Sermons: January 2011

Second Sunday after Christmas (RCL)

Jeremiah 31:7-14                               Psalm 84 or 84:1-8
Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a                       Luke 2:41-52

Let me get this straight.

  • Mary and Joseph go to Jerusalem for Passover, taking twelve-year old Jesus with them.
  • After Passover they return home—and, oh, by the way, they forget Jesus and leave him in Jerusalem.
  • A day later they figure this out.
  • So they return to Jerusalem.
  • It takes them three more days to find him.
Where was Child Protective Services?
I wonder what those who take the Bible absolutely literally do with this passage?
Luke, for one, doesn’t take the passage literally. And he’s the author. The story is clearly symbolic. Luke is showing how precocious Jesus was: Jesus isn’t even a teenager yet, and he’s already dumped his parents.
We should all get down on our knees and thank Luke for ducking Jesus’ teens. Who wants to hear about a teenage Jesus: all hormones and zits, poutings and “I hate you!”s, driving permits and fender benders?
But Luke couldn’t care less about the minutiae of teenage—and parental—angst. His interest, like those of other biographers of his day, is to show Jesus as a hero, or even superhero. Only, here’s the difference: for Luke Jesus is a spiritual superhero: when his parents find Jesus, he’s “in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.”
And the Boy Wonder has an admiring audience: “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”
Twelve is the usual age for a boy to have his bar mitzvah. When I was twelve, my friend who lived across the street, Andy Plattner, was Jewish, and he had his bar mitzvah, to which my brother and I were invited. Good Episcopalian that I was, when I came home from the celebration I asked my mother,
“Can we be Jewish?”
“Why on earth why?” was her response.
I replied, “Because Andy got tons and tons of presents!”
At the age of twelve—in addition to the heaps and stacks of presents—by studying Torah a boy becomes religiously a man (and, in Reformed Judaism today, a girl becomes religiously a woman). But in Luke’s telling, Jesus at twelve is already wiser than his elders: he’s teaching the teachers.
Did you notice that when Joseph and Mary find Jesus, it’s not with hosannas and hugs and tears of gladness? But any parent can identify with Mary’s reaction: “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
Poor Joseph doesn’t get a line here. But maybe it’s because his thoughts, if articulated, would have to be bleeped out: “When I get that kid home, I’m going to kick his . . . .” Well, you fill in the blank.
All right, I’m not being very reverent here. But believe it or not, my irreverence does have a point. Our Gospel reading today is not history, much less journalism. It’s symbolic, it’s novelistic; we’re supposed to hear and read it with our imaginations. And my imagination got kind of playful and silly here.
Too much seriousness and religious gloom and doom beget fire and brimstone and the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The horrible irony is that those who like to judge others and cast them into the outer darkness are themselves the ones sitting amidst fire and brimstone—and their punishment is self-inflicted.
But I digress.
Luke does have a serious point here, a symbolically serious point—one that is also, as I emphasized earlier, seriously symbolic. Here’s how Jesus responds to his mother: "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
A much more modern translation would go something like this: “Duh. You guys are soooooo hopeless. Yo, couldn’t you figure out that I needed to chill here with my homeys at the Temple?”
And, just to rub it in with that verbal stiletto that teens and even pre-teens carry around with them, Jesus scornfully adds: “I’m here with my real Dad.”
Luke here has Jesus redefine both “home” and “father.” Home is no longer where Jesus plays X-Box with the little kids. Home is now the Temple in Jerusalem. His friends now are the teachers there. And his father is not Joseph but rather God the Father.
Then, after Jesus explains to his parents what he’s doing, comes one of those chilling lines found only in Luke: “But they did not understand what he said to them” (1).
In another famous passage—one that is, again, uncomfortable—Matthew, Mark, and Luke show Jesus redefining the meaning of family values. Since the passage is in Mark, it belongs to one of the earliest layers of traditions about Jesus; it sounds like Jesus:
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent for him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.”
Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”
And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (2).
We’ve just passed through—some will say “survived”—the biggest family holidays of the year. The lectionary, however, if we pay attention, points us towards Jesus’ definition of family: basically, those who take God seriously.
Taking God seriously, I hasten to point out, can be done with a sense of humor.
Next Sunday we celebrate The Baptism of the Lord, where Jesus fully embraces his calling and ministry.
Which means, with our baptisms—and next Sunday we’ll renew our baptismal promises—it’s also our calling and ministry.
As Isaiah beautifully expresses it in next week’s Old Testament reading:
I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness (3).
The Gospel readings this Christmas season have moved us from darkness into light.
Light now shines in the darkness.
With the help of scripture, tradition, and reason, our job this coming year, and our great joy—let me emphasize that: our great joy—is twofold: (1) How do we make divine light manifest, how do we make it visible, powerful and present among ourselves and others? (2) In thought, word, and deed, how do we keep the light shining?
At work. Within our families. At Grace. In Bakersfield, and in the world.
It’s up to us.
Amen.

