Looking down and in instead of up and out Proper 24B Oct. 20, 2024

 

+This morning the disciples are stressed out—they’ve given up EVERYTHING—job, family, familiarity, safety-- to follow Jesus, and yet over the course of the previous two chapters in Mark’s Gospel—chapters we’ve been reading since Labor Day---Jesus has predicted his death not once, not twice, but three times. “Look!” he says, “We’re going up to Jerusalem. I’ll be handed over to the chief priests and the legal experts. They’ll condemn me to death and hand me over to the Gentiles. They’ll ridicule, spit on, torture, and kill me. After three days, I will rise to life again.”
So let’s review: first Peter hears Jesus’ prediction and tells him he’s out of his mind, making Jesus pretty mad.
Second, after hearing the next prediction, several disciples compete over who will be the greatest and Jesus responds by putting a child on his lap and reminding all that receiving the fullness of God’s grace and glory requires viewing the world through the unblemished eyes of a child.
Today, we hear John and James asking for a special place above all the other disciples. Again, the disciples are thinking of worldly glory instead of Divine Peace.
Who can blame them? When the world around you is falling apart—and pretty much has been your whole life—-it’s difficult to pry your mind from what’s right here in front of your eyes to what lies beyond the now.
I think this predicament of the disciples is similar to the predicament of today.
I think people are horribly frightened.
It seems to me this has been most evident since January 6, 2020 but I also know, from an historical perspective, that this has happened before in the world (Pearl Harbor, 9/11, school shootings, the Tops shooting) and will probably happen again: when we become unsure, nervous, and scared, we turn inward.
It’s the manifestation of survival of the fittest---the world around us becomes unmoored and we dig in to protect ourselves. We look down and in instead of up and out. We become insular and focused on “me” instead of broad-minded and in tune with the world around us and the world beyond us.
    I preach a lot  about the importance of community and what I’ve come to realize is that the “me me me” of our society isn’t as much about hubris, as it’s about fear.  
Nadia Bolz-Weber, in her book, “Accidental Saints,” says this: “I’ve finally realized that trying not to need others isn’t about strength and independence, it’s about fear.”
James and John’s world is most definitely becoming unmoored. Here they are, following Jesus down to Jerusalem where he’s meeting sure and certain death. This is a terrifying prospect so they begin to look out for themselves, to assure themselves of a place at Jesus’ side.
They’re not arrogant, they’re scared.
Everything they’ve come to know is about to be destroyed. They were simple fishermen when this preacher, offering a message of hope, compels them to drop their nets and follow him.
And now he’s leaving them.
Their world was inside out and upside down and they were freaked out. I so get this.
In our world, since 9/11, since January 6,  since the seemingly unending school shootings, our sense of security had been dismantled and we are, most assuredly, unmoored.
It’s a scary time, and has been for some time. The upcoming election doesn’t do much to improve our sense of security does it?
The world hasn’t become safer or more predictable. And so we turn inward. Just like the disciples did.
What Jesus was telling the disciples in today’s Gospel and what we really need to learn, is to when feeling overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty,  find certainty in the One who tells us that peace is found through service, compassion and care for others.
To look up and out from our fear and insecurity and into the eyes of the poor, hungry, oppressed, lonely,  scared, injured and outcast.
By doing this we will, as he did with his death and resurrection, “liberate many people.”

When we live into the last will be first and the first will be last, when we live into being a servant to all, there we’ll find our greatness. By finding Strength in Weakness and Courage in Fear we’ll find true security and endless peace.
The greatness of God’s love is not found in ourselves, but in our relationship to others.
And that, my friends, is Jesus’ point.. Amen.

