Sunday, September 4, 2016

Sermon at Emmanuel, Mercer Island, Sept. 4

I have to tell you about an interesting incident of synchronicity
                        that happened last Monday.
I was out walking my dog,
                        when we passed a recycle dumpster out by the curb,
            and there on the ground propped up against it was a book.
The title stood out clearly: Go Into the City

That struck a bell.
Those were the words spoken to Saul on the road to Damascus
                        in the dramatic vision of the Resurrected Jesus
            turning reality on its head for this rabid terrorist of the early Church.
“Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told you what you must do.”

So, of course, I leaned over and picked it up.

What I had in my hands was a book published in 1986,
            but looking like it had never been opened; it was in pristine condition.

Go Into the City, Sermons for a Strenuous Age, by John Compton Leffler

John Leffler, some of you may know, was the dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral
                                    for 20 year back in the last century.
In the 70’s I had been a student at the Diocesan School of Theology
            and had taken his homiletics course for which I wrote my first sermons.

Dean Leffler was known for his sermons
            which were clear and accessible to the listeners.
His intention was to awaken each person in the congregation
            to a realization of our true destiny
                                                as a people created in the likeness and image of God.
The focus of his sermons was often on current issues of social justice and action
            such as his opposition to the Viet Nam war.
He was not hesitant to express uncomfortable truths.

What made this serendipitous find stand out for me
            was that I had just been thinking about the next Sunday’s sermon.
So naturally I kept the book and have been reading these sermons from my teacher,
            whom I remember as being somewhat Yoda-like in appearance.

Here are a couple of gems from his sermons that seem to me apropos for us here:

“Nothing kills religious worship so quickly as monotony.
Nothing stifles religion’s vitality so completely as being poured into a narrow mold.”

Pointing to 1 Corinthians 12, the passage about the variety of gifts but one Spirit,
he wrote, “That is what makes a church vital –
            when each man and woman, boy and girl,
            contributes of his God-given ability to the achievement of the common goal.”
and this which goes with it:
            “What he (the Apostle Paul) … object[ed] to was the easy assumption
            that the church existed primarily as a background
            for the peculiar talents of its leaders.”
He then referred to a saying I hadn’t heard since childhood:
            “Let George do it.”                        Anybody remember that saying?

Let George do it, meaning hand off responsibility to …
            the rector, the senior warden, whoever else was active in the congregation.

Do you suppose there might be a synchronistic connection for us
            between that particular book propped up by the dumpster
            and this moment in the transition process for this congregation?

We could do some mulling over about whether our mold for worship,             personal and corporate, our relationship with God, is too narrow.
We are reminded of the role each of us here
            has in the life of the whole congregation
                        for fulfilling both our own personal and our community purpose.

And we are warned that the church doesn’t exist as a backdrop
            for exhibiting the next talented and charismatic rector
                        who will stand out in the larger community.
Don’t expect the next rector at Emmanuel to be “George.”

And we can’t just use this time right now in the life of the parish
            to have the attitude of  “Let Allan do it.”  God bless our Senior Warden!

I say all of that so that I can ease into the Gospel for today,
            a passage which is difficult to hear, but just can’t be avoided.

Jesus looked at the large crowds traveling with him and said,
 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother,
            wife and children, brothers and sisters,
            yes, and even life itself,                                    cannot be my disciple.”

It’s not like we can take a pass on these words of Jesus.
             They appear in all four Gospels at least eight times.
That repetition indicates
            “This is important.  Pay attention.”

My religious order, the Third Order, Society of St. Francis,
            places these words at the very first of our rule and principles.
“Those who love their life lose it,
            and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me
            is not able to be my disciple.”
“…none of you is able to become my disciple
            if you do not give up all your possessions.”
This is a message from Jesus that we don’t want to hear.

If we take his words seriously, then it sure looks like Jesus is asking too much.
Does he really mean for us to hate father and mother,
spouse and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself?

Let me ask a different question:  Do we all live in love and harmony?
            No!                       
There is no evidence in history of people living in love and harmony
            for more than the briefest period of time
                        before war breaks out, one war after another.
Even more difficult is just living together in families. 
Have you noticed, parents,
            how children start fighting with their siblings from very early on.
The hate is already there, mixed certainly with actual love,
            but how many of you parents can recall some time during raising those kids,
                        that they yelled, “I hate you,”
            if only out of their frustration at not getting their own way.

So we bear our own cross, the wounds of life that have killing effect on us,
            all those crisis points
and here we are like the great multitudes following Jesus,
            showing up here in church.

Why would somebody follow Jesus?
Because there is a natural liberation about him.
            You follow Jesus because everything else starts dropping away.
This is what has been happening in our lives already,
                as we have been drug through these crises and difficulties and woundings.

We’ve been coming here to church for awhile.
We are already in this process
            where our values and attachments are being shifted.
There is a presence and a love that you have to admit.

Jesus, in this Gospel passage today, is saying,
            I’ll pull you through all this,                    
                        and I can pull your family through too.
Yes, count the cost.  It will touch all your attachments.

Don’t you know that your attachment to life
            is actually attachment to the fear of death.
But follow Jesus and you  will know freedom.

Why would we follow Jesus and trust these words which confront our sensibilities?
Here’s what I know:
            Jesus is the light of the world. 
            His whole being, so much more than his words even, radiate love. 
This love enlivens every encounter people have with Jesus,
                        even when he confronts them,
            because it is for the purpose of awakening them
            into the truth of their potential that they are ignoring. 

In each of us is light lost in our self enclosed darkness. 
That light is our life and freedom. 
It is how salvation can get expressed in us. 
The expression of the light in each of us in relationship to each other   is love.

Our capacity as beings is to come to full recognition of self
            as a harmony of all the rays of God’s radiant light, love and wholeness                                     so that love may be realized without condition in the world. 
This is your capacity, truth and purpose for being.

The mindset of the world distorts and obscures this divine radiance. 
The mind of the world lives in ignorance of this light
            through unconscious and impoverished thievery           
                        substituting counterfeit, artificial light in the form of gratification
                                    which entertains us without enlightening.

So here’s an idea:
Simply giving attention to Jesus sacrifices the mind of the world. 
In the act of turning attention to Jesus,
            freedom opens immediately in the revelation of light.
Jesus does that in our lives.
            Let him work.
                        Can you dig it?