The Third Sunday of Advent - December 13

St. Lucy's Day

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.

The “stir up” collect. A slightly different version of this collect has been in Anglican prayer books for centuries. It used to come on the Sunday Next before Advent. And the story goes, in England, “Stir up Sunday” was the day you stirred up your Christmas pudding in anticipation of the coming feast.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.

The focus of today’s Gospel is on John the Baptist and his proclamation of the One who was to come among us. I’m not going to preach on John as we heard about him toady in Luke’s Gospel. There is certainly a lot to be drawn from Luke’s account, even the reference to the “brood of vipers,” and I’ve preached on it before. But today I want to focus on John the Baptist as herald of Christ as he is described in John’s Gospel. From the first chapter of John (John 1:6-9):

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 

 The power and might that we pray to come among us is light, says John. Light is coming into the world.

This focus on light is particularly appropriate for today. Today is Saint Lucy’s day. Or, as she is known in some places, Santa Lucia. Her commemoration is ancient and before calendars were tweaked and regularized, St. Lucy’s day fell on the shortest day of the year.

John Donne wrote a poem titled “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie’s day.” He calls the day the year’s midnight.

December 13 is no longer the shortest day of the year, although it’s close, of course. With our current calendar the winter solstice falls on either December 21 or 22. On that shortest day of the year here in Chicago, we will have a little over 9 hours of daylight. As much as grouse about the dark this time of year, that’s not really too bad. I checked a few other cities. Stockholm (and I’ll come back to why Sweden is important) will have just a little over 6 hours of daylight. (Sweden is at a roughly similar latitude to Alaska). The farthest north I’ve ever been is Rovaniemi, Finland, just south of the arctic circle. On December 21 in Rovaniemi, there will be 2 hours and 14 minutes of daylight. Nine hours sounds pretty good.

We know virtually nothing about the life of St. Lucy. One resource I checked said, all the details of her life are the conventional ones associated with all female martyrs of the early 4th century.

There is a 5th century work called the Acts of Saint Lucy. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints states: Her historically valueless Acts make her a wealthy Sicilian who refused marriage offers… a characteristic of all 4th century female martyrs… and gave her money to the poor. She was accused of violating (male) authority, and faced significant indignities before being killed by the sword.

All we really know is her name. Lucy. And Lucy was apparently martyred during the vicious persecutions of the Roman emperor Diocletian. She died in 304.

We know her name. Lucy. Which in Latin means light. Light. Saint light. So it is appropriate that we associate the saint of light with the darkest day of the year.

She is popular in her native Italy. And in Sweden, where St. Lucy’s day is rich in festive traditions. In Sweden they know something about darkness this time of year. And about the power of light coming into darkness. The celebration of St. Lucy is about light coming into darkness.

Light shining in darkness. Light coming into darkness.

What are your memories or experiences of light shining in darkness? They might be grand or mundane. A brilliant sunrise at dawn or the small nightlight that guides your way when you get up in the night.

The stars in the night sky. Especially in winter when the air is crisp and the stars seem to sparkle more brilliantly and the noble hunter Orion stands guard. And the awe and wonder of loosing yourself in contemplating the stars. Or the luminaria that line the walk to the front door of the church on Christmas eve, leading to the place where our Savior’s birth is celebrated.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.

So what does the power and might of light bring when it comes into the world?

Enlightenment. New understanding or awareness, especially of God’s presence. Do you know why angels are portrayed in dazzling raiment? In robes that shine with light? Because they are messengers of God. The bring the enlightenment of God’s word.

Light shining in the darkness also has the power to draw people together. People gather around the light. A street light. A campfire. Light draws people together. Families. Or also people who might otherwise be separated by difference or indifference.

Light not only provides the new vision of enlightenment, it also quite literally improves vision or sight. Light in darkness marks a path, makes it possible to see where you are and where you’re going. It provides safety and direction on a journey that can be hazardous.

Light often provides comfort and warmth.

Light coming into darkness often heralds a new beginning, a new start, a new dawn.

And light shining in darkness, like the stars in the sky, has the power to evoke awe and wonder. To draw us out of our human finitude and into reverence and praise of God.

All of that power and might amounts to hope, really. Light brings hope. We live in a world and a time that is often dark and in need of hope. All times do.  Lest we think our day is particularly dark, remember Rovaniemi or the persecutions Christians faced in the time of Diocletian.

But the world needs the light that is coming. Have you known it? Can you describe the true light? Like John the Baptist, we are called to be heralds, to testify to the light. To share with others the power and might of the light. We must testify to the light that is coming into the world.

The Second Sunday of Advent - December 6

Channing Moore Williams and Advent

The Second Sunday of Advent. Another candle lit on the Advent wreath. One week closer to the celebration of Jesus’ birth.

This week in the Wednesday morning service we commemorated the life and ministry of one of the “lesser” saints of the church: Channing Moore Williams. Those commemorations come from our calendar of saints, Holy Women, Holy Men. It includes a brief biographical sketch of each saint along with an appointed collect and Scripture readings.

As we celebrated Channing Moore Williams, a few points struck me as particularly appropriate for Advent. First, a little information about who he was.

Bishop Williams, a farmer’s son, was born in Richmond, Virginia on July 18, 1829, and brought up in straitened circumstances by his widowed mother. He attended the College of William and Mary and the Virginia Theological Seminary.

 Ordained deacon in 1855, he offered himself for work in China, where he was ordained priest in 1857. Two years later, he was sent to Japan and opened work in Nagasaki. In 1866 he was chosen bishop for both China and Japan.

At a synod in 1887 he helped bring together the English and American missions to form the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Holy Catholic Church of Japan, when the Church there numbered fewer than a thousand communicants.

Williams translated parts of the Prayer Book into Japanese; and he was a close friend and warm supporter of Bishop Schereschewsky, his successor in China, in the latter’s arduous work of translating the Bible into Chinese. 

So three loosely connected Advent reflections, stirred by the story of Bishop Williams.

The first comes from the collect written for the commemoration of Williams’ ministry. In it we pray, “Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of your kingdom, that your church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

The call for heralds is certainly an Advent theme, especially on this day that we particularly remember John the Baptist, but it was the phrase “unsearchable riches” that really caught my attention.

Unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Unsearchable riches? At first glance it doesn’t seem like it’s something positive to proclaim. How is unsearchable a good thing? The English word “unsearchable” is a little tricky. It doesn’t mean what it might seem to mean. It doesn’t mean “cannot be searched for.”

It means “cannot be fully or totally or clearly understood.” The phrase is actually taken from Ephesians. I don’t know if it’s a passage that was particularly important to Bishop Williams. The Greek word translated unsearchable is also sometimes translated unfathomable. Beyond our fathoming.

But here’s the good news. This does not mean that the riches or blessings of Jesus Christ cannot be sought or found. They can be and are. But there is always more. Always more goodness and blessing to be found ahead.

This phrase or passage is a reminder of humility. Don’t ever think you have fully fathomed the riches of Christ. But is also an Advent reminder that we are always searching. Always on a journey. And that more and deeper riches and goodness and blessing always lie ahead.

My second reflection comes from Williams’ ministry in Japan. And it’s a powerful reminder that it takes time for the work of becoming a Christian and for doing Christian ministry. It takes time.

Remember, first, that when Williams initially went to the Far East, he was six months at sea. Then he took a full year to work on the language. Later, when he moved to Japan, it was 6 years before his first convert was baptized. Six years.

Because God works through us, God’s work always takes time. Sometimes lots of time. Time for our own Christian identity and vocation to grow. Time for Christian ministry to come to any fulfillment. Advent is a reminder that waiting is a part of being a Christian. That Christianity is not characterized by instant gratification. A very important Advent reminder in our culture that demands instant everything. Instant communication. Instant acquisition. Instant information. Instant gratification. The development of Christian identity and Christian ministry takes time.

On to my third reflection. As I thought about the counter cultural message of Advent—the positive messages about waiting and taking time—I found it very tempting to turn this into a rant against all sorts of features of contemporary life… the expectation of instant communication, constant texting, always connected to the internet. It was very tempting to label all of that constant communication and connectivity as unchristian.

And yet… The more I thought about it, I think God would love texting. I think God does text. He just doesn’t use a cell phone. Constant communication. Non-stop connectivity. That’s exactly what God offers us and seeks from us. No matter what we’re doing or where we are. If only we could only really claim that sort of ongoing communication with God and constant connectivity to God’s presence.

God doesn’t give us instant gratification or immediate fulfillment of everything we wish for. But God does offer us unceasing presence, guidance and love. Constant communication and connection. And that’s what guides us in our search for the never ending riches of Christ. That’s what strengthens and sustains us as we live into—over time—our Christian identities and ministries.

The First Sunday of Advent - November 29

Advent:  The Church's Intervention in Our Lives
Luke 21:25-36

Today is the beginning of the new year. It’s the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the year in our worship life together.

