Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

February 6, 2011

Matthew 5:13-20

I come to you on this Super Bowl Sunday with what I’m sure will come as good news to many of you. I’m sure many of us are wondering, after hearing Jesus talk about the law today in Matthew’s gospel, how we could in good conscience watch the game tonight. I know it was troubling me. I mean when Jesus says that every letter and stroke of every letter of the law still counts the implications get kind of personal and pervasive. Of the over two hundred laws laid down in the pentateuch only one seems to apply to tonight’s game, but it sure sounds like a stopper. The book of Leviticus tells us clearly that it is an abomination to touch the skin of a pig, so the thought of cheering on a bunch of guys whose goal is to not only touch the pigskin, but to take possession of it, hold it tight, steal it from the other guy and even lie on top of it every chance they get seems a bit over the line. Knowing that those who observe the law faithfully might feel a bit uncomfortable about watching the game tonight I have done a little research. No, I didn’t go back to the Torah to look for loopholes. I simply googled footballs and pigskin and I find that footballs haven’t been made out of pigskin for many years so enjoy the game. Just make sure the hot dogs you’re eating while you watch are Kosher. Or you might want to skip the hot dogs and look in Leviticus a few verses before that one about the pigs. There you will find a list of which flying insects you can eat and which are forbidden. You’ll be glad to know that locusts, crickets and grasshoppers are all on the ok list.

“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” These are some of the most troublesome words in the gospels. They are problematic for many reasons.

First, no one follows them. No one even tries. Once in a while some preacher or debater will haul these words out to support the importance of one of the Levitical laws they like, but Jesus’ words about not one letter of the law passing away are always used selectively by such folk. The laws don’t allow any work on Saturday or the wearing of clothes made of two different fabrics. We too often debate which of the laws Jesus must have been talking about while we stand there in our hush puppies wearing cotton, wool and polyester. We don’t live these words. We really couldn’t.

They are also problematic because they are a part of scripture and we are supposed to take scripture seriously. How can we just dismiss such unambiguous teaching?

And maybe most confusing aspect of these words is that while Jesus seems to be saying here that all the old rules still apply, he will, in next week’s reading and the next, cite one of the old laws and then go on to say that there is a better way. “You have read in the law, you shall give an eye for an eye, but I tell you to love your enemies.” Today’s lines are a problem because they don’t seem to fit what we will hear Jesus say next. Some commentators think the lines we hear today are offered to help us know that Jesus is not just tossing out the ancient laws when he starts saying “you have heard this, but I tell you this.” But there seems to be more going on here.

Jesus and his followers were a problem for the Jewish community. They were seen as violating the sabbath since their day of worship was not the last but the first day of the week. They were accused of being lax about keeping fasts and rituals--the kind of accusations we hear in the story about the disciples picking corn on the sabbath. And they associated with the ritually unclean, and with outcasts. Jesus answers these concerns by saying he has not come to set the law aside, but to live it, to accomplish it. And then he goes on to say that he expects an even greater adherence to the law than that expected by the pharisees and the scribes, those who were most concerned with conscientious observance of the law. Jesus, like the prophets before him, like Moses who gave the law, was not calling for anything new, but for the a return to the foundation of the law, a covenant of love and respect for God and neighbor.

The first law in Moses was just that. I will be your God and you will be my people. We will walk together. In the lesson from Isaiah today we hear that the fast God requires is not sack cloth and ashes but justice and deeply held and acted-upon concern for the needy. Jesus speaks of those who follow the letter of the law when he calls for a righteousness that exceeds that of the pharisees. As always, Jesus calls for changed hearts that live out love of God and neighbor without having to focus so much on the rules, and that sometimes trumps the rules.

Learning to love our neighbors is like learning to ride a bike, or to paint or play an instrument. There are all kinds of rules and principles and good advice on how to do those things. There are scales to learn, music theory, color principles, keeping your feet on the pedals, looking down the road and not at your feet. Behind all of those simple-yet-complex activities are deeper principles of physics, logic, science. And yet doing any of those things well means at the moment they are happening, all the details are forgotten. Fingers fly over strings, colors fill canvas, spokes sing as we fly down the hill.

Jesus does not discount the principles by which we are shaped into people of God. He affirms today the importance of those laws. But Jesus won’t stop there. He brings us to the place where we have to forget about our feet and about pedaling and just trust centrifugal force and our sense of balance and go.

