FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT Year B Ss. Peter & Paul Portland March 25, 2012
+++++
Jesus, crucified, despised and suffering, you made yourself one with us. Help us to follow you and bear the shame. Amen.
[from a sermon 3/16/97] +++++
Phillips Brooks, author of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts, was also responsible for one of the masterpieces of American 19th century church architecture: Trinity Church in Boston’s Copley Square. Brooks played a very direct role in Trinity’s design. However, there is one feature of Brooks’ design that is visible only to those who preach in Trinity Church. Brooks had these words carved on the inside of Trinity’s pulpit: “Sir, we would see Jesus.”
This quotation from today’s Gospel was also used as the text for a sermon given at a new Rector’s Induction that I once heard – also in Massachusetts! * They are, of course, the words that “some Greeks” spoke to Philip when both they and Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem.
The Greeks were more than likely non-Jews who were fascinated by Judaism’s antiquity and its profound ethical teaching. They were known as “God-fearers,” and they were numerous in the first century. Many of these “God-fearers” would have converted to Judaism had it not been for the requirement of circumcision. Along with Jesus and his disciples, the “God- fearers” were on their way to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. But Jesus was also on his way to suffer, die on the cross, and be raised again.
When Philip reported to Jesus that the Greeks had asked to see him, Jesus exclaimed, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Often, I’ve thought that Jesus is evading the questions and inquiry made by the Greeks, but this is a major turning point in John’s gospel. Scholars tell us that John is divided into the “Book of Signs” and the “Book of Glory.” In the “Book of Signs” – the first part of John – Jesus performs seven miracles that John refers to as signs. They begin when Jesus turns water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana and culminate with Jesus’ greatest miracle: raising Lazarus from the dead. Throughout the “Book of Signs” Jesus makes enigmatic references to his “hour” or “time” and says that it has not yet come. When his mother tells him that the revelers at the wedding feast have run out of wine, he says, “My hour has not yet come.” In John 7:8,
Jesus tells his disciples that he will not go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths because his “time has not yet fully come.”
But when the Greeks asked to see Jesus, he knew that the hour had come for him to be glorified. As Jesus amplifies his strange comment about the hour of his glorification having come, we realize that Jesus’ idea of glory and our idea of glory are radically different. For Jesus, to be glorified was to embrace the cross, the epitome of suffering:
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ... Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. ... And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Because non-Jews such as the Greeks were seeking to meet Jesus, he knew that his mission was no longer restricted to Israel but had become universal. It was time for him to be lifted up – that is, crucified – so that all people could be drawn to him.
For us, glory is about having more: more money, more prestige, more power.
For Jesus, glory was about giving more, and he demonstrates this throughout John’s gospel, but nowhere more vividly than in the final chapters. Jesus gives himself to his friends by washing their feet. Then he gives himself to the world by dying on the cross.
It is the completion of the great arc of self-emptying that began with the opening verses of John. The cosmic Word by which God spoke creation into being descends from on high and is clothed with flesh, “and we beheld his glory.” The Word Incarnate heals the sick, feeds the multitude, raises the dead, and finally completes his task by dying on the cross, and only then resumes the glory that is rightfully his. As Mother Karen has said, “The whole ministry of Jesus, and thus the whole ministry of the church, is cruciform in shape.” **
“Sir, we would see Jesus.” Phillips Brooks knew that everyone who steps into a pulpit and presumes to preach the gospel needs to think about those words, because the great temptation of preaching is to give our hearers something other than Jesus. “We would see Jesus,” our listeners plead, and we give them our learning, comments on the day’s news, a witty joke or two, but too often there is little of Jesus in our preaching.
But it is not only preachers who do this. All around us are people who want to see Jesus. Do they see him in us? Do they see the Servant- Lord who washed the feet of his friends? Do they see the prophet who cleansed the Temple? Do they see the healer who made the blind to see? If we are to let people see Jesus in us, then we must go ourselves and sit at his feet, let him heal us, feed upon his body broken for us, and above all stand at the cross and wonder as the Word that spoke out of the void lapses into silence and death.
A few years ago, a rabbi at a large Reform synagogue published an editorial in the local newspaper on Christmas Day. He said, “I like Christmas, and I like Christians. My only problem with both is that they need more Jesus.”
Precisely. Sometimes those who are outside the circle of the church can see and name our problems far better than we can. We all need a lot more Jesus. It’s not only a problem for preachers; it’s a problem for every one of us who are called by the name of Christian.
“Sir, we would see Jesus,” the Greeks said to Philip. We, too, need to see Jesus, so that when others want to see Jesus, they can see him in us.
As the old spiritual puts it:
iii In the morning when I rise, iii Give me Jesus. iii Oh, when I am alone, iii Give me Jesus. iii Oh, when I come to die, iii Give me Jesus. Refrain: You can have all the world, But give me Jesus. [In Key of C, starts on A]
J. Barry Vaughn in Sermons That Work, for Lent 5B, 3/29/09, adapted * At the Induction of Tom Schulze as Rector of Trinity, Stoughton, MA, October __, 1976 by Andy Mead, then Curate at All Ss, Ashmont, Boston ** Quoted in Synthesis for 3/25/12.
archived musings and preachments
Friday, March 30, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
breaking the rules
3 Lent B 2012
Exodus 20: 1-17; Ps 19; 1 Cor 1: 18-25; John 2: 13-22
It is said that, at some Buddhist temples, a new candidate is presented with the document containing the Rule of the temple. “Here are the temple rules” says the abbot. “Know when to keep them, and know when to break them.”
Learning this kind of wisdom is the task of a lifetime. It is not simply a matter of picking and choosing to suite our own tastes. Most of us break rules when it would be best if we did not. And most of us keep rules when we should be breaking them.
Today’s Hebrew scripture is very familiar to us! The Decalogue, the so-called “Ten Commandments”, used to be read each Sunday at Episcopal Eucharist, used to be posted on every church school classroom wall, and even today traditionalist people fight to have them posted in public places.
I think the Commandments as symbol of a law-based approach to life bears more power than the words themselves. The actual text of the Commandments is pretty baseline for most people I know. Don’t kill people, don’t take stuff that does not belong to you—even in an age which feels detached from some portions of basic decent behavior, the Commandments are entry-level rules. Do we break them in our imaginations or our desires? Yes probably, and Jesus himself tells us to be honest about those desires. Do most of us more or less keep them in waking life? Yes, for the most part.
That’s a good thing really. It’s good that we hold to basic standards of behavior. Al kids need to learn this, even if today the language of what they learn is a little different from the stately cadences of King James English. Be decent, be compassionate, place yourself in the shoes of another, do not fall into greed or violence. The very basic behavior outlined in the Commandments gets re-stated in many places today, and the results are pretty much the same. Do not let your reptilian brain, your base desires, run over other people or rule yourself.
