Proper 17B • 2 September 2012
Preached at
Saint Mark’s, Springfield VT
After five weeks of tarrying in the gospel of John, the lectionary suddenly drops us back into the gospel of Mark in the middle of a debate between Jesus and the Pharisees. Thematically we move from a long meditation on the significance of the Bread of Life — Jesus — to an argument that revolves around purity and following the letter of the law to the point that it excludes people. Quite a shift, indeed!
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One of the primary questions that this morning’s gospel reading poses is: What happens to us when we get too caught up in minute, legalistic interpretations of scripture or the law? This question is not limited to people of Jesus’ time — hardly so. We see such debates going on in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion today, too, with those who tend toward a more literalistic approach to the bible lamenting the lack of discipline in the rest of the church.
While Jesus is not asking the Pharisees if they know what God hates, he is asking them where their hearts are: Are their hearts open to what God has to say and teach them, or are their hearts hardened? From what Jesus says, quoting directly from the prophet Isaiah, his answer is clear: ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ Then he accuses the Pharisees of abandoning the commandment of God and holding to human tradition.
What is the commandment of God? Simply, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. This commandment comes straight out of the Book of Deuteronomy (its name comes from the Latin, The Second Law, but in Hebrew, its name is derived from the first word of the book, debarim, ‘Words’). Much later in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus will tell the community what the second commandment is: The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. Love of God, love of neighbour. These are the foundations of one’s life in God.
Jesus faces a group of people who uses a myriad of laws to keep people away from God rather than find ways to include them in the richness of God’s promise of mercy for humankind. And that is why Jesus’ ire is up.
Since purity laws are not part of our reality, perhaps it would be useful to explain some of what is going on here. The Pharisaic custom of purity laws created a system in which those who could observe the laws were part of the in-group and those who could not were part of the out-group. The purity code was basically a form of maintaining group boundaries. In this particular system, that which is dirty or impure was out of place in the system and that which was clean or pure was in place. The purity code not only determined what was polluted but also when one should pray and with whom one could associate and where one could go. But most important was a hierarchy of things clean and unclean.
Keeping purity laws was a near impossibility for peasant farmers who may not have had the required water for ritual baths, or for fishers who came in constant contact with dead fish, animals and the like. Equally at a disadvantage were those like Jesus and his disciples who travelled about.
Jesus consistently got himself into trouble with the Pharisees because he disregarded their boundaries. He did not observe their rules of worship or their rules about places or people. Jesus touched (and in some cases was touched by) those considered impure: women, the dead, tax collectors and sinners. His disregard for the Pharisees’ total system was not out of contentiousness but rather out of his understanding that rules can sometimes mask what lies in the heart.
What lies in the heart? Good things and bad things. Jesus recites in the gospel passage what is commonly known as a ‘vice list.’ These lists were used frequently in Greek philosophical teachings of the times and referred to acts against the community as well as acts against the individual.
By reminding us that it is not that which we consume that defiles us but what comes out of our hearts, Jesus basically calls the Pharisees to examine the real motivations behind their lists of purity laws. Do they follow them out of a genuine desire to follow God, to love God and neighbour alike, or do they follow these laws as a way to construct a fence around themselves so they will not have to deal with people different from them?
The gospel asks us as well: What fences do we construct around us? How do we use purity laws, the bible, or other tests to determine who is in and who is out? How does the church today define who is in and who is out? Is that what the church should be about? Isn’t the church called to gather and leave the sorting to God? Shouldn’t the church be a place for all?
There are tensions between cultural relics and tradition, which often can become burdensome. Cultural habit can colour and change tradition. One must always bear in mind that tradition, in its Latin root, traditio, means ‘to hand over’, ‘to hand on.’ There’s nothing in its original meaning that says things have to be set in stone.
On a light-hearted level, I can come up with two examples that were part of the cultural habit at Saint Mary’s, now evolved into ‘tradition.’ The first is their unusual custom of standing up to say the psalm at the eucharist. I would hazard at 9/10 congregations that one might attend, the congregation sits down to read the psalm in the context of the eucharist. When I asked around, trying to find out how and when this custom (that folks call ‘tradition’) came into being, no one could remember. I then asked the congregation: Is it essential to our life as a community whether we stand or sit for the psalm? Not really. Should we try conforming to the rest of our neighbouring Episcopal congregations? Perhaps. They never did change that odd practise during my time.
Another light example I gave was what would happen the certain day when I was no longer rector of Saint Mary’s. I joked: Surely someone will say to the new priest, ‘But she always reached behind her head after she put on the chasuble and you must too!’ (It is my custom to flip my braid outside of the chasuble so it does not remain stuck inside it.) The current priest’s hair is as short as mine is long so it is a non-issue.
On a more serious level, as a community we must find a way of living in this tension between rules and making faithful, life-giving choices. How do we live in community, where the common good often needs to take precedence over our own good, not treating as rigid and wooden the laws and traditions that are meant to sustain community?
There is a raft of moral and ethical and pastoral questions that we deal with day by day that our traditions and laws do not give us room to respond in human and faithful ways. Laws and canons are made for people, not people for laws and canons. Even Scripture used literally and rigidly can be oppressive of God’s people.
Consider that our church changed its mind about remarriage of divorced persons in 1970. Up until then, a priest could not preside at the blessing/marriage of a couple if one of the partners had been divorced. Mercifully, the church opted for compassion, rather than exclusion. This is but one example. You surely can come up with others.
We are constantly challenged to see the world and the human family with the eyes of Jesus who made choices from his heart, choices for mercy, justice and with a special option for the vulnerable and poor.
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In this year where politically there stands so much that can divide us, I pray that we see God in one another, and remember that judging what lies in people’s hearts is up to God, not us. I pray that this community can be a witness to God’s love extended to all. And I pray we will find ways to extend that message to others, especially to those who have not yet known God’s gracious love.
With God’s help we can begin to open our hearts to one another, not being afraid to be who we really are. Let us tear down the walls that divide us, and strengthen the bonds of trust (Weston Priory). Let us return to the foundations of our life in God by loving God and our neighbour. If we can do that, we will no longer need all our fences and walls. And we can do that, trusting in God. So, let’s begin.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Proper 16B
Proper 16B • 26 August 2012
Preached at Church of Our Saviour, Killington Vermont
We have reached the last portion of the five-week excursus into the Gospel of John’s sixth chapter that focuses on Jesus, the Bread of Life. (I invite you to sit down and read the chapter in its entirety now that we have heard it in segments.) In this chapter we have moved from Jesus feeding the five thousand—the miracle which appears in all four gospels, to Jesus walking on the water, to his long discourse on the bread from heaven. Initially a response to the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus teaches the crowd about signs and, in particular, about those signs that center on bread—the gift of the Mannah from heaven, and now the gift of the real bread from heaven, Jesus. In words that imply the elements of the eucharist, Jesus tells his disciples that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. Nothing else will do.
Though the gospel reading for last week (had we heard it instead of celebrating the feast of Mary, Mother of Jesus) summed up the theological themes of Jesus’ long discourse on the bread of life, we have not yet finished with the sixth chapter from the gospel of John. This week we hear the reactions of those who heard Jesus’ teachings about the gift of eternal life. We would expect the disciples’ reaction to this incredible promise would be one of faith. It would seem natural that the gospel report that ‘many believed’—the other three gospels often times state that a crowd comes to believe Jesus’ teachings with these words. But, here in the fourth gospel, we have a unique situation wherein the disciples do not accept the teaching; in fact, they disbelieve and ask who could possibly accept Jesus’ teaching? Not only do they discredit Jesus’ words, they also draw back from Jesus. Worse, they take offence. The Greek actually says, ‘they were scandalised,’ that is, blocked by what Jesus has been teaching. And what is the block over which their minds trip?
Throughout the bread of life discourse, Jesus stresses the importance and necessity of the incarnation and the cross so that God may give eternal life to the world. Jesus has to become incarnate in flesh and blood and die on the cross so that God may be glorified. Jesus carries his thought through to the passion in his teaching about the bread of life because it is only through the passion and Christ’s ascension that humanity can receive the bread of life. Jesus stresses this crucial connection in his words about taking his flesh and eating it, receiving his blood and drinking it.
The disciples, those who do not accept Jesus’ teaching, do not follow through to the moment of God’s ultimate self-giving. They remain stuck thinking about the human nature of Jesus, the physical realities of Jesus’ flesh and blood. Their disbelief stems from several misconceptions, one of which teaches that the human body is bad. If the physical body is bad, Jesus our saviour, could not have appeared in human form. As long as they remain focused on Jesus as only a human, they cannot see through to the incarnation and its resulting gift of the eucharist, the meal of life that we receive week in and week out, and the larger gift of eternal life.
Jesus tries to open them to a larger understanding of what choosing life means by saying: ‘It is the spirit that gives life… the words I have spoken are spirit and life.’ What Jesus is driving at is that those who open themselves to the spirit can understand spiritual things. There is the natural reality of being human: we can use our reason and intellect to survive, but as long as we are closed to God’s influence, we cannot perceive divine things. Jesus’ teachings are of the spiritual realm and they intend to bring people into that realm. Yet Jesus recognises that not everyone will believe and he goes as far as to ask those present if they, too, would like to go away, to stop trying to understand his radical teaching about eternal life.
And then Peter speaks. We are so conditioned to thinking of Peter as the disciple who blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind and who never gets it. Even here Peter’s response seems to be more of the same outbursts when he says, ‘Lord, to whom can we go?’ At first hearing, it sounds as though Peter is saying, ‘We are stuck with you, we have come too far to turn around and anyway, we don’t know where else to go.’
But that is not what Peter is saying. Not at all. Instead, he continues, ‘You have the words of eternal life.’ Peter understands after all what the teaching about the bread of life is all about. After asserting that Jesus has the words of eternal life, Peter affirms his belief in Jesus by saying, ‘We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ His faith statement is more than mere words. Peter demonstrates exactly what Jesus has said about one’s capacity to perceive the truth. Peter recognises that what Jesus has been teaching all along is about ‘spirit and life, ‘ and so he entrusts himself to Christ in faith. Remarkably and unexpectedly, Peter becomes for us an example of how one’s life can be changed if only one opens one’s heart (and mind). He becomes one who is open to God and the life of the Spirit. He becomes one who chooses God and life.
