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Esperanza: Sermon for March 18, 2012

Mar 182012
 

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It is a pleasure to be here at St Paul’s this morning.  I have been humbled since my family arrived in Massachusetts this past summer by the outpouring of welcome, well wishes, and the excitement I have sensed from so many in the community about the work we are doing at Esperanza Academy.

I am struck by the words from the gospel this morning:

But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. (John 3:21)

Esperanza is a place that embodies these words: our students, our  faculty, our trustees—we are toiling to surround our students with love; to show them the boundless possibility of the world available to them through the pursuit of knowledge—to show them what it means to live their lives in the light of God; to live lives worthy of that gift.

Their possibilities do not have the dampened by the blights of poverty; by the many doors that can be closed if you are born to a  poor, immigrant family in Lawrence.  Esperanza is a place where we open doors.

Esperanza is a tuition-free Episcopal middle school for low-income girls in Lawrence.  We are entering our sixth year of operation this fall.

Now I am not from MA.  I grew up, and have mostly always lived, in Baltimore.

I attended and began my teaching career at a Quaker school there.  This experience remains central to my desire to be involved with education.  The central tenant of the Society of Friends is the concept that “there is that of God in everyone.”

My journey here to Esperanza began in my work as a fresh 22-year-old high school history teacher in Baltimore.  Frankly, while I believed strongly in the power of education, I was not at that time planning a career in teaching.  I was on leave from the Ph.D. program in History at Stanford, and I was quite sure I would take a year off and return to write my dissertation.  I had occupied myself for the year teaching U.S. History, and was furiously discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis with my class.  One of my students raised his hand and said “Mr. Wilson—I’ve been to Cuba.” I smiled, laughed, and said “sure you have…” and went on with my lesson about the Bay of Pigs, etc.  He smiled.  After class, he came up to me, and said “seriously, my middle school, we went to Cuba with the Orioles when they played the Cuban national team.  I met Fidel Castro.  He was really, really old.” I had to find out more about this special place, where an inner city kid could have had the chance to have a life-changing experience like that.  I did a little bit of research on his middle school, St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, and discovered a place that would change my life.

This was how I discovered the NativityMiguel Network of schools—through this young man who had attended a small tuition-free middle school in Baltimore, and who had earned a scholarship to a competitive private high school.  And what a remarkable young man he ways—volunteering at a homeless shelter in the evenings (I found that out because he didn’t always do his homework), directing the service club, singing in the choir.  He was a bundle of vibrant joy—a young man who clearly was living life to the fullest. There was “that of God” in him, as the Quakers would say, and he shared it with me.  I have been blessed to have known him, and he changed my life.  I claimed to have knowledge, but just as in our reading from Corinthians, he showed me that there was so much I didn’t know…

What I found remarkable about this young man was that he remained so faithfully focused on his education, despite the many, many false prophets of inner city Baltimore.  He chose a different path for himself; he chose to pursue a life worthy of God.

After finding out about this remarkable school, I assumed the assistant headmaster role at St. Ignatius in Baltimore at the age of 24.  I am not sure why they hired me at such a young age—I am convinced perhaps there were no other applicants.  What a shock it was to go from a school of relative affluence to one of relative poverty.  The students came from terribly difficult neighborhoods, where folks were regularly gunned down in the streets, and where no family was untouched by the carnage of the drug trade. And yet they were hopeful—they came to school each morning, in uniform, for a ten hour school day.  They did it purely with the hope of a different future, of a more hopeful life.  As I shook their hands each morning, I saw that of God in each of them as well.  But it was also shockingly hard work—it was often really really challenging to continue to see that of God when so often it was dimmed by the challenges and decay of grinding generations of poverty.

“There is that of God in everyone”—what a revolutionary concept in our modern world—that each and every human being has inherent value and worth.  How unlike the way our society is structured.  How counter to so much of our daily lives is it to think that through simple acts of openness we can find the divine every day.

It is in the midst of this minefield of urban problems that our girls find hope at Esperanza.  Much like the young men I worked with in Baltimore, our young ladies in Lawrence are beset by a host of potential distractions—the high school dropout and teen pregnancy rates are amongst the highest in Massachusetts; the rampant drug trade taking place in the streets and alleys around their homes—these are the false prophets of the present day.  Esperanza stands in defiance of them; it stands to provide the girls a path to live lives worthy of God.

At Esperanza, this tuition-free private school serving low-income kids who cannot pay for the quality of education they are receiving but whose parents desperately want something better for them; our students and families are also taking a risk.  They are desperate for knowledge, desperate for opportunity.  They want a shot at the American Dream.   They trust us at Esperanza to deliver it to them.  They enroll their 10 year olds as fifth graders with the hope that after four years at Esperanza, they will have been given a gift to last the rest of their lives—an education leading them to high school and college or a career as a fully engaged member of society.

We are on the cutting edge of the efforts to find answers to the serious injustices of the urban landscape in this country.  And we need you to help support Esperanza, to be part of this effort. They can’t do it without you.

One of the questions in the baptismal covenant is

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

We are asked to answer “I will, with God’s help.”  But this question, and this answer, requires a deeply held stance of openness to the world—a stance both of giving aid, of helping those less fortunate, but also a stance that can see the world from another’s perspective, that looks for “that of God” in others, to borrow the Quaker term.  It also requires a certain level of trust, of “faith.” And our girls who come to Esperanza every day at 7:30 am, dressed in their uniform, engaging in a school program so very different from what their families know and have experienced, facing ridicule from their peers in the other schools—these girls want to live lives worth of God.  They believe they will find the way at Esperanza.

It is the stance of openness that I find so refreshing about the mission of Esperanza.  From the moment I first walked in the doors and was greeted by my student tour guide, I found the place inviting, warm, and open.  In other words, the school is infused with that of God.  In the smiles of the students, in the dedication of the faculty, in the incredible partnership each family makes with the school—the 80 hours of service the parents provide us—therein you see God every day.  It is also in the deeply held conviction of all of our donors and volunteers and trustees, that through our partnership we can change the lives of our students.

And how very important this work is now, with difficult economic news on the front page almost every day, and with the current real unemployment rate for folks without college degrees exceeding 20%.  How important that Esperanza can be a beacon of hope in Lawrence!