But, is that all there is? Is our life in the end only about acting decently and behaving morally?
I hope not. The Bible itself hopes not. The text of the Commandments holds a stark clue that simply doing right is not what it is about. “I am the Lord your God—no gods besides me—I am jealous.”
Ancient Jewish practice did not believe that doing good things would make God love us. It was God who acted first, by having pity on slaves and rescuing them from captivity. He took them away to the desert so he could romance them, so he could knit them to the divine self and make them his own people. The Commandments and the rest of the text that follows is a marriage contract, a free gift and a way of life that marries God to people and people to God. The mystery and the awe of this life lived together can be sensed in what is not said, in the wind that passes through the empty space between the stark words.
That mystery comes to fuller flower in St. Paul’s words.
God was not done when he chose one people and romanced them, binding them to himself. God wanted more, more love and more people to live the divine heart and revel in the divine compassion. And so the divine passion burst forth like floodwater from a broken dam. Neither religious signs nor accumulated wisdom is enough to express the divine love. Only in the crucified Christ is the fullness of the divine love and the divine mystery made visible and poured out. Live in this Christ, a foolish path without sign or proof. But here, Christian who hungers for truth and meaning and God, here your search and your hunger will be filled.
And once you have been filled with God, God’s love and inspiration will break the rules.
Jesus did nothing but break the rules big-time in today’s Gospel. Jesus interrupted the business of religion at the Temple, interfered with authorized arrangements that let people make donations and offer sacrifices. He violently overthrew the tables, the places where religious business was contracted and where people arranged for rituals that made them feel as if all was safe and secure and right with God. Religion-as-usual becomes chaos and is named as unclean, and the very body and life of the one who tossed out business-as-usual will be the new Temple, rising to life as the Temple is destroyed.
Know when to keep the rules, and when to break them.
Richard Rohr in Falling Upward speaks of how rules and procedures are very necessary to the first half of life. We are disciplining ourselves and building a future, and so clear guidelines and ways to keep us in check are vital.
But in the second half of life, we leave behind the tightly defined world that we have constructed and lived by and enter into one which is larger and more unpredictable. We let go of our anxiety to do things right, and by walking other paths we discover a deeper and hidden wisdom of God. For when we give ourselves, abandon ourselves, to the divine will and the divine passion, then we ourselves are freed to do and say things that seem outrageous, but are born of a deeper wisdom. To lead is to serve. To die is to live. Love your enemies.
So love the commandments of God, those words and ways and codes by which God first taught us that the world is larger than our petty and selfish desires. Through the discipline of law and canon and rule, we learn to live not for ourselves alone, but for God and for the community around us. But love even more the mad, outrageous foolishness of God, who calls us in Christ to be more and bigger than just the rule-obeyer, the one who always does things right.
When we are freed to inhabit the mad, overwhelming mercy and passion of God, then we find a different way, a way of the deepest self-gift and the most profound abandonment to God’s upside-down, rule-breaking mercy. We walk willingly into the foolish wisdom and the rule-breaking passion for justice that marks out the children of God.
Exodus 20: 1-17; Ps 19; 1 Cor 1: 18-25; John 2: 13-22
It is said that, at some Buddhist temples, a new candidate is presented with the document containing the Rule of the temple. “Here are the temple rules” says the abbot. “Know when to keep them, and know when to break them.”
Learning this kind of wisdom is the task of a lifetime. It is not simply a matter of picking and choosing to suite our own tastes. Most of us break rules when it would be best if we did not. And most of us keep rules when we should be breaking them.
Today’s Hebrew scripture is very familiar to us! The Decalogue, the so-called “Ten Commandments”, used to be read each Sunday at Episcopal Eucharist, used to be posted on every church school classroom wall, and even today traditionalist people fight to have them posted in public places.
I think the Commandments as symbol of a law-based approach to life bears more power than the words themselves. The actual text of the Commandments is pretty baseline for most people I know. Don’t kill people, don’t take stuff that does not belong to you—even in an age which feels detached from some portions of basic decent behavior, the Commandments are entry-level rules. Do we break them in our imaginations or our desires? Yes probably, and Jesus himself tells us to be honest about those desires. Do most of us more or less keep them in waking life? Yes, for the most part.
That’s a good thing really. It’s good that we hold to basic standards of behavior. Al kids need to learn this, even if today the language of what they learn is a little different from the stately cadences of King James English. Be decent, be compassionate, place yourself in the shoes of another, do not fall into greed or violence. The very basic behavior outlined in the Commandments gets re-stated in many places today, and the results are pretty much the same. Do not let your reptilian brain, your base desires, run over other people or rule yourself.
But, is that all there is? Is our life in the end only about acting decently and behaving morally?
I hope not. The Bible itself hopes not. The text of the Commandments holds a stark clue that simply doing right is not what it is about. “I am the Lord your God—no gods besides me—I am jealous.”
Ancient Jewish practice did not believe that doing good things would make God love us. It was God who acted first, by having pity on slaves and rescuing them from captivity. He took them away to the desert so he could romance them, so he could knit them to the divine self and make them his own people. The Commandments and the rest of the text that follows is a marriage contract, a free gift and a way of life that marries God to people and people to God. The mystery and the awe of this life lived together can be sensed in what is not said, in the wind that passes through the empty space between the stark words.
That mystery comes to fuller flower in St. Paul’s words.
God was not done when he chose one people and romanced them, binding them to himself. God wanted more, more love and more people to live the divine heart and revel in the divine compassion. And so the divine passion burst forth like floodwater from a broken dam. Neither religious signs nor accumulated wisdom is enough to express the divine love. Only in the crucified Christ is the fullness of the divine love and the divine mystery made visible and poured out. Live in this Christ, a foolish path without sign or proof. But here, Christian who hungers for truth and meaning and God, here your search and your hunger will be filled.
And once you have been filled with God, God’s love and inspiration will break the rules.
Jesus did nothing but break the rules big-time in today’s Gospel. Jesus interrupted the business of religion at the Temple, interfered with authorized arrangements that let people make donations and offer sacrifices. He violently overthrew the tables, the places where religious business was contracted and where people arranged for rituals that made them feel as if all was safe and secure and right with God. Religion-as-usual becomes chaos and is named as unclean, and the very body and life of the one who tossed out business-as-usual will be the new Temple, rising to life as the Temple is destroyed.
Know when to keep the rules, and when to break them.
Richard Rohr in Falling Upward speaks of how rules and procedures are very necessary to the first half of life. We are disciplining ourselves and building a future, and so clear guidelines and ways to keep us in check are vital.
But in the second half of life, we leave behind the tightly defined world that we have constructed and lived by and enter into one which is larger and more unpredictable. We let go of our anxiety to do things right, and by walking other paths we discover a deeper and hidden wisdom of God. For when we give ourselves, abandon ourselves, to the divine will and the divine passion, then we ourselves are freed to do and say things that seem outrageous, but are born of a deeper wisdom. To lead is to serve. To die is to live. Love your enemies.
