Love God in Loving Others - a sermon for the fifth Sunday of Epiphany, 2014

One of my favorite stories that I read as a kid was Mark Twain’s classic, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. In it, a Yankee engineer from Connecticut is accidentally transported back in time to the court of King Arthur, where he fools the inhabitants of that time into thinking he is a magician—and soon uses his knowledge of modern technology to become a "magician" in earnest, stunning the English of the Early Middle Ages with such feats as demolitions, fireworks and the shoring up of a holy well. He attempts to modernize the past, but in the end he is unable to prevent the death of Arthur and an interdict against him by the Church, which grows fearful of his power.

The story is about a stranger who enters a strange land. Living among unfamiliar people, the stranger brings his own values and traditions and worldviews – he even brings he own technology to life among the people he meets. 

One of the hardest problems we face in hearing or reading the Bible, is that of time. We don’t have time machines, and even if we did, we’d journey back in time with the ideas formed in us by our nationality, the communities in which we grew up, our family traditions, and the things we take for granted. If we tried to get back to the people for whom Matthew is writing his account of the life and teachings of Jesus, we’d land in a strange land, among unfamiliar people. No doubt they’d think us pretty odd, too.

The gospel today (Matt. 5:13-20) underscores the great gulf that is fixed between our time and the first century of the Christian era. The verse where the passage ends only makes matters harder for us to understand. St. Matthew is writing primarily for Jewish Christians, who had been raised to attempt to keep the laws and rules of Judaism. Some of them had probably been Pharisees before their conversion. The word “Pharisee” is loaded with not always very complimentary meanings for us. We think of proud, intolerant people, filled with self-admiration for themselves and full of harsh criticism for people they believed to be sinners.

The Pharisees, or Pious Ones, began their history as a reforming group, intent on bringing the Jewish people back to faith in their God. They believed that the best way to do that was to stress the Law of God, as given by Moses and elaborated on in the religious books developed over the centuries. In Jesus’ time, some of these Pharisees opposed the teachings of Jesus because they thought he was undermining God’s Law. They saw him as a threat to religious purity. Not all of them opposed Jesus. Two are named as his supporters.

As the church grew, opened itself to non-Jews and developed its own teachings, a great debate arose about the place of Old Testament Law in the life of Christians. St. Matthew, a Jew himself, seeks to assure Jewish converts that Jesus hadn’t come to abolish God’s law. He records Jesus as saying that the whole law would remain in force forever. And yet in the gospel we just heard, he says that in keeping this law, we have to do much better than the Pharisees.

Is Jesus saying that we must keep the Jewish Law, all that stuff about what we can eat, or what we can do on the Sabbath? Are we to be like some people, perhaps we know a few, who think they are better, more moral, more upright, than the rest of us and are harsh in their judgment of others, intolerant of anyone who is different?

This rather difficult passage comes in the middle of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Just as Moses gave the Law to Israel on the Holy Mountain, so now Jesus gives the law to his disciples and those who would follow him. He begins with a description of those who are happy or blessed. He will go on to expand, or “fulfill” the meaning of the Law. In the verses that come after this gospel, Jesus will warn against an anger that leads to violence. “You shall not kill,” begins with our dealing with what happens when we give way to anger, disgust, when we take offense. Jesus will teach us that we are to seek reconciliation with people with whom we quarrel, that we are not to “come to the altar” if we haven’t done all in our power to love our neighbor; for loving those close to us, those in the communities around us, is one of the commandments of the Law Jesus identified as the foundation of “all the Law and the Prophets.”

So what can we take home with us from the gospel today? Keeping the law of God is not a matter of feeling and acting as if we are superior to those who, in our judgment, fail to live up to our standards. We love God in loving others. St. Paul often reminds us that the Law shows up our own inadequacies. We are in no state to judge others. But having received God’s love in Jesus, despite ourselves, we are empowered to help those who stumble. It’s not that we are to abandon all hope of perfection, of holiness. Rather it’s a matter of understanding that the road to holiness is the path of love, compassion, of caring and sympathy, of helping each other along that journey, stopping to assist those who have become tired, have fallen on the way, or who have given up in despair.

