Friday Morning Bible Study
Luke-Acts for 3/16/12
In an effort to understand the underlying structure, message, and meaning of Luke-Acts, please consider these questions as you read. Below are three levels of involvement in the text.
Level One: Shouldn’t be too hard…
1.) How many chapters are in Luke? How many pages does that represent in your Bible?
2.) How many chapters is Acts? How many pages does that represent in your Bible?
3.) What is the first name mentioned in each book? What does that name mean? Who was this person?
4.) How does the Lucan infancy narrative differ from the Mattean?
Level Two: If you have some extra time…
1.) Read Acts 7:17-44
2.) Read the first four chapters of Luke.
a. Describe in one sentence each, what happens in each chapter.
Level Three: Oh, you really want to get into this….
1.) Read Luke in its entirety. Read for the structure and story, noting big ideas, not details. Try reading it in a contemporary version, such as the Message, to make this easier.
Reminders:
No Bible study in Holy Week 4/6/12
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Sunday's sermon
Sermon for Third Sunday in Lent B
John 2:13-22
About 7 years ago I attended my first church convention. I was an alternate delegate for my little Church, Nativity, at the 99th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Atlanta. It was everything a burgeoning Church nerd could love: legislative minutia, heated arguments, song, worship, and my favorite: rows upon rows of vendors, ministries, ecclesial dry goods, and merchandise, lots of merchandise. That year the diocese was feverishly hawking the coffee-table book which chronicled the history of every parish in the diocese. They were selling this book everywhere. I remember the youth delegation pushing t-shirts on everyone too. There was a lot to learn, see, and buy at the church convention. The t-shirts and books were even being sold in the narthex of the church were we had our closing convention Eucharist. When former Bishop Frank Allen took the pulpit for his sermon he opened with an announcement, he said, that we may have heard a ruckus in the church. He announced that a long-haired homeless man had come into the narthex where the things were being sold, he had scattered the merchandise, turned over the tables, and was shouting some blather about keeping his Father’s house holy. Well, don’t worry, Bishop Allen said, we’ve gotten rid of him.
What would Jesus Do? Remember that fad? For those of you younger than, I guess 20, there was a fad several years ago when a lot of folks would wear a rubber bracelet that had the initials WWJD on them: What Would Jesus Do? You don’t see many of those bracelets around these days. The idea I suppose was to have a constant reminder for oneself to think as Jesus did, and always do the right thing. I thought of it at the time as the Jiminy Cricket version of discipleship. I suppose wearing the bracelet was also something of an evangelistic tool, “hey I think like Jesus, so should you.” I remember my father making a comment about the What Would Jesus Do bracelets once, now you have to know my father, he is a good mid-Western sort of man, who I really can’t recall criticizing anyone or anything ever, so I listened when he said simply, “Well, I guess I just wear one of those bracelets on my heart.” That was enough for me.
I think when most people ask what would Jesus do they don’t have today’s Gospel reading in mind. Today what Jesus would do is tear the place apart. Today Jesus would turn over the tables and scatter the money, disrupt the entire sacrificial enterprise. Scholars have written on this subject in recent years and it seems that Jesus may have been upset over moving the business end of the legitimate sacrificial system from the Mount of Olives to the interior of the Temple. Jesus knows that the sacrificial system is good and fine, but the business of it, the changing of money and selling of animals is simply not proper for the interior of the Temple. And his disciples interpret his actions with the ancient words: “Zeal for your House, Lord, will consume me.”
Jesus is clearing out the Temple, he is railing against a sort of spiritual materialism. Hear that: spiritual materialism. It sounds like a paradox because we tend to think of spiritual as ethereal and non-practical. Of course, spirituality is simply the most real. Spirituality is the really real. And materialism, well materialism isn’t all bad, after all, God is the ultimate materialist, he made all material! The problem arises when we try to hold on to too many things for our spirituality.
You see, our hearts and minds are like a room. As we grow and even before we can speak a word, some furniture is put into our rooms. Some of the furniture is good, furniture that is beautiful because of the virtues they represent: hard work, care for others, justice, family. But over time, as we put more and more furniture into our rooms, the rooms of our hearts become crowded and even cluttered. What happens is that it becomes so crowded, even with good things, that we can’t move.
Like he did in the Temple, we need to invite Jesus to drive out everything to clean house. When Jesus cleared the Temple, he cleared it of things that were good, in and of themselves: the sacrificial system was good then, money is good and not evil. But they were encroaching on the thing that mattered, the one thing: worship, direct contact with God. So we must let Jesus clear out the room of our hearts so that we might be able to have room to actually worship God.
But Jesus will not leave the room empty. There will be one piece of furniture left in the room. It is Jesus. Now there have been lots and lots of ways of using figurative language to talk about Jesus: the Way, the Gate, the Son, the Good Shepherd, the Alpha and the Omega. I don’t think I have ever heard Jesus compared to a piece of furniture, so I guess we are breaking new ground here. But this one piece of furniture in our rooms is unique. I imagine Jesus might be a lot like that special piece of furniture in C.S. Lewis’ novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The Wardrobe there is special because it is not simply an object of beauty but is the door into another world.
