20 Pentecost B 09
October 18, 2009
Job 38:1-7, 34-41
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: 2 "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. 4 "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
34 "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you? 35 Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go and say to you, 'Here we are'? 36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind? 37 Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, 38 when the dust runs into a mass and the clods cling together? 39 "Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40 when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert? 41 Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?
Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2 wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, 3 you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, 4 you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers. 5 You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight. 8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
Praise the LORD!
Hebrews 5:1-10
1 Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; 3 and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. 4 And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was. 5 So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"; 6 as he says also in another place, "You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek." 7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 9 and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 10 having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Mark 10:35-45
35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 36 And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" 37 And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 38 But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" 39 They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." 41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
God’s Question
If you want to read one of the great sermons on this text from Mark this morning, I invite you to check out Martin Luther King’s sermon entitled “The Drum Major Instinct.” Just look it up on line if you’ve got the internet, and if you don’t I’d be happy to give you a copy.
You know, I was praying the other day, and I was lifting up my problems to Jesus and telling him all about them. I was lifting up other people’s problems and the church’s problems and the problems of the world. I lift up all these problems because I know that Jesus is our great high priest, and that’s the high priest’s job of course, to listen to our problems and relay them to God.
I was asking Jesus some of the big questions, as I sometimes do. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the wicked prosper? Why, Jesus, are there so many different ideas of who you are and what you want? Why is there war and poverty? Why do our loved ones leave us? Why do people do such awful things in your name?
So anyway, there I am blabbing away to Jesus, and all of a sudden, Jesus said, “Excuse me?”
I was taken aback. I’m generally unused to be addressed by the high priest. I thought I’d misheard, so I just resumed reciting my list of difficulties.
And the voice came again, “Excuse me.”
Well, this time I heard it and shut up. “Yes?” I said.
“I’m glad you’re sharing all these problems with me,” Jesus said.
“Well, thanks,” I said.
“I’m happy to share your problems with God,” he said.
“Well, thank you, Jesus,” I said. “That’s very good of you.”
I thought I heard an exasperated sigh, but I might have imagined it.
And Jesus said, “I hear all these questions you have for God and I pass them on to God, but did you know that God also passes questions to me for you?”
And I said, “God has questions?”
And Jesus said, “God has lots of questions.”
And I said, “Well, I’m not sure I can answer questions coming from God.”
And Jesus said, “Well, that’s okay. That’s what I’m for. Part of my job is to ask you God’s questions in terms you can understand.”
And I said, “Well, go ahead. Shoot. I’ll do the best I can.”
And Jesus said, “Well, it seems you’d like God to do something about the situations and people you’re asking about. What God is wondering is, would you like to have his power to fix the things you think need fixing?”
And I said, “Oh, I don’t think so. I think I’d probably misuse power like that.”
And Jesus said, “Well, what if we threw in God’s wisdom along with God’s power, so that you’d have a good idea of how to use it?”
“Well,” I said, “that sounds better. That sounds pretty good in fact.”
To tell you the truth, I was already scheming and plotting, but I didn’t tell Jesus this. I thought about how important I’d become. I was thinking how many people would fear and respect me. I was thinking how many people would gather around and hear what I had to say. I was thinking how many people would love me.
And Jesus said, “Well, I can hook you up. I can fill you with the Spirit of God. You will be able to do miracles. You will be able to transform the world. You will have all the answers. How does that sound?”
And I said, “Well, Jesus, it sounds like a great burden, but if you think I’m worthy of it, I guess I can take it on.”
And I was thinking, woo-hoo, I’m going to be the boss of everybody!
And Jesus said, “But before I do, God has a few more questions for you.”
And I said, “I’m here and I’m ready.”
Jesus said, “You asked me to ask God why bad things happen to good people, and God asked me to ask you a question of his own.”
I said, “I’m your humble servant and I will do my best.”
And Jesus said, “Why do good people crucify God?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, and so Jesus went on.
He said, “Why do good people all over the world rob and murder and oppress the image of God? Why do good people distrust God when all around them creation sings in glorious harmony and perfection? Why do good people hate God and reject his rule, when our lives, our food, the sunlight and the rain are all his free gift? Why do people fear death, when life clearly goes on and on, when it is so obvious that nothing is ever lost or wasted? Why do people steal other people’s resources when there’s more than enough provided by God for everyone? Why do people feel covetous when they see someone else who appears to have more than they, even though they have all they need? Why do good people neglect the grieving, abandon the imprisoned, ignore the poor? Why do good people who are strong take advantage of good people who are weak?”
And I said, “I don’t know, Jesus.”
And I was thinking, who knew? Who knew that while we are asking God to have compassion for us, that he might also be asking us to have compassion for him.
And Jesus asked me, “Are you able to receive God’s Spirit? Are you able to receive God’s perspective and see with his eyes? Are you ready to receive God’s heart and feel what he feels? Are you able to receive God’s ears and hear what he hears? Are you able to receive God’s word and say what God wants said? Are you able to receive God’s responsibility and carry out what God wants to be done?
Are you ready to accept the whole of creation as your care?”
“Are you able,” he asked me, “to be baptized with the baptism I was baptized with, and to drink the cup I drank?”
It was quite a question.
Amen.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost Year B 2009
19 Pentecost B 09
October 11, 2009
Job 23: 1-9, 16-17
1 Then Job answered: 2 "Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. 3 Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! 4 I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. 5 I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. 6 Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. 7 There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge. 8 "If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; 9 on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.
16 God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; 17 If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!
Psalm 22:1-16
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. 3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 4 In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. 5 To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. 6 But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; 8 "Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver-- let him rescue the one in whom he delights!" 9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother's breast. 10 On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. 11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. 12 Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.
Hebrews 4:12-16
12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.
14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Mark 10:17-31
17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 18 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" 20 He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." 21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." 26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" 27 Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." 28 Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." 29 Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
How Far?
How long is your journey to your greatness?
What do you think?
How long is our journey to eternal life? How long is our journey to being able to do great deeds of divine power? How long is our journey to becoming children of the light? How far is it between where we are now and the kingdom of God? Who will be the first to get there? Who will be the last?
Don’t ask me. I’m just a human being like you. My opinion doesn’t amount to much. So how do we get this question answered?
One way would be for me to express my opinion and find out how many people agree with me. If you have different opinion, you can express yours and see how many people agree with you. Then we can vote. Whoever gets the most votes wins. But somehow this doesn’t seem to work for such a question.
Some say that the distance is the length of your life, whatever that is. Homer Simpson had a conversation with God on one of the episodes of the Simpsons. It was about a whole lot of things but at the end of the conversation, Homer said, “By the way God, you know how long I’m going to live, don’t you?” And God said, “Sure.” And Homer said, “Well, can you tell me how long I’m going to live?” And God said, “You’ll find that out when you die.” And Homer said, “I can’t wait that long.” And God said, “You can’t wait two weeks?”
So some have the opinion that the kingdom of God is not here in the world, it’s inaccessible to the living. The only gate into the kingdom of God is death. So we don’t really know the distance, we just have to wait. And while we’re waiting, these folks believe, we keep our noses clean morality-wise, so that when we die and we ascend to heaven’s gate we can present our record. If that record passes muster, we get in. And that’s when we find our greatness at the throne of God. Then and only then will we finally meet Jesus and get all our questions answered.
Others think that the kingdom is here on earth, that while you are living, you can decide to receive it, to enter it, to become a part of it. You can turn away from the world you live in and you can leave it, and you can make a journey during your lifetime, and while you are still living in the world, you can receive the eternal life of God, become a citizen of his kingdom, his holy nation, his royal priesthood. You can become like Jesus himself, filled with the Holy Spirit, doing great deeds of power, healing, teaching, prophecying. You can become the living presence of God himself in the world. You can become great while you are in the world.
So, we can take a vote. We can schedule a time when we all get together and the person with the one opinion can go out and campaign and get a bunch of people that agree with him, and the person who has the different opinion can go out and campaign and get a bunch of people that agree with him, and then we’ll get back together and whoever has the most votes is right.
But we do have a great high priest who has ascended above the angels to sit at the right hand of God. If you’d like, we can go to see him, and we can ask him. Each one of us can go before his throne and ask him the question. How far, Jesus? How far do I have to go to inherit eternal life? How far do I have to go to my greatness?
How do we do this? Well, Jesus himself, while he was running around on the planet, told us how. He used the word “remembrance.” By getting together and remembering what Jesus did and said two thousand years ago, and by remembering the scriptures he used as his authority, we can come into his presence, come before his throne, ask him whatever we want. And because we have all already agreed that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God and the Savior of the world, we have already agreed that his way is the right way, we have already agreed that whatever his answer is, that’s the right answer.
So we can go to Jesus right now. We don’t have to listen to the preacher’s opinions. We don’t have to have a vote. We can go by remembering together a story of Jesus’ life and teaching. We can bypass human opinion, and we can go to our agreed-upon authority figure.
Would you like to do that? Okay, well, before we go before the throne of glory, I have a warning I want to give to all of us, including myself. The thing about Jesus that makes him worthy of sitting on that throne is that he loves everyone who comes to him just the way they are.
I’m going to say that again, Jesus, when you meet him, will love you just the way you are.
Do you still want to go? Are you a little nervous? Well, that’s okay, because we’re all going together.
Jesus looked at him and loved him. You see, I told you, I warned you, didn’t I? I told you that Jesus would love you just the way you are. He alone of all authorities in heaven and earth knows you just the way you are, and loves you just the way you are.
He loved the rich man because it was obvious that the rich man loved God and wanted to enter the kingdom, and had indeed made a start by coming to Jesus to meet him, just as we are doing right now by remembering this story. And Jesus looked at him and loved him, just the way he was. He loved the rich man as a person longing to enter the kingdom of God who was also quite obviously selfish and greedy.
Did you hear Jesus’ grief as he watched the rich man staggering away in shock and grief? He saw in the greatness in the rich man, he saw his amazing potential, he saw what that rich man could be in the household of God. Jesus had a room already for him, and he could see that rich man living in that room, rejoicing in eternal life, full of the Spirit and the power of salvation. And Jesus knew exactly how far that rich man would have to travel to get there, and because Jesus loved him, he told him the truth.
And the rich man couldn’t accept it.
The word of God is living and active, a double-edged sword. Jesus loves me just the way I really am, behind my idea of myself, behind all my pretences, beyond all my rationalizations and self-justifications, with all the weakness I don’t think I have, with all the bad motives I deny are in me. He loves me where I am, far from his kingdom, and he loves me enough to tell me to my face just how far I have to go.
Jesus loves me just the way I really am, and meeting him means facing the way I really am.
We have come before Jesus, right before his throne, and we have asked him, “How far are we from the kingdom? How far are we from our greatness?” And he is looking at us, and he is loving us just the way we really are. Look into his eyes and ask him, “How far do I really have to go?” I can’t tell you. No one else in this church can tell you. But he can tell you. He is looking in your eyes and he can see the saint you are meant to be, and he is willing to tell you how far you must go to become that saint. Do you really want to know? Can you accept the truth?
The disciples standing around watching this exchange and observing Jesus’ frustration and grief seem to want to comfort him. “Well, Jesus, we’ve done what you asked the rich man to do, haven’t we?” And Jesus doesn’t dispute it. Of course, we need to remember that those men were all of them caught up in miserable and unhappy lives when Jesus met them. The world they were living in was for them a difficult and hopeless existence. They were like Job or the psalmist today, they were already crying out to God, desperate for his appearance, desperate for his return. The distance between where they started and the kingdom of God was therefore rather short. For this reason, Jesus says, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”
How far to my greatness, Jesus? How far to my sainthood? We ask and Jesus looks at us and loves us just the way we really are. Listen. You can hear his answer.
Amen.
October 11, 2009
Job 23: 1-9, 16-17
1 Then Job answered: 2 "Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. 3 Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! 4 I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. 5 I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. 6 Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. 7 There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge. 8 "If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; 9 on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.
16 God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; 17 If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!
Psalm 22:1-16
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. 3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 4 In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. 5 To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. 6 But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; 8 "Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver-- let him rescue the one in whom he delights!" 9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother's breast. 10 On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. 11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. 12 Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.
Hebrews 4:12-16
12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.
14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Mark 10:17-31
17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 18 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" 20 He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." 21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." 26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" 27 Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." 28 Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." 29 Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
How Far?
