3RD SUNDAY IN LENT — 11 March 2012
Trinity, Iowa City – 7:45, 8:45, & 11:00
Exodus 20:1-17 | Psalm 19 |
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 | John 2:13-22
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.
The Bishop had come for Confirmation – (by the way, this was told to me as a true story, although I wasn’t there. And it’s an old story – it goes back to the Olden Days which a few of us remember, when young people were not admitted to Holy Communion until they were confirmed. Thus in some parishes, especially those that were eucharistically centered, children were presented for Confirmation at a relatively early age so they could begin to make their Communions as soon as possible. They had to know the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments. So, anyway -- ) The Bishop had come for Confirmation, and, as was that bishop’s custom, he was catechizing the children in the class before confirming them, and he asked, “Who can tell me the Third Commandment?” One little girl shot her hand up in the air, and when the Bishop pointed to her she stood up and proudly announced, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain!” The Bishop said, “That’s right – very good! And can you tell me what that commandment means?” The girl’s pride immediately dissolved, and she looked down at her brand-new patent-leather shoes and began to fidget. “Well,” asked the Bishop, “do you know what the Third Commandment means?” She nodded her head. “Then can you tell us?” She stammered out, “I can’t say it.” “No, it’s quite all right,” the Bishop assured her. “You can tell us what the Third Commandment means.” The girl took a deep breath, screwed up her eyes, and shouted, “It means you’re not s’posed to say ‘goddammit’!”
(The story goes that the Bishop looked out at the adults in the congregation and said, “I‘m not going to ask about the Seventh Commandment!”)
No. We’re not supposed to say “goddammit.” I don’t doubt that it annoys God when we do. But I think the Third Commandment is about a little more than just that, and frankly there’s a lot of taking God’s name in vain going on these days even among folks who probably never ever say “goddammit.”
Since it’s Lent, we heard the Ten Commandments in the Penitential Order at the beginning of the service, and the Rite II or “contemporary” version of the Decalogue (“The Ten Words”) reads like this: “You shall not invoke with malice the Name of the Lord your God.” Well, yeah, I suppose that’s at least part of it, though not all of it. The New Revised Standard Version, which we heard in the first reading this morning, says: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God,” and that’s getting closer. Actually, closest to the Hebrew may be the traditional “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain (lashawa’).” Another modern translation gives us: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God,” and I think that’s not far off. And there’s a lot of misusing of God’s name going around.
Sometimes we can be very sure that we know and understand who God is and what God wants, and we have little hesitation in saying so, especially to other people who, we think, do not have our insight and wisdom. (St. Paul talks about wisdom this morning, but that’s another sermon for another year!) We use the name of the Lord our God as a club to beat other people over the head with. (“Taking in vain?” I should think so…!) There seems to be a good bit of this going on in politics these days; maybe you can speculate who I might have in mind, but I’m not going there today! Let’s just stick to ourselves, as individuals, as members of our extended families, as members of our local communities, as members of the Church, locally, denominationally within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, and throughout the world, among Christians and among all faith communities. “This is what God wants!” we proclaim to each other. “See? It says so right here in the Bible!” (“But what about this passage over here?” “No! No! Don’t look at that one! Read my passage!”) “If you don’t hear and obey the word of the Lord (just exactly the same way I do!) then you must be in league with Satan!”
(You all know about the folks who close their eyes, open the Bible to a page at random, and stick their finger on a verse, and then look to see what it says and take that for some definitive guidance. Maybe you have been one of those folks yourself. I suggest that that’s a good shortcut to taking the Lord’s name in vain. But I digress. Slightly.)
Bear in mind that “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” (That’s Shakespeare [Merchant of Venice, I.iii], though Dickens and others have also picked it up. But ultimately it reflects the accounts in Matthew [4:1-11] and Luke [4:1-13] of Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the wilderness during his 40-day retreat of vocation. But I digress again. Slightly.)
When we are thinking about God, and God’s will, there are obviously passages in the Scriptures to which we can appeal. For instance, the Ten Commandments, which we hear again this morning. (And we also heard again how Jesus summarized them: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole being, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two hang all the Law and the Prophets.” And don’t forget the Prophets. Jesus didn’t.) But we also need to be careful lest we claim or assume too much.
God, and God’s Name, are not to be taken lightly. You are aware that it has been strict Jewish practice, from well before Jesus’ time, never to speak the Hebrew proper name of God aloud, but to substitute for it another divine title, most commonly “the LORD” (signaled in some English Bibles and in the Prayer Book Psalter by using small capital letters). Every time we don’t understand something, when we can’t make sense of something, we drag in God. We say “This must be God’s will.” Well, a lot of things go on in the world that are not God’s will, especially including human tragedy. “God has a purpose for us in this.” Well, I think God does have a purpose for us, but I suspect that when we say that it betrays the fact that we actually don’t really have any idea what God’s purpose might be. “It’s God’s plan for your life.” I think that’s on very thin ice. God is not a puppeteer. God does not write hidden scripts for us that we are somehow supposed to discern. God does not play games with us. We must not play games with God. Above all, we must understand that the Holy One is not to be made a tool of human ideology. God does indeed say, “You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain.”
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Sermon - 4 March 2012 - 2nd in Lent
2ND SUNDAY IN LENT — 4 March 2012
St. Paul’s, Durant – 9:00 am
Genesis 17:1-7,15-16 | Psalm 22:22-30 |
Romans 4:13-25 | Mark 8:31-38
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Poor St. Peter! No matter what he does, he never seems to get it right! Just a couple of weeks ago we heard about how he shared in the vision of Jesus in glory, with the heroes of Israel, Moses and Elijah, and Peter didn’t know what he was saying; he wanted to stay and build shrines! Much more seriously, as we remember and will hear again in a few weeks, Peter promised Jesus that he would never abandon him, yet the very first time he was challenged about Jesus he chickened out.
Well, in today’s episode, we hear the verses that immediately follow this (which we heard in Matthew’s version last summer): “[Jesus] asked [his disciples], ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’” [Mark 8:29]
Peter got the right word, but he still didn’t know what he was saying.
We know what the word “Messiah” means. (Well, actually, we probably don’t know all that it really means, but we may be closer than Peter.) For us, the first image that comes to mind when we hear or read the word “Messiah” is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ (which we usually remember is simply the Greek way, and subsequently the Latin way, and ultimately the English, Spanish, and so on way, of saying “Jesus the Messiah”). And for us that image probably includes Jesus as healer, and teacher, and ultimately the Crucified One. The symbol of the Christ, of the Messiah, is the Cross.
Well, not so for Peter, or probably for anyone else among first-century Jews in Judea or Galilee (or anywhere else). The Hebrew word mashiah (anglicized Messiah) is “The Anointed One,” and the Anointed One is the King, anointed by God, like David of old, and in the context of first-century Judaism, living under the rule, often the oppressive rule, of a series of foreign empires for most of the previous six hundred years. So the Messiah-King is the Liberator, the one whom God will send from heaven, or will call out from among the people, to free God’s chosen and (as even Jesus’ disciples keep on thinking) to “restore the Kingdom to Israel.” [Acts 1:6] Some who speculated about the Messiah envisioned a revolutionary leader who would raise the nation in armed military insurrection against the Roman overlords. Others hoped for a Messiah who was more of a heavenly figure who with a host of God’s angels would overthrow all other earthly kingdoms by divine intervention and raise Israel to be Top Kingdom in the world.
