The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Proper 12 Year C
Luke 11: 1-13
July 18, 2010
Evelyn Underhill, a gifted writer on the spiritual life, has said that human beings have three deep cravings. The first is the craving “to go out”: to explore and find new things, to travel, to search for greener pastures. This is our pilgrim or wanderer craving. She says our second craving is the desire for companionship. We yearn for completeness that can only be found in a friend, a soul mate, a partner. We are social beings that long to be loved and to love. The third deep desire of every human being is the need for spirituality. We yearn for God. We long to relate to the Ultimate Reality in more than a superficial way. St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.”
The disciples were no different. They had Jesus with them 24/7. They watched him pray off in the distance while they sat around waiting. I wonder how long it took them to realize that they needed what he was getting then finally ask him how to pray. They must have seen how important it was to Jesus to communicate with His Father. They finally realized that He was experiencing something that they wanted too. Jesus didn’t force it on them but the time came when they wanted that intimacy with God, too. Jesus, teach us to pray. And he gave them the prayer that we all know and recite like a mantra.
Everyone wants to pray and needs to pray but we all harbor this notion that there is a secret that other people or at least some people are holding onto about how to do it. Everybody else knows how to pray but me and I’m afraid to ask or I’ll sound stupid! I am here today to give you the secret – and this is it: just do it! There is not a perfect way. No one has the answer. There are some guidelines that can help you but you have to do it. We talk things to death sometimes and we do more talking about prayer than doing it. I am giving a whole sermon today ABOUT prayer, what it is and why we should do it, but I can’t do it for you. You’ve got to finally get with it, get on your knees, and do it.
There’s no magic formula yet we join the disciples in asking Jesus for one. He gave us a prayer that is a beginning, the place we can always start,
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name . . . We address God the Father with words of respect and adoration. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pledge to the Father that we will help in making things better on earth so that the world we live in will become what God intended it to be.
Give us this day our daily bread. We ask God for the necessities of life. We don’t need other stuff! Just the basics. And when we can get in the mindset of just asking for only what is required then we can ask God to give daily bread to those besides ourselves who have a hard time finding daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. . . The heart of what it means to follow Christ is our intention to forgive others as we beg God’s forgiveness for all the horrible things we have done.
And lead us not into temptation. . . Gee, God we keep sinning! Can’t you make it stop? Help me please!
But deliver us from evil. . . The devil’s still out there, disguised as good: more money, more stuff, getting what we want when we want it, stepping over whoever we need to. God, help me to reassess my priorities. Deliver me from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. . . We end the prayer, saying that we realize that God is in control, not us.
Praying is simple since Jesus gave us this head start. Two former US Presidents give us insight into prayer. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” Jimmy Carter has said, “God answers all our prayers. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes the answer is ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’”
A beautiful prayer written by a man living in Ghana, West Africa, “The sun has disappeared, I have switched off the light, and my wife and children are asleep. The animals in the forest are full of fear, and so are the people on their mats. They prefer the day with your sun to the night. But I still know that your moon is there, and your eyes and also your hands. Thus I am not afraid. This day again you fed us wonderfully. Everybody went to his mat satisfied and full. Renew us during our sleep, that in the morning we may come afresh to our daily jobs. Be with our brothers far away in Asia who may be getting up now. Amen.”
Another prayer written by a Muslim in the thirteenth century, “Lord, the air smells good today, straight from the mysteries within the inner courts of God. A grace like new clothes thrown across the garden, free medicine for everybody. The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise, the first blue violets kneeling. Whatever came from Being is caught up in being, drunkenly forgetting the way back.”
Just do it. Set aside some time to strengthen your relationship with God. Simply and straightforward. Humbly reaching toward the Ultimate Being who loves you beyond measure. Our Father who art in heaven . . ..
From a collection called Morning, Noon, and Night (CSM, 1985)
From The Oxford Book of Prayer, 1985. Rumi (1207-1273) mystic, poet, and philosopher.
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Proper 11 Year C
Luke 10: 38-42
July 18. 2010
As Christians it’s not unusual for us to struggle to discern whether the most important is to do good works or to lose ourselves in prayer, being present to the Lord. The classic Martha and Mary. We’ve heard this Gospel story so many times and I’ll venture to say that what it does for most of us is bring up guilt that we’re more Martha than Mary and we’ll do better tomorrow. There’s more to it however and not as simple as it looks.
Martha owned a beautiful home in the suburbs of Jerusalem. Jesus was a good friend of the family- he loved Martha as well as her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus. We’re not told if Lazarus was with them that day but he probably was. Mary was there and the Scripture says that when Jesus arrived she sat at the Lord’s feet and listened attentively to every word that he said. Martha on the other hand, had spent all day cleaning and cooking, and now was obsessing on the finishing touches of serving and presenting a beautiful meal to Jesus.
“The Lord moves mightily on behalf of those who wait for him and before him. Mary understood this well as she sat at Jesus’ feet, risking Martha’s wrath as she ‘did nothing’ but talk to Jesus.”
Now on the one hand we can look at this scenario as one of typical sibling rivalry. My guess is that Martha was the dominant sister, very organized, and very fastidious and proud about being a domestic diva. She probably was as close to being the Martha Stewart of her day but without the legal problems! Mary on the other hand didn’t care much for household chores and spent her days reading and meditating and was perfectly content for Martha to take care of her.
So when Jesus came to visit, Mary in her usual charming way greeted him and focused her attention solely on him. Martha was her usual responsible self and continued preparations in the kitchen, fuming because Mary was not helping her. Martha complained to Jesus who let her know in no uncertain terms that He was enjoying Mary’s company and he would not send her away. He even said that Mary was doing the right thing.
If you’re like me, it seems that Jesus was a bit too harsh. After all, Martha has a good point! She shouldn’t be left with all the work, should she? But here is Jesus’ point: Mary was being a good hostess. She greeted and honored her guest and was focused on him entirely. She knew that there was always work to be done but Jesus came to visit rarely. She wanted to enjoy each and every moment. And Jesus loved the attention!
Martha may be given a bad rap unless we understand where Jesus was coming from. Jesus had no quarrel with her clean house or the fabulous meal she was about to serve because he knew she loved him as much as he loved her! Jesus called Martha up short for missing the forest for the trees. Service to Jesus means nothing if there isn’t time spent in his presence developing a friendship. As Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time for every purpose under heaven.” When Jesus arrived at Martha’s house he wanted her full attention. Just like us. We also get caught up in doing THINGS that we miss our own moments of intimacy with Jesus.
We do need to look at ways to reclaim the centrality of meditation and prayer in our busy secular existence. We know it’s important but ask the question, How is it possible?
Number 1 is to set aside what might be called “sacred space.” It might be a makeshift altar in the corner of your bedroom. A chair. A couch with a special blanket. A kneeler. A place to light a candle and burn some incense. A room where you can listen to sacred music. Whatever brings you to a place of “quiet confidence” before God. Find this spot or invent one. And then make an appointment with God for at least ten minutes a day for two weeks. Keep this date every bit as much as you would keep an appointment with a colleague or a doctor. Just do it – even if it feels stupid at first. After all, so did brushing your teeth the first time. In addition: make sure that your sacred space is removed from phones, faxes, beepers, and computers. Natural sounds, however, can soothe the soul, and help us become quiet.
Number 2. As people of the Bible, we should have the Scripture present, even if we read only one verse a day. We may want to have the Book of Common Prayer handy, and learn to pray the daily offices – which can lead us into reflection. Keep a notebook and pen handy to write down any “ahas” that might come – and they probably will. Subtle changes will occur, and it is wise to note them.
Number 3. Keep it simple. When it comes to prayer and meditation, we are all beginners. And remember it is the Holy Spirit who is moving you to pray in the first place, carrying you along in supernatural love where you need to be. Paul said in his letter to the Romans (8:26) “Keep your prayer as simple as breathing, and as natural as eating, drinking, or sleeping.” But make it regular.
There’s a story about a monk who went to see Abba Sylvanus on the mountain of Sinai. When he saw the other monks working hard he said to the old man, “Do not labor for the food that perishes. Mary has chosen the good portion.” The old man said to his disciple, “Zachary, give this monk a book and put him in a cell where he can read and not be disturbed.” So when the ninth hour came the visitor watched the door thinking that someone would call him to the next meal. When no one did he got up and went to the old man and said, “Have all the monks eaten today?” The old man replied that they had. Then he said, “Why didn’t you call me?” The old man said to him, “Because you are a spiritual man and do not need that kind of food. We, being carnal, want to eat, and that is why we work. But you have chosen the good portion and read the whole day long, and you do not want to eat carnal food.” When the young monk heard these words he said, “Forgive me, abba.” The old man said to him, “Mary needs Martha. It is really thanks to Martha that Mary is praised.”
So we’ve come full circle. We must not elevate Mary at Martha’s expense but get our priorities straight. The work we are called to do in life is important but not at the expense of brushing aside our relationship with Jesus Christ. Learning how to balance the two is a lifelong task so let’s begin now.
Leanne Payne in Listening Prayer (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), p.74.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Proper 10 Year C
Luke 10: 25-37
July 11. 2010
Many years ago when my children were little we went to Washington, D. C. with my husband Larry who was attending a medical meeting. Our hotel was a block away from the transit system, as you know one of the best in the nation. It is clean and well lit and stops near all the monuments and museums so instead of taking cabs or renting a car, we used this means of transportation.
The thing was that along that one block that we had to walk to our stop were men sitting on the sidewalk. They were dirty, some were drunk, others obviously mentally ill, or both. I was alone with three small children. We held hands, held our breath, nervous as we walked through a maze of bodies. I looked ahead, praying that we would make it to the station, which we always did. A chorus of voices begged for money, which I never gave. After all I had my children to worry about and coming from the Arkansas Delta I was not used this behavior.
The story always flashes through my mind when I read the story of the Good Samaritan. I wonder if I should have done something different than I did. Was I supposed to have given them money? What kind of an example was I to my children? Can I rationalize that I did the right thing? I don’t know . . .
There was a certain lawyer in the crowd who wanted to believe that Jesus was for real but, as any good lawyer should, he wanted proof. He undoubtedly spoke for others when he asked Jesus the question, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” All of us who are on a spiritual journey to the Kingdom of God ask that question. It is fundamental to our lives and to our understanding of the purpose of our being here on earth! We listen with anticipation to Jesus because we need to hear the answer. We already KNOW the answer; just as that scribe knew. We can quote the same scripture, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus replies, “There’s no more. Go and do it.” That’s too simple, isn’t it? The lawyer was baiting Jesus and wanted to trick him into exposing him as a fraud. He posed the question that did the opposite he expected. It showed Jesus as deeply connected to the heart of God, explaining to him and us the real meaning of the Scripture. So the man asked him, “And just who is my neighbor?”
Good Jewish people could not possibly stop to help for fear of becoming unclean. Touching blood would prevent them from being able to celebrate the Sabbath with their families. There was a long list of taboos. They just couldn’t do it. Mind you now they wanted to, they just couldn’t. Then along came a Samaritan. Samaritans hated Jews. Jews scorned Samaritans as second-class citizens and were to be spat upon and avoided.
Yet Jesus used the Samaritan as the example of one who did the right thing, offering help to one in distress.
In my first year in seminary in Memphis the question was posed in a class: what if you were on the corner of Union and Danny Thomas and a black man came up to your car as you waited for the light to turn green? All of the women said that we would be sure our windows were up and the doors locked tight. Most men agreed. One Methodist seminarian, however, was also an ex-Memphis-policeman. He got angry with all of us. He said that if that would happen, probably the man really needed our help. In his experience people shouldn’t be afraid but that showing compassion was the best course.
And who is my neighbor? Intuitively we know that every human being we encounter can fit that description. Jesus shows us by his example when he touches lepers, talks with women, eats with sinners. He has no fear of what people think. In Jesus’ day the world was very small. There were no telephones, no televisions, and no computers. We know and see so much more. We travel to far off places. If our neighbors are anyone and everyone, then we are facing a guilt complex that is legion! There is just no way we can serve and take care of all the problems that we know exist in this world!
And if we try, we will be left neurotic and exhausted. But each one of us is called to love our neighbor and each of us must discern the way to do just that. We are not called to personally save the world. Jesus Christ expects all of us to be compassionate and caring. Our neighbors will come along on our journeys when we least expect it. We are called to be merciful and loving. God will help us to discern where and with whom action is to be taken. A young man eagerly described what he dreamed of doing for the poor. Said the Master, “When do you propose to make your dream come true?” “As soon as opportunity arrives,” said he. “Opportunity never arrives,” said the Master. “It’s here.” Your opportunity is with you each and every day of your life. You really don’t need to go looking for it. It takes awareness and many times it takes courage to respond.
What will I do to help? What can I do to change the world? You probably have heard this story or one similar but it bears repeating. An elderly man and his granddaughter were walking on the beach one bright beautiful morning. Everywhere they looked there were starfish – thousands of them had washed up on the shore the night before. Many had already dried up and gulls were diving on the live ones in a feeding frenzy. The little girl bent over and picked up a starfish and threw it in the ocean. She did it again and again for several minutes. Finally her grandfather said, “Honey, there are literally millions of starfish in the sea. Spending the morning here, throwing them back into the ocean, is not going to make any difference.” The little girl picked up one more and hurled it into the sea. She looked up at her grandfather and said, “I bet it made a difference to that one!”
As followers of Christ we are called to love our neighbor. When Jesus asked the scribe who in the parable was the neighbor to the injured man, the lawyer replied, “The one who showed mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” And he says to each one of us today, “Go and do likewise.” We’ll be scared, we’ll get dirty, and we’ll be out of our comfort zone. But we’ll inherit eternal life and will understand the joy of Christ. “Go and do likewise.”
Anthony de Mello in More One Minute Nonsense.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Proper 7 Year C
Galatians 3: 23-29
June 20, 2010
I don’t have to tell you that this country is experiencing a crisis of epic proportions. Oil is gushing out of a broken well in the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 60,000 barrels per day. And this has been going on for about two months with devastating consequences for the environment and for people’s lives at all levels. We who are not in the trenches feel helpless and wait, hoping that the President and BP can come up with a real solution very soon.
We hear a lot these days about the President’s leadership or lack thereof. I’m not going to come down on one side or the other. He’s got an overwhelming job with oil in the Gulf, two wars in the Mideast, an economy that doesn’t seem to want to rally. Is he doing enough? Is he too calm and collected? Does he care enough to make this nightmare go away? I can’t answer those questions. I know he needs our prayers. Let’s hope he really can face this challenge with the energy and courage it will take to turn it around.
This morning we heard a powerful passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, some say the crux of the Christian message, It reads thus: As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer free or slave, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ.
This was a bold statement for Paul to make in the First Century. The culture was clearly divided between Jew and Greek. An elaborate system of slavery was the norm. Women were subservient to men. No one questioned any of this. So what’s the matter with Paul? He was meddling where he shouldn’t go! This is the way it is so leave it alone!
No one more clearly understood the mind of Christ better than Paul. Paul was prophetically giving the early Christians and us the Christian ideal for his time and forevermore. Their mission and ours is to bring the Kingdom of God into the world and Paul says here is what it looks like.
The chief obstacle of living a Christian life remains our stubborn tendency toward self-centeredness. Someone in Alcoholics Anonymous once said, “It’s not necessary that you believe in God. What’s necessary is that you know you are not God.” We want what we want and if we are one of the majority class we are happy to be superior.