Because Esperanza doesn’t exist in a vacuum—the rays of hope that the girls at Esperanza provide are rays for the whole world.  “That of God” shines through them as they go about their lives and as they leave us and go off to high school.  I remember a particular family at my old school—we had an end-of-year event for eight graders and their families—and each parent would speak and say what they were thankful for.  This particular mom got up, and began to speak, her voice cracking—she said she was so grateful for what the school had done.  She said that as she supported her son, watching him do his homework, complete his worksheets, get dressed each morning for school, she realized not only was it possible for HIM, it was possible for HER.  She wanted us all to know that that spring, she had enrolled in, and completed, a GED course and passed the GED exam.  She was now a high school graduate too.

How amazing, isn’t it, to hear for that ray of hope leaping from son to mother? When the light of God is nurtured and lit in leaps through whole communities—from child to parent, from neighbor to neighbor, from street to street.  I have always described it as floating a leaf in a stream—when you drop the leaf in, it floats along on its journey—but ripples flow from the spot where it was dropped.  At Esperanza we are helping girls both make the journey, but also make waves in their communities and families.

And we are achieving results—in a community with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state and where barely half of ninth graders who start high school graduate, ALL of our young women remain on track to receive a high school diploma.

We are embarking on several exciting initiatives this year—we have begun the process of becoming accredited through the Association of Independent Schools of New England.  We have hired a full time, permanent Graduate Support Director who will ensure our alumni successfully complete high school and enroll in postsecondary education.  We have hired an academic dean who will oversee our academic program and make sure that our girls are receiving the highest quality education we can provide to them.  And we are embarking on an ambitious plan to solidify the financial future of Esperanza Academy through a student sponsorship program.  Sponsors will be paired with individual students, and will have opportunities to correspond with the girl and see her in action at Esperanza over the course of the year.

I hope that you will chose to stand with us now—that you will commit your time, energy, and treasure to make sure that just as Esperanza has stood as a ray of hope for the last five years, so that we will continue to stand as a ray of hope for 50 more.

Please consider how you might support the school—as a tutor, as a volunteer, and yes, as a sponsor.  You can fill these roles individually or you can do so in groups.  If you have a hidden gift I invite you to contact me directly or better yet, visit us at Esperanza so that together we can figure out how “your” gifts can become “our” gifts.  You will be transformed by standing up, I can guarantee that!  By standing up with us you will ensure that each year another group of young women can graduate having been given the gift of an Esperanza education.

Amen!

Chris Wilson is the Head of School at Esperanza Academy in Lawrence.

 

 

 Esperanza: Sermon for March 18, 2012  Posted by on Sun, 18-Mar-12 Sermons Comments Off

Sermon on the cleansing of the temple

Mar 112012
 

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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our rock and our redeemer. AMEN.

The Ten Commandments. Exodus Chapter 20. We’ve heard these before. These Bible verses certainly have become part of our culture. How we take these commandments on board in our lives is definitely a mark of our identity – our faith identity and our identity in the wider world.

Ten commandments. Or are there eleven? As you know, I’m a Lutheran pastor serving here with you. You may not know that we Lutherans have a different scheme for numbering the commandments than what’s written up there above the high altar. We copy the Roman church when we number them.

So for us Lutherans, the seventh commandment is “you shall not steal.”  Up in New Hampshire at our summer camp the kitchen used to run out of coffee mugs, a couple of times a summer, when people borrowed them, put them in their tents, took them home, and all that. So, they bought new ones that say “Remember the seventh commandment” in big letters on them. After that people didn’t “borrow” them quite so much. And, they brought them back when they did borrow them.

When I worked there one summer a visiting Episcopalian took me aside and said, “just what kind of trouble are you folks getting into here at camp, that your mugs say that?” I was puzzled. She said, what are you up to, that your coffee mugs have to remind you not to commit adultery?

Why is that funny? It hits home. It very well could be about somebody you know, or you, or me. We all get ourselves into trouble sometimes, whether it’s fifth, sixth, seventh, or whatever.

All joking aside, all these commandments remind us strongly of who we are, who God is, and how much God yearns for us to be in faithful relationships with each other and with God. They remind us of how hard it is for us to be in those holy relationships.

The opening words of today’s prayer are: “Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.”  In that prayer we offer God all we have – our imperfect selves.  We admit that it’s hard work, day after day, and year after year, to be in faithful relationships. There’s no safe harbor from our problems. There’s no ritual we can perform to buy, or to prove, our perfection. The best we can do is what happened at camp: look at the mug in our campsite, and sheepishly return it to the dining room. And that’s good enough: people bring the mugs back one by one, so the dining room always has plenty. God’s forgiveness is bigger than our capacity to steal.

There’s no magic spell that rounds up all the mugs in time for breakfast. One size doesn’t fit us all. It’s simply each one of us humbly remembering to return to the LORD our God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

That brings us to our hectic Gospel reading.

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22, NRSV)

Jesus is furious here. Birds are squawking and lambs are bleating. People are shouting, and he’s shouting them down. Why is he doing this, though? All these creatures are here so pilgrims faithfully can return to the LORD their God, gracious and merciful. They’re here so those good pilgrims from far away can celebrate the festival of the LORD by presenting acceptable gifts and sacrifices. Over and over Jesus emphasizes the saving faith of ordinary people: “your faith has made you well” he says.  Why does Jesus choose to disrupt the faith of these folks? They’re just trying to do the right thing. It’s a puzzle.

May I offer an explanation? In the countryside Jesus reaches out with a touch or a kind word, and sets people free from their demons and diseases.  He does this over and over, person by person, to the point of exhaustion.  He commissions his disciples to do the same, and they do it. Each person’s struggle is their own, and each person receives her or his own healing.

This temple ruckus lies at the heart of Jesus’s ministry of healing and wholeness; it clarifies the alternative to his ministry. This temple is built on the site of Mount Moriah.  Last week Martha mentioned the journey of Isaac and his father Abraham to that mountain.  It was supposed to be a one-way trip for young Isaac, but the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand from slaying the boy, and provided a ram for the altar instead.

Flash forward a few thousand years in that same place. Here we are.  Archaeologists tell us there was an elaborate system of drains to deal with all the blood. Pilgrims come here because they’ve been promised healing when they offer sacrifices. They all yearn for closeness to the Lord. There are many pilgrims.

