Easter 5 2016 Rogation Sunday

Easter 5 April 24, 2016

          In the western church calendar today is the 5^th Sunday in Easter season. Next Sunday is Rogation Sunday – the church’s Earth Day. Since about 470 Christians in western Europe have gathered on that Sunday and on the 3 days before Ascension Day to ask God’s blessings on the newly sown crops.

          In the Orthodox churches of Greece, Russia, Egypt and other countries this is Palm Sunday.  The Orthodox keep Easter after Passover, and today is the second day of Passover. Passover continues all this week.  Our Jewish friends and neighbors celebrated Friday, the first night of Passover, remembering how God saved the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

          From the first Prayer Book on the Church of England and the churches she founded have read at Easter the canticle, Christ our Passover. It is on page 83 of the Prayer Book and I ask you to turn to it now.   Archbishop Cranmer put together two passages read at Easter in the medieval Latin service books and added the third from I Corinthians. We sometimes use this canticle in Easter season in place of the Gloria in excelsis. Let’s read it together.

          In the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Last Supper is the Passover meal. For St. John the Last Supper is the night before Passover. For him the lambs are sacrificed in the Temple for the Passover meal at the same time as the excruciatingly painful death on the cross of the Lamb of God – who takes away the sin of the world.

          Orthodox and western churches celebrated Easter together 6 times since 2001. We will celebrate together next year on April 16, but then not until 2025. The dates will be as close as a week apart in 2018 and 35 days apart in 2024.

          Some in the early church, particularly in Asia Minor, kept Easter by the Jewish calendar, but as Christians came to celebrate every Sunday as a reminder of the resurrection Easter Day was also kept on Sunday. The ecumenical council of Nicea in 325 adopted the creed and also set Easter on the Sunday after the spring equinox. Differences in calculating the date between Roman and Celtic churches led to the Synod of Whitby in 664 where the church in the British Isles found union.

          Archaeologists have sought without success physical evidence of the Exodus described in the Bible. The earliest written accounts are dated about 600 years before Christ in Deuteronomy 26 a command to bring the first fruits as an offering, “you shall say before the Lord your God, ‘A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage:  And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression:  And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that flows with milk and honey. ¹⁰ And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which you, O Lord, have given me. And you shall set it before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God.”  

In Jesus’ time and since the Exodus has been the foundation of Israel’s understanding of God’s work in the life of his people. Exodus tells us that the Lord “passed over” the houses of the people of Israel marked with the blood of the sacrificed lamb. God saved the children of Israel, but the first born of Egypt, children and animals, died. This was the last of the 10 plagues, 10 previous efforts to get the Egyptians to free their slaves.

Israel was set free by the shed blood of the Passover. All Israel was set free, both Israel by blood, and we who have been grafted into Israel by faith. We share in the Exodus; we share in God’s gift of freedom.

          Christians believe that by the shed blood of Jesus’ cross our past sins are forgiven. We are set free from the need to continue to sin. God gives us his Holy Spirit to teach us God’s truth and to guide us to do God’s will.

          At his last supper with his disciples – at Passover or on the eve of Passover – Jesus gave them, and gives us, a new commandment, a new commandment that does not replace, but fulfills all the other commandments, the commandment to love one another.  We don’t love in our own power, but we are given power to love by the Holy Spirit of God in our baptisms.   

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast. Amen.

 

Proper 28B Hope and Fear

Proper 28B 15

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  . . .  that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.

          We live in a time of transition.  We’re always in transition, but we are particularly aware of transition now in our church. This weekend is Bishop Taylor’s final annual diocesan convention. His final convention will be June 25, 2016 when we will elect his successor as our bishop.  Two weeks ago Bishop Curry was installed as Presiding Bishop.  At St. James Kathryn Costas has begun to serve as your interim rector. 

We deal with transition with fear and with hope. Our collect tells us of the blessed hope of everlasting life given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Hope is a positive response to times of transition, but the negative response of fear is more common. Today I offer you first an extended example of fear and hope in the early history of the Episcopal Church, and second some lessons for our time drawn from that extended example and from today’s Scripture readings.  

