15 March 2009/Lent 3B * Exodus 20:1-17/Psalm 19/John 2:13-22
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
The Meditation of My Heart
Psalm 19 holds today’s lessons all together. It is all in tension – the glory of God as seen in the created universe versus the glory of God revealed in Torah. We tend to translate Torah as “law,” but it can also mean “direction” or “teaching.” It might be better to say that the Ten Words – the Ten Commandments - is not a bunch of rules so much as it is proclamation from God’s own mouth as to who God is and how those of us created in the image of God are to be.
So the Psalm begins by directing our attention to the “handiwork” of God. Can we even begin to imagine the immensity of it all? Something like a billion universes out there, of which we reside in only one. To get the sense of it, a billion looks something like this. If one were to plant 1000 tulip bulbs every day since the day Jesus was born, you would need to continue planting 1000 per day for 750 more years to get to a billion. Or, think of it in terms of setting aside 1000 dollars a day for 2759 years to reach one billion dollars! We have developed a somewhat jaundiced view of all this what with billions of dollars being lost, and billions of dollars being given away. All in the name of what? Covetousness might be the right answer.
If there is a lesson to be learned from the current economic melt-down it would be that there has been abject disregard for the Tenth Commandment. We ought to note that it is the only commandment of the Ten repeated twice: “You shall not covet….you shall not covet.” In ancient literature such repetition means, “Alert! Pay special attention to this!!!”
Guess we forgot to pay attention and let our covetousness run wild. The danger now, of course, is that we begin to wish that Jesus and his whip of cords would return to smash his way up and down Wall Street with Hank Paulson and Bernie Madoff in tow!
But that would be to miss the true meaning of our Lord’s little demonstration at the Jerusalem Temple during the busiest time of the year – Passover – a time to remember that we were slaves liberated by the grace of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus so that we could enter into a covenant relationship based on the Ten Words. Now we find ourselves slaves to covetousness.
Which is why a little bit past the Ten Words God also commands The Passover so as not to forget who we are and whose we are. God knows how easy it is to forget: Just as easy as it is to forget that coveting – despite being the foundation of a consumer driven economy – is bad for us.
And Jesus is not upset with the need for money changers and the selling of unblemished animals for the appointed sacrifices. These were aids to visiting pilgrims. After all, who could hope to get a lamb all the way to Jerusalem from Galilee without it getting at least a little scuffed up? What he protests is the greed and covetousness that has turned “my Father’s House” as he calls it into a money making machine at the expense of poor people who were having a hard enough time staying in one place let alone getting ahead under the yoke of Rome’s military enforcement of oppressive taxation.
So Jesus is calling for a reform - a reform of the Temple customs. But as the inner edges of the text suggest, what really needs reform is the Church, His Body – which of course means that we who are by baptism His Body need to reform our ways. He seeks to raise us up.
Jesus and the Psalmist know that the Ten Words offer a way of being that is meant to help us remember how we are meant to live, and the pitfalls we are to avoid. How does the Psalmist put it? “The law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul … the commandment of the Lord is clear and gives light to the eyes!” Who among us could not use a little more light? Who among us could benefit from a revival of the soul?
Note how the double warning against coveting is counter balanced by the commandment that takes up fully one-third of the entire Ten Commandment discourse – the command to observe Sabbath time. Sabbath was not about being religious and going to church. Sabbath offers an alternative way of being in a world driven by covetousness, profit and greed – to name just one of the Seven Deadly Sins(all of which depend on covetousness). The Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus knows that passion and covetousness cannot be vanquished by decree.
So God says in effect, “Do not covet anything that does not belong to you, do not covet anything belonging to your neighbor; rather, let me give you something that belongs to me. What is that something? A day – a day of rest, a day of no work, a day of no coveting, a day of gratitude, a day of prayer and meditation.”
May the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Sabbath time means to unplug from life as it is lived six days of the week – six days of coveting things of space – and instead learn to covet time spent only with God. Jesus and Psalm 19 issue a call to return to the Four Holy Habits: Daily Prayer and Study, Sabbath Time, Weekly Corporate Worship, and Tithing. Meditation and Contemplative prayer, Sabbath time with God, offers us a way out of a culture of Covetousness, which as we have seen in recent months and years is a problem for us all.
Rather than wishing revenge on Wall Street and Mr. Madoff, we might do better to join in this sonnet prayer of John Donne calling us to invite God in Christ into our hearts– the place which should be ordered with reverence appropriate to the dwelling place of God which is cluttered up with worldly ambitions, anxieties about our possessions, and designs to get the better of our neighbors:
Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me,and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped tower, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Amen.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Do The Hokey Pokey
8 March 2009/Lent 2-B * Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16/Mark 8:31-38
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills 21043
Time for a Penitent Heart Transplant
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever. Amen
As someone once said in Bible study when we read this collect for today, “Maybe what we all need is a “penitent heart” transplant!” After at least eight Year B Bible Studies on this one passage, with clergy and lay persons in a variety of settings, when asked what it as people heard in this gospel, not one person chose the phrase, “and after three days rise again.” That would be the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God!
What we hear instead are the words of suffering, rejection, death, deny yourself, lose your life, adulterous and sinful generation and shame. This must be what Peter heard too, and why he rebuked Jesus. “Lord, I just said you are the Christ! These things cannot happen to you! You are God’s anointed, God’s Beloved! God is well pleased with you!”
To which Jesus responds, “Rebuke me, will you? I will see you and raise you four rebukes!” Or, “Get behind me, Satan!” Which is just another way of saying, “Just whose side are you on anyway? Your Way? Satan’s Way? Rome’s Way? Jerusalem’s Way? The World’s Way? Have you considered getting behind me and joining in my Father’s Way? That would be, God’s Way!”
Jesus draws a line in the sand. We know from other stories that he did this from time to time. And in drawing that line Jesus basically says, "Do not comfort yourself by thinking that God is on your side. Be more concerned about whether or not you are on God’s side!”
All of which is followed by the invitation to do three things: deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus: which is not an invitation to be crucified – although for some who take this invitation seriously it has come to that.
The invitation is meant for us to take seriously the promises made in our baptism and sealed with a cross on our foreheads with oil.
We are to pick up this baptismal cross and follow him. We are to let this cross lead us in His Way – God’s Way. Not pick up our crosses and then go where we want. Follow him.
Baptism is a Penitent Heart Transplant. In Baptism we are given a New Heart – a heart that listens to Jesus. Note that at the outset it says, “Jesus began to teach….” So the first step in following Jesus is to Listen to Him. That is what the voice on the mountain said a few weeks ago: This is my Son, my Beloved – Listen to him.
In Baptism we are also given a New Name. Just like we hear that Abram becomes Abraham, and Sarai becomes Sarah, and God even gets a new name, “God Almighty” – no doubt a distant relative of Bruce and Evan Almighty. And in his Baptism, Jesus gets a new name – God’s Beloved. Now we are God’s Beloved! God is well pleased with us!
In our Baptism the sign of the cross is marked on our foreheads with oil, chrism, blessed by our Bishop. This cross marks us as Christ’s own forever. We belong to him. He belongs to us. We are One.
It is the same cross we trace on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday with the Ashes made from Palm Sunday’s Palms. And the same cross we trace with oil blessed by our Bishop when we come forward for Healing. The cross is not some terrible end to an otherwise faithful life with God in Christ, but rather the cross meets us and marks us at the beginning of our communion with him – and remains with us forever. And ever!
We keep tracing it over and over to remember – to remember who we are and whose we are. We are those people Jesus calls to get behind him and follow him. We are those who have Penitent Hearts – which means we repent.