How much easier it would have been for Peter if he had kept his mind and heart closed to Jesus’ message about God’s love. If he had never opened his heart to Jesus, he would have never ended up standing by a fire in a cold courtyard and denying three times a saviour he loved. He would have never ended up walking along the way of the cross behind Jesus, being martyred himself later on. He could have interpreted Jesus’ message to suit himself. But Peter’s heart is opened by and to the Spirit that gives life. Even in dying, he chooses life.
Like Peter, like Joshua who says, ‘Choose today whom you will serve… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,’ you and I have the choice to follow God. That saying actually has hung in the front hall of the rectories in which I have lived as a daily reminder of whom I have chosen to follow. God puts that choice before us each day. Each day we face a moment of choice, a turning point. Whom do we choose to follow?
We come to turning points again and again in our lifetimes. We come to times when we must choose between life and death, between delight and misery, between being truly alive and merely existing. God created us for far more than mere existence so God cares passionately about what we choose. Is our life vital, a life in community with God and others? Do we celebrate the gift of life God has given us? Do we find delight and wonder in all God’s works and with other people? Do we choose life that rejects fatalism, always being the victim, and misery, but chooses instead hope, joy and wonder?
A year ago, we were just getting ready for Irene, thinking it would be a simple storm. In the aftermath, most people chose life by dealing with the mess. Two young adults, Eric Mallette and Lyz Tomsuden created the poster, ‘I am Vermont Strong,’ that now adorns license plates as a fund-raiser. (We probably would have said, ‘We are Vermont Strong,’ given that we are people of community.) Indeed, in this week’s Mountain Times article on the slogan, they defend their choice of words: ‘It’s a personal statement. When singular strength meets the masses that’s the important point. Liz and I both feel strongly it has to come from you.’ Regardless, we saw countless examples of people choosing life post-Irene. And some even chose God and stuck with God.
‘Where can we go?’ Peter asks Jesus. And we find the answer: We can go to the One who holds up for us the possibility of delight and hope and vitality and goodness in this world and in the world to come. We can choose to follow the One who can give us life now and in the world to come.
Even faced with signs of our mortality around us, we can choose life because we are created for life, for the fullness of life in joy and wonder. We are created with the capacity to choose life or not as we will. God desires life for us—rich, abundant life in this world and in the world to come, life measured not in length or possessions but in the fullness of relationship with God and others. God gives us the strength to choose such a life for ourselves and those we love. And God gives us the community that can choose life for us when we cannot choose it for ourselves. God gives us life and wants us to know the fullness of that gift.
Where do we go? Whom do we choose? If there is any question, we have a regular reminder of where to go and whom to follow… and that reminder comes to us in Christ’s body and blood. So come, partake, and remember where you are going and whom you are following.
Preached at Church of Our Saviour, Killington Vermont
We have reached the last portion of the five-week excursus into the Gospel of John’s sixth chapter that focuses on Jesus, the Bread of Life. (I invite you to sit down and read the chapter in its entirety now that we have heard it in segments.) In this chapter we have moved from Jesus feeding the five thousand—the miracle which appears in all four gospels, to Jesus walking on the water, to his long discourse on the bread from heaven. Initially a response to the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus teaches the crowd about signs and, in particular, about those signs that center on bread—the gift of the Mannah from heaven, and now the gift of the real bread from heaven, Jesus. In words that imply the elements of the eucharist, Jesus tells his disciples that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. Nothing else will do.
Though the gospel reading for last week (had we heard it instead of celebrating the feast of Mary, Mother of Jesus) summed up the theological themes of Jesus’ long discourse on the bread of life, we have not yet finished with the sixth chapter from the gospel of John. This week we hear the reactions of those who heard Jesus’ teachings about the gift of eternal life. We would expect the disciples’ reaction to this incredible promise would be one of faith. It would seem natural that the gospel report that ‘many believed’—the other three gospels often times state that a crowd comes to believe Jesus’ teachings with these words. But, here in the fourth gospel, we have a unique situation wherein the disciples do not accept the teaching; in fact, they disbelieve and ask who could possibly accept Jesus’ teaching? Not only do they discredit Jesus’ words, they also draw back from Jesus. Worse, they take offence. The Greek actually says, ‘they were scandalised,’ that is, blocked by what Jesus has been teaching. And what is the block over which their minds trip?
Throughout the bread of life discourse, Jesus stresses the importance and necessity of the incarnation and the cross so that God may give eternal life to the world. Jesus has to become incarnate in flesh and blood and die on the cross so that God may be glorified. Jesus carries his thought through to the passion in his teaching about the bread of life because it is only through the passion and Christ’s ascension that humanity can receive the bread of life. Jesus stresses this crucial connection in his words about taking his flesh and eating it, receiving his blood and drinking it.
The disciples, those who do not accept Jesus’ teaching, do not follow through to the moment of God’s ultimate self-giving. They remain stuck thinking about the human nature of Jesus, the physical realities of Jesus’ flesh and blood. Their disbelief stems from several misconceptions, one of which teaches that the human body is bad. If the physical body is bad, Jesus our saviour, could not have appeared in human form. As long as they remain focused on Jesus as only a human, they cannot see through to the incarnation and its resulting gift of the eucharist, the meal of life that we receive week in and week out, and the larger gift of eternal life.
Jesus tries to open them to a larger understanding of what choosing life means by saying: ‘It is the spirit that gives life… the words I have spoken are spirit and life.’ What Jesus is driving at is that those who open themselves to the spirit can understand spiritual things. There is the natural reality of being human: we can use our reason and intellect to survive, but as long as we are closed to God’s influence, we cannot perceive divine things. Jesus’ teachings are of the spiritual realm and they intend to bring people into that realm. Yet Jesus recognises that not everyone will believe and he goes as far as to ask those present if they, too, would like to go away, to stop trying to understand his radical teaching about eternal life.
And then Peter speaks. We are so conditioned to thinking of Peter as the disciple who blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind and who never gets it. Even here Peter’s response seems to be more of the same outbursts when he says, ‘Lord, to whom can we go?’ At first hearing, it sounds as though Peter is saying, ‘We are stuck with you, we have come too far to turn around and anyway, we don’t know where else to go.’
But that is not what Peter is saying. Not at all. Instead, he continues, ‘You have the words of eternal life.’ Peter understands after all what the teaching about the bread of life is all about. After asserting that Jesus has the words of eternal life, Peter affirms his belief in Jesus by saying, ‘We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ His faith statement is more than mere words. Peter demonstrates exactly what Jesus has said about one’s capacity to perceive the truth. Peter recognises that what Jesus has been teaching all along is about ‘spirit and life, ‘ and so he entrusts himself to Christ in faith. Remarkably and unexpectedly, Peter becomes for us an example of how one’s life can be changed if only one opens one’s heart (and mind). He becomes one who is open to God and the life of the Spirit. He becomes one who chooses God and life.
How much easier it would have been for Peter if he had kept his mind and heart closed to Jesus’ message about God’s love. If he had never opened his heart to Jesus, he would have never ended up standing by a fire in a cold courtyard and denying three times a saviour he loved. He would have never ended up walking along the way of the cross behind Jesus, being martyred himself later on. He could have interpreted Jesus’ message to suit himself. But Peter’s heart is opened by and to the Spirit that gives life. Even in dying, he chooses life.
Like Peter, like Joshua who says, ‘Choose today whom you will serve… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,’ you and I have the choice to follow God. That saying actually has hung in the front hall of the rectories in which I have lived as a daily reminder of whom I have chosen to follow. God puts that choice before us each day. Each day we face a moment of choice, a turning point. Whom do we choose to follow?
We come to turning points again and again in our lifetimes. We come to times when we must choose between life and death, between delight and misery, between being truly alive and merely existing. God created us for far more than mere existence so God cares passionately about what we choose. Is our life vital, a life in community with God and others? Do we celebrate the gift of life God has given us? Do we find delight and wonder in all God’s works and with other people? Do we choose life that rejects fatalism, always being the victim, and misery, but chooses instead hope, joy and wonder?
A year ago, we were just getting ready for Irene, thinking it would be a simple storm. In the aftermath, most people chose life by dealing with the mess. Two young adults, Eric Mallette and Lyz Tomsuden created the poster, ‘I am Vermont Strong,’ that now adorns license plates as a fund-raiser. (We probably would have said, ‘We are Vermont Strong,’ given that we are people of community.) Indeed, in this week’s Mountain Times article on the slogan, they defend their choice of words: ‘It’s a personal statement. When singular strength meets the masses that’s the important point. Liz and I both feel strongly it has to come from you.’ Regardless, we saw countless examples of people choosing life post-Irene. And some even chose God and stuck with God.
‘Where can we go?’ Peter asks Jesus. And we find the answer: We can go to the One who holds up for us the possibility of delight and hope and vitality and goodness in this world and in the world to come. We can choose to follow the One who can give us life now and in the world to come.
Even faced with signs of our mortality around us, we can choose life because we are created for life, for the fullness of life in joy and wonder. We are created with the capacity to choose life or not as we will. God desires life for us—rich, abundant life in this world and in the world to come, life measured not in length or possessions but in the fullness of relationship with God and others. God gives us the strength to choose such a life for ourselves and those we love. And God gives us the community that can choose life for us when we cannot choose it for ourselves. God gives us life and wants us to know the fullness of that gift.
Where do we go? Whom do we choose? If there is any question, we have a regular reminder of where to go and whom to follow… and that reminder comes to us in Christ’s body and blood. So come, partake, and remember where you are going and whom you are following.
Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary
19 August 2012
Preached at Church of Our Saviour, Killington VT
Do you remember waiting out the advent of Tropical Storm Irene? It’s a weird thing to know this THING is coming right at you, and there’s little you can do about it. I remember waiting for one to hit New Jersey in the mid-1980s. The five other teachers with whom I shared a house and I sat in the living room watching the pulsating pink or purple blob on the television screen. We didn’t know how bad things would get; all we knew was that school had been cancelled for the next day. The storm’s approach was inexorable and while it was exciting (and for a bunch of under 30 teachers, wonderful that we had no school the next day), it was also a bit unnerving. Last year on Saturday night the 27th, I was more enthralled by the complete emptiness of Grand Central Terminal in New York City and worried about my parents and brother who were without electricity, smugly thinking that Vermont was just going to get a little bit of rain. Little did I know.
