May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 3
PROPER: 8 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 29, 2003
TEXT: Mark 5:22-43 – The Healing of the Woman with the 12 year hemorrhage, and Jarius’ Daughter
ISSUE: Once again in Mark’s gospel account, the Good News is being proclaimed in the healing of the woman, and the raising of the little girl. All that was hoped for is coming to pass in Jesus Christ: (Isaiah 35:1-10) Everyone will see the Lord’s splendor, see his greatness and power. Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness. Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.” The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert; the burning sand will be come a lake, and dry lands will be filled with springs.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mark’s gospel account, the earliest of them all, proclaims from the very beginning: This is the Good News about Jesus Christ the Son of God. In the Hebrew Scriptures there was hope, particularly most beautifully expressed in the writings of Isaiah, that a new age would come.
(Isaiah 35:1-10) Everyone will see the Lord’s splendor, see his greatness and power. Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness. Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.” The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert; the burning sand will be come a lake, and dry lands will be filled with springs.
The love, mercy, compassion, and healing of God is that Good News, expressed in the ministry and the teaching of Jesus Christ. When John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask if Jesus is The One who is to come, Jesus is reported to reply in Matthew’s Gospel account: “Go back and tell John what you are hearing and seeing: the blind can see, the lame can walk, those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases are made clean,, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life, and the Good News is preached to the poor. How happy are those who have no doubts about me!” (Matt. 4:11f)
In last week’s Gospel account from Mark, Jesus is revealed as Son of God upon the hierarchical realm of beings. Jesus has power over the evil spirits. He tells the mean spirited storm and winds to cease. He casts out and drown the legion of evil spirits that possess the Gentile demoniac in Gentile territory. He then crosses back over the Sea of Galilee to Jewish territory where he is confronted by Jarius, who is a Pharisee leader of the community, and president of the local synagogue. Jarius has a dying young child. He implores Jesus to come and lay hands upon the child that she might be made well. Jesus is seen here as a folk healer. We can assume the great desperation of Jarius in that 60 percent of children died before they were teens at this time. The loss of children was quite common. Jesus agrees to return with Jarius to lay hands upon the dying child.
The walk to Jarius’ home is interrupted by another story. The crowds are gathering around Jesus, and bumping into him. In the crowd is a woman who has been ill for some twelve years with a bleeding disorder. She bumps into Jesus at great risk to herself. It is totally inappropriate for a woman to touch a strange man in public. Furthermore, the woman is considered to be unclean according to the purity laws of the time. Anyone she touches she makes unclean because of the discharge of blood. She would not be allowed to worship in the Temple for the entire 12 years she possessed this impurity. Jesus is not sure who has bumped into him, but he has felt a release of power from his body. He demands from the crowd an explanation. The disciples think he is being too sensitive. After all, it is a big pushy crowd. But Jesus persists. The woman confesses at the risk of a dramatic scolding for being in public, and with her impurity. She confesses that she sought healing. For twelve years she has spent all that she had on doctors, to no avail. But her hopes and faith tell her that to touch only the hem of Jesus’ robe will give her the healing she needs, and the restoration to community and a new wholeness. Jesus says to her, “My daughter, your faith has made you well. God in peace, and be healed of your trouble.”
While this healing and exchange is taking place, messengers from Jarius’ home tell him that it is not necessary to bother the Teacher any longer. The little girl is dead. Jesus pays no attention but continues to Jarius’ home, where the mourners have already gathered to mourn the loss of the child. Jesus makes the profound statement that the child is not dead, but that she is only sleeping. The mourners mock him. Jesus takes the child’s parents, and his closes disciples to the bedside of the child. Jesus speaks the Aramaic words: “Talitha koum!” The child awakens. Mark notes the child is twelve years old, and Jesus tells them to give her something to eat.
The connection of these two stories is symbolically or metaphorically very significant in the early Christian Community. These are stories that help identify who Jesus is. These healing gestures have very significant meaning in terms of Jesus as the hoped for, and anticipated Messiah, and Messianic hope. Jesus has not only healed but has raised the dead, and has made a clear statement as to who it is that belongs in the realm of God, or Kingdom of God. Both of those healed are “Daughters:” the daughter of Jarius, and Jesus refers to the sick woman as “My Daughter.” These are very definite family inclusive names. Women are included in the Kingdom of God, and they are made worthy and pure. The two women are associated through the number twelve. The woman has been ill for twelve years, the child is twelve years old. The woman sick for twelve years, and impure, would be dead as far as the community was concerned. The twelve-year-old child who is about to die would be a dreadful loss to the family and community. What has Jesus done? In a true messianic move, he has raised the dead. He is the ultimate healer, and therefore the ultimate hope. Both women are also fertility symbols. Both are given new life, and incorporation into the family of God with the hope of bringing new life to the community. They are both daughters of the living God. Nothing is lost.
Certainly not unlike the casting out of the evil spirits in last week’s readings, the stories also tell of an enormous grace of God that freely comes to the world through Jesus Christ. The Demoniac of last week, freely receives the grace of God’s healing love through Christ without purchase or demand. The woman who touches Jesus receives the free gift of the power of God to cleanse her, so abundant in and through Jesus that it merely flows freely from him. There is abundance of grace for all who turn to Christ for healing and new life. Tell John, “The dead are being raised!”
What are these stories to profoundly expressing? It seems clear to me that the stories express a basic human need for healing, for inclusiveness, to embrace God and to feel the worthiness to be able to express God without shame or guilt. There is the longing for his power to envelop us with hope for the future of our own lives, and for the life of the world. To seek out Jesus Christ, to seek out his ways, and his teachings is to find faith and loyalty to a way of life that includes the poor, the lost, the lame, the impure, and provides new hope and dimension to all people as the people of God.
Notice that all of the lessons this morning, which is a bit unusual, are about issues of good stewardship, even the Psalm 112. (Deut 15:7-11 and 2 Cor. 8:1-9, 13-15) Each pf the lessons speak of an abundance whereby even the poor have something to give. We are all family in the sight of God, and we are called upon to share what we have in the way that Jesus Christ was willing to become poor himself that others should live in fullness of his love. As a Christian Community we do have much to give in terms of our talents and our purses and wallets, and time. And what we have to give through our faith is more than just our money, but the abundance of love, forgiveness, and hopefulness that has been so bountifully freely given to us through Jesus Christ. His servanthood and compassionate caring is our great resource. Turning to him, embracing him makes us partners, sons and daughters in the family of God the brings hope to the world in terms of healing old hatreds, and forgetting our prejudices, and being born from above, with new creativity and living in partnership with the abundance and fertility of God’s love
Isaiah 35:1-10) Everyone will see the Lord’s splendor, see his greatness and power. Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness. Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.” The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert; the burning sand will be come a lake, and dry lands will be filled with springs.