This week in the class on Marcus Borg’s Embracing an Adult Faith, Borg said at one point he didn’t have to believe in God he said he knew God. As he said that, heads nodded around the room. He spoke of having come to know God through experiences of God. I am pretty sure Jesus is suggesting not just in today’s lesson , but throughout the gospels, a new way of coming to that kind of knowing.

At some point we are just supposed to know what it is to love God and neighbor. To know. Not necessarily to understand, but to know. To have it just flow from us because it is in us. Jesus seems to be saying again and again that learning love…..that coming to know God living in us around us and working through us...is something we must come to through experience.

And what kind of experience will bring us this kind of knowing?

Practice, says Jesus. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, free the prisoners, forgive each other, heal the sick, help your neighbor carry their load, turn the other cheek…...the list goes on.

It is clear from the gospels themselves that Jesus’ was passionate about opening up his audience to a new level of participation in the God life, the life for which we were born. Amen

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Epiphany

January 23, 2011

Matthew 4:12-23

I just attended my 17th annual diocesan convention, which in VA is called the annual council. Whatever you call it, a convention is a convention.

Lots of friendly conversation in the corridors outside the main assembly hall, and usually at least some grinding and gnashing of teeth on the inside.

Council is a chance to meet and greet friends from the far corners of the diocese, and to network, to speak in this web-lived age face to face with people you may have known for some time but never met. I think I enjoyed the company of my colleagues in ministry this year more than ever as we made our way through annual council. That may have been because I have gained some understanding at long last about that grinding and gnashing of teeth part of council I just mentioned. There was a lot less heated debate about issues this year than most other years, and the debate has shifted a bit so that this year the debates were at least on new topics.

All in all it was a good event, and before it was over, I found myself remembering my very first diocesan council and something that happened there that I had completely forgotten about. It comes back to me now as a sign whose meaning and gift I may at last be ready to comprehend. I think it came to me during bishop Gulick’s sermon at the eucharist on Friday. He said something about having to give up our nostalgic view of the past as we move into the future and it kind of set me to thinking. He sent me off as preachers sometimes will into a whole line of thought that may or may not have had anything to do with what he was preaching about. Before I knew I had gone back 17 years and there I was, watching Marie’s long walk to the microphone that fateful morning.

Now before I explain to you what happened, let me just say that I do have some appreciation for the pitfalls of wearing a skirt. It’s the sort of thing you just kind of discover, even if you are a guy, when you go to seminary. At some point you begin to wear a long flowing robe and to discover what kinds of things can happen if you aren’t careful. Many a seminarian has stepped on his skirt and stumbled headlong up the steps and into the pulpit at VTS. I had a friend whose beautiful, long, billowy English surplice inflated one day while he was leading prayers in front of two hundred students. He was kneeling at the prayer desk at the front of the chapel when the heat cycled on. Somehow his robe had positioned itself right over the vent, and when it filled with air he looked kind of like a large black and white bowling ball with a tiny head reading suffrages A from morning prayer. It was a memorable moment. Kind of surreal. These sorts of robing pitfalls I know, but what happened to poor Marie that day just seemed very unfair.

Marie and Edgar had been fixtures in the diocese as long as anyone could remember. Edgar was a vocational deacon, and Marie was very involved in diocesan business. Marie had gotten to the point where she moved kind of slowly, but slow or fast she was still a moving force in that little diocese and she didn’t mind speaking her mind. So no one was surprised when Marie got up to move to the microphone to weigh in on whatever resolution was being debated that morning. What did surprise pretty much everyone as she made her way to the front of that auditorium was that somehow--maybe she had just returned from a needed break, who knows, but somehow, the bottom back edge of her billowy, flowing skirt had ended up tucked into the waistband and the view from behind as she walked down the aisle drew the attention of everyone in the room. That may have been the quietest moments of the convention.

In those days the women at convention were badly outnumbered by the men, and the men were cowards. Not one of them was about to tackle the problem of Marie’s skirt. She made it all the way to the front before a couple of her friends managed to fall in behind her and deliver the necessary tug. Marie, thank goodness was a class act. She bore the story well, though it did linger for a while.

So there I was yesterday, taking in the proceedings of this latest convention wondering why that image had popped into my head. I was wondering too what I would preach about today. (There is often time for some personal reflection during committee reports.) I thought about the gospel for today and wondered if I still wanted to preach about the Zebedee boys and the others leaving everything behind to follow Jesus. I had been thinking about that all week. I had been thinking about asking you folks what you had left behind to follow Jesus, but I wasn’t real sure what my answer to that question would be, so I didn’t know if I wanted to go there. I thought about the business and the debates at every one of the church conventions I have attended, and about how those debates always involve leaving something behind and taking on something new. I thought about how when we debate which relationships we should bless, we are standing at a crossroads where we are being asked to head off in a new direction we don’t know much about. That seems to be true for other debates too, like how to fund the diocese, or whether to take a stand on some social issue. There always seems to be a tension between what has been and what might be. I used to wish we would come to the end of those debates, but I have come to understand that that will never happen.

