The 8th Sunday after Pentecost - Compassion and Reconciliation

It's always good when someone who knows a lot more than you do agrees with you—or at least close enough to count as agreement.  My default point-of-view in sermon writing is to ask the two essential questions in interpreting scripture:  First, what does this passage tell us about God? And then, what should we do (or how should we live) in the light of our answer to the first question?  Of course neither question stands outside the context of culture and history, but they require us to distill the essence of what we have read.

Douglas John Hall, a retired professor of Christian theology at McGill University, thinks that understanding our gospel reading this morning requires answering two questions very similar to mine.  These two questions also arise from what he calls “the welter of global religious striving”—a way of describing the conflicts in the world that appear, at least on the surface, to involve opposing religious systems. His first question is this:  “How does your God view the world?”  His second is, “How does your God ask you to view the world?”  Professor Hall claims that how we view the world—which motivates our actions in the world—will flow from our ideas about God.  Theology informs ethics, and our ethics arise from our theology.

If you read Hebrew and Christian scriptural texts closely, you will find more than one depiction of the God.  Jesus Christ may be the same yesterday and today and forever, as the writer of Letter to the Hebrews asserts in the 13^th chapter.  But our human understanding of God's view of the world and how God asks us to view the world has changed and—if you accept that there is continuing revelation—our understanding about how to answer these questions will change again—and again.

This change is captured succinctly in the story from the 8^th chapter of the Gospel of John.  Jesus and the religious authorities were debating about the fate of a woman caught in adultery.  Trying to trap Jesus into speaking against the Law the authorities asked, “Now in the law Moses [which the ancient Hebrews believed was given to Moses directly from God]  commanded us to stone such women.  Now what do you say?”  Jesus answered by asking them to view the world—and this woman—with a compassion growing from their awareness of their own sinfulness.  As you know, he said, “You who are without sin . . .[cast the first stone]”

We have two words to consider from our readings today in the light of Professor Hall's questions.  The first comes from the letter to the Ephesians.  It is “reconcile.”  The second comes from today's reading from Mark's gospel.  It is “compassion.”  Both of them refer to a way of looking at the world—and humanity—that promotes a positive connection and a life-giving relationship with God and among people.

In the letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul describes God as viewing differences concerning the purity of one's life—and the religious practices that maintain that purity—as a wall that must be broken down. Paul does not critique the purity code itself, but he criticizes the use of a purity code to exclude the people for whom it would be a barrier—to exclude those people that now believe in the message of Jesus, but who are not Jews.

This is how Paul describes God-in-Jesus's point of view:  “He [Jesus] has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.”  Are we now called to view the world as a place where we need to follows Jesus' pattern and act as reconcilers across the differences that divide people of faith?  Exactly how we might follow that call to act as reconcilers must come as the result of prayerful discernment.

Now we turn to the word “compassion” we find in the reading from Mark's gospel.  This word may hold an important place in our discernment of how act as a reconciler.  Jesus and his disciples found themselves at odds with the crowd of people who would not let them get away and rest.  The crowd appeared to be desperate for Jesus' presence.  They scrambled to locate Jesus—almost mobbed him.  Did they need what Jesus and his disciples have been offering in their ministry:  healing and preaching repentance to prepare for the coming reign of God?

Jesus could have told the disciples to disperse the crowd, for he and they were quite weary.  The disciples even suggested that course of action to Jesus later.  But Jesus knew his mission—and that of his disciples—was to bring the people into a closer relationship with God—to be reconcilers.  So Mark reports that Jesus felt compassion for this disorderly group.  Yes, compassion as the route to acting as a reconciler—this Jesus taught through what he did, as well as what he said.  First, he taught the people in the crowd “many things,” according to Mark. I imagine this included God's desire to be in relationship with them—to be reconciled.  And then he fed them—a very, very large number of them.

To come back to the questions with which we began:  How does our God—the God we believe in and trust—how does our God view the world?  As a place where compassion should be practiced, so that all people may be reconciled to God and to each other? Yes.  And how does our God ask us to view the world?  Can there be any doubt about the answer?

