Pentecost 7, 2019-C: One foot in each realm

Lectionary: Hosea 1:2-10; Psalm 85; Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19); Luke 11:1-13



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En el nobmre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Santificador. Amen.

I love our Collect for today, particularly the part where we pray that “we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.” As we journey on this earthly pilgrimage, we do it with, as they say, one foot in each realm… earth and heaven. It’s a gift of our baptism, our oneness with Christ who joined his divinity to our humanity, being the first-born of this reality and making us the next-born of it. We are, in our earthly bodies, temples of the heavenly Spirit of God. As St. Paul said in his letter to the Colossians: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him…”

What we do with that reality remains our choice. Our Old Testament story from Hosea illustrates for us what happens when we turn our attention away from the presence of God in us and in all creation: we cut ourselves off from life. This is the story of the time when Israel was divided into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom of Israel (where Samaria is) and the southern kingdom of Judah (where Jerusalem is). The kingdoms split right after Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, took over as king.

This story is hard to read but it isn’t any harder than living in conflict. When one community has two opposing factions, the whole community is harmed. Think of our own Civil War. The only casualties were us. We died on both sides, and the fallout from that conflict lives in our own divided northern and southern “kingdoms” to this day. We still haven’t healed. We’re still arguing over flags, memorials, and “heritage.”

This isn’t a story about way back when. It’s about now. It’s about us.

This is why it’ so important to remember that while we live in the temporal realm of earth for a moment, we exist in the heavenly realm eternally. Both at the same time. It’s only when we shift our focus away from the eternal presence of God and toward the temporal circumstances of the world that we can see our sisters and brother as “other” or worse yet, as our enemy.

We remember this eternal reality when we pray and enter the presence of God. This is why the gospel lesson on prayer is vital to our temporal life on earth.

Since we will soon begin a book study on The Lord’s Prayer, I’ll wait for that setting to go more deeply into this prayer. For today, I hope we’ll notice these two things:

1. That it begins with praise and acquiescence to God’s kingdom: your kingdom come.
2. That God’s supply to us, whether in the form of earthly or spiritual nourishment, is what we need for today only: give us each day our daily bread.

This bread reference points back to the Exodus when God sent manna to feed the Israelites each day. They couldn’t store up this manna as it would spoil at the end of the day. As they wandered in their wilderness, being remade by God, they had to let go of all pretense of future destinations and lifestyle as well as any sort of long-term security they could muster up for themselves. In order to be reborn, they had to trust God entirely, for as long as it took – and it took way longer than they had wished.

This kind of wilderness, where new life is formed in a people, takes time. It’s especially hard on our modern sensibilities to be patient while new life be formed is being in us. We want to make a plan and get it done. But that’s focusing on the temporal. Anything we can devise for ourselves is temporal.

When God is working new life in us, each step may take us where we need to go, but it may not be a direct path to the goal. Like a labyrinth, God may lead us near to the center, then back out to the edge where we can’t see the way back to the center. But there’s only the one path and it leads only to the center where God is, where we are illuminated by the spirit of Christ and reinvigorated for the journey back into the world.

When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, he followed the prayer with a parable to teach persistence in prayer. Interestingly, Jesus’ parable includes three main characters: God, the host, and the neighbor, which harkens back to Jesus’ recent teaching on the summary of the law: love God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus’ parable shows how that looks in the temporal realm.

A little background first: Middle Eastern culture takes hospitality very seriously. To fail to be hospitable, even when it’s the middle of the night, is to bring shame upon yourself and your whole community.

So we must be persistent in prayer not just for ourselves but for our whole community. In prayer, we enter the heavenly realm where we experience again that all are truly one in the unity and love of God. There is no other, no stranger, no enemy. It’s all us. We’re all one.

When we persist in experiencing that in the heavenly realm, then we are in a state where God can manifest that through us in the temporal realm. The persistence isn’t to nag God until God does what we want, but to stay close to God so we can recognize how God is already providing for us each day.

As Jesus said, if we ask God for a fish would God give us a snake? Of course not! If we ask for an egg, would it turn out to be a scorpion? No! That isn’t how love works. But when our attention is focused solely in the earthly realm we can forget that. It may look like God isn’t present, doesn’t know or care about what we need, and isn’t responding. But God is, so we must persist in our prayer.

When we ask, God provides – not necessarily what we ask for, but always what we need; and not just what we need, but what our whole community – the family of God – needs. That may be why it seems to take God too long – because God is patiently working with another soul or souls, trusting we will remain faithful while a larger plan is being worked out.