NOTES
    • Another one unique to Luke (4:13) follows Jesus’ baptism and defeat of the Devil: “When the Devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.”
    • Mark 3:31-35 // Matthew 12:46-50 // Luke 8:19-21.
    • Isaiah 42:1-9.


Sermon for Baptism of Jesus
January 9, 2011
Grace Episcopal Church
The Rev. Vern Hill

At some time in our marriage Melinda and I developed the bedtime routine of reading.  I can’t recall now how it came about, but after an unequal distribution of the covers and assorted pillows, she reads and I listen.  Each night she gives sort of a pop quiz in picking up where we left off the night before, testing to see if I had already fallen asleep and missed something.

We have worked our way through quite an eclectic selection of literature.  Right now she is reading Packing for Mars, which describes everything you ever wanted to know about our early space program including a memorable section on throwing up in your space suit.

Some time ago she read for us Pat Conroy’s novel, South of Broad.  There is a passage in the novel that will not go away for me.  Let me share.  The principle character is Leo King who sets out with a couple of companions to return to the hill country of the Carolinas in search of a childhood friend.  Describing the journey, Conroy writes – “After leaving Spartenburg we entered into that haunted country that always represented the real South to me.  The God-fearing truck stops and small white washed churches that worshipped a fiercer Christ than I did.”

“That worshipped a fiercer Christ than I did.”  That’s the phrase from the haunted country that “haunts” me.  As we leave the carols of Christmas behind, there are continuing reminders that this Jesus we celebrate has been experienced and understood in a vast array of interpretations.  Epiphany which ironically means to “make known” – made manifest, to see with clarity of vision -  marks the beginning of a dialogue flowing from the very onset of Christianity – what are we to make of Jesus?  Each of the Gospel story-tellers plus the preaching and writings of Peter and Paul offer really different and on occasion conflicting solutions.

Today’s fractures within the one holy apostolic church (eastern, western, Protestant and post Protestant evangelical) continue the ambiguity and mystery represented in Jesus.  What we decide about him often reflects what we bring to the table from our experience of living, our values, our fears and our hopes and that brings me back to the “fiercer Christ.”

For much of Christianity the answer to this question in one form or another comes from Jesus hanging on the cross.  It’s his death which brings salvation from sin and death.  His birth story, his parables, his healings, even the resurrection serve primarily as decoration to the core event.  The purpose of this Jesus is to re-open our way to God.  Fear of death and judgment, the fiercer Christ, leads the believer to faith in Jesus and salvation in death.

My task today is not to necessarily dispute this understanding, but to say there are other answers to the question – what are we to make of Jesus?  Return for a moment to the closing Gospel reading at the Lessons and Carol’s service a couple of weeks ago – the opening chapter from the Gospel of John.  One of the most significant phrases in the prologue announces “and the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  Remember that Word, Logos, Torah -  it’s the thinking of God, the mind of God.  In becoming flesh John raises the possibility that the importance of Jesus may not be that he leads us to God, but that he represents in the most complete sense what it is to be a human being.  The Word becomes flesh that we might understand in the clearest of terms what it is to be a creature of God on garden earth.

If “what are we to make of Jesus” is ourselves then the teachings, the parables, the healings, even the resurrection takes on new meaning for they form our definition.   The story of redemption becomes a story of perfecting what we are to be.  It is evolutionary.  It is living.  It is a connecting with divinity.

Baptism becomes the entry point for our contribution to this divine story.  Listen for these words in the liturgy we are about to welcome Michael by - Today You have shown forth to the world, O Lord, and the light of Your countenance has been marked on us.

The theology for this view is very old within Christianity and continues today with our brothers and sisters of the Eastern Church.  It is a belief called theosis or “making divine.”  St. Athanasius wrote this of John’s Word made Flesh -  "God became man so that man might become a god."   St. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, early church Fathers, all shared in this belief about salvation which may at first sound strange to our western ears use to recalling human creation as a continuing disaster story.  And the notion of being “gods” is a bit weird too. 

