Aren’t we ready already?

Text: Matthew 16:21-28

[Previously on Matthew:

Jesus: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

Disciples: “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one

of the prophets.”

Jesus: “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”

And now the conclusion:] [1]

Remember last week, we had this thrilling moment where Peter “gets” who Jesus is. He calls him “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” It is a highpoint of the story so far and serves to mark it off as significant. God, the Great Mystery, has revealed Jesus’s identity to Peter. But don’t think that these words of congratulations serve as a true conclusion. As Stanley Hauerwas puts it: “Simon’s recognition of Jesus changes who Simon is.” [2] It is this reason that Jesus gives Peter a new name, changing it from Simon to Peter, and it is this reason that he gives him a new position: not one of superiority but one of preserving the church’s gifts.

Hauerwas continues:

“By making Peter the rock on which the church will be built, Jesus indicates that the church will need to be so built because hell itself will try to destroy what Jesus has established.

It is not Peter’s task to make the church safe and secure or to try to insure its existence. Rather, it is Peter’s task to keep the church true to its mission, which is to witness to the Messiah.” [3]

Listen again to the opening words of this morning’s gospel: “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem”. Jesus reveals to his disciples that 1) he must go to Jerusalem, 2) undergo great suffering, 3) be killed, and 4) be raised. The new man named Peter, with his rockish need to protect the mission not only attempts to stop this from happening, but he actually takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. This is the proof I promised last week for how Peter could “get it” without understanding it. Jesus’s response, seconds after commending Peter, after heaping on the praise, is to call Peter “Satan” and “a stumbling block to me”!

We all know that Peter is trying to protect Jesus. We all know that he doesn’t think that Jesus is ready to die. He doesn’t think that the disciples are ready to die. And he knows that he isn’t ready to die.

We have a lot of examples for those times in which we aren’t ready. Those examples are truly everywhere, aren’t they? This time last year the media was discussing whether or not we were “ready” for a woman president or a black president. There are currently 21 female heads of state, including three monarchs (Denmark, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom), eight prime ministers (Germany, Haiti, New Zealand, Moldova, Mozambique, The Netherlands Antilles, Ukraine and The Åland Islands) and seven presidents (Argentina, Chile, Finland, India, Ireland, Liberia and The Philippines). I should hope that we’re ready.

We also worry that we aren’t ready for disasters. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita didn’t paint a picture of readiness. But if we dig a little deeper, we can see that for decades, Louisiana had called for improvements to the levees. Katrina’s effect on New Orleans doesn’t represent a lack of readiness, but of federal short-sightedness and negligence. Better examples are of the way Kansans deal with tornados, Californians deal with earthquakes, and yes, Floridians deal with hurricanes. These people deal with their expectations and display a relative readiness for what they know is coming.

So why is it that we in the church sit in an active state of unreadiness? We evolve at a snail’s pace, dealing with small issues as if they are catastrophic (You picked what color? We sang that hymn?)—leaving us in a catatonic state when big issues arrive. For some, the solution is to stick fingers in the ears and sing “La la la la!” For others, the solution is to collect an unscientific poll with the predictable “We hate change” result. Or we give in rather than rock the boat.

No, for the most part, we aren’t ready to die, either.

But Jesus gives us real hope:

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”

He’s not mincing his words here. Taken with the new identity of Peter, we can see how Jesus calls not just his disciples, but the church to act. To take up its cross, following Jesus to death in Jerusalem. Because this is a life-and-death issue, there isn’t time to get ready.

Jesus rebukes Peter because Peter is “setting [his] mind not on divine things but on human things”: demonstrating the polar opposite of what got him praise last week. He is worried about preserving the physical life of the Messiah, the son of the Living God so that this earthly king can rule the Kingdom of God on earth. Just like the Pharisees and Sadducees rebuked earlier, Peter is actually trying to preserve the status quo, the very world as he knows it; turning his mind to the revelation of a heavenly king on earth, Peter posits that this new earthly king will soon be ready to wage earthly war. In this way, Peter is obstructing the Kingdom of God from coming. A Kingdom with a spiritual king—not a militaristic one.

Remember the clue from last week? Making reference to the Son of Man, or Son of Humanity, is our cue that Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God. Jesus brings it up again here to demonstrate that this is his primary interest. It is establishing the church as a means of bringing the Kingdom closer. That Peter couldn’t quite comprehend the Kingdom is no surprise: look at how easily we avoid the Kingdom. For Jesus, the issue has everything to do with death. Everything to do with our fear of death, the violence that can cause death, and how humanity uses the fear of death to manipulate others. By taking up our crosses, not just any crosses, but THE cross, Jesus’s cross, we are freed from death, the fear of death, the violence of death, and the manipulation of death because it is the Kingdom that matters. It is God that matters.

We fear death. This doesn’t surprise any of us. Death is scary. And the disciples surely felt that they didn’t sign up for that. But they followed him all the way to Jerusalem. It is there that they abandoned him. They walked up to the edge, but couldn’t do it. Fear prevented them. Some of the great stories in Acts and in traditions tell of how the disciples, decades later, accepted death, finally getting what Jesus had been saying years earlier. Their example is truly comforting, because this stuff is scary.

