27 March 2011/Lent 3-A - John 4:5-42
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Mount Calvary, Baltimore, Maryland
I Thirst
So it is when we find Jesus comes to the Samaritan woman at the well. She is, perhaps, the most broken woman in the whole gospel story. The very fact that she comes at noon to draw water, rather than in the early morning when the other women of the village would be there, suggests that at the very least she is ashamed. In all likelihood she is the subject of scorn and derision. People look down upon her because of her brokenness in marriage and in relationships.
So here she is trying to avoid being seen, and instead there is someone at the well. Not just someone, but a man. Not just a man but a Jewish man. In that time and place men and women were not to be seen in public together. And Jews and Samaritans had nothing to do with one another. So she is startled to see him there. She is even more startled that he speaks to her.
Jesus, we are told, is tired. As he addresses this broken, lonely and ashamed woman, he asks, “Give me a drink.” It is an invitation to be at risk. It is an invitation to cross boundaries and ancient taboos. But he is thirsty, and she has a bucket, and there is the well of their mutual ancestor Jacob.
Notice how Jesus does not look down upon her as the others do. He calls no attention to her brokenness. Instead, he acknowledges his own brokenness. He is tired. He is thirsty. Those of us familiar with this story will recognize this thirst of his. Among his very last words on the cross are the words, “I thirst.”
What Jesus is seeking here is someone who shares his thirst. His thirst is a thirst for peace. What he calls God’s shalom. This shalom is in turn a thirst for justice and healing for all people, especially people like this Samaritan woman. Most of all, Jesus thirsts for dignity and respect for all people. Not some people. Not a lot of people. All people.
This woman knows no respect. But Jesus reaches out to her from his need, not hers. By reaching out to her from his own need he gives her dignity and respect – there is something she can do for him. Jesus gives her identity and purpose. Suddenly something new, something real, wells up inside of her. It is a new confidence, a new spirit. And from this new spirit her real thirst is revealed. It is a thirst that will not be quenched by the waters at the bottom of Jacob’s well. She thirsts for real life, authentic life, and Jesus gives it to her without cost and without condition.
After some astonishingly frank and assertive conversation, her response is that of total commitment. And why not? She, who had no life and no purpose, but only heartache, pain and shame, is suddenly given the gift of eternal life with Jesus who is revealed to her as God’s own anointed one.
The disciples return with lunch and appear horrified that their master Jesus has compromised himself by talking with this woman in broad daylight. Even Nicodemus had had the tact to come in the dark of night. The disciples cannot understand the crossing of ancient boundaries, such a departure from the old taboos.
While Jesus tries to help the disciples see that this is the kind of life of risk and ministry to which he calls them, the woman runs off, leaving her bucket behind. She does not need it any longer. She has living water welling up inside of her! She is empowered by the simple fact that Jesus trusts her with his needs, his exhaustion and his thirst. And he trusts her with his identity.
She runs into town and tells everyone of her encounter at the well with the source of true and living water. She says something like, “I belong solely to him. He is my life. He is the hope of every dream. He is of absolute significance to me. I want you to know him too!” Notice how the townspeople do not trust her testimony. They run to see for themselves. They end up begging Jesus to stay in their village. Jesus stays for two more days. More people come to know Jesus. All because of her willingness to risk talking to the stranger at the well. More people came to Jesus because of her witness. Her word. Her willingness to reveal her brokenness to him. She becomes the first evangelist. Talk about being transformed by grace!
Notice how the townspeople do not even thank her. Even worse they are dismissive of her testimony. They do not seem to see that she alone made it possible for them to meet Jesus. They do not yet understand what Jesus is saying to them. They cannot see her like he sees her.
Like the woman, we all come to the well over and over again to draw water. But do we see the man sitting at the well? Can we hear what he is saying to us? Are we even aware he is speaking to us? Can we feel what it is like to be asked by Jesus to do something for him?
Can we see how it is that Jesus does not look down on the poor and broken ones? He does not come with something to give them. He does not coming pretending to tell them how to live their lives. He does not say, “Here, I have what you need. Take this and become like me.”
Instead he says that they have something that he needs. There is something they can do for Jesus and for us. Hearing this news the Samaritan woman is liberated from all that weighs her down. Jesus enters into a relationship with her first. He gives her value. He gives her purpose. He gives her new life by simply letting her know there is something she can do for him. We wonder if we might approach the poor and the broken hearted like he does.
This story means to ask us if we can approach others in this way. This story means to ask us if we are willing to reveal our brokenness to these others and to him. And this story means to ask us if we are willing, like the Samaritan Woman, to go and tell others what we know about Jesus.
As we move steadfastly toward Holy Week we remember that as the story nears its conclusion on the cross, Jesus is still thirsty. “I thirst,” he says. He is still thirsty today.
We are that woman. We come to the well week after week. Week after week Jesus asks us for a drink. We know the kinds of things for which he thirsts.
Are we ready to bring him a drink? Are we ready to talk with him? Are we ready to reveal our own brokenness to him? Do we make our full commitment to him? Are we ready to leave our buckets so we can run off and tell others?
Jesus is sitting before us right now. He is tired. Very very tired. He asks us to give him a drink. What shall we do?
Amen.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
At The Crossroads
20 March 2011/Lent 2A – Genesis 12:1-4a/John 3:1-17
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore, Maryland
At The Crossroad
Abram and Nicodemus – we are meant to see that these two figures of our faith stand for us. Just as they also play a role similar to Mary the Mother of God.
Our text from Genesis is deceptively small, yet in a sense tells the entire story of scripture in slightly less than four verses. Abram is called by God to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Abram’s country was a city named Haran, which means “highway” or “crossroad.”
All of us at one time or another stand at a crossroad – and it can easily be argued that every moment of every day is a kind of crossroad. Every moment demands of us a choice for life or a choice for death, a choice for good or a choice for bad.
To stand at the crossroad can be paralyzing. We look one way, we look another, we look back, we look forward. It can be a moment, it can seem like an eternity, standing at the crossroad.
We stand and we wonder: Am I ready to go? Am I prepared to move on? Do I have what it takes to go this way or that? Am I good enough to do what is being asked?
Until something or someone moves us – gets us “off the dime” as we used to say. In Abram’s case it is the Lord. He is meant to leave all that is comfortable, familiar, “home,” and initiate God’s new plan for all the peoples of the earth. Abram quite honestly could have replied, and perhaps in some unreported moment did, “I am not really qualified for this task. Surely you must mean someone else!”
Yet, our own experience, and the witness of scripture from beginning to end is that the one who calls is the one who qualifies – the one who calls is the one who equips. So if God is doing the calling, the answer to all of the questions we might have is “yes.” A faithful response for us is to say yes, and to begin moving from what is known to what is promised.
It is the same story with Nicodemus in our Gospel. He knows well all the ways of the God of Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, Rachel, Leah and Jacob – or so he thinks. He has spent a lifetime so far teaching and interpreting for others what God asks of us.
Yet, in Jesus he senses that God is at work doing something new – something bold – something never before imagined! He approaches Jesus cautiously in the dark of night, lest anyone who knows him and respects his judgments see him with this new manifestation of God’s purpose for a broken world.
And what does Jesus say, but that one must be born from above or again (the Greek word can mean both and it really doesn’t matter which meaning we take here). “Are you kidding,” asks Nic? Speaking for all of us he blurts out, “How can these things be?” Only Nic has the courage to ask that on our behalf, for we are Nicodemus, just as we are Abram being asked to head off in a new direction, on a new adventure, to initiate some new thing God has in mind for the whole world.
