One of the things that has been impressed upon me in my ministry as a priest is that Advent is more than a time of preparation for Christmas and to remember that God became incarnate when Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. I must not had been paying attention when sitting in the pews as you are, before I was ordained, because it was a bit of a shock the first time I prepared a sermon for the first Sunday of Advent and these are these readings that we have to shoes from. While all the rest of our neighbors are decorating their trees and buying presents, in here we hear from Mark’s Gospel about Jesus’ glorious return, riding on the clouds to gather God’s chosen from the four corners of the world.
But Advent is about more than just the birth of Christ. Our readings reveal that, and the writings of people like Bernard of Clairveaux, which I’ve described to you before, who wrote that there are three Advents of Christ. There is the historical birth of Jesus, which we are all familiar with and which we celebrate every year on December 25th. Additionally, there is the prophetic Advent when Christ will return in glory and with great power, as we heard in our Gospel reading. And then there are the countless times that we encounter the risen Lord in our lives, here and now, each and every day, where Christ is present in our souls and in our hearts.
Advent is al about God coming to us. This concept of Advent is quite striking, too, that God would come to us, to be with and among us.
In no other religion that I am aware of, is the narrative predicated on the teaching that God came among his people and lived among them, offering himself up as a sacrifice to redeem and save humanity, and did so in relatively recent history, in the lifetimes of those who wrote of their encounter with God through Jesus Christ. The authors of our Scriptures present a God who came to them, lived among them, who they ate with and listened to his teachings as he spoke with them face-to-face.
This makes the concept of Immanuel, God-with-us, that much more powerful and unique.
In the biblical narrative, from the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin and prior to the birth of Christ, No one had seen God. Some had visions, others heard the voice of God, and others still spoke with angels. Moses asked to see God’s glory, but God would not allow him to see the face of God, lest he die from witnessing the glory of God. The Israelites wandering the desert saw the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, but they did not see God, and were commanded not to make any image to represent God for that would be idolatry.
But all that changed with the birth of Christ, who took on human flesh to be the God who is with us. Who lived, died, and rose to new life, ascending into heaven where he is now seated at the right hand of the Father, and will return one day to judge the living and the dead.
It is to this last reality, of the return of Christ, that our readings for today point us.
That is something that struck me about the church calendar, that there isn’t a day that we dedicate to the belief that Christ will come again.
Consider: We have Christmas to commemorate the incarnation, and Easter for the resurrection. We have Pentecost for the sending of the Spirit to the Apostles, and days for the saints and for events in the life of Christ like his baptism and transfiguration. But there isn’t a “Second Coming” Sunday anywhere on our calendars.
So if we let Advent be all about Christmas, there is something crucially important missing from our calendars about our faith, and that is the belief that not only has Christ died and risen, but that Christ will come again.
And how will Christ come again?
Certainly there was a time in my life that I believed the literal return of Jesus as pictured in Mark’s Gospel, would happen exactly that way. The same perhaps as Mark’s audience hoped for. The world of the early church was a difficult one indeed, of persecutions and rejection for the message that they felt compelled to share with anyone who would listen. And it may have been that they were looking for vindication, that they would be proven correct and their message would be proven to be correct, that Jesus truly was the Messiah and the king of kings and lord of lords. And to help keep themselves faithful in the midst of these hardships, they found encouragement in the Gospel writings that told them to keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house, Jesus, will return.
But it’s now been almost 2,000 years since these words were written, and Jesus’ return tarries. And even if Jesus were to literally return like this, it sure seems unlikely that it would even happen in our lifetimes. If he’s waiting so many years already, who’s to say that it would happen in the next 2,000 years?
So I ask, then, what can we take from these writings, in Mark’s Gospel and in other places, to await the coming of Jesus, and in doing so to keep awake and be watchful?
To this question, this is where the third kind of Advent of Jesus comes into play–the daily advent of Christ into our lives. Where each day we encounter the risen Jesus in our lives, and where we are called to live lives of ever-increasing love and charity for our neighbors. Where we live into greater and greater holiness and sanctification, following the example of Christ and of the prophets who called the people of God to return to faithfulness to the covenant God gave to them. Where our being is transformed as we encounter the God who is with us, and we daily turn our hearts Godward.
About this third Advent of Christ into our lives, St. Bernard wrote that it is like a path that runs between Jesus’ birth until his return, his first advent until his final one. But unlike the first which is our redemption and his final advent in which he will appear as our new life, Christ’s daily Advent into our hearts is one that calls us to discipleship. As it reads in our Scriptures, “Listen to what our Lord himself says: If anyone loves me, they will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them.” And in another place: “The one who fears God will do good, but something further has been said about the one who loves, that is, that they will keep God’s word.”
Hear how well that aligns with our reading from the Gospel, where the master’s servants are told to continue their work and to stay awake and alert, because you do not know when he will return.
This reminds me again of our Gospel reading from a few weeks ago where Jesus told his listeners that the Kingdom of God was like a master who went on a journey and gave five talents to one of his servants, 2 talents to another, and 1 talent to a third. Then he went away, and in the interim two decided to use the money they were given to create more money, and the third buried the money to preserve it. But note, the master doesn’t tell them what to do with what he gave them. While he may not have been satisfied with the option to bury the money, the parable still shows that the master left it up to them to decide how to proceed after he departed. He left it up to them to be creative with how they used what he gave them.
And that is the same for us today. It is up to us to decide and discern how we use what we have in this life to live out the priorities of the life lived in Christ. Big or small, no matter what we do with our lives, all of it, all of what we do is a reflection of how we have responded to Jesus’ words to keep awake in this current, ongoing advent of Christ into our lives.
So may you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, remember with joy the first coming of Jesus, who is the God who became man for our salvation.
May you look forward with eager anticipation to his return when he will make all things right as they should be. And may you be found awake when Christ comes to you, in each and every Advent of God into your lives.
Friends:
In 2020, I got into an online fight with a stranger about wearing masks. I’m not sure how it started, but it took the form of commenting on the post of a friend from college, and one of his friends responded. Her take on it was that her individual freedom meant that if she didn’t want to wear a mask she wasn’t going to. We went back and forth a little, until she dropped this quote on me: “Your freedom ends where my nose begins,” Abraham Lincoln.
Remember that, we’ll come back to it.
The United States of America has often been noted for being a nation full of individualistic individuals, ruggedly individualistic, where the individual person and their rights are the standard by which moral decision-making, policy, and just about everything about our culture begins and ends. Individualism makes the individual its focus and so starts “with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance. Individualism promotes the exercise of one’s goals and desires and so values independence and self-reliance and advocates that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one’s own interests by society or its institutions.”
If that sounds really smart of me, what I just said, that’s because I lifted it from Wikipedia. You may not be able to do that for college essays, but you can’t stop me now.
