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Sermon
Synopses - 2010
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Sermon for Sunday, July 18, 2010
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 10:38-42
But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
Last week
- Last week, we looked at the confrontation between Amaziah, the high priest of Bethel, and Amos through the lens of the African poet, Chinua Achebe. Achebe once famously said that, “The poet who was not in trouble with his king, was in trouble with his poetry.”
- The priest Amaziah was close with his king, Jereboam, but in trouble with his “poetry” – he did not speak out against the rampant greed and corruption that was present in Israel in the early 8th century BC.
- Amos, on the other hand, was not in trouble with his “poetry,” his word, but was certainly in trouble with the king. The priest Amaziah ordered him to stop his prophesying, to “go, flee to the land of Judah; earn your bread there, prophesy there.”
- Unless we, the Church, are right with our “poetry,” the word, we will not have power to confront the “kings” of this world, the powers of greed and corruption.
- We talked about how faithful worship, week after week, was the most effective way to gradually get right with the word.
Today
- If last week we talked about the power of the word to confront the powers of this world, today we are going to look at the power of the word to confront us;
- For unless we ourselves have the capacity to be disturbed by the word, how can we rightly manifest this word to disturb the “kings” and powers of the world?
- Only to the extent that we have let the word enter into us and “mess with us” – confront us, disturb us, make our rough places plain – can we with authenticity proclaim this word to others.
Challenge: We don’t like to be disturbed by the word
- We don’t like to be disturbed by the word. We want the word to comfort us. We want the word to reinforce the way we already think and do things… And sometimes it does!
- But the word also pierces us. “The word of God is living and active…”
- In our relation to the word, we are often like Herod in relation to John the Baptist. Like Herod fascinated by John, we are drawn to the word and like to hear it; we know that great hope lies therein! And yet, like Herod to John, we are afraid of him and put him in prison; we try to keep it contained.
- It is a great challenge, to develop a capacity to be disturbed by the word.
Why should we develop a capacity to be disturbed by the word?
- This morning’s lesson from Amos makes it clear: death and exile
- When the people lose the capacity to be disturbed by the word, the result is death and exile. The prophets are consistent on this point, from Moses to Samuel to Amos to Jeremiah.
- No ifs ands or buts about it. When the people lose the capacity to be disturbed by the word – when we hear only what we want to hear, when we shut ourselves down from the word entering into us and messing with us – the result is death and exile.
What does this have to do with us?
- Look around you. See how many empty pews there are?
- There are many factors to our empty pews: changing demographics, changing culture, shortcomings of past leadership…
- I also think we need to ask ourselves, “Did we at some point lose our capacity to be disturbed by the word?”
- Have we become like the high priest Amaziah to Amos, telling the word “Flee to the land of Judah…?”
- If we have, we have no reason to believe that the end for us here at Trinity Parish will be any different than was the end for the people of Israel in the time of Amos: death and exile.
A key question for us today: “How can we increase our capacity to be disturbed by the word?”
- Look to story of Mary and Martha
- Each of us has within us a Mary and a Martha.
- We have a part of us that is Mary, wanting to encounter the word; a part of us that is curious, desiring, wanting to enter the depths.
- We have a part of us that is also Martha. We are afraid of the word. We want to keep it at bay, and we find all kinds of others things to do to keep the word from getting in and messing with us.
- One of the most common ways of keeping the word at arms length is work. “Work is good,” we tell ourselves, and we receive gratitude and reinforcement from others for doing it.
- (And there is work to be done – there is always work to do, and it is both our duty and privilege to do it – and work is good, so long as we do not it does not hinder us from engaging the word, so long as we do not take refuge in it to keep from engaging the word.)
- How to claim and increase the Mary within us?
- Engage the word! Worship, read scripture, pray.
- Engage in service to others. The poor, powerless and outcast have the word in ways that we may not; they can speak it to us.
- Word also present in sacraments. Get in touch with our baptism, what it means for us, what it demands of us.
- How to manage the inner Martha?
- Keep in mind, “It is good things that keep us from doing the best things.”
- Order our lives to make worship, scripture reading, prayer and service a priority
- Order our lives to decrease other disturbances. We can only take so much anxiety. As we are able to decrease anxiety over other aspects of our life, we will have more capacity to be disturbed by the word. à This is a good kind of disturbance!
- Challenging! But with God’s help, we can do it. Ask Jesus for help! Ask him to “increase my capacity to take in the word, and not be afraid to be pierced by it.”