So somewhere in here is probably where Peter (and the other disciples) were. We can imagine that when Peter answers Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” he is only just realizing it himself when he says, wide-eyed, “It’s you! You are the Messiah!”
But you will remember that Jesus immediately says, “Okay, but now just keep that under your hats.” And then he goes on as we hear in the Gospel reading today: “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” And this isn’t anything at all like the Messiah that Peter and the others had in mind. Their Messiah was a leader with power, even divine power! What is all this about suffering and rejection and death? And as for rising again, well, lots of Jews believed that everyone would be raised at the last day, but that doesn’t do us much good right now! So Peter cries, “NO! It can’t be! That’s not right! It’s not like that!” And Jesus says back to him, “Get behind me, Satan!” That is right. It is like that.
(As the prophet Isaiah says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” [Isaiah 55:8])
We are so sure that we know what God wants, what the will of God is, what the purposes of God are. We see this all around us. We see this in our national (and state and local) political life, which in this season has become particularly unsavory. (I won’t name names!) But we see it also in our religious or church life, between and among faith communities, between and among denominations, and within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. “I know what the will of God is. I know the truth! And anyone who disagrees with me or has a different perspective is somewhere between Grievously Misinformed and Mindless Pond Scum.”
Yeah, right.
We seem to think it is so important that we know everything about everything in advance, that we have all the answers. We don’t do at all well with uncertainty about anything. (In passing, I might note that last month I attended a series of lectures by a noted astrophysicist at the University, who pointed out that uncertainty and indeterminacy are the condition of being able to do modern physics at all. But I digress!) More to the point, our first reading from Genesis today, and the epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans which comments on that first reading, remind us that Abraham didn’t know in advance where all this wandering around would lead him, but he trusted God.
Jesus said to Peter and the disciples, and Jesus says to us, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
St. Paul’s, Durant – 9:00 am
Genesis 17:1-7,15-16 | Psalm 22:22-30 |
Romans 4:13-25 | Mark 8:31-38
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Poor St. Peter! No matter what he does, he never seems to get it right! Just a couple of weeks ago we heard about how he shared in the vision of Jesus in glory, with the heroes of Israel, Moses and Elijah, and Peter didn’t know what he was saying; he wanted to stay and build shrines! Much more seriously, as we remember and will hear again in a few weeks, Peter promised Jesus that he would never abandon him, yet the very first time he was challenged about Jesus he chickened out.
Well, in today’s episode, we hear the verses that immediately follow this (which we heard in Matthew’s version last summer): “[Jesus] asked [his disciples], ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’” [Mark 8:29]
Peter got the right word, but he still didn’t know what he was saying.
We know what the word “Messiah” means. (Well, actually, we probably don’t know all that it really means, but we may be closer than Peter.) For us, the first image that comes to mind when we hear or read the word “Messiah” is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ (which we usually remember is simply the Greek way, and subsequently the Latin way, and ultimately the English, Spanish, and so on way, of saying “Jesus the Messiah”). And for us that image probably includes Jesus as healer, and teacher, and ultimately the Crucified One. The symbol of the Christ, of the Messiah, is the Cross.
Well, not so for Peter, or probably for anyone else among first-century Jews in Judea or Galilee (or anywhere else). The Hebrew word mashiah (anglicized Messiah) is “The Anointed One,” and the Anointed One is the King, anointed by God, like David of old, and in the context of first-century Judaism, living under the rule, often the oppressive rule, of a series of foreign empires for most of the previous six hundred years. So the Messiah-King is the Liberator, the one whom God will send from heaven, or will call out from among the people, to free God’s chosen and (as even Jesus’ disciples keep on thinking) to “restore the Kingdom to Israel.” [Acts 1:6] Some who speculated about the Messiah envisioned a revolutionary leader who would raise the nation in armed military insurrection against the Roman overlords. Others hoped for a Messiah who was more of a heavenly figure who with a host of God’s angels would overthrow all other earthly kingdoms by divine intervention and raise Israel to be Top Kingdom in the world.
So somewhere in here is probably where Peter (and the other disciples) were. We can imagine that when Peter answers Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” he is only just realizing it himself when he says, wide-eyed, “It’s you! You are the Messiah!”
But you will remember that Jesus immediately says, “Okay, but now just keep that under your hats.” And then he goes on as we hear in the Gospel reading today: “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” And this isn’t anything at all like the Messiah that Peter and the others had in mind. Their Messiah was a leader with power, even divine power! What is all this about suffering and rejection and death? And as for rising again, well, lots of Jews believed that everyone would be raised at the last day, but that doesn’t do us much good right now! So Peter cries, “NO! It can’t be! That’s not right! It’s not like that!” And Jesus says back to him, “Get behind me, Satan!” That is right. It is like that.
(As the prophet Isaiah says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” [Isaiah 55:8])
We are so sure that we know what God wants, what the will of God is, what the purposes of God are. We see this all around us. We see this in our national (and state and local) political life, which in this season has become particularly unsavory. (I won’t name names!) But we see it also in our religious or church life, between and among faith communities, between and among denominations, and within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. “I know what the will of God is. I know the truth! And anyone who disagrees with me or has a different perspective is somewhere between Grievously Misinformed and Mindless Pond Scum.”
Yeah, right.
We seem to think it is so important that we know everything about everything in advance, that we have all the answers. We don’t do at all well with uncertainty about anything. (In passing, I might note that last month I attended a series of lectures by a noted astrophysicist at the University, who pointed out that uncertainty and indeterminacy are the condition of being able to do modern physics at all. But I digress!) More to the point, our first reading from Genesis today, and the epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans which comments on that first reading, remind us that Abraham didn’t know in advance where all this wandering around would lead him, but he trusted God.
Jesus said to Peter and the disciples, and Jesus says to us, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Sermon - 12 February 2012 - 6th after Epiphany
6TH AFTER EPIPHANY — 12 February 2012
Trinity – 7:45, 8:45, & 11:00
2 Kings 5:1-14
Ps 30
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.
How many of you have read the Bible? The whole Bible — or at least pretty much the whole Bible? (I’m not trying to put you on the spot here, and I’m not taking names!) Did any of you do the thing where you said, “I need to read the Bible!” and you started in on page 1 with Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1? How far did you get? (Or at least, how far did you get before you started skimming ahead? Along about Chapter 5? Right!)
We all think we ought to read the Bible. And we’re right, we all ought to read the Bible; and at one time or another we probably ought to read at least most of it. (Incidentally, there was a very interesting posting on the Episcopal Café a week or so ago about whether everybody should be encouraged to read the Bible, with lots of good comments. Here's the URL:)
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/scripture/encourage_people_to_read_the_b.php
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/bibles/on_reading_the_bible.html
The truth of the matter is, in some respects the Bible isn’t all that reader-friendly. A lot of it really isn’t very accessible, especially the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, and particularly the parts that drone on and on about who begat who. But there are some wonderful stories in the Old Testament -- as well as some that are terrifying -- and we should read them and know them, because for good or ill they are our story.
Today we get the story of Naaman. We get Naaman because the Gospel today is about Jesus healing a leper, and Naaman was a leper who was healed by the prophet Elisha. Okay. But Naaman is a story worth knowing for its own sake, apart from any connection with today’s Gospel reading.