The population of the British American colonies increased 10 times from 1700 to 1776, from 250,000 to 2 and a half million, and a million in the last 10 years.  No bishop in America. Americans had to go to England to be ordained. It cost a year’s income.  In the 1760’s Americans began to ask for a bishop for America, an “apostolic bishop” who would ordain clergy and preside at conventions, but have no part in civil government  - a response of hope in a time of transition.  Their request was met with fear and denied. Royal governors feared loss of income from marriage licenses and probate of wills. Other churches feared the Church of England. The English bishops served in the House of Lords and on government committees. They feared loss of power and office.  

          The two years between Yorktown in October 1781 and the peace treaty and British troops leaving New York in fall 1783 were a time of transition in America and in the American church. About a third of the American Church of England clergy had left for England or Canada or had died in the 7 years between 1776 and 1783. Many feared for the continued life of the church.

          But in March 1783 10 Connecticut clergy met in hope to elect Samuel Seabury to be their bishop – an “apostolic bishop” ordaining and presiding, but with no part in civil government.  Seabury was then 55 years old. His father had been a Church of England priest 41 years in Connecticut and Long Island, New York.  Samuel was educated at Yale and by his father, studied medicine in Edinburg, ordained in England, and served 30 years in New Jersey and New York. At the Revolution he supported the crown as a military and hospital chaplain in New York city. 

          Seabury went to England and for over a year sought consecration from the English bishops. They were afraid and they put him off– for several reasons.  First, many American clergy fled to England during the Revolution and were supported there by church pensions. The English bishops feared that Seabury, who had been loyal to the crown, would not be accepted in independent Connecticut and would come back to England expecting support. Seabury’s letters from the Connecticut governor and from American ambassador John Adams did not resolve the bishops’ fears.  And the English bishops still feared a new model bishop. And, we all fear giving responsibility and authority to people we don’t know. The English bishops did not know Seabury. They knew William White of Pennsylvania who had stayed with his rich aunts in London when he came for ordination in 1770. They knew Samuel Provoost of New York who had studied at Cambridge University in 1764. But Seabury had no English connections.  

The English bishops’ excuse was that they could not consecrate anyone who would not take an oath of allegiance to the British crown. We know it was an excuse because the year after Seabury was consecrated Parliament changed the law. White and Provoost were consecrated for Pennsylvania and New York in 1787 without the oaths.  James Madison was consecrated for Virginia in 1790 without the oaths.

          Seabury then went to Scotland where they knew him and where the bishops had no part in civil government. Seabury was consecrated November 14, 1784, 231 years ago Saturday. The Scots were able to act from hope, not from fear.  Seabury came home, ordained clergy, and served as rector in New London, Connecticut for 11 years until his death February 25, 1796.   In 1792 he joined in the consecration of Thomas Claggett for Maryland. All Episcopal bishops trace their apostolic succession through Claggett to Seabury and the Scottish Episcopal Church.  Our bishops and our church are heirs of hope, not fear.

          Two weeks ago Bishop Michael Curry of Maryland was installed as Presiding Bishop. This is from his sermon. It is a story of the triumph of hope over fear. 

“Sometime in the 1940s  an African American couple went to an Episcopal church one Sunday morning. . . .  The woman had become an Episcopalian after reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, finding the logic of his faith profoundly compelling. Her fiancé was then studying to become . . . a Baptist preacher. But there they were on America’s segregated Sabbath, the only couple of color at an Episcopal Church service of Holy Communion according to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. When the time came for communion the woman, who was confirmed, went up to receive. The man, who had never been in an Episcopal Church, and who had only vaguely heard of Episcopalians, stayed in his seat. As he watched how communion was done, he realized that everyone was drinking real wine — out of the same cup. The man looked around the room, then he looked at his fiancée, then he sat back in the pew as if to say, “This ought to be interesting.” The priest came by uttering these words as each person received the consecrated bread: The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving. Would the priest really give his fiancée communion from the common cup? Would the next person at the rail drink from that cup, after she did? Would others on down the line drink after her from the same cup? The priest came by speaking these words to each person as they drank from the cup: The Blood our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful. The people before her drank from the cup. The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ….  Another person drank.  Preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.   The person right before her drank.  Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s Blood was shed for thee….  Then she drank.  And be thankful.  She drank. Now was the moment her fiancé was waiting for.  Would the next person after her drink from that cup? He watched. The next person drank.  The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee….  And on down the line it went, people drinking from the common cup after his fiancée, like this was the most normal thing in the world.

