Last Epiphany B February 14, 2015

          Three points: (1) St. Valentine, (2)  Trans-figuration in the life of the church and the life of Jesus, and (3) transfiguration in our spiritual lives.

          First, in the florists, candy, and greeting card calendar today is St. Valentine’s day.  Valentine comes from the Latin word valens – worthy, strong, powerful. Valentine was a popular name in late antiquity. Three St. Valentines are associated with Rome and with February 14.  St. Valentine is connected with human love is in late medieval romance literature including Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 1300’s.  Another connection with human love may come from the weather.  Asheville and the Mediterranean are on the same parallel. The worst of winter is over.  We have time for weddings before the prohibition of Lent. 

Second, in the church calendar this Last Sunday after Epiphany is one of the turning points in the church year.  The church year is an ellipse around the fixed date of Christmas and the movable date of Easter. Next Wednesday Ash Wednesday, then 40 days plus Sundays of Lent, Easter April 5, then 50 days including Sundays of celebration until Pentecost, then 6 months until Advent and Christmas.  In the 1960’s a revision of the Roman Catholic calendar assigned the Transfiguration gospel to the Sunday before Lent, replacing three Sundays of Pre-Lent (Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquegesima). Pre-Lent began about 550 with prayer that God would spare Rome a spring raid by the Lombards. Once Charlemagne defeated the Lombards in 775 people began to celebrate in Carnivals.  

           The Transfiguration was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus had been baptized by John and tempted. He preached and healed, called the disciples and taught them about God’s coming kingdom. The disciples, sent out with power and authority to preach and heal, came back rejoicing. Jesus saw they were ready to enter more fully into their calling. So one day when they were alone he asked them, “Who do men say that I am?” They told them the many things they had heard people say about him. Then Jesus asked them a question each one of us has to answer for ourselves, “And who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ of God.” Jesus told them plainly, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and on the 3^rd day be raised.” They didn’t understand. Even Peter rebuked Jesus, “God forbid Lord; this shall never happen to you.” Jesus responded, “Get behind me Satan.” 

          Then Jesus was called up the mountain, and as he was praying his appearance changed and even his clothing became dazzling white. Moses and Elijah appeared, Moses through whom God had given the Law, the sign of the covenant, and Elijah the first of the prophets through whom God had called Israel back to the glory of obedience, prophets through whom God had worked many miracles.  Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus about his death and resurrection God way to establish his kingdom through his church forever.

          From the cloud came the voice of God, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him.”  On Sinai God spoke in thunder and lightning to the people of Israel. On the same mountain he spoke to Elijah in the still small voice. We are not told what tone of voice God used at the Transfiguration, but the disciples heard and obeyed.  From the Transfiguration Jesus’ face was resolutely set toward Jerusalem, toward death and resurrection. The Transfiguration was a turning point in Jesus’ life and ministry.  

          Jesus’ death on the cross sets us free from the power of sin. Jesus’ resurrection is our assurance of new life. In baptism we are made members of the body of Christ and by the same Holy Spirit who  came on the disciples at Pentecost we are given power to lead transfigured lives.

          In Genesis we learn that we are made in the image of God. But God’s image is marred by our willful separation from God. We inherit from our first ancestors the desire to be like God. The story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent is a parable of our wanting to be like God, and of the bad consequences when we want to do it our way.  Jesus’ death and resurrection make it possible for us to be like God in his way. 

          Lent can be a time when we can focus our spiritual attention on showing God’s image in us.  The Transfiguration can be a turning point in our lives as it was in the life of Jesus and his disciples, as it is remembered in the church year.  Let me end with some questions.

What are your turning points? Have you come to the place in your life where you are ready to make, or to make again, your own covenant with Jesus, where you are ready to receive the love Jesus has for you and commit your life to him in the fellowship of Jesus’ body the church?  We all have to do that once, and then repeat as needed.          

 

Have you received his love and committed your life to Jesus and now feel the call to move to new and hard and active trust in his forgiveness and new life? Who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to turn loose and trust to his love?

