I hope that you all have had a wonderful and blessed Christmas Day and that this season the Incarnation will fill and transform your life.

First Sunday after Christmas 2008 RCL

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7
John 1:1-18
Psalm 147 or 147:13-21

Did you get what you expected for Christmas? The season of Advent is all about waiting; we were waiting for the coming of the Christmas feast, but more importantly we were remembering how all Israel awaited the coming of the Messiah before Jesus was born and how we now await his second coming in glory. The problem with expectations is that they seldom live up to our hopes and visions. The same was true in Jesus’ day. Those who were awaiting the messiah, God’s anointed one who would save Israel had a wide variety of expectations and beliefs as to who the messiah would be and what he would be like.

Most were expecting a military figure who would lead a mighty army to drive out the Romans and establish a great Jewish kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital. Jesus the messiah was indeed the son of David whose kingdom has no end, but the kingdom that Jesus established is the reign of God in our lives. We might drive out an empire or a dictator for a time yet we know that the peace that follows is always fleeting. It is only once all people have allowed the kingdom of God to reign in their hearts and lives through accepting Jesus as their messiah that true peace can be established. This is the true identity of the messiah and his name is Jesus; Joshua in Hebrew, which means, “the Lord is salvation.”

In today’s Gospel we continue to learn more about Jesus’ true identity. As we heard in our readings of the past week, the Son of David is also the Son of God and the Gospel John tells us that Jesus is in fact nothing less than God himself.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

What an amazing claim! John opens his gospel with the most audacious assertion ever to be made. Jesus, it is abundantly clear that the Word of which John speaks is none other than Jesus, is God. Now I have heard many people, Christians and non-Christians, say that the belief that Jesus and God are one and the same only came about in the centuries following Jesus’ death and that it is the Creeds that make this statement not the Bible. That is simply untrue and this passage is but one example. That, however, is a sermon for another day.

Notice that John does not simply say that Word was God. He declares that Word was with God in the beginning and that all things were made through him. Listen again to the first three verses.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 He was in the beginning with God;  3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Every November I attend the annual convention of the Society of Biblical Literature. This is a massive convention with over 8,000 participants and more than a hundred publishers displaying their goods. One publisher, Zondervan, always has some little goody to give away and this year was no exception. One year I headed straight for their booth and found that they had nice mugs to give away. (A perfect accompaniment to the leather coasters from two years ago!) There were two different mugs, one with a quote in Hebrew from the OT and one with a quote in Greek from the NT. The OT reference was Gen. 1.1 ‏בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃ The NT reference was the first verse of John’s Gospel: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. The connection of these two verses on the mugs is not coincidental. John is speaking about Genesis 1, the creation of the world, and he is telling us that Jesus was there, the Word was with God and the Word was God and more than that, all things were created through the Word. How is that possible? What does John mean? In order to understand that we need to dip into Genesis 1 just a bit. We will look just the first day of creation.

Gen. 1.1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,  2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.  5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Each of the six days of creation described in Gen. 1 follow the same pattern. God makes a declaration (“God said, ‘Let there be light’”) and his command is carried out (“And there was light”). Scholars refer to this as creation by fiat, this is not a little Italian car, but the authoritative command (Latin: fiat) of God. So when John tells us that all things were made through the Word and that the Word was with God in the beginning, he is referring to nothing less than the voice of God, his commands that called all of creation into being. And this Word became flesh, Jesus.

Now I will not pretend to be able to explain the details of how Jesus is the voice or Word of God. But I don’t know that John could have either. The mechanistic details are not what is important. What John wants us to understand is that Jesus and God the creator, the author of all life, are one and the same and Jesus was no less a part of creation than he was/is integral to our salvation. Jesus is God’s Word, his authoritative command, God’s Will, made flesh. Yet as soon as we think we have understood what John meant by describing Jesus as the Word and the source of all life, he extends his imagery by telling us that the Word was “the light of men.”

4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. … 9 The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

Here we find John succinctly telling us what it means that Jesus is “the light;” he will enlighten us all. This is the fundamental nature of light, it illuminates, it reveals, it enables us to see that which was previously hidden. Through Jesus God revealed his complete grace, of which the Law was but a foretaste (as our reading from Galatians states so clearly). The word and light of Jesus shows us that it is not just the act of adultery or murder that is sinful, rather it is the very thoughts of our hearts that God desires to be brought into submission to his will. The Word declares and the Light reveals.

Yet John tells us that:

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.  11 He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.