Arguing for the virtues of individualism, one author online wrote, “Individualism is the idea that the individual’s life belongs to him and that he has an inalienable right to live it as he sees fit, to act on his own judgment, to keep and use the product of his effort, and to pursue the values of his choosing. It’s the idea that the individual is sovereign, an end in himself, and the fundamental unit of moral concern. This is the ideal that the American Founders set forth and sought to establish when they drafted the Declaration and the Constitution and created a country in which the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness were to be recognized and protected.”
Now that sounds noble, doesn’t it?
And I’m almost certain that most all of us in this room cherish these values to some extent. Which is why our epistle reading can be so troublesome
In Paul’s day, pagan religions ruled the day, and cities like Corinth were filled to the brim with its religious adherents. The issue Paul was dealing with: meat sacrificed to idols. Walking through the markets in Corinth, the meat for sale was often times if not all the time offered up to pagan gods, which was then sold in the marketplace. So what is a follower of Jesus Christ to do about buying meat? Can a disciple of Christ eat something that was offered to and sold in the name of a pagan God.
That’s the issue that the Corinthians were facing. So to clear things up, Paul writes to them with three main lines of thought:
So to rehash: Point 1: Big deal. There are no Gods besides the Lord, so what they are doing is really meaningless. Point 2: Whether you engage in the behavior hinges on your conscience, because to act against your interior moral code is sinful. Point 3: Be mindful of how living out your moral code could detrimentally affect others in how they act.
I have this imaginary conversation in my mind, that I’m talking one-on-one about these points, breaking down this passage from 1 Corinthians. I describe the first point, and you say, “makes sense!” I describe the second point, and you say “Huh, that’s an interesting premise that I hadn’t thought of before.” Then I describe the third point, and you say “Uh-uh, no! Why do I have to change what I do because another person can’t handle it?”
Back to the opening story. “Your freedom ends where my nose begins.” That was, unsurprisingly, not said by Abraham Lincoln. In fact, it was the slogan of the temperance movement in the late 1800s, a movement whose whole purpose was to take away freedoms and rights for the purpose of what was thought to be a societal good.
So I said that, and I also said to this woman who identified herself as a Christian, that in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he told them that he would stop eating meat for the rest of his life if it would keep someone from sinning in their heart and eat meat sacrificed to a Greek god, against their conscience. He would engage in a major lifestyle change for the rest of his life for the sake of one other person’s conscience in one small matter. How much less of a burden is it for us to put on a mask in public during a pandemic to try and protect the sick or vulnerable?
”Why do I have to change what I do because of another person? Why do I have to alter my behavior, simply because of what another person thinks about it, or how it makes them behave in response?”
It flies in the face of our American individualism. But as members of the church, we have another value that is growing within us–love and mutual affection for other members of the body of Christ. Our identity in Christ means that we now possess dual citizenship, as Americans and as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. And it ought to be that the values we possess as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven influence how we live as citizens of the United States of America, and not the other way around. Christian virtues such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control ought to be growing up within us as we are transformed by the Holy Spirit, and as we continually grow up into this new reality, that we are first and foremost disciples of Christ, and everything else flows out of that identity.
It affects how we treat one another as members of the Church of Christ, and how we treat others who are also created in the image of God and loved by God. It affects how we conduct ourselves at the workplace, at schools and on the sports field. How we drive, how we shop, how we talk, and how we think. How we make money, and how we use our money. How we think about the world, and how we conduct ourselves in the world. It affects literally everything.
So may you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, be encouraged that you are loved by the one Lord, Jesus Christ. May you be encouraged and strengthened to follow diligently after your interior moral code. And may you live rooted in Christian virtue all the days of your lives.
Last Epiphany - 2/11/2024
One of the many moves I’ve made in life took me to Denver, Colorado, to serve with a church in a suburb outside the city. When doing so, I was very intentional that when I moved there, that the driving motivation was not to be near the mountains. In my mind, it was a nice perk, but not the main reason to serve the church to which I have been called.
After less than a month of living there, I attempted to hike my first 14er, which is a mountain that summits over 14,000 feet above sea level, and of which Colorado has 53. Standing on top of that peak that day would be the first of many that I climbed while living in Colorado, and which I long to do more of.
The mountains have a mystique about them for many people, even today, who feel that they are closer to God in the mountains. The Scriptures are full of such moments too. Moses and the Jewish people encountered Yahweh at Mount Sinai, built their temple in Jerusalem on a mountain, and built their idolatrous altars to Canaanite gods on the high places in their land. Even Jesus went to the mountains for prayer and solitude. It’s no wonder then that Jesus chose the mountain to reveal his glory to three of his disciples.
The Transfiguration of Jesus is one of the most monumental of events in the life and ministry of Jesus. Glancing through the pages of Mark’s Gospel, you see Jesus mostly doing two things: teaching and performing miracles such as healing, casting out demons, feeding the 5,000, and so on. But the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor is something completely new.
Imagine yourself in that situation. You’ve gone with your friend and teacher Jesus, who already has shown himself to be capable of things that boggle the mind, things that a man like Jesus could only do if God is with him. But then, when you’re up on the mountain, this scene unfolds before you. Mark’s details from our Gospel reading today are sparse, but even without what we learn from the other accounts in the scriptures, it’s still stunning. The veil is being torn away, and we are peering into the depths of the glory in that tabor light of who this Jesus actually is. He is not just a man, but for the first time humanity is able to see him for who he really is–the glorious Son of God. This is truly a remarkable sight, and the disciples with him are rightfully terrified at what they are beholding.
That doesn’t really come through that well on paper, does it? That is why I have especially appreciated the icons that have been written, and for the feeling that they convey of this glorious moment.
There are a few things that strike me about this moment in the life of Christ.
First, that it’s easy to lose sight of the holiness and majesty of our God. It’s easy to forget about the glory of our God. Like Moses, whose face would shine radiantly immediately after entering the tabernacle and speaking with God face-to-face, but in time the radiance would fade and his appearance would return to normal. Our concept of the divine can be the same, where we once may have had a high and lofty concept of the greatness of our God, but now are left with this dull and vague sense about the greatness of God.
I need reminders at times to bring myself back, to see the majesty and magnificence of God. For me, it’s through contemplating the icons of this moment, reading the scriptures and the accounts of those who gave their lives for Jesus Christ, and remembering the times in life that the holiness of God became more tangible in my life.
I think we all need to remember that not only is God good, but God is also great.
Second, a lesson that I learned from the mountains. As I said, for many people mountains are places that we encounter our God. Our senses are lifted up and we can find ourselves in the presence of the divine. After a day in the mountains, I would go to church and tell my friends there about my trip, and they would say to me, “I bet you have the best encounters of God in the mountains.” Yes, I certainly do a lot of praying in the mountains, usually along the lines of “Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.” But I wanted to learn another lesson: God is not any more in the mountains than God is here, with us in this place, or any other place we are. The glory of God is always with us. Always around us.
