Jesus’ Foolish Politics: Preparing to Hear the Sermon on the Mount

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

• Isaiah 49:1-7  • 
 
• Psalm 40:1-11  • 
 
• 1 Corinthians 1:1-9  • 
 
• John 1:29-42

We are in that time between.  It is a time of joy.  The joy of knowing God has come, God is with us. It is a time of enlightenment. We have seen and heard of God come as the human Jesus of Nazareth. My message for us to day is a simple one. Fully entering Our enlightenment, our joy, is accepting and acting on Jesus’ invitation to “Come and see”.  But there is great deal to unpack in this simple invitation. 

We have a related difficulty. After the coming of God in human flesh, we struggle to live by the light and the path revealed to us by this light.  The story we have walked through, god born of Mary like any other human being, god vulnerable to the machinations of Herod, god coming to the banks of the Jordan as just a normal unremarkable person. According to our passage in john even after the baptism and the heaven opening and the voice and the manifestation of the Spirit like a dove, John still points out Jesus to his own disciples and says hey, you might want to check that guy out, he’s the Lamb of God, and even so still others stick around John rather than going after Jesus.

We have in all of this the mystery of the Church, the body of Christ in continuity with Israel, not so as to supplant the importance nor the reality of the Jewish people as God’s chosen people. The church is Israel taken up into Jesus of Nazareth, who fulfilled what Israel is, Christ fulfils the law. Also, the church is how the prophesies of the nations coming to Israel and being enlightened is also fulfilled. In this small community, we have this reality encapsulated, we have a member who is Jewish and who knows Christ come in the flesh and we have those who come from a variety of peoples in the world all of whom are blessed by Israel and the Jewish people, having been enlightened by Jesus of Nazareth the word of god Made flesh, the Israel and wisdom of God.

Our moment comes after a long and varied history of the church in which those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, Christ have missed or not answered, or ignored, or betrayed the call to be the church. We Christians have relied on that which is other than Jesus Christ.

There is a need to reacquaint ourselves as members of Christ body with the place of God’s presence in our midst. We need to be reminded that when God came in human flesh God did not reside at the centers of power. We need to contemplate and discern the meaning that  God coming in our midst and the manifestations around it, were missed by most everyone especially the powerful. The power brokers and well as the powerful had no idea that anything significant had happened.  Even many of the poor and the oppressed people in Judea and Galilee also had no clue.

We may wonder what to do in this moment. We may wonder at the failures of members of the church to live out our faith, and to live into the call to be saints, as body of Christ, isn’t so much that we haven’t known what it is, as we the members of the body of Christ have consistently tried to dilute the call and the message by realism or by acquiescence to the powerful. We know it. We celebrate it year after year.  We know the teaching and we will in this liturgy read the sermon on the mount and have the teaching of Jesus clearly proclaimed to us positions other Christians take. But we can’t get mired in the failures of Christians and the betrayals of Christ and the Church, either now or in the past. We need to come again and ask Jesus Christ to show he is staying.  And we need to leave aside our assumptions and presuppositions and truly come and see.

The Isiah passage we read reminds us that what we have been liturgically waiting for in Advent and Celebrating in Christmas and continue to celebrate in this season after the Epiphany, was proclaimed and anticipated by the Hebrew Prophets. We know well with Isaiah that the world can be a place absent of light and hope.  What we need to remember and see again that it is God who enlightens and offers hope, that the nations and the powers aren’t the means through which God offers this hope and light. This happens through a small and insignificant people on the world stage, the Jewish people that God chose to bring enlightenment and hope. Ultimately accomplished through the Jew Jesus of Nazareth. Of course, Isaiah has only a small glimpse of this, and much of what he says of this one and what will happen either is wrong or at least not literal. That is, we don’t know what we celebrate about the person Jesus of Nazareth merely because Isaiah and the prophets of Israel proclaimed it. Rather after the coming of Christ, the incarnation of the Word of God, we see what the Hebrew prophets saw and yet couldn’t fully articulate. We as often as not are like those around John the Baptist , not seeing , nor recognizing the reality of God with us.

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Hope is a Crucified God; Sermon for Reign of Christ Sunday

 
• Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Psalm 46  • 
 
• Colossians 1:11-20  • 
• Luke 23:33-43

As Christians, this is our hope, Christ crucified. Our hope is that Christ has been exalted over all things through his death on the Cross.

There are dangers in this statement of faith and hope. There are interpretations that ask us to accept injustice for the sake of a deferred hope. In seeking to find hope in the crucifixion many focus on the final sentence of the Gospel passage just read. “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” The interpretation that focus on this says that our hope is only one found in what happens after our death.

But such an interpretation misses the identification with oppressed, poor, suffering, sinful humanity.  A “faith” that focus only on “Today you will be with me in Paradise” is more like the lack of faith of the first insurgent criminal than the second. It fails to connect the afterlife with this life. This complete focus on the afterlife fails refuses to be overcome and encompassed by the full ministry of the incarnation, it is a rejection of God joined with matter and our humanity in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. God’s union with humanity and the outcast is the essence of Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the Holy one of God, and this union effect the now or it doesn’t affect the afterlife.

The Cross, Christ Crucified, is the politics of the Church, the body of Christ. This crucified one is God come to be the shepherd of God’s people, who is consistent when other shepherds lead the sheep astray or abandon the flock altogether

This is our hope, the Cross.

In this moment though it is not enough to just say hope in Christ crucified. For this statement of hope and faith has been used by the powerful to say that the oppressed must accept the oppression the lot given to them.

St Paul in the letter to the Colossians gives us the antidote to the missuses of the Cross:

1:11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully1:12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

If we don’t anticipate the end of this passage, if we don’t remember that for Paul, Jesus Crucifixion is the power and glory of God we can misunderstand what Paul is encouraging us to embrace.  The Cross is our strength, God’s solidarity with the oppressed with our divided ruthless humanity and God’s willingness to suffer its consequences. This is the glorious power of God.  If you don’t believe me wait till we get to the end you will see that this is Paul’s point of this opening encouragement to us, the church.
1:13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
So we are strengthened by the glorious power of God (the Cross) by which we have been moved from one realm into another,  We have redemption and forgiveness. Do we act like we live in the Kingdom of Christ, or under the power of Darkness?
1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;1:16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been created through him and for him. 1:17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 1:18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
So the Crucified one, the suffering servant is the image of God, is united with all creation, as the firstborn.  Are you seeing in whom we hope, who was crucified, who is in solidarity with oppressed humanity?
1:19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,1:20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Not only image as we human beings are intended to be, but in this crucified one, in Jesus of Nazareth the fullness of God dwelled. This identification with us was not to subdue us, not to punish us, but to reconcile us, bring an end to our violence, but suffering our violence and our tendency to oppress seeking power over others. God in his glorious power in Jesus of Nazareth, and in the crucifixion, acts contrary to these impulses and suffers as one who could have inflicted suffering.  God fully in a human being faces destruction when God could have come and destroyed. Through solidarity with the marginalized the oppressed, with the condemned (justly or unjustly), with the tortured and the rejected, god in this act by the shedding of God’s blood, by undergoing death, reconciles and makes peace and shows us the way to overcome death and oppression as a path of reconciliation and peace.  But it is only in solidarity, in being with, in willingness to walk the way of Christ, which is the way of the cross that there is hope.

