Sermon for August 30th, 2020

Readings:

Jeremiah 15:15-21
Psalm 26:1-8
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

O Lord, you know.

That is how the prophet Jeremiah begins his prayer.

O Lord, you know.

He could have ended right there. Part of me expects that he did for a while: in exhaustion, in exasperation, in anger, in fear, maybe even in hope, Jeremiah manages to squeeze out those few little words to his creator, and then pauses, takes a haggard breath, tries to take it all in and think of what to do or what to say next.

O Lord, you know.

Is there a more perfect prayer in times of trouble? I don’t know that there is. Sure, Jeremiah goes on to elaborate; he tells God what he wants, he tells God about his pain and his frustrations, but I suspect that those extra words are probably more for Jeremiah’s own benefit than they are for God’s. Everything Jeremiah really needed to say to God he said in those first few words:

O Lord, you know.

Because God does know. God does know the situation that Jeremiah is in. Jeremiah is living in the midst of a world that has gone crazy. The Babylonians are about to invade and destroy Jerusalem. And why wouldn’t they? Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah are ripe for the picking. There is wealth to be plundered; people to be exploited. New slaves, cheap labor, easy money. Why wouldn’t the Babylonians invade? It’s not like the Judeans could put up a united front to fight them off. They were too busy destroying themselves.

That was Jeremiah’s real burden and pain, it wasn’t the destructive power of the Babylonians that upset him, it was the self-destruction of his own people. Jeremiah’s own kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah, was destroying itself from within and it’s breaking his heart. In the beginning of his ministry as a prophet, God gave Jeremiah a message for his people and the message was this:

I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?”

Those who handle the law did not know me;

The rulers transgressed against me;

The prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit.

Wanton waste

Faithless religious leaders

Lawyers that neither know or care about the difference between right and wrong

Politicians that recognize no power above their own

And boundless prophets of lesser idols urging them to keep chasing after the wrong things.

If you try to read Jeremiah and wonder why he’s in such a bad mood all the time, well just imagine if your entire life was one long 2020, and maybe you’ll cut him some slack. I think exasperation is really the best word for Jeremiah’s state of mind, because he is really struggling with what it means to be faithful in a faithless world. He’s exasperated and he doesn’t know how long he can keep doing it.

At one point, Jeremiah shows up in the temple, and on God’s behalf he calls everyone out for their hypocrisy:

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal and go after other Gods, and then come and stand before me in this house?

Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.

I am watching, says the Lord. That is the message that God gave Jeremiah to say. I am watching.

Needless to say, Jeremiah’s message was not popular and neither was he. He wanted to give up, at one point he regretted even being born, and that is when he slumps down before God and utters:

O Lord, you know.

I can barely imagine all of the thoughts and emotions that Jeremiah is packing into that simple prayer:

Lord, you know about the corruption in this world.

Lord, you know about people that have no respect for or belief in a higher power.

Lord, you know about people that only seek after their own good and care not for the needs of others.

Lord, you know about how careless and wasteful we are will all your gifts, especially with your creation.

Lord, you know that many of our religious leaders care more about secular power and influence than they do about faith.

Lord, you know about people that are suffering. You know about people that are sick and worried about their lives.

You know about people that are poor and hungry.

You know about the people that are trying to manipulate the system and you know about the people that the system has failed.

You know about injustice.

You know about cruelty.

You know about lying.

You know about incompetence.

I can imagine that Jeremiah is also looking for the faith to say: Lord, you also know about our hopes, and our dreams.

You know about our capacity to love and to forgive.

You know that despite how awful humans can be, that once in a while through that spark of love that you gave them, they can be pretty amazing too.

You know that only good can overcome evil.

You know, Lord, why you have called us.

And you, and only you, know the road that lies ahead.

Maybe it doesn’t look like much on paper, but when Jeremiah says “O Lord, you know,” he’s saying a mouthful. And despite the fact that Jeremiah goes on for about 37 more chapters, he really says right there all that needs to be said. Because recognizing that God knows, is really the battle isn’t it? That is the hardest truth for us to absorb sometimes, the fact that God does know what is going on in this world.

God knows when we are suffering and in need; God knows when we have a cross to bear,

AND God knows when we are following him and when we are not. God knows when we have turned away from him. God knows when I am chasing after false idols of my own creation. God knows when it is Satan’s words on my tongue and not his own. God knows when my mind is set on divine things and when my mind is set on human things. I may not always know, or I might know and hope that God doesn’t know, but God knows.

Jeremiah’s few little words they do so much, they give honor and recognition to God, and they remind us of something that we are liable to forget every minute of the day: that God knows.

