Sermon Synopses - 2009

Sermons at Trinity are usually ex tempore, that is done without notes...Please enjoy our "Sermon Synopses" or short summaries of sermons preached at Trinity

Link to Sermons Synopses for additional summaries available from this year.

Sermon for Sunday, June 28, 2009
Proper 8B
Mark 5:21-43

“She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.”

I am a Christian because of several people who helped bring me to Christ.  They are people as diverse as a Sunday School teacher when I was a boy and a co-worker when I was a man in my 30’s.  And they are diverse in their ways of bearing witness to the gospel:  some spoke explicitly about their faith, others did not speak at all about faith, but only lived it.

In today’s Gospel lesson we see two different ways in which two different people came to Jesus.  Jairus comes to Jesus openly and falls down before him; he makes known his need for Christ in front of the crowds.  The unnamed woman comes to Jesus quietly, from behind, hoping only to touch his garment and then disappear. 

Though I may at times have come to Jesus openly and unashamedly as did Jairus, I identify more with the woman’s way of coming to Jesus, secretly, from behind.  My hunch is that most people prefer the woman’s, and not Jairus’, way of coming to Jesus.  It is important for us to keep this woman’s way of coming to Jesus before us for two reasons:  1) to understand our own pattern of growth in faith, and 2) to understand how we might bear witness to others.

Our own pattern of growth in faith:  We approach Jesus cautiously, from behind, hoping to be healed without having to meet him face-to-face.  (Will he ask me, as he did his disciples, to leave everything and follow?)  When we have touched his garment and been healed, he turns about and searches for us.  Knowing that we cannot hide, we come forward with fear and trembling, as did the woman, and tell Jesus the whole truth.  Jesus then tells us “Daughter (Son), your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.”  And we are healed until the next time, when we again approach Jesus from behind…  Over time the repetition of this pattern draws us closer to Christ.

Bearing witness to others:  Those around us may have been suffering much “for 12 years” (as was the woman).  They have heard of Jesus and are bold enough to come up behind him in the crowd and touch his cloak, but not bold enough to come to him openly.  How can we help them?  We are to be discerning as to how we are to bear witness to Christ.  Shall we speak openly?  Or shall we simply be a light in the darkness to draw them to Christ’s healing touch?

I invite you to pray with today’s gospel and do two things:  1)  Imagine yourself as Jairus, and then as the woman.  What was it like, to openly admit your need for Jesus, and then to have him come into your house and raise your dead?  What was it like to have the courage to approach Jesus from behind and touch his garment?  To have Jesus suddenly stop and turn about, searching for you?  To come forward in fear and trembling and tell Jesus the whole truth?  To hear Jesus say to you, “Your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

2)  Imagine yourself as somebody close to you, a friend, co-worker, neighbor, family member.  In what way might they be suffering (quietly, unnoticed?) and in need of healing?  How can you bear witness to Christ’s healing power to them?  Do you bear witness openly or quietly?  Consider the ways in which you have come to Christ, and imagine a possible way to help that person come to Christ.  If we can be a light in the darkness, perhaps they may have the courage to come from behind and touch Jesus’ garment.

Sermon for Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Nativity of St. John the Baptist
Acts 13:14b-26

“And as John was finishing his work, he said, “What do you suppose that I am?  I am not he.” – Acts 13:25a

My son wants to be like me.  In a recent Father’s Day project from school, he listed the things he liked about his dad, as well as the ways he hoped to be like me – he likes to read the Bible (preacher’s kid), and he wants to bicycle everywhere (I’m flattered he thinks I do this).  Though endearing, I am aware that if he is to grow up to be a healthy, mature, independent adult, he will at some point need to differentiate; he will need to realize that he is not me.

In our spiritual lives, too, we want to be like our Father, God.  Our souls adore him, seek to emulate him, want to be like him.  Remember Adam and Eve?  They took the apple because they wanted “to be like God, knowing good from evil.”  There is one catch:  though we were created in the image of God, we are not God.  John the Baptist’s witness – a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins – speaks to the ways in which we are human; we are broken, fallen, sinful.  Unless we at some point are able to differentiate from God, to realize that we are not he, it is unlikely that we will enter into a healthy, mature adult relationship with God.

