May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Christmas
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish
DATE: December 24 & 25, 1997
TEXT: When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about his child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.
ISSUE: It is important to emphasize that what the story means is far more important than whether or not the birth of Jesus actually happened in this way. Significant to the story for Luke is the adoration of the shepherds who find the ‘Lamb of God’ who becomes the ‘Good Shepherd’ of all shepherds at the manger. Having found the Christ their ministry of a shepherding people begins. They go and proclaim that goodnews of what they have seen and heard: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We gather again as the faithful to worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We gather again to contemplate and meditate upon this beautiful story that Luke so artfully tells about the birth of Christ. It is a story that was never intended as a literal presentation of Jesus’ birth, but rather a story that is something of a prelude, or overture, that reveals in a poetic way what the child, Jesus, the Christ child shall become.
The story is essentially the story of the birth of a peasant child born to a carpenter father, Joseph, and unwed mother. The political powers of the time are badly manipulating the lives of the poor. These leaders were supposed to be the shepherds and leaders of God’s people, but for a long long time they had failed miserable at being shepherds of the people. Joseph must travels to Bethlehem to transact some kind of business, related perhaps to some kind of taxation or census. His betrothed, Mary, will give birth to the child, but the houses with guest rooms in this quite small town of Bethlehem are full, so the child is born in at a manger like so many other peasant children. Peasant homes only had one room and a manger was a part of the room where animals were brought in at night, and peasant women gave birth to their children.
Yet Luke weaves together such a poetic story as to reveal that his baby Jesus was truly the Savior and hope of the world. Born in Bethlehem as the child of Joseph who was of the lineage or ancestry of Israel’s greatest King David. David, who was a shepherd boy in Bethlehem, and least among the sons of Jesse, became a great King and a charismatic leader. Luke is telling his readers that once again our of this tiny town a new king is born of humble birth, who will also become a most unusual King of Kings and Lord of Lords and indeed a leader with great charisma.
Luke enhances the story with the angels. At the birth of a boy child in these times the town’s musicians would come and sing for joy. But the very simple humbleness, the peasantry of Jesus’ birth in the manger is without music. Luke, then says, angels come and sing the Glory of God in the highest. The implication is that the birth is of God. God the Father has provided the musicians for the birth of his Son.
As in Matthew’s gospel account, a star leads the wisemen, Luke has the angels direct the shepherds to the manger site. Shepherds out in the fields are terrified by the vision of Luke’s angels. But they are consoled by the angels who tell them they have nothing to fear, but that in the little town of Bethlehem the Savior of the world is born. The shepherds become themselves curios and go to Bethlehem to see this wonderful thing that has come to pass.
In Luke’s narrative, the shepherds are indeed very important characters in the drama. Although the life of shepherds was sometimes romanticized in this period, they were not considered honorable men. They spent so much time away from their wives and families that they were considered to participate in a dishonorable occupation. Their work prevented them from adherence to the laws and rituals of Judaism. They were often thought of as thieves, for they trespassed frequently on other people’s properties. They were avoided and condemned. Their lives were difficult, living in dangerous wildernesses and among wild beasts that attacked the sheepfold, and fending them off. They were a humble lot of peasants but also a tough breed.
The shepherds around Bethlehem raised sheep that would be used in the Jerusalem Temple, not far away, that would be sacrificed in the Temple. The angels, then, telling the shepherds of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem is quite significant. The shepherds are sent, you see, to see the real lamb, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. They are sent to see who the real sacrificial lamb is who takes away the sins of the world, the one whose life will be sacrificed on a cross.
What’s more, the shepherds who are keeping watch over their flocks by night come to see the one, the Lamb, who himself will grow up to become The Good Shepherd. He is the Good Shepherd who will lead his flock to greener pastures and living waters. He is the Good Shepherd who will care for and love God’s people. He too will be tough, and not always able to keep the rituals, and will leave his family. He too will not always be honorable, nor perceived as honorable. He is also the shepherd who will be rejected and condemned. Yet, He will walk through the valleys in the shadows of death. He will live and die for them. He will show the way and lead them back home to the love and forgiveness of God. He is the shepherd who will give meaning to people’s lives, revealing to them the way one lives as a person of God.
The shepherds returned home according to Luke telling what had been revealed to them, and amazing other people around them. Already they begin to feed the sheep who are the people of God with the message of hope and salvation, and meaning in their lives. Just as Jesus had told his fishermen disciples that he would make them fishers of men, and called Peter to feed the sheep; the shepherds begin their ministry revealing the glory of God in the saving Christ.
Christmas is indeed special for all of us. It is a time when we make a concerted effort to be focused on the birth of Christ and this season of peace and joy. That it is. Yet, so much more. Christmas is more than just a commemoration of a sweet little baby Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem so many years ago. It is a call to renewed faith commitment, to embrace the Christ as our Lamb, The Lamb of God, who dies on a cross and who has taken away our sins and separation from God. He so vividly express his love on that cross. It is a time to be renewed in the understanding that Christ is our tough Good Shepherd who sees us through the difficulties of our lives, and calls all of us to partnership in his shepherding of the lost, the least, the last, the lonely, the broken and fallen. In Christ God has come among us as sacrifical Lamb and Good Shepherd, that we too may be a sacrificially loving devoted people, and particpate in the feeding of his flock whoever and wherever they may be.
Wednesday, December 24, 1997
Sunday, December 14, 1997
Advent 3
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Advent 3
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 14, 1997
TEXT: Luke 3:7-18 - “Bear fruits worthy of repentance. . . . . ‘I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy spirit and fire. . . . . . So with many other exhortations, he (John Baptist) proclaimed the good news to the people.”
ISSUE: On this “Stir up” Sunday, taken from the Collect of the Day, John Baptist is indeed stirring up the people. He calls them to repentance and gives specific examples of exactly what he means. He calls for changed lives among the common and powerless people in preparation for a new age, when God’s Anointed will come among his people and increase the power of the Holy Spirit within them. While John may well appear coarse and threatens judgement, it is in repentance and open preparation for the coming of the Christ that people have good news. In their brokeness there is new hope; Christ comes again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This third Sunday of Advent is the one we refer to as “Stir-up Sunday.” Its title comes from the Collect of the Sunday that God will stir-up his power and come among us, because we are so hindered by our sins we need God’s presence and help. We are in desperate need of God’s help and deliverance according to the prayer.
Incidentally this is also the Sunday that we light the rose candle on the Advent Wreath as a remembrance that there is great joy in the anticipated coming of the Lord. For some of us this is sort of mixed message. It is hard to be joyful when you are under judgement for your sins.
In this morning’s Gospel reading from Luke, John the Baptist really comes on strong. People are piqued by his preaching and curios about whether or not he is the anticpated Messiah. They go to see this peculiar man preaching in the desert. wilderness. When they find him they are met by what seems to us to be an insulting message. To them it was a terrible insult to their honor. “You brood of snakes, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.” Eugene H. Peterson’s paraphrase from his book, The Message, gives a more graphic picture: “Brood of Snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river. Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s you life that must change, not your skin. . . . .” John calls for real repentance and change in the lives of these people. For him their biological ancestry does not matter. What matters is their moral courage and the courageous faithful devotion to God. Descendents of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life Is it green and blossoming, or is it deadwood for the fire? (Peterson)
Well, the crowd begins to ask John what they should do. What are the expectations to be made of them? John replies with some specific advice. John goes on to say to these people that if they have two coats, then give one away. This time was one when goods and supplies were in very limited supply. If someone had two coats it was likely that someone else had none. If someone has too much food, it was likely that someone was going without. John calls for an end to being greed. It was not honorable in this society, nor in any other I would suggest. Among these very poor folk who had come out to John, there were few if any who were rich or particularly well off. At the time to be generous to your neighbor did not mean to be kind to strangers. In the culture of this time, your neighbor was your kinsman. The broader idea of neighbor does not come until Jesus expresses a wider appreciation of neighbor in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. What John saw in his time was a people who were not even very sensitive to the needs of their own kinsman. Self gratification and self-centeredness was his concern. John is addressing the issue that change begins with his own, right close to home. He begins to make them sensitive to needs outside themselves. If they are to be a people who will be washed and baptized and immersed into the new Kingdom of God, it will require a personal change.
Tax collectors we are told also come to him. Poor dear tax collectors. They were a mess. Actually they were toll collectors who collected tolls at bridges, or a borders, or on certain roads, at gateways and landings. These were men who could not get jobs anywhere else. They were not particularly liked as the tolls eventually went to the Romans. They were sort of losers of the time. They were considered unclean persons, because they had to examine and root through and touch things that might have been considered unclean. Furthermore in order to get the jobs, they often had to put large sums of money up front and hoped they could collecrt enough money to break even, and hopefully to make a living. It was a system that was open to abuse and they were not profitable. Few tax collectors were rich. They were just part of the dispossessed and among the really poor and rejected.
These were the poor souls who came out to John, looking for a Messiah, new hope, a new way, a new Kingdom. But according to John, the way to that Kingdom and hope was to be converted and changed. In a society were there was a lot of lying and cheating and deception to maintain whatever honor you might have, these tax collectors were expected to be honest, and to exact the fair tolls and taxes. They were to be honorable not just in the sight of man, but in the sight of God. They were to be ready for a new Kingdom that is God’s kingdom.
And there were also some soldiers there. These soldiers that went out into the wilderness were Jewish soldiers, or a kind of police force. Again, they were not loved by their fellows. They were controlled by Herod; they worked for him. Herod was a puppet king of the Romans. So they had little real respect and affection among their own people. They enforced the Roman occupying power. They had the power to blackmail, report their fellow citizens to Roman authorities. They could extort money and they could be brutal. Again it was a position which probably did not have much respect or honor attached to it. These soldiers who go after John in the wilderness are themselves searching for something better. What should they do? “Well,” says John, “be changed, and different. No blackmailing, bullying, or extortion. Be satisfied with your wages. Be ready for the kingdom, and be ready for the coming of the Annointed Messiah. And everything that is false will get thrown into the trash and burned.”
John’s baptism is about being cleansed and ready for something grand. Luke and the early church is making it clear that John the Baptist is not the Messiah, but the forerunner, the one who is preparing the way and calling people to a genuine preparedness for change. Those who are ready will receive renewing life giving Holy Spirit that will lead them on to God’s Kingdom.
Notewell what is going on here. John’s message is not to the elite, the rich and the powerful, and those of great honor. John’s message is to the poor, the dislike, the disenfranchised, dispossessed, the powerless. Yet at the same time he is making them aware that indeed to be changed to realize that being good to one another, caring for one another, sharing with one another, working together in community, not cheating or beating up on one another, they will gain begin to receive a power and a new hope that comes from God. Therein is the goodnews, the joy and the hope. They have to stop seeing themselves as victims. They have to stop saying, “Ain’t the world awful because of all those nasty Romans.” The power to change, the Spirit of God is ready to be within them. When the Christ comes, the Anointed One, they will be ready to follow him and be led to the Kingdom of God. John is very pro-active. He calls the down trodden to be ready to realize their power that is within, and that will come and lead them, deliver them to a whole new way of life.
I hope we get the point in our time. I hope this passage speaks to us as well. There are times in all honesty that we recognize our need for the mercy, grace, and help of God. While we might not like to dwell on it, people can be a brood of snakes. We may not be terribly comfortable with that kind of talk in our time. It may be okay for the 1st century but for the 21st century it seems a bit harsh. Fact of the matter is there is a lot of cruelty and pitiful behavior going on in our world in which we participate. We can be extraordinarily cruel in our thinking toward the poor, toward people of other religions, people of other races, and to one another in our own families as we allow old feuds and hatreds to persist from generation to generation. Honest people know they are in the need of God’s redeeming grace and that we are under God’s awesome judgement.
What then shall we do? Maybe when we have more than we need would could share some of it around in a meaningful way.
Men could start spending more time with their children. Men could love their childrens’ mother in a deeper more appreciative way. Men could control their wandering eyes and build a stronger more loving nest at home.
I’m not a woman, so I won’t presume to venture what women per se should do. My guess is that each of you who are in families know what would build stronger family life.
All of us need to question just how much individual self expression is necessary and consider concentrating on what we need to do for the common good of our families, of our church, of the other important areas of our lives.
In our church we could get a grip on caring more and establishing relationships with the shut-ins, so that they don’t become merely lost and ignored from our community. We need to talk to new people and share ourselves with them and what this church has meant to yourselves and what it may come to mean to others. We must stop being so infatuated with the fact that we are a small church and isn’t that wonderful. The underlying message is we are concerned for this generation only and our own complacent selves and the message to baptize all people in the Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teach them can go to hell. We rely on Episcopalians to come from other churches and join our parish. Somehow or another we see that as church growth. It’s not. It simply robs Peter to pay Paul. The Christian vacumn in our cities is a potential for doom. We could all work to make the church financially stronger so it can do its work in the world.
We could and must be more regular in our worship and study of the story of our great faith so that it will impact our lives and encourage us in our ministries in our lives.
All of us need to look for opportunities and people who are different from us. We need to search for opportunities to create friendships with people of different races and religions. Without understanding and appreciation and love of things different from ourselves we shall be come isolated and suspicions and misunderstandings and all that they can lead to abound.
There are needs around us everywhere, particularly the environmental concerns. Without some pro-active participation, the world is threatened.
For the sake of good health and a witness to our children some of us need to put out our cigarettes once and for all and to watch carefully the amount of booze we are consuming. These are destructive habits and they effect our children and future generations. It is not merely a matter of it being good for me; it is good for the future.
The list of how and what the snakes in the nest need to do could go on and on. At the same time we might be overwhelmed by it all, and see the future as hopeless. Not so with John. He saw people, common ordinary people for who they were. He dared them not to be whiners and to condemn the powers that be in Rome. He dared them to accept the power within themselves and do what they could to be changed. And what they alone could not do, God would come to them and baptize and empower the community to redeem, strenghten and renew it in all that by itself it could not do.
Christ came and died for the sins of the world. Christ rose. And now Christ comes again. Indeed we are under the judgement, but at the same time those who will turn and dare to change will see him come again with Glory and with power to renew and buy back the world.
SEASON: Advent 3
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 14, 1997
TEXT: Luke 3:7-18 - “Bear fruits worthy of repentance. . . . . ‘I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy spirit and fire. . . . . . So with many other exhortations, he (John Baptist) proclaimed the good news to the people.”
ISSUE: On this “Stir up” Sunday, taken from the Collect of the Day, John Baptist is indeed stirring up the people. He calls them to repentance and gives specific examples of exactly what he means. He calls for changed lives among the common and powerless people in preparation for a new age, when God’s Anointed will come among his people and increase the power of the Holy Spirit within them. While John may well appear coarse and threatens judgement, it is in repentance and open preparation for the coming of the Christ that people have good news. In their brokeness there is new hope; Christ comes again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This third Sunday of Advent is the one we refer to as “Stir-up Sunday.” Its title comes from the Collect of the Sunday that God will stir-up his power and come among us, because we are so hindered by our sins we need God’s presence and help. We are in desperate need of God’s help and deliverance according to the prayer.
Incidentally this is also the Sunday that we light the rose candle on the Advent Wreath as a remembrance that there is great joy in the anticipated coming of the Lord. For some of us this is sort of mixed message. It is hard to be joyful when you are under judgement for your sins.
In this morning’s Gospel reading from Luke, John the Baptist really comes on strong. People are piqued by his preaching and curios about whether or not he is the anticpated Messiah. They go to see this peculiar man preaching in the desert. wilderness. When they find him they are met by what seems to us to be an insulting message. To them it was a terrible insult to their honor. “You brood of snakes, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.” Eugene H. Peterson’s paraphrase from his book, The Message, gives a more graphic picture: “Brood of Snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river. Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s you life that must change, not your skin. . . . .” John calls for real repentance and change in the lives of these people. For him their biological ancestry does not matter. What matters is their moral courage and the courageous faithful devotion to God. Descendents of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life Is it green and blossoming, or is it deadwood for the fire? (Peterson)
Well, the crowd begins to ask John what they should do. What are the expectations to be made of them? John replies with some specific advice. John goes on to say to these people that if they have two coats, then give one away. This time was one when goods and supplies were in very limited supply. If someone had two coats it was likely that someone else had none. If someone has too much food, it was likely that someone was going without. John calls for an end to being greed. It was not honorable in this society, nor in any other I would suggest. Among these very poor folk who had come out to John, there were few if any who were rich or particularly well off. At the time to be generous to your neighbor did not mean to be kind to strangers. In the culture of this time, your neighbor was your kinsman. The broader idea of neighbor does not come until Jesus expresses a wider appreciation of neighbor in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. What John saw in his time was a people who were not even very sensitive to the needs of their own kinsman. Self gratification and self-centeredness was his concern. John is addressing the issue that change begins with his own, right close to home. He begins to make them sensitive to needs outside themselves. If they are to be a people who will be washed and baptized and immersed into the new Kingdom of God, it will require a personal change.
Tax collectors we are told also come to him. Poor dear tax collectors. They were a mess. Actually they were toll collectors who collected tolls at bridges, or a borders, or on certain roads, at gateways and landings. These were men who could not get jobs anywhere else. They were not particularly liked as the tolls eventually went to the Romans. They were sort of losers of the time. They were considered unclean persons, because they had to examine and root through and touch things that might have been considered unclean. Furthermore in order to get the jobs, they often had to put large sums of money up front and hoped they could collecrt enough money to break even, and hopefully to make a living. It was a system that was open to abuse and they were not profitable. Few tax collectors were rich. They were just part of the dispossessed and among the really poor and rejected.
These were the poor souls who came out to John, looking for a Messiah, new hope, a new way, a new Kingdom. But according to John, the way to that Kingdom and hope was to be converted and changed. In a society were there was a lot of lying and cheating and deception to maintain whatever honor you might have, these tax collectors were expected to be honest, and to exact the fair tolls and taxes. They were to be honorable not just in the sight of man, but in the sight of God. They were to be ready for a new Kingdom that is God’s kingdom.
