Today's service

I preach and celebrate. Notice at 1:05:00 I do a quick consecration for the gluten allergic acolyte! Props to the other acolyte who found the page for the quick consecration.

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Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
August 7, 2011
Matthew 14: 22-33
There are essentially two prayers: Thank you and Help! We might add one more prayer to those two and that would be: “I want.” But I would argue that, “I want,” is a sub-species, or maybe a precursor to “Help.” When we ask God for something, when we say, I want, we really are saying, “Help.”
We all pray every day, in some form or another, consciously and unconsciously, formally and informally, we all pray. We pray every day and give God some things to take care of. Sometimes when I am praying I feel like a teenager when it is getting close to my birthday, “Just so you know, God, X, Y, and Z, are going on and well you know, I’d like that, so thanks, in advance.” We give God a divine Honey-do list. And when we pray in this way, the implicit theme, what we really expect, is for God to fulfill our requests: God as Amazon.com. This kind of thinking about prayer is how we talk about prayer too. Raise your hand if you have heard someone talk about an answered prayer. Raise your hand if that story had the person telling it get what they were asking for. I’m not knocking these experiences, I’ve had them, and I will continue to have them. God has answered my prayers in the affirmative, God has given me what I have asked for. But what about when he doesn’t?
A few years ago the satirical newspaper, The Onion, ran a story entitled, “God Answers the Prayer of Little Boy,” the subtitle is: “No, says God.” It’s funny that satire seems to be the last bastion of wisdom in our popular culture. Who here has heard this testimony to prayer? “Oh yes, I prayed to God and he answered that prayer, it was clear as day: ‘NO!’” That’s not such a popular story. I’m not trying to be negative. But maybe I am. I am trying to be positive about God’s negative. We need to remember that God answers ALL prayer, but we don’t always get the answer we want. God sometimes says, “No.” because that’s the answer we need, maybe not what we want, but what we need. God’s, “No,” is just as important as his “Yes.”
When we can recognize God’s “No” as well as his “Yes,” then our “I want” prayer life will look more and more like “ Help,” and “Thank You”. And just to be clear, these two mammoth categories of prayer that I have laid out cover a great deal. I think we would be hard pressed to find a hymn, or psalm, or prayer from the Prayer Book that wasn’t a thank you, a help, or an mixture of the two.
So what’s this all got to do with the Gospel? A lot. Today we hear the story of Peter and Jesus on the water. Once again, Peter gets it so vividly right but he also fails epically. And thank God for Peter, Peter the Rock, the very foundation of the church, messing up all the time. What a model that we have for discipleship, a real human being. Can you imagine how the story might have read if Peter was more than human? Peter walks out on the water, not testing Jesus, like he does in our Gospel reading, nope, Peter knows his Lord when he sees him and simply goes for a stroll out on the lake. End of story, praise to you Lord Christ. No, we have THE Peter, Peter who is the first to confess that Jesus is Lord, but also the same Peter who get’s called Satan by Jesus, do you know that when Jesus is being tempted in the desert he doesn’t even call Satan, Satan, but he does call Peter Satan. This is our Peter, Peter who walks on water but also sinks. And Peter is the one for us to watch today. What is he doing? He tests his Lord by asking him to command that he join him. Essentially Peter is praying a “I Want” prayer, but his “I want” is really a “thank you” in disguise because Peter is trying to be with his Lord. His true prayer is born out of his desire to be with his Lord, a thank you yearning for completion. And Jesus grants him his request. Which raises another point about prayer, sometimes God gives us what we want so that we might have a deeper insight into what we really need. When Peter falls into the water, after noticing the strong wind, he calls out again to his lord and again Jesus grants his request, pulling him out of the water and then saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus is really not castigating Peter, the Greek reads more like, “Oh, little student, why are you so worried?” You see, Jesus answers Peter’s requests, his prayers, so that the life of Peter might be a lesson. The prayers are answered, but there is a human component, the context into which the prayers return.
When our prayers return to us, they reenter our lives and then we must respond to God’s answer, which we may or may not be up to. Like Peter, we may not be up to God answering our prayer. It is this dynamic, of course, that all of us live in at all times, the give and take, the conversation with God, desire and satisfaction, thank you and help. Prayer is not a one way street. Prayer is our relationship with God and it is not abstract, it is real and it has a particular quality to it.
Like Peter, our relationship and our prayers with God go a certain way. We feel a pull towards oneness with God and we begin to talk with God. We make petitions, we ask for things, we ask for help, we say thank you, and we might even simply rest in the presence of God. And God answers those prayers: sometimes, yes, sometimes no, many times, wait. We get out of the boat, we walk on water, we sink. But then He catches us. When we fail he catches us. Jesus immediately catches Peter.
Prayer is like a tightrope walker who falls from his rope, only to discover that he has landed upon another rope, and can simply begin again. Thus is our life with God, our prayers goes to him, they come back answered: “yes, no, wait,” and we respond with more prayer. A dynamic interplay of ever escalating transformation, and all the while, Jesus is there to immediately grab us when we fail, to set us right, and when we receive that help may we all have the presence of mind to say “thank you.”

