Sermon for Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Louis, King of France, 1214 – 1270
Jesus said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry.” – Luke 12:22a.

Do not worry.

1. Look at all the things we worry about!  Money, health, what others think of us, medical condition, etc.
2. Does it do any good?   “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” 
3. Things we worry about collectively: money, building, our survival. 
4. Does it do any good?  “Can any of us by worrying add a single hour to our span of life?”
5. Indeed, worry – similar to fear – is crippling to the spiritual life

What we can do: “Seek first his kingdom.”

1. Jesus, the consummate pastor, gives us something we can do
2. Seek first his kingdom, and all these things will be added unto us.  We don’t need to worry, we are going to be fine, provided we “seek first his kingdom.” 
3. Individually:  Take care of prayer, study of the word, attention to our baptism, attention to spiritual disciplines and service.  See first his kingdom, and we will be OK. 
4. Collectively:  Voices around us tell us that we must put more butts in our pews; we must model “success” as do the princes of this world, in terms of numbers.  I think worry about our numbers weighs on all of us, whether we know it or not. (It’s not our small size, but our big and bloated building – built during an unusually bloated time of church-going – that is problematic.  If we are faithful, we can move mountain, regardless of our size!) 
1. Not worrying is difficult to do!  Everything in the world around us – the voices we hear – tells us that money is key, that success is important, that who we know or what we have makes a difference, that prayer and worship and faith is a waste of time.
2. Do not worry!  “For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these [physical] things, and your Father knows that you need them.”
3. Consider the ravens…  look at the lilies.  If God takes care of them, will not God take care of you?
5. Can we by worrying add a single hour to our span of life, either individually or collectively as a parish? 
6. Our worrying is misplaced energy.  We are called to order our life such that we may minimize worry.  The gospel tells us how: “Seek first the kingdom of God.”
7. As we are concerned, both individually and collectively, with loving God and loving our neighbor – our worship, our prayer, our spiritual life, our service of others, our desire to be pertinent (and not irrelevant) in this world – as we seek first the kingdom, God will add all these things unto us.

 

Close:  “Don’t you worry.”

1. Today is feast day of St. Louis.  Famous and pious French king of 13th century.
2. One of many cities named after him is city famous for the blues, St. Louis.
3. Close with blues singer Floyd Dixon (1929-2006):

Don’t let too many worries blow your mind,
Because you will have some more some time,
So chile, don’t worry, don’t you worry
Yeah, the name of my song is “Don’t you worry.”

Jesus, too:  Don’t worry.  But do seek first his kingdom.  Do worship, do pray, do read the scriptures, do serve the poor, outcast and powerless -- seek first his kingdom, and then all these things will be added unto you.

 

Sermon for Sunday, August 8, 2010
11th Sunday After Pentecost
Luke 12:32-40

Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Fear

1. Fear is one of the great inhibitors of Christian discipleship, impinging on our relationships with each other, on our availability to serve, and on our relationship with God. 
2. The Spirit knows this, and in the gospels, we hear the message “Do not be afraid,” a number of times.
3. Examples
1. Angel Gabriel to Mary
2. Angels to the shepherds
3. Jesus to the disciples as he was walking on the sea
4. Angel to the disciples at the empty tomb
4. Can you imagine, what our lives would look like, if we took Jesus’ message to heart and were not afraid?  Can you imagine, what this community could look like…?

Money:  one of the greatest sources of fear

1. Today’s gospel addresses one of the greatest sources of fear that inhibits discipleship:  money.
2. We are afraid of money; or, more specifically, we are afraid of the lack of money.
3. Because we fear it, we let it become our taskmaster and slave driver. 
4. We let it rule over us, we let it drive us, and we cannot get free from it’s grasp.  Money is our Pharaoh.
5. Listen to Lynne Twist writing in her book, “The Soul of Money:”

Rarely in our life is money a place of genuine freedom, joy, or clarity, yet we routinely allow it to dictate the terms of our lives and often to be the single most important factor in the decisions we make about work, love, family, and friendship.  There is little that we accept  so completely as the power and authority of money, and the assumptions about how we should feel about it.

