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 Little
Actions with Great Results
Sermon for Proper 6, our First
Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Michael’s, June 18th,
2006
By Father John R. Smith
Today
the liturgical color changes to green, the color of the ordinary
time of the church year. It’s appropriate that it’s
called "ordinary" because for the next 26 weeks until
the First Sunday of Advent we focus on the "ordinary"
living out of the Christian life. For the past 26 weeks we
have celebrated all the great events of Jesus’ coming among
us: Advent, waiting for him to come; Christmas, his birth,
Epiphany, his manifestation to the whole world; Lent, his
suffering and death to make atonement for the sins of the world;
Easter, his rising to new life and making it possible for us; and
Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit to the church.
These 26 "ordinary" weeks put the question to us:
If Jesus has come, died for us, and given the Spirit to us, how
should we to live our lives day to day?
This
challenge is put to us by St. Paul in the second reading today
when he acknowledges that while we would like to be at home with
the Lord, we’re not going anywhere real fast, so we "make
it our aim to please him." It would be nice to be away
from our bodies, as the New Agers would say, but we’re in
these bodies now and we’ll receive recompense for what we
do, whether good or evil.
So what direction does the
Word of God point us in this morning, at the beginning of this
"ordinary" time? The first direction it points us
in comes from Ezekiel. Actually it points us away from all
forms of pride in the heart, all the ways we align ourselves with
the powers of this world who subtlety or otherwise declare
independence from the Living God. "Consider Assyria, a
cedar of Lebanon, with fair branches and forest shade, and of
great height, its top among the clouds . . . All the birds of the
air made their nests in its boughs." It was the
greatest of nations and it could wield its power and make its
presence felt anywhere it wished, disregarding any nation which
opposed the extension of its will. "Therefore thus
says the Lord God: Because it towered high and set its top
among the clouds, and its heart was proud of its height, I gave
it into the hand of the prince of the nations; he has dealt with
it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out.
Foreigners from the most terrible of the nations have cut it down
and left it."
The psalmist cries out:
"Lord,
how great are your works! Your thoughts are very deep.
The dullard does not know nor does the fool understand that the
wicked grow like weeds, and all the workers of iniquity flourish
. . . Your enemies, O Lord, shall perish and all the workers of
iniquity shall be scattered . . . But the righteous shall
flourish like a palm tree . . . Those that are planted in the
house of the Lord."
What
we’re about these next 26 weeks is to be "planted in
the house of the Lord," learning how to sow the seeds of the
kingdom, which at the beginning of our efforts are like a mustard
seed, the smallest of seeds, which, when planted becomes a truly
helpful, with branches and leaves that really are a blessing in
the world. The Kingdom of God doesn’t come about by
the shock and awe of power, but by the smallest acts of love and
reconciliation we produce by God’s grace. This is
wisdom for living in a world with enemies all around us.
The problem is that we don’t see the effects of small
actions, of the tiny mustard seeds of love we sow, and because
these things seem so insignificant, especially when our hurt is
great, we don’t live this way of wisdom.
The
famous eighteenth-century French philosopher and cynic, Voltaire,
was no friend to religion as it was known in his day. Yet in one
of the sayings for which he has become justly famous, he captured
the meaning of this parable in the lives of Christians of any
age. "How infinitesimal is the importance of anything I can
do," he wrote with great wisdom. "But how infinitely
important it is that I should do it." That is the parable of
the kingdom and the lesson of the mustard seed. Our lives are
more than the sum of days lived, dollars earned, or how much we
have made our will felt in the world.. Life has meaning beyond
the walls of self-interest and ego. We live in relation to one
another and to the world around us. And in that relationship we
find the meaning of the kingdom and the worth and value of our
lives. And that is infinitely important Good News. Amen.
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The Da Vinci Code: great
fiction!
Sermon for Trinity Sunday
St. Michael’s,
June 11th, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
Trinity
Sunday and time to address The Da
Vinci Code blockbuster book and now
movie. It’s author Dan Brown versus St. Athanasius,
the great defender of the Doctrine of the Trinity. If you
think Dan Brown’s book is full of intrigue, the life of St.
Athanasius was much fuller. There were so many plots to get
rid of him, but he escaped and despite continuing opposition,
never stopped teaching that Jesus Christ is God and that this
core teaching is founded in the Bible, and is the vital essence
of Christian faith. But in The
Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown claims the
Emperor Constantine, who converted to Christianity in 313 AD,
invented the divinity of Jesus and used his power at the Council
of Nicea in 325 AD to force this declaration of Jesus’
divinity to pass by a "close vote." Brown doesn’t
admit that the belief that Jesus was God was around from the time
of the Apostles (i.e. John’s Gospel has Jesus refer to
himself as "I Am" several times, the name God gave to
Moses in Exodus- "Tell them I Am who I Am").
And the "close" vote was 316 to 2! And Brown
doesn’t mention that the Imperial Court continued the
fiercest opposition to the divinity of Christ of all, causing St.
Athanasius to burn himself out defending the faith and often
fearing for his life!
So, when it comes to Dan Brown
or St. Athanasius, there’s no comparison. There’s
one God that real, down to earth, regular people have experienced
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But what difference does
this really make for most Christian folks? Karl Rahner, one
of the great theologians of the 20th Century, said 30 years ago:
It doesn’t make much difference at all. Rahner said
that most Christians live as "mere monotheists"
anyway. If you dropped the Doctrine of the Trinity from the
deposit of Christian Faith for most folks it wouldn’t
change a thing. Leave out the Trinity with its centerpiece
of the divine nature of Jesus and the bulk of preaching, writing,
singing, and mindsets in general wouldn’t change at all.
Christians just believe in God like everyone else. But, as
Rahner pointed out, we Christians do have a different and
distinctive way of understanding God, one that does set us apart
from general beliefs in God. Yet, even though our prayers,
creeds, and liturgical symbols are thoroughly Trinitarian, the
bulk of our thinking about God and the way we live remains
solidly monotheistic.
The key to that last sentence
were the words "the way we live." The Doctrine of
the Trinity was not a construct of the mind imposed upon the
masses, but came out of a living experience of God, the
wellspring of existence and the heartbeat of creation. The
experience of Love. Love in its essence is relationship.
As St. Augustine put it: "Love is of someone who
loves, and something in love with love. So then there are
three: the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love."
This is Trinity. This is a God who is social God and who
wants to be the center of all relationship. Jesus’
central teaching was, is, and always will be "love one
another".
That’s why its important
not to settle for a monotheistic life view as a Christian which
is very prevalent today, even with sweet Jesus songs sung all
over the place. Let me explain. From a comparative
religion point of view you have three ways you can go:
polytheism (many Gods), monotheism (one God), dualism (opposing
forces), or trinity (three loving persons in one God). In
polytheism there’s many gods most of the time in conflict
with one another to come out on top. In monotheism there’s
one God and prophets who declare God’s will at great harm
to those who don’t follow it. In dualism you’re
locked into a cosmic struggle between good and evil, the material
world and the spiritual world, the body and soul, light and
darkness, and so forth. But with the Trinity we get Love in
relationship and an invitation to live in loving community with
others. The Love of the Triune God frees us-- unless we
persist in a monotheistic view, try to keep all the laws, and get
real upset with ourselves when we or (and this is usually the
case) others don’t live up to our expectations.
One
of the things I love about the Episcopal Church and the upcoming
General Convention is its commitment to the Trinity, to a social
God, to breaking out of the monotheistic viewpoint of a God of
law who cuts off transgressors which many Christians live today.
This is where the Spirit is working. Being born again is
not easy and we’re going through a time of new birth.
We sometimes we wish we could come to Jesus, like Nicodemus,
under the cover of darkness. But the Spirit says don’t
be afraid of the light, you are the children of God, don’t
worry, love one another and trust. This Love will cover a
multitude of sins. The Spirit blows where it wills so don’t
think all you have to do is to turn off the electric fans.
God is relationship, don’t be surprised that relationship
is the question of the day. It’s always been the
question It’s rooted in God’s very
nature.
So, don’t be misled by fiction.
The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity isn’t simply a matter of
words. It forms the core belief of our faith in which we
proclaim the unity between the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Community in Love. It’s not just a
matter of words. It’s a matter of the heart, it’s
a matter of the mind, it’s a matter of who God is and who
God is…for everyone!