Jesus says the Spirit is like the wind – you know not where it comes from, when it is coming, nor do you know where it is taking you – but the Spirit is of God and all you need to do is say, “Yes!”
Just as Abram and Sari said “yes,” just as Mary the Mother of God said “yes” – just as Noah, Moses, Jeremiah, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Mary and Martha, and Mary Magdalene all said “Yes!”
Not one of them had the qualifications to do what God was asking – not one of them was equipped, prepared or in any way ready to do what God was asking, and yet, they said “yes” and here we are. Without their "yes" we would not be here.
As we enter more deeply into this season of Lent, we must listen for the wind! We must be ready to sense the slightest breeze or puff of the wind of God’s spirit – just a breath is all we need to feel, to sense, for us to leave the crossroad and go to where God needs us to bring blessings to all people – as Abram was promised to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth.
As we hear the incarnate Word of God declaring – For God so loves the world that God gives….
"God does not give us gifts that are separate from him. He gives himself to us."
Like Abram and Nicodemus, this Second Sunday in Lent we stand at a crossroad. God in Christ Jesus is calling to us to leave our places of comfort and to head out to be a blessing to the peoples of the world.
No matter how challenging that may seem, God will equip us for the task as he has for generations before us and will continue to do for generations to come as we embrace and hold fast to the unchangeable truth of God’s Word! Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore, Maryland
At The Crossroad
Abram and Nicodemus – we are meant to see that these two figures of our faith stand for us. Just as they also play a role similar to Mary the Mother of God.
Our text from Genesis is deceptively small, yet in a sense tells the entire story of scripture in slightly less than four verses. Abram is called by God to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Abram’s country was a city named Haran, which means “highway” or “crossroad.”
All of us at one time or another stand at a crossroad – and it can easily be argued that every moment of every day is a kind of crossroad. Every moment demands of us a choice for life or a choice for death, a choice for good or a choice for bad.
To stand at the crossroad can be paralyzing. We look one way, we look another, we look back, we look forward. It can be a moment, it can seem like an eternity, standing at the crossroad.
We stand and we wonder: Am I ready to go? Am I prepared to move on? Do I have what it takes to go this way or that? Am I good enough to do what is being asked?
Until something or someone moves us – gets us “off the dime” as we used to say. In Abram’s case it is the Lord. He is meant to leave all that is comfortable, familiar, “home,” and initiate God’s new plan for all the peoples of the earth. Abram quite honestly could have replied, and perhaps in some unreported moment did, “I am not really qualified for this task. Surely you must mean someone else!”
Yet, our own experience, and the witness of scripture from beginning to end is that the one who calls is the one who qualifies – the one who calls is the one who equips. So if God is doing the calling, the answer to all of the questions we might have is “yes.” A faithful response for us is to say yes, and to begin moving from what is known to what is promised.
It is the same story with Nicodemus in our Gospel. He knows well all the ways of the God of Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, Rachel, Leah and Jacob – or so he thinks. He has spent a lifetime so far teaching and interpreting for others what God asks of us.
Yet, in Jesus he senses that God is at work doing something new – something bold – something never before imagined! He approaches Jesus cautiously in the dark of night, lest anyone who knows him and respects his judgments see him with this new manifestation of God’s purpose for a broken world.
And what does Jesus say, but that one must be born from above or again (the Greek word can mean both and it really doesn’t matter which meaning we take here). “Are you kidding,” asks Nic? Speaking for all of us he blurts out, “How can these things be?” Only Nic has the courage to ask that on our behalf, for we are Nicodemus, just as we are Abram being asked to head off in a new direction, on a new adventure, to initiate some new thing God has in mind for the whole world.
Jesus says the Spirit is like the wind – you know not where it comes from, when it is coming, nor do you know where it is taking you – but the Spirit is of God and all you need to do is say, “Yes!”
Just as Abram and Sari said “yes,” just as Mary the Mother of God said “yes” – just as Noah, Moses, Jeremiah, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Mary and Martha, and Mary Magdalene all said “Yes!”
Not one of them had the qualifications to do what God was asking – not one of them was equipped, prepared or in any way ready to do what God was asking, and yet, they said “yes” and here we are. Without their "yes" we would not be here.
As we enter more deeply into this season of Lent, we must listen for the wind! We must be ready to sense the slightest breeze or puff of the wind of God’s spirit – just a breath is all we need to feel, to sense, for us to leave the crossroad and go to where God needs us to bring blessings to all people – as Abram was promised to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth.
As we hear the incarnate Word of God declaring – For God so loves the world that God gives….
"God does not give us gifts that are separate from him. He gives himself to us."
Like Abram and Nicodemus, this Second Sunday in Lent we stand at a crossroad. God in Christ Jesus is calling to us to leave our places of comfort and to head out to be a blessing to the peoples of the world.
No matter how challenging that may seem, God will equip us for the task as he has for generations before us and will continue to do for generations to come as we embrace and hold fast to the unchangeable truth of God’s Word! Amen.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Where Are You?
13 March/Lent 1 A - Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7/Matthew 4:1-11
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peters’ Episcopal Church at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Where Are You? Repent and Come Home!
What is perhaps most interesting in our episodes from Genesis and Matthew is what is missing. Don’t get me wrong, what is there is important, if somewhat overly familiar to the point that we tend to think we know what these stories are all about without really spending time with them.
But let’s begin with what is here. In Matthew’s story of Jesus testing his new vocation as God’s Beloved Son in the wilderness, we are meant to hear some important resonances. We are meant to recall, for instance, that Moses sat atop Mount Sinai, fasting for forty days and forty nights waiting upon God to deliver what would become the basis for an eternal relationship with God – a covenant based in some pronouncements meant to determine our relationship with God and our relationships with one another. The takeaway here: Jesus is the new Moses.
Or, if we recombine this story with the story that immediately precedes this one, our Lord’s baptism, this “new Moses” is in fact the Beloved Son of God who will in every way embody those pronouncements from Sinai in all that he says and does.
That is, Jesus sets the example for how we are meant to fulfill our Baptismal Promise that all that we say and all that we do will proclaim the good news of God in Christ!
And just as Moses and the people of God were tested in the wilderness, so Jesus is tested – perhaps a better word than “tempted” under the circumstances here. When our translators render this antagonist “the tempter” rather than "devil" it is much closer to the Greek diabolos which means something more like “the slanderer." than usual translation "devil.”
So after forty days of no food or drink, is Jesus the anointed one of God, God’s Beloved Son, ready to go to work? Responding to each test to do something spectacular, something super-hero-like, and to make the ultimate power grab, Jesus quotes Moses’ famous sermon we know as Deuteronomy three times: “You cannot live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Deut 8:3)”; “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test (Deut 6:16)”; “The Lord your God shall you worship, and God alone shall you serve (Deut 6:13).”
Evidently being God has little or nothing to do with power and spectacular displays such as turning stones into bread – we are meant to recall that Jesus teaches us to rely on bread that is given daily, just as Moses and the people did in that first wilderness.
That is, Jesus appears to pass the test – the SAT’s or Entrance Exam to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Which, after being waited upon by angels (and wouldn’t we all like to have a bit more detail on what that was like!) he sets out to proclaim to one and all, “Repent, for kingdom of heaven is at hand.” That is the part that is missing, and which I consider to be the real punch line here for the first Sunday of Lent.
