Proper 8 B "Flash Mob " for the GRI June 30, 2024

 I don’t like that many of the women in the Gospels aren’t given a proper name, so for this sermon, the “woman with the hemorrhage will be named Ruth

Ruth was at the end of her rope. She was on the outside looking in. People saw her and YELLED…..UNCLEAN or TRAITOR or HUSSY or other words not suitable for a family gathering.

People saw Ruth’s lowered head and defeated composure and smugly thought, “well she deserves it, after all look at what she did….or her parents did….or her parents did….or her ancestors did.”

People looked upon Ruth and thought—-“thank goodness that’s not me.”

In this story, Ruth is the epitome of the outsider, the other, and we are the insiders, the chosen.

And yet….who is it that Jesus notices, who is it that Jesus praises, who is it that Jesus credits for her own healing? Ruth.

Was she healed because Jesus deemed her worthy?
No.
Was she healed because Jesus’s cloak held special powers?
No.
Was she healed because God decided she had suffered enough?
I highly doubt it.
Ruth was healed, according to Jesus, because of her faith.
Her. Faith.

She believed that if she could get to Jesus she would be healed. She did get to him but the destination wasn’t the cure.
The drive to get there was.
And what fueled that drive? Her faith.

My friends, ours is a noisy world, full of distractions. You listen to someone like me standing before you each week trying to give you the fuel to go out these doors and into this hurting world to make a difference; to give hope to those with hurting hearts and souls, to bring the proud, arrogant, dismissive and abusive up short. To lift the lowly, to preach and live peace. It’s not easy work—the preaching nor the living. It is easier to shrug our shoulders and say—I believe in God, I have faith, that’s good enough.
But is it?
Let’s look at our Gospel again.
Both Jairus and Ruth the woman with the hemorrhage had faith, they both believed that Jesus could heal. But their faith in Jesus wasn't enough. We are told they both—-at great sacrifice to themselves—-publicly reached out to Jesus, publicly proclaiming their faith in him.
We Episcopalians may be known as the “Frozen Chosen,” but that’s not how we are to live our faith. We’re to live our faith outwardly and openly, not afraid to speak our truth. How willing are we to live our faith boldly, to risk who we are and what we have for this faith? To live our faith as Ruth and Jairus did in our Gospel as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mathew Shepherd, the Philadelphia 11, the Stonewall people, and many more did and do? Out loud. Publicly. Profoundly. Noticeably.
[This past week was the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Some people find the triennial convention a waste of money and time, but it is where, every three years, we gather to hammer out how we will live our faith. We’re Episcopalians and we believe in speaking openly and honestly. We believe in disagreeing, we believe in feeling passionately and compromising faithfully. The arc toward God’s dream for us is a bumpy ride. But if we stick with it, inch by inch, step by step we move ahead. In Austin Texas, in 2018 I stood in front of the convention and testified about having all marriage rites available to all people who want to be married in the Episcopal Church. That means the Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage as found in the hardback version of the Book of Common Prayer as well as “I will Bless You and You will be a Blessing” marriage liturgy originally designed ONLY for same-sex couples. I stated that my wife Pete and I were married using a liturgy NOT available to all people in the church, that we were forbidden from using the liturgy in our prayer book, but that, 4 1/2 years later, when I buried my wife, we used the same liturgy we all use when we die. Was she unequal when we married, but somehow equal in death? 6 years after that testimony, our General Convention approved all marriage liturgies for all people. The arc of history and justice is long, slow, and bumpy, but when we live our faith loud and in public, like the woman with the bleeding and Jairus the official and a lowly priest from Western New York we live our faith in a way that makes Jesus smile and God breathes sighs of delight.]
Spend time with this reading from the Gospel this week. Consider yourself Jairus or Ruth. Instead of asking what Jesus would do, perhaps it is time to ask if we can do what both Jairus and Ruth did.
And then do it.
Let us pray:
Gracious and Loving God, our faith resides in you, but our faith is only activated when we live it, speak it, and model it. Embolden us to activate our faith in you in all that we do, wherever we go, and however long we need to do it. For if we but touch the hem of your garment, if we just allow your ever-loving hands to lay upon us, we will be made well. And, because we know you love it when we pray, we now say, Amen.