This season of Advent is a time of anticipation and preparation. Advent, of course, is one two seasons of preparation in the church calendar. Two seasons that look forward to great, festive holy days. Advent looks forward to Christmas; Lent looks forward to Easter. But, in many ways, the two seasons are very different. I think of Lent as a call to obligation, to disciplined practice. That obligation is holy and enriching, but it is an obligation. Advent is a gift. A gift of time. A time filled with promise. God’s promise of a coming Savior.

There’s a TV commercial running right now that you may have seen. There are at least two versions of it. It’s for the Wall Street Journal. The commercials show young, busy, important, successful, creative people… juggling all of the demands of their lives… saying, “I don’t have time to read the Wall Street Journal.” Then at the end of the commercial, they are shown reading the Wall Street Journal. And the tag line is: People who don’t have time, make time to read the Wall Street Journal.

I’m sure the Wall Street Journal can be informative, but Advent is way more important than the WSJ. Advent offers you immeasurably more than the Wall Street Journal! No matter how busy you are, make time to keep Advent. Make time. Literally. Open up time in your life for Advent.

Lent is about discipline. About doing faithful practices.

Advent is about time. Make time. Advent time.

What makes time Advent time? How do we fill Advent time? One suggestion is: Don’t fill it. Leave it open. Open time for hope and expectation to grow.

Or some other suggestions for making time for Advent in your lives.

Use an Advent wreath at home. At least once a week sit at the dinner table and light the appropriate number of candles for that week. Or light it daily. At a minimum when you light the candles, say the Advent collect. It’s the one we said this morning. It’s on today’s Scripture inserts. We have materials for making Advent wreaths and fuller directions for using them downstairs in the undercroft.

Or use some sort of reflection for Advent. Use the Living Compass Living Well through Advent booklets. Or I’ve prepared a short list of Advent resources available online.

Sit and listen to music. Music that stirs your soul. Really listen. Not just in the background.

Sit in darkness with points of light. As a girl I used to sit alone in the quiet and the dark with the lights of the Christmas tree shining. That sparkling of beauty breaking into the dark. A candle or two or three or four lit in the dark also works well. Light coming into darkness is a particularly appropriate symbol for Advent.

Go for a walk. Go for a walk at night. Even here in the suburbs the winter sky is beautiful.

At the beginning of Giancarlo Menotti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, the young shepherd boy Amahl is outside. He and his widowed mother are excruciatingly poor. She tries to call him in to go to bed; he is reluctant. When she asks him what was keeping him outside, he replies:

Oh, Mother….
There’s never been such a sky.
Damp clouds have shined it
and soft winds have swept it
as if to make it ready for a king’s ball.
All its lanterns are lit;
all its torches are burning
and its dark floor is shining like crystal. 

The riches of the night sky seen through the eyes of a boy who has nothing.

Make time for Advent.

Open a space in what Luke calls the worries of this life. By God’s grace, hope will be born in that space.

Notice the yearning within your soul of what Frederick Buechner calls the hungering dark. By God’s grace, that is where the light of Christ will grow.

Just stop all the craziness. All the craziness of this season. Just stop. You can. Stop long enough to let God plant a seed of peace in your heart. A seed that, by God’s grace, will grow into the peace that surpasses all human understanding.

Be quiet long enough to hear the voices sing: O, Come. O Come, O come Emmanuel. The voice of your own heart; the voices of those you love yearning for God With Us; the voices of the world in desperate need of a Savior; the joyful angelic voices filled with hope and promise. Be quiet long enough to hear the Advent hymn: O come, O come Emmanuel.

Advent isn’t in the Bible. God didn’t invent Advent (at least not directly). The church invented Advent. Advent, as a time filled with all that is good about this season. The church offers you Advent to illustrate, to teach, to make real in your lives all that is good about this time.

Here’s another way to think about Advent. Advent is the church’s intervention in our selfish, cluttered, materialistic lives. Will you accept the gift of Advent?

If you know the language or architecture of the recovery movement, you know that interventions are acts of desperate love. And hope. Hope for life and health renewed.

Advent is the church’s intervention in the selfish, overstuffed, materialistic lives that are killing us. Will you accept the gift of Advent?

Will you make time for Advent?

Thanksgiving Day

Le Jour de l’Action de Grace

Thanksgiving. Thanks. Giving. Giving thanks.

As the name implies, from its earliest celebrations this day in this country has been about GIVING thanks, the action of giving thanks.

It is a good time to pause and count our blessings, to bring to mind the things we are thankful for. But that’s not the stopping point. This holiday is about giving thanks. At a minimum that means giving voice to our thanksgivings. Saying thank you to God, to defenders of liberty, to family members, to those have given us the things we’re thankful for.

But this year Mary Schmich of the Tribune has given me another insight into this holiday. In a recent article she notes the Spanish and French names for this “quintessentially American holiday:”

El dia de acción de gracias. Le jour de l’action de grace. 

Our English composite, smushed together, word “thanksgiving” doesn’t exist in Spanish or French. Thanksgiving becomes acción de gracias or l’action de grace. The day of action of thanks. Or the day of action of grace.

Today is a day to undertake graceful actions. To do things that are grace-filled.

How do we do that?

Maybe one way to start is to begin in those places where we are thankful. And then act upon that thankfulness. Share, nurture, celebrate those things we are thankful for. Many of the meals and gatherings of this day will indeed be grace-filled. Although for many people family gatherings can be fraught. Focus on thankfulness. Seek and share grace. Grace is in these gatherings. Name it; share it.

I saw some grace-filled action earlier this morning. At my neighbor’s across the street, extended family is gathering, undoubtedly to share a feast later today. But this morning, some of them were out raking leaves, including a boy who must be about five, wielding a full-sized rake. With energy, joy and grace. A task that might seem onerous, filled with grace because it was shared, part of the blessing of family.

Start in the places of thanksgiving. If you are thankful for the beauty of creation. Get out in it. Take a grace-filled walk.

At last night’s interfaith community Thanksgiving service, Pastor Claude King asked us to imagine our perfect Thanksgiving. What is your image of a perfect Thanksgiving? What needs to happen for that to be a reality? In your life? In our community? In the world?

Whatever it is that needs to happen… do it. Those will be actions of grace.

Thanksgiving. A day for grace-filled actions.

The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - November 15

Provoke One Another
Proper 28
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.

From today’s Gospel. Today is the next to last Sunday in the church year. And, every year at this time, as the year wanes, we hear passages like this one. The technical term is “apocalyptic.”

It’s a word we know. The general meaning of the word apocalypse is “uncovering,” disclosure, revelation… An uncovering or revealing of something that was unknown or hidden. In religious usage the word has come to mean the revelation of how the world will end. What the end of all things and all time will be like. Apocalyptic writing is a specific style or genre in the Bible.

In our regular lives, it is probably a genre we are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with, at least when it is presented as fact. And it is a worldview that we probably dismiss as “crazy.” After all, up to this point, every individual who has predicted the imminent end of the world has been wrong. Just another loony predicting the end of the world this coming Tuesday… based on some permutation of numbers in the Mayan calendar, or some other calendar, or reading tea leaves or something else equally fantastic.

But, within the Bible, apocalyptic writing is found in both the Old and New Testaments. It is a particular style with consistent characteristics.

 Chapter 13 in Mark is often called the “Little Apocalypse,” to differentiate it from the “Big” Apocalypse of the Book of Revelation. From a commentary on Mark’s Gospel (Lamar Williamson, Jr., Interpretation):

Mark 13 displays several characteristics of apocalyptic thought: a deterministic and pessimistic view of history (the course of history is clearly determined, and it isn’t going to end well), anticipation of the end of the world in some great and imminent crisis, a dualistic understanding of human existence, and visions of cosmic upheaval. The symbolism of the chapter is largely drawn from apocalyptic passages in the Old Testament and related literature, particularly from the Book of Daniel which is quoted verbatim three times… [Mark 13] must be understood in the context of the apocalyptic literature of the Old and New Testaments and of the apocalyptic movement in Judaism and Christianity which gave birth to these writings.

Speaking more specifically about the verses we heard today:

They convey a series of… warnings against deceptive signs of the end-time: the appearance of deceivers, wars, and upheavals of nature…. The gist is that “the end is not yet.” 

A warning against deceptive signs of the end-time. A warning against deceivers predicting the end-time. The end is not yet.

Jesus, in Mark, goes on to say, more or less, you’ll know the real end when it comes. It won’t just be the end of your world; it will be the end of the world. Don’t confuse the two. The end is not just the end of your way of life; your social structure; not even the end of humanity. The end will be cosmic. So this isn’t it. Don’t worry.

You may or may not find Jesus’ words reassuring, but they are meant to be.