This past Sunday, I preach and celebrate

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Service from 7/17/11

I preach this one, about nineteen minutes in. Note my uneven stole.

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Sermon for 7/10/11

Proper 10 OT year A
Gen. 25:19-34
As it turns out, names matter. Marion Morrison wanted to grow up to be a cowboy-movie star; Marion wasn’t quite macho enough so he changed his name to the “John Wayne.” Who is more interesting, Stanfani Germanotta or Lady Gaga? She’s the same person, but the name Lady Gaga is more descriptive of the kind of person we are talking about: Lady Gaga is . . . well, Lady Gaga, and what Lady Gaga is, is certainly not a Stephani. Names matter. There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction where Butch the boxer is talking to the cab driver whose name is Esmerelda Villalobos. Esmerelda asks Butch what his name means, he answers, “I’m American, our names don’t mean anything”. But they do, names matter! What sounds more dangerous, Randy Poffo, or Randy Savage? Who’s funnier, Caryn Johnson, or Whoopi Goldberg? Malcolm Little changed his name to Malcolm X to make a point about the heritage of slavery in America. A classmate of mine from college was born on July 4th, 1976. Her first and middle names are Sunday America. Names matter.
In the Old Testament, names were usually a pun that described the person or the place, often with crushing wit. Jacob and Esau for example. Esau was evidently born with a reddish hue to him, and was covered in hair. Esau then is a play of a play of a play on two different words that means red and hairy. We hear “Esau,” and think, “OK, so he’s called Esau, this is America, our names don’t mean anything.” But the ancient Hebrews hearing this story heard much more, they heard an ethnic joke, a little bit of history, and something about who they are as a people. Jacob, Esau’s twin brother, wasn’t named Jacob because it sounded nice either, Jacob means “he who grasps the heel,” or “he who supplants”: this is not complimentary. Instead, Jacob’s name is highly descriptive of the kind of person that he was: a person who takes advantage, takes what is not his. Imagine that, going through life as “Cheater,” your parents calling you home, “Oh, He-that-takes-that-which-is-not-his, time to come home!” At the end of today’s reading, Jacob removes all doubt about his designation as the one who supplants, the one who replaces and supersedes: he cons his brother out of his birthright.
And what is a birthright? Most people think of a birthright as some kind of cultural given, “It is my birthright that I cook good Italian food.” But back in the Old Testament times, a birthright was so much more. As the eldest son, Esau, was entitled by law. And in that time it was considered a natural law, something self-evident, that the eldest son was entitled to a double share of the inheritance from the father as well as taking upon himself the leadership of the family, the clan, and the tribe. Having claim to the birthright was a big deal, it made you generationally wealthy, a real leader. And Jacob cheats Esau out of it. Now granted, Esau likely wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, I’m sure he could have scrounged together something else to eat without giving away the store. All that said, as far as Jacob is concerned if you dupe a stupid person, it’s still wrong.
This is our patriarch. Jacob the cheat.
This is Jacob, Jacob as in: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob as in the one whose name is changed to Israel. Israel as in Israel: the people of God.
Jacob who argues with his brother in utero! Our patriarch the con artist; who cheats his brother and lies to his father.
But there is this other part of Jacob. Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson to Abraham. Jacob, heir of God’s promise to be a great and called-apart people. All the while that Jacob is conning and lying his way through life, God visits him and renews the promise and blessing that was given to Abraham. Jacob is a mixed bag, he is an absolutely flawed, dangerous person, yet God blesses him, his family, and those around him.
During these escapades, God visits Jacob many times. At one point Jacob wrestles with someone, we don’t know who it is, in fact Jacob asks his name, but the stranger doesn’t give it. He does, however, grant Jacob a new name, a new name that signifies who the stranger really is: Israel, which means the one who contends with God. Jacob loses that wresting match, yet the stranger says that Jacob has wrestled with the divine and has prevailed. It is interesting that he is the one who struggles with God and loses, but he is also the one who prevails.
So we have Jacob, the one who supplants, usurps, Jacob the con man, Jacob the bad news. Then there is Israel, who wrestles with God, Israel the blessed, Israel the patriarch. Jacob/Israel, Marion Morrison/John Wayne, Stephani Germanta/Lady Gaga. In each case they are the same person but with a different persona and promise. Israel and Jacob are the same, nothing really has changed, except God’s promise, which makes all the difference. The funny thing is that when God talks to Israel, when God talks to him and renews his blessing over and over again, God calls him Jacob. Here we see that God knows who he is dealing with. God knows that Jacob is a jerk (has faults). God knows that Jacob will mess up and take advantage of people. God calls Jacob Jacob and not Israel, because he knows who he is talking to.
I wonder if God knows who he is talking to when dealing with us. Do you think God trusts himself to bless you in all your foibles? When you are Jacob, trying to supplant yourself, exerting power over another, when you are Jacob, God will still bless you as Israel. But the thing about this blessing is that it involves some wrestling with God, and some renaming, some identity changing.
I noticed, at the baptisms here, Father Paul says to the parents of the children “Name this child.” When we get named, we get our identity. Our names are who we are, in just a few syllables, we get our identity. The Bible is full of name changes, and when the name changes a new life is initiated: Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob became Israel. Jesus continued the practice calling Cephas, Peter, the rock, the petras, upon which his church would be built. Saul, that vigorous persecutor of the church, becomes Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. This new name is a designation that says, what comes next is new.
But God knows, God knows, that the process of living into a new identity, a life of the blessed and beloved by God is never that cut and dry. Abraham still argued with God, Jacob cheated his brother and father, Peter denied Jesus, three times!
We might always be Jacob, we might always be that self-seeking one. But God blesses us anyway. The fact that Jacob acts the way he does, and is still blessed is a remarkable testimony to the faithfulness of God. Does Jacob behave as one who is blessed? No, he acts as if he had to grasp and grab for his future, almost in ignorance of his blessings. Sound familiar? Isn’t this what we all do, we are all so blessed, but we think that we did it. So here we are, most of the time we are a bunch of Jacobs running around conning our brothers. Every once in a while we recognize that we indeed are blessed by God and act like it. We respond to our blessedness with humility and thankfulness. Our faith ought to be a response to His faith. “Oh how I love Jesus, because he first loved me.” Remember that one? Who knew that such a simple little song held such deep theology? Saint Paul says this too in his letter to the Romans, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So God is the initiator, God comes to us first. Thus, our faith is always a response to God’s faith, in us. We are his people, through the waters of baptism, given new names, a new life and identity. God knows who he is dealing with in John Wayne or Lady Gaga, Marion Morrison or Stephanie Germanotta, Jacob or Israel. We are blessed, by any name, we are blessed by God, may we all respond accordingly.

