Pentecost happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, offering forgiveness to those who wrong us.
Pentecost happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, sharing God’s love with the multitudes of people here in our own community and around the world burdened by fear and despair.
Pentecost happens all the time because the Holy Spirit is poured out on us all the time, beginning in the water of Baptism where God makes an indissoluble – an unbreakable bond – with all of us.
In Baptism, God promises that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever – in good times and not so good – when we are most faithful and when we have the deepest doubts.
In Baptism, God promises that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever – when we really do continue the work of Jesus and when we do shameful things that we hope no one ever finds out about.
In Baptism, God promises that Pentecost will happen all the time.
In Baptism, God promises that every church where people strive to be faithful to Jesus Christ will be a charismatic church - continuing the work of Jesus on earth.
Amen.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
The Body of Christ
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
June 5, 2011
Year A: The Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
The Body of Christ
Each year the Church invites us to celebrate and reflect on the story of Jesus’ Ascension. But, we can’t really talk about the Ascension without talking about Easter and without looking ahead a little bit to the great feast we’ll celebrate next week, Pentecost.
First of all, by passing through death into life, Jesus has been transformed in powerful and mysterious ways.
For example, Luke tells us that the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize the resurrected Jesus until the breaking of the bread – followed immediately by Jesus vanishing from their sight.
But, Luke, along with Matthew and John, insists that although different and transformed, the resurrected Jesus was still the same Jesus that the disciples had known in life.
The evangelists insist the tomb was empty because Jesus had risen in the same body that had previously contained his spirit, the same body that had blessed the bread and the wine just a few days before, the same body that had been nailed to a piece of wood.
After the Emmaus story, Luke tells us that the resurrected Jesus appeared to the frightened disciples in Jerusalem saying, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
And then to underline the point, Luke tells us that the resurrected Jesus asks his disciples if they have anything to eat. Luke writes, “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.”
Now, obviously, it would have been much easier and much more plausible for the first Christians to claim that beginning on Easter they began to experience the “spirit of Jesus” – that although he had died horribly on the cross, Jesus was still very much alive in their hearts.
Most people, I think, could and would buy that kind of claim.
But, Christians claimed and proclaimed something much more amazing – and much more difficult for people then and now to believe – Jesus had risen in the flesh and had appeared to his disciples.
In Luke’s sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, he tells us that the appearances of the resurrected Jesus continued for forty days – a very biblical number.
The appearances of the risen Jesus continued until, as we heard in today’s first lesson, Jesus was lifted up and vanished from sight.
Luke adds the very poignant touch of the disciples gazing up to heaven – with, I would imagine, with their mouths hanging open.
Then the two men in white robes tell the disciples to quit looking for Jesus up in the sky, adding, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Now, if you’re looking for an explanation of how exactly all of this happened, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong preacher. And, anyway, I’d be suspicious of anyone who claimed to understand or explain the Resurrection and the Ascension.
But, the point is that at the Ascension Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we could receive the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can see who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can be who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished so we can be the Body of Christ in the world.
St. Paul may have been the first to think in these terms – to recognize that the Church is the Body of Christ in the world. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul wrote,
“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
But, for my money, the best expression of the awesome gift, responsibility and challenge of being the Body of Christ in the world comes from the 16th Century Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila. She wrote,
Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
The wounded and resurrected body of Jesus has vanished from our sight.
And so that means, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are the Body of Christ in the world.
That’s one of the reasons we come here - to be reminded that we are the Body of Christ in the world.
Every time we see the baptismal font – or even better every time we witness and celebrate a baptism – we are reminded that in the water of baptism we become part of the Body of Christ.
The most powerful reminder that we are the Body of Christ in the world comes every time we gather at the table and take the bread of life and the cup of salvation into our bodies – each receiving the same portion, each becoming more deeply woven into the Body of Christ in the world.
What happens here, though, is meant to strengthen us for the work of being the Body of Christ out there in a suffering and broken world.
As St. Paul recognized so clearly, each of us has our own unique part to play as a member of the Body of Christ in the world.
On Friday at our (St. Michael’s) potluck supper I was so moved when Susan talked about seeing her work combating pests that threaten crops as her vocation – particularly her goal of finding solutions affordable by poor farmers around the Caribbean, not just by a handful of wealthy international conglomerates.
Whether we’re protecting our food supply or feeding the poor downtown or donating money or simply praying for people who have no one to pray for them, we each have our own unique part to play in the Body of Christ.
But, Teresa of Avila gives us the most important general description of what it means for each of us to be members of the Body of Christ in the world.
She tells us that ours “are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion on this world.”
Ours “are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion on this world.”
“Looks compassion.” That’s a mysterious and beautiful expression, isn’t it?
During his earthly lifetime, Jesus didn’t solve every problem, didn’t fix everything and everyone that was broken.
But, Jesus “looked compassion” through love - by loving especially the outcasts, the nobodies, the hopeless, the disposable people of the First Century – the lepers, the women, the tax collectors, the children.
Instead of looking up to the sky for Jesus, we are to “look compassion” on the outcasts, the nobodies, the hopeless and disposable people of our time and place.
Instead of looking up to the sky for Jesus, we are called to be the Body of Christ right here and now in the world.
At the Ascension, Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we could receive the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can see who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can be who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can be the Body of Christ in the world.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
June 5, 2011
Year A: The Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
The Body of Christ
Each year the Church invites us to celebrate and reflect on the story of Jesus’ Ascension. But, we can’t really talk about the Ascension without talking about Easter and without looking ahead a little bit to the great feast we’ll celebrate next week, Pentecost.
First of all, by passing through death into life, Jesus has been transformed in powerful and mysterious ways.
For example, Luke tells us that the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize the resurrected Jesus until the breaking of the bread – followed immediately by Jesus vanishing from their sight.
But, Luke, along with Matthew and John, insists that although different and transformed, the resurrected Jesus was still the same Jesus that the disciples had known in life.
The evangelists insist the tomb was empty because Jesus had risen in the same body that had previously contained his spirit, the same body that had blessed the bread and the wine just a few days before, the same body that had been nailed to a piece of wood.
