14 January 2007 * Epiphany 2C
I Corinthians 12: 1-11 * John 2: 1-11
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek – St. Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Today we pray that we might “shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory that he may be known.” We pray that the light of Christ might shine through all that we say and all that we do.
Saint Paul, writing to the young church in Corinth, says we are each given spiritual gifts – gifts of this light of Christ if you will. And that these spiritual gifts are different for everyone, but come from the same Spirit, the same Lord and the same God. That these gifts become manifest, or apparent, for all of us so that we might contribute to the common good.
The common good means for the good of all – all people, all creatures and all of creation: all. A small word that encompasses a lot of territory – an entire universe which we are told even now is expanding, getting larger, reaching out further and further, bringing into existence things seen and unseen.
Saint John paints much the same picture in this story of a wedding reception in Cana of Galilee. On the surface of it, the story seems to be about a party that is running out of wine, along comes Jesus, and suddenly there appears about 180 gallons of wine. Not just wine, but good wine. In fact the finest wine anyone had ever tasted.
Now it very well may be that they ran out of wine because seven people show up unexpectedly - Jesus and six others, his mother and five new friends. They show up, we are told, “on the third day.” That could mean they traveled for three days. It could mean the third day of the wedding party since first century weddings went on for several days. But it could be a reminder that we all know that something quite astonishing happened on the “third day” – Jesus rose from the dead. I believe John wants us always to keep this in mind – Jesus rose from the dead after three days.
So this day at this wedding is somehow related to Easter, the day of resurrection. We may also notice that there happen to be six stone jars. Not just any stone jars. These are special jars reserved, set aside, for special holy and religious purposes. The jars appear to be empty since Jesus tells the servants to fill them. Now along with Jesus there were six others – that works out to one jar per person who followed Jesus to the party. And at the end of the story we are told that these six – these disciples, followers – “believed on Him.” They are not said to believe him, in the sense of believing what he said was true, but rather they commit themselves to him in personal trust.
It seems as if the story might very well be about you and me – people who follow Jesus to a party that takes place here at this altar every week. Could it be that we are the empty vessels needing to be filled? Filled to the brim with living water, light and gifts of the spirit? Are we meant to understand that we are very special, sacred and holy vessels for God’s own using and purposes – purposes that are meant for the common good of all people, all creatures and all of creation?
God in Jesus transforms the contents of the jars from water to wine. Suggesting that Jesus can change whatever is inside of us. Now in the natural course of things, people who meet us at first see us at our best – we are civil, polite, friendly, considerate. After a time, however, they may get to know our less good sides – my grumpiness, my impatience, all that which is worse than the first impressions.
But in our communion with God in Christ, our best is yet to come! Every time we come to this altar together on behalf of the common good we can say, “you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus was dead and buried on Good Friday, but the best was yet to come – he rose again “on the third day.”
Which by the way answers a long and frequently asked question. Since Jesus turned the water into wine, and not just wine but good wine, and not just good wine but lots and lots of good wine – 180 gallons of good wine – is it possible that the people at the party drank all the good wine? Someone actually asked the ancient Bible scholar Saint Jerome this very question, “Did the guests at Cana drink all the wine Jesus had made?” Jerome wisely replied, “No, we are still drinking it today.”
As it turns out the guests at Cana were just like you and me – they were thirsty, but not for more wine. They were thirsty for faith, for a living relationship with God. We come here because we are thirsty for God. When we look at the wine on the altar which we are still drinking, we, like the six followers of Jesus at the party, are to believe. We are to believe, as John says, “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name.” (John 20:31)
And “life in his name” means to die as a grain of wheat in order to bear much fruit (John 12:24) for the sake of the common good – that is to use the gifts of the Spirit for the sake of all people, all creatures and all of creation.
Someone once said, “Leave it to a crowd to look at the wrong end of a miracle every time.” The right end of this miracle is you and me. We are the vessels. We are filled to the brim with gifts of the Spirit. When we follow Jesus and “do whatever he tells” us, we are changed. This change says that there is always more and better yet to come.
As we come to know this about Jesus and about ourselves, we, like the six followers in this story, come to believe on him. For those of us who believe on him, our lives will shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory. We will become those people who employ our gifts for the common good – the good of all people, all creatures and all of creation.
Follow Jesus to the party and be filled to overflowing with the wine that never gives out, a relationship with the Living God of all creation. The best is yet to come.
Amen.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Saturday, December 30, 2006
This Is Christmas
31 December 2006
Christmas 1C
John 1:1-18
This is Christmas. This is Incarnation. No shepherds, no angels, no crèche. The stories we read this time of year attempt to explore Jesus’ origins. No two Gospels agree on this. In Mark Jesus just comes walking into the story fully grown up seeking to be baptized by John. In Matthew his origins are traced back to Abraham and Sarah, establishing his Jewish identity. In Luke his origins are traced back all the way to Adam, establishing a more universal identity – Jesus for Jews and Gentiles.
Then there is John. These eighteen verses push Jesus’ origins back even further than the first person. Note the opening words: “In the beginning….” The first to hear or read John’s Gospel have heard these words before. The entire Bible begins with these words, “In the beginning….” Jesus’ origins are cosmic – at the very root of the universe, all that is, seen and unseen.
John puts Jesus present before anything was made. Before God said the words, “Let there be….” God speaks and things come into being. Before God speaks, however there was the “word.” In Greek that is logos – word.
But for Jews and Gentiles alike in the first century, this word logos meant more than what we think when we say “word.” For at least six centuries before Christ came into the world, logos had currency among philosophers like the Stoics. Logos was what they called the principle of reason that ruled the universe. In Hebrew the word dabar carries a similar meaning – dabar describes God’s activity in the world. Logos could also describe the Hebrew idea of wisdom – hokma in Hebrew, sophia in Greek . According to the rabbis, wisdom was responsible for creation.
All in all, the power of the poetry of these opening verses of John’s Gospel resides in his choice of this one word, logos, for it has universal, multi-layered meanings hidden within itself. To identify Jesus, as eventually John does, as the logos is to say that God in Jesus comes to Jew and Gentile alike. Gentile, of course simply means anyone who is not Jewish.
So universal is this Word, this logos, that it is in everything that has been created. There is nothing “made that was made” that is not made through this Word. This is why we promise in our Baptism to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” Christ as logos is in all persons. And in all things.
In the Word is life, and this life is light, and this light is a beacon of light that shines and cuts through all darkness – and darkness has not overcome this light. That is there is evil, not just in people but in all the created order. But this evil has not overcome or absorbed the light. So our redemption in and by the Word – the logos- is a vital part of a larger project – the redemption of the entire universe of God’s creation.
Yet, we who come from this Word, this logos, this sophia, this wisdom, do not readily recognize him. He comes to those of us who claim his name as our own – Christian- and yet we know him not. This continues to be a problem. Just look around us. Two Thousand Years of claiming his name as our own, and just how brilliantly does the world around us reflect this life giving light? In a world of ongoing brutalities – torture, killings, hangings, capital murder as retribution, bombings, not to mention hunger, loneliness, hatred, bigotry, poverty – can we really believe it pleases God to let a man hang from a rope? Do we truly believe we can bring about a greater good that reflects the life-light of God in the dark places in the world and in our own hearts through such ongoing brutalities? We are promised that all who do receive him, accept him, follow him, are given power to become “children of God.” We say we receive, accept and follow Jesus, the Word, but is this at all reflected in all that we do or say? Or, in all that is done or said on our behalf by others who claim to know, receive, accept and follow this Word?
