Saturday, December 20, 2014

Advent 4B 14


Advent 4B 14

 

“The Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” 

 

Scripture is clear that Jesus’ descent from David was important to the early church. But that descent does not seem as important to us. What does the angel’s word to Mary means to us? How do we understand Gabriel’s promise, “The Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.”  

 

An answer includes two points, one personal and one political.

 

David’s personal relationship with God was a relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness. Jesus’ personal relationship with God the Father is a relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness. And Jesus offers us a personal relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness with him and the Father in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit.

 

In Jesus’ time the people looked back to David’ rule as a political golden age. As they reflected on David’s reign they came to faith that the Messiah would restore political freedom and social unity.  As we await Christ’s final coming to judge the world and to establish his eternal rule, we also seek both political freedom and social unity.  

 

But our political history has taught us not to confuse some particular political situation with God’s perfect rule. The kingdom of God in our time is not a political kingdom like the kingdoms of this world. God rules in human hearts and wills, regardless of the political situation.  

 

The New Testament has many references to Jesus as son of David. Both the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke begin with the list of Jesus’ descent – from Abraham through David and Solomon in St. Matthew (1:1-14), from Adam through David and Nathan in St. Luke (3:23-35)

 

Jesus cites David’s eating the Bread of the Presence in the house of the Lord in his teaching that the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath. (St. Mark 2:23-28, St. Luke 6:1-5).  St. John (7:40-44) cites the tradition that the Messiah is to be a descendant of David. Two blind men followed Jesus in Galilee crying loudly, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” (St. Matthew 9:27-31)  The Canaanite woman (St. Matthew 15:21-28 and St. Mark 7:24-30) shouts to Jesus, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, my daughter is tormented by a demon.” When a blind and mute demoniac is healed the crowd says, “Can this be the Son of David?” (St. Matthew 12:22, St. Mark 3:20-30, and St. Luke 11:14-23, 12:10) Leaving Jericho Jesus and the disciples hear blind men crying, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David.” [St. Matthew 20:29-34 two men, St. Mark 10:46-52 blind Bartimaeus, St. Luke 18:35-43 one blind man)       The crowds at the Palm Sunday Triumphal Entry cried out “Hosanna, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” (St. Mark 11:9, St. Matthew 21:9 – St. Luke 19:39 has “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” The account of Jesus putting the Pharisees to silence in three gospels (St. Matthew 22:41-45, St. Mark 12:35-37,  St. Luke 20:41-44) depends on the tradition that the Messiah is David’s son. And in 2 Timothy (2:8) we read, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – this is my gospel.”

 

          David’s relationship with God was a relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness. Jesus shows the same love, trust, and truthfulness in his relationship with God the Father, and in Jesus we can have the same relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness with him and the Father in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit.

 

          David loved God, trusted in God, and was truthful with God. David trusted in God when he defeated the Philistine giant Goliath with stones thrown from a sling. He and Saul’s son Jonathan became friends, and he married Saul’s younger daughter Michal. But Saul was jealous and David fled for his life to Hebron in the south while Saul ruled in the north. David trusted in God and refused to fight God’s anointed king Saul even though Saul several times sought David’s life. After Saul died David captured Jerusalem, and made it the capital of a reunited kingdom, bringing to the city the Ark of the Covenant and the Tent of Meeting. He defeated the Philistines who had controlled the seacoast and the trade route between Egypt and Syria and ruled all the tribes. David was remembered as a great and just ruler.

 

          But David’s personal life was a mess. He took Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, and when her husband Uriah the Hittite refused to condone David’s behavior David had him killed in battle. But then when the prophet Nathan charged him with his sin, David recognized the truth and repented.  David was an over-indulgent parent. He did not punish his firstborn son Amnon when he raped his half-sister Tamar. He did not punish his second son Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, when Absalom murdered Amnon, and later rose in rebellion against David. Absalom died in that rebellion When Absalom’s brother Adonijah sought the throne. David arranged for Bathsheba’s son Solomon to succeed as king. Politically things went downhill from then on. After Solomon the kingdom divided and the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah fought for 200 years until Assyria conquered Israel in 722, and Babylonia took Judah in 586.

