Gospel text for Sunday 14 July 2019

Luke 10,25-37        Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 

Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise.”

Reflection        A lawyer who is interested in protecting the conventions of  Hebrew law, not to mention his personal elite status,  stands up to test Jesus asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus, being a wise rabbi, responds to the lawyer with another question, “Well, you are a lawyer, what does the law say?” 

Without missing a beat the lawyer quotes two texts from the Torah. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus replies, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." Ten points for the lawyer. He knows the letter of the law. 

But Jesus does not reply, “Congratulations you have rightly quoted the summary of the law and the prophets as written in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Jesus says, “DO this and you will live.” It seems the pharisaic lawyer is deaf to Jesus’ message and decides to argue a fine point, “Who is my neighbor?” No one would blame Jesus for shaking his head and walking away muttering, “What’s the use?” But, Jesus is merciful, does not give up on the self-satisfied lawyer and offers  him a teaching tale.

A man is destitute, on the verge of death, desperately in need of help on a lonely stretch of desert. The situation seems utterly hopeless until a priest comes by and for a moment we breath a sigh of hope. But wait. The priest, who protects the orthodoxy of the Hebrew scripture crosses to the other side of the road and shows no mercy. At this very moment we take a collective breath and proclaim, “Isn’t that awful? Surely we would never do that.” Let us not be so quick to judge. There are Hebrew prohibitions against touching a corpse, the priest was merely being cautious. If  the destitute man dies and the priest touches his corpse, the priest would be unclean.

Once again our hope for the destitute man rises when a Levite whose job is to assist the priests in worship in the temple but alas and alack, this presumptive holy Levite also crosses to the other side of the road and shows no mercy to the destitute man. Now our ire is really piqued. “How heartless? No doubt this pious Levite considers himself a righteous man. How could he be so callous?”

Are we beginning to sound a bit smug and sanctimonious? Is it time for us to pause and be honest with ourselves lest we don the mantle of self righteousness displayed by the lawyer, the priest and the Levite? How often do we cross the road, look the other way, drive by, change the channel, turn the page, silence the radio or ignore the opportunity to DO mercy?  Let’s be honest. The way to live rightly is to "do mercy" which puts us in right relationship with God and with our neighbors. Whom have we passed by?

Here is the thing. Jesus does not commend us to go, study the law and the prophets like the lawyer. He does not charge us to enforce the orthodoxy of the faith like the priest nor does he direct us to master the traditions of worship like the Levite. No. Jesus commands us to “do mercy” by caring for whomever shows up along our way. “Do mercy” here and now because the Kingdom of Heaven is here, now, and we are intended to be the purveyors of God’s mercy.

Jesus teaches that it is more important to pay attention to this life than be concerned about an afterlife. When Jesus says to the lawyer, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live,” he does not say, do this and you will have a happily ever afterlife. Jesus says, “Do this, and you will live…”  in right relationship with God, right here, right now, on earth.

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Hebrew Testament Text for Sunday, 10 June 2018

Prophet or king, to whom shall we listen?

1 Samuel 8:4-20        All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; [and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers.] He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

Reflection     Events have an interesting way of recurring and we humans have a way of forgetting what we learn. Nearing the end of his life it turns out Samuel’s sons are not unlike his teacher Eli’s sons had been, corrupt. “When (Samuel) made (his sons) judges over Israel… they did not follow in his ways, they took bribes and perverted justice.” (ISam 8.1,3) And the people come to Samuel demanding he anoint for them a king.

Theologians suggest two possible reasons the people want Samuel to  anoint a king for them. One train of thought suggests Samuel’s sons could not be trusted to govern them hence the people want a king “like other nations.” In this case it seems the mass of people want to transfer their alliance from the God of Israel as spoken through the prophet Samuel to an earthly king. This is emblematic of the human inclination to conformity, believing, “If other people do it, it must be right.”

A second school of thought  suggests it is an elite group of elders who come to Samuel asking him to anoint a king because having a king would contribute to their personal gain in wealth and power. Remember, “the best of the peoples’ fields, olive orchards and vineyards would be given to the king’s courtiers.” Power and wealth have an uncanny way of consolidating and self-sustaining.

In either case, Samuel is frustrated but, ever reliant on the Presence of God with him, he listens for the Word God to guide him and hears, “Listen to the voice of the people for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me (the Lord God) from being king over them.”

Faithful to what he “hears” from the Lord, Samuel warns the people about what it will be like to have a king. “He will take your sons and daughters and make them fight his battles and work his fields. He will take your best fields  and tax your businesses to fatten the purses of his rich friends. He will make you slaves, serving his ambition.” But the people refuse to listen. Twenty-six hundred years later, what have we learned?

Why are we humans so tempted to put our faith and pledge allegiance to earthly kings (read caesar, magnate, tycoons)?  Why do we turn our backs to God in favor of the flashing lights and prestidigitation of social, political and religious drama? Why do we still succumb to targeted sound bytes and seditious news pics designed to ignite fear and mistrust of one another? To what voice shall we pledge our allegiance? The voice of the prophet speaking on behalf of God or the voice of the self-serving king?

