Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Lary Pearce, OHC
RCL - Lent 3 C - Sunday 07 March 2010
Exodus 3:1-15
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
Dig It and Dung It
The mention of figs and fig trees brings happy memories to me. My maternal grandmother had a large fig tree behind her house in coastal South Carolina. My mother knew what to do with figs. Most years she would buy several dishpans full of figs, put them in glass jars, and seal the jars. That was how she made fig preserves, which she would serve with hot biscuits and spicy sausages for breakfast.
Today’s gospel is not about a happy childhood memory. Rather, it is a stern warning to amend one’s life while there is time. Jesus’ mention of the tower of Siloam reminds me of other towers. There is the Tower of Babel which humans built in a sinfully proud attempt to reach heaven and making themselves the equals of God. God frustrated that project by confusing human language and dividing the human race linguistically.
Another tower is the world trade center with its two towers. If the people who died on 9/11 had known they were going to die would they have amended their ways. Am I any better than the people who died in collapse of those buildings? I think not. Things happen and I certainly am not competent to judge other people. Even Jesus deferred judgment to his father. That being the case I know that my duty is not to condemn other people. My duty is to comfort, to succor, and to love.
The recent earthquake in Haiti devastated that already poverty stricken country. Some folks, including a well known evangelist, Pat Robinson, think that the Haitians got what they deserved. He said the Haitians made a pact with the Devil during their war of liberation from the French. To pursue this line of thought a little further, were the people of New Orleans any more wicked than the people of New York City?
Another example that brings the problem even closer to home is, were the monks of Holy Cross Monastery holier than the monks of Mt Calvary Monastery, when their monastery burned a couple of years ago? I doubt it.
If I knew the day on which I am going to die, how would I change my life? I can’t honestly say that I would go to Church more or take communion more often. Rather, I think I would hope to think kinder, gentler thoughts toward my brothers, toward our guests, toward everyone with whom I come in contact. Also, I would spend more time in meditation.
I am under sentence of death. That is the human condition. Still, I know that Jesus died and showed the way through death to eternal life. Still like the fig tree I have some time before I die, and, unlike the fig tree I can cultivate my spiritual life, and, by God’s grace, prepare not for my death, but for eternal life. God loves each human being immeasurably, and he does respect the free will of every human so that they can accept or reject God’s love. I pray that I will have the wisdom to accept God’s love.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
RCL - commemoration of John & Charles Wesley - 03 Mar 2010
Berkeley Divinity School --- Marquand Chapel
Matthew T. Leaycraft*, Senior Sermon**
RCL - Service of Christian Unity in Commemoration of John and Charles Wesley - Wednesday 03 March 2010
* Matthew is a third year seminarian at Berkeley Divinity School. As part of his third year of study he is doing an internship at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, participating in many Guesthouse-related ministries.
** A Senior Sermon is delivered at the end of a seminarian's studies as a sign of accomplishment in homiletics.
Matthew in front of the Archbishop's residence in Canterbury
February 2010
Psalm 98
Isaiah 49:5-6
Luke 9:2-6:
And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.'
And He Sent Them Out to Proclaim the Kingdom of God and to Heal.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Parting from my fellow Berkeley classmates and Canterbury Cathedral pilgrims a couple of weeks ago, I met my partner, Steve, in London for a short vacation. My now good friend, Diing, stayed with us for two nights. Our quarters were in Chelsea, a residential part of London characterized by a confidant and offhand elegance. The harmonious street-scape there speaks of an ordered and prosperous way of living which seems to assume that things have been, and always will be, just like this.
On Sunday we decided to go to Morning Prayer at the very beautiful Chelsea Old Church. An embodiment of English tradition, it had been the parish church of Sir Thomas Moore and the site of Henry VIII’s marriage to Jane Seymour.
The church was crowded with elegantly dressed, mostly elderly parishioners. There seemed no where to sit except a remote corner at the far back. But then I spotted an empty pew at the very front. Having lost patience with the false modesty that won’t take the forward seats even when there is no where else and you’re in the way, I led our threesome boldly up the aisle and sat down.
I was vaguely aware that our arrival and placement had caused a quiet stir. Three men arriving together fit no established relational category. The fact that two were white, highly suspect of being gay, and the third, a tall African, simply did not compute. I am sufficiently American to have found my self consciousness roused by the relentlessly upper class Englishness assembled around us.
I began to doubt my choice of seating. Perhaps it was presuming. My unease increased as Steve leaned over to say that the woman he had been chatting with was the wife of the Vicar. She was seated BEHIND us. Could it really be advisable, not to say polite, to have plunked ourselves down in the pew ahead of her?