Proper 23B An argyument with an innocent God. October 13, 2024

 Have you ever wanted to really go at with God? I mean, have a knock down drag out, no holds barred argument where you tell God all the things about your life which you are furious about and then listen to God try to answer you? Where you ask the age old question of God—why do bad things happen to good people?  
Yes? Well, welcome to the Book of Job. This is how this metaphorical story is set up—God and the number one fallen angel of all time—Satan are having their own argument. Satan maintains that all human beings are corruptible. That, given the right amount of heartache, despair and pain any human being will turn their back on their faith and abandon God. God disagrees and so finally, to settle this debate, God agrees to let Satan have a crack at the most faithful, honest, honorable person in all the world—Job from the fictional land of Uz. God promises not to intervene as long as Satan promises not to kill Job. Satan agrees and then proceeds to do everything EXCEPT kill him.
Job’s wife is so distressed and disgusted by Job quietly accepting all this indignation and humiliation which God is apparently indifferent to that she encourages Job to lie down and die. To stop fighting the good fight and give into what she sees as the inevitable. Then, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar the Naamahite are so taken by the intensity of Job’s suffering that they sit with him for seven days, horrified by what’s happening. After seven days and nights of silence, Job finally speaks; cursing his life, the day he was born, begging that his very existence be swallowed up in eternal darkness. Whether Job is speaking to his friends, to God or to himself is unclear, but the speech is damning to all, except God. Job will not damn God. He’ll yell at God and ask God why, but he won’t damn the Divine. Sure that bad things only happen to those who deserve it, the friends  try to discern what horrible sin Job has committed to cause such Divine retribution.
Such begins a back and forth debate between Job, his friends and God.
It’s a debate for the ages. At times, Job defends himself, at other times he seems to accept that he’s behaved despicably, even though he has no idea what he’s “done” and still at other times rails at what he considers completely unfair treatment. While Job’s friends put him on trial trying to prove that he deserves what’s happening to him, Job puts God on trial trying to prove to God that he doesn’t deserve all this heartache. There’s a lot of point, counterpoint all adding up to nothing. You see God didn’t cause the suffering of Job, suffering just happens.
Job was so busy trying to prove his innocence he didn’t even realize that God was his companion in all this suffering.
God didn’t do it to Job, but God did live it with Job.  
You’ve heard me tell the story of the suicide of my of the members of my youth group, many years ago. In the sermon I preached at his funeral  I said that while Ian was readying the gun to shoot himself, God was right there with him, screaming for him not to do it. And then immediately upon pulling the trigger, God was there to take Ian home. God is with us through it all. God was with Jesus’s cries on the cross, God was with Job in his trials and God is with us in ours.
It’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for us to comprehend the full depth and breadth of God’s love for us.
What scripture shows us, again and again is that we shouldn’t blame God for our troubles, rather let’s welcome God into them. Because God is already there.
Amen

Don't blame God for our troubles, welcome God into them. Proper 23B

 Have you ever wanted to really go at with God? I mean, have a knock down drag out, no holds barred argument where you tell God all the things about your life which you are furious about and then listen to God try to answer you? Where you ask the age old question of God—why do bad things happen to good people?  
Yes? Well, welcome to the Book of Job. This is how this metaphorical story is set up—God and the number one fallen angel of all time—Satan are having their own argument. Satan maintains that all human beings are corruptible. That, given the right amount of heartache, despair and pain any human being will turn their back on their faith and abandon God. God disagrees and so finally, to settle this debate, God agrees to let Satan have a crack at the most faithful, honest, honorable person in all the world—Job from the fictional land of Uz. God promises not to intervene as long as Satan promises not to kill Job. Satan agrees and then proceeds to do everything EXCEPT kill him.
Job’s wife is so distressed and disgusted by Job quietly accepting all this indignation and humiliation which God is apparently indifferent to that she encourages Job to lie down and die. To stop fighting the good fight and give into what she sees as the inevitable. Then, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar the Naamahite are so taken by the intensity of Job’s suffering that they sit with him for seven days, horrified by what’s happening. After seven days and nights of silence, Job finally speaks; cursing his life, the day he was born, begging that his very existence be swallowed up in eternal darkness. Whether Job is speaking to his friends, to God or to himself is unclear, but the speech is damning to all, except God. Job will not damn God. He’ll yell at God and ask God why, but he won’t damn the Divine. Sure that bad things only happen to those who deserve it, the friends  try to discern what horrible sin Job has committed to cause such Divine retribution.
Such begins a back and forth debate between Job, his friends and God.
It’s a debate for the ages. At times, Job defends himself, at other times he seems to accept that he’s behaved despicably, even though he has no idea what he’s “done” and still at other times rails at what he considers completely unfair treatment. While Job’s friends put him on trial trying to prove that he deserves what’s happening to him, Job puts God on trial trying to prove to God that he doesn’t deserve all this heartache. There’s a lot of point, counterpoint all adding up to nothing. You see God didn’t cause the suffering of Job, suffering just happens.
Job was so busy trying to prove his innocence he didn’t even realize that God was his companion in all this suffering.
God didn’t do it to Job, but God did live it with Job.  
You’ve heard me tell the story of the suicide of my of the members of my youth group, many years ago. In the sermon I preached at his funeral  I said that while Ian was readying the gun to shoot himself, God was right there with him, screaming for him not to do it. And then immediately upon pulling the trigger, God was there to take Ian home. God is with us through it all. God was with Jesus’s cries on the cross, God was with Job in his trials and God is with us in ours.
It’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for us to comprehend the full depth and breadth of God’s love for us.
What scripture shows us, again and again is that we shouldn’t blame God for our troubles, rather let’s welcome God into them. Because God is already there.
Amen