The light of Jesus continues to shine in this world and we continue to declare the gospel message that he is the Word become flesh. And yet now, as in Jesus’ own day, all too often we refuse to listen and we put on our sunglasses so that we might willfully remain in the dark. We must ask ourselves daily, what does it mean that Jesus is the Word and the Light? Who Jesus was and is, what he did, what he said is nothing less than the revelation of God. He is God’s declaration that God loves us and is calling us back to himself. By his Word he created this world for us to live in alongside Him, but sin separates us. The Good News we proclaim every Eucharist is that through this same Word God reconciles us to himself.

12 … all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God;  13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Amen.

 

Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24
RCL

Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

The Justice of God

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

A new covenant, God building up and planting Israel, people dying for their own sins, what a very odd passage this must sound to us today. The context lost to most, what we often miss is the realization that the prophet Jeremiah was declaring the salvation of the world. At the time he made this declaration Judah was besieged and Jeremiah himself had made it clear that Jerusalem would be destroyed because of the sins of the nation, because Israel had broken its covenant with God. And into this besieged city, full of famine and suffering, Jeremiah declares that God will not only bring punishment but after a time restoration and forgiveness of sins as well.

The nature of sin is something we do not consider very often from the pulpit but from time to time we need to reflect on just why it is that we must confess and receive forgiveness.

This semester I am teaching a 1-credit class on Genesis 1-3. Several folks here joined me a few weeks ago during our Forum between the services for a quick dip into the opening chapters of the Bible. I often challenge students asking them why it is that God bothered to put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden if Adam and Eve weren’t allowed to eat from it. The answer usually doesn’t take to long to uncover: if God had not provided an opportunity for them to disobey then they would also never fully understand what it means to love God, freely and fully.

There is a corresponding truth that takes longer to uncover. In presenting Adam and Eve with the opportunity to demonstrate their love and obedience to him, God also created the opportunity for sin. Sin did not exist in the Garden prior to this moment but the potential did.

Gen. 3.1   Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;  3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’”  4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die;  5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

We all know the story well, but consider two key points: the serpent does not (strictly speaking) lie and yet God seems to do so. The serpent craftily uses words to persuade Eve (and Adam “who was with her”) that when God said that they would die in the day that they ate the fruit that they would not, but rather they would “be like God, knowing good and evil.” After God discovers their transgression and curses the serpent, the woman, and the man, notice what he says.

Gen. 3.22   Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—  23 therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

God confirms what the serpent said, they have indeed become like God, knowing good and evil,” but the man and the woman don’t die on that day! Clearly God is a liar!

Now many will justify God saying, “They do die ‘in that day’ because they may no longer eat of the tree of life and live forever.” But I think this misses the real point, the momentous event that occurred. In the moment that Eve and Adam ate of that fruit the potential for disobedience became the reality of sin. And in response the justice of God was meted out and so too was his mercy.

Just as the actions of the man and the woman brought about the reality of suffering and death into the world it also brought about God’s mercy and grace. So long as they were obedient, they could do anything in the Garden they liked! just not eat of that one tree, so long as they were obedient, God did not need to show mercy and grace. When tested we humans succumbed to temptation and when tested God responded with mercy.

Jeremiah spoke to a people in complete despair as the watch and experienced suffering and death all around them and dared to say that it was God’s judgment for their rejection of him. They had worshipped other gods and had refused to obey the covenant, the special Law that he had given Israel and this was their punishment. But on that day of judgment God also declared that he would have mercy.

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

This is the new covenant we have in Christ. He came and died for the forgiveness of our sins. As Jesus showed in the parable we read this morning, when we appeal to God for his justice and mercy he will hear us. The only question that remains is

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Amen.

 

Third Sunday in Lent, Year C, RCL

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

Jesus on the cross is an image embedded in our faith, worship, and even in our culture. The Cross is the goal and the end of Lent. For many, it is simply a piece of jewelry. For artists it can be an expression of faith or merely a clever or even cheeky juxtaposition to their main object of commentary. In Jesus films how one depicts Jesus on the cross (and whether or not his resurrection is depicted) is often key to understanding the movie maker’s intent. For Monty Python it is a pathetic and pointless end. For Mel Gibson it is nothing less than salvation.

Yet I don’t think there is a better known biblical movie than the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and I don’t think that there is any more iconic scene than the burning bush. We find it in our readings at this time of year not least because of its wilderness theme. Moses has fled his home in Egypt, wrestling with his identity as both an Israelite and an adopted Egyptian and afraid that his murder of an Egyptian would be discovered. He is literally and figuratively in an in-between-time, unsure of where to go or what would happen to him.