After the Emmaus story, Luke tells us that the resurrected Jesus appeared to the frightened disciples in Jerusalem saying, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
And then to underline the point, Luke tells us that the resurrected Jesus asks his disciples if they have anything to eat. Luke writes, “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.”
Now, obviously, it would have been much easier and much more plausible for the first Christians to claim that beginning on Easter they began to experience the “spirit of Jesus” – that although he had died horribly on the cross, Jesus was still very much alive in their hearts.
Most people, I think, could and would buy that kind of claim.
But, Christians claimed and proclaimed something much more amazing – and much more difficult for people then and now to believe – Jesus had risen in the flesh and had appeared to his disciples.
In Luke’s sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, he tells us that the appearances of the resurrected Jesus continued for forty days – a very biblical number.
The appearances of the risen Jesus continued until, as we heard in today’s first lesson, Jesus was lifted up and vanished from sight.
Luke adds the very poignant touch of the disciples gazing up to heaven – with, I would imagine, with their mouths hanging open.
Then the two men in white robes tell the disciples to quit looking for Jesus up in the sky, adding, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Now, if you’re looking for an explanation of how exactly all of this happened, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong preacher. And, anyway, I’d be suspicious of anyone who claimed to understand or explain the Resurrection and the Ascension.
But, the point is that at the Ascension Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we could receive the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can see who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can be who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished so we can be the Body of Christ in the world.
St. Paul may have been the first to think in these terms – to recognize that the Church is the Body of Christ in the world. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul wrote,
“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
But, for my money, the best expression of the awesome gift, responsibility and challenge of being the Body of Christ in the world comes from the 16th Century Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila. She wrote,
Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
The wounded and resurrected body of Jesus has vanished from our sight.
And so that means, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are the Body of Christ in the world.
That’s one of the reasons we come here - to be reminded that we are the Body of Christ in the world.
Every time we see the baptismal font – or even better every time we witness and celebrate a baptism – we are reminded that in the water of baptism we become part of the Body of Christ.
The most powerful reminder that we are the Body of Christ in the world comes every time we gather at the table and take the bread of life and the cup of salvation into our bodies – each receiving the same portion, each becoming more deeply woven into the Body of Christ in the world.
What happens here, though, is meant to strengthen us for the work of being the Body of Christ out there in a suffering and broken world.
As St. Paul recognized so clearly, each of us has our own unique part to play as a member of the Body of Christ in the world.
On Friday at our (St. Michael’s) potluck supper I was so moved when Susan talked about seeing her work combating pests that threaten crops as her vocation – particularly her goal of finding solutions affordable by poor farmers around the Caribbean, not just by a handful of wealthy international conglomerates.
Whether we’re protecting our food supply or feeding the poor downtown or donating money or simply praying for people who have no one to pray for them, we each have our own unique part to play in the Body of Christ.
But, Teresa of Avila gives us the most important general description of what it means for each of us to be members of the Body of Christ in the world.
She tells us that ours “are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion on this world.”
Ours “are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion on this world.”
“Looks compassion.” That’s a mysterious and beautiful expression, isn’t it?
During his earthly lifetime, Jesus didn’t solve every problem, didn’t fix everything and everyone that was broken.
But, Jesus “looked compassion” through love - by loving especially the outcasts, the nobodies, the hopeless, the disposable people of the First Century – the lepers, the women, the tax collectors, the children.
Instead of looking up to the sky for Jesus, we are to “look compassion” on the outcasts, the nobodies, the hopeless and disposable people of our time and place.
Instead of looking up to the sky for Jesus, we are called to be the Body of Christ right here and now in the world.
At the Ascension, Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we could receive the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can see who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can be who we really are.
Jesus’ body has vanished from our sight so we can be the Body of Christ in the world.
Amen.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Not Left Orphaned
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
May 29, 2011
Year A: The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
Not Left Orphaned
I wouldn’t say that I’m a news junkie, but it’s true that I read the newspaper everyday and most days I check a couple of news websites to keep up with what’s going on.
Part of it is just habit, I guess. And part of it is that I think it’s important to be informed, though the truth is there’s not much I can do about all of the mostly horrible stuff that’s reported in the news.
And keeping up with the news can be dangerous for our souls. Last week a friend asked me how it affects me to every day read stories about natural and man-made disasters that create so much pain for so many here in our own community, across our country and around the world.
Of course, there’s nothing new about living in a world filled with natural and man-made disasters.
In today’s lesson from the Gospel of John, we glimpsed an unfolding man-made disaster: Jesus was about to be arrested and killed in an especially brutal and humiliating way.
As I mentioned last Sunday, one of the unique features of the Gospel of John is what’s called the “Farewell Discourse, Jesus’ lengthy good-bye to his disciples during the Last Supper.
Try to imagine the scene.
The disciples – everyday working people, as thickheaded as all of us – felt a power in Jesus like they had never experienced before. From Jesus they heard teaching like they had never heard before. And through Jesus they saw signs like they had never seen before.
And while lots of people encountered Jesus, only a handful of people seem to have given away their lives to follow him. They may not have always understood Jesus, but they loved him enough to walk away from family and friends to be his disciples.
But, throughout Jesus’ ministry there was always this disturbing background buzz. It was a disturbing background buzz caused by conflict – conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment.
But it was also a disturbing background buzz caused by Jesus’ own predictions of his arrest and death.
I’m sure, like all of us, the disciples were good at denial and tried to tune out this disturbing background buzz – to ignore it, to hum over it, to pretend it wasn’t there.
But, now at the Last Supper, that disturbing background buzz has moved front and center. The disciples can no longer deny it or avoid it.
Last week we heard Jesus tell his friends that he was going ahead of them to prepare a place where they would all be reunited.
We heard Jesus boldly tell his disciples that since he and the Father are one, when they had seen Jesus they had in fact seen God.
We heard Jesus tell his disciples that he was going to the Father, which will give him the power to advocate for us, to see to it that our prayers are answered.
That’s all very good news. But, I suspect the disciples were still struggling to accept that in a very real – and horrible – way Jesus was leaving them.
Even if they believed everything Jesus was telling them – a big if – it still must have been scary for them to imagine what life was going to be like without Jesus – their leader, their friend, their teacher, their Savior.
Which brings us to today’s section of the Farewell Discourse.