Conclusion
Like to leave you with a passage from the prophet Isaiah. It is a passage about God’s word, how it is always going forth among us, falling like rain, and how it always – if we can let it in – brings forth new life:
Isaiah 55: For as the rain and snow fall from the heavens and return not again but water the earth, bringing forth and giving growth, seed for sowing and bread for eating, so is my word that goes forth from my mouth; it will not return to me empty but will accomplish that for which I sent it.
For the sake of your life – for the sake of our lives together here at Trinity Parish – let this word get in and mess with you! Bring forth your inner Mary; manage your inner Martha. (Difficult, I know. Ask the Lord for help!) For if we can increase our capacity to be disturbed by the word, we will increase our capacity to manifest this word to the world around us, and we can become effective disciples carrying out our mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other through Jesus Christ.
Sermon for Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Matthew 11:25-27
“At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.’” – Matt 11:25
Jesus’ prayer / Feast of St. Benedict
- Today, I am going to invite us to order our lives around prayer.
- This will be an invitation I will issue from time to time. Important because, as we order our lives individually for prayer, so will we better able to ground our parish life in prayer; and as we ground our parish life in prayer, so will we grow increasingly faithful in our lives as disciples. (And besides, life with prayer is just more enjoyable than life without it.)
- This invitation being issued today is the result of two concurrent events.
- First, in today’s gospel lesson is a rare thing: the words of one of Jesus’ prayers – “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” (Almost nowhere in the synoptic gospels do we have the text to one of Jesus’ prayers!)
- Second, this week Monday the Church celebrated the feast day of St. Benedict, a man whose rule and pattern of life has enabled millions of Christians to ground their life in prayer.
- Going to say something about prayer in our lives as Christians generally, and prayer in our lives as Episcopalians.
First, about prayer in our lives as Christians generally.
- Jesus’ prayer to his Father shows us the kind of relationship we enter into when we become Christians – a relationship of prayer. Jesus, our Lord, prays to the Father; therefore we, Jesus’ followers, pray to the Father.
- The prayer relationship between the Father and the Son, the gospels tell us, is a relationship marked both by great intimacy and great challenge.
- Intimacy, because in this relationship of Father and Son is the model (indeed, the possibility!) for all Christian relationship. (“That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be in us.” – John 17:21)
- Challenge, because living together in unity yet in distinction of persons is difficult, and inevitably calls for great sacrifice. (“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” – Matt 26:39)
- As we become more and more people of prayer, we can expect to experience both more and more intimacy, and more and more challenge.
Second, about prayer in our lives as Episcopalians.
- If we are authentic to our roots, Episcopal churches are grounded in prayer; indeed, our defining book, the Book of Common Prayer, contains 1000 pages of tools and material to help us ground our lives in prayer.
- Here is where we owe our debt to Benedict. Benedict played a formative role in the Anglican Church, due to the many Benedictine monasteries in England at the time of the Reformation, and a sharing of Benedictine and English sensibilities (orderliness; clear channels of authority; work hard, but not too much; a certain awareness of “we stand apart” – and a proclivity for juggling multiple books in worship!)
- Benedict ordered his community’s life around prayer, both private and corporate. This ordering of life around prayer is reflected in the BCP.
- Notice the prominence of Eucharist and all the pages used for it (pp 323 – 400).
- Notice the services to bring prayer into our lives around marriage, birth, sickness and death (423 - roughly 503).
- More than two hundred pages (roughly pp 600 – 800) are devoted to the Psalms, which form the backbone of Morning and Evening Prayer.
- Starting on p 810, there are 30 pages of miscellaneous prayers for individual or corporate use
- Pp 889 – 1000 contain schedules of readings for worship, both individual and corporate
- Notice the services for prayers throughout the day (pp 37- roughly 137 ). Morning, Evening, Noonday, and Compline.
- The Daily Office comes from Benedict, and the practice of saying prayers at different times throughout the day can lead us even deeper into the heart of God.
- Genius of Cranmer and the Prayer Book: made the Liturgy of the Hours accessible for every-day folk.
- I invite you, when ready, to try it! Either Sharon or I would be glad to show you how to use this uniquely Anglican resource. You have a standing invitation to ask us.
Conclusion – I invite us to order our lives for prayer.
- To be an Episcopalian is to be part of a community that calls its members to order their lives for prayer.
- We who are here on Wednesday nights already do well in this regard – we are here faithfully, not only on Sunday, but also midweek.
- We who are in the Whole Bible Experience are taking an additional step, to engage more deeply with God’s word.
- Keep up the good work! And there’s more… More prayer awaits. The Daily Office, either full version or shortened version (pp 137ff), is a great help.
- Greater intimacy awaits... And so does great challenge – as with all disciplines, to be faithful to saying the Office is challenging!
