Today is the sixth Sunday of Easter. It is also Mother’s Day and Rogation Sunday. So we get to celebrate the resurrection. We set aside time to remember our mothers. Rogation Sunday is the Sunday before Ascension Day when priests would go around the bounds of the parish blessing the fields for a fruitful harvest. I wonder how I can tie all of this together into a sermon? As it turns out, every year I buy my mother a plant for Mother’s Day. In my actions I remember new life and growing things while I offer a token of appreciation to my mother! Somehow it all comes together.
All of these observances are later additions to the words of Jesus. In today’s gospel he is making his farewell address to the disciples on the night he is about to enter his time of trial and passion. We sort of step backwards in time to remember what Jesus said before he left the disciples. They were confused and afraid and Jesus reminds them of those things that are most important.
The final instructions are, “love one another.” Love is the most important thing. There are plenty of distractions and dangers in life, but in the end the most important thing is that we love each other. This is the foundation on which we build our families. This is how our mothers help us begin a rich and satisfying life. We learn how to connect to others as we learn love from our mothers and parents so we can grow into independent adults. We might learn facts and data in school. We learn how to work in the world in our jobs. We learn how to explore our faith together in this community. We learn how to love by being loved.
As parents we want to give our children every good thing. We buy them nice clothes and try to provide a safe and comfortable home. We try to live in a good place and offer them opportunities to try new things and discover their talents. The most important thing we give our children is love. We can miss many of the other things we wish we could give our children, and they will still grow and thrive. If we give everything else and fail to love, our children will be lost.
This is a lesson for us as a community that thinks of itself as an extended family. We have our dreams for this place. We wish we could fix all the broken things in this building. We want to hand down our treasures to the next generation. We worry that we have lost our place of prestige in the wider world. If we could fix all of this and we lack love – what is the point? If we never really solve every problem, but we manage to love one another, we may not preserve the church we know, but we will have given the most important gift.
Our purpose is to share God’s gift of love and reconciliation. It would be nice if the world suddenly became interested in Anglican chant and prayers written in the days of Shakespeare. We’d love it if people could get a taste of the beauty and majesty of our worship. We are tapping into the deep roots of the past every Sunday we worship. We pray with generations of faithful Christians. We succeed, not in our perfection of some plan of worship, but in how we help people approach God and apprehend God’s deep love for them.
Our simple goal is to fill the church with more people (who will hopefully help us with all of our expenses.) When we hear stories about people being open to God’s work of reconciling and loving the world, the outcome is often unexpected. Peter was surprised. God showed him a dream of unclean animals and commanded Peter to eat, God then commanded Peter that he must never declare unclean what God has made clean. Immediately, Peter is sent to preach to a devout gentile man and his household. Cornelius and his whole community accept Peter’s words with joy. They receive the Holy Spirit just as the disciples did on Pentecost – so they are all baptized. Peter was assuming that all Christians must first be Jews. God always has bigger plans than we do.
We have many immediate challenges. Perhaps the most difficult challenge is the ability to keep being faithful while things are not easy. Even as we have to make difficult budget decisions, we also need to widen our vision. We have to ask more than “how will we survive?” We have to ask, “Who else needs to be here?” We have to keep loving even as we are trying to figure out the answers. We have to keep seeking reconciliation even as we don’t quite know what will happen next.
This seems difficult. We’ve got too much responsibility. We need to remember that love is not the burden. What we need is the courage to love even when we don’t have easy answers and certain paths to follow.
We have seen this. Consider how a new mother loves her child. Except for extraordinary circumstances, a mother wants to hold and cuddle her child. New parents are obsessed with their new family member. They make every sacrifice (including sleep) to provide and protect. No one makes them they want to do it. Part of the learning for new parents is finding a balance. The first impulse is to love – without knowing the right way – without knowing the outcome.
I have a priest friend who received a sort of mezuzah on his ordination. Instead of the traditional Hebrew scripture, it contained a portion of the gospel reading today – “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last …” This is encouraging and humbling. God has chosen us to share in the work of reconciling the world. It’s not about us; it’s about God’s love. God did not call us to feel good about the accolades we obtain. God loves us first so that we can offer God’s love to everyone we meet.
This is the fruit that God promises. We know love and we share it. Nothing else matters as much as this.