Jesus has told the disciples that he will be advocating for them in heaven. But, now he also promises that God will send another advocate to be with them forever. This advocate – the Paraclete – a word that is also translated as comforter, counselor, friend or helper – is the Spirit of truth – and is also in some sense the spirit of Jesus himself.
Jesus says to his disciples, “I will not leave your orphaned; I am coming to you.”
Over the centuries artists have struggled to depict the Holy Spirit. Most of us are familiar with the tongues of fire and of course the dove, but neither image really does justice to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
It’s hard to describe the Holy Spirit. But if we keep our eyes and ears open we can feel the power and presence of the Holy Spirit all around us – we can know that we have not been left orphaned.
It’s thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit that the Apostle Paul – a Pharisee who had one of the most dramatic conversion experiences of all time – had the courage to give away his life in service to Jesus.
Thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul left behind everything that was familiar and spent the rest of his life traveling around the Mediterranean world, telling people about Jesus.
In today’s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, we find Paul in Athens, of all places. In the First Century, Rome was the center of imperial power but Athens was still the hub of classical civilization.
Thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, here’s Paul sounding very much like a Greek philosopher telling the learned and wise Athenians that he has discovered the “unknown god” – the Lord of heaven and earth - that they have been searching for all along.
It’s thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit that we have the Scriptures, including the Gospel of John that we’ve been reading these past few weeks.
Think about it for a second. Most scholars agree that this gospel was written near the end of the First Century – 70 or so years after the earthly lifetime of Jesus.
Over those many decades the Holy Spirit was at work keeping the presence of Jesus alive among the first disciples and then among the next generations who had never seen Jesus in the flesh.
Near the end of the First Century the writer or writers of this gospel knew from their own experience that Jesus kept his promise to send the Holy Spirit. The stories of Jesus were still alive. People were still giving away their lives to follow Jesus. And in a world filled with much despair and suffering the Good News was spreading beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
And, today in a world still filled with much despair and suffering if we keep our eyes and ears open we can feel the power and presence of the Holy Spirit all around us. We can know that we have not been left orphaned.
As you know there are a lot of poor and homeless people in Gainesville. In part because of its location, at the chapel we get a fair number of people who come by looking for help.
Frankly, the frequent appeals can get old fast, but there are a couple of regulars that I’ve gotten to know a little bit and try to help in very small ways – including a woman who comes by every couple of days asking for a few dollars. On Friday I realized that I hadn’t seen her all week.
I mentioned to someone at the chapel that I was worried about her and asked her to say a prayer for her.
No kidding – five minutes later she walks in the same as always. But the two of us at the chapel were so stunned at the timing that we greeted her with spontaneous joy and relief. She was shocked and taken aback – but for a moment we all felt the power of the Holy Spirit at work in a world filled with suffering and despair.
And even sometimes when you follow the news you can find the Holy Spirit at work and know that we have not been left orphaned.
I was deeply moved by the visit a couple of weeks ago of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland.
Considering all the horrible history and still-unfinished business between Britain and Ireland, I’m sure many people – maybe even the Queen herself – never thought such a visit would ever be possible.
The security arrangements were extraordinary. When the Queen arrived, decked out in green, at first she looked a little worried about what kind of welcome she’d receive.
Along with the Irish president she laid a wreath and bowed her head at the Garden of Remembrance, where Ireland honors those who gave their lives in the fight for independence from Britain.
In her well-received speech at the state dinner the Queen spoke about, “the importance of forbearance and conciliation. Of being able to bow to the past, but not be bound by it.”
The visit was a huge success. By the end, the security was eased a bit, the Queen was receiving standing ovations, smiling broadly, and breaking from her schedule to greet friendly Irish onlookers eager to meet her.
Of course, there is still plenty of suffering and despair in Ireland, in Gainesville and around the world. Yet, when we keep our eyes and ears open we can feel the power and presence of the Holy Spirit all around us.
When we pay attention, like Paul and the first disciples we know that Jesus has kept his promise. We know that we have not been left orphaned.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
May 29, 2011
Year A: The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
Not Left Orphaned
I wouldn’t say that I’m a news junkie, but it’s true that I read the newspaper everyday and most days I check a couple of news websites to keep up with what’s going on.
Part of it is just habit, I guess. And part of it is that I think it’s important to be informed, though the truth is there’s not much I can do about all of the mostly horrible stuff that’s reported in the news.
And keeping up with the news can be dangerous for our souls. Last week a friend asked me how it affects me to every day read stories about natural and man-made disasters that create so much pain for so many here in our own community, across our country and around the world.
Of course, there’s nothing new about living in a world filled with natural and man-made disasters.
In today’s lesson from the Gospel of John, we glimpsed an unfolding man-made disaster: Jesus was about to be arrested and killed in an especially brutal and humiliating way.
As I mentioned last Sunday, one of the unique features of the Gospel of John is what’s called the “Farewell Discourse, Jesus’ lengthy good-bye to his disciples during the Last Supper.
Try to imagine the scene.
The disciples – everyday working people, as thickheaded as all of us – felt a power in Jesus like they had never experienced before. From Jesus they heard teaching like they had never heard before. And through Jesus they saw signs like they had never seen before.
And while lots of people encountered Jesus, only a handful of people seem to have given away their lives to follow him. They may not have always understood Jesus, but they loved him enough to walk away from family and friends to be his disciples.
But, throughout Jesus’ ministry there was always this disturbing background buzz. It was a disturbing background buzz caused by conflict – conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment.
But it was also a disturbing background buzz caused by Jesus’ own predictions of his arrest and death.
I’m sure, like all of us, the disciples were good at denial and tried to tune out this disturbing background buzz – to ignore it, to hum over it, to pretend it wasn’t there.
But, now at the Last Supper, that disturbing background buzz has moved front and center. The disciples can no longer deny it or avoid it.
Last week we heard Jesus tell his friends that he was going ahead of them to prepare a place where they would all be reunited.
We heard Jesus boldly tell his disciples that since he and the Father are one, when they had seen Jesus they had in fact seen God.
We heard Jesus tell his disciples that he was going to the Father, which will give him the power to advocate for us, to see to it that our prayers are answered.
