May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Christmas
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 24 & 24, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7 “ . . . and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Luke 2:1-20 – “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
ISSUE: There are many startling reversals in the story of Jesus. The first are last and the last first. Jesus expresses the way God thinks, not the way man thinks. There is a startling new understanding of the coming Messiah as the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, who is born in a manger wrapped in swaddling cloths. Jesus challenges the forces and powers of the world with the great simplicity of love. He makes us rethink what is truly important in our lives. Coming to the world like we are, he intends to make us like himself. We shall make room for him.
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“For a child has been born for us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” These are the words of the prophet Isaiah, familiar to us at the Christmas season. These words are believed to have originally been written at the end of a dreadfully oppressive regime in Judah, the rule of the Assyrian ruler, Tiglath-pileser. They are a coronation poem or song for the coming of a new king in the hope of his bringing about a new age of peace and justice.
The king would not literally have been a child, but a new king, a new start, and new hope for an oppressed people.
The Wonderful Counselor would be a person who was skilled with the political skills of governing and leading the nation wisely.
A Mighty God, or mighty in God, speaks of a divine warrior, or an invincible warrior of the oppressed.
An Everlasting Father would be a person who was an unfailing source of protection and love, like any good father.
A Prince of peace is a controller of his subjects that brings a state of well-being and prosperity, or at least that which offers the best of all things for his people.
The coronation poem is one of great hope and expectation. Who Isaiah was referring to we cannot be sure. But the early Christian Community saw in the coronation anthem the epitome of Jesus. But how can the child laid in the manger really be the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace?
For the early Christian Community Jesus’ infancy was not literally important. Luke’s beautiful birth narrative story is really a poem itself that expresses in the way an overture does in an opera the themes of what is to come. The infant child is the sign of new hope and new beginning. Shepherds are his heralds, and angels his welcoming chorus. The world will see in his seeming frailty and subtlety something quite grand.
The ministry and teaching is one of change, turn around, that gets the attention of all of his followers. He is the great reversal for the world, or the way of great repentance, change. Jesus’ parables are often stories with shocking endings that people don’t expect:
The workers in the vineyard who have worked all day long get the same pay that those who came at the last minute receive.
The prodigal son who wastes his father’s living gets forgiveness, and his good brother gets a lecture to be compassionate and to be changed himself.
The blessed, and the most honorable are the poor, not those who have more than their share, but who in fact do the sharing.
Those who mourn are the blessed and honorable, who shall be comforted, not those happy but insensitive folk.
The lepers and the outcasts, the cursed, are the folk who get restored.
The parable of the scoundrel who has been ripping off his master receives congratulations for his skillfulness.
The lame and paralyzed, the oppressed walk once again. The deaf hear the love of God spoken; blind receive new insight into the wonder of God. The speechless, those without voice or power are given new hope. All that has been cast down is being raised up, and all that are lost are being found.
The throne of the Lord is a cross, and his crown is an entanglement of thorns. Yet in him is the hope of the world.
He is the Wonderful Counselor with the political skills that challenge the politics and the power structures of the world. He is Mighty God, the mighty warrior champion of the poor, and the oppressed, and who demands justice. He is the Everlasting Father providing undeserved grace and love for his wayward sons and daughters. He is the Prince of Peace who intends to bring well-being, comfort, and the best of all possible worlds for his creation. He is the Lord who wants our attention, and calls us into his service as faithful, loyal subjects.
Our world knows the oppression of powerful and cruel regimes. We have seen the brutality and the cruelty that can be inflicted on human beings. Many people around this world this evening need comforting and justice. Many folk mourn. Many people are hungry, abandoned, orphaned all around the world. The world does need a savior, and a Lord of Lords and a King over all Kings and potentates who is a Wonderful Counselor, A Mighty God, and Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
This Christmas evening we celebrate the fact that God in the person of Jesus Christ has and does come among us. We sing the coronation hymn that the King of Love and the Prince of Peace is with us, and that His Kingdom shall have no end. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Tonight the light shines in the darkness.
Monday, December 24, 2001
Sunday, December 23, 2001
ADVENT 4
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: ADVENT 4
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 23, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 7:10-17 – “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”
Matt. 1:18-25 – “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
ISSUE: Isaiah tells King Ahaz to trust God: “Ask God for a sign.” But Ahaz intent on not changing his policies and looking to the powers of the world to be his salvation comes under great judgment, by the time a woman conceives and the child grows up to eat common foods of the land, curds and wild honey. This last Sunday of Advent is our day of decision to choose between the powers of the world and the culture or to cling closely to God, who comes among us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The scriptural passages from Isaiah and Matthew were rich in meaning for the people who first heard them read in their early Christian Churches, and for the folk looking for hope in what was at times a grim world.
First let me give a little background into the passage by Isaiah the prophet. It was a particularly politically troubled time when Isaiah spoke to King Ahaz. Ahaz was not a very good king. He wearied his subjects, which means he placed great burdens of injustice upon the poor. His policies were lacking. He feared the political enemies of Israel and Syria, and chose to align himself with the more powerful Assyrians at the time. Isaiah implores him to ask for a sign from God to guide him in the right direction. Isaiah knew that the Israel and Syria were not the enemies that Ahaz thought they were. But, Ahaz refuses to ask a sign from God. He gives a pious excuse that it is not appropriate to test God. What he really meant was that he didn’t want either Isaiah or God to meddle with his policies. He was refusing to change, and chose to align himself with the greater powers of the world for protection and safety, which saved him from Israel and Syria but landed him in great trouble with the Assyrians who turn Judah into a vassal state greatly oppressed.
Isaiah turned to Ahaz and said that if he would not ask a sign or turn to God for protection, then God would give him a sign: A young virgin, or a woman of marriageable age, would conceive and bear a son and name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” By the time the child would be old enough to know good from bad, about age 12, the nations, political powers, and kings Ahaz had feared would be gone. Then, Judah and King Ahaz would be humiliated by the Assyrians.
The simple message of Isaiah in a complicated political situation was “trust God.” God is with us. We really do not know who the pregnant young woman was. We do not know who the son was. It could most likely have been Isaiah’s own wife, and Isaiah named the child, like prophets did in those days, a prophetic message: “God is with us.” Remember his first son was named, “A Remnant shall remain.” But remember the message: Trust God and not the powers of the world alone; God is with us. There was for Isaiah and the people of that time no concept of what would happen in far off future years. They lived mostly in the present and the very near future.
Some 700 plus years later, Matthew is writing his Gospel account of Jesus’ story. He’s writing some 70 years after Jesus’ actual birth. Matthew is writing largely for a Jewish community of early Christians, and thus is intent on conveying how Jesus and his ministry is rooted in Hebrew Scriptures and the hope of the nation, which be this time didn’t have much left. For Matthew both genealogy and the work of the prophets played a significant part in his presentation of who Jesus was. The fact that Jesus was son of Joseph made him in the line of the ancient King David whose lineage God had promised would never end. Mary was related to John the Baptist, giving Jesus a priestly prophetic background.
In the Old Testament, Joseph was a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams from whom came the great leader Moses, followed by Joshua who eventually leads the Israelites into the Promised Land. For Matthew, Joseph, the father of Jesus, is the dreamer, interpreter of dreams and protector of his people gives us Jesus, Joshua another form of the name Jesus, to lead his people into the Kingdom of God, the Garden of Eden, the Realm and Dominion of God. Jesus is savior of his people. John the Baptist like Moses calls for a ministry of repentance that is eventually turned over the Jesus to fulfill the hope of God’s kingdom.
Matthew is also famous for picking out passages from the prophets and attempting to illustrate how Jesus is their fulfillment. He quotes in this case, Isaiah 7:10f, “Look, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” What was and is the church’s teaching? From Mary, a young woman of marriageable age, and by intervention of the Holy Spirit came a prophetic-priestly son whose life revealed the presence of God to his faithful people. The message: Trust in God; God is with us in Jesus Christ our Lord. You need not fear, and you must not place your faith and confidence in the world and the world’s culture for your protection and salvation. Trust God. Put your loyalty in the way of Jesus Christ and therein you find the purpose and the meaning for your life. “Isaiah said it,” says Matthew to his people, “God is with us.” Now we see the fulfillment in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To a world rife with violence, fear, cruelty, poor and questionable leadership, the message comes to trust in God for both Isaiah and Matthew, and Matthew for us more clearly reveals who that woman is that bears the son and who the son is. In our world today, we still live with a great deal of violence and crime. Our communities rural, suburban, and our cities are not immune from it. We do live with fear, and the events of September 11th have increased our fears. Our imaginations have been triggered with all kinds of on going horrible scenarios of terror from dirty atomic weaponry, to poison gasses and germs, to atomic power plant melt downs. We can look to the culture, to the powerful to save us. But sometimes the culture is as much a mess as our private lives, and the nations powers can be just as uncertain and confused as to what to do, and with whom to make appropriate alliances. Nationally we once backed Osama bin Laden.
As a Christians the message of this season is that God is with us. Turn around to putting your trust and faith in God, which means to repent. Turn back and dream dreams and have visions of hope that come from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus came and comes in love. He came to serve the world and to show people the way back to a deeper and profounder meaning of what God is, and to reveal the meaning of life. Jesus ministry was first and foremost to reveal the love and forgiveness of God. His proclamation was that God loves and adores his creation. God loves as Jesus did the children who had no significant merit of their own. His intention was to raise up all that had fallen and subject to discrimination and injustice. Jesus’ ministry was an empowering one. His healing ministry was to restore the cursed and oppressed. His ministry was to teach folk to love one another, to keep attached to one another and do what needed to be done to reveal the God that is with us, with you and with me. It was in dying, changing, sacrificing and turning away from the past that Jesus and his disciples came to life full and eternally and meaningfully.
This Advent-Christmas season often gets caught up in giving to the poor and needy. We gave generously stocking gifts for women and their children in refuge centers for the abused. We’ve given generously to The Ark for homeless children. Many of you may also have given to the Red Cross, Episcopal Relief and Development in the wake of September 11th. It is the season of giving. But the core of the season is not just giving it is in a deeper understanding that God is with us. That God comes among us. The season evokes a spiritual understanding that God calls us to love Him, and to recognize our dependence upon him to keep us human. Otherwise we drift away in to being just proud of ourselves, or stuck in past traditions and old ways. God is alive and with us now to evoke dreams and hopes and appreciation of God’s world as a place where peace and justice are meant to abide, where we are directed by God to wherever it is that God may be calling us.
This is the season where we change, turn around to God, or turn back to God. We come to realize that God is there; God is with us. He has been there in the past, is now, and ever more shall be extending his presence, his love, and his call to us. This is the season of letting our human spirits to be renewed with the very presence of God. Come into our hearts Lord, Jesus. There is room . . . . . . . . .
SEASON: ADVENT 4
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 23, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 7:10-17 – “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”
Matt. 1:18-25 – “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
ISSUE: Isaiah tells King Ahaz to trust God: “Ask God for a sign.” But Ahaz intent on not changing his policies and looking to the powers of the world to be his salvation comes under great judgment, by the time a woman conceives and the child grows up to eat common foods of the land, curds and wild honey. This last Sunday of Advent is our day of decision to choose between the powers of the world and the culture or to cling closely to God, who comes among us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The scriptural passages from Isaiah and Matthew were rich in meaning for the people who first heard them read in their early Christian Churches, and for the folk looking for hope in what was at times a grim world.
First let me give a little background into the passage by Isaiah the prophet. It was a particularly politically troubled time when Isaiah spoke to King Ahaz. Ahaz was not a very good king. He wearied his subjects, which means he placed great burdens of injustice upon the poor. His policies were lacking. He feared the political enemies of Israel and Syria, and chose to align himself with the more powerful Assyrians at the time. Isaiah implores him to ask for a sign from God to guide him in the right direction. Isaiah knew that the Israel and Syria were not the enemies that Ahaz thought they were. But, Ahaz refuses to ask a sign from God. He gives a pious excuse that it is not appropriate to test God. What he really meant was that he didn’t want either Isaiah or God to meddle with his policies. He was refusing to change, and chose to align himself with the greater powers of the world for protection and safety, which saved him from Israel and Syria but landed him in great trouble with the Assyrians who turn Judah into a vassal state greatly oppressed.
Isaiah turned to Ahaz and said that if he would not ask a sign or turn to God for protection, then God would give him a sign: A young virgin, or a woman of marriageable age, would conceive and bear a son and name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” By the time the child would be old enough to know good from bad, about age 12, the nations, political powers, and kings Ahaz had feared would be gone. Then, Judah and King Ahaz would be humiliated by the Assyrians.
The simple message of Isaiah in a complicated political situation was “trust God.” God is with us. We really do not know who the pregnant young woman was. We do not know who the son was. It could most likely have been Isaiah’s own wife, and Isaiah named the child, like prophets did in those days, a prophetic message: “God is with us.” Remember his first son was named, “A Remnant shall remain.” But remember the message: Trust God and not the powers of the world alone; God is with us. There was for Isaiah and the people of that time no concept of what would happen in far off future years. They lived mostly in the present and the very near future.
Some 700 plus years later, Matthew is writing his Gospel account of Jesus’ story. He’s writing some 70 years after Jesus’ actual birth. Matthew is writing largely for a Jewish community of early Christians, and thus is intent on conveying how Jesus and his ministry is rooted in Hebrew Scriptures and the hope of the nation, which be this time didn’t have much left. For Matthew both genealogy and the work of the prophets played a significant part in his presentation of who Jesus was. The fact that Jesus was son of Joseph made him in the line of the ancient King David whose lineage God had promised would never end. Mary was related to John the Baptist, giving Jesus a priestly prophetic background.
In the Old Testament, Joseph was a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams from whom came the great leader Moses, followed by Joshua who eventually leads the Israelites into the Promised Land. For Matthew, Joseph, the father of Jesus, is the dreamer, interpreter of dreams and protector of his people gives us Jesus, Joshua another form of the name Jesus, to lead his people into the Kingdom of God, the Garden of Eden, the Realm and Dominion of God. Jesus is savior of his people. John the Baptist like Moses calls for a ministry of repentance that is eventually turned over the Jesus to fulfill the hope of God’s kingdom.
Matthew is also famous for picking out passages from the prophets and attempting to illustrate how Jesus is their fulfillment. He quotes in this case, Isaiah 7:10f, “Look, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” What was and is the church’s teaching? From Mary, a young woman of marriageable age, and by intervention of the Holy Spirit came a prophetic-priestly son whose life revealed the presence of God to his faithful people. The message: Trust in God; God is with us in Jesus Christ our Lord. You need not fear, and you must not place your faith and confidence in the world and the world’s culture for your protection and salvation. Trust God. Put your loyalty in the way of Jesus Christ and therein you find the purpose and the meaning for your life. “Isaiah said it,” says Matthew to his people, “God is with us.” Now we see the fulfillment in the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To a world rife with violence, fear, cruelty, poor and questionable leadership, the message comes to trust in God for both Isaiah and Matthew, and Matthew for us more clearly reveals who that woman is that bears the son and who the son is. In our world today, we still live with a great deal of violence and crime. Our communities rural, suburban, and our cities are not immune from it. We do live with fear, and the events of September 11th have increased our fears. Our imaginations have been triggered with all kinds of on going horrible scenarios of terror from dirty atomic weaponry, to poison gasses and germs, to atomic power plant melt downs. We can look to the culture, to the powerful to save us. But sometimes the culture is as much a mess as our private lives, and the nations powers can be just as uncertain and confused as to what to do, and with whom to make appropriate alliances. Nationally we once backed Osama bin Laden.
As a Christians the message of this season is that God is with us. Turn around to putting your trust and faith in God, which means to repent. Turn back and dream dreams and have visions of hope that come from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus came and comes in love. He came to serve the world and to show people the way back to a deeper and profounder meaning of what God is, and to reveal the meaning of life. Jesus ministry was first and foremost to reveal the love and forgiveness of God. His proclamation was that God loves and adores his creation. God loves as Jesus did the children who had no significant merit of their own. His intention was to raise up all that had fallen and subject to discrimination and injustice. Jesus’ ministry was an empowering one. His healing ministry was to restore the cursed and oppressed. His ministry was to teach folk to love one another, to keep attached to one another and do what needed to be done to reveal the God that is with us, with you and with me. It was in dying, changing, sacrificing and turning away from the past that Jesus and his disciples came to life full and eternally and meaningfully.
This Advent-Christmas season often gets caught up in giving to the poor and needy. We gave generously stocking gifts for women and their children in refuge centers for the abused. We’ve given generously to The Ark for homeless children. Many of you may also have given to the Red Cross, Episcopal Relief and Development in the wake of September 11th. It is the season of giving. But the core of the season is not just giving it is in a deeper understanding that God is with us. That God comes among us. The season evokes a spiritual understanding that God calls us to love Him, and to recognize our dependence upon him to keep us human. Otherwise we drift away in to being just proud of ourselves, or stuck in past traditions and old ways. God is alive and with us now to evoke dreams and hopes and appreciation of God’s world as a place where peace and justice are meant to abide, where we are directed by God to wherever it is that God may be calling us.
This is the season where we change, turn around to God, or turn back to God. We come to realize that God is there; God is with us. He has been there in the past, is now, and ever more shall be extending his presence, his love, and his call to us. This is the season of letting our human spirits to be renewed with the very presence of God. Come into our hearts Lord, Jesus. There is room . . . . . . . . .
Sunday, December 16, 2001
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: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 16,2001
TEXT: Isaiah 35:1-10 – “He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
ISSUE: Isaiah has a vision of great hope for the people in exile. Their time of release shall come. There shall be a road, a Holy Way, leading them back to Zion through a blooming desert. The world and its people know many forms of being in exile today. The passage is hopeful, and calls a repentant people back to God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There is a very close relationship between the reading from Gospel of Matthew and the passage from Isaiah 35. In Matthew’s account, John the Baptist, who had called for repentance and change in preparation for a new age and messianic hope, was in jail. John had spoken against and embarrassed King Herod, so he was placed in prison to silence him. It is thought that Jesus himself had been a disciple of John the Baptist. In John’s absence, Jesus begins his own ministry developing his own followers, or disciples. It is clear that Jesus had a great deal of respect for John the Baptist. Jesus saw John as a profoundly significant prophet. Jesus saw John as the Elijah type personality that he was. He was not merely a man calling people to be sorry for their sins, but he called them to an abrupt change in their behavior. John was not luxurious or self-indulgent, dressed in soft robes, but a strong personality that challenged his people and the times to become people of God, reclaiming that holiness and the justice to which God had called them. John is anticipating the coming of a new age, and the possibility of a military-like messiah.
