Epiphany Four
January 28, 2007
Texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10,
Psalm 71:1-6,
I Cor. 13:1-13,
Luke 4:21-30
Ravi Zacharias is a Christian writer and preacher who was born in India and grew up there and in Canada. After receiving a Master of Divinity degree in the States, he went to do post-graduate work at Cambridge University in England.
John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress had always been an important book to him, and he was excited to learn that Bunyan’s hometown, Bedford, was only a short bus ride from Cambridge. One Saturday he made the pilgrimage. He was not disappointed. There in the middle of town was a life-size statue of the tinker/preacher/writer, and his restored house, and a museum, and the church he pastored in the 1600's, still going strong.
Zacharias had a great day wandering around town, praying in the church, examining the house, looking over artifacts in the museum. Finally it was time to go home, but he lingered in the gift shop of the museum, looking over the various editions of the Pilgrim’s Progress for sale. He struck up a conversation with the young clerk. He asked her where she was from.
Right there in Bedford, born and bred. He asked her about Bunyan and she told him all the vital statistics ( when and where born, books written, times in jail, death, etc), things he already knew but he was secretly enjoying her broad Midlands accent. He chatted with her about the different copies of the book available, and she told him all about covers and paper quality and print size. Finally, he asked her what her favorite part of the story was, what bit stuck with her?
Oh, I wouldn’t know, she said, I’ve never read it. It’s quite old and boring isn’t it?
This is an interesting twist on the prophet without honor in his hometown motif. On the one hand, they have greatly honored Bunyan in his hometown of Bedford: statues, museum’s etc. But the woman working in that museum, born and raised in that town, has never paid the least bit of attention to what Bunyan said.
And the question arises: is that how we treat Jesus in the church? Honoring his memory without really remembering what he said. Are we keeping the name alive but forgetting the message?
Is the church a museum to the memory of Jesus, or is it a House of God, where the Risen Christ is proclaimed in Scripture, sermon and song and a Living LORD is encountered in prayer, praise and sacrament? Let’s examine the Scriptures to find some answers.
In today’s Gospel Lesson, we pick up where we left off last week. Remember, Jesus has responded to the call of John by getting baptized, the Holy Spirit comes upon him, he is declared the Beloved Son of God.
Then the Spirit leads him into the Wilderness, where he resists the Devil’s temptations to fame and power, then, still full of the Spirit, he returns to Galilee and begins preaching and healing.
Then he comes to Nazareth, his hometown, and goes to the Synagogue and reads the text from Isaiah about being the Lord’s anointed, and then, our scripture begins. Jesus says - Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Many commentators believe that this is not all that he said, but rather it is a synopsis of what he said, a summation.
Like when President Coolidge went to church one day. When he came home, his wife asked him what the sermon was about. He answered “Sin.” “Well, what did he say about sin?” Coolidge replied, “He’s against it.” So, this is a summary of the short homily, or talk, or teaching Jesus gave in the synagogue that day.
At first people were pretty impressed. Verse 22 says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Here, unlike in Mark, this not an insult, they are simply impressed.
Like the old men in Mount Airy will tell you about going to school with Andy Griffith, “Shoot, I knew him when he was a snot-nosed kid. We went to school together over there on Rockford Street. He warn’t nothing special. A little prissy to tell you the truth, always singing and acting and playing that trombone and such.”
It is in verses 23-27 that he makes them mad. Again, this is a shortened version of the discussion. Apparently they were pleased with his preaching, but they had heard that he had done miracles and healings elsewhere and they wanted him to do some for them. And Jesus refused, Why? Because all they wanted was a show, an exhibition. They weren’t interested in people being healed, they wanted to be entertained, and Jesus was having none of it. And so, we can read between the lines and hear them saying things like,
Who do you think you are? What’s the matter, you too good for us now? You gone off to the city and now you’re too big to do miracles for us? This is where the nasty line from Mark’s version of the story comes in to play, instead of Son of Joseph, Mark has them call him “Mary’s boy.” That’s another way of saying, You ain’t nothing, boy.
Jesus responds with two Hebrew Bible stories of healing. Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath and Elisha and Namaan. What’s important here is that both the widow of Zarephath and Namaan, were gentiles, foreigners, aliens.
Then, Jesus points out that there were many widows and lepers in Israel, but God chose to use Elijah and Elisha to heal the outsiders, and God has chosen Jesus to bring God’s love to everybody, not just the Children of Israel. And this made them really mad. So mad that they ran him out of town and tried to kill him, but he mysteriously got away
Now, here’s the question for us today. Are we like the people in Bedford, honoring the memory of Jesus without actually knowing what he said or meant? Or are we like the people of Nazareth, pleased with Jesus as long as what he says sounds good to us, but turning our backs on him when he says things we don’t like?
Now, most of us would never come right out and say we disagree with Jesus, so we basically use wriggle room to avoid it. Whenever we hear something we don’t like coming out of Jesus’ mouth, we blame it on somebody other than Jesus: the professors, the liberals, the over-educated preachers, the bleeding hearts, the conservatives, the fundamentalists. Anything but admitting that Jesus said it, and I’m supposed to believe it and obey it.
For example, I’ll admit it, I’m a little hard-hearted about poor people and homeless people. My heart sneers, get a job, go work, get busy. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault. Despite a UNC and Duke Education and years of prayer and Bible study and living with a Social Worker for 32 years, somewhere in a place I don’t visit very often, deep in my soul, I still feel that way. Deborah would say it’s the Chilton in me.
And yet Jesus said The Holy Spirit had anointed him to preach Good News to the poor. He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. There is the great judgement parable in which Jesus said, “If you did unto one of the least of these, the cold, the hungry, the naked, the poor, you did it unto me.” And many more things about the poor and my, our obligation to them. We have to deal with that. Do we sort of ignore it, like the nice lady at the Bunyan Museum ignored Pilgrim’s Progress? Do we get mad about it, and turn our backs on Jesus, like the people of Nazareth? Or do we swallow our pride and obey our master.
Have we stopped listening to Jesus? He says many things about loving the stranger and the foreigner, about turning the other cheek, about living a life of prayer, about selling what we have and giving it to the poor, about the Kingdom of God being inside us, etc. etc. And here’s the question, do we take Jesus seriously, or are we giving him the yada, yada treatment, nodding and smiling, but not really listening, putting him off and putting him on?
I hope not. I really hope not. But listening to Jesus is hard. Many things he says challenge us; they challenge our ideas and our prejudices and our actions. But Jesus also invites us, invites us to think about things in a new way, to think about others in a new way, to act toward others in a new way. Jesus invites us to join him in living in the world by the rules of the Kingdom of God, not the rules of earthly success and happiness.
Jesus invites us to join him in blessing the world with God’s grace and acts of healing and love.
Jesus invites us to join him in going out to all lands and all peoples with the great Good News that the Kingdom of God has come and we are all invited to be a part of it.
Amen and amen.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Epiphany 3, January 21, 2007
EPIPHANY 3
JANUARY 21, 2007
Text: Luke 4:14-21
Many of you are, no doubt, familiar with the name Thad Eure. He was a fascinating man. He was NC’s Secretary of State from 1936 to 1989. He was also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Elon University from 1955 to 1989. He used to refer to himself as “the oldest rat in the Democratic barn.” He was also quite a storyteller, in the rural NC tradition in which all of the stories are true, even if they aren’t exactly factual.
He used to tell a story about a man running for governor who was politicking and speechifying at a huge outdoor rally down east somewhere. They were serving a big dinner of pork barbecue and fried chicken with all the necessary accoutrements.
As the candidate went through the line, he received one piece a chicken, a little piece, a wing or a back or something. He smiled his politician’s smile and asked the serving woman for another piece. Without looking up she said “one per person.”
He smiled again and said, “Yes, but his is an awfully small piece and I’m an awfully big man. Could I please have another?” Again she said, “One per person.”
At this point the candidate got a little huffy and said,“Look, do you know who I am?”
She said, “Nope, but I know who I am. I’m the chicken lady and I said one per person.”
Today’s Gospel lesson is about knowing who you are. Specifically, it is about Jesus knowing who he is and what he is called to do. It is also about our knowing who we are and what we are called to do, for the two are intimately related. Our identity as Christian people flows directly out of Jesus’ identity as the Christ of God, and what we are called to do follows directly on what Jesus was called to.
As we look at this story, it is important to place it in its proper context. The flow of Luke’s story goes like this:
John the Baptist is Preaching and Baptizing
Lots of people are coming to get baptized
One of those people is Jesus
After Jesus gets baptized
the Spirit descends on him and he is declared
the beloved Son of God
the Spirit leads him in to the Wilderness
where he is tempted by the Devil
then our text begins, in which:
“filled with the power of the Spirit”
he teaches around Galilee.
he goes to the synagogue, (HIS HABIT) and reads and preaches/teaches about What? About the Spirit anointing him
for ministry.
Now, what happens right after this, in the part we didn’t read, is how his friends and neighbors were not too impressed by all this, indeed they got mad enough to run him out of town, in fact, they intended to kill him, but he got away.
What are we to make of all this? How can we begin to understand what it means for us? Well, there are two things I want to focus on here, and we’ll take them in turn.
One is the business of Spirit and Identity. As I retold the last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4 in Luke, I purposely emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus was about was rooted in the leading of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit and the comfort of the Spirit.
All too often we in the church act as though what happens in the life of the church were up to us. We take a bow in God’s direction and say a prayer or two for guidance, but then we go about the church’s business relying on our own ideas and interests and abilities.
We forget that even Jesus was dependent upon the Spirit, who are we to think or act as though we can go it alone.
In the Bible, 40 is a number that symbolizes a long time, usually a long time of testing and waiting and getting clear spiritually. Think about the children of Israel being in the wilderness for 40 years, of the Noah flood lasting 40 days and 40 nights, etc. When the Bible says Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days, it means he spent a great deal of time in prayer and study and spiritual discipline, seeking to know exactly what it was God was calling him to Be and to Do.
Biblical Scholar and Bishop Tom Wright points out that what we often call an “inspired” performance” is usually the result of long years of practice and preparation. A great musician, a fine actor, a superb athlete; none of them appears on the world’s stage without the blood, sweat and tears of dedicated work to get ready.
Jesus had spent the time in prayer and study to be prepared for the moment God called upon him to come forth as the Lord’s Anointed. The Spirit, the ‘inspiration” came on him because he was ready to receive it.
We are called to do no less. We are called to be prepared, to be ready, to be open to the Spirit; and the only way to do that is to take seriously our call to study scripture and to pray and to seek God’s will in the community of the faithful. It was not by accident that it was Jesus’ custom to go to synagogue. He didn’t go there because they were friendly (this bunch certainly was not) he didn’t go there because his Mama and his brothers and cousins were there (though they were); Jesus went to pray, to hear God’s word read and explained, to prepare for the moment when God would call upon him to do something extraordinary, and when that moment came, he was ready.
So, the first thing we see here is Jesus preparation for and dependence upon the Spirit.
The second thing we note the nature of what Jesus is called to do.
Talked to a pastor friend not to long ago who saw a church sign which said, WE CARE FOR YOU! in big letters.
Underneath, in small print, it said, Sundays, 10 am only.
The things Jesus is called to say and do as the Lord’s anointed shout out in large letters the message: GOD CARES FOR YOU!
Good News to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed. Love, care, act.
As the followers of Christ, we too are called to care, not just in our hearts, but also in our actions. And we are called to caring actions all the time, not just on Sundays at 10 AM. We are called to find ways as individuals and as a church, a community of faith, of doing those very things Jesus talks about it this Scripture lesson. To do any less would be to back away from our call to take up our cross and follow.
When I was a kid, Yogi Berra was one of my favorite baseball players. He didn’t look like a ballplayer, yet he played like one of the best. When I got older, I got even more fond of him as I began to read some of the Yogisms that were often quoted on the sports pages, things like:
That restaurant’s so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Anybody who is popular is bound to be disliked.
My all time favorite is this:
If you don’t know where you’re going, You might wind up someplace else.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus shows clearly that he knows who he is and where he is going. It is an awareness that has come to him through serious study of the scriptures, deep and impassioned prayer and a commitment to living within the community of God’s faithful people.
We are called today to follow Jesus in this ministry. We are called to study the scriptures, pray hard and long for guidance, to live out a commitment to the gathered people of God by coming together in worship and prayer and service. And we are called to follow the Spirit’s leading in serving the world in Jesus’ name.
Reaching out in love and action to those who are poor and oppressed, blind and lame, sharing with them the joyous Good news of a Christ, a Messiah, who can lift them up, ease their pain, restore their sight and set them free.
Amen and amen.
JANUARY 21, 2007
Text: Luke 4:14-21
Many of you are, no doubt, familiar with the name Thad Eure. He was a fascinating man. He was NC’s Secretary of State from 1936 to 1989. He was also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Elon University from 1955 to 1989. He used to refer to himself as “the oldest rat in the Democratic barn.” He was also quite a storyteller, in the rural NC tradition in which all of the stories are true, even if they aren’t exactly factual.
He used to tell a story about a man running for governor who was politicking and speechifying at a huge outdoor rally down east somewhere. They were serving a big dinner of pork barbecue and fried chicken with all the necessary accoutrements.
As the candidate went through the line, he received one piece a chicken, a little piece, a wing or a back or something. He smiled his politician’s smile and asked the serving woman for another piece. Without looking up she said “one per person.”
He smiled again and said, “Yes, but his is an awfully small piece and I’m an awfully big man. Could I please have another?” Again she said, “One per person.”
At this point the candidate got a little huffy and said,“Look, do you know who I am?”
She said, “Nope, but I know who I am. I’m the chicken lady and I said one per person.”
Today’s Gospel lesson is about knowing who you are. Specifically, it is about Jesus knowing who he is and what he is called to do. It is also about our knowing who we are and what we are called to do, for the two are intimately related. Our identity as Christian people flows directly out of Jesus’ identity as the Christ of God, and what we are called to do follows directly on what Jesus was called to.
As we look at this story, it is important to place it in its proper context. The flow of Luke’s story goes like this:
John the Baptist is Preaching and Baptizing
Lots of people are coming to get baptized
One of those people is Jesus
After Jesus gets baptized
the Spirit descends on him and he is declared
the beloved Son of God
the Spirit leads him in to the Wilderness
where he is tempted by the Devil
then our text begins, in which:
“filled with the power of the Spirit”
he teaches around Galilee.
he goes to the synagogue, (HIS HABIT) and reads and preaches/teaches about What? About the Spirit anointing him
for ministry.
Now, what happens right after this, in the part we didn’t read, is how his friends and neighbors were not too impressed by all this, indeed they got mad enough to run him out of town, in fact, they intended to kill him, but he got away.
What are we to make of all this? How can we begin to understand what it means for us? Well, there are two things I want to focus on here, and we’ll take them in turn.
One is the business of Spirit and Identity. As I retold the last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4 in Luke, I purposely emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus was about was rooted in the leading of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit and the comfort of the Spirit.
All too often we in the church act as though what happens in the life of the church were up to us. We take a bow in God’s direction and say a prayer or two for guidance, but then we go about the church’s business relying on our own ideas and interests and abilities.
We forget that even Jesus was dependent upon the Spirit, who are we to think or act as though we can go it alone.
In the Bible, 40 is a number that symbolizes a long time, usually a long time of testing and waiting and getting clear spiritually. Think about the children of Israel being in the wilderness for 40 years, of the Noah flood lasting 40 days and 40 nights, etc. When the Bible says Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days, it means he spent a great deal of time in prayer and study and spiritual discipline, seeking to know exactly what it was God was calling him to Be and to Do.
Biblical Scholar and Bishop Tom Wright points out that what we often call an “inspired” performance” is usually the result of long years of practice and preparation. A great musician, a fine actor, a superb athlete; none of them appears on the world’s stage without the blood, sweat and tears of dedicated work to get ready.
Jesus had spent the time in prayer and study to be prepared for the moment God called upon him to come forth as the Lord’s Anointed. The Spirit, the ‘inspiration” came on him because he was ready to receive it.
We are called to do no less. We are called to be prepared, to be ready, to be open to the Spirit; and the only way to do that is to take seriously our call to study scripture and to pray and to seek God’s will in the community of the faithful. It was not by accident that it was Jesus’ custom to go to synagogue. He didn’t go there because they were friendly (this bunch certainly was not) he didn’t go there because his Mama and his brothers and cousins were there (though they were); Jesus went to pray, to hear God’s word read and explained, to prepare for the moment when God would call upon him to do something extraordinary, and when that moment came, he was ready.
So, the first thing we see here is Jesus preparation for and dependence upon the Spirit.
The second thing we note the nature of what Jesus is called to do.
Talked to a pastor friend not to long ago who saw a church sign which said, WE CARE FOR YOU! in big letters.
Underneath, in small print, it said, Sundays, 10 am only.
The things Jesus is called to say and do as the Lord’s anointed shout out in large letters the message: GOD CARES FOR YOU!
Good News to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed. Love, care, act.
As the followers of Christ, we too are called to care, not just in our hearts, but also in our actions. And we are called to caring actions all the time, not just on Sundays at 10 AM. We are called to find ways as individuals and as a church, a community of faith, of doing those very things Jesus talks about it this Scripture lesson. To do any less would be to back away from our call to take up our cross and follow.
When I was a kid, Yogi Berra was one of my favorite baseball players. He didn’t look like a ballplayer, yet he played like one of the best. When I got older, I got even more fond of him as I began to read some of the Yogisms that were often quoted on the sports pages, things like:
That restaurant’s so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Anybody who is popular is bound to be disliked.
My all time favorite is this:
If you don’t know where you’re going, You might wind up someplace else.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus shows clearly that he knows who he is and where he is going. It is an awareness that has come to him through serious study of the scriptures, deep and impassioned prayer and a commitment to living within the community of God’s faithful people.
We are called today to follow Jesus in this ministry. We are called to study the scriptures, pray hard and long for guidance, to live out a commitment to the gathered people of God by coming together in worship and prayer and service. And we are called to follow the Spirit’s leading in serving the world in Jesus’ name.
Reaching out in love and action to those who are poor and oppressed, blind and lame, sharing with them the joyous Good news of a Christ, a Messiah, who can lift them up, ease their pain, restore their sight and set them free.
Amen and amen.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Second Sunday After Epiphany, January 14, 2007
Epiphany 2, January 14, 2007
Texts: I Corinthians 12:1-11
Will Willimon is now the Methodist Bishop of Alabama. For a long time he was the Minister to the University at Duke. He says he knows only one person who has experienced an empirically proven and medically attested healing.
The woman who was healed was an atheist before her healing. And, Willimon says, she remained an atheist after her healing She went to the hospital with very serious burns on her hand and arm. The next morning there was no trace of the burns. Doctors had absolutely no explanation for her healing. They labeled it a miracle.
The woman who was healed was totally discombobulated by it and spend a great deal of the next few years researching possible explanations, coming up with some version of what she called a “spontaneous reaction of the cellular structure.” She was willing to believe anything BUT the idea that God or the Supernatural was involved.