To repent means to turn – the idea is that God is at home, it is we who have gone out for a walk. It is we who have strayed from God’s ways as articulated way back on Mount Sinai like lost sheep, as Psalm 119 would have it. So to turn or return to God is the order of the day and the focus of Lent. It is the only way to get home again, as the first man and woman would learn the hard way in the garden.
The Garden – another story we think we know all too well. It is easy to miss, however, that the central problem here is not the disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit, as problematic as that is. The real problem is believing what I call The Big Lie – when the tempter says, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God…”
It’s the same lie the tempter offers Jesus in the wilderness over and over, “Do this, or this, or this and you will be like God.” A funny thing to say to someone who already is God!
And in the garden the sin, if you will, is believing they “will be like God.” That is to forget who they are and forget who we are – imago Dei, created in the image of God, male and female God created us to be like God.
So as usual, the tempter does not have much to offer except a momentary case of amnesia.
But again, what is perhaps the punch line for this story comes after they sew some clothes to become the prototypical Puritans and the origin of species homo protestantorius. After joining the Garment Workers guild, they can hear the footsteps of God in the garden in the cool of the evening. Ashamed of having believed the lie, they hide – or so they think.
Surely any creature created to be like God knows that you cannot hide from God. Nevertheless, they attempt to hide. Displaying God’s more playful side, God goes along with their game and says, “Where are you?”
Which is perhaps the central question we are meant to consider for the next forty day: Where are you? God really wants to know. God really wants you to come home. God really wants you to repent and return to God. And it may begin with a simple, “Here I am, Lord,” another one-liner that appears and reappears throughout the entire sweep of the Biblical narrative.
For when we say, “Here I am, Lord,” we join with all those who have gone before us in getting involved with God’s work in God’s world on behalf of all God’s people and creatures, including the very earth itself – from which the first man is named, Adam from the Hebrew adamah, which means “ground” or “earth.” As we recalled on Ash Wednesday, God takes up a handful of dust from the ground, breathes his breath and spirit into the dust, and here we are – imago Dei, and by our baptism, God’s Beloved with whom God is pleased. Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return - adamah.
So this Lent take some time to come up with an answer to God’s primary question, “Where are you?” For until we know where we are, it is hard to know which way to turn to go home to God – the God who comes to us wherever we are, seeking us, so that he can love us and take us home.
Amen
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peters’ Episcopal Church at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Where Are You? Repent and Come Home!
What is perhaps most interesting in our episodes from Genesis and Matthew is what is missing. Don’t get me wrong, what is there is important, if somewhat overly familiar to the point that we tend to think we know what these stories are all about without really spending time with them.
But let’s begin with what is here. In Matthew’s story of Jesus testing his new vocation as God’s Beloved Son in the wilderness, we are meant to hear some important resonances. We are meant to recall, for instance, that Moses sat atop Mount Sinai, fasting for forty days and forty nights waiting upon God to deliver what would become the basis for an eternal relationship with God – a covenant based in some pronouncements meant to determine our relationship with God and our relationships with one another. The takeaway here: Jesus is the new Moses.
Or, if we recombine this story with the story that immediately precedes this one, our Lord’s baptism, this “new Moses” is in fact the Beloved Son of God who will in every way embody those pronouncements from Sinai in all that he says and does.
That is, Jesus sets the example for how we are meant to fulfill our Baptismal Promise that all that we say and all that we do will proclaim the good news of God in Christ!
And just as Moses and the people of God were tested in the wilderness, so Jesus is tested – perhaps a better word than “tempted” under the circumstances here. When our translators render this antagonist “the tempter” rather than "devil" it is much closer to the Greek diabolos which means something more like “the slanderer." than usual translation "devil.”
So after forty days of no food or drink, is Jesus the anointed one of God, God’s Beloved Son, ready to go to work? Responding to each test to do something spectacular, something super-hero-like, and to make the ultimate power grab, Jesus quotes Moses’ famous sermon we know as Deuteronomy three times: “You cannot live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Deut 8:3)”; “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test (Deut 6:16)”; “The Lord your God shall you worship, and God alone shall you serve (Deut 6:13).”
Evidently being God has little or nothing to do with power and spectacular displays such as turning stones into bread – we are meant to recall that Jesus teaches us to rely on bread that is given daily, just as Moses and the people did in that first wilderness.
That is, Jesus appears to pass the test – the SAT’s or Entrance Exam to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Which, after being waited upon by angels (and wouldn’t we all like to have a bit more detail on what that was like!) he sets out to proclaim to one and all, “Repent, for kingdom of heaven is at hand.” That is the part that is missing, and which I consider to be the real punch line here for the first Sunday of Lent.
To repent means to turn – the idea is that God is at home, it is we who have gone out for a walk. It is we who have strayed from God’s ways as articulated way back on Mount Sinai like lost sheep, as Psalm 119 would have it. So to turn or return to God is the order of the day and the focus of Lent. It is the only way to get home again, as the first man and woman would learn the hard way in the garden.
The Garden – another story we think we know all too well. It is easy to miss, however, that the central problem here is not the disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit, as problematic as that is. The real problem is believing what I call The Big Lie – when the tempter says, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God…”
It’s the same lie the tempter offers Jesus in the wilderness over and over, “Do this, or this, or this and you will be like God.” A funny thing to say to someone who already is God!
And in the garden the sin, if you will, is believing they “will be like God.” That is to forget who they are and forget who we are – imago Dei, created in the image of God, male and female God created us to be like God.
So as usual, the tempter does not have much to offer except a momentary case of amnesia.
But again, what is perhaps the punch line for this story comes after they sew some clothes to become the prototypical Puritans and the origin of species homo protestantorius. After joining the Garment Workers guild, they can hear the footsteps of God in the garden in the cool of the evening. Ashamed of having believed the lie, they hide – or so they think.
Surely any creature created to be like God knows that you cannot hide from God. Nevertheless, they attempt to hide. Displaying God’s more playful side, God goes along with their game and says, “Where are you?”
Which is perhaps the central question we are meant to consider for the next forty day: Where are you? God really wants to know. God really wants you to come home. God really wants you to repent and return to God. And it may begin with a simple, “Here I am, Lord,” another one-liner that appears and reappears throughout the entire sweep of the Biblical narrative.
For when we say, “Here I am, Lord,” we join with all those who have gone before us in getting involved with God’s work in God’s world on behalf of all God’s people and creatures, including the very earth itself – from which the first man is named, Adam from the Hebrew adamah, which means “ground” or “earth.” As we recalled on Ash Wednesday, God takes up a handful of dust from the ground, breathes his breath and spirit into the dust, and here we are – imago Dei, and by our baptism, God’s Beloved with whom God is pleased. Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return - adamah.
So this Lent take some time to come up with an answer to God’s primary question, “Where are you?” For until we know where we are, it is hard to know which way to turn to go home to God – the God who comes to us wherever we are, seeking us, so that he can love us and take us home.
Amen
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Yes!
Last Sunday after the Epiphany - Matthew 17:1-9
Listen To Him
Epiphany begins with the Magi at the manger, Jesus' baptism and the voice declaring, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased, and ends with the brightness of the Transfiguration. The season of light - starlight, the light of Christ, the transfiguring light of God.
Jesus takes us, his disciples, up a high mountain to be with him by ourselves. It is an historical invitation - "the mountain" can only be one mountain - Sinai, that cosmic location high up where one Moses could meet with God face to face and receive the covenant - those pronouncements, those principles that transform a rag-a-tag disparate group of runaway slaves into a people.
