10 January 2008 - Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord
Isaiah 43: 1-7/Acts 8: 14-17/Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
You Are My Beloved
Baptism and Eucharist are sacraments - that is they are signs of God’s Grace and God’s Presence among us.
Signs point the way for us. A sign on the road can tell us where we are going or where we are, or just how we are to get there, how fast or how slow our journey may be.
In Baptism and Eucharist simple elements like water, oil and light, bread and wine, point the way toward a life lived with God.
Look at the Baptismal Font. There it stands as the gateway to a new life. It is the doorway to the church. It has eight sides, reminding us that Jesus was named on the eighth day, one day more than seven, also symbolizing a new week, a new time, a new life.
All who wish to enter the life of Christ, all who wish to be made a part of the Body of Christ, His Church, must enter through the waters in this font. As we look into the waters of Baptism, what do we see?
The wind, the breath of God, the Spirit of God, blowing over the face of wild, untamed, boundless waves of creation, calling all things into being, setting every thing and every one in its rightful place. There is God himself, picking up a handful of moistened soil, breathing into it until there we are, created in the image of God, imago Dei, men and women created in God’s image.
Look again, and we will see the Hebrew people passing through the Red Sea on dry land, fleeing a land of slavery and endless labor for a land of promise: a promise of peace, justice and dignity for all people, at all times in every place.
Close our eyes and look one more time, and there we are on the banks of the River Jordan, where all the people of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem are waiting in expectation for a savior, an anointed one, a Christ. There is John, and there is Jesus, praying.
Suddenly, the heaven is opened, and the Holy Spirit that breathed over the waters of creation now descends like a dove, landing upon Jesus, while a voice from heaven proclaims, “You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
The water in the font tells us these stories - stories that must never be forgotten. To forget these stories is to forget who we are. Look into the water and see all these things.
Above this water burns the Light of Christ, that marvelous and Holy Flame.
It shines continually to drive away all darkness. This light is the life of men and women everywhere, at all times in all places. All things and all people come into being through this light that is the eternal Word of God. The darkness has never overcome this light.
The light calls us to this font of blessing, this font of new life. All who enter by this water and in this light are to be changed forever. Through this water one is turned – one turns away from sin and turns toward Christ. We not only turn to Christ we turn with Christ and in Christ – Christ who on the banks of the River Jordan turns his life toward God and the announcing of God’s kingdom. We come to turn in the direction he chose to turn.
We no longer live alone. The person baptized is brought into a community, a new community, a community always being made new! This person’s life is now lived in the community of Christ’s Body – the Church.
Everyone who comes to this font is changed. And as they are changed, so is that sacred mystery the Church, the Body of Christ. We are changed as a community.
Once each new person enters this water, the Church, the Body of Christ, can never be the same as it once was. This is our promise. This is our pledge.
To do all in our power, not what we feel like doing, not what we want to do, not what we feel we can afford to do, but all that is in our power to support each person who enters these waters in their life in Christ.
As they enter these waters they enter these stories.
And as they enter these stories they too become a sign for others. All that we say and all that we do will proclaim the Good News of God in Christ.
We are to become the light, the light of Christ, for the world. The whole world and everything therein. From the water comes light. We are to let this light shine in and through all that we do, now and forever. This light means to shine in our hearts.
And as it was for Jesus, there is a voice that says to us, “You are my Beloved; I am well pleased with you!” Baptism incorporates us into the body of Christ. We are God’s Beloved. Claim your Belovedness. Look in the water. Look at this light.
May Christ, the morning star who knows no setting, find it ever burning – he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
As Isaiah tells it, “I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
Amen
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Wise Man
Epiphany 2010
Saint Timothy’s/Saint Peter’s
I live on the mountain
No one knows.
Among white clouds
Eternal perfect silence. – Han Shan
“Beware of beautiful strangers and on Friday avoid travel by water. The sun is moving into the house of Venus so affairs of the heart will prosper!” That’s what we told old Herod, “the King of the Jews”. Or, something along these lines. We made it up. It meant next to nothing. To tell him anything of real value would have taken weeks of calculations of the conjunction of the planets at the precise moment of his birth, and of his parents and parent’s parents back to the fourth generation.
Herod knew nothing of this and jumped at the bone we threw his way, and hungry like a dog he thanked us for it. Then, his hands trembling so that the rings on his fingers rattled like dry bones, he said, “Find me the baby born to be king so that I may go worship him!” When he had said this his hands were still as death.