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Life in the Spirit
Sermon for
Pentecost Sunday
St. Michael’s, June 4th, 2006
By
Father John R. Smith
Welcome to Pentecost Sunday! My goal
for this sermon is to renew a sense of the Holy Spirit’s
presence in each one of us! The disciples of Jesus
experienced - fifty days after his departure, a radical change in
their lives. They started - after the fire and the wind touched
them and entered them - to do things that they had never
done before. They were made new creatures - brought to life - in
a new way - and they changed the world! The Spirit of God - that
breath that proceeds from the Father and the Son - so creative
and making all things new - enabled them to be all that God
intended for them to be.. The Day of Pentecost ushered in a new
age, the age of the Spirit - the age of new life - not just for
them but for all people. This is our hope!
When
we were baptized we were given the Holy Spirit to help us become
disciples -- ready to give our lives for Jesus. But as we
grow up our lives get busy and more complicated, its easy for the
Holy Spirit to be pushed out and forced to live below the surface
of our minds and hearts. We struggle along, going through
the motions of religion, without realizing the benefits of our
Baptism. Let me tell you a story, a very simple, but true
story about a man called Yates, but who could be you and me - and
this congregation we call St. Michael’s - or any of a
thousand and one other congregations, a thousand and one other
persons. The man’s name was Yates. He lived during
the depression and owned a sheep ranch in Texas. He didn’t
have enough money to continue paying on his mortgage - in fact he
was forced like many others to live on government subsidies. Each
day as he tended his sheep he worried about how he was going to
pay his bills. Sometime later a seismographic crew arrived on his
land and said that there might be oil on his land. The test
drill proved it. At 1115 feet a huge oil reserve was struck
- subsequent wells revealed even more oil than the first well
revealed. Mr Yates owned it all. He had the oil and mineral
rights. He had been living on relief - yet he was a millionaire.
Think of it - he owned all that oil with its tremendous
potential, yet for many years he did not realize it. How often
are we like Mr. Yate's? Considering ourselves poor and helpless
all the while unaware of the extraordinary power that we have
available to us - which, like I said, is lying just below the
surface in our minds and our hearts.
So it happens
sometimes we’re living on top of a precious asset but we
don’t know what we’re missing, what to do with it, or
how to make it a part of our lives. It’s possible to
strike it rich and still have to deal with the same old you.
A real evolutionary step can only be made if mentalities and
attitudes change; real progress can only be made if outlooks and
judgments change. That is what happened at the moment that the
Spirit of God descended, at that moment all the disciples of
Jesus became not only capable of speaking all kinds of languages,
but were willing to use those languages to engage people they
never would have thought of addressing before. It happened when
they went from believing in forgiveness to showing forgiveness,
It happened when they went from believing that God would protect
them to actually venturing forth from the upper room into the
danger filled streets of Jerusalem. It came when they went from
thinking about what Jesus had said, to proclaiming what he said -
in word - and in deed, and reaching out to heal, to serve - and
to love - all those around them.
There is a
mysterious moment in our all of lives - a moment when belief
comes alive - a moment when our thinking about the promises that
God has made becomes in us a transforming faith - a moment when
ideas and concepts suddenly move our minds and our hearts, and
begin to move our feet and our hands, our mouths and our lips in
a new and a life giving way. That moment is the baptism of the
Holy Spirit and our lives are never the same again.
Maybe
you’ve had that moment and want to live it again.
Maybe you’ve never had such a moment, but you would like to
experience it. The key is in asking and acting.
Respond to the actual graces of taking time for prayer and
worship. Even if its for a short time each day and Mass on
Sundays-- say yes, to prayer and worship. Say yes to the
service of others. The Holy Spirit likes to flow as it
accomplishes its work. Let peace and forgiveness flow
through you -- so many are in some kind of spiritual or emotional
bind-- unbind as many as you can. In doing this you will
find yourself set free! This make real the fifth promise of
the Baptismal Covenant: respecting the dignity of every
human being. Somehow people who want to be followers of
Christ think this doesn’t apply to every single person,
there are so many we don’t like, or don’t like us,
but it does apply to everyone.
Let’s ask this
morning. Let’s let the Holy Spirit rise above the
surface of our lives and change things. Let’s be a
Church on the move as it was from the beginning. Out of our
Upper Rooms and into the streets, for people. The Spirit
isn’t given to us for us to have a wonderful, personal
"spirituality" or as an elite group practicing a
religion close to our political opinions, be they left, right, or
center. The Holy Spirit is given to make us Church, a
people called to transform the world. The Spirit doesn’t
guarantee that we’ll always get it right, always making
wise and good decisions, but it does guarantee that we will never
be orphans. The Holy Spirit does guarantee that the
Church’s mission will go on and on until Kingdom come.
The Holy Spirit points us to Jesus and brings us to the Father.
The Holy Spirit moves in the water, in bread, in wine, and oil,
and in our prayers alone or together. The Holy Spirit
pushes us beyond ourselves, our normal ways of thinking and
acting and gives us hope in difficult times and circumstances.
We need the Holy Spirit. Ask for the Holy Spirit every five
minutes, live confidently, don’t be afraid. Peace be
with you. "Come Holy Spirit." And watch
out-- your prayer will be answered! Amen!
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Outsiders Are In
Sermon for the Fifth
Sunday of Easter
St. Michael’s, May 14th, 2006
By
Father John R. Smith
Before coming to
St. Michaels, when our kids were smaller, Kathleen and I had a
sailboat. We would trailer it to the Northwest and put it
in the water at Bellingham, near Kathleen’s folk place, and
sail the San Juan Islands. Small sailboats don’t go
very fast so you have to make use of the tides and currents to
get anywhere. You’d set out with the current arrows
pointing in one direction, but if you didn’t make it all
the way to your destination often you would find yourself in a
place where another tidal current met the one you were using and
for a time the tiller would not be of much use and the boat
seemed out of control though still perfectly afloat. The
first or second time through one of these you’re kind of
nervous, but in the long run you become a better sailor and learn
how to use all the currents to get where you need to go.
I think the
Christian church in general, and our own denomination in
particular, is going through another of these places where
various currents are meeting, we feel not a little out of
control, but I believe that this is an opportunity to become
better Christians. As the first letter of John tells us:
"Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in
deed and in truth. Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater
than our hearts." Christians are usually pretty good talking
about love, but not that good in living it out and putting love
in action.
The greatest
current that we are running with at this time in the church is
taking Baptism seriously as the foundation for a person’s
ministry in the church. In other words, if a person is
baptized in Christ they can be called to carry out any ministry
in the church. This current runs counter to the notion that
the ordained accomplish the ministry of the church and they have
a higher calling and must be held to a higher standard than those
"only" baptized in Christ.
It is the
question of the Ethiopian Eunuch that pushes the issue when he
and Philip come to an oasis and he asks: What is to prevent
me from being baptized? The Ethiopian Eunuch represents the
ultimate in being an outsider from every possible viewpoint:
racially, religiously, sexually, and nationally. Eunuch
means chamberlain, or literally "bed-keeper". The
Ethiopian was black as night, probably a pretty sharp fellow who
had responsibility around the bed of the Queen Candace of Kush.
Eunuch’s chosen for these positions, around the royal
chambers lost all their sexual rights and "members" if
you know what I mean. You’re chosen, report for
castration. No choice in the matter. And once you
healed up you made the best of it.
Somehow this
Ethiopian was drawn to the monotheism of Judian and was given a
furlough to worship in Jerusalem, quite a long way to go from
Ethiopia in those days. So he makes it to Jerusalem, but
I’m sure because he talked funny and was black the
reception there wasn’t too great. It would be hard to
hide that he was a Eunuch and Deuteronomy, Chapter 23 says:
"A man whose testicles have been crushed, or whose male
member has been cut off, is not to be admitted to the assembly of
Yahweh. . . No Ammonite or Moabite is to be admitted to the
assembly of Yahweh, and this is for all time." If the
Ethiopian heard this text he would know immediately that it
applied to him on several counts: for he racially and sexually
came under the prohibition. I wonder if anyone in Jerusalem
reminded him of that text while he was on pilgrimage there?