I grew up in an area of the state that used to have many apple orchards. The trees grow in rows and are carefully pruned. They look nothing like the ornamental trees many of us have around our homes. They are kept short, and the branches are intentionally thinned to allow sunlight to reach the entire tree. The purpose is to grow more apples and to have a healthier tree. To look at, they might seem ugly, but they grow great apples.
My grandfather was an avid gardener. He had a grape arbor and trained it along the back of his yard and grew some grapes every year. We took a cutting from his vine and planted it in our backyard. We never learned how to prune it or train it. It sort of grew in a big bushy heap. The grapes were always small and bitter. The rabbits ate them but we never did. I grew up with a first hand knowledge of how bad pruning ends badly.
The idea of pruning may be on the edge of our experience, but Jesus is sharing a common idea to his audience of people who live off the land. Pruning is necessary if you seek a harvest. Jesus inserts himself into the image. He is the vine and we are the branches. He reminds us of two very important principles. We need to abide in the vine. This is obvious from the image. Any branch that is not attached to the life-giving vine will wither and die. The second principle he tells us is that our purpose is to be fruitful. We abide in the vine so that we can grow into disciples.
We also hear examples from the early church about fruitful disciples. Consider how Phillip uses the life-giving message of the gospel. He meets an Ethiopian eunuch. Phillip is willing to engage in a conversation with a stranger. This stranger comes from a land at the edge of the known world. He is a eunuch, a castrated slave who works in a foreign kingdom. All of these differences would normally keep these two men separate. Phillip is able to cross all of the differences because he is moved by the life-giving purpose of Jesus. He is not sharing his opinions or his hobbies. He is sharing the knowledge of who Jesus is and what he has done. Phillip is so free that he is also able to offer baptism. Phillip doesn’t wait for instructions or look up the rules. It seems good to offer everything he knows – so he does.
John reminds us in his letter that love is a sign that we abide in God. Because we desire to love and reach out and share what we have and what we know – this is evidence that we know God. John also reminds us that we are motivated to love, by love. We do not act out of fear. We don’t do good things because we fear that God will find out if we don’t. We reach out in love because we abide in God’s love.
We hear about the possibility of pruning and maybe we recoil a little. We don’t want parts cut off, nor do we want to be cut off ourselves. It sounds painful and difficult. When Jesus gives us the image of the vine and the vinedresser, he is not warning us what will happen if we don’t get our act together. He is describing what we can expect from God on the way to becoming more fruitful.
This is not some theological backdoor way to explain away all the suffering of life. This is not some sort of test that we must pass to prove ourselves to God. This is not about suffering at all. This is about living more deeply, more intentionally, more completely as disciples of Jesus. We should know that God loves us and wants us to be our best selves. The pruning is part of the way to fruitfulness.
We have our share of troubles. We should not confuse our troubles with the work of faithfulness. We all have to live with loss and pain. Jesus is not describing the senseless loss of illness or disaster. He is describing the intentional work of growing into the image of Christ. We are living through an economic crisis and everyday we face the problems of sickness and aging. These things are not the pruning Jesus talks about. He is inviting us into a deeper and more life filled relationship. To live more deeply, to abide in Jesus, we have to let go of those things in our lives that are not fruitful. If we ask, Jesus will help with the pruning.
As a community, we are seeking to live more faithfully. As it turns out, this way of life is not immediately popular in the surrounding culture. We might be able to fill a few more pews if we taught a message of comfort and ease. We might attract a few more members if we didn’t need to do so much work. Jesus reminds us that the purpose of pruning is more abundant life. Perhaps this is the dormant time for us, when pruning has the best result. Right now, the plant looks sparse and there is little evidence of life.
This is exactly what pruning looks like. The orchard trees look spindly and small. The grape vines look as if all the life has been cut out of them. The vinedresser knows what he is doing. Jesus reminds us that abundant life doesn’t always come easy. It requires patience and persistence. We should not measure our success before the time is right. Until the time of harvest, our measure should be how well we are attached to the life-giving vine. If we are (and we are) we can expect that Jesus will continue to give us life and it will lead to the fruitfulness that he desires.
All of this comes from God’s love. Just as we are eager to adapt our lives for the people we love, God is willing to work with us as we adapt to the ways of God’s love. We should not expect immediate fulfillment because we are not taking a short cut. We are following the path of life that is all the more abundant because it takes time and care. We are growing into God’s love. This is enough for any soul to want.