Some of the most tragic stories that emerge from wars involve prisoners or refugees, walking along roads, herded by brutal guards. The heroes of these stories are those who in the midst of their own miseries, despite the dangers, share their meager rations, water supplies, even clothing, to help those who have fallen by the side of the road, who might well be shot by the guards because they can’t keep up.

On the journey of faith, we are not appointed by God to shoot those who stumble, who fail to obey orders. We are called to go out of our way to care. The whole point of God’s Law is to urge us to put God and others first and to die to our own self-love and desire for self-preservation.

Of course, the strength to live for God and for others will not come from attempts to keep God’s commandments. That strength comes from God, in Jesus, by the Spirit. We meet here today to receive that strength we call grace, not as the righteous company of God-supporters but as those to whom mercy is continually given. When we leave this place to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” we go as forgiven, empowered people, strengthened to keep God’s Law by loving all who we shall meet.

Do Justice, Love Kindness, Walk Humbly - a sermon for the fourth Sunday of Epiphany, 2014

Two rows of children are separated by a large field, each facing the other holding hands. It’s seems an innocent enough game that children used to play. Alternately, each team would call out: “Red rover, red rover! Send Harry right over.” And then Harry, or Mary or Frank or Sue, would break from his or her row and run to the other side. Now, I know that it’s hard to believe given my current frame but I was one of the smaller kids in the neighborhood, the proverbial ninety pounds soaking wet. So this game wasn’t really my favorite. What the point, after all? To show off one’s strength? To demonstrate one’s power over another? Or maybe the point was to get caught, demonstrating and becoming acutely aware of one’s weakness. So I would hold tightly to the hands of my comrades, classmates, and friends, unsure of which was worse: the pain that would surely accompany the weight and force of the kid trying to break through or having to face my fellow gamers when the kid got by. Honestly, the odds of me stopping any of them were slim. Or maybe it was worse having to run myself., getting caught in the web of arms linked on the other side. None of the choices was good.

But at such a young age, influenced so heartily by my peers, I had not yet figured out that within each of us is the power to not play the game, within each of us is the power to break convention and go against the flow. It would be many years before that consciousness became an awareness that was put into practice.

In those days, I would play. I would see a kid racing towards me – not to my side of the line or to my neighbor but right at me. I knew that it would not end prettily, broken and mangled we would topple to the ground. Undoubtedly, my hand would fall, usually out of fright but, if not, then certainly out of weakness. But then it would get worse. “Red rover, red rover! Send Robby right over!” I would do my best to must the courage and as much strength as my boney frame and mop of curly hair could find. I could sense the panic setting in. But maybe this time I’ll get through. I could sense the resolve of those on the other side, hands tightly knit. But more than sense the resolve, I could see it in their gritted teeth and planted feet. Oh, how I longed to break the chain. And then a part of me longed to not run at all. I could hear the whispers in my head, “Red rover, red rover! Dear God, what do I do now?”

In the lessons today from Micah, the air is thick with tension. God and the people of Israel are in the middle of a lawsuit. God has a complaint. Micah has become the voice through which the charge is leveled. The parties have come to court to see who is at fault in their fractured relationship. The mountains and the hills are witnesses. The specific nature of the wrongs committed is not verbalized here, except indirectly: Gad asks the people, through Micah, what God has done wrong. There is a controversy with God about which God asks, rhetorically of course what God has done to lead Israel to separate themselves from God:

‘O my people, what have I done to you?
   In what have I wearied you? Answer me! 
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
   and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses,
   Aaron, and Miriam.

Have you forgotten, O Israel? Have your memories become lazy and hazy? Have you grown forgetful in what has been done for you and about which has been given you? Indeed, Israel chose to not remember their story – of how God delivered them from the land of Egypt, guided them despite their stubbornness through the wilderness, and brought them safely into the land of promise. They didn’t remember and they forgot and so the people grew complacent, seeking now to possess more, to be more, and to want more. The became willing to bargain with, to bribe, and to buy off God. And it was a calculated scheme. “With what,” they asked themselves, “shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?” The litany of liturgical acts that follows were traditionally meant to appease the gods: burnt offerings, calves and rams, oils, and even the firstborn son.