That was just as true for Jesus. The great glory of Jesus that was revealed on the mountain was with him when he came down from the mountain, and before he went up. It may have been easier to perceive in that moment, but it was not more present in that moment than any other. That same light is always with Jesus, even if it’s harder to perceive.
The same is true for us today. Even though we may not perceive the light of God around us, Scripture tells us that it is always with us. This Jesus is the light and the life of the world. Jesus IS the light, not was, and the light of Jesus still shines in the darkness. Here. Today. Even if we can’t easily perceive it.
Which leads to my final thought. In the Eucharist, later in this service, I will hand you the consecrated bread with the words, “The Body of Christ,” and a chalice bearer will give you the cup and say to you, “The Blood of Christ.” Not, “This is a symbol that represents Christ.” Some followers of Christ go so far as to believe that this is not bread, but actually the body of Jesus that we are consuming. That is how holy this moment is. That even though it looks like ordinary bread, it’s something far more majestic. After all, didn’t Jesus look like any other person you’ve met in your life?
That is the glory of God found in the normal and the mundane. The presence of Christ in the bread we break and the cup we share.
So may you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, perceive the glorious light of God which terrified the disciples on the holy mountain. May you grow in awareness of the glory of God that inhabits all places, the highest and the lowest. And may you perceive Christ in the bread that we break and in the cup of blessing that we bless.
Lent 1B - 2/18/2024
In my Homily for David Chu’s burial service back on February 3rd, I shared with those gathered that I had been asked by a friend if you all, the people of St. Bede’s, accept what I preach on uncritically, or if you at times disagree with me. And to that, I said that you don’t fear holding back, but that you generally feel free to tell me when you do disagree.
Let’s see how far we can go with that.
And I’m going to just jump headlong into it: I don’t believe that humans are inherently good.
(Wow. That just happened. Let’s see where this goes, right?)
This is the first Sunday of Lent, and therefore were have in our reading the temptation of Jesus. This of course leads to several questions: Why did the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness occur? What purpose does it serve? Could Jesus have given into the temptation? And so on.
The hardest one, and one which I won’t get into here, is “Could Jesus have given in?” That one is simply too theoretical, as it tries to guess at what didn’t happen.
But the others are at least more possible to answer, given other writings in the New Testament.
When trying to understand the Gospels, it’s always worth looking at what an individual author of the Gospels does with the life of Jesus, and understanding particular moments in Jesus’ life in the context of that author’s work compared to what the others do.
This is particularly true with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We call them the Synoptic Gospels, and they share remarkable similarities in what they highlight from the teaching and life of Jesus. I won’t get into the details on that, but because they do what they do, we can look at them to compare and highlight what each different book is doing and the emphasis it tries to make.
And in Mark we see that the Temptation of Jesus is one of the three events that mark the preparation for Jesus’ public ministry. These three events are Jesus’ baptism by John, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, and John’s imprisonment. After these events take place, “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’”
To rehash that a little bit, as I said, the Temptation is one of three events that prepare the way for Jesus’ public ministry. The first is his baptism. After living in obscurity for the first 30 or so years of his life, he appears at the Jordan River where his cousin John is baptizing. And when he arrives, he goes down into the water and is baptized, and when he comes up, the voice calls from heaven to declare that Jesus is the beloved son, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove. Jesus is validated and publicly proclaimed to be the beloved child of God by the booming voice.
The next event is the temptation, where immediately after his baptism Jesus is driven out to the wilderness to endure the trials of the adversary. He goes out to the dry and desolate places, where the wild animals have dominion, not humankind. Being victorious over the accuser, Jesus comes out clean.
Then John is imprisoned. The one who must decrease so Jesus may increase, as John stated it, has been forcibly removed from his work of calling the people to repent. The path that has been made straight is now clear for Jesus to shine.
Why the Temptation? Why does it matter? What does it accomplish?
For that I suppose I do have to dig into Matthew and Luke just a little. Here the temptations center on how committed is Jesus to fulfilling the will of the Father? Is Jesus going to follow the difficult path that lies ahead for him – the itinerant preacher who faces discomfort, rejection, and ultimately the cross – or will he deviate away to fill his stomach, woo the masses, and reign over the whole earth without resurrection?
In this spirit, I love how Thomas Aquinas, when exploring the Temptation of Jesus, brings in the second chapter of Sirach, which begins this way: “My son, if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation. Set your heart right and be steadfast, and do not be hasty in time of calamity. Cleave to God and do not depart, that you may be honored at the end of your life.”
This we see in the example of Jesus, who did face temptation, and was steadfast in times of calamity, who clung to God and was glorified by God when he rose to new life in the resurrection. Jesus’ temptation prepared him for the work that lay ahead for him, and demonstrated his commitment to living by the will of God.
What we gain from this, in addition to new life, is that we have a savior who can understand, relate, and sympathize with us in all that we go through. As the author of the Book of Hebrews writes, and I paraphrase, ‘we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, who in every respect has been tested as we are, and overcame, and we can therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find help in time of need.’
Jesus gets it. Life is hard, and it’s easy for us to muck it up and need help to put the pieces back together. And when we do, God is all the more at the ready to help us.
So back to the start: I don’t believe that humans are inherently good.
I don’t know about you, but it can be so hard sometimes to do the right thing. It can be so hard to be good. It can be so hard to keep doing the right thing: to do what I know is good and right and best, when it feels that others don’t care, or that they don’t deserve it, or that they’ve done something and should face the consequences, but doing that means to compromise on principles of being good, and patient, and compassionate.
Sometimes doing the right thing takes a lot of focus, and attention, and commitment to doing right. It shouldn’t have to be that hard, if we were inherently good. We shouldn’t have to try so hard to keep on the right path, if we were intrinsically good. It shouldn’t be so much work to live a life of virtue if that were so. But so many times, we have to remind ourselves of the kind of person we want to be to keep us from doing that which comes easy, or comes naturally.
We shouldn’t have to do so much work to stay on the right path – or repenting when we step off it.
Why do I think humans aren’t inherently good: because of how much we need the example of Jesus and other righteous and virtuous people to show us that there’s a better way for us; that the way of Jesus is the best possible way to live.
That’s not to say that it’s impossible to be good. No, it is possible, but it requires work – real effort – and introspection to know ourselves and where we can and should improve, and help from outside ourselves to be better. It’s possible, but it sure takes effort to stay on the path.
Well, it seems that I’ve run out of time to really get into it today, but I’ll continue my thinking next week. But I need to close this up, and I wish to do it with a little hope and positivity, but in a Lenty way.
And that’s why I’ll close with the ending verses of Sirach’s second chapter. The first few verses exhort us to cling to God, and here’s the fruit of that effort:
Those who fear the Lord will not disobey God’s words,
and those who love the Lord will keep God’s ways.
Those who fear the Lord will seek God’s approval,
and those who love God will be filled with the law.
Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts,
and will humble themselves before God.