It’s hard to know in this passage how much comes directly from Jesus and how much is Mark speaking to his own community. The community to whom Mark wrote was facing troubling and uncertain times:

 … disappointment at Jesus’ delayed return, the immense social and religious upheaval caused by the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple [their whole self-understanding as God’s people], possible persecution by secular and religious forces, confusion among Jesus’ followers about whether they had missed his second coming, and conflicts between rival Christian leaders (David Lose, HERE).

The end is not yet. Your life may be uncertain, confusing, frightening, a total mess, but don’t worry, the end is not yet.

For all of us gathered here, life is pretty good really. But the world around us often seems like a mess. And some times more than others that mess seems to come close and threatening. In one sense, although the style of Mark’s apocalyptic writing may seem strange, it may also seem all too familiar. We see around us faith-based conflict and violence. Nation rising up against nation.

As David Lose reflects on this passage, he notes that Jesus’ ultimate message is that the antidote to confusion and fear is not certainty, it is courage. The antidote to uncertainty, confusion and fear is not some certainty of signs, not an indisputable roadmap for the future. The antidote to confusion and fear is courage. Courage born of the knowledge that we are God’s own beloved, no matter what. That we dwell in the being of Christ. Think about that. We dwell in the very being of Christ. We live within, we share the life, of Christ himself, no matter what is going on around us. Christ offers us newness of life, renewal, healing of all that is broken, even now. And nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus!

The Christian response, the Christian perspective, in times of fear and uncertainty is all there in today’s reading from Hebrews. It’s there in Hebrews.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

This week I could not help but read this passage from Hebrews within the context of the terrible acts of terrorism that have occurred in several places around the world. Terrorism, as we think of it now, is a concept that has only been around for the last 15 years or so. And it always involves “groups.” Which “group” takes responsibility. This sort of terrorism occurs because of groups. I do not diminish the individual responsibility of the people who commit these ungodly acts, but it takes a group to provoke, radicalize, recruit, inspire individuals to act. It takes a group to provoke and inspire individuals to act.

I’m a little wary of this analogy, fearing that I will be misinterpreted.

But Hebrews reminds us that we are a group. We Christians are a group. And that is our strength. It is when we “meet together” that we encourage one another to “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering…” As we meet together we encourage, we instill courage, in one another. And, as a group, we PROVOKE ONE ANOTHER TO LOVE AND GOOD DEEDS.

That is what Christians do in a world that is fearful, confusing and threatening. Provoke one another to love and good deeds.

The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost - November 8

Learning to See
Proper 27
Mark 12:38-44

The Gospel reading for today may seem pretty simple and straightforward. But it’s tricky.

Most modern Bibles separate this passage into two parts with separate headings. The first is called something like Jesus’ teaching on humility. The second part is titled: The Widow’s Mite, or The Widow’s (small) offering.

The second part about the widow is well known; it’s a familiar story. And, at first glance, it may look like the perfect text for a stewardship sermon. The message is simple. Give sacrificially. A lot of stewardship sermons have certainly been preached on this passage. I didn’t go back to check. I hope I never have. The temptation is strong, especially since we hear this passage in the fall when most parishes are doing their annual pledge campaigns.

The widow gave “everything she had to live on.” As one commentator said, she was two pennies away from death. Literally. And she gave away those two pennies. The fall parish pledge campaign is not war. It does not demand the sacrifice of a life. There are several possibilities if she really gave all she had to live on. (1) She knew she was close to death and wanted that to be her last act. (2) She wanted to die so gave away her remaining meager means of support. Or (3) she was so mindlessly bound to duty that even in the face of death she acted as she thought she “should.” This stinks as a stewardship text.

But I don’t think today’s Gospel is about the widow. The first thing to do is to look at today’s passage as a whole. Within the broader context of Mark’s Gospel, this passage is a coherent unit, not two separate stories.

And it’s about the disciples. Jesus is teaching the disciples. And he’s teaching them not so much about how to give, as how to see. And who to see. This passage is about how to see.

One commentator reflecting on this passage called it: Jesus' Tips on People Watching.

At the beginning of this passage, the disciples couldn’t take their eyes off of the scribes. They WERE treated with respect. They DID have the best seats in the synagogue. They were the star athletes of their day. The disciples are having an “I wanna be like Mike” moment. After all, the disciples were in the religion business, too. And the Scribes were at the top. The disciples looked at them with envy and admiration.

Some of those scribes, Jesus says to the disciples, at least some of those guys you envy, aren’t so religious. For them, it’s all about the attention and status. They are folks who just use religion for personal status and gain. They are self-centered hypocrites. BEWARE. Be wary. Don’t spend your time ogling those people. Be wary of aspiring to be like them.

Jesus tries to redirect their vision. To change how they see people. Change who they see.

The widow is nobody, not noticeable, worth nothing. In the society of that day, a widow was worth nothing. Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples they should BE her, or be like her. In fact, he never explicitly praises her. Jesus says, NOTICE her. SEE her.

She’s just a woman. Just a widow. But she matters, Jesus says. She is worth noticing. See her. Jesus is trying to teach the disciples how to see people with God’s eyes.

The lesson is just as relevant for us today. Do we just see the people who want us to see them, or do we see the people God wants us to see? Do we focus on the people society heralds and holds up, or do we see people as God sees them?

Or, another way of thinking about it: Do we see people as they want to be seen, in the manner that they present themselves, or do we see people as God wants us to see them?

For those of us who are disciples, followers of Jesus… how we see is very important. It is the beginning of every choice we make. Where we go. What we do. How we see… how we sense… what we learn from all of our senses…. sight, hearing, touch, intuition… How we perceive determines every choice we make. Where we go. What we do. How we give of ourselves. Who we interact with, and how.

Lord, teach us how to see.

The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost - October 25

Your Call
Proper 25
Mark 10:46-52

There is a method of Biblical analysis called form criticism. Form criticism. Criticism not in the sense of a negative put down, but in the general sense of analysis. It grows out of the awareness that stories in the Bible tend to fall into distinct categories and within each category the stories follow a typical form or pattern.

For example, there are miracle stories. And at least most of the miracle stories follow the same pattern; they are told according to a form that is consistent for miracles stories. Other categories would be things like infancy narratives or prophetic utterances. Again, within a given category, the stories tend to follow a set pattern or form.

The way the stories are told were shaped by the literary and social norms and expectations of the day. This is how you told miracle stories in Jesus’ day. We do the same thing today. There is a particular form for telling fishing stories (including the element of exaggeration!); there is a particular way we tell stories about sports rivalries or natural disasters.

For the Biblical stories the regular forms also probably helped people remember and tell these stories when they existed only in the oral tradition. Scholars can spend whole careers on this sort of thing. Form criticism is a useful tool for studying how Biblical stories may have changed or evolved over time. And, although it may all seem pretty arcane to us, I would say that all tools for Bible study are good… Anything that draws our focus and attention to the words of Scripture is good.

The story of blind Bartimaeus which we heard as today’s Gospel falls into the category of a healing story. There are lots of healing stories in the Gospels.

The story of Bartimaeus contains the elements of a typical healing story.

1. Someone has a problem. In this case Bartimaeus has lost his sight. 
2. There is some factor that complicates matters. In the typical form of a healing story, there is a bump in the road. Some factor that complicates matters. In this case, Jesus’ disciples try to silence Bartimaeus, to keep him away from Jesus. 
3. Jesus effects the cure. 
4. The cure is confirmed. 
5. There is some response. Bartimaeus becomes a disciple of Jesus. 

Just another healing story, with all of the typical elements in a healing story.

But this is also a call story. It is the story of how Bartimaeus becomes a follower, a disciple, of Jesus. There are other call stories in the Gospels. James and John. Matthew. Typically, Jesus directly addresses the person, saying “follow me.” And, somehow, in that personal interaction, that personal encounter, whoever it is chooses to follow, becomes a disciple.

But the story of Bartimaeus it is NOT a typical call story. It doesn’t fit the form. First of all, others are involved. Those same disciples who sought to keep Bartimaeus away from Jesus act later to bring him to Jesus. And then Jesus doesn’t say “follow me,” he actually says “Go.” Your faith has made you well. Go.

All of this reminds me that, ultimately, each call story is unique. As unique as each one of us.

Jesus has communicated his love for us and his desire to each of us that we be his disciples. He communicates in ways uniquely tailored to each of us. In the colloquial phrase, he meets us “where we are.” Just like he met James and John and Matthew and Bartimaeus where they were, he meets us where we are. And calls us each, personally, to be his disciples. And we have responded. You have responded. Your being here is a response.

A call story. It may be a direct encounter with Jesus. Or may involve others leading us to Jesus. It may be immediate or gradual process of understanding. Jesus may speak to us in the midst of healing or in the midst of struggle. Jesus may speak to us personally while we are quietly reading God’s word in Scripture or as a thunderbolt from heaven.