The man would later say that it was that reconciling experience of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist that brought him into The Episcopal Church . . .He said, “Any Church in which blacks and whites drink out of the same cup knows something about the Gospel that I want to be a part of.”  That couple later married and gave birth to two children, both of whom are here today, and one of whom is the 27^th Presiding Bishop. We are Gods’ children, all of us.  We are God’s baptized children.   We are here to change the world with the power of love. God really does love us. “   

In 7 months clergy and the same lay delegates who are today at Kanuga will meet to elect a bishop. Your comments on this summer’s survey have been considered and a diocesan profile prepared. I hope you will go to the dioceseofwnc.org website and read it.  The profile asks for a bishop who will know us, love us, and lead us – loving God and neighbor, with vision grounded in courage, wisdom, and diversity, committed to justice, to congregational vitality, to pastoral care, with deep integrity, good humor, and an intentional spiritual life. I add a bishop of hope, not fear.

Today we receive communion in the blessed hope of everlasting life, given us in the death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ.  As Bishop Curry said, “We are Gods’ children, all of us.  We are God’s baptized children.   We are here to change the world with the power of love. God really does love us.”

Jesus died for sin on the cross. He rose to give the world new life. He gives us his Holy Spirit of truth and power so we may live to his glory, and tell his good news, particularly in our times of transition.    

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Proper 15B Solomon and wisdom

          Today’s Bible readings are about the spiritual gift of wisdom. Solomon prayed for wisdom and God answered his prayer, giving him the wisdom for which he prayed, and riches and honor besides. The church as Ephesus is told, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” And St. John recalls Jesus’ command to the disciples to continue to come together week by week to receive the spiritual food of remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection in the bread and wine – the spiritual flesh and blood of the risen savior.

          Practical wisdom is knowing and doing the right thing in every situation. In Ephesians it is “understanding what the will of the Lord is” and acting on that understanding.  Wisdom translates the Greek words Logos and Sophia. Logos is also translated Word, as in the opening of St. John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia, was one of the titles of Jesus, and it is the name of the great central church in Constantinople. Jesus understood the will of the Father and acted on that understanding. Our wisdom is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and in his gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

          Let me begin with the historical context of the Old Testament reading.  Solomon reigned from about 970-930 B.C. Two great powers have historically struggled for control of the middle east, the great Fertile Crescent where civilization began: Egypt at one end and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria) at the other. In Solomon’s time both were weak. A new Egyptian dynasty (the 22^nd) had just begun to rule. Solomon married a daughter of the first pharaoh of this dynasty. Mesopotamia was divided by internal conflict. (So what else is new) The Assyrian (Kurdish) empire just coming together. It would conquer the northern kingdom of Israel in 722, about 200 years after Solomon and the division of the kingdom. Because both great powere were weak Solomon was able to control the center part of trade route between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Think of the trade route like I-40 or I-95. The trade route ran from Egypt back from the malarial Mediterranean coast to above the Sea of Galilee then through Syria and down the Euphrates River.  (Imagine if a ruler of Lenoir/ Black Mountain captured Morganton /Asheville and put a toll on I-40, then traded say for horses with Winston-Salem and for moonshine with Asheville/Knoxville). Besides controlling the trade route Solomon sent ships through the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea to trade with Yemen and East Africa. We hear of the visit of the Queen of Sheba. The Ethiopian monarchs claimed descent from the queen’s child by Solomon. Solomon kept David’s army of mercenary soldiers. He continued and expanded David’s practice of marrying for property and political and economic alliances. A ruler who wants to get rich by trade needs peace. Any wars should be quick, cheap, and victorious. Peace is better. Keeping the peace requires wisdom, knowing and doing the will of God.

          We read of wisdom in Isaiah 11, the description of the coming Messiah, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”  

          The church at Ephesus is encouraged to be “wise” to “filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Last week’s children’s talk reminded us of the importance of singing and making melody to the Lord.” We begin our prayer this morning that the bread and wine we offer will be for us the real and spiritual body and blood of Christ Jesus with these words, “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”

          And finally, “Jesus said, ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’”  Jesus did indeed give his flesh, dying on the cross to take away our sins, rising from the tomb on the third day as our first-fruits of resurrection and new life. By his resurrection, ascension, and the gift of the Holy Spirit we begin a new life in him in our baptism.

