Proper 22B

Prop 22B • 7 October 2012
Preached at Saint Mark's, Springfield, VT

I always find it ironic (amusing?) that we hear Jesus’ harsh teaching on divorce during the octave that we celebrate the life and ministry of Francis of Assisi, a thirteenth century Christian who changed the world in his day.

The Francis we often remember is the sentimental Francis, the mendicant who loved animals, birds, flowers and children. We enforce that image by blessing animals, as I have done for many years, including blessing those animals awaiting adoption at the Rutland County Humane Society, last year some 90 cats!

And so, with the liberty afforded a preacher, I am going to combine the two into one sermon.

First, Francis. The real Francis was a radical follower of Jesus. Coming from a wealthy family in Assisi, earning praise for his military achievement against the neighboring city of Perugia, Francis had it all: wealth, friends and fame.

One day it all changed. The contradictions between his heart and the way he lived his life were too much. During a time of grave illness Francis gave his whole being over to God, vowing to live with simplicity and purity the life of Jesus, even in Jesus’ sufferings.

His manner of living scandalized his family, threatened the rich of his town, and even challenged the power and ostentation of the pope. But finally in 1210 Pope Innocent the Third confirmed the simple Rule of Order of Friars Minor, a name Francis chose to emphasise his desire to be numbered among the ‘least’ of God’s servants.

Francis, el poverello, the small poor man, wanted to follow Jesus completely, live the Gospel way with no compromises. He remembered the sad story in the Gospels of the rich young man who came to Jesus. “How can I follow you” the man asked Jesus. Sell all you have, give to the poor, and them come and follow me, replied Jesus. The young man went away sad that day, for he was very rich.

Francis vowed to follow Jesus with all his heart, to own nothing except for his love of God and of the human family, and of the world God had made. He gathered around him some friends and started to go throughout the countryside preaching about the love of God for all. Barefoot, penniless he sought to care for the poor, the vulnerable and the weak. That was his life, because he believed that this was the life that Jesus lived.

+

I share this story about radical discipleship because I think that the Gospel stories about Jesus and his followers always hold up love, reconciliation and faithfulness in a deep and life-transforming ways. If there are those who want to follow me let them take up their cross and follow. If any one what to save his or her life, they must be willing to die, to let go of everything. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains only a dry seed. But if it dies in the ground it will bear much fruit.

+

And into this mixture, comes the unusual chasuble I wear this morning, given in loving memory of a priest who followed Jesus in surprising ways… a Texan who became a priest late in life, who ended up crossing racial divides. He was called to be rector of a small African-American congregation in North Carolina. When he died, his widow chose this chasuble because she felt it reflected who he was and a transforming moment in their lives. I wear it in his loving memory and also in thanksgiving of Archbishop Desmond Tutu whose birthday is today.

+

One of the difficulties in reading scripture is the temptation to pick out a sentence, a paragraph, a teaching and ask it to stand alone, all by itself. The passage today about marriage is an example of this problem. (You should read all the comments flying back and forth this week from people facing this gospel reading! Let’s say it is a collective groan.) It is a passage, with others, that is used by people who want to maintain male dominance in the family, by those who want to exclude other faithful relations between people and by those who want to argue that no Christian can ever remarry after divorce. In reality this passage is not about marriage, even less about a systematic message of Jesus about marriage and family life.

In Mark’s Gospel Jesus tries time after time to set people free from the laws and traditions of the Elders, the Scribes and Pharisees, laws that burdened and oppressed people of Jesus’ day. Jesus disobeyed the traditions when they oppressed people. For someone trying to follow Jesus’ interpretation of Torah, they will find that his application was quite uneven at times.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath day, choosing mercy over strict obedience to the religious laws. He showed mercy on the Syrophonecian woman, and the Samaritan woman at the well – both non-kosher persons, people outside the social and moral responsibilities of the Jewish laws. Jesus let his disciples comb the fields of grain for something to eat on the Sabbath, telling his critics that the Sabbath was made for the people of God, not the people for the Sabbath.

The scriptures even say that Jesus, though he was rich, being the Son of God, for our sake became poor, emptying himself totally, that we might become rich in the love of God.

