The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 21

Living as Covenant People

Jeremiah 1:4-10

For the last two weeks, the Old Testament lesson has come from the prophet Isaiah.  In today’s reading we have moved on to Jeremiah.  I didn’t make some specific decision to focus on the prophets after I got back from vacation, but they’ve caught my attention these last few weeks.  We’ll be in Jeremiah for three weeks.  I don’t know what I’ll preach in the coming weeks, but again today I’m going to focus on the Old Testament reading and the prophecy of Jeremiah.

We know very specifically when Jeremiah was active as a prophet, because it can be keyed to other historical events.  We don’t know when he was born, but we know he was active from 626 B.C. to 587.  That’s about 100 years later than Isaiah of Jerusalem.

The chapter in my Old Testament textbook from seminary that talks about Jeremiah is titled:  “The Doom of the Nation.”  It was not a good time, politically or spiritually for the people of God.  A good bit of that trouble, Jeremiah pointed out was self-inflicted.  In terms of the religious life of the people, it was a time when people thought they could pay lip service to God in the temple but still offer sacrifice to pagan gods the rest of the week.  It was a time when religious/nationalistic sloganeering had replaced true heart-felt observance of the covenant.  They had forgotten what it meant to live as people faithful to the covenant God established at Sinai.

The passage we heard today from Jeremiah comes from the very beginning of the book.  It is a “call story.”  The Bible is full of “call stories.”  Call stories are when God speaks directly to a particular individual and says, “I have a job for you.”  You have a God-given “calling” or vocation.  Moses receives his call from the burning bush.  The Old Testament is full of stories of kings and prophets being called to their vocations by God.  The New Testament tells the disciples’ call stories.

Jeremiah tells his call story in his own words. “The word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet to the nations.  Jeremiah demurs:  I’m too young to be a prophet.  Doesn’t matter, God says, you’re called.  Do not be afraid.  I will be with you and will give you the words.  Moses tried to dodge his call, too, saying he was not eloquent enough to do what God asked.  Doesn’t matter, God said, I will be with you and will give you Aaron to speak for you.  It’s hard to wiggle out of God’s call.

So what does Jeremiah’s call story mean for us?  Is it a reminder from God that we are all called to be prophets?  And that we really don’t have any good excuses to dodge that call?

I’m reminded of the passage from Numbers (11:29) where Moses says:  “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

It’s not a bad question to ponder…  How we are all called to prophetic ministry.  And we could certainly all do a lot better at bringing God’s words to the world in which we live.

But (it may be a relief to hear) that’s not really the main point of this passage for us.

Writing about Jeremiah’s call, one commentator writes:  “we are not to read these lectionary verses as a reflection on vocation. We are not urged to “be like” Jeremiah; rather, we are called to listen to Jeremiah. We are not enjoined to admire Jeremiah nor are adolescent “youths” being encouraged to dream beyond their self-perceived deficiencies.”

The call stories of the prophets have a special role in the Scriptures.  They authenticate the prophetic ministry of the prophets.  They bestow divine authority on the words that the prophets proclaim.  The prophets are called by God to convey God’s message.  These are God’s words.  They are commanded words.  Jeremiah’s call bestows God’s own divine authority on the words he speaks.

And we are to listen.  Just as attentively as the people to whom Jeremiah spoke.  These are God’s words, spoken to us, today.  The urgency of the prophetic message is a constant “today.”  God commanded these words to be spoken.  And we are to listen.  To hear.  To take seriously the living Word of God in our lives. 

Jeremiah reminds us not to just give it lip service to the Word of God on Sundays.  But to study it, take it into our lives.  To read the Bible and listen to others who proclaim God’s Word.  And to take it very seriously throughout our lives. 

I’m into the prophets right now.  They seem particularly relevant to me in our current cultural setting.  But maybe something else speaks to you.  Seek out the Word of God.  Listen.  Attend to it in your life.

Jeremiah also called the people of his day to return to the covenant.  They had forgotten or abandoned their commitment to living as people in covenant with God.

