June 30, 2019

Proper 8

Luke 9:51-62

Grace Church

Good morning! I know we are getting ready for the big Fourth of July celebration and like a new resident in Kansas, I’m trying to imagine the oncoming storm but can’t quite grasp the magnitude of it. As instructed, I did go to the grocery store to stock up, and I am planning to be inconvenienced — but that is a small price to pay for such a grand celebration. Another new experience on Lopez Island!

The lovely thing about the timing of the Fourth and the lectionary cycle is that some of the most significant passages regarding our life together in Christ, align each year at this time. The language of freedom, the call for liberty and justice echo over the centuries, sometimes only faintly and other times with a great clarion call. Paul is at his very best today in this passage from the letter to the Galatians.  The challenge of his message and the impact on me is this: I love my country but my true citizenship is in the realm of God through Christ Jesus — I am a citizen of heaven.

This is a vantage point that makes me a resident alien of sorts and gives my life a perspective that is set apart — set apart to be of use to God, to see as God sees. The word we use for those who are “set apart” is holy. We are God’s holy people, called out for the sake of the whole world. Our perspective is that Christ’s people practice this new way of seeing and being, liberated and linked together with the very mind of Christ. Paul says: For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. It is this line that is on my mind today, but first I want to share an image that embodies this statement. In a funny way, it is an icon, a window into the heart of Paul’s words.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a break from sermon writing and gathered my trio of Tibetan Spaniels for a walk. The three tibbies — Gracie, Teddy and St. Pierre were ready to go out and because the weather was spectacular, I was looking forward to a little time to ruminate on the sermon in the sun. All three dogs stood still for the leashes, patient and reconciled to the fact that I’m in control. I opened the door and in a tangle of puppies, leads, and the excitement of going for a walk, we started our adventure. First, a brief stop for potties and then up to the pond. As I looked out over the expanse of lawn and fields, a beautiful rolling countrywide scene, I let go of the leashes.

Like a shot, Teddy ran — the gait of the Tibetan Spaniel is like a rabbit, front legs together driving forward, back legs together, pushing off. He was free and knew it. Gracie, the tiny, shy girl looked up at me first and then, she too, started to run, following her brother. St. Pierre is the elegant black and white old gentleman. He is fifteen and a half, sweet and docile, the most obedient of the three. He paused and looked across the field at his two companions and at me, and then he ran. For freedom, they ran and the pure joy of it, for them and for me. It is that moment I hold today as we enter into this remarkable epistle from Paul. For freedom Christ has set us free. As I watched the three, I saw freedom incarnated in the trinity of tibbies. They were living fully into their canine identity — and I was aware that Paul is offering a glimpse into our identity as human beings, created in the image of God. For freedom we are set free to be as God intended, living manifestations of love.

Today we hear Paul’s passionate voice in the Letter to the Church in Galatia. After sharing his credentials as an apostle of Christ, Paul writes: O foolish Galatians! Who bewitched you? Again and again, Paul’s words ring out as he reminds us of these words: For freedom Christ has set us free. This letter was written in the early to mid-fifties CE and Paul plants the flag for a community that finds its identity “in Christ.” He offers us a vision for our life together, a vision that has often been distorted, diverting the radical gospel message into a dead end of virtue and vice. I sometimes think that Paul’s letters are not for young children or fundamentalists but we are ready, for there is much good news and a reminder of the great gift we have received — freedom in Christ.

In our gospel today, Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and in the next nine chapters that follow, we must choose: to whom do we belong? This is the question before us today and always. To whom do we belong? Are we citizens of this world or agents of Christ’s love?

From the unfolding events following Holy Week, to the words of Paul to the Galatians, we are looking at a timeframe of perhaps twenty-five years. Luke’s gospel will not be written for another twenty years. Paul’s conversion, early in the life of the movement of the followers of the Way of Jesus has been tested and seasoned. I note these things so that we might realize that Paul is the first voice, the organizing agent of this new movement and these letters, these epistles show the shape of his thinking and the form of the early church.

This letter is both a corrective to those early followers but also a brilliant reminder to us today — we are citizens in the realm of Paradise where Christ enfolds us into a body, a living community of love. Christ Jesus is now the realm of the believer — it is to the eternal Word, we belong. The realm of the flesh is unredeemed humanity turned in and upon itself. Paul’s use of flesh is the part of our human nature that is self-seeking and self-serving without regard for one’s neighbor.

To state it simply, life in the flesh is an egocentric way of living, especially a reality in this current culture of narcissism. It is important to note that life in the flesh is not about the body and life in the Spirit is not about the soul. We do not split our humanity in half. For Paul, Christian morality is a matter of living in the correct realm — the realm of Christ Jesus. It is not about correct behavior, it is about an orientation. Richard Rohr reminds us: “We believe that God’s heart be made available and active on this earth.” And that is our mission in the world – to be the heart of God.

In this curious epistle as Paul chastises the hapless Galatians because they either cling to the law or think they have license to do anything. Fundamentalists have a field day with Paul’s list of works of the flesh and in their own way, create a new Law of right behavior.

All too often, we Episcopalians generally recoil and try to avoid the topic altogether — we are uncomfortable with these lists of works fo the flesh and may misread or misjudge what Paul is saying. To recover his point, the categories  regarding works of the flesh may be little easier to understand: sensuality, idolatry, community dissension and self-indulgence. These categories resonate with much in our world today, a time not unlike Paul’s own reality. But the point is not a new Law regarding behavior, but a new orientation of life.

Life in the Spirit is life outwardly focused for the sake of others. We fulfill the law of love, agape, as we turn outward. The discipline of such a life cannot be attained through the will but as a gift received and it cannot be maintained in isolation. That is why we gather here and to remember who we are, to confess when we fall short, to feed and be fed by the love of Christ. It is what we offer as Christian people, a gift of profound grace and love, channeled through this body — the body of Christ. The works of the Spirit reflect the many manifestations of the single fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, and peace; patience, kindness, and goodness; and faith, gentleness and self-control. Christ Jesus is the sphere in which the believer belongs; faith of Jesus working through love is our gift. We can’t earn it, for it has been given to us and that is the freedom we celebrate today as citizens of the realm of God.

Paul proclaims: For freedom Christ has set us free. We have been liberated from the Law, written and recited, in order to be witnesses to another realm, another way. This freedom from the Law does not mean license to do whatever we please. This freedom comes with a price and we cannot have it both ways — the realm of freedom is the very Kingdom of God — we cannot live in the realm of a self-centered world and live in the realm of God. As Richard Rohr says, “Paul intended that this new people ‘live in the church,’ as it were — and from that solid base go out to the world. We still have it all backward, living fully in the worldly systems and occasionally going to church.”

