May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 2
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: June 25, 2000
TEXT: Mark 4:35-5:20 - The Calming of the Storm &
The Healing of the Demoniac
He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?
ISSUE: - The passage from Mark addresses the demonic violence of the world, and the power of God in Christ to bring a unique peace and sanity. He brings a new creation. In the story people fear the violence, and at the same time seem to fear the Christ who brings peace. The power of God working in the world is awesome, but the one who has most assuredly experienced the healing becomes the missionary of hope for the world.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Gospel reading for today speaks of violence and rage. In the storm there is the external raging of the sea in nature, and in the demoniac there is an internal raging of the human spirit that is possessed by a significant evil. What’s more coupled with the violent rage of these incidents is the profound expression of human fear. There is both fear of the rage and violence as well as fear of the healing.
After doing some teaching in parables about the Kingdom of God, Jesus takes a boat across the Sea of Galilee with his disciples. They are leaving Jewish territory, and crossing over to Gentile territory, the Decapolis, or Ten Cities. The Sea of Galilee was well known for its sudden very violent storms caused by the surrounding terrain of mountains and wind drafts. It was a common belief as well that demonic forces lived in the seas. While Jesus and the disciples are at sea, a violent (demonic) storms occurs. Even though it was not appropriate for men to show or express fear, they succumb to fear because of the violence of the storm. Fearing that the boat will be swamped, they awaken Jesus who is asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat. It’s a really curious picture. Here’s this raging storm that is terrify these seasoned fishermen, and Jesus is snoring. They admonish him for not caring that they are all about to drown. But Jesus saves the day. Addressing the raging storm, he says, “Peace! Be still!” And there is a dead calm. Then, Jesus admonishes his disciples, for they should be ashamed, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” The disciples are amazed, implying now some fear at the power of Jesus.
Jesus and the disciples then safely reach the distant shore. It is an area of limestone caves which were used for burial vaults. Living among these tombs is the man possessed by many evil spirits. Here’s a man whose existence is as tormented with violence and rage. The Bible describes the man as demon possessed. We might say today that he was crazy, or manic depressive, or schizophrenic. But make no mistake that the man lives among the dead, he is howling and violent, cutting and bruising himself in his fits of rage. He knows great torment. He breaks his chains. Here is a torment raging crazy man.
Jesus approaches the man to effect a healing, who has bowed himself down before Jesus. Both the man and the demons recognize Jesus as the Most High God. Jesus demands the exorcism, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” “What is your name?” Jesus asks. It was believed at the time that you could control what you could name. The demons have tried unsuccessfully to control Jesus, the Most High God. The man says, “My name is Legion.” This name implies that the man is possessed by many unclean spirits. It is also very likely that this is Mark’s political swipe at the Romans who were seen as an evil lot who had come in Legions to conquer Israel, and who had destroyed the Jerusalem Temple.
In any event, Jesus, casts know the name, has the power to cast out the legion of demons. The demons enter the gentile herd of swine, unclean and impure animals who plunge themselves into the sea where evil spirits belong. The people witnessing this strange event are amazed at what Jesus has done. But they are also afraid of Jesus’ power. It’s just awesome. What might that power mean to them. If it has such power for good, might it not also have other powerful implications for their lives that would be dramatically changing in a world that didn’t change much.
The story then concludes with the demoniac wanting to follow Jesus. Jesus rejects the idea that the restored man follow him personally, but that he go back to the Decapolis, the Ten Gentile Towns, and proclaim “how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has show you.” And, he did so. Here is a strong indication that the ministry of Jesus was beginning to be expanded into Gentile territories.
Now what does all of this mean for us? Obviously the story expresses a much of the folklore of the period. We’re not very comfortable with the idea of demons. All of that seems somewhat unsophisticated for an age of reason and science. But what does seem to come through is that Mark and the early church saw in Jesus a hope unlike anything else the world had been able to give. In the beginning in the creation there was chaos. The Spirit of God brooding over the chaos brought forth new life. The disciples terrified in this awful storm, see though the work and presence of Jesus an uncanny calm and restoration from the violence of the sea. Jesus is saving his disciples in the storm, in much the same way that the righteous Noah was saved by the building of the Ark. Just as Moses had led his people across the Red Sea, Jesus brings his disciples to a safe shore. The stories are fulfillment stories as well, indicating how Jesus Christ can calm the wind and wave as God does in Psalm 107:29f, “He stilled the storm to a whisper and quieted the waves of the sea. Then were they glad because of the calm, and he brought them to the harbor they were bound for.” It’s an incarnational story, God has come in Jesus Christ to live with and to save his people from the powers and demonic forces of destruction. God has come to bring about a sanity and Word of Peace and Healing to a bruised, crazy harmful world.