It was apparently clear as the story is told by Matthew that John saw the growing popularity of Jesus, and from the prison sends his own disciples to inquire as to whether or not Jesus is the messianic hope and leader of God’s people into a new age. “Are you the one, or shall we wait for another?” John’s disciples ask. Jesus responds, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raise, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” What Jesus is doing is quoting, almost exactly, in this response the messianic hope written in the 35th chapter of Isaiah.
What had Isaiah been talking about? Isaiah was addressing the Jewish people at a time when they were in exile from their homeland. Isaiah lays out the hope that the time will come soon when the people will know a glorious deliverance. The people will be saved from their oppressors and set free. It will be a miraculous time when, “Then the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” What’s more the desert leading back home will come into bloom. The burning sand will be cooled, and there shall be an oasis in the desert along the way, and the feeble grasses will be strong like reeds and rushes. Through the desert shall be a highway and no one shall be lost; even those too dumb to read roadmaps will not lose their way. There will be no lions or ravenous beasts to threaten them. The people shall, even those with feeble knees and weak hands will be strengthened and return home singing for joy.
What’s happening here in these passages for both Isaiah, and quoted by Jesus to John the Baptist? The passages are addressed to people who are in exile. In Isaiah’s instance, the Jewish people had been conquered and forced to leave their homeland, and then their homeland was destroyed. But the time of their exile was over, and they were being allowed to return home. They are given a very hopeful vision. Jesus is addressing a different time and situation. The people were not physically exiled so much as they were in a spiritual exile. Their land was conquered. The poor were badly oppressed. Widows without a son had no voice and were often robbed. The spirituality was based largely on law, and law full of loopholes and which favored the rich. Peasants were seen as outcasts from God. People who were sick, lame, deaf, dumb, blind, lepers were all outcasts, and were believed to be cursed by God. Life was extremely hard, taxation and tolls were everywhere and oppressive. There was an overall political, economic, and spiritual exile for the greater majority of people. The people perceived themselves to be in darkness and in a lifeless world. There was little hope. Isaiah and certainly Jesus could not believe that God would leave his people in a world of darkness, despair, and hopelessness. They anticipated a repentant world, a world that would be turned upside down so that the dark side would be turned towards the light of God.
Isaiah foresees a repentant, dramatically changed, world of opposites. Blind people who cannot see will see. Deaf people will hear. Voiceless people will have a voice. Vicious animals will become tame. Dry dangerous despairing deserts will turn to a garden paradise. The people in fear, alienation, and oppressed with sing for joy as their world return to the light of God. “The people walking in darkness will see a new light. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away in the presence of God.
Jesus picks up on that same theme when he speaks to John’s disciples. The blind see the presence of God among them. The lame walk, the paralyzed hopeless will begin to take steps again toward hope. The deaf, those who had not heard of God’s redeeming and forgiving love will hear of it. The dumb and powerless will have a voice again. The impure untouchable lepers will be made pure again. Even the untouchable cursed dead folk doomed to Sheol, the place of shadows, will be raised up into the light of God’s kingdom. All that is cursed will be turned upside down and know the blessing and honor that God gives to his people. There shall be a road, a Holy Way that leads to God’s love, and no one shall lose their way. And nothing no cruel vicious thing spirit or devil or vicious animal shall separate us from the love of God. When God comes to his world, it will be a repentant world, a changed world that is up side down and facing the light of hope and deliverance from the darkness.
It is imperative, good people, that we ourselves be repentant and ready to allow ourselves to be turned over in repentance so that we can fully appreciate the repentant hope and vision of Isaiah and participate in the Kingdom of our Lord. Can we participate in the vision and the hope, and allow Jesus to come again into our wilderness, our exile, and our times of despair and hopelessness?
Can we join in the visions and the hope that come from our Scriptures, from the prophets and the Lord Jesus? Is it possible to envision a world where Jewish people and Islamic people, and Christian folk can honor and respect their understandings of God’s covenants without suspicion, hate, and critical remarks? Is it possible to envision a world where Native Americans, African Americans, Asians can be respected with dignity and without derogatory remarks. We must look to the children of Afghanistan who have suffered so much war and destruction knowing the fear they must have, and knowing that such a large percentage of them have lost their parents with the hope that the day will come when each one is adopted in a home that will restore their hope for the future. When we look at nations where there are starving people, we have to hope that their deserts will bloom, and that there will be teachers who will enable them to find the agricultural savvy to feed themselves. We really need to hope and envision a time when the hotshots and the proud and the greedy will be repentant and turned over to become aware that God blesses, honors, the poor, the meek, the merciful, the caring, the servants, and those who themselves will hunger and thirst to seek justice for all. Maybe as Americans we may need to examine our own status and image in the world and in the sight of God. We may like everyone else face the fact that we, and our proud power and consumptive habits, may well need some repentance, living more simply so that the rest of the world may live and have its fair share as well.
In each of our own lives, before we can step into the Kingdom of God, that world which is overturned and facing the light, we need personally to be a people ready to make the appropriate changes that make us resonate with the Anointed Christ. We often need God and the Presence of Christ to take away our sense of vengeance. We need to reclaim our calling as servants as opposed to those who expect to be served. We by the grace of God need to understand that God’s grace comes to us not because we earn it, but because it is a freely given gift from God. Being turned over we become a new people, and the people we were meant to be.
“Are you the one who is to come?” asks John. New insights are given; the Word of God is being heard. The unclean are purified. The folks paralyzed in fear, despair, and hopelessness are walking again. May the Lord Jesus Christ turn each of us over that we may be in resonance with the coming of his Kingdom once again.
SEASON: ADVENT 3
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 16,2001
TEXT: Isaiah 35:1-10 – “He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
ISSUE: Isaiah has a vision of great hope for the people in exile. Their time of release shall come. There shall be a road, a Holy Way, leading them back to Zion through a blooming desert. The world and its people know many forms of being in exile today. The passage is hopeful, and calls a repentant people back to God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There is a very close relationship between the reading from Gospel of Matthew and the passage from Isaiah 35. In Matthew’s account, John the Baptist, who had called for repentance and change in preparation for a new age and messianic hope, was in jail. John had spoken against and embarrassed King Herod, so he was placed in prison to silence him. It is thought that Jesus himself had been a disciple of John the Baptist. In John’s absence, Jesus begins his own ministry developing his own followers, or disciples. It is clear that Jesus had a great deal of respect for John the Baptist. Jesus saw John as a profoundly significant prophet. Jesus saw John as the Elijah type personality that he was. He was not merely a man calling people to be sorry for their sins, but he called them to an abrupt change in their behavior. John was not luxurious or self-indulgent, dressed in soft robes, but a strong personality that challenged his people and the times to become people of God, reclaiming that holiness and the justice to which God had called them. John is anticipating the coming of a new age, and the possibility of a military-like messiah.
It was apparently clear as the story is told by Matthew that John saw the growing popularity of Jesus, and from the prison sends his own disciples to inquire as to whether or not Jesus is the messianic hope and leader of God’s people into a new age. “Are you the one, or shall we wait for another?” John’s disciples ask. Jesus responds, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raise, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” What Jesus is doing is quoting, almost exactly, in this response the messianic hope written in the 35th chapter of Isaiah.
What had Isaiah been talking about? Isaiah was addressing the Jewish people at a time when they were in exile from their homeland. Isaiah lays out the hope that the time will come soon when the people will know a glorious deliverance. The people will be saved from their oppressors and set free. It will be a miraculous time when, “Then the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” What’s more the desert leading back home will come into bloom. The burning sand will be cooled, and there shall be an oasis in the desert along the way, and the feeble grasses will be strong like reeds and rushes. Through the desert shall be a highway and no one shall be lost; even those too dumb to read roadmaps will not lose their way. There will be no lions or ravenous beasts to threaten them. The people shall, even those with feeble knees and weak hands will be strengthened and return home singing for joy.
What’s happening here in these passages for both Isaiah, and quoted by Jesus to John the Baptist? The passages are addressed to people who are in exile. In Isaiah’s instance, the Jewish people had been conquered and forced to leave their homeland, and then their homeland was destroyed. But the time of their exile was over, and they were being allowed to return home. They are given a very hopeful vision. Jesus is addressing a different time and situation. The people were not physically exiled so much as they were in a spiritual exile. Their land was conquered. The poor were badly oppressed. Widows without a son had no voice and were often robbed. The spirituality was based largely on law, and law full of loopholes and which favored the rich. Peasants were seen as outcasts from God. People who were sick, lame, deaf, dumb, blind, lepers were all outcasts, and were believed to be cursed by God. Life was extremely hard, taxation and tolls were everywhere and oppressive. There was an overall political, economic, and spiritual exile for the greater majority of people. The people perceived themselves to be in darkness and in a lifeless world. There was little hope. Isaiah and certainly Jesus could not believe that God would leave his people in a world of darkness, despair, and hopelessness. They anticipated a repentant world, a world that would be turned upside down so that the dark side would be turned towards the light of God.
Isaiah foresees a repentant, dramatically changed, world of opposites. Blind people who cannot see will see. Deaf people will hear. Voiceless people will have a voice. Vicious animals will become tame. Dry dangerous despairing deserts will turn to a garden paradise. The people in fear, alienation, and oppressed with sing for joy as their world return to the light of God. “The people walking in darkness will see a new light. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away in the presence of God.
Jesus picks up on that same theme when he speaks to John’s disciples. The blind see the presence of God among them. The lame walk, the paralyzed hopeless will begin to take steps again toward hope. The deaf, those who had not heard of God’s redeeming and forgiving love will hear of it. The dumb and powerless will have a voice again. The impure untouchable lepers will be made pure again. Even the untouchable cursed dead folk doomed to Sheol, the place of shadows, will be raised up into the light of God’s kingdom. All that is cursed will be turned upside down and know the blessing and honor that God gives to his people. There shall be a road, a Holy Way that leads to God’s love, and no one shall lose their way. And nothing no cruel vicious thing spirit or devil or vicious animal shall separate us from the love of God. When God comes to his world, it will be a repentant world, a changed world that is up side down and facing the light of hope and deliverance from the darkness.
It is imperative, good people, that we ourselves be repentant and ready to allow ourselves to be turned over in repentance so that we can fully appreciate the repentant hope and vision of Isaiah and participate in the Kingdom of our Lord. Can we participate in the vision and the hope, and allow Jesus to come again into our wilderness, our exile, and our times of despair and hopelessness?
Can we join in the visions and the hope that come from our Scriptures, from the prophets and the Lord Jesus? Is it possible to envision a world where Jewish people and Islamic people, and Christian folk can honor and respect their understandings of God’s covenants without suspicion, hate, and critical remarks? Is it possible to envision a world where Native Americans, African Americans, Asians can be respected with dignity and without derogatory remarks. We must look to the children of Afghanistan who have suffered so much war and destruction knowing the fear they must have, and knowing that such a large percentage of them have lost their parents with the hope that the day will come when each one is adopted in a home that will restore their hope for the future. When we look at nations where there are starving people, we have to hope that their deserts will bloom, and that there will be teachers who will enable them to find the agricultural savvy to feed themselves. We really need to hope and envision a time when the hotshots and the proud and the greedy will be repentant and turned over to become aware that God blesses, honors, the poor, the meek, the merciful, the caring, the servants, and those who themselves will hunger and thirst to seek justice for all. Maybe as Americans we may need to examine our own status and image in the world and in the sight of God. We may like everyone else face the fact that we, and our proud power and consumptive habits, may well need some repentance, living more simply so that the rest of the world may live and have its fair share as well.
In each of our own lives, before we can step into the Kingdom of God, that world which is overturned and facing the light, we need personally to be a people ready to make the appropriate changes that make us resonate with the Anointed Christ. We often need God and the Presence of Christ to take away our sense of vengeance. We need to reclaim our calling as servants as opposed to those who expect to be served. We by the grace of God need to understand that God’s grace comes to us not because we earn it, but because it is a freely given gift from God. Being turned over we become a new people, and the people we were meant to be.
“Are you the one who is to come?” asks John. New insights are given; the Word of God is being heard. The unclean are purified. The folks paralyzed in fear, despair, and hopelessness are walking again. May the Lord Jesus Christ turn each of us over that we may be in resonance with the coming of his Kingdom once again.
Sunday, December 9, 2001
ADVENT 2
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
: ADVENT 2
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 9, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 11:1-10 – A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. . . . . .The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
ISSUE: The theme of this second Sunday in Advent deals with repentance. Repentance means an inner change of heart and direction, while many may think of it erroneously as having to do with being sorry. Coupled with the call for repentance is the call to be transformed and ready to enter into the image of Christ as a people of peace and love. There is hope in the coming of Christ as the change agent who brings the peace of love for which we year and need.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The primary theme of this second Sunday in Advent is the call to repentance. In the Matthew lesson, old St. John the Baptist, or the John the dipper calls the people of his time to repentance. John is a prophetic character, dressed like a prophet in his camel’s hair and assuming the prophets diet of honey and wild locust. He is much like Elijah in his preaching and energetic vitality that calls a world to dramatic repentance. John anticipated and hoped for the coming of the messianic figure, who would bring in the Kingdom of God. He looks upon a world that was cruel, impersonal and insensitive to human need, and that had abandoned a personal responsible closeness for God, for simply old traditions and ancestral ties. John calls for repentance, which means change in the hearts of God’s people.
Many people today are inclined to think when they read or hear this Advent gospel story of John, that he was primarily calling people to confess their sins, and be sorry for them. Sorry is okay. But remember when you were a kid and you told your mother that you were sorry. She didn’t always buy that. “Sorry, I don’t care if you’re sorry, I want your bad behavior to change.” John’s call to repentance was just that, a change of heart that had an influence on activity. Pharisees and Sadducees were advised to stop relying on their ancestry as providing them privilege. Soldiers were taught to stop being bullies, and live on their wages. Tax collectors were to collect only taxes that were fair and stop their extortion. Repentance had little to do with being sorry; it had much more to do with making a dramatic change in a person’s life. Repentance was to be ready for a new age of transformation.
The concept of repentance being connected to a transformation is not peculiar to the Christian Scripture tradition, it is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the prophetic teachings of Isaiah. Isaiah was a master at anticipating, hoping, and attending to the need for transformation among his people and the nation. Living and preaching in a time of significant wealth accumulated by the rich from the work of the poor, and living at a time when the people had abandoned a meaningful relationship with Yahweh for rituals and perfunctory religion, Isaiah saw a great need and hoped desperately, yearned for, a new age where God’s people would be truly repentant, changed, and the life of the nations dramatically transformed.
There are few passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that are quite so beautiful as Isaiah’s prophecy in Chapter 11. The golden age of King David is long gone. He anticipates new hope and a restoration of a new Kingdom of Judah and Israel that will once again be a kingdom that is truly God’s kingdom. Isaiah proclaims and anticipates that out of the stump, or trunk, of a degenerate kingdom there will come a new shoot, a new branch. It is a messianic hope that a savior and restorer will come to the nation that is enveloped by the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, a wise counselor with the spirit and knowledge and fear, or better still an awe of God. He will restore the peasants and the poor to their rightful dignified status in the land. He will be intent upon what is right and just.
A popular theme in Christmas cards based on the Isaiah text is that of the lion and the lamb, the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid goat, the calf, and fatling lying down with the lion in peace. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall like down together, and the lion shall eat straw with the ox. What’s more a nursing child will play over the nest of a poisonous snake without being harmed. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
This imagery or vision is a vision of a transformed world and nature. The use of animals, lambs and lions lying down together is, of course, symbolic. Animals in Scripture were often mascots for a nation, in the same way the Eagle is American symbol and the Bear is a Russian Symbol. Wolves are seen as treacherous and cunning. The lamb is a symbol of meekness. Isaiah presents and image of transformed world, transformed nations, and transformed people who will live together in peace, and treat one another with justice and what is right.
Out of the roots of a spiritually impoverished nation, will come a messianic leader who in his relationship with God will lead the way into a world that is not just sorry, but transformed into the Garden of Eden, into the Kingdom of God. Old enmities will be forgotten. The Mighty will live peaceably with the weak. Exploitive types of people and nations will change their relationship with the poor and needy. It shall be an age when people will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah’s image and vision may seem too strong for us, or just too hopeful for our world. There is just so much pain and suffering in our own world today. The stealthy wolves, the lions, and bears seem to have such an advantage over the lambs. It’s not much fun living in a world at war, or in a world of fear for travelers, and for our children. It’s not much fun fearing what disease the postman may deliver. It’s hard to see young men and women brought home in body bags. It’s every bit as difficult to see small children in nations like Afghanistan orphaned and living in inadequate orphanages. The mix of wealth, luxury, and power mixed with hatred, war, suspicion, fear, and anxious uncertainty for the future creates a pall of darkness and greatly limits our hope and joy. The events of recent months have had a serious effect on the outlook and the psychological well being of so many of us. When I was Christmas shopping one evening, a lady with her market basket comment as she passed by, “You know, I’m just not into this, this year.” Cruelty, terrorism, prejudice, and anxiety about the future have surely had their effect on all of us, I am sure. We as God’s people are indeed needful of a transformation. Maybe we need to make some changes, some kind of turn around. Maybe we need turn back to a reclamation of the God of love and hope, to look for the savior, for God to come to us, and renew us in our hopes for his Kingdom.
For the Christian Community there is no way back to God, except through Jesus Christ. He is our savior and our hope. Indeed, he is the one with the Spirit of God in him. He is the one who brought to the world a renewed spirit of wisdom based on love and forgiveness. He is the one who wears the belt of justice and righteousness around his waist, and complete trust, loyalty, and faith in God. After all, he lived a life himself that dealt with human cruelty from his birth until his death, in argument and threat, and death, but who remained so assured of the mercy, love, and compassion of God that he was raised up to fullness of eternal life. Where else would we turn except to the saving grace that comes in human despair and darkness from Jesus Christ? For out the darkness from Christ come the light and the hope for the world.
This past week I spent a day at a conference with two Muslim clergy. Their presentation was a great hope for a far greater understanding between Christianity and Islam. We share so many things that are alike. We do not need to be so suspicious, and when we change, repent, discipline ourselves to be more aware of the world around us, we may find pockets and places where hope grows and appears like shoots out of stumps or new branches out of old trees. Our advent prayer is one that needs to include our ability to change directions and be open to the renewing spirit of God to bring us the hope and the comfort we need.