But his
scriptural interest was elsewhere. He drew hope from the
prophets and had a scroll of Isaiah which he was reading when
Philip, the young Christian deacon ran into him on the way out of
Jerusalem as he was heading home. The Ethiopian Eunuch was
reading Isaiah 53: Like a lamb led to the slaughter . . .
He opened not his mouth. Who does this refer to, he asks
Philip. In the back of his mind he’s thinking of his
own experience when they led him to his "slaughter".
But Philip begins to share the Good News of Jesus with him and
how a loving Messiah underwent suffering and death to do away
with the sin of the world.
Lights are going
off in the head of the excluded, outcast one. He wanted
this new life and he wanted it now! Philip told him that
this new life in Christ, this royal priesthood began when a
person was baptized and all their sins were forgiven. This
brings us back to Philip and the Eunuch coming upon that oasis.
"There’s water! What’s to prevent me from
being baptized?"
You get where
I’m going with this don’t you? If the Law in
Deuteronomy was still in place, a law that Philip was surely
aware of, Philip would have every right to refuse or at
least put off the Eunuch‘s request. But Jesus’
love and forgiveness fulfilled the law, every jot and tittle of
it, and Philip knew that. In Jesus, all outcasts are
included, and only the self-righteous are ever excluded.
But both the outcast and the righteous are called to minister in
Jesus’ Name.
Perhaps the
Eunuch had unrolled the scroll to where we now read chapter 56 in
Isaiah where it states: "Let no foreigner who has
attached himself to Yahweh say, 'Yahweh will surely exclude me
from his people.' Let no eunuch say, 'And I, I am a dried up
tree.' For Yahweh says this, 'To the eunuchs who observe my
sabbaths, and resolve to do what pleases me and cling to my
covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a
monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give
them an everlasting name that can never be cut off."
Nice little slice with the knife there at the end of the verse,
and no where near the genitals, but right across a lot of
fundamentalist thought these days. The Ethiopian Eunuch
traditionally has been considered the father of the great Coptic
catholic church of North Africa!
God sees things much differently than we
do. When Philip saw the Eunuch he doesn’t naturally
go over to this outsider. The Spirit had to urge Philip,
push, coerce, and move Philip to go where he does not naturally
want to go, and to be with someone he had been taught to avoid at
all costs. The Spirit is pushing us through a renewal of
our understanding of Baptism that many the world considers
outsiders are our brothers and sisters in Christ and invited to
complete Jesus’ work in the world. Not just some, not
many, not a lot, but all.
Everyone and everything waits
to see what we will do, being not at all interested in what we
have to say or what we believe, but what we will allow the Spirit
to move us to do, here and now.
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What’s
next after Baptism?
Sermon
for the Third Sunday of Easter
St. Michael’s, April
30th, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
Two weeks
ago, at the Great Vigil we had the joy of bringing two adult men
into the Church through Baptism. Since the beginning of
Advent when they became Catechumens we prayed for them each
Sunday that they would open their hearts to God’s word and
the Holy Spirit. In praying for them we tried to open our
hearts to the grace of our Baptism.
What’s
next for Charles and Tim and all of us after Easter? After
Baptism and the Renewal of Baptismal promises we enter the time
of "Mystagogy" or the study of the mysteries of our
Christian faith. Sunday by Sunday we are introduced to a
Mystery. For example, last Sunday was the Mystery of the
Resurrection itself in the account of Our Lord’s appearance
to Thomas. We reflected in the sermon last week how,
overcoming our doubts like Thomas, the Risen Lord is present to
us in everyday life and everything we do by faith and not by
sight. "Blessed are they who have not seen but have
believed."
This
Sunday’s Mystery again inserts the Resurrection in the most
common activity of our lives: eating. When the Lord
appears to the disciples, who aren’t sure if Jesus is real
or a ghost, he asks them: Have you anything here to eat?
Have you ever heard this question before? Perhaps hundreds
or thousands of times! I believe that the loving
familiarity of Jesus words to his friends in that question is the
same loving familiarity he wants to have with us. This is a
mystery that many never will grasp, but is unveiled to us who
believe.
Jesus
liked food and he realized it was of number one importance in
life. If we don’t eat or drink we die. So many
of Jesus’ miracles were around food and wine. In
today’s Gospel the disciples have a little broiled fish on
hand. When this story was passed down to Greek converts--
that Jesus ate a piece of fish with his disciples after his
Resurrection, they had real joy that their Greek word for fish--
ICHTHUS formed an acronym: each letter standing for a
different word of the great Truth: Jesus Christ Son of God
Savior-- ICHTHUS.
So this
Sundays Mystagogia is about eating. The Mystery is about
becoming what we eat. There was a 19th Century German
Philosopher by the name of Andreas Feurbach who is famous for a
very earthy teaching that we human beings are simply the product
of what we have eaten. The key phrase in German that
encapsulates his teaching is "Man ist was er isst."
Man is what he eats. Feurbach, an avowed atheist, would
turn over in his grave to see how Christian theologians have used
his teaching to open up the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist in such
a beautiful way: As we ingest the Body and Blood of Christ
at the Eucharist we are sent out into the world as the Body of
Christ.
This
happens just like the Risen Lord Jesus in a physical sense and a
spiritual sense. After the Resurrection Our Lord body still
had some physicality but it was also a spiritual body. When
we receive Holy Communion our bodies receive some physical
nourishment and we are spiritually identified with what we have
received. Our identity, the generation we belong to, and
the special celebrations we take part in are all shaped by food.
We like to identify with foods that point to our ethnic or
national origins: Tacos, Lasagna, Sushi, Hamburgers and Hot
Dogs, Pierogies, etc. Coca Cola has long been identified
with the over 50 crowd and the Pepsi Generation is always under
30. At weddings there’s always champagne and cake, on
Thanksgiving we have Turkey, on the 4th of July its Hot Dogs, and
there are eggs all over the place at Easter.
We as
Christians have our food that nourishes our lives and provides
wonderful, mysterious identification with the Risen Lord:
the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.
St.
Augustine in the 4th Century told those who had been baptized and
the others who had renewed their baptismal promises: "You
are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of
the Incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken.
You are to be blessed, broken, and distributed, that you may be
the means of grace and the vehicles of eternal love."
I love
these teachings from the early church because they are so pure,
powerful, and true. So this is the sacramental,
resurrection Mystery this Sunday. I’ll leave you with
three things you can do to grow in Resurrection life through the
Sacraments: First, ask for the grace to recognize the Risen
Christ with you in your everyday life; Second, develop a habit of
spending a short period of time each day prayerfully meditating
on scripture or a story from the Gospels you can remember; Third,
whatever happens in your day especially the bad stuff, call on
the Good Shepherd to lead you out of the valley of death into the
new life of Resurrection.
May the God of hope fill us with all
joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen!
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Did you need Easter this year?
Sermon
for the Second Sunday of Easter
St. Michael’s, April
23rd, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
I really
needed Easter this year. More than ever I needed to
experience the resurrection of Jesus-- the Risen Christ present
and with us in everything going on around us and in the
concentric circles reaching out to all corners of this beautiful,
but very troubled world.
It seems to me that there
are two ways in which to look at the human history. One way
is to focus on the wars and violence, the squalor, the pain and
death. From this perspective, the Easter story looks like a
fairy-tale all in the name of God. It gives us some solace
for a while, but any relief goes away with the next news report
or sadness that touches our life.
But there is another way
to look at the world. If I take Easter as the starting
point, the one huge, incontrovertible fact about how God treats
those God loves, then human history becomes the contradiction and
Easter a preview of ultimate reality.
The theologian
Philip Yancey writes: I believe in the Resurrection
primarily because I have gotten to know God. I know that
God is love, and I also know that we human beings want to keep
alive those who we love. I do not let my friends die; they
live on in my memory and my heart long after I have stopped
seeing them. For whatever reason--again, I imagine, human
freedom lies at the core--God allows a planet where a man in the
prime of life dies scuba diving and a woman is killed in a fiery
crash on the way to a mission conference. But I believe
that God is not satisfied with such a blighted planet. If I
did not believe this, I would not believe in a loving God.
Divine love will find a way to overcome. "Death, be
not proud," wrote John Donne: God will not let death
win.
Right when things were the toughest, when the
disciples felt most afraid, guilty, and abandoned (and they had
abandoned him), Jesus shows up. Most of us, having been
betrayed in far less, would say "Forget them."