This is the Jesus that Francis came to love, and to whom he surrendered every ounce of his being: Jesus who loved the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the weak, the littlest child, the hungry of body and spirit, and those whose lives were laced with tears.

+

In the Gospel for today Jesus was being challenged once again by the guardians of the religious law. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? asked the lawyers.

The religious laws governing family life in Jesus’ day were harsh. Women were seen by men — and supported by law — as chattel, as property. Children were often seen merely as economic resources.  Orphans and widows were condemned to poverty. Men made the laws, enforced the laws and benefited from them.

Only men could obtain permission to divorce their wife. Wives could not divorce their husbands. Marriage was a family or clan arrangement, not for love but for the economic benefit of the male and for guarantying property rights for the oldest son, or for overcoming animosity between two families. In a patriarchal culture, women, most of the time, were victims rather than companions of their husbands.

Jesus challenged the leaders of his day by pointing out how the laws were shaped by them to benefit them, and not for the sake of justice. What Jesus was doing in the story today was not spelling out a theology of marriage — it is critical to recognise this distinction — but rather trying to hold up the value of mercy and justice in all human relationships.

When Jesus called women and men to follow him, to be the vanguard with him of the Reign of God, he called them as people being transformed by forgiveness and love, called into relationships with God and with each other of service, humility and justice.

Any human relationship, any human institution supporting relationships, family and social structures, needs to be measured by these signs of human life in all its fullness. The way people relate to each other, the way men and women relate, the way adults and children relate, the way the rich and poor live together, the powerful and the weak: all come under the law of the Reign of God, to love God with all our mind, heart and being, and to love each other as we love ourselves.

There are no exceptions to this mercy, love and justice. There is no one outside of our responsibility to love and care for in merciful and just ways.

Marriage and family life can be as brutal as they can be a sign of God’s dream for all people. Our loves and friendships can be a sign of human insecurity and arrogance, even as they can be radical signs of the love and surrender, one to each other, faithfully keeping on the road as followers of Jesus. Francis knew this. And we can too.

+

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day wanted cookie-cutter relationships, relationships they could control and judge. Jesus, on the other hand, invited women and men, young and old, rich and poor, to give of themselves to God, and through God to each other. He invites us to take the risks that are needed to discover more profoundly how deeply we are loved and how deeply, then, we can love each other.

Interestingly,  the story that immediately follows is the one about the time women were bringing their children to Jesus for his touch and blessing. The disciples, discounting the value of children, sternly criticized the women, telling them, in effect, not to bother Jesus. But Jesus, turning to his disciples with indignation, just as he turned to the Scribes and Pharisees, said, ‘You still are not getting it, are you?’

And Jesus gathered the little ones around him, held them, blessed them and said to all who could hear, ‘These little ones you have just rejected are signs of what life in God’s reign should be like; they are models of simplicity and trust.’

+

Jesus loved, healed, forgave and celebrated people in his life. He related to them not from above or below, but alongside of them. He found honor and rich gifts in people that society had written off. He lived transparently and simply before all, was faithful even at high cost, shared the love of God even if this sharing cost him his life.

Francis in his own humble way caught this infectious love of God, and wanted to live it and share it completely, radically.

+

We are not Francis of Assisi, most of us. But we are children of God, of the God who, through Jesus, wants to lead us into life in all of its fullness. He wants to invite us to learn and live in ways that bring joy and hope to others. He wants us to experience the healing and forgiveness that sets us free, and by which we can help others find their freedom from fear and guilt.

Most of all Jesus wants us to learn to live as beloved sisters and brothers, humbly, simply, joyfully, giving and receiving the gifts God has sown in our lives, trusting in the care of each other as we continue to be pilgrims, sowing the seeds of life and of justice in our needy world.

+

Saint Francis left us a legacy of prayers. One simple one that can be used as a mantra is, My God and my all! The words to hymn 400 are from his Canticle to Brother Sun and Sister Moon. But the most famous prayer that is attributed to him is the prayer of peace, found on page 833 of the Prayer Book. I invite you to pray with with me, for this is the prayer that most closely mirrors to me not only his life but the one we are to lead as followers of Jesus.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light:
where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 


Proper 20B

Proper 20B 23 September 2012
preached at Saint Mark's, Springfield, VT

The lectionary this morning provides us with an interesting contrast of lessons — the first two speak about wisdom and the gospel narrates the second of three predictions about the passion, followed by instruction about discipleship. When the texts are placed together, one can find a thread that links wisdom with discipleship.