Let us fall into the hands of the Lord,
and not into the hands of men;
for as God’s majesty is,
so also is God’s mercy.
In the name of the Father…
Lent 5B - 3/17/2024
The past several weeks we’ve been following an extended train of thought, about our need for the internal transformation of following in the way of Jesus and his teaching from our inherent selfishness into the selflessness that he called his listeners to practice – the extraordinary kindness that he exemplified in his life and teaching.
Today, I want to turn now to the most Lenty of topics, and that is the suffering of Jesus in that first Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday.
In our Gospel reading, I am astounded by the narrative. It begins fairly innocuous – it’s about five or six days before Passover, and some people who were in Jerusalem wanted to see Jesus. It’s a great and simple statement: “We wish to see Jesus.” I love it.
But very surprisingly, Jesus doesn’t go with it. Instead, he pivots to talking to the disciples about the anguish that he is experiencing because he is anticipating what is about to happen for him. The narrative is written in such a way that we are to understand it that Jesus knows exactly what will occur – that he will end up crucified.
Before the events happened, Jesus knew that he must suffer. And yet, he persisted in what he was doing, believing that it was what needed to happen in order to bring about a great good in the world. That when he is lifted up on the cross, he will draw all the world to himself.
His suffering was not an accident. It wasn’t a consequence. It was a path that needed to be walked in. And he chose that path at the very beginning of his public ministry, when he was in the desert being tempted, that rather than choosing the easy way out and taking the shortcut to glory, he chose the path of suffering in order to bring about the redemption of the world.
Turning to our reading from the Book of Hebrews, we have one of the richest analogies in the Christian Scriptures – that Jesus became a high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
A few things that we need to define to catch everyone up. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there were many people who served as priests, but it was the High Priest who was to offer the sacrifices of and on behalf of the people on their holiest of days. It was he (because it was always a man) who offered the sacrifices at the Tabernacle, and in the Temple, on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. It was he who sprinkled the blood of goats and bulls on the altar, and on the people, and on the furnishings in the most holy place – a place in which no one was permitted to enter, except for this one person on this one day. This is the High Priest, the one who offers the most important of sacrifices each year.
And then there’s Melchizedek. In Genesis chapter 14, as Abraham is back from a battle against an army of 5 kingdoms that has taken his nephew Lot captive, and in which Abraham was successful in taking back his nephew, the other people, and all the spoils of war – as he is coming back he is met on the journey by the king of Salem (which will later become the city Jerusalem). The king of Salem was named Melchizedek, which means “king of righteousness.”
Salem means peace, like shalom, and Melchizedek means king of righteousness, so he was both the king of peace and king of righteousness, and is described as a priest of God Most High. King of righteousness, king of peace, priest of God Most High. He blesses Abraham in the name of God Most High, and Abraham gives him a tenth of the spoil.
This Melchizedek becomes a metaphor for Jesus, that in his death, once for all unlike the sacrifices that the people needed to offer annually, Jesus has now become a High Priest like Melchizedek.
Which is a long way to come back around to the point – That Jesus, anguished before his death on the cross, through his suffering was made perfect, and life and peace flowed out from him to those walking in the way of Jesus, our high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Last week I was asked if I had a favorite verse in Scripture, and I do. It’s 5 verses, actually, from Romans 5:1-5: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Suffering leads to patience, patience leads to virtue, virtue leads to hope, and this hope will never let us down because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given us.
There’s no doubt about it, that suffering is awful. It’s not a fun path to walk in, it’s not a fun set of emotions to go through, it’s not a fun life to live. But just because we suffer at times doesn’t mean that it’s all hopeless. It doesn’t mean that all is lost. Change might tarry and seem a far way off, but hope still exists, even if we can’t see it, feel it believe it, or hope for it.
Consider Jesus. He is presented to us as knowing in advance of what lay ahead for him as he came to Jerusalem one last time that Passover festival. And yet he continued, pressed ahead, even if he was in anguish about it, because he knew that God would do the extraordinary through it.
And that then becomes a consolation and a model for us to follow. Consolation, because in the midst of our suffering we can recognize that Jesus also suffered. Jesus also dreaded what awaited him. And through his cries and tears to the one who would rescue him from death, he was made perfect and given a life that never dies. And we are benefactors of that life as well, one that will never die, because the same God who rescued him from death and then glorified him, will do the same for us. There is still hope.
And this is a model for us as well. That as we are in the midst of our affliction, to carry on, knowing that God brought Jesus through it, and that God is capable of doing the same for us. And that through our afflictions, God is changing our hearts, taking us from the selfishness inherent in the human heart, to the selflessness of loving one’s neighbor, friend and enemy alike; of caring for the poor, the destitute, the oppressed, and the marginalized; of rejoicing with those who rejoice, and mourning with those who mourn; and in all things, of doing that which is right and which pleases God and makes for peace and righteousness in this world.
That is the suffering of Jesus, which brings life to the whole world, and light and peace and love. For Jesus as well as for us, there is redemption in our afflictions. Not just resolution, but redemption. Life.
So may you, my sisters and my brothers in Jesus,
Find hope in the midst of affliction?
Endure affliction, knowing that it leads to patience, virtue, and hope?
Take heart, knowing that the suffering of Jesus has brought us all life in God?
“May I speak and may we all hear in the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit”
A blessed Easter to you all! And what a blessing it is for me to be here with you today!
For Christians everywhere, that Easter morning when Christ rose from the dead marks the completion and total fulfillment of the promised salvation and reconciliation between humanity and the Divine. It is the day when God showed powerfully that death had no power over his Beloved Son, Jesus the Messiah, and through his new life has brought hope and joy and light to the world.
For our reading today, we have the most curious of things: the Gospel of Mark’s original ending, which concludes at the sentence that reads “they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.”
That’s a strange spot for a Gospel book to end. The tomb is empty, the angelic figure tells them that Jesus is not dead but has come back to life – tells them that they should tell the other disciples to go meet him in Galilee – and they don’t say a work to anyone because they were afraid in their terror and amazement.
It’s not a good look, right? This is the main and primary message of the early Church! Jesus Christ is risen… today! A-a-a-a-a-le-lu-u-yah!
The resurrection of Jesus is a joyful thing. The power of God’s hand has overcome the power of death and the grave! God brought Jesus back from the dead, and we too shall share in that resurrected life. If God was able to bring Jesus back from the dead, we too shall rise again to everlasting life.
This message, this good news, was a core tenet of the teachings of the other authors of books found in the Christian Scriptures, such as Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that we read from this morning.
Which is all the more curious that this is where Mark’s Gospel ends…
Or does it, because there is more that follows in our Bibles. In fact there are two different versions of Mark’s ending in manuscripts that have been found. There is the shorter ending of Mark that ends at verse 8 which we read this morning, but tacks on an additional verse: “And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.”