And when he comes through those shut doors where they were hiding
out he doesn’t say: "Where were you when I
needed you the most? What kind of disciples are you
anyway? I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.
I really thought you loved and cared for me. What a joke
that was. When it came down to the wire, the only thing you
were interested in is saving your own skins." Not a
bit of that soap opera stuff.
Instead, Jesus
conveys on his frail followers his greatest gift of Shalom:
reconciliation and the peace which passes understanding.
Jesus doesn’t curse them, but blesses them. He
forgives, accepts, and heals.
Did the disciples
deserve this second chance? Of course not. But God’s
victory over death and God’s love for the world are not
predicated on human righteousness, but on God’s Agape:
limitless, sacrificial love. In the light and warmth of
this visit’s blessing, the disciples can accept themselves
in spite of their fallen ness-- and then be freed to do the work
that Jesus will show them.
Jesus gives them a mission:
"As the Father has sent me, so I send you." The
disciples are now united with their Lord as he sends them out the
doors into the world. He’s breathes the Spirit on
them. Jesus is alive to them and becomes their ultimate
reality.
But Thomas wasn’t there. Maybe
he was out pounding the pavement, braver than we think, risking
arrest, checking the evidence surrounding Jesus‘
departure. When Jesus appears one week later to the
disciples in the same manner, he turns to Thomas and offers the
proof that he demanded: the opening in his side and the
nail marks in hands. Thomas feels no need to touch.
Jesus says "Do not doubt, but believe." And
Thomas exalts with the greatest profession of faith in the Risen
Jesus: "My Lord and my God!"
There is no
need to breathe the Spirit on Thomas. He’s accepted
with the others in Jesus’ love. Thomas has the Spirit
and Jesus has become his ultimate reality for ever. The one
called "Doubting Thomas" probably brought more people
to the faith at the furthest distance than any of the Apostles.
Doubt is not the opposite of faith, but one of the stages toward
it.
Only one thing is left for Jesus to do: to
declare, once and for all, the blessedness of those who have come
to true faith without the need for sight as proof. This
isn’t a rebuke of Thomas at all, but an affirmation for the
generations to come who will read John’s Gospel-- those who
must rely on Jesus’ words and not his physical presence in
order to believe.
The Risen Lord Jesus stands before us
here, today, in blessing, in acceptance, ready to renew us,
refresh us, empower us with his love. Not until we show the
world by the way we love one another can others experience a
healing love that transcends both faith and doubt, and, wherever
such love is found, within or without these walls--and only
there-- is where the Lord is risen, where he is risen, indeed.
Jesus wants to be the ultimate reality of our lives, present
everywhere we go, in everything we do. Make Easter the
starting point for our view of the world. Let us this
morning ratify, in the quiet of our hearts and in the celebration
of this Easter Sacrament, that Jesus Christ, the Risen One,
is our Lord and our God. Amen! Alleluia!
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 The
Bloody Cross
Sermon
for Judgment Sunday, The Fourth Sunday in Lent
St. Michael’s,
March 26th, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
An
article by a Methodist pastor caught my eye this week. It
seems the Methodists are getting more liturgical. This
pastor commissioned a young artist to make a processional cross
for the church’s Lenten Sunday services. The pastor
wrote: I had in mind something simple, modern and clean,
something congruent with North side Methodist Church’s
minimalist architecture, something light enough for a white-robed
adolescent to carry on Sundays. What we got on the first Sunday
of Lent was a dramatic sort of cross, heavy, complete with a
realistic, bleeding corpus, a hanging, crucified Christ, blood
and everything. Some managed to like it because a nice
person had made it. Some liked it because they appreciated the
intricate carving. But many were upset because it was "more
Catholic than Methodist," "gory and depressing,"
or didn’t "go with our colors." What is a
modern, progressive, slightly liberal, well-budgeted Methodist
church to do with a bloody cross these days?
What are we
going to do about that bloody cross ourselves? This is the
Fifth Sunday of Lent and next week is Palm or Passion Sunday.
It’s a good thing that last Sunday was Refreshment
Sunday--the church in its wisdom knows we need a respite before
enduring Jesus’ tough journey to Jerusalem and the
Cross.
But today its back to the trail with full pack on.
And the first thing that happens is we overhear Jesus‘
confession: "Now my soul is troubled." Hey,
wait a minute, its ok for us to be troubled about things in our
lives (one of our parishioners was tied up and robbed recently).
We’re troubled about how the whole immigration battle will
settle out. And the bloodshed that continues in Iraq and
Afghanistan to secure Democracy and Freedom troubles us. We
live in a very troubling "hour". We expect to be
troubled, but You, our rescuer, O Lord, You are troubled?
This shakes us up! But what do we really expect? Is a
bloody cross too much for us too?
St. Francis of Assisi in
his Admonitions says to his ragged band in the 13th century:
"Did the Lord’s flock actually follow him in
tribulations and persecutions and hunger, sickness and trial and
all the rest, and thereby receive eternal life from the Lord?
What a great shame, then, that while the saints actually followed
in the footsteps of the Lord, we, today’s servants of God,
expect glory and honor simply because we can recite what they
did?"
So the children are marching--leaving their
classrooms without permission and protesting the very real
possibility many of their parents will be made criminal felons
with a vote and a stoke of a pen? Would Jesus stay
obediently in his seat or be out marching with his fellow
students protesting adult fear and greed?
God doesn’t
ask the easy things; Satan does. The Anglican writer,
Madeleine L’Engle, writes: "Again and again, God
asks the impossible. We can be reluctant. Throughout
history, most of God’s chosen people have been reluctant.
We can say, ‘It’s impossible!’ and turn away. .
. When I’m in a quandary about something, I usually ask,
‘What would Jesus do?’ And often I don’t know.
Life is very different at the end of the 20th century than it was
2,000 years ago. But I know whatever Jesus answer would be,
it would be an answer of love. And love like Jesus’
is seldom easy. When it’s easy, it’s
sentimentality, not love."
So like the Pastor who has
to process into his church behind that explicitly bloody cross,
with people whispering "that’s not Methodist, that’s
a Catholic cross," like Jesus, we are drawn into his
Hour: in our lives, in our families, in our church, in our
communities, and in our nation and world. We are coming to
a crisis point. It is finally here. Like the seed
that must die for new life to sprout, we must die to the popular
and acceptable and embrace the cross.
We have always
intended to be law-abiding people, but the Gospel prohibits any
law that would prevent us from loving our neighbor. No
positive law by which we govern ourselves can stop us from trying
to be faithful to the interior covenant written on our hearts
beginning at baptism. We have a Covenant written on our
hearts. Cruel, external laws that allowed Christian
slaveholders to have their slaves branded like cattle, or the
Nazi’s, some of whom were Christian, to tattoo ID numbers
on captive Jews, or in recent times, Christian soldiers in Bosnia
carved crosses on the foreheads of Muslim POWs, just can’t
be congruent with the Baptismal Covenant and the promises we have
made to respect the dignity of every human being. The
Baptismal Covenant is a difficult proposition. In this time
of body markings and piercing, no external sign will tell anyone
you are one of God’s people.
Like Jesus did many
times, we may want to say, "My hour has not yet come."
But finally it does come. He knew it. We know it.
It is now. We look to Jesus and how he addressed His
Father: ""Now my soul is troubled. And what
should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?
No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify your name." The Hour of Judgment-the
Greek word is KRISIS- is the hour of decision and separation, and
most importantly the Hour of Glorification. When we stand
with God, God stands with us in glory.
If Last Sunday was
called Refreshment Sunday, then this Sunday is called Judica
Sunday: Judgment Sunday. From Judica
me Deus in Latin-- Judge me, O
God."
Judge us, Lord. You have
the right. It has been easy to distance ourselves from the
Cross. But judge us with mercy. We ask for the grace
of having Jesus stand before you advocating on our behalf.
Deliver us, Father, from deceit and injustice, our own and that
of others, so that we may indeed be Your people. We ask
through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.
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 Bob
MacMahon RIP
Sermon
for the Funeral of Bob MacMahon
St. Michael’s, March
18th, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
"All
that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to
me I will never drive away . . ." We come together
this morning to remember our friend and brother Bob MacMahon and
enter a very real Gospel truth: When we are given to
God by our baptism in Jesus we at the same time are given to one
another. As Bob was given to God in his baptism, God gave
him to us . We are family in Christ-- water is thicker than
blood. We experience Bob and each other as gifts of God’s
love.