It must have been a messy business. Psalm 46 tells of  “a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.”  How can there be a great river at the summit of a mountain? Could it have been a river of blood, of the blood of sacrifice? The prophets have long spoken against that sacrifice. Hosea (6:6) spoke for the Lord saying “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Jesus’s ministry challenges that sacrificial system. He does not say, “your faith and the blood of two perfect pigeons will make you well.”  He says, “your faith has made you well. Get up and walk.” Jesus’s ministry recognizes there’s no magic formula to produce healing and wholeness … no magic way to round up all the missing coffee mugs in time for breakfast, if you will.  It is not to be mass-produced. Healing and wholeness come to us, by God’s word, Jesus’s touch and the love of our neighbors, one by one, two by two, and mysteriously.

That’s what the commandments are all about. The first one teaches each of us to set our hearts on the Lord.  The last one teaches us not to set our hearts on getting exactly what the next person gets. God’s grace and mercy can’t be mass-produced. Don’t covet your neighbor’s relationships or stuff. What’s right for your neighbor may not be right for you. It’s YOUR faith that makes you whole, not your neighbor’s.  And it’s certainly not buying some sacrificial pigeons from your neighbor that will make you well. That’s why Jesus chased the livestock dealers out of the temple courtyard.

A few summers ago when I served as a hospital chaplain, I met Al and Doris. It was the second day of July. Al was very sick, and Doris was keeping watch. I listened as a doctor suggested some morphine to make Al more comfortable.  “No!” he croaked. “I want to see my great granddaughter.” Doris rolled her eyes and muttered “tough guy” under her breath.  I prayed with them, and took off for the fourth-of-July weekend. I honestly didn’t expect to see them again – Al was very sick.

Three days later, I came back on the unit. They were still there. A little girl was bouncing up and down on Al’s bed and hugging him, and he was beaming from ear to ear.  I stood in the corner and watched amazed. When it was time for her to go, she said “I love you papa.”  Then, still smiling, Al drew a breath and then was still.

Now that is a fine hospital.  They offer wonderful and compassionate care.  But Al’s time of wholeness and healing, of leaning into the arms of Jesus, came through his individual relationships with the people he loved, not by the hospital’s standard care protocols. Al received the individual and personal mercy of little Rachel’s bouncing love, not the mass-produced sacrifice of palliative care.

The point of the temple was to mass-produce God’s healing mercy, so every pilgrim could get a standard share. I wonder: Was Jesus’s fury directed at temple doctrine that God’s love could be bought with the blood of animals? Was he setting the common pilgrims free from that system?

His disciples knew he was offering himself, and his words of love, as the replacement. We certainly remember that he offers himself to us here and now. By offering each other his saving words and healing touch, we keep his promise alive. By joining him at his holy table here, he keeps his promise of wholeness alive. He’s bouncing up and down on our beds, hugging us, and saying, “I love you.”  All we can do is smile with joy, and that is enough.

These words I say to you in his name and for the sake of his healing of the world one creature at a time. +

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Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent 2012

Mar 042012
 

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The Second Sunday of Lent, Liturgical Year 5                                         

The Rev. Martha L. Hubbard                  

          Several years back now, well known preacher, writer and Episcopal Priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, wrote an article in The Other Side Magazine which she started out with this story from one of her vacations at the ocean. She wrote:

          “Several summers ago I spent three days on a barrier island where loggerhead turtles were laying their eggs. One night while the tide was out, I watched a huge female heave herself up on the beach and dig her nest and empty her eggs into it. Afraid of disturbing her, I left before she was finished. The next morning I returned to see if I could find the spot where her eggs lay hidden in the sand. What I found were her tracks leading in the wrong direction. Instead of heading back out to sea, she had wandered into the dunes, which were already as hot as asphalt in the morning sun.

          A little ways inland I found her: Exhausted, all but baked, her head and flippers caked with dried sand. After pouring water on her and covering her with sea oats, I fetched a park ranger who returned with a jeep to rescue her. He flipped her on her back, strapped tire chains around her front legs, and hooked the chains to a trailer hitch on his jeep. Then I watched horrified as he took off, yanking her body forward so that her mouth filled with sand and her neck bent so far back I thought it would break.

          The ranger hauled her over the dunes and down onto the beach. At the ocean’s edge, he unhooked her and turned her right side up. She lay motionless in the surf as the water lapped at her body, washing the sand from her eyes and making her skin shine again. A wave broke over her; she lifted her head slightly, moving her back legs. Other waves brought her further back to life until one of them made her light enough to find a foothold and push off, back into the ocean. Watching her swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I reflected that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.” (Barbara Brown Taylor in The Other Side Magazine March & April 2000)

“It is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.” Little did Abraham and Sarah know that their lives were about to be turned upside down by the God who was renaming them for new purpose in their late 90’s. If we read on in Genesis from this spot in the 17th chapter that provided us our first reading this morning we see that this turning upside down of life reaches a crescendo in the 22nd chapter, where Abraham feels God’s hand pushing him up mount Moriah to sacrifice his son Issac – his son who he has come to believe is the living, breathing embodiment of God’s covenant that God established with Abraham and Sarah in our reading this morning. For me the whole idea of it is gut wrenching, and the further that story goes in chapter 22, the more sickening it becomes. And whenever I hear the part of that story where we are told Abraham raises his knife to kill his son, I just want to stream out loud, “What kind of God would ask such a thing? What kind of parent would comply?

          This story is what Barbara Brown Taylor refers to as one of the Bible’s texts of terror. These are the texts of the Bible which, “pry our fingers away from our own ideas about who God should be and how God should act.” (Ibid.) When we hear these texts of terror we find our teeth and our hearts put on edge. And we think that something must be wrong. But it is not. Barbara Brown Taylor offers this approach to these texts:

          “There is a fundamental hope to which the tales of terror drive us: That however wrong they may seem, however misbegotten and needlessly cruel, God may be present in them, working redemption in ways we are not equipped to discern. Our fear of God’s method may turn out to be like our fear of the surgeon’s knife, which must wound before it can heal. While we would prefer to forgo the pain altogether, our survival depends on our trust in the surgeon’s skill. If we believe that the one to whom we surrender ourselves is competent, then in the words of Julian of Norwich, ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well, no matter what.’

          If we are open to this possibility in our interpretation of Scripture, then we open to the possibility in our lives as well. Whether the terror is heard on Sunday or lived on Monday, the question is the same: Do we trust God to act in all the events of our lives, or only the ones that meet our approval?”(Ibid.)

“It is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.” I am almost certain that is how Abraham felt when he set out for Mt. Moriah with his son and his knife. But something deep within him told him that God was present, working it all out – no matter how terrifying the ride was. How else could Abraham have done what he did?