1. Elsewhere she writes, “Money is like an iron ring we put through our nose.  It leads us around wherever it wants.”

 

There is hope

1. We can become free from money’s grasp and be restored to a right relationship with it
2. Jesus in today’s gospel lesson shows us that right relationship:
1. "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms.”  And this giving alms is like “making purses for ourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”
3. Today I am going to preach about “giving alms,” giving genersouly, which has the power to set us free from fear about money.

Two things:
1)  If I give money, won’t that mean that I have less of it, and my sense of scarcity will be compounded?

1. I know it sounds contrary to reason, but “No.  Not at all!”
2. In a counter-intuitive way, the more you give, the more you have.
3. As we give – as we make “purses” for ourselves that do not wear out (“purses” are giving) –  it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.
4. Told this story many times:  we used to worry a lot about money, until we started to give it away.
5. Like Israelites walking through the Red Sea, felt as though “This is going to close in on me at any moment.”  But it didn’t, and there is freedom on the other side.

2)  To what / whom to give?  Two things:

1. Just give.  Discover how good it feels to give: discover the freedom; discover the sense of controlling money, rather than money controlling you.  Just give!  Plenty of worthy causes.
2. Take to heart what Jesus said in the gospel: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
1. Where would you like your heart to be?  (Ask Jesus to show you!)
2. Put your treasure there!

 “Do not be afraid” means “I am about to create something new.”

1. “Do not be afraid” is biblical code for “I am about to create something new.”
1. Angel Gabriel à new life in Mary’s womb
2. Angels to shepherds à Jesus is born
3. Angels at the tomb à resurrection!
2. When Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock… sell your possessions and give alms,” God is creating something new; something every bit as new as the new life in Mary’s womb or the new life of resurrection.
3. When we give alms, God is creating something new in us

True for us as a parish, as well

1. We as parish have committed to “giving alms” in 2011.
2. Am I afraid.  You bet!  Jesus’ message today is for me!
3. Have a hunch that I am not alone:  “Where is this money for almsgiving going to come from?”
4. If we can make good on our commitment to “give alms,” I assure you that God will create something new in this place, something as new and as wonderful as God incarnate in this world, something as new and wonderful as Jesus’ triumphing over the powers of death.
5. I don’t know what it will look like exactly, but I know that it will be good.

Key message:  Do not be afraid! 

1. Do not be afraid of money
2. Way to not be afraid:  give alms.  “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven.”
3. Doesn’t make sense, I know:  “But then I’ll have even less money.”
4. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
5. Keep in mind, wherever you put your treasure, there your heart will go. 
6. Do not be afraid.  Try it!  Try giving generously, and see what new thing God can work in your life.  Try it!  And see what new thing God can work in our life.

 

Sermon for Friday, August 6, 2010
The Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord

Intro:  Why do we keep these mid-week feast days?

1. Think of a vast city.  Every Sunday morning we see this city in its entirety spread out before us.  Week by week, over the course of the years, we get to know this city better and better.
2. Though it is possible to see the fullness of this city on Sunday mornings, our mid-week feast days are like one-on-one interviews with the inhabitants of that city. 
1. Get to meet individual inhabitants – such as John the Baptist, whom we celebrated on June 29.
2. Get to know stories important to the life of the people in that city – such as the Transfiguration as we celebrate today, or the Holy Cross, that we celebrate September 14.
3. These additional “human interest” interviews add color and depth, and help us better understand the city.
4. Sort of like going to the Holy Land:  Can read the scriptures, which present the “whole truth for all people all the time.”  The scriptures are full and sufficient.  But going to the Holy Land is like reading a fifth gospel, and everything becomes that much more alive.
5. And so we celebrate these feasts to better know the inhabitants of the city, to get to learn their stories, and these add color and depth to our appreciation of the gospel.