Our covenant relationship with God is expressed in the Baptismal Covenant.  That individual covenant established between each of us and God at baptism.  It begins with the Apostles’ Creed, the baptismal declaration of faith.  Then it continues with these vows:

With God’s help, I will “continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.”  I will participate in the life of a faith community.

I will “persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever I fall into sin, repent [I talked about that last week] and return to the Lord.”

I will “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.”  There’s that prophetic ministry.  We can’t escape it.

I will “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”  All persons.  It isn’t easy following the covenant.

And, finally, I will “strive [strive, that’s a strong word] for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”

That’s the covenant we are called into as people baptized as Christ’s own.

I’ve printed out copies of our Baptismal Covenant.  I’m going to ask the kids to help pass them out after the blessing of the backpacks.

You might leave your copy on the pew or on one of the tables.  Jeremiah would have something to say about that!

You can chuck it when you get home.  But your baptismal covenant with God won’t go away.  

Or you can put it on your refrigerator or by your desk or on your nightstand.  And pray it.  Memorize it.  So that it soaks into our DNA, becomes a part of all of our being.  So that we live it throughout our lives almost without thinking about it.  So that we live as God’s covenant people today.

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 14

Grant Us True Repentance

Proper 15

Isaiah 5:1-7

The Old Testament reading for today, as it was last week, is from Isaiah.  I mentioned last Sunday that the Book of Isaiah was written by at least three different authors.  This passage is from what is often called First Isaiah, written by the 8^th century BC prophet, Isaiah of Jerusalem.

The language in Isaiah is rich and the poetry beautiful.  This passage conveys a powerful image.

God is grieved, deeply angered by the behavior of God’s people.  God is profoundly affected, deeply disappointed by the failure of the people of God to live as a just and righteous society.

The passage can be tricky to follow.  Voice and perspective change in the midst of the passage.  It starts out in the prophet’s voice.  “Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard.”   It’s not clear at first who the prophet’s beloved is.  Who is the owner of the vineyard?  But later the voice changes to the voice of the owner of the vineyard and it becomes clear that the vineyard owner is God and the vineyard represents God’s people, the people of Israel and Judah.

God has poured love and care into the planting and nurturing of the vineyard.  But it becomes clear.  The owner is God.  The vineyard is God’s people…  Israel and Judah.  He pours love and care into the vineyard.  “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?”  God asks.

And, yet, when God looks upon the vineyard he “expected justice, but saw bloodshed.”  He expected “righteousness, but heard a cry.”  God’s desire was for God’s people to live fruitfully in justice and righteousness.  But, despite God’s care, the people in God’s vineyard produced only wildness, bloodshed, a cry.

What really strikes me in this passage is how deeply God is affected by the peoples’ failure.  God FEELS the peoples’ failure.  God’s grief and anger are passionate.  This is not the God we often picture sitting benignly on some distant throne.   This is not a God with a passive, vaguely benevolent indifference to his peoples’ sins.

This passage in Isaiah ends with God destroying the vineyard.

“And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.”

The end is the peoples’ destruction.

What does this mean for us?  For our failure to live righteously, to “do right by one another” to embody social justice in our society?

The idea that God feels our failure deeply, grieves our indifference to righteousness and justice reminded me of the language in our Ash Wednesday service.  We only use the special liturgy for Ash Wednesday once a year, of course.  And because it’s a Wednesday many of you aren’t able to come.  That’s too bad.  It’s a powerful service.  I’m thinking in particularly of the Litany of Penitence where we acknowledge how deeply we fall short of God’s hopes for us.

In one of its intercessions we pray for God’s mercy because we “have been deaf to God’s call to serve, as Christ served us.   We have not been true to the mind of Christ.  We have grieved God’s Holy Spirit.”  We have grieved God’s Holy Spirit.

God grieves our failure to live in righteousness.

In the Litany of Penitence, we also acknowledge “our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people;” “our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.”

Surely God is angry at our indifference to social justice and the needs of others.

So how does our story end? 

At the conclusion of the Litany of Penitence, the priest says these words:

“Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn from their wickedness and live…  has given power to pardon and absolve.”

God does not desire the death or destruction of us sinners.  Rather that we may turn back to God and live, pardoned and renewed.