But Jesus promises us resurrection after 1) Jerusalem, 2) punishment, and 3) death. Our fear for our lives need not be predicated on our survival. This is Jesus’s great offering. That we can gather up God’s strength and become a people whose ministry is to bring the Kingdom closer is not just an awesome responsibility, but an awesome responsibility. Jesus was putting the church in the hands of fisher-men and -women who showed not just great devotion, but great willingness to give up on the safety and security of the world around them. How could that message not resonate with us? How dare we not hear that message in the midst of our own culture, with our jobs and our childcare and our responsibilities and our families and our sports and music and reading and gardening and on!

We are church not because we are friends or we like to dress up or we like to give to charitable causes: these things are a part of us: but we are church because we have accepted that responsibility. We, like Peter, have answered Jesus’s question by calling him “the Messiah, son of the Living God” and because we believe that Jesus’s challenge for us is worthy. The grace revealed in this gospel is that we can deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus. That we have nothing to fear in death. As Jesus often told his disciples, “Do not be afraid.”

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[1] For the 9:30 service only.

[2] Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. (Brazos Press: Grand Rapids, 2006) p. 150.

[3] Ibid.

Living in Tyre and Sidon

Text: Matthew 15:10-28

There’s a short gap between last week’s gospel and today’s. In it, Jesus heads for Gennesaret, where tales of Jesus’s miraculous powers of healing spread and “all who were sick” come, touch his cloak, and are healed. Then the Pharisees come all the way from Jerusalem to harass Jesus and his disciples, claiming that they have broken the Law by eating without washing their hands. It is a sure example of Jesus claiming hierarchy and nuance to Law, that purity laws are nothing compared with matters of faith. Then Jesus says to the Pharisees:

You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
⁸“This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
⁹in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.” ’

It is this that precedes Jesus’s talk of defilement.

Taking today’s gospel out of this context, we might suggest that Jesus is railing against gossip, profanity, or lying. Or we might take it literally—that the talk of going into and coming out of the mouth…well, having seen some of Sophia’s spitups, I would say that is pretty gross. Or in his articulation to Peter, Jesus seems to suggest that our emotional reactions, those things we say when we’re cheesed, those things that we do without thinking, are bad.

But Jesus’s taking on the purity codes, his talk of defilement in Gennesaret, and the movement in the second half of the gospel to Tyre and Sidon should be taken together.

Tyre and Sidon represent, for the Pharisees, places of defilement. These locations would greatly distress the Pharisees. If they thought Jesus’s disciples were bad for not washing their hands before eating, what will they think of going to impure towns, talking with impure people, doing impure things?

This is a common situation in the gospels: Jesus either seems to be doing something he’s “not supposed to do” or he’s being scolded by the “true believers” for what they’ve seen, or more commonly, heard that he’s done.

We all know who is battling for the title of Pharisee today. They go by many names including the self-dubbed “Bible-believers”. They serve as the unelected watchdog of faith and encourage the crowds to not only see things the way they do, but to turn on each other ravenously. Imagine if the Pharisees had the Internet! Or access to journalists eager for a juicy story (about sex)!

We’ve included in this week’s bulletin an insert from the National Church. It highlights the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ closing remarks to Lambeth in which he encourages a continued interest in the forming of an Anglican Covenant. What a truly fortunate thing to discuss in the midst of something so contentious as Jesus’s propensity to break the Law and get caught. How freely Jesus disregards the Laws that impede on the primary law, the Greatest Commandment and its partner: Love God and love your neighbor. How easily the Law is lesser to these fundamental principles.

This proclamation, found in the three Synoptics, concludes in Matthew 22:40 by suggesting that “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Covenants are radically inclusive decisions of mutual benefit. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church defines covenant as “A bond entered into voluntarily by two parties by which each pledges himself to do something for the other”. Its use prior to the Old Testament was in civil and governmental matters and implies the relationship of two parties, not the 44 regional and national churches that comprise the Anglican Communion, or a single document to which each church must subscribe; the Augsburg Confession is just such a document for Lutherans. Perhaps there are now too many Pharisees in the church, like cooks in the kitchen.

In this chapter from Matthew, Jesus is highlighting that the notion of defilement, or ritual impurity, is not a matter of what one eats or where one is/lives, but about what one says and does. Like in Jesus’s other demonstrations, such as his parable of the Good Samaritan or his regular meals with tax collectors, Jesus shows priority for love in the midst of ritual impurity over the avoidance of those things that would cause defilement according to the Law. The Samaritan, considered impure by the Pharisees, based solely on where he lives, helps a man made impure by his situation while two observant Jews left the man there to die. This is Jesus’s radical proposition! He demonstrates for all of us that tradition isn’t a problem—traditionalism is. That some traditions need questioning. Some need to be discussed and re-examined. By physically placing himself in a land that represents impurity, conversing with a woman who is impure by the nature of her home, Jesus questions this very tradition, challenging the puritanical around him. It’s as if he is saying to the Pharisees “You don’t like it that we didn’t wash our hands? Wait and see where we’re going to eat!”