What so vividly describes our own world in our own time is the violence and the craziness of the world. We may not want to think of the world as possessed by demons with pitch-forks, long tails, and horns, but neither can we escape the fact that there is evil spiritedness that possesses all of us at one time or another. It is sometimes a terrifying and frighening world though like the disciples we may not want to own up to that.
We live in a culture that has sometimes be referred to as the culture of death, and at the very least a culture of violence. We are enchanted by murder mysteries and a host of TV shows and movies in which people are killed off right and left. We heard just recently on the news how women in Central Park were physically and sexually abused be roaming bands of men. The Lakers won the championship in Los Angeles which sent people in the crowds out to burn, loot, and destroy public property. We’ve seen mob violence over recent years at many athletic events in the name of celebration. Doesn’t that seem to be a little crazy? We are only recently having to take a good hard look again at the death penalty, which by in large is racist and often a perversion of justice. There may be some reasonable and good scientific reasons for abortion, but abortion as simply a convenient form of birth control is a form of out right violence. It is a violent act. People often react violently in the cars, creating a new form of violence we refer to as Road Rage.
The human condition is often out of control. We are a bruised and beaten lot of people. We afflict ourselves with narcotics and drugs. Children are abused. Spousal abuse is common. We spend millions and millions of tax dollars on weapons and systems of destruction, in contrast to negotiations for peace and for health care. Terrorism has become to new war of the modern age with its poison gasses and biological weaponry. Violence is met with violence and breeds more violence. As scientific and as logical as we might think the modern world is and should be, we are still confronted with, and live in a world where rage, violence, and craziness prevails. The world is and can be a very fearful.
Mark’s gospel account of the Calming of the Storm and the Healing of the Demoniac, tells of people turning to Jesus Christ. Turning to Christ seeking and imploring peace brings about a great healing calm. The Demoniac is commissioned to go and tell how God in Christ had given him peace and healing. He is not to cling to Jesus and become a part of the institutionalization of Jesus, but to proclaim him. It was the faith of the early church that Christ Jesus brought a a calm, a peace, a new way of life, a new creation, and a new hope. But often even in the face of that new hope, the people were still afraid. Sometimes it seemed somehow less frightening to live in a violent raging world, than to change, to accept and to become immersed into a new power that was of God. Where would it lead? Would it forever stand against the forces, powers and potentates of this world? And Jesus stood before his amazed and terrified disciples and said to them, “Why are you afraid, Have you still no faith?”
Sunday, June 25, 2000
Sunday, June 18, 2000
Trinity Sunday
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Trinity Sunday
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: June 18,2000
TEXT: John 3:1-16 - Jesus answered him (Nicodemus), “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
ISSUE: - This is a passage of struggle for Nicodemus. He has a hard time grasping what Jesus is saying to him. The issue is that a person must be born from above, from the top. A person must be immersed into the spirit of God to be a part of the Kingdom or Family of God. Jesus comes to lead those who will follow him to the Father, to their rightful honorable heritage. All of us and especially fathers on this Father’s Day need to receive Christ and immerse our children into God’s Kingdom and way of love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This gospel passage expresses something of struggle. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, and is told that he must be born from above, or better still from the top. Nicodemus has a hard time understanding just exactly what this means. He becomes argumentative, “How can anyone be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb?” The passage expresses the difficult time that some people had in accepting the message, way, and teachings of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, the passage still expresses the difficult time that people even have today of understanding the meaning and purpose of the ministry of Jesus Christ in this present age.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He seems to really want to understand Jesus and his teaching. The fact that Nicodemus comes at night is first indicative of his being in the darkness, searching for the light that comes from Christ. It is also possibly indicative and symbolic of his search for heavenly things. In the day time we are concerned with the earth, but at night and only at night do we see into the depths of the universe, we see into the stars, and into the wonders of God. Here is a passage which tells of a searching man who comes to the presence of Jesus Christ.