Exasperation is an emotion that I know a thing or two about, and I am guessing that pretty much everyone these days could say the same. If you are struggling with how to pray, what to pray for, who to pray for, if you are frustrated with the way things are, if it seems like everyone has just gone crazy, if you are worried about the future and the road that lies ahead, maybe you could just take a moment and pray with me these words of Jeremiah’s, words that say everything when I don’t know what to say; words that I keep repeating more and more these days:

O Lord, you know.

Sermon for Sunday, August 23rd, 2020

Readings:

Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

March seems like decades ago.

When we were gathered together for our parish’s annual meeting at the beginning of February, I cracked a joke about sending our new Junior Warden to Wuhan China, where the people were battling the outbreak of some strange virus. I never imagined that within a little over a month we would be living in the epicenter of a new disease outbreak, Covid-19, caused by that same virus. I never imagined that our churches and our lives would be locked down. I never imagined that social gatherings would come to an end. I never imagined that our faces would become almost permanently covered by these masks.

It is hard to believe now, that we actually thought in March that things would be getting back to normal by Easter. And here we are, closing in on the end of the summer, and although we may be able to open our doors again and have some gatherings for worship, we are a long way from what any of us would consider “normal.”

In the beginning of March, Keith and I went to see Celine Dion in concert at the coliseum, something that I couldn’t imagine doing now. So much has happened since then. It seems like decades ago.

We have lost parishioners to this disease. Quite a few of you have had it and some I know are still suffering from its effects long after you have “recovered.” And of course, there has been more going on in our world than just covid-19. Our country is in the middle of one of the most divided, polarizing times in its history. Politics, race, medicine, science, it doesn’t seem like we can agree on anything. Everything is now a source of division. The internet, which we all know has this extraordinary power to bring people together, is used more and more to tear people apart. I don’t know, something about being online makes people lose their humanity. We stop thinking for ourselves. We stop reading critically. We share memes and news articles and headlines that other people have shared, not stopping to really question or investigate: is this true? Is this helpful? Is this intended to build people up or tear them down? Does this really reflect what I believe or am I just being used as a tool in someone else’s agenda? There is a huge difference between being informed and educated and being manipulated. There is a difference between opening our minds and poisoning them.

It is a difficult and painful time that we all live in. And yet,

I believe that God is still good.

I believe that Jesus is still the messiah, the son of the living God.

I believe that the lord is still the sovereign king of the universe

And I believe that the kingdom of God is still alive and well in this very broken world of ours.

Now some priests like to stand up and tell people that they need to go out and change the world. I’m not gonna do that. Oh I think the world needs changing, but I think most of us are too broken ourselves to go around thinking that we can fix things. If we aren’t actively allowing and asking God to change us first, then we are just going to make a bigger mess of things when we go out trying to change others. We need to change first.

When we were in the midst of the more strict and severe lockdown earlier this year, when things really were shutdown and we were far more isolated even than we are now, I had what was for me a bit of an epiphany. I was so frustrated at all of the changes and all of the restrictions that I frankly didn’t want to deal with, and it was really starting to get me down. And at some point I heard this little voice in my head that said: this can either be a prison, or it can be a cocoon. It’s your choice.

I could either choose to look at my situation as a prison, something forced upon me that I could sit around resenting and railing against, like some prisoner rattling his cup against the bars, or

I could see it as a cocoon. A time of transformation. A time for becoming something different. Something better. A time that ends, not just with a return to the life I knew before, but a time that ends with a new life.

I think that really is the challenge of the time we are living in: do we see it as a prison or a cocoon? Are we sitting around waiting to just go back to the way things were, or are we hoping for something better? Are we allowing ourselves to be transformed?

Our approach to this season of living with the coronavirus, may in fact be emblematic of our approach to faith, and life, in general.

Is our response to God just sitting around waiting to be set free on some future day by some cosmic jailer or are we actively offering ourselves, or souls and bodies, to God as something to be transformed and shaped like a piece of clay, or perhaps, a caterpillar?

Saint Paul, who knew a thing or two about sitting in a prison cell, wrote to the Church in Rome, a church that was itself struggling with internal division, a church living in uncertain and dangerous times, Paul writes to that church and says: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Another translation puts it as “spiritual worship.” Either way, Paul is saying that if you really want to offer God something, offer God yourself. Offer God your life as a living sacrifice. Not as someone whose life is ended by the act of sacrifice, but as someone whose life is transformed, re-created, re-ordered or re-oriented by an ongoing act of living sacrifice.