We humans have an innate tendency to rank people, don’t we? And it doesn’t even have to be about slave and free or women and men. We rank people according to how much money they have. If you’re rich many doors open for you that are closed to the poor. We rank people according to their education. A person with doctor in front of their name elicits more respect than a high school drop out. We rank in more subtle ways too. Fat vs. thin, mentally challenged vs. smart, mentally ill vs. normal. We have a whole system in our heads working constantly to rank a person on our scale, probably not even consciously, but we do it.
Just when we think we’ve got it figured out we’re thrown a jolt. We are told that all are equal and all are acceptable in God’s Kingdom. Gay and straight, black and white, drunk and sober, ugly and beautiful, shy and flamboyant, homeless and comfortable. The problem is that on one end of these spectrums are people who are powerless in this society. Most of us are privileged to live on the seemingly good end. We are the ones whose responsibility is to open the Kingdom of God for the others. It’s not okay to live in our ivory towers and thank God that I am not one of THEM.
In a book called What’s Wrong with the World, G. K. Chesterton wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and let untried.” [REPEAT] It’s time for us to try it. It’s time for us to open our hearts to those different from us and that’s most of the world.
Our life is filled with challenges, isn’t it? From our oceans to our hearts, we have ugly messes to clean up. On first glance it all seems so hopeless. It’s too big. What difference can I, one measly person make? Let the experts clean the Gulf. Surely someone will figure it out without my help! Let the theologians and the holy people bring in the Kingdom of God. Wish Jesus was here to take all the goop and crud out of my heart and find a good herd of pigs to throw it into and drown it once and for all.
Sigh. It ain’t going to happen. It’s up to each one of us to take up the clean majestic seashell that we were given at our baptism. Look at it and do what you can to change the world. Our charge is to erase the hierarchy at every level and invite everyone to experience the joy of the Kingdom of God. One day at a time, one person at a time, opening our hearts and minds to everyone loving them as Jesus loves them.
As we promise in the Baptismal Covenant: I will with God’s help.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Proper 5 Year C
Luke 7: 11-17
June 6, 2010
How many of you have seen House, a drama series on the Fox network? This is one of those hospital shows with patients coming in with diseases so rare that regular doctors of high repute and excellent credentials readily admit their inadequacy and ignorance. Not so Dr. House! House is a man of outstanding genius and impeccable intuition whose young staff of fellows bounces diagnoses off each other, each showing a flair for genius themselves. Each unusual case brings a challenge they’re ready to meet with gusto!
The problem is that House is an SOB. That’s right, this guy is the most obnoxious hateful disgusting man you’d ever meet. His leg causes him severe pain so we watch him pop pills like candy. His comments to both his colleagues, his patients, and their families makes us cringe as he makes it perfectly clear to all of us that he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him; he doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings, his friends or his patients. He doesn’t follow any rules. He’s the prototype of the worst doctor ever.
But – and this is the twist – he is a genius. He above all others can diagnose and cure the most obtuse of all illnesses. Yes to him it’s a game, a puzzle to solve, but he can do it and does.
What a contrast from the story of Jesus healing the man in today’s Gospel! Jesus sees a widow mourning the recent death of her only son. Jesus always has a soft spot in his heart for widows. Of the few miracle stories in Holy Scripture, several involved the compassion he had for widows. For many reasons this is an utter tragedy for her! For any of us our hearts would break to lose a child. It’s a scenario that no one wants to face: their child dying before them. This man was obviously young so that means that her husband also died young. This widow has endured and will continue to endure heartache at such loss.
Widows were shunned socially in those days as well as financially. If a widow didn’t have a son to support her, she was out of luck and depended on the charity of others, as she became a beggar for her basic needs.
In the Jewish tradition widows were the anawin –the poor ones of Yahweh. She was not just a widow but she was financially poor. Losing her son meant losing her hope for the future, and her lifeline to the community. Her grief is doubled. Her poverty is deepened, and now she has nothing to live for.
The crowd had gathered for the funeral procession when Jesus passed by. She didn’t have to cry out to gain his attention. He may not have known all her problems but he saw a weeping mother and he had compassion. He said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” By raising the son from the dead, he also restored the dignity and life of his mother.
There’s a story of an English clergyman who became well known as a gifted preacher and healer. He emphasized the power of prayer and how it can heal and people from all over the world came to hear him and find their lives were changed. When he was in his forties he discovered he had cancer. People around the globe prayed for his healing. But the cancer progressed and it became evident that he would die. Before he did he said, “God DOES answer all prayer. I know God had a different kind of healing in mind for me than what I prayed for.”
I think it is safe to say that everyone here at this service is in need of some kind of healing. Some of us have cancer, some have heart disease, some are in the clutches of alcohol or another chemical substance. Others are suffering from broken relationships that need mending with a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend. Some of us are so possessed by the lust for power and money that we are strangling all that is good in our lives. We need to be healed but don’t know it.
Many of us are estranged from God and we are here this morning hoping to find a way back. Each one of us on our life’s journey is in need of some kind of healing. The playwright Eugene O’Neill once said, “Man is born broken. He lives by mending. And the grace of God is the glue!”
We cannot underestimate the power of the compassion of Jesus Christ! Jesus was a man of power whose commitment to justice surpassed any ever seen yet the miracles that he chose to work during his ministry were driven almost always by compassion. Jesus lived in the moment and at the surface of his personality was always concern for others, kindness, sympathy, pity, and empathy. Unlike Dr. House whose genius causes him to look down on others with scorn and disgust, Jesus’ genius, which surpasses House exponentially, is totally connected to God’s love and mercy.
Well that compassion and understanding from Jesus continues to serve us. Jesus hears our cries to him and his tender heart answers. For reasons unknown and many times unwanted, we are broken. We are broken but can come to Jesus Christ for compassion. We are assured that compassion flows from his heart to us.
In a few minutes I will go to the altar and consecrate bread and wine to become the body and blood of Christ. This sacrament is born in brokenness, in the brokenness of the body of Jesus Christ. We bring bread to offer – from wheat that had to be crushed to make the flour. And wine, made from the crushing of grapes. Broken. But the brokenness is transformed into the body and blood of Christ for our healing and our redemption. Take and eat. Take and drink. Take and be healed.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Trinity Sunday
John 16: 5-15
May 30, 2010
About fifteen years ago Larry and I went on a tour of northern England that focused on visiting the great cathedrals. Those of you who have been will understand when I say that this truly was an incredible experience for me. These massive cathedrals that dot the country were built hundreds of years ago and each took centuries to complete.
What struck me as I ventured into each one was that each cathedral was enormous and absolutely exquisite and each one was unique. No two were alike; each had its own personality. It was obvious that to build such an edifice whole city’s economies were affected. Artists and artisans spent their lifetimes designing and making these holy places come alive. From stained glass windows to statues to the choir stalls to the enormous pillars and buttresses that anchor them. Durham, York, Salisbury, Lincoln, St. Paul’s in London, Westminster Abbey.
I can recall standing in the midst of the magnificent hexagonal center of the cathedral in Ely being overwhelmed by the feeling that God is so huge, so other, so beyond me. I experienced a moment of awe, knowing that God not only loved me personally but God is at the same time far beyond my understanding and my ability to grasp.
But I realize too that just because we cannot know everything about God does not mean that we cannot know something, or at least attempt to know something. The Church does not let us off the hook either. Every year we celebrate Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost – a theologian’s dream but a preacher’s nightmare. The doctrine of the Trinity is the most unexplainable mystery of all. The revelation of the Trinity is at the core of the Christian faith. It raises the deepest questions of our faith: who is God? How and where is God at work in the world? What does God want from us? What does God do for us? The mystery of our own lives in relation to God reveals to us the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is the basis for the revelation of the Trinity but it is certainly not a neat package presentation. Revelation to the Jews in the Old Testament was that God was One, a concept foreign to a culture that worshipped many gods. We tend to think of the Jewish God as equivalent to God the Father. Yet the Jews experienced God as the Divine Word, the Spirit, and Wisdom. God is not a simple concept!
Those who knew Jesus did experience him as the Son only. Jesus was constantly talking about being sent by the Father and teaching in the power of the Spirit. You remember at Jesus’ baptism by John a voice was heard from heaven saying, “This is my Son the Beloved” and the Holy Spirit hovered over his head in the form of a dove. In today’s gospel Jesus is preparing the disciples for his death and his departure from them. He says, “I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer.” And “All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
In this same passage Jesus says that if he doesn’t go away the Advocate (the Holy Spirit) will not come. But if Jesus goes away he will send the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in all truth.”
We baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Many other passages could be cited but the point is that Jesus was constantly revealing to us, as God’s Son as never separated from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
The Pentecost experience and the continuing experience of the presence of God in the Church is not simply and solely the experience of the Holy Spirit either. The distinction between the presence and the activity of the Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit is not at all clear.
Christians in the first centuries after Christ grappled long and hard with the doctrine of the Trinity, trying to define as best they could the existence of God. Many theologians spend a lifetime struggling over the revelation of the Trinity and spelling out its dogma for the Church. To us it may seem irrelevant that the early Church Fathers spent so much time and energy defining terms and condemning heretics who didn’t subscribe to the proper beliefs.
The experience of God for the primitive Christian community was as paradoxical as it was exciting. God is ONE, yet diverse; transcendent (other), yet immanent (one of us); stable, yet dynamic. The temptation has always been to emphasize God’s oneness to the exclusion of the threeness and vice versa. What helped the early Church then is crucial for us today that the language we use about God is rooted in our common experience as a faith community. Remember that this is the deepest of our faith mysteries. We will never be able to understand God purely through analysis and reason!
It might be clearer to think of the functions that are attributed to the persons of the Trinity. We speak of God the Father as Creator. Every time we see a newborn baby with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes we know that only a loving God could possibly create such a wonderful being. When we see a rainbow or a beautiful sunset, the mountains, the oceans, or even a single flower we are led to know that there is indeed a God who created this world and continues to create.
On the other hand, we also see the ugliness, the hatred, and the brokenness of this world. Certainly we know our own sinfulness and realize that left alone we could not possibly breech the gap that human beings have made between God and ourselves. So God sent the Son as Redeemer. God’s Son did what we could not hope to do: bring us back into full relationship with God.
And finally, when the Son, the Redeemer, was called back to the Father creator, Jesus Christ breathed the Holy Spirit to stay with us as Sustainer. Without the Holy Spirit we would live in fear and despair, unable to continue the daily struggle against the Evil that surrounds us. The Holy Spirit transforms us to become the persons we were created to be; to become bold in proclaiming the Good News that Jesus Christ did indeed come to reconcile us with the Father and to restore creation to its original beauty and loveliness.
Creator-Redeemer-Sustainer. Another way God reveals to us how much we are loved; another way to reflect upon the Trinity. Each function attributed to One person of the Trinity but all three acting together in complete unity of One God. And just as the three persons of the Trinity live in close community with each other, we are empowered through Baptism in this Trinity to live in a loving relationship with one another for form one holy catholic and apostolic Church. This is the most mysterious aspect of all about the Trinity. The three distinct persons love each other so much that they are of one heart and one mind. Hence, one God.
Yet having said all this, only God knows God – finally and fully. When it comes to knowing the ins and outs of God, we are creatures, even informed by Scripture, tradition, and reason, and led by the Holy Spirit, still see through a glass, darkly. As Karl Barth has written, “When we have said what we have meant by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in God, we must continue, and say that we have said nothing.” But we are given glimpses. We are assured that God’s revelation that begins for us with Scripture has continued in the tradition of the history of the Church and continues in us as living breathing members of the Church.
Arthur Darby Nock once said, “Primitive religion is not believed. It is danced.” Maybe that is the best place to end a sermon about one God in three persons who dance with each other One perfect dance and invite us along. So we need to let go, quit speaking, head out onto God’s dance floor.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Easter 7 Year C
John 17: 20-26
May 16, 2010
Jesus and the disciples had to say good-bye to one another. It was time for Jesus to leave and go back to heaven. They’d been through a lot together! Jesus had called each one personally to follow him and he taught them how to preach, how to teach, how to heal. They listened and learned but up until the moment of his Ascension they always had him to lean on. They could always ask more questions.
They had been with Jesus when he was taken away to be tried and crucified. They watched the Passion and death and suffered too with Jesus. When they were at their deepest despair, when they believed that Jesus had left them forever, He rose from the dead and appeared to them time and time. But this time he really was going to leave them.
Whether we like it or not, each of us faces many times in our lives when we have to say good-bye. It happens over and over again in our lifetime. With fear and trepidation we send off our little one to day school or kindergarten, and wave good-bye. We graduate from high school or college and, although we swear we’ll remain loyal friends and vow to “get together soon,” we go our separate ways. We say good-bye to a loved one who dies. If we are fortunate enough to know that they are dying, we spend time with each other and tell each other “I love you” before we have to let go. In this mobile society, some of us have moved from one location to another. Even knowing in our head that we will make new friends, our heart aches as we leave the old friends who have meant so much to us.
Then there are relationship good-byes. You vowed to stay in your marriage forever but it turns sour and ends in divorce. The company where you were employed sends a pink slip. An auto accident quickly takes the life of a child or spouse. Those are painful good-byes.
Good-byes are part of life. Each time we say “Good-bye” we begin a new relationship with that person. It means that something has changed on a deep level. Our love doesn’t change but things are different when we are no longer in the physical presence of the other. The potential for prolonged pain and unresolved emotions in all these situations is enormous.
Joyce Rupp has written a wonderful book about good-byes. She maintains that partings make up the fabric of life. They are an essential part of the human condition. Most good-byes occur in small ways and we cope accordingly. But we know that leave-takings can be a whole lot more involved and painful. Jesus experienced grief himself at the death of Lazarus (John 11: 33-35). Grief is important and should take place after any significant loss. The problem occurs when this grief is unprocessed and unresolved. When the person never really identifies and deals with the “good-byes” that should have been made. These appropriate “good-byes” have been denied or stuffed or medicated away. Only they never go away: they just go underground. And then they surface later in mind, body, or spirit in destructive ways.
Joyce Rupp maintains through her pastoral practice that there are four steps in the process of recovering from unresolved loss
¶ Step #1 Recognition. We need to name our loss. It is a time of complete honesty of emotions – feeling what we do feel as opposed to what others say we “ought” to fee. Identify your hurt! We need to put definition on the inner woundedness that has long gone unidentified. Without this necessary first step the loss stays buried – and troublesome.
¶ Step #2 Reflection. Rupp says that the grieving person needs to slow down. He or she needs to step off the merry-go-round of what our culture demands us to do and make time for quiet. We need to find a place of inner stillness where emotions can be identified, the wisdom of our own body can be heard, and one can hear the still small voice of God and receive the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Some find journaling helpful.
¶ Step #3 Ritualization. Rupp says that this is a two-part process. First we use healing images or transforming symbols in dealing with this deep pain. We can visualize the pain leaving our head in the form of a cloud that empties into the Light of Christ. We surrender the toxicity of our wound to Divine Love and the poison is removed. Second, Rupp advocates acting out some kind of movement prayerfully. Taking flowers to a grave. Lighting a candle. A walk-a-thon for Cancer research. Going to a therapist. Making your confession to a priest. Act your way out of being stuck.