          Practical wisdom is knowing and doing the right thing in every situation. Our wisdom is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and in his gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We have been set free from the need to sin, and we have been given a new and eternal life. So let us serve our risen Lord this day and always, in truth, in power, and with wisdom, seeking always to know and to do God’s holy will.  Amen.

 

Proper 14B Absalom

          God loves us as his children. He offers us eternal life with him, eternal life through the death and resurrection of the Father’s only-begotten son Jesus Christ our Lord. And God gives us instruction in how to live in this life as we await the life to come.

Today’s Old Testament reading tells of David’s love for his difficult and rebellious son Absalom. God loves us, even when we are difficult and rebellious. When David heard that Absalom had been killed, he “wept; and as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”  Jesus our Lord died for our sins and rose to give us new life as God’s reborn children.

          Today’s gospel includes both the promise of eternal life and the way this promise is fulfilled in Jesus’ death and resurrection. And finally today’s epistle gives us practical guidance on how to live in thanksgiving for God’s unconditional love in the promise of eternal life.         

Some background to the Old Testament reading:  David’s first wife was Michal, King Saul’s daughter. He lost her when he revolted and Saul married her to another man. After Saul died David took her back from her grieving second husband. David and Michal had no children. For good cause she despised him. At Hebron during the conflict with Saul David formed alliances with other powerful leaders by marrying their daughters. He had sons by 6 women.  You can imagine the drama, and the potential succession conflict.                 Amnon, David’s oldest son, lusted after his step-sister Tamar, Absalom’s brother. Amnon pretended to be ill and David ordered Tamar to care for him. He raped her, then he hated her, and two years later her brother Absalom murdered him and fled to his mother’s family in Geshur. Joab, David’s nephew and army commander, negotiated Absalom’s return to Jerusalem but not to the king’s household. Four years later Absalom went to Hebron and, following his father’s example, raised a revolt.  David fled north and hid in the forest of Ephriam. Absalom captured Jerusalem and pursued David, but was captured and killed by Joab’s guards in defiance of David’s public order, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” Joab was David’s nephew and his military commander. He had arranged the death in battle of righteous Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband. David mourned for his son until Joab and the army said, “Enough!” and forced David to return and reign. After Absalom’s revolt David hired more foreign mercenary soldiers and put down more rebellions. After another family conflict David appointed Bathsheba’s son Solomon to succeed him.  Absalom was not a good son, his behavior disappointed David, yet David loved him. We are not good sons and daughters, our behavior has disappointed our earthly parents, yet we are loved, and we love our children even when they do not live up to our expectations or live up to their best potential. David loved his son; we are loved and we love, and God loves us.             God loves us as his children. He offers us eternal life with him, eternal life through the death and resurrection of the Father’s only-begotten son Jesus Christ our Lord. And God gives us instruction in how to live in this life as we await the life to come.             St. John’s gospel expresses his mature life-time reflection on his life with Jesus.  Week by week for some 60 years John’s community had met to hear of Jesus’ life and teaching and to join spiritually with Jesus in active remembrance of the Last Supper - and the crucifixion and resurrection. As they received the bread and wine they remembered Jesus’ self-revelation as “the bread of life . . . the bread that came down from heaven.” They ate the bread and drank the wine trusting in Jesus to “raise them up on the last day.”  So we today receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation trusting the Lord to raise us up on the last day. He has done that for almost 2000 years for many millions of believers.  “I am the bread of life, the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”              Like the Ephesians, we have some practical guidance in living this new spiritual life we receive in baptism.  We receive power by the holy spirit of Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith to “speak the truth . . . to put away . . . bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, and malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” This is not automatic. God works by the Holy Spirit in us and through us, and with us. God will not overrule our free will. If we want to be Absalom, difficult and rebellious, God will let us. But he will grieve as David grieved for Absalom, because God loves us, all of us, all the time, into eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Proper 13B Truth

          In today’s collect we pray that the Lord’s “continual mercy” may “cleanse and defend your Church; and . . .  protect and govern it always by your goodness.”  In the collect for St. James’ Day July 25 we prayed God  “will pour out upon the leaders of your Church that spirit of self-denying service by which alone they may have true authority among your people.”  As this parish begins to seek the rector God is preparing to serve among us and as the diocese begins to seek the bishop God is preparing to serve among us, we pray these prayers: that the Lord’s “continual mercy” may “cleanse and defend your Church; and . . .  protect and govern it always by your goodness, and that God  “will pour out upon the leaders of your Church that spirit of self-denying service by which alone they may have true authority among your people.”