“Do not be conformed to this world,” Paul says, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God- what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Do not be conformed, but be transformed. During this strange time which we all find ourselves to be in, are we being conformed or are we being transformed? Are we renewing our minds? Are we allowing God to shape us and transform us? Or are we allowing ourselves to be conformed to the world as it is? Are we allowing God to use and shape the raw materials of our lives? Are we giving God full use of the gifts that he gave us in the first place? Because if we aren’t being transformed by God, we will never be able to truly know what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Now, I don’t think that Jesus is some self-help guru that wants you to attain some enlightened state merely for your own enjoyment and benefit. If God has given you gifts, if God is transforming you, then it is for the sake of all of his people, not just for you. But if we really care about God’s kingdom coming and God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, then we will begin not with trying to change others, but by first allowing God to transform and renew us. That, Paul says, is a part of our worship.

Since March, none of us have been able to worship God the way that we are accustomed to and the way that we would like, and although I long for the day when we can get back to some of our honored and time-tested traditions, I also know that worship comes in many forms. Perhaps one of the ways that we are being called right now to worship God is through the renewing of our minds. Maybe we are being called to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, by being called into a time of focused transformation. But if we are going to allow God to renew us, then we need to make sure we are actually being transformed by God and not conformed to the world.

My advice, as your priest and as someone who struggles with all this as well is pretty simple: spend less time on the internet. Use social media to share pictures of your kids or your cats, not for news and information. Maybe turn the news off and listen to the talking heads a bit less. I have said this before. I know that may seem pretty funny for some of you right now, that are watching this service on the internet. For many of you the internet is the only way you have been able to worship or keep in contact with other people throughout this crisis; it can be a wonderful tool for information and connection. But it also a powerful tool for manipulation and conformation. We are told what to think, how to think, what to believe, what to be angry about, what not to be angry about…my cultivated newsfeed tells me what to buy, who to vote for. My emotions, my fears, my hopes and dreams, they are manipulated and used. We end up spending more time getting into stupid arguments with people we don’t know, than we do learning a skill or showing love and concern. If you really want to transform your mind, stop wasting time reading and sharing articles that support and “prove” things you already believe or want to believe, and maybe pick up an actual, old-fashioned book for a change. An old book, one written a very long time ago by someone very different from you. Learn a language, try some new recipes, pray the rosary, go for a walk, read all of Paul’s letter to the Romans, or Luke’s gospel, or read a Psalm each day. If you are using the internet to worship and renew your mind, great, if you are using it to stay connected to your church or to loved ones, great, but if all you are using it to do is to share things that you didn’t write, and argue with people that you don’t know, about things that don’t affect you, and which you may, in fact, not understand, then I am here to tell you that you are being conformed to what the powers of this world want you to be.

“Do not be conformed to this world,” Paul says, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

We are still living in this strange and difficult time. Restrictions have lightened a bit, we have gotten used to some things, but we are a long way from where we want to be. There are many things right now that are beyond our control. But one thing we do have control over is how we respond to this time. How we approach it. We can see it as a prison. We can grow ever more resentful, we can withdraw further and further into our little silos of like-minded but perpetually angry people. Or we can see it as a cocoon, a time of focused transformation and change, where what we become is far more beautiful and marvelous than what we were before. We can be conformed or we can be transformed.

Sermon for August 16th, 2020

Readings

Isaiah 56:1,6-8 Psalm 67 Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

Sermon begins at 10:23

 

 

There is a difference between a deep and sincere faith in God’s love and mercy and presumption.

 

There is a difference between believing that God does do something, and believing that God MUST do something.

 

I can have a sincere belief in God’s power and willingness to forgive wrongs that I have committed, but that is a very different thing than believing that God MUST forgive them. If we allow ourselves to think that God’s mercy and forgiveness are in any sense owed to us, that God is bound to show them, then we immediately turn God’s grace into something else. We turn God’s grace into a wage. Wages are owed, gifts are freely given. So, is God’s mercy and grace meant to be a gift or a wage? Do we think inclusion in God’s kingdom is something that we are owed or is it something that we know in our hearts we have no right to?

 

There is a huge difference between these two ways of thinking and acting, but the problem is, on the surface they can look very much alike. The line between them, although it is definite, can be quite fine. We really have to take a close look sometimes to see if someone’s actions, even our own actions, are a product of sincere faith or of presumption.

 

Are we approaching the Lord in sincere humility and trusting in his goodness, or do we think that God owes us something?

 

Today’s gospel passage is a difficult one for many, because Jesus doesn’t appear to be quite the pushover that we sometimes want him to be. I’ve heard plenty of creatively terrible interpretations of this passage, but what I think is on vivid display here in the actions of this Canaanite woman is the distinction between faith and presumption.