¶ Step #4 Reorientation Emerging on the other side, we connect our inner and outer worlds. You have honored your emotional reality and have allowed it to deepen your faith. Your pain has become a path to blessing. You still carry your scars but the Resurrected Lord still had the wounds in his hands and feet and side. They testify to the unlimited power of God’s grace to make us new and whole.
Indeed the disciples had to go through this process with Jesus. They were about to experience him in a new way. Their relationship has changed. In John’s gospel this morning we hear Jesus praying for them, and not just for them but for us too. Jesus wants all of us to know the love of God. He asks that we would experience the Father’s love in the same way as He does. He prays that we can love one another too.
By praying for unity Jesus implies that it is a gift – it cannot be made or coerced. We cannot humanly make it happen. God gives this gift to those with open and empty hands. The philosopher Gabriel Marcel has said, “A problem is something that I meet, which I find complete before me, which I can therefore lay siege to and reduce. But a mystery is something in which I am myself involved.” It is like a prayer, it is like love or unity itself.
Jesus’ prayer reveals the intimate role he plays in the unity of the Church and shows how very much He loves each one of us. He as a vital member of the Trinity invites us in to be part of that mystery. Just as Jesus makes room for us, He asks that we make room for one another. No one is in and no one is out.
That’s the thing about this new relationship. No longer were the first disciples able to wait for Jesus to tell them what to do or when to do it. Jesus was gone but he was with them too in a new and wonderful way. Through faith He was with them always. His guidance and love were ever-present. The same is true for us. Jesus’ earthly physical presence is no more but He continues to be with us in that new way that the disciples experienced.
We are Jesus’ eyes and ears and hands and feet. Our call is to show the world the love that Jesus showed. We can do it with His help, which is always there if we are open to receive.
Joyce Rupp, OSM. Praying Our Good-byes: Understanding the Spirituality of Change in Our Lives. (New York: Ivy Books, 1988).
6 Easter Year C
John 14: 23-29
May 9, 2010
We are now in the period between Easter and Pentecost that the Church calls “The Great Fifty Days.” The Church gives us many symbols to remind us of what was going on for Jesus and the disciples that we too may participate. We have the white vestments and hangings reminding us of the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection. These will change to red in two weeks when we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This follows Luke’s version of the story as told in the Acts of the Apostles. He tells of a spectacular gathering of people from many foreign lands, each speaking their own unique language. When the Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire, miraculously each person understood the other. It was a concrete visible, auditory, and certainly dramatic moment!
We put less emphasis on the gospel account of this same event retold by John. He tells that Jesus appeared to his disciples the day of the Resurrection, calmed their fears, and breathed on them the Holy Spirit. A different Pentecost story entirely! If we are to believe John, Pentecost occurred within twenty-four hours of Easter so we don’t need this fifty-day cycle.
So who’s right? Luke or John? You probably know what I am going to say: both. Yet it is important to struggle over the two apparently conflicting texts to discover the truth revealed in both. We know by experience that in the spiritual realm of our lives very little is obvious. Most revelations are subtle and come over time. It takes years of prayer and reflection to grasp the event itself and its significance. This is where John is coming from. John undoubtedly was present at the Pentecost event described by Luke. He also lived much longer and wrote his own account probably thirty years later, after much prayer and reflection himself.
What we are all seeking from the Scriptures is not agreement on detail but the truth that is revealed. John and Luke would both tell us not to argue about who is right. What is the message? It is this: Although the physical presence of Jesus is gone, He left them and leaves us Holy Spirit. Jesus says, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said. Jesus wanted to assure his disciples and us that he would always be with us. Whatever the disciples would come to understand about what happened, they knew from the start that the Resurrection was not simply about what happened to Jesus: it is about what happens to everyone who trusts in Jesus. John wanted to assure us that what Jesus promised came true and remains true.
SO WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT? I spent my first year of seminary at Memphis Theological Seminary, which is run by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Since this is a small denomination that could not financially support such a school, it warmly welcomes other denominations. Although about 40% are Cumberland, the majority of us came from all different Christian faiths, mostly Protestant. There were many Methodists especially, many evangelicals, some Pentecostals, and a few Mainline like me.
Each morning we gathered in the chapel for common worship led by a different student each day. As you would imagine, each person designed their worship based on their own worship experience from their own denomination. One day right after chapel when we were all leaving to go to our first class, a young woman stood up among us and angrily shouted out that our worship was a sham. She told us that prayer is not planned and that we cannot pray by reading from a piece of paper or a prayer book. She said that she could not FEEL the Holy Spirit and insisted upon a whole new approach to our common worship.
Needless to say, as one who holds the Book of Common Prayer near and dear, I did not agree with her, nor did most of my colleagues. But it raised for me then and continues to make me aware of the importance of respecting differences. We all come from different places and traditions and certainly with respect to what we believe about the Holy Spirit. Unlike this woman I am very certain that the Holy Spirit is alive and well in our worship, which is certainly not spontaneous as she would have it. On the other hand, I do believe that she is sincere and that for her it is important to raise her hands and close her eyes and expect to feel the Holy Spirit coming down. Well we continued to take turns leading prayer, each day’s worship just a little different than the other. What was clear to me was the sincerity of faith displayed by each student, despite the apparent different approaches to worship. The vast majority of students were tolerant of one another and open to connecting to God in our differences as well as in our sameness.
It’s hard to be the faith community who continues to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. We each come with our own agendas and our own egos. If Jesus had left us completely, we would have only our own selfish desires and goals with which to deal with each other. But the Holy Spirit is present in each of our lives and is apparent to each of us in a unique and different way. Yet is it the same Spirit. But make no mistake, we will probably always be in tension over it because we are human.
That was never Jesus’ plan. After the death, resurrection, and ascension Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be among us to help us live together in peace – to gather us at the Table with our separate goals and separate hurts to ask that they be transformed into what God wants for us all. Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is our Advocate: supporter, defender, ally, and friend. When we pray to the Holy Spirit we are given peace as we are given the grace to set aside our own selfishness and replace it with goodwill to others.
Today we honor mothers everywhere for the sacrifice and love they have shown us. Being a mother requires daily placing a lot of trust in the Holy Spirit’s guidance! We also honor those who are graduating – ending a chapter in their lives and beginning another. These young people will need the guidance of the Holy Spirit who will lead them into new and unchartered territory.
Mother Teresa wrote in A Simple Path how we can begin to have a close personal relationship with the unseen Christ. She says that we should begin our day in silence, even if it is for just a few minutes. Then pray. We cannot begin to do the work of Jesus or keep the commandments without prayer. Out of silence and prayer comes faith defined by Paul Tillich as, “Being grasped by a power greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us and transforms us and heals us.” When we are grasped by faith, we will be able to love.
Mother Teresa ends the book with a quote from a sign that was on the wall of her children’s home in Calcutta. It’s entitled ANYWAY: “People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend your years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you will be kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.” Amen.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
5 Easter Year C
John 13: 31-35
May 2, 2010
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.
There is an ancient tradition about the last days of the apostle John. He lived to be very old and became so feeble that he had to be carried to the meetings of the faithful. Because of his weakness, he was unable to deliver a long discourse; so at each gathering he simply repeated these words: "Little children, love one another." His disciples, weary of hearing the same words over and over, "Little children, love one another," asked him why he never said anything else. And to them God gave this simple answer, "Do this and it is enough." (from Stories and Parables for Preachers and Teachers, Paulist Press, 1986, p. 25)
John got this truth from the beginning of Jesus' last discourse at the last supper, Judas has already left, and Jesus and his disciples are alone. Jesus begins talking about leaving. We know, of course, that this means his death, resurrection, and ascension. They did not know as none of this had yet happened.
Notice the language: Little children; yet a little while I am with you; you will see me; where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you shall follow afterward; Lord, why can I not follow you now? This is the way we talk in families; painful conversation for a circle of friends about to lose the one who is their reason for being together.
Have you ever been at the bedside of a good friend, a parent or grandparent, a spouse, someone you were close to when they knew they were dying? You have spent a lot of time with this person and love them very much. You do not want to face the inevitable. You cannot imagine and do not want to imagine life without this person. But on their deathbed this loved one is at peace and begins to give you final instructions.
And this special person comforts you, tells you that you will be all right and seems to have a supernatural wisdom. And you are given final words of understanding and compassion, as you feel lost, bewildered, and scared at the realization that very soon that important loved one will be gone.
This is what Jesus and his disciples were going through. He knew what was ahead of him. After the last supper with his friends this night he will be betrayed. And he has one final message to leave his friends. This message sums up all others: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
It's a real pity that the English language is so inadequate, and no time more frustrating that in using the word LOVE. The Greeks had four words that capture the different types and facets and nuances of love. First is STORGE, which means 'natural affection.' This is the love between mother and child. This love flows from our person, as you would expect without effort. The second love is PHILIA that is the affection of friends or kindred spirits, someone you are drawn to like a magnet and you feel good in their presence. And third is EROS, the attraction of desire, sexual love. These three loves are in our human nature to experience and we do. We are disappointed sometimes but the love of family, friends, and lovers will resurface periodically for our own good.
But there's a relatively uncommon Greek word for love that Jesus uses here that is AGAPE. This is used to describe the self-giving love of God revealed by Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus says is the motivating power and pattern of Christian living.
Agape love is clearly distinguished from the other loves as being Godlike. All four are God-given but the first three are natural to all human beings. Agape love is not. There is no way to experience agape love until the grace of the Holy Spirit begins to recreate it and renew a person in /God's image. Agape love is completely unselfish. And we all know that THAT is not natural! It is based on neither a felt need in you nor a desire called forth by some attractive feature in the one loved. In fact, the object of agape love may be repulsive! Agape love is not afraid to make itself vulnerable. It does not seek to get its own way. It rather proceeds from a heart of love and is directed to the other person to seek their highest good.
The source of agape love is God and its inspiration is Jesus Christ. It values other persons as worthy ends in themselves and does not use them as a means to an end. It is not emotion but devotion: commitment measured by self-giving, practical action, and sacrifice. By love that is the most essential and abiding quality in human life, Christians are recognized. By this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
It is quite evident that the key is relationship with God. The announcement of his approaching death presupposes that the relationship of the group to Jesus is primary. What Jesus says here to his followers is essentially the same thing he said to the Jews but here it has an entirely different meaning because their relationship determines its meaning.
Today's gospel is "inside talk." Here Jesus is speaking about the love he has for the disciples and he's asking them to now love each other in that same way. Jesus wants these eleven disciples to model for the future Christian community – us – selfless love.
Have you ever seen the PBS series Upstairs, Downstairs? Each episode chronicles another day in the lives of a wealthy London family and its servants. They all live in the palatial home where the lines are clearly drawn: wealthy owners live upstairs and their numerous servants live downstairs. The era is the early twentieth century around World War I when servants clearly knew their place and were content and proud to serve masters of wealth and high social status.
Hudson the butler is in charge of the servants. He is so proud to be in service! He ably mentors the others to learn the mannerisms and vocabulary necessary to function properly and happily. Hudson's life calling is to do whatever the Bellamys want whenever they want it. Most of the other servants consider it a good job but do their share of grumbling. Not Hudson! Willingly Hudson takes pride in serving tea upstairs while his own life is in the lower echelon of this society.
Jesus understands servant love much like Hudson does. But the big difference (and this is a big difference!) is that Jesus wants the Bellamy family to switch roles. Can you imagine Lady Bellamy going downstairs to serve Mrs. Bridges a tart? The agape love that Jesus felt for his disciples was that of master washing the feet of his servants. Jesus turns love upside down and wants his disciples to do the same thing.
If we love one another as Jesus loves us, we must be ready to put aside our grudges, our hurts, and our righteous anger. We are not allowed to love with our fingers crossed behind our backs. We must be open to love everyone. People whose skin is a different color than ours; those who do not speak English; those whose sexual preference is different from ours. Worse yet: we are expected to love those who harm us, those who do not wish us well. Surely we are allowed one holdout, one person that we can judge as unworthy of our love!
But the commandment wasn't written by Congress: it has no loopholes. It demands we let go of our pet hatreds and prejudices, the ones we clutch like teddy bears. As Christians many of us wear crosses. They symbolize to the world that we believe in Jesus Christ who died for our sins. Yet according to Jesus we don't need this emblem. We have a permanent valid ID and we can be spotted anywhere. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. So this is why John the evangelist sounded like a broken record in his old age when he told the early Christians over and over again: Little children, love one another. This is the broken record that we too must hear and we must practice.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Easter 4 Year C
John 10: 22-30
April 25, 2010
The Lord is my Shepherd. What a wonderful image we are given of God’s love for us! A shepherd cares for his flock with 24/7 attention. He feeds the sheep and cares for their every need. Those who are in the flock love to hear his voice and gather when he calls.
Do you remember the television show Cheers? Jesus as the Good Shepherd reminds me of the reason why that show has become such an enduring success. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Cheers is a Boston bar that is the setting for this situation comedy. We got to know personally Sam, the ex-Red Sox baseball player, bartender, and his likable sidekick Woody, an airhead from Indiana farm country, so green that if you planted him he would sprout. Carla, that prickly, worldly-wise waitress with multiple children and colorful marriages. Norm, happy-go-lucky, always with a beer in his hand, bemoaning his marriage to Vera, who we never meet. Cliff, the United States postal carrier who lives with his mother and irritates everyone with his supposed knowledge of unimportant trivia. Diane, the blonde waitress who puts on airs of her knowledge of great literature and sees herself misplaced among the riffraff. Frasier, the psychiatrist who wants to fit in with the others and analyzes their relationships. What a hodgepodge of humanity!
Why do they come to the bar? The job's not that good for the waitresses or the bartenders so it's not to get rich. They get on each other's nerves continually and make fun of each other and are even cruel to one another. So why do they come back day after day? The theme song says it all: they come "where everybody knows my name and they're always glad I came." Norm walks to his stool and everybody shouts "NORM!" They share good news with one another but more importantly they share their problems and bungled life issues – and that makes up the bulk of the episode stories.
We can sometimes find people who praise us for our gifts and accomplishments and we find people who know we are imperfect and defective and make a lot of mistakes. But what we yearn for is the need to be loved for who we are, with all our human frailties, to be loved unconditionally. This likable mishmash of humanity that makes up the cast of Cheers comes to mind on this day as we think about Jesus as the Good Shepherd because in their crazy mixed up way, that’s exactly what they do for each other.
Those of us who have never been pastoral nomads probably miss a great deal of imagery when Jesus talks about being the Good Shepherd. There’s a group of [Rabari] nomads living in India today who give us a modern description of shepherding people and may help us to have a clearer picture of what Jesus wants us to understand:
"Among the Rabari people, throughout the night all the shepherds and their various flocks are gathered together in one flock, and the shepherds share the night watches. Some will sleep while others patrol, banging their staffs and rattling things, so that the sheep are never unguarded and any predator or thief is made aware of their constant vigilance. But when day breaks, things change.
"Each shepherd has slightly different calls, variations on a theme. There are morning calls to move out, a call to bring the sheep to water, and so on. Each man knows his own sheep and vice versa and his particular flock will disentangle itself from the larger flock and move out behind him in the morning. This may or may not seem astonishing until one realizes that perhaps five thousand sheep are gathered together in the single large nighttime flock."