In the context of that assurance of God’s desire to pardon and absolve, we all pray:  Grant us true repentance.

And that’s the crux of it all.  God, grant us true repentance.  Give us the will and the ability to repent.  Help us repent so that we may know God’s pardon and absolution.  The journey back to God begins with our repentance.  Grant us true repentance.

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that in the Old Testament the story ends with the destruction of God’s people and only in the New Testament does God offer forgiveness and reconciliation.  That is not the case.  The whole point of the prophetic witness in the Old Testament was to call the people to repentance.  The whole point of the prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amox, Micah—preaching destruction was to turn the people back to God.  God desires repentance and renewal.

We affirm that in our Eucharistic Prayers.  For example, in Prayer D, which we are using now at 10:00:   “When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death.  In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you.  Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.”

Again and again and again, you called us back, and through the prophets you taught us to hope.  God’s desire is always that sinners turn from their wickedness and live.

Isaiah reminds us how deeply God grieves our failures to live with righteousness and justice.  If only we cared just a fraction as deeply about our failures as God does.  Maybe then we would repent.

Grant us true repentance.  That is the prayer we need to pray.  Grant us true repentance.

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost - August 7

It's About More than Worship

Proper 14

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Referring to today’s Old Testament lesson, one commentator writes:  “With its stunning poetry, inspiring call for justice, and complex portrayal of God, Isaiah 1 is one of the most memorable chapters of biblical prophetic literature.”

On the other hand another commentator muses that the people who put together our lectionary—the schedule of Scripture readings that we follow—must have intentionally put Isaiah in the middle of August when many people are not in church…  because we can’t take the stinging force of Isaiah’s prophecy.

Scholars today think that the Biblical Book of Isaiah—had at least three different authors.  Today’s reading is from what is often called First Isaiah, written by someone actually named Isaiah.  Isaiah of Jerusalem.  It was written in the 8^th century BCE, a time when prophetic writing flourished.  Isaiah of Jerusalem was a contemporary of Amos and Hosea.

Two features were prominent in the lives of God’s people at that time.  First, the Assyrians were always threatening.  A hostile nation was on their doorstep, threatening their peace, safety, and way of life.  They felt threatened and insecure.  And second, within the society of the Hebrew people, both in the northern and southern kingdoms of Judah and Israel, there was what we would call today “significant income disparity.”  There were the very rich and the very poor, and not much in between. 

So that is the social context for Isaiah’s vision.  The more specific context is worship.  In Isaiah’s prophecy, God speaks to God’s people gathered for worship.  Can you imagine God speaking that way directly to us, gathered here in worship today?

In a different translation from the one we heard this morning, God says:
Why offer to me your glorious sacrifices, says YHWH?
I am satiated with your ram-fueled burnt offerings,
and with the fat of those fattened beasts!
With the blood of bulls and lambs and goats I find no delight at all!
When you come to gaze at my face, who asks this from your hands?
Stop trampling my courts; never again come with empty offerings;
incense is anathema to me!
New moon and Sabbath, calling a congregation to worship—
I can no longer stand evil assemblies!  

Isaiah is speaking to the upper part of that income disparity…  to the comfortable, the well-off.  Yahweh’s words are meant to be shocking.  The people would have responded that they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, worshipping according to Torah.

Yes, but, Isaiah says.  Yes, but.  Isaiah is not condemning worship.  Isaiah is condemning certain worshippers who have apparently come to see comfortable, routine, worship as the be all and end all of righteousness.

No, says Yahweh, in Isaiah’s vision.  Worship is not just a part of your comfortable lifestyle that serves to fulfill the totality of your obligations to God.  Worship is not some sort of “Get out of jail free card” that erases your failure to care for others in your community.

Put that way, it is an issue that is certainly still relevant today.

Isaiah’s vision continues with instructions for improvement:

Stop doing evil! Learn to do good!
Pursue justice! Rescue the oppressed!
Protect the orphan! Litigate on behalf of the widow!

You who have the means need to help those who do not.  Work for justice; help the oppressed.  Orphans and widows were particularly powerless in that society.  Exercise your power on their behalf.