I commented to someone last week at the coffee hour, (Pankaj Malik) that so much of what we see on the TV news is the harsh forbidding land of Afghanistan with its soldiers and the devastation going on there. He remarked having been there, he knew that it was in fact a beautiful country where some of the very best pomegranates and grapes of the world grow. It is not all devastation. It is not all dust and desert, but there is beauty and goodness and hope there as well.
Maybe it is time to try to let go of some of our busyness and doing Christmas the way we always do it, and seek to let God enable us to become transformed. Maybe we need to simplify and reduce the demands, change, repent from our fear and hopelessness, and turn back to God and anticipation of a renewed coming of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior into our lives. Advent is the Christian’s New Year, the time of rethinking our lives and their directions. What are the issues deep down we need to change and deal with? A closer relationship with God through Jesus Christ may eventually lead us all into the light and transformed into people of love and hope.
: ADVENT 2
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 9, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 11:1-10 – A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. . . . . .The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
ISSUE: The theme of this second Sunday in Advent deals with repentance. Repentance means an inner change of heart and direction, while many may think of it erroneously as having to do with being sorry. Coupled with the call for repentance is the call to be transformed and ready to enter into the image of Christ as a people of peace and love. There is hope in the coming of Christ as the change agent who brings the peace of love for which we year and need.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The primary theme of this second Sunday in Advent is the call to repentance. In the Matthew lesson, old St. John the Baptist, or the John the dipper calls the people of his time to repentance. John is a prophetic character, dressed like a prophet in his camel’s hair and assuming the prophets diet of honey and wild locust. He is much like Elijah in his preaching and energetic vitality that calls a world to dramatic repentance. John anticipated and hoped for the coming of the messianic figure, who would bring in the Kingdom of God. He looks upon a world that was cruel, impersonal and insensitive to human need, and that had abandoned a personal responsible closeness for God, for simply old traditions and ancestral ties. John calls for repentance, which means change in the hearts of God’s people.
Many people today are inclined to think when they read or hear this Advent gospel story of John, that he was primarily calling people to confess their sins, and be sorry for them. Sorry is okay. But remember when you were a kid and you told your mother that you were sorry. She didn’t always buy that. “Sorry, I don’t care if you’re sorry, I want your bad behavior to change.” John’s call to repentance was just that, a change of heart that had an influence on activity. Pharisees and Sadducees were advised to stop relying on their ancestry as providing them privilege. Soldiers were taught to stop being bullies, and live on their wages. Tax collectors were to collect only taxes that were fair and stop their extortion. Repentance had little to do with being sorry; it had much more to do with making a dramatic change in a person’s life. Repentance was to be ready for a new age of transformation.
The concept of repentance being connected to a transformation is not peculiar to the Christian Scripture tradition, it is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the prophetic teachings of Isaiah. Isaiah was a master at anticipating, hoping, and attending to the need for transformation among his people and the nation. Living and preaching in a time of significant wealth accumulated by the rich from the work of the poor, and living at a time when the people had abandoned a meaningful relationship with Yahweh for rituals and perfunctory religion, Isaiah saw a great need and hoped desperately, yearned for, a new age where God’s people would be truly repentant, changed, and the life of the nations dramatically transformed.
There are few passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that are quite so beautiful as Isaiah’s prophecy in Chapter 11. The golden age of King David is long gone. He anticipates new hope and a restoration of a new Kingdom of Judah and Israel that will once again be a kingdom that is truly God’s kingdom. Isaiah proclaims and anticipates that out of the stump, or trunk, of a degenerate kingdom there will come a new shoot, a new branch. It is a messianic hope that a savior and restorer will come to the nation that is enveloped by the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, a wise counselor with the spirit and knowledge and fear, or better still an awe of God. He will restore the peasants and the poor to their rightful dignified status in the land. He will be intent upon what is right and just.
A popular theme in Christmas cards based on the Isaiah text is that of the lion and the lamb, the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid goat, the calf, and fatling lying down with the lion in peace. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall like down together, and the lion shall eat straw with the ox. What’s more a nursing child will play over the nest of a poisonous snake without being harmed. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
This imagery or vision is a vision of a transformed world and nature. The use of animals, lambs and lions lying down together is, of course, symbolic. Animals in Scripture were often mascots for a nation, in the same way the Eagle is American symbol and the Bear is a Russian Symbol. Wolves are seen as treacherous and cunning. The lamb is a symbol of meekness. Isaiah presents and image of transformed world, transformed nations, and transformed people who will live together in peace, and treat one another with justice and what is right.
Out of the roots of a spiritually impoverished nation, will come a messianic leader who in his relationship with God will lead the way into a world that is not just sorry, but transformed into the Garden of Eden, into the Kingdom of God. Old enmities will be forgotten. The Mighty will live peaceably with the weak. Exploitive types of people and nations will change their relationship with the poor and needy. It shall be an age when people will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah’s image and vision may seem too strong for us, or just too hopeful for our world. There is just so much pain and suffering in our own world today. The stealthy wolves, the lions, and bears seem to have such an advantage over the lambs. It’s not much fun living in a world at war, or in a world of fear for travelers, and for our children. It’s not much fun fearing what disease the postman may deliver. It’s hard to see young men and women brought home in body bags. It’s every bit as difficult to see small children in nations like Afghanistan orphaned and living in inadequate orphanages. The mix of wealth, luxury, and power mixed with hatred, war, suspicion, fear, and anxious uncertainty for the future creates a pall of darkness and greatly limits our hope and joy. The events of recent months have had a serious effect on the outlook and the psychological well being of so many of us. When I was Christmas shopping one evening, a lady with her market basket comment as she passed by, “You know, I’m just not into this, this year.” Cruelty, terrorism, prejudice, and anxiety about the future have surely had their effect on all of us, I am sure. We as God’s people are indeed needful of a transformation. Maybe we need to make some changes, some kind of turn around. Maybe we need turn back to a reclamation of the God of love and hope, to look for the savior, for God to come to us, and renew us in our hopes for his Kingdom.
For the Christian Community there is no way back to God, except through Jesus Christ. He is our savior and our hope. Indeed, he is the one with the Spirit of God in him. He is the one who brought to the world a renewed spirit of wisdom based on love and forgiveness. He is the one who wears the belt of justice and righteousness around his waist, and complete trust, loyalty, and faith in God. After all, he lived a life himself that dealt with human cruelty from his birth until his death, in argument and threat, and death, but who remained so assured of the mercy, love, and compassion of God that he was raised up to fullness of eternal life. Where else would we turn except to the saving grace that comes in human despair and darkness from Jesus Christ? For out the darkness from Christ come the light and the hope for the world.
This past week I spent a day at a conference with two Muslim clergy. Their presentation was a great hope for a far greater understanding between Christianity and Islam. We share so many things that are alike. We do not need to be so suspicious, and when we change, repent, discipline ourselves to be more aware of the world around us, we may find pockets and places where hope grows and appears like shoots out of stumps or new branches out of old trees. Our advent prayer is one that needs to include our ability to change directions and be open to the renewing spirit of God to bring us the hope and the comfort we need.
I commented to someone last week at the coffee hour, (Pankaj Malik) that so much of what we see on the TV news is the harsh forbidding land of Afghanistan with its soldiers and the devastation going on there. He remarked having been there, he knew that it was in fact a beautiful country where some of the very best pomegranates and grapes of the world grow. It is not all devastation. It is not all dust and desert, but there is beauty and goodness and hope there as well.
Maybe it is time to try to let go of some of our busyness and doing Christmas the way we always do it, and seek to let God enable us to become transformed. Maybe we need to simplify and reduce the demands, change, repent from our fear and hopelessness, and turn back to God and anticipation of a renewed coming of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior into our lives. Advent is the Christian’s New Year, the time of rethinking our lives and their directions. What are the issues deep down we need to change and deal with? A closer relationship with God through Jesus Christ may eventually lead us all into the light and transformed into people of love and hope.
Sunday, December 2, 2001
ADVENT 1
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: ADVENT 1
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 2, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 2:1-5 (6-9 explains world situation.)
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
ISSUE: Isaiah addressed a very complicated world, not at all unlike our own. It was a time of impending war and destruction. It was a time when Judah and Israel’s faith was more perfunctory than genuine. Wealth and paganism prevailed at the expense of the poor. Isaiah saw an impending doom, coupled with hope that a remnant would remain and a new age of God would come. People would flow back to the holy city of Jerusalem like a river. In a time of great anxiety, hope in God’s love prevails.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I would like to direct our attention today, and for all of the Advent Season to the passages from Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah and the Hebrew Book of Isaiah is quite articulate concerning the time in which it was written, and it has some very vivid imagery. Actually the book is not written entirely by one person named Isaiah, as the book covers an extensive period of the time. The first 35 Chapters may well be the work of the person Isaiah. The following Chapters may well be the work of continuing disciples or a school of thought following Isaiah’s thinking. But the Book clearly sees the times for what they were. The Jewish nation was facing a time of impending doom, and Isaiah recognized a need for transformation of God’s people. The Book is also rich in hope and expectations that God would not abandon his people, but would bring about a Messianic age of hopefulness.
Isaiah was himself probably a part of the upper class, living some 700 years before the birth of Christ. He lived in an age of significant affluence in the Jewish nation of Judah where the city of Jerusalem was the capital city. Isaiah’s observation was that the wealth of the upper classes was largely the result of injustice and oppression of the poor. Peasants were evicted from their lands to make room for larger land holdings and fine manor homes. Injustice often breeds by its nature a significant amount of violence. The national life was one of self-complacency and pride in its military strength, wealth, and luxury. Foreign influence along with their pagan gods had influenced both the peasant class, and rich class. They bowed down to them. The nation’s religious faith in Yahweh, The One God of Israel and Judah, had become perfunctory and formal, but lacking in genuine relationship. Judah became more trusting in their own strength and accomplishments than in its trust and dependence upon God.
Isaiah could not forget God (Yahweh). His mission was to call them back to returning to their allegiance to God. “In returning and rest you shall be saved.” (30:15) Again and again the people were not good at listening, and the nation met with desolation and exile into foreign nations. However, Isaiah’s message is not all doom and he gave hope that in return to God, a remnant would be saved. He even named his son, She’ar Yashub, meaning “A Remnant Shall Remain.”
When we look at various stages in history, it is interesting that there do seem to be various time when it appears that in certain ways history is repeating itself, running in cycles. Let me read to you just a few of the passages of Isaiah the follow immediately after the passage read this morning. This reading is taken from Eugene Patterson’s book, The Message, The Old Testament Prophets: (Isa. 2:6-9)
God, you’ve walked out on your family Jacob because their world is full of hokey religion,
Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus, a world rolling in wealth,
Stuffed with things, no end to is machines and gadgets,
And gods – gods of all sorts and sizes.
These people make their own gods and worship what they make.
A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter. Don’t bother with them! They’re not worth forgiving.
That’s very dramatic language for Isaiah’s time, but it may be somewhat descriptive of our own time. We are living in a pretty affluent time, when we know that there is often a growing separation between the wealthy and the poor. We are living in a time when people are becoming more and more enamored with the electronic things and computerized gadgets: cell phones, electric doors, lap-tops so we can work everywhere at all times, incredibly sized home TV’s, DVD’s, CD’s, and all kinds of stuff and toys to entertain us and our children. We’ve also seen growing interest in witchcraft and new age paraphernalia, and religions that lead people to suicide adventures, and empty exercises in hocus-pocus. So many of these things become what we rely upon for our life’s satisfaction.
Unfortunately we probably have more baptized Christians that are not inactively involved in the life and the mission of Christ’s church than are active and genuinely involved in their own spiritual development, and deep personal relationship with God through their love for Jesus Christ. Serious involvement and learning in the way of God does not come easy in a very secular world that is affluent and self-complacent. Finding peace with in and with God is hard.
Certainly one of the foremost issues of our time is how do we accomplish the mission of peace without war. The world, our nation included, seems to be invested in finding peace through violence. We have come to trust almost primarily in our weaponry and power as our strength and our ultimate salvation. We’ve come to find that nuclear power may well be our ultimate destruction. We’ve also come to find that military power and sophisticated weaponry is not quite so powerful against biological weapons like anthrax and germ warfare. The subtly of terror inflicts not just bodily harm, but fear, uncertainty, anxiety. Living frightened and fearful is not a pleasant way to live. Yet the world in its need to serve its own interests refuses to let go, to be transformed into something more hopeful. The world at times seems almost cartoon like. We powerfully truly to stamp out evil over here, and it pops up over there, time and again. We cannot find the way to lasting peace in spite of all our trampling down of others.
In our personal lives as well there is great difficulty in finding last peaceful relationships. So many folk battle one another, battle spouses, battle children. We find it hard in our pride to forgive, to change, to repent, to love sacrificially without reward. It is hard, very hard to heal the wounds and assuage the pain of so many of our human relationships. We really do need a savior. We really do need God in a meaningful and intense way: “A degenerate race, face down in the gutter. Don’t bother with them. They’re not worth deserve forgiving,” says the pessimistic side of Isaiah. Our world and our lives need to be reclaimed in a despairing and violent world. We need real meaning restored to what it means to be a human, a lover of one another, steeped in brotherhood and sisterhood, and in a relationship with a God that sustains us in being God’s own faithful people with purpose.
Isaiah had a vision, a hope, a dream, a vision from God:
There’s a day coming when the House of the Lord will be on a high mountain, and all nations will see it. All nations will be a like a river flowing up hill to God’s mountain. People will say, “Let’s climb God’s mountain.” God will show us the way he works and would have us do things, so we can live the way we are supposed to live. God will show us the way to peace, and how to beat swords and spears, our hatred and weaponry into plows and bulldozers so we can rebuild a fallen world. No more will nation fight nation, and persons try to humiliate and destroy one another. We won’t play war no more!
Who will lead us up the mountain to the house of God? Who will lead the way? Who will be our messianic hope for deliverance? God we need a savior to lead us back to you. Send us a savior, Lord! Help us to reclaim the savior and live each day as if he were due to arrive any moment. Come Lord Jesus and lead us to the Kingdom of God.
SEASON: ADVENT 1
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 2, 2001
TEXT: Isaiah 2:1-5 (6-9 explains world situation.)
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
ISSUE: Isaiah addressed a very complicated world, not at all unlike our own. It was a time of impending war and destruction. It was a time when Judah and Israel’s faith was more perfunctory than genuine. Wealth and paganism prevailed at the expense of the poor. Isaiah saw an impending doom, coupled with hope that a remnant would remain and a new age of God would come. People would flow back to the holy city of Jerusalem like a river. In a time of great anxiety, hope in God’s love prevails.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I would like to direct our attention today, and for all of the Advent Season to the passages from Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah and the Hebrew Book of Isaiah is quite articulate concerning the time in which it was written, and it has some very vivid imagery. Actually the book is not written entirely by one person named Isaiah, as the book covers an extensive period of the time. The first 35 Chapters may well be the work of the person Isaiah. The following Chapters may well be the work of continuing disciples or a school of thought following Isaiah’s thinking. But the Book clearly sees the times for what they were. The Jewish nation was facing a time of impending doom, and Isaiah recognized a need for transformation of God’s people. The Book is also rich in hope and expectations that God would not abandon his people, but would bring about a Messianic age of hopefulness.
Isaiah was himself probably a part of the upper class, living some 700 years before the birth of Christ. He lived in an age of significant affluence in the Jewish nation of Judah where the city of Jerusalem was the capital city. Isaiah’s observation was that the wealth of the upper classes was largely the result of injustice and oppression of the poor. Peasants were evicted from their lands to make room for larger land holdings and fine manor homes. Injustice often breeds by its nature a significant amount of violence. The national life was one of self-complacency and pride in its military strength, wealth, and luxury. Foreign influence along with their pagan gods had influenced both the peasant class, and rich class. They bowed down to them. The nation’s religious faith in Yahweh, The One God of Israel and Judah, had become perfunctory and formal, but lacking in genuine relationship. Judah became more trusting in their own strength and accomplishments than in its trust and dependence upon God.
Isaiah could not forget God (Yahweh). His mission was to call them back to returning to their allegiance to God. “In returning and rest you shall be saved.” (30:15) Again and again the people were not good at listening, and the nation met with desolation and exile into foreign nations. However, Isaiah’s message is not all doom and he gave hope that in return to God, a remnant would be saved. He even named his son, She’ar Yashub, meaning “A Remnant Shall Remain.”
When we look at various stages in history, it is interesting that there do seem to be various time when it appears that in certain ways history is repeating itself, running in cycles. Let me read to you just a few of the passages of Isaiah the follow immediately after the passage read this morning. This reading is taken from Eugene Patterson’s book, The Message, The Old Testament Prophets: (Isa. 2:6-9)
God, you’ve walked out on your family Jacob because their world is full of hokey religion,
Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus, a world rolling in wealth,
Stuffed with things, no end to is machines and gadgets,
And gods – gods of all sorts and sizes.
These people make their own gods and worship what they make.
A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter. Don’t bother with them! They’re not worth forgiving.
That’s very dramatic language for Isaiah’s time, but it may be somewhat descriptive of our own time. We are living in a pretty affluent time, when we know that there is often a growing separation between the wealthy and the poor. We are living in a time when people are becoming more and more enamored with the electronic things and computerized gadgets: cell phones, electric doors, lap-tops so we can work everywhere at all times, incredibly sized home TV’s, DVD’s, CD’s, and all kinds of stuff and toys to entertain us and our children. We’ve also seen growing interest in witchcraft and new age paraphernalia, and religions that lead people to suicide adventures, and empty exercises in hocus-pocus. So many of these things become what we rely upon for our life’s satisfaction.
Unfortunately we probably have more baptized Christians that are not inactively involved in the life and the mission of Christ’s church than are active and genuinely involved in their own spiritual development, and deep personal relationship with God through their love for Jesus Christ. Serious involvement and learning in the way of God does not come easy in a very secular world that is affluent and self-complacent. Finding peace with in and with God is hard.