The Letter of James draws heavily from the writings of Ben Sirach (in the apocrypha) and Wisdom, both of which witness to the practical morality expected of Jews in their personal, family and business lives. James is a concrete writer, however: the metaphors used in James are taken from the world around us rather than from revelation — think of the image of the person looking into a mirror we heard a few weeks ago who does or does not remember what the reflection is.

The segment in front of us invites us to look at the following sequence of opposites: Wisdom that is earthly brings forth bad fruits of conflicts, discrimination, disorder, and wickedness. In one’s inner life, this earthly wisdom causes selfishness, envy and greed.

Wisdom that comes from above brings forth good fruits of gentleness, mercy, impartiality, and peace. One’s inner life is pure and close to God. This purity and closeness produce peacefulness in the world and in one’s heart. This shalom imbues one’s life and integrity.

Clearly, the writer of the letter expects that we will opt for the second set of values. But I think the writer also realises that in our creatureliness, we often fall for the former set of values. And so our life journey consists of letting go of earthly wisdom for that which comes from above.

+

The gospel of Mark shows us by example a group of people who have not yet obtained that wisdom from above. We have entered into the second teaching cycle of Mark’s gospel, the longest of the three. In it, Jesus will talk about the greatest and the least, the outsiders and insiders, the aggressors and victims, men and women, children and adults, and the rich and the poor. In short, he will cover all segments of his population — opposites which parts of the letter of James also addresses. The teaching, ‘The first will be last,’ frames this entire section.

At the same time that Jesus teaches about the strong and weak of his society, he also predicts his passion — here, for the second time. For the second time, the disciples respond with a very earthly, concrete wisdom (if we can dare call it that) — one that really is blind and deaf to what Jesus has just said. For the second time, they don’t get it. This time, they argue about who will be the greatest amongst them. They misunderstand that the cross calls them to a life of servanthood. They don’t understand that they are not being called to be part of a powerbase, but to be part of a community that redistributes power to the excluded and marginalised. They do not understand that taking up the cross means they will be the last and servant of all. Lastly, they do not understand Jesus’ wisdom, which is based in conscience.

Jesus’ teachings speak to a wisdom that runs counter to that of the world: the greatest are the least. Outsiders are welcome. Women and children in his society have value and integrity. The rich are poor and the poor are rich. In Jesus’ words, wisdom consists of reversals.

Of course, the disciples cannot understand these words — they miss so much in the gospel according to Mark. It is those on the margins, such as demons and unclean spirits who can see Jesus for who he really is and the disciples don’t. They are so outcast that they have no pretensions — they can see and call things are they are because they have nothing to lose; they have already lost everything.

We, though, have the gift of time and tradition to understand better what the biblical sense of wisdom meant and how we should embrace it. It’s only a question of our pretensions and ‘sophistication’ of getting in the way. Sometimes we need to let go of all that to see truly.

+

The reclusive and prolific early 20th-century French author, Marcel Proust wrote, ‘We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no-one else can make for us, which no-one can spare us. For our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.’

Discipleship to Christ invites us — demands us to make that journey through the wilderness. Whether as an individual or as a community, Christians have long known the value of spiritual, internal pilgrimage. Christians have also respected the work of a community.

+

It is hard gaining wisdom, so perhaps it helps to start small.

One of my favourite French authors, André Gide, another early 20th-century writer, said, ‘The wise are those who marvel at everything.’ A major piece of our life of faith is to see the miraculous in the common, the wonders of the ordinary.

Perhaps that is why Jesus points our attention to a child. André Breton said that ‘childhood is the nearest thing to life.’ Robert Ellwood added, ‘A childlike sense of wonder is the key to understanding the mysteries of the esoteric universe.’