Naaman was a general in the army of the King of Syria, or “Aram” as the Hebrew text actually says. He had contracted leprosy. It’s not entirely clear just what “leprosy” is in the Bible. It was regarded as a dreadful and fearsome affliction. It may be that some of the “lepers” in the Bible did have what we now call Hansen’s disease, which is a grievous affliction, though generally controllable by modern medicine, at least for people in the first world who can get modern medicine. But other persons who are called “lepers” in the Bible may have had nothing worse than the heartbreak of psoriasis. But whatever the disease was dermatologically, it still had the same disastrous social and psychological consequences, and Naaman desperately wanted to be cured. And, as we hear this morning, he finally ended up at the gate of the Israelite prophet Elisha.
Elisha, like many godly persons, was good to people but not always nice to them, and he simply sent out instructions for Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River. You know how sometimes when we’re not feeling well we call the doctor, but the doctor isn’t available just then, so we have to tell the nurse or the office secretary what ails us, and by and by the office staff calls back and says the doctor has called in a prescription for us, and we run down to the drugstore and pick up the pills, and we take them, and they work and we feel better, but we’re still a little miffed about the whole thing because we didn’t get to actually talk directly to the doctor. Well, Naaman is a Very Important Personage, at least up in Syria, and he was expecting a Personal Consult and a Major Prophetic Procedure. Instead he’s been treated rather shabbily by this Israelite prophet, and he gets into High Dudgeon about it. Naaman’s servants, who have acquired some good sense over a lifetime of being treated rather shabbily themselves most of the time, understand that High Dudgeon is not a particularly fruitful place to be, and they talk Naaman down. Naaman goes grumbling off to the crummy ol’ Jordan River, and he washes seven times, and he is cured of his leprosy.
We all love to complain and whine and get into High Dudgeon about the fact that things aren’t the way we want them to be, instead of simply doing what is necessary to make things better. We would rather curse the darkness than light one candle.
We are especially like Naaman when, as with Elisha’s instructions, what we need to do is something fairly simple. We think that we could get our lives into better shape, get our act together, get our ducks in a row, if only God would perform some great miracle, if only we could have some great spiritual experience, if only we could accomplish some truly heroic quest. If only, if only — anything but just taking care of business right here and now.
And that isn’t the way it really works. It’s all the little daily things that are the real substance of our lives, not the big fat hairy deals, not the “if onlys.” The way we share in the boundless creative love of God that sustains the immensity of the universe in being is — by loving the specific person who is next to us right now. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Every few years we get a cycle of exotic fad diets: buy some TV time for an infomercial hawking your new book on the Beer and Parsnip Diet, and my gosh how the Visa charges roll in! Of course, fad diets don’t really work in the long run, and some of them are dangerous. What does work (though I’m hardly a convincing witness, am I?) is to eat well-balanced, but smaller, meals, and get regular exercise. Calories do count; to lose weight you must consume less and burn up more. It’s that simple. Maybe not easy, but simple. Too simple for many of us. We’re just like ol’ Naaman.
Christian discipleship is a lot like following Elisha’s instructions: relatively simple, really, though not always easy; but the key is to start doing it. Let’s not hold in contempt the ordinary day-by-day things that countless generations of Christians have found necessary to their spiritual growth. Prayer. Reading the Scriptures. Gathering together with the community of fellow disciples to worship and to be fed with Word and Sacrament. Self-discipline. Generosity. Service. Love.
We are such Very Important Personages, in our own minds. We’re so proud. We’re so rebellious. We’re so self willed. Like Naaman we want to do it our way!
“Go, wash in the Jordan seven times.”
Really pretty simple. Let’s just do it!
Trinity – 7:45, 8:45, & 11:00
2 Kings 5:1-14
Ps 30
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.
How many of you have read the Bible? The whole Bible — or at least pretty much the whole Bible? (I’m not trying to put you on the spot here, and I’m not taking names!) Did any of you do the thing where you said, “I need to read the Bible!” and you started in on page 1 with Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1? How far did you get? (Or at least, how far did you get before you started skimming ahead? Along about Chapter 5? Right!)
We all think we ought to read the Bible. And we’re right, we all ought to read the Bible; and at one time or another we probably ought to read at least most of it. (Incidentally, there was a very interesting posting on the Episcopal Café a week or so ago about whether everybody should be encouraged to read the Bible, with lots of good comments. Here's the URL:)
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/scripture/encourage_people_to_read_the_b.php
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/bibles/on_reading_the_bible.html
The truth of the matter is, in some respects the Bible isn’t all that reader-friendly. A lot of it really isn’t very accessible, especially the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, and particularly the parts that drone on and on about who begat who. But there are some wonderful stories in the Old Testament -- as well as some that are terrifying -- and we should read them and know them, because for good or ill they are our story.
Today we get the story of Naaman. We get Naaman because the Gospel today is about Jesus healing a leper, and Naaman was a leper who was healed by the prophet Elisha. Okay. But Naaman is a story worth knowing for its own sake, apart from any connection with today’s Gospel reading.
Naaman was a general in the army of the King of Syria, or “Aram” as the Hebrew text actually says. He had contracted leprosy. It’s not entirely clear just what “leprosy” is in the Bible. It was regarded as a dreadful and fearsome affliction. It may be that some of the “lepers” in the Bible did have what we now call Hansen’s disease, which is a grievous affliction, though generally controllable by modern medicine, at least for people in the first world who can get modern medicine. But other persons who are called “lepers” in the Bible may have had nothing worse than the heartbreak of psoriasis. But whatever the disease was dermatologically, it still had the same disastrous social and psychological consequences, and Naaman desperately wanted to be cured. And, as we hear this morning, he finally ended up at the gate of the Israelite prophet Elisha.
Elisha, like many godly persons, was good to people but not always nice to them, and he simply sent out instructions for Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River. You know how sometimes when we’re not feeling well we call the doctor, but the doctor isn’t available just then, so we have to tell the nurse or the office secretary what ails us, and by and by the office staff calls back and says the doctor has called in a prescription for us, and we run down to the drugstore and pick up the pills, and we take them, and they work and we feel better, but we’re still a little miffed about the whole thing because we didn’t get to actually talk directly to the doctor. Well, Naaman is a Very Important Personage, at least up in Syria, and he was expecting a Personal Consult and a Major Prophetic Procedure. Instead he’s been treated rather shabbily by this Israelite prophet, and he gets into High Dudgeon about it. Naaman’s servants, who have acquired some good sense over a lifetime of being treated rather shabbily themselves most of the time, understand that High Dudgeon is not a particularly fruitful place to be, and they talk Naaman down. Naaman goes grumbling off to the crummy ol’ Jordan River, and he washes seven times, and he is cured of his leprosy.
We all love to complain and whine and get into High Dudgeon about the fact that things aren’t the way we want them to be, instead of simply doing what is necessary to make things better. We would rather curse the darkness than light one candle.
We are especially like Naaman when, as with Elisha’s instructions, what we need to do is something fairly simple. We think that we could get our lives into better shape, get our act together, get our ducks in a row, if only God would perform some great miracle, if only we could have some great spiritual experience, if only we could accomplish some truly heroic quest. If only, if only — anything but just taking care of business right here and now.