Repent is an interesting word, for it means to turn around. The idea is that when we are baptized and given a new heart and a new name, we turn ourselves about and walk in God’s Way – which is what get behind Jesus really means.
What I love about our new Penitent Hearts and repentance is that in Hebrew and Aramaic the word for this is Shoove! And turning toward God means to turn away from Satan and the Devil and all the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.
So last Sunday when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, he shook the devil off and shooved toward God. Which is what he says we are to do today: we are to turn away from the temptations of this life, this world, the world of profit, and shoove, turn to God, shake the devil off, get behind Jesus and Follow him! This is the Way – the Way of true life, real life, abundant life in his Father’s Kingdom. The Only Way!
Shake shake shake, shake the devil off
In the name of Jesus, shake the devil off
When he says, “Forget about God!”
shake the devil off
Shoove shoove shoove, turn yourself about
In the name of Jesus, turn yourself about
Love your neighbor as yourself,
turn yourself about
Pick up your cross and follow me
And turn yourself about
The moral of today’s story:
it turns out the Hokey Pokey IS what it’s all about!
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills 21043
Time for a Penitent Heart Transplant
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever. Amen
As someone once said in Bible study when we read this collect for today, “Maybe what we all need is a “penitent heart” transplant!” After at least eight Year B Bible Studies on this one passage, with clergy and lay persons in a variety of settings, when asked what it as people heard in this gospel, not one person chose the phrase, “and after three days rise again.” That would be the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God!
What we hear instead are the words of suffering, rejection, death, deny yourself, lose your life, adulterous and sinful generation and shame. This must be what Peter heard too, and why he rebuked Jesus. “Lord, I just said you are the Christ! These things cannot happen to you! You are God’s anointed, God’s Beloved! God is well pleased with you!”
To which Jesus responds, “Rebuke me, will you? I will see you and raise you four rebukes!” Or, “Get behind me, Satan!” Which is just another way of saying, “Just whose side are you on anyway? Your Way? Satan’s Way? Rome’s Way? Jerusalem’s Way? The World’s Way? Have you considered getting behind me and joining in my Father’s Way? That would be, God’s Way!”
Jesus draws a line in the sand. We know from other stories that he did this from time to time. And in drawing that line Jesus basically says, "Do not comfort yourself by thinking that God is on your side. Be more concerned about whether or not you are on God’s side!”
All of which is followed by the invitation to do three things: deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus: which is not an invitation to be crucified – although for some who take this invitation seriously it has come to that.
The invitation is meant for us to take seriously the promises made in our baptism and sealed with a cross on our foreheads with oil.
We are to pick up this baptismal cross and follow him. We are to let this cross lead us in His Way – God’s Way. Not pick up our crosses and then go where we want. Follow him.
Baptism is a Penitent Heart Transplant. In Baptism we are given a New Heart – a heart that listens to Jesus. Note that at the outset it says, “Jesus began to teach….” So the first step in following Jesus is to Listen to Him. That is what the voice on the mountain said a few weeks ago: This is my Son, my Beloved – Listen to him.
In Baptism we are also given a New Name. Just like we hear that Abram becomes Abraham, and Sarai becomes Sarah, and God even gets a new name, “God Almighty” – no doubt a distant relative of Bruce and Evan Almighty. And in his Baptism, Jesus gets a new name – God’s Beloved. Now we are God’s Beloved! God is well pleased with us!
In our Baptism the sign of the cross is marked on our foreheads with oil, chrism, blessed by our Bishop. This cross marks us as Christ’s own forever. We belong to him. He belongs to us. We are One.
It is the same cross we trace on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday with the Ashes made from Palm Sunday’s Palms. And the same cross we trace with oil blessed by our Bishop when we come forward for Healing. The cross is not some terrible end to an otherwise faithful life with God in Christ, but rather the cross meets us and marks us at the beginning of our communion with him – and remains with us forever. And ever!
We keep tracing it over and over to remember – to remember who we are and whose we are. We are those people Jesus calls to get behind him and follow him. We are those who have Penitent Hearts – which means we repent.
Repent is an interesting word, for it means to turn around. The idea is that when we are baptized and given a new heart and a new name, we turn ourselves about and walk in God’s Way – which is what get behind Jesus really means.
What I love about our new Penitent Hearts and repentance is that in Hebrew and Aramaic the word for this is Shoove! And turning toward God means to turn away from Satan and the Devil and all the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.
So last Sunday when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, he shook the devil off and shooved toward God. Which is what he says we are to do today: we are to turn away from the temptations of this life, this world, the world of profit, and shoove, turn to God, shake the devil off, get behind Jesus and Follow him! This is the Way – the Way of true life, real life, abundant life in his Father’s Kingdom. The Only Way!
Shake shake shake, shake the devil off
In the name of Jesus, shake the devil off
When he says, “Forget about God!”
shake the devil off
Shoove shoove shoove, turn yourself about
In the name of Jesus, turn yourself about
Love your neighbor as yourself,
turn yourself about
Pick up your cross and follow me
And turn yourself about
The moral of today’s story:
it turns out the Hokey Pokey IS what it’s all about!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Love Not Fade Away
22 February 2009/Last Epiphany * 2 Kings 2:1-12/Mark 9:2-9
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Pop Quiz
We may as well acknowledge that this is the singularly most mysterious episode in the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
So the text in Mark begins, “Six days later….” Six days later than what? Than when Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter answered, correctly, “You are the Christ!” Then Jesus told them that he would suffer many things, be rejected, killed, and after three days he would rise again. And he followed that by saying those who want to become a follower of his must pick up their cross “and follow me.”
Of course six days later is one way of saying what? “On the seventh day…” which for the Bible means much more than just “a week later.” God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the Seventh. The seventh day is ordained in the Ten Commandments as a day of Sabbath rest. Sabbath rest is meant to take us out of the tedium of our day to day activities and thoughts and use the time to experience the nearness of God.
Which Peter and James and John seem to do on this particular seventh day. Why does this take place on top of a mountain? Because the air is thinner, so there’s a better chance of breaking out of this world into God’s presence. And besides, these kinds of encounters always happen on top of mountains.
Take Moses, for instance, who sat atop Mount Sinai six days and on the seventh God spoke to him. Or, take Elijah, who hid in the crevice of a mountain top only to hear “the still small voice of God” as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob passed by.
And oddly enough the Bible offers no narrative account of either of them dying – Moses just disappears from the narrative, and Elijah, as we just heard in 2 Kings, flies off in his chariot of fire into the wild blue yonder we know not where! They just seem like the kind of guys Jesus would chat with.
So, who better to see with Jesus than experienced mountain top experiencers than Moses and Elijah – the Law and the Prophets. The text tells us they are talking, but fails to tell us what they are talking about. We can be sure it is not about A-Rod and whatever substances he may have abused. Probably not about the Stim Package or bipartisanship either.
Then Peter decides to get into the conversation with this notion of setting up three dwellings, or tents. Why tents? Could be because that is how the people Moses led lived in the wilderness for forty years? Perhaps, it has been suggested, he wants to turn this into an extended mountain top experience. In any event he seems to have forgotten what Jesus had said six days ago, which mitigates against holding this show over for one more week.
Besides, Peter almost gets it just right when he proclaims, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here!” He gives voice to our deepest human desire for a vision of God and close communion with the divine. I say almost, because next of course comes “The Voice!”
Where have we heard this voice before? That’s right. Jesus heard this voice at his baptism in the River Jordan, saying almost the very same thing. Only now it appears to be a corrective to Peter calling Jesus “rabbi.”