This is the picture that Jesus wants us to have in mind in comparing us to sheep and himself as the shepherd. We gather as one enormous flock that divides into smaller flocks with the coming of day. Each shepherd calls and as each of us sheep recognizes the particular call of its own shepherd, we assemble to follow him and follow him alone. Each shepherd is so intimately familiar with his own sheep that he will know at once who is present and who my yet be missing. And despite the presence of perhaps thousands of other milling sheep – all looking, at least to the uninitiated – very much alike.
Jesus chooses this metaphor very intentionally to show us, in as vivid a way as possible, how much he loves us and how he knows us each personally. We are not just our social security number or our birth date. We are not just a name on the role of life. Jesus knows us in a most intimate way and loves us unconditionally.
We had been using in our church a Christian Education program for the youngest children. It's called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. The basic premise is for the children to get to know Jesus Christ is to get to know what he means when he says he is the Good Shepherd. This has become a powerful learning tool for the little ones and for those trained in the method. Jesus the Good Shepherd, holding each of us in his arms and loving us as no one else does or can.
The TV show Cheers became so popular because it tapped into this common yearning that we all have to be known and to be loved. It gave us permission to laugh at ourselves and to cry at poignant moments. Cheers didn't really have a shepherd. Part of what made the show endearing to us was that they were "shepherdless," floundering about aimlessly. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be a community of people who shared a common bond of love and who knew that we were taken care of by a leader who knew our inner most thoughts and feelings, who comforts us when we cry, who wants to know when we have a problem, who wants to hear about all the good and the bad things that happen in our day?
Wouldn't it be great to be able to be yourself and not put on a mask, not always be "on guard," not always pretending to be someone you are not? We don't have to go to the Boston bar Cheers to find a person who knows and loves us just as we are. We hear the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd. He calls you and me to himself and draws us into a deep abiding personal relationship. He knows you and he knows me and he wants us to get to know Him. Follow his voice. It will lead you to the greatest love you will ever know!
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Robyn Davison, “Wandering with India’s Rabari,” The National Geographic, September, 1993, pp. 64-93
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April 18, 2010
We find Jesus this morning cooking breakfast outside on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius. The disciples were at loose ends. They didn’t know what to do with themselves. Jesus was gone, at least Jesus as they had known him. They had a lot to make sense of. They had yet to understand their own ministry. They were in a period of introspection and discernment. Sometimes they were scattered, off by themselves, but often these bonded friends came together and went fishing. When we don’t know what to do, we go back to what we know best – what makes us secure. For these disciples that was fishing.
Only they didn’t catch any fish. They once did. Everything was different now. No matter how hard they tried to go back to “the way it used to be” it didn’t work. Jesus had turned their lives upside down.
So Jesus comes along but they don’t recognize him. He asks how their fishing is going and they have to admit that they hadn’t caught anything. They are ready to clean up and go home. Jesus gently urges them to try again. They obeyed this supposed stranger and went out again. How remarkable that with this tiny suggestion they easily and willingly tried again!
When the nets were filled with more fish than they could haul in, they saw recognized Jesus. They saw him on the shore cooking fish on a charcoal grill. He invited them to bring some of their newly caught fish. Jesus was serving his disciples comfort food. Then he blessed it, broke bread celebrating the Holy Eucharist, and they recognized him. Wow!
It has been said (Edmund Fuller) that the new gullibility of our particular time is not that we believe too much but that we believe too little – we’ve lost our sense of the miracle . . . then when awe and wonder depart from our awareness, depression sets in and despair may set in. The loss of wonder, of awe, of the sense of the sublime, can lead to the death of the soul. There is no more withering state than that which takes everything for granted.
There is a temptation for us of course to over spiritualize this story. But listen to it: Jesus appears unobtrusively. They weren’t expecting him and they didn’t see him. But they were open to the moment. I wonder if after a whole night of fishing and catching nothing, you or I would have gone out again so readily on a stranger’s suggestion. The disciples really did have an openness to God’s direction that can be a model for us today.
So. What does this third Resurrection scene mean for us today? It means that the Resurrection happens in the real world. Jesus comes to the disciples on the shore of the lake because that is where they live and work. Jesus comes to us where WE live and work. If we are students or teachers, Jesus will be with you at school. If we work in an office, he will be at the water cooler or standing by the coffee pot. If we work in a factory, he is standing beside us on the line.
The Gospel comes alive in this physical world. There is no need to spiritualize the Resurrection as something that only pertains to us when we die. It means renewal of life, not escape from it. The people we work and associate with may truly be the incarnation of Christ for us if we are open to see His face.
In the disciples’ hour of disappointment, difficulty, and doubt – that’s when they caught nothing. When we lose a job, fail a test, mourn our spouse’s death, face physical pain Jesus is there. When we face obstacles that are insurmountable and trouble seems to find us around every corner, Jesus is there too. We find ourselves all alone and on the brink of despair.
But when we have given up on our own attempts at self-salvation and making it on our own, the Resurrection breaks into our lives with transforming power. All we need to do is be ready to receive. To be in that posture takes a daily discipline of prayer where we nurture our relationship with God. If we let Jesus walk with us in the good times, we will recognize him and know he is there in the painful times.
In the Resurrection Jesus reveals himself to those who love him. It is a mystery. Proof cannot be part of the Resurrection story. In the final analysis this great love can never be proven.
C. S. Lewis said about Aslan, his symbol for the Risen Lord. “He is good but he is not safe.” We have nothing in our nets. Without Jesus we can do nothing. Our lives and this church are like those nets. Jesus promises to fill them. Can they hold such abundance? Real life is more than we can handle, after all. We’d rather Jesus got into our boat rather than rock it. But expect just that: Jesus’ abundance will rock our boat!
So be open to the stranger who passes by. It may be Jesus. See if you recognize him. . . .
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Easter 2 Year A
John 20: 19-31
April 11, 2010
If you’re like me, you have enjoyed the high of Resurrection Sunday that comes from the Easter lilies, the festive white hangings, the music, and the children flowering the cross. But we come down from our elation and are left on this traditionally “low Sunday” in the uncomfortable place of trying to figure out just what IS meant by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We know the words quite well and can recite them by rote “Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.” Of course we say those words in faith. They are in our Creed! Do we really have any idea at all about what they mean?
Perhaps it would help to articulate what the Resurrection DOESN’T mean. At the end of Act Four in the play Peter Pan, Tinkerbell has swallowed the poison so that Peter doesn’t take it. Rushing to save Tink, Peter bends over the dying fairy. As the light fades from the poisoned fairy, Peter listens to her closely. Peter then turns to the audience and says that Tinkerbell thinks she could get well if all the children would clap their hands and believe in fairies very, very hard. Then Tinkerbell will come back to life and help rescue Wendy, John, and Michael. Sure enough, the children believe and clap like crazy. (Didn’t you do that from the TV instructions of Mary Martin?) Tink rises and the fairy tale comes true. But as an interesting side note, J. M. Barrie writes these stage directions to his play: “Tink is already as merry and impudent as a grig with not a thought for those who save her.”
Anyhow, this kind of make-believe may work in Peter Pan’s Neverland but this is NOT what occurs with the disciples on Easter evening. Jesus was really and truly DEAD and they knew it! The empty tomb – far from convincing them that Jesus had been raised from the dead – had not changed their minds, let alone motivated them to clap their hands and believe very, very hard so that Jesus would come back to life. SURVIVAL NOT RESURRECTION was what they were worried about. THEIR OWN SURVIVAL! Maybe somebody should clap their hands for the disciples. . .
What we do know for a fact is that Jesus’ Resurrection was not dependent upon the faith of the disciples. They abandoned him in fear! The Resurrection occurred as an independent event through the power of God alone!
It’s also important for us to get away from the notion that Resurrection means resuscitation. When Jesus returned as the Risen Lord, HE WAS A NEW PERSON! His dead flesh-and-bones body was NOT brought back to life. His body was transformed into something NEW. I can’t tell you exactly what that means but through faith I believe that Jesus’ body was transformed into something new and wonderful, something that now we can look forward to having when I die. Jesus died so that we may live!
For that very reason the story of Thomas is important because this story is your story and my story. It is the story of faith and the lack of it. Thomas was a good, faithful, loyal disciple of Jesus. Yet more than all the others: Thomas was skeptical. He was thoroughly disappointed in Jesus. He had believed that Jesus was the Messiah yet look how it ended: Jesus didn’t save himself but allowed himself to be tortured and to die. So Thomas was depressed. When the others excitedly reported Jesus’ appearance to them, Thomas wasn’t convinced. He had to see for himself.
In many ways Thomas may have been ahead of his time. At that time people were more willing to believe in the miraculous. The world today though is filled with those of us who depend on scientific proof for everything. I watched an interesting show on PBS a few years ago dissecting the ministry of Benny Hinn. You know him: person after person comes to the stage, he pushes slightly, they fall down backwards, but are completely healed of their physical infirmities. Psychologists and other scientific experts proved case by case that what Mr. Hinn claims as miraculous can easily be shown to be physical chemical changes occurring during the carefully orchestrated program. Many of those who came to the stage in heightened stages of ecstasy went back to their previous state after the event. No real miracle has ever been documented after the fact. This does not surprise most people, as we are cynical of almost everything. Prove it to me! We have to have black and white proof. “Show me” is not only the motto of those from Missouri!
That’s why we can forever be grateful to John for including this story in the gospel. Thomas is every man and every woman, you and me. We may laugh at it and discount miracles and encounters with the Risen Lord. We are skeptical of those who base their religion on supposed miraculous encounters with Christ. It takes incredible faith to believe that Jesus who died and was buried is now alive and active in our lives today, here and now.
Resurrection is about transformation. Jesus is changed – new – alive. It is only when Jesus breathes on the disciples his own life-breath that they receive Christ power. In that act of empowerment the Resurrection of Jesus becomes a communicable reality. The power of the Risen Christ was created that day, and then released – first in the disciples, and then in a world desperate for healing.
Christ has breathed on us too! We have received that Christ power! Because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ we have been given the grace to enter the Kingdom that is the New Age. Each one of us has experienced a personal encounter with Jesus but most of us are reluctant to tell about it. C. S. Lewis tells a story about one woman who finally worked up the nerve to share her Jesus experience with two different church leaders. The first one listened carefully then resumed talking about completely unrelated matters, as though he hadn’t heard her. He discounted her story as silly and frivolous. The second one she spoke to became angry; blurting out that he had sought such an experience is his life. Who was she to be granted this favor? Once the woman was anxious to hide the fact that she believed so much less than the church leaders but now she hides the fact that she believes so much more.
If we let go of the need to see Christ ourselves, as Thomas couldn’t, we will find that we already know Him through the testimony of others. As we come together as witnesses and share our experiences, we meet on a common ground. And because of this meeting we will respond to God’s calling as a response to the Holy Spirit who is driving these experiences.
Jesus is calling us to a closer relationship with him. He seems to expect us to strive for this relationship too. Through your own experiences, those of others you talk to, and those recorded in the Scripture, we find revealed a Master who, in spite of the imperfections of the disciples He chooses, lifts us all into partnership with Himself. It’s a Spirit that calls us to be no less than disciples, called to spread the good news and share our own experience with the Risen Christ.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Luke 24: 1-10
April 4, 2010
Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!
The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
What a glorious morning this is! And how glad I am that you are here to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He is alive as he said he would be! We remember today THE event that is paramount to our Christian belief. And we look forward to what this means for us: eternal life forever with God in heaven.
The early Church fathers said that the Resurrection of Jesus exists in three ways : The Resurrection that we celebrate today exists outside of us as a single event from the past that really and actually happened. The Resurrection exists in the future as the consummation of the life of faith. And the Resurrection exists at any moment in time. It exists now. It was always present and always accessible for anyone who asks for it.
We glory in the event we celebrate today! Jesus of Nazareth was arrested, crucified, died, and was buried. He was really dead! Then two days later, when the women came to the tomb to clean his body to finish the burial rites, Jesus was gone. He had risen from the dead. He was alive! He had broken the chains of death and lives!
There’s a story about three men who were walking along and came upon a raging, violent river. (They may have been in Rhode Island last week.) They needed to get across to the other side but had no idea how to do it. The first man prayed, “Please God, give me the strength to cross this river!” Poof! God gave the man big arms and strong legs and he was able to swim across in about two hours.
Seeing this, the second man prayed to God, “Please give me the strength to cross this river.” Poof! God gave him a rowboat and he was able to row across the river in about three hours. The third man, seeing how things worked out for the other two, also prayed, “God, give me the strength and the ability and the intelligence to cross this river.” And poof! God turned him into a woman. She looked at the map, and then walked across the bridge.
Jokes aside we cannot fail to see the prominence of the women in the Easter story. They remained at the Cross when the men had fled. They came to the tomb on Easter morning. They were there bright and early doing what women do. What a surprise to find two angels telling them that Jesus was gone. It was they who went to find the apostles to tell them the good news.
This moment in history is so significant! These men and women were changed after their experience with the Risen Lord. They had known Jesus and loved him before but now everything was turned upside down. Their world was changed and they were changed too.
It seems so unbelievable, doesn’t it? Second century theologian Tertullian is quoted as saying, “I believe because it is outrageous.” He said that he came to faith NOT because of its reasonableness but because Christianity was a religion that no ordinary mind could have invented – particularly the part about Christ crucified. The whole story is outrageous. It could not be proved then and it cannot be proved now. “I believe because it is outrageous.”
The miracle of Easter for us is that over two thousand years later, in a radically different culture, thousands of miles from Jerusalem, we believe in the outrageous - that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. We believe that God loves us so much that he sent his only Son to confront the sin of the world and break its power. He died that we might live!
But Easter is not merely that wonder event that happened thousands of years ago. The Resurrection happens now. Whatever death confronts you, whatever tomb you are in, whatever hopelessness you are experiencing: Christ can raise you up. The power of whatever evil has hold of your life has been broken by the power of Jesus Christ.
The power of the Resurrection is known and felt in each of our lives and that means good news for us -the Good News that Jesus died and rose for you and me personally and every other person who has ever lived and who ever will live. God has always wanted to be with each human being eternally and gave the ultimate sacrifice so that it could happen. Can we even remotely understand such love? St. Augustine answers that, “If you think you understand it, it isn’t from God.” Real wisdom!
“Each one of us has experienced the loneliness of alienation. We know what it means to be hurt, to endure rejection, to know fear and misunderstanding, while at the same time our lives become closed, inward directed, insensitive, and we want to retaliate. Relationships are broken, loneliness is enhanced; but from these emotions of hurt and fear we cannot deliver ourselves. We can only wait and hope until across the chasm of our isolation there comes the gift of love. And this love heals, accepts, dispels fear, and embraces with understanding. Love lifts us up and stands us on our feet, giving us the courage to live again, to dare again, to risk loving again. That is Resurrection! When we know love, we are lifted into life, resurrected life, life that can never be totally destroyed again.”
The apostle Paul articulated his deep knowledge of faith, Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 35-39). The Resurrection makes it so!
Amen.
Robin Amis. A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought. (State University of New York Press), 1995.
John Shelby Spong. Christpower (Hale Publishing, 1975), p. 78.
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Good Friday Year C
John 18: 1- 19: 42
April 2, 2010
Garrison Keillor tells the story of his uncle who, at annual family gatherings during Holy Week, would read the story of the passion and the death of Jesus. And each year, when he came to the verses describing Jesus’ betrayal, he would burst into tears. The family would sit awkwardly until the man was able to continue the reading. Keillor commented that his uncle took the death of his Lord “so personally.” He’d pause in his story, then add: “The rest of the church has gotten over that years ago.”