I ask you, does a man need to look to the stars to tell him that no king has ever bowed down to another king? He took us for fools and so like fools we answered him, “Yes, yes, of course,” and went on our way never to return to him again.
Why did we travel so far to be there when it happened? Was it not enough just to know the secret without having to be there to behold it? To this not even the stars had an answer. The stars simply said he would born. It was another voice altogether that told us to go – a voice deep within ourselves as deep as the stars are deep in the sky.
Why did we go? I cannot tell you now and could not tell you then. We who had venerated Krishna and studied the sutras of Gautama had not one motive but rather so many! Curiosity I suppose: to be curious is to be wise, and we were very wise. We wanted to see for ourselves this One before even the stars are said to bow down – and to see if it was really true since the wise always have their doubts. Doubt, they say, is the ants in the pants of faith.
And longing. Longing. Why will a man struggle and save his whole life long so that in the end he has something to give to the one he loves?
We finally arrived at the place to which the star had pointed us. It was night. It was cold. The innkeeper showed us the way that we did not need to be shown. The odor of the hay was sweet, and the cattle’s breath came out in little puffs of mist. The man, the woman, between them the King. We did not stay long. Only a few minutes as the clock goes, ten thousand, thousand years the same. We set our foolish gifts down and left.
I will tell you two terrible things. What we saw on the face of that new-born child was his death. A fool could have seen it as well. The wood of the manger was the hard wood of the cross.
And we saw, as sure as the earth beneath our feet, that to stay with him would be to share that death, and that is why we left – giving only our gifts, withholding the rest, withholding our very lives.
And now, sisters and brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, and that to die with him is the only true life?
- After Frederick Beuchner, The Magnificent Defeat: The Wise Man, p.68
Saint Timothy’s/Saint Peter’s
I live on the mountain
No one knows.
Among white clouds
Eternal perfect silence. – Han Shan
“Beware of beautiful strangers and on Friday avoid travel by water. The sun is moving into the house of Venus so affairs of the heart will prosper!” That’s what we told old Herod, “the King of the Jews”. Or, something along these lines. We made it up. It meant next to nothing. To tell him anything of real value would have taken weeks of calculations of the conjunction of the planets at the precise moment of his birth, and of his parents and parent’s parents back to the fourth generation.
Herod knew nothing of this and jumped at the bone we threw his way, and hungry like a dog he thanked us for it. Then, his hands trembling so that the rings on his fingers rattled like dry bones, he said, “Find me the baby born to be king so that I may go worship him!” When he had said this his hands were still as death.
I ask you, does a man need to look to the stars to tell him that no king has ever bowed down to another king? He took us for fools and so like fools we answered him, “Yes, yes, of course,” and went on our way never to return to him again.
Why did we travel so far to be there when it happened? Was it not enough just to know the secret without having to be there to behold it? To this not even the stars had an answer. The stars simply said he would born. It was another voice altogether that told us to go – a voice deep within ourselves as deep as the stars are deep in the sky.
Why did we go? I cannot tell you now and could not tell you then. We who had venerated Krishna and studied the sutras of Gautama had not one motive but rather so many! Curiosity I suppose: to be curious is to be wise, and we were very wise. We wanted to see for ourselves this One before even the stars are said to bow down – and to see if it was really true since the wise always have their doubts. Doubt, they say, is the ants in the pants of faith.
And longing. Longing. Why will a man struggle and save his whole life long so that in the end he has something to give to the one he loves?
We finally arrived at the place to which the star had pointed us. It was night. It was cold. The innkeeper showed us the way that we did not need to be shown. The odor of the hay was sweet, and the cattle’s breath came out in little puffs of mist. The man, the woman, between them the King. We did not stay long. Only a few minutes as the clock goes, ten thousand, thousand years the same. We set our foolish gifts down and left.
I will tell you two terrible things. What we saw on the face of that new-born child was his death. A fool could have seen it as well. The wood of the manger was the hard wood of the cross.
And we saw, as sure as the earth beneath our feet, that to stay with him would be to share that death, and that is why we left – giving only our gifts, withholding the rest, withholding our very lives.
And now, sisters and brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, and that to die with him is the only true life?
- After Frederick Beuchner, The Magnificent Defeat: The Wise Man, p.68
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Time For A Total Makeover
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.
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, 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.
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