Certainly one of the foremost issues of our time is how do we accomplish the mission of peace without war. The world, our nation included, seems to be invested in finding peace through violence. We have come to trust almost primarily in our weaponry and power as our strength and our ultimate salvation. We’ve come to find that nuclear power may well be our ultimate destruction. We’ve also come to find that military power and sophisticated weaponry is not quite so powerful against biological weapons like anthrax and germ warfare. The subtly of terror inflicts not just bodily harm, but fear, uncertainty, anxiety. Living frightened and fearful is not a pleasant way to live. Yet the world in its need to serve its own interests refuses to let go, to be transformed into something more hopeful. The world at times seems almost cartoon like. We powerfully truly to stamp out evil over here, and it pops up over there, time and again. We cannot find the way to lasting peace in spite of all our trampling down of others.
In our personal lives as well there is great difficulty in finding last peaceful relationships. So many folk battle one another, battle spouses, battle children. We find it hard in our pride to forgive, to change, to repent, to love sacrificially without reward. It is hard, very hard to heal the wounds and assuage the pain of so many of our human relationships. We really do need a savior. We really do need God in a meaningful and intense way: “A degenerate race, face down in the gutter. Don’t bother with them. They’re not worth deserve forgiving,” says the pessimistic side of Isaiah. Our world and our lives need to be reclaimed in a despairing and violent world. We need real meaning restored to what it means to be a human, a lover of one another, steeped in brotherhood and sisterhood, and in a relationship with a God that sustains us in being God’s own faithful people with purpose.
Isaiah had a vision, a hope, a dream, a vision from God:
There’s a day coming when the House of the Lord will be on a high mountain, and all nations will see it. All nations will be a like a river flowing up hill to God’s mountain. People will say, “Let’s climb God’s mountain.” God will show us the way he works and would have us do things, so we can live the way we are supposed to live. God will show us the way to peace, and how to beat swords and spears, our hatred and weaponry into plows and bulldozers so we can rebuild a fallen world. No more will nation fight nation, and persons try to humiliate and destroy one another. We won’t play war no more!
Who will lead us up the mountain to the house of God? Who will lead the way? Who will be our messianic hope for deliverance? God we need a savior to lead us back to you. Send us a savior, Lord! Help us to reclaim the savior and live each day as if he were due to arrive any moment. Come Lord Jesus and lead us to the Kingdom of God.
Thursday, November 22, 2001
THANKSGIVING
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: THANKSGIVING
PROPER:
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 22, 2001
TEXT: Deuteronomy 8:1-3,6-10, 17-20 – He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. . . . . Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant the he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.
ISSUE: Saying “thank you” is a basic admission and acknowledgment that we need someone else. From the Christian point of view, we acknowledge on this Thanksgiving Day our dependence upon and need for God. The Scripture reminds us that we do not live by our own power but we live by faith and trust in God. It is God who is the giver of all good things. We are the beneficiaries of God’s grace and the stewards of his gifts. To assume otherwise is to lead us into pride and human perversity.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I heard something on the news, in passing, recently that indicated that the United States, and maybe Canada, are the only two countries in the world that set aside a national day for Thanksgiving. I may not have gotten that just quite right. I do know that we Americans are celebrating a nation day of Thanksgiving, and that Canadians do have a Thanksgiving Day in October. Whatever some nations do, I can’t be quite sure, but I do know that the concept of stopping to reflect and to give Thanks to God is routed deeply in Christianity and Judaism all over the world. Modern Americans don’t have the corner on being Thankful. The Jewish Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles are all thanksgiving celebrations. Passover has overtones of thanksgiving for the birth of animal flocks, lambs especially. Pentecost was celebration of the harvest of grain, and Tabernacles gave thanks for the new wine. These are thankful moments express to God for material things. Throughout history of Europe and England, and in the middle ages there were various celebrations of thanksgiving to God for deliverance from plagues and war.
When the puritans came to New England, they too gave thanks in 1621 for their deliverance from famine and death. The year before, 1620, had been an extremely difficult year for the puritan pilgrims and they were taught some agricultural and survival skills by the Native American Indians. Which makes the point that we rarely save ourselves, but are in need of others, and the powerful grace of God.
The reading from Deuteronomy recalls the history of the Jews who were wandering in the wilderness for some forty years after they had fled from oppression in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. The complained at Moses that there was not enough food. They were truly humbled. But in the wilderness was provided the manna, believed to be manna or bread from heaven. Upon it they survived as they saw it as a gift from God. Indeed it was. The sweet manna is the sap from tarmarisk trees processed by insects, and left behind on the leaves of trees and bushes. It was a new and strange food, provided by God for the Israelites. They were reminded that they did not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. God’s grace was there for them, and they are not to say that their own power and might of their own hands got them their wealth, or their salvation.
In Christian Scripture, Jesus picks up on this very theme when Jesus himself is in the wilderness for forty days Jesus too is hungry and is tempted by the devil to turn the stones into familiar loaves of bread. Jesus quotes the Deuteronomy passage, “Man cannot live by bread alone, but needs every word that God speaks.” (Matt. 4:4; Luke 4:4) Out of these traditions and scripture, both the Jewish Passover Feast, and the Christian Holy Communion, more specifically named the Holy Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving” allude to being Thanksgiving Festivals that are celebrated around the world, the Christian Eucharist daily. The Jewish community gives thanks for their deliverance by God from evil oppression. The Christian community gives thanks to God for deliverance from evil and death and for the presence of God’s word in our midst. We do not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God revealed in the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ, his life and ministry reveal God, and we give thanks for that very fact of our existence. Do we need bread and material things, of course, but they are not the be all and the end all of our lives. We do not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God, and Thanks be to God that is given to us in Jesus Christ our Lord, as our way, our truth, and our life’s meaning.
There are rich accounts in the Christian Scriptures that highlight the fact that Jesus is the word of God, and the spiritual nourishment of human lives. The great story of the out pouring of the water transformed into abundant amount of wine is profoundly symbolic of the spiritual sustenance that comes from Christ as a gift to the inadequacy of the human situation without him. Without Christ there would be humiliation and dishonor. The feeding miracle of the 5,000 and 4,000 repeated over and over again tells of the abundant spiritual life giving spiritual bread of the Word of God graciously given without having to buy or earn it! From Jesus Christ we learn the fullness of life of the meaning of life. It is not merely in the accumulation of stuff to fill our barns, basements, and attics. It is not merely honor and prestige in the community and the way we can buy whatever we want. Fullness of life is how much we can love, forgive and, yes, forget. Fullness of life is in sensitivity to human need and the willingness, ability- better still - the unconscious sharing of resources, talents, gifts, treasures that God has so abundantly given to us.
Our prayer life can be full of things that we tell God we need, but be deficient in thanking and praising God for what we have already been so abundantly given to us.
Being thankful for what God gives and how he delivers us is deeply rooted in our faith tradition. It is not something peculiar to Americans and Canadians alone. This Thanksgiving is the day of the year that after we have spent so much time moaning, groaning, complaining, about how little that we have, and how poor we are, and how so much is expected of us, and how unappreciated we are, and how awful the stock market is doing that we realize just how much it is that we do, in fact, have to give and share. Our health, wealth, giftedness, resources are all God given to us to share with others and for the benefit of others. So we stop worrying about what shall we eat or drink or wear. And we simply place ourselves in the hands of God, who is the giver of all good things and perfect gifts, and strive to be instruments, channels, conduits, of his grace that flow from the Kingdom of God.
SEASON: THANKSGIVING
PROPER:
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 22, 2001
TEXT: Deuteronomy 8:1-3,6-10, 17-20 – He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. . . . . Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant the he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.
ISSUE: Saying “thank you” is a basic admission and acknowledgment that we need someone else. From the Christian point of view, we acknowledge on this Thanksgiving Day our dependence upon and need for God. The Scripture reminds us that we do not live by our own power but we live by faith and trust in God. It is God who is the giver of all good things. We are the beneficiaries of God’s grace and the stewards of his gifts. To assume otherwise is to lead us into pride and human perversity.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I heard something on the news, in passing, recently that indicated that the United States, and maybe Canada, are the only two countries in the world that set aside a national day for Thanksgiving. I may not have gotten that just quite right. I do know that we Americans are celebrating a nation day of Thanksgiving, and that Canadians do have a Thanksgiving Day in October. Whatever some nations do, I can’t be quite sure, but I do know that the concept of stopping to reflect and to give Thanks to God is routed deeply in Christianity and Judaism all over the world. Modern Americans don’t have the corner on being Thankful. The Jewish Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles are all thanksgiving celebrations. Passover has overtones of thanksgiving for the birth of animal flocks, lambs especially. Pentecost was celebration of the harvest of grain, and Tabernacles gave thanks for the new wine. These are thankful moments express to God for material things. Throughout history of Europe and England, and in the middle ages there were various celebrations of thanksgiving to God for deliverance from plagues and war.
When the puritans came to New England, they too gave thanks in 1621 for their deliverance from famine and death. The year before, 1620, had been an extremely difficult year for the puritan pilgrims and they were taught some agricultural and survival skills by the Native American Indians. Which makes the point that we rarely save ourselves, but are in need of others, and the powerful grace of God.
The reading from Deuteronomy recalls the history of the Jews who were wandering in the wilderness for some forty years after they had fled from oppression in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. The complained at Moses that there was not enough food. They were truly humbled. But in the wilderness was provided the manna, believed to be manna or bread from heaven. Upon it they survived as they saw it as a gift from God. Indeed it was. The sweet manna is the sap from tarmarisk trees processed by insects, and left behind on the leaves of trees and bushes. It was a new and strange food, provided by God for the Israelites. They were reminded that they did not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. God’s grace was there for them, and they are not to say that their own power and might of their own hands got them their wealth, or their salvation.
In Christian Scripture, Jesus picks up on this very theme when Jesus himself is in the wilderness for forty days Jesus too is hungry and is tempted by the devil to turn the stones into familiar loaves of bread. Jesus quotes the Deuteronomy passage, “Man cannot live by bread alone, but needs every word that God speaks.” (Matt. 4:4; Luke 4:4) Out of these traditions and scripture, both the Jewish Passover Feast, and the Christian Holy Communion, more specifically named the Holy Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving” allude to being Thanksgiving Festivals that are celebrated around the world, the Christian Eucharist daily. The Jewish community gives thanks for their deliverance by God from evil oppression. The Christian community gives thanks to God for deliverance from evil and death and for the presence of God’s word in our midst. We do not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God revealed in the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ, his life and ministry reveal God, and we give thanks for that very fact of our existence. Do we need bread and material things, of course, but they are not the be all and the end all of our lives. We do not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God, and Thanks be to God that is given to us in Jesus Christ our Lord, as our way, our truth, and our life’s meaning.
There are rich accounts in the Christian Scriptures that highlight the fact that Jesus is the word of God, and the spiritual nourishment of human lives. The great story of the out pouring of the water transformed into abundant amount of wine is profoundly symbolic of the spiritual sustenance that comes from Christ as a gift to the inadequacy of the human situation without him. Without Christ there would be humiliation and dishonor. The feeding miracle of the 5,000 and 4,000 repeated over and over again tells of the abundant spiritual life giving spiritual bread of the Word of God graciously given without having to buy or earn it! From Jesus Christ we learn the fullness of life of the meaning of life. It is not merely in the accumulation of stuff to fill our barns, basements, and attics. It is not merely honor and prestige in the community and the way we can buy whatever we want. Fullness of life is how much we can love, forgive and, yes, forget. Fullness of life is in sensitivity to human need and the willingness, ability- better still - the unconscious sharing of resources, talents, gifts, treasures that God has so abundantly given to us.
Our prayer life can be full of things that we tell God we need, but be deficient in thanking and praising God for what we have already been so abundantly given to us.
Being thankful for what God gives and how he delivers us is deeply rooted in our faith tradition. It is not something peculiar to Americans and Canadians alone. This Thanksgiving is the day of the year that after we have spent so much time moaning, groaning, complaining, about how little that we have, and how poor we are, and how so much is expected of us, and how unappreciated we are, and how awful the stock market is doing that we realize just how much it is that we do, in fact, have to give and share. Our health, wealth, giftedness, resources are all God given to us to share with others and for the benefit of others. So we stop worrying about what shall we eat or drink or wear. And we simply place ourselves in the hands of God, who is the giver of all good things and perfect gifts, and strive to be instruments, channels, conduits, of his grace that flow from the Kingdom of God.
Sunday, November 18, 2001
PENTECOST 24
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 24
PROPER: 28C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 18,2001
TEXT: Luke 21:5-19 – Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven . . . . . . . . But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
ISSUE: The passage tells of Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple in troubled times. His prophecy is authenticated in 70 A.D. when in fact the Temple is destroyed along with Jerusalem. The Romans and their own families persecute many of the disciples. The message calls for an awareness of difficult times to come, but to live in hope by faith. God will save his own people.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As we approach the end of the church year in these last days of the Pentecost season, the Sunday Lectionary calls for the readings of some of the apocalyptic sections of both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The apocalyptic scriptures usually deal with times of great disaster or the prediction of them, as if the world were coming to an end.
In the passage from Luke we have Jesus’ prophecy of a coming apocalyptic age: Beware that you are not led astray for there will be false prophets arise in the name of God. There will be wars and nations will rise against nation. It will be a time of terrorization, along with earthquakes, plagues and famines in some places. It will also be a time of betrayal by relatives and friends, because of the acceptance of Jesus. Not a pretty picture!
When Luke was writing this section of his Gospel account, the people who would first read it, knew quite well what Luke was talking about in his Gospel. They also knew that what Jesus had prophesied some fifty years prior had to a large extent come true. Their generation had come through very difficult times. The Temple, which had an extraordinary beauty, and which was quite large, had in fact been destroyed and nothing but its crumbled foundations remained. The city of Jerusalem had been destroyed as well by the Romans. A few daring but ill-advised insurrectionists had taken on the Roman conquerors and were met with overwhelming powers and destruction. Nations had risen up against nation. It is not unusual for the war to bring with it famine and sickness, or plague. Smoke and dust block out the heavens. The very foundations of the existence of the people are shaken, as if being in an earthquake.
The early followers of The Way of Jesus had also been persecuted. The Romans persecuted them for their new found faith and worship. Only the Jews had been exempt to worship as they desired, simply because the Romans knew they could not change the Jewish insistence up its worship of Yahweh and no man emperor. Christians who had left Judaism were persecuted if they did not pay homage to the Roman Emperor. Furthermore, early Christians were persecuted and rejected by their immediate families for their acceptance of Jesus. At the same time, when the Jewish community was being persecuted and devastated by the Romans, they were more likely to cling tightly to their Jewish Faith and reject any changes in a time of such anxiety and uncertainty. Hence you have an apocalyptic age. It is an age of the battle between good and evil. There is often a need for Superman, or Spiderman, or some extraordinary figure of power and of bringing hope to the world.
Notice that in this passage what the ultimate message is. Stand fast. Endure. Keep your faith. By your endurance you will gain your souls. For Luke and his community the message is to know Jesus and see in him their extraordinary hope. He’s the prophet, the power, and the one close to God revealing the truth. He’s the man of God upon who depends the new age that is to come, and becomes seen as the hope of Israel by the early church.
Various times in history, we have seen an apocalyptic age, which reveals the struggle between good and evil. We are experiencing one now in lieu of the infamous September 11th event. Airplanes fell from the sky. The temples, certainly symbols of American economic faith, were destroyed. Those beautiful alabaster towers plummeted to the ground. The smoke, ash, and dust blotted out the sun on one beautiful day. The repercussions make nations and people rise up against one another in war. The ongoing threat of nuclear and biological warfare is very much with us. The battle between good and evil is very much with us. The earthquake of human anxiety and uncertainty of the present threatens morality and ethics, routine forms of justice and civil rights. Our very symbols of power and financial stability are tumbled. Are the foundations of our very existence being threatened? I think so. Where do we turn? Curiously, some folk immediately think we need to rebuild the Trade Centers just as they were. We should get out the stars and stripes and continue to wave our imperialistic banners on high. Maybe not? Maybe we need to return to God in quietness and thoughtfulness. Maybe we need to endure in a faith that gives us of hope of resurrection to something new, to the Kingdom that is in the likeness of God. Maybe the time for recognizing what is really important in the sight of God has come. Maybe we are on the verge of a new era of hope for the world. From the time of the Towers of Babel in the Genesis story, God has never been very impressed with human pride and the need to usurp the powers of God. Apocalyptic moments are occasion for the revelation of something new, grand, and of God. They tell us that the world needs salvation. Our enduring faith tells us of the presence of God in Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. It is Christ alone who leads and knows the way in to the Kingdom of God, and into a new age of hope. The interesting thing about apocalyptic events in the Christian perspective is that the enduring faithful will survive in hope and faithfulness.
Presently we struggle with routing out what we believe to be the evil terrorists. But there is another step, which is the rebuilding and the rethinking of a world that leads to suspicion and hatred and seems to virtually enforce its destruction. The world is never at peace when there are people who are not treated with dignity. There can never be peace and hope when there is poverty in the world somewhere. There can be no peace or hope when there is hunger. There can be no peace in the world when there is more interest in material economic concerns than in raising the poor, the afflicted, the oppressed. There can be no hope for a world that eliminates its need for the God of love.
There must be more dialogue between peoples and nations. We must be more acutely aware of how we look to the world as Christian people and not as warmongers. We need to be ready to fly a banner that is not merely red, white, and blue, but a banner that symbolizes world hope, and affection for the goodness of the nations of the world, and our commitment to a greater understanding of a world of nations that belong to God.
Right now we are in the midst of the struggle for an end of violence and injustice. Unfortunately we are still fighting the evil, and the dust of the destruction has not yet settled and the sunshine is still clouded by the storms of war. But our hope lies in our faith and trust, that the battle shall be won by God, and the Christ who died for the sins of all the world will reclaim his world in peace, and the demons themselves will be converted and seek to enter the Kingdom
SEASON: PENTECOST 24
PROPER: 28C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 18,2001
TEXT: Luke 21:5-19 – Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven . . . . . . . . But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
ISSUE: The passage tells of Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple in troubled times. His prophecy is authenticated in 70 A.D. when in fact the Temple is destroyed along with Jerusalem. The Romans and their own families persecute many of the disciples. The message calls for an awareness of difficult times to come, but to live in hope by faith. God will save his own people.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As we approach the end of the church year in these last days of the Pentecost season, the Sunday Lectionary calls for the readings of some of the apocalyptic sections of both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The apocalyptic scriptures usually deal with times of great disaster or the prediction of them, as if the world were coming to an end.