It makes it all the more remarkable that this Word becomes flesh and blood and moves into the neighborhood. The text literally says he “tabernacled among us.” That is he pitched his tent, this Word, this logos, this divine wisdom, set up shop right in our midst despite our not knowing him. We are meant, of course, to recall that other time in our tradition’s past when God tabernacled among us in the tent of meeting in the wilderness – that place where “the glory of the Lord filled the tent.” Again we behold his glory!
For John, this is Christmas. No shepherds, no angels, no kings, no manger – but rather the Word of God comes and pitches his tent to sojourn with us, giving us another chance to know, accept and follow him. We behold his glory. He adopts us as his own.
A story is told about some Navy Seals sent to free a group of hostages in one of the dark corners of the world. As they storm into the hiding place, they find the hostages huddled on the floor in a corner of the room. The Seals tell them they are there to take them home, get up and follow us. No one moves. They are so damaged by the experience of their captivity that they do not believe these are really people sent to set them free. So one of these Seals does something: he takes off his helmet, puts down his gun, gets down on the floor, softens his face and huddles up next to the captives, putting his arms around a few of them. No guards would do this. He whispers, “We are like you. We are here to be with you and to rescue you. Let us take you home. Will you follow us?” One by one the prisoners get up and are eventually taken to safety on an aircraft carrier and brought home.
Lots of rhetoric and ink has been spilled to explain the miracle of the incarnation – how it is God becomes one of us to take us home – to redeem us as a step in redeeming a broken world and broken universe. God sees us captive to many things, unwilling to simply step away from those things that keep us in prison – often prisons of our own making. In Jesus, God takes off all his glory, gets down on the floor with us, huddles up with us – tabernacles among us, pitches his tent among us – and whispers, “It is OK – I am with you – I am one of you now – come with me, follow me, and I will take you home.”
John tells us that the essence of Christmas does not need a creche, does not need a pageant, does not need a tree, or greens, or red bows, or piles of gifts, or carols, or turkeys and roast beefs with all the trimmings. All Christmas needs is for us to know the Word, to accept the Word, to get up and follow the Word. There is no way, says John, that we can ever know all there is to know about God – but in Christ, the logos, the Word, we can see the light and the logos, and He will lead us home. This is Incarnation. This is Christmas. Amen.
Christmas 1C
John 1:1-18
This is Christmas. This is Incarnation. No shepherds, no angels, no crèche. The stories we read this time of year attempt to explore Jesus’ origins. No two Gospels agree on this. In Mark Jesus just comes walking into the story fully grown up seeking to be baptized by John. In Matthew his origins are traced back to Abraham and Sarah, establishing his Jewish identity. In Luke his origins are traced back all the way to Adam, establishing a more universal identity – Jesus for Jews and Gentiles.
Then there is John. These eighteen verses push Jesus’ origins back even further than the first person. Note the opening words: “In the beginning….” The first to hear or read John’s Gospel have heard these words before. The entire Bible begins with these words, “In the beginning….” Jesus’ origins are cosmic – at the very root of the universe, all that is, seen and unseen.
John puts Jesus present before anything was made. Before God said the words, “Let there be….” God speaks and things come into being. Before God speaks, however there was the “word.” In Greek that is logos – word.
But for Jews and Gentiles alike in the first century, this word logos meant more than what we think when we say “word.” For at least six centuries before Christ came into the world, logos had currency among philosophers like the Stoics. Logos was what they called the principle of reason that ruled the universe. In Hebrew the word dabar carries a similar meaning – dabar describes God’s activity in the world. Logos could also describe the Hebrew idea of wisdom – hokma in Hebrew, sophia in Greek . According to the rabbis, wisdom was responsible for creation.
All in all, the power of the poetry of these opening verses of John’s Gospel resides in his choice of this one word, logos, for it has universal, multi-layered meanings hidden within itself. To identify Jesus, as eventually John does, as the logos is to say that God in Jesus comes to Jew and Gentile alike. Gentile, of course simply means anyone who is not Jewish.
So universal is this Word, this logos, that it is in everything that has been created. There is nothing “made that was made” that is not made through this Word. This is why we promise in our Baptism to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” Christ as logos is in all persons. And in all things.
In the Word is life, and this life is light, and this light is a beacon of light that shines and cuts through all darkness – and darkness has not overcome this light. That is there is evil, not just in people but in all the created order. But this evil has not overcome or absorbed the light. So our redemption in and by the Word – the logos- is a vital part of a larger project – the redemption of the entire universe of God’s creation.
Yet, we who come from this Word, this logos, this sophia, this wisdom, do not readily recognize him. He comes to those of us who claim his name as our own – Christian- and yet we know him not. This continues to be a problem. Just look around us. Two Thousand Years of claiming his name as our own, and just how brilliantly does the world around us reflect this life giving light? In a world of ongoing brutalities – torture, killings, hangings, capital murder as retribution, bombings, not to mention hunger, loneliness, hatred, bigotry, poverty – can we really believe it pleases God to let a man hang from a rope? Do we truly believe we can bring about a greater good that reflects the life-light of God in the dark places in the world and in our own hearts through such ongoing brutalities? We are promised that all who do receive him, accept him, follow him, are given power to become “children of God.” We say we receive, accept and follow Jesus, the Word, but is this at all reflected in all that we do or say? Or, in all that is done or said on our behalf by others who claim to know, receive, accept and follow this Word?
It makes it all the more remarkable that this Word becomes flesh and blood and moves into the neighborhood. The text literally says he “tabernacled among us.” That is he pitched his tent, this Word, this logos, this divine wisdom, set up shop right in our midst despite our not knowing him. We are meant, of course, to recall that other time in our tradition’s past when God tabernacled among us in the tent of meeting in the wilderness – that place where “the glory of the Lord filled the tent.” Again we behold his glory!
For John, this is Christmas. No shepherds, no angels, no kings, no manger – but rather the Word of God comes and pitches his tent to sojourn with us, giving us another chance to know, accept and follow him. We behold his glory. He adopts us as his own.
A story is told about some Navy Seals sent to free a group of hostages in one of the dark corners of the world. As they storm into the hiding place, they find the hostages huddled on the floor in a corner of the room. The Seals tell them they are there to take them home, get up and follow us. No one moves. They are so damaged by the experience of their captivity that they do not believe these are really people sent to set them free. So one of these Seals does something: he takes off his helmet, puts down his gun, gets down on the floor, softens his face and huddles up next to the captives, putting his arms around a few of them. No guards would do this. He whispers, “We are like you. We are here to be with you and to rescue you. Let us take you home. Will you follow us?” One by one the prisoners get up and are eventually taken to safety on an aircraft carrier and brought home.