Just before this Jesus has made it clear that once in Jerusalem he will be arrested, suffer, die and then be raised up. There can be no doubting that these pronouncements of his made little sense until afterwards. And at the very least, these predictions of his would be an initial source of embarrassment for his closest followers who were no doubt expecting and hoping that he would be the one to defeat and dismiss the Roman occupation. (Which ironically he does, just a few hundred years later!)
But a Sinai experience it is! As Jesus appears to physically become the light of the world, dazzling white, his face shining like the son, as had the face of Moses when he came down off the mountain, suddenly there are Moses and Elijah. The narrative is sparse. We are simply told that they are "talking with him." Wouldn't we want to be listening in on that conversation?
Moses, giver of the Covenant, the Law, Torah, the minimum daily requirements for being a person of God - the God of Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, Rachel, Leah,Jacob and Jesus. Elijah, the prototype prophet, social critic, tasked with reminding the people of God what the minimum daily requirements are to be for all time. Jesus, where, between them? Being prepared for his upcoming Exodus? Getting helpful hints on how to manage religious and secular officials who have no time for God or neighbor?
Evidently Peter, James and John are not listening in. What an astonishing missed opportunity! Instead Peter interrupts the conversation and announces that he wants to build some dwellings, some booths or tents. It is an idea that is not so strange as it seems. Every fall God's people build booths to remember their forty year time of testing in the wilderness - to remember that once we were no people, once we had no home, once we were aliens in a strange land. Once we had enough, dependent on God for Manna each day, daily bread. It is a festival, Sukkot, meant to remind us that we come from rather humble origins and perhaps we should remember this when confronted by people who are homeless, strangers far from their home, hungry and in need of some neighborly love.
God has something else in mind it seems than starting Habitat for Divinity! As Peter interrupts the Holy Three on top of the mountain, God interrupts Peter "while he was speaking" to remind one and all, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"
Be silent, and quit flapping your gums about God. Be still, be silent and listen to him. For God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk. Stop talking, stop building, be still and know that I am God. Listen to him - because when you listen to him you are listening to me.
They fall to the ground, overcome with fear. What is it in our society today that prevents us from falling to the ground overcome with fear? There is so much of which we ought to be ashamed. All we have gone astray from the very principles the Law and the Prophets sought to place in our hearts, in our minds, in our every action every day. How much narcissism and hubris can one society sustain before it finds itself back in the wilderness? Back in exile? In desperate need of a new Exodus?
Falling to the ground looks somewhat like falling to our knees to confess our faults - those sins that separate us from one another and from the love of God. It is a good place for us to listen.
Look what happens when we listen.
Jesus, God incarnate, God made flesh and blood, comes to us, the very one who is God's Son, God's Beloved, the one with whom God is well pleased, comes to us, touches us and says, "Get up and do not fear." He, God, comes down to touch us and dispel our fear.
Then the Beloved continues: "Tell no one the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
So here we are. He has been raised. We can and do tell people about the vision. We do tell people about our Jesus!
The whole vision is astonishing! That God would become small for our sake - to get our attention - to invite us to listen to him once and for all. The God who cannot be contained in this chapel, not even this whole magnificent church we call Mount Calvary! The God who cannot be limited or contained by all of the heavens and all of the earth becomes small for our sake. The God who cannot possibly be contained in morsel of bread and a sip of wine, but by some mysterious calculus of faith, out of some mysterious vision of our own, he is.
He who came to us in our likeness invites us to be transfigured into his likeness. The word here, by the way, is metamorphosis, suggesting that whatever we are now is not what we are destined to be just as a caterpillar is not destined to remain a caterpillar.
Behold the light of his countenance. See him with Moses and Elijah. Stop doing whatever you are doing and listen to him.
There is no more important human task than this - that we listen to him and be changed into his likeness.
That there even is a season of Epiphany all began with a young woman - a teenage girl, really. When asked to bear God's Son, she was fearful. But the angel said do not be afraid, and she responded, "Yes, according to your word." Her "yes" is why we are here at all.
As we listen to him today, he touches us and says, "Get up and do not fear."
To be changed into his likeness can seem like a daunting task and responsibility. But each time a piece of his body is placed in our outstretched hands, each time the chalice shimmering with his blood is passed to us, trembling we say, "Yes!"
It is our "yes" that combines with Mary's "yes" that gives hope for the whole world and everything and everyone therein.
Amen.
Listen To Him
Epiphany begins with the Magi at the manger, Jesus' baptism and the voice declaring, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased, and ends with the brightness of the Transfiguration. The season of light - starlight, the light of Christ, the transfiguring light of God.
Jesus takes us, his disciples, up a high mountain to be with him by ourselves. It is an historical invitation - "the mountain" can only be one mountain - Sinai, that cosmic location high up where one Moses could meet with God face to face and receive the covenant - those pronouncements, those principles that transform a rag-a-tag disparate group of runaway slaves into a people.
Just before this Jesus has made it clear that once in Jerusalem he will be arrested, suffer, die and then be raised up. There can be no doubting that these pronouncements of his made little sense until afterwards. And at the very least, these predictions of his would be an initial source of embarrassment for his closest followers who were no doubt expecting and hoping that he would be the one to defeat and dismiss the Roman occupation. (Which ironically he does, just a few hundred years later!)
But a Sinai experience it is! As Jesus appears to physically become the light of the world, dazzling white, his face shining like the son, as had the face of Moses when he came down off the mountain, suddenly there are Moses and Elijah. The narrative is sparse. We are simply told that they are "talking with him." Wouldn't we want to be listening in on that conversation?
Moses, giver of the Covenant, the Law, Torah, the minimum daily requirements for being a person of God - the God of Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, Rachel, Leah,Jacob and Jesus. Elijah, the prototype prophet, social critic, tasked with reminding the people of God what the minimum daily requirements are to be for all time. Jesus, where, between them? Being prepared for his upcoming Exodus? Getting helpful hints on how to manage religious and secular officials who have no time for God or neighbor?
Evidently Peter, James and John are not listening in. What an astonishing missed opportunity! Instead Peter interrupts the conversation and announces that he wants to build some dwellings, some booths or tents. It is an idea that is not so strange as it seems. Every fall God's people build booths to remember their forty year time of testing in the wilderness - to remember that once we were no people, once we had no home, once we were aliens in a strange land. Once we had enough, dependent on God for Manna each day, daily bread. It is a festival, Sukkot, meant to remind us that we come from rather humble origins and perhaps we should remember this when confronted by people who are homeless, strangers far from their home, hungry and in need of some neighborly love.
God has something else in mind it seems than starting Habitat for Divinity! As Peter interrupts the Holy Three on top of the mountain, God interrupts Peter "while he was speaking" to remind one and all, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"
Be silent, and quit flapping your gums about God. Be still, be silent and listen to him. For God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk. Stop talking, stop building, be still and know that I am God. Listen to him - because when you listen to him you are listening to me.
They fall to the ground, overcome with fear. What is it in our society today that prevents us from falling to the ground overcome with fear? There is so much of which we ought to be ashamed. All we have gone astray from the very principles the Law and the Prophets sought to place in our hearts, in our minds, in our every action every day. How much narcissism and hubris can one society sustain before it finds itself back in the wilderness? Back in exile? In desperate need of a new Exodus?
Falling to the ground looks somewhat like falling to our knees to confess our faults - those sins that separate us from one another and from the love of God. It is a good place for us to listen.
Look what happens when we listen.
Jesus, God incarnate, God made flesh and blood, comes to us, the very one who is God's Son, God's Beloved, the one with whom God is well pleased, comes to us, touches us and says, "Get up and do not fear." He, God, comes down to touch us and dispel our fear.
