Month: August 2013

 

A sermon for the 14^th Sunday after Pentecost

Year C – August 25, 2013

David H. Knight, Priest Associate

 

In the Name of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Fourth Commandment reminds us, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Today’s readings raise for us the question, “How do we keep the Sabbath?” If we are to look back over time, this has been an age old question for God’s people. From the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we heard this morning:

 If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, 
             from pursuing your interests on my holy day;
if you call the Sabbath a delight
            and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
            serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
            and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
            for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

 In this Sunday’s gospel we hear yet another account of Jesus performing a healing on the Sabbath.  The leader of the synagogue, however, was indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath day.  He kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.”

 Today’s readings present you and me with what has been an age old dilemma for God’s people, and that is, how to keep the Sabbath.  How shall you and I keep the Sabbath in our own day?  How well I remember when our four sons were growing up in Winchester.  Our whole family was active in the local soccer league, our boys as soccer players, and Jeannie and I as soccer parents. Those were the days before SUV’s were the vehicle of choice for soccer moms but we had what was the “in” vehicle to have. We had a Dodge minivan.  Soccer league was a great experience as the boys learned good sportsmanship and could expel some of their boundless energy.  Many a weekday evening or Saturday morning found Jeannie and me with other parents cheering them on from the edge of the field.  We always loved it when their team won, yet we supported them when their team lost. Inevitably, however, as the end of season drew near, we prayed especially that in God’s mercy their team would lose as you see the playoffs were usually held on Sunday mornings!  It wasn’t just that ours were clergy kids, but that as a family we tried to keep Sunday as a day different from the rest of the week.  Back in the ‘80’s it was hard enough.  Today it is even more of a challenge. As our society becomes increasingly secular, and as Sunday in our culture has become just another day for so much of our society, it is hard to set time aside in our children’s schedules for Sabbath time. Yet as we look back in history there has long been an effort to preserve the Sabbath.  Today’s struggle is not a new one.  We hear of the Blue Laws in our country enacted to protect Sundays. A look at some of those laws is fascinating, even a bit humorous, to say the very least, and many of these laws remain on the books to this day.  Did you know, for example, that George Washington was threatened with arrest in Maryland because he dared to ride his horse on Sunday? I trust you are aware that it is against the law in Connecticutto kiss your wife on Sundays, and in Massachusettsit’s illegal to eat ice cream in churches on Sundays. So much for Sunday ice cream socials up there at church. In Massachusetts, they really do strive to protect the Sabbath. Imagine this: In Marblehead, one of my favorite seacoast towns, it is illegal to cross a street on Sunday, unless it is absolutely necessary.  The defense for what makes it necessary to cross a street would probably require a lawyer should one have to appear before the judge. While these laws are indeed on the books they are seldom if ever enforced as it would take more effort to repeal them than to ignore them! Oh, did I mention our ownVirginia? It is illegal to engage in business on Sundays with the exception of almost any industry, whatever that might mean.  But even before our country existed there were blue laws in one form or another. Sunday laws go back as far as the Emperor Constantine some seventeen centuries ago.

 Lest we be too hard on the leader in the synagogue in today’s gospel reading for being too legalistic it would be well to remember that those in leadership positions in any time and place, including the church, are supposed to care about the rules because rules are intended to maintain order and decency and to prevent chaos. Jesus, however, challenges the legalism present in his day as he would likewise challenge our abandonment of all Sabbath rules in our own day. His concern was on a much different level. Remember how Jesus answered the leader of the temple?  He said, “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” Of course when he said this, the crowds got it and they rejoiced at all the wonderful things he was doing.  But then, not all were happy with his challenge of the status quo just as not all are today when Jesus calls us to challenge the status of things and strive for justice and peace.

 It seems that God’s people have long struggled with how to keep the Sabbath day appropriately. The prophet Isaiah addressed this matter as we heard this morning as did Jesus in his day. Perhaps these readings still shed light on our path as well today. The people were caught up in pursuing their own purposes that were sometimes not consistent with God’s purposes.  Both Isaiah and Jesus connect observance of the Sabbath with the matter of justice. If you and I ignore God’s purposes for Sabbath, all will not be right in our world. If you and I ignore God’s purposes for us in such things seeking  justice, all will not be right in our world for as Bishop Shannon has just reminded us in these recent days, “In our Baptismal Covenant in the Episcopal Church, we promise to strive for justice and peace among all people.

So how does God call us to observe the Sabbath?  If God calls us to be free from the law, what then are we free to do?  We then become free to rest because as human beings we need rest, a respite from our weekly duties and routines in order to remain healthy, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  We then become free to take time to remember our dependence upon God. The Sabbath is a reminder to us that God is God and we are not God. We then become free to worship in a place and time set apart, in an activity of giving thanks that God values us, not because of what we make, or what we earn, or what we have achieved, but because God has created us and because God loves us.

Remember that woman who Jesus cured on that Sabbath day?  Think of the blessings she must have received in gaining her freedom. She experienced respite finally from the physical and emotional stress of her deformity. She experienced her dependence upon God in the reminder that God, and God alone has the power to bring healing. She also experienced the beauty of a worship experience in the praise that she offered as she stood for the first time in those eighteen years and offered praise and thanksgiving not for what she had accomplished, but what God had done for her.