          The source and the example of God’s continual mercy, of God’s cleansing and defending goodness, and of “that spirit of self-denying service” is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. By the gift of the spiritual presence of Jesus Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, by the truth and power of the Holy Spirit of God, given us in the new birth of baptism and received by faith, we can indeed “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

          We are all examples to one another. Some of us are good examples; most of us are very mixed examples. David was a very mixed example. We saw last week his example of yielding to the sins of lust, and adultery, and murder. Today we hear of the courage of Prophet Nathan, and of David’s example of truth and repentance.  Nathan proclaimed the Lord’s judgment, and David had the grace to admit, “I have sinned against the LORD.” David’s sins were many and gaudy, but David did tell the truth, “I have sinned against the LORD. 

          Many of us have had, or been, children caught with hands in the cookie jar – or the like. And many of know the natural human first reaction to being caught in the cookie jar or the like. What is our first reaction? Do we naturally admit that we have done wrong? That has not been my experience. My experience is that the first reaction is to lie. We all want to be innocent, good children. That is our self-image, and we protect that image - even at the cost of truth. To paraphrase Alexander Pope’s 1711 Essay on Criticism “to lie is human, to forgive divine.” (line 275) And when the lie breaks down, our next human impulse is to blame. I’ve mentioned TEAPOT – Those Evil Awful People Over There.

We see this in Genesis 3:8-13: Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”  He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”  God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

          When Nathan proclaimed the Lord’s judgment, David had the grace to admit, “I have sinned against the LORD.” In today’s epistle we read of God’s desire that “all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. . . . speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, . .  as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.”

          The quick lie is easier than the hard truth, but as we grow up we learn that it is the truth that sets us free from the tangles that lies get us into.  

     St. John tells in chapter 8 of Jesus teaching the disciples, “the Jews who had believed in him, “…you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”  Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.  The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

     St. John’s gospel reflects a lifetime of reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ life and resurrection.  Archbishop Rowan Williams dates it toward the end of the first century – about as far from the Resurrection as we are from the Korean war.  Our Sunday gospels this month focus on the meaning of Jesus’ feeding the 5000.

     “The truth will make you free.” The disciples who said, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone,” were not telling the truth. The foundational story of Israel is the Exodus. Slaves in Egypt were set free by the mighty hand of God working through Moses. For over 500 years Israel had been subject to Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Alexander and his successors, and then to Rome. Jesus reminds his disciples, and us, that “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Only by Jesus’ death and resurrection can we be free from sin. Jesus  sets free from the spiritual consequences of past sin, and Jesus gives us the spiritual power of the Holy Spirit to resist temptation.

     In today’s gospel Jesus encourages the people, and us, to resist the temptation to work only for the food that perishes, but to work “for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  We receive that spiritual food, “food that endures for eternal life” given to us in Holy Communion as we remember with present effect, spiritually with the disciples in the upper room on the night in which he was betrayed the Son of Man giving the bread of life, “this is my body given for you,” and the cup of salvation, the new covenant in Jesus’ blood, shed for us and for all who will receive him.

 

          We  pray that the Lord’s “continual mercy” may “cleanse and defend your Church; and . . .  protect and govern it always by your goodness.”  The source and the example of God’s continual mercy, of God’s cleansing and defending goodness, and of “that spirit of self-denying service” is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. By the gift of the spiritual presence of Jesus Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, by the truth and power of the Holy Spirit of God, given us in the new birth of baptism and received by faith, we can indeed “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  Amen.

Proper 12B 15 St. James, David, and the 5000

Proper 12B July 26, 2015 St. John’s Haw Creek and St. James Lenoir

           Four things draw our attention today: (1) Saturday July 25 the feast of St. James, (2) David and Bathsheba, (3) the feeding of the 5000, and (4) God gift to his church, that “Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, as we are being rooted and grounded in love, that we may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and be filled with all the fullness of God.” 