And there were also some soldiers there. These soldiers that went out into the wilderness were Jewish soldiers, or a kind of police force. Again, they were not loved by their fellows. They were controlled by Herod; they worked for him. Herod was a puppet king of the Romans. So they had little real respect and affection among their own people. They enforced the Roman occupying power. They had the power to blackmail, report their fellow citizens to Roman authorities. They could extort money and they could be brutal. Again it was a position which probably did not have much respect or honor attached to it. These soldiers who go after John in the wilderness are themselves searching for something better. What should they do? “Well,” says John, “be changed, and different. No blackmailing, bullying, or extortion. Be satisfied with your wages. Be ready for the kingdom, and be ready for the coming of the Annointed Messiah. And everything that is false will get thrown into the trash and burned.”
John’s baptism is about being cleansed and ready for something grand. Luke and the early church is making it clear that John the Baptist is not the Messiah, but the forerunner, the one who is preparing the way and calling people to a genuine preparedness for change. Those who are ready will receive renewing life giving Holy Spirit that will lead them on to God’s Kingdom.
Notewell what is going on here. John’s message is not to the elite, the rich and the powerful, and those of great honor. John’s message is to the poor, the dislike, the disenfranchised, dispossessed, the powerless. Yet at the same time he is making them aware that indeed to be changed to realize that being good to one another, caring for one another, sharing with one another, working together in community, not cheating or beating up on one another, they will gain begin to receive a power and a new hope that comes from God. Therein is the goodnews, the joy and the hope. They have to stop seeing themselves as victims. They have to stop saying, “Ain’t the world awful because of all those nasty Romans.” The power to change, the Spirit of God is ready to be within them. When the Christ comes, the Anointed One, they will be ready to follow him and be led to the Kingdom of God. John is very pro-active. He calls the down trodden to be ready to realize their power that is within, and that will come and lead them, deliver them to a whole new way of life.
I hope we get the point in our time. I hope this passage speaks to us as well. There are times in all honesty that we recognize our need for the mercy, grace, and help of God. While we might not like to dwell on it, people can be a brood of snakes. We may not be terribly comfortable with that kind of talk in our time. It may be okay for the 1st century but for the 21st century it seems a bit harsh. Fact of the matter is there is a lot of cruelty and pitiful behavior going on in our world in which we participate. We can be extraordinarily cruel in our thinking toward the poor, toward people of other religions, people of other races, and to one another in our own families as we allow old feuds and hatreds to persist from generation to generation. Honest people know they are in the need of God’s redeeming grace and that we are under God’s awesome judgement.
What then shall we do? Maybe when we have more than we need would could share some of it around in a meaningful way.
Men could start spending more time with their children. Men could love their childrens’ mother in a deeper more appreciative way. Men could control their wandering eyes and build a stronger more loving nest at home.
I’m not a woman, so I won’t presume to venture what women per se should do. My guess is that each of you who are in families know what would build stronger family life.
All of us need to question just how much individual self expression is necessary and consider concentrating on what we need to do for the common good of our families, of our church, of the other important areas of our lives.
In our church we could get a grip on caring more and establishing relationships with the shut-ins, so that they don’t become merely lost and ignored from our community. We need to talk to new people and share ourselves with them and what this church has meant to yourselves and what it may come to mean to others. We must stop being so infatuated with the fact that we are a small church and isn’t that wonderful. The underlying message is we are concerned for this generation only and our own complacent selves and the message to baptize all people in the Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teach them can go to hell. We rely on Episcopalians to come from other churches and join our parish. Somehow or another we see that as church growth. It’s not. It simply robs Peter to pay Paul. The Christian vacumn in our cities is a potential for doom. We could all work to make the church financially stronger so it can do its work in the world.
We could and must be more regular in our worship and study of the story of our great faith so that it will impact our lives and encourage us in our ministries in our lives.
All of us need to look for opportunities and people who are different from us. We need to search for opportunities to create friendships with people of different races and religions. Without understanding and appreciation and love of things different from ourselves we shall be come isolated and suspicions and misunderstandings and all that they can lead to abound.
There are needs around us everywhere, particularly the environmental concerns. Without some pro-active participation, the world is threatened.
For the sake of good health and a witness to our children some of us need to put out our cigarettes once and for all and to watch carefully the amount of booze we are consuming. These are destructive habits and they effect our children and future generations. It is not merely a matter of it being good for me; it is good for the future.
The list of how and what the snakes in the nest need to do could go on and on. At the same time we might be overwhelmed by it all, and see the future as hopeless. Not so with John. He saw people, common ordinary people for who they were. He dared them not to be whiners and to condemn the powers that be in Rome. He dared them to accept the power within themselves and do what they could to be changed. And what they alone could not do, God would come to them and baptize and empower the community to redeem, strenghten and renew it in all that by itself it could not do.
Christ came and died for the sins of the world. Christ rose. And now Christ comes again. Indeed we are under the judgement, but at the same time those who will turn and dare to change will see him come again with Glory and with power to renew and buy back the world.
Sunday, December 7, 1997
Advent 2
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Advent 2
PROPER: Year C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 7,1997
TEXT: Luke 3:1-6 - He (John the Baptist) went into all the region of around Jordon, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
ISSUE: Luke is specific in identifying the important work of John the Baptist. He is the last of the great prophets that calls for repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John’s repentance means “change of mind,” or “broadening of horizons,” or more dramaticially “genuine conversion.” Members of the church, like the Jews of John’s time become settled and complacent. But the coming of Jesus Christ triggered dramatice changes in the religious complacency. It was a soul searching recognition of religion that was sometimes empty and exclusive, lacking in conveying the love and marvelous works of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Advent Season is a very important one in the life of the church. Much of the world, I’m afraid does not value its importance. Preparation for the coming of the Savior, for the coming of God, is simply a matter of cleaning house, buying many presents, and getting out some of the same old stuff with which to decorate the house, with an occasional new set of Christmas lights or decorations thrown in. The Advent Season of preparation for us involved in the church are confronted and challenged by the season to be ready to get on the high what that leads to the Glory of God in our lives. Getting onto the highway that God is building where the valleys are lifted up and the high place made plain requires some serious attention to the road maps of our lives. Otherwise we remain lost on the back roads that lead to nowhere.
Our attention today is on the Gospel of Luke who tells of the ministry of John the Baptist. Let me begin by saying that we need to be some what careful about our interpretations and understandings of the gospels. The gospels are not specifically historical. They are interpretative of the ministry and the great meaning of Jesus Christ and the lives and ministries of the people around him that we find in the gospels. They proclaim the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry as God come among us. In and through him we feel and know the presence of God. However there are some attempts in the Gospels to make them specific in terms of the time that something occured in order that we might grasp its importance and its significant meaning.
In today’s account, Luke is giving an historical setting. John the Baptists ministry was going strong during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pilate was governor in Judea, and Herod was ruling in the province of Galilee, etc. Annas and Caiahaps are the high priests of the period in the Jerusalem temple. Suddenly God begins once again to make a profound effect on human history. John the Baptist, who is a rebellious type of priest, and the son of the priest Zechariah, is profoundly moved by God to be a prophet. John is presented in the scriptures as a very dynamic prophet who calls for a people to be baptized into repentance for the forgiveness of their sins. He is a forceful character with charisma, patterned on the much beloved Elijah the prophet. Elijah was a prophet who took on the powers of his time, King Ahaz and the wicked Queen Jezebel. He challenged the paganism of his time when he humiliated the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. So Luke’s Gospel account is kind of saying, ‘Here we go again.’ Now in this time of Emperor Tiberious, God through John the Baptist is calling his own people to the giving up of their sins and taking on a time of repentance through a baptismal ritual.
In John’s time,. Jews themselves were not baptized. They were Jewish by virtue of their heritage and cicumcision. However, Gentiles who converted to Judaism did go through a ritual of baptism which symbolized the taking on of a a new life completely divorced from their old life of paganism and sin. To become Jewish and to be a part of the inseparable faith of Judaism was to put on a whole new life. In this event today, John is calling upon all Jews, all of his people to be baptized, to be totally repentant and receive forgiveness and begin a new life with God who is ready to come upon and to them. Obviously inspite of all the heritage of which the people boasted, John saw something lacking in their way of life. Their religion may have settled over them and was a part of their heritage, but the deeper issue of what was in the heart and what was manifested in behavior was quite different. They needed a cleansing immersion in to something renewing.
It is important to understand what “repentance” meant for these people. To repent meant to change your mind. It meant to broaden your horizons. It meant to turn over a new leaf. It meant - dare I say it? - to be converted. John the Baptist and prophet was about the business of calling men and women to a dramatic, dynamic, spirited conversion, significant change. By the time Luke was writing this account of the gospel, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed, and never as it turns out to be rebuilt. God was now calling his people to repentance change and a readiness of something new. It was as if as Isaiah had prophesied every valley shall be filled in and every and every mountain shall be made low and all flesh, all people, shall see the coming salvation of God. Tough as John was, there was a message of hope in his preaching, but for John the hope could not be realized until there was a willing free repentace taking place, a willingness to be changed and converted.
In many instances today, pophetic types are not particularly popular. Our images of prophets today are sometimes taken from magazines, like ‘The New Yorker,’ which shows cartoons of prophets as these characters with beards dressed in long robes and carrying a placard which declares “Repent, the end is near.” The prophetic call is seen as humous, something weird out of the past. It’s funny in our technological and scientific age, which is, is it fair to say, largely unthreated by God, or at least an age not in fear of God. At the same time, the present post-modern age is not very taken with the Advent season which recalls the prophetic age of John the Baptist.
Yet, there are some prophetic things happening both in and without of the church. There are some people who believe that the Cursillo movement, which started in the Spanish Roman Catholic Church is a prophetic movement. It has touched many Christian people calling them to a deeper spiritual commitment and to a renewal of their appreciation of the Christian faith and their active involvement in Christianity. Another significant prophetic movement which we are hearing more about all the time is the Promise Keepers Movement. It is becoming very clear that manyt many men in our society have lost, forgotten, or abandoned having a genuine and sincere relationship with God and what that means. Some men are coming to their senses and recognizing that carousing unfaithfulness, drunkeness, is destroying their lives, humiliating their wives, and destroying their children.
Inspite of the fact that there is a church on nearly every other corner in this country, and inspite of the fact that we print “In God We Trust” on our currency, the real impact of a godly people seems somewhat lacking in our own society. There is a great deal of flirtation with paganism. While the churches are there and the motto stands, there is still a stepping outside the boundaries of religious faith and immersing ourselves into a godless secularism that implies a lot of quick easy cheap thrills. There is a certain pleasure and longing for a kind of soap opera existence, an invested interest in being beautiful people at any cost without any consequences. The consequences of unhealthy lifestyles are real. On TV, the show is over and we turn off the TV and go to bed. In reality smoking, excessive drinking destroy people’s health. Casual sexuality leads to awful diseases. Carrying guns and weapons around in our pockets leads to violence and death and real dead people don’t get up again. to be godless, to step away from God the Creator is too step into emptiness. The old old story of Adam and Eve eating the apple, a symbol of their falleness and desire to flirt with Godlessness had its consequences. They were outside the real garden and it wasn’t easy. There is a real need in the society of which we are all apart to be sensitive to our flirtations with emptiness of Godlessness, with a way that leads to Cain killing Abel and all that that imples. We are in need of repentance and conversion to our need for God.
Another example is the conversion we need in terms of our environmental issues. As human beings, and as Americans, we are consuming the earth’s resources at an alarming rate, and many species of animals all linked to the overall food chain and interlocked scheme of creation are being wiped out. Prophets are warning us, and they are not dressed in camel’s hair and carring placards but their message is clear. We need to be converted, immersed into another way of thinking and living simpler lives. God is calling us to salvation. We need to be prepared to follow along the road where the crooked places are made straight and the high places plain, or live with the barriers that keep us constrained in disaster and despair.
The institutionalized Church of God is not itself immuned to the need for conversion and repentance. Even the church today is suffering in its own crisis. But, it is often the citadel and the refuge for those who do not want to change or be converted. For many the church is a place of comfort and security from a changing and a difficult world. Yet repeatedly the national press tells us that the mainline churches are in crisis. The church is often seen as the place where only “good” people go. It is often seen as the place that is negative and is “against” everything. The church was once against the idea that the earth was round. The churchd was seen as against Darwin’s therory of evolution. The church today is often perceived as against abortion, against homosexuality, against divorce. What’s more for an extended period of time the church supported slavery, and still today struggles with the place of women in the church and the society. People have conveyed to me over the years that they don’t want to come to church and here the problems of the world talked about in sermons. Yet, living to ourselves escaping from the issues of the world, we may ulitmately die by ourselves.
Clearly, John the Baptist was a prophetic voice of God crying in the wilderness of human sinfulness and emptiness. He called for the conversion and the reclaiming of God. When the mighty God came he wanted his people to be ready to be with God as he came down the four lane. He reclaimed the hope that they would indeed, by the help and presence of God, be a light to the nations of the world.
It is comfortable for us to come here, to gather in comfortableness to hear the prayers read and the music sung for us. It is comforting for some to remember that they grew up here in this old church and that they may even have been acolytes when they were little and old Mr. Parker was the minister here. It is comforting to have had family worship here in years past. It’s a good old place that has stood the test of our time. It’s a nice burial ground with lots of memories. It’s pretty. But is that the point? Is that what we are about? Does that kind of religious mentality in anyway resonate with the great prophets and teachers of the faith like John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth? John called for a complete turn around, a conversion, a readiness for the God of sacrificial love and deep sensitive caring. Our only hope and salvation is in turning and surrendering to God and following God and taking direction from him, that we too may not be a group of staid and moldy folk Episcopalians enveloped in ages of religious masturbation. The fertile and creative Lord is coming to recharge, reshape, and renew us. He’s coming down the pike. And as he comes John calls for repentance, change, renewed minds, conversion that all flesh may see the salvation of God.
SEASON: Advent 2
PROPER: Year C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 7,1997
TEXT: Luke 3:1-6 - He (John the Baptist) went into all the region of around Jordon, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
ISSUE: Luke is specific in identifying the important work of John the Baptist. He is the last of the great prophets that calls for repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John’s repentance means “change of mind,” or “broadening of horizons,” or more dramaticially “genuine conversion.” Members of the church, like the Jews of John’s time become settled and complacent. But the coming of Jesus Christ triggered dramatice changes in the religious complacency. It was a soul searching recognition of religion that was sometimes empty and exclusive, lacking in conveying the love and marvelous works of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Advent Season is a very important one in the life of the church. Much of the world, I’m afraid does not value its importance. Preparation for the coming of the Savior, for the coming of God, is simply a matter of cleaning house, buying many presents, and getting out some of the same old stuff with which to decorate the house, with an occasional new set of Christmas lights or decorations thrown in. The Advent Season of preparation for us involved in the church are confronted and challenged by the season to be ready to get on the high what that leads to the Glory of God in our lives. Getting onto the highway that God is building where the valleys are lifted up and the high place made plain requires some serious attention to the road maps of our lives. Otherwise we remain lost on the back roads that lead to nowhere.
Our attention today is on the Gospel of Luke who tells of the ministry of John the Baptist. Let me begin by saying that we need to be some what careful about our interpretations and understandings of the gospels. The gospels are not specifically historical. They are interpretative of the ministry and the great meaning of Jesus Christ and the lives and ministries of the people around him that we find in the gospels. They proclaim the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry as God come among us. In and through him we feel and know the presence of God. However there are some attempts in the Gospels to make them specific in terms of the time that something occured in order that we might grasp its importance and its significant meaning.
In today’s account, Luke is giving an historical setting. John the Baptists ministry was going strong during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pilate was governor in Judea, and Herod was ruling in the province of Galilee, etc. Annas and Caiahaps are the high priests of the period in the Jerusalem temple. Suddenly God begins once again to make a profound effect on human history. John the Baptist, who is a rebellious type of priest, and the son of the priest Zechariah, is profoundly moved by God to be a prophet. John is presented in the scriptures as a very dynamic prophet who calls for a people to be baptized into repentance for the forgiveness of their sins. He is a forceful character with charisma, patterned on the much beloved Elijah the prophet. Elijah was a prophet who took on the powers of his time, King Ahaz and the wicked Queen Jezebel. He challenged the paganism of his time when he humiliated the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. So Luke’s Gospel account is kind of saying, ‘Here we go again.’ Now in this time of Emperor Tiberious, God through John the Baptist is calling his own people to the giving up of their sins and taking on a time of repentance through a baptismal ritual.
In John’s time,. Jews themselves were not baptized. They were Jewish by virtue of their heritage and cicumcision. However, Gentiles who converted to Judaism did go through a ritual of baptism which symbolized the taking on of a a new life completely divorced from their old life of paganism and sin. To become Jewish and to be a part of the inseparable faith of Judaism was to put on a whole new life. In this event today, John is calling upon all Jews, all of his people to be baptized, to be totally repentant and receive forgiveness and begin a new life with God who is ready to come upon and to them. Obviously inspite of all the heritage of which the people boasted, John saw something lacking in their way of life. Their religion may have settled over them and was a part of their heritage, but the deeper issue of what was in the heart and what was manifested in behavior was quite different. They needed a cleansing immersion in to something renewing.
It is important to understand what “repentance” meant for these people. To repent meant to change your mind. It meant to broaden your horizons. It meant to turn over a new leaf. It meant - dare I say it? - to be converted. John the Baptist and prophet was about the business of calling men and women to a dramatic, dynamic, spirited conversion, significant change. By the time Luke was writing this account of the gospel, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed, and never as it turns out to be rebuilt. God was now calling his people to repentance change and a readiness of something new. It was as if as Isaiah had prophesied every valley shall be filled in and every and every mountain shall be made low and all flesh, all people, shall see the coming salvation of God. Tough as John was, there was a message of hope in his preaching, but for John the hope could not be realized until there was a willing free repentace taking place, a willingness to be changed and converted.
In many instances today, pophetic types are not particularly popular. Our images of prophets today are sometimes taken from magazines, like ‘The New Yorker,’ which shows cartoons of prophets as these characters with beards dressed in long robes and carrying a placard which declares “Repent, the end is near.” The prophetic call is seen as humous, something weird out of the past. It’s funny in our technological and scientific age, which is, is it fair to say, largely unthreated by God, or at least an age not in fear of God. At the same time, the present post-modern age is not very taken with the Advent season which recalls the prophetic age of John the Baptist.