Those of us who have chosen to walk with Jesus will always have to struggle with what we are called to leave behind. When Jesus calls us a part of answering that call involves figuring out what we can’t take with us.

I was struck in today’s gospel by the leaving behind. The disciples left nets, boats, even their father. This leaving an old life behind in order to take up a new one is a theme running through all of scripture. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Israel, The prophets, Jesus, Peter, James and John, all of them took to the road with God, leaving behind everything they had known. They all set out to follow the one who would lead them to a place they had never been before. With few exceptions there was no looking back. Israel in the desert complained about the good old days in Egypt, which, if you remember the story, were not good old days at all. The message of all the great stories in our tradition is that we are called to take up the path and move forward with no thought for what is behind us. ……….which of course, brings me back to Marie. Called forth into the debate, she pressed forward with no thought about what was behind her. If only we could all be so single-minded in our discipleship.

I think what changed for me in council this year is that I came to understand that we will never finish the work of learning how to leave some things behind in order to take up the new path. We are, I think, called to live in the tension between the call and our desire to hold on to what we have. It is in that tension that Jesus speaks to us, works with us, helps us learn what really matters.

I think we are probably called daily to leave something behind, and maybe part of being on the road with Jesus is learning to recognize that ongoing call in our lives. Maybe you can name some of the thing you have left behind to follow Jesus. Maybe you have a sense of what you will have to leave behind if you want to travel farther. Anger, resentment, love of comfort, the need for control, security, fear of not having enough, the need for approval, the belief that maybe we aren’t really worthy of Jesus’ companionship, the fear of discovering our true selves, those are just a few of the possibilities that come to mind. We may have to wrestle with some of those all our lives. We may also be able to look back from time to time and realize that some things have been left behind and forgotten. There is a joy and freedom that comes from realizing we have forgotten about some things we didn’t think we could get along without. In those moments we can give thanks to our companion in the way whose call has set us free. In those moments we find hope that on this path we will learn to lay down even more of our burden.

This leaving something behind to take up the new path isn’t only for individuals. Bishop Gulick was talking in his sermon about congregations. He said one of the things congregations often struggle with as they try to move forward is a nostalgic memory of the good old days. The call, even for congregations is to go toward a place we have never been. The workshops I attended this weekend had to do with meeting people where they live, with taking the church into the world, into arenas like facebook and twitter. This cradle Episcopalian is being called to leave behind some perfectly good, but outdated ideas about what church should look like. Maybe that’s my answer to the question I was going to ask you. I am called to leave behind at least some of what I have held sacred about church and worship over the years. And now that I have an answer I don’t feel so bad about asking you. You can take the question home with you. Think of it as homework, or even your life’s work. Put simply, the question is this. What do you have to leave behind in order to follow Jesus?

Christmas Eve 2010

Isaiah 9:2-7

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them light has shined.

I am remembering tonight another night, one that seemed to me longer than this night will, even to all the seven-year-olds in the world who think having to wait for morning is a kind of torture. I’m thinking of a long night spent in the woods, camping by a river, a night when the moon and stars disappeared only a little while before the rains came. The night filled quickly with thunder and lightning and the threat of rising water. The tent I was in offered only protection from the rain. It would be worth nothing if lightning found a nearby tree or the river came up as it was know to do. It was a long night of blackness, loud noises and dark fear. I bristled in that night, waiting for terrible news and knowing it could come. The dark of that night was met by a darkness in me. It was a long night. I don’t remember if I slept at all, but I remember mists on the water the the next morning, a gentle rain, and and a similarly gentle light. Light.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. This is the night of impossible light, breaking, dawning. The story of Jesus’ birth resonates with the poem from Isaiah about the new light. That is the theme for this evening. Light breaking in and dispelling even the worst darkness. This theme of Jesus being the light of the world is an old one, older even than the creeds or the theological constructs about who Jesus is. This theme was known before we even talked about Trinity, or tried to explain how Jesus and God fit together. It is ancient.