Think about the unbridled wonder of children when let loose. My brother and I had more fun playing outside in the small brook that bisected our backyard from the lawn and the woods. In the rather swampy woods, we would spend hours, running on top what we called ‘heffalumps’ (those mushy grass mounds at tree trunks), trying not to fall in the water. We’d play hide-and-seek in the grape arbor near the brook. The outdoors contained endless possibilities for discovery and delight. Those hours spent outside cultivated a life-long enjoyment of God’s creation, which has led me as an adult to learn how better to care for it as we increasingly burden it with our excesses. Maybe it is that sense of wonder I seek as I return again and again to walk the mountains of Vermont and on the Long Trail.

I think that no matter how difficult and awful a child’s external life might be, a child still has incredibly resiliency. I remember pictures of children playing among the ruins of Sarajevo, or even today in Lebanon or Palestine. Children have the amazing capacity to find things in which to delight despite it all.

What things delighted you as a child? Where did you tap into the wonder that so characterises a child’s awe at something new? What made you giggle? Where, as a child, did you find God in the world around you?

I think one of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s greatest strengths is that, despite his having seen the worst that humanity can do to itself, he still can giggle like an imp. He hasn’t lost the childlike wonder in God’s creation and world. Maybe it is because he was so sickly as an infant (with polio among other things) that his grandfather gave him the name, ‘Mpilo,’ or ‘life.’ Tutu has lived out that hopeful name and has translated his wonder of God’s creation into an amazing life-journey of being a ‘rabble-rouser for peace.’

By finding the ability to marvel at what the world might consider small might help us gain wisdom. For gaining wisdom is actually coming closer to God. If we remember that Wisdom in early Christian thought was the Holy Spirit, then by seeking God in the daily and small things of life will enable us to find God in the harder parts of life and as we come closer to God, we find Wisdom.

Ultimately we quest for Shalom, an integrated life of integrity. Wisdom becomes one of the paths on which we walk in that search for wholeness and completeness. As we receive Wisdom, then we are also better able to take on the hard work of being one of Jesus’ disciples, which involves participating in the great reversals that Jesus so often preached, wherein the poor become rich, the weak strong, the last first, and where we are able to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

Proper 19B

Proper 19B • 16 September 2012

preached at Saint Mark’s, Springfield VT

‘The tongue is a fire.’ How prescient these words seem.  We have witnessed this week how our country’s concept of freedom of speech has managed literally to turn the Middle East aflame with tragic loss in the process. What one man’s tongue (and film) has managed to wreak simply reinforces what the letter of James states: ‘No one can tame the tongue — a restless evil, full of deadly poison.’

Not that this little sermon can tame the tongue, but may it not turn the tongue into fire, evil or poison. But the gift of speech certainly can become a cross we bear if we do not use it properly.

+

We have arrived at the midpoint of Mark’s story. The first half began by heralding a ‘Way’ and closed with a question addressed to the disciples and the reader: ‘Do you not yet understand?’ (8.21). The second half opens ‘on the Way,’ with yet another query: ‘Who do you say that I am?’ In this second half of the gospel, the ‘way of the cross’ will be explained by object lessons, both positive and negative, framed by two stories in which the blind receive sight — first in Bethsaida (8.22-26) and in Jericho (10.45-52).

The first half of the gospel ends on the depressing note that the disciples’ eyes, ears and heart have failed them. They have not understood what Jesus has been trying to teach them on the Way. It is no accident, then, that the second half of the gospel opens with the story of a blind man receiving his sight, which counters the disciples’ inability to see who Jesus is.

In short order, Jesus restores hearing and speech to a deaf-mute man, he restores sight to a blind man, he casts out a deaf and dumb spirit and he heals another blind man who follows him. These final four healings suggest that if Jesus can ‘make the deaf hear and the dumb speak’ and help the blind ‘see clearly’ then there is hope for the disciples. As an aside, for the preacher and listener, who may have wondered why week after week the lectionary recounts different healing stories, now the gospel writer’s agenda becomes clearer.

So when Jesus asks the blind man at Bethsaida, ‘Do you see anything?’ his question actually has prophetic echoes for the conversation that takes place in the portion of today’s gospel reading. ‘Sight’ emerges as a central metaphor for faith in Mark.

Moving from a physical level to a spiritual level, Mark now has Jesus asks his disciples who do they say that he is. He wants to know for whom do they see him. They answer with the appropriate people, but Peter takes things a step deeper when he uses the politically loaded term, ‘messiah.’ It sounds like a good answer — this word, ‘messiah,’ speaks clearly of the presence of God with the people in justice and peace.