“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” We can imagine it being a thunderous voice, coming out of a cloud and all. So this is no ordinary rabbi chatting it up with Moses and Elijah. This is God’s own Son, the Beloved. Now there are at least three others, and of course those who read and hear this Gospel, who have heard this proclamation – Peter, James and John have now heard the voice Jesus heard at his baptism. They and they alone now know for sure that this is God’s Son, the Beloved.
Just to make sure, Mark puts the same message in the proclamation of a centurion at the foot of the cross, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” Which seems to be the point of all this – to make sure we know just who Jesus is. So that when Jesus asks us, “Who do you say that I am?” we will know just what to say.
A couple of interesting things in all of this. Curious, isn’t it? That God, the offstage voice, instructs us to listen to Jesus. God could just as easily say, “Listen to me.” But of course a Trinitarian view of this suggests saying “Listen to him” is much the same thing as saying “Listen to me.”
Do we ever truly understand how deeply God desires for us to listen to what God has to say? Can we begin to see how it is that God initiates this relationship with us? Do we really take the time to “listen to him?”
Which leads to point number two – this is happening on the seventh day, or the Sabbath. Does it not make sense that they would have a mountain-top experience of the divine on the Sabbath? Is this not, after all, the whole point of Sabbath time and Contemplative-Centering Prayer – to experience the presence of the divine? To enter into more intimate communion with God in Christ? To listen to Him?
All of this rightly sends us back to that moment in the River Jordan when the heavens are torn apart, the Spirit descends like a dove, and the voice proclaims to Jesus, “You are my Beloved; I am well pleased with you.”
Could it be that the point of this most mysterious of all episodes in the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is that wherever we are, whatever we may feel at a particular moment, we will never be truly far from the One who is the source of our life and our hope? By water and the Holy Spirit, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. We are made God’s Beloved! God is well pleased with us! God loves us. We love God. You know our love not fade away!
Amen.
You are my Beloved
I am well pleased with you
I am God’s Beloved
God is well pleased with me
I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be
God’s gonna give God’s love to me
I’m gonna love God night and day
You know our love not fade away
Our Love’s bigger than a Cadillac
God ain’t never gonna take it back
God’s love’s bigger than an SUV
No one can take it away from me
You know our Love not fade away
If you don’t believe I’ve been redeemed
Then come on down to Jordan’s stream
Up in the Sky what do you see
The Holy Spirit comin’ down on me
The Holy Spirit comin’ down on me
I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna be
God’s gonna give God’s love to me
A love to last more than one day
A love that's love - not fade away
Love that's love - not fade away
© Sounds Divine/K A Kubicek
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Pop Quiz
We may as well acknowledge that this is the singularly most mysterious episode in the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
So the text in Mark begins, “Six days later….” Six days later than what? Than when Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter answered, correctly, “You are the Christ!” Then Jesus told them that he would suffer many things, be rejected, killed, and after three days he would rise again. And he followed that by saying those who want to become a follower of his must pick up their cross “and follow me.”
Of course six days later is one way of saying what? “On the seventh day…” which for the Bible means much more than just “a week later.” God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the Seventh. The seventh day is ordained in the Ten Commandments as a day of Sabbath rest. Sabbath rest is meant to take us out of the tedium of our day to day activities and thoughts and use the time to experience the nearness of God.
Which Peter and James and John seem to do on this particular seventh day. Why does this take place on top of a mountain? Because the air is thinner, so there’s a better chance of breaking out of this world into God’s presence. And besides, these kinds of encounters always happen on top of mountains.
Take Moses, for instance, who sat atop Mount Sinai six days and on the seventh God spoke to him. Or, take Elijah, who hid in the crevice of a mountain top only to hear “the still small voice of God” as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob passed by.
And oddly enough the Bible offers no narrative account of either of them dying – Moses just disappears from the narrative, and Elijah, as we just heard in 2 Kings, flies off in his chariot of fire into the wild blue yonder we know not where! They just seem like the kind of guys Jesus would chat with.
So, who better to see with Jesus than experienced mountain top experiencers than Moses and Elijah – the Law and the Prophets. The text tells us they are talking, but fails to tell us what they are talking about. We can be sure it is not about A-Rod and whatever substances he may have abused. Probably not about the Stim Package or bipartisanship either.
Then Peter decides to get into the conversation with this notion of setting up three dwellings, or tents. Why tents? Could be because that is how the people Moses led lived in the wilderness for forty years? Perhaps, it has been suggested, he wants to turn this into an extended mountain top experience. In any event he seems to have forgotten what Jesus had said six days ago, which mitigates against holding this show over for one more week.
Besides, Peter almost gets it just right when he proclaims, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here!” He gives voice to our deepest human desire for a vision of God and close communion with the divine. I say almost, because next of course comes “The Voice!”
Where have we heard this voice before? That’s right. Jesus heard this voice at his baptism in the River Jordan, saying almost the very same thing. Only now it appears to be a corrective to Peter calling Jesus “rabbi.”
“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” We can imagine it being a thunderous voice, coming out of a cloud and all. So this is no ordinary rabbi chatting it up with Moses and Elijah. This is God’s own Son, the Beloved. Now there are at least three others, and of course those who read and hear this Gospel, who have heard this proclamation – Peter, James and John have now heard the voice Jesus heard at his baptism. They and they alone now know for sure that this is God’s Son, the Beloved.
Just to make sure, Mark puts the same message in the proclamation of a centurion at the foot of the cross, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” Which seems to be the point of all this – to make sure we know just who Jesus is. So that when Jesus asks us, “Who do you say that I am?” we will know just what to say.
A couple of interesting things in all of this. Curious, isn’t it? That God, the offstage voice, instructs us to listen to Jesus. God could just as easily say, “Listen to me.” But of course a Trinitarian view of this suggests saying “Listen to him” is much the same thing as saying “Listen to me.”
Do we ever truly understand how deeply God desires for us to listen to what God has to say? Can we begin to see how it is that God initiates this relationship with us? Do we really take the time to “listen to him?”
Which leads to point number two – this is happening on the seventh day, or the Sabbath. Does it not make sense that they would have a mountain-top experience of the divine on the Sabbath? Is this not, after all, the whole point of Sabbath time and Contemplative-Centering Prayer – to experience the presence of the divine? To enter into more intimate communion with God in Christ? To listen to Him?
All of this rightly sends us back to that moment in the River Jordan when the heavens are torn apart, the Spirit descends like a dove, and the voice proclaims to Jesus, “You are my Beloved; I am well pleased with you.”
Could it be that the point of this most mysterious of all episodes in the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is that wherever we are, whatever we may feel at a particular moment, we will never be truly far from the One who is the source of our life and our hope? By water and the Holy Spirit, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. We are made God’s Beloved! God is well pleased with us! God loves us. We love God. You know our love not fade away!
Amen.
You are my Beloved
I am well pleased with you
I am God’s Beloved
God is well pleased with me
I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be
God’s gonna give God’s love to me
I’m gonna love God night and day
You know our love not fade away
Our Love’s bigger than a Cadillac
God ain’t never gonna take it back
God’s love’s bigger than an SUV
No one can take it away from me
You know our Love not fade away
If you don’t believe I’ve been redeemed
Then come on down to Jordan’s stream
Up in the Sky what do you see
The Holy Spirit comin’ down on me
The Holy Spirit comin’ down on me
I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna be
God’s gonna give God’s love to me
A love to last more than one day
A love that's love - not fade away
Love that's love - not fade away
© Sounds Divine/K A Kubicek
Saturday, February 7, 2009
A Day In Capernaum
8 February 2009/Epiphany 5B * Luke 1: 29-39
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
A Day In Capernaum
It is really a Day and a Night in Capernaum. And it is the Sabbath at that! When one walks in the gate to Capernaum today there is a sign that proclaims: Capernaum-The City of Jesus. It strikes one as a bit much, but after several hours walking around the ancient ruins of Capernaum, one gets the feeling Jesus was really there. It would be here that he first announces, “God is here for the taking!”