Jesus then is our door, which we go through to a transformed world. Unlike Narnia however, this transformed world is still our world, but through Jesus, it is different. And all those things that Jesus cleared out we find again, but our relationship to them: our money, friends, family, work; they are utterly changed when we interact with them in light of our passing through Jesus. So our relationship with money is changed in the light of Jesus. Our relationship with our family and spouses changes in light of our relationship with Jesus. This is the point: that the fundamental, the foundational relationship is with Jesus, period. Let your life be guided by that relationship first, and the others will fall into place. And by fall into place, sometimes the fall might be into a trash pile; some of the clutter in the rooms of our hearts is just trash and needs to go. Jesus changes things. It’s what he does. That’s What Jesus Would Do, that’s what Jesus does, he transforms things. When Jesus comes around, nothing is left as it was.
So let Jesus into the room of your heart, let him drive things out, turn things over, and leave the once piece that matters, through which all our lives become changed.
It is nearly Spring after all, what better time for a good cleaning?
John 2:13-22
About 7 years ago I attended my first church convention. I was an alternate delegate for my little Church, Nativity, at the 99th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Atlanta. It was everything a burgeoning Church nerd could love: legislative minutia, heated arguments, song, worship, and my favorite: rows upon rows of vendors, ministries, ecclesial dry goods, and merchandise, lots of merchandise. That year the diocese was feverishly hawking the coffee-table book which chronicled the history of every parish in the diocese. They were selling this book everywhere. I remember the youth delegation pushing t-shirts on everyone too. There was a lot to learn, see, and buy at the church convention. The t-shirts and books were even being sold in the narthex of the church were we had our closing convention Eucharist. When former Bishop Frank Allen took the pulpit for his sermon he opened with an announcement, he said, that we may have heard a ruckus in the church. He announced that a long-haired homeless man had come into the narthex where the things were being sold, he had scattered the merchandise, turned over the tables, and was shouting some blather about keeping his Father’s house holy. Well, don’t worry, Bishop Allen said, we’ve gotten rid of him.
What would Jesus Do? Remember that fad? For those of you younger than, I guess 20, there was a fad several years ago when a lot of folks would wear a rubber bracelet that had the initials WWJD on them: What Would Jesus Do? You don’t see many of those bracelets around these days. The idea I suppose was to have a constant reminder for oneself to think as Jesus did, and always do the right thing. I thought of it at the time as the Jiminy Cricket version of discipleship. I suppose wearing the bracelet was also something of an evangelistic tool, “hey I think like Jesus, so should you.” I remember my father making a comment about the What Would Jesus Do bracelets once, now you have to know my father, he is a good mid-Western sort of man, who I really can’t recall criticizing anyone or anything ever, so I listened when he said simply, “Well, I guess I just wear one of those bracelets on my heart.” That was enough for me.
I think when most people ask what would Jesus do they don’t have today’s Gospel reading in mind. Today what Jesus would do is tear the place apart. Today Jesus would turn over the tables and scatter the money, disrupt the entire sacrificial enterprise. Scholars have written on this subject in recent years and it seems that Jesus may have been upset over moving the business end of the legitimate sacrificial system from the Mount of Olives to the interior of the Temple. Jesus knows that the sacrificial system is good and fine, but the business of it, the changing of money and selling of animals is simply not proper for the interior of the Temple. And his disciples interpret his actions with the ancient words: “Zeal for your House, Lord, will consume me.”
Jesus is clearing out the Temple, he is railing against a sort of spiritual materialism. Hear that: spiritual materialism. It sounds like a paradox because we tend to think of spiritual as ethereal and non-practical. Of course, spirituality is simply the most real. Spirituality is the really real. And materialism, well materialism isn’t all bad, after all, God is the ultimate materialist, he made all material! The problem arises when we try to hold on to too many things for our spirituality.
You see, our hearts and minds are like a room. As we grow and even before we can speak a word, some furniture is put into our rooms. Some of the furniture is good, furniture that is beautiful because of the virtues they represent: hard work, care for others, justice, family. But over time, as we put more and more furniture into our rooms, the rooms of our hearts become crowded and even cluttered. What happens is that it becomes so crowded, even with good things, that we can’t move.
Like he did in the Temple, we need to invite Jesus to drive out everything to clean house. When Jesus cleared the Temple, he cleared it of things that were good, in and of themselves: the sacrificial system was good then, money is good and not evil. But they were encroaching on the thing that mattered, the one thing: worship, direct contact with God. So we must let Jesus clear out the room of our hearts so that we might be able to have room to actually worship God.