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The Feast of the Theotokos, the God-bearer, Mary, Mother of Jesus, is normally observed on 15 August. I have always celebrated her feast, largely because of being at Saint Mary’s Northfield for so long, but also because I love Mary. I ask your indulgence for transferring her feast to today.
Gabriel’s coming to Mary was, in a word, a hurricane that entered into her peaceable life. Unlike modern-day hurricane watchers, she had no warning whatsoever before her life was torn apart and the world she had known was thrown into a state of upheaval. When I think of Mary at this point of her life, I connect with her the words to the last stanza of hymn 661 which state, in part, ‘The peace of God it is no peace….’ Her life became anything but peaceful. Emotional gale-force winds hit her with Gabriel’s innocent-sounding, ‘Hail, o favoured one.’
God, by way of Gabriel, came to her, announcing that she would be the God-bearer. In a way, God was saying to her, ‘You must do something for me. You must trust me and know that all will be well. I will take care of everything for you if you just listen to me and do what I am asking you to do.’ She, of all women, would give birth to God’s only begotten, the Christ, Immanuel, God-with-us. God’s message to her was about change, big change, change that would not only turn her life upside-down but that of humankind. Gabriel’s opening words to Mary, ‘Do not be afraid,’ tried to convey a sense of stability for Mary, and the sense that God would be watching out for her… that is, after changing her life.
So what is Mary’s response to Gabriel’s unheard-of, otherworldly announcement? Not one of fear, not one of trying to run in the other direction, but rather, one of strong confidence.
Mary responds with words that lie at the basis of my life: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.’ In her hymn of praise, similar to one of the oldest hymns in the Hebrew Scriptures, the song of Hannah, Mary describes the hope of an age when all are blessed because God, through Christ, will bring God’s promises to completion. The Magnificat describes God’s actions in everyday life that will bring about the fullness of God’s reign. It truly is a song of hope.
As a person of the land, one of the oppressed of the day, Mary’s proclamation of massive societal reversals in God’s name takes courage to utter. One gift Mary gave us by her person is the gift of courage. She accepted the risk of unwed motherhood in a society that would have stoned her to death if they really knew what was going on, and she did so with conviction.
How was Mary able to utter ‘Yes’ to something so earth-shattering, something that would alter the course of history as people knew it? A ‘Yes’ to something that endangered her own life? Yet in those simple words of ‘Here am I’ that precede the Magnificat in Luke’s gospel, Mary makes clear she will go where God asks her to go and do what God asks her to do.
How many of us can do the same without trying to wiggle out of God’s proposition? How many of us would first say, ‘I can’t do this’ and then need many more reasons from God telling us why we can?
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So often the focus of my prayer lies in this question: ‘Just what is God calling me to do?’ I can be just like Jonah who, when God called him to be a prophetic voice to the people of Nineveh, turned and went in the opposite direction. I can be like the little child who thinks that by putting my hands over my ears and not hearing what God is telling me, then whatever God is saying is not true or does not exist. But it doesn’t work that way. God’s small still voice, like a small stream of water finding its way through cracks of the earth, pierces through my hands, into my ears and heart. Other times, God is utterly silent and I just have to hang in there and trust in God’s silence.
What is God fundamentally calling me to do? Simply to say ‘Yes’ to what God asks me. Do I know what God is asking? Not always. But I know deep in my gut that I am called to listen, and be ready to say ‘Yes’ even when doing so can turn my life upside-down. And that is not an easy prospect.
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What about the people of Church of Our Saviour this morning? Today marks the first Sunday in a new adventure that is going to unfold over time. We have said goodbye to Diane and Margaret and now it is time to figure out, ‘What next?’ It is really easy for congregations entering a period of transition to panic, to go into fear mode or to tread water, waiting for the next ordained person to tell them what to do. Somehow I don’t think — and pray — that this will not happen here. Mission Farm has wonderful leadership and you can thrive as you find new ways to say Yes to God’s nudgings.
During communion, Melissa is going to sing John Lennon’s famous song, ‘Let It Be.’ We know well its words. ‘When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, “Let it be.” And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be. For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see, there will be an answer, let it be.’
Many people, I think, interpret the song as saying, ‘Accept what is going on. Let it be. Don’t fight it.’ I think otherwise. Mary was no doormat. When liberation theologians have approached her, they see a woman who stuck her neck out, and did not accept the status quo that, ‘Let it be,’ implies. Mary may not have explicitly kicked against the goads, but she stood at the foot of the cross, a sword having pierced her heart, yet remained faithful to the end. In her own way, she stood up for change and did so without fear even as her entire world collapsed around her.
Mary, then, can serve as a good reminder of several things: how to embrace change without fear, how to say ‘Yes’ to God even when one does not know what that yes entails and how to be faithful. I pray that these characteristics will infuse your lives at Mission Farm as you move into a new chapter while remembering and incorporating the past chapter just finished.
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If we look to our mother, Mary, gift-giver of hope, courage, and conviction, we will find the capacity to say ‘Yes’ to God’s outrageous demands. And we’ll even be able to proclaim, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord,’ even as God demands heavy costs for we know that all will be well, all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
Preached at Church of Our Saviour, Killington VT
Do you remember waiting out the advent of Tropical Storm Irene? It’s a weird thing to know this THING is coming right at you, and there’s little you can do about it. I remember waiting for one to hit New Jersey in the mid-1980s. The five other teachers with whom I shared a house and I sat in the living room watching the pulsating pink or purple blob on the television screen. We didn’t know how bad things would get; all we knew was that school had been cancelled for the next day. The storm’s approach was inexorable and while it was exciting (and for a bunch of under 30 teachers, wonderful that we had no school the next day), it was also a bit unnerving. Last year on Saturday night the 27th, I was more enthralled by the complete emptiness of Grand Central Terminal in New York City and worried about my parents and brother who were without electricity, smugly thinking that Vermont was just going to get a little bit of rain. Little did I know.
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The Feast of the Theotokos, the God-bearer, Mary, Mother of Jesus, is normally observed on 15 August. I have always celebrated her feast, largely because of being at Saint Mary’s Northfield for so long, but also because I love Mary. I ask your indulgence for transferring her feast to today.
Gabriel’s coming to Mary was, in a word, a hurricane that entered into her peaceable life. Unlike modern-day hurricane watchers, she had no warning whatsoever before her life was torn apart and the world she had known was thrown into a state of upheaval. When I think of Mary at this point of her life, I connect with her the words to the last stanza of hymn 661 which state, in part, ‘The peace of God it is no peace….’ Her life became anything but peaceful. Emotional gale-force winds hit her with Gabriel’s innocent-sounding, ‘Hail, o favoured one.’
God, by way of Gabriel, came to her, announcing that she would be the God-bearer. In a way, God was saying to her, ‘You must do something for me. You must trust me and know that all will be well. I will take care of everything for you if you just listen to me and do what I am asking you to do.’ She, of all women, would give birth to God’s only begotten, the Christ, Immanuel, God-with-us. God’s message to her was about change, big change, change that would not only turn her life upside-down but that of humankind. Gabriel’s opening words to Mary, ‘Do not be afraid,’ tried to convey a sense of stability for Mary, and the sense that God would be watching out for her… that is, after changing her life.
So what is Mary’s response to Gabriel’s unheard-of, otherworldly announcement? Not one of fear, not one of trying to run in the other direction, but rather, one of strong confidence.
Mary responds with words that lie at the basis of my life: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.’ In her hymn of praise, similar to one of the oldest hymns in the Hebrew Scriptures, the song of Hannah, Mary describes the hope of an age when all are blessed because God, through Christ, will bring God’s promises to completion. The Magnificat describes God’s actions in everyday life that will bring about the fullness of God’s reign. It truly is a song of hope.
As a person of the land, one of the oppressed of the day, Mary’s proclamation of massive societal reversals in God’s name takes courage to utter. One gift Mary gave us by her person is the gift of courage. She accepted the risk of unwed motherhood in a society that would have stoned her to death if they really knew what was going on, and she did so with conviction.
How was Mary able to utter ‘Yes’ to something so earth-shattering, something that would alter the course of history as people knew it? A ‘Yes’ to something that endangered her own life? Yet in those simple words of ‘Here am I’ that precede the Magnificat in Luke’s gospel, Mary makes clear she will go where God asks her to go and do what God asks her to do.
How many of us can do the same without trying to wiggle out of God’s proposition? How many of us would first say, ‘I can’t do this’ and then need many more reasons from God telling us why we can?
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So often the focus of my prayer lies in this question: ‘Just what is God calling me to do?’ I can be just like Jonah who, when God called him to be a prophetic voice to the people of Nineveh, turned and went in the opposite direction. I can be like the little child who thinks that by putting my hands over my ears and not hearing what God is telling me, then whatever God is saying is not true or does not exist. But it doesn’t work that way. God’s small still voice, like a small stream of water finding its way through cracks of the earth, pierces through my hands, into my ears and heart. Other times, God is utterly silent and I just have to hang in there and trust in God’s silence.
What is God fundamentally calling me to do? Simply to say ‘Yes’ to what God asks me. Do I know what God is asking? Not always. But I know deep in my gut that I am called to listen, and be ready to say ‘Yes’ even when doing so can turn my life upside-down. And that is not an easy prospect.
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What about the people of Church of Our Saviour this morning? Today marks the first Sunday in a new adventure that is going to unfold over time. We have said goodbye to Diane and Margaret and now it is time to figure out, ‘What next?’ It is really easy for congregations entering a period of transition to panic, to go into fear mode or to tread water, waiting for the next ordained person to tell them what to do. Somehow I don’t think — and pray — that this will not happen here. Mission Farm has wonderful leadership and you can thrive as you find new ways to say Yes to God’s nudgings.
During communion, Melissa is going to sing John Lennon’s famous song, ‘Let It Be.’ We know well its words. ‘When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, “Let it be.” And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be. For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see, there will be an answer, let it be.’