How long is your journey to your greatness?
What do you think?
How long is our journey to eternal life? How long is our journey to being able to do great deeds of divine power? How long is our journey to becoming children of the light? How far is it between where we are now and the kingdom of God? Who will be the first to get there? Who will be the last?
Don’t ask me. I’m just a human being like you. My opinion doesn’t amount to much. So how do we get this question answered?
One way would be for me to express my opinion and find out how many people agree with me. If you have different opinion, you can express yours and see how many people agree with you. Then we can vote. Whoever gets the most votes wins. But somehow this doesn’t seem to work for such a question.
Some say that the distance is the length of your life, whatever that is. Homer Simpson had a conversation with God on one of the episodes of the Simpsons. It was about a whole lot of things but at the end of the conversation, Homer said, “By the way God, you know how long I’m going to live, don’t you?” And God said, “Sure.” And Homer said, “Well, can you tell me how long I’m going to live?” And God said, “You’ll find that out when you die.” And Homer said, “I can’t wait that long.” And God said, “You can’t wait two weeks?”
So some have the opinion that the kingdom of God is not here in the world, it’s inaccessible to the living. The only gate into the kingdom of God is death. So we don’t really know the distance, we just have to wait. And while we’re waiting, these folks believe, we keep our noses clean morality-wise, so that when we die and we ascend to heaven’s gate we can present our record. If that record passes muster, we get in. And that’s when we find our greatness at the throne of God. Then and only then will we finally meet Jesus and get all our questions answered.
Others think that the kingdom is here on earth, that while you are living, you can decide to receive it, to enter it, to become a part of it. You can turn away from the world you live in and you can leave it, and you can make a journey during your lifetime, and while you are still living in the world, you can receive the eternal life of God, become a citizen of his kingdom, his holy nation, his royal priesthood. You can become like Jesus himself, filled with the Holy Spirit, doing great deeds of power, healing, teaching, prophecying. You can become the living presence of God himself in the world. You can become great while you are in the world.
So, we can take a vote. We can schedule a time when we all get together and the person with the one opinion can go out and campaign and get a bunch of people that agree with him, and the person who has the different opinion can go out and campaign and get a bunch of people that agree with him, and then we’ll get back together and whoever has the most votes is right.
But we do have a great high priest who has ascended above the angels to sit at the right hand of God. If you’d like, we can go to see him, and we can ask him. Each one of us can go before his throne and ask him the question. How far, Jesus? How far do I have to go to inherit eternal life? How far do I have to go to my greatness?
How do we do this? Well, Jesus himself, while he was running around on the planet, told us how. He used the word “remembrance.” By getting together and remembering what Jesus did and said two thousand years ago, and by remembering the scriptures he used as his authority, we can come into his presence, come before his throne, ask him whatever we want. And because we have all already agreed that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God and the Savior of the world, we have already agreed that his way is the right way, we have already agreed that whatever his answer is, that’s the right answer.
So we can go to Jesus right now. We don’t have to listen to the preacher’s opinions. We don’t have to have a vote. We can go by remembering together a story of Jesus’ life and teaching. We can bypass human opinion, and we can go to our agreed-upon authority figure.
Would you like to do that? Okay, well, before we go before the throne of glory, I have a warning I want to give to all of us, including myself. The thing about Jesus that makes him worthy of sitting on that throne is that he loves everyone who comes to him just the way they are.
I’m going to say that again, Jesus, when you meet him, will love you just the way you are.
Do you still want to go? Are you a little nervous? Well, that’s okay, because we’re all going together.
17 As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up
and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit
eternal life?" 18 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is
good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder;
You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false
witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" 20 He said
to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." 21 Jesus, looking
at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give
the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow
me." 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he
had many possessions.23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the
kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." 26 They
were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?"
27 Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not
for God; for God all things are possible."
28 Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed
you." 29 Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house
or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake
and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold
now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields,
with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are
first will be last, and the last will be first."
Jesus looked at him and loved him. You see, I told you, I warned you, didn’t I? I told you that Jesus would love you just the way you are. He alone of all authorities in heaven and earth knows you just the way you are, and loves you just the way you are.
He loved the rich man because it was obvious that the rich man loved God and wanted to enter the kingdom, and had indeed made a start by coming to Jesus to meet him, just as we are doing right now by remembering this story. And Jesus looked at him and loved him, just the way he was. He loved the rich man as a person longing to enter the kingdom of God who was also quite obviously selfish and greedy.
Did you hear Jesus’ grief as he watched the rich man staggering away in shock and grief? He saw in the greatness in the rich man, he saw his amazing potential, he saw what that rich man could be in the household of God. Jesus had a room already for him, and he could see that rich man living in that room, rejoicing in eternal life, full of the Spirit and the power of salvation. And Jesus knew exactly how far that rich man would have to travel to get there, and because Jesus loved him, he told him the truth.
And the rich man couldn’t accept it.
The word of God is living and active, a double-edged sword. Jesus loves me just the way I really am, behind my idea of myself, behind all my pretences, beyond all my rationalizations and self-justifications, with all the weakness I don’t think I have, with all the bad motives I deny are in me. He loves me where I am, far from his kingdom, and he loves me enough to tell me to my face just how far I have to go.
Jesus loves me just the way I really am, and meeting him means facing the way I really am.
We have come before Jesus, right before his throne, and we have asked him, “How far are we from the kingdom? How far are we from our greatness?” And he is looking at us, and he is loving us just the way we really are. Look into his eyes and ask him, “How far do I really have to go?” I can’t tell you. No one else in this church can tell you. But he can tell you. He is looking in your eyes and he can see the saint you are meant to be, and he is willing to tell you how far you must go to become that saint. Do you really want to know? Can you accept the truth?
The disciples standing around watching this exchange and observing Jesus’ frustration and grief seem to want to comfort him. “Well, Jesus, we’ve done what you asked the rich man to do, haven’t we?” And Jesus doesn’t dispute it. Of course, we need to remember that those men were all of them caught up in miserable and unhappy lives when Jesus met them. The world they were living in was for them a difficult and hopeless existence. They were like Job or the psalmist today, they were already crying out to God, desperate for his appearance, desperate for his return. The distance between where they started and the kingdom of God was therefore rather short. For this reason, Jesus says, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”
How far to my greatness, Jesus? How far to my sainthood? We ask and Jesus looks at us and loves us just the way we really are. Listen. You can hear his answer.
Amen.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Year B 2009
18 Pentecost B 09
October 4, 2009
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
1 There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
1 One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD. 2 The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it." 3 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason." 4 Then Satan answered the LORD, "Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. 5 But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." 6 The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life." 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die." 10 But he said to her, "You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Psalm 26
1 Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. 2 Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and mind. 3 For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you. 4 I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites; 5 I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. 6 I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O LORD, 7 singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds. 8 O LORD, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides. 9 Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty, 10 those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. 11 But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. 12 My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the LORD.
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3 He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
5 Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6 But someone has testified somewhere, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? 7 You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, 8 subjecting all things under their feet." Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 10 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, 12 saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."
Mark 10:2-16
2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." 5 But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." 10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Tests
I hate tests.
I spent 20 years in school and every test I took was harder than the last one.
During my childhood, I remember the anxiety of bringing home my report card. In my home, a “C” was not acceptable, and I would be punished for getting one. “B’s” were worthy of no particular praise or admonishment; they were the least that was expected. Only” A’s” yielded parental approval and possible reward. For a “D” or lower, execution was the only option.
And so tests were the bane of my existence. Tests and papers and exams. I was always sure I wasn’t ready, always sure that I would fail, always thinking about the death sentence on the other side of my failure. I would often get physically sick in anticipation of a test.
It didn’t seem to matter that I usually did fine. I could never remember that yes, I’d been terrified the last time, sure of the end of my life, and not only had I gotten through it, but I usually got a passable grade. I graduated seminary at the top of my class, with honors. But I have never gotten over my horror of tests.
A number of us who are doing Discovering the Bible found a quiz on line that was given to evangelical freshmen at an evangelical college on basic bible facts. These kids had all been raised going to Sunday School every Sunday in so-called “Bible-teaching” churches. The professor reports that the average grade was 50. In my home, that grade would have resulted in my swift execution. I’m glad to say the average grade for those of our Discovering the Bible class who took the quiz was about 75, not including my own grade.
God’s tests, in any event, have a different focus, aim at different objectives, than the tests of our parents or teachers. God periodically chooses to test individuals, congregations, and even the whole church on earth. These tests are not the usual suffering that comes to everyone sooner or later. These tests seem particularly aimed at our willingness to keep to our faithfulness to God when a challenge to that faithfulness appears, when good reasons are presented as to why such faithfulness is undeserved. However, like the tests we get as children, the more we pass, the better we do, the farther down the road we go, the harder those tests get.
The Pharisees test Jesus on the subject of divorce. I’m not sure why. It doesn’t say. Much earlier in the gospel Jesus challenges notions of family when he redefines it as “those who do the will of my Father,” so perhaps they thought he could be tricked into undermining Jewish notions of family. Perhaps the reason was actually more in the spirit of a friendly competitive game. Maybe the Pharisees were simply challenging Jesus to grow, by laying a complex question before him.
But Jesus, as he so often does, changes the playing field. The Pharisees are talking about the world as it is. Jesus talks about the world as it should be, as he is in fact about the business of making it. Jesus is laying the pathway to the salvation of the world, the restoration of paradise, and so it is paradise that he talks about and not the world as it is.
The Pharisees were masters of the law. They knew the law of God inside out. Ask them anything. What is permitted? They know. What is not permitted? They know. In this case the law permitted a man to divorce his wife. It did not permit a wife to divorce her husband. Furthermore, a man could divorce his wife for any reason at all. She burned the eggs. Bad hair. Anything. It didn’t matter what he did to his wife, though. No matter how badly he treated her, she had no way to get out. This was all permitted by the law. You can look it up.
The Pharisees knew exactly how to get along in the world. Follow the law and things go well. Don’t follow it and things will go badly. It follows that if things go well, you must be following the law, and if you are doing poorly, well, you must not be following the law.
Job knew exactly how to get along in the world, too. He followed God’s law, pretty much perfectly. But the prosecuting attorney, in Hebrew, hasatan, or “the satan,” thinks he can expose Job’s motives. Everyone who reads Job it seems wants to say that the question of the book is “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But behind that question, and the real reason such a question even matters, is “Why is God worthy of our faithfulness?” The satan proposes a test. What if Job, who had followed the law perfectly, underwent great suffering? This would expose his heart’s true feelings about God. The satan is betting Job really doesn’t love God or even want to do God’s will, but only fulfills the law for the sake of his own success. God is betting Job’s motives are pure.
It seems capricious of God to make such a wager, to put this poor man through such terrible things. We need to remember that this scene is a cosmic image, a way of talking about something that is really nearly impossible to talk about.
There’s a show on TV called "Supernanny." Anybody seen it? It’s about parents that have lost control of their children and call on this British woman, the Supernanny, to come to their rescue. Supernanny comes into the situation and almost always the problem is not enough rules, not enough bad consequences for bad behavior. She gets the chore list up on the refrigerator, finds a place for the time-out chair, cunningly figures out what the children really value so as to threaten its removal if they’re naughty. She then lays out the law and puts the whole family to the test. Will the parents stick to the plan? Will the plan work? Of course, it always does. The show always ends with the well-behaved children happily gathered with their parents, shouting, “Thank you, Supernanny!”
The law of God is like Supernanny. It’s necessary because the children are out of control, because they are in complete rebellion, because they have no real interest in pleasing or obeying their parents. Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is that Moses wrote the law because of their hardness of heart. The law is only necessary because we don’t want to do it. As long as we don’t want to do it, we need that Supernanny, the law.
But in the world that Jesus is preparing us for, there will be no further need of Supernanny or for the old satan, because the world he is preparing us for is paradise restored. In such a world, laws about divorce will not be necessary. This is the amazing and wonderful and magnificent power of our high priest, Jesus, the pioneer of salvation.
Anyone who has divorced has been to hell and has suffered there in agony, along with their whole family. There are plenty of jokes about this. “Why get married? I’ll just find a woman I don’t like and give her a house.” I have a friend who’s about 30 and hasn’t gotten married yet. When people ask him why, he says, “I think I’ll sit the first one out.”