God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

The exchange that ensues is at once well known to us and yet because we think we know it so well, we often miss the challenge and the lessons contained in it. For example, we often miss the fact that Moses is arguing with God! The Lord begins by telling Moses that he has heard Israel’s cry and complaint and that he is going to lead Israel to freedom by sending Moses back to Egypt. We often think of the biblical figures as always responding to God with an immediate “Yes Sir!” But not Moses (or Abraham or even David for that matter). In fact, in this passage Moses offers four different objections to God, trying as hard as he might to get out of this task. Our reading this morning presents us with the first two objections and they provide us with ample and appropriate Lenten reflections.

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

It is a reasonable question. Why should God choose Moses for such a task? And I imagine that Moses was expecting God to say something like, “Don’t you realize that you are uniquely talented for this mission? Don’t you realize that this is why I preserved your life and had you grow up within Pharaoh’s palace even while you mother raised you for your first few years so that you alone are able to walk in these two worlds? Don’t you realize how special you are Moses?” But that is not what God says.

He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

“I will be with you.” God doesn’t even answer Moses’ question. Instead he reminds Moses that who he is makes little difference, what matters is who God is. He is the God of his fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is, he is the God who has taken care of his people in the past and will continue to care and provide for them now. And you Moses, you are my servant.

It is a pretty humbling message. God could have replied with any of the comments I suggested a moment ago and they would have been true. God had uniquely prepared Moses for the task ahead. But Moses needed to be reminded that it really isn’t about us, even while God is caring for us.

It is a curious paradox. We must realize that ultimately all of history is about God, the creator and caregiver. Yet history itself has been created because and by virtue of the fact that God created us. Good Friday and Easter are the suffering and resurrection of Jesus and yet they are the sacrifice and salvation of the world.

God has uniquely prepared each of us to do…we don’t know what! Often, we will not understand how or why we have been able to accomplish incredible tasks that God puts before us until they are complete. But God has been and is with us nonetheless. Consider again what God told Moses.

“I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

“I will be with you.” God is present, he is with us in our most difficult struggles, our greatest challenges. That is, as they say in business nowadays, the “game changer.” God’s being with us makes all things possible and is far more important than who we are or how skilled or prepared we are for the task at hand.

And notice “the sign” that God offers Moses. “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” Aren’t signs usually supposed to be before the event? Like Gideon setting out the fleece, we want to know that we are making the right decision ahead of committing ourselves. God tells Moses and us that all we need to know is that he is with us and that our faith in him will be affirmed. When the task is done we will know that it is God who has guided us and we will worship him.

God answered his first objection but Moses was not satisfied, he continued to challenge God.

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM Who I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’”

Here we find God’s most intimate name revealed. It would be easy and it is all too tempting to delve into a lecture here about the Hebrew name of God. I shall try and avoid that, but it is important that we understand that God’s name is nothing less than the verb of existence. His name is the verb “to be” and when God speaks he speaks in the first person, “I am.” When we speak, we say “He is” (which we “translated” as “The Lord”). God’s identity, his name, cannot be defined in any other terms than the simple yet powerful and inscrutable statement that he exists, He Is.

The message is the same as God’s first response to Moses. I am with you. Just as I was with your fathers and your mothers before you, I am and will be with you now. Thus it is that in John’s Gospel, when Jesus responds to those questioning him by saying, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” And when the soldiers came to arrest him in the garden and said they were looking for Jesus of Nazareth he replied, “I am.” The power of these words knocked them to the ground, because he was not simply declaring his identity he was also revealing his divinity. Jesus is the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and He Is, The Lord, ‘ehyah ‘asher ‘ehyah.

We too are in the wilderness, in the in-between-time. The story of Moses, the Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus’ 40 days of fasting, and our own discipline of Lent simply remind us that we are at all times “not yet home.” We are in this world (but not of it) and we have been blessed by God with a calling and a duty. The details of a specific task may not yet be known to us, although we always know that we are to love as Christ has loved us. What we do know and must never forget is that in all things and at all times God will be with us.

Amen.

 

Proper 14
Year B
RCL

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

 

John 8:3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them,  4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”  6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.  7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Given all that follows I am morbidly curious to know what this preacher (hardly Qoheleth!) said, if anything, about the fact that this passage is a very late addition and of dubious origin. But to get to the portion that I heard clearly, so clearly, in fact, that it took me another 3 minutes to pick out a tie I was so stunned by the comments.(Paraphrasing, but I promise you the substance is as spoken.)