So love the commandments of God, those words and ways and codes by which God first taught us that the world is larger than our petty and selfish desires. Through the discipline of law and canon and rule, we learn to live not for ourselves alone, but for God and for the community around us. But love even more the mad, outrageous foolishness of God, who calls us in Christ to be more and bigger than just the rule-obeyer, the one who always does things right.
When we are freed to inhabit the mad, overwhelming mercy and passion of God, then we find a different way, a way of the deepest self-gift and the most profound abandonment to God’s upside-down, rule-breaking mercy. We walk willingly into the foolish wisdom and the rule-breaking passion for justice that marks out the children of God.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Wild thing
1 Lent B 2012
Gen 9:8-17; Ps 25:1-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
Before Jesus could go forth, he had to go wild.
As we begin our own walk through Lent, we hear how Jesus, at the start of his own journey, is shattered first by love, then by wildness, then by loss.
Jesus walks to the riverbank seeking his kinsman John. John himself is a wild man living on the fringe of society and on the edge of the wilderness. The wild man John plunges the young man Jesus into the flowing, living water of the river.
The Jordan River, which marks the border between God’s land of promise and the wild, unmarked land where Israel once wandered. The water—the same water welling out of the earth which once burst forth in a flood at God’s command—a wild rush of water whose chaos snuffed out one creation to make ready for another creation.
This water was so wild that, long ago, God himself regretted his own wild choice and swore never to destroy the earth with a flood. But the wild water was still near, beneath one’s very feet, cruising above one’s head in the clouds, welling out in springs and streams, an ever-present reminder of God’s presence and God’s otherness, God’s own wildness.
From out of that primal water Jesus rose dripping. Did he feel the weight and power of the water and of the God who was drenching him with a new and mysterious life?
The heavens were torn apart. Up there where the wild waters of the ancient flood were kept, a voice, a dove. Noah’s dove brought news of new land and a second chance. This Spirit-dove brings news of a new reign and a second chance for us all.
Still dripping, Jesus runs—that dove “drives” him out into the wilderness, into exile, into the wild.
Why the wild? Why not a nice school where Jesus could learn his Scriptures in peace? What was there for Jesus to learn that he could not find at the feet of wise old rabbis?
In the wild, one faces life uncontrolled, unmanaged. In the wild, one realizes how small one really is. In the wild, one realizes that it is a big world after all, and it does not spin around us—in fact it can do just fine without us and one day soon it will. In the wild, one either faces oneself with withering honesty, in our earthy humanity, without illusions, or we go mad with delusion.
In the wild, it is not safe. There are angels, and there is God. There are wild animals. There are demons. And there is we ourselves. I am not sure which of these is the most dangerous.
In the wild, God can actually make something of us.
In the wild, we are tempted. Jesus was. Temptations arise from our own hearts. They entice us or frighten us with delusions of all kinds. Temptations either suggest that we are superhuman, with control over the wildness of the world and of God, or that we are insignificant and without meaning and value. Temptations address our greatest strengths or our profoundest weakness. They draw us into patterns that, once embraced, leave little or no room for God.
When we’re tempted, we learn that our greatest weaknesses are actually our deepest strengths.
At home with the wild things, where the wild things are, at home with his own wild self, the part that burns only for God, Jesus is even now not ready. His heart had to be broken.
John and Jesus shared a communion of blood kinship and of vision and purpose. They shared a passion for God and God’s justice that can burn hotly in the souls of fine, idealistic young people. They had even shared the strangeness of that baptism experience.
Perhaps John hoped that he and Jesus would be allies, that Jesus would support John in his ministry. Perhaps Jesus hoped the same of John.
But John’s tale was cut short by his imprisonment and eventual execution by a corrupt and violent king. What could this mean, that a righteous man and a living prophet could be arrested and killed by a tyrant? Where was God? What was the sense?
But after John’s arrest, Jesus began to proclaim the good news of the reign of God.
Wild water, wild animals in the wilderness, and a broken heart and broken hopes: that is the way of our Master. And so that is our way.
The New Testament and the ancient church taught that the path of a believer is the path of Jesus the Master himself. He is the teacher and his life is the pattern. And so we too are plunged into the wild waters of baptism, where we learn that we are beloved but that God is wild and the realm of God is not predictable or safe. We are flung into the wilderness of Lent, away from the predictability of life-as-we see it in order to meet God, the tempter, and ourselves. We are asked “what do we believe?” and “whom do we follow?” And our hearts are broken, again and again, by loss or life itself or betrayal or, worst of all, by our own selves and the disappointment caused by our lack of faithfulness and courage.
When all this happens, when we enter deeply the wilderness of our lives and the devastating things we learn in the wild, when we drink deeply of sorrow and our hearts are broken open, then we can begin. We can begin to understand the heart of the Son of God. We can begin to walk in the ways that his feet have also trod. Our lives and our words can begin to proclaim the wild, astounding vision of the Reign of God.
Gen 9:8-17; Ps 25:1-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
Before Jesus could go forth, he had to go wild.
As we begin our own walk through Lent, we hear how Jesus, at the start of his own journey, is shattered first by love, then by wildness, then by loss.
Jesus walks to the riverbank seeking his kinsman John. John himself is a wild man living on the fringe of society and on the edge of the wilderness. The wild man John plunges the young man Jesus into the flowing, living water of the river.
The Jordan River, which marks the border between God’s land of promise and the wild, unmarked land where Israel once wandered. The water—the same water welling out of the earth which once burst forth in a flood at God’s command—a wild rush of water whose chaos snuffed out one creation to make ready for another creation.
This water was so wild that, long ago, God himself regretted his own wild choice and swore never to destroy the earth with a flood. But the wild water was still near, beneath one’s very feet, cruising above one’s head in the clouds, welling out in springs and streams, an ever-present reminder of God’s presence and God’s otherness, God’s own wildness.
From out of that primal water Jesus rose dripping. Did he feel the weight and power of the water and of the God who was drenching him with a new and mysterious life?
The heavens were torn apart. Up there where the wild waters of the ancient flood were kept, a voice, a dove. Noah’s dove brought news of new land and a second chance. This Spirit-dove brings news of a new reign and a second chance for us all.
Still dripping, Jesus runs—that dove “drives” him out into the wilderness, into exile, into the wild.
Why the wild? Why not a nice school where Jesus could learn his Scriptures in peace? What was there for Jesus to learn that he could not find at the feet of wise old rabbis?
In the wild, one faces life uncontrolled, unmanaged. In the wild, one realizes how small one really is. In the wild, one realizes that it is a big world after all, and it does not spin around us—in fact it can do just fine without us and one day soon it will. In the wild, one either faces oneself with withering honesty, in our earthy humanity, without illusions, or we go mad with delusion.
