June 14, 2009

Second Sunday After Pentecost (Trinity Sunday) Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

1 Samuel 15: 34 – 16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5: 6-10 [11-13] 14-17
Mark 4: 26-34

The Reverend Robbin Clark

Things are seldom what they seem.”

“You can’t tell a book by its cover.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

“Who’d-uh thunk it?” or these days, “Who knew?”

We have all sorts of expressions in our common speech to explain those occasions when people or situations don’t turn out to be as they had originally seemed. We use them to caution ourselves against making premature assumptions and to rue the times we have done so.

At the same time we have a whole range of the opposite sort of expression, to use when things turn out, often disappointingly, just as we thought they would; “I told you so”, “what did you expect?” “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” “Garbage in, garbage out” (for you computer folk).

The thing is, we as creatures tend to really like predictability. It gives us a sense of structure and stability. It enables us to plan. And, for good or ill, it saves us the trouble of assessing each new person or situation from the ground up. Think how, when you meet someone, you ask the kind of question that will pinpoint his/her social location. In the South, I’m told, it’s all about “who are your people?” Here, the first queries revolve around, “what do you do?” and “where did you go to school?” (often with the word “graduate” hanging silently in the middle of that one)

It’s a kind of dance, or sometimes a sort of parrying, as in fencing or boxing, I’m afraid. We’re trying to establish commonalities, to be sure. We want to discover points of connection to build on. We want to see if we can find familiar ground and relax there together as we seek the next handhold on the climb up the rock-face of real relationship. But there’s all too often a one-upmanship going on as well. We’re testing our place in the pack or establishing the pecking order. Most of all, it’s about helping us to figure out what to do, how to behave.

Samuel has a bit of this going on in today’s marvelous first reading. His whole world changed with Saul’s disobedience that led to God’s rejection of him as Israel’s king. A close relationship has turned to enmity and fear. God now sends him on a mission to anoint a new king from among the sons of Jesse. And he gives him a cover story for his politically risky mission. When he gets there, we move from the political (“Do you come peaceably?) to the more personal as he invites Jesse to worship in order to fulfill his assignment. As he encounters Jesse’s sons one by one he thinks each time that he must be seeing the Lord’s anointed. But God chastises him, saying, “Do not look on his appearance...for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Or, in other words, “You can’t tell a book by its cover.” When Jesse seems to have run out of sons to show Samuel, the young David is called in from tending the sheep and anointed as Israel’s future king. And no, the irony is not lost on me that the first thing said about David is that, “he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.” I guess we’ll have to assume that what God saw in David’s heart was shining out of those eyes and making them beautiful. At any rate, with the anointing came the mighty presence of God’s Spirit to empower him for the ministry laid upon him.

More than a millennium later, St. Paul makes the same point about looking on the heart rather than the outward appearance as he writes to the new Christians in Corinth. But he adds a bit of new dimension to the contrast between the God’s-eye view and a human perspective. For us, it is not only a matter of seeing beyond appearances and their resultant expectations. Once we give our lives to Christ and die and rise with him in baptism, we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. The faith we embrace gives us the God’s-eye view. The new life we live is not bound by our earthly body and its senses. Our home base is no longer this world but God’s eternal presence, and that changes everything: Our points of reference are no longer things like family, job and education. We look for faithfulness, good-heartedness and the fruits of the Spirit. Our primary connection is made through being fellow children of God and, within this parish community, being brothers and sisters in Christ. What we share is the reality of a dual identity: whoever we are in this world, and our common citizenship in the kingdom of God.

Now that’s a place where appearance clues do us no good at all. The main thing we know is that it is really different. Or maybe not. Maybe we are experiencing it right now amid this life here. So I guess the real main thing we know is that we don’t know. And that, surprisingly, is a pretty important thing to know. It’s key to walking by faith and not by sight. As the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” God’s people have always had to walk by faith, dependent on God’s ongoing self-revelation to know how we should proceed. On rare and amazing occasions God makes things perfectly clear in some great vision. Usually the clues are shrouded in mystery and paradox. We saw that last week in our consideration of the Holy Trinity as the revelation of God’s own inner being.

Today in our Gospel, we have two out of many examples of Jesus revealing to us the nature of God’s reign, or kingdom. Like most of his teachings on this subject, they are parables-pungent little stories of this world that help us make the connection to God’s reign. The first, the story of the seed growing secretly, takes our human understanding and effort and places it in the much larger context of God’s activity and accomplishment. We till the earth and scatter seed. Which is to say that we plan and prepare and have ideas and initiatives that we hope will produce good results. We invest our effort toward the future. We do this when we raise children, when we map out a career or, for instance, when we sign a redevelopment agreement for our parish. But we always know it depends on a lot more than just us. As Paul said the first time he wrote to the Corinthians, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” The farmer in the parable is made to seem pretty laissez-faire. I bet he was out there daily- weeding, watering, putting up scarecrows, and the like. But that does not diminish the mystery of the sprouting seed and budding grain. We have our role. Our effort is needed, and sometimes that effort is intense. But in the end, it’s not all up to or all about us. We are always acting in concert with God. That is what walking by faith is.

The second parable illustrates what can come of such faithful walking. Here, the motto might be “expect the unexpected.” It’s not so different from where we began, with “Things are seldom what they seem.” From the seemingly most inconsequential, tiny seed comes a shrub big enough to shelter the birds of the air. Those same birds might have eaten that seed, had it fallen on the path instead of under the care of the tiller and the greater Grower. We can take heart that even our small efforts, when dedicated to God, can bring forth transformation and open the way toward service beyond ourselves.

All of these lessons seem to point to the same place. We have choices. We can look at life either with just our own eyes and priorities, or we can take the God’s-eye view. When we do the latter, new possibilities emerge and great transformation can result. That way is fraught with mystery and contingency and takes us out of our comfort zone, but it brings the gifts and guidance of the Spirit. Actually, we’ve made the choice by being here. Now we need to live it.

© copyright 2009 by The Rev. Robbin Clark

June 7, 2009

First Sunday After Pentecost (Trinity Sunday) Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Isaiah 6: 1-8
Romans 8: 12-17
John 3: 1-17

The Reverend Robbin Clark

“Holy, Holy, Holy”

The acclamation resounds from angels and mortals. The young Isaiah cowers in the Temple before the awesome and terrifying majesty of God. We sing that majesty no less than five different ways here today. For it is the great festival of God’s own self, the Feast of the Holy Trinity.

For me, this day caps the varied riches of the liturgical seasons we’ve been celebrating these last six months. Through them we’ve marked the events of our salvation, beginning with the expectation of our Lord’s coming in the twin-horizoned season of Advent. We’ve celebrated the miraculous birth of Jesus and his manifestation to the world.  We’ve followed his teaching, his healing, his feeding and fellowship and journeyed with him through his trials and passion. We’ve proclaimed his resurrection and rejoiced to share his risen life. And we’ve received the gift of the Spirit to guide and empower us to share that life with the world and to be his Body, the church. Next week, we’ll enter into nearly six months of “ordinary time,” punctuated by the occasional festival of a saint, but mostly a time of consolidation, reflection and growth into the full stature of our Lord.

But today we celebrate the very nature of God and give thanks that God has revealed that nature to us and given us the will and ability to think about it and express it. The work of theology, one might say, is to “language faith”; to give carefully considered words to one’s experience of God. And the role of doctrine is to do that as and for a community. The doctrine of the Trinity was hammered out over several centuries and has been being refined and restated ever since in words not only considered but considerable.

It’s not that one day some brilliant theologian will finally figure it out and pen the definitive treatise, pinning down the nature of God for all time. God’s nature is far beyond the measure of human thought. In the end, all our efforts bring us to our knees crying,  “Holy,” and that is well and good. It is where we should be before the tremendous and fascinating mystery of God. But that does not mean that our prayerful and painstaking study or our struggle for precise expression are for naught. Far from it. They deepen our wonder, enflame our love and enrich our praise.

Thirty years ago in Oxford, I attended a lecture by the French theologian, Paul Ricoeur.  He said a lot of things I can’t remember, but one thing I can. He gave me the phrase, “Post-critical naiveté” and an image to set it in my brain. Imagine yourself walking along and seeing a great forest in the distance. “My,” you say to yourself, “what a beautiful forest!” You continue and your way leads you right into the forest. You can pick out and name all the various types of trees. You can see the fallen ones and the new sprouts poking through the loam of their decomposition. You note the tangles of dead branches. You marvel at the amazing shapes of leaves and seeds and cones, and at the interrelation between the trees and the forest creatures. You ponder all these things as you follow the path out the other side of the forest toward the far horizon. Just before you dip out of sight of it, you turn around and, from a completely new perspective, your cry out, “My, what a beautiful forest!”

Without this final appreciation and awe, we might just find ourselves stuck, as Nicodemus seems to be, among confusing and contradictory details in trying to pin Jesus’ statements down too concretely. Nonetheless, he was definitely on the right track as a seeker and questioner, venturing out into the dark on a quest to understand and connect with God. I urge us to emulate him in that- to persevere in prayer and contemplations as well as in scripture study and theological reading and discussion. Spend time in the forest, but don’t get lost there. Reconnect with a childlike engagement with God as wondrous and wonderful, loving and trustworthy.

Too often, the majesty of God begets in us a fear that is neither holy or healthy, but is one borrowed from our human experience. We’ve seen the misuse of power to destroy or inflict harm. We may have been raised on a diet of fire and brimstone or flinched under violence from parents, peers or institutions. The nature of God, even in all God’s awesome power, is to save and not to condemn. It is power for and with us, not against us. So our awestruck view of God from afar must be paired with a sense of intimacy and trust that the One who created all that is loves us, knows us and delights in us. St. Paul uses the image of close family relationship. We are both children and heirs. We can call the great and awesome source of all being, “Abba”/papa/daddy. This sweet tenderness is as integral to the nature of God as is the majesty that make seraphim hide their faces and prophets cry out, “Woe is me! I am lost.” We see in Jesus a friend and brother as well as a teacher and a judge who seeks not to condemn but to save. We know in the Spirit both comfort and empowerment, guidance and strength, advocacy and truth. In fact, God has so many facets to show us that three may seem like a pretty paltry number for God’s persons.

But three is good. It is the irreducible number for multiple relationships and thus is the number that, for me, signifies community. And that is crucial. It is out of an inner communal nature that God created the myriad entities and relationships of creation. We are never just “being.” We are always “being with.” And that reflects the inner life of God, in whose image we are made.

Four of us from St. Mark’s spent most of yesterday at a workshop at Grace Cathedral. It focused on Area Ministry as a way of “Building the Beloved Community,” a key thrust for Bishop Marc’s episcopate here. He spoke to us of how often a deep yearning for community had been expressed to him during his time among us. He cited a study that called New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area the most individualistic places in the world. We in Berkeley certainly know the “do your own thing as along as it doesn’t impinge on my doing my own thing” mentality. But we also know the shallowness and isolation that this sort of individualism can bring. Many of us look to this parish as our most significant source of community. When longtime members are asked what is most important to them about St. Mark’s, the answer is, almost invariably, “the people.” Newcomers may say they were attracted by one program or another, but in the end it is the relationships they form that matter most. This is why we are ever seeking ways to deepen and enrich the quality of community among us. In doing so, we are attempting nothing less than reflecting the true nature of God.

“Perichoresis” is a fancy Greek term for the eternal dance of relationship within God. Last Sunday, we ventured a bit of a communal dance, or almost-dance, in our liturgy. Some loved it and some didn’t. So it is with most things here, I find. In whatever ways, by whatever programs or initiatives, we attempt to live out the inner dance of God, we will be the more whole and holy for it. This Feast of the Holy Trinity, the festival of God’s own self, is a great reminder of our own awesome and mysterious nature as beings in community. I hope it will also remind us of our calling to use all the facets of our being to save and not to condemn, to build up and not to destroy. I say this about us not only, or even primarily, as individuals, but as families, parish, citizens and part of the community of all creation. As we deepen each of these relationships in trust and truth, we will be renewing and deepening our relationship with God. This is what we were made for. This is what the world waits for. Can we, trembling like Isaiah, respond to God’s holiness with the words,  “Here I am; Send me”?

© copyright 2009 by The Rev. Robbin Clark

May 24, 2009

Seventh Sunday of Easter Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Acts 1: 15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John 5: 9-13
Luke 17: 6-19

The Reverend Robbin Clark

“Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”
This is the question put to baptismal sponsors after they have presented their candidates and taken responsibility for seeing that they will be brought up in the Christian faith and life. It brings the import of what they are doing home in much he same way that Jesus did when he questioned the disciples, first asking, “Who do people say that I am?” and then zeroing in with, “And who do you say that I am?”

Whether or not we have ever stood godparent to a child, we have all participated in this very personal promise when, as members of the congregation, we affirm that we will do all in our power to support those being baptized in their ongoing life in Christ. Prayer and witness, or we might call it devotion and service, or faith and practice, are the cornerstones of Christian life and leadership. They are the means by which we as individuals and the church as the Body and Christ grow and thrive.

Our great exemplar in both of these is Jesus himself. His entire life and ministry was imbued with prayer, both in the worship and ritual life of his people and also in the private and personal times of colloquy with God that framed and supported his public work. And equally, everything about him, including all that he did and said, bore witness to the Father to the extent that, when we look as Jesus, we are seeing the human life of God.

As Christians, our whole lives are to be focused on following the example of Jesus, believing and trusting his promises and sharing them with others. We are all mandated to “grow into the full stature of Christ” and to help one another to do so. As with anything that pertains to always and everyone, we need particular reminders of our calling so it doesn’t get lost in “business as usual.”

These readings and this time between Ascension and Pentecost give us such a reminder. And they come, appropriately, at the annual transition time of the secular season of “Graduationtide.” Although it could be argued that “change is the only constant,” there are some times when we notice it more than others, and Graduationtide is one of these.  It is a liminal time, a borderland, a time between. One phase of life is ending and the next not yet begun. It is a time of great celebration, but also of the pain of parting and of anxiety about what’s next. Even those of us not clutching newly earned diplomas, or gathered to celebrate the achievement of one who is, can feel it, especially in this academic community of ours. Each year at this time we must bid farewell to some who have become very dear to us and wait to see who God will bring our way this fall for us to come to know and love. I can relate to the disciples’ situation in their own time between. The Collect for this Sunday is one of the most heartfelt of the year for me. “Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us.” In our first reading, we see the nascent Christian community trying to regroup after the experience of the Ascension. I can almost hear them. “He’s really gone this time. He won’t be back like he was after, well, you know.” As with any time of bereavement, they were trying to figure out what would become their new “normal”. And they were just putting one foot ahead of the other and doing what needed to be done. Peter, fully aware of the significance of the number twelve in their tradition, sees that they must replace the defector, Judas. Note here the conviction that each person called by Jesus is “allotted his share in this ministry”. Pair this with Paul’s sense of the various interdependent parts of the Body of Christ. Think of the implication for every one of us who has been called into that Body in baptism. We each have been allotted our share in this ministry and it can’t be complete without our full participation.

Now notice how they proceed. The first criterion is to have been a witness. They new leader must be integral to the community, must be grounded in the common experience of the presence of Jesus in order to be able to share that experience with others. They look around at the potential candidates and make a short list, much as we do to fill a vacancy at our own places of work. But, unlike in most of those contexts, the crucial companion step in the process is prayer.  They seek God’s guidance to supply what is beyond their human ability to discern. And they trust that God’s direction will be revealed by the casting of lots, much as we trust in votes within the organs of governance of our church.