Questions for discussion:

In facing our fears for ourselves for our friends for our families, for the marginalized and the vulnerable, what hope can you see in these passages in the Cross and in the Crucified One, in God in solidarity with us in our suffering and with the oppressed?

What does Reconciliation mean in our context and how is this ministry of reconciliation hopeful?

In the coming months and years, we can act out of fear or out of hope.  What does it look like and mean for you in your context and in your circles to act upon the hope of the Cross and God’s ministry of reconciliation?

Pentecost Sermon 2016: The manifestations of Pentecost and Discerning the work of God on Earth

Texts: Acts 2:1-21,John 14:8-27

The material effects of the descent of the Spirit on the Church at Pentecost

Why do we read Acts in the Season of Easter? It’s a little out of order.  We read Acts in Easter because Acts tells us how the incarnation passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ effect people in this earthly life.  I will lead us in reflection on  these earthly and material effects and impact on us and the world around us.  This is perhaps more obvious in other passages in Acts than the one for Pentecost. Yet if we pay attention to the manifestations of the Spirit at Pentecost and the perceived extent of the effect of that manifestation we can begin to understand the material nature of the impact of the Spirit and thus the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.

Let us attend to what can be seen, heard, touched and is located on the earth in Luke’s account of Pentecost.  Most notably, and what is generally emphasized in our celebrations of Pentecost, the speaking and hearing of various languages.  We should remember that this is a physical and really very earthly and human effect. Unlike the glossolalia mentioned in Paul’s epistles where the language spoken is unknown to any of the hearers in the gathered body and thus requires translation, at the descent of the Spirit upon the Church, (at this time those Jews who are believers in Christ and who had undergone the baptism of John) Jews speak Languages they don’t know that are then also understood by those in the crowd that gathered (also Jews from different parts of the earth). This effect is relational and reconciling. There is also the noise of wind and what appear to be tongues of fire that rested on each of the Apostles.  The descent of the Spirit caused a commotion, sent out sound waves and emitted photons in the form of tongues of fire. This manifestation had an impact not only on the 120 or so gathered who formed the church of that time and moment, but of those outside that group. The Holy Spirit’s descent causes a commotion, it draws attention, and it also draws mockery and disdain.  So, the Holy Spirit descending to fulfill and continue the work begun in Jesus’s life Passion, Resurrection and Ascension has physical and material effect such that people stop and take note, but the effects themselves aren’t meaningful in and of themselves.  Ultimately Peter has to clarify the meaning in this first proclamation of the Church.  Since, Peter is preaching to those of Jewish faith and it is important to establish Jesus as the Messiah, it must be demonstrated how these manifestations fit with Jewish expectation and Torah expectations of the Messianic age in the Tanakh. Peter points to prophet Joel and what he says about the coming of the Messiah and the Messianic age, well this is the fulfilment of Joel’s expectation and prophesy about the messiah and the messianic age.  Now Peter doesn’t mean here that there’s a one to one correspondence between the manifestations experienced by all those on this Pentecost after the death and Resurrection of Jesus, but that if one wishes to understand the meaning of what this crowd has seen and heard and experienced, one should be consulting this prophecy.

Luke gives us another means of interpreting the meaning of this event, it’s geographical extent. Luke’s list of places from which the Jews in the crowd are from is a list of what would have been understood by Luke’s first readers as the extent of the inhabited earth. Meaning that for Luke the extent of this local event is in effect global.  Through the diaspora of the Jews who were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover and Pentecost, represent the known inhabited world. There are ancient traditions that mark the coming of the Gospel and the Church to certain regions to this moment of Pentecost. Most notably the Latin Father Abrosiaster dates the founding of the Roman Church to this moment and not the direct proclamation of the Gospel by Peter and Paul. For Luke this one local event is at this very moment also global in its extent.

Signs and wonders as physical manifestations of God’s reign in the earth.

What are we to make of all this commotion, and earthly and physical impact?  First, is that the result of what God did in Jesus of Nazareth and in the incarnation and Passion isn’t simply an internal and purely “spiritual” (if “spiritual” means non material psychological and internal experience) reality.  This means that if we’ve encountered this reality of God come in Jesus of Nazareth and the reality of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, we will have seen it, it will have a material effect, something we can see, hear and touch.  Second, is that this material manifestation is oriented towards a goal, that is only understood if we know how to interpret what we are seeing hearing and handling.  It is this second thing that I wish to focus on for the remainder of our time.  Since, the exact physical and material effects of the descent of the Spirit do not necessarily continue to happen, there are other possible manifestation and material effects of the mediating and sustaining and empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. In order to see them and interpret them correctly we must understand the depth and extent of the theophany of the Spirit at Pentecost.

In order to interpret and correctly identify the effects of the Spirit in our midst and in the earth, we need to understand the role of the Holy Spirit and meaning of the descent of the Spirit.  Most fundamentally we must remember that the Holy Spirit is God, a person or hypostasis of the Trinity.  In that sense the Spirit's presence in our midst is for the same purpose as the coming of God the Son in Jesus of Nazareth.  The work of the Spirit is the same work as of the incarnate Word’s, Jesus of Nazareth, life, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension.  The Spirit doesn’t inaugurate another work of God in the World, but is the means to continue the work.  This is the work God had been doing in the people of Israel which was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, and through the Spirit is continued in the Church, in continuity with Israel.  Fundamentally God’s work is to restore the relationship between God and God’s creation, to reconcile humanity and God.  The purpose of God’s work in the world is relational, and is born out of God’s desire for us and for all creation:  The work of God in teh earth is aimed towrds relationship and love.

The material meaning of Pentecostal and Charismatic signs and wonders

Using the above framework we can look again at the manifestations and their interpretations given to us by Luke and by Peter’s first sermon.  First the manifestation and its effect are things that are evident and noticeable.  Sound of wind, tongues of fire that are seen, languages spoken.  Those who wanted to discount what was happening couldn’t deny the event they simply gave it another explanation, the drunkenness of the individuals around whom the commotion started. But the manifestations aren’t random either.  Sound of wind, tongues of fire. These are consistent forms of epiphany and theophany that the people of Israel have known and experienced. They aren’t new, remixed yes, entirely new, no.  God manifesting God’s presence through meteorological phenomenon especially wind, and in fire is consistent with the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, which the celebration of Pentecost marks. The effect of the coming of the Spirit as a continuation of the work of Jesus Christ, does so in continuity with the work of God in human history and the people of God, Israel. The manifestation and effect is relational and reconciling, it bridges gaps and breaks down barriers that simply are the case in the world.  Languages and location and identity divide us as human beings, on the Day of Pentecost God uses what divides to bring together, and shows that the intended effect of the incarnation and the passion is to bring together, to reconcile in relationship.  Furthermore, Peter in referencing Joel tells us the effect is intended for all no matter one’s social location or identity and no matter your geographical location, yet it also doesn’t erase those differences or identities, rather it makes possible relationship and connection where it seems impossible or difficult.  Lastly, it shakes up what is considered inevitable, simply set in the nature of the cosmos, or dictated by the powerful.  Peter tells us that what we have seen in the descent of the Holy Spirit is the same as the cosmic powers of sun and moon being changed, shaken and upended.