Yet, there are some prophetic things happening both in and without of the church. There are some people who believe that the Cursillo movement, which started in the Spanish Roman Catholic Church is a prophetic movement. It has touched many Christian people calling them to a deeper spiritual commitment and to a renewal of their appreciation of the Christian faith and their active involvement in Christianity. Another significant prophetic movement which we are hearing more about all the time is the Promise Keepers Movement. It is becoming very clear that manyt many men in our society have lost, forgotten, or abandoned having a genuine and sincere relationship with God and what that means. Some men are coming to their senses and recognizing that carousing unfaithfulness, drunkeness, is destroying their lives, humiliating their wives, and destroying their children.
Inspite of the fact that there is a church on nearly every other corner in this country, and inspite of the fact that we print “In God We Trust” on our currency, the real impact of a godly people seems somewhat lacking in our own society. There is a great deal of flirtation with paganism. While the churches are there and the motto stands, there is still a stepping outside the boundaries of religious faith and immersing ourselves into a godless secularism that implies a lot of quick easy cheap thrills. There is a certain pleasure and longing for a kind of soap opera existence, an invested interest in being beautiful people at any cost without any consequences. The consequences of unhealthy lifestyles are real. On TV, the show is over and we turn off the TV and go to bed. In reality smoking, excessive drinking destroy people’s health. Casual sexuality leads to awful diseases. Carrying guns and weapons around in our pockets leads to violence and death and real dead people don’t get up again. to be godless, to step away from God the Creator is too step into emptiness. The old old story of Adam and Eve eating the apple, a symbol of their falleness and desire to flirt with Godlessness had its consequences. They were outside the real garden and it wasn’t easy. There is a real need in the society of which we are all apart to be sensitive to our flirtations with emptiness of Godlessness, with a way that leads to Cain killing Abel and all that that imples. We are in need of repentance and conversion to our need for God.
Another example is the conversion we need in terms of our environmental issues. As human beings, and as Americans, we are consuming the earth’s resources at an alarming rate, and many species of animals all linked to the overall food chain and interlocked scheme of creation are being wiped out. Prophets are warning us, and they are not dressed in camel’s hair and carring placards but their message is clear. We need to be converted, immersed into another way of thinking and living simpler lives. God is calling us to salvation. We need to be prepared to follow along the road where the crooked places are made straight and the high places plain, or live with the barriers that keep us constrained in disaster and despair.
The institutionalized Church of God is not itself immuned to the need for conversion and repentance. Even the church today is suffering in its own crisis. But, it is often the citadel and the refuge for those who do not want to change or be converted. For many the church is a place of comfort and security from a changing and a difficult world. Yet repeatedly the national press tells us that the mainline churches are in crisis. The church is often seen as the place where only “good” people go. It is often seen as the place that is negative and is “against” everything. The church was once against the idea that the earth was round. The churchd was seen as against Darwin’s therory of evolution. The church today is often perceived as against abortion, against homosexuality, against divorce. What’s more for an extended period of time the church supported slavery, and still today struggles with the place of women in the church and the society. People have conveyed to me over the years that they don’t want to come to church and here the problems of the world talked about in sermons. Yet, living to ourselves escaping from the issues of the world, we may ulitmately die by ourselves.
Clearly, John the Baptist was a prophetic voice of God crying in the wilderness of human sinfulness and emptiness. He called for the conversion and the reclaiming of God. When the mighty God came he wanted his people to be ready to be with God as he came down the four lane. He reclaimed the hope that they would indeed, by the help and presence of God, be a light to the nations of the world.
It is comfortable for us to come here, to gather in comfortableness to hear the prayers read and the music sung for us. It is comforting for some to remember that they grew up here in this old church and that they may even have been acolytes when they were little and old Mr. Parker was the minister here. It is comforting to have had family worship here in years past. It’s a good old place that has stood the test of our time. It’s a nice burial ground with lots of memories. It’s pretty. But is that the point? Is that what we are about? Does that kind of religious mentality in anyway resonate with the great prophets and teachers of the faith like John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth? John called for a complete turn around, a conversion, a readiness for the God of sacrificial love and deep sensitive caring. Our only hope and salvation is in turning and surrendering to God and following God and taking direction from him, that we too may not be a group of staid and moldy folk Episcopalians enveloped in ages of religious masturbation. The fertile and creative Lord is coming to recharge, reshape, and renew us. He’s coming down the pike. And as he comes John calls for repentance, change, renewed minds, conversion that all flesh may see the salvation of God.
Thursday, November 27, 1997
Thanksgiving Day
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Thanksgiving Day
PROPER: A, B, C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 27,1997
TEXT: Matthew 6:25-33 - Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat? or What will we drink? or What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father know that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these thing will be give to you as well.
ISSUE: We Americans are indeed often anxious about our lives. Our focus, according to the Scripture, needs to be on the fact that God provides us what we really need. Keeping focused on God makes us truly aware of what we have to be thankful for: We are God’s people with mission and meaningful purposes.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage from Matthew today is directed by Jesus to peasant people of his time. They were indeed anxious about their lives. They lived day to day, hand to mouth. Not only were wages minimal, but they were heavily taxed. Like us Americans who are often anxious about our old age, our retirement, and whether or not Social Security will hold out, the peasants of Jesus time struggled with each day.
Jesus, however, comes to them with this message not to be anxious. Neither men nor women. “Consider the birds of the air,” he says. (The Aramaic word for Birds is a masculine noun.) “They neither reap, nor sow, nor gather into barns.” Reaping, sowing, and gathering was men,s work.
“Consider the lilies of the field,” says Jesus, “They neither toil nor spin.” (The Aramaic word for lilies is a feminine noun) And, of course toiling (or making clothes) and spinning was women’s work.
Jesus makes an appeal to the whole of the community not to be anxious about their lives. Anxiety will not add anything to their lives. Their focus is to be upon God who is the Giver and the Provider of all things needful. The poor of Jesus’ time are to place their faith and confidence in the bountiful love of God to provide for them all that they need. They are to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the other things will come. Jesus assured them of God’s love and caring.
Most of us in the next few weeks ahead will be just as likely to be anxious about what we are going to buy and get for Christmas. We are likely to be anxious about getting the perfect gifts and planning for the most beautiful and the most perfect of all Christmas seasons. Perhaps the passage needs to speak to us as much as it needed to address the anxiety of 1st century peasants. This is a time and a season to contemplate the Kingdom of God. It is a time for us to focus on what God is doing and has already done in our lives. It is a time to consider what God calls us to do and be.
On Thanksgiving Day in our country we pause to give thanks. More often than not our first items of thankfulness for which we are grateful may well be all the stuff and junk we have accumulated in our garages, basements, and attics. Aren’t we a blessed people, because we have so many possessions. In some sense they are. But our affluence is hardly all that there is to be thankful for. Usually we think of possessions as something we ourselves have gotten and accomplished. After all we are supposed to be self-made men and women. What of those who are poor and dispossed in terms of posessions? Are unaffluent to thought of as the cursed of God?
We can also be grateful for good schools, for this good country founded upon the principles of democracy and our forefathers who provided this form of government. We can be grateful for those who have been dedicated to healing and health. Tremendous strides have been made in so many scientific and medical areas that have given real comfort and hope to our lives. Are the uneducated, the diseased and the victims of tyrannical governments also the cursed?
We also have in many instances family, children, spouses, friends, people who love us. These are surely a precious gifts for which to be grateful. We may be truly blessed to know and enjoy the comfort and the deep inner peace that comes from being loved by others. Yet there are those who are alone and depressed.
Our own being is special. We have the remarkable ability to reason, to have memory, to be skilled with so many varieties of talents. Loss of mental capacity and loss of physical abilities are often seen as great tragedy and a partial living death.
What is, however, the great issue for us as Christians, as a people of God, is that every good and perfect gift is from God. All that we are and all that we experience in our lives comes from God the Creator. And while there are times when we forget to be grateful, and times when we are intent upon being anxious, greedy, and self-involved, we are still given the comfort and the knowledge of a forgiving and loving God.
We may well gather here this morning to thank God and to be truly grateful for the inestimable bounty and love of God. But it is also important that we respond to the God who has given us so much to be sharing and giving in the way we live our lives.
Young immature children often have great trouble with the concept of sharing. They see sharing a toy as losing it to someone else. They become very anxious and will fight, cry, or throw a tantrum to keep what they believe to be their own. It is only through the process of growing and maturing that children come to learn that sharing in community is as much fun if not more so.
In our world to be a greedy anxious people is immature and destructive. To be anxious about what we will eat, or drink, or wear, and thankful for being more fortunate than others is truly a sinful and immature way of being. To grow in maturity and to be a sharing and giving people makes for a very different kind of world. To seek God and his kingdom is to discover that all things from the very beginning are God’s possessions. He has shared them with us and for that we can indeed be grateful, for life is a wonderful, wonderful gift from God. To share it with others, to share the wealth, to share forgiveness, to share love, to be God’s own giving people is surely the way we live out our thankfulness for all that God has given us and it is truly a healthy way a responsible way of living.
Do not be anxious for all the possessions. First seek God and his Kingdom, his way, and rejoice and give thanks for the ability to share the abundance.
SEASON: Thanksgiving Day
PROPER: A, B, C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 27,1997
TEXT: Matthew 6:25-33 - Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat? or What will we drink? or What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father know that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these thing will be give to you as well.
ISSUE: We Americans are indeed often anxious about our lives. Our focus, according to the Scripture, needs to be on the fact that God provides us what we really need. Keeping focused on God makes us truly aware of what we have to be thankful for: We are God’s people with mission and meaningful purposes.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage from Matthew today is directed by Jesus to peasant people of his time. They were indeed anxious about their lives. They lived day to day, hand to mouth. Not only were wages minimal, but they were heavily taxed. Like us Americans who are often anxious about our old age, our retirement, and whether or not Social Security will hold out, the peasants of Jesus time struggled with each day.
Jesus, however, comes to them with this message not to be anxious. Neither men nor women. “Consider the birds of the air,” he says. (The Aramaic word for Birds is a masculine noun.) “They neither reap, nor sow, nor gather into barns.” Reaping, sowing, and gathering was men,s work.
“Consider the lilies of the field,” says Jesus, “They neither toil nor spin.” (The Aramaic word for lilies is a feminine noun) And, of course toiling (or making clothes) and spinning was women’s work.
Jesus makes an appeal to the whole of the community not to be anxious about their lives. Anxiety will not add anything to their lives. Their focus is to be upon God who is the Giver and the Provider of all things needful. The poor of Jesus’ time are to place their faith and confidence in the bountiful love of God to provide for them all that they need. They are to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the other things will come. Jesus assured them of God’s love and caring.
Most of us in the next few weeks ahead will be just as likely to be anxious about what we are going to buy and get for Christmas. We are likely to be anxious about getting the perfect gifts and planning for the most beautiful and the most perfect of all Christmas seasons. Perhaps the passage needs to speak to us as much as it needed to address the anxiety of 1st century peasants. This is a time and a season to contemplate the Kingdom of God. It is a time for us to focus on what God is doing and has already done in our lives. It is a time to consider what God calls us to do and be.
On Thanksgiving Day in our country we pause to give thanks. More often than not our first items of thankfulness for which we are grateful may well be all the stuff and junk we have accumulated in our garages, basements, and attics. Aren’t we a blessed people, because we have so many possessions. In some sense they are. But our affluence is hardly all that there is to be thankful for. Usually we think of possessions as something we ourselves have gotten and accomplished. After all we are supposed to be self-made men and women. What of those who are poor and dispossed in terms of posessions? Are unaffluent to thought of as the cursed of God?
We can also be grateful for good schools, for this good country founded upon the principles of democracy and our forefathers who provided this form of government. We can be grateful for those who have been dedicated to healing and health. Tremendous strides have been made in so many scientific and medical areas that have given real comfort and hope to our lives. Are the uneducated, the diseased and the victims of tyrannical governments also the cursed?
We also have in many instances family, children, spouses, friends, people who love us. These are surely a precious gifts for which to be grateful. We may be truly blessed to know and enjoy the comfort and the deep inner peace that comes from being loved by others. Yet there are those who are alone and depressed.
Our own being is special. We have the remarkable ability to reason, to have memory, to be skilled with so many varieties of talents. Loss of mental capacity and loss of physical abilities are often seen as great tragedy and a partial living death.
What is, however, the great issue for us as Christians, as a people of God, is that every good and perfect gift is from God. All that we are and all that we experience in our lives comes from God the Creator. And while there are times when we forget to be grateful, and times when we are intent upon being anxious, greedy, and self-involved, we are still given the comfort and the knowledge of a forgiving and loving God.
We may well gather here this morning to thank God and to be truly grateful for the inestimable bounty and love of God. But it is also important that we respond to the God who has given us so much to be sharing and giving in the way we live our lives.
Young immature children often have great trouble with the concept of sharing. They see sharing a toy as losing it to someone else. They become very anxious and will fight, cry, or throw a tantrum to keep what they believe to be their own. It is only through the process of growing and maturing that children come to learn that sharing in community is as much fun if not more so.
In our world to be a greedy anxious people is immature and destructive. To be anxious about what we will eat, or drink, or wear, and thankful for being more fortunate than others is truly a sinful and immature way of being. To grow in maturity and to be a sharing and giving people makes for a very different kind of world. To seek God and his kingdom is to discover that all things from the very beginning are God’s possessions. He has shared them with us and for that we can indeed be grateful, for life is a wonderful, wonderful gift from God. To share it with others, to share the wealth, to share forgiveness, to share love, to be God’s own giving people is surely the way we live out our thankfulness for all that God has given us and it is truly a healthy way a responsible way of living.
Do not be anxious for all the possessions. First seek God and his Kingdom, his way, and rejoice and give thanks for the ability to share the abundance.
Sunday, November 23, 1997
Last Pentecost - Christ the King
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Last Pentecost - Christ the King
PROPER: 29B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 23,1997
TEXT: John 18:33-37 - Jesus before Pilate - Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
ISSUE: Along with the Daniel and Revelation apocalyptic readings, Jesus standing before Pilate is also apocalyptic in nature. Jesus is the unique revelation of God’s truth. He is not encumbered with all the trappings that go with the world and its meaning of kingship. Jesus is utter simplicity that reveals the Glory of God’s forgiveness and his love. All who focus on him and listen to him, who embrace him, embrace a truth of God. Jesus on the cross sums all that up, once and for all. Keeping focused upon him and following him leads to the way and Kingdom of God. At this time of the year, this focus is not always too easy.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today is named by the church as “Christ the King” Sunday. Actually the celebration of Christ the King Sunday was originally celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church as a kind of reaction to the Lutherans. Back in the 1920’s, according to Marion Hatchett a distinguished liturgist at Univ. of the South, the Lutherans celebrated Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday of October. The Roman Church sort of said, “You Lutherans go ahead and honor your Martin Luther if you want, but we Catholics will honor Jesus Christ as our King on that Sunday.” After Vatican II, the Roman Church moved the celebration of Christ the King to the last Sunday before Advent. When our Episcopal Calendar was revised we followed along with that theme of this last Sunday of Pentecost being referred to as both The Last Sunday of Pentecost and/or Christ the King Sunday. There is, of course, a reasonable sense in ending the Church’s year with a celebration that the Lord Jesus Christ whom we have studied, worshiped and adored over the year would be celebrated as our spiritual King.
The Sunday is also The Last Sunday of Pentecost. It marks the end of the church year, which begins anew next Sunday with the beginning of the Advent Season. As last week, today’s reading carry on an apocalyptic theme. The Old Testament vision from the Book of Daniel portrays an Ancient One (God) whose dominion and kingship will never pass away inspite of all the commotions and wars, persecutions, and the rising and falling of nations. God who is king will prevail and never be destroyed. It is a message of hope for the time.
The epistle reading from Revelation is also the apocalyptic literature of the early Christian Church which was also experiencing when this book was written some very difficult times. Romans were demanding Emperor Worship, and Christians were being thrown out of the synagogues and therefore were not exempt, like the Jews were. So the early Christians were suffering persecution from all directions. They looked for and to Christ to come again from the throne of God, from the Alpha and the Omega (beginning and end) to be their ultimate hope and salvation.
The Gospel reading is also apocalyptic in a sense. Taken from the Gospel of John, Jesus has come to his end in the world. He is seen standing before Pilate in judgement just prior to his crucifixion on the cross. Unlike the synoptic accounts where Jesus is largely silent, here Jesus and Pilate are in conversation. Jesus attempts to reveal something to Pilate that he can not really grasp. Pilate who has the power to release Jesus questions him as to whether or not he is really a king: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replies that he is not a king in the way in which the world understands political kingship. “My Kingdom is not from this world.” Pilate keeps trying to insist and demand, “So you are a king?” But Jesus will not accept Pilate’s definition of his ministry as a king. He has eome to bear witness to the truth, the truth about God.
For Pilate and for many of the people of Jesus’ time, a King was a political leader. Actually most of the kings, and especially the Jewish Herodian kings were poor rulers. With kingship came power, prestige, wealth, honor, status. For even our own time, Kingship, royalty is a place, and arena of prestige that conjures up images of political influence and prestige. In so many instances the status of grandeur and power rises and falls. Remember that early on in the church year, usually early in Lent, we read the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan. Satan will give Jesus all the nations of the world but for a moment of adoration. Jesus refuses to succumb. He has not come to the world for this kind of power. Satan goes away and bides his time. Now that Jesus confronted with crucifixion and death, Satan comes again in Pilate: Won’t you be a king? Surely you are a king? Pilate cannot understand that Jesus is not after power and prestige as the world knows it. Jesus refuses to play the game. He refuses to be a king as the world understands it. He has come to bear witness to the truth. He has come not for himself and his own honor and glory. He has come to keep people focused and aimed upon God. If there is any king for Jesus it is God who is King, and he is merely a servant. Jesus is the great servant and indeed the great revelation of what God is like. His life, ministry, and his crucifixion is to reveal the beauty of God as accessible to every human being.
The English word truth is closely associated with the word old German word “troth.” Remember in the Marriage services we used to say: “I pledge thee my troth.” I pledge to you my faithfulness, my trust. Jesus, as the revealer of truth is the one who betrothes all who listen to him to a loving relationship with God.