Bob regarded the
church as his family and said so in his recent letter thanking
everyone for helping with his set of teeth. The letter is
on the bulletin board by the parish center.
Bob was part of
the family for sure, like the glue that you don’t always
see, but holds parts together. Bob was a chef and loved
cooking. He made breakfasts after the 8am mass for years
and when we needed someone to cook for the trail bosses on our
Pony Express campaign years ago, everyone said to ask Bob
MacMahon. Sure enough he did. When we had Soup n
Bread suppers during Lent for a number of years Bob always made a
soup. He said he couldn’t attend, but a big pot of
soup would be ready to be picked up. It was always
delicious.
Bob was mindful
and had eyes that saw things that were needed. One was that
we should record the readings and sermons at mass for anyone
shut-in who would like to listen. He acquired the
necessary equipment and became a familiar sight at this recording
station by the pulpit. Bob’s eyes saw beauty as
well. We give thanks for his photography. Our best
pictures of the church and the altar at Christmas and Easter were
taken by Bob and graced our parish directory and other
publications. Every time we look at those pictures we
remember what a gift he had and was to all of us.
But, for me, the
word that describes Bob the best is the word "integrity."
Bob was truthful about who he was and what he stood for. I
remember Bob when I first came to St. Michael’s. He
made an appointment and shared his story with me. One of
the facts of Bob’s life was that he lived on a small fixed
income and could make ends meet when he had a housemate that
shared expenses. When for periods of time he didn’t
have someone sharing, it was rough. Occasionally he would
ask for a loan from the discretionary fund and said he would pay
it back. Cynthia Mulvaney, our parish secretary at that
time, told me that Bob always paid back his loans. And,
over the years, he always did, and then some. He knew that
we could depend on him and he believed he should be able to
depend on us-- again, like a family.
We will miss
having Bob around, mostly because we realized that he could draw
out the best in us. But, like St. Paul tells us, perishable
bodies have to put on imperishability and what is mortal,
mortality. When Kelly found Bob kneeling by his bed a week ago
Sunday it was as if Bob knew that God was near and Death was
defeated: O death, where is your victory? Where, O
death, is your sting? Bob wasn’t perfect, but God
gave him the victory of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Bob is with us, right here, right now.
We ask ourselves "How can a person be
in two places at one time?" How can Bob still be with
us if he’s with God? Well, look at where we are right
now, gathered here before the altar getting ready to give thanks
to God for Bob’s life and friendship in Holy Eucharist.
We’re here on earth, but we find ourselves at the banquet
of heaven. Bob’s at the banquet too, reveling in the
"rich food, well-aged wines" and myriad recipes of
love. Tears and disgrace gone forever, nothing but gladness
and rejoicing in salvation. Jesus makes it possible:
we’re here, but really there too. Bob’s there,
but really here too! Amen!
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 Laughter
Sermon
for the Second Sunday in Lent
St. Michael’s, March 12th,
2006
By Father Roger O. Douglas
One of the studies
I came across while researching my book on retirement was from
Harvard University. They conducted a study for 60 years on
people as they moved through transitions in life.
I’m
sure you could guess what many of their findings were about
retirement. They found it takes adequate finances, good
health, and good relationships to transition from work to
retirement. There was also one characteristic, I failed to
mention in my book. I want to correct that right now. Harvard
University found that it also takes a sense of humor to
make a successful transition.
Their findings were that we
are better able to face the predictable trials and tribulations,
stress and anxieties of transitions, if we can do it with a
smile.
A sense of humor is evidence of someone who has
learned to take the agony and ecstasy of life’s transitions
with a grain of salt. I would also add that a sense of humor is a
necessary ingredient for a Christian.
In today’s
Old Testament lesson, we have a story about Abraham, in which to
tell the truth, I haven’t been able to find anything
humorous, As a matter of fact, I really don’t understand
it. One commentary that I read said, it’s a story that
marks the transition between child sacrifice and animal
sacrifice. That’s nice…so what? Not very
enlightening. So, rather than stand in all my ecclesiastical
finery, which makes a preacher hard to contradict, (particularly
when he’s six feet above you with a light shining like a
halo over his head)—rather than doing that, I’m going
to take you back to some earlier Abraham stories, with the hope
that as we unravel them we can make sense of this strange lesson.
We first meet Abraham living a comfortable life in Harum.
One day God speaks to him, telling him to leave and go with
Sarah, his wife, to start a new life in some god¬forsaken
part of the world. Speaking of transitions, that was a biggie.
God also told Abraham that if he left, a new nation would emerge
from his seed. So Sarah, being the good wife, packs everything up
with only a bit of grumbling, and away they go.
After
several years traveling, Sarah begins to question whether Abraham
really had understood God’s message. Here they were
childless and getting on in years. Can’t you just
hear Sara saying: “Yah, yah, you and your voices. Are you
quite sure that’s what God said?” When Sarah’s
nagging got really intense, God sends a messenger to tell them
not to despair. I promised that you would have a child. Trust
me,” he said.
Sarah’s reaction was to burst
into laughter. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m
way passed the stage of child bearing.”
And God’s
response was; “O.K. have it your way. I hope you’ll
name the kid Isaac,” which in Hebrew means laughter.
I
have never been able to understand why laughter is not mentioned
more often in the Bible. This is one of the few times we run
across it. And in the New Testament, I have only been able to
find one mention of laughter from Jesus. Do you suppose that’s
why every picture that I’ve seen of Jesus is so serious,
so bland, or’ mostly insipid-looking?
Surely, Jesus must have enjoyed a good belly laugh once in a
while.
It’s artwork like that, and lack of any
mention of good times in scripture, that influences our
understandings of the faith. I met a man this summer who
told me his father was very religious. I said; “Oh, you
mean he was bursting with vitality and joy.”
“No,”
he replied, “he was mean, narrow, and void of any sense of
humor.”
My experience in dealing with people is
that it is always a serious warning signal when a person has no
sense of humor. Individuals who cannot manage a smile as they
face the absurdities of life are in serious trouble, and have
misunderstood what it means to live with the promises of
God.
Returning to Abraham and Sarah, we see they had a
sense of humor. Nine months later, God did for Sarah as He
had promised. Sarah, who by now, according to Scripture, was
about ninety, laughed all the way from the geriatric ward to the
maternity ward when Isaac was born.
The ability to laugh
is one of God’s most important gifts to us. The one
time I’ve run across this fact in the New Testament is when
Jesus says: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall
laugh.” (Luke 6:21) Which means, those who are in pain can
still have the gift of laughter, if you believe in the final
victory of God.
,
Norman Cousins, the author and editor of
The Saturday Review, found this to be true 40 years ago He
came down with a crippling disease that doctors believed was
irreversible Cousins wrote:
“Nothing is less
funny then being flat on your back with all the bones in your
spine and joints hurting. A systematic program was
indicated. A good place to begin was with laughter. I
gathered all the amusing movies I could think of. We pulled down
the blinds and whenever the pain started, we watched movies like
the old Marx brothers films. It worked. I made the joyous
discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter would give me
at least two hours of pain free sleep; I found that laughter is
good medicine.”
Cousins goes on to say, this wasn’t
so much a prescription, as it was learning. “Laughter made
me better able to handle life’s problems.”
Moving
back to Abraham and Sarah. Can’t you just see them at the
Tuesday Morning Bridge Club? That group usually sips coffee
and talks about their aches and pains, their gall bladders and
cataracts. Now there sits Sarah with her bassinette. Everybody
having a great time. Laughing at the ability of God to work
wonders. “Blessed are you who weep, for you shall laugh”
in the future. Why? Because nothing is too wonderful for
God, who makes promises and keeps them.
I guess my real
learning from all of this is that laughter is a close relative to
faith. It comes about when we can recognize that the so-called
destiny of the world, the significance of our lives, is not left
entirely up to us. God is busy and He has made us some
promises. And those promises are surer than the troubles we
face. The secret of an Abraham is that he believed
wholeheartedly in those promises.
Now let’s return
to our lesson this morning, that strange incident of Abraham
sacrificing Isaac. I’m still not sure what it means, but
one thing is clear. Even Abraham can find something to smile
about if he can trust in God’s promises.
