The 13th Sunday after Pentecost - Choosing Jesus

Making a choice becomes difficult when there are very attractive alternatives.  The most potent example I can offer to picture this sort of choice: if you find yourself driving to the UDairy Creamery—right next to the Ag Building—you'll need to prepare yourself for a challenge of making a choice. Let's see, there's Pistachio, Peach, Raspberry Cheesecake, Holy Fluffernutter, Delaware River Mud Pie—about 25 flavors in all—how will I be able to determine which to eat?

In the first century early Christians lived in a Roman-dominated society where multiple gods were worshipped.  One would choose a favorite deity, much as one might choose a favorite ice cream.  Eventually even  the Roman emperor himself was called divine.  The Jewish worship of the one God who had given the Law and inspired the prophets was lawful—as long as there was no rebellion against Rome.  But when the followers of Jesus were expelled from the Jewish congregations, they lost the protection of their religious practice that the Jews enjoyed.

The choice early Christians had to make was different than choosing among attractive alternatives.  It became an either-or choice, much like the choice of going to the Creamery in the first place or remaining at home and eating the kind of ice cream you have in your freezer. Either you choose to follow the path of having the opportunity to worship from the pantheon of many gods or the path of worshipping one God.

This rather silly example of choosing ice cream may be helpful in understanding one reason Christians were looked down on in the Greco-Roman world—why would you limit your choices of whom to worship?  In the 17^th chapter of Acts we hear a report of St. Paul's evangelism efforts in Athens.  He was debating with some Greek philosophers who had questioned him in a public forum.  Paul said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an Unknown God.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” Paul continued then to explain his belief in God who is “Lord of Heaven and Earth” and to proclaim Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

This latter part of Paul's preaching—resurrection—caused some of these sophisticated Athenians to scoff at Paul.  But some decided to join with him and became believers. The nature of their choice looks much like that of Peter and some of the disciples of Jesus we learn about at the end of the reading today from the Gospel of John.  The context was clearly different than that of Athens.

In the 6^th chapter of John we see Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum among his fellow Jews.  They are believers in one God, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, but for some of them—perhaps most of them—Jesus' teaching steps over the line. He used that very uncomfortable image of his body being food and his blood being drink for anyone who wishes to live forever.  He also claimed a special relationship with God the Father—what we would call Incarnation. And finally he stated that what he offered was better than the manna Moses had provided for the Israelites in the wilderness.

As Paul's proclamation in Athens about Jesus' resurrection offended and forced his listeners to make choices, so did Jesus' teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.  The gospel reading reports that some disciples were complaining about the difficulty of accepting or believing what Jesus said.  From what Jesus said to then we can tell he expected to create controversy and force his followers to make a choice—whether to accept him as the long-awaited Messiah or not.  He said, “Does this offend you?  Then what if you were to see the Song of Man ascending to where he was before?”

The disciples who turned away from Jesus that day were making the choice to stick with what they felt certain about.  They were not about to leave the comfort zone of the religious beliefs of their ancestors—or even to consider that God could be continuing to reveal God's self.  Jesus chided them about their inability to understand the truth of his message:  “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  But among you there are some who do not believe . . . For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by my Father.”

With that Jesus seems to re-frame the whole concept of choice.  One reading of this statement says that we are predestined by God to believe in Jesus and be saved or not.  Rather I think that Jesus meant that God will give us an opportunity deeply to know God's self through Jesus.  This may be one of various opportunities God gives to humanity to know God, but that was not the gospel writer's concern.

John's concern was this: if you come to know God deeply through Jesus, you no longer have a choice but to believe and to follow.  John reports that Peter responded to Jesus' asking if he really wants to leave as well by asserting, “Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Despite Peter's faith and eloquence in that moment, we know that he did come to question whether Jesus really was who he said he was.  Peter denied being a follower on the night of Jesus' arrest.  Peter's fear that he also might be arrested and executed led to his denial.  His denial makes us realize how our Christian faith requires continuing struggle to keep it strong.  In his letter to the Ephesians St. Paul describes that success in that struggle as coming from arming one's self as a soldier might—yet not with metal, but with truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, the assurance of salvation and the word of God.

