6 December 2009/Advent 2C – Baruch 5:1-9/Philippians 1:3-11/Luke 3:1-6
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Total Makeover
In the reign of Caesar Richard Daley the First, I grew up just a few blocks from the Chicago City line. In those days we called it, “The City That Works.” It was not uncommon, especially come election time, for Caesar Daley to order the filling of pot-holes, paving or re-paving of streets, and the demolition and leveling of derelict buildings just before making a campaign visit to a particular neighborhood. It’s one of the things Mayor Dixon has been particularly good at making happen in Baltimore when not distracted by shopping.
As Luke reminds us, this is a time-honored tradition among those in Power – whole roadways and construction projects would precede the visitation of a visiting Caesar, King, or Emperor to the various outposts of his kingdom.
Over five hundred years before the time of John and Jesus, Isaiah used the image of such Imperial Public Works total makeovers to describe the Hopeful coming day that God would lead the exiled people of God back to Jerusalem from Babylon – Babylon itself a metaphor that from the time of the Babylonian Captivity through the Revelation to John to modern day prophets and poets demanding deliverance from captivity to such things as colonialism, consumer-driven capitalism, red-lining debt and mortgage practices and the like. A quick listen to the likes of Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur and Common, to name just a few, reveals the continued potency the image of Babylon still conjures in the popular imagination.
The idea in Luke is much the same as Isaiah tells it: a total makeover, a full scale public works project, is needed if it can be hoped that God will again deliver us from our captivity to sin. That is sin, not sins. The latter are particular deeds such as appear on Santa’s list of those who have been naughty. Yet, these are merely symptoms of a deeper, underlying spiritual disease that is Sin, capital “s” and singular – Sin is the state of chosen alienation from God, when we turn to ourselves and away from God, insisting on having our own way with no restraint from outside and beyond ourselves.
We may as well admit it, some see this as “freedom” and “the American Way.” But this is to deny the fact that true human freedom comes from accepting our status as creatures who look to their creator as the source of the fullness of life – the God in whose image we are created. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it, “In whose service is perfect freedom,” which words are engraved on the outside of our Church Headquarters at 815 Second Avenue, NY, NY!
So as our collect reminds us, God periodically sends messengers, prophets, to “preach repentance and to prepare the way for our salvation.” We need to level the high spots and fill in the low places, straighten the roadway so that God can get back in relationship with us in a new and meaningful way.
Enter the makeovers. It seems that Cable Television is one long Advent project what with every kind of “Total Makeover” show imaginable. One of my favorites is What Not To Wear: starring Stacy London and Clinton Kelly. They come into your world by surprise, make you throw out your entire wardrobe, and give you a, get this, $5,000 gift card to purchase all new clothes!
As relates to repentance and preparing for the coming of God’s Salvation, Baruch announces: “Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction…and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God. Put on the robe of righteousness…the diadem of the glory of the everlasting…for God will show your splendor everywhere..[and] give you evermore the name, ‘Righteous, Peace, Godly Glory!’”
Regular prayer and Bible Study and Weekly Corporate Worship are meant to be Stacy and Clint coaching us on a total makeover, which ultimately is never about clothes at all, but rather helping and empowering people to become the best version of themselves – the people God wants them to be!
Which leads us to perhaps the contemporary icon of total personal transformation, Ty Pennington. Yes, he of Extreme Makeover – Home Edition. Many of us are familiar with what he does for other people whose lives are in need of extreme assistance. But what we don’t know much about is his personal transformation. In his own words his childhood was unruly to say the least: “I would strip down naked, and hold on the blinds in my classroom as a child and swear along with that if I didn't get my way. I was just a very bad kid overall, I don't know how my mother raised me!” His mother, while studying to become a psychologist, eventually diagnosed him as ADHD, and in a few years found treatment modalities that has transformed him into what he is now described: an American television host, model, philanthropist, and, get this, a carpenter. Beyond the TV show, he works with any number of philanthropic endeavors to make life better for others.
Kind of like the carpenter we await in Advent. Make no mistake about it, Advent is a time to take inventory as a congregation, as a nation and as individuals: are we prepared for that day when we are promised Jesus will come again? Have we prepared a landing strip that is level and straight to bring him all the way into our hearts and souls?
No one can deny, a Total Makeover is in order!
It is what Paul is praying for when he writes: “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the Day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”
To produce such a harvest, it is time to begin a total makeover today!
Amen.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
What Is Truth?
22 November 2009/Christ the King – John 18:33-37
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Christ The King
Our edit of the conversation between Jesus and Pilate in the Fourth Gospel stops just short of what I have always thought to be the money line.
Jesus says, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
This is undoubtedly the most peculiar Sunday of the Christian Year – Christ the King Sunday. It challenges all notions we have about Kings as well as all notions we have about “the truth.”
We tend to think of truth in terms of assertions or facts to which we can give or withhold our assent. We think of truth as ideas, notions, assertions, verifiable facts.
“The term [truth] has no single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and various theories and views of truth continue to be debated.” Thank you, Wikipedia!
We are those people, however, who hold fast to a peculiar notion without which there is no such thing as Christian Faith: we believe “truth” to be a flesh and blood person named Jesus. And further we believe this flesh and blood person to be God.
Jesus says as much later in John: I Am …the truth…
As I tell the girls in my classroom, whenever the words “I Am” are written in the Bible they can only point to one thing: the ultimate reality of God. For when Moses asks the voice in the burning bush who it is that is sending him to confront Pharaoh, the answer is quite simply, “I Am….tell him I Am sent you.”
So when Jesus says, “I Am,” the reader knowledgeable of scripture hears the voice from the bush speaking from a new place – and that place is a flesh and blood person like you and like me. So to know Jesus is to know Truth – to know Truth is to know Jesus as the voice from the burning bush.
We try to gussy it all up and make bold assertions about our knowledge of and the nature of God, but in the end we are left with the simple assertion that Truth is a man.
And when we say this man is King, we do not mean a king like any other king we have every read about or known. Truth, the man, says his kingdom is not of this world. He says he has no armies to command to protect him. He tells those of his followers who would pick up weapons to defend him to put them down.
Not once does he utter words like, “Off with his head,” or “Send him to the dungeon,” or “Annex his property to mine,” or “Foreclose on his farm today.”
Jesus wrote no books and yet is considered a teacher for all the ages.
He had no servants, yet people called him master.
He had no army yet kings feared him.
He came as God incarnate, yet he is seen on his knees washing his disciple’s feet.
He was buried in a tomb, yet he is as alive today as he was 2,000 years ago.
He says we will do the things he does, and greater things than these.
What is truth?
Jesus is our idea of Truth. Jesus is our idea of a King.
A day such as this means to ask us: Are we ready to know the truth?
Are we ready to serve such a King?
Are we doing the things he did? Are we doing greater things than he did?
The Letter of James writes, “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.”
This is how we are called to honor our king – by becoming the first fruits of all God created.
May we honor this calling in all that we do and all that we say.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Christ The King
Our edit of the conversation between Jesus and Pilate in the Fourth Gospel stops just short of what I have always thought to be the money line.
Jesus says, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
This is undoubtedly the most peculiar Sunday of the Christian Year – Christ the King Sunday. It challenges all notions we have about Kings as well as all notions we have about “the truth.”
We tend to think of truth in terms of assertions or facts to which we can give or withhold our assent. We think of truth as ideas, notions, assertions, verifiable facts.
“The term [truth] has no single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and various theories and views of truth continue to be debated.” Thank you, Wikipedia!
We are those people, however, who hold fast to a peculiar notion without which there is no such thing as Christian Faith: we believe “truth” to be a flesh and blood person named Jesus. And further we believe this flesh and blood person to be God.
Jesus says as much later in John: I Am …the truth…
As I tell the girls in my classroom, whenever the words “I Am” are written in the Bible they can only point to one thing: the ultimate reality of God. For when Moses asks the voice in the burning bush who it is that is sending him to confront Pharaoh, the answer is quite simply, “I Am….tell him I Am sent you.”
So when Jesus says, “I Am,” the reader knowledgeable of scripture hears the voice from the bush speaking from a new place – and that place is a flesh and blood person like you and like me. So to know Jesus is to know Truth – to know Truth is to know Jesus as the voice from the burning bush.
We try to gussy it all up and make bold assertions about our knowledge of and the nature of God, but in the end we are left with the simple assertion that Truth is a man.
And when we say this man is King, we do not mean a king like any other king we have every read about or known. Truth, the man, says his kingdom is not of this world. He says he has no armies to command to protect him. He tells those of his followers who would pick up weapons to defend him to put them down.
Not once does he utter words like, “Off with his head,” or “Send him to the dungeon,” or “Annex his property to mine,” or “Foreclose on his farm today.”
Jesus wrote no books and yet is considered a teacher for all the ages.
He had no servants, yet people called him master.
He had no army yet kings feared him.
He came as God incarnate, yet he is seen on his knees washing his disciple’s feet.
He was buried in a tomb, yet he is as alive today as he was 2,000 years ago.
He says we will do the things he does, and greater things than these.
What is truth?
Jesus is our idea of Truth. Jesus is our idea of a King.
A day such as this means to ask us: Are we ready to know the truth?
Are we ready to serve such a King?
Are we doing the things he did? Are we doing greater things than he did?
The Letter of James writes, “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.”
This is how we are called to honor our king – by becoming the first fruits of all God created.
May we honor this calling in all that we do and all that we say.
Amen.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Widows
8 November 2009 – Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17/Mark 12:38-44
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St.Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Widows As Icons of God’s Faithfulness
It is almost too easy on this day of Stewardship Pledge Ingathering to focus attention on the Widow’s Mite. It may be more fruitful in that regard simply to observe that Jesus sits, watches and takes note of just what people like us put into the offering plate!
After all the scribes Jesus is taking down a few notches are good, faithful church going folk like most of us. True, they are more interested in being seen as faithful, and seen to be praying while all the while they “devour widow’s houses” – a quaint Biblical metaphor for what we might call foreclosure, a not unfamiliar activity in today’s so-called “economy.”
I think it may be most productive for us, therefore, to focus on just what “widows” represent in Biblical terms. First off, without a husband to support them, widows represent a class of persons who are without resources. Unless a relative takes them in, they generally live on the streets. And typically, in those days, even if a relative takes them in, they are relegated to becoming a household servant – which in those days were simply called slaves. The folks who wash the feet of a guest or visitor.
Widows in the Bible, however, are also considered to be a protected class. Like the poor and resident aliens (foreigners), widows are to be given special consideration for charity – the Biblical word for “love” in such phrases from Leviticus that tell us to love God and “love our neighbor – the poor, the widows, and the strangers in the land.”
This morning we have before us the example of two extraordinary widows – Ruth and the widow making an offering to God of all that she has – two coins.
On a day when we are asked to consider just how much of God’s money we are willing to give back for the mission and ministry of God’s Church, we might do well to simply meditate on the lives of these two widows, who odd as it may seem, are presented as two of the most faithful people in all of Holy Writ.
I once had to translate the Book of Ruth. To this day I find it to be the most remarkable and important story in the entire Bible – in that it is a narrative summary of just what God in Jesus came later to teach us.
It takes place a long, long time ago, as most really good stories do. There is a famine in Israel. The rumor is that there is food in neighboring Moab, so Naomi and her husband Elimelech go to Moab with their two sons. The famine is long, the boys marry Moabite girls – that is gentile-foreigners, aliens.
The famine is so long that Elimelech and the two sons die, leaving Naomi, Ruth and Orpah (from which we get the modern day Oprah!) all widows. Naomi decides to go home having heard there is now food in the land. Perhaps a distant relative will have mercy on her and give her work to do. She urges the two daughters-in-law to go home to their relatives in Moab, since life for a gentile-alien woman would not be so good where she is headed. Orpah goes home, Ruth says she will go with Naomi and help care for her mother-in-law. How times have changed!
It happens that a relative, Boaz, is hiring workers to harvest his fields. He agrees to take on Ruth, which entitles her to pick up the gleanings – the leftovers in the field – to take home and feed Naomi and herself. As the threshing season ends, Naomi hatches a plan – Ruth is to go into the threshing room after the men have done their work and had a few drinks, and curl up around Boaz’s feet as he falls asleep.
Ruth has no time to think about it. The text tells us that Ruth does as “Naomi had commanded her.” The word commandment has great depths of meaning for those of us who claim to live a Biblical faith. She does not hesitate to do as she is commanded to do.
The rest, as they say, is history. Boaz marries Ruth, they have a child, Obed, that is “one who serves,” and Obed becomes the grandfather of David, only the greatest ever King of Israel!
All this because of Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi – not to let her mother-in-law become a beggar or slave. Ruth was willing to risk bigotry, rejection, becoming a slave-worker herself to take care of Naomi.
Her faithfulness to Naomi is an icon of how we are to be faithful to God in Christ.
Like the widow at the Temple treasury, Ruth was willing to risk and to give all that she had.
These stories are meant to be about us. How much of who we are and what we have are we willing to give as an offering to the God who has given us all we have and more – God gave us his only Son that we might have life and have it abundantly.
That the Bible raises up before us the lives of these two widows as examples for us as to what the life of faith requires of us is truly astonishing.
No more astonishing, however, than what we can do for the life of God’s world if only we were to remember them and emulate their lives in all that we say and all that we do.
Ruth and the Widow in the Temple :
What can they teach us about Christian charity and love today?
What can they tell us about who we are called to be?
What can they tell us about what we are called to do this day?
Jesus is still watching to see what we put in the Temple treasury.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St.Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Widows As Icons of God’s Faithfulness
It is almost too easy on this day of Stewardship Pledge Ingathering to focus attention on the Widow’s Mite. It may be more fruitful in that regard simply to observe that Jesus sits, watches and takes note of just what people like us put into the offering plate!
After all the scribes Jesus is taking down a few notches are good, faithful church going folk like most of us. True, they are more interested in being seen as faithful, and seen to be praying while all the while they “devour widow’s houses” – a quaint Biblical metaphor for what we might call foreclosure, a not unfamiliar activity in today’s so-called “economy.”
I think it may be most productive for us, therefore, to focus on just what “widows” represent in Biblical terms. First off, without a husband to support them, widows represent a class of persons who are without resources. Unless a relative takes them in, they generally live on the streets. And typically, in those days, even if a relative takes them in, they are relegated to becoming a household servant – which in those days were simply called slaves. The folks who wash the feet of a guest or visitor.
Widows in the Bible, however, are also considered to be a protected class. Like the poor and resident aliens (foreigners), widows are to be given special consideration for charity – the Biblical word for “love” in such phrases from Leviticus that tell us to love God and “love our neighbor – the poor, the widows, and the strangers in the land.”
This morning we have before us the example of two extraordinary widows – Ruth and the widow making an offering to God of all that she has – two coins.
On a day when we are asked to consider just how much of God’s money we are willing to give back for the mission and ministry of God’s Church, we might do well to simply meditate on the lives of these two widows, who odd as it may seem, are presented as two of the most faithful people in all of Holy Writ.
I once had to translate the Book of Ruth. To this day I find it to be the most remarkable and important story in the entire Bible – in that it is a narrative summary of just what God in Jesus came later to teach us.
It takes place a long, long time ago, as most really good stories do. There is a famine in Israel. The rumor is that there is food in neighboring Moab, so Naomi and her husband Elimelech go to Moab with their two sons. The famine is long, the boys marry Moabite girls – that is gentile-foreigners, aliens.
The famine is so long that Elimelech and the two sons die, leaving Naomi, Ruth and Orpah (from which we get the modern day Oprah!) all widows. Naomi decides to go home having heard there is now food in the land. Perhaps a distant relative will have mercy on her and give her work to do. She urges the two daughters-in-law to go home to their relatives in Moab, since life for a gentile-alien woman would not be so good where she is headed. Orpah goes home, Ruth says she will go with Naomi and help care for her mother-in-law. How times have changed!
It happens that a relative, Boaz, is hiring workers to harvest his fields. He agrees to take on Ruth, which entitles her to pick up the gleanings – the leftovers in the field – to take home and feed Naomi and herself. As the threshing season ends, Naomi hatches a plan – Ruth is to go into the threshing room after the men have done their work and had a few drinks, and curl up around Boaz’s feet as he falls asleep.
Ruth has no time to think about it. The text tells us that Ruth does as “Naomi had commanded her.” The word commandment has great depths of meaning for those of us who claim to live a Biblical faith. She does not hesitate to do as she is commanded to do.
The rest, as they say, is history. Boaz marries Ruth, they have a child, Obed, that is “one who serves,” and Obed becomes the grandfather of David, only the greatest ever King of Israel!
All this because of Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi – not to let her mother-in-law become a beggar or slave. Ruth was willing to risk bigotry, rejection, becoming a slave-worker herself to take care of Naomi.
Her faithfulness to Naomi is an icon of how we are to be faithful to God in Christ.
Like the widow at the Temple treasury, Ruth was willing to risk and to give all that she had.
These stories are meant to be about us. How much of who we are and what we have are we willing to give as an offering to the God who has given us all we have and more – God gave us his only Son that we might have life and have it abundantly.
That the Bible raises up before us the lives of these two widows as examples for us as to what the life of faith requires of us is truly astonishing.
No more astonishing, however, than what we can do for the life of God’s world if only we were to remember them and emulate their lives in all that we say and all that we do.
Ruth and the Widow in the Temple :
What can they teach us about Christian charity and love today?
What can they tell us about who we are called to be?
What can they tell us about what we are called to do this day?
Jesus is still watching to see what we put in the Temple treasury.
Amen.
Widows
8 November 2009 – Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17/Mark 12:38-44
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St.Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Widows As Icons of God’s Faithfulness
It is almost too easy on this day of Stewardship Pledge Ingathering to focus attention on the Widow’s Mite. It may be more fruitful in that regard simply to observe that Jesus sits, watches and takes note of just what people like us put into the offering plate!