Lots of rhetoric and ink has been spilled to explain the miracle of the incarnation – how it is God becomes one of us to take us home – to redeem us as a step in redeeming a broken world and broken universe. God sees us captive to many things, unwilling to simply step away from those things that keep us in prison – often prisons of our own making. In Jesus, God takes off all his glory, gets down on the floor with us, huddles up with us – tabernacles among us, pitches his tent among us – and whispers, “It is OK – I am with you – I am one of you now – come with me, follow me, and I will take you home.”
John tells us that the essence of Christmas does not need a creche, does not need a pageant, does not need a tree, or greens, or red bows, or piles of gifts, or carols, or turkeys and roast beefs with all the trimmings. All Christmas needs is for us to know the Word, to accept the Word, to get up and follow the Word. There is no way, says John, that we can ever know all there is to know about God – but in Christ, the logos, the Word, we can see the light and the logos, and He will lead us home. This is Incarnation. This is Christmas. Amen.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Mary's Song For Today
24 December 2006
Advent 4C * Luke 1: 39-55
Mary’s Song For Today
One of the Gospel of Luke’s great gifts to humanity is the Magnificat, or The Song of Mary. It is poetry, and thereby it is an act of imaginative creativity. As such it is meant to move to the deepest places in our hearts and souls to inspire us – literally to breathe into us – the Miracle of the Incarnation – what the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451 describes as The Definition of the Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the Person of Christ.
From page 864 in our Book of Common Prayer it reads in part, “…as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer (Theotokos)…” Theotokos – God-bearer, this young woman who so dominates our liturgy this morning and our church at all times.
There she is in stained glass standing guard over one of the entrances to our little church. She is back in the corner, waiting patiently to hear our prayers, as she waited patiently for nine months to see God’s promise made true in flesh and blood. She is cast in bronze at the base of our Paschal Candle stand kneeling beside the manger. She appears in no fewer than four of our terra-cotta depictions of the Stations of the cross, none more poignant than the scene we know as Pieta, Theotokos the God-bearer holding the crucified body of her son just as she had held him as Baby Jesus some thirty years before.
And of course in Advent, here she is among the animals in the Lenox Creche, while the entire church is adorned in Blue – the color of hope, the color of distance, the color of the sky to which he ascends, the color of the sea in whose sacred surf we are baptized into his life, death and resurrection, the color of Mary, his mother – Mary, Theotokos – Mary, the God-bearer.
There is so much that is odd and yet wonderful about this story. Mary set out – or was she sent – to visit a distant relative, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, who like Sarah before her, finds herself suddenly with child at an age thought to be impossible. Zechariah, Liz’s husband and priest of the Temple, has been temporarily struck mute – that is he is unable to comment on the extreme social and religious difficulties presented by this Mary, a young girl who is unmarried and yet with child. Who in a less sensitive time would be called an unwed mother with an illegitimate child.
Perhaps Mary heads for the hills to avoid all the talk on the street, the disapproving glances and possible punishment back home. But Liz is six month’s pregnant and Mary leaves before the child known as John the Baptizer is born. Odd that she does not stay to help with and after the birth. Odd that she returns home just as she would begin “to show” as we say. When she returns is just when people on the street will begin to draw their own conclusions. How surprising that she stays so long and leaves so soon. How courageous to go home when she does. This is not a woman who submits, but rather a woman who is strong in the Lord – the God of her people who delivers on his promises.
After all she is named after Miriam, the sister of Moses, a prophet in her own time, a liberating leader in her own right, and primary celebrant of the Exodus, leading the women in the wilderness to dance and sing and play on their tambourines the Glory of the Lord whose mercy and loving kindness is beyond our knowing . Not only is Mary a God-bearer, but she bears the history, promises and hope of her people throughout the ages in her very name.
Put Elizabeth’s song alongside Mary’s song and we have before us two very strong women, both well rooted in their people’s history, rooted in hopes that have kept their families alive for millennia, and both well prepared to give birth and training to babies who will grow up to be leaders – leaders not just for Israel, but for all the world.
These two women bear the hope that God will turn the world right-side-up again. In their bodies they carry babies whom they will raise to carry out that task. Perhaps Mary goes home when she does because she and Elizabeth have created a foundation on which Mary can stand in the face of the very real dangers and misunderstandings that shall form the basis of the rest of her life – and that of her son, Jesus.
Mary’s song proclaims what God has done for Mary, what God does in history, that God’s mercy endures throughout history, what God does to establish justice, and a final declaration of God’s mercy as witnessed as far back as Abraham and “his descendants forever." As we heard last Sunday from John, Mary declares that through her God is acting decisively with mercy for the vast majority of the world’s population, but which is decidedly bad news for the proud, the powerful and the rich who are to be scattered, torn down and “sent away empty.” Mary’s song is a prophetic warning. One might even say it is revolutionary.
Two women, two strong and faithful women, join together with God to turn the world right-side-up again. Two women who remind us of the centrality of women in God’s story and our history – women with names like Sarah, Miriam, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, Deborah, Hannah, Ruth, Jezebel, Huldah, Esther, Mary of Magdala, Martha and the assortment of Mary’s to name just a few. Under the present circumstances in our church it is crucial to remember that at key moments in our tradition’s history, the historians of our faith have placed crucial verdicts on the lips of an authorized woman. Mary continues this tradition, just as The Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori holds a similar place in our tradition.
I would simply conclude with the observation that when Archbishop Cranmer put together the first Book of Common Prayer, it was by his design that we should pray the Song of Mary at least once a day in our evening prayers. Each revision of the prayer book has retained this intent. Mary, Mary’s song, and all that it represents of the reconciling desire of all God’s mercy and work, is to be for us a kind of mantra. I believe the intent behind our daily praying of the Magnificat is to make us all Theotokos – God-bearers – in a world that increasingly appears to be looking for a miracle.
Another one of God’s strong women, Maggie Ross, a hermit and modern day saint, has put it this way: “The Wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst. Lord, give us mercy to bear your mercy.”
Like the prophets and those who fear God in every generation, like Mary and Elizabeth, we have been chosen by God to be baptized into the Body of Christ. Like Mary, we too are called to be Theotokos – God-bearer. We are to bear and bare her child to the world. It is not our choice, but God’s will that we do this. Armed with just these words Mary faced a dangerous and unforgiving world. We can too. Amen.
Advent 4C * Luke 1: 39-55
Mary’s Song For Today
One of the Gospel of Luke’s great gifts to humanity is the Magnificat, or The Song of Mary. It is poetry, and thereby it is an act of imaginative creativity. As such it is meant to move to the deepest places in our hearts and souls to inspire us – literally to breathe into us – the Miracle of the Incarnation – what the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451 describes as The Definition of the Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the Person of Christ.
From page 864 in our Book of Common Prayer it reads in part, “…as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer (Theotokos)…” Theotokos – God-bearer, this young woman who so dominates our liturgy this morning and our church at all times.
There she is in stained glass standing guard over one of the entrances to our little church. She is back in the corner, waiting patiently to hear our prayers, as she waited patiently for nine months to see God’s promise made true in flesh and blood. She is cast in bronze at the base of our Paschal Candle stand kneeling beside the manger. She appears in no fewer than four of our terra-cotta depictions of the Stations of the cross, none more poignant than the scene we know as Pieta, Theotokos the God-bearer holding the crucified body of her son just as she had held him as Baby Jesus some thirty years before.
