Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 26

Yearning
Proper 16B
1 Kings 8:22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69

If I were to ask you what your favorite psalm is, many of you would have a ready answer. Even without trying it seems, we come to know the psalms and cherish them.

Some of you would undoubtedly name the twenty-third psalm as a favorite. Beyond that, you might be a little foggy on the numbers, but you remember the words. Psalm 121: “I lift up mine eyes until the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Or Psalm 139: “Lord you have searched me out and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up…”

I don’t know if any of you would list today’s psalm, Psalm 84, among your favorites. But I bet the words sounded a little bit familiar. Something I read this week said that this psalm is one of the most frequently set to music. I knew it first, I think from a setting on an old Sherrill Milnes record (!) I’ve had at least since high school. Today’s communion hymn is another setting. Some of you may know one of the beautiful, lyrical choruses in Brahms German requiem is a setting of part of Psalm 84 (albeit in German).

At first reading it conjures up an image of beauty and peace… conveys a general pastoral setting.

But there is a bit more to it. Scholars clump the psalms into various descriptive categories. I found several different names assigned to this one. One commentator called it a holiday psalm, assuming that it was written for use on the holy feast day of Tabernacles. Or another calls it a psalm of Zion. Others label it one of the Pilgrim psalms.

I like pilgrim best. The psalm is filled with longing. Yearning. Even desire. “My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.” Happy are those people who actually dwell in the house of the Lord. O, how I long to be one of them. I desire just one day in the courts of the Lord. That would be better than a thousand days elsewhere. The psalmist gives voice to powerful longing, yearning, desire.

I don’t know how often you associate those sorts of feelings with faithful living… feelings of longing or yearning.

I tried to think of some of the feelings that are a part of the life of faith. There’s hope. But that’s really a bit different than longing. Hope is more of a promise, an assurance. If we are honest most of us probably know feelings of fear, apprehension, and uncertainty as we reflect on the presence or absence of faith in our lives. Today’s epistle calls us be strong, to claim fortitude in light of the threats ad temptations that assault Christians. Hopefully, you have experiences some feeling of fulfillment… known at least a bit of the peace that passes understanding… tasted the joy of God’s abiding presence.

A feeling of longing or yearning is different from all of these. Some of the Christian mystics speak of a physical desire for God’s presence with them. But here is the same feeling voiced by the psalmist thousands of years earlier.

There is a difference, though. The psalmist is not really longing for a mystical union with God. The psalmist longs for an actual place. The temple in Jerusalem. The psalmist wants to be there. The temple was special, of course, largely because of the strong sense that God was truly present there. It is a place where God surely dwells. The early Hebrew people had a strong sense of themselves as God’s own, and of God’s abiding presence with them wherever they were. But there was also, as we heard in today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, a powerful sense of God’s awesome presence and glory residing within the actual building that was and is the temple. Those are the courts of Lord for which the psalmist longs so deeply.

One of the more vivid lines in Psalm 84 is this one. “The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young.”

In a new translation and commentary on the Psalter, Robert Alter writes about this line:

This image provides the most poignant focus for the speaker’s longing. Small birds such as swallows may well have nested in the little crevices of the roughly dressed stones that constituted the temple façade.. The speaker, yearning for the sacred zone of the temple, is envious of these small creatures happy in the temple precincts, whereas he, like an unrequited lover, only dreams of this place of intimacy with the divine. 

The psalmist envies even the sparrows and swallows because of their physical proximity to God in the temple.

He goes on to say, “Happy are those whose hearts are set on the pilgrim way.” The words “pilgrim” and “pilgrimage” get quite a lot of use in Christianity. “Pilgrimming” may not be a real world, but it is seen as a positive thing for Christians. We value the pilgrimage in a sort of general, ontological way. And this sense of being “on the way” is good, especially when our pilgrimages are paths of spiritual growth and discovery.

