Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

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Here's my sermon for today, text below, video above (I start at minute 24)

Sermon for 4th Sunday after the Epiphany, year B.
Mark 1:21-28

This past week, on Wednesday night I told this story of Jesus in the synagogue to the little ones. The story of Jesus walking into the synagogue and teaching; and the people being astounded by his authority. Then the arrival of the man who had an unclean spirit and how Jesus cast out the unclean spirit. It was then that, none other than my own daughter, asked what an unclean spirit was.

How do you teach children about demons, about unclean spirits, about a level of the created order that is misty, dark, and malevolent? It reminds me of when I was a teacher, and we were studying World War II. When we got to the Holocaust, it fell on me to teach what that was. Here I was: having to pass on the story of utter hate and destruction, to a new generation, they were hearing this information for the first time. This passing on of the story must happen of course, as the saying goes, those who do not know the past are condemned to repeat it. Though I prefer the updated version of that phrase, those who do not know the past are condemned to live in the present.

So, my darling 7 year old, asks what is an unclean spirit? I immediately get a flash of Dante and Milton, the Exorcist, , Satan, red tail, and cloven feet. My answer was truthful, but guarded: unclean spirits are bad thoughts about God that people sometimes have.

Unclean Spirits.

I find it interesting that in all the Old Testament there is not a single mention of demons. We have Satan mentioned a few times, but no demons. Then in the New Testament, seen here in Mark the first written Gospel that we have, demons and unclean spirits seem to be a part of life; and such a part of life that are not altogether unsurprising. In another place in the Gospels the people of a region have chained up a man tormented by demons, they feed him and care for him, albeit poorly, but the truth is, he is tolerated. It would seem that contact with a person possessed of unclean spirits would not make one dirty, ritually, indeed that even being possessed is not a violation of any purity code, because in today’s reading the man is in the synagogue. So whatever happened between the writing of the two testaments, one thing is clear, demons abound, and they are part of life and not altogether surprising.

So our scene is dropped into this context of familiar demons and these homely unclean spirits. The scene takes place on the Sabbath. The setting is a synagogue. Enter Jesus. Jesus takes the stage, the Torah scroll is behind him, he begins to teach. We are not told of the content of his teaching but we are told of the style, Jesus does not teach like the hired pros, no he doesn’t obfuscate, or hem and haw, this Jesus has authority! But then a man with an unclean spirit comes in and challenges Jesus loudly. Jesus hushes him and commands the spirit to come out of him. The spirit obeys and the people are amazed and recap the scene for us, in case we missed it: This Jesus is amazing both for the authority of his teaching and for the fact the demons obey him.

But there is one fine point. Did you miss it? I did, I missed it for years. The heart of this reading is hidden in plain sight.

What does the unclean spirit say? “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” It’s right there. This demon, or demons since they say, “Have you come to destroy us?” Here we are at the front of the first written gospel, still in the first chapter, and Mark gives away the whole story. These two, Jesus and demon, seem know each other. Well, if they don’t know each other, the demon certainly knows who Jesus is. The demon recognizes who Jesus is, he can (sniff) smell it on him, the demon can smell eternity on Jesus, the demon knows his creator when he sees him. I imagine for Jesus this might have been something like flying half way across the world, going through customs, and at the baggage claim, hearing, from among the clatter of all the foreign languages, someone from his home town calling his name The demon and Jesus come from the same place, and here we get a glimpse of the creation as so much more than meets the eye, and Jesus coolly hushes the demon and casts him out.

This scene is about more than an exorcism: it is a clue. This story is a clue about how to be Christ in the world.

And this is tough news. I hope you all have learned that the Good News is sometimes, if not usually, tough news. It’s hard being a follower of Jesus. You see, this life with Jesus just might sometimes look like this scene of Jesus and the Demon in the Synagogue. Folks need to be able to recognize Jesus in us, on sight. People need to be scandalized by our behavior, by our unrelenting love for others and the reason for that love as Jesus in us.

Folks: Jesus should be as obvious in us as he was to that unclean spirit. Because we all need to get away from that old frozen chosen way of doing church, of being the church. We need to get our hearts and minds and actions around the idea that our faith, our discipleship to Jesus, is personal but it is no longer private. We’ve all done it! Our faith is personal; God has come to each of us and indeed wants to know each of us, individually and collectively, as a body, in the church. But all of us have kept it private for too long. How do your teachers know you are a Christian? How do your employees, or your boss know you are a Christian? How does your neighbor know you are a Christian?

And let’s not get too high on ourselves when we think about the world and us here in the church. There is no special border between the world and the church. The world and the church are not separated by some Divine fiat, God didn’t create two separate communities, and He certainly didn’t create one community to be at war with another. No, as one wag put it: the world is simply that which has taken the liberty to not yet believe. The world is that which has taken the liberty to not yet believe. Your classmates, your coworkers, heck even your boss is not an unclean spirit. They are not unclean spirits, but they need to see Jesus in us.