And of course in Advent, here she is among the animals in the Lenox Creche, while the entire church is adorned in Blue – the color of hope, the color of distance, the color of the sky to which he ascends, the color of the sea in whose sacred surf we are baptized into his life, death and resurrection, the color of Mary, his mother – Mary, Theotokos – Mary, the God-bearer.
There is so much that is odd and yet wonderful about this story. Mary set out – or was she sent – to visit a distant relative, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, who like Sarah before her, finds herself suddenly with child at an age thought to be impossible. Zechariah, Liz’s husband and priest of the Temple, has been temporarily struck mute – that is he is unable to comment on the extreme social and religious difficulties presented by this Mary, a young girl who is unmarried and yet with child. Who in a less sensitive time would be called an unwed mother with an illegitimate child.
Perhaps Mary heads for the hills to avoid all the talk on the street, the disapproving glances and possible punishment back home. But Liz is six month’s pregnant and Mary leaves before the child known as John the Baptizer is born. Odd that she does not stay to help with and after the birth. Odd that she returns home just as she would begin “to show” as we say. When she returns is just when people on the street will begin to draw their own conclusions. How surprising that she stays so long and leaves so soon. How courageous to go home when she does. This is not a woman who submits, but rather a woman who is strong in the Lord – the God of her people who delivers on his promises.
After all she is named after Miriam, the sister of Moses, a prophet in her own time, a liberating leader in her own right, and primary celebrant of the Exodus, leading the women in the wilderness to dance and sing and play on their tambourines the Glory of the Lord whose mercy and loving kindness is beyond our knowing . Not only is Mary a God-bearer, but she bears the history, promises and hope of her people throughout the ages in her very name.
Put Elizabeth’s song alongside Mary’s song and we have before us two very strong women, both well rooted in their people’s history, rooted in hopes that have kept their families alive for millennia, and both well prepared to give birth and training to babies who will grow up to be leaders – leaders not just for Israel, but for all the world.
These two women bear the hope that God will turn the world right-side-up again. In their bodies they carry babies whom they will raise to carry out that task. Perhaps Mary goes home when she does because she and Elizabeth have created a foundation on which Mary can stand in the face of the very real dangers and misunderstandings that shall form the basis of the rest of her life – and that of her son, Jesus.
Mary’s song proclaims what God has done for Mary, what God does in history, that God’s mercy endures throughout history, what God does to establish justice, and a final declaration of God’s mercy as witnessed as far back as Abraham and “his descendants forever." As we heard last Sunday from John, Mary declares that through her God is acting decisively with mercy for the vast majority of the world’s population, but which is decidedly bad news for the proud, the powerful and the rich who are to be scattered, torn down and “sent away empty.” Mary’s song is a prophetic warning. One might even say it is revolutionary.
Two women, two strong and faithful women, join together with God to turn the world right-side-up again. Two women who remind us of the centrality of women in God’s story and our history – women with names like Sarah, Miriam, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, Deborah, Hannah, Ruth, Jezebel, Huldah, Esther, Mary of Magdala, Martha and the assortment of Mary’s to name just a few. Under the present circumstances in our church it is crucial to remember that at key moments in our tradition’s history, the historians of our faith have placed crucial verdicts on the lips of an authorized woman. Mary continues this tradition, just as The Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori holds a similar place in our tradition.
I would simply conclude with the observation that when Archbishop Cranmer put together the first Book of Common Prayer, it was by his design that we should pray the Song of Mary at least once a day in our evening prayers. Each revision of the prayer book has retained this intent. Mary, Mary’s song, and all that it represents of the reconciling desire of all God’s mercy and work, is to be for us a kind of mantra. I believe the intent behind our daily praying of the Magnificat is to make us all Theotokos – God-bearers – in a world that increasingly appears to be looking for a miracle.
Another one of God’s strong women, Maggie Ross, a hermit and modern day saint, has put it this way: “The Wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst. Lord, give us mercy to bear your mercy.”
Like the prophets and those who fear God in every generation, like Mary and Elizabeth, we have been chosen by God to be baptized into the Body of Christ. Like Mary, we too are called to be Theotokos – God-bearer. We are to bear and bare her child to the world. It is not our choice, but God’s will that we do this. Armed with just these words Mary faced a dangerous and unforgiving world. We can too. Amen.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
I Wonder
17 December 2006
Advent 3C * Luke 3:7-18
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
I Wonder
Advent and Christmas are times of wonder. And so I find myself wondering.
I wonder what we know about Luke’s first audience – who it was first heard and read this gospel – where they found themselves – what their circumstances were – and how that would help us to understand the strange, even alien, world and language of John the Baptizer?
I wonder what we would think if we were to remember that when this gospel was written, Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed by the Roman Empire in the year 70ce? An empire still referred to by Jesus’ Jewish community as “The Rule of Arrogance.” The Rule of Arrogance – has a familiar ring to it. Jesus’ people, God’s people Israel, believed God had made the world good and plentiful and abundant, and that it was the Rule of Arrogance that had turned the world upside down and made it a world of greed and hoarding and scarcity. They yearned and prayed for God to turn things right-side-up again.
People like John called people to repentance as a means to counter the Rule of Arrogance – as a kind of alternative lifestyle over and against the Rule of Arrogance. Those like John who advocated such acts of defiance against the empire were routinely rounded up and crucified we are told. Yet, how could a people not react in some sort of protest against the very empire that had destroyed the very center of the universe? In fact, the people of Jesus’ community had mounted an armed revolt or rebellion which had resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple when Rome crushed the revolt.
I wonder if we can understand that the Temple was believed to be the still, center point of all creation? That the Holy of Holies, the quiet, dark, still place behind the veil of the Temple was where God, blessed be his name, touched the earth with a finger and held it still? That the world outside could rage and roar with chaos, but Jews knew that the Temple was the safest and most Jewish place in all of creation? That here is where God’s promises to turn the world right-side-up again did dwell in safety? That by later legend it was the place where God had sent an angel to grab Abraham’s hand to stop him from killing his son Isaac?
I once was in one of the ancient cities of the Decapolis – the ten Gentile cities in Israel – and saw the remains of a Dionysian Temple that had been destroyed by an earthquake. This cultic home of a powerful God with its once towering marble columns looked like so many matchsticks scattered on the ground. I tried to imagine the impact on the ancient psyche to see it instantly reduced to ruins.
The people listening to Luke had seen Jerusalem burned to the ground. They could smell the smoke and destruction. They had seen the flames. They had seen the rubble of the center of creation – the place believed to keep Jews safe throughout centuries of external turmoil.
Now here is John talking about “fire.” Fire is a powerful metaphor, a violent metaphor. There is no fire that is not dangerous. But against the background of the year 70ce, words about fire become something they had never been before. They now become associated with the Rule of Arrogance itself. I wonder how John’s words sounded to those who had fled the terror that was Jerusalem destroyed?
And yet, they come to John. As the city empties out into the surrounding region, the people go to John. They are like snakes coming out from hiding, says John. Well, who would not be hiding from the carnage of the Rule of Arrogance? So rather than a charge of vitriol, John’s snake metaphor captures the cautious public gathering of Jews after the carnage, after the danger has passed. There is no city in which to gather, only wilderness and ruin.