Dr. Willimon points out that we should learn from this incident something Jesus clearly knew. When it comes to matters of faith, miracles are not very helpful! Miracles DO NOT produce faith, at most, they confirm it.
In the story of Jesus turning the water into wine, the disciples were already committed to following Jesus, and they are ones the text says believed. The miracle had no apparent effect on the servants who knew what had happened. In other words, the miracle confirmed the faith of the disciples without converting anyone.
Over and over again in the Gospels, Jesus performs miracles, especially healings, and then tells people not to say anything about it. Why? Why would he do that? When I do something extraordinary I tell everybody about it MYSELF! Why would Jesus be so secretive? Well, because he knew that miracles do not produce faith. Or rather, he knew that a faith based in miracles, in what God can do for you, is a fleeting, skin-deep faith, needing to be propped up with more and more miraculous happenings.
No, Jesus was about creating deep and abiding faith in his followers.And his miracles, signs John calls them, were intended to deepen faith, not create it. They were meant to draw his disciples deeper into the mystery of God’s will for the world.
John is a writer whose work is always full of symbolism, he intends to show spiritual truth through the use of human stories. Reading John is like watching the TV show Lost or the old X-files show: things are seldom what they seem and the obvious is always wrong.
A prevailing theme throughout John is that Jesus is the start of something entirely NEW, not only for Israel but for the world. The coming of Jesus as the Messiah has transformed what used to be into something entirely new and different.
God, in Jesus the Christ, is doing a whole new thing, and nothing will ever be the same as it was before. For John, Jesus’ miracles are signs, hints, of that new thing, that new kingdom. The changing of water into wine at the wedding is the first sign of the new day.
There are, in John’s Gospel, seven signs,
1 - Water to Wine - 2:1-11
2 - Gentile Official’s Son healed - 4:46-54
3 - Lame man made to walk - 5:2-8
4 - Feeding of the 5000 - 6:1-14
5 - Walking on Water - 6:16-21
6 - Man blind from birth receives sight - chapter 9
7 - The Raising of Lazarus - Chapter 11
Notice how they grow in difficulty and significance, from the almost trivial sign of providing wine for a party to the ultimate sign of new life out of death. And none of them converts anybody, indeed John says in Chapter 12, verse 37:
“Though he had done so many signs before them, yet they did not believe in him.”
If the point is not conversion, what is the point of the signs? What do the signs point to? In particular, what is the point of John’s telling us that Jesus turned the water into wine at a wedding?
It is important that the water was the water set aside for the Jewish purification rites. It was there for people who came to the wedding to wash up, not only to get the dirt of the road off themselves and their clothes, but also to be ritually pure for the meal.
In this sign, Jesus takes the OLD, the water of purification, the old way of getting right with God; and turns it into the NEW, the new wine of the Spirit, the new way of BEING right with God. The Messiah has come and is doing a new and different thing.
Back when I was in Seminary in Columbia SC, I was scheduled to preach for a Lutheran Church in the little town of Prosperity SC. I got hopelessly lost, and it was about 10:30 when I came to a stop at an intersection. There were two signs, pointing in opposite directions; each one said Prosperity, 11 miles.
There was a man in a field right next tot he road, he was working on his tractor. I rolled down the window, got his attention and asked him, Does it matter which way I go to Prosperity?
He looked at me, he looked at the signs, he looked back at me, he spit on the ground, pulled up his pants, and said, Not to me it don’t!
A good question for us today is what does this text say to us. Not what difference did it make to the people at that wedding 2000 years ago, but; what difference does it make to me, now, today?
If Jesus can turn water into wine, what is our water that needs to be transformed, changed, by the power of God’s love? If Jesus, through the poser of God’s love, changed the purification rites into an outpouring of God’s Spirit, what is the promise of what God will do for us?
In 1964, there was a war on between Malaysia and Indonesia. A group of Gurkha tribesmen from Nepal were asked if they would be willing to jump from transport planes into combat against the Indonesians.
The Gurkhas usually agreed to anything, but this time they originally rejected the plan. The next day one of their officers went to see the British officer who made the request and said they had thought about it and discussed it and would make the jump under certain conditions.
1) the land has to be soft or marshy with no rocks,
2) the plane had to fly as slowly as possible and only 100 feet above the ground.
The British Officer said the soft landing would be no problem, and they always flew as slowly as possible when troops were jumping, but that 100 feet was too low. The Parachute wouldn’t have time to open.
The Gurkhas said, “Oh, that’s alright then. We’ll jump with parachutes anywhere. You never said anything about parachutes.” It seems to me that many of us are trying to live our Christian lives without parachutes.
We’re trying to live up to God’s will and way without using the gifts God has given us. We’re trying to go it alone, we’re trying to lower the standards so that we can meet them, we’re trying to be good enough for God on our own.
And the message of the Gospel is we don’t have to. All seven signs in John are revelations, showings, demonstrations of God’s ability and willingness to change, to transform our lives. Yet, we seldom avail ourselves of this life-changing offer. We’d rather live like spiritual pygmies, just struggling by, than to stand tall like children of Almighty God.
Not only does John show that Jesus has come to change our lives, Paul in I Corinthians goes on and on about the gifts of the Spirit, gifts which are bestowed on all of us. This list is not complete, total, exhaustive. It is partial, temporary, illustrative. There are as many gifts of the Spirit as there are human beings. We are all gifts of God to each other, we are all unique expressions of God’s creative activity in the world, we all receive abilities and talents and insights, not for ourselves, but for others.
One of the most important verses in the Bible is almost buried, obscured in our reading from I Corinthians: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Many of us fail to recognize that we are blessed, talented, gifted; many of us have trouble recognizing that we are made by God with individual care and unique possibilities.
Others of us are all too aware of our gifts, we are just not aware that they were given to us for a purpose. We think of our gift as ours, to be savored and enjoyed, but for us and us alone.
The message of the Gospel is that God gave us our gifts, and God gave us our gifts fort a purpose and that purpose is serving the “common good”.
We are put on this earth to give something back, to be a blessing to others, to help somebody somewhere on their way. We are not here for ourselves, we are here for God and the world.
Our calling today is to offer ourselves completely to Christ, to turn ourselves over to him, to trust him with our lives. We are called to be like the water in those stone jars, ready to be changed and transformed by the power of Christ into a new wine of the Spirit, filling the world with Words of hope, acts of love and song of Joy.
Amen and Amen.
Texts: I Corinthians 12:1-11
Will Willimon is now the Methodist Bishop of Alabama. For a long time he was the Minister to the University at Duke. He says he knows only one person who has experienced an empirically proven and medically attested healing.
The woman who was healed was an atheist before her healing. And, Willimon says, she remained an atheist after her healing She went to the hospital with very serious burns on her hand and arm. The next morning there was no trace of the burns. Doctors had absolutely no explanation for her healing. They labeled it a miracle.
The woman who was healed was totally discombobulated by it and spend a great deal of the next few years researching possible explanations, coming up with some version of what she called a “spontaneous reaction of the cellular structure.” She was willing to believe anything BUT the idea that God or the Supernatural was involved.
Dr. Willimon points out that we should learn from this incident something Jesus clearly knew. When it comes to matters of faith, miracles are not very helpful! Miracles DO NOT produce faith, at most, they confirm it.
In the story of Jesus turning the water into wine, the disciples were already committed to following Jesus, and they are ones the text says believed. The miracle had no apparent effect on the servants who knew what had happened. In other words, the miracle confirmed the faith of the disciples without converting anyone.
Over and over again in the Gospels, Jesus performs miracles, especially healings, and then tells people not to say anything about it. Why? Why would he do that? When I do something extraordinary I tell everybody about it MYSELF! Why would Jesus be so secretive? Well, because he knew that miracles do not produce faith. Or rather, he knew that a faith based in miracles, in what God can do for you, is a fleeting, skin-deep faith, needing to be propped up with more and more miraculous happenings.
No, Jesus was about creating deep and abiding faith in his followers.And his miracles, signs John calls them, were intended to deepen faith, not create it. They were meant to draw his disciples deeper into the mystery of God’s will for the world.
John is a writer whose work is always full of symbolism, he intends to show spiritual truth through the use of human stories. Reading John is like watching the TV show Lost or the old X-files show: things are seldom what they seem and the obvious is always wrong.
A prevailing theme throughout John is that Jesus is the start of something entirely NEW, not only for Israel but for the world. The coming of Jesus as the Messiah has transformed what used to be into something entirely new and different.
God, in Jesus the Christ, is doing a whole new thing, and nothing will ever be the same as it was before. For John, Jesus’ miracles are signs, hints, of that new thing, that new kingdom. The changing of water into wine at the wedding is the first sign of the new day.
There are, in John’s Gospel, seven signs,
1 - Water to Wine - 2:1-11
2 - Gentile Official’s Son healed - 4:46-54
3 - Lame man made to walk - 5:2-8
4 - Feeding of the 5000 - 6:1-14
5 - Walking on Water - 6:16-21
6 - Man blind from birth receives sight - chapter 9
7 - The Raising of Lazarus - Chapter 11
Notice how they grow in difficulty and significance, from the almost trivial sign of providing wine for a party to the ultimate sign of new life out of death. And none of them converts anybody, indeed John says in Chapter 12, verse 37:
“Though he had done so many signs before them, yet they did not believe in him.”
If the point is not conversion, what is the point of the signs? What do the signs point to? In particular, what is the point of John’s telling us that Jesus turned the water into wine at a wedding?
It is important that the water was the water set aside for the Jewish purification rites. It was there for people who came to the wedding to wash up, not only to get the dirt of the road off themselves and their clothes, but also to be ritually pure for the meal.
In this sign, Jesus takes the OLD, the water of purification, the old way of getting right with God; and turns it into the NEW, the new wine of the Spirit, the new way of BEING right with God. The Messiah has come and is doing a new and different thing.
Back when I was in Seminary in Columbia SC, I was scheduled to preach for a Lutheran Church in the little town of Prosperity SC. I got hopelessly lost, and it was about 10:30 when I came to a stop at an intersection. There were two signs, pointing in opposite directions; each one said Prosperity, 11 miles.
There was a man in a field right next tot he road, he was working on his tractor. I rolled down the window, got his attention and asked him, Does it matter which way I go to Prosperity?
He looked at me, he looked at the signs, he looked back at me, he spit on the ground, pulled up his pants, and said, Not to me it don’t!
A good question for us today is what does this text say to us. Not what difference did it make to the people at that wedding 2000 years ago, but; what difference does it make to me, now, today?
If Jesus can turn water into wine, what is our water that needs to be transformed, changed, by the power of God’s love? If Jesus, through the poser of God’s love, changed the purification rites into an outpouring of God’s Spirit, what is the promise of what God will do for us?
In 1964, there was a war on between Malaysia and Indonesia. A group of Gurkha tribesmen from Nepal were asked if they would be willing to jump from transport planes into combat against the Indonesians.
The Gurkhas usually agreed to anything, but this time they originally rejected the plan. The next day one of their officers went to see the British officer who made the request and said they had thought about it and discussed it and would make the jump under certain conditions.
1) the land has to be soft or marshy with no rocks,
2) the plane had to fly as slowly as possible and only 100 feet above the ground.
The British Officer said the soft landing would be no problem, and they always flew as slowly as possible when troops were jumping, but that 100 feet was too low. The Parachute wouldn’t have time to open.
The Gurkhas said, “Oh, that’s alright then. We’ll jump with parachutes anywhere. You never said anything about parachutes.” It seems to me that many of us are trying to live our Christian lives without parachutes.
We’re trying to live up to God’s will and way without using the gifts God has given us. We’re trying to go it alone, we’re trying to lower the standards so that we can meet them, we’re trying to be good enough for God on our own.
And the message of the Gospel is we don’t have to. All seven signs in John are revelations, showings, demonstrations of God’s ability and willingness to change, to transform our lives. Yet, we seldom avail ourselves of this life-changing offer. We’d rather live like spiritual pygmies, just struggling by, than to stand tall like children of Almighty God.
Not only does John show that Jesus has come to change our lives, Paul in I Corinthians goes on and on about the gifts of the Spirit, gifts which are bestowed on all of us. This list is not complete, total, exhaustive. It is partial, temporary, illustrative. There are as many gifts of the Spirit as there are human beings. We are all gifts of God to each other, we are all unique expressions of God’s creative activity in the world, we all receive abilities and talents and insights, not for ourselves, but for others.
One of the most important verses in the Bible is almost buried, obscured in our reading from I Corinthians: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Many of us fail to recognize that we are blessed, talented, gifted; many of us have trouble recognizing that we are made by God with individual care and unique possibilities.
Others of us are all too aware of our gifts, we are just not aware that they were given to us for a purpose. We think of our gift as ours, to be savored and enjoyed, but for us and us alone.
The message of the Gospel is that God gave us our gifts, and God gave us our gifts fort a purpose and that purpose is serving the “common good”.
We are put on this earth to give something back, to be a blessing to others, to help somebody somewhere on their way. We are not here for ourselves, we are here for God and the world.
Our calling today is to offer ourselves completely to Christ, to turn ourselves over to him, to trust him with our lives. We are called to be like the water in those stone jars, ready to be changed and transformed by the power of Christ into a new wine of the Spirit, filling the world with Words of hope, acts of love and song of Joy.
Amen and Amen.
Friday, January 05, 2007
The Baptism of Our Lord, January 7, 2007
THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD
January 7, 2007
Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
There’s an old preacher story about the theatrical pastor who had a great idea for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. He went to the pet store and bought a little white bird. Then he recruited the church janitor to sit, with the bird, in the unused balcony during the service.
When the preacher said, “And the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove,” the janitor was supposed to release the bird and let it fly out over the congregation. You have to admit, it would have been kind of cool. Tacky, yes, but still, kinda cool.
When the pastor got to the right place, he paused briefly and then said, quite dramatically, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove,” while, throwing out his arm and pointing to the heavens expectantly. And nothing happened.
He waited a little bit then said, again, more loudly, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.”
Still, nothing happened. So, he proclaimed a third time, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove!”
At this point the janitor leaned over the balcony and said, “The cat done ate the bird. You want I should throw down the cat?”
When I was a kid, if you were shy or failed to answer an adult’s question, they would usually say, “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
As we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord today, there are several questions that come to mind. One of them could be phrased, “Cat got your Baptism?”
Put in Religious terms: “How has being a Baptized person affected your life?” “What difference does having a few drops of water sprinkled on your head make?”
Let’s examine this:
One of the interesting things about any discussion of baptism is that the thing most people “know” is the least important thing about it. People “know” that you have to be baptized to get rid of Original Sin. Some people worry about babies who die going to Hell if they haven’t been baptized and others worry about everybody who hasn’t been baptized going to Hell. This is a serious misunderstanding of the sacrament that turns it into a piece of “Magic,” of divine Hocus-Pocus, of humans casting some sort of spell which requires God to act in a certain way, in this case, allowing the Baptized into heaven.
It is because of this understanding of baptism that people sometimes ask, “Why was Jesus baptized, since he was a sinless, perfect being, he had no sins which needed forgiving.” This kind of thinking is rooted in a basically backwards picture of who God relates to us. We struggle mightily with the nature of the gift of God’s love to us.
We try to earn it, or we feel unworthy of it. We try to figure out what we must do to deserve it; we try to pay for it.
It reminds me of the story of Harvey Pinnick. Harvey, back in the 1920’s, bought a little red spiral notebook and began jotting down his observations about golf and life. He never showed the book to anyone but his son. In 1991, Harvey gave the book to a writer he knew and asked him if he thought it was worth publishing. The writer showed the book to an editor at Simon and Schuster Publishers. They called and spoke to Harvey’s wife, saying they had decided to publish with an advance of $90,000.
Several days passed and Harvey Pinnick had not responded to the message. Finally, Harvey spoke to his writer friend and said that with all his medical bills he just didn’t see how he could come up with the 90,000 to get the book published. The writer had to explain to Harvey that he didn’t pay Simon and Schuster; Simon and Schuster paid him!
All too often, we’re like Harvey Pinnick. We misunderstand the message of the Gospel. We think we have to do things to make God love us when the message of our baptism is just the opposite; God loves us just the way we are.
Baptism is a message to us that our sins are forgiven; sins: past, present and future. Baptism doesn’t forgive our sins; God forgives our sins. Baptism tells us that our sins are forgiven. We are reminded of our baptism and our forgiveness, every time we make confession. The sign of the cross is made by the pastor, and can be made by you, as a reminder that the sign of the cross was made on your forehead in Baptism and that it is through the cross that we are forgiven.
Yes, God loves us just the way we are. God also loves us too much to let us stay that way. Forgiveness of sins is not all that is going on in Baptism. Look at our second lesson, the reading from Acts: At first glance, it looks like a bit of theological silliness; baptized in name of Jesus only, so what?
But I think the issue had to do with what some of us do, limiting the meaning of Baptism to its least important function. Without the understanding that in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit, we are left with a wooden, legalistic, tit-for-tat, formalistic, action; like a courthouse marriage of convenience.
But, with the giving of the Holy Spirit, we are in a dynamic, organic, growing, pulsating relationship with God almighty. We go from being over here, with God over there, to being enmeshed with God. God’s in us, we’re in God, we are the Body of Christ, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are NOT far off and distant from God, simply seeking to keep God from sending us to Hell through magical religious rites and our accumulated list of Good Works. NO! We are part of the Divine Presence in the world. God has made God’s dwelling to be within us.
Writing in Christianity Today, Pastor Paul Bocca talks about how some people find a genuinely Christian life boring. Going to church, doing the liturgy, reading the lessons, hearing the sermons, doing the rituals, serving on committees, etc. etc. It’s BORING! This, he says, is why so many find their way to TV ministries and huge mega-churches that are entertaining and exciting.
Pastor Bocca then turns this BORING accusation upside down – by admitting it, and then reminding us of another meaning for the word boring.
He says Christianity is boring. It is like the slow movement of a drill; slowly, laboriously digging beneath the surface of our lives. The continuing cycle of Sunday after Sunday, season after season, year after year, the Christian message and life in community bores ever deeper and deeper into our souls, until, we begin to realize the truth of the words spoken over us in baptism.
That we are a beloved child of God, we are marked with the cross of Christ forever, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are called to follow Christ, we are to love one another unconditionally, we are forgiven and called to forgive others, we are ambassadors for Christ.
This boring life of faith is begun at baptism, and is not completed until the day we die. We live each day in remembrance of our baptism, in remembrance of the fact that God loves us with a love so deep, so wide, so complete that nothing can separate us from that love.
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a young pastor in rural South Africa, he taught religion, catechism, to a class of 13-year-old boys in the parochial school at this church. He gave them a test on the New Testament.
One of the questions was, “What did the voice from heaven say at Jesus’ baptism?”
One boy wrote: “You are the Son of God, now act like it!”
That same voice spoke over us at our baptism, and said something very similar, “You are a beloved child of God,
I am giving you the greatest gift I can give, myself. Let my spirit grow in you, live a life of love, show Christ to the world.”
Amen and amen.