Did this
really happen?/ Stories like this are an assault on our faith,
they seem so strange. But we can still smile at the twisted
ways that God uses to remind us of his promises. The real
question is, do we have the imagination that is required to have
such a story speak to us? For remember, where there is faith, you
will find laughter. And where the promises of God are believed,
your weeping will turn to smiles…. Amen.
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Baptismal
Journey
Sermon for
the First Sunday of Lent
St. Michael’s, March 5th,
2006
By Father John R. Smith
This morning
my thoughts are with our catechumens who will be enrolled as
baptismal candidates. All the readings during Lent are
chosen for the purpose of preparing candidates for Holy Baptism
and all of us are invited to live out the meaning of our own
Baptism vicariously through them.
Remember how
children play the game "Will you forget me?"
"Will you forget me in a day?" No, the other
child answers "No." "Will you forget me in a
week?" "No." Will you forget me in a
month?" "No." Is the answer again.
"Knock, knock." "Who’s there?"
"I thought you said you would never forget me!"
The Rainbow in
the sky means God will never forget us--ever. But God had
to start over to get to this Covenant deal. Things had
gotten pretty bad on planet earth. Before today’s
passage it says: "The Lord God saw that the wickedness
of humankind was great on the earth, and that every inclination
of people’s hearts was only evil continually. "
So God sent the floods to drown out the evil and keeps only Noah
and his family who pleased God and the animals "two by
two." This was such a drastic measure on God’s
part that when the flood was over God promises that a way will be
found to never destroy the world again, no matter how much it
turns away from God‘s way. How?
This takes us to
the Gospel for today. "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.’" The greatest proof
that God didn’t forget us is sending Jesus, his only Son,
who is drowned "ala the Flood" in the waters of
Baptism. This time when sin had to be dealt with God sent
his Son instead of a flood!
I wish the story
could end with the Baptism and a new Paradise Revisited, but
Jesus after his Baptism is immediately driven out into the
wilderness to be tempted by Satan. This pattern makes me
shake in my boots: Baptism, followed by temptation.
We shouldn’t be too surprised (though it often scandalizes
us) that we too are tested by temptation after our Baptism; God
wants us to become who we are, more and more like Jesus, flavored
by our own unique personalities. Temptations keep us
humble, test our mettle, and keep us open. Being open is a
prerequisite for spiritual growth. In order for God to
enter our lives fully, we must be ready to receive. The
door to our inner self must be wide open. Our mind and
heart need to be receptive so that we can heart and receive the
New Life that God is offering us. Temptations force the
door to our inner self wide open. It’s God’s
way of "getting through to us," to communicate with us,
to nourish us, to stretch to love others who are tempted as well.
The Covenant of
the Rainbow becomes the Covenant of God’s love in Jesus
Christ. After our Baptism we can still anger God, we may do
things that God doesn’t approve of, but God still loves us,
calling us to live a better life. God doesn’t push us
away, reject, or condemn us. God only sends Jesus through
the sacraments to reconcile us again and again.
This Lent is a
good time to remember who we are and to cultivate a healthy sense
of temptation in our lives and that we don’t resist sin
enough. Like the guy struggling with his diet who brings a
box of Danish pastries to the office. Confronted by his
co-workers: What’s going on? I thought you were
on a diet! The guy answered: I drove by the pastry
shop and said I would only stop and pick some up if I could find
a parking space right in front of the store. Sure enough,
after eight times around the block, there it was a free space
right in front of the door!
So temptation is
a given for us baptized folk. Usually when we think of
temptation we think of sex or overeating. Maybe that isn’t
our temptation, maybe it is. Perhaps the great temptation
we face today is what someone recently called "respectable
selfishness." Working our way into various life
scenarios looking good, concerned about the right things, but its
all on the surface. We really only care for ourselves.
So as we prepare
to renew our Baptism, Lent gives us a chance to examine our
lives. Our we really aware of God’s creation and care
for the environment? Do we struggle with what we use or
waste? How do we treat ourselves? Do anger and fear
sweep over and control us? Do we love ourselves like God
loves us? God created this world to be good, and he placed
us in a magnificent garden and gave us company and asked us to
take care of that garden and each other. God made us to
keep company with Him, and despite all that we do to reject God,
and all that we do to harm each other and ourselves, God reaches
out to us and calls to us to come to his side and to love and
enjoy the world that he has made.
No matter what we have done, when we stand
at the door and knock, God won’t ask "who’s
there?" he will instead open the door and welcome us in.
Live fully, and don’t be afraid of temptation. Trust
God to send angels to minister to you through the temptation as
he did with Jesus. Ask for forgiveness for yourself and be
easy on your fellow sinners near and far. The promises that
God has made, the promises we see in the Rainbow and the Cross,
are forever; they have not been and will not be broken.
Accept these promises, continue the struggle with inner,
confident joy, and thank God for all his mercies. Amen!
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Meeting Jesus on Lizard Mountain
Sermon
on Last Sunday of Epiphany (before Lent)
St. Michael’s,
February 26th, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
This past Thursday our church office was
closed for Rodeo Days so I took the day off. My daughter
Annie was also off from school that day. When I read the
morning paper I noticed an article in the Caliente section about
a hike up Lizard Mountain in the Catalinas. When Annie got
up I asked her if she would like to go on a hike. We both
agreed and made a lunch an took off shortly before noon.
We
found the parking pullout near milepost 16 on the Mt. Lemmon
highway. I was surprised that we were the only ones in the
pullout. With the newspaper article I thought others might
have the same idea.
The article said the trail was
not maintained, but fairly easy to follow because you could see
where others have gone. Annie took the lead and soon we
were up 7300 feet on the head of the "Lizard." It
was a beautiful, cool day and you could see for miles around, and
Tucson, framed by four mountain ranges, a mile below.
Standing on the top of the Lizard’s head looking around in
every direction it was an awesome experience though my new
progressive lenses made me feel a little dizzy so I sat down.
Annie pointed out a flat area where we spread out a blanket for
our picnic lunch. We talked about how neat it would be to
pitch a tent there and stay. Annie even found a rock that
looked like a sofa 10 feet away. Yes, it would be nice to
stay.
For me, it was a perfect place to go to
contemplate the Gospel story of the Transfiguration. Jesus
takes Peter, James, and John, all fishermen, who would be the
"pillars" of the early church, up Mt. Tabor to give
them an experience of who he really is. They had already
heard Peter confess that Jesus was the Messiah. But shortly
afterward Jesus told them that he would have to suffer and be put
to death. When Peter protested-- Jesus directed strong
words at him: Get behind me Satan!
Now on the
mountain it was different. Alone with Jesus, away from the
crowds, they could get a new perspective. But they got so
much more. Jesus was transfigured before them, his clothes
and face dazzling, shining white. And with Jesus stood
Moses and Elijah talking to him. Wow! Peter’s
first thought was to stay for a while in that experience,
set up camp. We can’t blame him-- it’s hard to
leave places of revelation and beauty. But then in all that
dazzling light a Cloud came over and there was a Voice saying:
This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! And at the
height of this experience (no pun intended) everything was gone
and only Jesus was left with them.
What could a
mysterious event on the top of a mountain far away and long ago,
possibly have to do with us here and now? I believe it is
very important. It opens a window on another world and lets us
see who Jesus really is. It was hard enough for the
fishermen who knew him well to understand, and they were there:
they at least had their own direct experience of it to remember.
But they passed it on to the other disciples of Jesus, and what
they experienced is told in slightly different ways by Matthew,
Mark and Luke; and there is a later reference to it in the Second
letter of Peter written at a time when the early community united
by severe persecution is now on the verge of dividing off from
one another:
For we did not follow cleverly devised
myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, but we had bee eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that
voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying "This
is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were
with him on the holy mountain. (2 Peter 1:16-18)
See
how the apostles have passed on their experience. They were
eyewitnesses, and that was their great importance in the early
church: we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty, they said.
They said it was not a cleverly devised myth, not like some, they
said. According to the gospel writers, the three apostles
all saw something strange which caused them to feel afraid, yes,
but they also wanted to stay there, and when they did go down the
mountain they went with the deep conviction that Jesus was the
Son of God.
