Sermon for 13 Pentecost 8/26/2012 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

(From the Epistle…)

Pray also for me, so that when I speak,

a message may be given to me

to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. Amen.

The world is a mess.                                    Well, let’s be more specific.

The human community is a mess.

            Environmental scientists might tell us

                        that if humans were to disappear from the planet

                        the earth would get along just fine without us

                        and in many ways improve and heal itself.

So what is the problem?

It’s the way we humans live with each other.

            We don’t do that at all well.

We have invented governments and laws

            to regulate and safeguard ourselves from each other.

But millennia of history indicates

            that those who are the strongest, who have the most power,

                        the most wealth and the most weapons and resources,

            are those who make the rules.

Despite lofty and well meaning ideals

                        about inalienable rights and well being for all,

            the prime motivating factor for how we do things is self-interest.

This self-interest, propelled by fear and belief in scarcity, drives greed.

Put 7 billion people together on one island planet

            and we see conflict, war and violence

            fueled by fractionalization along

                                    ethnic, religious, ideological, political and economic lines.

Fear becomes palpable all around us.

Who know where violence will erupt –

            in a coffee shop, a school campus, a movie theater or on a city street.

And lines are drawn between the entitled and the alien, the stranger,

            the other who is different,

            to whom it is easy to attribute our problems,

            whom we can demonize.

The madness of the culture we live in ! –

We intensify the problems using instantaneous communication technology,

            whether it is a YouTube video of the violent suppression

                        of a demonstration half way around the world,

            or a Facebook or Twitter posting of a volatile political statement here

                        that goes viral,

we are impacted, bombarded by, overwhelmed with

                                    massive numbers of messages

                        that diminish, demean, devalue, squelch and kill life.

The effects of this is seen currently

            in how we are carrying out the election process.

Daily, even hourly, we are barraged with political messages without end.

With a certain amount of creeping cynicism

            I observe the claims of truth,

            claims of truth that conflict with each other,

                        rendering of little value statements of authentic truth

                                    when they do show up.

Authentic truth – now there’s a tautology that is a commentary on our culture!

We are engulfed in a political process characterized by struggle for power,

for legitimized control,

            fueled by huge amounts of money

            that drown out the voices crying for campaign finance reform.

The values and priorities of this are revealed as

            no compromise, win at all costs,

            take care of self interests first,

            take what power you can,

            exploitation, xenophobia,

            deception,

            especially mastery of lifting words out of context and applying spin,

            greed, and the shiny idol that promises security and happiness - money.

It’s nasty out there right now.                        This culture is a present darkness.

            It’s not that there is a specific enemy to be fought.

Rather it’s more like that famous line from the old Pogo comic strip:

            “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

I don’t know how we are able to walk around upright under the weight of it all.

This is the culture we live in,

            the emotional, mental and spiritual inheritance of our human community

                        that we are raising our children in.

If it sounds like I am speaking on the cosmic level,

            you’re right.  As it says in today’s epistle reading,

“Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh,

            but against the rulers, against the authorities,

            against the cosmic powers of this present darkness,

            against the spiritual forces of evil in high places.”

It was essentially a very similar cultural climate

that Paul, or the writer of the letter to the Ephesians,

            saw his present culture, the culture the people of Ephesus lived in,

            in the same way –

            a spiritually dangerous environment

            ready to gobble up the fairly new community of faith

            trying to live in this new way of being in Christ

            and finding themselves totally out of step with their culture,

                        their old way of life.

He writes to the Christians in Ephesus:              What is at stake is YOU!

            “Put on the armor of God.”

Putting on the armor is the calling forth of power.

            Strength is needed,            and that strength has to come from God.

But get this:

            The armor of God is not yours, but God’s.            It is a spiritual gifting.

AND you no longer belong to or are in the world.

You now belong to Jesus, and are not slaves of the world culture.

The world is a helpless wreck,

but Paul tells the Ephesians,

            You’ve got it all,

            but you don’t fully realize what you’ve got.

If you are clear in the fullness of the Spirit,

            then you will see the death that this culture,

                                    this way of being a human community is.

“Put on the whole armor of God” is a way of saying

            realize that you have been given the whole armor of God,

            so apply it, make use of it.