Jesus, who knew the Law so well since he was the one who had given it to Moses was not saying that someone caught in adultery should not be punished and stoned. Jesus is also not saying that anyone who is without any sin should cast the first stone, but merely that those who had not committed this sin, the sin of adultery, may step forward and stone the woman. Assuming, that is, that witness were brought forward, as required by the Law.

Wow. Look at that again. Jesus wasn’t saying that those without any sin should cast the first stone (in which case, of course, no one could cast said stone since all have sinned), but only those who had not committed this particular sin. I assume this preacher’s logic went on to assert that all those present had at some point enjoyed this sin since they all walked away, but I had chosen to eschew a tie all together and headed out to church at that point. But tell me, who comes up with stuff like this?

If I am generous I can only assume that the preacher was trying to push back against those who use this passage (as I have often heard it in my own church) to argue that we should not tell anyone that anything is a sin since, after all, we have all sinned and therefore should “cast no [metaphorical] stones.” (Matt. 7:1 is of course often brought in as well.) I am certainly sympathetic to such an effort, but this is just a remarkable twisting of the passage.

I cannot be sure, without hear the full sermon, but he seems to have ignored the context (“They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him”) and the fact that there is a fundamental shift in concepts of forgiveness that Jesus brings to the scene. Sure, developing an hermeneutic that takes in both the continuity of the Law and the transformation that comes from Jesus’ sacrifice “offered once, for all” is difficult, but just because it is hard does not excuse us from the work.

*shakes head* I would love to hear the full sermon. If anyone has a clue as to who it was, let me know. I think it was on WGRC but their program list only shows contemporary worship music from 9 – noon.

Has anyone heard a crazier sermon lately? Do tell!

 

Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

The John passage has disturbed a clerical colleague because of the following portion. “18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (And the subsequent verses as well.) The concern is that taking this verse “literally” has been used to hurt and condemn people of other faiths. This led the colleague to say,

the Bible is far too important to take it literally

I am not sure I even know what that means. So I thought I would ask you, how important is the Bible? Is it “too important to take literally”?¹

 

1. Of course, we would need to define “literally.” I understand that as meaning when you are reading a parable, you understand it as a parable. This passage, however, is not a parable and is intended to be read as stated.

Second Sunday of Advent
Year B
RCL

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We are just a few weeks away from Christmas Day and the children and perhaps more than a few adults are wondering what they are going to find in their stockings and under their tree when they wake up. What are you expecting? What are you waiting eagerly to unwrap and enjoy?

There is no doubt that anticipation is building. Even with our current economic struggles, people are pouring into the stores to snap up bargains. The ads on television and in the papers make even the most ascetic among us twinge with at least a bit of desire. As much as I would decry commercialism and the excessive lust that such advertisements induce, I think the anticipation and heightened state of expectation that it creates in us can and should serve as a reminder of what this season really is about, yearning for and expecting the coming of Jesus.

This is the season of expectation and preparation. As we discussed last week, advent, the Latin term means “coming,” denotes this season when we await the coming of the Messiah, God’s anointed one, who will bring us salvation from our sins, restoring our relationship with God. On the most obvious level we are, of course, remembering that Jesus the Messiah came to earth as a human baby born in a manger, but this season is also to be a time of preparation and looking forward to his coming again, as Christus victor, the conquerer of death.

Mark, the earliest of our Gospels, opens with the pronouncement that Romans and Jews alike would recognize. Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ [υἱοῦ θεοῦ], “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” As more than one commentator has pointed out, the use of the term euangelion, usually translated as “gospel” or “good news,” would have had very particular connotations for Mark’s audience. Euangelion was a term that indicated the good news of a royal birth or a stunning military victory. “Euangelion – the word might go out – the Emperor has a newborn son who will one day rule the empire. Or, Euangelion! Caesar has won the victory and brought peace and prosperity to the empire.”¹ The good news that Mark is declaring is the arrival of the messiah, but while this Euangelion is the good news of both the birth of the king and his victory, it came in a way that defied all expectations.

In the years leading up to Jesus’ birth Jews were remembering passages such as that read from the prophet Isaiah this morning. This passage in Isaiah was proclaimed to Israel living in exile and declared that God would return them to their land and that he would restore Jerusalem. The Lord had not forgotten his people, he would restore them. These are great passages of hope and promise that Jews looked to in dark times, holding to the promises of God.

Now Judah was again occupied, this time by the Romans, and the Jews again turned to Isaiah and remembered God’s promises. Passages that told of God sending a descendent of David who would restore God’s rule and order and, most of all, God’s justice. Their hopes and expectations were for deliverance from very real and physical oppression. They looked around and saw suffering and hardship, the poor and the hungry, people being arrested and tortured for their beliefs (cf. Macc.) and called out for God to send his promised Messiah. And they looked for a king, a mighty warrior like David who would defeat the Romans and bring a new Jewish dynasty to the throne.