There’s an old saying: You can’t have Easter without Good Friday. We have the desire to have an open heart, a loving heart, a compassionate heart. Well how do we open our heart? It’s usually broken open; Jesus on the cross breaks our heart open. You can’t look at the crucifixion without having an experience of compassion. Only a heart broken open – one that can have compassion for those that suffer – can truly appreciate the new life of Easter.
Several years ago there was an article in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association [March 21, 1986 – Vol. 255, No. 11 – pp. 1455 – 1463]) that did an expose called On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ. “It is our intent to present not a theological treatise but rather a medically and historically accurate account of the physical death of the one called Jesus Christ.”
They proceeded to dissect the entire Scriptural account and from a purely scientific analysis tell us what really happened to Jesus. That Jesus was under such great emotional stress he was particularly vulnerable to the scourging. Jesus was stripped of his clothing and hands tied to an upright post. His back, buttocks, and legs flogged by two soldiers. The severity was intended to weaken Jesus to a state just short of death. The lacerations tore into the skeletal muscles producing ribbons of bleeding flesh. Jesus was severely whipped and left in the state of shock.
He was then led to his crucifixion. This form of capital punishment was designed to produce a slow death with maximum pain and suffering. It was disgraceful and cruel and usually reserved only for slaves, foreigners, revolutionaries, and the vilest of criminals. Jesus carried the horizontal beam of his own cross, tied to his outstretched arms. That Simon of Cyrene was forced to help him showed that Jesus was weakened beyond what was normal. He was given the bitter drink of wine mixed with gall as an analgesic but Jesus refused to obliterate even the smallest amount of pain.
Jesus was thrown to the ground on his bloody back with his outstretched arms on the beam. Tapered nail spikes were driven into his wrists then through his feet. The soldiers and the crowd taunted and jeered him and the soldiers threw dice for his clothes. Insects would burrow into the open wounds, birds of prey tear at these sites. By custom, when one died the Roman guard would pierce the body with a sword to be sure he was dead. It was a death of intense agony with many causes of death: blood loss from scourging, the weight of the body hanging on nails, and a marked interference with normal respiration, not to mention shock and asphyxia, dehydration and heart failure. Jesus’ death after only three to six hours surprised even Pontius Pilate. Modern medical knowledge determines that indeed Jesus did die and it was a horrible death.
The physical pain was beyond belief but can you think of a lonelier death? Deserted by his closest companions, his dearest friends. Rebuked by his nation, silenced in shame forever by his critics from the intelligentsia and the aristocracy – the defenders of the Law and the Pax Romana. Refuted in everything he said as a heretic, and convicted at every turn as a deluded blasphemer – his marvelous deeds of power described as ‘the work of the devil.’ Reduced to a silent sufferer – lashed to look like something out of a slaughterhouse, jeered at, spat upon – Jesus was headed to a godless, miracle-less death. Abandoned not only by his disciples, but seemingly by the God of limitless grace in whose name and authority he had spoken and acted.
Thomas Merton (No Man is an Island, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., 1955) captured the feeling that should fall over us this day. It is a feeling that should lead us to the most profound choice we have. Merton says: “Yet it is blessed to be reduced to these depths if, in them, we can find God. Until we have reached the bottom of the abyss, there is still something for us to choose between all and nothing. There is still something in-between. We can still evade the decision. When we are reduced to our last extreme, there is no further evasion. The choice is a terrible one. It is made in the heart of darkness, but with an intuition that is unbearable by its angelic clarity: when we who have been destroyed seem to be in hell, miraculously choose God.” (p. 208)
That is the choice with which we are left on this day. On this Friday that is really Frightful Friday before it is Good Friday the choice we have is between all and nothing. Between God and the abyss of self-will run amuck. The choice to rely on grace alone and not on our own self-righteousness. That is the choice we have today. Nothing in-between – just grace. To reach out, let go, and let God. And to remember that Sunday is coming. . . .
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Maundy Thursday Year C
John 13: 1-17, 31b-35
April 1, 2010
In Jesus’ day, sitting down and eating together was the ultimate way for the family and the community to share their common life. Eating was important to strengthen your body. It was also a pleasurable experience as those preparing the food worked hard and long to make it appetizing and delicious. Those who ate came ready to enjoy both the feast and the company of others, family and friends. No meal was entered into lightly. Such terms as “fast food” were an oxymoron. Food was prepared slowly and eaten slowly as a process for the gathering to share a sacred time together.
No meal was more sacred or more important than the Passover meal. The Jewish people gathered for this annual feast remembering the fateful day long ago when the Jews in Egypt were told by Moses to smear the blood of a young lamb on their doorpost. Eat as much of the animal as you can and burn the rest in sacrifice because this night God will kill the children of the Egyptians and save the Hebrews. You will be allowed to leave Egypt to journey to the Promised Land.
The Jews in Jesus’ time re-enacted the deliverance with a sacred meal, in thanksgiving for God keeping his promise. But for Jesus and his disciples tonight would be a Passover meal like no other! Jesus would transform that historic deliverance into a deliverance with even deeper and more profound meaning.
At this sacred meal a Jesus took on the task of the lowliest of servants. He wrapped a towel around his waist and went to each disciple to wash their feet. Oh my how they must have cringed. Not me, Jesus! You are our leader, not our slave. But Jesus calmly went from foot to foot, caring for the battered feet of his followers, making them ready for the battle ahead. In and through this act Jesus instills a pattern of love on the consciousness of believers. Of all the things he could have done or said – this is the act and the gift that he chooses to give his disciples.
Then they ate supper together. They had a good time but tension was in the air. Judas left to begin the gruesome drama of treachery that Jesus would have to endure. Yet even though Jesus knew what was ahead and perhaps because he did, when supper was over he gave them the gift of himself in the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, “This is my Body. This is my Blood.” I’m sure they were puzzled and dismayed but had faith in Jesus to trust his words, trust that this was needed to endure whatever it was that was ahead of them.
In imitating Jesus we become vulnerable through a new identity in which we are not defined by what we do but who we are in Christ. Tonight we remember and believe that Jesus’ total surrender to what no one would consider doing, what nothing and no one else would do, opened the door to eternal life. This cosmic act transformed Jesus himself.
The Holy Eucharist is very sacred, as we believe that just as Jesus said the words of consecration at that Passover meal, the words that I say tonight make the same transformation happen. We believe that the presence of Jesus Christ is here in this bread and wine just as it was at that Last Supper meal with the disciples. The mystery is deep but through faith we believe.
If you notice at every Holy Eucharist when the priest is preparing the elements, the wine is poured into the cup followed by a small amount of water. This is not to dilute the wine! Symbolically we know that the wine is the blood of Jesus Christ. Well we are the water. When the water is mingled with the wine it is lost. You no longer see the water, you see only the wine. Our belief is that when we take the Holy Communion we become Christ.
Another uplifting phenomenon about the Holy Eucharist is that in this shared meal, all of us become brothers and sisters in Christ. In this moment, we venture out of our private untouchable lives. The Holy Eucharist is the great Christian equalizer. All of us come hungry, yearning to be fed by God; all leave fed on God’s love. Whatever divides us from one another dies away at this sacred table.
No one’s need is greater than another’s. No one’s pain is greater than another’s. No one’s sin is worse than another’s. Issues of race, gender, and inequalities of wealth and power cease to exist at the Lord’s Table. We are knit together by our hunger for God. Even though the unity may only be momentary it is a taste of the Christian hope for all time when, as Julian of Norwich put it, all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
[end] Frederick Buechner wrote in Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC: “The next time you walk down the street, take a good look at every face you pass and in your mind say Christ died for thee. That girl. That slob. That phony. That crook. That saint. That damned fool. Christ died for thee. Take and eat in remembrance that Christ died for thee.”
Henry James once said that the great thing in life was to be saturated by something. The answer Jesus gives us tonight is to demonstrate what we are to be saturated in. This love. This broken bread, this shared cup. These washed feet. “Do this in remembrance of me.”
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Lent 5 Year C
John 12: 1-8
March 21, 2010
Extravagant Love
Jesus knows that the time of his is coming near. And just as we do when we are facing trials and tribulations Jesus went to be with his dear friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Not long ago Jesus had been called to them when Lazarus was dying. He arrived late but performed one of his greatest miracles – raising him from the dead. He loved this family immensely! So he comes there to be loved as he faces his own death. He knows that Martha will cook him a good meal, Mary will engage him in theological debate, and Lazarus will sit by his side smiling in contentment. What a fine way to spend your last days!
We see that Judas came along this time – maybe other disciples were with him too. His three friends owned a fancy home in Bethany and could easily accommodate many and always urged Jesus to bring them along. At their splendid meal Mary did something totally outrageous! She took a pound of costly perfume made of nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. Can you imagine anyone doing that to someone at the dinner table? It was about as unheard of then as it would be now!
Mary knew that Jesus was anxious and was hurting as he anticipated his fate. She wanted to show him that she loved him and shared his pain. She wanted to soothe him and what better way than with expensive oil poured over his aching feet? They were rich and could easily afford such an extravagant gift and she gave it from the extravagance of her heart.
I want to tell you about a movie that came out in the 1980s called Babette’s Feast. It won the Academy Award in 1987 for the Best Foreign Language film. It takes place in a poor small village in Denmark at the end of the nineteenth century.
Two elderly and pious sisters are living in the house they grew up in. Their father was a ministers and had founded his own Christian sect which was stricter and more austere than the local Lutheran church. His daughters carried on his ministry pastoring the dwindling elderly congregation left by their father.
One day Babette appears at their door. She came from Paris as a refugee and was recommended to them as a maid by a man who had once courted one of the sisters. Her only link to her former life was a lottery ticket which her friend renewed every year for her. After a decade or so of loyal service to the two women she wins the lottery – 10,000 francs. She could have gone back to France and been comfortable for many years but she decides to prepare a delicious dinner for the sisters and their congregation in gratitude for their taking her in and their kindness to her.
Babette goes back to Paris and purchases the most expensive, most delicious ingredients. When the food and accouterments arrive the sisters and the townspeople are nervous that this extravagence is sinful. They want to participate but fear Babette is a witch.
The lavish meal of turtle soup, endive salad, cavier, quail, truffles, rum cake with fig, and of course elegant wine, is served in the austere drab home for a dozen or so people who had never tasted anything like it! They discovered Babette’s secret that she had been a chef in a Paris restaurant prior to her coming to them.
The sisters assume that Babette will now return to Paris, and when she tells them that all of her money is gone and that she is not going anywhere, the sisters are aghast. Babette then tells them that this dinner has a price of 10,000 francs. One sister tearfully says, "Now you will be poor the rest of your life", to which Babette replies, "An artist is never poor". The other sister then tells her that in paradise Babette will indeed be the great artist God intended her to be.
This is a beautiful example of extravagant love! This meal that Babette lovingly pays for, prepares, ‘and serves not only gave the sisters and their friends a special feast but like the Holy Eucharist they experienced a transformation that came from receiving a sumptuous gift.
Both Babette and Mary understood what it meant to love generously. Judas on the other hand had a heart of ice. He chided Mary for being wasteful, using the ulterior motive of taking care of the poor as his excuse for being thrifty. We know about Judas and know he had already gone to the dark side in his relationship with Jesus.
The setting for both of these acts of extravagant generosity and love is a meal – and a meal of sensual delight! They both are sacraments of the same significance as the Holy Eucharist that we celebrate today and every Sunday. We will participate here and now in God’s most extravagant love: the giving of His Son to us. We will take into ourselves and digest the love of Christ’s Real Presence into ourselves – a gift that could be no greater!
As Mary’s soothing balm was to Jesus, the Holy Communion that we receive gives to us courage and strength to continue our journey: to take up our Cross and follow Jesus Christ when we feel like giving up and crawling back into the culture of selfishness and greed. The bread and the wine are real for us as they keep us focused on the unconditional love that God lavishes on each of us.
We are asked to be generous just as Mary was to Jesus, Babette was to the Danish congregation, and Jesus is to us. Some of us have been blessed financially. Grace urges us to give generously to the church and to other people needing our assistance. Some of us have extra time that gives us the opportunity to spend in ministering to the sick or mentoring a student or delivering food to the poor. Grace urges us to give of our time. We have all been given gifts from God that are meant to be shared. Some are teachers, some are counselors, some care for children.
Our gut reaction many times is to be like Judas: to shame those that are generous and smugly congratulate ourselves for keeping our money because that is being frugal, keep our time because that is sensible, and using our abilities for our own personal gain because no one takes care of number one but you.
Yet our calling is to act as Mary did and generously pour our love into the world with abandon. When we do we will find that not only is that gift not diminished but it is multiplied a hundredfold.
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The Rev. Jo Ann Barker
Lent 4 Year C
Luke 15: 11-32
March 14, 2010
If someone were to say to you, “You Episcopalians seem to be a different sort of Christian than others I’ve been associated with. Do you believe in the Bible? Tell me what God is like and why you believe what you do.” If I gave you a piece of paper and a pencil to answer this person, what would you say? For me the answer is easy although hardly simple. I would tell the inquirer that what I believe about God is found in the parable we heard a few minutes ago.
This particular gospel story is one that all of you know and hopefully you could repeat yourself if asked. And if I asked you what it meant I think all of you could rattle off easily that the immature younger son wanted his inheritance to go out and see the world. The older son stays at home by his father’s side to do the right thing. The father lets his younger son have the money and waits for his return. Life for the younger son turns out to be a series of disasters so he returns home, just hoping to be hired as a servant. The father runs to him with open arms and calls for a celebration. The older son pouts as he cannot understand his father’s behavior. Yes we have turned this into a boring tale of black and white right and wrong. We have taken the excitement and mystery out of it and I hope I can help recover some of that this morning!
If we look at the story from our perspective of the human condition in this world today, we cannot help but think that Jesus didn’t quite have it right. The young son seems like a spoiled brat. He probably was Mom’s favorite, although Mom does not play a part in the story at all. He probably got his way about everything and his older brother probably spent much of their growing up time picking up after him and doing his chores too. I imagine he had a bunch of freeloading friends who helped push him to go to his father to ask for the money. This son’s irresponsibly should not have been rewarded of course but the Father gave in to his request.
The oldest son stays at home and did the right thing, always did the right thing. He worked side by side with his father and shared all the benefits of the comfortable life and social status of the family. He was the quintessential example of perfection.
Well when Father gave his younger son his inheritance things in the beginning were great. He had plenty of friends who hung around as long as the money lasted. They partied day and night, gorging on food, drink, and women. But when the money was gone, so were they. Desperate, he tries to work but he wasn’t used to it. Then worse luck there was a famine in the land and not much work to be had. Things were so bleak that he had to take care of pigs, the absolute worse fate that could befall a Jew. The pigs were fed and he was not. He had hit rock bottom. He was starving and knew no other alternative but to go home and beg his father for a menial job on his ranch. He had screwed up and he knew it. He knew he deserved nothing from his father but he had nowhere else to go so he headed home. He had no illusions of receiving anything but a small meal at the backdoor and menial work for a meager existence. It would be better than he deserved and better than he had now.
If this were not a story told by Jesus, probably his expectations would have been realized. But this is a story about eternal life: about the way God deals with us. Because of that we have to put aside our preconceived ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong and sit in wonder and openness to the upside down inside out way that God deals with us.