When I was first ordained, I didn’t know how to dress for gatherings of clergy. I remember that I was always wearing a suit or jacket when everyone else seemed to be in jeans and sweaters. When I thought I’d dress comfortably, everyone else was dressed in suits. It’s easier now. Our own bishops rarely dress formally, except for visitations or funerals. My past confusion about dress code reminds me how we often negotiate in our head and in our actions what we think is most appropriate for an occasion.
I thought about this when I reflected on Naaman, and his visit to Elisha. He brings along with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of garments. What do you wear to a healing? What is the appropriate hostess gift?
Naaman is suffering from leprosy. In his day this could have been any skin disorder, but the terrible thing about leprosy in that day was that it made people outcasts. They could no longer participate in community, but had to live outside and depend upon the charity of others. Naaman was a general of Aram. The king of Aram needed his general, so he sought a cure. A slave girl from Israel suggested he go to Elisha the prophet in Israel. Naaman goes to the king of Israel seeking a cure, and carrying a large retinue of gift bearers. The king of Israel is terrified. What can he do for this man, no matter how much gold he brings?
Everyone thought that they were doing the appropriate thing. They all thought that they knew how everything works. Naaman thinks that all he has to do is bring enough money and the king of Israel will produce a cure. The king of Israel thinks that Naaman and the king of Aram must be looking for a fight because he knows this is an impossible request. No one knows how God works.
Elisha sends word to the king – not to worry, I know what to do. He tells Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he’ll be cured. Naaman is appalled. That muddy river! Aren’t there better rivers in Damascus? Why did I come all this way? You’d think for the price I’m offering the holy man would at least jump up and down or wave his hands and say some magic words! A levelheaded servant suggests to Naaman that if the prophet had suggested something more difficult, he would have done it – so why not give it a try. Naaman bathes and his skin is made clean. God does not work the way we suppose. There is no need to impress God or pay God. God heals because God is merciful, and God’s mercy cannot be bought or sold.
A leper walks right up to Jesus and declares, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” The man shows faith not only in his words but also in his actions. He crosses a lot of barriers that everyone else takes for granted. Everyone knows that lepers keep to the outskirts of town. Everyone knows that lepers aren’t supposed to approach anyone, for fear of contagion. Everyone knows that leprosy is a sign of God’s disfavor – they must have done something to deserve their illness. Everyone knows that he should not dare to approach a holy man.
Jesus also crosses an unspoken barrier. He acknowledges the man and even touches him. I do choose. Be made clean! The man is cured instantly. No need to even bathe once in the Jordan! In touching him, Jesus himself becomes ritually unclean. Perhaps this is why he tells the man to go quietly to the priests and get declared legally clean. Perhaps Jesus wants the man to be restored to community. Maybe Jesus just doesn’t want the attention. Maybe he doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea about who he is.
The result of the healing of the leper is that Jesus becomes famous and he has difficulty traveling because everyone wants to see him. Isn’t that a good problem to have? Doesn’t Jesus want people to come and hear his message? That’s the way it works, right? Jesus is merciful, and Jesus is proclaiming a message of freedom and new life, but not a message of miracles. Jesus hasn’t come to do miracles. He has come to offer the complete miracle we all need. Jesus has come to transform hearts and to give us all new life.
The healing of the leper shows how far Jesus is willing to go. He crosses over all of our barriers and he rejects all of the accepted ways of doing things. It is not that Jesus is some sort of iconoclast who wants to destroy society. Jesus wants to do more than to replace the institutions and patterns that have outlived their usefulness. Jesus is offering an entirely new way of living. He is offering new life, eternal life. He is doing more than healing our bodies. He is giving us new hearts.
The question for us is what do we have to give up that we know to be true? We assume that we know how everything works. We develop ways of working together that we know will work. We relate to the surrounding community in the way we always have. It’s time we re-examined whether or not we are following God’s way.
I’m not saying that the old ways of doing things are wrong simply because they are old. We are blessed with many traditions that give us wisdom and sense that we are connected with generations of faithful people. Our faith is not some monolithic objective thing that we have to carry or work around. Our faith is a living relationship with God. We have to constantly work to deepen and enlarge our faith. We have to look to see the new things God is doing – in us and around us.
Paul uses the image of a track meet. To win the race we have to work. The work is not to copy the challenges of the past. Our work is to follow God faithfully in this moment. We don’t really “win” as if we have defeated someone else. We are training to seek the path God has given us and we are training to follow to the best of our abilities.