 Never on Sunday? What are those things we might set aside for another day of the week in order for us to more faithfully observe the Sabbath?  What might this day mean for us who lead busy lives in a world with demands pressing in on every side? How might this Sabbath be God’s gift to you and to me?  Something that Kim Glenn said in her sermon from this pulpit last week merits our reflection once again.  She asked, “What about us? . . . Do we pay more attention to our soccer or golf games than we do to prayer?” And she asked another important question: “Do we give as much time to our spiritual discipline as we give to our work or social schedule?”

Perhaps these ancient readings we have heard again this morning still have the power to shed light upon our path.  How shall you and I keep the Sabbath in our own day?

 Recently, I have been rereading a book written by the late Jesse M. Trotter who was the dean of Virginia Seminary when I first entered VTS. After he concluded his tenure as dean he remained on the faculty where he had a profound influence upon a whole generation of seminarians. Later, in 1982, he wrote a book titled Christian Wholeness, Spiritual Direction for today. I share with you something he wrote in that book which once again, I have found to be helpful to me.  I hope this might be helpful to you as well.  He writes,

 “We must affirm and reaffirm our commitments. Whether our commitment begins with a leap of faith or with a suspension of disbelief, when that commitment is finally made, we must recognize a necessity which is due to our weakness.  Commitment to Christ is not something done once and for all, something to which we never need return to give further attention.  Quite the contrary, ever and again we find that we must reflect upon, accept afresh and reaffirm our commitment.”

 These words of Jesse Trotter’s speak to many dimensions of our spiritual journeys and certainly to the matter of keeping the Sabbath. This day that you and I are given to be here for worship is one of God’s gifts to us. How will you and I accept and use this Sabbath day and the ones to come? As we pray in that Collect for Sundays found in the Prayer Book,

 O God, who makest us glad with the weekly remembrance of the glorious resurrection of thy Son our Lord: Grant us this day such blessing through our worship of thee, that the days to come may be spent in thy favor; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Sermon for the 13th  Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 15 – Year C – August 18, 2013 

Kim Baker Glenn, Master of Divinity, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Loving God, Give us the grace to know your Son such that our words and our ways may be daily more like His. Amen

 

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son and son against father,
mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
                                                                                                                          – Luke 12:49-56

 
Those were unsettling words that you just heard in the Gospel reading this morning. Words about fire and division are not the kind of words we like to hear in church, or anywhere else for that matter. But those words take me back to some words that I heard recently from Father James Martin. Father Martin is a Jesuit priest who is fairly widely known for his column on religion that he writes for the Huffington Post Online. I heard him interviewed one morning a couple of weeks ago on a morning news show. The co-hosts had asked him about the new Pope, Pope Francis. They wondered whether Father Martin thought that Pope Francis might have stirred things up when he announced his inclusive feelings about homosexuals. Pope Francis had said about them, “Who am I to judge?” Father Martin said on the morning show that he personally hoped Pope Francis was indeed stirring things up. After all, he said, that’s what Jesus did. Father Martin went further and said that all of us need to be stirred up by Jesus -every day!

 I agree with Fr. Martin. So my job this morning, as I see it, is not to smooth over the words we just heard from Luke’s gospel but to unpack those words so that you might understand just where Jesus was coming from when he said them.

So let me start unpacking that scripture by saying that in his gospel Luke has been strategically building up this point. He has been taking his audience on a life-changing journey with Jesus and his disciples. This journey has been an instructive one so far, offering parables and teaching moments for the disciples to learn just what Jesus expected of them. Just as Luke’s audience of first century hearers heard the teachings as guidelines for following Christ, we hear it similarly today.

Since we are stepping into the disciples’ journey, albeit from a distance, we should consider all that a journey can be. I have learned from experience that it is wise to sit back and stay alert when I am on a journey. There is likely to be a lot to take in along the way. To get the most out of this journey with Jesus, I’ve been thinking about some journeys I’ve taken in my life. Pictures that a friend posted recently of her trip to Glacier National Park reminded me of my own journey their a few years ago.

 The mountains of the northwest United States were a complete mystery to me until I went to Glacier Park. Being more used to exploring the Blue Ridge and the Appalachians, I found the scenery of the Glaciers breathtakingly stunning. Especially on the Going-to-the Sun-Road. If you haven’t been there, that is a road inside the park that takes the traveler from the base of the mountains to the top of the peaks. It is utterly unbelievable. It is so beautiful that you feel inspired to pull over every hundred or so yards just to look at the unusual flora and fauna more closely. It’s slow going because you just have to pull over and stop so many times! The only way to do a journey like that justice is to intentionally slow down and try to absorb each moment.

Most journeys are not as extraordinary as that trip was. Most “journeys” are frankly very mundane and take place in our daily routines. When traveling or doing errands around town, it is easy to set one’s sites on point A and point B and just get the job done. I think we all tend to either ignore or try hard just to tolerate the stuff in between. We run into traffic, rude people, waiting lines, stoplights – they can make traveling a nuisance. Or we might run into people we know and start chatting and find ourselves way off of our schedules. In our culture today, every minute counts! We have tight schedules to keep.

It was different for Jesus’ disciples on this journey. They wanted to go with him even though they didn’t know where it would lead them. When they started, they did not know where Point B was or when they would get there. That was not their concern. Their concern was spending time with this rabbi, this teacher who seemed to know so much about life.  Along the way they would learn a new way of living. Or, at least, that was the hope.