Mid-way through the service my remaining confidence crumbled. I noticed that each of the beautifully embroidered kneelers before us bore some motto or heraldic device applicable to the Queen, and only the Queen. A lone example might simply reflect a royalist enthusiasm, but six in a row really left me in no doubt that we were irretrievably in the spotlit land of public faux pas. Inside a voice shouted a single word that can not be repeated here.
References to the Queen during the service seemed virtually continuous. I tried to enjoy the really beautiful experience while looking forward to a fast exit. I later learned that, indeed, that pew is reserved for the Queen or another member of her family should they decide to pop in on a Sunday at 10:30.
Finally, it was over. Thinking, OK, let’s get OUT of here, we found the way blocked by the smiling face of the Vicar’s wife who introduced herself as Suzy. As she continued her get acquainted chat, her husband came along, introducing himself with a self deprecating humor. The next thing we knew Suzy invited us to the vicarage and we found ourselves sipping tea before her family fire.
An hour later we felt we had all made a new friend. Subsequent emails confirmed the genuineness of this spontaneous and wide open gesture of meaningful contact. Here was hospitality of a very real kind. Now, it may not quite take the form you or I might extend and the circumstances are perhaps unlike our own, but we will never forget the welcome that church extended and would be at home there whenever we might return.
Radical hospitality. It’s almost cliche. But, what can it mean? The Gospel of Luke tells us, “He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom and to heal.” This is the true work of evangelism, to proclaim the kingdom and to heal. Tonight we celebrate the lives and ministry of John and Charles Wesley, who, among their multiple talents and capacities, were first and foremost evangelists for Christ bringing the kingdom and its profound healing to thousands.
Together they changed the face of the english speaking church and ushered in much of what we now take for granted as the context of contemporary Protestant worship. Through them the Anglican Church reached whole populations who otherwise were alienated from the good news. And, in America and worldwide, the Methodist Church has made the kingdom manifest for millions. The trajectory of their energy still reverberates as our being here tonight testifies.
For the Wesleys, proclaiming the kingdom was profoundly invitational, an invitation into the divine reality fully accessible in the here and now. The message was that God’s grace is present and available, no matter your state of life, or education, or past sins. For the Wesleys there were no barriers. There was nothing that made anyone categorically “other.”
While it is by no means my intention to unpack the Wesleys’ theology, John Wesley’s preaching and Charles Wesley's hymns powerfully evoke the unequivocal availability of God’s grace. John wrote:
Luke quotes Jesus, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money - not even an extra tunic.” Such utterly fearless invitation to the kingdom can rely on nothing external. No material possession. No assumption. No expectation. Nothing. You step out on your own relying solely on Christ, boldly in humble faith. You have nothing to offer but what God gives you. Your life in Christ is all in all. This is the offering of true invitation.
Not kindness, or mere welcome, though it is those things. But, something so much more. Your God given self is all you have and in humble reliance your extend yourself, pouring yourself out for others. Through the spirit alone you become the kingdom, yours is the hospitality of the kingdom. The Wesley’s did this on a gigantic scale. But so did every itinerant Methodist preacher riding from parish to parish in early 19th century rural America.
In my case I know that without such a gift I would never have found my way to Christ. It was a Methodist minister, YDS alumnus and Trustee, Steve Bauman, who helped me find my way. Study and worship and community all helped. But, it was Steve’s deep founded faith and personal courage that enabled him to extend himself to me in such a complete loving openness and acceptance -- even when I had trouble fully accepting myself -- that led me dimly to perceive the reality and presence of the kingdom of God.
Nothing can teach you that in a way that lives within except it be through an offering of love. The invitation so complete, there are no barriers. The Christ in you meets the Christ in the other. In that awakening the world breaks open and at long last you see. And, once you have a taste of the divine that meets you, longing for longing, you step forward ever to meet it. The real ground of being, a joy in love so sweet, it takes your breath away. It’s all you want. It’s all you need. Invitation is the opening of the door that makes real transformation possible.
The Sunday following my encounter at Chelsea Old Church I found myself sitting alone in a pew of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, a small parish located in the very heart of the South Bronx. This inner city church community faces extreme challenges. Having some first hand experience with this part of the Bronx, I know these issues can quite literally be those of life and death.
I was there as part of a Berkeley class project. While I waited for my classmates I couldn’t help wondering what the reaction would be to us, the white Yalie visitors. Feeling out of place, questioning our purpose, and half wishing I hadn’t come, a young African American woman appeared at my side. Smiling, her hand extended, she said, “Hi, my name is Tina. What’s yours? Welcome to St. Margaret’s!”