Many people, I think, interpret the song as saying, ‘Accept what is going on. Let it be. Don’t fight it.’ I think otherwise. Mary was no doormat. When liberation theologians have approached her, they see a woman who stuck her neck out, and did not accept the status quo that, ‘Let it be,’ implies. Mary may not have explicitly kicked against the goads, but she stood at the foot of the cross, a sword having pierced her heart, yet remained faithful to the end. In her own way, she stood up for change and did so without fear even as her entire world collapsed around her.
Mary, then, can serve as a good reminder of several things: how to embrace change without fear, how to say ‘Yes’ to God even when one does not know what that yes entails and how to be faithful. I pray that these characteristics will infuse your lives at Mission Farm as you move into a new chapter while remembering and incorporating the past chapter just finished.
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If we look to our mother, Mary, gift-giver of hope, courage, and conviction, we will find the capacity to say ‘Yes’ to God’s outrageous demands. And we’ll even be able to proclaim, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord,’ even as God demands heavy costs for we know that all will be well, all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
Transfiguration (trans.)
Transfiguration (transferred)
5 August 2012
Preached at Saint Mark’s, Springfield
The Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August, one of the major church feasts of the year, always seems out of place to me because it comes a week before the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when we remember Jesus’ mother, because we observe the Transfiguration on the Last Sunday of Epiphany and lastly because it comes in the middle of the summer, in the thirteenth week of ‘common time.’
I can’t help but come to the Feast of the Transfiguration aware of the other levels of significance attributed to this day. Just as the day seems jumbled to me by its timing in the church year, the many layers of significance to this date in history make my mind jump all over. Not only is it a major feast in the Anglican Church, it is the Feast Day of El Salvador. On or near to the Feast of the Transfiguration, the country and its expatriates celebrate the Saviour of the World, Salvador del Mundo, with masses and processions. I’ve always loved the fact that after I visit the Cathedral in San Salvador, when I hop on microbus 44 to get back up to the church where I stay, I have to say: El Mundo—the World—short for Saviour of the World. Maybe locals are inured to what this means—it’s a statue of Christ with uplifted hands in the middle of a roundabout—but I have always appreciated that a bus stop really is a symbol of Christ’s love for the world. We can remember the people of El Salvador as they recognise the One whose name they call their own, ‘Saviour.’ They have had many prophets lead them to new life-giving ways of life and they are trying now to be a people of hope despite so many difficulties. And the 6th is also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. A simple day becomes complex.
+
The gospel reading begins by saying that eight days have happened after Peter’s confession to who Jesus is, the Messiah of God. Peter, James, and John accompany Jesus up the mountain, away from the plain where he has finished preaching. The end of Jesus’ Galilean ministry has come; Jesus now resolutely turns his face to Jerusalem and the passion. At this turning point of the gospel, one at which Jesus has been identified and where the focus now shifts to the march to the cross, the action picks up.
While up on the mountain to pray, Jesus is joined by two well-known historical figures, Moses and Elijah. They speak to Jesus about his exodus, which he is about to fulfill in Jerusalem. Jesus’ witnesses, Peter, James, and John, sleep through the encounter, perhaps explaining Peter’s illogical response when he finally comes to.
As the disciples are figuring out what is going on around them, a cloud overshadows them. Once again, Jesus is identified for who he is but this time, the identification comes from a heavenly voice which declares, ‘This is my Son, my chosen One.’ The voice adds a directive, ‘Listen to him,’ a command that in other gospels and this one happens at the moment of Jesus’ baptism.
If we listen to Jesus and live into the baptismal covenant, we also must keep in mind the two figures that appear to Jesus on the mountain, Moses and Elijah. Moses seemingly represents the prophetic office that Jesus will occupy — the voice calling us to be people of the Beatitudes, while Elijah pictures the hope of the world to come — the promise that we can hold out to those around us. Jesus will function as a Moses-like figure who will draw people around himself in much the way that Moses drew together the nation of Israel. With Jesus comes a new period, a new age, a new way of living and being God’s people, a new way of relating to God. And so Elijah is present on the mountain as a reminder of another time when people related to God in new, life-giving ways.
+
Normally, I like to wax eloquently (!) about the wonders of being up top a mountain. You’ve heard sermons about the awe one has of looking out across the countryside instead of being in a valley, being able to see for one hundred miles and, in the case of Mount Washington, feeling a bit of the altitude and closer to God.
Today I want to approach the mountaintop experience from a different vantage point… getting there when it’s not so great.
Several years ago while over in the New Hampshire Whites, we decided to take a quick 5.8 mile hike up a barely 4000 footer so we could tick it off on the list of the 48 4000 footers in NH (we’re up to 24 or so now, including all the 5000+ footers). Since it had been raining in the morning, and still looked foggy and overcast, we decided to summit a mountain where there is no view because the top isn’t cleared. Why waste a good day on a viewless summit when we could do it on a crummy day? So off we went.
It was a miserable hike. Humidity was 100% without it raining. I was very tired from a recent double-red blood donation and surgery and thought of quitting at least twice. I had no energy, couldn’t breathe and was annoyed by my sluggishness. Streams that normally would be easy to cross were rushing torrents. When we got within half a mile from the summit, it began to rain. Still, we slogged on through the mud, no longer worrying about keeping it off our boots and pant legs. When we got to the top, in the rain, we looked around, saw nothing because it had socked in, nodded and said, ‘OK, we’ve done it. Let’s go down.’ We turned around and left after two minutes up there. Big deal.
+
Mountaintop experiences can be like the one just described… struggling to get there and once you’re there seeing nothing and figuring you might as well go down where at least you can get dry again. Sometimes I think this experience is more akin to what the disciples felt when they were up in the cloud with Jesus. They didn’t know what was going on. They were confused and perhaps disquieted.
Furthermore, getting up the mountain can be hard work. After watching Bruce Feiler’s A Walk Through the Bible, I realise just how high Mount Sinai is (7455 feet but it sticks up out of the desert). It wasn’t a walk in the park for Moses to keep going up and down the mountain. He didn’t have goretex and fleece the way Feiler did. Moses struggled in more ways than one.
+
So why do we do it? Why do we slog along if we are going to have to work extra hard without the knowledge of any pay-off?
Because it is part of being faithful. The climb up one mountain is but a piece of a life-long faith journey. Continuing on even when things don’t seem to click or God seems lost in the fog is part of our believing despite not being able to see. It is part of trusting in God even when we are not sure of what is going to happen.
No matter where we are spiritually when we go up that mountain, God is up there, even in the fog, ready to remind us that we are God’s chosen. Just as God tells the disciples to listen to Jesus, so God tells us to listen to one another because we are all chosen — in other gospels, beloved.
One of the ways we keep at it is by remembering the vows we made at baptism and reaffirm from time to time. One of those is to come together to break bread and share in the prayers.
One of the transforming moments of life for me, and for many, is the moment in which the People of God — friend and stranger, wise and foolish, strong and weak, guilty and forgiven — gather around the Table of Life and are invited to that time and place where heaven and earth are joined, where the basic things of life, bread and wine, become for us the life-giving presence of the Holy One, who is not far off, but is as near as our breathing.
If that is not a transcendent, mountain top experience, what is? So, come with the prayer that we might be touched by God who is near, to be drawn to that place and time which is Holy and life giving and changing.
Preached at Saint Mark’s, Springfield
The Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August, one of the major church feasts of the year, always seems out of place to me because it comes a week before the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when we remember Jesus’ mother, because we observe the Transfiguration on the Last Sunday of Epiphany and lastly because it comes in the middle of the summer, in the thirteenth week of ‘common time.’
I can’t help but come to the Feast of the Transfiguration aware of the other levels of significance attributed to this day. Just as the day seems jumbled to me by its timing in the church year, the many layers of significance to this date in history make my mind jump all over. Not only is it a major feast in the Anglican Church, it is the Feast Day of El Salvador. On or near to the Feast of the Transfiguration, the country and its expatriates celebrate the Saviour of the World, Salvador del Mundo, with masses and processions. I’ve always loved the fact that after I visit the Cathedral in San Salvador, when I hop on microbus 44 to get back up to the church where I stay, I have to say: El Mundo—the World—short for Saviour of the World. Maybe locals are inured to what this means—it’s a statue of Christ with uplifted hands in the middle of a roundabout—but I have always appreciated that a bus stop really is a symbol of Christ’s love for the world. We can remember the people of El Salvador as they recognise the One whose name they call their own, ‘Saviour.’ They have had many prophets lead them to new life-giving ways of life and they are trying now to be a people of hope despite so many difficulties. And the 6th is also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. A simple day becomes complex.
+
The gospel reading begins by saying that eight days have happened after Peter’s confession to who Jesus is, the Messiah of God. Peter, James, and John accompany Jesus up the mountain, away from the plain where he has finished preaching. The end of Jesus’ Galilean ministry has come; Jesus now resolutely turns his face to Jerusalem and the passion. At this turning point of the gospel, one at which Jesus has been identified and where the focus now shifts to the march to the cross, the action picks up.
While up on the mountain to pray, Jesus is joined by two well-known historical figures, Moses and Elijah. They speak to Jesus about his exodus, which he is about to fulfill in Jerusalem. Jesus’ witnesses, Peter, James, and John, sleep through the encounter, perhaps explaining Peter’s illogical response when he finally comes to.
As the disciples are figuring out what is going on around them, a cloud overshadows them. Once again, Jesus is identified for who he is but this time, the identification comes from a heavenly voice which declares, ‘This is my Son, my chosen One.’ The voice adds a directive, ‘Listen to him,’ a command that in other gospels and this one happens at the moment of Jesus’ baptism.
If we listen to Jesus and live into the baptismal covenant, we also must keep in mind the two figures that appear to Jesus on the mountain, Moses and Elijah. Moses seemingly represents the prophetic office that Jesus will occupy — the voice calling us to be people of the Beatitudes, while Elijah pictures the hope of the world to come — the promise that we can hold out to those around us. Jesus will function as a Moses-like figure who will draw people around himself in much the way that Moses drew together the nation of Israel. With Jesus comes a new period, a new age, a new way of living and being God’s people, a new way of relating to God. And so Elijah is present on the mountain as a reminder of another time when people related to God in new, life-giving ways.
+
Normally, I like to wax eloquently (!) about the wonders of being up top a mountain. You’ve heard sermons about the awe one has of looking out across the countryside instead of being in a valley, being able to see for one hundred miles and, in the case of Mount Washington, feeling a bit of the altitude and closer to God.