“Go back and tell John what you are hearing and seeing: the blind can see, the lame can walk, those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases are made clean,, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life, and the Good News is preached to the poor. How happy are those who have no doubts about me!” (Matt. 4:11f)
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Pentecost 2
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 2
PROPER: 7B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 22, 2003
TEXT: Calming the Storm & Restoration of the Demoniac
Mark 4:35-5:20 – He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
ISSUE: Mark’s gospel account intends to offer the Good News of Jesus Christ as Son of God who has come to His people. As a Son of Man and Son of God, He brings calm and restoration to the human spirit. In the midst of human uncertainty and anxiety, the presence of Christ brings peace, healing, and restoration over the evil and unclean spirits of the world. Jesus ministry in including the ostracized, like the demoniac. He is overcoming the powers of evil that are stumbling blocks to the coming Empire of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Gospel reading from Mark gives us two wonderful and playful passages about Jesus dealing with evil spirits. Theses stories are full of symbols and meaning how the world and its people can be effected by spiritual powers from the outside in terms of the roaring sea and storm, as well as in the inside, in terms of the evil spirits inside the demoniac. Mark wants his readers to see the greater power of God revealed in Jesus Christ in the midst of human anxiety.
In this first story, the Hebrew people who first heard this story would have been learning that Jesus is likened to a great prophet. The entire story of the Jesus in the boat with the disciples is very similar to the 1st Chapter of the prophetic book of Jonah. Remember the story of Jonah and the Big Fish. Jonah seeks to escape the call of God to preach to the people of Ninevah by sailing away. While at sea a great storm arises, and the captain after dumping cargo overboard finds Jonah asleep on the lower deck. Jonah gets thrown overboard to save the ship, is swallowed by the fish, repents, and goes and does what God tells him to do. Mark is telling us that Jesus is different from just a prophet. Jesus is not only a prophet that immediately does what God commands, but also has the power of God over the wind and the waves to immediately save his community. Let me also add that the story is a fulfillment like story of the Psalm we read this morning: “He stilled the storm to a whisper and quieted the waves of the sea.”
In Mark’s story of Jesus, Jesus is in the boat crossing the Sea of Galilee with his disciples. A mighty story comes up. Let’s try to get the pictures. Quick and brutal storms were common on Lake Galilee. Those of you who have seen the movie, “The Perfect Storm,” or who watched TV news this week and saw the “Fed Ex” truck bobbing and floating away in an horrendous storm have the idea of what was happening to Jesus and the disciples. Water is a powerful, damaging, and raging natural force over which we sometimes have very little control. We are at the mercy of the elements, and sometimes our lives are out of control.
At this time, the wind and wave that came up on the Sea of Galilee was believed caused by evil spirits. The spirits in the world could be extraordinarily powerful, and evil spirits, unclean spirits, demonic forces were realized as very powerful forces. It is helpful to understand the hierarchy of things in the first century: First there is God. Second, there are Archangels and sons of God. Third, spirits both evil and good; Fourth, human beings; and finally, creatures below humans.
Mark tells us that Jesus is in the boat with his disciples when the great storm comes up. The disciples find themselves in a very precarious and dangerous position. They are out of control. Their lives are threatened. There is no peace, and they are about to die. Where is Jesus? He is in the back of the boat asleep. They wake him up and raise the question of whether or not he cares about what’s going on. They want him to join them in their terrible fear. “Teacher,” they say, “Don’t you care that we are all perishing?” Jesus then addresses the evil spirits, “Peace! Be still!” And then there was a dead calm.
Mark is telling his community that Jesus is above the spirits. He comes from the realm of Archangels and Sons of God with power over the evil spirits. In the world of the time, people who were hearing this story, were themselves people whose lives were often out of control. They could control very little. Greater powers ruled them, taxed them to death, oppressed them, frightened them, terrified them, and considered them expendable, and if they drowned in the terrorization it didn’t matter. But the great hope of the story is being revealed that in Christ Jesus it is as if a New Empire, a New Kingdom is coming that shall bring about a reign of peace and hope that shall have power over the evil spiritedness of the powers of the world.
Similarly, the coupled story to the Calm of the Sea, is the story of the Mad Crazy Demoniac. When they arrive on the other side of the Lake in Hellenistic territory, a mad man confronts Jesus and the disciples. This guy has all the symptoms of madness according to the definition of the time. He lives among tombs, walks at night, tears his clothes, and is destructive. You cannot miss from the story just how crazy this man is, breaking chains, and there is no strength to subdue this man. He howls and bruises himself. He lives among the tombs, an evil and unclean place. He is out of control, possessed by evil spirits or unclean spirits from within. (Jews called evil spirits unclean spirits; Greeks called them demons. They meant the same thing.) He is considered dangerous, out of control, and ostracized by the community.
The demoniac runs to Jesus, bows down before him, acknowledging his superiority, and says, “What have you come to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” Jesus commands the unclean evil spirits to come out. “What is your name?” he asks. “My name is Legion for there are so many of us.” At this particular time, the name Legion immediately conjured up Roman occupation by their Legions, and the atrocities carried out upon local peoples by bands of unruly out of control soldiers, raping and bullying the local populations. The demonic man is something of a symbol of humankind of the time being possessed with an inner evil that they again could not control. But all along the way Jesus has been preaching and proclaiming a new Empire, the Kingdom of God and his Love will come, a great gift of grace. He demands all that possesses the man to set him free so that he can be restored to his community in peace. The demons take flight at the presence of God in Jesus Christ; they attach themselves to unclean animals, the pigs, and jump into the sea. Get it? The disciples thought that they were going to drown in the storm. They don’t. It is the evil spirits that drown in the presence of Jesus Christ.
The restored man wants to go with Jesus, but rather he is commissioned to go to his community to proclaim the restoration and hope that is found in God.
What do these stories say to our own world today? Obviously there are things that are out of our control: earthquakes, fires, and floods. We are at the mercy of the elements. There are also evil spirits or evil spiritedness that affect the whole of our existence. We in our time are plagued by a culture of violence. We live in a culture of violence that seems to ultimately try to solve everything with war and terrorism. Vengeance spins out of control like a might power that is just unstoppable. The honor and respect of human life is minimized by the use of handguns, and many of their victims are innocent kids sitting on the stoops of their homes. People surrender to the culture by accepting drug and alcohol addiction as a way out, but is really surrender to a subtle violence that drowns their very life and existence.
All of us at one time or another go through personal difficulties where it seems that our lives have gone out of control. The darkness of the situations of the loss of loved ones, the resignation of the pastor when he retires or moves, divorce, loss of jobs, financial difficulties, depression, illnesses can make us feel like we are overpowered by the forces of evil that are out of our control. We succumb to feelings of great anxiety. We feel like we’re going down. It is as if God is asleep on the cushion at the stern. We feel like we have to cry out and shake God if there is a God, “Wake up Jesus don’t you care?”
[Pause]
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying:
Yea though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death itself, I will fear no evil.
Come to me all of you who are burdened, heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
Peace be with you.
Lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.
I heard the voice (of St. Paul) saying: Who then can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it or hardship or persecution or hunger or poverty or danger or death? No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below – there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying: When you pray say:
Our Father, who is in heaven.
