We all must die Proper 19B

We All Must Die Proper 19B, C. Dempesy-Sims

To live fully as Christians, we must die. We must pick up our crosses---whatever ours happen to be-- and enter the darkness, loss, and pain. We know that to get to Easter morning we must enter Holy Week, walking the hill known as Calvary, stretching our arms on the cross, crying out in fear, breathing our last, and laying ourselves in the tomb. We must descend into death and then, AND ONLY THEN, will we rise.

We must, as Jesus says, lose our lives in order to live them.

And we must do this repeatedly.

For its only in dying that we can truly live.

It’s called The Way of the Cross. 

At the Eucharist we lay our lives on the table, the same table Jesus is on. It all gets mixed up and God does what God does and makes something altogether new. And then we all take a piece of this new creation---a little bit of you…and you…and you….a little bit of me, a little bit of Jesus , we all take a piece of one another, infused by and through God and go out into the world, as something new, ready to create more newness wherever we go.

And we do it, again and again and again.

This is what Jesus was trying to get across to Peter in today’s Gospel.

There’s a lot in this Gospel and it’s easy, at least for me, to get lost.

 But the bottom line is found in two sentences: "Who do YOU say I am" and “Get behind me Satan!”

When Jesus asks, “but who do you say I am?” Peter says, decisively,

“You are the Christ.”

No doubt Jesus is surprised that any of them had figured out that He was indeed, The Christ, the promised Messiah. Jesus is God come to earth. Peter is right.

And he’s also really wrong.

He’s wrong because although Jesus is, indeed the Messiah, the Son of God and the King of Kings, he’s not above or beyond humanity. He is in humanity. He is “both and."

He’s God and He’s Human and he’ll never use his divinity to bypass any single part of the human condition. Including humiliation, suffering, execution and the deepest, darkest piece of the human condition, death itself.

Peter can’t wrap his brain around Jesus as God and Jesus as Human. He can’t fathom that Jesus would accept the fullness of the human experience. Peter will not believe that the only way to gain a God-filled life, that the only way bring God’s reign of Love, Justice and Righteousness to this world is to die.

Peter won’t accept that the Way of Jesus is, indeed, the Way of the Cross.

And so Jesus exclaims:

“Get Behind me Satan!”

Get Behind me, all you who are so afraid of the darkness that you  go to extensive lengths to keep it at bay…which just gives it control over everything that you do.

Get Behind me, Satan all of you who so fear death that you absolutely forget to fully live.

Get Behind me Satan… you who want easy answers, the quick fix.

Get Behind me Satan for the life you seek, the life you live, isn’t life at all:

It’s Good Friday without Easter

It’s the dark of night without the light of dawn.

Jesus kind of unloads on Peter, doesn’t he?

But I get it…there’s so much more joy in life when we stop fighting the pain.

There’s so much more light in life when we stop railing against the darkness.

Jesus doesn’t want Peter to miss one minute of this thing called life.

And he doesn’t want us too, either.

 Come, my friends, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Bring your brokenness to this Holy Table and let God make you and me and all of us into something new; for the Way of the Cross takes the broken and makes it Holy.

Amen.