On this Pentecost, what might we take from all of this?  First, pentecostal and charismatic manifestations and signs and wonders aren’t meant to be ends in themselves, without interpretation they are dead ends. Yet, to ridicule or otherwise diminish them is to deny the incarnation. To so ridicule or diminish is to deny that salvation is earthly and material.  The story of God’s activity in the world to reconcile God and God’s creation that begins with Abraham and is brought to fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth.  If we attend to that story we will see that this reconciliation this transformation isn’t an escape from materiality and the earth, but is a deep and profound affirmation of all that God created. Yet, many of the material conditions of our current worldly existence are at odds with God’s transforming and reconciling work on the earth and in the entire cosmos.  The miraculous, or signs and wonders, are manifestations, epiphanies, that are meant to point out how and where God is at work.  We members of Christ’s body the Church should be both where these manifestations appear and those who should be looking for these theophany.  Yet, these epiphanies and theophany aren’t only the miraculous.  We should find in various ways a transformed and reconciled and transfigured world replacing the world as we know it and find it.  The Church isn’t supposed to be seeking merely the reform of worldly structures and certainly isn’t supposed to be a means of escape from this earthly existence, rather it is to up end the worldly powers of whatever name they go by: socialist, communist, capitalist, neoliberal, progressive, conservative, democracy, monarchy ad infinitum.  God came to earth to transform and redeem and reconcile God’s creation the physical and material created universe seen and unseen. The signs of the descent of the spirit at Pentecost and the signs and wonders that manifested around the early Church and show up again throughout history, show us that God means to transform our material existence.  God’s reconciling work is for the earth, for all creation, for the entire universe. Our very existence is to be transformed, and it happens in time, in history, and on earth. Yet, the work of God is also not from history, nor is it historical nor merely material. This is the incarnation, this is the coming of the Spirit, this is the meaning and reality of the Church in germ. Look, listen, be sent into the world so that we may truly see where God is at work and be ourselves individual and corporately sites of God’s reconciling and transfiguring work on earth upending all worldly systems.

Longing and Anticipating a Just World

Isaiah 64:1-9-
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 -
1 Corinthians 1:3-9- 
• • Mark 13:24-37
  So much emotion, in these texts.  So much is at stake.  Where’s the focus, it is all bewildering.  I’m not only speaking of our scriptures this evening, but also the events in Ferguson Missouri, or rather what the killing of the unarmed Mike Brown by a police officer Darren Wilson and the decision of a grand Jury not to indict the police officer, has awakened.  If you've followed the events since the death of Mike Brown at the hands of the police, you know a movement has grown up around this because Mike Brown’s death is larger than his own death and larger than whether or not Mike Brown’s civil rights were violated in away the Federal Government could act upon, or even whether or not on these same criteria City and it’s police are consistently engaged in violation of the civil rights of its African American citizenry, as important as that reality is.  Rather, the movement has emerged because the killing of Mike Brown by a police officer, Darren Wilson isn't an isolated incident, as a number of similar incidents where police have shot African American men (and most recently a boy of 12) occurred at the same time and have continued to occur, since.  What we are awakened to is that   the U.S. Justice system and policing is unjust and racist.
  Many are awakening to these injustices. Most likely those of us here this evening weren't completely unaware, but if you are like me you have been further roused and more attuned, to the enduring racism that floats mostly unseen, hidden behind laws, and state sponsored violence. In the midst of all this Jesus tells us to stay awake, to be watchful.
  The anger, frustration and grief expressed on our streets in protest and rioting, isn’t far from Isaiah’s wrenching call, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence”, such deep longing and pain behind such a statement.  A longing and desire for justice and for God to act.  For God to act like God did in the past, when God delivered the Israelites at the Red Sea by the complete and total destruction of the structures of the Egyptian law and order that oppressed the Israelites
  If we pay careful attention to Isaiah, we hear a more complex story:  the people of God have moved from victims to being complicit in sinful systems.  There are two movements in this lament and prophesy, a deep longing for God to act and a confession that responsibility for the situation from which there is the need of deliverance is the people of God themselves.  For white Christians in this country that is certainly also true when it comes to systemic racism first as slavery followed by policies of segregation and oppression and Jim Crow, continued now in mass incarceration and policing.
  Isaiah cries out in longing and deep pain for God to act and for justice , echoing the cries from our streets since August  and Isaiah expresses the complicity with these systems of injustice, reflecting for us the place of White Christians in relations to racism in the United States.
  Isaiah though almost seems to throw up his hands, God isn't acting, and this lack of action seems to make matters worse.  In the end we are clay in the potter’s hand, and even what Isaiah sees on the horizon and even being experienced by God’s people is on some level God’s doing.  Our Isaiah text leaves us with deep longing and anguish and helpless in our own sin and failure.
  But our psalm points us toward the hope of being clay in God’s hands: the hope of restoration, or of a remolding.  The Psalmist holds out for us the the hope of God transforming us , renewing us and the whole world.
  And Paul expresses this hope as grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ
  Where might all this lead? 
  What conclusions if we take Ferguson also as our text, as revelatory of God at work in our midst?
  I want to draw attention to the language of shaking, and of tearing, the disruption of the fabric of what seems unalterable and just the way things are.  But also that this shaking is the shaking of governments, nations, powers.  In these images and if we reflect on the deliverance of the people of Israel from their oppression in Egypt, their liberation and justice doesn't come from the systems and the state, Egypt isn't the source of their liberation, nor even that which cooperates with that liberation.  And if we hear Isaiah well, not even the people, can be the source of justice, transformation, and liberation.  The people of God also fail at justice and righteousness.  The state and the powers can and will be forced to deal justly, but they aren't the source nor the guarantor of justice nor are we the people the source or guarantor of justice.
  Justice comes from beyond, our hope is in that we don’t create justice rather we submit to it.  But what we submit to is a caring and loving reality.  Justice isn’t abstract and cold and unmoving.  Rather the source of justice is a shepherd, an artist, and a lover.
  Lastly Jesus says that when you see systems and the powerful sun and moon and stars shaken and upended, darkened blood red showing their violence, these are simply signs of something else.  That is if we are waiting for the United States to become a place devoid of all injustice and racism we are looking for the wrong thing. We have misinterpreting the signs.  Human government and systems of justice are just that human, mortal, limited and passing away, and fallible.  Our human systems will fail us.
  Our hope is in a more lasting and radical transformation of the world in which the world once again shows forth completely the love and justice of God who is the very source the very life blood of our existence.
  And Tonight I proclaim to you that God did tear open the heavens and come down, and is now forever bound to the physical created universe.  The systems of the world were shaken to their knees, and then went on their merry way because it was just a Jewish Galilean peasant wonder-worker easily dispatched through human justice and state sponsored violence.  But in that the governments and powers exposed themselves for what they were and are systems of violence set against the very source of life.  The good news is we can turn to this one and find God at work transforming us into citizens of a more just and loving world.  Since God became incarnate in the Virgin Mary, God has been at work in matter and the physical world, in our very bodies transforming the world into what it should be. Are you ready for that world? Are you awake to that world?  Wake up stay awake. Be a citizen of the world that is coming in which racism and all forms of oppression and injustice are shaken from the earth.
  Stay awake and watch for that world is coming, the signs of its coming are in the protests even the riots in Ferguson, but also right here in our midst. Right here as we take in each week the justice of God in human flesh, who awakens you to this transformed and transfigured world, slowly making you, in your very body, into a person of love and justice, a citizen of the present and coming reign of God.