So we’ve come back to witness and prayer. But how are these core elements shown in today’s other “time between”, our Gospel reading? As always on this Sunday after the Ascension, we hear a portion of Jesus’ so-called “high priestly prayer”, the final chapter of the lengthy farewell discourse at the Last Supper as reported in the Gospel of John. This prayer puts the final punctuation on the witness offered by Jesus earthly ministry. From now on it will be the revelation of glory in his passion and resurrection. By signs and wonders and by simple daily presence, not to mention by involved discourses particular to John, Jesus has demonstrated his intimate indwelling relationship with the Father and has invited his disciples, his friends, as Michael emphasized last week, into that relationship. Now he prays for us.

It is not the pleading prayer of our collect, “Do not leave us comfortless,” or even the prayer of the Eleven in their discernment, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one...” It is totally in keeping with Archbishop Michael Ramsay’s definition of priestly prayer: “to be with God with the people on his heart.” At that crucial moment of departure, Jesus prays for our protection and our sanctification. He makes it clear that we will need both of these as we continue in the world, fully engaged in it, but never engulfed or defined by it. They will make possible our own bold prayer and witness. For those who stand up for God’s values in the face of the powers of this world often put themselves in harm’s way, just as he did. But our witness cannot be authentic unless it is grounded in holiness, in our own deep commitment to discern God’s truth in our lives as much as in the world.

What strikes me is that this protection and sanctification are directed toward two ends: our oneness and our joy. He says, “protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one,” and, “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” This gives me to think that the main threat posed by the evils of this world are division and despair. When we fall prey to those, I would say, not that God has stopped protecting us, but that we are not fully participating in our sanctification.

Our prayers and witness are as much about moving ourselves along the path to true holiness as they are about helping another to grow into the full stature of Christ. We will not thrive if we do not take seriously our commitment to pray and to bear witness to Christ. Thanks be to God for the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s promised gift that we will celebrate next week on Pentecost. We are not left comfortless, even in those difficult times between. We at all times are to use all our gifts and talents and wisdom and energy to stand for God’s values in the world. At the same time, we are to pray earnestly for God to make up all that is lacking in our discernment and abilities. Then our prayers and witness will support  us all to grow into the full stature of Christ. 

© copyright 2009 by The Rev. Robbin Clark

May 10, 2009

Fifth Sunday of Easter Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8

Anne Smith, Seminarian

Last week in our reading from the gospel of John, Jesus described himself as the good shepherd. We called it Good Shepherd Sunday. On Good Shepherd Sunday, I have often been reminded, as I was last week, that our culture doesn’t give us the least bit of insight into what the metaphor of the shepherd and the sheep means. I have often been told that sheep are pretty dumb animals, which sounds a little insulting. But I know that it is helpful to acknowledge the foolishness and dependence of sheep for a couple of reasons—for one thing, being compared to sheep reminds us of how limited our knowledge is, compared with God’s. For me, it is still more significant to recognize the depth of the care and attention sheep demand of their shepherd and to know that God loves and cares for us with similar intimate knowledge and attention. The intensity of the shepherd’s commitment to the sheep was something Jesus’ community knew as part of their daily existence. The relationship of the shepherd to the sheep is used in the Hebrew scriptures as a metaphor to describe God’s relation to humans hundreds of times, and may in fact be the best-known of all such metaphors for God.

This week we have heard Jesus call himself not the Good Shepherd, but the True Vine. We have the opportunity to reflect on another of the Hebrew scriptures’ most prevalent metaphors for God’s relationship to humans. References in the Hebrew scriptures to vine-growing as a metaphor do not leap as quickly to our minds, but they also occur hundreds of times. Vineyards were also vitally important to Jesus’ people, in an immediate way, like sheep. So today is True Vine Sunday. In describing us as the branches of a vine, Jesus compares us to something even dumber than sheep. Let’s look carefully at this metaphor, because the truth it points to is in some ways quite different from the metaphor of the sheep and the shepherd. When we think of Jesus comparing us to sheep, we also remember Jesus instructing Peter to “tend my sheep”, “feed my sheep.” We have taken these instructions to Peter and applied them to leaders of the Christian community ever since: When we call our clergy “pastors” in the Christian church, we are drawing on this language of Jesus: the tender of the flock, the caretaker of the sheep.

So it might be easy to make a similar comparison with this vine image. If we do, the clergy become the vinegrower, and the church becomes the vine, and then the people in our congregations become branches. As branches, we would have to be attached to a church and submit ourselves to the direction of the leadership in order to grow in our congregational life.
The clergy could be judged by how “fruitful” their church’s branches were. And then the clergy could also decide who wasn’t growing enough, and they could kick them out. We could use the vine metaphor to help us decide who’s in, who’s out, who’s in charge, and who gets to make decisions.

But if we read the vine metaphor this way, we are wrong. If we do this we are putting ourselves in the place of God, and the church in the place of Jesus. We must not usurp the role of vinegrower and fail to acknowledge and depend upon Jesus as our source of life and unity and growth.

Once we’ve figured out who is who, that God is the judge who guides our lives and helps us truly thrive, that Jesus is the common source of our life, that we are meant to depend upon Jesus and flourish as his disciples, we have to ask what it means to abide and what it means to bear fruit that is pleasing to God.

I think about abiding in Jesus as always acknowledging my dependence on him. We who seek to bear fruit pleasing to God can depend on nothing else to produce the life we wish to live, the life that glorifies God. The way God directs your growth is different from the way God directs mine. The fruit your life bears is different in some ways from the fruit of anyone else’s life. But we all depend upon Jesus as the source, the foundation.

I also find it helpful to think quite literally about the way a plant is fed. For a branch to abide in its vine means that it draws its nourishment from the vine. It is closely, intimately connected with the vine. The Eucharistic meal is a fairly literal symbol of that kind of nourishment. We draw near to Jesus in worship and receive the food and drink of new and unending life in him.

Hearing the word of God in worship and in prayer and meditation is another way we are intimately connected to our source of life. Recognizing the presence of Jesus in the people and the world around us is another way.

I also think of the literal relationship of vine to branch when I ask myself what I am channeling. I find the use of the word channeling quite interesting. This week I have been channeling Oscar the Grouch. I have been impatient with people around me and have dwelt on unpleasant, unhappy thoughts. I have been ready to grouse and complain. Channeling is like the branch drawing sap from its source vine and then bearing fruit to match it. My outward grouchiness and complaining have been the fruit of my abiding in Oscar the Grouch.

Now if the fruit you bear or the fruit you desire isn’t that which is pleasing to God, you may be channeling the life of some other vine. If you want success, money, stuff, fame, accolades, authority, power, influence, or just comfort—then you will be the branch of a vine that is not the true vine. If you want to close your eyes to the pain of the world and live comfortably without being challenged in your choices, you will be the branch of a vine that is not the true vine. If you are indifferent to your own character and the way your life reflects your dependence on Jesus, you will be the branch of a vine that is not the true vine. You will not flourish in God’s garden. These are not the fruits that our scripture and our experience tell us God wishes us to produce. This is a question Christians must ask themselves—what is the fruit we wish to bear?

I hope the answer is things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians chapter 5 tells us these are the fruits of the Spirit. I hope the answer is mercy and justice and humility. The prophet Micah tells us these are the fruits God requires of us. When we abide in Christ, our lives will be characterized by the growth of these fruits.

When Jesus talks about the vine and the branches, he talks specifically about love. This is the most important characteristic of our lives in Jesus: the love we bear for one another. We must ask ourselves whether we love. We must submit ourselves to the direction of the gardener.

And this means finally that we as branches will be pruned. In verse 3 of today’s gospel passage, Jesus tells the disciples they are already clean because they have heard his words. In the language of the vine metaphor, the disciples have been pruned. Following Jesus’ teachings has prepared them to bear fruit pleasing to God.

One way to understand this pruning process is simply to think about what is not productive for our Christian lives—hearing the word of God can help us understand what those things are for each of us. We may even find that there is sin in our lives that needs to be pruned away and thrown into the fire. To me the saving work of God in Jesus Christ means that God is ready to take those parts of our lives away and consider them dead; and to begin again as the faithful vinegrower, always ready to guide us whenever those unfruitful possibilities begin to interfere with our life and growth.

The good news is that our life in Jesus presents us with the possibility of growing in a life in love as directed by God, who knows exactly how to nurture our potential to be most pleasing. The true vine is the true source of life. God won’t give up on us. We are always in God’s care. God is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and live as Jesus’ disciples.

© copyright 2009 by Anne Smith

April 26, 2009

Third Sunday of Easter Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Acts 3: 12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3: 1-7
Luke 24: 36b-48

The Rev. Robbin Clark

You’re driving along and suddenly there’s a squeal of brakes. Then the jarring THUD! You’ve been hit. It’s a fender-bender, not a major injury accident, and for that you are grateful. But it’s traumatic, nonetheless. Your mind races back over the seconds leading up to it, even as a crowd is gathering. You’re convinced you were doing nothing wrong. Suddenly the other driver is yelling that it’s all your fault. Panic rises inside as you tersely exchange information. That’s not true! How can I make the real truth known? Then, quietly out of the gaggle of onlookers, someone steps forward and hands you a card and says, “I saw what happened. You are in the right. If you need me, I will be a witness for you.”

Whew! What relief. You start to believe you can work this out that the truth will prevail. The tunnel that had closed in on you opens up and shows a way forward. You have someone who will stand with you and speak on your behalf. You have a witness.

The Easter dynamic is all about being a witness. It’s about telling truthfully what you yourself have experienced, what you have seen and heard. It starts very early on that first day of the week outside the empty tomb. “Go, tell” is the command. And, despite fear and confusion, they obey. “I have seen the Lord!” says Mary Magdalene to the disciples. And they, in turn, report the same to the absent Thomas after that evening. The two who encountered the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus ran all the way back to Jerusalem with the same news, only to find them blabbering about their own experience of his presence.

This is where we pick up today’s gospel reading. Luke and John give us the fullest picture of the resurrection appearances of Jesus, and these are inexpressibly dear to us as believers. Matthew gives us the Great Commission and Mark leaves us outside the tomb to face our own fears and continue the story. But Luke and John tell us the stories. They show us what it can be like to encounter our Savior along our own life’s journey. And there are significant similarities between them.
Notice Jesus’ greeting of “Peace be with you.” We heard it twice last week and here it is again. Notice the invitation to direct experience, to actually touching the wounds. Notice the physicality of it all. This is not just a ghost or spirit. He eats with them, as he had throughout his earthly ministry. And, perhaps even more significantly, he feeds them by opening their hearts and minds to understand the scriptures. He stresses the continuity of God’s plan and revelation from the beginning of creation to the raising up of a people to the sending of prophets and then to his own ministry. And he points the way ahead by telling them, “You are witnesses of these things.”

“You are witnesses.” You are the ones who are to tell the truth of your experience, what you have seen and heard and how it points to the ultimate reality of a loving, forgiving and saving God. As Eastertide unfolds and brings us again to Pentecost, the so-called “birthday of the church”, when the power of the Holy Spirit came fully upon the frightened and confused disciples, we get to see their transformation and find a model for our own.

Our first reading today was from the Book of Acts, Luke’s second volume of the history of the Jesus movement. He takes up the story right after that momentous day of mighty wind and tongues of fire. And Peter is still on fire with the Spirit that had come upon him. No more the three-fold denier of Jesus, he is preaching up a storm, and in his usual stormy way. The gospel does not make us be not who we are. Rather, it transforms the purpose and destiny of our particular life and personality.

In the midst of his fiery speech, Peter makes the declaration, “To this we are witnesses.” He has truly owned the commission of Jesus to “Go, tell.” In this he can be a very good model for us. He remains who he is, but in a transformed way. And he continues to learn new insights through new experiences of God. Think how he will expand his vision to include all people and not just his own tribe when he has a vision and a call that convinces him that, as he subsequently preached to the Centurion’s household, “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

When we go through the waters of baptism, we are given the same transforming Spirit that Peter and the other followers of Jesus received at Pentecost. And we are called to the same ministry of witness. We are to pay attention to how our experience reveals to us the truth of God’s love. Then we are to testify and bear witness to that love so that others can experience it through us. How do we do it? It’s all there in our baptismal promises and affirmations. We renounce all forms of evil that assault and entice us and instead turn to Jesus with full trust and obedience. We engage to live as Christ’s Body in the world, coming together to break bread and pray. We continue to learn and grow by studying scripture and using our gifts of reason and imagination. We promise to proclaim the love of God in Christ by our words and deeds and to serve Christ in one another, both in our immediate circles and in the larger society.

John Westerhoff, Episcopal priest and teacher, calls this, “living into our Baptism” and sees it as the ongoing task of the Christian. Jesus’ own baptism inaugurated his ministry. Ours is meant to do the same. Jesus had to gather people around him to form a community. He has already formed one for us in his Body, the Church. Jesus was the sinless one and the one perfectly revealing God’s love. We clearly are not. That is why it is the journey of a lifetime to make our lives even a modest reflection of the nature of God shown us in Jesus. Our faith develops gradually to the point where we can truly “own” it as Peter did.

Westerhoff delineates four stages of faith development. He pairs them with human growth, but they don’t necessarily follow in lock step. We can all too easily get stuck and remain at a less mature level of faith for a long time. Luckily, it is a never too late to take another step. We begin as young children with what he calls “Imitative Faith.” We copy what we see around us without needing to know what it is all about. At school age, we may move to the stage of “Affiliative Faith.” Our beliefs and actions are those of the community of which we are a part. This is a popular stage to stay in. In the adolescence/young adulthood of our spiritual life, we come to “Questioning Faith.” Here is where we must figure out what is really ours. We struggle and question and sometimes thrown the whole thing out. But it seldom leaves us alone, though many keep running from it. These are the folks we don’t see in church, but who may question or even taunt us about our own faith. A mature or “Owned Faith” according to Westerhoff, is almost never experienced before one’s fourth decade. It is characterized by deep resilience and flexibility and generosity, and also by deep trust in God.

Our most effective witness arises out of the faith we truly own for ourselves. Not surprisingly, so does our deepest peace. When Jesus offers us peace and calls us to be witnesses, he also gives us the means to get there: our community and shared meals, both Eucharistic and others; our common worship and study and our individual prayer and reflection’ opportunities to serve and to work for justice. This Eastertide, amid our feasting, let us dedicate ourselves to using all of these means to increase our ability to witness and continue the Easter dynamic all year round.

© copyright 2009 by The Rev. Robbin Clark

April 19, 2009

Second Sunday of Easter Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31

The Rev. Ellen Ekström

I think this bears repeating:  Alleluia! Christ is risen!

If you responded with the words, "The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!" I bet you wouldn’t have said that if you didn’t believe. Brothers and sisters, you do believe Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, right?

Okay, so where do we go from here?

A week has passed, but the excitement, the joy remains. You want to flip that page in the Gospel of John and find out what those other signs were that Jesus did. You want the story to continue, and it does, in the Book of Acts, the epistles and in the lives of everyone who has heard the Good News and proclaimed it. The greatest story ever told has an epilogue, and we are it.

How is this possible, when you and I weren’t there when the stone was rolled back and Jesus walked out of the tomb?

It’s possible because Jesus said so.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Certainly good news for us, a slap on the wrist, perhaps for Thomas.

Thomas is one of those less-than-perfect disciples that one can find kinship with, for how many can truly say they’ve never questioned anything we’ve been told or seen, especially when the hour and the day are dark and feel without promise?