In the passage from Luke we have Jesus’ prophecy of a coming apocalyptic age: Beware that you are not led astray for there will be false prophets arise in the name of God. There will be wars and nations will rise against nation. It will be a time of terrorization, along with earthquakes, plagues and famines in some places. It will also be a time of betrayal by relatives and friends, because of the acceptance of Jesus. Not a pretty picture!
When Luke was writing this section of his Gospel account, the people who would first read it, knew quite well what Luke was talking about in his Gospel. They also knew that what Jesus had prophesied some fifty years prior had to a large extent come true. Their generation had come through very difficult times. The Temple, which had an extraordinary beauty, and which was quite large, had in fact been destroyed and nothing but its crumbled foundations remained. The city of Jerusalem had been destroyed as well by the Romans. A few daring but ill-advised insurrectionists had taken on the Roman conquerors and were met with overwhelming powers and destruction. Nations had risen up against nation. It is not unusual for the war to bring with it famine and sickness, or plague. Smoke and dust block out the heavens. The very foundations of the existence of the people are shaken, as if being in an earthquake.
The early followers of The Way of Jesus had also been persecuted. The Romans persecuted them for their new found faith and worship. Only the Jews had been exempt to worship as they desired, simply because the Romans knew they could not change the Jewish insistence up its worship of Yahweh and no man emperor. Christians who had left Judaism were persecuted if they did not pay homage to the Roman Emperor. Furthermore, early Christians were persecuted and rejected by their immediate families for their acceptance of Jesus. At the same time, when the Jewish community was being persecuted and devastated by the Romans, they were more likely to cling tightly to their Jewish Faith and reject any changes in a time of such anxiety and uncertainty. Hence you have an apocalyptic age. It is an age of the battle between good and evil. There is often a need for Superman, or Spiderman, or some extraordinary figure of power and of bringing hope to the world.
Notice that in this passage what the ultimate message is. Stand fast. Endure. Keep your faith. By your endurance you will gain your souls. For Luke and his community the message is to know Jesus and see in him their extraordinary hope. He’s the prophet, the power, and the one close to God revealing the truth. He’s the man of God upon who depends the new age that is to come, and becomes seen as the hope of Israel by the early church.
Various times in history, we have seen an apocalyptic age, which reveals the struggle between good and evil. We are experiencing one now in lieu of the infamous September 11th event. Airplanes fell from the sky. The temples, certainly symbols of American economic faith, were destroyed. Those beautiful alabaster towers plummeted to the ground. The smoke, ash, and dust blotted out the sun on one beautiful day. The repercussions make nations and people rise up against one another in war. The ongoing threat of nuclear and biological warfare is very much with us. The battle between good and evil is very much with us. The earthquake of human anxiety and uncertainty of the present threatens morality and ethics, routine forms of justice and civil rights. Our very symbols of power and financial stability are tumbled. Are the foundations of our very existence being threatened? I think so. Where do we turn? Curiously, some folk immediately think we need to rebuild the Trade Centers just as they were. We should get out the stars and stripes and continue to wave our imperialistic banners on high. Maybe not? Maybe we need to return to God in quietness and thoughtfulness. Maybe we need to endure in a faith that gives us of hope of resurrection to something new, to the Kingdom that is in the likeness of God. Maybe the time for recognizing what is really important in the sight of God has come. Maybe we are on the verge of a new era of hope for the world. From the time of the Towers of Babel in the Genesis story, God has never been very impressed with human pride and the need to usurp the powers of God. Apocalyptic moments are occasion for the revelation of something new, grand, and of God. They tell us that the world needs salvation. Our enduring faith tells us of the presence of God in Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. It is Christ alone who leads and knows the way in to the Kingdom of God, and into a new age of hope. The interesting thing about apocalyptic events in the Christian perspective is that the enduring faithful will survive in hope and faithfulness.
Presently we struggle with routing out what we believe to be the evil terrorists. But there is another step, which is the rebuilding and the rethinking of a world that leads to suspicion and hatred and seems to virtually enforce its destruction. The world is never at peace when there are people who are not treated with dignity. There can never be peace and hope when there is poverty in the world somewhere. There can be no peace or hope when there is hunger. There can be no peace in the world when there is more interest in material economic concerns than in raising the poor, the afflicted, the oppressed. There can be no hope for a world that eliminates its need for the God of love.
There must be more dialogue between peoples and nations. We must be more acutely aware of how we look to the world as Christian people and not as warmongers. We need to be ready to fly a banner that is not merely red, white, and blue, but a banner that symbolizes world hope, and affection for the goodness of the nations of the world, and our commitment to a greater understanding of a world of nations that belong to God.
Right now we are in the midst of the struggle for an end of violence and injustice. Unfortunately we are still fighting the evil, and the dust of the destruction has not yet settled and the sunshine is still clouded by the storms of war. But our hope lies in our faith and trust, that the battle shall be won by God, and the Christ who died for the sins of all the world will reclaim his world in peace, and the demons themselves will be converted and seek to enter the Kingdom
Sunday, November 11, 2001
PENTECOST 23
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 23
PROPER: 27 C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 11, 2001
TEXT: Luke 20:27-38 – “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”
ISSUE: The passage from Luke emphasizes the fact of resurrection as a part of Hebrew Scripture teaching. At the same time it stresses the broader concept of being a part of God’s family. The Christian community is raised up to a relationship with God as Father, and the followers of Jesus Christ as the sons, or children, of God. The Christian family is not lost from its faithful relationship with God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage of the Gospel from Luke today gives us another one of those moments that tells us how hard it was for Jesus living in a very difficult time. This affront to him by the Sadducees comes to him, according to Luke, immediately following the testing by the Pharisees as to whether or not it was legal for Jews to pay taxes to Caesar. Questions in public to Jesus were attacks, or traps, to dishonor him. To catch him in some false teaching, or to impose a question that he could not answer, and thus, diminish his importance and honor, which would also diminish his following.
We are familiar mostly with Pharisees. These were members of Judaism who were followers of both the written law and the rabbinical teachings of the oral law. They had some vague concept of resurrection, and they believed in angels and spirits. Some were friendly to Jesus, but from the Scriptures we mostly from the more hostile Pharisees who tested Jesus. Jesus himself was associated with the Pharisaic party. Interestingly enough, at the end of this scene from today’s reading, the Pharisees praise Jesus for his response to the Sadducees.
Now as for the Sadducees, they were also a religious party of Jews who were of the higher and wealthier class. Religiously they believed in, or taught only the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. They did not believe in angels or spirits, nor did they believe in any kind of a resurrection. They were the priestly class associated with the Temple and were they leadership class. They were often in collusion with the Romans for the sake of their own status, and perhaps for the safety of the country as well. Of course the teachings of Jesus and his popularity with the poorer classes may have been considered a real threat to the stability of the country. Thus, the Sadducees attack Jesus with the entrapment question about resurrection. Can he respond appropriately to maintain his honor and status with the peasants?
So the Sadducees raise for Jesus a problem issue about whether or not there can possibly be a resurrection. They set up what would be a difficult situation if there were such a thing as resurrection. If a man died and left his wife childless, and she were married by his second brother, who also died and left her childless, and so on through the next five brothers, all leaving her childless, whose wife would she be in the resurrection, because she had seven husbands?
There was in the Hebrew Scriptures a practice called Levirate Marriage, from Deuteronomy 25:5-10. If a man died, his brother was expected to take his wife and have a child with her for the purpose of carrying on his brother’s line in Israel. The practice would also give a widow a child, hopefully a son who could grow up to he her spokesman. In a sense it was the way a man lived on after this death, through his offspring, but offspring provided through his brother. The issue for Jesus to answer deals with, whose wife will such women be, if there is a resurrection when they all get to heaven, for they all had married her? Thus, they believe the resurrection concept is ridiculous.
Now, Jesus’ answer: In the time of the resurrection, in the time of the coming of the Kingdom of God, people don’t marry. They are like angels and are the children (sons and daughters) of God. Moses himself, the very one to whom the Sadducees pay so much attention, when he was in the wilderness tending his sheep and saw the burning bush heard God say: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived long before Moses. But God saw them as still living, and part of a living faith. “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive,” says Jesus. Jesus answers the attack and maintains his position. The Pharisees (teachers of the Law) congratulate him on his good answer, and no one dares to ask him any more questions.
Why does Luke include this incident in his Gospel account? It does tell and highlights the stresses that Jesus encountered from both Pharisees and Sadducees. But Luke’s gospel is also directed and aimed at Gentiles, many of whom at the time came from pagan or mythological religions that had concepts of resurrection. Thus, Luke is saying to them, and so does Christianity. So join us. It is evangelical, missionary, in its approach. Luke is concerned with revealing that Christian Faith is about resurrection with the true God of Israel who is with his people always.
Underneath that concept, there is still lurking another teaching. Jesus was never very taken with the cultural understanding of family as an exclusive, turned in on itself unity. We remember things like, “Who ever comes to me cannot be my disciple unless he loves me more than he loves his father and his mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and his sisters, and himself as well.” (Luke 14:26) “No servant can be the slave of two masters; he will hate on and love the other; he will be loyal to one and despise the other.” (Luke 16:13) On another occasion Jesus is told, ‘Your mother and brothers have come for you.’ To which he replies, “My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 8:21) The Kingdom of God, Heaven, the Domain of God is far more inclusive. Those who are faithful, and are focused on God the Father are a part of a much larger family. The faithful are the sons and daughters, the children of God. Life in the Kingdom of God is not dependent upon the institutions of this world. Rather, those of faith are raised up, resurrected to the Kingdom of God.
The issue for us today is to consider what is the impact of this story on our lives. We are comfortable with a faith that teaches resurrection and hope for life eternal. The crowds at Easter bear witness to that. Although, I’m not really sure the greater crowds understand what that means. So many people have the folk-concept of resurrection that everything is going to be the same when we get to heaven. Today’s response by Jesus indicates that it is not. But the teaching in this days lesson tells us of our being with God. Giving up familiar concepts as to what is really important and turning to faith, loyalty, and trust in God is our ultimate salvation and hope. How we manage our family, and live according to cultural trends of this day is hardly important. We are worthy of the presence of God, and being children, son and daughters of God. What’s more is that we become as God’s faithful, like spirits and angels. We develop through Jesus Christ a new raised up spirituality. We are raised from being the children of Adam to the children of Christ. We live in the spirit of love, in the spirit of hope, in the spirit of openness. We live in the spirit of acceptance. We live in the spirit, which gives the message of an abiding love and hopefulness to the world around us.
We are presently living in a world where our foes surround us. Remember that old hymn by St. Thomas Acquinus: “O Saving Victim opening wide, the gate of heaven to man below. Our foes press on from every side. Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.” (Hymnal 1982) The stresses and the strains of our lives surround us. The present fears of terrorist attacks can frighten us, and create all kinds of fears and anxieties. It is the unseen terror. We may find ourselves feeling like children in the dark; frightened by the shadows we cannot decipher and understand. Yet Jesus Christ enables us to be resurrected, raised up, lifted up out of the darkness and into the light, and assured that we are the children of God. We are the messengers of hope to a fear-filled and threatened world. We are raised up beyond mere knee jerking responses of vengeance and doing the same thing the same old ways. We are raised up to seek understanding and make the changes required that are resonant with God’s Kingdom.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: they were all men who were raised up from insignificant lives to be in the service of God. Moses was raised up, which his name actually means, from out of the Nile River, and raised up as a man with a speech impediment to become one of the greatest of all the sons of God and messenger of God, to deliver and to remove his people from evil and oppression. Job, surrounded by friends telling him how evil he must be to have to endure such punishment. Yet Job is raised up in faith to be able to say, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Job 19:23-27a)
SEASON: PENTECOST 23
PROPER: 27 C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 11, 2001
TEXT: Luke 20:27-38 – “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”
ISSUE: The passage from Luke emphasizes the fact of resurrection as a part of Hebrew Scripture teaching. At the same time it stresses the broader concept of being a part of God’s family. The Christian community is raised up to a relationship with God as Father, and the followers of Jesus Christ as the sons, or children, of God. The Christian family is not lost from its faithful relationship with God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage of the Gospel from Luke today gives us another one of those moments that tells us how hard it was for Jesus living in a very difficult time. This affront to him by the Sadducees comes to him, according to Luke, immediately following the testing by the Pharisees as to whether or not it was legal for Jews to pay taxes to Caesar. Questions in public to Jesus were attacks, or traps, to dishonor him. To catch him in some false teaching, or to impose a question that he could not answer, and thus, diminish his importance and honor, which would also diminish his following.
We are familiar mostly with Pharisees. These were members of Judaism who were followers of both the written law and the rabbinical teachings of the oral law. They had some vague concept of resurrection, and they believed in angels and spirits. Some were friendly to Jesus, but from the Scriptures we mostly from the more hostile Pharisees who tested Jesus. Jesus himself was associated with the Pharisaic party. Interestingly enough, at the end of this scene from today’s reading, the Pharisees praise Jesus for his response to the Sadducees.
Now as for the Sadducees, they were also a religious party of Jews who were of the higher and wealthier class. Religiously they believed in, or taught only the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. They did not believe in angels or spirits, nor did they believe in any kind of a resurrection. They were the priestly class associated with the Temple and were they leadership class. They were often in collusion with the Romans for the sake of their own status, and perhaps for the safety of the country as well. Of course the teachings of Jesus and his popularity with the poorer classes may have been considered a real threat to the stability of the country. Thus, the Sadducees attack Jesus with the entrapment question about resurrection. Can he respond appropriately to maintain his honor and status with the peasants?
So the Sadducees raise for Jesus a problem issue about whether or not there can possibly be a resurrection. They set up what would be a difficult situation if there were such a thing as resurrection. If a man died and left his wife childless, and she were married by his second brother, who also died and left her childless, and so on through the next five brothers, all leaving her childless, whose wife would she be in the resurrection, because she had seven husbands?
There was in the Hebrew Scriptures a practice called Levirate Marriage, from Deuteronomy 25:5-10. If a man died, his brother was expected to take his wife and have a child with her for the purpose of carrying on his brother’s line in Israel. The practice would also give a widow a child, hopefully a son who could grow up to he her spokesman. In a sense it was the way a man lived on after this death, through his offspring, but offspring provided through his brother. The issue for Jesus to answer deals with, whose wife will such women be, if there is a resurrection when they all get to heaven, for they all had married her? Thus, they believe the resurrection concept is ridiculous.
Now, Jesus’ answer: In the time of the resurrection, in the time of the coming of the Kingdom of God, people don’t marry. They are like angels and are the children (sons and daughters) of God. Moses himself, the very one to whom the Sadducees pay so much attention, when he was in the wilderness tending his sheep and saw the burning bush heard God say: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived long before Moses. But God saw them as still living, and part of a living faith. “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive,” says Jesus. Jesus answers the attack and maintains his position. The Pharisees (teachers of the Law) congratulate him on his good answer, and no one dares to ask him any more questions.
Why does Luke include this incident in his Gospel account? It does tell and highlights the stresses that Jesus encountered from both Pharisees and Sadducees. But Luke’s gospel is also directed and aimed at Gentiles, many of whom at the time came from pagan or mythological religions that had concepts of resurrection. Thus, Luke is saying to them, and so does Christianity. So join us. It is evangelical, missionary, in its approach. Luke is concerned with revealing that Christian Faith is about resurrection with the true God of Israel who is with his people always.
Underneath that concept, there is still lurking another teaching. Jesus was never very taken with the cultural understanding of family as an exclusive, turned in on itself unity. We remember things like, “Who ever comes to me cannot be my disciple unless he loves me more than he loves his father and his mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and his sisters, and himself as well.” (Luke 14:26) “No servant can be the slave of two masters; he will hate on and love the other; he will be loyal to one and despise the other.” (Luke 16:13) On another occasion Jesus is told, ‘Your mother and brothers have come for you.’ To which he replies, “My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 8:21) The Kingdom of God, Heaven, the Domain of God is far more inclusive. Those who are faithful, and are focused on God the Father are a part of a much larger family. The faithful are the sons and daughters, the children of God. Life in the Kingdom of God is not dependent upon the institutions of this world. Rather, those of faith are raised up, resurrected to the Kingdom of God.
The issue for us today is to consider what is the impact of this story on our lives. We are comfortable with a faith that teaches resurrection and hope for life eternal. The crowds at Easter bear witness to that. Although, I’m not really sure the greater crowds understand what that means. So many people have the folk-concept of resurrection that everything is going to be the same when we get to heaven. Today’s response by Jesus indicates that it is not. But the teaching in this days lesson tells us of our being with God. Giving up familiar concepts as to what is really important and turning to faith, loyalty, and trust in God is our ultimate salvation and hope. How we manage our family, and live according to cultural trends of this day is hardly important. We are worthy of the presence of God, and being children, son and daughters of God. What’s more is that we become as God’s faithful, like spirits and angels. We develop through Jesus Christ a new raised up spirituality. We are raised from being the children of Adam to the children of Christ. We live in the spirit of love, in the spirit of hope, in the spirit of openness. We live in the spirit of acceptance. We live in the spirit, which gives the message of an abiding love and hopefulness to the world around us.
We are presently living in a world where our foes surround us. Remember that old hymn by St. Thomas Acquinus: “O Saving Victim opening wide, the gate of heaven to man below. Our foes press on from every side. Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.” (Hymnal 1982) The stresses and the strains of our lives surround us. The present fears of terrorist attacks can frighten us, and create all kinds of fears and anxieties. It is the unseen terror. We may find ourselves feeling like children in the dark; frightened by the shadows we cannot decipher and understand. Yet Jesus Christ enables us to be resurrected, raised up, lifted up out of the darkness and into the light, and assured that we are the children of God. We are the messengers of hope to a fear-filled and threatened world. We are raised up beyond mere knee jerking responses of vengeance and doing the same thing the same old ways. We are raised up to seek understanding and make the changes required that are resonant with God’s Kingdom.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: they were all men who were raised up from insignificant lives to be in the service of God. Moses was raised up, which his name actually means, from out of the Nile River, and raised up as a man with a speech impediment to become one of the greatest of all the sons of God and messenger of God, to deliver and to remove his people from evil and oppression. Job, surrounded by friends telling him how evil he must be to have to endure such punishment. Yet Job is raised up in faith to be able to say, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Job 19:23-27a)
Sunday, November 4, 2001
SUNDAY OF ALL SAINTS
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: SUNDAY OF ALL SAINTS
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 4,2001
TEXT: Matthew 5:1-12 - The Beatitudes
“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
ISSUE: The setting of The Beatitudes is Jesus teaching his intimate disciples. He is teaches them that when they begin their ministries they are to be knowledgeable of what it is that God truly honors. What does it mean to be really honorable or blessed? It is not in great wealth, or having an happy life without problems. But it is in simplicity of life, of being in union with God, and yearning for what is right.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This celebration day of All Saints is a special one in the life of the church. It is a Holy Day set for November 1st each year, but the church in recent years provided that since many people worked and were not responding to the celebration of this day in the middle of the week that it could be celebrated on Sundays. It used to be a day when many of our deceased Christian friends and relatives were remembered, and those names all read aloud or printed in parish bulletins. However, the All Faithful Celebration, formerly known as All Souls Day was returned to the church calendar, for Nov. 2nd, and we have been celebrating that day remember many of our loved ones who had made a special impression on our lives as truly people of God.