Jesus’ world knew many very poor people. There was considerable sickness and death. Persecutions by the Romans were prevalent. Crucifixion was common. Many people felt themselves to be outcast, lost, least. The religious ways and the political structures of the time were seen as much of the cause of the suffering of people. The ministry of Jesus was to enter into the human condition and to restore a sense of the presence of God and the hope of God. The parables and teachings of Jesus challenged the very system of his time. The last were seen as the first in the eyes of God according to Jesus’ parable. The bad guy was restored and welcomed home again. The righteous were shamed and challenged to look at their hardened hearts. Hungry folk were fed with love and hopefulness. Children were allowed to find their way into his presence, and women and widows were honored. People were called into meaningful servanthood to care for and with one another. Human hearts that were touched by Jesus were changed. When Jesus triumphally entered Jerusalem he was not riding upon the horse of triumph but upon the beast of burden. A new age was dawning. A new kind of kingdom is being claimed and a new definintion of royalty was being revealed. Jewels and crowns, power and prestige, manipulation, force, and fury, worldly influences and were not what this way of life was about. It was about being a community focused again on the simple loveliness and the beauty of God. Changed, healed, loved, accepted, included, forgiven transformed human beings with renewed hearts were people who saw themselves as new citizens worthily entering God’s Kingdom. Something wonderful was ruling in their hearts. It was the way of God revealed in Christ, and he was a king unlike the world’s understanding of kingship. Yet for the early church, there was something indeed royal about him.
Now as we come to the end of this church year and are about to begin a new one, we are faced with the question of who or what is it that rules our lives? What is the truth? To what are we faithful? What are we really betrothed to? To what or to whom do we pledge our troth, our homage, or fidelity? Who is king for us? What are we intently focused upon? What dominates our lives? What or who rules in our hearts? We all have our obsessions and our interests which are not necessarily bad. Some are. We can be caught-up in destrutive interests and behaviors like drugs and alcohol, pornography, addictive gambling. But it is not only the negative destructive things that can captivate our lives. We can becomes very captivated by our jobs and careers. We can become fixed and devoted to being right about certain things and issues, if not pompous. In our time there is a real devotion and commitment to family and family values. Sports and hobbies can rule our time. Devotion to our wealth and the making of money, and the holding on to it can possess our interests. It’s a busy world with many distractions and attractions, many philosophies and demands. But again, what rules, what governs us? What is the truth about ourselves that is at the foundations, at the very bottom, that governs from the deepest recesses of our hearts?
We live in an age and a country that is not comfortable with kings and princes. Many in the world loved Princess Diana, but largely because she was not cut from and at least rebelled against the from the royal mold. We don’t like anything that has a reputation for ever being tryannical. Nor do we like to think in our time that there is a specific truth. Our age is the age of relativity where there are many truths and varieties of ways of seeing things and appreciating reality. And yet inspite of ourselves we do allow things to effect and rule us and direct who and what we are. We do fail, become disenchanted, disappointed, and sometimes inspite of all we have feel an empitiness or an anxious uncertainty about our humaness. Our imperfections and an ever changing world are a constant challenge to our proclaimed truths. What rules us, save us, helps us, forgives us? What is the truth, the faith and fidelity of our lives that lasts and endures the test of time?
Pilate stood before Jesus and asked: Are you a king? . . . . What is the truth? What do you think about these things and how would you answer?
SEASON: Last Pentecost - Christ the King
PROPER: 29B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 23,1997
TEXT: John 18:33-37 - Jesus before Pilate - Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
ISSUE: Along with the Daniel and Revelation apocalyptic readings, Jesus standing before Pilate is also apocalyptic in nature. Jesus is the unique revelation of God’s truth. He is not encumbered with all the trappings that go with the world and its meaning of kingship. Jesus is utter simplicity that reveals the Glory of God’s forgiveness and his love. All who focus on him and listen to him, who embrace him, embrace a truth of God. Jesus on the cross sums all that up, once and for all. Keeping focused upon him and following him leads to the way and Kingdom of God. At this time of the year, this focus is not always too easy.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today is named by the church as “Christ the King” Sunday. Actually the celebration of Christ the King Sunday was originally celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church as a kind of reaction to the Lutherans. Back in the 1920’s, according to Marion Hatchett a distinguished liturgist at Univ. of the South, the Lutherans celebrated Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday of October. The Roman Church sort of said, “You Lutherans go ahead and honor your Martin Luther if you want, but we Catholics will honor Jesus Christ as our King on that Sunday.” After Vatican II, the Roman Church moved the celebration of Christ the King to the last Sunday before Advent. When our Episcopal Calendar was revised we followed along with that theme of this last Sunday of Pentecost being referred to as both The Last Sunday of Pentecost and/or Christ the King Sunday. There is, of course, a reasonable sense in ending the Church’s year with a celebration that the Lord Jesus Christ whom we have studied, worshiped and adored over the year would be celebrated as our spiritual King.
The Sunday is also The Last Sunday of Pentecost. It marks the end of the church year, which begins anew next Sunday with the beginning of the Advent Season. As last week, today’s reading carry on an apocalyptic theme. The Old Testament vision from the Book of Daniel portrays an Ancient One (God) whose dominion and kingship will never pass away inspite of all the commotions and wars, persecutions, and the rising and falling of nations. God who is king will prevail and never be destroyed. It is a message of hope for the time.
The epistle reading from Revelation is also the apocalyptic literature of the early Christian Church which was also experiencing when this book was written some very difficult times. Romans were demanding Emperor Worship, and Christians were being thrown out of the synagogues and therefore were not exempt, like the Jews were. So the early Christians were suffering persecution from all directions. They looked for and to Christ to come again from the throne of God, from the Alpha and the Omega (beginning and end) to be their ultimate hope and salvation.
The Gospel reading is also apocalyptic in a sense. Taken from the Gospel of John, Jesus has come to his end in the world. He is seen standing before Pilate in judgement just prior to his crucifixion on the cross. Unlike the synoptic accounts where Jesus is largely silent, here Jesus and Pilate are in conversation. Jesus attempts to reveal something to Pilate that he can not really grasp. Pilate who has the power to release Jesus questions him as to whether or not he is really a king: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replies that he is not a king in the way in which the world understands political kingship. “My Kingdom is not from this world.” Pilate keeps trying to insist and demand, “So you are a king?” But Jesus will not accept Pilate’s definition of his ministry as a king. He has eome to bear witness to the truth, the truth about God.
For Pilate and for many of the people of Jesus’ time, a King was a political leader. Actually most of the kings, and especially the Jewish Herodian kings were poor rulers. With kingship came power, prestige, wealth, honor, status. For even our own time, Kingship, royalty is a place, and arena of prestige that conjures up images of political influence and prestige. In so many instances the status of grandeur and power rises and falls. Remember that early on in the church year, usually early in Lent, we read the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan. Satan will give Jesus all the nations of the world but for a moment of adoration. Jesus refuses to succumb. He has not come to the world for this kind of power. Satan goes away and bides his time. Now that Jesus confronted with crucifixion and death, Satan comes again in Pilate: Won’t you be a king? Surely you are a king? Pilate cannot understand that Jesus is not after power and prestige as the world knows it. Jesus refuses to play the game. He refuses to be a king as the world understands it. He has come to bear witness to the truth. He has come not for himself and his own honor and glory. He has come to keep people focused and aimed upon God. If there is any king for Jesus it is God who is King, and he is merely a servant. Jesus is the great servant and indeed the great revelation of what God is like. His life, ministry, and his crucifixion is to reveal the beauty of God as accessible to every human being.
The English word truth is closely associated with the word old German word “troth.” Remember in the Marriage services we used to say: “I pledge thee my troth.” I pledge to you my faithfulness, my trust. Jesus, as the revealer of truth is the one who betrothes all who listen to him to a loving relationship with God.
Jesus’ world knew many very poor people. There was considerable sickness and death. Persecutions by the Romans were prevalent. Crucifixion was common. Many people felt themselves to be outcast, lost, least. The religious ways and the political structures of the time were seen as much of the cause of the suffering of people. The ministry of Jesus was to enter into the human condition and to restore a sense of the presence of God and the hope of God. The parables and teachings of Jesus challenged the very system of his time. The last were seen as the first in the eyes of God according to Jesus’ parable. The bad guy was restored and welcomed home again. The righteous were shamed and challenged to look at their hardened hearts. Hungry folk were fed with love and hopefulness. Children were allowed to find their way into his presence, and women and widows were honored. People were called into meaningful servanthood to care for and with one another. Human hearts that were touched by Jesus were changed. When Jesus triumphally entered Jerusalem he was not riding upon the horse of triumph but upon the beast of burden. A new age was dawning. A new kind of kingdom is being claimed and a new definintion of royalty was being revealed. Jewels and crowns, power and prestige, manipulation, force, and fury, worldly influences and were not what this way of life was about. It was about being a community focused again on the simple loveliness and the beauty of God. Changed, healed, loved, accepted, included, forgiven transformed human beings with renewed hearts were people who saw themselves as new citizens worthily entering God’s Kingdom. Something wonderful was ruling in their hearts. It was the way of God revealed in Christ, and he was a king unlike the world’s understanding of kingship. Yet for the early church, there was something indeed royal about him.
Now as we come to the end of this church year and are about to begin a new one, we are faced with the question of who or what is it that rules our lives? What is the truth? To what are we faithful? What are we really betrothed to? To what or to whom do we pledge our troth, our homage, or fidelity? Who is king for us? What are we intently focused upon? What dominates our lives? What or who rules in our hearts? We all have our obsessions and our interests which are not necessarily bad. Some are. We can be caught-up in destrutive interests and behaviors like drugs and alcohol, pornography, addictive gambling. But it is not only the negative destructive things that can captivate our lives. We can becomes very captivated by our jobs and careers. We can become fixed and devoted to being right about certain things and issues, if not pompous. In our time there is a real devotion and commitment to family and family values. Sports and hobbies can rule our time. Devotion to our wealth and the making of money, and the holding on to it can possess our interests. It’s a busy world with many distractions and attractions, many philosophies and demands. But again, what rules, what governs us? What is the truth about ourselves that is at the foundations, at the very bottom, that governs from the deepest recesses of our hearts?
We live in an age and a country that is not comfortable with kings and princes. Many in the world loved Princess Diana, but largely because she was not cut from and at least rebelled against the from the royal mold. We don’t like anything that has a reputation for ever being tryannical. Nor do we like to think in our time that there is a specific truth. Our age is the age of relativity where there are many truths and varieties of ways of seeing things and appreciating reality. And yet inspite of ourselves we do allow things to effect and rule us and direct who and what we are. We do fail, become disenchanted, disappointed, and sometimes inspite of all we have feel an empitiness or an anxious uncertainty about our humaness. Our imperfections and an ever changing world are a constant challenge to our proclaimed truths. What rules us, save us, helps us, forgives us? What is the truth, the faith and fidelity of our lives that lasts and endures the test of time?
Pilate stood before Jesus and asked: Are you a king? . . . . What is the truth? What do you think about these things and how would you answer?
Sunday, November 16, 1997
26 Pentecost
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: 26 Pentecost
PROPER: 28B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 16,1997
TEXT: Mark 13:14-23 - The Little Apocalyse - “But be alert; I have already told you everything.
ISSUE: Be alert and keep the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ foremost in our hearts and minds. The world knows many times of calamity and tribulations. Our lives know extraordinarily difficult times. False messiahs and feel good philosophies can be very attractive. Yet it is Christ who leads us to God, to God’s love and hope. The scripture readings today are all written out of difficult times of various forms of persecution. Yet the Good News of God revealed in Christ is that in being faithful we shall never be lost. Our hope resides in the Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I began talking with you last Sunday about the fact that the passage from the gospel was somewhat disturbing, in that it challenged us to look hard at the ways in which we spend our lives both in terms of our abilities and our finances in being people who are truly giving and serving people who embrace Christ. Well, this morning’s passage is also one which is indeed a distrubing passage. It is what we refer to as apocalyptic scripture which deals with the end of things, as in the end of the world. Such notions can be disturbing. The end of the world is often pictured as a time of great disaster. You get something of the disastrous imagery in the gospel passage this morning: “Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that god created until now. . . .”
There are often two basic reactions to Apocalyptic writings. The first is to take them so very seriously and so literally as to end up kind of looking ridiculous. These are the types who get into predicting when the end will come, and often look foolish when their appointed date passes. They make such silly predictions that 666 stands for Henry Kissinger or Ronald Regan, that Prince Charles is the anti-christ. Jim Jones in Guyanna, David Koresh in Waco, The Heaven’s Gate crowd in California led their flocks to unnecessary disaster through their apocalyptic foolishness. The other reaction is not to take apocalyptic literature seriously at all and to pass it off as having no worth. I believe that when we try to appreciate the scripture and its cultural and historical background we will come up with a better understanding of what it all means for us.
In the Old Testament reading this morning from Daniel, he is predicting and prophecying that Israel will come through a very difficult period in her history with God’s protection given through the Archangel Michael. The Jewish people suffered greatly at the hand of a conqueror, a Syrian King, Antiochos Epiphanes. He was trying to force Greek culture upon the entire kingdom and did all he could to eradicate Jewish cuture. He forbid Jews to practice their ancient custom of circumcision, which was a basic covenantal liturgical practice in Judaism. He forced them to sacrifice pigs, unclean animals in the Jewish temple. In fact, Antiochus set up images of pagan God’s in the Jerusalem Temple and turned it into a brothel for temple prosititution. It was a time of great agony for faithful Jews. It marked the end of a time of peace for the Jewish people. It marked a period of their faith being almost completely wiped out. It was a time of horrendous spiritual disaster for God’s faithful. Yet Daniel called the faithful to persevere and a time of reward and hope would come. This time of spiritual devastation was some 170 years before the coming of Christ. Antiochus was eventually over come by the Maccabean revolt.
When Mark is writing his gospel, about 65 A.D. Israel and the Jewish people were ruled by the Romans. The hostilities between the two peoples was significant. Crucifixions were common. The Romans were oppressive. The outcome for the Jewish people did not look good. It was quite grim. Mark reports that Jesus says: “But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be, then those in Judea must flee to the mountainsl the one on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat.” Historians report that one of the Roman Emperors, Caligula was planning to place of statue of himself inside the Jeruaslem Temple. Such an act would again have caused great turmoil, revolt, and war. Caligula never did get the statue put up in the Temple, but the Romans did destroy the Temple and all of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Israel became a totally destroyed nation, never to gain any semblance of being a sovereign country again until the recent 1950’s. These times were seen as very difficult agonizing periods in the history of the Jews and the early Christians. Orthodox Jews were at odds with the early Christians. Roman power was in the process of destroying Judaism. People of the period lived short lives, Jesus himself being an old man at age 30. Disease was rampant. It was an honor dominatedculture in which it was hard to trust anybody for the lying, secrecy, and deception. It was for many people a time thought to be approaching the end. And when people are desperate they grasp for anything that will give them some kind of hope. Varieties of kinds of cults developed. People longed to escape the disasters of these forbidding times. But through it all in Mark’s Gospel account Jesus simply says, “Do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will apprear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But be alert; I have already told you everything.” It is a great call to trust in, to believe in, to place one’s confidence in Jesus the Christ to be the deliverance from the disaster. This message was strongly proclaimed by the early church. Faith in Jesus as not only another messiah, but the Christ, the anointed of God, would be the hope of the faithful. It does not say that there will not be times of turmoil, upheval, and anxiety. There will be. But the gospel message reveals hope and resurrection. Out of the ashes God who is the creator and maker of all things can and will renew the face of the earth and his kingdom is now and is coming now and will come to reclaim those of faith. Be alert and ready for the renewing presence of God that comes in and through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.
Every age has had its apocalytic signs. Our great grand parents, grandparents and parents came through some bloody revolutions. They saw the horrors of war in World War I and II with all the suffering caused by bombings, infantry fighting, toxic and noxious gases. They saw the abominations of sacriliege of Hitler murdering six million Jews and other so called dissodents. Some of us hid ourselves under school desks in anticipation of atomic war. So many men today suffer the painful, awful, memories of Korea, and especially the Vietnam conflict. Many have seen the horrors of earthquakes, fires, and floods taking away their homes and possessions. Some in Hiroshima saw the skies turn black and a world turn to dripping blood.
Today we may seem somewhat relatively complacent in a world that seems to be mostly at peace. But today the signs of the end may be more subtle. Today we see the breaking down of the family as we once knew it. It is period in which it is hard to trust anyone. Fewer people are dependable: clergy, church, parents, fathers, mothers, sports heroes, and politicians. Their hypocisy is often a let down. Their messianic hope is false. Today there is a more subtle and sometimes an almost undetectable enemy. There is the fear of the unknown terrorist and the unpredictable violence that stalks our city and county streets and neighborhoods. There is the abomination of desolating sacrilege the great idol of secular materialism that provides us with a new kind of religion. Material possessions will give us honor and happiness we are told to believe. Or is it Science that will be our salvation that will give us longer years to live and all kinds of miracles and new body parts. But how shall we live at peace in a world that becomes over populated, and polluted beyond hope? What does a world whose temperatures is rising have to offer when severe weather conditions could be catastrophic? Wherein does our salvation lie?
Our only hope lies in seeing ourselves ultimately in the hands of a loving God. Turning to God to with faith and surrender that God will use us to be his instruments of justice and his people who embrace the caring and compassionate ways of Christ is our hope. Mark has Jesus telling us that we cannot go back. There is no turning back. There is no hiding. All we can do is face the future whatever it may be, and be alert to the world’s need for God, for the renewing presence of Christ Jesus who gives the stamina to face the world with hope and the trust that it is God who is ultimately making all things new. How and when the world will end is not ours to know. Jesus himself did not claim to know, but that such knowledge belonged to the Father alone. All we can do is be faithful, trust in God. We read, we learn, we mark, we inwardly digest the scriptures of God’s mighty act and works. We look for his coming again. We are called upon to be alert to what is good and precious. We trust that Christ has led us in the way of God and that we shall be his people of love and compassion and a people of hope. We rejoice in the glory of God around us.