Then there’s the longer ending, which has 12 more verses added on which talk about resurrection appearances and that the followers of Jesus will do such things as heal the sick, drive out demons, and pick up venomous snakes or drink poison and not be harmed. Interesting stuff, actually… Makes me think we should start a church that handles venomous snakes regularly as part of our worship as a way of showing that God is with us…
So why have I spent so much of your Easter Sunday talking about textual criticism and the ending of Mark’s Gospel?
Because I can, first of all. You’re my captive audience for today.
But seriously, there are two reasons I’ve subjected you to this.
First, to recapture the awe of the resurrection. Second, to demonstrate the power of the message of resurrection.
As to awe of the resurrection: These stories have been told over, and over, and over again. They are as familiar as a favorite jacket or a favorite song from years ago that you know all the lyrics even though it’s been so long since you last heard it. We love sitting in the joy of the moment and the meaning that we have made of this day as part of our Chrustian faith.
But it wasn’t a familiar motif for Mary Magdalene or the other Mary with her that morning. It was a morning that started out with deep sorrow, for their friend had just been executed by the ruling leaders with the help of Pilate, the roman governor over Judea. They were going to complete the burial ritual that they didn’t have time to do before nightfall and the start of the sabbath when he had died. Along the way they have a very practical discussion about how they are going to get into the tomb since there is a massive rock in the way. Maybe they can find someone who will help.
But they arrive and lo and behold the stone has already been moved. And inside the tomb they find an angelic figure who speaks words of comfort to them and tells them that Jesus isn’t in the tomb, because he isn’t dead. Death was not able to hold him down. And this is a message that the others need to hear.
So the women leave, but they don’t go and tell anyone – they can’t tell anyone – because it doesn’t make sense to them. They weren’t expecting resurrection that morning. They were expecting death. And when they didn’t find the dead, they were amazed, and confused, and terrified, and bewildered. Resurrection caught them by surprise.
In other words, they were in awe of the resurrection of Jesus.
And that’s where the add-ons to Mark’s Gospel come into play, because the message of resurrection is a powerful message – that God is able to bring life where there was death. God is able to bring light where there was darkness. God is able to bring hope where there was despair.
This is a message that others need to hear, and participate in, and benefit from. Others need to know that this is out there. Others, worldwide, need to know that God’s love has come to us, bringing life and peace and redemption. That there is hope, for this life and for the one yet to come. Jesus didn’t just come to overthrow Rome and some had hoped he would.
In his resurrection, he overthrew evil.
He didn’t start a revolution against Rome. He started a revolution against death, and brought a revolution of love for all the world.
This now is good news – Gospel – for today and for the life after this life. For the life to come, the resurrection of Jesus demonstrated that death is not the end or even something to be feared. If death couldn’t hold Jesus down, then we too shall be partakers in that same resurrection life. This is our hope, that we need not fear death, knowing that in the goodness of God there is life abundant for us.
This is also good news for today. Jesus’ work and message and teachings were all vindicated when he rose again. As he hung on the cross, just before he died, he said “it is finished” before hanging his head in death. All that he needed to do was done. All that he needed to teach his friends and anyone who would listen to him had been accomplished. And if he had died and stayed dead, it all would have been lost. Think about the sorry state of his friends, who had scattered and were in hiding for fear that the same fate awaited them. But in his resurrection, he was vindicated, and all that he did was proved to be true. God’s approval was stamped on his life in the resurrection life.
And therefore, we are wise to pay all the more attention to what it was that he taught us about loving God and loving our neighbor.
This is the power of the resurrected life of Jesus, that gives life to the whole world, both in this life and in the one yet to come.
Now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit be all dominion, glory and power. Amen.
Easter 3B - 4/14/2024
Let’s talk about sin.
This is, understandably, something that we as Episcopalians don’t discuss often. Sin–especially personal sin–is a topic that we just don’t reflect on much.
And this is not a peculiarity of being Episcopalian. Other mainline denominations do the same, and even when remembering the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ will seldom delve deeply into a discussion of the nature of personal sin.
Corporate sin we’re much more likely to talk about – sins such as systemic racism, economic oppression, ecosystem and environmental abuse, and marginalization of minorities or LGBTQ+ individuals. But personal sins… that we’re much, much less likely to discuss or hear about in churches.
I can venture a few guesses of why this has come about. I suspect we are reluctant to talk about our sins, in part, because of the excesses and abuses of the church in the past. In the Middle Ages the idea grew that we are wretchedly evil, and without the mercy of God are left to face a torment more fierce than could possibly be imagined. Think about the arts that came from that era in European history, in stories and paintings, of what the wrath of God supposedly looks like upon the unrepentant and the wicked.
Following that, the Reformers infused this theology into their explorations of what it means to receive mercy from God through Jesus Christ, who saves us from the wrath of God. We hear this language still in our Prayer Books, in the traditional form of the confession found in Rite I – for those raised in the Episcopal Church, these words may be familiar:
Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men. We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life, to the honor and glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
But that language is foreign to us so often. That’s not how we think of ourselves, or our standing before God. Bewailing our manifold sins and wickedness? Provoking most justly the wrath and indignation of God against us?
These are foreign words to us, are they not? They seem more appropriate in a more Fundamentalist setting, I suppose.
We Mainline Protestants just don’t like talking about personal sin. We don’t like reflecting on our lives, reflecting on the places that we fall short, and the things that we have done that are not in accord with the attributes of God.
We’ve seen the abuses and the destruction that has been caused by majoring on this idea called “sin,” and debasing oneself as though we are unworthy of the mercy of God’s love. So we’ve chosen not to go there, and instead to focus on the more… attractive parts of life. Because, we are a reasonable people, and we don’t want to continue in these beliefs that we find distasteful, and themselves profoundly evil. So when it comes to sin, we just don’t go there.
And if nothing else, it seems like an antiquated idea, like the sun revolving around the earth, or the heavens being held up by pillars at the four corners of the earth. And like those outdated ideas of science and how the universe works, the same goes for this idea of sin.
But if not for sin, why then the resurrection?
When John, the one to be known for baptizing in the Jordan River, when he was born, his father proclaimed “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins…”
When the Angel appears to Joseph, betrothed to Mary, Joseph hears, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
As we see, even before his conception, the coming of Jesus was centered on being the remedy for the consequences of sins of the world.
This is likewise reflected in our readings for this morning. Peter declares to the crowd that they, in their ignorance, condemned to death the Author of life, and through this act of ignorance and his death, they are now able to have their sins wiped away.
Likewise, in John’s Epistle, we read that Jesus was revealed to us to take away sins, because in him there is no sin, and that those who are children of God through Christ purify themselves from sins, just as Jesus is pure.
And perhaps most forcefully we hear this in another place, in St. Paul’s writing to the Church in Rome, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set us free from the law of sin and death, for God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
So we find that the Incarnation and Resurrection cannot be divorced from sin in the world of the Scriptures. At least not in the writings of the New Testament authors.