 

Jesus, spent most of his life and career preaching and teaching in the northern part of the Holy Land, in the region surrounding the sea of Galilee. Before the Babylonian captivity, when there were still two kingdoms, this region was known as the Kingdom of Israel. And before the Babylonians invaded and destroyed Jerusalem, the Assyrians invaded and destroyed the Northern kingdom of Israel, and the inhabitants of that kingdom were scattered and dispersed, most never to be heard from again. It was on the northern coast of this region, near the towns of Tyre and Sidon that Jesus is preaching in in today’s gospel.

 

And while Jesus is there, a Canaanite woman, comes up to him and begs for mercy for her daughter. Now the Canaanites were the ancient enemies of the Hebrew people. They were a different religion, a different race, and they had pretty much always been at war with the Hebrew tribes. This woman from the enemy camp comes up to Jesus, and calls him Lord and Son of David, and she asks for mercy. And Jesus says nothing at first. He doesn’t respond right away.

 

Now if Jesus’s disciples had their way, they would have just dismissed this woman and sent her packing. That’s what they want Jesus to do: just send her away. She’s annoying. She’s not one of us. She doesn’t belong here. But Jesus doesn’t do that either.

 

Jesus lets her speak. And when Jesus does respond, what he says to the woman, although it seems difficult to us, would have come as no surprise to either her or anyone else there: Jesus was a Hebrew. He was a law-abiding, observant Jew. His life was spent primarily preaching and teaching and healing and arguing with other Jews. What business does he have with this Canaanite woman? Is Jesus bound to listen to her and grant her requests? Is it fair for a Hebrew prophet to be showering God’s grace on people that are the historic enemies of the Hebrews? Does God owe this woman something? That is the real question here: does Jesus owe this woman anything?

 

And the answer is: NO. Jesus doesn’t owe this woman anything. That may make us a bit uncomfortable, because we don’t like it when Jesus doesn’t say yes to everything we ask, but it doesn’t seem to bother this woman too much. She doesn’t turn against Jesus or accuse him of being racist or unkind or unfair. This woman knows that Jesus doesn’t owe her anything. This woman knows that there is no reason why the Hebrew God should take any interest in her. She knows it isn’t fair for the Hebrew God to show mercy to the enemies of his chosen people, but she isn’t looking for fairness. She is looking for mercy. She is looking for something that she has absolutely no right to, but she believes inn her heart that this man Jesus will give it to her nonetheless. She trusts in Jesus’s love more than she trusts in the rightness of her own cause. That is faith in God’s love and mercy: knowing that you don’t deserve something, have no right to it, haven’t earned it, and believing that God will give it to you anyways. That is faith.

 

Presumption is a bit different. If this woman had been presumptuous this conversation might have taken a different turn. A presumptuous person would have tried to convince Jesus that he was in fact, being unfair. A presumptuous person would have told Jesus that it is unfair for their child to be possessed by a demon and suffering. A presumptuous person would have argued that God is supposed to be merciful all the time to everyone, regardless of their own actions. A presumptuous person would have tried to argue that God, in fact, owed this woman something. A presumptuous person wants to see Jesus’s mercy as a given, something that can be taken for granted, and not as what it truly is: a gift that we have no right to. Presumption is dangerous for all of God’s children, whether you are a Jew or a gentile. We can all fall into presumption. Let us remember that John the Baptist said to the Jews gathered at the Jordan river: “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our ancestor’: for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” It is possible to trust in God’s mercy without presuming upon it, or taking it for granted, but we must always be vigilant.

 

You know, we live in a world of people that are suffering. We live in a world where people feel hopeless and condemned. We live in a world, where people think that IF God exists, that he doesn’t really care about them or their lives. We need to be able to preach faith to that world. We need to be able to talk about and to witness to the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, but we also need to be careful that what we are preaching and what we are practicing is faith and not presumption. Let us be sure that we aren’t turning God’s free gift into something that is owed or earned. Maybe the best way to know the difference between faith and presumption is examining how we respond when God says “no.” If God doesn’t do things exactly the way we want, when we want; if Jesus doesn’t grant our every wish, if he doesn’t pat us on the back every hour of the day and tell us we are doing a good job, how do we respond? Because if our response to God’s “no” is to turn away from God, then I guess that says something about whose righteousness we actually have more faith in.

 

The fact that people of every race and nation are welcomed by this Hebrew Lord into God’s one kingdom, is a miracle. When God shows us grace and forgiveness and love and healing, it is a miracle. The fact that God doesn’t send us willful and sinful creatures immediately on our way, the fact that God doesn’t immediately dismiss us, but is willing to hear our cries for help, that is a miracle, because you know what, the truth is…God doesn’t owe us anything.