That’s all very good news. But, I suspect the disciples were still struggling to accept that in a very real – and horrible – way Jesus was leaving them.
Even if they believed everything Jesus was telling them – a big if – it still must have been scary for them to imagine what life was going to be like without Jesus – their leader, their friend, their teacher, their Savior.
Which brings us to today’s section of the Farewell Discourse.
Jesus has told the disciples that he will be advocating for them in heaven. But, now he also promises that God will send another advocate to be with them forever. This advocate – the Paraclete – a word that is also translated as comforter, counselor, friend or helper – is the Spirit of truth – and is also in some sense the spirit of Jesus himself.
Jesus says to his disciples, “I will not leave your orphaned; I am coming to you.”
Over the centuries artists have struggled to depict the Holy Spirit. Most of us are familiar with the tongues of fire and of course the dove, but neither image really does justice to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
It’s hard to describe the Holy Spirit. But if we keep our eyes and ears open we can feel the power and presence of the Holy Spirit all around us – we can know that we have not been left orphaned.
It’s thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit that the Apostle Paul – a Pharisee who had one of the most dramatic conversion experiences of all time – had the courage to give away his life in service to Jesus.
Thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul left behind everything that was familiar and spent the rest of his life traveling around the Mediterranean world, telling people about Jesus.
In today’s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, we find Paul in Athens, of all places. In the First Century, Rome was the center of imperial power but Athens was still the hub of classical civilization.
Thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, here’s Paul sounding very much like a Greek philosopher telling the learned and wise Athenians that he has discovered the “unknown god” – the Lord of heaven and earth - that they have been searching for all along.
It’s thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit that we have the Scriptures, including the Gospel of John that we’ve been reading these past few weeks.
Think about it for a second. Most scholars agree that this gospel was written near the end of the First Century – 70 or so years after the earthly lifetime of Jesus.
Over those many decades the Holy Spirit was at work keeping the presence of Jesus alive among the first disciples and then among the next generations who had never seen Jesus in the flesh.
Near the end of the First Century the writer or writers of this gospel knew from their own experience that Jesus kept his promise to send the Holy Spirit. The stories of Jesus were still alive. People were still giving away their lives to follow Jesus. And in a world filled with much despair and suffering the Good News was spreading beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
And, today in a world still filled with much despair and suffering if we keep our eyes and ears open we can feel the power and presence of the Holy Spirit all around us. We can know that we have not been left orphaned.
As you know there are a lot of poor and homeless people in Gainesville. In part because of its location, at the chapel we get a fair number of people who come by looking for help.
Frankly, the frequent appeals can get old fast, but there are a couple of regulars that I’ve gotten to know a little bit and try to help in very small ways – including a woman who comes by every couple of days asking for a few dollars. On Friday I realized that I hadn’t seen her all week.
I mentioned to someone at the chapel that I was worried about her and asked her to say a prayer for her.
No kidding – five minutes later she walks in the same as always. But the two of us at the chapel were so stunned at the timing that we greeted her with spontaneous joy and relief. She was shocked and taken aback – but for a moment we all felt the power of the Holy Spirit at work in a world filled with suffering and despair.
And even sometimes when you follow the news you can find the Holy Spirit at work and know that we have not been left orphaned.
I was deeply moved by the visit a couple of weeks ago of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland.
Considering all the horrible history and still-unfinished business between Britain and Ireland, I’m sure many people – maybe even the Queen herself – never thought such a visit would ever be possible.
The security arrangements were extraordinary. When the Queen arrived, decked out in green, at first she looked a little worried about what kind of welcome she’d receive.
Along with the Irish president she laid a wreath and bowed her head at the Garden of Remembrance, where Ireland honors those who gave their lives in the fight for independence from Britain.
In her well-received speech at the state dinner the Queen spoke about, “the importance of forbearance and conciliation. Of being able to bow to the past, but not be bound by it.”
The visit was a huge success. By the end, the security was eased a bit, the Queen was receiving standing ovations, smiling broadly, and breaking from her schedule to greet friendly Irish onlookers eager to meet her.
Of course, there is still plenty of suffering and despair in Ireland, in Gainesville and around the world. Yet, when we keep our eyes and ears open we can feel the power and presence of the Holy Spirit all around us.
When we pay attention, like Paul and the first disciples we know that Jesus has kept his promise. We know that we have not been left orphaned.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Confidence
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
May 22, 2011
Year A: The Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5; 15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14
Confidence
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about farewells.
Partly that’s because it’s been so quiet around the chapel with most of the students away on summer break – or off beginning the next chapter of their lives after commencement.
Partly, I guess, it’s because of all the attention given to the prediction made by Harold Camping, the founder of Family Radio, that the Rapture was certain to begin yesterday, May 21, 2011.
We’ve seen this before. Every once in a while people come along making these bold predictions with what seems to be complete certainty. In the paper I saw a photo of a man who believed that the end was at hand holding a sign that read in part, “The Bible guarantees it.”
This time around the prediction of Judgment Day seems to have convinced more people than usual. Maybe it’s because of the extreme weather experienced in many places lately. Or maybe it’s because we are living in a time of great political and social change that is unnerving lots of people.
Or because of the tough economic times, maybe people just want Jesus to return and make all their troubles go away.
Mostly, I think people fall for these kinds of predictions because we crave certainty.
On the front page of Friday’s New York Times there was a poignant, disturbing and a little bit funny story about the seemingly normal Haddad family of Middletown, Maryland.
Robert and Abby Haddad, parents of three very skeptical teenagers, were among the many people certain that the Rapture was going to occur yesterday. In fact, they were so certain that nearly two years ago Abby left her job as a nurse to devote herself to spreading the word about the approach of Judgment Day. The couple stopped making home improvements and quit saving for their kids’ college educations.
Perhaps hedging their apocalyptic bet just a little, Robert held on to his job as an engineer at the Department of Energy.
For their part, the kids managed to hold on to their sense of humor.
One of the children said, referring to her mother, “She’ll say, ‘You need to clean up your room.’ And I’ll say, ‘Mom, it doesn’t matter, if the world’s going to end!’”
That’s funny, but the parents’ certainty created real pain their family. One of the skeptical teens was quoted as saying, “My mom told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven. At first it was really upsetting, but it’s what she honestly believes.”