Each of us has a personal, unique call story. Do you know yours?

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - October 11

In This Family, We Share
Proper 23
Mark 10:17-31

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"

End of sermon?

Jesus said, “How had it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

For folks who take the Bible literally word for word… What do literalists do with this passage? Many seem able to overlook it. One of the problems with strict literalism is that it really is all or nothing. Either the Bible is word for word literally true, or it’s not. You can’t claim literal truth just for the passages you like.

But those of us who aren’t literalists shouldn’t feel too smug. We do the same thing. We pick and choose. Cherishing the passages we agree with and dismissing those we don’t. And we do it quite casually.

It’s very hard, I think, for any of us to take the Bible seriously enough to let it challenge us… It’s hard to take the Bible seriously enough to let it challenge or confront our personal opinions.

How hard it will be, Jesus says, for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

As a non-literalist, what to do with today’s Gospel?

Jesus and his disciples lived in a time when there was a prevalent understanding among Jews that wealth was a sign of God’s favor. They believed that God rewarded righteousness or faithfulness with prosperity, material wealth. (I don’t know if some of you subscribe to that belief. As you may know there is a whole strand of contemporary Christianity, known as the prosperity Gospel, which directly teaches that God rewards faith with prosperity.)

The disciples, then, are quite sincere when they ask: if the rich can’t get into the kingdom of God, then who can? If the people who are demonstrably favored by God can’t get into the kingdom of heaven, then who in the world can??

Part of what Jesus is doing in this passage is debunking that understanding. That’s not how God works, he says. Riches don’t equate to God’s favor. So if we don’t share that view, then Jesus isn’t really talking to us… Whew… We’re off the hook.

But still Jesus says, “How hard will it be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

There’s another line of exploration of today’s passage that I found interesting this week.

It comes from the beginning of today’s reading: As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

The word is “inherit.” What must I do to inherit eternal life? How have I missed that all these decades?

He does not say: What must I do to receive eternal life. Or gain. Or acquire. Or earn. Or find.

He says inherit. I’m not a Greek scholar, but I know enough to be able to sort of track things down. And the Greek word (klēronoméo) means inherit. With its very specific meaning of something that is bequeathed. And there isn’t really anything someone can “do” to “inherit;” it depends upon the person making the bequest.

Apparently, in Jewish law of the day children were always heirs of their parents. A parent didn’t have the choice to disinherit a child. When the young man uses the word “inherit,” he places his question within the context of the family. And all children of God were inheritors of God’s promise. All children of God were bequeathed eternal life in God’s kingdom.

All the young man had to do was join the family. Become a child of God.

But Jesus said one thing to him: In this family, we share.

In the family of God, we share. We share joy. We share pain. We share responsibility for one another.

Go and sell what you have and give everything to the poor. Was it really just poverty that the young man lacked before he could enter God’s kingdom and inherit eternal life? Or was it maybe compassion? A sense of connection and mutual responsibility for others?

Jesus didn’t tell him just to sell his possessions. Jesus said, sell what you have and then give the money to people in need. He was grieved, the Gospel says, at the idea of losing his possessions. I imagine he was also grieved because up until this point his life had been all about him. Thinking of others’ needs was not a happy exercise.

All he had to do was join the family of God. A family that shares. Being a child of God means being blessed with lots and lots of brothers and sisters in Christ. It also means treating them that way.

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (St. Francis' Day) - October 4

Our Relationship with Creation
St. Francis' Day

Today, October 4, is St. Francis’ Day. In the guidelines that govern our common worship, today is the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and that takes priority over a saints’ day. Our regular commemoration of Sundays is the most important factor in our worship. So the Scripture readings for today are those for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost. But today is St. Francis’ Day! And, at least for me, preaching on St. Francis is a lot more inviting than preaching on the lessons for today! And, after all, we’ll have the blessings and challenge of Job and the theological intricacies of Hebrews for several weeks ahead. The reading from Mark deserves faithful and scholarly exploration, but that’s for another day. Today is St. Francis’ Day!

In this week’s e-vangelist I shared a quote about St. Francis that is memorable for me. It comes from the book that sets out our calendar of saints and provides brief descriptions about them. The current iteration of the book is called Holy Women, Holy Men. St. Francis, it says, is probably the most admired but least imitated among the saints. Most admired, but least imitated. We do admire Francis, but almost in a fairy story sort of way, it seems. We are less eager to see him as a real human being who might be a model to us of discipleship. His voluntary acceptance of poverty and identification with the suffering of Christ are not attractive to most of us.

And we should think hard about that. But Francis has other things to teach us, too.

I want to share an extended quote from a reflection on Francis written by an Episcopal Deacon in Long Island. I don’t know anything about the writer; the reflection appeared this week on the website of Episcopal Relief and Development.

I’ve taken to calling myself a creationist these days, in part (grinning impishly) because I like to see how people react and in part because I have come to believe. (Still grinning impishly.)

But really – because of St. Francis – I have come to believe in creation. Not as a static event chiseled in the stone relief of our cosmic narrative, but as an open-ended and dynamic process where every thought and action, person and particle are some how only a few degrees of separation apart.

I am so grateful that Francis heeded his call. As he knelt piously in front of a dusty Byzantine icon of the crucifix, in a busted and crumbling church in the Umbrian valley, something spoke in him, maybe even to him. “Francis, you see that my church is in ruin. Go and rebuild it.”

Not only did Francis – in a fervor worthy of a recent seminary graduate – rebuild that little church stone by stone, he began the more laborious task of offering the world a different perspective of itself; a perspective that still has the potential to change everything.

In Francis’ time, the predominant view of the cosmos was hierarchical. In an attempt to reconcile philosophical and Christian worldviews, the medieval mind conceived of the universe as a ladder. God was at the top, radiating truth down to the dimly lit earth below – for most, matter was less than spirit.

Francis’ own sense of order, however, did not spring from the university or the monastery. Francis was, in a sense, not corrupted by the popular paradigm where divine aspiration could only move in one direction: up. For Francis, Creation was like a web – an expanding sphere of interconnectedness – with God at the center and all components, creatures, moving in myriad directions: out.

It is interesting to consider that when Francis recited the Canticle of the Creatures on his deathbed, he never mentioned animals, pets or otherwise. Certainly he loved and honored all creatures great and small, recognizing their value and part in the drama of the universe. But instead, he mentioned the sun, the moon, the stars, wind and fire and he called them all brothers and sisters. To do so was to name, in an intimate way, his and our deep relationship to the world of matter that surrounds us. (Jesse Lebus HERE) 

Francis saw God’s creation as a dynamic, on-going web of relationships. It’s that idea of relationship that I want to stress. We use it sometimes with respect to nature or creation, but do we really think about what it means.

What is your relationship with creation? How would you characterize the “nature” of your relationship with nature? Or, better, with all of God’s creation? What are the qualities of that relationship? I hope you’ll consider this your spiritual homework for the week. Reflect on your relationship with creation.

Relationships, by definition, are active. They involve interactions, give and take. This isn’t about your perspective on creation; it’s about the give and take of your interactions with creation and the quality of those interactions.

What is your relationship with the sun? What do you give? What are you given? What do you take?

What is your relationship with water? What sorts of interactions do you have with water?

What is the quality of your relationship with the creatures of God’s creation?

Our relationships with other human beings provide us some models or metaphors that we might consider as we reflect on our relationship with creation.

Friendship. Is your relationship with creation like a friendship? Friendships enrich our lives very much. However, even the best friendships are usually intermittent, occurring in just a particular place or time in our lives.

Or is your relationship more like the deeper commitment of a marriage?

Do you think you have no relationship with creation? You do. You do have interactions with creation. Give and take. We all do.

Relationships can be abusive.

Or they can be casual. The interactions taking place, but not having and real meaning or significance.

There are a series of human relationships that are, by their nature, hierarchical. Which doesn’t fit as well with Francis’ view of creation.

A parent – child relationship.

An employer – employee relationship, something most of us have at least some experience with. But if creation is like our employee, what’s the bottom line? What is our company’s goal?

We often talk about environmental stewardship, but I’m a little less keen on that image now. It’s a hierarchical one. Where we are the overlord or manager.

Francis saw creation as a non-heirarchical, integrated, dynamic, ongoing process, interconnected and inspired by God. God is in the interactions.

Francis offered us the relationship model of siblings. The sun, the moon, the stars, wind and fire are our brothers and sisters. Anyone who has a human brother or sister knows it is not always a perfect relationship. But as a model for our relationship with creation it reminds us that we spring from a common creative source: God. And we interact more or less as equals within a larger whole.

Francis challenges us to ponder the quality of our relationship with creation. But, especially on St. Francis’ Day, he also reminds us to celebrate our place in God’s wondrous creation.

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 27

Doing Faith
Proper 21B
James 5:15-20
Mark 9:38-50

For the last several weeks, the lectionary has provided passages from James for the second lesson. We’ve been pretty much working our way through James. Today is the last Sunday of James.