Those moments come, and then God puts into play or reveals something that turns one from being faithless to faithful, like the Resurrection. It happened to a group of scared, determined and faithful followers who kept the momentum going, from that morning to this.

I don’t buy into the dictum that you’ve got to see it, to believe it. We can't see the air, but it is all around us. We see its action - in the movement of Creation when the wind blows, we feel it on our skin. It is there.

God is there. God came to us in the form and blessing of Jesus. So many prophets came before Jesus claiming to be the Christ, the redeemer and savior. They slipped away into obscurity, some suffered ignominious deaths. What made Jesus so different?

He was who he said he was. He did what he said he was going to do. The resurrection of Christ gave new life to the followers of the Jesus movement. What was promised by Jesus in his teaching, was and is being lived out. The apostles, the first followers of Jesus, proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom - what Jesus promised in his teachings and ministry was made true. The followers of Jesus live out the new commandment - that followers love one another as Jesus loved them, and in attending to the needs of one another, what Jesus commanded was made tangible and real.

The apostles became the leaders of the movement and strived to live as they were taught, showing that “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a great family of different people, living together, loving one another and all living in equality.” What Jesus demonstrated in his ministry was kept alive by the faith, belief and right action of the Apostles.
And this is where we come in.

We are now the disciples, called to keep the Good News in play, to keep the Word in our hearts and minds, and to keep it alive. How you and I do this depends on the gifts God has given each one of us, and how the Spirit moves within us.

I’m pretty certain we’re always looking for new ways to proclaim the Gospel - some have been quite successful haven’t they? And some, abysmal failures. What keeps us going is belief. If Jesus can die for our sins, we can return the favor by keeping at it, trying harder. I believe he is with us every step of the way - sometimes we have to open our hearts and minds a bit wider to see him, get past our own wounds so that we can see his. No, we haven’t seen the five wounds of Christ except in artwork and in scripture, but we know they are real. I believe that every time we say ‘peace be with you,’ Christ says it to us. It’s time for us to write the next chapter of the greatest story ever told. I intend to put my mark on the page this week when I begin my sabbatical and travel to Washington for the interfaith conference hosted by Sojourners - the Mobilization to End Poverty. I’ll gather with three of my diocesan colleagues in ministry and others of like mind to find ways of ending the epidemic of poverty in America. When I return from Washington, I’ll spend some time with the information and tools I receive so that when I return from my sabbatical in September, I can offer new resources and ways that my congregation lives out the new commandment and follows Christ’s dictum that when we feed and clothe and attend to the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, we do the same for Him.

What will you write on the page?

© copyright 2009 by The Rev. Ellen Ekström

April 12, 2009

Easter Sunday, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Isaiah 25: 6-9
Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15: 1-11
Mark 16: 1-8

The Rev. Robbin Clark

“They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

That’s one weird way to end a book of good news!

St. Marks, the prototype of the four evangelists, says what he is about in his opening words: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And right away he signals the content and call of that happy message: “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.’ Or, to put it another way: ‘This is the moment. God’s reign has touched you. It’s a good thing. Turn your head around and trust it.’ Well, the women at the tomb tuned around alright, but not in trust, “for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Are you afraid? Silly question. Of course you are. We all are. Fear is one of the four basic human emotions: mad, sad, glad, afraid. It’s hard-wired in our physiology. No less an observer of God’s creatures than Charles Darwin described it this way:

“Fear is often preceded by astonishment, and is so far akin to it, that both lead to the senses of sight and hearing being instantly aroused. In both cases the eyes and mouth are widely opened, and the eyebrows raised, ... the heart beats quickly and violently, so that it palpitates or knocks against the ribs...That the skin is much affected under the sense of great fear, we see in the marvelous manner in which perspiration immediately exudes from it...the hairs also on the skin stand erect; and the superficial muscles shiver. In connection with the disturbed action of the heart, the breathing is hurried. The salivary glands act imperfectly; the mouth becomes dry, and is often opened and shut.”

You’ve been there. It’s not a good place. And it pretty much incapacitates you for anything except an instinctive fight or flight response. I’d say most of us spend more time in the related, but more general, state of anxiety, which is like fear, but lacks the immediate sensory trigger. We worry or fret or obsess over what might happen, sometimes to the point of making ourselves ill, and often to the detriment of our creativity, enjoyment and functioning.

True, we live in a world where there is much to be anxious about. Just watching the news or reading the paper can precipitate the response described by Darwin. Warfare and bloodshed dot the world and technology has taken terror to new extremes. Flood and droughts and the inexorable cycle of global warming, not to mention the continuing pollution of our air and soil and water, threaten the well being of the planet. Our global economy is in its worst shape in three generations. No wonder we are afraid. The question is, will we allow our fears to make us turn away from the good news of God in Christ Jesus and run from his proclamation and summons? The mechanism of fear can shut down everything we do to express the amazing reality that we are created in the divine image and called as Christians to grow into the full stature of our Lord and Savior. Our fear response may be physiologically essential, but it is spiritually deadly.

Over the last few months we’ve been hearing a lot of comparisons between the present state of our country and the time of the Great Depression, and our president is said to be deeply influenced by his predecessor at the time. I believe FDR’s first inaugural address has some aptness for us today. In March of 1933 he said this to the American people:

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Our fellow Episcopalian went on to espouse the values of creativity, dedicated service, honesty and good neighborliness, and release from materialism. All of these resonate with the good news of God as lived and taught by Jesus. And FDR is correct in identifying fear as a primary stumbling block to embracing them and expressing them in our lives.

It is no accident that the standard angelic greeting throughout scripture contains some variation on, “Fear not.” Here, the figure in the white robe, seated just where the women thought they’d find the body they had come to anoint, says, “Do not be alarmed.” Fat chance. There they were, already disoriented with grief and fearing for their own safety, yet determined to offer their final ministrations to the one they had loved and followed, when their world is again turned on its head.

We all know that two successive complete upheavals do not put things back the way they were. But the messenger in the tomb points them toward a certain continuity. Go back to the beginning, he implies. Return to Galilee, the place where you first heard the good news. But hear it again from this side of the cross and tomb. ‘This is the moment. God’s reign has touched you. It’s a good thing. Turn your head around and trust it.’

I think we who have lived our whole lives on this side of the resurrection should cut those initial believers a lot of slack. They had to put the news together from scratch and out of their own perplexing experiences, while we have centuries of tradition and witness to rely on. Yet we so often flee from God’s presence in our lives and are afraid to communicate our faith to others. Worse perhaps than their terror and amazement is our own complacency or indifference to the good news. It is as if, as Desmond Tutu once accused Christians in the developed world, we had been vaccinated with the gospel so we would not catch the real thing.

But maybe it is more the persistence of basic human fear and anxiety that prevents our wholehearted embrace of God’s good news – fear of change in the face of a God who says, “Behold, I make all things new”; fear of vulnerability in following a crucified leader who asks us to be as children and servants and to align ourselves with the powerless everywhere; fear of struggle and challenge in being told to take up our own cross each day and to break down the walls that divide us one from the other; fear of judgment and punishment, despite the promise of forgiveness and reconciliation. Maybe FDR was right in a much broader context when he said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Maybe that is why every divine message is prefixed by a “Fear not.” But how can we get past our fears? There is really only one way, and that is the way shown us by Jesus. It is the way of love. “God so loved the world that he gave his own Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life.” And Jesus himself reminds us, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.” And he left us but a single commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you,” Perfect love casts out fear. Despite the abrupt ending of Mark’s gospel, fear can never be final. It is always anticipatory. And so much of what we are afraid of does not play out as we feared. Or, it does and we survive it anyway. It may even transform us and bring us new life. When our fears threaten to entomb us, remember the message. Death does not have the final word. The tomb is empty, the stone rolled away. Life, new life, has triumphed. “He has been raised... he is going ahead of you...you will see him, just as he told you.”

The deaths of our lives are not endings, but changes. In them there is both transformation and continuity, if you but allow God to love away your fears and guide you toward the great feast prepared for you. It is a feast beyond all fear, exclusion and punishment. It is the great gathering of all hope and all love. And it is the one feast, which will never end. Come, let us celebrate the feast!

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Robbin Clark

 

April 10, 2009

Good Friday, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1-19:42

The Rev. Louis Weil

In one of his later poems, ‘The Cave of Nakedness’, W.H. Auden has written a phrase which struck me powerfully the first time I read it.  It has remained with me ever since.  The poet speaks of “the waist of the night”:   and I must immediately ask you, What did you hear when I said the word “waist”?   --WASTE?  --- or WAIST?

In the poem, Auden wrote “WAIST.” But the word carries with it a deliberate ambivalence:  he is speaking of the middle of the night, just as our waist is the middle of our bodies.  But he is also evoking the waste, the desolation, the despair, which many people experience at times in our lives.  WASTE at the WAIST.

Auden’s phrase offers us a marvelous insight into the meaning of Good Friday.   Surely the wastefulness of this day is evident to all of us:  the cruel extinction of a human life.  The wastefulness of this act is evident whenever the extinction of a human life occurs; --- but this is made all the more obvious in the execution of Jesus:  “Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter.”

We need to be clear about our liturgy on Good Friday:  it is NOT a Requiem for Jesus.  It is not a Requiem at all because we live on this side of the Resurrection.  It is not a Requiem because Jesus is not dead.   Our liturgy on this day is a celebration of God’s victory over death as God’s answer to the utter destructiveness of humanity.  It is not a Requiem because Jesus is alive.  As the great hymn of Venantius Fortunatus (Hymnal 162) affirms:  “God is reigning from the tree.”

Already in this liturgy we hear the promise of God’s victory in the Resurrection:  at the Veneration of the Cross,  we hear the antiphon, “We venerate your Cross, O Lord, and praise and glorify your holy Resurrection, for by virtue of the Cross, joy has come to the whole world.”

Good Friday does not offer us a negative liturgy between the two joyful celebrations of Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil.  The meaning of the Good Friday rite is found in its central place in the Paschal Mystery of our Lord.  The liturgical celebrations in these Sacred Three Days are a unity which embraces the liturgy of Maundy Thursday last night and moves forward to its summit in the Easter Vigil and the celebrations of the Eucharist on Easter Day.  In a sense, these rites form a single liturgy which extends over three days. 

Each Sunday the Eucharist places us again, week after week, within the Paschal Mystery of our Lord, his death and resurrection.  But in these three sacred days, the Church asks us to attend to that Mystery with a special intensity.

Let me speak as a liturgist for a moment.  These Three Days link us to the Church in Jerusalem in the fourth century.  It was there that these rites took their classical shape, and I believe that we can learn much about the depth of meaning in these rites by looking back to the Jerusalem Church at that time.  Jerusalem became a major place of pilgrimage for Christians at that time.  We are told that thousands flocked to the city, particularly during the time which had become known as ‘Holy Week’, to follow the path of Jesus during the final days of his life, to participate in his Passion at the same places where the events had happened.

That same (4th) century, St. Augustine taught that a house of God, such as we are gathered in here today, is a type of embodied symbol for us as the People of God, and is the gate of our salvation.  He wrote:

“May every Christian be devoured with zeal for the house of God, that house of God of which each Christian is a member.  For no house is more truly our home than the one where we gain eternal life.”

And so this house is the place where we as a people of faith enter into the great signs in which that faith is embodied.  In the Three Days, all those signs come together to form an awesome mosaic.   In this liturgy of Good Friday, the focus within the mosaic is upon the Cross.  
Golgotha is horrible.  Yet in our liturgy, it is at the same time wonderful and glorious – remember that we call this Friday ‘Good’.  This is because with the Cross of Jesus, God penetrates our wasted world at its waist—right at the center, and there the Cross plants the seed of transformed life -- the seed of resurrection.   It is the place from which God reigns  --- the place at which sin is reversed and redemption is gained.

How terrible – and wondrous – is this place:  it is none other than – for us – the gate of heaven.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Louis Weil

April 5, 2009

Palm Sunday, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1-15:47

The Rev. Arthur Holder

The other name for Palm Sunday—and in many ways a better name—is “Sunday of the Passion,” and “passion” comes from a Latin word meaning “suffering.” So on this day it seems appropriate to ask what our religion is supposed to do for us when the hurting starts.

When it comes to the harsh realities of human existence, to the pain and suffering we all face at times, what real advantage is there for you or me in being a Christian? Does our faith help us avoid the pain of life, or does it only enable us to endure the pain, or does it perhaps cause us additional pain, but more meaningful pain, than we ever had before?

We who have staked our lives on the gospel of Christ, or have even begun to consider doing so, cannot help but wonder: what is our religion supposed to do for us when the hurting starts?

Both the Bible and the testimony of our eyes suggest that there is no simple answer. Surely we can be confident that a loving God will preserve us and care for us, that God wants nothing more than to bring us joy. We know that God does not will for us to suffer, and that our God does not send misfortune upon us as a punishment for sin. But as much as we may want to think that the life of Christian folk is all sweetness and light, we have to reckon on this day with the stark fact of the cross.

God loved Jesus too, and look what happened to him. If Jesus the beloved Son who was God in flesh did not escape suffering and death, how can we expect things to be any different for us? We are called to carry the cross for Jesus' sake, to walk in the way of suffering. How can we imagine that Jesus will deliver us from the common human fate he willingly accepted for himself?

Of course there have always been some Christians, and there are some now, who want to believe that the suffering of Jesus was all for show, a mere charade, a dramatic sort of audiovisual aid. If his suffering was only an illusion, they think, maybe our own suffering too is only in appearance, and not for real.

But all such notions collapse in the face of what we read in the gospels about Jesus sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane as he begs God to let this cup of agony pass away from him. What we have in our religion is a real Savior who took real flesh and felt real pain, who wept real tears and felt real fear. It was all very real.

The long passion narrative from Mark that we have heard this morning can be summed up in a few of Paul’s words from the epistle: “being found in human form, [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”

Now we come to the heart of the matter. There is some pain we will be able to avoid as Christians, and some pain we will be strengthened to endure. But there is also some pain that will bring us to our knees crying for mercy, just as Jesus cried. Dare we repeat those awesome words from the epistle: “he became obedient to the point of death”?

Jesus became obedient, and we are supposed to follow his example. Must we finally admit, then, that God is a demanding tyrant after all? Is the sum total of all the hurt we suffer in this life actually designed to beat us into submission by breaking our will so that we will capitulate to divine control? Absolutely not! If God had wanted merely to overpower us, there would be no need for us to imitate Jesus at all. The whole point of Jesus' suffering endurance, and ours, is that in the process we learn something—we learn what it means to love unselfishly, and to serve.

Our religion, then, does not exempt us from the pain and anxiety that are part and parcel of the human condition. Our religion instructs us in the amazing mystery that lies at the center of the universe itself. And that mystery is nothing less than the Creator's redemptive love.

We hurt, yes, but we do not hurt alone. And we do not hurt without hope. And we do not hurt without purpose, for even in the midst of our hurting we are invited to turn toward each other and serve one another. Only those with eyes to see and ears to hear can accept the truth contained in self-surrender.

Wallace Stegner's novel Crossing to Safety (p. 261-2) tells the story of two married couples who have been friends for a long time. Now Larry and Sally and Sid and Charity are on holiday in Italy. Since they are all lovers of fine art, they visit the museums and churches around Florence to explore the wonders of Italian medieval and Renaissance painting. But they have to pace themselves, because Sally is a victim of polio who is paralyzed from the waist down; for many years she has been unable to walk without assistance.