          “Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Now we are on the road to Jerusalem, among those who are following Jesus, the one it is hoped will bring the fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel. But here he is talking about suffering and death and those listening just can’t believe their ears. Peter has said it for all of them. Peter has said “No! That can’t be the plan!” That is what drew Jesus’ fire and the rebuke “Get behind me, Satan!” And now he is teaching that it will not be just him who will suffer, but all of us if we are to go any further down this road with him. What kind of Messiah would talk this way? What kind of God would allow it from his chosen one?

          Poor Peter – poor disciples, having their ideals about the messiah turned upside down that way. It is disturbing, disorienting… it’s downright terrifying, if we really take it in. “It is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.”

          The inescapable truth is that sacrifice and offering are part of every pilgrim’s faith journey. Ask anyone who has been at it long and I am sure they will tell you the details from their path. This is not because God wants us to suffer, but rather because the way to God is through the suffering that comes with letting go of the things that interfere with putting God first in our lives. The art is to figure out what those things are. One of my rules of thumb is that whatever person, place, situation or aspect of myself I am clinging to most – whatever, person, place aspect of myself I am investing the most energy in – that is what I need most to offer over to God in prayer.

          This sort of letting go to God is simple, but not easy. We are so accustomed to taking responsibility and being in charge of our lives. But deep down we all know that ultimately we really are not in charge. I have found this letting go to be a messy business. One of my favorite saying about letting go is “Everything I ever let go of had claw marks on it!” But when I have made headway in letting go, it has propelled me into deeper spiritual growth. And it is part of what I see Jesus pointing to when he speaks of setting one’s mind on divine things rather than on human things. And it is most definitely part of taking up our cross and following Jesus. Letting go is not a path to less suffering, but rather any suffering we encounter in letting go is a generative kind of suffering rather than the deadening kind of suffering we live with when we have not yet let go.

          And as with Abraham’s offering of Isaac and God’s offering of God’s very self in Jesus, God will take what we offer – what we let go to God – and return it to us, probably in ways we would not expect. The process may involve some moments that seem a lot like that sea turtle’s hair raising ride through the dunes, but fear not! God will return what we offer in God’s own time and in ways designed to bring life and joy. And then we will see that what we have sacrificed, the things that we have lifted and let go of to God – and in fact our very selves – have been transformed for glory. In Christ’s name. Amen+

 Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent 2012  Posted by on Sun, 4-Mar-12 Sermons Comments Off

God’s Glory Bigger Than Our Boxes

Feb 192012
 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from the One who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.

What must it have been like to be John, James, or Peter that day on that lonely mountain, witnessing that dazzling event? “They were terrified,” the Gospel tells us. What’s it like to have that kind of mountaintop experience? What do we do with it when we have it? Do we let it change us? Do we try to tame it?

Let’s try to get into the heads of those disciples. Let’s start by putting this transfiguration event in context in Mark’s overall gospel narrative.

Six days before this event Jesus and his friends were near Caesarea Philippi. It’s at the northern end of Galilee at the foot of Mount Hermon. My dad went there once: he says it’s very beautiful. It’s about as far away from Jerusalem as you can go in the valley of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.

In that beautiful spot, Jesus asks, “who do YOU say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus then shocks his disciples by foretelling the events of Good Friday and Easter – his death and resurrection. He says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” That must have sounded outrageous and scandalous to the disciples.

Peter reacts in an all-too-human way by trying to grab control over the situation: he rebukes Jesus for saying these things. Jesus chews him out — severely — for putting his mind on human things. We know this is scary and baffling for them. But they still follow him. After the difficult conversation at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus starts leading them out of Galilee toward Jerusalem, to the temple, and to the cross. I wonder what they feel in their hearts as they follow him south?  It must have been a mixture of dread, and joy, with a more than a little denial mixed in. “Lord, we’ll follow you even if (gulp) we’re not sure where you’re taking us. You don’t really mean all that stuff about the cross, do you?” Anyway, they followed Jesus to Jerusalem.

That brings us to the mountaintop event of today’s reading.

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. (Mark 9:2-29  NRSV)

It’s the very next thing that happens in Mark’s gospel after Caesarea Philippi. The disciples are already six days into their puzzling and risky journey, and now Jesus invites them on a side-trip up a mountain. Three of them came along. “Sure, why not?” they might have told each other, “let’s go and see what happens.”

They experience a supernatural life-changing event. Jesus shines brightly before their eyes. Moses and Elijah appear with him and the three have a conversation. Peter is awestruck.

He reacts just the way you or I might: he deals with his awe by trying to capture, control, and share the event, by wrapping it up neatly and making it into an institution. “Teacher, let’s build three dwellings.” We can sense his yearning to share the awe he feels, and to carve out a big role for himself in the institution he hopes to create. He’s had his mountaintop experience, and he’s already on his way down from the mountain. He’s all fired up and ready to change the world.

Don’t we all do this? Don’t we try to tame our mountaintop times? Don’t we, literally, take pictures of each other right at the summit when we hike up mountains to prove we were there?

Most of us have had transformative and wondrous experiences. And, don’t we respond by trying to capture and control the wonder of them? Of course!

A few years ago a group of electrical engineers in a company near here were having a hard time cooperating with each other; these very sharp and driven guys (yes, all guys) were sniping at each other’s ideas and gossiping about each other. Somebody got the bright idea of hiring an industrial psychologist. She took the whole group to a camp with a ropes course. She made them do difficult things where they had to help each other or they’d fail. She taught them how to offer to help each other, and to ask each other for help. This was tough for these proud men, but they learned to do it. And, you know, the results were miraculous. Those folks pulled together as a team, got their work done, and put out a successful product. They even started to like each other. That day at that camp in the woods was a real mountaintop experience for them.

But something went wrong. Somebody in management got the bright idea of trying to measure and control this miracle: this spirit of coöperation. They made an institution of it: they developed forms for asking for help, and forms for offering help. The bureaucracy got to the point where most of the people decided to go and work at other places, so the team that took so much emotional energy to create ultimately broke up. The miracle was real, but it wouldn’t be captured.

Capturing the miracle was Peter’s immediate reaction to his mountaintop experience: he witnessed Moses, Elijah, and Jesus together in Divine glory – and he wanted to tame it.

This may be a little hard to hear, but it has to be said. We want to tame it too. Peter and his descendants in the way of Jesus and the church – including me, including you – have been more-or-less successful at trying to tame that Divine glory over the centuries. Somebody has built a beautiful church with three naves – three great halls – on the traditional site of this Transfiguration.

