tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53035091995161282132024-03-19T02:28:05.381-07:00Community ParsonWe're in DeWitt, New York. Jamar Drive, off Maple. Sundays at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-57505719227344439332015-06-07T06:44:00.002-07:002015-06-07T06:44:09.274-07:00Prisoners of Hope: an open-door policy<b>Easter 3 B April 19, 2015</b><br />
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<b>Acts 3:12-19 </b><br />
<b>Psalm 4 </b><br />
<b>1 John 3:1-7</b><br />
<b>Luke 24:36b-48</b><br />
<br />
Have you ever seen that bumper sticker: “Had a rough week? We’re open on Sundays.” The disciples, in these early days after the resurrection of Jesus, have had a bad week; a lot of crazy and frightening things have been happening. Like the disciples, we are all capable of being scattered, undone, confused. Come to think of it, who has not had a rough week this week, what with one thing or another: cleaning, cooking, taking care of your family, driving in bad traffic, having so much to do that you do not know which end is up. Had a rough week? We’re open on Sundays.<br />
<br />
We do not have to dig down deep in our lives to find places that resonate with what the disciples must have been going through. In what must have seemed like a mission very quickly going out of control, Jesus is arrested and killed, and the disciples lost their beloved friend. He was a wonderful teacher -- he was kind, exciting, charismatic -- it was a thrill to be in his presence. He held people -- physically and spiritually. He knew the right thing to say every time, and he made each one of them feel important. He gave them hope for the future and they knew they were involved in something important enough for them to turn away from what was important in their lives just to be with this person, Jesus. A couple of his disciples were convinced that he would become the King of Israel, unite what had long been separated, and throw out the Roman oppressors.<br />
<br />
Then it was over. He was dead. He had talked a lot about suffering; he quoted scripture about it. He said every prophet suffered, and that his time would be fulfilled, but it was just words to them -- until it happened. Then none of it made any sense at all: he wasn't King. He wasn't teaching anymore. He wasn't healing the sick. He could have done so much more if this horrible, confusing thing had not happened. They could have followed him all their lives. They could have grown old together, but now he was dead. Because when death happens, isn’t that all we have ever known?<br />
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It took some time – years, even – for the disciples around Jesus to begin to see what had happened, to begin to feel the power, the hope, the possibility, what it meant that God had brought someone back from the dead. That’s why every Easter season we read passages from the Acts of the Apostles: those stories tell us how the disciples incorporated this astounding Good News into their lives some years later. The Gospel accounts tell us what happened in those first few days and weeks. We see the<br />
progression from confusion to clarity, from a scattered disbelief to a confident assurance.<br />
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We come to church to hear these stories. When we hear these stories, we see where our story – our confusion, our confidence – fits in with God’s story. We see that we are part of that great stream of the people of God, witnesses to the Good News, prisoners of hope, even during those rough weeks when we are scattered and confused and too tired even to sleep. We’re open on Sundays because that was the day Jesus opened the tomb, and this whole Good News began.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-22066064548157745802015-05-02T10:19:00.003-07:002015-05-02T10:21:15.641-07:00Second chance, even if you missed it the first time<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Easter 2-A</b></div>
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<b>April
12, 2015</b></div>
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<b>Acts 4:32-35</b></div>
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<b>Psalm 16</b></div>
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<b>1 John
1:1-2:2</b></div>
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<b>John 20:19-31</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Grow up! You’re on your own now! Stand on your own two feet!
<o:p></o:p></div>
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How many times have things like that been said to you? Or
you have said things like that to others?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We live in a culture that values autonomy, a culture that
obsesses with independence, choice, pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps and
all that. We don’t really believe, deep down, that the words of the Acts of the
Apostles applies to us: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>… no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but
everything they owned was held in common. … There was not a needy person among
them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds
of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to
each as any had need.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We Americans would find that kind of behavior socialist (!);
we are much more obsessed with individual autonomy. Some believe the
developmental goal of adolescence and young adulthood is to separate the young
person from his or her family. It is the time to strike out on one’s own,
achieve self-realization and self-actualization and self! Self! Self!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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That’s not the way it is in every culture. In some cultures,
interdependence is valued more highly that independence. The family unit is
more important that the desires of the individual. Immigrants from cultures
with tightly knit families move to this country and come smack up against a
culture that says, “Be all YOU can be.” Fulfill your fantasies and desires. Be
the Army of one. Do what you want to do. The goal of your life is
self-actualization.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s startling to us self-realizers to imagine that there
would be another way of living where I am not at the center of my universe but
only one piece in a larger web of relationships and responsibilities, and whose
fortune depends on how I contribute to that greater good. Such a way of living
would require of us a complete re-orientation of who we think we are, and how
we make decisions, and how we act, and what we believe. We would have to admit
that there is something bigger than ME out there. We would have to humble
ourselves and be forced to admit that God, and maybe other people, know more
about what we should do than we do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Think of Thomas as Mr. Self-Actualization, as the guy who
can take care of himself, who makes decisions based on fact and not rumor, who
is his own man. If Jesus has come back from the dead, the he has to see it to
believe it – or it must not exist. As the center of his own universe, even God has
to prove Godself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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One of the things this gospel story is saying, though, that
maybe that is not the best way to be. Maybe God is showing us that life is
about something other than what we think we can prove and control.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s a hard lesson to learn. After all, we’ve been on our
own for a very long time. Western culture dates our sense of autonomy to the
Fall – to when God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden for acting a little too
autonomously. Self-actualize and out you go, God said. The gates of paradise
are now closed. You are on your own now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Today’s gospel alludes to that first creation when
describing how the resurrected Jesus first appeared to his disciples: “He
breathed on them,” bestowing the Holy Spirit and the power to forgive sins.
This is what Genesis says: “then the Lord God formed the human creature from
the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and
the creature became a living being.” What the gospel says is that Jesus is
bringing about a creation as powerful and new as that first creation, and that
whatever went wrong between then and now, well, take a deep breath. You’ve got
a second chance, a new spirit, a resurrected life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What would it mean to believe this story of this new
creation, this second chance, this breath-filled spirit? I think it means
giving up some of our autonomy. It means realizing that there is more to
realize than the SELF. It means regaining a trust in dependency, in
inter-dependency. It means leaving behind our self-reliance and risking surprise
and loss of control.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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We can’t see what Thomas and those disciples saw, those
holes and nail marks. We did not go with the women to find the empty tomb.
Jesus won’t walk through any more walls to shake our hands. But we can still
feel that breath. We can still set sail on that spirit. We can still the
newness of this new creation and breathe in the new and renewed reality of God.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-4254884828198867682015-05-02T10:15:00.002-07:002015-05-02T10:15:25.143-07:00Yes to possibility. Yes to love. Yes to abundance. Yes to life.<div class="MsoNormal">
Easter</div>
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Acts
10:34-43</div>
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Ps.
118</div>
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1
Corinthians 15:1-11</div>
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Mark 16:1-8<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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From last Sunday to this, we have lived in fear. Oh, perhaps
not we in our everyday lives, but in our Gospel lives. When we read the story
of the betrayal, trial, passion and death of Jesus , we read about fear: fear
about what the “authorities” could do to us, to Jesus; fear for our lives. One
by one, the disciples ran away from Jesus in fear. One by one, and then all of
them ran. All of them except a small group of women disciples who stayed to
watch Jesus die on the cross. And then, when the body was taken down and put
into the tomb, even those women left. But death is like that: eventually, the
body has to be left by itself, alone in death.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Even with the dawn of the new day, the fear does not end.
Things are not right in the graveyard. When the women come to take care of the
body, everything is awry. All of them, except one, run away again, frightened
and terrified, again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is the weeping Mary who first realizes that the
terrifying news is good. Mary who sees that it is Jesus standing before her.
Mary, who, at the end of the story, leaves Jesus again – but this time as the
apostle to the apostles, running, still, no doubt, with some terror, but
running with joy to be the first to tell this Good News.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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With the resurrection of Jesus, all that is dark and
frightful begins to be undone. The last to see Jesus die becomes the first to
see him alive. Peter, the disciple turned betrayer, is singled out by Jesus for
re-inclusion in the community. Jesus tells them to leave Jerusalem, to return
to Galilee, to the place where their movement began – back to their home
territory, back to that place far from the center of imperial and Temple power,
back to the people who know in their hearts, in their souls and bodies, that
this extraordinary Good News begins with them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One benchmark for evaluating the success of mission – of the
church’s mission – is to say, that unless it is Good News for the poor, it is
not Good News. And so the Gospel of Mark ends in the place where it began: as
Good News for the poor, the marginalized, the outsiders and outcast – as Good
News for the people on the fringes of the Empire, Good News for the people not
“good enough” for the Temple. Those are the people who get done to them daily
what got done to Jesus, and those are the people who understand what it means
when one of their brothers, Jesus, gets beaten into that dark and frightening
place, and comes out the other side: shining, and clean and whole.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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What the brothers and sisters in Galilee now must grapple
with – what we have all grappled with over these thousands of years – is to
live as though we really believed that resurrection happened. To incorporate
that confidence, that grace, that joy, that conviction, into our daily lives.
To put all those deaths, great and small, that we encounter, into the context
of that great, big resurrection. To remember, even as we slog through a
mudfield of “no” after “no”, that what really gives meaning to our lives is a
resounding “yes.” Yes, to possibility; yes, to love; yes, to abundance; yes,
indeed, today and every day, to life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Alleluia. Christ is risen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-34481793062010344262015-04-03T07:39:00.002-07:002015-04-03T07:39:59.940-07:00... in remembrance of her<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.pnwumc.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/unnamed-woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.pnwumc.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/unnamed-woman.jpg" height="254" width="320" /></a><b>Maundy Thursday</b><br />
<b>April
2, 2015</b></div>
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<b>Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14</b></div>
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<b>Psalm 116</b></div>
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<b>1 Corinthians 11:23-26<br />Mark
14:1-25</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This story of the extravagant woman is sandwiched between
two nasty bits of anger, vengeance and betrayal. This seemingly insignificant story,
often forgotten in the rush of Holy Week, as we make our mad dash from Palm
Sunday to Easter, is actually a story the church has preserved carefully over
the years. Indeed, along with the scrupulously remembered accounts of the Last
Supper and Passion of Jesus it likely formed an important part of the liturgies
– the worship services – of early Christians.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The story opens in a house. In the Gospel of Mark, lots of
important things happen in people’s houses: “in the house,” or <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">ἐν</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">τῇ</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">οἰκίᾳ</span>
in Greek, was where Jesus healed the sick, forgave sins, ate with sinners –
many times. Jesus went “in the house” to teach his disciples, to talk about the
coming kingdom, and from which the disciples were sent into the community. In
the decades between Jesus’ life and the writing of this Gospel, “in the house”
was where Christians gathered for worship. Churches were house churches, small,
domestic, private places. When Jesus ate the Passover meal with his friends,
the house was also the place from which he was betrayed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was probably not uncommon for a men’s-only dinner like
this one – not the Passover meal, but the meal where the woman anoints Jesus –
for women to come in to “entertain” the guests. But this is far from an
ordinary meal. First of all, the house belongs to someone profoundly unclean,
and unholy: Simon the leper – a shocking contrast to what we read before and
after the story, about the very holy and very clean chief priests and scribes.
So our location is already someplace very dicey, very on the edges of proper
society. Jesus and the disciples are eating with a leper, in the home of a
leper, on evening before the first night of Passover.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And if we take those brackets in further – “the clean”
contrasting with “the unclean” – we see at the center of the story the outraged
disciples. Who does this woman think she is, wasting all this valuable stuff.
They are pious, they are angry, they scold. But on either side of their pique,
we see the signs of the kingdom.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The woman’s alabaster jar of nard was indeed very valuable.
Nard was apparently passed on from mother to daughter, a family heirloom. The
oil is aromatic, beautiful, and used for healing. It is full of blessings. And
so this woman takes all she has – the most valuable thing she has – her most
precious asset – and pours it out on Jesus’ head. It is the kind of gesture we
hear echoed in marriage vows: “with all that I am and all that I have I honor
you.” When the early Christians heard this, in their house churches, years
after the reality and memory of the resurrection brought them together, they
would think of Jesus: God’s most precious gift, poured out completely, emptied
entirely on their heads, extravagant, wasteful, overflowing and abundant. This
woman’s act, to the ears of the early Christians, was a sign of what God had
done for them, and a mark of true discipleship.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Then, in the story, we have the outraged disciples, and then
framing them on the other side, we have Jesus’ words about what this woman’s
act means. It is an act of sacred charity, of care for the poorest and emptiest
person in the room. As the early church understood it years later, it was the
woman and the woman alone who knew what Jesus was about to do, and it was the
woman who took care of Jesus, who prepared him for the death that was to come.
This woman embodied the Good News, the Gospel. The woman, with her love and
charity and hope and confidence, is the prime example for the Christian life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This 14th chapter of Mark goes back and forth between
betrayal and love, greed and abundance. But it is the unnamed woman who enters
the house of the leper, who leads us into the darkness of the crucifixion, who
is our model for what it means to follow Jesus. It is the women, marginalized
and insignificant, who stand, unnoticed, at the foot of the cross when the
disciples run away. And it is the women, who sneak into the burial garden at
dawn, and who are the first ones who run to tell us what they find there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-42967963998988020672015-03-30T07:50:00.000-07:002015-03-30T07:50:17.573-07:00Sin, suffering and Jesus on the cross: words from Julian of Norwich<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzv4I7Ut6TY3yF3jwi8agJBwTkpY8hhMxU3sHsXwsapy3-cm3aPYDkHUDS_rqT57n2HXPGoOwNa2OUySmvTUez6LNCGZMQ9FJ0KDo16BDFvnoCv25IRWrld_296NVWnXORA-am4ZgCFreZ/s1600/Julian+statue+-+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzv4I7Ut6TY3yF3jwi8agJBwTkpY8hhMxU3sHsXwsapy3-cm3aPYDkHUDS_rqT57n2HXPGoOwNa2OUySmvTUez6LNCGZMQ9FJ0KDo16BDFvnoCv25IRWrld_296NVWnXORA-am4ZgCFreZ/s1600/Julian+statue+-+detail.jpg" /></a><b>Palm Sunday B</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>March 29,
2015</b></div>
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<b>Isaiah 50:4-9a</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Ps. 31:9-16</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Philippians 2:5-11</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mark
14:1-15:47</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stark image of the dying Jesus on the cross brought
comfort to medieval Christians in a way that is hard for us to understand. One
faithful Christian, a woman named Julian, who lived and wrote in Norwich, England,
in the 14th century, wrote that she desired three things: to recall Christ’s
passion, to have a bodily sickness, and to have three wounds.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now we moderns might long for union with Christ, but we
would consider someone who wanted God to wound them and make them sick more
than a little crazy. In 14th century Norwich, life could be described as more
than a little crazy for everyone. Norwich was England’s second largest city, bustling and commercial, with a powerful bishop who assembled all the knights
behind him to wage war against Flanders – and lost disastrously. The plague,
over the course of a generation, killed 5,000 of the city’s 7,000 inhabitants.
And if you dared to speak up against the aristocracy, or to read the bible in
your own native language of English – those two movements were linked – that
same disastrous bishop would have you burned for heresy. The ravaged body of
Christ on the cross made sense to them.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfGhdg7FUIuTMMRaoyi5odQIBK6vsbUMvCKz_JmZNWbpS-rtqhCXF99zujrUR0guXTl4-XcYJpZSlyQg9TLtT1Sn9ThwUdwbi4cc5DJHsl1Veg2Z_MpS1jYgeRORc8ZP0eyrNTQfac25-3/s1600/medieval+crucifix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfGhdg7FUIuTMMRaoyi5odQIBK6vsbUMvCKz_JmZNWbpS-rtqhCXF99zujrUR0guXTl4-XcYJpZSlyQg9TLtT1Sn9ThwUdwbi4cc5DJHsl1Veg2Z_MpS1jYgeRORc8ZP0eyrNTQfac25-3/s1600/medieval+crucifix.jpg" /></a></div>
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If you were a 14th century Christian, you would know that
God possessed two natures: God was wrathful toward sinners, and loving toward
those who faithfully followed the teachings of the church.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Medieval accounts of Judgment Day present it as a time of
justice, when God’s anger against sin is manifest. [Books and sermons in
England in that time] set out to frighten [people] into virtue by evoking the
event in all its terror, … full of warnings about God’s impatience with his
corrupted creation</i>.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn1" title="">[i]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Given that, how else would anyone interpret the devastation
of the plague, as anything except God’s wrath against sinners?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For Julian, who lived much of her life in a small room
attached to a church, this question of sin was the primary puzzle of the
Christian life: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>… it seemed to me that if there had been no sin, we should
all have been pure and as like our Lord as he created us. And so … I often
wondered why, through the great and prescient wisdom of God, sin was not
prevented; for it seemed to be that then all would have been well</i>.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn2" title="">[ii]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn2" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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One powerful and difficult strand in Christian theology –
one that is often quoted, and I guess believed, still today -- is that God
demanded the bloody sacrifice of Jesus to atone for the sins of humanity. We
might have been created pure and without sin, but that only lasted a few days
in the Garden of Eden, and we just behaved worse and worse until God sent Jesus
to die for our sins. Extreme Catholics might find expression for this in the
crucifix, but extreme Protestants relish recounting in bloody detail the physical
experiences of Jesus death.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There is not a little contradiction in this theology – and
14th century Julian, writing from a terrifying world where to question
authority might send to your death, points it out clearly: why could did not
God, great and prescient, prevent sin and then all would be well?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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If you lay aside, for a moment, this thorny question of the
inevitability of sin, and think about human nature, that disturbing picture of
the dying savior softens a bit. Julian saw in vivid detail, and all of us would
agree, that human suffering is inevitable. We all fall down and get hurt, we
get ill – we don’t have to ask God for these things. They just happen. This
world, where bad things happen, is the world where God placed us. But it is not
the suffering that defines God; it is the love. Julian had visions, in which
she heard Jesus speaking to her from the cross:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjopb6YMVZjhtqpme2gh9qOytWIFQ3Wss7Jqde6y1Ld2nfm8LAtR9PP0tLfW6X-kmSQ9Y-pn2wfRYF8m69YZNq15ZRtw2c7c48AHTOLUVYJa5_AfBw4Ffh-W91od431rKVHX4scBIwUs_ar/s1600/Julian+woodcut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjopb6YMVZjhtqpme2gh9qOytWIFQ3Wss7Jqde6y1Ld2nfm8LAtR9PP0tLfW6X-kmSQ9Y-pn2wfRYF8m69YZNq15ZRtw2c7c48AHTOLUVYJa5_AfBw4Ffh-W91od431rKVHX4scBIwUs_ar/s1600/Julian+woodcut.jpg" height="320" width="271" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<br /></div>
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‘<i>Would you know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it
well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you?