Now, Jesus calls the woman’s faith “great”—33 verses after calling Peter’s faith “little”—not because of who she is or where she comes from, but because of what she feels and says. My heart doesn’t always cause me to spew filth (though occasionally when I’m driving it does), but can motivate loving action. Jesus’s interaction with this woman seems to demonstrate that difference in faith between little and great. His disciples are following him, but she is acting like him. Remember last week, when I said Peter “gets it”. He does. But does he do it? For in their time, it was the disciples’ job to live like their rabbi. They followed him wherever he went, they listened to his teaching, they followed his instruction, and lived like him. Think about Jesus with these followers, wandering all over Palestine. They lived together, ate together, always watching their rabbi for instruction. You know they watched him eat, how he walked, how he spoke to strangers, and were trying to learn how to do that too. You know they’re doing that! But sometimes they are so busy watching that they forget to do! They forget to act! Their heads are in the way. But this woman speaks from her heart with her great faith and Jesus commends her on the spot. Unlike Peter, whose faith wavered and needed to be rescued by Jesus, her faith is strong, regardless of her environment and who is watching her.

We are called to that kind of faith and discipleship. Jesus knew his disciples didn’t get it all right. He didn’t expect them to. He didn’t pick the best scholars, he picked fishermen for a reason. But these examples of great faith served them as they serve us today.

And it is hard to live out that kind of faith and discipleship, isn’t it? Sometimes we have great faith—but don’t act upon it. Sometimes we are such great disciples that we forget to have faith. As we guard and protect our faith, out of love and devotion, of course, we no doubt smother it. I can see how easy it is for the Pharisees (then and now) to object. But Jesus was a boundary pusher, living by faith in God, moved by the Holy Spirit. He knew that a Spirit, active and glory-filled should not be confined by rules of adherence.

These rules included the traditional boundaries of right living and behavior, boundaries of preaching and interpretation, boundaries of worship practice and prayer forms, Jesus pushed all of these boundaries.

Jesus calls us to follow him, live like him, act like him. We should love our traditions that form us and feed us. But what of those boundaries that confine us? What of those things that prevent us from loving God and our neighbor? I have faith that an Anglican Covenant, regardless of what has caused its creation, will be Spirit-led. But I’m also incredibly confident that it will be a means of measurement and a further set of boundaries for our faith.

Instead, we are called by Jesus to look for today’s Tyre and Sidon. We are called to minister to those people rejected because of where and how they live. This is living and loving like Jesus.

Standing up to the wind

Text: Matthew 14:22-33

Our story today picks up from last week with cinematic detail. Jesus disperses the crowds that have just been fed (the Five Thousand + women and children), sends the disciples out in a boat, and walks up a mountain to pray. Suddenly, a storm gathers, Jesus walks on water, is mistaken for a ghost, and the terrified disciples cry out.

A few of us will remember this passage from Vacation Bible School in June in which we learned that Jesus gives us the power to be brave (“Aha!”). The participants had the chance to “walk on water” like Peter did. Bravery is one element in this gospel.

But think about where this takes place: it is immediately following the feeding of the Five Thousand. We know from that gospel from last week that Jesus asked four things of the disciples: collect the food, offer it up to God, distribute the food, and collect the remainder. Jesus’s miraculous act was an expression of God’s relationship to humanity, more than it was a showy display or a requirement of belief. Those two fish and five loaves feed thousands of people with twelve full baskets remaining, one for each disciple to take out into the community.

Think about how that story informs this immediately succeeding gospel. The disciples are sent out into a boat, into the middle of the water. They are separated from both Jesus and their ministry to the people. If they were on an island, that would at least imply stability—they’re in a boat, made vulnerable to the waves, the rain, and the wind. “The wind was against them” it says.

Like the disciples, we often feel like we are out in a boat in the middle of a storm. The very elements seem to be working against us.

Our Western model for dealing with adversity seems to be about overpowering it. Standing firm against it. Daring it to topple us. Standing in the middle of the storm ignoring conditions, yelling at the clouds, daring lightening to strike.

Those elements that make us afraid are everywhere. Many worry about crime, cultural change, numbers, rising costs of upkeep. Many worry about the direction of our local church, diocese, national church, or fear those that sow the seeds of separation. Many worry about budgets, youth, worship style, and music. Many worry about what Mt. Hope or St. Paul’s are doing. Many fear the government, the police, and intelligence agencies. Our environment so readily isolates us, pushing us out to sea—we drift further and further from our ministry partners and God.

Heading into Lambeth this summer, that every-10-years conference in England, attended by all of the bishops of the Anglican Communion, it was expected that this conference would be more wind, more storm. Just as every major meeting was supposed to settle our disagreements for ever, and then failed to do so. And there we were, with the world watching us—all eyes on Canterbury to see how things would fall, cameras poised, mics extended and… we talked. Bishops from all over the communion got together and talked. Even bishops from boycotting provinces were in attendance. Nearly every bishop that was there was giving the conference a shot.

