What's the difference between Jesus' call to become like a child,
and his call to welcome one such child in his name?
Come, Holy Spirit, and kindle the fire that is in us.
Take our lips and speak through them.
Take our hearts and see through them.
Take our souls and set them on fire. Amen.
Back to Square One
All summer long we have been making our way through the
Gospel of Mark, and last week our story a dramatic turn. For the first eight
chapters of Mark, Jesus had been announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom. He had
demonstrated its power and presence with powerful words and powerful deeds. He exorcised
demons, cleansed lepers, and healed the lame. He raised the dead, and restored hearing
and sight to the deaf and the blind. He stilled storms, walked on the sea, and
fed thousands with just a few loaves. Surely God was with him. Yet, this Jesus
also consorted with tax-collectors and sinners and Gentiles. He disregarded
purity traditions, rewrote parts of the Law, and committed blasphemy. So
perhaps he was just crazy, or perhaps he was in league with the Devil.
So, for eight chapters the questions and the rumors and the
speculations circulated. Who is this Jesus? Is he John the Baptist, Elijah, or
one of the prophets of old? Or is he just a drunkard and a glutton, a false
prophet leading the people astray. Even his own disciples struggled to
understand Jesus and his mission. But then in last’s week’s episode, Peter
declares, “You are the Messiah.” Finally, the disciples get it right. Finally,
they have come to the conclusion that Mark’s readers have known since the opening
verse of the gospel, that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s anointed.
But this glorious moment of recognition is short-lived. As
soon as Jesus’ identity is known, he lets the disciples know the road that lies
ahead. He begins to teach them, saying, that he “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.” It sounds like the talk of a madman,
so Peter rebukes Jesus as though he had a demon; and Jesus rebukes Peter right
back. Now we are back to square one. Who is this Jesus? And what does it mean
to follow him?
How do we gather the resources we need to live lives of of grace, lives that are shaped by God’s love and forgiveness, lives that are animated by the Spirit of God’s mercy and compassion?
A Sermon on Mark 8:11–21
DOGGY BAGS
I have a confession to make. I love doggy bags. It’s true. I love eating
out at restaurants, and putting the leftovers into doggy bags, and then taking
them home for later. The bigger the bag, the better. So for me, the best
restaurants are those that offer an unlimited supply of chips or bread.
When Rebekah and I were dating, we attended church here at St. John’s. On
Sundays after worship, we would often head over to the Spaghetti Warehouse. I
loved that place. When you sat down, they would bring out miniature loaves of free
bread; one loaf after another throughout the meal, as many as you wanted. Now I
didn’t exactly stuff myself with bread, but let’s just say that by the time my
shrimp alfredo arrived, I only needed a small portion to feel satisfied. That
meant that more went into the doggy bag. I think Rebekah was a bit embarrassed
when the servers saw how much of my fettuccini went into the bag (in fact, she is a bit embarrassed even hearing the story today), but not me. It was
like getting two meals for the price of one, which satisfied me to no end.
RESISTANCE ALONG THE TRAIL OF BREADCRUMBS THE TRAIL OF BREADCRUMBS Now I begin my sermon with this talk of loaves and leftovers, because
that’s what Jesus and his disciples are talking about in today’s gospel lesson.
Of course, if you’ve been here at all during the past several weeks, you shouldn’t
be surprised by this. We have been reading through Mark’s Gospel, and we have
discovered something interesting. In five out of the last six readings, some
mention of bread or loaves or crumbs has been made. In other words, Mark has left
us a trail of breadcrumbs, a series of clues that hold the key to unlocking the
mystery of the kingdom of God. So for six weeks now, we have been following the
breadcrumbs, trying to solve the mystery of the loaves. Well, today is the day;
today we arrive at the end of the breadcrumb trail, and all will be revealed. But
before we get to today’s reading, let’s retrace some of our steps.
The trail of breadcrumbs began back in chapter six when Jesus fed five
thousand people with just five loaves of bread. Immediately, after the feeding,
Jesus put his disciples into a boat and sent them to the other side of the Sea
of Galilee, which was Gentile territory. Or at least, that was the plan. But
the disciples never made it; their hearts just weren’t in it. All night long,
they struggled to make headway against an adverse wind, but to no avail. So in
the predawn hours, Jesus came to them walking upon the sea. He had hoped to inspire
them by revealing to them his divine identity, but they failed to recognize him.
Then when he got into boat and everything became calm, the disciples were beside
themselves with astonishment. According to Mark, all of the disciples’ failures
on this trip were due to the fact that “they did not understand about the
loaves but their hearts were hardened” (6:52). It’s a very cryptic explanation.