But Jesus will not leave the room empty. There will be one piece of furniture left in the room. It is Jesus. Now there have been lots and lots of ways of using figurative language to talk about Jesus: the Way, the Gate, the Son, the Good Shepherd, the Alpha and the Omega. I don’t think I have ever heard Jesus compared to a piece of furniture, so I guess we are breaking new ground here. But this one piece of furniture in our rooms is unique. I imagine Jesus might be a lot like that special piece of furniture in C.S. Lewis’ novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The Wardrobe there is special because it is not simply an object of beauty but is the door into another world.
Jesus then is our door, which we go through to a transformed world. Unlike Narnia however, this transformed world is still our world, but through Jesus, it is different. And all those things that Jesus cleared out we find again, but our relationship to them: our money, friends, family, work; they are utterly changed when we interact with them in light of our passing through Jesus. So our relationship with money is changed in the light of Jesus. Our relationship with our family and spouses changes in light of our relationship with Jesus. This is the point: that the fundamental, the foundational relationship is with Jesus, period. Let your life be guided by that relationship first, and the others will fall into place. And by fall into place, sometimes the fall might be into a trash pile; some of the clutter in the rooms of our hearts is just trash and needs to go. Jesus changes things. It’s what he does. That’s What Jesus Would Do, that’s what Jesus does, he transforms things. When Jesus comes around, nothing is left as it was.
So let Jesus into the room of your heart, let him drive things out, turn things over, and leave the once piece that matters, through which all our lives become changed.
It is nearly Spring after all, what better time for a good cleaning?
Thursday, February 23, 2012
An Uncommon Ash Wednesday Sermon
This sermon was given last night, it reflects a profound hurt in the parish and what I hope is a pastoral response.
Ash Wednesday
I don’t think I can do this.
I don’t think we can do this.
It’s all too much. This week started with a funeral for a dear friend to all in this parish. This week will end with another funeral for one of our youth who was killed just yesterday morning in a car accident.
Last week I buried another of our youths, Matthew.
It’s too much Lord. This parish has had enough.
Here we all are, your broken people who come to this church for healing, but today, well today is not a time of healing. Today is a day of contrition, and ashes, and sorrow.
Well, Lord, we’re already there. We’ve already got the ashes, smeared all over our souls.
Sometimes the needs of the congregation are so great that they trump just about everything else. So, with Father Paul’s blessing, I have something to say to you. I have something to say to you that I’ve never heard on an Ash Wednesday:
You are excused.
You are excused from punishing yourself.
You are excused from denying yourself. You are excused from whatever you gave up, if that helps. To quote Father Paul, “Have another cookie.”
What this church needs now is to come together. What we need to give up is our walls. We will especially give up our walls that separate us from our young people.
But you will still observe Lent, you will still get your ashes, and you will still have self-examination as our Prayer Book dictates, but this needs to be self-examination focused on your relationship to the young people in this church. You will still repent, but especially of the sin of looking through the young people of this church, of being afraid or indifferent in your approach to them. And you will fast; you will fast from not eating with them. And you will deny yourself, so that you can reach out to one of them. And above all you will pray, you will pray daily for the youth of this parish. For too long we have simply let Matt and Jillian, and the youth advisors do all the heavy lifting of raising these kids in the faith. We all promised at their baptisms to do all in our power to support these persons in their life in Christ. You promised! Now make good on that promise. For Lent, give up not making good on that promise.
And guess what? They won’t like it. If I know youth, and if I remember my own youth (which wasn’t all that long ago), the truth is they will squirm a bit, and they WILL roll their eyes. But they won’t be able to help knowing, KNOWING, that we, all of us, love them, and want nothing but the best for them. And yes, we know their names, and we know who their parents are.
So you may have your own Lenten discipline. And all the priests here want to support you in that. But for this parish, well for Lent this parish is going to get to know our young people. We will reach out to them and learn who they are and what it means to be a youngster these days. Learn them, befriend them. And although they may squirm and protest they will know that we love them.
Good Lord they will know that we love them.
Ash Wednesday
I don’t think I can do this.
I don’t think we can do this.
It’s all too much. This week started with a funeral for a dear friend to all in this parish. This week will end with another funeral for one of our youth who was killed just yesterday morning in a car accident.
Last week I buried another of our youths, Matthew.
It’s too much Lord. This parish has had enough.
Here we all are, your broken people who come to this church for healing, but today, well today is not a time of healing. Today is a day of contrition, and ashes, and sorrow.
Well, Lord, we’re already there. We’ve already got the ashes, smeared all over our souls.
Sometimes the needs of the congregation are so great that they trump just about everything else. So, with Father Paul’s blessing, I have something to say to you. I have something to say to you that I’ve never heard on an Ash Wednesday:
You are excused.
You are excused from punishing yourself.
You are excused from denying yourself. You are excused from whatever you gave up, if that helps. To quote Father Paul, “Have another cookie.”
What this church needs now is to come together. What we need to give up is our walls. We will especially give up our walls that separate us from our young people.