As I said when we started James, it sometimes gets a bad rap. Luther was famously dismissive of it and would have preferred it not be in the Bible. James talks about the “works” of Christian life. Drawing upon Paul’s writings, reformation theology, like Luther’s, stresses salvation through faith alone. God’s favor, salvation, does not come through works; only through faith or belief.

But I think we have taken that reformation perspective to a real extreme. We have become too focused on belief as the be all and end all of being a Christian. If we don’t have pure belief, we assume we can’t be Christians. We expend a lot of anxiety worrying about the status of our belief. On the other hand folks who are confident or secure in their belief sometimes think that is all they need as Christians.

James provides a helpful reminder that faith is also a verb. In addition to being about belief, faith is also a verb. Faith is not just what we believe; it is also what we do. The two perspectives are not in conflict. And I think we would do well to re-energize the idea that faith is action.

And, although my main focus today is James, I think part of what today’s Gospel reminds us is that faith is action… what you do with your hand or foot or eye matters.

It’s also nice to remember that you can “do” faith even when your belief is a little shaky. That’s reassuring. Even on days or weeks or months or years when your belief may be a bit shaky, you can still live faithfully. You can still “do” faith. On the other hand, James reminds us: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

The verses we hear today are from the very end of James’ letter. These are his parting words to the community to whom he writes.

One scholar writes this about James:

[The] epistle of James seeks to encourage and lead us to the conviction that we are indeed endowed by our creator with a rich bounty of gifts for the living of daily life in this world. It is then an extra benefit if the author can teach us some of the practical insights that human wisdom has discovered about a faithful living… 

We have been given a rich bounty of gifts for faithful living. Faithful living in daily life. One way I would describe what this means for me is: There is a Christian response to every situation we may face in daily life. There is a Christian action possible in the midst of every human experience. There is always something a Christian can do.

James talks about what these Christian actions are. He gives practical advice. In passages we heard in earlier weeks, James stressed the Christian responsibility to act on behalf the marginalized and powerless… widows and orphans in his world… in our world, anyone who has less power than we do through absolutely no fault of their own. It is always our responsibility to do what we can, to act to help people who are powerless or marginalized.

In today’s reading James’ vision turns a bit more inward. Speaking to the community to whom he is writing, he says: Are any among you suffering? And he probably means more than just suffering under oppression or persecution, although those might have been possible for early Christians. He means suffering under any negative life experience, such as sorrow, depression, a bad family or social situation, or economic distress.

What is the practical Christian response when we are suffering? Pray. We know that, but we need to be reminded to do it. Pray.

Are any among you cheerful? Again, he doesn’t just mean smiley face happy, he means aware of the goodness of life. Are any of you experiencing good within your life? What is the practical Christian response to goodness? Praise. We know that, too, but how often do we really do it? How often do we pause to offer words or acts of praise?

Are any among you sick? And here he means literally, physically sick. What is the practical Christian response when we are sick? Call upon the church. It never occurs to James that there would not be a church community to call upon. Christians exist in community. And when we are sick what Christians do is call upon the church community. For the church’s anointing and for the support and help that other Christians offer.

When James mentions people who are suffering, cheerful or sick, he imagines that he has covered everyone. He means to cover the totality of human existence and present a practical and Christian response for every personal situation. There is always a Christian response.

He means to be encouraging. But he also challenges us in our day, I think, to ask ourselves: how often really am I living, responding to the experiences of life, as a Christian? What percentage of my life am I doing faith? I was reflecting on aspects of my life (and maybe yours?) where I’m not generally consciously acting as a Christian.

For example, entertainment choices. An example came to mind, that I share with a bit of trepidation. Tom Ferguson is an Episcopal priest who serves as Academic Dean at Bexley Seabury seminary. He blogs on life in the church. Church, of course, is only thing that happens on Sundays. One other things is the NFL.

In August Ferguson, who blogs as Crusty Old Dean, posted about his decision, as a Christian, to boycott professional football. I’m not here to pass judgment on those of you who invest your time or resources on professional football as entertainment. I don’t enjoy it that much, so I’m in no position to cast stones. But it is probably a conversation that for some of you is worth having. Start by reading his piece (HERE). It’s four pages long. It’s not a casual or capricious decision. It’s a thoughtful and faithful one.

But I mention it as an example. An example of faithful living. An example of acting as a Christian in the midst of the experiences of daily life.

There is always a Christian action possible just ahead of us in any situation or experience of daily life. In the choice of food that we purchase or consume. In the choice of vehicle we drive. In the sorts of entertainment we participate in. In the way we relate to friends, coworkers, or people on the train. In the work we do. In the ways we spend our time and our money.

James reminds us to live as Christians. There is always a Christian response or a Christian action before us.

James' final words are worth noting. He says that the bestest Christian action we can ever do is to help others in their faith. And doing that covers a host of other sins or Christian shortcomings. (That’s not the best theology; God doesn’t keep score or assign points.) But James’ priority is good. The absolute best thing we can faithfully do as Christians is to help sustain others in their efforts to live faithfully.

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 13

Misguided Expectations
Proper 19
Mark 8:27 - 38

The first part of the Gospel reading appointed for today is an event known as “The Confession of Peter.” Not confession in the needing forgiveness sense, but in the sense of professing. Peter professes, or confesses, that Jesus is the Messiah. Peter names Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah.

It’s an important event in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. It occurs in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. It even has a holy day on the calendar for its commemoration: January 18.

At first glance it seems like a miracle. Peter actually gets something right. “You are the Messiah.” Peter correctly names Jesus as the Messiah. In Matthew Peter says: You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. In Luke Peter names Jesus as “the Messiah of God.” The Messiah.

What does it mean to you to name Jesus as the Messiah? We know the right answer. We know what to name Jesus. But what does the name mean to you? What does it say about Jesus to confess him as Messiah?

Maybe you know it means something about being God’s anointed. The one who was promised. But what does that mean in terms of who Jesus is, what Jesus does???

If you’re not sure, take heart. Peter didn’t know either. Peter got the name right, but he got pretty much everything else wrong. And, in the end, I think what he got wrong is more instructive to us than what he got right.

Peter confessed Jesus as Messiah, but Peter’s expectations of what the Messiah would do were totally off. We might do better to call this passage not the Confession of Peter, but rather “Peter’s Misguided Expectations.”

You’ve probably heard before that in Jesus’ day there was widespread expectation among the Jews that a big part of what the Messiah would be would be a powerful political leader, one who would fight for their cause and overcome those who opposed them.

Beyond that, and I’m definitely speculating here, I wonder if Peter wanted his Messiah to be a winner, a God of glory and power. Peter wanted to be associated with a Messiah who was acclaimed, not scorned, by the religious authorities. Peter expected his God to do him proud.

Peter clearly does not expect the Messiah to undergo suffering, to be rejected by the important religious leaders, to be killed…

Peter had strong expectations of God’s Messiah. Whether those expectations grew out of the religio/social expectations of his day for a Messiah who was a strong political leader and/or whether Peter’s expectations grew out of his own needs and hopes for who God would be in his life.

Wherever they came from, Peter’s expectations were his expectations and they were way off.

What are your expectations of Jesus or of God? In your own life, or in the world? What do you expect of God?

If God’s not meeting those expectations, then we need to question the expectations. That’s what this passage teaches me.

The problem wasn’t that God was absent or passive in Peter’s life. He was right there!! Jesus was as close to Peter and as active in his life as it’s possible to be. The disconnect was caused by Peter’s misguided expectations of “his” Messiah.

What are your expectations of your Messiah? That he will fight for your cause? Help you shine in the world? Affirm you desires?

If God’s not meeting your expectations, you need to challenge those expectations. And be open to God’s action in your life in unexpected places and ways. God is present; God is acting. But maybe not how you expect. Be open to God’s presence and care in unexpected places and ways.

The Messiah comes to us, not in power, but in weakness and suffering. Not in flashy glory, but in quiet hope. Not to meet our expectations, but to meet our deepest needs… the need for meaning, for joy, for soul-freedom…

If God is not meeting your expectations, put aside those expectations and look for him in new and unexpected places in your life.

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 6

What's Our Excuse?
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Mark 7:24-37

The woman came up to Jesus bowing in supplication; she was “a Gentile,” not a Jew, “of Syrophoenician origin,” a foreigner. “She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. [Jesus] said to her, "Let the children,” our people, “be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs" such as you (Mark 7:26-27).

I’m not a Greek scholar, but I gather a literal translation of Jesus’ words is tricky. But there seems to be no doubt that his words were a dismissive insult. An ethnic slur. Any number of contemporary examples come to mind.

I can’t imagine there are any preachers who look forward to this Gospel passage as it shows up every three years.