On the Diane Rehm show this week, I heard an interview with a fellow who had written a dissertation on an obscure document from the Vatican’s vaults called the Revelation of the Magi. It was an account, claiming to have been written by the Magi who traveled to Bethlehem and found Jesus. It was written in the first person by one of them, and though there are problems with the authenticity of it’s authorship, it does seem to have been written within a hundred years of the event and it tells an interesting story of those wise men and what they experienced. It says, for one thing, that there were at least ten Magi. Ten names are listed. There may have been more because some of the language used indicates numbers approaching those of a small army. But the most interesting part of the story for me was the part about the star they followed. According to the wise man writing the story, they followed the star until it fell from the sky and became the baby in the manger. Long before the councils of Nicea or Constantinople, here was a story of Jesus being the light of the world.

From the beginning it seems, the faithful made the connection between Jesus and the poem from the prophet Isaiah. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them light has shined. …..For a child has been born for us, a son given to us…...he is named wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace….. The light is not just light it is more. We hear of joy, exhultation, freedom-- the yoke across our shoulders you have broken. We hear of peace, justice and righteousness. Scholars think Isaiah may have been writing about a new prince born in his own time, one who was a sign of God’s favor and continuing care. The people who first associated this poem with Jesus had this poem in their memory. It was a part of the story they had grown up with, it was a part of their story. And what is always amazing to me and what provides for me a powerful witness to Jesus effect on his world, is that those folks went looking for a way to grasp their experience of Jesus and fixed on this poem about light. When Jesus was born, a new light was breaking into the world, a light that would put and end to darkness.

Maybe you have a story about light. Maybe you have stories like mine about light dispelling fear, or maybe you remember looking into clouds after a storm and seeing those brightly lit holes that look little kingdoms in the sky. Maybe you have wondered irf you could walk in such places. Maybe you know a cat that loves a piece of sun on the floor on a cold day, or you remember lying in the grass in April after a long winter, soaking in the first new warmth of the new year. Maybe your light memory is purely metaphorical. Maybe you know about the light that is the long awaited phone call saying all is well, someone has arrived safely, the wait is over. Somewhere in your story, I hope there is a moment in which you not only saw a great light, but felt it, knew its power, were warmed in some way that you still recall. This night the theme is very simply that a great light has broken upon our lives. This is the night when all we need to do is bask in that light, enjoy its glow, feel its warmth.

Don’t get me wrong. Jesus coming into our world makes a big difference in all areas of our lives. There is much we need to consider in response to the incarnation. There is work to do, theology to consider, things to change, mostly ourselves. The implications of the incarnation have been reverberating through the universe for two thousand years. There is much to do. But all that will keep. Tonight it is enough to stop for a while and take in once again the beginning of the Jesus story. Tonight it is enough to remember that as soon as Jesus had gone, people began to think of stories about light. Stories about promise and God’s faithfulness, as sure as the sunrise. JB

I am posting this letter from the House of Bishops here so it can be accessed from the St. Aidan's newsletter, The Epistle

JB

A Pastoral Letter from the House of Bishops

Phoenix, Arizona, September 21, 2010

There shall be for you and the resident alien a single statute, a perpetual statute throughout your

generations; you and the alien shall be alike before the Lord. You and the alien who resides with

you shall have the same law and the same ordinance (Numbers 15:15-16).

So [Christ] came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were

near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no

longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the

household of God (Ephesians 2:17-19).

Dear People of God,

Throughout our meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, we have reflected on the immigration crisis facing

our host state, the United States, and all nations globally. A number of us visited the United

States-Mexico border and saw first hand the many troubling and complex issues that face

migrants, immigrants, the border patrol, local ranchers, and Christian communities seeking to

minister to all of these groups. We are also mindful that similar border issues confront other

nations represented in The Episcopal Church, especially countries in Europe, the Dominican

Republic and Haiti, and Colombia and Ecuador.

Holy Scripture teaches us that all human beings are made in the image of God, and that Jesus

Christ gave his life for all people. Furthermore, both the Old and New Testaments declare the

importance of hospitality to resident alien and strangers, a hospitality that rests on our common

humanity. All human beings are therefore deserving of dignity and respect, as we affirm in our

Baptismal Covenant (Book of Common Prayer, p.305). So our gracious welcome of immigrants,

documented or undocumented, is a reflection of God’s grace poured out on us and on all. In this

light:

(1) Ours is a migratory world in which many people move across borders to escape poverty,

hunger, injustice and violence. We categorically reject efforts to criminalize undocumented

migrants and immigrants, and deplore the separation of families and the unnecessary

incarceration of undocumented workers. Since, as we are convinced, it is natural to seek gainful

employment to sustain oneself and one’s family, we cannot agree that the efforts of

undocumented workers to feed and shelter their households through honest labor are criminal.