So now the plaintive cry of the people coming out to John in the wilderness – the wilderness where their ancestors had been forged from a rag-tag bunch of runaway slaves into a people, God’s own beloved people – begins to make sense: “What should we do?”
What should we do? In difficult, dangerous and chaotic times this is always the question, “What should we do?” What can we do to prepare for God to keep the old promises, for God to turn the world right-side-up?
Amidst all the fire-laden, snake-bitten rhetoric, John’s direct and simple answers are almost overlooked: people ought to share food and clothing; people ought not to defraud one another; people ought not collaborate with the Rule of Arrogance (tax collectors and soldiers); do not use your power to injure. How simple, how powerful.
When asked if he was sent by God to keep the old promises and turn the world right-side-up, John says, “No – another is coming – winnowing fork in his hand…” This is good news - so good that Herod correctly hears it as bad news for the Rule of Arrogance. He puts John in Jail, for when God keeps the old promises and turns the world right-side-up, it will not be comfortable for the people in power. Herod is correct.
Advent and Christmas are times of wonder. And so I find myself wondering.
I wonder if we truly understand this Gospel at all? The people listening to John hear this all as “good news.” I can’t help but wonder if we will too?
Amen.
Advent 3C * Luke 3:7-18
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
I Wonder
Advent and Christmas are times of wonder. And so I find myself wondering.
I wonder what we know about Luke’s first audience – who it was first heard and read this gospel – where they found themselves – what their circumstances were – and how that would help us to understand the strange, even alien, world and language of John the Baptizer?
I wonder what we would think if we were to remember that when this gospel was written, Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed by the Roman Empire in the year 70ce? An empire still referred to by Jesus’ Jewish community as “The Rule of Arrogance.” The Rule of Arrogance – has a familiar ring to it. Jesus’ people, God’s people Israel, believed God had made the world good and plentiful and abundant, and that it was the Rule of Arrogance that had turned the world upside down and made it a world of greed and hoarding and scarcity. They yearned and prayed for God to turn things right-side-up again.
People like John called people to repentance as a means to counter the Rule of Arrogance – as a kind of alternative lifestyle over and against the Rule of Arrogance. Those like John who advocated such acts of defiance against the empire were routinely rounded up and crucified we are told. Yet, how could a people not react in some sort of protest against the very empire that had destroyed the very center of the universe? In fact, the people of Jesus’ community had mounted an armed revolt or rebellion which had resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple when Rome crushed the revolt.
I wonder if we can understand that the Temple was believed to be the still, center point of all creation? That the Holy of Holies, the quiet, dark, still place behind the veil of the Temple was where God, blessed be his name, touched the earth with a finger and held it still? That the world outside could rage and roar with chaos, but Jews knew that the Temple was the safest and most Jewish place in all of creation? That here is where God’s promises to turn the world right-side-up again did dwell in safety? That by later legend it was the place where God had sent an angel to grab Abraham’s hand to stop him from killing his son Isaac?
I once was in one of the ancient cities of the Decapolis – the ten Gentile cities in Israel – and saw the remains of a Dionysian Temple that had been destroyed by an earthquake. This cultic home of a powerful God with its once towering marble columns looked like so many matchsticks scattered on the ground. I tried to imagine the impact on the ancient psyche to see it instantly reduced to ruins.
The people listening to Luke had seen Jerusalem burned to the ground. They could smell the smoke and destruction. They had seen the flames. They had seen the rubble of the center of creation – the place believed to keep Jews safe throughout centuries of external turmoil.
Now here is John talking about “fire.” Fire is a powerful metaphor, a violent metaphor. There is no fire that is not dangerous. But against the background of the year 70ce, words about fire become something they had never been before. They now become associated with the Rule of Arrogance itself. I wonder how John’s words sounded to those who had fled the terror that was Jerusalem destroyed?
And yet, they come to John. As the city empties out into the surrounding region, the people go to John. They are like snakes coming out from hiding, says John. Well, who would not be hiding from the carnage of the Rule of Arrogance? So rather than a charge of vitriol, John’s snake metaphor captures the cautious public gathering of Jews after the carnage, after the danger has passed. There is no city in which to gather, only wilderness and ruin.
So now the plaintive cry of the people coming out to John in the wilderness – the wilderness where their ancestors had been forged from a rag-tag bunch of runaway slaves into a people, God’s own beloved people – begins to make sense: “What should we do?”
What should we do? In difficult, dangerous and chaotic times this is always the question, “What should we do?” What can we do to prepare for God to keep the old promises, for God to turn the world right-side-up?
Amidst all the fire-laden, snake-bitten rhetoric, John’s direct and simple answers are almost overlooked: people ought to share food and clothing; people ought not to defraud one another; people ought not collaborate with the Rule of Arrogance (tax collectors and soldiers); do not use your power to injure. How simple, how powerful.
When asked if he was sent by God to keep the old promises and turn the world right-side-up, John says, “No – another is coming – winnowing fork in his hand…” This is good news - so good that Herod correctly hears it as bad news for the Rule of Arrogance. He puts John in Jail, for when God keeps the old promises and turns the world right-side-up, it will not be comfortable for the people in power. Herod is correct.
Advent and Christmas are times of wonder. And so I find myself wondering.
I wonder if we truly understand this Gospel at all? The people listening to John hear this all as “good news.” I can’t help but wonder if we will too?
Amen.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Snow Falls
The snow falls
As if it knows where it is landing,
As if it has direction, purpose,
As if it has been sent
Then blows the wind
Redirecting each flake
Re-routing each crystal
So that suddenly
Without prior notice
Each lands
Just there
And nowhere else
So it is he says
With spirit
For you
For me
For us
And yet
We feel so sure
So certain
So determined
We continue to kid ourselves
Into thinking
That we know
Where we are going
Come Holy Ghost
Our souls inspire
Make us as the snow
8 march 2005
As if it knows where it is landing,
As if it has direction, purpose,
As if it has been sent
Then blows the wind
Redirecting each flake
Re-routing each crystal
So that suddenly
Without prior notice
Each lands
Just there
And nowhere else
So it is he says
With spirit
For you
For me
For us
And yet
We feel so sure
So certain
So determined
We continue to kid ourselves
Into thinking
That we know
Where we are going
Come Holy Ghost
Our souls inspire
Make us as the snow
8 march 2005
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Apoclyptic Hope
19 November 2006 – Proper 28B
Daniel 12: 1-3 – Mark 13: 1-8 (9-32)
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek – Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
Christian Apocalyptic Hope
The texts before us are among the most difficult to interpret and the most easily mishandled. Called “apocalyptic,” from the Greek apocalypsis meaning “uncovering,” these texts make the claim that God has revealed to the writer the secrets to the end of the world in the form of a message to the people.
This message is two or three fold (depending on the text): 1) the world is currently a scary place hurtling itself toward a catastrophic end, 2) a hope in God to foster the conviction that God will act decisively to change things utterly and forever for the better, and 3) that it may be possible to read the signs of the coming of this climactic moment.
Points one and two are helpful. It is point three that gets us in trouble every time. By “us” I would mean the church and society. Relatively recently in church history the musings and theological claims of William Miller (1782-1849) in America, and John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) in England are the source of nearly all that passes for Apocalyptic thought today.