She seemed to have no knowledge of why I was there. I was just any stranger. She expressed not the least bit of wonder that a middle aged white guy in a blazer had appeared out of nowhere. We chatted and laughed together for some time. Her object was a joyous and genuine welcome and greeting. She made me feel part of the place and in union with her and everyone there. I entered fully into a worship experience in many aspects quite different from that to which I am accustomed.
Suzy and Tina in their different ways and contexts offered more than a simple welcome. It went deeper. Theirs was an outer expression of an inner truth that the kingdom is wide open. Barriers of custom, expectation, identity, what have you, were not overlooked, but understood, and as such rendered irrelevant. They left everything behind taking nothing for the journey. They acted in freedom extending themselves as themselves fully, unreservedly in the fearless zone of love. On that basis and that alone the kingdom of God was proclaimed through them.
As we contemplate ministry, be it through ordination or in some other context, it is good to reflect on the work of a church leader like Steve Bauman whose wide open, unqualified love made the way possible for a tentative seeker. And unforgettable is the prodigious outpouring of word and song of John and Charles Wesley whose embrace excluded no one and so ushered in a new era in the proclamation of the kingdom of God.
Let us bless all those who make their lives a living invitation to knowledge and love of God and grant us all the courage and perfect freedom to be like them, an outpouring of God’s love made manifest in the world through his grace.
Amen.
1. Albert C. Outler & Richard P. Heitzenrater, ed., John Wesley's Sermons, An Anthology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 50.
2. The United Methodist Hymnal, (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), Hymn 88.
3. Albert C. Outler & Richard P. Heitzenrater, ed., John Wesley's Sermons, An Anthology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 46.
Matthew T. Leaycraft*, Senior Sermon**
RCL - Service of Christian Unity in Commemoration of John and Charles Wesley - Wednesday 03 March 2010
* Matthew is a third year seminarian at Berkeley Divinity School. As part of his third year of study he is doing an internship at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, participating in many Guesthouse-related ministries.
** A Senior Sermon is delivered at the end of a seminarian's studies as a sign of accomplishment in homiletics.
Matthew in front of the Archbishop's residence in CanterburyFebruary 2010
Psalm 98
Isaiah 49:5-6
Luke 9:2-6:
And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.'
And He Sent Them Out to Proclaim the Kingdom of God and to Heal.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Parting from my fellow Berkeley classmates and Canterbury Cathedral pilgrims a couple of weeks ago, I met my partner, Steve, in London for a short vacation. My now good friend, Diing, stayed with us for two nights. Our quarters were in Chelsea, a residential part of London characterized by a confidant and offhand elegance. The harmonious street-scape there speaks of an ordered and prosperous way of living which seems to assume that things have been, and always will be, just like this.
On Sunday we decided to go to Morning Prayer at the very beautiful Chelsea Old Church. An embodiment of English tradition, it had been the parish church of Sir Thomas Moore and the site of Henry VIII’s marriage to Jane Seymour.
The church was crowded with elegantly dressed, mostly elderly parishioners. There seemed no where to sit except a remote corner at the far back. But then I spotted an empty pew at the very front. Having lost patience with the false modesty that won’t take the forward seats even when there is no where else and you’re in the way, I led our threesome boldly up the aisle and sat down.
I was vaguely aware that our arrival and placement had caused a quiet stir. Three men arriving together fit no established relational category. The fact that two were white, highly suspect of being gay, and the third, a tall African, simply did not compute. I am sufficiently American to have found my self consciousness roused by the relentlessly upper class Englishness assembled around us.
I began to doubt my choice of seating. Perhaps it was presuming. My unease increased as Steve leaned over to say that the woman he had been chatting with was the wife of the Vicar. She was seated BEHIND us. Could it really be advisable, not to say polite, to have plunked ourselves down in the pew ahead of her?
Mid-way through the service my remaining confidence crumbled. I noticed that each of the beautifully embroidered kneelers before us bore some motto or heraldic device applicable to the Queen, and only the Queen. A lone example might simply reflect a royalist enthusiasm, but six in a row really left me in no doubt that we were irretrievably in the spotlit land of public faux pas. Inside a voice shouted a single word that can not be repeated here.
References to the Queen during the service seemed virtually continuous. I tried to enjoy the really beautiful experience while looking forward to a fast exit. I later learned that, indeed, that pew is reserved for the Queen or another member of her family should they decide to pop in on a Sunday at 10:30.
Finally, it was over. Thinking, OK, let’s get OUT of here, we found the way blocked by the smiling face of the Vicar’s wife who introduced herself as Suzy. As she continued her get acquainted chat, her husband came along, introducing himself with a self deprecating humor. The next thing we knew Suzy invited us to the vicarage and we found ourselves sipping tea before her family fire.