January 7, 2007
Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
There’s an old preacher story about the theatrical pastor who had a great idea for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. He went to the pet store and bought a little white bird. Then he recruited the church janitor to sit, with the bird, in the unused balcony during the service.
When the preacher said, “And the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove,” the janitor was supposed to release the bird and let it fly out over the congregation. You have to admit, it would have been kind of cool. Tacky, yes, but still, kinda cool.
When the pastor got to the right place, he paused briefly and then said, quite dramatically, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove,” while, throwing out his arm and pointing to the heavens expectantly. And nothing happened.
He waited a little bit then said, again, more loudly, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.”
Still, nothing happened. So, he proclaimed a third time, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove!”
At this point the janitor leaned over the balcony and said, “The cat done ate the bird. You want I should throw down the cat?”
When I was a kid, if you were shy or failed to answer an adult’s question, they would usually say, “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
As we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord today, there are several questions that come to mind. One of them could be phrased, “Cat got your Baptism?”
Put in Religious terms: “How has being a Baptized person affected your life?” “What difference does having a few drops of water sprinkled on your head make?”
Let’s examine this:
One of the interesting things about any discussion of baptism is that the thing most people “know” is the least important thing about it. People “know” that you have to be baptized to get rid of Original Sin. Some people worry about babies who die going to Hell if they haven’t been baptized and others worry about everybody who hasn’t been baptized going to Hell. This is a serious misunderstanding of the sacrament that turns it into a piece of “Magic,” of divine Hocus-Pocus, of humans casting some sort of spell which requires God to act in a certain way, in this case, allowing the Baptized into heaven.
It is because of this understanding of baptism that people sometimes ask, “Why was Jesus baptized, since he was a sinless, perfect being, he had no sins which needed forgiving.” This kind of thinking is rooted in a basically backwards picture of who God relates to us. We struggle mightily with the nature of the gift of God’s love to us.
We try to earn it, or we feel unworthy of it. We try to figure out what we must do to deserve it; we try to pay for it.
It reminds me of the story of Harvey Pinnick. Harvey, back in the 1920’s, bought a little red spiral notebook and began jotting down his observations about golf and life. He never showed the book to anyone but his son. In 1991, Harvey gave the book to a writer he knew and asked him if he thought it was worth publishing. The writer showed the book to an editor at Simon and Schuster Publishers. They called and spoke to Harvey’s wife, saying they had decided to publish with an advance of $90,000.
Several days passed and Harvey Pinnick had not responded to the message. Finally, Harvey spoke to his writer friend and said that with all his medical bills he just didn’t see how he could come up with the 90,000 to get the book published. The writer had to explain to Harvey that he didn’t pay Simon and Schuster; Simon and Schuster paid him!
All too often, we’re like Harvey Pinnick. We misunderstand the message of the Gospel. We think we have to do things to make God love us when the message of our baptism is just the opposite; God loves us just the way we are.
Baptism is a message to us that our sins are forgiven; sins: past, present and future. Baptism doesn’t forgive our sins; God forgives our sins. Baptism tells us that our sins are forgiven. We are reminded of our baptism and our forgiveness, every time we make confession. The sign of the cross is made by the pastor, and can be made by you, as a reminder that the sign of the cross was made on your forehead in Baptism and that it is through the cross that we are forgiven.
Yes, God loves us just the way we are. God also loves us too much to let us stay that way. Forgiveness of sins is not all that is going on in Baptism. Look at our second lesson, the reading from Acts: At first glance, it looks like a bit of theological silliness; baptized in name of Jesus only, so what?
But I think the issue had to do with what some of us do, limiting the meaning of Baptism to its least important function. Without the understanding that in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit, we are left with a wooden, legalistic, tit-for-tat, formalistic, action; like a courthouse marriage of convenience.
But, with the giving of the Holy Spirit, we are in a dynamic, organic, growing, pulsating relationship with God almighty. We go from being over here, with God over there, to being enmeshed with God. God’s in us, we’re in God, we are the Body of Christ, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are NOT far off and distant from God, simply seeking to keep God from sending us to Hell through magical religious rites and our accumulated list of Good Works. NO! We are part of the Divine Presence in the world. God has made God’s dwelling to be within us.
Writing in Christianity Today, Pastor Paul Bocca talks about how some people find a genuinely Christian life boring. Going to church, doing the liturgy, reading the lessons, hearing the sermons, doing the rituals, serving on committees, etc. etc. It’s BORING! This, he says, is why so many find their way to TV ministries and huge mega-churches that are entertaining and exciting.
Pastor Bocca then turns this BORING accusation upside down – by admitting it, and then reminding us of another meaning for the word boring.
He says Christianity is boring. It is like the slow movement of a drill; slowly, laboriously digging beneath the surface of our lives. The continuing cycle of Sunday after Sunday, season after season, year after year, the Christian message and life in community bores ever deeper and deeper into our souls, until, we begin to realize the truth of the words spoken over us in baptism.
That we are a beloved child of God, we are marked with the cross of Christ forever, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are called to follow Christ, we are to love one another unconditionally, we are forgiven and called to forgive others, we are ambassadors for Christ.
This boring life of faith is begun at baptism, and is not completed until the day we die. We live each day in remembrance of our baptism, in remembrance of the fact that God loves us with a love so deep, so wide, so complete that nothing can separate us from that love.
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a young pastor in rural South Africa, he taught religion, catechism, to a class of 13-year-old boys in the parochial school at this church. He gave them a test on the New Testament.
One of the questions was, “What did the voice from heaven say at Jesus’ baptism?”
One boy wrote: “You are the Son of God, now act like it!”
That same voice spoke over us at our baptism, and said something very similar, “You are a beloved child of God,
I am giving you the greatest gift I can give, myself. Let my spirit grow in you, live a life of love, show Christ to the world.”
Amen and amen.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Another one for Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve Dec. 24, 2006
Text: Luke
Several years ago, I saw a cartoon in a religious magazine that showed a young boy talking to his
little sister. He was saying:
Now the Shepherds were busy
Washing their socks by night.
It’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?
Several tired and dirty shepherds who,
after a long day watching their flocks,
have finally gotten the sheep settled down for the night.
They have finished their simple supper,
eaten standing up around the fire.
Now they boil a kettle of water
and after removing their work boots,
peel off their dirty, stinking socks.
I imagine them wearing long, white, tube socks,
with reinforced heel and toe,
you know, the ones with a little band of red
or orange around the top.
The shepherds sit back
and stretch their feet out to the fire,
wiggling their toes and massaging their insteps.
Ah, what a relief after a 16 hour day chasing sheep
up rocky hillsides and down dusty roads.
So, they wash and rinse and wring out their socks, propping them on little sticks near the fire to dry
before they stretch out on their blankets
to catch a little sleep.
Just another day - just another night
on a boring job in which every day is
Pretty much like the day that went before.
Suddenly, the sky is filled with a blinding light
and an angel is hovering in the air above them. They quake and shake and hug the ground.
“They were sore afraid.” is one of the great understatements of the Bible.
The angel talks about the Messiah
and a baby and the city of David.
Then a whole choir of angels appears,
singing about peace and love.
And then, the shepherds get up and put on their damp socks and cold shoes and tramp off to Bethlehem to see what all the fuss is about. At least, that’s what I think about when I hear the words Washing their socks by night.
Now, this whole business of thinking about shepherds washing out tube socks by the fire was very helpful for me, because it helped me remember that they were, after all, real, ordinary people like you and me.
Yes, they were ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives in ordinary ways, when something truly extraordinary, extra - ordinary, suddenly intruded and changed their lives forever.
All too often, we fail to remember that most of the people in the Bible were more like us than otherwise. They didn’t spend their days waiting for a prophet to come to town or scanning the horizon for angels.
No, most of them spent most of their time going about the ordinariness of life; going to work, paying bills, cleaning house, gossiping with neighbors, quarreling with the in-laws, worrying about taxes and the girl Junior’s been dating. They went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath and then went home and talked about the Rabbi being long-winded and the sanctuary being too hot. They were a lot like us.
And, just like us, while they were hopeful that next year would be better than last year, or the year before that, they weren’t really expecting things to change, not really. In their heart of hearts they weren’t looking for God to do anything dramatic any time soon.
And yet tonight we gather to celebrate and remember that there came a time when God did act, when God did do something totally unordinary.
God came calling, with trumpets blaring and angels singing and stars in the night. While the shepherds were washing their socks by night, God showed up with a gift.
It was a gift of God’s self, a gift of love and joy and forgiveness, all wrapped up in a very surprising package, a little baby, born in a spare room, sleeping in a feed trough.
Back in the 1870's, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was attempting to build a Transcontinental Railroad across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In order to get through the area between the towns of Medicine Hat and Calgary in Southern Alberta, the railroad had to negotiate with Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
At the end of the negotiations, the CPR gave Chief Crowfoot a lifetime pass to ride the train. He was very proud of his gift. He put the pass in a leather case around his neck and wore it the rest of his life. He showed it to all the important visitors who came to his village. It is reported that he even used it as collateral for a loan.
There is one thing Chief Crowfoot never used his pass for. He never once used it to ride a train.
We have been given a great gift, the greatest gift of all, the gift of God’s Son, the Christ, Our Savior.
It would be a shame if, after all the effort we go to to celebrate the gift, we failed to properly receive it by letting God’s love and peace and forgiveness go to work in our lives.
It would be sheer folly to celebrate Jesus as the Son of God and yet fail to obey Him when he invites us to take up our Cross and follow.
Yes, God has shown up in the midst of our ordinary lives, shattering our timid normality with his own brazen originality. God has exploded into our lives, and the question is: What are we going to do with this gift?
AMEN and AMEN
Text: Luke
Several years ago, I saw a cartoon in a religious magazine that showed a young boy talking to his
little sister. He was saying:
Now the Shepherds were busy
Washing their socks by night.
It’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?
Several tired and dirty shepherds who,
after a long day watching their flocks,
have finally gotten the sheep settled down for the night.
They have finished their simple supper,
eaten standing up around the fire.
Now they boil a kettle of water
and after removing their work boots,
peel off their dirty, stinking socks.
I imagine them wearing long, white, tube socks,
with reinforced heel and toe,
you know, the ones with a little band of red
or orange around the top.
The shepherds sit back
and stretch their feet out to the fire,
wiggling their toes and massaging their insteps.
Ah, what a relief after a 16 hour day chasing sheep
up rocky hillsides and down dusty roads.
So, they wash and rinse and wring out their socks, propping them on little sticks near the fire to dry
before they stretch out on their blankets
to catch a little sleep.
Just another day - just another night
on a boring job in which every day is
Pretty much like the day that went before.
Suddenly, the sky is filled with a blinding light
and an angel is hovering in the air above them. They quake and shake and hug the ground.
“They were sore afraid.” is one of the great understatements of the Bible.
The angel talks about the Messiah
and a baby and the city of David.
Then a whole choir of angels appears,
singing about peace and love.
And then, the shepherds get up and put on their damp socks and cold shoes and tramp off to Bethlehem to see what all the fuss is about. At least, that’s what I think about when I hear the words Washing their socks by night.
Now, this whole business of thinking about shepherds washing out tube socks by the fire was very helpful for me, because it helped me remember that they were, after all, real, ordinary people like you and me.
Yes, they were ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives in ordinary ways, when something truly extraordinary, extra - ordinary, suddenly intruded and changed their lives forever.
All too often, we fail to remember that most of the people in the Bible were more like us than otherwise. They didn’t spend their days waiting for a prophet to come to town or scanning the horizon for angels.
No, most of them spent most of their time going about the ordinariness of life; going to work, paying bills, cleaning house, gossiping with neighbors, quarreling with the in-laws, worrying about taxes and the girl Junior’s been dating. They went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath and then went home and talked about the Rabbi being long-winded and the sanctuary being too hot. They were a lot like us.
And, just like us, while they were hopeful that next year would be better than last year, or the year before that, they weren’t really expecting things to change, not really. In their heart of hearts they weren’t looking for God to do anything dramatic any time soon.
And yet tonight we gather to celebrate and remember that there came a time when God did act, when God did do something totally unordinary.
God came calling, with trumpets blaring and angels singing and stars in the night. While the shepherds were washing their socks by night, God showed up with a gift.
It was a gift of God’s self, a gift of love and joy and forgiveness, all wrapped up in a very surprising package, a little baby, born in a spare room, sleeping in a feed trough.
Back in the 1870's, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was attempting to build a Transcontinental Railroad across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In order to get through the area between the towns of Medicine Hat and Calgary in Southern Alberta, the railroad had to negotiate with Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
At the end of the negotiations, the CPR gave Chief Crowfoot a lifetime pass to ride the train. He was very proud of his gift. He put the pass in a leather case around his neck and wore it the rest of his life. He showed it to all the important visitors who came to his village. It is reported that he even used it as collateral for a loan.
There is one thing Chief Crowfoot never used his pass for. He never once used it to ride a train.
We have been given a great gift, the greatest gift of all, the gift of God’s Son, the Christ, Our Savior.
It would be a shame if, after all the effort we go to to celebrate the gift, we failed to properly receive it by letting God’s love and peace and forgiveness go to work in our lives.
It would be sheer folly to celebrate Jesus as the Son of God and yet fail to obey Him when he invites us to take up our Cross and follow.
Yes, God has shown up in the midst of our ordinary lives, shattering our timid normality with his own brazen originality. God has exploded into our lives, and the question is: What are we going to do with this gift?
AMEN and AMEN
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Advent IV and Christmas Eve
ADVENT IV Dec. 24, 2006
Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55
True story. Margaret was having a tough Christmas season. Her husband was out of town on business for most of December. Her kids were sick half the time, work was driving her crazy with year-end deadlines. Nothing was going right.
About a week before Christmas she did some shopping at the Mall during her lunch owner. She darted into a card store and bought a box of 50 Christmas Cards, already on sale because it was so late.
That night she printed some labels using the computer and put the kids to work. One signed the cards with the family’s last name, a second stuffed the cards into the envelope, a third put on the address lapels and the youngest stuck on the stamps, mostly upside down or sideways; but it got done, just in time.
The day after Christmas, Margaret was cleaning up and found a stray card between the couch cushions. She realized she had been so busy she never even read the card.
And after she did, she wished she hadn’t. She sat down on the couch and cried after she read:
We’re sending this card
just to say,
A little gift
is on its way.
A little gift is on its way. That is the message of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. It’s the message Elizabeth and Zechariah got about John.
It’s the message Joseph and Mary got about Jesus.
And it’s the message we are getting about the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
In the midst of our running around and gift-buying and card-sending and house-decorating; we need to pause and remember why we’re doing all this. We’re doing it because God has sent us a message that a little gift is on the way, a little bundle of Joy is coming, a Word of Hope and Peace is just around the corner.
It is a gift and a word that the world needs now as much as ever. A glance at the daily paper, or 30 minutes of watching the news is enough to remind us that the world is all too often a dark, scary and lonely place run by the proud, the rich and the powerful.
And we, like Mary, have been called to carry the gift that is Christ into the midst of that hurting world.
The lowly still need lifting up.
The hungry still need to be fed.
The poor still need a chance to live.
The world still hungers in its heart for true goodness
to reign supreme.
Caroline Hodges lives in Atlanta. She is an active member of an Episcopal Church there, serves on the Vestry and Altar Guild and teaches Sunday School.
A couple of years ago, her Priest asked her to do something more, something extra. The churches in the area were opening a Homeless shelter and they needed a director - would she help?
Although she was already quite busy -she agreed. She went into it with great enthusiasm and high commitment, she wanted to help, she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.
By Christmas Eve, she was quite tired of the whole thing, a little bit jaded and burned out. She had come to see her job as Director of the Shelter as a thankless chore.
When she had begun, she had thought: Give these people a little love and they’ll turn around and soon become useful and productive citizens.
But her high hopes and great expectations had soon turned into impatient resignation and resentment.
These people will never change. They’re all the same. TAKE! TAKE! TAKE! And never give anything.
It was in this mood that she encountered a young man named Christopher. She had gotten everyone bedded down for the night that Christmas Eve, which was a lot like every other night, except that they ha Turkey for dinner instead of soup; and everyone received a Christmas package of soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes from the ladies Auxiliary of Greater Hope Baptist Church.
Caroline had turned out the lights and retreated to the kitchen for a cup of coffee when Christopher came in, wanting to talk. She agreed, nodding her head, but not really interested.
He told her the usual story - the kind of story you hear a hundred times a year if you work with the homeless. His father drank and beat him, his mother slept around. He dropped out at 14 and did a lot of drugs, married at 19 to a woman 36 who was already pregnant. She left him and the baby a little while later, so he gave the baby up for adoption and hit the road.
By this time Caroline was looking at her watch, ready to send the young man back to bed, when suddenly Christopher said,
GOD HAS REALLY BLESSED ME!
Caroline jerked her head up. How can he say that? She thought. After all he’s gone through, how can he say that?
YES, Christopher said, God has really blessed me. He let me see the darkness, so I’d recognize the light.
CHRISTOPHER - The name means carrier of Christ. That night, Christopher lived up to his name. He brought the light of Christ to a tired and bitter woman. A woman who learned one more time that God specializes in surprise packages, in coming to us in unlikely places, in speaking to us through unlikely voices.
As Caroline thought about Christopher’s words about light and darkness, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, worn Bible and from it he took a dried and pressed Monarch butterfly with radiant colors.
Here, he said, Merry Christmas. This is for you. Put it in your Bible and remember that on one cold Christmas Eve you took the time to let your light shine on some tired and lonely people.
The mystery and miracle that is Christmas is just around the corner. Our little gift is on its way. We are called to receive the gift of Christ with glad and joyful hearts and to share the gift of Christ with all the world.
Amen and Amen.
Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55
True story. Margaret was having a tough Christmas season. Her husband was out of town on business for most of December. Her kids were sick half the time, work was driving her crazy with year-end deadlines. Nothing was going right.
About a week before Christmas she did some shopping at the Mall during her lunch owner. She darted into a card store and bought a box of 50 Christmas Cards, already on sale because it was so late.
That night she printed some labels using the computer and put the kids to work. One signed the cards with the family’s last name, a second stuffed the cards into the envelope, a third put on the address lapels and the youngest stuck on the stamps, mostly upside down or sideways; but it got done, just in time.
The day after Christmas, Margaret was cleaning up and found a stray card between the couch cushions. She realized she had been so busy she never even read the card.
And after she did, she wished she hadn’t. She sat down on the couch and cried after she read:
We’re sending this card
just to say,
A little gift
is on its way.
A little gift is on its way. That is the message of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. It’s the message Elizabeth and Zechariah got about John.
It’s the message Joseph and Mary got about Jesus.
And it’s the message we are getting about the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
In the midst of our running around and gift-buying and card-sending and house-decorating; we need to pause and remember why we’re doing all this. We’re doing it because God has sent us a message that a little gift is on the way, a little bundle of Joy is coming, a Word of Hope and Peace is just around the corner.
It is a gift and a word that the world needs now as much as ever. A glance at the daily paper, or 30 minutes of watching the news is enough to remind us that the world is all too often a dark, scary and lonely place run by the proud, the rich and the powerful.