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Christian Testament text for Sunday 20 September 2015

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a        Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Reflection    Get serious. Get humble. Get on your knees. James’ letter could have been written today to all of us Christians dispersed across the globe who say with our mouths we believe in God and Jesus the Christ and by many of our actions declare the constitutional status of the holy “my;” my preferences, my rights, my desires, my predilections. Where is humility in the sacred-cow of individualism? Where are “the good fruit” born in envy, unbridled ambition and victory at any cost?

Nothing is lost in the urgency of the words penned two thousand years ago. The early Christian community was in crisis as we are. If we dare to call ourselves Christian it is time to pause and look honestly in the mirror. Do we live well? Do we live peaceably? Do we live humbly? Are our lives the living, breathing revelation of God’s good fruit poured out through us? If we cannot answer a resounding “Yes, yes, yes!” to these questions we must then ask ourselves, “How am I not in right relationship with God?”

The “good fruit’ the writer of James’ letter refers to are much the same as the fruit of the Spirit  to which Paul refers in his Letter to the Galatians. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control (Gal 5.22) are evidence of God’s grace working in us as we do the serious work of staying in conscious, conscientious and humble relationship with God. And yes, this is serious work, exercising our spiritual muscles. An athlete works out to strengthen and stretch their physical muscles. A worker practices to develop their competency muscles. An intellectual studies to expand their mental muscles. A person of faith prays rightly to mature their spiritual muscles. Which returns us to the question, “How do we pray rightly?”

The German scholar, Eckhart Tolle, who wrote The Power of Now, encourages us to have disciplined, humble prayer practices and warns us not to let our practices get in the way. Somewhere he wrote, and I paraphrase, “Why don’t we just go there now. Why don’t we just stop and be present to Presence right now?”

Perhaps you would join me in being present to Presence right now. If you would, please close your eyes. Take a deep breath, breathe in and breathe out. Now as you take your next breath experience the place of love in every cell and space of your being. Breathe out. As you take your next breath experience the presence of joy throughout your body. Breathe out.  Now do the same thing with peace, breathing in and breathing out, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control.  Then we conclude the prayer, “O God, here I am. I consent to Your presence and action within me. Please allow the fruit of your Spirit to flow through me for the good of humanity. Amen.”  You may or may not want to get on your knees.

The fruit of the Spirit are already in us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness,   generosity, faithfulness and self-control are the substance of Divine Presence, God with us. Even if we are not experiencing some or any of the fruit they are the fiber, the very meaning of our true self which is not other than God. When we consciously consent to God’s presence and action within us and ask to experience the good fruit of God, we are praying rightly.

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Gospel text for Sunday 8 March 2015

John 2:13-22        The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Reflection        Because of the required pilgrimages to the Temple,  Jerusalem was rather like a tourist destination site. Boatloads of enterprising money changers and merchants competing for the pilgrims’ coins. One fee bought a ritual bath to be purified. For a few more coins you could exchange your foreign currency for the shekel tribute required by the Temple. For the right price you could buy a perfect lamb, goat or a pigeon. The fact is, Jerusalem’s economy depended upon the Temple’s thriving market exchange.

No wonder Jesus was ill-tempered when he stepped into the Temple. Instead of finding a house of worship, Jesus walked into the equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange crossed with a farmer’s market! 

Can you almost hear Jesus thinking, “What is going on here? Is God the supreme butcher of a slaughterhouse? Is God the chief executive of a livestock exchange? Do you really think you can trade a couple of goats for security and redemption? Can God’s grace be bought for a pair of doves? Don’t you know that you should bow down before the Lord, not beg and barter to be blessed in exchange for pigeon blood?” 

What could Jesus do but bellow, “No. No. No. You have no idea what you are doing. You  have no idea who God is. Don’t you see, God does not demand your bloody sacrifices. God does not demand you pay a temple tax. God does not even demand you walk halfway across the Judean countryside three times each year in order to prove your devotion to God.”

God is not locked inside temple walls nor constrained by our goodness or ability to sit still and pray or travel to holy places. God is always and everywhere present. That is what Jesus meant when he said, “Destroy this bricks and mortar Temple; it is not where you meet God. All who believe this will know God present in the meat and potatoes of humanity.” 

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Gospel text for Sunday 10 August 2014

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God.”

Reflection     I believe it is a good thing that ever eager Peter, while walking on water toward Jesus, noticed the squalling winds and began to sink into the sea. Had Peter forged undaunted through the squall, Jesus’ story would be about magic, a happily ever-after ghost tale. Had Peter not noticed the strong winds and slipped into the drink his would not have been a real life story with God. 

Storms are always kicking up dirt, spitting ice or screaming sirens in our journey with God. The thing is, it is not the storms that will get us. The real danger is that we see ourselves as separate from God then scramble to cling to perishing things. 

Instead of pausing and listening for God, we are distracted by things we think we are losing - our boats, our cars, our health, our loved ones, our life. When we hitch our lives to things that perish, naturally we become afraid. It is rather like building our house in a wash or flood plain, eventualy we will be forced to face the truth. We have made our lives depend on things that cannot last. We have worked so hard to stitch together our strategies for safety and security, affection and esteem, power and control that we have left no time to pause and be present to the Presence of God with us. For many of us it is not until we are caught in the midst of a storm, with nothing left to lose that we finaly open the ears of our heart for God. 