And that is why we have come together, to find grace in the face of Jesus Christ. We are a resurrection people, and we believe in the love that God showed to us and to the world in sending Jesus to bring peace between us and our God, that through the power of his life we would have hope for this life and for the one yet to come.
In the spirit of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, that old truism that what we pray is what we believe, let’s look to the Catechism found in our Prayer Books. In case you wish to look later at page 858, we find instructions into our faith regarding the Sacrament of Baptism. And here we read that the inward and spiritual grace of our baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God’s family, the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit.
Baptism is the beginning of our new life in Christ, which is intimately tied to his death and resurrection, and where we receive new life and the forgiveness of sin.
Likewise, in Holy Communion, in the Body and Blood of Christ in which we partake, we receive the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our union with Christ and one another, and are given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet which will be our nourishment in the life to come.
And now, thanks to the loving mercy of God, there is grace enough for us, and we have the confidence to know that we are loved and that we are forgiven. And by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
So together with you, my friends in Christ, may we search our hearts and confess our sins to God that we may find abundant grace in the forgiveness of our sins. May we be likewise a forgiving and gracious people, just as God is gracious. And may we look with hope for the fulfillment of the promise of joining with Christ at that heavenly banquet in the next life.
Now to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
Easter 4B - 4/21/2024
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday
Our Scripture readings weave together a portrait of Jesus’ love for us and how we are to respond to such a great love, through the imagery of shepherding.
Shepherding was in the lifeblood of Israel – In the stories of their ancestors, the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their families all kept flocks of sheep; many of the Israelites who migrated to Egypt kept sheep, Moses herded sheep for his father-in-law Jethro, and David for his father Jesse. So shepherding was a well known occupation for the nation of Israel, and continued to be so in Jesus time. It was the shepherds in the fields to whom the angels appeared with “good news of great joy” on the night that Jesus was born.
Being a shepherd was also a familiar metaphor for Israel, and in particular regarding its leaders. The prophet Michaiah said that the people of Israel were like sheep without a shepherd, under the hand of its evil kings. Jeremiah writes that the shepherds are senseless, and therefore the flock is scattered. But most significantly, Ezekiel 34 speaks about the sorry state of the Jewish people, who are like sheep that are suffering, and who will have the Lord as their shepherd. Strikingly, verses 23-4 read, “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.”
So now we hear in our Gospel reading of Jesus telling his friends that he is the Good Shepherd. He is like the ones that God sent in the past to guide the people in the ways that the Almighty desired the people to walk in – ways of justice and mercy, kindness and compassion, and faithfulness to the God who came to their help to rescue them from slavery in Egypt.
Jesus, then, is the Good Shepherd, and in Jesus’ words, the good shepherd, in contrast to the hired hand, lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand runs away when danger comes, but the Good Shepherd does not, and instead will lay down his life for the sheep because he loves them and go as far as to give his life to save them from harm.
This is then taken up in the later New Testament to not simply be a metaphor – that Jesus literally died for the sake of those in his care, for all of humanity. That his death on the cross had a greater meaning to it, and that through his death we have found redemption and the forgiveness of sins through this act. That when he cried out “It is finished” from the cross, it meant this all was part of a bigger purpose.
Consider then what we read in the letter of John that we heard read today.
The author wrote: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us– and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
Question: Does this mean that we, then, are to die for one another, just like Jesus died for us? After all, when Jesus laid down his life for us, it was on the Roman cross. Does that mean that we are also called to literally die for one another?
Look at where the letter from John goes from there. The next sentence: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”
That is delivered so fast, it’s like a slap in the face. Read it again, in context. “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us– and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”
This is what it means to lay down our lives for another – to put aside our priorities and prerogatives for the sake of another in need.
That in the same spirit of Jesus, who put aside equality with God so that he might come to save us from the power of sin and death, that we should be so moved in compassion for our fellow human being who suffers.
This self-sacrificing attitude is a model for us. Because Jesus laid down his life for us, we are to do likewise and lay aside our prerogatives and priorities for those we see in need. And we lay down our lives when we help those in need, sharing the world’s goods with them. Sharing our wealth with the destitute. Being generous to the needs of those who hunger, or are sick, or suffering. Loving not only in word, but also in deed.
Each of these acts is presented as a part of sacrificing ourselves, figuratively. That really gives rise to the sentiment, giving until it hurts. But it is a call to all of us that, as we are able, to be generous to others, just as God was generous to us, giving us life through the life given at the Cross.
The Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and his sheep know him. He knows their hearts, their fears, their needs, their personalities, their hopes and dreams. But then he says the most curious thing, he says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also.” I have other sheep. Jesus’ original audience was the people of Israel, the Jews. But here we read that Jesus has other sheep. Sheep that do not belong to this fold. Sheep, which the early Church came to see that the love of God transcended these national boundaries. That God loved the Samaritans, and wanted them to be part of the fold. And that God loved the Gentiles, and wanted them to be part of the fold. And that in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, free or slave. That all are equally loved in the kingdom of God and in the eyes of God.
In this we find that the love of God is expansive. It is inclusive, not exclusive, and that the love of God extends to places and to people that we would not expect it. The love of God is bigger than we would ever expect, including people we never would have imagined were loved by God. This should be the first thing that tips us off that God is not like us, and that we are not like God, and that we have a lot to learn about what it means to love like God loves.
The Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and lays down his life for theirs. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.
So may you, my brothers and sisters, be generous to those around you, in love and in deed. May you discover the expansiveness of God in your heart to love all that God loves. And may you follow in the footsteps of the “good” shepherd, who loves you and knows you.
Rogation days
This is a very special day indeed. A day that we mark our calendars so that we don’t fail to remember to reach out to loved ones and tell them that we love them, and to remember the many and varied blessings that we enjoy in this life. That’s right, today is the Sunday preceding the minor Rogation Days: those 3 days, Monday to Wednesday, following the feast of the Ascension, when we thank God for the blessing of life and pray for an abundance of crops in the coming year. But, having been counseled on numerous occasions throughout the years not to deliver a sermon that shares all the gory details of the pagan origins of the day and unsavory practices that the Christian Church adopted that go along with the day… that doesn’t leave me with much to say about Rogation Days instead we’ll turn our attention toward it being Mother’s Day.
And yes, this reminds me of a cartoon that was shared with me of two clergy, the one who had a parishioner come to them after the service and chastise them for not preaching about Mother’s Day, the other who was reminded by a parishioner that Mother’s Day is not in our Lectionary.
But I’m going to go this route anyway, and to reflect on the meaning of this day, especially in its historical context. Just like I enjoy doing every year with you. And we’ll do that through the lens of our readings today.
One of the hardest things to do in life is to live in-between. To be between two events, where the one has happened and you’re waiting for the next. Eagerly. Anxiously. Expectantly. Fearfully. But whatever the emotion, you’re living in-between.