 

          David was the standard by whom the people judged all succeeding rulers. They came to believe that only the Messiah could restore political freedom and unity. Jesus had to explain again and again that the kingdom of God is not a political kingdom like the kingdoms of the world. The kingdom of God is God’s eternal rule in human hearts and wills, regardless of the political situation. Even the disciples found this hard to understand. After the resurrection, as Jesus led them to the Mount of Olives to take his final farewell and ascend to the Father the disciples asked, “Lord, will you now restore the kingdom to Israel ?”

 

Our own political history has taught us not to confuse some particular political situation with God’s perfect rule. The kingdom of God is not a political kingdom like the kingdoms of the world. The rule of God is in human hearts and wills, regardless of the political situation

 

David’s personal relationship with God was a relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness. Jesus’ personal relationship with God the Father was a relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness. And Jesus offers us a personal relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness with him and the Father in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is a son of David. In baptism we are made members of the Body of Christ, and so we share in Jesus’ descent from David. God grant that we may show forth in our lives the same relationship of love, trust, and truthfulness that David enjoyed with God, and that Jesus makes possible for us by his death for our sins, his resurrection in which we have new life, and his gift of the Holy Spirit of truth and power given us for eternity.

 

“The Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” 

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Proper 23A October 12, 2014


Proper 23A SJHC

          In the 1928 Prayer Book today’s collect is prayed on the 17th Sunday after Trinity and reads, “Lord, we pray that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” This prayer was sent by Pope Gregory the Great with St. Augustine to Canterbury in 597, over 1500 years ago.  “Prevent” comes from the Latin “praevenio” to come before.
 
       “Prevenient grace” is a theological term for God’s grace given to all people to prepare us to receive and respond to the gospel. The gospel is good news of Jesus’ death on the cross which set us free from slavery to sin and Jesus’ resurrection to offer us new life in him in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
       Article Ten of the Article of Religion tells us, “. . . we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us (going before us), that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.”
 
       In the section on the sacraments our church catechism page 857-858  says this, “The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that 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 wills.”
 
       God’s prevenient grace comes before our conversion and prepares us to receive and respond to the good news of Jesus’ death on the cross which set us free from slavery to sin and Jesus’ resurrection to our new life in him in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit.  When we respond to the good news in faith we begin to receive the continuing grace of God. Our sins are forgiven, our minds spiritually enlightened, our hearts stirred and our wills strengthened to know and do God’s will in our lives.
 
       We call that response “conversion” or “being saved.”  The response is not automatic or universal. God’s prevenient grace, God’s call, is universal. God calls us all. God’s grace makes it possible for everyone to respond. But God’s creation includes free will. We have to choose to hear the call and respond to it.
 
       Baptism and the eucharist are the biblical means of grace, the ways God has given us to know his grace and to grow in his grace. Most of us have been blessed to be born into families that knew God’s continuing grace and brought us to baptism. In baptism we are made members of the spiritual body of the crucified and resurrected Jesus. As St. Paul tells us in the epistle to the Romans, we are grafted in to the body as a tree is grafted into a root.  We are made God’s children by adoption and grace. In the eucharist we give thanks. Efharisto is the Greek word for “I thank you.” We give thanks for the death and resurrection of Jesus and for the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us by faith. We offer ourselves in God’s service, and we are spiritually fed and strengthened in that service by the bread and wine which are for us the life giving body and blood of Jesus.
 
       God’s grace, “God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved” us such a wonderful gift that it is hard to understand why everyone does not accept it. . Our sins are forgiven, our minds spiritually enlightened, our hearts stirred and our wills strengthened to know and do God’s will in our lives. Why is it so hard for us to receive this wonderful grace, and to continue in it?
 
       Today’s bible readings suggest four reasons why it is hard for us to receive this wonderful grace, and to continue in it. First, some have not heard this good news. God trusts Christ’s body the church to proclaim the good news. Some have not heard because as someone said, “what you do is so loud I can’t hear what you say.” We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Some have been so injured by church people clergy and lay that they are spiritually deaf. Second, some cannot hear because they are so culturally bound. Third, fear makes some deaf. Fourth, some are so immersed in the immediate tasks of this life that we will not stop long enough to hear God’s eternal call. Some are so caught up in sin that we are unable to repent and receive God’s grace.
 
       Fear: The people of Israel escaped slavery in Egypt, followed Moses into the desert, were fed by manna, watered from the rock. But when Moses was slow coming down the mountain they got scared. Clergy can fear like everyone else. Aaron the priest made the golden calf. We “test the Church by the scripture.”  Moses prayed for the people; pray for the church that we may be faithful in preaching and serving Jesus.  
 