In the wild, it is not safe. There are angels, and there is God. There are wild animals. There are demons. And there is we ourselves. I am not sure which of these is the most dangerous.
In the wild, God can actually make something of us.
In the wild, we are tempted. Jesus was. Temptations arise from our own hearts. They entice us or frighten us with delusions of all kinds. Temptations either suggest that we are superhuman, with control over the wildness of the world and of God, or that we are insignificant and without meaning and value. Temptations address our greatest strengths or our profoundest weakness. They draw us into patterns that, once embraced, leave little or no room for God.
When we’re tempted, we learn that our greatest weaknesses are actually our deepest strengths.
At home with the wild things, where the wild things are, at home with his own wild self, the part that burns only for God, Jesus is even now not ready. His heart had to be broken.
John and Jesus shared a communion of blood kinship and of vision and purpose. They shared a passion for God and God’s justice that can burn hotly in the souls of fine, idealistic young people. They had even shared the strangeness of that baptism experience.
Perhaps John hoped that he and Jesus would be allies, that Jesus would support John in his ministry. Perhaps Jesus hoped the same of John.
But John’s tale was cut short by his imprisonment and eventual execution by a corrupt and violent king. What could this mean, that a righteous man and a living prophet could be arrested and killed by a tyrant? Where was God? What was the sense?
But after John’s arrest, Jesus began to proclaim the good news of the reign of God.
Wild water, wild animals in the wilderness, and a broken heart and broken hopes: that is the way of our Master. And so that is our way.
The New Testament and the ancient church taught that the path of a believer is the path of Jesus the Master himself. He is the teacher and his life is the pattern. And so we too are plunged into the wild waters of baptism, where we learn that we are beloved but that God is wild and the realm of God is not predictable or safe. We are flung into the wilderness of Lent, away from the predictability of life-as-we see it in order to meet God, the tempter, and ourselves. We are asked “what do we believe?” and “whom do we follow?” And our hearts are broken, again and again, by loss or life itself or betrayal or, worst of all, by our own selves and the disappointment caused by our lack of faithfulness and courage.
When all this happens, when we enter deeply the wilderness of our lives and the devastating things we learn in the wild, when we drink deeply of sorrow and our hearts are broken open, then we can begin. We can begin to understand the heart of the Son of God. We can begin to walk in the ways that his feet have also trod. Our lives and our words can begin to proclaim the wild, astounding vision of the Reign of God.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Transfiguration Sunday
Guest Homily by Malcolm Heath
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9
Texts available here
Today is Transfiguration Sunday.
This is one of those Sundays in our calendar that I don’t really feel all that comfortable with, one of the Sundays I call, at least to myself, “Yay! God!” Sundays. Sundays that seem to exist to remind us of the glory and power of God; of miracles and strange events. Sundays where, quite often, we get to sing some glorious hymns - and put on special vestments - and celebrate.
There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you. Celebrations are good things. I’m just not super comfortable with it, mostly because I don’t quite understand _why_ we’re doing it.
We’re presented with two stories of Transfiguration - or really, one of Ascension, and one of Transfiguration.
In the first, Elijah and Elisha go for a walk, out into the wilderness, further and further, and Elijah tries very hard to ditch Elisha. Elisha knows what’s coming - he’s going to lose his friend. Elijah knows that too - and I think is trying to spare his friend from having to be there, when he goes.
Various piles of prophets come out of the various towns they pass - they all know what’s going on too - and try to get Elisha to stay with them, or warn him.
I wonder, at the end, if this is not so much a story about something we might celebrate, but about something else entirely - perhaps it is about grief.
About the parting of friends.
I think it’s very interesting that Elijah offers Elisha a wish, offers to grant him a boon. He asks for what is traditionally the portion of a first born son - and heir. The first born always got two shares, with the other children getting one share each, when the father died. Elisha is asking for nothing less than the authority to carry on for Elijah after he’s gone.
Elijah’s response is telling - he says that if he can stay with him until the very end, watching and not turning away, he will get the inheritance. And he does.
And then grieves, ripping his clothes. Because, even though he got the full inheritance, with that “double portion of spirit”, he also has to realize that he will never see his friend again.
We all have perhaps been in a similar situation - a friendship ending, or a loved one approaching death. There is a strong temptation during those times to cut our losses, to want to flee, to turn away. It seems too terrible to face. It seems too mysterious, too powerful, too painful for us to bear. This may be one of the only times we can come face to face with the power of God, and the mystery of God. And yet, if we are to receive the spirit, we must not give into that urge, because to do so denies ourselves our full potential. To do so denies ourselves the full experience of the life that God has granted us.
Peter and James and Paul are a little bit less bright than Elisha. They really don’t know what’s going on, although, perhaps, Peter starts to get it. He alone seems to realize what is at stake here, and even proclaims it good. Good to be at the top of some lonely mountain, seeing visions of ancient prophets.
He also seems to get that there would be bad times ahead. His suggestion that they make tents is reminiscent of the Festival of Sukkot - a time in the Jewish calendar when devout Jews make tents, made of natural things, and pray, eat, and sometimes sleep in them. They do this to remind themselves of the many years that the Israelites spent in the wilderness, a time of great suffering and travail, but ultimately leading to the promised land.
Perhaps Peter realizes that Jesus isn’t going to be around, at least as they have known him, for much longer. Perhaps he, alone, realizes that they are headed into the desert, and that there are rough times ahead.
No wonder “they were terrified”.
Yes, I think these stories aren’t so much about the glory of God, at least in any way that I would feel comfortable about celebrating - these are points of mystery, of grief, of expectation of something happening, but no one really knowing what that might be.
We’re all presented with these moments. Big changes - endings, death - all these are moments when we know, deep in our hearts, that nothing will ever be the same again. But we can never know exactly how it will be different.
But it is that very unknowing, that darkness, that ignorance, where, I think, the power of God can break into our lives. It is terrifying to be present at those times. Everything in us says “turn away”.
And yet, we must not. We have to be there. To see. And for those in our lives who aren’t there when it happens, what we see will remain a mystery.
Paul has it right. God will give us light out of the darkness. But we have to be in the darkness first.
As we approach Lent - a desert time, a time of grief, I think we need to think about how much we want to turn away from it - and what God might give us if we don’t. If we instead turn towards it, and remain present, and allow that darkness to surround us, open to the promise that God gives us, that light will indeed shine out, but not in any way that we can predict.
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9
Texts available here
Today is Transfiguration Sunday.
This is one of those Sundays in our calendar that I don’t really feel all that comfortable with, one of the Sundays I call, at least to myself, “Yay! God!” Sundays. Sundays that seem to exist to remind us of the glory and power of God; of miracles and strange events. Sundays where, quite often, we get to sing some glorious hymns - and put on special vestments - and celebrate.