One sunny afternoon they visit some churches containing paintings by an artist named Piero della Francesca, and they come to a chapel with a picture showing Christ starting up from his tomb just at the moment of resurrection. The painting takes their breath away.

Here is how Larry describes what they saw: “That gloomy, stricken face [of Jesus] . . . was not the face of a god reclaiming his suspended immortality, but the face of a man who until a moment ago had been thoroughly and horribly dead, and still had the smell of death in his clothes and the terror of death in his mind. If resurrection had taken place, it had not yet been comprehended.”

A discussion ensues among the four friends. One of the women, Charity, is critical of the painting. If the artist wanted to depict the resurrection, she argues, shouldn't he have tried to capture “the joy, the beatification, the wonder that would naturally accompany the triumph over death? . . . But instead of trying to paint the joyfulness of Christ's sacrifice Piero almost seemed to call it hopeless. [She wonders:] Why hadn't he, if only by a gleam in the sky or the glimpsed feather of an angel's wing, put in anything that suggested the immediacy of heaven and release?”

No one argues with her. But Sally, the polio victim, leaning on her crutches, stands transfixed in front of the painting. She studies it soberly, her husband Larry observes, “with something like recognition or acknowledgment in her eyes, as if those who have been dead understand things that will never be understood by those who have only lived.”

People like Sally know what Dietrich Bonhoeffer meant when he said, “When Christ calls someone, he bids that person come and die.” (Cost of Discipleship, p. 44) Unfortunately, far too many of us—and all of us far too often—insist on waiting to die until we come to the end of our lives. What a waste that is!

Why cling to the life we have known, when we could already be dying into the larger life that is to be? Beyond comfort and safety there is a realm rich with genuine encounter, and authentic offering, and communion without end. “Those who have been dead understand things that will never be understood by those who have only lived.”

When the hurting starts, our religion enables us to go on. But it does more. Our faith looks up to Jesus Christ, the crucified God who died and lives again. We no longer fear anything that life may bring, because we have seen Jesus undergo the worst of it and come out loving, though forever wounded, on the other side.

Once and for all, we know that suffering and surrender are not the last gasps of a defeated humanity, but the first tentative, nearly hidden, utterly trustworthy tokens of joy and peace beyond the grave. In the midst of trouble, we learn how to comfort one another and—even in this holy week—to rejoice.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Arthur Holder

March 29, 2009

The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Jeremiah 31: 31-34
Psalm 51: 1-13
Hebrews 5: 5-10
John 12: 20-33

The Rev. Robbin Clark

Twenty-one years ago, in this same fifth week of Lent with these same readings, the world premiere of Robert Redford’s film, The Milagro Beanfield War, was held in Santa Fe. All sorts of folks had come to town for the festival and there was a whole lot going on, but I had my mind on one thing. All I wanted was to see Robert Redford. Ok, well, that wasn’t really all I wanted. I wanted to inhabit his life and him mine. But I had no connection with the inner circle around him, so I contented myself with jostling through the crowd at the public events and eventually getting close enough to snap the photo that still hangs in my office. Oh, and I did get to touch him as well.

Jesus’ response to the message that some Greek festival-goers were asking, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” is a huge moment in John’s gospel. It transitions us from the so-called “Book of Signs” in the first twelve chapters to the “Book of Glory”, which is the Johannine Passion/Easter narrative. Here we shift from the teachings and miracles of our Lord’s earthly ministry to his ultimate act of obedience, his being “lifted up from the earth” in both crucifixion and resurrection, whereby he “will draw all people to myself.”
For John, the master of antitheses, the hour of crucifixion is the hour of glory, and Jesus moves toward it in great serenity despite his saying that his soul is troubled. And honestly I think of that description more along the line of stirred-up, as in the story of the lame man by the healing pool of Bethesda and spiritual “God’s gonna trouble the water,” which comes from it.

Jesus has just reminded his friends that death is the inevitable precursor of resurrection, whether it be in the example of the grain of wheat or in their own leaving, or “hating,” of the worldly life so that they could follow and serve God with Jesus and be with him eternally. Now he shakes off whatever human fear and denial would interfere with his mission of glorifying God. “And what should I say, ‘Father save me from this hour?’ No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour, Father glorify your name.” And he will carry this amazing self-possession/self-abnegation through his Passion – no agony in the garden, no cry of dereliction from the cross in this gospel. What John shows us is Jesus’ complete and reverent submission to and total oneness with God. God totally inhabits the life of Jesus and vice-versa. And it is into this mutual indwelling that we are invited as believers. This is what John is signifying when he uses the word “see” in his gospel.  “Come and see,” Jesus invites the first disciples after his baptism. And the themes of seeking and seeing and showing, and also of light and dark, are woven through the entire gospel. So when he hears that a bunch of foreign seekers want to see him, he knows it is time for the act of glory that will show him to the world.

That act, his “one oblation of himself once offered,” as we will soon say in our Eucharistic prayer, still stands alone as “full, perfect and sufficient.” But it cannot stand as isolated. All who have seen Jesus, who have come into the light of new life through the waters of baptismal death and resurrection, are called upon to show him forth in their own lives so that all people may be drawn to him. It’s a tall order, and I know that well.

I was a first year seminarian and was sent to a local parish to preach on Theological Education Sunday. I had never given a sermon and I hadn’t yet taken a homiletics course. Worse yet, the rector of the parish, son of my esteemed predecessor for whom Hodgkin Hall is named, was the donor of the seminary’s annual prize for preaching. I was terrified. As I mounted the steps to the pulpit, I saw, in dymo-marker letters across surface where I would put my notes, the words “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” I panicked. “I’m not Jesus!” I wailed to myself. “Hell, I’m not even ‘Sir’!” And to this day, every time I step up to preach (still with a modicum of that early dread), I remember that what we all want is to “see Jesus” in John’s sense, and not just to gawk or snap a photo or even sneak a touch, but to inhabit his life and have him inhabit ours, to be “in Christ,” to use St. Paul’s phrase.

And, lest you think you are off the hook because you are not a giver of sermons, think again. The calling of each one of us, and of us together as a parish community, is to show Jesus to a waiting, hurting and seeking world. This is what it means to call ourselves the Body of Christ. We are Jesus’ heart and hands and voice in the world today.

An important way for people to see Jesus here and now is through our trying to be like Jesus. Here and now. And we can show forth Jesus also by noticing and pointing to those places where God seems to be acting in our world. The examples are everywhere, but they are not unambiguous. Nor was the cross. It was pretty counter-intuitive. It’s meaning was revealed only in resurrection light. As we noted earlier, antitheses and paradoxical juxtapositions abound in Jesus’ teaching and actions. They draw us ever deeper into the mystery of God and the mysteries of good and evil, of life and love, of sacrifice and fulfillment. So it is with the events that surround us.

Who has not been caught up in the recent tragedy of the deaths of the four Oakland police officers in the line of duty, which has been so much on our hearts and minds this past week? Where does Jesus inhabit this story? Is it in the example of those who are willing to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of others? Is it in the courage to render aid at the scene or give the police the crucial tip to catch the perpetrator? Is it in the outpouring of compassion and gratitude evidenced by the 20,000 who came to pay tribute at Friday’s memorial? Is it in the outrage that has been sparked by this event and the potential for reform arising out of that? Was Jesus present with all who died, not just the officers?

As people of an incarnational faith, we must wrestle with these questions. We must look for the hand of God and the movement of the Spirit in all that goes on around us. And we must help one another to recognize the presence of Christ around and in us. Such recognition is only the beginning. The real work is in opening ourselves to transformation as a result of what we have seen.

I think that is what Jeremiah is talking about when he promises a new covenant written upon the heart. His phrase “know the Lord” is quite like John’s “see Jesus.” Both comprehend that deep mutual indwelling, that openness and partnership between God and humanity that we can observe as totally realized in Jesus. We are given the gift of this very intimacy with our creator when we enter into the Body of Christ. Our life task is to live into it fully. As Christians, we are always seeking, seeing and showing Jesus.

A week from now, we will be asked to walk with our Lord through the days of his Passion, to inhabit his life and invite him to inhabit ours. I urge you to make full use of this holy opportunity. Make participation in the liturgies of the week of first priority. Go from the triumph of the Palms to the depth of the Passion and emerge into the victorious Easter light.
In these troubling and precarious times, we need to be reminded that the glory is not separate from the suffering, nor is the triumph unrelated to the obedience. Holy Week bears witness that all are knit together in the mystery of God’s love, which brings life from death and makes Christ live in us as we do in him.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Robbin Clark

March 15, 2009

The Third Sunday in Lent, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Exodus 20: 1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1: 18-25
John 2: 13-22

The Rev. Robbin Clark

Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves...”

As we approach mid-Lent (I make the exact day to be this Friday, but who’s counting?), we are perhaps being reminded of our helplessness a bit more than we like. It’s certainly happening every time we open the newspaper or turn to yet one more report on the global economic crisis. There seems no hiding place, no way to avoid being affected, no matter how prudent and diligent we have been. And if we haven’t been prudent and diligent, those unwelcome chickens are flocking home to roost.

This morning, the drip, drip, drip on the skylight from the fog/rain off the great pine tree that overhangs my house mocked the drought threat even as I read of the ocean’s rise that will inundate our shores in the coming decades. I don’t enjoy feeling “un-able” or powerless.
We’ve been getting the reminders in our liturgy as well. Rite I has a way of really underlining our dependence on God. And it does so in some pretty emotive language. We do not just confess, we “bewail our manifold sins and wickedness” and we admit to the grief they cause and the intolerable burden they are to us. Our repentance is “earnest” and we so need to hear the words of comfort from Holy Scripture that follow the absolution.  Humility before God is a huge theme in this rite, and why not? God has both created us and redeemed us. God is the source of all we have and all we are. As dearly as we love Jesus as our friend and brother, we must also “bow down and bend the knee” before the One who has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. He has conquered eternal death by his perfect love and obedience and self-offering. He knew we had “no power of ourselves to help ourselves”, so he helped us. He, of his great mercy, makes us, despite our failings, to be accounted worthy to be his friend and brother/sister. He gives back to us the dignity and destiny for which we were created. This is an amazing and incredible gift! By rights, it should beget a lifetime of gratitude and it should engender in us both a deep humility and a resolve to be like him in his extraordinary love and generosity.

Why then do we find it so hard to refer to ourselves as “unworthy”? So many people tell me they just can’t bring themselves to say the “Prayer of Humble Access.” And they rail against the “breast-beating” elements of the liturgy. What is this about? I don’t want to drift into psychologizing here, though one could certainly do so.  Is it really a deep lack of self-value that makes us need constant positive reinforcement? Is it because we find it so hard to love ourselves that we cannot trust that God loves us so much as to become one of us and die for our salvation? Or can we just not fathom the giving-ness of God, that God would count us worthy to stand in the divine presence and sit at the table together, even with all the ways we have erred and strayed?

It certainly is a great paradox and one far beyond my understanding. But the Christian faith and life is not about, as has been said, “believing three impossible things before breakfast.” It is about embracing and giving ourselves totally to a new and unlikely reality that turns the power and wisdom of the world on its ear. This is what Paul is trying to get across to the Corinthian congregation in today’s Epistle. Later in the letter, he’ll get around to sorting them out for their bad behavior, but first he must establish the nature of the new reality in which they are living as followers of Jesus. This new state of being is defined by the cross, that place where unthinkable evil is met and swallowed up by unimaginable love, and where forsakenness is met by embrace. You simply can’t think your way into that place. You have to just accept it and try to live into it. Even just wanting to be there puts you on the way there. Paul talks about “us who are being saved.” He is making the point that it is not all over and done with. It is an ongoing process. And that process involves both our action and God’s. It is both an outward and an inward process, as we acknowledge in today’s collect. What we often overlook is that it is also both an individual and a collective process. As Christians, we are never just ourselves. We are members of Christ’s Body, the whole community of the faithful. And we are part and parcel of the whole created order. We can see all these levels, these interlocking systems, in the three covenants we have had expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures these first three Sundays in Lent. Initially, there was the global covenant God made with Noah that promised God would hold back from destroying the whole creation by water ever again. Last week, we heard God covenant with Abraham that he and Sarah would bring forth a multitude of descendents when all human hope for that was gone. Abraham’s trust in the promise became the ground of his righteousness, even as our trust in God, and not any particular worthiness on our part, renders us fit company for the heavenly banquet.

In today’s reading, we have, in the Ten Commandments, the covenant relating to community life. God gave the gift of the Law to empower the children of Israel to survive as a people. They are about protecting the health of the community and promoting its wellbeing. To be sure, they are also for individual use. Over the centuries, many elaborations and codifications as well as the elegant summary, which we quoted at the beginning of the liturgy, were put forward. Jesus himself stressed going beyond the letter to the heart and spirit of these law and offered his own new commandment for life in community, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Now, that is a commandment that we can never totally fulfill, not as individuals and not as a community or as the whole people of God. But, as we began by saying, God “seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves.”

And so we pray for God’s help. But not only that, we acknowledge and admit that we need that help and that our inestimable worth in God’s eyes is indeed a gift. But it is a gift that creates a reality, just as the gift of the Eucharist does. Our calling is to live into this paradoxical new reality as individuals and as a community. Just as Jesus warned as he turned over tables in the Temple, it may mean dismantling habits and patterns build up over the years. It may require personal changes and changes in our parish culture. Some of them may seem threatening and hard. But Jesus promises that he can rebuild us into his very Body, if we will accept his help and guidance.

I guess it’s a matter of whether we can look at ourselves and see both our helplessness and unworthiness and the power and wisdom of God working in and among us. Can we live into the covenants God has make with us, most personally in our baptism? This is the journey of Lent. And this is the way to Easter joy.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Robbin Clark

March 8, 2009

The Second Sunday in Lent, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

The Rev. Ellen Ekström

What will it profit us to gain the whole world and forfeit our lives?  What can we give in return for life?  These are questions appropriate for this contemplative and penitential season of Lent, but truly, questions important to consider every single day of the year.

In speaking to his disciples, Jesus warns against putting earthly concerns and goods over the promise of eternal life.  To these followers of Jesus, earthly concerns and goods meant home and family, financial security, perhaps standing in the community, and a peaceful life.  And to us, his message is no different, even with the passage of a millennium.  The everyday concerns have changed, but the goals we put before us are pretty much the same.

Might the ‘whole world’ be the ‘stuff’ in our lives?  We all have it.  Sometimes, it replaces or masks what’s important or crucial, or we’ve bought in to the idea that it’s what we need to be successful or happy because for so many generations the “American Dream” was to be acquisitive, have the best and the biggest and in all four different colors; sometimes, we let it get out of control.   

When it gets out of control, the downward spiral begins, doesn’t it?  And what better time than this to rid ourselves of that which we do not need, whether it be material, physical goods, or clutter in the mind and soul.  It’s time given over to reflection and prayer, when we decide, with Christ’s help, what is truly important in our lives.  Once we take that first, very painful step, the rest falls into place.  Get rid of the clutter in life and you just may have a sense of order and enough room for prayer and a life that can be enriched by a deeper commitment and relationship with God and one another.  And who knows?  Perhaps you will discover all that all the stuff, that clutter, is a barrier.  It’s a wall built up to hide behind, to keep us from being what God through Christ has called us to be. 

We know that being Christian isn’t always warm and cuddly.  This morning Jesus tells us exactly what he expects of us.  He says that if anyone wants to follow him, they will have to expect hardship, difficult choices, and, in the disciples’ time, perhaps death.  To be a disciple is to act and live selflessly, to be willing to give up as well as give.  Jesus calls us to an abundant life through love and belief, not of an abundance of earthly goods that pile up and clutter, get in the way of action that proclaims the Gospel.