Jesus responds to Nicodemus with a common theme. Jesus invites Nicodemus to step into the Kingdom of God. The way into the Kingdom, or realm, or Kingdom of Heaven is to be born again, which means to be born from above, or “from the top.” There is a very obvious image of baptism. You must born of water and spirit. A person must be immersed, and allow themselves to be immersed into the Kingdom of God. You have to allow yourself to immersed into the presence and spirit of God to become a new person separated from the worldliness.
The work and ways of Jesus throughout his ministry was to show people the way to the Father, the way to God. A very large number of his parable were all Kingdom Parables. He would tell what the Kingdom of God was like. In some instances it is a place of great abundance of love and forgiveness as in the Parable of the Loving Father, or Prodigal Son. It is a place that lets in and is open to the last, the least, and the lost, as in the Parables of the Wedding Feasts. The realm of God is not a place of reward and punishment, but of magnanimous grace as in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. God’s Kingdom is there for all who will allow themselves to be transformed, and who trust in God’s bountiful love and mercy.
The miracles of Jesus were mostly occasions calling for and came out of occasions of faithfulness, trust loyalty. Out of trust and loyalty came hope, peace, calm, renewal, healing, restoration in the Kingdom of God.
For the early Christian Community Jesus was Son of God, who came down from Heaven to show and reveal the great love so freely given to his creation. You see, that Kingdom or realm had become quite lost and clouded by systems of reward and punishment, by competition, by cruelty, hatred, domineering and often corrupt governments. The large portion of the poor, the orphaned, the widows, the peasantry, the blind, lame, deaf, and diseased had become seen as those unworthy of God and had no honor in the world.
Into that frame of reference, Jesus comes speaking of being born from above, born from the top. Embracing Jesus Christ meant becoming immersed into the love and Spirit of God the Father. He came to lead the lost and all the dispossessed into the Kingdom of God, into the Family of God, whereby they gained a new honor by virtue of their being the children of God. The are returned to “Abba! Father!” “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God,” is the way St. Paul so aptly states it. For many people, for Nicodemus, it was hard to accept that a person could be born from above, from the top, that a person and a world could be transformed and changed. But the gospel message, the point of John’s Gospel account, and of this passage is that you can turn to God the Father through the Son, Jesus, the Christ, and be in the renewing energizing Spirit of God.
Today, here in this parish, we are baptizing two children. They are being immersed into the way of Jesus Christ. They are being immersed and born again, born from above, from the top, to be children of God, friends of Jesus Christ and partners in his ministry They are entering into the Kingdom of God with all its love, grace, forgiveness, and hope. In the same way that Christ came to show the way, we who are in Christ, Christians, faithful to Christ will train these children in the ways of the new citizenship in the Kingdom or Realm of God. Just as Christ led Nicodemus and all the other disciples in followers to God the Father, we lead our children to Christ and keep them immersed in the awareness of the Spirit of God, and of their honorable place as children of God.
Today is also, coincidentally, Father’s Day. It is a time that we become somewhat sentimental and nostalgic about our fathers. It is actually, I think, quite profound that we also call God our Father, as well as the man who significant in each of our own births. Being, then, a father, is not to be taken lightly. Each of us as fathers represent the Divine to our children. What they see in us as Fathers may well influence how they think and understand the Fatherhood of God. Thus, how we men live our lives is extraordinarily important, especially when we are raising children or have some relationship with children. It is important that as Christ led all people to the God the Father, that we also with Christ lead our children to the understanding of God the Father as the Father of us all who extends bountiful grace, love, and forgiveness.
The world we live in today is a violent and cruel world. There are many corrupting influences on our children, from the availability of pornography and unscrupulous predators on the internet to the drug dealers on the corner. Teaching our children that they have to be tough and good is not just enough. We have to show them devotion, profound love and forgiveness. We have to create safe, warm, cordial, happy homes as best we can. We ourselves have to know the way of Christ. We ourselves have to be immersed in his love. We ourselves must be dependent upon the grace that sustains us. We ourselves must show our children what it’s like, and what it means to be in the larger and greater Family of God.