So where do we begin?  I suggest we begin by praying for our hearts to be led to compassion.  Then we must look for occasions where we can reach out across the divide of conflict and show the same compassion to another person that our Lord has showed to us.  And right now. this morning. let us approach the altar to receive the feeding Christ offers us: the bread broken, the wine poured out for us.  Through receiving Christ's body and blood may we experience the reconciling grace of God.   And finally, since we have been filled with Christ's presence, may we offer Christ's compassion and reconciling presence to the world through our words and our deeds.

The 7th Sunday of Pentecost - Blessing!

How blessed are you?  How blessed are we?  How do you bless?  How do we bless?  One of the charisms of ordained ministry is to convey God's blessing to God's people at the end of the Eucharistic celebration and in other sacramental rites.  In the Episcopal Church priests pronounce God blessing on the assembled worshippers while making the sign of the cross.  Some people respond to that blessing by making the sign of the cross themselves: a blessing given and received.

But that does not mean that God's blessing is not be conveyed in other ways.  Sometimes we speak about how we blessed by the love and friendship of another person.  We pronounce God's blessing over the meal we are about to eat.  We might call an unexpected, positive happening a blessing. Sometimes we look back on a situation and find we received a blessing in a situation that seemed quite dire.

The church where I served as a seminarian experienced a devastating fire caused by carelessness on the part of some workmen making repairs.  Although the congregation of the Church of the Holy Apostles had to meet somewhere else for a couple of years, they were able to rebuild their worship space also to be the dining room during the week for a larger and larger soup kitchen ministry—about 1,200 served daily. The rector at the time of the fire was still there when I came.  He said it was very tough to deal with the situation, but so much good came out of their difficulty.  And the other part of the blessing was that not one day was missed by the soup kitchen ministry.

Our epistle reading from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians seeks to give a theology of blessing.  The opening sentence addresses the reciprocal nature of blessing: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.”  Paul declared that God loved humanity, blessing it in its pre-Creation state.  In the same way the writer of Genesis has God declaring each part of the created order good, Paul appears to be explaining some sort of “original goodness” for humanity in Christ. Our created purpose, from Paul's perspective, is to dwell in a holy and blameless state within God's love through Christ, as the second person of the Trinity.  Our response to this love should be to praise “God's glorious grace [another way to speak of God's love] that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved [Jesus].”

For Paul, as he expresses himself in this passage, blessing primarily is spiritual, not material. But like St. Thomas who demanded to touch the wounds of Jesus in order to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, most of us want or need a material manifestation of God's blessing to bolster our faith.  We can hear this expressed by psalmists. We hear this in Psalm 24: 4-5, “Those who have clean hands and a pure heart . . . shall receive a blessing from the Lord and a just reward from the God of our salvation.”

So we are not unbiblical, by any means, in longing for tangible evidence of God's blessing.  But if this is all we understand God's blessing to be, our view is too narrow.  Remember Jesus' explaining that rain falls on both the just and the unjust?  God's blessing is about relationship.  The real world is a fallen and dangerous place.  The only certain ground on which we may stand is God. Our relationship with God is through Jesus Christ. To switch the metaphor a bit, could God's blessing be like the rain, falling on us all, but not all of us at any particular moment are absorbent soil?  For us, coming to know Jesus perhaps may lead us to be more receptive to seeing God's blessing, to being in relationship with the divine.

In the reading from Mark's gospel there appears to be no blessing and no good news either.  One of my seminary classmates posted a picture on Facebook a couple days ago about this passage showing an open Bible and a pen resting on an empty legal pad. His caption said “Looking for the good news in this week's gospel.”