After all the scribes Jesus is taking down a few notches are good, faithful church going folk like most of us. True, they are more interested in being seen as faithful, and seen to be praying while all the while they “devour widow’s houses” – a quaint Biblical metaphor for what we might call foreclosure, a not unfamiliar activity in today’s so-called “economy.”
I think it may be most productive for us, therefore, to focus on just what “widows” represent in Biblical terms. First off, without a husband to support them, widows represent a class of persons who are without resources. Unless a relative takes them in, they generally live on the streets. And typically, in those days, even if a relative takes them in, they are relegated to becoming a household servant – which in those days were simply called slaves. The folks who wash the feet of a guest or visitor.
Widows in the Bible, however, are also considered to be a protected class. Like the poor and resident aliens (foreigners), widows are to be given special consideration for charity – the Biblical word for “love” in such phrases from Leviticus that tell us to love God and “love our neighbor – the poor, the widows, and the strangers in the land.”
This morning we have before us the example of two extraordinary widows – Ruth and the widow making an offering to God of all that she has – two coins.
On a day when we are asked to consider just how much of God’s money we are willing to give back for the mission and ministry of God’s Church, we might do well to simply meditate on the lives of these two widows, who odd as it may seem, are presented as two of the most faithful people in all of Holy Writ.
I once had to translate the Book of Ruth. To this day I find it to be the most remarkable and important story in the entire Bible – in that it is a narrative summary of just what God in Jesus came later to teach us.
It takes place a long, long time ago, as most really good stories do. There is a famine in Israel. The rumor is that there is food in neighboring Moab, so Naomi and her husband Elimelech go to Moab with their two sons. The famine is long, the boys marry Moabite girls – that is gentile-foreigners, aliens.
The famine is so long that Elimelech and the two sons die, leaving Naomi, Ruth and Orpah (from which we get the modern day Oprah!) all widows. Naomi decides to go home having heard there is now food in the land. Perhaps a distant relative will have mercy on her and give her work to do. She urges the two daughters-in-law to go home to their relatives in Moab, since life for a gentile-alien woman would not be so good where she is headed. Orpah goes home, Ruth says she will go with Naomi and help care for her mother-in-law. How times have changed!
It happens that a relative, Boaz, is hiring workers to harvest his fields. He agrees to take on Ruth, which entitles her to pick up the gleanings – the leftovers in the field – to take home and feed Naomi and herself. As the threshing season ends, Naomi hatches a plan – Ruth is to go into the threshing room after the men have done their work and had a few drinks, and curl up around Boaz’s feet as he falls asleep.
Ruth has no time to think about it. The text tells us that Ruth does as “Naomi had commanded her.” The word commandment has great depths of meaning for those of us who claim to live a Biblical faith. She does not hesitate to do as she is commanded to do.
The rest, as they say, is history. Boaz marries Ruth, they have a child, Obed, that is “one who serves,” and Obed becomes the grandfather of David, only the greatest ever King of Israel!
All this because of Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi – not to let her mother-in-law become a beggar or slave. Ruth was willing to risk bigotry, rejection, becoming a slave-worker herself to take care of Naomi.
Her faithfulness to Naomi is an icon of how we are to be faithful to God in Christ.
Like the widow at the Temple treasury, Ruth was willing to risk and to give all that she had.
These stories are meant to be about us. How much of who we are and what we have are we willing to give as an offering to the God who has given us all we have and more – God gave us his only Son that we might have life and have it abundantly.
That the Bible raises up before us the lives of these two widows as examples for us as to what the life of faith requires of us is truly astonishing.
No more astonishing, however, than what we can do for the life of God’s world if only we were to remember them and emulate their lives in all that we say and all that we do.
Ruth and the Widow in the Temple :
What can they teach us about Christian charity and love today?
What can they tell us about who we are called to be?
What can they tell us about what we are called to do this day?
Jesus is still watching to see what we put in the Temple treasury.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St.Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Widows As Icons of God’s Faithfulness
It is almost too easy on this day of Stewardship Pledge Ingathering to focus attention on the Widow’s Mite. It may be more fruitful in that regard simply to observe that Jesus sits, watches and takes note of just what people like us put into the offering plate!
After all the scribes Jesus is taking down a few notches are good, faithful church going folk like most of us. True, they are more interested in being seen as faithful, and seen to be praying while all the while they “devour widow’s houses” – a quaint Biblical metaphor for what we might call foreclosure, a not unfamiliar activity in today’s so-called “economy.”
I think it may be most productive for us, therefore, to focus on just what “widows” represent in Biblical terms. First off, without a husband to support them, widows represent a class of persons who are without resources. Unless a relative takes them in, they generally live on the streets. And typically, in those days, even if a relative takes them in, they are relegated to becoming a household servant – which in those days were simply called slaves. The folks who wash the feet of a guest or visitor.
Widows in the Bible, however, are also considered to be a protected class. Like the poor and resident aliens (foreigners), widows are to be given special consideration for charity – the Biblical word for “love” in such phrases from Leviticus that tell us to love God and “love our neighbor – the poor, the widows, and the strangers in the land.”
This morning we have before us the example of two extraordinary widows – Ruth and the widow making an offering to God of all that she has – two coins.
On a day when we are asked to consider just how much of God’s money we are willing to give back for the mission and ministry of God’s Church, we might do well to simply meditate on the lives of these two widows, who odd as it may seem, are presented as two of the most faithful people in all of Holy Writ.
I once had to translate the Book of Ruth. To this day I find it to be the most remarkable and important story in the entire Bible – in that it is a narrative summary of just what God in Jesus came later to teach us.
It takes place a long, long time ago, as most really good stories do. There is a famine in Israel. The rumor is that there is food in neighboring Moab, so Naomi and her husband Elimelech go to Moab with their two sons. The famine is long, the boys marry Moabite girls – that is gentile-foreigners, aliens.
The famine is so long that Elimelech and the two sons die, leaving Naomi, Ruth and Orpah (from which we get the modern day Oprah!) all widows. Naomi decides to go home having heard there is now food in the land. Perhaps a distant relative will have mercy on her and give her work to do. She urges the two daughters-in-law to go home to their relatives in Moab, since life for a gentile-alien woman would not be so good where she is headed. Orpah goes home, Ruth says she will go with Naomi and help care for her mother-in-law. How times have changed!
It happens that a relative, Boaz, is hiring workers to harvest his fields. He agrees to take on Ruth, which entitles her to pick up the gleanings – the leftovers in the field – to take home and feed Naomi and herself. As the threshing season ends, Naomi hatches a plan – Ruth is to go into the threshing room after the men have done their work and had a few drinks, and curl up around Boaz’s feet as he falls asleep.
Ruth has no time to think about it. The text tells us that Ruth does as “Naomi had commanded her.” The word commandment has great depths of meaning for those of us who claim to live a Biblical faith. She does not hesitate to do as she is commanded to do.
The rest, as they say, is history. Boaz marries Ruth, they have a child, Obed, that is “one who serves,” and Obed becomes the grandfather of David, only the greatest ever King of Israel!
All this because of Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi – not to let her mother-in-law become a beggar or slave. Ruth was willing to risk bigotry, rejection, becoming a slave-worker herself to take care of Naomi.
Her faithfulness to Naomi is an icon of how we are to be faithful to God in Christ.
Like the widow at the Temple treasury, Ruth was willing to risk and to give all that she had.
These stories are meant to be about us. How much of who we are and what we have are we willing to give as an offering to the God who has given us all we have and more – God gave us his only Son that we might have life and have it abundantly.
That the Bible raises up before us the lives of these two widows as examples for us as to what the life of faith requires of us is truly astonishing.
No more astonishing, however, than what we can do for the life of God’s world if only we were to remember them and emulate their lives in all that we say and all that we do.
Ruth and the Widow in the Temple :
What can they teach us about Christian charity and love today?
What can they tell us about who we are called to be?
What can they tell us about what we are called to do this day?
Jesus is still watching to see what we put in the Temple treasury.
Amen.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Whence Cometh The Tithe?
25 October 2009/Proper 25B – Hebrews 7: 15-17, 23-28/Mark 10:46-52
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Lessons From Bartimaeus and Melchizedek
Listen for the echoes. This is what these stories in scripture demand of us – a listening heart. We are meant to remember James and John the Zebedee brothers, the rich young man, Melchizedek, and all the way back to brother Abram before he even became Abraham, the father of all three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Oh yes, and Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, a blind beggar outside of Jericho where the walls come tumbling down. An apt metaphor for all of scripture – ancient words and stories attempting to break down the walls we place around our hearts, minds and souls. Tumbling walls, opening eyes, metaphors asking us if we can see.
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,” cries Bartimaeus as he throws off his cloak – the cloak which was stretched on the ground about his feet to catch the coins people might toss his way. The cloak holds his entire fortune. He casts it aside to get to Jesus, to regain his sight, and to follow Jesus. Despite Jesus telling him to go on his way, Bartimaeus instead follows Jesus into Jerusalem. This is the last stop on the way to the Passion and Resurrection.
This blind beggar gets it like James and John could not get it, like the rich young man could not get it, like the disciples do not get it. The brothers wanted power, the rich young man could not bear to part with his wealth, only this blind beggar is willing to give it all for a chance to follow Jesus.
“Rich or poor are asked to give up only one thing, everything,” says Timothy Geddert in his commentary, Mark, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001) 256.
Bartimaeus gets this. Begging the question (no pun intended), Do we?
Then there is Hebrews. What a marvelous, fascinating, dense and complicated epistle it is! I remember being on silent retreat on the shores of Lake Michigan in the middle of winter in Racine Wisconsin studying Hebrews. The wind was howling, the waves crashing, ice formations crusting the shoreline, and the words of Hebrews were “living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow!”
It says Jesus is a new kind of Priest, and at the same time he is a very old kind of priest, and that he holds this priesthood forever. We know we are made the Body of Christ by water and the Holy Spirit in Baptism. So that we hold this new and yet ancient priesthood forever as part of our very Being – it is who we are called to be in this world: “and share with us in his eternal priesthood,” we pray at every baptism. (BCP 308)
Last Sunday Hebrews told us that the type, the model, for this eternal priesthood which we share is Melchizedek. “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Who on earth is Melchizedek?
He only shows up for three verses way back in Genesis chapter 14. We may recall, God sent Abram and Sarai and their nephew Lot on a journey of faith. Keep going until I tell you to stop. When they stop life is as God promises, fruitful, bountiful, even prosperous and affluent! Abram and Lot’s herds are so prolific they need to spread out, move away from each other to have room to continue to prosper.
Of course some of the local tribesmen want some of the blessing, attack Lot, capture Lot and all his herds. Abram springs into action, and with his “trained men” frees Lot and the herds. As Abram returns to the valley to give thanks, in rides Melchizedek, the “King of Salem.” Salem, of course means shalom, which means Peace, which makes him the King of Peace. And Salem was of course the ancient name for Jerusalem. Further, we are told, Melchizedek is a priest of God Most High.
Melchizedek gives Abram bread and wine, and then blesses him, announcing that it is indeed God Most High “who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” This is the message from the King of Peace, Prieset of God Most High.
Abram’s response is reported in one short declarative sentence: “And Abram gave him one-tenth of everything.” Everything, as in every thing.
This is long before God dictates any commandments to Moses about the Tithe. Abram’s immediate, spontaneous act of gratitude is to give one-tenth to thank God Most High.
This all has something essential to say about who we are and whose we are – we are Christ’s own body. We are children of Abram long before he became Abraham. We are priests after the order of Melchizedek. We are called to give thanks to God – one tenth of everything.
Bartimaeus, Melchizedek and Abram show us how.
“Rich or poor are asked to give up only one thing, everything.”
Bartimaeus gets it. Abram gets it. Do we?
The world looks at us to see if we can demonstrate in any concrete way that we are in fact who we say we are – followers of Jesus Christ. The most ancient Holy Habit of Tithing is one such concrete act.
Will we be like James and John and the rich young man?
Or, like Abram and Bartimaeus? Only time will tell. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Lessons From Bartimaeus and Melchizedek
Listen for the echoes. This is what these stories in scripture demand of us – a listening heart. We are meant to remember James and John the Zebedee brothers, the rich young man, Melchizedek, and all the way back to brother Abram before he even became Abraham, the father of all three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Oh yes, and Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, a blind beggar outside of Jericho where the walls come tumbling down. An apt metaphor for all of scripture – ancient words and stories attempting to break down the walls we place around our hearts, minds and souls. Tumbling walls, opening eyes, metaphors asking us if we can see.
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,” cries Bartimaeus as he throws off his cloak – the cloak which was stretched on the ground about his feet to catch the coins people might toss his way. The cloak holds his entire fortune. He casts it aside to get to Jesus, to regain his sight, and to follow Jesus. Despite Jesus telling him to go on his way, Bartimaeus instead follows Jesus into Jerusalem. This is the last stop on the way to the Passion and Resurrection.
This blind beggar gets it like James and John could not get it, like the rich young man could not get it, like the disciples do not get it. The brothers wanted power, the rich young man could not bear to part with his wealth, only this blind beggar is willing to give it all for a chance to follow Jesus.
“Rich or poor are asked to give up only one thing, everything,” says Timothy Geddert in his commentary, Mark, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001) 256.
Bartimaeus gets this. Begging the question (no pun intended), Do we?
Then there is Hebrews. What a marvelous, fascinating, dense and complicated epistle it is! I remember being on silent retreat on the shores of Lake Michigan in the middle of winter in Racine Wisconsin studying Hebrews. The wind was howling, the waves crashing, ice formations crusting the shoreline, and the words of Hebrews were “living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow!”
It says Jesus is a new kind of Priest, and at the same time he is a very old kind of priest, and that he holds this priesthood forever. We know we are made the Body of Christ by water and the Holy Spirit in Baptism. So that we hold this new and yet ancient priesthood forever as part of our very Being – it is who we are called to be in this world: “and share with us in his eternal priesthood,” we pray at every baptism. (BCP 308)
Last Sunday Hebrews told us that the type, the model, for this eternal priesthood which we share is Melchizedek. “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Who on earth is Melchizedek?
He only shows up for three verses way back in Genesis chapter 14. We may recall, God sent Abram and Sarai and their nephew Lot on a journey of faith. Keep going until I tell you to stop. When they stop life is as God promises, fruitful, bountiful, even prosperous and affluent! Abram and Lot’s herds are so prolific they need to spread out, move away from each other to have room to continue to prosper.
Of course some of the local tribesmen want some of the blessing, attack Lot, capture Lot and all his herds. Abram springs into action, and with his “trained men” frees Lot and the herds. As Abram returns to the valley to give thanks, in rides Melchizedek, the “King of Salem.” Salem, of course means shalom, which means Peace, which makes him the King of Peace. And Salem was of course the ancient name for Jerusalem. Further, we are told, Melchizedek is a priest of God Most High.
Melchizedek gives Abram bread and wine, and then blesses him, announcing that it is indeed God Most High “who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” This is the message from the King of Peace, Prieset of God Most High.
Abram’s response is reported in one short declarative sentence: “And Abram gave him one-tenth of everything.” Everything, as in every thing.
This is long before God dictates any commandments to Moses about the Tithe. Abram’s immediate, spontaneous act of gratitude is to give one-tenth to thank God Most High.
This all has something essential to say about who we are and whose we are – we are Christ’s own body. We are children of Abram long before he became Abraham. We are priests after the order of Melchizedek. We are called to give thanks to God – one tenth of everything.
Bartimaeus, Melchizedek and Abram show us how.
“Rich or poor are asked to give up only one thing, everything.”
Bartimaeus gets it. Abram gets it. Do we?
The world looks at us to see if we can demonstrate in any concrete way that we are in fact who we say we are – followers of Jesus Christ. The most ancient Holy Habit of Tithing is one such concrete act.
Will we be like James and John and the rich young man?
Or, like Abram and Bartimaeus? Only time will tell. Amen.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Draw Near To God
20 September 2009/Proper 20 – James 3:13- 4:3, 7-8a/Mark 9:30-37
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Draw Near to God
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” – James 4: 8a
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” -Mark 9: 37
This is the time in the Liturgy of the Word when we seek to find a way to apply the Word of God to our day to day lives, and our life of corporate worship. We recall that one of the Four Holy Habits is Weekly Corporate Worship – The Eucharist, an act of Thanksgiving.
Whatever else our Epistle and Gospel may be about, one readily sees a common theme at the end of each lesson: draw near to God, welcome God – the one who sent Jesus to be among us.
At the core of what we believe our Sunday mornings are all about is a belief that Jesus is present – in theological parlance we call this The Real Presence of Christ in the Breaking of the Bread. That’s a mouthful, for sure.
So how have and how do God’s people welcome God’s presence? How do we acknowledge God’s presence?
There is a full spectrum of behaviors ranging from silence and taking off one’s shoes to flat-out joyful celebration. The Eucharist attempts to blend all of this together.
One thing we evidently are not to do is argue with one another! Arguing is not only a poor way to welcome Jesus and draw near to God, but it just does not appeal to visitors and others who might come in the door. Jesus repeatedly shows little interest in “getting things right” or finding out who is right and who is wrong when it comes to worship and life in general.
Jesus comes from a tradition that begins with taking off our shoes. Recall Moses at the burning bush where the bush, the voice of God, tells Moses to take off his shoes. “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is Holy Ground.” Exodus 3: 5
Now in a number of places and cultures this is still taken literally: enter a Mosque and you are required to take off your shoes. Enter a home in Japan and you are expected to take off your shoes. It is a sign of respect, and a sign of humility. It is such humility that Jesus finds lacking in his disciples. The same is true today.
In God’s kingdom there is no room for those who think they are the greatest! There is plenty of room for those who welcome the least of our sisters and brothers into their midst – children represent those people who live every day at the bottom of the human totem pole – at the bottom of our society.
Children had the status of just above dog or slave in those days – so the metaphor is rich and telling of the kind of people we are. Children were not cuddly, and fawned over, but were generally cast aside – if they survived infancy, so be it. If not, so be it. By placing a child in the disciples midst, Jesus makes a statement of radical acceptance of all people among his followers.