The Left Behind series of books and movies are only the most recent texts built on the schemes of these two men which claim to define when and how the end of the world is going to take place. Sadly, the schemes of Miller and Darby and the popular literary musings of Left Behind seem to overlook the primary purpose of apocalyptic literature in Jewish and Christian life: that would be number two, to foster hope in people who find themselves in difficult and scary times.
What ought to concern faithful Christians is the manipulation of these texts of hope into instruments of fear. It is a kind of overblown theology of Santa Claus: you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town. For Left Behind and its ilk just substitute “Jesus” for Santa Claus and you get the point: unless you are very very good, or very very sorry for not being very very good, you better watch out – you are getting padiddle and worse! Such “theology” is foreign to Jesus, and frankly insulting to Saint Nicholas, the man behind the myth.
It is hard to see much grace, forgiveness and love in such a theological rendering of the gospel. This is not good news.
Apocalyptic texts like Daniel, the thirteenth chapter of Mark and the Revelation of Saint John the Divine write against an already existing climate of fear – the kind of fear that empires, regimes, governments, kings and politicians trade in to establish their own right to power. The script goes: the world is scary, trust me to protect you from the scary world – oh, and by the way give me most of your money, and give up most of your rights so I can keep the bogie man in check.
We have been so conditioned by “politics as usual,” wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters and man made disasters, that we are willing to overlook what the texts really are trying to say and accept the doggerel crackpot theories of the fear mongering modern day Millerites and Darbyites in whatever disguise they come in. Note, they most often adopt the tactics of the very people the apocalyptic texts are warning us to ignore.
That’s right, ignore. We have been so conditioned to accept the popularized Left Behind sorts of interpretations that we cannot hear
what Jesus is really saying in the thirteenth chapter of Mark: “Beware…do not be alarmed…do not worry…be alert….keep awake!”
Not to mention that when asked, a little further on, to tell the disciples just when God’s intervention will take place, Jesus replies, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Makes you wonder just what Bible modern day apocalypticists are reading. Not even Jesus knows, but they do?
What Jesus in Mark is saying is something like, “Remain faithful, hold on to your hope that the falseness of this world is ultimately bounded by a more profound truth that shall prevail; God is not content with the sorrows of this world and works for every person, group and circumstance to manifest as much as possible of God’s unconditional love. So remain hopeful and faithful in social chaos and continue to engage in mission!”
I found a modern day analogue in one of the essays submitted for the “This, I Believe” project on National Public Radio. This essay is by one Josh Rittenberg, a sixteen year-old young man from New York, NY. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5232116)
Tomorrow will be a Better DayI'm sixteen. Last night, I overheard my parents talking about my future. My dad was upset - not about how tough it is to get into a good college, or a great grad school, or the usual stuff that he and Mom and, I guess, a lot of parents worry about. Rather, he was upset about the world his generation is turning over to mine; a world he fears that has a dark and difficult future, if it has a future at all. He had a long list of concerns that sounded like this:''There will be a pandemic that kills millions, a devastating energy crisis, a horrible worldwide depression, and a nuclear explosion set off in anger.''
As I lay on the living room couch, eavesdropping on their conversation, I found myself looking at a picture of my grandfather in his Citadel uniform. The Citadel is a military college and he was a member of the class of 42- the war class. Next to his picture were pictures of my great grandparents, Ellis Island immigrants. I thought about some of the truly awful things they had seen in their lifetimes: a flu pandemic that killed millions; a horrific depression; inhuman segregation; two world wars, the killing fields, Stalin's Gulag, Mao's famine - and a nuclear bomb dropped in anger. But, they saw other things too; better things: the discovery of penicillin; the end of two world wars; the overcoming of the great depression; the creation of the United Nations; the polio vaccine; a man on the moon; a nuclear test ban treaty; the passage of the civil rights laws; even the dawn of the computer age.I believe my generation will see better things too. I believe we will live in a time that will find its own Einsteins, Flemings, Salks, Sangers, Mandelas, Roosevelts, Trumans, Eisenhowers , Kennedys and Kings. I believe we will live in a time when HIV/AIDS is cured and cancer is defeated, when the United Nations becomes more effective, when Arabs and Israelis find peace, when the desperately struggling nation-states of Africa will emerge from the dark ages, when another planet is colonized and power from hydrogen will fuel our automobiles, and, most importantly, when unimaginably good and great things occur, things as inconceivable to me today as a moon shot was to my grandfather when he was sixteen or the internet to my father when he was sixteen. Ever since I was a little kid, whenever I've had a lousy day, my dad would put his arm around me, and promise me that ''tomorrow will be a better day.'' As I listened to him talking, so terribly, terribly worried about what the future holds for me and my generation, I wanted to go over, put my arm around him and tell him the same thing he always told me, ''Don't worry, Dad, tomorrow will be a better day.'' It will. This, I believe.
And this, I believe, is exactly what the Bible’s apocalyptic literature means to give us: hope that tomorrow will be a better day because God in Christ is with us. Amen.
Daniel 12: 1-3 – Mark 13: 1-8 (9-32)
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek – Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
Christian Apocalyptic Hope
The texts before us are among the most difficult to interpret and the most easily mishandled. Called “apocalyptic,” from the Greek apocalypsis meaning “uncovering,” these texts make the claim that God has revealed to the writer the secrets to the end of the world in the form of a message to the people.
This message is two or three fold (depending on the text): 1) the world is currently a scary place hurtling itself toward a catastrophic end, 2) a hope in God to foster the conviction that God will act decisively to change things utterly and forever for the better, and 3) that it may be possible to read the signs of the coming of this climactic moment.
Points one and two are helpful. It is point three that gets us in trouble every time. By “us” I would mean the church and society. Relatively recently in church history the musings and theological claims of William Miller (1782-1849) in America, and John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) in England are the source of nearly all that passes for Apocalyptic thought today.
The Left Behind series of books and movies are only the most recent texts built on the schemes of these two men which claim to define when and how the end of the world is going to take place. Sadly, the schemes of Miller and Darby and the popular literary musings of Left Behind seem to overlook the primary purpose of apocalyptic literature in Jewish and Christian life: that would be number two, to foster hope in people who find themselves in difficult and scary times.
What ought to concern faithful Christians is the manipulation of these texts of hope into instruments of fear. It is a kind of overblown theology of Santa Claus: you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town. For Left Behind and its ilk just substitute “Jesus” for Santa Claus and you get the point: unless you are very very good, or very very sorry for not being very very good, you better watch out – you are getting padiddle and worse! Such “theology” is foreign to Jesus, and frankly insulting to Saint Nicholas, the man behind the myth.
It is hard to see much grace, forgiveness and love in such a theological rendering of the gospel. This is not good news.
Apocalyptic texts like Daniel, the thirteenth chapter of Mark and the Revelation of Saint John the Divine write against an already existing climate of fear – the kind of fear that empires, regimes, governments, kings and politicians trade in to establish their own right to power. The script goes: the world is scary, trust me to protect you from the scary world – oh, and by the way give me most of your money, and give up most of your rights so I can keep the bogie man in check.