So what did the Church Fathers mean in theosis within the context of life today, living in the midst of profound evil as 6 people are shot to death in Tucson, Arizona likely as a result of the promotion of “second amendment remedies” and the Palan website posting targeting candidates with rifle crosshairs to identify their location on a national map.  This violence along with racism, fear, greed and a preoccupation with self is what the notion of theosis resists.   The passages from Isaiah and the Psalms both concretely and with singular clarity explain the path toward divinity, the growing in God, the coming to ourselves and what we have been created to be – a different story of light over-coming darkness.  From the Servant Song of Isaiah the human vocation is made clear – “I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon.”

From Psalm 72, one of the most strident political pieces in the Bible, the definition of who we are to be comes in the description of good national leadership - the truly great leader and great nation defend “the cause of the poor among the people and give deliverance to the needy.”  You see, our meaning comes from our responsibility for and responsiveness to the health of our community, for fairness, compassion, peace and justice.  As a more than disturbing prophetic judgment on our current national debate, the Psalmist argues that national prosperity is not achieved, shall we say, by focusing on “tax cuts,” but by intentional generosity to the most vulnerable citizens. This is the true meaning of community and of our humanity.  The Psalmist, who becomes the prototype for so many of Jesus’ parables,  asserts that care of the poor, persons with disabilities, and the vulnerable are, in the language of today,  the last “budget items” to be cut. In fact, the most vulnerable take precedence over all others.  To ask little sacrifice or offering from those with much wealth and status is the antithesis to this Jesus.  From these much will be taken.  A just nation, promises the Psalmist, will prosper and political generosity leads to national well-being.

Today, we are invited to recall the public ‘coming out’ of Jesus: Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan River.  And by association we are also being invited to recall the ‘coming out’ of our own baptism and entry point into the divine journey toward life in God.  As Jesus came from the waters this “ordination” happened according to our story-teller Matthew - he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I take great delight."

You and I need to remember in deepest gratitude our creation; that our humanity becomes complete as we take bold risks for others who are crying out for love and compassion, justice and respect.  We need to remember that profound evil is around us and by the gifts of grace and courage we are called to resist it.  Today as we gather at this baptism may the ordination of the Spirit again alight upon you and lead you to newness and life;  may you hear the voice again whisper deeply into your soul, “You are my beloved daughter, you are my beloved son, in whom I take great delight.”   Amen


Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A, RCL)

January 23, 2011

Isaiah 9:1-4                              Psalm 27:1, 5-13
1 Corinthians 1:10-18                  Matthew 4:12-23

Presidents have their State of the Union Address, Governors their State of the State speech. So today you get my State of Grace sermon.

And—not in my job description—I made chili for our lunch today.

To forestall Stef’s or Jerry’s or somebody else’s joke, it already occurred to me: so don’t bother telling me “Your cookin’s better than your preachin’.”

For Annual Meeting Sunday, I think it’d be good for us to listen to these amazing words that Jesus speaks to the disciples in the Gospel of John:

11Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12Very truly, I tell you, the person who believes in me will also do the works that I do. In fact, that person will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

What’s amazing is not “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”—OK, I guess that is pretty amazing—but equally amazing are these words: “Very truly, I tell you, the person who believes in me will also do the works that I do. In fact, that person will do greater works than these.”

Wow.

This past Friday I read a theologian who really gets what Jesus is saying. This theologian writes the cartoon “Baby Blues.”

  • In the first panel, the mom is rolling a paint roller in a pan of paint. Oh, she’s also breast feeding her baby, who’s going “Thup! Thup! Thup!”
  • In the second panel, she stretches up and roles paint on the ceiling. The baby’s going “Thup! Thup! Thup!”
  • In the last panel the baby is still going “Thup! Thup! Thup!” The mother once again roles the roller in paint. She smiles, and says, “Let’s see Michelangelo do THAT!


For John, for Jesus, the Kingdom of God is not something we sit around and wait for. God’s activity, God’s compassion, God’s justice are right here, right now. At Grace. In Bakersfield. In the world. Even while we’re literally or metaphorically breastfeeding. Michelangelo won’t get the ceiling painted. That’s up to us.