Jesus wants us to take off our shoes. The Letter of James has been explicit about the radical inclusion of all people into the fellowship of Christ, the Church.
Taking off our shoes may also be a metaphor – remove those things that might signify stature among one another. Show respect for others by treating each person we meet as Holy Ground – as we stand before one another, do we respect one another as Holy?
There is no more important question to ask ourselves. In our baptism we promise to Seek and Serve Christ in ALL persons – see others, all others, as Holy, Sacred, God’s own Beloved. Treat others as we would treat God’s presence.
And God asks us to take off, take off our shoes. It is something to ponder as we gather week by week for corporate worship. In many places it means not talking during the prelude and postlude – treating that as Holy Time, quiet time, time to draw near to God.
It may mean observing the Silence called for before we Confess our Sins, and as the Body of Christ is Broken at the Altar. There are many ways to draw near to God. As we do, God draws near to us.
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
( Words - Woody Guthrie)
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Draw Near to God
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” – James 4: 8a
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” -Mark 9: 37
This is the time in the Liturgy of the Word when we seek to find a way to apply the Word of God to our day to day lives, and our life of corporate worship. We recall that one of the Four Holy Habits is Weekly Corporate Worship – The Eucharist, an act of Thanksgiving.
Whatever else our Epistle and Gospel may be about, one readily sees a common theme at the end of each lesson: draw near to God, welcome God – the one who sent Jesus to be among us.
At the core of what we believe our Sunday mornings are all about is a belief that Jesus is present – in theological parlance we call this The Real Presence of Christ in the Breaking of the Bread. That’s a mouthful, for sure.
So how have and how do God’s people welcome God’s presence? How do we acknowledge God’s presence?
There is a full spectrum of behaviors ranging from silence and taking off one’s shoes to flat-out joyful celebration. The Eucharist attempts to blend all of this together.
One thing we evidently are not to do is argue with one another! Arguing is not only a poor way to welcome Jesus and draw near to God, but it just does not appeal to visitors and others who might come in the door. Jesus repeatedly shows little interest in “getting things right” or finding out who is right and who is wrong when it comes to worship and life in general.
Jesus comes from a tradition that begins with taking off our shoes. Recall Moses at the burning bush where the bush, the voice of God, tells Moses to take off his shoes. “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is Holy Ground.” Exodus 3: 5
Now in a number of places and cultures this is still taken literally: enter a Mosque and you are required to take off your shoes. Enter a home in Japan and you are expected to take off your shoes. It is a sign of respect, and a sign of humility. It is such humility that Jesus finds lacking in his disciples. The same is true today.
In God’s kingdom there is no room for those who think they are the greatest! There is plenty of room for those who welcome the least of our sisters and brothers into their midst – children represent those people who live every day at the bottom of the human totem pole – at the bottom of our society.
Children had the status of just above dog or slave in those days – so the metaphor is rich and telling of the kind of people we are. Children were not cuddly, and fawned over, but were generally cast aside – if they survived infancy, so be it. If not, so be it. By placing a child in the disciples midst, Jesus makes a statement of radical acceptance of all people among his followers.
Jesus wants us to take off our shoes. The Letter of James has been explicit about the radical inclusion of all people into the fellowship of Christ, the Church.
Taking off our shoes may also be a metaphor – remove those things that might signify stature among one another. Show respect for others by treating each person we meet as Holy Ground – as we stand before one another, do we respect one another as Holy?
There is no more important question to ask ourselves. In our baptism we promise to Seek and Serve Christ in ALL persons – see others, all others, as Holy, Sacred, God’s own Beloved. Treat others as we would treat God’s presence.
And God asks us to take off, take off our shoes. It is something to ponder as we gather week by week for corporate worship. In many places it means not talking during the prelude and postlude – treating that as Holy Time, quiet time, time to draw near to God.
It may mean observing the Silence called for before we Confess our Sins, and as the Body of Christ is Broken at the Altar. There are many ways to draw near to God. As we do, God draws near to us.
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
( Words - Woody Guthrie)
Amen.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Just Say The Word!
6 September 2009/Proper * Mark 7:24-37
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
A Crumb Is Enough
This is perhaps the most remarkable story in all of Mark’s Gospel – all the more so when we consider that until the Revised Common Lectionary restored it to Sunday Reading in Year B, it had been excluded from the Prayer Book Lectionary of readings.
It is easy to see why: it features a woman, a woman of remarkable chutzpah and faith, a woman of passion, a woman of wit and wisdom. It also features Jesus saying the most disturbing thing we ever hear him say: he calls this woman, and by inference her daughter and her people in general, a dog.
But in the past we skipped over the Syrophoenician Woman to the healing of a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. Which is a good place to begin, since both stories feature people who advocate for the healing of others – that is, the people coming to Jesus ( the woman and the unspecified “they”) do not ask for healing for themselves, but rather ask on behalf of others: the girl and the man. The real surprise is just who really gets healed in this story – but on that later.
A lesson in discipleship? Are we meant to be advocates for the needs of others? The story means to provoke us to answer just this question.
Jesus wants to be alone. He did not want anyone to know where he was. Enter a woman. Not just a woman but a Gentile woman. Not just a Gentile, but a Syrophoenician woman, and the Jews in Jesus’ time did not like Syrophenicians at all. So on the face of it, three strikes and you’re out!
And so it seems. She asks for her daughter to be healed. Jesus, not content simply to say, “No,” instead hurls an insult at her, at all Gentiles and at Syrophoenicians specifically: I am here to feed God’s children, ie the Jews, not the dogs of the world like you, your daughter and your people.” Not exactly Jesus meek and mild. Not exactly “In Christ there is no East or West....”
Undeterred, the woman replies famously, “Yes sir, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Please note: this is the only person in four gospels who argues with Jesus and wins. Because of her willingness to advocate for her daughter, and her willingness to confront Jesus’ discriminatory attitude, her daughter is healed.
And at that moment, the world changed – and it was a big, huge, cosmic, axial shift! Jesus includes gentiles, even historically hated gentiles, into his mission, that would be into our mission. He will no longer discriminate. He crosses the boundaries of gender, ethnicity and even socioeconomics since the Syrophoenicians were infinitely more affluent than the Jews in that region. The demon is gone. Not just the demon in the girl, but the demon that might have stalled Jesus and God’s mission.
Because of this woman Jesus changes his mind. Because Jesus changes his mind, a larger, more faithful vision of God’s reign among us is called forth. Rather than insulting her, Jesus compliments her by saying, “Because of this word you spoke, go! The demon has left your daughter.” And Jesus knows a demon has left him because of this woman’s courage to speak truth to power.
And note the new dimensions of his power – no longer does he lay hands on someone, or speak directly to the demons. He is in hiding, the girl is at home, and yet she is healed. Jesus’ power is not restricted by time or space.
And note, according to what the woman has said, it only takes a crumb of our Lord’s power to be healed, transformed, made new.
Most amazingly of all, this story suggests that mere gentiles like ourselves share in our Lord’s power. If the woman speaks a few words and the world and all of history is changed, so can we.
There are those who would have us believe otherwise. There are those who thrive on our willingness to be quiet and accept things the way they are. There are demons at work who count on us to remain quiet when a few words from any one of us has the potential to shape an alternative reality – for instance, fewer hungry people, fewer homeless people, fewer people without health care, a culture that no longer discriminates against gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, sexual orientation, age and the like.
That’s what the second story is all about – opening our mouths and speaking plainly – opening our mouths and speaking truth to power. And even if Jesus tells us to be quiet, it is not to be! The more zealously the crowd proclaimed his power and glory.
So as to be clear, the church throughout the ages, and even today, can be and has been prone to tighten the boundaries of “righteousness” to keep “outsiders” at bay. This story says that will not work. It never has. Jesus tried and was changed.
This story is not about the woman, the daughter, or the man – it is meant to be a story about us, and how a crumb of Jesus’ power can change us forever. It is about how disciples of Jesus are meant to advocate for the needs of others, especially around healing! And how a word from us can change the world. Forever. And, as we say, ever!
A crumb is enough to change the world, to change us, and most astoundingly of all, to force God to change God’s mind.
As a girl in my class on Thursday said, “Wow!”
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
A Crumb Is Enough
This is perhaps the most remarkable story in all of Mark’s Gospel – all the more so when we consider that until the Revised Common Lectionary restored it to Sunday Reading in Year B, it had been excluded from the Prayer Book Lectionary of readings.
It is easy to see why: it features a woman, a woman of remarkable chutzpah and faith, a woman of passion, a woman of wit and wisdom. It also features Jesus saying the most disturbing thing we ever hear him say: he calls this woman, and by inference her daughter and her people in general, a dog.
But in the past we skipped over the Syrophoenician Woman to the healing of a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. Which is a good place to begin, since both stories feature people who advocate for the healing of others – that is, the people coming to Jesus ( the woman and the unspecified “they”) do not ask for healing for themselves, but rather ask on behalf of others: the girl and the man. The real surprise is just who really gets healed in this story – but on that later.
A lesson in discipleship? Are we meant to be advocates for the needs of others? The story means to provoke us to answer just this question.
Jesus wants to be alone. He did not want anyone to know where he was. Enter a woman. Not just a woman but a Gentile woman. Not just a Gentile, but a Syrophoenician woman, and the Jews in Jesus’ time did not like Syrophenicians at all. So on the face of it, three strikes and you’re out!
And so it seems. She asks for her daughter to be healed. Jesus, not content simply to say, “No,” instead hurls an insult at her, at all Gentiles and at Syrophoenicians specifically: I am here to feed God’s children, ie the Jews, not the dogs of the world like you, your daughter and your people.” Not exactly Jesus meek and mild. Not exactly “In Christ there is no East or West....”
Undeterred, the woman replies famously, “Yes sir, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Please note: this is the only person in four gospels who argues with Jesus and wins. Because of her willingness to advocate for her daughter, and her willingness to confront Jesus’ discriminatory attitude, her daughter is healed.
And at that moment, the world changed – and it was a big, huge, cosmic, axial shift! Jesus includes gentiles, even historically hated gentiles, into his mission, that would be into our mission. He will no longer discriminate. He crosses the boundaries of gender, ethnicity and even socioeconomics since the Syrophoenicians were infinitely more affluent than the Jews in that region. The demon is gone. Not just the demon in the girl, but the demon that might have stalled Jesus and God’s mission.
Because of this woman Jesus changes his mind. Because Jesus changes his mind, a larger, more faithful vision of God’s reign among us is called forth. Rather than insulting her, Jesus compliments her by saying, “Because of this word you spoke, go! The demon has left your daughter.” And Jesus knows a demon has left him because of this woman’s courage to speak truth to power.
And note the new dimensions of his power – no longer does he lay hands on someone, or speak directly to the demons. He is in hiding, the girl is at home, and yet she is healed. Jesus’ power is not restricted by time or space.
And note, according to what the woman has said, it only takes a crumb of our Lord’s power to be healed, transformed, made new.
Most amazingly of all, this story suggests that mere gentiles like ourselves share in our Lord’s power. If the woman speaks a few words and the world and all of history is changed, so can we.
There are those who would have us believe otherwise. There are those who thrive on our willingness to be quiet and accept things the way they are. There are demons at work who count on us to remain quiet when a few words from any one of us has the potential to shape an alternative reality – for instance, fewer hungry people, fewer homeless people, fewer people without health care, a culture that no longer discriminates against gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, sexual orientation, age and the like.
That’s what the second story is all about – opening our mouths and speaking plainly – opening our mouths and speaking truth to power. And even if Jesus tells us to be quiet, it is not to be! The more zealously the crowd proclaimed his power and glory.
So as to be clear, the church throughout the ages, and even today, can be and has been prone to tighten the boundaries of “righteousness” to keep “outsiders” at bay. This story says that will not work. It never has. Jesus tried and was changed.
This story is not about the woman, the daughter, or the man – it is meant to be a story about us, and how a crumb of Jesus’ power can change us forever. It is about how disciples of Jesus are meant to advocate for the needs of others, especially around healing! And how a word from us can change the world. Forever. And, as we say, ever!
A crumb is enough to change the world, to change us, and most astoundingly of all, to force God to change God’s mind.
As a girl in my class on Thursday said, “Wow!”
Amen.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
We Are Home With God
Saint Timothy’s School Convocation 2009
Deuteronomy 6:10-12/I Corinthians 13:1-13
In all cultural and religious traditions, throughout all time, it is customary to stop before the beginning of a new journey and reflect: reflect on where we have been and where we are going.
Typically, like we are doing this morning, this means listening to the ancient wisdom for clues about why we are here and where we are going. So we consult texts as old as three thousand years from Torah and nearly two thousand years from the Christian Scriptures. What on earth can they tell us about beginning a new school year?
In Deuteronomy, the last book of Torah, we find the people of God who had been wandering in the wilderness for forty years. That’s a rather long vacation – longer than we have just enjoyed!
During this time God had led them and fed them. He had satisfied their hunger and thirst. We are told everyone had enough, no one had too much.
But now they were about to cross over the River Jordan to a new land and life lived more or less on their own.
Moses stops to review all the lessons they had learned along the way: lessons like love God, love your neighbor, and choose life. Lessons like, I chose you because I love you - there is no other reason at all but my love for you. I believe we can safely say everyone in this room is here today because we surrounded by such love.
And where we enter the story God, through Moses, assures everyone that crossing over into a new land, a new life, and a new world, that all shall be well because where you are I will be, says the Lord, and where we are will be home! Do not forget me, says the Lord.
It’s rather touching, really. You will have all these new things, go new places, learn new things, have new experiences – and here is God saying, please, don’t forget me, don’t forget where you come from and where we are going, together.
Not a bad message to hear as we begin a new year together - many of you leaving home to make a new home here for the next nine months, and others who make this their home day by day: we have been called here to love God, love one another, know we are loved and cared for, and know that Saint Timothy's is home!
Such knowledge provides the very foundation of our motto, Verite Sans Peur - Truth without Fear.
And to make sure we fully understand how all this love which forms the foundation of Verite Sans Peur is meant to work, Saint Paul lays it all on the line in his letter to the young church in Corinth: such love requires patience, kindness, rejoicing in the right, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping and enduring all things. Faith, Hope and Love, abide these three.
Those who rejoice, hope, believe, and endure with patience and kindness, says Paul, will transition from childish ways to a new way – a new kind of spiritual maturity. It is the promise of a new beginning – a new start.
What an exciting prospect! What an exciting promise! Spiritual maturity is ours for the taking if only we have faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love.
Perhaps the single most misunderstood word in scripture. When I had to memorize this chapter in high school in the King James Version, the word was Charity, not love. The Revised Standard Version was out, it was the 1960’s, and we mounted a revolt to use the RSV which used “love” instead of “charity.” Mrs. King held her ground, and today I am grateful. Throughout the Bible Charity or Love means something like doing something helpful or useful for others whether or not you like them let alone love them.
A community committed to these values of faith, hope and charity is a community that will endure. A community committed to these values will embody the very essence of Verite Sans Peur. As long as we remain committed to these values of faith, hope and charity Saint Timothy's will be a home for all of us and for all those who are sent to visit, work, live, play and ride with us this year!
And for this we all say, Amen!
Deuteronomy 6:10-12/I Corinthians 13:1-13
In all cultural and religious traditions, throughout all time, it is customary to stop before the beginning of a new journey and reflect: reflect on where we have been and where we are going.
Typically, like we are doing this morning, this means listening to the ancient wisdom for clues about why we are here and where we are going. So we consult texts as old as three thousand years from Torah and nearly two thousand years from the Christian Scriptures. What on earth can they tell us about beginning a new school year?
In Deuteronomy, the last book of Torah, we find the people of God who had been wandering in the wilderness for forty years. That’s a rather long vacation – longer than we have just enjoyed!
During this time God had led them and fed them. He had satisfied their hunger and thirst. We are told everyone had enough, no one had too much.
But now they were about to cross over the River Jordan to a new land and life lived more or less on their own.
Moses stops to review all the lessons they had learned along the way: lessons like love God, love your neighbor, and choose life. Lessons like, I chose you because I love you - there is no other reason at all but my love for you. I believe we can safely say everyone in this room is here today because we surrounded by such love.
And where we enter the story God, through Moses, assures everyone that crossing over into a new land, a new life, and a new world, that all shall be well because where you are I will be, says the Lord, and where we are will be home! Do not forget me, says the Lord.
It’s rather touching, really. You will have all these new things, go new places, learn new things, have new experiences – and here is God saying, please, don’t forget me, don’t forget where you come from and where we are going, together.
Not a bad message to hear as we begin a new year together - many of you leaving home to make a new home here for the next nine months, and others who make this their home day by day: we have been called here to love God, love one another, know we are loved and cared for, and know that Saint Timothy's is home!
Such knowledge provides the very foundation of our motto, Verite Sans Peur - Truth without Fear.
And to make sure we fully understand how all this love which forms the foundation of Verite Sans Peur is meant to work, Saint Paul lays it all on the line in his letter to the young church in Corinth: such love requires patience, kindness, rejoicing in the right, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping and enduring all things. Faith, Hope and Love, abide these three.
Those who rejoice, hope, believe, and endure with patience and kindness, says Paul, will transition from childish ways to a new way – a new kind of spiritual maturity. It is the promise of a new beginning – a new start.
What an exciting prospect! What an exciting promise! Spiritual maturity is ours for the taking if only we have faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love.
Perhaps the single most misunderstood word in scripture. When I had to memorize this chapter in high school in the King James Version, the word was Charity, not love. The Revised Standard Version was out, it was the 1960’s, and we mounted a revolt to use the RSV which used “love” instead of “charity.” Mrs. King held her ground, and today I am grateful. Throughout the Bible Charity or Love means something like doing something helpful or useful for others whether or not you like them let alone love them.
A community committed to these values of faith, hope and charity is a community that will endure. A community committed to these values will embody the very essence of Verite Sans Peur. As long as we remain committed to these values of faith, hope and charity Saint Timothy's will be a home for all of us and for all those who are sent to visit, work, live, play and ride with us this year!