I want you to think about this verse, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” and imagine my little puppies liberated and free. Imagine the moment, short little legs driving up the field of grass, not stopping until they reached the fence. For freedom Christ has set us free and it is this gift, this incredible liberation from the law, the constraining leash of external control, is gone. For now, we are given the Spirit, a new heart, an internal guide, and together we are linked, clothed in Christ Jesus.

Remember the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace; patience, kindness, and goodness; and faith, gentleness and self-control. Those are the signs that the reign of God has come and you are free! So run, run into the arms of love and rejoice!

Amen

June 23, 2019

Proper 7C

Luke 8

Grace Church

Good morning! I’m so glad that you came this morning — many had the blessing of the beloved community last night as Trevor and Joanne were honored with the annual Spirit award. It was a holy evening — a feast, prayers, testimonies and all were blessed. That sounds like Eucharist to me. The hall looked like Easter with all the trimmings, Joanne’s quilts, like liturgical banners and boats — Trevor’s boats, a reminder that this space is called the nave.

I only wish the gospel reading for the day was a bit more fitting — the healing of the Gerasene demonic would not have been my first choice. But that is the challenge and gift of the lectionary, we don’t just pick and choose what we want. And that’s also the gift of scripture, there is often more than meets the eye.

Perhaps this might be an interesting place to start. Then people came out to see what had happened and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

And so, let us begin. Or let me begin with a story. It was 1986, I was ordained a deacon and awaiting my ordination to the priesthood, serving Resurrection parish in Austin, Texas. It was early afternoon and I was in my office when I heard and felt a great pounding. I got up and ran into the nave toward the sound, thinking a car might have careened into the church. What I saw was a disheveled young man, long, wild, curly blond hair. He was holding a very large piece of concrete curbing and pounding it against the faceted glass window in the sanctuary. He had broken through from the outside, the glass was everywhere, the destruction shocking, and as I watched, he tossed the curb and started kicking the altar.

By this time, the rector came in and in a commanding voice said, “Stop that! Stop that now!” And he did. In a few minutes, he was sitting in the front pew. There was a surreal calm in the midst of the chaos. Soon the police arrived, and he was taken away.

This is a true story, the details are accurate, the damage was significant, the young man was arrested, and I hope, received treatment.

The important thing to note is this: my story is just that, it is a recitation of a factual incident. A man out of his mind, destructive behavior, the command to cease, the calm in the aftermath and the resolution to a logical conclusion. What it is not is the gospel and in fact, as we begin this long season of Pentecost and dive deeply into Luke’s Gospel, it is important to remember that the telling of the story of Jesus by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is a unique genre of literature. It is not simply a collection of stories and events in the life of Jesus.

The word gospel means good news, or more completely, good news from the battlefield, and, although it can be simply read and received like my story— a recitation of events— our gospels are infinitely more complex, more revealing and an endless source of unfolding mystery — the revealing of a universe that is christened from the very beginning of creation and the disclosure of the fullness of life that is found in this human form. Through the eyes of Jesus, we experience the whole scope of being — birth, life, death and resurrection — reminding us that nothing is ever lost in the universe — fulfilling the whole arc of our existence.

And from this greater perspective, Jesus, the Word of God, the Christ becomes the archetype for humanity — the holographic image of the fullness of our humanity, who shows us the power of sacrificial love and who shows us the full potential of our humanity, liberated from the fear of death.

In the case of Luke, Luke is an apologetic historian, he is writing to the Christian community to defend the word and work of God in history through the lens of the anointed one, Jesus.

It is tempting to simply read this curious story and dismiss it as curious and strange, and wonder about those poor pigs and their swineherds. But this particular story is placed in the context of the parable of the sower and set alongside the story of Jesus in the boat and the stilling of the storm. And we know that Luke is very intentional in the sequence and order of his gospel. One big parable and two miracles.

And finally, we know that this strange story is found in all three synoptic gospels — Mark, Matthew and Luke each tell it. It is an important story and each time it is set within the context of the Parable of the Sower, the first parable of the Kingdom of God.

So what we have here is a healing, with the dramatic interplay between Jesus, the man and the demons plus the crowd, the people from the city and the country and the swineherds. Most of all what we encounter is the remarkable failure of anyone, except the man who was possessed, to see a new reality — a reality Jesus called the Kingdom of God, a reality that embraces the lost, the least, the lonely and the little; a reality that recognized the deepest human need to love and be loved, a power so great even a madman possessed of a legion of demons can be saved. The crowd’s response is fear — the collective madness that seizes us in the face of our own complacency. The madman was less threatening while ranting and raving in the tombs, than in this state of wholeness —this is the state of systemic insanity and underlies our own reluctance to embrace real change when the cost is perceived to be to high. Better to find a scapegoat to bear our own madness that to confront it.

Jesus stands in the midst of it all and, for us all, and takes it all through the portal of death pulling us into the wild realm that includes us all, it a realm that is mysterious, already present and calls us to respond — this reality undergirds today’s story. It is the very realm of the holy that holds the secret to sanity.

In a slight shift in perspective, the madman sees hope in the face of Jesus and is set free. The crowd sees transformation in the man once out of his mind and they are afraid. The gospel of Jesus confronts not just the demons but our own complacency — we would rather tolerate the madness of our neighbor, than the transformation and challenge of confronting our own demons.

The good news from the battlefield is that we have already been saved — all of us. It is a gift to us all — freely offered, freely given, and even our choice to believe, to trust, that, too, is ours.

We often feel at the end of this story, when the healed man begs to follow Jesus, that Jesus is rejecting him, but I see it differently: the healed man is truly free, no longer in bondage, he does not have to bind himself to Jesus, instead, he is free to return to his life and to share his story of liberation, salvation and transformation.

And that is true for all of us. By grace we have all been saved. For those of us who have been baptized into Christ, we who have clothed ourselves with Christ — we abide in the shelter of Christ’s love for all creation — it is especially fitting here in this place, where we are reminded each day that even in the company of strangers, love is here. And remember, this is the greatest story ever told!

Thank you again, for letting me come to this place of grace, where we often get a glimpse of the kingdom of God in the faces of those we meet.

Amen

June 16, 2019

Trinity Sunday

John 16:12-15

Last week, road weary and disoriented in time and space, I entered into a new life with you in this place of grace. We celebrated the great feast of Pentecost where we were empowered to “Go forth and set the world on fire,” a fitting end to the great fifty days of Easter.  Thank you for the gracious welcome and hospitality and for your willingness to celebrate Pentecost in a different way — anointing is a precious intimacy and time of blessing, and beginning our time together with the oil of gladness was a lovely way to start this relationship.