 

Not a thing. God doesn’t owe any of us, anything. That is what makes God’s love and mercy so amazing.

 

The Canaanite woman is not asking Jesus for something she deserves. She knows better than that. That is what makes her faith so amazing. She trusts that this God will bless her with something that she does not deserve. It is a powerful image that should always be in our heads whenever we approach God’s altar and say:

 

We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.

 

 

Sermon for Sunday, August 9th, 2020

Readings:

1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 85:8-13
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33

I want to take a moment and talk about the exodus story.

It’s one of the foundational stories of our faith. It is the foundational story of the Jewish faith as well. It has been depicted in film enough that even if you aren’t a person of faith you probably know the story of Moses, Pharaoh, the Hebrew Slaves and the crossing of the Red Sea. So, think about that story for a minute. Specifically, I want you to think about the timeline of that story.

God hears the sufferings of his people. God sees people enslaved. God demonstrates his power through Moses. The people are miraculously freed: the Red Sea parts, there are pillars of cloud and fire, God gives them food, God gives them water. Then they reach Mt. Sinai, where God gives them his Ten Commandments; his rules for living in this world. And finally, after much wandering, the people reach the borders of God’s promised land. All along the way the people kept wanting to turn back. They grumbled, they turned away, they made mistakes, they were unfaithful, but God was faithful.

So, God hears his people. God saves them and sets them free. Then God gives them the law.

The Children of Israel escape from Pharaoh, they cross the Red Sea, they are fed and watered by God in the desert, and then they reach Mt. Sinai where God gives them his rules for daily living.

God hears his people. God saves them. God instructs them. That is the timeline of this story.

I really want you to get the order of events here so I am going to keep saying them:

God hears his people. God saves them. Then God instructs them.

That is the order of events in this story that lies at the heart of our faith.

God hears his people. God saves them. God instructs them.

So why is it then that we are always turning that order of events upside down? We hear this story about God hearing people, God saving them, and then God giving them commandments for how to live, but we live our lives and we live our faith as if it happened in reverse order. And this is not a Jewish and Christian divide. We all, I think, have a tendency to do this.

We think that if I just get the commandments right: if I study relentlessly, if I get all the science right, if I make the right choices and do the right actions, THEN God will save me. And then and only then, after I have made the right choices, and after God has decided that I am worthy of saving, then God will hear me.  We may not come out and say it just like that, but isn’t that what we really think? Isn’t that how we act?

God hears his people. God saves them. God instructs them.

That is how the story goes, but we are so inclined to turn that story upside down, that every now and then we need someone to come around and turn it right side up again. We need someone to come along and say: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” In other words, God isn’t waiting for you to get it right before he hears you or before he saves you. Did God save the Children of Israel because they were obedient to the Law? NO, he had’t even given them the law yet. God saves them, because God loves them. God saves them, because that is what God does. This is a saving God. That is what we are called first and foremost to have faith in: the fact that God can and does hear us and save us, as we are, enslaved to whatever we are enslaved to in this world, before we have ever figured out how to live according to his commandments. God saves us first, then God teaches us. God is faithful to us, before we even have the capacity to be faithful to him.

As he began to sink into the water, Peter cried out, “Lord save me.” And Jesus Immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus has a lesson for Peter here, but you might notice that the lesson came after he pulled him out of the water. When Peter cried for help Jesus responded immediately. There is a time for teaching your children life’s lessons, but not when their lives are in danger. Jesus wants to talk to Peter about why he was doubting and about why he turned away from him, but he pulls him out of the water first.

God hears his people. God saves them. Then, God instructs them.

Of course, the instructions are important; of course, the commandments are important. Of course, Jesus wants us to listen to him about how we are to live in this world, and live in relationship with God and each other, but the Good News is that the commandments are meant to be our response to God’s salvation, they are not meant to be a condition of our salvation. Jesus did not quiz Peter on the Baptismal Covenant or on the Ten Commandments before he decided whether to pull him out of the water. Thankfully, that’s not how our God works. Our God is faithful, even when we are not. When we turn away from God, when we start focusing more on ourselves and on the work of our own hands, when we stop focusing on Jesus and start staring at our own feet, when we start to think we can do it on our own, and when we inevitably sink into the water, God is right there to grab us and pick us back up again. We just have to call on him.

Now to be sure, Jesus may have some words for us when we are back in the boat or on dry land. God’s commandments are important, Jesus’s teachings are vital, and we would be wise to pay close attention to them and heed them, but let’s always remember how the sotry goes and not get things out of order.

God hears us. God saves us. THEN God instructs us.