So here we stand with two questions: God’s inquiry of what God had done and Israel’s inquiry of how to appease God again. It’s a dynamic setup in the story, one that demands something now be spoken definitively, a declaration rather than a question. So Micah steps forth, daring to speak for God,

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?

A gracious and poetic slaying of the beast. “Get a clue,” Micah is saying, “God has already told you what God requires.”

All we really know about Micah is that he was from a place called Moresheth, a small village probably in the Shephelah, southwest of Jerusalem in the rich pastureland and farmland of the Judean foothills. We also know that Micah was a prophet who spoke from the poor farm workers who were suffering at the hands of the powerful landlords and merchants. Micah was the voice of the farm laborer, the common everyday people of the age. He witnessed in the injustice that was going on in society and was quite willing to name it by its proper name. He felt called to address the ones in power and to speak the truth to them, against evils no longer tolerable.

Micah was not removed from the suffering and plight of the people. He was in the midst of it. He knew all too well that justice would not be given away, that it would not come as a gift from those in power. They were far too preoccupied with their own comfort and prosperity and security. Justice would have to rise out of the people. Those having been alienated from what should be theirs, trudging down a path towards death, dared to envision change, new ways of being and living in the world, different and dynamic alternatives to the current unjust situations.

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? To do justice is not some romantic ideal nor is an abstract concept. The idea of justice isn’t about ‘getting even’ or ‘making someone pay for what they did.’ That might be American justice but it is a far cry from biblical justice. Justice in Hebrew (mishpat) is far more complex and comprehensive. Justice in ancient Israel was about the restoration of balance, the righting of relationships to the way they were intended to be. Justice is about letting all people be what God created them to be, their proper selves in relationship to God, the other people, and to all of creation. Justice is not a deal struck but an atmosphere engendered within a community. It is closely knit with that richly laden Hebrew word shalom.

Justice, therefore, disrupts the current state. It dismantles and breaks down that which is out of balance and that which demeans creation. It disarms. And then it transforms people, institutions, and systems into those which bring balance and promote healthy relationships.

Justice happens when we see the goodness of divine creation in all creation. Justice happens when we recognize that all people matter before God. This is why doing justice is so closely linked with loving kindness. Kindness seems to be as plain and pedantic a virtue as any. It is pedestrian with not a day passing when each of us can, in some way, exercise kindness somehow. Small or substantial kindness…it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is available and present when it is called for. But notice what Micah says, “love kindness.” It is not merely enough to do kindness, we are to love kindness. It is not merely about the doing kindness but about the loving kindness in the everyday.  

We can see all kinds of injustices, tragedies, and atrocities, but seeing is not enough. It is not in the seeing, but in the being moved to do something about it that we dare to change what is unjust, that we dare to exercise the kindness that we love. The Good Samaritan who will not pass by another human person, even when that other was considered an enemy. The father of the elder son who would not choose one son over another but found his arms wide enough to embrace both, even the one who walked away. Mary and the other women standing at the foot of the cross no matter how painful and frightening. Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah weeping together in their grief. The woman with the alabaster jar, breaking it open and pouring it out without holding anything back. Jesus weeping, praying, breaking bread, healing, anointing, blessing, and inviting the people. These are flesh and blood examples of loving kindness, loving tenderly, loving steadfastly.

In our American society, to do justice and to love kindness are not virtues often highly prized.