But the reality of divorce is truly horrible. It’s horrible because in the midst of it, we are most keenly aware of how far from paradise we are. It’s in the midst of such failure that we deeply understand God’s vision of two becoming one flesh, because we feel like we are being ripped apart.
Jesus is not condemning us to hell. He is simply describing the reality of the world as it is, a world under the rule of law, a world requiring a Supernanny to punish our transgressions.
In contrast to this, Jesus admonishes his disciples to allow the children to come to him, because, he says, “to such as these the kingdom of God belongs. Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” What does he mean by this?
My father was gone before I can remember. Some of you know that I was adopted twice; the father I’m referring to is my legal father, the second father (or perhaps the third if you include my biological dad). I haven’t seen him in years. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. When I was a kid I thought he was my biological father. I don’t know why. I think my mother explained adoption to me, but I don’t think I got it.
Anyway he was gone from before I can remember. All through the years I was growing up, he rarely visited. He would sometimes promise a visit, like during Christmas or something, and Mom would get the house ready for him, and we’d buy presents for him. The day he was supposed to arrive, we’d be waiting with excitement and anticipation, and he wouldn’t show up. We’d talk about it. We’d go back and forth talking about how his job was so demanding or about how his car might have broken down.
We might get a call, maybe that night or the next day, with the story about why he couldn’t make it. And I’d accept the reason pretty much without question. He’d feel bad about not being there, and I’d do my best to make him feel better.
He’d send checks to help out and they’d bounce.
My father was a charming man. He had a beautiful smile and sparkling blue eyes. Whenever he did manage to visit, my whole world lit up. If he called, my mom would put me on the phone with him and I’d talk with him sometimes for hours. He had a slow West Virginia drawl that I could listen to forever. One of our favorite things to do was to play chess. He was a very capable chess player and I almost never won. Somehow, though, that seemed just fine to me.
He had two daughters by a previous marriage with whom I lost touch long ago when the marriage had fallen apart. After college, while I was working as an actor in Pittsburgh, by a strange sequence of events, I connected with them. We got together and caught up with everything that had happened in our lives. At one point we all fell silent and sat together a moment, and then my younger step-sister said, “What do you think about having such a jerk for a father?” Of course, she didn’t use the word “jerk.”
The question utterly shocked me. Such a thought had never once entered my head. I had spent a large part of my life deeply considering the many reasons he had done the things he did, all based on the assumption, which I never once doubted, that my father truly loved me, and that I loved him.
To this day, if he called, I would do anything for him.
My love for him has passed every test. Of course, today I know that he was, and continues to be, unworthy of the love I have for him. My father is a human being and not God, and God certainly doesn't expect us to tolerate those who mistreat us. My point is that love is always a gift, both in the heart of the one who loves and to the one who is beloved. If love must be earned, it is not love. Children know this, perhaps better than we.
“It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”
Amen.
October 4, 2009
Job 1:1, 2:1-10
1 There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
1 One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD. 2 The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it." 3 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason." 4 Then Satan answered the LORD, "Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. 5 But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." 6 The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life." 7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die." 10 But he said to her, "You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Psalm 26
1 Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. 2 Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and mind. 3 For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you. 4 I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites; 5 I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. 6 I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O LORD, 7 singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds. 8 O LORD, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides. 9 Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty, 10 those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. 11 But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. 12 My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the LORD.
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3 He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
5 Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6 But someone has testified somewhere, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? 7 You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, 8 subjecting all things under their feet." Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 10 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, 12 saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."
Mark 10:2-16
2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." 5 But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." 10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Tests
I hate tests.
I spent 20 years in school and every test I took was harder than the last one.
During my childhood, I remember the anxiety of bringing home my report card. In my home, a “C” was not acceptable, and I would be punished for getting one. “B’s” were worthy of no particular praise or admonishment; they were the least that was expected. Only” A’s” yielded parental approval and possible reward. For a “D” or lower, execution was the only option.
And so tests were the bane of my existence. Tests and papers and exams. I was always sure I wasn’t ready, always sure that I would fail, always thinking about the death sentence on the other side of my failure. I would often get physically sick in anticipation of a test.
It didn’t seem to matter that I usually did fine. I could never remember that yes, I’d been terrified the last time, sure of the end of my life, and not only had I gotten through it, but I usually got a passable grade. I graduated seminary at the top of my class, with honors. But I have never gotten over my horror of tests.
A number of us who are doing Discovering the Bible found a quiz on line that was given to evangelical freshmen at an evangelical college on basic bible facts. These kids had all been raised going to Sunday School every Sunday in so-called “Bible-teaching” churches. The professor reports that the average grade was 50. In my home, that grade would have resulted in my swift execution. I’m glad to say the average grade for those of our Discovering the Bible class who took the quiz was about 75, not including my own grade.
God’s tests, in any event, have a different focus, aim at different objectives, than the tests of our parents or teachers. God periodically chooses to test individuals, congregations, and even the whole church on earth. These tests are not the usual suffering that comes to everyone sooner or later. These tests seem particularly aimed at our willingness to keep to our faithfulness to God when a challenge to that faithfulness appears, when good reasons are presented as to why such faithfulness is undeserved. However, like the tests we get as children, the more we pass, the better we do, the farther down the road we go, the harder those tests get.
The Pharisees test Jesus on the subject of divorce. I’m not sure why. It doesn’t say. Much earlier in the gospel Jesus challenges notions of family when he redefines it as “those who do the will of my Father,” so perhaps they thought he could be tricked into undermining Jewish notions of family. Perhaps the reason was actually more in the spirit of a friendly competitive game. Maybe the Pharisees were simply challenging Jesus to grow, by laying a complex question before him.
But Jesus, as he so often does, changes the playing field. The Pharisees are talking about the world as it is. Jesus talks about the world as it should be, as he is in fact about the business of making it. Jesus is laying the pathway to the salvation of the world, the restoration of paradise, and so it is paradise that he talks about and not the world as it is.
The Pharisees were masters of the law. They knew the law of God inside out. Ask them anything. What is permitted? They know. What is not permitted? They know. In this case the law permitted a man to divorce his wife. It did not permit a wife to divorce her husband. Furthermore, a man could divorce his wife for any reason at all. She burned the eggs. Bad hair. Anything. It didn’t matter what he did to his wife, though. No matter how badly he treated her, she had no way to get out. This was all permitted by the law. You can look it up.
The Pharisees knew exactly how to get along in the world. Follow the law and things go well. Don’t follow it and things will go badly. It follows that if things go well, you must be following the law, and if you are doing poorly, well, you must not be following the law.
Job knew exactly how to get along in the world, too. He followed God’s law, pretty much perfectly. But the prosecuting attorney, in Hebrew, hasatan, or “the satan,” thinks he can expose Job’s motives. Everyone who reads Job it seems wants to say that the question of the book is “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But behind that question, and the real reason such a question even matters, is “Why is God worthy of our faithfulness?” The satan proposes a test. What if Job, who had followed the law perfectly, underwent great suffering? This would expose his heart’s true feelings about God. The satan is betting Job really doesn’t love God or even want to do God’s will, but only fulfills the law for the sake of his own success. God is betting Job’s motives are pure.
It seems capricious of God to make such a wager, to put this poor man through such terrible things. We need to remember that this scene is a cosmic image, a way of talking about something that is really nearly impossible to talk about.
There’s a show on TV called "Supernanny." Anybody seen it? It’s about parents that have lost control of their children and call on this British woman, the Supernanny, to come to their rescue. Supernanny comes into the situation and almost always the problem is not enough rules, not enough bad consequences for bad behavior. She gets the chore list up on the refrigerator, finds a place for the time-out chair, cunningly figures out what the children really value so as to threaten its removal if they’re naughty. She then lays out the law and puts the whole family to the test. Will the parents stick to the plan? Will the plan work? Of course, it always does. The show always ends with the well-behaved children happily gathered with their parents, shouting, “Thank you, Supernanny!”
The law of God is like Supernanny. It’s necessary because the children are out of control, because they are in complete rebellion, because they have no real interest in pleasing or obeying their parents. Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is that Moses wrote the law because of their hardness of heart. The law is only necessary because we don’t want to do it. As long as we don’t want to do it, we need that Supernanny, the law.
But in the world that Jesus is preparing us for, there will be no further need of Supernanny or for the old satan, because the world he is preparing us for is paradise restored. In such a world, laws about divorce will not be necessary. This is the amazing and wonderful and magnificent power of our high priest, Jesus, the pioneer of salvation.
Anyone who has divorced has been to hell and has suffered there in agony, along with their whole family. There are plenty of jokes about this. “Why get married? I’ll just find a woman I don’t like and give her a house.” I have a friend who’s about 30 and hasn’t gotten married yet. When people ask him why, he says, “I think I’ll sit the first one out.”
But the reality of divorce is truly horrible. It’s horrible because in the midst of it, we are most keenly aware of how far from paradise we are. It’s in the midst of such failure that we deeply understand God’s vision of two becoming one flesh, because we feel like we are being ripped apart.
Jesus is not condemning us to hell. He is simply describing the reality of the world as it is, a world under the rule of law, a world requiring a Supernanny to punish our transgressions.
In contrast to this, Jesus admonishes his disciples to allow the children to come to him, because, he says, “to such as these the kingdom of God belongs. Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” What does he mean by this?
My father was gone before I can remember. Some of you know that I was adopted twice; the father I’m referring to is my legal father, the second father (or perhaps the third if you include my biological dad). I haven’t seen him in years. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. When I was a kid I thought he was my biological father. I don’t know why. I think my mother explained adoption to me, but I don’t think I got it.
Anyway he was gone from before I can remember. All through the years I was growing up, he rarely visited. He would sometimes promise a visit, like during Christmas or something, and Mom would get the house ready for him, and we’d buy presents for him. The day he was supposed to arrive, we’d be waiting with excitement and anticipation, and he wouldn’t show up. We’d talk about it. We’d go back and forth talking about how his job was so demanding or about how his car might have broken down.
We might get a call, maybe that night or the next day, with the story about why he couldn’t make it. And I’d accept the reason pretty much without question. He’d feel bad about not being there, and I’d do my best to make him feel better.
He’d send checks to help out and they’d bounce.
My father was a charming man. He had a beautiful smile and sparkling blue eyes. Whenever he did manage to visit, my whole world lit up. If he called, my mom would put me on the phone with him and I’d talk with him sometimes for hours. He had a slow West Virginia drawl that I could listen to forever. One of our favorite things to do was to play chess. He was a very capable chess player and I almost never won. Somehow, though, that seemed just fine to me.
He had two daughters by a previous marriage with whom I lost touch long ago when the marriage had fallen apart. After college, while I was working as an actor in Pittsburgh, by a strange sequence of events, I connected with them. We got together and caught up with everything that had happened in our lives. At one point we all fell silent and sat together a moment, and then my younger step-sister said, “What do you think about having such a jerk for a father?” Of course, she didn’t use the word “jerk.”
The question utterly shocked me. Such a thought had never once entered my head. I had spent a large part of my life deeply considering the many reasons he had done the things he did, all based on the assumption, which I never once doubted, that my father truly loved me, and that I loved him.
To this day, if he called, I would do anything for him.
My love for him has passed every test. Of course, today I know that he was, and continues to be, unworthy of the love I have for him. My father is a human being and not God, and God certainly doesn't expect us to tolerate those who mistreat us. My point is that love is always a gift, both in the heart of the one who loves and to the one who is beloved. If love must be earned, it is not love. Children know this, perhaps better than we.
“It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”
Amen.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost Year B 2009
17 Pentecost B 09
September 27, 2009
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
1 So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2 On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled." 3 Then Queen Esther answered, "If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me--that is my petition--and the lives of my people--that is my request. 4 For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king." 5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, "Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?" 6 Esther said, "A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!" Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.
9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, "Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman's house, fifty cubits high." And the king said, "Hang him on that." 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.
20 Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, 22 as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.
Psalm 124
1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side --let Israel now say-- 2 if it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, 3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4 then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5 then over us would have gone the raging waters. 6 Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. 7 We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
James 5:13-20
13 Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. 14 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. 19 My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, 20 you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner's soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Mark 9:38-50
38 John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." 39 But Jesus said, "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 Whoever is not against us is for us. 41 For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
42 "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. 43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. 49 "For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."