There are the ruins of at least two synagogues, neither one very large. The only one old enough, however, is right next door to Peter’s mother-in-law’s house. But we need to remember, before heading into her house, Jesus spent time in the synagogue. Ordinarily this was where people read and disputed scripture. Those who were sick or possessed by demons were simply given explanations as to why they might be the way they were.
So earlier on this Sabbath day, Jesus casts aside any use for the disputation over scripture and casts out demons, plural, from a man who no doubt had sat through years of Scribal teaching and had been unmoved and unchanged. In the process they cry out, “Have you come to destroy us?” Jesus’ actions proclaim, “Yes, indeed!” For all kinds of reasons this would have stirred things up in Capernaum and the surrounding area!
On the way out the demons give a loud cry, a sign of defeat, but even more so to protest that the demonic reign in this world evidently was coming to an end. The next time in Mark’s gospel that we hear a “loud cry” will be another sign of the demonic attempting a last-gasp grip on this world, when Jesus hangs on the cross.
Then it is next door to Peter’s mother-in-law’s house. She is sick. Jesus raises her up and not only restores her, but makes her a co-worker in his Father’s kingdom! She becomes a paradigm of disciples “raised up” for the work and life of the kingdom. In just a few short verses of Mark, and in the course of the day, Jesus manages to cross religious (don’t work on the Sabbath), social (don’t touch the sick), and sexual (don’t touch a woman) boundaries. Not to mention raising the status of women as co-equal workers and disciples in his Father’s kingdom. No one can ever accuse Jesus of not moving quickly in the name of Change!
Oh, and by the way, this appears to be the beginning of what can be called the domestic or house church. That is, the center of God’s work and worship has moved from the Temple and synagogue into the home. Gatherings in simple homes will be a place where the Risen Lord will be “at home” in all his power to heal both the spiritual and physical disruptions of life.
Meanwhile the rest of the town mobilizes after sunset. That is, they honor the Sabbath and then coming knocking on the door. The whole town, we are led to believe, is standing at the door with all manner of sick and possessed people. Jesus obliges.
Note two things here. They are standing at the door. That is, they have not yet crossed the threshold of faith. They come not for who Jesus is, but rather what he can do for them. They have only begun to get a glimpse of who he is and what is to come. So they are healed not because they believe. Their healing will lead to belief.
By now we are wondering, “Just how does this Jesus do all this? Where does he get this new power that transcends anything that we have seen before now?”
The text is unhesitating in answering this question: he sneaks off to be alone with God in Prayer. We are told he leaves well before dawn, under the cover of darkness, without telling anyone where he is going.
Jesus’ reliance on private prayer with God tells us several things about the life of Faith. Jesus relies on God. Although he engages in corporate prayer in the Synagogue, at least three pivotal moments drive him to private contemplative prayer alone with God: here at the outset of his ministry, after the feeding of the 5,000, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is directed, sustained and inspired by God in moments of solitude and prayer.
Second, Jesus is not a magician – he relies on the power of God to help others. He does as God wills him to do. He seeks God’s direction in his battle against the forces of evil.
Finally, Jesus’ times of private prayer speaks to us of the importance of solitude, quiet and contemplative prayer in the life and practice of faith. More than a refuge from life’s pressures and stress points it is an opportunity for time spent in the presence of God. As Jesus receives a larger vision of his work and mission in the world, so do we. When Jesus emerges from this time of private prayer, or more accurately is yanked out of it by the disciples who hunt him down, he does so with renewed energy, new clarity, renewed purpose, and a wider vision of what God has in store for Him and for us.
One might sum it up – there is no time to stay in one place. One cannot remain stuck in one place. One cannot let the demands that seek to constrain us to one way of doing things hold us back from moving on.
Oh, how we hate to hear that. The Church as much as individuals loves to remain stuck in one, same familiar place, even if it is a place running rampant with demons, distractions, and physical problems of all kinds.
Yet, the irony appears to be that to be reenergized, reinvigorated, re-inspired by God’s Spirit Wind, one needs to stop, be still, keep quiet, and reconnect with the God who put us here in the first place.
Be still and know that I am God, says the psalmist. God is at home, it is we who are out for a walk.
In the whirlwind of activity that is the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus takes time to be quiet and alone with God. Jesus needs solitude and contemplative prayer time. He knows he needs to do that. Can we as His disciples possibly survive without doing the same?
The final lesson from A Day in Capernaum seems to be to stop whatever we are doing, be still, spend quiet, private time with God in prayer. We need to. The Church needs us to. The world needs us to.
It is the only way to keep up with Jesus in the work he calls us to do – to go throughout the nearby neighborhoods and towns proclaiming his message for all to hear: God is with us for the taking! Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
A Day In Capernaum
It is really a Day and a Night in Capernaum. And it is the Sabbath at that! When one walks in the gate to Capernaum today there is a sign that proclaims: Capernaum-The City of Jesus. It strikes one as a bit much, but after several hours walking around the ancient ruins of Capernaum, one gets the feeling Jesus was really there. It would be here that he first announces, “God is here for the taking!”
There are the ruins of at least two synagogues, neither one very large. The only one old enough, however, is right next door to Peter’s mother-in-law’s house. But we need to remember, before heading into her house, Jesus spent time in the synagogue. Ordinarily this was where people read and disputed scripture. Those who were sick or possessed by demons were simply given explanations as to why they might be the way they were.
So earlier on this Sabbath day, Jesus casts aside any use for the disputation over scripture and casts out demons, plural, from a man who no doubt had sat through years of Scribal teaching and had been unmoved and unchanged. In the process they cry out, “Have you come to destroy us?” Jesus’ actions proclaim, “Yes, indeed!” For all kinds of reasons this would have stirred things up in Capernaum and the surrounding area!
On the way out the demons give a loud cry, a sign of defeat, but even more so to protest that the demonic reign in this world evidently was coming to an end. The next time in Mark’s gospel that we hear a “loud cry” will be another sign of the demonic attempting a last-gasp grip on this world, when Jesus hangs on the cross.
Then it is next door to Peter’s mother-in-law’s house. She is sick. Jesus raises her up and not only restores her, but makes her a co-worker in his Father’s kingdom! She becomes a paradigm of disciples “raised up” for the work and life of the kingdom. In just a few short verses of Mark, and in the course of the day, Jesus manages to cross religious (don’t work on the Sabbath), social (don’t touch the sick), and sexual (don’t touch a woman) boundaries. Not to mention raising the status of women as co-equal workers and disciples in his Father’s kingdom. No one can ever accuse Jesus of not moving quickly in the name of Change!
Oh, and by the way, this appears to be the beginning of what can be called the domestic or house church. That is, the center of God’s work and worship has moved from the Temple and synagogue into the home. Gatherings in simple homes will be a place where the Risen Lord will be “at home” in all his power to heal both the spiritual and physical disruptions of life.
Meanwhile the rest of the town mobilizes after sunset. That is, they honor the Sabbath and then coming knocking on the door. The whole town, we are led to believe, is standing at the door with all manner of sick and possessed people. Jesus obliges.