However, at the time of Jesus, there were conflicting ideas about the messiah and what it would mean not only for the Jews but also for the Romans and unbelievers. Thus, Peter’s use of this term fails to clarify matters and Jesus tells him to be quiet.

Jesus then tells the disciples what this messiah must undergo. He has read and reflected on the prophets, especially Isaiah. Jesus sees himself as the beloved son and servant of God, which means, in the tradition of the prophets, he must also suffer because of his obedience to God’s word and will. The truth is named and brought to light; Jesus will die.

It is too much for Peter. And Peter’s reaction is too much for Jesus. Their exchange escalates into a shouting match of rebukes, ending with Jesus naming Peter as ‘satan.’ Perhaps it is because Jesus senses that Peter has remained loyal to the secular and traditional understanding of messiah, the one who prevails over the enemy through righteous force, rather than this new messiah who will overcome through humility.

But, at what a price! For this messiah will overcome the powers-that-be through crucifixion, a vicious, sadistic and humiliating torture, meted out for those whom the Roman empire wished to silence, those who had no family or friends to support them, or those whose family and friends understood that pubic support of the punished would end up in similar punishment for themselves.

We return implicitly to Jesus’ question to the blind man at Bethsaida, ‘Do you see anything?’ We do. We see the suffering Christ, the saviour whom we follow and the cross, a cross that we must take up ourselves. On a normal day, the idea of doing likewise holds scant appeal because it seems so costly.

+

Taking up one’s cross is costly unto itself but made worse by all the cultural overlays added to it. Taking up one’s cross has come to mean assuming all sorts of inhuman and human-created problems that I can’t imagine a loving and creating God wanting us to take on.

The widower is furious at God for having made his wife, dying of cancer, suffer. He wants to punish God for making him carry this cross and so he turns away, in his anger, never again to talk with God. He cannot see that his wife’s death was not a case of God ‘letting him down’ or making him carry a special burden; his wife’s death as awful as it was, nonetheless, is part of what it means to be a finite creature.

The woman, whose husband beats her at night in his alcoholic-induced rage, when her friends point out to her that she needn’t live this way, shrugs her shoulders and mutters something about it being her ‘special cross to bear.’ She cannot see that the God who created her would not willingly cause her to suffer as proof of her faithfulness.

The child who lives in the streets, doing tricks, inhaling glue, figures that somewhere along the line he must have done something wrong and God is punishing him, that this current bleak life is his cross, whatever that means.

I reject those interpretations of what ‘taking up one’s cross’ means. I do believe that ‘taking up one’s cross’ can mean sacrifice, particularly in terms of acting in the interest of the common good and not one’s self interest. I believe that taking up one’s cross means faithfully living out as best as one can the promises made at baptism.

Or consider Micah’s call to ‘Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.’ Or ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ To live out any of these exhortations involves plenty of denying oneself and taking up a cross.

Taking up one’s cross means using the gift of speech not to harm but to heal, to build peace, to speak of God. That evil tongue of which James wrote can speak good and actually be used for the common good. Still, taking up one’s cross means challenging someone who makes a racist or sexist comment or joke, or speaking truths that others may not want to hear. Bringing about God’s kingdom, in terms of complete relationships, can often be a cross.

The action of taking up one’s cross then becomes paradoxical because, ‘the hard wood of the cross is best for feeding the fire of love,” in the words of one ancient writer. The cross reminds us that all love is sacrificial: that is (in the original meaning of the word), it is what makes things holy.  Love makes holy everything it touches, even the cross.

As long as there are disciples of Jesus willing to take up the cross and follow, the evil of crucifixion will become the place of witness, of the reconciling love of God … where the tragedy, betrayal and foolishness represented by the cross become wisdom, and through God’s love become life and hope for us all.
Perhaps then we will see, truly see… and then speak of God’s love. (1)


END NOTE
(1)  The exegetical portion of the sermon borrows heavily from Ched Myers et al, “Say to this Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), 99-103.

Proper 17B

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!

+

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.

+

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.

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.

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.

+

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?

+

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.

+

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.

+

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.