It’s easier to have customs and traditions that are comfortable. God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. God calls us to live. As we are ready to give up those things that no longer give us life, we are closer to following more faithfully the path that leads to real life.
Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? Who sits above the circle of the earth and looks at us as if we were grasshoppers? Who stretched out the heavens like a tent so we could live under it? Who thinks nothing of princes and rulers (for they come and go like weeds)? Who are we compared to God?
Do you feel insignificant yet? Who created every person who ever lived and gave them a name? How can we say that God has forgotten us or that God doesn’t care what happens to us? God doesn’t grow tired or forgetful. In truth, God gives strength. Our strength fails. Even the youngest and strongest of us will tire eventually.
“But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.”
The Psalm reminds us that God is powerful and ready to strengthen us. The first verse calls us to praise God. The next four verses describe God’s power. God restores the people of God and heals the broken. God creates the stars and there is no limit to God’s power and wisdom. Verse six reminds us that God lifts up the lowly and casts down the wicked. Verse seven repeats the pattern and calls us to praise God. Verses eight through eleven remind us again of God’s power. God creates the heavens and the rain and the grass and plants. God feeds us, and the animals. God is not impressed by our symbols of power. In verse twelve we are reminded that God is pleased by those who fear God; that is, those who have proper respect and reverence for God. God loves those who seek to be in right relationship with God.
We already know all this. We know that God created the world. We know that God is in control. Why bring it up? We forget it. We can repeat the Nicene Creed and the Lord’s Prayer and then walk out the door of the church and live as if we stop believing it at the door. Some of this is the evidence we see around us. If God is in control, then why is everything so bad? Why doesn’t God fix it or make it better? Is this really a question about God’s power? Or is it a question about our response? Maybe things are bad because God is calling us to fix it.
Maybe things are bad, not because God is neglectful or busy elsewhere. Maybe things are bad because we’ve held onto things that are precious to us. Maybe we’ve been too concerned about keeping things the way we like them instead of seeking what God wants for us. God calls us to live faithfully. God invites us to enter into God’s work of reconciling the world. Maybe that calling is very different from the programs we grew up with. Maybe the world is hurting in different ways and our faithful response is to try something new.
The apostle Paul had many difficulties with the church in Corinth. They were so proud of themselves. They thought they had all the answers. The discussion Paul is working through is their attitude towards eating food sacrificed to idols. Food would be brought as offerings to pagan temples and those temples would sell the food to get money. The Christians in Corinth knew there were no real pagan gods, so they bought the food and ate it. Food is food, and it’s not good or bad. Paul is reminding them to respect the consciences of new converts who might be offended. He reminds them that he has many privileges as an apostle. He doesn’t insist on what he is due. Instead, he is always thinking about how he can reach others with the good news. He doesn’t rest on his credentials, but he submits himself to whatever is needed so he can reach different people. In other words, it’s more important to share the good news than it is to be right. It’s more important to help people to be reconciled with God than it is to get people to respect his position as an apostle.
We are not apostles. We are Episcopalians. We have a long and proud tradition. We have beautiful gifts of liturgy and music. We have a marvelous building. We have a long tradition in this place. None of this is more important than how we help people become reconciled with God. Perhaps the beauty of what we do will draw people in. Maybe our openness and tolerance of others will help people feel safe. However, our goal is not to create more Episcopalians (nice as that may be.) Our calling is to draw people to God and trust that God will inspire and empower them to go out into the world and share the good news.
Jesus enters Peter’s house in the little village of Capernaum. He heals Peter’s mother-in-law – so well that she can serve them. The whole village gathers in the house and crowds around the door. Jesus teaches and heals the sick and demon possessed. What a great day! Let’s do it again! In the morning, the disciples are looking for Jesus to keep up all the great stuff that they were doing. Then Jesus tells them the hard news. He has to go to other villages. The good news isn’t just for one place. That means they have to travel to strange and different places. They can’t preserve what is comfortable and what is easy.
Our future is unknown and difficult. We have much work to preserve our community in this place in this day. Maybe the place we will find the strength is in knowing that we are not simply preserving a building for as long as we can. We are always a people called to share in God’s work of reconciliation. Whether the roof leaks or the boiler quits or the budget is a challenge – or not – we will always be invited to enter into the work of sharing God’s love to anyone who will listen.