An hour later we felt we had all made a new friend. Subsequent emails confirmed the genuineness of this spontaneous and wide open gesture of meaningful contact. Here was hospitality of a very real kind. Now, it may not quite take the form you or I might extend and the circumstances are perhaps unlike our own, but we will never forget the welcome that church extended and would be at home there whenever we might return.
Radical hospitality. It’s almost cliche. But, what can it mean? The Gospel of Luke tells us, “He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom and to heal.” This is the true work of evangelism, to proclaim the kingdom and to heal. Tonight we celebrate the lives and ministry of John and Charles Wesley, who, among their multiple talents and capacities, were first and foremost evangelists for Christ bringing the kingdom and its profound healing to thousands.
Together they changed the face of the english speaking church and ushered in much of what we now take for granted as the context of contemporary Protestant worship. Through them the Anglican Church reached whole populations who otherwise were alienated from the good news. And, in America and worldwide, the Methodist Church has made the kingdom manifest for millions. The trajectory of their energy still reverberates as our being here tonight testifies.
For the Wesleys, proclaiming the kingdom was profoundly invitational, an invitation into the divine reality fully accessible in the here and now. The message was that God’s grace is present and available, no matter your state of life, or education, or past sins. For the Wesleys there were no barriers. There was nothing that made anyone categorically “other.”
While it is by no means my intention to unpack the Wesleys’ theology, John Wesley’s preaching and Charles Wesley's hymns powerfully evoke the unequivocal availability of God’s grace. John wrote:
How freely does God love the world! While we were sinners, ‘Christ died for the ungodly’ ... God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. And how freely with him does he give us all things! Verily, free grace is all in all! The grace or love of God, whence comes our salvation, is free in all, and free for all...It does not depend on any power or merit in man; no, not in any degree...It does not depend on his good tempers, or good desires, or good purposes and intentions; for all these flow from the free grace of God. (1)And Charles wrote in the hymn "Maker, In Whom We Live":
Incarnate Deity, let all the ransomed race render in thanks their lives to thee for thy redeeming grace. The grace to sinner showed ye heavenly choirs proclaim, and cry, “Salvation to our God, salvation to the Lamb!" (2)And they made their audience everyone who would listen.
To whom are we not to preach it?, John (Wesley) asked. The poor? Nay, they have a peculiar right to have the gospel preached to them. The unlearned? No. God hath revealed these things unto unlearned and ignorant men from the beginning. The young? By no means... The sinners? Least of all. He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (3)The two brothers are such extraordinary historical figures we don’t entirely see them in their human dimension. We perhaps now take for granted the degree of personal commitment, certain faith, and genuine love that alone could motivate and sustain such a potent and fearless ministry.
Luke quotes Jesus, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money - not even an extra tunic.” Such utterly fearless invitation to the kingdom can rely on nothing external. No material possession. No assumption. No expectation. Nothing. You step out on your own relying solely on Christ, boldly in humble faith. You have nothing to offer but what God gives you. Your life in Christ is all in all. This is the offering of true invitation.
Not kindness, or mere welcome, though it is those things. But, something so much more. Your God given self is all you have and in humble reliance your extend yourself, pouring yourself out for others. Through the spirit alone you become the kingdom, yours is the hospitality of the kingdom. The Wesley’s did this on a gigantic scale. But so did every itinerant Methodist preacher riding from parish to parish in early 19th century rural America.
In my case I know that without such a gift I would never have found my way to Christ. It was a Methodist minister, YDS alumnus and Trustee, Steve Bauman, who helped me find my way. Study and worship and community all helped. But, it was Steve’s deep founded faith and personal courage that enabled him to extend himself to me in such a complete loving openness and acceptance -- even when I had trouble fully accepting myself -- that led me dimly to perceive the reality and presence of the kingdom of God.
Nothing can teach you that in a way that lives within except it be through an offering of love. The invitation so complete, there are no barriers. The Christ in you meets the Christ in the other. In that awakening the world breaks open and at long last you see. And, once you have a taste of the divine that meets you, longing for longing, you step forward ever to meet it. The real ground of being, a joy in love so sweet, it takes your breath away. It’s all you want. It’s all you need. Invitation is the opening of the door that makes real transformation possible.
The Sunday following my encounter at Chelsea Old Church I found myself sitting alone in a pew of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, a small parish located in the very heart of the South Bronx. This inner city church community faces extreme challenges. Having some first hand experience with this part of the Bronx, I know these issues can quite literally be those of life and death.
I was there as part of a Berkeley class project. While I waited for my classmates I couldn’t help wondering what the reaction would be to us, the white Yalie visitors. Feeling out of place, questioning our purpose, and half wishing I hadn’t come, a young African American woman appeared at my side. Smiling, her hand extended, she said, “Hi, my name is Tina. What’s yours? Welcome to St. Margaret’s!”