Remember Who You Are
There’s a large Russian family that came to our area some ten or fifteen years ago as refugees from the Bosnian situation, a big family of brothers and their wives and children. The children were small then, and off they went to American public schools. Now, fifteen years later, those children are grown-ups. I serve with some of them on the fire department, young men with names like Sergei and Igor and Vasily who now wear jeans, chew tobacco, drive pick-ups, say “y’all” and hunt. These boys eagerly assimilated and have embraced pretty much everything about U.S. culture.
Of course, they still speak Russian with their parents, whom I haven’t met yet. The parents, having grown up overseas, have perhaps a more difficult time assimilating.
Southern culture is slow-paced, Helen Ray was telling me yesterday, so that when she went north to live with her Yankee husband and his mother, she found that her mother-in-law was always very impatient with her, because Yankee culture is fast-paced. Her mother-in-law was in effect telling her, “Assimilate. Give up being Southern and become a Yankee.”
How you talk, what you say, how fast or slow you do things, what is a priority and what isn’t, who’s important and who isn’t, what’s beautiful and what’s ugly, what kinds of things we do and what kinds of things we don’t do, these are the things of culture.
Lewis McPherren tells a lovely story about his mother. When Lewis was a little boy, every time he left the house, his mother’s parting words were “Remember who you are.” A culture, any culture, seeks to define for you who you are, and it is tremendously powerful.
Lewis’ mother was doing the very important work of training her child to be alert to the many ways the culture he lived in would try to distort him. She was well aware that every time he went out the door of her home, the world would be telling him, “Assimilate. Stop being who you are and be what we are.”
The Book of Esther begins by telling the horrifying story of the Esther’s predecessor being executed for standing up to the king. So, later in the story, when Esther’s people are in danger of being liquidated because of their refusal to stop being Jews and start being Persians, there is the very real danger that if Esther remembered who she was and stood up for her people by trying to defend them, she would meet her predecessor’s fate. But Esther, amazingly and courageously, nevertheless remembered who she was.
In our American culture, how do Christians remember who they are?
Some have simply merged the two identities. For them, to be American is to be Christian. American politics, American business, and American culture is the defining identity of the word “Christian.” To be Christian is to be for democracy, baseball and apple pie. For them, they have not stopped being Christian to start being Americans; they see no difference between the two. Quite the contrary, this group regards non-Christians as fundamentally un-American.
On the other side of the question, we find the Amish, who take the biblical injunction “Be ye separate” very, very seriously. For them, consumerism, modernism, capitalism and all the trappings thereof, including the English language, are to be wholly rejected. They live in communal groups, sharing everything, and order their daily lives through their understanding of scripture. They are in essence a monastic community that happens to affirm family life.
In between the Christian-as-Americans and the Christians-as-monks, we have all kinds of permutations.
Some would say the difference is between public and private. Christian culture has no bearing, they say, on public matters: politics or business. It has only to do with personal choices and family life. Thus, the board of a Christian church is not to be concerned with spiritual matters, but only the business of budgets and bricks and mortar, and the business of budgets and bricks and mortar don’t come under the heading “spiritual.” In this view, Jesus has nothing to say about the affairs of the nation nor about the conduct of business.
Still others would eject Jesus from public affairs, but would advocate God’s involvement in them. The distinction made here is that God’s law should be in effect in public life, while the gospel of Jesus, the message of forgiveness and mercy, only pertains in private life. These Christians lobby the Supreme Court to bring the justice system in line with God’s law, but would never dream of bringing Jesus’ gospel of mercy and grace there.
Others would say there is a greater difference. They would say that the community of the church is governed and led by the Holy Spirit of God, calling, justifying, and sanctifying a community for the purpose of healing the world. Anyone who comes within the body of Christ with some other agenda stains it.
Jesus uses the concept of “salt.”
Don Leyden, a professor of chemistry, knows that salt has some very peculiar properties that make it essential to life. What’s unique about salt is that, used in high quantities to preserve foods, it actually keeps life from developing, the life of sickness-making bacteria. In small quantities, when added to food, it brings out the flavor of the food, along with a hint of the saltiness, and we call this flavor sensation “savor.”
In Jesus’ time, salt was very, very expensive first of all because it was so useful and in demand and secondly because harvesting it was very, very difficult. Roman soldiers were often paid in salt, which could be used like money in trading.
When Jesus speaks about the relation of God’s people to the various cultures in which they find themselves, he describes the people, the community, as “salt.” On the one hand, salt is of no use if it isn’t pure, and ancient peoples understood that the making of pure salt was a very difficult and labor-intensive effort. It seems that Jesus is saying that the purity of God’s people is essential, and that this purity is not an easy thing to attain or to maintain. It involves serious discipline and the hardest kind of work.
On the other hand, the thing that makes pure salt so useful is the way is the healing power that disperses in any medium to which it is added, the way it enhances flavor, preserves what is good, and restrains what is bad.
Esther and her people maintain their purity, though it requires great effort. They work very hard to remember who they are even as they are dispersed into a different culture. From a position of weakness, Esther manages to bring about great justice and simultaneously to resist great evil. She and her people both bring out the goodness in the Persians and at the same time resists the evil growing within them. While God is never mentioned in the book of Esther, it is understood that he is there, precisely in the purity of his people. Esther and her people are a great example of the community as “salt.”
When the disciples want to exclude exorcists using Jesus’ name without Jesus’ permission, Jesus turns the table on them. Those who are “outside” the group, if they are not against Jesus, are to be considered with him. Purity is not defined as it is in the world around, by the authority of a particular man or any other human idea or system. It’s defined by the obvious presence of the Holy Spirit, doing real deeds of healing, sanity-giving power.
It is not easy to receive the Holy Spirit. It requires quite a process, quite a lot of serious effort, very much like the ancient process of making or mining salt. It’s no surprise that the metaphor for the hardest kind of labor was “going to the salt mines.”
The effect God is seeking to have in the world is the kind of effect salt has: humbly dispersing throughout with healing power, preserving the good and restraining the bad. Jesus is saying anyone who is achieving such things is with us, and anyone who is among us who seeks to undermine that mission, to make the body of Christ stumble, is the member who should be cut off, no matter what the cost to the community, no matter how powerful or important the member might be. If your eye causes your body to stumble, tear it out. Better to enter the kingdom with one eye than to be thrown into the burn-pile whole.
Did you ever think that Jesus might not simply judge individuals, but whole congregations, whole denominations? It is of course, not up to us to make those kinds of decisions. Ours is only to preach the word as purely and as truthfully as we can and allow him to make the call.
Church, remember who you are.
Amen.
September 27, 2009
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
1 So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2 On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled." 3 Then Queen Esther answered, "If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me--that is my petition--and the lives of my people--that is my request. 4 For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king." 5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, "Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?" 6 Esther said, "A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!" Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.
9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, "Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman's house, fifty cubits high." And the king said, "Hang him on that." 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.
20 Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, 22 as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.
Psalm 124
1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side --let Israel now say-- 2 if it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, 3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4 then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5 then over us would have gone the raging waters. 6 Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. 7 We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
James 5:13-20
13 Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. 14 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. 19 My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, 20 you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner's soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Mark 9:38-50
38 John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." 39 But Jesus said, "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 Whoever is not against us is for us. 41 For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
42 "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. 43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. 49 "For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."
Remember Who You Are
There’s a large Russian family that came to our area some ten or fifteen years ago as refugees from the Bosnian situation, a big family of brothers and their wives and children. The children were small then, and off they went to American public schools. Now, fifteen years later, those children are grown-ups. I serve with some of them on the fire department, young men with names like Sergei and Igor and Vasily who now wear jeans, chew tobacco, drive pick-ups, say “y’all” and hunt. These boys eagerly assimilated and have embraced pretty much everything about U.S. culture.
Of course, they still speak Russian with their parents, whom I haven’t met yet. The parents, having grown up overseas, have perhaps a more difficult time assimilating.
Southern culture is slow-paced, Helen Ray was telling me yesterday, so that when she went north to live with her Yankee husband and his mother, she found that her mother-in-law was always very impatient with her, because Yankee culture is fast-paced. Her mother-in-law was in effect telling her, “Assimilate. Give up being Southern and become a Yankee.”
How you talk, what you say, how fast or slow you do things, what is a priority and what isn’t, who’s important and who isn’t, what’s beautiful and what’s ugly, what kinds of things we do and what kinds of things we don’t do, these are the things of culture.
Lewis McPherren tells a lovely story about his mother. When Lewis was a little boy, every time he left the house, his mother’s parting words were “Remember who you are.” A culture, any culture, seeks to define for you who you are, and it is tremendously powerful.
Lewis’ mother was doing the very important work of training her child to be alert to the many ways the culture he lived in would try to distort him. She was well aware that every time he went out the door of her home, the world would be telling him, “Assimilate. Stop being who you are and be what we are.”
The Book of Esther begins by telling the horrifying story of the Esther’s predecessor being executed for standing up to the king. So, later in the story, when Esther’s people are in danger of being liquidated because of their refusal to stop being Jews and start being Persians, there is the very real danger that if Esther remembered who she was and stood up for her people by trying to defend them, she would meet her predecessor’s fate. But Esther, amazingly and courageously, nevertheless remembered who she was.
In our American culture, how do Christians remember who they are?
Some have simply merged the two identities. For them, to be American is to be Christian. American politics, American business, and American culture is the defining identity of the word “Christian.” To be Christian is to be for democracy, baseball and apple pie. For them, they have not stopped being Christian to start being Americans; they see no difference between the two. Quite the contrary, this group regards non-Christians as fundamentally un-American.
On the other side of the question, we find the Amish, who take the biblical injunction “Be ye separate” very, very seriously. For them, consumerism, modernism, capitalism and all the trappings thereof, including the English language, are to be wholly rejected. They live in communal groups, sharing everything, and order their daily lives through their understanding of scripture. They are in essence a monastic community that happens to affirm family life.
In between the Christian-as-Americans and the Christians-as-monks, we have all kinds of permutations.
Some would say the difference is between public and private. Christian culture has no bearing, they say, on public matters: politics or business. It has only to do with personal choices and family life. Thus, the board of a Christian church is not to be concerned with spiritual matters, but only the business of budgets and bricks and mortar, and the business of budgets and bricks and mortar don’t come under the heading “spiritual.” In this view, Jesus has nothing to say about the affairs of the nation nor about the conduct of business.
Still others would eject Jesus from public affairs, but would advocate God’s involvement in them. The distinction made here is that God’s law should be in effect in public life, while the gospel of Jesus, the message of forgiveness and mercy, only pertains in private life. These Christians lobby the Supreme Court to bring the justice system in line with God’s law, but would never dream of bringing Jesus’ gospel of mercy and grace there.
Others would say there is a greater difference. They would say that the community of the church is governed and led by the Holy Spirit of God, calling, justifying, and sanctifying a community for the purpose of healing the world. Anyone who comes within the body of Christ with some other agenda stains it.
Jesus uses the concept of “salt.”
Don Leyden, a professor of chemistry, knows that salt has some very peculiar properties that make it essential to life. What’s unique about salt is that, used in high quantities to preserve foods, it actually keeps life from developing, the life of sickness-making bacteria. In small quantities, when added to food, it brings out the flavor of the food, along with a hint of the saltiness, and we call this flavor sensation “savor.”
In Jesus’ time, salt was very, very expensive first of all because it was so useful and in demand and secondly because harvesting it was very, very difficult. Roman soldiers were often paid in salt, which could be used like money in trading.
When Jesus speaks about the relation of God’s people to the various cultures in which they find themselves, he describes the people, the community, as “salt.” On the one hand, salt is of no use if it isn’t pure, and ancient peoples understood that the making of pure salt was a very difficult and labor-intensive effort. It seems that Jesus is saying that the purity of God’s people is essential, and that this purity is not an easy thing to attain or to maintain. It involves serious discipline and the hardest kind of work.
On the other hand, the thing that makes pure salt so useful is the way is the healing power that disperses in any medium to which it is added, the way it enhances flavor, preserves what is good, and restrains what is bad.
Esther and her people maintain their purity, though it requires great effort. They work very hard to remember who they are even as they are dispersed into a different culture. From a position of weakness, Esther manages to bring about great justice and simultaneously to resist great evil. She and her people both bring out the goodness in the Persians and at the same time resists the evil growing within them. While God is never mentioned in the book of Esther, it is understood that he is there, precisely in the purity of his people. Esther and her people are a great example of the community as “salt.”
