Sermon for Monday, April 26, 2010
Feast of St. Mark

Quote from Alexander Shaia, Biblical scholar, in an interview :

Mark is one of the most disturbing and inspiring sacred texts I know. From the first line to the last line as a teaching of the Risen One, we learn that in the midst of resurrection there also is suffering. Because of the Risen One, we can move into and endure suffering.
   
This is the great paradox because in essence this text is teaching us both about how to quickly move through suffering—but it’s also telling us there will be times in our lives and our history when we will have to endure suffering.

I think Shaia is right:  Mark is at once incredibly disturbing, and extraordinarily inspiring. 

Disturbing: 

1. Mark’s Jesus is one who repeatedly says (three times!) that he must be “delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death.” 
2. Mark’s disciples are disciples who do not understand, who have no faith. 
3. And the original gospel ended on a such a disturbing note – at the empty tomb, with disciples trembling and afraid, saying nothing to anyone – that a subsequent editor felt the need to end rather with the ending we heard this evening – a much friendlier ending. 

Inspiring:  Even in the midst of this great suffering and confusion, there exists resurrection.  And if resurrection can happen to Jesus, then it can happen to us.

Alexander Shaia says that Mark’s focus on suffering is intentional, and part of a unified, greater gesture of the four gospels taken as a whole, a gesture that outlines a journey for the transformation of human life.   Shaia’s theory is quite thought-provoking, and I will introduce you to his theory tonight, and ask you to “ponder these things in your heart,” to see if it makes sense to you and might be helpful to you.

Shaia says that each of the four gospels asks a question:
The great question of Matthew’s gospel, “How can we face change?”
The great question of Mark’s gospel is “How can we move through suffering?”
It leads on to the great question of Luke’s gospel, “How can we mature in service?”
And ends with the great question of John’s gospel, “How can we receive joy?”

These questions[, taken in order, from Matthew to John – the canonical order is intentional and important, says Shaia] – form stepping stones to everybody’s spiritual journey for transformation, or we Christians would say, for deliverance from sin and death.

Again, the four questions are:
How can we face change?  And because change produces suffering…
How can we move through suffering?
How can we mature in service?
How can we receive joy?

In the early church, all Christians underwent this journey of transformation in the catechumenate.  Notice how catechumens were baptized only after a three-year catechumenate – a catechumenate that would have gone through a complete lectionary cycle of Matthew, Mark and Luke, with John sprinkled in at Lent and Easter (a lectionary cycle very much like ours today).   These three years were important, says Shaia, to effect the journey of transformation, which was then signified by baptism.

Many of us here tonight are about the read the gospels all the way through –and the rest of us here are long-time, faithful church goers who have heard much of the gospels.  I invite you to ponder “these things in your heart.”

--  Is there a spiritual progression in the four gospels taken as a whole?
--  Are these gospels four stepping stones in our journey of transformation, deliverance from sin and death? 
--  What can you do, to take advantage of this gospel power?

I have a hunch that all of us would like transformation, to be set free from the powers of sin and death.  I wonder if Shaia is on to something, in his theory of these four gospels being four stepping stones to wholeness.  And I invite – and encourage – all of us to take in these gospels.  Drink in their riches.  Become familiar with them.  Read them at home on your own.  (If you are not in the Whole Bible Experience and don’t have their reading schedule, just use the Prayer Book’s Daily Office lectionary – I’m glad to show it to you at the back of the Prayer Book.)  Let these gospels bit by bit become part of our lives.  Let the gospel message take you to closer to Jesus Christ.  And may he set the captive free.

Sermon for Sunday, April 25, 2010
Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C
Psalm 23

Farming all about growth
Story:  Northwest Arkansas Farmer article. Auto mechanics, small engine repair, welding, carpentry, business internship at feed store – in addition to greenhouse class!  All is for the purpose of growing.

