SEPTEMBER 25, 2011
PHILIPPIANS 2:1-13
MATTHEW 21:23-32
FR. DOUG HALE
Our passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians is one of my most favorite passages of scripture. It is not a favorite because it is pleasant, but because it describes the very depths of the Gospel. It is so full that there seems to be no end to reflecting upon it and it’s implications for our lives.
At the core of the passage is what is considered by some scholars to be an ancient hymn of the church that Paul was probably quoting to make a point. The hymn is a depiction of the Son of God: Who took on human form, humbled himself, emptied himself, became a slave. He became obedient even unto death. He did not exploit, utilize or grasp his equality with God.
Our Gospel story illustrates this depiction of Jesus. Jesus was confronted with the question, “By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?” In other words, “did God send you to teach and heal? Why should we listen to you?”
But Jesus turns the questions around. It is not a question of him claiming authority nor that John the Baptist claimed authority. It is a question of “Do YOU RECOGNIZE John’s authority? Do YOU RECOGNIZE my authority?”
Jesus didn’t claim his divine origin, he didn’t grasp it, he didn’t exploit it. He didn’t take it and wack people over the head with it. Jesus humbly waited for people to recognize who he was, to recognize his authority in their lives, to get up and follow him.
He did not force the tax-collectors and prostitutes to follow him. They chose to follow him. What would the chief priest and elders choose? What will we choose?
This is the Jesus described in the hymn. He does not push himself on anyone. Rather, he allows himself to be pushed to the point of suffering and death. Yet in the end he will be recognized for who he is. He will be given the name above every name. Every tongue will confess him as Lord.
I am really drawn to this passage because it give me an image of not only what Jesus Christ has done for me, but also about how he approaches me. He comes to me as my servant. It blows me away that the Creator of the universe would come to me that way.
My wife and I have a friend in Turkey, who is a devote Muslim. Sumer has a lot of respect for us as people of faith. Our spiritual lives have much in common. But when we touch on this depiction of Jesus as the humble Son of God, he reacts, “GOD HAS NO SON!” He also cannot see God as humble. Rather, God is to be obeyed!
We Christians can struggle as well with this depiction of the Son of God. Some may see the incarnation as a passing phase before he becomes ruler of all. Some may so reject the image of God as Ruler of All that they cannot accept Jesus as anything other than a humble man. Some may find themselves in the middle, constantly fumbling with the implications of the paradox that God in Jesus Christ is both ruler and humble servant.
Paul's purpose in giving this description of Jesus is that our worship of him would lead us to seek to emulate him. He calls upon us to have the same mind that Jesus had: setting aside selfish-ambition and conceit, viewing others as more important than ourselves, looking out for others before we look out for ourselves.
This depiction of Jesus tugs at me. It is like he is tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Go and do likewise. Have the same mind. Be humble. Don’t be impressed with your own prowess. Seek to be a servant of others, not there master. Don’t grab after positions of power over others. Do all this even if it means you will suffer and maybe even die.
It is much easier to use this passage to critique how others are behaving. There are bishops and bosses and politicians that are so enamored with there positions of power that they don’t bother to ask the question, do their people WANT to follow them?
There are spouses and parents and acquaintances that like bossing us around or filling the air with their precious ideas and never bother to ask: do people think my ideas are good? do they value what I have to say?
It is much harder to take a good look at ourselves and ponder, how we may step on other people’s toes, how we may be impressed with our importance in our family, in our work, or in the church.
Having the same mind as Christ is not easy. Even heading my life in this general direction is impossible for me without the inspiration and strength Christ’s mind gives to me. If I could not hold onto this image of Jesus, I would not be able to hold up to the challenge of what he is asking me to do.
It is the image of this humble God that makes it possible for us to have humility. As we hold this image of God up over and over again, it can transform how we thing about how things should be done, how we should act. Then we shall be on the road to having the same mind, not because he has forced us, but because we have chosen to follow him.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
September 18, 2011, 14th Sunday after Pentecost
SEPTEMBER 18, 2011
MATTHEW 20:1-16;
PSALM: 145:1-8
JONAH 3:10-4:11
FR. DOUG HALE
On the first opportunity that I get to be with you, I am tempted to keep the sermon upbeat. I could focus on the last verse of our Psalm and expound upon the glory of God with the Psalmist's words: “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness.” (145:8) and I could use Jonah's words: “...you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (4:2)
Or...I could take it a step further and see the story of Jonah as a call for us to emulate God's willingness to forgive, and see Jesus' parable as a summons to be generous people even as God is.
But in order to take the Old Testament and Gospel texts seriously, I need to go deeper. What both texts focus upon is not the praise of God nor setting standards for moral behavior. What both texts focus upon is how difficult it is for humans to accept God's forgiving and generous nature. Jonah didn't want the Ninevites to be forgiven. The first laborers didn't want the later laborers to be paid the same wage. The first laborers grumbled. Jonah was angry to the point of wanting to die.
It is not easy to be truly forgiving. Jonah and the Jewish people had reasons for hating the Ninevites. They had invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel and carried off the whole population. Those ten tribes were never heard from again. At least once, they lay siege to Jerusalem itself and extracted a heavy tribute to leave them alone. The prophet Nahum described them as endlessly cruel and everyone who heard of their destruction would clap their hands. (Nahum 3:19)
Does this sound familiar, as we reflected back upon 9/11 this past week or so. There were the images of people in the Middle East clapping at the news of the attack on the US. There was the outrage that drove our country to war. And then there was the response to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been found and killed. We may not identify with those reactions, but honestly, I found it harder to object to such reactions. There was a certain rightness about them. There was a sense of justice to it all I think we need to be honest with ourselves about how we feel about certain people. Are there people, like sex offenders, whom we so fear that we would just as soon see them locked up permanently? Are there people who have so wronged us personally that we would love to see them get their “just desserts?” Are there people that while we don't sense that we are angry with them anymore, we really do not want to see them again. We have put them behind us and we want to move on.
Now imagine God coming to you and saying: “I have forgiven these people. They shall not receive their just desserts. I want you to welcome them back into your life, this community and this church.”
Who would you find it difficult to welcome and forgive?
We can talk about being a “Welcoming Church.” But the real test of welcoming is the willingness to forgive face to face. We can offer the peace to one another each Sunday, but the real test of the offer of peace comes when the person whose hand we take has done a real wrong to us and we are forgiving them.
It is not easy to be truly generous either. Why did the first laborer's in Jesus' parable object to the landowner's pay practice? It violated a very basic standard of justice: equal pay for equal work. We still struggle to meet this standard today.
There is a group of people in my wife's former church that will not be happy with hearing this passage this morning. They have already made it clear, quite vehemently, that they think the landowner was unjust. They get angry about it.
How about you? Have you ever experienced being paid less than someone else for the same work? Have you ever watched someone else receive more recognition for accomplishing the same thing you have? Do you have a sibling that you always felt your parents liked best?
The landowner's defense is that the first laborers had agreed to their pay prior to starting work. Historians tell us that they were paid the standard wage for a laborer for a day's work. The wages of the first laborers were just, in and of themselves.
What they objected to was generosity. Generosity of which they were not the recipients. They were filled with envy. Have you every envied what another has received and you have not?
It is one thing to be the recipient of generosity. It takes a gracious spirit to give generously to another. It takes real humility to watch as others fair better in life and accept this with grace.
Have you ever felt that life is not fair? How can life be fair when people practice unequal generosity? How can we have a just legal system when some people are forgiven? How can God be both just and forgiving? How can God be fair and generous at the same time?
What we are being told by these passages is that God's justice and righteousness include forgiveness and generosity. And what may be most difficult for us is that it is God who determines ultimately the extent of the forgiveness and generosity. God will not wait for us to be ready to forgive and will not be generous on our terms. God will decide and God's ways are not our ways; they defy our ability to make them into a predictable system of justice and fair play.
I think the only way to make sense of this is to change our perspective. We need to rethink who we are. We need to see ourselves not as Jonah but as the Ninevites. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as basically good people who are better than those who deserve their just desserts and instead see ourselves as people who have been forgiven much. We need to not see ourselves as the first laborers, but as the last. We need to stop thinking that we deserve the good we have received and instead think of it as God's generous undeserved gift.
That way, when we see others forgiven, we can rejoice that they have come to know God's forgiveness as we have. And when we see others fairing better than ourselves, we can recall the times we have been the recipients of God's generosity.
MATTHEW 20:1-16;
PSALM: 145:1-8
JONAH 3:10-4:11
FR. DOUG HALE
On the first opportunity that I get to be with you, I am tempted to keep the sermon upbeat. I could focus on the last verse of our Psalm and expound upon the glory of God with the Psalmist's words: “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness.” (145:8) and I could use Jonah's words: “...you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (4:2)
Or...I could take it a step further and see the story of Jonah as a call for us to emulate God's willingness to forgive, and see Jesus' parable as a summons to be generous people even as God is.
But in order to take the Old Testament and Gospel texts seriously, I need to go deeper. What both texts focus upon is not the praise of God nor setting standards for moral behavior. What both texts focus upon is how difficult it is for humans to accept God's forgiving and generous nature. Jonah didn't want the Ninevites to be forgiven. The first laborers didn't want the later laborers to be paid the same wage. The first laborers grumbled. Jonah was angry to the point of wanting to die.
It is not easy to be truly forgiving. Jonah and the Jewish people had reasons for hating the Ninevites. They had invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel and carried off the whole population. Those ten tribes were never heard from again. At least once, they lay siege to Jerusalem itself and extracted a heavy tribute to leave them alone. The prophet Nahum described them as endlessly cruel and everyone who heard of their destruction would clap their hands. (Nahum 3:19)
Does this sound familiar, as we reflected back upon 9/11 this past week or so. There were the images of people in the Middle East clapping at the news of the attack on the US. There was the outrage that drove our country to war. And then there was the response to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been found and killed. We may not identify with those reactions, but honestly, I found it harder to object to such reactions. There was a certain rightness about them. There was a sense of justice to it all I think we need to be honest with ourselves about how we feel about certain people. Are there people, like sex offenders, whom we so fear that we would just as soon see them locked up permanently? Are there people who have so wronged us personally that we would love to see them get their “just desserts?” Are there people that while we don't sense that we are angry with them anymore, we really do not want to see them again. We have put them behind us and we want to move on.
Now imagine God coming to you and saying: “I have forgiven these people. They shall not receive their just desserts. I want you to welcome them back into your life, this community and this church.”
Who would you find it difficult to welcome and forgive?
We can talk about being a “Welcoming Church.” But the real test of welcoming is the willingness to forgive face to face. We can offer the peace to one another each Sunday, but the real test of the offer of peace comes when the person whose hand we take has done a real wrong to us and we are forgiving them.
It is not easy to be truly generous either. Why did the first laborer's in Jesus' parable object to the landowner's pay practice? It violated a very basic standard of justice: equal pay for equal work. We still struggle to meet this standard today.
There is a group of people in my wife's former church that will not be happy with hearing this passage this morning. They have already made it clear, quite vehemently, that they think the landowner was unjust. They get angry about it.
How about you? Have you ever experienced being paid less than someone else for the same work? Have you ever watched someone else receive more recognition for accomplishing the same thing you have? Do you have a sibling that you always felt your parents liked best?
The landowner's defense is that the first laborers had agreed to their pay prior to starting work. Historians tell us that they were paid the standard wage for a laborer for a day's work. The wages of the first laborers were just, in and of themselves.
What they objected to was generosity. Generosity of which they were not the recipients. They were filled with envy. Have you every envied what another has received and you have not?
It is one thing to be the recipient of generosity. It takes a gracious spirit to give generously to another. It takes real humility to watch as others fair better in life and accept this with grace.
Have you ever felt that life is not fair? How can life be fair when people practice unequal generosity? How can we have a just legal system when some people are forgiven? How can God be both just and forgiving? How can God be fair and generous at the same time?
What we are being told by these passages is that God's justice and righteousness include forgiveness and generosity. And what may be most difficult for us is that it is God who determines ultimately the extent of the forgiveness and generosity. God will not wait for us to be ready to forgive and will not be generous on our terms. God will decide and God's ways are not our ways; they defy our ability to make them into a predictable system of justice and fair play.
I think the only way to make sense of this is to change our perspective. We need to rethink who we are. We need to see ourselves not as Jonah but as the Ninevites. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as basically good people who are better than those who deserve their just desserts and instead see ourselves as people who have been forgiven much. We need to not see ourselves as the first laborers, but as the last. We need to stop thinking that we deserve the good we have received and instead think of it as God's generous undeserved gift.
That way, when we see others forgiven, we can rejoice that they have come to know God's forgiveness as we have. And when we see others fairing better than ourselves, we can recall the times we have been the recipients of God's generosity.
Monday, September 26, 2011
May 22, 2011, 5th Sunday of Easter
Every week I am presented with a challenge, the lectionary readings. The stoning of
Stephen kept going through my head. We only get a small part of the story of Stephen in our reading. We get the tragic end of the narrative. I kept wondering how I can make this pertinent to today’s world. Honestly, it didn’t take that much effort. However, putting it into coherent sentences and paragraphs was a challenge.
Today, I intend to continue from last weeks homily that referenced the differences
between the practice of religion and the growth of inner spirituality. I will also touch on what occurs to a society in crisis, when long standing structures are breaking down and dysfunctional. The overall theme will ask what happens to our morals and ethics in the midst of breakdown and new vision for the future. Boy, does that sound heavy?
A short recap is necessary here: religion deals with the exterior questions of 1. what do I believe, 2. how should I behave, and 3. who am I. Spirituality deals with the interior questions of 1. how do I believe, 2. what should I do with my life and 3. whose am I.
The reading from Acts 7:55-60 is a succinct narrative with a number of complex themes. It also shows what happens to morals and ethics under stress, it shows the difference between religion and spirituality.