There seem to be two primary approaches to interpreting Jesus’ rudeness.

The first, and most common, is that Jesus was testing her faith. He pushed her away, insulted her, to test how sincere and persistent her faith really was. This interpretation is supported a bit, at least, when Jesus says that because of how she answers—with persistent faith—her child will be healed.

But there are big problems with this interpretation (David Lose, here).  Nothing like it occurs anywhere else in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus doesn’t test people before he heals them. Also, there isn’t any clear mention of testing, as there is, for example, in Job. And, finally, this portrays a cold-hearted and cruel God who taunts and tests us in our deepest moments of need. Not the Jesus of the New Testament or our experience.

The second interpretation focuses on the human Jesus. And, of course, Jesus was fully human. 100% human, just like us. And, also, we assert 100% divine, fully God. In this interpretation, it is the human Jesus who speaks, who hasn’t completely figured out God’s purpose or the fullness of God’s kingdom and its rich inclusiveness. In speaking to the woman who comes before him Jesus reflects the cultural norms of his time. Without a doubt his words convey how fellow Jews of his day felt about Syrophoenician scum.

Picking between these two interpretations, I favor the second one. Although there are significant theological problems with it. Like where was the divine Jesus at the time?  But one nice teaching point from this interpretation (which I think I stressed in an earlier sermon) is that Jesus embodies or models the journey from bigotry to compassion. A very important and faithful journey that all of us humans need to make over and over again.

Ultimately, for me there is no satisfactory or “comfortable” explanation of this passage. That’s an important note.  Holy Scripture isn't always comfortable.  And I’m a bit wary of anyone who does have a comfortable interpretation of Jesus’ words.

But this year, as I read this passage again, a different piece of it caught my eye. Just a phrase, but maybe worth looking at.

Mark says that after Jesus came to the foreign region of Tyre, “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice” (Mark 7:24).

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know that he was there.  One commentator I read kindly suggested that Jesus was tired. After all, he’d been doing a lot of healing of folks who’d come to him in need. A lot of healing.  He’d been teaching and debating in a setting fraught with stress and complexity as he challenged the religious leaders of his day. Just a little while back he had fed people who were hungry, five thousand of them! Surely he deserved a little down time from the work of bringing God’s kingdom into the world… Surely he needed a bit of Sabbath time from bringing God’s love into the world.

But.  What’s our excuse? For retreating from Christian mission?

What’s our excuse? For wanting to escape notice as Christians?

Why do we hide and remain passive?

Jesus could not escape notice. He was not capable of remaining quiet or inactive in the face of human need.

Oh, that it might be said of us that we cannot escape notice in the face of human need. That we are inescapably noticeable for the work we are doing to bring God’s kingdom, God’s love into the world!

People are hungry, starving, without food, in our world.  Who will feed them?

Who will shelter the homeless, including refugees whatever their ethnicity, in our world?

Who will fight injustice, and its roots in bigotry? And its roots in poverty? Proverbs reminds us to do what we can to redress poverty.

And those who are in distress… Sick in body and soul… Who will offer them hope?

Jesus didn’t do these things to earn notoriety in the society of his day or to earn God’s favor. He did them because it was God’s work. It needed to be done. And he was there to do it.

We are here to do it now.

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 23

Sure and Certain Means
John 6:56-69

As some of you are aware, each week we have children’s worship bulletins available along with the regular service leaflets. There are no age restrictions! Anyone can pick one up if you wish. They contain activities meant to illustrate or reinforce the Gospel reading for the day. This week’s particularly caught my attention. It includes one of those familiar activities (that I associate with waiting in the dentist’s office as a child) where you are asked to find the differences between two similar pictures.

Some of the differences are the sort of thing you expect in this activity. The sun is in a different place; Jesus is looking left in one picture, right in the other; Jesus’ and the disciples’ belts are different. But what caught my eye is that there are a lot fewer disciples in the second picture. Quite a few of the disciples shown in the first picture are totally missing in the second. This activity does more than illustrate a snapshot from today’s Gospel reading. It tells the story. In today’s reading from John there are fewer disciples in the picture at the end of the story than there were at the beginning.

If I had asked you before church today if there were any Gospel stories where people turn away from Jesus, would you have remembered this story? We think of all of the stories that describe thousands of people being drawn to Jesus, attracted by his words and ministry. But here people walk away.

A couple of observations. I’ll come back to why they walked away and what they missed. But first, as a bit of an aside, this story reminds us to avoid the temptation of looking wistfully to the past as a time when faith was stronger and people more godly… in contrast to the “godless desolation” of our present time. In this story, people who were actually in the presence of Jesus (!) walked away.

Why? There is one clue in John’s Gospel. They say to Jesus: Your words are hard to understand and accept. This teaching is difficult. We don’t like what you’re saying! It’s Jesus’ teaching about sharing his own Body and Blood that offends them. These days it might be something else… Jesus’ teaching to love your enemies…. Or welcome the outsider… We don’t like what you’re saying.

And we have other things we’d rather be doing. As I think about it, following Jesus pretty much always means giving something else up. Disciples in his day had walked away from family, home, work to literally follow Jesus. But it is always a choice to follow Jesus rather than do something else. And people often choose other things they’d rather be doing than following Jesus.

And finally, I can’t really speak for the disciples in today’s reading, but these days I often hear folks turn away from Jesus because he hasn’t answered their every prayer… he hasn’t fulfilled their need, done everything they asked of him. Why bother to follow? So Jesus turns to Peter and the twelve and asks: Do you also wish to go away?

Peter doesn’t quite answer the question that Jesus asks. If he had, he might have said: Yes, Jesus there are certainly days when I wish to go away. But I don’t, because BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF JESUS IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN BEING AWAY FROM HIM.

It’s about being wish Jesus. About sharing life with Jesus. Without Jesus life is empty. Full of activities, maybe, but empty. Little better than death. Being a disciple can be challenging, confusing, and difficult but it is always better than the nothing-ness of life without Jesus.

For Peter and the twelve, even when Jesus’ teaching was difficult to understand or follow, it was still always better to be with Jesus.

We’ve been in the 6th chapter of John for several weeks. This chapter encourages us to reflect on what we, in the church, have come to know as Holy Communion. This week I’ve taken one more step back and want to review the sacraments in general. The Episcopal Church is a sacramental church. For those of us who gather and worship in the Episcopal Church the sacraments are a part of our common life.

And, in the words of the Prayer Book, the Sacraments are “sure and certain” ways to find Jesus, to be in Jesus presence. Sure AND certain. No qualifications, no exceptions. The sacraments are sure and certain ways for us to be with Jesus.

This is not to say that Jesus is not present and active in other parts of our lives, in our civic lives, our relationships, in nature. But we do not always connect with him there. In the sacraments we may be sure that we will find Jesus.

It was interesting for me to be reminded, as I reviewed the sacraments this week, that the early Christians experienced the sacraments before they defined them. The church didn’t create the sacraments; the church discovered that it had been given the sacraments. The definition was shaped by experience.

When the church talks about sacraments, and Holy Communion is the one we encounter most regularly, we talk about them as being two things: Sign (or symbol) and instrument. The bread and wine and the ritual of Holy Communion are signs or symbols that draw to mind for us Jesus’ last supper and his sacrifice for us. But participating in the sacrament is also the means or the instrument to actually convey Jesus’ presence or God’s grace to us. They point to God; but they also convey God’s grace.

When we participate. Sacraments aren’t something that can be watched or read about. They are participated in.

So the Catechism defines sacraments as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” And the second part of that definition is just as important as the first part. Given by Christ. Sure and certain means by which we receive grace.

The Catechism also defines grace: Grace is God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our will.”

Which seems to me to be pretty much what the presence of Jesus did for the disciples. And what the presence of Jesus does for us when, by grace, it comes to us through the sacraments.

No matter what’s going on in your life, in the church, in the world around you. No matter what. Participating in Holy Communion is a sure and certain way to be in the presence of Jesus. And Jesus’ presence brings renewal, hope, life, peace, perseverance. All those things that the world cannot give. Given to us by God’s grace through the sacraments.

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost - August 16

Communion
John 6:51-58

The Episcopal Church uses the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year lectionary. The Scripture readings that are prescribed for Sunday mornings follow a three-year cycle. Each year the Gospel readings focus on one of the three synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. This is Mark’s year. But Mark’s Gospel is short. So in the middle of the summer we take a break from Mark and read from the 6th chapter of John. (We also always read John during Easter season.)

The sixth chapter of John is often called “The Bread of Life” chapter. It includes the familiar language where Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” In this morning’s passage, Jesus describes his flesh as true food and his blood as true drink.