No good could be said about King Herod or the dreadful situation he created by his boasting about how generous he would be to his seductive, dancing daughter, Herodias.  And yet, there is one part of this vignette that caught my attention.  Keep in mind the image of the rain falling on both the just and the unjust. These words brought me up short: “ . . . Herod feared John knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him.  When he heard him he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.”  John's testimony about repenting [again, changing one's mind] and turning to God was a blessing to Herod.  As we know from scripture and historical sources, Herod was not capable of responding to this blessing to become a blessing to others or to bless God.  But nevertheless God offered blessing to Herod through John's testimony.

Within the Christian community at Ephesus and within our own Christian community, God's blessing comes within the context of our faith.  Paul wrote:  “In him [Christ] you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit . . .”  Through our baptism and later adult acceptance of the baptismal promises, if we were baptized as infants, God has made us absorbent and fertile soil for receiving divine blessing that, as Paul noted, “ . . . we who . . . set our hope on Christ might live for the praise of his [God's] glory.”

So there it is.  God has reached out to us with blessing and we return the blessing by praising God's glory.  But there is more.  As John the Baptizer did, we must take what we have received and offer it to others.   Although our testimony about how our faith in Jesus Christ has blessed us may help others respond to God's blessing, we must also offer our deeds to those in need.  When we pack or cook food for the hungry, when we offer physical or pastoral care to others—these material forms of blessing flow from our being spiritually fed and cared for by God.  Paul understood all this in a spiritual way, not to earn salvation through our own righteousness—which would never be enough—but as a response to God's blessing that praises God's glory.

May God's blessing be ours; may Christ's peace be ours; may the Spirit's outpouring be ours—so we can be Christ's heart and Christ's hands each day for those we know and love—and for those to whom God sends us—even if they do not readily receive us!

The 6th Sunday of Pentecost - Cynicism or Hope?

Cynicism—no matter what you listen to on the radio today—no matter what you watch on television—no matter what you read in magazines and newspaper—you can't escape it!  Yes, I suspect it's worse because of the election campaigns right now, but it pervades most of the information we receive much of the time.

I don't use the word “hell” very often in my sermons, but today I want to offer a phrase that I first heard from someone who rarely swore.  This phrase was “going to hell in a handbasket.”  It provides a fascinating image, so I wondered where it came from.  Although its origins are murky, it appears to arise from an 18^th century problem.  Handbaskets were the woven baskets for passengers to ride in, suspended below a hot air balloon.  When the first untethered hot air balloon flight took place in 1783 in France, some people worried that the balloon might disappear, floating away to heaven or hell.  Cynicism about modern inventions is nothing new!

What attitudes lead to cynicism that people or situations are going “to hell in a handbasket?” Our scriptures this morning offer some glimpses into this issue. But they also offer hope for a different outcome.  Let's look at them more closely.

Our first concern should be that God looks at human sinfulness with a cynical eye. When Ezekiel hears God's voice, he understood God as describing the people of Israel as: “. . . a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me, they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day.”  Then God speculates that Israel may well refuse to listen to Ezekiel's speaking God's prophetic word.  Were God to examine our lives today, would God hold that same cynical attitude?

Our second concern should be that communities of faith can be troubled by leadership issues.  The rather confusing passage from St. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians we heard this morning contains Paul's cynical take on how the Christian community in Corinth understood leadership.  Paul appears to be arguing that their leaders' boasting about their ideas and their qualifications will lead the community astray.  At this time when our General Convention is meeting in Indianapolis, do we feel cynical or hopeful about the outcome of its deliberations?  Perhaps we are beyond cynicism.  More locally, here at St. Nicholas', do we trust our leadership—particularly the Vestry—or do we feel cynical about the way they do their work?

Finally, we need to be concerned about whether our own cynicism about how the world works prevents us from seeing and experiencing the Holy One in our lives.  Cynicism certainly clouded the minds of the people who attended the synagogue in Nazareth that sabbath when Jesus came to teach:  “How could this hometown boy we knew be a great teacher or healer or prophet?  We knew him when he . . .”  You can fill in the blank.

Mark also reports a rather cynical response on Jesus' part: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”  Rejection tends to bring out cynicism, doesn't it?