Stephen had been with the Council of the Sanhedrin which was the Jewish supreme
council and court of justice in Jerusalem. The council consisted of both priests and laymen. The laymen were Sadducees and Pharisees. The priests, Sadducees, and Pharisees knew the law of Moses. They knew the ten commandments and surly the Book of Leviticus which tells them how they should behave. They were the very essence of morality and ethical being. But, something happens to humans when there is a breakdown of legitimacy, when the culture becomes dysfunctional, when the prevailing order has failed. It seems that people who live mostly from the external religious stance, who know in their head what is right but do not live by the internal reality and experience of their faith lose their grounding.
Stephen is a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit. The Sprit gives Stephen authority to speak and to witness to whom he belongs. Stephen challenged these men with his vision of Jesus as the “Son of Man.” What angered these men was placing the crucified Jesus in close relation to God. It did not matter that Stephen was able to use the words of the prophets and Moses to back up his case. He gives a lengthy retelling of Israel’s history. He connects Israel’s rejections of their leaders, especially Moses, with his audience’s rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. He used really strong language.
What did the men in the council do when Stephen pointed out their failings? The
narrative says they covered their ears and with loud shouts all rushed together against him.
They covered their ears and shouted over him so they might not hear. That rather reminds me of what children at a certain age do when they don’t want to hear what mom or dad are saying. I have a confession. I do something similar when I just do not want to hear what political pundits are saying. I just change channels. I’m just not going to listen.
Morality can be seen as a set of answers or rules about how to behave. The Book of
Leviticus is dedicated to ritual and moral holiness. It is very precise in how one should behave and how one should believe. But what happened to “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Leviticus 19 11-18 says do not render unjust judgments, do not profit by violence against your neighbor, do not hate your kinfolk, do not take vengeance or bear a grudge. Rage and anger can erase all our head knowledge. Murder happened. The stoning of Stephen could also be seen as just; Exodus 21:12-26 gives reasons for capital punishment. The one outstanding reason it cannot be seen as just is the killing was done out of rage. Stephen’s humanity was ignored.
We live in an era of rage, of lax morals and situational ethics. Now, I am not against situational ethics.
The situational ethics theory was first postulated during the 1960’s by Joseph Fletcher. It was intended to be a middle ground position in the Christian world of ethics between legalism and a stance that says there is no law—everything is relative to the moment and should be decided in a spontaneous fashion with man’s will as the source of truth. Legalism has a set of predetermined and different laws for every decision-making situation. Fletcher’s ethical theory is based on only one absolute law, which when applied properly, handles every situation. Fletcher’s stated we must enter every situation with only one moral weapon—the law of agape love. ( internet source)
What we witness in the stoning is the ethic of legalism turned into no law at all that turned into a legal persecution of the early Christians. Humans have a way of justifying their actions. Christians did this when they burned heretics who held “unorthodox views”. Stephen’s views were also unorthodox to the Jewish leaders.
Almost every day we are confronted with dilemmas that challenge our heart, our mind
and our soul. Fletcher urges those who are concerned about their ethics to use agape love as the test of action. In the sermon on the mount Jesus said that we are to love God, love neighbor and to pray for our enemies. Jesus constantly used agape love as the yard stick for our actions.
How will we live out our Spiritual life as we continue to move into the future with all its dilemmas, with all the different situations we will be confronted with? Stephen prayed for his persecutors to be forgiven in the manner of Jesus.
When we are confronted with difficult decisions it is good to have a community of
people to whom we belong and a God to whom we belong that we can go to for help. Our
Spiritual life helps us to know what to do with our life, our practice, intentionality and purpose. Working together in a relational community with intentional practice and experiential belief, we can continue the process of ushering in God’s Kingdom. Faith can transform the world only when love, peace, and tolerance are given more than lip service.
Stephen kept going through my head. We only get a small part of the story of Stephen in our reading. We get the tragic end of the narrative. I kept wondering how I can make this pertinent to today’s world. Honestly, it didn’t take that much effort. However, putting it into coherent sentences and paragraphs was a challenge.
Today, I intend to continue from last weeks homily that referenced the differences
between the practice of religion and the growth of inner spirituality. I will also touch on what occurs to a society in crisis, when long standing structures are breaking down and dysfunctional. The overall theme will ask what happens to our morals and ethics in the midst of breakdown and new vision for the future. Boy, does that sound heavy?
A short recap is necessary here: religion deals with the exterior questions of 1. what do I believe, 2. how should I behave, and 3. who am I. Spirituality deals with the interior questions of 1. how do I believe, 2. what should I do with my life and 3. whose am I.
The reading from Acts 7:55-60 is a succinct narrative with a number of complex themes. It also shows what happens to morals and ethics under stress, it shows the difference between religion and spirituality.
Stephen had been with the Council of the Sanhedrin which was the Jewish supreme
council and court of justice in Jerusalem. The council consisted of both priests and laymen. The laymen were Sadducees and Pharisees. The priests, Sadducees, and Pharisees knew the law of Moses. They knew the ten commandments and surly the Book of Leviticus which tells them how they should behave. They were the very essence of morality and ethical being. But, something happens to humans when there is a breakdown of legitimacy, when the culture becomes dysfunctional, when the prevailing order has failed. It seems that people who live mostly from the external religious stance, who know in their head what is right but do not live by the internal reality and experience of their faith lose their grounding.
Stephen is a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit. The Sprit gives Stephen authority to speak and to witness to whom he belongs. Stephen challenged these men with his vision of Jesus as the “Son of Man.” What angered these men was placing the crucified Jesus in close relation to God. It did not matter that Stephen was able to use the words of the prophets and Moses to back up his case. He gives a lengthy retelling of Israel’s history. He connects Israel’s rejections of their leaders, especially Moses, with his audience’s rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. He used really strong language.
What did the men in the council do when Stephen pointed out their failings? The
narrative says they covered their ears and with loud shouts all rushed together against him.
They covered their ears and shouted over him so they might not hear. That rather reminds me of what children at a certain age do when they don’t want to hear what mom or dad are saying. I have a confession. I do something similar when I just do not want to hear what political pundits are saying. I just change channels. I’m just not going to listen.
Morality can be seen as a set of answers or rules about how to behave. The Book of
Leviticus is dedicated to ritual and moral holiness. It is very precise in how one should behave and how one should believe. But what happened to “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Leviticus 19 11-18 says do not render unjust judgments, do not profit by violence against your neighbor, do not hate your kinfolk, do not take vengeance or bear a grudge. Rage and anger can erase all our head knowledge. Murder happened. The stoning of Stephen could also be seen as just; Exodus 21:12-26 gives reasons for capital punishment. The one outstanding reason it cannot be seen as just is the killing was done out of rage. Stephen’s humanity was ignored.
We live in an era of rage, of lax morals and situational ethics. Now, I am not against situational ethics.
The situational ethics theory was first postulated during the 1960’s by Joseph Fletcher. It was intended to be a middle ground position in the Christian world of ethics between legalism and a stance that says there is no law—everything is relative to the moment and should be decided in a spontaneous fashion with man’s will as the source of truth. Legalism has a set of predetermined and different laws for every decision-making situation. Fletcher’s ethical theory is based on only one absolute law, which when applied properly, handles every situation. Fletcher’s stated we must enter every situation with only one moral weapon—the law of agape love. ( internet source)
What we witness in the stoning is the ethic of legalism turned into no law at all that turned into a legal persecution of the early Christians. Humans have a way of justifying their actions. Christians did this when they burned heretics who held “unorthodox views”. Stephen’s views were also unorthodox to the Jewish leaders.
Almost every day we are confronted with dilemmas that challenge our heart, our mind
and our soul. Fletcher urges those who are concerned about their ethics to use agape love as the test of action. In the sermon on the mount Jesus said that we are to love God, love neighbor and to pray for our enemies. Jesus constantly used agape love as the yard stick for our actions.
How will we live out our Spiritual life as we continue to move into the future with all its dilemmas, with all the different situations we will be confronted with? Stephen prayed for his persecutors to be forgiven in the manner of Jesus.
When we are confronted with difficult decisions it is good to have a community of
people to whom we belong and a God to whom we belong that we can go to for help. Our
Spiritual life helps us to know what to do with our life, our practice, intentionality and purpose. Working together in a relational community with intentional practice and experiential belief, we can continue the process of ushering in God’s Kingdom. Faith can transform the world only when love, peace, and tolerance are given more than lip service.
May 15, 2011, 4th Sunday of Easter
I spent two days at our annual Clergy Conference this last week. The setting was
beautiful for it was at the Oregon Gardens in Silverton. Our speaker was Diana Butler
Bass a church historian. Her books are quite readable. I enjoyed “A People’s History of Christianity”. Her presentation was very good and very timely.
I am motivated to see if I can weave the story we heard from Acts 2 with what is
occurring today in our churches, primarily within the “Institutional Church”. I’m not sure I can pull this off, so we shall see. Note in our reading in Acts the people devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Verse 46 states that day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home. Fellowship occurred in homes where they listened to and shared the apostles' accounts of the teachings and life of Jesus.
Some background information is needed here. The writing of Acts has been dated
sometime around 85-95 CE. The Roman’s have sacked and pillaged Jerusalem and the
Temple was destroyed. Luke’s account was intended to fill Christians of his day with an unshakable confidence in their future with the story of their beginning. They were a society in great transition.
The Jewish culture and religion were under great stress; there was violence, loss of
bearing and a breakdown in the institution of the Temple. It was dysfunctional because of the influence of Rome. The old Jewish religion which was dependent on the Institutional structure of the Temple no longer existed. Certain people were without jobs, what was a priest to do without a temple? Sacrifices came to a halt. The population was at odds with itself. Those in authority started to look for scapegoats to cast blame.
William McLoughlin writes that following the breakdown come visions of a new
way of being. There are new insights, new understandings of identity and new moral and ethical possibilities. This is precisely what was going on in acts and there are many who say it is what is going on now.
The old Religious Model offered three questions: 1. What do I believe? These are
generally the regulations, the doctrines, creeds and dogmas. 2. How should I behave?
These incorporate the rules, the techniques of worship, the programs the institution has set in motion. And 3. Who Am I? The question is answered by membership in the institution and biology which was either Jewish or Gentile. All of these questions deal with the external.
Something new was emerging, a spirituality that was internal. The questions
changed to 1. How do I believe? (What is my experience with my faith, with whom do I
place my trust, what does it lead me to see as a future) 2. What should I do with my life? This question leads to intentionality and purpose of practice. The people of “The Way” became different from the greater community by the way they helped one another and those in need. 3. Whose am I? Relationship with God and in the risen Christ defined to whom they belonged. They belonged to God by faith, by the presence the Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
It is no secret that the Christian Religion as an institution seems to be broken. There have been numerous polls taken on the church and belief for years. Diana Bass stated that not all questions have been answered honestly. In the Eastern and Southern section of the US actual church attendance does not match the number of people who say they attend church regularly. She did say that Oregonians are at least honest perhaps because we don’t care if mother knows we are not going to church.
There is an interesting movement going on. In 1999 only 6% of the people polled
said they were both religious and spiritual. Religious meant they attended some type of external institutional faith organization and spiritual meant they also have practices that developed inner growth such as meditation, yoga, prayer, labyrinth walks, study groups that focused on being in touch with the Divine. In 2009 48% said they were both Spiritual and Religious. There is a combining of external religious participation and growth in spiritual awareness.
The number of people attending church is down, but the quality of the spiritual
experience with the living Christ is increasing with those who are attending church. The American Institutional Church is in the middle of change. We can lead, do nothing, or go backwards looking for a past experience as an institution or as a congregation.
What are the perceptions that youths between the ages of 16 and 29 have of the
church? If we look at those outside the church we would see that 91% see us as
homophobic, 87% judgmental, 85% hypocritical, 75% too political and militaristic, 72%
see us as out of touch with reality, and 68% say we are boring. These have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus.
The attitudes of young people who were raised in the church are not so different
80% say we are homophobic, 52% say we are judgmental, 47% hypocritical, 50% too
political, 32% out of touch, and only 27% see us as boring.
Back to the Spiritual awaking in Acts that changed the world. They did not have
programs. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching which were the teachings of Jesus. They got together to share common meals (potlucks), and they were missional. They reached out to those around them that were in need. They practiced the radical hospitality of Jesus. Many mainline churches, for the most part, are doing this but it is my opinion that the media doesn’t broadcast it because it's boring. They would rather focus on the more outrageous and sensational. Do they ever show what Episcopal Relief and Development does around the world and here in the US?
As long as we, here at Resurrection, know how we believe and experience our
relationship with the Holy Triune God, as long as we know how we are intentional in our faith practice and our purpose for being Christian and to whom we belong, we are moving boldly into the future with the God who makes all things new again. We will be leading the new transformation of the church into a vibrant life that brings the Kingdom of God into reality. It is not about quantity it is about quality. Resurrection is a congregation that enhances the quality of life around you. Continue to see yourselves as the leaders of a renewed vitality in a faith in God and God’s Kingdom on earth.
beautiful for it was at the Oregon Gardens in Silverton. Our speaker was Diana Butler
Bass a church historian. Her books are quite readable. I enjoyed “A People’s History of Christianity”. Her presentation was very good and very timely.
I am motivated to see if I can weave the story we heard from Acts 2 with what is
occurring today in our churches, primarily within the “Institutional Church”. I’m not sure I can pull this off, so we shall see. Note in our reading in Acts the people devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Verse 46 states that day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home. Fellowship occurred in homes where they listened to and shared the apostles' accounts of the teachings and life of Jesus.
Some background information is needed here. The writing of Acts has been dated
sometime around 85-95 CE. The Roman’s have sacked and pillaged Jerusalem and the
Temple was destroyed. Luke’s account was intended to fill Christians of his day with an unshakable confidence in their future with the story of their beginning. They were a society in great transition.
The Jewish culture and religion were under great stress; there was violence, loss of
bearing and a breakdown in the institution of the Temple. It was dysfunctional because of the influence of Rome. The old Jewish religion which was dependent on the Institutional structure of the Temple no longer existed. Certain people were without jobs, what was a priest to do without a temple? Sacrifices came to a halt. The population was at odds with itself. Those in authority started to look for scapegoats to cast blame.