When the disciples want to exclude exorcists using Jesus’ name without Jesus’ permission, Jesus turns the table on them. Those who are “outside” the group, if they are not against Jesus, are to be considered with him. Purity is not defined as it is in the world around, by the authority of a particular man or any other human idea or system. It’s defined by the obvious presence of the Holy Spirit, doing real deeds of healing, sanity-giving power.
It is not easy to receive the Holy Spirit. It requires quite a process, quite a lot of serious effort, very much like the ancient process of making or mining salt. It’s no surprise that the metaphor for the hardest kind of labor was “going to the salt mines.”
The effect God is seeking to have in the world is the kind of effect salt has: humbly dispersing throughout with healing power, preserving the good and restraining the bad. Jesus is saying anyone who is achieving such things is with us, and anyone who is among us who seeks to undermine that mission, to make the body of Christ stumble, is the member who should be cut off, no matter what the cost to the community, no matter how powerful or important the member might be. If your eye causes your body to stumble, tear it out. Better to enter the kingdom with one eye than to be thrown into the burn-pile whole.
Did you ever think that Jesus might not simply judge individuals, but whole congregations, whole denominations? It is of course, not up to us to make those kinds of decisions. Ours is only to preach the word as purely and as truthfully as we can and allow him to make the call.
Church, remember who you are.
Amen.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost Year B 2009
16 Pentecost B 09
September 20, 2009
Proverbs 31:10-31
10 A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. 11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. 12 She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. 13 She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. 14 She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away. 15 She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her servant-girls. 16 She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. 17 She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong. 18 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. 19 She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. 20 She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy. 21 She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed in crimson. 22 She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple. 23 Her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land. 24 She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes. 25 Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. 26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. 27 She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children rise up and call her happy; her husband too, and he praises her: 29 "Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all." 30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. 31 Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.
Psalm 1
1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; 2 but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night. 3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
1 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Mark 9:30-37
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
A Successful Church
Fred Craddock tells a story about a little church he served in the country that was attended mostly by women. The men, most of them, didn’t come with their wives, and instead went to a diner in town. The diner was where the real business of the town was talked about, where the important things were decided. From time to time, one of the men who went every Sunday morning to the diner would disappear.
“Where did Joe go?”
“Oh, his wife got him to go to church.”
“Another one down.”
One of those diner guys, a good man who worked hard and took care of his family, but who didn’t come to church, would occasionally run into Fred and whenever he did, usually without Fred saying anything, would say, “Don’t even start. I know what you’re going to do.”
And Fred would say, “What’s that?”
And the man would say, “You’re going to try to talk me into going to church. Look, I mind my own business.”
And Fred would usually turn the conversation to other things.
One Sunday morning, the man showed up at church. When Fred asked if anyone wished to be baptized, the man came forward.
Fred said, “Why you? Why now?”
And the man said, “Because I realized Jesus’ business is my business.”
What is the business of the church? How do we measure success for the church? What is Jesus’ business?
Some would say, a successful church is a happy church, everyone having a good time, enjoying each other, getting along well. That’s important. It’s true. Good relationships in the church are very important.
Some would say, a successful church is a growing church, more and more people coming to believe in Jesus. That’s important, it’s true. Church growth is important.
Some would say, a successful church is a learning church, lots of people of all ages in bible studies and Sunday School. People growing spiritually. Learning, it’s very true, is important.
Some would say, a successful church is a beautiful building. Lovely grounds, lots of flowers, pretty steeple. And this is true, a beautiful space for classes and worship services and meetings is important.
Some would say, a successful church is a worshipping church, lively and interesting Sunday morning experiences that inspire everyone and fuel them up for the week ahead. Good worship is certainly very important.
Some would say, a successful church is a service church, meeting the needs of people in the community. Meeting people’s needs, it’s very true, is certainly important.
Some would say, a successful church is a mission church, participating with the denomination in promoting the gospel all over the country and throughout the world. It’s true, you know. Mission is very important.
Some would say, a successful church is a caring church, looking after the members in times of crisis and difficulty, chasing after members who drift away. Caring for our members is certainly important.
Some would say, a successful church is a giving church, everyone tithing, giving ten percent of their income every Sunday, giving lots of money away to the denomination and the community. Giving is certainly important.
Some would say, all of these things are important, and everyone in the church should be doing all of them. Others would say that some of these things are more important than others. Some might say Philippi is successful at all of these things. Others might say we’re successful with some and not others.
Who is the greatest? We all know how success is measured in the world. Success is power. He who wields the biggest club politically or militarily or economically or even charismatically. The richest people in the world, the people that command the biggest and most destructive military forces in the world, the people who are the most charismatic or beautiful or lovable, the people in charge of the big stuff. They are the successful ones, and the world is fascinated by them. Things don’t happen to the successful. The successful make things happen.
Which is the greatest congregation in the world? By what measure do we determine this? The one with the most charismatic and lovable preacher? The one with the biggest building? The one with the largest worship attendance? The one with the biggest education program? The friendliest one?
Our Old Testament lesson comes to us probably from about 600 years before Christ, some think even earlier. It’s what we call “wisdom literature.” The bible is composed of many books, and the books are of different types. There are history books, law books, books of oracles from prophets, all different kinds. Wisdom books are books about everyday life. They’re comprised of little sayings meant to be useful in one’s ordinary affairs. Proverbs was probably written for the training of young men.
The passage this morning is usually called “the ode to the good wife.” It’s a description of what ancient writers thought of as a successful household. Now some modern marriages among Christians still model themselves on this passage, but the ideal of marriage I think is not found here, but in Genesis, an equal partnership between the man and the woman.
The main principle of the ancient Jewish household was that everything and everyone in the household was owned by the man. The good wife described in the passage belongs to her husband, as does everyone and everything else in the household. When Jesus uses the image of Father to describe God, one dimension of his meaning is this household. God the Father is the owner of the house and everyone in it.
The good wife sees her success in the success of her husband. The description we get here is of a tireless and very capable manager of resources. She works day and night to use and distribute the resources her husband has provided, for the purpose of giving honor to her husband. The ode to the good wife is included in our readings today because it is a very fine image of a successful church.
All the business we do as a church, taken together, are dimensions of the one great work of Jesus Christ. Like the good wife, the church provides food and clothing for the members of the household, makes strategic plans to maximize the gain of her husband Jesus, takes time to build herself up in strength, opens her hand to the poor, speaks only wisdom, has no worry about the future, skillfully manages the members of the household, and does everything she can to bring honor to Jesus in the sight of the whole world.
The business of Jesus , the husband of the church, is salvation, and the letter to James makes no bones about what salvation is. The congregation he’s writing to has probably fallen prey to the old worldly wisdom that “bigger is better.” They’re chasing the important people and putting them in charge of the church. James is withering in his condemnation of this idea of success. Salvation for him means nothing if it isn’t really about rescuing people. Remember back when we started reading James? He said, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for the widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
What is the measure of the success of the church? According to Jesus, it is in the smallness and insignificance and powerlessness of the people it serves. He says, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be the servant of all.” And then to demonstrate, he picks up a child.
In the ancient world, and perhaps today as well, the child is the very image of powerlessness, weakness, and vulnerability. “Whoever serves the least powerful of all, the bottom of the barrel, the forgotten, the most oppressed, the most hated, the most outcast, the most humiliated, whoever serves the one who is being crucified by the world, that one serves me. And whoever serves me, serves the one who sent me.”
The business of the church is salvation. She is the good wife of Jesus, tending carefully and wisely and tirelessly to the gifts he has given her, and when she opens her hand to the poorest and the weakest, she brings him glory.
Amen.
September 20, 2009
Proverbs 31:10-31
10 A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. 11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. 12 She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. 13 She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. 14 She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away. 15 She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her servant-girls. 16 She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. 17 She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong. 18 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. 19 She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. 20 She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy. 21 She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed in crimson. 22 She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple. 23 Her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land. 24 She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes. 25 Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. 26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. 27 She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children rise up and call her happy; her husband too, and he praises her: 29 "Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all." 30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. 31 Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.
Psalm 1
1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; 2 but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night. 3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
1 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Mark 9:30-37
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
A Successful Church
Fred Craddock tells a story about a little church he served in the country that was attended mostly by women. The men, most of them, didn’t come with their wives, and instead went to a diner in town. The diner was where the real business of the town was talked about, where the important things were decided. From time to time, one of the men who went every Sunday morning to the diner would disappear.
“Where did Joe go?”
“Oh, his wife got him to go to church.”
“Another one down.”
One of those diner guys, a good man who worked hard and took care of his family, but who didn’t come to church, would occasionally run into Fred and whenever he did, usually without Fred saying anything, would say, “Don’t even start. I know what you’re going to do.”
And Fred would say, “What’s that?”
And the man would say, “You’re going to try to talk me into going to church. Look, I mind my own business.”
And Fred would usually turn the conversation to other things.
One Sunday morning, the man showed up at church. When Fred asked if anyone wished to be baptized, the man came forward.
Fred said, “Why you? Why now?”
And the man said, “Because I realized Jesus’ business is my business.”
What is the business of the church? How do we measure success for the church? What is Jesus’ business?
Some would say, a successful church is a happy church, everyone having a good time, enjoying each other, getting along well. That’s important. It’s true. Good relationships in the church are very important.
Some would say, a successful church is a growing church, more and more people coming to believe in Jesus. That’s important, it’s true. Church growth is important.
Some would say, a successful church is a learning church, lots of people of all ages in bible studies and Sunday School. People growing spiritually. Learning, it’s very true, is important.
Some would say, a successful church is a beautiful building. Lovely grounds, lots of flowers, pretty steeple. And this is true, a beautiful space for classes and worship services and meetings is important.
Some would say, a successful church is a worshipping church, lively and interesting Sunday morning experiences that inspire everyone and fuel them up for the week ahead. Good worship is certainly very important.
Some would say, a successful church is a service church, meeting the needs of people in the community. Meeting people’s needs, it’s very true, is certainly important.
Some would say, a successful church is a mission church, participating with the denomination in promoting the gospel all over the country and throughout the world. It’s true, you know. Mission is very important.
Some would say, a successful church is a caring church, looking after the members in times of crisis and difficulty, chasing after members who drift away. Caring for our members is certainly important.
Some would say, a successful church is a giving church, everyone tithing, giving ten percent of their income every Sunday, giving lots of money away to the denomination and the community. Giving is certainly important.
Some would say, all of these things are important, and everyone in the church should be doing all of them. Others would say that some of these things are more important than others. Some might say Philippi is successful at all of these things. Others might say we’re successful with some and not others.
Who is the greatest? We all know how success is measured in the world. Success is power. He who wields the biggest club politically or militarily or economically or even charismatically. The richest people in the world, the people that command the biggest and most destructive military forces in the world, the people who are the most charismatic or beautiful or lovable, the people in charge of the big stuff. They are the successful ones, and the world is fascinated by them. Things don’t happen to the successful. The successful make things happen.
Which is the greatest congregation in the world? By what measure do we determine this? The one with the most charismatic and lovable preacher? The one with the biggest building? The one with the largest worship attendance? The one with the biggest education program? The friendliest one?
Our Old Testament lesson comes to us probably from about 600 years before Christ, some think even earlier. It’s what we call “wisdom literature.” The bible is composed of many books, and the books are of different types. There are history books, law books, books of oracles from prophets, all different kinds. Wisdom books are books about everyday life. They’re comprised of little sayings meant to be useful in one’s ordinary affairs. Proverbs was probably written for the training of young men.
The passage this morning is usually called “the ode to the good wife.” It’s a description of what ancient writers thought of as a successful household. Now some modern marriages among Christians still model themselves on this passage, but the ideal of marriage I think is not found here, but in Genesis, an equal partnership between the man and the woman.
The main principle of the ancient Jewish household was that everything and everyone in the household was owned by the man. The good wife described in the passage belongs to her husband, as does everyone and everything else in the household. When Jesus uses the image of Father to describe God, one dimension of his meaning is this household. God the Father is the owner of the house and everyone in it.
The good wife sees her success in the success of her husband. The description we get here is of a tireless and very capable manager of resources. She works day and night to use and distribute the resources her husband has provided, for the purpose of giving honor to her husband. The ode to the good wife is included in our readings today because it is a very fine image of a successful church.