Since most likely we will not encounter Jesus in person, we should ask ourselves whether our cynicism about a certain situation or a certain person will prevent us from experiencing Christ in that situation or in that person?  Especially when that situation may make us uncomfortable or that person may confront us or disagree with us.  Do we believe so strongly that they are “going to hell in handbasket” that we cannot see beyond our own feelings to what God may be trying to teach us through them?

So where do we find ourselves now?  Concerned about how our sinfulness looks to God?  Mistrustful of our leaders in the church?  Experiencing barriers in relating to others who disagree with us or make us uncomfortable?  Yes, indeed, our human nature tends toward cynicism.  It can even lead us to reject God!

But I said at the beginning we could find hope in the scripture we heard this morning. Of course, hope can be an antidote to our cynicism; it can help us encounter the Holy One in our daily lives.  I believe hope will arise in our hearts when we allow ourselves to believe that St. Paul heard Christ correctly.  Paul wrote:  “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this [thorn in his flesh] that it would leave me, but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.' ”

Our cynicism can be seen as a thorn in our flesh that prevents us from seeing the goodness in the world around us.  It can also prevent us from taking action to correct things in our lives and in our world that need to change.  But God's grace, freely given to us, can empower us, despite whatever weakness or helplessness we feel.  It can keep us from turning to cynicism, or it can help us turn away from cynicism. And we can affirm with Paul that through God's grace “whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

The character, Sonny Kapoor, in the film “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” put it beautifully, “Every will be o.k. in the end—and if it's not o.k., it's not the end.”  As Christians we can have confidence that God has begun to redeem creation and, in the end, all human beings will experience reconciliation to God and to each other.  The end will not only be o.k., it will be all that we could ever hope for!

The 4th Sunday of Pentecost - Transcendence v. Immanence

The book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures addresses the question of why inexplicable and bad things happen to good people.  Job's friends call his righteousness into question because, in their view of God's justice, you reap what you sow.  In a series of natural disasters and raids by neighboring tribes Job's prosperity evaporated, and his sons and daughters were killed.  His friends call on Job to confess his sins, but Job claims he has not sinned and challenges God to justify these disasters.  The author of this story frames Job’s troubles as the test of a righteous person by the heavenly court, including satan (the accuser):  In the face of all this disaster will Job, a righteous man, curse God?

In the 38^th chapter of Job, which we heard this morning, God speaks to Job and tells him to back off.  God who created the heavens and the earth, who brought order to the chaos of the primeval world, reminds Job that he was not present at creation.  God's transcendence trumps Job's expectation for a world in which righteous obedience—following the laws of God—brings prosperity.

The poetry of creation should lead not to a legalistic view of fairness, but to awe.  In beautiful poetry God gives Job reasons to be in awe of the Creator: “. . . who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?—when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped?'”

The fearsome imagery of chaos as a sea bursting from its bounds and “proud waves” not yet contained in creation makes a point to Job and to the reader: God, whose transcendent power brought order from chaos in creation, isn't bound by human standards of fairness.  Not a comfortable view for Job nor for the writer of this story who ends the story in the final chapter with all Job's prosperity being restored to him.  Awe was required of Job, but not faith, in the end.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor, wrote about a conversation she had with a colleague, “Recently I was talking with a colleague about the nature of God and how sometimes we lean too exclusively toward the transcendence of God—God is mighty and distant and all powerful . . . Then at times we lean a bit too much on the immanence of God, believing that God is present in a personal way—God is your buddy and life coach and hooks you up with sweet parking spaces . . . We have perhaps made God so personal that we no longer touch the mystery and mastery of God's holiness, instead making God an eccentric, benevolent, wealthy uncle of some sort.”

This, of course, is the exact problem for Jesus' disciples on the boat in the midst of the great windstorm on the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus as their teacher, their rabbi, had gained their respect. Jesus as a healer had impressed them and many others who were traveling in the other boats.  So why wasn't he more concerned about the danger the windswept waves posed, for the boat was almost sinking as the waves broke over it and water rose inside it.  How could he be sleeping with all this life-threatening danger?