They are words we need to hear, too.  Fight injustice.  Help people who need help. 

Each of us has individual opportunities to do that work in our own society.  But to name a few basic ways we can help…  help people who are hungry…  help support education, which is one of the best tools in our society to overcome injustice.

This summer the Daughters of the King sponsored a drive for school supplies.  I thank God for those of you who participated.  But what if everyone had?  What if each and every member of this congregation had brought in school supplies?  Spiral notebooks would have been spilling out onto the sidewalk.  We all have the means to help people in our own neighborhoods who can’t afford basic school supplies. 

And then there are the food collection baskets in the west foyer.  Again, I thank God for the people who regularly and faithfully bring in food donations.  I have a practice, which I confess I don’t follow 100%, but I try to keep on track.  Every time I go to the grocery story, whether that’s once a week or once a day because I always seem to forget something, I buy at least one extra item.  One extra item.  One nutritious item.  Or, of course, it could be more than one.  What if every one of us did that?  Every time we go to the grocery store, buy at least one extra item to be donated to the food pantry.  The foyer would be full every week.

We need worship, of course.  We need to hear God’s word in worship and to be fed at God’s Holy Table to remind us and strengthen us and empower us for the work we are called to do in the world. 

And we need worship for the spiritual sustenance of our souls.  Worship, here, is a place to encounter the living God.  It’s not the only place to encounter God, but it is a reliable place where we come face to face with God.  In Isaiah’s vision, God says, “Come now, let us argue it out.”  We are here together, with one another, in relationship, in conversation.   And in that relationship, God offers forgiveness and renewal.  “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”  In worship we are assured that God never gives up.  We experience God’s persistent commitment to us.  God never walks away from us.  No matter what evil the people had done.  No matter what we have done or failed to do.  God is always here with us—to chastise, yes, as the prophets remind us, but also to guide us and renew us in our life of faith.

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost - July 10

Do More

Proper 10

Luke 10:25-37

This past week, many people have publicly urged us to pray.

I hope you didn’t need to be urged to pray.

I hope you pray even in weeks when the news is not quite as bad as it was this week.  There are always things in the news worthy of prayer.

Our President has urged us to pray.  Our Presiding Bishop has urged us to “deep” prayer.  Our own Bishop, Jeff Lee, has urged us to pray.

We’ve been asked to pray for justice.  For the dismantling of systemic racism.  We’ve been asked to pray that hate may be disarmed, both literally and figuratively.  We have been asked to pray for the police officers brutally and senselessly killed in Dallas and for their families and for everyone in law enforcement.

And we should pray.  We should fill the world with prayer.  Fill the world with prayer so that maybe there is a little less room for violence and hate.

Into this context of constant requests for prayer and frequent affirmations of prayer, a Christian blogger posted a reflection that generated some interest.  It was titled “Why Christians Need to Stop Praying.”  You can imagine that it generated some heated comments!  But I think most people who criticized it had probably only read the title, which was meant to be provocative.  It’s by a pastor named John Pavlovitz.  (You can read it HERE.)  I don’t know much about him except his posts show up from time to time on the Facebook feeds of friends of mine.

I would never discourage you from prayer.  Never.

There are many reasons to pray and many benefits of prayer.  The point of the blog is to say that, within the context of social justice, prayer without action is a cop out.  If we are praying for social justice, prayer without action is a cop out.

He imagines God is tired of hearing us…

Praying for hungry people instead of skipping our second latte of the day and buying them lunch….

Praying for families of murdered black men instead of speaking directly into the institutionalized racism [that pervades our society.]

He also says:

Stop feeling so stinkin’ good about yourself for feeling bad.

Praying for God to move and sitting still isn’t redemptive. It’s empty religion.

This is not about passing the buck to God.

The collect appointed for us today in the Episcopal Church gets to the same point.

“O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people,” it begins.  Lord, hear the prayers of your people.  If I only knew that opening phrase, I might imagine several ways the prayer might continue:

--O Lord, receive the prayers of your people, and come to help us, fill our need.

--Receive the prayers of your people and shed abroad your strength.  In your mighty power, act.