In my Annual Report I bullet-point all the ministries we’re doing at Grace. (Remember, everything is ministry. Everything.) At the Annual Meeting you’ll hear reports from many of these ministries and can read about more in the Annual Report. (By the way, Greg has been instructed towards the end of the service to lock and bolt the doors. Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of chili.)

The ministries we do, right here and now, have profound importance. I urge every one of you to pray and think about getting involved in another ministry:

  • if you’re in choir, consider adding a ministry;
  • if you’re a Eucharistic Minister, consider becoming a Pastoral Eucharistic Minister, a minister who visits parishioners at home and in the hospital;
  • Vern needs help getting a Welcoming Committee started, ministers who will follow up on and visit newcomers to Grace.
  • We especially need more parents to help teach Sunday School. Right now, only a few people are shouldering the load. If you can help with Sunday School, please see Sandra.
As you can see, Grace needs each and every one of us.

If your mind has been wandering somewhere . . . . I said: if your mind has been wandering, pay attention. This sermon will now become X-rated.

The most forbidden word at church is not “sex” but “money.”

Sorry. Got your attention, though, didn’t I?

As Marilyn will report in a little while, our contributors have gone up for 2011 and the money contributed has risen considerably. We’re in great shape financially.

For now.

We are now moving into another stage of our evolution as a parish. We need now to start seriously looking to the future. In this new phase, we need to focus, I believe, on three new matters:
  1. Sometime this year, the court case over property will be settled, most likely in our favor. But whichever way the decision goes, we will have to move. We’ve almost outgrown this wonderful chapel. If we get property back, it will cost us more to maintain it; if we don’t, our new digs will undoubtedly cost more than what we’re paying now. The Bishop’s Committee very quietly, almost meekly, has started a capital campaign. It’s got a thousand bucks in it. Now we need to get serious. If you can help on a Capital Campaign committee, please speak with Cathy Henry. Please start considering how much you can contribute financially to such a fund.
  2. Our staff is growing. This past year we added another child care person, Aida. This year we may need to add another. If the parish approves the budget in a bit, we will add a paid youth director to our staff. Sometime next year, God willing, we will add Matt to our staff as a deacon and then as a priest. I hope Grace will also raise up vocational deacons.
  3. Once we’re settled in a permanent home, for me our #1 priority should be to start a Latino ministry. Bakersfield is half Latino now; if we don’t establish a Latino ministry, we will become a mostly-white enclave, self-marginalized and, ultimately, irrelevant. Besides, I’d be excited about how a Latino ministry would change us.
And just when you thought you could get comfortable!

Despite what Maria says when she sees me, I ain’t Jesus. So, to make sure no one confuses me for him, listen in a new way to what Jesus says in the Gospel today [Cathy reads]:
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Maybe the most extraordinary thing—extra-ordinary—about us Christians, despite our numerous sins and failings, is that we are called. Christ calls us. If we take our baptisms seriously, no longer can we drift, wander, lurch, or slip and slide through life.

We are called. Christ calls us.

Here’s another extraordinary thing: we awaken each and every morning to our baptism; for us, every day is our birthday—our birth day; every morning is our anniversary, the day we celebrate love, the day we celebrate union with capital-L Love.

The truly extraordinary thing is why we don’t greet each new day with a wild and crazy “Hallelujah!”

Try it. HALLELUJAH!

This last year at Grace was for me one long and glorious Hallelujah. Personally. As your Vicar. And as a parishioner. I have so much feeling for you, for us, that if I say much more, I’ll get all mooshy on you,

We’ve asked the impossible of those who wrote pieces for the Annual Report. It’s impossible to squeeze Grace into a few pages. The Annual Report is like a fetus on a sonogram; Grace herself gives birth to us. The sonogram is a picture; the reality is who we are, in Christ, to each other, and to each and every person as a neighbor.

Maybe only a guy can say this, but my profound hope for Grace is that she will always be giving birth.

Amen.

John 14: 11-14.