And we, like Mary, have been called to carry the gift that is Christ into the midst of that hurting world.
The lowly still need lifting up.
The hungry still need to be fed.
The poor still need a chance to live.
The world still hungers in its heart for true goodness
to reign supreme.
Caroline Hodges lives in Atlanta. She is an active member of an Episcopal Church there, serves on the Vestry and Altar Guild and teaches Sunday School.
A couple of years ago, her Priest asked her to do something more, something extra. The churches in the area were opening a Homeless shelter and they needed a director - would she help?
Although she was already quite busy -she agreed. She went into it with great enthusiasm and high commitment, she wanted to help, she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.
By Christmas Eve, she was quite tired of the whole thing, a little bit jaded and burned out. She had come to see her job as Director of the Shelter as a thankless chore.
When she had begun, she had thought: Give these people a little love and they’ll turn around and soon become useful and productive citizens.
But her high hopes and great expectations had soon turned into impatient resignation and resentment.
These people will never change. They’re all the same. TAKE! TAKE! TAKE! And never give anything.
It was in this mood that she encountered a young man named Christopher. She had gotten everyone bedded down for the night that Christmas Eve, which was a lot like every other night, except that they ha Turkey for dinner instead of soup; and everyone received a Christmas package of soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes from the ladies Auxiliary of Greater Hope Baptist Church.
Caroline had turned out the lights and retreated to the kitchen for a cup of coffee when Christopher came in, wanting to talk. She agreed, nodding her head, but not really interested.
He told her the usual story - the kind of story you hear a hundred times a year if you work with the homeless. His father drank and beat him, his mother slept around. He dropped out at 14 and did a lot of drugs, married at 19 to a woman 36 who was already pregnant. She left him and the baby a little while later, so he gave the baby up for adoption and hit the road.
By this time Caroline was looking at her watch, ready to send the young man back to bed, when suddenly Christopher said,
GOD HAS REALLY BLESSED ME!
Caroline jerked her head up. How can he say that? She thought. After all he’s gone through, how can he say that?
YES, Christopher said, God has really blessed me. He let me see the darkness, so I’d recognize the light.
CHRISTOPHER - The name means carrier of Christ. That night, Christopher lived up to his name. He brought the light of Christ to a tired and bitter woman. A woman who learned one more time that God specializes in surprise packages, in coming to us in unlikely places, in speaking to us through unlikely voices.
As Caroline thought about Christopher’s words about light and darkness, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, worn Bible and from it he took a dried and pressed Monarch butterfly with radiant colors.
Here, he said, Merry Christmas. This is for you. Put it in your Bible and remember that on one cold Christmas Eve you took the time to let your light shine on some tired and lonely people.
The mystery and miracle that is Christmas is just around the corner. Our little gift is on its way. We are called to receive the gift of Christ with glad and joyful hearts and to share the gift of Christ with all the world.
Amen and Amen.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Advent III, December 17, 2006
THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT, December 17, 2006
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Isaiah 12:2-6, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3: 7-18
A few years ago I was in Hickory Hollow Mall in Nashville. I had just stepped into the second level elevator when I saw a harried young family coming my way. I held the doors open as they struggled to et in. There was a young man pushing a baby stroller, the child almost hidden in the midst of precariously balanced packages. Mother was struggling with a “wild child” 4 year old.
She practically drug him into the elevator by the arm as he screamed and twisted and cried and kicked and . . .well, you know. As they got in the glass elevator, she put her hand on the back of his head and directed his gaze to santa in the atrium below. She said, “Santa is watching you. Do you want him to see you acting like this?”
The young boy grew very still as he contemplated Santa, then he turned to his mother and said, “I’ll be good as long as he can see me.” And he was. They got out of the elevator and he was a perfect angel. He even nodded and smiled in Santa’s direction. Then, when they got about fifteen feet past Santa, he looked up at his mother, grinned and kicked her in the shin.
So it is with us. Repentance and amendment of life based on fear and punishment are always insincere and short-lived. We have a disease which the LAW (Santa is watching you!) Cannot cure. Our disease goes under many names: self-will, narcissism, hubris, pride, greed, selfishness, sin. It is not so much a matter of the things we do. Those are only the symptoms, the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual lack of grace.
And any remedy which treats only the symptoms will, in the end, fail to cure us and bring us to wholeness and new life. When the Mom made her appeal to Santa, she placed within her son a fear of losing his Christmas presents. So, he responded appropriately, in a manner calculated to protect his own self-interest. He did not repent, he did not “bear fruit worthy of repentance” He merely changed his behavior in an attempt to fool Santa Claus.
And that’s the way religious Law always works.
Thou Shalt Not Kill may keep us from strangling our enemies, but it does nothing to remove from our hearts the hatred and resentment of others which all too often burns there.
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor May keep us from telling outright lies and slanders about the people next door, or in the next office, or sitting in the next pew, but it won’t keep us from thinking and believing the worst about them in our most private thoughts.
Law fails because it goes about its work backwards. It treats the symptoms, it changes the behavior, without going to the source, without healing the disease, without changing the heart.
This is why Luke dares to call John’s preaching against insincere and incomplete repentance GOOD NEWS. Did you hear that jarring note at the end of the Gospel Lesson?
After quoting John the Baptist saying harsh things like:
You Brood of vipers, and
The axe is at the root of the tree, and
every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire. and
His winnowing fork is in his hand and
the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.
Luke then says quietly, And so, with many other exhortations,
he proclaimed the Good News to the people.
Gee whiz, if that’s the Good News, what’s the Bad News? We think. Where’s the Good News in all that stuff about repentance and burning in endless fires?
Well, it is Good News, it is the Gospel of the LORD.” It is a message to be joyful about. It is good news because John has revealed to us the purpose for all this preparation, John has announced to us WHY CHRIST CAME.
CHRIST CAME to stop the cycle of inco0mplete repentance and temporary solutions to the deepest needs of the human heart.
CHRIST CAME to cut through our feeble attempts to change our own behavior to meet some external standard.
CHRIST CAME to treat the disease, not the symptoms.
CHRIST CAME to break our hearts and change our lives.
CHRIST CAME to show us a new way of dealing with our God, ourselves and each other.
The old way, the way of fear and intimidation, of trying to adjust our live’s to meet external demands rooted in a fear of judgement and reprisal, does not work.
The New Way is God’s Way of Love and Intimacy, of having our hearts broken by the depth and totality of God’s love for us, having our hearts broken so deeply and completely that God can move in and change us from within, from the very core of our being, emptying us of our selfishness and pride and filling us with the gifts of the Spirit and the fire of God’s love.
When THAT happens, our behavior changes without our having to think about it.
Back to that bearing fruit worthy of repentance: just as our sins and misdeeds grew out of the disease of self-will rooted deep in our hearts, as new creatures in Christ, acts of love and kindness will flow from us as naturally as water flows from a spring, or as apples grow on apple trees.
An Apple tree doesn’t have to think about or decide what kind of fruit to have. It doesn’t say to itself, “Should I do pears this year, or maybe go a little tropical and exotic and try oranges or limes.” NO. There is nothing to think about. It’s an apple tree. Apple trees grow apples. End of discussion.
Just so with us, Christians whose hearts have been broken and filled with the Spirit of the Living God. We don’t have to think about doing good, about bearing fruit worthy of repentance. We’re Christians. Doing acts of love and kindness is what we do, it is who we are. It’s nothing to worry about or to brag about; it is simply that which flows out of a heart filled with God.
When my son David, who is now 23, was about 3, he was getting excited about Christmas for the first time. He jabbered about Santa and his Christmas list and about elves and reindeer. Ever the Pastor, I didn’t want him to miss the religious importance of the holiday, so one night, as I was putting him to bed, after going over the Christmas list one more time, and reading “The Night before Christmas” one more time, I said, “Okay David, who’s birthday are we celebrating at Christmas?” And he said, “JESUS” Good,, I thought. “And who is Jesus?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he shrugged, burrowing into his pillow, ready to sleep.
What are we celebrating at Christmas? The birth of Jesus. And who is Jesus, why did he come?
Christ came to turn our lives around, to show us a new way to live, to open up to us the possibility of living our lives in complete freedom, bound only by the constraints of selfless love.
It is not a simple or easy proposition. After all, it cost the Babe of Bethlehem his very life.
That was what was necessary and that is why he came, and that is very Good News indeed.
Amen and amen.
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Isaiah 12:2-6, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3: 7-18
A few years ago I was in Hickory Hollow Mall in Nashville. I had just stepped into the second level elevator when I saw a harried young family coming my way. I held the doors open as they struggled to et in. There was a young man pushing a baby stroller, the child almost hidden in the midst of precariously balanced packages. Mother was struggling with a “wild child” 4 year old.
She practically drug him into the elevator by the arm as he screamed and twisted and cried and kicked and . . .well, you know. As they got in the glass elevator, she put her hand on the back of his head and directed his gaze to santa in the atrium below. She said, “Santa is watching you. Do you want him to see you acting like this?”
The young boy grew very still as he contemplated Santa, then he turned to his mother and said, “I’ll be good as long as he can see me.” And he was. They got out of the elevator and he was a perfect angel. He even nodded and smiled in Santa’s direction. Then, when they got about fifteen feet past Santa, he looked up at his mother, grinned and kicked her in the shin.
So it is with us. Repentance and amendment of life based on fear and punishment are always insincere and short-lived. We have a disease which the LAW (Santa is watching you!) Cannot cure. Our disease goes under many names: self-will, narcissism, hubris, pride, greed, selfishness, sin. It is not so much a matter of the things we do. Those are only the symptoms, the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual lack of grace.
And any remedy which treats only the symptoms will, in the end, fail to cure us and bring us to wholeness and new life. When the Mom made her appeal to Santa, she placed within her son a fear of losing his Christmas presents. So, he responded appropriately, in a manner calculated to protect his own self-interest. He did not repent, he did not “bear fruit worthy of repentance” He merely changed his behavior in an attempt to fool Santa Claus.
And that’s the way religious Law always works.
Thou Shalt Not Kill may keep us from strangling our enemies, but it does nothing to remove from our hearts the hatred and resentment of others which all too often burns there.
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor May keep us from telling outright lies and slanders about the people next door, or in the next office, or sitting in the next pew, but it won’t keep us from thinking and believing the worst about them in our most private thoughts.
Law fails because it goes about its work backwards. It treats the symptoms, it changes the behavior, without going to the source, without healing the disease, without changing the heart.
This is why Luke dares to call John’s preaching against insincere and incomplete repentance GOOD NEWS. Did you hear that jarring note at the end of the Gospel Lesson?
After quoting John the Baptist saying harsh things like:
You Brood of vipers, and
The axe is at the root of the tree, and
every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire. and
His winnowing fork is in his hand and
the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.
Luke then says quietly, And so, with many other exhortations,
he proclaimed the Good News to the people.
Gee whiz, if that’s the Good News, what’s the Bad News? We think. Where’s the Good News in all that stuff about repentance and burning in endless fires?
Well, it is Good News, it is the Gospel of the LORD.” It is a message to be joyful about. It is good news because John has revealed to us the purpose for all this preparation, John has announced to us WHY CHRIST CAME.
CHRIST CAME to stop the cycle of inco0mplete repentance and temporary solutions to the deepest needs of the human heart.
CHRIST CAME to cut through our feeble attempts to change our own behavior to meet some external standard.
CHRIST CAME to treat the disease, not the symptoms.
CHRIST CAME to break our hearts and change our lives.
CHRIST CAME to show us a new way of dealing with our God, ourselves and each other.
The old way, the way of fear and intimidation, of trying to adjust our live’s to meet external demands rooted in a fear of judgement and reprisal, does not work.
The New Way is God’s Way of Love and Intimacy, of having our hearts broken by the depth and totality of God’s love for us, having our hearts broken so deeply and completely that God can move in and change us from within, from the very core of our being, emptying us of our selfishness and pride and filling us with the gifts of the Spirit and the fire of God’s love.
When THAT happens, our behavior changes without our having to think about it.
Back to that bearing fruit worthy of repentance: just as our sins and misdeeds grew out of the disease of self-will rooted deep in our hearts, as new creatures in Christ, acts of love and kindness will flow from us as naturally as water flows from a spring, or as apples grow on apple trees.
An Apple tree doesn’t have to think about or decide what kind of fruit to have. It doesn’t say to itself, “Should I do pears this year, or maybe go a little tropical and exotic and try oranges or limes.” NO. There is nothing to think about. It’s an apple tree. Apple trees grow apples. End of discussion.
Just so with us, Christians whose hearts have been broken and filled with the Spirit of the Living God. We don’t have to think about doing good, about bearing fruit worthy of repentance. We’re Christians. Doing acts of love and kindness is what we do, it is who we are. It’s nothing to worry about or to brag about; it is simply that which flows out of a heart filled with God.
When my son David, who is now 23, was about 3, he was getting excited about Christmas for the first time. He jabbered about Santa and his Christmas list and about elves and reindeer. Ever the Pastor, I didn’t want him to miss the religious importance of the holiday, so one night, as I was putting him to bed, after going over the Christmas list one more time, and reading “The Night before Christmas” one more time, I said, “Okay David, who’s birthday are we celebrating at Christmas?” And he said, “JESUS” Good,, I thought. “And who is Jesus?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he shrugged, burrowing into his pillow, ready to sleep.
What are we celebrating at Christmas? The birth of Jesus. And who is Jesus, why did he come?
Christ came to turn our lives around, to show us a new way to live, to open up to us the possibility of living our lives in complete freedom, bound only by the constraints of selfless love.
It is not a simple or easy proposition. After all, it cost the Babe of Bethlehem his very life.
That was what was necessary and that is why he came, and that is very Good News indeed.
Amen and amen.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
The Second Sunday in Advent: December10, 2006
ADVENT II December10, 2006
Text: Malachi 3: 1-4, Luke 1:68-69, Philippians 1:3-11, Luke 3:1-6
Dr. Carlyle Marney was Pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC. Dr. Marney was a very well-known writer and Bible study teacher in the 1960's and 70's.
One time he was teaching at Ridgecrest, the Baptist Assembly up near Asheville. During the question and answer period, one woman asked him, “Dr. Marney, exactly where is the Garden of Eden?” With a twinkle in his eye, Marney replied, “312 Elm Street, Knoxville, TN.”
She said, “Why, that can’t be right, it would have to be somewhere in the Middle East, Iraq or Iran, wouldn’t it?”
He shrugged and said, “Maybe for you, but for me it was 312 Elm Street, Knoxville TN. That’s where I found my mother’s purse open on the kitchen table and took a quarter out of it and walked down to the corner and bought a candy bar and some chewing gum and some hard candy, and I came back up the street and sat on the wall of the cemetery and ate and chewed to my hearts content. And then, as I got home, I heard my mother calling out my name, CARLYLE, CARLYLE WHERE ARE YOU? And instead of answering her, I ran and hid in the closet under the stairs. So, you see, for me, the Garden of Eden was at 312 Elm Street.”
(I don’t have a written source on this story, he told it in class at Duke. I made up the street #)
Our Gospel lesson for today centers on John the Baptist’s call to repentance. Repentance begins in the recognition of personal involvement in and responsibility for the Evil which surrounds us.
In a sermon on this text; the Rev. Will Willimon, former Duke University Chaplain and current Methodist Bishop of Alabama,makes an interesting observation about some of the most popular movies of the 90's. Movies like Armageddon and Independence Day and Aliens I, II, III; show a world in which the evil which threatens us comes from outside ourselves, from completely outside, from outer space. In their vision, we are totally not responsible for the evil which threatens the world. It’s not our fault.
John’s call to repentance is a call for us to look at ourselves and to see in ourselves and our attitudes and our actions the things which lead to evil in the world.
John’s call to repentance is a call to look at our way of being in the world and in relationship to one another and to repent of those things which cause harm to ourselves and others.
John’s call is a call to confession and repentance. All too often, we make it as far as confession, and then stop. Confession is the admission that there are indeed things we do in life that are wrong. We confess that, and go no further.
One day in Nashville I went to the Y to pick up my son. As I approached the entrance, a very angry mother barged out the door followed by a girl about 4 and a boy about 7. The boy was saying, I told you I was sorry.
And the mother turned and said, hissing between her teeth,
Sorry doesn’t get it anymore.
I want you to stop doing it!
True repentance combines confession, I’m sorry, with what the old prayer books referred to as amendment of life.
The Greek word translated here repentance is not really a religious or theological word. It is metanoia, which is an ordinary, everyday word in Greek. It simply means to turn around and go the other way. To stop going one direction and to start going in the opposite direction. It means to realize you’re going the wrong way and to start going the right way.
The Gospel, the Good News, is rooted in this simple act of repentance, because we can only stop going the wrong way if we have shown to us the right way.
None of us goes the wrong way on purpose. Nobody here would go out and get on I-40 and intentionally head East with the goal of going to Winston-Salem, that would be silly.
And to realize you’re going toward Durham when you want to go to Winston, and then just shrugging and saying “Oh well, I’m only human.” and then, continuing to go the wrong way while crying about it , would be ludicrous.
Just so, few of us choose to do bad things just because they’re bad things. We follow the paths we take in life because they seem to us the right, the best, way to go. And if we then realize that we’re in the wrong, to confess without amendment of life would be as inane as continuing
on to Durham, knowing we’re going the wrong way.
The Gospel comes to turn us around, to show us the way, to warn us of the danger in the path we are taking, and to provide for us a route to safety.
The Gospel is that Jesus came into the world to open for us the way to God. To unblock the path and to call us to follow Jesus on the way.
For us to turn from the way we have been going, we have to see that we are being called to turn from danger to security, from evil to good, from wrong to right, from our way to God’s way.
One of my very earliest memories is of a bright summer day on the farm.I was playing in the backyard, under the apple trees. My Daddy was mowing hay in a field next to the house. Aunt Mildred called to me from the back-porch. She sent me into the field with a quart jar full of ice and water for Daddy.
As I started out across the field, Daddy stopped the tractor and got off and started yelling at me.
Delmer, Delmer. STOP! GO BACK, GO AROUND! STOP!
Now, even as a 4 year old, I knew that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so Daddy’s instructions made no sense to me.But I stopped and thought about it a minute. Though I could see no reason
to stop and go back and go around, it was my Daddy telling me this, so I backed up and followed his instructions.
When I got to the tractor, I discovered that he had run over a yellow jacket’s nest in the ground and had stirred them up. The angry swarm lay directly in the path I was following.
So it is with us. We may not be able to see the destruction which lies upon the path we have chosen, but we have a loving God and a caring Saviour who are calling us to turn from the path of self-deception.
The way is being made straight, the opportunity is here. John’s call is ringing in our ears. REPENT, REPENT! Turn Back! Go the Other Way!
John’s call to REPENT is a call to look to our lives and change direction, so that when Christ comes in the flesh, we will be ready to receive our salvation. Amen and Amen
Text: Malachi 3: 1-4, Luke 1:68-69, Philippians 1:3-11, Luke 3:1-6
Dr. Carlyle Marney was Pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC. Dr. Marney was a very well-known writer and Bible study teacher in the 1960's and 70's.