The Everlasting Dwelling: Sermon for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time after Pentecost

Failed to record the sermon on Sunday. What follows is a manuscript based on the outline I used for the sermon.

Amos 8:4-7 ;Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13

We generally identify with and are identified by those with whom we associate. This is how communities function and form. Are we, am I, part of this group or that? Who gets to say who is in and who is out? Who decides the boundaries? Currently before us is how do we create a pluralist society of tolerance? Is such a society even desirable? To create a homogeneous society or a pluralist one both require some control of association: Moderate Christian’s and Moslems are encouraged to distance themselves from what is labeled as the dangerous and fringe elements of their own religious communities. Diversity has its own limits and boundaries it would seem. What community do you belong to the Christian one or the progressive or conservative one? In response to such questions we hyphenate our selves to admit that we may have more than a singular identity. We become attached to these hyphenated identities and one side of the hyphenation will insist on dominance and so Christians as often as not try to assert their progressive credentials or their conservative credentials. Rarely is the question asked if such activity distorts our witness and Christian identity. Yet what is this Christian identity, should one even seek to identify with Christianity and the Church? Isn’t it better to modify that identity by other values and ideologies? I wonder are we too attached to our identities whether Christian, or American or conservative or progressive, or Queer, or straight, male or female, or androgynous? In becoming attached to our identities do we limit our ability to pray for all people and to make friends for ourselves universally? In being so attached to our identities are we not binding ourselves exclusively to certain economies of truth and ideology? We are seeking permanent homes for ourselves and in the midst of this search Jesus Says “Make Friends for yourselves by means of unjust wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the everlasting dwelling.” Jesus concludes the puzzling parable of the unjust manager. Do we as followers of Christ seek to make friends in the way the unjust manager has? Are we too? If we are to do so, what might that look like, and how may it change our engagement with the world?

Paul enjoins Pray for all people, especially for Emperors and those in positions of authority as a means of engagement with the world and those with whom we live in the world. This sort of prayer instills in us an attitude and mindset. In prayer I have friendship and commerce with the world through petitions addressed towards God. Prayer acknowledges that God is at work in the world and cares for what and whom we pray. Prayer says we care for what and whom we pray. Prayer is an attitude of friendship. Prayer affects the world through the acts of God and by creating in ourselves a mindset of Friendship towards those for whom we pray. Thus Paul enjoins us to pray for all people to not draw away from those who wield power and who can and do wish us harm. We are through this prayer for all, as a church, to dwell in the world in peace, quiet, piety and dignity. We are not to abase ourselves, nor war against the world, nor add to the chaos of the world, but in confidence engage the world without attachment to these powers and authorities. That is to love the world freely across all boundaries and walls.

Parable of the unjust manager is a story one who crosses all sorts of boundaries. Jesus’ parable is tricky and it refuses to be tied down to a singular meaning. We are thrown by this parable it upends our expectations and our sense of morality and ethics, it causes us to struggle with why Jesus tells this parable and what it tells us to do. It is helpful to remember that parables are not meant to map directly onto a desired action or ethical scenario. Parables are to encounter us and shake us up in order to move us into a place of transformation. So we have multiple possible meanings and are to look for the one thing we are to look for that holds the multiple meanings together. For this parable it is the shrewdness, or the mind set of the unjust manager. The shrewd and unethical behavior shakes us up, disables our ability to judge what we are to take from the parable. We are confronted with things we want to be, and which are disrupted by the story having dishonorable character as the exemplary character. The unjust manager is not loyal to his master or anyone but his own survival. He is unconcerned about wealth, or communities (households). He simply wants to be able to live without begging or back breaking work. He does so by ensuring that no matter his reputation he will have a place to live, because the other heads of households will be indebted to him for saving them money, by having forgiven part of their debt. The unjust manager is not seeking for someone to be loyal to, or to work for again but for a number of households and communities to be friendly towards him and take him in when he is in need, even if they know he is a cheat and a swindler. He has guaranteed that for a time at least in each household he will have a place to stay.

What then is the attitude of the unjust manager that we are to have ourselves as disciples of Jesus? The unjust manager has an attitude of non-attached engagement. Non-attached engagement is the mind set we are to adopt. This is the attitude of God towards the world that is shown in the incarnation. God becomes both human and divine and thus in some sense neither purely divine, nor purely human. God becomes disloyal to God’s own divinity, in order to make friends with God humanity and the whole of creation! We are to take seriously the world in which we live and others we meet and inhabit the world with, just as God did in incarnating in the person of Jesus Christ. Like an unjust manager who has no loyalty to his master but knows the value of things and relationships that can be formed through material things, so we are to value the world we live in but for the purpose of making relationships that are not bounded by any household, or community or economy monetary or ideological.

God in Jesus Christ embraces all things. God is the unjust manager, we too are called to have this carelessness about households and community loyalties, so that all may have dwellings into the ages of ages. The continued dwelling of all forever require this attitude, this shrewd dealing with ourselves and the whole world as non-attached engagement. To seek relationship with all to be at peace retaining our dignity as human beings requires us to transcend ourselves to be simultaneously spiritual and physical. This can be so because God is the unjust manager when God joined God’s self to the material world in Jesus Christ becoming human and divine and thus pure neither. God in order to embrace the whole world in love abandons God’s pure and singular identity, becomes disloyal to that which is spirit. The identity of the church then is a friendship with all that is truly catholic, i.e. embracing all universal and disrupt all loyalties but values persons and communities but in the valuing remains unattached to any particular community or economy. The goal of this is that all may come to know the truth of God love that lead God to care nothing for Gods own identity as God freely became one with humanity and all creation for eternity, dwelling in the love of God.

Sermon Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Ascension of Christ, Observed

(Note this is the text for a sermon for Reconciler's first worship service to include children throughout the service.)

Today we celebrate the ascension of Jesus Christ. Jesus goes up into heaven. How does Jesus go up? Like a balloon filled with Helium? (Give balloon(s) to one or two children and ask them to hold on to it. And tell them to wait that you will ask them to let them go in a few minutes.) Like a kite on the wind. And what does it meant that Jesus went up, ascended? Look at the various icons and drawings of Jesus’ ascension what is going on in those pictures? What is Jesus doing besides being in the air? Jesus is sitting, and there is a footstool. This is important. But Jesus also is blessing the disciples. Do you see different responses of the disciples?