God is listening are we talking? Proper 22B

 Remember a few weeks ago we had a gospel reading in which the disciples say to Jesus, “Master this teaching is difficult.” Today I want to say to Jesus, “ditto.”
These sentences about divorce are difficult. It’s important to know that the Pharisees are trying to back Jesus into a corner but, as usual, Jesus gives as well as he gets. But that’s not what’s burning a hole in the guts of those of you who are divorced, so here’s the deal: I would bet that none of you who are divorced went into your marriage with no intent of it not lasting until you were parted by death. The question of divorce during Jesus’s time was the penchant of men to divorce women willy nilly. Of course by divorcing them the men are assuring that the women—who remember had no standing in society without connection to a man---will be ostracized and marked as “tainted,” forever. So, stop beating yourself up!
I think what follows this exchange with the Pharisees shows just how disinterested Jesus was in the rules and restrictions of the “law.” People were bringing little children to Jesus but the disciples were forbidding it, not wanting to disturb the teacher. Of course, Jesus rebukes the 12 because what Jesus knows, and quickly tells us, is that the kingdom of God is made for children…that how we are to receive the gifts that God freely and abundantly gives us as children do: with glee and gladness.
Which brings us to the collect for today—one of the best collects in the church year. Remember that the collect of the day is the prayer of the day, outlining a theme. Let me repeat it here:
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
God is always ready, willing and I’d even say anxious to hear from us. It is us –we—who forget, fail, and  resist reaching out to God and, when we finally do receive that which God is  offering us, often feel that we don’t deserve that which God is giving us. Or probably more often than we care to admit, we don’t desire that which God is offering us---because God is almost always offering us opportunities to serve in God’s name, to give in God’s name, to do in God’s name, but we tend to turn away from those opportunities because they’re usually inconvenient, uncomfortable and maybe even risky. Which is exactly what the next sentence of the collect references;  “forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those things for which we are not worthy to ask…”
Friends, today is the official kickoff of our stewardship campaign—Walk in Love—I’ve written more about this in the bulletin, let me just say that I ask you to pray—mightily—to hear, see, and notice those things God is presenting to you. Do not give back to God your last fruits, instead have the courage and the willingness to give back to God your first fruits. Think not of what you can afford to give, but think about what you cannot refrain from giving. May I suggest you pray this collect all week and then listen for what it is God is calling you—and us—to do.
Let the little children come to me,  it is for these that the Kingdom is made: innocent, open, risk-taking and ever loving children. I pray to be one, too. How about you?
Amen.

We needn't bear it alone Proper 21B

 In our reading from Numbers, the Israelites are whining, Moses is complaining, and God, well God problem-solves. The Israelites are tired of wandering and the lure of the Promised Land has lost it’s luster while the tribulations of captivity in Egypt don't seem so bad anymore. Besides that, they’re sick and tired of manna, longing for meat, fish, onions and garlic. They’re fed up. And Moses is overwhelmed saying: “I can’t bear this people on my own. They’re too heavy for me.”
They’re too heavy for me, God. Gimme a hand. But, instead of taking the burden on God’s own shoulders, God asks Moses to bring in 70 elders of the community upon whom God will place the power of prophecy.
In other words, God delegates.
God realizes that what makes this whole faith thing work well is community. Especially, communities of faith committed to each other and God through acts of kindness, charity, and love.
      I think, in our own communities of faith, we can forget this responsibility to and for one another. As Christians of the Episcopal type in this region of the world,  we have responsibilities and duties, promises to make, and to keep.
First and foremost, of course, is to love our God with all our heart, mind and soul, and to love our neighbor as we are ourselves loved. We all want this, right? But the thing is, this isn’t a simple arrangement between each of us individually and God. As God taught Moses in our first reading this morning, God is not interested in being the singular source of Love for everyone. Now hear me clearly---God Loves each and everyone of us fully and without exception…. but what God teaches us is that God’s Love grows, strengthens, expands, and intensifies when it is shared among us.
God, inspires, encourages, enables and emboldens each and every one of us to be a conduit of that Love.
To be God’s instrument of Love to all whom we encounter.
Obviously, God’s love in and of itself is strong. But what we learn, when we’re active members of the Body of Christ, is that this Love becomes stronger, this Love becomes more vibrant, this Love becomes MORE when it’s embraced, cherished and shared.
God tells us:
 Feeling my Love? Share it.
Longing for my Love? Receive it from another.
Can’t feel it? Can’t find it? Trust that someone else is carrying it for you, that someone else is holding it until such a time as you can receive; until such a time you can feel it until such a time you can carry it.
God’s Love needs us.
And so, my sisters and brothers in Christ, communities of faith with grand traditions alone and with new traditions forming through our initiative, what do we do? How do we strengthen God’s Love?
Feed the hungry? Sure, that’s always a good idea.
Clothe the naked? You betcha.
Stand against injustice and respect the dignity of every single human being? Absolutely.
But….before we do any of these things, before we embark on our collective work  we must first and foremost remember to love one another. And the absolute best way to live out this love?
Pray for each other.
What I’ve learned is fundamental to the health of every community of faith is: Prayer.
Intentional prayer for one another, it’s life giving and it’s the work of God. So please, Pray for each other in your congregations and in the other congregations of the GRI. For when we pray for each other, we remember that we’re not alone, that we needn’t carry the load alone. [ you’ ll find the cycle of prayer in your bulletins]. I firmly believe that if we are intentional about this prayer, our love for each other will strengthen and grow.
Moses called the 70 elders, Jesus sent out the 72.
Let us send each other out, enveloped in prayerful love.
Whatever struggles you’re facing in Medina, Holley, Albion, Attica, Warsaw, Perry, Stafford, Leroy or Batavia, let’s carry them together, by doing that, we’re doing God’s will.

Amen.

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.