William McLoughlin writes that following the breakdown come visions of a new
way of being. There are new insights, new understandings of identity and new moral and ethical possibilities. This is precisely what was going on in acts and there are many who say it is what is going on now.
The old Religious Model offered three questions: 1. What do I believe? These are
generally the regulations, the doctrines, creeds and dogmas. 2. How should I behave?
These incorporate the rules, the techniques of worship, the programs the institution has set in motion. And 3. Who Am I? The question is answered by membership in the institution and biology which was either Jewish or Gentile. All of these questions deal with the external.
Something new was emerging, a spirituality that was internal. The questions
changed to 1. How do I believe? (What is my experience with my faith, with whom do I
place my trust, what does it lead me to see as a future) 2. What should I do with my life? This question leads to intentionality and purpose of practice. The people of “The Way” became different from the greater community by the way they helped one another and those in need. 3. Whose am I? Relationship with God and in the risen Christ defined to whom they belonged. They belonged to God by faith, by the presence the Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
It is no secret that the Christian Religion as an institution seems to be broken. There have been numerous polls taken on the church and belief for years. Diana Bass stated that not all questions have been answered honestly. In the Eastern and Southern section of the US actual church attendance does not match the number of people who say they attend church regularly. She did say that Oregonians are at least honest perhaps because we don’t care if mother knows we are not going to church.
There is an interesting movement going on. In 1999 only 6% of the people polled
said they were both religious and spiritual. Religious meant they attended some type of external institutional faith organization and spiritual meant they also have practices that developed inner growth such as meditation, yoga, prayer, labyrinth walks, study groups that focused on being in touch with the Divine. In 2009 48% said they were both Spiritual and Religious. There is a combining of external religious participation and growth in spiritual awareness.
The number of people attending church is down, but the quality of the spiritual
experience with the living Christ is increasing with those who are attending church. The American Institutional Church is in the middle of change. We can lead, do nothing, or go backwards looking for a past experience as an institution or as a congregation.
What are the perceptions that youths between the ages of 16 and 29 have of the
church? If we look at those outside the church we would see that 91% see us as
homophobic, 87% judgmental, 85% hypocritical, 75% too political and militaristic, 72%
see us as out of touch with reality, and 68% say we are boring. These have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus.
The attitudes of young people who were raised in the church are not so different
80% say we are homophobic, 52% say we are judgmental, 47% hypocritical, 50% too
political, 32% out of touch, and only 27% see us as boring.
Back to the Spiritual awaking in Acts that changed the world. They did not have
programs. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching which were the teachings of Jesus. They got together to share common meals (potlucks), and they were missional. They reached out to those around them that were in need. They practiced the radical hospitality of Jesus. Many mainline churches, for the most part, are doing this but it is my opinion that the media doesn’t broadcast it because it's boring. They would rather focus on the more outrageous and sensational. Do they ever show what Episcopal Relief and Development does around the world and here in the US?
As long as we, here at Resurrection, know how we believe and experience our
relationship with the Holy Triune God, as long as we know how we are intentional in our faith practice and our purpose for being Christian and to whom we belong, we are moving boldly into the future with the God who makes all things new again. We will be leading the new transformation of the church into a vibrant life that brings the Kingdom of God into reality. It is not about quantity it is about quality. Resurrection is a congregation that enhances the quality of life around you. Continue to see yourselves as the leaders of a renewed vitality in a faith in God and God’s Kingdom on earth.
Easter Vigil, April 23, 2011
April 23, 2011, Easter Vigil
The Rev. Jo Miller
Matthew:
There is no simple way of speaking of the resurrection. The dawn is
interrupted by the earth’s quaking and the appearance of an angel. It is as though he
rides in on the earth’s quaking, flashing like lightning and dressed in snow!!. He is
powerful enough to roll away the stone in front of the tomb and then, calmly sits on
it!!! Then the angel turns to the women and says, “ Do not fear.”
In the full scope of human history it is hard to hang on to hope and live
without fear. However, that is what we are called to do, live in hope.
The angel’s full blown message is heard: he, the very crucified one, has been
raised, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee, where he will gather you around him
in forgiveness and for a renewed sense of mission. The living Spirit of Jesus today
meets us where his ministry is: to the calling of disciples who will follow his
teachings, to the crowds who are suffering and need healing, to those who are weary
and need rest, to the oppressed who need to be freed, to the lost who need to be
found, to the hard hearted who need love and compassion. God continues to
reconcile the world unto God’s self.
Jesus broke free from the bonds of death that we not even fear death, but live
a life full as we can. The risen Christ meets us here where healing and wholeness is
a reality.
The encounter with the risen Christ is not a self-contained, solitary spiritual
experience. It is an invitation to join God’s mission, to be a conduit of grace, mercy, kindness, love, and forgiveness.
Amen
The Rev. Jo Miller
Matthew:
There is no simple way of speaking of the resurrection. The dawn is
interrupted by the earth’s quaking and the appearance of an angel. It is as though he
rides in on the earth’s quaking, flashing like lightning and dressed in snow!!. He is
powerful enough to roll away the stone in front of the tomb and then, calmly sits on
it!!! Then the angel turns to the women and says, “ Do not fear.”
In the full scope of human history it is hard to hang on to hope and live
without fear. However, that is what we are called to do, live in hope.
The angel’s full blown message is heard: he, the very crucified one, has been
raised, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee, where he will gather you around him
in forgiveness and for a renewed sense of mission. The living Spirit of Jesus today
meets us where his ministry is: to the calling of disciples who will follow his
teachings, to the crowds who are suffering and need healing, to those who are weary
and need rest, to the oppressed who need to be freed, to the lost who need to be
found, to the hard hearted who need love and compassion. God continues to
reconcile the world unto God’s self.
Jesus broke free from the bonds of death that we not even fear death, but live
a life full as we can. The risen Christ meets us here where healing and wholeness is
a reality.
The encounter with the risen Christ is not a self-contained, solitary spiritual
experience. It is an invitation to join God’s mission, to be a conduit of grace, mercy, kindness, love, and forgiveness.
Amen
Easter Day, April 24, 2011
Easter Day, April 24, 2011
The Rev. Jo Miller
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." A
quotation from Lewis Carol’s book, Alice in Wonderland. The book has several wonderful quotes. This one I particularly like and in the lastest movies it is used in an appropriate way. As Alice is walking toward her destiny she starts reciting six impossible things which turn out to be real. In my growing up I have heard another phrase, “If I can’t see it I don’t believe it.”
Believing in impossible things. Several nights ago on a science channel there was a
program on our sun. I became mesmerized with the young physicist who was explaining
the sun and so many of its properties. Our sun is an amazing star.
The scientist talked about Solar Winds- Soar winds stream off of the sun in all
directions at speeds of about 1 million miles per hour. How can scientists clock the speed of solar winds and how can they clock it at 1 million miles an hour? To me that is impossible. I can’t begin to wrap my head around a million miles an hour. But it is real.
The speed of the winds coming at our atmosphere could blow it away but it doesn’t.
I was so entranced at that moment that I missed the reason our atmosphere doesn't fly off into interstellar space. Some told me at the 8 am service that it was our magnetic poles that prevent those winds from blowing us away. Amazing. There are probes that have moved deep into the Milky Way and beyond that track the solar winds, a billion or more miles out in space and the solar winds are still blowing at phenomenal speeds. The impossibility of it all but it's real.
There were so many impossible things at the beginning of the 20th century that we
take for granted. My grandparents would have never believed that you could put a contract in a machine in Eugene and FAX it to Australia in minutes. Now we just create a PDF file and e-mail them. All these documents now just fly through the air leaping from one satellite to another with great speed and not one period gets lost from the document. Impossible, but real. Telephones that are really computers that you can use as a telephone, or a camera, or a miniature typewriter that you can text a messages to the person sitting next to you. Impossible sounding, but real. The owners of these phones can download apps such as GPS that can tell them precisely where they are sitting while they are texting the person sitting next to them.
Why are we here this morning? Did we come to hear something new, or to hear the
old, old story once again. Swiss theologian Karl Barth said that what brings people to worship- not just Easter- but any day is the unspoken question clinging to our hearts and minds. “Is it true? Is it real?
Is it true that God lives and gives us life? Is it true that perhaps this creative,
pulsating spirit who seems to fill all space, who established the laws of nature, then broke the law somehow by raising Jesus from the dead? We can’t prove the resurrection like proving that the solar winds travel 1 million miles an hour through space and time.
There are people who refuse to believe that the earth’s climate is changing even
though earth’s history shows the earth has undergone many climate changes from covering the earth in a tropical forest to Ice Ages. Impossible things that are real and true challenge us all the time. They make us uncomfortable, make us change our minds and perspective.
The resurrection is not for the beginner. It is rather an advanced course to be
undertaken only after reading about and dealing with the man Jesus and his life and his teachings beginning with Matthew’s sermon on the mount. We need to read and marvel at Jesus’ wisdom, learn from him, become fascinated by his life, fixed on the person of Jesus. If we begin there perhaps we are better prepared to hear this mystery of the resurrection, this impossible event and see beneath and beyond it to a much deeper reality and truth.
The resurrection was not and is not the end of the mystery. On any chosen day we
may accept the indwelling presence of the living Christ or reject it.
I have read several “Saul to Paul” stories from contemporary, every day people. I
can choose to accept what they say or reject it. ( that can’t be real). One of my favorite stories was written by a woman who considered herself a quasi-agnostic. “Yea I think there is a God, no not really.” One day while driving her car to the store she was having an internal argument with the God she really didn’t believe in when the car was filled with a blinding light. She pulled off the road and sat in her light filled car and felt a very real presence.
She ended up going to seminary, becoming a Methodist minister, and then went on
to teach homiletics at a Methodist seminary. Impossible, but really true. Regardless of what we can and cannot see, or believe it will always take a leap of faith. There is something in the resurrection story that reaches into the deepest regions of our hearts and minds where both doubt and faith are found.
In the resurrection God gave us such a miracle of love and forgiveness that it is
worthy of faith and therefore as Paul Tillich says is open to doubt.
Realities about which we hold no doubt may not be large enough to reveal God to
us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without
him not one thing came into being" as the Word flew across the face of the Universe going 1 million miles an hour the Word threw thousand upon hundreds of thousands of pixels into the Universe creating stars and planets.
Perhaps we can say, without apology, what we proclaim at Easter is too mighty to
be encompassed by certainty, too wonderful to be found only within the boundaries of our imagination. Perhaps, the resurrection is yet another impossible thing that is really true.
The Rev. Jo Miller
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." A
quotation from Lewis Carol’s book, Alice in Wonderland. The book has several wonderful quotes. This one I particularly like and in the lastest movies it is used in an appropriate way. As Alice is walking toward her destiny she starts reciting six impossible things which turn out to be real. In my growing up I have heard another phrase, “If I can’t see it I don’t believe it.”
Believing in impossible things. Several nights ago on a science channel there was a
program on our sun. I became mesmerized with the young physicist who was explaining
the sun and so many of its properties. Our sun is an amazing star.
The scientist talked about Solar Winds- Soar winds stream off of the sun in all
directions at speeds of about 1 million miles per hour. How can scientists clock the speed of solar winds and how can they clock it at 1 million miles an hour? To me that is impossible. I can’t begin to wrap my head around a million miles an hour. But it is real.
The speed of the winds coming at our atmosphere could blow it away but it doesn’t.
I was so entranced at that moment that I missed the reason our atmosphere doesn't fly off into interstellar space. Some told me at the 8 am service that it was our magnetic poles that prevent those winds from blowing us away. Amazing. There are probes that have moved deep into the Milky Way and beyond that track the solar winds, a billion or more miles out in space and the solar winds are still blowing at phenomenal speeds. The impossibility of it all but it's real.
There were so many impossible things at the beginning of the 20th century that we
take for granted. My grandparents would have never believed that you could put a contract in a machine in Eugene and FAX it to Australia in minutes. Now we just create a PDF file and e-mail them. All these documents now just fly through the air leaping from one satellite to another with great speed and not one period gets lost from the document. Impossible, but real. Telephones that are really computers that you can use as a telephone, or a camera, or a miniature typewriter that you can text a messages to the person sitting next to you. Impossible sounding, but real. The owners of these phones can download apps such as GPS that can tell them precisely where they are sitting while they are texting the person sitting next to them.
Why are we here this morning? Did we come to hear something new, or to hear the
old, old story once again. Swiss theologian Karl Barth said that what brings people to worship- not just Easter- but any day is the unspoken question clinging to our hearts and minds. “Is it true? Is it real?
Is it true that God lives and gives us life? Is it true that perhaps this creative,
pulsating spirit who seems to fill all space, who established the laws of nature, then broke the law somehow by raising Jesus from the dead? We can’t prove the resurrection like proving that the solar winds travel 1 million miles an hour through space and time.
There are people who refuse to believe that the earth’s climate is changing even
though earth’s history shows the earth has undergone many climate changes from covering the earth in a tropical forest to Ice Ages. Impossible things that are real and true challenge us all the time. They make us uncomfortable, make us change our minds and perspective.
The resurrection is not for the beginner. It is rather an advanced course to be
undertaken only after reading about and dealing with the man Jesus and his life and his teachings beginning with Matthew’s sermon on the mount. We need to read and marvel at Jesus’ wisdom, learn from him, become fascinated by his life, fixed on the person of Jesus. If we begin there perhaps we are better prepared to hear this mystery of the resurrection, this impossible event and see beneath and beyond it to a much deeper reality and truth.
The resurrection was not and is not the end of the mystery. On any chosen day we
may accept the indwelling presence of the living Christ or reject it.
I have read several “Saul to Paul” stories from contemporary, every day people. I
can choose to accept what they say or reject it. ( that can’t be real). One of my favorite stories was written by a woman who considered herself a quasi-agnostic. “Yea I think there is a God, no not really.” One day while driving her car to the store she was having an internal argument with the God she really didn’t believe in when the car was filled with a blinding light. She pulled off the road and sat in her light filled car and felt a very real presence.