We love institutions. Our own part of that church has built a truly glorious building in New York City, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Its arches soar almost to heaven, and its organ brings to mind the vast choirs of angels that announce the birth of Jesus to those shepherds near Bethlehem. It’s awe-inspiring; it’s genuinely holy ground. Martha was ordained there.

But, when we went there last weekend, we took a wrong turn and discovered that the back part of that cathedral’s property is fenced by razor wire. I’m sure there are good reasons for that; city life is easier and safer when visitors come in at the front door. Nevertheless, that building with its wealth and its razor wire is a mixed symbol. It’s BOTH a house of prayer for all peoples and glorious praise to God AND our attempt to capture the glory of God in a very human institution.

There’s bad news in this century for the church: we are declining in numbers. This attempt to tame divine glory isn’t working very well. We went to the early worship service at the cathedral. There were 35 people there counting the organist, three clergy, and the seven of us. (The young people in our group didn’t want to go; I admit they had a good point.)  Are we, the 21st century church, turning out like that group of electrical engineers? Are we so successful at taming our miracles that fewer and fewer people care anymore? It seems possible. That news is not good.

BUT. There’s good news for the church, and for us. Our struggles with our institutions just might be waking us up, and opening our ears to the words God spoke out of the cloud. “Behold Jesus. He’s my son and I love him. Listen to HIM!”  What Jesus has to say is stronger than our institutions. His words won’t be tamed.

There’s even better news. We have access to the mountaintop experience that can’t be tamed. We don’t even have to drive to New Hampshire and fool around on a ropes course. Jesus is present with us all right here, right now, in the Eucharist. He’d be with us in all his glory, even if we served the bread from a paper plate and the wine from a Dixie cup out under the Route 1 bridge where one of our Among Friends guests stays. If his glory cannot be tamed by the cross, it most certainly cannot be tamed by our institutions.

In these days of Lent to come, let us follow Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross. Let us rejoice together in his presence and listen to him. His untameable words of healing and mercy are for the life of the whole world+. AMEN.

 God’s Glory Bigger Than Our Boxes  Posted by on Sun, 19-Feb-12 News, Sermons Comments Off

Sermon for February 12, 2012

Feb 132012
 

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Liturgical Year B,  February 12, 2012

This morning we have received some amazing Biblical stories of healing. The account from 2 Kings about Naaman’s healing is such a rich story full of the complexities of human relationships and the role of pride and humility in healing and transformation. Then there is the encounter in the Gospel, which is the one I want to hone in on here as I begin this sermon.

In the Israel of Jesus’ day, people suffering with the highly contagious skin disease of leprosy were confined to life on the fringes. The first lesson indicates that this was not the case in the Aram of Elisha’s day. But in Israel, when people with leprosy were full blown in their disease, they weren’t allowed to leave the leper colonies established on the outskirts of town. When in remission, they were allowed closer in, but were even then religious law required them to wear ragged clothes and disheveled hair in order to identify themselves, so that even from afar healthy people could identify them and steer clear of them. The priestly class of Jesus’ time were the gatekeepers of this process of quarantine – hence Jesus’s direction to the healed man in this morning’s gospel, to go and show himself to the priests and to make the required sacrifice.

It must have taken a great deal of courage and faith for this man to seek out Jesus and ask for healing. Both he and Jesus knew that if Jesus responded – if he reached out his hands to touch and heal him – he was putting himself at risk both physically and socially. Kneeling before Jesus this man poured out his faith, “If you choose you can make me clean.” And as was always the case, Jesus responded to courageous faith. Jesus reached out to this man, engaged his faith, the disease that plagued him and the love of God in order to work radical transformation.

This story led me to think about my own experience of healing and transformation.  And it made me wonder about yours.  None of us suffer with leprosy, but what has plagued us or still plagues us in our lives?  What disease do we bear and how does it put us on the outskirts and fringes of life.  What would healing and transformation look like for us? And do we feel free to seek that healing and transformation here within the body of Christ?

I don’t know about you, but I was raised with the concept of Sunday Best. When I was about Marcella’s age, the accessories of my Sunday Best were black patent leather shoes and a white rabbit fur muff. I remember the excitement of putting them on each Sunday and going off to church.  As I look back now I see that my Sunday Best gave me a double message about church. The spoken message was that we wore our best out of respect for God and the church. The unspoken, non-verbal message was that when going to church you were expected to smooth out all your rough places and make yourself look good and well put together.

Back then we began each service by praying the same words we do here each week:

“Almighty God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts through the inspiration of your Holy Spirit…”

But my black shiny shoes and white muff signaled a different message – that though my heart and deepest desires might be open to God, I should not risk them being open to those in the pew next to me. The subtle message was that it was best to keep my less acceptable self – the pieces that were messy, or cranky, or aching – safely stowed under the smooth and pleasing exterior of the Sunday Best.

Of course as I grew, I learned that there was room in the church community to share my rough places. The Sunday School teachers and Youth Group advisors of our parish were people I came to trust with my fuller self.  But it is amazing to me now, looking back to realize that my family’s significant struggles with active alcoholism remained hidden to our church family until several years after we found hope and healing in the 12 step recovery rooms of AA and Alanon. In the 12 step recovery rooms we found safety to show the pain and confusion that we had never spoken of with our fellow parishioners in all those years of attending church each week.

In a paradoxical way, our “Sunday Best” was not unlike the ragged dress of the lepers of Jesus’ day – They helped us keep our disease, safely tucked away so no one in the larger community had to be made uncomfortable or be inconvenienced by it.

I believe the church has moved a ways in the years since I was 10. And I don’t want anyone to take this as a sermon about not dressing up for church – wear whatever you want! But as many of us already know, one of the most powerful and transformative aspects of life in Christian community is cut off to us if we don’t find a way to let all of who we are come to church. The healing that Jesus not only chooses to offer, but longs to offer is a free gift extended to all,  in this place, through many means.

In this place Christ’s healing hands have reached out and touched us through words, music, silence, bread, wine, water. Or we feel him in conversation with the person in the pew beside us, or at coffee hour as we share more of ourselves with the other. Sometimes he has reached us through a shawl, so lovingly and prayerfully knit and then wrapped around us. And then there are the times when we take the walk up front on the 3rd Sunday of the month, to meet members of the healing team who  feel the call to let the healing flow through them. They listen to our specific requests for healing for ourselves or others, and lay hands on us- which are their hands but not just their hands- and words and silence and oil are lavished on us, and we feel Christ in it, and we glimpse that transformation is furthered in ways we cannot yet even imagine.