And for this we all say, Amen!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Eternal Life - Now!
16 August 2009/Proper 15B – Proverbs 9:1-6/John 6:51-58
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, MD
Have Eternal Life – Now!
When our oldest daughter, Harper, was in about the fifth grade, she had a teacher who gave the children a Hershey’s Kiss as a reward for good work and good behavior. There was one condition – they had to savor it. They could not chew it up or swallow it whole, but they had to let the chocolate linger in the mouth, slowly melting, even more slowly giving the pleasure of its deep, dark chocolatey flavor to ease itself into a lingering moment of pure pleasure.
Long before that I recall learning from the culinary discipline of Macrobiotics that one ought to chew each mouthful of food at least 30 times, not simply to savor the flavor, texture and delight of the meal, but to better digest the food so that it might better nourish our bodies and souls.
This penultimate portion of the sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel, when paired with the portion about Lady Wisdom in Proverbs chapter nine, is an invitation to stop, savor and be more fully nourished by the very “daily bread” for which we pray in our Lord’s own prayer.
For those who “eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,” there is the promise of eternal life. And as it had been said before by Lady Wisdom: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of insight!” Proverbs 9:6
This talk about drinking blood and eating flesh is not about some kind of Twilight vampire kind of thing, or any kind of flesh eating aliens or bacteria – we are not talking cannibalism here either. Or, as Martin Luther so quaintly put it, “this is not the sort of flesh from which sausages are made…nor as such as purchased in the butcher shop.” Although, at the time Jesus was alive, and in certain tribal societies to this day, people eat certain animals specifically to acquire the attributes of said animal. So one might eat a lion to acquire strength and courage, or one might eat a gazelle to acquire swiftness and speed, and so on. As odd as it sounds, this is not so far off-base from what is being said here in Proverbs and John.
The promise in these two invitations to feast at Lady Wisdom’s and Jesus’ table is 1) of a spiritual maturity, and 2) eternal life.
The spiritual maturity piece asserts that there is something more than just bread and wine available to satisfy our hunger and thirst. There is the Word of God, identified by John as Jesus, the Word made flesh. The Word can satisfy deeper hunger and deeper thirst. In fact the Word satisfies our deepest hunger and deepest thirst. This has everything to do with our spiritual maturity and life as we live it here and now.
Similarly, eternal life has nothing to do with “timelessness and death, but is full-filled life here on earth that makes us yearn it will never end. Living life to the fullest as disciples brings great joy in the present and a hope for the future.” Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming of God, p 291
As one preacher once put it, “We are on the road to heaven now if today we walk with God. Eternal life is not a possession conferred at death; it is a present endowment. We live it now and continue it through death.” William Sloan Coffin, Credo, p170
It is life lived with, in and through God in Christ here and now – this is eternal life.
And I suspect it comes about only as we savor the meal. I suspect it only comes about if we savor the Word of God. I suspect it only comes about if we take the time to sit down at the table and linger awhile. We need to savor His flesh and savor His blood if He is to live in us and we in Him.
Christian faith would be so much easier if it were a matter of mere belief or intellectual assent. Our rather scandalous, carnal and incarnational gospel reminds us that Jesus intends to have all of us, body and soul. He intends to course through our veins, be digested fully, and nourish every nook and cranny of our hearts, bodies and souls! He wishes to consume us as we consume him.
This is why we come to the table week by week, day by day. This is why some of us gather weekly on Thursday evenings to gaze upon our Host, to linger in His presence, to savor each moment we do nothing but experience the Word of God made flesh.
He wants all of us. He wants us to have all of him.
Like the manna in the wilderness, those who sit at table with Him, those who linger and savor each moment, there will be enough. For every one there is enough to go around. There is sufficient bread and wine that gives eternal life for all of us.
We moderns are not usually inclined, says John Booty, to give thanks for that which is sufficient. But this is exactly what Lady Wisdom and Jesus have in mind here. This is why we call this Eucharist – literally Greek for Thanksgiving.
The real question for all of us is whether or not we are willing to take time out of our daily lives and even on our Sundays to linger with the Word of God? To savor the fullness of life He means to give us?
Give us this day our daily bread – this we pray. After our prayers will we give God in Christ – the Word of God – the necessary time to give us the bread we need to satisfy our deepest hunger and deepest thirst? Will we linger at the table and savor His presence? Not even God knows the answer to this question – only we do.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, MD
Have Eternal Life – Now!
When our oldest daughter, Harper, was in about the fifth grade, she had a teacher who gave the children a Hershey’s Kiss as a reward for good work and good behavior. There was one condition – they had to savor it. They could not chew it up or swallow it whole, but they had to let the chocolate linger in the mouth, slowly melting, even more slowly giving the pleasure of its deep, dark chocolatey flavor to ease itself into a lingering moment of pure pleasure.
Long before that I recall learning from the culinary discipline of Macrobiotics that one ought to chew each mouthful of food at least 30 times, not simply to savor the flavor, texture and delight of the meal, but to better digest the food so that it might better nourish our bodies and souls.
This penultimate portion of the sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel, when paired with the portion about Lady Wisdom in Proverbs chapter nine, is an invitation to stop, savor and be more fully nourished by the very “daily bread” for which we pray in our Lord’s own prayer.
For those who “eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,” there is the promise of eternal life. And as it had been said before by Lady Wisdom: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of insight!” Proverbs 9:6
This talk about drinking blood and eating flesh is not about some kind of Twilight vampire kind of thing, or any kind of flesh eating aliens or bacteria – we are not talking cannibalism here either. Or, as Martin Luther so quaintly put it, “this is not the sort of flesh from which sausages are made…nor as such as purchased in the butcher shop.” Although, at the time Jesus was alive, and in certain tribal societies to this day, people eat certain animals specifically to acquire the attributes of said animal. So one might eat a lion to acquire strength and courage, or one might eat a gazelle to acquire swiftness and speed, and so on. As odd as it sounds, this is not so far off-base from what is being said here in Proverbs and John.
The promise in these two invitations to feast at Lady Wisdom’s and Jesus’ table is 1) of a spiritual maturity, and 2) eternal life.
The spiritual maturity piece asserts that there is something more than just bread and wine available to satisfy our hunger and thirst. There is the Word of God, identified by John as Jesus, the Word made flesh. The Word can satisfy deeper hunger and deeper thirst. In fact the Word satisfies our deepest hunger and deepest thirst. This has everything to do with our spiritual maturity and life as we live it here and now.
Similarly, eternal life has nothing to do with “timelessness and death, but is full-filled life here on earth that makes us yearn it will never end. Living life to the fullest as disciples brings great joy in the present and a hope for the future.” Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming of God, p 291
As one preacher once put it, “We are on the road to heaven now if today we walk with God. Eternal life is not a possession conferred at death; it is a present endowment. We live it now and continue it through death.” William Sloan Coffin, Credo, p170
It is life lived with, in and through God in Christ here and now – this is eternal life.
And I suspect it comes about only as we savor the meal. I suspect it only comes about if we savor the Word of God. I suspect it only comes about if we take the time to sit down at the table and linger awhile. We need to savor His flesh and savor His blood if He is to live in us and we in Him.
Christian faith would be so much easier if it were a matter of mere belief or intellectual assent. Our rather scandalous, carnal and incarnational gospel reminds us that Jesus intends to have all of us, body and soul. He intends to course through our veins, be digested fully, and nourish every nook and cranny of our hearts, bodies and souls! He wishes to consume us as we consume him.
This is why we come to the table week by week, day by day. This is why some of us gather weekly on Thursday evenings to gaze upon our Host, to linger in His presence, to savor each moment we do nothing but experience the Word of God made flesh.
He wants all of us. He wants us to have all of him.
Like the manna in the wilderness, those who sit at table with Him, those who linger and savor each moment, there will be enough. For every one there is enough to go around. There is sufficient bread and wine that gives eternal life for all of us.
We moderns are not usually inclined, says John Booty, to give thanks for that which is sufficient. But this is exactly what Lady Wisdom and Jesus have in mind here. This is why we call this Eucharist – literally Greek for Thanksgiving.
The real question for all of us is whether or not we are willing to take time out of our daily lives and even on our Sundays to linger with the Word of God? To savor the fullness of life He means to give us?
Give us this day our daily bread – this we pray. After our prayers will we give God in Christ – the Word of God – the necessary time to give us the bread we need to satisfy our deepest hunger and deepest thirst? Will we linger at the table and savor His presence? Not even God knows the answer to this question – only we do.
Amen.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
They Shall Be Taught By God
9 August 2009/Proper 14B – 1 Kings 19:4-8/Psalm 34: 1-8/ John 6: 35, 41-51
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
They Shall Be Taught By God
This is our prayer for today: “…we, who cannot exist without you.” How odd it sounds in a world in which we are expected to be responsible for ourselves. Yet, here is Jesus saying, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…”
We do not come to faith by ourselves.
We do not come to faith by our own deduction, reasoning or insight.
According to Jesus it is not our religious experience, not our philosophical insight, not the accident of birth or economic status that places us in the realm of Light and Life that is the presence of Jesus within the community of Faith.
We are wooed, invited, even cajoled. We are saved by Grace alone. Amazing grace! Generous grace!
Conversely, we do not save anyone. God does all the saving, thank you. And those of us who have been invited to eat the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation can only bear witness to the abundance Jesus brings to the hearts and souls and lives of believers.
It has ever been thus. Jesus knows this. Those who, as he says, are “taught by God” are those who know about being drawn, wooed, invited and even cajoled by God!
Look back at the Exodus/Wilderness journey: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number…but it is because the Lord loves you…” Deut 7:6-8a
Those taught by God remember this: God chooses us only because God loves us.
Nor does God draw us into God’s presence because of anything we do. Just look at Elijah. Elijah has just defeated the Gods of Baal on top of Mount Carmel in a blazing display of God’s power, and yet Jezebel, instead of being impressed and cajoled herself, takes out a contract on Elijah.
Elijah sits beneath a broom tree feeling like a failure. All that he has done seems to count for nothing now that he sits alone, by himself, in hiding. “I am no better than my ancestors!” he cries out. Remember them last week? Wishing to either return to the bondage of slavery in Egypt, or to die in the wilderness? So Elijah also prays, “Lord, take my life away!”
In a culture that values extremes of success, extremes of acquisition, extremes of consumption, it is easy to feel extremes of failure. In a culture that values competition over cooperation, independence over inter-dependence, it is easy to feel utter loneliness, despair, and at the end of one’s rope as we say.
Those of us who are taught by God, however, can remember just how it is that God touches Elijah with an Angel, and gives him bread to eat and water to drink. And as if that were not enough, the Angel returns a second time – providing bread enough for the journey of the next forty days and nights to Mount Horeb, Sinai, the mountain upon which God chooses us because God loves us: the place of making a Covenant with the Lord our God.
Jesus knows that the Psalmist is speaking a life giving truth when we sing, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.”
We who have been deceived, lulled, into notions of evolutionary progress are surprised to learn that we now represent the decline of homo sapiens – a decline from the Stone Age to the present. It is estimated that Paleolithic hunters and gatherers were far more affluent than we are – affluence measured as a ratio between means and ends. Keeping their ends modest, three to five hours of “work” per day was sufficient to meet their needs, leaving the rest of the day for gossiping, entertaining, dancing and even napping - whereas we have willingly consigned ourselves to lives of hard labor. Cited by Huston Smith in Forgotten Truth [Harper One, San Francisco:1976] p.125-127
And looking at what our industry has gotten us, ironically it is an age of unprecedented Hunger. Now in the time of our great technical achievements, starvation has become an institution. The amount of hunger seems to increase relative and absolutely with the “evolution” of culture. Begging the question, is it evolution or devolution? Anthropology or Entropology? ibid
Institutional starvation is just the tip of the iceberg of our modern predicament. William Willimon observes, “Our hungers are deep. We are dying of thirst. We are bundles of seemingly insatiable need, rushing here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire. Can it be that our bread, our wine, our fulfillment stands before us in the presence of this crucified, resurrected Jew? Can it be that many of our desires are, in the eternal scheme of things, pointless? Might it be true that he IS the bread we need, even though he is rarely the bread we seek? Is it true that God has come to us, miraculously with us, before us, like manna that is miraculously dropped into our wilderness?” Feasting on the Word Vol 3 [Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville: 2009] p.337
Can we adopt any measure of humility and allow God to minister to us? To allow God to draw us near to Jesus? To allow God to teach us, feed us and love us? Not because of what we do or who we are, but “it is because the Lord loves you”?
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
They Shall Be Taught By God
This is our prayer for today: “…we, who cannot exist without you.” How odd it sounds in a world in which we are expected to be responsible for ourselves. Yet, here is Jesus saying, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…”
We do not come to faith by ourselves.
We do not come to faith by our own deduction, reasoning or insight.
According to Jesus it is not our religious experience, not our philosophical insight, not the accident of birth or economic status that places us in the realm of Light and Life that is the presence of Jesus within the community of Faith.
We are wooed, invited, even cajoled. We are saved by Grace alone. Amazing grace! Generous grace!
Conversely, we do not save anyone. God does all the saving, thank you. And those of us who have been invited to eat the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation can only bear witness to the abundance Jesus brings to the hearts and souls and lives of believers.
It has ever been thus. Jesus knows this. Those who, as he says, are “taught by God” are those who know about being drawn, wooed, invited and even cajoled by God!
Look back at the Exodus/Wilderness journey: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number…but it is because the Lord loves you…” Deut 7:6-8a
Those taught by God remember this: God chooses us only because God loves us.
Nor does God draw us into God’s presence because of anything we do. Just look at Elijah. Elijah has just defeated the Gods of Baal on top of Mount Carmel in a blazing display of God’s power, and yet Jezebel, instead of being impressed and cajoled herself, takes out a contract on Elijah.
Elijah sits beneath a broom tree feeling like a failure. All that he has done seems to count for nothing now that he sits alone, by himself, in hiding. “I am no better than my ancestors!” he cries out. Remember them last week? Wishing to either return to the bondage of slavery in Egypt, or to die in the wilderness? So Elijah also prays, “Lord, take my life away!”
In a culture that values extremes of success, extremes of acquisition, extremes of consumption, it is easy to feel extremes of failure. In a culture that values competition over cooperation, independence over inter-dependence, it is easy to feel utter loneliness, despair, and at the end of one’s rope as we say.
Those of us who are taught by God, however, can remember just how it is that God touches Elijah with an Angel, and gives him bread to eat and water to drink. And as if that were not enough, the Angel returns a second time – providing bread enough for the journey of the next forty days and nights to Mount Horeb, Sinai, the mountain upon which God chooses us because God loves us: the place of making a Covenant with the Lord our God.
Jesus knows that the Psalmist is speaking a life giving truth when we sing, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.”
We who have been deceived, lulled, into notions of evolutionary progress are surprised to learn that we now represent the decline of homo sapiens – a decline from the Stone Age to the present. It is estimated that Paleolithic hunters and gatherers were far more affluent than we are – affluence measured as a ratio between means and ends. Keeping their ends modest, three to five hours of “work” per day was sufficient to meet their needs, leaving the rest of the day for gossiping, entertaining, dancing and even napping - whereas we have willingly consigned ourselves to lives of hard labor. Cited by Huston Smith in Forgotten Truth [Harper One, San Francisco:1976] p.125-127
And looking at what our industry has gotten us, ironically it is an age of unprecedented Hunger. Now in the time of our great technical achievements, starvation has become an institution. The amount of hunger seems to increase relative and absolutely with the “evolution” of culture. Begging the question, is it evolution or devolution? Anthropology or Entropology? ibid
Institutional starvation is just the tip of the iceberg of our modern predicament. William Willimon observes, “Our hungers are deep. We are dying of thirst. We are bundles of seemingly insatiable need, rushing here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire. Can it be that our bread, our wine, our fulfillment stands before us in the presence of this crucified, resurrected Jew? Can it be that many of our desires are, in the eternal scheme of things, pointless? Might it be true that he IS the bread we need, even though he is rarely the bread we seek? Is it true that God has come to us, miraculously with us, before us, like manna that is miraculously dropped into our wilderness?” Feasting on the Word Vol 3 [Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville: 2009] p.337
Can we adopt any measure of humility and allow God to minister to us? To allow God to draw us near to Jesus? To allow God to teach us, feed us and love us? Not because of what we do or who we are, but “it is because the Lord loves you”?
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Amen.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Whoever Comes to Me
2 August 2009 * Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15/Ephesians 4:1-16/Matthew 6: 24-35
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life
worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
We will be reflecting on “the bread of life” for the next several weeks. There is much that demands our attention. And we will get to all that in due time. But like Maria in The Sound of Music, let’s start at t he very beginning.
Which of course is the story of manna. Note how the people are already grumbling. They want to go back to being slaves where you at least got three squares a day! What is interesting for us to note is that the Lord hears their complaining and addresses the problem immediately. Of course they have no idea what this stuff is – they call it “whatizit”? It is up to Moses to point out that “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
Note also that this all happens after Aaron calls them to “Draw near to the Lord.” So after we complain, we are to draw near to the Lord – whatever that may mean. It is worth considering, for it may be the most important step between complaining and getting the bread the Lord gives us to eat.
Which of course begs the question, what constitutes “whatizit” for us? It’s obviously not bread, but it is what the Lord provides, and the Lord seems to know what they really need. So as we draw near to the Lord, what do we really need?
Looking at the Gospel for a moment, not a dissimilar circumstance. Jesus has just arranged for the five thousand to be fed, and then takes off for some quiet time. Not to be. As soon as the crowd figures out he is gone, they get into boats and went “looking for him “ in Capernaum.
When they find him Jesus gets a bit snippy: You only followed me because you want more bread and fish! Don’t you realize there is something more important going on here? Don’t you see that you can have bread that endures for eternal life?
Leave it to a view of religion providing for our wants – a religion of convenience – rather than seeking religion that endures for eternal life. Such religion of convenience sees our relationship with God as a kind of lobbying effort on a grand scale. The Romans called it do ut des, “I give so you will give.”