Shepherd image:  Not so much about comfort, but about growth

1. As there are many facets to farming, so are there many facets to the image of God as shepherd
1. Shepherds – king connection:  Saul was shepherd, so was David.  Shepherd keeps sheep together (unifies) and defends them.
2. Shepherds – prophet connection:  Moses was shepherd (Kept flocks of father-in-law Jethro).  Found water for them, found food for them, led them through wilderness, kept sights on the Promised Land.
3. Ezekiel’s job description for shepherds:   “I myself will feed my sheep… I will seek the lost, I will bring back the strayed, I will bind up the injured, I will strengthen the weak.”
2. As with farming, everything about the shepherds is for the purpose of growth in God.
3. Yes, many take comfort in image of shepherd – we love to think of Jesus as shepherd, guiding and carrying sheep – but to stop with comfort is to miss full power and richness of shepherd image. 
4. From earliest generations of church, image was not so much about comfort and holding, but about challenge and growth.

Augustine’s treatment of Psalm 23:  a passage about growth

1. Psalm 23 tells us where this growth happens – the Church
1. Voice is that of church speaking to Christ:  “The Lord is my shepherd.”
2. Togetherness calls for growth.  Like many rocks together on a beach gradually smooth out each others’ rough edges, so does community of church polish us.  Augustinian image – Husks ground together reveal the kernel of wheat within.
2. Psalm 23 shows how growth happens – scripture and sacraments
1. Green pastures of scripture à regenerating waters of baptism à Jesus turns life around à makes us walk in right pathways for his name’s sake. 
2. About God, not us.  Turns our life around to live for God, not bends God to live and work for us.  Icon – Jesus has bent sheep around him, cross in background.
3. Psalm 23 shows goal of growth – “Dwelling in the house of the Lord forever”
1. We Christians live life with forever, not merely now, in mind.  Our actions are to be gauged accordingly.
2. Called to make choices that make sense only as God exists, long-term choices:  humility, generosity, turning the other cheek, forgiving seventy times seven.  To do this is to walk in “right pathways.”
3. Such choices are challenging, to be sure.  His rod and staff are there – his rod provokes and prods us, his staff holds us up.

Leave with image

1. Psalm 23 often used at funerals
2. Not merely for comfort, but to remind us of growth
3. Image of baptismal pool at St. David’s, Ashburn, VA: Coffin laid on four rails just inches above pool.
4. For Christians at death, “life is changed, not ended.”  Jesus the Good Shepherd, who led us into the regenerating waters, continues to lead us, helping us increase in knowledge and love of God, and to “go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in thy heavenly kingdom.”

Jesus the Good Shepherd is all about growth in God.  This shepherd brings us into community of faith.  He leads us to green pastures of scriptures.  He leads us into regenerating waters.  He turns our lives around, and makes us walk in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. All is for growth in God.  We were created for infinite growth in God.  When we rise to the challenge of following this shepherd, we become more and more the people whom God created us to be – sheep of his own fold, lambs of his own flock, sinners of his own redeeming.  I invite you to hear his voice calling you by name.  I invite you to follow where he leads.  I invite us to not fear, but to be his disciple, to grow, to recognize that we are part of his community, to follow the paths he would have us walk in, to let him conform your life to his, cross and all; and I invite us in all our actions to point our lives toward the horizon of the Kingdom that he offers.

Sermon for Wednesday, April 14, 2010

John 3:16-21 

Tonight’s passage contains what is perhaps the most famous verse in all scripture, John 3:16.  We’ve all heard it before, but let’s hear it again: 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 

This verse, and the verses that follow, contain one of John’s favorite words, “Believe.”  Now, “believe” is an important word for us; we use it every Sunday when we recite the Creed – “I believe in God, the Father Almighty…”  Tonight, we’re going to spend some time with this word “believe,” to discover what it actually means.  There are several ways in which, in common language, we use “believe.”