Today we enter into the long, growing season of Pentecost. These Sundays after Pentecost go on and on through summer’s high season, autumn’s harvest, all the way to the creeping darkness that descends at November’s end. Through these many months we will continue to hear from the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s offering of parables and the parabolic acts of Jesus offers a glimpse into a different way of storytelling. It is fraught with opportunity, and easy to miss the point.

We hear this story of Jesus and the parables and don’t realize there are many entry points and much complexity. Too often, we dismiss these simple stories and leave them for the children. But, parables are filled with mystery and wonder and paradox — a whole universe is ready to open to us, if we will be open to it. At the heart of it all is this one thing: love never ends.

Love never ends. We live in the paradox of this promise of God. Even in the midst of change, chaos, grief and loss, we are promised that love never ends. And this love — it is given to us, it is a gift that is hardwired in us — this miracle that at its most primal level of particle physics has been described as quantum entanglement, it is ours as well.

The mystery of God permeates the universe from the smallest particles to boundless space. In a remarkable discovery even the smallest particles know what the other is about, even without evidence of communication — isn’t that just a wondrous thought. And if particles behave that way, can quantum entanglement of love be any less true?

We begin this journey into mystery on this first Sunday after Pentecost with the only theological Sunday in our liturgical cycle. This is Trinity Sunday, is focused on the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the three in one and one in three — Father, Son and Holy Spirit and all the other politically correct variations on the theme — Creator, Redeemer, and Reconciler. This is also the most dreaded Sunday for newly ordained clergy. Cruel rectors love to assign Trinity Sunday to their newly minted charges who now must expose their theological deficiencies to their boss and congregants.

But, alas, today the task falls to me! Only the second time we’ve been together and I’m provided a great opportunity to bore you to tears as we walk down the historical path of the development of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. But, know this, I am no novice to these challenges, and why would I come to this most exquisite island to rehearse such mind numbing word games when these is a better path and a more playful way — for at the beginning and the end of this season of Pentecost, we discover in the Holy Trinity, the way of love, a dance of desire that undergirds all of creation.

As I already said, “Love never ends” and this eternal dance of love is described in the Greek word, Perichoresis. It is a much more appealing approach to the Trinity.  Perichoresis means going around, envelopment, containing one another. To be enveloped by and see this dance of unity not just as an underlying principle in particle physics, but a glimpse into the very nature of the Holy Trinity, God, three in one, is to know that we are held together in love.

As this is true at the quantum level and the cosmic level, it is also true in our own living form, in our own bodies. The discovery of our capacity to create and generate love is being explored by neurobiologists. This most intimate connection is expressed through limbic resonance and spread through mirror neurons. Sight, sound, touch, taste, every aspect of our humanity is wired for love.

My favorite image is this one. When my son’s first child, Isabel, was six weeks old, a photo was shot, both in profile, eye to eye, nose to nose — my son was teaching his tiny daughter to love. He was generating love in the exchange that was charged with the power of connection — in the picture you see them face to face but between them was that third reality, a living connection — Perichoresis — Father, Child and that elusive Spirit — together generating the dance of desire, the dance of love.

We generate love — is that not just the most amazing thing! We embody it, we share it, we offer it to tiny babies jus born and we dispense it with the laying on of hands, anointing the beloved, even in death. In community, we gather in this holy place every week to proclaim that this is an Easter celebration — a resurrection day! Love never ends! Even at the grave, we make our song, “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”

And so today, this Trinity Sunday, I offer these words from Jurgen Moltmann: “An eternal life process takes place in the triune God through the exchange of energies. The Father exists in the Son, the Son in the Father, and both of them in the Spirit, just as the Spirit exists in both the Father and the Sob. By virtue of their eternal love they live in one another to such an extent, and dwell in one another to such an extent that they are one. It is a process of most perfect and intense empathy. Precisely through the personal characteristics that distinguish them from one another, the Father, the Son and the Spirit dwell in one another and communicate eternal life to one another. In the Perichoresis, the very thing that divides them becomes that which binds them together.”

And even more beautifully, he goes on to say, “The trinitarian Persons do not merely exist and live in one another; they also bring one another mutually to manifestation in the divine glory. The eternal divine glory is for its part displayed through the trinitarian manifestation of the Persons…The Persons of the Trinity make one another shine through that glory, mutually ad together. They glow into perfect form through one another and awake to perfected beauty in one another.” Glory be!

That is our promise, together, if we care to come together as Christ’s Body into this eternal dance of love. The Holy Trinity is not simply a theological doctrine to be marched out once a year, it is a dance of love and loving to be offered to each other. And when we do this, even when we get the tiniest glimpse of it, we are bathed in glory, it is the most profound experience, never to be forgotten.

In this final discourse in John’s gospel, Jesus is offering us this promise of glory, a dance of love that is eternal. So, come, let us dance together.

Amen.

 

As well as serving as yesterday’s sermon, this also appears as the most recent entry in a blog Jim writes called The Religious Imagineer, which can be found at www.jimfriedrich.com

 

Without faith, no good work is ever begun, or completed.

–– Caesarius of Arles

A homily for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost            The Rev Jim Friedrich       9/9/18

One of the longest running debates in Christianity is the one about faith and works.
Which is primary? Which is more necessary?
Are we saved by faith alone, or do our works matter as well?
Is our salvation due entirely to God, or do we ourselves play any part in it?

This argument goes all the way back to the New Testament. As James asks in today’s epistle, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?” (James 2:14)

James is responding to the notion that we are saved sola fide––by faith alone–– and not by anything we ourselves are able to do. He seems to be dissenting from St. Paul’s emphasis on “justification by faith,” worrying that it could weaken our ethical motivation.

If the good works that we do make no difference in whether we’re saved––because God is as gracious to sinners as s/he is to saints–– then what’s the point of working hard to do the right thing?

Like the workers in the vineyard, can’t we just show up at the last minute and receive the same wages as those suckers who spend the whole day sweating in the hot sun? (As if our own reward is the heart of the matter!)

Such a caricature, of course, does little justice to the nuanced reflections on faith and works by great thinkers like Paul, Augustine, Luther and Calvin. But still, in the end, it is fair to ask whether the whole debate is more a matter of language than substance. What do we mean by “faith,” or “justification,” or “salvation?” Without getting too far into the theological weeds, I’ll just say that such words, whatever their particular meanings, all signify a state of being tuned in to the divine way–– a condition shaped by and conformed to what James calls “the royal law”: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

In other words, the life of faith is the life of love, mirroring the eternal self-offering of the Holy Trinity in our own manner of living each and every day. When we no longer live for ourselves but for God, anxiety about whether we’re good enough is the last thing on our minds. When we surrender our lives to the Way, the Truth, and the Life, good works are simply who we are and what we do as Love’s chosen instruments.