Today I want to approach the mountaintop experience from a different vantage point… getting there when it’s not so great.
Several years ago while over in the New Hampshire Whites, we decided to take a quick 5.8 mile hike up a barely 4000 footer so we could tick it off on the list of the 48 4000 footers in NH (we’re up to 24 or so now, including all the 5000+ footers). Since it had been raining in the morning, and still looked foggy and overcast, we decided to summit a mountain where there is no view because the top isn’t cleared. Why waste a good day on a viewless summit when we could do it on a crummy day? So off we went.
It was a miserable hike. Humidity was 100% without it raining. I was very tired from a recent double-red blood donation and surgery and thought of quitting at least twice. I had no energy, couldn’t breathe and was annoyed by my sluggishness. Streams that normally would be easy to cross were rushing torrents. When we got within half a mile from the summit, it began to rain. Still, we slogged on through the mud, no longer worrying about keeping it off our boots and pant legs. When we got to the top, in the rain, we looked around, saw nothing because it had socked in, nodded and said, ‘OK, we’ve done it. Let’s go down.’ We turned around and left after two minutes up there. Big deal.
+
Mountaintop experiences can be like the one just described… struggling to get there and once you’re there seeing nothing and figuring you might as well go down where at least you can get dry again. Sometimes I think this experience is more akin to what the disciples felt when they were up in the cloud with Jesus. They didn’t know what was going on. They were confused and perhaps disquieted.
Furthermore, getting up the mountain can be hard work. After watching Bruce Feiler’s A Walk Through the Bible, I realise just how high Mount Sinai is (7455 feet but it sticks up out of the desert). It wasn’t a walk in the park for Moses to keep going up and down the mountain. He didn’t have goretex and fleece the way Feiler did. Moses struggled in more ways than one.
+
So why do we do it? Why do we slog along if we are going to have to work extra hard without the knowledge of any pay-off?
Because it is part of being faithful. The climb up one mountain is but a piece of a life-long faith journey. Continuing on even when things don’t seem to click or God seems lost in the fog is part of our believing despite not being able to see. It is part of trusting in God even when we are not sure of what is going to happen.
No matter where we are spiritually when we go up that mountain, God is up there, even in the fog, ready to remind us that we are God’s chosen. Just as God tells the disciples to listen to Jesus, so God tells us to listen to one another because we are all chosen — in other gospels, beloved.
One of the ways we keep at it is by remembering the vows we made at baptism and reaffirm from time to time. One of those is to come together to break bread and share in the prayers.
One of the transforming moments of life for me, and for many, is the moment in which the People of God — friend and stranger, wise and foolish, strong and weak, guilty and forgiven — gather around the Table of Life and are invited to that time and place where heaven and earth are joined, where the basic things of life, bread and wine, become for us the life-giving presence of the Holy One, who is not far off, but is as near as our breathing.
If that is not a transcendent, mountain top experience, what is? So, come with the prayer that we might be touched by God who is near, to be drawn to that place and time which is Holy and life giving and changing.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Feast of James the Greater
The Feast of James the Greater (transferred from 25 July)
29 July 2012
Saint James’ Episcopal Church, Arlington, VT
One can hardly say that the readings for the feast of James the Greater are cheery — but then, again, James the Greater is remembered as the first martyr of the church.
We know that James was son of Zebedee and Salome, and one of the first of Jesus’ companions. The Synoptic gospels tell that James and John, along with Peter and Andrew, also brothers, were called away from their nets by Jesus. (John’s gospel never mentions James.) As we go further in the gospels, we see how James, John and Peter are the most prominent among the apostles. They are the only ones to witness the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration and Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane.
Jesus gives James and John the nickname Boanerges (Sons of Thunder) because of their zeal (one might call them ‘hot heads’) which drives them into action before thinking: he rebukes them for forbidding a man from casting out demons in Jesus’ name because the man was not one of them. They ask Jesus to call down a rain of fire on the Samaritans who refuse to receive Jesus. And, in the gospel reading for this feast, they don’t seem to understand that Jesus’ kingdom will not be here on earth when they ask him for places of honour at his side when he sits on his throne. The other disciples get angry and Jesus predicts their martrydom.
The reading from 2 Corinthians ties in with martyrdom when it speaks of the paradoxical nature of servanthood: the cup that Jesus says the disciples will drink is described by Paul as: ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.’ Pretty challenging stuff.
On the other hand, the violence described in Psalm 7 and Jeremiah remind us of James’ and John’s zeal to punish the Samaritans. (1) Sometimes we misunderstand discipleship and wander in the wrong direction with a sense of misplaced righteousness.
From the readings, one can extrapolate the following themes: servanthood and power, the downside of zeal, and persecution, suffering, and martyrdom. But that is not where this sermon is going to go this morning. Instead, I want to talk about pilgrimage because James is so associated with it.
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When I first came here, I noticed hanging from the celebrant’s chair on the left a scallop shell. I don’t know who gave it to the church or whether they had walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Way of Saint James, but the shell is precisely that which pilgrims on the medieval pilgrimage route carry with them. Having walked this pilgrimage all the way from France, some 900 miles, I have what one might call an intimate connection with Saint James (alongside growing up in a family that has generations of men named James).
Tradition has it that Saint James travelled to Spain to preach before returning to Jerusalem where he was martyred. It is said that disciples brought his body back to Spain after his death. If you want to enter the fantastic, other traditions say that after his decapitation, angels took up his body, placed it on an unmanned and rudderless boat which sailed to Spain. Even more fantastic is the idea that a rock sprang up and enclosed his relics.
Fast forward to 829 when a man followed a star to a field (hence the name Compostela from the Latin, campus, field, stella, star) where he found the relics. In the eleventh century, Bernard the Old and Robert began the construction of a large Romanesque structure which was consecrated a century later. That cathedral lies behind a gaudy Baroque façade made out of granite that seems to change colour with the ambient light.
Soon the pilgrimage became one of the major three pilgrimage routes in Christianity, Jerusalem and Rome being the other two destinations. The 12th and 13th centuries saw a spike in pilgrims walking what people also called the Milky Way and then the route fell into disuse. By the 19th century, few people knew it existed. Gradually in the 1990s and this century, the pilgrimage route has seen a great increase in walkers, especially since UNESCO declared it a World Treasure in 1987. Today over 140.000 people set out to walk it.
This certainly is a far cry from Saint James the apostle who accompanied Jesus. Yet the people who walk the Camino do so for a multitude of reasons. Some are spiritual not religious, or disaffected Christians (often Roman Catholics). Others walk because it is good exercise. Others walk because they are in between jobs and think it would be a good idea. Others walk it to figure out some pressing life question. Still others walk to get lost in nature and find God. Most people head west, though there is the occasional pilgrim walking east.
Once one sets out on the Camino, one becomes part of a flow of humanity, a stream of people who have walked this historic route for centuries. One can feel the presence of the Communion of Saints, all those souls who have walked ahead, as one takes step after step after step after step….
As with any other activity, the pilgrim experiences moments of transcendence as well as moments of pain. Seeing a fox run in the evening mist counters the stabs of pain from deep blisters. Staying in a hostel with pilgrims from all over the world provides a contrast to the silence of heart and soul one experiences while walking alone, deep in thought.
Perhaps this pilgrimage talk is too remote. How many here really want to walk nearly 500 miles? One does not have to walk the Camino physically to make a pilgrimage of the heart.
The Episcopal Church has been walking a pilgrim’s path. In 1974 on this day, the feast of Martha and Mary, three bishops ordained eleven women to the priesthood — the church had yet to change the canons for ordination but the bishops and women felt that the birth of women’s ordination could not be held off any longer. While most dioceses came to embrace women’s ordination, it was only about three years ago that all dioceses offered it to women and that came about only because of splits in the diocese. A friend of mine was consecrated bishop yesterday in Virginia. She is the 19th female bishop in the entire church (TEC); only 14 are active today. For women who are called to Holy Orders in all levels, we are still walking a pilgrimage.
Think about the wanderings you have taken in your life, the times down paths that don’t seem to make sense until much later when you have the full picture. Think about those moments when you felt a zeal to follow God, perhaps as impetuous as that of James, and how you lived with it. Think about the moments when you felt as though you were walking down a path — spiritual, relational, emotional, vocational — that made absolutely no sense, one that you were not even sure you wanted to walk, but there you were. How did you end up? How did you get to wherever you were going? And think about those moments of sheer stillness while you were walking the pilgrim’s way when God’s voice came to you in a gentle and soothing way, giving you some guidance and direction.
The pilgrim’s prayer from the Pilgrims’ Mass from Santiago de Compostela can apply to us as well:
O God, who brought your servant Abraham out of the land of the Chaldeans, protecting him in his wanderings, who guided the Hebrew people across the desert, we ask that you watch over us, your servants, as we walk in love of your name to Santiago de Compostela.
Be for us our companion on the walk,
Our guide at the crossroads,
Our breath in our weariness,
Our protection in danger,
Our inn on the way,
Our shade in the heat,
Our light in the darkness,
Our consolation in our discouragements,
And our strength in our intentions.
So that with your guidance we may arrive safe and sound at the end of the Road and enriched with grace and virture we return safely to our homes filled with joy. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
END NOTE
(1) The analysis is taken from New Proclamation: Commentary of Feasts, Holy Days, and Other Celebrations, David Lott, Ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 151-55.
29 July 2012
Saint James’ Episcopal Church, Arlington, VT
One can hardly say that the readings for the feast of James the Greater are cheery — but then, again, James the Greater is remembered as the first martyr of the church.
We know that James was son of Zebedee and Salome, and one of the first of Jesus’ companions. The Synoptic gospels tell that James and John, along with Peter and Andrew, also brothers, were called away from their nets by Jesus. (John’s gospel never mentions James.) As we go further in the gospels, we see how James, John and Peter are the most prominent among the apostles. They are the only ones to witness the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration and Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane.