(2) We profess that inhumane policies directed against undocumented persons (raids, separation

of families, denial of health services) are intolerable on religious and humanitarian grounds, as is

attested by the consensus of a wide range of religious bodies on this matter.

(3) We call on the government of the United States and all governments to create fair and

humane immigration policies that honor the dignity of people on all sides of this issue. In the

United States, we seek a reasonable path to citizenship for undocumented workers; a plan to

reunite families; and a viable system for receiving temporary or seasonal guest-workers, with

clearly identified points of entry. These measures would free the United States border patrol to

concentrate its efforts on the apprehension of drug traffickers, terrorists, and other criminals, and

not on ordinary people who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their children.

(4) We acknowledge the duty of governments to protect their people, including the securing of

borders. The church has always respected this duty, which is grounded in government’s God-

given duty to protect innocent people and punish wrongdoers (Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17).

(5) We recognize that racism and bigotry impact debates over migration and immigration. The

Episcopal Church is committed to the eradication of all forms of racism, and decries the use of

racial profiling in the arrest of persons suspected of being undocumented.

(6) We confess our own complicit sinfulness as people who benefit from the labor of

undocumented workers without recognizing our responsibility to them. We passively tolerate an

economic and political system that accepts this labor from millions of undocumented workers,

and which has received approximately $520 billion in social security revenue from them--

revenue from which they will never benefit. Yet at the same time we treat them as a threat.

(7) We do not discount the concerns of our fellow citizens regarding the danger uncontrolled

immigration poses to our safety and economic well-being. We insist, however, that these

concerns be approached within the broader context of a national commitment and covenant to

inclusion and fellowship across all lines for the sake of the common good.

(8) We take seriously our commitment to and responsibility for our fellow citizens, as we strive

to face the spiritual, moral and economic challenges of life in all sixteen nations represented in

The Episcopal Church. We call on our fellow citizens to remember that the good of a nation lies

beyond its own self-interest, toward a vision of a humanity restored in Jesus Christ, for in him

“you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).

(9) We offer for additional study a theological resource, “The Nation and the Common Good:

Reflections on Immigration Reform.”

God’s grace be with us all.

Sermon for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost

October 24, 2010

Luke 18:9-14

A few weeks ago the adult ed. class heard Marcus Borg, in the video for the morning, offer a definition of religion. He said, “religion is about ultimate transformation.” I have always liked Borg for his ability to pack much wisdom and what feels like deep truth into a few well chosen words. “Religion is about ultimate transformation.” As soon as I heard him say the words I began to wonder why they sounded so solid, and I began to wonder what I might have said religion was about before I heard them. I came up with quite a list, and what I find about Borg’s definition is that if I lay his definition and all the others I can think of before me, his is the only one that can contain all the others. My list included the message of religion, its attempt to teach us how to live, teaching us about our place in the universe, about relationship with God and neighbor and about getting to heaven. At different times in my life I have thought religion had to do with all of those things. What I hadn’t noticed was that all of those aspects of religion have to do with being transformed.

The christian message is that God has acted in a new way in the world in order to be related to us in a new way. The message and new relationship have to do with a new chance for all of us to continue the journey with God upon which Abram set out so long ago. That journey was one in which God promised to transform the lives of Abram and his descendants. It was a journey of leaving behind trust in our their resources in order to learn utter reliance upon God. The Christian message is that that same journey which was abandoned in principle when Israel built its kingdom is still available to anyone who wishes to walk with God. The message is also about Jesus, the one who walked well with God. Who kept walking, even into a painful death, and discovered in the process that God is faithful.

If religion has to do with the question, how should I live? it is worth noting that the question assumes we need to ask it--that we still have something to learn about how to live, how to love, how to be faithful. When Jesus appeared on the scene, there was a struggle going on as there is in every age about who is doing a better job of keeping the rules, or whose life is more pleasing to God, or whose ideas are closer to those of the nation’s founders. (That is exactly the kind of thing we hear from this proud man in Luke’s gospel this morning.) Jesus said to the people he met that the goal was to let our hearts be changed into hearts that would know the best way and want to keep to that path. ‘The Spirit when it comes will teach you what you need to know,’ he said. For Jesus, learning how to live involves not just knowing the law, but it involves becoming people who don’t really need the law anymore. Learning how to live involves transformation.