Note two things here. They are standing at the door. That is, they have not yet crossed the threshold of faith. They come not for who Jesus is, but rather what he can do for them. They have only begun to get a glimpse of who he is and what is to come. So they are healed not because they believe. Their healing will lead to belief.
By now we are wondering, “Just how does this Jesus do all this? Where does he get this new power that transcends anything that we have seen before now?”
The text is unhesitating in answering this question: he sneaks off to be alone with God in Prayer. We are told he leaves well before dawn, under the cover of darkness, without telling anyone where he is going.
Jesus’ reliance on private prayer with God tells us several things about the life of Faith. Jesus relies on God. Although he engages in corporate prayer in the Synagogue, at least three pivotal moments drive him to private contemplative prayer alone with God: here at the outset of his ministry, after the feeding of the 5,000, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is directed, sustained and inspired by God in moments of solitude and prayer.
Second, Jesus is not a magician – he relies on the power of God to help others. He does as God wills him to do. He seeks God’s direction in his battle against the forces of evil.
Finally, Jesus’ times of private prayer speaks to us of the importance of solitude, quiet and contemplative prayer in the life and practice of faith. More than a refuge from life’s pressures and stress points it is an opportunity for time spent in the presence of God. As Jesus receives a larger vision of his work and mission in the world, so do we. When Jesus emerges from this time of private prayer, or more accurately is yanked out of it by the disciples who hunt him down, he does so with renewed energy, new clarity, renewed purpose, and a wider vision of what God has in store for Him and for us.
One might sum it up – there is no time to stay in one place. One cannot remain stuck in one place. One cannot let the demands that seek to constrain us to one way of doing things hold us back from moving on.
Oh, how we hate to hear that. The Church as much as individuals loves to remain stuck in one, same familiar place, even if it is a place running rampant with demons, distractions, and physical problems of all kinds.
Yet, the irony appears to be that to be reenergized, reinvigorated, re-inspired by God’s Spirit Wind, one needs to stop, be still, keep quiet, and reconnect with the God who put us here in the first place.
Be still and know that I am God, says the psalmist. God is at home, it is we who are out for a walk.
In the whirlwind of activity that is the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus takes time to be quiet and alone with God. Jesus needs solitude and contemplative prayer time. He knows he needs to do that. Can we as His disciples possibly survive without doing the same?
The final lesson from A Day in Capernaum seems to be to stop whatever we are doing, be still, spend quiet, private time with God in prayer. We need to. The Church needs us to. The world needs us to.
It is the only way to keep up with Jesus in the work he calls us to do – to go throughout the nearby neighborhoods and towns proclaiming his message for all to hear: God is with us for the taking! Amen.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Light of the World
1 February 2009 / Candlemas * Luke 2: 22-40
To Be A Light
Candlemas is a time to remember, to recollect. To recollect oneself means to gather oneself up into meditation. We have here and now only a moment for this. But that is enough.
So when does this story begin? Forty days ago when the baby was born: the boy who was born to be a light: the Light, really – the Light of the World. Or, maybe it began when the angel first told Mary of her special calling. Or, during the reign of King David. Or, when our people were slaves in Egypt. Or, when our ancestor Abraham set out from his home town of Ur on the Chaldes to become the father of more than all the stars in the heavens and all the grains of sand on the seashore - to be a blessing to all the peoples of God’s creation. Whenever we choose to begin the story, it is one fraught with difficulties from the very beginning.
It was the custom to dedicate the first son to God forty days after his birth - to offer a sacrifice at the Temple to redeem the child. They did so to remind themselves that their children belonged to God. It was a reminder that God has a genuine claim on the very best we have to offer, our children.
The required sacrifice was a lamb, but those too poor to buy a lamb could offer a lesser sacrifice of the birds. The crowds in the Temple precincts would know who they were: bird people were poor people.
The consolation may have been that they were not alone. Many people were out of work. The land was occupied by Rome. Taxes were high. The government unstable. The economy had tanked. There was resistance throughout the land. Common folk had trouble making ends meet. The lines in front of the pigeon sellers can be assumed to have been very long.
The offering of these birds would be a memorial to all the first born males ordered killed by Pharaoh in that first Holocaust which only Moses survived. This custom binds them to their people and their past just as this Eucharist ties us to ours.
They had come to make a sacrifice and a commitment. Every commitment comes with a cost. Little did they know the offering they were making - not only to God, but for the whole world. Nor could they have been prepared for the old man.
Simeon had been praying and waiting, hoping and studying, waiting for God to reveal the light of the world. Simeon was an old man waiting to be released. Waiting for his people to be released. Waiting to see what we all hope to see but are too busy to remember to look for: a glimpse of the future. A glimpse of the truth. A glimpse of relief and release.
Simeon, we can imagine, like so many of us, had grown weary. Weary of the occupation. Weary of failed policies and failed programs. Weary of the failure of religious and political leaders. Weary of being weary. Everything and everyone who had promised life only yielded weariness and death. So he was waiting for death, and waiting to see if God really keeps promises.
The old man takes the child out of Mary’s arms. Imagine that! Who is he, she must wonder? What is he doing with my child, she thinks?
Suddenly, Simeon becomes a poet for the ages: announcing for all who care to listen and hear that this is not her child, but God’s very own. That this child was born to be light. Light for all peoples. Everywhere and throughout all time. Simeon has seen the light.
Can you see it, he cries out? Here is the light which will withstand all darkness, any darkness - even death upon a Roman cross!.
Then quietly he hands the child back to his mother, and he is gone. Released. God’s promise fulfilled. Simeon returns to God as the mother and father look on. Joseph with the birds in his hands. Mary with the child born to be a light. All the other mothers and fathers looking on.
Now we are here this morning. We are a part of that same crowd, straining to catch a glimpse of the light. Holding the light in our own hands, if only for a moment. As it was for Simeon, a moment will have to be long enough.
In Connecticut we lived next door to an old man - Em Tramposch. He had devoted his life to propagating life with his hands: he was a nurseryman. From his fingers new life seemingly would spring forth every day. He had a deep sense of where that life came from. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice, but most of all you could see it in his hands.
We would spend days and nights in his greenhouse, watching his hands work: cutting, dipping and planting cuttings, listening to what he had to say about the economy, politics and Patsy Kline. For the last four years we were there Em had cancer. Some days were better than others, some not so good at all, but nearly every day he was in the greenhouse propagating life.
One summer he became bed ridden. Jane, his wife, found ways with her camcorder to let him see every day what was happening down in the greenhouse. Each day he waited and watched.
That August, Cerny was born. Her first day out of the house, we wheeled her in the pram right into the living room, right up to the side of his hospital bed.
At the sight of the newborn baby, without a word, Em pulled together what little strength he had left, and held his arms up in the air. He wanted to hold her. We put her in his arms, and he held her by his side. For ten or fifteen minutes she slept cradled in his arms, Jane sitting beside him . He watched. He looked at the baby.
It was a picture of life coming in and life going out. But mostly it was a vision of life and light. As it turned out Em, like Simeon before him, was released, and died only a few days later.
We come together as what has been called “a gathering darkness” casts a shadow over the whole land. Like Mary and Joseph we come to remember our past and God’s saving actions, to renew our commitment to our God, and like Simeon and Em, to catch a glimpse of the light so we can tell others what we have seen. So that like the boy who was born to be a light, we too can become a light for others. So that we can be propagators of light and life for the whole world.
We have now only a moment to catch that glimpse and then live accordingly. If only for a moment, it is more than enough. Far more than enough to become the light that we carry.