All the business we do as a church, taken together, are dimensions of the one great work of Jesus Christ. Like the good wife, the church provides food and clothing for the members of the household, makes strategic plans to maximize the gain of her husband Jesus, takes time to build herself up in strength, opens her hand to the poor, speaks only wisdom, has no worry about the future, skillfully manages the members of the household, and does everything she can to bring honor to Jesus in the sight of the whole world.
The business of Jesus , the husband of the church, is salvation, and the letter to James makes no bones about what salvation is. The congregation he’s writing to has probably fallen prey to the old worldly wisdom that “bigger is better.” They’re chasing the important people and putting them in charge of the church. James is withering in his condemnation of this idea of success. Salvation for him means nothing if it isn’t really about rescuing people. Remember back when we started reading James? He said, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for the widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
What is the measure of the success of the church? According to Jesus, it is in the smallness and insignificance and powerlessness of the people it serves. He says, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be the servant of all.” And then to demonstrate, he picks up a child.
In the ancient world, and perhaps today as well, the child is the very image of powerlessness, weakness, and vulnerability. “Whoever serves the least powerful of all, the bottom of the barrel, the forgotten, the most oppressed, the most hated, the most outcast, the most humiliated, whoever serves the one who is being crucified by the world, that one serves me. And whoever serves me, serves the one who sent me.”
The business of the church is salvation. She is the good wife of Jesus, tending carefully and wisely and tirelessly to the gifts he has given her, and when she opens her hand to the poorest and the weakest, she brings him glory.
Amen.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Proverbs 1:20-33
Psalm 19
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38
BUSTED!
(Sermon preached by Wyatt Portz while Pastor Mike was on vacation.)
Good morning! I am delighted to be here, and I would like to thank Pastor Mike for calling on me to speak in his absence. The scripture readings for today have special meaning for me, and I’ve always found them compelling, even difficult. Because of this, it was important to me to accept his invitation.
The scripture readings deal with communication – how God communicates with us, and what we can expect when we don’t listen – and also how we communicate with each other, and even how we can communicate with God. The scripture suggests that real communication is a two way street, with communication back and forth. It’s only when it becomes one-way, when we start talking to ourselves, so to speak, that we are wayward and get in trouble. For communication to be two-way, the first requisite is to be a good listener, keep an ear out for truth. And then, when you hear, respond. That is conversation. Anything else is just talk, talk, talk to the ends of the earth.
In Proverbs, “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?…Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel, and despised all of my reproof, they shall eat the fruit of their [italics mine] way and be sated with their own devices. For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them;”
Busted! Wisdom is crying out in the streets, but few are listening. On the other hand, if we do listen to Wisdom, and choose “the fear of the LORD,” a benefit is promised, and it’s a good one: “those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.”
It’s worth noting here that the fear of the LORD does not mean quaking in abject terror at the feet of divinity. To fear the LORD, in ancient times, was to turn toward him in awe and respect and reverence. That’s still what fear of the LORD means, I believe. But, in the blinking of an eye, you can turn away from divinity, even if you’re trying to lead a holy life. You can be deaf to the voice of Wisdom.
Last week, when I was reading “Mike’s Meanderings” from the Philippi newsletter aloud to my wife, Anna, I changed one of the words to create a pun; it turned Mike’s meaning ‘on its head.’ I often do that in conversation, or other very similar things. I play with words all the time.
“Among Christians of all denunciations around the world,” I read, “there seem to be two main visions of God’s will, both claiming biblical authority, that are both almost diametrically opposed to each other.”
Suddenly Anna broke in to my reading: “Does it really say that?”
“No,” I said, “I made it up. It should say ‘denomination,’ not ‘denunciation.’”
“Did you do that on purpose?”
“Yep.”
“Wyatt, why did you do that?” Anna scolded. “You know, you really must examine why you do things like this. On the one hand you embrace all kinds of spiritual knowledge, you’re always reading about it, you regularly practice meditation and sudarshan kriya (a breathing technique we both practice) and on the other hand you hold it all at arm’s length, even deny it. Why do you do it?”
Busted! Wisdom cries out in my own kitchen, and I had better listen.
In Psalm 19, one of my very favorites, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” It seems the entire creation is a silent shout proclaiming the divine glory of God. A shout that is not speaking in human speech. The only way to hear this shout is the way it is presented, in silence louder and more perfect than any words or speechifying, because “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple.” To hear this shout you have to train yourself to listen. And then, the simple are made wise when they do.
The psalmist continues, listing qualities of the LORD that “rejoice the heart…enlighten the eyes…endure forever…are true and righteous altogether…More to be desired than gold, even much fine gold.” There are two things I’d like to point out at this juncture. One is that every time I have referred to the LORD so far, it appears in the Bible all in capital letters. It was translated like this because the word itself is untranslatable into English. It’s an ancient word that means – sort of – “I am that I am,” the words God spoke out of the burning bush to Moses. “I am that I am.” In other words, pure spirit, the very spirit that “I am that I am’s” creation tells the glory of. The other is that the qualities - dare I say human speech - of “I am that I am” – the law, the decrees, the commandments – are the precepts of that Spirit, that “I am that I am,” and they keep the people of God safe in the presence of Spirit. The next time you read the word LORD all in capitals, you may want to substitute “I am that I am;” It gives a different feeling, and meaning, to the passage.
The psalm ends with a prayer of petition, the kind of prayer where something is asked for. It’s perhaps the most common prayer, certainly one we’re all familiar with. “But who can detect their errors?” the psalmist asks. “Clear me of hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless…”
It’s a wonderful, heart-felt prayer. Clear me of hidden faults, because I cannot see them. And keep me back from the insolent, do not let them have dominion over me.
When Anna asked why I turned Mike’s words on their heads, I replied that I honestly didn’t know, but that I was painfully aware of the habit. Upon reflection though, I partly pun because there is almost always humor in it, and I think I tend to be entirely too serious about life and work, and for that matter, spiritual matters. It’s nice to inject humor into discussions about eternity, about salvation – these are weighty matters that people have been nattering about for millennia. Sorry, but there’s part of me that thinks this nattering is just talk, talk, talk, talk. The chattering goes on and on to the ends of the earth and prevents us from experiencing the very things we talk about – eternity and salvation. And I think a lot of that experience is structured in silence. So when we speak, our words should count for something. And maybe what they should - or could - count for would be to lead us back to silence, where we can more fully hear the silent shout of the spirit through God's creation. Because, are we not part of this creation? Are we not part of the silent shout? And if we hear it, is not every human heart part of that shout? Yes. I think so. But to hear it, we must first listen for it.
Another reason I turn words on their head is because I enjoy the mental shock of challenging others’ ideas. I like using language in provocative ways. Those of you who have spent time around me know that this is a habit with me, but I’m not sure the habit adds to the discussion of ‘truth’ and ‘what is truth’ that I do love to engage in. It’s more playful frivolity. I like the humor and the laughs. But, in fact, playful frivolity can hinder discussion, hold it at arm’s length, and be a distracting hindrance. I’m mostly listening to myself, and there is no real dialogue. I’m laughing at my own joke. On some level, it is insolent. Just as the psalmist says – LORD, “I am that I am,” save me from the insolent, that I may be blameless.
Busted! By the psalmist – I have met the enemy, and he is me!
When we are talking we are not listening. We cannot hear the wordless voice of God emanating from the silent shout of creation. The danger is that we separate ourselves from a loving God and feel separation. Even worse, we give up our union so that we can think that we are correct, right, and even righteous! And we are seldom aware that that is what is happening. But, as soon as we start thinking that we are important, we start feeling that we are alone. We talk, talk, talk to the ends of the earth; we feel that we are 'right;' we make our points; and, in making our points, we can miss the Point of the silent shout altogether. We feel our energy depleted in aimless talk, while the creation is shouting all around us, unheard.
As James notes, “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire…no one can tame the tongue…with it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not be so.”
Busted! This time by James.
To use another example from my life, and one I’m sure many can relate to: When I was a young man, I liked to drive fast. I did not hesitate to speak badly of the slower drivers on the road, the ones who held me up.
I willfully told them to go to heck, because they didn’t believe in gosh. (You can laugh, that was a joke).
Now that I’m older, and a much safer driver, I find myself occasionally becoming impatient and angry with the drivers that buzz by weaving in and out of traffic – me at a younger age, of course. Shut up, Wyatt, just shut up; pay attention to your own driving, not the driving of others. Judge not lest you be judged. One difference between the old me and the young me is that I am aware of these things.
So, busted! This time by me. You might think I’m extravagant, but to paraphrase Jesus for the 21st century – the Kingdom of Heaven is like driving all the way to Washington, D.C. without having a single unkind thought for any driver on the road! (That’s not a joke, I’m serious).
But how would you feel if you were busted by Jesus? That’s what happened to Peter in the passage from Mark. Jesus has just finished teaching his disciples that he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Peter is listening, all right, but he can’t accept what he hears! Peter takes Jesus aside and starts arguing with him. The actual word the passage uses is "rebuke." Kind of like, "Jesus, how dare you say such things!" I imagine it may have continued something like this: “Hey, let’s just go down to Nag’s Head for a while, until this all blows over. There are lots of folks there who need your teaching, and the weather’s always great this time of year. There will be other Marys and Marthas there, good cooks and good places to stay…think how welcomed we’ll be!”
The response from Jesus is swift and unequivocal: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter is busted.
Then, it gets even worse for him – Jesus turns to the crowd and the rest of the disciples, and says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
Sometimes you can be standing right next to God, and he’s talking to you, and you just don’t want to hear the message. And you'll start arguing with him. And you'll try to cut a deal to get your own way. And He will bust you, every time, and lead you away in the handcuffs that you’ve designed yourself. But there’s something else he’ll do, too. He’ll teach you how to remove your handcuffs and throw them away. He’ll teach you how to live in freedom. And He’ll always be there for you.
He asks you to deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow after him. He doesn’t ask you to pick up his, though clearly, once you have picked up your cross, you must have the courage to be crucified for – or by – the truth of your cross. You have nothing to lose but your handcuffs. You have everything to gain – freedom – Paradise and Eternity, in fact – and all you have to do is pick up your cross, whatever it is, and follow after Jesus, who demonstrated that death has no power.
And be advised, more than anything, the power of Jesus’ words in this passage from Mark come from the Resurrection: “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering,…and be killed, and after three days rise again.” It is the Resurrection that gives power to Christianity, not the crucifixion. In fact, the crucifixion means nothing without the Resurrection. So ask yourselves “What is my cross?” or “What are my crosses?” and pick them up, and love them, for they are the way to freedom. This is good news. It is also hard news.
Maybe complacency is your cross. It’s awfully easy to just “kick back” and enjoy here in Deltaville, but the psalmist tells us “the complacency of fools destroys them.” There’s no eternity in being a couch potato, that’s for sure. Or maybe it's an eternity of boredom.
Maybe it’s one of the seven deadly sins - maybe gluttony – “O no! I overate again! The devil made me do it!” No, not the devil – you made yourself do it.
Maybe it’s greed, and the desire for money and possessions burns like a fever in your brain – “O, it’s OK, that’s the way God made me!” No, that’s not the way God made you, that’s the way you made you. You might think of any of these sins as a covering you've put over your true image - the image of God, of divinity, of love - as a pale substitution for your real image. The pale substitution is your cross. On the other side of it is life that is more full and abundant.
You see where I’m going. Your cross is your cross. The pale substitution is exactly what separates you from God. It's what you've put in place of God; it's an idol. It is exactly what has to be unmade in ourselves to heal a separation that, after all, we have imposed on ourselves. Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are always there, in and with love, saying, "Follow after me! Come to me!" It's a journey we must make; we each have our own journey, but as Christians, we also travel together in community. This is what, for me, the church is for.
The journey starts for me - and maybe ends - in prayer. I mentioned the prayer of petition earlier in this talk, when the psalmist asks and entreats "...who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults." I'm sure we all pray like this, and it's necessary to do so. There is also another kind of prayer, a prayer of surrender. This kind of prayer asks for nothing. I'm speaking of meditation. There is a long and rich tradition of meditation in the Church, but in recent centuries it seems to be a prayer skill that has been relegated to monks and mystics. Brothers and sisters, it need not be so.