But, again, the psalmist is quite literal here. In contrast to a current automobile ad, for the psalmist, the journey is not the destination. It’s all about the destination. The only thing exciting about being a pilgrim is being on the way to the temple. But the excited and eager longing that come from being on that particular road bring joy and refreshment and energy to climb from height to height. Again, these heights are literal heights. Jerusalem is in the mountains.

God surely dwells in the temple. God’s glory fills the temple. Pilgrims come to the temple to worship. The psalmist’s destination is worship. The eager yearning and longing that the psalmist feels is for the experience of offering praise.

This is a psalm we should say as we rise from our beds on Sunday mornings. The psalmist is really saying, “Yippee! I really, really can’t wait to get to church. I can’t get there fast enough.”

The psalm is rich metaphorically, too, of course. It speaks of a yearning for the presence of the living God, as well as a desire to reach the altars and stones of the temple. But I think it’s neat to hang onto that literal meaning. And to be reminded that longing and yearning are a part of the life of faith.
There are holy places and holy times where God surely dwells for us, too. Here in the sacred space among the bricks and altar of this particular house of the Lord. And, of course, (as we continue to hear about the bread of life in John) the Sacraments are one place for us where absolutely without any exception or qualification we meet the living God.

Like the psalmist we might sing our deep longing and desire as we move closer and closer to participating in Holy Communion.

Longing, yearning, desire… these are feelings. More than once I’ve preached that faithful living is more about choices than feelings. And, of course, feelings cannot be commanded or summoned. We cannot make ourselves feel yearning for Sunday worship in the Lord’s house.

Feelings cannot be commanded, but they are often contagious. Feelings are often contagious. We can catch them from one another. Maybe we can catch a little yearning from the psalmist as we hear and say Psalm 84. Maybe we can catch a bit of the psalmist’s powerful desire, excitement and longing as he walked the pilgrim’s road. Step by step drawing closer and closer to the courts of the Lord in the sacred temple in Jerusalem.

Blessing of the Backpacks

Litany of Thanksgiving

For our minds and the ability to think and reason;
We thank you, Lord. 

For the passion and dedication of all who teach;
We thank you, Lord. 

For the gifts of wonder and creativity and the vision to see you, Lord, in things that are new;
We thank you, Lord. 

For schools and the opportunity learn;
We thank you, Lord. 

For our friends at school, who share the good times and the hard times with us;
We thank you, Lord. 

For our families, for their love and support;
We thank you, Lord. 

For computers and calculators and all the other tools that help us learn and explore;
We thank you, Lord. 

For words and stories and ideas and the chance to share them with others;
We thank you, Lord. 

For music and art and drama and joy;
We thank you, Lord. 

For games and times of recreation and renewal;
We thank you, Lord. 

For all those people who help us learn and all those whom we are able to help;
We thank you, Lord. 

For our own unique gifts and talents and the opportunity to use them in your service;
We thank you, Lord. 

God of power and hope, we pray your blessing upon these backpacks, on the students who carry them and on all students and teachers everywhere. Bless us all in our vocation as learners, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost - August 19

Thicker Than Blood

Earlier this week I was well on my way to preaching a theological sermon about the work of Christ. The collect and the Gospel led me to reflect on how we really understand and describe what Christ actually did and what it means to us.

It’s a very important topic and one that deserves some serious reflection. Barth called the work of Christ the “center of all Christian knowledge.” Theologians also call it the doctrine of salvation. What does it really mean that Jesus offers us salvation?

But a funny thing happened on the way to writing that sermon. I am going to preach on one piece of the work of Christ, but the theological exploration of salvation get detoured when I went to Kewanee yesterday. As some of you know, Kewanee is west of here, a bit south of I-80 almost to the Quad Cities. It’s in the Diocese of Quincy.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m part of a conversation between what is often called the “continuing” Diocese of Quincy and the Diocese of Chicago. The “continuing” Diocese of Quincy are the people in the Diocese of Quincy who have remained within the Episcopal Church, despite their former Bishop’s efforts to take them out.

These meetings always affect me. This was our third one. Six or eight folks from the Diocese of Quincy and six of eight from the Diocese of Chicago. In these gatherings I see the people of the church at their best and at their worst.