But the issue isn’t really about a conference, communication, or collaboration. It’s about that bravery, isn’t it? Some think that they’re being like Peter when they jump out of the boat. Some think they’re going to walk on water. Or worse, some think the boat’s going in the wrong direction and choose to walk toward Jesus on their own—maybe they join another boat. They believe that they are following the will of God.

It is never that simple.

Jesus appears to the disciples, walking on the water. The very nature of this act is fantastic—but it is God that created the Earth. It is God that formed the rules—gravity, molecular shape, and form—and only God that is beyond those rules. Jesus’s appearance to the disciples is an expression of God. It is an expression of God’s command.

And as he approaches the disciples, Jesus says to them "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." That middle phrase, “it is I” is actually two words: I and AM. This, of course, is the divine revelation, the way God, the Great Mystery, was revealed to Moses in the burning bush: I AM. Jesus reveals to the disciples in visual sign (walking on water) and linguistic cue (I AM) that this moment is divine. It reveals Jesus’s relationship to the Great Mystery.

We may be tempted to push Jesus into that great theological shoebox in which most of us keep him most of the time. We might suggest that he is revealing himself as God, as divine. But that’s an argument for another time. Instead, we see that Jesus is revealing God’s work in the world. Like the Feast of the Transfiguration on Wednesday and last week’s gospel, God’s work is revealed to us by Jesus.

But Peter flips the script: he takes initiative. His love for Jesus and his desire to serve God causes him to try this audacious act. To actually walk on water.

He wants to do it, but he knows that he can’t do it on his own. He’s smart enough to know that. So he makes the audacious request: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He knows he can’t do it alone—he needs God to do it and Jesus has to command him to do it. So Jesus simply says “Come.”

We love courage and audacity and bravery. In Harry Potter, it is the preferred attribute to skill, compassion, and cunning. We expect our leaders to do things we ourselves are reluctant to do. We want other churches to try something out before we invest in it. Bravery is an attribute we seem to reserve for others or for the things we are sure about. The things we are certain about. Maybe that’s why we are so attached to tradition—it was someone else’s bravery.

For the disciples, bravery and faith are the same. To follow Jesus was an expression of valor and courage. For Peter to walk on water, spoke to the way faith in God is formed. So think about what this gospel tells us today about our bravery in faith: Peter’s “little faith” was the most mature of the disciples! Peter got it, but he just got distracted by the wind—the world around him kept his faith in check.

How easy it is for all of us, in our community of little faith, living out our lives of little faith to act like Peter. We’re here aren’t we? We each got up this morning, got ready, and came to church. Like Peter, we are making that request: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” We are taking that audacious step today.

We are making that first move to be in relationship with the Great Mystery. But we don’t always listen for the response, do we? We don’t always listen for that simple command of “come”. We rather think about bills and count the people around us and dream of big churches filled with perfect people.

But the gospel reveals to us that the Great Mystery doesn’t want that kind of faith—it is security in bravery that God cares about. We can easily see the church in that boat, and like the disciples, we can cry and fret and make a stink. But Jesus shows a different way. A way of patience and love. He tells us to not be afraid because God is with us. Be brave because I AM here. Don’t be afraid.

So what do we do? We listen for God’s call to us and then we stand up and…

A generation of possibility

Texts: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“To what will I compare this generation?”

Speaking to a crowd, Jesus calls out the people living in the first quarter century.

Writing a gospel to his community, the evangelist we know as Matthew calls out the people living at the end of the first century.

Proclaiming this gospel in churches all over the country this morning, deacons and priests call out the people living in the 21^st Century.

“To what will I compare this generation?”

Jesus answers his seemingly rhetorical question by saying “children”. And not just children, but children that demand of others and expect gratification.

But we know that he isn’t speaking to the individuals in the crowd exclusively. This condemnation goes toward the whole generation. It is not only universal, but he is talking about the entire system, the entire culture.

This is further reinforced by his use of Son of Man—a signal that he is talking about the Kingdom of God. It is his signal that not only their behavior, but their very culture keeps them from the Kingdom of God.

Jesus gives them an example of the problem: “John fasted and you called him possessed. I didn’t fast and you called me glutton and drunkard.” Petty judgments of each other are not kingdom behaviors, but worse, they impede the revelation of the Kingdom of God.

So, “to what will I compare this generation?”

Are we not still children? Are we not still possessed of the need to judge? Are we not still projecting out this separation from God’s Kingdom?

I am reminded at this time every year that the one holiday that needs to go by its proper name is Independence Day. “The 4^th of July” hides the purpose of a national celebration, instead we wrap it all up in a flag, fireworks, and a nebulous sense of patriotism. Two hundred thirty-two years and two days ago, a small group of people declared their independence from an empire. They incited a revolution against a human king.

This was not manifest destiny. This wasn’t the influence of God because our republic looks nothing like the Kingdom of God. We as a people were not ordained to be God’s new elect.

But we as a people have seen revolution—we know it. We have seen what change looks like. For some, it reveals a host of horrors: a monstrous separation from principles of belief. For others, it is the revelation of deeply rooted desires. Revolutions are nothing if not messy.