How do we acquire this spiritual armor, according to Paul?   “”Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication,” he advises.  Pray in the Spirit, trusting God to give you what you need for the struggle.  Pray in the Spirit, believing God will strengthen you and embolden you to face—and defeat—any power—even something from within yourself—that threatens to separate you from God's love and God's grace.

Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life!

The 11th Sunday after Pentecost - Why Community?

You have to wonder what was happening in the church at Ephesus so that St. Paul had to write to them about avoiding falsehood, properly dealing with anger, not stealing, and sharing with those in need. And why did he need to tell them to “put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice?”  Would you join that church?

Perhaps Paul wanted to contrast the sort of behavior that one would expect to find in the Greco-Roman world of the first century with the behavior he hoped would characterize a Christian community.  Of course, the members of a Christian community should avoid behavior that would hurt the community, and they should engage in behavior that strengthened the community.  Paul describes the desired behavior this way: “. . . be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”  Paul expected Christians to be “imitators of God.”  Now that's a high standard!

If we look back to the type of community the Hebrew Scriptures call for among those folks with whom God has a covenant relationship, we see a community called to behave justly in their dealings with others. Six of the Ten Commandments address how to treat others who are part of one's community.  The prophet Amos declares that in the covenant community justice “should roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Paul wanted the Christians to practice those behaviors as well.

But the many of the early Christians—especially those to whom Paul wrote—were not Jews.  Using the model of a righteous life taught by his tradition, Paul now needed to teach these new Christians how a community who claims to follow Jesus should behave.

But what did this idea of community mean for them and what does it means for us?

In Paul's time a Christian community began as individuals felt God's Spirit move within them, calling them to follow the example of Jesus.  In baptism they received what Paul described as “a seal for the day of redemption.” But the nature of that community reflected the idea from the Hebrew scriptures of God's covenant-making with a group of people: God expected that group of people to worship God alone and to live harmoniously with each other, because they showed both justice and mercy in their dealings with one another—you might say, acting as God would act.

In Jesus God offered not a covenant, but God's very self.  With Jesus at the center of the community his followers (both then and now) there could be no doubt about God's intent to draw people into an everlasting relationship.  Paul called it the “body of Christ.”

When Jesus calls himself “living bread” in the gospel reading today, he characterized that everlasting relationship as one of feeding and being fed.  For the writer of the Gospel of John there is no greater image of God's love for humanity. The theologian, Gail O'Day, claims that the Christian community “. . . derives first from the mutual indwelling of Jesus and the believer. . . [Then] community is formed from those who share Jesus' presence.”[1]

So for us, very much like it was for the Christians to whom Paul wrote, we cannot be fully Christian all by ourselves.  The emphasis often placed on an individual's salvation by accepting “Jesus as my Lord and Savior” cannot be where we stop in our journey with Christ.  Finding God in nature as in “all I need to worship is to be alone with God when I walk in the woods or on the beach” cannot be where we stop our journey in with Christ.  Believing that we can practice our faith in God completely alone—as in “I'll just read my Bible and pray at home”—can never complete the journey of faith we began when we first felt the Holy Spirit draw us.

Why, you may be asking, am I preaching about community when everyone here today has shown his or her commitment to community by showing up?  I preach about community, because we should never take its importance for granted or look at is as an unpleasant necessity.  Life together [in a Christian community], according to the German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book by that name, affords us the only way we can confront our tendency to look to our own righteousness and perfection as the means of our salvation.  When we place Jesus Christ at the center of our lives together in a Christian community, we have a better chance to understand who God is calling us to be and to accept and love the others whom God has called as well—despite their rough edges and ours!

