Epiphany 6 sermon: Commanded to love

I totally enjoyed supplying at St. James, Lenoir, NC. Such a wonderful community of faith! I preached extemporaneously, so below please find the audio file and sermons notes.



Collect: we ask God: “give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments, we may please you both in will and deed.”

So let’s begin with this: What are we commanded to do? Jesus gave us several commands.
1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (Mt 22:37)… Mk adds: and with all your strength… (12:30) Lk adds: and your neighbor as yourself. (10:27)
a. Note: This is taken from The Great Commandment in Deut 6:5
b. Loving neighbor as self from Leviticus 19:9-18
2. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (Jn 15:12)
3. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you… (Mt 28:19-20)

It’s all about LOVE. We are commanded to LOVE.

Quote from Bp. Steven Charleston, Native American, Retired Bp. of Alaska:

Love will not lose. Even if the evidence of the daily news seems to suggest that it will, even if we despair of the values we thought we shared, even if we imagine the divisions between us have grown too wide to bridge: love will not lose. Love cannot be constrained by legal walls, political pieties, or institutional fear. Love is the subversion of power by mercy. It is the uncontrolled spirit of hope that erodes the authority of oppression. Love is the human soul made visible. Once we see it in one another’s eyes, no force on earth can compel us to deny its reality. Those who cling to what was will not win, for what is now will never cease to be. No matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, love will not lose.

WORD STUDY: LOVE agapao – agape love:
• to be full of good will
• deliberate – It’s a choice to pay attention to someone else and have regard for and respect them (sounds JUST like our Baptismal vow, doesn’t it: to regard the dignity of every human being)
• not affection (that’s eros) – we aren’t required to like the person
• is self-denying and compassionate

This is exactly what Jesus is teaching us in the continuing sermon on the mount from the Gospel of Matthew: a new way of loving.

But let’s start with Moses in Deuteronomy:
• Love of God = life and prosperity (things going well)
• But if we turn our hearts away = we are led to idolatry, which leads to death.
• CHOOSE LIFE, Moses proclaims. Obey God and cling to God so that you may live.
• (NOTE: I wrote a blog this week on the grace of obedience)

Then in the gospel reading, Jesus shows us a new way to understand these commandments:

You have heard it said… you shall not murder
But I say to you… if you are angry you will be liable to judgment

ANOTHER QUICK WORD STUDY: JUDGMENT = separation, sundering (as in: what God has joined together, let no one put asunder). This is the OPPOSITE of what our mission as found in our catechism: to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. (BCP 855)

But I say to you… if you insult a brother or sister, or call them “fool” which means empty (as in empty of the breath of life, therefore of no value), you will be liable to eternal torment (Gehenna, the garbage dump that stayed on fire)

The new way to love: be reconciled.
If you are separated from a brother or sister, reconcile first, then come to offer your life to God in worship.
This is a STRICT interpretation and in our present social and political circumstances, it’s important to hear that being reconciled doesn’t require that we agree or even like our sisters and brothers. It does require that we regard them with respect and approach them full of good will.

Do you hate someone? Do you hate a group of someones?
• Pray for them. Pray God’s lavish blessings all over them.
• Then watch what happens - prayer changes YOU and realigns your will with God’s – which as we heard in our Collect, is pleasing to God.

About Adultery, Jesus says, But I say to you… looking at a woman with lust counts as adultery.
(Jimmy Carter confession)

Adultery is a favorite sin to accuse people of – then and now.

Then that teaching that seems uncomfortably brutal and at odds with respecting our bodies – a command we’re to follow. But remember, this is Bible-talk, which like prayer, is interpreted as such.
• In Bible-talk, the EYE represents how you see, how you perceive
• the HAND represents what you do, your action in the world

If how you see/perceive the world, that person, that circumstance… causes you to sin (to separate, to sunder), then stop looking. It’s better to be unable to understand a thing, no matter how people judge you for that, than to sin.

If what you do causes you to sin (to separate, to sunder), then don’t do it, no matter how inconvenient that is or how others may tease or criticize you about it… just don’t do it.

Don’t separate. Don’t sunder. Be reconciled.

Then two even tougher examples: divorce and swearing oaths or vows.

DIVORCE: only men could do it. Jesus says, if you do that, YOU are the one who makes your ex-wife AND your new wife adulterers. This was a radical teaching in that time, forcing men to regard their wives with respect and raising women up from property to beloved of God.

SWEARING AN OATH: Jesus says simply – don’t do it. It isn’t needed. Be a person of your word. Tell the truth and keep your promises – just as God does for you.
• Anything else is a distraction.

This new way to practice love (agape) for God and one another, leads us to go deeper
• to move beyond following rules out of duty or fear of punishment toward acting in ways that regard the other in our midst with respect and kindness
This new way to practice love (agape) for God and one another
• challenges us to let go our judgments (whatever separates us from one another)
This new way to practice love (agape) for God and one another
• forces us to grow up spiritually - as St. Paul calls us to do in his letter to the Corinthians – and live into our common purpose which, I repeat, is:
to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

Close with quote from Bp Charleston:

Kindness is not just an act, but a blessing. When someone treats you with kindness the impact of that blessing stays with you. It seeps into your spirit. It changes your self-perception and alters your outlook toward the world around you. This blessing is so enduring we can remember a single act of kindness for a lifetime. We can look back and count the people whose kindness shaped our lives. Kindness is one of the most powerful spiritual tools we possess. We should use it with intention and we should use it often. How do we change the world? One kindness at a time.