 The journey they were on with Jesus was disguised as a hike, a trek from place to place, village to city in Palestine. And they did actually walk and talk and meet people along the way. But this journey was a whole lot more than going from Point A to Point B across Palestine. Instead of going in one direction towards Point B, they were growing in many dimensions between Point A and Point B. Each of the disciples was growing in faith, love and knowledge on their way to Jerusalem. On this journey they were being transformed. They were being changed from people who struggled to adhere to laws and legalisms into people who strived to create and sustain relationships – with each other, their neighbor and God. Point A, where they started on this journey, is the Law of Moses, Point B, where they will arrive on this journey, is a full life in Christ.

 The disciples were called to follow Jesus one by one. They were not all assembled together, like we are assembled in this place, when he called them. But if they had been, he could have prepared them for what lay ahead saying, “Now listen, guys, have a seat. I’m going to take you on a journey. It is going to be the journey of a lifetime, so pay attention to everything and I do mean everything along the way. Notice the people I introduce you to, put some thought into figuring out why I’m introducing them. Notice everything I do and everything I say. Think about it at night before you go to sleep, think it about it when you wake up and carry the thoughts with you throughout the day. This is important stuff we are doing here. We are going to change the world!”

Some of us, too, have chosen to follow along on this journey by studying scripture. Some of us follow by trying our best to lead a good life, an ethical life that takes into account “what would Jesus do?”. Wouldn’t it be nice if all of us could be told at various stops along our journeys to “listen up!,” “Pay attention!,” “This is something you need to really take in!”?

Apparently, the disciples were not given cues like these either. As the story has been given to us in the Gospel account, each important lesson that Jesus taught seemed to catch the disciples off guard. They did not know what to make of the teachings or Jesus at first. They had to learn to pay attention; with open eyes, open ears and open hearts. In each teachable moment, the disciples had a chance to visualize more clearly what God’s kingdom, the coming kingdom, would look like.

But even though the opportunity to see more clearly was right in front of them, they vision remained vague. They did not comprehend what Jesus was trying to teach them. They really wanted to understand what was happening, but the parables that Jesus used to teach them were not working. The way the disciples communicated ideas was like the way children express them in our culture today. Hebrew language and Hebrew context is literal with a sense of “that’s all there is.” You know how it is. You might say to a child, “The future is like blue skies.” And the child says, “Why?”

Kind of a conversation stopper isn’t it. Every thing you say prompts another, “Why?” And it goes on and on. Well, in the same way, the disciples’ persistent failure-to-perceive wore on Jesus’ nerves. He was human just like you and me! He was vulnerable to the same kind of frustrations that we are. And so when he reached the end of his rope and they got on his last nerve, he said to them in complete exasperation, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.”          

You might remember that John the Baptist forewarned that Jesus would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. But why fire? Fire can be destructive and devastating. It can hurt! Don’t we have a merciful and good God, one who would want us to be safe and not suffer?

I believe that our God is merciful. But God is also omniscient. God knew his people and God knew, as the prophets of old had said, that these people were stiff necked and had hearts of stone. God sent Jesus in order to transform them. He sent Jesus because he wanted them to know that he wants a relationship with his people now; he wants us to know that he is with us now – in this earthly realm. Jesus needed fire because fire was what was required to get the job of transformation done. Fire could melt stone cold hearts and allow them to be re-formed.

Of course, we know that at the end of this journey Jesus was headed for his own fire, of sorts; a baptism of fire that would come when he faced the rulers who feared his power. The rulers in first century Palestine feared Jesus’ power because it was power that came from within. It was not the kind of power they had expected that came from wealth or weapons. Jesus had the power of authentic and audacious love. The rulers knew the only way to annihilate Jesus’ power was to take his life – or at least that is what they thought. What a surprise it must have been for them when they took his life that day on the cross. What they had actually done by ending his earthly life was to set Jesus’ power free. They unleashed his power from the bonds of his human body so that through that power he became Christ – a power greater than ever before.

 Before all that happened though, Jesus had some teaching to do. He accused his followers of being hypocrites because he saw that they could accurately analyze things like the weather but seemed completely unable to perceive the signs of the spirit.

 What about us? Are we hypocrites too? Do we pay more attention to our mah-jong or bridge games; our soccer or golf games than we do to prayer? Do we give as much time to our spiritual discipline as we give to our work or social schedule? I think if we are honest, we have to admit that none of us gives God enough of our time. We are not yet fully the people that God longs for us to be. But we have a way to become that people; God’s people. We need to start at Point A, who we are today, and then grow in faith, love and knowledge in order to arrive at Point B, the people that God desires for us to be. Like the disciples, we too can be transformed.

  What Jesus knew but couldn’t seem to get through to the disciples needs to be made clear to us this morning. Jesus IS the fire of transformation. We all need to rekindle that fire in our lives and allow it to refine and reform us. Join me on the journey where the disciples left off. Let’s start today at Point A. Amen.

A Sermon for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 14 -Year C – August 11, 2013
by Eleanor Lee Wellford, Associate Rector

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old– and Sarah herself was barren– because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.                                                   

                                                                                                            -Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

 

Have you ever tried to define the word “faith”?  It isn’t easy.  Sometimes I think it may be easier to define it by example or action rather than by words.  The part of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that we heard this morning describes faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  It certainly sounds good but I’m not exactly sure what it means. 