So they ask, “What must we do (give) to perform the works of God?” To which Jesus rather succinctly replies, “Believe in me. For the bread that comes down from heaven gives life to the world.” Which means something more like, “Trust in me, align yourself with me and my life.” Or, as Paul so quaintly puts it in Ephesians, “Be a prisoner of the Lord.”
Still not really getting it they cry out, “Sir, give us this bread – always.” Which echoes throughout the Gospel of John. Recall the Samaritan woman at the well who says, “Sir, give me this water (the water of eternal life) so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Do we see how people just do not get it? He is speaking to her of a well of eternal life that springs up within her, and she is still thinking of drawing buckets from a well!
And does she not echo that pivotal phrase coming in chapter 12 when some Greeks come looking for Jesus like the crowds in the boats today, and they say to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Which, like the hokey-pokey, is what it’s all about: seeing Jesus. Drawing near to the Lord. Getting in our boats and looking and looking and looking until we find Jesus. And upon finding Jesus, or Jesus finding us as he did with Paul, we are to dedicate our lives to him – believe in him whom God the Father has sent – and so become prisoners for the Lord so that we might lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called.
Which Ephesians asserts is building up the Body of Christ – his Church.
Looking at page 299 in the Book of Common Prayer, do we see that these words come from Ephesians? And on the page facing, it says that the bond established in Baptism is indissoluable, incorporating us into the Body of Christ! This is the calling to which we have been called.
So let us find ways to draw near to the Lord. Let us get into our boats and go looking for him. And like all the people in all these stories, may we persist in our looking for and seeing of Christ so that we might indeed live lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Let us partake of the bread the Lord provides – the bread we need, not the bread we want - and the wisdom to know the difference.
To be continued. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life
worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
We will be reflecting on “the bread of life” for the next several weeks. There is much that demands our attention. And we will get to all that in due time. But like Maria in The Sound of Music, let’s start at t he very beginning.
Which of course is the story of manna. Note how the people are already grumbling. They want to go back to being slaves where you at least got three squares a day! What is interesting for us to note is that the Lord hears their complaining and addresses the problem immediately. Of course they have no idea what this stuff is – they call it “whatizit”? It is up to Moses to point out that “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
Note also that this all happens after Aaron calls them to “Draw near to the Lord.” So after we complain, we are to draw near to the Lord – whatever that may mean. It is worth considering, for it may be the most important step between complaining and getting the bread the Lord gives us to eat.
Which of course begs the question, what constitutes “whatizit” for us? It’s obviously not bread, but it is what the Lord provides, and the Lord seems to know what they really need. So as we draw near to the Lord, what do we really need?
Looking at the Gospel for a moment, not a dissimilar circumstance. Jesus has just arranged for the five thousand to be fed, and then takes off for some quiet time. Not to be. As soon as the crowd figures out he is gone, they get into boats and went “looking for him “ in Capernaum.
When they find him Jesus gets a bit snippy: You only followed me because you want more bread and fish! Don’t you realize there is something more important going on here? Don’t you see that you can have bread that endures for eternal life?
Leave it to a view of religion providing for our wants – a religion of convenience – rather than seeking religion that endures for eternal life. Such religion of convenience sees our relationship with God as a kind of lobbying effort on a grand scale. The Romans called it do ut des, “I give so you will give.”
So they ask, “What must we do (give) to perform the works of God?” To which Jesus rather succinctly replies, “Believe in me. For the bread that comes down from heaven gives life to the world.” Which means something more like, “Trust in me, align yourself with me and my life.” Or, as Paul so quaintly puts it in Ephesians, “Be a prisoner of the Lord.”
Still not really getting it they cry out, “Sir, give us this bread – always.” Which echoes throughout the Gospel of John. Recall the Samaritan woman at the well who says, “Sir, give me this water (the water of eternal life) so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Do we see how people just do not get it? He is speaking to her of a well of eternal life that springs up within her, and she is still thinking of drawing buckets from a well!
And does she not echo that pivotal phrase coming in chapter 12 when some Greeks come looking for Jesus like the crowds in the boats today, and they say to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Which, like the hokey-pokey, is what it’s all about: seeing Jesus. Drawing near to the Lord. Getting in our boats and looking and looking and looking until we find Jesus. And upon finding Jesus, or Jesus finding us as he did with Paul, we are to dedicate our lives to him – believe in him whom God the Father has sent – and so become prisoners for the Lord so that we might lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called.
Which Ephesians asserts is building up the Body of Christ – his Church.
Looking at page 299 in the Book of Common Prayer, do we see that these words come from Ephesians? And on the page facing, it says that the bond established in Baptism is indissoluable, incorporating us into the Body of Christ! This is the calling to which we have been called.
So let us find ways to draw near to the Lord. Let us get into our boats and go looking for him. And like all the people in all these stories, may we persist in our looking for and seeing of Christ so that we might indeed live lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Let us partake of the bread the Lord provides – the bread we need, not the bread we want - and the wisdom to know the difference.
To be continued. Amen.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Look At The Plumb Line
12 July 2009/Proper 10B – Amos 7:7-15/Ephesians 1:3-14/Mark 6:14-29
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Live for the Praise of His Glory
So as to know once and for all that Jesus is NOT John the Baptizer, Mark gives us a detailed account of how John loses his head. It is a story drenched with all the political and religious intrigue, scandal and backstabbing violence as any that commands our attention in today’s political and pop culture scene.
John had simply done what needed to be done: he spoke Truth to Power. As always, Power does not like be reminded of what it is doing that is wrong. He reminds Herod it is not lawful for Herod to have his own brother’s wife. And yet, we are told that this particular Herod, for reasons unexplained, somehow enjoyed listening to John. He liked having him around. Herodias, his current wife, formerly his brother’s wife, however, is tired of listening to John and employs her own daughter to bring John down.
All in the name of keeping a scandal quiet, although it rarely works to kill the messenger. The word is out, and reputations are already discredited.
Amos is the prototype John. After seeing a vision of God with a plumb line in his hand, Amos is sent to deliver a series of messages to king Jeroboam, messages that are not at all encouraging. The message is that not only will the King die, but all the people will have to pay the price of his unfaithfulness. This unfaithfulness includes over-reliance upon military might, grave injustices in social dealings, abhorrent immorality, and shallow meaningless piety. Sound familiar?
You have to love the comical depiction of the King’s own advisor/protector and priest as he attempts to head off disaster by running Amos out of town. Amaziah suggests that more money could be made by issuing prophecies elsewhere. The temptation is always to go where the money is; to follow the money.
Amos says, “Nothing doing. I’m not in it for the money! I am no prophet nor am I a prophet’s son. I am a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees. The Lord took me away from my flock and told me to bring this message to you and your boss.”
Speaking truth to power: Amos and John the Baptizer, two of an endless series of such prophets in the Bible – forerunners of Jesus of Nazareth.
Amos and John are the plumb line. God says, just put this plumb line next to the wall I have built – the wall being a metaphor for Israel, for God’s people, and as far as we are concerned, the Church. Does it look plumb to you? Are the walls still as I built them? Or, are they out of line?
It is interesting that between these two lessons lies the letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians might be said to be the plumb line. It talks about our sole purpose: that we might live for the praise of God’s glory.
That’s it. The rest is all about God’s doing, not ours.
And what God does is substantial.
God blesses us with every spiritual blessing. Not some, not many, but every spiritual blessing.
God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Before “In the beginning…”
God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will!
God freely bestows his glorious grace making us his beloved!
God forgives us our trespasses.
God makes known to us the mystery of his will set forth in Christ.
God has a plan to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In Christ we have also received an inheritance, as we are marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit in Baptism.
God does all this so that “we might live for the praise of his glory.”
With cases like Herod, Herodias, Jeroboam and Amaziah, like all the well publicized cases of our own time, it is easy to see that they are out of plumb.
Hang the plumb line in the midst of our own parish community, and what would we see? Are we in line with the God who has done all this for us without our asking? Do we live for the praise of his glory? If so, Alleluia! If not, what need we do as a community of God’s people to live for the praise of his glory?
We say everything we say and everything we do will proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. We say we will seek Christ in all persons. We say we will strive for justice and peace for all people. Our catechism (BCP 855) says according to the gifts given to us we will continue Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world. Not in the parish, not in the church, but in the world. Does our engagement with the world show that we are a people who live for the praise of God’s glory?
Perhaps it is time to look at the plumb line, repent and follow Jesus.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Live for the Praise of His Glory
So as to know once and for all that Jesus is NOT John the Baptizer, Mark gives us a detailed account of how John loses his head. It is a story drenched with all the political and religious intrigue, scandal and backstabbing violence as any that commands our attention in today’s political and pop culture scene.
John had simply done what needed to be done: he spoke Truth to Power. As always, Power does not like be reminded of what it is doing that is wrong. He reminds Herod it is not lawful for Herod to have his own brother’s wife. And yet, we are told that this particular Herod, for reasons unexplained, somehow enjoyed listening to John. He liked having him around. Herodias, his current wife, formerly his brother’s wife, however, is tired of listening to John and employs her own daughter to bring John down.
All in the name of keeping a scandal quiet, although it rarely works to kill the messenger. The word is out, and reputations are already discredited.
Amos is the prototype John. After seeing a vision of God with a plumb line in his hand, Amos is sent to deliver a series of messages to king Jeroboam, messages that are not at all encouraging. The message is that not only will the King die, but all the people will have to pay the price of his unfaithfulness. This unfaithfulness includes over-reliance upon military might, grave injustices in social dealings, abhorrent immorality, and shallow meaningless piety. Sound familiar?
You have to love the comical depiction of the King’s own advisor/protector and priest as he attempts to head off disaster by running Amos out of town. Amaziah suggests that more money could be made by issuing prophecies elsewhere. The temptation is always to go where the money is; to follow the money.
Amos says, “Nothing doing. I’m not in it for the money! I am no prophet nor am I a prophet’s son. I am a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees. The Lord took me away from my flock and told me to bring this message to you and your boss.”
Speaking truth to power: Amos and John the Baptizer, two of an endless series of such prophets in the Bible – forerunners of Jesus of Nazareth.
Amos and John are the plumb line. God says, just put this plumb line next to the wall I have built – the wall being a metaphor for Israel, for God’s people, and as far as we are concerned, the Church. Does it look plumb to you? Are the walls still as I built them? Or, are they out of line?
It is interesting that between these two lessons lies the letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians might be said to be the plumb line. It talks about our sole purpose: that we might live for the praise of God’s glory.
That’s it. The rest is all about God’s doing, not ours.
And what God does is substantial.
God blesses us with every spiritual blessing. Not some, not many, but every spiritual blessing.
God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Before “In the beginning…”
God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will!
God freely bestows his glorious grace making us his beloved!
God forgives us our trespasses.
God makes known to us the mystery of his will set forth in Christ.
God has a plan to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In Christ we have also received an inheritance, as we are marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit in Baptism.
God does all this so that “we might live for the praise of his glory.”
With cases like Herod, Herodias, Jeroboam and Amaziah, like all the well publicized cases of our own time, it is easy to see that they are out of plumb.
Hang the plumb line in the midst of our own parish community, and what would we see? Are we in line with the God who has done all this for us without our asking? Do we live for the praise of his glory? If so, Alleluia! If not, what need we do as a community of God’s people to live for the praise of his glory?
We say everything we say and everything we do will proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. We say we will seek Christ in all persons. We say we will strive for justice and peace for all people. Our catechism (BCP 855) says according to the gifts given to us we will continue Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world. Not in the parish, not in the church, but in the world. Does our engagement with the world show that we are a people who live for the praise of God’s glory?
Perhaps it is time to look at the plumb line, repent and follow Jesus.
Amen.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
4th of July!
Independence Day
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek
Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Note: The Collect “17. For the Nation,” BCP p. 258 may be used instead of the Collect for Independence Day, BCP p. 242.
The fact that we have the option of two Collects for Independence Day hints at the possible ambiguities associated with a National Holiday such as this. Ambiguities which attempt to hold us somewhere between declaring our Independence on one hand, and thanking God “for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.”(BCP p.836)
Such ambiguities also reside within our gospel. This section of the Sermon on the Mount might give the impression that Jewish tradition directs love of neighbor and hatred of enemies. While the former is well attested throughout the Old Testament, Judaism nowhere prescribes hating one’s enemies.
And although just who constitutes a neighbor has been subject to much debate, Jesus throughout the gospels, and New Testament writers like the one in Hebrews, and Paul’s mission to the gentiles, appears to extend the boundaries of the neighborhood to all those who have been created in God’s image. Indeed, as early as the Noah narrative deep in the origins of Genesis, our God is portrayed as the One God who provides for the entire human family, letting the sun shine and the rain fall for both evil people and good.
Surely as what is increasingly referred to as the global village continues to shrink, forces like globalization extend the neighborhood to even the furthest and most remote corners of this fragile earth, our island home as images are streamed into our homes via satellite and the internet of catastrophes, triumphs and discoveries wherever they are to be seen.
This day’s scriptural theme reminding us that we are all of us sojourners on God’s earth is ever more important as we pause to reflect on our Nation’s origins, history and contributions to God’s ever growing neighborhood.
“Love the sojourner, therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” (rsv)
A sojourner is one who lives or stays in a place for a time. The Bible understands this to be the most fundamental characteristic of what it means to be human: we are all here just for a time. We are all of us on our way to yet somewhere else. We are all sojourners.
For people of Biblical faith, Abraham and Sarah are the perfect prototype couple signifying a life of sojourn, a journey from home to a homeland, which is ultimately the single most common denominator of who we are: people on our way. They stepped away from the friendly confines of the familiar and into the new world of God’s dream for them. In the cosmic sense we come from God and return to God, with this brief sojourn on earth as a kind of midpoint in what we often refer to as eternal life.
Jesus calls us to be perfect, which in Greek means something like whole, undivided, complete. In one sense the perfection Jesus calls for is a command to treat other people in the same way God treats people – all people - in the divine realm. Jesus calls us to live in a new world of God’s eternal reign, and Jesus in all that he says and does proclaims this new world to be already operative, a key feature of which is: all people are created equal.
Again, as Hebrews lays it out, persons and communities of persons achieve identity, in part, by imitating exemplars. Abraham and Sarah are such exemplars, setting out from home to they know not where, allowing God to lead and direct them to a new world, a new home, a new life where even a craggy old man, “and him as good as dead,” and a woman, “even when she was past the age,” could become the parents of a nation of God’s people more numerous than the stars of the heavens and grains of sand on the seashore.
As history would have it, this nation of Abraham and Sarah became the quintessential sojourning community, now distributed throughout all the earth. And by adoption, we gentiles were added to that nation through the mystery of the cross and resurrection, a mystery that means to remind us that we too are sojourners called to care for others as God so graciously and generously takes care of us.
It takes little reflection on these core stories of our faith to find the stirrings that brought and continues to bring sojourners to this land we call America. A land founded, in part, by religious and entrepreneurial refugees from an old world seeking a new. A land that as it found its identity became a beacon of freedom and liberty for people the world over.
Yet, there is a two-edged sword in the sayings of Jesus that greet us on this anniversary day of our Independence from those who would be our unjust rulers: the liberation of our forbears came at a price for those already living in the neighborhood, and those we brought by brute force to work the land that gleams from sea to shining sea: a land which has itself been brutalized and gleams a little less each year we are here. It does not appear that we have been completely faithful to live out of whatever it might mean to become perfect as God is perfect.
So it is we gather to reflect and pray on this our Independence Day. We pray either to “have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace,” (BCP 242) or to have “a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with God’s gracious will.” (BCP 258)
That is, we gather to renew our commitment to become a people like Abraham and Sarah, a people like Israel, a people like Jesus, who remember who we are and whose we are: we are God’s sojourner people. And like our lifetime here itself, we have now only a brief time for this sojourn and this reflection. We have only a brief time to become perfect as God is perfect in caring for others - all others who sojourn with us - and for the earth as God’s creation.
If we take this time to reflect on how we as a nation might use our liberty in accordance with God’s gracious will, we will come to know the kind of faithfulness and hope that gave Abraham and Sarah, and all those who came and still come to the shores of North America seeking a more true vision of God’s purpose, the courage to leave the realm of the familiar as we continue to step out and into the New World God has already begun in Christ. With Christ, in Christ and to Christ be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.
Afterword
Excerpt, Introduction
By Edward Sanders
From Poems for America, edited by Carmela Ciuraru, [Scribner Poetry, NY:2002) p.219
O America! how I thirst for you to shine
& swirl in peace
on your tiny globe
out on the arm of a Spiral Galaxy
we call the Milky Way
swathed in a sheath of glowing gas
100,000 light years across!
I am singing you America
I am singing your wilderness
your smoggy cities, your art
& your wild creativity!
I am singing your crazy inventors
I sing the Hula Hoop& the Harley Hog & the oil of Hopper
& I am singing your schisms & controversies
O Nation, Vast & Seething
Day& Night & Dream!
War and secrecy
make writing America
a twistsome thing
and how many thousands of times
have I shook my head with the
ghastly sudden knowledge
of this and that
but how many thousands more
have I smiled at the millions
who have made my nation a marvel.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek
Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Note: The Collect “17. For the Nation,” BCP p. 258 may be used instead of the Collect for Independence Day, BCP p. 242.
The fact that we have the option of two Collects for Independence Day hints at the possible ambiguities associated with a National Holiday such as this. Ambiguities which attempt to hold us somewhere between declaring our Independence on one hand, and thanking God “for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.”(BCP p.836)
Such ambiguities also reside within our gospel. This section of the Sermon on the Mount might give the impression that Jewish tradition directs love of neighbor and hatred of enemies. While the former is well attested throughout the Old Testament, Judaism nowhere prescribes hating one’s enemies.