The grace of obedience

I’m grateful for the story of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis. Like them, I often succumb to disobedience by attending to my own voice or the voice of a tempter, shutting out the voice of God who, as Isaiah says, calls to me, saying: “Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.” (Is 55:3)

Raised Roman Catholic, I went to Catholic school for 8 years, during which time, and by the example of my nuns and mentors, I built a strong spiritual muscle for obedience. I’m not talking about the systematic dismantling of free will or coerced compliance with church doctrine. I’m talking about learning to trust in the experience of the mentor and/or the tradition of the Church and allowing that to support me regarding something I needed to work out for myself spiritually, theologically, etc., giving myself time and space to do that.

In my experience, a healthy relationship with obedience will include a bit of faithful disobedience. I had the advantage of having a Latina mother, the daughter of immigrants from Puerto Rico and Spain. My mother converted to Roman Catholicism during the time I was being prepared for First Holy Communion. As a result, we studied the Baltimore Catechism together, memorizing the answers to a litany of questions, e.g., Q: Who made you? A: God made me. Q: Why did God make you? A: God made me to show forth His goodness and to share His everlasting happiness in heaven.

As my mother and I memorized the answers to what seemed to me, as a 6 year old child, a million questions, we would come upon questions which had answers to which we weren’t inclined to assent. In true Latina fashion, my mother’s faith was more concerned with redemption than doctrine, so regarding those questions and answers, my mother would say, “You don’t have to believe that. Just memorize the answer in case the bishop calls on you.”

Early on, therefore, I learned to approach the institutional church with a measure of faithful disobedience. My mother allowed me space to grow into my spiritual maturity over time, in prayerful conversation with God. I was free to prayerfully ponder and explore, rather than simply accept, church doctrines.

Five decades later, and having the benefit of a seminary education (Yea, Sewanee’s right!), I now know that the word we translate as “obey” derives from words in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin that mean “to listen” – but more than that, “obey” in these ancient languages, seeks that we listen AND respond to what we hear. If we are listening for the word or the will of God, then, our obedience calls for our attention followed by some kind response.

This is affirmed for me in my prayer life which has been rich and conversational since my childhood. God has been accessible to me as have the saints, my friends in heaven. As a result, I’ve given great importance to prayer time as part of my every day, even as life got busier and time got shorter. I don’t pray out of duty or fear, though, but from inner divine prompting. God calls to me first. When I call out to God it isn’t so that God might wave a divine wand and fix what I say is broken or wrong (in the way I want it fixed); it’s for God to show me how to be in the will of God as I enter the moment facing me – or the day, or the season. It’s because I’m scared, or I don’t know how to proceed, or I know the voice of my will is drowning out God’s voice. Prayer is one gateway for me to the grace of obedience: hearing and responding to God.

I know that in the frailty of my humanity, I simply can’t see the big picture of my life, my place in the world and in human history – but God can. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” (Isa 55:8) Still, at times, I choose not to obey.

Does my disobedience make God mad? I don’t know. What I do know is this: “God is not wroth” as Julian of Norwich said.* Wrath is a human response to helplessness, disappointment, shame, or humiliation. Each time I set out on a path not of God’s choosing, God gently and very clearly re-routes me. I can repent and be re-routed, or be stubborn and resist. The choice is always mine.

I have noticed, however, that my body responds according to my choice. A felt lack of peace, expressed in my body as tension in my throat or chest, or tightness in my stomach, is present each time I set out in disobedience. Peace and wellbeing are restored in my body each time I relent and trust. This has taught me that my disobedience is: a) known to me; b) not good for me; and c) does not separate me from the love of God for me, just as St. Paul promised. (Ro 8:39)

In the Genesis story, Adam and Eve learned that there were real consequences from their choice to disobey. In the very next verse, however, God sewed clothing for Adam and Eve, covering their shame and humiliation. Then God sent them into the world “knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:22) We know good and evil, and we know when we are choosing to disobey, no matter how well we’ve justified or defended our choice. We know.

We also know that forgiveness is ours for the asking. As the prophet Isaiah says, “let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” (Isa 55:7) In case anyone doubts that could be true – and many of us do doubt the lavishness of God’s love for us – Jesus made clear that his sacrifice was for our forgiveness: “Then, he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mt 26:27)

As long as we live, we will have to reckon with the voice of the tempter, but the steadfast love of God will gently, clearly, and always guide us back to the path of life. Our choice and our challenge is to obey.

*John Skinner, Editor and translator, Revelation of Love, Julian of Norwich (Doubleday, NY, 1996), 96.

Feast of Christ the King, 2016: "Father forgive"

Lectionary: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Canticle 16; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43
Preacher: The Rev Dr Valori Mulvey Sherer, as supply at St. Francis Episcopal Church, Rutherfordton, NC.