What can we give in return for life?  Our hearts, our minds, ourselves, freely - as freely and unconditionally as we are loved by God.  Give them over into the loving care of Christ Jesus.  But first, we need to get rid of the clutter so that we are receptive to the Word.  Then we will be ready to shoulder the cross, and go and undertake work that make our community and world a better place that models the Kingdom of Heaven and not shame us before Jesus; work that shows that we are not ashamed of him. 

I’ll leave it to you to discern what it is that Christ calls you to do, and when you return home this afternoon, look about and see, really see, what part of the ‘whole world’ is cluttering up your life, and I can guarantee it isn’t Jesus.

© copyright 2009 by The Rev. Ellen Ekström

March 1, 2009

The First Sunday in Lent, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Genesis 9: 8-17
Psalm 25: 1-9
1 Peter 3: 18-22
Mark 1: 9-15

The Rev. Robbin Clark

Mark is not one to mince words. In these six short verses we get a triple whammy – Jesus’ baptism, his temptation in the wilderness and the beginning of his public ministry – Bam! Bam! Bam!

The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is always the gospel for the First Sunday in Lent. Two of our hymns today reflect our piety that, during this season, we share with Jesus in a time of fasting and prayer. But Mark does not mention either fasting or prayer, nor the traditional three temptations: to turn stones to bread; to test God by casting himself off the pinnacle of the temple so God’s angels will catch him; or to rule the world by bowing to Satan. Such enticements to sin are what we most often mean when we use the word temptation. But Mark’s word in the Greek text is ‘peradzo’ and that equally means testing or trial, and it is in this sense that I believe he is using it. The same word appears in the Lord’s prayer and our English translation has moved from “lead us not into temptation” to “save us from the time of trial” to express that different sense. We do not pray God to refrain from enticing us to sin. We pray that God will not let us be tested beyond our endurance.

Now, testing and trial both have to do with the experience of limit. And they carry the dual sense of “what am I capable of?” and “what can I get away with?” We can use limits either as something to stay within or something to push back. Both uses can be valid, depending on the situation. Mark gives us no content for the testing Jesus underwent, but he makes clear the presence of opposing forces – the Spirit and Satan, and the wild beasts and angels. It was definitely a time of struggle and choice, which is true of all encounters with limit.

It is important to note that this time of struggle comes just after Jesus’ landmark experience of baptism and divine approbation and affirmation of identity. Jesus hears the voice from the cloud and immediately is thrust into his wilderness experience. It’s not so dissimilar to last week’s Gospel story of the Transfiguration.  In that, as Anne reminded us, the disciples have a transcendent experience of God’s glory and experience the divine pronouncement of Jesus’ identity. It’s a wonderful moment, so wonderful that Peter wants simply to stay there. But Jesus thrusts him back into everyday life. Down the mountain they go, and find themselves tested and tried by a demon they can’t cast out, a child they can’t heal and a father struggling for faith. As Herb O’Driscoll has pointed out, “After the mountaintop of decision comes the wilderness of implementation.”  Whenever we take a huge step, make a major commitment or mark an important transition, we are left to deal with the implications. Think of the big celebrations of our lives- graduation, election, marriage, or a major promotion at work. You barely have time to bask in the glow before you start to realize how your new situation will test you and how much it will require of you.  I saw Jim Lehrer interview President Obama on TV Friday night and that was the big question.  How daunted are you by actually getting what you tried so hard for? He was characteristically confident in his response, noting that times of struggle can bring out the best in people, though he did admit that he would prefer not to have had all the crises he faces come upon him at once. Again, we hear our same prayer not to be tested beyond our endurance. It does seem that whenever we try to fulfill a major vow or promise we run up against struggles and stumbling blocks. That’s why the marriage vows include “for better, for worse” and our baptismal promises include “whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord”. Covenant faithfulness is no easy thing, but it is the very heart of our most important relationships, beginning with our relationship with God.

Our baptismal covenant is the most basic fact of our life and identity. As Jesus was told who he was at this baptism, so we are told who we are at ours. We are beloved children of God and brothers and sisters together in Christ. And the covenant brings with it a promise, the promise of salvation and eternal life and blessing in God’s very presence. Peter’s letter to the beleaguered Christian converts in Asia minor in the first century reminds them of the treasured hope they have been given and connects it with God’s first promise and Covenant given to Noah.

That Covenant was the first instance of God’s self-limitation in relation to us, and not only to us, but to all creation. God has had a change of heart and wants to be reminded not to destroy the world by water ever again. So God creates the rainbow as a token and sign to appear when clouds threaten. It makes me think of the juxtaposition of wild beasts and angels in the Gospel story. Storms and struggles often pair with solace and strength.

So back we come to Jesus in the wilderness and ourselves at the beginning of our Lenten observance. We can see both of these in terms of covenant faithfulness, living into the big promise once it is made. And that’s always a process of testing and proving and, as such, an ongoing encounter with limit.  So the question becomes in each new encounter, how am I to treat this particular limit? It is something to stay within or something to push back? Is it a boundary or a challenge?

For me, the boundary view resonates with the “Thou shalt not” tradition of the law and with the practice of giving up something for Lent. It is the “just say no” aspect of the way we try to live a moral and holy life. As such it has real value. Its danger is in becoming legalistic and judgmental and of squeezing the joyous creativity and spontaneity out of life.  Such observance can be very dire indeed. Limit seen as challenge is more like the “Thou shalts” of the law and the act of taking on some practice such as extra study or prayer during Lent. It conjures up the quest of the athlete or explorer, the “just do it” or “because it’s there” aspect of living which spurs us to test and expand our capabilities. It’s very open-ended and hard to know what constitutes enough. Its danger is in losing all sense of proportion and fooling ourselves into believing that “anything goes”. This state can be as oppressive and unholy as its opposite.

So, in good Anglican synthesis, we find that our covenant living require a balance between respecting boundaries and rising to challenges. Our Lenten observance does well to include both things we give up and things we take on for the sake of our souls’ health. Maybe we should also include our own “bow in the clouds” to remind us of our initial good intentions.

Mark’s succinct description of Jesus’ wilderness sojourn as a juxtaposition of wild beasts and angels resonates with our own experience of trying to live into our baptism and our other vows and commitments. Let us pray that we can, like him, emerge from them confidently asserting, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Robbin Clark

February 1, 2009

The Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8: 1-13
Mark 1: 21-28

The Rev. Robbin Clark

Fifteen years ago, just at this time, I was preparing to lead an ordination preparation retreat for the first women to be ordained priest in the Church of England. We were to have four days together and I could structure it any way I chose. I decided to entitle the retreat, “As One with Authority”, taking my cue from today’s Gospel and its parallels.

In this passage, we see Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. He has just gathered the first of his disciples. What he said to them was, “Follow me.” In those days, the student or apprentice or disciple moved right in with the teacher. Much of the “instruction”      happened just in being together day after day. There was essentially no hiding place for the teacher or mentor or leader in this system. One’s whole life was on display. And you can bet that the followers lost no opportunity to assess the continuity between word and deed. “Do as I say, not as I do” wouldn’t cut it, as every parent has found out.

But Jesus didn’t seem to have a problem with that. In fact, it was just the opposite. Those who heard him were amazed at the authority of his teaching. It was so unlike their other leaders and teachers, who would cite all sorts of texts and traditions as authorities, but didn’t really seem to have much authority in and of themselves. And that’s not even to mention those we hear about later who would grab all the honors but hold themselves aloof from the burdens they laid upon others. No, Jesus had a through-and-throughness about himself, an integrity and authenticity, and a power not tied to any coercive institutional structures. We might say he “walked the walk” and didn’t just ‘talk the talk.”

I believe this integrity and authenticity are at the core of the exercise of real authority, now as then. And our readings today give us a chance to reflect on authority as it relates to our own life of faith. To be sure, we are not Jesus, but as his followers we are to do our best to live and grow into his stature. So what king of authority do we have? How do we use it?

Authority can be a bit slippery to define. We speak of  “the authorities” in referring to those who exercise power over us and can compel our behavior. This is clearly not what we see in Jesus. As all academically oriented community we associate authority with superior intellect and knowledge of a given field. We go to such authorities when we want to understand something. Some of them make good livings as pundits on talk shows and news programs. Some make breakthrough discoveries or prepare students who will. They play a big role in how we see ourselves and our world. But this kind of knowledge-based authority can still be, to use the example in our text, on the level of the scribes- that is, more on the level of information than wisdom.

Authority can be grounded in an office, in achievement or knowledge or, as in Jesus’ case, in a particular gift, identity or charism.  But the interesting thing about authority is that it is undeniably relational. Power can be seized. Authority needs to be bestowed. But, to be effective, it must also be received and exercised and affirmed as well. This is especially true outside the structures which have coercive legal or financial, and even physical power over us. Many times, the real authority in a system is not the person with the title.

But how is it to be among the people of God? What does exercise of authority look like? In additional to the example of Jesus’ early teaching, we have two other pieces of scripture today to look at. In the first reading Moses is near the end of his ministry. He has done amazing feats and been the conduit for the people in their relationship with God. He has led them from Egypt through the wilderness and brought God’s law to them. As much as they grumble, they count on him and look to him as an authority. Now they are worried about what will happen after him. Who will mediate God’s word to them? It is far too scary to them to imagine hearing it directly. So God promises another prophet, one raised up from among the people. But notice the interlocking responsibilities and accountability. The one raised up must speak all that God commands and not anything else. Abuse of this special trust brings death. And the people, likewise, must heed the prophet they have asked for or be held personally accountable. We see here the dance of authority- authority requested, given and received- when it is exercised. We surely know from the stories of all the subsequent prophets and the behavior of the people that the dance did not often go smoothly.  There were true and false prophets and faithful and unfaithful people. Authority was exercised both well and badly. But it always uninvolved the interaction among the people, the leader and God.

Our second reading takes us to the early Christian community in Corinth. They seem to have been quite a handful for Paul, always with the posturing and in-fighting. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. And it often involved challenging his authority. So he is frequently admonishing and exhorting and trying to teach them, through resolving their spats, how to live together as the Body of Christ. Eating food offered to idols is not an issue for us, but the issues of freedom and responsibility and how we care for one another remain pertinent.

As we have noted, knowledge often grants authority. It seems that those in Corinth with a more advanced understanding of the nullity of idols were eating meat from the local pagan temples and thereby scandalizing new or less sophisticated members of the congregation. Paul calls the knowledgeable ones on their inappropriate and unloving exercise of that authority. Special understanding or gifts or positions, in fact, any source of authority within the Christian community, is to be used for the benefit of all. And particular care is to be taken for the well being of the weakest members.

This is not unlike the warning from Deuteronomy about the reciprocal responsibilities of the prophet and people. God cares equally for us all, but bestows varied authority and responsibilities on each of us. The common aim is to exercise both to the glory of God and for the building up of the Body. We each have a duty to use such authority as we are given, whether by office, knowledge or charism, responsibly in relationship to God and to others whom we may influence. This is true in every context, whether it be our job, our church, our community or our marriage or family.

Those first women priests in England fifteen years ago needed to learn to appropriate their authority with integrity and authenticity, despite the challenges they surely faced, and to exercise it with grace and generous love. Patrick and Christian, whose marriage we will bless in a few moments, have the similar task of learning to own, and exercise their personal authority while being “subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” as partners to each other. And each of us in our own situation must appropriate the dignity, authority and freedom of the new Life in Christ, given us in baptism in such a way that our lives become a teaching tool for the Gospel. Jesus taught, by word and deed, as one having authority. We are called to do no less.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Robbin Clark

January 18, 2009

Second Sunday After the Epiphany, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

1 Samuel 3:1-20
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

The Rev. Arthur Holder

The great Swiss theologian of the last century Karl Barth is supposed to have said that Christians ought to read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Barth probably meant that we should use the Bible to help us interpret what is going on in the world. But the opposite is also true: sometimes we need the newspaper to help us see what is really happening in the pages of the Bible. I think that is the case with two of the readings we have heard this morning.

The familiar reading from 1 Samuel tells how the boy Samuel was asleep in the tabernacle when he heard the Lord calling his name. The first and second times he heard the voice, Samuel ran to the priest Eli and said “Here I am, for you called me.” But after Eli instructed him how to respond the third time, Samuel said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Then in the Gospel of John we have the story of how Philip and Nathanael became disciples of Jesus. First Jesus found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Then Philip told his friend Nathanael that Jesus from Nazareth was the one announced by Moses and the prophets. Nathanael was skeptical that anything good could come out of a little town like Nazareth, but after Jesus told him that he had seen Nathanael under the fig tree, Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel!”

We usually interpret both of these readings as stories of personal vocation, of call and response. Like Samuel, we sometimes fail to recognize the Lord’s voice and need someone to tell us that God cannot get through to us until we stop to listen. And like Nathanael, if we are going to follow Jesus, we need to overcome our prejudices and open ourselves to new possibilities. True enough. Fine and good. But what if we read with these biblical passages in one hand and today’s newspaper in the other? What else are these stories about?

I think they are about regime change. They are about the need for new leadership. They are about political struggles in a society with major social problems. These stories are about Barak Obama, the United States of America, the inauguration of a new president, the audacity of hope, a time for change, and how we will deal with all of this as Christians. Let’s look at those stories one more time.

We usually stop reading the story of Samuel’s call at verse 10, right when Samuel says, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” But the lectionary does give us the option of reading further in order to learn what God says. (Don’t you think that is going to be a pretty important part of the story? Why do we care if Samuel listens or not if we don’t find out what he hears!) God says that he is about to do something that will make everyone’s ears tingle, because he is going to overthrow the hereditary priesthood of Eli’s family and put Samuel in Eli’s place. You see, Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas had been stealing the temple offerings for their own use and having sexual relations with the women who served in the temple. Eli told them this was wrong, but he hadn’t actually done anything to stop their corruption. So in the next chapter, Hophni and Phineas are killed in battle with the Philistines, and Eli falls over dead when he hears the news. How’s that for “change you can believe in”?

And what about the call of Philip and Nathanael? Notice what they call Jesus: “the one Moses and the prophets wrote about,” “the Son of God,” “the King of Israel.” In the political vocabulary of the day, they were calling him the Messiah sent by God to overthrow the Roman Empire and free the people of Israel—not just free them from their sins, but from political oppression. When they signed on with the Jesus movement, they thought they were being asked to join his administration, or his cabinet, or perhaps his army. How’s that for the “audacity of hope”?

I think we miss a lot of the Bible’s message because we read these passages and others like them as though they are God’s word to us as individuals. The God of the Bible is very much concerned with nations and peoples. God cares about political policy. God will want to know who is going to bear the brunt of this economic recession. God will notice if the rich get a little less rich while the poor get a lot more poor. God will notice how our government works—or does not work—for a just and secure peace in Israel/Palestine. And God cares about the character of our leaders and our expectations of them.

This is where I think we ought to pause and reflect a bit on our expectations for Barak Obama. We are rightly conscious of his achievement as the first African American to be elected president. To judge by the Bay Area election results, about 80% of us voted for him. He is an inspiring orator and a thoughtful, pragmatic leader. Probably most of us will be watching when he takes the oath of office on Tuesday, and I hope we will all keep him daily in our prayers. I believe he will be a good president—perhaps even a great president. But he is not the messiah.