Love. Why did he show it to you? For Love.’ … And I saw full surely in this
[she continued in her own words], and in all, that before God made us he loved
us, which love was never slaked nor never shall be. And in love he has done all
his work, and in love he has made all things profitable to us. And in this love
our life is everlasting.</i> <!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn3" title="">[iii]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn3" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Or as one very thoughtful scholar put it, “God is not now
one thing, now another – now loving to the saved, now angry to the damned – but
always the same, always love.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn4" title="">[iv]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_edn4" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The death Jesus died was a terrible death, ravaged and beaten,
and, as the Gospel of Mark depicts it, pretty much abandoned and alone. But all
of God’s creatures die, and all of us have some acquaintance with suffering. If
God has created us in love, God loves us to the end, no matter what. No matter
what. All will be well, Julian wrote from a time and place much worse than
ours. All will be well, she wrote, even though people who questioned the
church’s doctrine could be put to death. All will be well, and every manner of
thing will be well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Nicholas Watson, from <i>The Cambridge
Companion of Medieval Women’s </i>Writing, ed. by Carolyn Dinshaw and David
Wallace (Cambridge University Press, 2008) p. 214</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Julian, Short Text, Ch. 13</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Julian, Long Text, Ch. 86</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/PalmSunday/Palm%20Sunday%20B%202015.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Watson, p. 214</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-66840451847309494802015-03-30T07:37:00.000-07:002015-03-30T07:39:19.110-07:00Leaving the past behind<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZxSTM-ULVacL_XM88VFMJ2CN1dJX4kX82jaGLnh6Nr9aiv98D2he9qId1fZvKVigdVppZHHK6AsijlfYK1muSmdlfeeP0uMdakO6CPpMfXmq45GlNbqey4ZRK57mLPUQNqPEMZ4tF-yYb/s1600/the-will-of-god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZxSTM-ULVacL_XM88VFMJ2CN1dJX4kX82jaGLnh6Nr9aiv98D2he9qId1fZvKVigdVppZHHK6AsijlfYK1muSmdlfeeP0uMdakO6CPpMfXmq45GlNbqey4ZRK57mLPUQNqPEMZ4tF-yYb/s1600/the-will-of-god.jpg" height="196" width="320" /></a><b>Lent 4 B</b><br />
<b>March
15, 2015</b></div>
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<b>Numbers 21:4-9</b></div>
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<b>Psalm 107</b></div>
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<b>Ephesians 2:1-10</b></div>
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<b>John
3:14-21</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Bread. Light. Life. Grace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Nicodemus has heard about Jesus, and Nicodemus wants those
things. But Nicodemus can’t come out. He can only approach Jesus in the dark,
which is the part of this story right before the verses we read this morning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the
Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you
are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do
apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell
you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from
above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown
old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be
born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the
kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. … Nicodemus said to him,
‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel,
and yet you do not understand these things?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Bread. Light. Life. Grace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Nicodemus wanted those things, but he could not get his head
around how he could get there. The cost would have been high: he thought he
would have to leave behind everything he knew, cherished, believed to be
divine. He did not believe Jesus who said, in essence, it’s easy. This is the
way. If you take this leap, you will find yourself flying into the arms of God,
into the light, into a great big party which never ends.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But Nicodemus could not leave his past behind. He took
comfort in the rules he knew, in the experience he had. He saw that Jesus saw
the world as it was and turned it into something new and bright and full of
grace, but he could not leave what he was used to – he could not walk away from
what he knew – he could not take the risk that life in the future would be
better than life in the past. He could not understand that Jesus was taking all
that was good from that past – their shared past of Moses and the prophets –
and taking it into a future of blessing and grace.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are all Nicodemus. All of us have times when we cannot
believe that there will be a future, when we live in the present as though it
were still the past – when we think the rules and customs and behaviors of the
past, if we do them enough, will get us back there – will take us away from the
future we fear. We want to go back to when things were good in our lives – or
at least to those times when if they weren’t so good, they were at least
predictable. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With several of you, I attend the <a href="http://www.uc.syr.edu/Community/TMR/current.html" target="_blank">Thursday Morning Roundtable</a>, where we hear civic leaders talk about our community and ways to
make it a better place for all of our citizens to live and thrive. Speaker
after speaker, week after week, says the same thing: things have changed. It’s
like the ice and snow that fell off our roofs this week: smash, on our heads.
All that stuff we know – loss of manufacturing jobs, corporate headquarters,
failing schools, crumbling infrastructure, even Shoppingtown is a shadow of its
former self! We have choices in this community, the speakers tell us. We can do
things the way we have always done them, thinking that will take us back to the
way it was before, or we can pay attention to what is happening, and build on
that, and find a future in which we can and will thrive. There are facts, there
is data, we have experience that shows us we can get out -- indeed we are
getting out of despair, darkness, hopelessness and into the light. Even in
Syracuse. Even at St. David’s. Unless, of course, we don’t want to.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7HXzTYASloOIvbop60AtbfctFsTukDTJMvRvzZR662mQqLcEoq7Sz8FX4vLqEHSmMhQX5cwVBPK_QJdcIbGQ0ZYLYDkjdr7gGXLqgcipaiPshxhzSbk0WKXFuuJWStCMoIcjT_8-3ePrS/s1600/Nicodemus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7HXzTYASloOIvbop60AtbfctFsTukDTJMvRvzZR662mQqLcEoq7Sz8FX4vLqEHSmMhQX5cwVBPK_QJdcIbGQ0ZYLYDkjdr7gGXLqgcipaiPshxhzSbk0WKXFuuJWStCMoIcjT_8-3ePrS/s1600/Nicodemus.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Christians, we are all on a continuum, from Nicodemus to
Jesus. All of us have times when we sit in the darkness and don’t want to
leave, when we want things the way they used to be. All of us hear the call of
Jesus to come into the light – or we would not be here. We are Christians, we
are people of hope, new life, rebirth. Christians know the future in Jesus, in
God, is always better, always full of blessings, always beckoning us forward.
Christians know there is life after death.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine what it was like to be Nicodemus. Bread. Light.
Life. Grace. The same stuff God has always offered, freely and abundantly,
since the beginning of time. Nicodemus wants those things, but he cannot for
the life of him figure out how to get out of the customs of his past life --
what he has to change in order to get there. Can you imagine what you have to
change in your life, to get there, too?<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-50675321713461258952015-03-30T07:26:00.000-07:002015-03-30T07:27:23.208-07:00The LAW as the way to God<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/static/Resizer.ashx/news/468/282/357425.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/static/Resizer.ashx/news/468/282/357425.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a><b>Lent 3 B</b><br />
<b>March
8, 2015</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Exodus 20:1-17</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psalm 19</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>1 Corinthians 1:18-25</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>John
2:13-22</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We once had neighbors who were Hasidic Jews, and who lived
each Sabbath as if the Messiah had come. Orthodox Jews live in strict
observance to the law -- in which, by the way, the Ten Commandments are no more
important than any of the other parts of the law. In fact, the “law” is not
“law” as we know it. A Rabbi friend of mine once told me that the Hebrew
understanding of the “law” is not like the Greek roots of the word “law”, nomos,
THE LAW. The Hebrew word, halakah, means path, direction. To follow the law
means to follow a way that leads to God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the Ten Commandments are no more important that any other
part of that path, that way. They are only part of the overall covenant between
God and the people Israel. They let the people know what God expects of them as
their side of the intimate relationship known as the covenant. If you love God,
if you love your neighbor, if you keep the Sabbath, if you honor your parents,
and all that, you are living in right relationship to God. If you don’t, well,
then, you had better repent, make up for it, atone, say you’re sorry, change
your ways. All that. Because the goal of living within the covenant, living in
the right relation to God, is the “goal” as it were of the Sabbath: to live as
though the Messiah were here, as though the Messianic Age of God’s true reign
had come to pass on this earth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVKaCol2NN_23gUh_b7EeNYkVggoPGPUrD7HoAJe1fFk-1UXrJhTKlwt6phIQbqMnn7FrADSPwW6h5cZi3nb_Vaem3_JtUcgesQKlVyT4tLjNeIDLuPXGrgotMUgyrwPY9J2XdqWclZDDn/s1600/Jesus+and+money+changers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVKaCol2NN_23gUh_b7EeNYkVggoPGPUrD7HoAJe1fFk-1UXrJhTKlwt6phIQbqMnn7FrADSPwW6h5cZi3nb_Vaem3_JtUcgesQKlVyT4tLjNeIDLuPXGrgotMUgyrwPY9J2XdqWclZDDn/s1600/Jesus+and+money+changers.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When there was a Temple in Jerusalem, the Jews could atone
for their sins by offering burnt sacrifices to God. When Jesus came to the
Temple on the day we just read about, the Jews were in the courtyard getting
ready to do just that. They did not want to use Roman money to buy animals to
sacrifice, so the moneychangers were doing a good, religiously observant thing,
by changing secular money for temple money for devout Jews who wanted to repent
and atone for their sins by offering sacrifice. It was a public way of saying,
“I’m sorry.” Devout Jews had been doing this for centuries.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What happens, then, when Jesus, one rabbi among many, storms
into the Temple and throws out people doing their pious religious duty? This is
the Jesus who said he came not to replace the law but to fulfill it. This is
the Jesus who, in the story just before this one in the Gospel of John, has
changed water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. This is the Jesus who
says, Forget about those ordinary days, those ordinary practices, those times when
you forget the observance of the law, the relationship with God. Forget about
regular water and dirty money. The real Sabbath is now. The true messianic age
is about to begin. Leave that old, everyday Temple behind; the true Temple is
the temple of my body, destroyed as it may be by sin and death, but raised to
life again by the power and glory of God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jesus came to the Temple as a faithful Jew, and when he
threw things around there, it was part of how he was calling people back to the
heart of God, to that intimate relationship with God that following the law –
the halakah – the way to God – means. Whatever keeps us from the heart of God,
Jesus wants to drive out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we gather to celebrate the eucharist, to break bread
and share wine in remembrance of Jesus, we act out a dress rehearsal for living
in the reign of God. It’s not perfect yet, by any means. I don’t think it will
be quite so formal in the kingdom of heaven, nor will the Prayer Book
necessarily be used, nor will a set of priests be in charge. I really don’t
think so. But we are yearning toward, approximating the heavenly banquet, a
feast of generosity and abundance and radical equality. It’s the same idea as
the Sabbath, I said to my rabbi friend. “But that’s only a liturgy,” he said.
“Only an hour. The Sabbath is a whole day.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
By throwing the money changers out of the Temple, I think
Jesus is saying that God wants more than a mere ritual, more even than one day
of a Sabbath from us. God wants all of our life to be lived as though the
messiah were here, as though the reign of God had begun, as though real justice
and real mercy were the rules of the day, as though there were enough of
everything to go around, as though all the doors and all the hearts were open
and as passionate and full of zeal for God as that of Jesus. None of us are
there yet, of course, but that is the light in which we live, the hope to which
we aspire, as we prepare during this season of Lent for the grace and glory of
Easter. <o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-30823984427777250292015-03-30T07:15:00.002-07:002015-03-30T07:27:36.504-07:00What does it mean, to be a follower of Jesus?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.fm-jdmealsonwheels.com/images/Board-2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.fm-jdmealsonwheels.com/images/Board-2013.jpg" height="182" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The good folks at <a href="http://www.fm-jdmealsonwheels.com/the_board.html" target="_blank">JD-FM Meals on Wheels</a> serve <br />
all kinds of home-bound neighbors between<br />
here at Tully.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Lent 2-B March
1, 2015</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Genesis 17:1-7,
15-16</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Romans
4:13-25</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mark
8:31-38</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When do we get to the good parts? To the easy stuff? To the
pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? It seems like we spend all our time
struggling, working through difficult times, keeping our chins up. When do we
get a break? When does our ship come in?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Getting to Easter is not, as one preacher I know said, the
next stop after our spring tune-up at the spa or wardrobe refresher at Destiny.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Lent/Lent%202/lent%202-b%202015.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span><!--[endif]--></a> We are invited instead
into this close examination of our relationship with God, and here, in the
midst of all that examination, well, we come upon some difficult texts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be nice, wouldn't it, if the Bible were fully of
easy stories. How useful would those be during these days, of economic
hardship, of people losing their jobs, of services being cut, of homes lost to
bad bank loans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s cut dear old St. Peter some slack: we don’t like hearing
the tough news any more than he does. Peter does not want to hear what Jesus
tells him, that suffering and death will come, are inevitable. Jesus’ words are
not welcome ones; let’s not kid ourselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/529e2fefe4b043b342559166/t/5492fe37e4b0313ce173962f/1418919491865/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/529e2fefe4b043b342559166/t/5492fe37e4b0313ce173962f/1418919491865/" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jamesville-DeWitt students sorting food donated<br />
over the holidays for people in our town</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Bible is not full of easy stories, but it is full of God
– of God wanting to be in relationship with us, with us human beings. If God is
the center of the universe, the all-important creator, then the Bible is the
story of how much this God want us close. The Bible is the story of how God
keeps trying, even though we fail, drift away, deny, wander, pay attention to
other things. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story of Abraham and Sarah is the story of God’s third
big try in getting us humans into a loving relationship with God. The first –
creation. Adam and Eve pulled away from God, and God got angry and threw them
out of the garden. The second – the flood and the rainbow. We read this last
week. God was angry, so angry, with us human beings that he killed all of us
except one family, who floated in a boat, on a destroyed earth, for 40 days. I
think that experience terrified God – God repented of that anger-filled
destruction, and said no more. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, what do we have in the story of Abraham and Sarah?
God tries again. Here, God says. We are bound together – me to you, you to me, together.
As a sign of this love I hold for you, I promise you this: you will have a
future. You will have a child, and that child will give you as many descendants
as there are stars in the sky. You who are wandering in the wilderness: you
will have a home. You who do not know what to believe in: you will have a God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are followers of God – all of us. That is why we are
here. At some point in our lives someone assured us that God loves us. Someone
told us some version of this Abraham and Sarah story, and for us, it took. We
believed it. Now it is up to us: how can we make other people believe this Good
News of God on our side, people who may not have heard it before? People who
may not think it applies to them? People who are caught up in some very non-God-like
things?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most people in the world have the deck stacked against them.
This is not news. Many people in the world don’t get enough to eat, don’t have
a decent place to live, don’t have good medical care, don’t have the
opportunity to earn a living. What does that have to do with us?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What does it mean, then, to be a follower of Jesus? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God likes to talk about a covenant: I will love you, God
says, and because I love you, I want you to do some things for me, and for each
other. Love me, love your neighbor as yourself. I will keep my side of the
covenant; it is up to you to keep yours. Being a follower of Jesus means
keeping our side of the covenant. It means loving our neighbors as our selves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have close-in neighbors: our literal next-door neighbors,
wherever we live. The neighbors of this<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSn9LsjUAvliW2hn1IvbWipEgrqT6ZeTcgXTqxiXL3tbHToMu6XA3Mw30f-CKvWF7xYymhAEMXikf5TJdFs-c5wB03882KbbK3EfTus381AnHY1oBRnKEtQ1s98DJNHRecEnKViPYyEswf/s1600/Ginny+Frey+-+Jean+Kimber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSn9LsjUAvliW2hn1IvbWipEgrqT6ZeTcgXTqxiXL3tbHToMu6XA3Mw30f-CKvWF7xYymhAEMXikf5TJdFs-c5wB03882KbbK3EfTus381AnHY1oBRnKEtQ1s98DJNHRecEnKViPYyEswf/s1600/Ginny+Frey+-+Jean+Kimber.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.townofdewitt.com/News.aspx?NewsCategoryID=27&NewsID=150" target="_blank">CODFish</a> volunteers help people in DeWitt <br />
get to medical appointments</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
church. The people who need rides and
call up CODFISH. The people we visit through Meals-on-Wheels. The people who
depend on the DeWitt Food Pantry to have enough groceries to get through the
month. We have slightly further-away neighbors: The people who come to lunch at
the Samaritan Center. The people who live around Emmanuel Church, in the
village of East Syracuse. The people who live between Nottingham High School
and Syracuse University, in St. Alban’s neighborhood. The people who, like
Sarah and Abraham, have moved from God knows where, seeking a better life in
Syracuse. Being a follower of Jesus means doing what we can to make all of our neighborhoods
better places to live.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Deny yourself, Jesus said. Amazingly, the more we give away
the more we have.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take up your cross, Jesus said. Amazingly, it is easier, and
lighter, with every step.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Lent/Lent%202/lent%202-b%202015.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif";"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Barbara Brown Taylor, “The
Late Bloomer”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-67560169422802894792015-03-06T18:15:00.000-08:002015-03-06T18:15:06.831-08:00Satan, beasts and angels<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhESONlpvNu4cfEcwHkTbsE6LqEwE-gM06Nmc-27HbpQUiwntGRk64NEX8aNcBhbfh4ZXqQQgTXqEIPMoyDCnjpld2-h5KVJ20jjCtD2Wxpf1OsVt8X1s45f_YctiPUo8bIygFxsXjGnv/s1600/throwing+a+ball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhESONlpvNu4cfEcwHkTbsE6LqEwE-gM06Nmc-27HbpQUiwntGRk64NEX8aNcBhbfh4ZXqQQgTXqEIPMoyDCnjpld2-h5KVJ20jjCtD2Wxpf1OsVt8X1s45f_YctiPUo8bIygFxsXjGnv/s1600/throwing+a+ball.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a><b>Lent 1B Feb.