Yr B 2024 Trinity Sunday through

 

Trinity Sunday

At it’s essence, faith is a mystery. How one decides to tirn their life over to God as we experience God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is at it’s simplest a deeply personal and private decision and at it’s most comolicated a sense that without faith in the Holy and Undivided Trinity: One God our existence is reduced to (to quote St. Paul) a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal, signifying nothing….so when my colleagues lament preaching on Trinity Sunday I stay silent…for preaching on this wondefrul mystery of the Trinity is an honor, not a burden.
    Why has God decided to exprerss God’s Divine self in three distinct, yet forever connected, ways? I wouldn’t presume to speak for the Creator but I can speak about why the Trinity is something I love rather than loathe. God as Creator tried—for THOUSANDS of years—to communicate with us through prophets like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Miriam, Deborah, Anna, John the Baptist. We didn’t get it, continuing to forget about God the Creator, turning to false prophets and their false gods. So…God took on human form—Jesus—to teach us through direct and personal relationships: beginning with the original 12 disciples  and carrying all the way through to today with you and me. We, through the vows we make at baptism, carry the message of God as given to us through Jesus Christ to one another, both individually and corprorately through this community of faith—Trinity itself, the GRI, the Partnership dioceses and the wider Episcopal Church.
As we’ve heard the last couple of weeks in our readings, Jesus couldn’t stick around in any bodily/physical way for he knew that if He did, we wouldn’t do the work of spreading the Good News far and wide….he knew that we’d sit at his feet and watch him do it. So he left….BUT he left with the promise that he would send us someone—an advocate, the third part of the Trinity to enflame our souls, ingnite our hearts and loosen our tongues to spread the news that we, in the name of Jesus Christ, love everyone, everywhere, without exception. And we do this not only with our words, but our actions, not only through our creeds, but also with our deeds.
Why do we have a Triune—a three version— God? Because we—human beings—are a complicated bunch and so our Divine source of life is expressed three ways: As a supreme, unknowable ever creating God,; a tangible, historical figure of a fully human and fully divine Christ who has felt all that we have—joy, love, regret, fear, hope, anger, peace and turnoil; and a we can’t see her, we can’t really describe her, but a Spirit, an advocate, whom we feel deep in our soul, a being who urges us to take risks we didn’t think we could and animates the very essence of who we are.
The Trinity is a gift from a God who will do anything and everything to get through to us. May we strive to always recive this Trinity of Love, however, and whenever we can.
Amen. 

Proper 4B

+I have a friend who is a priest in Chicago. One day I was at his church as he was preparing for a big parish event…as he was running around he KEPT muttering, “Jesus never had a parish, Jesus never had a parish.” At the time I wasn’t sure what that was all about but now, after being ordained for 17 years, I get it….sometimes the business of the church feels as if it’s overshadowing the business of God.
     It’s true, Jesus didn’t have a church, nor did he have a denomination. Jesus simply had a message and some followers. But the message was revolutionary and his followers were growing, so he had to deal with the institutional faith of the day—the Temple and the temple authorities. Jesus may have been fully human and fully Divine, but even his Divine nature had to deal with church—or in this case temple--- politics.
     In today’s Gospel those authorities were none too happy with Jesus. The specifics of the argument are a bit arcane; suffice it to say the authorities had one interpretation of the Jewish restrictions on activity during the sabbath while Jesus had a broader, wider encompassing view. The authorities were basing their opinion on human-made (although no doubt Divine inspired) law. Jesus was basing it on who God is, what God wants, and what God needs. You see,  the Jewish people had their “law” handed down to them from Moses. Jesus’ followers had the requirements of God presented to them by God in the flesh,Jesus Christ.
Yeah, this is an argument the temple authorities are going to lose every single time.
The authorities had Divine law interpreted by human beings---complete with what humanity brings to the table—flaws and foibles—while Jesus had, well Jesus had the inside track…. Jesus had God. Jesus knew what it was God required of us. The authorities had nary a chance.
     But even if Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, even if the authorities took up this same argument—-plucking grain to feed hungry people on the sabbath as some type of horrendous violation of Jewish law— they quite possibly would have lost the argument.
Why?
Because when religions fail to adapt to the reality of the world around them, they become irrelevant.
Yes, we are to take a day of rest. Working all the time is bad for our souls, failing to rest in the presence of God is not good for us, no question. However….grabbing an apple off a tree, a head of grain from a stalk, or even cooking a full meal for a starving person is not an insult to God, it is doing the work God gave us and Jesus taught us.
And just what is it that God requires of us, just what is it that God dreams for us, just what is it that God created us to be?
Creatures of Love. People who love one another. Without exception.
      The law of Moses served a people in a particular time and a particular place, and then the time and the place and the circumstances changed. The Law worked until it didn’t.
We, Episcopal Christians in Western New York, know a little bit about stuff working until it not longer does. We know a thing or two about adapting to new circumstances and we know a thing or two about trying different things to accomplish that which we’ve always strived to accomplish: Peace on earth and goodwill to all, always. And forever.
When love adapts my friends. Love wins. Amen.