Sometimes what we need is the comfort of God’s assurance that there is a goal for us. In that assurance we can let go our own temporal goals and our earthly plans for long-term security, remembering all we have is today, and all we need for today is given to us.

Sometimes what we need is insight or revelation that expands our vision and our hearts so that our temporal plans link with God’s heavenly plan and we are in unity and in step with God’s plan which is for us but also for the whole world. In prayer, we remember that God’s plan, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. (Eph 3:20)

I close with a portion of the “Psalm to Enliven Habit Prayers,” from the book "Psalms for Zero Gravity, Prayers for Life's Emigrants" by Edward Hays.

May I invest each word of my spoken prayers
with a whole and sincere heart…
May I feel the Spirit’s spur in my side
speedily rousing me to become my prayer.
May I feel the Spirit’s wind filling my soul
with a holy windmill power.
May I pray not only for what I know I can do
but also for what I long to do in you.
May my habit of heartfelt prayer
being me ever closer to your blessed side.

Amen.

Pentecost 6, 2019-C: The one thing we need

Lectionary: Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42



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En el nobmre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Santificador. Amen.

What a week it’s been! A heatwave is scorching our country killing six people so far. Bird attacks on people are on the rise around the world as their habitat disappears. Thousands of people are protesting for freedom in Hong Kong and Puerto Rico while maritime tensions are building with Iran. To top it off, a 17-year old girl named Bianca was murdered in NY and graphic pictures of it were posted online by her murderer with this question: “Here comes Hell. It’s redemption, right?” (www.bbc.com/news/world)

I’m so glad to be here with you to hear the Word of God and receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. Then I read Amos and the psalm for today.

Our story from Amos begins with a teaser about a basket of fruit, but quickly takes a darker turn with God saying: The end has come upon my people Israel.” If I hadn’t had to write a sermon, I might have just stopped reading and walked away. But I did have to write a sermon and my role is to discern and share the Good News in our Scripture because it’s always there.

The “basket of fruit” reference is a wordplay in Hebrew. The word that translates as 'basket of fruit' sounds like the word that translates as 'the end.' God asks Amos, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ Amos says, “the end.”

Remembering from last week that God is the plumb-line in the midst of the community, this story from Amos shows us that God sees what’s happening on the ground. God repeats, “I will never pass you by” which is interpreted to mean, I am in the midst of you and I will not forget what I’m seeing, and what I’m seeing is not just, not compassionate, and not right.

Hear this, God says: [I see] you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land. [I see you who] practice deceit with false balances, exchanging the poor for your own wealth and the needy for a pair of Gucci’s, selling junk food and passing it off as nutritious – all for your own gain.

I see you and though I embody the true vertical among you, you don’t see me. So I will watch and wait while you bring yourselves to the only end available to you: mourning and lamentation. When you get where you’re going you’ll realize how wrong you’ve been and you’ll look for me to save you, but you won’t see me.

The psalm picks up the theme calling out the tyrant for his cruelty. “You love lying more than speaking truth. You love all words that hurt.” O that God would hear our prayer and demolish you utterly…”

I admit this Psalm has been my prayer for a while now. I am not God but I see these very issues playing out in our world today, and if social media is any indicator, I’m not alone in this. I will concede, these issues play out in every era, but I think this time it's personal. This time it’s us, the historical good guys, acting unjustly, without compassion, and doing what is not right toward the weak, the foreigner, and the powerless among us.

So like the psalmist, I pray in order to go into the presence of God where my heart can be moved from “demolish them utterly” to “I trust in the mercy of God for ever.”

There are days and weeks the news is so disruptive of my peace and corrosive to my hope that my only recourse is to shut it off for a moment and return to the presence of Jesus, which is what Mary was demonstrating in today’s gospel.

This familiar story is often discussed in ways that pit Martha against Mary in a competition for holiness. I often hear people say, “I’m a Martha” or “I’m a Mary.” The truth is, we’re all both. We all have our gifts to offer in our ministries, and there are times we must all stop and sit at the feet of Jesus for the renewal of our souls.

The other biblical stories of Martha and Mary illustrate that these sisters possess a great gift of hospitality – one that goes beyond the cultural expectation for “women’s work.” They are a team – and their home is a center for hospitality and friendship. Martha’s frustration in this story is that her teammate, Mary, isn’t doing her part, leaving the burden of the whole ministry to Martha who tries to hold it up alone, but finds herself bitter and resentful about it.

Jesus responds with a soothing: Martha, Martha… you are worried and distracted by many things, but there is only one thing that really matters. Look, Mary has chosen the good part.