The disciples looked to Jesus as one who had power that they respected.  Their question was not, “Why has this storm arisen when we have been such good disciples and look to you with such deep respect?”  With their question about whether Jesus cared about their well-being, they were demanding that action be taken to remedy this particular situation.  In their fear they asked for the power of God to be applied right now to end the storm that was threatening them.  They were insisting on the immanence of God to act now.  The petitionary prayer contained in their question was the one the author Anne Lamott calls, “Help, help, help.”

Jesus responded in two ways. As God incarnate, who had revealed his creative power in containing all the waters of the seas, Jesus contained the waves and stilled the storm with the words, “Peace!  Be still.”  As their rabbi, he asked them two questions, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”  Now, more than awe of God and God's creative power was required.  Faith was as well.

“Faith in what?” we may ask.  Jesus began to teach the disciples (and us) with his first question, “Why are you afraid?”  I don't believe this is an existential question—we have brain chemicals as part of our human nature that help us identify dangerous situations and develop appropriate responses (sometime called “fight or flight”).  I think it is a spiritual question—“Are you afraid that you are alone in this difficulty, that you no longer matter, that no one cares about you any more?”

Next Jesus asks about the disciples' faith in God–and as followers of Jesus that question is ours as well.  Not faith that God will find us that sweet parking spot or protect us from a hurricane when we choose not to evacuate or save us from the pandemic that scientists fear will one day sweep the globe or even protect us from the daily frustration and sadness that often fill our lives.  Not faith that God  . . . , but rather faith in God.  Faith in God means we believe God is with us, never leaving us alone, never abandoning us when trouble comes.  Your faith is strong when you trust God will be with you.

Pastor Bolz-Weber described how she understands what faith in God means: “So here's the thing: I have a goal.  You know how you'll be in a personal storm and you think, 'I'm perishing here, God.' but when you look back on it six months later you are still alive and the world didn't end?  One day I want to get to the point where I can trust God in the moment and not just in retrospect months or even years later.”

So what will be our answer when we encounter the next storm in our lives and Jesus asks, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”   Perhaps we will be able to answer, “I'm working on it.  I am doing my very best to trust.”

Nadis Bolz-Weber, “Reflections on the lectionary: Sunday, June 24 – Mark 4:35-41,” Christian Century, June 13, 2012, p. 21.

The 3rd Sunday after Pentecost -Walking by Faith? Walking by Sight?

The hymn writer Henry Alford took the phrase from St. Paul's second letter the the Corinthians—“We walk by faith and not by sight”—and tied it to the experience of St. Thomas and of all Christians since Jesus returned to the Godhead.  We know the story of Thomas refusing to believe that Jesus had risen until he touched Jesus' wounds.  Jesus satisfies Thomas's request, then adds, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

(Hymnal 1982 - # 209)

We walk by faith, and not by sight;
no gracious words we hear from him
who spoke as none e'er spoke;
but we believe him near.

We may not touch his hands and side,
nor follow where he trod;
but in his promise we rejoice;
and cry, "My Lord and God!"

Help then, O Lord, our unbelief;
and may our faith abound,
to call on you when you are near,
and seek where you are found:

that, when our life of faith is done,
in realms of clearer light
we may behold you as you are,
with full and endless sight.

Alford, as St. Paul did, contrasts the uncertainty—our not knowing for sure—with our expectation that in our life after death we will see Jesus clearly.  Then there will be no need for faith as we understand it during our earthly life.  In fact, our sight—our comprehension of Jesus—will be complete, wonderful, without end.

Paul adds other, sombre notes in his contrast of faith and sight as well.  Our earthly life, during which we must walk by faith, feels like a burden.  “Being at home in the body and away from the Lord,” would not be our choice—yet it is not really a choice.  We are by birth at home on the earth, thus our aim should be to please the Lord for we all will face judgment.  In this passage Paul speaks about life as a preparation:  walk by faith and aim to please God in order to be prepared for God's judgment in our life after death.