There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you. Celebrations are good things. I’m just not super comfortable with it, mostly because I don’t quite understand _why_ we’re doing it.
We’re presented with two stories of Transfiguration - or really, one of Ascension, and one of Transfiguration.
In the first, Elijah and Elisha go for a walk, out into the wilderness, further and further, and Elijah tries very hard to ditch Elisha. Elisha knows what’s coming - he’s going to lose his friend. Elijah knows that too - and I think is trying to spare his friend from having to be there, when he goes.
Various piles of prophets come out of the various towns they pass - they all know what’s going on too - and try to get Elisha to stay with them, or warn him.
I wonder, at the end, if this is not so much a story about something we might celebrate, but about something else entirely - perhaps it is about grief.
About the parting of friends.
I think it’s very interesting that Elijah offers Elisha a wish, offers to grant him a boon. He asks for what is traditionally the portion of a first born son - and heir. The first born always got two shares, with the other children getting one share each, when the father died. Elisha is asking for nothing less than the authority to carry on for Elijah after he’s gone.
Elijah’s response is telling - he says that if he can stay with him until the very end, watching and not turning away, he will get the inheritance. And he does.
And then grieves, ripping his clothes. Because, even though he got the full inheritance, with that “double portion of spirit”, he also has to realize that he will never see his friend again.
We all have perhaps been in a similar situation - a friendship ending, or a loved one approaching death. There is a strong temptation during those times to cut our losses, to want to flee, to turn away. It seems too terrible to face. It seems too mysterious, too powerful, too painful for us to bear. This may be one of the only times we can come face to face with the power of God, and the mystery of God. And yet, if we are to receive the spirit, we must not give into that urge, because to do so denies ourselves our full potential. To do so denies ourselves the full experience of the life that God has granted us.
Peter and James and Paul are a little bit less bright than Elisha. They really don’t know what’s going on, although, perhaps, Peter starts to get it. He alone seems to realize what is at stake here, and even proclaims it good. Good to be at the top of some lonely mountain, seeing visions of ancient prophets.
He also seems to get that there would be bad times ahead. His suggestion that they make tents is reminiscent of the Festival of Sukkot - a time in the Jewish calendar when devout Jews make tents, made of natural things, and pray, eat, and sometimes sleep in them. They do this to remind themselves of the many years that the Israelites spent in the wilderness, a time of great suffering and travail, but ultimately leading to the promised land.
Perhaps Peter realizes that Jesus isn’t going to be around, at least as they have known him, for much longer. Perhaps he, alone, realizes that they are headed into the desert, and that there are rough times ahead.
No wonder “they were terrified”.
Yes, I think these stories aren’t so much about the glory of God, at least in any way that I would feel comfortable about celebrating - these are points of mystery, of grief, of expectation of something happening, but no one really knowing what that might be.
We’re all presented with these moments. Big changes - endings, death - all these are moments when we know, deep in our hearts, that nothing will ever be the same again. But we can never know exactly how it will be different.
But it is that very unknowing, that darkness, that ignorance, where, I think, the power of God can break into our lives. It is terrifying to be present at those times. Everything in us says “turn away”.
And yet, we must not. We have to be there. To see. And for those in our lives who aren’t there when it happens, what we see will remain a mystery.
For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Paul has it right. God will give us light out of the darkness. But we have to be in the darkness first.
As we approach Lent - a desert time, a time of grief, I think we need to think about how much we want to turn away from it - and what God might give us if we don’t. If we instead turn towards it, and remain present, and allow that darkness to surround us, open to the promise that God gives us, that light will indeed shine out, but not in any way that we can predict.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
the wild, healing God
6TH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, Year B 12 February 2012 Ss. Peter & Paul, 10:00 a.m.
God our healer, Teach us to proclaim your goodness; give us grace to bring your balm where life is shattered. Give us courage to speak hope in forbidding places, to sing your praise in alien lands, to touch the sick and grieve with those who sorrow. Embrace us with your favor our whole life long that we may see your joy rising with the morning sun and give thanks to you for ever, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The leper in today’s Gospel had been infected with a disease that could have lasted for decades, and only ended – mercifully – at death. It was marked by unsightly ulcers and corrosive white scales that eventuated in the rotting away of flesh, beginning with the nose, toes, and fingers. Leprosy rendered the afflicted person ceremonially unclean – not to mention contagious – and so the disease caused the sufferer ostracism and quarantine as well, a kind of social disfigurement. Maybe that is why the word “healed” is never used in the New Testament in regard to the disease, but rather the expression being “made clean.” And the cleansing must be certified and authenticated by the priests as outlined in Jewish Law - see Leviticus.
Celsus, the pagan philosopher of the 2nd century who attacked Christianity for its doctrines of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion, remarked in his Discourses: “Christianity attracts the sick, the fools, and the sinners.” No decent, upstanding “god” would have anything to do with lepers, he maintained – except Jesus.
Jesus held an unwavering conviction that disease was not necessary to God’s good creation. It was not an established part of the Divine Plan. And it had nothing to do with Divine retribution. God was a Lover – not a monster or a fiend who would inflict a child with leukemia or a mother with a brain tumor.
As the very agent of Creation himself, Jesus invokes and directs the power of connecting life itself to heal human existence. Expressing the will of the Father everywhere he went, Jesus never met a disease he did not cure. Disease, according to Jesus, was an “enemy” of God to be defeated, a sign of the fissure - the crack - in creation that God desired to be redeemed. When he looks on the leper, Jesus was “moved with compassion,” more accurately translated from the Greek, “his guts (bowels) were churning.”
There was once a farmer with a sick wife, who asked a monk from a local monastery to say a series of prayers to alleviate her condition. The monk began to pray aloud fervently in the man’s presence, but he asked God to cure all those who were ill.
“Just a moment,” said the farmer. “I asked you to pray for my wife, and there you are praying for everyone who’s ill.”
“I’m praying for her too,” the monk answered.
“Yes, but you’re praying for everyone,” her husband protested. “It might end up helping my neighbor, who’s also ill, and I don’t like him.”
“You understand nothing about healing,” said the monk sadly. “By praying for everyone, I am adding my prayers to those of the millions of people who are also praying for their sick. Added together, those voices rise up to reach God and benefit everyone. With selfish restrictions [like yours] they lose their strength and go nowhere.”
Here the leper received this heavenly power of life made new – concentrated in the touch of Jesus. Once “cleansed,” he defied the stern order of Jesus to keep quiet about the healing. Again, the Greek: Jesus made “snorts of indignation” at this point in the story.
The healed leper went on to broadcast the good news – if not verbally, then through the display of his glistening new skin. You can’t blame him. Conventional wisdom of the day regarded the healing of a leper to be as likely as the dead being raised. He was a walking miracle, and he knew it.