Then the Beloved continues: "Tell no one the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
So here we are. He has been raised. We can and do tell people about the vision. We do tell people about our Jesus!
The whole vision is astonishing! That God would become small for our sake - to get our attention - to invite us to listen to him once and for all. The God who cannot be contained in this chapel, not even this whole magnificent church we call Mount Calvary! The God who cannot be limited or contained by all of the heavens and all of the earth becomes small for our sake. The God who cannot possibly be contained in morsel of bread and a sip of wine, but by some mysterious calculus of faith, out of some mysterious vision of our own, he is.
He who came to us in our likeness invites us to be transfigured into his likeness. The word here, by the way, is metamorphosis, suggesting that whatever we are now is not what we are destined to be just as a caterpillar is not destined to remain a caterpillar.
Behold the light of his countenance. See him with Moses and Elijah. Stop doing whatever you are doing and listen to him.
There is no more important human task than this - that we listen to him and be changed into his likeness.
That there even is a season of Epiphany all began with a young woman - a teenage girl, really. When asked to bear God's Son, she was fearful. But the angel said do not be afraid, and she responded, "Yes, according to your word." Her "yes" is why we are here at all.
As we listen to him today, he touches us and says, "Get up and do not fear."
To be changed into his likeness can seem like a daunting task and responsibility. But each time a piece of his body is placed in our outstretched hands, each time the chalice shimmering with his blood is passed to us, trembling we say, "Yes!"
It is our "yes" that combines with Mary's "yes" that gives hope for the whole world and everything and everyone therein.
Amen.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
To Those In Exile
27 February 2010 – Isaiah49:8-16a/Psalm131/Matthew6:24-34
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Mount Calvary, Baltimore, Maryland
I Will Not Forget You
I will not forget you. Wait upon the Lord. Do not worry. Some of the most intimate descriptions of God’s care for us are bundled together this Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany. “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” “But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast.” “Consider the birds of the air….the lilies of the field.”
Isaiah writes to a community of God in exile – Babylon to be precise. Israel cannot see beyond the present boundaries of exile, and yet God speaks as if they are already home. We might well ask ourselves, what mighty “empires” and false gods seek to keep us in exile? Seek to make us give in to ways that are not God’s ways?
I think looked at from that perspective, we can all find ourselves in exile somehow, somewhere – if nowhere else, in this chapel where we have been separated out from the main body of what has been your church home. Not that we do not appreciate and love this space, but the circumstances that have forced us into this corner of God’s vineyard seek to make us feel not at home.
Why even the Jewish people of Jesus’ time, although back at home in Israel from Babylon for some 500 years or more were not at all at home in the sense that the Empire of Rome had subjugated them and turned their homeland into an armed camp.
And as Jesus makes clear, things like mammon, a synonym here for what? Market forces? A money centered approach to life’s most basic needs? Being encouraged to live lives of indentured servitude to the commoditized pursuit of happiness through the acquisition of more and more things? That a life devoted to mammon is a life of exile from the kingdom of God’s most gracious reign. (Mammmon, by the way, comes from the same root as “Amen.”)
So the prophet encourages a people of exile to “come out,” to “show yourselves,” because God is already providing a way, a highway, an avenue to escape – a new exodus from whatever slavery may be holding us in check. Asking the basic question: Are you ready to partner with me for something new? Can we look beyond the boundaries constructed for us to see a way out of here? Can we imagine what a new life of freedom from the constraints of a kind of ecclesiastical bondage that seeks to subsume us all?
“I will not forget you,” sayeth the Lord, “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands!” God is that close. We are that close to God! And unlike tattoos that often proclaim our loyalties to one group or another, this inscription cannot be removed by laser or any other human technology – we are inscribed on the palms of God’s hands forever. Can we imagine that? Can we feel what that is like? It goes beyond being held in God’s hands – we are the very lines and creases of an eternity of working on our behalf to seek and maintain our freedom in God’s way!
Or, if that is unimaginable – the Psalmist in Psalm 131 sees us as a child held closely on mother God’s breast. “I do not occupy myself with great matters, or things that are too hard for me.” Can there really be only one way to love and worship the Lord our God? Are we really meant to be preoccupied with questions of how we can be church in “the right way”?
Or, allowing my soul to be quieted within me, can I see, as William Temple saw, that “The Church is the only human institution whose sole purpose of existence is for those who are not its members.”
Is it a coincidence that Jesus says we are not to worry about food, or drink, or clothing, and then later in the 25th chapter of Matthew says it is precisely those things that will determine our place in his judgment? “I was hungry and you gave me food….I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink….I was naked and you clothed me…”
Jesus so passionately cares for the poor, asserts Jason Bayasee, that he identifies himself more with them than he ever does with the church, its liturgy, the sacraments, the Bible, or whatever else we Christians tend to equate with Jesus. So that when the poor cry and pray for mercy we ought to be the answer to that prayer! Only when we crowd out our own worries for food, drink and clothing with what some have called “the fear of Jesus” can we even begin to be the answer to their prayer. We are called to “wait upon the Lord, from this time forth forever more.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing young,” asks Isaiah, “or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” We are God’s children. She will not forget us. She has inscribed us on the palms of her hands!
With that knowledge, with such faith, we are given the courage and the strength and the inspiration to step outside any boundaries any “empire” may try to impose to hold us in exile – to hold us in check – to keep us captive to forces we erroneously believe to be more powerful than the love of God in Christ Jesus who says, “You are my beloved – with you I am well pleased.”
Embrace the feminine power set before us in God’s word to us this day – it is no coincidence that we are at present a congregation of women refusing to be shut in by powers that seek to control and destabilize our life of faith.
So it is we pray this day: Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you – and to cast all our care on you who care for us as a mother cares for the child of her womb – preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide us from the light of your love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen! Vs Mammon!
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Mount Calvary, Baltimore, Maryland
I Will Not Forget You
I will not forget you. Wait upon the Lord. Do not worry. Some of the most intimate descriptions of God’s care for us are bundled together this Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany. “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” “But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast.” “Consider the birds of the air….the lilies of the field.”
Isaiah writes to a community of God in exile – Babylon to be precise. Israel cannot see beyond the present boundaries of exile, and yet God speaks as if they are already home. We might well ask ourselves, what mighty “empires” and false gods seek to keep us in exile? Seek to make us give in to ways that are not God’s ways?
I think looked at from that perspective, we can all find ourselves in exile somehow, somewhere – if nowhere else, in this chapel where we have been separated out from the main body of what has been your church home. Not that we do not appreciate and love this space, but the circumstances that have forced us into this corner of God’s vineyard seek to make us feel not at home.
Why even the Jewish people of Jesus’ time, although back at home in Israel from Babylon for some 500 years or more were not at all at home in the sense that the Empire of Rome had subjugated them and turned their homeland into an armed camp.
And as Jesus makes clear, things like mammon, a synonym here for what? Market forces? A money centered approach to life’s most basic needs? Being encouraged to live lives of indentured servitude to the commoditized pursuit of happiness through the acquisition of more and more things? That a life devoted to mammon is a life of exile from the kingdom of God’s most gracious reign. (Mammmon, by the way, comes from the same root as “Amen.”)
So the prophet encourages a people of exile to “come out,” to “show yourselves,” because God is already providing a way, a highway, an avenue to escape – a new exodus from whatever slavery may be holding us in check. Asking the basic question: Are you ready to partner with me for something new? Can we look beyond the boundaries constructed for us to see a way out of here? Can we imagine what a new life of freedom from the constraints of a kind of ecclesiastical bondage that seeks to subsume us all?