What was it that the disciples didn’t understand? And what’s all this business
about the loaves? THE DISCIPLES' RESISTANCE TO GENTILE MISSION
Well, the loaves in question, specifically refer to the leftover
fragments following the feeding of the five thousand. After all the people had
eaten their fill, the disciples gathered up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces
of bread. Now, we normally think the baskets of leftovers are mentioned to
illustrate just how miraculous the feeding really was, and it does do that. But
the baskets of loaves signify something more. The five thousand who were fed
were all Jews, and the leftovers were intended for Gentiles. That’s why Jesus
compelled his disciples to cross over into Gentile territory as soon as the leftovers
had been collected. The disciples had just returned from a successful Jewish
mission; so Jesus was sending them on a Gentile mission. But the disciples
resisted. They didn’t understand about the loaves. They didn’t understand that
the blessings of the kingdom were meant for Jews and Gentiles. Instead, they
were fundamentally opposed to Gentile mission, and their participation in it.
They had hardened their hearts to what God was doing in their midst.
Evidence for the disciples’ resistance to Gentile mission litters trail
of breadcrumbs. In last week’s gospel, Jesus was once again playing host to a
crowd of thousands. But on this occasion, it wasn’t a crowd of Jews, but of
Gentiles. “I have compassion for the crowd,” Jesus said to his disciples,”
because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I
send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way” (8:2–3a). Yet
the disciples show no compassion, “How can anyone feed these people with bread
here in the desert?” (8:4). At first blush, it sounds like the disciples have
forgotten about the previous feeding. But they remember; they haven’t
forgotten. They simply don’t like the idea of feeding Gentiles. “How can anyone
give these people—these Gentiles—the blessings of the kingdom that rightfully belong
to God’s chosen people?”
Yet, despite their resistance, Jesus involves his disciples in the
Gentile feeding. After blessing seven loaves of bread, Jesus instructs the
disciples to distribute them to the people. And afterwards, the disciples pick
up seven basketfuls of leftovers, once again far more than what they began
with. Yet, despite their participation in this Gentile feeding, the disciples’
resistance to Gentile mission remains in place. It does not decrease; in fact,
it intensifies. UNDERSTANDING ABOUT THE LOAVES This brings us to today’s reading, which is the climactic episode. Jesus
and the disciples are back in the boat, and they are heading back across the Sea
of Galilee to Gentile territory. Bu Mark points out that the disciples have forgotten
to take any bread; they have no bread with them, except for a single loaf. This
leads Jesus to issue them a warning: “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees
and the yeast of Herod.”
Now I have to tell you, this is a serious warning. Jesus isn’t playing
around. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. And it so infuriated
the Pharisees that they immediately went out and began to conspire with the
Herodians about how to destroy Jesus (3:6). But why would Jesus issue such a
warning simply because the disciples had forgotten to pack some loaves of bread?
Well, it’s because they didn’t forget; it’s because they neglected to bring
extra loaves. You see, they are headed back into Gentile territory, and they
don’t want a repeat performance of the feeding of the four thousand. And so, they
didn’t absent-mindedly forget to bring extra loaves, they intentionally neglected
to bring extra loaves. By refusing to take extra loaves, they are hoping to
prevent another Gentile feeding. But they have crossed the line; they have
moved from passive resistance to Gentile mission to active opposition to Jesus.
Jesus’ disciples have been infected with the same hardness of heart exhibited
by Jesus’ opponents. That’s why he warns them about the yeast of the Pharisees
and Herod. And that’s why he interrogates them using such harsh language:
Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear?
The disciples still don’t understand about the loaves. They still don’t
understand the meaning and significance of the basketfuls of leftovers. If they
weren’t so recalcitrant, so resistant to Gentile mission, they might have the
eyes to see and the ears to hear. But they are afraid. The Jewish people have
been under foreign occupation for the better part of six hundred years. They
have been waiting for the Messiah, waiting for the arrival of God’s kingdom.
And then it happens. Jesus comes, and the people of God began to experience the
freedom and blessings of the kingdom.
But the Gentiles show up and jump in line. “It’s not fair,” say the
disciples. “Jesus, let the children be fed first; it isn’t right to take the
children’s bread away from them and give it to the Gentile dogs.” They just
don’t understand, so they resist Gentile mission. So in a last-ditch effort to
break through their hardness of heart, Jesus focuses his disciples attention on
the baskets of leftover loaves they gathered after each feeding.
Do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” And they said to him, “Seven.” Then he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:17–21).