Jesus gives James and John the nickname Boanerges (Sons of Thunder) because of their zeal (one might call them ‘hot heads’) which drives them into action before thinking: he rebukes them for forbidding a man from casting out demons in Jesus’ name because the man was not one of them. They ask Jesus to call down a rain of fire on the Samaritans who refuse to receive Jesus. And, in the gospel reading for this feast, they don’t seem to understand that Jesus’ kingdom will not be here on earth when they ask him for places of honour at his side when he sits on his throne. The other disciples get angry and Jesus predicts their martrydom.
The reading from 2 Corinthians ties in with martyrdom when it speaks of the paradoxical nature of servanthood: the cup that Jesus says the disciples will drink is described by Paul as: ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.’ Pretty challenging stuff.
On the other hand, the violence described in Psalm 7 and Jeremiah remind us of James’ and John’s zeal to punish the Samaritans. (1) Sometimes we misunderstand discipleship and wander in the wrong direction with a sense of misplaced righteousness.
From the readings, one can extrapolate the following themes: servanthood and power, the downside of zeal, and persecution, suffering, and martyrdom. But that is not where this sermon is going to go this morning. Instead, I want to talk about pilgrimage because James is so associated with it.
+
When I first came here, I noticed hanging from the celebrant’s chair on the left a scallop shell. I don’t know who gave it to the church or whether they had walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Way of Saint James, but the shell is precisely that which pilgrims on the medieval pilgrimage route carry with them. Having walked this pilgrimage all the way from France, some 900 miles, I have what one might call an intimate connection with Saint James (alongside growing up in a family that has generations of men named James).
Tradition has it that Saint James travelled to Spain to preach before returning to Jerusalem where he was martyred. It is said that disciples brought his body back to Spain after his death. If you want to enter the fantastic, other traditions say that after his decapitation, angels took up his body, placed it on an unmanned and rudderless boat which sailed to Spain. Even more fantastic is the idea that a rock sprang up and enclosed his relics.
Fast forward to 829 when a man followed a star to a field (hence the name Compostela from the Latin, campus, field, stella, star) where he found the relics. In the eleventh century, Bernard the Old and Robert began the construction of a large Romanesque structure which was consecrated a century later. That cathedral lies behind a gaudy Baroque façade made out of granite that seems to change colour with the ambient light.
Soon the pilgrimage became one of the major three pilgrimage routes in Christianity, Jerusalem and Rome being the other two destinations. The 12th and 13th centuries saw a spike in pilgrims walking what people also called the Milky Way and then the route fell into disuse. By the 19th century, few people knew it existed. Gradually in the 1990s and this century, the pilgrimage route has seen a great increase in walkers, especially since UNESCO declared it a World Treasure in 1987. Today over 140.000 people set out to walk it.
This certainly is a far cry from Saint James the apostle who accompanied Jesus. Yet the people who walk the Camino do so for a multitude of reasons. Some are spiritual not religious, or disaffected Christians (often Roman Catholics). Others walk because it is good exercise. Others walk because they are in between jobs and think it would be a good idea. Others walk it to figure out some pressing life question. Still others walk to get lost in nature and find God. Most people head west, though there is the occasional pilgrim walking east.
Once one sets out on the Camino, one becomes part of a flow of humanity, a stream of people who have walked this historic route for centuries. One can feel the presence of the Communion of Saints, all those souls who have walked ahead, as one takes step after step after step after step….
As with any other activity, the pilgrim experiences moments of transcendence as well as moments of pain. Seeing a fox run in the evening mist counters the stabs of pain from deep blisters. Staying in a hostel with pilgrims from all over the world provides a contrast to the silence of heart and soul one experiences while walking alone, deep in thought.
Perhaps this pilgrimage talk is too remote. How many here really want to walk nearly 500 miles? One does not have to walk the Camino physically to make a pilgrimage of the heart.
The Episcopal Church has been walking a pilgrim’s path. In 1974 on this day, the feast of Martha and Mary, three bishops ordained eleven women to the priesthood — the church had yet to change the canons for ordination but the bishops and women felt that the birth of women’s ordination could not be held off any longer. While most dioceses came to embrace women’s ordination, it was only about three years ago that all dioceses offered it to women and that came about only because of splits in the diocese. A friend of mine was consecrated bishop yesterday in Virginia. She is the 19th female bishop in the entire church (TEC); only 14 are active today. For women who are called to Holy Orders in all levels, we are still walking a pilgrimage.
Think about the wanderings you have taken in your life, the times down paths that don’t seem to make sense until much later when you have the full picture. Think about those moments when you felt a zeal to follow God, perhaps as impetuous as that of James, and how you lived with it. Think about the moments when you felt as though you were walking down a path — spiritual, relational, emotional, vocational — that made absolutely no sense, one that you were not even sure you wanted to walk, but there you were. How did you end up? How did you get to wherever you were going? And think about those moments of sheer stillness while you were walking the pilgrim’s way when God’s voice came to you in a gentle and soothing way, giving you some guidance and direction.
The pilgrim’s prayer from the Pilgrims’ Mass from Santiago de Compostela can apply to us as well:
O God, who brought your servant Abraham out of the land of the Chaldeans, protecting him in his wanderings, who guided the Hebrew people across the desert, we ask that you watch over us, your servants, as we walk in love of your name to Santiago de Compostela.
Be for us our companion on the walk,
Our guide at the crossroads,
Our breath in our weariness,
Our protection in danger,
Our inn on the way,
Our shade in the heat,
Our light in the darkness,
Our consolation in our discouragements,
And our strength in our intentions.
So that with your guidance we may arrive safe and sound at the end of the Road and enriched with grace and virture we return safely to our homes filled with joy. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
END NOTE
(1) The analysis is taken from New Proclamation: Commentary of Feasts, Holy Days, and Other Celebrations, David Lott, Ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 151-55.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Feast of Mary Magdalene
Feast of Mary Magdalene
22 July 2012 • Saint James’, Arlington, Vermont
When Scott and I met to discuss my supplying here, I asked if instead of using the appointed propers for today, we could use those for Mary Magdalene, whose feast actually is today. In fact, we will skip two weeks of the normal lectionary because next week we will observe this congregation’s patronal feast of Saint James.
Why focus on Mary Magdalene? I have several reasons — some liturgical, some personal. Given her close association with the resurrection, celebrating her feast is a good mid-season corrective, a reorienting of ourselves until the next unmistakable Easter reminder, All Saints’ Day, which seems a very, very long way off, just as Easter seems a long time ago. Her feast is sort of a halfway point in the Christian year. Second, it is always good to remember that Mary Magdalene’s story is far more complicated and rich that some threads of her tradition leave us. Finally, on a personal level, when I was rector of Saint Mary’s in Northfield, I liked to celebrate all the feasts connected to one Mary or another.
One of the two collects for Mary Magdalene in the New Zealand Prayer Book focuses less on her need for healing and more on the relationship between Jesus and Mary:
Sweet is your friendship, Saviour Christ;
Mary you accepted,
Mary you drew to the foot of the cross,
Mary you met in the garden;
grant us a like redemption.
Like many strong women in Christian scripture, Mary’s life is caught in an aura of confusion. People wrongly associate her with the ‘repentant woman’ and the ‘woman of the city who was a sinner.’ Instead, she is from the town of Magdala in the Galilee, important enough to be identified — a very uncommon thing for women in documents for the time — and she is mentioned fourteen times, even more astounding. So you can erase the image of Mary the prostitute and all the weirdness that has been cast upon her by time and Hollywood, such as how she is portrayed in The Last Temptation of Christ.
Instead, we celebrate Mary Magdalene as the apostle to the apostles, in the words of Saint Augustine, the first one to announce the news of Jesus’ resurrection. Her encounter with Jesus echoes one from the beginning of the gospel according to John, bringing us around full circle.
Remember that Jesus addresses his first words in this gospel to two disciples of John the Baptist: ‘What do you seek?’ Andrew and the person with him are incapable of articulating a direct response, but instead address Jesus as ‘Rabbi,’ and ask where he is staying. He responds, ‘Come and see’. The prologue and the testimony of John the Baptist have identified Jesus for the reader as the true light coming into the world, ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’, one on whom John had seen the Spirit descend from heaven and remain, the ‘Son of God’. Jesus begins his work in the world by inviting the two who have followed him to ‘come and see’ where he is staying.
Near the end of the gospel, Jesus encounters Mary Magdalene weeping outside the tomb in which he had been laid and asks her, ‘Whom do you seek?’ Believing Jesus to be dead, she does not recognise him as the risen lord until he calls her by name, and she responds, ‘Rabbouni!’ He charges her to tell the disciples that he is ascending ‘to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ The work in the world of the earthly Jesus has ended, and Mary is chosen to announce the resurrection.
And what exactly is the message of this resurrection? Roberta Bondi, in her Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life, sums up the resurrection message in one sentence: ‘The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world.’
The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world. Mary Magdalene, who went to the garden that first morning, had no idea that the joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. She only knew that she needed to tend to the last rites for her master’s corpse. She went with oils, and her love for this itinerant teacher who walked the roads of Galilee and Judea for three years. She went, because women were the ones who usually prepared bodies for burial. She went, most of all, because she believed in what her teacher, Jesus, had to say. Of all the prophets, he taught about God’s love and actually demonstrated this love. He listened to her, he believed her, and he respected her.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. Mary still didn’t understand that when she talked with the man at the tomb. Thinking him to be the gardener, she pleaded with him to tell her what the authorities had done with her master’s body. Only when he called her by name, did she recognise him to be Jesus. Even as he told her to let go of him, he also told her to spread the good news that he had risen, that the resurrection had happened. And, so, Mary Magdalene, the marginalised, became resurrected, too — the first apostle, even to the apostles.
[not written but added extemporaneously at the 10.00, therefore not the exact words but the idea remains the same. The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. The hymn we are going to sing for the offertory (‘Sing a New Church’, Delores Dufner, OSB) was one we sang at General Convention after the House of Deputies voted unanimously to restructure the church. It can be scary stuff, we are talking about changing the way we do things, understanding that we just cannot continue to do things as we always have — things have to die to be reborn, to be resurrected. It will take time, but we are people of the resurrection and so as we let go of the past, allow things to die, we will be reborn.]