“I will not forget you,” sayeth the Lord, “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands!” God is that close. We are that close to God! And unlike tattoos that often proclaim our loyalties to one group or another, this inscription cannot be removed by laser or any other human technology – we are inscribed on the palms of God’s hands forever. Can we imagine that? Can we feel what that is like? It goes beyond being held in God’s hands – we are the very lines and creases of an eternity of working on our behalf to seek and maintain our freedom in God’s way!
Or, if that is unimaginable – the Psalmist in Psalm 131 sees us as a child held closely on mother God’s breast. “I do not occupy myself with great matters, or things that are too hard for me.” Can there really be only one way to love and worship the Lord our God? Are we really meant to be preoccupied with questions of how we can be church in “the right way”?
Or, allowing my soul to be quieted within me, can I see, as William Temple saw, that “The Church is the only human institution whose sole purpose of existence is for those who are not its members.”
Is it a coincidence that Jesus says we are not to worry about food, or drink, or clothing, and then later in the 25th chapter of Matthew says it is precisely those things that will determine our place in his judgment? “I was hungry and you gave me food….I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink….I was naked and you clothed me…”
Jesus so passionately cares for the poor, asserts Jason Bayasee, that he identifies himself more with them than he ever does with the church, its liturgy, the sacraments, the Bible, or whatever else we Christians tend to equate with Jesus. So that when the poor cry and pray for mercy we ought to be the answer to that prayer! Only when we crowd out our own worries for food, drink and clothing with what some have called “the fear of Jesus” can we even begin to be the answer to their prayer. We are called to “wait upon the Lord, from this time forth forever more.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing young,” asks Isaiah, “or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” We are God’s children. She will not forget us. She has inscribed us on the palms of her hands!
With that knowledge, with such faith, we are given the courage and the strength and the inspiration to step outside any boundaries any “empire” may try to impose to hold us in exile – to hold us in check – to keep us captive to forces we erroneously believe to be more powerful than the love of God in Christ Jesus who says, “You are my beloved – with you I am well pleased.”
Embrace the feminine power set before us in God’s word to us this day – it is no coincidence that we are at present a congregation of women refusing to be shut in by powers that seek to control and destabilize our life of faith.
So it is we pray this day: Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you – and to cast all our care on you who care for us as a mother cares for the child of her womb – preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide us from the light of your love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen! Vs Mammon!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Be Holy
20 February 2011/Epiphany 7A - Lev 19:1-2,9-18/Ps119:33-40/I Cor3:10-11,16-23/Mt 5:38-48
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Mount Calvary Episcopal Church, Baltimore
Love Your Neighbor - Love Your Enemies - Be Perfect
Last week God asked us to make a choice: choose blessing or curse, life or death. We live in a culture that believes in "free choices." But when put to us this way, is there really a choice?
Evidently there is, for one look at the world today would seem to indicate that we, collectively and individually, have not made the obvious choice.
So on this Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, after the "manifestation of Christ" to the world, the point gets sharpened. The correct choice, it appears, involves Loving our neighbors, Loving our enemies, and, oh, in our spare time, Be Prefect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect!
Some might think this is taking imago Dei a tad too far - the idea that we are created in the image of God. And if it is God's image to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing (as it is written from one end of the Old Testament to the other), then what more is there to be said than that?
Evidently quite a bit! Someone has suggested that the commandment to "Love" concerns not feelings but "deeds that reflect faithfulness to the covenant." As detailed in Leviticus, this means not "cutting the corners" of the fields (not maximizing harvest and profit!) but leaving the gleanings for the poor. It means not defrauding one's neighbor, no slander, not hating others, and not taking vengeance or bearing a grudge (ouch!). That last one sure takes a lot of the fun out of life. We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves - which in this narcissistic age of ours becomes a truly monumental command! And, we are to be Holy "because I the Lord your God am Holy."
To which Jesus adds turning the other cheek, giving up your coat and your cloak, going the extra mile, giving to everyone who begs, loving your enemies, greet everyone, and in your spare time, be perfect.
Some of this has been misconstrued - and with good reason. Those who are "in charge" or "in power" would like us to turn the other cheek. Never mind that what Jesus has in mind is an act of civil disobedience - a challenge to those in charge, at the time the Roman military. Jesus who at every turn resists evil was not counseling us not to resist evil - but rather offers strategies for confronting evil and exposing it for what it is - evil!
Rather, non-retaliation is meant to break the cycle of violence in confrontations of people of unequal power and status. A backhanded slap (only the right hand would be used) is meant to insult and humiliate. Turning the other cheek invites a second slap to be with the palm of the hand, which in the Roman Empire signaled the one being slapped as an equal. To be struck a second time with the palm would humiliate the one doing the slapping. So understood, no second slap would be made, breaking the cycle of violence which may be a step toward reconciliation.
Similarly, a debtor ending up naked before a magistrate, after handing over all garments to a creditor, places shame on said creditor - the assertion being that one who observes the nakedness is shamed. Finally, being impressed by a Roman Centurion to carry his backpack a mile but carrying it "the extra mile" creates a dilemma for the soldier who may be punished for exacting excessive service!
Oh, and if that were not enough, we are to welcome and greet our enemies, wishing for their well-being. That is, to be a welcoming Christian community means more than a friendly or even hearty salutation! It means loving our enemies.
Such strategies are acts of civil disobedience, not the actions of door-mat, milk-toast Christians, but rather forcing truth and justice to confront power, especially the power of domination and humiliation. Such is the way, it turns out, is the way of Perfection.
Such strategies were adopted by Ghandi in India, Martin King, Rosa Parks and Pauli Murray in America, and today in the streets of Cairo. One might even construe that our holding our ground in this chapel is in some way a living out of our Lord's command to Love our Neighbors.
That we are here this morning is in a great part thanks to those who have gone before us with lives of such spiritual perfection, risking come what may for the opportunity to worship and follow the Lord and Savior who calls us also to be perfect.
Now in Annapolis the struggle to speak truth to power continues on behalf of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. In the days ahead the drama will play out for equal rights and protection for those who wish to live in faithful, loving relationships. In Cairo, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Iran, Afghanistan,, the streets of Baltimore and no doubt countless other places around the world, the struggle for equal rights and protection plays itself out in dramas like those Jesus portrays every day.
We pray for the greatest gift which is love to be poured into our hearts so that whatever we do will embody the kind of action and deeds that will identify us as faithful to the covenant into which we were baptized - a covenant that says we will seek and serve Christ in all persons, not some people, not a lot of people, but all people! A covenant that says we will strive for justice and peace for all people, not some people, not a lot of people, but all people.
This is what it means to be a people who choose life! This is what it means to be Holy. This is what it means to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect! For we belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God!
Sadly, there is lots of loving that needs to be done both at home and abroad. The Good News is that God in Christ, through Baptism and Eucharist, equips us to be perfect as God is perfect, for the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
To" be perfect" is not an indictment of our failings: it is a promise that says we may love the world as God has loved us!
To God be the glory, this day and every day, Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Mount Calvary Episcopal Church, Baltimore
Love Your Neighbor - Love Your Enemies - Be Perfect
Last week God asked us to make a choice: choose blessing or curse, life or death. We live in a culture that believes in "free choices." But when put to us this way, is there really a choice?
Evidently there is, for one look at the world today would seem to indicate that we, collectively and individually, have not made the obvious choice.