And although just who constitutes a neighbor has been subject to much debate, Jesus throughout the gospels, and New Testament writers like the one in Hebrews, and Paul’s mission to the gentiles, appears to extend the boundaries of the neighborhood to all those who have been created in God’s image. Indeed, as early as the Noah narrative deep in the origins of Genesis, our God is portrayed as the One God who provides for the entire human family, letting the sun shine and the rain fall for both evil people and good.
Surely as what is increasingly referred to as the global village continues to shrink, forces like globalization extend the neighborhood to even the furthest and most remote corners of this fragile earth, our island home as images are streamed into our homes via satellite and the internet of catastrophes, triumphs and discoveries wherever they are to be seen.
This day’s scriptural theme reminding us that we are all of us sojourners on God’s earth is ever more important as we pause to reflect on our Nation’s origins, history and contributions to God’s ever growing neighborhood.
“Love the sojourner, therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” (rsv)
A sojourner is one who lives or stays in a place for a time. The Bible understands this to be the most fundamental characteristic of what it means to be human: we are all here just for a time. We are all of us on our way to yet somewhere else. We are all sojourners.
For people of Biblical faith, Abraham and Sarah are the perfect prototype couple signifying a life of sojourn, a journey from home to a homeland, which is ultimately the single most common denominator of who we are: people on our way. They stepped away from the friendly confines of the familiar and into the new world of God’s dream for them. In the cosmic sense we come from God and return to God, with this brief sojourn on earth as a kind of midpoint in what we often refer to as eternal life.
Jesus calls us to be perfect, which in Greek means something like whole, undivided, complete. In one sense the perfection Jesus calls for is a command to treat other people in the same way God treats people – all people - in the divine realm. Jesus calls us to live in a new world of God’s eternal reign, and Jesus in all that he says and does proclaims this new world to be already operative, a key feature of which is: all people are created equal.
Again, as Hebrews lays it out, persons and communities of persons achieve identity, in part, by imitating exemplars. Abraham and Sarah are such exemplars, setting out from home to they know not where, allowing God to lead and direct them to a new world, a new home, a new life where even a craggy old man, “and him as good as dead,” and a woman, “even when she was past the age,” could become the parents of a nation of God’s people more numerous than the stars of the heavens and grains of sand on the seashore.
As history would have it, this nation of Abraham and Sarah became the quintessential sojourning community, now distributed throughout all the earth. And by adoption, we gentiles were added to that nation through the mystery of the cross and resurrection, a mystery that means to remind us that we too are sojourners called to care for others as God so graciously and generously takes care of us.
It takes little reflection on these core stories of our faith to find the stirrings that brought and continues to bring sojourners to this land we call America. A land founded, in part, by religious and entrepreneurial refugees from an old world seeking a new. A land that as it found its identity became a beacon of freedom and liberty for people the world over.
Yet, there is a two-edged sword in the sayings of Jesus that greet us on this anniversary day of our Independence from those who would be our unjust rulers: the liberation of our forbears came at a price for those already living in the neighborhood, and those we brought by brute force to work the land that gleams from sea to shining sea: a land which has itself been brutalized and gleams a little less each year we are here. It does not appear that we have been completely faithful to live out of whatever it might mean to become perfect as God is perfect.
So it is we gather to reflect and pray on this our Independence Day. We pray either to “have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace,” (BCP 242) or to have “a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with God’s gracious will.” (BCP 258)
That is, we gather to renew our commitment to become a people like Abraham and Sarah, a people like Israel, a people like Jesus, who remember who we are and whose we are: we are God’s sojourner people. And like our lifetime here itself, we have now only a brief time for this sojourn and this reflection. We have only a brief time to become perfect as God is perfect in caring for others - all others who sojourn with us - and for the earth as God’s creation.
If we take this time to reflect on how we as a nation might use our liberty in accordance with God’s gracious will, we will come to know the kind of faithfulness and hope that gave Abraham and Sarah, and all those who came and still come to the shores of North America seeking a more true vision of God’s purpose, the courage to leave the realm of the familiar as we continue to step out and into the New World God has already begun in Christ. With Christ, in Christ and to Christ be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.
Afterword
Excerpt, Introduction
By Edward Sanders
From Poems for America, edited by Carmela Ciuraru, [Scribner Poetry, NY:2002) p.219
O America! how I thirst for you to shine
& swirl in peace
on your tiny globe
out on the arm of a Spiral Galaxy
we call the Milky Way
swathed in a sheath of glowing gas
100,000 light years across!
I am singing you America
I am singing your wilderness
your smoggy cities, your art
& your wild creativity!
I am singing your crazy inventors
I sing the Hula Hoop& the Harley Hog & the oil of Hopper
& I am singing your schisms & controversies
O Nation, Vast & Seething
Day& Night & Dream!
War and secrecy
make writing America
a twistsome thing
and how many thousands of times
have I shook my head with the
ghastly sudden knowledge
of this and that
but how many thousands more
have I smiled at the millions
who have made my nation a marvel.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Who Is This?
21 June 2009 – Mark 4:35 – 5:20
Who Is This?
Jesus had been teaching in parables from the back of a boat. He spoke of the hidden yet present and growing nature of God’s divine reign of mercy, justice, healing and hope for all people. He has been teaching among his people in Israel. Now he sets out for the other side of the sea: Gentile territory. He is tired from a full day of teaching. He falls asleep in the rear of the boat – perhaps recalling the parable of the farmer who sows the seeds, yet, knows not how they grow. The seeds grow even while he sleeps. There are other boats “with him.” The words “with him” in Mark is a technical phrase meaning discipleship. That is, we can enter the story by placing ourselves in one of these “other boats.” The ceiling of this church recalls the hull of a boat, so it is called the Nave from the same root that we get navy. When we are in church we are in the boat with Jesus. Let’s see what happens!
We know the scene all too well. There is a sudden storm, the boat is threatened, the disciples wake up Jesus in a panic. They beg him to stop the wind! Jesus says, “Shalom, Be still.” The wind stops, and the sea becomes dead calm. Jesus chides them for a lack of faith. Had they not heard, the power of God is at work even when the sower of the seed is asleep? Then they ask the question we all ask ourselves, “Who then is he?”
The first verse of Mark’s gospel identifies him as “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” A few verses later a voice from heaven announces, “You are my Son, my Beloved.” A few verses after this an unclean spirit declares, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God…Have you come to destroy us?” But these are mere declarations – descriptions. It is a very different thing altogether to see the subject of the declarations at work – taming the powers of watery chaos just as God had ordered the watery chaos in the beginning to set the earth right. Jesus, the Son of God, the Beloved, the Holy One of God demonstrates the same kind of power to overturn our expectations when we least expect it. The disciples had heard about who he is, now they have seen for themselves.
Oh, yes, and be careful what you pray for. There is now a dead calm. No wind for the sails means the disciples and the rest of us in the other boats now need to get to work and row to the other side. If we thought it was scary on the stormy sea, a metaphor for life in the church with Jesus who saves through and beyond death, but not necessarily from it, the real scary stuff is on the other side: unclean Gentiles, unclean pigs, and an unclean man possessed by unclean spirits who lives in the unclean tombs! Beware of going over to the other side!
Just try to imagine how you might feel after this night sea journey with Jesus: after a long day of teaching in enigmatic parables, setting out for Gentile territory, encountering rough seas and high winds, being chastised by the Son of God, left wondering just who is this guy and why did I sign up for this journey in the first place?
So what is the first thing to happen as you step out of the boat? This crazy man possessed by an unclean spirit races out of the tombs down to the shore to greet them! He had been chained and shackled, but possessed by the spirit he has the strength to wrench them apart! No one, we are told, had the power to subdue him! If you are in one of those other boats, do you think, “Maybe it is time to go home now!”
The man falls at Jesus’ feet and begs “Jesus the Son of the Most High” not to torment him. To let them be. Them, because it turns out that the spirit’s name is Legion because there are many of them. This man has lots of problems. We know what that’s like. Jesus calls them out. They negotiate: please do not send us out of the country – send us into the pigs, they cry. Willing to oblige Legion’s request, into the pigs they go, and into the sea go 2,000 pigs to their death by drowning. This recalls, perhaps, the chariots of Pharaoh at the Red Sea as they were suddenly unable to tread water. Jesus has the power to command a new Exodus, a new liberation, available even to individuals like this poor man who had been chained in the tombs for all these years. Or, perhaps this episode is a reminder of how we die with Christ in our Baptism only to be Reborn by the Holy Spirit into newness of life. So now Jesus demonstrates the power of creation and the power of the Exodus/Passover!
When the townspeople and swineheards saw what happened to the pigs, and saw Jesus and the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, did anyone say, “Thank you” or “Great Job” or “Wow! Fantastic!” No, they were afraid and asked him to leave. We know how they must feel. We get used to consigning certain people to the “tombs.” We get used to keeping certain people at a distance, chained up, locked away. It is disturbing to our status quo to allow these people of whom we are used to being afraid suddenly become more like us. We hate to admit that perhaps if we had only approached them like Jesus approaches this demoniac that perhaps we could have helped them return to their right mind. It begins to dawn on us that perhaps this is why Jesus invites us to get into the boat with him in the first place.
Jesus is again willing to oblige, and as he gets in the boat to leave the man runs to him again and begs to go with him. Really. Who wants to stay with the fearful people who chained him up in the tombs in the first place? Jesus says, no, go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you. And he went through ten of the Gentile towns and told people, and they were amazed. Having restored the man’s sense of self and his place among others, Jesus now gives him a voice and a vocation: to spread the Good News about just who Jesus is!
Jesus seeks not his own advancement, but rather he seeks to empower others. All others. Even the most unlikely others we can imagine. Three things from this: If the demoniac can do God’s work, so can we; we are meant to see how the power of God is at work in others, even the most unlikely others we can imagine; and if Jesus can set the demoniac free from the isolation and patterns of behavior that kept him bound in chains in a tomb, Jesus can free us from whatever keeps us from becoming the person God wants us to be – God’s own Beloved. New life may be hidden, but it is alive and growing even while Jesus seems to be asleep, even in the most unlikely of places like the other side of the sea. Even in us! Amen.
Who Is This?
Jesus had been teaching in parables from the back of a boat. He spoke of the hidden yet present and growing nature of God’s divine reign of mercy, justice, healing and hope for all people. He has been teaching among his people in Israel. Now he sets out for the other side of the sea: Gentile territory. He is tired from a full day of teaching. He falls asleep in the rear of the boat – perhaps recalling the parable of the farmer who sows the seeds, yet, knows not how they grow. The seeds grow even while he sleeps. There are other boats “with him.” The words “with him” in Mark is a technical phrase meaning discipleship. That is, we can enter the story by placing ourselves in one of these “other boats.” The ceiling of this church recalls the hull of a boat, so it is called the Nave from the same root that we get navy. When we are in church we are in the boat with Jesus. Let’s see what happens!
We know the scene all too well. There is a sudden storm, the boat is threatened, the disciples wake up Jesus in a panic. They beg him to stop the wind! Jesus says, “Shalom, Be still.” The wind stops, and the sea becomes dead calm. Jesus chides them for a lack of faith. Had they not heard, the power of God is at work even when the sower of the seed is asleep? Then they ask the question we all ask ourselves, “Who then is he?”
The first verse of Mark’s gospel identifies him as “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” A few verses later a voice from heaven announces, “You are my Son, my Beloved.” A few verses after this an unclean spirit declares, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God…Have you come to destroy us?” But these are mere declarations – descriptions. It is a very different thing altogether to see the subject of the declarations at work – taming the powers of watery chaos just as God had ordered the watery chaos in the beginning to set the earth right. Jesus, the Son of God, the Beloved, the Holy One of God demonstrates the same kind of power to overturn our expectations when we least expect it. The disciples had heard about who he is, now they have seen for themselves.
Oh, yes, and be careful what you pray for. There is now a dead calm. No wind for the sails means the disciples and the rest of us in the other boats now need to get to work and row to the other side. If we thought it was scary on the stormy sea, a metaphor for life in the church with Jesus who saves through and beyond death, but not necessarily from it, the real scary stuff is on the other side: unclean Gentiles, unclean pigs, and an unclean man possessed by unclean spirits who lives in the unclean tombs! Beware of going over to the other side!
Just try to imagine how you might feel after this night sea journey with Jesus: after a long day of teaching in enigmatic parables, setting out for Gentile territory, encountering rough seas and high winds, being chastised by the Son of God, left wondering just who is this guy and why did I sign up for this journey in the first place?
So what is the first thing to happen as you step out of the boat? This crazy man possessed by an unclean spirit races out of the tombs down to the shore to greet them! He had been chained and shackled, but possessed by the spirit he has the strength to wrench them apart! No one, we are told, had the power to subdue him! If you are in one of those other boats, do you think, “Maybe it is time to go home now!”
The man falls at Jesus’ feet and begs “Jesus the Son of the Most High” not to torment him. To let them be. Them, because it turns out that the spirit’s name is Legion because there are many of them. This man has lots of problems. We know what that’s like. Jesus calls them out. They negotiate: please do not send us out of the country – send us into the pigs, they cry. Willing to oblige Legion’s request, into the pigs they go, and into the sea go 2,000 pigs to their death by drowning. This recalls, perhaps, the chariots of Pharaoh at the Red Sea as they were suddenly unable to tread water. Jesus has the power to command a new Exodus, a new liberation, available even to individuals like this poor man who had been chained in the tombs for all these years. Or, perhaps this episode is a reminder of how we die with Christ in our Baptism only to be Reborn by the Holy Spirit into newness of life. So now Jesus demonstrates the power of creation and the power of the Exodus/Passover!
When the townspeople and swineheards saw what happened to the pigs, and saw Jesus and the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, did anyone say, “Thank you” or “Great Job” or “Wow! Fantastic!” No, they were afraid and asked him to leave. We know how they must feel. We get used to consigning certain people to the “tombs.” We get used to keeping certain people at a distance, chained up, locked away. It is disturbing to our status quo to allow these people of whom we are used to being afraid suddenly become more like us. We hate to admit that perhaps if we had only approached them like Jesus approaches this demoniac that perhaps we could have helped them return to their right mind. It begins to dawn on us that perhaps this is why Jesus invites us to get into the boat with him in the first place.
Jesus is again willing to oblige, and as he gets in the boat to leave the man runs to him again and begs to go with him. Really. Who wants to stay with the fearful people who chained him up in the tombs in the first place? Jesus says, no, go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you. And he went through ten of the Gentile towns and told people, and they were amazed. Having restored the man’s sense of self and his place among others, Jesus now gives him a voice and a vocation: to spread the Good News about just who Jesus is!
Jesus seeks not his own advancement, but rather he seeks to empower others. All others. Even the most unlikely others we can imagine. Three things from this: If the demoniac can do God’s work, so can we; we are meant to see how the power of God is at work in others, even the most unlikely others we can imagine; and if Jesus can set the demoniac free from the isolation and patterns of behavior that kept him bound in chains in a tomb, Jesus can free us from whatever keeps us from becoming the person God wants us to be – God’s own Beloved. New life may be hidden, but it is alive and growing even while Jesus seems to be asleep, even in the most unlikely of places like the other side of the sea. Even in us! Amen.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Walk By Fatih
14 June 2009/Pentecost 2 – 2 Corinthians 5:6-17*Mark 4 26-34
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
For We Walk By Faith
After a couple of weeks like we have just had, it seems to be a good time to stop and reflect upon just what it means to “walk by faith.”
There was the Air France Airline disaster which continues to play out in excruciatingly slow motion. There was the tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum which only serves as a reminder of just how real true evil and hate is in this world. North Korea continues to develop nuclear capabilities while putting U.S. journalists on trial. A young boy in Crofton is assaulted and killed by other youths while riding his bicycle. Terrorists continue to unleash explosive devices in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Only a deep seated sense of denial would pretend that 24/7 detailing of such events has no effect on us. If not frightening enough in their own right, learning about such tragic and evil events triggers feelings and memories we try to keep locked away and hidden deep inside of us. Anxiety creeps in at moments we least expect it. It becomes increasingly difficult to agree with Professor Pangloss “that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”
Against such a backdrop, Paul and Jesus both challenge us to see things as different from what they appear. Paul says we are to see no one from a human point of view. Jesus in his parables alludes to the present yet hidden and emerging nature of God’s kingdom.
Without a categorical listing, suffice it to say that Paul and Jesus faced a dangerous and evil world much like the one we experience today. As did the young church, as did the early disciples of Jesus.
Yet, despite all that can and does go wrong, Jesus talks about a sower and some seeds. Seeds that once sown grow, the sower knows not how. It is a mystery. Even while the sower is asleep, the seed produces a harvest.
In a culture in which we find ourselves caught up in endless cycles of overwork, increased productivity, and increased profit as immutable necessary goals, Jesus in this simple tale invites us to recognize that God’s grace does not depend on human efforts.
Indeed, it seems to be an invitation to Sabbath Rest by which our lives might be lived in a more balanced rhythm of sleeping, rising, working and RESTING. In this way we glorify God by performing the productive work of the sower while recognizing that the growth of the seed ultimately depends on God.
Is it possible that such recognition constitutes what Paul calls Walking By Faith?
Are we to believe that God is in control of growth and harvest despite the evidences of the way the world appears to be?
Jesus would be saying, Yes! Yes, says Jesus, the world is not chiefly about happiness but about Hope. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you would see things differently. If you stick around long enough, you will hear Paul conclude that the old has passed away, so that if you are in me as I am in you, there is a new creation. Everything has become new. The seed becomes a bush with branches to provide a home for all wayfarers like the birds. The bush will provide shade for those who are wilting in the sun.
Then the editorial board of Mark points out that Jesus was always talking this way. No straight lines, no clearly defined markers. Yet, stories that are infused with Hope. Stories which mean to remind us that God will not fail to fulfill the promise of salvation! It is already coming into being, says Jesus! Like the shrub slowly emerges from the seed, silently, quietly, but powerfully coming to be.
Our choosing to be here as a worshipping community, a community of prayer, as people who continue to form families, raise children, welcome strangers, care for one another, makes us a sign that the falseness of this world is ultimately bounded by a more profound truth. We are the seed. We are becoming the shrub, the shelter and the shade from the falseness of this world
If only we will walk by faith. Faith as small as a mustard seed is all you need.