Both the psalm (portions of Psalm 92) and the gospel reading address our earthly life from a quite different point of view than Paul's.  I would call it: walking by sight, enlightened by faith. Both the psalm and the gospel use images from our earthly experiences that if viewed in the light of faith help us to know God right now—to understand God's reign as already present.  Now is not primarily preparation for the future after our life is over.  Now is the moment of God's revelation through things we can see, touch, and experience.

Yes, there is mystery around how God's revelation happens—but we clearly can see the result.

In Psalm 92 there are flourishing palm trees and cedars of Lebanon.  These images show us how we, if righteous, will flourish, nurtured by God: “Those who are planted in the house of the Lord * shall flourish in the courts of our God.  They shall still bear fruit in old age, * they shall be green and succulent.”  Righteousness leads to a positive earthly outcome—fruitfulness!

Our gospel reading from Mark addresses the revelation of God's kingdom here and now.  Using parables Jesus offered images of growth.  In the first one in our mind's eye we notice seed being scattered, then germinating and growing until it is ready for harvest.  How this happens is under God's invisible guidance, full of mystery.  But we see it happen; we experience it.  Then with our eyes enlightened by our faith, we can trust this process to God—not only in nature, but also in ourselves.

The richest image of all is the mustard seed's growth from the tiniest of all seeds to an improbably large shrub with lush branches where birds can constructed shaded nests—a peaceful and protected image of God's loving care for God's creatures. Jesus' revelation of God's reign through this mustard bush does not have to be taken by faith; it can be seen.

Celtic Christians saw God as revealing God's self through “a wee book”—scripture and  “a big book”—the natural world.  Both must be interpreted, of course.  And most assuredly, our faith should enlighten our interpretation.  To see God's creative power in the growth and fruitfulness of the natural world has to be “walking by sight,”

So where do you most comfortably come down?  On the side of walking by faith or the side of walking by sight?  Truth be told, I believe a good answer would be, “I come down on both sides.”  We must concern ourselves with how well our deeds reflect on the faith we profess.  We walk in faith, because there are times when pain and doubt may nearly overwhelm our Christian hope.  Yet all around us God whispers to us, sometimes shouts to us, about God 's reign through the trees, the flowers, the clouds, the sea and so many other amazing natural phenomena.  To quote the psalmist: “For you have made me glad by your acts, O Lord, and I shout for joy because of the works of your hand.”  The reign of God has begun.  O Lord, open our eyes—fill our hearts—so we may experience—we may see—your gracious love and your creative power—right here—right now!

The 2nd Sunday after Pentecost - Preaching the Collect?

In my Bible study group this week one of the clergy said he had three baptisms this Sunday, and he couldn’t image any more difficult readings than today's for such an occasion.  Then with a smile he suggested, “Guess I’ll preach on the Collect.”  Although he was cracking wise, the collect for this Sunday could be preached on.  It ties the lessons together well and could certainly be preached at a baptism.  AND because the long “green” season of Pentecost should be a time when we consider scriptures that teach us how to live, our Collect for the day would be a great place to begin.

The Collect opens with: “O God, from whom all good proceeds  . . .”  In searching scripture for a way to think about God’s goodness and something called “original goodness” (as opposed to “original sin”) we need look no further than the creation story in Genesis—“In the beginning . . .”  In this account, drawn from the imagination of divinely inspired humans—or as Professor Luke Timothy Johnson calls them, “God-intoxicated”—since no humans were around during these eons of creation—we can hear the narrator’s pronouncement on God’s work:  (from the Common English Bible translation)“God saw how good it was.”

Even human beings embodied the goodness of God: (again from the Common English Bible) “God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.