It is to confess Jesus as Lord of all in
that grander scheme of things that I believe we are called
today. We do need to follow him in humble service in the
streets that are busy with human life when we come down from the
mountain, but we will not serve him truly if we do not
acknowledge him as the Lord of our whole lives. The Christian
life is more than social action for the good of others. It
includes that. It is more than maintaining tradition or keeping a
local church alive, though we hope to do that. And it is more
than having our own private experience of the presence of God or
glimpses into the spirit world, though it may include some of
that too. It is, above all, a response to Jesus, knowing him to
be the Messiah, the holy one of God, the Son of God, the one who
is the Lord of all in the great drama of life.
Our
worship of Jesus in his glory points us toward service in the
world where we are challenged to take up our cross and follow
him. It requires, loyalty, commitment and sacrifice.
That only make sense if he has a right to our absolute devotion
because of who he is. Everything depends on that: who
is he? That is the question which disciples asked and which
they began to answer for themselves in such experiences as they
had with Jesus as they talked with him on the road and as Peter,
James, and John looked through that window onto another reality
as he was Transfigured on the mountain. These experiences
inspired and equipped them to become his apostles, leading others
who shared this faith, proclaiming him as Lord and serving him in
great hardship, carry their own crosses to the ends of earth, in
many cases going to painful deaths in devotion to him.
The
dazzling light is shining on us. Can we answer the question
of who Jesus is? The Christian faith depends absolutely,
and in the end, solely, on who Jesus is. Nothing less than
renewal of faith in Jesus as Lord, the one who came from God and
is God, will save our day. Let us see Jesus transfigured
before us and hear the voice from the cloud: This is my
Son, my beloved. Listen to Him. Our individual lives,
families, church, and community will move from survival to
revival. With renewed faith we start back down the
mountain, sometimes our feet sliding out from under us causing us
to wipe out (like I did on Thursday!), but we get right
back up again and get into our daily lives. We now have a
confident spirit, freed to forgive and love, serving others with
new energy. If Jesus is Lord of the Church, our divisions
can be healed and we can be light to a struggling world.
The Apostles proclaimed it-- we know it: Jesus is Lord!
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Don't Stop
Believing
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
St.
Michael’s, February 5th, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
Last week I
talked about the power of belief. It was in a kind of negative
sense: it is just as possible to continue to be wrong in one's
beliefs as it is to be right. I used the example of the centuries
long belief in the Greek philosopher Aristotle's teaching that
when two objects fall, the heavier object will hit the ground
first. But when Galileo performed the experiment in front of
Italy's greatest scientists and a huge crowd of bystanders, no
one believed their eyes when the two objects hit the ground at
the same time. Aristotle couldn't be wrong!
How does the
power of belief work for us in a positive sense? I come to this
question from an unusual direction. There is a new book, becoming
very popular right now I think, entitled "The best little
investment guide ever." The author, a successful Wall Street
money manager, wrote the book to teach his two grade school aged
boys what he did for a living. Using the simplest of terms and
stories he shares with his boys, and now the public, the
distilled wisdom of investing. The book's teaching contains a
"Magic Formula" of how to pick stocks that will work
for all times and beat the market consistently in the long term.
Wow, a way to make a lot of money that's easy to use if you
just stick with it.
That's the
catch I guess: If you just stay with it. You have to believe
in the Formula and not give up on it. Now we all know that if
everyone invested the same way in the market using a formula to
pick stocks then all the same stocks would be bid up in price at
the same time and everyone's returns would be mediocre. Yes, this
could happen with this Magic Formula. You see, the Magic Formula
in the book is fantastic-- anyone here in the church this morning
would want to agree when they studied it. Using the Magic Formula
will bring stellar returns. There's only one problem: The Formula
works great over the long term, but often five months or so out
of the year it doesn't work and returns look very poor, and
unfortunately, sometimes the Magic Formula won't work for up to
three years-- everybody else's returns on their investments will
look better.
What's going on
here? Well the Magic Formula as he calls it really does work, but
you have to stick with it for the long term. You have to believe
in the formula and stick with it even if the returns are down in
the dumps for periods of time. Most people when they experience
even the first five months of drought bail out and quit using the
Formula. The author proves that the Formula works and produces
tremendous wealth, but admits that many people give up way too
soon, so human nature the way it is, people don't end up buying
the stocks picked by the Magic Formula, but the ones who do reap
great rewards.
In my last
parish there was an attractive young woman who asked for a talk
every couple of years or so. She never had any problem getting
dates, she worked in the Pinal County infrastructure and had
plenty of offers. She was having a hard time finding the right
person and often was hurt in the process. As her priest I didn't
know what to say to her except to continue to trust God who sees
our hearts and may choose to send Mr. Right into her life. I
think in the seven and a half years I was at that parish, we had
three sessions and each time I said about the same thing: keep on
believing and don't give up because God won't give up on you!
Well, I came to
this parish, and, of course, would ask God to work out His will
in Marcie's life. The parish after a time called a new Priest. He
was an acquaintance of mine and I told him to call if he ever
needed advice or just a listening ear. He was only there around
six months and one day I received a call from him here in the
office. Hi Larry, I said, what's happening in my old stomping
grounds? Well, he said, can I ask you a question? Sure! Ok, then,
What do you do if you want to date someone in your own parish? I
hesitated a moment to catch my breath and blurted out: Make sure
you tell the Bishop and get his counsel! I will, he answered. Oh,
by the way, I said, who is the parishioner? Marcie, he answered!
Marcie's
continued trust in God in a matter crucial to her life, even
through periods when things looked bleak and disappointing, bore
great fruit in her life. Literally, I might add, for Larry and
Marcie have three beautiful kids and he's a rector of a parish in
New Hampshire.
So, I'm trying
to make the case that we should never stop believing in our
relationship with God and that trust in the call of Baptism which
makes us members of the Body of Christ, the Church. When I say
never-- I mean never. And if you've been away, thrown in the
towel, bailed out, know that if you've given up, you can, with a
flick of a switch in your mind or heart, start over with no
penalty at all. But be true to your mind and heart as best you
can, serve and trust the Lord, and stick with it!
But how do you
stay strong in your faith and not bail out in the first place?
The key is Jesus' example in the Gospel today. "In the
morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to
a deserted place, and there he prayed." The time, morning,
during the day, or evening is not important. What is important is
to find a place where we can be alone before God. Time spent in
that place before God strengthens our faith and trust. It isn't
even important what we say or what God says to us. It's like
being in love-- just being there with the Beloved deepens the
relationship. Like Jesus, leaving the deserted place, we move on
in our journey, ready for anything. Like Elisha we will be
empowered to be a healing presence to others. Like Paul, we can
be all things to all people. We begin to be under the discipline
of God and become a true disciple of Jesus! This is the Formula
that brings the greatest of all returns!
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The Power of
Belief
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
St.
Michael’s, January 29th, 2006
By Father John R. Smith
(I started talking about my Carmelite
spiritual director who used to talk about "heart operations"
which God is always trying to accomplish in us and through to
others to bring them into His Love)
I studied philosophy
in college. I loved it and all the big ideas we studied. In the
first year we spent a lot of time with the Greek philosophers,
especially Aristotle. For centuries people believed Aristotle
when he said that the heavier an object was the faster it would
fall to the ground. Aristotle was considered the greatest thinker
in the world-- he could never be wrong about this. It was only
hundreds of years later in the sixteenth century that Galileo
called together the greatest scientists in Italy to the Tower of
Pisa to witness the great test of Aristotle's teaching. Galileo
got up high on the leaning tower and took a one pound weight and
a ten pound weight and dropped them. Both objects landed at the
same time, but you wouldn't have known it, because the scientists
and the crowd refused to believe it. They denied their own
eyesight and continued to say that Aristotle was right. The power
of belief is so strong.
People will believe anything they
want to believe or have always believed and do anything they want
to do out of those beliefs. If someone believes seatbelts will
trap you in your car instead of save your life, they won't wear
one unless they have to by law. Think about the proven wisdom
about things that are harmful to people and yet they continue to
do them. We could stop right now and make a list that would be a
mile long! We could argue all day about the topics on the list
and never come to an agreement with someone who thinks otherwise.
Meanwhile we stay trapped in beliefs, behaviors, and states of
being that are evil and harmful for us.