Despite this intimacy, this knowledge of revolution, this sense that pervades the very fibers of our national being, we have rejected revolution. We have rejected the principle of overthrowing tyranny for a world of freedom and self-determination. We have rejected the essential component, precursor, and securer of our freedom for comfort, status, and self-promotion. We are children demanding that others dance for our amusement. We are children that cannot understand why others don’t cry at the sight of our tears.

The Episcopal Church’s canons were written alongside the U.S. Constitution. Embedded in our polity and church practice is that sense of revolution and corporate freedom from tyranny. And yet, where is that sense today? Where is that place where we stand up together? But again, we are children, demanding and judging, preferring destruction and self-preservation.

But what does Jesus do after the thorough condemnation in the missing verses from this morning’s gospel, verses 20-24, but pray:

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants

The prayer reveals that God cares for infants—putting the earlier derision on its head—he cares for infants and children.

Stanley Hauerwas points out that

In [First Corinthians] Paul tells us that God chose the cross to ‘destroy the wisdom of the wise.’ Paul directs the Corinthians’ attention to their own selves, pointing out that most of them are not wise by human standards or of noble birth. They were chosen not because they are strong, but because they were, in the world’s eyes, weak and foolish.[1]

Sounds like the disciples to me.

And he continues:

Jesus, like Paul, is not suggesting that we try to be infants, but rather as those engrafted into the kingdom, we in fact are infants. We are just beginners, dependent on Jesus and one another for our very survival…That the deaf, the mute, the blind, the poor, those rendered helpless in the face of suffering, recognize Jesus is not accidental.[2]

Jesus explains to the crowd what living a Kingdom life is like, revealing this commonality of our own status as infants. Our society doesn’t merely break us down between race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability, but between each individual. We are the others. Like on the show Lost. We are our own opposition, othered by a system demanding our separation.

In Jesus, however, we are shown the nature of the Kingdom of God. We are able to witness to a Kingdom that doesn’t support an earthly king, that doesn’t hope for the denigration of all of the disabled and maligned in our culture (which must include our children, youth, and even young adults), but encourages the unthinkable: a revolution.

The revolution that Jesus taught, that Peter and Paul sought, was not a military revolution like those we’ve read about or have known since we were born, no use of guerilla tactics in the city streets and homes of the East Coast, especially in New England. No use of muskets or guns, or guillotines or genocides or mass graves. No military heroes becoming dictators. No foreign nations hoping to make a financial profit due to suffering, destruction, and manipulation. None of these things are in any way associated with this revolution.

And this revolution doesn’t create new laws of oppression and restriction. It doesn’t create a new class of ‘wise and intelligent’ (and wealthy) elites. It doesn’t replace one earthly king with another or even a round table headed by 12 earthly kings.

No, this revolution is different. This revolution is of children: children whose wisdom is faith in God. Children who love one another. Children who refuse to ‘other’ those around them—using laws, money, location, status to separate themselves, to wall off their houses from the kingdom around them.

This new revolution is different because we won’t wall our church off and drive strangers away. All are welcome here. We will encourage our fellow children to love one another by serving one another.

The new revolution is different because the stakes are no longer tied to the current ruling system. We won’t measure success by money or influence or power. We will know the Kingdom of God when we feel it.

The new revolution is different because it may be us.

“To what will I compare this generation?”

Jesus.

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[1] Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006) p. 116.

[2] Ibid.

A reminder on the hand

Texts: Isaiah 49:8-16a, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, and Matthew 6:24-34

“[F]or he who has pity on them will lead them”. That is what the prophet known as 2^nd Isaiah just told us. For he who has pity on them will lead them.

Later in that first lesson, the prophet describes the cries of Zion: "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me." We can see in that cry that 2^nd Isaiah used the divine name, which has been replaced with “The Lord”. It more literally says “YHWH has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”

We are so used to the words Lord and God in caps. We see them and just run over them, ignoring the power in God’s name. “YHWH has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me” Zion cries.

Distance from God was a common element in scripture and it is an element that we can often recognize. It is easy to relate to that lament. We think “God has forsaken us” sometimes.

Other prophetic works are so often interested in the workings of the world that don’t make sense next to our vision of God. From cyclones and war to famine and oppression, we have always had trouble with this. “Where is God in these things?” we ask.

I want to raise up a study that came out a year and a half ago out of Baylor. You may have heard about it. It is called the Baylor Religion Survey. They were looking for church attendance patterns and the shape of American religious life and stumbled upon an interesting discovery.

According to the researchers, there are 4 distinct views of God:

• · 31.4 percent believe in an Authoritarian God, who is very judgmental and engaged
• · 25 percent believe in a Benevolent God, who is not judgmental but engaged
• · 23 percent believe in a Distant God, who is completely removed
• · 16 percent believe in a Critical God, who is judgmental but not engaged[1]

These findings show that about the same number of people think God is judgmental as believe God isn’t.

They also show that fewer than 57% of people think God is engaged in our lives. From the revelation of Mother Theresa’s journals to our own lives, we are able to see examples of worry over a sense of separation.