       Busyness: “. . . they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.” Some of us who have responded to grace allow the urgent to distract us from the important. We need continually to respond to God’s grace and seek to serve.
 
       The wedding garment: Continual repentance is a sign of grace filled life. Eastern Orthodox spirituality includes the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  We are sinners saved by God’s grace in Jesus Christ. God grant us grace to live as we believe.  
 
REPEAT COLLECT.  


 

Friday, August 29, 2014

Proper 17A 14


          My text is from the gospel. Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. . . . what will they give in return for their life?” 

          That text is the theme of the gradual hymn. “Take up your cross, the Savior said, if you would my disciple be.” The tune we used today is unique to the Hymnal 1982. The more common tune is called Breslau, numbers 471 “We sing the praise of him who died” and 281 for St. Matthew’s Day, “He sat to watch o’er custom paid.” I’m not familiar with any of them.

          Our gradual hymn. “Take up your cross, the Savior said, if you would my disciple be” was written by Charles William Everest in 1833. Everest wrote this hymn as a poem in 1833 when he was 19. He later served as rector in Hamden, Connecticut.

          In late adolescence and early adulthood we begin to deal with issues of identity and vocation. “Who am I?” and “What shall I do with my life?” Most of us muddle through to a sufficient response to keep moving through life. We choose a major, get a job, marry, and grow up – some. But the answers of youth are always subject to reconsideration and revision.  Issues of identity and vocation continue in our spiritual life and we ignore or deny them at our peril.

          Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. . . . what will they give in return for their life?”  Part of our life with Jesus as sinners saved by grace, as followers of Our Lord, is to continually ask ourselves questions like, “If I am a follower of Jesus, how am I denying myself for his sake?  How am I bearing the cross? What am I doing with the life God gives me each day I live?” 

          Charles William Everest at age 19 offered his response in the words of the hymn. Moses heard the voice of God from the bush that burned and was not consumed. Let’s look at Moses. Last week he heard how Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses and took him as her son. How did Moses get from the basket to be “keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian . . . beyond the wilderness.” Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s court, but when he grew up he had what we might call an identity crisis. He identified with the Hebrew people to the point of murdering an Egyptian overseer beating a Hebrew. Pharaoh sought to kill Moses. He fled to the desert, took refuge with Jethro, and married his daughter.

“Keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian . . . beyond the wilderness” Moses saw the bush burning but not consumed. He turned aside to see. And Moses heard the voice of the Lord.

          Many of us sometimes find ourselves in spiritual deserts – in dry places where we see little life. Not all of us are murderers like Moses, but we all know something of the deadly results of our own mistakes and failures. Most of us keep moving on, doing the best we can, but in our dark hours asking, “Is this all there is?”  And then we experience something different, like the ray of sunshine on a dark day, some act of grace that invites us to stop and turn aside. Moses did and Moses heard the voice from the bush that burned but was not consumed, the voice that recalled him to his true identity, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

          Our true identity is to be children of God, sinners saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, saved from death in the desert by the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, risen to new life in him.

          To be in church on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, to hear of the bush that burned and was not consumed, to hear and respond to the call of our Lord Jesus, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. . . . what will they give in return for their life?”  Can this be a time and place for you to see a light, to feel something of God’s love for you, to hear anew Jesus’ call on your life? 

          God told Moses he had heard the cries of his people. God hears our prayers and God answers prayers. I invite you to take some time this day, this weekend, to reflect again on your identity as God’s beloved child, as a member of the resurrected and Spirit-filled body of Jesus Christ, to consider once more questions like, “If I am a follower of Jesus, how am I denying myself for his sake?  How am I bearing the cross? What am I doing with the life God gives me each day I live?” 

          And having asked the questions, take some time to be quiet and hear the voice of God speaking to you as he shows you his will for your life.

          It will not be easy. God sent Moses back to a Pharaoh who had wanted to kill him with the message, “Let my people go!”  “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”   

          St. Paul exhorted the church at Rome, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.”

          The cross we bear is the good news that the spirit of the crucified and resurrected Jesus will work in and through you and me, and all God’s children, to accomplish his will. He simply asks us to accept the good news, to accept his cross, and to follow Jesus where he leads the way.

           If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” What will we give in return for the gift of life in Jesus?

Monday, August 25, 2014

Proper 15A August 17, 2014


Proper 15A August 17, 2014

          The message of today’s Scripture readings is in the psalm, “How good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity.” God brings good out of evil. God’s will for us is repentance and reconciliation.