At their best: These continuing Episcopalians have retained their faithfulness, their eager commitment to the Gospel and the mission of the church in very trying circumstances. And I also see in our group’s conversations care, compassion, faithfulness, and a desire for all Christians to have the chance to live into their callings.

And the people of the church at their worst: These meetings tell of past leaders in Quincy who have been deceitful, manipulative, and dominated powerfully by self-interest in their relationships and interactions with the people who were in their pastoral care. This has created, up to the present day a very stark climate of polarization and enmity between former Episcopalians and continuing Episcopalians. The clergy appear to be the worst. Talk sounds like the worst of a contentious, contested divorce. Neighbors, people who used to worship together no longer even call one another by name. The are “the other side.” “Our opponents.”

Which brought to mind a story that was in the news this week. I read it on NPR, via the Associated Press.

One of the leaders of Hungary's Jobbik Party, which the Anti-Defamation League says is one of the few political parties in Europe to overtly campaign with anti-Semitic materials, has discovered that he is himself a Jew.

As the AP says, Csanad Szegedi had in the past railed about the "Jewishness" of the political class. According to the ADL, his party's presidential candidate referred to Israeli Jews as "lice-infested, dirty murderers."

For Szegedi all of this came to a screeching halt, when in 2010 a prisoner confronted him with evidence that he had Jewish roots. According to the AP, Szegedi tried to bribe the prisoner to keep him quiet, but rumors and innuendo reached a fever pitch by late last year and in June, Szegedi conceded that his mother was a Jew. According to Jewish law, that makes Szegedi Jewish, too.

Not only that, but Szegedi's grandmother survived Auschwitz and his grandfather survived labor camps. 

It’s a story about the divisions we human beings create among ourselves.

It is also a story about the importance of blood relationships. Jewish identity is defined by blood.

I am not an anthropologist, but it seems that we human beings culturally, at least within the cultures I am aware of, look upon affiliation defined by blood as absolute and indissoluble. I don’t know why. But something inside of us leads us to ascribe great power and importance to relationships of affiliations that are defined by blood.

Mr. Szegedi cannot deny his Jewish identity. He just can’t… period. He may not care for Jews, but he has Jewish blood. He is a Jew. (How much he knew, when he knew it, and what all of this says about his psyche are not my points today). I just want to stress and remind us all how powerful and important blood relationships are.

As in the case of Mr. Szegedi, blood is used culturally to define “us” and “them.” It was used evilly and cruelly in the context of racial segregation and subjugation. One drop of colored blood defined those who were to be segregated and subjugated.

Some of you may have heard the recent case of Elizabeth Warren. She is running for the Senate in Massachusetts. In the past she self-identified herself as Cherokee. In the current political climate in this country, there has been considerable debate about why she did that. But the point is, you can’t self-identify as Cherokee. It isn’t a casual thing based on family stories or personal desire. Can’t be casual. It must be proved by blood. I’m not sure of the specific membership laws of the Cherokee nation. The Sioux, which I know a little bit more about, require—I think—at least three generations of lineal descent. You must have at least 1/16 Sioux blood.

You know the phrase “blood is thicker than water.” Usually, it is a positive statement on the richness and preeminence of family relationships in the midst of all of the other things that tug at our affiliation.

I say all of this just to bring into our awareness how important, powerful and indissoluble we think that blood relationships are. And then to say that our relationships in Christ are more powerful and more important.

From the Baptism rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer. “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.”

The bond and relationship that Christ establishes with us through baptism is more powerful than any blood relationship. And not only are we united with Christ in baptism we are brought into the Body of Christ. The relationships that we share with one another within the Body of Christ are stronger and more important than any human blood relationship. And these relationships are renewed each time we participate in Holy Communion… each time we take into ourselves the Body and Blood of the living Christ. We share the divine, living blood of Christ…

This is very good news. It means, as St. Paul says, that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, from Christ himself. Nothing we might do, nothing anyone else might do can sever us from Christ. And, ultimately, nothing can break the relationships that we share within the Body of Christ. As Christians, we are never alone.