It’s surprising me that Bible-believing Christians can fall so easily for these people who predict with such certainty the precise date of the Second Coming. It’s surprising because here’s what Jesus himself had to say on the subject in Mark 13:32:
“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
If Jesus himself doesn’t know, then it seems pretty unlikely that Harold Camping or Robert and Abby Haddad or anyone else would have any way of knowing about the date of Judgment Day.
I’ve also been thinking about farewells because of today’s gospel lesson, which is part of what’s known as the “Farewell Discourse” in the Gospel of John.
Remember that John is the last of the four gospels to be written, probably around the end of the First Century.
So, the Gospel of John is the product of divine inspiration working through several generations of Christian reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
One of the distinctive features of the Gospel of John is what’s called the “Farewell Discourse” – Jesus’ lengthy good-bye to his disciples.
Jesus knows that time is growing short for him on earth. During his ministry Jesus has tried to teach his disciples through parables and through his own example. Now, though, there’s not much time left, and, as we all know, the disciples have often been clueless.
So, in these last hours Jesus wants to give his disciples – wants to give us – confidence by passing on what’s most essential.
We can’t be certain about when the world will end.
We can’t be certain about when we will die.
We can’t be certain about the many things that only God knows.
But, because God revealed the way, the truth and the life in Jesus, we can be confident about what’s most important.
We can be confident about the kinds of lives God wants us to live.
We can be confident that God wants us to give away our lives in loving service to one another, especially to the poorest and weakest among us.
We can be confident that we are loved more than we could ever imagine. We can be confident that God loves us enough to live among us. We can be confident that God loves us enough to rescue us from our sin. We can be confident that God loves us enough to die for us.
Because God revealed the way, the truth and the life in Jesus, we can be confident that, in the end, love is stronger than death.
We hear that kind of confidence in the story of Stephen, deacon and martyr.
Stephen confidently preached the Gospel to an unfriendly audience not certain of how it would be received. When his message was violently rejected, to the end Stephen remained confident. The author of the Acts of the Apostles describes Stephen as imitating Jesus in his life and death – confidently giving away his life for the Gospel.
In a less dramatic way, I encountered that kind of confidence about ten years ago when my grandmother was dying in the hospital. At one point she looked at me and said, “I know where I have come from and I know where I am going.”
I’m not sure she knew that she was quoting Jesus. (It’s John 8:14.) But, in her own “farewell discourse” my grandmother was expressing simple but profound confidence. She wasn’t expressing the certainty of someone who believed that she had her theology in perfect order or who had said just the right religious words or who was in on some secret knowledge derived from biblical calculations.
No, my grandmother was expressing the simple but profound confidence in God’s love – the love that had shaped the way she had lived her life – the love that she had shared with me and so many other people during her life.
My grandmother was expressing the quiet confidence that the God whose love she had felt throughout her life in good times and not so good would not abandon her now in her hour of need – and would not abandon her in whatever awaited her beyond death.
Faith is that kind of confidence.
Faith isn’t about certainty.
Faith isn’t being certain when the world will end or when we will die.
Faith isn’t being certain about who’s “saved” and who’s “left behind”.
Faith isn’t being certain about who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell.
Faith isn’t being certain about the many things that only God knows.
Faith is confidence in what’s most important.
Faith is confidence in God who reveals the way, the truth and the life in Jesus.
And, finally, faith is confidence that we can never really say farewell to God – and that God never says farewell to us.
Amen.
The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
May 22, 2011
Year A: The Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5; 15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14
Confidence
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about farewells.
Partly that’s because it’s been so quiet around the chapel with most of the students away on summer break – or off beginning the next chapter of their lives after commencement.
Partly, I guess, it’s because of all the attention given to the prediction made by Harold Camping, the founder of Family Radio, that the Rapture was certain to begin yesterday, May 21, 2011.
We’ve seen this before. Every once in a while people come along making these bold predictions with what seems to be complete certainty. In the paper I saw a photo of a man who believed that the end was at hand holding a sign that read in part, “The Bible guarantees it.”
This time around the prediction of Judgment Day seems to have convinced more people than usual. Maybe it’s because of the extreme weather experienced in many places lately. Or maybe it’s because we are living in a time of great political and social change that is unnerving lots of people.
Or because of the tough economic times, maybe people just want Jesus to return and make all their troubles go away.
Mostly, I think people fall for these kinds of predictions because we crave certainty.
On the front page of Friday’s New York Times there was a poignant, disturbing and a little bit funny story about the seemingly normal Haddad family of Middletown, Maryland.
Robert and Abby Haddad, parents of three very skeptical teenagers, were among the many people certain that the Rapture was going to occur yesterday. In fact, they were so certain that nearly two years ago Abby left her job as a nurse to devote herself to spreading the word about the approach of Judgment Day. The couple stopped making home improvements and quit saving for their kids’ college educations.
Perhaps hedging their apocalyptic bet just a little, Robert held on to his job as an engineer at the Department of Energy.
For their part, the kids managed to hold on to their sense of humor.
One of the children said, referring to her mother, “She’ll say, ‘You need to clean up your room.’ And I’ll say, ‘Mom, it doesn’t matter, if the world’s going to end!’”
That’s funny, but the parents’ certainty created real pain their family. One of the skeptical teens was quoted as saying, “My mom told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven. At first it was really upsetting, but it’s what she honestly believes.”
It’s surprising me that Bible-believing Christians can fall so easily for these people who predict with such certainty the precise date of the Second Coming. It’s surprising because here’s what Jesus himself had to say on the subject in Mark 13:32:
“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
If Jesus himself doesn’t know, then it seems pretty unlikely that Harold Camping or Robert and Abby Haddad or anyone else would have any way of knowing about the date of Judgment Day.
I’ve also been thinking about farewells because of today’s gospel lesson, which is part of what’s known as the “Farewell Discourse” in the Gospel of John.
Remember that John is the last of the four gospels to be written, probably around the end of the First Century.
So, the Gospel of John is the product of divine inspiration working through several generations of Christian reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
One of the distinctive features of the Gospel of John is what’s called the “Farewell Discourse” – Jesus’ lengthy good-bye to his disciples.