We have only to look at the marvels of the Torah, those wondrous acts in the first books of the Bible and then look around us to wonder where our age’s displays of power are. Where are these grand, paternal gestures? Where is our Great Father today?

But Isaiah and our psalm give us mother language:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?”

And

“But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother's breast”.

Having witnessed the power of a mother in childbirth, there is nothing that a man can compare to this. This is the real power.

Jesus, like the prophet, reveals that God’s power is most clearly served in creation and support, not destruction and works of grandiosity. He says: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” The care in creation and power inherent to a lily is greater than Solomon, the most authoritarian and grandiose King of Israel.

Isaiah teaches us that God promises to “turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways shall be raised up.” Significant gestures, yes, but nurturing, and supportive gestures.

In our gospel and lessons, God is promising and encouraging and reassuring us of God’s presence among us and also promising the protection and devotion of a mother. The lily reference is preceded by the question: “And why do you worry about clothing?” Jesus then suggests that “if God so clothes the grass of the field” despite their short and seemingly insignificant lives, then “will he not much more clothe you”?

The lesson we had from Isaiah and the gospel from Matthew are clearly intended for different peoples with different issues. But they have a common need—one that has never left humanity from the beginning.

2^nd Isaiah was dealing with the issue of separation and lost hope. She gives voice to God who comforts us: “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” A permanent and vivid reminder.

Matthew depicts Jesus as encouraging his followers to worship God, not culture. He says:

“[D]o not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

But they both reveal something about God and us. We’re worriers. We ignore God. We fear for our lives, our safety, our security, our homes. God, on the other hand tells us time and again to stop worrying and lighten up! God tells us that we are children and that we are loved and supported. God reminds us that our needs are not really our concern—they’re God’s.

“[F]or he who has pity on them will lead them”. Pity is an expression of love. An expression of support. An expression of caring. And mercy. God continuously shows pity and mercy on us. And asks to stop worrying.

I know it’s hard. We pay lip service to it, right? We say, “yeah, I’ll leave it up to God—there’s no use worrying about it.” And then five minutes later, we’re back at it. Maybe we want to believe God, we just don’t want to rely on God—God doesn’t literally pay the electric bill for us, right? We make out that check.

But Jesus’s last statement in the gospel is surprisingly direct: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Jesus, a man who is continuously confounded by his disciples, tirelessly teaching and repeating himself, who is so effortlessly directive, who so easily told a rich man to sell his possessions and follow him gives such a subtle mantra: “Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

He doesn't say "never think about tomorrow", but "do now worry about tomorrow". The grace that Jesus promises is through our lack of worry. God will take care of us. God already does. We know this, not because there is a message on our voice mail: "Hey Drew, this is God; 555-2345. Don't worry about it, I've got this one." We know this because he promised us. For God, a promise is showing comfort. It is reassuring a devastated and conflicted people that they will be nurtured and loved. That they will be cared for and nursed. That we are children. And God says to us "I love you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands."

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[1] Excerpted from the website: http://www.baylor.edu/pr/news.php?action=story&story=41678

Proof

Easter 2A—Text: John 20: 19-31

Love/Hate relationships. We’ve all got ‘em. I have such a relationship with this gospel. This gospel we attribute to a writer we know simply as John. Tradition has held that this was a man that lived a ridiculously long time, was a disciple of Jesus, wrote the least historically accurate gospel, and then decades later was exiled on the island of Patmos where he wrote the Book of Revelation. Oh, and he is the beloved disciple in his own gospel. Our brains know better. We hear these things and I imagine we look like a Lewis Black routine [-exploding head-].

And yet, we love John, anyway. We love the writing—it’s clearly the best written gospel—and we love the imagery. We love the depiction of the distant, transcendent Jesus that has no qualms about his divinity, and has a downright cockiness that we want the Son of God to have.

Unfortunately for us, John, on the other hand, is human. Last week he needed to prove that he (the beloved disciple) is both better than Peter and humbler. He bests him in a footrace, but lets Peter go first. Aw, shucks! What a guy! Look how morally superior he is!

Then you have this week’s gospel which seems to have two very different and very interesting conundrums:

1. Chronology: this gospel shows Jesus’s appearance to the disciples twice and the disciples don’t seem to be expecting him.
   
2. John’s humiliation of Thomas.
   

So, Jesus appears to the disciples twice. And a week apart. Think about that for a second. Last week we rejoiced in the risen Christ, right?—Jesus appears to Mary M. She is to tell the disciples that Jesus will appear to them, Jesus then shows up, though they don’t seem to be expecting him (remember the door is locked). But one of them is missing, so he leaves, comes back a week later as if to say “Is Thomas here yet? Jeeze Louise! Where the hell have you been?” I don’t know what Jesus was doing for that week. None of the other gospels suggest this double return—just John. And the room is locked. And Jesus just sort of…shows up. They look one way and then: “Oh Jesus! You scared me!”—he’s there.