It is easy to remember that the president isn’t the messiah when he is someone we disagree with on fundamental issues or someone whose character does not command respect. But when someone we like and admire is in the Oval Office, our expectations run high. We not only want him to do good; we want him to save the world in four years or less. As much as I like Barak Obama, that’s just not going to happen.

Of course many of us have already been disappointed in one thing or another that Obama has done since getting elected. I for one wish he hadn’t chosen a conservative supporter of Proposition 8 to give the invocation at his inauguration. I’m all for inclusion, and I’m glad to see that Obama has now invited the gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire to offer a prayer this afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial and our Presiding Bishop to pray at the service at the National Cathedral on Wednesday. But I’d rather have seen Gene Robinson or Katharine Jefferts Schori on the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday, and Rick Warren in some less prominent role.

Still, one of the things that I like about Obama is that he appears to know that he isn’t the messiah. At the same time, he is committed to doing what he can to make the world a better place. He is a fine politician, but it makes me feel better to know that he is also a pretty good theologian. In an interview a couple of years ago, Obama said that he had been reading the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, and from Niebuhr, he says,

I take away the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief that we can eliminate these things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away the sense that we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard and not swinging from naive idealism to bitter realism.

These are wise words from our President-elect. (He could have been summarizing Augustine or Calvin or William Temple as well as Reinhold Niebuhr.) Those who look for human messiahs—and those who try to be human messiahs—will always be disappointed. But there is another option. As Christians, we don’t create messiahs, and we don’t become messiahs. We follow the true Messiah who combines idealism with realism as no earthly leader ever could.

When Nathanael says that he believes in Jesus because Jesus had seen him under the fig tree, Jesus speaks of greater things than these: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Like Jacob’s ladder in the Old Testament, Jesus himself is the bridge between heaven and earth. The Messiah unites us with God and transforms the world in the process. But Messiah Jesus doesn’t save the world by giving speeches or deploying troops; he does it by loving the world so much that he takes it with him to the cross.

This is a historic week for our country. In the inauguration of Barak Obama, all Americans have much to celebrate, much to hope for, much to inspire us. God cares about the fate of our nation and how we use our power in the world, and I believe it is significant that President Obama plans to end his constitutional oath of office by adding the words, “So help me God.” But even when he makes mistakes, even when he disappoints our hopes, even if he should utterly fail in all his good intentions, nevertheless we know that heaven and earth are joined, Jesus reigns from the tree, and the angels dance.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Arthur Holder

January 11, 2009

First Sunday After the Epiphany, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Genesis 1: 1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19: 1-7
Mark 1: 4-11

The Rev. Robbin Clark

Spirit – wind – breath – voice – Word

They’re all tied up together, aren’t they? The “wind from God” in our first reading could equally have been rendered “the Spirit of God”, for the words are the same in the Hebrew. And the same goes for breath. It’s the ruach, the pneuma, the animating force, the moving air that empowers life… and speech. God speaks the word of creation, “Let there be.” A voice of pronouncement and blessing is heard from heaven as Jesus emerges from the waters of the Jordan. The newly baptized of Ephesus break forth into sacred tongues and prophesy. Our whole psalm is a hymn to the voice of the Lord. And the images used are of power and splendor and glory. The voice of the Lord, propelled by the breath and carried on the wind, shakes, breaks, strips and splits the solid entities of nature. Mountains skip and oak trees writhe. And the people? They are awestruck. The gather in the in the temple, crying, ‘Glory!’ and worshiping the majesty of the creator and ruler of all things. And from that majesty comes a dual gift, strength and the blessing of peace.

As we enter further into this Epiphany season of manifestation, we do well to keep in mind that the “persons” of the Holy Trinity can be thought of as Creator, Spirit, Word and connected to the manifestation of God’s own self. We know God in creation and in the Word made flesh in Jesus as well as in the movements of the Spirit/wind/breath in our lives.

The primary symbol of Epiphany is the great star, which inspired a journey to find heaven come to earth. We have celebrated that guiding light last Sunday and at our lovely and simple service on Tuesday. Today we connect that light shining in darkness, not only with the life and light of the Word made flesh from the great prologue to John’s gospel, but with the primal command of creation, “Let there be light.” And we note that, no sooner had God brought the light into being, but God evaluated and organized it. The light God called good, and it was given a role and relationship to the dark, providing us with day and night. Ever after, light would shine amid darkness, and the darkness would never be able to stamp it out.

Now we come to the second story and symbol of Epiphany, water. It, too, goes all the way back to the beginning. The wind/Spirit/breath of God is sweeping over the waters of chaos. God has not yet marshaled them into seas and rivers and rain. But now the water is flowing in the River Jordan and a preacher is calling for repentance and a fresh start. The voice of the Lord, spoken through John, invites people to break open their lives and split from their old ways by being baptized. And he tells them that this is only a first step. It is not within his power to bestow upon them the Holy Spirit. But he promises that the One who does have that power is coming soon. And, lo, Jesus himself steps from the crowd to receive that first baptism and the voice of the Lord pronounces him “Son” and “Beloved” and expresses divine pleasure, much as in the way the creation of light was called good.

The third Epiphany story and symbol is the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine. We don’t get to hear that this lectionary year, but we know it as a sign of Jesus’ power to transform reality. The effective Word of God made flesh and filled with the Spirit will use that power throughout his ministry to heal, feed, to still storms and finally, to change forever our relationship with the reality of that hitherto final darkness, death.

So now we have all the elements to talk about baptism. We have water and Spirit, death and life, dark and light. In our baptism we mirror, first, Jesus’ act at Jordan in a washing away of past sin and failure in the waters of repentance. But even more importantly, we pass through death to new life with him and receive his promised gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift is ours through Jesus’ promise to the church that he would always be present among us in his transforming power. It could not be given until he met his own Passion and was raised to Glory. But, from the earliest days, we have had a gift and power far greater than our own to bestow. Our reading from Acts gives us a sort of case study of this new reality.

Paul, we are told, has come to Ephesus, a city with a nascent Christian community. He inquires about their coming to faith, specifically whether they had received the Holy Spirit when they become believers. They are clueless. They had never even heard of a “Holy Spirit.” They had received simply the baptism of John. Paul is eager that these beginner Christians be empowered to enter fully into the new life of Christ, so he baptizes and lays hands upon them and they respond just as that earlier twelve had on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit first came upon them.

Whatever the manner of the response (most of us do not manifest the Spirit by speaking in tongues, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get it), the crucial thing is that we act and thereby live into our transformed identity. As with Jesus’ own baptism, our baptism is a commissioning for ministry. Every baptized person is called to minister in Christ’s name, to carry on the work of Jesus in a world sorely in need of healing, of feeding and of having its storms stilled. What we could never undertake or accomplish on our own, we can do in the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon us and dwelling in our community, which is the Body of Christ. Our changed relationship with death can work to transform the deathward tendencies of the world and ignite hope. We, having been joined to the light that darkness cannot overcome, can manifest that light in the world. We can find our peace in the peace of Christ, which we know to be quite unlike that of the world. It is not an easy road to travel. Perhaps that is why the psalmist tells us that the gifts of the Lord are first strength and then the blessing of peace.

These gifts are bestowed upon God’s people as a whole. Our being joined to one another as the Body of Christ is a huge feature of the way we live into our baptismal identity and call. An old adage holds that, “blood is thicker than water,” but water and the Holy Spirit is thicker than any blood except the “blood of Christ, cup of salvation” which sustains us on our Christian journey.  And we need that sustenance, because manifesting light in darkness is no easy task. Often, the darkness threatens, and fears and troubles seem overwhelming. Then we can turn to the Sacrament and to this community for support and courage. They are avenues by which we appropriate God’s gift of strength. Sometimes, just keeping on keeping on is our strongest witness to the light. Our doing so can inspire others and show God’s grace.

A moment from now, we will renew our baptismal covenant to remind us who and whose we are and what is our calling as Christians. Our promises spell out specific ways for us to manifest the love and transforming power of God in our worship, our service and our work for justice. Our credal affirmation reminds us of what begets and undergirds that response. 
As we move through this season of light and manifestation, let us do so in renewed awareness of what we have received and undertaken at baptism and with full intention of living into the covenant we have made.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Robbin Clark

January 4, 2009

Second Sunday After Christmas, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Jeremiah 31: 7-14
Psalm 84
Ephesians 1: 3-6, 15-19a
Matthew 2: 1-12

The Rev. Robbin Clark

It’s as hard to keep the twelve days of Christmas, as it is to keep all fifty days of Eastertide. At least, I find it so. Maybe it’s because we’ve had all that bombardment beforehand, to the point where we’re pretty well done with it by the time the gifts are opened on the 25th. Then, there’s also the New Year thing – out with the hold, in with the new; new calendars and resolutions; time to take stock and move on, make a fresh start. Not to mention the shortage of gospel texts for the season – we read the whole Lukan narrative on the day itself and heard John’s magnificent meditation on the incarnation last Sunday. Today we had the choice of borrowing the Gospel from Epiphany or going even further afield with the flight into Egypt or the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus staying behind in the Temple to talk theology with the teachers there. At least with the three kings, we’re still connected to the manger scene.

Actually, my favorite of our readings for this Sunday is the Jeremiah text. What a joyous and inclusive message. How appropriate for the season wherein God gathers into one things earthly and heavenly by the birth of the Holy Child of Bethlehem. It doesn’t matter who or where you are, you get to come whether you are weeping or dancing, you get to come. Whatever has gone on up to now, you get to come.

Today’s collect sounds the same theme – God the Creator is God the Restorer of our nature and dignity. We get to share the divine life because Jesus humbled himself to share our human life. That’s pretty great news. But the reason it's such great news has to do with the notes of return and restoration that are sounded amid the rejoicing. If we had maintained the dignity with which we were so wonderfully created, we would not have needed to have it yet more wonderfully restored by Jesus. And if God’s people had stayed close to each other and to God over all those centuries, they would not need to be gathered back and restored.

But listen again to what Jeremiah is told to say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd and flock.” God is both in the scattering and in the gathering. It’s kind of a rhythm, almost like breathing. And it works on so many levels. We experience the dynamic every week as we gather for worship and are sent forth in ministry. And that reflects the dynamic Jesus set up with his disciples. He called them and gathered them to himself so he could teach and inspire them and then send them out, or scatter them, as apostles on a mission. And what was the mission? To gather more folks to teach and inspire so that they in their turn could be sent out.

You see the pattern. It is almost respiratory in its regularity. We breathe in to receive the oxygen we need to live and we breathe out to discharge CO2 and also to make room for another breath in. In a way, our whole lives are like that. We take in all the input, the information, sensations and impressions from the world that shapes us and makes us who we are. Then we put forth in our words and deeds what we have done with all that we have taken in. A similar thing happens with our relationship with God, in our prayer and spiritual life. For it to work well and grow, we need to maintain a balance between the intake, the in-breath as it were, when we wait quietly upon the Lord, open and ready to hear and be led, and the out-breath of our prayers of supplication, intercession, confession and, most importantly, praise and adoration. But there is another output as well. That is our ministry, what we show forth in word and deed because of what God has put in our hearts and souls.

This rhythm itself is a given of life, but in it we have many choices. And here is where the notions of restoration and return come into play. There really are two very different forms of scattering. There is that of expansion and exploration and extension. This is the positive sending forth and generous self-giving that is integral to living into the full statue of Christ. But there is also the negative scattering of alienation and breakdown and of fleeing or being driven out and apart. These are mostly grounded in our resistance and rebellion or willfulness in relation to God. But even these can be used by God, and none of them is ultimate. There is always the possibility of return and restoration. Whether we are talking about the loss of Eden or the Babylonian exile or the Prodigal Son or the disciples’ denial and dispersal around the crucifixion, the state of scatteredness and separation is not our destiny. Return and restoration, inclusion and joy are what we are meant for.

I believe this is integral to the message of Christmas and the bringing together of things earthly and things heavenly. We see it in today’s gospel in the coming of foreign sages to pay homage to the infant Jesus. They were not among those already gathered by God into the people of the Covenant. They were not party to the prophets’ predictions. But God’s proclamation of restoration was written across the heavens for all. They saw the star and came seeking. They found the child and were moved to worship him and give him gifts. But they also encountered the malevolent power of Herod. The God who had given the star to guide their journey now gave them a warning dream not to be taken in by that power, but to continue their journey another way. They left with a new awareness and connection with the One, Holy and Living God, the wonderful creator of all things, who had in these experiences, come close to them. For me, they form the hinge between the seasons of Incarnation and Manifestation.

Because God has come close to us and offered a new and deeper connection to the Divine Self, we are called to show forth the face of God to the world at large. To use the prophet’s analogy, we who have been gathered by God incarnate must now scatter, in the best sense, the vision of the oneness of God and of all creation to all with whom we come in contact. As I wrote in my January Lion letter, the Epiphany task is to know Christ and to make Christ known. God has made the first move in giving us the Savior. In grateful response, are to show God’s face to the world.

We are to do this both by the overt sharing of the Gospel of Christ and by clear signs of hospitality, inclusion, love and generosity which can be read by anyone, even as the Magi read the star in the heavens even though they had no access to the Law and the Prophets.
It is appropriate that we take this coming season to reflect on our relationship as Christians with those of other faiths. I hope you will join the Forum conversations, which begin next week. And it is equally fitting that Epiphany sees us offering food and shelter to those in need, a clear demonstration of God’s love for all. In conjunction with the new year, we can also examine the “breath” pattern of our lives – how we balance giving and receiving, community and solitude, learning and teaching – all our scatterings and gatherings.

The Magi were transformed by their encounter with the infant Christ. I pray that we, also, have been transformed by our celebration of the Incarnation, and that we go forth from it on a new and better road. And may the God who has gathered into one things earthly and heavenly, go before you on the way of restoration, return and rejoicing in the year ahead.

© copyright 2009 by Rev. Robbin Clark

December 28, 2008

First Sunday After Christmas, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Isaiah 61: 10–62: 3
Psalm 147: 13-21
Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

The Rev. Owen Thomas

Almighty God, to all your people give your heavenly grace, and especially to this congregation here present; that with meek heart and due reverence, they may hear and receive your holy Word, truly serving you in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The author of the Fourth Gospel offers the preacher many gifts. Think of these sayings of Jesus:

The one who has seen me has seen the Father
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
I am the vine and you are the branches.

Now Jesus may or may not have actually said these words which were written toward the end of the first century.

But in any case they are inspired interpretations of Jesus.

And all the four gospels are inspired portraits of Jesus.

Some are more realistic such as Mark, and others are more impressionistic,
such as John.

Now portraits are quite different from photographs. Photographs depict a person exactly as he or she appeared at one point in time. A portraits, on the other hand, is an interpretation of the subject which gathers all the important aspects of a whole life. That is why portraits will never go out of style and be replaced by  photographs.

So let us look again at this great portrait of Jesus in the Gospel reading, the greatest gift of the author to the preacher.

“In the beginning …”

The author is recalling the first verse of the Bible in Genesis: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.” That is, the author is warning us that he is not just speaking of the history of Jesus or of the people of Israel, but rather is going to the foundation of all reality.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the word was God.” that is, the Word of God.

And because the author of this gospel is addressing a Greek speaking audience, he uses the Greek word Logos, which to the hearers means not only word or reason but rather the universal order of all things, the rational principle of all reality.

The Gospel continues: “All things came into being through him,” that is, through the Word of God.

As it is put in Genesis, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” That is the Word of God in action.

So the Word of God mediates all the actions of God, beginning with the creation, down to the preaching of the prophets of Israel, who announce “Thus says the Lord….”