But we don’t have to wait until we are beaten up, at the end of our wits or the end of our life. We can decide to pause and listen for God.  The trappist monk, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar Thomas Merton (who died in 1968) counsels, everything we truely desire we already have. All that is needed is that we pause and allow ourselves to experience what we already have. Merton calls the pause, contemplation. It is being present to what is already Present. It is listening for God (New Seeds of Contemplation, chapter 1).

For those who bristle at the word, ‘contemplation’ is not about sitting still. Contemplation is about paying attention to the present moment exactly as it is because God is already there. It takes practice to focus our attention. That’s why some people practice meditation or centering prayer, play the trumpet, paint, run long distances or walk the dog early in the morning. Anything we do with all of our attention opens the ears of our hearts to hear the voice of the One who speaks in the depths of our own being where our life loses its separate voice.

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Hebrew Testament text for 8 December 2013

Isaiah 11:1-10

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him,

the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might,

the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide by what his ears hear;

but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,

and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze,

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den.

They will not hurt or destroy

on all my holy mountain;

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Reflection     Is Isaiah talking about utopia? He speaks of wolves and asps, the poor and meek. If it truly was utopia wouldn’t everyone have everything... and surely there would be no insects and no predators? I don’t believe for a minute that the tale of Jesse has anyting to do with Orwellian utopia. Oddly enough I do believe the tale of Jesse is about the absence of fear. 

I suspect those of you who are careful readers are leaping out of your seats protesting... “What about “the fear of the Lord? His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord?”

Let me be crystal clear, I am not talking about the ‘fear of the Lord,” which may be more aptly interpreted “the knowledge and awe of the Lord.” That kind of fear or awe is a direct and appropriate response to the experience of God’s wisdom, understanding, counsel and might. “Fear of the Lord” is the incomprehensible (hence indescribable) heart pounding, experience of the magnitude of God present.

The kind of fear that is absent in Isaiah’s text is the gut wrenching, breath taking, paralyzing angst and trepidation that stops us in our tracks, prods us to build cement walls around our countries, stockpile weapons inside razon wire fences, put gates on our neighborhoods and alarms on our hearts. The kind of fear that is absent in Isaiah’s tale of Jesse’s offspring is the kind of fear that steals our freedom and forgets who and whose we really are.

You see, when we remember that we are the children of God, the offspring of the Lord God who strikes awe in our hearts and wonder in our minds; when we remember that we are the revelation of God whose will and whose way is held back by no things; then we too can be as innocent as lambs lying with wolves, as curious as toddlers chasing havolina. When we remember that we are descendants of the lineage of Jesse and heirs to the kingdom of God (which, by the way is right here) there is no thing on earth to fear because we live and breath and find our being in the awe and wonder, the wisdom and understanding, the counsel and might and knowledge of Lord God.....present.

Remember the extreme sports marketing movement in the 1970s - bumper stickers, coffee mugs and tee shirts displayed the moniker, “No Fear?” The words called us out.. don’t be lazy, don’t be  paralyzed by the fear of death, don’t be locked into the status quo. I suspect the cranky prophet Isaiah would have worn one of those tee shirts, and Jesus too.

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Gospel text for Sunday 17 March 2013

John 12:1-8       Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

Reflection      The ritual practice of anointing has occurred across diverse cultures for thousands of years for several purposes. Since ancient times smearing oil, scented water, melted butter or perfume on a prophet, priest or king ceremonially imbued them with God’s Holy Spirit so to do their given work. In other words, the ritual had a transformative dimension which ‘empowered’ them to execute their vocation. By contrast, when Mary extravagantly anointed Jesus’ feet not only did she expresss her overflowing affection but she also disclosed her recognition of Jesus as the Christ, Khristós, the man who was already the anointed one.  Mary’s ceremonial action was not efficacious in the sense of being associated with the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Rather, she identified the Divinity of Jesus already present. Jesus interpreted Mary’s anointing in yet another fashion; in ritual preparation for his burial. It was Jewish custom for women to wash and anoint a body with oil and spices as part of ancient funerary rites. Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet foreshadowed his death.

Today in the Episcopal Church we use chrism, which is oil that has been consecrated for the purpose of anointing, during baptisms and in the pastoral office of anointing of the sick. During Baptism the bishop or priest makes the sign of the cross on the newly baptized person’s forehead saying, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and maked as Christ’s own forever. Amen.” In other words, in the context of Baptism, anointing identifies who (and whose) the newly baptized person is. In the Laying on of Hands and Anointing of the Sick, the priest or deacon makes the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead praying the person be filled with grace, healing power and be restored to wholeness and peace.  In this usage anointing expresses a transformative dimension and evocation of God’s of Holy Presence.

As a priest given the privilege of anointing let me just say this. Whether I am placing a myrrh scented sign of the cross on an infant’s pristine forehead or an elder’s furrowed brow the compliment of touch, and smell, and prayer arouses Divine Presence and reaches beyond time.