Gospel text for The Annunciation of Mary 22 March 2015

Luke 1:26-38        In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

Reflection      I wonder what would happen if God came to our front door? How would we feel? What would we do? Would we fall face to the ground as did the old prophet Ezekiel? More than once! (Ezel 1.28, 3.23, 43.4, 44.4) Might we be more like Daniel who describes his encounter with God this way,  “The men who were with me did not see the vision; but a great terror fell upon them so they fled. No strength remained in me; for my vigor turned to frailty in me and I retained no strength. … While (God) was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling?” (Dan 10. 7-11) Perhaps we would be more like  Elizabeth’s husband the priest Zachariah, terrified, overwhelmed with fear and left speechless for ten months following his encounter with the angel of God. (Luke 1.13,22)

Or, might we be more like Mary? I wonder if we would accept God’s favor in coming to us and in so doing consent to our inherent goodness? “Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you.” I wonder if we would stay conscious as Mary and engage the Angel of God with questions? “How can this be?” I wonder if we would believe the counsel that “Nothing will be impossible for God?” I wonder if we would look at our lives, the problems we are facing, addictions, depression, our estranged child, our rocky relationship and remember, “Nothing will be impossible for God.” Can we see the relevance of this passage for our every day living? Can we accept its gift when we believe we are in an impossible situation?

Cancer, infertility, death of a loved one? An unplanned pregnancy, student loans, old hurts too deep to leave behind? The cost of child care? The cost of elder care? The millions of people throughout the world who are being displaced and persecuted? The thing is, when we focus on what is impossible for us rather than on what is possible with God, we throw up our hands and bury our heads in the sand. 

But, when we listen with Mary and choose to believe the words, “Nothing will be impossible with God,” we can boldly say, ”Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

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Gospel text for Sunday 15 March 2015

John 3:14-21        Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Reflection Ignorance is bliss… or is it? I recall as a thirteen year old a civic’s lesson my father extolled in the midst of my attempt to weasel out of some misdemeanor. Debra, “But I did not know the rule.” Father, “Ignorance is no excuse, it would not stand up in court. Make it your business to know the rules.” No doubt I responded with one of those grand adolescent eye-rolls because I was one of the people Jesus was talking about in his conversation with Nicodemus who “love darkness rather than light because…(they do not want) their deeds to be exposed.” 

As a child of a strict German father I was thoroughly convinced that I could not measure up, so there was every reason for me to linger in the shadows. If the truth of me was exposed it would not be a pretty sight. Surely I would be one of those people who God’s serpent would bite and I would die. A couple of decades would pass before the egregious lie was exposed to the light and I realized it was up to me to make a choice.

Either I could choose to believe in a God of light and life and love or I could choose to believe in a God who sat in judgment waiting for my next infraction. Jesus’ story of the woman caught in adultery comes to mind. (John 8.1-11) When a group of religious officials approach Jesus with a woman caught in adultery averring that according to Moses’ law the woman should be stoned, Jesus paused, scribbled something in the dirt and basically said, “Whoever among you has never sinned be the first to cast a stone at this woman.” That singular sentence exposed the sin of everyone there present. No stone was cast. Neither did Jesus condemn the woman. He merely counseled her to choose to sin no more. 

Honest self examination, exposing the countless times we turn away from God and fail to love ourselves and our neighbors, is the sure and certain way of living in the light and life and love of Christ. Jesus did not come into the world to “condemn the world” but as an act of unspeakable love, love divine revealed in the person of Jesus for the blessing of all of humanity. 

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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 1 March 2015

Mark 8:31-38        Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Reflection        In spite of Peter’s (and our) great hope to the contrary, Jesus did not come to put an end to suffering in the world. Jesus came to assure us that God is with each and every one of us as we navigate the inevitable suffering of our human condition. In fact, Jesus came and revealed to us the foolish wisdom that there is blessing to be found in suffering, which of course flies in the face of conventional wisdom that blessing is found in power, control and accumulated success (in the shiny purple robes of a warrior king messiah). Which brings us back to Peter whose conventional idea of a messiah put him cross-ways with Jesus. 

Do you remember Jesus’ sermon on the mountain in Matthew’s gospel? “Blessed are…  the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, those who are persecuted…(Matt 5.3-6, 10). These words are nonsense to the conventional wisdom of the world. And, they are the wisdom of the foolish in God’s upside down kingdom.

It is not God’s will that we suffer, nor do I believe it was God’s will that Jesus be tortured and hung on a cross. I believe, it is God’s will that we know God’s presence with us in the midst of the suffering that is inevitable to our mortal human condition. The death-dealing blow of the ruthless words from our Ash Wednesday liturgy leap to mind, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Frankly, the process of returning to dust is not for the faint of heart. Whether it comes by disease, accident or the brutality of others who will stop at nothing to extinguish unvarnished truth, there is no escaping the fatal consequence of life. Returning to dust entails suffering. As Christians this does not give us cause to be angry, afraid or despair. As Christians we understand that suffering opens the way for us to encounter God and experience blessedness. This is the way of setting our minds on divine things rather than on human things.