22, 2015</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Genesis
9:8-17</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psalm
25</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>1 Peter <st1:time hour="15" minute="18" w:st="on">3:18</st1:time>-22</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p>Mark 1:9-13</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life is bewildering enough without having to be thrown into
the wilderness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Thrown.” That is actually the meaning of the word in Greek.
“Immediately the Spirit threw him out -- <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">e</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">k</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">b</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">a</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">ll</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">e</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">i</span> -- into the desert, the
wilderness -- <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">e</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">r</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">h</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">m</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">o</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">n</span> --
the desolate place, the place of hermits. Jesus is thrown from his place of
chosenness, where God has named him as Son, beloved, favored one, into a
dangerous place, full of wild beasts. Looking up the Greek word for beast in a
dictionary, one finds several references to beasts as the animals to which
people were thrown for punishment and death. Capital punishment was a genuine,
gruesome spectator sport. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand, perhaps these 40 days were not all bad
for Jesus; the text also tells us angels served him. The word is <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">d</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">i</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">h</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">k</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">o</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">n</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">o</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">u</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">n</span>, the
root of the word deacon. The angels were the first Christian deacons. This
wilderness is also the place where Jesus first found the strength to resist: he
resisted the temptations of Satan, a process which apparently steeled him for
the rest of his ministry, when he would resist the powers and principalities
who were Satan’s human agents in first century Palestine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Water – the water of baptism in particular – is understood
as a vehicle of salvation. Good Noah and his family were, as St. Peter says,
“saved through water.” The water of baptism is not a mere cleansing of the body,
but “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” Yet water also can be powerful
and dangerous, a bringer of death and destruction. God may have allowed Noah
and his family to live, but the rest of the human race was destroyed. God saved
those eight humans – as well as all the progenitors of the wild beasts which
later prowled around the desolate Jesus in the dry wilderness. In the waters of
baptism, Jesus experienced near-death by drowning, and came out of the waters
raised to new life and new status. He is then thrown into the desert for
another encounter with near-death and comes out as a steeled and experienced
resistance fighter. The first thing he hears when he comes out of the desert is
that John the Baptist has been killed. Jesus, now schooled and hardened in the
desert responds, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Good
News.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjduXWidNbIadbIB2QAHxRKBmcz_FhgiDv9l6692eAGjva2spWpt_bXL2jx5gr3Dvv8uBL-Ew4Pq_3kA44CMLEICDFaBGHdhyphenhypheniVNvQhMw_Hx4EaxkrxQRneozTVayjVKXEmCTRWXPfQ4SSd/s1600/Gospel+of+Mark+title+page.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjduXWidNbIadbIB2QAHxRKBmcz_FhgiDv9l6692eAGjva2spWpt_bXL2jx5gr3Dvv8uBL-Ew4Pq_3kA44CMLEICDFaBGHdhyphenhypheniVNvQhMw_Hx4EaxkrxQRneozTVayjVKXEmCTRWXPfQ4SSd/s1600/Gospel+of+Mark+title+page.jpg" height="185" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Good News?? Is this the way God works?? Is the rainbow, the
sign of God’s covenant never again to destroy the people of God, GOOD NEWS??
Has this Good News not come at a terrible price for the human race? A
destructive flood, and as the earth dries out, a newly created desert and
wilderness? God does work in bewildering ways.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps this is why these dramatic, short and scary stories
appeal to us: our own lives – and certainly the world we live in -- are at
times bewildering and frightening. People are forever being left desolate, or
drowned. Just when we think we’re sinking never to rise again, a hand pulls us
out from the deep, only to throw us into a worse place than we were before.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then: good news: Satan’s temptations do not win Jesus
over. The wild beasts do not eat him, he does not shrivel or starve in the
desert heat, and angels take care of him. Even God thinks twice before getting
so angry again, so angry as to destroy the human race. Out of what is terrible
comes a new way of life: the kingdom of God is at hand.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lent can be about a personal struggle in the wilderness.
Challenges at work, with our families – what <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/5cbfcb_4a215860476ec3552d5b3c80c394e995.jpg_srz_393_263_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srz" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/5cbfcb_4a215860476ec3552d5b3c80c394e995.jpg_srz_393_263_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srz" height="214" width="320" /></a></div>
one day is ordinary busy-ness
turns the next day into a mountain of stress. During Lent we can think about
our private sins and shortcomings. But I also think these stories today play
out on a larger stage, a global stage. Sabers rattle, rockets blast
destruction, troops are deployed: As talk of war swirls around us, these
stories call us to global repentance, to a change of heart from destruction to
peace, from floods which drown to waters which cause the deserts to bloom. The
wild beasts which prowl menacingly are also the ones we can imagine nurturing
and keeping alive 40 days in the ark of our salvation. Who are our wild beasts?
With what temptations does Satan come to us, as individuals and as a nation?
And who are the angels who will serve us and nurture us into the new way of
life which is the reign of God?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-27142966508879637372015-02-21T13:33:00.002-08:002015-02-21T13:33:32.790-08:00God promises us that things will be better<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU03v5GGElls0YkMmGZOSxs5tr_r6WnzcpQxcX3jR-32yTBrD61Uyjx9S-opGzWj8jYy9cGJGhKed469mJLNZwrSDQbQ6OJCmTb0unbfJmCWG_oSsq32G5DeW1UkFeLkdPJZ9dszJXL2ZS/s1600/Civil_Rights_Disability_Rights_header.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU03v5GGElls0YkMmGZOSxs5tr_r6WnzcpQxcX3jR-32yTBrD61Uyjx9S-opGzWj8jYy9cGJGhKed469mJLNZwrSDQbQ6OJCmTb0unbfJmCWG_oSsq32G5DeW1UkFeLkdPJZ9dszJXL2ZS/s1600/Civil_Rights_Disability_Rights_header.jpg" height="229" width="320" /></a><b>Epiphany 5-B: February 8, 2015</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Isaiah 40:21-31</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Psalm
147</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b>1 Corinthians 9:16-23</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Mark
1:29-39</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
When I was in seminary, I had a
professor who had no arms. He had been born with a birth defect, and over the
course of his life had learned to do with his feet many of the things that the
rest of us do with our hands. After a while you didn’t notice much different
about him, even when he’d sit at the lunch table and pick up his fork with his
toes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
I went to seminary in New York City.
There was a woman who used to stand on the sidewalk in front of Bloomingdale’s
and shout, “Help me. I’ve got cerebral palsy. Help me. I’ve got cerebral
palsy,” over and over again. I think she was asking for money, but since I
never stopped to ask her what kind of help she wanted, I don’t really know.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Also, when I was in seminary, I went
to a service commemorating “disability awareness week” or something like that. It
was at the Chapel of the Church Center for All Nations – at the United Nations
-- an expansive place, which welcomes all kinds of worshippers. The celebrant
was an Episcopal priest who served the deaf community. One young man stands out
in my memory – he was the preacher, a disability rights advocate. He was an
amputee, I think. I know he refused to wear prosthesis – artificial limbs –
because he had no interest in making those of us who were “fully abled” feel
more comfortable with his disability. He also refused to use those metal
crutches with arm holders that many people use – again on the grounds that they
served to make “able-bodied” people feel more comfortable because they could
categorize him as “disabled.” He preferred using wooden crutches, like anyone
would use.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
All these stories, along with
today’s Gospel story of the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, raise these
questions: what is sickness? What is health? What does it mean to be healed?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Last week, we read of how Jesus cast
the demons out of a man possessed by what we today might call mental illness.
In the words of the old hymn, Jesus “re-clothed him in his rightful mind.” He
restored him to wholeness. He cast out those outside forces which had invaded
the man, and gave him back himself. No longer was he possessed by those alien
forces; he could return to the rest of society, to his community and his
family, as himself, restored, healed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Whatever fever Simon’s mother-in-law
has, it must be serious. The normal remedies must not be working. They way she
is isolated and alone, even in the house, makes us think that perhaps they had
given her up for dead. When Jesus touches her, healing happens, but not healing
like we would think of a doctor making a house call. Jesus doesn’t administer
an antibiotic, or apply leeches, or mix a poultice, or shake a magic rattle.
Jesus touches her, and yes, she is relieved of the fever, but look what happens
then: she is restored to her family. She joins the party. She gets up and helps
serve. She regains her place of honor and dignity. She is no longer a patient;
she is a person. She is restored, healed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
In those three stories of my
seminary days, I think I learned that “healing” is not just about an individual
who “gets better.” I don’t think there is a “cure” for cerebral palsy, nor can
someone without limbs grow them back. Healing, for those people, challenges our
definitions – OUR definitions – of wholeness. Wholeness is not perfection.
Wholeness is not some idealized state of no flaws. Wholeness is about being
human, fully human, being a full member of the human race. The sick person is
isolated; the healed person, no matter what his or her state of disability may
be, is restored from that isolation to wholeness, to community, to family and
friends. The healed person is a productive and needed and loved member of
society. This is what Jesus means by healing: those who were outcast, who were
suffering and alone, are brought back inside the fold. Healing is not just
“fixing an illness;” it is restoring a person to being, once again, a whole
human being who has meaning and value and a place in the community.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Many of us wonder, and I know I have
felt this way, when we are sick or in trouble, why me, why I am sick? What have
I done to deserve this? Why can’t Jesus help me? Where is the healing in my
life?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
It is hard to climb out of those
pits; no doubt about it, and there certainly are some things about our lives –
all of our lives – that we don’t like, and like it or not, that will never
change. We can stay there, carrying all those grudges, nursing all those hurts.
We can perpetuate our isolation, thinking we are all alone in our troubles, and
no, Jesus isn’t going to walk through that door and make everything better – or
at least “better” in the way we think “better” ought to be defined.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
But listen to this: we have what
Jesus had. We have the promise from God that things will be better, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlAph0J1vGOdnXmFmaAnPghLYmji9SED4S2kCJZboWlchMsbgY_w6NbIyU9fZuMtzi5nRe-8XD8gAPq-nw9ddUooqBO-KcjE5YZj-I_s-3uC8eM5S5m4Wvb7yZW-g1HhuzY3KPfor2u_Qu/s1600/isaiah+40+31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlAph0J1vGOdnXmFmaAnPghLYmji9SED4S2kCJZboWlchMsbgY_w6NbIyU9fZuMtzi5nRe-8XD8gAPq-nw9ddUooqBO-KcjE5YZj-I_s-3uC8eM5S5m4Wvb7yZW-g1HhuzY3KPfor2u_Qu/s1600/isaiah+40+31.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
that they
are better. “Have you not known,” Isaiah writes. “Has it not been told you from
the beginning?” We have the same promise from God that Jesus knew, that God
gives power to the faint, and strength to the powerless – that God calls all –
all of us – by name, and not one is missing: not the woman with cerebral palsy,
shouting outside of Bloomingdale’s, not my professor who ate with his feet, not
the disability activist who refused to hide his amputated limbs. Simon’s
mother-in-law is there, and the man possessed by demons, and you, and, you and
you, and you, and me. Everybody who is home sick today; everybody who is just
too tired to get out of bed. We’re all there, called by God, called by hope,
pulled out of our isolation and aloneness. This is what God promises us: with
wings like eagles, we shall run and not be weary; we shall walk, every one of
us, we shall walk and never grow faint.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-58997606482220322872015-02-21T13:15:00.003-08:002015-02-21T13:15:46.294-08:00The saints beckon us to come deeper into the reality of God<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cPljZ0l4HiITBRIZuBX9hl5FUy0On9TX1TqaStgbjxuwdbm2DnHHlqxstV8i1QyvfYQJSvmMx2HvW7kc0Wmid7uHPEYpx60Q1hSZeyyF0ctCZB8F66RULkclWS-DNFC08WQ0P7MqjWYr/s1600/I+sing+a+song+of+the+saints+of+God.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cPljZ0l4HiITBRIZuBX9hl5FUy0On9TX1TqaStgbjxuwdbm2DnHHlqxstV8i1QyvfYQJSvmMx2HvW7kc0Wmid7uHPEYpx60Q1hSZeyyF0ctCZB8F66RULkclWS-DNFC08WQ0P7MqjWYr/s1600/I+sing+a+song+of+the+saints+of+God.jpg" height="320" width="225" /></a><b>All Saints: November 2, 2014</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10 </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psalm 149</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Matthew
5:1-12</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is a danger to All Saints Day. The danger is we look
too often and too longingly to the past. “One was a soldier, one was a priest,
one was slain by a fierce wild beast,” a pre-Raphaelite past of a romantic,
medieval England, or the distant past of late Antiquity, of Christian martyrs
slain by lions in the Roman coliseum. Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury
through the 1960s and early 1970s put it this way:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>One consequence of the mystery of Christ is that Christian
people don’t stand, so to say, on the ground of the present moment and view
past generations, or their comrades in paradise, as people some distance away
from them. No, we see the present moment more clearly and bravely because our
stance is within the Communion of Saints. How closely, how lovingly, they are
praying with us today.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If the lives of the saints have any meaning for us – indeed,
if we believe they are praying for us – then All Saints Day cannot be a
celebration of the past. This day is about who we are in the present, and what
legacy we are leaving for the future – for those saints who, inevitably, will
come after us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As might be appropriate in this election season – and this
day of incessant polling – I remember a book George Gallup published in 1992: <i>The
Saints Among Us: How the Spiritually Committed Are Changing Our World</i>. Gallup
and his pollsters wanted to find “Americans for whom ‘God is a vibrant
reality,’ and for whom ‘Christian commitment makes a difference in how they
actually live.’” The pollsters asked probing question over long interviews – I
don’t think just those quickie things we get on the phone at this time of year
– and they came up with results that will help us, in the words of Michael
Ramsey, “to see the present moment more clearly and bravely.” This little book
– very American and very modern – tells us something about what for two
thousand years we have called “The Communion of Saints.” It is just a glimpse,
of course, but there is something to it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
These “saints” Gallup found – and he called them “saints
among us” expressed a faith that came from their insides, “a direct experience
of God that continued to be a vital part of their daily life.” For these
saints, prayer is not a laundry list of concerns, nor is God a being found only
in church, or in a crisis, or in relation to their own needs. What these saints
can show us is that God is always accessible to us, always close at hand, in
the ground beneath their feet and in the air they breathe. These saints pay
attention to the reality of the divine in the world around them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These saints – and Gallup estimated they are about 13
percent of the population – live out a deeper level of commitment to God than
do their neighbors, and they do it by how they respond to the needs of the
people around them. No surprise there, of course, for have not the saints over
the centuries been the ones who have built hospitals and rescued the dying?
Have they not been the ones who stood with their communities to make them
better places, brought hope and opened the doors for justice and peace?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gallup found that these saints threw themselves into this
work – into God’s work in the world – without prejudice – or rather through the
work they did for God, they learned to serve without prejudice. The saints
Gallup found are not perfect; he noted that only 84 percent of the saints
“would not object to a person of another race moving in next door. … not a
‘perfect score’ [Gallup noted] but [one that] surpasses that of the spiritually
uncommitted by 20 points.” I think that reflects that when we actually do
something with people in need – when we stand in solidarity with people like
those we have never met before, that it changes us, and with the help of God
that simple service and solidarity moves us further along toward the lives of
the saints.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Surprisingly, part of the benefits of these saintly lives is
happiness, abiding joy, joy tested through <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5ALyT6_9frZE8Rcw5O7VOekZNVgbAMQVKt4IVrLbEFSQEKky8oKzij4gsT-itIMqibWZ8bcx59fLjbcFWOrhamW0I0A7XRAlX51H2Um3J83sQjyBdczPkqnHjolML6xjbjcMkr1ySqkx/s1600/All+Saints+procession.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5ALyT6_9frZE8Rcw5O7VOekZNVgbAMQVKt4IVrLbEFSQEKky8oKzij4gsT-itIMqibWZ8bcx59fLjbcFWOrhamW0I0A7XRAlX51H2Um3J83sQjyBdczPkqnHjolML6xjbjcMkr1ySqkx/s1600/All+Saints+procession.bmp" height="320" width="268" /></a></div>
difficulty. I think part of that
happiness comes from a simplicity of life, a shedding of things that just don’t
matter because you have experienced so much more deeply the things that do.
These saints that George Gallup encountered were generally not wealthy or
powerful, not necessarily highly educated nor accustomed to walking the
corridors of power. “They stand close enough to daily needs – at home, at work,
in their neighborhoods – to be in touch with the pain that is in their midst.”