Not everything around us is perfect nor will it be. L:ife to be truly valuable and meaningful will have its challenges and its hardships. We will not be perfect, and we will not be living in a perfect world. Yet we trust that God is with us and in us. The purposes of God in time will ultimately be revealed. We rejoice in what is good and hopeful. Meantime we live by faith and not phoniness nor false messiahs that would have us believe that everything will be or should always be wonderful and happy. Yet we stand at the edge of new hopes and new beginnings when our faith is in God.
We have about come to the end of the church’s year. Next week will be the last of Pentecost, before we begin the new church year in Advent. The scriptures have us looking at the end of things which sometimes and for some people have an element of disaster. Yet through the eyes of the faithful, life does not end but is changed, and we begin looking for the renewed coming of Christ into our lives and world as its catalyst for change. We begin thinking about repentance, which means change of mind, and receiving into our lives the renewal of the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ who leads us to the Father who has created us in His image, in the image of Love.
We wrestle with these apocalyptic issues in a way this is not just thinking of them as silly, or as unimportant. Facing the hard times and what seems hopeless is a matter of dealing with the turning points in our lives that enable us recognize our need for God and our hope in turn to God.
SEASON: 26 Pentecost
PROPER: 28B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 16,1997
TEXT: Mark 13:14-23 - The Little Apocalyse - “But be alert; I have already told you everything.
ISSUE: Be alert and keep the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ foremost in our hearts and minds. The world knows many times of calamity and tribulations. Our lives know extraordinarily difficult times. False messiahs and feel good philosophies can be very attractive. Yet it is Christ who leads us to God, to God’s love and hope. The scripture readings today are all written out of difficult times of various forms of persecution. Yet the Good News of God revealed in Christ is that in being faithful we shall never be lost. Our hope resides in the Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I began talking with you last Sunday about the fact that the passage from the gospel was somewhat disturbing, in that it challenged us to look hard at the ways in which we spend our lives both in terms of our abilities and our finances in being people who are truly giving and serving people who embrace Christ. Well, this morning’s passage is also one which is indeed a distrubing passage. It is what we refer to as apocalyptic scripture which deals with the end of things, as in the end of the world. Such notions can be disturbing. The end of the world is often pictured as a time of great disaster. You get something of the disastrous imagery in the gospel passage this morning: “Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that god created until now. . . .”
There are often two basic reactions to Apocalyptic writings. The first is to take them so very seriously and so literally as to end up kind of looking ridiculous. These are the types who get into predicting when the end will come, and often look foolish when their appointed date passes. They make such silly predictions that 666 stands for Henry Kissinger or Ronald Regan, that Prince Charles is the anti-christ. Jim Jones in Guyanna, David Koresh in Waco, The Heaven’s Gate crowd in California led their flocks to unnecessary disaster through their apocalyptic foolishness. The other reaction is not to take apocalyptic literature seriously at all and to pass it off as having no worth. I believe that when we try to appreciate the scripture and its cultural and historical background we will come up with a better understanding of what it all means for us.
In the Old Testament reading this morning from Daniel, he is predicting and prophecying that Israel will come through a very difficult period in her history with God’s protection given through the Archangel Michael. The Jewish people suffered greatly at the hand of a conqueror, a Syrian King, Antiochos Epiphanes. He was trying to force Greek culture upon the entire kingdom and did all he could to eradicate Jewish cuture. He forbid Jews to practice their ancient custom of circumcision, which was a basic covenantal liturgical practice in Judaism. He forced them to sacrifice pigs, unclean animals in the Jewish temple. In fact, Antiochus set up images of pagan God’s in the Jerusalem Temple and turned it into a brothel for temple prosititution. It was a time of great agony for faithful Jews. It marked the end of a time of peace for the Jewish people. It marked a period of their faith being almost completely wiped out. It was a time of horrendous spiritual disaster for God’s faithful. Yet Daniel called the faithful to persevere and a time of reward and hope would come. This time of spiritual devastation was some 170 years before the coming of Christ. Antiochus was eventually over come by the Maccabean revolt.
When Mark is writing his gospel, about 65 A.D. Israel and the Jewish people were ruled by the Romans. The hostilities between the two peoples was significant. Crucifixions were common. The Romans were oppressive. The outcome for the Jewish people did not look good. It was quite grim. Mark reports that Jesus says: “But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be, then those in Judea must flee to the mountainsl the one on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat.” Historians report that one of the Roman Emperors, Caligula was planning to place of statue of himself inside the Jeruaslem Temple. Such an act would again have caused great turmoil, revolt, and war. Caligula never did get the statue put up in the Temple, but the Romans did destroy the Temple and all of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Israel became a totally destroyed nation, never to gain any semblance of being a sovereign country again until the recent 1950’s. These times were seen as very difficult agonizing periods in the history of the Jews and the early Christians. Orthodox Jews were at odds with the early Christians. Roman power was in the process of destroying Judaism. People of the period lived short lives, Jesus himself being an old man at age 30. Disease was rampant. It was an honor dominatedculture in which it was hard to trust anybody for the lying, secrecy, and deception. It was for many people a time thought to be approaching the end. And when people are desperate they grasp for anything that will give them some kind of hope. Varieties of kinds of cults developed. People longed to escape the disasters of these forbidding times. But through it all in Mark’s Gospel account Jesus simply says, “Do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will apprear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But be alert; I have already told you everything.” It is a great call to trust in, to believe in, to place one’s confidence in Jesus the Christ to be the deliverance from the disaster. This message was strongly proclaimed by the early church. Faith in Jesus as not only another messiah, but the Christ, the anointed of God, would be the hope of the faithful. It does not say that there will not be times of turmoil, upheval, and anxiety. There will be. But the gospel message reveals hope and resurrection. Out of the ashes God who is the creator and maker of all things can and will renew the face of the earth and his kingdom is now and is coming now and will come to reclaim those of faith. Be alert and ready for the renewing presence of God that comes in and through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.
Every age has had its apocalytic signs. Our great grand parents, grandparents and parents came through some bloody revolutions. They saw the horrors of war in World War I and II with all the suffering caused by bombings, infantry fighting, toxic and noxious gases. They saw the abominations of sacriliege of Hitler murdering six million Jews and other so called dissodents. Some of us hid ourselves under school desks in anticipation of atomic war. So many men today suffer the painful, awful, memories of Korea, and especially the Vietnam conflict. Many have seen the horrors of earthquakes, fires, and floods taking away their homes and possessions. Some in Hiroshima saw the skies turn black and a world turn to dripping blood.
Today we may seem somewhat relatively complacent in a world that seems to be mostly at peace. But today the signs of the end may be more subtle. Today we see the breaking down of the family as we once knew it. It is period in which it is hard to trust anyone. Fewer people are dependable: clergy, church, parents, fathers, mothers, sports heroes, and politicians. Their hypocisy is often a let down. Their messianic hope is false. Today there is a more subtle and sometimes an almost undetectable enemy. There is the fear of the unknown terrorist and the unpredictable violence that stalks our city and county streets and neighborhoods. There is the abomination of desolating sacrilege the great idol of secular materialism that provides us with a new kind of religion. Material possessions will give us honor and happiness we are told to believe. Or is it Science that will be our salvation that will give us longer years to live and all kinds of miracles and new body parts. But how shall we live at peace in a world that becomes over populated, and polluted beyond hope? What does a world whose temperatures is rising have to offer when severe weather conditions could be catastrophic? Wherein does our salvation lie?
Our only hope lies in seeing ourselves ultimately in the hands of a loving God. Turning to God to with faith and surrender that God will use us to be his instruments of justice and his people who embrace the caring and compassionate ways of Christ is our hope. Mark has Jesus telling us that we cannot go back. There is no turning back. There is no hiding. All we can do is face the future whatever it may be, and be alert to the world’s need for God, for the renewing presence of Christ Jesus who gives the stamina to face the world with hope and the trust that it is God who is ultimately making all things new. How and when the world will end is not ours to know. Jesus himself did not claim to know, but that such knowledge belonged to the Father alone. All we can do is be faithful, trust in God. We read, we learn, we mark, we inwardly digest the scriptures of God’s mighty act and works. We look for his coming again. We are called upon to be alert to what is good and precious. We trust that Christ has led us in the way of God and that we shall be his people of love and compassion and a people of hope. We rejoice in the glory of God around us.
Not everything around us is perfect nor will it be. L:ife to be truly valuable and meaningful will have its challenges and its hardships. We will not be perfect, and we will not be living in a perfect world. Yet we trust that God is with us and in us. The purposes of God in time will ultimately be revealed. We rejoice in what is good and hopeful. Meantime we live by faith and not phoniness nor false messiahs that would have us believe that everything will be or should always be wonderful and happy. Yet we stand at the edge of new hopes and new beginnings when our faith is in God.
We have about come to the end of the church’s year. Next week will be the last of Pentecost, before we begin the new church year in Advent. The scriptures have us looking at the end of things which sometimes and for some people have an element of disaster. Yet through the eyes of the faithful, life does not end but is changed, and we begin looking for the renewed coming of Christ into our lives and world as its catalyst for change. We begin thinking about repentance, which means change of mind, and receiving into our lives the renewal of the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ who leads us to the Father who has created us in His image, in the image of Love.
We wrestle with these apocalyptic issues in a way this is not just thinking of them as silly, or as unimportant. Facing the hard times and what seems hopeless is a matter of dealing with the turning points in our lives that enable us recognize our need for God and our hope in turn to God.
Sunday, November 9, 1997
Pentecost 25
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 25
PROPER: 27 B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 9, 1997
TEXT: Mark 12:38-44 - The Pharisee’s Injustice and The Widow’s Offering
As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes . . . . They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.” . . . . . . “For all of them have contibuted out of their abundance; but she out of her powerty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
See also: I Kings 17:8-16 - Elijah and the Widow
ISSUE: The passage reveals an unrighteous behavior on the part of the scribes who are self-serving and unjust. They give but it is out of an abundance accumulated out of their own greed. The widow, who herself has been victimized by the system, still gives her whole living out of her poverty. She is devoted and faithful to God. She represents, as Jesus, the Elijah-like figure reveals, a deep sensitivity to human need out of her own poverty. The passage raises the issue of how we as individuals and as a church act as good stewards in today’s world, and how we need to wrestle with our own values of giving and sacrifice.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today’s passage from Mark is fascinating in terms of what it was like to be, or to have known the scribes in Jesus’ time, the 1st century Mediterranean culture. Jesus was really at odds with their behavior, and surely his condemnation of the scribes as we have it here in Mark’s account of the gospel is good reason for Jesus to have been sought out by the scribes and crucified. The passage is also disturbing to our culture as it challenges motives and behaviors around how we live out our lives in meaningful and giving ways.
Jesus and his disciples have now arrived at the Jerusalem Temple, and the passage from Mark is really scathing criticism of the Scribes by Jesus and the early church. The scribes in this period were lawyers. They were a learned class of people who taught and interpretted the Law of Moses. People turned to them for explanation, interpretation, and understanding of the law. They were probably also used to mangage the accounts or estates of widows who had no sons.
From the point of view of this passage today, there were many at the Jerusalem Temple who were considered to be a rather unscrupulous bunch. The scribes were in a position of honorby virtue of their superior knowledge of the law, and they persisted constantly in grasping for more and more honor. They like to wear their long prestigious robes even in the marketplaces, like a priest wearing his cassock to the super market today. It gave them great attention. They were awarded the best seats in the synagogue where they could rest the backs against the wall where the Torah was kept, and they sat on a platform above the people facing them. At banquets, the scribes were given the best seats of honor. They attended many feasts as a result of the many sacrifices that were offered. Jesus concludes that by virtue of their rich long robes, their conspicuous consumption at banquets, they were also devouring the estates of widows to support their extravagant life styles. While they claimed to support or give to the poor, the giving went largely to themselves.
In contrast, widows (a word in the Hebrew which means “silent one” or one unable to speak) were often vicitimized. A widow without a son had no honor status, and no voice in public matters. They were women, and women without the protection of a son or husband, and therefore were very vulnerable to the unscrupulous. They were not included in Hebrew inheritance laws. Their resources were very limited, and they often returned to their home of origin.
In the story as we have it this morning, Jesus is condemning the scribes for their conspicuous comsumption habits and devouring the living of widows. Furthermore, Jesus points out how a widow is so very oppressed by the system. People contributed in the temple by pouring coins into a metal funnel, trumpet like, where they fell into a thief proof container. The rich would pour in their coins and it would make a great racket of noise. Everyone would “oooh” and “aaah.” They would receive their honor and reward by the crowds. Jesus, however, points out that a poor widow has gone to the trumpet to contribute her share, and by the sound of the “tinkle” you can tell that it is no more than two tiny copper coins, about 1/64th of a days wage. Jesus makes the dramatic point that the woman is thereby being robbed by this corrupt system. She is totally dishonored in her poverty! She had already been required to pay to have her money changed into temple currency at an exhorbitant rate. This corrupt system is abusive and demeaning. She is totally victimized by a legal system and a way of life that destroys the poor, which is supposedly intended to help it. The woman is the stereotypical symbol of the exploited and the oppressed. Jesus hated it and exposed it, and was ultimately crucified for doing so. Jesus was very very disturbing and challenging to his culture and its ways and traditions. He was very critical of a system that fed itself to the exclusion of the poor and the oppressed. Jesus saw this woman as totally victimized! Jesus predicted its decline and the very fall of the Temple itself.
The story of the widow in the temple for the early church made still another important point related to the widow’s contribution. Jesus makes the point that the widow actually put in more than anyone else in the community. In fact her offering was the most significant. She gives out of her poverty. All the rest, the rich, the affluent, and the scribes and pharisees gave according to the law and in some instances beyond the laws requirement and received their honor for doing so. They gave their tithes. But they gave because they had it to give. They gave out of their abundance. They gave out of what was left-over. The widow on the other hand gave out of her poverty, and what’s more she gave everything she had left to give. While at one point in the story, she is the victimized symbol of the exploited and oppressed, now she is the symbol of total and complete faithfulness. She gives all she has to God, even in her victimized widowhood, in complete trust. For Jesus this is the new, genuine, real, and authentic honor! She risks her whole life, meagre though it is, in complete faith and trust in God.
Incidentally, the story of Elijah and the widow from I Kings 17:8-16, is a very similar story. Elijah the prophet comes to a foreign widow woman in a time of famine. In great trust and faith, the foreign woman supports the prophet until the famine ends, and she experiences the miracle of the meal and oil that never runs out. In the Mark story, Jesus, that Elijah-like figure, sees in the widow of his time this great trust that in God she will not know emptiness, but fullness.
Did I not say that this passage is a very distrubing one? As we consider the various systems of which we are part, like our country, our businesses, our church, and as individuals in community, the passage challenges us to see ourselves in the light of the Gospel. It asks us to consider where we stand as a just society? What of our values and our expression of godly living that reflects a generosity and a deep appreciation of the oppressed? How do we really reflect our commited trust and faithfulness?
Consider some of the things going on in our own time and in our own culture. I have heard it said that Michael Jordon, the famous basketball player, receives more money advertising for Nike, the atheletic shoe maker, than they pay all of their employees in wages in one of their foreign plants.
Many CEO’s reportedly make a disproportionate amount of money in comparison to the people who work under them.
Many people, widows and the elderly, here in our own country receive minimum wages in some of our fast food establishments, while wealthier people feast on very low cost food. Local food producers are often at the mercy of imported foods.
Recently we have heard of Ted Turner’s enormously generous contribution to the United Nations. We hear of others giving large grants of money to colleges, universities, to the arts. We think of these people as the great philanthropists of our society and time. They are. They receive great press and honor. But notice too that many such gifts are out of the abundance of the wealthy giver who writes the check and then sits down to a sumptuous dinner in a mansion. It’s like the baseball player who makes ten million dollars each year and then says I can afford to give away a million dollars. That’s all well and good, but he can well afford to do so out of his wealth. Their real fair share is in a very different category from the average person’s income.
There are, of course, those who will say, I don’t have or make much money so I will keep mine for myself and let the fat-cats do the giving. But this attitude is hardly in keeping with what Jesus saw in the enormous generosity of the widow lady in the Temple who gave away her two copper pennies.
We must also consider what our churches are doing in terms of being faithful to their mission. It is tempting to become isolated, and to enjoy all the energies we put into our rituals, our church buildings, and our long robes. In recent years there has been a sad retreat and abandonment of the city of churches where members have fled to the more comfortable suburbs. We have left a vacumn there, a void of Christian influence where it is most desperately needed. This issue is one that may well need the attention of the suburban churches if they are to be genuinely oriented in Christian mission. With the advent of Christendom and the church’s fascination with long robes, sumptuous living, and the heirarchical structure that leads to competitiveness, and protection by the state, the church has not always been true to its greater sense of serving others as it has been to serving itself.
Even as individual Christians we may well need to reflect on our own selves in terms of what it is we give as Christians. Do we give and live meaningfully out of just what is left over, our abundance, or do we give and live out of sense of what is first and foremost in our lives, a sense of being God’s people and his own instruments and agents in the world that God can use? Do we live and give out of trust that God has already given to us more than we can desire or pray for? Remember the story of the Feeding of the 5,000. The boy gives his lunch of two fish and five barley loaves. He is fed and so is a multitude down through the ages. We still gather here on Sundays to feed on the wealth of God’s love expressed out of a little boy’s poverty of some 2,000 years ago.
Similar to the scribes, it is easy to think of ourselves as better than others, more deserving than others, more righteous than others, more right than others. Like the scribes we want to see ourselves to be the honorable. Yet real honor was the old widow lady, “the poor in spirit” who only had her poverty to offer. All she had was her emptiness and she becomes a sign for the ages, a sign of faith and trust that God can use to awaken hope in others. Compassion and sensitivity to human need often becomes desenstitized by rationalizations to keep things the way they are.
The scriptures today calls all of us to a self-examination of who we are and to consider the motives and values which drive us. It challenges our complacency. It makes us look at who we are and what we are able to give to God’s world, how we are a meaningful part of that world. It helps us once again to see that Christ in his own poverty and out pouring of his life brought hope for all and a deeper more profound justice for all. We are called to be responsible in terms of what God has given us, and that means a lifetime of consideration of Jesus Christ in the Gospel and our faithful response to it.