Good works are not a means to an end, a way to glorify ourselves or earn heavenly rewards. They are simply what happens when God is in us and we are in God.
If you are a blazing fire, you give off heat and light.
If you are “Christ’s own for ever,” your actions are radiant with love and justice.

As Jesus put it, “Let your light so shine before others,
that they may see your good works and give the glory to God” (Mt. 5:16).

Jesus was speaking from experience. As St. Peter said in one of his sermons, “because God was with him, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38). Today’s gospel, cramming multiple healings into two paragraphs, fits Peter’s concise description of Jesus as a man who went around doing good, a man in a hurry to repair the world.

Good works have been called the fruits of faith, because they make the inwardness of faith visiblein a way that others can see, and nourishingin a way that others can taste. “Good works are witnesses to the Christian faith,” said a fifth-century priest named Salvian, “because otherwise a Christian cannot demonstrate that he has that faith. If he cannot show it, it may as well becompletely nonexistent.” [i]

Where would the world be if we were all faith and no works? The hungry can’t eat our ideas. The vulnerable won’t get much protection from our “thoughts and prayers.” Intention without implementation is pretty useless, as James reminds us in his Epistle:

“If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:15-17).

There was once a man whose heart was so broken by all the pain and injustice in the world that he cried out in anger and despair, “O God, see how much your people suffer! See how much anguish and misery there is in the world! Why won’t you send some help?”

And God answered, “I did send help. I sent you.” [ii]

So where do we start? There’s a world of hurt out there. Can we make a difference? Scripture gives high priority to serving the poor, feeding the hungry, welcoming the immigrant, including the outcast, protecting the defenseless, tending the sick, visiting the prisoner, and guarding Creation. At a time when the exact opposite of all these things is being carried out by the highest levels of our government––with the enthusiastic approval of a shockingly high number of white Christians––we can become exhausted, if not despairing, just thinking about the immense labor of resisting evil and preserving the common good.

That’s when works need faith as much as faith needs works––faith that another power is at work here; faith that we aren’t doing it by ourselves. In fact, repairing the world is not a humanproject at all. God started that work, and God will finish it. Meanwhile, as God’s hands and feet in the world, we chip in as best we can for our brief span. Be not afraid. God is always out there ahead of us, hard at work.

God is out there in the attorneys fighting to protect and reunite the children and parents being separated and abused at our southern border. God is there in the faith communities offering protection and sanctuary to the victims of bigotry and racism. God is there in the striking prison inmates who refuse to be treated like animals. God is there marching in the streets against gun violence and environmental suicide.

Oh wait. Is this mixing religion and politics? Of course it is, because religion and politics have always been inseparable, if what you mean by politics is that people actually matter, and the common good actually matters. In a 1979 manifesto, activists Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson defined politics in what I would call religious terms:

“Politics is the way we live our lives. . . It is the way we treat each other, as individuals, as groups, as government. It is the way we treat our environment. It is the way we treat ourselves. Politics has to do with where we shop, what we eat, how we maintain our health. It has to do with the kinds of schools we create, the energy we use, the neighborhood organizations we build, the work we do. Politics involves our way of seeing the world, of developing our consciousness, of awakening our whole selves. It has to do with our attitudes, our values, our innermost dimensions.” [iii]

Of course, for many of us the work of repairing the world is relatively quiet and local most of the time. Random acts of kindness and so forth. As Wendell Berry says, “The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble and humbling . . .” [iv]

A writer named Bob Libby gives a lovely example of this. He liked to go running at the beach, and whenever the tide was low he saw an old woman “walking along the shore in her white tennis shoes, floppy straw hat, and oversized print dress. She always carried a crumpled brown paper bag that matched the texture and color of her skin.”

Her name was Maggie, and she’d walk along with her head down, pausing occasionally to stoop over, pick something up, and examine it. Then she’d either toss it away or put it in her bag. Libby assumed she was collecting shells, but when he asked her about it one day, she said, “Not shells at all. Glass. Sharp glass. Cuts the feet. Surfers land on it. It sure ruins their summer.” [v]

 

It doesn’t take much to make the world better, does it? As John Wesley said,

Do all the good you can
by all the means you can,
in all the ways you can,
in all the places you can,
at all the times you can,
to all the people you can,
as long as ever you can. [vi]

I’ll leave you with one more story, a parable by Megan McKenna:

There was a woman who knew the world was falling apart. Every day the news made her more depressed. But one day, as she wandered sadly through her town, she had the impulse to step into a little shop she had never noticed before. To her surprise, standing behind the counter was Jesus! At least he looked like all the pictures she’d ever seen of him.

 So she went over and asked him, “Excuse me, are you Jesus?” “I am.” “Do you work here?” “No,” Jesus said, “I own the store.” “Oh. What do you sell in here?” “Just about anything!” “Anything?” “Yep, anything you want.” Jesus leaned forward. “What do youwant?” “Um, I’m not really sure.” “Well,” Jesus said, “feel free, walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is you want, and then come back and we’ll see what we can do for you.”

 So she did just that, walked up and down the aisles. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean air, careful use of resources. She wrote furiously. When she returned to the counter with her very long list, Jesus looked it over. Then he glanced at her with a smile and said, “No problem.”

 Then he bent down behind the counter, picked out a bunch of different small packets, and laid them out in front of her. “What are these?” she asked. “Seed packets,” Jesus said. “You take them home to plant, then you nurture them and help them to grow, and one day in the future there will be others to come and reap the harvest.”

“Oh,” she said. [vii]

 

 

[i] Thomas C. Oden, The Good Works Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 2007), 336.

[ii] David Wolpe, Teaching Your Children About God, q. in Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat, Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life (New York: Scribner, 1996), 317.

[iii] Ibid., 330. McLaughlin and Davidson were part of the New World Alliance, an idealistic project to create a “transformational politics.”

[iv] Wendell Berry, q. in Brussat, 341.

[v]Bob Libby, Grace Happens, q. in Brussat, 341-2.

[vi] q. in Brussat, 360-61.

[vii] Adapted from a story in Megan McKenna, Parables, q. in Brussat, 359. McKenna has the woman walk out without buying anything, like the rich young man who decided following Jesus was too hard. My wife, also a preacher, thought the congregation should be left with the woman’s final response still undecided. So I ended it with “Oh.” But I can’t help hearing the disappointment in her voice.

The Rev’d Devin McLachlan

Associate Vicar, The University Church, Great St Mary’s, Cambridge

26 August, 2018

 

Here’s a bit of trivia — in the Gospel of Saint John there is no specific description of the Last Supper; no words of Institution, ‘This is my Body…’ Instead on that final night before Jesus’ execution John gives us the image of Jesus kneeling before his disciples and washing their feet.