Holy and above all is your name.
Your Kingdom, Your Reign, Your Empire will come.
Your Will is what will eventually be done on this very earth as it is in your Kingdom.
All we ask is that you give us daily spiritual nourishment, faith, loyalty, and trust.
Forgive us our faithless fears,
And we’ll forgive our brothers and sister of the world in your name.
Let us no longer be possessed by the controls and evil spirits of the world. Raise us above all that.
For this is your Kingdom, your Reign, your Empire, and all the power is yours from this time forth and forever more.
Jesus said to them, “Why are your afraid? Have you still no faith
SEASON: Pentecost 2
PROPER: 7B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 22, 2003
TEXT: Calming the Storm & Restoration of the Demoniac
Mark 4:35-5:20 – He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
ISSUE: Mark’s gospel account intends to offer the Good News of Jesus Christ as Son of God who has come to His people. As a Son of Man and Son of God, He brings calm and restoration to the human spirit. In the midst of human uncertainty and anxiety, the presence of Christ brings peace, healing, and restoration over the evil and unclean spirits of the world. Jesus ministry in including the ostracized, like the demoniac. He is overcoming the powers of evil that are stumbling blocks to the coming Empire of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Gospel reading from Mark gives us two wonderful and playful passages about Jesus dealing with evil spirits. Theses stories are full of symbols and meaning how the world and its people can be effected by spiritual powers from the outside in terms of the roaring sea and storm, as well as in the inside, in terms of the evil spirits inside the demoniac. Mark wants his readers to see the greater power of God revealed in Jesus Christ in the midst of human anxiety.
In this first story, the Hebrew people who first heard this story would have been learning that Jesus is likened to a great prophet. The entire story of the Jesus in the boat with the disciples is very similar to the 1st Chapter of the prophetic book of Jonah. Remember the story of Jonah and the Big Fish. Jonah seeks to escape the call of God to preach to the people of Ninevah by sailing away. While at sea a great storm arises, and the captain after dumping cargo overboard finds Jonah asleep on the lower deck. Jonah gets thrown overboard to save the ship, is swallowed by the fish, repents, and goes and does what God tells him to do. Mark is telling us that Jesus is different from just a prophet. Jesus is not only a prophet that immediately does what God commands, but also has the power of God over the wind and the waves to immediately save his community. Let me also add that the story is a fulfillment like story of the Psalm we read this morning: “He stilled the storm to a whisper and quieted the waves of the sea.”
In Mark’s story of Jesus, Jesus is in the boat crossing the Sea of Galilee with his disciples. A mighty story comes up. Let’s try to get the pictures. Quick and brutal storms were common on Lake Galilee. Those of you who have seen the movie, “The Perfect Storm,” or who watched TV news this week and saw the “Fed Ex” truck bobbing and floating away in an horrendous storm have the idea of what was happening to Jesus and the disciples. Water is a powerful, damaging, and raging natural force over which we sometimes have very little control. We are at the mercy of the elements, and sometimes our lives are out of control.
At this time, the wind and wave that came up on the Sea of Galilee was believed caused by evil spirits. The spirits in the world could be extraordinarily powerful, and evil spirits, unclean spirits, demonic forces were realized as very powerful forces. It is helpful to understand the hierarchy of things in the first century: First there is God. Second, there are Archangels and sons of God. Third, spirits both evil and good; Fourth, human beings; and finally, creatures below humans.
Mark tells us that Jesus is in the boat with his disciples when the great storm comes up. The disciples find themselves in a very precarious and dangerous position. They are out of control. Their lives are threatened. There is no peace, and they are about to die. Where is Jesus? He is in the back of the boat asleep. They wake him up and raise the question of whether or not he cares about what’s going on. They want him to join them in their terrible fear. “Teacher,” they say, “Don’t you care that we are all perishing?” Jesus then addresses the evil spirits, “Peace! Be still!” And then there was a dead calm.
Mark is telling his community that Jesus is above the spirits. He comes from the realm of Archangels and Sons of God with power over the evil spirits. In the world of the time, people who were hearing this story, were themselves people whose lives were often out of control. They could control very little. Greater powers ruled them, taxed them to death, oppressed them, frightened them, terrified them, and considered them expendable, and if they drowned in the terrorization it didn’t matter. But the great hope of the story is being revealed that in Christ Jesus it is as if a New Empire, a New Kingdom is coming that shall bring about a reign of peace and hope that shall have power over the evil spiritedness of the powers of the world.
Similarly, the coupled story to the Calm of the Sea, is the story of the Mad Crazy Demoniac. When they arrive on the other side of the Lake in Hellenistic territory, a mad man confronts Jesus and the disciples. This guy has all the symptoms of madness according to the definition of the time. He lives among tombs, walks at night, tears his clothes, and is destructive. You cannot miss from the story just how crazy this man is, breaking chains, and there is no strength to subdue this man. He howls and bruises himself. He lives among the tombs, an evil and unclean place. He is out of control, possessed by evil spirits or unclean spirits from within. (Jews called evil spirits unclean spirits; Greeks called them demons. They meant the same thing.) He is considered dangerous, out of control, and ostracized by the community.
The demoniac runs to Jesus, bows down before him, acknowledging his superiority, and says, “What have you come to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” Jesus commands the unclean evil spirits to come out. “What is your name?” he asks. “My name is Legion for there are so many of us.” At this particular time, the name Legion immediately conjured up Roman occupation by their Legions, and the atrocities carried out upon local peoples by bands of unruly out of control soldiers, raping and bullying the local populations. The demonic man is something of a symbol of humankind of the time being possessed with an inner evil that they again could not control. But all along the way Jesus has been preaching and proclaiming a new Empire, the Kingdom of God and his Love will come, a great gift of grace. He demands all that possesses the man to set him free so that he can be restored to his community in peace. The demons take flight at the presence of God in Jesus Christ; they attach themselves to unclean animals, the pigs, and jump into the sea. Get it? The disciples thought that they were going to drown in the storm. They don’t. It is the evil spirits that drown in the presence of Jesus Christ.
The restored man wants to go with Jesus, but rather he is commissioned to go to his community to proclaim the restoration and hope that is found in God.
What do these stories say to our own world today? Obviously there are things that are out of our control: earthquakes, fires, and floods. We are at the mercy of the elements. There are also evil spirits or evil spiritedness that affect the whole of our existence. We in our time are plagued by a culture of violence. We live in a culture of violence that seems to ultimately try to solve everything with war and terrorism. Vengeance spins out of control like a might power that is just unstoppable. The honor and respect of human life is minimized by the use of handguns, and many of their victims are innocent kids sitting on the stoops of their homes. People surrender to the culture by accepting drug and alcohol addiction as a way out, but is really surrender to a subtle violence that drowns their very life and existence.