I have practiced meditation for decades now, and it is in the silence experienced in meditation that a lively personal spirituality has grown in me. I mention it here because a short time devoted to meditation each day has immeasurably increased the joys in my life, and I think it would improve the quality of anyone's life. Diving in to silence has made me a better listener. Sometimes the 'silent shout' of the creation is a palpable force that shakes me from the inside out. My speech is no longer inflammatory, but informed by silence.
In Matthew, Chapter 5, the first beatitude is "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." When I was a child, I could not figure out how being poor in anything could lead to the Kingdom. Then, as a young man, I realized that the passage probably referred to being "humble in the spirit." That made more sense to me. But then I started to meditate; in experiencing meditation I began to think that the passage had been mistranslated. Maybe it should be "Blessed are the poor within the spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." First of all, meditation is a denial of self. When I meditate well, the world falls away, and my self with it. Things become very quiet. There is a feeling of expansion. There is a palpable sense of timelessness and eternity. I become peace. And when I come back to the world, it seems fresher and more alive than before; it's been made new. Through the years, many of my bad habits - not all of them yet, but many - have just naturally fallen away.
I wish this for all. I pray that our crosses, as soon as we recognize them and pick them up, may naturally fall away, and leave us smack dab in the middle of heavens telling the glory of God, the firmaments proclaiming his handiwork. The Peace that Passeth All Understanding.
Amen.
Psalm 19
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38
BUSTED!
(Sermon preached by Wyatt Portz while Pastor Mike was on vacation.)
Good morning! I am delighted to be here, and I would like to thank Pastor Mike for calling on me to speak in his absence. The scripture readings for today have special meaning for me, and I’ve always found them compelling, even difficult. Because of this, it was important to me to accept his invitation.
The scripture readings deal with communication – how God communicates with us, and what we can expect when we don’t listen – and also how we communicate with each other, and even how we can communicate with God. The scripture suggests that real communication is a two way street, with communication back and forth. It’s only when it becomes one-way, when we start talking to ourselves, so to speak, that we are wayward and get in trouble. For communication to be two-way, the first requisite is to be a good listener, keep an ear out for truth. And then, when you hear, respond. That is conversation. Anything else is just talk, talk, talk to the ends of the earth.
In Proverbs, “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?…Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel, and despised all of my reproof, they shall eat the fruit of their [italics mine] way and be sated with their own devices. For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them;”
Busted! Wisdom is crying out in the streets, but few are listening. On the other hand, if we do listen to Wisdom, and choose “the fear of the LORD,” a benefit is promised, and it’s a good one: “those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.”
It’s worth noting here that the fear of the LORD does not mean quaking in abject terror at the feet of divinity. To fear the LORD, in ancient times, was to turn toward him in awe and respect and reverence. That’s still what fear of the LORD means, I believe. But, in the blinking of an eye, you can turn away from divinity, even if you’re trying to lead a holy life. You can be deaf to the voice of Wisdom.
Last week, when I was reading “Mike’s Meanderings” from the Philippi newsletter aloud to my wife, Anna, I changed one of the words to create a pun; it turned Mike’s meaning ‘on its head.’ I often do that in conversation, or other very similar things. I play with words all the time.
“Among Christians of all denunciations around the world,” I read, “there seem to be two main visions of God’s will, both claiming biblical authority, that are both almost diametrically opposed to each other.”
Suddenly Anna broke in to my reading: “Does it really say that?”
“No,” I said, “I made it up. It should say ‘denomination,’ not ‘denunciation.’”
“Did you do that on purpose?”
“Yep.”
“Wyatt, why did you do that?” Anna scolded. “You know, you really must examine why you do things like this. On the one hand you embrace all kinds of spiritual knowledge, you’re always reading about it, you regularly practice meditation and sudarshan kriya (a breathing technique we both practice) and on the other hand you hold it all at arm’s length, even deny it. Why do you do it?”
Busted! Wisdom cries out in my own kitchen, and I had better listen.
In Psalm 19, one of my very favorites, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” It seems the entire creation is a silent shout proclaiming the divine glory of God. A shout that is not speaking in human speech. The only way to hear this shout is the way it is presented, in silence louder and more perfect than any words or speechifying, because “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple.” To hear this shout you have to train yourself to listen. And then, the simple are made wise when they do.
The psalmist continues, listing qualities of the LORD that “rejoice the heart…enlighten the eyes…endure forever…are true and righteous altogether…More to be desired than gold, even much fine gold.” There are two things I’d like to point out at this juncture. One is that every time I have referred to the LORD so far, it appears in the Bible all in capital letters. It was translated like this because the word itself is untranslatable into English. It’s an ancient word that means – sort of – “I am that I am,” the words God spoke out of the burning bush to Moses. “I am that I am.” In other words, pure spirit, the very spirit that “I am that I am’s” creation tells the glory of. The other is that the qualities - dare I say human speech - of “I am that I am” – the law, the decrees, the commandments – are the precepts of that Spirit, that “I am that I am,” and they keep the people of God safe in the presence of Spirit. The next time you read the word LORD all in capitals, you may want to substitute “I am that I am;” It gives a different feeling, and meaning, to the passage.
The psalm ends with a prayer of petition, the kind of prayer where something is asked for. It’s perhaps the most common prayer, certainly one we’re all familiar with. “But who can detect their errors?” the psalmist asks. “Clear me of hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless…”
It’s a wonderful, heart-felt prayer. Clear me of hidden faults, because I cannot see them. And keep me back from the insolent, do not let them have dominion over me.
When Anna asked why I turned Mike’s words on their heads, I replied that I honestly didn’t know, but that I was painfully aware of the habit. Upon reflection though, I partly pun because there is almost always humor in it, and I think I tend to be entirely too serious about life and work, and for that matter, spiritual matters. It’s nice to inject humor into discussions about eternity, about salvation – these are weighty matters that people have been nattering about for millennia. Sorry, but there’s part of me that thinks this nattering is just talk, talk, talk, talk. The chattering goes on and on to the ends of the earth and prevents us from experiencing the very things we talk about – eternity and salvation. And I think a lot of that experience is structured in silence. So when we speak, our words should count for something. And maybe what they should - or could - count for would be to lead us back to silence, where we can more fully hear the silent shout of the spirit through God's creation. Because, are we not part of this creation? Are we not part of the silent shout? And if we hear it, is not every human heart part of that shout? Yes. I think so. But to hear it, we must first listen for it.
Another reason I turn words on their head is because I enjoy the mental shock of challenging others’ ideas. I like using language in provocative ways. Those of you who have spent time around me know that this is a habit with me, but I’m not sure the habit adds to the discussion of ‘truth’ and ‘what is truth’ that I do love to engage in. It’s more playful frivolity. I like the humor and the laughs. But, in fact, playful frivolity can hinder discussion, hold it at arm’s length, and be a distracting hindrance. I’m mostly listening to myself, and there is no real dialogue. I’m laughing at my own joke. On some level, it is insolent. Just as the psalmist says – LORD, “I am that I am,” save me from the insolent, that I may be blameless.
Busted! By the psalmist – I have met the enemy, and he is me!
When we are talking we are not listening. We cannot hear the wordless voice of God emanating from the silent shout of creation. The danger is that we separate ourselves from a loving God and feel separation. Even worse, we give up our union so that we can think that we are correct, right, and even righteous! And we are seldom aware that that is what is happening. But, as soon as we start thinking that we are important, we start feeling that we are alone. We talk, talk, talk to the ends of the earth; we feel that we are 'right;' we make our points; and, in making our points, we can miss the Point of the silent shout altogether. We feel our energy depleted in aimless talk, while the creation is shouting all around us, unheard.
As James notes, “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire…no one can tame the tongue…with it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not be so.”
Busted! This time by James.
To use another example from my life, and one I’m sure many can relate to: When I was a young man, I liked to drive fast. I did not hesitate to speak badly of the slower drivers on the road, the ones who held me up.
I willfully told them to go to heck, because they didn’t believe in gosh. (You can laugh, that was a joke).
Now that I’m older, and a much safer driver, I find myself occasionally becoming impatient and angry with the drivers that buzz by weaving in and out of traffic – me at a younger age, of course. Shut up, Wyatt, just shut up; pay attention to your own driving, not the driving of others. Judge not lest you be judged. One difference between the old me and the young me is that I am aware of these things.
So, busted! This time by me. You might think I’m extravagant, but to paraphrase Jesus for the 21st century – the Kingdom of Heaven is like driving all the way to Washington, D.C. without having a single unkind thought for any driver on the road! (That’s not a joke, I’m serious).
But how would you feel if you were busted by Jesus? That’s what happened to Peter in the passage from Mark. Jesus has just finished teaching his disciples that he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Peter is listening, all right, but he can’t accept what he hears! Peter takes Jesus aside and starts arguing with him. The actual word the passage uses is "rebuke." Kind of like, "Jesus, how dare you say such things!" I imagine it may have continued something like this: “Hey, let’s just go down to Nag’s Head for a while, until this all blows over. There are lots of folks there who need your teaching, and the weather’s always great this time of year. There will be other Marys and Marthas there, good cooks and good places to stay…think how welcomed we’ll be!”
The response from Jesus is swift and unequivocal: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter is busted.
Then, it gets even worse for him – Jesus turns to the crowd and the rest of the disciples, and says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
Sometimes you can be standing right next to God, and he’s talking to you, and you just don’t want to hear the message. And you'll start arguing with him. And you'll try to cut a deal to get your own way. And He will bust you, every time, and lead you away in the handcuffs that you’ve designed yourself. But there’s something else he’ll do, too. He’ll teach you how to remove your handcuffs and throw them away. He’ll teach you how to live in freedom. And He’ll always be there for you.
He asks you to deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow after him. He doesn’t ask you to pick up his, though clearly, once you have picked up your cross, you must have the courage to be crucified for – or by – the truth of your cross. You have nothing to lose but your handcuffs. You have everything to gain – freedom – Paradise and Eternity, in fact – and all you have to do is pick up your cross, whatever it is, and follow after Jesus, who demonstrated that death has no power.
And be advised, more than anything, the power of Jesus’ words in this passage from Mark come from the Resurrection: “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering,…and be killed, and after three days rise again.” It is the Resurrection that gives power to Christianity, not the crucifixion. In fact, the crucifixion means nothing without the Resurrection. So ask yourselves “What is my cross?” or “What are my crosses?” and pick them up, and love them, for they are the way to freedom. This is good news. It is also hard news.
Maybe complacency is your cross. It’s awfully easy to just “kick back” and enjoy here in Deltaville, but the psalmist tells us “the complacency of fools destroys them.” There’s no eternity in being a couch potato, that’s for sure. Or maybe it's an eternity of boredom.
Maybe it’s one of the seven deadly sins - maybe gluttony – “O no! I overate again! The devil made me do it!” No, not the devil – you made yourself do it.
Maybe it’s greed, and the desire for money and possessions burns like a fever in your brain – “O, it’s OK, that’s the way God made me!” No, that’s not the way God made you, that’s the way you made you. You might think of any of these sins as a covering you've put over your true image - the image of God, of divinity, of love - as a pale substitution for your real image. The pale substitution is your cross. On the other side of it is life that is more full and abundant.
You see where I’m going. Your cross is your cross. The pale substitution is exactly what separates you from God. It's what you've put in place of God; it's an idol. It is exactly what has to be unmade in ourselves to heal a separation that, after all, we have imposed on ourselves. Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are always there, in and with love, saying, "Follow after me! Come to me!" It's a journey we must make; we each have our own journey, but as Christians, we also travel together in community. This is what, for me, the church is for.
The journey starts for me - and maybe ends - in prayer. I mentioned the prayer of petition earlier in this talk, when the psalmist asks and entreats "...who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults." I'm sure we all pray like this, and it's necessary to do so. There is also another kind of prayer, a prayer of surrender. This kind of prayer asks for nothing. I'm speaking of meditation. There is a long and rich tradition of meditation in the Church, but in recent centuries it seems to be a prayer skill that has been relegated to monks and mystics. Brothers and sisters, it need not be so.
I have practiced meditation for decades now, and it is in the silence experienced in meditation that a lively personal spirituality has grown in me. I mention it here because a short time devoted to meditation each day has immeasurably increased the joys in my life, and I think it would improve the quality of anyone's life. Diving in to silence has made me a better listener. Sometimes the 'silent shout' of the creation is a palpable force that shakes me from the inside out. My speech is no longer inflammatory, but informed by silence.