Why our translators changed the word here from ‘good’ to ‘better’ escapes me and is part of the reason, I think, we hear this as a competition for holiness. Mary didn’t choose a better part than Martha. Jesus called Mary’s choice good, that is, admirable, deserving of respect and approval, and he gave it all of that.

Jesus was clear that Mary’s choice would not be taken from her. Choice is a sign of our freedom. Mary had the right to choose for herself. We all do. Besides, any ministry Mary offers can wait while she is renewed in spirit.

When I picture this scene as if I were going to paint it, I see Mary sitting with the other disciples having a conversation with Jesus. They all seem happy and relaxed. Martha is not in the room with them. She’s visible through a doorway to another room where she is preparing a platter of food. Her back is to Jesus as she prepares the food. That means Martha can’t see Jesus, and as the story from Amos teaches us, when we can’t see God, we can’t move in justice, compassion, and right relationship.

To all of us who are worried and distracted by many things, Jesus assures the Martha within us and it sounds something like this: Y’all know me well enough to know that I don’t need a fancy dinner, just time with you and our friends in your home. Be still sometimes, all you Marthas. Just be with me. You have no praise to earn, no expectations to meet. You are already beloved. Come and be with me. I will fill your emptiness, restore your hope, and prepare you for your work in ministry.

Do you see how this connects to our practice of Sunday Eucharist? We come to our center of hospitality and share simple food of bread and wine with our friends and ministry teammates. Refreshed and renewed we re-enter the world where injustice and unrighteousness leave so many suffering and hopeless and we declare the goodness and mercy of God to them by our words and our lives.

As followers of Jesus Christ today we are called to be intentional about seeking the one thing we need: time spent with God and one another, listening for the voice of God within us and among us. We come together to be strengthened for service so that we can live as agents of Christ’s transforming love in the world.

That is the servanthood to which our baptism calls us, and it's why we started our Eucharist today with the opening from Holy Baptism. Now let's turn to page 304 in the Book of Common Prayer and renew our baptismal vows together. Afterward, we continue with the Prayers of the People.

After the renewal of Baptismal vows, we conclude with this collect:

Let us pray. Holy God, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon [us] your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised [us] to the new life of grace. Sustain [us], O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give [us] an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen. (BCP, Baptism, 314)

Pentecost 5, 2019-C: Let God be God among us

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



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En el nombre dil Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Santificador. Amen.

Our lectionary today includes a lot of emphasis on what we should do as God’s people. In fact, we started our worship with a prayer asking God to help us know what things we ought to do, then give us grace and power to do them.

What are the things we ought to do… ?

This is often a problematic discussion in the context of worship and church life because it can degrade very quickly into a set of rules delineating specific things we must do while adding in the things we must not do. Lists such as those often reduce living lives of faith to a freedom-less obedience to a changing landscape of laws architected by the powerful.

As history demonstrates – the rules change as those in power change. They also change as people grow in wisdom, grace, and faith, as evidenced by the ordination of women and LGBTQ people and the federal law allowing same-sex marriage.

There have always been those among us who must know and clarify every instance in which any specific rule does or doesn’t apply, and we end up with 10 commandments morphing into nearly 700 rules to live by. There are also those who utilize the rules to thin the herd so to speak: if you disobey the rules, you’ll be cast out of our community, or worse yet, cast into eternal damnation.

Don’t’ get me wrong: I’m not purporting we ditch all rules or that living in faith or freedom means living with no rules. On the contrary, I believe that rules, customs, and traditions help communities live together in peace with fairness and provide a foundation upon which communities can evolve and grow from generation to generation - especially in the context of the church.

What I don’t believe is that obedience to rules or traditions can lead us to eternal life. That path can only be found in the heart, which is what (I think) Jesus was demonstrating in today’s gospel.

The lawyer in this story asks Jesus: ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by asking what the law says. The lawyer, familiar with the law, answers correctly quoting from Deuteronomy (6:5): You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Jesus affirms the lawyer saying, “Right… do this and you will live.”

I want to pause here and notice that Jesus did not say you will live eternally, which was what the lawyer had asked. We’ll get back to this later.

Luke says that the next question the lawyer asked was to justify himself, that is, to affirm for himself that he is doing it right - according to the law. Jesus answers with the story of the Good Samaritan.

You all know this story, so we don’t need to go deeply into the details of it. Because in the end, the lawyer sums up Jesus’ point: the one who showed mercy was the one who was a neighbor.