It is a fact that charitable giving in poor neighborhoods – even giving by
those who may not always be so saintly – is much higher, proportionately, than
it is in neighborhoods like ours. Saints stand in solidarity with those in
need, moving further and further from their own comfort zone as they do so.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
All Saints Day, then, is to stand, as Michael Ramsey, says,
within the Communion of Saints. They beckon us to come deeper into the reality
they live, deeper into their prayers, deeper into their challenges, deeper into
their joys.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-47235912355158066672015-02-21T12:59:00.001-08:002015-02-21T12:59:21.211-08:00A "both-and" world<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIZtIpH76omO8EzvWRJiU7MDTkrQaSZ9tP2TZELAjLPm0ucbZYrTLjbqxKNvbPq87YIiMHx0S3s0BQ5UBYbWxhdRscGnq8aQP3RyNP8_vtyvg0ZEwvnh3xUy4NTTcA68hf-hWoM1kyRxn9/s1600/lutheran+doctrine+of+2+kingdoms.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIZtIpH76omO8EzvWRJiU7MDTkrQaSZ9tP2TZELAjLPm0ucbZYrTLjbqxKNvbPq87YIiMHx0S3s0BQ5UBYbWxhdRscGnq8aQP3RyNP8_vtyvg0ZEwvnh3xUy4NTTcA68hf-hWoM1kyRxn9/s1600/lutheran+doctrine+of+2+kingdoms.png" height="273" width="320" /></a><b>Proper 24-A</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>October 19, 2014</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Exodus 33:12-23</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psalm
99</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>1 Thessalonians 1:1-10</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Matthew
22:15-22</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Two worlds" can be the rationale for almost anything that you
want it to be. We all live and move and have our being in many worlds, many communities,
many relationships. In school we know the rules, the way life is lived, who's
in charge, who are friends, who are “frenemies”, then we come home to another
world where different rules, different players and different expectations are
laid on us. Clean up. Feed the dog. Put away your cell phone at the dinner
table.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story read today from the Gospel of Matthew has been
used since the Middle Ages to justify a doctrine of two worlds. Martin Luther
can be credited with developing the notion based on this passage, that
Christians should maintain a total separation between the sacred and secular,
between the temporal and spiritual governance of their lives. Although first
used to protect the Church against the corrupt interference of "Christian
Rulers," it has more often served the purpose of people who might behave
well in Church, but would justify cut-throat business dealings or immoral
public policy on the grounds that Caesar or the civil authorities must be dealt
with on their own dirty territory by their own dirty means. After all a man's
got to do what a man's got to do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5HTSTNDNIDQJE5ERmaznQkBdOundUqwjYNM21iXGO3YlAaomfO0CL-Fi8IBdAsw_yvayTbtxEjJ-ithB96R9X8YOpjDRgO5A2Y_-lqdIqmbG6LulWDDo3B7q06tS-8MDrL23MyFsR8vE/s1600/denarius+-+caesar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5HTSTNDNIDQJE5ERmaznQkBdOundUqwjYNM21iXGO3YlAaomfO0CL-Fi8IBdAsw_yvayTbtxEjJ-ithB96R9X8YOpjDRgO5A2Y_-lqdIqmbG6LulWDDo3B7q06tS-8MDrL23MyFsR8vE/s1600/denarius+-+caesar.jpg" height="200" width="85" /></a>Many people, however, think this interpretation is a
misreading of what Jesus had in mind. Jesus is in Jerusalem, in the last week
of his life. Group after group representing the Jewish authorities threatened
by his teachings come to confront him, to trick him into admitting some crime
for which they could punish him. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This time a group of Herodians and Pharisees, usually in
opposition, join forces to quiz him on loyalty to the foreign civil authority
of the Emperor versus the Jewish commandment to worship no other God but Yahweh
and to make no graven image. (You remember that all Roman subjects were to
worship Caesar as a god; to do otherwise was treason. The Jews were the one exception
to this civic religious duty.) The Herodians were like the Vichy French; they
collaborated with the occupiers. Herod the Great owed his position to the
Emperor, who wanted Herod to keep the Jews quiet. The Pharisees were good,
religious folk who wanted no part of the blasphemy of accommodating Rome and
their pagan god. On this occasion however, these two joined forces to trap
Jesus into political treason or blasphemy against the first commandment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZU5Tfpw-Ofl1Foo_k7-gXOtNNt0Q_4aQ6KOjYg5gmQ2D7YbsfU_MUKgITUJwNSgjbNWd_f3wshmlF55srsue-fhKnWE9aNHQZvcE-Ejx7YRfBXIcujDQ3ozbfWVMMoWbPRbm1FWvEWLCN/s1600/Render_unto_Caesar%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZU5Tfpw-Ofl1Foo_k7-gXOtNNt0Q_4aQ6KOjYg5gmQ2D7YbsfU_MUKgITUJwNSgjbNWd_f3wshmlF55srsue-fhKnWE9aNHQZvcE-Ejx7YRfBXIcujDQ3ozbfWVMMoWbPRbm1FWvEWLCN/s1600/Render_unto_Caesar%5B1%5D.jpg" height="204" width="320" /></a>Jesus refuses to be trapped. "Render to Caesar what is
Caesar's, to God what is God's,” he says. Jesus affirms that we live in one
world, not two. To the Herodians and others like them who want to
compartmentalize their lives in the real world – the world where they
compromise with the Roman occupiers -- from their religious obligations – where
they want to stay pure -- , Jesus says, no. God demands that we are his people
in social as well as religious duties. To the Pharisees who believe religious
people should deal only with religion, Jesus again says no! Our God is the God
of all history, of all politics, of all nations. God's standards of justice and
mercy apply to all times and in all places.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are no easy answers in this “both-and” world. The
social-political world – the world of Caesar, <o:p></o:p><br />
in Jesus’ terms – is deeply
flawed. This is the world of the zero-sum game, where people think that if I
gain, you lose. It is a world governed more by fear than grace, more by
scarcity than abundance. And it is the world into which God has plopped us, and
it is in this world that God expects us to be God’s people. God expects us to
take those flaws and imbue them with life. We can pay our taxes, yes, but God
expects us to use our resources to do more: to contribute to the common good.
To make the world a better place. To feed the hungry, shelter the homeless,
visit the sick, comfort the prisoner.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The world will get its due from us – but the world will not
get all of us. The lion’s share, God’s share, our whole selves, our souls and
bodies, are what we give in the way God would have us give, and, amazingly, the
more of THAT we give away, the more and more and more we will always have.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-85603227081039811032015-02-07T17:07:00.002-08:002015-02-07T17:07:48.507-08:00Alien ownership<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.gracetraversecity.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jesus-heals-the-demon-posessed-man-Duc_De_Berry_-_Besessener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.gracetraversecity.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jesus-heals-the-demon-posessed-man-Duc_De_Berry_-_Besessener.jpg" height="320" width="303" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Epiphany 4b Feb. 1, 2015</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Deut 18:15-20</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Psalm
111</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<b>1
Corinthians 8:1-13</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Mark 1: 21-28</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Just how
comfortable are you, when, during a service of Baptism, I say, “Do you renounce
the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?” Asking
this questions throws people off. It seems to come from a different time and
place – almost from a different religion that polite Episcopalianism. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Satan and the
powers of wickedness are just what Jesus comes up against in today’s Gospel.
The easy interpretation of this passage is that the man with the unclean spirit
is kind of crazy, kind of disruptive. We’ve all known people whose serious
mental illness makes them helpless to help themselves. Indeed these exorcisms
of Jesus are often lumped in with stories of Jesus healing sick people, or
stories of their conversion in the faith, like the author of Amazing Grace: “I
once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” Now, those healing
stories are true; people do find grace to get through life’s difficulties.
Their hearts are converted and they become followers of Jesus. It’s just that
this is not one of those stories.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
This is a story
where Jesus challenges the status quo, and when he does that, people who have a
stake in keeping the status quo status quo get quite angry. Demonic even. They
crack up, or at least this one man cracks up. And in that anger, that crack up,
he sees what they others in the synagogue do not yet see: that Jesus is the
Holy One of God, and that he has come, not just to make people feel better, or
to be their friend, but to change the way the world works. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
We’re in Capernaum.
Here, where Simon and Andrew, James and John live. It is a fairly prosperous
fishing village. Mark does not seem to care what Jesus said that shook people
up so much, that called out the demons like the cavalry to protect the status
quo. Perhaps Jesus said something in this Capernaum synagogue like Luke
recorded that he said at his first visit to the synagogue in Nazareth. That was
when Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” and then said,
“This day this scripture has come true in your hearing.” Think of the “business
as usual” powers that that would be upset by words like that. In today’s world,
what about those prisons for profit? They would be hurt by setting captives
free. There are not a few institutions in society which profit by keeping
people sick and poor and blind and dumb, by defining sickness and poorness and
blindness and dumbness as conditions which need their help and intervention.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
You can hear Jesus
saying things like that – quoting scripture about the restoration of God’s
justice – and ordinary people in the synagogue -- the business as usual people,
the people who have something to lose if it is God’s justice they have to
follow and not the usual system of justice -- getting so angry that their
demons come out. Jesus is holding the world up to God’s standards of justice
and wholeness. The demons, in their uncleanness, recognize that Jesus is holy –
whole – clean – and they can’t stand it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://joshpointo.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/jesus_twitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://joshpointo.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/jesus_twitter.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Following Jesus is
an ongoing process of remembering who is in charge of our lives, who is in
charge of the world. When we read in the Gospel of Mark about “demonic
possession,” it is a metaphor for alien ownership. The person who is possessed
by the unclean spirit is owned by someone other than God, just as Galilee and
Judea were owned by the Roman Empire and not by the people who actually lived
there, just as the very earth under the disciples feet and the sea in which
they fished were owned by interests which put their profit ahead of people’s
lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
There are many ways
to talk about the power of Satan in this world. Some people would say Satan
exerts power when we choose war over peace. When we allow people to go hungry
when we have plenty of food to go around. When the rich get richer and the rest
of us just go along with all the legal changes that encourage money to flow to
the top. Satan can take hold of our lives in quiet, sneaky ways, otherwise
indistinguishable from “business as usual.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Thinking about it
in this way, we see that the stories in the Gospel of Mark are not just tales
from some long ago and far away world. And the hope these stories bring is not
long ago and far away, either. These stories affirm that even if we feel out of
control, even we feel everybody and everything else is ruling our lives, we
belong to God, and there is nothing that any of those Satans out there can do
who can change that.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-43168502431328424592015-02-07T16:30:00.002-08:002015-02-07T16:30:34.016-08:00This is the way the world works when God is in charge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/900/PreviewComp/SuperStock_900-108451.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/900/PreviewComp/SuperStock_900-108451.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Proper 23 A Oct.
12, 2014</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Exodus 32:1-14</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psalm 106</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Philippians 4:1-9</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Matthew
22:1-14</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have just read two pretty shocking stories today, one
from Exodus and one from the Gospel of Matthew. Are they about God’s wrath? Or
God’s judgment? Or is that the same thing?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many people do believe that God is a punishing God, that
God’s judgment means we can never measure up, that we have disobeyed, that God
is angry, and that that is the end of us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Exodus story is familiar – or is it? We know that Moses
is himself pretty angry with this golden calf-fest. He sees this seemingly
irreparable division between God and God’s people – between God’s expectations
for their living the way God would have them live and the people’s gold-crazed
worship of something else – and Moses steps right into that breach. He does the
unimaginable. Moses asks God to change his mind, to turn away from that
justifiable anger and remember how much God loves these people, however wayward
and selfish and whiny and stiff-necked they are. Moses reminds God of the
promise GOD made to these very same people – and God changes his mind. There
could be no worse sinners than those people who squandered their future, the
promise God had given them. They took all their money, their assets, their
gold, all that they had, and dumped it into something as foolish as a golden
calf. There are no worse sinners than these – but the hand that holds them is
the hand of a God who loves them and who keeps his promises. God remembers that
love, and God changes God’s mind. The story of the golden calf is a story not
of God’s wrath but of God’s grace.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fqpCD3ynWHM/ToxkR_R9utI/AAAAAAAAHvo/8c4BbVLkKU8/s1600/WEDDING%2BBANQUET-matthew.22.1-14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fqpCD3ynWHM/ToxkR_R9utI/AAAAAAAAHvo/8c4BbVLkKU8/s1600/WEDDING%2BBANQUET-matthew.22.1-14.JPG" height="320" width="295" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Jesus tells his very troubling story of the wedding
banquet, the illustrations he uses – the kingdom of heaven, the king, the
slaves, the guests the wedding, the wedding garment – these are not religious
images. Today we think they are religious, because we have read them for 2000.
But in Jesus’ day they were illustrations from the secular world. People knew
powerful and capricious kings, the kind of ruler who had absolute control over
their lives. They would recognize the arrogant ones who refused to show up, the
thugs who would follow violent, death-dealing orders without question, the
slaves and poor people who would cower in fear, not understanding what was
going on and not knowing what would happen next. And so is this a story of
God’s wrath? Or of God’s judgment? And is there any difference?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a story full of symbols. The kingdom of heaven
represents the way the world operates when God is in charge. The wedding
banquet represents the abundance of God’s grace. Who gets invited in?
Everybody: the good and the bad. Even after the first guests refuse to attend,
God does not seek out only the good ones – God still invites everyone in. In
the kingdom of heaven there is always enough to go around. Even though all is
provided – not only food but wedding clothes as well – and even at that late
hour, someone is not ready. Someone does not accept the full invitation.
Someone still refuses God’s grace. Someone still doesn’t get it about how God
wants us to live.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The people to whom Jesus preached lived in difficult times.
They lived lives of insecurity and fear, under the threat of violence and in a
land where powerful people called the shots. If you have ever gotten in trouble
with the law, if you have ever been accused of something you did not do, you
have an inkling of what power those people and the system behind them have over
you. The people to whom Jesus is speaking lived with that kind of insecurity and
system-induced shame all of their lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Jesus spoke to those people around him about the
kingdom of heaven, he didn’t mean something far off, pie in the sky by and by.
He used language that described their current reality – a reality of fear and powerlessness
and insecurity – and told them that the world did not have to be like that. He
told them that God was on their side. That the king would throw the scalawags
out, the ones not prepared to accept God’s invitation to live as God would have
them live.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, this is a story of God’s judgment, but it is a story of
hope. There are things that God will just not put up with, Jesus says. The
world as it is – of greed, and homelessness, and violence, and fear – is not
the way it has to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.stevansheets.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/philippians-4.8web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.stevansheets.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/philippians-4.8web.jpg" height="200" width="160" /></a>When I was preparing this sermon, and first read over the
lessons, I thought I could not preach on the Philippians lesson. It was just too
simplistic, too happy, for our polarized and unsettled times; it put too happy
an ending on the other two troubling stories from scripture. But now I think
just the opposite. The Philippians passage is what the wedding banquet is all
about. The Philippians passage describes the life God invites us to share, for
the abundance of the wedding banquet is all around us. Rejoice, God says. Be
gentle. The Lord is near. Don’t worry. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is
commendable, whatever is excellent, whatever is praiseworthy: think on THESE
things. In times like this, those words may pass all understanding, but this
truly is the peace of God.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-33422230270196919852015-02-07T16:22:00.001-08:002015-02-07T16:22:19.313-08:00Harvest, home & commonwealth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://slowplayers.org/wp-content/uploads/Harvest-Home2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://slowplayers.org/wp-content/uploads/Harvest-Home2.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Proper 22A October
5, 2014</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psalm 19</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Philippians 3:4b-14</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Matthew
21:33-46</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a conversation with a Jewish friend last week, I was
reminded of what a rich time of the year this is for the Jewish High Holidays.
In these days between Rosh Hashana – New Year’s – and Yom Kippur – the day of
atonement – faithful Jews stop and take stock of what is going on in their
lives, in the world, in their lives and in the world with God. The time of the
year supports that introspection, doesn’t it: this time of harvest, of cooling
temperatures, of gathering-in, of re-grouping after a busy summer, of hunkering
down before the challenges of the winter -- and for those of us who still live
by a school calendar – before all the hard work of the coming year really gets
going.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our gospel lesson today is about a harvest-time time of
reckoning – a little parable about God’s economy, meaning the way God organizes
God’s household. The Greek word “oikia” means house, and “oikonomia” means the
management of a house… hmm, does that tantalizing Swedish word for a fabulous
store full of household furnishings also come from the Greek word for house???
Does that mean God’s house would look like Ikea??? I somehow think not. God’s
economy is not about things you buy and sell, nor is it about looking great,
keeping up with fashion trends, or coming out on top with a bargain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The place to start as we understand what it is to live in
God’s household, what it is to play by the rules of God’s economy, is with our
first lesson, followed up by that lyrical psalm 19. Moses delivers the ten
commandments – and by extension, the whole of the law -- and the psalmist tells
us what a delight and a joy it is to follow that law. It revives the soul,
rejoices the heart, endures for ever, and is more to be desired than gold.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But in this harvest time, let’s look at the Gospel lesson.