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. How do we, if ever, make sense of events such as what happened in that movie theatre in Aurora Colorado on Friday night? How do we, as Easter people, proclaim the Easter message when we live in a Good Friday world that is full of senseless and random acts of violence as well as state-sanctioned violence? How do we acknowledge such brokenness without drowning in it while also not denying that it is very real? Yet we have to proclaim that hope.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. We proclaim this message through the many anonymous acts of self giving, especially in the solidarity that faithful women and men live with friend or stranger, among those in any need or trouble. . . not counting the cost, not needing applause or recognition.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world even in the struggling hearts of people who try to believe, but can’t, and yet who keep at the struggle for meaning and purpose in life, with truthfulness and compassion.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world when we forgive, when we offer healing to another; when we share what we have with those who have less; when we help hope to be born among those who feel abandoned; and when we give our lives for justice and peace among all people.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. That is why we have gathered here this morning. We come with our own heartbreaks, our own sense of failures, our own brokenness and our own deaths. They are part of who we are, but they are not the whole picture. Never. Resurrection overcomes them.
+
Where are the places in your lives today that need resurrection? What are the relationships that need resurrection? What are the concerns that need resurrection? With the knowledge of God’s forgiveness, how can you live fearlessly, vulnerably, dedicated and joyous? Where can you find new freedom that comes from this resurrection? Where will you find renewal?
Even if you are like Mary, standing peering into the empty tomb this morning, remember that she was greeted by her master and saviour who called her by name and then directed her to share that good news with the rest of the world.
The joy of this resurrection renews the whole world and it will renew us, too. One of our Easter hymns (190) says, ‘Life is yours for ever, Mary, for your light is come once more and the strength of death is broken; now your songs of joy outpour. Ended now the night of sorrow, love has brought the blessed morrow. Let your alleluias rise.’
While we may live in a Good Friday world, may our heart’s first inclination be to share the good news of God reconciling the world in Christ and always to let our alleluias rise.
22 July 2012 • Saint James’, Arlington, Vermont
When Scott and I met to discuss my supplying here, I asked if instead of using the appointed propers for today, we could use those for Mary Magdalene, whose feast actually is today. In fact, we will skip two weeks of the normal lectionary because next week we will observe this congregation’s patronal feast of Saint James.
Why focus on Mary Magdalene? I have several reasons — some liturgical, some personal. Given her close association with the resurrection, celebrating her feast is a good mid-season corrective, a reorienting of ourselves until the next unmistakable Easter reminder, All Saints’ Day, which seems a very, very long way off, just as Easter seems a long time ago. Her feast is sort of a halfway point in the Christian year. Second, it is always good to remember that Mary Magdalene’s story is far more complicated and rich that some threads of her tradition leave us. Finally, on a personal level, when I was rector of Saint Mary’s in Northfield, I liked to celebrate all the feasts connected to one Mary or another.
One of the two collects for Mary Magdalene in the New Zealand Prayer Book focuses less on her need for healing and more on the relationship between Jesus and Mary:
Sweet is your friendship, Saviour Christ;
Mary you accepted,
Mary you drew to the foot of the cross,
Mary you met in the garden;
grant us a like redemption.
Like many strong women in Christian scripture, Mary’s life is caught in an aura of confusion. People wrongly associate her with the ‘repentant woman’ and the ‘woman of the city who was a sinner.’ Instead, she is from the town of Magdala in the Galilee, important enough to be identified — a very uncommon thing for women in documents for the time — and she is mentioned fourteen times, even more astounding. So you can erase the image of Mary the prostitute and all the weirdness that has been cast upon her by time and Hollywood, such as how she is portrayed in The Last Temptation of Christ.
Instead, we celebrate Mary Magdalene as the apostle to the apostles, in the words of Saint Augustine, the first one to announce the news of Jesus’ resurrection. Her encounter with Jesus echoes one from the beginning of the gospel according to John, bringing us around full circle.
Remember that Jesus addresses his first words in this gospel to two disciples of John the Baptist: ‘What do you seek?’ Andrew and the person with him are incapable of articulating a direct response, but instead address Jesus as ‘Rabbi,’ and ask where he is staying. He responds, ‘Come and see’. The prologue and the testimony of John the Baptist have identified Jesus for the reader as the true light coming into the world, ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’, one on whom John had seen the Spirit descend from heaven and remain, the ‘Son of God’. Jesus begins his work in the world by inviting the two who have followed him to ‘come and see’ where he is staying.
Near the end of the gospel, Jesus encounters Mary Magdalene weeping outside the tomb in which he had been laid and asks her, ‘Whom do you seek?’ Believing Jesus to be dead, she does not recognise him as the risen lord until he calls her by name, and she responds, ‘Rabbouni!’ He charges her to tell the disciples that he is ascending ‘to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ The work in the world of the earthly Jesus has ended, and Mary is chosen to announce the resurrection.
And what exactly is the message of this resurrection? Roberta Bondi, in her Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life, sums up the resurrection message in one sentence: ‘The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world.’
The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world. Mary Magdalene, who went to the garden that first morning, had no idea that the joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. She only knew that she needed to tend to the last rites for her master’s corpse. She went with oils, and her love for this itinerant teacher who walked the roads of Galilee and Judea for three years. She went, because women were the ones who usually prepared bodies for burial. She went, most of all, because she believed in what her teacher, Jesus, had to say. Of all the prophets, he taught about God’s love and actually demonstrated this love. He listened to her, he believed her, and he respected her.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. Mary still didn’t understand that when she talked with the man at the tomb. Thinking him to be the gardener, she pleaded with him to tell her what the authorities had done with her master’s body. Only when he called her by name, did she recognise him to be Jesus. Even as he told her to let go of him, he also told her to spread the good news that he had risen, that the resurrection had happened. And, so, Mary Magdalene, the marginalised, became resurrected, too — the first apostle, even to the apostles.
[not written but added extemporaneously at the 10.00, therefore not the exact words but the idea remains the same. The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. The hymn we are going to sing for the offertory (‘Sing a New Church’, Delores Dufner, OSB) was one we sang at General Convention after the House of Deputies voted unanimously to restructure the church. It can be scary stuff, we are talking about changing the way we do things, understanding that we just cannot continue to do things as we always have — things have to die to be reborn, to be resurrected. It will take time, but we are people of the resurrection and so as we let go of the past, allow things to die, we will be reborn.]
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. How do we, if ever, make sense of events such as what happened in that movie theatre in Aurora Colorado on Friday night? How do we, as Easter people, proclaim the Easter message when we live in a Good Friday world that is full of senseless and random acts of violence as well as state-sanctioned violence? How do we acknowledge such brokenness without drowning in it while also not denying that it is very real? Yet we have to proclaim that hope.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. We proclaim this message through the many anonymous acts of self giving, especially in the solidarity that faithful women and men live with friend or stranger, among those in any need or trouble. . . not counting the cost, not needing applause or recognition.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world even in the struggling hearts of people who try to believe, but can’t, and yet who keep at the struggle for meaning and purpose in life, with truthfulness and compassion.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world when we forgive, when we offer healing to another; when we share what we have with those who have less; when we help hope to be born among those who feel abandoned; and when we give our lives for justice and peace among all people.
The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. That is why we have gathered here this morning. We come with our own heartbreaks, our own sense of failures, our own brokenness and our own deaths. They are part of who we are, but they are not the whole picture. Never. Resurrection overcomes them.
+
Where are the places in your lives today that need resurrection? What are the relationships that need resurrection? What are the concerns that need resurrection? With the knowledge of God’s forgiveness, how can you live fearlessly, vulnerably, dedicated and joyous? Where can you find new freedom that comes from this resurrection? Where will you find renewal?
Even if you are like Mary, standing peering into the empty tomb this morning, remember that she was greeted by her master and saviour who called her by name and then directed her to share that good news with the rest of the world.
The joy of this resurrection renews the whole world and it will renew us, too. One of our Easter hymns (190) says, ‘Life is yours for ever, Mary, for your light is come once more and the strength of death is broken; now your songs of joy outpour. Ended now the night of sorrow, love has brought the blessed morrow. Let your alleluias rise.’
While we may live in a Good Friday world, may our heart’s first inclination be to share the good news of God reconciling the world in Christ and always to let our alleluias rise.
Proper 10B
Proper 10B • 15 July 2012
Preached at Saint Mark's, Springfield, VT
You know it is going to be an interesting week of sermon preparation when you open a commentary on the Gospel lesson and read this, ‘The story of the beheading of John the Baptist is hardly a text one would spontaneously choose for a sermon.’
No kidding. But it is what we have and I usually like to go with the hard reading because it is a good challenge.
+
Just a brief road map for this sermon as it is one that builds one thought on another and the connections might be a bit too intuitive — you will have to forgive me as I am coming off ten days at General Convention. The sermon begins by reflecting the gospel reading, which leads to thinking about the worst of humanity and divine compassion. That leads to musing about our brokenness which then moves to a thought about what it means to be a reconciler alongside being a prophetic voice that challenges the status quo and where we might land on that continuum. So, with road map in mind, here we go.
+
Hearing the story of the beheading of John the Baptist a week after hearing Jesus say to his disciples how a prophet is without honour in his own homeland also is a bit sobering. It’s not as though the lectionary is trying to drive home the point; it is just the way the gospel flows.
The story of Herodias’ daughter asking for John the Baptist’s head is chilling. It represents the worst of humanity — that part of the human soul that I cannot understand, the part that has so lost touch with its God-created being to the point that it can knowingly and willingly kill another creature or human being, that part of the human soul that no longer respects the internal checks-and-balances that most of us observe.
But Herod’s behaviour isn’t much better because he caves into the request to save face rather than make a principled stand against such an outrageous demand. The gospel wants us to know that up until that point, Herod has protected John the Baptist (albeit by putting him in prison). What should have been an ordinary night spirals into a nightmare, culminating with an unnecessary death that will haunt Herod, a petty figure in Roman politics, and an even smaller person because of his failings.
How out of such a tawdry story can we find anything positive?
Perhaps it helps to note that the story of the beheading of John the Baptist — the longest account in the gospel of Mark about someone other than Jesus — is nestled in between two accounts of Jesus sending out the disciples for mission. On either side of this sorrowful account Mark’s gospel details the works, healings and teachings of the disciples.
Then, just five verses after we hear about the demise of John, the gospel tells us that Jesus finds himself in the midst of a hungry, lost crowd and looks upon them with compassion.