She seemed to have no knowledge of why I was there. I was just any stranger. She expressed not the least bit of wonder that a middle aged white guy in a blazer had appeared out of nowhere. We chatted and laughed together for some time. Her object was a joyous and genuine welcome and greeting. She made me feel part of the place and in union with her and everyone there. I entered fully into a worship experience in many aspects quite different from that to which I am accustomed.
Suzy and Tina in their different ways and contexts offered more than a simple welcome. It went deeper. Theirs was an outer expression of an inner truth that the kingdom is wide open. Barriers of custom, expectation, identity, what have you, were not overlooked, but understood, and as such rendered irrelevant. They left everything behind taking nothing for the journey. They acted in freedom extending themselves as themselves fully, unreservedly in the fearless zone of love. On that basis and that alone the kingdom of God was proclaimed through them.
As we contemplate ministry, be it through ordination or in some other context, it is good to reflect on the work of a church leader like Steve Bauman whose wide open, unqualified love made the way possible for a tentative seeker. And unforgettable is the prodigious outpouring of word and song of John and Charles Wesley whose embrace excluded no one and so ushered in a new era in the proclamation of the kingdom of God.
Let us bless all those who make their lives a living invitation to knowledge and love of God and grant us all the courage and perfect freedom to be like them, an outpouring of God’s love made manifest in the world through his grace.
Amen.
1. Albert C. Outler & Richard P. Heitzenrater, ed., John Wesley's Sermons, An Anthology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 50.
2. The United Methodist Hymnal, (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), Hymn 88.
3. Albert C. Outler & Richard P. Heitzenrater, ed., John Wesley's Sermons, An Anthology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 46.
Monday, March 1, 2010
RCL - Lent 2 C - 28 Feb 2010
St. John's Episcopal Church, Kingston, NY
Brother James Michael Dowd, OHC
RCL Lent 2 C - Sunday 28 February 2010
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Our three readings today offer a Lenten lesson of citizenship that is both timeless and rather timely. It is a lesson for every age, including, perhaps especially so, for our age. Essentially, these readings ask us questions, fundamental questions, about our priorities, and about where, and with whom, we make our stand. And in some ways, I think that this is what the journey of Lent is all about.
The first reading, from the Book of Genesis, is the story of God's granting of the land between the Nile and Euphrates Rivers, to Abraham and his descendants. This is what the people who were to be called Hebrews would eventually call their home, their country, the land of their citizenship.
It would take many centuries before the Hebrew people would eventually settle in the Promised Land, and still more for Jerusalem to be built, but the Hebrews became God's Chosen People and were given a home, a country, that they could call their own forever. But this was a Covenant relationship – not a free gift. The Hebrew people had to remain faithful to God by worshiping God alone, by keeping the Commandments, by acting justly, loving and living mercifully, turning swords into plowshares, and walking humbly with their God.
But the Hebrews were like every other people in that they sinned. Sometimes grievously. And so, mindful of that Covenant relationship, God sent prophet after prophet to teach, guide, correct, and call for the repentance of the people. But the people would have none of it. In fact, so often, they would turn on the prophets and kill them right in Jerusalem. And so, finally, God sent his Son, and by the time we get to Jesus, he is saying in an all too real foreshadowing “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (1)
And why did these prophets get murdered by their own people? I think it was because being asked to rend your hearts – to rip them open to God - allowing God to do the transformational work of conversion is just about the most difficult thing a person can do. To be told that your sacrifice of a few animals just doesn't cut it, as it were, makes people increasingly uncomfortable. It is easier to find ways to silence those who are shouting from the rooftops God's message of worshiping God alone, loving your enemies, welcoming the stranger, caring for the sick and tending to the poor.
The attitude of many seems to have been that the giving of that homeland so long ago, was a free gift to be used however the people chose to use it. It would seem that the people thought that worshiping God alone, obeying the Commandments, acting justly, loving and living mercifully, turning those swords into plowshares, and walking humbly with God, was a choice, not an expectation. The people and the leaders of Israel convinced themselves that they had to act for the “good of the nation” by defending it, working to appease those who were seemingly more powerful than they, and not disrupting the economy. This was more easily accomplished by killing the prophets – and Jesus – than by heeding their words. After all, they had “real world” things to do and so would continue to mechanically observe the rituals, while not dedicating their lives to loving with genuine faith.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Where have we heard this in another context? Well, there are many right here in our own country that believe we Americans are the second Chosen People. From the time of the first settlers, the Pilgrims and those at Jamestown, many have promulgated the idea that, despite the fact that there were already other people here, the land that would become the United States was given by God to English speaking Christians and that it was destined to be, as Ronald Reagan would call it “the last best hope of man on earth.” (2)
We are, they contend a Christian nation and the nation that has been chosen by God to lead the rest of the world to freedom. We must therefore, the argument goes, maintain a strong military, solid borders, and a vibrant economy, at all costs in order to maintain our status as the New Chosen.