If part of God’s household contains a vineyard, then one of the crisis points
in the year is the time of harvest. The crop has ripened at once, and there is
not a moment to lose to get in all in. Such a crisis is fraught with
opportunity and peril. “The harvest is plentiful,” Jesus say elsewhere in this
Gospel of Matthew, “but the laborers are few.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The prophets use the image of the vineyard to describe
sacred land, God’s land, the symbolic place where the people live in obedience
to God, to the Torah, that law of Exodus and of Psalm 19. Outside the vineyard,
beyond the fence, is the land of the unfaithful, the wicked, the disobedient,
the alien. But God is not pleased: those who were given the vineyard to tend
have squandered the opportunity. The grapes are sour, wild, useless; all will
be laid to waste, the laborers sent “to a miserable death.” All that privilege,
all that power, all those riches – all taken away from the original tenants and
given to those who know the rules of God’s economy, to people who will produce
“the fruits of the kingdom.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515Z6B7ILaL._AA160_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515Z6B7ILaL._AA160_.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another word for “kingdom” or “reign” of God is
“commonwealth.” It came into English usage around the time of the reformation,
the 16th century, and refers to the welfare, or wealth or weal, held in common
by all the people. When we talk about the kingdom of God, or the reign of God,
we know who is on top, who is King of kings, Lord of lords. But as I have
talked about before, I find the word “commonwealth” gets to the heart of what
God has in mind for us. God has a created the world, which the people of God
hold in common. We are all stewards of this common wealth. When we think of the
vineyard, say, as a “kingdom,” our lines of responsibility or accountability
only go up, to God. But by using the word “commonwealth,” those ties reach out
across the community, as well as up to the one who has created this wonderful
world we all share.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Gospel of Matthew is pretty specific about this parable:
the Jews have received all the blessings of God. They are God’s special people,
the follow the Torah, they are the light to the nations; they are supposed to
be an example to the world about how to live in this world we all hold in
common. And Matthew makes it pretty clear that Jesus believes the Jews have
squandered this precious gift. They have become exclusive and selfish, and
Matthew has Jesus even predict that they will be the ones to kill him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That can be a dangerous way to read this text, after two
thousand years of Christian history. That can be an anti-Semitic reading, part
of the case used to accuse the Jews of being Christ-killers, to justify pogroms
and prejudice.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think it is much more powerful and provocative, however,
to put ourselves in the place of those stewards: with what part of this great
commonwealth of God’s creation have we been entrusted? Are we selfish with what
we have been given? Do we let it go wild and sour, not caring how it grows?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our Jewish friends have just ended their time of reckoning,
of reacquainting themselves with what it means to live in the household of God.
Our lessons today invite us to take a similar journey, to press on toward that
goal, toward that heavenly prize, toward that fertile vineyard and that
abundant commonwealth, that belongs to the common humanity of all the people of
God.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-41796597574830393942014-11-11T18:58:00.001-08:002014-11-11T18:58:43.527-08:00What is holding you back?<div class="MsoNormal">
Proper 21 A Sept. 28,
2014 </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXwI3FGzmHsF8hKUI73BjeJcPHb-oy6FSF15xopP8JeafprraaoOZmaR9tj0RlEeiHiGMOaXCdEwybzCHvM37rexGsFk0mAXkRyKrA4qHrKINgCmAepE0FMqmLMVwcpg9ia_q6fRB7l4a/s1600/wordle+matt+21-23-32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXwI3FGzmHsF8hKUI73BjeJcPHb-oy6FSF15xopP8JeafprraaoOZmaR9tj0RlEeiHiGMOaXCdEwybzCHvM37rexGsFk0mAXkRyKrA4qHrKINgCmAepE0FMqmLMVwcpg9ia_q6fRB7l4a/s320/wordle+matt+21-23-32.jpg" width="249" /></a></div>
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St. David’s Church & St. Paul’s Cathedral</div>
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Exodus
17:1-7</div>
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Ps. 78:1-4, 12-16</div>
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Philippians 2:1-13</div>
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Matthew
21:23-32<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Our lessons today – from Exodus and from Matthew – give
church leadership a bad name. We are whiners, complainers. We change our minds
at the drop of a hat. All we want to do is give the right answer and for the
life of us, we don’t know what it is. On and on it goes, the conventional
readings of these miserable lessons. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yet, if we turned the gospel lesson on its head, a bit, we
might get a different reading about both lessons. So let’s think about
authority: what is authority? It is given to us: from above, often, if we are
under orders to do something – if our power derives from someone above us who
has expectations for what we are to do. In other cases, in democracy, for
instance, authority comes from below, from the consent of the governed. In a
democratic system, we have to live up to the expectations of the people who
have elected us to lead them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://drhurd.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/regret.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://drhurd.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/regret.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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There is another kind of authority, as well. It is the
authority of the past. This can be a kind of tyranny, especially if someone in
the past has harmed us, or if we are filled with remorse over our own past
wrongdoing. That remorse, those regrets, that person who wronged us – all of those
things can have tremendous authority over us. Those memories can govern our
present behavior, can direct our future, can make us afraid to take another
step for fear of harming again, or being harmed in the same way. We can fear
what we think we have to lose – that “authority of desire” or fear of losing
what we have, can paralyze us. The tyrannical authority of our own past
prevents us from living a full life now, and from living fully into the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is something of that tyranny of the past that Jesus
brings up in this encounter with the people around him. These people are
worried about what they might lose. They are worried about doing the wrong
thing. They cannot imagine a future other than one circumscribed by all of
their past. They are paralyzed by Jesus’ “trick” questions. They think
something might be happening around them, with this John the Baptist and this
Jesus, but they cannot get out of the authority of their past long enough to
see what it is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You could make the same observation about the Israelites
following Moses out of Egypt. This new life of freedom is hard, in the
wilderness, so hard that it is nearly impossible for them to recognize the
gifts of freedom and grace, of manna from heaven and water from the rock, that
through Moses, God gives them. The authority of their past – their lives as
slaves in Egypt – prevents them from this new life of grace, this new identity
as the people of God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m sure you recognize yourselves, or people you know, in
these stories. I do. It is understandable to get caught up in the authority of
our own pasts; after all, our experience is all we know. It is hard to imagine
a better future – but that is exactly what God is doing here. God – unlike
ourselves – does not count our past misdeeds, our grudges, complaints, mistakes
or hurts against us. “God … refuses to define us by what we do (or what has
been done to us), but instead regards us always and only as God’s beloved
children.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2021/21%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[i]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2021/21%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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How do we learn this radical obedience to a joyful and
welcoming God? Who are our gospel role <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKFQcYLzafhN0qZWOgrMhIcN4yBlO7gd65YxPVasSx9oQd6kJJk-HH6PQhwfkoE0hjxFM9I2IPSHqz8o_nuS1dEOEjmoUCR4XUccLPlhznhaDBmjawkACGWHz-1CJwYk3x6YM-QO7xqmO/s1600/Radical-Obedience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKFQcYLzafhN0qZWOgrMhIcN4yBlO7gd65YxPVasSx9oQd6kJJk-HH6PQhwfkoE0hjxFM9I2IPSHqz8o_nuS1dEOEjmoUCR4XUccLPlhznhaDBmjawkACGWHz-1CJwYk3x6YM-QO7xqmO/s320/Radical-Obedience.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
models for such behavior? Probably not
the “people like us” from those pages – probably not the well-behaved
establishment types, probably not the chief priests and elders. We learn
radical obedience to a joyful and welcoming God from our gospel role models who
lived at the bottom of the social heap. From the tax collectors and
prostitutes. From all those people Jesus healed. From people Jesus moved from
exclusion to the inside, from the street to the table. People who gathered hungry
on a mountaintop and left fed and full in body and spirit. People who realized
that could be free from a past that bound them to a restricted and unhappy
life, and instead move into a new and fuller future where they recognized with
their own eyes, touched with their own hands, and tasted with their own senses
all the delicious, delightful, sparkling and wonderful gifts God had given
them. That’s the future I want. That’s the future we can all have.<br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2021/21%20A%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span class="FooterChar"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">http://www.davidlose.net/2014/09/pentecost-16a-open-future/<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-24456641481433118032014-10-11T14:03:00.000-07:002014-10-11T14:03:04.049-07:00Fair is good: but God is not fair<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJgTcVeO_0DH9beMDeYc0q1_r9mAfPMSJOI-ioqr-yTEpRKTzFVTtwrv4roiffRAPCYkLk0jmmR-d59mooD629RcmBgtIfot4HgIDTjWlG_4rhgq9CJUZYUnfXWncv_0-5sw-Ik3D4ddV/s1600/God+is+our+Landlord.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJgTcVeO_0DH9beMDeYc0q1_r9mAfPMSJOI-ioqr-yTEpRKTzFVTtwrv4roiffRAPCYkLk0jmmR-d59mooD629RcmBgtIfot4HgIDTjWlG_4rhgq9CJUZYUnfXWncv_0-5sw-Ik3D4ddV/s1600/God+is+our+Landlord.jpg" height="205" width="320" /></a><b>Proper 20-A; Sept.
20, 2014</b></div>
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<b>Exodus 16:2-15</b></div>
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<b>Psalm
105</b></div>
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<b>Philippians 1:21-20</b></div>
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<b>Matthew
20:1-16</b></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>God is the only Landlord</i></div>
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<i>To whom our rents are due.</i></div>
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<i>God made the earth for everyone</i></div>
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<i>And not for just a few.</i></div>
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<i>The four parts of creation --</i></div>
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<i>Earth, water, air, and fire --</i></div>
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<i>God made and ranked and stationed</i></div>
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<i>For everyone's desire.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2020/20-A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></a></i></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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The text of our prayer after communion comes from the Iona
Community. In it, we ask God for the ability to live fully to the glory of God,
and that we do that within the two natures of our lives in God: “both as
inhabitants of earth, and citizens of the commonwealth of heaven.” In the
commonwealth of heaven, God is indeed the only landlord – it is God’s earth we
inhabit, and God’s earth is filled with God’s glory – God’s earth fairly
sparkles with divinity. God’s blessings are freely given and available to all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16NfNQDNk_-XMK2mjmpVbwERtP0NUI07Tl5nupcxlo4zZiqgaJEcR4U9Tinbd6Y7vxECfmxw4gJfd3MHqLcnXMrvIMhl3GBU_GpvX58nqricixbgnTu1w53vDur0x7MsevXgO5T2rPVH8/s1600/st+martins+cross+-+iona+abbey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16NfNQDNk_-XMK2mjmpVbwERtP0NUI07Tl5nupcxlo4zZiqgaJEcR4U9Tinbd6Y7vxECfmxw4gJfd3MHqLcnXMrvIMhl3GBU_GpvX58nqricixbgnTu1w53vDur0x7MsevXgO5T2rPVH8/s1600/st+martins+cross+-+iona+abbey.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a>Iona is an island in Scotland, and hasn’t Scotland been all
over the news this week. The vote for Scottish independence goes back to
something that happened 300 years ago – around the same time the English
colonies here in North American were beginning to agitate for our separation
from the same imperial power. From what I can tell the pro-independence Scots
(and many of the others, too) wanted their homeland to be more of a
commonwealth, a place where resources were distributed more equitably, and
where they had more of a say in where those resources went. It sounds like many
Scots want to decide for themselves where the manna drops, and who determines
just what is a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. “From each according to
his ability; to each according to his need.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But it seems like from the story from Exodus, and from the
parable from Matthew, that fairness is not God’s concern. Even the mean and
grumbly Israelites get all the manna they can eat. Even the shirker
ne’er-do-well gets as much in his wages as the virtuous worker who has born the
heat of the day. In “the commonwealth of heaven” we do not get to call the
shots. We don’t get a vote for independence and income redistribution. We get
what God gives us, and miraculously, it is all that we could ever want for, and
more.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I think this parable of the landlord ranks right up there
with the parable of the prodigal son for the teachings of Jesus that make the
most people mad. This is just not fair, and for those of us for whom the world
mostly works the way we want it to, we want it to be fair. Fair is good.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtRYYQDRVr2G2ijGC1XU5EntiEHBj4kT9NnOYhzCbwE27NK3NuCQX6dtI9cMmap5V_qCsJSRCcpx3GO-RVknGrR9Rm1-Dn9rQyIn3SWHRXwQNFX2gUyPCRk1gmxAQqjZtzbmYBiZlSbLO/s1600/breaking+bread+-+iona+abbey+carving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtRYYQDRVr2G2ijGC1XU5EntiEHBj4kT9NnOYhzCbwE27NK3NuCQX6dtI9cMmap5V_qCsJSRCcpx3GO-RVknGrR9Rm1-Dn9rQyIn3SWHRXwQNFX2gUyPCRk1gmxAQqjZtzbmYBiZlSbLO/s1600/breaking+bread+-+iona+abbey+carving.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>But: God does not give the workers, or the grumbling
Israelites, what is fair. God gives them what they need. God is the only
landlord – or vineyard owner. It is God’s commonwealth in which we hold our
citizenship, God’s earth we inhabit, God’s house in which we dwell.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Yesterday I attended the Diocesan Anti-Racism training, the
first to be held here since the General Convention voted in the year 2000 that
all of us should, and would, deal with what we called “the sin of racism.”
There is so much to learn about how being white privileges us in all parts of
our lives, about how the very structures of “business as usual” keep the
American descendants of African slaves structurally impoverished, kept in a
lesser level of citizenship, always a day late and a dollar short of achieving
full participation in our society. About how this is not merely “prejudice” but
about disadvantage institutionalized over generations. If we play fair, by the
rules, racism ensures that there will always be people late to the game,
working one hour to our eleven, and it will always be wrong for them to get the
same wages that we do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is scandalous that God, apparently, does not play fair.
That God, apparently, wants to short-change us out of our hard-earned goods.
Indeed, why work at all, if Mr. X down the street gets as much for an hour as I
do for “bearing the burden of the day and the scorching heat?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tjSFnNedp155QfFFvPIbGK9LSFVIVc2dEgkrCr6EZU4exlaivrbuVZHgDVHH7Jp5Sz5eZIo6QE7Va8duLZ9aBhUdM6L5ydZAZzh-pd6f6BgNtw36mEOW2Gqfe81WR1pBUlyVoP5oyTJw/s1600/more+than+enough+to+go+around.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tjSFnNedp155QfFFvPIbGK9LSFVIVc2dEgkrCr6EZU4exlaivrbuVZHgDVHH7Jp5Sz5eZIo6QE7Va8duLZ9aBhUdM6L5ydZAZzh-pd6f6BgNtw36mEOW2Gqfe81WR1pBUlyVoP5oyTJw/s1600/more+than+enough+to+go+around.jpg" height="300" width="320" /></a></div>
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But there is something funny about generosity: the more you
give away, the more you have. The vineyard in the parable, the manna from
heaven, the love parents have for each of their 6 children: the measure of
anything really important is that it is not a zero sum game. Mr. X’s gain is
not my loss.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And a good thing too. Not a moment too soon. I might want to
think of myself as that virtuous “bear the burden of the day” worker. But let’s
be honest: aren’t there things we all forget? Connections we fail to make? Aren’t
we always a day late and a dollar short to the commonwealth of heaven? And when
we get there, isn’t there always enough to go around?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2020/20-A%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Tune: Wir Pflugen und wir streuen "We
plough the fields and scatter" (</span><a href="http://www.anglocatholicsocialism.org/wirpflug.mid"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">MIDI</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">): A
grand old Anglo-Catholic Socialist hymn, based on Charles Dalmon's "St
George for Merrie England". Ken Leech has revised this version.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-775493340714619992014-09-27T17:37:00.006-07:002014-09-27T17:37:59.690-07:00What Would Jesus ... have US do?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Proper 19-A; September
14, 2014; PICNIC!</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24ghKqUw_vB1UAhT3nH0fKKRa6UqWU589zfKQqVmDSSIId24-o6koUoAWY1lOIKHWgFs0X4FutlDcS60VKPe_jrgS_QYgU0oOyTLBhh1oUOuXIu-Kyd0UtYYSLzl13V36u32dKtKb1yh2/s1600/a9230e9724f7923080fad0f5e6eb4b11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24ghKqUw_vB1UAhT3nH0fKKRa6UqWU589zfKQqVmDSSIId24-o6koUoAWY1lOIKHWgFs0X4FutlDcS60VKPe_jrgS_QYgU0oOyTLBhh1oUOuXIu-Kyd0UtYYSLzl13V36u32dKtKb1yh2/s1600/a9230e9724f7923080fad0f5e6eb4b11.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Exodus 14:19-31</b></div>
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<b>Psalm
114</b></div>
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<b>Romans 14:1-12</b></div>
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<b>Matthew
18:21-35</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“WWJD?” “What Would Jesus Do?” People have many different
reactions to that little slogan. Some resonate with it, of course; perhaps they
are VERY sure what Jesus would do in any situation and equally sure that they
would do it, too. Others kind of cringe, recoiling from what they think smacks
of fundamentalism and a simplistic reading of the Gospel.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Actually, I think it is a very good question, a proper and
even an easy question to ask. It is, however, not such an easy question to
answer, or to hear the answer Jesus might make.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Peter’s question to Jesus is a version of “WWJD.” Just how
far should my forgiveness go when someone has really been bad to me? What would
you do, Jesus?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwkAWFlpkucgz4E3dsk_MTPnweFyJpHriMR-MaN2e8MyrTkXcqtu7YM_9etgG7J7JFarTauvSPAaYT99qZ6u-J9uOk-BSzZ_ORWIJ80NvyJaSgBEQKjlkQPtGK1VSWGJgIgVQJLO21QZX4/s1600/9dbad4ede53ebc973278f5ab2ebd98a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwkAWFlpkucgz4E3dsk_MTPnweFyJpHriMR-MaN2e8MyrTkXcqtu7YM_9etgG7J7JFarTauvSPAaYT99qZ6u-J9uOk-BSzZ_ORWIJ80NvyJaSgBEQKjlkQPtGK1VSWGJgIgVQJLO21QZX4/s1600/9dbad4ede53ebc973278f5ab2ebd98a1.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As is the case with many of the parables in Matthew, Jesus
tells a story to illustrate his position. The story comes from one world – the
everyday world of economics, of right and wrong, of do’s and don’ts – but the
meaning of the story lies in quite a different world, the world of unlimited,
abundant, overflowing, embarrassing, foolish mercy and grace. The master is
willing to forgive every last cent of debt owed him by the slave, but the slave
does not learn this lesson well. This time, the master’s mercy turns to wrath.