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed/
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed
You can take trees and hurl them in the sea/
You can take trees and hurl them in the sea
The lame will walk and the blind will see/
The lame will walk and the blind will see
Wars will cease with the end of greed/
Wars will cease with the end of greed
Loaves multiply so there’s enough to feed/
Loaves multiply so there’s enough to feed
As you sow you shall receive/
As you sow you shall receive
As you pray you will believe/
As you pray you will believe
Trust in the Lord, He’ll supply every need/
Trust in the Lord, He’ll supply every need
As you follow Christ you’ll begin to lead/
As you follow Christ you’ll begin to lead
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
For We Walk By Faith
After a couple of weeks like we have just had, it seems to be a good time to stop and reflect upon just what it means to “walk by faith.”
There was the Air France Airline disaster which continues to play out in excruciatingly slow motion. There was the tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum which only serves as a reminder of just how real true evil and hate is in this world. North Korea continues to develop nuclear capabilities while putting U.S. journalists on trial. A young boy in Crofton is assaulted and killed by other youths while riding his bicycle. Terrorists continue to unleash explosive devices in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Only a deep seated sense of denial would pretend that 24/7 detailing of such events has no effect on us. If not frightening enough in their own right, learning about such tragic and evil events triggers feelings and memories we try to keep locked away and hidden deep inside of us. Anxiety creeps in at moments we least expect it. It becomes increasingly difficult to agree with Professor Pangloss “that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”
Against such a backdrop, Paul and Jesus both challenge us to see things as different from what they appear. Paul says we are to see no one from a human point of view. Jesus in his parables alludes to the present yet hidden and emerging nature of God’s kingdom.
Without a categorical listing, suffice it to say that Paul and Jesus faced a dangerous and evil world much like the one we experience today. As did the young church, as did the early disciples of Jesus.
Yet, despite all that can and does go wrong, Jesus talks about a sower and some seeds. Seeds that once sown grow, the sower knows not how. It is a mystery. Even while the sower is asleep, the seed produces a harvest.
In a culture in which we find ourselves caught up in endless cycles of overwork, increased productivity, and increased profit as immutable necessary goals, Jesus in this simple tale invites us to recognize that God’s grace does not depend on human efforts.
Indeed, it seems to be an invitation to Sabbath Rest by which our lives might be lived in a more balanced rhythm of sleeping, rising, working and RESTING. In this way we glorify God by performing the productive work of the sower while recognizing that the growth of the seed ultimately depends on God.
Is it possible that such recognition constitutes what Paul calls Walking By Faith?
Are we to believe that God is in control of growth and harvest despite the evidences of the way the world appears to be?
Jesus would be saying, Yes! Yes, says Jesus, the world is not chiefly about happiness but about Hope. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you would see things differently. If you stick around long enough, you will hear Paul conclude that the old has passed away, so that if you are in me as I am in you, there is a new creation. Everything has become new. The seed becomes a bush with branches to provide a home for all wayfarers like the birds. The bush will provide shade for those who are wilting in the sun.
Then the editorial board of Mark points out that Jesus was always talking this way. No straight lines, no clearly defined markers. Yet, stories that are infused with Hope. Stories which mean to remind us that God will not fail to fulfill the promise of salvation! It is already coming into being, says Jesus! Like the shrub slowly emerges from the seed, silently, quietly, but powerfully coming to be.
Our choosing to be here as a worshipping community, a community of prayer, as people who continue to form families, raise children, welcome strangers, care for one another, makes us a sign that the falseness of this world is ultimately bounded by a more profound truth. We are the seed. We are becoming the shrub, the shelter and the shade from the falseness of this world
If only we will walk by faith. Faith as small as a mustard seed is all you need.
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed/
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed
You can take trees and hurl them in the sea/
You can take trees and hurl them in the sea
The lame will walk and the blind will see/
The lame will walk and the blind will see
Wars will cease with the end of greed/
Wars will cease with the end of greed
Loaves multiply so there’s enough to feed/
Loaves multiply so there’s enough to feed
As you sow you shall receive/
As you sow you shall receive
As you pray you will believe/
As you pray you will believe
Trust in the Lord, He’ll supply every need/
Trust in the Lord, He’ll supply every need
As you follow Christ you’ll begin to lead/
As you follow Christ you’ll begin to lead
Amen.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The Spirit of Truth
Pentecost 2009 – Acts 2: 1-21/John 15: 26-27, 16:4b-15
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
The Spirit of Truth
“How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language.”
The Fourth Gospel as explicated by Archbishop William Temple in his Readings in John’s Gospel (McMillan and Co, London:1952) helps us to hear what is at stake in the story of Pentecost.
Our attention must be drawn to our Lord’s own description of the Spirit, the Holy Comforter, as the Spirit of Truth. Temple observes, “…one way of summarizing the purpose of Christ’s coming is to say that He came in order that the Spirit might come. That inward power of God converting desire itself is a result of the disclosure of the love of God and the response which it wins. So the Son is the cause of the Spirit’s coming; He sends Him. Yet, it is no less true that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father; because the Father is infinite love the personal activity of that love ever goes forth. Not only in Jesus Christ does the Spirit of Truth touch the hearts of men. He spoke to and through Plato, as the early Christian Fathers fully recognized; and has spoken through many a seer, poet and prophet both within and outside the Canon of Holy Scripture.” P.275
This makes me think that we often see the Pentecost event in far too literal a fashion. Hearing the The Spirit of Truth, each of us, “in our own native language” need not be restricted to Parthian, Egyptian, French, German, and all the languages we are tempted to have read on Pentecost morning.
Why can’t we find the Spirit of Truth in the language of poetry, prophecy, mysticism, as well as Philosophy, Science, Painting, Music and so on? Within each human language exist multiple languages, all seeking to help us hear more clearly what the Spirit of Truth sent by Jesus, proceeding from God the Father, means for us to hear.
Hear what people throughout time, from different cultures and different backgrounds have had to say about the life of the Spirit:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!
Isaiah 6th Century BC Israel
The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others, the happier he is.
The more he gives to others, the wealthier he is.
Lao Tzu 5th BC China
Turn your attention within, for the fountain of all that is good lies within,
And it is always ready to pour forth, if you continually delve in.
Marcus Aurelius 2nd Century Greece
Thank God! You hadn’t the means or you may have been a Pharaoh.
The prayer of Moses was, “Lord, I am in need of thee.”
The way of Moses is all hopelessness and need
And it is the only way to God.
Rumi 13th Century Persia
One may never have heard the Word “Christ,”
But be closer to God
Than a priest or nun.
Thomas Aquinas, 13th Century Italy
God and I have become like two giant fat people
Living in a tiny boat.
We keep bumping into each other
And laughing.
Hafiz 14th Century Persia
The earth looked at him and he began to dance.
Mira knows why, for her soul too is in love.
If you cannot picture God in a way that always strengthens you,
You need to read more of my Poems.
Mira 16th Century India
It’s the old shell trick with a twist:
I saw God put Himself in one of your pockets.
You are bound to find Him.
Tukaram 17th Century India
O, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with
The fragrance of the fields and the
Freshness of the oceans which you have
Made, and help me to hear and to hold
In all dearness those exacting and wonderful
Words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying,
Follow me.
Mary Oliver 21st Century America
The importance for us to listen to all these languages of humanity comes from the Why of the Spirit being sent to us: to bear witness to Jesus, so that we also may, indeed must, bear witness since we have been with Jesus “from the beginning.”
We are to be Co-Witnesses with the Holy Spirit – this is our calling! We are with Him from the beginning in our Baptism where we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. We become God’s Beloved as Jesus is God’s Beloved. We are called to testify!
Pentecost means we each must find our own voices, our own languages, with which to proclaim the goodness of the Lord, so that everyone may hear in their own native tongues the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Pentecost means hearing The Spirit of Truth in all its languages throughout all time so that all that we say and all that we do bears witness to the Truth and gives Glory to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
The Spirit of Truth
“How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language.”
The Fourth Gospel as explicated by Archbishop William Temple in his Readings in John’s Gospel (McMillan and Co, London:1952) helps us to hear what is at stake in the story of Pentecost.
Our attention must be drawn to our Lord’s own description of the Spirit, the Holy Comforter, as the Spirit of Truth. Temple observes, “…one way of summarizing the purpose of Christ’s coming is to say that He came in order that the Spirit might come. That inward power of God converting desire itself is a result of the disclosure of the love of God and the response which it wins. So the Son is the cause of the Spirit’s coming; He sends Him. Yet, it is no less true that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father; because the Father is infinite love the personal activity of that love ever goes forth. Not only in Jesus Christ does the Spirit of Truth touch the hearts of men. He spoke to and through Plato, as the early Christian Fathers fully recognized; and has spoken through many a seer, poet and prophet both within and outside the Canon of Holy Scripture.” P.275
This makes me think that we often see the Pentecost event in far too literal a fashion. Hearing the The Spirit of Truth, each of us, “in our own native language” need not be restricted to Parthian, Egyptian, French, German, and all the languages we are tempted to have read on Pentecost morning.
Why can’t we find the Spirit of Truth in the language of poetry, prophecy, mysticism, as well as Philosophy, Science, Painting, Music and so on? Within each human language exist multiple languages, all seeking to help us hear more clearly what the Spirit of Truth sent by Jesus, proceeding from God the Father, means for us to hear.
Hear what people throughout time, from different cultures and different backgrounds have had to say about the life of the Spirit:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!
Isaiah 6th Century BC Israel
The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others, the happier he is.
The more he gives to others, the wealthier he is.
Lao Tzu 5th BC China
Turn your attention within, for the fountain of all that is good lies within,
And it is always ready to pour forth, if you continually delve in.
Marcus Aurelius 2nd Century Greece
Thank God! You hadn’t the means or you may have been a Pharaoh.
The prayer of Moses was, “Lord, I am in need of thee.”
The way of Moses is all hopelessness and need
And it is the only way to God.
Rumi 13th Century Persia
One may never have heard the Word “Christ,”
But be closer to God
Than a priest or nun.
Thomas Aquinas, 13th Century Italy
God and I have become like two giant fat people
Living in a tiny boat.
We keep bumping into each other
And laughing.
Hafiz 14th Century Persia
The earth looked at him and he began to dance.
Mira knows why, for her soul too is in love.
If you cannot picture God in a way that always strengthens you,
You need to read more of my Poems.
Mira 16th Century India
It’s the old shell trick with a twist:
I saw God put Himself in one of your pockets.
You are bound to find Him.
Tukaram 17th Century India
O, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with
The fragrance of the fields and the
Freshness of the oceans which you have
Made, and help me to hear and to hold
In all dearness those exacting and wonderful
Words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying,
Follow me.
Mary Oliver 21st Century America
The importance for us to listen to all these languages of humanity comes from the Why of the Spirit being sent to us: to bear witness to Jesus, so that we also may, indeed must, bear witness since we have been with Jesus “from the beginning.”
We are to be Co-Witnesses with the Holy Spirit – this is our calling! We are with Him from the beginning in our Baptism where we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. We become God’s Beloved as Jesus is God’s Beloved. We are called to testify!
Pentecost means we each must find our own voices, our own languages, with which to proclaim the goodness of the Lord, so that everyone may hear in their own native tongues the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Pentecost means hearing The Spirit of Truth in all its languages throughout all time so that all that we say and all that we do bears witness to the Truth and gives Glory to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Ubuntu
17 May 2009 Easter 6B * John 15:9-17
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Ubuntu
Ubuntu – pronounced oom-boon-too – a Bantu South African word that means “I in you and you in me.” According to Archbishop Desmond Tutu: A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.
In a word, this is what Jesus has been talking about in his farewell discourse in John’s gospel. It marks a shift in our relationship with Jesus. He calls his disciples friends. They are no longer called servants, even if this is the most often used title for the disciples, but friends. Not simply to be nice to one another or to raise the level of comradeship, but because for Jesus to be a friend is to be one who does what our Lord commands. We are called to be friends and we have been called to build up friendship among ourselves and, perhaps just as importantly, with those beyond the fellowship of our worshipping community. We are called to a life of Ubuntu.
Our job is one of response. We do not choose Jesus. Jesus chooses us. And Jesus appoints us to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the father will “give you whatever you ask him in my name.”
So why, we may ask, are our prayers not always answered? The usual stock answer is, “We get what we need, not what we desire.” Sure enough, our collect is suggestive of this, saying that we “may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire.”
We can all agree, we desire an awful lot. Beginning with the perennial pageant hope for world peace, and ending perhaps with the power ball number in the Mega Million Drawing!
Yet, all this getting what we pray for and bearing fruit that lasts, and even joy that is full and complete, depends on our response to Jesus choosing us and appointing us. Simply put, do we accept being chosen? And if so, how do we respond?
Our response is meant to hinge on our understanding of two actions of response on our part: to abide in Christ and to keep his commandments.
Abide is not a word that gets much use these days. It may help that in the Greek text it is a word derived from the same root as “to dwell.” Which helps in understanding why it is we are meant to abide in Christ, not simply with Christ. As one professor of preaching once remarked, it is all in getting the correct preposition!
We are to dwell in Christ, just as Christ came down out of residence in the Godhead where he had dwelt in all time before creation and came to “dwell among us” as John has it in chapter 1. The closest liturgical expression of this is in Eucharistic Prayer 1 of Rite One in our Book of Common Prayer:
“And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.”
This is what it means to abide. Note the first person plural: that he may dwell in us and we in him. Not that he may dwell in me and me in him. This is difficult for our highly individualistic, post-enlightenment minds to get around. He seeks to dwell amongst us so that we might dwell in Him.
Thus the importance of being friends, friends who love one another as He loves us, laying down his life for His friends. This is meant to be the default setting, the operative place from which we live – as one Body in Christ, one body with one another. Ubuntu. So if we are Ubuntu with Christ, one with God, whatever we ask for will already be one with God.
In contemplative prayer we spend time in what is called “practice” attempting to connect with this mutual indwelling relationship with God in Christ. Regular practice of contemplative prayer, twenty minutes once or twice a day, helps us to identify that sense of mutual indwelling with Christ - ubuntu.
As Sally Chiroff observed the other evening, once this place is experienced, it seems natural that that is the place from which we are meant to live our lives, thus being able to bear fruit that lasts. We tend to think of this place of mutual indwelling as some place to which we retreat from daily life. Sally said, “Perhaps we are meant to live there all the time, and from time to time step out of that place back into the world as the pattern.” I could not have said it better. It is what our prayers and gospel are all about.
We sense that we are just too busy and too scheduled and too programmed to do this, when the truth may be that until we live into this mutual indwelling, we have no idea how to arrange our lives to reflect the kind of friendship Jesus offers us. He chooses us, we are meant to respond. Will we take the time to respond? That is perhaps the central question of faith. Given that we stand to obtain promises which exceed all that we can desire, it seems to make sense to at least give it a try!
So it is we pray, “Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we [might love] you in all things and above all things….” All things. That would be every thing. It’s asking a lot, but it just might work. Jesus thinks so. How about you? Ubuntu. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Ubuntu
Ubuntu – pronounced oom-boon-too – a Bantu South African word that means “I in you and you in me.” According to Archbishop Desmond Tutu: A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.
In a word, this is what Jesus has been talking about in his farewell discourse in John’s gospel. It marks a shift in our relationship with Jesus. He calls his disciples friends. They are no longer called servants, even if this is the most often used title for the disciples, but friends. Not simply to be nice to one another or to raise the level of comradeship, but because for Jesus to be a friend is to be one who does what our Lord commands. We are called to be friends and we have been called to build up friendship among ourselves and, perhaps just as importantly, with those beyond the fellowship of our worshipping community. We are called to a life of Ubuntu.
Our job is one of response. We do not choose Jesus. Jesus chooses us. And Jesus appoints us to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the father will “give you whatever you ask him in my name.”
So why, we may ask, are our prayers not always answered? The usual stock answer is, “We get what we need, not what we desire.” Sure enough, our collect is suggestive of this, saying that we “may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire.”
We can all agree, we desire an awful lot. Beginning with the perennial pageant hope for world peace, and ending perhaps with the power ball number in the Mega Million Drawing!
Yet, all this getting what we pray for and bearing fruit that lasts, and even joy that is full and complete, depends on our response to Jesus choosing us and appointing us. Simply put, do we accept being chosen? And if so, how do we respond?
Our response is meant to hinge on our understanding of two actions of response on our part: to abide in Christ and to keep his commandments.
Abide is not a word that gets much use these days. It may help that in the Greek text it is a word derived from the same root as “to dwell.” Which helps in understanding why it is we are meant to abide in Christ, not simply with Christ. As one professor of preaching once remarked, it is all in getting the correct preposition!
We are to dwell in Christ, just as Christ came down out of residence in the Godhead where he had dwelt in all time before creation and came to “dwell among us” as John has it in chapter 1. The closest liturgical expression of this is in Eucharistic Prayer 1 of Rite One in our Book of Common Prayer:
“And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.”
This is what it means to abide. Note the first person plural: that he may dwell in us and we in him. Not that he may dwell in me and me in him. This is difficult for our highly individualistic, post-enlightenment minds to get around. He seeks to dwell amongst us so that we might dwell in Him.
Thus the importance of being friends, friends who love one another as He loves us, laying down his life for His friends. This is meant to be the default setting, the operative place from which we live – as one Body in Christ, one body with one another. Ubuntu. So if we are Ubuntu with Christ, one with God, whatever we ask for will already be one with God.
In contemplative prayer we spend time in what is called “practice” attempting to connect with this mutual indwelling relationship with God in Christ. Regular practice of contemplative prayer, twenty minutes once or twice a day, helps us to identify that sense of mutual indwelling with Christ - ubuntu.