Well, truth be told, we don’t understand either; we are in the same
boat with the disciples on this. But here’s what Jesus is trying to get his
disciples and us to understand. Both feedings produced an abundance of
leftovers. And as we have already seen, the twelve baskets of leftovers
following the Jewish feeding are for Gentiles. It follows, then, that the seven
baskets of leftovers following the Gentile feeding are for Jews, specifically those
Jews who have not yet heard or bought into the good news of the kingdom. If the
disciples are concerned that fellow Jews—who have suffered so much at the hand
of Gentiles—are going to miss out on the blessings of the kingdom because those
Gentile dogs have cut in line ahead of them, they need not worry. The blessings
of God are for Jew and Gentile alike, and there is more than enough to go
around, regardless of what order the blessings occur in.
MINISTRY IS THE EXTRA But there is a bit more that Jesus wants us to see and hear, namely
this: leftovers imply ministry. After the feedings, the disciples gathered up
the broken pieces of bread so that nothing would be lost (cf. John 6:12). Those
baskets of leftovers—those doggy bags—were meant to be consumed, not by the
disciples, but by those who had not yet tasted the good news of the kingdom. In
Jesus, God pours out his grace, love, and forgiveness without measure. In
Christian baptism, we are filled with these blessings to overflowing. And so, in
baptism, we not only enter into the kingdom of God, we are also called into ministry
because leftovers imply ministry. When God loves us, there are always leftovers.
When God forgives us, there is always extra, because the grace God gives is
always more than we need. And so, we gather up the leftovers of God’s love and
forgiveness, and we share it with others, and that is ministry because ministry
is what happens to the leftovers. As Henri Nouwen writes: “Ministry is when two
people toast their glasses of wine and something splashes over. Ministry is the
extra.”[1]
That is such an important truth because, like the disciples, there are
times when we find it hard to love and forgive, when we find ourselves
resistant to extending the grace of God to others. Sometimes, for example, we
find it hard to forgive someone who has hurt us, perhaps because they have hurt
us before and we are afraid of simply opening ourselves to more pain and
suffering. But we know that God calls us to forgive, after all, in the Lord’s
prayer, we pray “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against
us.” And so, we try to manufacture forgiveness, but it doesn’t work because our
own resources for forgiveness are so miniscule. Forgiving someone who has hurt
us—be it friend or foe—is like trying to feed thousands of hungry people with
just a few loaves and fish.
GATHERING UP THE LEFTOVERS OF GOD'S GRACE IN OUR LIVES But the truth is, we cannot manufacture forgiveness; we simply don’t
have the resources. But the good news is that we are not in the manufacturing
business; we are in the distribution business. When we forgive someone, it is
not our own forgiveness that we are offering; rather, we are extending the forgiveness
that God has blessed us with in Christ. God calls us to forgive others, but God
does not expect us to generate our own forgiveness out of our own resources.
Rather, God is expecting us to gather up the crumbs of his grace—the leftovers
from those times when we ourselves have experienced God’s forgiveness—and then
to offer those leftovers to the one who has hurt us. That is ministry because
ministry is what happens to the leftovers of God’s grace, ministry is the extra.
Now this does not make forgiveness automatic or easy, but it does make
it possible. And so, when you find it hard to forgive, when the thought of
forgiving someone triggers resistance in you, consider this. Consider taking
some time to remember specific occasions in your life when you experienced God’s
forgiveness, especially those occasions when God’s forgiveness came through
another human being. Reflect on those times and give thanks, write them down or
tell another person, for these are the ways in which we gather up the leftovers
of God’s grace. These are the ways in which we gather the resources we need to
live lives of grace, lives that are shaped by God’s love and forgiveness, lives
that are animated by the Spirit of God’s mercy and compassion.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1]
Nouwen with Christiansen and Laird, Spiritual
Direction, 131.
The Strange Exchange Between Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7:24–30).
What did Jesus mean when when he said, "Let the children be fed first, it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." And what was the Syrophoenician woman referring to when she talked about the dogs eating children's crumbs under the table? And how do the disciples fit into it all, the same disciples who earlier didn't understand about the loaves? Follow the trail of breadcrumbs and see if you can solve the mystery before Encyclopedia does.
Come, Holy
Spirit, and kindle the fire that is in us.
Take our
lips and speak through them.
Take our
hearts and see through them.
Take our
souls and set them on fire. Amen.
Encyclopedia Brown and the Mystery of the Kingdom
In the evenings, I like to read to the kids while they are
eating at the dinner table. Recently, I have been reading them stories from the
Encyclopedia Brown series. If you don’t know these stories, Encyclopedia Brown
is a boy detective. His real name is Leroy, but most people call him
Encyclopedia because he is so smart. His dad is the police chief in fictional Idaville,
and so sometimes Encyclopedia helps him solve crimes that have stumped the
police. But mostly, he solves cases around his neighborhood. There are two
things I like about these stories. First, they are short. And second, each
story provides all of the clues that readers need to solve the mystery on their
own. Sometimes the clues are obvious. But sometimes you have to reread the
story a couple of times before you figure it out. And sometimes, you just have
to look up the answers in the back of the book. This technique makes the reader
more active, more engaged, more involved in the story.