--O Lord, receive the prayers of your people and fix all those things we want fixed.

We do have collects along those lines, although the language is more elegant.  But that’s not how it goes.

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them

There is one thing I would change about the collect.  I’d change it from third person to first person.  Lord, receive our prayers as we call upon you and grant that we may know and understand what things we ought to do, and give us the grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.

I talk about the collects from time to time.  This is one of the ancient ones.  It comes from a Sacramentary, a medieval worship book, in Latin.  The earliest manuscript is from the 8^th century.  A modern commentator on our Prayer Book writes:  “It summarizes succinctly the two-fold meaning and purpose of prayer:  to perceive God’s will, and to seek the strength which is necessary for the accomplishment of it.”  Help us, O Lord, to perceive your will and give us the strength to accomplish it.

The Gospel appointed for today speaks to this as well.  It is the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan.

I’ve recently been reading Amy-Jill Levine’s book on Jesus’ parables (Short Stories by Jesus:  The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi).  She is a Biblical scholar who happens to be Jewish.  She has a particular interest in restoring a more authentic Jewish context to the accounts of Jesus’ ministry.  Writing about this parable, she stresses that the meaning is all in that last line where Jesus says:  Go and do likewise.  Go.  And do.  “Loving God and loving neighbor cannot exist in the abstract; they need to be enacted.”  Go.  And do.

During the course of our Christian history this parable has often been used to condemn or criticize the Jews, to foster division.  Commentators disparage the Jewish priest and Levite who passed the injured man by.  But Levine stresses that it is primarily a parable about an interaction between two people.  Two fierce enemies.

In Jesus’ day Jews and Samaritans were enemies.  Divided by religion.  Divided by geography.  Divided by history.  Divided by conflict.  Many of the things that continue to divide us today.

And in this parable, those divisions are stunningly bridged.  It’s about the meeting, the interaction, between two enemies.

Levine suggests that if Jesus were to tell this parable today within a Jewish context, he might tell it as:  The parable of the Good Hamas member.

Or we might imagine that if he were to tell it in an American context, he might tell it as: The parable of the Good ISIS member.

If you follow the blogger Pavlovitz to the end of his piece, he does offer a prayer.  He prays that we who follow Christ as Lord will begin to emulate him.  He prays that we Christians will do what Jesus did.

My version of that prayer this week is that God will help me be a better neighbor.  Help me be a better neighbor to people who are different from me.  Help me to understand what I can do and give me the strength to do it.

Not to pat myself on the back, but to give just a few examples.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend an iftar.  I had to look it up.  It is the name of the meal when Muslims break their fast at sundown during Ramadan.  The Mosque Foundation, a large mosque in Bridgeview, holds an interfaith, community iftar each year.  They invite their neighbors.

I’m not usually looking for additional things to do in the evenings.  Especially a Tuesday evening, my day off.  I’m not usually excited about an event where dinner won’t start until 8:31.  But I went.  And I’m very glad I did, and I’m looking forward to additional opportunities to join with our Muslim neighbors here in the south and southwest suburbs.

And within the context of the racial issues that are so important in our society today, I’m trying to listen.  I can only speak as someone who is white.  But I’m trying to listen to the voices of people of color.  Even the particular voices I would really like to shut up.  To listen to their words and their descriptions of their experiences.

It occurred to me this week that my own life would be much happier…  that I would feel restored and peaceful…  if I just turned off the news.  It also occurred to me what a monumental privilege, luxury, it is that the only thing I am assaulted by is the news.

All of us need to do something more than what we are doing now.  I am absolutely certain that the status quo is not God’s will for us.  The current state of our society is not the fullness of God’s will for us.  So we need to do more.  Do more to love our neighbor as ourselves.

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.  Amen.

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost - July 3

Missionaries

Proper 9

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

The Gospel reading we heard today is usually called the “Mission of the 70.”  It’s about mission.  Between last week’s reading and this week’s we’ve seen the two sides of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Last week Jesus was tugging, tugging, at his disciples, then and now.  Come, come with me, Jesus said, tugging at us to follow.  This week he is nudging.  Go.  Go.  Go on.  Now.  You need to take the kingdom of God to these people.  To all of these people.  Go.