          The penitential season of Lent offers us opportunity for worship, fellowship, and study so we may grow in our new life in Christ. Jesus and his disciples turned at the Transfiguration to death and resurrection.  May God grant us grace to turn and turn again to him in worship, love, and service.  

Epiphany 4B 2015

          “They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” 

In Chapter 2 of his 1964 Little Red Book Mao Tse-Tung wrote, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”  On June 5, 1989 near the north side of Tienanmen Square a single man walked into the path of a column of tanks.  When the tank stopped the man climbed up to talk with the soldiers inside the tank and then came down and resumed his position. He was finally pulled aside by a group of people and disappeared into the crowd. Not far away from where that brave man stood, over the entrance to the Imperial Palace, is a huge portrait of Mao. The massacre of the Tienanmen protestors had happened the day before, but that lone man’s action in protest is an enduring sign of the authority of love, the authority of resistance to the politics of force.

In some ways Mao was right; in the world of sin political power depends on force and the will to use force. But in the kingdom of God force yields to the spiritual authority of God’s love shown us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, known to us by his Holy Spirit.

We live in the world of sin and in the kingdom of God. In both we live under authority, and we exercise authority – over ourselves and in our relationships.  Our first experiences with authority come when as small children we come to know love, and we come to know fear. We are small, and the people around us are big – and powerful. We know they can hurt us. And we also know that when we hurt ourselves these people are there to comfort and heal us. “Mommy kiss the booboo and make it well.”

We learn that the food we are given, the warm house, the soft bed, the changed diaper, even the warm bath, are all signs of the love which surrounds us.  But we have to be taught the signs of love. Our naturally self-centeredness feels entitled to these. And the flip side of self-centeredness is our feeling of total  responsible for everything that happens, particularly bad things. Our little egos come to believe that we somehow earn love – by good behavior or in lots of other ways. 

The commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” given at Sinai, is fundamental to all who share that covenant. It is a spiritual correction for our egos. The commandments express God’s will for the world her has created. God created a world where he is loved and honored, where we don’t give things of this world in God’s place in our hearts and lives, where God’s name is honored, where we remember God has created us and the world and keep his Sabbath holy, where parents and those in authority receive the respect due them, and where all people are secure in their lives, in their property, in their relationships, in their reputations, and where we are not consumed with envy and covetousness, where we are not continually obsessed with wanting other peoples’ stuff.   

“Honor thy father and thy mother;” parents love your children. God creates with natural love for our children. Parents get to mediate to their children God’s perfect and unconditional love. We do it imperfectly; our parents imperfectly mediated God’s love to us, but we all want to do better than we were done for. One of God’s gifts to grandparents is another opportunity to share God’s unconditional love for children.   

The fear we learn as children remains in us. The theological term is servile fear. Servile fear has some benefits in this sinful world. It helps us stay out of some bad situations. Why do we slow down when we see a police car?  Partly for fear of a ticket.  But we drive the speed limit or close to it not only for fear of police or of an accident, but also because we want to share the road safely with the other drivers. We offer them the respect we want to receive from them.  That is the fear the Bible calls the fear of the Lord – not servile fear of punishment, but respect and love.

Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for the sins of the whole world has set us free from servile fear of God’s punishment for our sins. We sometimes have to suffer the natural consequences of these sins in this life, but God forgives us punishment in his kingdom, in this life and the life to come. And because we are forgiven sinners we have both the duty and the power to forgive those who sin against us.

And because we share in the resurrected body of Christ we share in that respect and love we know as the fear of the Lord. 

I don’t know whether the man who stood in front of the tanks over 25 years ago was a Christian. The chances are about 1 in 25 that he was. But he transcended his servile fear and showed forth the divine authority of love, the authority Jesus showed in the synagogue, the authority he shares with us.

Jesus drives out our unclean spirits, the spirits of hate, and fear, and unreasoning force. Jesus has filled us with his Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, and godly power, and love.  Thanks be to God! Amen.        