I think that it is important to make the distinction of separating All Faithful remembrances from the All Saints Feast itself. On this day of All Saints, we look primarily at our part in the church’s definition of sainthood. Remember too, that this Sunday of All Saints is one of the special days that the church sets aside for our baptisms. Our baptism is our entrance into the church and into the fellowship of God’s saints or holy persons. There are the saints that have their special days. There are many remembered for their great contributions to the Christian Faith, like Francis of Assisi, St. Patrick, The Apostles, St. Teresa of Avila, and the fellowship of great men and women who led holy lives and sacrificed much for the Christian Faith. From earliest times in the church, the saints were the baptized faithful of God, sealed on their foreheads with the sign of the cross. They were the followers of Jesus Christ, each having their ministry and mission given to baptizing all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them the things that Christ had taught them.
Notice that the appointed Gospel reading for this day is The Beatitudes from the Gospel account of Matthew. (A more abbreviated list of Jesus’ beatitudes also appear in Luke 6:20-26.) The setting tells us that Jesus takes his intimate group of disciples to a mountain get away. Jesus sits as was customary for a teacher or rabbi. He speaks to them about what is true blessedness. And of course they are peculiar, if not somewhat shocking to the disciples. Several of the beatitudes are sort of the exact opposite of what a person might think true blessedness was, and these are probably the most authentic of Jesus’ beatitudes. Why would Jesus say: Blessed are the poor, Blessed are the mournful, Blessed are the meek, the hungry and thirsty? These seem to be the exact opposite of what you might expect blessedness to be.
Let’s set the scene. Jesus gathers together his closest disciples. He sits. It is as if he begins to say to them, if you are going to be a follower of mine, lets begin by getting it straight. Let me tell you what it is that God blesses or honors in this world. That is to say, let me tell you what it is that God really holds up as honorable in this world, in spite of what the world tells you are blessedness or honor. Those who have no clout, no voice, no prestige, or power are the very ones to whom God extends his undeserved grace. These are the very ones that God loves and honors. You got that? Honorable and blessed are those that mourn, that are without hope, who know pain and suffering. These are the ones that God honors, and to whom he extends his grace. The world will tell you that the poor and the suffering are unimportant, but the mission on which you disciples sees the world differently. The world will tell you that the meek and humble folk, finish last. I tell you, says Jesus, that they will inherit the earth. Blessed and honored are those simple folk who hunger and thirst for what is right, for innocence, who are merciful and giving. Honorable in the sight of God are those who have been abused, maltreated, disenfranchised, dumped on by the world, and considered to be worthless and are persecuted. These are the very ones that God loves and seeks to embrace.
And finally Jesus says to the disciples gathered around him on their mountain get away, And honorable are you guys, who will be condemned and persecuted, slandered, avoided, thrown out of your families and out of the synagogues for faithfully caring on the ministry to which you have been called and responded. As you develop your ministries of teaching, caring, loving, in the name of God, you will come to know persecution and mockery at times from the world.
The beatitudes of Jesus are teaching, telling, proclaiming to the world, and Jesus disciples, his buddies, what real blessedness and honor is in the world that so often thinks very differently. Is that true or not?
What is often honored in our world today is wealth. Persons who have a large accumulation of wealth are often seen as “the blessed.” They are the ones who must have done things right to become so blessed. Many of us fear for the loss of our possessions. We cling tightly to them. We think of people who achieve positions of authority and power as the honorable or blessed.
For a long time, people who have good solid educations were thought to be the honorable by their accumulation of knowledge and wisdom, as opposed to people in lesser positions in life. The mantra was, “If you’re going to make it in the world, you have to get a good education.”
Now having wealth and possessions, having a fortunate life with a minimum amount of suffering and mourning, and having a good education with some wisdom and knowledge are not evil, nor dishonorable. It is, however, when these things become the total focus of our lives without God, and without the recognition of his grace that we are not honorable in the sight of God. There are many rich, educated, and healthy saints in the world and gone on before us. But neither are wealth, education, and lack of suffering honorable if we are without God, and conduct our lives as if we have made it on our own. Being a ‘hot shot’ in the world is not the stuff of which saints are made Jesus is telling his disciples and the Christians living in the world today. We frequently baptize infants on All Saints Day. These too are the ones whom God honors and blesses. They have no ability of their own and they do not have the capacity to earn anything, and they are by the grace of God, the new saints in the community whom God, loves, blesses, and honors. We grow them up, hopefully, in a community of saints whose blessedness is in their capacity to love and forgive and teach them about God.
Right now we are living in a very frightening world. People are scared and anxious. Most of us would never have dreamed that the day would come when we were afraid to go to the Post Office to pick up the mail, or even to pick it up out of the mailbox in front of our homes. It is sad, mournful, that we have to be on constant alert to anything strange, and afraid to fly in an airplane. It’s a sad comment that we are frightened to be in a tall building. It is a world where there is fear and great anxiety. Our imaginations are at work making us wonder what might be the next tragic event. Evil and terror for the most part has us just where it wants us. We are not quite so sure that we are in control of our lives like we once were. There are many people in mourning as a result of the recent acts of terror on Sept. 11, 2001. We now know only too well what it means to be persecuted as a nation, and for our Christianity. The sixteen Christian people murdered in Pakistan last week were members of our own Anglican Communion meeting in a Catholic Church.
Jesus takes his disciples up to the mountain get-away. He tells them there are many people who are afraid and have no one to speak for them, and feel anxious and powerless in the world. There are those who are in mourning, those who are hungry and thirst for what is right and need justice. These are the very ones I honor and love. Don’t ever forget that. They are the saints as you are. Now go and proclaim love to the world, give them a cup of water, hear their pain and their suffering, their fear and anxiety and take to them the peace that passes understanding. Hold fast to the presence of God and his love and fulfill you discipleship as the saints you are and are called to be.
SEASON: SUNDAY OF ALL SAINTS
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 4,2001
TEXT: Matthew 5:1-12 - The Beatitudes
“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
ISSUE: The setting of The Beatitudes is Jesus teaching his intimate disciples. He is teaches them that when they begin their ministries they are to be knowledgeable of what it is that God truly honors. What does it mean to be really honorable or blessed? It is not in great wealth, or having an happy life without problems. But it is in simplicity of life, of being in union with God, and yearning for what is right.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This celebration day of All Saints is a special one in the life of the church. It is a Holy Day set for November 1st each year, but the church in recent years provided that since many people worked and were not responding to the celebration of this day in the middle of the week that it could be celebrated on Sundays. It used to be a day when many of our deceased Christian friends and relatives were remembered, and those names all read aloud or printed in parish bulletins. However, the All Faithful Celebration, formerly known as All Souls Day was returned to the church calendar, for Nov. 2nd, and we have been celebrating that day remember many of our loved ones who had made a special impression on our lives as truly people of God.
I think that it is important to make the distinction of separating All Faithful remembrances from the All Saints Feast itself. On this day of All Saints, we look primarily at our part in the church’s definition of sainthood. Remember too, that this Sunday of All Saints is one of the special days that the church sets aside for our baptisms. Our baptism is our entrance into the church and into the fellowship of God’s saints or holy persons. There are the saints that have their special days. There are many remembered for their great contributions to the Christian Faith, like Francis of Assisi, St. Patrick, The Apostles, St. Teresa of Avila, and the fellowship of great men and women who led holy lives and sacrificed much for the Christian Faith. From earliest times in the church, the saints were the baptized faithful of God, sealed on their foreheads with the sign of the cross. They were the followers of Jesus Christ, each having their ministry and mission given to baptizing all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them the things that Christ had taught them.
Notice that the appointed Gospel reading for this day is The Beatitudes from the Gospel account of Matthew. (A more abbreviated list of Jesus’ beatitudes also appear in Luke 6:20-26.) The setting tells us that Jesus takes his intimate group of disciples to a mountain get away. Jesus sits as was customary for a teacher or rabbi. He speaks to them about what is true blessedness. And of course they are peculiar, if not somewhat shocking to the disciples. Several of the beatitudes are sort of the exact opposite of what a person might think true blessedness was, and these are probably the most authentic of Jesus’ beatitudes. Why would Jesus say: Blessed are the poor, Blessed are the mournful, Blessed are the meek, the hungry and thirsty? These seem to be the exact opposite of what you might expect blessedness to be.
Let’s set the scene. Jesus gathers together his closest disciples. He sits. It is as if he begins to say to them, if you are going to be a follower of mine, lets begin by getting it straight. Let me tell you what it is that God blesses or honors in this world. That is to say, let me tell you what it is that God really holds up as honorable in this world, in spite of what the world tells you are blessedness or honor. Those who have no clout, no voice, no prestige, or power are the very ones to whom God extends his undeserved grace. These are the very ones that God loves and honors. You got that? Honorable and blessed are those that mourn, that are without hope, who know pain and suffering. These are the ones that God honors, and to whom he extends his grace. The world will tell you that the poor and the suffering are unimportant, but the mission on which you disciples sees the world differently. The world will tell you that the meek and humble folk, finish last. I tell you, says Jesus, that they will inherit the earth. Blessed and honored are those simple folk who hunger and thirst for what is right, for innocence, who are merciful and giving. Honorable in the sight of God are those who have been abused, maltreated, disenfranchised, dumped on by the world, and considered to be worthless and are persecuted. These are the very ones that God loves and seeks to embrace.
And finally Jesus says to the disciples gathered around him on their mountain get away, And honorable are you guys, who will be condemned and persecuted, slandered, avoided, thrown out of your families and out of the synagogues for faithfully caring on the ministry to which you have been called and responded. As you develop your ministries of teaching, caring, loving, in the name of God, you will come to know persecution and mockery at times from the world.
The beatitudes of Jesus are teaching, telling, proclaiming to the world, and Jesus disciples, his buddies, what real blessedness and honor is in the world that so often thinks very differently. Is that true or not?
What is often honored in our world today is wealth. Persons who have a large accumulation of wealth are often seen as “the blessed.” They are the ones who must have done things right to become so blessed. Many of us fear for the loss of our possessions. We cling tightly to them. We think of people who achieve positions of authority and power as the honorable or blessed.
For a long time, people who have good solid educations were thought to be the honorable by their accumulation of knowledge and wisdom, as opposed to people in lesser positions in life. The mantra was, “If you’re going to make it in the world, you have to get a good education.”
Now having wealth and possessions, having a fortunate life with a minimum amount of suffering and mourning, and having a good education with some wisdom and knowledge are not evil, nor dishonorable. It is, however, when these things become the total focus of our lives without God, and without the recognition of his grace that we are not honorable in the sight of God. There are many rich, educated, and healthy saints in the world and gone on before us. But neither are wealth, education, and lack of suffering honorable if we are without God, and conduct our lives as if we have made it on our own. Being a ‘hot shot’ in the world is not the stuff of which saints are made Jesus is telling his disciples and the Christians living in the world today. We frequently baptize infants on All Saints Day. These too are the ones whom God honors and blesses. They have no ability of their own and they do not have the capacity to earn anything, and they are by the grace of God, the new saints in the community whom God, loves, blesses, and honors. We grow them up, hopefully, in a community of saints whose blessedness is in their capacity to love and forgive and teach them about God.
Right now we are living in a very frightening world. People are scared and anxious. Most of us would never have dreamed that the day would come when we were afraid to go to the Post Office to pick up the mail, or even to pick it up out of the mailbox in front of our homes. It is sad, mournful, that we have to be on constant alert to anything strange, and afraid to fly in an airplane. It’s a sad comment that we are frightened to be in a tall building. It is a world where there is fear and great anxiety. Our imaginations are at work making us wonder what might be the next tragic event. Evil and terror for the most part has us just where it wants us. We are not quite so sure that we are in control of our lives like we once were. There are many people in mourning as a result of the recent acts of terror on Sept. 11, 2001. We now know only too well what it means to be persecuted as a nation, and for our Christianity. The sixteen Christian people murdered in Pakistan last week were members of our own Anglican Communion meeting in a Catholic Church.
Jesus takes his disciples up to the mountain get-away. He tells them there are many people who are afraid and have no one to speak for them, and feel anxious and powerless in the world. There are those who are in mourning, those who are hungry and thirst for what is right and need justice. These are the very ones I honor and love. Don’t ever forget that. They are the saints as you are. Now go and proclaim love to the world, give them a cup of water, hear their pain and their suffering, their fear and anxiety and take to them the peace that passes understanding. Hold fast to the presence of God and his love and fulfill you discipleship as the saints you are and are called to be.
Sunday, October 21, 2001
PENTECOST 20
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 20
PROPER: 24C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: October 21,2001
TEXT: CHILDRENS’ SABBATH
Luke 18:1-8a – “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”
See also: Gen. 32:3-8, 2-30 “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”
ISSUE: The readings for this day call for faithful, loyal, and a persistent relationship with God. Jesus’ parable of the persistent woman wrestling with a dishonorable Judge tells what God is not like, but rather God desires to serve his people much in the same way as Jesus’ ministry was a persistent proclamation of the love and justice of God. The Children’s’ Sabbath celebration calls us all to a persistent care and concern for the children of the church, the community, and the world. Through the church we work for a profound caring for our children that they may grow in love of the Lord and carry on that ministry.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jesus tells another parable. It is a parable that is told with a sense of humor to encourage people not to lose heart, but to attend to regular prayer, faithfulness, and loyalty with an assurance that God is responsive.
The parable tells of a widow who goes before a judge with a complaint. We are not told what her complaint is, but it may likely have to do with some property claim that she has. Powerful landowners at the time were eager to make claim on whatever property they could get their hands on. They were known for attempting to bribe judges. The widow is seeking some kind of justice.
Remember that the word widow in the Jewish language of this time meant literally “silent one.” A woman who had no married sons, and who had lost their husbands, had no one to speak for them in this time and culture. Yet the woman that Jesus describes in this parable is quite vocal on her own and persistently goes before the judge to get justice for her claim.
The judge is described in the parable is known for not having much honor, and caring less. He has no fear or awe of either God or respect for people. The widow persistently comes for him nagging him and demanding justice. The court case of the widow, it is helpful to understand, is a public hearing that would be observed by the community. Finally, the judge becomes aware that the community may well turn against him. The literal and more effective translation is that the old woman is not wearing him out, but rather she is going to give him a black eye by her continual coming. It is a “boxing” imagery.
The parable ends with Jesus saying, “And will not God grant justice to his chosen one who cry to him day and night. Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.” This is a negative kind of parable. It does not tell specifically what God is like, but rather what God is not like. If a dishonorable judge can treat a widow and his constituents in this way, and finally be nagged into changing, then how much more will a God that loves and cares about his creation respond to the justice required.
The people of this age may question the conclusion to the parable. We argue that we pray and it seems at times that our prayers are not answered. We are a people and nation of instant gratification. Let me suggest that we might try to understand this parable in still another way. Sometimes its fascinating to wrestle with the parables and try to understand them in another way be reversing them. Jesus was himself a master at attempting to reverse things, i.e. “The first shall be last and the last first.” In this parable the old widow lady is much like God, and the corrupt judge is like the world. The judge is stuck in his ways of injustice; he is insensitive to human need. He is without sensitivity and compassion. It is the widow lady, who pleads with him time and time again to shape up and change and become a new person of justice and love. It is God who pleads with us, who persistently through the ages begs us to act sensitively, justly, lovingly, compassionately, and mercifully.
The Hebrew Scriptures contain the teaching of the prophets, speaking in the name of God, for the nation of Israel to be just and be a light for the world of the manifestation of the God of love. (Notice that in the Genesis reading today about Jacob. Jacob was such a scoundrel and trickster. Even in the story today, after cheating his brother, he divides all his possessions when he hears his brother is near, whom he has not seen in years. If his brother comes to take his property, at least he will only get half, Jacob hopes. That night an angel, a messenger of God comes to Jacob and the two enter into a struggle, a wrestling match. And finally Jacob is blessed by God and is changed and given a new name. No longer Jacob, but Israel, meaning one who struggles with God, and he is blessed in the struggle.) The ministry of Jesus is also a persistent faithful unwavering commitment to seeking justice for the world and especially for the poor, the sick, the underprivileged, and the disenfranchised, like women and children. His faithful persistence brings him to his death on the cross. He lays down his life in the effort to change the hearts and minds of people. In him and through him the world is changed in time. There is kind of humor in thinking of God as the old widow demanding a corrupt world to change. We can only guess that this is what the clever Jesus had in mind.
Is it possible that we miss a greater understanding of prayer and God’s response to us, because we have not listened to God’s persistent pleading with us?
There are essentially two things we are looking at today in the life of our parish. The first is the issue of our stewardship. All members of St. John’s are asked to be responsive to God’s faithfulness towards us by being faithful, persistent, sacrificial members of our congregation, and to be honorable in our response to God through making a pledged commitment for the new year, 2002. The Scriptures of the Lord asks us to be faithfully committed to Christ’s through the Church. Gail Landers, Senior Warden, will talk with you more about this issue, at the breakfast this morning, and at the lunch next week. Please attend one of these meals . . . signed-up or not.