So go out and be Jesus, use words if you have to, be Jesus in the board room, be Jesus in the chemistry lab, be Jesus in the file room, the court room, the gym, and even in traffic.

If you don’t know how to be Jesus, well that’s on us. That’s on the leaders and teachers of this and every church. If the church through the years has shown you a Jesus that is non-threatening to unclean spirits, if we have sold you a Precious Moments, domesticated Jesus that doesn’t demand your transformation, well then, I apologize for that. I apologize if you have been sold the therapeutic Jesus and not the Transformative Jesus.

Let’s welcome our scandalous Jesus, let’s welcome our obviously present Jesus. Let’s go into the world and let all the spirits: clean, unclean, and indifferent, look at us and our lives and say, “What have you to do with us Jesus?”

World as Museum of Awe and Wonder part 1

This will be a new feature where I put in cool stuff that makes life better.

The Bad Show - Radiolab

Putting the fun in funerals

That's a cheap pun I know. Several weeks I was speaking with a parishioner and she asked me what my favorite part about being a priest is. I answered, "Funerals."

Why?

I think it is because funerals are emotionally charged events, where people are truly themselves, without guile; and funerals also afford us the opportunity to proclaim the Easter Gospel, even at the grave. I also remember that the earliest Christians were essentially a funerary society: giving decent burials to those who couldn't afford one.

What follows is my sermon for Mike Michael.

Funeral Sermon for Mike Michael 12/10/11
I didn't know Mike. The first and last time I saw him was at Plantation Estates last week when I delivered last rites to him. I had gotten the call that Mike was dying, and I hurried as fast as I could to get out there. One of the secrets of us priests for our dealings with families at the time of death is that you can tell what kind of relationship the family has with the dying person almost immediately. As I rushed into Plantation Estates, Jean welcomed me warmly and introduced me to the receptionist. She introduced me as Father Josh “who was going to help us see Mike off.” “Who was going to help us see Mike off.” It was right then and there that I knew that whoever Mike was, he was loved, he had lived well, and he was prepared for death.
In talking to various long-time parishioners here at Saint John’s about Mike, what was reported to me over and over again was Mike’s enduring kindness. That was the word, kind, not nice. The people didn’t describe him as a nice man, they described him as a kind man. Kind, goes a lot further than nice doesn’t it? Nice, to me is barely civil. But kind, kind carries with it a love and empathy for others that nice just can’t get close to. Mike was kind . . . that and he loved golf.
In my brief talks with Mike’s family I learned that Mike had suffered great loss in his life; the untimely deaths of several siblings, the passing of all his family and his friends. But even in his death Jean had a sense that Mike was going to be with his brothers and sisters again. Indeed in today's Gospel reading Jesus describes going ahead of his disciple's to prepare a place for them. He uses these words, "in my father's house there are many dwelling places." To me this means that God, understands who we are even if we don’t, indeed that there are infinite ways to follow him. It is my understanding that Mike left the church for several years but came back here at St. John's. “In my father’s house there are many dwelling places.” Jesus is letting us all know that we do not know the hearts of people, and that only he does. God knows who we are and how to deal with us, even more than we do ourselves. Mike was something of an enigma wasn’t he? He was not exactly effusive in his emotions, he played his cards close to his chest. But he showed his spirit in other ways, his work with Habitat for Humanity, his lifelong commitment to Jean, his kindness, his devotion to Saint John’s. And today we say goodbye to this kind soul.
The funny thing about death is that we think it is so final. Shakespeare describes it this way: “But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn, No traveler returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others we know not of.”Death is the great unknown for those in the world. But for us Christians we tell a different story about death. Our story goes like this: Jesus is not simply the son of God. Jesus is our trailblazer to that undiscovered country, to death, and back again. It turns out that Shakespeare was right, except that one traveler has returned. And, like Jesus tells us today in our Gospel reading, he goes ahead of us to prepare a place for us. We believe that through our baptisms we share in the death of Christ and by dying in Christ, we share in his resurrection. So for Christians, death is simply the door into God. It is of course hard for us to lose our loved ones, for us to lose Mike, and grief is not unchristian. But we are Christians, we are Easter people, not Good Friday people. We are a people who stand, not crushed at a cross, instead we are a people who stand in awe at an empty tomb. And it is this hope that allows us to say Alleluia, even at the grave; even as we see this kind soul off to be with his Lord, where he, with an unveiled face, beholds his Lord. So goodbye Mike, and in the sure hope of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord we will all see you on the other side. Amen.

Bah Humbug! A Theology of Advent

Here is the audio of my lecture on Advent. Many thanks to Christina for "taping" it on her iPhone and working her techno magic to put it online.



I'll add the PowerPoint as soon a I figure that out.