However it is that we experience healing and transformation here, what seems clear to me is that we experience it in direct proportion to the risk we take in being our authentic selves, in letting others see not just our strengths, but also what the world might consider less than our Sunday Best. I don’t know about you, but there are places of dis-ease in my life. For instance I am given to compulsive overeating when I get stressed. And I raise my voice at my husband and kids more often than I would like.  And I have relatives who are struggling mightily with additions, and I am deeply distressed by it. I could go on, but I won’t – the point is that if I can’t admit these leprosies of my life here in this place, I won’t be able to access the healing and transformation that this place is all about.

What are you at dis-ease with in your life? What internal leprosies would you rather cover with your Sunday Best? My prayer for us is that we each possess the courage to name them, and bring them to Jesus. The transformation he works is amazing. It is not magic. It is often gradual rather than instantaneous. It often surfaces through deepened relationships among us – where we risk telling more of our story to each other.

And already we are about the work of healing through many other avenues in our lives – with our Doctors, and therapists. Through yoga and 12 step groups.  Through the way we exercise and eat. The healing Christ extends to us in this place is the grace that undergirds and works in concert with all of it. If you want to go deeper into this part of our life of faith, think about attending the Jesus’ Healing Ministry Bible Study that is meeting here at the church each 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at 7 pm. Or talk to me or someone else on the healing team.

And my sisters and brothers, know this: this healing, this transformation, is the bread that so many in our world are hungering for. So get ready – if you find healing here, Jesus will find a way to use you as a tool in the healing of someone else.

And as for Sunday Best – I dare to redefine it. It has nothing to do with what we wear. Here at St. Paul’s Sunday Best is the act of bringing our whole selves- strengths, struggles and even those aspects we fear might overtake us- to bring all of ourselves in here to be touched and transformed and sent into the world as Christ’s body.  Amen+

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The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity

Feb 052012
 

Richard Beck is a teacher at Abilene Christian University. He writes some very interesting and though-provoking material.  Check this article out.

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/bait-and-switch-of-contemporary.html

[T]he trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. “Christianity” has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed “spiritual” substitute. For example, rather than being a decent human being the following is a list of some commonly acceptable substitutes.

Was this what the prophet Micah (6:8, NRSV) was on about when he wrote “what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  I wonder.

Peace to you all.

Ollie+

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Service: Punishment or Privilege?

Feb 052012
 

Grace to you, and peace, from God our creator and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen

Last week I was running an errand, and I passed an old white bus with a group of glum-faced men in orange jump suits in it. A sign on the bus said “trial court community service program.” I wonder what “serving” means to those sad guys? We’ll come back to that in a few minutes.

First, let’s spend some time on the Gospel reading.  Mark’s amazing: he packs a huge amount of back-story about Jesus and his friends into a couple of hundred words.

[J]esus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.  (Mark 1: 29-34, NRSV)

They live in a town that’s anchored by a synagogue.  Simon (Peter) and Andrew share a home; they’re either brothers or very good friends.  They went home after services and brought along Jesus and his group of people. Their welcome into this house seems like an ordinary Sabbath-day event. That means they and their families must somehow be coming to terms with their new life. It’s only a day or so since Jesus called them away from their fishing nets, but they didn’t just walk away from their community, and they haven’t been ostracized.

Simon Peter has a mother-in-law. This means he must have a wife, and an ordinary human life! Who knew? Mark doesn’t tell us the mother-in-law’s name.  Let’s give her a good Hebrew name: We’ll call her Refaela.

Refaela is ill.  Jesus, her guest, greets her, takes her by the hand, and helps her out of bed.  Then her fever goes away and she begins to serve – the Gospel word means minister to – all her guests.  No glum face or orange jump suit for her!

Some Bible scholars make a big deal of wondering whether Jesus was deliberately making himself ritually impure according to Jewish law, by  – horrors – touching a woman, not to mention a sick woman, and by healing her – working – on the Jewish Sabbath.  Should we read the gospel that way?

Jesus certainly did take Refaela by the hand. He did heal her, and on the Sabbath.  But this was right at the beginning of his work. What’s more, the purity-obsessed scribes and Pharisees were far away: They hadn’t yet entered the picture as Jesus’s opponents. We’re still in the first chapter of Mark, so let’s keep it simple. Jesus greeted his hostess like a friendly and dutiful young guest. He behaved like any good friend of her son-in-law would do when he’s invited for the Sabbath meal at his village home. And she responded by gathering him and her other guests for a meal, and feeding them.

So, this domestic scene isn’t about Jesus stirring up trouble. Mark seems to be painting a picture of a joyful gathering on a restful day, eating together and taking care of each other like the realm of God was at hand. These things – serving each other and caring for each other – are wonderful, but they’re also normal.

That’s all in stark contrast to the action beyond the peaceful threshold of the house.  Outside, there’s another back-story. There’s no need to stir up trouble. There’s plenty there already.  It’s the story of sentient evil: of the demons who recognize Jesus. It’s the story of Jesus silencing those evil demons, and driving them out. It’s a story of battle between evil and good.  The people around Jesus can’t see the demons. What they do see is demon-possessed people set free, and sick people made whole.

Mark gives us listeners the whole cosmic back-story. He shows us God’s realm of peace and love (Refaela’s home) contrasted with the realm of conflict (outside her door). Both realms are real. Mark wants us to know that. We do know it.

Certainly the realm of conflict is real for us. In our world, for example, “service” is a chore the trial court makes us do, and takes us to in an old white bus.  Peace, healing, and happiness has nothing to do with service.  Or does it? Service is a punishment. Or is it?

I sometimes have spent Saturday mornings helping clean up the riverbed of a stream a few miles from here. It’s a chance to get outdoors and spend some time with friends, and maybe do something useful. One Saturday we gathered in a mall parking lot in Lawrence. I got there a few minutes late, so my friends had already taken off in their canoes.  Now this part of the river was a mess. Jesus battled demons — willful evil –  and I felt we were doing the same thing.  Chemical drums, blown out truck tires, huge hunks of Styrofoam, even a cast-off cigarette vending machine.  In our world it seems we cast our demons off the nearest bridge to try to get rid of them. That part of the river was foul. I paddled fast by some of this junk hoping to catch up with my friends

I found them with a bunch of tough young men I’d never met. Their language was strong enough to corrode the old steel drums into rusty muck.  We definitely weren’t in Refaela’s house enjoying each other’s company in peace.