Epiphany 4A – 1/30/2011 – Homily by Ruth Eller

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  (Micah 6:8)

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. 
(1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 5:1-12)

            How are we supposed to live our lives? For all the rules and laws we find in the Bible, when it comes right down to it, the instruction—in Hebrew, Torah—of scripture is pretty simple. It shows up in different places in different ways, but today we hear it in the words of the prophet Micah: “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”
Simple. But not easy. Actually, it would be easier to follow all the rules, step by step, and let it go at that. But that’s not what’s required. There’s something else going on, isn’t there? Something about attitude. Something about humility. Something about compassion. Something about love. Just a few words, easy to say—attitude, humility, compassion, love. But not so easy to put into action.
I want to think first of all of why it isn’t easy—what gets in the way for us—what Paul would call the “stumbling block”. Then about what might help us get over it.
Again: What’s required? To do justice—not just for ourselves, but for others, too. To love kindness—or mercy—not just for ourselves or people like us, but for all kinds of people. To walk humbly with our God. Humbly: Jesus called that being “poor in spirit”—or “meek”. Or mourning—all those vulnerable, weak places we can be in. Paul would see that whole open, scary, way of life as “Christ crucified”. Imagine that: the leader of your religion, beaten to a pulp and executed by a foreign army. And he’s supposed to be the pattern of your life. What kind of foolishness is this?
Rules, as I said, are a whole lot easier. You follow them, you feel good about yourself. You don’t have to take risks. You don’t have to really care about anybody else. You can just do the minimum and forge ahead, thinking about things that really matter in this world: your next promotion; your status vis-à-vis those Others who are different and therefore lesser than yourself; your grades; your portfolio. Whatever makes you feel in charge, safe.

There’s a great old Bizarro cartoon that shows a man walking his dog. The man is sort of a professorial or professional type, tweed jacket, open-necked shirt, pipe. The dog is—well, very doggy: floppy ears, tongue hanging out, eyes half-closed.

The dog is thinking: “If only there was some way I could ease suffering in the world, contribute to the quality of the planet, leave this world a better place for my having been here.”
And the man is thinking:  “If only I had a Porsche.”

Now there’s the real stumbling block. Have you noticed the recent TV ads for cars? Just before Christmas there was one that showed a man bringing his wife outside the house to present her with a new car, nicely wrapped with a big ribbon. But then they notice the new car his neighbor has given his wife—a fancier, more expensive car. And the first wife is crushed. (She’s just gotten a new car—and she’s disappointed.) Then there’s the one about the kid whose dad shows up after school in an old station wagon. The kid is humiliated. This touching story is narrated by another kid, whose parents have the right kind of car.  I think this is supposed to be funny.

The kind of life we are called to is a stumbling block because of the kind of life we’re constantly being told we should want for ourselves. If only we had the simplicity of the kind-hearted dog—who would change the world if only he could. And we, who could, if only we would—we so often focus on the car instead.

So there’s the stumbling block.

How about getting over it?

To begin on that question, I want to say that everyone in this place at this moment is already getting over it. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. So maybe our job isn’t just to get over it ourselves, but to live the life beyond the stumbling block in such a way that others can see the joy it brings. To witness to a way of life that brings true fulfillment, and call others to join us. That’s a step towards easing the suffering of the world, and all those other things the faithful dog would do if he could.

Just how are we getting over it—and how might we help others do the same—get beyond the stumbling blocks of the Porsche or whatever that stands for in our own lives?

As always, scripture can help us out here.

First, notice how that passage from Micah begins. The prophet doesn’t get to the famous line right away. How should we live? The answer for Micah is grounded in history. He begins by reminding the people of what God has already done for them. God has brought them justice, by delivering them from slavery. Time and again, God has shown them loving-kindness. And it’s in that context that they are called to follow God, to behave toward others as God has behaved toward them, and to do so in grateful humility: “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.”
So that’s one thing. We say it often enough: “Count your blessings.”

The second thing is this: among those blessings, Jesus says, is our very weakness. When we are “poor in spirit” or mourning, when we are most vulnerable, then we are blessed. Why? Because it’s then that we face our own limitations and ask the big questions. Who are we? Why are we here? Why is there suffering in the world? What can we do about it? At such times we cannot be so full of ourselves that we have no room to grow, no empty space for God to fill. In the Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde asked: “How else but through a broken heart can Lord Christ enter in?”
That’s what we’re doing here. That’s what church is about. We remember our history, the history of the loving-kindness of God. And we honor our weakness—because we know that this weakness is really our strength.

And what we celebrate for ourselves, we can call others to celebrate, too. We can say: Come to this table, where we remember and re-create the sacrificial love of God for us all. And we can assure them, as we assure ourselves, that God blesses all who aren’t so sure of themselves or even their faith; those who are seeking or sorrowful; those who may not have the latest, snazziest SUV; those who may not be considered perfect or pure or intellectual or successful or—you fill in the blank.

Because what does the Lord require of any of us, but that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God?