But others, like John the Baptist, looked beyond this world and declared that God’s Kingdom, not David’s was near and immanent. The Kingdom of Heaven was upon them. Their expectations had to be adjusted and preparations had to be made in order to enter into this new Kingdom.

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Advent is not yet Christmas. We are not ready for it. This season, like Lent, is a time of preparation and we must heed John’s call and repent. This means that we must take stock of our lives, consider our sins, how we have disobeyed God and hurt him and our neighbors, and ask for his forgiveness.

Sin is a topic that we don’t often preach on and I think it makes most of us uncomfortable. We of course confess our sins as part of our service and we renounce “sins and wickedness” in the baptismal vows that we make, but that is in the abstract and formal setting, where we can manage it. We don’t want to be considered judgmental and so we shy away from identifying sin. After all, “let the one who is without sin cast the first stone” and “judge not lest ye be judged,” right? Right. We have all sinned and God is and will be the judge. But that doesn’t remove our obligation to consider, reflect, and confess our own sins.

What is sin? Simply put, it is disobeying God. When we do what is wrong we have sinned. Why is it important that we recognize that we have sinned? Because we cannot be in a proper relationship until we do so and ask forgiveness. Now when we are talking about God it can seem very abstract and even very relative (“that may be your view of God, but I don’t believe in a God who would say that this is wrong”), but consider it with regards to a friendship, a marriage.

A husband and wife are in a covenant of marriage, a promise to love one another mutually and to share their physical affections exclusively with one another. When one breaks that trust, whether through infidelity or simply disregard, the relationship suffers and is damaged. If the relationship is to survive the one who has broken that trust must apologize, ask their partner’s forgiveness and change their way of living.

So it is with God. He calls us to a holy life, lived in obedience to him and in service to others. We are sinful and so we damage that relationship. John the Baptist continues to call to us today, urging us to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. We do that by repenting of our sins and accepting God’s forgiveness. And when we have repented and been baptized our condition will be known by the fruit that we bear, fruit that is worthy of repentance (Luke 3:7-8).

This fruit is charity, love for one another, even and especially those we do not like. (Never forget, liking and loving are two very different things! God calls us to love others, not to like them.) We should strive for righteousness and justice in all things and at all times and we must never forget that our own righteousness comes solely through the sacrifice of the son of God, who “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”

As we decorate our homes in preparation for Christmas, let this also be a meditative and contemplative process. Let the ornaments that we hang upon the tree cause us to consider what fruit of repentance we are producing. As we hang evergreens and put up our tree may it remind us of the everlasting life that we have in Christ.

Advent is a time of great expectation, preparation, and great joy. And our joy flows most freely and deeply because we know that we have indeed been forgiven by the one who came as baby to give his life for ours.

Amen.

 

1. http://rooppage.blogspot.com/2008/12/sermon-2-advent-2008.html

First Sunday of Advent
Year B, RCL

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

Baptism of AEC

This morning is the first Sunday of Advent. To many of us it means we have finished off (hopefully) the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, put up our Christmas tree and decorations, and opened upon the Advent calendar, getting ready to watch Mary and Joseph make their way to Bethlehem. “Advent” means to arrive or come and we can be forgiven for believing that it refers solely to the birth of Jesus the long-awaited Messiah. In fact, this season of waiting and expectation, as our collect suggests, is not only a time when we remember Jesus’ birth on earth, but it is also a time of reflection and preparation for his coming again in the last days. This season is very much like Lent, a time when we are to be in penitential prayer, aware of our sins and Christ’s forgiveness and of God’s promise to bring his justice and judgment to this world when Christ returns again.

So we have our readings from Isaiah and Mark, readings very similar to those from Amos and Matthew when I last preached three weeks ago. Isaiah calls out to God to remember his people and bring judgment upon their enemies.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence–

Isaiah confesses that the community of faith has sinned, but asks God to remember his people. At the time of this prophecy Israel is living in exile, a community far from their homeland with the Temple of the Lord nothing but a forgotten pile of rubble. The prophet knows that Israel has sinned and that many no longer believe in the Lord and yet he affirms the faith of his people and calls upon God to remember them.

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people.