We don’t know if the 70 volunteered for this mission.  Luke doesn’t tell us.  For us as contemporary Christians, 70 is an interesting number (Lose).  The median parish in the US has an average Sunday attendance of about 75.  (Although you hear about the big megachurches, it has always been true in this country that the vast majority of Christians worship in small congregations.  The median parish in this country has an average Sunday attendance of 75.  Counting both services, on a non-holiday weekend, we’re a bit above that, but it’s still noteworthy.

A lot of time in parishes, you hear things like:  if we were only bigger, then we could…  if we only had more people, more money, then we could really do something….  70 is all it takes.  And a lot of times, of course, it only takes one.

Individuals are prone to the same sort of pessimistic thinking, especially when the topic is mission.  I am not equipped for mission.  I don’t have what it takes.  I don’t have the skills or qualities to be a missionary.

Jesus is pretty clear in today’s reading:  You have all you need.  I have commissioned you.  The people who hear you, hear me.  I have sent you.

And, actually, Jesus continues, in terms of stuff, for mission you need less, not more. 

Spreading the Kingdom of God seems to be mostly about bringing peace, God’s peace.  And you have that, Jesus says over and over again.  The peace of God.  “My peace I give to you.  My peace I leave with you.  Peace be with you.  We have been given the peace of God in abundance. 

And healing seems to come as a collateral benefit of offering peace.  Healing of all sorts of wounds.

Last week I talked about how Jesus tugs persistently and says: No, there is no time for rest, no time for chit chat, no time for whatever you think is important.  Following me to the cross is the most important thing.

Today, as Jesus nudges, nudges us to move outward, onward in mission, again he says: no, you don’t need to pack anything more, no, you don’t need to take extra money or clothes.  Just go.

It’s not just that we don’t need these things.  I thinks it’s that all of things we carry with will actually mask the peace we are carrying.

That’s the most important lesson from this reading for me.  All of our stuff…  our things, our accomplishments, our credentials….  the things we “need”…  Not only do we not need them to share the kingdom; they get in the way.  They are like a fence around the peace of God that is within us.  Our stuff hides or masks the peace of God so others cannot see it in us. 

As long as all this stuff is more important to us than the kingdom of God, the stuff is all that other people will see when they look at us.

So it’s about priorities again.  We don’t necessarily have to give away all of our belongings, our renounce our accomplishments.  But we do need to ask ourselves:  What things, what stuff is more important to us than the kingdom of God?  What things do we cling to more fiercely than the peace of God which has been given to us?

We’re here today as people who know the love of Christ because those few 70 back then wandered around barefoot saying, “Peace”.  “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.”

There are people all around us who are desperate for that peace, the peace of God.  We are the 70 or so who can bring it to them.  If we just don’t let all the other stuff in our lives get in the way.

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

I Want to Show You Something
Proper 8
Luke 9:51-62

In the large arc of the Gospel story according to Luke, the events in today’s reading come right after Jesus’ transfiguration.  The transfiguration is when Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain and his appearance is transfigured before them.  They come down from the mountain and the story picks up with today’s reading.

The reading seems to include two completely separate stories.  It’s usually printed in two paragraphs.

First, there’s the incident in Samaria.  You may remember that the Jews and Samaritans weren’t the best of friends in Jesus' day.  They were always ready to suspect one another of ill will.  Jesus sends word that he is coming to a village in Samaria.  When the village refuses to receive Jesus, James and John want to punish them by calling down fire from heaven.  Some have questioned whether they actually had the power to do that.  Regardless, Jesus rebuked James and John, and they moved on.

Then in the second part of the reading Jesus is teaching along the road.  He says that for the Son of Man, and presumably his disciples, there is no place to rest.  There is no time to bury the dead.  No time to linger with family.

These stories seem unconnected.  But they share an urgency.  The key is in the first line.  He set his face to go to Jerusalem.  Jesus is focused on the completion of his journey, the fulfillment of his purpose.