The father is God. Don’t ever mistake yourself or your parents for the father in the story. No one of us could ever come up to the actions of this father. We call this parable The Prodigal Son but it is really about the father and his love for both his sons. The father does not control either one of his sons. His eldest chose to lead the life of a devoted son. He knew what was right and what was wrong and chose the path of being responsible and hardworking. And his father loved him for that! The youngest chose to try something new. He probably knew from early on that he would never measure up to his older brother. He needed his own identity. Never in this story does the father choose between which son was right or wrong. Never in this story does the father say that his love depended upon a certain lifestyle or a certain set of rules. The father’s love was unconditional under all circumstances!
When the younger son came home with no expectations, his father was running down the road to meet him. The father didn’t care about his sordid past: his son who was lost has now been found. Clothe him in finery! Give him a ring! Throw a party! Kill the fatted calf! He’s back and I love him!
The older son watches in amazement. He was sure that his own stellar behavior rated his father’s highest love. He was sure that his father would make the comparison and show his brother that he was the one deserving of praise and thanksgiving. Instead, good old Dad ignores him completely and joyfully prepares a party for his no-good brother.
It doesn’t make a lot of rational sense but God’s ways are not our ways. The youngest son’s coming back is about God’s total forgiving nature. It doesn’t matter how awful or how disgusting our lives are. It doesn’t matter if we have gotten ourselves into alcoholism or made a mess of our marriage or cheated on our income tax or abused our children or murdered ten people. God still loves us and welcomes us with open arms.
Now, you may say, wait a minute! Murdered ten people? Even God has limits. This father’s love was not about blind forgiveness or what has been called “cheap grace.” The forgiveness is for a life transformed. The boy realized he’d made a mess of his life and wanted to turn it around and start over again from the bottom if necessary. It’s that way the heart feels when it melts the ice of a life directed by one’s own desires to a life put into the hands of a loving God. Cheap grace is easy forgiveness and doesn’t come from God. Transforming grace realizes that there’s a hard road ahead but that there is no other way yet lets God be the leader and guide through the suffering and pain. Transforming grace includes consequences for one’s actions but knows you’re held in the love of God.
The older brother – he did nothing wrong, in fact went out of his way to please his father. Legalistic behavior gets a bad rap but I still think he had the edge on his brother. Where he went wrong is that he really believed that his father’s love depended on his doing the right thing. His father loved him no matter what he did. The boy couldn’t understand that. Therefore he couldn’t understand his father’s generosity in welcoming his brother home. Both boys were loved unconditionally - just as we are.
In one of the most famous sermons of all time entitled You Are Accepted, Paul Tillich writes this, no doubt out of his own experience: “Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It is as if a voice were saying, ‘You are accepted. . . by that which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now. . . Do not try to do anything now: perhaps later you will do much. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.’”
St. Augustine said, “God gives where he finds empty hands.” The son who did not deserve the father’s love experienced it. The son who deserves it did not experience it. Once again we hear the great truth of the Gospel, “Many who are last shall be first.” In light of this parable – the lost will be first and the first will be lost. Praise God that we too can be saved through the transforming grace of Christ if only we come with empty hands and open hearts.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Lent 3 Year C
Luke 13: 1-9
March 7, 2010
We are all familiar with the book of Job in the Old Testament. Job was a righteous man who obeyed all the Jewish laws, was kind and good to his family, friends, and business associates. Yet Job suffered the loss of wealth and health, the death of his wife and children, and abandonment of his friends and neighbors. Job remains faithful to God and his friends think he’s crazy for it. No one, certainly none of us, can understand why God would allow such awful things to happen to Job or why Job stays loyal to God.
Luke’s gospel begins this morning with a brief sentence about an incident that has just occurred in Jerusalem. It seems that a group of Galileans has gone to the Temple with their animals to offer sacrifice. For no apparent reason, Pilate’s soldiers murdered them. The people questioning Jesus want to know, in the same way that Job’s friends wanted to know, what those who died had done to deserve it. The assumption is that when something bad happens it is punishment for sin. They want an explanation. They want to assure themselves that if they lead a good God-fearing life that nothing bad will happen to them.
Jesus was really good at confronting the Jews with their belief system and challenging them to look deeper. He was able as no other to give them a more penetrating look into the mind of God. Yet Jesus no more answered their question than God did when Job wanted to know why such awful things happened to him. The Jews wanted to know if the people who were killed were worse sinners than those who were not killed. Jesus answered simply NO.
That’s good news! Jesus said they were no better, no worse than anyone else. But he added Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. There is nothing you can do to prevent some of the catastrophes of this world but you can align yourself with Almighty God and prepare your soul for eternity.
Many years ago when I was working as a hospital chaplain, I would go from room to room, introduce myself, offering a smile and friendly conversation, a prayer and a listening ear if wanted. I was asked by the staff to visit a man admitted from a not-so-reputable nursing home with dehydration and bedsores. It was rumored that he was abused by the staff at that nursing home and had been abandoned by his family.
I walked into the room, said good morning and asked how he was doing. The man looked at me with terror in his eyes and said nothing. As I approached his bed he began to tighten up his already fetal position. I continued talking and soon realized that the nurse didn’t tell me he couldn’t talk. I had never been in the situation before where the patient could not give verbal feedback. I decided I would say a prayer with him and be on my way.
I thumbed through my prayer book and read him a couple of psalms that were favorites that seem to comfort sick people. His piercing eyes let me know that he was soaking in every word. He very deliberately and obviously painfully gave me his hand which I held as I continued praying and offering comfort and assurance of God’s mercy and love. Big tears streamed down his face as he clutched my hand tight. He never could speak to me but I felt the suffering he had to endure and felt the question he was asking Why me? I never saw him again as he was gone the next day but I’ve never forgotten him.
Many of us have faced tragic situations in our own lives. We live with self-inflicted guilt and try to figure out what we have done to cause such awful things to happen. Why do I have cancer when I exercise and eat right? Why did my brother die of AIDS? Why is my child an alcoholic? Why did my husband leave me? Why did I lose my job? Why do we fight in my family? Why did my children leave the church when I was so faithful to teach them? Why is my love greeted with hate and cruelty? Am I a worse sinner than others? Jesus says no.
Jesus also tells the parable of the fig tree. The owner goes to the gardener to tell him to cut down the tree that does not bear fruit, although it’s healthy enough otherwise. The gardener begs the owner, Just give it one more season. I will cultivate it, put manure and mulch around it and give it more attention. Then if it doesn’t bear fruit, I’ll cut it down. So the tree is given another chance.
Jesus is the gardener. We are the tree. Bad things do happen to good people. The mysteries of God and the universe are not ours to understand. What Jesus admonishes us to focus on instead are the things that we can control. Repentance: turning our heart and soul and mind toward God. In that way when evil confronts us our lives and our wills are united to God. It is a daily process and there are no short cuts. Jesus will be there giving us the grace to endure and to continue, nurturing our spiritual lives and helping us to accept God’s love and forgiveness.
Reinhold Niebuhr, twentieth century American theologian, wrote a prayer that you are familiar with used by twelve-step recovery groups. This is the prayer in its entirety:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the way to peace. Taking as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with him forever in the next. AMEN.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Lent 1 Year C
Luke 4: 1-13
February 21, 2010
The Lenten season begins with the retelling of the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Immediately after his baptism by John, Jesus began a retreat. He went to the desert to fast and pray for forty days. He had been empowered to begin his public ministry and knew that he needed to connect intensely to his Father and the Holy Spirit. As his prayer deepened and he became hungry from the fast, the Devil saw this weak moment as his opportunity. Three times the devil tempts Jesus. Because he was hungry, Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread – not only for himself but to feed all the hungry in the world. Then he was shown the world and told he could be in charge if he worshiped the Devil, to which Jesus reminded him that it was not his to give, that God alone is in charge. Lastly he was taken to the roof of the Temple to be thrown down. The Devil wanted to be shown proof that Jesus was the Son of God knowing that angels would protect him if he were. Jesus was not drawn into that one either.
A word about the Devil. We have the mistaken notion that the Devil and God are equals going at each other equally. The Devil is NOT the opposite of God! God has no opposite. God created Angels and a struggle erupted in heaven between the faction that stood with God, led by Michael the Archangel, and the faction that Lucifer led who were thrown out of heaven into hell for believing they were equal to God. Dualism, that is, believing that there are two equally powerful forces (good and evil) that are locked in mortal combat is a heresy. Yes evil is powerful but God has triumphed over evil through the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is an unequal struggle that God has already won for us.
C. S. Lewis said that when it came to the devil, Christians make two mistakes: over-emphasis and under-emphasis. In the former situation, anyone who disagrees with you on a matter of righteousness is influenced by the devil. The devil lurks under every rock and around every corner, just waiting to zap the unaware and unsuspecting. On the other hand, Lewis illustrates under-emphasis. In his fictional Screwtape Letters an entry-level devil named Wormwood goes to his superior Screwtape and asks how to deal with his assigned human. Screwtape gives the following advice: “Our policy, at least for the present phase of the struggle, is to conceal ourselves. I do not think that you will have much difficulty keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that ‘devils’ are predominantly comic figures in modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that, he therefore cannot believe in devils at all.”
There’s no question about it that we know Christian denominations that scare their people to death with ominous stories about the Devil’s power in their lives. There is also no question about it that we Episcopalians under-emphasize the Devil. That’s why Lewis’ Screwtape is such a clever character to whom we must pay attention.
In looking at Jesus’ temptations as we enter Lent we probably scratch our heads and dismiss their value as we are quite removed from the inner battle that Jesus was experiencing. Turning stones into bread? None of us is rich enough to be tempted to feed the whole world but maybe that could be a temptation for Bill Gates. Power over the entire world? Not my temptation but maybe Donald Trump or President Obama. Jumping off a building so that angels would catch me? Nope. And I don’t know another soul in that league!
Does this mean that the temptation story is irrelevant to us? No but it does mean that our temptations will not be the same as the One called to be Messiah to this world who was both God and Man. Our temptations are different. . .
Thinking about Screwtape’s approach to those of us who under-estimate the Devil, we can see that he has to be very clever and subtle and that is exactly the case. It seems to me that there are three temptations that we are prone to respond to where we sin before we know it and half the time rationalize that we didn’t do anything wrong.
FIRST of all, the culture has taught us very well that we have to have every comfort, get the best grades, and make the most money. So our first and primary temptation is to cheat. The Devil is so cunning that we are able to convince ourselves that we aren’t cheating! Our eyes just happened to wander to the test answers of the kids sitting next to us. We need a break! If we had had more time to study we would have known the answer anyhow. Besides, she’s the teacher’s pet and has all the advantages. It’s not cheating really. . . And so what if I had to tell a few white lies to make a sale. This guy will get a good deal anyhow so I might as well make a few more dollars in the mix. It’s not cheating really. . . That guy treats his wife so badly and she needs my love. It’s not cheating really. . .
We do a great job of rationalizing that cheating and lying are not wrong.
The SECOND temptation we moderns are apt to blunder into is the blame game. We do all sorts of things that are wrong but refuse to take responsibility for our own actions. When we are cruel to other people or cold and non-responsive we blame our parents for our upbringing. We don’t do our homework and find a hundred reasons why we ran out of time. We let our credit cards fill to the max and blame the US economy and Uncle Sam for taking too many taxes. We don’t attend church or don’t take time for prayer and have many excuses most of which blame a spouse who doesn’t understand or children who don’t want to get out of bed. It’s not my fault! It never is. . . .
A THIRD temptation the Devil keeps in the forefront is judgment of others – prejudice. In this time of the world growing smaller and we can see, on television at least, that there is such a wide diversity of differences in human beings. We unconsciously and even consciously determine that who we are is better than anyone else. White is better than black, Episcopalian is better than Baptist, Southern is better than Yankee, Christian is better than Muslim, two feet are better than one, pedigree is better than mutt, and so on. I think the Devil has a field day with this one as there are millions of ways to compare ourselves and that many times we can assure ourselves that we’re so much better. Not so to God, but we are experienced at convincing ourselves.
These three temptations to sin: to cheat, to blame, and to judge are modern day versions of serious barriers to a deeper relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The Devil is not as powerful as God. They are not dueling for power. God is in charge and can help us withstand the temptation to sin whenever we ask! This Lent would be a good time to acknowledge that the Devil is at work in our lives, disguised as good, convincing us that the sin we commit is not bad when it really is and furthermore that the sin is separating us from the love of God. When we push aside grace and do the easy thing, the sinful thing, we let our ego join forces with Satan to worship ourselves instead of God.
When we acknowledge the Devil’s subtle charms we must do what Jesus did, fast and pray for the grace and the strength to do what is right and avoid evil. Lent is the time for this reflection and determination to let God turn our lives around. It is not the easy way. The Devil has that down pat. To live with our eyes on Resurrection glory means we must see the pain and suffering of the cross. To live in this world as a follower of Christ we must look the Devil in the eye and say NO. He’ll go away momentarily but says, in the words of Gov. Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back!” And so will God’s grace if we invite it in. You can count on it!
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
John 2: 1-11
January 17, 2010
Expect a Miracle!
Good morning! Today I’m going to walk with you to the wedding where Jesus turned water into wine. We’re going to attend the celebration with hundreds of other people from Cana of Galilee and try to get some sense of the importance of this miracle.
Now remember that Jesus had not done one miraculous thing up until then! He was already thirty, old especially in those days for getting going in his career. After all, everyone thought he was just a carpenter. Just recently he’d been baptized to begin his ministry as Messiah. He’d selected his close friends that he would mold into leaders. They were just getting organized – just getting to know one another.
This probably was an important family wedding. They were probably related to Jesus and his disciples too. You know how it is in small towns! Big wedding, reception lasts for days. Lots of eating. Lots of wine. Best wine served on day one. Anyone who stayed realized that the wine would not be as full of flavor and delicious as it was on that first toast. But this was a fun party and no one wanted to leave. The wine ran out too soon.
Now Jesus and the disciples just got there! Don’t know why they were late but Jesus’ mother was waiting for him. All she said was, “They have no wine.” Jesus’ answer sounded how some of us reply to our mothers: “Why are you telling me? It’s not my concern.” But Mary simply told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Mary didn’t know what was going to happen exactly but she KNEW in her heart that Jesus was going to take care of it.
It was time. Jesus didn’t know it was time but it was time. This was the moment for the first miracle and Mary prompted it. It’s so comforting I think to know that Jesus didn’t come to earth fully formed as God the Messiah. He lived into his vocation and there were moments for him like this that even he didn’t realize that he was supposed to act.
Now there are those who would say that there are no such things as miracles. These gospels were written a hundred years after Jesus was long gone. Luke was perhaps exaggerating an otherwise explainable solution. Maybe Jesus really sent his disciples out to the market and they filled the water jars with wine. No. Jesus turned the water into wine at the request of his mother. Simple as that but so profound!
A terrible tragedy occurred this week in the poorest country in the western hemisphere, perhaps in the world. To a people already living in squalor with little food, little water, little health care, an earthquake of major proportions destroyed what little they had. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians died on Tuesday and those left cry out to God, “Help us, Lord. We have nowhere else to turn. We need a miracle!” If you have been watching the news the situation truly seems hopeless. The infrastructure in Haiti is about as pitiful as their buildings. What little they had seems to have crumbled to the ground. As the little Jewish lady said at the end of Fiddler on the Roof when they were leaving their village, not knowing where they were going, “Wouldn’t this be a good time for the Messiah to come?” I would imagine most people in Haiti are asking the same question today.