Now don't get me wrong, I love our land. We have been gifted with a land that has incredible natural resources and a political system that allows me to stand here and preach in this way without being arrested. Those are great things. My argument is that if we truly believe that we have been blessed by God with these things, we must put the things of God first. To do that, we must remember, as we heard in St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians, that “our citizenship is in heaven.” (3)
It is in this new country that we hold our eternal citizenship, and in which, we are “expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (4). This is a country in which the people are those who strive to act as Christ did and as St. Paul imitated: erasing the false boundaries of borders, tribes, ethnic groups, racial barriers, religious backgrounds. It is a country in which the people see the “other” be they strangers, foreigners, non-English speakers, as nothing less than their sisters and brothers. It is a country in which the people follow Christ by offering to lay down their lives for their friends. This is a non-violent country, and country in which the other cheek is offered and forgiveness abounds. A country where peace, justice, and mercy are not just nice sounding platitudes, but are actually lived.
That , my friends, is the idyllic sounding stuff. Hard to believe. Right? I'll bet some of you are saying to yourselves, what world is he living in because I've never seen such a place?
And that is true. But here's the tough news regarding the Good News. The citizenship in heaven that St. Paul talks about requires a passport. Without it, entry seems impossible. That passport is the Cross of Christ. A Cross that each of us are called to share the weight of, as we seek to carry it on our journeys to that New Land. When we each take up our cross, bear one another's burdens, and surrender to the will of God, we are in fact building up that eternal country which does have a name: it is called the Kingdom of God.
So, when we act as citizens of our temporary homeland, in our case, the United States, we must remember that it is the eternal homeland, the Kingdom of God, that we are striving for – both in this life and in the next. And if we are honest with ourselves, I think it becomes clear that as a society, as a political entity, and as an economic and military power, the goals and actions of our temporary homeland is not always in sync with the goals and actions of our eternal homeland.
And I think that this is what Lent is about. At least in part. So often there is such a strong emphasis on the personal aspect of sin and redemption during this time of year – and it's not that that sort of introspection is not important. But we forget that we are a community – the entire Church is the Body of Christ. And that Body is a compilation of all of God's people. And so, it is important to evaluate what as a community we are doing to help build up the Kingdom of God.
In the local community, here at St. John's, you serve those living with HIV/AIDS with Angel Food East. You minister to those in prison. You serve the poor in many different ways. This is exactly what the people of the new country, God's Kingdom do. But it is also important to pray as individuals and as community about where we have gone wrong, in what ways have we diverged from walking the path of God, which is also known as the Way of the Cross.
Do the needs of the poor, the widow, the orphan, come first? Do our actions, our spending patterns, our prayer life serve peaceful and hopeful goals? Are our eyes set – both as individuals and as a community – on the eternal homeland, or are we just thinking about the here, the now, the immediate?
When Jesus was approaching Jerusalem for the final time, he lamented, as we heard today, of “how often he wanted to gather the children of Jerusalem like a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” (5) But, alas, like so many times before, the people of Jerusalem were unwilling to hear God's message and respond to God's love. But with a determination for the ages, Jesus would spread those wings one last time as he opened his arms wide on the cross in order to gather each of us under it. That Cross, that passport, is how we enter into the Land of the Resurrection.
But once gathered under that Cross, there is no turning back. The Cross of Christ is the New Covenant. We now have something much greater than a plot of land. Now, we are inheritors of all God's Kingdom. This is God's Covenant with us. But along with our inheritance comes responsibility, to one another, and especially to the most vulnerable – the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the mourning, perceived enemies, and those who are weaker whether they live down the street or around the world. A responsibility to care for them, to live in peace with them, to carry their crosses when the load seems to heavy for them.
Lent is a time to be truly honest with ourselves and with God. I believe that if we were to do that as a nation, we would have to admit that we have fallen short on our end of the Covenant of Christ's Cross. I no longer want to fight people on whether or not the United States was founded as a Christian Nation. I want to say to all my American brothers and sisters, and I say to you this morning: If we are going to claim to be a Christian Nation, then we have to live up to the New Covenant.