An image came to mind of a young child, maybe 4 or 5 years old.  Who wants to show you something.  You’re a parent or an aunt or an older sibling or a good friend.  You’ve all experienced or witnessed this happening.  The child is persistent.  Tugging at your sleeve, grabbing your hand, demanding your attention.  Come on, come ON…  Come with me NOW.  I want to show you something.  I need to show you something.

You might be in the midst of a conversation.  It doesn’t matter.  You might be tired.  Tough.  You might be involved in other things YOU think are important.  Whatever it is, it is not more important than whatever it is the child wants you to see.

It may be the wonder of an earthworm in the garden.  Or a picture the child has drawn or a new lego creation.  Or maybe the child wants you to witness a new accomplishment, like tying shoelaces.

For the child, whatever it is it is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THEIR WORLD.  And the child feels it SHOULD be the most important thing in your world, too.

So Jesus has that same eagerness, that singleness of focus.  There is something he wants the disciples and us to see.  You have to see this.  Come ON.  Now.  Nothing else is as important.  Don’t worry about torching the Samaritans.  There is no time for other conversations.  Jesus keeps tugging.  Come ON.  Come with me.  To Jerusalem.

And, look.  Look at the cross.

Nothing is more important to Jesus.  Nothing should be more important to us.  Look.  Jesus says:  Look at the cross.

It changes the world.  It transforms everything.

In the collect for the Tuesday in Holy Week we pray: O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life…

The cross transforms everything that is messy, nasty, shameful, and sinful in the world into life.  Life in the kingdom of God.  Life shared with God.  The cross transforms all that is shameful and sinful into fullness of life.

The message for us today is:  Don’t get sidetracked on our journey with Jesus.  Don’t let distractions, things that may SEEM important to us, draw our attention away from the cross.  This doesn’t mean we all have to abandon our families.  It does challenge us to examine our priorities.  To name our distractions.  To name the things that distract us from the importance of the cross.

Look, Jesus says.  Look at the cross.  It is the most important thing in the world.

At the cross human being is transformed into glory.

There at the cross is where love wins!  You’ve heard that phrase.  Rob Bell wrote a book with that title.  We’ve seen it a lot post-Orlando, where at least part of its meaning seems to be a proclamation of the resilience of the human spirit and the power of human caring to overcome hate.   

But for us, the cross is about God’s love.  And the power of God’s love for us.  The cross is where God’s love for us wins.  God’s love wins.  Over everything else.

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - June 19

The Journey from Despair to Hope

Proper 7

Psalms 42 & 43

Psalms 42 and 43 are printed as a single psalm in some early Hebrew manuscripts.  The lectionary assigns us both to read for this Sunday, which is what we did.  (I don’t know why our Scripture inserts present them as an either/or.)  They are definitely united by theme and content.

Psalm 42 is probably familiar to many of you, especially the first verse:

As the deer longs for the water-brooks,  

so longs my soul for you, O God.

It’s a popular psalm.  I think as we hear that opening verse it evokes a sense of peace, a pastoral or bucolic setting.  We picture a deer wandering by a babbling spring.  And we are comforted to think that we will find God in a setting like that, too.

But this psalm is a lament.  A powerful lament.

The image of that first verse is meant to bring to mind a deer braying in anguished thirst over a watercourse that once had held water but is now bone dry.

The psalm begins in despair.  The refrain, which returns several times in psalm 42 (and 43), gives voice to that despair.

Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?  

and why are you so disquieted within me?

Despair, this heaviness of soul, is an apt description, at least for me, of this last week.

Like most clergy (at least in this time zone), when I left home for church last week, I didn’t know what had happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in the early morning hours of last Sunday.  I had seen the flash of an early headline online, but that was it.

Over the course of this past week, of course, we have all learned much more about the targeted killing of 49 LGBT folk at the nightclub.  Also over the course of this last week this event has been framed by our larger national political discourse.  And it has been placed within the sad context of our national history of mass killings.  This past week we also remembered the one year anniversary of the targeted killing of African Americans in the midst of Bible study at church in Charleston, SC, last June.

My soul is full of heaviness.  Like the psalmist, I find myself in a place of despair.