But you will still observe Lent, you will still get your ashes, and you will still have self-examination as our Prayer Book dictates, but this needs to be self-examination focused on your relationship to the young people in this church. You will still repent, but especially of the sin of looking through the young people of this church, of being afraid or indifferent in your approach to them. And you will fast; you will fast from not eating with them. And you will deny yourself, so that you can reach out to one of them. And above all you will pray, you will pray daily for the youth of this parish. For too long we have simply let Matt and Jillian, and the youth advisors do all the heavy lifting of raising these kids in the faith. We all promised at their baptisms to do all in our power to support these persons in their life in Christ. You promised! Now make good on that promise. For Lent, give up not making good on that promise.
And guess what? They won’t like it. If I know youth, and if I remember my own youth (which wasn’t all that long ago), the truth is they will squirm a bit, and they WILL roll their eyes. But they won’t be able to help knowing, KNOWING, that we, all of us, love them, and want nothing but the best for them. And yes, we know their names, and we know who their parents are.
So you may have your own Lenten discipline. And all the priests here want to support you in that. But for this parish, well for Lent this parish is going to get to know our young people. We will reach out to them and learn who they are and what it means to be a youngster these days. Learn them, befriend them. And although they may squirm and protest they will know that we love them.
Good Lord they will know that we love them.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Sermon on Star Wars as hermeneutic
Sermon for 6 Epiphany B
This week the 3D version of the fourth Star Wars movie, which is actually the first episode, called The Phantom Menace, came out. As a child of the 80s, I can’t help but think that George Lucas is systematically, one movie at a time, attempting to dismantle my childhood. The original Star Wars movies were amazing, and the new ones, well the new ones just stink. I imagine that anyone under the age of twenty might disagree, and they are free to, but of course, they are wrong. They say the sequel is never the equal, but in the case of the Star Wars the prequel ain’t even close.
Not so with our readings today though. What we have in the gospel is something of a movie: Jesus heals someone and tells him to be quiet about it. But the healed man can’t help himself, he goes out, blabbing to anyone who will listen; so that while Jesus wanted to keep things quiet, he can no longer show his face in the towns for the fame that he now has. Jesus is a smash hit for his healings.
Now in the Old Testament, we get the story of Naaman. Naaman is a general who is not a friend of God, in fact he has captured at least one Hebrew woman. Well it turns out that Naaman has leprosy just like the man in the story with Jesus. We could see this reading as a prequel to the Jesus healing story. The woman that Naaman has captured seems like an uncommonly good person, because she has compassion on Naaman for his disease and tells him to go to Elisha the prophet. Naaman does and finally is healed, and commits himself to worshipping God. Here the prequel is the equal, someone is healed and begins to worship God.
So like Star Wars, we have an original blockbuster: Jesus the Healer. And like Star Wars we have a prequel: Naaman being healed and beginning to worship God. But what about the sequel? Is there a Empire Strikes Back to our New Hope? Is there something that comes after Jesus healing that is part of the same story?
Well as a matter of fact there is. It turns out that Jesus made plans for the sequel. In fact he even gave some coming attractions of it. You see, elsewhere in Jesus’ story he talks to some of his friends about feeding him when he was hungry, giving him a drink when he was thirsty, and visiting him when he was sick, or in prison. You remember this. His friends ask him back, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or sick or in prison?” Jesus answered them: “When you give water or food to someone who is thirsty or hungry, when you visit the sick and those in prison, then you did it to me.” This is the sequel: where we see Jesus in the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the prisoner. The thoughtful film buff might inquire, “If that is the sequel, shouldn’t it be in the same theme? After all we have Jesus healing, then in the prequel we have Naaman being healed, the sequel then should be the same thing: someone should be healed when in the presence of Jesus.
Yes! There is, but this sequel has a twist, often when we think of helping others, we think we do it because it is something that Jesus would do. And of course Jesus did visit and heal the sick, he did feed the hungry. But the twist comes with how Jesus’ described what we see when we help others. When us Christians are helping others, we don’t necessarily act like Jesus, so much as we look for Jesus. That’s what Jesus says, when we help others we are helping him, when we serve others we serve Him. This is the twist and it gets even better. What happens to people when they are in the presence of Jesus? They get healed, and why should we be any different? So the story of healing goes on, we are the sequel; a sequel with a twist. The twist is that we think we are visiting the sick, we think we are being Jesus, but Jesus keeps making guest appearances and cameos, Jesus keeps showing up!
Jesus talks in the Gospels about where we might find him in two distinct places. When we have Holy Eucharist, “this is my Body, this is my Blood.” And we trust that Jesus shows up, that’s why we take the Holy Eucharist so seriously, Jesus is here! The other place that Jesus says he will show up is in the faces and hurt of the sick, dying, hungry and imprisoned. And we take this seriously too, but it’s a little riskier to see Jesus in this way. Sometimes Jesus has a dirty face, or a criminal record, or looks just like someone we bitterly do not want to lose. But Jesus has always been risky, that’s what makes this particular character so compelling. We should be as serious about seeing Jesus in others as we are about seeing him in the bread and wine.