John reported that Jesus said that he was giving himself “for the life of the world.”  The earliest Christians may have had difficulty with that inclusiveness of Jesus, because they felt the need to separate themselves from the dominant Greco-Roman culture and from a religious establishment that rejected Jesus and them.  21^st century Christians, especially in the United States, struggle with a slightly different problem.  Often we want to tell our culture that it's getting it all wrong, and it needs to get back to certain values that we hold.  Perhaps what we should offer the world is not a critique, but an example—an example of how a community of mutual respect and kindness works, even when composed of people who hold very different views on a variety of issues.  In creating this sort of community can we serve as leaven for our whole society?  Can that be the reason for our parish to exist?  For the Episcopal Church to exist?  May each of us give thanks for the struggles and joys of sharing our lives together, centered our Savior, Jesus Christ!

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[1] From The New Interpreters Bible, Vol.IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, p 613

The 10th Sunday after Pentecost - But first you have to admit you have a problem

It's been quite a while since I began a sermon with a joke.  It's not my preaching style, but I came across one this week that I have to share.  It's a beach scene with a lifeguard standing up on a tall life guard chair.  There's a man far out in the ocean up to his neck in the water, hands raised in a gesture that cries for help, looking as if he's about to go under.  The lifeguard, a Ph.D. student in psychology, looks directly at the man and yells, “I can help, but first you must admit you have a problem.”

In our gospel reading from John today, Jesus said almost the same thing to that crowd.  According the verses just before those we heard, John told us the disciples had gotten in a boat to go to Capernaum, and Jesus had withdrawn to a mountain by himself.  Jesus had fed a great multitude the day before.  Now a new day had begun, and these folks were determined to find Jesus.  John did not say the crowd knew the disciples had set out for Capernaum, but they must have known.  What John does say is this, “Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks; so when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.”

This crowd seems eager, desperate, determined.  Like the drowning man in my joke, they were driven to cry out for what they expected and hoped Jesus would give them.  Their action of jumping in the boats and taking off to find Jesus—just like the drowning man's gestures—embodied their cry for what they believed they needed.

Let's try imagine how they were feeling. Imagine a child expecting a certain gift.  Perhaps he has been told he would get something he wanted very badly, but he has not seen it come in the house. Or perhaps her parents (or whomever is giving the gift), usually gives her what she says she wants the most, but none of the wrapped presents looks the right size or shape.  In either case the child is desperate to be given the hidden gift or to tear into the presents to find the desired one—desperate!

Jesus had fed the crowd  in a most amazing way.  Now they must find him, so they can witness more of what he does and, perhaps, receive more as well. They were doing all that they could to find him!!  The boats they took set out from Tiberias and headed to Capernaum.  Hugging the coast of the Sea of Gallilee, they had to travel north about 12 to 15 miles.  And when they arrived, they couldn't believe Jesus had gotten there ahead of them.

I don't think their first question to Jesus was asking for information, but rather expressing astonishment—to paraphrase: you weren't with the disciples, how could you have gotten here ahead of us? Jesus didn't respond to their question; he responded to the intent that brought them to Capernaum.  Their intent in following him was to let him know they wanted his help in providing what they believed they needed.

As the lifeguard said to the swimmer, Jesus told them they must acknowledge their problem in order to gain what they needed. What was their problem according to Jesus?  They just wanted more bread, but what they really needed was God:  “Do not work [“work” in this case means taking desperate measures] for the food that perishes, but the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  Since the “Son of Man” is a messianic title, Jesus offered them hope.

After hearing this promise of a Messiah who will provide what they hope for, they have two questions.  First they ask, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answers that the work of God one must do is to believe in the one God sent.  And then  they ask, “What sign are you going to give us, so that we may see it and believe in you?”  They go on further to say that Moses gave their ancestors manna to eat. They want proof that Jesus is as good as or better than Moses.

Have these not been humanity's eternal questions?  What must I do (or what must we do) to get exactly what we want from God?  And, by the way, prove to us that you, who want us to follow you, are favored by God by giving us—or getting us—what we believe we want.  Our faith finds its basis in receiving what we want!