Freddie was one of those kids. You don’t know Freddie. I knew Freddie. You know kids like Freddie, especially if you are teacher. Freddie was one of those kids that teachers just had a hard time getting a hold on, his Sunday School teachers were no different. And so when the attention of Sunday School turned towards the Christmas pageant, the teachers thought it wise that Freddie have a simple part, perhaps the part of the innkeeper. Freddie would have three lines, all the same. “No room at the inn,” Freddie would say after Mary and Joseph knocked at the door. ON the night of the pageant, the two of the children dressed as Joseph and Mary came to the inn. Knock. Knock. Knock “No room at the inn,” bellowed Freddie right on cue. So far so good. The couple knocked again. Knock. Knock. Knock.”No room at the inn,” repeated Freddie. A third time Mary and Joseph beckoned. Banging even harder this time, they pleaded desperately for a place to lay their heads, ‘Please, is there any room in the inn?” Now, this time Freddie was moved with compassion. He forgot his line. “Well,” said Freddie, “why don't you just take my room?” The pageant came to a halt. Some parents were upset for their children were the stars and grandparents, aunts, and uncles had come, some from afar. For most, though, the spirit of the presence of the God which they were seeking found its way into Charlie's words of kindness. Freddie had taught us all what it meant to do justice and to love kindness.

And  Freddie also taught us what it meant to walk humbly. To walk humbly is not to walk with your nose in the air nor is it to walk with the your shoulders slumped to the ground. To walk humbly is to not exalt yourself nor is it belittle yourself or others. To walk humbly is not to be bothered by other people's opinions when you seek after righteousness. To walk humbly is not to think that you can do it all by yourself nor is to think you can do nothing. To walk humbly is not to be above someone nor is to be below someone, but rather to be with someone. To walk humbly is to be in communion with God and one another. It is about paying attention to what is around us. It is about listening to the stories of others as well as to your own story. Walking humbly is about letting God enter your story and about letting yourself enter God’

“Red rover, red rover! Dear God what do I do now!” What can I do? Well, I can begin by breaking the chains of injustice and war. I can begin by loving kindness everyday and everywhere. I can begin by sharing my story, walking humbly with my God.

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God? 

Are Your Ready for an Adventure? - a sermon for the third Sunday of Epiphany, 2014

You see, Jesus turns up at the waterside. And when Jesus turns up at the waterside (or anywhere else for that matter) things are going happen. They may have met him before. Perhaps they had heard about him. But it doesn’t really matter. No, today Jesus calls them to a new beginning taking place. Jesus glances at these working men, with their nets and their hard-won catch, and he announces, in a voice perhaps both cosmic and comic, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” This landlubber on shore has just issued a challenge.

The call narratives in the bible have many things in common, three of them important for our story today.

First, God calls to a place. God calls us to a place in the world where we are already going. There is a lot of work to do. There are a lot of stories to be told. There are a lot of fish to be caught. God sends us now into the world in peace to the place where we already are to make disciples. But moreso, God calls to have a place in and with Jesus. Why did those four respond? Why did the other before them respond? Were they sick of being fishermen? I tend to think not. Instead, possibly, they sensed in John the Baptist a glimmer of hope. Perhaps they realized a new opportunity in this dynamic preacher from Nazareth. Maybe they found in Jesus the place where they were intended to be. Having a place is really important. When they sinned, Adam and Eve were tossed out of their place. Cain was doomed to wander without a place. Abraham and Sarah were called to journey from a place to a still better place – a promised place. The children of Israel were delivered from Egypt and again promised of a place – a place flowing with milk and honey. As he fled from Saul, David had no place to lay his head but upon victory with God had a place in the palace in Jerusalem. We all need a place. In Jesus, the disciples found a place where they could find mercy, purpose, stability, forgiveness, security, and a sameness that gave unity to their lives.

Second, God calls us to a time. And that time is the same for us all. The story heard today reports that the four in the gospel responded “immediately.” They left their father in the boat! Other call stories are similar. Immediately is the trend. Immediately is the time. Jesus calls us to “now.” “The kingdom is near.” The moment is now. Opportunity awaits. Seize it. “The kingdom is near.” So without delay, they followed him.