First, we must understand that no nation can be the last, best hope of man. Only God is the best hope of humanity. Worship God alone. And next, let us learn to act justly by helping to carry the cross of the weakest and most vulnerable among us in providing food, shelter, a fair wage and adequate health care for the poor. Let us choose to turn our swords into plowshares as we repent and find a way to end an unjust war in Iraq. Let us love and live mercifully as we abolish the death penalty, and care for those in prison. Let us walk humbly with God in finding alternatives to abortion, because we can admit that life is God's gift to give and take. Let us be good stewards of the temporary home God has given us, by working to end global warming. Let us claim our citizenship in Heaven by loving those who are marginalized, forgotten, and despised.
This Lent, allow Jesus to gather you into his Cross. When you are standing there, under God's wings, forget the rituals and open wide your hearts to God alone. Allow him to show you the way to the New Land. Offer him your whole being and enter into the New Covenant. All you need is your passport, which Christ provided on the Cross. AMEN.
1 Luke 13:34 NRSV.
2 Reagan, Ronald. “The Shining City Upon the Hill.” Speech delivered on January 25, 1974.
3 Philippians 3:20. NRSV.
4 Philippians 3:20. NRSV.
5 Luke 13:34. NRSV
Brother James Michael Dowd, OHC
RCL Lent 2 C - Sunday 28 February 2010
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Our three readings today offer a Lenten lesson of citizenship that is both timeless and rather timely. It is a lesson for every age, including, perhaps especially so, for our age. Essentially, these readings ask us questions, fundamental questions, about our priorities, and about where, and with whom, we make our stand. And in some ways, I think that this is what the journey of Lent is all about.
The first reading, from the Book of Genesis, is the story of God's granting of the land between the Nile and Euphrates Rivers, to Abraham and his descendants. This is what the people who were to be called Hebrews would eventually call their home, their country, the land of their citizenship.
It would take many centuries before the Hebrew people would eventually settle in the Promised Land, and still more for Jerusalem to be built, but the Hebrews became God's Chosen People and were given a home, a country, that they could call their own forever. But this was a Covenant relationship – not a free gift. The Hebrew people had to remain faithful to God by worshiping God alone, by keeping the Commandments, by acting justly, loving and living mercifully, turning swords into plowshares, and walking humbly with their God.
But the Hebrews were like every other people in that they sinned. Sometimes grievously. And so, mindful of that Covenant relationship, God sent prophet after prophet to teach, guide, correct, and call for the repentance of the people. But the people would have none of it. In fact, so often, they would turn on the prophets and kill them right in Jerusalem. And so, finally, God sent his Son, and by the time we get to Jesus, he is saying in an all too real foreshadowing “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (1)
And why did these prophets get murdered by their own people? I think it was because being asked to rend your hearts – to rip them open to God - allowing God to do the transformational work of conversion is just about the most difficult thing a person can do. To be told that your sacrifice of a few animals just doesn't cut it, as it were, makes people increasingly uncomfortable. It is easier to find ways to silence those who are shouting from the rooftops God's message of worshiping God alone, loving your enemies, welcoming the stranger, caring for the sick and tending to the poor.
The attitude of many seems to have been that the giving of that homeland so long ago, was a free gift to be used however the people chose to use it. It would seem that the people thought that worshiping God alone, obeying the Commandments, acting justly, loving and living mercifully, turning those swords into plowshares, and walking humbly with God, was a choice, not an expectation. The people and the leaders of Israel convinced themselves that they had to act for the “good of the nation” by defending it, working to appease those who were seemingly more powerful than they, and not disrupting the economy. This was more easily accomplished by killing the prophets – and Jesus – than by heeding their words. After all, they had “real world” things to do and so would continue to mechanically observe the rituals, while not dedicating their lives to loving with genuine faith.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Where have we heard this in another context? Well, there are many right here in our own country that believe we Americans are the second Chosen People. From the time of the first settlers, the Pilgrims and those at Jamestown, many have promulgated the idea that, despite the fact that there were already other people here, the land that would become the United States was given by God to English speaking Christians and that it was destined to be, as Ronald Reagan would call it “the last best hope of man on earth.” (2)
We are, they contend a Christian nation and the nation that has been chosen by God to lead the rest of the world to freedom. We must therefore, the argument goes, maintain a strong military, solid borders, and a vibrant economy, at all costs in order to maintain our status as the New Chosen.
Now don't get me wrong, I love our land. We have been gifted with a land that has incredible natural resources and a political system that allows me to stand here and preach in this way without being arrested. Those are great things. My argument is that if we truly believe that we have been blessed by God with these things, we must put the things of God first. To do that, we must remember, as we heard in St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians, that “our citizenship is in heaven.” (3)
It is in this new country that we hold our eternal citizenship, and in which, we are “expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (4). This is a country in which the people are those who strive to act as Christ did and as St. Paul imitated: erasing the false boundaries of borders, tribes, ethnic groups, racial barriers, religious backgrounds. It is a country in which the people see the “other” be they strangers, foreigners, non-English speakers, as nothing less than their sisters and brothers. It is a country in which the people follow Christ by offering to lay down their lives for their friends. This is a non-violent country, and country in which the other cheek is offered and forgiveness abounds. A country where peace, justice, and mercy are not just nice sounding platitudes, but are actually lived.