Proper 18 B

 I read an article in the Washington Post * (The Shelter and the Storm, Washington Post, September 7, 2024) about a rural town in Massachusetts splitting apart over the planned reuse of a closed minimum security prison. The plan was to turn the shuttered facility into a shelter for migrants who are waiting for a hearing on their asylum requests. The migrants to be housed are pregnant women and women with children. The town, which is suffering from an economic downturn due to the shuttered prison, erupted into all too familiar expressions of “not in my backyard.”
We all know this story, “no migrants in my town!”
 Remember, these are people who have been invited into this country to apply for asylum,  which means they’re in such danger where they are originally from the United States wants to help them.
But, once again, an American town is faced with the reality of helping your neighbor versus the rhetoric of helping your neighbor.
Did I mention this town is predominately democrat?
Anyway, it seems we may never learn that when Jesus said his mercy and grace was for everyone he meant everyone.
Except… for in today’s gospel… when our Lord and Savior is exclusionary in a very offensive way.
That is, until he encounters a gentile woman. A woman who embodied difference and who taught Jesus a thing or two.
 You’ve heard me speak about this story many times. It’s controversial, annoying and in the end, glorious.
The Syro-Phonecian woman had guts. She bested Jesus in a debate about who deserves God’s mercy and grace. Now, at the time of this encounter with the woman, Jesus didn’t realize he was the Messiah for all people—she, through their debate,  teaches Jesus that yes, he is the messiah for everyone, everywhere, always.
Just as he encounters her, Jesus still thinks he’s only been sent for the Jews, which is why he rudely—and I mean rudely—dismisses her as a dog, an “unclean woman.” She’s unclean, according to Jewish purity laws, because she’s not Jewish, she’s a foreigner, a gentile!
Now, you may be surprised to hear that Jesus didn’t know something but, it’s clear to me---and you’re free to disagree---that Jesus is corrected by the Syro-Phonecian woman.
I actually find it refreshing, that Jesus could be wrong about something. But more than Jesus being wrong, what I find most amazing is the grace with which the woman responds.
Jesus insults her, yet she doesn’t yell or cry, she isn’t struck dumb by his insolence.
She simply replies with a logical argument: “you may think of me as a dog, but even dogs get the crumbs. I’m not asking for the fullness of your glory, I’m just asking for the crumbs. For the crumbs are better than nothing and I know what you can do, so I’ll take just a portion.”
This display of great faith in Him and great love for her daughter turns Jesus’ heart and, ultimately, changes his mind.
It’s a startling Gospel story and one that has infuriated women for generations. Most of our sacred scripture warn about the danger of judging a book by its cover, of excluding people from our lives because of the size of their paycheck, the color of their skin, the name of their God, the gender of their beloved, the party affiliation on their voter registration card. Culminating with this Gospel reading we’re told--- compassion, wisdom, and love can come from all sorts and conditions of people so be slow to judge and quick to welcome, for there are angels all around us, eager to teach us exactly what it is we need to learn, even –especially- when we don’t know we need to learn it!
Just like Jesus.
Amen.

proper 17 B Sept. 1, 2024

     “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you.” These words from today’s psalm are powerful. Each of us—-you, you, you—-has been chosen, selected, anointed by God.
    Don’t think this means you? Think again. Today’s readings reflect God’s longing for us—in the Song of Solomon—a book we rarely read from on Sunday morning—we have a love poem. Scholars have fought over the subject of this book for generations—maybe it’s simply a series of erotic love poems or perhaps a series of love letters meant to reflect the love and longing God has for creation. I don’t claim to know the intent of the author but I do know how much I love the imagery suggested throughout today’s excerpt…
 most especially this:
“Look, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.”
    The Bishop of Wisconsin, Matt Gunter, in a reflection on this line writes:
“I love the image of Jesus peering through the lattice of the biblical text and calling us to go away with him saying, “Hey, come out and play.” Or “Ready for an adventure?” Or “Let’s bust this joint you are trapped in.”
God so loves us, Jesus so longs for us that they peer through the window, not in a creepy stalker way, but in, as Bishop Matt says, in the “hey please come out and play” way.
    God is waiting. Jesus is waiting…just beyond the window, just around the corner, just beyond our temporal vision….waiting for us—the anointed ones— to say yes.
    I am preparing a couple of teenagers to be baptized and the main thing I want to get across to them is that while baptism is the ritualistic entrance into the Christian faith, our saying yes to renouncing Satan and all spiritual forces that rebel against God, our renouncing evil, declaring to resist the temptations of all things that are not of God and our full acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, putting all our trust in his grace and love…is not a one and done proposition. It is a daily, hourly, minute by minute decision-making-process that we go through. Until our last breath.
Someone on the street is asking for money, should I give them some?
The clerk at Tops seems to be having a bad time with a customer who is berating  him, should I step in to offer support?
I am angry at my spouse, child, neighbor, co-worker, fellow parishioner. Should I gossip about them to others or should I speak directly to them, expressing my frustration and concern constructively and faithfully?
    These examples and many more offer us a choice….follow the path of the anointed or veer off the track of the Holy?
Indeed, this week I began the practice of reciting this prayer at the beginning of each day (adapted from the examination of the candidates in the BCP page 302):
Gracious and always reaching toward us God: help me to turn from the ways of selfishness, reactivity, anger, and judgement; turning instead toward the grace and trust given to me through you and your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. As I walk through this day may I never forget that you are always reaching out, always ready to receive me, just as I am. May I turn toward you, always. Amen.
    There they are, just around the corner, waiting for us to come near, God’s anointed ones. Let’s go to them. Always.
Amen.