          The news is full of stories about refugees and immigrants. Today’s Old Testament reading includes Joseph’s invitation to his family to escape famine in the Holy Land by settling in Goshen near the Egyptian border. In the Gospel Jesus goes out of the Land of Israel into what is now southern Lebanon, and the Epistle speaks of God’s mercy.  As Christian people we are called to hospitality, we are called to care for those in need, and particularly to care for strangers and aliens.  The St. Andrew’s Community Garden is one way for us to help provide good, fresh, nutritous food for all. As citizens we shere responsibility for a just and humane immigration policy that meets the needs of ourselves and the whole country. We may disagree about what particular actions are the most just and beneficial, but all of us descend from immigrants and many of us from refugees, but all of us share Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

          First, Joseph:  Some of the best stories about Joseph are not in the Lestionary. Last Sunday we left him sold as a slave to Midianite traders on his way to Egypt.  In Egypt Joseph was bought by Potiphar, the captain of imperial guard, and became his overseer. .  Potiphar jailed Joseph  when Potiphar’s wife lusted for Joseph and when he refused her accused him of attempted rape. In jail Joseph interpreted the dreams of the royal butler and baker. The butler  restored to office remembered Joseph when Pharaoh dreamed about 7 fat and 7 thin cows. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream as prophecy and proposed a 20% income tax to store up grain in the good years for the coming time of famine. The Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of the project and married him to an Egyptian priest’s daughter. Their sons were Manassah and Ephriam.

          When the famine came Pharaoh sold the grain collected in the good years and gradually acquired title to all the land of Egypt. Jacob sent his ten sons to buy grain, keeping Joseph’s full brother Benjamin at home. After testing their sincerity by requiring them to bring Benjamin to him, Joseph accepted their repentance in the scene we heard today.  Their life experiences had  both brought the brothers to repentance for selling him into slavery and also  brought Joseph to accept that repentance, to desire and to accomplish reconciliation.

The story of Joseph explain how the people of Israel came to Egypt. From about 1750 to about 1550 BC northern Egypt was ruled by the Hyksos rulers  from the north and east. Genesis says that Joseph lived to see his part-Egyptian  great great grandchildren included among the people of Israel. Next week’s reading begin with the slavery of the people on Israel when a Pharaoh arose who knew not Joseph, then Moses and the Exodus, 40 years in the desert, and the coming to the promised land. At the Exodus Joseph’s descendants took his body with them and eventually buried it at Nablus in the West Bank.  

          Joseph teaches us about God’s ability to bring good out of evil, about God’s will for repentance and reconciliation, as the psalm says, “how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity.”

          But unity, and repentance and reconciliation are hard work. It is easier simply to exclude those who are different. In today’s Gospel Jesus went to what is now southern Lebanon – perhaps to get away from the crowds seeking healing. It didn’t work. A woman of that country cried after him, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, my daughter is tormented by a demon!” The disciples were also tired of the crowds and wanted to shut up the noise. Jesus’ response is “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” That seems a strange response to us who know Jesus as the savior of the world. But Jesus knew his limitations of time and space. He knew that the responsibility and authority to heal the world would be the gift of the Holy Spirit to the whole body of believers after his death and resurrection. Jesus’ earthly ministry was limited in time and space; the spiritual ministry of Jesus by his Holy Spirit in the church is limited only by the short time remaining until Jesus comes to earth at the end of time.

          Jews and Canaanites called each other names. “Dog” was a mild one. When the Canaanite woman spoke of the bread of the children those who heard her were reminded of God’s special gift of manna in the desert. Jesus recognized the faith of the stranger. He not only healed her daughter but in doing so brought her into the fellowship of saving faith. “Great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.”

          God’s can bring good out of evil. God’s will for us is repentance and reconciliation. “How good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity.”  This week let us look for opportunities to repent and seek reconciliation and unity.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Proper 12C July 27, 2014

          Today’s scriptures offer a creative tension between verses from the Epistle and the Gospel. The Epistle ends with a wonderful verse familiar from funerals, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is wonderful good news, and we are glad to hear it. 

          And today’s Gospel reading ends, “. . . at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” That is also good news, but not news we like to hear.

     Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That is gospel truth and we can trust it for our salvation. But our created human nature includes free will. The God who created humankind created us with the freedom to choose. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden teaches us that from the beginning we have freedom to choose to do or not to do God’s will.  In The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis put it this way, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek, find. To those who knock it is opened.”    