Here's a video of the Holy Eucharist from 6/26/11

The service itself doesn't start until about 10 minutes in. Extra credit if you can spot the fainting reader.

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Sermon for Second Sun. after Pentecost

Gen. 22:1-14
Let’s make one thing clear; today’s Old Testament story is a bear. God tests Abraham and tells him to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, and Abraham all but does it. This ain’t no bedtime story, and it’s not for the faint of heart either. Hold on it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Wrestling with this text ultimately forces us to ask one question, “What would it take for me to stop worshipping God?” What would it take? I’m not talking about becoming an atheist. The question is: What would it take for you to stop worshipping God, for you to throw in the towel and say, “No, God, I don’t think I will.”? Is there, in fact, a point at which ethics overrides obedience to God?

But in today’s reading Abraham doesn’t seem to ask this question. All we get from Abraham is his ascent to God’s command, he does what he is told. In our horror we want to know what kind of person even considers such a thing? What kind of a person, takes a three day journey, knowing that at the end of that journey, lies death for his long promised son? What kind of person is Abraham anyway? We know what tradition says, Abraham is the father of faith; a paragon of obedience. We have to remember that this scene is the culmination of years and years of relationship. This is very much like reading the climax in a story with little sense of what led to the conflict. And it is likely not at all an incidental and insignificant detail that after this scene, God never speaks directly to Abraham again. There is something about this scene in the relationship between God and Abraham that seems to leave both parties sour.