But as we have been taught, something went wrong, and all that goodness became broken, sullied, and separated from the original intention of God.  How did it happen?  In the 3^rd chapter of Genesis, a narrator continues with the story of the crafty, talking serpent and tree in the center of the Garden of Eden.  According to the serpent, eating the fruit of this tree will give one the knowledge of good and evil—just like God has.  Once we humans ate, our innocence was lost and our original goodness, severely stained.  Theologians claim this sullied original goodness came from the exercise of humanity’s free will—a gift from the Creator that allows us to make choices—and which allow us to act against God.

The collect continues with the first half of a prayer petition: “Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right . . .” When we pray these words, we are asking God to guide our free will.  St. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, puts it this way: “Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.”  In Paul’s view the stain of sin damages our outer nature.  Exercising our free will, we made poor choices and fell into sin.  Yet God's grace continues to work within us—working to restore us—not to innocence (which can never be regained)--but to a renewed relationship with God.  In this we are being prepared, according to Paul, to “an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.”  We will make right choices as Jesus heals us—God will raise us as God raised Jesus.

And then the last part of the petition follows:  “ . . . and by your merciful guiding may do them [the things that are right].”  Faith that God will inspire us know what is right gets us only partly there. The words of the collect insist that we take action under God's “merciful guiding.” In our reading from Mark's gospel this morning, we hear Jesus defending his decision to heal on the Sabbath (at the beginning of chapter 3) and to continue healing despite the uproar this caused among the crowds, following the Sabbath healing.

Jesus' family believes he has gone mad and the religious authorities call him possessed by the Devil.  Do Jesus' actions—which occurred before the passage we heard this morning—spring from his free will rightly exercised?  We see the fall-out as Jesus takes on the religious scribes and even his own family. Jesus confronts them in the strongest possible terms:  “. . . but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness.”  From Jesus' viewpoint his healings fought against the power of sin and the forces of evil.  He was following God's will! For God wants renewal for all people to wellness of body and soundness of mind.  Jesus teaches (and provides) a new way of acting that responds to God's goodness: “. . . whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

When Jesus' walked among us to, following him wasn't easy, but Jesus was there to ask for clarity.  Now a couple of thousand years later, following Jesus is still difficult, and how to follow him is not so clear either. The promises made for us--or by us—at baptism spell out what the church believes we must do—with God’s help.  Yet when putting these promises into specific actions in our lives, we frequently founder on the shoals of our sinfulness.

Is there no way out?  God's grace and God's loving-kindness—we must trust these aspects of God to inspire us and guide us.  First, to help us discern what is right and, then, mercifully to guide us to do it, “So [as Paul explains] we do not lose heart.”  The innocence of original goodness can never belong the humanity again, but we can live confidently that, beginning with baptism, God will work within each one of us to heal us and to adopt us as Christ’s sisters and brothers.  God’s healing us will not be instantaneous—although there can be moments when we will experience a feeling of God’s overflowing love.  But our healing will take an eternal lifetime, which is exactly what each of us is given.

And, so you see, these lessons can be preached at a baptism!

Trinity Sunday - Sympathizing with Nicodemus?

Do you think about the Trinity very often—I mean sometime other than when you are singing the Gloria or reciting one of the historic creeds used in worship—either the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed?  I don’t very often. But I imagine you and I sometimes offer a prayer to God, the Father. . . and sometimes you and I ask Jesus for help. . .and sometimes you and I believe the Holy Spirit is giving you strength for whatever you are facing.  Unifying them into Trinity seems a bit abstract—not an everyday, practical task!

We have to sympathize with Nicodemus.  He has been attracted to Jesus, despite the fact that most of his peers, the religious leaders of Judaism, saw Jesus' teaching as a threat to their authority.  He “asks” Jesus one of those statement-type questions—something we do when we're not sure what to think.  “We know that you . . .”  “Everyone says that you . . .”  “No one can do what you are doing unless . . .”  Then we wait for a response, hoping that the person will reveal more about who he or she really is, so then we can make up our minds about the person. 