This is the portion of John’s Gospel that we look to to reflect on what we have come to know and experience as Holy Communion. It’s an interesting contrast and complement to what we find in the synoptic Gospels. The “words of institution” that we hear each Sunday as part of the great Eucharistic prayer come from the account of the Last Supper in the synoptic Gospels. Jesus breaks bread and shares the cup and says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

John’s Gospel includes an account of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples but the focus is on the foot washing. There is no mention of bread or cup. But Jesus talks a lot about eating his flesh and drinking his blood in this sixth chapter of John. The language is stark. You can imagine why his followers were startled.

As we look at this chapter with respect to Communion, it’s worth noting that it takes place in the middle of Jesus’ life and ministry. It is not a memorial. Not something to do “in remembrance of me” after I’m gone. More something to do “with me” now. Eat. Jesus says. Eat. And receive eternal life.

One commentator said that the main temptation for preachers this Sunday will be to try to EXPLAIN the Eucharist. But that is a temptation to be avoided. This is not the time to try to help people understand consubstantiation, or transubstantiation. Or memorialism…

His eagerness is not that they understand how or why it works, just that they EAT. He offers to share himself with them. Just eat.

Thinking about this reminded me of something written by Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, an author someone who has been very active in children’s Christian formation in the Episcopal Church. When I was growing up, children weren’t “admitted” to Communion in the Episcopal Church until after Confirmation. (Have you ever considered how weird that language is!?)

In her book, Offering the Gospel to Children, Pritchard writes:

Imagine if, until your child was six, you never kissed her, but only let her watch older people kissing each other. Then when she had learned to read and write, (and incidentally, had already passed the age when her imagination was most eager to grasp non-verbal expression and make it a part of her deepest self) suppose you sat her down with a special curriculum entitled “Kisses and hugs: signs of love.” She would color pictures of people hugging and kissing and read exemplary stories about families and answer questions about why we choose this way to express our love. Finally, on a special day when you were sure she understood enough about hugging and kissing to be truly “ready” you would hug and kiss her for the very first time. She would wear a new party dress, and Grandma would come to lunch and bring a present, and she would feel so proud and special.

 

Or would she?

Sacramental actions work directly on our emotions and imaginations: the intellect is only a supplement, important in its own turn for full integration of the experience, but secondary in its contribution to our understanding. 

My main point today is not to talk about children receiving Communion (although I do agree with Pritchard). It is to encourage adults to EXPERIENCE communion with childlike imagination. Don’t worry about what it means or how it happens or which description of the sacramental transformation of bread to body is right. Approach Communion as an experience. Open your emotions and imagination to that experience. The experience of Jesus sharing himself with us. Right now. In this life.

As you undoubtedly know it is common in many strands of Christianity to speak of whether or not someone has “accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.” It’s often asked in a challenging tone of voice. Have YOU accepted Jesus Christ as your PERSONAL Lord and Savior? The focus of that question is on the act, the choice, to bring Jesus into your life. Most Episcopalians are uncomfortable with such brazen evangelicalism… but there are several ways we might respond.

One is to recognize and say that every time we willfully and joyfully receive communion… we quite literally accept Jesus into our bodies and into our lives. We choose, we act, to receive Jesus into our lives. We consume the real presence of Jesus.

 “Real presence” is a good Episcopal term. But do we mean it? In Communion we consume the real presence of Christ.

Jesus promises that when we eat his body and drink his blood we will receive life. We will receive eternal life. We will share in his eternal life. And I will raise them up on the last day, he says in today’s Gospel, but that seems almost an afterthought. When Jesus offers himself, he offers his life, eternal life, shared with ours. The experience of Holy Communion is taking Jesus into our lives.

As one of the old prayers in the Prayer Book says, “Grant us gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of… Jesus Christ and to drink the blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.”

Martin Copenhaver is a preacher and professor from the UCC tradition. In a published sermon on this morning’s Gospel, he writes:

So what's going on here? Well, for one, the imagery employed by Jesus in this passage forces a kind of "in-your-face" confrontation with the incarnation. Gone are the abstract, almost disembodied terms about "abiding" in him that Jesus used earlier. Now he uses such starkly corporeal images that we cannot escape the implications of incarnation. Jesus was not a disembodied spirit. To encounter Jesus is, in part, to encounter the flesh and blood of him. The startling images he uses are meant to get our attention in that way.

In this passage, however, language is pressed to its limits to express the indissoluble participation of one life in another. For those who receive Jesus, his life clings to their bones and courses through their veins. He can no more be taken from a believer's life than last Tuesday's breakfast can be plucked from one's body. It is the ultimate communion--the coming together, the union of the Savior and the saved.

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9) - July 5

The Church
Mark 6:1-13

I’ve been thinking about two church events that have just taken place. They are very different, but they are both put on by the church. Yesterday, we did our annual Fourth of July Ice Cream Social. And on Friday General Convention came to a close after ten days of work. That’s the every-three-years legislative meeting of the national Episcopal Church.

Thinking about these two different events prompted me to think, again, about what the church really is. How do we describe or define the church?

First, the phrase that we often use, “Go to church” is really sort of strange. Where do you “go to church,” someone will ask. But the church is not a place, of course. “A” church building is not “the” church. Nor is the church really something that we “belong to.”

The church is who we are and what we do.

The church is described in several ways in the Book of Common Prayer. In the catechism it is described as the “Community of the New Covenant.” A community, people, a group of people, united and identified by baptism into the new covenant of Jesus Christ. One of the prayers in the Prayer Book calls the church that “wonderful and sacred mystery.” (Bishop Lee often adds… that wonderful, sacred and maddening mystery!) Us, full of wonder and sacredness.

I want to offer another way to think about who we are as the church. We are people who see and recognize God in our lives and in the world around us. We see and recognize God and then live in response to that awareness.

One of things I learned in seminary is that virtually any way we talk about the Trinity is heresy. And certainly so if we split the Trinity up into three distinct persons with different functions. Nevertheless….

As the church we are people who see and recognize God. We see and recognize Jesus, the Son of God, present in other people.

As the church we are people who see and recognize God, the Holy Spirit within ourselves.

As the church we are people who see and recognize God, the Father, Creator, present throughout creation.

And seeing and recognized God makes a difference! It has a huge impact on what we say and do, the choices we make, in virtually every circumstance of our lives.

The presence of God should lead us to words and actions of reverence and praise. We act and react with reverence and praise before the presence of God in others, in ourselves, and in creation.

Putting on the ice cream social is a lot of work. A lot of people help out, but it’s a lot of work if you think about it just to offer a couple of hours of ice cream and hot dogs. Why do we do it? We talk about offering it as a gift to the community, as an act of hospitality. And it is. But, a little deeper, I think it’s about seeing and recognizing the presence of Christ in our neighbors. The living presence of Christ in the young children enjoying the balloon twisters. Seeing and recognizing the presence of Christ in some of the older folks from the neighborhood for whom this was probably their only social event of the month or even the summer. Christ is present in our neighbors. We respond with reverence and praise.

Then there’s General Convention. As you might imagine, so not my idea of fun! Although there are plenty of folks who love it. A ten day legislative meeting with 1700 delegates (8,000 – 10,000 participants). In past years I’ve heard it described as the largest legislative meeting in the United States. Just think of the logistical minutiae and legislative haggling. With human foibles and sin (pride, fear) on full display. But we do General Convention or Diocesan Convention or even vestry meetings because we recognize the presence of God in the world and God’s presence matters to us. A lot. Seeing and recognizing the presence of God around us compels us to discern and take seriously how we treat one another, how we spend our money, the particular words we use to pray.

We see and recognize Jesus in others. And so treat them with reverence and praise. Sometimes it seems it is hardest to see Jesus living and present in those closest to us. Even Jesus encountered that in today’s Gospel story. His family and the people of his village could not see God’s power in him, in Jesus! It’s hard to see Jesus in the people closest to us, but he is there. It can also be hard to see Jesus in those people who are most different or most distant from us. We do better with the middle ground. But Jesus is present even in people who are very different from us. And worthy of reverence and praise.

We see and recognize the divine presence of the Holy Spirit within us. There is a prayer in the Prayer Book where we say that God has made our bodies the temple of his presence. So our bodies are worthy of reverence. We may not like to hear it, but that means we should be good stewards of our bodies. Not just because it’s good for us, but because God is there! God is within us. We are showing reverence to God. We should also be mindful that our voices, our hands, our feet may be the vehicles by which others become aware of God’s presence.

Finally, and probably often the easiest for many of us, we see and recognize God the creator present and filling creation. And our actions are those of praise and wonder and joy at the holiness of growing plants, the awesomeness of the night sky, the wondrous diversity of life. And we are called to stewardship of creation. Because God’s very presence is within creation.

We are the church, and what we do is what the church does. We are people who recognize and take very seriously the presence of God in the world. Everywhere. Everyone. In every thing. That awareness should lead us to reverence and praise in everything we say and do.