 

Epiphany 2B

In 1946 Victor Frankel published a book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankel was an Austrian psychiatrist, Jewish, liberated from a Dachau area concentration camp in April, 1945. His wife and parents had died in the camps, and Frankel wrote about his experiences, and about how hard it was for him to feel joy again.

Frankel restates the basic biblical affirmation that all life has meaning. God calls us to the task of discerning that meaning and bringing it to life in our lives.

       In today’s collect we pray, “that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth.” A child looking at the stained glass said, “saints are the people the light shines through.” We are God’s saints, and as we say in the “Lift up your hearts” the Sursum corda, “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”

       When we make real the meaning of our lives we “shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory.” We make real both internally and externally. Internally we understand and act on some thought or feeling, and externally we bring that thought or feeling into being. “Always and everywhere” we “give thanks to” the “Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”

       Samuel was asleep in the temple of the Lord. Samuel was a special child. Hannah and her hasband Elkanah had no children and Elkanah’s second wife Peninnah taunted Hannah. Barrenness ran in the family. Abraham and Sarah’s maid Hagar taunted Sarah after the birth of Ishmael. Isaac and Rebecca were barren for 20 years before Esau and Jacob were born. Jacob’s 2^nd wife Rachel whom he loved was also barren until Joseph and Benjamin were born.  Later Elisha’s prayers brought a son to the Shunamite woman (2 Kings 4). And Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, also old and barren.  

       Samuel was specially dedicated to God’s service. It was a spiritually dry time.  “The word of the LORD was rare in those days” as the King James says, “there was no open vision.” The temple was corrupt. High priest Eli allowed his sons Hophni and Phinehas to cheat those who came to sacrifice. In a time of spiritual dryness, need, and corruption God called Samuel.  Samuel made real his calling to revive the people, to be a good and righteous judge, to “shine with the radiance” to prepare the people for the realized kingdom of David.

       In God’s good time his son Jesus was born, the Word made flesh, and began his ministry of reconciliation with John’s baptism in the Jordan. Ministry is not solitary, and Jesus began by recruiting his disciples. This week we hear of Philip and Nathaniel, next week St. Mark’s account of Andrew and Peter, James and John. And then Jesus’ ministry begins in Capernaum - teaching and healing and casting out demons.

       Jesus returned to Galilee, the area where he had been brought up. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and Judea despised Galileans. Galilee was part of the northern kingdom of Israel whose 10 tribes had been deported by Assyria 7 centuries before. The road from Egypt to Mesopotamia passed through Galilee and the people were more susceptible to the influence of foreign ideas. Jerusalem had only ruled Galilee for only a century. Philip was from a fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. He realized inwardly that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Messiah, and when Jesus called him realized that fulfillment externally, following Jesus and sharing with his brother Nathaniel.

       The Prophet Micah wrote in chapter 4 about the promise of God’s kingdom, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more, but they shall sit every man under his vine and his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” “Sitting under the fig tree” became a metaphor for bible study. Nathaniel’s question reflected the skeptical attitude of the Jewish leaders toward Galilee, but Philip’s response is fundamental evangelism, “Come and see!”

       We begin with “come and see.” Someone brought us to see – to see Jesus in his church, in the people of God, in his word written and preached, to see Jesus in baptism and in the holy communion. We saw, and we realized Jesus in our hearts, in our lives, in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives us grace to be faithful to his call on our lives.

       Victor Frankel came to know the meaning of life in the concentration camps, in the loss of wife and parents, in the gradual recovery of joy in freedom. We know the meaning of life in Jesus, and as begin to “shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth.”

 

Epiphany 1 15

Epiphany 1B 15

 Martin Luther was a great leader of the Reformation, the man whose wisdom and courage set Europe ablaze with renewed zeal for Christ. But Luther was also a man of scrupulous conscience, a man very aware of his own frailties and failures, with a tendency to melancholy and depression. Martin Luther knew himself to be a “miserable sinner.” But he also discovered a spiritual remedy for his anxiety, his melancholy and depression. In the worst of times, under tremendous spiritual attack, he would put his hand on his head and proclaim, “I am baptized; I am baptized.” With that assurance he could do the work God had given him to do and proclaim God’s saving love and grace in Jesus Christ.