But, those young men sure could work. Somebody said, “let’s get those barrels up to the road,” and they just did it.  Then they tackled the truck tires: dug them out of the muck and dragged them to a dumptruck.  They were kind enough to leave the light stuff – foam blocks, car tires – for the older folks like me to clean up.  It was awesome to see them work.

Somebody went for pizza, and we got to talking.  It turned out these young men were residents of the Riverside School in Lowell.  This school takes teenagers who are in trouble with the law, as a substitute for the juvenile lockup.  These guys were really happy to be with us helping us casting out our modern demons – toxic greed and carelessness – casting them out of the river.

At Riverside School, they treat community service not as a punishment, but as a privilege.  If you misbehave at Riverside – swear at a staff member, smoke indoors, or steal from another resident, that kind of thing – you don’t get to help cook the meals or clean the bathroom.  If you’re in trouble, you get to eat, you get to go to class and do your homework, but not serve. At chore time, you sit in your room.

These guys were the privileged ones. They spent the day up to their knees in the mud struggling with filthy rubbish. It was their reward for weeks of positive behavior.  They had a great time.  What an amazing day it was, to be with people who experienced service as a privilege and an honor.

Back to Refaela:  She too knew it was a privilege to serve. When Jesus met her, she had a fever and was lying in bed.  Most of us know what that’s like.  We’re drawn into ourselves. If we can put together any thoughts or prayers at all, they’re wretched and selfish – Make it go away!

The stranger who visited her home answered that prayer. By his grace he set her free from her pain.  Her response was to jump up and welcome her guests by service. So, she’s like those teenagers from the Riverside School: her service is a privilege.

How about you? How about me?  Are you and I those sad-faced passengers riding on that white “Community Service Program” bus? Do we serve our neighbors because we’re on trial, and some judge has sentenced us to do it?

Or do we serve and care for one another because we’ve been set free from our sickness and self-centeredness?  There’s no doubt that we live in a world full of demons – rusting barrels, bald tires buried in the mud, addictions, anger, pain – but we also live in the realm of God, like Mark teaches us.

It’s my prayer that each of you will, this week, be filled with the joy of God’s realm as you care for somebody and serve somebody. Filled with that holy joy may you dispose of your filthy demons, for Jesus’s sake and for the life of the world +

Amen.

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Sermon for January 29, 2012

Jan 292012
 

Feast of the conversion of St. Paul – Annual Meeting , January 29, 2012            

Before I get into the meat of this sermon, I need to offer this definition – the definition of the word Midrash – some of you may know it all ready:

Midrash – Stories elaborating on incidents in the Bible,  to derive a principle of Jewish law, or provide a moral lesson.

What follows here is a my own midrash – my own elaborating on the incidents of the life of our Patron Saint, Paul, born as Saul of Tarsus, whose feast day we observe on this our annual meeting Sunday.

His life was steeped in the traditions of the patriarchs.  He had been praying the prayers and listening to the Torah from before he could remember.  He had more zeal for the fire of God contained in Judaism than most of his peers.  So when he heard that the followers of Jesus had not been dispersed by the bloody Roman execution, he felt he must act. This radical new group had to be stopped.  They threatened the purity of the Jewish tradition and could bring the wrath of Rome down on all of them.

He was absolutely convinced he was right.  His fervor for this position let him slip past any restraint he would usually have felt.  Soon he was in hot pursuit of the apostates, breathing threats of violence as he went.  He would stop at nothing to deal a fatal blow to those who claimed Jesus to be the Messiah.

On the Damascus Road it was as if an invisible hand knocked him off his horse.  The light was blinding, and the energy he felt around him was at the same time gentle and fierce.

The voice that spoke was, larger than life: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’

 He asked: `Who are you, Lord?’

The voice answered:  `I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.

Blind and awestruck, in that moment Saul knew that by all rights he should be dead.  The way of the world was to pursue enemies, overtake them and put an end to them by whatever means necessary.  So this was a wonder, that he should be commended to stand up and join in the very movement he detested and was looking to destroy. Relief was overtaken by confusion as he was taken into the home of one of the followers of Jesus.

For several days he suffered great disorientation along with the blindness.  He was being cared for by people he did not really trust, and who clearly were not very trustful of him.  He was aware that they stood a ways off and whispered among themselves about him.  Once in a while he would catch a word or two: “chief persecutor… bloodthirsty…dangerous to our fellowship.”  He couldn’t blame them.   In fact as he sat in darkness, and reflected on what he had been doing recently he began to see himself through their eyes, and began to be shocked at the vitriol and violence that had possessed him.

After a few days miraculous things began to unfold.  Someone prayed over him and the blindness fell from his eyes like scaled. As he began to relax into the cautious but life giving care of these strangers he began to realize there would be no going back.  If he had been violently attacked on the Damascus road, he would have fought to find escape, to return to the mission he had set his whole being on.  But he had not been attacked – he had been embraced.  Though the community was still uneasy at his presence they seemed to sense, as he himself did too, that he was part of some larger plan going forward.  As his fear and their unease began to fade a new unspoken solidarity, which was bigger than any of them, began to emerge.

Years later he would look back and recognize the grace at work in those crucible days – the grace of how the living God wastes nothing in bringing all things to unity in mystical community.  He would try to express it in metaphors such as the body having many members, all needing each other, all joined in a single unity.  He would tutor many a church leader in the importance of not seeing anyone as expendable.  If Jesus could make use of him, he would tell them, there was hope for anyone, if approached with grace rather than violence.

As he taught among the Gentiles he realized that the fire of God, alive in the Judaic tradition, which he once believed he had to fight to preserve, was taking on new form and strength as it found new and fresh expressions among Gentile believers in Christ.  And to think, he had once regarded these Gentiles as nothing but heathens.  This was the miracle that led him to write to the leaders in the Galatian Church, that in Christ Jesus “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female.” A new wholeness – which embraced the tradition he so loved – was being born before his eyes and he wanted nothing more than to give his whole self to its flowering.

My friends, this Midrash of mine is offered in the Spirit of Paul.  May we remember his story as we set out together into a new year of ministry.  May we hope to see the fire of God each one of us has encountered in whatever tradition we were raised in, being taken in by a larger plan which is giving birth to new and fresh expressions of faith and ministry here in this place.  And may we give our very selves to its flowering, for the benefit and life of all who enter in among us and for all we are called to go out and serve.