Our relationship with Christ and our relationships through Christ with one another are more powerful, more significant than any other relationships or affiliations in our lives. We don’t act that way most of the time. We live as though we value almost all other relationships more, even casual relationships.

Think about it: Our relationship with Christ and our connections with one another through Christ are more powerful, more important that anything else. To be sisters and brothers in Christ trumps any other affiliation.

What would it be like to really live that way? Within the parish? Within other spheres of our lives? Within our church debates? Within our ecumenical conversations? We do not all need to agree, but to be sisters and brothers in Christ is an indissoluble bond.

Think about it this way. Blood may be thicker than water. But Jesus is thicker even than blood.

The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost - August 12, 2012

Channeling Christ
Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2

I’ve watched at least my share of the Olympics over the last two weeks. In the Olympics we see a truly glorious display and celebration of human achievement. We watch acts of almost unbelievable grace and strength and skill. Records fall. Often we see graciousness and nobility, human beings at their best. (Sometimes not so much maybe in the graciousness department.) The Olympics really are a testament to the best that human beings can be.

Particularly in the midst of so much wondrous human achievement, we all need to be reminded of our need for God. It really is easy to forget. Even for those of us who are a very long way from any participation in the Olympic games, it is easy to forget how little and how helpless we are on our own. Without God.

In today’s collect we pray: Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right. Did that prayer catch your attention as it whizzed past in this morning’s liturgy? We pray to always (always!) think what is right.

 The secular, godless world can be a moral world. There are many good people in it. People who may not profess faith in God, but who nonetheless strive to do what is right. But to think what is right! I’ll be the first to admit that I only very limited control over my own thoughts. I’m not a trained psychologist or therapist, but like most clergy, I have sort of a peripheral connection to the therapeutic world. It’s my understanding that one of the basic tenets of psychotherapy is that thoughts and feelings just are. They appear within us unbidden, beyond our control. Thoughts and feelings are not “morally” good or bad, they just are. We are encouraged to face them, own them. And then, people who strive to be morally good try to learn how to act upon their thoughts and feelings in ways that are “good” or appropriate. For example, no matter what you may be thinking or feeling about your sports opponent, or the referee in your match, you can choose to act with sportsmanship or nobility. That is what the psychologically mature and moral person does. He or she tries to do what is right.

Yes, but. What about the Christian? We are called also to think what is right. That takes more than moral conviction and a good therapist. It takes God.

This week’s epistle reading from Ephesians is full of moral advice. Paul is giving moral advice to the relatively new Christians in Ephesus. It prompts us to ask: What is Christian moral living? What are Christian ethics?

I read a commentary on this passage by a Lutheran scholar, Mark Tranvik.  (Read the whole piece here.) He writes:

Our passage contains a lot of moral advice that can be found in many places in the ancient world.

In that sense, there is nothing "original" in this text. However, the wealth of moral instruction does not mean the Bible is simply "moralizing" its readers. The key difference lay in the motivation for the morality. Most commentators agree that Paul's framework for his ethical instruction is baptism.

Interwoven throughout the letter to the Ephesians are many references to death and life (2:1, 5), putting away the old self (4:22, 25) and being marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit (1:13, 4:30). In other words, instead of simply being exhorted to do good works, the community is continually reminded that it has been engrafted into the body of Christ and that its hope is grounded in Christ's present and future redemption. The result is a life lived in love, rooted and grounded in the love of Christ (5:2). 

So Paul is talking about more than just doing what is good. Christians have been transformed by Christ, and look for that redeeming transformation to continue. I love his phrase “engrafted into the Body of Christ.” When a tree is grafted, the two parts share the same sap, the same roots, the same life. They become literally inseparable. Through baptism we are engrafted into the Body of Christ.

I can think of at least two implications of this. One is that we are given the potential to “channel” Christ. I’ll come back to that. Second, we have been made part of something bigger than just ourselves.