Jesus knows that time is growing short for him on earth. During his ministry Jesus has tried to teach his disciples through parables and through his own example. Now, though, there’s not much time left, and, as we all know, the disciples have often been clueless.
So, in these last hours Jesus wants to give his disciples – wants to give us – confidence by passing on what’s most essential.
We can’t be certain about when the world will end.
We can’t be certain about when we will die.
We can’t be certain about the many things that only God knows.
But, because God revealed the way, the truth and the life in Jesus, we can be confident about what’s most important.
We can be confident about the kinds of lives God wants us to live.
We can be confident that God wants us to give away our lives in loving service to one another, especially to the poorest and weakest among us.
We can be confident that we are loved more than we could ever imagine. We can be confident that God loves us enough to live among us. We can be confident that God loves us enough to rescue us from our sin. We can be confident that God loves us enough to die for us.
Because God revealed the way, the truth and the life in Jesus, we can be confident that, in the end, love is stronger than death.
We hear that kind of confidence in the story of Stephen, deacon and martyr.
Stephen confidently preached the Gospel to an unfriendly audience not certain of how it would be received. When his message was violently rejected, to the end Stephen remained confident. The author of the Acts of the Apostles describes Stephen as imitating Jesus in his life and death – confidently giving away his life for the Gospel.
In a less dramatic way, I encountered that kind of confidence about ten years ago when my grandmother was dying in the hospital. At one point she looked at me and said, “I know where I have come from and I know where I am going.”
I’m not sure she knew that she was quoting Jesus. (It’s John 8:14.) But, in her own “farewell discourse” my grandmother was expressing simple but profound confidence. She wasn’t expressing the certainty of someone who believed that she had her theology in perfect order or who had said just the right religious words or who was in on some secret knowledge derived from biblical calculations.
No, my grandmother was expressing the simple but profound confidence in God’s love – the love that had shaped the way she had lived her life – the love that she had shared with me and so many other people during her life.
My grandmother was expressing the quiet confidence that the God whose love she had felt throughout her life in good times and not so good would not abandon her now in her hour of need – and would not abandon her in whatever awaited her beyond death.
Faith is that kind of confidence.
Faith isn’t about certainty.
Faith isn’t being certain when the world will end or when we will die.
Faith isn’t being certain about who’s “saved” and who’s “left behind”.
Faith isn’t being certain about who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell.
Faith isn’t being certain about the many things that only God knows.
Faith is confidence in what’s most important.
Faith is confidence in God who reveals the way, the truth and the life in Jesus.
And, finally, faith is confidence that we can never really say farewell to God – and that God never says farewell to us.
Amen.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Shepherds, Sheep, Bishops and Us
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
May 18, 2011
Year A: Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Easter
Sermon Preached on the Occasion of the Visit of
The Rt. Rev. Griselda Delgado Del Carpio, the Episcopal Bishop of Cuba
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
Shepherds, Sheep, Bishops and Us
I grew up in Jersey City – a large, paved-over place overshadowed by the much larger New York City, just across the Hudson River.
Being formed in such a very urban environment I’ve always struggled with the sheep and shepherd imagery that is found throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments.
I’ve never seen a shepherd in person – and the only sheep I’ve encountered were enjoying the cozy protection of a petting zoo.
Maybe those of you who grew up in rural Florida or Cuba or Bolivia have an easier time than I do relating to the sheep and shepherd imagery in the Bible.
Certainly in Palestine, past and present, sheep and shepherds were all over the place, so it’s no surprise that sheep are mentioned more than 500 times in the Bible. In the Old Testament most of the references are literal while in the New Testament the references tend to be metaphorical – Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are his sheep.
No matter where we’re from it’s a beautiful and powerful image.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are his sheep.
A beautiful image, but, so what?
What do these beautiful metaphors for Jesus and us have to do with our daily lives back in Jersey City or here in Gainesville or in Cuba or anywhere?
Today- right here and now - how exactly does Jesus act as our shepherd?
Today – right here and now - how exactly are we his sheep?
Part of the answer is found in today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles where we get a glimpse of life in the early church. Like us, those early Christians were living in a time when the resurrected Christ was no longer present in the way that he had been in those amazing first days after Easter.
Instead Jesus the Good Shepherd was present – is present – in the Church, in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and the prayers.
It’s here in church that we are reminded that we are all sheep, loved and cared for by the Good Shepherd.
Now, near as I can tell, in a real pasture sheep don’t have any responsibilities except sticking together.
But, as Christians you and I have some very important responsibilities.
Of course bishops are well aware of their responsibilities. They are the heirs of the apostles and are expected to be shepherds - to search for the sheep who go astray, to reach out to the sheep who are not yet part of the flock, to protect the sheep from those who want to harm the flock.
I imagine that every bishop is reminded of those awesome responsibilities every time she takes up her crozier - her staff – the powerful symbol of the bishop’s role as shepherd.
But, the rest of us, you and I, we’re not just sheep. As part of the Body of Christ in the world we are also called to be shepherds. We are also called to take on the sometimes tedious, occasionally infuriating, often demanding and always important work of shepherding Christ’s flock.
At every baptism the congregation is asked, “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?”
And the congregation responds with gusto, “We will!”
When we say we will do all in our power to support our fellow Christians in their life in Christ we sign up to be shepherds.
As Christians we are the Body of Christ in the world. As Christians we are the Good Shepherd in the world. As Christians we sign up to be shepherds.
We are shepherds when we gather together as we have this evening, devoting ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who doesn’t have a home or enough food to eat.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who is sick and afraid of the future.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who mourns the death of one they love.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who has wronged us and offer forgiveness.
We are sheep and we are shepherds.
A bishop is reminded of the awesome responsibility of being a shepherd every time she takes up her staff.
But, the staff should serve as a reminder for all Christians - here in Gainesville, in Cuba, and everywhere.
It should remind us of the love of Jesus the Good Shepherd for us, his sheep.
It should also remind us that we are sheep who are also called to be shepherds – that by God’s grace we are the Body of Christ in the world – that by God’s grace we are the Good Shepherd in the world, today, right here and right now.
Amen.