(Note: if the above doesn't work on your devise, please click HERE)

En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.

Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, sometimes called the Reign of Christ. This date stands between the long, green season after Pentecost and Advent. On this day we stop to consider what it means when we say that Jesus is our King.

As people who have the freedom of a democratic republic in our DNA, the term “King” can be a bit of a disconnect for us. For the ancient Jews, the King was a Shepherd… think David – and the role of the Shepherd is to love, protect, and guide the flock (the people of God).

But kings are human, and Jeremiah acknowledges some of the kings weren’t very good. There was bad leadership and it had consequences. But Jeremiah promises that the redeeming love of God is greater than all of that and is a certainty; and he says all we have to do is remain faithful and God will restore the king, and us, and everything else to right relationship. That’s what righteousness is.

Then there is that beautiful Canticle, #16, the song of Zechariah, and it’s a song of praise about God who sends a Savior to set the people free , to worship without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of their lives. The letter to the church at Colossae clarifies that this savior, the one promised, is Jesus, the Son of God, the head of the church, the fullness of God (fully human, fully divine), who reconciled all things to himself, in heaven and on earth. So it might make a little more sense now, that our gospel for this day comes from the passion – the crucifixion - because this is where the very notion of kingship is transformed.

Great kings in our salvation history, like David, brought peace and harmony, but none has brought eternal redemption except for Jesus, our King; and he did it in a way that no one saw coming. It wasn’t by being a great ruler, or a great warrior, but by the forgiveness of sin.

I want to pause for a moment to discuss what “sin” is and what sin isn’t. Most of us talk about sin as those things we do that are wrong or harmful. That’s partly right. Theologian Karl Barth talks about sin as a state of separation – separation from God, separation from one another. In that state of separation we do things that are wrong and harmful.

So, it’s kind of like the disease versus the symptoms. We know there is a disease by the presence of its symptoms. We can treat the symptoms, but unless we cure the disease, we aren’t healed.

That’s why Jesus brought us redemption by the forgiveness of sin, by bringing down all barriers that separate us from God and one another. And he demonstrated this over and over in his ministry, and also, on the cross. Remember the story of the healing of the man born blind? Remember the people asked Jesus, ‘Who sinned, they asked, this man or his parents?” Think of how they thought about sin. Or the woman caught in adultery… Everyone was ready to stone her and Jesus says, ‘the one who is without sin can cast the first stone,’ and they all walked away.

Jesus didn’t just treat the symptoms, he cured the disease. This is our King. In his most miserable, painful, humiliating moment as a human, Jesus prayed, and his prayer takes our breath away: “Father, forgive them…”

At our most miserable moments, when we are being unfairly treated, when those with power over us are acting corruptly, is this our prayer?

When I was studying for my doctorate, I went to England and studied over there for a while. I went to a place called the Cathedral at Coventry. Coventry England is a place that was bombed during WWII because it held arsenal. The cathedral was destroyed in an attack. When you go to the cathedral now, you see that they didn’t clear away the rubble, the shell of the original cathedral; they simply built the new cathedral and attached them with a walkway. So it’s one cathedral: the bombed out shell and the new place of worship; and every day at noon they hold a prayer service in the bombed out shell. It’s a very powerful experience.

When you walk into the new cathedral, the very first thing you see, built into the tile on the floor, are these words: “Father forgive.” I can still feel in my body the power of the first moment I saw that.

Anyone who’s been awake or watching the news the last few weeks, might have noticed that our beloved human family is sorely “divided and enslaved by sin.” I don’t just mean our election, I mean the whole world. Look at the news.

In our effort to address this discomfort, we often react like the soldiers and the criminal who call upon Jesus to save himself. Make this pain go away. Take a pill. Kill an enemy. Eat chocolate. Do whatever it takes – just make it stop… And sometimes we can… for a while, but we’ve only addressed the symptom. The disease remains.

More importantly, we’ve reacted to ourselves. Our attention is focused on us – our discomfort, our vision of how things are supposed to be.

Ironically, Jesus’ attention was on us too. As Jesus was dying on that cross, he certainly had the power to make it stop, to make it go away, but his attention wasn’t on himself. It was on us – all of us – humanity… then, now and forever more.

As he hung on that cross, the soldiers mocked him. The religious leaders scoffed at him – his own church family scoffed at him. Even one of the criminals derided him. Yet, Jesus forgave them, freely giving them the same freedom from the sin he gave all of us.

This is what Christ our King does. He forgives, and by doing so, he has “set us on a course that will bring all of us together again under God’s gracious rule.” (Collect of the Day)

Unity in the wholeness of God. That is our cure, and our King has already given it to us. Now it’s up to us to live as if that’s true.

It isn’t easy, given that we live in what we church-folk call the “already but not yet.” Christ has already come, forgiveness is already ours, but the reconciliation of the whole world to God is not yet complete.

Oscar Cullmann said it like this, “Christ's Incarnation was like the Normandy invasion that set in motion forces that would lead to victory more than a year later. In the interim many battles would be fought and many soldiers would die. We, like the soldiers who lived in that interim, are living in the interim between the cross and Jesus' final victory. We should not expect life to be easy (Source).”