And to the Apostles who also preached the Word of God

The Gospel continues: “In him, (the Word of God) was Life, and the Life was the light of all people.”

Life is the goal of the cosmic process, and God is life itself.

So the author speaks of the living God who knows and acts, and opens the divine reality to us, and whose Word is Life, true Life.

“And the life was the light of all people,” the source of meaning in their lives, and the source of true life of all people, although they may not know this.

This is the Word of God that was spoken by the prophets, who foresaw one coming, a son of David, who would open the kingdom of God to all people.

Finally, “The word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.”

That is, this Word of God who is God and Light and Life itself, was shown to the world in the life of a human being, Jesus of Nazareth.

This means that in and through Jesus the Word of God incarnate, the eternal and transcendent God knows and experiences through the life of Jesus the beauty of children and of the flowers of the field, and of kindness and love and justice and peace.

But this was an offense to his Gentile hearers, literally a scandal or a stumbling block.

Why? Because the divine beings of the Hellenistic world of the first century did not lower themselves to become involved in the natural, organic world of bodies and all their messiness.
But the Gospel insists, nevertheless, that the Word of God became flesh.

This is why William Temple the most distinguished Archbishop of Canterbury of the last millennium once stated that Christianity “is the most avowedly materialist of all the great religions. …Its most central saying is: ‘The Word was made flesh,’ where the last term was, no doubt, chosen because of its specially materialist associations.”

Now, besides the prophets and apostles, where else have we heard of the Word of God?
Three weeks ago I was one of the presenters at the ordination of deacons and priests in Grace Cathedral.

In these services the ordinand takes an oath: “I solemnly declare that I believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God. …”

And then when the bishop presents a Bible to each ordinand, the bishop declares “Receive this Bible as a sign of the authority given you to preach the Word of God …”

So the Bible and preaching are also the Word of God.

Finally, in Article 19 on the Church in the Articles of Religion on page 871 in the back of the Prayer Book, it is stated: “The  visible Church of Christ is a congregation of  faithful people in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered.”

So where the pure Word of God is not preached, then presumably, that congregation ceases to be a member of the Church of Christ.  

An Anglican priest in the 18th century, one John Wesley by name, was appalled at this Article, and he took it very seriously, and transformed the church through his preaching.

So preaching is the declaration of the Word of God in the same sense that the prophets of Israel and the Christian Apostles were called to preach the Word of God.\

In the earliest book in the New Testament written about the year 50, Paul states “We constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word.” (1Thess 2:13)

Jesus also taught his followers, “The one who hears you hears me.”

And it is not so surprising that the personal God should reveal God’s self to humans through his Word in the words of preachers.

This is the way we reveal ourselves to other people, through words of greeting, words of care, words of need, words of love.

As St. Paul writes, “How are they to call on one whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?

And how are they to proclaim unless they are sent? … So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:14-17) who is the Word of God.

So preaching can be a real Word of God for you if it is a faithful interpretation of the testimony of the prophets and apostles which is the original Word of God.

And for this reason it is appropriate that preaching and the hearing of preaching should be entered into with some fear and trembling and seriousness.

It is an awesome thought for both preachers and hearers that God uses the human words of preachers as God’s saving approach to the hearers.

As Paul puts it, “Since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.” (1 Cor 1:21)
This is the divine foolishness of which Paul speaks, preaching can save.

And preaching requires hearing, concentration and reflection, and the expectancy based on our trust that the word of the preacher can become the word of God for you.

It is probably easier and also enjoyable to talk than to listen, and it is harder really to listen.

So I suggest you listen carefully as I proceed.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us …full of grace and truth.” This is the Word of God which is God incarnate in Jesus.

So if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus as he is presented in the gospels and letters of the New Testament.

These writings declare that Jesus loved the people he met, and taught, and healed.

And they also declare that Jesus’ love for these people was identical with God’s love for these same people, because Jesus was the Word of God incarnate, the love of God incarnate.

And Jesus’ love includes you and me as well, in all our pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice, and lechery, to use the old language for the seven deadly sins.

And all this, of course, is also mixed in with fragments of faith, hope, love joy, and peace as well.

Karl Barth, the most influential Swiss theologian of the last century wrote a massive dogmatic theology of thirteen volumes amounting to about ten thousand pages.

And the first two introductory volumes are entitled “The Doctrine of the Word of God.”

He writes of the Word of God revealed, incarnate, written, and preached.

It took him almost 1500 pages to explain it because it was essence of  Christian faith and the foundation of his theology.

Barth came to the United States several years ago to give some lectures.

After one of these lectures a reporter asked him how he would sum up his theology, and he paused for a moment and then responded “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

The reporter looked at him wondering if he was joking.

He wasn’t. That was Barth’s theology, a summary of the meaning of the Word of God.
In his own words, “The Word of God incarnate loves me; this I know, for the Word of God written tells me so.”

Yes, the Christian gospel is that simple, and also that profound.
God knows us and loves us as we are, full of the seven deadly sins plus some of the theological virtues.

That sounds too good to be true, but in Christianity the highest good is always the highest truth.

And the word of the preacher which is the real presence of Christ in human words leads to and is fulfilled in the sacrament of the altar, which is  the real presence of Christ in the broken bread and the poured wine.

As St. Augustine put it in one of his sermons, The sacrament is a visible word made flesh.
And in eucharist to God, that is, in thanksgiving to God we are called to respond to God’s presence in word and sacrament by opening our hearts and minds to God’s love and by passing it on in the many ways available to us, to those near and far who need it the most.

Let us pray: O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send you Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ.   

© copyright 2008 by Rev. Owen Thomas

December 25, 2008

Christmas

2 Samuel 7: 1-11, 16
Psalm 89: 1-4, 19-26
Romans 16: 25-27
Luke 1: 26-38

The Rev. Robbin Clark

Mary treasured the words of the shepherds, and I treasure the words of St. Luke, who has given us this marvelous story. Every time I hear them, they release something deep inside me. Some tight know loosens. It’s like a lovely long exhale after holding your breath. This whole service is a bit like that for me, and I hope it may be for you, as well. For this is the moment I feel released from the frenzy of preparation into the longed-for peace and conviviality of the season. My sympathies are with those of you who will go home to wrestle with the wrapping paper and assembly instructions and the unexpected discovery that “batteries are not included.”

And I treasure this service for those whom it brings together on this holy night – The visitors and the regulars; the alumni acolytes, home from college and serving again at the altar; the families gathered, and those on their own for whom this is their family gathering. Bless you all, and a warm welcome to St. Mark’s. And thank you for helping make my Christmas.

It’s actually taken some time for me to catch the Christmas spirit this year. I’m not sure why. Certainly it isn’t for lack of signs of the season all around me. The stores jumped on it even before Halloween was over and the outdoor displays have proliferated as December has worn on. I think of outdoor decorations as sort of bumper stickers for your yard. They proclaim a message about what the season means to you. Of course, being an abstainer from bumper stickers myself, and an exterior decoration minimalist, I fully understand that deep meaning is not always displayed publically.

But I do enjoy indulging in a little ‘driver’s seat psychology’ as I view the displays around town. What’s it all about for these folks? There’s the massively lit-up house on Spruce that is stunning not only for its excess, but for it’s eclecticism. A full manger scene, complete with star, angels, shepherds, and sheep as well as wise men and camels, shares the space with reindeer and sleigh on the roof and Santa poking out the chimney. Every bush is blanketed with lights. There are even a Nutcracker and Little Drummer Boy in the front window. Of a more restrained aesthetic is a set of primarily blue lights on Vine with just enough other color to remind me of the stained glass of Sainte Chapelle in Paris or the Chapel of Grace Cathedral. And don’t forget the huge word “Hope” in lights that appeared in a pine tree in North Berkeley in October and will remain through January 20. There’s one place that is rather disconcerting in the daytime. A bevy of inflatable Snowmen and Santa and elves figures are only turned on at night, so they look like the scene of a massive slasher attack all day. But the one that has given me the most pause this year is the inflatable Sponge-Bob-Square-Pants in the Santa hat on a surfboard on Ashby. I have to wonder, what does that have to do with Christmas? So, what does the season mean for all these people? The answer overall can only be, a great variety of things.

I recall George’s effort some years ago to buy Christmas stamps. After being offered Snowmen, then Kwanzaa, then Hanukah, then Eid stamps, when all he wanted was Mary and Jesus, he plaintively requested some “Christian” Christmas stamps. It is clear that the term “Christmas” has come to embrace a whole huge cultural and commercial entity, also known as “the Holiday Season” and has even gobbled up other religious/ethnic celebrations. It might seem that it has totally lifted off from its theological roots, but I think it is more complex than that.

As we know, the central tenet of the Christian faith is the Paschal Mystery, Jesus’ dying and rising to open for us the gates of eternal life. And its great festival, Easter, is located seasonally by its proximity to the Jewish Passover. Our next greatest tenet, the Incarnation, God coming among us in Jesus to live a real human life, which is the heart of our present celebration, had no such seasonal anchor. And that’s a problem for a birthday. We all know that birthdays happen on a certain day, and are celebrated on the same day year after year. Sometime in the late 4th century, the celebration of Jesus’ birth coalesced around late December/early January, and it found its festive dress in the practices of the non-Christian cultures to which it spread. December 25 already happened to be the Roman feast of Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun.

Light in darkness is a powerful natural symbol and, from ancient times, cultures have offered thanks for the extension of daylight after the winter solstice. These are times of social gathering and of warm festivities for family and community. Such celebrations paired well with Christian joy at Messiah’s birth, and their accoutrements (wreaths and trees and candles and the like) were welcomed into the observance of the Feast of the Nativity. And the borrowing has gone both ways. Even the seemingly secular Santa started out as the saintly Bishop Nicholas of Myra. So, to those who would insist, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” I would have to say, “Not entirely.”

That leave us with the important spiritual and theological task of working out for ourselves what the season, and the Feast of the Incarnation in particular, means to each of us. As we can see from the yard displays, the retail extravaganza, the songs (both secular and sacred), the prevalence of parties, the charitable drives, the family stress, you name it, there’s a smorgasbord of answers out there to choose from. And this year carries its own particular freight of political transition, economic crisis, drought and climate change, and ongoing wars around the world.

I believe the meaning of Christmas, and I’m using that word in an intentionally encompassing sense, dwells in the innately natural and human as well as in the coming of God among us in Jesus’ birth. The One, Holy and Living God is the source of all life and creator of all that is. We can read God’s meaning in every line of nature and in every nuance of relationship as surely, if not as specifically, as we do in the lines of scripture. Likewise, the story we hear tonight is not just for Christians. It opens up for us great themes of life – the plight of displaced persons, the machinations of government, the inclusion of the outcast, the persistence of life and hope in difficult circumstances, the kindness of strangers, and oh, so much-more. It’s all there if we get into it and let it get into us- into our hearts and take root there. And it all sheds light on God’s purposes and presence and even God’s vulnerability.

However we understand the ways of God and even if we are wont to dismiss our God-thoughts as soon as they arise, we can celebrate this festival. There is something absolutely primal about this yearly return of light and warmth and the renewal of human identity in a birth. It is our nature to be beings in relationship. For we are most basically meant to be givers and receivers of love and caring and also vessels of hope and believers in the promise of new life ahead. For far too much of the year we let our time, energy and resources be sucked up and driven by what are, essentially, derivative concerns. We worry, we strive, we push ourselves forward. We magnify our hurts and needs and too easily ignore our blessings. The Christmas season and, most importantly, the Christmas story offers respite and release from all that. The tight knot loosens. We take a long breath. The frenzy retreats for a bit, maybe longer if we keep breathing and don’t tighten up again. Perhaps we can connect with that elusive sense of peace we all seek.

Jesus is not called “Prince of Peace” for nothing. He comes to show us the way of peace – peace with ourselves, peace with God, peace with each other, peace among nations and tribes, peace among religions, peace with all creation. Every authentic spiritual path seeks the peace that comes from right relationship, shalom salaam. As Christians, we know that peace in knowing Christ, and not just as a slumbering infant. We have seen it lived by Jesus who, in the ultimate act of peace-making, bridges the gap between earth and heaven and swallows up death in life. To be sure, it is not peace as the world gives. It is far more profound and lasting than that. It is a peace that releases and breathes. It is the peace of compassionate giving and grateful receiving. It is a peace that celebrates diversity and does not denigrate difference, but rather seeks common values and purpose and builds from there. It is a peace found in justice and in awe and wonder. It is a peace that can never be separated from love. All this is the peace of Christmas. I wish it for each of us and for the whole world, in this holy season, and always.

© copyright 2008 by Rev. Robbin Clark

December 21, 2008

The Fourth Sunday of Advent, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

2 Samuel 7: 1-11, 16
Psalm 89: 1-4, 19-26
Romans 16: 25-27
Luke 1: 26-38

The Rev. Robbin Clark

The voice of Mildred Geiger still rings in my ear when I try to imagine this scene from Luke’s gospel. “And what would a holy girl like Mary have been doing when God’s angel came to visit her? Why, praying, of course!” And so she was each year in Mrs. Geiger’s children’s Christmas pageant at St. Mark’s Church, Mt. Kisco, N.Y., where I grew up. Mrs. Geiger was a formidable figure, the perennial director, not only of the Christmas pageant, but also of the theatrical endeavors of the adult St. Mark’s Players, for whom my mother was a frequent leading lady.

The pageant was a series of tableaux vivants, interspersed with hymns and narration. Kindergarteners were crib cherubs. The fourth graders were the rank-and-file shepherds and angels. The seventh graders played the main roles. Mrs. Geiger’s directional concept owed far more to Renaissance art and silent movies than it did to an historical critical study of scripture. And in that it had much in common with Christmas pageants all over the church, then and now.

From my days as a crib cherub, I longed to play the part of Mary. Year after year, I’d practice in my room so that, when it came my turn to try out, I would have mastered every nuance of the part. The tryout scene was the one we’ve just heard, the annunciation. I had it cold. But my yearned-for day of triumph became a day of despair, and an early lesson in the way of the world. The part went to Elaine Bishop, a china-doll blonde who had, at twelve, shall we say, already begun to “develop”, and looked far more like those Renaissance paintings that I could ever hope to. There was no place in Mrs. Geiger’s pageant for a scrawny, snub-nosed, freckle-faced kid-Mary.

I was forcibly and hilariously reminded of my early thespian trials by the marvelous reading last Sunday afternoon of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Barbara Oliver brought alive that tale of chaos and poignancy that I had first encountered some thirty years ago right here at this St. Mark’s, read then by yet another formidable woman of the stage, Gabriella Shepherd. It is the story of the pristine pageant of my childhood run amok. All of the major parts are taken over by the un-churched, unruly and scandalously non-P.C. Herdman Family and played more like (gasp!) Middle-Eastern peasants than like aristocratic Renaissance figures.

Having never heard the story, they are not immune to its power and have had no chance to consign it to the soft-focus romantic notions of so much of Christian piety, art and music. They are genuinely shocked at the incongruities and the injustices and they’re ready to stomp right in and do something about them. It’s a real wake-up call for all the other participants and even the congregation, who can’t help pronouncing it “the best Christmas pageant ever.”
But to get back to this particular scene, it’s hard not to romanticize something so pivotal, yet so blatantly non-historic.  But whatever Mary may or may not have been doing at the time, it’s safe to assume she did not figure on this sort of intrusion into her day. By rights, we should place this scene alongside the great prophetic call stories of the Hebrew Scriptures and the experience of St. Paul on the Damascus road. But, it’s about a girl, and there’s that delicate matter of unwed motherhood. And, of course, there is all that art.