SEASON: Pentecost 25
PROPER: 27 B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 9, 1997
TEXT: Mark 12:38-44 - The Pharisee’s Injustice and The Widow’s Offering
As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes . . . . They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.” . . . . . . “For all of them have contibuted out of their abundance; but she out of her powerty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
See also: I Kings 17:8-16 - Elijah and the Widow
ISSUE: The passage reveals an unrighteous behavior on the part of the scribes who are self-serving and unjust. They give but it is out of an abundance accumulated out of their own greed. The widow, who herself has been victimized by the system, still gives her whole living out of her poverty. She is devoted and faithful to God. She represents, as Jesus, the Elijah-like figure reveals, a deep sensitivity to human need out of her own poverty. The passage raises the issue of how we as individuals and as a church act as good stewards in today’s world, and how we need to wrestle with our own values of giving and sacrifice.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today’s passage from Mark is fascinating in terms of what it was like to be, or to have known the scribes in Jesus’ time, the 1st century Mediterranean culture. Jesus was really at odds with their behavior, and surely his condemnation of the scribes as we have it here in Mark’s account of the gospel is good reason for Jesus to have been sought out by the scribes and crucified. The passage is also disturbing to our culture as it challenges motives and behaviors around how we live out our lives in meaningful and giving ways.
Jesus and his disciples have now arrived at the Jerusalem Temple, and the passage from Mark is really scathing criticism of the Scribes by Jesus and the early church. The scribes in this period were lawyers. They were a learned class of people who taught and interpretted the Law of Moses. People turned to them for explanation, interpretation, and understanding of the law. They were probably also used to mangage the accounts or estates of widows who had no sons.
From the point of view of this passage today, there were many at the Jerusalem Temple who were considered to be a rather unscrupulous bunch. The scribes were in a position of honorby virtue of their superior knowledge of the law, and they persisted constantly in grasping for more and more honor. They like to wear their long prestigious robes even in the marketplaces, like a priest wearing his cassock to the super market today. It gave them great attention. They were awarded the best seats in the synagogue where they could rest the backs against the wall where the Torah was kept, and they sat on a platform above the people facing them. At banquets, the scribes were given the best seats of honor. They attended many feasts as a result of the many sacrifices that were offered. Jesus concludes that by virtue of their rich long robes, their conspicuous consumption at banquets, they were also devouring the estates of widows to support their extravagant life styles. While they claimed to support or give to the poor, the giving went largely to themselves.
In contrast, widows (a word in the Hebrew which means “silent one” or one unable to speak) were often vicitimized. A widow without a son had no honor status, and no voice in public matters. They were women, and women without the protection of a son or husband, and therefore were very vulnerable to the unscrupulous. They were not included in Hebrew inheritance laws. Their resources were very limited, and they often returned to their home of origin.
In the story as we have it this morning, Jesus is condemning the scribes for their conspicuous comsumption habits and devouring the living of widows. Furthermore, Jesus points out how a widow is so very oppressed by the system. People contributed in the temple by pouring coins into a metal funnel, trumpet like, where they fell into a thief proof container. The rich would pour in their coins and it would make a great racket of noise. Everyone would “oooh” and “aaah.” They would receive their honor and reward by the crowds. Jesus, however, points out that a poor widow has gone to the trumpet to contribute her share, and by the sound of the “tinkle” you can tell that it is no more than two tiny copper coins, about 1/64th of a days wage. Jesus makes the dramatic point that the woman is thereby being robbed by this corrupt system. She is totally dishonored in her poverty! She had already been required to pay to have her money changed into temple currency at an exhorbitant rate. This corrupt system is abusive and demeaning. She is totally victimized by a legal system and a way of life that destroys the poor, which is supposedly intended to help it. The woman is the stereotypical symbol of the exploited and the oppressed. Jesus hated it and exposed it, and was ultimately crucified for doing so. Jesus was very very disturbing and challenging to his culture and its ways and traditions. He was very critical of a system that fed itself to the exclusion of the poor and the oppressed. Jesus saw this woman as totally victimized! Jesus predicted its decline and the very fall of the Temple itself.
The story of the widow in the temple for the early church made still another important point related to the widow’s contribution. Jesus makes the point that the widow actually put in more than anyone else in the community. In fact her offering was the most significant. She gives out of her poverty. All the rest, the rich, the affluent, and the scribes and pharisees gave according to the law and in some instances beyond the laws requirement and received their honor for doing so. They gave their tithes. But they gave because they had it to give. They gave out of their abundance. They gave out of what was left-over. The widow on the other hand gave out of her poverty, and what’s more she gave everything she had left to give. While at one point in the story, she is the victimized symbol of the exploited and oppressed, now she is the symbol of total and complete faithfulness. She gives all she has to God, even in her victimized widowhood, in complete trust. For Jesus this is the new, genuine, real, and authentic honor! She risks her whole life, meagre though it is, in complete faith and trust in God.
Incidentally, the story of Elijah and the widow from I Kings 17:8-16, is a very similar story. Elijah the prophet comes to a foreign widow woman in a time of famine. In great trust and faith, the foreign woman supports the prophet until the famine ends, and she experiences the miracle of the meal and oil that never runs out. In the Mark story, Jesus, that Elijah-like figure, sees in the widow of his time this great trust that in God she will not know emptiness, but fullness.
Did I not say that this passage is a very distrubing one? As we consider the various systems of which we are part, like our country, our businesses, our church, and as individuals in community, the passage challenges us to see ourselves in the light of the Gospel. It asks us to consider where we stand as a just society? What of our values and our expression of godly living that reflects a generosity and a deep appreciation of the oppressed? How do we really reflect our commited trust and faithfulness?
Consider some of the things going on in our own time and in our own culture. I have heard it said that Michael Jordon, the famous basketball player, receives more money advertising for Nike, the atheletic shoe maker, than they pay all of their employees in wages in one of their foreign plants.
Many CEO’s reportedly make a disproportionate amount of money in comparison to the people who work under them.
Many people, widows and the elderly, here in our own country receive minimum wages in some of our fast food establishments, while wealthier people feast on very low cost food. Local food producers are often at the mercy of imported foods.
Recently we have heard of Ted Turner’s enormously generous contribution to the United Nations. We hear of others giving large grants of money to colleges, universities, to the arts. We think of these people as the great philanthropists of our society and time. They are. They receive great press and honor. But notice too that many such gifts are out of the abundance of the wealthy giver who writes the check and then sits down to a sumptuous dinner in a mansion. It’s like the baseball player who makes ten million dollars each year and then says I can afford to give away a million dollars. That’s all well and good, but he can well afford to do so out of his wealth. Their real fair share is in a very different category from the average person’s income.
There are, of course, those who will say, I don’t have or make much money so I will keep mine for myself and let the fat-cats do the giving. But this attitude is hardly in keeping with what Jesus saw in the enormous generosity of the widow lady in the Temple who gave away her two copper pennies.
We must also consider what our churches are doing in terms of being faithful to their mission. It is tempting to become isolated, and to enjoy all the energies we put into our rituals, our church buildings, and our long robes. In recent years there has been a sad retreat and abandonment of the city of churches where members have fled to the more comfortable suburbs. We have left a vacumn there, a void of Christian influence where it is most desperately needed. This issue is one that may well need the attention of the suburban churches if they are to be genuinely oriented in Christian mission. With the advent of Christendom and the church’s fascination with long robes, sumptuous living, and the heirarchical structure that leads to competitiveness, and protection by the state, the church has not always been true to its greater sense of serving others as it has been to serving itself.
Even as individual Christians we may well need to reflect on our own selves in terms of what it is we give as Christians. Do we give and live meaningfully out of just what is left over, our abundance, or do we give and live out of sense of what is first and foremost in our lives, a sense of being God’s people and his own instruments and agents in the world that God can use? Do we live and give out of trust that God has already given to us more than we can desire or pray for? Remember the story of the Feeding of the 5,000. The boy gives his lunch of two fish and five barley loaves. He is fed and so is a multitude down through the ages. We still gather here on Sundays to feed on the wealth of God’s love expressed out of a little boy’s poverty of some 2,000 years ago.
Similar to the scribes, it is easy to think of ourselves as better than others, more deserving than others, more righteous than others, more right than others. Like the scribes we want to see ourselves to be the honorable. Yet real honor was the old widow lady, “the poor in spirit” who only had her poverty to offer. All she had was her emptiness and she becomes a sign for the ages, a sign of faith and trust that God can use to awaken hope in others. Compassion and sensitivity to human need often becomes desenstitized by rationalizations to keep things the way they are.
The scriptures today calls all of us to a self-examination of who we are and to consider the motives and values which drive us. It challenges our complacency. It makes us look at who we are and what we are able to give to God’s world, how we are a meaningful part of that world. It helps us once again to see that Christ in his own poverty and out pouring of his life brought hope for all and a deeper more profound justice for all. We are called to be responsible in terms of what God has given us, and that means a lifetime of consideration of Jesus Christ in the Gospel and our faithful response to it.
Sunday, November 2, 1997
ALL SAINTS’ DAY
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: ALL SAINTS’ DAY
PROPER: Year B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish
DATE: Nov. 2, 1997
TEXT: Matthew 5:1-12 - The Beatitudes of Jesus from The Sermon on the Mount.
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . Blessed are those who mourn . . . Blessed are those who hunger and thrist for righteousness. . .
ISSUE: The Beatitudes of Jesus, which are a small but significant part of the Sermon on the Mount, tell who and what God honors, and dramatically reveals how the honor or blessedness of God is so different from most cultures of the world. While the passage is often viewed as pious in nature as we direct it to our understanding of All Saints’ Day, it was addressed to originally to the poor, dispossessed, and disenfranchised people. As written in the Hymn 293, “for the saints of God are just jolk like me,” the Beatitudes actually cut through ostentatious piety and reveal an honest truth as to what true honor and piety are and to whom the apply.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Beatitudes of Jesus as they are written in Matthew’s account of the Gospel are in credibly engaging. They reall challenge the imagination. I’ve been intrigued by them since I was a child with a little child’s book called “The Eight Beatitudes of Jesus” to this very day. Of course, the Beatitudes are part of a whole section of Matthew, Chapter 5-7, which is called The Sermon on the Mount. Luke’s account of the gospel also has an abbreviated form of the sermon and the Beatitudes in latter part of chapter 6. In these accounts Jesus gathers his disciples takes them away from the mainstream of life to give them his teachings. For some people they may be little more than pious platitudes. But to consider the Beatitudes and to embrace the Sermon on the Mount is to have to struggle with things that seem to be paradoxical and inconsistent with the way the world is and how we envision the world.
In the early part of the great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about blessedness. He gathers his friends around him, and sits down to teach, which rabbi’s did in those days. He tells them such things that are intriguing. He tells them that there is blessedness in being poor. He tells them that there is blessedness in mourning. There is blessedness in hungering and thirsting. What’s more he tells them there is blessedness in being persecuted and slandered. Blessedness in Jesus’ time meant honor. It was a society whose main objective in life was to gain honor and to be honorable. How could being poor, grieving, hungering and thirsting give them honor? Poor people weren’t just people without money. Poor people were the lame, blind, deaf, widows without sons, people who had lost inheritances through devious means. They were the looked-down-upon. They had no honor, power, place, prestige. How could they be blessed? Many of these disciples and folk who followed Jesus up to the hillside to hear these sayings were the poor and the disenfranchised. How could they believe that they could ever gain blessedness and honor when their lives thought of as cursed. they saw themsleves in this very way of cursedness. They were at the opposite end of being blessed or honorable. Even in our thining in the modern world, we don’t think of poverty, grief, struggle, and persecution as being a way of being blessed.
In other parts of the Sermon on the Mount, which are not read today, but you are likely to be familiar with some of them, Jesus posed very striking opposites which challenged these people in terms of what they considered honorable and valuable. (If you are not familiar read over Matthew 5-7 when you get home today in the Bible. You’ll find some really fascinating stuff.) Honor was maintained by and large by keeping the rule of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If someone was gracious to you, you were expected to repay the favor, because that was honorable. At the same time if you were treated badly, to maintain your honor, you were to hold your ground and repay insult with insult, or take an eye for an eye. Yet, Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, teaches that you are to love your enemies and pray for persecutors. “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him your left. If a man wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. If a man in authority makes you go one mile, go with him two.” Statements such as these challenged the very foundations of the culture of the period. I think maybe they still do. Even today, people will say that these are nice sayings, but they won’t work in the real world.
In Jesus’ time there was an honorable expectation of piety. People were expected to give and this was often done with a flourish of tossing coins into a noisy trumpet in public places. Honor was established and acknowledged by public pious acts of fasting and prayer in public places with ashed covered faces. Jesus denounced and apparently hated or at least distrusted ostentatious piety. He tells his people do their praying and giving quietly, without notice and never appear to fast. (He didn’t say don’ fast, but not to appear in public to fast.) For many people this display gave them honor and status in the community, and Jesus seems to take the fun out of it. People like acknowledgement and reward.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells his people not to store up treasures on earth. It only grows rusty and moth eaten, and thieves break in and steal it. Don’t be anxious about what you eat, drink, or wear. This kind of thinking flies in the very face of human nature both then and now.
Jesus in this sermon teaches his disciple not to judge others. When you have an honorable way of life that is built on law, how do you escape being judgmental?
All of these things, these ways of being and the teachings of Jesus challenged the thinking and the very foundations of the culture of Jesus’ time. What’s more they dramatically challenge our way. We also have our honor codes and the values we cherish. We believe in the law of the fittest, the best man wins. Being tough and having the biggest bomb has been a part of our American way of life. We are expected to be achievers and to get ahead. We are expected to improve our status in life. We live in a world that values consumerism and consumption. The more people have, the more materialistic, the more prestigious and powerful people are. We value being macho and strong. We value being right. We value being generous our of our affluence and power as a nation. Many people were really on edge this week as the stock market waivered and fluctuated. We really believe and trust that to make it in life we have to be in charge of our lives and self-made men and women. And we see nothing blessed about poverty, mourning, unhappiness, struggling, and persecution. Living on a “high” with all the ramifications of that word seems to be what we like best. For all who are able to accomplish the American Dream receive their sense honor, and are considered by the world to be the honorable.
Yet there is still another dimension. There is another reality. We have heard it said that even in having it all, there can be a temendous sense of emptiness. We can be lonely in a crowd. We can have it all and lose it suddenly. Having the accolades of the world may not really amount to a whole lot if we feel an inner emptiness and dissatisfaction. Suppose through failing health or stock market we lose the stuff that makes us feel good? Are we condemned to some meaningless abyss? Suppose we find out we don’t really know what is right? Are we damned to the world’s eternal condemnation? Human beings do fail. Some marriages disentegrate. Family life can be dysfunctional. Children don’t become or do what parents want or expect of them. Things we cherish do vanish, evaporate, and and change. The honor, the power, the prestige of life is sometimes little more than an illusion. We grow old, weak, we die. Life’s apparent gradeur can result in poverty, mourning, and our feeling persecuted. Where then do we really find a true, genuine, and lasting honor? For Jesus the true and genuine honor was different from the worlds. It was the very opposite of the worlds.
Jesus saw the honor of God as a gift. The poor in spirit who had no merit whatsoever are God’s own. What the world disenfranchises and those separated from worldly grandeur are God’s own. It is in recognizing that living in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth world only results in the continuation of a vicious cycle and a continually vicious world. Blessed are they who step aside and walk the extra mile and turn the other cheek. If we live continually in a judgmental world, we live in constant threat of condemnation and lack of acceptance. Can we step aside from being harshly judgmental. Stuffing ourselves with self-righteousness can make us unhealthy, unforgiving, and cruel. Yet hungering for justice for all people in the world turns us into honorable servants of God. Being a people who can mourn makes us a people who can feel, and sense, and open to realities of life. God loves and honors us for that way of being. Constantly, persistantly the world tells God’s church that its way will not work: You can’t turn the other cheek, or walk the extra mile; you can’t love your enemies. Blessed and honorable and loved are those who prevail in believing that by the grace of God in our lives and in our being the world can and will be changed. Faithful men and women down through the ages in the face of persecution have carried on the message and the hope of God. Poor people in marches, people re-building houses, people loving the poor continue to proclaim the goodnews of God’s love and hope in the face of opposition and the persecution of pessimism. People tutoring children. People who embrace the way of Christ that challenges the world become immersed into the baptismal blessing of God who honors them.
Who are the saints and what are they made of. The saints are not good people who did good things and died. They are not the pious with halos. They are the faithful; they trust. They are the one who embraced the challenging and the daring way of Christ in the midst of the principalities and powers of the world. They are the ones who see a another reality in a world of phoney illusions. They are the ones who know they need God and through God realize the deeper meaning of life and without even knowing it are the truly blessed.
SEASON: ALL SAINTS’ DAY
PROPER: Year B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish
DATE: Nov. 2, 1997
TEXT: Matthew 5:1-12 - The Beatitudes of Jesus from The Sermon on the Mount.
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . Blessed are those who mourn . . . Blessed are those who hunger and thrist for righteousness. . .
ISSUE: The Beatitudes of Jesus, which are a small but significant part of the Sermon on the Mount, tell who and what God honors, and dramatically reveals how the honor or blessedness of God is so different from most cultures of the world. While the passage is often viewed as pious in nature as we direct it to our understanding of All Saints’ Day, it was addressed to originally to the poor, dispossessed, and disenfranchised people. As written in the Hymn 293, “for the saints of God are just jolk like me,” the Beatitudes actually cut through ostentatious piety and reveal an honest truth as to what true honor and piety are and to whom the apply.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Beatitudes of Jesus as they are written in Matthew’s account of the Gospel are in credibly engaging. They reall challenge the imagination. I’ve been intrigued by them since I was a child with a little child’s book called “The Eight Beatitudes of Jesus” to this very day. Of course, the Beatitudes are part of a whole section of Matthew, Chapter 5-7, which is called The Sermon on the Mount. Luke’s account of the gospel also has an abbreviated form of the sermon and the Beatitudes in latter part of chapter 6. In these accounts Jesus gathers his disciples takes them away from the mainstream of life to give them his teachings. For some people they may be little more than pious platitudes. But to consider the Beatitudes and to embrace the Sermon on the Mount is to have to struggle with things that seem to be paradoxical and inconsistent with the way the world is and how we envision the world.