One time he was teaching at Ridgecrest, the Baptist Assembly up near Asheville. During the question and answer period, one woman asked him, “Dr. Marney, exactly where is the Garden of Eden?” With a twinkle in his eye, Marney replied, “312 Elm Street, Knoxville, TN.”
She said, “Why, that can’t be right, it would have to be somewhere in the Middle East, Iraq or Iran, wouldn’t it?”
He shrugged and said, “Maybe for you, but for me it was 312 Elm Street, Knoxville TN. That’s where I found my mother’s purse open on the kitchen table and took a quarter out of it and walked down to the corner and bought a candy bar and some chewing gum and some hard candy, and I came back up the street and sat on the wall of the cemetery and ate and chewed to my hearts content. And then, as I got home, I heard my mother calling out my name, CARLYLE, CARLYLE WHERE ARE YOU? And instead of answering her, I ran and hid in the closet under the stairs. So, you see, for me, the Garden of Eden was at 312 Elm Street.”
(I don’t have a written source on this story, he told it in class at Duke. I made up the street #)
Our Gospel lesson for today centers on John the Baptist’s call to repentance. Repentance begins in the recognition of personal involvement in and responsibility for the Evil which surrounds us.
In a sermon on this text; the Rev. Will Willimon, former Duke University Chaplain and current Methodist Bishop of Alabama,makes an interesting observation about some of the most popular movies of the 90's. Movies like Armageddon and Independence Day and Aliens I, II, III; show a world in which the evil which threatens us comes from outside ourselves, from completely outside, from outer space. In their vision, we are totally not responsible for the evil which threatens the world. It’s not our fault.
John’s call to repentance is a call for us to look at ourselves and to see in ourselves and our attitudes and our actions the things which lead to evil in the world.
John’s call to repentance is a call to look at our way of being in the world and in relationship to one another and to repent of those things which cause harm to ourselves and others.
John’s call is a call to confession and repentance. All too often, we make it as far as confession, and then stop. Confession is the admission that there are indeed things we do in life that are wrong. We confess that, and go no further.
One day in Nashville I went to the Y to pick up my son. As I approached the entrance, a very angry mother barged out the door followed by a girl about 4 and a boy about 7. The boy was saying, I told you I was sorry.
And the mother turned and said, hissing between her teeth,
Sorry doesn’t get it anymore.
I want you to stop doing it!
True repentance combines confession, I’m sorry, with what the old prayer books referred to as amendment of life.
The Greek word translated here repentance is not really a religious or theological word. It is metanoia, which is an ordinary, everyday word in Greek. It simply means to turn around and go the other way. To stop going one direction and to start going in the opposite direction. It means to realize you’re going the wrong way and to start going the right way.
The Gospel, the Good News, is rooted in this simple act of repentance, because we can only stop going the wrong way if we have shown to us the right way.
None of us goes the wrong way on purpose. Nobody here would go out and get on I-40 and intentionally head East with the goal of going to Winston-Salem, that would be silly.
And to realize you’re going toward Durham when you want to go to Winston, and then just shrugging and saying “Oh well, I’m only human.” and then, continuing to go the wrong way while crying about it , would be ludicrous.
Just so, few of us choose to do bad things just because they’re bad things. We follow the paths we take in life because they seem to us the right, the best, way to go. And if we then realize that we’re in the wrong, to confess without amendment of life would be as inane as continuing
on to Durham, knowing we’re going the wrong way.
The Gospel comes to turn us around, to show us the way, to warn us of the danger in the path we are taking, and to provide for us a route to safety.
The Gospel is that Jesus came into the world to open for us the way to God. To unblock the path and to call us to follow Jesus on the way.
For us to turn from the way we have been going, we have to see that we are being called to turn from danger to security, from evil to good, from wrong to right, from our way to God’s way.
One of my very earliest memories is of a bright summer day on the farm.I was playing in the backyard, under the apple trees. My Daddy was mowing hay in a field next to the house. Aunt Mildred called to me from the back-porch. She sent me into the field with a quart jar full of ice and water for Daddy.
As I started out across the field, Daddy stopped the tractor and got off and started yelling at me.
Delmer, Delmer. STOP! GO BACK, GO AROUND! STOP!
Now, even as a 4 year old, I knew that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so Daddy’s instructions made no sense to me.But I stopped and thought about it a minute. Though I could see no reason
to stop and go back and go around, it was my Daddy telling me this, so I backed up and followed his instructions.
When I got to the tractor, I discovered that he had run over a yellow jacket’s nest in the ground and had stirred them up. The angry swarm lay directly in the path I was following.
So it is with us. We may not be able to see the destruction which lies upon the path we have chosen, but we have a loving God and a caring Saviour who are calling us to turn from the path of self-deception.
The way is being made straight, the opportunity is here. John’s call is ringing in our ears. REPENT, REPENT! Turn Back! Go the Other Way!
John’s call to REPENT is a call to look to our lives and change direction, so that when Christ comes in the flesh, we will be ready to receive our salvation. Amen and Amen
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
ADVENT 1, RCL texts for Dec. 3, 2006
THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT
December 3, 2006
Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16, I Thess. 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-36
Title: Looking for a Sign
A few years ago on Thanksgiving weekend, my son David and I sat at the Kitchen table and listened to my Daddy talk about his experiences in Europe during WWII. He told us about an incident late in the war, when his company spent a night in an abandoned village. The squad had bedded down in a large, two-story house. The Lieutenant had posted guards in the doorways. About 3:00 AM the guard at the front door had walked away from his post, down a central hall to the back to get a light from the other guard. Just as he reached the kitchen, a shell exploded in the doorway where he had been standing 5 seconds before. Only 5 seconds between life and death.
Be On Guard! Jesus says, watch out, that “your hearts are not weighed down” with the “worries of this life, and THAT DAY catch you unexpectedly.” Like a trap, or a bomb.
What is THAT DAY? There is a great deal of speculation and debate about that question. Lutherans don’t dive into it too often, but many of our Protestant neighbors spend a lot of time and energy arguing between pre-trib and post-trib and pre-millennial and post-millennial and what dispensation are we in, etc, etc.
Preaching Professor Fred Craddock says that there is no need to get tied up in knots about when Jesus is coming back; that’s not the issue. The reality is,
“There will be an end to life as it now is, an end that comes as both judgement and redemption. Whether WE GO or HE COMES . . . .(life ends).
The question we face is not, when will Jesus come back?
The question is, how does the fact that none of us lives forever alter our behavior?
The Scriptures continually remind us that one day God will:
Execute justice and righteousness . . (Jeremiah)
And that we must:
Be on guard, so that your hearts are not weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and worry . . .Be alert at all times, praying that you may have strength . . to escape . .and to stand.” (Luke)
In short, we are called upon to take our God and ourselves seriously. We are called upon to recognize that life can be snuffed out in an instant and to live accordingly.
We are to BE ALERT, to stay awake, to watch out for signs of God’s activity in the world. This is a difficult thing to do in the midst of modern, secular, consumerist Christmas.
After 2000 years, we’ve sort of stopped looking for Christ to come, and we’ve settled for a pale, weak, neon lit imitation. We schedule office Christmas parties and celebrate family dinners. We buy presents for our husbands and wives and children and significant others. We decorate our homes with lights and trees and ornaments. We send out Greeting cards to people over the country and we hope that our sanity and our bank account will hold out until New Years.
The Church’s plea is that in the midst of all the Holiday Hoopla we will remember to look for Christ, to seek signs of his coming, to be alert for His presence “in, with and under” all the gifting and decorating and partying.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus tells the parable of the fig tree. We live in a land where most of the trees die in winter and come back to life in the spring. In Palestine, the opposite is true. Most of the tress and scrubs there are evergreens. The fig tree is an exception; it alone dies in winter.
That is why it was so significant to Jesus. The fact that it died and came back to life was a symbol of faith. Even though it appeared to be dead; in the spring it sprouted new leave, proving that it had been not dead but dormant; gathering strength for a new explosion of life and fruitfulness.
Sometimes in the midst of our very modern, secular, materialistic world it’s hard to find signs of life in an old faith. Sometimes it feels like God is either dead or sleeping.
It is at such times that we need to remember the lesson of the fig tree; that it is in the middle of a world filled with physical and spiritual death that we must hold on most fiercely to God’s promise of hope and life and salvation. We must stare hard at the “dead wood,” seeking there some sign of life.
Seeing the signs of the times is a difficult task, and sometimes we see the signs, but think they are intended for someone else. A few years ago Readers Digest reported this true incident:
A man called the Maine Wildlife and Fisheries Department with a request that a DEER CROSSING sign on the road near his home be taken down. It seems that a large number of deer near his home had been killed at that crossing and the man felt that if the sign were taken down; THE DEER WOULD CROSS SOMEWHERE ELSE.
What is it Bill Engvald says?, “Here’s Your Sign.”
Advent is the time to watch for the signs of God’s presence in our lives. Once you start looking, the signs are not really that hard to see. Like the DEER CROSSING sign, they call upon us to slow down and look around, to proceed with eyes wide open to see what God has placed in front of us.
So as we enter this season of Advent, let me make a few modest suggestions, humble proposals:
Do you want to have the best Christmas ever?
Do you want to feel and experience Christ in a new and exciting way?
Do you want to wake up on December 25th renewed and full of joy and excitement at the Advent of our God?
Then, I suggest we try a few simple things:
1) Take five minutes every morning and make a Christmas list.
Not a list of things to buy, or things to do, or things you want; but a list of blessings in your life, a list of people you love and who love you in spite of yourself, a list of the signs of God’s presence in your life. After you’ve made your list, pray a prayer of thanks.
2) Take another 10 minutes and read a chapter of the Gospel of Mark. There are 21 days til Christmas and 16 chapters in Mark, so you should be able to finish it. By Christmas morning, you will e reminded of why Jesus came and of what he did for us. By Christmas morning, you will be ready to celebrate with thankfulness and praise the Coming of the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us.
3) Pick out 5 names from your Christmas list. Pick out 5 people that you have almost lost touch with, 5 people you seldom see or speak to. Call them up or write them a personal letter or send them an email and tell them how much they mean to you and why. Thank them for being a sign of God’s presence and love in your life.
4) Perform a totally new act of charity this year. Reach out and surprise someone with the unexpected love of God. Give a part of yourself to someone in gratitude for the fact that Christ gave himself for you.
5) And finally, spend the last 5 minutes of every day asking God to come into your life in a fresh, new, unpredictable way this year.
But I must warn you to be careful. Watch out! God just might explode into your life at a time and in a way you would never expect!
Amen and amen.
December 3, 2006
Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16, I Thess. 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-36
Title: Looking for a Sign
A few years ago on Thanksgiving weekend, my son David and I sat at the Kitchen table and listened to my Daddy talk about his experiences in Europe during WWII. He told us about an incident late in the war, when his company spent a night in an abandoned village. The squad had bedded down in a large, two-story house. The Lieutenant had posted guards in the doorways. About 3:00 AM the guard at the front door had walked away from his post, down a central hall to the back to get a light from the other guard. Just as he reached the kitchen, a shell exploded in the doorway where he had been standing 5 seconds before. Only 5 seconds between life and death.
Be On Guard! Jesus says, watch out, that “your hearts are not weighed down” with the “worries of this life, and THAT DAY catch you unexpectedly.” Like a trap, or a bomb.
What is THAT DAY? There is a great deal of speculation and debate about that question. Lutherans don’t dive into it too often, but many of our Protestant neighbors spend a lot of time and energy arguing between pre-trib and post-trib and pre-millennial and post-millennial and what dispensation are we in, etc, etc.
Preaching Professor Fred Craddock says that there is no need to get tied up in knots about when Jesus is coming back; that’s not the issue. The reality is,
“There will be an end to life as it now is, an end that comes as both judgement and redemption. Whether WE GO or HE COMES . . . .(life ends).
The question we face is not, when will Jesus come back?
The question is, how does the fact that none of us lives forever alter our behavior?
The Scriptures continually remind us that one day God will:
Execute justice and righteousness . . (Jeremiah)
And that we must:
Be on guard, so that your hearts are not weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and worry . . .Be alert at all times, praying that you may have strength . . to escape . .and to stand.” (Luke)
In short, we are called upon to take our God and ourselves seriously. We are called upon to recognize that life can be snuffed out in an instant and to live accordingly.
We are to BE ALERT, to stay awake, to watch out for signs of God’s activity in the world. This is a difficult thing to do in the midst of modern, secular, consumerist Christmas.
After 2000 years, we’ve sort of stopped looking for Christ to come, and we’ve settled for a pale, weak, neon lit imitation. We schedule office Christmas parties and celebrate family dinners. We buy presents for our husbands and wives and children and significant others. We decorate our homes with lights and trees and ornaments. We send out Greeting cards to people over the country and we hope that our sanity and our bank account will hold out until New Years.
The Church’s plea is that in the midst of all the Holiday Hoopla we will remember to look for Christ, to seek signs of his coming, to be alert for His presence “in, with and under” all the gifting and decorating and partying.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus tells the parable of the fig tree. We live in a land where most of the trees die in winter and come back to life in the spring. In Palestine, the opposite is true. Most of the tress and scrubs there are evergreens. The fig tree is an exception; it alone dies in winter.
That is why it was so significant to Jesus. The fact that it died and came back to life was a symbol of faith. Even though it appeared to be dead; in the spring it sprouted new leave, proving that it had been not dead but dormant; gathering strength for a new explosion of life and fruitfulness.
Sometimes in the midst of our very modern, secular, materialistic world it’s hard to find signs of life in an old faith. Sometimes it feels like God is either dead or sleeping.
It is at such times that we need to remember the lesson of the fig tree; that it is in the middle of a world filled with physical and spiritual death that we must hold on most fiercely to God’s promise of hope and life and salvation. We must stare hard at the “dead wood,” seeking there some sign of life.
Seeing the signs of the times is a difficult task, and sometimes we see the signs, but think they are intended for someone else. A few years ago Readers Digest reported this true incident:
A man called the Maine Wildlife and Fisheries Department with a request that a DEER CROSSING sign on the road near his home be taken down. It seems that a large number of deer near his home had been killed at that crossing and the man felt that if the sign were taken down; THE DEER WOULD CROSS SOMEWHERE ELSE.
What is it Bill Engvald says?, “Here’s Your Sign.”
Advent is the time to watch for the signs of God’s presence in our lives. Once you start looking, the signs are not really that hard to see. Like the DEER CROSSING sign, they call upon us to slow down and look around, to proceed with eyes wide open to see what God has placed in front of us.
So as we enter this season of Advent, let me make a few modest suggestions, humble proposals:
Do you want to have the best Christmas ever?
Do you want to feel and experience Christ in a new and exciting way?
Do you want to wake up on December 25th renewed and full of joy and excitement at the Advent of our God?
Then, I suggest we try a few simple things:
1) Take five minutes every morning and make a Christmas list.
Not a list of things to buy, or things to do, or things you want; but a list of blessings in your life, a list of people you love and who love you in spite of yourself, a list of the signs of God’s presence in your life. After you’ve made your list, pray a prayer of thanks.
2) Take another 10 minutes and read a chapter of the Gospel of Mark. There are 21 days til Christmas and 16 chapters in Mark, so you should be able to finish it. By Christmas morning, you will e reminded of why Jesus came and of what he did for us. By Christmas morning, you will be ready to celebrate with thankfulness and praise the Coming of the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us.
3) Pick out 5 names from your Christmas list. Pick out 5 people that you have almost lost touch with, 5 people you seldom see or speak to. Call them up or write them a personal letter or send them an email and tell them how much they mean to you and why. Thank them for being a sign of God’s presence and love in your life.
4) Perform a totally new act of charity this year. Reach out and surprise someone with the unexpected love of God. Give a part of yourself to someone in gratitude for the fact that Christ gave himself for you.
5) And finally, spend the last 5 minutes of every day asking God to come into your life in a fresh, new, unpredictable way this year.
But I must warn you to be careful. Watch out! God just might explode into your life at a time and in a way you would never expect!
Amen and amen.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Christ the King, Nov. 26, 2006
CHRIST THE KING Nov. 26, 2006
Texts: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Rev. 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37
In his book THE CANADIANS, Andrew Malcolm writes about Cecille Bechard. She is, “a Canadian who visits the United States several dozen times a day - - when she goes to the refrigerator or to the backdoor or to make tea, for instance. To read and sleep, she stays in Canada. And she eats there too, is she sits at the North end of her kitchen table.
Mrs. Bechard’s home is in (the province of ) Quebec and (the state of) Maine at the same time.” This is because her house was already there in 1842 when English and American diplomats sat down in London to create the official boundary line.
A citizen of one country who spends most of her time in another country, all the while staying in the same place. So it is for us as Christians. We are citizens of the United States of America. Most of our life is lived in the urgent NOW of eating and sleeping and working and playing. Most of our thinking is governed by the culture in which we live; indeed most of our opinions are shaped by being citizens and participants in the secular world.
But to be a religious person is to perceive another reality besides the one that is easily and readily apparent. To be a person of faith is to live in two worlds at the same time; to perceive the reality everyone else sees but also to see a reality which can only be seen with the eyes of faith.
Our Gospel lesson for today is the trial of Jesus before Pilate. It seems a bit strange, coming at this moment, jammed in between Thanksgiving and the Advent season run-up to Christmas. And Christ the King is a strange holy day in our modern world, in which Kings and Queens are marginal and somewhat comic figures. It is hard for us to understand what it means to call Christ a King. For us it is a difficult image because it does not evoke feelings of reverence or awe or obedience. It Justus sounds odd and antiquated.
The people of Jesus’ day had a different problem. They knew what a king was. The only Political and Social reality they knew was a world run by kings, all-powerful persons revered as gods and backed up by crushingly cruel armies. They knew what a king was.
And that was their problem. Jesus didn’t look much like a king to them, not to Pilate or to anyone else. When they looked at Jesus they didn’t see a person of power and authority; they saw a redneck carpenter who claimed to be some sort of rabbi. A man wandering around the country with no visible means of support and a bunch of loser friends.
But he had a certain charisma which inflamed the wrong sort of people, so the political and social leaders conspired with the Romans to have him executed, just to be on the safe side. And the Romans, for their part, saw no need to allow another rabble rouser to stir people up for no good reason.
So it was that he came to stand before Pilate, accused of being, of all things, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Pilate is a bit amused and annoyed by the whole thing. He can’t figure out why this guy is standing here, “What have you done?” he says. He also can’t figure out what Jesus’ answers mean. “So, you are a king. Or not. What are you talking about.”
The problem is that Pilate, and the social and political leaders of Judea, and most of the people who had been following Jesus around and listening to him preach, were aware of only one world, and Jesus was living in two. “My kingdom is not of THIS world,” he says, and in that moment he is like Mrs. Bechard, looking across her kitchen table to the “other country” where her refrigerator sits.