In the two stories of Jesus’ ascension we heard today Jesus doesn’t just go up into the sky. Jesus also Promises that the Spirit will come after Jesus leaves. We are not left alone by Jesus’ leaving, God is still with us, and oddly enough more with us than when he lived and walked with the disciples in Galilee and Jerusalem. How do you feel when Parents leave for to go out with out you? What if your parents didn’t leave you with a baby sitter or someone you know a friend or other family member but left you with their presence but in a different form: that would be odd but nice wouldn’t it? Jesus has left but is still with us, so not like when parents leave and leave you with someone else. Jesus leaves goes up into the clouds; Yet Jesus is more with us. So then How are we to understand Jesus Going up and yet remaining with us perhaps more present and we more present to God through Jesus Christ, not just through the coming of the Holy Spirit, but because Jesus Christ ascended.

(Tell the Children to let the balloons go) How does it feel to let a balloon go? What if you were outside and let it go up into the sky. So Jesus goes up kind of like a balloon but Heaven isn't in the sky- (Angels in the ceiling) Metaphor of up. Up can mean other things than simply above our heads. We might say when we are feeling good that we are feeling up today. And when we feel sad we may say that we are feeling down. What does up and down say when we use them in this way. Up means we feel good happy joyful, like a balloon floating along easily in the air. When we feel down we feel like we are dragging along the floor like a balloon that has lost its air. There are other meanings of Up. I might say that something that was said was over my head. (Children when parents are talking about things you may not understand completely and are talking to each other they aren’t looking at you they are looking and speaking over your head), so it means I may not fully understand, there is more to what is said than I know or can understand.

So When Luke speaks of Jesus Christ going up and disappearing from view in the clouds, there is more than just that Jesus actually went up into the air. We know God and heaven isn't in space hovering just outside the air surrounding the earth. Up doesn't mean in space, and so the Russian Cosmonaut who went into space and radioed back that he didn't see anybody in space, was looking in the wrong place. So, then Why did Jesus go up?

Being up can literally mean being able to be seen and heard better by a group of people, so a preacher may go up into the pulpit. (Actually go up into the pulpit) If I go up into this old large pulpit I can see you all better but I am also more distant. However if we were in a much larger space Like in the sanctuary next to us, or if the chapel was filled with people, being up if you are in the back or in the front you can see me and hear me just as well. , where as if I am down with everyone those who are closest to me can hear me and see me. (Go down during this sentence) When we say God is up in heaven we mean not that God is in the clouds or in space but that God is in a place where God sees and is aware of everything and that God is able to know each and everyone of us. We also mean that God is both different than we are as human beings. God is above us above our heads; we can’t know everything about god or understand God completely. God speaks over our heads. And yet we can all hear God in heaven no matter who we are. Like being in a pulpit that is raised up so everyone can see and hear the preacher

Jesus Christ ascends, goes up, to God Jesus' Father in heaven like going up into a pulpit and not like helium filled balloons going up into the ceiling or sky. Jesus goes up because Jesus is God and human. Jesus goes up to teach us that God will always be with us and one of us in Jesus Christ who is God and human. In Jesus Christ we are already with God, because God in Jesus Christ is the same as God the father, yet different. We are already with God because Jesus Christ is human and Jesus’ humanity, our humanity in Jesus Christ is with God and is God. This is difficult to understand, it is over all our heads. God showed the first disciples and us that Jesus was both God and human by Jesus going up into the sky and withdrawing into heaven even though heaven isn't actually up.

Since heaven isn’t actually up but heaven is the place from which God is always present everywhere. So, we enter heaven here when we worship, and especially when we go up to the altar and pray over the bread and wine of communion and then receive Jesus Christ in the bread and wine.


So we don't look literally up, and so the angels question the disciples as they stand staring up into the sky. We don't wait to go up into the sky. We live in the world confident that Jesus Christ went to heaven and is with God the Father because Jesus Christ is God. Because of the ascension Jesus, now in heaven, is more present to each and every one of us than he was when he lived and walked in Galilee and Jerusalem. Through the Spirit and the bread and wine of communion Jesus is with us and hears us and we can see him at work in us. Don't look up, but wait and see how God shows God’s self to you in bread and wine and in the presence of the Spirit of Christ, the promised Holy Spirit, in yourself and in others. Heaven is not up in the sense of being somewhere in the sky, but as that place available to everyone. Heaven is that place where God and Jesus Christ can speak and be present to us all, aware of all that takes place in the universe and still present to you and able to speak to you an be with you. Knowing this, seeing Christ ascend, then brings the joy of knowing that God is always with us and beyond our grasp.
Amen.

Sermon Epiphany Sunday

Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
All our Longings

As we enter a new year, what are your longings? What do you long for. One expression of our longings is New Years resolutions. In general they tell us about our longing for better selves and thus I think a better world. In particular if you mad New Years resolutions, how do they express your longings, do they somehow touch upon your deepest longing? On this Sunday of the Epiphany I wonder what sort of longing was there in these magi of our gospel that they'd leave on a journey of some cost and time, with the dangers of travel of the day, or wayside robbers, or border crossings, carrying considerable wealth with them, not for trade and further wealth creation but simply to offer them to a child whose birth was announced by a star. Are we like the Magi, have we gone in search of Christ out of a deep longing seeking Christ out at great cost? Who are these Magi and why do we remember them on a feast called epiphany, the manifestation?

The Magi are fascinating and mysterious characters who only appear in the Gospel of Matthew. We know relatively little about exactly who they were, Matthew simply says, Magi, wise men, from the east came to Jerusalem, having seen the star at its rising. We aren't even told how many there were, they are among the nameless faceless Characters of Scripture. They make an appearance and mysteriously slip away to avoid King Herod. They appear and melt away, and they witness to the appearing of god in Human flesh, and worship the Christ Child in Bethlehem and that is their story. Over time their story has been filled out, Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar, sometimes to show that they are representatives of the nations they are seen as being of different nationalities or races.

Much has been written about these Magi, wise men, the story even captivates atheists and agnostics. The author and humanist atheist Isaac Assimov spends considerable time on this passage in his own commentary on Scripture. He examines the various explanations of who these Magi were and what phenomenon the star might have been. He even gives his preferred explanation before finally saying that it really doesn't matter, its all quite academic because the Magi and the star where all inventions of Matthew to show the fulfillment of this prophesy in Isaiah 60. And yet something in Asimov can't quite ignore these Magi, and these 12 simple verses of Scripture, he is captivated by them; Asimov had his longings, for a better humanity, the cessation of war, for the growth of goodness. There is something about the search of humanity and its longings in the story of the Magi coming to worship the Christ child.

Asimov is not entirely wrong, there is a purpose that fits with Matthews telling of the story of Christ and it is important to Matthew that Gentiles appear here. It is true that Gold Frankincense and Myrrh are all symbolic, and that what sort of astronomical phenomena this Star that appeared in the east, what these Magi from the east followed is of little importance; Or at least of little importance compared with the importance that these Magi are Gentile witnesses to the birth of Christ. The magi come, they are Gentiles, they represent the nations, and probably are seen in Matthew and certainly in the Tradition as the fulfillment of the prophesy in Isaiah 60 we have read. Gentiles come inquiring about the birth of the Messiah, and the religious leaders in Jerusalem scour their scrolls and give the answer but don't seem to think that these Gentiles really know anything.