The power of this story is in these three details:

1) The man who did it right was a Samaritan. As we discussed two weeks ago, Samaritans were considered racially and spiritually impure by the Jews, and they couldn’t interact with or touch Jewish people, as that would make the Jewish person unclean too.

2) The other characters in this story, who did it wrong, all responded to the dying man in keeping with the law which prohibited them from touching a dying man, lest they become unclean themselves;

3) The impure Samaritan had to violate the law in order to show mercy since he too should not have touched a dying man AND he should not have touched a Jewish man. Jesus didn’t identify the dying man as Jewish, but what if he had been? By the time someone could know this, it might be too late and the poor man would be unclean and dead!

You can see the conundrum. So Jesus clears it up in typical rabbinical fashion – by asking a question: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor…?”

The obvious answer is the one who showed mercy. This answer points to two important things. First, when we show mercy we are prioritizing the other over ourselves. Their need becomes more important than our obedience to the law. Second, action is required. The Samaritan didn’t think mercifully, he acted mercifully. He didn’t offer thoughts and prayers, he offered aid.

This brings to my mind the man arrested for bringing water to thirsty refugees at the border or the many cities in which people are being arrested for feeding the homeless, and looks ahead to the ICE raids scheduled to begin today.

So the question is: how do we know what we ought to do?

The answer can be found in the story from Amos and the epistle to the Colossians. In Amos, God provides the prophet with a vision of a plumb line, which is, of course, a vertical reference line: heaven to earth. From now on, God says, this is us. “I am setting this plumb line in the midst of my people… I will never pass them by again” because I will be among them. The thing about a plumb line is, it can only offer a true vertical reference when it is free from restriction or obstruction.

In other words, God must be free to be God among us in order for us to be in right relationship. This ties in to the great commandment: we are to love God with all we are – heart , mind, soul, and strength. This kind of love isn’t about having strong feelings about God (there’s a different Greek word for that) but about giving God preference over ourselves. The word ‘love’ used here refers to our will. To love God in this way is to choose to acquiesce to God, to accept God’s will without protest, and to cherish God with reverence.

The other important point in the story in Amos is that the plumb line is in the midst of a community. This isn’t about our individual relationship with God but our relationship as a community of God’s people to God. Does the community choose to put God’s will ahead of its own? In order to do that we must let go of our individual and corporate ability to influence an outcome we might honestly think is best for the community, trusting that God has a plan that is more than we can ask or imagine. (Eph 3:20) In community then, if we hinder the free movement of the plumb line, we are a stumbling block.

The letter to the Colossians reminds us that there will be moments the community needs to endure together, with patience, and the author prays for their strengthening, wisdom, and understanding. It makes you wonder if they were a church in transition, doesn’t it? ;)

So, the question we’ve been pondering is: how do we know what we ought to do?

I noticed that there is a thread that runs through the whole lectionary: the presumption of a prayerful relationship with God. When we pray to God we remember to get out of the way of the plumb line. Praying is the means by which we live in right relationship with God, one another, and ourselves.

Praying also puts us in the presence of God – which is eternal life - this life and the afterlife in the eternal presence of God. We don’t inherit eternal life, as the lawyer questioning Jesus assumed. We accept it. It is a gift from God. Being in the prayerful presence of God is the only way we can know what we ought to do when we face a circumstance that takes us beyond the limits of the law, custom, or tradition.

As we transition culturally from a generation that goes to weekly church services out of duty or obedience to the rules to a generation that dismisses (some even abhor) the institutional church and its rules, it’s important to remember that the body of Christ is now as it has always been – a community of people in whom God in Christ dwells.

As the body of Christ, then, it is important for us to let God be God among us; to pay attention - together, listen - together, and respond - together - to God’s call to us as a community because every church in every generation is faced with situations that cause us to have to look beyond our rules, traditions, and customs in order to respond with love; in order to grow in wisdom, grace, and faith.

Do this, as Jesus said, and we will live. Amen.

Pentecost 4, 2019-C: Show up and let God work

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



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En el nombre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Santificador. Amen.

In today’s gospel, Luke offers a perfect description of the relationship between a rector and the church community they serve, as well as the members of a church to their church and community. Jesus, having already sent the twelve disciples out, now sends 70 others in pairs “into the harvest.” Numbers have spiritual significance in the bible. In this case, 70 represents God’s authority being carried out in power.

The harvest is plentiful, he tells them, but laborers are few. Pray that you will be a laborer for God’s harvest. That will be different from what you’ve learned, so listen up: Go where God sends you. God has a plan.