And that isn’t the way it really works. It’s all the little daily things that are the real substance of our lives, not the big fat hairy deals, not the “if onlys.” The way we share in the boundless creative love of God that sustains the immensity of the universe in being is — by loving the specific person who is next to us right now. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Every few years we get a cycle of exotic fad diets: buy some TV time for an infomercial hawking your new book on the Beer and Parsnip Diet, and my gosh how the Visa charges roll in! Of course, fad diets don’t really work in the long run, and some of them are dangerous. What does work (though I’m hardly a convincing witness, am I?) is to eat well-balanced, but smaller, meals, and get regular exercise. Calories do count; to lose weight you must consume less and burn up more. It’s that simple. Maybe not easy, but simple. Too simple for many of us. We’re just like ol’ Naaman.
Christian discipleship is a lot like following Elisha’s instructions: relatively simple, really, though not always easy; but the key is to start doing it. Let’s not hold in contempt the ordinary day-by-day things that countless generations of Christians have found necessary to their spiritual growth. Prayer. Reading the Scriptures. Gathering together with the community of fellow disciples to worship and to be fed with Word and Sacrament. Self-discipline. Generosity. Service. Love.
We are such Very Important Personages, in our own minds. We’re so proud. We’re so rebellious. We’re so self willed. Like Naaman we want to do it our way!
“Go, wash in the Jordan seven times.”
Really pretty simple. Let’s just do it!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Sermon - 5 February 2012 - 5th after Epiphany
5 EPIPHANY — 5 February 2012
St. Paul’s, Durant – 9:00 am
Isaiah 40:21-31 | Psalm 147:1-12,21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23 | Mark 1:29-39
And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
TV commercials!
Don’t you just love TV commercials? And this afternoon on the Super Bowl we will get a whole new assortment of them! In some years the commercials are more interesting than the football game!
I think my favorite commercials (yes, I’m being sarcastic here!) are the ones from the pharmaceutical companies. Did you ever notice that many of these are full 60-second spots? Can you imagine what it costs to place a 60-second ad on national network television? Anyway, the first nine seconds are all about how if you take our medication your life will be healthy and happy and prosperous and your 401(k) portfolio will double in value! The remaining fifty-one seconds are all about how oh by the way you do need to watch out for side effects that may cause heart attacks or strokes or blindness or the heartbreak of psoriasis or gingivitis or even recurrent death, and incidentally this medication is contraindicated for 87% of the population anyway. So consult your doctor. (Good advice! She or he will probably say, “What? No! Not for you!”) And if you cannot afford your medication, our pharmaceutical company may be able to help. (Yeah, and if they weren’t spending so much money on TV ads they could probably help even more!)
In the Gospel today, we see Jesus in the healing business, if we may so call it, but we notice that he doesn’t place TV commercials about it. On the contrary, Jesus apparently tries to keep a low profile, at least in these early stages of his ministry. “He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.” You may recall from last Sunday, when the Gospel reading was the passage from St. Mark immediately before today’s reading, one of the unclean spirits cried out, “I know you! You’re God’s Holy One!” And Jesus shouted back, “Shut up, and get out!” [Mark 1:24-25]
“Don’t tell who I am” — that’s a common theme in the Gospels, especially in Mark. Jesus heals a leper, and tells him, “Don’t tell anyone about this.” [Mark 1:44] He raises from death the daughter of Jairus, and “he insisted that nobody should know about this.” [Mark 5:43] He heals a deaf-mute, “and he ordered them, ‘Tell no one’.” [Mark 7:36] He gives sight to a blind man outside Bethsaida, and then said “’Go straight home without going through the village.’” [Mark 8:26] He heals other people who are possessed by demons (whatever that may mean): and “whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.” [Mark 3:11-12]
So much for pharmaceutical advertising!
On the other hand, Jesus does go around advertising! It’s just that he doesn’t advertise himself. We are traditionally accustomed to translating what Jesus does as “preaching the Gospel,” but the plain ol’ ordinary meaning of the Greek text is that Jesus was “running a commercial for God’s kingship – advertising the rule of God.” And Jesus’ commercial said, “The world is God’s and not Caesar’s,” and this ad is good news! (Although as it turned out, Pontius Pilate didn’t like Jesus’ ad very much!)
Jesus started out by keeping a low profile. He did not begin his ministry with a media blitz. He did not have a campaign manager. In the wilderness, you recall, the devil had tempted Jesus to use (first of all) magic, or else “public relations” ads, or else political or military power, as a way to try to convert humankind to the reign of God — and Jesus rejected all these, since none of them would really lead to God’s world –in fact they all lead to the world of Caesar, of the many Caesars of human history past and present.
So Jesus does not blackmail us into believing in him (“Look here, I’m the Messiah, so you better believe in me or else you’ll go to hell!” Some Christians have subsequently said things like that, but Jesus never said that). Jesus simply does the work of the Kingdom of God, Jesus announces (or advertises) the Good News of the Reign of God, Jesus fulfills the prophecies concerning the coming of the fulfillment of God’s world — he heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead — and he asks people to recognize for themselves through his words and his deeds who he is and whose Kingdom he bears.
And then at the end of the first phase of his ministry Jesus finally puts it to his followers: “So, now – who do you say that I am?” And Peter responds, “You are the Messiah” — the Christ, God’s Anointed One. (And even there, still, Jesus “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone [else] about him.”) But from that point Jesus can take his followers to the mountain of the Transfiguration, where they will see him in glory (we’ll hear about that in the Gospel in two more weeks, just before Lent). And thereafter Jesus will begin to teach his followers more explicitly about who he is and what he must do and how he must suffer.
I think all of this says some things about God and our relationship with God. It shows that God does not compel us. God does not sell us into buying a relationship. God created us free, and God will not compromise that freedom — whatever the cost, to us or to God. (And our freedom is very costly, to us and to God.) God invites us, God calls us, God woos us, God draws us, God even challenges us, but God does not drag us. Love and faith cannot be compelled.
And that means we cannot expect to have all the answers beforehand. The certainty of faith comes afterward, not before. It is not the certainty we have when everything is clearly set out for us in advance, the certainty of logic, the certainty of mathematics. It’s not the kind of convincing that an effective ad campaign aims for. It is the certainty we have in a personal relationship, the certainty of love. Even Jesus will not give us this certainty, so long as all we do is just stand and watch him and wait to be “sold” on it. Jesus gives certainty only when we will recognize him, only when we will struggle through the uncertainties and the ambiguities and the many things unknown to us and even fearful to us, and then will open our hearts to him, to let him fill us with the aweful, awesome love of the Reign of God.
St. Paul’s, Durant – 9:00 am
Isaiah 40:21-31 | Psalm 147:1-12,21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23 | Mark 1:29-39
And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
TV commercials!
Don’t you just love TV commercials? And this afternoon on the Super Bowl we will get a whole new assortment of them! In some years the commercials are more interesting than the football game!
I think my favorite commercials (yes, I’m being sarcastic here!) are the ones from the pharmaceutical companies. Did you ever notice that many of these are full 60-second spots? Can you imagine what it costs to place a 60-second ad on national network television? Anyway, the first nine seconds are all about how if you take our medication your life will be healthy and happy and prosperous and your 401(k) portfolio will double in value! The remaining fifty-one seconds are all about how oh by the way you do need to watch out for side effects that may cause heart attacks or strokes or blindness or the heartbreak of psoriasis or gingivitis or even recurrent death, and incidentally this medication is contraindicated for 87% of the population anyway. So consult your doctor. (Good advice! She or he will probably say, “What? No! Not for you!”) And if you cannot afford your medication, our pharmaceutical company may be able to help. (Yeah, and if they weren’t spending so much money on TV ads they could probably help even more!)