All of us at one time or another go through personal difficulties where it seems that our lives have gone out of control. The darkness of the situations of the loss of loved ones, the resignation of the pastor when he retires or moves, divorce, loss of jobs, financial difficulties, depression, illnesses can make us feel like we are overpowered by the forces of evil that are out of our control. We succumb to feelings of great anxiety. We feel like we’re going down. It is as if God is asleep on the cushion at the stern. We feel like we have to cry out and shake God if there is a God, “Wake up Jesus don’t you care?”
[Pause]
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying:
Yea though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death itself, I will fear no evil.
Come to me all of you who are burdened, heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
Peace be with you.
Lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.
I heard the voice (of St. Paul) saying: Who then can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it or hardship or persecution or hunger or poverty or danger or death? No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below – there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying: When you pray say:
Our Father, who is in heaven.
Holy and above all is your name.
Your Kingdom, Your Reign, Your Empire will come.
Your Will is what will eventually be done on this very earth as it is in your Kingdom.
All we ask is that you give us daily spiritual nourishment, faith, loyalty, and trust.
Forgive us our faithless fears,
And we’ll forgive our brothers and sister of the world in your name.
Let us no longer be possessed by the controls and evil spirits of the world. Raise us above all that.
For this is your Kingdom, your Reign, your Empire, and all the power is yours from this time forth and forever more.
Jesus said to them, “Why are your afraid? Have you still no faith
Sunday, June 15, 2003
Trinity Sunday/Octave of Pentecost
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Trinity Sunday/Octave of Pentecost
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 15, 2003
TEXT: John 3:1-16 – Nicodemus and Jesus
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
ISSUE: While the name of the Sunday is Trinity Sunday, the readings are addressed to the Octave of Pentecost. Nicodemus in the Gospel story must be born from the Spirit of God. What seems more like the issue of this reading and this Sunday is that we must not make God too small, too manageable, too easy to manipulate, but appreciate the fullness of God whose Holy Spirit permeates the universe. We live in the midst of wonder, ecstasy, and mystery, which gives awesomeness to life and the wonder of pondering the Glory of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This Sunday after the major Feast of the Pentecost has been named for many years Trinity Sunday. It is a Sunday that was set aside as honoring a major theological doctrine of the church. However, the readings assigned for the Sunday barely address anything related to the actual doctrine of the Trinity. The proper lectionary readings are more appropriate to the Octave or continuing relation to the Pentecost, that is, the coming and prevalence of the Holy Spirit that we dramatized last week. The Gospel for this day tells of Nicodemus coming to Jesus for instruction about Jesus’ ministry. The doctrine of the Trinity would be more appropriately addressed from the last verses of the Gospel account of Matthew, where Jesus directs his disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps, we can approach confusion in this way, using the story of Nicodemus and Jesus. Nicodemus, whose name means Champion of the People, and who is a Pharisee, and likely a community leader come to Jesus at night, in the darkness. Nicodemus is obviously very curious about what Jesus is about. Nicodemus eventually becomes very accepting of Jesus and his ministry. Nicodemus appears later in the Gospel account of John arguing against the actions of some of his brother Pharisees in their plans for the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. It is also Nicodemus who assists Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ burial. The first concern of Nicodemus with Jesus is miraculous aspects described in John’s Gospel. He says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs (miracles) that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Jesus indicates that there is more to his ministry than the signs and the miracles. They may well speak of his being in the presence of God, but there is much more to his ministry than that. He tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, or the other, if not better translation, is that Nicodemus must be born from above. The implication here is that Nicodemus sees in Jesus a godliness that is based in miracles and signs. Jesus relationship with God is one of performing miracles, God is basically a miracle worker. Notice that many of us from time to time think of the works of Jesus and the works of God as basically the performance of miracles. When we pray, we often pray that God will pull off some kind of miracle. Someone we love who is sick will be miraculously cured, or we’ll miraculously pass a test, or God will step in and end a war. And, of course, when we don’t get prompt responses, and answers that we prefer, there is either disenchantment with God, or a tendency to lose our faith in God, or to see ourselves as some how unworthy of approach to God to meet our needs. What happens here is that we make God too small, as a mere worker of miracles. Actually in Jesus’ time there were many folk healers; this was common. We like Nicodemus, sometimes have an understanding of God that is too small. We tend to want to make God cozy, comfortable, manageable, and the problem here is that we become disillusioned because the world we live in is not always cozy and comfortable; it has its share of pain, suffering, injustice and warfare.
What Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is that he must not let his understanding of God be based on folklore of the world, but on the fullness of God’s Spirit. You must be born from above. In John’s Gospel, the world belongs to God, and the world usually means Israel in this gospel account. What Jesus is coming to do, his ministry is to break open the fullness of God. God is much bigger than a mere miracle worker. Nicodemus has trouble with this concept. He thinks very literally, raising the question how can a person be born again, returning to his mother’s womb, which is impossible. Jesus is saying that we don’t get born again, but that we need to be born from above. We allow the fullness of God’s Spirit to fill and direct us.
Notice that the Gospel of John is called the Book of Signs. In John’s Gospel Jesus is doing things that seem miraculous, but they are only signs of something greater. Jesus turn water into wine, for instance, the first miracle. Do you suppose that they only reason for this was to allow the celebrants of the feast to get rip roaring drunk? Certainly not. It was a sign of how God takes the common and makes it holy, the wine becomes a spirit of joy and wonder, when the world abides with God. Jesus gives sight to a blind man in this Gospel, and Pharisees argue that it is not possible. Notice that Jesus does not heal every blind man in town. The miracle is a sign a breaking open of God’s spiritual presence and God’s yearning to give new spiritual insight to the human condition
In John’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the 5,000 on the green hillside. Literally, they were supposed to be hungry, but the story has greater meaning when you approach it spiritually. “The Lord is my shepherd who leads me to green pastures, where my cup runneth over, and a table is spread in the presence of my enemies.” Jesus is giving spiritual revelation that The Good Shepherd, God is with them, and not apart from them. God is ready to spiritually feed the soul of humanity with living fresh waters of hope, and manna, spiritual feeding from above.
There is in the Gospel of John also the great miracles of Redemption for the lost. Remember the woman at the well, who’d been married seven times. Seems to be some indication that the lady had lived a rather racy life. She is given spiritual living refreshing water of redemption. “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” He is the forgiving refreshment of the world.
John’s Gospel it tells of Jesus washing his disciples feet. It isn’t just a nice thing that Jesus did, it teaches humility, devotion, love for one another; do it to one another. This action is the very spiritedness of God at work with his people. Even Peter who denies Jesus three times, is forgiven in the end and made into a spiritual shepherd to feed lambs, and love the sheep of God. Understanding the fullness of God is not simply about what can Jesus or God do for me, it’s also about what we do, how we respond, in the Name of God for one another.
The Gospel of John and the Jesus therein is attempting to raise Nicodemus’ sights just beyond the literal miracles and great things that Jesus does to the greater meaning of exploding the fullness of God’s love. God loved the world in such a way that he gave his only, he pours out a part of himself to utterly astound the world of the fullness and magnificence of His loving Presence.
“Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Are you a baptized Christ, like myself, and how we lose sight of the real grandeur and wonder of, and the fullness of God.
Sometimes folks we have to look beyond the realm of the mundane and our own self-interests. Oh, that we could line up down town and look through the Hubble Space telescope and see the utter enormity and magnificence of the universe with its galaxies, planets, solar systems, black holes, and mysteries. Oh, that we could contemplate why it is that space is growing and expanding and moving faster and faster instead of slowing down. Mysteries abound. Once we thought the earth was flat. Then we learned it was round. Then, we learned we went around the sun and not the sun around us, and more and more learning and wisdom came to be that is just as bewildering and wonderful today as it was two thousand years ago. God is so big, we can’t really take it all in. God is awesome. “Take off your shoes,” God says to Moses through the crazy burning bush, “Don’t you know you are standing on Holy Ground.” God in all of his glory and awesomeness abounds, and the Scriptures, especially the Hebrew Scriptures and Psalm constantly speak of the glory of God, and Jesus dares his people to see the full glory of God.
God is beyond our imagination. God is a like a Father, and in Jesus’ time you have to understand that a Father demanded total respect. The Son was expected to be totally obedient and honor his Father, and that was the Spirit of the culture of the time. Jesus as Son of the Father gives full obedience, honor, and respect to the Father. The father tests the Son’s obedience, and the Spirit of love prevails in the crucifixion, and is honored in the Resurrection. We must be born of that Spirit from above, to honor the fullness of God, to be obedient, and to serve. Please don’t make God so small that we become too easily disenchanted when we cannot manipulate God or get our own way. God is indeed grand, and in the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ we are led to that God, and the understanding of his indwelling Holy Spirit of Love.
Indeed we all have problems, our time of pain and suffer, and so it is. But do keep in mind that miracles and the wonder of God that abounds in so many ways in human life. From the simplicity and wonder of a firefly, a watermelon, a steamed crab in the summer time, to the incredible gift of human life through the union of a sperm and an egg, to the wonder and comfort of people loving us and being with us at difficult times. It’s hard to figure sometimes: there is cancer; there is violence, earthquakes, fire, and flood. Yet what can we say but that we are still in hands of God, wondering what new healing and hope may come to wonder, as the earth and the universe continues to be the revelation and continuing creative processes of the Glory of God.
Maybe it is better for Jesus to say that we must be born from above and seek higher things, and trust in the spirit of God than to think of the Trinity as merely likened to a shamrock. God is indeed the mighty shepherd and creator. God is in the beauty, the revelation, and teaching of Jesus Christ. God is a prevailing spirit, the living breath of the universe that reveals grander things and hopes to come. Nothing can change that, nor separate us from his Love, and our presence in that spiritual Kingdom.
SEASON: Trinity Sunday/Octave of Pentecost
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 15, 2003
TEXT: John 3:1-16 – Nicodemus and Jesus
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
ISSUE: While the name of the Sunday is Trinity Sunday, the readings are addressed to the Octave of Pentecost. Nicodemus in the Gospel story must be born from the Spirit of God. What seems more like the issue of this reading and this Sunday is that we must not make God too small, too manageable, too easy to manipulate, but appreciate the fullness of God whose Holy Spirit permeates the universe. We live in the midst of wonder, ecstasy, and mystery, which gives awesomeness to life and the wonder of pondering the Glory of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This Sunday after the major Feast of the Pentecost has been named for many years Trinity Sunday. It is a Sunday that was set aside as honoring a major theological doctrine of the church. However, the readings assigned for the Sunday barely address anything related to the actual doctrine of the Trinity. The proper lectionary readings are more appropriate to the Octave or continuing relation to the Pentecost, that is, the coming and prevalence of the Holy Spirit that we dramatized last week. The Gospel for this day tells of Nicodemus coming to Jesus for instruction about Jesus’ ministry. The doctrine of the Trinity would be more appropriately addressed from the last verses of the Gospel account of Matthew, where Jesus directs his disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps, we can approach confusion in this way, using the story of Nicodemus and Jesus. Nicodemus, whose name means Champion of the People, and who is a Pharisee, and likely a community leader come to Jesus at night, in the darkness. Nicodemus is obviously very curious about what Jesus is about. Nicodemus eventually becomes very accepting of Jesus and his ministry. Nicodemus appears later in the Gospel account of John arguing against the actions of some of his brother Pharisees in their plans for the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. It is also Nicodemus who assists Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ burial. The first concern of Nicodemus with Jesus is miraculous aspects described in John’s Gospel. He says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs (miracles) that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Jesus indicates that there is more to his ministry than the signs and the miracles. They may well speak of his being in the presence of God, but there is much more to his ministry than that. He tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, or the other, if not better translation, is that Nicodemus must be born from above. The implication here is that Nicodemus sees in Jesus a godliness that is based in miracles and signs. Jesus relationship with God is one of performing miracles, God is basically a miracle worker. Notice that many of us from time to time think of the works of Jesus and the works of God as basically the performance of miracles. When we pray, we often pray that God will pull off some kind of miracle. Someone we love who is sick will be miraculously cured, or we’ll miraculously pass a test, or God will step in and end a war. And, of course, when we don’t get prompt responses, and answers that we prefer, there is either disenchantment with God, or a tendency to lose our faith in God, or to see ourselves as some how unworthy of approach to God to meet our needs. What happens here is that we make God too small, as a mere worker of miracles. Actually in Jesus’ time there were many folk healers; this was common. We like Nicodemus, sometimes have an understanding of God that is too small. We tend to want to make God cozy, comfortable, manageable, and the problem here is that we become disillusioned because the world we live in is not always cozy and comfortable; it has its share of pain, suffering, injustice and warfare.
What Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is that he must not let his understanding of God be based on folklore of the world, but on the fullness of God’s Spirit. You must be born from above. In John’s Gospel, the world belongs to God, and the world usually means Israel in this gospel account. What Jesus is coming to do, his ministry is to break open the fullness of God. God is much bigger than a mere miracle worker. Nicodemus has trouble with this concept. He thinks very literally, raising the question how can a person be born again, returning to his mother’s womb, which is impossible. Jesus is saying that we don’t get born again, but that we need to be born from above. We allow the fullness of God’s Spirit to fill and direct us.
Notice that the Gospel of John is called the Book of Signs. In John’s Gospel Jesus is doing things that seem miraculous, but they are only signs of something greater. Jesus turn water into wine, for instance, the first miracle. Do you suppose that they only reason for this was to allow the celebrants of the feast to get rip roaring drunk? Certainly not. It was a sign of how God takes the common and makes it holy, the wine becomes a spirit of joy and wonder, when the world abides with God. Jesus gives sight to a blind man in this Gospel, and Pharisees argue that it is not possible. Notice that Jesus does not heal every blind man in town. The miracle is a sign a breaking open of God’s spiritual presence and God’s yearning to give new spiritual insight to the human condition
In John’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the 5,000 on the green hillside. Literally, they were supposed to be hungry, but the story has greater meaning when you approach it spiritually. “The Lord is my shepherd who leads me to green pastures, where my cup runneth over, and a table is spread in the presence of my enemies.” Jesus is giving spiritual revelation that The Good Shepherd, God is with them, and not apart from them. God is ready to spiritually feed the soul of humanity with living fresh waters of hope, and manna, spiritual feeding from above.