Amen.
To Be A Light
Candlemas is a time to remember, to recollect. To recollect oneself means to gather oneself up into meditation. We have here and now only a moment for this. But that is enough.
So when does this story begin? Forty days ago when the baby was born: the boy who was born to be a light: the Light, really – the Light of the World. Or, maybe it began when the angel first told Mary of her special calling. Or, during the reign of King David. Or, when our people were slaves in Egypt. Or, when our ancestor Abraham set out from his home town of Ur on the Chaldes to become the father of more than all the stars in the heavens and all the grains of sand on the seashore - to be a blessing to all the peoples of God’s creation. Whenever we choose to begin the story, it is one fraught with difficulties from the very beginning.
It was the custom to dedicate the first son to God forty days after his birth - to offer a sacrifice at the Temple to redeem the child. They did so to remind themselves that their children belonged to God. It was a reminder that God has a genuine claim on the very best we have to offer, our children.
The required sacrifice was a lamb, but those too poor to buy a lamb could offer a lesser sacrifice of the birds. The crowds in the Temple precincts would know who they were: bird people were poor people.
The consolation may have been that they were not alone. Many people were out of work. The land was occupied by Rome. Taxes were high. The government unstable. The economy had tanked. There was resistance throughout the land. Common folk had trouble making ends meet. The lines in front of the pigeon sellers can be assumed to have been very long.
The offering of these birds would be a memorial to all the first born males ordered killed by Pharaoh in that first Holocaust which only Moses survived. This custom binds them to their people and their past just as this Eucharist ties us to ours.
They had come to make a sacrifice and a commitment. Every commitment comes with a cost. Little did they know the offering they were making - not only to God, but for the whole world. Nor could they have been prepared for the old man.
Simeon had been praying and waiting, hoping and studying, waiting for God to reveal the light of the world. Simeon was an old man waiting to be released. Waiting for his people to be released. Waiting to see what we all hope to see but are too busy to remember to look for: a glimpse of the future. A glimpse of the truth. A glimpse of relief and release.
Simeon, we can imagine, like so many of us, had grown weary. Weary of the occupation. Weary of failed policies and failed programs. Weary of the failure of religious and political leaders. Weary of being weary. Everything and everyone who had promised life only yielded weariness and death. So he was waiting for death, and waiting to see if God really keeps promises.
The old man takes the child out of Mary’s arms. Imagine that! Who is he, she must wonder? What is he doing with my child, she thinks?
Suddenly, Simeon becomes a poet for the ages: announcing for all who care to listen and hear that this is not her child, but God’s very own. That this child was born to be light. Light for all peoples. Everywhere and throughout all time. Simeon has seen the light.
Can you see it, he cries out? Here is the light which will withstand all darkness, any darkness - even death upon a Roman cross!.
Then quietly he hands the child back to his mother, and he is gone. Released. God’s promise fulfilled. Simeon returns to God as the mother and father look on. Joseph with the birds in his hands. Mary with the child born to be a light. All the other mothers and fathers looking on.
Now we are here this morning. We are a part of that same crowd, straining to catch a glimpse of the light. Holding the light in our own hands, if only for a moment. As it was for Simeon, a moment will have to be long enough.
In Connecticut we lived next door to an old man - Em Tramposch. He had devoted his life to propagating life with his hands: he was a nurseryman. From his fingers new life seemingly would spring forth every day. He had a deep sense of where that life came from. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice, but most of all you could see it in his hands.
We would spend days and nights in his greenhouse, watching his hands work: cutting, dipping and planting cuttings, listening to what he had to say about the economy, politics and Patsy Kline. For the last four years we were there Em had cancer. Some days were better than others, some not so good at all, but nearly every day he was in the greenhouse propagating life.
One summer he became bed ridden. Jane, his wife, found ways with her camcorder to let him see every day what was happening down in the greenhouse. Each day he waited and watched.
That August, Cerny was born. Her first day out of the house, we wheeled her in the pram right into the living room, right up to the side of his hospital bed.
At the sight of the newborn baby, without a word, Em pulled together what little strength he had left, and held his arms up in the air. He wanted to hold her. We put her in his arms, and he held her by his side. For ten or fifteen minutes she slept cradled in his arms, Jane sitting beside him . He watched. He looked at the baby.
It was a picture of life coming in and life going out. But mostly it was a vision of life and light. As it turned out Em, like Simeon before him, was released, and died only a few days later.
We come together as what has been called “a gathering darkness” casts a shadow over the whole land. Like Mary and Joseph we come to remember our past and God’s saving actions, to renew our commitment to our God, and like Simeon and Em, to catch a glimpse of the light so we can tell others what we have seen. So that like the boy who was born to be a light, we too can become a light for others. So that we can be propagators of light and life for the whole world.
We have now only a moment to catch that glimpse and then live accordingly. If only for a moment, it is more than enough. Far more than enough to become the light that we carry.
Amen.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Becoming A Christian
25 January 2009/Epiphany3B * Mark 1:14-20
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
Becoming A Christian
As the events of this past Inaugural Week unfolded, I found myself reflecting on my growing up in Oak Park, a western suburb of Chicago. I can remember my father standing in the back of First Congregational Church as a deacon, in his mourning suit, beside Dr. Percy Julian, the man who first synthesized cortisone and progesterone, thus improving the health of millions of lives. As a young boy I had no idea his was the only African-American family in our village, and that there were those people in town who would resort to tactics like fire-bombing his house in an attempt to drive the Julians out. Yet, there he was in church with us every Sunday. This would be years before we ever heard Dr. King’s name.
I can remember riding the Lake Street El into the Loop, passing through the city’s west side, aware of the high rise projects and tumble down tenements signaling a life-style very different from ours in Oak Park. I remember what it felt like when after Dr. King was assassinated and the west side went up in flames and fury, right up to Austin Boulevard, the imaginary but very real line of demarcation between city and suburb.
It wasn’t until 1969, however, when I first read Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings that I got any real sense of what it was like to grow up in America as an African-American. The chapter on what pride she and others in rural Arkansas felt when Joe Louis became the heavyweight champion of the world, and that it would not be a night for a black person to be found walking down the road that night, remains seared into my memory.
Her most recent book, Letter To My Daughter, concludes with a chapter titled Keep The Faith, about how the faith of the grandmother who raised her is what has kept her able to put one foot in front of the other all these years. Most interesting, however, are the opening and closing sentences, “Many things continue to amaze me, even well into my seventh decade. I’m startled or at least taken aback when people walk up to me and without being questioned inform me that they are Christians. My first response is the question, ‘Already?’ It seems to me that becoming a Christian is a lifelong endeavor. I believe that is also true for one wanting to become a Buddhist, or a Muslim, a Jew, Jainist, or a Taoist. The persons striving to live their religious beliefs know that the idyllic condition cannot be arrived at and held on to eternally. It is in the search itself that one finds the ecstasy…Whenever I begin to question whether God exists…all I have to do is continue trying to be a Christian.” (Random House, NY:2008)pp165-167.
Becoming a Christian. When one contemplates this short passage from Mark’s gospel what we find are some folks very much like us beginning a journey of becoming a Christian. One needs to truly spend time contemplating the kind of condensed narratives that Mark offers us, for when we do we discover that nearly every single word is carefully chosen and fully charged with depths, plural, of meaning.