In the Gospel today, we see Jesus in the healing business, if we may so call it, but we notice that he doesn’t place TV commercials about it. On the contrary, Jesus apparently tries to keep a low profile, at least in these early stages of his ministry. “He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.” You may recall from last Sunday, when the Gospel reading was the passage from St. Mark immediately before today’s reading, one of the unclean spirits cried out, “I know you! You’re God’s Holy One!” And Jesus shouted back, “Shut up, and get out!” [Mark 1:24-25]
“Don’t tell who I am” — that’s a common theme in the Gospels, especially in Mark. Jesus heals a leper, and tells him, “Don’t tell anyone about this.” [Mark 1:44] He raises from death the daughter of Jairus, and “he insisted that nobody should know about this.” [Mark 5:43] He heals a deaf-mute, “and he ordered them, ‘Tell no one’.” [Mark 7:36] He gives sight to a blind man outside Bethsaida, and then said “’Go straight home without going through the village.’” [Mark 8:26] He heals other people who are possessed by demons (whatever that may mean): and “whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.” [Mark 3:11-12]
So much for pharmaceutical advertising!
On the other hand, Jesus does go around advertising! It’s just that he doesn’t advertise himself. We are traditionally accustomed to translating what Jesus does as “preaching the Gospel,” but the plain ol’ ordinary meaning of the Greek text is that Jesus was “running a commercial for God’s kingship – advertising the rule of God.” And Jesus’ commercial said, “The world is God’s and not Caesar’s,” and this ad is good news! (Although as it turned out, Pontius Pilate didn’t like Jesus’ ad very much!)
Jesus started out by keeping a low profile. He did not begin his ministry with a media blitz. He did not have a campaign manager. In the wilderness, you recall, the devil had tempted Jesus to use (first of all) magic, or else “public relations” ads, or else political or military power, as a way to try to convert humankind to the reign of God — and Jesus rejected all these, since none of them would really lead to God’s world –in fact they all lead to the world of Caesar, of the many Caesars of human history past and present.
So Jesus does not blackmail us into believing in him (“Look here, I’m the Messiah, so you better believe in me or else you’ll go to hell!” Some Christians have subsequently said things like that, but Jesus never said that). Jesus simply does the work of the Kingdom of God, Jesus announces (or advertises) the Good News of the Reign of God, Jesus fulfills the prophecies concerning the coming of the fulfillment of God’s world — he heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead — and he asks people to recognize for themselves through his words and his deeds who he is and whose Kingdom he bears.
And then at the end of the first phase of his ministry Jesus finally puts it to his followers: “So, now – who do you say that I am?” And Peter responds, “You are the Messiah” — the Christ, God’s Anointed One. (And even there, still, Jesus “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone [else] about him.”) But from that point Jesus can take his followers to the mountain of the Transfiguration, where they will see him in glory (we’ll hear about that in the Gospel in two more weeks, just before Lent). And thereafter Jesus will begin to teach his followers more explicitly about who he is and what he must do and how he must suffer.
I think all of this says some things about God and our relationship with God. It shows that God does not compel us. God does not sell us into buying a relationship. God created us free, and God will not compromise that freedom — whatever the cost, to us or to God. (And our freedom is very costly, to us and to God.) God invites us, God calls us, God woos us, God draws us, God even challenges us, but God does not drag us. Love and faith cannot be compelled.
And that means we cannot expect to have all the answers beforehand. The certainty of faith comes afterward, not before. It is not the certainty we have when everything is clearly set out for us in advance, the certainty of logic, the certainty of mathematics. It’s not the kind of convincing that an effective ad campaign aims for. It is the certainty we have in a personal relationship, the certainty of love. Even Jesus will not give us this certainty, so long as all we do is just stand and watch him and wait to be “sold” on it. Jesus gives certainty only when we will recognize him, only when we will struggle through the uncertainties and the ambiguities and the many things unknown to us and even fearful to us, and then will open our hearts to him, to let him fill us with the aweful, awesome love of the Reign of God.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Sermon - 22 January 2012 - 3rd after Epiphany
3RD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY — 22 January 2012
Trinity – 7:45, 8:45, & 11:00
Jonah 3:1-5,10 | Psalm 62:6-14 | 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31 | Mark 1:14-20
Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.”
Mark Twain once wrote, “To be good is noble; but to teach others to be good is nobler and less trouble” [Following the Equator, more or less]. I’ve always loved this quip, and I’ve used it on this Sunday in previous cycles. I’ll probably use it again! It seems especially appropriate this year in which we seem not to be able to escape an interminable and generally appalling political campaign, even here in Iowa, where we thought we were done with it. There certainly does seem to be no lack of folks who are apparently very eager even to bully us into being good. And often enough they have very, shall we say? idiosyncratic, ideas about wherein “goodness” consists.
There has been a lot of discussion lately in the media, including and perhaps especially in the cybermedia, about how mainstream Christianity in general, and often focusing on The Episcopal Church in particular, is dwindling away. Well, I’m not so sure, and I suggest that there are lots of ways to spin statistics. (“Lies, damned lies, and statistics,” to quote Mark Twain again, although he attributed the phrase to Benjamin Disraeli.) But one thing does seem fairly obvious and is supported by some research data: young people, and young adults, are wandering away from the churches of their childhood. Which they have been doing for a long time; only now they aren’t coming back. And when asked, “Why not?” they are responding, “Why should I?” They aren’t necessarily hostile to God; they’re not active atheists; they don’t really think about it enough to be called real “agnostics”; they just don’t care, and don’t see why they should care. Sometimes they do have some hostility toward the organized church, and often enough they have plenty to be hostile about. These are basically decent, caring people, but they have been turned off, often driven into indifference, even deeply hurt, by rigidity, complacency, pride, hypocrisy and oppression masquerading as the Christian gospel. Many claim, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” But many others show no interest even in being “spiritual,” whatever that means.
So it seems to me that we would do well to take a closer look at what we mean by “religion” or “spirituality,” and to ask how we are being heard when we use that kind of language, and perhaps get some hint as to how we can more effectively convey in our own time and world what Jesus was up to in his.
Today in the Gospel reading we hear about the beginning of Jesus’ public career. These first two verses may seem very simple and straightforward, but I suggest they are worth closer analysis: “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news’.” A little like the message Jonah was commissioned to take to Nineveh, which is why the first reading today. But maybe only a little like Jonah.
Older translations of these words may still be more familiar to us, and so they color how we hear them: “Jesus came … preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” (That’s the King James Version.) “Preaching the gospel.” Well, yes; that translation isn’t wrong, but it sounds so religious! “Preaching the gospel” may be one of the reasons why many young people are heading for the hills. Those words have accumulated so much baggage over the centuries!
What the Greek text actually says is: “Jesus came advertising some good news.” In Athens a related word was used to mean the town crier. Jesus was making a public announcement – good news from God. “Now is the time – the time has come!” And the news is, “The world does not really belong to Caesar, it belongs to God!” (Well, you had to be a little careful about how you said that in public, or you’d end up on a cross. Which, actually, was what happened, and for just that reason.)