The other issue with which we are concerned today is this day set aside as Children’s Sabbath, which is being celebrated over this weekend in Islamic mosques, Jewish synagogues, and Christian Churches. From our Christian perspective Jesus demanded that children be brought to him, and he blessed or honored them. Unfortunately, there are many suffering children around the world and at home. Sadly we are at war. Wars not only maim children, but they make them orphans. Children have notoriously suffered in war times at the hand of destructive weapons, and from fear, anxiety, trauma and shock. Children that grow up in an atmosphere of conflict and hate are likely to have their futures warped and profoundly influenced by that hate. TV news reveals that in the faces of Palestinian and Jewish children, as well as northern Irish children. Over the years many of us have perhaps become insensitive to the pictures of starving children as a a result of famines and political intrigues. Children have suffered from stray bullets in our cities drug wars. Children also suffer from wounding and death caused by unlocked firearms that get into their curious and inquisitive hands. In recent years we have become increasingly aware that many children, both boys and girls have suffered from abuse both physical and sexual in their own homes, communities, and even churches. Unfortunately around the world and in our own country, children do not always have proper medical care as a result of their family finances.
As your pastor and priest, I have been very concerned in our community about our children. Needless to say they are all pretty well fed, clothed, educated, and loved by their parents. Sometimes they may be even over indulged. A recent TV feature told of modern day families so over extended in activities that they hardly have time for being together for family interaction and times of quality time just for development of friendship and love among one another. My concern is that we are neglecting the spiritual lives of our children. It always strikes me a Christmas and Easter how many children are associated with this parish, and yet we have very sporadic attendance, with 6-7 kids gathered here on any regular Sunday morning. Children are often lacking in regular, persistent, faithful participation in Sunday School, Church, and the development of a spiritual life in community. It has also been my observation that fathers are often missing in the development of their children’s spiritual lives. Christmas-Easter spirituality is so very lacking. For the sophisticated children of today the fact that Jesus was born, claimed to be Son of God in a very mythological story, and then rose again doesn’t make a lot of sense. Understanding Jesus as Lord and as resurrected comes through an on going development and knowledge of all the rest of the story. More needs to be done to encourage mothers and fathers to witness to regularity and persistence in faithful prayer and participation in the educational and worshipful aspects of the church here at home.
I know, as you all do, that having children in church coming to the altar at the communion has its distractions. Children can be distracting, but it was Jesus that said, “Let them come.” They do bring not only distraction at times, but they also remind us of live in the church, vitality, exuberance, that may be something of a pestering that awakens us all to sensitivity and human need that cries out disturbingly around all of us in the church, and that calls us to a just response.
There are still many things we can do here at St. John’s that helps to participate in the spiritual development of our children. Exchange the peace with them. Get to know them by name. Condone good behavior. Participate in Sunday School. Participate in Bible School. Encourage and support field trips for our Sunday School and Acolytes. Offer scholarships for kids to go to Claggett Center in the summertime.
Remember the kids at the Ark, our Day Care Center for homeless children through Episcopal Social Services. Cry, weep, mourn, pray, and respond over and for any child that suffers anywhere in the world. Stop asking where is God, but stop, ask, listen: God, What are you asking me to do to be persistently faithfully involved in your mission for the world’s children.
SEASON: PENTECOST 20
PROPER: 24C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: October 21,2001
TEXT: CHILDRENS’ SABBATH
Luke 18:1-8a – “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”
See also: Gen. 32:3-8, 2-30 “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”
ISSUE: The readings for this day call for faithful, loyal, and a persistent relationship with God. Jesus’ parable of the persistent woman wrestling with a dishonorable Judge tells what God is not like, but rather God desires to serve his people much in the same way as Jesus’ ministry was a persistent proclamation of the love and justice of God. The Children’s’ Sabbath celebration calls us all to a persistent care and concern for the children of the church, the community, and the world. Through the church we work for a profound caring for our children that they may grow in love of the Lord and carry on that ministry.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jesus tells another parable. It is a parable that is told with a sense of humor to encourage people not to lose heart, but to attend to regular prayer, faithfulness, and loyalty with an assurance that God is responsive.
The parable tells of a widow who goes before a judge with a complaint. We are not told what her complaint is, but it may likely have to do with some property claim that she has. Powerful landowners at the time were eager to make claim on whatever property they could get their hands on. They were known for attempting to bribe judges. The widow is seeking some kind of justice.
Remember that the word widow in the Jewish language of this time meant literally “silent one.” A woman who had no married sons, and who had lost their husbands, had no one to speak for them in this time and culture. Yet the woman that Jesus describes in this parable is quite vocal on her own and persistently goes before the judge to get justice for her claim.
The judge is described in the parable is known for not having much honor, and caring less. He has no fear or awe of either God or respect for people. The widow persistently comes for him nagging him and demanding justice. The court case of the widow, it is helpful to understand, is a public hearing that would be observed by the community. Finally, the judge becomes aware that the community may well turn against him. The literal and more effective translation is that the old woman is not wearing him out, but rather she is going to give him a black eye by her continual coming. It is a “boxing” imagery.
The parable ends with Jesus saying, “And will not God grant justice to his chosen one who cry to him day and night. Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.” This is a negative kind of parable. It does not tell specifically what God is like, but rather what God is not like. If a dishonorable judge can treat a widow and his constituents in this way, and finally be nagged into changing, then how much more will a God that loves and cares about his creation respond to the justice required.
The people of this age may question the conclusion to the parable. We argue that we pray and it seems at times that our prayers are not answered. We are a people and nation of instant gratification. Let me suggest that we might try to understand this parable in still another way. Sometimes its fascinating to wrestle with the parables and try to understand them in another way be reversing them. Jesus was himself a master at attempting to reverse things, i.e. “The first shall be last and the last first.” In this parable the old widow lady is much like God, and the corrupt judge is like the world. The judge is stuck in his ways of injustice; he is insensitive to human need. He is without sensitivity and compassion. It is the widow lady, who pleads with him time and time again to shape up and change and become a new person of justice and love. It is God who pleads with us, who persistently through the ages begs us to act sensitively, justly, lovingly, compassionately, and mercifully.
The Hebrew Scriptures contain the teaching of the prophets, speaking in the name of God, for the nation of Israel to be just and be a light for the world of the manifestation of the God of love. (Notice that in the Genesis reading today about Jacob. Jacob was such a scoundrel and trickster. Even in the story today, after cheating his brother, he divides all his possessions when he hears his brother is near, whom he has not seen in years. If his brother comes to take his property, at least he will only get half, Jacob hopes. That night an angel, a messenger of God comes to Jacob and the two enter into a struggle, a wrestling match. And finally Jacob is blessed by God and is changed and given a new name. No longer Jacob, but Israel, meaning one who struggles with God, and he is blessed in the struggle.) The ministry of Jesus is also a persistent faithful unwavering commitment to seeking justice for the world and especially for the poor, the sick, the underprivileged, and the disenfranchised, like women and children. His faithful persistence brings him to his death on the cross. He lays down his life in the effort to change the hearts and minds of people. In him and through him the world is changed in time. There is kind of humor in thinking of God as the old widow demanding a corrupt world to change. We can only guess that this is what the clever Jesus had in mind.
Is it possible that we miss a greater understanding of prayer and God’s response to us, because we have not listened to God’s persistent pleading with us?
There are essentially two things we are looking at today in the life of our parish. The first is the issue of our stewardship. All members of St. John’s are asked to be responsive to God’s faithfulness towards us by being faithful, persistent, sacrificial members of our congregation, and to be honorable in our response to God through making a pledged commitment for the new year, 2002. The Scriptures of the Lord asks us to be faithfully committed to Christ’s through the Church. Gail Landers, Senior Warden, will talk with you more about this issue, at the breakfast this morning, and at the lunch next week. Please attend one of these meals . . . signed-up or not.
The other issue with which we are concerned today is this day set aside as Children’s Sabbath, which is being celebrated over this weekend in Islamic mosques, Jewish synagogues, and Christian Churches. From our Christian perspective Jesus demanded that children be brought to him, and he blessed or honored them. Unfortunately, there are many suffering children around the world and at home. Sadly we are at war. Wars not only maim children, but they make them orphans. Children have notoriously suffered in war times at the hand of destructive weapons, and from fear, anxiety, trauma and shock. Children that grow up in an atmosphere of conflict and hate are likely to have their futures warped and profoundly influenced by that hate. TV news reveals that in the faces of Palestinian and Jewish children, as well as northern Irish children. Over the years many of us have perhaps become insensitive to the pictures of starving children as a a result of famines and political intrigues. Children have suffered from stray bullets in our cities drug wars. Children also suffer from wounding and death caused by unlocked firearms that get into their curious and inquisitive hands. In recent years we have become increasingly aware that many children, both boys and girls have suffered from abuse both physical and sexual in their own homes, communities, and even churches. Unfortunately around the world and in our own country, children do not always have proper medical care as a result of their family finances.
As your pastor and priest, I have been very concerned in our community about our children. Needless to say they are all pretty well fed, clothed, educated, and loved by their parents. Sometimes they may be even over indulged. A recent TV feature told of modern day families so over extended in activities that they hardly have time for being together for family interaction and times of quality time just for development of friendship and love among one another. My concern is that we are neglecting the spiritual lives of our children. It always strikes me a Christmas and Easter how many children are associated with this parish, and yet we have very sporadic attendance, with 6-7 kids gathered here on any regular Sunday morning. Children are often lacking in regular, persistent, faithful participation in Sunday School, Church, and the development of a spiritual life in community. It has also been my observation that fathers are often missing in the development of their children’s spiritual lives. Christmas-Easter spirituality is so very lacking. For the sophisticated children of today the fact that Jesus was born, claimed to be Son of God in a very mythological story, and then rose again doesn’t make a lot of sense. Understanding Jesus as Lord and as resurrected comes through an on going development and knowledge of all the rest of the story. More needs to be done to encourage mothers and fathers to witness to regularity and persistence in faithful prayer and participation in the educational and worshipful aspects of the church here at home.
I know, as you all do, that having children in church coming to the altar at the communion has its distractions. Children can be distracting, but it was Jesus that said, “Let them come.” They do bring not only distraction at times, but they also remind us of live in the church, vitality, exuberance, that may be something of a pestering that awakens us all to sensitivity and human need that cries out disturbingly around all of us in the church, and that calls us to a just response.
There are still many things we can do here at St. John’s that helps to participate in the spiritual development of our children. Exchange the peace with them. Get to know them by name. Condone good behavior. Participate in Sunday School. Participate in Bible School. Encourage and support field trips for our Sunday School and Acolytes. Offer scholarships for kids to go to Claggett Center in the summertime.
Remember the kids at the Ark, our Day Care Center for homeless children through Episcopal Social Services. Cry, weep, mourn, pray, and respond over and for any child that suffers anywhere in the world. Stop asking where is God, but stop, ask, listen: God, What are you asking me to do to be persistently faithfully involved in your mission for the world’s children.
Sunday, September 23, 2001
PENTECOST 16
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 16
PROPER: 20C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 23, 2001
TEXT: Luke 16:1-13 – Parable of the Dishonest Manager – “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
ISSUE: The Parable of the Dishonest Manager is one the Lord’s more embarrassing ones. A dishonest employee gets commended for his shrewd, if not questionable management of accounts. Yet, it tells of all who are dishonest and how God is merciful and yearns for our shrewdness to be redirected in doing what is right and just, and having compassion and mercy, and developing friendship with both God and our neighbors.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It is curious how God is depicted as doing some very strange things in the stories of Holy Scripture. Sometimes it is downright embarrassing. For instance, Cain kills Abel, and God gives to Cain a mark of protection. Abraham has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob cheats his brother Esau out of his heritage, and receives his father’s blessing, leaving Esau out in the cold. God selects David the Shepherd boy to be the King over all of Israel, and assures him that his lineage shall last forever, and David’s escapades with Bath-sheba made him the Bill Clinton of his time. In the parable that Jesus tells today in the Gospel account of Luke, we have a Boss commending one of his managers who is a crook for his shrewdness. Clever crooks should be condemned, hardly commended. What’s going on here? Even Luke doesn’t seem to be sure. Luke tells Jesus’ parable and then tries tacking on a list of moral points that try to justify the parable: “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? . . No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” What has all these morals, true as they may be, to do with the story is a real stretch. Luke is embarrassed by the parable too.
Let’s look at the story first in the context of the time rather than as 21st Century capitalists and moralists. There is a rich man, a boss, who has considerable property with peasants working his land. One of his stewards or managers is accused of squandering the boss’s property. “Squandering the wealth” sounds something like the Prodigal Son who was squandering away his inheritance. So we get the picture that this steward is something of a philanderer, a poor manager, and maybe even dishonest or taking more than his share of the profits. He’s going to get fired and he knows it, when the boss calls him in for an accounting.
“What shall I do?” he asks himself, again sounding just like the Prodigal Son. He sure isn’t comfortable with digging ditches, and begging is hardly honorable. He thinks and decides to himself, “I know what I’ll do.” His shrewdness goes into action. He calls in the people who owe the boss. They didn’t owe money; they owed produce. They were probably under contract for a fixed amount of produce per year. They kept some of the produce for themselves and gave a percentage to the landowner. The manager also got a cut or percentage of the produce. So the manger calls in the peasants and says to them what do you owe? The first says he owes 100 jugs of olive oil. The manager tells him okay, we’re feeling really benevolent today so just make it 50 jugs instead of 100. Good deal the peasant thinks; what generosity! The next peasant comes in and tells the manager that he owes 100 containers of wheat. So the manger tell him okay, we’re feeling really benevolent today, so just make it 80 containers of wheat. Good deal. And so it goes. The manager is really making a lot of friends here for himself. He may have been cutting his own percentage of the take, but in return he’s making friends. What’s more, he is also making friends for the boss. He’s making the peasant community hold him and the boss in high esteem for their great and honorable generosity.
You see, the boss could legally incarcerate the manager and go back to the peasants and refuse to give them the discount, if he dared. But the manager has cleverly brought great honor to his boss, and in fact to himself. Even if he is fired, he’ll have friends and honor. So will the boss-landowner. Honor was by far the great value at this time than money or possessions.
What you have in this parable is the boss who is very merciful, forgiving, and compassionate, like the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son. You also have a clever, shrewd, if not despicable character, who comes to his senses and realizes he must honor the boss, develop friendships for himself, and make a big change in this life, if he’s going to make it.
I cannot help but feel that this Parable of the Dishonest Manager that teaches the simple and profound truth that we need to love God and honor God with all of our being, and to love one another. The crook in the Parable finally figures it out. We may well be embarrassed by this story because we approach it from the standpoint that we are righteous and we think that bad people should all be condemned. But the fact of the matter is that we are like the dishonest steward. We are all sinners. We all have our imperfections and distortions. We too are often shrewd in our dealing with others in so many of our self-serving ways. Face it. The proverbial call to repentance is little more than the call to make changes in our lives. It is a call to respond to the grace and forgiveness of God, and to use the shrewdness, the cleverness of our lives for more positive honorable ends. There is more to life than possessions and money. If the Stock Market plunges, is life really over? If we are the people of God with friends we honor and love, then surely life is not over.
This parable calls us away from the belief that we are good, and there are other bad people. How dare God commend them and forgive them. We all share by virtue of our humanness in sinfulness, but by the grace of God who sends Jesus Christ to us we are justified sinners baptized or immersed into mercy and love. We are made righteous. God takes those who are bad and scandalous and uses them to proclaim the faith of the loving, forgiving, honorable God.
Right now we are living in a terribly confused world. We can spend our time feeling victimized and hurt, indignant and righteous. How could such terrible a terrible attack as occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, be allowed to happen to us. On the other hand we can realize that we share in the human condition, and that in spite of our own short comings, we are loved and in a rather crass way are directed to be shrewd in the world, shrewd in ways that reveal the honor of God who is a loving, giving, and forgiving God. Perhaps we need to be shrewd enough to realize that self-service reveling in our own troubles is not in our best interest, but using our cleverness to make friends, to love other people, to spend ourselves on human needs that surround us, and pay homage to the God that loves us. That’s the stuff of which our humanity is made.
From another perspective, the crooked manager might be seen as the Christ-figure. The religious world in which Jesus lived, and especially the Pharisees demanded respectability and righteousness, and the close keeping of the letter of the law. One of the sad aspects of all that has recently happened is that a group of religious righteous fanatics have become so rigid in their own ways and thinking, that they become vicious and hostile, impatient, and cruel, judgmental in such a way as to bring death, fear, destruction. But Jesus mentioned in Scripture to be thought of as a drunkard and squanderer. He did not follow the letter of the law. He broke the Sabbath. He associated with tax collectors, prostitutes and crooks. He died like a criminal on a cross. He entered fully into the human condition, that it might know his love. The world becomes aware, that he lived and died for all. He is the very personification of grace. It ends happily ever after for everyone. The peasants win and the boss wins. Isn’t it interesting how God uses scoundrels over the pious righteous to proclaim the Good News of his love. (See Parables of Grace, Robert Capon.) May God help us all to be shrewd in finding ways to bring the Good News of God’s love to the brokenness of the world.
SEASON: PENTECOST 16
PROPER: 20C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 23, 2001
TEXT: Luke 16:1-13 – Parable of the Dishonest Manager – “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
ISSUE: The Parable of the Dishonest Manager is one the Lord’s more embarrassing ones. A dishonest employee gets commended for his shrewd, if not questionable management of accounts. Yet, it tells of all who are dishonest and how God is merciful and yearns for our shrewdness to be redirected in doing what is right and just, and having compassion and mercy, and developing friendship with both God and our neighbors.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It is curious how God is depicted as doing some very strange things in the stories of Holy Scripture. Sometimes it is downright embarrassing. For instance, Cain kills Abel, and God gives to Cain a mark of protection. Abraham has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob cheats his brother Esau out of his heritage, and receives his father’s blessing, leaving Esau out in the cold. God selects David the Shepherd boy to be the King over all of Israel, and assures him that his lineage shall last forever, and David’s escapades with Bath-sheba made him the Bill Clinton of his time. In the parable that Jesus tells today in the Gospel account of Luke, we have a Boss commending one of his managers who is a crook for his shrewdness. Clever crooks should be condemned, hardly commended. What’s going on here? Even Luke doesn’t seem to be sure. Luke tells Jesus’ parable and then tries tacking on a list of moral points that try to justify the parable: “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? . . No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” What has all these morals, true as they may be, to do with the story is a real stretch. Luke is embarrassed by the parable too.
Let’s look at the story first in the context of the time rather than as 21st Century capitalists and moralists. There is a rich man, a boss, who has considerable property with peasants working his land. One of his stewards or managers is accused of squandering the boss’s property. “Squandering the wealth” sounds something like the Prodigal Son who was squandering away his inheritance. So we get the picture that this steward is something of a philanderer, a poor manager, and maybe even dishonest or taking more than his share of the profits. He’s going to get fired and he knows it, when the boss calls him in for an accounting.