We are called to live each day in two worlds, two realities, two kingdoms. We cannot permanently retreat from the real world which surrounds us with its pain and suffering, its hunger and disease, its wars and violences of all shapes and sizes. We are called by God to imitate Christ and to put ourselves into the midst of the world’s need.
True story. Lutheran Chaplain in Vietnam. One night the Chaplain was in his tent when a young private came to see him. The private was newly arrived from the States and was scared , very scared, scared to death. The next day, he was going on patrol for the first time. And he was afraid to die.
He cried, he moaned, he cursed, he prayed. He wanted the Chaplain to give him a saint’s medal, a New Testament, some charm or talisman that would keep him safe. He wanted the chaplain to tell him a prayer to pray, a good deed to do, anything to keep from dying.
Finally the chaplain said,
“Look soldier, there’s nothing I can do to prevent you from getting killed on patrol tomorrow, there is no was I can promise you it won’t happen. There’s only one thing I can do. I’ll go with you
It’s important to know that Chaplains were not permitted to carry guns. And the North Vietnamese did not take American Chaplains prisoner; they executed them on the spot to demoralize American troops. He walked into the jungle unarmed and unprotected to be with the soldier in his fearful world.
That’s what Christ did for us, leaving that other kingdom to live with us in ours, unarmed and unprotected, sharing with us in our trials and temptations, our dangers and defeats. That’s why we use the Nicene Creed on this day. To remind us that “for us and for our salvation he came down from heaven.” And we are called to follow our King into that place of service and suffering.
We are called of God to struggle with the world we see all around us, to be active participants in making this world a better place for everyone. We are called to plunge into the secular now, the world, to get in it up to our necks.
But we are also called to look beyond the obvious to the real, to look past the daily to see the eternal, to look within the moment to see the mystery, to stare into the face of the truly human in order to perceive there the truly divine.
For we live in two worlds at the same time, and the trick is not to become so enamored of the one that we lose sight of the other. With Christ the King as our guide, we are called to see the hand of God moving in our midst, holding us up with divine love, pointing and gently nudging us in the direction of doing right, holding us back from danger and harm, filling the ordinary with mystery, so that like Daniel and the Psalmist and St. John the Divine, We may grab onto hope in the midst of desperate times! Amen and amen.
Peace, Delmo
Texts: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Rev. 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37
In his book THE CANADIANS, Andrew Malcolm writes about Cecille Bechard. She is, “a Canadian who visits the United States several dozen times a day - - when she goes to the refrigerator or to the backdoor or to make tea, for instance. To read and sleep, she stays in Canada. And she eats there too, is she sits at the North end of her kitchen table.
Mrs. Bechard’s home is in (the province of ) Quebec and (the state of) Maine at the same time.” This is because her house was already there in 1842 when English and American diplomats sat down in London to create the official boundary line.
A citizen of one country who spends most of her time in another country, all the while staying in the same place. So it is for us as Christians. We are citizens of the United States of America. Most of our life is lived in the urgent NOW of eating and sleeping and working and playing. Most of our thinking is governed by the culture in which we live; indeed most of our opinions are shaped by being citizens and participants in the secular world.
But to be a religious person is to perceive another reality besides the one that is easily and readily apparent. To be a person of faith is to live in two worlds at the same time; to perceive the reality everyone else sees but also to see a reality which can only be seen with the eyes of faith.
Our Gospel lesson for today is the trial of Jesus before Pilate. It seems a bit strange, coming at this moment, jammed in between Thanksgiving and the Advent season run-up to Christmas. And Christ the King is a strange holy day in our modern world, in which Kings and Queens are marginal and somewhat comic figures. It is hard for us to understand what it means to call Christ a King. For us it is a difficult image because it does not evoke feelings of reverence or awe or obedience. It Justus sounds odd and antiquated.
The people of Jesus’ day had a different problem. They knew what a king was. The only Political and Social reality they knew was a world run by kings, all-powerful persons revered as gods and backed up by crushingly cruel armies. They knew what a king was.
And that was their problem. Jesus didn’t look much like a king to them, not to Pilate or to anyone else. When they looked at Jesus they didn’t see a person of power and authority; they saw a redneck carpenter who claimed to be some sort of rabbi. A man wandering around the country with no visible means of support and a bunch of loser friends.
But he had a certain charisma which inflamed the wrong sort of people, so the political and social leaders conspired with the Romans to have him executed, just to be on the safe side. And the Romans, for their part, saw no need to allow another rabble rouser to stir people up for no good reason.
So it was that he came to stand before Pilate, accused of being, of all things, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Pilate is a bit amused and annoyed by the whole thing. He can’t figure out why this guy is standing here, “What have you done?” he says. He also can’t figure out what Jesus’ answers mean. “So, you are a king. Or not. What are you talking about.”
The problem is that Pilate, and the social and political leaders of Judea, and most of the people who had been following Jesus around and listening to him preach, were aware of only one world, and Jesus was living in two. “My kingdom is not of THIS world,” he says, and in that moment he is like Mrs. Bechard, looking across her kitchen table to the “other country” where her refrigerator sits.
We are called to live each day in two worlds, two realities, two kingdoms. We cannot permanently retreat from the real world which surrounds us with its pain and suffering, its hunger and disease, its wars and violences of all shapes and sizes. We are called by God to imitate Christ and to put ourselves into the midst of the world’s need.
True story. Lutheran Chaplain in Vietnam. One night the Chaplain was in his tent when a young private came to see him. The private was newly arrived from the States and was scared , very scared, scared to death. The next day, he was going on patrol for the first time. And he was afraid to die.
He cried, he moaned, he cursed, he prayed. He wanted the Chaplain to give him a saint’s medal, a New Testament, some charm or talisman that would keep him safe. He wanted the chaplain to tell him a prayer to pray, a good deed to do, anything to keep from dying.
Finally the chaplain said,
“Look soldier, there’s nothing I can do to prevent you from getting killed on patrol tomorrow, there is no was I can promise you it won’t happen. There’s only one thing I can do. I’ll go with you
It’s important to know that Chaplains were not permitted to carry guns. And the North Vietnamese did not take American Chaplains prisoner; they executed them on the spot to demoralize American troops. He walked into the jungle unarmed and unprotected to be with the soldier in his fearful world.
That’s what Christ did for us, leaving that other kingdom to live with us in ours, unarmed and unprotected, sharing with us in our trials and temptations, our dangers and defeats. That’s why we use the Nicene Creed on this day. To remind us that “for us and for our salvation he came down from heaven.” And we are called to follow our King into that place of service and suffering.
We are called of God to struggle with the world we see all around us, to be active participants in making this world a better place for everyone. We are called to plunge into the secular now, the world, to get in it up to our necks.
But we are also called to look beyond the obvious to the real, to look past the daily to see the eternal, to look within the moment to see the mystery, to stare into the face of the truly human in order to perceive there the truly divine.
For we live in two worlds at the same time, and the trick is not to become so enamored of the one that we lose sight of the other. With Christ the King as our guide, we are called to see the hand of God moving in our midst, holding us up with divine love, pointing and gently nudging us in the direction of doing right, holding us back from danger and harm, filling the ordinary with mystery, so that like Daniel and the Psalmist and St. John the Divine, We may grab onto hope in the midst of desperate times! Amen and amen.
Peace, Delmo
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Pentecost 24, Nov. 19, 2006
PENTECOST 24 November 19, 2006
Texts: Daniel 12:1-3, Psalm 16, Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25, Mark 13:1-8
Title: Faith in Something Bigger
Do you know who Morgan Wooten is? Morgan Wooten is one of the best High School Basketball coaches ever. In 50+ years at DeMatha High School in Hyattsville, MD, he was won about 1300 games and lost only a couple of hundred. More than 250 of his players have played college ball on scholarship, 12 of his former students have played in the NBA. When he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, he told this story:
His Grandson Nick, was asked in nursery school to name
his favorite sport.
Nick said, Baseball.
The teacher was surprised, Not basketball?
Nick said, I don’t know anybody who knows anything
about basketball.
Still a bit confused, the teacher said, But Nick, what
About your Grandfather Wooten?
Nick snorted and laughed. Oh no! Not him! I go to all
his and he NEVER gets to play!
Sometimes, we are like that about the presence of God in our lives. We see the game of life going on, and we think God knows nothing about it, or God cares nothing about it, or God can DO NOTHING about it, because, after all, we never see God get in the game.
Our Old Testament and Gospel lessons today are about the art of having faith in a world gone mad, they area bout seeing God’s steady hand in the midst of the wild whirlwind of life.
Each is an example of APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE. Many times, people misinterpret and misuse this material to make predictions about the future and to frighten people about the present.
APOCALYPTIC is intended to be a reassurance to us when we go through hard times and God seems so very far away.
Daniel was written at a time when the Jewish people and the Jewish faith were in a difficult position, a tough spot. They were being oppressed and persecuted, and they were asking serious questions about why was God doing this to us. Was God dead, or did he simply not care? The book of Daniel was written to give hope to nearly hopeless people, to give faith to a people who had almost lost touch with God.
The Apocalyptic section of Mark was written a number of years after the death of Jesus. It too was written to a people who were in a bit of a spot,
a community of faith which was being oppressed and persecuted. It too was written to give them hope and faith in God and the future.
I talked to a pastor friend recently who is in a bad space in her life. Her marriage fell apart, her best friend is dying of cancer, she’s having trouble getting a building program started in her church. Then last week, she found a lump; it could be cancer, she doesn’t know. AS we talked on the phone, she said to me:
I’m still preaching faith, I’m still believing faith.
I’m just not FEELING it.
For her, and for many of us, it’s hard to feel that God knows anything about the stressful game of life, as far as we can tell, God just sits of the bench and never gets in!
No wonder the disciples look at the magnificent and beautiful temple and get excited about it’s size and beauty. Here’s something you can bank on, they think. Here’s an institution that’s solid as a rock (pun intended). This monument to man’s ingenuity and power can assure us that we have things under control, that we are large and in charge.
Sometimes now when I’m watching a movie set in NY City, I’ll see the Twin Towers in the skyline shot. It’s a jarring moment. They were a symbol; of Beauty and Architectural and engineering ability and financial strength, and none of us could imagine anything happening to them; but something did, something awful and frightening.
All of us can remember where we were when it did. I was in the pastor’s office at Brook Hollow Baptist Church in Nashville. The secretary alerted us that something was going on and we scooted down the hall to the Youth Room and the big-screen TV. And watched the scene unfold in the surreal surroundings of mural-covered walls and a ping pong table.
The Disciples could not imagine the Temple being destroyed, but it was and only a few years after Jesus talked about it. They looked to the Temple for strength, and Jesus reminded them that the Temple was just a building.
Back in the late 50's, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks did a skit on television called the 2000 year old man. Reiner played a newsman interviewing Brooks, playing the old man.
NEWSMAN: Well, did you always worship THE LORD in your village?
OLD MAN: No, at first we worshiped this guy in our village named Phil.
NEWSMAN: You worshiped a guy named Phil? Why?
OLD MAN: Well, he was bigger than us, and faster than us, and he was mean, and he could hurt you, break your arm or leg right in two; so we worshiped Phil.
NEWSMAN: I SEE. Did you have any prayers in this religion?
OLD MAN: Yeah. Want to hear one?
PLEASE PHIL NO! PLEASE PHIL NO!
NEWSMAN: When did you stop worshiping Phil?
OLD MAN: Well one day we were having a religious festival. Phil was chasing us and we were praying (PLEASE PHIL NO! PLEASE PHIL NO!) AND SUDDENLY A THUNDERSTORM CAME UP AND A BOLT OF LIGHTENING STRUCK AND KILLED Phil. We all gathered around and stared at Phil for a while, then we realized:
THERE’S SOMETHING BIGGER THAN PHIL!
That is the message of Apocalyptic literature: there is something bigger than Phil, bigger than the evil in our lives.
And that something bigger is God. That something bigger is Grace, that something bigger is Love, that something bigger is Faith, that something bigger is coming, that something bigger is coming soon, that something bigger and better awaits us in God’s tomorrow.
For God is in the game, very much in the way Morgan Wooten is in every game his players play. God is involved in the pain and suffering in our lives, God is bigger than those things which haunt and frighten us, God IS and that is enough, more than enough.
One of the most popular Thanksgiving hymns is Now Thank We All Our God LBW#534. It was written by a man named Martin Rinkhart in 1607.
Read (sing) with me the first line:
Now thank we all our God,
with hearts and souls and voices.
Who wondrous things has done,
in whom his world rejoices.
Who, from our mothers’ arms
has blest us on our way,
With countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.
As you contemplate those words, think about this:
that very year, 1607, more than 6000 people in Rinkhart’s
village and territory had died in an epidemic,
including Rinkhart’s wife and children.
Either Rinkhart was heartless and a bit crazy, or he was in touch with a deep sense of faith in the God of the future, the God whose promises are ever sure, the God who will awaken us and bring us safely into the heavenly places.
Amen and amen.
Texts: Daniel 12:1-3, Psalm 16, Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25, Mark 13:1-8
Title: Faith in Something Bigger
Do you know who Morgan Wooten is? Morgan Wooten is one of the best High School Basketball coaches ever. In 50+ years at DeMatha High School in Hyattsville, MD, he was won about 1300 games and lost only a couple of hundred. More than 250 of his players have played college ball on scholarship, 12 of his former students have played in the NBA. When he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, he told this story:
His Grandson Nick, was asked in nursery school to name
his favorite sport.
Nick said, Baseball.
The teacher was surprised, Not basketball?
Nick said, I don’t know anybody who knows anything
about basketball.
Still a bit confused, the teacher said, But Nick, what
About your Grandfather Wooten?
Nick snorted and laughed. Oh no! Not him! I go to all
his and he NEVER gets to play!
Sometimes, we are like that about the presence of God in our lives. We see the game of life going on, and we think God knows nothing about it, or God cares nothing about it, or God can DO NOTHING about it, because, after all, we never see God get in the game.
Our Old Testament and Gospel lessons today are about the art of having faith in a world gone mad, they area bout seeing God’s steady hand in the midst of the wild whirlwind of life.
Each is an example of APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE. Many times, people misinterpret and misuse this material to make predictions about the future and to frighten people about the present.
APOCALYPTIC is intended to be a reassurance to us when we go through hard times and God seems so very far away.
Daniel was written at a time when the Jewish people and the Jewish faith were in a difficult position, a tough spot. They were being oppressed and persecuted, and they were asking serious questions about why was God doing this to us. Was God dead, or did he simply not care? The book of Daniel was written to give hope to nearly hopeless people, to give faith to a people who had almost lost touch with God.
The Apocalyptic section of Mark was written a number of years after the death of Jesus. It too was written to a people who were in a bit of a spot,
a community of faith which was being oppressed and persecuted. It too was written to give them hope and faith in God and the future.
I talked to a pastor friend recently who is in a bad space in her life. Her marriage fell apart, her best friend is dying of cancer, she’s having trouble getting a building program started in her church. Then last week, she found a lump; it could be cancer, she doesn’t know. AS we talked on the phone, she said to me:
I’m still preaching faith, I’m still believing faith.
I’m just not FEELING it.
For her, and for many of us, it’s hard to feel that God knows anything about the stressful game of life, as far as we can tell, God just sits of the bench and never gets in!
No wonder the disciples look at the magnificent and beautiful temple and get excited about it’s size and beauty. Here’s something you can bank on, they think. Here’s an institution that’s solid as a rock (pun intended). This monument to man’s ingenuity and power can assure us that we have things under control, that we are large and in charge.
Sometimes now when I’m watching a movie set in NY City, I’ll see the Twin Towers in the skyline shot. It’s a jarring moment. They were a symbol; of Beauty and Architectural and engineering ability and financial strength, and none of us could imagine anything happening to them; but something did, something awful and frightening.
All of us can remember where we were when it did. I was in the pastor’s office at Brook Hollow Baptist Church in Nashville. The secretary alerted us that something was going on and we scooted down the hall to the Youth Room and the big-screen TV. And watched the scene unfold in the surreal surroundings of mural-covered walls and a ping pong table.
The Disciples could not imagine the Temple being destroyed, but it was and only a few years after Jesus talked about it. They looked to the Temple for strength, and Jesus reminded them that the Temple was just a building.
Back in the late 50's, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks did a skit on television called the 2000 year old man. Reiner played a newsman interviewing Brooks, playing the old man.
NEWSMAN: Well, did you always worship THE LORD in your village?
OLD MAN: No, at first we worshiped this guy in our village named Phil.
NEWSMAN: You worshiped a guy named Phil? Why?
OLD MAN: Well, he was bigger than us, and faster than us, and he was mean, and he could hurt you, break your arm or leg right in two; so we worshiped Phil.
NEWSMAN: I SEE. Did you have any prayers in this religion?
OLD MAN: Yeah. Want to hear one?
PLEASE PHIL NO! PLEASE PHIL NO!
NEWSMAN: When did you stop worshiping Phil?
OLD MAN: Well one day we were having a religious festival. Phil was chasing us and we were praying (PLEASE PHIL NO! PLEASE PHIL NO!) AND SUDDENLY A THUNDERSTORM CAME UP AND A BOLT OF LIGHTENING STRUCK AND KILLED Phil. We all gathered around and stared at Phil for a while, then we realized:
THERE’S SOMETHING BIGGER THAN PHIL!
That is the message of Apocalyptic literature: there is something bigger than Phil, bigger than the evil in our lives.
And that something bigger is God. That something bigger is Grace, that something bigger is Love, that something bigger is Faith, that something bigger is coming, that something bigger is coming soon, that something bigger and better awaits us in God’s tomorrow.
For God is in the game, very much in the way Morgan Wooten is in every game his players play. God is involved in the pain and suffering in our lives, God is bigger than those things which haunt and frighten us, God IS and that is enough, more than enough.
One of the most popular Thanksgiving hymns is Now Thank We All Our God LBW#534. It was written by a man named Martin Rinkhart in 1607.
Read (sing) with me the first line:
Now thank we all our God,
with hearts and souls and voices.
Who wondrous things has done,
in whom his world rejoices.
Who, from our mothers’ arms
has blest us on our way,
With countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.
As you contemplate those words, think about this:
that very year, 1607, more than 6000 people in Rinkhart’s
village and territory had died in an epidemic,
including Rinkhart’s wife and children.
Either Rinkhart was heartless and a bit crazy, or he was in touch with a deep sense of faith in the God of the future, the God whose promises are ever sure, the God who will awaken us and bring us safely into the heavenly places.
Amen and amen.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Pentecost 23, November 12, 2006
PENTECOST 23 November 12, 2006
Texts: I Kings 17:8-16, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 12:38-44
Several Years ago, this story was on the Paul Harvey Radio program. The Butterball Turkey Company had established a “hotline for the holidays” for people to call in with their questions about preparing Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
One woman called in and asked,
"I have a turkey in my freezer that’s almost 20 years old. Is it still safe to eat?"
After a long pause, the hot-line operator said,
"IF, and this is a very important IF, if the turkey has been kept continuously frozen at or below 0 for the entire time, it will be safe. BUT, after all that time, it will also be tough and tasteless."
The caller replied,
"That’s what I thought, I’ll just give it to the church."