          The New Testament tells us of 3 men named James. Our St. James is the son of Zebedee, brother of John, one of the first four whom Jesus called to be apostles, with Peter and John a witness to the Transfiguration, martyred by King Herod Agrippa about 10 years after the Resurrection. (Acts 12). He is said to have preached in Spain, and his tomb at Santiago has received pilgrims for the last 1200 years. He inspired the Christian reconquest of Spain and Portugal. Portuguese missionaries in the 15^th century brought his story to the Christian kingdom of Kongo in modern Angola. His symbol is the scallop shell. We name churches after him because he was one of the first apostles, first evangelists, first martyrs, and we look for his spiritual aid in the ministries to which we are called.

          David’s son and successor Solomon was a son of Bathsheba, and the story tells how God can redeem human sin. It is also a story of David’s lust, adultery, and murder, and of the righteous behavior of Uriah, a foreign mercenary soldier and an honorable man, betrayed and killed, a martyr to David’s desire to cover-up his misconduct. The story might come from a blog or this year’s newspaper.  Among other things it is a reminder of the power of temptation. David yielded; by the presence and power of Christ dwelling, as today’s epistle says, in our hearts by faith, we receive divine power to resist temptation. 

David had a wife, Saul’s daughter Machal, from whom he was estranged. In Hebron he had sons by six different women. We’ll hear about their conflicts next month. Judging the past by our moral standards doesn’t work, but you’d think David would had enough. But he didn’t. He took Bathsheba, and when her husband Uriah refused to condone David’s adultery, David had him killed. Joab was David’s nephew, his older sister’s son, the leader of David’s troops, and his accomplice in murder. As we will hear next week, their child died, and Solomon was then born. When Solomon became king he had Joab executed.

Our gospel readings in the next 4 weeks are from St. John chapter 6, the feeding of the 5000 and the meaning of that miracle. The feeding is reported in all 4 gospels. St. John’s version most clearly recalls the miracle of God’s feeding the people of Israel in the desert after the Exodus with manna. The people go across the sea; the Passover is at hand. The leftovers fill 12 baskets – one for each of the tribes of Israel.

“When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” After the Exodus feeding with manna Moses withdrew to Mount Sinai where he received the Law. David had fought to be king; Jesus withdraws.

For almost 600 years the Jewish people had been ruled by foreign kings – Babylonian, Persian, Alexander and his Egyptian and Syrian successors, then after 80 years of freedom under the Maccabees, by Rome The desire for freedom under a Jewish anointed king was strong. St. Luke tells us that even after the Resurrection as they went with Jesus to the Mount of Olives for the Ascension the disciples asked, “Will you now, (finally) restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus’ last words to them and to us were these, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”

Ten days after the Ascension, in the upper room, the Holy Spirit did come down on the apostles, giving the church the gifts of power and truth, power and truth to be witnesses to Jesus “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” – even to us today in this congregation and city. 

As the epistle reminds us, we are given “power through his Spirit that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, as we are being rooted and grounded in love. . . . that we may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.” With St. James and all the saints we join in the prayer, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Rogation Sunday Easter 6B