None of us can say what the future will hold for us. If we remain faithful to out first calling as bearers of good news, we will find God’s strength to sustain us – and we will be able to bear whatever sacrifice we are called to make because we will be doing God’s work.
The Second Sunday in Lent
Many of you know that I am a Red Sox fan. I think that they have a pretty good team this year. A lot of their players were injured last year and they have better hitting. I hope the pitching can hold up, but in General, I believe in this team. What do I mean when I say that I believe in them? I believe they have what it takes to win. That’s my faith in them. I could also say that I think that they have the right spirit. They know how to get through a tough season. They have character. In this way they have a spirit that their fans admire – the fans of Red Sox nation.
There are two ways of thinking about faith. We trust in the promise of another. We trust that someone will do what he or she says they will do. This is how Abram (Abraham) has faith in God. God tells him to go to another land. Abram goes, but the manifold blessing is all the work of God. Abram shows great faith in moving, but also in believing that God would be what Abram imagines. Abram is giving up a family tradition of Paganism in the land of Babylon. He will settle in a new land with a new way of life.
This may be captured in the psalm. The old paganism believed that a god resided on every high hilltop. The psalmist looks at these many hills and wonders, “from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Abram’s God is higher than the many hilltops and maker of the whole world (not simply a local environment.) Abram believes in God’s promises, but also in God’s control over everything.
This is the way that we make sense of Jesus’ cryptic words to Nicodemus. The Pharisee comes with good intentions to either test Jesus or learn more. It may be that he is coming in the night because he is cowardly, or because he is pious, because the middle of the night is the time to study Torah. Before he can offer any questions, Jesus tells him that we have to be born from above or anew. While Nicodemus ponders the biological difficulties with re-entering the womb, Jesus tells him that it is the work of the Spirit. How are we born again, or from above, or anew? It is by faith. God promises it and we believe it.
Just as any birth, the one born does nothing to gain life. The one born has no say. They simply come into being by the loving act of another. So are we born a second time into new life with God.
But there is another dimension of faith. We believe in the power of God. We believe in the loving sacrifice of Jesus and his resurrection. But we also share faith. We don’t just believe in Jesus. We believe as Jesus does. We share faith not just in the truth of Jesus; we believe the same way that he does. We believe that the Spirit of God exists, but we also believe that God’s spirit dwells in us and guides us in the right way. If we are having struggles as a church in this place and time, perhaps it is not because we lack faith in Jesus, it’s because we lack the faith of Jesus.
When we try to do the will of God, we look at our hands and think about our abilities. We imagine the resources we have in our bank account and think about how much free time we have in our schedules. Then we try to find some good things to do with our resources. We give some food to the hungry. We try to act nicer. We try to think well of our neighbor. Then we wonder why nothing changes. I don’t want to ignore the importance of many people doing their small share, but we fail because we try to do God’s work with our resources.
If we have faith in God, what are the limits? Can’t God do anything? Why do we limit God to what we can pull out of our wallet or do with our hands? If we share the faith of Jesus, we would be willing to empty our hands and let go of everything we think we can do. Instead we would be listening for the voice of God, ready to work through us. If we really shared the faith of Jesus, imagine what God could do through us? Would there be any limit? Perhaps this is why God works such powerful things through the poorest people. We have all heard stories about third world communities being able to overcome great difficulties. Maybe because they have nothing else, they can more easily rely on God.
I have the example in my own household of newborn child. My granddaughter is constantly learning and discovering. She has no ideas about limits. She has no idea about anything. She trusts she will be heard when she cries. She is content to discover the world as it unfolds. She sleeps without a single care (when she sleeps). God doesn’t want us to become simple or childish. God wants us to trust that the most outrageous claims and blessing of God are all true. We work and we worry about how we will make them come about. All along, God is ready to bless us if our arms weren’t already so full with all the things we think we need to do.
Our lives aren’t about doing – doing the right thing, or doing more good things. Our lives are all about the new thing that God is birthing through us. As we pray and listen and seek the will of God. It’s never about being better or good enough to be blessed. We are already blessed. We are already forgiven of whatever it is that burdens us with guilt. (I already pronounced absolution. It’s all true.) Our life of faith is to discover how God will live through us and let it happen.
I'll try to post my sermons more quickly. Let me know if this is helpful.
Greg
|
RSS Feed