We have been so conditioned by “politics as usual,” wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters and man made disasters, that we are willing to overlook what the texts really are trying to say and accept the doggerel crackpot theories of the fear mongering modern day Millerites and Darbyites in whatever disguise they come in. Note, they most often adopt the tactics of the very people the apocalyptic texts are warning us to ignore.
That’s right, ignore. We have been so conditioned to accept the popularized Left Behind sorts of interpretations that we cannot hear
what Jesus is really saying in the thirteenth chapter of Mark: “Beware…do not be alarmed…do not worry…be alert….keep awake!”
Not to mention that when asked, a little further on, to tell the disciples just when God’s intervention will take place, Jesus replies, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Makes you wonder just what Bible modern day apocalypticists are reading. Not even Jesus knows, but they do?
What Jesus in Mark is saying is something like, “Remain faithful, hold on to your hope that the falseness of this world is ultimately bounded by a more profound truth that shall prevail; God is not content with the sorrows of this world and works for every person, group and circumstance to manifest as much as possible of God’s unconditional love. So remain hopeful and faithful in social chaos and continue to engage in mission!”
I found a modern day analogue in one of the essays submitted for the “This, I Believe” project on National Public Radio. This essay is by one Josh Rittenberg, a sixteen year-old young man from New York, NY. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5232116)
Tomorrow will be a Better DayI'm sixteen. Last night, I overheard my parents talking about my future. My dad was upset - not about how tough it is to get into a good college, or a great grad school, or the usual stuff that he and Mom and, I guess, a lot of parents worry about. Rather, he was upset about the world his generation is turning over to mine; a world he fears that has a dark and difficult future, if it has a future at all. He had a long list of concerns that sounded like this:''There will be a pandemic that kills millions, a devastating energy crisis, a horrible worldwide depression, and a nuclear explosion set off in anger.''
As I lay on the living room couch, eavesdropping on their conversation, I found myself looking at a picture of my grandfather in his Citadel uniform. The Citadel is a military college and he was a member of the class of 42- the war class. Next to his picture were pictures of my great grandparents, Ellis Island immigrants. I thought about some of the truly awful things they had seen in their lifetimes: a flu pandemic that killed millions; a horrific depression; inhuman segregation; two world wars, the killing fields, Stalin's Gulag, Mao's famine - and a nuclear bomb dropped in anger. But, they saw other things too; better things: the discovery of penicillin; the end of two world wars; the overcoming of the great depression; the creation of the United Nations; the polio vaccine; a man on the moon; a nuclear test ban treaty; the passage of the civil rights laws; even the dawn of the computer age.I believe my generation will see better things too. I believe we will live in a time that will find its own Einsteins, Flemings, Salks, Sangers, Mandelas, Roosevelts, Trumans, Eisenhowers , Kennedys and Kings. I believe we will live in a time when HIV/AIDS is cured and cancer is defeated, when the United Nations becomes more effective, when Arabs and Israelis find peace, when the desperately struggling nation-states of Africa will emerge from the dark ages, when another planet is colonized and power from hydrogen will fuel our automobiles, and, most importantly, when unimaginably good and great things occur, things as inconceivable to me today as a moon shot was to my grandfather when he was sixteen or the internet to my father when he was sixteen. Ever since I was a little kid, whenever I've had a lousy day, my dad would put his arm around me, and promise me that ''tomorrow will be a better day.'' As I listened to him talking, so terribly, terribly worried about what the future holds for me and my generation, I wanted to go over, put my arm around him and tell him the same thing he always told me, ''Don't worry, Dad, tomorrow will be a better day.'' It will. This, I believe.
And this, I believe, is exactly what the Bible’s apocalyptic literature means to give us: hope that tomorrow will be a better day because God in Christ is with us. Amen.
Sunday, October 1, 2006
Salted With Fire
1 October 2006
Proper 21 B
Numbers 11: 4-6, 10-16, 24-29 * Mark 9:38-50
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Ellicott City, Maryland
Salted With Fire
What starts out with the disciples trying to score points with Jesus for stopping someone who is doing the work of the kingdom – healing and casting out demons – ends with Jesus telling us all to be salted with fire! In between there is all this talk of stumbling around and lopping off limbs, tearing out eyeballs and being thrown into “hell”: All in all a fun day with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem.
This is all a part of a longer section of Mark’s gospel concerned with discipleship – faithful discipleship. That is, What is expected of those of us who would call ourselves Christians? This really is a question about what it means to be human. We are to be spiced up, healed and purified by fire and salt. Oh yeah, and stop stumbling around.
Fire in the ancient world was used to purify things. Still is. Get rid of that deadly e. coli bacteria with fire, lots of fire. Just as we were all eating our spinach fresh and loving rare hamburgers, now we have to boil the spinach to death and go back to “well done” burgers.
Which bring us to salt. Salt was used to preserve foods, extend shelf-life if you will. It was also used to spice things up. And finally salt was used medicinally.
Altogether these sayings on fire and salt suggest several things. Healing within the community of Christ is necessary to be a disciple of Jesus - especially healing that is reconciliation rather than division and challenging one another’s credentials. (We might note the vast difference in meaning between Jesus’ “Whoever is not against us is for us,” vs. the more popular, “You are either with us or against us.”) Further, the salt that flavors us distinctively as Christ’s own people is meant to keep us from blending in with the surrounding culture. This distinctiveness implies eliminating – lopping off – those things that cause us to stumble (skandalon) – things that get in the way of being good and faithful disciples so that we can all do the work of the Gospel. The contribution of Christians to the health of the world depends on our own wholesomeness. The life of the world depends on us.
Another metaphor for all of this might be pruning. We need to prune away those things that block us from following Jesus and fulfilling our Baptismal Covenant so that we can grow in those ways that make us more human. The Christian life is a life of following and pruning – pruning and following. This pruning is not so much for our sake as for the sake of the Gospel.
Most of what needs to be pruned away is a modern world that teaches self-centeredness and self-reliance (independence) as the key to the fullness of life. Whereas Jesus calls us to be those people who dare to say that the secret of life – and death – is giving oneself away: reaching out to others, to the world and to God. It is a call to a radical dependence on God. God has gifted us with himself – the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – and if we wish to achieve fulfillment, we, too, must give ourselves away. Moral progress comes only as we learn to acknowledge life as a gift – not earned or achieved – but given.
To be wrapped up in ourselves, self-centered and autonomous, says Jesus, quite simply is hell. In the text the word is actually Gehenna – which is a place, not a medium for hair color or tattoos. Gehenna is a valley outside Jerusalem which to this very day is a burning, worm infested garbage dump. It also used to be the site for human sacrifices to the god Molech. There is always fire smoldering in this valley, and over time it became a geographical metaphor for what happens to those people who have little regard for others, the environment and the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.
It is interesting to note, that Gehenna in the real world is a product of our own creation. People go to the edge of a cliff and toss all their personal refuse over the cliff. I don’t care to enumerate all the times I dump my personal stuff on others, on the earth and on God. This dumping is sin. Sin, says our Baptismal service, is those things that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, including God’s creation.