          Today’s gospel teaches, “the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous.” We are all sinners; we are all sinners saved by God’s grace in Jesus Christ. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Jesus teaches the standard of Christian life in St. Matthew 22:37-40, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as your self.” Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy “Love God” and Leviticus “Love your neighbor.”  In our general confession later in this service we will remind the Lord and ourselves of our failure to live up to God’s expectations.

          We know from I John (1:9) that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just and forgives our sins. God forgives the sins we remember, and in his love and mercy forgives what we don’t remember, or can’t recognize as sin.  We are made righteous by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

          But what of those who do not confess, who do not claim righteousness only by Jesus’ death and resurrection? We have to leave them finally to God’s love and mercy. As we have opportunity we show them as best we can a life of righteousness and faith as sinners saved by grace. And we speak and act for truth and righteousness. 

          God will direct the angels in the last day how to separate the evil from the righteous. His judgment is perfect; our judgment in this life is partial and imperfect. We don’t get to make the final decisions. But we are called from time to time to exercise the good judgment God gives us by his spirit to recognize evil and to deal with it – in our own lives first and then in our families, our friends, and in the communities where we live.

          Discernment is not easy. Our natural human tendency is to judge our own behavior by our intentions and others behavior by their actions as we experience them. We naturally tend to be easy on ourselves and hard on others. As forgiven sinners we benefit by looking to other peoples intentions as best we can understand them and then judging by good intentions.  When I had done something really dumb my father used to ask, “Tom, what were you trying to accomplish?” 

          That said, we also have to recognize the reality of evil in the world. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s command not to eat of the forbidden fruit. The 7 capital sins – Wrath, Avarice, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony – are real. We all know the temptations and we have all fallen into sin. Yes, there may be mitigating circumstances, but when we are honest we can rely on God’s gift of conscience – that quiet voice that says, “Is that the truth?”

          When we see evil in our lives and in the world around us we can rely on God’s Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to speak and do the truth, the Spirit of Power to speak and act, the Spirit of Love to guide and direct us in action.  In God’s good time God’s perfect justice will be done. Thanks be to God

            So both readings are good news: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And “. . . at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Pentecost 2014


Pentecost  2014

          On their way to the Ascension, the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, will you now restore again the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus said, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But you shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”  

          Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the apostles at the first Pentecost, like the rush of a violent wind, and tongues of fire. All were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak as the Spirit gave them ability. The list of those who heard begins in Iran and moves west along the north shore of the Mediterranean as far as Rome and back to North Africa. Peter interprets this experience as a sign of “the Lord's great and glorious day” and ends with the missionary imperative, “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

          From that day on the Church, the spiritual body of Christ on earth, has continued to witness to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, so that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

          We all know the saying, “when you are up to your neck (or some other part of the body) in alligators, it is hard to remember you set out to drain the swamp.” We all know how easy it is to lose focus, to deal with the immediate and ignore the important. 

          Anniversaries help us remember our purpose. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, even Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and of course Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, provide opportunity to look at where we’ve been and where we want to go.    

          Last Thursday’s 70th anniversary of D-Day drew special attention because we expect most of those who were there will die in the next 10 years. Queen Elizabeth is 88 and served in the British Womens Auxiliary Territorial Service as a truck driver and mechanic. Prince Philip is 93; he served in the British navy in the Mediterranean and the Pacific. When I checked these dates I learned they met when he was 18 and she was 13 – a 75 year love affair. God bless them.  

          Archbishop Welby of Canterbury recommended this prayer for Thursday’s 70th anniversary of D-Day:  Almighty and eternal God, from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted, either by death or life: hear our prayers and thanksgivings for all whom we remember this day; fulfil in them the purpose of your love; and bring us all, with them, to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  (Archbishop Welby 2014) 

          The place of the Christian church this Pentecost Sunday in our society is different from what it was 70 years ago, or even 40 years ago when I moved to Asheboro, North Carolina. Bishop Tom Fraser gathered the clergy new to that diocese. I remember he said, “Boys (and we were all boys in those days), you are fortunate to be living in a place where people think going to church will do you some good.” In those days one of the signs of responsibility and reliability was participation in church life. Businesses were mostly local and people knew where their accountant, their insurance agent, their car dealer, all went to church. Those local businesses have been bought out by national chains, and no one seems to care where, or if, the managers of the big box stores go to church.