So what leads up to this dramatic scene?

We need to keep in mind that God and Abraham have been working together for a long while at this point. Perhaps you remember a few chapters back, when God was getting ready to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham bargains and bargains with God, argues really. In that scene, Abraham reminds God of how merciful God is (Gen. 18: 25), and God relents; indeed, God changes his mind on account of Abraham’s arguments. Maybe Abraham is certain that God would never take away Isaac, after-all this is the long-promised heir, the one who would produce the heirs that would number more than the stars (Gen. 15:5). Is Abraham calling God’s bluff? Maybe Abraham is just humoring God, “Sure, sure, God, oh my son, my beloved? Oh, ok, yeah the one you already promised would give me all those descendents, uh huh, o.k., I’ll go along with this.”

But I’m not so sure. Our text itself offers no help for us in terms of understanding Abraham’s inner being, we don’t know what he is thinking. We don’t know if Abraham is cavalier in his attitude about the sacrifice or if Abraham is resigned to the commands of God. We don’t know if Abraham is torn by anxiety. We don’t know what’s going on with Abraham, we can only guess.

Well, then, what can we know about Abraham in this story? We can look at what he says, what words he uses. Abraham says only two things in the story, but he says one of those two things, three times. Abraham says, “Here I am.” Whenever anyone calls to him, whether it is God, his son Isaac, or an angel, Abraham answers, “Here I am!” Abraham is not trying to hide from God, unlike Adam in the garden who tried to hide from God’s presence when he sinned (Gen. 3:10). Abraham is not hiding, he’s out in the open; he is being honest: “Here I am!” Abraham says only one other thing in this whole episode, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” This is in response to Isaac’s common sense question, “Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” But again, the text gives us no clues as to Abraham’s tone or state of mind. Was Abraham trying to keep Isaac from panicking by lying to him, was Abraham speaking metaphorically, is Isaac the lamb? Was Abraham just totally convinced that God would supply the lamb? We don’t know what he was thinking really, I am apt to take him at his word, even though Abraham has more than his fair share of guile. We simply don’t know, but what we can say is that 1.) Abraham is honest about who he is, “Here I am!” and 2.) he knows that God provides. He is honest, he is clear about who he is and about who God is and what God does.

So many readings of this story try to sanitize it of its horror. This command from God is too much to bear. I would wager that if we are being honest, most of us hear this command and say, “No! Unfair.!” This is not satisfactory. And just as unsatisfactory is the blind acceptance of the command. This is my biggest problem with Abraham in this story. Earlier Abraham argues with God not to destroy two wicked cities, but when it comes to his son, he clams up. The history clearly shows that God is more than willing to hash things out, if not change his mind, why so reticent Abraham? Why not speak up for what’s right? This kind of conundrum, this making a person choose between obedience to God and family comes up in the teachings of Jesus too. Remember when Jesus says, “Whoever does not hate mother and father, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes even life itself, they cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26) What is the deal with the extreme God of ours? It’s almost as if he were asking us to have faith, to trust, in him and him alone. What a strange god, a god that demands not only total trust, but singular trust, trust to the exclusion of all other trust and security.

It really doesn’t matter whether we look at this story with the believing eyes of unquestioned faith, or with a critical eye, the most important thing to remember about this story is the way it did not turn out. Make no mistake, had God asked for and then collected on his demand for the sacrifice of Isaac, we all would not be here. This is the answer to the question that I posed earlier, “What would it take for you to stop worshipping God?” The answer is when God stops being God. God would not be God had he reneged on his promise that Isaac would be Abraham’s heir. Abraham, knows this, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” But let us not be lulled into thinking that Abraham is certain about all this. Abraham is a human being after all. He cannot know for certain that God will provide, but he does have faith that God will provide.