Proper 5B


Just how crazy was Jesus?  Using the book of Mark as a resource, let’s do a little forensic psychology.  Jesus doesn’t head to the temple to solicit the blessing of religious leaders before beginning His ministry. He heads to the river Jordan and into the clutches of a wild man. Jesus doesn’t look for the approval of the folks who are in charge before beginning, He goes out to encounter John and the Holy Spirit, and He hears a voice from heaven saying “You are my Son, whom I love.” How crazy is that?
 After hearing the voice Jesus immediately is sent by the Spirit out into the desert where he meets evil and darkness head on with no weapons other than His faith in God and His faith in His ministry.  How crazy is that?
 Jesus heads to Galilee preaching that the kingdom of God has come near and it’s time to repent and believe the good news. He heads to the sea and calls 4 fisherman to follow him. At Capernaum Jesus teaches in the synagogue, amazing the people with His authority and drives out an impure spirit from one of His listeners.  The people are amazed and word of Him begins to spread.  At the home of Simon and Andrew the whole town gathers and Jesus healed diseases and drove out demons.  How crazy is that?
  A few days later Jesus is in a house packed to the gills— it’s so crowded that  people open a hole in the roof to lower their paralyzed friend inside for Jesus to heal.  Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven”, knowing that this will  tick off their temple authorities who are witnessing the whole thing this will spark confrontation.  How crazy is that?
 The list of suspect behaviors goes on…Jesus doesn’t make a big deal out of fasting, a vital part of the Jewish faith. He allows the disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath, heals a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath, and impure spirits fall before him, proclaiming, “You’re the Son of God”.  How crazy is all of that?
 So, it’s no wonder that by today’s Gospel Jesus’ family is fired up, ready to take control of Him. Who is He to be preaching and teaching in synagogues instead of following in Joseph’s footsteps? Why isn’t He getting married and raising a family?  He must be crazy to have gathered up this rag tag band of followers, He must be out of his mind to think He is curing the sick and banishing demons.  He must be a bubble off level to be so intentional about infuriating the secular and religious leaders of the day.  He must be nuts to think that He’s doing the will of God, showing us who God is and showing us what God would have us do.
 There you have it, according to the norms of His times, according to His family, and according to the events recorded in Mark, our diagnosis is clear…Jesus is nuts!
 And that’s a problem, isn’t it?.  Jesus, our icon of how to be in right relationship with God is out of his mind.  Does He expect us to be nuts too?
    Yes. Because you have to be a little bit nuts to be a Christian, you have to be a little bit crazy to accept that you can make a difference. That one person, one kind act at a time, one loving thought at a time, one out of the norm action at a time can make a difference in this messed up world of ours. But it can. And it does.
If people think we’re crazy for believing in an all loving, all accepting, always ready to cheer us on God, so be it. Because we’re a bunch of people crazy enough to believe that God so loved the world, God will do anything to help us love it as much as our loving, life-giving and sometimes crazy making Savior does. And for that we can all say, Amen.