May 18, 2011
Year A: Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Easter
Sermon Preached on the Occasion of the Visit of
The Rt. Rev. Griselda Delgado Del Carpio, the Episcopal Bishop of Cuba
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
Shepherds, Sheep, Bishops and Us
I grew up in Jersey City – a large, paved-over place overshadowed by the much larger New York City, just across the Hudson River.
Being formed in such a very urban environment I’ve always struggled with the sheep and shepherd imagery that is found throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments.
I’ve never seen a shepherd in person – and the only sheep I’ve encountered were enjoying the cozy protection of a petting zoo.
Maybe those of you who grew up in rural Florida or Cuba or Bolivia have an easier time than I do relating to the sheep and shepherd imagery in the Bible.
Certainly in Palestine, past and present, sheep and shepherds were all over the place, so it’s no surprise that sheep are mentioned more than 500 times in the Bible. In the Old Testament most of the references are literal while in the New Testament the references tend to be metaphorical – Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are his sheep.
No matter where we’re from it’s a beautiful and powerful image.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are his sheep.
A beautiful image, but, so what?
What do these beautiful metaphors for Jesus and us have to do with our daily lives back in Jersey City or here in Gainesville or in Cuba or anywhere?
Today- right here and now - how exactly does Jesus act as our shepherd?
Today – right here and now - how exactly are we his sheep?
Part of the answer is found in today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles where we get a glimpse of life in the early church. Like us, those early Christians were living in a time when the resurrected Christ was no longer present in the way that he had been in those amazing first days after Easter.
Instead Jesus the Good Shepherd was present – is present – in the Church, in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and the prayers.
It’s here in church that we are reminded that we are all sheep, loved and cared for by the Good Shepherd.
Now, near as I can tell, in a real pasture sheep don’t have any responsibilities except sticking together.
But, as Christians you and I have some very important responsibilities.
Of course bishops are well aware of their responsibilities. They are the heirs of the apostles and are expected to be shepherds - to search for the sheep who go astray, to reach out to the sheep who are not yet part of the flock, to protect the sheep from those who want to harm the flock.
I imagine that every bishop is reminded of those awesome responsibilities every time she takes up her crozier - her staff – the powerful symbol of the bishop’s role as shepherd.
But, the rest of us, you and I, we’re not just sheep. As part of the Body of Christ in the world we are also called to be shepherds. We are also called to take on the sometimes tedious, occasionally infuriating, often demanding and always important work of shepherding Christ’s flock.
At every baptism the congregation is asked, “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?”
And the congregation responds with gusto, “We will!”
When we say we will do all in our power to support our fellow Christians in their life in Christ we sign up to be shepherds.
As Christians we are the Body of Christ in the world. As Christians we are the Good Shepherd in the world. As Christians we sign up to be shepherds.
We are shepherds when we gather together as we have this evening, devoting ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who doesn’t have a home or enough food to eat.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who is sick and afraid of the future.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who mourns the death of one they love.
We are shepherds when we reach out in love to someone who has wronged us and offer forgiveness.
We are sheep and we are shepherds.
A bishop is reminded of the awesome responsibility of being a shepherd every time she takes up her staff.
But, the staff should serve as a reminder for all Christians - here in Gainesville, in Cuba, and everywhere.
It should remind us of the love of Jesus the Good Shepherd for us, his sheep.
It should also remind us that we are sheep who are also called to be shepherds – that by God’s grace we are the Body of Christ in the world – that by God’s grace we are the Good Shepherd in the world, today, right here and right now.
Amen.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
More Than a Lifeguard (St. Michael's)
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
May 15, 2011
Year A: The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
More than a Lifeguard
I’ve started reading a book called Almost Christian. The book is a summary of and reflection on the recent National Study of Youth and Religion – a massive, multi-year look into what American teenagers think about religion.
The survey found that young people – probably mirroring their own parents – are not hostile to religion. They just don’t care about it very much.
On one level, we might rejoice that our young people don’t hate religion or despise the church.
But, apathy is probably even worse than strong, if negative, feelings.
Here’s how the author summarizes what American youth think about religion:
1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
When you think about all the horrible things that people could think or believe, this is not a bad set of beliefs. We might even agree with at least some of them.
But, especially on this Good Shepherd Sunday, it’s number four that really catches my attention:
God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.
The author describes this belief as thinking of God as a divine lifeguard. We don’t think about very much about God the lifeguard when we’re having a great time splashing our way through life.
But, the moment something goes wrong, the moment there’s a crisis, the lifeguard suddenly becomes very important. And later, once the crisis passes, we don’t think about the lifeguard again - until the next time we’re in trouble.
There’s nothing wrong exactly with thinking about God as a lifeguard, except that it’s such an impoverished metaphor for who God really is and for the role that God wants to play in our lives.
The Lord is my lifeguard doesn’t quite cut it, does it?
A lifeguard is way up there, while we’re down here in the pool.
A lifeguard is way up there, looking down on anonymous people bobbing in the pool, ready to jump into action at the first sign of trouble.
And, it’s true that, like a lifeguard, God comes to our aid when there’s a crisis, pouring out the grace and strength we need in a crisis.
But, God is much more than a lifeguard. God is a shepherd.
God is a shepherd who knows us and cares for us. God is a shepherd who’s down here with us – wanting to be discovered by us and known by us.
At the heart of our Jewish-Christian tradition is the story of God reaching out us, revealing Godself to us, innumerable ways, over and over again.
A couple of weeks ago there was a story in a British newspaper of a young Scottish girl named LuLu who was told by her teachers to write a letter to God. In this letter she was told to ask God, “how did you get invented?”
LuLu’s parents were startled when they heard about this assignment. Rather than trying to answer the question themselves, they forwarded Lulu’s question to a number of British religious leaders. One of those leaders, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, took the time to personally respond to LuLu’s question.
In his response the archbishop imagined how God would reply to LuLu’s question. Here’s part of it:
‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.
Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.”
The archbishop’s response to LuLu is both charming and profound.
His response touches on the great truth of how we discover God who is so much more than a lifeguard.
When we look at the beauty of the world, we discover a God of unlimited imagination and creativity.
When we make time for quiet – to reflect and pray – we discover God in a sense of peace and love we hadn’t expected.