But at some point he would go on, like the rest of us, to die from something else – if not a disease, then old age. After all, almost everybody dies. You would hope that the healing that Jesus performed on the leper that day penetrated down deeper than the skin – that it went all the way into his soul, for healing from within.
Fred Craddock has said that healing or forgiveness or grace or love are not strategies of God to force changes in us, either by being withheld or by being given on condition. When we hear the story of the high-ranking soldier, Naaman, in today’s Old Testament reading, who had to “jump through hoops” – jump in the pool seven times – before he could be healed, we might think that this was a sort of “strategy” conjured up by Elisha the prophet. (It is not!) Jesus creates no “hoops” for the leprous man, but cures him straightaway. If anyone is in doubt about how God works in situations like this,
just ask any father who has made the dreadful error of saying to a child, “If you make good grades, Daddy will love you,” or, no less damaging, “Since Daddy loves you, you must make good grades.” Grades may improve a bit, but who cares? Something of far greater value has been severely wounded, even killed.
Michael King wrote of “Naaman and the Wild God of Israel” [in Spirituality Today, Spring, 1986]:
“We like a tame God, a God we can easily and comfortably believe in, worship and explain. We like a God we can hold warmly to our bosoms when we feel the need, a teddy bear of a God who can be cuddled when the night at bedtime seems too dark (and there are times, certainly, when God tenderly fills just that longing), but who can be, most of the rest of the time, properly ignored. We like a predictable God, a God who will act like we think he should act.
“But is he like that, or is he a God who, just when we think we have squeezed him, like a genie, into a bottle from which he will emerge only upon our command, lets out a great roar and shatters the bottle into sharp shreds? ...
“Our God is not a tame God. We can grasp at him through our theologies of peace, hope, liberation, grace, or personal salvation through Christ. But we always know him only in part, always he rises fiercely and wildly above us just when we think we have him pinned down.
“He is not a butterfly to be chased and stuck to a board and admired. He is, finally, as we see in Jesus, a God of joy and love, but he is a God also whose ways remain partly mysterious and unknowable, and before whom we do well to bow with fear and trembling as he touches and moves our lives in ways our bottles of theology and doctrine are too small and fragile to contain.”
Through these stories of healing the Gospel according to Mark, we are invited to enter into the “impossible,” to view our “wild” God in action in the person of Jesus himself.
What do we see, when Christians gather, when we pray for each other’s healing, when we see “miracles” in the lives of everyday people whom we call by their first names?
Geddes MacGregor in The Rhythm of God tells of a priest who, when asked, “How many people were at the celebration of the Eucharist last Wednesday morning?” replied,
“There were three old ladies, the janitor, several thousand archangels, a large number of seraphim, and several million of the saints of God.”
[H. King Oehmig: Synthesis, 2/12/2012; Ched Meyers: “Say to this Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship; Fred Craddock: Proclamation 2: Series B, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1981, p. 44]
Preached by Phil Ayers+, Feb 12, 2012
God our healer, Teach us to proclaim your goodness; give us grace to bring your balm where life is shattered. Give us courage to speak hope in forbidding places, to sing your praise in alien lands, to touch the sick and grieve with those who sorrow. Embrace us with your favor our whole life long that we may see your joy rising with the morning sun and give thanks to you for ever, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The leper in today’s Gospel had been infected with a disease that could have lasted for decades, and only ended – mercifully – at death. It was marked by unsightly ulcers and corrosive white scales that eventuated in the rotting away of flesh, beginning with the nose, toes, and fingers. Leprosy rendered the afflicted person ceremonially unclean – not to mention contagious – and so the disease caused the sufferer ostracism and quarantine as well, a kind of social disfigurement. Maybe that is why the word “healed” is never used in the New Testament in regard to the disease, but rather the expression being “made clean.” And the cleansing must be certified and authenticated by the priests as outlined in Jewish Law - see Leviticus.
Celsus, the pagan philosopher of the 2nd century who attacked Christianity for its doctrines of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion, remarked in his Discourses: “Christianity attracts the sick, the fools, and the sinners.” No decent, upstanding “god” would have anything to do with lepers, he maintained – except Jesus.
Jesus held an unwavering conviction that disease was not necessary to God’s good creation. It was not an established part of the Divine Plan. And it had nothing to do with Divine retribution. God was a Lover – not a monster or a fiend who would inflict a child with leukemia or a mother with a brain tumor.
As the very agent of Creation himself, Jesus invokes and directs the power of connecting life itself to heal human existence. Expressing the will of the Father everywhere he went, Jesus never met a disease he did not cure. Disease, according to Jesus, was an “enemy” of God to be defeated, a sign of the fissure - the crack - in creation that God desired to be redeemed. When he looks on the leper, Jesus was “moved with compassion,” more accurately translated from the Greek, “his guts (bowels) were churning.”
There was once a farmer with a sick wife, who asked a monk from a local monastery to say a series of prayers to alleviate her condition. The monk began to pray aloud fervently in the man’s presence, but he asked God to cure all those who were ill.
“Just a moment,” said the farmer. “I asked you to pray for my wife, and there you are praying for everyone who’s ill.”
“I’m praying for her too,” the monk answered.
“Yes, but you’re praying for everyone,” her husband protested. “It might end up helping my neighbor, who’s also ill, and I don’t like him.”
“You understand nothing about healing,” said the monk sadly. “By praying for everyone, I am adding my prayers to those of the millions of people who are also praying for their sick. Added together, those voices rise up to reach God and benefit everyone. With selfish restrictions [like yours] they lose their strength and go nowhere.”
Here the leper received this heavenly power of life made new – concentrated in the touch of Jesus. Once “cleansed,” he defied the stern order of Jesus to keep quiet about the healing. Again, the Greek: Jesus made “snorts of indignation” at this point in the story.
The healed leper went on to broadcast the good news – if not verbally, then through the display of his glistening new skin. You can’t blame him. Conventional wisdom of the day regarded the healing of a leper to be as likely as the dead being raised. He was a walking miracle, and he knew it.
But at some point he would go on, like the rest of us, to die from something else – if not a disease, then old age. After all, almost everybody dies. You would hope that the healing that Jesus performed on the leper that day penetrated down deeper than the skin – that it went all the way into his soul, for healing from within.
Fred Craddock has said that healing or forgiveness or grace or love are not strategies of God to force changes in us, either by being withheld or by being given on condition. When we hear the story of the high-ranking soldier, Naaman, in today’s Old Testament reading, who had to “jump through hoops” – jump in the pool seven times – before he could be healed, we might think that this was a sort of “strategy” conjured up by Elisha the prophet. (It is not!) Jesus creates no “hoops” for the leprous man, but cures him straightaway. If anyone is in doubt about how God works in situations like this,
just ask any father who has made the dreadful error of saying to a child, “If you make good grades, Daddy will love you,” or, no less damaging, “Since Daddy loves you, you must make good grades.” Grades may improve a bit, but who cares? Something of far greater value has been severely wounded, even killed.