When my fellow students and I would run across difficult theological words in seminary, our professors would help us – as they would say-  “unpack” them; words such as “righteousness” and “justification” and “redemption”.  And one way we would do that was by looking at the words in their original language as well as how they were used in different English translations.

 We could do that with the word “faith” starting with most people’s favorite translation: the King James Version.  It describes “faith” in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews as “the substance (instead of assurance) of things hoped for, and the evidence (instead of the conviction) of things not seen.” That’s a slightly different twist. 

  The Message is a translation of the Bible in contemporary language.  It translates Paul’s definition of faith as “the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.  It’s our handle on what we can’t see.”  That’s a very different twist.  What I come away with is that there is more to life than what we can see or experience on our own and enough evidence of that to keep us hopeful that we are loved and not left on our own.

I think Paul knew how difficult it was to define faith which is why he then gave examples of acts of faith with which his listeners, the Hebrews, would have been familiar.  For example, Paul wrote that by an act of faith, Abraham said “Yes” to God’s call to travel to an unknown place because he trusted God’s promise that it would become his home.  By an act of faith Sarah was able to conceive a child even though she was long past the age when this would normally have happened because she trusted God’s promise to make Abraham’s direct descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky. 

Even though we didn’t hear it as part of any specific translation, it sounds as if trust is an important part of faith.  And if that’s the case, what is it that we have to trust in order to have faith?  That’s a question that is explored in a popular book called The Shack, (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, 2007) written by William P. Young.  It’s fiction based on the author’s real-life journey of faith.  He tells the story through a character named Mack – a married father of 5 children who searches to find meaning in his life after his youngest child, 6-year old Missy, is abducted and killed during a family camping trip. 

In the midst of what the author refers to as the Great Sadness which overwhelmed him in the aftermath of his loss, Mack is invited to spend the weekend at a secluded cabin, or shack, in the middle of the woods.  His hosts are none other than God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Not knowing whether his encounter with the Trinity occurs in a dream or in some kind of afterlife or in a fit of madness, Mack reluctantly opens himself up to the possibility of discovering something that can help him from drowning in sorrow.

 What he is struck by immediately is the beauty of the relationship that is the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the circle of love that they share equally; the trust that binds them implicitly.  Mack wants that for himself, but finds himself unable to let go of his pain long enough to trust that that is what God wants for him as well.  He struggles with where God is in the midst of his sorrow and in the brokenness that Mack sees in his world.  I think it’s a question we’ve all wondered about and whether we ascribe to the author’s particular theology or not, it at least gives us something to think about.

 So during breakfast on Saturday morning, God explores this question with Mack by saying: “You humans try to make sense of your world based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality.  It’s like watching a parade through a tiny (keyhole or) knothole of hurt and pain.  (That’s why you have such a hard time trusting me which then makes you doubt my goodness and increases your pain.)  If you knew I was good and that everything (that happens) is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me.  But you don’t.” (p.128).

Mack answered by finally stating what had tormented him every day of the Great Sadness: “If you couldn’t take care of Missy” Mack said, “how can I trust you to take care of me?  If you loved Missy as you say you do, you wouldn’t have let her go through that horror.  She was innocent.  She didn’t do anything to deserve that. I might have, but she didn’t.” (p. 92).

 “Is that what kind of God you think I am, Mack – a punishing God?  It’s no wonder you are drowning in your sorrow.  I’m not like that and this is not my doing.  What happened to Missy was the work of evil and no one in your world is immune from it.  If you could stop judging me when evil things happen that you don’t understand and know me for who I am, then you would be able to embrace me in the midst of your pain instead of pushing me away” (paraphrased p. 164).

“I don’t know how to change that” admitted Mack.  “You can’t” replied God.  “Not alone, anyway.  But together we will watch that change take place in a relationship of love.  Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved.  And I do love you” (p. 126).  As the weekend progressed, a change took place in Mack and the Great Sadness that had separated him from God for so long slowly began to dissipate. 

So what is it that Mack learned about faith and trust that can benefit us?  I think he learned about the goodness of God and the relationship of “love and joy and freedom and light” (p. 124) that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit want to be in with us.   I think he also learned that our measure of goodness even when it comes to God, is flawed because the standards by which we judge something as being good or not, are flawed.  For example, I used to think it was “good” to go sit in the sun.  My standard of judgment was how it made me look and feel and that our culture valued a tan.  Now I know that prolonged sun exposure is “bad” for me because my standard of judgment has changed to what medical research says.

So, what would happen if we stopped judging goodness on our own flawed terms and trusted God as our ultimate standard of goodness?  Then, as it was explained to Mack, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit would be a part of our lives in a way that we would no longer fear nor feel the need to control what we can’t understand.  And we would know with our whole heart that we are truly loved. (paraphrased) 

And perhaps that’s the best and simplest definition of faith – trust in the absolute goodness and unending nature of God’s love – for us and for all of God’s creation.  As hard as we try, I don’t think that’s anything that we can understand with our intellect.  It’s something that happens when we are ready for that to happen as Abraham and Sarah were and as Mack finally was.  It’s a turn of the heart at its deepest level in God’s direction. 