“Take up the whole armor of God,

            so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day,

            and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand therefore,             and fasten the belt of truth around your waist,

            - truth, reality, your core grounding, integration and coherence -

and put on the breastplate of righteousness           

-       the breastplate to protect the heart, the center of being, the seat of motivation and commitment

-       of righteousness, right relationship with God through the Spirit,       

      the source of the strength of God given through the Holy Spirit –

having the feet shod with readiness of the gospel of peace

-       to work in peace, as harmless, non-violent,

-       with freedom from self-hatred and hatred of the other –

-       and that peace, the utterly untroubled fullness of the presence of God where everything is profoundly all right

With all of these, take the shield of faith,

            the faith of Jesus that he has implanted in us,

the shield of faith

with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

-       faith is a reality claim

-       so that there will be strength to face without fear the flaming arrows that are particularly deadly.

The helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

All the pieces of armor are protective in their functions,

            but there is only one weapon:

                        the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

not our words, but the voice of the Spirit of God

                        that guides and directs us into the way of life.

The advice to the faith community here,

                        the spiritual counsel, the words of hope and words of life,

are “Put on,” clothe yourselves, take upon yourselves

            what has been given you.

You don’t have to make the armor, just pick it up and put it on.

You don’t have to conjure up for yourself

                                    truth, righteousness, peace, faith and salvation.

It is God’s armor, God-generated and God-gifted.

If this doesn’t compute with you about putting on,

            then take the approach from the Gospel lesson.

Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood

                        abide in me, and I in them.”

Jesus said, “Eat me!”            Take me into yourselves.

            This life is my life, and you have come from me.

Internalize this!

External putting on or internal eating – take your pick.

            Either way, what will connect with you.

The point is here, at the heart of our faith, is what it takes

            to stand in the face of spiritual evil engulfing human culture

            and to quench all the flaming arrows.

Consider this: the armor of God is the same as the Fruit of the Spirit

            listed in Galatians 5.

Notice the parallels.

            The characteristics or the attributes of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit

being cultivated in us are these:

            love, joy, peace, endurance, kindness,

            goodness, faith, non-violence, and self-control.

To live out of this as our reality claim

            is to be counter-cultural in the most profound and life-giving way.

If we live this out with each other            and among our neighbors,

            we will be a bright light

                        burning a hole in the cosmic powers of this present darkness.

The world is a mess.

We are all at stake,

            but we have been given everything needed to stand.

                        Realize it!

Sermon for Easter 7, 5/20/2012, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Here we are in a liturgical in between time -

            after the Ascension, celebrated this last Thursday,

            and before Pentecost, next Sunday,

yet still being in the Easter Season.

The Ascension is placed liturgically 40 days after the Resurrection

            following what Luke the Evangelist wrote in Acts 1.

40 days is a significant, representative  number,

the number of fullness, completion.

The 40 days of appearances of the Risen Christ

indicate a fullness of resurrection witness.

Then with the Ascension as a demarcation, a dividing point,

we are faced with a profound change –

the Risen Christ no longer physically present

so that instead the Risen Christ would be present in us through the HS.

But here in this novena of days in between Ascension and Pentecost

            is the opportunity for personal and community reflection

                        on Resurrection

                        and on new appearances of the Risen Christ to each of us

                                     intimately in and through the Holy Spirit.

So let’s explore Ascension and look at it a bit more closely.

The event of the Ascension marks a distinct break

between the physical appearances of Jesus

and a whole new way for the Resurrection Jesus to appear.

We could say that the Ascension puts closure

on the old familiar way of looking at Jesus.

The disciples had spent a lot of time with their Teacher,

living very closely with him,

listening to his teachings,

witnessing his actions,

being sent out to try all this out themselves

and coming back to him for reflection on their experiences in ministry,

and then seeing it all come to a screeching halt

when Jesus pushed the religious authorities to the breaking point

and he was arrested and executed.

But then here he was again!

But how changed!

He had a solid body, which he invited them to touch, and that could eat food,

but that solid body could show up in a locked room.

At other times he showed up but was not recognized,

and then when he was recognized, he disappeared.

It even seems that in one instance

he appeared in two different places simultaneously.

It seems like this was sort of a transition time for the disciples,

a time in which Jesus was preparing them for a transition

from one way of recognizing his presence to another,

from the physical experience of Jesus,

which was bound by the limitations of space and material presence,

to Resurrection presence

which is unbounded in time and space.

The collect for Ascension Day describes this Resurrection presence this way: 

“…our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens

that he might fill all things…”

No longer bound by a mortal body,

the Resurrection Jesus now thoroughly pervades all life,

all of the universe, all of creation.

And so the Ascension sets things up for Pentecost.

Now if I were a disciple at the time of Jesus

and had the wonderful experience of being physically present with him,

I’m not so sure I would rejoice at the thought of the Ascension.

Who wants to give up what some would call “the real thing”

for an unknown, unseen, untouchable, intangible

resurrection presence of Jesus?