We are part of something bigger than ourselves. As Paul says, we “are members one of another.” For example: In Ephesians, Paul says thieves must give up stealing. Well, duh. Everybody knows it’s morally wrong to steal. To take something that is not yours by rights, that you did not earn. To take something that belongs to someone else is morally wrong. No question. But here’s the interesting thing. The prohibition against stealing in Ephesians is not to ensure that each person may retain and possess what is rightfully theirs. The point of honest work is to provide for those who are in need.

To be engrafted in Christ through baptism means being literally responsible for others.

To be engrafted in Christ also means having the potential to channel Christ. You know what people mean when “channel” is used as a verb. It often has paranormal connotations. The dictionary definition is “to serve as a medium for a spirit.” To be the medium through which a spirit acts, is known, is heard, is felt. That’s really not bad theologically. For Christians this is not something we conjure up in a séance, it comes through the communion we have been given in Christ. In a sense we really can channel the saints. As we share life in Christ, we can tap into their faith and witness. And, as engrafted members of the Body of Christ, we can also, at least in part channel Christ.

Today’s passage from Ephesians concludes with familiar words we hear each week. “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.”

Or, as we actually heard it from Ephesians: “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

 Be imitators of God. A bit more from Tranvik’s commentary:

This section concludes with the ultimate exhortation: be imitators of God (5:1)! Here is where there is a true break with the typical virtue-vice lists of the ancient world. A standard has now been set that transcends all human morality….

Our culture's interpretation of love might be said to be at war with the biblical understanding of agape. Commercials and conventional usage suggest that love is largely a romantic feeling produced by the right combination of clothes, physical conditioning, smile and make-up. In other words, love is dependent upon being lovable.

This is the exact opposite of agape love which reaches out and extends itself to the most unlovable. As Martin Luther once said, it is characteristic of God's love that it does not find its object but it creates it. The point may seem subtle but Luther is saying we cannot make ourselves worthy of God, though we often try to do this. Rather, our relationship to God is based on nothing other than God's decision to love us in Christ. Or as Paul stresses, agape is rooted in Christ's act of giving himself for us (5:2). 

In the secular world, love is dependent upon someone or something being lovable. Love is generated because an object is lovable. God’s agape love begins with the one who loves. Love is generated in God’s desire to love.

Much has been made of the success of American women in these Olympics. And one phrase I’ve heard is “strong is the new beautiful.” Part of me wants to cheer and say, about time. But this is still the secular culture’s way of looking at things, of saying that attractiveness or value is all dependent upon the object of our attraction.

Tranvik concludes:

Paul highlights the effects of this love as well. We now inherit the status of "beloved children" (5:1). Our task then is to take this love to the neighbor or "live in love" (5:2) as Paul says. Perfect imitation of this love is not possible. God's word of forgiveness will always be relevant (4:32). But the love of Christ dwells in our hearts as well (3:17).

Be imitators of God. Channel Christ. Agape your neighbor in the same way that Christ agape’s you.

Agape your neighbor. Not because he or she is lovable. Not because he or she is beautiful or strong or right or noble. Agape your neighbor because God has chosen to love them. And we can and should channel God’s agape love.

We can’t do it without God’s help. We can’t do it without being engrafted into the Body of Christ. And, of course, we can never fully be God in the world. Humility and the never ending yearning for reconciliation, renewal and guidance are also a part of being engrafted into the Body of Christ.

In the collect we pray: “Grant us the spirit to think and do always those things that are right.” It’s actually the spirit that we pray for. Grant us the spirit. Grant us Christ’s spirit. Grant us Christ’s spirit within us. Help us to surrender to that spirit. So that we may be mediums for the Spirit of Christ to speak, and think, and act in the world.

Channeling Christ’s agape love. That’s Christian ethics.

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Truth Hearers
2 Samuel 11:26 - 12:13a

David and Bathsheba. It’s a well-known story. We heard the first part last week, and this week’s passage doesn’t really make sense unless you know the beginning of the story.