And then there’s Thomas. If we read this gospel as most of us are inclined to—calling the singled-out disciple “Doubting Thomas”—we are led to believe that he is a bad disciple for suggesting that he would like proof—for suggesting that a crazy man standing in front of him could be the risen Christ.

Our favorite obsession is for the proof. This is not an obsession for the truth, mind you, but for the proof of a defined reality. Two high profile stories were in the news over the last few weeks, one you definitely heard about and one you probably didn’t.

The first was the retired black pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, The Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He is the spiritual guide for Sen. Barack Obama, and you no doubt heard the clarion call for the proverbial public execution of this man’s character; on the eve of Holy Week no less. And you probably missed the symbolism of the denigration of his message, a message about our embodying the Kingdom of God all because of a YouTube soundbite. Pastor Wright had the audacity to preach about injustice among us—about how far we are from what God wants from us and from what Jesus taught.

The second is a death row inmate in Georgia named Troy Davis. On March 16th, the Georgia Supreme Court decided in a 4-3 decision not to give Mr. Davis a new trial, after spending the past seventeen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. This was his final appeal and he will soon be executed. The court wasn’t swayed by the rescinded testimonies of virtually everyone that testified against him at trial, including the man who has since confessed to the crime. DNA evidence does not place him at the scene and there is evidence of police tampering and coercion of witnesses. The court is not interested in a current understanding of truth, but in defendingold proof.

Both of these real experiences have a lot to do with racism and fear and injustice and oppression. They deal with our fear of the real truth discussed here—a truth that exists with or without proof.

A truth that flies in the face of how we have been conducting business. But if you’re still not convinced, look at how we react to the Bible, to the historical record, to the tradition—we demand proof. We demand that we see those nails to believe. No doubt when anyone stands up and talks about the human that wrote these words, and that these words are not historically accurate we get scared. We worry about our faith, our tradition, our inherited beliefs, and we even fear for our personal experience with the divine—that it might go away. We are frightened. We are those disciples locking that door, protecting ourselves from the outside world that may attack us. The world won’t execute us for sedition, but to bring facts and findings and questions. It would bombard us with all manner of concern and interest in why we gather each Sunday, what we rattle on about, and why we continue in our arcane worship of a deity that we have colluded in silencing for 1,700 years.

But listen to these words:

"Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Elaine Pagels in her book Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas discusses a first century conflict between two communities of believers: those that followed John and those that followed Thomas. If you have read the Gospel of Thomas, discovered in the middle of the 20th Century, you can see a very physical and Jewish understanding of Jesus—so different from John’s transcendent and powerful Jesus. John’s community was more powerful and John manages to sneak some jabs into his gospel about Thomas, most prominently found in this passage. He knocks Thomas for not being with them, shows up and not believing them, then believes only after touching a physically present Jesus.

But I don’t think that the story is about Thomas needing proof that Jesus was raised, but about the coming work and about the nature of belief in a proof-less post-Easter world. Jesus’s message is still a kingdom-building ministry. He comes to the disciples on Easter to prove to them he was raised and comes again a week later for Thomas. But he is using a living parable—he is showing us the nature of how we believe. He comes to the disciples to prove and gives them the opportunity to help Thomas believe—and he does what any of us do—he demands proof! In using this living parable, we are exposed to what changes in the Jesus Movement when Jesus is not physically present to lead them. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” he says—a blessing not for the apostles, but for those that come after. That includes us!

Jesus offers the grace of God to new followers through the work of the disciples and belief that has nothing to do with proof.

This is the crux of this gospel—and this is the thing that separates us. We watch in our public sphere as politician’s pastors and death row inmates are condemned for public fear of the truth. We watch this, and we ignore how easily we are swayed by so-called proofs: of convincing arguments. Whether it is a phrase extracted from a passionate sermon, or it is the testimonies of people coerced by the police, we latch onto it and we wrap our belief in it.

Proof is the foundation of the Intelligent Design debate in schools (Creationism repackaged) and is also the theme of Richard Dawkins’ attacks on behalf of science—as if the scientific community really wanted him to write The God Delusion. Both sides are arguing over proof—as if this were the foundation of our belief. In a course in Philosophical Theology, it became abundantly clear to me that proofs for the existence of God were just as faulty as proofs against: they all fail. But the truth is that both of these groups are clearly missing the point.

John, in all of his confusing and conflicting writings has given us the most clear understanding of our call to ministry as a church: belief. This doesn’t have anything to do with theology or creeds or recitation of facts or memorization of scripture or the focusing our attention on evangelism, it is about belief despite all these things. It is belief that the Kingdom of God is worthy of our time and that Jesus is a persona worth following. It is about your personal faith and our corporate faith. It is belief that the community gathered brings us to Jesus, not Him to us. It is belief that the Christ risen will help us—save us—and bring us closer to God. Belief is not about existence, it is independent of existence. May we soon believe in God in the same way God believes in us.