The Gospel of Mark does something quite similar. Mark is also
a mystery story. It is a mystery about the kingdom of God, set in the small backwater
region of Galilee on the outskirts of the great Roman Empire. At the center of
this mystery is an obscure Jew, named Jesus. And everybody in the story is
trying to figure out who he is and where he gets his power and authority to
preach, to exorcise demons, to pronounce forgiveness, to heal the sick, and to
do a host of other things. Now Mark has left his readers clues to help them
discover for themselves the true nature of Jesus’ identity and mission. Some of
the clues are obvious; others not so much. Sometimes Mark’s stories about Jesus
make sense to us on the first reading, and sometimes we have to go back and
read them over and over again, pondering them in our hearts and minds. And sometimes we wish we could just look up the
answers in the back of the book.[1]
Jesus’s Response to the Syrophoenician Woman… Gentile
Prejudice?
Take today’s episode with Jesus and the Syrophoenician
woman.
In Mark 6:45-53, Mark recounts the episode of Jesus walking on the sea. The disciples have been sent to the other side of the sea, but they struggle through the night against an adverse wind. When Jesus comes to them, walking on the sea, the narrator says something very curious, "He intended to pass by." Moreover, the episode ends with a very enigmatic statement. “And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (6:52). So what's going on here in Mark, and how might it relate to us?
ENSURING THAT CHANGE IS A SUSTAINABLE BLESSING
I have a good friend named Rob Voyle (clergyleadership.com). I first met Rob at the
General Convention in Anaheim, California in 2009. We met through a mutual
friend, and we both had booths in the convention hall. At the end of the first
full day, Rob came by my booth, and said with his New Zealand accent, “Let’s go
get a beer, mate.” I was tired, and I don’t actually like beer, but I went along
anyway, and I am glad I did because Rob is brilliant. Rob is a priest, a
psychologist, and a consultant.
In his work as a church consultant, folks often say to Rob,
“People don’t like change, especially church people.” But Rob disagrees. It’s
not change per se that people don’t like, but the type of change that people
will either accept or reject. “People don’t want to be changed; they want to be
blessed” (Dr. Stephen Gilligan). For example, if you get a raise at work, you’re
happy; that’s the sort of change you like. So if you have ever experienced a
blessing in life, you have experienced some kind of change. And that is Rob’s
passion in life, helping people and organizations ensure that the changes they
seek to make are sustainable blessings.
The Kingdom of God
When Jesus announced the arrival of God’s kingdom, he was announcing
change. “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent—be changed—and believe the good
news” (1:15). Now some people experienced the kingdom as a blessing, not least
those whom Jesus healed by the power of the kingdom. But others, such as the
scribes and Pharisees, opposed the Jesus’ kingdom proclamation, for they did
not perceive him or his message as a blessing.
But it wasn’t just religious opponents who exhibited
resistance. On occasion, Jesus’ own disciples show signs of resisting the
kingdom of God. That’s what we see in today’s gospel. And again, it wasn’t
simply that the disciples didn’t like change. After all they gave up their
livelihoods to follow Jesus because they believed that life with Jesus was
better than life without Jesus. But they did not welcome every change that the
kingdom entailed. And that’s what I want us to look at today.
In the Spring and Fall of 2014, I taught a class on Centering Prayer at St. John's Episcopal Church entitled "Sitting with Jesus" which is a reference to the story of Jesus, Mary, and Martha in Luke 10:38-42. We spent more than six weeks learning Centering Prayer, but during the first few weeks I produced a class handout. I am making them available here to be used as is or to be modified to fit anyone's situation.
Dining with Herod in the Kingdom of Hell vs. Dining with Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven
In the Gospel of Mark, the author inserts the flashback-story of John the Baptist's death right before Jesus' feeding of the five thousand. In doing this, Mark sets up a contrast between Herod Antipas and Jesus, between the this worldly-values of Rome as reflected in his macabre birthday banquet and between the values of the Kingdom of God as embodied in the banquet Jesus hosts for five thousand people who are hungry for truth and bread.
A few weeks ago, on June 24th, we celebrated the Feast of
the Nativity of John the Baptist. That is, we celebrated John the Baptist’s
birthday. In today’s gospel, we find ourselves at another feast where we
witness the circumstances and events that led to John’s death. I call it the Banquet
from Hell.