In the name of Christ. Amen+

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Now, and here: the realm of God

Jan 222012
 

Grace to you, and peace, from God our creator and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Mark wrote the present-tense gospel – a gospel of suddenness, urgency, action. Now: the heavens tear open and the Spirit descends on Jesus. Now. The Spirit drives him into the wilderness for forty days. Now. Jesus preaches the good news in Galilee.  Events unfold in a continuous stream. It’s breaking news.

[N]ow after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea– for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.  (NRSV, Mark 1: 14-20)

But in the midst of the now … now … now action we hear Jesus saying  this phrase:  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”  There’s a subtlety here; these words aren’t the breaking news, but the world into which the news is breaking.

To translate Mark’s Greek precisely into English is tricky: we need to say:  The time already has been, and still is being, fulfilled.  The kingdom of God already has been, and still is, near.  Already and ongoing.

The immediate breaking news … the heavens ripping open, the Spirit driving Jesus into the wilderness, Jesus preaching the good news … is unfolding in a world that’s ready and waiting for the action.  The time was already fulfilled, and the kingdom of God was already near, then and there, on that day when Jesus took a walk along the lakeshore.

This isn’t just Greek grammar: it’s important. The world is just as ready for that Gospel action right now, right here. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is a present reality. There’s nothing more to wait for and nowhere else to go; we are to repent: turn our minds toward God’s realm now, and here.

Jesus felt the urgency of the realm of God, and so did the four disciples he met that day.  They acted: they didn’t wait for anything.  He said, “follow me,” and they did immediately. I wonder if they even stopped to say, “hey Dad, tell Mom we won’t be home for supper?”

Sometimes we think of those fishermen as simple-minded people, but that’s not who they were. Like you and me, they had lives to live: they weren’t waiting around for somebody to say “follow me.”  They prospered by their wits and skills. They could have told Jesus, “wait, wait til we catch some more fish,” or “wait til these nets are mended and ready for our next voyage, then we’ll follow you.”

Somehow they caught the now-and-here presence of the realm of God and the urgency of Jesus’s invitation. They knew there was nothing left to wait for. So they followed him to help him proclaim the good news.  They didn’t let their attachment to their own wits and skills stop them.

What is this realm of God that they saw so clearly?  What does it look like? They saw it in the person of Jesus walking along the shore.

How do we recognize it?   One thing we know for sure: it hasn’t driven out the kingdom of this world.  It hasn’t transformed all us people, or the creatures of the world. If the lion were to lie down with the lamb today (the prophet Isaiah’s prediction) the most likely result would be lunch for the lion.

How do we recognize this realm of God that they saw?  I wonder if we can find it in our religion?  Maybe, maybe not. Archbishop Desmond Tutu (of Cape Town in South Africa) wondered the same thing in 2001, when he said,

Religion, which should foster sisterhood and brotherhood, which should encourage tolerance, respect, compassion, peace, reconciliation, caring, and sharing, has far too frequently – perversely – done the opposite.  … Some of the ghastliest atrocities have happened and are happening in the name of religion. It need not be so if we can learn the obvious: that no religion can hope to have a monopoly on God, on goodness and virtue and truth.

“If we can learn the obvious.”  Learning the obvious seems to be hard, even with the help of religion.   It certainly was hard for the prophet Jonah.  God sent him to bring goodness and virtue and truth to Nineveh – to the capital of the hated genocidal Assyrian kingdom – to the place that seemed furthest from the realm of God.  Jonah didn’t think Nineveh deserved goodness and virtue and truth. If it were today, we’d say he’s prejudiced against the race of Ninevites.  We all know the story: It took a three-day encounter with a fish’s digestive tract to persuade him to do God’s work.

But then he did it.

[T]he word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. (NRSV, Jonah 3:1-5, 10)

It wasn’t very hard.  His words started a dialog. Both the people of Nineveh and God changed in the dialog. God’s realm of goodness and virtue and truth because reality for the people in that city.

How about you and me, and the people of this city? Can we recognize God’s realm?

Last Monday our neighbors the YWCA put on a breakfast event to honor Dr. Martin Luther King of blessed memory. Some of you were there.   The event featured an honest dialog about American racial prejudice.  Of course, this is suburban Massachusetts: almost everybody present was white. A film-maker named Aimée Sands served as our Jonah – the prophet whose witness got our dialog started.

Some of us gray-haired folks spoke about our struggles with racism: our irrational fear of those who don’t look like us.  It’s the kind of fear that sneaks up on us when we least expect it, and catches us unawares.  This fear – this racism – is the kingdom of this world.  We talked it over.

Then, a young man stood and said, “I can speak for the people in my school. We don’t have this problem of racism.” He declared that racism is not his generation’s problem.

Oh. Uh huh. Right.

It was all I could do to bite my tongue and keep quiet.  As the dialog went on, quite a few people talked about how deep racism runs, and how hidden it is in their own hearts. But, thanks be to God, the dialog continued. It deepened.  It didn’t turn into the verbal combat that our politicians seem to enjoy.

Here’s the good news for our city and our nation:  that young man and his schoolmates are just like James and John. They feel the urgency. God’s realm is present here and now.  They see it clearly, and they’re following its promise immediately.

James and John followed Jesus without question.  Me? I’m like their father Zebedee watching them walk away. I can think, or say, “wait, where are you going? Do you know what you’re getting into? Do you have the skills and wits for this?”

But I’m glad they’re not listening to those questions of mine.

We hear that young man, that high school student, say, “racism is a thing of the past,” and we want to say, “wait a minute, pal, it’s not that simple.”

But, you know what?  It IS that simple. He sees the realm of God clearly, and he’s responding fearlessly, just like those Galilean fishermen.  We know from the gospels that the fishermen had some hard lessons to learn. That young fellow probably does too.  But he’s responding, he’s going. He sees a world where the evil of race prejudice is no more.  May you and I see that world through that young man’s eyes. May he be steadfast in his path with God’s help. May you and I be steadfast in our path the God’s help.

God’s realm is where the lamb DOES lie down with the lion in safety. In God’s realm all the tribes and races of the world are judged, and found to be compassionate and loving. We’re all judged to be the bearers of goodness and virtue and truth.  The time for that is now, the place for that is here, and the need for it is urgent.

These things I say in Jesus’s name, and for the life of the world.

Amen.

 Now, and here: the realm of God  Posted by on Sun, 22-Jan-12 News, Sermons Comments Off
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