 

I’d like you to imagine, for a moment,  that it was Christian practice to meet every Sunday and wash one another’s feet. It’s an uncomfortable and shocking thought, both culturally alien andfar too personally invasive.  And yet Christians seem perfectly comfortable drinking from a common cup referring to bread and wine in some way or another as flesh and blood.

 

We may think that we are well-bread, the upper-crust, but when we come to receive the sacrament I knead to say that too often we fail to rise to the occasion; spiritually we are loafing around — which is pretty crumby, any way you slice it.

 

In other words, here at the end of these Living Bread Sundays, as we’ve listened to the difficult teachings of Jesus in John’s Gospel, let’s bring that foot-washing discomfort to a conversation about communion.

 

As Annie Dillard challenges us:

 

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?

….The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”

 

Or in the words of the grumbling disciples of today’s Gospel: “This teaching is difficult.  Who can accept it?”

 

I grew up at Saint James’ Cathedral, Chicago: high church, smells and bells, gold-stenciled walls and marble floors. I was convinced that if I stepped past the altar rail into the marble-lined chancel there would be an earthquake, the marble floor would open and swallow me up!

 

That I find such thoughts silly now is not that I’ve outgrown childish things — it is that I have learned to trust God more deeply, learned to see that the awe and mystery of the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood are yet still Good News, accessible, familiar and nourishing, even as they are difficult, mysterious, —  awful as well as awesome.

 

Sacraments, the prayer book teaches us, are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.

 

To swim in the waters of Christianity is to make peace with contradiction. Fear and grace,   mystery and invitation, bread and flesh, blood and wine. It’s why there are so many titles for what we do here today, all of them true, each of them pointing to particular facets:

 

This is the Eucharist — that is, taken from Greek, the Great Thanksgiving; “It is right to give God thanks and praise.”

 

This is Communion — that is, a common meal that makes of us a community as we drink from a common cup, remembering that Jesus instructed us, at the last Supper, both to break bread together and to love one another as he loved us.

 

This is the Lord’s Supper — it is our anamnesis, our remembrance of that last supper which Jesus shared with his friends on the night of his arrest leading to his execution.

 

This is the Divine Liturgy — to translate quite literally, the Godly work of the people.

 

This is the Mass — from the Latin, missa, dismissal, because the purpose of what we do today does not end at this table, but is in how we are fed by God’s grace through the Sacrament to go out into the world and bear Christ’s love.  Sacraments, the catechesis of our prayer book tells us, “sustain our present hope and anticipate its future fulfillment.

 

There are a few requirements for the Eucharist. The least interesting is the priest, someone raised up by the community and ordained by the bishop to preside at the Eucharist as one of our duties of priest and pastor.

 

The priest cannot celebrate the Eucharist alone, however — in our reformed church we need community for communion. Two or more gathered in Christ’s name is the gospel minimum.

 

We need bread, we need wine — because we recall Jesus’ last supper; because these elements recall and are for us the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of Christ; wine and bread at the table become the blood and flesh offered at the altar. Because Jesus taught us that he is indeed the Living Bread. Because bread is but seed that has been scattered, then gathered together in harvest, then broken in the mill, then made into a loaf, and then broken at this table at the fraction — just as Jesus was broken on the cross — that we might be gathered together as one body.

 

We need our hearts — that we might lift our hearts up to God, just as the bread and wine are lifted up, that we might offer to God not just this bread and wine, but ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice.

 

We need story — anamnesis, remembrance, the stories in Scripture and the story recalled each time we gather at this table, of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples and of the mysteries of his incarnation: His life and his death, his resurrection and glorious ascension.

 

We need prayer — the sanctus we sing with angels and archangels holy, holy, holy; the specific epiclesis— when the celebrant calls down the Holy Spirit: “Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the  Body and Blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in him. Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace.” We need prayer throughout — in our intercessions, in the Lord’s Prayer, in our collect and post-communion prayer, and most briefly and vitally at the end of the Eucharistic prayer — for the Eucharist is not complete without the Great Amen spoken by the whole congregation, that wonderful word from Hebrew: Amen. So be it. It is so.

 

Bread and wine.  Community, celebrant, story, and prayer.  And two more things:

 

We need time — one of the most mysterious of God’s creatures, and in August sometimes one of the most elusive. In all the rush and busy-ness and panic of life, to celebrate the Eucharist means making an offering of time back to God, God who has given us all of the time that we have.

 

And we need hunger. Hunger for God’s grace, hunger for the company and prayers and support of one another, hunger for justice that all might be fed, hunger, in this present age of fear and violence, for the coming of God’s peace. The hunger to declare to one another, to Lopez, to the World — we have come to believe and know that Jesus Christ is the Holy One of God.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

We heard the story of the feeding of the five thousand last week. And now, and in the next three weeks, we will hear more of Jesus offering himself to his followers, as the bread of Life, and trying to get them to think about it. About the bread they need, not just literally. Sometimes preachers will do a month-long series about the Bread of Life. But you all are having the experience of multiple voices reflecting on this same theme. Take advantage of this opportunity to reflect on Jesus as the Bread of Life and what that means to you, and how you can understand that more deeply.

I have to tell you that whenever I read these passages, wherever I am, what comes to mind first is the communion bread baked by Zane Hoyt here at Grace Church. It is so rich and so simple at the same time. You can taste the love with which she prepared it and the love with which she has passed on her recipe.

There is a joke that goes around seminaries. It says, ‘it is easier to believe that the bread is the body of Christ, than to believe that communion wafers are bread.’ But with Zane’s bread it is not hard to believe that this is truly bread, the Bread of Life in Jesus Christ.

Now, let’s look at a bit of today’s Gospel. Jesus and the disciples have been trying to get away to get a little peace and quiet. But that is not to be. The crowds who had been at, or heard about, the feeding of the 5000, come asking for more. Jesus reprimands them, saying, “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” The crowd seems to want “a free lunch”, a respite from their daily struggle to find enough food to feed their families.

I think sometimes we do the same thing. We pray to God for help, for whatever it is we need. And we give thanks when we receive that healing, that enlightenment, that answer to our prayer. But we want more, more proof. That’s just the way of our spiritual life. For moments we put our lives in Jesus’ hands. We experience God’s presence with us in moments of need or moments of crisis, or in time of prayer, or when we receive communion. But then we doubt and say, prove to me that I can believe in you. Give me a sign. How can I be sure?