It couldn’t have been more clearly stated than in the Psalm that we read together this morning.  “Our soul waits for The Lord; he is our help and our shield.  Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, for in his holy name we put our trust.  Let your (goodness), O Lord, be upon us, as we have put our trust in you” (Psalm 33: 20-22).   Amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proper 14: August 11, 2013

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

“Faith Defined”

 

 

        Have you ever tried to define the word “faith”?  It isn’t easy.  Sometimes I think it may be easier to define it by example or action rather than by words.  The part of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that we heard this morning describes faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  It certainly sounds good but I’m not exactly sure what it means. 

 

         When my fellow students and I would run across difficult theological words in seminary, our professors would help us – as they would say-  “unpack” them; words such as “righteousness” and “justification” and “redemption”.  And one way we would do that was by looking at the words in their original language as well as how they were used in different English translations.

          We could do that with the word “faith” starting with most people’s favorite translation: the King James Version.  It describes “faith” in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews as “the substance (instead of assurance) of things hoped for, and the evidence (instead of the conviction) of things not seen.” That’s a slightly different twist. 

 

          The Message is a translation of the Bible in contemporary language.  It translates Paul’s definition of faith as “the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.  It’s our handle on what we can’t see.”  That’s a very different twist.  What I come away with is that there is more to life than what we can see or experience on our own and enough evidence of that to keep us hopeful that we are loved and not left on our own.

 

          I think Paul knew how difficult it was to define faith which is why he then gave examples of acts of faith with which his listeners, the Hebrews, would have been familiar.  For example, Paul wrote that by an act of faith, Abraham said “Yes” to God’s call to travel to an unknown place because he trusted God’s promise that it would become his home.  By an act of faith Sarah was able to conceive a child even though she was long past the age when this would normally have happened because she trusted God’s promise to make Abraham’s direct descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky. 

 

          Even though we didn’t hear it as part of any specific translation, it sounds as if trust is an important part of faith.  And if that’s the case, what is it that we have to trust in order to have faith?  That’s a question that is explored in a popular book called The Shack, (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, 2007) written by William P. Young.  It’s fiction based on the author’s real-life journey of faith.  He tells the story through a character named Mack – a married father of 5 children who searches to find meaning in his life after his youngest child, 6-year old Missy, is abducted and killed during a family camping trip. 

 

          In the midst of what the author refers to as the Great Sadness which overwhelmed him in the aftermath of his loss, Mack is invited to spend the weekend at a secluded cabin, or shack, in the middle of the woods.  His hosts are none other than God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Not knowing whether his encounter with the Trinity occurs in a dream or in some kind of afterlife or in a fit of madness, Mack reluctantly opens himself up to the possibility of discovering something that can help him from drowning in sorrow.

 

          What he is struck by immediately is the beauty of the relationship that is the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the circle of love that they share equally; the trust that binds them implicitly.  Mack wants that for himself, but finds himself unable to let go of his pain long enough to trust that that is what God wants for him as well.  He struggles with where God is in the midst of his sorrow and in the brokenness that Mack sees in his world.  I think it’s a question we’ve all wondered about and whether we ascribe to the author’s particular theology or not, it at least gives us something to think about.

 

          So during breakfast on Saturday morning, God explores this question with Mack by saying: “You humans try to make sense of your world based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality.  It’s like watching a parade through a tiny (keyhole or) knothole of hurt and pain.  (That’s why you have such a hard time trusting me which then makes you doubt my goodness and increases your pain.)  If you knew I was good and that everything (that happens) is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me.  But you don’t.” (p.128).

 

          Mack answered by finally stating what had tormented him every day of the Great Sadness: “If you couldn’t take care of Missy” Mack said, “how can I trust you to take care of me?  If you loved Missy as you say you do, you wouldn’t have let her go through that horror.  She was innocent.  She didn’t do anything to deserve that. I might have, but she didn’t.” (p. 92).

 

          “Is that what kind of God you think I am, Mack – a punishing God?  It’s no wonder you are drowning in your sorrow.  I’m not like that and this is not my doing.  What happened to Missy was the work of evil and no one in your world is immune from it.  If you could stop judging me when evil things happen that you don’t understand and know me for who I am, then you would be able to embrace me in the midst of your pain instead of pushing me away” (paraphrased p. 164).

          “I don’t know how to change that” admitted Mack.  “You can’t” replied God.  “Not alone, anyway.  But together we will watch that change take place in a relationship of love.  Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved.  And I do love you” (p. 126).  As the weekend progressed, a change took place in Mack and the Great Sadness that had separated him from God for so long slowly began to dissipate. 

          So what is it that Mack learned about faith and trust that can benefit us?  I think he learned about the goodness of God and the relationship of “love and joy and freedom and light” (p. 124) that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit want to be in with us.   I think he also learned that our measure of goodness even when it comes to God, is flawed because the standards by which we judge something as being good or not, are flawed.  For example, I used to think it was “good” to go sit in the sun.  My standard of judgment was how it made me look and feel and that our culture valued a tan.  Now I know that prolonged sun exposure is “bad” for me because my standard of judgment has changed to what medical research says.

 

          So, what would happen if we stopped judging goodness on our own flawed terms and trusted God as our ultimate standard of goodness?  Then, as it was explained to Mack, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit would be a part of our lives in a way that we would no longer fear nor feel the need to control what we can’t understand.  And we would know with our whole heart that we are truly loved. (paraphrased) 

 

          And perhaps that’s the best and simplest definition of faith – trust in the absolute goodness and unending nature of God’s love – for us and for all of God’s creation.  As hard as we try, I don’t think that’s anything that we can understand with our intellect.  It’s something that happens when we are ready for that to happen as Abraham and Sarah were and as Mack finally was.  It’s a turn of the heart at its deepest level in God’s direction.