Today the Scripture lessons tell us of the baptism of Jesus – the reality of our baptism in him, a baptism of water and the Holy Spirit which begins a new relationship with God, a new relationship with ourselves, and a new relationship with other people.

The outward and visible sign of baptism is washing with water in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The inward and spiritual grace of baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God’s family, the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit. (That’s in the Catechism, Prayer Book page 858. If you haven’t read through the Catechism, I want you to do so. It’s only 18 pages long, but we all need to know it.)  Some history and background: The Jews were different from some ancient people because they bathed regularly, sometimes as often as once a month. God’s law in Leviticus 11 and 15 requires a ritual bath to wash away certain kinds of ceremonial uncleanness. In Jesus’ time many people were converting to Judaism and the ritual bath became a sign of conversion and new life in God’s covenant.

John the Baptist said to his fellow Jews, to those born to the Sinai covenant with God, “You have broken your covenant and you need to claim the covenant again as a convert, through the ritual bath” of John’s baptism. It is roughly as though we native-born citizens need to come in under a visa, wait our time, take the test, and the oath, and be naturalized. The baptism of John was a sign of conversion and new life in God’s covenant. 

Jesus comes to John, the sinless son of God fully identifying with the situation of sinful humankind, as the Epistle to the Philippians says, to take upon himself the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, humble himself and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, because he loves us, and wants to bring us to that perfect unity with God the Father which he enjoys. Jesus suffered all the temptations any of us can suffer, and gave us an example that it is possible to be tempted and not sin, not break the unity with the Father.

But he gives us more than an example – he gives us he who was made manifest at his baptism, the Holy Spirit of God, the spirit of truth and power and adoption as children of God. John the Baptist said, “I indeed have baptized with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John’s baptism brought people again into the Old Covenant of Sinai. Jesus’ baptism brings us into the New Covenant, by water and the Holy Spirit. Isaiah had prophesied, “Behold my servant whom I uphold . . . I will put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.”

The manifestation of the Holy Spirit at his baptism marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, a ministry of proclaiming God’s love in word and deed, even to the death on the cross, and resurrection to new life. Jesus died because of sin – common, ordinary, everyday, sin. Judas, for greed, betrayed him. The chief priests, for envy, lied and delivered Jesus a prisoner to Pilate. Pilate, for weakness, unjustly condemned him. The soldiers, for cruelty, scourged him. The crowd, for sadistic pleasure, taunted him. Jesus died for all those sins, and for all our similar sins, and for the sins of the whole world. “Father, forgive them . . .”

Jesus’ baptism, in perfect unity with God the Father, led directly to his death for sin, and his death is followed by his resurrection to life, his ascension to heaven, and the empowering manifestation of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, which led to our being here today.

The baptism of Jesus is the reality of our baptism in him, a baptism of water and the Holy Spirit which begins a new relationship with God, a new relationship with ourselves, and a new relationship with other people.

You can see in your daily life the death to sin and resurrection to fellowship with God as by the power of the Holy Spirit you resist temptation, claiming the power of the Holy Spirit to replace a mean word with a kind word, to express gratitude rather than complaint, to be generous rather than stingy, and as the Prayer Book says, “. . . to live in the power of his resurrection and look for him to come again in glory . . .”

Like Martin Luther, we can put our hands on our heads and proclaim, “I am baptized; I am baptized.” And with that assurance we proceed to the work God gives us to do, to proclaim God’s saving love and grace in Jesus Christ.

Christmas 2B 15

Christmas 2 15

          Happy New Year!  We know from today’s collect that God has “wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature.” That sets the over-arching theme of our coming year. In Jesus Christ God has restored the dignity of human nature, and he has set before us the opportunity to live out, and show forth, that restored nature.  We don’t yet know how we are to do so, but God invites us to share his work in the world he created and his son Jesus Christ has redeemed.