So here we are; we are a sequel people. We live out that theme that God has established in the life of Jesus, the life of Israel, and now the life of the Church. In terms of Star Wars, I guess that makes us The Empire Strikes Back, which is the darkest, and most interesting of all the Star Wars movies. But that also means that God has one more sequel in store, one more chapter in the saga; a Return of the Jedi if you will, where everything is revealed, where God is fully known to us and we truly accept who our Father is.
Until then, until that finale is released; let’s live the story, let’s go out and be healed by Jesus, here in the breaking of the bread and as we care for each other meeting Jesus face to face.
This week the 3D version of the fourth Star Wars movie, which is actually the first episode, called The Phantom Menace, came out. As a child of the 80s, I can’t help but think that George Lucas is systematically, one movie at a time, attempting to dismantle my childhood. The original Star Wars movies were amazing, and the new ones, well the new ones just stink. I imagine that anyone under the age of twenty might disagree, and they are free to, but of course, they are wrong. They say the sequel is never the equal, but in the case of the Star Wars the prequel ain’t even close.
Not so with our readings today though. What we have in the gospel is something of a movie: Jesus heals someone and tells him to be quiet about it. But the healed man can’t help himself, he goes out, blabbing to anyone who will listen; so that while Jesus wanted to keep things quiet, he can no longer show his face in the towns for the fame that he now has. Jesus is a smash hit for his healings.
Now in the Old Testament, we get the story of Naaman. Naaman is a general who is not a friend of God, in fact he has captured at least one Hebrew woman. Well it turns out that Naaman has leprosy just like the man in the story with Jesus. We could see this reading as a prequel to the Jesus healing story. The woman that Naaman has captured seems like an uncommonly good person, because she has compassion on Naaman for his disease and tells him to go to Elisha the prophet. Naaman does and finally is healed, and commits himself to worshipping God. Here the prequel is the equal, someone is healed and begins to worship God.
So like Star Wars, we have an original blockbuster: Jesus the Healer. And like Star Wars we have a prequel: Naaman being healed and beginning to worship God. But what about the sequel? Is there a Empire Strikes Back to our New Hope? Is there something that comes after Jesus healing that is part of the same story?
Well as a matter of fact there is. It turns out that Jesus made plans for the sequel. In fact he even gave some coming attractions of it. You see, elsewhere in Jesus’ story he talks to some of his friends about feeding him when he was hungry, giving him a drink when he was thirsty, and visiting him when he was sick, or in prison. You remember this. His friends ask him back, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or sick or in prison?” Jesus answered them: “When you give water or food to someone who is thirsty or hungry, when you visit the sick and those in prison, then you did it to me.” This is the sequel: where we see Jesus in the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the prisoner. The thoughtful film buff might inquire, “If that is the sequel, shouldn’t it be in the same theme? After all we have Jesus healing, then in the prequel we have Naaman being healed, the sequel then should be the same thing: someone should be healed when in the presence of Jesus.
Yes! There is, but this sequel has a twist, often when we think of helping others, we think we do it because it is something that Jesus would do. And of course Jesus did visit and heal the sick, he did feed the hungry. But the twist comes with how Jesus’ described what we see when we help others. When us Christians are helping others, we don’t necessarily act like Jesus, so much as we look for Jesus. That’s what Jesus says, when we help others we are helping him, when we serve others we serve Him. This is the twist and it gets even better. What happens to people when they are in the presence of Jesus? They get healed, and why should we be any different? So the story of healing goes on, we are the sequel; a sequel with a twist. The twist is that we think we are visiting the sick, we think we are being Jesus, but Jesus keeps making guest appearances and cameos, Jesus keeps showing up!
Jesus talks in the Gospels about where we might find him in two distinct places. When we have Holy Eucharist, “this is my Body, this is my Blood.” And we trust that Jesus shows up, that’s why we take the Holy Eucharist so seriously, Jesus is here! The other place that Jesus says he will show up is in the faces and hurt of the sick, dying, hungry and imprisoned. And we take this seriously too, but it’s a little riskier to see Jesus in this way. Sometimes Jesus has a dirty face, or a criminal record, or looks just like someone we bitterly do not want to lose. But Jesus has always been risky, that’s what makes this particular character so compelling. We should be as serious about seeing Jesus in others as we are about seeing him in the bread and wine.
So here we are; we are a sequel people. We live out that theme that God has established in the life of Jesus, the life of Israel, and now the life of the Church. In terms of Star Wars, I guess that makes us The Empire Strikes Back, which is the darkest, and most interesting of all the Star Wars movies. But that also means that God has one more sequel in store, one more chapter in the saga; a Return of the Jedi if you will, where everything is revealed, where God is fully known to us and we truly accept who our Father is.
Until then, until that finale is released; let’s live the story, let’s go out and be healed by Jesus, here in the breaking of the bread and as we care for each other meeting Jesus face to face.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Vessel for holding anointing oil
pic done on iPhone with Camera+ app, on the altar at Saint John's = 4 prepositions in that sentence, now 5.