The Transfiguration:  Glory, Light and Beauty

1. August 6 is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, the day on which we remember the story of Jesus and the disciples on the mountain, seeing Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus, and the great light – the “glory” that shone forth.
2. Transfiguration is an important story in the life of the inhabitants of that city.  It tells about God’s “glory;” that is, God’s immanence, God’s presence in this world, and today’s feast expresses that presence in terms of beauty and light. Listen again to the Collect for today:

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening:  Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

1. August 6.  Anniversary of Hiroshima, a city with a very different – but somewhat similar – story.  They, too, remember a day of light and power.  

 

What do this Feast of the Transfiguration and August 6, 1945 have to say to us? 

1. God’s “glory” is indeed in this world.  God is in this world.
1. God’s “glory” was on Sinai with Moses and with the people through Moses
2. God’s “glory” was in the tabernacle in the desert as the Hebrews traveled through the wilderness
3. God’s “glory” was present in Jesus Christ, God incarnate “and we have seen his glory, glory as of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”
4. God’s “glory” present in Christ on the mountain.
5. God’s glory present in Christ on cross.  In John’s language, Jesus’ crucifixion is his glorification.  “It is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”

1. God is present to us in this world. 
2. Juxtaposition of the Feast of the Transfiguration and the anniversary of Hiroshima tell us that God is especially present to us where there is suffering.
3. Prominent part of the Christian tradition:
1. OT:  Ps 34: 18:  “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and will save those whose spirits are crushed.”
2. NT:  For John the Evangelist, Jesus’ “glory” is his crucifixion:  “Now the Son of man has been glorified, and God is glorified in him.”
4. Story told by Ellie Wiesel.  “Where is God?”  “There!” pointing to hanging men.

 

The Feast of the Transfiguration adds greatly to our understanding of this city that is God.

1. God is indeed present in this world.  His glory is around us.
2. God is especially present where there is great suffering.
3. Perhpaps the great challenge of this feast is to reconsider what constitutes beauty in this city:
4. Beauty is found wherever the redeeming light of Christ is shone into dark places.
5. Beauty is found wherever the Son of Man, who was glorified in the cross,  is manifested to those held captive by the powers of sin and death.

It is my hope and prayer on this Feast of the Transfiguration, that we who aspire to the heavenly city, can make the story of this feast our own.  That we can live beautiful lives that manifest Jesus “glorification,” sharing in his death and resurrection; that we can take this life to those who sit in darkness and great suffering, and that we can faithfully bear to them the light of the glorified Christ.

Sermon for Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Jeremiah 31:1-7

“Again I will build you, and you shall be built…
Again you shall… go forth in the dance…
Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.”

Tonight’s text from Jeremiah reminds us what spiritual growth and development is like:

1. “Again” you shall be built, you shall go forth in dance, you shall plant vineyards.
2. “again” reveals pattern: flourishing and fainting
3. Reminiscent of Origin’s “The Israelites traveled by stages” (Numbers and Exodus)

Wherever you are individually on the journey – whether flourishing or faint-hearted – flourishing will come again, and falling will come again

1. Flourishing?  Faint-heartedness will come at some point, guaranteed
2. Faint-hearted?  Flourishing is just around the corner

True for us corporately as well

1. Israelites traveled as group through the wilderness; what happened to one affected all
2. Go through periods when our vision and sense of mission is clear – God is leading by easily-seen fire
3. Also go through times when God leads by the “cloud” – not united around a common vision; disagreement as to who we are and what our mission is
4. Go through times of stability – stay in one place for a season
5. Go through times of travel – picking up the tabernacle and moving

What to do?  Keep on “keeping on.”

• Worship (showing up with community)
• Prayer (doing the work that only we can do with God)
• These are challenging!  The Christian journey is a continual struggle.  When we baptize people, we baptize them into a life-long struggle, continually going through cycle flourishing and faint-heartedness.
• Whether God leads by fire or cloud, whether our vision is clear or in flux, God is there.
• Our call:  wherever we are – in the wilderness, or by springs of water – to pitch the tabernacle and give thanks
• Never losing hope of Promised Land

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