And what is faith? Faith is one of those churchy words that gets used quite a bit, so often, that perhaps the meaning gets lost. Faith is not certainty, nor is faith facts. Faith is trust. And trust is tricky. When we trust someone, we do not have the certainty that we get from, say, mathematics, when we trust someone we are not as confident as 1 + 1 = 2. When we trust, we don’t know the outcome. When we trust we go out on a limb a little, when we trust we don’t have certainty; but we have hope, we have assurance. Hope and assurance are brought about by relationships over time, not facts and figures. And it is the relationship that Abraham has with God over time that has allowed him to trust God, to have faith in God. Indeed to become our exemplar for faith. And not simply the father of our faith. Christians do not have an exclusive claim on Abraham; no, Abraham is THE father of faith. The knight of faith, as Soren Kierkegaard dubbed him, Abraham is the person of faith par excellence, not for his certainty but for his trust, in God.

What characterizes the person of faith is what Abraham says in this story, “Here I am,” and “God himself will provide.” The person of faith is honest about who they are, and they know the source and owner of everything they have.

Which is easier said than done. Faith is about being honest about who you are and who is the source of all that you have, and that same source, has total claim, total claim on you. And this claim is what today’s reading highlights: God has total claim, and will not be denied. This is scary stuff really. We have a God who insists upon trust in him totally and solely. There are to be no other gods before him. And make no mistake there are plenty of other gods. The age of polytheism is not over, there are lots of gods, those things that we put in the place of God, those things that we use to try to make us satisfied and whole and happy. But our God won’t have it. God is the provider, the sole provider of all our satisfaction, wholeness, and happiness; without remainder.

And putting our trust in Him, but knowing he will be there with us. That is the promise God makes to Abraham and to his son Isaac and his son Jacob and to all their descendants. We are part of that line of descendants, we are heirs of his eternal kingdom, and this is the same God that reveals himself to us, provides for us, and has created the means of grace and the hope of glory for us in Jesus Christ. And there simply is no better way to draw near in faith to our Lord than to proclaim our common trust in him, pray to him, confess our sins to him, and finally, celebrate his undying faith in us at the Eucharistic table. Amen.

It's been a awhile!

Recap since Lent 4:

1.) we have a baby on the way.
2.) found out that our home diocese was not hiring.
3.) found the perfect job in Charlotte, NC.
4.) Ordained to the priesthood on 6/18/11.Here too.
5.) Moved from Sewanee, very very sad.
6.) Moved to Charlotte. Very awesome, so far.
7.) I'll keep up with this blog.
8.) Thanks.
9.) Bye.
10.) ten is a good number.