In the early part of the great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about blessedness. He gathers his friends around him, and sits down to teach, which rabbi’s did in those days. He tells them such things that are intriguing. He tells them that there is blessedness in being poor. He tells them that there is blessedness in mourning. There is blessedness in hungering and thirsting. What’s more he tells them there is blessedness in being persecuted and slandered. Blessedness in Jesus’ time meant honor. It was a society whose main objective in life was to gain honor and to be honorable. How could being poor, grieving, hungering and thirsting give them honor? Poor people weren’t just people without money. Poor people were the lame, blind, deaf, widows without sons, people who had lost inheritances through devious means. They were the looked-down-upon. They had no honor, power, place, prestige. How could they be blessed? Many of these disciples and folk who followed Jesus up to the hillside to hear these sayings were the poor and the disenfranchised. How could they believe that they could ever gain blessedness and honor when their lives thought of as cursed. they saw themsleves in this very way of cursedness. They were at the opposite end of being blessed or honorable. Even in our thining in the modern world, we don’t think of poverty, grief, struggle, and persecution as being a way of being blessed.
In other parts of the Sermon on the Mount, which are not read today, but you are likely to be familiar with some of them, Jesus posed very striking opposites which challenged these people in terms of what they considered honorable and valuable. (If you are not familiar read over Matthew 5-7 when you get home today in the Bible. You’ll find some really fascinating stuff.) Honor was maintained by and large by keeping the rule of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If someone was gracious to you, you were expected to repay the favor, because that was honorable. At the same time if you were treated badly, to maintain your honor, you were to hold your ground and repay insult with insult, or take an eye for an eye. Yet, Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, teaches that you are to love your enemies and pray for persecutors. “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him your left. If a man wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. If a man in authority makes you go one mile, go with him two.” Statements such as these challenged the very foundations of the culture of the period. I think maybe they still do. Even today, people will say that these are nice sayings, but they won’t work in the real world.
In Jesus’ time there was an honorable expectation of piety. People were expected to give and this was often done with a flourish of tossing coins into a noisy trumpet in public places. Honor was established and acknowledged by public pious acts of fasting and prayer in public places with ashed covered faces. Jesus denounced and apparently hated or at least distrusted ostentatious piety. He tells his people do their praying and giving quietly, without notice and never appear to fast. (He didn’t say don’ fast, but not to appear in public to fast.) For many people this display gave them honor and status in the community, and Jesus seems to take the fun out of it. People like acknowledgement and reward.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells his people not to store up treasures on earth. It only grows rusty and moth eaten, and thieves break in and steal it. Don’t be anxious about what you eat, drink, or wear. This kind of thinking flies in the very face of human nature both then and now.
Jesus in this sermon teaches his disciple not to judge others. When you have an honorable way of life that is built on law, how do you escape being judgmental?
All of these things, these ways of being and the teachings of Jesus challenged the thinking and the very foundations of the culture of Jesus’ time. What’s more they dramatically challenge our way. We also have our honor codes and the values we cherish. We believe in the law of the fittest, the best man wins. Being tough and having the biggest bomb has been a part of our American way of life. We are expected to be achievers and to get ahead. We are expected to improve our status in life. We live in a world that values consumerism and consumption. The more people have, the more materialistic, the more prestigious and powerful people are. We value being macho and strong. We value being right. We value being generous our of our affluence and power as a nation. Many people were really on edge this week as the stock market waivered and fluctuated. We really believe and trust that to make it in life we have to be in charge of our lives and self-made men and women. And we see nothing blessed about poverty, mourning, unhappiness, struggling, and persecution. Living on a “high” with all the ramifications of that word seems to be what we like best. For all who are able to accomplish the American Dream receive their sense honor, and are considered by the world to be the honorable.
Yet there is still another dimension. There is another reality. We have heard it said that even in having it all, there can be a temendous sense of emptiness. We can be lonely in a crowd. We can have it all and lose it suddenly. Having the accolades of the world may not really amount to a whole lot if we feel an inner emptiness and dissatisfaction. Suppose through failing health or stock market we lose the stuff that makes us feel good? Are we condemned to some meaningless abyss? Suppose we find out we don’t really know what is right? Are we damned to the world’s eternal condemnation? Human beings do fail. Some marriages disentegrate. Family life can be dysfunctional. Children don’t become or do what parents want or expect of them. Things we cherish do vanish, evaporate, and and change. The honor, the power, the prestige of life is sometimes little more than an illusion. We grow old, weak, we die. Life’s apparent gradeur can result in poverty, mourning, and our feeling persecuted. Where then do we really find a true, genuine, and lasting honor? For Jesus the true and genuine honor was different from the worlds. It was the very opposite of the worlds.
Jesus saw the honor of God as a gift. The poor in spirit who had no merit whatsoever are God’s own. What the world disenfranchises and those separated from worldly grandeur are God’s own. It is in recognizing that living in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth world only results in the continuation of a vicious cycle and a continually vicious world. Blessed are they who step aside and walk the extra mile and turn the other cheek. If we live continually in a judgmental world, we live in constant threat of condemnation and lack of acceptance. Can we step aside from being harshly judgmental. Stuffing ourselves with self-righteousness can make us unhealthy, unforgiving, and cruel. Yet hungering for justice for all people in the world turns us into honorable servants of God. Being a people who can mourn makes us a people who can feel, and sense, and open to realities of life. God loves and honors us for that way of being. Constantly, persistantly the world tells God’s church that its way will not work: You can’t turn the other cheek, or walk the extra mile; you can’t love your enemies. Blessed and honorable and loved are those who prevail in believing that by the grace of God in our lives and in our being the world can and will be changed. Faithful men and women down through the ages in the face of persecution have carried on the message and the hope of God. Poor people in marches, people re-building houses, people loving the poor continue to proclaim the goodnews of God’s love and hope in the face of opposition and the persecution of pessimism. People tutoring children. People who embrace the way of Christ that challenges the world become immersed into the baptismal blessing of God who honors them.
Who are the saints and what are they made of. The saints are not good people who did good things and died. They are not the pious with halos. They are the faithful; they trust. They are the one who embraced the challenging and the daring way of Christ in the midst of the principalities and powers of the world. They are the ones who see a another reality in a world of phoney illusions. They are the ones who know they need God and through God realize the deeper meaning of life and without even knowing it are the truly blessed.
Sunday, October 26, 1997
23 Pentecost
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: 23 Pentecost
PROPER: 25 B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: October 26, 1997
TEXT: Mark 10:46-52 - Jesus heals a blindman
Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his signt and followed him on the way.
ISSUE: A blindman finds hope and healing in the Savior. He wants to see ‘again.’ He wants renewal and hope for his life which culminates in his following Jesus to the presence of God. The passage calls all of us in our spiritual blindness, our gradual short-sightedness, our falling away from the light of God to renewed proclamation and following of the Christ in our lives. For in him and through him we find our way back to love, to forgiveness, to compassion, to renewed energies that allow God’s redeeming power to work in and through us.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today’s scripture reading from Mark about the blindman who seeks out Jesus for healing is a truly fascinating passage. It is rich, I think in meaning and in hope. Jesus is reportedly on his way from Jericho to Jerusalem. It is a difficult up hill journey. On his way Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, is begging along the roadside. He is blind. He makes his living through begging, because he is unsighted and has no other way to make a living.
Blindness in Jesus’ time was common. Many people were afflicted with trachoma, a conjuncitis of the eye, which was a serious infection. It was largely caused by poor hygiene. It was spread by flies getting into the eyes. Water for hand washing was quite scarce among many people and so bacterial on the hands and rubbing the eyes my trachoma relatively common, and resulted in blindness. In this story we get the impression that the man had been able to see once, since he asks Jesus to let him see again.
Blindness was seen by many people of the period as a result of sinfulness. It was considered to be a curse, and blindmen could not enter the intersanctum of the temple. Leviticus 21:16-24 forbid persons with physical defects from making sacrifices in the temple or coming near to the temple curtain and altar. Experiencing this kind of ostracism made handicapped people appear and feel cursed and alienated from the healthier community. Begging for a living was not exactly an honorable calling.
In the story as Jesus approaches, the blindman begins to call out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many people, which may well have included some the disciples rebuke the man for calling out to Jesus. This rebuking may have been a sign of their keeping the defective person, or less honorable person in their place. Recall that the disciples and crowds had rebuked the children who were brought to see Jesus as well, in gospel lesson we read a few weeks ago. Yet, the more this man is rebuked the more he calls out, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!” The disciples were not always very welcoming and were in fact quite dense sometimes when it came to understanding what Jesus’ ministry was about. Recall last week, James and John want places of honor in Jesus’s kingdom, competely missing the point of Jesus’s mininstry as a ministry of servanthood and not honorable status. Here the disciples and the crowd try to squelch the pleas of a desperate, and agonizing man. (Conjunctivitis could be very painful, not to mention the agony of blindness itself.)
The blindman also calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Today we think of ‘mercy’ as a kind of compassion. In Jesus time it did not quite have that meaning. ‘Mercy’ was an economic term. It meant more like ‘you owe me.’ Mercy described a person’s willingness to pay his debts in the Mediterranean culture. Thus, the blindman is call Jesus, “Son of David.” Jesus is beginning the ascent from Jericho to Jerusalem, and the blindman is loudly proclaiming him “Son of David.” “Son of David” was a messianic title. David and his son, Solomon, were considered at the time to be extraordinary kings in terms of their great competence as leaders. So the blindman in essence is proclaiming louder and louder - the more people try to silence him - ‘Jesus, you are the Messiah,’ ‘Jesus, you are the all knowing and all competent one,’ Jesus, you are the hope and the salvation of Israel.’ . . . ‘Jesus, you owe me my sight, the ability to see again.’ What this, of course, means is that the blindman is owed his right place in that kingdom. He is owed the right to restoration of status. For as he is physically blind, he sees deeply and spiritually that Jesus is the Christ the hope of the world.
What’s more. The crowd and disciples say to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” The blindman gets up and throws off his cloak and goes to Jesus. Throwing off the cloak is no idle, incidental, action. Blindmen would never throw anything away. How could they find it again? It would be lost in the crowd, if not stolen. The man is so assured of his healing that he throws off the old to embrace his anticipated new life with Christ, Jesus.
“What,” Jesus asks, “do you want me to do for you?”
“My teacher, let me see again.”
“Go; your faith has made you well.” Jesus says.
Immediately the man gets up restored and well and does not turn back for the cloak, does not turn back to the crowd, does not return home again. The renewed man follows Jesus along the way. He follows him in servanthood on to Jerusalem, the cross and on to resurrection and hope. The blindman in the story comes to see in his desperation and his blindness that hope and renewal is to be found in Jesus. He assigns his complete faith, confidence, and trust that Jesus will lead the way to the presence of God and God’s redemption and salvation. With Christ he becomes a worthy son of God fully restored and accepted.
What’s in this story of us? What does it mean? What’s its impact for us in the world we live in today? As I wrestle with these questions and consider our own time and culture the words of the Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah come to mind:
Isaiah 59:1-19 - Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.
In our world today there are many injustices and problems that keep the world in darkness and gloom. Racism and poverty prevails. Hunger and starvation persists at home and abroad in a world where storage bins are full, in a world where there is abundance. Drug and alcohol addictions are a blight on our cities and in our homes. Violence continues on the streets corners, in the political unrest in many places around the world, and in our homes. People get caught up in the cultural demands of personal success and egotistical individualism. We come to value what is often lonely, meaningless, and empty in just trying to care for ourselves alone. Human falleness, sinfulness, is a reality. God’s presence seems distant and the prevalence of a dark and unchanged world can seem to be the ongoing predicament of the ages. Our frustrations and our depressions silence us and sentence us to despair.
But there was a blindman who dared to trust and to place his confidence in the renewing power of God: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Inspite of a world that told him to shut-up and embrace the hopelessness, he cried out in faith all the more loudly. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” He yelled and shouted all the more . . . there is hope, there is a savior, there is a leader of leaders there is a way to seeing again, and embracing hope again! He threw off the old cloak, the old stuff and went to Jesus in complete faith and trust that Jesus could leading him into a new appreciation of godliness. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks. He wants to see again, to have healing again, to see beauty and love and hopefulness. I want to follow in your way.
What do we want from Jesus? How do we in our lives need renewing? What do we want to see happen again in our lives and in our world? “Give light ot my (our) lives, O Lord.” (Psalm 13) the blindman in the story believed deeply, he trusted, in fact, he felt Jesus owed him his healing and hope. He yells out confidently his need for healing and hope. And he follows along the way. Many people want healing just for the sake of healing. But we the blindman wants renewed life and to follow with Jesus wherever he may lead. Do we want to see the hungry fed and cry out for that, yell and shout for that. Do we want see the end to violence at home and abroad? Do we reach out and cry out for peace: Jesus Son of David give us peace. Do we want lives that are lifted out of depression and hopelessness? Do we want better homes and happier marriages? Do we want our broken lives mended? Do we want to be hopeful again, and our energies recharged, and our dreams renewed. Then our cry, our yelling, our praying must be: Jesus you are indeed the messiah. You are our hope. We can only trust in you, in your love, in your way of forgivness in your healing and renewing powers. We trust in your dying and in your resurrection. We trust that in following you in a world that would shut us up with its negativity and hopelessness. Our faith gives us the worthiness to stand and come before God. It opens eyes see the truth of the world around us and that in community with Christ we are and continue to be the force of hope for the world. We come to see that what is fallen can be raised up. What is broken can be healed. It is in confident trust and faith, and the desire to live in a constant relationship embracing Jesus as Lord that renews us and keeps us going in hope.
A few weeks ago we read the story of the rich man who came to Jesus. But he turned away and went away sad for he had many possessions. The cursed blindman in the story today is in sharp contrast. In his recognized cursed state he throws off the old and accepts the loving grace of Jesus and follows him on the road to hope and renewal. Is there not a message in this rich piece of scripture for us all?
SEASON: 23 Pentecost
PROPER: 25 B
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: October 26, 1997
TEXT: Mark 10:46-52 - Jesus heals a blindman
Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his signt and followed him on the way.
ISSUE: A blindman finds hope and healing in the Savior. He wants to see ‘again.’ He wants renewal and hope for his life which culminates in his following Jesus to the presence of God. The passage calls all of us in our spiritual blindness, our gradual short-sightedness, our falling away from the light of God to renewed proclamation and following of the Christ in our lives. For in him and through him we find our way back to love, to forgiveness, to compassion, to renewed energies that allow God’s redeeming power to work in and through us.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today’s scripture reading from Mark about the blindman who seeks out Jesus for healing is a truly fascinating passage. It is rich, I think in meaning and in hope. Jesus is reportedly on his way from Jericho to Jerusalem. It is a difficult up hill journey. On his way Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, is begging along the roadside. He is blind. He makes his living through begging, because he is unsighted and has no other way to make a living.
Blindness in Jesus’ time was common. Many people were afflicted with trachoma, a conjuncitis of the eye, which was a serious infection. It was largely caused by poor hygiene. It was spread by flies getting into the eyes. Water for hand washing was quite scarce among many people and so bacterial on the hands and rubbing the eyes my trachoma relatively common, and resulted in blindness. In this story we get the impression that the man had been able to see once, since he asks Jesus to let him see again.
Blindness was seen by many people of the period as a result of sinfulness. It was considered to be a curse, and blindmen could not enter the intersanctum of the temple. Leviticus 21:16-24 forbid persons with physical defects from making sacrifices in the temple or coming near to the temple curtain and altar. Experiencing this kind of ostracism made handicapped people appear and feel cursed and alienated from the healthier community. Begging for a living was not exactly an honorable calling.
In the story as Jesus approaches, the blindman begins to call out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many people, which may well have included some the disciples rebuke the man for calling out to Jesus. This rebuking may have been a sign of their keeping the defective person, or less honorable person in their place. Recall that the disciples and crowds had rebuked the children who were brought to see Jesus as well, in gospel lesson we read a few weeks ago. Yet, the more this man is rebuked the more he calls out, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!” The disciples were not always very welcoming and were in fact quite dense sometimes when it came to understanding what Jesus’ ministry was about. Recall last week, James and John want places of honor in Jesus’s kingdom, competely missing the point of Jesus’s mininstry as a ministry of servanthood and not honorable status. Here the disciples and the crowd try to squelch the pleas of a desperate, and agonizing man. (Conjunctivitis could be very painful, not to mention the agony of blindness itself.)
The blindman also calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Today we think of ‘mercy’ as a kind of compassion. In Jesus time it did not quite have that meaning. ‘Mercy’ was an economic term. It meant more like ‘you owe me.’ Mercy described a person’s willingness to pay his debts in the Mediterranean culture. Thus, the blindman is call Jesus, “Son of David.” Jesus is beginning the ascent from Jericho to Jerusalem, and the blindman is loudly proclaiming him “Son of David.” “Son of David” was a messianic title. David and his son, Solomon, were considered at the time to be extraordinary kings in terms of their great competence as leaders. So the blindman in essence is proclaiming louder and louder - the more people try to silence him - ‘Jesus, you are the Messiah,’ ‘Jesus, you are the all knowing and all competent one,’ Jesus, you are the hope and the salvation of Israel.’ . . . ‘Jesus, you owe me my sight, the ability to see again.’ What this, of course, means is that the blindman is owed his right place in that kingdom. He is owed the right to restoration of status. For as he is physically blind, he sees deeply and spiritually that Jesus is the Christ the hope of the world.
What’s more. The crowd and disciples say to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” The blindman gets up and throws off his cloak and goes to Jesus. Throwing off the cloak is no idle, incidental, action. Blindmen would never throw anything away. How could they find it again? It would be lost in the crowd, if not stolen. The man is so assured of his healing that he throws off the old to embrace his anticipated new life with Christ, Jesus.
“What,” Jesus asks, “do you want me to do for you?”
“My teacher, let me see again.”
“Go; your faith has made you well.” Jesus says.