She ended up going to seminary, becoming a Methodist minister, and then went on
to teach homiletics at a Methodist seminary. Impossible, but really true. Regardless of what we can and cannot see, or believe it will always take a leap of faith. There is something in the resurrection story that reaches into the deepest regions of our hearts and minds where both doubt and faith are found.
In the resurrection God gave us such a miracle of love and forgiveness that it is
worthy of faith and therefore as Paul Tillich says is open to doubt.
Realities about which we hold no doubt may not be large enough to reveal God to
us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without
him not one thing came into being" as the Word flew across the face of the Universe going 1 million miles an hour the Word threw thousand upon hundreds of thousands of pixels into the Universe creating stars and planets.
Perhaps we can say, without apology, what we proclaim at Easter is too mighty to
be encompassed by certainty, too wonderful to be found only within the boundaries of our imagination. Perhaps, the resurrection is yet another impossible thing that is really true.
Monday, September 12, 2011
April 10, 2011, The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Yr. A
Sunday, April 10, 2011, The Fifth Sunday in Lent
John 11:1-45
The Rev. Jo Miller
What I have learned as a supply priest is you can't give an Annie Dillard kind of
homily in most churches. You know the kind of homily in which you need a crash helmet
instead of a nice Easter bonnet and a seat belt in the pew to keep you from flying off the end or out the door. It is hard to find a place where old assumptions and ways of seeing one's faith is allowed to be challenged. Do we really want our barriers and boundaries torn down? I am referring to the barriers we have built to keep God safe in God's place and to keep people well defined so we know where to keep them or where we can keep ourselves safe from God and others. We also want to keep our fears intact. We are skeptical that love wins in the end. It is a human tendency, or at least that's the way I read it in the Bible.
Love wins. Bottom line. There is a fairly new book out by Bob Bell, an
"Evangelical", a pastor of a mega church in Grand Rapids, Michigan whose book is titled Love Wins. He is tearing down walls, barriers, and boundaries. He along with some other people are beginning to preach Annie Dillard type sermons and writing books that sound a lot like the Jesus I have come to know in the Bible. And you know what, they get picketed by and receive nasty e-mails from Christians.
The Gospel of John critiques the social relations and structures of the world that
Jesus confronted. Those structures back then are very similar to our social structures today that create, uphold, and sustain boundaries, walls, divisions, prejudices, and fears. Many of these social structures are generated from religious belief systems.
In the past two Sundays and today we have had three fairly long Gospel Readings
from John. They are full, rich, deep, multilevel dramas that confront certain social
structures that we read and hear Jesus dismantling. We see how our blindness interferes with our greater spiritual understanding, we see how fear of life and death can be overcome through the presence of the Living Spirit of God who dwells in us, who is the one in whom we walk and live and have our being.
All three of the main characters in our Gospel readings were given new life: the
Samaritan woman at the well given new life, the blind man given new life, Lazarus given new life by Jesus dismantling barriers. The very presence of Jesus was a demonstration of God's love and that God's love will win in the end.
Let's take a brief look at the Samaritan woman and the boundaries or barriers that
came down. Jesus a lone man at the well of Jacob speaks to a lone Samaritan woman at
the well. Barrier number one: Jesus spoke to a woman, barrier number two a Jewish male spoke to a Samaritan, barrier number three Jesus as the Christ of God spoke to an adulteress, a sinner. The love of God was present to her. In her conversation with Jesus, the Samaritan woman slowly moves from unbelief to faith, from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from ignorance to knowledge, from misunderstanding to understanding. Jesus was just present with her and she began to see. Her growing faith that Jesus was the Messiah brought her justification by her faith as Paul wrote in Romans.
Let us now have a brief look at last week's Gospel. The three players in this drama
were a blind man, men who had sight but were blind, and the very presence of Jesus. The primary social barriers that Jesus broke down were the understandings of sin and
righteousness. These two barriers keep all kinds of relationships from growing and
especially our relationship with the indwelling Spirit of God. The man born blind
according to the Gospel reading did not ask Jesus to heal him. He did not know who Jesus was at the time. But Jesus was present to him even in his blindness and his ignorance.
Jesus was also present to the men who were willing to make religious judgments.
Our religious judgments perhaps are the most difficult for the Spirit of God to dismantle. Our religious judgments embody our fears, our prejudices, our hatreds and we have a tendency to make them noble by claiming they are sanctified by God. Religious judgments were one of the powers that sent Jesus to the cross. God was even reconciled to those who held those judgments whether we like it or not. Perhaps because we hold judgments against those who hold negative judgments on others.
Again, as with the woman at the well it took time for the man born blind to fully
understand who had touched him and who was willing to love him. It takes us time also. It can take a life time to accept the full presence of the living Christ in our life.
Now the story of Lazarus. Keep in mind the verse in Ephesians 5:14 that we heard
last week. "Therefore it says: Sleeper awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine in you. Paul in Romans 8: 6-11 speaks of the indwelling nature of God in the Spirit. It reads "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you." Our reading from Ezekiel is also an articulation of how the very breath of God, the Rhouak, the Spirit of God can bring life back to us even if we had chosen to live in darkness, a life without hope, and a defeated life.
We read that Jesus wept. This is an emotionally profound testimony to the truth of
the incarnation itself, of Jesus being truly one of us to the point of sharing our human need for friendship and our grief at the loss of a friend. Jesus was there to have the rock rolled away that separated living from the dead. Life was breathed back into the one who had died. Love wins.
The tension between the hope of resurrection and finality of death is palpable during
this season of reflection. The tension between hope for new life and having to live in the death of the old is being played out in our news every day. Amid the painful circumstance and death-dealing social realities, we yearn for resurrection and the unbinding that releases us to dream beyond the boundaries and experience a renewed life. To dream beyond the boundaries we impose on ourselves and others impose on us is to imagine a world in which wholeness, well-being, health, and purpose are the normal expression of our human existence and to partner with the God of life in making the dream come true. It is to recognize that our world is not as it should be, while rejecting assertions that the socioreligious barriers that prevent persons from experiencing God's presence in their lives is impervious to change. This fifth Sunday of Lent invites us to consider the possibility or new life as in the resurrection in the lives of the many persons and communities who deeply need God's presence in the nowness of our existence. We need to live the life that demonstrates that God's love wins. That God's love through the indwelling Spirit of Christ
can continue to tear down the boundaries and barriers.
John 11:1-45
The Rev. Jo Miller
What I have learned as a supply priest is you can't give an Annie Dillard kind of
homily in most churches. You know the kind of homily in which you need a crash helmet
instead of a nice Easter bonnet and a seat belt in the pew to keep you from flying off the end or out the door. It is hard to find a place where old assumptions and ways of seeing one's faith is allowed to be challenged. Do we really want our barriers and boundaries torn down? I am referring to the barriers we have built to keep God safe in God's place and to keep people well defined so we know where to keep them or where we can keep ourselves safe from God and others. We also want to keep our fears intact. We are skeptical that love wins in the end. It is a human tendency, or at least that's the way I read it in the Bible.
Love wins. Bottom line. There is a fairly new book out by Bob Bell, an
"Evangelical", a pastor of a mega church in Grand Rapids, Michigan whose book is titled Love Wins. He is tearing down walls, barriers, and boundaries. He along with some other people are beginning to preach Annie Dillard type sermons and writing books that sound a lot like the Jesus I have come to know in the Bible. And you know what, they get picketed by and receive nasty e-mails from Christians.
The Gospel of John critiques the social relations and structures of the world that
Jesus confronted. Those structures back then are very similar to our social structures today that create, uphold, and sustain boundaries, walls, divisions, prejudices, and fears. Many of these social structures are generated from religious belief systems.
In the past two Sundays and today we have had three fairly long Gospel Readings
from John. They are full, rich, deep, multilevel dramas that confront certain social
structures that we read and hear Jesus dismantling. We see how our blindness interferes with our greater spiritual understanding, we see how fear of life and death can be overcome through the presence of the Living Spirit of God who dwells in us, who is the one in whom we walk and live and have our being.
All three of the main characters in our Gospel readings were given new life: the
Samaritan woman at the well given new life, the blind man given new life, Lazarus given new life by Jesus dismantling barriers. The very presence of Jesus was a demonstration of God's love and that God's love will win in the end.
Let's take a brief look at the Samaritan woman and the boundaries or barriers that
came down. Jesus a lone man at the well of Jacob speaks to a lone Samaritan woman at
the well. Barrier number one: Jesus spoke to a woman, barrier number two a Jewish male spoke to a Samaritan, barrier number three Jesus as the Christ of God spoke to an adulteress, a sinner. The love of God was present to her. In her conversation with Jesus, the Samaritan woman slowly moves from unbelief to faith, from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from ignorance to knowledge, from misunderstanding to understanding. Jesus was just present with her and she began to see. Her growing faith that Jesus was the Messiah brought her justification by her faith as Paul wrote in Romans.
Let us now have a brief look at last week's Gospel. The three players in this drama
were a blind man, men who had sight but were blind, and the very presence of Jesus. The primary social barriers that Jesus broke down were the understandings of sin and
righteousness. These two barriers keep all kinds of relationships from growing and
especially our relationship with the indwelling Spirit of God. The man born blind
according to the Gospel reading did not ask Jesus to heal him. He did not know who Jesus was at the time. But Jesus was present to him even in his blindness and his ignorance.
Jesus was also present to the men who were willing to make religious judgments.
Our religious judgments perhaps are the most difficult for the Spirit of God to dismantle. Our religious judgments embody our fears, our prejudices, our hatreds and we have a tendency to make them noble by claiming they are sanctified by God. Religious judgments were one of the powers that sent Jesus to the cross. God was even reconciled to those who held those judgments whether we like it or not. Perhaps because we hold judgments against those who hold negative judgments on others.
Again, as with the woman at the well it took time for the man born blind to fully
understand who had touched him and who was willing to love him. It takes us time also. It can take a life time to accept the full presence of the living Christ in our life.
Now the story of Lazarus. Keep in mind the verse in Ephesians 5:14 that we heard
last week. "Therefore it says: Sleeper awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine in you. Paul in Romans 8: 6-11 speaks of the indwelling nature of God in the Spirit. It reads "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you." Our reading from Ezekiel is also an articulation of how the very breath of God, the Rhouak, the Spirit of God can bring life back to us even if we had chosen to live in darkness, a life without hope, and a defeated life.
We read that Jesus wept. This is an emotionally profound testimony to the truth of
the incarnation itself, of Jesus being truly one of us to the point of sharing our human need for friendship and our grief at the loss of a friend. Jesus was there to have the rock rolled away that separated living from the dead. Life was breathed back into the one who had died. Love wins.
The tension between the hope of resurrection and finality of death is palpable during
this season of reflection. The tension between hope for new life and having to live in the death of the old is being played out in our news every day. Amid the painful circumstance and death-dealing social realities, we yearn for resurrection and the unbinding that releases us to dream beyond the boundaries and experience a renewed life. To dream beyond the boundaries we impose on ourselves and others impose on us is to imagine a world in which wholeness, well-being, health, and purpose are the normal expression of our human existence and to partner with the God of life in making the dream come true. It is to recognize that our world is not as it should be, while rejecting assertions that the socioreligious barriers that prevent persons from experiencing God's presence in their lives is impervious to change. This fifth Sunday of Lent invites us to consider the possibility or new life as in the resurrection in the lives of the many persons and communities who deeply need God's presence in the nowness of our existence. We need to live the life that demonstrates that God's love wins. That God's love through the indwelling Spirit of Christ
can continue to tear down the boundaries and barriers.
March 27, 2011, Third Sunday in Lent, Yr. A
Sunday, March 27, 2011, Third Sunday in Lent
John 4:5-42, Romans 5:1-11
The Rev. Jo Miller
If there can be one over all, prevailing theme in the Bible, whether in the Hebrew
Scriptures or the New Testament it is relationship with God. Religion through many, many centuries has mucked it up. I think our human nature just relishes making something simple more difficult because difficult is better. My personal theology is that our relationship with God is a long Spiritual journey which requires faith. Paul Tillich wrote, “He who enters the sphere of faith enters the sanctuary of life.”
We have in our readings today in Romans and the Gospel of John two great
examples of what relationship with the Triune God means. Keeping in mind please, last
weeks story of Abraham who demonstrated his righteousness through faith - aka his
relationship with God.
A little digression is needed here to look at the literary devices used by the author of the Gospel of John and Paul’s letter to the Romans. We moderns often fail to appreciate the more sophisticated literary devices used in relaying important messages in the Bible. A large contingency has flattened the depth by preferring literal interpretation. At times that is the correct way, at other times the whole point may be lost.
Irony- the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning, dramatic
irony is an effect produced by a narrative in which the audience knows more about the
circumstance than a character in the story. The early readers and hearers of the Gospel knew of the risen Christ. They knew something that the Samaritan woman did not know.
Classical argumentation is the logical process of reasoning. It can be elaborate. Paul was well versed in the use of classical argumentation. Unless we have taken debate or certain classes in philosophy most of us are not well versed in the process of classical argumentation. I suspect that is why some of us can get a bit lost in Paul’s chain of reasoning as he works his way to his theological conclusions. He does eventually make his point and we hear his point today when he wriets, "we are justified by faith." Paul’s theology of justification by faith is about relationships. He learned from his own experience that following the strictness of religious law would not bring us into a joyful, empowering, free, and full relationship with God. Thank goodness Martin Luther helped to unravel the simple means to a relationship that helped to bring in the Protestant
Reformation.
What does justification by faith look like for the Samaritan woman at the well? If
the law was her only access to God she will never, ever get there. She has three huge
strikes against her. 1) she is a woman, 2) she is a Samaritan, 3) she is an adulteress. She is a total outsider. In the eyes of the people of her time she is a nobody. The Gospel writer uses this situation to show us how we gain access to God through the risen Christ.
Where is the irony? What is the Good News? Those who were early followers of
“The Way” the early Christians who were read this Gospel knew who Jesus was, knew
what was meant by living water, knew what was meant that God is Spirit and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and truth. They knew what the Samaritan woman did
not know but will be lead to see.