The church has always been counter-cultural. Human beings are fundamentally self-centered; Christ calls us to center our lives on God. From infancy we have wanted what we wanted when we wanted it. Christ calls us to seek and do the will of God. We seek our personal advantage; Christ calls us to seek first the good of others.

          Human government has always made a supreme claim on the lives of the governed. Governments and societies have alternated between trying to silence the church and trying to get the church to support the interests of government. Christians are commanded by the bible to pray for those in authority and to comply with the legitimate demands of those in authority – and we are commanded to resist those demands when they conflict with God’s will.  That has been the case from the first Pentecost until now. Hitler tried with some success to make the Protestant and Catholic church  subservient to the ideology of the Nazi regime; Communist Russia tried to exterminate the church, murdering clergy, stealing property. We frequently read of Christians being persecuted, murdered, dispossessed, in some Muslim majority countries.

          The other day at a clergy meeting Morgan Gardner raised the question, “What are we going to do when churches have to pay property tax?” The last NC legislature tried to collect sales tax from larger charities, mostly hospitals and schools, not small churches, yet. The First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” When that was adopted Massachusetts and Connecticut collected a tax for the support of the Congregational church in each town. Before the Revolution Maryland and Virginia, and to a lesser extent the Carolinas and Georgia had collected an income tax for the support of the Church of England parishes. The courts have interpreted the establishment clause to forbid some religious activities in some public places. Some anti-Christians interpret “free exercise” to mean “freedom of worship.”  But they continually complain about the “free exercise” of any public prayer outside a church building, church floats in the Christmas parade, and the like.    

          We’ve been here before, and the history is that God sends revival in the worst of times – in the mid 18th century, in the early 19th century, in the early 20th century, in the mid 20th century. We’re about due for another mighty work of God. And we have been from Pentecost to Pentecost since the Spirit first fell on the apostles, like the rush of a violent wind, and tongues of fire. All were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak as the Spirit gave them ability.

          We continue to meet Sunday by Sunday.  It is not for us to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But we have received power. The Holy Ghost has come upon us: and we are Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth – even western North Carolina. We continue to hear and obey Peter’s call that first Pentecost, to continue to be the spiritual body of Christ on earth and to continue to witness to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, so that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”   

Proper 7A June 23, 2014



Today’s gospel ends with Jesus’ word to his disciples as he sent them out,  “whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

From Advent through Trinity Sunday we remember the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus and his gift of his Holy Spirit. From Trinity Sunday to Advent we hear again of Jesus’ life and teaching.

Jesus’ life and teaching led him to the cross. Jesus life and teaching confront human sin in all its forms. Confronting sin led to his Jesus’ death on the cross. But the cross is the sign that in Jesus’ death the power of sin is forever broken. Beyond the cross we find the empty tomb and the witness of Jesus’ new life in the power of the Holy Spirit.  In our own lives as we confront our own sin in all its forms we come to spiritual death with Jesus. In death through Jesus our sin is defeated and we are given new spiritual life in the power of the Holy Spirit.  “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”


In today’s Gospel we hear Jesus teaching to his disciples as he sends them out, “as you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (10:7) Jesus gave continued, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils; freely you have received, freely give.” At Pentecost the spiritual power Jesus gave these disciples came to the whole church, and ever since we who “profess and call ourselves Christians” have been doing as Jesus commanded. The good news of the kingdom has been preached; the sick have been healed, lepers cleansed, the dead raised, devils cast out; we who have freely received freely give.

Hospitals and schools began as ministries of the church. Many of the colonial Anglican clergy, including Samuel Seabury, the first American Episcopal bishop, had medical training and served as priests and physicians and educators. Western society has handed over responsibility for treating the body and mind to specialists, but we continue to work to heal the soul.  

We know the hymn, “There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.” The balm of Gilead comes from Jeremiah 8:22; the hymn from John Newton, the converted slave trader and Church of England priest who among other things wrote “Amazing Grace.” The reality is that our souls are sin sick. Our spiritual healing begins when we recognize that reality and turn to Jesus Christ for healing. 

          We confess our sins; we receive God’s forgiveness; we are justified – set right with God – not by anything we do, but by what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us. We depend day by day on the mercy and love of God. Day by day we receive new life in the resurrected Jesus; day by day we live in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit; day by day we fall short of the fullness of God’s love and God’s plan for our lives, and day by day we are restored and renewed.                   