Third, God calls us to adventure. GK Chesterton writes, “An adventure is by its nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose.” While other rabbis would have waited for disciples to come to them, this Rabbi Jesus goes out and finds his own. What’s more, he looks not among those likely and typical candidates. He doesn’t look among the smartest, the brightest, the most well-trained and well-connected. No, he looks down at the docks, interrupting fishermen at their work. Discipleship would be a great adventure. We are taken away from predictable lives, plunged into adventure and woe to anyone who dilutes this adventure with dullness. Woe to anyone who makes discipleship into something safe. But blessed are they for whom the adventure remains forever sharp, who find themselves always at a new beginning.

Are these four men – Andrew, Simon, James, and John – ready and equipped for the adventure that comes to them, that chooses them? Are they ready for this adventure of discipleship? Jesus at the waterside does not collect resumes nor he does check references. The personal histories of these four do not have the last word about their futures. Christ's call means a new beginning. He takes a wide-open risk by inviting them. They do the same in response.

Indeed, subsequent events demonstrate their imperfection. Simon Peter will betray Jesus with a boldfaced lie. James and John, the Sons of Thunder, are not always the most agreeable pair, indulging in dreams of their own enthronement. Andrew doesn’t really appear again does he? Maybe his flaw was playing it safe. Yet Jesus never withdraws his invitation to adventure. They are partners with Jesus to the end.

“Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it ... the end of safety,” wrote novelist James Baldwin. “The call to discipleship of these four fishermen, the beginning their story represents, implies the breakup of their familiar world, the end of their safety.” They leave behind old securities: the waterside, the boat, the nets, those days of fishing that so resembled one another, and even old Zebedee, the father of James and John, standing astonished in the boat as his two sons suddenly walk away. The new beginning requires this. Disciples must walk away into the future. They may be afraid but they are not so afraid that their faith does not lead them forward.

The story today tells us of a new beginning for four fishermen. They are called out from their occupation as fishermen about which they know a great deal and into a new occupation as fisher’s of people, about which they claim no knowledge.

Likewise, discipleship for each of us here gathered is new beginning, such that appear before us again and again. We experience the end of safety and comfort so that we may participate in a new world, finding ourselves engaged in Christ and with Christ. So, here’s the thing: However strangely it happened, Christ has come to us – to each one of us. However unjustifiable we may think it is, Christ chooses us. However ill-prepared we might think we are, Christ sends us out into the world to be the next new beginning.

Are you ready for the adventure – here and now?

This is our baptism! - a sermon for the Baptism of the Lord

Can you remember your baptism? Are you able to put together the pieces of your baptism? If baptized as an infant, maybe a memory comes from the stories told by parents or grandparents or maybe even from that little paper certificate. If older, perhaps you remember some of the details: the coolness of the water or the oil on your head. Maybe you remember your child’s baptism – the response when the water hit their head; what they were wearing; who was there. Maybe a memory of baptism is fresh and new or maybe it is older and little clouded by the years. The water may have been poured over your head or maybe you were immersed and then raised up out of the water.

I have some favorite images of baptisms. I remember the baby who, upon the water hitting his head, fell promptly asleep. I remember another baby who decided at the moment the water was poured to relieve his bladder. And his mom thought the gown would look better without a diaper. I remember the little girl who decided to splash Father John back. I remember the older lady whose simple reply was, “Oh, my.” Apparently, the water was a little chilly. So many memories of baptisms.

 Jesus joins the crowd at the river Jordan. His cousin John has been baptizing people with water – the water of repentance. Only a few weeks ago in Advent, we heard John tell those gathered at the river that one would come – whose sandals John was not worthy even to hold – who would baptize them with fire and with the Spirit. That day John hurled at the Pharisees and Saducees, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Even now the axe is at the root of the tree!”

Back then in Advent, we could imagine the excited murmurs that might have rippled through the crowd. “Baptize with fire?”

“Someone so great John won’t hold his sandals?”

“Someone who will wield an ax to cut down – what? Maybe the curse of the Roman occupation?”

We wonder whom they thought they’d see. “Oh, let’s hope someone powerful and mighty – maybe on a horse.”

Then Jesus joins the crowd at the river Jordan. His cousin John is there and only he can pick Jesus out. Only John recognizes the greatness of the Messiah. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” No flourish, no parade of horses, no axe, no fire, nothing different. Yet.