See, he says, I am sending you out like lambs (symbols of peace) among wolves (which symbolize enemies). Go to those who are your traditional enemies and offer God’s peace to them because God’s peace brings the end of enmity and replaces it with tranquility and security.

This is why you must enter the relationship with vulnerability: so that those to whom go recognize this isn’t about power, but about love. They are empowered because they must tend to your needs even as you tend to theirs. It’s hard to imagine how the colonialist approach to sharing the good news gained momentum in light of this instruction, but it did – and it still does. Yet Jesus’ instruction is clear: there can be no coercion. Each in the relationship is dependent on the other; each is the servant of the other.

If you enter a town and there is anyone there who accepts your peace abide with them for a while. Get to know them. Build relationship with them. Tend my sheep there.

The phrase translated as “cure the sick” means more broadly: notice those who are weak, who need strength in body or spirit. The instruction is to identify the powerless and bring them the power of God which you embody, saying to them, “the authority of God, the realm of God has come near to you.”

This is where the OT story of Naaman ties in. Naaman is a mighty military commander who has leprosy, though it’s in the early stages. When it progresses, he’ll lose his position of power because in those days, a person with leprosy was exiled in order to keep the disease from spreading. Leprosy was thought to be punishment for sin, so not only were they exiled, they were also shamed and blamed.

Hearing about Naaman’s condition, a young Israelite slave girl (notice the vulnerability in each of those descriptors: young, Jewish, slave, female) who served 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 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 go and wash in the River Jordan seven times.

The powerful Naaman is highly insulted and angry. ‘That’s it? I thought for me the prophet and his God would put on a great show of healing magic. I came all this way for this?’

Naaman is eventually convinced to do as Elisha commanded, and is healed. No pomp, no circumstance; and power is redefined for all who read this story and have ears to hear it.

The slave girl in this story exemplifies what Jesus is teaching his followers about being laborers for God’s harvest. She notices Naaman’s weakness and tends to him. His physical weakness is the skin condition, but his real weakness is spiritual – his attachment to having and wielding earthly, coercive power.

She didn’t need to tend to Naaman. She could have let his disease progress and take him down. It’s likely that his downfall would have led to her freedom. But she was a laborer in God’s harvest, one in which every fruit, every person is worth serving.

Back to the gospel. Jesus instructs the 70 to abide where God has led them. Don’t go seeking a better house, better food, better accommodations. For us the instruction might sound like this: abide and serve in the church community to which God has led you. Don’t go seeking a better budget, better leadership, better programs.

Jesus continues: wherever you are welcomed, eat whatever they set before you. When God sends a laborer to serve, they must not be inhibited by religious laws. God’s love will be spread to its fullness by faith, and being faithful isn’t about knowing or keeping religious rules. It isn’t about belonging to or joining an acceptable group.

Being faithful is about living in the risky uncertainty of the presence of God and responding to an inner prompting that compels us to love as God loves. Faith causes us to walk into a relationship we’d rather avoid; to care for someone we’d rather see fall.

St. Francis of Assisi once said, “We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.” If I could be so bold as to re-state what Francis said, I’d say: We have been called to be vehicles for God to heal wounds, for God to unite what has fallen apart, and for God to bring home those who have lost their way.

If we look within any faith community, we can find those who could be reunited and brought home if we chose to notice and reach out to them. We could find those among us with wounds and offer ourselves as vehicles of God’s healing.

We must also remember that the choice to reconcile, to receive God’s healing love, is theirs. If they choose not to accept it or to ignore it, walk away, shake the dust from your feet, and leave the rest to God.

We must also look out to our local community where it isn’t hard at all to find the weak, the wounded, and the powerless… because we are the 70 Jesus is sending today. We are God’s laborers being sent into the harvest to bring the realm of God near to those who need it. And like the 70 in this gospel story, we also will be thrilled when we return to tell about how God’s power working in us defeats any adversary out there.

The gospel story closes with a promise and a caution. Jesus says, I have given you authority over every adversary, but be careful about rejoicing over what looks like your success.

I have been a vehicle for God’s healing power many times affording me the privilege of witnessing God do miraculous physical and spiritual healing in people and even in churches. When these healings happen, it isn’t because I did anything other than show up and let God work… and that’s the point: God is alive and at work as much today as when Jesus walked the earth, and every time we participate with God our lives and the lives of those we serve are transformed by the shared experience of the kingdom of God drawing near.

If we rejoice about anything then, it’s that God has chosen, prepared, and sent us to bring God’s peace, healing, and reconciling love to all who need it within our church and in our local community.
Let’s close by praying together today’s Collect (found in your lectionary insert): “O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (BCP, 230-231)