As Sally Chiroff observed the other evening, once this place is experienced, it seems natural that that is the place from which we are meant to live our lives, thus being able to bear fruit that lasts. We tend to think of this place of mutual indwelling as some place to which we retreat from daily life. Sally said, “Perhaps we are meant to live there all the time, and from time to time step out of that place back into the world as the pattern.” I could not have said it better. It is what our prayers and gospel are all about.
We sense that we are just too busy and too scheduled and too programmed to do this, when the truth may be that until we live into this mutual indwelling, we have no idea how to arrange our lives to reflect the kind of friendship Jesus offers us. He chooses us, we are meant to respond. Will we take the time to respond? That is perhaps the central question of faith. Given that we stand to obtain promises which exceed all that we can desire, it seems to make sense to at least give it a try!
So it is we pray, “Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we [might love] you in all things and above all things….” All things. That would be every thing. It’s asking a lot, but it just might work. Jesus thinks so. How about you? Ubuntu. Amen.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
One Voice Calls Us By Name
3 May 2009/Easter 4B * Acts 4:5-12/1 John 3:16-24/John10:11-18
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
“The wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst.”
-Maggie Ross, The Fire of Your Life [Paulist Press, NY:1983] p. 137
In Acts, a lame man has been healed, and Peter and John have been hauled before some sort of ecclesiastical court to explain why the lame man is not still lame. Our gospel narrative begins way back in Chapter 8 where Jesus is accused of being possessed by a demon, then in Chapter 9 he heals the blind man by the Pool of Siloam.
Then comes one of the great “I AM” passages, “I am the good shepherd,” which we have a portion of this morning, and which ends:
“There was again a great division among them because of these words. Many of them said, ‘He has a demon and is mad; why listen to him?’ Others said, ‘These are not the sayings of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’”
Which perhaps asks the central question, “Why listen to him?” Why listen to Jesus? Why do we listen to Jesus at all?
After all, there are so many others competing for our attention. There is, of course, the president and all his official and unofficial spokespersons now issuing almost daily speeches and announcements to direct our attention away from the country’s problems and instead focus on their agenda. Then there are mayors and governors all demanding we listen to them. There are corporate interests trying to convince us to use more and more of their products. There are commercial interests on TV, in the paper, on the radio, and calling us at home every day trying to market and sell more things, more services, and put us deeper into debt. There are family members unhappy with the family, there are neighbors unhappy with the neighborhood, there are immigrants looking for some shred of dignity, there are talk show hosts who know it all, and of course every lay person, deacon, priest, and bishop trying to convince us that they know what is best for the church.
Like those at the end of the story and those in the Acts of the Apostles who are offended by what Jesus says and does, or even what is done in his name, there are all these competing interests and voices trying to get us to turn away from Jesus and turn our lives over to them instead.
Lord, you have spread a table before us in the presence of those who trouble us. Lord, we know that you want us to listen to you. Lord, if you are listening for just one minute, just for one second of one minute, can you please shut out all the competing voices, interests, merchants, politicians and commentators for just a few minutes of silence? Lord, can you please still the waters, can you please make us lie down in green pastures, can your rod and your staff please, Lord, comfort us, touch us, protect us and heal us? Lord, please give us the time, the place, and the space to listen to you!
When we look and listen to the shrill voices that surround us on all sides every day, we begin to know the plight of the one who gave us the Twenty-Third Psalm. And if we are paying attention at all, we will stop and listen for the Good Shepherd – the Beautiful One. We will stop and listen for Jesus. And what we will hear if we are listening closely is just two words: “I am.”
For people of faith, for people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, those are the only two words we need to hear: “I am.”
Jesus says, “I am.” The people of God have heard these words before. Standing barefoot, in front of a bush that burns and is not consumed, we hear a voice and we ask, like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, “Who are you?”
The answer comes back, “I am who I am. … I am what I will be. … just tell them I AM sent you.”
The one who says “I am,” also says, “I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for my sheep.”
Let’s pause for just a moment and understand what is being said here. We are known. We all want nothing more than to be known. We spend a lifetime looking for relationships, reflecting on experiences, searching for someone who knows us, or even more fundamentally, we search to know ourselves. There is no doubt about it, the most fundamental human condition is a desire to be known.
All these other voices competing for our attention do not really want to know us. They can’t possibly know us. But there is one who does. The one who says, “I am,” wants to know us. In fact the one who says, “I am,” already knows us just as the Father knows him.
God knows us. And in that knowledge, we know God. If we really let ourselves hear what Jesus is saying, we can come to know God. Not a lot of propositions about God, not things about God, but we can experience the reality that is God.
This naturally frightens us. But such fear is not mere sentiment, but rather manifests itself in a way of life, as the First Letter of John speaks about it – a way of life that shows we respect the majesty and power of the God who says, “I am” - a life that ought to lay down its life for another.
As verse 16 says: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuse help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
For those who listen to Jesus, the shepherd becomes the Paschal lamb slain on the feast of the Passover to save us from our sins, and we are the sheep of his pasture. We are poor sheep like those he tends and leads beside still waters. We become his people, his body and blood for the world.
There are many competing voices. But only one voice calls us each by name. Only one voice knows us by name. Only one voice speaks the great, “I am.” That voice is Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
“The wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst.”
-Maggie Ross, The Fire of Your Life [Paulist Press, NY:1983] p. 137
In Acts, a lame man has been healed, and Peter and John have been hauled before some sort of ecclesiastical court to explain why the lame man is not still lame. Our gospel narrative begins way back in Chapter 8 where Jesus is accused of being possessed by a demon, then in Chapter 9 he heals the blind man by the Pool of Siloam.
Then comes one of the great “I AM” passages, “I am the good shepherd,” which we have a portion of this morning, and which ends:
“There was again a great division among them because of these words. Many of them said, ‘He has a demon and is mad; why listen to him?’ Others said, ‘These are not the sayings of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’”
Which perhaps asks the central question, “Why listen to him?” Why listen to Jesus? Why do we listen to Jesus at all?
After all, there are so many others competing for our attention. There is, of course, the president and all his official and unofficial spokespersons now issuing almost daily speeches and announcements to direct our attention away from the country’s problems and instead focus on their agenda. Then there are mayors and governors all demanding we listen to them. There are corporate interests trying to convince us to use more and more of their products. There are commercial interests on TV, in the paper, on the radio, and calling us at home every day trying to market and sell more things, more services, and put us deeper into debt. There are family members unhappy with the family, there are neighbors unhappy with the neighborhood, there are immigrants looking for some shred of dignity, there are talk show hosts who know it all, and of course every lay person, deacon, priest, and bishop trying to convince us that they know what is best for the church.
Like those at the end of the story and those in the Acts of the Apostles who are offended by what Jesus says and does, or even what is done in his name, there are all these competing interests and voices trying to get us to turn away from Jesus and turn our lives over to them instead.
Lord, you have spread a table before us in the presence of those who trouble us. Lord, we know that you want us to listen to you. Lord, if you are listening for just one minute, just for one second of one minute, can you please shut out all the competing voices, interests, merchants, politicians and commentators for just a few minutes of silence? Lord, can you please still the waters, can you please make us lie down in green pastures, can your rod and your staff please, Lord, comfort us, touch us, protect us and heal us? Lord, please give us the time, the place, and the space to listen to you!
When we look and listen to the shrill voices that surround us on all sides every day, we begin to know the plight of the one who gave us the Twenty-Third Psalm. And if we are paying attention at all, we will stop and listen for the Good Shepherd – the Beautiful One. We will stop and listen for Jesus. And what we will hear if we are listening closely is just two words: “I am.”
For people of faith, for people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, those are the only two words we need to hear: “I am.”
Jesus says, “I am.” The people of God have heard these words before. Standing barefoot, in front of a bush that burns and is not consumed, we hear a voice and we ask, like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, “Who are you?”
The answer comes back, “I am who I am. … I am what I will be. … just tell them I AM sent you.”
The one who says “I am,” also says, “I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for my sheep.”
Let’s pause for just a moment and understand what is being said here. We are known. We all want nothing more than to be known. We spend a lifetime looking for relationships, reflecting on experiences, searching for someone who knows us, or even more fundamentally, we search to know ourselves. There is no doubt about it, the most fundamental human condition is a desire to be known.
All these other voices competing for our attention do not really want to know us. They can’t possibly know us. But there is one who does. The one who says, “I am,” wants to know us. In fact the one who says, “I am,” already knows us just as the Father knows him.
God knows us. And in that knowledge, we know God. If we really let ourselves hear what Jesus is saying, we can come to know God. Not a lot of propositions about God, not things about God, but we can experience the reality that is God.
This naturally frightens us. But such fear is not mere sentiment, but rather manifests itself in a way of life, as the First Letter of John speaks about it – a way of life that shows we respect the majesty and power of the God who says, “I am” - a life that ought to lay down its life for another.
As verse 16 says: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuse help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
For those who listen to Jesus, the shepherd becomes the Paschal lamb slain on the feast of the Passover to save us from our sins, and we are the sheep of his pasture. We are poor sheep like those he tends and leads beside still waters. We become his people, his body and blood for the world.
There are many competing voices. But only one voice calls us each by name. Only one voice knows us by name. Only one voice speaks the great, “I am.” That voice is Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Living This Side of the Resurrection
Yom HaShoah 2009
Acts: 4:32-25/John 20:19-31
“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.” John 20:19
The first and most important thing one might observe about this account of Jesus appearing to the disciples twice (once without and once with Thomas in the room) is that these disciples of Jesus are living on the wrong side of the Resurrection. Although Mary Magdalene, Peter and the disciple Jesus loved have all been to the tomb, and Mary has seen the risen Lord, they are all still living out of fear.
Upon reflection, that is not so odd, since they no doubt fear that what happened to Jesus on Good Friday could easily happen to anyone who professes to be a follower of his.
The anonymous author(s) of John, however, write from a much later date when both Jews and Christians are under persecution by Rome. It was an atmosphere of fear in which this gospel was written. As such, Jews and Christians in first century Israel were in hiding for their lives. We had a shared history at the point in time. Our memory of that, however, is lacking. This has caused problems.
The second thing we might notice is that the text is usually translated “for fear of the Jews.” Now on the surface of it this should cause us to wonder. For all the followers in that room were Jews. What the Greek text of the New Testament says is “for fear of the Judeans.”
It is up to the reader to remember that all the Jews in the room behind locked doors were Galileans, not Judeans. Galileans were considered somewhat like country bumpkins – not sophisticated, socially inferior, from the wrong side of the tracks. Way back in chapter 1 of John, Nathaniel asks Philip who is telling him about Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” which is in Galilee?
It was just as true back in the first century as it is today, not all Jews are alike, come from the same background, or think the same things.
The third thing, and the most tragic thing, is that it is all too easy to see how a text like this could be used to support anti-Semitism. “Well, if the disciples feared the Jews, how much more should we fear the Jews?” the argument might go. Whereas if you are talking about Judeans, a pluralistic culture even way back in the time of Jesus, one would be strained to make a similar argument.
Thus the importance of Thomas, and Jesus’ words to Thomas. Thomas, far from doubting, wants desperately to live on this side of the Resurrection, without fear, and with the kind of love for others we see reflected in the description of the early Christian community we hear about in the Acts of the Apostles: “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul…there was not a needy person among them.”
Once given the opportunity, Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. For they live with out fear, but accept the gift of Jesus peace – that is in the text and in the original Aramaic, Shalom.
God’s Shalom was to shape the lives of Christians eternally. Evidence of God’s Shalom would be striving for justice and peace for all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.
The Church has throughout time forgotten this elemental gift of Shalom imparted by Jesus that night behind closed doors. We have the Crusades, the Inquisition, anti-Semitism and the Shoah, the Holocaust, repeated episodes when we have lost our way – which is meant to be His Way, the way of God’s Shalom. The Church has spent too much time on the wrong side of the Resurrection.
All because we cannot remember who we are and whose we are. We forget that we share a history, Christians and Jews. We forget that from the beginning of Christianity and the beginning of modern Rabbinic Judaism, we were both persecuted by the same oppressor: Rome.
Memory can be the beginning of healing. Healing is what is needed, and why we stop to remember today. We need to remember because should we forget, we can allow terrible things to happen again. And to forget – to forget the Holocaust, to forget our shared history – is the second worst thing that can happen to us- the worst being indifference. More powerful than hate, indifference allows evil to continue unchecked, unchallenged.
It is tragic that it took until the 1960’s for the Church, beginning with the Catholic Church and Vatican II, to begin to acknowledge our part in fanning the flames of anti-Semitism, thus allowing indifferent attitudes to allow millions of people to be carried off to the camps and near certain annihilation. Fortunately, individuals like Mr. Morris Rosen survived to tell us their story. We have been privileged here at St. Peter’s to welcome eleven survivors, one son-of-a-Survivor, and one liberator to share their stories with us.
Our prayer must be that we accept the gift of God’s Shalom Jesus means to give us so that we might become brothers and sisters with all those with whom we have a shared history. Our prayer must be that we remember that at the outset, Christians were a pariah people in the Empire. We of all people should know how wrong it is to scapegoat others for whatever is wrong with the world. Our prayer must be that we will be those people who accept responsibility never to be indifferent to evil in this world. We must remember it was the Shalom of two Jews in the first century who invited us into a covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – Jesus and Paul.
Most of all we must accept the blessing and gift of God’s Shalom Jesus desires to bestow upon us – those of us who have not seen but have come to believe. It is our greatest privilege and joy to live into His blessing. It is our calling to live on this side of Easter with doors open, with no fear of those who differ from us, so that through believing we may have life in His name. The God and Father of us all desires that we choose life in all that that entails. Blessed be God’s Holy name, forever and ever. Amen.
Acts: 4:32-25/John 20:19-31
“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.” John 20:19
The first and most important thing one might observe about this account of Jesus appearing to the disciples twice (once without and once with Thomas in the room) is that these disciples of Jesus are living on the wrong side of the Resurrection. Although Mary Magdalene, Peter and the disciple Jesus loved have all been to the tomb, and Mary has seen the risen Lord, they are all still living out of fear.
Upon reflection, that is not so odd, since they no doubt fear that what happened to Jesus on Good Friday could easily happen to anyone who professes to be a follower of his.
The anonymous author(s) of John, however, write from a much later date when both Jews and Christians are under persecution by Rome. It was an atmosphere of fear in which this gospel was written. As such, Jews and Christians in first century Israel were in hiding for their lives. We had a shared history at the point in time. Our memory of that, however, is lacking. This has caused problems.
The second thing we might notice is that the text is usually translated “for fear of the Jews.” Now on the surface of it this should cause us to wonder. For all the followers in that room were Jews. What the Greek text of the New Testament says is “for fear of the Judeans.”
It is up to the reader to remember that all the Jews in the room behind locked doors were Galileans, not Judeans. Galileans were considered somewhat like country bumpkins – not sophisticated, socially inferior, from the wrong side of the tracks. Way back in chapter 1 of John, Nathaniel asks Philip who is telling him about Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” which is in Galilee?
It was just as true back in the first century as it is today, not all Jews are alike, come from the same background, or think the same things.
The third thing, and the most tragic thing, is that it is all too easy to see how a text like this could be used to support anti-Semitism. “Well, if the disciples feared the Jews, how much more should we fear the Jews?” the argument might go. Whereas if you are talking about Judeans, a pluralistic culture even way back in the time of Jesus, one would be strained to make a similar argument.
Thus the importance of Thomas, and Jesus’ words to Thomas. Thomas, far from doubting, wants desperately to live on this side of the Resurrection, without fear, and with the kind of love for others we see reflected in the description of the early Christian community we hear about in the Acts of the Apostles: “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul…there was not a needy person among them.”
Once given the opportunity, Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. For they live with out fear, but accept the gift of Jesus peace – that is in the text and in the original Aramaic, Shalom.
God’s Shalom was to shape the lives of Christians eternally. Evidence of God’s Shalom would be striving for justice and peace for all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.
The Church has throughout time forgotten this elemental gift of Shalom imparted by Jesus that night behind closed doors. We have the Crusades, the Inquisition, anti-Semitism and the Shoah, the Holocaust, repeated episodes when we have lost our way – which is meant to be His Way, the way of God’s Shalom. The Church has spent too much time on the wrong side of the Resurrection.
All because we cannot remember who we are and whose we are. We forget that we share a history, Christians and Jews. We forget that from the beginning of Christianity and the beginning of modern Rabbinic Judaism, we were both persecuted by the same oppressor: Rome.
Memory can be the beginning of healing. Healing is what is needed, and why we stop to remember today. We need to remember because should we forget, we can allow terrible things to happen again. And to forget – to forget the Holocaust, to forget our shared history – is the second worst thing that can happen to us- the worst being indifference. More powerful than hate, indifference allows evil to continue unchecked, unchallenged.
It is tragic that it took until the 1960’s for the Church, beginning with the Catholic Church and Vatican II, to begin to acknowledge our part in fanning the flames of anti-Semitism, thus allowing indifferent attitudes to allow millions of people to be carried off to the camps and near certain annihilation. Fortunately, individuals like Mr. Morris Rosen survived to tell us their story. We have been privileged here at St. Peter’s to welcome eleven survivors, one son-of-a-Survivor, and one liberator to share their stories with us.
Our prayer must be that we accept the gift of God’s Shalom Jesus means to give us so that we might become brothers and sisters with all those with whom we have a shared history. Our prayer must be that we remember that at the outset, Christians were a pariah people in the Empire. We of all people should know how wrong it is to scapegoat others for whatever is wrong with the world. Our prayer must be that we will be those people who accept responsibility never to be indifferent to evil in this world. We must remember it was the Shalom of two Jews in the first century who invited us into a covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – Jesus and Paul.
Most of all we must accept the blessing and gift of God’s Shalom Jesus desires to bestow upon us – those of us who have not seen but have come to believe. It is our greatest privilege and joy to live into His blessing. It is our calling to live on this side of Easter with doors open, with no fear of those who differ from us, so that through believing we may have life in His name. The God and Father of us all desires that we choose life in all that that entails. Blessed be God’s Holy name, forever and ever. Amen.
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