If Jesus is the master, we can then understand what Jesus would do when asked
to forgive: he would forgive abundantly. It seems pretty clear that the one
forgiven should also do as Jesus did: forgive the debts owed him. What does
Jesus do then? I’m afraid it’s not a pretty picture.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There’s another slogan that’s popular in some Episcopal circles:
“It’s not about rules; it’s about relationships.” This came from the Episcopal
student community at Washington University, in St. Louis, and was the product
of some intense discussion or retreat they had on the gospel. It’s a version of
“What would Jesus do?” When given a choice, they would say, Jesus would choose
the relationships over the rules. Forgiveness is more important than the amount
of debt owed. The sabbath is made for man, not man for the sabbath. Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNkTPj1dteyZS5bVd-ztCRie3T6JZofTjwDVW6qg5DMdDv3GT1eJ9IWrVaBWzdMyrer5-snW41Ax5ypYvT4AvDWUr-Ik2Q998BSyo_YQOyQiUk7NFXNvlcxLO8uyaYqgQfJaLCOZhuesx/s1600/f5b132a70c708137caa4bbdbc1bb703a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNkTPj1dteyZS5bVd-ztCRie3T6JZofTjwDVW6qg5DMdDv3GT1eJ9IWrVaBWzdMyrer5-snW41Ax5ypYvT4AvDWUr-Ik2Q998BSyo_YQOyQiUk7NFXNvlcxLO8uyaYqgQfJaLCOZhuesx/s1600/f5b132a70c708137caa4bbdbc1bb703a.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a></div>
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What would Jesus do? It’s a very good question. The answers,
however, I think come not from rules but from relationships. The answers are
best formulated in a community, in the push and pull of friendships and
commitments, where what we think is the “right” answer is challenged by someone
else’s opposite version of the “right” answer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What would Jesus do about global
debt forgiveness? What would Jesus do about same sex marriage? What would Jesus
do about racism? I might think I have the answer, but I just might learn more
about what Jesus would do from the answer you have, or from the opinion you have
formed from reading the gospel, or from the facts you bring to the table.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLKwH-nqR5hwhfs7awa4omt7QmFJerRqjjIYiwmxqqcACEyF8fCqbCb2Q6FvO4tV2mDrvwpRRxBHOLemIIEnyZovvN0DwcGN55-i09lQ_9IF1JjMi30YjN3x4gh4vZaPeV8yJnaJ9qSMTD/s1600/9d3232d6cdec1dc95d85e722e89cbd31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLKwH-nqR5hwhfs7awa4omt7QmFJerRqjjIYiwmxqqcACEyF8fCqbCb2Q6FvO4tV2mDrvwpRRxBHOLemIIEnyZovvN0DwcGN55-i09lQ_9IF1JjMi30YjN3x4gh4vZaPeV8yJnaJ9qSMTD/s1600/9d3232d6cdec1dc95d85e722e89cbd31.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What a value, then, to a church as a diverse community, a
place where the tough questions Jesus raises can be tossed around and debated
from different points of view – to be a place where all of us can ask those
questions and hear some answers, in the context of our conversations, our
relationships, our listening to not only what Jesus would do but what Jesus
would have us do.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-19889985976774514922014-09-08T13:29:00.001-07:002014-09-08T13:29:07.569-07:00What are the BEST things that have happened to you here?<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcmw7e6B8X79oLpGDXNHMqqAuc8lbtYEcimYj1PpeiVPspsr4N1MDcYr6klG-O6pGkAHBxrxU93UvqX4SONt_4P4rGHgm0ONZOFGIkIXmqdNaNF-wnCWp_AMnbCXLBx07OHxOzmMpMieiP/s1600/Proper+18+a+quote.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcmw7e6B8X79oLpGDXNHMqqAuc8lbtYEcimYj1PpeiVPspsr4N1MDcYr6klG-O6pGkAHBxrxU93UvqX4SONt_4P4rGHgm0ONZOFGIkIXmqdNaNF-wnCWp_AMnbCXLBx07OHxOzmMpMieiP/s1600/Proper+18+a+quote.png" /></a><b>Proper 18A Sept. 7,
2014</b></div>
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<b>Exodus 12:10-14<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Psalm 149</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Romans
13:8-14</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Matthew
18:15-20</b></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Let’s look at this gospel as an ASPIRATIONAL mission
statement for the church. It is a remarkable person, with enormous spiritual
depth and maturity, who can actually live out what Jesus seems to be commanding
all of us to do. Conflict between individuals, within families, among groups
like congregations, at workplaces, or on the world stage – it happens all the
time, and not to put too fine a point on it, but conflict is really hard to
resolve. In all of those places, we have to ask, is trust really and truly
present? Do the parties to those conflicts – between individuals, within
families, among like-minded groups like congregations, at workplaces or on the
world stage – do those people have enough trust in the other party to believe
that he or she really will do what they promise, to resolve the conflict?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnDkjVoiWf6rzj4rGvJiGRaeeJwHm9bTPQ4jjxsk7o9ra6vJCzOVw91lPUrxmyDbxx6QeVu3VZVqg9kSdreuQnS9rqtZw9Lb9SkaJadaoHvBNhltgnFaA9rSfCrCWVNirRc4LZdRXX-Oji/s1600/love_is_all_you_need_b_w_by_demolishun-d3gj2st.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnDkjVoiWf6rzj4rGvJiGRaeeJwHm9bTPQ4jjxsk7o9ra6vJCzOVw91lPUrxmyDbxx6QeVu3VZVqg9kSdreuQnS9rqtZw9Lb9SkaJadaoHvBNhltgnFaA9rSfCrCWVNirRc4LZdRXX-Oji/s1600/love_is_all_you_need_b_w_by_demolishun-d3gj2st.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we read Paul’s letter to the Romans, or listen to John
Lennon and Paul McCartney, then we know the answer: love is all you need. Love,
love, love. True. Love is the lubricant that makes all of this work. But love
is a complicated thing. First and foremost, it is a gift from God, and so
freely given and not something “earned.” But as any marriage counselor will
tell you, love is also something that requires some work: intention, will, deep
listening, a receptive heart, a desire to make it grow. And so we can also read
what Paul writes as another “aspirational” mission statement: “The commandments
… are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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What is the VISION of the church, of this church, of any
church, of the whole world wide body of Christ? You could come up with any
number of things, but this one – “Love your neighbor as yourself” – could be
probably as comprehensive a one as there is. So let’s just take a few seconds
and go there in our minds. Let us imagine what that would be, if we, as
individuals, as members of families, as members of this congregation, of our
wider community and of the world, loved our neighbors as ourselves. Think about
it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So how does that “loving your neighbor” you were just
thinking about connect with this, the mission statement of St. David’s Church?
What is the work behind the love?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This week the vestry will use this mission statement as a
focus for our reflection and planning. The program year is beginning, with a
stewardship campaign coming up soon, an array of concerts, service
opportunities, times we can enjoy each other’s company, all in the works. So
this is the time to reflect on our vision – what is God calling us to be? – and
our mission – what is God calling us to do in this place?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Let’s spend some time thinking about this connection between
vision – loving our neighbors – and mission – what we do in this place. Take a
few minutes now to jot down your thoughts. These notes won’t be published –
names aren’t needed – but they will be shared at the vestry retreat. This is
not a survey; it’s an opportunity to tell a little story. Also, we will not
have tons of time to do this – we’re doing it right now, and write what you
want, how much you want – it’s not an exam – and not a take-home! But I hope
you keep with you, in your head and heart, your thoughts about this connection
between loving our neighbors and what we do here, as the body of Christ.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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(<a href="http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Tell-us-about-your-best-experiences-at-St--David-s.html?soid=1102593140355&aid=6UdzoGdaEFY">Go to this link to answer these questions, anonymously, and add your thoughts to our vestry retreat</a>.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li>Best Experience: Reflect on your entire experience with St.
David’s. Recall a time when you felt most alive, most involved, spiritually
touched, or most excited about your involvement here. Describe in some detail
this one memorable experience. What made it an exciting experience? Who was
involved? Describe how you felt. Describe what you did as a result of the
experience.</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>How has Jesus statement of the great commandment, to love
our neighbors as ourselves, become real here at St. David’s? Again, describe
one experience, if possible, in each of these mission areas:</li>
<li>supportive of each other</li>
<li>music and the arts</li>
<li>spiritual growth</li>
<li>community service</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-14154342694422466712014-09-08T13:14:00.000-07:002014-09-08T13:14:30.798-07:00Burning Bushes and Carried Crosses<div class="MsoNormal">
Proper 17 A August 31,
2014</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKkH8n3ROKCGSIJJiNZR5hRwWrJvL8g0IQA7eeoIwOGbm6V4VJTeRtWv3wEURFsjRn0h9LW0Oi5q9TiCm7pa5Fm1WJ11nOPytOvZ4rqSVtN4rBg4RPzygd-BYQIQjMWDR_f2_vkkCztaq/s1600/pick_up_your_cross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKkH8n3ROKCGSIJJiNZR5hRwWrJvL8g0IQA7eeoIwOGbm6V4VJTeRtWv3wEURFsjRn0h9LW0Oi5q9TiCm7pa5Fm1WJ11nOPytOvZ4rqSVtN4rBg4RPzygd-BYQIQjMWDR_f2_vkkCztaq/s1600/pick_up_your_cross.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Exodus 3:1-15</div>
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Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c</div>
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Matthew 16:21-28<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Labor Day weekend. With the end of the summer upon us, no
one wants to think too hard. The State Fair, family gatherings, school
starting, just sitting in one’s one back yard, strolling along the lake front,
taking a drive in the country, can be enough of a blessing, enough of a way to
praise God for the beauties of the world we inhabit. “Take up your cross?” That
is pretty far away from where we want to be just now. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Two articles on life in retirement caught my eye in the
newspaper this weekend. Maybe because it is Labor Day weekend the editors
surmise we are all thinking about what we might do when we stop laboring. The
two articles profiled the opposite of the post-laboring life. One group of
people sold their homes and all of their possessions to live nomadic lives: some
as full-time volunteers in places of need – building houses, disaster relief,
environmental conservation; others just travel, tenting (can you imagine
retirement-age tenting?) or renting a home in some faraway place for months at
a time. In the other article, the author talked about a simpler, and just as
happy retirement. For a certain kind of person, the ultimate luxury is the
ability to spend the day in a library. As the reporter – a financial reporter!
– wrote:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>My work brings me joy. But as I looked around at the older
patrons especially, I was overcome by a single emotion: jealousy. It had been
too long since I’d sampled the simple but profound pleasure of losing myself in
the stacks. I wanted to feel it again</i>.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2017/17%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[i]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2017/17%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To talk about retirement as the simple life is not just
about sour grapes, meaning these people who spend their days in public
libraries are just too poor to do anything else. If they’d really been smart
they’d have enough resources to spend months hiking the Great Wall of China.
That is not the point. Different things – interests, challenges, abilities –
come to us at different times in our lives. We may hear Jesus say, “Take up
your cross,” but that cross may be a different one today, than it was when we
were 20.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbcHYeLsr-gXVvsN3EOTE8zX9ggn_3Pu9F6ufeLELz5blRYkbJDCj6p4a9-t6P9f7TlEVOoe_UDMItABw7iEDDZwSMmLkdfqVN6syNF8TPbWwFHigvH-qo1K3YM1WKsOVeO5QSBUgBbIi/s1600/moses-with-the-burning-bush-1966+chagall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbcHYeLsr-gXVvsN3EOTE8zX9ggn_3Pu9F6ufeLELz5blRYkbJDCj6p4a9-t6P9f7TlEVOoe_UDMItABw7iEDDZwSMmLkdfqVN6syNF8TPbWwFHigvH-qo1K3YM1WKsOVeO5QSBUgBbIi/s1600/moses-with-the-burning-bush-1966+chagall.jpg" height="204" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we are young, we have a lot going on in ourselves.
Adventure suits us. It is part of the process of figuring out who we are and
what God is calling us to be. Look at Moses. He is in the prime of young
adulthood. Like a lot of young men, he was caught up in some bad activity and
chose to run away rather than face the consequences. Remember the baby in the
bulrushes from last week? He grew up to be a privileged son of Pharoah’s
household. But when he recognized himself among the Hebrew slaves being beaten,
he killed an Egyptian and ran away, hoping, no doubt, for the safer and simpler
life of a shepherd. But God had other plans for this young man, even if it took
setting a bush on fire to get his attention.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Later in life, however, that challenge from God takes a
different form. Even Moses slowed down. By the time he got to the Promised
Land, he was only able to look across and see it. But maybe for Moses that
seeing, that contemplating, that simpler way of engaging with God’s promise was
enough. Even though he “only” saw the Promised Land, he was nonetheless fully
there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBrUdoBCuOQ8o7EWP_fI4Etez_d1s_PDYTyOqhi28xcAdngEcPSzjeD58ZUxn9IFVwF_IPzUfk14KVjuujaDGOMeBBqCZOm7R6oGdA7_ouIMCbvP41RY15T0CgX23HXa4YHXDQDh0X9_xF/s1600/Moses-burning-bush-e1358731223172+detail+Chagall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBrUdoBCuOQ8o7EWP_fI4Etez_d1s_PDYTyOqhi28xcAdngEcPSzjeD58ZUxn9IFVwF_IPzUfk14KVjuujaDGOMeBBqCZOm7R6oGdA7_ouIMCbvP41RY15T0CgX23HXa4YHXDQDh0X9_xF/s1600/Moses-burning-bush-e1358731223172+detail+Chagall.jpg" height="153" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God keeps coming after us. We hear that challenge from Jesus
to follow him, to lose our lives, to take up our crosses all the time. Sometimes,
God calls us to move whole nations, burning bushes in our faces all the time. At
other times, God challenges us just to sit still: to browse, to think, maybe
even to pray. Even in the simple life we have crosses to bear. Even in the
simple life, God urges us to draw closer to glory in the kingdom of God.</div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2017/17%20A%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ron Lieber http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/your-money/affixing-more-value-to-the-ordinary-experiences-of-life.html?ref=business&_r=0</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-90922108809554359502014-08-30T08:44:00.001-07:002014-08-30T08:44:51.953-07:00Who's in charge here?<div class="MsoNormal">
Proper 16-A August
24, 2014</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.judydouglass.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/hands-begging.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.judydouglass.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/hands-begging.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Exodus 1:8-2:10</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Psalm 124</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Matthew 16:13-20</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When my daughter was seven, she went to church with some
Roman Catholic friends. The mother explained to Laura that since her friend
hadn’t made her first communion, the girls wouldn’t take the sacrament today.
Laura, who had been receiving communion since she had been baptized as a baby,
Harumphed, and said, “Who’s in charge here?” Her friend’s mother was taken
aback, and after the service went to the priest and introduced Laura as her
daughter’s friend, who was used to receiving communion in her own church. Then
Laura spoke up, “I just wanted Jesus in my heart.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems to me that that kind of authority trumps something
that is merely imposed by a set of church rules. Who, indeed, is “in charge”
over someone who knows the reality of Jesus in her heart?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jesus does give Peter such authority over binding and
loosing – so much authority that whatever Peter says, goes. I can’t quite
imagine what it means that something bound on earth is bound in heaven, but
indeed, Jesus gives Peter the keys to this kingdom. And over two millennia this
authority has been given to Peter’s successors. To the question, “Who’s in
charge here,” some people give a very definite answer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8K9mzYKxYK0ak2JVBJFUi-8_vGaqGuWz63rxrU2t9qRJqxNzYJyTmrrRLxu7iggksmLWkFKBxzoU9yNkM3jJ2h00fcJqXCJZK6mC9tROVuzUdykh5AMYS2sXjkzKq9AyK4eDhT6ZBQ7F/s1600/moseschagall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8K9mzYKxYK0ak2JVBJFUi-8_vGaqGuWz63rxrU2t9qRJqxNzYJyTmrrRLxu7iggksmLWkFKBxzoU9yNkM3jJ2h00fcJqXCJZK6mC9tROVuzUdykh5AMYS2sXjkzKq9AyK4eDhT6ZBQ7F/s1600/moseschagall.jpg" height="320" width="235" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rules. We all live by rules. Nations rise and fall by rules,
by definitions of who is in charge, and during the centuries when the Egyptians
were building the pyramids, Pharaoh was in charge. What he said, went. And when
he said, there are too many of those Hebrew children around here; kill the boys
– that rule was supposed to be followed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the beginning of the Exodus story, the story of God
pulling the Hebrew children out of Egypt and into their own nationhood as
Israel. This is the beginning of the most important story in the Hebrew bible –
and look at what a fragile and precarious beginning it has. A baby ordered
killed is hidden in a basket, floating in the very river in which he should
have drowned. And this child is saved because of a conspiracy of women who
broke the rules. Who’s in charge here? Pharaoh. But who is in the hearts of the
Hebrew midwives, and the baby’s mother and the baby’s sister? God is in their
hearts. The God of love, whose love causes them to find a way around the rules
to save the baby’s life. And then Pharaoh’s daughter, who sees the baby and
wants him for her own. She breaks the rules, too. She must know this is a
Hebrew baby, a boy hidden in a basket among the reeds. Who’s in charge here?