Lent 4

John 9
“As he passed by, he saw a blind man from his birth.” This is how John opens the story. Enter the disciples, who consider the blind man, not a man as such, they consider him more as a case: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”
Undoubtedly you have heard about this notion of sin and punishment. This primitive idea that the consequences of sin are sickness and poverty. Thank goodness we have gone beyond these old ideas. I know that none among us have looked upon the poor, the homeless, the addicted and have definitely NOT thought of God justly punishing them. Well, as it turns out the Jews have never really had this notion of punishment and sin either. The Levitical purity codes were always egalitarian. Yes sin and all manners of uncleanliness could drive God away. But the purity laws and the various codes of cleaning were the ultimate social leveler. Each person was never more than a few days away from ritual purity, no matter their station. One of the points of the story of Job, was that sickness and misfortune are not necessarily linked to sin.
Jesus seems to understand this and says so, “it was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” I wonder what it was like hearing that? The blind man had grown up being told that he was a sinner or that his parents were. Here is a man who was certainly used to having the works of God made manifest in him, but as punishment. Now, someone is saying something new and he has a different tone, he’s not yelling for one, and now this mud.
Notice nobody is asking this man anything. He’s a case. Not even Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus just sends him off to the pool to make his mikvah, his ritual cleansing. Exit Blind Man, but John has us follow him, leaving Jesus and the disciples off stage. What follows tells how the-now-sighted man is received into his community after his healing. And it doesn’t seem to go well. Some don’t believe that he is the one who was blind. When he does convince them, and talks about his healing from Jesus, they bring him to the Pharisees who question him all over again, but this time they are asking him, not about his healing , but about the healer. “How did he heal you?” “How can a Sabbath-breaking sinner heal?” Still not sure about all of this, the Pharisees call in the man’s parents. And they just don’t want to get involved so they say, “Look, our son can make his own decisions, he’s of age, ask him.” The man really can’t get a break since he regained his sight, it’s almost as if his community liked him better when he was blind.
And this is where the story becomes less like holy writ and more like Night Court. Remember Night Court? Night Court was a cavalcade of 1980s stand-up comics who took turns making wisecracks, all set up by the judge, lawyers, and bailiffs. The Pharisees are getting impatient now and say: Give God the glory! Meaning: tell the truth! Ok, maybe it’s more like a Few Good Men, because I’m not sure that they can handle the truth. The man tells them what happened again, they press further and he asks “Why do you want to hear it again, Do you too want to become his disciples?” The Greek here is in on the joke, the man expects a “No” answer. His question might read more like, “You don’t want to become his disciples do you?” The Pharisees revile him and kick him out saying he was born in utter sin, putting us right back at square one.
Right back at square one, where we find Jesus. And if we read carefully, we see that the man does not recognize Jesus at sight or sound. Jesus asks, “Do you believe in the Son of man?” The man answers, “Yes, can you tell me who that might be.” And Jesus, ever the punster, playing on the man’s recent ocular improvement says: “You have seen him and it is the one speaking to you.” And the man worships Jesus.
And finally one last confrontation, this time between Jesus and some of the Pharisees. It’s the coup de grace on the whole affair, as if this entire passage were leading up to this exchange. Jesus says, “I came to judge the world, so that those who are blind might see, and those that are sighted might be made blind.” “So what, we’re blind then?” ask the Pharisees, and somewhat enigmatically Jesus answers “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”
The End. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Christ.
Boy it sure feels good to be on the right side of that exhortation, doesn’t it? Good thing we’re not like those Pharisees. But you know the implication is on us. It always has been, and it is now. Like those Pharisees, we need to question this blind man who is no longer blind, but we need to go further and watch him and see what develops.
This blind man. This man who was not asked if he wanted to be healed, this man who defended Jesus’ actions without ever seeing him, or knowing what he was about, except that he was from God. Here is a person surprised by an uninvited Jesus. Here is a person that has an encounter that he just cannot understand, and this encounter does not hold up to the scrutiny of his family, his culture, even his own past. But, here’s the rub: as our blind, then-sighted, friend shows us, that kind of understanding, the intellectual and societal pigeonholing, is not really necessary. The understanding of how healing and God works in the structures that have come before, even in inspired ones, is not the point.
Here we have a story of the acts of God, we have a story of God’s works being revealed in a person! And what surrounds that person? Questions: Who, what, when, where, why, how; the questions are coming from people of faith, people of faith seeking understanding. It’s not that the Pharisees are asking the wrong questions, they are doing their due diligence; they are literally testing the spirit of what Jesus has done.
What is going on, I think, is that they don’t yet have the skills to relate with the blind man or with Jesus. There were those Pharisees who did seem to have the right skills, who could engage Jesus and the phenomena that came in his wake, Nicodemus for example, and in our story today the Pharisees were divided, meaning there were some who were trying to hear all this through.
But Jesus doesn’t make it easy on the Pharisees, and on us, when he drops this doozy: “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see, may see, and those that do see may become blind.” This puzzling phrase is rendered clear by watching this blind-man-who-isn’t-blind; what happens with him is the key.
Jesus didn’t just give the man sight. He gave him his blindness as well. Blind from birth! If you are blind from birth, can you even understand what it means to be blind? What have you got to compare it to? The sighted among us can close our eyes and at least imagine, however weakly, what it might be like to be blind. When you think it through, this man didn’t even know what blindness was until Jesus gave him sight. Blindness then, is not a condition of being, as much a lack of ability. Which is obvious, but it needs to be said in light of this reading because we tend to overly spiritualize these readings. We talk a lot about spiritual blindness, as if that were some kind of natural category. Jesus gave the man an ability to see his blindness. And in his mercy he will give the sighted blindness so that they may obtain perspective on their sin.
The healing then is a bestowal of a skill, a skill to see one’s blindness. To see where one has chosen, or been made, to be blind to one’s own injustices to ourselves and our neighbors. Where are you blind? Where are those subtle ways that you have hardened your heart to yourself, your neighbor, and your God? You are blind! Whenever you hear that one person and know, you know that the next thing that comes out of their mouth is going to be all wrong: you are blind. Remember that time when that jerk cut in line, remember? You kept your cool, you didn’t cuss him out, but you still carry that no account, ill-mannered, fool in your mind, you are blind. This hasn’t happened to you or me, but I’ve heard of it, when someone, no one here of course, when someone tears down another person, usually behind their back, and smooth’s it over with “Bless her heart.” That’s blindness!
But Jesus doesn’t seem to fault the blind, that’s the good news, Jesus doesn’t fault the blind: “If you were blind you would not have sin.” But, here’s the rub, Jesus heals blindness, and in that healing you receive sight to see how you were blind. Jesus grants the skill so that we can begin to reckon our blindness.