So what do we do about that? “Repent and believe,” the standard translations say. But in English “repent” is another one of those religious words, which may have all kinds of connotations but is likely to carry at least some resonances of beating on yourself and generally feeling miserable about yourself. In Nineveh they all put on sackcloth. But today ‘repentance” doesn’t sell. (It should, but it doesn’t.)
But the word we translate as “repent” in the original text is actually a perfectly ordinary word that means “change your mind,” and that’s how it was usually used in ancient everyday Greek. Today we might say “raise your consciousness.” In any case the idea is not really about feeling regretful about your past (however regrettable your past may be), but taking a new stance toward the future. It means “leave behind your own ‘reality,’ turn, and enter into God’s reality.”
“And believe in the good news.” Believe. Raise your hand. Subscribe to this list of propositions, some of which may sound a bit unlikely. But the word in the text means “put your trust in.” It’s primarily about commitment, not about cognition — about your heart, first of all, more than your mind. We sometimes make the distinction in English between “believing in” someone or something, and “believing that” a certain proposition is true. But in the New Testament the word we sometimes render “believe” always has the sense of “believe in,” or, I think better, “have faith in,” “put your trust in.” So “believe in the good news” isn’t primarily about reciting the Creed, it’s about putting your trust and confidence in Jesus and his announcement as good news, good news from the God whose world this really is and who underlies all meaning, all value, all being.
Okay, at this point — and we’re only 15 verses into St. Mark’s Gospel, remember! — there’s still not very much specific content to this good news that the world is God’s, that Jesus is announcing and asking us to put our trust in. But what Jesus then spends his entire career doing — making clear, by word and action, by instruction and image and story, by example and healing and forgiveness, and finally by giving his life on Caesar’s cross, is putting content into just what this good news is and just what God is like. Jesus not only announces that God’s world is near, he brings God’s world near, he makes God’s world a present reality for us. Jesus did not come to establish a religion or found an ecclesiastical institution, but to call us into real, true, full, eternal life. Jesus did not say, “Sign up to join my Religion Club.” Jesus said “Follow me.”
I’m not saying that “religion,” and institutions and doctrines and rituals and moral codes, are unnecessary or unimportant. Not at all! But they are secondary and instrumental. “Religion” is a human construct. “Religion” is our response that we make to the good news of God. And often enough we get this “religion” disastrously wrong. “Religion” is not the point of the good news; rather, the good news of God’s world is the point of the forms of religion. And therefore true, authentic religion can never be a club, a threat, a weapon to make someone else be good, but can only be a means and support for trusting in, and living, and sharing this outrageous good news that God, whose world this is, loves us and cares about us, and that fullness of life is available to us right now if we will but turn and receive it.
Trinity – 7:45, 8:45, & 11:00
Jonah 3:1-5,10 | Psalm 62:6-14 | 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31 | Mark 1:14-20
Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.”
Mark Twain once wrote, “To be good is noble; but to teach others to be good is nobler and less trouble” [Following the Equator, more or less]. I’ve always loved this quip, and I’ve used it on this Sunday in previous cycles. I’ll probably use it again! It seems especially appropriate this year in which we seem not to be able to escape an interminable and generally appalling political campaign, even here in Iowa, where we thought we were done with it. There certainly does seem to be no lack of folks who are apparently very eager even to bully us into being good. And often enough they have very, shall we say? idiosyncratic, ideas about wherein “goodness” consists.
There has been a lot of discussion lately in the media, including and perhaps especially in the cybermedia, about how mainstream Christianity in general, and often focusing on The Episcopal Church in particular, is dwindling away. Well, I’m not so sure, and I suggest that there are lots of ways to spin statistics. (“Lies, damned lies, and statistics,” to quote Mark Twain again, although he attributed the phrase to Benjamin Disraeli.) But one thing does seem fairly obvious and is supported by some research data: young people, and young adults, are wandering away from the churches of their childhood. Which they have been doing for a long time; only now they aren’t coming back. And when asked, “Why not?” they are responding, “Why should I?” They aren’t necessarily hostile to God; they’re not active atheists; they don’t really think about it enough to be called real “agnostics”; they just don’t care, and don’t see why they should care. Sometimes they do have some hostility toward the organized church, and often enough they have plenty to be hostile about. These are basically decent, caring people, but they have been turned off, often driven into indifference, even deeply hurt, by rigidity, complacency, pride, hypocrisy and oppression masquerading as the Christian gospel. Many claim, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” But many others show no interest even in being “spiritual,” whatever that means.
So it seems to me that we would do well to take a closer look at what we mean by “religion” or “spirituality,” and to ask how we are being heard when we use that kind of language, and perhaps get some hint as to how we can more effectively convey in our own time and world what Jesus was up to in his.
Today in the Gospel reading we hear about the beginning of Jesus’ public career. These first two verses may seem very simple and straightforward, but I suggest they are worth closer analysis: “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news’.” A little like the message Jonah was commissioned to take to Nineveh, which is why the first reading today. But maybe only a little like Jonah.
Older translations of these words may still be more familiar to us, and so they color how we hear them: “Jesus came … preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” (That’s the King James Version.) “Preaching the gospel.” Well, yes; that translation isn’t wrong, but it sounds so religious! “Preaching the gospel” may be one of the reasons why many young people are heading for the hills. Those words have accumulated so much baggage over the centuries!
What the Greek text actually says is: “Jesus came advertising some good news.” In Athens a related word was used to mean the town crier. Jesus was making a public announcement – good news from God. “Now is the time – the time has come!” And the news is, “The world does not really belong to Caesar, it belongs to God!” (Well, you had to be a little careful about how you said that in public, or you’d end up on a cross. Which, actually, was what happened, and for just that reason.)
So what do we do about that? “Repent and believe,” the standard translations say. But in English “repent” is another one of those religious words, which may have all kinds of connotations but is likely to carry at least some resonances of beating on yourself and generally feeling miserable about yourself. In Nineveh they all put on sackcloth. But today ‘repentance” doesn’t sell. (It should, but it doesn’t.)
But the word we translate as “repent” in the original text is actually a perfectly ordinary word that means “change your mind,” and that’s how it was usually used in ancient everyday Greek. Today we might say “raise your consciousness.” In any case the idea is not really about feeling regretful about your past (however regrettable your past may be), but taking a new stance toward the future. It means “leave behind your own ‘reality,’ turn, and enter into God’s reality.”
“And believe in the good news.” Believe. Raise your hand. Subscribe to this list of propositions, some of which may sound a bit unlikely. But the word in the text means “put your trust in.” It’s primarily about commitment, not about cognition — about your heart, first of all, more than your mind. We sometimes make the distinction in English between “believing in” someone or something, and “believing that” a certain proposition is true. But in the New Testament the word we sometimes render “believe” always has the sense of “believe in,” or, I think better, “have faith in,” “put your trust in.” So “believe in the good news” isn’t primarily about reciting the Creed, it’s about putting your trust and confidence in Jesus and his announcement as good news, good news from the God whose world this really is and who underlies all meaning, all value, all being.
Okay, at this point — and we’re only 15 verses into St. Mark’s Gospel, remember! — there’s still not very much specific content to this good news that the world is God’s, that Jesus is announcing and asking us to put our trust in. But what Jesus then spends his entire career doing — making clear, by word and action, by instruction and image and story, by example and healing and forgiveness, and finally by giving his life on Caesar’s cross, is putting content into just what this good news is and just what God is like. Jesus not only announces that God’s world is near, he brings God’s world near, he makes God’s world a present reality for us. Jesus did not come to establish a religion or found an ecclesiastical institution, but to call us into real, true, full, eternal life. Jesus did not say, “Sign up to join my Religion Club.” Jesus said “Follow me.”