As we all know, John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus
the Messiah. When the Gospel of Mark opens, when the curtain lifts, John is the
first character we see on stage. He is dressed like the prophet Elijah, and he
is out in the Judean wilderness announcing the imminent arrival of God’s
kingdom. “The Lord is coming soon. Prepare the way of the Lord. Repent, and be
baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.” John’s message struck a chord.
Crowds of people were heading out into the wilderness to be baptized by John,
to make themselves reading for the coming of God’s kingdom. In short, John was
leading a spiritual revival, so how does he end up with his head on a dinner
platter? Why would anybody kill a baptist, some crazy guy who was out in the
middle of nowhere dunking people in a river?
I have been making my way through Spiritual Formation by Henri Nouwen (with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird. The second chapter is about prayer, and it opens with the following story:
A carpenter and
his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came
across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his
apprentice: “Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old
and beautiful?”
The apprentice looked at his master and said: “No . . . why?”
“Well,” the carpenter said, “because it is useless. If it had been
useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but
because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit
in its shade and relax.”
Later on in the chapter Nouwen writes:
The world says, "If you are not making good use of your time, you are useless." Jesus says: "Come spend some useless time with me." If we think about prayer in terms of its usefulness to us—what prayer will do for us, what spiritual benefits we will gain, what insights we will gain, what divine presence we may feel—God cannot easily speak to us. But if we can detach ourselves from the idea of the usefulness of prayer and the results of prayer, we become free to "waste" a precious hour with God in prayer. Gradually, we may find, our "useless" time will transform us, and everything around us will be different.
Prayer is being unbusy with God instead of being busy with other things. Prayer is primarily to do nothing useful or productive in the presence of God.
From Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit (pages 17, 18).
I like to bring color, beauty, and word together, and so I like to create bulletins for feast days and saint days when we are celebrating them at a special Eucharist.
I am making my files available. Feel free to use them as is or modify them to your own needs.
• PDF
• Word
RCL • Year B • Proper 6 • Track 2 Ezekiel 17:22-24 • Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17 Mark 4:(21-25)26-34
The Kingdom of God is Like…
Today’s gospel lesson comes from the fourth chapter of Mark.
Up to this point in the narrative, Jesus has been announcing the arrival of
God’s kingdom, “Repent,” he would say, “for the kingdom of God has come near.”
In other words, “Take notice, God’s kingdom is taking over this broken world; and
God demands your allegiance. This is good news.” And Jesus demonstrated the
presence of God’s kingdom with powerful words and powerful deeds. He preached
with an authority that astounded the crowds; he expelled demons with just a
word; and he healed the sick with just a touch. People were amazed. But not
everyone saw these things as evidence of God’s kingdom at work. As we heard
last week, Jesus’ own family thought he was mental unstable and the scribes
claimed he was possessed by Satan.
So Jesus began to be more careful; he began to operate more
covertly. For example, instead of speaking about God’s kingdom in plain
language, he began to cloak the gospel in little stories that we call parables.
Jesus hid the kingdom from plain view so that it might have a better chance to
get behind people’s natural defenses. In other words, Jesus used parables as a
way to smuggled the gospel behind enemy lines. He hid the kingdom, so that the
kingdom might be revealed. As he himself said, “There is nothing hidden, except
to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light” (4:22). He
hid the kingdom to reveal the kingdom. This may sound absurd, but this is exactly
what every farmer and gardener does. This is what we do. We hide seeds in the
earth precisely so that they will come to light. If we didn’t hide seeds in
this way, we would never experience harvest.
In today’s gospel, Jesus tells two parables about seeds and sowers
to reveal something about the kingdom of God. Note that in both parables,
someone plants a seed, and then what happens with the seed is completely out of
their control. For example, in the first parable, a farmer plants a seed, and
then he goes about his normal life. And despite his lack of attention and
effort, the seed grows.
Frog and Toad, “The Garden”
This reminds me of a story that I read as a kid and that I
like to read to my kids now. It is a story about Frog and Toad. Have you ever heard
these stories. If you haven’t, Frog and Toad are good friends, very good
friends. And if you read their stories, you soon discover that Frog is the
sensible one, and Toad, not so much.
A few years ago I was in my neighborhood library, when I came across Peace Tales: World Folktales to Talk About by Margaret Reed MacDonald. I rechecked it out recently in large part because of the following story about the way in which suspicion can color the way in which we see the world.
The Neighbor’s Shifty Son A farmer once lost his axe. He felt certain that his neighbor had stolen the axe. He watched that neighbor with suspicion. He noticed that the neighbor’s son seemed as shifty as his father. That boy looked just like a thief. The farmer knew he could not trust either of them.
One day when he visited a distant field where he sometimes worked, the farmer discovered his axe. He had left it behind the last time he worked the field.
When the farmer returned home he noticed his neighbor’s son at play. The boy looked absolutely normal now. There seemed nothing shifty or suspicious about him at all.