          A good predictor of future action is past performance, and we have some anniversaries this year to celebrate and reflect on.  Fifty years ago in response to both President Johnson’s January State of the Union “Great Society” speech and to the  March 7 Selma, Alabama, confrontation Congress passed and the President signed on August 6 the Civil Rights act. The war in Vietnam and the protests against it increased. The Second Vatican Council was drawing to a close. Malcolm X was killed February 21, Adlai Stevenson died July 14, Albert schweitzed died September 4.

          In 1915 we saw the first use of poison gas in western Europe at the Battle of Ypers April 22, and the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey cost many Australian and New Zealand soldiers life and limb. Many lives were also lost when the passenger ship Lusitania was sunk May 7. The United States began a 19 year occupation of Haiti in July. Leo Frank was lynched in August, and President Wilson married in December.

          The Civil War ended 150 years ago this spring. Fort Fisher fell in mid-January. The Battle of Bentonville was March 19-21. General Lee surrendered at Appomattox April 9. President Lincoln was assassinated April 14. General Johnston surrendered at Bennett Place near Durham April 26. President Jefferson Davis was captured May 10, and the Grand Review of the Union Army was held May 23 and 24.  Aaron Rightmyer, my great-great uncle, marched with Sherman’s army. Finally on December 13 the 13^th Amendment was ratified, and the last slaves in Kentucky and Delaware were finally freed. And in 1865 the Salvation Army was founded in England.

          Going farther back we remember in 1815 January 8 the Battle of New Orleans, in February the Treaty of Ghent to end the war with Britain, and June 18 the Battle of Waterloo, the final defeat of Napoleon.  From September to mid-November 1715 James III the Stuart Old Pretender tried and failed to regain the thrones of Scotland and England. Many Scots then came to America, and more came after James’s son Bonnie Prince Charlie failed in a similar attempt in 1745.  In 1615 we remember the first Jesuit missionaries in China. Nothing much to remember happened in 1515 or 1315, but on July 6, 1415 Czech reformer Jan Hus was burned at the Council of Constance, and June 15, 1215 King John signed the Magna Carta. In November the 4^th Lateran Council established transubstantion was the official Roman Catholic explanation of how Christ is present in the eucharist. That may have been a philosophical triumph for medieval scholasticism, but it raised more questions than it answers. And finally 1215 is also a convenient date to remember Francis of Assisi and the renewal of Christian concern for the poor.

          Church history reminds us that about every 400 years the church seeks to renew itself. We remember again what we pray in today’s collect: God has “wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature.”

          We remembered again the Christmas Day armistice of 1914, and we can rededicate ourselves to the cause of the Prince of Peace.  War continues – in Syria and Iraq, in South Sudan, the unresolved conflicts between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, between North Korea and the United Nations, and Cuba, and Somalia, between Israel and its Arab neighbors, new conflicts in Ukraine and lower level conflicts elsewhere.   War continues, and so do efforts and prayers for peace.

          We are still dealing with unresolved issues of race and economic inequality from the time of the Civil War and before and since.  We have made significant progress in the past 150, and 100, and even 50 years, but we are not yet a country where liberty and justice, and the dignity of human nature, are a reality for all our people.

          I’ve spent some time in Christian ecumenical work, and I am sad to see a real lack of interest in Christian unity, even among those of us who share our Anglican history.  We seem more interested in remembering past hurts and grievances than in seeking to move forward toward greater unity of effort to share the good news of forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ.

          But new creation and restored human nature are possible.  Bishop Weinhauer led the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran churches that form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to full communion and shared ministry. The Episcopal churches in Lincolnton and Newton-Conover are served by a Lutheran pastor. Bishop Weinhauer’s work was the pattern for our agreement with the Moravian Church, and a Moravian pastor serves an Episcopal church near Franklin. 

          Those are simple examples. You can tell or more. But in the year we have just begun let us look for, and work to develop, other places where we can celebrate God’s work in Jesus Christ and in Jesus’ body the church, where, as we prayed in  today’s collect, God has “wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature.” Amen.

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.” 

Proper 23A October 12, 2014

Proper 23A SJHC

          In the 1928 Prayer Book today’s collect is prayed on the 17^th 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.