Michael King wrote of “Naaman and the Wild God of Israel” [in Spirituality Today, Spring, 1986]:
“We like a tame God, a God we can easily and comfortably believe in, worship and explain. We like a God we can hold warmly to our bosoms when we feel the need, a teddy bear of a God who can be cuddled when the night at bedtime seems too dark (and there are times, certainly, when God tenderly fills just that longing), but who can be, most of the rest of the time, properly ignored. We like a predictable God, a God who will act like we think he should act.
“But is he like that, or is he a God who, just when we think we have squeezed him, like a genie, into a bottle from which he will emerge only upon our command, lets out a great roar and shatters the bottle into sharp shreds? ...
“Our God is not a tame God. We can grasp at him through our theologies of peace, hope, liberation, grace, or personal salvation through Christ. But we always know him only in part, always he rises fiercely and wildly above us just when we think we have him pinned down.
“He is not a butterfly to be chased and stuck to a board and admired. He is, finally, as we see in Jesus, a God of joy and love, but he is a God also whose ways remain partly mysterious and unknowable, and before whom we do well to bow with fear and trembling as he touches and moves our lives in ways our bottles of theology and doctrine are too small and fragile to contain.”
Through these stories of healing the Gospel according to Mark, we are invited to enter into the “impossible,” to view our “wild” God in action in the person of Jesus himself.
What do we see, when Christians gather, when we pray for each other’s healing, when we see “miracles” in the lives of everyday people whom we call by their first names?
Geddes MacGregor in The Rhythm of God tells of a priest who, when asked, “How many people were at the celebration of the Eucharist last Wednesday morning?” replied,
“There were three old ladies, the janitor, several thousand archangels, a large number of seraphim, and several million of the saints of God.”
[H. King Oehmig: Synthesis, 2/12/2012; Ched Meyers: “Say to this Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship; Fred Craddock: Proclamation 2: Series B, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1981, p. 44]
Preached by Phil Ayers+, Feb 12, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Fresh and new
Candlemas 2012
Malachi 3: 1-4; Ps 84; Hebrews 2: 14-18; Luke 2: 22-40
(Note: Jack Eberlein, young son of Lydia and Steve, was Baptized at the 10 AM Candlemas liturgy. Jack was a very attentive listener, only occasionally offering a coo or gurgle in response)
Today, Jack, everything is made fresh and new.
You’re being baptized today. Earlier today your mom and dad brought you to this place complete with an altar and with the sound of sacred songs and of prayers, the smell of incense.
Your mom and dad and sister Zoe waited a long time for you and knew that, when you came, all their lives would have a new beginning. They expected that. They also knew that there were surprises coming, that no one really knows how your story will turn out.
We heard another story about babies and surprises just a few minutes ago, Jack.
We heard about a mom and a dad who brought their baby son to a place where there was an altar, where sacred songs were sung and prayers were said and the smell of incense filled the air. They were happy. They knew their lives had changed forever. They knew that their baby’s life would be full of surprises, and that no one really knew how the story would end.
That other fresh young baby boy was also the Son of God sent into the world. God was doing something surprising and new by coming into a world where moms and dads bring babies into the world and do not know the surprises that await them. Was God feeling the same joy, the same sense of anticipation, the same sense of fresh newness?
Because there would be nothing but surprises from then on. Because nothing would be the same.
Jack, we’re making a much bigger fuss over you today than most people made over that other baby. That other place with the altar and the songs and the incense was a big and busy place, and lots of people came and went every day. We’re all paying lots of attention to you. That other baby only had two people, Simeon and Anna, old enough to be his grandpa and grandma, paying him attention and calling to other people to come take a look. “Come see the baby who will change everything!” they said. Some people paid attention, others were too busy.
Because God was doing a new, fresh thing, so fresh and new that almost no one expected it and no one knew how the story would end. The old man told the baby’s Mom that her baby would shake things up for everyone, that everyone would begin to notice poor people and that rich and powerful people would not be able to pretend that only their lives mattered. He told the baby’s mom that sad things would happen too.
But Jack, today we are happy because God tells us that new things are happening even now and that all of us, no matter how old and how tired and how discouraged we may feel, all of us can be fresh and new and that God brings each of us in to meet him just like you were brought in today, Jack, and just like that other baby was brought in by his mom and dad. Your mom and dad gave you a name already. That other baby was named Jesus after his mom and dad talked it over and they remembered a name that came to them in a dream. “Jesus” means “God puts me in an open place.”
In just a few minutes you will be baptized, Jack, and Jesus will put you in that fresh, open space forever. Jesus is that open space, and all of us will remember our own Baptisms and will thank God that we have also been put in an open space. Our hearts are made pure and clean, not by trying real hard to be good on our own but because Jesus makes them clean. We come into God’s temple not on our own, but carried in God’s loving arms. We stand here amazed and happy that in this old dusty world God is showing us bright and new life.
Thank you, Jack, for being baptized today, today when we are brought into the Temple along with Jesus, that other little boy. Thank you for reminding us that God makes us all fresh and clean and young, by water and the Holy Spirit, on the day when we remember the fresh and pure and surprising new life that God shares.
Malachi 3: 1-4; Ps 84; Hebrews 2: 14-18; Luke 2: 22-40
(Note: Jack Eberlein, young son of Lydia and Steve, was Baptized at the 10 AM Candlemas liturgy. Jack was a very attentive listener, only occasionally offering a coo or gurgle in response)
Today, Jack, everything is made fresh and new.
You’re being baptized today. Earlier today your mom and dad brought you to this place complete with an altar and with the sound of sacred songs and of prayers, the smell of incense.
Your mom and dad and sister Zoe waited a long time for you and knew that, when you came, all their lives would have a new beginning. They expected that. They also knew that there were surprises coming, that no one really knows how your story will turn out.
We heard another story about babies and surprises just a few minutes ago, Jack.
We heard about a mom and a dad who brought their baby son to a place where there was an altar, where sacred songs were sung and prayers were said and the smell of incense filled the air. They were happy. They knew their lives had changed forever. They knew that their baby’s life would be full of surprises, and that no one really knew how the story would end.
That other fresh young baby boy was also the Son of God sent into the world. God was doing something surprising and new by coming into a world where moms and dads bring babies into the world and do not know the surprises that await them. Was God feeling the same joy, the same sense of anticipation, the same sense of fresh newness?
Because there would be nothing but surprises from then on. Because nothing would be the same.