Nicodemus came to Jesus in the night. Perhaps, it symbolizes his being in the dark in search of enlightenment. Perhaps, it is symbolic of his search for the deeper meaning of the universe. Whatever it was we cannot miss the point that he came to Jesus Christ to find his way. Understanding the mysteries that Christ reveals did not come especially easy for him. So involved in the world, it is hard to be born again, to know seek what is above, to be born from the top, from God. It’s hard for all of us to appreciate our need at time to be born from above, to be transformed and renewed. Yet Christ looms bright and tall. He is lifted up on a cross before us to reveal the quality of just how God loves the creation. Jesus Christ is the way to the Father. They are in relationship of love: Father, Son, and Spirit. The invitation is extended to all who will come to God and be a part of the Family of God. We are called to come closer and to stand on holy ground; bring the children too.
SEASON: Trinity Sunday
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: June 18,2000
TEXT: John 3:1-16 - Jesus answered him (Nicodemus), “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
ISSUE: - This is a passage of struggle for Nicodemus. He has a hard time grasping what Jesus is saying to him. The issue is that a person must be born from above, from the top. A person must be immersed into the spirit of God to be a part of the Kingdom or Family of God. Jesus comes to lead those who will follow him to the Father, to their rightful honorable heritage. All of us and especially fathers on this Father’s Day need to receive Christ and immerse our children into God’s Kingdom and way of love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This gospel passage expresses something of struggle. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, and is told that he must be born from above, or better still from the top. Nicodemus has a hard time understanding just exactly what this means. He becomes argumentative, “How can anyone be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb?” The passage expresses the difficult time that some people had in accepting the message, way, and teachings of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, the passage still expresses the difficult time that people even have today of understanding the meaning and purpose of the ministry of Jesus Christ in this present age.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He seems to really want to understand Jesus and his teaching. The fact that Nicodemus comes at night is first indicative of his being in the darkness, searching for the light that comes from Christ. It is also possibly indicative and symbolic of his search for heavenly things. In the day time we are concerned with the earth, but at night and only at night do we see into the depths of the universe, we see into the stars, and into the wonders of God. Here is a passage which tells of a searching man who comes to the presence of Jesus Christ.
Jesus responds to Nicodemus with a common theme. Jesus invites Nicodemus to step into the Kingdom of God. The way into the Kingdom, or realm, or Kingdom of Heaven is to be born again, which means to be born from above, or “from the top.” There is a very obvious image of baptism. You must born of water and spirit. A person must be immersed, and allow themselves to be immersed into the Kingdom of God. You have to allow yourself to immersed into the presence and spirit of God to become a new person separated from the worldliness.
The work and ways of Jesus throughout his ministry was to show people the way to the Father, the way to God. A very large number of his parable were all Kingdom Parables. He would tell what the Kingdom of God was like. In some instances it is a place of great abundance of love and forgiveness as in the Parable of the Loving Father, or Prodigal Son. It is a place that lets in and is open to the last, the least, and the lost, as in the Parables of the Wedding Feasts. The realm of God is not a place of reward and punishment, but of magnanimous grace as in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. God’s Kingdom is there for all who will allow themselves to be transformed, and who trust in God’s bountiful love and mercy.
The miracles of Jesus were mostly occasions calling for and came out of occasions of faithfulness, trust loyalty. Out of trust and loyalty came hope, peace, calm, renewal, healing, restoration in the Kingdom of God.
For the early Christian Community Jesus was Son of God, who came down from Heaven to show and reveal the great love so freely given to his creation. You see, that Kingdom or realm had become quite lost and clouded by systems of reward and punishment, by competition, by cruelty, hatred, domineering and often corrupt governments. The large portion of the poor, the orphaned, the widows, the peasantry, the blind, lame, deaf, and diseased had become seen as those unworthy of God and had no honor in the world.
Into that frame of reference, Jesus comes speaking of being born from above, born from the top. Embracing Jesus Christ meant becoming immersed into the love and Spirit of God the Father. He came to lead the lost and all the dispossessed into the Kingdom of God, into the Family of God, whereby they gained a new honor by virtue of their being the children of God. The are returned to “Abba! Father!” “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God,” is the way St. Paul so aptly states it. For many people, for Nicodemus, it was hard to accept that a person could be born from above, from the top, that a person and a world could be transformed and changed. But the gospel message, the point of John’s Gospel account, and of this passage is that you can turn to God the Father through the Son, Jesus, the Christ, and be in the renewing energizing Spirit of God.