Religion is also about knowing our place in the universe, and for Christians the teaching about our place in the universe is good news--it is that we are far more important than we might have thought. We are worth quite a bit of effort on God’s part. We are sought by God who would have us realize our potential as creatures created in the image of God. We each have a role to live into, and that role is different for every one of us. God’s creation is wildly diverse, from gnats to elephants, from goose down to mountains, there is no end to what is possible in creation and that applies to each of us. Some of us spend our whole lives learning who we are to be in this world. All of scripture either suggests or says very explicitly that we are to grow into what we are to be. It is a process that takes time. “We are being changed,” says Paul--not have been changed but are being changed--”from glory to glory.” Religion teaches us who and whose we are like schools teach us to read. See Spot run is fine for a while, but from there we move on to Mark Twain and Shakespeare. Learning our place in the universe involves our being transformed over and over again.

And of course, religion, especially for Jews and Christians and Muslims, is about relationship with God. And the Lord told Moses to say to the people, “You will be my people and I will be your God.” Protestant Christians often speak easily about relationship with God whereas those with more Catholic roots might speak more easily of sacramental connections to the creator. For a long time I wasn’t very comfortable with talk about relationship with God. It seemed kind of strange, foreign to my experience, and I wasn’t sure I liked or could trust a lot of the people who talked so easily about their relationship with Jesus. I understood something about having been joined to the family of God in baptism, and I would have told you easily as a young child even that Jesus shares food with us at his table every Sunday. I said some prayers most days and when life began to get complicated I said even more. It just took me a lot of years to realize that all that eating and talking together over a lifetime constituted a relationship. I think if you’ve showed up in this place more than a couple of Sundays, you have a relationship with God. Doesn’t most of the transformation we experience in our lives come about through relationship?

Jesus talked as much about loving our neighbor, especially those in need, as he did about loving God. Christians have known for two thousand years that caring for the poor and those at the margins of society involves partnering with God in a way that makes God present in the world through our actions. As our concern for our neighbor grows so does our reliance on God. You can’t work alongside someone for very long without developing a relationship with them.

Whether you connect through a strong sense of personal friendship with Jesus or through the sacramental mystery of water, wine and bread, this religion of ours is about being transformed over time in the close company of the source of all that is. Again, Borg’s definition holds. Religion is about transformation.

And finally, though it is not true about all religions it is certainly true about Christianity, religion for most of us has had a lot to do with getting into heaven. We believe there is more than just this life, that there are qualities of our lives, our relationships and loves that must continue beyond this life. Jesus passed through death and came to life in a new way and so shall we. I can’t think of a more ultimate sort of transformation.

And if religion is about ultimate transformation, then what do we have to do to experience that transformation? What is the plan?

All we have to do, pretty much the whole program, as best I can tell, is to be aware that we still have a lot of growing to do and be open to the process of transformation. In all the ways Christianity might be seen to work in our lives, what is required of us is that we be able to look at our lives and know that we still have a long way to go. If our lives are about transformation, about becoming, then we need to be aware of what we like to call our “growing edges.” We don’t have to be anxious or fearful about the growing we still have before us, though sometimes anxiety or fear or regret will move us to embrace the next bit of transformation that is being invited. Maybe the best way is to be able to apply some humor to ourselves and the process of becoming. We can be gentle with ourselves and our need for transformation the way God is gentle with us. In his fantasy about heaven, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis is told by a citizen of heaven that all it really takes to get into heaven is the ability to laugh at ourselves.

Maybe the only real barrier to getting where we need to go is thinking we have already arrived.

The parable we heard a little while ago is so short I’d like to read it again.

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded other with contempt. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God I thanks you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday in Pentecost

September 12, 2010

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

Luke 15:1-10

I will have to paraphrase the sermon, or give my best recollection of it since I was working without a net on Sunday. I hadn’t pulled out my guitar in a while at the late service, and I figured we’d have a bunch of folks back from vacations so I thought we should have some fun.

I began by having them sing the first three verses of Lord of the Dance. Dance then wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance said he, and I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be for I am the Lord of the dance said he.

From there I went into a John-can’t-dance routine……

When I went in last month to have my foot surgery, I was waiting in the pre-op room, you know, where they put lines into your arms and monitors on you. They give you a shot that will “take the edge off.” Anyway, I’m lying there thinking that when I see the doctor I’ll pull the old will-I-be-able-to-dance gag, the one that goes will I be able to dance after the surgery? Great, I’ve always wished I could dance. Right. Well I thought about it and then decided not to do it. But when I saw the doctor the next week in his office, I saw my chance. I asked him if I’d be able to dance when everything healed and he said, “you already did that to me in the operating room.” I don’t want to know what else I might have said as I was zoning out before surgery.