Funeral Sermon links for my theology class
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Sermon for fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
I hate to admit, but this topic is so thorny, that I didn't write this until an hour before it was presented. Please excuse any formal or theological stumbling blocks.
Sermon for fifth Sunday After the Epiphany year B
I have been simply struck dumb as I’ve dipped my toes into these priestly waters at how the lectionary lines up with the life of the parish. It almost looks like a divine hand that is working through the selection of our readings and the life of this parish. I think this is the best definition of how our scriptures are holy, they work on us to such an extent that we can actually see our lives reflected in them, they make a claim about our lives, and our life together. And today we get a doozy.
Here in our Gospel we have Jesus going and casting out demons and healing the sick. And what did we have this week at Saint John’s? No less than two funerals, several hospital admissions, and one devastating prognosis for our sister Jo Brock. In the Gospel reading the people bring the possessed and the sick to Jesus and he casts out the demons and heals the sick. In first century Palestine, being possessed by a demon and being sick were oft-times synonymous. So if we bring our friends to Jesus in prayer he will heal them, right?
But what happens when that doesn’t happen? What happens when hundreds of Christians pray for the healing of someone and the healing never comes? How can we talk of the unsurpassing power of God, the ultimate goodness of God, and still know that evil and degradation exists?
This past week I had one precocious 9 year old parishioner ask, “If God created everything, then why did God create cancer cells?” Why indeed? Did God create cancer cells, or did God create cells in a world where things can go wrong, where cells can rebel against their natural state and begin to fight with other cells. You see, God created a world that has the freedom to go wrong.
But doesn’t that mean then that God’s power is limited? If God is so powerful, then why would he create a universe that is capable of evil and loss? The answer is freedom of course, but it is so hard to talk about freedom in the culture without having a political discussion. The kind of freedom that God builds into the universe, even into our very souls, is the ultimate act of divine power.
What kind of God would control everything? What kind of powerful God would find it necessary to arrange every little heart and mind toward him? What kind of a powerful God would force us to love him? A monster-God that’s what; only an insecure and ultimately weak God lords his power over his creation.
Our God, THE God, creates a world where the creation can choose Him or not. Our powerful-God creates us to choose. In this freedom, which we are truly free to use to love or hate God, and each other, is the square-one of creation. From there we can move toward God in love, or away from Him in coldness and anger.
But, there is a real downside to this freedom that God builds into his creation. It allows for the existence of evil. I must quickly add that, even though God allows for the existence of evil, he does not will it. Evil is a by product of a finite universe, sin is the by product of freedom. God does not will evil to happen but suffers its existence for the sake of our freedom. Time and time again God does indeed overcome evil, the Bible is case study after case study in the triumph of God over evil: The exodus of the Hebrews from Slavery, the constant call of the prophets to return to God, and finally in the triumph over death by the raising of Jesus. God works through evil to show his ways, to create an Epiphany of himself within his creation.
So here we are: right in the middle of this creation, this free creation which houses bad cells, bad choices, cosmic and everyday evils. So what do we do? What do we do with Jo, and countless others who suffer and die right before our eyes? We do what we always do, we return to God, we don’t have to be cheery about it, we can ask questions, Why Lord? We go to God and we thank him for our creation. We thank him for those he has given us, if even for far too short a time. We thank God for our freedom: that we can choose him. We look to our creator and we thank him, even with pain and loss in our hearts, even with tear streaked faces we can freely go to our creator and sing his praises.
And there, in that moment, we might get a sense of the distinction between healing and curing. When we run to God in our distress, when we cry in his presence then maybe a healing can occur, even if a cure doesn’t.
There is no happy way to end this sermon. We will never be free of the ambiguity of our creation and existence with a powerful loving God in the midst of evil and sin. But we will sing his praises, we will confess our sins to him and each other, we will celebrate his death and rising until he comes again. And we will tell his story, the story of the powerful loving God, who allows for freedom, though we might suffer its consequences.
Join me now as we tell his story in the words of the Nicene Creed: We Believe in One God, the Father Almighty…
Sermon for fifth Sunday After the Epiphany year B
I have been simply struck dumb as I’ve dipped my toes into these priestly waters at how the lectionary lines up with the life of the parish. It almost looks like a divine hand that is working through the selection of our readings and the life of this parish. I think this is the best definition of how our scriptures are holy, they work on us to such an extent that we can actually see our lives reflected in them, they make a claim about our lives, and our life together. And today we get a doozy.
Here in our Gospel we have Jesus going and casting out demons and healing the sick. And what did we have this week at Saint John’s? No less than two funerals, several hospital admissions, and one devastating prognosis for our sister Jo Brock. In the Gospel reading the people bring the possessed and the sick to Jesus and he casts out the demons and heals the sick. In first century Palestine, being possessed by a demon and being sick were oft-times synonymous. So if we bring our friends to Jesus in prayer he will heal them, right?
But what happens when that doesn’t happen? What happens when hundreds of Christians pray for the healing of someone and the healing never comes? How can we talk of the unsurpassing power of God, the ultimate goodness of God, and still know that evil and degradation exists?