Our Gospel story so vividly reminds us that Jesus does respond when asked and sometimes in miraculous proportions. For whatever reason – it doesn’t matter the reason – Jesus was prompted to reveal his glory on that day and so began many more miracles that would also reveal his glory.
Many of us may not be connecting to Haiti right now as you are steeped in your own personal pain and hopelessness. None of our lives are as charmed as we sometimes would like the rest of the world to believe. We are living in loveless marriages and screaming for an answer. We are battling addictions whose chains we cannot break. Our financial world has crashed this year and we can’t seem to get out of the quicksand that is pulling us under. My parents don’t understand me so we are becoming strangers in the same house. You could say that I’d attend to the problems of Haiti if only the pain in my heart could be soothed.
Let me suggest to you a path. Tell Jesus what you need. Mary said, “They have no wine.” You can say, “Jesus, I have no will power to quit smoking.” “Jesus, I can’t figure out my math homework.” “Jesus, I need a job!” Use Mary’s approach to Jesus: Don’t tell him what to do but tell him what you need. He knows what to do. He’ll do it.
Now I’m not saying to forget your part in it all. Haiti can only heal and get back on its feet is millions of people like you and me from all over the world will have to do their part. Haiti needs doctors and nurses, bulldozers and builders. They need medicine and food and more than anything else: money. A miracle is already happening in the generosity of people like us who don’t know anybody in Haiti but know that it’s the right thing to do to help people in such need. Through our assistance this impoverished country can find dignity and hope.
God will make it happen if we but cooperate! And in our own lives miracles do happen too. Place your care at the Savior’s feet and get ready for transformation!
Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it will be opened.” Believe it because Jesus will not let you down. Not now, not ever!
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Matthew 2: 13-23
January 3, 2009
Just when our minds and hearts are tingling with the glow of the Christmas story, we are confronted once again with harsh reality that another terrorist tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. With all the regulations imposed at airports we had hoped that this would never happen again. We were wrong. Evil still lurks in this world.
Sadly, even Jesus the Son of God encountered evil almost immediately. No sooner had Jesus been born, heralded by choirs of angels, adored by shepherds, visited by three wise men, that he is faced with his own execution.
The wise men from the East follow a star that takes them to the country governed by Herod. As any visiting dignitary would do, they went to the ruler of the land; not only as a diplomatic courtesy but, in this case, to get information about where to find the newborn baby foretold to be the Savior of the world.
Now certain rulers would have been as thrilled and as mystified as these three. However we know that Herod was a pompous arrogant self-centered monarch. The inquiry into Jesus’ whereabouts made him paranoid. He felt that his own position was being threatened. Herod the Great, ruler of Israel, is scared of the baby Jesus. The more he thought about it, the angrier and more anxious he became. “I am the ruler! These Jews have always been trouble. The only way to rid myself of insurrection is to kill him. When those three jokers return I will find out where this king-to-be lives and send my henchmen to get rid of the menace.” For all his enormous power, he knew there was someone in diapers more powerful.
Of course we know that the wise men are warned in a dream not to return to Herod but to take another route to go back home. Herod is furious but vows to carry out the plan. Because he didn’t know exactly which baby was Jesus, this brutal dictator kills all the babies less than two years of age. That way for sure Jesus would be dead. But he wasn’t. Joseph was warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt where they were refugees until Herod was dead and it was safe to return.
This Gospel passage gives us a rich insight into the importance of Jesus as the Messiah for the Jewish people that this child was the fulfillment of the prophets. No two events were more significant for the Jews than the Exodus and the Exile. The exodus from slavery to the Pharaoh in Egypt led by Moses in approximately 1300 BC and their exile into Babylon in the 6th century BC.
Like the Jews who were sent out of Israel into a foreign land, this period of escape for Jesus from Herod was an exile from their Jewish homeland. Return was as sweet for the Holy Family as it was for the Jewish remnant returning in 538 BCE. Their journey back from Egypt connected them with their Jewish ancestors who long ago made the same trek to the Promised Land.
Matthew is calling the first century Christians in that critical moment in history to a genuine and deep appreciation of their Jewish heritage yet at the same time incorporating the Gentiles into worshipping the God of the Jews. Herod not only represents the tyranny and selfishness of all human tyrants; he also illustrates the historical background of Jesus’ life: namely the cruelty and pettiness of the Jewish government under Roman domination. Palestine at that time was not the idyllic land that some would have us believe. The whole population was torn by political insurrection. Riots and blood retaliations were daily occurrences. During his childhood Jesus probably witnessed a large number of crucifixions. Herod’s slaughter of the children in Bethlehem must be understood as a typical illustration of this reign of terror.
King Herod pretended to share the common hope for “peace on earth” and honesty and decency. But as soon as the REAL representative of the Light appeared, he felt compelled to destroy him. Mass murder is the unavoidable reaction of many Herods we have known throughout history, whenever the Light is trying to win a foothold in a dark country. It is as if Matthew wants us to learn something about the strategy of the Light in its unending warfare against the darkness.
We too are agents of the Light, or can be. We are living in a world where darkness constantly threatens to put out the light. The terrorists on 9/11 tried very hard to put out the light in America. The Christmas terrorist was hoping to put the light out. We have dark powers biting at our heels that must be conquered. Sometimes those powers are not foreign invaders but forces drawing us individually away from Christ. Our Herods, powerful evil forces determined to kill sacred babies, manifest themselves differently but are present, make no mistake about it!
The evils we face pull us into an egocentric maze every bit as destructive as Herod’s jealousy. We face forces that gnaw at us from without that threaten to destroy us within. All around us our culture screams to buy the right clothes, computers, televisions, stereos, cell phones. You cannot be too thin or too rich. Satisfying your desires is the most important thing you can do! If you feel pain, take medicine or salve it with a drugs or alcohol. You must be popular so peer pressure forces teens to have sex before they’re ready. Many spoken and unspoken messages are out there waiting to trap us.
Herods are also telling us to become workaholics. Forty hours is not enough. Herod says that your worth is in the amount of work that you do and what you produce. Then rush to ball games or dance lessons. How unlike Jesus’ admonition to spend time in prayer developing a relationship with the Father! The Herods will always keep us busy and numb to the Light.
It’s hard to recognize the Herods. Herods become manifest in their destructiveness and excess, in which we are all drowning. Fill your bodies, fill your time, fill your mind, and in the end there is no room for God.
A baby was born into the darkness bringing Light. He was the Light! Herod was helpless in destroying the little child who so frightened him. And this failure, though it was paid for with the lives of innocent children, is the inevitable cost of our spiritual growth. The Light cannot be destroyed but it can be forced to withdraw. It can be shut out.
The three wise men, as well as Joseph, are servants of the Light and therefore able to receive and understand its commands. Herod is cheated and the child is brought to Egypt. The Light is living inside each one of us. The forces of darkness take over periodically and regularly. When they tire or run out of steam for even a moment, the Light returns.
Jesus made two promises to his disciples. One was that in this world we will face constant difficulty. The other was that God will always be with us. As long as we live in this world with Jesus at the center of our lives, we will have Herods after us. A Herod is threatened by anything that gets in the way of self-centeredness where self-interest controls our spiritual growth.
The good news is that what God did for the Holy Family God is doing for us. The more we trust in God’s providential care, the more we will realize it’s there and embrace it.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
John 1: 1-18
December 27, 2009
Christmas is over. All the anticipation: the shopping, the baking and cooking, the parties, the visits with friends and family, over for another year. Presents have been opened, some well received and others will be taken back for exchange. The decorations, which were put out earlier this year, are coming down, giving us little reminder of Christmas 2009. To quote Peggy Lee, “Is that all there is?” Is that all there is?
I have a cartoon of B. C. in which one of the cave men is at a flat rock bookstore where another was selling books labeled Gospels. The customer asked what a gospel was. He replied that it meant “The Good News” but admitted that he didn’t know what the good news was. Of course the irony of the cartoon and its point is that they are living centuries before Christ was born so neither of them could have heard the good news of Jesus Christ.
It however raises for us the question Peggy Lee sang. Christmas is over. Now what? IS THAT ALL THERE IS? What is the good news? We know the answer! God sent His only begotten Son into the world to redeem our sins. God gave His Son as a human baby. Jesus could have come as a full-grown man. He could have been put in the desert, and then appear to John at His baptism. Redemption would still have taken place! Or he could have shown up in the Temple as a twelve year old and be first noticed preaching to the elders. He could have “just appeared” in many different places and in many different ways. But God sent Jesus into the world as an infant, born of Mary, in the same way you and I were born.
Jesus tells us “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” The Father chose to make him known as a baby. The good news of the infant birth is that God who has never been seen before is now totally human. While remaining fully Divine, Jesus became a totally helpless baby boy, completely dependent on Mary and Joseph for all his needs. He experienced thirty years of self-discovery before he felt called to embark on his ministry as Messiah: to gather a band of disciples, to preach, and heal and proclaim the good news.
Paul wrote to the people in Galatia, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” Our redemption in Jesus Christ is not only taking away our sin but also adopting us as God’s very own children!
We live in a complicated troubled world. The pressures of everyday living are sometimes more than we can bear. The expectations put on children are higher than ever. We parents get on the merry-go-round taking them to soccer, dance, piano lessons, boy scouts, where sometimes they miss the simple joys of childhood just trying to keep up!
We miss our spouses, our parents, our children who have died, particularly at this family-oriented season. The fantasy of the perfect family that never existed is shown on television commercials. It leaves us feeling shame and guilt for not meeting the unmeetable standard. We are alone and lonely, frustrated and unhappy. We want to share but cannot. We feel that we alone are depressed or unloved at this joyous loving season.
The birth of the infant Christchild says to us, “Stop! Rest! Look at me! I love you totally and unconditionally! Come to me and discover what’s really important!” Carl Jung would invite us to get in touch with our inner child. All of us have been hurt, shamed, neglected, or abused in some way. The newborn Savior gives us understanding. He understands how we feel because he at one time had those feelings too. Jesus had a human father and mother who picked him up and gave him a hug but also scolded him when necessary. They taught him as any parent teaches their children. He got hurt playing ball and got his feelings hurt when he was chosen last in a game. He grew in understanding. To every person who was open to him Jesus showed compassion and shared their joy or pain.
There’s a Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy says “Christmas is a time for kindness and goodwill; a time when we accept one another, welcoming others into our homes and into our lives.” Charlie Brown says to her, “Why just Christmas? Why can’t we be kind and accepting and hospitable all through the year?” Lucy furls her brow and replies, “What are you, some kind of religious fanatic?”
It would be great if we could be all those things all the time. We know we should. We feel guilty for not being perfect. So we make our New Year’s resolutions to try to correct all the flaws in ourselves, all the while knowing that we will not be able to come up to any of our own standards of perfection.
The good news is that it’s okay! Paul tells us that though Christ we are no longer slaves but sons and daughters, and if sons and daughters, heirs. We will inherit all that God has to give! We don’t need to be perfect to be loved by God! God genuinely loves us with all our flaws. We don’t need to work for God’s love or try to be something we are not or cannot be. Yes we can be better than we are but we can give up our addiction to the god of perfection. God just loves us. We will inherit the kingdom. In the greatest gift of redemption, God freed us from our chains and asks us to accept the Christchild into our hearts as the most wonderful of all mysteries – fully divine and fully human.
The one born in the Bethlehem stable was not merely one of the prophets, not merely an angelic messenger. He was the Son of God. This is the glory and the wonder of Christmas and the heart of the Gospel. God came to us. The God who so loved the world gave His Son to us. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” We can never fully know the depths of this mighty act. But we can know that Jesus is God and is also our friend, our Savior, and our Lord. He loves us so much that no matter how often we fail, He is always waiting for us with open arms.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Luke 2: 1-20
December 24, 2009
Welcome to this glorious celebration of the birth of the Messiah! Tonight heaven and earth are one. We come to church believing that Christmas is more than presents and parties, as we here gather with family and friends. It’s about the Son of God becoming human to save the world from evil so that we might spend eternity with God. We believe without proof that ‘love that surpasses human understanding’ has come down this night, love that includes you and me.
And we so desperately want the peace that Christmas promises to bring: peace on earth of every kind. Peace among nations, peace in our own country, peace in our families, and a personal peace of mind.
A popular French Canadian legend holds that at midnight on Christmas a mysterious spirit of peace prevails throughout the world - a spirit so strong that even the cattle in stables and the deer in the forest fall to their knees in adoration.
Shakespeare referred to this mysterious peace of Christmas in the opening scene of Hamlet. Marcellus speaks to his companions about the birth of Jesus as he stands on the terrible battlements of Elsinore:
Some say that whenever that season comes
Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated
The bird of dawn sings all night long;
They say then no spirit can walk abroad,
No planet strikes, No fairy takes
No witch has power to charm
So hallowed and gracious is this time.
This day is an island of calm in our stormy year. The pursuits and squabbles yield to the good cheer of this day. Even nations at war manage to call a halt to their deadly dealings this day. At Christmastime during WWI the Americans and the Russians were in their muddy trenches at the front, as close as you and I are together. Someone started singing a Christmas Carol and one by one soldiers on both sides joined in. Soon heads appeared and slowly men came out. For one day during that ugly horrific war enemies played soccer with one another and shared food from their meager rations. The war began again on the 26th but for one miraculous day there was peace.
Silent night, holy night. We know that God is present in this world and in our lives at all times and in all places. But there are some times - some holy moments - in which "ordinary time" yields to "sacred time." Moments when the Divine is more focused than at other times. Through such a time we can catch a glimpse of eternity. This night stands unique in sacred time as the most sacred of all!
Can you think of a time when we needed a Savior more? We continue at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Relationships between the nations and even in our congress are fragile. The rich are getting richer and the bottom billion have no hope. Consumerism drives our lives. In a country of plenty people still go to bed hungry. People still turn to drugs and alcohol to escape the pain in their hearts. Divorce has become normal. Child abuse is rampant and remains a family secret. Superficiality reigns. Church attendance is not important as people search for meaning elsewhere. Don't we need a Savior right now?
In Christ the chasm between good and evil has been crossed. The new era, which is not subject to sin and death, has come in Christ Jesus. The unending, unmerited loved of God is manifest in this person Jesus, God made man. Where sin and alienation ran rampant, now grace abounds. Jesus is God's ultimate vulnerability, the ultimate outreach to a sick creation. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life - our bridge over the deep chasm. Christ is our way to know God as a friend, not an enemy, as close and true and forever faithful. Christ is the way to heal our alienation with God, with ourselves, and with one another.
Have you ever wished: 'If only I was there with the shepherds that night. If only I could have been there when Jesus took his first steps. If only I could have heard him preach as a youth in the Temple. If only I could have been part of the crowd when Jesus was healing the sick. Surely then I would believe. I would be the most devoted follower!'
The miracle of Christmas is that through the physical presence of Jesus those two thousand years ago the world has changed. We CAN experience the presence of Christ in our lives every single day, every moment of our lives because he lived and died so many years ago. Because that was not the end of the story. God was transformed when Jesus rose from the dead then sent the Holy Spirit to be with us forever. The person of Jesus Christ is with us today as we receive Him in Holy Communion and as we meet Him in each person we encounter.