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Gospel text for Sunday 22 February 2015

Mark 1:9-15        In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Reflection    Baptism is the beginning,  the beginning of a new covenant relationship between God and us.  Baptism is the beginning of a new way of being and participating in life. Baptism is all about we, the living body of Christ on earth, the community of beloveds recognized by the way we live for the good of one another.

Being a Christian does not necessarily mean we believe certain things; Jesus‘ birth from a virgin, every word of the Nicene Creed. Being a Christian does not necessarily mean we do certain things; go to church on Sunday, give money to charities, read the Bible every day. 

Being a Christian means following Jesus,  walking the way of the cross, the way of giving our lives to suffer with and for all of humanity. For some of us that means listening when a friend describes their pain for the seven hundredth time. For others it means bringing meals to the homebound, or speaking out against customs, rules or laws that marginalize or oppress groups of people identified as “other;” the disabled, the aged or infirm, people of lesser or more education, resource or intellect, people of a different race or religion or no religion at all. 

For as long as we submit to labeling anyone as ‘other’ we are forgetting our commission and Jesus’ poignant prayer; “Not my will, but your will be done.”

Jesus dove full into life, revealing God’s love for lepers, maniacs reprobates, and “others.” He built no walls. He stretched no fences. By our baptism we are commissioned to likewise, to live and die for one another.

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Gospel text for Sunday, 15 February 2015

Mark 9:2-9        Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Reflection        “Listen to him!” That’s what the voice from heaven, presumably the voice of God, had to say to the thunderstruck disciples while they were still dazzled by a knock down, wake up, religious experience. “Listen to him!” Surely James, John and Peter’s only thought must have been, “OK, sure, whatever you say. We will listen to him.” 

Can you imagine the three disciples hovering close to Jesus as the were coming down the mountian wanting to catch his every word? Can you imagine them screwing up their eyes and scratching their heads when the first thing Jesus says is, “Tell no one about what (you) have seen, until after the Son of Man (has) risen from the dead.” What are you talking about? Tell no one about the most stupefying religious experience ever? Tell no one that we actually saw you, Jesus, glow and talk with Moses and Elijah who have been dead for a long time?  Tell no one that in an instant the entire mountain was wrapped in a talking cloud? 

Maybe that is what is supposed to happen when we have a rendevouz with God; we are supposed to stop talking and just be there, in the experience. What if a glimpse of God in the face of a stranger or a full on, turn your world upside down religious experience is an invitation to get out of our heads and stop using our words to grasp the ungraspable, to comprehend the incomprehensible?  Aren’t we just like Peter, wanting to make containers, or “dwellings,” to hold onto our precious moments? If only we could capture the truth and beauty and glory of those moments in exqisitely carved wood boxes we could take them with us wherever we go, have a peek in the box whenever we need a dose of truth, beauty or glory. 

But, what if capturing our experiences is like putting lightening bugs into a jar… it kills them? What if that is why Jesus ordered the disciples to stop talking “until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead?” What if Jesus intentionally confounded their (and our) minds so that they would stop talking and just be with him? What if God is in the silence instead of our tidy boxes?

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Gospel text for Sunday 8 February 2015

Mark 1:29-39        Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Reflection           Punctuating our lives with prayer is not unique to the Episcopal Church (Check out the Daily Offices in the Book of Common Prayer!). Our Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and monastic sisters and brothers all teach the value of ordering our lives around regular periods of prayer. Still, many of us are more comfortable with one mega dose of prayer each week. But is it enough to sustain us? Is one whopping Sunday of prayer enough to give us the courage to wholeheartedly pray with Jesus saying, “Not my will but your will be done?” 

This is hard and I believe this is the heart of Mark’s gospel text. “In the morning, while it was still very dark, (Jesus) got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” From the fervid frenzy of the night before, everything is quiet. Jesus goes to a deserted place to confirm his direction, strength and healing power in relationship with God who, little more than forty days earlier annointed him  “My son, the beloved.” All that Jesus says and all that Jesus does is a realization of his relationship in God. That is why Jesus goes off to pray alone, to keep conscious his connection to the source of all that flows through him. I believe Jesus understood that his healings and exorcisms, his parables and preaching were outward and visible signs of the power and presence of God with him. And so Jesus never stopped returning to God, the source and sustainance of his life and ministry. Right down to the wire Jesus submitted, “Not my will but your will be done.”

As daughters and sons of God I believe we too must acknowledge our complete and utter dependence on God, God who is closer to us than our own breath, God who is the source and sustainance of all that we say and all that we do God whose will is not other than our own true will.

It takes courage and faith that God really is with us to drop the arms that keep other people and God at a safe distance. It takes courage and faith that God really is with us to take church outside these doors, connect with strangers, lift them up and invite them into the spiritual consciousness of our interconnected, interdependent relationships with one another and God.  It takes courage and faith that God really is with us to lay down our personal preferences and pray, “Not my will but your will be done.”

One mega dose of praying “Your will be done,” is not  sufficient for me to sustain my courage and faith in the One, Holy and Living God with me as I navigate the moment to moment aches and agony, drama and disappointment, intrigue and injustice that constantly accost me. And so I find myself slipping away from the crowd, sometimes early in the morning when it is still dark, to pray. I find my self closing my office door and taking a few minutes to pray. I find myself sitting in my car praying before the next meeting because one mega dose of prayer on Sunday is not enough to sustain me.

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