Too often, too many of us are guilty of a similar attitude toward our stewardship, giving God our leftovers and those things which we no longer want. Today, we have read Bible lessons about two widows, both of whom were poor, and both of whom were generous with what they had.
The Gospel lesson, the story we4 know as the widow’s mite, was a little tough on Pastors and other official church folk.
-Beware of scribes, who like to walk around in long robes
Well, I wear them during service, but I don’t walk around in them, much.
-and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces,
Okay, I do like it when people in grocery stores and restaurants call me Father or Reverend or Padre and treat me a little extra nice.
And to have the best seats in the synagogue -
well, I don’t know if it’s the best, but its bigger and its
different.
And places of honor at banquets -
What can I say, I like to eat!
They devour widow’s houses and for the sake of
appearance say long prayers,
Okay, I’m clean on these two, I’ve never tricked a widow out of her house, and I’m infamous for short prayers, not long ones, so perhaps I’ve escaped the “greater condemnation” by a narrow margin.
Whenever we contemplate a biblical story, one of the most important things we can ask ourselves is, "With whom do I identify, who in this story feels like me?"
Of course, none of us would like to think we’re like the scribes, making a big, loud public display of our religion; in particular, none of us wants to look like a hypocrite.
And we all want to believe that we’re like the widow, doing all we can with what little we have. Most of us, most of the time, hear the Widow’s Mite story and think it means something like this:
"See, it’s not HOW MUCH you give that matters, it’s the spirit with which you give that counts. A little bit is just as important as a lot."
That is true, as far as it goes. But most of us miss an important point here, Jesus did not say that the widow gave all she could afford; Jesus said she gave all she had.
Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. Far all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.
Truth be told, most of us, myself included, most of the time, give out of our abundance.
We give what we think we can afford to give without seriously affecting our standard of living.
What Jesus points to in the widow is another thing entirely; her total commitment of everything she has, all her resources, “all she had to live on” to the Kingdom of God.
At root, this story is not so much about giving and generosity as it is about TRUST IN GOD.
That is why the Hebrew story of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath is read with the story of the Widow’s Mite in the appointed readings for today.
These two stories are not only about widows,
they are about putting your complete trust in God.
The Widow of Zarephath also gave all she had. She shared with the Prophet of the LORD the last of her food in a time of famine. Yet, when she did, she discovered she had enough,enough at least to keep going, day by day; the jar of meal and the jug of oil having in them each day enough for that day’s needs.
This is the way God operates. This is the way God provides for God’s people. Remember the manna from Heaven, the bread upon the ground provided to the Israelites as the went from Egypt to the Promised Land?
If they took more than they needed for the day, the extra would rot before the next morning. It was a lesson in trusting God to provide each day’s needs.
What Jesus notices and comments upon with the Widow is not the size of her gift, but the fact that she gave her all, trusting that God would provide for the next day.
This is the Biblical Principle of God’s economy, this is the way God always works.
God’s promise if not:
If you return to me a tithe, I will make you rich.
God’s promise is:
If you commit to me your all, I will provide for your needs.
These stories are not so much about finances as they are about the relationship of trust we are called upon to have with God. We are called to abandon all and cling to Christ and the Cross. And, we must admit, this is hard for us, we like to hedge our bets, hold a little something back, play it safe.
A couple of years ago, a college student went into a camera store to have a picture enlarged. It was a framed 8x10 of the young man and his girlfriend. When the clerk took the picture out of the frame, he read the writing on the back:
My dearest Tommy, I love you with all my heart. I love
you more and more each day. I will love you forever and
ever. I am yours for all eternity. With all my love, Diane
PS - If we ever break up, I want this picture back!
Our Bible stories today call us toward making a complete and total commitment of ourselves to Christ and the Kingdom of God. We are called upon to make all that we are and all that we have available to the work of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ into all the World.
And the Gospel, the Good News, for us today is that we can make that leap, that commitment, with full confidence in God’s promise to provide our every need, from here to eternity.
Amen and amen.
Texts: I Kings 17:8-16, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 12:38-44
Several Years ago, this story was on the Paul Harvey Radio program. The Butterball Turkey Company had established a “hotline for the holidays” for people to call in with their questions about preparing Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
One woman called in and asked,
"I have a turkey in my freezer that’s almost 20 years old. Is it still safe to eat?"
After a long pause, the hot-line operator said,
"IF, and this is a very important IF, if the turkey has been kept continuously frozen at or below 0 for the entire time, it will be safe. BUT, after all that time, it will also be tough and tasteless."
The caller replied,
"That’s what I thought, I’ll just give it to the church."
Too often, too many of us are guilty of a similar attitude toward our stewardship, giving God our leftovers and those things which we no longer want. Today, we have read Bible lessons about two widows, both of whom were poor, and both of whom were generous with what they had.
The Gospel lesson, the story we4 know as the widow’s mite, was a little tough on Pastors and other official church folk.
-Beware of scribes, who like to walk around in long robes
Well, I wear them during service, but I don’t walk around in them, much.
-and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces,
Okay, I do like it when people in grocery stores and restaurants call me Father or Reverend or Padre and treat me a little extra nice.
And to have the best seats in the synagogue -
well, I don’t know if it’s the best, but its bigger and its
different.
And places of honor at banquets -
What can I say, I like to eat!
They devour widow’s houses and for the sake of
appearance say long prayers,
Okay, I’m clean on these two, I’ve never tricked a widow out of her house, and I’m infamous for short prayers, not long ones, so perhaps I’ve escaped the “greater condemnation” by a narrow margin.
Whenever we contemplate a biblical story, one of the most important things we can ask ourselves is, "With whom do I identify, who in this story feels like me?"
Of course, none of us would like to think we’re like the scribes, making a big, loud public display of our religion; in particular, none of us wants to look like a hypocrite.
And we all want to believe that we’re like the widow, doing all we can with what little we have. Most of us, most of the time, hear the Widow’s Mite story and think it means something like this:
"See, it’s not HOW MUCH you give that matters, it’s the spirit with which you give that counts. A little bit is just as important as a lot."
That is true, as far as it goes. But most of us miss an important point here, Jesus did not say that the widow gave all she could afford; Jesus said she gave all she had.
Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. Far all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.
Truth be told, most of us, myself included, most of the time, give out of our abundance.
We give what we think we can afford to give without seriously affecting our standard of living.
What Jesus points to in the widow is another thing entirely; her total commitment of everything she has, all her resources, “all she had to live on” to the Kingdom of God.
At root, this story is not so much about giving and generosity as it is about TRUST IN GOD.
That is why the Hebrew story of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath is read with the story of the Widow’s Mite in the appointed readings for today.
These two stories are not only about widows,
they are about putting your complete trust in God.
The Widow of Zarephath also gave all she had. She shared with the Prophet of the LORD the last of her food in a time of famine. Yet, when she did, she discovered she had enough,enough at least to keep going, day by day; the jar of meal and the jug of oil having in them each day enough for that day’s needs.
This is the way God operates. This is the way God provides for God’s people. Remember the manna from Heaven, the bread upon the ground provided to the Israelites as the went from Egypt to the Promised Land?
If they took more than they needed for the day, the extra would rot before the next morning. It was a lesson in trusting God to provide each day’s needs.
What Jesus notices and comments upon with the Widow is not the size of her gift, but the fact that she gave her all, trusting that God would provide for the next day.
This is the Biblical Principle of God’s economy, this is the way God always works.
God’s promise if not:
If you return to me a tithe, I will make you rich.
God’s promise is:
If you commit to me your all, I will provide for your needs.
These stories are not so much about finances as they are about the relationship of trust we are called upon to have with God. We are called to abandon all and cling to Christ and the Cross. And, we must admit, this is hard for us, we like to hedge our bets, hold a little something back, play it safe.
A couple of years ago, a college student went into a camera store to have a picture enlarged. It was a framed 8x10 of the young man and his girlfriend. When the clerk took the picture out of the frame, he read the writing on the back:
My dearest Tommy, I love you with all my heart. I love
you more and more each day. I will love you forever and
ever. I am yours for all eternity. With all my love, Diane
PS - If we ever break up, I want this picture back!
Our Bible stories today call us toward making a complete and total commitment of ourselves to Christ and the Kingdom of God. We are called upon to make all that we are and all that we have available to the work of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ into all the World.
And the Gospel, the Good News, for us today is that we can make that leap, that commitment, with full confidence in God’s promise to provide our every need, from here to eternity.
Amen and amen.
Friday, November 03, 2006
All Saints Sunday
Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 24, Revelation 21:1-6, John 11:32-44
Well, as you may have guessed after my last post, things went very badly very quickly for Jean Hollowell, my mother-in-law. She died on Monday afternoon, Oct. 23.
Her funeral was last Thursday, which is why I didn't post last week.
A THOUGHT OR TWO ABOUT THIS WEEK'S TEXT:
I have in my thirty years as a pastor lost count of the number of funerals I have conducted, probably in the range of three or four hundred. And at every one I have assured the family of the promise of the resurrection, I have preached it, I have counseled it, I have prayed it, I have believed it.
Three years ago, when my Daddy died, I walked up to the coffin and saw him there, waxy and still, cold and formally attired in white shirt, tie and dark suit; and I
stood there a moment and all I could think was "I sure hope it's true, this resurrection business I've been preaching all these years. I really hope it's true."
That's where I found myself again last week, hoping it is true. There is a vast difference when the "dear departed" is one of your own, connected with you through blood or marriage or other deep commitments in ways that mean "until death do us part" to a degree the law can't impose or disentangle.
What I knew in the moments that I stood before those coffins, knew for a hard, cold fact, was that my Daddy was dead, my wife's mother was dead. Their bodies have ceased functioning. They will be encased in the ground to slowly, oh so slowly, rot away, and I will never see them again. These are the facts. The hard, cold, empirical facts.
The hope of the Gospel is that God has somehow reversed that, temporarily with Lazarus, permanently with Jesus, and, so the story goes, permanently with all of us.
And I believe that promise. I don't know what it means, I don't know how it works, I can't hold forth on what a resurrection body will be made of, or what the streets of heaven are paved with, but I believe the promise that beyond this life, there is another existence with God, and that the way to that existence has been cleared by Christ.
In the meantime, the life of faith is lived in that space, that emotional space, before the coffin of a loved one. We carry on between what we know and what we hope; poised between the cold hard facts of death and the bright shining promise of eternal life. We live out our trust in God in the ambiguous territory between what can be proven and what can be believed. All the most important words: freedom, love, compassion, sacrifice; are no more provable than resurrection. In a purely rational world, none of them make sense.
So we carry on, each day creating a faithful balance between what we know and what we hope. We know people die, we hope in the Resurrection; we know people sin, we hope for redemption; we know people get sick, we hope for healing; we know the world teeters on the edge of destruction, we hope for a new heaven and a new earth. Amen.
peace, Delmo
Here's the sermon I came up with, it reflects none of the above explicitly.
ALL SAINTS SUNDAY
TEXTS: Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 24, Revelation 21:1-6a, John 11:32-44
TITLE: OBJECTS IN MIRROR
Today is All Saints Sunday. An interesting Holy Day on the Church’s Calendar. It is the Christian equivalent of the Ancient Greek “Altar to an Unknown God” to which Paul referred in Acts.
The Greeks had altars to 100's of gods. They were afraid they might have left one out, so they built an altar to an “Unknown God” just to make sure they didn’t make some minor, obscure god mad, and thus get punished for failing to worship a god they didn’t know about.
In the early days of the church, people began to remember those who had been especially devout and holy and who had died as martyrs for the faith as “Saints,” persons already in heaven and able to hear prayers and help out those still living.
By medieval times, the church calendar was filled with Saint’s Days honoring all the offici8al Saints of the Church. And ALL Saints Day was an attempt to cover their bets, like the ancient Greeks, by giving a day to ALL SAINTS, to make sure no one was left out.
After the Reformation, the Protestant Churches (the Lutherans, the Church of England, the Reformed, The Presbyterians, etc) changed it to a remembrance and celebration of all Christians, ALL SAINTS, past, present, and future with whom we share communion in the universal, “catholic” church. It is especially a day to remember those in the local parish who have died in the last year.
For me, All Saints is a reminder that; as important as the future is; and as all consuming as present problems can be; the past is important too. In many important ways, William Faulkner was right when he said, ”The past is not dead. It is not even past.” Or as Dr. Bernard Boyd said in New Testament Class at UNC,
“Christianity and Judaism acknowledge the ISNESS of the WAS.”
I am an acknowledged Luddite. Technology befuddles me. I still carry a fountain pen, my watch has a dial with numbers and a big hand and a little hand. I can’t program a VCR or anything else. To me, a computer is a fancy typewriter and I treat it like one. Often times even simple technology defeats me.
For instance, passenger-side rear-view mirrors. I am sure someone will explain this to me after service, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why they put mirrors there designed to deceive us.
It happened again last week. I was rushing up and down I-40, three limes last week, shuttling between here and Goldsboro. I looked in the outside mirror, plenty of room to move into the right lane. I slide over, horns blare, brakes screech, and I glance back over my right shoulder. Even with my rear bumper in the right lane. Looking in the mirror, it seemed far behind me.
Then I read the fine print, the fateful words. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Why do they do that? I fumed.
Since I am stumped by technology I, of course, could not come up with an answer, so I commenced thinking about thinks I do understand, philosophy and theology and such.
“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”
“The Past is not dead, it is not even past.”
“The ISNESS of the WAS.”
A few years ago, I went to my 30 year High School reunion. There I ran into my old running-around-with buddy. Red.Our lives took different paths after High School. We hadn’t seen each other in 25 or thirty years. He was drunk, he is a drunk. He’s divorced after many years, his wife got everything, etc. etc.
He put his arm on my shoulder and cursed God and said, What kind of God makes old men pay for young men’s mistakes? He was still living with his past, all of it, and was unwilling to let God redeem it or heal it. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.
On All Saints Day, we celebrate the positive side of this truth.
In Spirit, we are as close to the Cross as the Disciples.
In Faith, we are as connected to Jesus as his friends.
In Christ, we are as much a part of the Resurrection as Mary and Martha and Peter and John.
Christianity is an historic religion, rooted in a true story that happened at a particular time in a particular place involving a real Jesus who suffered real torment and died a real death on a real cross.
But Christianity is not just History, it is not yesterday’s news. The Study of Scripture is not the study of Ancient Wisemen in order to learn the wisdom of the past and apply it to the problems of the present. It is partially that, but it is so much more. Christ and the Cross transcend time and place in such a way that when the Bible is read in the midst of believers, Jesus is here speaking to us.
When we celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar, participate in the Eucharistic Assembly, receive the Bread and Wine as his Body and Blood, Christ is really present here with us, and we are really present in the Upper Room at the Last Supper and at the Mountaintop feast where every tear is wiped away and death is swallowed up. We are in Old Palestine and the New Heaven, all at the same time.
Objects in Mirror are closer than they appear.
The Christ of the past is not dead, he is not even past.
He lives, and because he lives, Ray and Jean and May all the Saints live also,
“And he will destroy on this mountain,
The shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations,
he will swallow up death forever.”
Amen and amen.
Well, as you may have guessed after my last post, things went very badly very quickly for Jean Hollowell, my mother-in-law. She died on Monday afternoon, Oct. 23.
Her funeral was last Thursday, which is why I didn't post last week.
A THOUGHT OR TWO ABOUT THIS WEEK'S TEXT:
I have in my thirty years as a pastor lost count of the number of funerals I have conducted, probably in the range of three or four hundred. And at every one I have assured the family of the promise of the resurrection, I have preached it, I have counseled it, I have prayed it, I have believed it.
Three years ago, when my Daddy died, I walked up to the coffin and saw him there, waxy and still, cold and formally attired in white shirt, tie and dark suit; and I
stood there a moment and all I could think was "I sure hope it's true, this resurrection business I've been preaching all these years. I really hope it's true."
That's where I found myself again last week, hoping it is true. There is a vast difference when the "dear departed" is one of your own, connected with you through blood or marriage or other deep commitments in ways that mean "until death do us part" to a degree the law can't impose or disentangle.
What I knew in the moments that I stood before those coffins, knew for a hard, cold fact, was that my Daddy was dead, my wife's mother was dead. Their bodies have ceased functioning. They will be encased in the ground to slowly, oh so slowly, rot away, and I will never see them again. These are the facts. The hard, cold, empirical facts.
The hope of the Gospel is that God has somehow reversed that, temporarily with Lazarus, permanently with Jesus, and, so the story goes, permanently with all of us.
And I believe that promise. I don't know what it means, I don't know how it works, I can't hold forth on what a resurrection body will be made of, or what the streets of heaven are paved with, but I believe the promise that beyond this life, there is another existence with God, and that the way to that existence has been cleared by Christ.
In the meantime, the life of faith is lived in that space, that emotional space, before the coffin of a loved one. We carry on between what we know and what we hope; poised between the cold hard facts of death and the bright shining promise of eternal life. We live out our trust in God in the ambiguous territory between what can be proven and what can be believed. All the most important words: freedom, love, compassion, sacrifice; are no more provable than resurrection. In a purely rational world, none of them make sense.
So we carry on, each day creating a faithful balance between what we know and what we hope. We know people die, we hope in the Resurrection; we know people sin, we hope for redemption; we know people get sick, we hope for healing; we know the world teeters on the edge of destruction, we hope for a new heaven and a new earth. Amen.
peace, Delmo
Here's the sermon I came up with, it reflects none of the above explicitly.
ALL SAINTS SUNDAY
TEXTS: Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 24, Revelation 21:1-6a, John 11:32-44
TITLE: OBJECTS IN MIRROR
Today is All Saints Sunday. An interesting Holy Day on the Church’s Calendar. It is the Christian equivalent of the Ancient Greek “Altar to an Unknown God” to which Paul referred in Acts.
The Greeks had altars to 100's of gods. They were afraid they might have left one out, so they built an altar to an “Unknown God” just to make sure they didn’t make some minor, obscure god mad, and thus get punished for failing to worship a god they didn’t know about.
In the early days of the church, people began to remember those who had been especially devout and holy and who had died as martyrs for the faith as “Saints,” persons already in heaven and able to hear prayers and help out those still living.
By medieval times, the church calendar was filled with Saint’s Days honoring all the offici8al Saints of the Church. And ALL Saints Day was an attempt to cover their bets, like the ancient Greeks, by giving a day to ALL SAINTS, to make sure no one was left out.
After the Reformation, the Protestant Churches (the Lutherans, the Church of England, the Reformed, The Presbyterians, etc) changed it to a remembrance and celebration of all Christians, ALL SAINTS, past, present, and future with whom we share communion in the universal, “catholic” church. It is especially a day to remember those in the local parish who have died in the last year.
For me, All Saints is a reminder that; as important as the future is; and as all consuming as present problems can be; the past is important too. In many important ways, William Faulkner was right when he said, ”The past is not dead. It is not even past.” Or as Dr. Bernard Boyd said in New Testament Class at UNC,
“Christianity and Judaism acknowledge the ISNESS of the WAS.”