Who wants to give up what they have known and loved about Jesus?

But here is the extremely important point about Ascension:

We have this great human propensity

for holding on to the Jesus of our past experience,

closing off our receptivity to any new – to us – revelation of Jesus.

We would keep Jesus bound

by the limits of our own experience and perception of him.

But Jesus will not be held, will not be restrained.

The point was made very graphically to the disciples

on the mount of the Ascension.

Jesus is taken from their sight in such a way

that it is clear that this is good-bye, the end.

The disciples had no choice;

it was back to town to sit and wait and see what comes next.

True, they were sitting with the promise of Pentecost,

but little did they know what that would be like

or that they themselves would become Resurrection appearances of Christ.

Now what has this to do with Emmanuel right now?

What has this to do with you or with me individually right now?

And can we recognize what transitions we are going through right now?

Well, we always face one transition, an ultimate transition:

            the death of the physical body

            and the transition of birth into a liberated way of being in resurrection.

As it says in 1 John 5, from the Epistle for today,

            “…this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

            Whoever has the Son has life…”

Hallelujah!                          So what is a faithful response to this?

As we move through life with our mortality ever before us,

            we can fearlessly look it in the face

            and make provision for those who will come after us,

knowing we are links in a continuing lineage of family and faith community.

So I will now read to you a rubric from the Book of Common Prayer, page 445,

            the final rubric from the liturgy for Thanksgiving for a Child.

The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people,

                        from time to time,

            about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision

                        for the well-being of their families,

            and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health,

                        arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods,

                        not neglecting, if they are able,

                                    to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.

Voila! – Legacy Sunday!                       

And to help you with this, resources are available at adult ed. class today.

Meanwhile between now and death,

            what’s the advice from today’s readings for us?

The Acts reading from chapter 1

            is preceded by the last words of Jesus before ascending:

                                    Stay in Jerusalem

                        until you are empowered.

                        Then you will have plenty to do.

Ten days they waited, and then Pentecost and the Holy Spirit

            and empowerment for ministry,

an empowerment not just what they would receive,

            but for the whole church,

                        for all who would come after them as followers of Jesus.

The empowerment is for giving testimony about the resurrection of Jesus,

                                                for witnessing about him.

Hmmm – How well do we do with that? you? me? Emmanuel?

There is a caveat in this:           

            Saying that we will witness by our deeds will only go so far.

            You have got to be able to put your faith into words also,

                        or we are missing the boat.

Again, from today’s Epistle reading:

            “If we receive human testimony,

            the testimony of God is greater;

            for this is the testimony of God

            that he has testified to his Son.

            Those who believe in the Son of God

            have the testimony in their hearts.”

God’s testimony is what is effective and God puts that in the heart,

            where the Holy Spirit enlivens and empowers it.

If we are to wait on anything, it is this – for God to act in us.

That is just what Jesus prayed for us in the Gospel reading from John 17.

In this portion of it this year, Jesus prays,

            “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me,

            so that they may be one, as we are one…

            …Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

May we trust that truth.

May we trust the One who prayed that for us,

            the One who is himself Truth,

            who reveals himself to us in new ways

                        beyond the limits of old familiar ways of looking at Jesus.

May we trust the Risen Christ.

Trust that as though our lives depended on it,

            for, of course, they do.

Sermon for Easter 2, 4/15/12 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

The Gospel for today is always the same for the 2nd Sunday of Easter,

            but it is so rich a story that we can always hear again with new ears.

There are two parts to this gospel reading,

            and the theme of the first part is summed up in the collect.

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery

established the new covenant of reconciliation…

Jesus appears to the disciples (all except Thomas) and says to them:

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus breathes into them Holy Spirit,

            and then he commissions them into the ministry of reconciliation

                        "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;

                        if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Well, we may want to back away from this statement, sounds too much like:

            "I forgive you, but I don't forgive you."

So let me help unpack this.

The Greek for "retain" means hold, to hold back, like a retaining wall.           

            bind.  restrain.                        What is being restrained?

            “If you restrain the sins of any, they are restrained.”

not the person, but the sin.

            We can have a restraining effect on sin!

So notice: there is a two-fold aspect to the ministry of reconciliation.

Forgive or take away sins – responding to the occasion of sin, reactive reconciliation. 

And retain or hold back sins - proactive reconciliation.

Think about the implications of this for us in daily life:

            What we say,

what we do,

the attitudes we have,

the opinions we express,

how we live out relationships

– all can be proactive reconciliation.