The Jesus she first encounters at Jacob's well is only a thirsty Jewish stranger who dares to ask her for a drink. This is quite daring because by speaking to her he crosses significant social boundaries of religion, ethnicity, and gender. Jesus constantly broke down the boundaries that humans erected between themselves, others
and God. It did not make him very popular with the ruling group. Those
who view and understand the world literally and with high walls of separation do no do well with an ironical Jesus and an ironical Gospel such as John. Irony presupposes a distinction between appearance and reality.
The twist on reality here is the Samaritan woman thinks Jesus is the one asking for
assistance, help, a drink of water. She at first fails to understand that it is not he who needs help, but she who needs what only he can give “Living Water.” Appearance belies reality when Jesus says; “I am the bread of life that came from heaven.” It is hard to see beyond the apparent, but the universe is full of objects that we can not see but are there.
It takes time and effort to develop relationships; to accept a relationship for what it is, a gift. Some never come to know this relationship with the Divine because of the boundaries of fear, distrust, or seeing the world through concrete literal eyes.
In her conversation with Jesus, the Samaritan woman slowly moves from unbelief to
faith, from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from ignorance to knowledge, from misunderstanding to understanding. Jesus was just present with her and she began to see. Her growing faith that Jesus was the Messiah brought her justification.
It is faith over the law that brings us into relationship with the Ground of our Being. Our job is to be open to the journey as was Abraham. O God, to you our hearts are open, our desires are know, and from you we can keep no secrets and you love us anyway.
*ideas from Ward Ewing and George Stroup Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 2
John 4:5-42, Romans 5:1-11
The Rev. Jo Miller
If there can be one over all, prevailing theme in the Bible, whether in the Hebrew
Scriptures or the New Testament it is relationship with God. Religion through many, many centuries has mucked it up. I think our human nature just relishes making something simple more difficult because difficult is better. My personal theology is that our relationship with God is a long Spiritual journey which requires faith. Paul Tillich wrote, “He who enters the sphere of faith enters the sanctuary of life.”
We have in our readings today in Romans and the Gospel of John two great
examples of what relationship with the Triune God means. Keeping in mind please, last
weeks story of Abraham who demonstrated his righteousness through faith - aka his
relationship with God.
A little digression is needed here to look at the literary devices used by the author of the Gospel of John and Paul’s letter to the Romans. We moderns often fail to appreciate the more sophisticated literary devices used in relaying important messages in the Bible. A large contingency has flattened the depth by preferring literal interpretation. At times that is the correct way, at other times the whole point may be lost.
Irony- the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning, dramatic
irony is an effect produced by a narrative in which the audience knows more about the
circumstance than a character in the story. The early readers and hearers of the Gospel knew of the risen Christ. They knew something that the Samaritan woman did not know.
Classical argumentation is the logical process of reasoning. It can be elaborate. Paul was well versed in the use of classical argumentation. Unless we have taken debate or certain classes in philosophy most of us are not well versed in the process of classical argumentation. I suspect that is why some of us can get a bit lost in Paul’s chain of reasoning as he works his way to his theological conclusions. He does eventually make his point and we hear his point today when he wriets, "we are justified by faith." Paul’s theology of justification by faith is about relationships. He learned from his own experience that following the strictness of religious law would not bring us into a joyful, empowering, free, and full relationship with God. Thank goodness Martin Luther helped to unravel the simple means to a relationship that helped to bring in the Protestant
Reformation.
What does justification by faith look like for the Samaritan woman at the well? If
the law was her only access to God she will never, ever get there. She has three huge
strikes against her. 1) she is a woman, 2) she is a Samaritan, 3) she is an adulteress. She is a total outsider. In the eyes of the people of her time she is a nobody. The Gospel writer uses this situation to show us how we gain access to God through the risen Christ.
Where is the irony? What is the Good News? Those who were early followers of
“The Way” the early Christians who were read this Gospel knew who Jesus was, knew
what was meant by living water, knew what was meant that God is Spirit and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and truth. They knew what the Samaritan woman did
not know but will be lead to see.
The Jesus she first encounters at Jacob's well is only a thirsty Jewish stranger who dares to ask her for a drink. This is quite daring because by speaking to her he crosses significant social boundaries of religion, ethnicity, and gender. Jesus constantly broke down the boundaries that humans erected between themselves, others
and God. It did not make him very popular with the ruling group. Those
who view and understand the world literally and with high walls of separation do no do well with an ironical Jesus and an ironical Gospel such as John. Irony presupposes a distinction between appearance and reality.
The twist on reality here is the Samaritan woman thinks Jesus is the one asking for
assistance, help, a drink of water. She at first fails to understand that it is not he who needs help, but she who needs what only he can give “Living Water.” Appearance belies reality when Jesus says; “I am the bread of life that came from heaven.” It is hard to see beyond the apparent, but the universe is full of objects that we can not see but are there.
It takes time and effort to develop relationships; to accept a relationship for what it is, a gift. Some never come to know this relationship with the Divine because of the boundaries of fear, distrust, or seeing the world through concrete literal eyes.
In her conversation with Jesus, the Samaritan woman slowly moves from unbelief to
faith, from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from ignorance to knowledge, from misunderstanding to understanding. Jesus was just present with her and she began to see. Her growing faith that Jesus was the Messiah brought her justification.
It is faith over the law that brings us into relationship with the Ground of our Being. Our job is to be open to the journey as was Abraham. O God, to you our hearts are open, our desires are know, and from you we can keep no secrets and you love us anyway.
*ideas from Ward Ewing and George Stroup Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 2
March 20, 2011, The Second Sunday in Lent, Yr. A
March 20, 2011, The Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 12:1-4, Matthew 3:1-17
The Rev. Jo Miller
I thought it would be interesting to spend this morning with the reading in
Genesis which tells us the beginning of Abram’s journey. This is a story of a call, a
response, and a journey. It is a hero’s story. Heroes are not perfect, they make
mistakes as does Abram whom we know better as Abraham. We hear of his faith
and his righteousness. His righteousness is in his relationship with Yahweh and his
faith is demonstrated in his following the call.
“So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.” Abram’s story is both an
outward journey and an inward journey. God tells him to go to a place he has never
been before - go from your country, go from your kin, go from your father’s house,
go from your comfort zone, go from what you have always known and what you
have always done, go into something new.
At the beginning of this story we know very little about Abram. We hear little
about his pedigree, credentials, or qualifications to become the father of nations.
Why would God call Abram? At the beginning of the story we do not know. But, his
story is a thrilling one because he steps across the threshold into his calling, into the hero’s journey. In Joseph Campbell’s book, “The Journey of the Hero” he uses
Abraham as a positive example of responding to the call of the hero. No surprise, he
uses Jonah as a negative response to the call of God.
Perhaps, we know the ways of God through our own experiences or by
observing others who have responded in our church communities by taking on
varied lay ministries they did not feel they had either a skill or talent for; or by
traveling with those who have responded to the call of ordained ministry. There are
also secular vocations we may be called into.
We have seen that God does not always call those with the “best” credentials
or the most shining pedigrees. Peter the fisherman is a good example. One who
would speak first and then think. I identify with that. There is James and John the
sons of Zebedee aka, the sons of thunder, and then there is Matthew the tax
collector. It is amazing who God calls, perhaps it is even more amazing when we
see them follow.
We see again and again that a faithful response to God’s leading results in a
blessing of gifts and talents and skills in which one learns and grows.
God calls and Abram responds faithfully. Just because we have been called
once to one journey does not mean we may not be called to yet another journey
which uses the skills and inner spiritual growth that we gained on the first journey.
The city Haran from which Abram is called means “highway or crossroads”. This
text could be used to exam your own crossroads; the needs, callings, and challenges
of your congregation as well as the faithful response of individuals you know who
have responded to God’s call. Such exploration may lead to naming some of the
unique crossroads faced by your congregation and you have had a few. Perhaps, you can see how you were equipped to meet the challenges. The one who equips always
leads the ones called to a more complete expression of who they were created to be.
It is a holy journey.
If we look at the Gospel’s reading and Nicodemus perhaps we can see that
being born from above or anew or again may be understood as the embrace of
God’s calling of one’s true vocation which may mean taking leave of our own
self-directed course. A change of course may happen more than once. Bishop
William Temple is credited with responding to a question from a Christian of
another tradition when asked if he was born again. Bishop Temple said, “Yes I have
been born anew, I am in the process of being born anew, and I hope to be born
anew in the future.” He understood the spiritual journey of inner transformation as
well as his outer vocation.
So, we can say that Abram was born into a new reality. Every new birth is a
blessing and every blessing holds the possibility of newness; a sense of well-being,
or the presence of peace in the midst of change, challenge or hardship.
God calls us to go; will our response offer blessings to those who follow after
us? If our faith history reads, “So she went, so he went, as God called”, blessings
will flow for generations beyond our own faithful response.
*includes thoughts from Donald P. Olsen, Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 2
Genesis 12:1-4, Matthew 3:1-17
The Rev. Jo Miller
I thought it would be interesting to spend this morning with the reading in
Genesis which tells us the beginning of Abram’s journey. This is a story of a call, a
response, and a journey. It is a hero’s story. Heroes are not perfect, they make
mistakes as does Abram whom we know better as Abraham. We hear of his faith
and his righteousness. His righteousness is in his relationship with Yahweh and his
faith is demonstrated in his following the call.
“So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.” Abram’s story is both an
outward journey and an inward journey. God tells him to go to a place he has never
been before - go from your country, go from your kin, go from your father’s house,
go from your comfort zone, go from what you have always known and what you
have always done, go into something new.
At the beginning of this story we know very little about Abram. We hear little
about his pedigree, credentials, or qualifications to become the father of nations.
Why would God call Abram? At the beginning of the story we do not know. But, his
story is a thrilling one because he steps across the threshold into his calling, into the hero’s journey. In Joseph Campbell’s book, “The Journey of the Hero” he uses
Abraham as a positive example of responding to the call of the hero. No surprise, he
uses Jonah as a negative response to the call of God.
Perhaps, we know the ways of God through our own experiences or by
observing others who have responded in our church communities by taking on
varied lay ministries they did not feel they had either a skill or talent for; or by
traveling with those who have responded to the call of ordained ministry. There are
also secular vocations we may be called into.
We have seen that God does not always call those with the “best” credentials
or the most shining pedigrees. Peter the fisherman is a good example. One who
would speak first and then think. I identify with that. There is James and John the
sons of Zebedee aka, the sons of thunder, and then there is Matthew the tax
collector. It is amazing who God calls, perhaps it is even more amazing when we
see them follow.
We see again and again that a faithful response to God’s leading results in a
blessing of gifts and talents and skills in which one learns and grows.
God calls and Abram responds faithfully. Just because we have been called
once to one journey does not mean we may not be called to yet another journey
which uses the skills and inner spiritual growth that we gained on the first journey.
The city Haran from which Abram is called means “highway or crossroads”. This
text could be used to exam your own crossroads; the needs, callings, and challenges
of your congregation as well as the faithful response of individuals you know who
have responded to God’s call. Such exploration may lead to naming some of the
unique crossroads faced by your congregation and you have had a few. Perhaps, you can see how you were equipped to meet the challenges. The one who equips always
leads the ones called to a more complete expression of who they were created to be.
It is a holy journey.
If we look at the Gospel’s reading and Nicodemus perhaps we can see that
being born from above or anew or again may be understood as the embrace of
God’s calling of one’s true vocation which may mean taking leave of our own
self-directed course. A change of course may happen more than once. Bishop
William Temple is credited with responding to a question from a Christian of
another tradition when asked if he was born again. Bishop Temple said, “Yes I have
been born anew, I am in the process of being born anew, and I hope to be born
anew in the future.” He understood the spiritual journey of inner transformation as
well as his outer vocation.
So, we can say that Abram was born into a new reality. Every new birth is a
blessing and every blessing holds the possibility of newness; a sense of well-being,
or the presence of peace in the midst of change, challenge or hardship.
God calls us to go; will our response offer blessings to those who follow after
us? If our faith history reads, “So she went, so he went, as God called”, blessings
will flow for generations beyond our own faithful response.
*includes thoughts from Donald P. Olsen, Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 2
March 13, 2011, First Sunday in Lent Yr. A
Sunday, March 13, 2011, First Sunday in Lent
Matthew 4:1-11
The Rev. Jo Miller
First, I want to thank everyone who participated in the two Ash Wednesday services.
Both were good. I so enjoyed serving with Father Bingham. I was moved by both services. Since all of you together represent the Temple of God, God’s Spirit was present.
We know that we are in the season of Lent not only because of Ash Wednesday but
because we start the first Sunday with the Temptations in the Wilderness. This reading from Matthew is in the form of a Rabbinic midrash. Which means that it is a homiletic method of exegesis, a way of interpreting a biblical story. The temptation in the wilderness is not intended to convey objective biographical data. It is best read as a lesson.
The Gospel of Matthew was written for Messianic Jews. They understood rabbinic
stories that take an underlying historic truth and build a lesson from it. I have read several commentaries and interpretations of the three temptations. Some commentaries say they are strictly temptations for Jesus. But if true what would the midrash be for the Messianic Jews who were hearing this section following the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple? What do they mean for us as we enter into our Lenten Season? Let’s look at some possible lessons.
Some commentaries say that hanging over the three temptations are the tempting use of
power, the tempting of God, and the temptations of self-righteousness. Let’s look a little deeper. The first challenge is the temptation of turning stones into bread. Perhaps we can say that Jesus refuses to engage in this meaningless demonstration of power. Jesus is nourished through the Spirit in “every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Perhaps Matthew is telling the early followers who were weary, hungry, tired after the fall of Jerusalem and the loss of the temple that their temptation would be to go back to the broken stones and try to reconstruct the temple, to go back to the old ways because their Spiritual nourishment had come from Temple worship. They had always believed that God was there in the Temple. All through the Gospels we hear Jesus teaching otherwise. God is Spirit, worship him in spirit.