Martin Smith, a former brother in the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, once said that the greatest thing we can learn is that only God is God.  Only God is God!  We so often forget this, putting ourselves in the place of God. 

How can we learn that only God is God?  How can we remember, as John did, that “I am not he?”  John provides for us a way forward:  surrender.  John was one who surrendered in two complimentary ways.  1)  John was one who surrendered control.  John lived in the wilderness, a place where one gives up control and lives at the vicissitudes of the climate.  He was vulnerable to the wind, the dust, the hot and cold, the lack of water.  John ate what he was able to forage, honey and locusts.  2)  Such a surrender might be fatalistic were it not also coupled with John’s surrender also to beauty.  John was not himself the light, but he bore witness to the light, the great light of Christ that lit up the darkness of this world.

Sermon for June 21, 2009
Proper 7B
Mark 4:35-41

He said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

Red Sox fans will remember the dark day in December, 2005 when Johnny Damon defected to the New York Yankees.  Of Damon, Bostonians said that “he crossed over to the dark side.”  In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus invites his disciples to “go across to the other side.”  Unlike Damon, we are invited to cross over, not to the dark side, but to the side of light. 

The crossing over to be a disciple of Jesus is not easy, and today’s gospel tells us what we can expect on the journey:  when we leave firm ground and the crowds, and when we put out into the deep to follow Christ, “storms” are likely to come.  Transformation is difficult!  As we make progress on the journey, there will be times when we, like the disciples, are in the dark, afraid and feel that we are about to be overwhelmed.
 
The disciples in today’s gospel show us what we can do when we are in the dark, afraid and overwhelmed.  1)  The disciples remembered that Jesus was in the boat.  2)  The disciples called out to Jesus, prayed to him.

1. Jesus is always with us, in our “boats.”  As we progress on our journey toward God, no matter where we are or how difficult or hopeless our situation may be, Jesus is with us.  But… he may be asleep in the stern and need waking.
2. Call on Jesus.  Wake him up!  Pray as did the disciples (“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”).  The Lord will surely hear and respond.

Whenever we seek to make progress on the spiritual journey – by engaging in a spiritual discipline, when we follow Jesus’ teachings (“Forgive, not seven times, but seventy times seven.”), or simply by coming to church – storms are likely to happen.  Keep up the journey!  Do not forget that Jesus is with you in the boat.  And do not forget to pray, to wake him up, so that he may help you cross over to the other side and bit by bit transform us into his likeness.

Sermon for Wednesday, June 10, 2009
2 Corinthians 3:4-11
Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant. – 2 Cor 3:5-6

You’d think that to learn more about grace, you’d go right to the source, to the writer who began the conversation:  the apostle Paul.  But Paul doesn’t necessarily clarify the matter of grace.  Is salvation all grace?... 

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. – Ephesians 2:8-9

…or is there room for works, even boasting?

I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. – Phil 3:14

But whatever anyone dares to boast of… I also dare to boast of that.  Are they Hebrews? So am I.  Are they Israelites?  So am I.  Are they descendants of Abraham?  So am I.  Are they ministers of Christ?  I am talking like a madman – I am a better one. – 2 Cor 11:22-23

In tonight’s passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul uses a word that sheds light on a possible resolution.  Paul speaks of “competence” as a minister.  “Competence” suggests, not just ability, but initiative and intentional effort to improve.  There is something we can do!  But Paul is also quite clear that this competence comes from God:

Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God. – 2 Cor 3:5

God gives us ability, but it is up to us to develop, train and grow that ability so that we are competent Christians:  competent in worship, competent in prayer, competent in service.  Recall the sermon from Pentecost, in which we looked at one of the words that Acts uses to speak of the Holy Spirit: “fell”.  Grace “falls” on us, and we have nothing to do with its falling.  Yet we can position ourselves so that grace is all the more likely to fall on us.  (Recall the image of the boulders falling on Wile E. Coyote in the cartoon desert.  We are to develop competence in moving ourselves under the falling boulder of grace.)

May God give us the grace to develop our Christian competencies – through prayer, worship, sacraments and service – so that we may indeed walk in the way of salvation.

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