In Sunday school, many of us may have asked at one time, “Why did Jesus need to be baptized if he didn’t have any sin?” We learned that baptism is initiation. Forgiveness of sins is only one part of the grace of baptism; but more, baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, our catechism says.

So Jesus, by being baptized, was showing his solidarity with his community, his willingness to be counted among these people of God. The Word Incarnate was again showing that God was content to pitch a tent among the people and live with and like them. As the gospel tells us, by doing this, being baptized by John, Jesus was fulfilling all righteousness. So, the folks then might have wondered, where was the fire and Spirit? It’s not what they may have expected. This was just the beginning. There was, of course, a little excitement – the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and a voice declaring, “This is my Son which whom I am well pleased.” Jesus is baptized and anointed with power and the Spirit, more will come. For Matthew, this is the point at which Jesus’ mission and ministry begins.

After this, various scripture passages bring us back to baptism. In the reading from Acts today, Peter explains to new followers that the spreading of the message of peace preached by Jesus Christ began in Galilee after Christ’s baptism. We know other stories, such as the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch by Phillip and the baptism of the prison guard’s whole household by Paul, and of course, the baptism of more than 3,000 after Pentecost. Baptism is critically important to our understanding of who we are as a people of God.

For too long we understood baptism only as the sign that original sin was washed from our souls. For centuries people put off baptism until moments before their death, believing that with baptism their sins were washed away and they were guaranteed heaven regardless of what kind of life they led. Fortunately, the liturgical renewal of the 1950s onward restored our understanding of baptism as an initiation – a recognition of our status as children of God.

When we consider our baptism we might think more consciously about that beautiful verse in Genesis 1: “So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.” Yes, we believe baptism cleanses us from sin, but even more, it gives us power and grace to accept our own ministry and mission as offered to us by God.

It’s tempting to compare our baptism with Jesus’ baptism and for us to come up wanting. He was anointed with power and the Holy Spirit. He went on to preach, teach, heal, and collect a vast number of followers. He suffered, died, and rose again. He was, after all, both human and divine. And us? Our baptism surely must be less. We aren’t divine. We can accept baptism and then go on to live ordinary lives, forgetting perhaps even the day of our baptism. Or can we?

Absolutely not. The church reminds us every year at this time about Jesus’ baptism. That should be a clue that our own baptism is vitally important. We should remember the day. We should celebrate the fact that we too were baptized with power and the Holy Spirit – the same Spirit that descended on Jesus like a dove. We might not get the visual of the dove and the sky broken open, but we are equally graced, filled with the Spirit, adopted as God’s own, and given a ministry and mission for our lives. It is just that important.

Baptism should be life changing. Imagine what the church might look like if each baptized member grasped hold of and used the power that is freely given us by God in our baptism. In Isaiah today we heard these words of the Lord: “I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” We know these words were used in Isaiah’s time for his community, and we now use them to talk about the Messiah, but we must understand that they are meant for us too. Doesn’t Jesus constantly tell his followers, and us, that we must take up Jesus’ ministry and continue spreading the good news? Aren’t we supposed to care for the poor, build up the weak, and spread peace? Each baptized person makes five promises. Each of us promises to God five things that, if we take them seriously, could change the world. Can we recite those promises by memory? We should be able to. It’s just that important.

Could we change the world or have we given up in despair? The church gives us this celebration of Jesus’ baptism every year, maybe in the hope that it will make us think again about our own baptism. Maybe that memory will ignite the fire that smolders in our souls. That fire is there. Baptism gives it to us, and it never goes out. We often call the people who let that fire burn brightly “saints.” But again, imagine what our church would look like if we all let our fire burn. Remember the words to the hymn: “I sing a song of the saints of God ... and I mean to be one, too.”

We are created in the image of God. We are loved beyond measure – all God’s people are loved beyond measure. Imagine the church. Imagine it on fire with the power of the Spirit. Imagine the explosion of peace and joy that could be ours. God says, “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

This is our anointing. This is our baptism.