The old ways are easier because we know them. A new situation stretches us, causes
discomfort, makes us work, and can make us feel we are in a wilderness. How many times do we hear the refrain: “But, we have always done it that way.” There are Episcopalians who are still upset with the “new prayer book.” The lesson tells us that God was not in the old stones, their strength is to come from being in the presence of God, in being spiritually nourished by hearing and following the words of God spoken to us through the Spirit.
The second temptation: Jesus is placed on a pinnacle of the temple and is prompted by
the Devil to prove his divinity by throwing himself off the temple. Surely, if he is God’s Beloved the angels will come to him. Do not tempt your God. What midrash lesson would be found here for the Messianic Jews? The people are in pain and their world is turned upside down. The mighty Romans have squashed them. Perhaps because of their choosing to follow “The Way” of Jesus friends and family had disowned them. And, there is also the Gnostic belief that Jesus wasn’t human anyway and therefore could not suffer. Matthew pushes them to understand the deeper meaning of faith in God. He pushes them to understand what trust means. Faith and trust in the mercy, kindness, grace of God are a prevailing messages in Matthew. Having trust and faith does not mean we should tempt God to have God prove God’s self to us.
The third temptation: one of self-righteousness, of setting one’s self above others as being special. TV, radio, magazines, politics, religions are rife with special people. Jesus was special, the Beloved of God, yet he walked the dirt roads, ate with sinners, touched the untouchable. Self-righteousness about one's belief system is a hard lesson. It is a sin that “all believers” are susceptible. It can be a particular problem when we claim our beliefs and our practices are the right ones. Orthodoxy, the system of right thinking and belief killed many people in the early years of Christianity. But, as we travel through Matthew we will see how
many times Jesus draws a distinction between “right belief” and faith. He said to those who were healed, “Go your faith has healed you.”
Last week's reading of the Transfiguration gave us a picture of Peter, James, and John getting smacked down by the light and voice of God. The same light and voice smacked down Saul as he was traveling. Saul had rather seen himself as special as he went about imprisoning Christians. They all ended up with their faces in the dirt, a very humbling position. The disciples and Saul who became Paul all had to walk a humbling road in order for their faith and love in the Divine to flourish.
We can fall to the illusions of power, taking the easy way out, to self-righteousness, but that is all they are illusions. The midrash shows us an example through Jesus how not to fall into those three traps.
Marcus Borg in “The Heart of Christianity” writes about the Christians’ unending
conversation with the Bible, our traditions, and each other. Borg says we can’t get our doctrines right because “Being Christian involves not just talk but transformation of our lives.”
If our Lenten Challenge can do anything for us may it help us to see the difference
between belief and faith. The temptations in a strange way were challenging Jesus’
understanding of himself as the Beloved of God and stretching his understanding of faith and trust in God whom he called Abba.
Faith is about trust in God. It does not mean trusting in statements about God.
Kierkegaard, a radical Christian of the 19th century wrote that faith is like floating in seventy thousand fathoms of water. If you struggle, if you tense up you will sink. But, if you relax and trust you will float. Faith is trusting in the sea of God’s being in whom we live and move and have our being. Faith is a radical centering on God of which our creeds point. This Lenten season our challenge is to deepen our trust and faith in that which is not us, in that which continues to create at the furthermost expanses of the universe, to open our heart, mind, and
soul to the Spirit’s leading and then follow, to let the God of the universe be the Ground of our being through the living Christ by the Holy Spirit.
*Alexander Shaia: The Hidden Power of the Gospel *Marcus Borg: The Heart of Chrisianity
Matthew 4:1-11
The Rev. Jo Miller
First, I want to thank everyone who participated in the two Ash Wednesday services.
Both were good. I so enjoyed serving with Father Bingham. I was moved by both services. Since all of you together represent the Temple of God, God’s Spirit was present.
We know that we are in the season of Lent not only because of Ash Wednesday but
because we start the first Sunday with the Temptations in the Wilderness. This reading from Matthew is in the form of a Rabbinic midrash. Which means that it is a homiletic method of exegesis, a way of interpreting a biblical story. The temptation in the wilderness is not intended to convey objective biographical data. It is best read as a lesson.
The Gospel of Matthew was written for Messianic Jews. They understood rabbinic
stories that take an underlying historic truth and build a lesson from it. I have read several commentaries and interpretations of the three temptations. Some commentaries say they are strictly temptations for Jesus. But if true what would the midrash be for the Messianic Jews who were hearing this section following the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple? What do they mean for us as we enter into our Lenten Season? Let’s look at some possible lessons.
Some commentaries say that hanging over the three temptations are the tempting use of
power, the tempting of God, and the temptations of self-righteousness. Let’s look a little deeper. The first challenge is the temptation of turning stones into bread. Perhaps we can say that Jesus refuses to engage in this meaningless demonstration of power. Jesus is nourished through the Spirit in “every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Perhaps Matthew is telling the early followers who were weary, hungry, tired after the fall of Jerusalem and the loss of the temple that their temptation would be to go back to the broken stones and try to reconstruct the temple, to go back to the old ways because their Spiritual nourishment had come from Temple worship. They had always believed that God was there in the Temple. All through the Gospels we hear Jesus teaching otherwise. God is Spirit, worship him in spirit.
The old ways are easier because we know them. A new situation stretches us, causes
discomfort, makes us work, and can make us feel we are in a wilderness. How many times do we hear the refrain: “But, we have always done it that way.” There are Episcopalians who are still upset with the “new prayer book.” The lesson tells us that God was not in the old stones, their strength is to come from being in the presence of God, in being spiritually nourished by hearing and following the words of God spoken to us through the Spirit.
The second temptation: Jesus is placed on a pinnacle of the temple and is prompted by
the Devil to prove his divinity by throwing himself off the temple. Surely, if he is God’s Beloved the angels will come to him. Do not tempt your God. What midrash lesson would be found here for the Messianic Jews? The people are in pain and their world is turned upside down. The mighty Romans have squashed them. Perhaps because of their choosing to follow “The Way” of Jesus friends and family had disowned them. And, there is also the Gnostic belief that Jesus wasn’t human anyway and therefore could not suffer. Matthew pushes them to understand the deeper meaning of faith in God. He pushes them to understand what trust means. Faith and trust in the mercy, kindness, grace of God are a prevailing messages in Matthew. Having trust and faith does not mean we should tempt God to have God prove God’s self to us.
The third temptation: one of self-righteousness, of setting one’s self above others as being special. TV, radio, magazines, politics, religions are rife with special people. Jesus was special, the Beloved of God, yet he walked the dirt roads, ate with sinners, touched the untouchable. Self-righteousness about one's belief system is a hard lesson. It is a sin that “all believers” are susceptible. It can be a particular problem when we claim our beliefs and our practices are the right ones. Orthodoxy, the system of right thinking and belief killed many people in the early years of Christianity. But, as we travel through Matthew we will see how
many times Jesus draws a distinction between “right belief” and faith. He said to those who were healed, “Go your faith has healed you.”
Last week's reading of the Transfiguration gave us a picture of Peter, James, and John getting smacked down by the light and voice of God. The same light and voice smacked down Saul as he was traveling. Saul had rather seen himself as special as he went about imprisoning Christians. They all ended up with their faces in the dirt, a very humbling position. The disciples and Saul who became Paul all had to walk a humbling road in order for their faith and love in the Divine to flourish.
We can fall to the illusions of power, taking the easy way out, to self-righteousness, but that is all they are illusions. The midrash shows us an example through Jesus how not to fall into those three traps.
Marcus Borg in “The Heart of Christianity” writes about the Christians’ unending
conversation with the Bible, our traditions, and each other. Borg says we can’t get our doctrines right because “Being Christian involves not just talk but transformation of our lives.”
If our Lenten Challenge can do anything for us may it help us to see the difference
between belief and faith. The temptations in a strange way were challenging Jesus’
understanding of himself as the Beloved of God and stretching his understanding of faith and trust in God whom he called Abba.
Faith is about trust in God. It does not mean trusting in statements about God.
Kierkegaard, a radical Christian of the 19th century wrote that faith is like floating in seventy thousand fathoms of water. If you struggle, if you tense up you will sink. But, if you relax and trust you will float. Faith is trusting in the sea of God’s being in whom we live and move and have our being. Faith is a radical centering on God of which our creeds point. This Lenten season our challenge is to deepen our trust and faith in that which is not us, in that which continues to create at the furthermost expanses of the universe, to open our heart, mind, and
soul to the Spirit’s leading and then follow, to let the God of the universe be the Ground of our being through the living Christ by the Holy Spirit.
*Alexander Shaia: The Hidden Power of the Gospel *Marcus Borg: The Heart of Chrisianity
February 27, 2011, Eighth Sunday after Epiphany
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Eighth Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 6:24-34
The Rev. Jo Miller
Sing: Seek ye first.
What are we seeking when we seek God’s Kingdom? Where do we look? I made a
search on my Bible Works program looking for the phrases Kingdom of God and
Kingdom of Heaven. Consider this approximate but the phrase Kingdom of .... came up
43 times in Matthew’s Gospel and 49 times between Mark, Luke and John. It seems to
me that the author of Matthew’s Gospel is stressing the importance of understanding what Jesus meant about living in the Kingdom of God.
Over the past 2000 years the Christian Church has not always understood this
concept very well. It has been boiled down by some to mean that place we go to when we die if we have believed doctrine correctly. Now that is put rather simply. A decade ago the prosperity Gospel was preaching that when you seek God’s kingdom you will get all these things, you will prosper. I Googled the term and not much has been written on it sense 2006. I think it is another fad that has seen its day.
I am going to present some ideas and you have the option to agree or disagree or
simple ponder. You do not have the option to nap. I don’t allow that during my homilies. It seems to me that the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ primary manifesto, if you please, on what and where the Kingdom is. We could also call it his proclamation, his announcement of, his edict or his teachings about the kingdom. It is scattered throughout Matthew.
Our lectionary readings on the Sermon on the mount started Jan. 30 with the
Beatitudes. We might say the egg has been broken open right at the start. Jesus turns our human kingdom standards up side down. As I have read through this section a number of times, with some people I work with as a spiritual companion and just my own study there are times, I feel I have at least one foot in the kingdom. Sometimes I have only a toe in the kingdom and other times I am saying mia coppa, mia coppa, mia coppa. It is meant to be hard and it is meant to be encouraging.
The encouraging part -- the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees are the
bottom line. If you have ever watched the biggest loser you know there is the yellow line that if you fall below that you are out. So we can say the Pharisees are the yellow line. But, listen to this from Matt. 5:19, “Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.” They are still in. That sounds encouraging. But, are we to strive to be the least? There truly is a wideness in God’s mercy. But, opting to sit on the yellow line is not God’s intent for us.
In the Sermon on the mount we hear tensions between how we run our human
kingdoms and God’s kingdom, it is all very counterintuitive. Jesus puts forth a challenge to raise our moral, ethical and spiritual standards; to deepen them and fulfill them. He moves us from practicing external conformity of religious practice (the Pharisees) to the internal change of heart, mind, and soul which moves us into a living faith. We start getting our toe into the kingdom.
What does Jesus call us to do: briefly: 1) be poor in spirit, 2) be meek, 3) hunger
and thirst for true righteousness, 4) be merciful, 5) be salt and light in the world, 6) do not hate or indulge in anger, instead seek to reconcile, 7) do not lust or be sexually unfaithful in your heart, 8) to not seek revenge but find creative and nonviolent ways to overcome evil, 9) love your enemies, 10) be generous, 11) not judge, and 12) not worry. Faith is to be lived 24-7.
Perhaps the hardest part for Americans overall are the statements throughout the
Gospel that address wealth and greed. If we think of our collective behavior in America and how our lives revolve around status, wealth, and consumption then we should not be surprised by the recession we are in. The real kicker here is that the rich continue to get rich while the least and the last get even less.
So where is the kingdom? Matthew 3:2, 4:17, 10:7 says the kingdom is at hand.
Luke 17:21 says “The Kingdom of God is within you.” St. Catherine of Siena understood
it in the 13 hundreds when she is quoted as saying: “The path to heaven lies through
heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven.”
Sometimes the kingdom of God starts very small within us- small as a mustard
seed. Sometimes the Kingdom of God is seen when God’s Spirit grabs hold of us and
brings us back when we have gone astray. Perhaps the kingdom is that joyful, peaceful
place in God’s presence and is experienced so fully that all who are there gladly do God’s will. I think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It can refer to time as well as a place, a when as well as a where, perhaps our life after life.
Brian McLaren writes: “If Jesus was right, if the Kingdom of God has come and is
coming the many ways described, if we do indeed have the choice today and every day to seek it, enter it, receive it, live it as citizens of it, invest in it even suffer and sacrifice for it then today our future hangs in the balance no less than it did for Jesus’ original hearers in AD 30.” It is always about choice. We can seek to live the moral, ethical life Jesus put forth in the name of God or we choose our human way.
Sometimes I know I have a foot firmly in the kingdom and other times it is only a
toe. Sometimes the cares of the world makes me blind or deaf to kingdom’s call. The
Kingdom is where we live and move and have our being. It is here, it is now, it is
wherever you go. We are called to live it 24- 7.
Eighth Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 6:24-34
The Rev. Jo Miller
Sing: Seek ye first.
What are we seeking when we seek God’s Kingdom? Where do we look? I made a
search on my Bible Works program looking for the phrases Kingdom of God and
Kingdom of Heaven. Consider this approximate but the phrase Kingdom of .... came up
43 times in Matthew’s Gospel and 49 times between Mark, Luke and John. It seems to
me that the author of Matthew’s Gospel is stressing the importance of understanding what Jesus meant about living in the Kingdom of God.
Over the past 2000 years the Christian Church has not always understood this
concept very well. It has been boiled down by some to mean that place we go to when we die if we have believed doctrine correctly. Now that is put rather simply. A decade ago the prosperity Gospel was preaching that when you seek God’s kingdom you will get all these things, you will prosper. I Googled the term and not much has been written on it sense 2006. I think it is another fad that has seen its day.