Well that’s true, but I also hope we also don’t forget to follow the example of our King. Are we not followers of Christ? Think about Jesus’ whole life. He partied hearty with his friends. Even as he tended to the symptoms of the disease around him , he played, he visited friends, he made wine like crazy! Any he showed us how to live our lives by doing that.

Granted, we have lots of work to do attending to the symptoms around us while we wait faithfully for God to work the whole cure. We must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the lonely, and set free those who are imprisoned - by anything: addictions, oppression, self-hate, poverty, powerlessness… whatever imprisons someone.

We must raise up the lowly and invite into the kingdom of God those whom the world exclude. But we must also cherish our family and spend time with our friends. We must learn to remember to play with our dogs and let the gentle purring of our cats sooth our weary souls.

We must listen to the stories of our elders, and receive the wisdom that comes from the innocence of our children. We must stop to notice the super moon and let the artistry of a sunrise awaken our soul.

As we navigate these next weeks, months, and years, we must refuse to let ideology, politics, or any other thing , separate us any further from one another and from our faith in the redeeming love of God.

We are not put on this earth to save ourselves. That’s been done – Jesus did it!

Our Baptism calls us, instead, to continue the reconciling work of Jesus our King until the whole world recognizes its citizenship in the kingdom of God and lives as one body, one spirit in Christ.

It’s the kind of work that will take a village – or as we call it, a church. We need one another, and we need to share the nourishment of Word and Sacrament regularly together because that what strengthens us and unite us. We need to eat together and pray together, and play together. We even need to disagree together. Church is where we learn and practice forgiveness so that we can take it out into the world, beyond these walls, because as you know, our world remains divided and enslaved by sin.

As poet Mary Oliver said, “I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.”

Amen.

Pentecost 21, 2016: Our divine work

This sermon was preached in Spanish at La Capilla de Santa Maria, Hendersonville, NC. The audio is Spanish. The text is posted below in Spanish and in English.

Lectionary: 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Psalm 111; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19



(Note: if the link above doesn't work on your device, click this LINK)

En el nombre del Dios, Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.

SPANISH:

Hoy nuestras Escrituras ofrecen dos historias diferentes de curación,las dos son de leprosos extranjeros. En esos días, un leproso era exilado de su familia y comunidad para prevenir que la enfermedad se transmitiera. Fue una existencia de soledad y vergüenza.

Un leproso tenía que mantenerse a 50 pasos de otras personas y gritar “leproso” si una persona se acercaba. No podían trabajar y tenían que mendigar por su comida. La mayoría de la gente consideraba la lepra como un castigo de pecado.

El primer leproso que se menciona es Naaman, un gran y poderoso comandante militar. Su lepra estaba en etapa inicial, pero si progresara lo hubiesen exilado y perdería su posición de poder.

Oyendo sobre su condición, una joven esclava que servía a la esposa de Naaman ofreció consejo:¿Porqué Naaman no va a ver al profeta de Dios en Samaria? El podría curarlo.

Así que Naaman fue a buscar a este profeta, llevándole una ofrenda de obsequios costosos demostrando su importancia con esplendor militar. Pero cuando Naaman llegó, Eliseo no salió a verlo. En ves, lo mandó a bañarse siete veces en el Rio Jordán.

El poderoso Naaman se siente ofendido. ¿Eso es? ¿Vine esta distancia a bañarme en el rio? ¡Pude haber hecho eso en mi casa! ¡Nuestros ríos son mejores! Naaman sale pisoteando con rabia; su orgullo esta ofendido y han desaparecido sus sueños de un glorioso regreso a su casa después de una milagrosa curación.

Naaman al fín acepta hacer lo que Eliseo le mando a hacer y fue curado. Sin pompa y sin celebración – solo una cura, y un poco de vergüenza frente a sus soldados.

La curación divina es mucho más que la reparación física. Es siempre un acto de reconciliación. Es la restauración completa de vida y relaciones.

El segundo leproso de quien oímos está en el Evangelio de Lucas. Una comunidad de diez leprosos vio a Jesús acercándose, y como requiere la ley, gritaron su presencia. Conociendo la reputación de Jesús, ellos pidieron misericordia. Ellos habían oído de la compasión de Jesús y las curaciones milagrosas que él había hecho, y ellos esperaban que él hiciera lo mismo con ellos.

Y así, Jesús lo hizo. Jesús les dijo que se presentaran a los sacerdotes que por ley podían declararlos limpios y les permitían regresar a sus familias, comunidades, y sus trabajos. Cuando iban al pueblo a ver los sacerdotes, los leprosos notaron que su piel se había curado.

Nueve de ellos fueron a los sacerdotes. Uno regresó a darle las gracias a Jesús. Este era un extranjero – y esto es importante porque los extranjeros eran odiados.

Ellos no sabían ni seguían la ley Judía. Ellos tenían diferentes costumbres, comidas, vestimentas, y formas de hablar y de rezarle a Dios.