Here is a tour of that ... more liberal icon of the cosmic Christ. I do not endorse everything that Grey represents here, but I do like his enthusiasm.

Ecoterra | "Cosmic Christ" by Alex Grey from Ecoterra on Vimeo.

Black an White and Read All Over: Reviewing the Nightstand #1

So I read, alot, and alot of different things. I thought I'd take a stab at reviewing the things that I read and offer some theological insight to my odd reading habits. A warning, I am reviewing a comic which has some, can I say "literally graphic images? There is some blodd and guts, so caveat lector.

First up...

We3. Pronounced We-Three. This is a comic, about 100 pages all told. It is the story of three animals, a dog, a cat, and a rabbit. This is not the WInd and the Willows however; the dog and the cat in the rabbit are all outfitted and ready for battle; check out this picture.




The story is very simple: the animals are modified for battle, the animals are marked for "decommissioning", the animals escape, the animals overcome conflict, the animals find a home. There are several animal stories like this. One thing that was surprising for me was the comment that the story implicitly makes on just war and the use of drones. I find it very interesting that our president Barack Obama is well read in the so-called realist theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr, who was a longtime pacifist finally changed his position during World War II and began to talk about the gospel and its relationship to a liberal society. This position has become the default position of most Christians in America, especially liberal Christians: our society, our government, our military can be used for good, can be used for the spreading of the gospel and for the upbuilding of all humanity. The use of drone attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan and just this week in Pakistan is an interesting turn in this way of seeing the use of military might: we need not respect the sovereignty of any other nation when we can kill whomever we want from whatever distance, no matter how far, without putting any soldiers on the ground. We3 tells the story of "drones" that have some kind of consciousness and rebel against their being weaponized.

What We3 dozen superbly well is tell a story in such a way that only the graphic medium, only comics, can.
Here is an example:




Note that the artist, Frank Quitely has turned the panel into the third dimension to give a sense of the time as this cat is attacking whatever it's attacking. Also notice that the story does not pull any punches in terms of violence, I told you this was not the Wind in the Willows. We3 also does a wonderful job of capturing the "voices" of the characters, the dog just wants to be good in the cat, well the cat simply calls all humans "stink boss."

One thing that I'm always on the lookout when it comes to comics is how the writers resolve their stories. Since the vast majority of the comics industry is steered by the moneymaking machines of comic con international, Hollywood, and immature fanboys, it is unsurprising that most comics are simply revenge fantasies (for more on this see this article on a disturbing trend in the best-selling comics). So I'm very pleased when I read a story that is well paced, action packed, and resolves the conflict on some sort of, if not moral high note, then at least a notion of the complexity of morality and relationships. Grant Morrison, the writer of We3, and lots of other comics that I like, tends to be a very moral writer. Morrison really does deliver the moral goods in We3. I've often wondered about that, maybe it is beause Morrison has a spiritual tradtion that he is actively engaged in, maybe it is because he is so successful that he is now able to do whatever he wants, even be moral.

FYI

For those in my theology class, we will not meet this week due to the vestry elections. Join me on November 20, in the Rector's forum for my talk entitled: Bah Humbug! A Theology of Advent (provided my wife doesn't deliver our baby.).

Professional

It's official, I'm a pro writer. Here is the check for a sermon I did for Sermons that Work. I'll link that sermon later.

Theology Class #5

“Maker of Heaven and Earth…” part 2.
12 A Song of Creation Benedicite, omnia opera Domini
Song of the Three Young Men, 35-65
One or more sections of this Canticle may be used. Whatever the selection, it begins with the Invocation and concludes with the Doxology.
Invocation
Glorify the Lord, all you works of the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
In the firmament of his power, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

I. The Cosmic Order
Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord, *
O heavens and all waters above the heavens.
Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew, *
all winds and fire and heat.
Winter and summer, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold, *
drops of dew and flakes of snow.
Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O nights and days, *
O shining light and enfolding dark.
Storm clouds and thunderbolts, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Creation Part Two
Review: Anselmian distinction allows for God’s free choice in creation. This dispenses with pantheism, panenthism, and dualism. Biblical creation is distinct from other ANE stories of creation.

Continuous creation
Biblical contra ANE
Contingent
Deism, dualism, monism (Pantheism)
What is our part in the act of Creation?
What Process Theology says

Biting off alot

My Friday morning Bible study wanted to study Isaiah. We spent the first hour talking about the issues of reading Isaiah from the empty tomb. Here's what we came up with:

Where I was.

Here are the Du Bose lectures by Barbara Brown Taylor that she gave at Sewanee last week. I might give my thoughts on these lectures later, until then . . .

Barbara Brown Taylor, DuBose Lecture 1 from School of Theology on Vimeo.

Barbara Brown Taylor, DuBose Lecture 2 from School of Theology on Vimeo.

Babara Brown Taylor, DuBose Lecture 3 from School of Theology on Vimeo.