• Can be used to say, “I assent to this or that proposition,” e.g., I “believe” that gravity exists, or I believe that the world is round
• Can be used to say, “I have confidence in,” e.g., “I believe in you, that you can do it.”
• Also might be used to say, “I think it may be the case,” e.g., Where is Trinity Parish?  “I believe it is at the corner of Centre and Homer Streets.”
  

While John’s use of “believe” may contain aspects of one or more of these uses of “believe,” these uses of “believe” when applied to Christ are rather thin and wan and unsatisfactory.  This is not the kind of relationship with Christ that is life-transforming, “saving,” if you will.  My favorite definition of “believe” has more teeth, more “bite,” much more potential; it comes from the writer Diana Eck in her book Encountering God.  Speaking of the Latin credo, which is the opening word of the Creed, “I believe,” Eck writes: 

Credo does not mean, “I believe” in the sense of intellectual assent to this or that proposition.  It means, “I give my heart to this.”  It is an expression of my heart’s commitment and my life’s orientation. 

This use of “believe,” an orienting of our lives around the gospel and Jesus Christ, is a life-giving belief.  A “believer” who is willing to stake his or her life on Jesus Christ, who is willing to take the risk of orienting his or her life around Christ and the Gospel, that is a belief that has power; that is a belief that has the potential to transform, not only the individual’s life, but the world. 

Now, this kind of belief – living our belief – does not preclude having days, perhaps weeks or even seasons, of intellectual doubt; this kind of belief does not prevent our suffering from what most people might term a lack of belief.  To intellectually assent to God as Trinity, to Jesus as both divine and human, to the virgin birth, are things not easy to “believe,” in this use of the word.  And our lives as Christians will always be followed by such doubts.  (It’s normal – don’t be concerned!)  But what we can do is to continue to “believe” in the sense that we orient our lives around Christ and the gospel. We can continue to do things like:  pray, to attend Eucharist, to give generously, to study the scriptures, to forgive seventy times seven, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to give drink to the thirsty and food to those who hunger, and we can even do all this even without a full intellectual assent.  This living our belief, this doing kind of belief, is the kind of belief that can unite us to Christ, that can truly make a difference in our lives.  This is the kind of belief that can, with Christ’s help, give us eternal life, a life that can begin here and now. 

In the baptismal liturgy, we are asked, “Do you believe in God the Father?” and, “Do you believe in God the Son?” and the Holy Spirit.  Even if intellectually we may have some doubts, are we being disingenuous if we boldly answer with the words of the Apostles’ Creed – “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth…”?  I don’t think so…  provided that we are living our belief.  “Belief” is so much bigger than an intellectual assent to a proposition.  Belief for us as Christians calls for an orienting of our lives – our whole lives – around Christ and the gospel.   

I invite you to believe in this sense, to orient everything about your life around Christ and the gospel.  I invite you to do things like pray, like attend Eucharist faithfully (something which all of us here are already good at!), to give generously, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to forgive seventy times seven, to give to all who beg from you, and so forth.  As I imagine what our lives would look like if we all “believed” in such a sense, I get quite excited.  And I invite you, too, to imagine what our lives could look like, with such belief!

Sermon for Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Wednesday in Easter Week

Luke 24:13-35 
 

There is a (tantalizing!) passage in the opening verses of Acts in which, for 40 days, the resurrected Jesus teaches his disciples about the kingdom of God: 

He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 

What did the resurrected Jesus teach his disciples about the Kingdom of God in the 40 days after Easter?  Would that we were flies on the wall, to hear what he had to say! 