17 years ago, I had breast cancer. My closest friend had lost her best friend to breast cancer about 5 years before, and she was afraid she was going to go through the same thing again with me. She was a wonderful advocate for me, but she carried with us, to every doctor’s appointment and hospital stay, the shadow of death. But here I am, free of that cancer! 17 years in remission. I have no doubt that my prayers and her prayers and the prayers of hundreds of other people saved me from death. And I have no doubt about the power of prayer – to bring about healing miracles – and to give us the strength and the comfort and consolation of Jesus when the outcome is not as happy as we wished.

And yet I still want more. More bread. More healing. Come on, God, if you could heal me from cancer, surely you can do something about my back pain! But my body is not the only place where I need healing.

When Jesus told His followers that He was the bread of life, He was giving them a solution—not just for their physical hunger but also for their emotional, mental, and spiritual hunger. He offered them hope! For a future different from what they were living. Of course Jesus offered bread -and fish -to the multitudes of people that had followed him to that hillside spot far away from any town. They were not rich. They were not well-provisioned. They had followed him because they were poor; because they were homeless; because they were hungry; because they were sick – in their bodies, at heart and in their souls. They were oppressed; they were afraid of the Roman soldiers; they were afraid of the religious authorities. Life was not easy, was not secure, in 1^st century Palestine.

Many hoped – or feared – that what Jesus was going to do was to get rid of the Roman invaders. Now that would have been a miracle! A bloody one. Most prayed that he – or someone like him – would rid them of the burdens of poverty – the constant aching, empty belly, as the provider of the family struggled to quiet the growling stomachs and fill out the bony arms of his or her children.

Jesus had already shown them that he could do that, with the feeding of the 5000, but he wants to offer them – and offer us – that and something far beyond that.

Like the crowd following Jesus we tend to say, ‘okay, you fed all 5000 of us with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, now prove to me that you will always be there for me. Just give me one more miracle, please.’

But Jesus offers us a much wider range of life-giving and nurturing than just bread and fishes. God does not work in us just by showy miracles.

Jesus says, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

What do you think he means when he talks about the food that perishes vs. the food that gives eternal life?

We hunger for so much. Peace in our lives and in the world. Freedom from emotional and physical pain. Freedom from fear and from anger and from confusion and from uncertainty.

We thirst for so much. A deeper relationship with our children. Reconciliation with those from whom we are estranged. A better relationship between people of different cultures and backgrounds from ours. A healing of our planet. A world where salmon and orcas abound. A future for our grandchildren. But most of all, and deepest of all, a closer connection to Jesus, to God, to the Spirit.

We all are moving towards that time when we believe we will be eternally content and satisfied in God’s loving care. We believe and at the same time sometimes we are painfully unsure of that.

Of course, we are all living in this world now, seeking wisdom and guidance from God about how to manage the struggles and challenges of this world. How to be good parents and grandparents. How to be loving children. How to be conscientious stewards of God’s creation.

Jesus says that “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

And Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

What do you hunger for? For what do you thirst? What is the bread you need?

 

I want to begin by saying thank you for welcoming me back into your beautiful sanctuary this morning.  It is so good to be with you again.  This congregation holds a special place in my heart, for one because you were so central in the lives of my husband’s parents, Don and Nonie Hall, and also because of the many ways the people of the Lutheran Church and Grace Church have worshipped and worked together over the years.  It has been a blessing to be in partnership with you, serving this island community we love.

Today’s gospel story, John’s version of the feeding of the 5000, is a favorite of mine.  It’s about community, and abundance, and has much to teach us.  Let’s take a look at it.

Jesus and the disciples have taken a boat across the Sea of Galilee and withdrawn to an isolated place in the hills, looking for a retreat from the constant work of ministering to the people, and from the increasingly virulent attacks by the religious establishment.  They hope for some time alone, but it seems they are not to get it, for the crowd has followed them.

Jesus looks up and sees the approaching crowd.  He understands their hunger–he has seen it so many times–and so he turns from the moment of retreat to minister to their need.  The gospel writer tells us that Jesus has a plan for how to help the people and also to teach the disciples about ways to satisfy the people’s hunger.  Jesus begins with an ironic question to Philip: “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”  Philip, of course, answers that there is no way they have enough money to buy food for all these people.  Jesus has made the first point clear: they are not going to be able to go to the store and buy dinner for this crowd.

Andrew looks for another solution and comes close to finding it.  A child has come forward and offered five barley loaves and two fishes, Andrew reports.  “Ah, but forget it,” Andrew says, “That could never be enough.”  Isn’t it significant that it is a child who offers the food?  A child who has not yet learned the assumption of scarcity–who has not yet come to see the world as a place of limited resources, where everyone needs to hoard what they have, lest it disappear in the yawning chasm of need, and the giver be left with nothing.  The child comes open handed.  “Are people hungry?” the child asks.  “Here, give them my five loaves and two fishes.”  Andrew scoffs at the child’s offer, but Jesus does not.  “Make the people sit down,” he says.  They do, and the miracle unfolds.

We picture the scene.  Everyone is standing, straining to see and hear this young rabbi they have heard so much about. All are facing forward, interacting with each other only, perhaps, to shoulder someone aside to get a better view.  But then Jesus invites the people to sit down, and a whole different dynamic takes over.  People understand that with everyone sitting, they will be able to see.  They stop competing for a good view, and for the first time notice friends and acquaintances.  They smile at one another, move to make room.  Some go over to sit with a friend, exchange a hug and a greeting.  The faceless crowd begins to become a community.

Once the people are sitting, Jesus goes on with the lesson.  He accepts the child’s offer, holds up the five small loaves and the two fish, and gives thanks to God for them.  All that we have is gift, he teaches.  We would not have the bread if God had not given us the barley plant, nor the fish if it had not been present in the lake to be caught.  The responsibility to feed this crowd does not rest solely on human shoulders, Jesus teaches: God is here.

Then Jesus does a tremendously vulnerable thing: he passes out the five loaves and two fish to the crowd of 5000.  This doesn’t have to work.  Everyone in the crowd could cling to the vision of scarcity.  Those with food could hoard what they have, and those without could end up hungry, and angry.  But the people don’t hoard.  They follow Jesus’ example, and that of the child.  Seeing Jesus and the child share what little they have, the people do the same.  In the end, there are twelve baskets of fragments left over, and everyone is satisfied.  It isn’t that everyone’s belly is necessarily full, but everyone is satisfied.

Pretty amazing, that, in a crowd of 5000.  How often does it happen that everyone, even in a much smaller group, is satisfied?  However, these people have had a rich experience of community, and a powerful lesson that when people open their hearts, God’s abundance is made manifest.