I am going to present some ideas and you have the option to agree or disagree or
simple ponder. You do not have the option to nap. I don’t allow that during my homilies. It seems to me that the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ primary manifesto, if you please, on what and where the Kingdom is. We could also call it his proclamation, his announcement of, his edict or his teachings about the kingdom. It is scattered throughout Matthew.
Our lectionary readings on the Sermon on the mount started Jan. 30 with the
Beatitudes. We might say the egg has been broken open right at the start. Jesus turns our human kingdom standards up side down. As I have read through this section a number of times, with some people I work with as a spiritual companion and just my own study there are times, I feel I have at least one foot in the kingdom. Sometimes I have only a toe in the kingdom and other times I am saying mia coppa, mia coppa, mia coppa. It is meant to be hard and it is meant to be encouraging.
The encouraging part -- the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees are the
bottom line. If you have ever watched the biggest loser you know there is the yellow line that if you fall below that you are out. So we can say the Pharisees are the yellow line. But, listen to this from Matt. 5:19, “Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.” They are still in. That sounds encouraging. But, are we to strive to be the least? There truly is a wideness in God’s mercy. But, opting to sit on the yellow line is not God’s intent for us.
In the Sermon on the mount we hear tensions between how we run our human
kingdoms and God’s kingdom, it is all very counterintuitive. Jesus puts forth a challenge to raise our moral, ethical and spiritual standards; to deepen them and fulfill them. He moves us from practicing external conformity of religious practice (the Pharisees) to the internal change of heart, mind, and soul which moves us into a living faith. We start getting our toe into the kingdom.
What does Jesus call us to do: briefly: 1) be poor in spirit, 2) be meek, 3) hunger
and thirst for true righteousness, 4) be merciful, 5) be salt and light in the world, 6) do not hate or indulge in anger, instead seek to reconcile, 7) do not lust or be sexually unfaithful in your heart, 8) to not seek revenge but find creative and nonviolent ways to overcome evil, 9) love your enemies, 10) be generous, 11) not judge, and 12) not worry. Faith is to be lived 24-7.
Perhaps the hardest part for Americans overall are the statements throughout the
Gospel that address wealth and greed. If we think of our collective behavior in America and how our lives revolve around status, wealth, and consumption then we should not be surprised by the recession we are in. The real kicker here is that the rich continue to get rich while the least and the last get even less.
So where is the kingdom? Matthew 3:2, 4:17, 10:7 says the kingdom is at hand.
Luke 17:21 says “The Kingdom of God is within you.” St. Catherine of Siena understood
it in the 13 hundreds when she is quoted as saying: “The path to heaven lies through
heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven.”
Sometimes the kingdom of God starts very small within us- small as a mustard
seed. Sometimes the Kingdom of God is seen when God’s Spirit grabs hold of us and
brings us back when we have gone astray. Perhaps the kingdom is that joyful, peaceful
place in God’s presence and is experienced so fully that all who are there gladly do God’s will. I think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It can refer to time as well as a place, a when as well as a where, perhaps our life after life.
Brian McLaren writes: “If Jesus was right, if the Kingdom of God has come and is
coming the many ways described, if we do indeed have the choice today and every day to seek it, enter it, receive it, live it as citizens of it, invest in it even suffer and sacrifice for it then today our future hangs in the balance no less than it did for Jesus’ original hearers in AD 30.” It is always about choice. We can seek to live the moral, ethical life Jesus put forth in the name of God or we choose our human way.
Sometimes I know I have a foot firmly in the kingdom and other times it is only a
toe. Sometimes the cares of the world makes me blind or deaf to kingdom’s call. The
Kingdom is where we live and move and have our being. It is here, it is now, it is
wherever you go. We are called to live it 24- 7.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
February 20, 2011, Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 5:38-48
The Rev. Jo Miller
Hopefully this Sunday I will be applying salve to the bruises from last week.
No crash helmets are necessary. However, this still requires careful listening as I
attempt to weave Leviticus, Matthew, and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians together. I
think I just saw some eyelids droop.
In Leviticus we have an excellent companion to the Gospel reading today.
Most of us have not read Leviticus. It was written for an ancient people who were
learning how to live an ethical and moral life together. Leviticus 19 is concerned
with internal integrity and outward behavior in daily life: in the home and in the
field, in our words to God and in our words to each other. All three of the Synoptic
Gospels quote Leviticus 19:18, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The
reading lists a series of laws designed to guide the people of Israel into holiness,
into the image of God. The text mixes singular and plural verbs underscoring the
role that individuals must play as moral agents whose action affects the well-being
of the entire community.
In Matthew we could say we are hearing the very heart of God. We see the
heart of God through the incarnational life of Jesus. We see one who loves the
unlovable, comes among us, suffers our worst, and rises to forgive us, who turns the
cheek, who gives the cloak, goes the extra mile and loves the enemy. We hear this
from the cross: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus gives us a
guide for living out the image of God in us.
All of Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are difficult. How many
times do I end up saying Mia Culpa. And perhaps the most difficult is the
admonition to non violent resistance or the call to be perfect as God is perfect. Lev. 19:2 states it as to be holy, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."
We are seeing the power of non violent resistance being played out in the middle
east. What would it look like if American Christians could live into the inclusive
love Jesus demonstrated?
Now, let’s look at the reading from Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that
you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s
temple, God will destroy that person. .For God’s temple is holy, and you are that
temple. Uh oh, maybe we still need crash helmets or at least seat belts. Now, the
word “you” throughout verse 16 is in the plural as in you all. Paul equates the whole
community, not just the individual, as the temple of God just as the community is
the body of Christ in I Cor. 12:12-31. These readings are not about American
rugged individualism.
This is clearly about extending our thinking beyond “me, myself, and I”. We
are incarnational people. Being incarnational we are linked with Jesus as his
followers to all people. Brian McLaren writes; “When I say we are linked and
bound through Christ’s incarnation to all people, I am not saying all religions are the same....I am saying that because we follow Jesus, because we believe Jesus is true,
and because Jesus moves toward all people in love and kindness and grace, we do
the same.” It is sweet when we belong to a community that is linked to Jesus this
way.
Resurrection, you all, you are the temple of the living God, you have a job to
do between now and when you call your priest, who is only one small part of this
community. You are to embrace the reality that you are the temple. A priest does
not make this place holy, a priest does not make this place a temple. Without you
all, the ecclisia, this is only a building. It takes all of you and at all times to be a witness to who you are; people who have accepted God’s grace, call to be holy, and called to share that unconditional love of God with the world from humans all the
way down to the rocks. Sometimes it is easier to love rocks.
As individuals you also take the Incarnational Christ with you where ever you
go. It is really hard to be this kind of Christian and that is why you have each other.
When one of you falls there are others there to lift you up. When one of you can not
find the love of God in you the others are there to love for you. When a few of you
are called to search for your next priest it takes all of you to hold them up and
support them and help them to find the person who will be able to bring out the best
of who you are. You are individuals drawn into the circle of the Holy Trinity making
you as one.
Paul tells the people of Corinth in Chapter 12:4 that everyone has a gift to
give to the community from the beloved babies to the cherished elders. He writes:
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of
services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities but the same God
who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the
Spirit for the common good. You all are the temple of the living God and each
individual has been given the Spirit and the mind of Christ. What more do you need?
What have I learned from being here with you? I have learned that you are strong,
you are open hearted, you love this community of Resurrection, and you are
committed to the church -- What more do you need? Rejoice in what you do best
and do it even more.
Now a personal aside. My name will not be in the pool of names for priest-in-charge. My current calling is to be a supply priest and a spiritual companion. A spiritual companion is someone who walks with another as they work to understand who and what they are called to be on their personal spiritual journey. But, let me tell you, you all are easy to love.
*Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volumn 1
*Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodxy
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 5:38-48
The Rev. Jo Miller
Hopefully this Sunday I will be applying salve to the bruises from last week.
No crash helmets are necessary. However, this still requires careful listening as I
attempt to weave Leviticus, Matthew, and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians together. I
think I just saw some eyelids droop.
In Leviticus we have an excellent companion to the Gospel reading today.
Most of us have not read Leviticus. It was written for an ancient people who were
learning how to live an ethical and moral life together. Leviticus 19 is concerned
with internal integrity and outward behavior in daily life: in the home and in the
field, in our words to God and in our words to each other. All three of the Synoptic
Gospels quote Leviticus 19:18, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The
reading lists a series of laws designed to guide the people of Israel into holiness,
into the image of God. The text mixes singular and plural verbs underscoring the
role that individuals must play as moral agents whose action affects the well-being
of the entire community.
In Matthew we could say we are hearing the very heart of God. We see the
heart of God through the incarnational life of Jesus. We see one who loves the
unlovable, comes among us, suffers our worst, and rises to forgive us, who turns the
cheek, who gives the cloak, goes the extra mile and loves the enemy. We hear this
from the cross: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus gives us a
guide for living out the image of God in us.
All of Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are difficult. How many
times do I end up saying Mia Culpa. And perhaps the most difficult is the
admonition to non violent resistance or the call to be perfect as God is perfect. Lev. 19:2 states it as to be holy, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."
We are seeing the power of non violent resistance being played out in the middle
east. What would it look like if American Christians could live into the inclusive
love Jesus demonstrated?
Now, let’s look at the reading from Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that
you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s
temple, God will destroy that person. .For God’s temple is holy, and you are that
temple. Uh oh, maybe we still need crash helmets or at least seat belts. Now, the
word “you” throughout verse 16 is in the plural as in you all. Paul equates the whole
community, not just the individual, as the temple of God just as the community is
the body of Christ in I Cor. 12:12-31. These readings are not about American
rugged individualism.
This is clearly about extending our thinking beyond “me, myself, and I”. We
are incarnational people. Being incarnational we are linked with Jesus as his
followers to all people. Brian McLaren writes; “When I say we are linked and
bound through Christ’s incarnation to all people, I am not saying all religions are the same....I am saying that because we follow Jesus, because we believe Jesus is true,
and because Jesus moves toward all people in love and kindness and grace, we do
the same.” It is sweet when we belong to a community that is linked to Jesus this
way.
Resurrection, you all, you are the temple of the living God, you have a job to
do between now and when you call your priest, who is only one small part of this
community. You are to embrace the reality that you are the temple. A priest does
not make this place holy, a priest does not make this place a temple. Without you
all, the ecclisia, this is only a building. It takes all of you and at all times to be a witness to who you are; people who have accepted God’s grace, call to be holy, and called to share that unconditional love of God with the world from humans all the
way down to the rocks. Sometimes it is easier to love rocks.
As individuals you also take the Incarnational Christ with you where ever you
go. It is really hard to be this kind of Christian and that is why you have each other.
When one of you falls there are others there to lift you up. When one of you can not
find the love of God in you the others are there to love for you. When a few of you
are called to search for your next priest it takes all of you to hold them up and
support them and help them to find the person who will be able to bring out the best
of who you are. You are individuals drawn into the circle of the Holy Trinity making
you as one.
Paul tells the people of Corinth in Chapter 12:4 that everyone has a gift to
give to the community from the beloved babies to the cherished elders. He writes:
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of
services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities but the same God
who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the
Spirit for the common good. You all are the temple of the living God and each
individual has been given the Spirit and the mind of Christ. What more do you need?
What have I learned from being here with you? I have learned that you are strong,
you are open hearted, you love this community of Resurrection, and you are
committed to the church -- What more do you need? Rejoice in what you do best
and do it even more.
Now a personal aside. My name will not be in the pool of names for priest-in-charge. My current calling is to be a supply priest and a spiritual companion. A spiritual companion is someone who walks with another as they work to understand who and what they are called to be on their personal spiritual journey. But, let me tell you, you all are easy to love.
*Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volumn 1
*Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodxy
January 30, 2011, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12
The Rev. Jo Miller
I am going to reflect on our readings from Micah and Matthew. First, to Micah and
the last verse in the reading:” He has told you, O Mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” It starts off with the Mortals being told to plead their case before the mountains. The mountains are being their jury. The people have been on trial.
Why is God putting the people on trial? Why is God so disappointed in the people?
If we read through Micah we will hear the indictments against the people. Micah 2:2 The powerful, the elite will take whatever field that they covet as well as house or household. They take them for their own. 3:2 He speaks to the heads of Jacob and the rulers of the house of Israel: “You hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people and the flesh off their bones.” 3:5 He scolds the prophets who have plenty to eat but wage war against the poor. 3:11 The political leaders take bribes for their judgments and the priests sell out for money. Change a few of the names and it could be a play on the condition of the world today. The indictment has been handed down by the time we reach the oft quoted
verse.
What does God require of us? The perfect cultic practice of our religion or ethical
obedience that faith in God requires? God requires more than empty words sung in praise songs, or chanted in high church, empty words preached or prayers said. Micah tells us that God desires justice that is measured by how well the most vulnerable fare in the community, such as giving the homeless a place to sleep and food to eat. God holds the leaders and the ruling members of any community, organization, state or country to do more than talk the talk. We are to walk the way of justice, loving and doing kindness, and walking humbly with our Creator.
Justice, kindness, and the humble walk take us beyond the confines of personal piety
into life giving relationships with God and with God’s creation: from the earth to humans all that is in-between.
If you think this poetic statement from Micah may be hard to live by day in and day
out 24 7, it’s like having to be conscious of whatever we are saying and doing all the time. And then Jesus really lays one on us in the Beatitudes. What be your attitude toward God, God’s creation, and one another?
In the lyrical and poetic blessing we hear supportive and constructive attitudes of the heart - a path way on our spiritual journey as disciples of Jesus. Jesus pushes us to think in new ways of being. All through Matthew we hear that the perfect practice of religious rites and rules does not bring rewards in the kingdom.
The Beatitudes often sound onerous to our post modern mind. Alexander J. Shaia in
his book “The Hidden Power of the Gospels” restates them in a way we may better
understand.
Accept that we do not and will not know results in advance. We often feel “poor
in spirit.”