We too are a people living in exile, waiting for Christ to return and fulfill his promises. Granted, this is a very comfortable exile. Even in these financially difficult times I saw a lot of wide screen LCD TVs moving out of Walmart and BestBuy this weekend. Most of us in this congregation are well-fed and have warm homes and well-paying jobs. But comfort like suffering can equally drive us away from God. Jesus has been a long time in his return and to suggest that complacency can and has set in would be an understatement. It is to this that Jesus speaks in our Gospel today.

But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake– for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

How are we going to spend this time in between the first advent of Jesus and his second? There are many of late who spend their time, in direct contradiction to Jesus’ assurance that no one will know the day or hour, trying to determine exactly when he will return. The books and movies of the Left Behind series are a testament to that. While poking around the internet on this topic I came across a blog entitled “The Time of the End: 2008 – 2012,¹ Research into Bible Prophecy revealing the chronology of the ‘last days’.” Brilliant. Very committed Christians, I have no reason to doubt their faith, spending their energy and time trying to divine something that Jesus himself told us was unknowable. This is particularly egregious because Jesus goes on to tell us what we should be doing in this time.

“It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake!” Each of us has our own tasks and skills that we have been called to do and we are to set about them with all industry, honesty, and integrity. Elsewhere Jesus tells us, beyond the specifics of our vocation, that the work of a follower of Christ is to love one another, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and to be people of prayer. This time in between should be filled with our devotion to Christ so that his presence suffuses all that we do and are. How we engage with our coworkers, our families, even those crazy drivers on the road and people fighting in stores for the latest Wii game, should be transformed by Christ’s love in us. This is how we are to spend our time in exile, our time waiting for the master to return.

As we enter into this advent season we need remember that it is a time of preparation, not just with the bright lights and decorations of our homes, but of our souls.

This morning we will welcome into our household of faith AEC through the sacrament of baptism. It is a wonderful gift that the Cs are giving to all of us, as we are reminded through her arrival of the arrival of Jesus, as baby and savior. Anyone who has had a child will remember the preparation that goes into the months before birth. There are doctor visits, decorating of rooms, baby showers, and prayer, lots of prayer.

The reason for the prayer is because it is a wonderful and fearful thing when a new life is born into this world. The prophets often describe the coming day of God’s judgment by saying that all creation will groan as a woman in labor. Men, we will never know this pain, although Carol Burnett once told us how we could approximate it, “Take your bottom lip,” she said, “pull it as far away from your face as you can, and now pull it over your head.” The reality is that women often die in childbirth. It is less common today in our part of the world, but the only times that women are described as crying out in pain in childbirth in the Bible, as opposed to the prophetic pronouncements, the mothers die giving birth to their child. There is so much joy, so much hope, and promise and yet even with the easiest of labors the mother will be in great pain.

When Christ comes again the world will be wracked with pain and suffering but with it will come new life. Jesus warns us again and again that there will be wars, famine, persecution, and suffering. Just before today’s reading in Mark Jesus warns his disciples that in the last days

Mark 13:12 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death;  13 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Yet we know that through all that suffering comes new life! Though the sun be darkened the light of Christ is coming that will outshine the sun and the moon combined! Every parent knows that moment when you realize that this precious little new life that you are bringing into the world will, in fact, destroy your old world, bringing discomfort, diapers, bills, worry, fear, and doubt. Oh but it is such joy! Such hope and life!

In this advent season let us be aware of the suffering, our own and those of others, but do not be overwhelmed by it. Remember the joy that is to come and let us keep at our tasks, caring for others, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and preparing our hearts to receive not only the baby Jesus but also our risen savior who returns to bring us life immortal.

Amen.

Baptism of AEC

 

1. Since his time line ends in 2012 I cannot help but wonder if he is combining his biblical research with the Mayan calendar, which “ends” in 2012. One parishioner warned me to be aware that “Vengeance is Mayan, says the Lord.”

Year A
Proper 27
RCL

Amos 5:18-24
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

The Day of the Lord

Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: 
Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD!
    Why do you want the day of the LORD? 
It is darkness, not light.

We are all, I am sure, far more familiar with the last portion of our Old Testament reading from this morning, those words made fresh for the last 40 years by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” But as powerful as those words are, they do not have their full meaning unless the preceding verses are read with them. And they begin with an odd even paradoxical challenge from the prophet, declaring that the day of the Lord is darkness and not light. Surely that cannot be right! That is not how we think of the “day of the Lord” is it? Actually, that is a good question, how do you think of the “day of the Lord”?