So on this Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, after the "manifestation of Christ" to the world, the point gets sharpened. The correct choice, it appears, involves Loving our neighbors, Loving our enemies, and, oh, in our spare time, Be Prefect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect!
Some might think this is taking imago Dei a tad too far - the idea that we are created in the image of God. And if it is God's image to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing (as it is written from one end of the Old Testament to the other), then what more is there to be said than that?
Evidently quite a bit! Someone has suggested that the commandment to "Love" concerns not feelings but "deeds that reflect faithfulness to the covenant." As detailed in Leviticus, this means not "cutting the corners" of the fields (not maximizing harvest and profit!) but leaving the gleanings for the poor. It means not defrauding one's neighbor, no slander, not hating others, and not taking vengeance or bearing a grudge (ouch!). That last one sure takes a lot of the fun out of life. We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves - which in this narcissistic age of ours becomes a truly monumental command! And, we are to be Holy "because I the Lord your God am Holy."
To which Jesus adds turning the other cheek, giving up your coat and your cloak, going the extra mile, giving to everyone who begs, loving your enemies, greet everyone, and in your spare time, be perfect.
Some of this has been misconstrued - and with good reason. Those who are "in charge" or "in power" would like us to turn the other cheek. Never mind that what Jesus has in mind is an act of civil disobedience - a challenge to those in charge, at the time the Roman military. Jesus who at every turn resists evil was not counseling us not to resist evil - but rather offers strategies for confronting evil and exposing it for what it is - evil!
Rather, non-retaliation is meant to break the cycle of violence in confrontations of people of unequal power and status. A backhanded slap (only the right hand would be used) is meant to insult and humiliate. Turning the other cheek invites a second slap to be with the palm of the hand, which in the Roman Empire signaled the one being slapped as an equal. To be struck a second time with the palm would humiliate the one doing the slapping. So understood, no second slap would be made, breaking the cycle of violence which may be a step toward reconciliation.
Similarly, a debtor ending up naked before a magistrate, after handing over all garments to a creditor, places shame on said creditor - the assertion being that one who observes the nakedness is shamed. Finally, being impressed by a Roman Centurion to carry his backpack a mile but carrying it "the extra mile" creates a dilemma for the soldier who may be punished for exacting excessive service!
Oh, and if that were not enough, we are to welcome and greet our enemies, wishing for their well-being. That is, to be a welcoming Christian community means more than a friendly or even hearty salutation! It means loving our enemies.
Such strategies are acts of civil disobedience, not the actions of door-mat, milk-toast Christians, but rather forcing truth and justice to confront power, especially the power of domination and humiliation. Such is the way, it turns out, is the way of Perfection.
Such strategies were adopted by Ghandi in India, Martin King, Rosa Parks and Pauli Murray in America, and today in the streets of Cairo. One might even construe that our holding our ground in this chapel is in some way a living out of our Lord's command to Love our Neighbors.
That we are here this morning is in a great part thanks to those who have gone before us with lives of such spiritual perfection, risking come what may for the opportunity to worship and follow the Lord and Savior who calls us also to be perfect.
Now in Annapolis the struggle to speak truth to power continues on behalf of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. In the days ahead the drama will play out for equal rights and protection for those who wish to live in faithful, loving relationships. In Cairo, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Iran, Afghanistan,, the streets of Baltimore and no doubt countless other places around the world, the struggle for equal rights and protection plays itself out in dramas like those Jesus portrays every day.
We pray for the greatest gift which is love to be poured into our hearts so that whatever we do will embody the kind of action and deeds that will identify us as faithful to the covenant into which we were baptized - a covenant that says we will seek and serve Christ in all persons, not some people, not a lot of people, but all people! A covenant that says we will strive for justice and peace for all people, not some people, not a lot of people, but all people.
This is what it means to be a people who choose life! This is what it means to be Holy. This is what it means to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect! For we belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God!
Sadly, there is lots of loving that needs to be done both at home and abroad. The Good News is that God in Christ, through Baptism and Eucharist, equips us to be perfect as God is perfect, for the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
To" be perfect" is not an indictment of our failings: it is a promise that says we may love the world as God has loved us!
To God be the glory, this day and every day, Amen.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Nocturn Part 2
13 February 2011/Epiphany 6A – Deut 30: 15-20/Psalm 119: 1-8/1Cor 3:1-9/Mt 5:21-37
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St. Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Nocturn Part 2
Poetry. I suspect we rarely think of it, but a substantial amount of our Sunday worship consists of poetry. The Psalms are Hebrew poetry. Many of the readings from the prophets are in Hebrew Poetry. Even some of the lessons texts from the Christian Scriptures are written in Greek poetry. And all the hymn texts are poetry of one kind or another.
We are hard pressed to define precisely what poetry is. Yet, it is broadly believed that the art of poetry pre-dates literacy, and the oldest known examples of poetry date back to over 2000 years before the common era – before the time of Jesus. And all the oldest preserved poems, composed so as to be recited and passed on from one generation to the next, reflect on life’s deepest mysteries seeking imaginative meaning from our life’s experiences.
Epiphany, we say, is the Season of Light – it begins with the light of the Star leading countless numbers of Magi, “wise men,” to the place where God arrives as a tiny baby, and concludes with the Transfiguration of Jesus shining blindingly brightly white on a mountain top chatting with Moses and Elijah – two earlier prophets who had their own fiery, blindingly white moments as well. To say Epiphany is the Season of Light is to employ metaphor. Poetry, not content to simply deploy legions of metaphors to examine the mystery of life ultimately contends that all language, each word, is metaphor – a word-symbol attempting to describe even the most mundane of human experience, and yet never quite capable of fully embodying such experience itself. So we often say, “Words fail us.”
Makes one wonder why we work so hard at trying to be “literal” – so hard at trying to pin-down precise understandings in a constantly changing, living and evolving universe – so hard to be exacting in just what is exactly happening – just what did happen in a tiny, outlying village of the once vast and mighty Empire of Rome! Language and words express at once both our comfort and our restlessness with all that life sends and has sent our way.
So it is I have found myself contemplating a bit of a poem I read several weeks ago as I was preparing to lead worship with the small but faithful continuing community at Mount Calvary. It is by W. S. Merwin, who happened to be poet in residence one semester while I attended Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
In a poem titled Nocturne Merwin writes:
The stars emerge one/by one into the names
that were last found for them/far back in other
darkness no one remembers/by watchers whose own
names were forgotten/later in the dark
and as the night deepens/other lumens begin
to appear around them/as though they were shining
through the same instant/from a single depth of age
though the time between/each one of them
and its nearest neighbor/contains in its span
the whole moment of the earth/turning in a light
that is not its own/with the complete course
of life upon it/born to brief reflection
recognition and anguish/from one cell evolving
to remember daylight/laughter and distant music
I was struck by the words: "the whole moment of the earth/turning in a light
that is not its own/with the complete course/of life upon it/born to brief reflection"
The earth does not produce light for the universe, it reflects the light of the Sun and other stars. As we turn, we move from light to darkness to light and to darkness over and over again, 365 times a year. Any light that we make on earth is recycled Sun light stored as coal, oil, natural gas, tallow, beeswax, all of which can be made to produce light - but its source is still the Sun.
Last Sunday Jesus said "you are the light of the world." I take this to mean that like the earth, we are called to reflect “The Light of Christ” we sing about in the Easter Vigil, represented by the Paschal Candle that stands next to the Baptismal Font. In the continuation of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins to unpack that metaphor, detailing just what it means to be “the light of the world.” Echoing Deuteronomy, he calls us to “choose life” as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has painstakingly detailed such a choice again and again throughout the history of God’s people.