Make farewells to our yesterdays and embrace the grief we feel.
Be humble in our willingness to journey. Yielding to exile will yield riches of
Spirit.
Know that our true hunger and thirst are for Spirit, and only Spirit, despite all
trials and temptations.
Greet all we encounter, within and without, in mercy, and reap the rewards of
gratitude.
Be full of heart. Do not seek to remove any thought, any feeling, or any person
from our inner life. Each is an aspect of Spirit. Welcome them all.
Believe in “Jeru-Shalom” as a home of welcome that accommodates the true
peace of respect for differing voices, if we will but listen.
Accept inner and outer hardship as needed fro the sake of living a new life in the
presence of God. Power and applause are not what we seek.
Anticipate lack of esteem. Be prepared instead for conflict and meet it with
respect and love.
The Beatitudes open us to compassion for our self and for others. They can become a
help on our journey on this beautiful earth. Yesterday’s wisdom is as wise for us today as it was in Micah’s time and in Jesus’ time. Micah calls us to a higher level of ethical living as does Jesus, as does our Creator. When our son was taking a class on business ethics he wanted the bottom line on ethics. He asked, what are our ethics today in business? The instructor said, “If you can get away with it, it is ethical.” Think about where we are right now and we are living the results of the kind of ethical walk that does not do justice, that does not love kindness and does not walk humbly.
The ethics of God often are contrary to those of humans. We can achieve these ethics
through practice. We can enter into spiritual transformation. We can learn how to walk the walk which is a life in an interactive relationship with God and one another. Jesus’ message is not hidden, is not secret. He tells us over and over O Mortal how to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God. He tells us in many ways how to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and how to love our neighbor. Our ethics and spiritual practices are shown in the way we walk upon the earth.
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12
The Rev. Jo Miller
I am going to reflect on our readings from Micah and Matthew. First, to Micah and
the last verse in the reading:” He has told you, O Mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” It starts off with the Mortals being told to plead their case before the mountains. The mountains are being their jury. The people have been on trial.
Why is God putting the people on trial? Why is God so disappointed in the people?
If we read through Micah we will hear the indictments against the people. Micah 2:2 The powerful, the elite will take whatever field that they covet as well as house or household. They take them for their own. 3:2 He speaks to the heads of Jacob and the rulers of the house of Israel: “You hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people and the flesh off their bones.” 3:5 He scolds the prophets who have plenty to eat but wage war against the poor. 3:11 The political leaders take bribes for their judgments and the priests sell out for money. Change a few of the names and it could be a play on the condition of the world today. The indictment has been handed down by the time we reach the oft quoted
verse.
What does God require of us? The perfect cultic practice of our religion or ethical
obedience that faith in God requires? God requires more than empty words sung in praise songs, or chanted in high church, empty words preached or prayers said. Micah tells us that God desires justice that is measured by how well the most vulnerable fare in the community, such as giving the homeless a place to sleep and food to eat. God holds the leaders and the ruling members of any community, organization, state or country to do more than talk the talk. We are to walk the way of justice, loving and doing kindness, and walking humbly with our Creator.
Justice, kindness, and the humble walk take us beyond the confines of personal piety
into life giving relationships with God and with God’s creation: from the earth to humans all that is in-between.
If you think this poetic statement from Micah may be hard to live by day in and day
out 24 7, it’s like having to be conscious of whatever we are saying and doing all the time. And then Jesus really lays one on us in the Beatitudes. What be your attitude toward God, God’s creation, and one another?
In the lyrical and poetic blessing we hear supportive and constructive attitudes of the heart - a path way on our spiritual journey as disciples of Jesus. Jesus pushes us to think in new ways of being. All through Matthew we hear that the perfect practice of religious rites and rules does not bring rewards in the kingdom.
The Beatitudes often sound onerous to our post modern mind. Alexander J. Shaia in
his book “The Hidden Power of the Gospels” restates them in a way we may better
understand.
Accept that we do not and will not know results in advance. We often feel “poor
in spirit.”
Make farewells to our yesterdays and embrace the grief we feel.
Be humble in our willingness to journey. Yielding to exile will yield riches of
Spirit.
Know that our true hunger and thirst are for Spirit, and only Spirit, despite all
trials and temptations.
Greet all we encounter, within and without, in mercy, and reap the rewards of
gratitude.
Be full of heart. Do not seek to remove any thought, any feeling, or any person
from our inner life. Each is an aspect of Spirit. Welcome them all.
Believe in “Jeru-Shalom” as a home of welcome that accommodates the true
peace of respect for differing voices, if we will but listen.
Accept inner and outer hardship as needed fro the sake of living a new life in the
presence of God. Power and applause are not what we seek.
Anticipate lack of esteem. Be prepared instead for conflict and meet it with
respect and love.
The Beatitudes open us to compassion for our self and for others. They can become a
help on our journey on this beautiful earth. Yesterday’s wisdom is as wise for us today as it was in Micah’s time and in Jesus’ time. Micah calls us to a higher level of ethical living as does Jesus, as does our Creator. When our son was taking a class on business ethics he wanted the bottom line on ethics. He asked, what are our ethics today in business? The instructor said, “If you can get away with it, it is ethical.” Think about where we are right now and we are living the results of the kind of ethical walk that does not do justice, that does not love kindness and does not walk humbly.
The ethics of God often are contrary to those of humans. We can achieve these ethics
through practice. We can enter into spiritual transformation. We can learn how to walk the walk which is a life in an interactive relationship with God and one another. Jesus’ message is not hidden, is not secret. He tells us over and over O Mortal how to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God. He tells us in many ways how to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and how to love our neighbor. Our ethics and spiritual practices are shown in the way we walk upon the earth.
January 23, 2011, Third Sunday after Epiphany
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Third Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 4:12-23
The Rev. Jo Miller
This past week I was in Corvallis with a few people, including Maron
Van, for a 3 hour class on Matthew presented by my New Testament Professor
at Northwest House,The Rev. Dr. Kempton Hewett. I was reminded of an
important detail regarding Matthew’s Gospel. Dr. Kempton brought up the
book “To Kill A Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee.
The story was written in the 60’s reflecting on the racial problems and
prejudice that were facing the nation but the story’s setting was the 30’s. The
story was layered with issues of the past and the present.
Remember this as we read through the Gospel of Matthew this year that it
too is layered. Matthew was written around the post 70’s after the collapse the
of Jerusalem had occurred. The Gospel’s audience is Jewish/Christian and his
story of Jesus is mindful of the predicament and problems of his own
community in the present while also reflecting on the life and ministry of Jesus
set in the past.
Matthew records the launch of Jesus’ public ministry. As the story
unfolds to us Matthew clearly conveys that Jesus’ ministry is going to advance
independently from John the Baptists ministry. In fact we hear an echo of
John’s proclamation in chapter 3:2 “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has
come near” in our reading today. Matthew has Jesus on the move. Jesus moves
from Nazareth to Capernum on the Northeast coast of the Sea of Galilee.
Matthew also employs the quoting of the Hebrew Scriptures to point to Jesus’
fulfillment of the prophets. Matthew signals the beginning of what God is
doing in and through Jesus by the declaration of his kingdom message “Repent,
for the Kingdom is at hand.” He came to announce, to invite all into, to
proclaim the demands of, and to usher in God’s kingdom.
In verses 18 to 22 in our lesson today Jesus begins calling his disciples.
This episode varies a good bit in each of the Gospels. Even though they are not
contradictory, the accounts vary in (1)what led up to the call, (2)which
disciples are mentioned,(3) what order those disciples are called and (4)what
they were doing when summoned. In Douglas Hare’s commentary on
Matthew he notes that Matthew’s portrayal of the call is reduced to its
barest essentials: Jesus summons with irresistible authority, and the men
respond with radical obedience. They drop what they are doing and leave
immediately.
Good grief, James and John leave their dad Zebedee sitting in the boat
with a tangle of nets coiled around his feet. We know that Peter is married
because in a few lessons down the road Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law. What
happens to Peter’s wife? No doubt there must be children. Jesus’ call is for
radical obedience. Hmmm. Not exactly an American trait. We need to also
recognize that they leave their professions. And, back then fishing was a
lucrative profession, as were carpenters who were highly thought of as were
most craftsmen. We also do not hear them asking qualifying questions, they
drop what they are doing and follow.
What they hear is a call to adventure so to speak. Discipleship can be an
adventure that, if we allow it to, can change our life and the direction in which
we are going. The disciples are called into a life of Evangelism. Several of them
had to get out of their boat to follow. It is really hard to get out of one’s boat
to do something radically different. It is really hard to just drop what you are
doing in your life to go and do something different. Jesus’ calling of his
disciples is almost scandalous. I think that is why, for the most part, we stay
safe and secure in our pews. We certainly do not like the way evangelism has
been portrayed to us in our generation. Many have a tendency to shy away from
the word all together.
Perhaps we can go back to what Jesus called his disciples to do, proclaim
the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, is near us, is in us, it is now.
It was proclaimed by Jesus in word and deed and through teaching. He
demonstrated inclusive love, mercy, kindness, and compassion and forgiveness.
Perhaps we can see the mission of God as a spiritual-social movement
dedicated to plotting goodness and helping to save our corner of the world from
human evil- both personal and systemic. Perhaps it would be the radical
obedience of a community dedicated to the teaching of lifelong spiritual
formation as disciples of Jesus, dedicated to teaching the most excellent way of
love.
This kind of love as Brian McLaren notes would celebrate the good in the
Christian religion and lament the bad. It would invite people into a faith that
would experience formation in the way of Jesus.
To have this happen, though we would have to drop our nets and get out
of our safe comfortable boats that we are currently living in. It would be scary,
adventures can be scary. Like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings. He took the challenge to make a difference in his world, it was a scary adventure and it didn’t matter that he was really small. But, he had help all along the way. So do we in our church community and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ in us.
Jan. 23, 2011 Third Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 4:12-23
Third Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 4:12-23
The Rev. Jo Miller
This past week I was in Corvallis with a few people, including Maron
Van, for a 3 hour class on Matthew presented by my New Testament Professor
at Northwest House,The Rev. Dr. Kempton Hewett. I was reminded of an
important detail regarding Matthew’s Gospel. Dr. Kempton brought up the
book “To Kill A Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee.
The story was written in the 60’s reflecting on the racial problems and
prejudice that were facing the nation but the story’s setting was the 30’s. The
story was layered with issues of the past and the present.
Remember this as we read through the Gospel of Matthew this year that it
too is layered. Matthew was written around the post 70’s after the collapse the
of Jerusalem had occurred. The Gospel’s audience is Jewish/Christian and his
story of Jesus is mindful of the predicament and problems of his own
community in the present while also reflecting on the life and ministry of Jesus
set in the past.
Matthew records the launch of Jesus’ public ministry. As the story
unfolds to us Matthew clearly conveys that Jesus’ ministry is going to advance
independently from John the Baptists ministry. In fact we hear an echo of
John’s proclamation in chapter 3:2 “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has
come near” in our reading today. Matthew has Jesus on the move. Jesus moves
from Nazareth to Capernum on the Northeast coast of the Sea of Galilee.
Matthew also employs the quoting of the Hebrew Scriptures to point to Jesus’
fulfillment of the prophets. Matthew signals the beginning of what God is
doing in and through Jesus by the declaration of his kingdom message “Repent,
for the Kingdom is at hand.” He came to announce, to invite all into, to
proclaim the demands of, and to usher in God’s kingdom.
In verses 18 to 22 in our lesson today Jesus begins calling his disciples.
This episode varies a good bit in each of the Gospels. Even though they are not
contradictory, the accounts vary in (1)what led up to the call, (2)which
disciples are mentioned,(3) what order those disciples are called and (4)what
they were doing when summoned. In Douglas Hare’s commentary on
Matthew he notes that Matthew’s portrayal of the call is reduced to its
barest essentials: Jesus summons with irresistible authority, and the men
respond with radical obedience. They drop what they are doing and leave
immediately.
Good grief, James and John leave their dad Zebedee sitting in the boat
with a tangle of nets coiled around his feet. We know that Peter is married
because in a few lessons down the road Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law. What
happens to Peter’s wife? No doubt there must be children. Jesus’ call is for
radical obedience. Hmmm. Not exactly an American trait. We need to also
recognize that they leave their professions. And, back then fishing was a
lucrative profession, as were carpenters who were highly thought of as were
most craftsmen. We also do not hear them asking qualifying questions, they
drop what they are doing and follow.
What they hear is a call to adventure so to speak. Discipleship can be an
adventure that, if we allow it to, can change our life and the direction in which
we are going. The disciples are called into a life of Evangelism. Several of them
had to get out of their boat to follow. It is really hard to get out of one’s boat
to do something radically different. It is really hard to just drop what you are
doing in your life to go and do something different. Jesus’ calling of his
disciples is almost scandalous. I think that is why, for the most part, we stay
safe and secure in our pews. We certainly do not like the way evangelism has
been portrayed to us in our generation. Many have a tendency to shy away from
the word all together.
Perhaps we can go back to what Jesus called his disciples to do, proclaim
the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, is near us, is in us, it is now.
It was proclaimed by Jesus in word and deed and through teaching. He
demonstrated inclusive love, mercy, kindness, and compassion and forgiveness.
Perhaps we can see the mission of God as a spiritual-social movement
dedicated to plotting goodness and helping to save our corner of the world from
human evil- both personal and systemic. Perhaps it would be the radical
obedience of a community dedicated to the teaching of lifelong spiritual
formation as disciples of Jesus, dedicated to teaching the most excellent way of
love.
This kind of love as Brian McLaren notes would celebrate the good in the
Christian religion and lament the bad. It would invite people into a faith that
would experience formation in the way of Jesus.
To have this happen, though we would have to drop our nets and get out
of our safe comfortable boats that we are currently living in. It would be scary,
adventures can be scary. Like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings. He took the challenge to make a difference in his world, it was a scary adventure and it didn’t matter that he was really small. But, he had help all along the way. So do we in our church community and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ in us.
Jan. 23, 2011 Third Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 4:12-23
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