That is perhaps made harder in a world where instant gratification is the norm. We’ve become more and more used to things happening quickly. This has been true for years, of course, but I have the real feeling that it’s only getting more true–at least it is for me.
That’s what today is. In-Between.
We are in-between Christ’s Ascension into heaven, which was celebrated this past Thursday, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which is next Sunday. Christ has departed, flown off into the skies, and the Holy Spirit hasn’t yet come. That must have been an anxious time, of the disciples not knowing what to expect, and not knowing what comes next.
For the disciples, they certainly didn’t know what to expect after Jesus had ascended into heaven and they went back to their homes. The last thing they heard from Jesus was this: that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them, and that they would be Christ’s witnesses, here in this city and all throughout the world. And they knew something was going to happen, something wonderful, whatever it was, and which is why they cast lots to appoint Matthias to take Judas’ place as one of the twelve. They needed to fill their numbers back up to full because something was going to happen, and they needed to be ready for it.
And then they waited, not knowing what came next. Or when it would come. But they just waited.
In some ways their waiting was similar to what happened following the crucifixion, when they had locked themselves into the upper room because they were afraid of what might happen to them. Their teacher had just been crucified and they didn’t know what would happen to them. It was an anxious and fearful time.
This time, though, they have seen the risen Jesus appear to them on several occasions, and at the end of it all he ascended into the clouds in front of their very eyes.
And rather than fear, I would imagine that now they would be filled with a hopeful, though uncertain, anticipation of what was to come, whatever it might be. And whatever it would be, it would be a major change for them.
We also live in anxious times, uncertain about what the future might hold. It seems that we’re always on the edge as a society, always worried about what may lie ahead for us, and the news is always full of uncertainty and fear. What the future might be is a bit of a mystery, and there is a lot that is unknown for us. It could be OK, it could be terrible.
And this is where we make our turn toward Mother’s Day.
The original idea for Mother’s Day was not to be a day to be sentimental about having a mother and being grateful for what mothers do for their families. No, it was derived from a call that came following the Civil War for a better solution than the bloodshed of violence and making war to solve conflict.
One of the earliest calls for a Mother’s Day came in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe, who wrote:
“Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battlefield. Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered as never before.
“Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.”
Thus, the idea of Mother’s Day came out of the mid-late 1800s, from women who watched their sons go to fight on both sides of the Civil War, who worked on the battlefields to bind the wounds of the injured, and who cared for the casualties of that war.
Ann Jarvis was the mother of Anna Jarvis, the woman who was instrumental in the national founding of Mother’s Day. In 1868 Ann (the mother) organized a committee to establish a “Mother’s Friendship Day”, the purpose of which was “to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War.” Ann Jarvis, who had previously organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve sanitation and health for both Union and Confederate encampments undergoing a typhoid outbreak, wanted to expand these into an annual memorial for mothers, but she died in 1905 before the annual celebration was established.
In 1910, through her daughter Anna’s efforts, West Virginia declared the 2nd Sunday in May to be Mother’s Day, and by 1914 it became a national holiday. And interestingly, it was not long before the greeting card companies sentimentalized the day, turning public focus to being grateful for mothers and away from the day’s original purpose as a post-war movement. Anna Jarvis was not happy about this – least because she thought it was a trivial thing to thank a mother for all she had done by buying a mass produced greeting card rather than a handmade letter – and she went on to protest what Mother’s Day had become. In time, she became financially and emotionally distressed to the point that she was admitted to a sanitarium outside Philadelphia. But lest you worry about the cost of such care, she was fine: Her bills were paid for by the greeting card companies themselves to ensure that she stayed there.
Poor thing.
My time is short, so I will conclude with this: If you wish to truly honor your mother today, and to honor all mothers of the world, let today be more than simply a day to thank her for her sacrifices made on your behalf. Let today be a day to reflect on what it is that we have to learn from them–that charity, mercy, and patience are virtues that have true power to change the world, just as these are virtues taught to us by Christ Jesus, and by God, our true Mother. And let our lives, in ever-increasing measure, be characterized not by division, anger, or violence, but rather by a desire for peace and mutual affection, just as God loved us and showed us a better way.
In the Name…
If there is a theme that emerges from our readings for today, or something that pops out at us that we should address, it’s this matter about the Devil, or the serpent in the garden, or this Beelzebub that Jesus is accused of colluding with.
In Genesis, we have the fall of humanity, as they are tempted by the serpent to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. The speaking serpent talks to the humans and convinces them to break God’s command, and thus sin and death enter into the created order.
Certainly seems a bit far-fetched, and more myth than historical event.
But when we hear stories about Jesus, at least when I do, I think of the historical Jesus, who we believe was truly born as a man to a young woman living in Palestine around 2000 years ago. That makes it that much more historically real, that this interaction really did happen. That Jesus really did have this conversation with them, and spoke these words or something similar to them. And as such, this is not a prehistoric myth-event that supposedly happened untold ages ago, passed down over millenia through oral tradition before it was ever written down. We expect that these things can be taken at face value, at least more so than other parts of Scripture, like perhaps the Genesis story.
And what do we find today? We have Jesus the exorcist, casting out demons, which is problematic because we tend not to believe in demon possession. Perhaps some of us do, but I would guess that most of us do not, or at least deeply question it. Next, the warning that the people are close to committing the Unforgivable Sin, whatever that is–it’s not really clear. And finally, when Jesus’ mother and his siblings come, to possibly stop him from embarrassing the family or perhaps out of a sense of familial duty to the community to restrain their out-of-control son, he dissociates himself from them, essentially saying “You’re not my real mom.”
What draws all these things together is the connection between thinking and doing. Look back at our collect for today. It reads,
“O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them”
That was the problem in Genesis, in the Fall of humanity, and in this episode from the life of Christ.
The man and the woman came to distrust God’s words to them, to doubt that their creator was being honest with them, and instead went with their desires of their hearts and did things that they were expressly told not to do. They were told not to eat the fruit of that one tree, and they did.
And in the Gospel reading, those around Jesus thought that he had gone mad, that he was out of control–even including his family, who went to him to try and stop him. And because of this, because they did not accept him, even in the face of these acts of power and miraculous works, they accused him of having come not from God but of being in collusion with the devil. By Beelzebub he does these things, he has the prince of demons in him, and that’s why he can do this.
Beelzebub, the God of the Phillistines in the city of Ekron, Lord of the Flies, and later synonymous with the Devil himself. By Beelzebub does Jesus do these things, comes the accusation.
Right thinking leads to right acting. And similarly, wrong thinking leads to wrong acting, wrong doing.
And look at the power of what right and wrong thinking can do.
For the crowd around Jesus, some thought wrongly about Jesus, and end up accusing him of not working with the power of God, but of the devil himself.