Tonight’s passage from the last chapter of Luke gives a clue, I think, of what Jesus may have taught to his disciples;

• In tonight’s passage – as well as tomorrow night’s passage, the other passage in Luke in which the resurrected Jesus teaches, from later in Luke 24 – Jesus teaches the scriptures:  “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
• I have a hunch that the resurrected Jesus in Acts 1:3, as he did in Luke 24, teaches his disciples about the Kingdom of God using the scriptures
  

Scriptures are wise place to begin, if you want to develop relationship with God, which is what Jesus is all about:  wisdom of the tradition tells us that the scriptures are the first step to deeper relationship with God

• Catechumenate:  always rooted in scripture – Advice of one catechist:  “Role of catechist it to put people in touch with the scriptures, then stand back and get out of the way.”
• Augustine’s Teaching Christianity – all about scripture and teaching scripture
• First centuries of church – everything about church structure geared toward breaking open the scriptures (instead of, for example, maintaining structure of scholastic theology)
• If we would continue to grow in our discipleship, we, too, must develop and nurture our relationship with scripture
  

Tonight, going to debunk common myths about scripture, give a word to pair with “scripture,” and give you an invitation: 

Common misconceptions about scripture that would be helpful to debunk: 

• Myth #1 – Scripture is too complicated for the ordinary person.  Not true!  Scripture, according to the tradition, contains “the whole truth for all people all the time.”  It is for all people, wherever they are in life. 
  • Story of truck stop.  Everybody is interested in scripture!  I’ve never met anybody who did not take scripture seriously.  They may not like scripture, may even avoid it – but still in such responses they show that they take it seriously.
  • Augustine:  Scriptures has easy passages to keep us from starving, difficult passages to keep us from getting bored.  Something for everybody!
• Myth #2 – scripture is about what one should do or not do.  We New England Episcopalians tend not to fall prey to this myth, but it probably should be said.  The scriptures are much more wide, different and varied than a mere compendium of “do’s” and “don’ts.”  “They are a spring of water, gushing up unto everlasting life.” – King James 1.  It will feed you in ways we cannot now imagine.
• Myth #3 – Only religious fanatics would take time to read the scriptures.  I would say that religious fanatics don’t spend enough time with scripture – if they did, they wouldn’t be fanatics!  They would be more whole – holy – human beings.  The scriptures were written for humans, and they speak to our soul like nothing else.  Reading them tells us who we are, really; it humanizes us.  Worried about being perceived as a nut?  I recommend Jesus’ advice from Matthew 6:  “When you pray, go to your room and shut the door.”
• Myth #4 – I don’t have time to engage with scripture.  Once you begin to engage, it won’t seem like another thing to do.  It will feed your soul.  Story of man who set out to read the scriptures all the way through – it was his favorite thing he did during the week.  (And he had a life!)  But it does take discipline and support.
  

Helpful word to combine with “Scripture:” “Relationship.”

• “Relationship” captures rightly what it is like to how engage with the scriptures.
  • Like any relationship, our relationship with the Scriptures requires work and attention.  If we do not put in our time, this relationship will suffer
  • Like any relationship, our relationship with the Scriptures will go through seasons – good seasons and bad; seasons when things are humming and “clicking,” and seasons when things are more complicated
  • Like any healthy relationship, our relationship with the scriptures will challenge us and help us to grow, and can be extremely satisfying.
    

I invite you to consider your own relationship with scripture.  Two things:

1)  What feelings come to mind as I am talking about scripture?  Curiosity?  Fear?  Sense of “should” or “ought?”  Guilt? 

• Tell Jesus!

2. What feelings would you like to have in regards to scripture?

• Tell Jesus!

Jesus used scripture to teach his disciples about his death and resurrection and about the Kingdom of God.  Jesus can continue to use scripture to teach us.  I encourage you to hear it, read it, let it enter into you.  It will draw you closer to God.  If you’d like to learn more ways to read scripture, ask!  I – and Sharon – would be delighted to introduce you to classic, time-tested ways to read scripture:  Lectio Divina (meditative reading), the so-called “Ignatian method” (imagining yourself in the story) or praying the Daily Office.  As you enter more deeply into relationship with scripture, your life will indeed be transformed – your life may not get easier, but it will be transformed. For as we let the word enter into us, the risen Christ is able to work in us, to help us on our journey, and will gradually reveal himself to us, so that we may say, “Were not our hearts burning within us?”