In the late 1990s, the late Henri Nouwen gave a series of
sermons at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. The title of the series
of talks was, “The Life of the Beloved.” (By the way, they are available on
YouTube. Search for “The Life of the Beloved (Henri Nouwen, 2011)”.) Nouwen
suggests that the voice of God that addressed Jesus at his baptism, saying, “You
are my beloved. I’m very pleased with you,” also addresses us. Unfortunately, we
live in a very busy and noisy world. We are so preoccupied that we lose touch
with who we are, and the chaos within and without drowns out the voice of God.
Spiritual disciplines are designed, in part, to help us tune out the world and tune
into what God is speaking to our hearts and minds.
Nouwen says that spiritual disciplines are the
human effort to create some open space in our lives so that we can hear the
voice of God telling us who we truly are, his beloved, treasured, and valued
sons and daughters. Nouwen then speaks of three disciplines that help us create
this space for God’s voice in our lives. They are communion, community, and
ministry.
In communion,
we spend a little bit of our time every day, sitting with God in silence, or
spending time with God by prayerfully reading the Scriptures. And in this
discipline of communion, we hear the voice of God calling us the beloved.
Then, in community,
we are gathered together in worship and in fellowship. In that community of
faith, we hear the voice of God speaking to us through one another. And isn’t
it amazing how God’s voice becomes amplified when it comes to us as the voice
of another human being. One would have thought that it would be enough for us
to hear God’s voice directly. But it appears that God has so designed human
beings that we need to hear God’s word of love and blessing being spoken by a
friend, a family member, or a brother and sister in Christ. “You are God’s
beloved.”
Finally, in ministry,
the people of God are sent out into the world to proclaim the good news of
God’s love. And listen to what Nouwen says about the discipline of ministry:
Jesus went to the poor, the sick, the dying, to the little
ones. And dear friends, I cannot tell you enough how the final voice that calls
you the beloved comes from those you
care for. That’s a great mystery I want to tell you…. [Those whom we serve],
they are the ones who God has chosen to speak his word of love to us.
Do you remember in
the Beatitudes, do you remember what it says? “Blessed are the poor. Blessed
are the mourning.” It does not say, “Blessed are those who care for the poor.”
It does not say, “Blessed are those who console the mourning.” No, no. The
blessing is located in the poor. In these people that we want to help, we will
find that they carry the blessing in their heart for us, for us to live. They
give us life, they give us a sense of
God’s presence. And I want to tell you that they whom we go to minister to are the ones who carry in themselves the
blessing. And the blessing is the voice of God, saying, “You are my Beloved. On
you my favor rests.” We hear that blessing come to us through those who are
weak, through those who are poor. And they will lead us closer and closer to
the heart of Love.
That is the great
joy I want to announce to you and for you to trust because once you are in deep
communion with the poor, you will be able to discover your own poverty, your
own weakness, your own brokenness, and not be afraid of it. You will discover,
“Yes I am poor too.” When we work with the poor we will become so aware of our
own limitations, but the voice of God is saying, “Don’t be afraid because I
love you right there where you are poor too.” And so, we become in a way, a
fellowship of the weak where the power of God’s grace can manifest itself.
So keep some space
for God’s voice. Some space by praying alone. Some space by forming community.
Space by going out and going to those people in your own family, your own
friends, and in your own city who need you. They don’t just need you because
they are needy, they also need you to give to you their blessing.
So, if there is any truth to this. If the poor
have a blessing for us, then how can we find ways—individually and as a
community—to enter into relationship with them? Because how can they give us
their blessing, which is from God, if we don’t seek them out?
On Thursday, Rebekah and I celebrated our twenty-first
wedding anniversary. As I think back over the past twenty-one years, I can’t
help but give thanks for all the blessings that God has given us, not least our
four wonderful children. But I am also struck by how much I have grown as a
person as a direct result of being married to Rebekah.
I have a friend who is a priest, his name is Fr. Jim Clark.
And Fr. Jim once told me how he does marriage counseling. He sits the couple
down, and offers two pieces of advice. First, he looks at the woman and says,
“You have a project on your hands.” And then he turns to the man and says, “She
is the Holy Spirit [to you.]” Now when I first heard this, my egalitarian
sensibilities were slightly offended. After all, this didn’t seem to be
particularly balanced or mutual. But for the most part, I think this is how our
marriage has played out. Let me offer just one example.