We who are called by his Name,

            have been sent, and

            have been given an awesome power and force in the world for good,

a force that is desperately needed now in any number of countries

                                                rife with war and civil unrest,

                        and in any number of homes among family members.

We are called to ministry of reconciliation through our baptisms;

            Book of Common Prayer, page 855, from a section in the Catechism, Outline of the Faith:

Q. What is the ministry of the laity?

A. The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church;

            to bear witness to him wherever they may be

            and, according to the gifts given them,

            to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world;

            and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.

There is much more to say about the ministry of reconciliation

            but we also have the other half of this gospel reading.

Someone forgot to tell Thomas about the meeting.

Despite all the other disciples corroborating their story of seeing the Risen Christ

            Thomas says he must not only see, but also touch.

He would not trust just his eyes.

Maybe all the others were deceived by their eyes – hysterical hallucinations.

He wants to see the wounds; he wants to see that which killed Jesus.

Maybe he wants to make sure

            that it is absolutely apparent that Jesus is risen from the dead,

                        not just a survivor of the ordeal of crucifixion.

So Jesus shows up,

and apparently unseen the Risen Lord had overheard Thomas’ conversation.

Jesus shows great compassion to Thomas

            and he give a special invitation to Thomas to touch the wounds.

Doesn't say if Thomas then did touch.           

But what Thomas said is very significant:            "My Lord and my God!"

Thomas was not just looking at Jesus as his rabbi, or teacher, or master,

            but as GOD.                        This is bold declaration of faith.           

Thomas goes from doubt to calling Jesus God.

            This even goes beyond what the others told Thomas.

Thomas' declaration, "My Lord and my God!" is both a creed

and an act of devotion or worship, a response to the Holy.

Then in verse 29 from the Gospel reading Jesus says:           

            Blessed are those who have not seen,

            and yet believe.

Now here is another place where how the Greek gets translated into English

            is tricky.

There are nuances of meaning around any Greek word

            that may overlap with the many nuances of meaning

                                    around a corresponding English word,

and the Greek verb pistew is one of them.

It gets translated believe and have faith in.

            In English for us here in a church setting

                        believe has a creedal sense to it

                        – such as in a tenet of belief or a doctrine.

            It can have a sense that having gathered so much evidence

                        one can now reliably believe something.

Have faith in is more relational.

            We say we have faith in someone

                        because our experience of that person shows us

                        that he or she is trustworthy.

It’s a matter of trust level.

            Being willing to trust what is not in my control.

            Trusting what I cannot prove, what I cannot dictate as verifiable,

                        only what has been revealed to me,

what I have experienced so subjectively.

Faith, in this sense then, is a participation in relationship

with the God of the resurrected Lord in us.

Now listen carefully to what I am going to say.

We are not saved on the basis of what we believe.

We are not saved on the basis of what we believe.

If that were the case, then purity of theology, the content of belief

            would be of primal importance,

and only those who believed rightly would be saved, reconciled to God.

That makes for a pretty scary situation,

           since with all the different denominations and all their different belief systems,

knowing what is right belief is problematic.

If someone didn’t know the right formula of doctrine, then too bad.

            This would leave out most children,

            those of low mental capacity and the ageing mind that is forgetful.

But that is not the case.

            It is a matter of trust, that kind of faith, rather than belief.

So can you see that it is not what you believe, but what Jesus did.

God doesn’t leave anything as important as salvation,

            to us and our response alone.

Even our faith is a gift.

If we really comprehended the reality of our baptism

            as being in Christ in his death and resurrection

then we could say with Paul: Gal. 2:20

            “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,

            and the life I now live in the flesh

            I live by faith in the Son of God,

            who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Now back to what Thomas said and its connection with the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is a concrete and specific Resurrection appearance of Jesus.

In the Eucharist we say that we have before us the Body of Christ.

            These are the words as the bread is placed in your hands, right?

So do you realize what you take into your hands every Sunday?

            The very presence of the Resurrected Lord,

                        tangible, touchable.

That is why we make such a point of the moment of silence

            at the breaking of the Bread.

This represents the very wounds of the crucifixion,

            the very thing Thomas wanted to see and to touch.

And we get to touch and see and taste and eat.

When the altar party lifts us the patens and chalices, and the Presider says             “The Gifts of God for the People of God” these are words of invitation:

come forward to see and touch and taste

            that our faith, our trusting may be nurtured

            and our spirits and whole being nourished

            and strengthened for the ministry of reconciliation.

The very thing Thomas wanted to see and to touch,

            we get to touch and see and taste and eat.

All you need to do is trust the process of the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus,

                        the Holy Spirit breathed into us and at work within us,

                                    and take the Mystery into your own hands.