That , my friends, is the idyllic sounding stuff. Hard to believe. Right? I'll bet some of you are saying to yourselves, what world is he living in because I've never seen such a place?
And that is true. But here's the tough news regarding the Good News. The citizenship in heaven that St. Paul talks about requires a passport. Without it, entry seems impossible. That passport is the Cross of Christ. A Cross that each of us are called to share the weight of, as we seek to carry it on our journeys to that New Land. When we each take up our cross, bear one another's burdens, and surrender to the will of God, we are in fact building up that eternal country which does have a name: it is called the Kingdom of God.
So, when we act as citizens of our temporary homeland, in our case, the United States, we must remember that it is the eternal homeland, the Kingdom of God, that we are striving for – both in this life and in the next. And if we are honest with ourselves, I think it becomes clear that as a society, as a political entity, and as an economic and military power, the goals and actions of our temporary homeland is not always in sync with the goals and actions of our eternal homeland.
And I think that this is what Lent is about. At least in part. So often there is such a strong emphasis on the personal aspect of sin and redemption during this time of year – and it's not that that sort of introspection is not important. But we forget that we are a community – the entire Church is the Body of Christ. And that Body is a compilation of all of God's people. And so, it is important to evaluate what as a community we are doing to help build up the Kingdom of God.
In the local community, here at St. John's, you serve those living with HIV/AIDS with Angel Food East. You minister to those in prison. You serve the poor in many different ways. This is exactly what the people of the new country, God's Kingdom do. But it is also important to pray as individuals and as community about where we have gone wrong, in what ways have we diverged from walking the path of God, which is also known as the Way of the Cross.
Do the needs of the poor, the widow, the orphan, come first? Do our actions, our spending patterns, our prayer life serve peaceful and hopeful goals? Are our eyes set – both as individuals and as a community – on the eternal homeland, or are we just thinking about the here, the now, the immediate?
When Jesus was approaching Jerusalem for the final time, he lamented, as we heard today, of “how often he wanted to gather the children of Jerusalem like a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” (5) But, alas, like so many times before, the people of Jerusalem were unwilling to hear God's message and respond to God's love. But with a determination for the ages, Jesus would spread those wings one last time as he opened his arms wide on the cross in order to gather each of us under it. That Cross, that passport, is how we enter into the Land of the Resurrection.
But once gathered under that Cross, there is no turning back. The Cross of Christ is the New Covenant. We now have something much greater than a plot of land. Now, we are inheritors of all God's Kingdom. This is God's Covenant with us. But along with our inheritance comes responsibility, to one another, and especially to the most vulnerable – the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the mourning, perceived enemies, and those who are weaker whether they live down the street or around the world. A responsibility to care for them, to live in peace with them, to carry their crosses when the load seems to heavy for them.
Lent is a time to be truly honest with ourselves and with God. I believe that if we were to do that as a nation, we would have to admit that we have fallen short on our end of the Covenant of Christ's Cross. I no longer want to fight people on whether or not the United States was founded as a Christian Nation. I want to say to all my American brothers and sisters, and I say to you this morning: If we are going to claim to be a Christian Nation, then we have to live up to the New Covenant.
First, we must understand that no nation can be the last, best hope of man. Only God is the best hope of humanity. Worship God alone. And next, let us learn to act justly by helping to carry the cross of the weakest and most vulnerable among us in providing food, shelter, a fair wage and adequate health care for the poor. Let us choose to turn our swords into plowshares as we repent and find a way to end an unjust war in Iraq. Let us love and live mercifully as we abolish the death penalty, and care for those in prison. Let us walk humbly with God in finding alternatives to abortion, because we can admit that life is God's gift to give and take. Let us be good stewards of the temporary home God has given us, by working to end global warming. Let us claim our citizenship in Heaven by loving those who are marginalized, forgotten, and despised.
This Lent, allow Jesus to gather you into his Cross. When you are standing there, under God's wings, forget the rituals and open wide your hearts to God alone. Allow him to show you the way to the New Land. Offer him your whole being and enter into the New Covenant. All you need is your passport, which Christ provided on the Cross. AMEN.
1 Luke 13:34 NRSV.
2 Reagan, Ronald. “The Shining City Upon the Hill.” Speech delivered on January 25, 1974.
3 Philippians 3:20. NRSV.
4 Philippians 3:20. NRSV.
5 Luke 13:34. NRSV
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