- Before you leave, I encourage you to take a look at the window to St. Benedict here in the chapel. Benedict was so prominent to English spirituality, that he made our “wall of fame.” Take a look at the window, and take time to thank the Lord for this great man, for his gift to us of the Daily Office and his inspiration to order our lives for prayer.
Sermon for Sunday, July 11, 2010
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Amos 7:7-17
And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."
“Aren’t they on the same team?” Priesthood vs. Prophet
- In today’s OT lesson is an unusual scene: a priest telling Amos the prophet to go prophesy somewhere else.
- Why? Aren’t they on the same “team?”
- Background: Amos is prophesying in Israel during a time of peace and stability. Israel’s attention is turned from making its borders safe to making money and – something with which we are familiar – there is plenty of corruption and the rich taking advantage of the poor. Amos brings his message of justice to Bethel, a leading city of Israel where the temple is. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, tells Amos to take his message of doom elsewhere. “We don’t want to hear it.”
- What has happened: the temple had come too close to the king. Problematic because then the word of the Lord risks becoming, not an instrument of God, but an instrument of the king
Has our “temple” become too close to the king?
- When I consider the confrontation between Amos and Amaziah, I am reminded of the words of Chinua Achebe, the African author:
“The poet who is not in trouble with his king, is in trouble with his poetry.”
Amos is a prophet right with his “poetry,” and therefore in trouble with his king.
- The Church, infamously in the past, has not been right with its “poetry,” the word:
- Crusades – powers of this world co-opted “word” to pillage Holy Land
- in support of slavery – powers looked to word to justify slavery
- The powers of this world love to get the Church in trouble with its Word, for then the Word is blunted in its ability to speak out against corruption and excess.
- And it is important for us to train ourselves to be alert for ways in which the world attempts to co-opt our Word, lest our mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other be compromised.
- I wonder, might we in the Church still be in trouble with our word, might we be allowing the powers of this world to distort the gospel?
- Consider credit card debt. Are we not hearing the many passages that speak against usury? Do we not see how many credit card companies today maintain policies that maintain many people today in virtual “debt slavery?”
- Consider our attitude toward work. Why do so many people – including so many Christians – work incessantly? What happened to the Biblical practice of Sabbath keeping? (Nowhere does the Bible say to work without ceasing, but it does say to “Pray without ceasing.”)
- Why are we – including many Christians – such consumers? Many of us have so many possessions that our possessions possess us! Are we not hearing passages such as “Go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and then come, follow me?”
- Have we become Amaziahs, ostensibly faithful people whose word has been so co-opted by the “king,” the powers, that we no longer hear the real word?
- Has the word of the Lord become, less an instrument of God than an instrument used by the powers of this world to keep themselves in power?
What can we do, to be right with our “poetry,” the word? What can we do to have the nerve to keep prophesying at “Bethel?”
- To keep right with the word, look to something at once very simple yet quite challenging, something dear to the hearts of the prophets – worship.
- Worship! Worship is our primary justice / prophetic activity.
- How is worship our primary prophetic activity?
- To be sure, worship puts us in touch with texts that speak out against usury and other injustices…
- Setting aside time for worship proclaims to those around us that there is something more important than work…
- Worship helps to align our devotion to God rather than our possessions…
- But most importantly… worship forms us.
- Bit by bit over the course of week-by-week over the course of years – kind of like drip coffee making – the word enters into us and transforms us.
- The word enters us as we listen to the scriptures. The word enters into us as we partake of the sacraments.
- And gradually, over time, we are transformed into “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” And then we cannot help – in our words, actions and choices – but “proclaim the mighty acts of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Faithful worship is difficult! But we have help.
- Worship is at once simple – the bulk of worship is just “showing up” – yet worship is difficult. There is so much that conspires to keep us from showing up!
- We have help in each other. At Trinity Parish we have the catechumenate and the Whole Bible Experience; having company and opportunity for conversation is an immense help on the way! But we must actively seek out this help; it doesn’t just come to us.
- We have help in Christ. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and he wants nothing else but for us to follow him, be formed in him and to give us life. But we must actively seek out this help; ask Jesus for help! “Lord, for the grace to faithfully worship.”
Conclusion
As we at Trinity move forward into the future to which God is calling us, it is crucial for us to be formed in the word of the Lord – the true word as spoken to prophets like Amos, and not the word as the world would like to hear it.
- Listening to the false “word,” the word Amaziah wanted to hear, our forward movement will be blunted, our power compromised.
- Being formed in the Word as it is revealed in Jesus Christ, on the other hand, will lead us into all truth.
- May we continue faithful to our worship and our being formed in the word, that we may be right with our “poetry,” the word; that we may speak and live the word boldly, and that we may be in trouble with the kings of this world.
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