For instance, since we are told Jesus is in Galilee, we know he is far away from Judea and Jerusalem and all the political and religious authorities. That single word signals that he is in a region where Gentiles and Jews lived in close proximity. It is here, not the Holy City on a Hill, where he chooses to announce the Good News, the Gospel, of God. It is a call to Repent and Believe. Repent means to change one’s mind, one’s allegiance, but even more to turn away physically from all other ways of life. To believe means more than to accept some assertions or doctrines as true, but rather to allow one’s whole self be claimed by the reality of God’s rule which in Christ even now is breaking in. There is no time to wait. A relationship with God is essential to accept right now. God is already offering to embrace you, says Jesus. Are you willing to accept?
Then rather than setting about right away to challenge all other competing authorities, it is significant that his first act is to gather some disciples. In those days great teachers and leaders of movements generally waited for disciples to come to them. Jesus seeks us out. The details again are spare but telling. Peter and Andrew fish with a net from the shoreline. John and James work for their father as Zebedee and Sons Fishermen, from a boat with hired hands. That is, there is a significant difference in status between these pairs of brothers. There is work for everyone from every strata of society to do – and life in community with Jesus is central to Mark’s story and the Gospel of God.
The story suggests that Jesus sees something in us that we do not see ourselves. The One who can transform fisher of fish into fishers of people for the Kingdom will also make of us something new – something we might never imagine. So this is a story that asks if we are willing like Peter, Andrew, James and John, to allow Jesus to transform us? Are we ready to accept His call?
Then comes Mark’s favorite word – immediately. Immediately they leave the instruments and tools of their trade, and in James’ and John’s case all those hired servants as well. They will leave their boat for a new boat – the church -which is why this is called the Nave from the word from which we also get navy. From this new boat they will fish for people, have a new Father, and coworkers who will not be servants, but sisters and brothers in the Lord. Off they go immediately to embark on a journey to a future yet unclear!
This is, according to Mark, how one embarks on becoming a Christian-immediately following Jesus on a journey to a future yet unclear.
As one reads all of Mark’s gospel at least two themes emerge. 1) This business of becoming a Christian, the work of repentance and belief, is ongoing. There is to be no end point until that time when God will bring it all together. 2) There are things that must be left behind to make this journey of becoming a Christian.
As we embark on this journey of becoming Christians, we will do well to contemplate these two themes. One recalls the words of Emil Brunner, “The Revelation of God is not a book or a doctrine but a living person.” We are those people who believe this living person, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, is present wherever two or three are gathered in his name. What will it mean to make our full commitment to Him? What will it mean to allow God in Christ to transform us according to His will, not ours? And finally, what must we leave behind to move forward with Him?
If we are to grow, individually or as a parish community, it will not be by holding on to “things as they are.” The promise, however, is that those who truly are willing to accept God’s invitation, let go and let God transform us and make us a new people, will enjoy the familial intimacy with God that is characteristic of the living person of Christ and of God’s Kingdom! Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
Becoming A Christian
As the events of this past Inaugural Week unfolded, I found myself reflecting on my growing up in Oak Park, a western suburb of Chicago. I can remember my father standing in the back of First Congregational Church as a deacon, in his mourning suit, beside Dr. Percy Julian, the man who first synthesized cortisone and progesterone, thus improving the health of millions of lives. As a young boy I had no idea his was the only African-American family in our village, and that there were those people in town who would resort to tactics like fire-bombing his house in an attempt to drive the Julians out. Yet, there he was in church with us every Sunday. This would be years before we ever heard Dr. King’s name.
I can remember riding the Lake Street El into the Loop, passing through the city’s west side, aware of the high rise projects and tumble down tenements signaling a life-style very different from ours in Oak Park. I remember what it felt like when after Dr. King was assassinated and the west side went up in flames and fury, right up to Austin Boulevard, the imaginary but very real line of demarcation between city and suburb.
It wasn’t until 1969, however, when I first read Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings that I got any real sense of what it was like to grow up in America as an African-American. The chapter on what pride she and others in rural Arkansas felt when Joe Louis became the heavyweight champion of the world, and that it would not be a night for a black person to be found walking down the road that night, remains seared into my memory.
Her most recent book, Letter To My Daughter, concludes with a chapter titled Keep The Faith, about how the faith of the grandmother who raised her is what has kept her able to put one foot in front of the other all these years. Most interesting, however, are the opening and closing sentences, “Many things continue to amaze me, even well into my seventh decade. I’m startled or at least taken aback when people walk up to me and without being questioned inform me that they are Christians. My first response is the question, ‘Already?’ It seems to me that becoming a Christian is a lifelong endeavor. I believe that is also true for one wanting to become a Buddhist, or a Muslim, a Jew, Jainist, or a Taoist. The persons striving to live their religious beliefs know that the idyllic condition cannot be arrived at and held on to eternally. It is in the search itself that one finds the ecstasy…Whenever I begin to question whether God exists…all I have to do is continue trying to be a Christian.” (Random House, NY:2008)pp165-167.
Becoming a Christian. When one contemplates this short passage from Mark’s gospel what we find are some folks very much like us beginning a journey of becoming a Christian. One needs to truly spend time contemplating the kind of condensed narratives that Mark offers us, for when we do we discover that nearly every single word is carefully chosen and fully charged with depths, plural, of meaning.
For instance, since we are told Jesus is in Galilee, we know he is far away from Judea and Jerusalem and all the political and religious authorities. That single word signals that he is in a region where Gentiles and Jews lived in close proximity. It is here, not the Holy City on a Hill, where he chooses to announce the Good News, the Gospel, of God. It is a call to Repent and Believe. Repent means to change one’s mind, one’s allegiance, but even more to turn away physically from all other ways of life. To believe means more than to accept some assertions or doctrines as true, but rather to allow one’s whole self be claimed by the reality of God’s rule which in Christ even now is breaking in. There is no time to wait. A relationship with God is essential to accept right now. God is already offering to embrace you, says Jesus. Are you willing to accept?
Then rather than setting about right away to challenge all other competing authorities, it is significant that his first act is to gather some disciples. In those days great teachers and leaders of movements generally waited for disciples to come to them. Jesus seeks us out. The details again are spare but telling. Peter and Andrew fish with a net from the shoreline. John and James work for their father as Zebedee and Sons Fishermen, from a boat with hired hands. That is, there is a significant difference in status between these pairs of brothers. There is work for everyone from every strata of society to do – and life in community with Jesus is central to Mark’s story and the Gospel of God.
The story suggests that Jesus sees something in us that we do not see ourselves. The One who can transform fisher of fish into fishers of people for the Kingdom will also make of us something new – something we might never imagine. So this is a story that asks if we are willing like Peter, Andrew, James and John, to allow Jesus to transform us? Are we ready to accept His call?
Then comes Mark’s favorite word – immediately. Immediately they leave the instruments and tools of their trade, and in James’ and John’s case all those hired servants as well. They will leave their boat for a new boat – the church -which is why this is called the Nave from the word from which we also get navy. From this new boat they will fish for people, have a new Father, and coworkers who will not be servants, but sisters and brothers in the Lord. Off they go immediately to embark on a journey to a future yet unclear!
This is, according to Mark, how one embarks on becoming a Christian-immediately following Jesus on a journey to a future yet unclear.
As one reads all of Mark’s gospel at least two themes emerge. 1) This business of becoming a Christian, the work of repentance and belief, is ongoing. There is to be no end point until that time when God will bring it all together. 2) There are things that must be left behind to make this journey of becoming a Christian.
As we embark on this journey of becoming Christians, we will do well to contemplate these two themes. One recalls the words of Emil Brunner, “The Revelation of God is not a book or a doctrine but a living person.” We are those people who believe this living person, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, is present wherever two or three are gathered in his name. What will it mean to make our full commitment to Him? What will it mean to allow God in Christ to transform us according to His will, not ours? And finally, what must we leave behind to move forward with Him?