Compassion rules her heart, and through a marvelous twist, she takes the boy
home, along with a woman to nurse him who just happens to be the boy’s mother,
and the child of slaves is raised as a prince in Pharaoh’s household. This boy
of illegitimate beginnings grows up to be just the leader to bring the Hebrew
nation out of bondage into freedom.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who’s in charge here? It’s not always who we think it is –
and if God is ultimately in charge, if we take our authority from these rules
of love and compassion and empathy and mercy which God puts in our hearts, then
hey: there are often some surprising changes about who is in charge here in earth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Listen to this story told to me by a friend, a retired
priest who once served a parish on the West Side of Chicago. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>One morning many years ago I went out of the apartment house
where I lived … and found a little </i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><a href="http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/data/510/aug_21_2005_007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/data/510/aug_21_2005_007.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></i></div>
<i>ten year old neighbor, whose nickname was
"Boo", sitting in his grandpa's old Cadillac car, with a set of keys
in his hands, busily working to get the padlock off the steering wheel. Little
Boo looked guilty to me, and he did have a criminal record, for he had swiped
an apple from my refrigerator the week before. So I said to him, "Michael,
did your Grandpa give you those keys? Does he know that you are out here in the
car?" Boo slowly shook his head, No. I at once had a vision of Boo
careening around Union Park in this huge vintage Cadillac, his little head
bobbing over the dash board. I triumphantly retrieved the keys and took them
upstairs to Grandpa's apartment, next to my own. I knocked on the door, and
soon learned that indeed Grandpa had not given him the keys, but Grandma had!
She had told Michael to go down and get the padlock off the steering wheel and
to wait in the Cadillac for her to come down in a few minutes. When I went back
downstairs, Michael had recovered his dignity along with his Grandma and the
keys. And I had a bit of a red face, for not having recognized his received
authority to have the keys in the first place, from another with the power to
give them. </i><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The keys to the kingdom are something like that,” my friend
went on to say, “for Jesus has been an indulgent Grandma, who has handed over
the keys to the likes of us, and to a variety of others, some of us juveniles
too young to drive, but with the benevolent counsel to go ahead and open the
vehicle, and wait for the wise ones to come down and accompany us.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2016/16%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[i]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2016/16%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Frankly, I’m not too good with change. When the rules are
set, I like them to stay that way. But the world I live in now is not the world
as I thought it would be when I was ten years old. Pharaohs and Josephs come
and go, and what we thought secure is now precarious. How difficult to imagine
that our salvation will depend on a baby in a basket, or the wily, subversive
women who hid him there. But imagination is just what we need. With every new
age, every change in time or circumstance, with every new Pharaoh, God entrusts
us with a new set of keys. But the kingdom those new keys unlock remains the
same: love, justice, and the reign of God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
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<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2016/16%20A%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "AGaramond","serif";"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "AGaramond","serif";"> </span>Grant Gallup, <i>Homily Grits</i>, 14th Sunday after
Pentecost, Year A, Proper 16; <a href="http://us.f525.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=gallup@tmx.com.ni&YY=59054&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b">gallup@tmx.com.ni</a><span style="font-family: "AGaramond","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-77702209786605267052014-08-24T06:30:00.001-07:002014-08-24T06:30:16.694-07:00God shakes it up<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://banter.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ferguson_5-600x390.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://banter.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ferguson_5-600x390.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a>Proper 15 Aug.
17, 2014</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Genesis 45:1-15</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Psalm 133</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Matthew 15:21-28</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are never quite sure who we are supposed to forgive. Or
who is supposed to forgive us. Joseph’s brothers are flipping out when they
realize who the generous Egyptian is, all wealthy and powerful, standing before
them. Jesus himself gets caught up short by that feisty foreign woman who calls
him out on his vaunted declarations of God’s abundance. Joseph forgives his
brothers even before they ask for it. And does Jesus even beg the woman’s
pardon? Or is it all ok now, that her daughter is healed?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stories in the Gospel of Matthew we are reading for
these several weeks have this in common. The action in each of these stories is
set in motion by what happened when Jesus fed those thousands of people with a
little bread and some fish. Matthew, the one who structured how these stories
appear in his Gospel, shows that the ramifications of that miracle travel far
and wide. The way the world itself is ordered is now changed: God’s grace is so
powerful that human beings can walk on water. God’s abundance is so overflowing
that even Jesus underestimates its power – it takes a foreign woman with her
shocking challenge to teach Jesus that God’s generosity extends even to her and
her ailing daughter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We never know who God will use to get that point across to
us. The people of Ferguson, MO, have been at each other’s throats over who is
responsible for the death of a young man. Who would have thought that a career
state policeman would walk among the angry mobs, shake their hands, hear their
stories, and disarm the most heated conflicts? The situation got tense again
over the weekend, but on Friday, this highway patrolman brought hope:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsMT_MOHSfaqk0Db49Gl_0Wfow7eD6fBg_LZnFK32SOBsK5MKdzrjiKEZscOYiFXqzYN2AwnfezhlSgWyhleBrz0ZGyeVV04W3L7LRe-x8to3AC5VJLqT3EVYk-RjqV9BAhhOO3qi1ugMI/s1600/1607511.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsMT_MOHSfaqk0Db49Gl_0Wfow7eD6fBg_LZnFK32SOBsK5MKdzrjiKEZscOYiFXqzYN2AwnfezhlSgWyhleBrz0ZGyeVV04W3L7LRe-x8to3AC5VJLqT3EVYk-RjqV9BAhhOO3qi1ugMI/s1600/1607511.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Captain Johnson, a burly and plain-spoken Missouri native,
cited the Bible, preached tolerance and simultaneously represented both law and
order and the fear and anger of seething residents. He turned a news conference
into a town hall meeting, waded into the crowd and seemed to listen as much as
he spoke … </i><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Laptop1/Documents/JSchmitt/Sermons/15%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[i]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Laptop1/Documents/JSchmitt/Sermons/15%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is no quick fix, but Captain Johnson surprised
everyone, police and citizens alike, the way the Canaanite woman surprised
everyone around Jesus, the way Joseph surprised his scoundrel brothers. That
intervention of surprise shook up what was going on, and introduced the
possibility that God had other ideas about those situations. Joseph’s brothers
had to come to grips with their grievous wrong-doing. Jesus had to realize that
God’s grace extends to more people than he had imagined. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t we all wish that life would just settle down and be
normal? That there would be a reliable status quo? We yearn for that stability
so much that we are willing to sacrifice justice for it. We are willing to
harbor grudges, to hide our fears, to bury our angers, to silence our longings,
stifle our objections, just to keep things on an even keel. Like Joseph’s
brothers, we have kept all sorts of bad stuff inside for so long, that the love
of God is almost unrecognizable to us when we come upon it. We have lived that
way for so long: why would we ever want to change?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjACRVLhXRvuGmR6-thc1mvnRa9zd7LuLV4lHuWqX9GAWTLkr3GruOsArmAPIRDbp_CSmO8MRmEk6DwVzquakdWmduMsuhhuXj3IEn3rueNZqSIgbGCfoGgdQTs23ZawjqTgT-bR1wzfOhe/s1600/canaanite+woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjACRVLhXRvuGmR6-thc1mvnRa9zd7LuLV4lHuWqX9GAWTLkr3GruOsArmAPIRDbp_CSmO8MRmEk6DwVzquakdWmduMsuhhuXj3IEn3rueNZqSIgbGCfoGgdQTs23ZawjqTgT-bR1wzfOhe/s1600/canaanite+woman.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But God knows when that even keel that we desire so much is
out of whack. That’s when God intervenes, shakes things up, destabilizes the
status quo. God comes in the guise of angry demonstrators and brave police
captains, in the guise of snarky mothers who want the best for their children.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Watch on when you think you have it all figured out. God may
have something else in mind.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
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<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Laptop1/Documents/JSchmitt/Sermons/15%20A%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/us/trooper-ronald-s-johnson-listens-to-and-connects-with-a-ferguson-torn-by-violent-unrest.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHeadline&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">New York Times</a></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-3676208983874415462014-08-10T18:09:00.001-07:002014-08-10T18:09:14.715-07:00Splash!<div class="MsoNormal">
Proper 14 A August
10, 2014</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.reverendfun.com/add_toon_info.php?date=19980504&language=en" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.reverendfun.com/add_toon_info.php?date=19980504&language=en" height="254" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Psalm 105, 1-6,
16-22, 45b</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Matthew 14:22-33<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is an old cartoon in The New Yorker which shows two
men watching another person walk across the top of the water. One observer says
to the other, "It's been a long time since that has been done well!"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, walking on water is one of those things that seem
to belong to Jesus alone, and ever since Jesus, people, try as they might, have
had difficulty following Jesus' effortless performance. Like Peter, we attempt
the impossible -- we go out too far and find ourselves sinking, because we do
not know or we forget that deliverance comes only from God, not from our own
cleverness or strength or luck.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Relying on self alone, we sink, and struggle to get back to
where we wanted to be all along: safe in the boat. Shivering and wet maybe, but
in the boat, with its well defined boundaries and its protection, however
feeble, from the stormy seas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This can happen to us at any stage of our lives, when challenges
beckon and we think we can meet them on our own, unaware that we are woefully
unprepared – that we have not, after all, assembled the right tool kit for this
task. Any of those change points of our lives can feel like venturing out onto
stormy seas: leaving high school for college, leaving college for some kind of
career, and now, as is the case for nearly everyone, finding that career
upended and we are back in the water again, floundering. It can be the time the
children leave home, or when retirement is reached, or a spouse or a parent
dies, or grandchildren are born. We think we are ready to walk smoothly across
those waves, but we are not. We are not. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDjC3OmvVXeATMlcWXVSoxsVXU49SkKMirBiW0Yq-IShxHFl_fJgIhNF-7gUOkJ74I49kAtWuvLqSPup-IbQrQaRFjqfgxrvcJEu69ywdWuRiowdyKXuUtoUsQkn2pip39mM8AHsPr1MP/s1600/proper+14+a+quote.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDjC3OmvVXeATMlcWXVSoxsVXU49SkKMirBiW0Yq-IShxHFl_fJgIhNF-7gUOkJ74I49kAtWuvLqSPup-IbQrQaRFjqfgxrvcJEu69ywdWuRiowdyKXuUtoUsQkn2pip39mM8AHsPr1MP/s1600/proper+14+a+quote.png" height="320" width="203" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t think there is any formula for “relying on Jesus” at
those times. God’s saving help to us must take different, completely unexpected
forms each time we need it. If we think the same old words, the same old faith,
the same old patterns that got us from high school into the work world, or when
we were newlyweds, or through problems at work, will apply to our stormy seas
now, we are mistaken. We’ll sink like a stone. In the words of the old hymn,
“New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient truth uncouth.” As new
challenges appear in our lives, and we find our selves out on that stormy sea,
we have to find some way to stop and listen to what God is saying to us now –
not just march on and think we have it all together, not just do those same old
things and expect different results, and certainly not just think that the old
way forward is to get back into the boat. God is with us in those terrible
places, calling forth new things, new strengths, new faiths, new abilities,
that we never thought we had – that we had never even imagined before. “You of
little faith,” Jesus says to Peter. The “little faith” that Peter relied on was
the old way of thinking and being and doing. Jesus called Peter – and calls us
– to the new, the uncharted, the unimagined and unexpected – and is there with
us all the way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know this is true in your own life. It is just as true
in church life. This parish, the Episcopal Church, all churches, will go
nowhere if we think all we have to do is to stay in our safe – albeit wet and
leaking – little boat. Jesus calls us, in the words of a contemporary English
theologian, to “journey out,” to find mission and ministry not in this safe
place but out on the margins of the community. Our initial impulse might be
just to try to fix our status quo – to “do church” a little better, or even
just to do the things we have always done with more energy and vigor. But that
is like rowing backward against the current. It is undeniable in these times
that something powerful in the culture and wider world around us is pushing us
quickly into uncharted waters – and just to keep this maritime metaphor going,
it is very likely that the boat of the institutional church will break apart on
the shoals.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDU04BopiqMJwZ7Sz0_uH_D_ZEl8f6sWBO7N0oJMDRq9-Q48GXr_s8wLgAes_fK9Vone_6Lyf1xgaR0KLNAMqDQFgLP4Gy5MHVD9euMjUhOlqK_yZUbZuveW7EKrvnIW0uj1OXevibbxJ/s1600/journeying+out.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDU04BopiqMJwZ7Sz0_uH_D_ZEl8f6sWBO7N0oJMDRq9-Q48GXr_s8wLgAes_fK9Vone_6Lyf1xgaR0KLNAMqDQFgLP4Gy5MHVD9euMjUhOlqK_yZUbZuveW7EKrvnIW0uj1OXevibbxJ/s1600/journeying+out.jpg" height="320" width="199" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nevertheless, journeying out is exactly what Jesus is
calling us to do. It is an anxious time. It feels crazy, but we hear it again
and again through these ancient scriptures: God calls us to transformation – to
take on God’s new life as individuals, and as individuals to be part of an ever
new, ever transforming world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ann Morisy is the English theologian and church worker who
wrote her book Journeying Out about 10 years ago – an eon ago in this rapidly
changing world. But she has some pithy quotes that still ring true: the church
is not a “waiting room for the hereafter.” “The church, if it is to honor the
gospel, has to journey out, embrace strangers, work for social peace and
justice and partake of God’s gracious gift of salvation.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2014/14%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[i]</a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2014/14%20A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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That is so hard for “we of little faith” to hear, even for
those of us who have heard these stories all of our lives. But knowing who is
calling us to journey out, what are we waiting for?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div>
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<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2014/14%20A%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Ann Morisy, <i>Journeying Out: A New
Approach to Christian Mission</i> (Morehouse, 2004), p. 5<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-6191028466997924882014-08-10T17:55:00.002-07:002014-08-10T17:55:27.603-07:00Two weeks of baptisms: water and rest<div class="MsoNormal">
Proper 8-A + baptism June
29, 2014</div>
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</div>
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<a href="http://askmissa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/0141.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://askmissa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/0141.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Genesis 24:1-2,10-27</div>
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Psalm
13</div>
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Matthew 10:40-42<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I remember driving through a part of the city that was
run-down and gritty, on a hot day in the early summer. I saw a boy sitting at
his lemonade stand. His hand-written sign said a cup of lemonade was 25 cents.
I almost stopped. Seth and Laura used to do lemonade stands, and one year –
when they said they were raising money to give their parents an anniversary gift
-- they made almost $100. (Lesson here: people give to people with a cause.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Normally, though, lemonade stands don’t make a lot of money.