 

          It couldn’t have been more clearly stated than in the Psalm that we read together this morning.  “Our soul waits for The Lord; he is our help and our shield.  Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, for in his holy name we put our trust.  Let your (goodness), O Lord, be upon us, as we have put our trust in you” (Psalm 33: 20-22).   Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proper 14: August 11, 2013

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

“Faith Defined”

 

 

        Have you ever tried to define the word “faith”?  It isn’t easy.  Sometimes I think it may be easier to define it by example or action rather than by words.  The part of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that we heard this morning describes faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  It certainly sounds good but I’m not exactly sure what it means. 

 

         When my fellow students and I would run across difficult theological words in seminary, our professors would help us – as they would say-  “unpack” them; words such as “righteousness” and “justification” and “redemption”.  And one way we would do that was by looking at the words in their original language as well as how they were used in different English translations.

          We could do that with the word “faith” starting with most people’s favorite translation: the King James Version.  It describes “faith” in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews as “the substance (instead of assurance) of things hoped for, and the evidence (instead of the conviction) of things not seen.” That’s a slightly different twist. 

 

          The Message is a translation of the Bible in contemporary language.  It translates Paul’s definition of faith as “the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.  It’s our handle on what we can’t see.”  That’s a very different twist.  What I come away with is that there is more to life than what we can see or experience on our own and enough evidence of that to keep us hopeful that we are loved and not left on our own.

 

          I think Paul knew how difficult it was to define faith which is why he then gave examples of acts of faith with which his listeners, the Hebrews, would have been familiar.  For example, Paul wrote that by an act of faith, Abraham said “Yes” to God’s call to travel to an unknown place because he trusted God’s promise that it would become his home.  By an act of faith Sarah was able to conceive a child even though she was long past the age when this would normally have happened because she trusted God’s promise to make Abraham’s direct descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky. 

 

          Even though we didn’t hear it as part of any specific translation, it sounds as if trust is an important part of faith.  And if that’s the case, what is it that we have to trust in order to have faith?  That’s a question that is explored in a popular book called The Shack, (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, 2007) written by William P. Young.  It’s fiction based on the author’s real-life journey of faith.  He tells the story through a character named Mack – a married father of 5 children who searches to find meaning in his life after his youngest child, 6-year old Missy, is abducted and killed during a family camping trip. 

 

          In the midst of what the author refers to as the Great Sadness which overwhelmed him in the aftermath of his loss, Mack is invited to spend the weekend at a secluded cabin, or shack, in the middle of the woods.  His hosts are none other than God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Not knowing whether his encounter with the Trinity occurs in a dream or in some kind of afterlife or in a fit of madness, Mack reluctantly opens himself up to the possibility of discovering something that can help him from drowning in sorrow.

 

          What he is struck by immediately is the beauty of the relationship that is the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the circle of love that they share equally; the trust that binds them implicitly.  Mack wants that for himself, but finds himself unable to let go of his pain long enough to trust that that is what God wants for him as well.  He struggles with where God is in the midst of his sorrow and in the brokenness that Mack sees in his world.  I think it’s a question we’ve all wondered about and whether we ascribe to the author’s particular theology or not, it at least gives us something to think about.

 

          So during breakfast on Saturday morning, God explores this question with Mack by saying: “You humans try to make sense of your world based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality.  It’s like watching a parade through a tiny (keyhole or) knothole of hurt and pain.  (That’s why you have such a hard time trusting me which then makes you doubt my goodness and increases your pain.)  If you knew I was good and that everything (that happens) is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me.  But you don’t.” (p.128).

 

          Mack answered by finally stating what had tormented him every day of the Great Sadness: “If you couldn’t take care of Missy” Mack said, “how can I trust you to take care of me?  If you loved Missy as you say you do, you wouldn’t have let her go through that horror.  She was innocent.  She didn’t do anything to deserve that. I might have, but she didn’t.” (p. 92).

 

          “Is that what kind of God you think I am, Mack – a punishing God?  It’s no wonder you are drowning in your sorrow.  I’m not like that and this is not my doing.  What happened to Missy was the work of evil and no one in your world is immune from it.  If you could stop judging me when evil things happen that you don’t understand and know me for who I am, then you would be able to embrace me in the midst of your pain instead of pushing me away” (paraphrased p. 164).

          “I don’t know how to change that” admitted Mack.  “You can’t” replied God.  “Not alone, anyway.  But together we will watch that change take place in a relationship of love.  Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved.  And I do love you” (p. 126).  As the weekend progressed, a change took place in Mack and the Great Sadness that had separated him from God for so long slowly began to dissipate. 

          So what is it that Mack learned about faith and trust that can benefit us?  I think he learned about the goodness of God and the relationship of “love and joy and freedom and light” (p. 124) that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit want to be in with us.   I think he also learned that our measure of goodness even when it comes to God, is flawed because the standards by which we judge something as being good or not, are flawed.  For example, I used to think it was “good” to go sit in the sun.  My standard of judgment was how it made me look and feel and that our culture valued a tan.  Now I know that prolonged sun exposure is “bad” for me because my standard of judgment has changed to what medical research says.