El extranjero no conocía la ley Judía pero sabía la presencia de Dios que él encontró en Jesús. Humillándose ante Jesús, él dio las gracias, dándole gloria a Dios. Siendo justo a los otros nueve, ellos estaban haciendo lo que Jesús les dijo.

Sin embargo, lo que impresionó a Jesús fue que este extranjero que estaba acostumbrado a ser odiado, maltratado y humillado, tuvo el coraje de responder a un impulso interno de regresar a Jesús para regresar a la Presencia Divina que le había restaurado a una vida completa. Y Jesús lo comendó por haber vuelto, diciendo, “Levántate y sigue tu camino, tu fe te ha restaurado por completo.”

Siendo fiel no es conociendo las reglas, siendo parte de un grupo aceptado, ni siendo obediente. La fe es un impulso interno que nos obliga acercarnos a la Presencia Divina que encontramos en Jesús. En esa presencia gloriosa, solo podemos dar gracias humildemente –
sin importar quienes somos.

No es probable que los judíos aceptaron a este extranjero, aún cuando su piel estaba curada. Pero, ¿cree usted que esto le importó al extranjero? El había estado en la presencia de Dios en Jesús, y fue hecho completo – en su cuerpo y su vida. Su vida cambiaría para siempre, en adición de las vidas de todas quienes el conocería y con quienes hablaría.

En su carta a Timoteo, San Pablo nos recuerda presentarnos a Dios con la cabeza alta. Sin importar nuestras circunstancias o la condición de nuestra jornada de fe, no debemos tener vergüenza porque somos amados por Dios.

Cuando el mundo hace esto difícil de recordar, nuestra fe nos obligará regresar a la presencia de Dios en Jesús Cristo, quien nos hará completos. La iglesia es donde logramos esto. Nos reunimos con nuestra familia de fe cada domingo para entrar en la presencia de Dios en Cristo, dar las gracias, alimentarnos con la Palabra y Sacramento, y ayudarnos a recordar la Buena Noticia que somos amados.

Entonces nosotros, como el cuerpo de Cristo y como miembros individuales de él, somos hechos completos. Y estando enteros nos da un propósito – una misión – que nuestro Catecismo dice es: “llevar a cabo el trabajo Cristiano de reconciliación en el mundo” (BCP, 855)

San Francisco de Asis dijo así: “Hemos sido llamados a sanar heridos, restablecer lo que se ha quebrado, y traer a casa los que han perdido su camino”

Para hacer eso, no tenemos que ser poderosos ni ser aceptables al mundo. Solo tenemos que ser fieles.

Así, como nuestro Salvador, Jesús Cristo le dijo al leproso, es hora de levantarnos y seguir nuestro camino; nuestra fe nos ha hecho completos, y tenemos trabajo divino que hacer.

Amen.

ENGLISH:

Our Scriptures today offer us two very different healing stories, both involving lepers who are foreigners. In those days, a person with leprosy was exiled from his family and community in order to keep the disease from spreading. It was a lonely, shameful existence.

A leper had to keep at least 50 paces away from other people and call out “Leper!” if someone came near. Unable to work, they were forced to beg for their food. Most people considered leprosy to be punishment for sin.

The first leper we hear about is Naaman, a great and mighty military commander. His leprosy is in its early stages, but if it progresses, he’ll be exiled and lose his position of power.

Hearing about his condition, a young Israelite slave girl serving Naaman’s wife offers some advice: Why doesn’t Naaman go see the prophet of God in Samaria? He could cure him.

So Naaman goes off to find this prophet, bringing an offering of expensive gifts and showing off his importance with military pageantry. But when Naaman arrives, Elisha doesn’t even come out to greet him. Instead, he instructs Naaman to wash in the River Jordan seven times.

The powerful Naaman is highly insulted. ‘That’s it? I came all this way to wash in the river? I could’ve done that at home! Our rivers are better!’ Naaman stomps off in a rage; his pride wounded and his expectation of a glorious homecoming following a miraculous cleansing – gone!

Naaman eventually submits, does as Elisha commanded, and is healed. No pomp, no circumstance – just a cure, and a bit of embarrassment in front of his soldiers.

The thing about divine healing, though, is that it is so much more than physical repair-work. It is always an act of reconciliation. It’s a restoration to wholeness of life and relationship.

The second leper we hear about is in Gospel of Luke. A community of ten lepers sees Jesus approaching and, as required by law, call out their presence. Knowing Jesus’ reputation, they also called out for mercy. They had heard about Jesus’ compassion and the miraculous healings he had already done and they were hoping he would do the same for them.

And he did. Jesus tells them to present themselves to the priests who, by law, can declare them clean and allow them to return to their families, their communities, and their jobs.

As they head toward town to see the priests the lepers notice that their skin is clean. Nine of them go on to the priests. One returns to Jesus, giving thanks.This one was a foreigner – and that’s important – because foreigners were hated.

They didn’t know or keep Jewish law. They had different customs, different food, different clothing, different ways of talking about and praying to God.

The foreigner may not have known Jewish law,but he knew the presence of God, which he found in Jesus. Humbling himself at Jesus’ feet, he cried out his thanks, giving glory to God.