I am an acknowledged Luddite. Technology befuddles me. I still carry a fountain pen, my watch has a dial with numbers and a big hand and a little hand. I can’t program a VCR or anything else. To me, a computer is a fancy typewriter and I treat it like one. Often times even simple technology defeats me.
For instance, passenger-side rear-view mirrors. I am sure someone will explain this to me after service, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why they put mirrors there designed to deceive us.
It happened again last week. I was rushing up and down I-40, three limes last week, shuttling between here and Goldsboro. I looked in the outside mirror, plenty of room to move into the right lane. I slide over, horns blare, brakes screech, and I glance back over my right shoulder. Even with my rear bumper in the right lane. Looking in the mirror, it seemed far behind me.
Then I read the fine print, the fateful words. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Why do they do that? I fumed.
Since I am stumped by technology I, of course, could not come up with an answer, so I commenced thinking about thinks I do understand, philosophy and theology and such.
“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”
“The Past is not dead, it is not even past.”
“The ISNESS of the WAS.”
A few years ago, I went to my 30 year High School reunion. There I ran into my old running-around-with buddy. Red.Our lives took different paths after High School. We hadn’t seen each other in 25 or thirty years. He was drunk, he is a drunk. He’s divorced after many years, his wife got everything, etc. etc.
He put his arm on my shoulder and cursed God and said, What kind of God makes old men pay for young men’s mistakes? He was still living with his past, all of it, and was unwilling to let God redeem it or heal it. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.
On All Saints Day, we celebrate the positive side of this truth.
In Spirit, we are as close to the Cross as the Disciples.
In Faith, we are as connected to Jesus as his friends.
In Christ, we are as much a part of the Resurrection as Mary and Martha and Peter and John.
Christianity is an historic religion, rooted in a true story that happened at a particular time in a particular place involving a real Jesus who suffered real torment and died a real death on a real cross.
But Christianity is not just History, it is not yesterday’s news. The Study of Scripture is not the study of Ancient Wisemen in order to learn the wisdom of the past and apply it to the problems of the present. It is partially that, but it is so much more. Christ and the Cross transcend time and place in such a way that when the Bible is read in the midst of believers, Jesus is here speaking to us.
When we celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar, participate in the Eucharistic Assembly, receive the Bread and Wine as his Body and Blood, Christ is really present here with us, and we are really present in the Upper Room at the Last Supper and at the Mountaintop feast where every tear is wiped away and death is swallowed up. We are in Old Palestine and the New Heaven, all at the same time.
Objects in Mirror are closer than they appear.
The Christ of the past is not dead, he is not even past.
He lives, and because he lives, Ray and Jean and May all the Saints live also,
“And he will destroy on this mountain,
The shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations,
he will swallow up death forever.”
Amen and amen.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Pentecost 20, Oct. 22, 2006
A personal word: A few weeks ago I wrote about the health problems of my wife’s mother (Jean) and uncle (“Grits”). Things have not gotten better. Indeed in Jean’s case, they have gotten much worse. Grits, (it’s a silly nickname he got in the army because he wouldn’t eat them. He’s not a redneck, far from it. He’s a globe-trotting chemical engineering consultant with tours in China and Argentina and Russia among other places) had surgery to remove his tumor. They got most of it, and he has been sent home. He is engaged in a treatment regimen.
Jean has been diagnosed with widespread cancer and there are no treatment options, no surgery, no chemo. We are awaiting a hospice bed. No real predictions of course, but time is relatively short.
Compared to that, my troubles are minor. We came to Gibsonville on Sept. 20.
I had my first Sunday on September 24. We got the call about Jean on the 25th. Deborah has been at her side at the hospital ever since. I have been looking for us a place to stay, we still have a house somewhere else to look after and I’m staying in an extended stay hotel, waiting for the condo I’m renting to open up.
So pray for us. I’m not able to help much with this week’s texts. I was struck by the line in the Hebrews lesson which say, “in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard.” He was heard, and yet he died.
When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I was in the Boy Scouts. (I was a lousy Boy Scout. I knew one knot, I never earned a merit badge, and I got caught smoking on camp outs). Our troop was sponsored by the Red Bank Ruritan Club, of which my Daddy was a member. One night at Scouts, we were running a race and I tripped. I fell face down in the gravel on the side of the road. I lodged a piece of gravel in the skin on my forehead. The local Doctor was also our assistant Scoutmaster, so he took me to his office a quarter mile down the road. Daddy was there that night helping out and went with us.
I laid there on that cold table, hurting and scared. Dr. Tullidge was a good doctor but his bed-side manner ran a bit to the brusque side. He came at me with a huge needle . I was and still am deathly afraid of needles. I looked at Daddy standing in the corner and started crying and yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, don’t let him hurt me, please Daddy. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.
Dr. Tullidge threw a huge leg over me to hold me down , put his left arm down on my chest and proceeded to insert the needle. I continued to cry and beg Daddy to make him stop. And just as the needle entered, I saw my Daddy’s knuckles turn white as he clutched my jacket. I looked up at his face and saw a tear in the corner of his eye. It was the only time in my youth that I saw him cry.
DADDY, DADDY, DADDY! I WAS heard, and I was denied.
Jesus cried to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard, and yet he was denied. This is the mystery of our faith, the mystery of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, the mystery of the Cup of wrath and the Baptism of Death of our Gospel lesson. It is in the contemplation of this mystery that we find both our God and our calling.
Peace,
Delmo
Saturday 5 PM Here's ther sermon I came up with:
PENTECOST 20 October 22, 2006
Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45
Title: “And He Was Heard?”
Father Ed was pastor of a tidy little Catholic Church on the strip in North Myrtle Beach. A few years ago on Good Friday morning, he removed the purple Lent banners from the three wooden crosses in the churchyard and carefully draped the crosses with long black shrouds.
He took a few minutes to pray and enjoy the spring sunshine, then he went back to the office to write sermons and prepare bulletins for the Great Three Days ahead.Early on that Good Friday afternoon, Father Ed received a phone call from the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce. A tense and angry voice said,
Look Preacher, we’ve been getting some complaints about those black crosses out in your churchyard. Now inside the church, who cares? But out front, where everybody can see them, they’re offensive.
The retired people here don’t like them–they’re depressing! And the tourists don’t like them either. People come down here to get happy and have a good time, not to get depressed. IT WILL BE BAD FOR BUSINESS!
The Cross was, and still is, Offensive, Depressing and Bad for Business.
All three of our Scripture lessons make reference in one way or another to the offense of the cross, the suffering and death of Jesus offered as a sacrifice to Gad and a ransom for our souls.
In Isaiah 53, we read of the person whom the scholars called
“The Suffering Servant”. (Point out and read verses 4 and 5)Though it is doubtful that the prophet Isaiah clearly foresaw a person like Jesus fulfilling this role far into the future, it is clear that Jewish religious thinking had made a connection between one or a few suffering and dying to spare and free the many. And it is no surprise that the early Christians, all Jews and all familiar with the Prophetic writings, immediately recognized in Isaiah’s description of the Suffering One the life and death of Jesus.
The verses in Mark which occur immediately before our Gospel lesson have Jesus clearly explaining to the disciples what is going to happen to him. Listen:
The son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.
And almost as soon as these words were out of his mouth,
James and John said,
Can we be the #1 and #2 power people in your Administration?
Obviously, they didn’t get what he was talking about. So Jesus tries again. The talk about Cup and Baptism refer to the Cup of God’s Wrath and the Baptism of Death. Jesus refers to the cup again in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prays that the Cup might pass over him.
They still don’t get it, so Jesus just shakes his head and says,
You will suffer and die, but honors are up to God not me.
Verses 7, 8 and 9 from Hebrews point again to the cross:
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all....
The Rabbis taught that there were three levels of prayer
1) verbal: outloud or silent, it is thought out and controlled
2) Loud cries: shouting at God
3) Tears: pure emotion and pain
Notice our text, in an obvious reference to the Garden, says that Jesus engaged in all three: Prayers and supplications, loud cries and tears pouring out his fear and pain to God. The Chamber of Commerce man from North Myrtle Beach said the Cross was offensive and depressing. Well, if we feel like that just thinking about it, this text lets us know how Jesus felt when he stared it in the face and knew it was his fate.
Jesus was not suicidal, not a “willing martyr,” happily going to his death with visions of grandeur in his mind, he was not deluded. He was very much aware of what this meant and he fought against it, crying out as the text says:
"to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard."
This cuts to the very heart of the issue. Jesus knew that his path led to death. Jesus knew that God could save him from this fate. And Jesus was not ashamed to let his fears and feelings be known.
What agony! You could save me if you would! But you won’t!
Why won’t you? Why won’t you?
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?!
He was heard . . . the text says, and yet he died. And yet he died.
When I was about 12 or 13, I was in the Boy Scouts. Our troop was sponsored by the Red Bank Ruritan Club. My Daddy was a member and was one of the Dads who helped out. One night we were playing around in the parking lot after out meeting and fell while racing some other boys, I het squarely on my forehead in the gravel, and a piece of gravel got lodged under the skin against my skull. You can still see the scar.
Our Scoutmaster was also the local Doctor and his clinic was across the road, so he and Daddy took me in there to tend to my wound. I was scared and hurting as I shivered on the cold examining table. Dr. Tullidge was a good doctor, but he had a lousy bedside manner, more appropriate for crusty farmers than little boys.
He washed his hands and then made some instruments ready, all the while chatting with Daddy about the deer he had killed on his last hunting trip. Suddenly he turned toward me with a needle the size of a baseball bat, or so it seemed to me. I never did like needles. I looked at Daddy and started crying and yelling
DADDY, DADDY, DADDY don’t let him hurt me1 please, please, DADDY, DADDY, DADDY.
Dr. Tullidge threw a huge leg over me to hold me down and put his left arm across my chest and swabbed my wound with alcohol, then approached with that needle. I continued to cry and beg Daddy to make him stop. And just as the needle entered my forehead, I saw my Daddy’s hands, clutching my jacket. The knuckles had turned white. I looked up at his face and saw a tear in the corner of his eye, the only time I ever saw him cry.
DADDY, DADDY, DADDY! I was heard, Oh yes, I was heard. And I was denied.
Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation . . .
That is the great mystery of our faith. That where we are,
in the midst of sin and suffering, decay and death;
Christ has been, fully completely, totally.
Whatever is the worst that you have been through, no matter how scared, lonely, lost and forsaken you have been, Jesus has been there!
Have you ever felt abandoned by God? Jesus has been there!
Have you ever wondered how you were going to make it one more day? Jesus has been there!
And the promise of the Gospel is that where Jesus is now, we are going. The Gospel is that God brought Jesus through to the other side of the Cross. The Gospel is, God can and will carry YOU through as well.
God calls us to follow Him. It is not an easy way, it is not a painless path, it is not smooth sailing. Jesus’ way is the Way of the Cross. But the joyous paradox and mystery of the Gospel is:
THE WAY OF THE CROSS LEADS HOME.
For all of us, from the greatest to the least, from the oldest to the youngest,
from the power brokers to the powerless, from the first to the last,
all roads lead to, and through and beyond the Cross to Christ.
"Who was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities,
upon him was the punishment which made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed."
Amen and amen
Jean has been diagnosed with widespread cancer and there are no treatment options, no surgery, no chemo. We are awaiting a hospice bed. No real predictions of course, but time is relatively short.
Compared to that, my troubles are minor. We came to Gibsonville on Sept. 20.
I had my first Sunday on September 24. We got the call about Jean on the 25th. Deborah has been at her side at the hospital ever since. I have been looking for us a place to stay, we still have a house somewhere else to look after and I’m staying in an extended stay hotel, waiting for the condo I’m renting to open up.
So pray for us. I’m not able to help much with this week’s texts. I was struck by the line in the Hebrews lesson which say, “in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard.” He was heard, and yet he died.
When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I was in the Boy Scouts. (I was a lousy Boy Scout. I knew one knot, I never earned a merit badge, and I got caught smoking on camp outs). Our troop was sponsored by the Red Bank Ruritan Club, of which my Daddy was a member. One night at Scouts, we were running a race and I tripped. I fell face down in the gravel on the side of the road. I lodged a piece of gravel in the skin on my forehead. The local Doctor was also our assistant Scoutmaster, so he took me to his office a quarter mile down the road. Daddy was there that night helping out and went with us.
I laid there on that cold table, hurting and scared. Dr. Tullidge was a good doctor but his bed-side manner ran a bit to the brusque side. He came at me with a huge needle . I was and still am deathly afraid of needles. I looked at Daddy standing in the corner and started crying and yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, don’t let him hurt me, please Daddy. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.
Dr. Tullidge threw a huge leg over me to hold me down , put his left arm down on my chest and proceeded to insert the needle. I continued to cry and beg Daddy to make him stop. And just as the needle entered, I saw my Daddy’s knuckles turn white as he clutched my jacket. I looked up at his face and saw a tear in the corner of his eye. It was the only time in my youth that I saw him cry.
DADDY, DADDY, DADDY! I WAS heard, and I was denied.
Jesus cried to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard, and yet he was denied. This is the mystery of our faith, the mystery of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, the mystery of the Cup of wrath and the Baptism of Death of our Gospel lesson. It is in the contemplation of this mystery that we find both our God and our calling.
Peace,
Delmo
Saturday 5 PM Here's ther sermon I came up with:
PENTECOST 20 October 22, 2006
Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45
Title: “And He Was Heard?”
Father Ed was pastor of a tidy little Catholic Church on the strip in North Myrtle Beach. A few years ago on Good Friday morning, he removed the purple Lent banners from the three wooden crosses in the churchyard and carefully draped the crosses with long black shrouds.
He took a few minutes to pray and enjoy the spring sunshine, then he went back to the office to write sermons and prepare bulletins for the Great Three Days ahead.Early on that Good Friday afternoon, Father Ed received a phone call from the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce. A tense and angry voice said,
Look Preacher, we’ve been getting some complaints about those black crosses out in your churchyard. Now inside the church, who cares? But out front, where everybody can see them, they’re offensive.
The retired people here don’t like them–they’re depressing! And the tourists don’t like them either. People come down here to get happy and have a good time, not to get depressed. IT WILL BE BAD FOR BUSINESS!
The Cross was, and still is, Offensive, Depressing and Bad for Business.
All three of our Scripture lessons make reference in one way or another to the offense of the cross, the suffering and death of Jesus offered as a sacrifice to Gad and a ransom for our souls.
In Isaiah 53, we read of the person whom the scholars called
“The Suffering Servant”. (Point out and read verses 4 and 5)Though it is doubtful that the prophet Isaiah clearly foresaw a person like Jesus fulfilling this role far into the future, it is clear that Jewish religious thinking had made a connection between one or a few suffering and dying to spare and free the many. And it is no surprise that the early Christians, all Jews and all familiar with the Prophetic writings, immediately recognized in Isaiah’s description of the Suffering One the life and death of Jesus.
The verses in Mark which occur immediately before our Gospel lesson have Jesus clearly explaining to the disciples what is going to happen to him. Listen:
The son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.
And almost as soon as these words were out of his mouth,
James and John said,
Can we be the #1 and #2 power people in your Administration?
Obviously, they didn’t get what he was talking about. So Jesus tries again. The talk about Cup and Baptism refer to the Cup of God’s Wrath and the Baptism of Death. Jesus refers to the cup again in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prays that the Cup might pass over him.
They still don’t get it, so Jesus just shakes his head and says,
You will suffer and die, but honors are up to God not me.
Verses 7, 8 and 9 from Hebrews point again to the cross:
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all....
The Rabbis taught that there were three levels of prayer
1) verbal: outloud or silent, it is thought out and controlled
2) Loud cries: shouting at God
3) Tears: pure emotion and pain
Notice our text, in an obvious reference to the Garden, says that Jesus engaged in all three: Prayers and supplications, loud cries and tears pouring out his fear and pain to God. The Chamber of Commerce man from North Myrtle Beach said the Cross was offensive and depressing. Well, if we feel like that just thinking about it, this text lets us know how Jesus felt when he stared it in the face and knew it was his fate.
Jesus was not suicidal, not a “willing martyr,” happily going to his death with visions of grandeur in his mind, he was not deluded. He was very much aware of what this meant and he fought against it, crying out as the text says:
"to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard."
This cuts to the very heart of the issue. Jesus knew that his path led to death. Jesus knew that God could save him from this fate. And Jesus was not ashamed to let his fears and feelings be known.
What agony! You could save me if you would! But you won’t!
Why won’t you? Why won’t you?
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?!
He was heard . . . the text says, and yet he died. And yet he died.
When I was about 12 or 13, I was in the Boy Scouts. Our troop was sponsored by the Red Bank Ruritan Club. My Daddy was a member and was one of the Dads who helped out. One night we were playing around in the parking lot after out meeting and fell while racing some other boys, I het squarely on my forehead in the gravel, and a piece of gravel got lodged under the skin against my skull. You can still see the scar.
Our Scoutmaster was also the local Doctor and his clinic was across the road, so he and Daddy took me in there to tend to my wound. I was scared and hurting as I shivered on the cold examining table. Dr. Tullidge was a good doctor, but he had a lousy bedside manner, more appropriate for crusty farmers than little boys.
He washed his hands and then made some instruments ready, all the while chatting with Daddy about the deer he had killed on his last hunting trip. Suddenly he turned toward me with a needle the size of a baseball bat, or so it seemed to me. I never did like needles. I looked at Daddy and started crying and yelling
DADDY, DADDY, DADDY don’t let him hurt me1 please, please, DADDY, DADDY, DADDY.
Dr. Tullidge threw a huge leg over me to hold me down and put his left arm across my chest and swabbed my wound with alcohol, then approached with that needle. I continued to cry and beg Daddy to make him stop. And just as the needle entered my forehead, I saw my Daddy’s hands, clutching my jacket. The knuckles had turned white. I looked up at his face and saw a tear in the corner of his eye, the only time I ever saw him cry.
DADDY, DADDY, DADDY! I was heard, Oh yes, I was heard. And I was denied.
Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation . . .
That is the great mystery of our faith. That where we are,
in the midst of sin and suffering, decay and death;
Christ has been, fully completely, totally.
Whatever is the worst that you have been through, no matter how scared, lonely, lost and forsaken you have been, Jesus has been there!
Have you ever felt abandoned by God? Jesus has been there!
Have you ever wondered how you were going to make it one more day? Jesus has been there!
And the promise of the Gospel is that where Jesus is now, we are going. The Gospel is that God brought Jesus through to the other side of the Cross. The Gospel is, God can and will carry YOU through as well.
God calls us to follow Him. It is not an easy way, it is not a painless path, it is not smooth sailing. Jesus’ way is the Way of the Cross. But the joyous paradox and mystery of the Gospel is:
THE WAY OF THE CROSS LEADS HOME.
For all of us, from the greatest to the least, from the oldest to the youngest,
from the power brokers to the powerless, from the first to the last,
all roads lead to, and through and beyond the Cross to Christ.
"Who was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities,
upon him was the punishment which made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed."
Amen and amen
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