And most especially in Jesus the Good Shepherd, we discover a God who loves us enough – who wants so much to be discovered by us - to join us on earth as a flesh and blood human being.
In Jesus the Good Shepherd we discover a God who calls us each by name.
In Jesus the Good Shepherd we discover a God who gives us life and wants us to have it abundantly.
And we heard what that abundant life is like in the snapshot of the early church in today’s reading from Acts:
“Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
With that foundation of prayer and worship they grew ever closer to the Good Shepherd. And, we’re told the apostles did amazing signs and wonders.
In times of crisis, those early Christians didn’t look to God as a lifeguard because, thanks to Jesus, they knew God was already right there in the water with them.
In times of crisis, those early Christians looked to God they knew as a shepherd – God who knew them, loved them, protected them and led them.
And what was true in the First Century is just as true now in the Twenty-First Century.
Just look around.
Four years ago, right here at St. Michael’s, in a time of crisis, a handful of people put their faith in Jesus the Good Shepherd.
And look what happened and is happening.
Thanks to Jesus the Good Shepherd and a handful of hardworking sheep, a church that just about everyone thought was going to die lived on.
More and more people found and continue to find Jesus the Good Shepherd right here in this pasture.
Lately about sixty sheep have been gathering each Sunday in this pasture.
And today I’m pleased to announce that for the first time since the split St. Michael’s has hired a parish administrator.
So, look what happens when week after week we come here and listen to the old stories of Scripture, when, like the early Church, we devote ourselves “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.”
Look what happens when, despite our own weaknesses and failures and frustrations, we allow God into our lives, allow God to be our shepherd.
Look what happens when we recognize and share the great news that God is so much more – and wants to be so much more - than a lifeguard watching over us from a distance.
Look what happens when we recognize and share the great news that the Lord is our shepherd.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
May 15, 2011
Year A: The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
More than a Lifeguard
I’ve started reading a book called Almost Christian. The book is a summary of and reflection on the recent National Study of Youth and Religion – a massive, multi-year look into what American teenagers think about religion.
The survey found that young people – probably mirroring their own parents – are not hostile to religion. They just don’t care about it very much.
On one level, we might rejoice that our young people don’t hate religion or despise the church.
But, apathy is probably even worse than strong, if negative, feelings.
Here’s how the author summarizes what American youth think about religion:
1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
When you think about all the horrible things that people could think or believe, this is not a bad set of beliefs. We might even agree with at least some of them.
But, especially on this Good Shepherd Sunday, it’s number four that really catches my attention:
God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.
The author describes this belief as thinking of God as a divine lifeguard. We don’t think about very much about God the lifeguard when we’re having a great time splashing our way through life.
But, the moment something goes wrong, the moment there’s a crisis, the lifeguard suddenly becomes very important. And later, once the crisis passes, we don’t think about the lifeguard again - until the next time we’re in trouble.
There’s nothing wrong exactly with thinking about God as a lifeguard, except that it’s such an impoverished metaphor for who God really is and for the role that God wants to play in our lives.
The Lord is my lifeguard doesn’t quite cut it, does it?
A lifeguard is way up there, while we’re down here in the pool.
A lifeguard is way up there, looking down on anonymous people bobbing in the pool, ready to jump into action at the first sign of trouble.
And, it’s true that, like a lifeguard, God comes to our aid when there’s a crisis, pouring out the grace and strength we need in a crisis.
But, God is much more than a lifeguard. God is a shepherd.
God is a shepherd who knows us and cares for us. God is a shepherd who’s down here with us – wanting to be discovered by us and known by us.
At the heart of our Jewish-Christian tradition is the story of God reaching out us, revealing Godself to us, innumerable ways, over and over again.
A couple of weeks ago there was a story in a British newspaper of a young Scottish girl named LuLu who was told by her teachers to write a letter to God. In this letter she was told to ask God, “how did you get invented?”
LuLu’s parents were startled when they heard about this assignment. Rather than trying to answer the question themselves, they forwarded Lulu’s question to a number of British religious leaders. One of those leaders, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, took the time to personally respond to LuLu’s question.
In his response the archbishop imagined how God would reply to LuLu’s question. Here’s part of it:
‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.
Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.”
The archbishop’s response to LuLu is both charming and profound.
His response touches on the great truth of how we discover God who is so much more than a lifeguard.
When we look at the beauty of the world, we discover a God of unlimited imagination and creativity.
When we make time for quiet – to reflect and pray – we discover God in a sense of peace and love we hadn’t expected.
And most especially in Jesus the Good Shepherd, we discover a God who loves us enough – who wants so much to be discovered by us - to join us on earth as a flesh and blood human being.
In Jesus the Good Shepherd we discover a God who calls us each by name.
In Jesus the Good Shepherd we discover a God who gives us life and wants us to have it abundantly.
And we heard what that abundant life is like in the snapshot of the early church in today’s reading from Acts:
“Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
With that foundation of prayer and worship they grew ever closer to the Good Shepherd. And, we’re told the apostles did amazing signs and wonders.
In times of crisis, those early Christians didn’t look to God as a lifeguard because, thanks to Jesus, they knew God was already right there in the water with them.
In times of crisis, those early Christians looked to God they knew as a shepherd – God who knew them, loved them, protected them and led them.
And what was true in the First Century is just as true now in the Twenty-First Century.
Just look around.
Four years ago, right here at St. Michael’s, in a time of crisis, a handful of people put their faith in Jesus the Good Shepherd.
And look what happened and is happening.
Thanks to Jesus the Good Shepherd and a handful of hardworking sheep, a church that just about everyone thought was going to die lived on.
More and more people found and continue to find Jesus the Good Shepherd right here in this pasture.
Lately about sixty sheep have been gathering each Sunday in this pasture.
And today I’m pleased to announce that for the first time since the split St. Michael’s has hired a parish administrator.
So, look what happens when week after week we come here and listen to the old stories of Scripture, when, like the early Church, we devote ourselves “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.”
Look what happens when, despite our own weaknesses and failures and frustrations, we allow God into our lives, allow God to be our shepherd.
Look what happens when we recognize and share the great news that God is so much more – and wants to be so much more - than a lifeguard watching over us from a distance.
Look what happens when we recognize and share the great news that the Lord is our shepherd.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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