Funny thing is that sightedness and blindness in today’s gospel look a lot alike. Jesus also grants blindness, grants blindness, to those who in their pride say they see but show by their actions and understanding that they do not. There is this cycle that Jesus puts us on of sightedness and blindness, back to sightedness.
The common denominator though is Jesus, he is the one who gives us the skill, the sight to see our own blindness. Know this, you cannot encounter Jesus Christ and come back unchanged. Paul, blinded. Lazarus , raised. Mary of Magdela, set free. Changed. Andrew, Peter, James, John, Josh, Don, Jane, Bill: changed. It happens. What better place than the Church, and what better time than Lent, than to look and ask ourselves where we have been blind?
May Jesus come, even uninvited, come to find us where we are: when we do not have the sight to see him, find us in our blindness, and give us new eyes to see our blindedness and behold only him and the gift of new life that we have through him. Amen.

Sunday's Sermon

Epiphany 6
Deut. 30:15-20
Matthew 5: 21-37

So, here we are at Epiphany Six. It’s been great hasn’t it? For the first two Sundays we had accounts of Jesus’ baptism. Undoubtedly we heard sermons that made us all think hard about our own baptisms and what it means to be a Christian. Then in the third Sunday after Epiphany we learned about the beginning of Jesus’ mission, how he called his first disciples; and we heard sermons about following Jesus. So far so good. Very good, in fact. Then, two weeks ago, Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, a masterwork of teaching and consolation for the early Christians and for us: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” That week we learned about the Kingdom of Heaven and how it reverses the fortunes of the world. Finally, last week we continued with the Sermon on the Mount and we learned about how we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We may have even sung “This Little Light of Mine.” I like this stuff, it makes me feel good. But it is not to last.
Today Jesus gives us some pretty tall orders that cause every one of us to look at our shoes, shuffle our feet, clear our throat, or more likely to say, “Well Jesus doesn’t mean that, he’s using exaggeration and hyperbole, he’s saying something outrageous to prove a point.” Jesus says, “I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,* you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult* a brother or sister,* you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell* of fire.” That’s exaggeration you see, Jesus asks a lot of us, but to be that nice to my siblings, neighbors, or fellow church-goers is unrealistic.” Right? I’m not so sure. What about this doozy that got Jimmie Carter into so much trouble, “‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
It’s hyperbole, it’s unrealistic. He doesn’t mean it.
What happened? We were on board with Jesus saying blessed are the poor in spirit, we were right with him at the baptism stories, and the part where he said, “Follow Me!” What happened? Now that we get to the part of the sermon that gets specific, we attribute hyperbole to Jesus. Now that Jesus says, “Now listen up my disciples, here’s what this life with me looks like, this is what I expect” we say, “He’s exaggerating.”
Well there are two points here that I will try to convince you of. The first is that I don’t think Jesus was exaggerating. I am one of those rare Bible scholars that think that the writers of the Gospels knew what they meant when they wrote it. Of course there are all kinds of rhetoric and tricks of genre, but I think Jesus means, plainly, what he says here. The second point is about who this Sermon on the Mount is for.
You see these teachings are for disciples. Jesus is not really trying to win over new converts here, he is preaching to his followers, to us in the church. And how do I know that?
Well, who was the Bible written for anyway? Who wrote the Old Testament? Was it a group of Hebrews out there in Palestine, writing to all the gentiles to have them become proselytes? No. The writers of what became the Hebrew Bible were writing their story of their life with God, for their tribe and community, for their fellow God followers.
And the New Testament, who wrote that? One of the first things that I learned upon arrival at seminary was the fact that the New Testament, all of it, the Epistles and the Gospels, were written by and for people who went to church. That may be nothing new to you fine people here at Nativity, but for me to realize that Church folk wrote the Bible was a mind-blower. The Bible is the Church’s book. You see, I always thought it was the other way around; that the Church had somehow spontaneously sprung from the writings. The truth is, and the facts are, that the New Testament was written by people who were grappling with the Jesus story, who were caring for each other, and were making and receiving the Holy Eucharist together. That’s who wrote it, and they wrote it for each other, to form their community and their story, and eventually we arrived, and it is our story too.