Last spring a group of students and adults from Lopez had an experience of community and a lesson about abundance that was not so different from the ones we have just studied in John’s gospel.  To share the students’ experience, I invite you to come with me for a little while to the streets of Athens.

It is dusk on an April night.  Six students and two adults from Lopez High School have already walked 5 miles today, seeing the sights of Athens.  They’re tired, and somewhat anxious.  They know they’re going to be distributing tea and sandwiches to hungry people, but they don’t know exactly how that will play out.  And they’ve left the glitzy part of Athens behind.  This neighborhood has fewer tourists, more trash in the streets, and more poverty.

Principal Dave Sather, who is with the group, has set up this opportunity.  Two years ago he accompanied another group of students to Greece, and shared their shock and dismay when they witnessed thousands of Syrian refugees camped in the Port of Piraeus.  On this year’s trip Dave wants the students to have the chance to do something positive in the face of suffering.  Through the Anglican church he has arranged for the group to volunteer in a feeding program, initiated and at first personally funded by Nicolas, a Greek Orthodox layman.  Now, with support from the Red Cross and several faith communities, Nicolas organizes volunteer groups from as far away as England and Japan to help distribute food.

The Lopez students begin by assembling sandwiches at the Red Cross station.  Then they head out into the neighborhood, led by two volunteer guides from Armenia and Iran.  They come to a woman wearing a hijab.  One of the guides offers her a sandwich and some clean clothes.  Her eyes light up as she accepts the gifts.  A group of youth, some as young as 12, come running from a park.  “Here comes the sandwich guy!” they yell. ” But, so, where are you from?  Americans??  What are you doing here?”  These refugee children from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, are incredulous that young people would come all the way from America to serve them food.  In their own languages they express their gratitude.

The Lopez students hand out sandwiches, tea, and clean underwear until 11 pm.  Back at the Red Cross station they meet with Nicolas.  “If what I do keeps one person out of jail,” he tells them, “I’ve done my job.”  In the days that follow the students talk over their experience.  They speak of being surprised that Nicolas doesn’t wait for needy people to come to him, he goes out and finds them.  And although they are shocked by the desperate need of the people they served, they are also deeply moved by their appreciation.

These young people and adults from Lopez have had what can only be a life-changing experience.  They have seen extreme poverty and suffering, but they have also seen kindness and generosity.  They have witnessed churches and volunteers from all over the world come together to form a community, and that community has transformed privation into abundance–an abundance not only of food, but also of love, and of gratitude.

So, the message of the feeding of the 5000, and of the students’ experience in the slums of Athens, is that God has not given us a world of scarce resources, in which we need to compete viciously for the basic things we need, like food, shelter, and love.  Scarcity is an illusion, as theologian Parker Palmer says: abundance is the reality.  And the abundance which God holds ready for us is released when we act in community to pass God’s gifts along.

Very well.  But what about famine in sub-Saharan Africa?  What about countries ravaged by war?  What about people fleeing from the devastating effects of climate change?  How do we help God’s abundance become real in a world where there is so much privation?

These are huge questions, of course.  We could decide, like the disciple Andrew, that these problems are simply too large to be solved.  Five loaves and two fishes will never feed all these people, so forget about it.  But then there is the child, offering what he has.  “Are people hungry?  I have five barley loaves and two fishes…”

And so we offer what we have.   Our youth feed hungry people in Greece.  Here at home we distribute commodities and operate the food bank.  Lutherans and Episcopalians cooperate to provide summer backpack meals to hungry families, and we bring the produce of our gardens to Lopez Fresh.  We work to create a Home Fund that will finance affordable housing in San Juan County. We insist that our tax dollars go to support the most vulnerable in our country, and increased humanitarian aid around the world.  We demand diplomatic solutions to world conflicts, instead of violent ones.

A child holds out five loaves and two fishes; a youth hands a sandwich to a hungry refugee; island folks join together to build a caring community–and God’s amazing gifts to humankind are made real in the world.  In Paul’s words in his letter to the church in Ephesus:

 

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to that One be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.                    Amen

This past week I spent helping out at the Summer Day Camp at the Episcopal church, Resurreccion, in Mount Vernon. It was a scene of loving chaos, as volunteers from Grace Church, Bainbridge and St. Michaels and all Angels, in Issaquah, arrived full of energy and enthusiasm and way too many chief cooks and bottlewashers.

As I watched the campers come in, and the teen and adult volunteers swarm around, I was reminded of Jesus and his disciples and followers that we hear about in today’s reading. Today’s Gospel skips over verses 35 thru 53, which include the feeding of the 5000, Jesus walking on water, and the calming of the storm. There is just so much going on for Jesus, his friends and all the suffering people of his time! Resurreccion’s Summer Bible Camp seemed like that. When it was time for getting the children two meals and a snack, it seemed like there were 5000 mouths to feed. And these children of immigrant farmworkers needed so much healing!

A young boy named Edgar arrived reluctantly, and late, the first day, and he didn’t want to stay. He was afraid. His mother started to leave, and he broke into a heart-wrenching scream. I tried to tell him it was okay, but he was not convinced. And so 15 year old Hailey came over bringing with her a wonderful furry puppet of a fox. Edgar had missed the puppet show of Noah’s Ark. But he was intrigued by the soft, almost full-size fox. Slowly but surely, gently and patiently, Hailey convinced Edgar to stay, with the fox clutched tightly to him.

Now Edgar is from a poor immigrant family. He sleeps on the floor at home beside his 5 older siblings. His father was deported to Mexico this past winter, and their mother cares for them all, working and just scraping by. Edgar lives in fear, not understanding where his father has gone and wondering if his mother or brothers or sisters will disappear any day like his father did.

Hailey, the 15 year old, is unsure of herself, living a pretty sheltered life, but has come to have a new experience, helping to design and lead this day camp. She speaks no Spanish, much less the indigenous language that Edgar’s mother speaks. But she is learning to become an empathetic leader and to share God’s love across the barriers that divided her from her young campers.

When I went for the final closing on Friday, there was Edgar, happily participating and singing new songs. I’m pretty sure Edgar went home with the stuffed fox. But more than just a really cool puppet he was part of a reaching across barriers . Knowing, feeling the love of these teenage leaders. Experiencing reconciliation.

Today’s readings seem relevant to my experience of the chaos and confusion that swirled around the Summer Bible Camp. Of that wild coming together of different cultures, of ignorance of each other’s culture, and the eventual reconciling of those disparate worlds by the end of the week.

It also reminds me of the way that we are separated and divided today. Paul assures us that in Christ we can overcome our divisions. Of course, Paul is referring to the divisions between the Jews and the gentiles, or as he says, ‘the circumcised’ and ‘the uncircumcised’. The ‘us’ and the ‘other’.