If we are to grow, individually or as a parish community, it will not be by holding on to “things as they are.” The promise, however, is that those who truly are willing to accept God’s invitation, let go and let God transform us and make us a new people, will enjoy the familial intimacy with God that is characteristic of the living person of Christ and of God’s Kingdom! Amen.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Let Your Heart Be Light
18 January 2008 * Epiphany 2B
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Let Your Heart Be Light
One never knows where one will find inspiration – which literally means breathing in, as in, “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.” Inspiration literally means to breathe in. So we are meant to breathe in the Holy Spirit.
Which I must have been doing during a quick run through Barnes and Noble looking for a book I had heard about but did not know the title, author or any other pertinent information! But there on the cut-out table, marked down 50% was a tiny little book – it was the illustrated lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, first preformed by Judy Garland in the film, Meet Me In St. Louis.
When I flipped this tiny book over, on the flyleaf were the lyric, “Let your heart be light.” Well, I thought, that is really what these seasons of Epiphany and Christmas are all about – letting our hearts be Light.
So much so that on the First Sunday after Christmas we prayed, “Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives.”
Just as today we pray, that “Christ is the Light of the World…Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory…”
Enkindle – to stir up, fire up, inspire, rouse, awaken, ignite, instill, incite! It is all a way of saying that the Incarnation in which the Word becomes flesh and moves into the neighborhood does so by taking up residence in our hearts – the Light that is the Life of all persons resides within us, at our center. He makes a home in our hearts.
This light of each person is not meant for themselves, but meant for all, that all might see better the other gifts of creation. It is what Jesus talks about when he urges us not to hide this light, not to put it under a bushel, but to put it on a lamp-stand so it will give light to the whole household – which in Biblical terms is always meant “the Household of God.”
It is oiko in the Greek – from which we get words like economy (oiko-nomos, law of the household), and ecology (oiko-logie, study of the household, understood as the environment in which we live).
The idea is that we have all been given the gift of Light which is the Life of the world, Jesus. And that in giving it away, letting go of what we already have, is what gives us eternal life in return. It is the Light of Life. This Light is what unites us with God in Christ. And it is meant to give Light and Life to the whole world, everyone, all people.
To hold onto this Light, to hold onto our gifts, results in a world that is upside down from God’s view of things. So God came to us as Jesus to turn us right-side up again!
We have difficulties with all this. We find it difficult to believe God would give us a gift at all – so we hold onto it for dear life lest God stop giving us his Word, his Sacraments, his Light, and his Life.
Little do we suspect what difficulties this causes for others in the household. So much so that others begin to find it difficult to see the Light that shines within them. This causes the entire household to slip into darkness, a return to the darkness that covered the whole of the face of the world - before God spoke and there was Light.
Yet, we are those people who believe and pray that this Light is already enkindled, instilled, stirred up within all hearts everywhere. We need to believe what we pray and what God’s Word and Sacraments mean to instill and enkindle in our own hearts.
The story is told of the Preacher who went about town preaching, “Put God into your life. Put God into your life!” But the Holy Rabbi of the town said, “Our task is not to put God into our lives. God is already there. Our task is simply to realize that!”
God is the ground of our being. The relationship between God and creature is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. God is always at home. We are the ones who are not at home. We are not at home, even within ourselves.
Centering Prayer is one way we begin to see the Light that is already enkindled in our hearts. Centering Prayer is one way of coming home to God – the God who is Light and Life, the God who is always at home. The first language of God is silence – the silence of Centering Prayer.
Know, my sisters, my brothers, little by little – it takes time – Jesus will reveal to you how much he is with you all the time.
He calls you to follow him
So that you may do something beautiful with your life and bear much fruit.
The world needs you, the Church needs you, Jesus needs you.
They need your love and your Light.
There is a hidden place in your heart where Jesus lives.
This is a deep secret you are called to live.
Let Jesus live in you.
Go forward with him!
Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas,
Let your Heart be Light.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Let Your Heart Be Light
One never knows where one will find inspiration – which literally means breathing in, as in, “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.” Inspiration literally means to breathe in. So we are meant to breathe in the Holy Spirit.
Which I must have been doing during a quick run through Barnes and Noble looking for a book I had heard about but did not know the title, author or any other pertinent information! But there on the cut-out table, marked down 50% was a tiny little book – it was the illustrated lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, first preformed by Judy Garland in the film, Meet Me In St. Louis.
When I flipped this tiny book over, on the flyleaf were the lyric, “Let your heart be light.” Well, I thought, that is really what these seasons of Epiphany and Christmas are all about – letting our hearts be Light.
So much so that on the First Sunday after Christmas we prayed, “Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives.”
Just as today we pray, that “Christ is the Light of the World…Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory…”
Enkindle – to stir up, fire up, inspire, rouse, awaken, ignite, instill, incite! It is all a way of saying that the Incarnation in which the Word becomes flesh and moves into the neighborhood does so by taking up residence in our hearts – the Light that is the Life of all persons resides within us, at our center. He makes a home in our hearts.
This light of each person is not meant for themselves, but meant for all, that all might see better the other gifts of creation. It is what Jesus talks about when he urges us not to hide this light, not to put it under a bushel, but to put it on a lamp-stand so it will give light to the whole household – which in Biblical terms is always meant “the Household of God.”
It is oiko in the Greek – from which we get words like economy (oiko-nomos, law of the household), and ecology (oiko-logie, study of the household, understood as the environment in which we live).
The idea is that we have all been given the gift of Light which is the Life of the world, Jesus. And that in giving it away, letting go of what we already have, is what gives us eternal life in return. It is the Light of Life. This Light is what unites us with God in Christ. And it is meant to give Light and Life to the whole world, everyone, all people.
To hold onto this Light, to hold onto our gifts, results in a world that is upside down from God’s view of things. So God came to us as Jesus to turn us right-side up again!
We have difficulties with all this. We find it difficult to believe God would give us a gift at all – so we hold onto it for dear life lest God stop giving us his Word, his Sacraments, his Light, and his Life.
Little do we suspect what difficulties this causes for others in the household. So much so that others begin to find it difficult to see the Light that shines within them. This causes the entire household to slip into darkness, a return to the darkness that covered the whole of the face of the world - before God spoke and there was Light.
Yet, we are those people who believe and pray that this Light is already enkindled, instilled, stirred up within all hearts everywhere. We need to believe what we pray and what God’s Word and Sacraments mean to instill and enkindle in our own hearts.
The story is told of the Preacher who went about town preaching, “Put God into your life. Put God into your life!” But the Holy Rabbi of the town said, “Our task is not to put God into our lives. God is already there. Our task is simply to realize that!”
God is the ground of our being. The relationship between God and creature is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. God is always at home. We are the ones who are not at home. We are not at home, even within ourselves.
Centering Prayer is one way we begin to see the Light that is already enkindled in our hearts. Centering Prayer is one way of coming home to God – the God who is Light and Life, the God who is always at home. The first language of God is silence – the silence of Centering Prayer.
Know, my sisters, my brothers, little by little – it takes time – Jesus will reveal to you how much he is with you all the time.
He calls you to follow him
So that you may do something beautiful with your life and bear much fruit.
The world needs you, the Church needs you, Jesus needs you.
They need your love and your Light.
There is a hidden place in your heart where Jesus lives.
This is a deep secret you are called to live.
Let Jesus live in you.
Go forward with him!
Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas,
Let your Heart be Light.
Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)