David sees Bathsheba and desires her. But she is the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Nonetheless, David demands that she be brought to him. The outcome being that she becomes “with child.” David tries to bring Bathsheba and Uriah together so that it would be at least plausible for people to believe that the child is Uriah’s. But these machinations fail because Uriah is true to the moral code of the time which prohibited consecrated soldiers from engaging in any sexual activity.

So David has to resort to plan B, which involves having Uriah sent into the heat of battle and then abandoned by the other soldiers so that he is killed by the enemy.

Then we come to today’s reading, what we might call the gotcha part of the story. Nathan, the prophet, shines a light on all that David has done and brings David to a recognition of his own sin.

This story is a bit of a hot button one for me, and probably for many who work in the church. At first reading it highlights the value of Nathan, the truth teller. Nathan is the hero, the courageous prophet who exposes the sin of the king. Nathan is celebrated as the admirable character in the story.

Yes, but.

I’ve seen a lot of damage done by people who thought they were called to be Nathans. Damage within parishes, within families, within other groups. Damage done by people who felt they had a truth that God called them to share or impose on others. Sometimes, drawing upon the words in today’s reading from Ephesians, they think of themselves as “speaking the truth in love.” But the result does not “build up the body.” Rather it is divisive or hurtful. Maybe the truth they claim is not really God’s truth. Maybe their motives are not God’s motives. It’s a very tricky business being Nathan. To anyone who feels drawn to emulate Nathan, the truth teller, I offer caution, not encouragement.

Don’t get me wrong. The church and the world need truth tellers. We need courageous prophets to help us see things we cannot see on our own. And I believe God sends us those prophetic truth tellers. But if you really think it’s your job to be Nathan, please think twice.

The thing is, although Nathan may at first glance appear to be the hero of this story, the story is really about David. And in David there is a role model for all of us. Maybe not the lusting after Bathsheba part. Although, as the Bible tells this story it is not really about sexual sin. Beware of trying to draw instruction on sexual ethics from this story. (Remember, part of the Lord’s judgment against David is to take David’s wives, plural, and give them to David’s neighbors.) David’s sin is an abuse of power. He says, “I have a right to what I want. I have a right to claim what I desire.”

That’s a pretty common sin. Just as common now among the powerful as it might have been then.

But David is a figure to be admired and emulated. David, the truth hearer, is an inspiration to us. David, the truth hearer, can be a role model for us.

 David had a general openness to the idea that God’s story involved him. He was open to the understanding that he, as an individual, as a particular person named David, was of concern to God. Nathan said to him, “You are the man.” But David said, yes, I am the man. Yes, I have sinned before God. But God cares enough about me to send Nathan to me. Nathan doesn’t just go up on some mountain top and rage against the general sins of power, he comes to David, and tells a story that speaks directly to David’s life. And David hears God’s voice speaking directly to him.

The word of God’s truth spoken directly to David. And David hears God’s truth as his own. Like David we should work on being truth hearers. We need to listen to lots of voices around us. And listen with the posture that God may actually be speaking directly to us, to any one of us, as a particular individual. You, individually, are of concern to God and have a specific part in God’s story. Listen for your own word of truth from God.

 This is not just a reminder just for the powerful. It is also for the timid. God speaks to you. For the tired. Pay attention, God speaks to you. For the skeptical. Yes, God speaks directly to you.

God’s word of truth may not always be a word of judgment. It is often a word of encouragement or hope. Spoken directly to you in a time of darkness or need. Or maybe it is a word of judgment, a call to repentance, for some specific sin that burdens your life. Or maybe it is a call to action. Whatever your particular situation it’s your word, your truth. Given by God to you. It could be almost anyone, anywhere who speaks it. The important thing is to be open, receptive to the possibility that God has a particular word, a particular truth for you.

This is a story about one particular individual named David. This story is about one of the days that God talked directly to David. And David listened and heard God’s truth for him.

 Like David, let us be people who listen and hear God’s truth spoken in our own lives.