Knowing of that divine compassion, I think, enables me to confront the worst of humanity. I cannot allow the brokenness of soul and spirit, in some cases, evil, which drive people to destruction, harm and cruelty to be the last word about people. I have to believe that while each person is ultimately responsible for his or her actions and must be accountable to them, that God’s mercy and forgiveness are there… even when the person is unable to open his or her soul to God.
+
I admit, however, to utter bafflement as I read the news about the never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine. I cannot understand how two peoples can so hate one another that they wish to destroy each other. I don’t much understand, for that matter, the on-going conflict between forces in Syria or Egypt or Sudan or any of those ‘hot spots’ in the world. I don’t understand how humanity has managed for all of its existence, it seems, to engage constantly in war. How have we, as God’s creation, the only ones created in God’s image, the creatures to whom God says we are good, managed to lose sight of the beloved that lies in every other human being?
It’s pretty clear that we are broken creatures. Admitting so to one another could be one of the most prophetic, and healing actions we could engage in. Think about it:
What about when we also fail, we were to show our brokenness to one another? When we have come to terms with wrongs we must right, we could trust in divine forgiveness. Could we trust that we have been loved from before the beginning?
If we were to engage in the prophetic action of reconciliation, we would not end up with our heads on a platter the way John the Baptist did. But that is just half of the story.
+
Even as we are reconciliers we must also be truth-tellers. Being both reconcilier and truth-teller may lead us into stormy waters and might seem to some contradictory ways to live one’s discipleship to Jesus. But our expression of faith believes in both/and and not either/or propositions.
It was only on the last day of General Convention that tempers got frayed in the House of Deputies (I can’t speak for the other house). Up until that point, debates had been intense, but not angry... On the last day, however, a block of resolutions from one of the legislative committees, National Concerns, came to the floor and suddenly the house was thrown into debate about things such as fracking, racial profiling, wage equality and fair labour practices. A deputy from Florida stood at a microphone and angrily said that she was going to vote against every single one of these resolutions because they were ‘political.’ A deputy from Texas declared that he did not know what the words, ‘racial profiling’ meant. A deputy from Arizona responded by describing how she had been pulled over four times in the past month because she has dark hair; she now carries her passport with her at all times. The debate continues on a list-serve about where does one draw the line between being ‘political’ and being prophetic, challenging the injustices of the day? Last night I received an email from a former parishioner declaring that General Convention looked like the progressive party at work and that the church should lose its tax-exempt status.
We all land in different places on the spectrum in our attitudes toward proclaiming Christ’s reconciling love to the world and engaging in prophetic action and words that will shake up the status quo. I land more on the end that maintains that challenging the unjust laws and practices that continue in Jesus’ tradition of overturning the tables of the money-changers. I can’t explain totally how I landed there, coming from a traditional Republican family, I just know that by junior high, I was aware that things were not fair or just and I couldn’t let them be. Perhaps a question during my ordination process, ‘How will you use your prophetic voice as a priest?’ also has guided me these many years. I draw strength from exemplars such as Desmond Tutu challenging aparteid, Oscar Romero decrying the massacre of his own people by their military, Rigoberta Menchu speaking out about the massacre of her indigenous people in Guatemala, Aung San Suu Kyi fighting against military oppression of her people of Burma and other prophets.
But, just because I live out my understanding of the prophets this way does not mean it is an either/or proposition. Each person finds his or her way through. An acquaintance writes: ‘I once had a spiritual director who, in response to my grumbling about someone having “rubbed me the wrong way,” used to talk about “Divine Sandpaper”. “How do you expect your authentic grain to shine,” she would ask, “if God didn’t send people to ‘rub you the wrong way’ every now and again?”’ The prophets in our midst are that divine sandpaper. And even with such sandpaper, the act of reconciliation helps us to shine. We maintain that the Holy Spirit gives us gifts and so we need one another as some agitate and others reconcile.
+
The good news, then, out of this troubling gospel, is that God loves us despite ourselves in all of our complexities and divisions. God has compassion on us — the hungry, seeking people that we are — just as Jesus did that day long ago. There is a wideness is God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea… and for that, my soul will bless the LORD.
Preached at Saint Mark's, Springfield, VT
You know it is going to be an interesting week of sermon preparation when you open a commentary on the Gospel lesson and read this, ‘The story of the beheading of John the Baptist is hardly a text one would spontaneously choose for a sermon.’
No kidding. But it is what we have and I usually like to go with the hard reading because it is a good challenge.
+
Just a brief road map for this sermon as it is one that builds one thought on another and the connections might be a bit too intuitive — you will have to forgive me as I am coming off ten days at General Convention. The sermon begins by reflecting the gospel reading, which leads to thinking about the worst of humanity and divine compassion. That leads to musing about our brokenness which then moves to a thought about what it means to be a reconciler alongside being a prophetic voice that challenges the status quo and where we might land on that continuum. So, with road map in mind, here we go.
+
Hearing the story of the beheading of John the Baptist a week after hearing Jesus say to his disciples how a prophet is without honour in his own homeland also is a bit sobering. It’s not as though the lectionary is trying to drive home the point; it is just the way the gospel flows.
The story of Herodias’ daughter asking for John the Baptist’s head is chilling. It represents the worst of humanity — that part of the human soul that I cannot understand, the part that has so lost touch with its God-created being to the point that it can knowingly and willingly kill another creature or human being, that part of the human soul that no longer respects the internal checks-and-balances that most of us observe.
But Herod’s behaviour isn’t much better because he caves into the request to save face rather than make a principled stand against such an outrageous demand. The gospel wants us to know that up until that point, Herod has protected John the Baptist (albeit by putting him in prison). What should have been an ordinary night spirals into a nightmare, culminating with an unnecessary death that will haunt Herod, a petty figure in Roman politics, and an even smaller person because of his failings.
How out of such a tawdry story can we find anything positive?
Perhaps it helps to note that the story of the beheading of John the Baptist — the longest account in the gospel of Mark about someone other than Jesus — is nestled in between two accounts of Jesus sending out the disciples for mission. On either side of this sorrowful account Mark’s gospel details the works, healings and teachings of the disciples.
Then, just five verses after we hear about the demise of John, the gospel tells us that Jesus finds himself in the midst of a hungry, lost crowd and looks upon them with compassion.
Knowing of that divine compassion, I think, enables me to confront the worst of humanity. I cannot allow the brokenness of soul and spirit, in some cases, evil, which drive people to destruction, harm and cruelty to be the last word about people. I have to believe that while each person is ultimately responsible for his or her actions and must be accountable to them, that God’s mercy and forgiveness are there… even when the person is unable to open his or her soul to God.
+
I admit, however, to utter bafflement as I read the news about the never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine. I cannot understand how two peoples can so hate one another that they wish to destroy each other. I don’t much understand, for that matter, the on-going conflict between forces in Syria or Egypt or Sudan or any of those ‘hot spots’ in the world. I don’t understand how humanity has managed for all of its existence, it seems, to engage constantly in war. How have we, as God’s creation, the only ones created in God’s image, the creatures to whom God says we are good, managed to lose sight of the beloved that lies in every other human being?
It’s pretty clear that we are broken creatures. Admitting so to one another could be one of the most prophetic, and healing actions we could engage in. Think about it:
What about when we also fail, we were to show our brokenness to one another? When we have come to terms with wrongs we must right, we could trust in divine forgiveness. Could we trust that we have been loved from before the beginning?
If we were to engage in the prophetic action of reconciliation, we would not end up with our heads on a platter the way John the Baptist did. But that is just half of the story.
+
Even as we are reconciliers we must also be truth-tellers. Being both reconcilier and truth-teller may lead us into stormy waters and might seem to some contradictory ways to live one’s discipleship to Jesus. But our expression of faith believes in both/and and not either/or propositions.
It was only on the last day of General Convention that tempers got frayed in the House of Deputies (I can’t speak for the other house). Up until that point, debates had been intense, but not angry... On the last day, however, a block of resolutions from one of the legislative committees, National Concerns, came to the floor and suddenly the house was thrown into debate about things such as fracking, racial profiling, wage equality and fair labour practices. A deputy from Florida stood at a microphone and angrily said that she was going to vote against every single one of these resolutions because they were ‘political.’ A deputy from Texas declared that he did not know what the words, ‘racial profiling’ meant. A deputy from Arizona responded by describing how she had been pulled over four times in the past month because she has dark hair; she now carries her passport with her at all times. The debate continues on a list-serve about where does one draw the line between being ‘political’ and being prophetic, challenging the injustices of the day? Last night I received an email from a former parishioner declaring that General Convention looked like the progressive party at work and that the church should lose its tax-exempt status.
We all land in different places on the spectrum in our attitudes toward proclaiming Christ’s reconciling love to the world and engaging in prophetic action and words that will shake up the status quo. I land more on the end that maintains that challenging the unjust laws and practices that continue in Jesus’ tradition of overturning the tables of the money-changers. I can’t explain totally how I landed there, coming from a traditional Republican family, I just know that by junior high, I was aware that things were not fair or just and I couldn’t let them be. Perhaps a question during my ordination process, ‘How will you use your prophetic voice as a priest?’ also has guided me these many years. I draw strength from exemplars such as Desmond Tutu challenging aparteid, Oscar Romero decrying the massacre of his own people by their military, Rigoberta Menchu speaking out about the massacre of her indigenous people in Guatemala, Aung San Suu Kyi fighting against military oppression of her people of Burma and other prophets.
But, just because I live out my understanding of the prophets this way does not mean it is an either/or proposition. Each person finds his or her way through. An acquaintance writes: ‘I once had a spiritual director who, in response to my grumbling about someone having “rubbed me the wrong way,” used to talk about “Divine Sandpaper”. “How do you expect your authentic grain to shine,” she would ask, “if God didn’t send people to ‘rub you the wrong way’ every now and again?”’ The prophets in our midst are that divine sandpaper. And even with such sandpaper, the act of reconciliation helps us to shine. We maintain that the Holy Spirit gives us gifts and so we need one another as some agitate and others reconcile.
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The good news, then, out of this troubling gospel, is that God loves us despite ourselves in all of our complexities and divisions. God has compassion on us — the hungry, seeking people that we are — just as Jesus did that day long ago. There is a wideness is God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea… and for that, my soul will bless the LORD.
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