Jack, we’re making a much bigger fuss over you today than most people made over that other baby. That other place with the altar and the songs and the incense was a big and busy place, and lots of people came and went every day. We’re all paying lots of attention to you. That other baby only had two people, Simeon and Anna, old enough to be his grandpa and grandma, paying him attention and calling to other people to come take a look. “Come see the baby who will change everything!” they said. Some people paid attention, others were too busy.
Because God was doing a new, fresh thing, so fresh and new that almost no one expected it and no one knew how the story would end. The old man told the baby’s Mom that her baby would shake things up for everyone, that everyone would begin to notice poor people and that rich and powerful people would not be able to pretend that only their lives mattered. He told the baby’s mom that sad things would happen too.
But Jack, today we are happy because God tells us that new things are happening even now and that all of us, no matter how old and how tired and how discouraged we may feel, all of us can be fresh and new and that God brings each of us in to meet him just like you were brought in today, Jack, and just like that other baby was brought in by his mom and dad. Your mom and dad gave you a name already. That other baby was named Jesus after his mom and dad talked it over and they remembered a name that came to them in a dream. “Jesus” means “God puts me in an open place.”
In just a few minutes you will be baptized, Jack, and Jesus will put you in that fresh, open space forever. Jesus is that open space, and all of us will remember our own Baptisms and will thank God that we have also been put in an open space. Our hearts are made pure and clean, not by trying real hard to be good on our own but because Jesus makes them clean. We come into God’s temple not on our own, but carried in God’s loving arms. We stand here amazed and happy that in this old dusty world God is showing us bright and new life.
Thank you, Jack, for being baptized today, today when we are brought into the Temple along with Jesus, that other little boy. Thank you for reminding us that God makes us all fresh and clean and young, by water and the Holy Spirit, on the day when we remember the fresh and pure and surprising new life that God shares.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The listening life
Annual Meeting homily 2012
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 Psalm 111 , 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28
Listen to God. That is a clear and simple message from today’s readings.
The Christian life is a listening life. God is always speaking. The challenge is to listen.
The people of Israel wandering in the desert knew all about that challenge. For them, listening to God was not a sweet private spiritual experience. The voice of God shook them to the roots of their souls. "If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." Wandering in the desert teaches us how profound is the voice of God. When the boring comfort of routine and the deadening sense of expectation is lifted away, then we hear clearly that voice which loves and which saves and which gives the Holy to us and asks that we give ourselves in return. Our job is to listen to the ways that God speaks.
To truly listen, we must be ready to respond.
The Christian life is a listening life. This has been true from the beginning.
Adam and Eve listened to the footsteps of God in the garden. They hid because they could not face the truth of their own lives.
Abram listened to the voice of God that called him from his homeland to a place he had never seen.
Moses listened to the voice of God calling him out of his exile to risk and danger with a captive people.
Jesus listened to the voice of God that said to him “You are my beloved Son.” Even Jesus was so shaken that he ran to the desert himself, where he could listen more deeply and be transformed and prepared more profoundly.
God is still speaking. The line of listeners has not been broken. The Christian life is still a listening life. What shall we hear when we listen today?
Moses may not walk among us anymore. But it was Moses himself who said, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” That same Spirit which moved Moses and freed a whole nation is poured out upon us. That same Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead and which came upon the disciples at Pentecost is poured out upon us.
God is speaking. Our life is a listening life. How shall we listen?
A listening life is a challenging life. We must name the noise outside of us, and the noise inside of us. We live in a world which bombards with information and images, and which wants to tell us how to feel and what to buy and how to think and feel.
This noise is easier to deal with than the noise within us. We all have it—noise of boredom and tedium, noise of fear or despair, noise of anger or pride. Each of us has our own re-mix, our personal play-list of inner noise that also tries to tell us how to feel, how to think, what to buy and to value.
But God is still speaking. How shall we listen?
We place ourselves in the presence of God through prayer, through a re-kindling of hope and faith, through asking God for the gift of the Spirit and the gift of listening. We place ourselves in the presence of the Word and in the life of the sacraments, through sharing Communion and in common prayer. We take that life of prayer into our daily lives in a way that works for us.
And we listen, with humility and respect and gratitude, to one another. We listen today, as we gather today to speak aloud our life here that we share at Saints Peter and Paul. We listen, in that spirit of respect and humility that Saint Paul himself spoke about as our way of life with one another.
God is still speaking. Our life is a listening life. Are we ready to listen?
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 Psalm 111 , 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28
Listen to God. That is a clear and simple message from today’s readings.
The Christian life is a listening life. God is always speaking. The challenge is to listen.
The people of Israel wandering in the desert knew all about that challenge. For them, listening to God was not a sweet private spiritual experience. The voice of God shook them to the roots of their souls. "If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." Wandering in the desert teaches us how profound is the voice of God. When the boring comfort of routine and the deadening sense of expectation is lifted away, then we hear clearly that voice which loves and which saves and which gives the Holy to us and asks that we give ourselves in return. Our job is to listen to the ways that God speaks.
To truly listen, we must be ready to respond.
The Christian life is a listening life. This has been true from the beginning.
Adam and Eve listened to the footsteps of God in the garden. They hid because they could not face the truth of their own lives.
Abram listened to the voice of God that called him from his homeland to a place he had never seen.
Moses listened to the voice of God calling him out of his exile to risk and danger with a captive people.
Jesus listened to the voice of God that said to him “You are my beloved Son.” Even Jesus was so shaken that he ran to the desert himself, where he could listen more deeply and be transformed and prepared more profoundly.
God is still speaking. The line of listeners has not been broken. The Christian life is still a listening life. What shall we hear when we listen today?
Moses may not walk among us anymore. But it was Moses himself who said, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” That same Spirit which moved Moses and freed a whole nation is poured out upon us. That same Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead and which came upon the disciples at Pentecost is poured out upon us.
God is speaking. Our life is a listening life. How shall we listen?
A listening life is a challenging life. We must name the noise outside of us, and the noise inside of us. We live in a world which bombards with information and images, and which wants to tell us how to feel and what to buy and how to think and feel.
This noise is easier to deal with than the noise within us. We all have it—noise of boredom and tedium, noise of fear or despair, noise of anger or pride. Each of us has our own re-mix, our personal play-list of inner noise that also tries to tell us how to feel, how to think, what to buy and to value.
But God is still speaking. How shall we listen?
We place ourselves in the presence of God through prayer, through a re-kindling of hope and faith, through asking God for the gift of the Spirit and the gift of listening. We place ourselves in the presence of the Word and in the life of the sacraments, through sharing Communion and in common prayer. We take that life of prayer into our daily lives in a way that works for us.
And we listen, with humility and respect and gratitude, to one another. We listen today, as we gather today to speak aloud our life here that we share at Saints Peter and Paul. We listen, in that spirit of respect and humility that Saint Paul himself spoke about as our way of life with one another.
God is still speaking. Our life is a listening life. Are we ready to listen?
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