I’m not saying that “religion,” and institutions and doctrines and rituals and moral codes, are unnecessary or unimportant. Not at all! But they are secondary and instrumental. “Religion” is a human construct. “Religion” is our response that we make to the good news of God. And often enough we get this “religion” disastrously wrong. “Religion” is not the point of the good news; rather, the good news of God’s world is the point of the forms of religion. And therefore true, authentic religion can never be a club, a threat, a weapon to make someone else be good, but can only be a means and support for trusting in, and living, and sharing this outrageous good news that God, whose world this is, loves us and cares about us, and that fullness of life is available to us right now if we will but turn and receive it.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Sermon - 1 January 2012 - Holy Name
THE HOLY NAME — 1 January 2012
St. Paul’s, Durant – 9:00 am
Numbers 6:22-27
Psalm 8
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:15-21
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. [Luke 2:21]
Happy New Year!
Well, no, as you presumably know, that’s not what we’re doing here this morning. At least not for the next hour.
In the civil calendar the end of an old year and the beginning of a new year is completely arbitrary, though in the modern world virtually universal. There’s nothing magic about the first day of January. In fact, that we call today “the first day of January” instead of “the fifty-seventh day of Axlotl” is a purely human construct. We’ve done the “New Year” thing lots of different ways. The ancient Romans began the year in March. (This explains how September, October, November, and December got their names; once upon a time they were the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months!) Later the Romans changed New Year's Day to the first of January. But that didn't settle it. The Christian Church's year begins with the First Sunday of Advent, about the end of November; although in fact throughout much of Christian history, the change of the year in Christendom was observed on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, the moment of our Lord Jesus Christ's Incarnation in the womb of his mother Mary - a date which, in pious legend, was also held to be the date of the creation of the world and also the re-creation of the world through the resurrection of Jesus on the first Easter. The Jews, of course, celebrate the beginning of the year -- Rosh haShanah -- in the early fall. People elsewhere in the world calculate the year as beginning at various other times. Chinese New Year comes in late January or February, for instance. In the reality of our own lives, the year really begins for many of us along about late August, with the beginning of the school year; everything "picks up" again after a generally slower summer pace, including vacations. I've always rather envied people like the Australians and New Zealanders, in the southern hemisphere, whose natural summer break is occurring just now, coincidentally with the civil New Year which has in fact become universal throughout the world.
But in the Church's calendar today we celebrate the feast of The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We used to call it the Feast of the Circumcision, remembering that on the eighth day after his birth, Jesus was circumcised, in accordance with Jewish Law, as we hear in the Gospel today. And it was, and is, at a Jewish boy’s bris that he is formally given his name. And so now we call this day The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
But I’m not sure we’re completely getting the point. Yes, Jesus formally received his name on this day, and his name “Jesus” is important because – when you follow the English “Jesus” back through the Latin “Iesus” through the Greek “Iêsous” through the Aramaic “Yeshua” to the Hebrew “Yehoshua” – this name means, roughly, “The Lord saves.” And that’s who Jesus is. The Savior.
But this day was also the day when Jesus formally became a Jew, or, a bit more precisely, formally was received into the covenant community of Israel.
During much of the history of the Christian Church, we have apparently been embarrassed by, or even tried to deny, Jesus’ Jewishness. This, of course led to some really appalling episodes in our history, of which the holocaust under the Nazis was the most horrendous. But let’s not kid ourselves – what happened in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s was very much the product of a profound misunderstanding by generation after generation of Christians about who Jesus is and what God is up to in Jesus.
One of the reasons, I assume, that God selected the Hebrews to be the “chosen people” – (“Hebrews” is an ethnic designation for a particular middle-Eastern people; by ancestry they were called “Israelites,” that is, descendents of Israel, a/k/a Jacob, the grandson, or so the story went, of their first patriarch Abraham; a great-grandson of Abraham and son of Jacob/Israel was named Judah, and many hundreds of years later his tribe had become the dominant, though not the only, surviving Israelite group, and so after the return to their homeland from a period of exile in Babylonia they were generally called “Judeans,” or as we would say in English, “Jews.”) – by whatever name, one of the reasons God selected these folks to be the “chosen people” was to provide an effective context for God’s own Incarnation, that is, God’s “enfleshment,” in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth. (I don’t claim that this was God’s only reason for choosing them, but that’s another story for another time.)
So we need to understand that the whole history of the people of Israel – which, after all, takes up something like three quarters of our Bible – is not just a “backstory” to Jesus. God really did enter into our real human world, a very specific human world, among a very specific human community in a very specific geographical place, at a very specific time in human history, as a very real human being.
God is not a puppeteer. God does not sit up above the human world pulling strings and micromanaging everything that goes on. God is not a magician who runs the world with a wave of a wand. We actually have a hard time with that, and many folks get very upset with God because that isn’t how God works. (That’s how we would operate the universe if we were God, but, guess what? we’re not! Let’s get over it!)
The Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, which we celebrate especially at this season of the year, does not mean God coming and slumming among us in human guise but without really touching or being touched by our humanity and our historicity. That would not really be good news. The good news is that God is our Savior from among us, from within our human world, as a participant in our human history. In Jesus, God saves us from the inside, not by power but by love. The Word became flesh, and lived among us, and we have seen his glory. [John 1:14]
St. Paul’s, Durant – 9:00 am
Numbers 6:22-27
Psalm 8
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:15-21
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. [Luke 2:21]
Happy New Year!
Well, no, as you presumably know, that’s not what we’re doing here this morning. At least not for the next hour.
In the civil calendar the end of an old year and the beginning of a new year is completely arbitrary, though in the modern world virtually universal. There’s nothing magic about the first day of January. In fact, that we call today “the first day of January” instead of “the fifty-seventh day of Axlotl” is a purely human construct. We’ve done the “New Year” thing lots of different ways. The ancient Romans began the year in March. (This explains how September, October, November, and December got their names; once upon a time they were the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months!) Later the Romans changed New Year's Day to the first of January. But that didn't settle it. The Christian Church's year begins with the First Sunday of Advent, about the end of November; although in fact throughout much of Christian history, the change of the year in Christendom was observed on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, the moment of our Lord Jesus Christ's Incarnation in the womb of his mother Mary - a date which, in pious legend, was also held to be the date of the creation of the world and also the re-creation of the world through the resurrection of Jesus on the first Easter. The Jews, of course, celebrate the beginning of the year -- Rosh haShanah -- in the early fall. People elsewhere in the world calculate the year as beginning at various other times. Chinese New Year comes in late January or February, for instance. In the reality of our own lives, the year really begins for many of us along about late August, with the beginning of the school year; everything "picks up" again after a generally slower summer pace, including vacations. I've always rather envied people like the Australians and New Zealanders, in the southern hemisphere, whose natural summer break is occurring just now, coincidentally with the civil New Year which has in fact become universal throughout the world.