“What shall I do?” he asks himself, again sounding just like the Prodigal Son. He sure isn’t comfortable with digging ditches, and begging is hardly honorable. He thinks and decides to himself, “I know what I’ll do.” His shrewdness goes into action. He calls in the people who owe the boss. They didn’t owe money; they owed produce. They were probably under contract for a fixed amount of produce per year. They kept some of the produce for themselves and gave a percentage to the landowner. The manager also got a cut or percentage of the produce. So the manger calls in the peasants and says to them what do you owe? The first says he owes 100 jugs of olive oil. The manager tells him okay, we’re feeling really benevolent today so just make it 50 jugs instead of 100. Good deal the peasant thinks; what generosity! The next peasant comes in and tells the manager that he owes 100 containers of wheat. So the manger tell him okay, we’re feeling really benevolent today, so just make it 80 containers of wheat. Good deal. And so it goes. The manager is really making a lot of friends here for himself. He may have been cutting his own percentage of the take, but in return he’s making friends. What’s more, he is also making friends for the boss. He’s making the peasant community hold him and the boss in high esteem for their great and honorable generosity.
You see, the boss could legally incarcerate the manager and go back to the peasants and refuse to give them the discount, if he dared. But the manager has cleverly brought great honor to his boss, and in fact to himself. Even if he is fired, he’ll have friends and honor. So will the boss-landowner. Honor was by far the great value at this time than money or possessions.
What you have in this parable is the boss who is very merciful, forgiving, and compassionate, like the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son. You also have a clever, shrewd, if not despicable character, who comes to his senses and realizes he must honor the boss, develop friendships for himself, and make a big change in this life, if he’s going to make it.
I cannot help but feel that this Parable of the Dishonest Manager that teaches the simple and profound truth that we need to love God and honor God with all of our being, and to love one another. The crook in the Parable finally figures it out. We may well be embarrassed by this story because we approach it from the standpoint that we are righteous and we think that bad people should all be condemned. But the fact of the matter is that we are like the dishonest steward. We are all sinners. We all have our imperfections and distortions. We too are often shrewd in our dealing with others in so many of our self-serving ways. Face it. The proverbial call to repentance is little more than the call to make changes in our lives. It is a call to respond to the grace and forgiveness of God, and to use the shrewdness, the cleverness of our lives for more positive honorable ends. There is more to life than possessions and money. If the Stock Market plunges, is life really over? If we are the people of God with friends we honor and love, then surely life is not over.
This parable calls us away from the belief that we are good, and there are other bad people. How dare God commend them and forgive them. We all share by virtue of our humanness in sinfulness, but by the grace of God who sends Jesus Christ to us we are justified sinners baptized or immersed into mercy and love. We are made righteous. God takes those who are bad and scandalous and uses them to proclaim the faith of the loving, forgiving, honorable God.
Right now we are living in a terribly confused world. We can spend our time feeling victimized and hurt, indignant and righteous. How could such terrible a terrible attack as occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, be allowed to happen to us. On the other hand we can realize that we share in the human condition, and that in spite of our own short comings, we are loved and in a rather crass way are directed to be shrewd in the world, shrewd in ways that reveal the honor of God who is a loving, giving, and forgiving God. Perhaps we need to be shrewd enough to realize that self-service reveling in our own troubles is not in our best interest, but using our cleverness to make friends, to love other people, to spend ourselves on human needs that surround us, and pay homage to the God that loves us. That’s the stuff of which our humanity is made.
From another perspective, the crooked manager might be seen as the Christ-figure. The religious world in which Jesus lived, and especially the Pharisees demanded respectability and righteousness, and the close keeping of the letter of the law. One of the sad aspects of all that has recently happened is that a group of religious righteous fanatics have become so rigid in their own ways and thinking, that they become vicious and hostile, impatient, and cruel, judgmental in such a way as to bring death, fear, destruction. But Jesus mentioned in Scripture to be thought of as a drunkard and squanderer. He did not follow the letter of the law. He broke the Sabbath. He associated with tax collectors, prostitutes and crooks. He died like a criminal on a cross. He entered fully into the human condition, that it might know his love. The world becomes aware, that he lived and died for all. He is the very personification of grace. It ends happily ever after for everyone. The peasants win and the boss wins. Isn’t it interesting how God uses scoundrels over the pious righteous to proclaim the Good News of his love. (See Parables of Grace, Robert Capon.) May God help us all to be shrewd in finding ways to bring the Good News of God’s love to the brokenness of the world.
Sunday, September 16, 2001
PENTECOST 15
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 15
PROPER: 19C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 16, 2001
TEXT: Luke 15:1-10 – “Which of you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? . . . . .Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it. When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’
ISSUE: The twin parables of Jesus regarding the shepherd and the woman tell of the profound love of God who searches diligently for his people. Jesus, at great risk to himself, searches out the lost, and is a vision of the likeness of God. The world drastically needs repentance and change and a willingness to receive the love and grace of God in Christ. While Government searches out the perpetrators of evil, the Christian community must change and search for the lost in love. Just as rescue workers search the ruins at the World Trade Centers in New York and at the Pentagon in D.C., all of us must allow ourselves to receive God’s redeeming love and be trained searching out others. In the face of destruction and evil we recommit ourselves to Jesus Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It is difficult to know where to begin this morning. It has indeed been an apocalyptic week. The constantly repeated images of the blazing World Trade Center in New York City exploding and crumbling to the ground, the Pentagon ablaze in Washington D.C., and the removal of lost bodies, and the great shedding of tears, and the horrified faces will haunt us for a long time to come. The earlier part of the week was one of shock. I for one was dazed and took wrong exits off of the beltway. What we were seeing on the TV screen was like something you only see in the movies. Having to face the reality of this situation is shocking. None of the apocalyptic descriptions that appear in the Bible, in Daniel and Revelation are any worse than the images we say this week.
The next scene is this scenario will be the many tears, the feelings of sadness, and the dealing with our grief as human beings and as a nation, of our anger, of our frustration, and the desire to get-even. We have a humanly natural feeling and yearning for getting revenge.
What we are seeing played out this week is the terrible reality of human evil and wickedness. We see raw sinfulness. We may well feel naturally enraged by this terrible attack. We not only feel the rage of the moment, but other images of bad times return as well. Some here remember well the awful and evil attack upon Pearl Harbor, Hitler’s terrible holocaust, the assassinations of President Kennedy of Martin Luther King, the horrible Oklahoma Bombing. The raw human condition is ripped open once again. We are also caused to recognize that none of us are totally without sin. In certain instances, even white Americans who treated Native Americans and blacks as sub-human in our history, and our use of atomic weapons reminds us that we all participate in the sorry side of the human condition.
The other side of the story is the stories in the midst of this catastrophe. It’s what we might call the godly side of the story. At the very beginning of the event, hundreds of fire fighters in New York and police personnel rushed to the scene to do their job. Many of them gave their lives for the fellow human beings. People in their office buildings aware of their doomed situation picked up phones to call home to tell their family that they loved them. Even on the planes themselves, there are reports of passengers who dared in the face of great risk to abort the evil assault. Filtering out of the rubble and the horrific scenes will come the stories of great heroics, and of men and women dedicated to their jobs with great compassion. Thousands turned to God in prayer, and many people lined up to give blood. Still more will give funds to the various organizations, which will provide assistance to the victims of this Apocalyptic event as they struggle to rebuild their lives.
There is still another side to this horror. We have as Americans not experienced such an attack in a long time, at least not since Pearl Harbor. Maybe we can become sensitized to what it is like in countries where there has been long time terror and war, like the Israel-Palestinian situation, the problems in Ireland, and the political strife and hunger in African nations. Maybe from this terrible event, we too may become more sensitized to what real suffering is around the world. We are all vulnerable to human sin and suffering, and we all need to be changed in our thinking, minds, hearts, attitudes, and be there for one another beyond even our own comfortable borders.
Some of the images we saw this week were horrible. Yet there were other images of men and women searching the rubble. They are images similar to what we find in the Scripture readings appointed for this day. Jesus was challenged once again by some stiff necked religious fanatics. Why is he eating and associating with the sinners and tax collectors, and the unclean, and the general useless riffraff? He associates with human condition in such an unbecoming way. So Jesus tells the hotshot religious fanatics of his time a set of twin parables. Now, these Pharisees prayed daily thanking God that they were not born as a woman. Jesus confronts them with a whole new idea. God is like a woman! She loses one of her ten coins, which really didn’t have much value, a day’s wage maybe. But it’s valuable to her, so she gets down on the floor and searches the darkest corners of a very dark house risking spider bites and scorpions. She hunts and searches, and sweeps, and cleans and gets down on her hands and knees and searches in the rubble to find what’s she needs to find, in spite of its limited worth. And when she finds it, she throws a party rejoicing, and the party costs more than the value of the coin.
God, Jesus says to the Pharisees, is like a humble shepherd. God is like one of those bawdy imperfect, unclean, dishonorable trespassing shepherds, who dares to seek the lost sheep. What shepherd having a hundred sheep, - he must have been a pretty well off shepherd, but then I guess you can think of God as pretty well off – does not leave the ninety-nine to search for the one that is lost. Actually, that’s not really very good thinking as the world understands it, to leave the ninety-nine, but the shepherd does. He climbs hills and sinks into the lower gullies and valleys. He takes risks and confronts wild beasts with his rod and staff. He won’t give up until he finds the lost, returns home rejoicing and throws a party that costs more than the value of the lost sheep according to the world’s values.
The next time you see those images of the searchers in the rubble, think of God like an old woman desperately searching the devastated human condition trying to find and save, and renew and offer up so thankfully and joyfully the lost that is found. Next time you see the men trying to move a large section of concrete or a steel girder think of God’s Good Shepherd who comes in search of the human condition who comes at great risk to raise up, and resurrect his people loving and valuing them more than they could ever imagine.
May I add that in the Hebrew Scripture today the story is told that Moses went up the Mountain at God’s command to receive the civilizing law. While he was gone, the people cast themselves an image of a calf to be their image for God. God was furious and was ready to destroy each one of them. But Moses pleaded to God for his people: “Turn from your fierce wrath, change your mind . . . .” And the Lord changed his mind . . . If God himself in his compassion can change his mind, cannot we do the same? If the spirit of Christ could change St. Paul, a stiff-necked religious fanatic and man of violence and murder, cannot we all be changed? God yearns for a changed world, a world of compassion and mercy, and a world that is sensitive and seeks out the lost and raises it up, as if having great value and of more value than anything else. The good news of the Gospel is that God is searching for all of his people and loves them all. We are not doomed. We are not lost beyond his finding and his renewal. In spite of this apocalyptic event is the dawning of new hope, and awareness that the world needs repentance, change. We find our model in those servants who scavenger the wreckage for the lost, for our God in Christ has always and will always search us out and show us the way.
We have all come here today shocked and in grief. We have been faced with something most of us never dreamed possible. We are faced with the raw human condition and inhumanity. We know that evil needs to be stopped. We must step in with God’s help to cast out the evil spirits and the evil spiritedness of the world. Just as Hitler had to be stopped, so do the terrorists, but never at the risk of our becoming terrorists, or a people controlled by the cyclical sin of revenge. Rather, we enter the human condition with love, we join the search with Jesus Christ to find the lost and bring them into the Messianic Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of hope, to raise up that which is fallen to stand in the radiant light of the love of God. Faced with great evil, we recommit to Jesus Christ as the Way of our lives.
SEASON: PENTECOST 15
PROPER: 19C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 16, 2001
TEXT: Luke 15:1-10 – “Which of you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? . . . . .Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it. When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’
ISSUE: The twin parables of Jesus regarding the shepherd and the woman tell of the profound love of God who searches diligently for his people. Jesus, at great risk to himself, searches out the lost, and is a vision of the likeness of God. The world drastically needs repentance and change and a willingness to receive the love and grace of God in Christ. While Government searches out the perpetrators of evil, the Christian community must change and search for the lost in love. Just as rescue workers search the ruins at the World Trade Centers in New York and at the Pentagon in D.C., all of us must allow ourselves to receive God’s redeeming love and be trained searching out others. In the face of destruction and evil we recommit ourselves to Jesus Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It is difficult to know where to begin this morning. It has indeed been an apocalyptic week. The constantly repeated images of the blazing World Trade Center in New York City exploding and crumbling to the ground, the Pentagon ablaze in Washington D.C., and the removal of lost bodies, and the great shedding of tears, and the horrified faces will haunt us for a long time to come. The earlier part of the week was one of shock. I for one was dazed and took wrong exits off of the beltway. What we were seeing on the TV screen was like something you only see in the movies. Having to face the reality of this situation is shocking. None of the apocalyptic descriptions that appear in the Bible, in Daniel and Revelation are any worse than the images we say this week.
The next scene is this scenario will be the many tears, the feelings of sadness, and the dealing with our grief as human beings and as a nation, of our anger, of our frustration, and the desire to get-even. We have a humanly natural feeling and yearning for getting revenge.
What we are seeing played out this week is the terrible reality of human evil and wickedness. We see raw sinfulness. We may well feel naturally enraged by this terrible attack. We not only feel the rage of the moment, but other images of bad times return as well. Some here remember well the awful and evil attack upon Pearl Harbor, Hitler’s terrible holocaust, the assassinations of President Kennedy of Martin Luther King, the horrible Oklahoma Bombing. The raw human condition is ripped open once again. We are also caused to recognize that none of us are totally without sin. In certain instances, even white Americans who treated Native Americans and blacks as sub-human in our history, and our use of atomic weapons reminds us that we all participate in the sorry side of the human condition.
The other side of the story is the stories in the midst of this catastrophe. It’s what we might call the godly side of the story. At the very beginning of the event, hundreds of fire fighters in New York and police personnel rushed to the scene to do their job. Many of them gave their lives for the fellow human beings. People in their office buildings aware of their doomed situation picked up phones to call home to tell their family that they loved them. Even on the planes themselves, there are reports of passengers who dared in the face of great risk to abort the evil assault. Filtering out of the rubble and the horrific scenes will come the stories of great heroics, and of men and women dedicated to their jobs with great compassion. Thousands turned to God in prayer, and many people lined up to give blood. Still more will give funds to the various organizations, which will provide assistance to the victims of this Apocalyptic event as they struggle to rebuild their lives.
There is still another side to this horror. We have as Americans not experienced such an attack in a long time, at least not since Pearl Harbor. Maybe we can become sensitized to what it is like in countries where there has been long time terror and war, like the Israel-Palestinian situation, the problems in Ireland, and the political strife and hunger in African nations. Maybe from this terrible event, we too may become more sensitized to what real suffering is around the world. We are all vulnerable to human sin and suffering, and we all need to be changed in our thinking, minds, hearts, attitudes, and be there for one another beyond even our own comfortable borders.
Some of the images we saw this week were horrible. Yet there were other images of men and women searching the rubble. They are images similar to what we find in the Scripture readings appointed for this day. Jesus was challenged once again by some stiff necked religious fanatics. Why is he eating and associating with the sinners and tax collectors, and the unclean, and the general useless riffraff? He associates with human condition in such an unbecoming way. So Jesus tells the hotshot religious fanatics of his time a set of twin parables. Now, these Pharisees prayed daily thanking God that they were not born as a woman. Jesus confronts them with a whole new idea. God is like a woman! She loses one of her ten coins, which really didn’t have much value, a day’s wage maybe. But it’s valuable to her, so she gets down on the floor and searches the darkest corners of a very dark house risking spider bites and scorpions. She hunts and searches, and sweeps, and cleans and gets down on her hands and knees and searches in the rubble to find what’s she needs to find, in spite of its limited worth. And when she finds it, she throws a party rejoicing, and the party costs more than the value of the coin.
God, Jesus says to the Pharisees, is like a humble shepherd. God is like one of those bawdy imperfect, unclean, dishonorable trespassing shepherds, who dares to seek the lost sheep. What shepherd having a hundred sheep, - he must have been a pretty well off shepherd, but then I guess you can think of God as pretty well off – does not leave the ninety-nine to search for the one that is lost. Actually, that’s not really very good thinking as the world understands it, to leave the ninety-nine, but the shepherd does. He climbs hills and sinks into the lower gullies and valleys. He takes risks and confronts wild beasts with his rod and staff. He won’t give up until he finds the lost, returns home rejoicing and throws a party that costs more than the value of the lost sheep according to the world’s values.
The next time you see those images of the searchers in the rubble, think of God like an old woman desperately searching the devastated human condition trying to find and save, and renew and offer up so thankfully and joyfully the lost that is found. Next time you see the men trying to move a large section of concrete or a steel girder think of God’s Good Shepherd who comes in search of the human condition who comes at great risk to raise up, and resurrect his people loving and valuing them more than they could ever imagine.
May I add that in the Hebrew Scripture today the story is told that Moses went up the Mountain at God’s command to receive the civilizing law. While he was gone, the people cast themselves an image of a calf to be their image for God. God was furious and was ready to destroy each one of them. But Moses pleaded to God for his people: “Turn from your fierce wrath, change your mind . . . .” And the Lord changed his mind . . . If God himself in his compassion can change his mind, cannot we do the same? If the spirit of Christ could change St. Paul, a stiff-necked religious fanatic and man of violence and murder, cannot we all be changed? God yearns for a changed world, a world of compassion and mercy, and a world that is sensitive and seeks out the lost and raises it up, as if having great value and of more value than anything else. The good news of the Gospel is that God is searching for all of his people and loves them all. We are not doomed. We are not lost beyond his finding and his renewal. In spite of this apocalyptic event is the dawning of new hope, and awareness that the world needs repentance, change. We find our model in those servants who scavenger the wreckage for the lost, for our God in Christ has always and will always search us out and show us the way.
We have all come here today shocked and in grief. We have been faced with something most of us never dreamed possible. We are faced with the raw human condition and inhumanity. We know that evil needs to be stopped. We must step in with God’s help to cast out the evil spirits and the evil spiritedness of the world. Just as Hitler had to be stopped, so do the terrorists, but never at the risk of our becoming terrorists, or a people controlled by the cyclical sin of revenge. Rather, we enter the human condition with love, we join the search with Jesus Christ to find the lost and bring them into the Messianic Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of hope, to raise up that which is fallen to stand in the radiant light of the love of God. Faced with great evil, we recommit to Jesus Christ as the Way of our lives.
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