This past week I had one precocious 9 year old parishioner ask, “If God created everything, then why did God create cancer cells?” Why indeed? Did God create cancer cells, or did God create cells in a world where things can go wrong, where cells can rebel against their natural state and begin to fight with other cells. You see, God created a world that has the freedom to go wrong.
But doesn’t that mean then that God’s power is limited? If God is so powerful, then why would he create a universe that is capable of evil and loss? The answer is freedom of course, but it is so hard to talk about freedom in the culture without having a political discussion. The kind of freedom that God builds into the universe, even into our very souls, is the ultimate act of divine power.
What kind of God would control everything? What kind of powerful God would find it necessary to arrange every little heart and mind toward him? What kind of a powerful God would force us to love him? A monster-God that’s what; only an insecure and ultimately weak God lords his power over his creation.
Our God, THE God, creates a world where the creation can choose Him or not. Our powerful-God creates us to choose. In this freedom, which we are truly free to use to love or hate God, and each other, is the square-one of creation. From there we can move toward God in love, or away from Him in coldness and anger.
But, there is a real downside to this freedom that God builds into his creation. It allows for the existence of evil. I must quickly add that, even though God allows for the existence of evil, he does not will it. Evil is a by product of a finite universe, sin is the by product of freedom. God does not will evil to happen but suffers its existence for the sake of our freedom. Time and time again God does indeed overcome evil, the Bible is case study after case study in the triumph of God over evil: The exodus of the Hebrews from Slavery, the constant call of the prophets to return to God, and finally in the triumph over death by the raising of Jesus. God works through evil to show his ways, to create an Epiphany of himself within his creation.
So here we are: right in the middle of this creation, this free creation which houses bad cells, bad choices, cosmic and everyday evils. So what do we do? What do we do with Jo, and countless others who suffer and die right before our eyes? We do what we always do, we return to God, we don’t have to be cheery about it, we can ask questions, Why Lord? We go to God and we thank him for our creation. We thank him for those he has given us, if even for far too short a time. We thank God for our freedom: that we can choose him. We look to our creator and we thank him, even with pain and loss in our hearts, even with tear streaked faces we can freely go to our creator and sing his praises.
And there, in that moment, we might get a sense of the distinction between healing and curing. When we run to God in our distress, when we cry in his presence then maybe a healing can occur, even if a cure doesn’t.
There is no happy way to end this sermon. We will never be free of the ambiguity of our creation and existence with a powerful loving God in the midst of evil and sin. But we will sing his praises, we will confess our sins to him and each other, we will celebrate his death and rising until he comes again. And we will tell his story, the story of the powerful loving God, who allows for freedom, though we might suffer its consequences.
Join me now as we tell his story in the words of the Nicene Creed: We Believe in One God, the Father Almighty…
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Funeral Sermon, again, sheesh!
Here is yet another funeral sermon. This one for a local young man who had died all to young. I've taken out his name.
What a curious God we have!
How strange that He would create to begin with. How utterly strange are grass, and finches, chambered nautiluses, and seasons.
How strange that He would then create us.
Us: with our emotions, our various chemistries and impulses. How strange that God created us and imbued each of us with reason, skill, memory, and a beautiful bag of skin to hold all of that in.
What a curious God we have, that would work through history to reveal himself. What a strange thing it is for one outside of time to enter time. We see him most at work in the lives of those who are sensitive to his movements, in the life of Israel, in the life of the church. Of course history and our own lives are filled with the stories of those “God-moments,” those thin-places where God sometimes creeps, other times invades.
What a curious God that arranges things, arranges people, arranges meetings and leavings, arranges our coming and going. What a funny God we have that shines-through even in impossible darkness. What a curious God who would begin to prepare M’s family for his death. What a strange and loving God who would make M and his family, at least more prepared, no one is ever truly prepared for this, nor do they ever fully heal;but to begin to greet his death from far off, and then now, all too close. How interesting that God would bring M home from California, would gather in his family like He did; how strange that M and his mother would talk about God and the life of the spirit the night he died.
What a curious God we have that would come to us, to all of creation, as a creation, as a man. What a strange God who gets so weak, who takes on flesh; and comes to us as Jesus. Other gods are not like this, other gods lord their power over their subjects, but this God of ours becomes a subject. How strange that this God would come and take on flesh, only to grow and feel pain, to suffer and finally die. What a strange God that we have, who assumes all human suffering, and says, “I’ve participated in all of this with you, I am with you.”
A funny God he must be too to give us someone like M, at once so lovely and yet so difficult. One so charming and charismatic but also so hard to live with.
Strangest of all of course is that this curious God of ours made the claim and made good on the claim that death is not the last word. This God raised Jesus from the dead.
This is founding of our religion and it is that which allows us to sing alleluia, even here at the grave. It is this God that helps us to hope and know that we haven’t seen the last of M.