One thing we long for in our culture is inclusion, and this story of the wise men and the understanding that this is seen as the beginning of the inclusion of the Gentiles and thus the precursor to Paul's gentile mission and proclamation that the people of God includes Jew and Gentile. We in our longings are tempted to make a principle of radical inclusion out of Paul's mission to the Gentiles and the story of the coming of the Magi. If the primary issue for the story of the coming of the Magi and Paul's mission is about inclusion, then the mystery Paul proclaims, the Gospel, is reduced to our own longing for acceptance and inclusion. We then become identified with the correct interpretation of the Gospel and the Gospel becomes a reflection of ourselves and our longings. And then we can ironically exclude those who we believe are not about radical inclusion. We in the end don't actually escape the distinction between whose in and whose out, even when we focus on inclusion. But the Gospel isn't about principles, it is about a story, it is about God and our response to what God has done. It is true that God includes all, the invitation is to all, but the lesson here is not that we need to be radically inclusive. Rather the message here is that we need to accept the invitation our selves. In the end the radical inclusion is that all are invited to come to Jesus Christ, the one who will turn no one away, but there is also the reality that one can refuse to come. Much of our culture longs for inclusion, longs for equality and no boundaries. Yet we don't stop and examine the source of our longing, the source of the boundary lines drawn, and of the ways we simply are limited and thus exclude others. We hide ourselves from the ways in which even our attempts at radical inclusion exclude those who do not agree with our sense of inclusion and exclusion. When we make the Gospel about this we make the Gospel about ourselves. And in all the grandeur and Mystery about these wise men, the story isn't about them at all, or the Scribes and Priests in Jerusalem or Herod. Rather this is the story of the appearing of God in a small helpless human being!

This we find reflected in the acts of these Magi from the east our own path to Christ. They see a sign in the sky most likely because they are astrologers, their culture and their faith tells them that the stars can tell them about things happening in the world and in the spiritual plain. A star appears and they interpret it to mean that a very special person has been born a king, who deserves their tribute though they are not from his nation, or people. He is but an infant, he has no real authority, no claim on them, they are not Jews, and yet they recognize something. I'd like to think something in their longings recognizes that what will satisfy is other than what they long for, is other than the particular things they long for. And so they go. They travel they follow this star, or rather they follow its meaning to Jerusalem and submit to the other. They have seen the star but they don't claim to know all there is to know, they consult those among whom God has already worked. These Wise men, these men of great wealth wisdom and supposedly power, they can demand audience with the leaders and the powerful; they have an audience with Herod. They simply offer what they know and ask for more wisdom from those who should know, who are already the chosen ones. And when these answer they go and they come to the Christ child and offer great wealth, gold frankincense and myrrh. Surely such a great travel and a great offering shows a deep longing and yet an admitting that their longing pointed here to this one, Jesus Christ. We are not told why, only that the magi came. We are to be the magi. We are not those who should seek to include but those who should seek to be included. Our longings should point us here. What is your star that have you followed it to Christ, and what is your gold Frankincense and myrrh that you are to lay at Jesus' feet. Have you accepted that you are fully included in God's people, that only in so being joined to Christ is their any satisfaction of your longings.
We are not asked by this story and Paul's Mission to the Gentiles to have unbounded expansive hearts, rather we are asked to have a heart that longs to come and worship the Christ, Jesus the Lord. Allowing that longing to expand our hearts and announce to all the invitation and that God has come in our midst and we are to worship. No one will be turned away but not every one will come. This is not about whose out or whose in, nor if we are including enough people, or have too close boundaries, or if we have a firm center but open boundaries. All those things are about us, we human beings, or our communities. Rather Epiphany is about the manifestation of God in human flesh to all. The Magi left their community to come into the community of the Christ Child, and it lead them home by another way. Our longings may be the beginning but they are not where we end up. We will come home but it is by another way.. We will find ourselves taken way from the path of our longings, away from ourselves to our true home in God. We are transformed but not by tearing down boundaries, but allowing the expansive love and invitation of God to so permeate our selves that we invite all to come and see and worship with the Magi.
The manifestation of Christ is the fulfillment of all our longings. This is why the Magi come bearing the most expensive of gifts. They lay themselves, and all human longings and fears at the feat of the Christ Child, God the word made flesh. Today, and everyday, we are invited to do the same as the Magi. We are, to lay our very selves at the feet of Christ, to give ourselves over to this manifestation of God that reveals both God and our true humanity. In this our lives our world is illuminated, all else is darkness, a great darkness. Come lay yourselves your longings before Christ as gifts. This is what we do , with bread and wine we offer all we have all that humanity has, all its longings and potentiality all the gifts of the world and they are transformed taken by God and given back to us as the life giving flesh and blood, of Jesus Christ. Let yourself long deeply, let your deepest longing and sorrow come to the surface before Christ and receive back the only thing that will satisfy and fulfill all your longings, Christ and God's own self. Amen.
(Following the sermon members of the congregation are invited to bring some token or symbol of their longings and place in a basket sitting with the gifts of bread and wine and will be carried to the altar in preparation for communion. paper is provided if that symbol or token is something drawn or written.)

Sermon First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

Recently when cleaning I came accross an old airline boarding pass stub on the back it said "get the 411 on your 737". At first I thought nothing of it. I knew more or less what it was saying, though I did not know how one was supposed to get the information on the airplane. but then I was struck at how strange this sentence was: being told to get a large number on a much larger number" What would four hundred and eleven have to do with seven hundred and thirty seven. If I didn't know the context that one dials 411 to get informatin and thus the number four hundred and eleven especially if one says "four, one one" communicates "information" and that the number seven hundred and Thirtyseven again when said as "seven, thirtyseven" indicates a type of aircraft, then the message on the back of the boarding pass is either nonsense or cryptic. If for some reason this stub of a boarding pass was passed down from generatin to generation until a time when airplanes and telephone service as we know it had faded completely from memory, the sense of this message that I redily understood would be lost and seen as either non-sense or perhaps some mysterious message in which 411 and 737 would have some mystical meaning. In a sense they do. Only the initiated into phone service and airplanes attach any particular singinficance to those numbers beyond numerical value such that they make sense of the above sentence. When it comes to Lent and Baptism, the liturgy, sacraments in general we as Protestants are often like those in my thought experiment to whom this boarding pass stub has been passed down but for whom the necesary assumptions and context have been lost. For me the work of ecumenism and the vision of this ecumenical congregation is to regain the context of the entire faith of the church. Thus the conjunction today of passages on baptism with the first Sunday in Lent may seem unintelgible to many of us.