Easter 6 Rogation B
          We used to call this Sunday Rogation Sunday, and the Prayer Book includes as “other commemorations - the Rogation Days, traditionally observed on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Day.”   The collect for these days in the old Prayer Book was this: Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth; We beseech thee to pour forth thy blessing upon this land, and to give us a fruitful season; that we, constantly receiving thy bounty, may evermore give thanks unto thee in thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
          I remember gathering with my priest father and the congregation of St. George’s Indian River Hundred, rural Sussex County, Delaware, in the churchyard on Rogation Sunday to pray for the land and the crops. That tradition continued in Baltimore County, Maryland, and I invite you all to gather with me after this service around in the garden to ask God to “pour forth his blessing upon this land, and to give us a fruitful season.”
          Our secular society reinvents responses to human needs.  In 1970 John McConnell began to promote Earth Day, first in March then in April. McDonnell’s father was a Pentecostal Christian evangelist.  Earth Day is observed by lots of people all over the world who never heard of the Rogation Days.  Some history:
          Back in 470 A.D. the Rhone river area in France suffered unusual storms, floods, earthquakes. Bishop Mamertus of Vienne called for three days of fasting and prayer that God would “pour forth his blessing upon this land, and give us a fruitful season.”  He also called Christians to walk in processions through the fields and pray. And he recommended, and the Roman governor agreed, that the people not work those days.  He picked the three days before Ascension Day in keeping with the custom of a time of prayer and fasting before the great feasts. These were called Rogation Days from the common Latin word rogo – to ask.
          It might have been the human need, or the prayer time, or the three day holiday, or just the opportunity to get out in the spring and visit friends, but the popularity of the Rogation Days gradually spread through northern Europe.  In England Rogation processions are found from the 1100’s and continued through the Reformation into our own time.  Led by the clergy and church leaders people of the parish walked the boundaries of the parish carrying walking sticks to beat the ground at agreed landmarks.  Then they all returned to drink and eat together  - with the leftover food and drink being given to the poor.
          As they walked property disputes were settled by common consent.  And people were encouraged to use the Rogation days as a time to settle other interpersonal conflicts.  The priest poet George Herbert (born 1593 died 1633) wrote of the four advantages of Rogation:  First, God’s blessing for the fruits of the field; Second, Justice in the preservation of bounds;  Third,  Charity in loving walking and neighborly accompanying one another, reconciling differences at that time,  and Fourth, Mercy in relieving the poor by liberal distribution of alms.
          Rogation Days were also observed in America. In the British colonies from Maryland south the Church of England was the established church. In tobacco-growing Virginia and Maryland taxes and rents were paid in certificates of pounds of tobacco. From 1619 in Virginia and from 1692 in Maryland a head tax of about 30 pounds of tobacco each was collected on white males aged 16 and over and on all black slaves 13 and over. The tax was collected at harvest time by the sheriff and paid to the vestries for the support of the church and the poor.  The average worker could make between 1000 and 1500 pounds of tobacco, so 30 pounds of tobacco church tax was about 2 to 3% of income. And the US national average charitable contribution in 2010 was between 2 and 3% of gross domestic product.
                Many of the early settlers of northeast North Carolina were dissenters from the established church who came south to escape the church tax.  Direct taxation of any kind was neither popular nor effective in the Carolina and Georgia colonies. It was not popular, but it was effective in Virginia and Maryland. Parishes were too large for Rogation processions so vestries appointed “processioners” to investigate property boundaries and determine the number of tobacco plants. But the custom of parishes offering spring prayers for the crops and eating a common meal continued.
          The idea of beating the bounds morphed into punishing children at the landmarks so they would remember them. In the 1873 investigation of the Maryland Virginia boundary in the Chesapeake Boy an old waterman told of his father taking him one spring in childhood to the state boundary, showing him the landmarks and then beating him so he would remember them. That’s a far cry from asking God’s blessing on the crops, but it is an indication that the idea continued.
          So far this is more or less interesting history, but what does it have to do with the gospel?  The gospel is in today’s collect, which addresses God who has “prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding.” We pray that God will, “Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire.”
          We read of the first man and woman in a garden. Their task was to tend and to enjoy the garden. St. John’s  has a beautiful garden. Gardening is hard work, but it is rewarding work. Pulling weeds is redemptive - physical weeds in the yard, spiritual weeds in the heart. We enjoy the fruits of the earth. Unlike what is trucked in the local strawberries really have some taste and when they are ripe a wonderful sweetness.
          The sweetness of the crops is a continuing sign of God’s sweet love for us in Jesus Christ. We are blessed with fertile soil, adequate water, good seed, and reasonable weather.  In St. Matthew 5:45 we are reminded that God sends rain on the just and the unjust.  In Isaiah 55:10-11 we learn that as the rain comes from heaven to give seed to the sower and bread to the eater so God’s word will accomplish his purpose and prosper.           The Word of God has come to us in Jesus Christ. So let us give thanks for his death and resurrection, for his real and spiritual presence here in the bread and wine of the mass, and pray for his continued love and mercy on us and God’s whole creation.  
          O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayers at the blessing of the land:

Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth: We humbly pray that your gracious providence may give and preserve to our use the harvests of the land and of the seas, and may prosper all who labor to gather them, that we, who are constantly receiving good things from your hand, may always give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ in his earthly life shared our toil and hallowed our labor:  Be present with your people where they work; make those who carry on the industries and commerce of this land responsive to your will; and give to us all a pride in what we do, and a just return for our labor; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature:  Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.