Today, here in this parish, we are baptizing two children. They are being immersed into the way of Jesus Christ. They are being immersed and born again, born from above, from the top, to be children of God, friends of Jesus Christ and partners in his ministry They are entering into the Kingdom of God with all its love, grace, forgiveness, and hope. In the same way that Christ came to show the way, we who are in Christ, Christians, faithful to Christ will train these children in the ways of the new citizenship in the Kingdom or Realm of God. Just as Christ led Nicodemus and all the other disciples in followers to God the Father, we lead our children to Christ and keep them immersed in the awareness of the Spirit of God, and of their honorable place as children of God.
Today is also, coincidentally, Father’s Day. It is a time that we become somewhat sentimental and nostalgic about our fathers. It is actually, I think, quite profound that we also call God our Father, as well as the man who significant in each of our own births. Being, then, a father, is not to be taken lightly. Each of us as fathers represent the Divine to our children. What they see in us as Fathers may well influence how they think and understand the Fatherhood of God. Thus, how we men live our lives is extraordinarily important, especially when we are raising children or have some relationship with children. It is important that as Christ led all people to the God the Father, that we also with Christ lead our children to the understanding of God the Father as the Father of us all who extends bountiful grace, love, and forgiveness.
The world we live in today is a violent and cruel world. There are many corrupting influences on our children, from the availability of pornography and unscrupulous predators on the internet to the drug dealers on the corner. Teaching our children that they have to be tough and good is not just enough. We have to show them devotion, profound love and forgiveness. We have to create safe, warm, cordial, happy homes as best we can. We ourselves have to know the way of Christ. We ourselves have to be immersed in his love. We ourselves must be dependent upon the grace that sustains us. We ourselves must show our children what it’s like, and what it means to be in the larger and greater Family of God.
Nicodemus came to Jesus in the night. Perhaps, it symbolizes his being in the dark in search of enlightenment. Perhaps, it is symbolic of his search for the deeper meaning of the universe. Whatever it was we cannot miss the point that he came to Jesus Christ to find his way. Understanding the mysteries that Christ reveals did not come especially easy for him. So involved in the world, it is hard to be born again, to know seek what is above, to be born from the top, from God. It’s hard for all of us to appreciate our need at time to be born from above, to be transformed and renewed. Yet Christ looms bright and tall. He is lifted up on a cross before us to reveal the quality of just how God loves the creation. Jesus Christ is the way to the Father. They are in relationship of love: Father, Son, and Spirit. The invitation is extended to all who will come to God and be a part of the Family of God. We are called to come closer and to stand on holy ground; bring the children too.
Sunday, June 4, 2000
Easter 7
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Easter 7
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: June 4, 2000
TEXT: John 17:11b-19 - The High Priestly Prayer
“I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. . . . . As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
ISSUE: - The High Priestly Prayer of the Johannine Jesus is similar in content to the Good Shepherd image. It states a prayerful concern for the protection and guarding of the community. The community living in a brutal and hostile world needs that protection. But the protection is not isolationism, it is a protection for a community sent to the world to be a witness with Christ to the God of love and justice.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Many of us have been witnesses in recent years to some very strange, if not painful and demeaning, experiences so far as the Christian faith is concerned. You will remember the terrible incident in Guianna, where a small Christian sect led by The Rev. Jim Jones were either murdered or committed suicide out of fear of the evil world. The Heaven’s Gate Community (?) was another one of those sort of new age quasi-Christian sects that led its membership into a suicide ritual supposedly leading them to the heavens. The tragedy of the Waco incident under the leadership of David Koresh was another one of those terrible unfortunate and seemingly unnecessary events that led adults and children to untimely deaths as a result of a fiery inferno.
While some of those events seem extreme, and the results of what we might call religious fanatics, there are still many other Christians today among us who have some kind of a vision of Heaven, or Kingdom of God, as some wonderful ethereal place where we go when we die, that is so much better than this place we call earth. It has occurred to me that if God’s Heaven is so great, then why don’t we escape? Unless, however, we believe that we sort of have to be punished, and do time here on earth first, before we are somehow worthy of God’s Kingdom. Sounds a little like doing time in prison before parole.