There is in the Gospel of John also the great miracles of Redemption for the lost. Remember the woman at the well, who’d been married seven times. Seems to be some indication that the lady had lived a rather racy life. She is given spiritual living refreshing water of redemption. “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” He is the forgiving refreshment of the world.
John’s Gospel it tells of Jesus washing his disciples feet. It isn’t just a nice thing that Jesus did, it teaches humility, devotion, love for one another; do it to one another. This action is the very spiritedness of God at work with his people. Even Peter who denies Jesus three times, is forgiven in the end and made into a spiritual shepherd to feed lambs, and love the sheep of God. Understanding the fullness of God is not simply about what can Jesus or God do for me, it’s also about what we do, how we respond, in the Name of God for one another.
The Gospel of John and the Jesus therein is attempting to raise Nicodemus’ sights just beyond the literal miracles and great things that Jesus does to the greater meaning of exploding the fullness of God’s love. God loved the world in such a way that he gave his only, he pours out a part of himself to utterly astound the world of the fullness and magnificence of His loving Presence.
“Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Are you a baptized Christ, like myself, and how we lose sight of the real grandeur and wonder of, and the fullness of God.
Sometimes folks we have to look beyond the realm of the mundane and our own self-interests. Oh, that we could line up down town and look through the Hubble Space telescope and see the utter enormity and magnificence of the universe with its galaxies, planets, solar systems, black holes, and mysteries. Oh, that we could contemplate why it is that space is growing and expanding and moving faster and faster instead of slowing down. Mysteries abound. Once we thought the earth was flat. Then we learned it was round. Then, we learned we went around the sun and not the sun around us, and more and more learning and wisdom came to be that is just as bewildering and wonderful today as it was two thousand years ago. God is so big, we can’t really take it all in. God is awesome. “Take off your shoes,” God says to Moses through the crazy burning bush, “Don’t you know you are standing on Holy Ground.” God in all of his glory and awesomeness abounds, and the Scriptures, especially the Hebrew Scriptures and Psalm constantly speak of the glory of God, and Jesus dares his people to see the full glory of God.
God is beyond our imagination. God is a like a Father, and in Jesus’ time you have to understand that a Father demanded total respect. The Son was expected to be totally obedient and honor his Father, and that was the Spirit of the culture of the time. Jesus as Son of the Father gives full obedience, honor, and respect to the Father. The father tests the Son’s obedience, and the Spirit of love prevails in the crucifixion, and is honored in the Resurrection. We must be born of that Spirit from above, to honor the fullness of God, to be obedient, and to serve. Please don’t make God so small that we become too easily disenchanted when we cannot manipulate God or get our own way. God is indeed grand, and in the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ we are led to that God, and the understanding of his indwelling Holy Spirit of Love.
Indeed we all have problems, our time of pain and suffer, and so it is. But do keep in mind that miracles and the wonder of God that abounds in so many ways in human life. From the simplicity and wonder of a firefly, a watermelon, a steamed crab in the summer time, to the incredible gift of human life through the union of a sperm and an egg, to the wonder and comfort of people loving us and being with us at difficult times. It’s hard to figure sometimes: there is cancer; there is violence, earthquakes, fire, and flood. Yet what can we say but that we are still in hands of God, wondering what new healing and hope may come to wonder, as the earth and the universe continues to be the revelation and continuing creative processes of the Glory of God.
Maybe it is better for Jesus to say that we must be born from above and seek higher things, and trust in the spirit of God than to think of the Trinity as merely likened to a shamrock. God is indeed the mighty shepherd and creator. God is in the beauty, the revelation, and teaching of Jesus Christ. God is a prevailing spirit, the living breath of the universe that reveals grander things and hopes to come. Nothing can change that, nor separate us from his Love, and our presence in that spiritual Kingdom.
Sunday, June 8, 2003
PENTECOST SUNDAY
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST SUNDAY
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: JUNE 8, 2003
TEXT: Acts 2:1-11 – The Pentecostal Event
ISSUE: The wind and fire empowering the apostles.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This sermon was the telling of the Act’s Pentecost Story. A large fan was used with a rotating windmill flower, and a person appointed to lift and turn the fan around for the congregation to feel the wind. Red feathers were used and distributed to the congregation for tongues of fire from above. Confetti at one point is tossed into the fan to show how the dust and debris may have blown about the wind where the disciples were. A picture showing the faces of all the congregation in the body of Christ was a display of how the empowering Spirit has kept the church going to this very day.
The sermon concluded with words from Joel: “The Spirit of God will come upon all people, men and women, and even men and women servants. Young men will have visions and old men will dream dreams.
All of this may not exactly have happened the way it is dramatized, but we just know it is true, because we are all gathered here today as the body of Christ with treasures and talents to bring hope and love to the world..
SEASON: PENTECOST SUNDAY
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: JUNE 8, 2003
TEXT: Acts 2:1-11 – The Pentecostal Event
ISSUE: The wind and fire empowering the apostles.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This sermon was the telling of the Act’s Pentecost Story. A large fan was used with a rotating windmill flower, and a person appointed to lift and turn the fan around for the congregation to feel the wind. Red feathers were used and distributed to the congregation for tongues of fire from above. Confetti at one point is tossed into the fan to show how the dust and debris may have blown about the wind where the disciples were. A picture showing the faces of all the congregation in the body of Christ was a display of how the empowering Spirit has kept the church going to this very day.
The sermon concluded with words from Joel: “The Spirit of God will come upon all people, men and women, and even men and women servants. Young men will have visions and old men will dream dreams.
All of this may not exactly have happened the way it is dramatized, but we just know it is true, because we are all gathered here today as the body of Christ with treasures and talents to bring hope and love to the world..
Sunday, June 1, 2003
ASCENSION SUNDAY/EASTER 7
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: ASCENSION SUNDAY/EASTER 7
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 1, 2003
TEXT: John 17:11b-19 – The High Priestly Prayer
“I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
ISSUE: This passage is the High Priestly Prayer and farewell to the gathered disciples in John’s account of the Gospel. Jesus prays to the Father for their protection and their distancing themselves from the world, but at the same time validates their being sent to the world for purposes of it redemption and reconciliation. While the disciples are in the world, they are called to be of the world and not trapped by it. We also live in the world, but are not meant to be usurped by the world’s evil and materialism, but to be ready for The Kingdom of God in the world, and to help usher in the redemption and reconciliation of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We are now in the season of the church year known as Ascensiontide. This season marks the Ascension of Jesus into to his seat at the right hand of God, or the highest place of honor with God. Luke reports in his concept of the Ascension in his Gospel and his Book of the Acts of the Apostles that with the disciples gathered, Jesus is simply lifted into the heavens disappearing into the clouds. Mark’s gospel has a very simple statement alluding to Jesus assumption into the heavens. Matthew’s gospel ends with an appearance of the risen Lord to his disciples and sends or commissions them to teach and baptize all nations.