After getting someone to front the initial investment, the young entrepreneur
can be on his or her own, replenishing supplies out of the profits. But the
profits will be modest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The street corner where the little boy had set up his stand
was not the tree-lined university campus where Seth and Laura made their
killing in the lemonade market. This was a place of cracked pavement, car
exhaust, weeds in the hedges, that sort of thing. It was a hot day. You could
say, then, that that little boy was a prophet: he saw that his block was the
sort of place where people would need a cup of lemonade. He saw his street
corner, not as we would see it, as a dusty, God-forsaken no man’s land that we
speed by, but as a place where people would stop and drink some lemonade, and
he’d get a quarter and maybe a nice conversation out of it. That little boy saw
hope on his street corner. He saw his street corner the way God sees his street
corner.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB2Nfu-2xdQcRRHa5EkQdrigQYyT1kCrqxj7NK0Iv1L5SkTGuE-e-7vZxU1h7uUHYGAQ9atpOiBLpABd26ZEsjznlEB0nz-Tlss11Mi6zXtqBbAcpiygL5NLNN4J0hvAXPPChhcS01fcFQ/s1600/proper+8a+graphic.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB2Nfu-2xdQcRRHa5EkQdrigQYyT1kCrqxj7NK0Iv1L5SkTGuE-e-7vZxU1h7uUHYGAQ9atpOiBLpABd26ZEsjznlEB0nz-Tlss11Mi6zXtqBbAcpiygL5NLNN4J0hvAXPPChhcS01fcFQ/s1600/proper+8a+graphic.png" height="237" width="320" /></a></div>
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No one sets out to be a prophet; prophets can only be
recognized from the outside, when people see their prophet-nature in what they
say and what they do. That little boy didn’t set out to be a prophet; he just
set out a lemonade stand. But he is a prophet. He sees his neighborhood as it
is going to be. The little boy is a prophet of the resurrection.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our story from Genesis is another story of water and hope –
of water and hospitality as investments in the future. As we continue the story
of Abraham and his descendants, we see that the hospitality shown by Rebekah to
the stranger is a sign of her blessedness – and that her hospitality brings a
blessing to Abraham’s whole family. Rebekah will marry Isaac, and the promise
that God made to Abraham – that his descendants would number as the stars in
the heaven – takes one step closer to coming true.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS0MpExMqvE-Xq2ms2bYcY_z0COiKaDKx_Bw1MRqQykmGW2wMfHLwZUfmun5zpRp5cwWhQlChiyaLxuX9rsszzEHG4UE8ufTcYRIIq9gnHn1AGUVIgoIh4G5H1Vp7JDNL_oKen1RagevKV/s1600/African+woman+and+baby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS0MpExMqvE-Xq2ms2bYcY_z0COiKaDKx_Bw1MRqQykmGW2wMfHLwZUfmun5zpRp5cwWhQlChiyaLxuX9rsszzEHG4UE8ufTcYRIIq9gnHn1AGUVIgoIh4G5H1Vp7JDNL_oKen1RagevKV/s1600/African+woman+and+baby.jpg" height="246" width="320" /></a>We are delighted that we have these two little girls here
today, so we can continue our own story of water and blessing and hope for the
future. Children are a sign that there is more to come. They are the new life
promised by God to all of us. They shake us up, challenge us, teach us new
things and bring us to the brink of exasperation. We gather today to bless them
as they have blessed us. We douse them with water – that same water Rebekah
drew from the well, that same water from which the little boy on the dusty
street corner made his lemonade – and welcome them into this household that we
dare to call the household of God. We promise to take care of them and support
them and hold them close and let them go when they are grown. We promise to
teach them about God’s promises to us: that God is always renewing life, that
God is always with us, that God is always leading us forth to new pathways and
peoples and adventures, and that God will always, always, welcome us home.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Proper 9-A + Baptism 7/6/2014</div>
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Genesis 24:34-38,42-49,58-67</div>
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Psalm
45:11-18</div>
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Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Summer is a time for rest and recreation – for sitting with
family and friends – for re-connecting with the <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw0yxT0rXu_0u-MjxYcGP00roXMA1UtcqgQtoeasiV6NV9gQOXqBov-HGAr5Oqxv-ZGiOMnrLarYd-hI36uMYL7YoP4e6tWV3WWazyNm2Myu3JNlJR_JmC9awjWnD1qMHI4TgS20-gi4zt/s1600/lake-winni-overview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw0yxT0rXu_0u-MjxYcGP00roXMA1UtcqgQtoeasiV6NV9gQOXqBov-HGAr5Oqxv-ZGiOMnrLarYd-hI36uMYL7YoP4e6tWV3WWazyNm2Myu3JNlJR_JmC9awjWnD1qMHI4TgS20-gi4zt/s1600/lake-winni-overview.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
beauty of all God has made. God
built the desire for rest into our very essence, for in the creation story we
know, famously, that God rested on the seventh day. Augustine, theologian and
bishop of the church’s early centuries puts our innate longing for rest and for
God together:<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<i>"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts
are restless until they rest in you."</i><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: 'ZapfHumnst BT', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Augustine reminds us that we are part of the creation in
which God delights, and that no matter how much we do what God would have us
NOT do, God has created us with a homing device, as it were: the true rest we
seek we find at home, and our home, our hearts’ home, is with God. Our hearts
are restless until they rest in God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Our Old Testament and Gospel lessons would seem, on the face
of it, to have nothing to do with each other. Matthew gives us some sayings of
Jesus; in Genesis we continue the story of how Isaac, son of the patriarch
Abraham, and also a patriarch-to-be, got himself a wife.<o:p></o:p></div>
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These lessons do have something in common: they talk about
rest, Sabbath rest, rest that leads to salvation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the desert lands of the Near East, where one finds water
one finds salvation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A river flows through the garden of Eden, and later splits
into four rivers, which flowed to the corners of the earth. For the inhabitants
of the arid ancient near east, water is a restoration of Eden. … In the Bible,
if you’ve found abundant water, you’ve found your way back to paradise. If you
find water, you’ve entered sabbath.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: 'ZapfHumnst BT', sans-serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[ii]</span></a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSlSK1VMouT9pBis8LfveASyB3flvlX4oO2jbsY59jRaocRCYyvodhwTZwAaogp3knRO5nmY21yFUb-Jk52Zxhpb8e-4QF1ceFYbe7zAqNYKNDwTGXTB06NbsA71CqWO6Qdo-0FdGSKT0/s1600/AfricanWomanDrawingWater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSlSK1VMouT9pBis8LfveASyB3flvlX4oO2jbsY59jRaocRCYyvodhwTZwAaogp3knRO5nmY21yFUb-Jk52Zxhpb8e-4QF1ceFYbe7zAqNYKNDwTGXTB06NbsA71CqWO6Qdo-0FdGSKT0/s1600/AfricanWomanDrawingWater.jpg" height="219" width="320" /></a></div>
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Isaac, the one God promised to be the father of many
nations, is looking for a wife, a worthy partner with whom to fulfill this
promise. And where does he (or the servant he sent) find her? At a well. This
is not just a story about an ancient version of matchmaker.com. This is a story
of God fulfilling God’s promises with the abundance of flowing water, an oasis
in the desert, the living water that leads to eternal life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And what is Jesus saying? Don’t miss that well in the
desert. Don’t miss the signs that point to it. Don’t miss out on your chance
for the abundant life! What will it take for us to recognize Jesus for who he
is? He points to the contrast between John the Baptist, the forerunner – the
ascetic, desert-hardened one who first brought the Good News of this new world.
“You called him demon-possessed!” Jesus says. And then he goes on, “And then
here I am! I eat and drink, I hang out with sinners and unsavory people. I
party with everybody! I bring the same message as John, and yet you pay no
attention to me, either! You think you are so wise? Hah!” Listen to how another
Biblical scholar interpreted what Jesus said:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>… sit out the dance in your pseudo-wisdom if you want to,
but the blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing, the lepers are made new, the
dead are raised, and the poor have finally heard some music they can kick up
their heels to – and that is the essence of wisdom...</i><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: 'ZapfHumnst BT', sans-serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[iii]</span></a></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><!--[endif]--></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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We have two beautiful children to thank today for reminding
us of the promises that water symbolizes, and the joy that water brings. I bet
you all have been dipping more than your toes in the sacred waters of
Skaneateles. We thank you for bringing some of that party here to us. In your
baptisms today you are helping all of us re-connect with the springs of the
water of life – with the promises God made to us at creation, that we, created
in the image of God, are good. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In the waters of baptism we find our salvation. We renew
those original promises of creation. We can lay <o:p></o:p></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnNgOb95rKA_iBWn_fy19zNBBNGIN5ugUUQ4vmz881q5Ep0nonOjkf_zUvLO-TRGenLqV0WNg-IdysPYaNwwx9wjrApDd_x72ACloNzkKgkjCGmAEHZyIIitvjKbYFwwYT04hzwZhcfc4/s1600/Augustine+quote.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnNgOb95rKA_iBWn_fy19zNBBNGIN5ugUUQ4vmz881q5Ep0nonOjkf_zUvLO-TRGenLqV0WNg-IdysPYaNwwx9wjrApDd_x72ACloNzkKgkjCGmAEHZyIIitvjKbYFwwYT04hzwZhcfc4/s1600/Augustine+quote.png" height="139" width="320" /></a>down our burdens, Jesus says,
at the wellspring in the desert, and there we will find rest. We will find
eternal life. We will find a terrific party – a feast to end all feasts. There
at the well, we can put things in proper perspective. We can leave behind our
tortured lives, doing what we know we should not. We can let our troubles just
dry out there on the hot sand. We can forget our tension and anger, and take on
the gentleness and humility that Jesus offers. We can gather the children in
our arms, and see in them that God’s promises for our lives – for life itself –
are fulfilled. We can cast off all our restlessness, for here, at this well of
refreshment, of easy burdens and light duties, our hearts can finally find
their rest.<br />
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<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'ZapfHumnst BT', sans-serif;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The Confessions of <st1:place w:st="on">St.</st1:place> Augustine, Bishop of
Hippo: <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/augconfessions/bk1.html">http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/augconfessions/bk1.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'ZapfHumnst BT', sans-serif;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Peter J. Leithart, from <i>Blogging Toward
Sunday</i>, July 6 (6/30/2008) in <i>Theolog,
</i>the blog of The Christian Century: <a href="http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-towa-4.html">http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-towa-4.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%209/9-A%202014.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'ZapfHumnst BT', sans-serif;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
From “Sacred Rest” by Kate Huey, from <i>Weekly
Seeds</i>, the Bible study blog of the United Church of Christ: <a href="http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/67/Sacred-Rest.aspx">http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/67/Sacred-Rest.aspx</a>.
Kate Huey quotes Thomas Long’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew from the
Westminster Bible Companion Series</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5303509199516128213.post-85403366624668283992014-07-05T17:30:00.001-07:002014-07-05T17:31:42.814-07:00Who's in charge here?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://iamachild.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/abraham-sending-away-hagar-and-ishmael.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://iamachild.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/abraham-sending-away-hagar-and-ishmael.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Proper 7-A; June
22, 2014</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Genesis
21:8-21</b></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Matthew
10:24-39</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Because of his wife’s jealousy of the “other woman,” Abraham
casts his first-born son into the wilderness to die. Hagar, the Egyptian slave
woman who is the child's mother, has run out of food and water. She lays the
exhausted, parched and famished boy under a bush, and says, to no one, for
there is no witness to this act, "Do not let me look on the death of the
child." She then cries aloud and weeps.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This could be a scene from South Sudan, from the Mexican
border, from Syria, or from countless desperate places on our planet today,
where mothers and children are abandoned by family, by warring governments, by
economic forces beyond their control, and sent out to many kinds of wilderness
to die. Friday was World Refugee Day, and a good thing, too, because I hear
that today there are more refugees than at any time since the end of the Second
World War.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If the day's Gospel lesson reflects Jesus’ “family values,”
it does not fare much better. "I have come to set a man against his
father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law." Jesus declares. "One's foes will be members of one's
own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://rivchurch.com/wp-content/uploads/Jesus-Said-Video-Preview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://rivchurch.com/wp-content/uploads/Jesus-Said-Video-Preview.jpg" height="135" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This passage comes from a section in the Gospel of Matthew
concerning discipleship: what does it mean to follow Jesus? What would it look
like in my life, the disciples are asking themselves, to take part in the
breaking in of this kingdom of heaven? What does it mean to take up my cross,
to lose my life, to understand God not as the bringer of peace but as the
wielder of a sword?<o:p></o:p></div>
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As important as family is to us today, our modern ears
cannot hear it quite the same way as Jesus’ followers would have. We moderns
are all about “ME,” about self-actualization and self-realization. We strike
out on our own, we value independence and self-reliance: the Lone Ranger, the
pioneer on the frontier, the corporate raider, the “Army of One.” But in the
world in which Jesus lived, you were not an individual apart from your family.
Your family gave you your identity, gave you not just your name but your place
in the community and in the world, and your family protected you from that world.
Your family was a good thing, a precious thing; you didn’t just strike out on
your own. Jesus isn’t some 1960s hippie cult leader telling you to tune in,
turn on, drop out, from a family that oppresses, abuses or bores you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There were plenty of bad things in first century Palestine,
plenty of things that Jesus might exhort you to leave behind, but the family
was not one of them. The Romans were bad, because they were an occupying army
in your homeland. The temple authorities were bad, because they colluded with
the Romans in exchange for privilege and protection. The civil bureaucracy was
bad, because it taxed the people nearly to death. Indeed, death and fear were
the operative social norms. The family was the refuge from all that. No one
could survive without a family.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So when Jesus says, “Follow me,” he is asking the disciples
to leave behind one of the few institutions in society that works. Jesus’ call
upsets every apple cart there is, and then he says, don’t worry. Don’t be
anxious. Consider the lilies, remember the sparrows. The kingdom of heaven
means the whole world is about to be re-ordered. Everything will be uncovered.
There will be no more secrets, no more power brokers, or back-room deals. This
news is so good that it must be shouted from the rooftops – no matter what the
consequences. No matter how many authorities you anger, no matter how many
armies they unleash. God’s kingdom HAS to challenge this kingdom, and even the
blessed and good family, the loving parents, the bonds of affection and kinship
– even these can get in the way of this truth of God which cuts like a sword.
The new thing which God is doing is even deeper, even more important, even more
powerful that the deepest, most important and most powerful parts of our lives,
the parts of our lives that make us most truly human. God is a sword which
pares away even our relationships, our kinships, our families.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Where is God taking us with this confusing, and maybe even
terrifying, lesson? Is discipleship some sort of desert wilderness? Are we
called to be like Hagar and Ishmael, stumbling around until the water runs out,
cut off from family and security and hope and the future?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChEa_B1ELw7uUDXH5EJvincnyvz19BHwxSZmkxEwXSAEio3xTMntqtgCY9Fp8iR0oQ2jbdtwnBewr7QqLoQBvuYSGkKgjflhedrvcXjTpzYWXaTPXHyWPfgAhk3RGXObPKyzYUm4pc6ww/s1600/Chagall_Hagar+&+Ishmael+in+the+Desert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChEa_B1ELw7uUDXH5EJvincnyvz19BHwxSZmkxEwXSAEio3xTMntqtgCY9Fp8iR0oQ2jbdtwnBewr7QqLoQBvuYSGkKgjflhedrvcXjTpzYWXaTPXHyWPfgAhk3RGXObPKyzYUm4pc6ww/s1600/Chagall_Hagar+&+Ishmael+in+the+Desert.jpg" height="320" width="230" /></a>Look again at this astounding story of Hagar and Ishmael –
and God. Even though God has apparently blessed the dismissal of the two into
the wilderness, God will not let them suffer. The voice of the angel of God
raises Hagar’s hopes, and promises that even this discarded son of Abraham will
be the father of many nations. Even these two hopeless creatures, these outcasts
and discards, this tiny remnant of a broken family will have a great future in
store. Abraham may have cast out Ishmael but God stayed with him.</div>
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If Jesus calls us as disciples to turn away from even the
good parts of our lives, if they distract and keep us from the gospel, it is
because being a disciple leads us into so much more. We see this broken world
now as Jesus sees it. Freed from our own particularity, we can act as perhaps
Jesus would have us act. We can even take our families with us. We can see the
Hagars and Ishmaels of today, in the countless desert places, the violent
streets, the lonely corners. We can resolve to be that angel of God who shouts
from the rooftops that it doesn’t have to be this way, the angel who brings
God’s gifts of water, sustenance and hope to a world that too often cries in
despair.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Proper 29 C Nov.
24, 2013</b></div>
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<b>Jeremiah 23:1-6</b></div>
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<b>Canticle 16 – Luke
1:68-79</b></div>
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<b>Colossians 1:11-20</b></div>
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<b>Luke
23:33-43</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://mesadisciples.org/images/the-risen-lord%5B1%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://mesadisciples.org/images/the-risen-lord%5B1%5D.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a>One of the founding stories of our democracy is “no taxation
without representation.” It is hard indeed, after all these years, built on
stories like that, to get our American heads around the Sunday of “Christ the
King.” Many Christians now call this day “the Reign of Christ,” which seems to
downplay the patriarchal tint to the word “king,” but the monarchy is still
there: we small-d democrats and small-r republicans have no intention of living
under anybody’s “reign” – monarchs reign; in a democracy, our leaders govern
with the consent of the people. We are citizens, not subjects, and even at
times like this, when our democracy seems a little bit lumpy and not working as
well as we would like, we’re not going back to be under anybody’s “reign.”</div>
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Yet our most frequently used prayer goes like this: “Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day
our daily bread, and lead us not into temptation.” No matter what our system of
government is, apparently the best way we can describe what the world should be
like is that it is under the reign of God – a reign under which all basic human
needs, like that of daily bread, are met, where “structures of domination and
subjugation [are] overcome… [where] all dwell in harmony with God and each
other<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2029/29%20C%202013.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span><!--[endif]--></a>”
beyond the temptation and corruption of evil.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Sestertius_-_Vespasiano_-_Iudaea_Capta-RIC_0424.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Sestertius_-_Vespasiano_-_Iudaea_Capta-RIC_0424.jpg" height="162" width="320" /></a></div>
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If we Americans live in a democracy, yet with this memory of
monarchy, the people of Jesus’ day found themselves living in an unjust
monarchy, yet with a memory of democracy – or at least of republican
government. They remembered the rule of law. They remembered when their
wretched taxes did not go to support an imperial military force that imposed
order whether it was lawful or not. The days of Caesar Augustus, as the
evangelist Luke is so keenly aware, are the days of the first emperor, the
emperor who wrenched power from the elected consuls, now no more than the shell
of republicanism. “All the world is at peace,” Caesar declared. “First victory,
then peace.” The people longed for order and for peace. They longed for a
society in which they could safely earn their daily bread, a society which kept
at bay for the forces of chaos and disruption. But under the emperor, who
needed all those rumors of war to stay in business, peace came from a permanent
military. Peace came at the price of crippling and permanent taxation from
which there was no hope of relief. Peace came at the price of the erosion of
the rule of law. Peace came at the price of justice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Jesus mocked as “the king of the Jews” has no power to
impose anything like the peace and order of the Roman Empire. By the time this
Gospel is written, decades after anyone alive had witnessed that crucifixion,
people were beginning to understand what this “reign of God” meant – what this
alternative kingship was about. Jesus went to his death talking about a
different kind of world order. In his life and in his death, Jesus ‘[grappled]
with the disorders of injustice, suffering and death. The darkness of death,”
writes Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, is pushed back one emergency at a
time.” Over the course of his life and in the manner of his death, Jesus
demonstrated to ordinary people – like us – that he knew just what they were
going through, that he stood with them, and us, and that most importantly he
WITHstood the worst that lawlessness and chaos could dish out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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People knew that Luke wrote the truth about Jesus. They knew
it because the people who stood up for <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://justiceinconflict.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/no-justice-no-peace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://justiceinconflict.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/no-justice-no-peace.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></div>
them, and with them – the people who
were willing to go to their deaths in place of them, were the people who
believed in this upside-down kingship of Jesus. The people of Luke’s day knew
they could pray to the Emperor all they wanted, but there was no bread without
justice, no peace without justice. The imperial army could be powerful and
rich, but the people still suffered from want and lived in fear. The people of
Luke’s day began to follow “the servants of this new king. [These]
practitioners of this newly ordered world” took their leadership public. When
Luke told this story of standing at the foot of the cross, of hearing in Jesus’
last words that he was still turning the world around, it gave people courage that
they could do that too, in their own day and in the face of their own
challenges.<br />
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This day of Christ the King is for us, citizens and subjects
alike. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Sermons/Pentecost/Proper%2029/29%20C%202013.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "ZapfHumnst BT","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Rosemary Radford Ruether, in <i>Sexism and
God-Talk</i>, quoted by Suzanne Guthrie in <a href="http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/reignofchristc.html">http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/reignofchristc.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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