Yet, it does have all the elements of a classic call story: surprise, fear, remonstrance (not me, you must have the wrong person), curiosity and eventually, acceptance. It holds its own alongside Moses at the burning bush, Isaiah’s vision of Seraphim in the Temple and the boy Samuel’s midnight summons. But, unlike Samuel, who had the elderly Eli to coach him through his response, she is alone. And unlike all the prophets, she is being called, not just to speak the word of God, but to bear that very Word in her body and bring it to birth.  She doesn’t whine or lament as some did. Her questions are practical and her acquiescence complete. “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Sometimes it is said, “life is what happens when we are making other plans.” None who have opened themselves to God’s call, whether or not God has seized the opportunity as dramatically as with Mary, Paul or the prophets will find themselves going on just as before. A life directed by God always holds surprises for the one living it. Some of these surprises are welcome and some are not. Being led by God does not always, or even usually, make life smoother.  But it definitely makes life fuller and more real.

Now, given that most of us are unlikely to experience the knock-your-socks-off sort of call we’ve been considering, and given our propensity for rationalizing away or romanticizing and sentimentalizing our mysterious and troubling experiences, how are we to appropriate this story to ourselves?

I think the Herdman approach works here. Not being well-socialized church goers, they embraced the story with all the wonder and Wow! of a first hearing and dove right into it. They are the very antithesis of us Western Christians Archbishop Desmond Tutu once complained about, who have “been vaccinated with the Gospel to keep them from catching the real thing.” The Herdmans embraced the story and made it their own. And well they should, for it is their own. And it is our own as well. The religious art of every culture dresses the story in its own garb. That is why we have all those Renaissance Marys. And the black Christ, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the Mandarin Three Kings in the nativity I brought back from Hong Kong. It is our failing when we locate the story elsewhere than in our own time and place.

God’s call and challenge comes to some of the most unlikely folks. A shepherd boy becomes King David. A violent bigot turns into the apostle of inclusion. A peasant girl is Queen of Heaven. And God doesn’t just call long-ago-and far-away folks either. There are people in this parish who are hearing God’s call in their lives right now, and not only those who are considering ordination. And they are responding predictably: surprise (who, me? Why would you think of me for that?); confusion (I’m not sure what is happening, but I feel drawn…); questioning life direction and values; fear, as well (I’m not able, ready, qualified); remonstrance (I’m too busy, my priorities are elsewhere. Someone else would do a much better job.); curiosity (what’s involved? How do you think we could get that going? Would you back me on it?); and even acceptance (I think it’s the right time for me to say ‘yes’ to that. I want to help. Tell me what you need most. )

God doesn’t call just some people. God calls each us, but to various vocations. Each of us is called to the obedience of faith, but we will each show it in different ways. The church needs both the wisdom of  years and the freshness and energy of youth. She needs the creative and the practical, the experts and the willing hands, the actives and the contemplatives. The important thing is that we say “yes” to God’s call and place our unique and particular gifts in God’s service.

Dag Hammasjold, the great U.N. Secretary General, wrote in his journal, Markings, of his own “yes” to God and of his struggle to live in our in his own very public and political situation:

“What next? Why ask? Next will come a demand about which you already know all that you need to know – that its sole measure will be your own strength.” To which I want to add: and God’s grace and strength in you. Because, remember as Gabriel assured Mary; “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

© copyright 2008 by Rev. Robbin Clark

December 14, 2008

The Third Sunday of Advent, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11
Magnificat
Thessalonians 5: 16-24
John 1: 6-8, 19-28

The Rev. Robbin Clark

In keeping with the contrasts that are Advent, our days are darkening as our lessons are lightening up. Today we mark Gaudate Sunday and the watchword is “Rejoice!” Deeper hues have brightened to pink in honor of this “Rose Sunday” and some roses have even snuck in among the Advent greens. Soon we will be fully into the story of the Holy Family and the blessed birth at Bethlehem.

And that’s what we’re looking forward to, isn’t it? The coming of baby Jesus. Well, no. That has already happened. We remember it. And we do so in that particularly powerful way that we also celebrate the Eucharist. We make it real and present to and with us in our lives today. We reenact a past event to enter into it right now.  Our liturgical lives are lived, not in linear but in Kairotic time, time that is measured not in minutes but in moments, a great cycle of engagement with the acts which have wrought our salvation. In this, we are like our Jewish brothers and sisters. Each year they experience their delivery from slavery at Passover and the miracle of the sacred oil for the temple lamp at Hanukah. Each year we experience the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection at our Holy Week and Easter services and the birth of the Messiah as we celebrate Christmas. And each year, great care and effort go into our preparations for these occasions.  But they are not the preparation that Advent is about. We can’t prepare for the past. What we can prepare for are the ways God is coming to us and saving us right now and the ways God will continue to “come among us” and “speedily help and deliver us.” as we prayed in today’s collect, in the future. So how are we do to that?

In reflecting on our readings for today, I came up with “three R’s” to remind us. (I sense you saying to yourselves –assembling alliterations? “Ahh, the peculiar pleasures of preachers.” Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) In fact, there are a bunch of Advent R’s to choose from – Readiness, Redemption, Restoration, Righteousness, and I’m sure you could add others. The ones that commended themselves to me are Realism, Reversal and, of course on this Gaudate Sunday, Rejoicing.

“Rejoice always” is the lead exhortation by Paul to the Thessalonians, and by no means only to them. He says the same to the Philippians and to all of his converts and readers, though not always in so many words. His core message is one of blessing and hope, and of gratitude for God’s gracious gift of salvation through Jesus. His corresponding awareness, and the basis for his many exhortations about how to live, is the need for an appropriate response to such love and generosity. Hence all the “do this/don’t do that” passages. But the basic message is about what God has done and will continue to do for us. And this is ample reason for rejoicing.

And Paul is not the only one carrying this message. Isaiah, whose words of comfort we heard last Sunday is again stressing the good news of God, especially for those most in need of it. “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God.” Why? Because God blesses us with salvation and a righteousness not our own, and calls forth our praise and gladness and gratitude.

Mary’s great song, the Magnificat (paraphrased this morning), carries the same message as well. “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” Her emphasis is on God’s mercy and help and on the faithful fulfillment of God’s promises.
She and Isaiah also sound the note of my second “R”, Reversal. God is the one who can and will turn this disordered world upside down, setting it back to rights. The poor are fed, but the fat cats go away empty.  Mourners change their ashes for garlands. The proud and mighty are cast down and the lowly lifted up. What was devastated and ruined is rebuilt. Prisoners are released and the brokenhearted are bound up. And all this for the sake of justice, for redressing the balance of societies gone all a-tilt with inequity and oppression. It’s the same message we hear from Jesus in the Beatitudes.

The Advent significance of this message is that our ethical behavior, our seeking after justice and extending mercy and compassion, are integral to our preparation for the Lord’s coming, and also a sign of it. When we feed the hungry and shelter the homeless against the storm, we participate in the work of God. When we take time to attend to the child or the frail elder or the ill or the lonely, we bring Christ to them. And we reverse the inequities of the world. These are acts of salvation and they are the calling of all of us who have been blessed and saved by God’s grace. There is so much wrong in the world that we cannot fix, it is incumbent upon us to take whatever opportunities we can to do good.

This brings me to my third “R”, Realism. John is our standard-bearer here. Think of how we could have set himself up with all the “suits” from the head office- tooted his horn and claimed all sorts of power and privilege. He wouldn’t go there. When they asked, “Who are you?” his first response was to say who he was not. He disavowed all speculation that he was the long-awaited Messiah or a reincarnation of Elijah or of the unknown other prophet, also popularly held to be a Messianic forerunner. “I’m a voice, a reminder. I do what I can to be ready for God and to help others get ready as well.” Whoa. That sounds like our job description as Christians. The evangelist tells us that John came to bear witness to the light that was coming into the world, to help others believe, to prepare them to recognize and accept Jesus.

His humility, like Mary’s, is a crucial element of his witness. For neither of these pivotal figures was it all about them. Rather, they were grateful and felt blessed and privileged to be God’s instruments. Both of them rejoice to be part of God’s great reversal, but they are clear about the supporting part they play. We all would do well to follow their example. Our realism about ourselves – not thinking of ourselves too highly or too meanly; not aggregating to ourselves power that is God’s nor dismissing and disowning the power we have been given by the Spirit; not denying our real needs, nor redefining our appetites and wishes as needs – in short, our honesty, takes us a long way along the path of preparation. And such honesty is as much at the center of our vocation as is an attitude of rejoicing and commitment to the reversal of the inequities of our world. As we come into these last ten days of Advent, let us try not to think of them as a countdown. The spiritual climate of Advent is one that serves us well throughout the year. Its contrasts are always with us – light and dark, inwardness and activity, the already/not yet character of our salvation and sanctification and of Christ’s coming. Its themes of preparation, expectation and hope are meant to characterize our every season of the Spirit. Even my “three R’s” can be useful. Realism and honesty are never unimportant as tools to living faithfully. And we always need reminding that Reversal is a theme of God’s activity in the world and one in which we can participate, especially when it involves the dismantling of injustice or stopping the grim march of climate change or rampant consumerism. And, Rejoicing. We do too little of that. We prefer to complain or critique. But rejoicing is at the heart of our lives as people of faith. God is so good, and so good to us, sticking with us in the worst of times and blessing us beyond all deserving. If you remember nothing else, remember rejoicing. For that is the best way to welcome the savior.

© copyright 2008 by Rev. Robbin Clark

December 7, 2008

The Second Sunday of Advent, Rev. Common Lectionary Year B

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

The Rev. Ellen Ekström

Preparation, expectation and hope.  These are themes of Advent and who better to guide us through this mysterious and lovely season than John the Baptist?

 John is our Prologue to the story of Jesus.    In a time of uncertainty and turmoil, a man appears in the desert and calls to the people of Israel to turn their hearts and minds to God once again. Hope springs from this call, a sense of anticipation, excitement and the urge to take action along with it.  John is the echo of the prophecy of Second Isaiah, written for a people returning from exile, wary, humbled by their experience.  The prophet tells them that God has not abandoned them despite Israel’s history of degenerating into a wealthy nation that 'forgot' to exercise justice and charity towards the poor and oppressed.  The people of Israel believed they were being punished for this behavior when they lost power, control and autonomy to other nations.  “Prepare the way,” says the prophet Isaiah - turn your hearts and minds back to God.  

And so John, a prophet in his own right with a successful ministry and his own disciples, calls to his generation of Israel, and knows that his primary call is to prepare the way for the One to come, a man greater than he.  John is the last of the Hebrew scripture prophets to come out of the wilderness - a symbol of the time and place where Israel made its covenant with God.  And it is at the banks of the Jordan that a new covenant was about to be written, where John picked up where Jeremiah left off in preaching judgment at the end of an era and announcing a new covenant with God.  John called for a return to God and offered a baptism born of repentance and forgiveness, a renewal that prepared one for a baptism Christ would give with the Holy Spirit, the breath of eternal life.

Expectation, preparation, and hope are found in John’s words as he prepares the way for the ministry of Jesus.  We may look to his example in preparing to receive the transforming presence of Christ in our lives.  As Christians, believers of a merciful, loving and liberating God, we know that the very center of the Advent message is Jesus.  And it is Jesus’ arrival we prepare for and anticipate, and long.

The preparation of the way in our hearts and minds can take form and be undertaken in several ways - I’ll share a few.  Prayer, study, reflection, action.  If you are moved to pray the Office, once, twice, three times a day, four, by all means, take that step.  If you want to read scripture every day, start with one or two verses, reward yourself with a third - just do it.  Take a moment to reflect and think about the joys God affords, what love and goodness is offered, how the Word can challenge, delight, hold us in love unending and enduring.  And if you are compelled to help at Hot Meals, donate time and/or money to an organization that helps others help themselves, well done you, or give of your talent and spirit to someone sitting in the pews or standing in line at a bus stop, again I say, well done you! 

As we prepare, we wait, full of expectation.  Where once, as children, we marked off the days to Christmas by crossing a day off on our calendars or opening another door on the Advent calendar, rehearsed pageants, tossed and turned in our sleep on Christmas Eve wondering what we’d find under the tree, now we empty ourselves of the cares of day to day life and make room for Christ and his gift of eternal life.  Isn’t it interesting how that sense of expectation puts everything else in perspective?   How we discover what’s really important?

This season is often described as a season of hope - I’ll put it out there that every season is one of hope - but this time of the year is special.  We are reminded in John’s ministry in the desert and the birth of Christ that God is still with us, God is on the move yet again and brought about an act of salvation that freed humanity from the exile of sin.  In this season of shopping lists and getting and giving that perfect gift, don’t you think this is the very best gift of all?

© copyright 2008 by The Rev. Ellen Ekström

November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving Day

Deuteronomy 8:7-18
Psalm 65
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Luke 17:11-19

The Rev. Ellen Ekström

“The LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing.”

Thus said the LORD to the people of Israel, pilgrims in search of a promised land as they came from captivity - words that have echoed in the hearts and minds of others throughout history seeking the promise of a new life, and continue to this day, and on this particular day we remember the pilgrimage of religious dissidents to the new world and their struggle to survive despite the odds against it.  The 102 people that boarded the Mayflower and made the journey across the Atlantic didn’t know what to expect.  They left it up to God; perhaps these words from Deuteronomy were on their lips and in their hearts.

Sometime after the landing the Plymouth Colony was founded and, our primary school books told us, that the English settlers, later called Pilgrims, gave thanks to the Lord for delivering them into a good land and bestowing them with plenty.  They were strangers in a stranger land, outcasts, and God provided.

What do you do when someone is kind, generous, loving, generous or thoughtful, as God was?

You say thanks and you give thanks.

Perhaps you have been strangers in strange lands, at one time or another, seeking the brave new world where life would be turned around and every dawn promised possibility and hope.  I was, over thirty years ago.  I was invited to a Thanksgiving dinner in a strange city where I had no family and few acquaintances, but the desk clerk at the American boarding house where I lived invited me to her home for the holiday.  The overwhelming sensation of belonging, of love, filled me that day.  The clerk, who later became a dear friend, laughed and kept telling me, “Stop thanking us!  It’s what anyone would do!”

Well, not everyone - but it’s something Christ would want us to do.  Along with the bounty of food, He would expect us to bring love to the table along with the turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and offer thanks for what is given to us and for being welcomed into the greatest family of all, the family of creation.  Out of that, abiding love and generosity just might grow.

This afternoon, or evening, when we join our families and friends at our Thanksgiving tables, when you and I gather in Hodgkin Hall, we will literally break bread, and we will feast on love and give thanks.  And not just on this holiday, but every day, when we gather together.  The fellowship of this table brings Christ into those circles of friends and loved ones and the redemptive love He brings feeds us, loves us and supports us and we are thankful for it.

On this day of feasting, I’ll offer a prayer called “Brigid’s Feast”:

I should like a great lake of finest ale for the King of Kings;
I should like a table of the choicest food for the family of heaven.
Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith,
And the food be forgiving love.
I should welcome the poor to my feast, for they are God’s Children.
I should welcome the sick to my feast, for they are God’s joy.
Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place,
And the sick dance with the angels.
God bless the poor, God bless the sick,
And bless our human race.
God bless our food, God bless our drink,
All homes, O God, embrace.
Amen.

© copyright 2008 by The Rev. Ellen Ekström