United in the same mind and the same purpose

Epiphany 3A—Texts: 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 and Matthew 4:12-25

We talked last week about Andrew, Simon Peter, and the other disciple. We were given John’s description of events, and I hinted at how it was different from Matthew and Mark on this. Today’s gospel is that case. Like two eye-witnesses of a car accident, we have two differing accounts of the calling of the disciples. Who do we believe? Each of us is tempted to bring out the arguments: “One of them has got to be telling the truth—two differing accounts can’t both be right! Better yet, let’s fight about it! Agreeing to disagree is for pansies!”

Conveniently we have an appropriate reading from Paul [that ___________ read to us today], that begins:

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

I do have to tell you that one of the funniest moments in all of our scriptures happens next. [I don’t know if you heard it the first time], so let me try it again:

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)

So, Paul, are you sticking by your first story: none? Because I counted two plus a whole family, which may have included slaves or servants. And you don’t remember if there were anyone else?

For Paul, the issue isn’t the legalism that is associated with baptism, but the very nature of their conflict. This is a conflict that is dividing the group into different camps drawing their authority from different individuals. His appeal is clearly for the end of conflict. He asks “that all of you be in agreement”. But how?

The Church in Corinth is clearly a problem parish for Paul. Both letters have heavy chastising and attempts to clear up problems that have developed while he was gone. In fact, both letters appear to be responses to letters written to him with certain pressing concerns; in this case arising over what today may be construed as difference over the Baptismal Covenant. When we look at the rest of Paul’s writing, it appears as if Corinth is the only parish that is giving him this level of problem.

Today, most of us seem to take after the Corinthians. We argue and bicker and are certain that our view of the church and scripture is right. Sometimes we do this with force and intimidation—we push our brothers and sisters to think and do as we. Sometimes, we do this with more subtlety—we discourage some and encourage the chosen (those who agree).

We notice this is strongest every year in December and January. It’s quite ironic that Christmas and Epiphany, the time of joy, celebration, and embracing newness and the fullness and vibrancy of God, is the time in which the greatest level of stress and concern happens in every parish. St. David’s isn’t immune. Every year, churches evaluate the previous calendar year (not the church calendar, mind you, but the secular one) and develop budgets for the new fiscal year. Every Episcopal Church in the country is having a meeting this month and today is the last day we could do it. It is by law that we have annual meetings in January, and ours is today.

There are predictable points of conflict in every congregation: the budget, pledging, music, Christian education, buildings and grounds. Someone is going to decry the work of a brother or sister in Christ today. We are going to argue about these materials, regardless of what proposals actually say.

When I here Paul’s words: “all of you be in agreement”, I shiver. We can’t all be in agreement. We not only come from different schools, but for some, this means my school is entirely wrong.

I wasn’t here in 2003. Or 2004. I don’t really know how this congregation dealt with adversity and dissent. I wasn’t here. I was at Holy Family, a small family-sized parish in Midland, Michigan. We had one man and one woman that were incredibly and vocally upset that the Rev. V. Gene Robinson was ordained. We had several more that were excited. We had a plurality that said, “OK, where do we go from here”.

But in examining the situation, I have come to the conclusion, that this isn’t a question of liberalism or conservatism, or even orthodoxy, which doesn’t really mean what most of us thinks it does: it is fundamentalism. It is the belief that in any conflict, the only options are to win or to lose and that the only way to win is to make the other lose. We’re all smart people; we know that we don’t only win or lose. Often we sabatoge situations so that we both lose. Sometimes, we both compromise—something Washington (and Lansing) can do really well, or really, really badly. The highest resolution, however, is the Win-Win—where both sides get what they want—without pulling the other down.

This appears to be closer to what Paul is driving at when he said:

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.

And he continues by illustrating those quarrels

What I mean is that each of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

For Paul, no quarrel would be significant enough to reflect a new division of Christ.

And right after his funny who-did-I-baptize bit, he gives us the ultimatum:

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel

For Paul, the gospel is it. The purpose for his ministry—for his life. For all that he is and all that he will be. It is the purpose for those around him, including Chloe and Apollos. Baptism is the entrance rite, while the gospel compels us and brings us together.

The gospel is what compels Paul to encourage the group to stay together. It is what the unity of the Body of Christ is about.

What we can control is us. How we love one another. What each of us brings to this community.

Shortly we will be gathering again in another rite of community that isn’t all that different from what we are about to do. We will share the feast at this table and go out into the Great Hall and share another feast together. We are drawn from all over the Greater Lansing Area to not only worship in this community, but to embody the Holy Spirit within this community. We gather annually to do the business of the church, not because it is dirty work that must be done or because it is uncomfortable (though it often feels that way). We gather because the community gathered is the presence of Christ. We gather annually because it is the only way that we seem to all be in one place at the same time for fellowship and ministry. We meet annually, not because Jesus asked us to, or because we have scriptural reason for it (neither of which we have), but because it is a time when we are altogether “united in the same mind and the same purpose.” In Christ.

Before we leave the church, I suggest we turn in our prayer books to page 102—go ahead; keep your thumbs where we were, but turn to page 102—at the very top of the page is A Prayer of St. Chrysostom. This is one of my favorites, and one I think can help us set the tone for both of the feasts we are about to celebrate. Would you please stand and pray this with me.

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of the them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

Person Matthew 4:12-25

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