I am convinced that while we might presume to know a lot in this technological scientific world we live in, there are still many mysteries, and many things that we don’t yet know or understand, especially when it comes to knowledge of and magnanimous workings of God. We live in an information age, and surely we are all caused to stand in wonder of the knowledge and discoveries of this age. They are astounding. As we stand in wonder of it all, we can only clutch at glimpses of some meanings that we can attempt to understand and build on them as we enter into the process of revelation and new discoveries.
The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus is, I think, one of those glimpses into the meaning of our lives, and our place here in this world. This section this morning from John’s Gospel account is a revelation of what John believed Jesus would have prayed before his demise on the cross. It is a glimpse of what Jesus might have prayed in a world that was a hostile, corrupt, and oppressive world. The early disciples and Christians experienced that kind of world. But the prayer of Jesus is much like the Good Shepherd imagery. Jesus prays for the protection of his disciples. He prays that God the Father will guard them, and that they will be united, and stay “attached,” which is what it meant to be in love. Just as Jesus stayed attached to the Father may they be guarded and protected and supportive of one another.
Jesus seems to have, at least John knew when he was writing, that Jesus’ time was limited. His crucifixion and death was imminent. But as the prayer continues, it is not that the early Christian Community should be removed from the world, but that they should be protected from evil, the evil one, and sanctified, made holy. Again, like that episode at Easter where Jesus appears to his disciples and breathes on them, the community is reminded that as Christ was sent to the world, so this community is sent to the world. They are not eliminated from the world. They are different from the world, but called to live in it, and sent to it, as Christ was sent to the world.
This prayer, it seems to me is a far cry from a common prevailing belief that dying and going to heaven is the be all and end all of life. What’s more the community is not seen as a community of the elite separated from the world but sent to the world. Jesus was sent to the world, not to be an elite holy figure placed on a pedestal, but uniquely involved with the world. Jesus was indeed the sign that God loved the world in such a way, was so attached to the world, that God in this wonderful and mysterious way will die for the world and in the world. And the community of John is the extension of that grace and love for the world. What that community needs is protection and guarding by the Father, and a prevailing truth, spirituality, spirit to keep the community on track in the world.
I kind of think to myself, in putting this sermon together. What is my prayer be for my children when I’m gone. Surely some of you have thought about this kind of thing. When you’re gone, what do you hope for the kids. You might think that it’ll be nice to meet again in heaven someday, but more than likely we’d like to pray and think that they’ll be safe from harm and guarded by God. You might like to think that they’ll carry on, the family name, the family business. You might hope that they’ll have a good meaningful life. Is that not something of the High Priestly prayer that we might have for our own. This hope is a bit limited in that we think of those closest to us. Jesus on the other hand had a much broader scope in mind: the family for him was the family of God. The family of God does not become a part of the corruption of the world, but the extension of the way of God in a world that has lost its direction, meaning, and purpose.
Sometimes we have to take a hard look at ourselves as the church community and ask ourselves whether or not we are living into the prayer, the hope, the expectations, the yearning of Jesus Christ? Are we open to the truth, the Spirit of God, the spiritedness of God, the way of God, and God’s yearning concern for a world of love and justice?
To answer this we may have to ask how the world sometimes perceives the church? How do we ourselves perceive what we do as a Christian Community sent to the world? I’m not sure that’s really easy to answer. So often the perceptions of the present day church is a community of folk whose primary task is social gatherings and a kind of ardent holding on to values of being good and nice. We picnic. We have pleasant Hospitality or Coffee Hours. We have Bell Choir. A minimal number of us gather for Bible Study. We put pleasantries, or platitudes, on our church sign that you see on every other church sign in the country. The organization becomes clubby, elite, nice, cozy, warm and fuzzy, but somehow a far cry from being sent to and for the world.
Jesus obviously saw the world for what it was. It was a scary frightening, brutal, and vicious place. More often than not, politically, and religiously it was corrupt and cruel. But it was still God’s world to be love in such a way to die for it. You found Jesus and his early disciples in many uncomfortable places: among the sick and the dying, among the oppressed, among the disenfranchised poor widow, orphans, blind, lame, and deaf. He loved and prayed and raised all that world up to the light, and tried to offer it to God in a prayerful yearning way.