But for those who trust and believe, we see a reshaping of what it means to be family. Those who believe and do right become Jesus’ family. We have a reshaping of the Christian community, where we all become sisters and brothers, siblings of one another and with one another. We are more than just a collective of individuals who fill a space together, but there is the formation of a new community in the Body of Christ, the Church. It’s not just a gathering or a building, but we have become the people of God, adopted into the family of God. The curse is broken, and the world is being restored to its original created glory.
In this statement, we see a reimagining of the Christian community. Right thinking leads to right acting as we are becoming the family of God. And it begs the question, at least for me, of why do we gather together? What is the purpose of our coming together as the Church gathered?
To worship together, to grow in Christlikeness together, and to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. Or as our catechism describes the mission of the Church:
So, we, all of us, pray and worship our God. We proclaim to the world that God loves us with an inestimable love, because God is love. And we strive for justice, peace, and love to fill our world. And we are all in this, and we all have a part in it.
Right thinking leads to right acting.
And to not leave you hanging, many of you might be wondering what is this thing about the eternal sin Jesus spoke of. What is this Unforgivable Sin? That sounds pretty serious, something that cannot or God will not forgive, right? Here is my understanding of the matter; that it seems to relate to attributing the works of God to the devil. That it is not the Holy Spirit and it is not God working these wonders, but it is Satan who does these things. It’s not the power of God that casts out the demons, but it is a trick of the Devil through Jesus to draw the minds of men to follow Satan. So Jesus gives his reply, about a house divided not being able to stand, and that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven their sin. Then, the Gospel reads that Jesus said this because they were saying “he has an unclean spirit.” So this unforgivable sin is attributing the work of God to the Devil, or saying that Jesus is colluding with Satan.
Right thinking leads to right acting… and being right with God.
So may you, my sisters and brothers in Christ, be transformed in your hearts and your minds, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that you may know and trust God. May you, in knowing God, and in trusting God, do the works of God, bringing all humanity to unity with God and one another. And may you, as members of God’s Church, pray and worship, proclaim the Gospel, and promote justice, peace, and love
Our reading this morning from Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus meets the Syrophonecian woman, as she is called when talking about this story from the life of Jesus, is one of my favorite moments in the life of Christ. I’m kinda a big softie for a couple two t’ree of the stories where Jesus meets women: the woman caught in adultery for how he tells her that he does not condemn her, the woman with the issue of blood for how he affirms her and heals her soul as well as body, and this story.
Here in this story, Jesus initially seems to refuse the woman’s plea for help. She is a Gentile, and he gives this metaphor, that it’s not fitting to take the food from the children and throw it to the dogs. It’s quite harsh, actually, but she responds with wisdom and wit: perhaps, but at least the dogs get to eat the table crumbs that fall from the children’s table. And for that, Jesus tells the woman to go in peace for her daughter has been healed.
Because of her persistence she got Jesus to change his mind.*
What you don’t see is that there is an asterisk there, which we’ll get to in a moment. We’ll come back to that.
There’s two things that are happening here in the background that I find inspiring for another reason, that come together to make one point – that there are multiple ways to understand what happened in this moment of Jesus’ life. That will carry up onto to a larger point in the end.
The first background factor is what I just mentioned, the conclusion that Jesus changed his mind. And the background worth considering is that this is not the only way to understand what Jesus does in this encounter. Where I went to college, that was not the conclusion drawn here.
Why? Because Jesus couldn’t be anything other than perfect. He is all wise and all compassionate, so he couldn’t have been serious about refusing to help her, and it couldn’t have been his intention to not help. Likewise, it couldn’t have been his intention to dismiss her based on race or nationality, so his words to her must have been something else.
Perhaps he was testing her to see if her faith was strong enough to not take no for an answer? Perhaps he knew all along how she would respond, so he said it so that she could share her wisdom. But he knew all along that he was going to help her. Of course he would help her. He’s Jesus.
That’s not satisfactory to me because of what it says about the cruelty of his words, that they are OK as long as they achieve the greater good, if that all were true.
But this is the point – that there’s not one way that we understand Jesus, and not one set of beliefs that one must hold. And there’s not one way that we understand God, one dogma that we all ascribe to and confess and hold in common. That’s true of us in this room, and consider how much more that is true the farther we go outside these walls!
The second background factor lies in the fact that this story doesn’t appear only in one book in our Scriptures. It also appears in Matthew’s Gospel, but is not in Luke or John. And therein lies the point – that there are multiple accounts that we have in our Scriptures of the life of Jesus. That is actually a bit unique in the biblical narrative. Most events in the Bible are only recorded in one place – the exception being the life of David, Solomon, and the kings of Judah in the Books of Chronicles that also are recorded in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings.
But for the life of Jesus, we have four accounts of his life. Four different authors who wrote about the life, the actions, and the teachings of Jesus have their books preserved in our Bibles. And, again at the dismay of my professors in college and seminary, they don’t always agree. Details are different, what episodes from Jesus life are included are different, places and locations are different. Two authors include the story of the Syrophonecian woman, two do not. The details here are quite similar between the two different accounts, but that’s not always the case. One of the most difficult to reconcile between the authors is when and where did Jesus first appear to his disciples after the tomb was found empty by Mary Magdelene and the other women with her. Was it that morning? That evening? Days later? Was it in Jerusalem or in Galilee? Different Gospel authors give different answers.
And that’s the point. That in history, there were different stories and different understandings of Jesus and who he is and was. In his life and teaching he surprised and confounded people enough that he was impossible to pin down to one understanding of what he did, what he said, and what it all meant.
And we still have that challenge today. Why did he respond to the woman the way he did? Why did he initially refuse to help her? Was he testing her? Was he serious about not wanting to help a Gentile?
And all of this brings us to the conclusion: That it’s OK to hold your own unique understanding of what God is like. That it’s OK to have your own understanding of Jesus and what he did and why? And what his relation to God the Father is, and what the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is and means and implies for how we should live.
We’re all on this journey together, of trying to understand what God is like, who Jesus was, what he did, and why, and what we are to do about it today.
And that really might be the easiest part of it: What we are to do about it today? That is the clearest thing that comes forward from what he learn from these accounts of Jesus life and those who came after him to continue to share the teachings Jesus gave in his life – that we are to love God, and to love one another. That we are to follow the example of Jesus, and to imitate what he modeled for us, which we do so when we show extraordinary kindness to one another. Self-sacrificially, considering others better than ourselves, and putting aside our cares in order to assist other’s needs. That’s one of the things that comes through the clearest from the life of Jesus, even in this encounter he had with the Syrophonecian woman – that he put aside his hesitations in order to heal the daughter of woman in her persistence and love for her daughter.
This is one of the stories of Jesus, and one of the ways to understand Jesus, that we bring together into this community of those walking in the way of Jesus. And in doing so, we find that the way of Jesus is the best possible way to live.
So together with you, my friends in christ, may we learn from one another as we share in christ. May we be imitators of Jesus, that we may grow in wisdom and grace. And may we love the Lord our God and our neighbors in ever increasing measure, each and every day.