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8) - June 28

Do Not Be Afraid
 Mark 5:21-43

I didn’t intentionally set out to makes this week’s sermon dovetail with last week’s, but it worked out that way. Both are about what it means to have Jesus with us. Last week one of my points was that when Jesus is with us, the very power of God can work through us. God’s power, working in us, can do more than can humanly imagine even when we face pervasive sin and social challenges in the world around us.

This week I’m going to talk about another outcome of Jesus’ presence with us. Starting with a discussion of fear. Jesus mentions fear in both of the Gospel readings, the one appointed for last Sunday and today’s. Last week Jesus and the disciples were in a small boat crossing the Sea of Galilee when a perilous storm came up, threatening to swamp the boat. Jesus was asleep on a cushion in stern. When the disciples wake Jesus up, he says: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

This week we have the two healing stories. The healing of the woman with hemorrhages and the healing or raising of Jairus’ daughter. Towards the end of today’s lesson when Jesus finally gets to Jairus’ house and encounters people who fear that the young girl is dead, Jesus says: “Do not fear; only believe.”

This coupling of fear and faith in Jesus’ words has a tendency, I think, to encourage us towards an incorrect interpretation of Jesus’ statements. It’s easy to interpret these passages something like this: If only we have enough faith, then fearful things won’t happen to us. Or, if we have the right faith, then we will be spared fearsome things in our lives. And, then the other side of that interpretation is: when fearful things do happen (like storms or illness) it’s because we don’t have the right quantity or quality of faith.

This sort of interpretation is seductive, too, because so much of our life does work that way. If I just train harder, I’ll win more races. If I just work harder, I’ll be more financially secure. If I do more whatever, I’ll be happier… If I just “faith harder” life will be better.

Except faith doesn’t work that way.

And there are several challenges with this sort of interpretation. First, it’s not clear exactly what specific faith or belief Jesus might be calling for.

Second, the Scripture passages themselves don’t support this interpretation. Yes, Jesus stills the storm and raises Jairus’ daughter. But there is absolutely no evidence in the stories that it is because of some improvement in the quantity or quality of anyone’s faith. It is not as though the disciples manage to acquire some extra or better portion of faith and, as a result, Jesus removes the danger of the storm. It doesn’t happen that way. And when Jesus tells the people in Jairus’ house, “Do not fear; only believe,” they laugh at him.

The experience of Christians throughout history, from the time of the disciples up to today, has not shown that having faith means you will not encounter perilous or fearful things. Just ask the martyrs, for example. There has never been a correlation between quality or quantity of faith and an absence of fearsome events.

Faith does not inoculate us from fearful things. Faith is not a vaccine against frightening or perilous occurrences.

But faith can be an antidote to fear in the face of fearful things. Faith does calm and quiet fear in the face of dangerous or threatening things.

The reassurance that Jesus is offering is this: Do not be afraid, he says, I am with you. Do not be afraid because I am with you.

The particular faith that Jesus is encouraging us to remember is that Jesus actually is what we have being saying since Christmas… that he is Emmanuel. God. With. Us. The peace and comfort and love of God. With. Us. Do not be afraid; I am with you.

So look for the sweet and holy presence of Jesus in the fearful places of your life. He is there. With you. Bringing the peace and comfort and love of God to be with you no matter what.

Last week I stressed that Jesus’ power working through us enables us, beyond our wildest imagination, to change things we can change in the world around us.

This week we are reminded that Jesus’ presence with us brings comfort and peace and stills our fears in the face of things we cannot change in the world around us.

Whenever or wherever you feel frightened, look for the sweet and holy presence of Jesus with you. He is there. Bringing the peace and comfort and love of God.

Remember the well-known passage from Romans: Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That’s what Jesus shows us in these stories. NO THING can separate us from God. I am with you. Do not be afraid. And it doesn’t depend upon the quantity or quality of your faith. It’s about the presence of Jesus. He’s there. Just hang on. Hang on to Jesus.

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7) - June 21

Get in the Boat
Mark 4:35-41

In the midst of all of the news coverage and abundant commentary on the shooting in Mother Emanuel church in Charleston this week, I came across an article on a different subject. It was published in the Christian Science Monitor online, one of my news sources. (The article is HERE.)

Sixth extinction: Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, says a new study.

The activities precipitating the collapse of many species and ecosystems are related to human [activity].

According to the researchers, if the currently elevated extinction pace persists, humanity will soon (in as little as three human lifetimes) be deprived of many biodiversity benefits. This means that the Earth's ecosystem is likely to lose much of its ability to provide important life-support systems, from pollinating crops to cleaning and recirculating air and water.

There are parallels, I think between the events that lie behind both of these stories. The horrific shooting in Charleston and the rapid increase in species extinction and loss of biodiversity. Both are evidence of deep, systemic human sin.

It is now very clear that racial hatred was what motivated the alleged shooter in Charleston. As one writer said, however, his was an extreme case, but not a unique one. Racism is not limited to one person or one state. Racism is a pervasive, systemic, social, institutional human sin, one of many that belittles the humanity of those who are different, and leads inevitably to the destruction of human life.

The loss of species diversity may not seem in the same class. And yet, at the same time that our hearts break for the lives lost in Charleston, martyred as they gathered to study God’s Word, and as we pray that God will comfort all who mourn, we must also remember the broad context of racism that is laid bare by this shooting.

And in the big picture racism seems very similar to the sort of sin that is causing widespread environmental degradation of the earth. Loss of species diversity is the result of big, pervasive, systemic human sin by which most of us are, through selfishness or indifference, killing not only, say, the spindly pine tree or the black footed ferret, but other human beings, including our own descendents. The article continues

Scientists in the new extinction study also warn that humans could be among the threatened species because in the aftermath of past mass extinctions, the ecosystem took hundreds of thousands to millions of years to rediversify. "If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on…"

These are big, systemic problems. For me, the bigness makes them feel overwhelming, too big to even attempt to tackle. The bigness, also, I think enables us to live in denial of our individual responsibility and to ignore the consequences of our individual actions. It was not my racism that killed those people. It is not my indifference that is killing the earth.

Except that it is.

So what are we to do? And I don’t have a specific answer for myself or for you this morning. Certainly each of us can acknowledge and work on our individual participation or complicity in the sins of racism and selfish resource consumption. I know that racism is a part of me despite my fervent wish that it weren’t. We can work on our individual actions. But as followers of Christ I think we are called to do more. As disciples of Christ we must be active in efforts to address and change the larger systemic, social human issues… We cannot be passive; we must offer ourselves to these efforts.

Maybe there’s a connection between all of this and today’s Gospel.

It’s a story. Not a parable or a teaching, but a story. A story about discipleship. A story that illustrates what it is like to be a disciple of Jesus. Mark, who rarely uses any extra words in his Gospel, provides all sorts of interesting, unessential detail in the telling of this story. That detail makes it a vivid story. At the end of a long day Jesus calls the disciples to come with him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. To leave “their” side, the land of Galilee, and go the “other” side. He went “just as he was,” just as they had known him with them. There were “other boats” as well. The depiction of the storm is vivid… waves crashing over the side of the boat… the boat beginning to founder. Jesus is asleep “in the stern” “on a cushion.”

I was at a meeting of diocesan Deans this week and we discussed this passage. There is the potential for all sorts of interesting sermons to be teased out of those details. Why was Jesus asleep? And in the stern… near the tiller? And who was in the other boats? What does the storm represent? What might the boat be a metaphor for? Interesting points, and I’ve preached that sort of sermon in the past.

But this week I see this passage as a story. A story to be read and pondered in its entirety. A story about discipleship. A vivid story describing the life of discipleship. A story that raises as many questions as it answers.

So. To be a disciple of Jesus is to follow. Without checking your phone first for a weather report. Without knowing exactly where you are going. It turns out they were headed for the land of the Geresenes, not a hospitable destination. And there will be storms. Fierce, dangerous, threatening storms. Does the storm mean something? Mark doesn’t say. It’s just a story. There will be storms. We should not expect the life of discipleship to be storm-free.

In the midst of the storm the disciples cry out to Jesus: “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” Why aren’t you fixing this, Jesus!? Don’t you care? That good people are perishing? That cry is part of the life of a disciple. It always has been. We long for understanding, but do not receive it. They had to wake him up.

After the disciples wake Jesus he quiets the storm. Peace. Why are you afraid?

And, at that point, they realize in some new and profound and awesome way that they are in the presence of God. The peace and the power of God is WITH THEM. To be a disciple of Christ is to have the very peace and power of God with you. With you.

The life of a disciple. Uncertain, often unclear, sometimes frightening, but shared with Christ. Sustained by the peace and power of God. It’s our choice. To follow Jesus as a disciple or stay behind on the familiar shore.

I’m reminded of a passage from Ephesians that the Prayer Book offers as one of the concluding doxologies for Morning or Evening Prayer. Listen to every word.

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 [Ephesians 3:20, 21]. 

Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. But only if we get in the boat.