The English writer G. K. Chesterton was born in 1874 and died in 1936.  He wrote in a book called, What's Wrong with the World, The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”  

Chesterton was fond of hyperbole. The truth is that the Christian ideal has been tried; millions of Christian men and women all over the world day by day for almost 2,000 years have taken up the cross of the gospel and followed Jesus. Millions have found the truth in the paradox that as we lose our lives for Jesus’ sake we find new, godly, and fulfilling lives. 

I invite you to take your cross of the gospel today and follow Jesus. I invite you to confront your own sin in your own life and to confront human sin in all its forms wherever it is found. Recognize as we confront our own sin in all its forms we come to spiritual death with Jesus. But in death through Jesus our sin is defeated and we are given new spiritual life in the power of the Holy Spirit.  “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”


 

Sunday, May 18, 2014


Easter 5 May 17, 2014

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

The Greek word here translated “dwelling place” in the King James as “mansions” is monai also translated “abide”. St. John 14:23 “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and abide with them.” 15:4 “Abide in me as I abide in you.” 15:10 “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” Jesus intends us to abide in him, to remain in him, to find our present and future place in his life, to gather with others in his body the church and to be reunited with him and the Father at our death – or when he comes again, whichever comes first.

That Christ will come again is a matter of faith in his promise. When he will come again he said only the Father knows, but in that day let us be found doing his will and enjoying his love.

          Professor C.S. Lewis, in the Preface to Mere Christianity, his BBC lectures during WW II, wrote, “Christianity is . . .  like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. . . . in the rooms, not in the hall, . . .there are fires and chairs and meals. . . . you must be asking which door is the true one; . . . the question should. . . be, “Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this?”  . . . When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”

          Despite our divisions into our separate denominational rooms the Church has always remembered Jesus’ prayer that the disciples and the church might be one as he and the Father were one, united in being, united in thought, united in action. Throughout history Jesus’ disciples have lived with the tension of spiritual unity and organizational separation. Today’s first lesson tells of the death of Stephen the first martyr. Stephen and other deacons were chosen by the apostles to preserve the unity of the Jerusalem church by making sure that the Greek-speaking widows were not neglected in the daily distribution from the common supply of food. In several places Acts tells us how the church preserved unity in the face of threats of division. St. Paul wrote to the churches in Corinth, in Rome, and in other places to encourage them to preserve unity. Our epistle readings this Easter season from Peter describe Christ’s church as “living stones, built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, who have received mercy.” All these descriptions speak of our spiritual unity.

           But as the Church grew in numbers and time passed, the spiritual unity broke down. The Gnostics relied on secret spiritual knowledge and broke the connection between faith and morals. They said, “if we are saved by faith (by which they meant the secret spiritual knowledge of Jesus’ teaching) then what we do with our bodies doesn’t matter.” The Gnostics were, and are, popular. It feels good to be part of a spiritual elite and not have membership in that elite affect your moral behavior. One reason the Gospels were written was make clear to the Gnostics that, as the Epistle of James writes, “faith without works is dead.”

          In Egypt a priest-philosopher named Arius tried to explain Jesus in terms from Greek philosophy,  and it took several councils and the Nicene Creed to make clear the paradox that Jesus is both fully and completely God and fully and completely human. Even so an Arian church continued for several hundred years.

       Some church divisions were over matters of conscience. Other divisions we now see as a result of different histories. People in the eastern Mediterranean spoke Greek; in the western Mediterranean people spoke Latin. The border is in the Balkans between Catholic Croatia and Eastern Orthodox Serbia. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, divided since 1056, are working on resolving the issues that divide them. One issue is about the Nicene Creed and the Holy Spirit.  The Latin version of the Nicene Creed says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Latin filioque). The Greek does not have the filioque.  Both agree that the Spirit is worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son. The Episcopal Church General Convention has said that if our churches can resolve other areas of disagreement we do not insist on the filioque.

          About 500 years ago the Western – Latin speaking – church divided north and south for reasons both religious and political. Much of northern Europe became Protestant; much of the south continued in a renewed Roman Catholic church.   England chose a third way, renewal of Catholic practice and biblical authority on the model of the early church. For reasons religious and political the Protestant churches divided into many fellowships, many of them brought by immigrants to America.