Immediately the man gets up restored and well and does not turn back for the cloak, does not turn back to the crowd, does not return home again. The renewed man follows Jesus along the way. He follows him in servanthood on to Jerusalem, the cross and on to resurrection and hope. The blindman in the story comes to see in his desperation and his blindness that hope and renewal is to be found in Jesus. He assigns his complete faith, confidence, and trust that Jesus will lead the way to the presence of God and God’s redemption and salvation. With Christ he becomes a worthy son of God fully restored and accepted.
What’s in this story of us? What does it mean? What’s its impact for us in the world we live in today? As I wrestle with these questions and consider our own time and culture the words of the Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah come to mind:
Isaiah 59:1-19 - Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.
In our world today there are many injustices and problems that keep the world in darkness and gloom. Racism and poverty prevails. Hunger and starvation persists at home and abroad in a world where storage bins are full, in a world where there is abundance. Drug and alcohol addictions are a blight on our cities and in our homes. Violence continues on the streets corners, in the political unrest in many places around the world, and in our homes. People get caught up in the cultural demands of personal success and egotistical individualism. We come to value what is often lonely, meaningless, and empty in just trying to care for ourselves alone. Human falleness, sinfulness, is a reality. God’s presence seems distant and the prevalence of a dark and unchanged world can seem to be the ongoing predicament of the ages. Our frustrations and our depressions silence us and sentence us to despair.
But there was a blindman who dared to trust and to place his confidence in the renewing power of God: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Inspite of a world that told him to shut-up and embrace the hopelessness, he cried out in faith all the more loudly. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” He yelled and shouted all the more . . . there is hope, there is a savior, there is a leader of leaders there is a way to seeing again, and embracing hope again! He threw off the old cloak, the old stuff and went to Jesus in complete faith and trust that Jesus could leading him into a new appreciation of godliness. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks. He wants to see again, to have healing again, to see beauty and love and hopefulness. I want to follow in your way.
What do we want from Jesus? How do we in our lives need renewing? What do we want to see happen again in our lives and in our world? “Give light ot my (our) lives, O Lord.” (Psalm 13) the blindman in the story believed deeply, he trusted, in fact, he felt Jesus owed him his healing and hope. He yells out confidently his need for healing and hope. And he follows along the way. Many people want healing just for the sake of healing. But we the blindman wants renewed life and to follow with Jesus wherever he may lead. Do we want to see the hungry fed and cry out for that, yell and shout for that. Do we want see the end to violence at home and abroad? Do we reach out and cry out for peace: Jesus Son of David give us peace. Do we want lives that are lifted out of depression and hopelessness? Do we want better homes and happier marriages? Do we want our broken lives mended? Do we want to be hopeful again, and our energies recharged, and our dreams renewed. Then our cry, our yelling, our praying must be: Jesus you are indeed the messiah. You are our hope. We can only trust in you, in your love, in your way of forgivness in your healing and renewing powers. We trust in your dying and in your resurrection. We trust that in following you in a world that would shut us up with its negativity and hopelessness. Our faith gives us the worthiness to stand and come before God. It opens eyes see the truth of the world around us and that in community with Christ we are and continue to be the force of hope for the world. We come to see that what is fallen can be raised up. What is broken can be healed. It is in confident trust and faith, and the desire to live in a constant relationship embracing Jesus as Lord that renews us and keeps us going in hope.
A few weeks ago we read the story of the rich man who came to Jesus. But he turned away and went away sad for he had many possessions. The cursed blindman in the story today is in sharp contrast. In his recognized cursed state he throws off the old and accepts the loving grace of Jesus and follows him on the road to hope and renewal. Is there not a message in this rich piece of scripture for us all?
Thursday, October 2, 1997
20 PENTECOST
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: 20 PENTECOST
PROPER: 22B
PLACE: ST. JOHN’S PARISH
DATE: OCT. 2, 1997
TEXT: Mark 10:2-9 - Jesus speaks on Divorce and Marriage - “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
ISSUE: Marriages in Jesus time were arranged. They brought together whole families. To divorce created a situation of shame that often led to feuding and bloodshed. Yet Mosaic law permitted it. Jesus refers to a more basic appreciation that God calls men and women to be joined in lasting faithfulness. He recalls the time before the fall, how unity of love was meant to be. It is this principle that Jesus recalls for us and upon which we are to base our relationships, as opposed to man made rules. We need to reclaim God’s way of being faithful and committed in our relationships.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Considerable time and energy has been given to the discussion of human sexuality by both the Diocesan and National Conventions of the Episcopal Church over the past several years. The main issue seems to center around whether or not gay and lesbian sexuality is to be considered appropriate moral behavior for Christians. Additional discussion centers around whether or not the church should provide some kind of liturgical service for the blessing of homosexual unions, and whether or not practicing homosexuals may be ordained. Within the church there are passionate feelings from all sides. And sometimes the emotional heat of the debate seems to threaten the very life of the church itself. I am hopeful, and I earnestly pray, that God’s Holy Spirit coupled with good sense and reason will lead the church to discern what is the best for all concerned. May we live together in unity and carry on the debate in respect and love.
What’s really terrifying us?
There is another issue that I think is just as important that is not getting the attention, discussion, and energy that it deserves. And sometimes I wonder if all the commotion over the homosexual issues may not be a cover-up and a distraction from the issue that is really terrifying us, failing heterosexual marriages and dysfunctional families. Sometimes when people are not able to deal comfortably with problems at home, it is easier and more comfortable to solve someone else’s problems and pass judgments that really have little or no relevance to their own lives. I would venture to say that for most parishes, like our own, failing marriages is truly alarming. The support of Christian marriage and family life is desperately needed.
Families today seem to be under enormous pressure. Both parents feel they must work to meet financial needs. They assume the pressure of having to provide the very best for their children from education to the social - athletic programs. At the same time, the rank individualism of our time makes its demand. Each of us is expected to be true to ourselves becoming outstanding in career and talents. We are to pursue what is meaningful for our personal development. What’s the popular expression?. . . “We have to find ourselves.” Building a healthy spiritual family life and working together for the glory of God are not exactly the top priorities of our time. Extreme pressures may give way to the need for relief. That relief for many people today is often found in recreational drugs, acting-out through inappropriate behavior, and especially alcohol abuse. Drinking is more destructive than most are willing to admit. It is an insidious plague in our culture and in many families it is kept well hidden. In quiet suffering, the family is being destroyed without seeking help. People struggle to keep up appearances, be ambitious, desperately try to be constantly achieving, and keep up with affluent demands. These pressures and expectations are heavy burdens to bear for any two people trying to raise a family and keep a marriage together. We are under the self-imposed pressure of very high expectations. We expect too much of ourselves and of our spouses. We expect ourselves to be like the glamorous gods of popular magazines and the culture. We forget that what is in the culture and in magazines is often contrived material beyond the capability of people living day to day.
To say that families are under a lot of pressure is at best a kind of psychological explanation for why so many families are troubled. The complexities are enormous and there is hardly just one reason why marriages fail. From a theological point of view we are all sinners. God calls upon us to be obedient, faithful, loyal, and trusting. We are inclined to be disobedient, unfaithful, non-committal, and trust only in our own failing fragile nature. We are enchanted by the ways and demands of the world, but they court disaster. Yet Christ came among us to call us back. Through him we are made well aware of our fallen nature and at the same time are called to a renewing embrace of God’s values. We are taught to love, serve, forgive, and be patient with one another. We are reminded that what counts is not what we possess materially, but what kind of loving faithful people we are. Jesus’ life and ministry modeled the importance of community, a group of men and women working together to open the gates to the kingdom of love. He called them into humble servanthood. Even when they failed they were not beyond his loving grace. Sacramentally, marriage is to be the sign of God’s love for his creation. Reclaiming the genuine need for and centrality of God in our family lives is essential.
In Jesus’ time the Pharisees came to him questioning him about whether or not it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Keep in mind the Pharisees were usually up to no-good when they questioned Jesus. They tried to trap him into a situation of losing his honor and place among the people. The question of divorce was a hot political issue as well. King Herod Antipas was divorced and remarried to his brother’s wife. John the Baptist had criticized the relationship and was beheaded. The law of Moses permitted divorce, Dt. 24:1. Possibly Jesus would dishonor himself through rejecting Mosaic Law, or create a political problem with Herod. The question was a tricky one.
It is also important to understand that while divorce in Jesus’ time was permissible, it also could have significant consequences. Marriages, unlike ours, were arranged marriages. They were an arrangement made for the good of the whole family and community. As a child you did not pick your parents. You didn’t get to pick you children. They were a gift from God. Why would you think that you would pick your wife. Marriage arrangements were for the good of the community. Divorce dishonored your wife’s father and brothers. People who were shamed would try to reclaim their honor. Thus, divorce in Jesus’ time often led to feuding and bloodshed. Thus, Jesus says, because you people are hardhearted, not teachable, so hard to get through to, that Moses allowed this rule. But let’s go back to the very beginning. God created man and woman to be one with one another, to be mutual help-mates. God joined them, and what God wills is what is important. What God joins, let us not separate. Jesus is going back to the garden before the fall. He reminds and gives a renewed image of what human life is to be. Unity with one another. Working together, being committed to one another was the original norm. It is when we reclaim what God wants that there is unity and peace in the community. Make no mistake, Jesus was attempting to rebuild the the new Kingdom of God founded upon God’s will and love. God is central. What God joins together, man must not separate.
Fact of the matter is that we are all separated frequently from what it is that God wants, and that is sin. Husbands and wives separate. Children separate from parents and vice versa. The behavior of some men today who separate themselves from their children and wives, and who refuse to pay child support and condouct themselves honorably as husbands and fathers is really unconscionable. Many people separate themselves from serving the good of the community to an inordinate concern for their own personal selfish needs. We desperately need healing and hope. Jesus’s turning the minds of the pharisees all the way back to the story of Genesis is turning their thoughts back to God himself. Before our own needs to be so self-centered we need to ask is what we are doing of God, or in separation from godliness.
.Creating a supportive community with God’s help.
As a parish community, I hope that we will listen to one another, support one another, share our common concerns, our successes and our failures with one another. May we pray and worship together seeking God’s help in strengthening family life and marriage. As spouses, I hope we will renew those commitments we made on our wedding day and vow to uphold them with God’s help. Next time you have the Prayer Book in hand review the Marriage Service, p. 423. As divorced persons we remember that God is forgiving and can make all things new raising up that which is fallen. Any parish church worth its salt will welcome you, love you, and share your pain. We are all fallen and need the community support and raising-up that comes from the family of God.
May we not allow ourselves to become so distracted and impassioned by the gay-lesbian issues and over many other issues over which we have little control that we become blinded in our rage to the need for our own renewed commitment to establishing healthier Christian marriages and family life, and for our own need to be aware of our owns sins and separations from God. God created us to be his family and not to allow ourselves to become separated from what God joined together. We are all apart of God’s community and we are not called to feuding and bloodshed and all that that implies. We are called upon in our place in life to participate in the family of God with all of its intricacies and complexities to the best of our abilities with God’s help.
SEASON: 20 PENTECOST
PROPER: 22B
PLACE: ST. JOHN’S PARISH
DATE: OCT. 2, 1997
TEXT: Mark 10:2-9 - Jesus speaks on Divorce and Marriage - “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
ISSUE: Marriages in Jesus time were arranged. They brought together whole families. To divorce created a situation of shame that often led to feuding and bloodshed. Yet Mosaic law permitted it. Jesus refers to a more basic appreciation that God calls men and women to be joined in lasting faithfulness. He recalls the time before the fall, how unity of love was meant to be. It is this principle that Jesus recalls for us and upon which we are to base our relationships, as opposed to man made rules. We need to reclaim God’s way of being faithful and committed in our relationships.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Considerable time and energy has been given to the discussion of human sexuality by both the Diocesan and National Conventions of the Episcopal Church over the past several years. The main issue seems to center around whether or not gay and lesbian sexuality is to be considered appropriate moral behavior for Christians. Additional discussion centers around whether or not the church should provide some kind of liturgical service for the blessing of homosexual unions, and whether or not practicing homosexuals may be ordained. Within the church there are passionate feelings from all sides. And sometimes the emotional heat of the debate seems to threaten the very life of the church itself. I am hopeful, and I earnestly pray, that God’s Holy Spirit coupled with good sense and reason will lead the church to discern what is the best for all concerned. May we live together in unity and carry on the debate in respect and love.
What’s really terrifying us?
There is another issue that I think is just as important that is not getting the attention, discussion, and energy that it deserves. And sometimes I wonder if all the commotion over the homosexual issues may not be a cover-up and a distraction from the issue that is really terrifying us, failing heterosexual marriages and dysfunctional families. Sometimes when people are not able to deal comfortably with problems at home, it is easier and more comfortable to solve someone else’s problems and pass judgments that really have little or no relevance to their own lives. I would venture to say that for most parishes, like our own, failing marriages is truly alarming. The support of Christian marriage and family life is desperately needed.
Families today seem to be under enormous pressure. Both parents feel they must work to meet financial needs. They assume the pressure of having to provide the very best for their children from education to the social - athletic programs. At the same time, the rank individualism of our time makes its demand. Each of us is expected to be true to ourselves becoming outstanding in career and talents. We are to pursue what is meaningful for our personal development. What’s the popular expression?. . . “We have to find ourselves.” Building a healthy spiritual family life and working together for the glory of God are not exactly the top priorities of our time. Extreme pressures may give way to the need for relief. That relief for many people today is often found in recreational drugs, acting-out through inappropriate behavior, and especially alcohol abuse. Drinking is more destructive than most are willing to admit. It is an insidious plague in our culture and in many families it is kept well hidden. In quiet suffering, the family is being destroyed without seeking help. People struggle to keep up appearances, be ambitious, desperately try to be constantly achieving, and keep up with affluent demands. These pressures and expectations are heavy burdens to bear for any two people trying to raise a family and keep a marriage together. We are under the self-imposed pressure of very high expectations. We expect too much of ourselves and of our spouses. We expect ourselves to be like the glamorous gods of popular magazines and the culture. We forget that what is in the culture and in magazines is often contrived material beyond the capability of people living day to day.
To say that families are under a lot of pressure is at best a kind of psychological explanation for why so many families are troubled. The complexities are enormous and there is hardly just one reason why marriages fail. From a theological point of view we are all sinners. God calls upon us to be obedient, faithful, loyal, and trusting. We are inclined to be disobedient, unfaithful, non-committal, and trust only in our own failing fragile nature. We are enchanted by the ways and demands of the world, but they court disaster. Yet Christ came among us to call us back. Through him we are made well aware of our fallen nature and at the same time are called to a renewing embrace of God’s values. We are taught to love, serve, forgive, and be patient with one another. We are reminded that what counts is not what we possess materially, but what kind of loving faithful people we are. Jesus’ life and ministry modeled the importance of community, a group of men and women working together to open the gates to the kingdom of love. He called them into humble servanthood. Even when they failed they were not beyond his loving grace. Sacramentally, marriage is to be the sign of God’s love for his creation. Reclaiming the genuine need for and centrality of God in our family lives is essential.
In Jesus’ time the Pharisees came to him questioning him about whether or not it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Keep in mind the Pharisees were usually up to no-good when they questioned Jesus. They tried to trap him into a situation of losing his honor and place among the people. The question of divorce was a hot political issue as well. King Herod Antipas was divorced and remarried to his brother’s wife. John the Baptist had criticized the relationship and was beheaded. The law of Moses permitted divorce, Dt. 24:1. Possibly Jesus would dishonor himself through rejecting Mosaic Law, or create a political problem with Herod. The question was a tricky one.
It is also important to understand that while divorce in Jesus’ time was permissible, it also could have significant consequences. Marriages, unlike ours, were arranged marriages. They were an arrangement made for the good of the whole family and community. As a child you did not pick your parents. You didn’t get to pick you children. They were a gift from God. Why would you think that you would pick your wife. Marriage arrangements were for the good of the community. Divorce dishonored your wife’s father and brothers. People who were shamed would try to reclaim their honor. Thus, divorce in Jesus’ time often led to feuding and bloodshed. Thus, Jesus says, because you people are hardhearted, not teachable, so hard to get through to, that Moses allowed this rule. But let’s go back to the very beginning. God created man and woman to be one with one another, to be mutual help-mates. God joined them, and what God wills is what is important. What God joins, let us not separate. Jesus is going back to the garden before the fall. He reminds and gives a renewed image of what human life is to be. Unity with one another. Working together, being committed to one another was the original norm. It is when we reclaim what God wants that there is unity and peace in the community. Make no mistake, Jesus was attempting to rebuild the the new Kingdom of God founded upon God’s will and love. God is central. What God joins together, man must not separate.
Fact of the matter is that we are all separated frequently from what it is that God wants, and that is sin. Husbands and wives separate. Children separate from parents and vice versa. The behavior of some men today who separate themselves from their children and wives, and who refuse to pay child support and condouct themselves honorably as husbands and fathers is really unconscionable. Many people separate themselves from serving the good of the community to an inordinate concern for their own personal selfish needs. We desperately need healing and hope. Jesus’s turning the minds of the pharisees all the way back to the story of Genesis is turning their thoughts back to God himself. Before our own needs to be so self-centered we need to ask is what we are doing of God, or in separation from godliness.
.Creating a supportive community with God’s help.
As a parish community, I hope that we will listen to one another, support one another, share our common concerns, our successes and our failures with one another. May we pray and worship together seeking God’s help in strengthening family life and marriage. As spouses, I hope we will renew those commitments we made on our wedding day and vow to uphold them with God’s help. Next time you have the Prayer Book in hand review the Marriage Service, p. 423. As divorced persons we remember that God is forgiving and can make all things new raising up that which is fallen. Any parish church worth its salt will welcome you, love you, and share your pain. We are all fallen and need the community support and raising-up that comes from the family of God.
May we not allow ourselves to become so distracted and impassioned by the gay-lesbian issues and over many other issues over which we have little control that we become blinded in our rage to the need for our own renewed commitment to establishing healthier Christian marriages and family life, and for our own need to be aware of our owns sins and separations from God. God created us to be his family and not to allow ourselves to become separated from what God joined together. We are all apart of God’s community and we are not called to feuding and bloodshed and all that that implies. We are called upon in our place in life to participate in the family of God with all of its intricacies and complexities to the best of our abilities with God’s help.
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