On this the first Sunday in Lent we have very similar texts to the Baptism of the Lord. We return to Jesus' Baptism. But now we follow Jesus into the desert and then on to Jesus' proclamation to repent and believe the good-news of the fulfillment and the presence of the Kingdom of God. Peter talks of a baptism that now saves us prefigured by the flood, and we read that God made a Covenant not to destroy the earth in a flood again. Reflecting on baptism at the beginig of Lent places Baptism as a key to the life of discipleship. This suggests that Baptism is a place of beginning of faith. Yet, this is a difficult thing to assert here at Reconciler we have differing emphases on baptism and differing experiences. Some of us have been simply baptized as infants, others as children or adolescents, others as adults. Some of us have not been baptized at all coming from traditions that emphasize the interior experience of faith in Christ over the external sacramental sign. Some of us have been baptized several times. In the season after Epiphany as began our reflections on discipleship I attempted to talk about baptism and its place in Christian faith. We are here again and I feel the need to both assert the centrality of baptism and admit this is adifficult thing to assert in our context. We have a variety of approaches and various understandings of baptism in part are due to perceived and real abuses and misunderstandings concerning baptism and its spiritual reality. Christians have often made the sacraments a magical rite. For Protestants this misunderstanding was often attributed to accretions to the basics of the faith and so Protestants attempted to scrape away the unduly mysterious elements, and at times to the point of finding little or no meaning in the rites, rituals and sacraments of the Church. These external things may be nice but they do not make us Christians, so those who have come before us have said with differing emphases. However, Baptism, the liturgy, communion, Lent, spiritual disciplines are not and were never intended to be things to mark off that one has done to assure one has got the spiritual life under ones own control, rather the forgotten meaning is that all offer us the support of grace and produce in us an openness to God being at work in our lives. They are to use the theological terminology "means of Grace". We are physical creatures what supports our spiritual life is aspects of our physical world infused with spiritual power truth and meaning. This is why Baptism is central to the life of discipleship according to the catholic faith of the Church.

The story of the flood causes us difficulty. We have difficulty assimilating its message. On the face of it God in furry unleashes a great and worldwide devastation. All life except what life can fit on the ark, is destroyed, and then God promises not to do that again. Yet, the story can be read as being about the human capacity to ignore God and life, and the consequences of this and God, seeking to both bring an end to violence and evil and to preserve life. I see such a reading as fitting into our current debate about Global warming. We have an awareness of pollution and debates over how we raise our food, and I think can appreciate that human actions and carelessness can have physical destructive consequences that effect more than just those most directly responsible. However, the overall story of the flood is also about how God has held back the full consequences of humanities collective actions, by preserving a few. Also God puts a reminder in the physical cosmos not only to us but to God's self regarding God's promise not to bring such destruction upon the whole earth. Peter also points out that from the point of view after Jesus Christ we see that God has moved from simply holding back the ultimately destructive consequences of our fallenness and propensity to be forgetful and careless and has offered a solution, and we enter into that solution in faith and Baptism.

So, Peter says that Baptism now saves. Does this not sound strange to us? Have we not lost the ability to hear Peter on this point. I know that I am prone to read that and say Peter didn't really mean what is plainly there before us. And it is easy to do so because Peter does not dwell on this for long the original readers shared Peter's assumptions. Though he does need to explain that "baptism now saves" Peter does need to offer a a corrective: this is not merely an external act of bathing, but of something deeper, and bringing us in connection with the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul in a few of the epistles speaks of it more deliberately and clearly, saying that in baptism we are buried with Christ and raised with him. We are identified with the one who from his own Baptism he was sent into the desert for 40 days to struggle with the devil. so this Baptism is also a place from which we are sent by the Spirit, who is given to us in Baptism, who descends upon us like Jesus Christ. While Baptism is to be something that happens to us once, we are to our remember and return to our baptism recalling its grace and power our entire lives. Once we are Baptized it is a great spiritual resource for us. Baptism is our salvation because it is the vehicle through wihc God unites us with Christ. Due to the presence of the Spirit in the waters of baptism and that through the Spirit we are identified with Christ out of baptism we live out the life of discipleship.

Faith alone is not enough! My faith, all by itself, in as much as it comes from me is weak. My own ability to trust God is poor. Thankfully God does not expect us to drum up continually faith in God and Jesus Christ, rather through the Church we have been given supports of our faith, reminders, spiritual resources of Grace. Holy Communion is where we receive the body and blood of Christ as the spiritual food and the medicine of immortality that gives us the strength to live out the calling of our discipleship and the medicine that heals us of the wound of sin, and thus give us life. Baptism does not replace faith but is the source and foundation of faith. Baptism is the support of faith because it is that which unwaveringly connects us to the objects of our faith, the life death and resurrection of Christ. In baptism we are fully brought into the solution God has provided for human tendency towards destructiveness. In baptism we are made one with Christ and thus can hear the voice that speaks of our deep and abiding connection with God. In baptism the recreation of the world begins, not through destruction, but through rebirth. All that we have in faith in Christ, begins and is grounded in baptism and is gift as the Spirit marks us as Christ's own. And so the waters of baptism now save us.

Lent recalls to us the full impact and reality of our faith, those parts of the faith we individually or corporately have forgotten. In response to this confrontation we can try to focus on the externals, or we can try to force ourselves to be conformed to the image of Christ. We can see Lent as a time of wilderness where we on our own power imitate Christ. And certainly Christians at times have chosen to so see Lent as such: a time to get themselves cleaned up for God. Ironically those who rejected these outward and purely fleshly interpretations of religious observance and sacraments, rejected baptism or that baptism was anything more than a thing we did in obedience to Christ. In rejecting this outward form of faith and the place of physicality as a site of the Grace we failed to see that faith, at least Christian faith, is faith in the creator of all things seen and unseen, material and immaterial, physical and spiritual, and thus we are not caleld to live beyond the physical. Being the creator of the physical world God never intended faith to be internal and "purely spiritual". God never intended that we reject the salvific path found in the stuff of the earth. God puts a visible physical reminder in the sky, not only to remind humans but to remind God's self. God is not disconnected from Creation, never was, and certainly is not now after the coming of the Son in human flesh in Jesus Christ. Our Protestant forbearers were right if our faith is merely external and we think that walking through the correct rituals, saying the right things, getting doused with water, smeared in ash, lighting enough incense, and eating or not eating the right foods means God must accept us, then our faith is empty and idolatrous. However, what many of our protestant forbears failed to realize is that our faith is equally powerless if we turn our struggle into a merely internal and disembodied one. If we make our faith and belief into the key without any physical expression or support then we lock ourselves into the grand swings of faith and doubt, and a life unremitting and merciless self-examination. In such a state for most of us then the freedom and joy of the faith is rarely ours. My sisters and brothers the catholic faith of the Church has always been that mere faith that refuses the physical world is without power and trust in the mere externals of religious ritual is foolishness and an empty shell. The catholic faith has always affirmed that true faith begins in acknowledging that God is creator of all, and as creator brings about our salvation through physical things and by becoming eternaly connected with the physical in joining divinity and humanity in the person and body of Jesus Christ. Baptism and communion, incense and fasting, are not just nice things they are the way God gives us God's grace and the way we remove ourselves from having to do it ourselves. In partaking in the rites, sacraments and spiritual disciplines we allow God to transform us. This is the meaning of these things we Christians often forget and we Protestants especially. Faith is not something we drum up in ourselves or something that comes divorced from our bodies and our physicality. Such a divorced faith has little staying power in the face of doubts, and only in the most fastidious produces a righteousness able to counter sin. However, we in water, in eating blessed bread and wine, in being anointed with holy oil, in hearing words spoken of forgiveness receive from God the gift our our selves being renewed in a world being reborn.