But in the Church's calendar today we celebrate the feast of The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We used to call it the Feast of the Circumcision, remembering that on the eighth day after his birth, Jesus was circumcised, in accordance with Jewish Law, as we hear in the Gospel today. And it was, and is, at a Jewish boy’s bris that he is formally given his name. And so now we call this day The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
But I’m not sure we’re completely getting the point. Yes, Jesus formally received his name on this day, and his name “Jesus” is important because – when you follow the English “Jesus” back through the Latin “Iesus” through the Greek “Iêsous” through the Aramaic “Yeshua” to the Hebrew “Yehoshua” – this name means, roughly, “The Lord saves.” And that’s who Jesus is. The Savior.
But this day was also the day when Jesus formally became a Jew, or, a bit more precisely, formally was received into the covenant community of Israel.
During much of the history of the Christian Church, we have apparently been embarrassed by, or even tried to deny, Jesus’ Jewishness. This, of course led to some really appalling episodes in our history, of which the holocaust under the Nazis was the most horrendous. But let’s not kid ourselves – what happened in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s was very much the product of a profound misunderstanding by generation after generation of Christians about who Jesus is and what God is up to in Jesus.
One of the reasons, I assume, that God selected the Hebrews to be the “chosen people” – (“Hebrews” is an ethnic designation for a particular middle-Eastern people; by ancestry they were called “Israelites,” that is, descendents of Israel, a/k/a Jacob, the grandson, or so the story went, of their first patriarch Abraham; a great-grandson of Abraham and son of Jacob/Israel was named Judah, and many hundreds of years later his tribe had become the dominant, though not the only, surviving Israelite group, and so after the return to their homeland from a period of exile in Babylonia they were generally called “Judeans,” or as we would say in English, “Jews.”) – by whatever name, one of the reasons God selected these folks to be the “chosen people” was to provide an effective context for God’s own Incarnation, that is, God’s “enfleshment,” in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth. (I don’t claim that this was God’s only reason for choosing them, but that’s another story for another time.)
So we need to understand that the whole history of the people of Israel – which, after all, takes up something like three quarters of our Bible – is not just a “backstory” to Jesus. God really did enter into our real human world, a very specific human world, among a very specific human community in a very specific geographical place, at a very specific time in human history, as a very real human being.
God is not a puppeteer. God does not sit up above the human world pulling strings and micromanaging everything that goes on. God is not a magician who runs the world with a wave of a wand. We actually have a hard time with that, and many folks get very upset with God because that isn’t how God works. (That’s how we would operate the universe if we were God, but, guess what? we’re not! Let’s get over it!)
The Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, which we celebrate especially at this season of the year, does not mean God coming and slumming among us in human guise but without really touching or being touched by our humanity and our historicity. That would not really be good news. The good news is that God is our Savior from among us, from within our human world, as a participant in our human history. In Jesus, God saves us from the inside, not by power but by love. The Word became flesh, and lived among us, and we have seen his glory. [John 1:14]
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Homily -- 28 December 2011
HOLY INNOCENTS — 28 December 2011
Trinity – 5:30 pm
Jeremiah 31:15-17
Psalm 124
Matthew 2:13-18
Perhaps you recall T. S. Eliot’s verse play, Murder in the Cathedral, in which in the Interlude, a Christmas sermon by Archbishop Thomas Becket a few days before his assassination in Canterbury Cathedral, Becket calls attention to the fact that on the day after Christmas, the celebration of our Lord’s birth, we celebrate the martyrdom of St. Stephen. As indeed we did this past Monday. But the point that Becket is making, in Eliot’s words, about the dark side of Christmas, is equally, maybe even more, applicable to Holy Innocents’ Day, which we observe (it’s not clear that “celebrate” is exactly the right word) today. This is indeed the Incarnation at what is arguably its very darkest. And since at Christmastide we are all light and joy, we tend to overlook the Holy Innocents, or at least to sentimentalize them. And that may be to miss an important dimension of Christmas.
It’s hard to know exactly what to say about the massacre of the boy-babies of Bethlehem. The only account we have of it is in St. Matthew’s Gospel, which we just heard. There is no mention of it in secular history, even in the first-century Jewish historian Josephus. We may assume that if Josephus had known about it, he would have said something about it, because Josephus had no use at all for Herod the Great and didn’t hesitate to record Herod’s many murders and atrocities. The Bethlehem slaughter would certainly not have been out of character for Herod. On the other hand, Bethlehem in the first century was apparently not a very large town, and the number of victims probably wasn’t large. Compared to the numbers of deaths in other massacres of women and children in the ancient world, and in the medieval world (including by Christian Crusaders), and in the modern world, and even in our own country (including of Native Americans), the Bethlehem “incident” was comparatively minor. (Not that that makes it any better!)
But what this observance forces us to realize is exactly into what kind of world God became incarnate, and what the cost of that incarnation would be. Our liturgical color today is red – the color of blood (appropriate enough!) and thus the color of martyrdom. But although the deaths of the innocents of Bethlehem were a martyrdom, a witness, of sorts, they would certainly not have been recognized as such at the time – only a bitter witness to the cruelty of those in power. And some of us remember when our custom on this day was to wear violet, the liturgical color of repentance, recognizing the sinfulness and moral corruption of a world in which such a bloodbath could take place. And still could. And still does.
Trinity – 5:30 pm
Jeremiah 31:15-17
Psalm 124
Matthew 2:13-18
Perhaps you recall T. S. Eliot’s verse play, Murder in the Cathedral, in which in the Interlude, a Christmas sermon by Archbishop Thomas Becket a few days before his assassination in Canterbury Cathedral, Becket calls attention to the fact that on the day after Christmas, the celebration of our Lord’s birth, we celebrate the martyrdom of St. Stephen. As indeed we did this past Monday. But the point that Becket is making, in Eliot’s words, about the dark side of Christmas, is equally, maybe even more, applicable to Holy Innocents’ Day, which we observe (it’s not clear that “celebrate” is exactly the right word) today. This is indeed the Incarnation at what is arguably its very darkest. And since at Christmastide we are all light and joy, we tend to overlook the Holy Innocents, or at least to sentimentalize them. And that may be to miss an important dimension of Christmas.
It’s hard to know exactly what to say about the massacre of the boy-babies of Bethlehem. The only account we have of it is in St. Matthew’s Gospel, which we just heard. There is no mention of it in secular history, even in the first-century Jewish historian Josephus. We may assume that if Josephus had known about it, he would have said something about it, because Josephus had no use at all for Herod the Great and didn’t hesitate to record Herod’s many murders and atrocities. The Bethlehem slaughter would certainly not have been out of character for Herod. On the other hand, Bethlehem in the first century was apparently not a very large town, and the number of victims probably wasn’t large. Compared to the numbers of deaths in other massacres of women and children in the ancient world, and in the medieval world (including by Christian Crusaders), and in the modern world, and even in our own country (including of Native Americans), the Bethlehem “incident” was comparatively minor. (Not that that makes it any better!)
But what this observance forces us to realize is exactly into what kind of world God became incarnate, and what the cost of that incarnation would be. Our liturgical color today is red – the color of blood (appropriate enough!) and thus the color of martyrdom. But although the deaths of the innocents of Bethlehem were a martyrdom, a witness, of sorts, they would certainly not have been recognized as such at the time – only a bitter witness to the cruelty of those in power. And some of us remember when our custom on this day was to wear violet, the liturgical color of repentance, recognizing the sinfulness and moral corruption of a world in which such a bloodbath could take place. And still could. And still does.
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