We have to constantly struggle with this issue. How do we see ourselves as the community of Christ? Are we isolated and elite, treating ourselves to the good life? Are we really, really, sacrificial when it comes down to who we are? We look at the late Mother Theresa with great admiration. Yet we often see the church of today taking great flight from the cities, and isolating itself from the neediness of the larger community, from the squalid places, the filthy slums. Maybe it’s because we see so much on the news that we retreat from the world, but Jesus didn’t pray for respite and retreat, even when Judas failed him, it was time to plunge ahead. When the church takes a stand as on gun control, and someone says “I’ll leave the church,” we have a tendency to go into a retreat mode without continuing to wrestle with our consciences and with what is right in the long run for the greater good of the whole community.
Clergy spend a lot of their time and energies in the ministry asking people to do things. Sometimes it seems the unending yearning and hymn of the parish priest or minister. Please help with this thing or that thing in the church. I wonder if it isn’t hard to get people involved because the church is so damn boring and piously sickeningly nice.
Let me ask you? And myself? Do you want to go to heaven and push the clouds around, and sit in the shadows of the pearly gates? Or would you rather be here in this world wrestling with the meaning of life, and seeking to discover purposeful living? Granted there are all times when the pushing the clouds around sounds like a real relief. But honestly, now. What would you really rather? The world isn’t easy, and there’s much that’s wrong and vicious, and corrupt. But Jesus prayed to the Father: Don’t take them out of the world, don’t let them be corrupted by it, but don’t take them out of it, “as you have sent me to the world, so I have sent them into the world.
SEASON: Easter 7
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: June 4, 2000
TEXT: John 17:11b-19 - The High Priestly Prayer
“I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. . . . . As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
ISSUE: - The High Priestly Prayer of the Johannine Jesus is similar in content to the Good Shepherd image. It states a prayerful concern for the protection and guarding of the community. The community living in a brutal and hostile world needs that protection. But the protection is not isolationism, it is a protection for a community sent to the world to be a witness with Christ to the God of love and justice.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Many of us have been witnesses in recent years to some very strange, if not painful and demeaning, experiences so far as the Christian faith is concerned. You will remember the terrible incident in Guianna, where a small Christian sect led by The Rev. Jim Jones were either murdered or committed suicide out of fear of the evil world. The Heaven’s Gate Community (?) was another one of those sort of new age quasi-Christian sects that led its membership into a suicide ritual supposedly leading them to the heavens. The tragedy of the Waco incident under the leadership of David Koresh was another one of those terrible unfortunate and seemingly unnecessary events that led adults and children to untimely deaths as a result of a fiery inferno.
While some of those events seem extreme, and the results of what we might call religious fanatics, there are still many other Christians today among us who have some kind of a vision of Heaven, or Kingdom of God, as some wonderful ethereal place where we go when we die, that is so much better than this place we call earth. It has occurred to me that if God’s Heaven is so great, then why don’t we escape? Unless, however, we believe that we sort of have to be punished, and do time here on earth first, before we are somehow worthy of God’s Kingdom. Sounds a little like doing time in prison before parole.
I am convinced that while we might presume to know a lot in this technological scientific world we live in, there are still many mysteries, and many things that we don’t yet know or understand, especially when it comes to knowledge of and magnanimous workings of God. We live in an information age, and surely we are all caused to stand in wonder of the knowledge and discoveries of this age. They are astounding. As we stand in wonder of it all, we can only clutch at glimpses of some meanings that we can attempt to understand and build on them as we enter into the process of revelation and new discoveries.
The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus is, I think, one of those glimpses into the meaning of our lives, and our place here in this world. This section this morning from John’s Gospel account is a revelation of what John believed Jesus would have prayed before his demise on the cross. It is a glimpse of what Jesus might have prayed in a world that was a hostile, corrupt, and oppressive world. The early disciples and Christians experienced that kind of world. But the prayer of Jesus is much like the Good Shepherd imagery. Jesus prays for the protection of his disciples. He prays that God the Father will guard them, and that they will be united, and stay “attached,” which is what it meant to be in love. Just as Jesus stayed attached to the Father may they be guarded and protected and supportive of one another.
Jesus seems to have, at least John knew when he was writing, that Jesus’ time was limited. His crucifixion and death was imminent. But as the prayer continues, it is not that the early Christian Community should be removed from the world, but that they should be protected from evil, the evil one, and sanctified, made holy. Again, like that episode at Easter where Jesus appears to his disciples and breathes on them, the community is reminded that as Christ was sent to the world, so this community is sent to the world. They are not eliminated from the world. They are different from the world, but called to live in it, and sent to it, as Christ was sent to the world.