Into this world of
people enslaved by various demons comes Jesus Christ in today's
Gospel. After Jesus' baptism by John he begins his ministry which
amounts to peeling back of layers of evil and spiritual
resistance like the skin of an onion. Jesus had to do this so
people could begin to live truly free in His Kingdom that is
breaking in to the world, driving out one by one the demons that
bind people in unhappiness, pain, and anger.
People were
astounded by Jesus' teaching because he didn't teach like the
scribes and Pharisees who liked to say "Rabbi so and so
taught this," while the recipients never changed much at
all. Jesus taught with "authority" you either accepted
it and allowed it to change you, or you hated his challenge to
your own convictions and beliefs even if they weren't getting you
anywhere for the longest time.
The word "authority"
in Greek is exousia, which means literally "out of being."
What people were saying is that, unlike many teachers, Jesus
taught out of the core of his being. This moved them. Jesus was
fully engaged in his teaching-- it was never matter of fact. They
could debate it, but, like the core of his being, the basic
truths he taught wouldn't change.
Isn't interesting that
the first place Jesus cast out a demon was in a Synagogue-- the
gathering place of his people. Could we surmise that if Jesus
came in the flesh today that one of the first places he would
cast out demons would be in the church? "What have you to do
with us, Jesus of Nazareth?! Have you come to destroy us? I know
who you are, the Holy One of God." Imagine one of us, here
in the church today, standing up and saying something like that.
Don't be surprised that it hasn't happened: I can assure you that
someone is thinking this every Sunday, maybe every single time we
gather to really hear what Jesus is saying to us. Don't be
surprised that when the teaching of Jesus challenges one of our
beliefs or convictions, when Jesus' teaching is threatening to
supplant our own wisdom, we, good people that we are, would like
to scream, run away, and never come back.
But this
morning, we're the remnant. We are the ones trying, at least one
more time, to heed the words of the One sent from God. When the
people in Moses time, heard the voice of God out of the burning
bush it almost shared them to death: If I hear the voice of the
Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will
die. So God sent the prophets and finally he sent Jesus who spoke
with authority. It would be easy to forget about all this-- plan
a completely different Sunday for ourselves, finish the paper,
watch the game. Instead we put ourselves in an uncomfortable
place where all our "knowledge" which puffs up and
inflates our egos, is blown up in a cloud of smoke by the Gospel.
We're left in situation where the only thing left to build our
lives on is love. It will always come down to love and how to
love, as Jesus did, the only really necessary knowledge. Let us,
in a culture where people make choices based not on love, but
their own preferences, perceptions, and fears, ask for the gift
of spiritual discernment to hear the voice of Jesus Christ
"through whom are all things and through whom we exist."
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Redeeming the times from insignificance:
Sermon for the First Sunday After the
Epiphany
St. Michael’s, January 9th, 2006
By Father
Roger O. Douglas
Well, here
we are. Two weeks after the Christmas celebration. As I was
thinking about the sermon the other day, I picked up a book of
W.H. Auden's poetry and reread that wonderful piece, For The Time
Being. Let me share a few of the closing words.
Well,
so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting
the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --
Some have
got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and
the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children
got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do,
warmed-up, for the rest of the week --
Not that we have much
appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late,
attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --
To love all of our
relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers.
Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision
and failed
To do more than entertain it as an
agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him
away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The
promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The
Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the
mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of
apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which
cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the
time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian
city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's
geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our
experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub
it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The
streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had
forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those
who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however
incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying
time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so
excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents
to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that
moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains
conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our
lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And
craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round
for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection,
and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great
suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted
ever after to pray to the Father;
"Lead us into
temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all
right, don't worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect,
and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine.
In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep
in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to
redeem
From insignificance.
Somehow,
Auden's words seemed to fit with my mood. After the glory of
Christmas, there is an inevitable down feeling, so
well expressed by the phrase: "Well, that's that."
After putting everything away, taking back the presents
that don't fit, we slip into the day to day routines as if
nothing really is changed.
But wait, Auden suggests that
we really have a task, whether we acknowledge it or not, the
birth has given us an assignment: To redeem “the time
being,” the time after Christmas, from insignificance.
We
love to hear about the baby. There He lies in the manger. The
little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes." No demands, no
tasks, no claims on us are made, as long as we focus strictly on
the birth narrative.
But what happens we go beyond the
manger scene? What then are we called to do, to be, to have
happen? What happens when anticipation becomes reality?
When the cry, "Mary, you are going to have a baby," is
transformed into, "World, we have got us a Messiah."
What then?
Every year after Christmas,
I spend an evening going over the Christmas cards we have
received. They're beautiful, a wonderful reminder of dear
friends. Most of them have pictures of the baby Jesus, and
underneath are words like joy and peace. While I was
looking at them this year, I had a fantasy. Suppose there was a
picture of an Adult Jesus, and instead of words like peace and
joy there were words like: "Go sell all that you have and
give to the poor. Merry Christmas.” Or, "Whoever
takes up the sword, dies by the sword. Happy Holidays."
If
we ever received cards like that, we might take closer notice to
the meaning of the baby. It might
even go so far as to
transform some of the sentimentality of Christmas into the
reality of what it means to follow Jesus.
As a great
preacher (Fred Craddock) once said to his congregation after
Christmas; "The wait is over, now expectations become
fulfillment. When Jesus is coming becomes, Jesus is here, and you
had better do something about it. It’s no longer
cooing over a baby. It's what are you going to do for God? How
are you going to redeem your times from insignificance? How are
you going to live as a baptized person?
A few days ago,
the church celebrated Epiphany. Now for many people this is
a tell known part of the Christmas season. Everybody knows the
three kings, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. They know by
heart the story of these three gentlemen who came from foreign
lands to bring gifts. We sometimes even go so far as placing
these characters as a part of the manger scene.
Much as I
hate to say this, they don't really belong there. The story of
the wise men or three kings has no historical basis.
Matthew is the only Gospel writer that mentions the visitors, and
he never calls them kings. The word he uses is Magi, which
generally referred to traveling in magicians or entertainers. And
never does he call them by name. And they came after the birth,
if they came at all. And finally, there is no mention of
camels.
So much for the history lesson. I feel like
the Grinch who stole part of the Christmas story for some of you.
But going back to this story, have you ever wondered why the
early church kept this apocryphal story?And why would they make
it so prominent?
My guess is that Matthew wanted to say
something more then a birth has taken place. He wanted a story
that pointed to the future. He wanted to emphasize that we needed
to go beyond the vision, beyond the agreed possibility that a
savior had been born, beyond the celebration, to the next day, to
following a star He probably wanted to show us some people who
were actually redeeming their lives from insignificance.
But
what about yourselves? How might you redeem your life from
insignificance? That's our question this morning.
And I
can not really answer that question for you. I can't actually
hand you a road map. We preachers are often tempted to stand six
feet above contradiction and give answers. All I can do
today, is point you in the possible direction, and promise we
will pursue the question in further sermons. But this much I can
say. Redeeming one's life from insignificance is a journey of
discovery. It’s an inner journey that will take
imagination and daring.
In Auden's long narrative poem, he
gives us some clues to this journey. Auden has each of the
wise men tell why he is on his p ey. The first
one says: "To discover how to be truthful now/Is the reason
I follow the star." The second says: "To discover how
to be living now/Is the reason I follow the star." And the
third says: To discover how to be loving now/Is the reason I
follow the star.” And then all together they say, “To
discover how to be human now/ Is the reason we follow the star.”
Take these words as hints, as clues, as ways that you may start
your own journey.
Good people, redeeming the time from
insignificance is the most important voyage you will take in
2006. For all who have seen the vision of the birth, this
is our assignment, a voyage of discovery, in the new year.
Discovering how to be truthful, how to be loving, how to be
living, and how to be human.
At the conclusion of the
Christmas day service, I was handed a card with a Christmas
Benediction. It was a touching prayer. I would like to thank that
person, and give back a New Year’s benediction inspired by
that card.
May God bless us with discomfort at easy
answers and half truths, so that we may follow our stars.
May
God bless us with enough foolishness to believe we can be truly
loving, and make a difference in the world, as we follow
Jesus.
May God bless us with sufficient madness to hope
that we might redeem our times from insignificance. Amen.
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