Despair.  I often find it interesting to look up the actual meaning of words.  Despair isn’t a thing.  Despair is the absence of hope. Not to be confused, I think, with depression.  Depression comes from within.  Despair comes from outside of us.  Despair is the hope we don’t see when we look out on the world.

I do not presume…  I cannot, speak for the perspectives of the communities that have been targeted by hate.  This week, the LGBT community.  Last year, African Americans.  I do know that these horrible crimes were just magnified examples of the attitudes that affect them—you, every day.  But I am not within those communities, so my lament is my own.

Commentators aren’t sure if the psalmist’s lament of despair in these psalms was the result of some individual crisis, or if the psalmist spoke on behalf of all Israel at a time of exile.

My own lament of despair is a mixture of individual lament, national lament, and Christian lament.

A lament of despair.

• Despair:  seeing no hope in the face of hatred and bigotry raging in our world, so often expressed in violence.
• Despair:  seeing no hope in a political system totally devoid of concern for the common good.
• Despair:  seeing little hope for my own ability to love the shooter or the hater or the bigot, as Christ calls us to do.
• Despair:  at my own lack of vision or courage to be the ally or a force for good in the world, that I would like to be.
• Despair:  hopelessness at our inability in this country to even have sensible conversations about ways forward.
• Despair:  that violence is done in God’s name, by people of many faiths, including ours.
• Despair:  at the church’s often seemingly ineffective struggle to be all that God calls us to be, bringers of God’s peace and justice to the world.

Depending on how you count 80 – 85 of the 150 psalms are laments.  That’s more than half.  Despair and lament are sadly not unique to our time.  And our time is not the worst.  That’s one thing that today’s psalm reminds us of.

But more importantly, today’s psalm reminds us that the root of all lament is the absence of God.  The source of all despair is the perceived absence of God.  No matter what the external circumstances, the root of all despair is the experience of God’s absence.

The psalmist says:  My soul is athirst for God.  God is the answer for despair.  The presence of God brings hope into despair.

The psalmist’s journey is from despair to praise of God.  The psalmist makes that journey within these psalms!  From the lament of the first verse to songs of praise with the harp.  And that journey takes place in worship.  The journey from despair to hope takes place in worship.  The way out of despair is corporate worship.

In his commentary on this psalm, Walter Brueggemann writes (Psalms, Walter Brueggemann, William H. Bellinger, Jr., New Cambridge Bible Commentary): 

The poet yearns to be surrounded by the believing and worshiping community:  to participate in the worship services of the Temple and to celebrate with the people the presence of God in their midst.

God’s presence is made known here.  In the worship of this believing community.

The poetic movement of the parts of this psalm takes the petitioner beyond a private grief to hope found in a worshiping community shaped by YHWH, so the psalm portrays the faithful person at prayer…  Much of the hope the petitioner finds in this psalm is tied to liturgy (the prayers we say together in worship).  It is the liturgy that speaks to the wilderness of divine absence and moves the inner dialogue to God and to the divine presence in the temple (and for us, at this Holy Table).  That worship makes possible the move from the poignant yearning in the psalm’s first line to the hope in its last line.  The hope is in the life-giving presence of God.

From the yearning of despair to hope in the life-giving presence of God.

Today’s reflection from the Brothers of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist speaks to the same thing in a different way.  Brother Curtis Almquist writes today:

In the days ahead we will need one another to help us keep our own promises (our baptismal promises) and to receive the promises Christ makes to us to be with us always.  (We need one another to keep us aware of the promise Christ makes to be with us always.)  Without these promises made in the presence of one another, and without Christ’s grace mediated through one another, things could be otherwise in these days ahead.  We need one another.  We belong to one another.

The final verse of hope in Psalm 42 (and 43):

Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

Put your trust in God.  God is the help of my countenance.  God’s help is our hope.  God with us is our hope.  God’s life-giving presence with us overcomes despair.

Supported by one another, equipped through worship with the presence of God, we have hope and strength.

Hope to be voices of compassion and inclusion.

Hope to act for justice and peace in the world.

Supported by one another and accompanied by the life-giving presence of God, we have hope.  And the power to bring God’s love and presence to a world that desperately needs it.