To be fair, the other nine were doing as Jesus told them, but what moved Jesus, was that this foreigner, who was used to being hated, mistreated, and humbled, had the courage to respond to an inner prompting to return to Jesus, to return to the Divine Presence that had restored him to wholeness of life.

And Jesus commended him for it, saying, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you whole.”

Being faithful isn’t about knowing the rules, being part of the acceptable group, or even about being obedient. Faith is an inner prompting that compels us to draw close to the Divine Presence, which we find in Jesus. In that glorious presence, we can only give humble thanks –no matter who we are.

It isn’t likely the Jews accepted this foreigner, even once his skin was clean. But do you think that mattered to him? He had been in the presence of God in Jesus, and was made whole - in his body and his life. His life would be forever changed by that, along with everyone he knew and told about it.

In his letter to Timothy, St. Paul reminds us to present ourselves to God as one approved. Whatever our circumstance or the condition of our faith journey, we have no need to be ashamed because we are beloved of God.

When the world makes that hard to remember, our faith will compel us back into the Presence of God in Jesus Christ, who will make us whole.

The church is where we do that. We gather with our family of faith each Sunday to come into the presence of God in Christ, give our thanks, be fed by Word and Sacrament, and help each other remember the Good News that we are loved.

Then we, as the body of Christ and as individual members of it, are made whole. And our wholeness gives us a purpose - a mission – which our Catechism says is: “to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.”

St. Francis of Assisi said it like this: “We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart,
and to bring home those who have lost their way.”

To do that, we don’t have to be powerful or even acceptable to the world.We only have to be faithful.

So, as our Savior, Jesus Christ said to the leper, it’s time for us to get up and go on our way; our faith has made us whole, and we have divine work to do!

Amen.

Pentecost 17, 2016: Until we love like God loves

Lectionary: Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

Click HERE for the audio link.

En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.

In my prayer the last few weeks, two friends among the communion of saints have figured prominently. One is Justin, a boy whom Steve and I called our “other son,” who killed himself 4 years ago, and the other is medieval mystic, Dame Julian of Norwich, who was my prayer partner during my process to ordination. and is a frequent prayer companion with me in my life.

It wasn’t until I read today’s lectionary that I understood why these two had been so present for me lately. Each one has been an important tutor for me about love.

A little bit about Julian… One commentator says, “Julian’s meditations do not pretend to take away the pain of today’s world, but they can inspire believers to rise up in the midst of the struggle and fix their eyes on God. [Julian’s meditations] promote the virtues of self-acceptance and neighborly love and show how these qualities help [us] discover the face of God. This ability to recognize God in all things is crucial for [us] who are so prone to discouragement because [we] keep forgetting [we] are loved.” (Brendan Doyle, Meditations with Julian of Norwich, 8.)

Julian’s book is called Revelations of Love, and it describes her visions of Jesus’ suffering and death. When I first read it I was so surprised. It was exciting, joyful, and very disturbing, comforting, and challenging. She spoke of the “homeliness” of Jesus, that is, the simplicity of Jesus’ commands, his absolute proximity to us, his presence right here with us, and his powerful, intimate love of us.

We often forget that – that God’s love for us is powerful and tender, homely and intimate. This, I believe, is what Jesus is teaching us in today’s gospel from Luke.

Luke begins by telling us that tax collectors and other sinners were coming to hear Jesus speak. The very presence of these “ungodly” people was making the “godly” people around them complain: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

In response to their grumbling, Jesus tells three parables (note: we hear only two of these parables today.We’ll hear the third one next Sunday).The first parable is so familiar to us – it’s the iconic story of the Good Shepherd. So there’s the flock of 99, one gets lost, and the shepherd leaves the whole flock to go find that one who was lost. As we read this story, we picture that icon of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, wrapping the sheep on his shoulders, taking it safely home. It’s comforting.

The thing is, it was a comforting image for those first listeners. These were the Pharisees and the others who are already scandalized by the presence of these sinners among them. So now Jesus tells a story and makes God into a shepherd. It was shocking and disturbing to them because in that time, shepherds were dishonest people. They were scorned by good folk. They used to graze their sheep on other people’s land (which was basically stealing).They were unclean ritually, they could NOT have come to church. They were also unclean - there were no showers out in the fields, so they stank.

The Scribes and Pharisees would have been scandalized by this portrayal of God because God was NOT a stanky shepherd.

Then, as if that weren’t enough, Jesus goes on and tells the second parable. Only this time he cast God as… A WOMAN doing a menial task unworthy of even the lowest man: sweeping the floor of her home to find a lost coin!

Have you noticed there is no comforting, iconic image of God as a woman? Just sayin’…

The God Jesus reveals in these parables gets dirty and scratched up because He will chase after one single one who has gotten lost. The God Jesus reveals finds no task too menial or undignified in Her search for a single lost treasure.

Treasure: think about what this means… Think about being that valuable – a treasure to God.

How many of us truly feel like that? How many of us remember that the person we choose to hate is also a treasure to God and we must approach them that way.