I think most Christians probably think it refers to the “Lord’s day,” meaning Sunday, the day of the week on which Jesus arose from the dead. But that is not what it means in the Old Testament. The day of the Lord was the day when God will come and bring his judgment to this world. This is what Amos was declaring and he was challenging those who felt so self-righteous that they were calling for God to hasten his day of judgment, not realizing that they are just as likely to suffer his punishment as any other. The role of a prophet was not, as people so often think, to predict the future. Rather the prophet was and is someone who reminds God’s people of the promises of God and their responsibility in that relationship. In ancient Israel that meant that the prophets reminded Israel of the covenant that God had made with them and that while God had promised to bless them if they were obedient he also promised to punish them if they refused to obey his law and will for them. Most often, but it would be wrong to think that it was exclusively, the royalty, the aristocracy and the priesthood were the subjects of the prophets’ message.

And the message was routinely reduced to “care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in your midst.” These were the groups who were the most vulnerable and if society was caring for them, then that would be a pretty good sign that it was following the rest of God’s laws. The problem that Amos is focusing on in this passage is the hypocrisy that we so often have in our own lives: we don’t have our priorities in order.

Even though God’s law calls for Israel to worship him with songs and sacrifices, if they are not being obedient in other matters, the matters of justice and righteousness, none of it…matters.

I hate, I despise your festivals
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them; 
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.

It should be obvious that this is one Old Testament passage that does not require a great deal of exegesis to see its application in our own lives, in our corporate lives as a community of faith and in our individual and private spiritual lives. Our tradition places a great emphasis upon…well, tradition. Tradition and ceremony are central to our worship. But if that worship is not transforming us into servants of God and therefore servants of others, it is useless. It doesn’t matter how much we pray or how often we attend services, if we do not allow God to work in us and make us like Christ, taking up daily our cross and giving up ourselves for others, then it is all hallow and meaningless.

In the Law and the Gospels we are called to come together in worship and to offer up sacrifices to God. But God has also declared that he will despise and reject those very offerings if they are not accompanied with a pure and contrite heart. Consider Cain who brought a sacrifice before God, just as Abel had, and yet God only accepted Abel’s sacrifice. Why? Because it was “by faith [that] Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s” (Heb. 11:4). How do we bring our offerings God? Are our prayers, our tithes, our services offered in faithful obedience to God or merely obedience to tradition and habit? Do we return to God what is his while asking him to use us to bring his light and love into this world?

The day of the Lord that Amos declared is still coming and God will hold us accountable for our actions and our inaction. Our Gospel reading this morning is from a larger section in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus tells his disciples what to expect in those last days, as the day of the Lord draws in. This story of the bridesmaids with the oil lamps, that I think sounds really rather odd and bizarre out of its larger context, is a parable of preparation and priorities.

On the one hand it is simply a reminder that we are always to remain vigilant and expectant for the coming of Christ. As Jesus says in the preceding chapter, we may not know the day or the hour, but we do know that he will come and God will mete out his justice. And don’t forget, Amos was already some 700 years before Jesus’ own time, so we cannot simply push Amos and all of this judgment talk aside as just so much “Old Testament nonsense.” Jesus certainly didn’t think so, but he did understand that we are not a patient people. Today our attention span barely lasts for a 15 minute sermon let alone two thousand years of waiting!

We are waiting for his return, but there is so much work to do. In the parable that follows today’s reading Jesus tells the story of the men who are each given a sum of money. One man is given five talents and he invests it, doubling his money. The man given two talents does the same. The man who is given a single talent buries it knowing that his master can be harsh. The ones who invested the money won their master’s praise but the one who did nothing with what he had been given was thrown out into the “outer darkness.”

We have been given great talents, in wealth and ability, in spirit and capacity for love. We have been charged by Jesus himself to go out into the world and share the Gospel message of freedom from sin and death. There is suffering and hardship in our world. There are so many who do not know the love of Christ and the transforming presence of the Spirit in their lives. Have we shared it with them all? Have we met and dealt with every injustice? His return may seem like it is long in coming but we certainly should not be bored, there is so much work still to do.

When the day of the Lord arrives, when Christ shall come again God will establish his order and set the world aright. In the meantime the command goes out to us “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” We are his agents to bring justice and righteousness to this world. Our own sense of justice can so often be flawed and unjust. What we think of as righteousness can often be simply self-serving. And that is why we must be ready, keeping oil in our lamps and our wicks trimmed by continuing to gather in worship, in prayer, and study so that while the bridegroom may be delayed we may grow to understand and live out in this in between time His justice and righteousness.

Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

These are not just the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is the Word of the Lord.
Amen.