In Matthew, Chapter 5, the first beatitude is "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." When I was a child, I could not figure out how being poor in anything could lead to the Kingdom. Then, as a young man, I realized that the passage probably referred to being "humble in the spirit." That made more sense to me. But then I started to meditate; in experiencing meditation I began to think that the passage had been mistranslated. Maybe it should be "Blessed are the poor within the spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." First of all, meditation is a denial of self. When I meditate well, the world falls away, and my self with it. Things become very quiet. There is a feeling of expansion. There is a palpable sense of timelessness and eternity. I become peace. And when I come back to the world, it seems fresher and more alive than before; it's been made new. Through the years, many of my bad habits - not all of them yet, but many - have just naturally fallen away.
I wish this for all. I pray that our crosses, as soon as we recognize them and pick them up, may naturally fall away, and leave us smack dab in the middle of heavens telling the glory of God, the firmaments proclaiming his handiwork. The Peace that Passeth All Understanding.
Amen.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost Year B 2009
13 Pentecost B 09
August 30, 2009
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
8 The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. 9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. 10 My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; 11 for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
1 My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. 2 You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.
6 Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; 7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; 8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad; 9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
James 1:17-27
17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for your anger does not produce God's righteousness. 21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing. 26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. ) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" 6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' 8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
A Journey to Gennessaret
That day began late in the bright sunny morning with difficulties with the house servants. The Pharisee had said his morning prayers, thanking God that he was not a woman or a sinner, and thanking God for the many rewards that God had granted him for his pious life. He then reminded his chief steward that he needed not sixteen but seventeen jugs of water drawn from his private well. The steward had the gall to argue with him, complaining that carrying so many jugs of water in addition to all the other morning duties was a burden to the staff. The Pharisee shook his head. He was really paying these lazy servants too much money. He took his rod of birch and whipped the steward. It really is a burden on a good man to have the responsibility of managing such a large household.
The Pharisee joined his wife and children for the morning meal, carefully inspecting the bowls and dishes for cleanliness before he went into the dining room. The servants really didn’t understand the big picture, how important it was to maintain purity before God. He took the opportunity during the morning meal to school his wife and children on the importance of cleanliness, reading aloud some of the many verses from Deuteronomy that were written in his very expensive personal copy of the scroll having to do with exactly how one is to wash to maintain one’s acceptability to God. Of course, these passages were addressed to the priests of the temple, but the Pharisee understood the tradition of the elders, who wisely extended these rules to everyone.
He had a busy day. He had to make a journey out of busy, cosmopolitan Jerusalem up to the country province of Gennessaret with a few of his fellow Sandhedrin members to investigate a teacher who had been getting some notoriety of late. His name was Jesus, and the people were very fond of him. Some of his colleagues on the Sanhedrin thought he was dangerous, that he might be stirring up some kind of revolution. Others thought his message was at the very least interesting.
But before he left with his retinue of servants who would carry his tent and his supplies, he had one bit of business to attend to. A landowner owed him money and hadn’t been able to pay, and today was the day he would seize the man’s land to cover the debt. Really, these country people, so ignorant, so irresponsible. It would be painful to take the land which had been in the man’s family for centuries, but it was after all only what he deserved for his poor management. It would add another fifty acres to the Pharisee’s already wide holdings.
Meanwhile, in the country village of Gennessaret, where Jesus and his followers were staying, the woman was carrying her second jug of water the mile and a half back from the community well. Her back had troubled her for some years now and the daily trips to the well had become a misery. She knew from the synagogue teaching of the Pharisees that bathing was necessary to be right with God, but she just couldn’t manage going back and forth to the well so much. The water she carried was just enough to drink and to use for cooking the family’s meager morning meal. She silently prayed, “I’m sorry, Lord, it’s the best I can do. I hope you understand.”
Her husband was already at work in the fields, fields his family had owned for centuries, now lost to one of the temple priests who had loaned them the money to pay the Roman’s taxes. They hadn’t been able to pay the loan back on time, and so now they were tenant farmers on their own land. The temple priest was very rich and sent overseers out to make sure that the entire tax, along with the tithe to the temple, was always taken, no matter how little was left for her and her family. All of them were getting very thin, and one of the little girls was sick. She couldn’t afford to take her to the priests.
This morning though, her back seemed to feel better. It was strange how hope could make so many burdens lighter. Jesus had come across the Galilee just the day before. So many people healed. God had to be with him. Her husband had come home full of stories about Jesus’ teaching. He planned to take their daughter to him that day. It was said he fed a huge crowd of people a rich meal using only a few loaves of bread and two fish. Could it really be that God had heard their prayers? Could it really be that God was going to save his people?
The Pharisee arrived that evening just in time to join his friends and go to the humble house where Jesus and his followers were to have dinner. There was a huge crowd of filthy peasants milling about outside the house. The smell was just awful. Really, can’t these people take a bath now and then? The peasants cleared the way and bowed and scraped as the Pharisees made their way into the house. The Pharisee recognized several men whose lands he’d seized for debts. Their eyes weren’t friendly.
The house was packed with dirty smelly people. The Pharisee had to cover his nose with his prayer shawl, the stench was so strong. And they were all so happy, laughing and sharing food. There was Jesus in the midst of all of them. He was hard to pick out because he and his disciples looked so much like the poor country bumpkins around them. Their clothes were worn and dirty and so were their hands.
The Pharisee was outraged. This was disgusting. This man was claiming to be a rabbi but he wasn’t even clean. “Why, may I ask,” the Pharisee said, “don’t you and your disciples wash your hands before the meal as we have been taught by tradition?”
And Jesus had the audacity to call him and his friends hypocrites. He even quoted Isaiah. The room fell silent. The Pharisee looked around at the dirty peasants in the room. He saw triumph in their eyes.
He and his friends left the house.
While the Pharisees were heading away from the village to their overnight camp, the woman who had carried the water that morning was with her children, telling them stories about Moses she had memorized when she was little. Her husband had taken her daughter to see Jesus and he hadn’t yet returned. She was anxious and worried, but she was trying to hide it from the children, who were listening to her stories with bright and hopeful eyes.
Suddenly her husband’s frame filled to door. At first she didn’t see her daughter. Without saying a word, her husband led the child into the dark room. “I feel better, Mother. The man Jesus touched me, and I feel much better.”
One question burned in the woman’s mind. She whispered “How much did it cost?”
Her husband said, “Nothing. All he said was, ‘Great is your faith. Let it be done as you ask.’”
At the camp of the Pharisees, over a sumptuous meal of lamb and bread and honey, The Pharisee brought up what they were all thinking about Jesus. He said, “This man has to die.”
Amen.
August 30, 2009
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
8 The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. 9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. 10 My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; 11 for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
1 My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. 2 You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.
6 Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; 7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; 8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad; 9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
James 1:17-27
17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for your anger does not produce God's righteousness. 21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing. 26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. ) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" 6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' 8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
A Journey to Gennessaret
That day began late in the bright sunny morning with difficulties with the house servants. The Pharisee had said his morning prayers, thanking God that he was not a woman or a sinner, and thanking God for the many rewards that God had granted him for his pious life. He then reminded his chief steward that he needed not sixteen but seventeen jugs of water drawn from his private well. The steward had the gall to argue with him, complaining that carrying so many jugs of water in addition to all the other morning duties was a burden to the staff. The Pharisee shook his head. He was really paying these lazy servants too much money. He took his rod of birch and whipped the steward. It really is a burden on a good man to have the responsibility of managing such a large household.
The Pharisee joined his wife and children for the morning meal, carefully inspecting the bowls and dishes for cleanliness before he went into the dining room. The servants really didn’t understand the big picture, how important it was to maintain purity before God. He took the opportunity during the morning meal to school his wife and children on the importance of cleanliness, reading aloud some of the many verses from Deuteronomy that were written in his very expensive personal copy of the scroll having to do with exactly how one is to wash to maintain one’s acceptability to God. Of course, these passages were addressed to the priests of the temple, but the Pharisee understood the tradition of the elders, who wisely extended these rules to everyone.
He had a busy day. He had to make a journey out of busy, cosmopolitan Jerusalem up to the country province of Gennessaret with a few of his fellow Sandhedrin members to investigate a teacher who had been getting some notoriety of late. His name was Jesus, and the people were very fond of him. Some of his colleagues on the Sanhedrin thought he was dangerous, that he might be stirring up some kind of revolution. Others thought his message was at the very least interesting.
But before he left with his retinue of servants who would carry his tent and his supplies, he had one bit of business to attend to. A landowner owed him money and hadn’t been able to pay, and today was the day he would seize the man’s land to cover the debt. Really, these country people, so ignorant, so irresponsible. It would be painful to take the land which had been in the man’s family for centuries, but it was after all only what he deserved for his poor management. It would add another fifty acres to the Pharisee’s already wide holdings.
Meanwhile, in the country village of Gennessaret, where Jesus and his followers were staying, the woman was carrying her second jug of water the mile and a half back from the community well. Her back had troubled her for some years now and the daily trips to the well had become a misery. She knew from the synagogue teaching of the Pharisees that bathing was necessary to be right with God, but she just couldn’t manage going back and forth to the well so much. The water she carried was just enough to drink and to use for cooking the family’s meager morning meal. She silently prayed, “I’m sorry, Lord, it’s the best I can do. I hope you understand.”
Her husband was already at work in the fields, fields his family had owned for centuries, now lost to one of the temple priests who had loaned them the money to pay the Roman’s taxes. They hadn’t been able to pay the loan back on time, and so now they were tenant farmers on their own land. The temple priest was very rich and sent overseers out to make sure that the entire tax, along with the tithe to the temple, was always taken, no matter how little was left for her and her family. All of them were getting very thin, and one of the little girls was sick. She couldn’t afford to take her to the priests.
This morning though, her back seemed to feel better. It was strange how hope could make so many burdens lighter. Jesus had come across the Galilee just the day before. So many people healed. God had to be with him. Her husband had come home full of stories about Jesus’ teaching. He planned to take their daughter to him that day. It was said he fed a huge crowd of people a rich meal using only a few loaves of bread and two fish. Could it really be that God had heard their prayers? Could it really be that God was going to save his people?
The Pharisee arrived that evening just in time to join his friends and go to the humble house where Jesus and his followers were to have dinner. There was a huge crowd of filthy peasants milling about outside the house. The smell was just awful. Really, can’t these people take a bath now and then? The peasants cleared the way and bowed and scraped as the Pharisees made their way into the house. The Pharisee recognized several men whose lands he’d seized for debts. Their eyes weren’t friendly.
The house was packed with dirty smelly people. The Pharisee had to cover his nose with his prayer shawl, the stench was so strong. And they were all so happy, laughing and sharing food. There was Jesus in the midst of all of them. He was hard to pick out because he and his disciples looked so much like the poor country bumpkins around them. Their clothes were worn and dirty and so were their hands.
The Pharisee was outraged. This was disgusting. This man was claiming to be a rabbi but he wasn’t even clean. “Why, may I ask,” the Pharisee said, “don’t you and your disciples wash your hands before the meal as we have been taught by tradition?”
And Jesus had the audacity to call him and his friends hypocrites. He even quoted Isaiah. The room fell silent. The Pharisee looked around at the dirty peasants in the room. He saw triumph in their eyes.
He and his friends left the house.
While the Pharisees were heading away from the village to their overnight camp, the woman who had carried the water that morning was with her children, telling them stories about Moses she had memorized when she was little. Her husband had taken her daughter to see Jesus and he hadn’t yet returned. She was anxious and worried, but she was trying to hide it from the children, who were listening to her stories with bright and hopeful eyes.
Suddenly her husband’s frame filled to door. At first she didn’t see her daughter. Without saying a word, her husband led the child into the dark room. “I feel better, Mother. The man Jesus touched me, and I feel much better.”
One question burned in the woman’s mind. She whispered “How much did it cost?”
Her husband said, “Nothing. All he said was, ‘Great is your faith. Let it be done as you ask.’”
At the camp of the Pharisees, over a sumptuous meal of lamb and bread and honey, The Pharisee brought up what they were all thinking about Jesus. He said, “This man has to die.”
Amen.
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