Sin is related to temptation. Wow, so gas is cheaper now, so we can go back to pouring even more pollution into the earth’s atmosphere and pay less for the privilege! Hell, it turns out is of our own creation and is determined in the here and now. Hell is not some future destination. We manufacture hell every day for those who are hungry, those who have no health insurance, those who suffer from disease fostered by toxic pollution, the capability of nuclear arms to destroy this planet and so on.
And Hell is not a condition that affects just the individual; Hell exists collectively in human society as well. Hell is the drive toward self-reliance, self-autonomy, whether of individuals, communities, churches, governments, or nations. The Anglican priest and poet John Donne says it best some 360 years ago, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…”
So, the answer to the question, Why is Jesus talking about Hell and cutting off limbs and plucking out eyes? To impress upon us the importance that what we are doing right here and now matters. That all that we do and all that we say has eternal consequences. We can choose to create Hell, or become purified by fire and seasoned with the salt of Jesus. We can squabble over who is the greatest and who can or cannot heal and cast out demons, or we can welcome everyone who does the work of Christ who has already redeemed the whole world on the cross. We can be those people who hold on to all we have, or become those people who give ourselves away. We do this not for our sake but for the sake of the Gospel, for others and the world.
This would be why Tithing is one of the Four Holy Habits. Tithing moves us away from being self-centered and self-reliant. Tithing trains us, moves us to become those people who out of radical dependence on God give ourselves away, beginning with 10% of our financial resources. I was only half in jest when I suggested to my colleagues at Bible Study the other day that giving at 10% and beyond makes you a whole person, fully human; at 7% you lose a foot; at 5% you lose a foot and a hand; at 3% you lose a foot, hand and an eye; and at 2% and below you get the millstone around your neck and tossed into the sea. Reaching out and giving makes us human.
The most generous people I have known, those who are most human and most faithful in Christian discipleship, have been tithers. They offer true glimpses of heaven on earth. Their giving reaches out to others, to creation and to God making the world a little better for us all. They are people of fire and salt. “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
To be continued. Amen.
Proper 21 B
Numbers 11: 4-6, 10-16, 24-29 * Mark 9:38-50
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Ellicott City, Maryland
Salted With Fire
What starts out with the disciples trying to score points with Jesus for stopping someone who is doing the work of the kingdom – healing and casting out demons – ends with Jesus telling us all to be salted with fire! In between there is all this talk of stumbling around and lopping off limbs, tearing out eyeballs and being thrown into “hell”: All in all a fun day with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem.
This is all a part of a longer section of Mark’s gospel concerned with discipleship – faithful discipleship. That is, What is expected of those of us who would call ourselves Christians? This really is a question about what it means to be human. We are to be spiced up, healed and purified by fire and salt. Oh yeah, and stop stumbling around.
Fire in the ancient world was used to purify things. Still is. Get rid of that deadly e. coli bacteria with fire, lots of fire. Just as we were all eating our spinach fresh and loving rare hamburgers, now we have to boil the spinach to death and go back to “well done” burgers.
Which bring us to salt. Salt was used to preserve foods, extend shelf-life if you will. It was also used to spice things up. And finally salt was used medicinally.
Altogether these sayings on fire and salt suggest several things. Healing within the community of Christ is necessary to be a disciple of Jesus - especially healing that is reconciliation rather than division and challenging one another’s credentials. (We might note the vast difference in meaning between Jesus’ “Whoever is not against us is for us,” vs. the more popular, “You are either with us or against us.”) Further, the salt that flavors us distinctively as Christ’s own people is meant to keep us from blending in with the surrounding culture. This distinctiveness implies eliminating – lopping off – those things that cause us to stumble (skandalon) – things that get in the way of being good and faithful disciples so that we can all do the work of the Gospel. The contribution of Christians to the health of the world depends on our own wholesomeness. The life of the world depends on us.
Another metaphor for all of this might be pruning. We need to prune away those things that block us from following Jesus and fulfilling our Baptismal Covenant so that we can grow in those ways that make us more human. The Christian life is a life of following and pruning – pruning and following. This pruning is not so much for our sake as for the sake of the Gospel.
Most of what needs to be pruned away is a modern world that teaches self-centeredness and self-reliance (independence) as the key to the fullness of life. Whereas Jesus calls us to be those people who dare to say that the secret of life – and death – is giving oneself away: reaching out to others, to the world and to God. It is a call to a radical dependence on God. God has gifted us with himself – the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – and if we wish to achieve fulfillment, we, too, must give ourselves away. Moral progress comes only as we learn to acknowledge life as a gift – not earned or achieved – but given.
To be wrapped up in ourselves, self-centered and autonomous, says Jesus, quite simply is hell. In the text the word is actually Gehenna – which is a place, not a medium for hair color or tattoos. Gehenna is a valley outside Jerusalem which to this very day is a burning, worm infested garbage dump. It also used to be the site for human sacrifices to the god Molech. There is always fire smoldering in this valley, and over time it became a geographical metaphor for what happens to those people who have little regard for others, the environment and the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.
It is interesting to note, that Gehenna in the real world is a product of our own creation. People go to the edge of a cliff and toss all their personal refuse over the cliff. I don’t care to enumerate all the times I dump my personal stuff on others, on the earth and on God. This dumping is sin. Sin, says our Baptismal service, is those things that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, including God’s creation.
Sin is related to temptation. Wow, so gas is cheaper now, so we can go back to pouring even more pollution into the earth’s atmosphere and pay less for the privilege! Hell, it turns out is of our own creation and is determined in the here and now. Hell is not some future destination. We manufacture hell every day for those who are hungry, those who have no health insurance, those who suffer from disease fostered by toxic pollution, the capability of nuclear arms to destroy this planet and so on.
And Hell is not a condition that affects just the individual; Hell exists collectively in human society as well. Hell is the drive toward self-reliance, self-autonomy, whether of individuals, communities, churches, governments, or nations. The Anglican priest and poet John Donne says it best some 360 years ago, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…”
So, the answer to the question, Why is Jesus talking about Hell and cutting off limbs and plucking out eyes? To impress upon us the importance that what we are doing right here and now matters. That all that we do and all that we say has eternal consequences. We can choose to create Hell, or become purified by fire and seasoned with the salt of Jesus. We can squabble over who is the greatest and who can or cannot heal and cast out demons, or we can welcome everyone who does the work of Christ who has already redeemed the whole world on the cross. We can be those people who hold on to all we have, or become those people who give ourselves away. We do this not for our sake but for the sake of the Gospel, for others and the world.
This would be why Tithing is one of the Four Holy Habits. Tithing moves us away from being self-centered and self-reliant. Tithing trains us, moves us to become those people who out of radical dependence on God give ourselves away, beginning with 10% of our financial resources. I was only half in jest when I suggested to my colleagues at Bible Study the other day that giving at 10% and beyond makes you a whole person, fully human; at 7% you lose a foot; at 5% you lose a foot and a hand; at 3% you lose a foot, hand and an eye; and at 2% and below you get the millstone around your neck and tossed into the sea. Reaching out and giving makes us human.
The most generous people I have known, those who are most human and most faithful in Christian discipleship, have been tithers. They offer true glimpses of heaven on earth. Their giving reaches out to others, to creation and to God making the world a little better for us all. They are people of fire and salt. “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
To be continued. Amen.
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