When we were first married, Rebekah would come home from
school or work and begin telling me about her day. If it hadn’t been a
particularly good day, and she was feeling bad, I would listen, and then I
would do one of two things. I would either explain why she didn’t need to feel
so bad, or I would offer suggestions on how to fix the situation. I thought I
was being helpful, but my advice and explanations rarely made her feel better, and
in actuality they generally had the opposite effect. Rebekah would complain, “I
want you to listen.” And I would say, “I am listening.” But I wasn’t listening,
not really. I hadn’t learned to listen or empathize. Instead life had taught me
to solve problems and fix things, to such a degree that I really didn’t know
the difference between listening and giving advice, the difference between
empathizing and fixing.
So early on in our marriage, Rebekah gave me John Gray’s
book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. I read it. Reluctantly and
suspiciously, I read it. And my eyes began to open, ever so slowly. For
example, Gray writes:
When a woman is talking about the problems of her day,
rather than assuming she is looking for solutions and giving solutions, a man
can instead recognize that she is just needing to talk about her day and as a
result she will feel better. With this insight, he is free to relax and listen
without trying to interrupt with solutions (xxii).
Today, this all sounds like common sense to me, but twenty
years ago it was a complete revelation. I found it incredible. How could the simple
act of listening help Rebekah feel better? But it did, and it does.
“Mrs. Anderson, I don’t want you to do anything; I just want
you to listen.”
Last week, I was driving in my car, and I turned on the
radio and tuned it to NPR. And I got in on the tail end of an interview with an
artist who designs and sells greeting cards online (emilymcdowell.com). Her
name is Emily McDowell. Emily was being interviewed because she had just
released a new and rather unique line of cards, which she calls Empathy Cards.
Not Sympathy Cards, mind you, but Empathy Cards, which have been especially
designed for people with a serious illness. Emily herself is a cancer survivor,
and she writes:
The most difficult part of my illness wasn’t losing
my hair, or being erroneously called “sir” by Starbucks baristas, or sickness
from chemo. It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close
friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or
said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.
She continues:
Most of us struggle to find the right words
in the face of a friend or loved one’s major health crisis, whether it’s
cancer, chronic illness, mental illness, or anything else. It’s a really tough
problem; someone we love needs our support more than ever, but we don’t have
the right language for it…..
With
Empathy Cards, my goal is to help people connect with each other through truth
and insight…. I want the recipients of these cards to feel seen, understood,
and loved.
Here are a few examples of her cards. The first one is very simple. The front of the
card simply says, “There is no good card for this. I’m so sorry.”
Another one
says, “I’m really sorry I haven’t been in touch. I didn’t know what to say.”
And you know that situation. Where you don’t know what to say, and so you don’t
say anything. And time passes, and the space becomes awkward, and you don’t
know how to break that awkwardness. Well here’s a card for you. It lets them
know that you care in an honest way.
Now the next two
cards are my favorites because they use humor.
This next one has to
be my absolute favorite.
Emily
McDowell writes about this card:
Why is it that when you’re sick with a
life-threatening disease, so many people feel the need to tell you about
someone they know who died of the thing
you have? It’s crazy how often this happens. Not only is it unhelpful, it’s
actually quite terrifying. Please, everyone, stop doing this.
And so if this
happens to be your impulse, buy the card and send it instead.
I like to bring color, beauty, and word together, and so I like to create bulletins for feast days and saint days when we are celebrating them at a special Eucharist.
I am making my files available. Feel free to use them as is or modify them to your own needs.
2015 • PDF • Word This year we actually celebrated the Eve of the Ascension
If you
weren’t here last week, I am sorry to say that you missed out on a wonderful
sermon that was delivered by our guest preacher, Don Compier, who is the dean
of the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry and who also serves a Spanish-speaking
congregation in Kansas City. In his sermon, Don spoke passionately about what
it means for us to be witnesses of the Resurrection. Today I want to return to
that theme.
Following
his resurrection on Easter morning, Jesus appeared to his disciples for a
period of forty days until he was taken up into heaven. One of these appearances
occurred on the evening of Easter Sunday. Two of his followers had just returned
to Jerusalem, and they were telling the other disciples how they had been encountered
by Jesus on the road to Emmaus and how Jesus had made himself known to them in
the breaking of the bread. (This recognition scene is the subject of the relief
that stands above and behind our altar here at St. John’s.)
Anyway, while these twodisciples are
excitedly telling their story, Jesus suddenly appears in their midst. The
disciples are all surprised, to say the least. Some are downright terrified
because they think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus tries to alleviate their fear
by pointing to the holes in his hands and feet. He says, “Touch me and see; for
a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). And just to make sure that
he has left no room left for doubt, the Risen Jesus takes a piece of broiled
fish and eats in their presence.