Jesus re-frames their concern about getting what they want.  Since they have been talking about receiving bread, he turns bread into a symbol of what God offers humanity: “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world . . . I am the bread of life.”

So by receiving Jesus, we will receive life in God.  By accepting Jesus as the Messiah of God we can be transformed now and forever.  Our lives in this world can be filled with God, so what we desire will coincide what makes us fully human—fully the people God has created each of us to be, who love God with our whole heart and mind and strength and our neighbors as ourselves.

This may sound wonderful, but it doesn't sound too easy or comfortable, does it? Our instincts often drive us to be self-centered, careful to look out for our own interests.  Only when we are able to admit we need help—as the drowning man in the joke was being asked too do—only then can we be open to the transforming presence of God in our lives.

The shape of our worship is no coincidence.  Confession, absolution from God, reconciliation through the exchange of God's peace and finally receiving the Real Presence of God through the bread and wine at Holy Communion—through our worship we express our need for help with the problem of being self-centered, and only then we can become open to God, ready to receive the bread of life.

To open with a joke and close with some lyrics from the Rolling Stones—no, this isn't your grandparents' sermon.  As the Rolling Stones wisely sang: “No, you can't always get what you want /No, you can't always get what you want/No, you can't always get what you want/But if you try sometime, you just might find/You get what you need.”  For Christians, our “trying sometime” means admitting, as the drowning man had to—admitting that we have a problem by confessing to God when we have missed the mark of loving God and our neighbor—and then being ready to receive God's help—who is Jesus, the bread of life.

The 9th Sunday after Pentecost - It is I; do not be afraid.

There's a form of the Prayers of the People that ends this way:  “When our eyes open, may it not be to end our devotions, but to expect your kingdom.”  Perhaps that should be broadened to this:  “When we gather to worship on Sunday, may it not be just to find solace and experience fellowship, but to expect your reign.”  What we say we hope for in the Lord's Prayer is God's kingdom to come—which we also describe as the reign of God or God's dominion.

Scripture describes the contrast between how things are now and what things will be like when God reigns.  That's what the miraculous signs and wonders in the stories in the Gospels mean!  We can also get glimpses of character of the reign of God in the legends of the saints.

In our gospel reading today we have the disciples in a boat experiencing difficult conditions.  Then they see Jesus.  The anxiety or fear they have felt because of the wind and rough seas becomes focused on Jesus.  Is this a vision, a ghost or really Jesus?  In fact, we know Jesus' presence—in whatever form—is the true Presence, because of the words the disciples hear, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.”

Jesus uses the name of God that Moses and the ancient Hebrews discerned as they sought to know God—“I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.”  Four simple letters is Hebrew—YHWH—becomes in Greek ego emmi, or as is translated in English in our reading this morning “ . . . it is I.  So God, present in Jesus, offers a glimpse of God's reign, in the words that follow—“do not be afraid.”

What does this glimpse of God's reign mean for us?  Until its full manifestation at the end of time, we can see it breaking through in some small—and not so small—ways.  In our prayers we may find that our eyes do become opened to see God's goodness in new ways.

Our human nature may cling to fear when we feel a situation spirals out of our control—weather, disease, violence.   An appropriate amount of fear can protect us sometimes, leading us to more careful and safer choices.  But when fear overwhelms us, we may find ourselves angry or critical or bitter or vengeful—with these negative emotions often directed toward someone innocent who just happens to be nearby.

God's reign will banish fear!! And since we believe that God's reign began with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—although right now we can only see glimpses of it—let us reflect for a moment on how it could appear in our own lives and the in life of this Christian community. . .


Especially today we pray for healing, as people come forward to receive the laying on of hands and anointing.  We need to ask for God's help in overcoming our fear--sometimes experienced as worry--when we confront illness or serious difficulties.  An illness can be cured miraculously--with no discoverable reason for the cure--but healing is so much more than this.  Healing means finding the peace and love of God in all the circumstances of our lives.  Healing means knowing that Jesus' presence in our lives can free us from fear.  Healing is indeed a glimpse of God's reign!