This prayer, it seems to me is a far cry from a common prevailing belief that dying and going to heaven is the be all and end all of life. What’s more the community is not seen as a community of the elite separated from the world but sent to the world. Jesus was sent to the world, not to be an elite holy figure placed on a pedestal, but uniquely involved with the world. Jesus was indeed the sign that God loved the world in such a way, was so attached to the world, that God in this wonderful and mysterious way will die for the world and in the world. And the community of John is the extension of that grace and love for the world. What that community needs is protection and guarding by the Father, and a prevailing truth, spirituality, spirit to keep the community on track in the world.
I kind of think to myself, in putting this sermon together. What is my prayer be for my children when I’m gone. Surely some of you have thought about this kind of thing. When you’re gone, what do you hope for the kids. You might think that it’ll be nice to meet again in heaven someday, but more than likely we’d like to pray and think that they’ll be safe from harm and guarded by God. You might like to think that they’ll carry on, the family name, the family business. You might hope that they’ll have a good meaningful life. Is that not something of the High Priestly prayer that we might have for our own. This hope is a bit limited in that we think of those closest to us. Jesus on the other hand had a much broader scope in mind: the family for him was the family of God. The family of God does not become a part of the corruption of the world, but the extension of the way of God in a world that has lost its direction, meaning, and purpose.
Sometimes we have to take a hard look at ourselves as the church community and ask ourselves whether or not we are living into the prayer, the hope, the expectations, the yearning of Jesus Christ? Are we open to the truth, the Spirit of God, the spiritedness of God, the way of God, and God’s yearning concern for a world of love and justice?
To answer this we may have to ask how the world sometimes perceives the church? How do we ourselves perceive what we do as a Christian Community sent to the world? I’m not sure that’s really easy to answer. So often the perceptions of the present day church is a community of folk whose primary task is social gatherings and a kind of ardent holding on to values of being good and nice. We picnic. We have pleasant Hospitality or Coffee Hours. We have Bell Choir. A minimal number of us gather for Bible Study. We put pleasantries, or platitudes, on our church sign that you see on every other church sign in the country. The organization becomes clubby, elite, nice, cozy, warm and fuzzy, but somehow a far cry from being sent to and for the world.
Jesus obviously saw the world for what it was. It was a scary frightening, brutal, and vicious place. More often than not, politically, and religiously it was corrupt and cruel. But it was still God’s world to be love in such a way to die for it. You found Jesus and his early disciples in many uncomfortable places: among the sick and the dying, among the oppressed, among the disenfranchised poor widow, orphans, blind, lame, and deaf. He loved and prayed and raised all that world up to the light, and tried to offer it to God in a prayerful yearning way.
We have to constantly struggle with this issue. How do we see ourselves as the community of Christ? Are we isolated and elite, treating ourselves to the good life? Are we really, really, sacrificial when it comes down to who we are? We look at the late Mother Theresa with great admiration. Yet we often see the church of today taking great flight from the cities, and isolating itself from the neediness of the larger community, from the squalid places, the filthy slums. Maybe it’s because we see so much on the news that we retreat from the world, but Jesus didn’t pray for respite and retreat, even when Judas failed him, it was time to plunge ahead. When the church takes a stand as on gun control, and someone says “I’ll leave the church,” we have a tendency to go into a retreat mode without continuing to wrestle with our consciences and with what is right in the long run for the greater good of the whole community.
Clergy spend a lot of their time and energies in the ministry asking people to do things. Sometimes it seems the unending yearning and hymn of the parish priest or minister. Please help with this thing or that thing in the church. I wonder if it isn’t hard to get people involved because the church is so damn boring and piously sickeningly nice.
Let me ask you? And myself? Do you want to go to heaven and push the clouds around, and sit in the shadows of the pearly gates? Or would you rather be here in this world wrestling with the meaning of life, and seeking to discover purposeful living? Granted there are all times when the pushing the clouds around sounds like a real relief. But honestly, now. What would you really rather? The world isn’t easy, and there’s much that’s wrong and vicious, and corrupt. But Jesus prayed to the Father: Don’t take them out of the world, don’t let them be corrupted by it, but don’t take them out of it, “as you have sent me to the world, so I have sent them into the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