I confess that some people challenge my Christian virtue on this count, but one of the gifts that these people can offer us is that they give us the ability to humble ourselves and build our ability to love until it looks like the way God loves. Think about what Paul was saying in his letter. We have to build our ability to love until it looks like God’s love – toward others and toward ourselves.

Which brings me back to my “other son, ”Justin. Justin was in my youngest son’s class in high school. He’d had a rough childhood, and though he had loving grandparents and extended family, he had no parents. They were there, but they were absent to him, so he sought to create parent-like relationships, as he understood those, with a few of us.

Steve and I were Justin’s college parents. Our boys were going to college so I helped Justin apply for college, get financial aid, get his books, buy his medicines (he had severe juvenile diabetes). I bought his dorm supplies and later moved him in with my older son into an apartment off campus. Justin accompanied our boys to our house in NC for the holidays and witnessed what it looked like to be a son – something he didn’t know how to do.

He didn’t know that as a son he could make demands on his parents. He saw our boys doing it, and he even came to me and we talked about it. He didn’t feel worthy, though, to ask anything of us and he certainly didn’t trust love enough to risk it.

Steve and I worked very hard to assure Justin that our love for him was our choice. He didn’t have to earn it. It was there for him. We loved him. He was a treasure to us.

But Justin had grown up with a very rigid understanding of sin and of God. He judged himself for the dark feelings that he carried in him from his childhood. He believed that he must have been bad because God let so many bad things happen to him. Sadly, he also believed (as do many lost souls) that his diabetes was a punishment from God because of his badness.

To Steve and me, Justin was a gifted, beautiful, young man who needed to repent of his concept of a vengeful, punitive God and open himself to the God of love of God that Jesus describes in today’s gospel. He needed to repent of his hateful feelings about himself and see what we saw: a treasure.

In the end, Justin couldn’t do that. He couldn’t repent, and he took his own life. The consolation I have is that I believe that Justin is reconciled with God and finally knows how much we love and miss him. I believe Justin now understands the truth in today’s gospel: that each of us is a treasure to God.

As Christians we believe that the fullness of God is revealed to us in Jesus, the Christ. If we have ears to hear Jesus’ revelation of God in today’s gospel, we must repent of whatever concepts of God we have learned or cling to instead to the words of our Savior. Those are the words of life. To do otherwise is to be a foolish people who have no understanding, as the prophet Jeremiah said today.

(Note from the preacher to get the handout with the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila. This prayer helped me get through the loss of Justin, among other things, and helped me transform my own understanding of God.)

"He desired me so I came close.

No one can near God unless He has
prepared a bed for
you.

A thousand souls hear His call every second,
but most every one then looks into their life’s mirror and
says, “I am not worthy to leave this sadness.”

When I first heard His courting song, I too
looked at all I had done in my life and said,

“How can I gaze into His omnipresent eyes?”
I spoke those words with all my heart,

but then He sang again, a song even sweeter,
and when I tried to shame myself once more from His presence
God showed me His compassion and spoke a divine truth,

“I made you, dear, and all I made is perfect.
Please come close, for I
desire
you."

When Jesus says, “…I tell you, there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents" he means it - but he isn’t talking about our behavior. He’s talking about our hearts. Our behavior is simply the manifestation of what’s going on in our hearts. It’s how we know repentance is needed.

If we love God as God loves us, we will live humbly, nurturing every gift God has given us and our neighbors and using them for the glory of God and the welfare of God’s people.

If we love others, as Jesus commanded us to do, we will live in peace and forgiveness.

If we love ourselves, we will care for our bodies which God has crafted so marvelously for our use; and we will work to expand our hearts until we love like God loves.

Amen.

Pentecost 8, 2016: Paying mercy forward

Preached while supplying at The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, Saluda NC.

Lectionary: Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37



Note: If the embedded audio doesn't work on your device, click HERE for the mp3 version.

En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.

So… this week, y’all! Really! All of our media outlets - TV, radio, the internet, and social media – are flooded with cries from the hearts of people who are mourning men who lay dead in our streets. There are videos of people who are frustrated and angry, and pleas from people who are overwhelmed by despair, and pronouncements from people whose hearts are broken by hate.

In Episcopalian/Anglican circles, there is a hashtag being promulgated for all preachers to use today, given that our lectionary includes the story of the Good Samaritan. The hashtag asks the question: #WhoIsMyNeighbor

Everyone is in a different place in understanding and processing the shootings of two more black men by white police, and the shooting of five white policemen by a black gunman bent on revenge.

This is a tough moment for us all. I’m grieving too and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the insane hatred that seems to have a grip on our culture, hatred that continues to result in the deaths of our own.

This hatred isn’t limited to the shooters, though. I have “friends” on Facebook and in my life, who are saying the most awful things about people they don’t know, but feel justified in judging.

It brings to my mind the scripture story from a couple of weeks ago about the woman with the alabaster jar whom the Pharisee judged to be a sinner and therefore unworthy. You’ll remember, Jesus asked the Pharisee, ‘Do you see this woman?’