Paul says, “’Christ’ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one, and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. [Christ]… has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.”

In our time I would say ‘one humanity’ in place of the many fragmented groups. I pray daily for that peace of God to overcome the hostility whirling around us. Preferably soon, not so slowly, but we know it will be in God’s time.

I am struck by the many different settings in which I hear that public prayer for an end to the hostility. For peace and an end to discord, chaos and hatred, from all sides. From people who voted for one political party and from people who voted for another party. From people who fear immigrants and from people who love immigrants or are immigrants. From people who fear losing the world we knew, and those who fear the new world that is charging at us. We all share a passion for our rights of free expression. But we also share a passion for peace. Peace in our family. Peace in our communities. Peace between countries. Peace between people of different religious faiths, races, and genders. Peace among all God’s beloved children.

Theologian Brian Pederson says, “Jews and Gentiles were separated by a painful and often violent history, by divergent cultures and convictions, by mutual hostility and suspicion.

“This is what sin does” he says, “– it divides us from one another. But now they[we] have been made part of a story which moves from exclusion, hostility, and deprivation to welcome, reconciliation, and God’s overflowing gift.”

Jesus was concerned for his close friends, the disciples. Concerned that they were getting burned out, that they had bitten off more than they could chew, that they were not getting enough quiet time of prayer and physical renewal to be able to truly understand the meaning of God’s presence with them in Jesus, and to fully take in the power of God’s love in their lives. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” he says.

The summer Day Camp at Resurreccion was chaos, but loving chaos. It was joyous noise, not terrifying noise. The chaos we face as a nation and as a world, is not so benign.

We need to take care of ourselves, so we do not get burned-out. We need to recognize that God created all of us, and that our life’s work is reconciling the chaos and the violence and the sin, bringing it all before God so that Christ can give us peace and reconciliation. Jesus wants us to speak truth, to pray and meditate, – and most of all to love. We need to be witnesses and living examples of that love.

I rejoice in the hope that Paul offers us today. He says, “remember that you were at that time without Christ, being …strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” We do have hope. In our baptism we became partners with God in those covenants. A better day will come, with God’s help.

I invite you to open your prayer books to page 833 and join me in saying the prayer attributed to St. Francis, prayer #62:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.

                                                    AFFLICTION

Have you heard the story of the guest  vicar who had been invited to dinner,

following the morning service.  After the meal the vicar asked the hostess

what she thought of his message…  She raved on and on how he had filled

her soul….her plate was overflowing.  The vicar then turned to the six year

old son and asked him his opinion, and he said, “Yea, I got a belly full of it too.”

 

The words we use have many meanings.  It is important how we use those

words.   Let me remind you today that the Christian faith is built on one

WORD.  That is how John the Gospel writer introduced us to Christ.

 

What really is the task of our Christian Faith?

 

There is a passage in Pilgrim’s Progress where Christian and Hopeful,

two of John Bunyan’s characters, meet up with a third character: By-ends. 

As they walk and talk By-Ends describes the people of his village.  He says,

‘It is true that we somewhat differ in our religion from those of a stricter

sort, but only on two little points.  First we never strive against wind and

Tide…and secondly we are always most zealous when Religion goes in

Silver Slippers.  We love to walk with him when the sun is shining and

the People applaud him.’

 

Is our faith meant to be easy going and un-disturbing, wearing Silver Slippers?

and being applauded and cheered?  Or is there more to it than that?

I think there is!

Today I want to share some thoughts about one of the most profound words

in the Christian faith.

AFFLICTLION

I need to warn you….what I am going to say may sound Paradoxical.   But

It seems to me that our Christian faith has two tasks

1)      Comforting the afflicted

2)     Afflicting the comfortable.

 

Let me begin.  The first thing that is to be said is that the Christian faith

has  the purpose of comforting the afflicted.

That is what James said when he wrote:

“Pure religion, and undefiled before God is this…..to visit the fatherless

and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from

the world.”

We live in a world where men and women are starved for love and warmth and

understanding.  Jesus spent himself in comforting and in being with the suffering.

We live in a world where we desperately need the comforting ministry of the

Christian faith.

 

There is a lovely tiny Chapel just outside of Sultan, here is Washington.  I don’t

 know if it is still there.  Over the years our family has stopped there.  It is the

kind of place that is open day and night. I remember opening the Guest book

and looking at the entries.  Someone had entered the date but there was no

name.  Just this line: “Thanks for a place to cry.”  No one will ever know the

 story behind that entry except that someone recorded a great religious

experience. 

Maybe you have never gone to a church to cry but I would guess that there are

few here who haven’t known the need for that kind of comfort.  There are,

I suppose, a number of people in the world who have never known what it is to

shoulder real burdens.  There is one experience that is universal to all, and

it can drive a person to their knees.  It is the death of someone we know or love.

At that time we are driven to the comfort of the church.  Christ came to comfort

those who are afflicted.

 

Grace Church stands as a symbol to 100’s who seek the peace of God.

 

What about afflicting the comfortable.                                 

There is another side to the ministry of the Christian faith and that is that it

has the purpose of afflicting the comfortable.   True faith has the function of

being a conscience, not on matters that are irrelevant and removed, but on

issues that are both relevant and contemporary.

 

Did you ever read the novel by Paul Wellman, called “The Chain”?

As it begins, the Bishop is conducting the funeral service for the Rev.

Robbin Cowles Foote.  He had been the vicar of a small church for

Something like 20 years.  He had been known affectionately as Little Robbie,

a great favorite in that very aristocratic parish.  He had comforted many and

disturbed none.  But the Bishop knew the virtues and the failings of Robbie

and he was haunted by the feeling that Robbie had been a traitor to his Lord. 

He had lived, Mr. Wellman writes, “Twenty placid, undisturbed and

Un-disturbing years in Jericho.”

 

That can never be said about:   Jesus…..Paul…..Gaudi…..or Telemachus.

The story of Telemachus is held for another time, suffice to say that he is one

of the early Christian martyrs that helped bring the Gladiator Games to a close.

 

What a temptation it can be too seldom mention sin.  Or, when the occasion

demands it, to talk about sins that are on the level of parlor games.  True

faith comes to afflict the comfortable by talking about the very sins of

the hearers.

 

I suppose that in the long run, when it comes to preaching, it is better

to be wrong than to be silent.  You can explain mistakes, and people will

accept apologies.  But on the real issues of the day one should be honest

to the ministry.

 

A word like Affliction has a double meaning, and perhaps even more. Our

task is comforting the afflicted and to afflicting the comfortable.

 

Just one word.  If you happen to host a Vicar Candidate in the next months,

be careful what you say.  It may come back to haunt you.