This Lent, remember none of what we do is about getting cleaned up. We can't clean ourselves up. We can't make ourselves right. We cannot image Christ by our own effort. There is no work or ritual any of us can perform no word I can say based in my own wisdom that will cause you and us to reflect Christ and be Christ to the world. But God in baptism makes us new, upholds our faith and gives us Grace. We come to Lent to remind ourselves that we can't do it by our own striving. In whatever we do in Lent, in fasting, in giving alms in returning, to disciplines we let drop, in taking up new ones, we remind ourselves that we are weak and in need of God at all times and in all ways and that without God's grace our own efforts amount to nothing. So, I encourage you if you still have questions about your baptism whether you were baptized as an infant or baptized more than once or never been baptized, maybe this Lent and Easter is time to accept the gift of grace in baptism and find yourself afloat in the waters of new birth. After all we are on the journey to Easter. Perhaps this year Easter will not be about believing in the Risen one but about the Risen one bearing you up and transfiguring you with the uncreated light of God. And may we all remember that what we do, we do so that we may be born up in our life of discipleship by the grace of God offered to us in and through our physicality. Amen

Fifth Sunday of Easter- The Way The Truth and The Life

Sermon preached by Jorge Sanchez
New Testament: Acts 7:55-60
Psalm: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
Epistle: 1 Peter 2:2-10
Gospel: John 14:1-14


"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me": one of the most memorable, most poetic, and most often quoted verses in the Gospels, maybe in all the Christian Scriptures. And I find it terrifying.

When I first got the invitation to preach, I was told that I could choose from among a few Sundays, but that this Sunday, today, the Fifth Sunday of Easter, was the Pastoral Team's first choice of when I was to preach.

I looked up the lectionary readings, saw this Gospel, and immediately thought, "Well, that Sunday's out."

Yet as I read the other lessons for other Sundays, this Sunday and particularly this Gospel kept harassing me. After some thought, I decided to accept the challenge and the call God was issuing me through the Pastoral Team's preference.

The Pastoral Team's preference was just that —a preference— but I think God took it over to make it a call to wrestle with the Scriptures.

As I am sure is the case with many, if not most of you, I find this verse greatly troubling. It is a seemingly exclusivist statement; therein lies the great stumbling block for me. No Jesus equals no God equals no heaven, as the rest of the chapter explains or at least implies with its mentions of the many dwelling places in the Father's house.

Exclusivity, in general, does not sit well with me. So much so that for a few years in college and a few after I was a practicing Baha'i, and shortly after Hank was born, when I was beginning to sense a call to ministry and a deeper connection with God, I though of answering that sense of call within the Unitarian Universalist tradition. While I feel certain of what the Truth is, I am not comfortable with that Truth becoming a barrier; indeed, I do not think the Truth is a barrier, the way so many mis-use this verse to make it a litmus test as to who is and who is not, who may and who may not call themselves children of God.

So there I was, thinking about preaching for the first time, and I could choose to look at this verse —this scary verse that made me very suspicious and defensive— or I could choose another. So, as I
am a fool, I chose to preach tonight.

And before I begin reflecting on tonight's lessons, I hope that, if nothing else, you realize the necessity of grappling with passages of Scripture that are troubling, confusing, seemingly uncharitable and exclusive. While in our own personal study we may be able to say, as Marilynne Robinson says, "One wishes it were not so," we cannot in our witness to the church and the world. Too often those who identify as progressive/liberal/pick-your-label Christians simply pass over these passages about sex, or vengeance, or patriarchy, or exclusivity with a dismissive "Oh, the Spirit says something different now," or "Well, it's clear that's just wrong." That's not enough.

So, once I tried to figure out what this Gospel meant I looked at this passage in context, both of John's Gospel and the lectionary.

Something I had never noticed is that Jesus says this after the washing of feet. Jesus says this right before he dies. Judas has ducked out of the party early, and the Apostles know something is up. Thomas asks, "Where are you going?" Phillip pleads, "Show us the Father." They all look at him and, with their eyes, they say, "Throw us a freakin' bone here, Jesus. Things are getting weird. Things are getting scary."

And Jesus gives this perplexing, baffling, challenging, non-answer: "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Jesus is saying here the Incarnation is sufficient for knowing God: "Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do." If you want to know God, Philip, do the works that I do, because I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." To know God do the works I do.

And here is a new challenge this presents: the one who does the works of God knows God, whether we agree with that one or not. That includes Christians we disagree with as well as non-Christians who are doing the work of God. With a seemingly exclusive statement, Jesus includes all those who do the work of God and thereby know God. Jesus healed and consoled and guided, but he also prayed quietly in the Temple and included and, yes, rebuked people, pushing them closer to the truth of their lives to hopefully push them closer to the Truth of the Gospels.

We the many members of the Body may not always understand each other, may not always agree with each other, but the multi-faceted even idiosyncratic witness we give is the very Incarnation itself: it is the Way, the Truth, the Life. No one comes to the Father except by finding and accepting one's unique vocation, right here, right now, both short-term and long-term: it might be changing baby diapers or adult diapers or dealing with the crap we get from a person who's hurting or scared or lost or drunk with power or willfully oblivious to the needs of others.

Take Stephen. Poor Stephen! A man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, a deacon, chosen and set aside to serve —to do the works of discipleship, to take care of the most marginalized of the marginal, the widows and the poor— he walks the Way, the Truth, the Life, and less than sixty verses later it gets him stoned! That stinks! Discipleship sucks! The Way is hard! Thank God for those dwelling places, otherwise Stephen is S.O.L. So associated has Stephen been with his martyrdom that he is often depicted in artwork with those fateful stones floating around him or even resting on his tonsured head.

What does this mean for us? The stewardship we expect to be our vocation might not be what we are remembered for; our witness might be associated with some rather unpleasant rocks. I say this because our vocation goes beyond social justice. It is easy to think of serving those who are economically or politically disenfranchised, but this is a diverse neighborhood in many ways. Part of this church's ministry might be to minister to the spiritually lost and poor, a ministry I find somewhat distasteful. I grew up Roman Catholic, so the focus on solidarity and service to the poor runs deep, but I wonder if sometimes we are also called to minister to those who are poor in hidden ways.

But take note, even in that hard, hard moment of martyrdom, putting his money where his mouth was, taking his last stumbling Steps, Stephen prays for those who stone him. Not condescendingly, not self-righteously, not smugly, but in love, in the love of the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.

And yet First Peter consoles us, as if the two poles of the Way are martyrdom and consolation: long for the spiritual milk of fellowship, of love, of the good in the world. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." We are to live as a body of priests to serve God and God through God's people. You —like Peter, Thomas, Philip, Mary Magdalene, Thecla, Junia— are not perfect, often fearful, sometimes sinful, but good enough because we are children of God through the Incarnation.

"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." The Way is hard but it is do-able, scary, but be not afraid because we are up to the task.

Andrew Marr of Saint Gregory's Abbey quotes another monk, Sebastian Moore of Downside Abbey, as saying "Fear keeps the show going the way we know it and prefer it."

Marr explains that the "show" referred to is "the tendency to keep our society going by making a point of excluding some people s o that we can define ourselves by what we are not rather than we are. In the risen life, [in the life of an Easter people] we define ourselves by who we are —children of God.

Christ is risen. Let us walk the Way, proclaim the Truth, and embrace the Life as children of God, gathering around the Table and inviting everyone —everyone— in.