What’s all this got to do with being liable to the fires of hell, being thrown in prison, tearing out eyes and all that?
My point is that the Bible was written for disciples of God, if you think about it for a second; the Bible is not primarily an evangelical text. It is a book for disciples. That’s a tough one, the Bible is a book for disciples. Jesus is outlining the mode of behavior of a disciple, of the church. The world just doesn’t get this kind of behavior. And no, I actually don’t think Jesus is exaggerating, he might be trying to awaken a long slumbering moral imagination, awakening it to activity. Jesus is upping the ante on the laws that his disciples knew so well. He is making interior what might have been done only externally. Yes, don’t murder, Moses covered that. But when Jesus goes inside he knows about the internal seeds of anger and he raises the stakes to the limit.
Why, why all this hellfire and tearing out? Because it matters to God. You can bet money that whenever Jesus starts talking in graphic terms, like tearing eyes out, unquenchable fires, and the world just generally coming to an end, it is important to him. And if it important to the Son, it is important to the Father.
What Jesus is doing here in this part of his Sermon is to teach us sin. That’s a funny way to say it, “Teach us sin.” There is no doubt that Jesus is teaching us ABOUT sin, but he is also teaching us sin. Sin is not a natural category. We can’t arrive at the notion of sin by just thinking hard. It’s not evident from just looking at nature. There is a whole branch of theological enquiry that says, “When we look to nature, we can learn about the character of God. There is some information about God in this rainbow, this season, this bird.” That’s called Natural Theology. But I don’t know of a Natural Theology of Sin. Of course one only needs to read the newspaper, watch TV, or have a conversation to see that the world is filled with sin; but we are seeing that from the Church’s perspective. The world doesn’t believe in sin. It might believe in evil, and entropy, and brokenness; but not sin, because sin is an offense to God. And since the world doesn’t have sin, the world can’t forgive.
But Jesus is teaching us sin, because we have to be taught what sin is. Let’s look again at what interests Jesus. Yes murder, but really anger and resentment. Yes, adultery, but really Jesus is talking about respect. That’s what Jesus is preaching: respect, patience. In other words, how to be a community that thinks like God. And what is a disciple but someone who tries to think and relate to the world like God does? And what is the church but a group that thinks alongside God?
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus starts by saying, “OK, I’ve described the Kingdom of Heaven, the reversals, and I’ve begun to sketch out what it means to be a disciple: you know, salt, light, righteousness. And now for the fine print.” What it means to follow Jesus is to actually respect people, to have patience with ourselves, and our neighbors. In short: to be at peace. Imagine it. Life, as if people mattered. But let us not be naïve, peace ain’t pretty. Getting to peace can be messy and painful.
But it is here, in Christ’s church, that we can learn the lessons of this Jesus Ethic. It has been said that the Church does not have an ethic, it is an ethic. How do we learn the lessons that are required for what Jesus is demanding of us? We come together, here, we tell the stories that inspire us to live virtuously, we receive the sacraments where we learn that God is reaching across space and time to bring us again and again closer to him. So in this community of story and faith we are brought out of ourselves to see our fellow creatures as something deserving of respect.
This is what our Lord is saying today: “Act like I act, think like I think;” which is also what God himself says in our reading from Deuteronomy, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity . . . choose life.”
Obeying God, following his commandments, for the ancient Hebrews meant to live in the light of God’s mind, to literally imitate God. Should we imitate God? You bet your life we should. But, imitation does not mean that we look at Jesus of Nazareth and point-for-point make our lives his. That life has been lived. We are not Jesus, we are not the messiah, we are not the crucified and risen one. Yet we are his people, living his story as our own, making his story our story. We are inspired, in-breathed, by Jesus to go beyond our attempts to control and exploit everything and to begin to imagine a different way of seeing the world and our relationships: to be like God.
So, let us proclaim our common faith in the One who calls to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, pray that we might orient our story to his. Confess our desires to exploit and control our brothers and sisters. Receive His blessing, and finally come to his table, being utterly reconciled to him and each other.

Actual Size

The universe is only so big, but is it ever big. Here is a link to a "sliding scale of the universe."