But the Pharisee hadn’t really seen her. He’d only seen what he believed about her. And he judged what she was doing (intimately touching Jesus with her hair loosed) inside that belief and it confirmed for him that he was right about her.

But he was wasn’t right… about the woman or her actions. Jesus set him straight, of course, but the story leads us to believe that the Pharisee left that exchange unchanged.

That happens a lot. Even in the face of transforming love, some people choose
to cling to their judgements and hatred.

Christians don’t have that option. As Meister Eckhart, a 13th century Dominican monk, wrote:

“…Every object, every creature, every man, woman and child
has a soul and it is the destiny of all

to see as God sees, to know as God knows
to feel as God feels, to Be
as God
Is.”

(...the conclusion of his poem, “To See As God Sees”)

Like the Pharisee in the story from a couple of weeks ago, the priest and the Levite in this parable of the Good Samaritan, also didn’t see the person left for dead in the street – not as God sees anyway. If they had, they would have been moved by pity and compassion and helped him.

To be fair, the priest and Levite may have had very good reasons for not helping the man. Jewish priests of the time were forbidden from touching a dead body, and the man may have appeared dead.

Or…maybe they were in a hurry to get to the worship service they were about to do, and they couldn’t get their robes dirty.

Or… maybe they believed it was a ruse, and a thief was waiting to ambush whoever stopped to help him. That happened a lot in those days.

Or… maybe it was too bloody and the man’s injuries just overwhelmed them.

And what if he died and someone sued them? (OK, that’s a modern excuse)

We all have our reasons… don’t we?

In Jesus’ teaching, the one who did see as God sees was the Samaritan, the heretic half-breed. As one commentator said, “Ceremonially unclean, socially outcast, and religiously a heretic, the Samaritan is the very opposite of… the priest and the Levite. The story must have been a shocking one to its first audience, shattering their categories of who are and who are not the people of God.” (Source: http://www.lectionary.org quoting Fred B. Craddock)

Which brings us back to the question: #WhoIsMyNeighbor?

Back in my days as an advocate for victims of violence, it was common for the women I served to ask me, “Why are you helping me? Why do you care?”

My response was, “Because you matter.” Isn’t it sad that that was such a surprise to them?

My service to those women, children, and peripherally, to their abusers led me to expand my boundaries, moving me to call for my community to love and serve those whom we, like the priest and Levite, would have preferred to walk past – for a whole lot of reasons.

When we, as a community, entered into relationship with them, tending to whatever wounds they bore (physical, emotional, or spiritual), we and they were transformed, because mercy is like that: the exchange works both ways at once.

Did you know that the root of the word mercy is the same root for the words, merchant and mercenary? The Latin root word ‘merces’ means reward or payment for services rendered and it implies an exchange between the one who pays and the one who is paid.

Think about it. The exchange for us, as people of God, is three-fold: God rewards us (by grace - certainly not because we deserve it or have earned it) and we pay it forward just as graciously to our neighbors.

As followers of Jesus we live the reality that we are a people forgiven, healed, and renewed. As temples of the Holy Spirit, we are bearers of the light of Christ to the world, and we are called to make that reality present in our lives and in our world.

So when racism rears its ugly head, which it did with a vengeance this week, we walk boldly into the hate, unafraid, because we’re confident that the Spirit of Christ which dwells in us is powerful enough to reconcile everyone back into Love.

When revenge steals life from us, we forgive and tend to the wounds it left behind.

When we confront a majority of voices who have very good reasons why we should not show mercy, we show mercy anyway, because we are God’s people, followers of Christ, and that is how we love God, neighbor, and self as we’re commanded to do.

#WhoIsMyNeighbor

It is as Edwin Markham once said in that now familiar poem:

He drew a circle that shut me out––
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

After the last few weeks, it may feel like we’re spitting into the wind; like there’s more to be done out there than we can do. Listen to how many voices are already speaking that kind of despair.

But our hope is in Jesus Christ whose promises to us are true, so we do not despair. We act. Re-read today’s Psalm. That’s how we act. We shatter the categories the world has given to those who are or are not our neighbors.

There’s a meme floating around which says it’s from the Talmud (which is like commentary on the Torah). I don’t know that for sure, but it’s wisdom worth sharing, so here’s what it says: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Thankfully, we do this together – as the body of Christ, the Church – so we are never alone; and we’re nourished regularly by Word and Sacrament, which means our strength is never depleted. Never.

I want to close with a blessing I borrowed from the letter to the Colossians. Let us pray.

May we be “filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding… May we be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power, and may we be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to [God], who has enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” (adapted from Col 1:9-12)

Amen.

Pentecost 7, 2016: Manifest divine power into the world

I had the privilege of celebrating and preaching today at The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Saluda, NC. My prepared sermon was left behind out of obedience to the Holy Spirit and I preached extemporaneously, therefore, this is available in audio only. The 8:00 service sermon differed enough from the 10:00 service that I've included both here. If the embedded audio doesn't work for your device, I'm including a link that will work.

Lectionary: Lectionary: 2 Kings 5:1-14, Psalm 30, Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16, Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

8:00 service: Click this LINK for mp3 version



10:00 service: Click this LINK for mp3 version