Good Morning, I Know It's Easter As many of you know, I was ordained as a deacon back in
August of 2013, and then I became a priest in June of last year. Esther, our
six-year old, has been very interested in all of this stuff, and she has been very
supportive. For example, yesterday, I was sharing with Rebekah some of my plans
for today’s sermon. Esther was listening in, and she interrupted our
conversation and said, “Daddy, I know how you can begin your sermon.” I was
grateful because making a beginning is so often the hardest part. And so, let me
begin my sermon today in the words of Esther:
“Good morning, I know it’s Easter.”
I know it’s
Easter. But what does it mean to know it’s Easter. At its most basic level,
Easter is all about the resurrection of Jesus. Easter is about how God literally
raised Jesus from the dead, the same Jesus who, just days earlier, literally died
a humiliating and torturous death, with a cry of abandonment on his lips. Why
did he die? Why was he raised? These are strange things. So if we want to
understand them, if we want to know what they have to do with us in our daily
lives, then we need to take a few steps back to gain some perspective. We need
to put them into context, because these strange events that have taken place these
past three days, are not the whole story, but the climax of a much larger,
grander Story.
When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were overcome by such a deep sense of shame that all they could do was hide themselves from one another and from God. The real tragedy is that they—and all of their unborn children, that is, we—no longer experienced God's presence as a blessing, but as a curse.
From that moment, God has worked to restore humanity, to set it free from its original shame and all of the sin, violence, and death that have resulted. This work climaxes on Good Friday where God cures like with like, where God cures our shame by enduring shame.
On Tuesday, I was in Topeka at the annual Chrism Mass,
where the priests and deacons and the Bishop gather together to renew our
ordination vows. After the service, we had lunch. And I sat down next to one of
my colleagues who was talking about his Holy Week sermons. He said, “This year,
I am not going to be talking about shame and guilt.” That made may me a bit
nervous because that’s all I had been planning to talk about. My friend said he
wasn’t going to heapshame and guilt upon his congregation by preaching
about how they were the cause of Jesus’ death. Well, I am not planning to do
that either. But we’ve got to talk about guilt and shame, for without them we simply
can’t make sense of Jesus’ death.
So, tonight, I want to talk about shame. More
specifically, I want to talk about “original shame,” which is related to the
idea of “original sin,” but which is far more fundamental to our human
situation and far more relevant to our daily lives. But I must warn you, tonight’s
sermon is only the first part of the story, you will have to come back on Easter Sunday to get the Rest of the Story. Tonight,
we will look at three stories of shame.
Story Of Shame
#1: Adam and Eve
The first story of
shame is an old story, a very older story. It’s the story of the first
man and the first woman, the story of Adam and Eve. You know this story. In the
beginning, God plants a garden in Eden, and it needs tending. So God creates
Adam from the dust of the ground, and places him in the garden to till it and
keep it. Later God creates Eve to be Adam’s partner in this work. They are the
perfect couple, ideally suited for one another. And so, life in the Garden of
Eden is idyllic. There is plenty of food, there
is meaningful work, and “they are naked and not ashamed.”
But turn the page, and things fall apart rather
quickly. The crafty serpent convinces our first parents to eat from the one tree
in the entire garden that is off limits to them, the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil. And when they partake of the forbidden tree, everything changes.
In an instant, their eyes are opened, and they now know that they are naked.
Shame washes over them to such a degree that they can no longer bear to be in
one another’s presence. They try hiding themselves from one another, but the
best they can do is fashion some makeshift clothing out of fig leaves.
That’s what shame does. Shame causes us to hide
ourselves from other people, and so cuts us off from one another. And when we
are disconnected from others, we are prone to all manner of sin and violence. Even
brothers will kill one another when they are disconnected and operating from a
place of shame. In short, shame brings about a kind of death, wherein we are
separated from ourselves, from others, and especially
from God. That’s the next part of the story.
Lent is a great time to do a bit of spring cleaning, to declutter out soul by letting go of something that weighs us down and so clears out some space to receive the life that comes to us through Jesus' resurrection at Easter.
After Jesus was baptized, “the Spirit immediately
drove him out into the wilderness. [And] he was in the wilderness forty days,
tempted by Satan.”
A week ago Saturday, we had our first Quiet Day of the year, here at St.
John’s. It was designed to help us get ready to enter Lent, which so often
sneaks up on us and catches us by surprise, especially this year with Easter coming
so early. When we were off on our own, I happened to pick up a book of sermons by
Taylor. If you are not familiar with Barbara Brown Taylor, she is an Episcopal
priest, a professor of religion, and a writer, who is well known for her sermons.
I read a sermon entitled, “Lenten Discipline,” (from Home by Another Way) which offers some insights into
the purpose and promise of this season we call Lent. I found it very helpful,
so I would like to share it with you today. What follows, then, is Taylor’s
sermon with a few modifications and additions. She begins: (Taylor's words are in blue).