 

Proper 23, Year A, RCL

Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23

Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

This morning’s Gospel, like the parable from last Sunday’s reading, is often called a “hard saying” by many modern commentators. Jesus’ speaking of people being cast into “the outer darkness” and being excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven just seems too condemning, too exclusionary for many today. For example, I am on an email list with other clergy my age and in discussing this week’s Gospel one priest said, “What a violent, nasty little parable that is.” It is not a “violent, nasty little parable” if one takes the time to read and wrestle with it. It is, in fact, a parable of salvation and grace.

The irony is that while these sayings are a stumbling block for so many priests and scholars today because they view them as exclusionary, the parable is actually about the universal call of the Gospel to all nations, not just the Jews, and it was that universal aspect of Jesus’ message that proved to be the stumbling block to so many in his own day.

Like most of Jesus’ parables the meaning is fairly obvious to us reading it from the other side of the crucifixion and Easter.

2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.”

The king in the story is God and his son is Jesus. The wedding banquet is an image often used to describe the end of the world, when God and his people will be reunited in joyous celebration. The coming of the bridegroom is used in the Gospels to depict the coming of the Messiah and the ushering in of this final age, the necessary precursor for the wedding feast.

Those who are invited to the feast are thus Israel, God’s chosen people with whom he has made his covenant. They have known that the time was going to come, the invitations had already been sent, but they were waiting for the servants to bring word that the event was actually happening. The time has arrived at last for the wedding banquet and the king sends his servants to remind the guests of their invitation and to tell them to hurry, the time is now. The prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, and now his disciples are those who called out to their fellow Jews to recognize that the bridegroom is now here and that the feast is at hand! But they rejected him. They did not believe that it was really happening.

5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,  6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.

Their response was to mock the servants and at best to go back to their work, the mundane tasks of everyday life, and at worst to beat the messengers and to kill them.
The king punishes those who had committed murder and then sends his servants out again, this time inviting anyone they could find to join in the feast.

Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Remembering that the wedding feast represents the kingdom of heaven here we find God opening wide the doors to anyone who will come, the good and the bad, all are welcome into the kingdom of heaven. This is a universal message, God’s salvation is not just for Israel, but rather the salvation of all the world came through Israel. The Messiah came from and first to Israel but now the Gospel goes out into all the world, as Jesus said to his disciples before his ascent into heaven, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

Yet this is not universalism. That is to say, Jesus is not saying that all will be in heaven regardless of anything they say or do. First of all one must accept the invitation. The first group, or at least many among them, did not accept the invitation. They did not come to the feast but would rather go about their daily work and chores rather than go to the king’s house. One must both hear the Gospel message and accept it. God will not force us through the door, he will not force us to eat and drink at his table, rather he offers us the invitation and the ways and means to join him, but the final decision is our own.

Then there is the man who came and was not wearing the wedding robe. It is perhaps this portion of the parable that so disturbed my colleague. But this is our example of God’s grace and how we are often unwilling to accept it. While the invitation went out to all, both the bad and the good, “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame,” as Luke recounts, they were not to remain as they were, perhaps dirty and in rags. Instead, upon entering the God’s house we are to accept his grace and to be transformed, clothed in righteousness. It is not a matter of simply attending church, we are to become new people in Christ.

This is the balance between God’s gracious invitation and his offer to cleanse us of all our sins, bringing us that new life, and our need to respond. God will not force us to accept his call. Only we can make that decision for ourselves and when we do we find God’s spirit dwelling in us and working through us to transform us.

We may find ourselves in many places in this parable. Many of us, perhaps most, were brought up in a Christian church community. At many times in our lives I expect that we have been like those first guests who were invited but did not come. We still consider themselves “friends of the king” yet do we answer him when he calls? Or do we consider our business and day to day lives more pressing, more important? Or worse, do we mock or dismiss, in our hearts of not outwardly, the invitation itself when we hear it, regarding the Gospel message as a relic of a superstitious time?

Or are we like the man who did not have on the wedding clothes? We have been invited, we come and take a look around, but never fully accept the grace that he has offered.

We are all certainly among those of the streets, the good and the bad, to whom the invitation has been given. We are all called to come to his table, to the wedding feast, to join him in joyful celebration of the marriage of his son and his bride the Church.

The very Gospel itself in this parable. We are invited to be with God, no matter what our social or spiritual standing, whether we were among the first or the last to be called. The sacrifice of Jesus was not just for Israel it is for all the world. But while many are called, in fact all are called, few are chosen, not because God has rejected them, but because they have rejected his grace. Accept his invitation and come to the feast. Do not worry about what you are wearing now for God will robe you in his glory and grace and accept the gift of life in Christ.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Amen.