In the opening lines of the Bible’s longest poem, Psalm 119, we learn that our happiness depends on our choosing to “walk in the way of the Lord…observe his decrees, and seek him with all our heart". Which I imagine begins with carefully observing what way the Lord walks so we might walk in that same way.
A careful reading of Deuteronomy reveals that this way we are to walk entails canceling the debts of the poor (15:1-11), pushing government to guard against excessive wealth (18:8-20), limiting punishment to protect human dignity (19:1-7), offering hospitality to runaway slaves (23:15-16), paying employees fairly (24: 14-15), and leaving part of the harvest for those who need it (24:19-22).
To which Paul adds in his correspondence to a poorly behaving church in Corinth that there should be no quarreling among us, no jealousy, and no allegiance to human leadership, but rather only to align oneself with Christ – “For we are God’s servants working together; you are God’s field, God’s building."
To all of which Jesus is only getting going when he adds that if we are in conflict with one of our sisters or brothers, we are to go and seek restoration or reconciliation with that person before we bring or gifts to the altar. Note the assumption and emphasis that we are to bring gifts to the altar, AND we are to be a reconciling community first and foremost – so we might kneel before the Lord with a clear conscience and lighter heart.
In all this, Jesus reveals God – God’s nature and God’s intent for humankind. In this, Jesus is the light and life of the world. Unpacking this poetic metaphor reveals the myriad ways in which we can walk in God’s way. We say, “The devil is in the details,” but in this case, it is “The Way of the Lord” that is in the details.
We are called to reflect the Light of Christ, much the way the Earth reflects the light and life of the Sun. From “out there” among the stars we know how beautiful this fragile earth our island home looks to those who have been out there to see. How much more beautiful would life on Earth look were we to commit ourselves to making the choice God invites us to make?
“Choose life so that you and your descendents may live.” The Way of the Lord entails choices, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of all humankind from this day forward. There can be no other choice we are called upon to make more important than this. When we so choose, the world will be bathed not only in Sunlight, but with the Light of Christ – and the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed! Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St. Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Nocturn Part 2
Poetry. I suspect we rarely think of it, but a substantial amount of our Sunday worship consists of poetry. The Psalms are Hebrew poetry. Many of the readings from the prophets are in Hebrew Poetry. Even some of the lessons texts from the Christian Scriptures are written in Greek poetry. And all the hymn texts are poetry of one kind or another.
We are hard pressed to define precisely what poetry is. Yet, it is broadly believed that the art of poetry pre-dates literacy, and the oldest known examples of poetry date back to over 2000 years before the common era – before the time of Jesus. And all the oldest preserved poems, composed so as to be recited and passed on from one generation to the next, reflect on life’s deepest mysteries seeking imaginative meaning from our life’s experiences.
Epiphany, we say, is the Season of Light – it begins with the light of the Star leading countless numbers of Magi, “wise men,” to the place where God arrives as a tiny baby, and concludes with the Transfiguration of Jesus shining blindingly brightly white on a mountain top chatting with Moses and Elijah – two earlier prophets who had their own fiery, blindingly white moments as well. To say Epiphany is the Season of Light is to employ metaphor. Poetry, not content to simply deploy legions of metaphors to examine the mystery of life ultimately contends that all language, each word, is metaphor – a word-symbol attempting to describe even the most mundane of human experience, and yet never quite capable of fully embodying such experience itself. So we often say, “Words fail us.”
Makes one wonder why we work so hard at trying to be “literal” – so hard at trying to pin-down precise understandings in a constantly changing, living and evolving universe – so hard to be exacting in just what is exactly happening – just what did happen in a tiny, outlying village of the once vast and mighty Empire of Rome! Language and words express at once both our comfort and our restlessness with all that life sends and has sent our way.
So it is I have found myself contemplating a bit of a poem I read several weeks ago as I was preparing to lead worship with the small but faithful continuing community at Mount Calvary. It is by W. S. Merwin, who happened to be poet in residence one semester while I attended Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
In a poem titled Nocturne Merwin writes:
The stars emerge one/by one into the names
that were last found for them/far back in other
darkness no one remembers/by watchers whose own
names were forgotten/later in the dark
and as the night deepens/other lumens begin
to appear around them/as though they were shining
through the same instant/from a single depth of age
though the time between/each one of them
and its nearest neighbor/contains in its span
the whole moment of the earth/turning in a light
that is not its own/with the complete course
of life upon it/born to brief reflection
recognition and anguish/from one cell evolving
to remember daylight/laughter and distant music
I was struck by the words: "the whole moment of the earth/turning in a light
that is not its own/with the complete course/of life upon it/born to brief reflection"
The earth does not produce light for the universe, it reflects the light of the Sun and other stars. As we turn, we move from light to darkness to light and to darkness over and over again, 365 times a year. Any light that we make on earth is recycled Sun light stored as coal, oil, natural gas, tallow, beeswax, all of which can be made to produce light - but its source is still the Sun.
Last Sunday Jesus said "you are the light of the world." I take this to mean that like the earth, we are called to reflect “The Light of Christ” we sing about in the Easter Vigil, represented by the Paschal Candle that stands next to the Baptismal Font. In the continuation of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins to unpack that metaphor, detailing just what it means to be “the light of the world.” Echoing Deuteronomy, he calls us to “choose life” as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has painstakingly detailed such a choice again and again throughout the history of God’s people.
In the opening lines of the Bible’s longest poem, Psalm 119, we learn that our happiness depends on our choosing to “walk in the way of the Lord…observe his decrees, and seek him with all our heart". Which I imagine begins with carefully observing what way the Lord walks so we might walk in that same way.
A careful reading of Deuteronomy reveals that this way we are to walk entails canceling the debts of the poor (15:1-11), pushing government to guard against excessive wealth (18:8-20), limiting punishment to protect human dignity (19:1-7), offering hospitality to runaway slaves (23:15-16), paying employees fairly (24: 14-15), and leaving part of the harvest for those who need it (24:19-22).
To which Paul adds in his correspondence to a poorly behaving church in Corinth that there should be no quarreling among us, no jealousy, and no allegiance to human leadership, but rather only to align oneself with Christ – “For we are God’s servants working together; you are God’s field, God’s building."
To all of which Jesus is only getting going when he adds that if we are in conflict with one of our sisters or brothers, we are to go and seek restoration or reconciliation with that person before we bring or gifts to the altar. Note the assumption and emphasis that we are to bring gifts to the altar, AND we are to be a reconciling community first and foremost – so we might kneel before the Lord with a clear conscience and lighter heart.
In all this, Jesus reveals God – God’s nature and God’s intent for humankind. In this, Jesus is the light and life of the world. Unpacking this poetic metaphor reveals the myriad ways in which we can walk in God’s way. We say, “The devil is in the details,” but in this case, it is “The Way of the Lord” that is in the details.
We are called to reflect the Light of Christ, much the way the Earth reflects the light and life of the Sun. From “out there” among the stars we know how beautiful this fragile earth our island home looks to those who have been out there to see. How much more beautiful would life on Earth look were we to commit ourselves to making the choice God invites us to make?
“Choose life so that you and your descendents may live.” The Way of the Lord entails choices, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of all humankind from this day forward. There can be no other choice we are called upon to make more important than this. When we so choose, the world will be bathed not only in Sunlight, but with the Light of Christ – and the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed! Amen.
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