The miracle of Christmas can occur in our own lives if we believe and open ourselves to the wonders of the world around us. Even though evil still grips us, the coming of this little baby in Bethlehem has broken the power it once had to destroy completely. We can choose to be part of this New Creation. It's all around us. God's grace is calling us to abandon our self-centeredness and recognize that trying to run our own lives by ourselves leads only to pain and sin. The babe in the manger reminds us that only when we stop to see the little one can we recognize the unconditional love of God.
Does it all sound too good to be true? Does it come across as a theological 'fairy tale'? It will if we are locked into our own social stupor of habit, routine, or boring spirituality. When we invite the Holy Spirit, the Presence of God, into our lives, we are given an 'inner knowing' of Jesus as the Incarnation, as the meeting place between God and humanity. We can know the New Creation.
Christmas derives its power less from a theological concept or proposition, than from a personal and communal experience. [In a Christmas sermon from the 13th century Meister Eckhart preached that] Christmas is something within us. The story of the Virgin Birth is the story of Christ being born in us through the union of the Spirit of God and our own flesh. The story about Jesus' birth is not just about the past but also about the birth in us in the present. Christmas, in other words, happens all year 'round, whenever we let God in. When we allow such intimacy to occur, the Christmas story that is ever familiar will also remain ever new.
Let our response be joy to the world in living out the abundant life that Jesus came to bring.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Luke 3: 7-18
December 13, 2009
Power is not a topic that we would think relevant in Advent because our attention is on the birth of a little baby boy in Bethlehem. Yet with only eleven days until Christmas, the Scriptures today say that the theme of power is THE crucial focal point of our Advent preparations. John the Baptist comes wielding power over the crowd, enough to turn on them and shout, “Brood of vipers!” He takes them to task for their superiority complex in thinking that as descendents of Abraham their lineage alone assured them God’s favor. Power. He scolds them severely that they dared to believe somehow they could behave badly toward others as a birthright.
The Jews knew a Savior was coming. Zephaniah knew but he didn’t know when. John knew when – now – but did not know who. He’d find out shortly but today’s words are preached in the faith of God’s promises as John lives into his own vocation as the forerunner, the one who prepares the way.
John may have lived a life that we would call eccentric. He dressed funny, ate strange things, and paid little attention to personal hygiene. His only focus was on his mission – to prepare the world for the coming of the Savior. Last week we heard about his good advice on being compassionate and caring to individuals suffering whose basic needs are not met. We were urged to look around and help people in need. The message is repeated today as he tells us that if we have an extra coat, give it away to one who has none.
John is not soft and cuddly. His message to share with others is about justice. Giving away your second coat is only the beginning. John’s vision extends far beyond a coat. He tells the crowds that there is systemic evil involved and that it is the responsibility of those faithfully waiting for the Savior to address that too. But it’s not enough to give them handouts. Those who have power, those who are rich, those whose positions control the lives of others, have the obligation to work in the larger scheme of things so that the poor have dignity. Business owners are charged with the obligation to care compassionately for their employees.
In the early part of the twentieth century the great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr was a pastor in Detroit. This was when Henry Ford was revolutionizing the working class by creating jobs to manufacture the model T. People flocked north, eager to get in on the dream of wealth and steady employment. Wages were abysmal but hopes soared. People lived in shanties but the brass ring was oh so close. Without any warning Ford closed the plant for two years as it was retooled for the Model A. Families starved to death, many moved back to where they came from. Neibuhr pastored these people through devastating times. But he decided to do something more than that. He became an activist who not only helped form the unions in Detroit but was a frequent lobbyist in Washington for worker’s rights.
Justice is an obligation of every Christian, you and me. Beth Shulman [The Betrayal of Work (The New Press, New York, 2003)] tells the story of the living conditions of people as the gap widens between the haves and the have-nots. Of Cynthia who works as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home helping people use bedpans and turning them to avoid bedsores. On her shift she’s responsible for forty-five residents including cleaning the rooms. She’s paid $350 every two weeks. She’s separated from her husband who gives no financial support for her two children. She walks to work as there is no public transportation and she cannot afford a car.
Shulman says, “Cynthia is not unique. While the details vary, the story is repeated again and again. It is a story about workers who are the embodiment of the work ethic. It is about workers who perform tasks essential to Americans’ lives, yet seem hidden from view. It is about workers who pay their taxes and do their jobs with great dedication and care, yet get little in return. They are workers on the margin. They are America’s invisible working poor.”(p.5) Poultry processing workers at Tyson, shelf-stockers at Wal-Mart, motel maids, office building janitors, child-care workers. The prosperity of the United States comes at a price for those at the lowest levels of employment. Not only are these problems not getting better, they’re getting worse.
As we await the celebration of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ who came to offer eternal life to everyone, there are many among us who are awaiting a savior from the bonds that keep the American dream a fantasy. Who are not looking for wealth and prosperity but merely a decent wage to be able to provide for their families the basic necessities?
We promise in our baptismal covenant that we will strive for justice and peace among all persons and respect the dignity of every human being. Hollow words if we turn our back on systemic employment problems of the lowest working class. John the Baptist was not afraid to confront those who came to him wanting an easy gentle scolding in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. No, John admonished them with hard words and told them to go back and turn the world around. First, take care of the critical needs you see. Give away that extra coat, feed the poor, have compassion on the suffering. But that’s not enough! Be part of the solution to solve the wider problems that breeds a social class of persons unable to meet their basic needs of food, rent, clothing, and dental or medical care.
I began by pointing out that power is really the theme of Advent. God who is all-powerful sends the Son as a powerless, helpless infant, totally dependent upon others as he grows into manhood. God allows Jesus to live as one in the working class, vulnerable to those more powerful than he or his family. Jesus always and without exception sided with the powerless and raked over the coals those who were callous to the needs of the poor. THAT is the gospel message John began as he prepared the world for Jesus who continued the same message. We are the eyes and ears, hands and feet, and voice for John and Jesus today. We must never forget to use the power we have for good in making life better for everyone. Respecting the dignity of every person, not merely with a band-aid but with major surgery of a system that denies it is sick.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight! Do justice. Be proactive in whatever way you are led to lighten the needs of the powerless. Not only at Christmas time but every day of the year. It never ends. God continues to call us to do good and will not leave us alone.
“Even the clearest response never relieves anyone of the responsibility of asking again and struggling for an answer. . . Only hearts that have been deeply affected by the gospel are always open to what God expects as the next concrete requirement after the present one.” Schweitzer
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Luke 3: 1-6
December 6, 2009
I have never been to an actual desert. From cowboy movies set in America’s southwest to National Geographic documentaries, what I see is that deserts are something to avoid. When we were in West Africa visiting my son in Benin it was the time of the harmaton. The hot wind came in from the Sahara Desert covering everything hundreds of miles away with sand. Although it wasn’t the desert, we could feel the desert.
When I was living in Houston I went with some friends to Nuevo Laredo. It was May and the bluebonnets were in bloom. The temperature was a moderate 80 degrees. As we headed to South Texas the flowers thinned out and the heat increased. About two hundred miles from Laredo we saw a sign that read, “Service station ahead. Next gas 140 miles.” Sure enough those next 140 miles were barren terrain. It wasn’t exactly desert but certainly would be considered wilderness. I remember feeling vulnerable to the ominous starkness and couldn’t wait until we would reach the oasis that was Laredo.
I don’t know about you but for me it is curious that John the Baptist would choose to leave civilization and live in the wilderness. The gospel begins today by listing the leaders of importance then says, “The word of the Lord came to John.” It was time – time for the Son of God to reveal himself and begin his public ministry as Messiah. It was time and John was the prophet chosen to announce his coming.
John’s mission was a bold one because, coupled with his charge to announce that the Savior was in their midst, was his proclamation of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John was the fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah who predicted his coming as, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight!
So you may be thinking as this story of John the Baptist rolls out today, “Here we go again.” It’s that time again. Do we have to hear about the eccentric cousin of Jesus out in the desert? Can’t we just admit that John was strange? What’s this got to do with Christmas anyway?
God knows that with all the shopping to be done, all the parties to plan, why on earth do we need to hear from this desert madman again? Why do we have to take up our busy important time with this guy who fled from everything we embrace in our culture? Why do we have to think about this figure who made a point to mimic the attire of Elijah and quote Isaiah all the while existing on a diet of grasshoppers and wild honey?
Give us Mall-madness! Macy’s, Wal-Mart, Barnes and Noble, Target! Anything but this fire-breathing, world-hating, ascetic who says that unless we change our ways, God is apt to vaporize the whole planet! But maybe there is an appeal to John and his message that supercedes our uneasy need to repress him. There is something in John’s message that we need to face, and not just because the lectionary cycle forces us to. There is a deep desire within each of us to be cleansed. There is a deep longing in us to be washed in the Light of God’s love, to be restored to a right relationship with God and with people all around us. Through repentance and amendment of life, we can rid ourselves of those empty calories: cheap sex, alcohol, drugs, faithless religion, spending money to excess, or whatever else plagues us. As we empty ourselves of these vices we can then put on a new garment of commitment and care, in other words, we put on Christ.
In her wisdom author Madeleine L’Engle reminds us of the ever present danger of turning grace into law, of turning the good news into “being good.” She says, “For the opposite of sin is faith, and never virtue, and we live in a world which believes that self-control can make us virtuous. But that’s not how it works. How many men and women have encountered – of great personal and moral rectitude – conceived of their own righteousness, who have been totally insensitive to the needs of others, and sometimes downright cruel.”
So John the Baptist is calling us as he has called millions of people for thousands of years to repentance through forgiveness. He is calling us into the wilderness. That is where he found the essential secret and that is what he wants to share with us. He lived in the solitude of the desert for many years, alone but not lonely. He had the companionship of Almighty God.
In the desert there are open spaces where he watched the stars in the sky at night. There where he was apart from the clamor of the world he spent his time in meditation and prayer. There was no chattering of people, just the voice of God. When John spoke out, his words roared with heavenly thunder. He never said, “If you would kindly listen to me.” He spoke with a force and an urgency of a man of blazing lightning. His voice had the shadowless intensity of the desert at noonday. It was plain that here was a man whose whole soul was on fire with a flame that came from a source other than this earth.
Like John we too are called this Advent into the wilderness. You may be like me when I drove through the wilderness of south Texas: glad for a speedy air-conditioned car that could swiftly get me through it and out of it. But John’s nagging message calls us to go into the wilderness and stay awhile. Put aside the whirlwind of our busy lives and listen to God’s voice. It’s a terrifying process to strip ourselves of our outer shells and be naked in front of God. In the wilderness we will see who we really are, both our sin and our goodness. No excuses, no denials.
The season of Advent calls us to join John in the desert. To know who we are, we need to know who we are not. To know who God is, we discover who God is not. Isaiah, Mary, and Paul all remind us that God is not our puppet. God does not respond. God moves. God acts. And above all, God shocks. God does not live up to our human preconceptions and misconceptions.
In the wilderness we pray, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We place ourselves before God in prayer even when we have no prayer in us. In the desert we realize that we are not in control. We search ourselves and we find God. We learn how to wait. We learn to say what John has said, “I am not the Christ.”
Go into the wilderness this Advent and hear the voice of one who cries. You will find repentance and forgiveness that will open the way for the coming of the ONE for which we hope. You will meet the One who comes bringing the fire of Divine love, a love wild and passionate. A love that will so transform our existence that we truly will become the holy people of a Holy God.
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The Rev. Dr. Jo Ann Barker
Luke 21: 25-31
November 29, 2009
Thanksgiving is over. The turkey and leftovers are almost gone. The weather has turned colder so we know that winter has finally begun to manifest itself. Many of us scurried to the wild and crazy sales on Black Friday and Saturday, gearing up for Santa’s arrival on the 25th. Our homes are being decorated, travel plans are confirmed, invitations to parties accepted, menus being planned. This month will indeed be a busy one for all of us preparing for Christmas. We live in anticipation of great food, great gifts, great fun, and great celebration,
In the Church we prepare for Christmas too but in a different way. During these four weeks before Christmas we live in anticipation as well but an anticipation of a different sort. We live in anticipation of the celebration of the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ, two thousand years ago and in anticipation of his second coming, at a time unknown to us.
I wonder how Mary was feeling the month before Jesus was born. She is carrying the Christ child in her womb. Every moment of every day leaves her aware that her pregnancy, told to her in the words of the angel Gabriel at her conception, meant that she was to be the Mother of God. She is puzzled. She is thrilled. She is astonished at the gravity of God’s choice of her to be the Christ bearer. And her pregnancy is normal like that of any other woman. She probably had morning sickness in her first trimester. Her back may have given her problems as she came to term. She may have even had hemorrhoids and swollen ankles! Physically pregnancy changes your whole body and Mary experienced those changes too.
We, like Mary, are Christ-bearers. We carry Christ within ourselves in a way not unlike pregnancy. If we let it happen Christ can change not only our spirits but also our bodies and our minds. Advent can be a time for us to let that happen, to let the Christ within us grow and mature until He is ready to be born and we let the Christ within us radiate from us.
The Scripture reminds us that we are also waiting for Jesus to come again. The whole world is a large womb in which every tree, every flower, every person, the sun and the sky are incubating together until the Messiah comes again. It’s not easy to wait and we groan and we moan in pain. We hurt each other. We have trouble asking for forgiveness and we have trouble being reconcilers. The labor pains are intense. . . everything changes around us, it cannot be stopped. We ask why this happens and get no answer. Yet in it all we know that in the womb that is the earth Jesus is in our midst waiting to be born again.
David Buttrick tells the story about a black woman deep in the bayous of Louisiana who had raised over a dozen children, both adopted and foster children. When a newspaper reporter asked her why she had done this, she replied, “I saw a new world a’comin.” She felt that it was important for her to make that new world a better one. At this beginning of the church year, a time of birth in Bethlehem, we don’t know if things are ending or beginning but something is dying as well as something new being born.
There was a man who lived with his family next door to the Episcopal church. His yard was a mess, children dirty and out of control. Rumors were he got drunk on Sunday, beat his wife, cursed his children. The church decided to help him. The priest visited him, the youth group got involved, the ECW took them food. The family came to church a few times then stopped coming.
The priest met him on the street a few months later. The man looked different. He had completely changed his physical appearance and looked great. His yard was neat. He told the priest that a few weeks ago another church group came by and prayed with him. It was a Bible believing washed-in-the-blood-of-the-Lamb Baptist church. The folks told him straight up that if he didn’t stop drinking and beating his wife he was going to die and go to hell. God was coming to get him and God was mad. That got his attention. He listened, got saved and turned his life around.
The priest apologized and said he was sorry his church couldn’t meet his needs. “Preacher,” the man said, “Don’t feel bad. Your church gave me an aspirin. I needed massive chemotherapy.”
During this season of Advent as we wait for Christ to be born in our hearts, consider what it is that keeps you from having a close relationship with God. What changes need to take place in your life for you to fully welcome the Messiah at Christmastime? Advent gives us that breathing space to stop, look, and listen to our inner selves and allow God to effect the change that will sweep over us and bring us into communion with the Holy. Maybe all you need is an aspirin but maybe you need massive chemotherapy!
As C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity (Book III, Chap. 12) about “realized eschatology”: “Imagine yourself as a living house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what God is doing. . . getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing, and you are not surprised. But presently, God starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building a quite different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
Let yourself be the vessel that invites Jesus Christ to inhabit. Get to know the Holy life within you as you wait with anticipation for the new birth.
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