I have always made jokes about not being much of a dancer. During my teen years I was staring at lava lamps and contemplating with Maharishi, and I never really got around to dancing. I do, however, remember those first junior high dances where you kind of had to go but didn’t really want to have to dance. Those things were usually put on by grown ups. They sometimes even chose the music. Not good. Anyway, most of us--guys, that is-- would stand around the edges of the dance floor trying to avoid going out there. There were two things that might get one out on the floor in such situations.

One way was that your friends, who really didn’t have your best interest at heart, would goad you into dancing. They just wanted you out there so they could laugh at you. They’d tell you you were chicken, or just push you out into the action. Their basic approach was to push you in a direction and make you feel bad if you tried to resist.

The other thing that could get you out onto the floor worked from the other direction. Somewhere out there, maybe hugging the wall on the other side of the room, was a girl. She would look at you with eyes that said, “I hope you’ll ask me to dance.” Those eyes and a smile would suggest that even if you didn’t think you could dance, you might be able to in her presence. She would be like Charlie Brown’s “little red-haired girl,” the one who makes him all goofy and a believer in the impossible. That girl inviting me out onto the floor was the other thing that could pull me into the dance.

That was the difference. The guys were pushing and she was inviting. I have always liked the invitation better than the shove. You probably do too.

I thought of this dance thing when I saw the lessons for tis morning. Here we have Jeremiah talking about foolish children, stupid people, filled with evil. Jeremiah is trying to get his people to do the right thing. You’re a bunch of jerks, he seems to be saying. Get your act together and get out there and do what you’re supposed to. Jeremiah is pushing and shaming his hearers into compliance.

Jesus, on the other hand, is in trouble today for being willing to hang out with anyone. Everyone is welcome--invited by Jesus into the dance. Jeremiah would push us into the dance, but Jesus searches us, looking for some opening where the invitation can take hold. He doesn’t push people away or begin by telling them what is wrong with them. He begins by telling them they are wanted. Come out onto the floor, says Jesus, and you may be surprised at what we can do together. I don’t care what you have thought about yourself or what others have told you you can’t do. I want you out here in the dance. Come on. Give me a try.

The other thing we read in this bit from Luke today goes right along with this theme of welcome in the way Jesus invites us to participate with him. Jesus tells two stories about seeking the lost--stories about every last one of us being worth whatever effort it might take to find us and include us. Every one of us has something to contribute to the dance, every one of us is important. Even if we’ve believed at times that we were flawed or unneeded or not valuable, Jesus tells us today that we count, we are important, we are worth a celebration. Not only are we invited to come and dance with Jesus. we’d be missed if we didn’t show up. Even I’ll try dancing if that’s the deal.

……….I stopped talking somewhere around there, and we sang the last two verses of the song.

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black…….they bruied my body and they thought I’d gone, but I am the dance and I still go on.

They cut me down and I leapt up high. I am the life that’ll never never die. I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me. I am the Lord of the dance said he.

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 5, 2010

Luke 14:25-33

There has been a lot in the news this past week about Christianity, what is it, whose version is right or whose version is a little twisted. It has been an interesting conversation, and one that I find kind of hopeful. I find it refreshing that these questions are being addressed out loud because I think we usually try not to get into such debates in public. I am pleased at the number of folks who are weighing in to broaden the public message of what Christianity is about. Too often, in the vacuum left by not discussing or debating our faith differences, what is represented as Christianity in the media is something that seems far removed from the gospel as I understand it. I cringe sometimes when I hear pollsters or reporters covering an election talk about the “Christian” vote. I wonder if those reporters have any idea how many of us voted against what they have dubbed the “Christian” agenda precisely because we are Christian. Christianity has always been messy, has always involved different points of view and strong feelings about what constitutes the center of our faith. These debates signal that we are discussing something important, something real and worth some struggle, so I was glad to see letters to the editor this week and editorials seeking clarity about faith.

Someone caught me as we were leaving the early service last week wanting to talk about the debate opening up in the public square about Christianity. She was greatly distressed over an article in which someone had been quoted as saying Jesus would never be in favor of redistributing wealth in this country. “Haven’t they read the gospels?” she asked. She went on to talk in more detail about her faith and what she believes and how strongly she holds those beliefs. The public conversation opens up possibilities for personal reflection and exploration of our beliefs.