Indeed, it is this same curious God who enables us to participate in his own death and resurrection through the even-stranger Holy Spirit. God has made a meeting place for us and Him in the baptismal waters. Amazing things happen there in the baptismal waters: there we are grafted into the life of God, never to be removed.
C.S. Lewis in his novel, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, gives a beautiful account of baptism and I wonder if there might not be some parallels in it with Matthew.
It seems that Eustace, a young boy who was difficult and, at times, heard to bear, has become separated from his family. In his wanderings Eustace happens upon a dead dragon and in touching it, he becomes transformed into a dragon himself: beautiful and sharp. After several attempts of trying to transform himself back he finally falls frustrated and hopeless. Then Aslan the lion, the allegorical Christ in the Narnia books, arrives and leads Eustace to a pool and tells him to undress. After three attempts of trying to remove his sharp scaly skin he gives up. Aslan then tells Eustace that he must undress him, Eustace tells it this way: p109
“I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do.
The very first tear he made some deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it is worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. . . he peeled the beastly stuff right off -- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt-- and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking then the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft is a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he called me-- I didn't like that much I was very tender underneath now that I know skin on-- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. ” Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis, page 109.
What a curious God that would take us in so. What a loving and strange God that would meet us in the baptismal waters to peel off all the scales and sharp edges, and then unite us to his death and new life so much so that when Christ was raised, so were we. And to that we all say, “Thanks be to God,” thanks be to God for creating us, thanks be to God for giving us M and thanks be to God for redeeming us and including us in his death and resurrected life. AMEN!
What a curious God we have!
How strange that He would create to begin with. How utterly strange are grass, and finches, chambered nautiluses, and seasons.
How strange that He would then create us.
Us: with our emotions, our various chemistries and impulses. How strange that God created us and imbued each of us with reason, skill, memory, and a beautiful bag of skin to hold all of that in.
What a curious God we have, that would work through history to reveal himself. What a strange thing it is for one outside of time to enter time. We see him most at work in the lives of those who are sensitive to his movements, in the life of Israel, in the life of the church. Of course history and our own lives are filled with the stories of those “God-moments,” those thin-places where God sometimes creeps, other times invades.
What a curious God that arranges things, arranges people, arranges meetings and leavings, arranges our coming and going. What a funny God we have that shines-through even in impossible darkness. What a curious God who would begin to prepare M’s family for his death. What a strange and loving God who would make M and his family, at least more prepared, no one is ever truly prepared for this, nor do they ever fully heal;but to begin to greet his death from far off, and then now, all too close. How interesting that God would bring M home from California, would gather in his family like He did; how strange that M and his mother would talk about God and the life of the spirit the night he died.
What a curious God we have that would come to us, to all of creation, as a creation, as a man. What a strange God who gets so weak, who takes on flesh; and comes to us as Jesus. Other gods are not like this, other gods lord their power over their subjects, but this God of ours becomes a subject. How strange that this God would come and take on flesh, only to grow and feel pain, to suffer and finally die. What a strange God that we have, who assumes all human suffering, and says, “I’ve participated in all of this with you, I am with you.”
A funny God he must be too to give us someone like M, at once so lovely and yet so difficult. One so charming and charismatic but also so hard to live with.
Strangest of all of course is that this curious God of ours made the claim and made good on the claim that death is not the last word. This God raised Jesus from the dead.
This is founding of our religion and it is that which allows us to sing alleluia, even here at the grave. It is this God that helps us to hope and know that we haven’t seen the last of M.
Indeed, it is this same curious God who enables us to participate in his own death and resurrection through the even-stranger Holy Spirit. God has made a meeting place for us and Him in the baptismal waters. Amazing things happen there in the baptismal waters: there we are grafted into the life of God, never to be removed.
C.S. Lewis in his novel, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, gives a beautiful account of baptism and I wonder if there might not be some parallels in it with Matthew.
It seems that Eustace, a young boy who was difficult and, at times, heard to bear, has become separated from his family. In his wanderings Eustace happens upon a dead dragon and in touching it, he becomes transformed into a dragon himself: beautiful and sharp. After several attempts of trying to transform himself back he finally falls frustrated and hopeless. Then Aslan the lion, the allegorical Christ in the Narnia books, arrives and leads Eustace to a pool and tells him to undress. After three attempts of trying to remove his sharp scaly skin he gives up. Aslan then tells Eustace that he must undress him, Eustace tells it this way: p109
“I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do.
The very first tear he made some deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it is worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. . . he peeled the beastly stuff right off -- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt-- and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking then the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft is a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he called me-- I didn't like that much I was very tender underneath now that I know skin on-- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. ” Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis, page 109.
What a curious God that would take us in so. What a loving and strange God that would meet us in the baptismal waters to peel off all the scales and sharp edges, and then unite us to his death and new life so much so that when Christ was raised, so were we. And to that we all say, “Thanks be to God,” thanks be to God for creating us, thanks be to God for giving us M and thanks be to God for redeeming us and including us in his death and resurrected life. AMEN!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
Watch live streaming video from sjecharlotteservices at livestream.com
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?”
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
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