I fairly sure Nicodemus wasn't looking for a challenge from Jesus.  But Jesus' response was a challenge—something has to change in you Nicodemus, before you can have any idea who I really am.  We really do have to sympathize with Nicodemus.  Jesus confronts him by saying he can never understand what God is doing without being transformed first.

This past Lent we had an adult education series with two other churches.  The topic concerned how our Bible came together. Those of you who attended may remember one evening when the three clergy present had three different opinions about something.  One of the folks offered the thought that it was fun hearing clergy disagree!  Now take this up a notch—in your imagination:  I'm preaching on a Sunday morning and in walks Jesus (of course, he would choose to come to St. Nicholas').  Trying to keep my cool and trying to determine if it really is Jesus, I say one of those statement kind of questions: “All of us believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who loves us and came to save us from sin.”  He looks patiently at me and replies, “Elizabeth, you really must change in certain ways if you are to fully understand what you are saying and be part of the new thing I am about to do .”  I answer, “How can this be, for I have studied at the General Seminary?”  I hope at that moment you might have a bit of sympathy for me.

As the leaders of the Christian movement in second, third and early fourth centuries tried to decide who Jesus really was by defining his relationship with God—and really defining their understanding of who God is as well—they had the testimony of the scriptural writing accepted in the canon of New Testament and the testimony of those who had taught and preached about Jesus' beginning with St. Paul and St. Peter.  What sort of Messiah was he—was he co-eternal with God whom he had called “Father” or was there a time, however brief, when Jesus was not?

Although this issue has been settled for over 1500 years, early Christian leaders seriously fought about it.  A bishop might be overturned by one group in his diocese, who disagreed with him on this issue and who would then send him into exile.  The winning party declared those who opposed them heretics.  I have a bit of sympathy for those who struggled trying to understand who God really is and who Jesus really is—winner-take-all church politics notwithstanding.

We can look for evidence of the Trinity in our scriptures—Jesus' spoke eloquently about his relationship with God and called him Father.  But another passage he said, “I and the Father are one . . .”  But, no, we really won't find the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament. Jesus did speak about  God, about the Spirit of God, and about himself in ways that link all three—but how are they linked?  And what difference does it make for us, today, here at St. Nicholas?

They are linked in divine relationship—being all made of the same stuff or substance, yet in three persons—The Trinity describes the “communal inner life of God,” according to Professor Judith McDaniel.  She states that the “essence of God is to be in relationship.” We Christians are unique among monotheistic religions, such as Judaism and Islam, to believe that God is one in an unusual way. God is one as a unity that contains diversity.

Is there any way to know whether this way of looking at God is the correct way? Of course not—in this life!  But looking at God in this way gives us two sources of hope.  First, if God's nature is to be in relationship and Jesus came from God to live as one of us, then God strongly desires to draw us into a relationship as well.  In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul calls this the “spirit of adoption.”  Paul said, “When we cry, 'Abba, Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  Through Jesus, God has sought us out in a way we can understand.  So now we can—in faith and trust—receive God into our hearts.

Then we may also use the doctrine of the Trinity as a model for human relationships. We can celebrate each other’s special characteristics, while honoring our need to seek and maintain relationships—living in unity, if you will, while celebrating our diversity.  We can connect with others; we can include others; we can practice radical hospitality—staying in relationship even when a brother or sister in Christ tests the limits of our tolerance or our patience or even our values.

Modeling our common life after the Trinity is not easy. We can sympathize with how difficult this will be to accomplish.  Nicodemus hasn't been the last person asking God, “How can these things be?” We can sympathize with his astonishment at Jesus' telling him he needed to be transformed in a way he did not easily comprehend: “Very truly I tell you, I tell you no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Yet we can take comfort in Jesus' words that follow his challenge of Nicodemus, as Nicodemus himself may have done: “For God so loved the world . . .”  Our hope cannot spring from completely understanding God.  It cannot spring from our own worthiness in living as God in Jesus taught us. Rather it must spring from our trust in God's love for us.  “For God so loved the world . . .”  For me that is enough!