I wonder how many people--how many Christians--heard about Liberation theology for the first time this week as Glen Beck told his supporters that president Obama believed in Liberation Theology which, Beck said, was a perversion of Christianity. I wonder how many of those people went on to try and learn more about what Liberation Theology is really about and where it finds its authority. If they did, they may have read about how often in the gospels Jesus calls for sharing with the poor, giving to the poor, letting go of possessions, as in today’s gospel. The center of Liberation Theology says simply that if you read the gospels with the poor in mind, you will begin to notice that Jesus always--always favors the poor when it comes to issues of money and justice. It says also that the work of Christians is to bring our lives into synch as much as possible with what we read in the gospels.

The problem is that most of us were taught to read the Bible or listen to it for what we must do to be saved. We were taught that the Bible is mainly a book for individuals. Seeing scripture through that lens, we often focus on verses and passages and we can easily miss the message of what was important to Jesus throughout the story. Liberation theology began in the early sixties when some people began to read the Bible to see what it had to say specifically about their situation and their group. Those people happened to be poor. What they found surprised them and shook the Church. Liberation theology taught many of us how to read scripture--how to let scripture speak to us and it taught us that there will always be more to discover in those living words. Soon people were taking their questions to the Bible asking ‘what do these words mean for our lives in our situation?’ Women began to read the Bible to see what it had to say about them and they noticed that Jesus was a radical in his time in the way he traveled with, spoke to and taught women. People living at the margins of society began to realize that Jesus always expanded the margins to include outsiders. Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians--Popes and pastors, Christians all over the world have celebrated the gifts that Liberation theologians have contributed to the Church.

But all that really isn’t what I wanted to talk about today. Well, apparently it was. Where I had planned to go was to this line we hear his morning where Jesus says in distressingly unambiguous language, “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." I claim to be a believer in this theology that favors the poor and calls us to turn away from seeking riches. I find this call hard., but not as hard as what we hear in the beginning of today’s reading, the part about hating our families. That is even worse. But there it is in black and white. One of the teachings of Liberation theology is that we have to be very careful about saying the words of our faith and not living them. How in the world do we live these words?

I found some help in the word that is translated as “hate” in the first part of this passage. I am assured by the experts that it is a semitic way of expressing detachment, not the emotion that we think of when we hear the word, “hate.” Maybe in the same way, Jesus is calling us to be detached from our possessions. I can’t imagine how we would all get along, or how society would function if we all gave away all our possessions. Detachment is better than actually giving it all away, but even detachment is not easy. How do we bring ourselves to live into the difficult call of discipleship set forth this morning?

Maybe the Liberation theology folks can help. One of the great gifts of Liberation Bible reading is the understanding that we have to approach scripture with the right questions in order to find what we are seeking, and that sometimes we have to read between the lines. Sometimes we have to ask what is not being said? What is being assumed? What must be behind Jesus’ question?

Jesus talks a lot today about the cost of discipleship. “Count the cost,” he says. “Make sure you are really ready to come along with me.” Reading these words this week I realized that I have always heard Jesus talking about the cost of discipleship and that is really all I have heard. The “cost” language sometimes seems to bear down, feel heavy. Somehow it has never occurred to me to ask in those times when the cost sounds too high what the promise or reward might be. Cost is what we pay for something. What is the something we are being asked to pay for here? On the surface of today’s passage the only answer available seems equally hard. What our turning from what we have held most important in our lives buys us is a cross. It is, as Paul say, a stumbling block to the wise. What we know about the cross is, now, for us, thank God, a part of the answer. We know the cross to be the way, a portal to new life. What we buy with our following--this market language sounds crass here, but it will have to do--what we buy is a new life that we will want even more than the old one. That is the promise.

We don’t get to know what that new life will look like in our particular case. We don’t get to know how it will come to us or what we will have to leave behind in order to arrive in that new place. The promise is that as we let go of what we think we can’t get along without, we receive something better.

I can’t tell anyone what the cost of discipleship will buy them. Ask anyone in recovery if they would trade the new life for the old one. Find a doctor who has given up a lucrative practice to open a free clinic or fly around the world repairing people who can’t afford it. Ask the folks who have left Wall Street to teach in poor neighborhoods. The will tell you they wouldn’t trade their new life for the old one. They will tell you have found meaning and grounding for their lives in a way they had never imagined. Ask them about what they had to give up and they may laugh. Silly question. Ask them about what they have found and you may hear about community and a relationship with people who need what they have to offer. You will hear about their lives being bound up in the lives of others. You may hear them tell how God set them free by binding them into a community of mutual need. You might even hear them talk about how liberating their new life is.