Once again, the Ascension accounts of Jesus seem to be emphasizing that Jesus is much like the great and honored prophets of old, who had traditions of their ascension into the heavens, namely Moses and Elijah. Note that the ascension seems to be also stating that Jesus is highly honored by his ascension into heaven. The early Catholic Church in which the Virgin Mother is highly honored developed a doctrine of the Assumption of Mary into the heavens, which is also accepted by some Anglican-Episcopalians. A specific date of celebration was removed from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The teaching or doctrine of the Ascension is one that coming to the end of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, teaches that he was greatly honored by the Father, and lifted to the presence of God.
So many of the teachings of Jesus are intended to lift up God’s people to his presence. He raises the dying, the poor, the afflicted, the paralyzed, the disenfranchised, the sinner into a relationship with God the Father. I’ve always thought that it was so spectacular for people over the years who have come into this church to have their eyes and being lifted with Christ into the heavens toward the metaphorical place of God. The eyes of all are lifted up toward the heavens to the place of God in this church. Notice too that the Ascension of Jesus flies in the face of the world’s teaching that whatever goes up must come down. Here we have another Great Reversal: What has come down will go up to the presence of God. Jesus is God having come down, and now lifts all who will believe in his ways and teaching up to the presence of God.
The Gospel of John does not have any references to the Ascension as such, but does indicate that Jesus will return to the Father. The passage today is still another part of Jesus’ farewell to his disciples, and what is referred to as The High Priestly Prayer of Christ. Jesus is praying on behalf of his disciples, as a parish priest or rabbi prays for the people in his congregation. The primary concern of the prayer is that the disciples living in the world will not be attacked or distracted by the evil one. He is praying like a Good Shepherd for his flock: that they will be protected and be kept as one. People of this period could not survive on their own. You survived through a fictive community or family. The prayer is concerned with the unity of the group as people under the Father. John’s concern with keeping the family of God together is again a great concern for those disciples that were living in very difficult times. There is a hope that the disciples will follow in the footsteps of Jesus and will lead the world up to the presence of God.
Notice that the passage is very concerned with the fact that the disciples are in the world, but not of the world. In John’s gospel, the world most often means Israel. The nation of Israel and its Jewish leadership frequently condemned the new Christian movement. This persecution was understandable. Whenever a religious faith is under persecution, as were the Jews of this period, there is an all out effort to keep strong and maintain the faith, in this case of Israel. Even though many of the early Christians attempted to keep their Jewish roots, corrupted Jewish authorities condemned them at this difficult time as heretics.
The seemingly important charge here is that Christians living in a hostile world were not to be separated from that world, but protected by God. And they were sent to the world in which they were persecuted, as Jesus had been, for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth revealed in Jesus Christ. The great hope and expectation is that God’s Holy Spirit will come down upon them, and keep them protected and empowered to carry on the ministry of the Kingdom of God.
We all today live in the world, and we have a much broader sense of the world than did John’s community. We are also, especially as Americans, committed to the notion that we are individuals and self made men and women. Yet while we know that certain individuals have made differences in the world, it is better by far to work together in groups to bring about significant changes in the world. The black community learned that very well back in the 60’s, and the labor unions learned and accomplished more by their unity than by individual attempts at needed change.
The Church as people today also has its share of persecution. Certain extreme Islamic fundamentalist nations persecute Christians. Saudi Arabia forbids public displays of Christian worship. The small Christian minority of the Sudan is persecuted. Moral standards are often denounced or mocked, as well as public witness to our faith. Some South American political groups have attempted to greatly stifle the Christian movement and teachings at odds with their political agenda. The news media reports the occasional persecution and torturing of Christian missionaries.
In our own country there are movements to prevent the outward expression of Christian witness in the public arena. There is embarrassment about our faith at times, like saying grace in public, or clearly standing up for moral values we believe to be important. The Christian faith does not always stand firm on the world scene be becomes absorbed into the fabric of the secular culture, rather than informing the culture as to what might be right and good. We are tending to lose the importance of the Sabbath as a day belonging to God. Marriage fails to have the commitment and sanctity demanded. Respect for others right and property, and public property is diminished. Honesty and decency as human beings seems to be getting lost, often in the highest ranks of people and in the public arena of politics and business. Sports becomes more enamored with making money than the development of sportsmanship and skill. Religious leaders slip morally. It is tricky for us to keep our balance in the world. It must be clear that the Christian Church makes every effort for the avoidance of bigotry, racism, intolerance, and injustice, but that Sunday mornings are often the most segregated hours of the week. It must be made clear that we stand for sacrificial love, and laying down our lives in behalf of what is right. We look forward to uplifting of the world into the realm of the Kingdom into the Godly standards. The world is not something that Jesus hoped his disciples would escape. The world is what Jesus himself came to love and charged his followers with that same commissioning.
Today we are celebrating the leadership of a new Vestry for St. John’s. Each of us with them is commissioned not to escape the world, but to work with Christ and for Christ in the accomplishments of bringing new hope to the world, and raising all who belong to God to his presence. A congregation as part of that community needs to stand behind and encourage its leadership to do what needs to be done, and to become invested in the needs of the world. To become trapped by our history, or be resistant to change and development for the glory of God pulls a congregation down, rather than allowing it to be lifted up with Christ in the community of the world. The call of the disciple in God’s world was hardly intended to keep the status quo. Women, slaves, children, handicapped folk were all intended to be lifted up and seen in a whole new worthiness as the people of God. These callings were tremendously difficult things to change in Jesus’ time, but he was invested in changing the world to be more like the Kingdom of God than the retention of world values.
In the Ascension of Jesus the world is challenged to look up and ahead into the future. That looking up were in the world, but had their sights lifted up toward the Kingdom of God. Jesus lifts up his community to be his body in the world, and promises the empowering spirit to indwell them and to carry on that work of God. The human condition is called, raised, lifted up into the realm of being active in the Spirit of God’s love.
In the beginning there was the Story of Adam and Eve. We often refer to the disobedience of Adam and Eve as the metaphorical fall of humanity, as it became separated from God. In the Christian story of the life of Jesus Christ you have a new Adam who does not fall, and who is raised up, and his life, and prayer is for the people of God, that living in this world they may be the resurrected, renewed and revitalized and lifted up family of God.