 

          So, what would happen if we stopped judging goodness on our own flawed terms and trusted God as our ultimate standard of goodness?  Then, as it was explained to Mack, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit would be a part of our lives in a way that we would no longer fear nor feel the need to control what we can’t understand.  And we would know with our whole heart that we are truly loved. (paraphrased) 

 

          And perhaps that’s the best and simplest definition of faith – trust in the absolute goodness and unending nature of God’s love – for us and for all of God’s creation.  As hard as we try, I don’t think that’s anything that we can understand with our intellect.  It’s something that happens when we are ready for that to happen as Abraham and Sarah were and as Mack finally was.  It’s a turn of the heart at its deepest level in God’s direction.

 

          It couldn’t have been more clearly stated than in the Psalm that we read together this morning.  “Our soul waits for The Lord; he is our help and our shield.  Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, for in his holy name we put our trust.  Let your (goodness), O Lord, be upon us, as we have put our trust in you” (Psalm 33: 20-22).   Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Sermon for the 11^th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 13 – Year B – 4 August 2013

John Edward Miller, Rector

 

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

                                                                                                                            -Luke 12:13-21

 

The Collect

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 In 1936 George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart scored a major Broadway hit with their three-act comedy, “You Can’t Take it With You.”[1] The play focused on two families with radically different values – particularly when it came to the question of what makes life worth living. The Sycamore household, which includes three generations of New Yorkers, is a slightly mad menagerie of characters that follow their bliss in a variety of ventures, including the arts and home-produced pyrotechnics. They make no money, and they remain incompetent, in their fields. Nevertheless they are happy, and they love each other and the life they are leading, regardless of how wacky it appears to others. By contrast the Kirby family is deeply committed to the pursuit of wealth, the achievement of recognizable status, and the accumulation of possessions. They are remarkably unhappy and fixated on material signs of success. But despite the obvious disconnect between their means and their uncomfortable end, they persist in doing what they’ve always done, namely becoming rich in things.

So, the Kirbys and the Sycamores are at opposite ends of the spectrum, financially, socially, and philosophically. The two families intersect when the Kirbys’ son Tony, the heir apparent to their fortune, falls head over heels in love with the Sycamores’ daughter Alice. Tony wants to marry Alice, but she is worried that their two families are hopelessly incompatible. He presses for an engagement, and proposes that the Kirbys come to the Sycamores’ home for dinner. The evening is one disaster after another. Alice is mortified, and she informs Tony that she plans to leave home and strike out on her own. He tries to convince her that their marriage can work simply on the basis of love. But Alice cannot see across the great divide between the families.

When Mr. Kirby arrives at the Sycamores’ to retrieve his errant son, he gets more than he originally bargained for. Tony and he argue over intra-family differences, and then Tony confesses that he had deliberately brought his parents to the Sycamores’ on the wrong evening. He wanted both groups to see one another as they are, not as staged and well-rehearsed players. Old Grandpa Vanderhoff, who walked away from a life of making money, and who has decided not to pay income tax to the government, now weighs-in to convince Mr. Kirby that he is wasting his life doing what he doesn’t enjoy in the search for monetary riches. Concerning the confrontation with Tony, Grandpa says:

 Maybe it’ll stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use? You can’t take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends.

Mr. Kirby resists, but is eventually persuaded that in spite of their nonconformist ways, the Sycamores understand that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” The thing that makes life worth living is loving and being loved.

Malcolm Forbes did not believe that. He lived by the motto: He who dies with the most toys, wins. When he died at age 70 in 1990, Forbes’ wealth was estimated as between 400 million and 1.25 billion dollars. His obituary stated that at the time of his death

he owned eight homes, including Timberfield, the 40-acre Far Hills, N.J., estate where he died in his sleep on Feb. 24; a palace in Tangier, Morocco; a chateau in Normandy; and the island of Lauthala in Fiji, where Forbes had directed his ashes be buried under a marker with the epitaph WHILE ALIVE, HE LIVED. In addition to the family’s feisty business magazine, which media analysts estimate may be worth as much as $600 million, Forbes also held 400 square miles of real estate, 2,200 paintings and 12 Russian Imperial Faberge eggs, more than even the Soviet government.[2]

 That description of opulence is conservative. He certainly had a lot of toys. But did he “win” life’s prize because he possessed these things? Apparently Forbes thought so, as did many of his admirers who attended his funeral at St. Bartholomew’s Church and a lavish reception afterward in the silk-stocking district of Manhattan. And yet, despite his friendships with Elizabeth Taylor, Donald Trump, motorcyclists, collectors, and a host of other scions of society, Forbes died alone in his superbly appointed mansion.  His aim to live life to the fullest gained him fame as well as infamy. He had certainly made his mark in material terms; however, did he leave this world richer for his presence? For it is the world that God so loved that he gave his only-begotten son. It is the world that is so fragile that it must be handled with utmost care. It is the world that is so precious, because it contains God’s creatures that are dying to love and be loved. When considered against this benchmark, the whole notion of judging the worth an individual’s life with respect to winning or losing is irrelevant, if not absurd. 