          We are familiar with gathering Sunday by Sunday in many rooms, and we assume that is what God intended. But in many parts of the world through history one church has officially included all the people. Dissenters were forced to leave. Immigrants to America founded churches that were either like the familiar church at home – or deliberately something very different from the church at home. Compare the colonial church in Virginia which tried to be like the Church of England and the colonial Congregational church in New England which tried to purify the church by the teachings of John Calvin. Their American experience brought changes to all the colonial churches. And we have American born churches such as the Pentecostals, the Mormons, and others.   

For the past 150 years Christians have worked together to recover spiritual unity and to understand and overcome our corporate divisions. I have spent much of my ministry in this ecumenical work.

          One way we witness to spiritual unity and seek to overcome organizational division is through ecumenical dialogue.  Anglicans and Roman Catholics meet in this country and abroad. The current discussion is how does the universal Church, and local churches, discern right ethical teaching. We continue to talk with the Eastern Orthodox churches, and interfaith dialogues are beginning.

           Some ecumenical dialogues lead to full communion agreements. These witness to agreement in faith and on that basis agree to invite members to share in holy communion and in common ministry. Bishop Weinhauer was the Episcopal cochair of the dialogue with the Lutheran Church that led to full communion in 1999. I was honored to have a part in developing a similar agreement with the Moravian Church concluded in 2011.  Dialogue with the United Methodist Church and other American churches continues.

          So let us remember that Jesus intends us to abide in him, to remain in him, to find our present and future place in his life, to gather with others in his body the church and to be reunited with him and the Father.  And as Professor Lewis wrote, “When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”

 

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Easter 2 2014


Easter 2

"Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

How many of us have given this sort of ultimatum in a relationship?  And for how many of us was the ultimatum an emotional reaction to an unfulfilled hope or a cover for some other wish, one that perhaps we don’t know or don’t recognize?

I call this redlining God, and I’ve learned over the years that it is not possible to contain God inside my red lines any more than it is possible to contain God within the four dimensional box of my own imagination. Our minds are conditioned by what we can experience in length, width, height, and time – the space/time box of our senses.  We live much of the time inside that space/time box.

And it is inside that space/time box that much of the time we experience God’s love and grace. But many of the really important things we experience by God’s love and grace both inside and outside the space/time box.

The most common experience of God’s love and grace both inside and ourside the space/time box is human love. Those of us who are blessed with relationships of love – parent and child, husband and wife, family and friends, know love that is expressed both within the space/time box and love that transcends the space/time box.  We express in what we say and do a love that is greater than anything we can ever say and do.

In Genesis 1:26 we read, “Let us make humanity after our own likeness.” One way we are made in God’s image is that we have the gift of love. This side of the Resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit is that we share God’s spirit of love. As St. John says in his first Epistle (4:8, 10-11) “God is love . . .  and sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him . . . not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, is God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” 

We who love learn that red lines, ultimatums, have no place in relationships of love. Perfect love is without conditions.   But we are not perfect, and sometimes we do as Thomas did and give ultimatums like his. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

God is good to us. He loves us, and he gives us what we need.  So when Jesus appeared to his disciples again the Sunday after the Resurrection, he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

The gospel continues, “Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

We are not told that Thomas followed through on his ultimatum. We are not told that Thomas did in fact feel the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side.  Jesus offer was sufficient. In Jesus’ presence Thomas knew the divine love, love gave him the gift of faith to believe and confess, “My Lord and my God.”

          In late July this year we will remember another ultimatum, made by Austria-Hungary to Serbia July 23, 1914 after the terrorist assassination June 28 of the heir to the Austrian and Hungarian thrones which resulted in World War One, and reverberates today.

 There have been other ultimatums since, internationally, nationally, in churches, in families, in relationships. It is hard for us to learn that ultimatums don’t work.

Ultimatums come from a mind-set like cement, all mixed up and firmly set.  Jesus calls us to be flexible.  Our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic church are celebrating Pope Francis’ declaration that Popes John 23rd and John Paul 2nd may be venerated as saints. The traditional rule is that God makes saints and the church recognizes God’s action by the evidence of at least two miracles. But in the face of complaints that this evidence of miracles has not been proved for two popes Pope Francis has apparently declared that the evidence of their lives is sufficient to demonstrate the sanctity of his predecessors.

Jesus calls us to be flexible, to respond to his presence, to his love shown forth.

The example of Thomas may help us learn the love of God shown in Jesus, love that brings us to repentance and faith in him, “Our Lord and our God!”

Our risen Lord Jesus continues to come to us. He continues to do “ many other signs in the presence of his disciples . . . that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”