SEASON: ASCENSION SUNDAY/EASTER 7
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 1, 2003
TEXT: John 17:11b-19 – The High Priestly Prayer
“I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
ISSUE: This passage is the High Priestly Prayer and farewell to the gathered disciples in John’s account of the Gospel. Jesus prays to the Father for their protection and their distancing themselves from the world, but at the same time validates their being sent to the world for purposes of it redemption and reconciliation. While the disciples are in the world, they are called to be of the world and not trapped by it. We also live in the world, but are not meant to be usurped by the world’s evil and materialism, but to be ready for The Kingdom of God in the world, and to help usher in the redemption and reconciliation of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We are now in the season of the church year known as Ascensiontide. This season marks the Ascension of Jesus into to his seat at the right hand of God, or the highest place of honor with God. Luke reports in his concept of the Ascension in his Gospel and his Book of the Acts of the Apostles that with the disciples gathered, Jesus is simply lifted into the heavens disappearing into the clouds. Mark’s gospel has a very simple statement alluding to Jesus assumption into the heavens. Matthew’s gospel ends with an appearance of the risen Lord to his disciples and sends or commissions them to teach and baptize all nations.
Once again, the Ascension accounts of Jesus seem to be emphasizing that Jesus is much like the great and honored prophets of old, who had traditions of their ascension into the heavens, namely Moses and Elijah. Note that the ascension seems to be also stating that Jesus is highly honored by his ascension into heaven. The early Catholic Church in which the Virgin Mother is highly honored developed a doctrine of the Assumption of Mary into the heavens, which is also accepted by some Anglican-Episcopalians. A specific date of celebration was removed from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The teaching or doctrine of the Ascension is one that coming to the end of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, teaches that he was greatly honored by the Father, and lifted to the presence of God.
So many of the teachings of Jesus are intended to lift up God’s people to his presence. He raises the dying, the poor, the afflicted, the paralyzed, the disenfranchised, the sinner into a relationship with God the Father. I’ve always thought that it was so spectacular for people over the years who have come into this church to have their eyes and being lifted with Christ into the heavens toward the metaphorical place of God. The eyes of all are lifted up toward the heavens to the place of God in this church. Notice too that the Ascension of Jesus flies in the face of the world’s teaching that whatever goes up must come down. Here we have another Great Reversal: What has come down will go up to the presence of God. Jesus is God having come down, and now lifts all who will believe in his ways and teaching up to the presence of God.
The Gospel of John does not have any references to the Ascension as such, but does indicate that Jesus will return to the Father. The passage today is still another part of Jesus’ farewell to his disciples, and what is referred to as The High Priestly Prayer of Christ. Jesus is praying on behalf of his disciples, as a parish priest or rabbi prays for the people in his congregation. The primary concern of the prayer is that the disciples living in the world will not be attacked or distracted by the evil one. He is praying like a Good Shepherd for his flock: that they will be protected and be kept as one. People of this period could not survive on their own. You survived through a fictive community or family. The prayer is concerned with the unity of the group as people under the Father. John’s concern with keeping the family of God together is again a great concern for those disciples that were living in very difficult times. There is a hope that the disciples will follow in the footsteps of Jesus and will lead the world up to the presence of God.
Notice that the passage is very concerned with the fact that the disciples are in the world, but not of the world. In John’s gospel, the world most often means Israel. The nation of Israel and its Jewish leadership frequently condemned the new Christian movement. This persecution was understandable. Whenever a religious faith is under persecution, as were the Jews of this period, there is an all out effort to keep strong and maintain the faith, in this case of Israel. Even though many of the early Christians attempted to keep their Jewish roots, corrupted Jewish authorities condemned them at this difficult time as heretics.
The seemingly important charge here is that Christians living in a hostile world were not to be separated from that world, but protected by God. And they were sent to the world in which they were persecuted, as Jesus had been, for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth revealed in Jesus Christ. The great hope and expectation is that God’s Holy Spirit will come down upon them, and keep them protected and empowered to carry on the ministry of the Kingdom of God.
We all today live in the world, and we have a much broader sense of the world than did John’s community. We are also, especially as Americans, committed to the notion that we are individuals and self made men and women. Yet while we know that certain individuals have made differences in the world, it is better by far to work together in groups to bring about significant changes in the world. The black community learned that very well back in the 60’s, and the labor unions learned and accomplished more by their unity than by individual attempts at needed change.
The Church as people today also has its share of persecution. Certain extreme Islamic fundamentalist nations persecute Christians. Saudi Arabia forbids public displays of Christian worship. The small Christian minority of the Sudan is persecuted. Moral standards are often denounced or mocked, as well as public witness to our faith. Some South American political groups have attempted to greatly stifle the Christian movement and teachings at odds with their political agenda. The news media reports the occasional persecution and torturing of Christian missionaries.
In our own country there are movements to prevent the outward expression of Christian witness in the public arena. There is embarrassment about our faith at times, like saying grace in public, or clearly standing up for moral values we believe to be important. The Christian faith does not always stand firm on the world scene be becomes absorbed into the fabric of the secular culture, rather than informing the culture as to what might be right and good. We are tending to lose the importance of the Sabbath as a day belonging to God. Marriage fails to have the commitment and sanctity demanded. Respect for others right and property, and public property is diminished. Honesty and decency as human beings seems to be getting lost, often in the highest ranks of people and in the public arena of politics and business. Sports becomes more enamored with making money than the development of sportsmanship and skill. Religious leaders slip morally. It is tricky for us to keep our balance in the world. It must be clear that the Christian Church makes every effort for the avoidance of bigotry, racism, intolerance, and injustice, but that Sunday mornings are often the most segregated hours of the week. It must be made clear that we stand for sacrificial love, and laying down our lives in behalf of what is right. We look forward to uplifting of the world into the realm of the Kingdom into the Godly standards. The world is not something that Jesus hoped his disciples would escape. The world is what Jesus himself came to love and charged his followers with that same commissioning.
Today we are celebrating the leadership of a new Vestry for St. John’s. Each of us with them is commissioned not to escape the world, but to work with Christ and for Christ in the accomplishments of bringing new hope to the world, and raising all who belong to God to his presence. A congregation as part of that community needs to stand behind and encourage its leadership to do what needs to be done, and to become invested in the needs of the world. To become trapped by our history, or be resistant to change and development for the glory of God pulls a congregation down, rather than allowing it to be lifted up with Christ in the community of the world. The call of the disciple in God’s world was hardly intended to keep the status quo. Women, slaves, children, handicapped folk were all intended to be lifted up and seen in a whole new worthiness as the people of God. These callings were tremendously difficult things to change in Jesus’ time, but he was invested in changing the world to be more like the Kingdom of God than the retention of world values.
In the Ascension of Jesus the world is challenged to look up and ahead into the future. That looking up were in the world, but had their sights lifted up toward the Kingdom of God. Jesus lifts up his community to be his body in the world, and promises the empowering spirit to indwell them and to carry on that work of God. The human condition is called, raised, lifted up into the realm of being active in the Spirit of God’s love.
In the beginning there was the Story of Adam and Eve. We often refer to the disobedience of Adam and Eve as the metaphorical fall of humanity, as it became separated from God. In the Christian story of the life of Jesus Christ you have a new Adam who does not fall, and who is raised up, and his life, and prayer is for the people of God, that living in this world they may be the resurrected, renewed and revitalized and lifted up family of God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