In today’s text from the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus is asked to arbitrate a dispute between two brothers. The point of contention was the division of a family inheritance. It is not said whether the plaintiff was a younger brother, but that would make sense. In a patriarchal culture the older of two sons was often the recipient of the estate of his parents. We also do not know the background of this urgency to get at the money. Was the other brother refusing to share? We can’t be sure. What we do know, however, is that Jesus sensed the man’s desire to claim a portion of the inheritance for himself, And that triggered his reply to the claimant and to the crowd:     

“Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

Jesus proceeded to illustrate this message by telling them a parable about the rich man who had such an overabundance of crops that he fretted what to do with them. The wealthy, but anxious farmer, then had an “aha!” moment. His brilliant idea was to pull down his existing barns and build newer, larger ones to house his superfluous gains. The farmer was so proud of his stroke of genius that he patted himself on the back, saying that he would now have more than enough to remain wealthy for many years. Resting on his laurels he offered an Epicurean toast to self-indulgence: “relax, eat, drink, and be merry!” That last expression was clearly not what Jesus would do, because his parable has God blast the farmer, calling him foolish, in that he was about to meet his Maker that very night, leaving his riches to rot in their brand spanking new barns.

The episode ends with a word of wisdom from Jesus. He said, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

The things that have priceless value can’t be stored in barns – things like affection, kindness, honor, trust, care, belief, respect, understanding, support, forgiveness, being heard, being wanted, and being loved, to name but a few of the greatest assets in life. When Jesus spoke of being “rich toward God” he was referring to these rare, but essential gifts. They are grace – grace in many forms, each having the power to give life, to redeem life, to sustain life.

In another context Jesus spoke to his disciples about sources of wealth that fade, or disappoint, or fail. It was in his Sermon on the Mount that he said:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.[3]

Treasures on earth, like the crops in the farmer’s big barns, are fleeting, and subject to deviousness and decay. And you can’t take them with you when “the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.”[4] When it comes to money, material possessions, portfolios, estates, control, authority, responsibility, education, and the like, prudence tells us that such things do not transfer into the next life. The Egyptian pharaohs tried, and they spent decades preparing great tombs bedecked with every possible sign of wealth and nobility surrounding their mummified, carefully wrapped bodies. Too bad for them! Not only did their plans for preservation break down, but wily thieves outsmarted security systems and made off with most of the loot. Just considering the folly of that example should reinforce the wisdom that you can’t take it with you.

Besides, the treasures that make life worth living cannot be earned, bought, accumulated, horded, or sold, anyway. All of the essential values mentioned before are people-oriented; they are born and nurtured in relationships, especially those based on the love that we experience in Jesus Christ. They come to us as pure grace, and they endure, because God is able to remember them and preserve them in eternity. These are treasures that make us rich toward one another and toward God. In short, you can take them with you. They abide in God’s gift of a “safe lodging, and holy rest, and peace at the last.”[5]

This is not to suggest that material wealth is a problem per se. According to Jesus, it’s one’s relationship to it that can go awry. Grace-based wealth – the kind that reaches its zenith in the values of faith, hope, and love – can inform us and guide us in the appropriate uses of material wealth. When we are rich toward God, love is our aim. And love gives itself away for the sake of others.

Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American steel magnate and philanthropist, wrote a great deal about wealth. In his article, The Gospel of Wealth, Carnegie proclaimed that the rich have an obligation to use their wealth for the common good. He acted on that maxim, giving away most of his riches toward the end of his life. Carnegie kept track of his thoughts by writing memos to himself. Therein he wrote one of his most-quoted sayings, namely that “the man who dies wealthy dies disgraced.” In another memo he stated this intention in a less judgmental manner, saying:

Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth.[6]

Gratitude and generosity go hand-in-hand when we are rich toward God, when we invest in values that promote the love of God and the love of our neighbors in this world cherished by our Creator.

Richmonder Thomas Cannon was a retired postal worker who died of colon cancer at age 79. His obituary in the Washington Post described him well as a postal clerk who “lived like a pauper to help others.”[7] Cannon, who called himself the poor man’s philanthropist, gave away in excess of $150,000 to people in need or humane causes that he read about in the Richmond newspaper. Almost all of the checks he wrote were in the amount of $1000. To some people those sums may sound less than staggering. However, to a man whose postal service salary never exceeded $20,000, these numbers were big. But they were not insuperable. Thomas Cannon and his wife resolved to live well below their modest means in order to give others a helping hand.

Mr. Cannon’s giving can be traced to his sense of life’s fragility and life’s opportunities to show gratitude. He survived a tragic training accident while serving in the U. S. Navy as a young man. Many of his shipmates were killed in an explosion, Cannon was spared, he thought, in order to be a help to others, to exemplify the “oneness of it all.” Therefore he gave generously with no respect to race, nationality, class, or means. His role was to broadcast love impartially and freely. His first donation was in 1972, to the Westhampton Junior Woman’s Club in Richmond in support of its volunteer work with an elementary school in the city. He said, “We lived simply, so we could give money away. People say, ‘How can you afford it?’ Well, how can people afford new cars and boats? Instead of those, we deliberately kept our standard of living down below our means. I get money from the same place people get money for those other things.” His last wish was as straightforward and simple as his giving life. He said: “Help somebody.”

That is what rich toward God looks like and acts like. Jesus, our Savior and gracious companion on the way, asks that we go and do likewise, with God’s help. Shall we? In the Name of God, let it be so. Amen.

__________

 [1] The Kaufmann and Hart comedic play was the basis for Frank Capra’s 1938 movie, “You Can’t Take it With You,”  the cast of which featured James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold, Spring Byington and other notable firm stars.