Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Vile Bodies: Sermon for Lent II, 2013
May I speak to you in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen
Greek is a very tricky language to translate. I should know. I’m really, really terrible at it. It’s complicated for a number of reasons. First off, it doesn’t have a well defined syntax. For example a sentence we would translate as “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.” when translated word for word comes out “Firstly I thank the God of me through Jesus Christ concerning all you, because the faith of you is being announced in all the world.”
The second reason it’s tough is because there are about a million different ways to conjugate and decline everything. I know that seems a bit absurd to complain about that when speaking a language as complex as English, but still. It’s not easy to figure it out. It’s not exactly made any easier by the fact that all of the letters look funny.
The toughest part however, is that Greek has a fairly limited vocabulary. One word can have several different meanings, and can be translated various ways. When that is combined with the sometimes ambiguous syntax, it can be translated any number of ways, many of them unhelpful, unproductive and inaccurate.
One of the more grievous offenders is the King James Bible. I’m going to confess that I’m a little relieved I didn’t just catch a lightning bolt to the face for saying that. I love the King James Bible. Its language is beautiful and moving. The cadences and rhythms have been woven thoroughly into the essence of who we are as people, and have shaped the course of the English language. But it’s translations are occasionally pretty inaccurate.
One of the examples of the King James Version not translating so well is in today’s reading from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. In verse 21, The King James Bible says “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
The part I take issue with here is the first bit: “Who shall change our Vile Body.” The reason I quibble with it is that apart from it’s mistranslation of the word ταπεινώσεως, which should be translated as “humiliation,” it seems to miss the point, and in that it joins a long and distinguished line of people, many of them heretics, who also seemed to miss the point. More on that in a minute.
When I was little I played many sports, and while I was not really a superstar bound for professional glory in any of them, I was a fairly respectable journeyman athlete. I could hold my own with most folks, and while I wasn’t the most athletic, I played smart enough to make up for it.
As I’ve gotten older, I can usually keep up with my peers, but I’ve also noticed that occasionally (and it happens more and more frequently) my body lets me down.
At the Seminary, we’re an overly athletic bunch, I think mostly because living in dorms has caused us to forget that we are mostly in our late twenties to thirties, but occasionally our forties, fifties, or sixties, for that matter. We sometimes don't realize that we’re not 19 years old and back in college. As a result, I find myself playing a fair amount of soccer, basketball, softball, frisbee, and this terrifying Irish sport called hurling where we all swing around these big wooden axes at a little tiny ball.
Funnily enough, this story about my body failing isn’t about hurling.
I play on our seminary softball team and we’re pretty awful, playing mostly against a bunch of people who take softball more seriously than we do. It’s pretty forgivable for us to make a bad throw to second, or to miss a grounder because we don’t want to dive on the rough and rocky clay. But even as bad as we are, we are generally pretty reliable with easy pop flies.
I said “we” there, but what I meant to say was “they.” Standing at third base, tracking an easy pop fly into my glove, keeping my eyes locked onto the ball the way I was taught when I was 7 or 8, I missed. My body let me down. The ball glanced off of my glove and within a split second had broken my face. It took me a week or two to figure it out since it hadn’t broken my nose, but after the gigantic gash started to heal and the black eyes began to fade away, I figured out that this bone right near my eye had been broken clean through. On an easy, little league pop fly.
Bodies of our humiliation indeed.
But this kind of thing is exactly what St. Paul is talking about.
People for millennia have misunderstood his phrase, and have taken it to extremes. On one side of that spectrum were the ascetics, who thought the bodies to be evil, and the spirit to be primary. They denied themselves in the extreme, trying to rid themselves of the evil in the bodies, of the sin our bodies cause, and of the way they ties us to this physical and broken world in which we live.
On the other end, there were the libertines, those who thought that the spiritual was all that mattered. They worried nothing about what they ate, how they treated their bodies, or for that matter, how they treated the bodies of others. They took on airs of spiritual superiority because the spiritual was all that was important, and what they did with their bodies meant nothing at all.
But what St. Paul is talking about here is centered on nothing less than the majesty and the power of the incarnation of God into the physical body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It was through the death and resurrection of a physical body that God chose to redeem the world. It was through the ministry of healing other physical bodies that Christ demonstrated his power and gave his signs. It was the wounds on Christ’s physical body in which Thomas placed his hand. Jesus did not come down and stoop to dwell with us in this mean and lowly creation, in this broken and brutal world so that he might save only our souls. Christ came to redeem us... every bit of us... and to justify our relationship with God.
At nearly every service we say either the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed. The last line of each of them is something like “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”
Where the King James Version gets it wrong, the Council of Nicaea gets it right.
What we have are not just bodies of humiliation made to be either used and enjoyed or ignored and then discarded. What we have are bodies that are gifts from God, even in their brokenness, because even in their brokenness, they have goodness and life within them. Just as our souls and our world have goodness and life amidst the brokenness.
While we are traveling through this season of Lent it is tempting to scourge ourselves and lament all we have done wrong, all that has failed in our spirit, and all that is wrong here on Earth. We recognize the need for redemption and restoration of both our spirits and the world, and we pray for that final day when Christ will come back and make whole not only our souls, but the whole cosmos.
In the chaos that we think of when we ponder what the end of all things will look like, we frequently ignore the part of us that exists physically. It’s easy to forget it, when we’re caught up in the midst of thinking about God making a new heaven and a new earth.
But what we shouldn't do is forget that the proclamation is not just that we have vile bodies, not just that we have bodies of humiliation. That Good Friday note is not where it ends. Rather, as we take our time this Lent to recognize our sins, shortcomings, and spiritual brokenness, let’s also take some time to recognize our own physical failings large and small. And like our moral stumbles that have already passed, and have already been forgiven and redeemed, let us remember that our physical humiliations, our embarrassments, our failures, our falls, and our weakness.... like all that is broken in this world, they will be conformed to the body of Christ’s Glory. And during Lent, during our time to recognize just how abundant God’s grace is in the face of our similarly abundant failings, may we take solace, may we take comfort, may we take joy, in the absurd abundance of grace bestowed upon not only our world, and not only upon our souls, but also upon our bodies, that will, at that last day, be made new in Christ.
Amen
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Some photos from Myanmar.
While I am in the process of editing and collecting my photos digitally, (there are a little more than 4,000 to go through!) I wanted to start to share some of my favorites. I'm going to start posting some of the photo here. I'll post the photo and share a bit of story about each of them! Keep checking here to see some of the photographs and hear some of the story!
On Sunday morning, we drove out into the countryside to Mawbi, a small village that has an Anglican church where we worshiped. After the service we went out to villagers homes for thanksgiving services, something nearly everyone does every Sunday. Our hosts were incredibly generous and friendly, and it was wonderful meeting them. It was so humbling to see how honored they were to welcome us as guests. This was the first time we were really floored by the overwhelming, stunning hospitality of the people in Myanmar.
And the last photo was taken at the British Cemetery where those who died in WWII in Burma were buried. Myanmar was the bloodiest venue of the Asian theatre, and there were heavy casualties, both British and native. I thought the statement written on the arch was particularly moving. There was a gigantic memorial set in the middle of a large graveyard. Seeing this made it easy to understand why Myanmar withdrew from the international arena in the post-war period. It's incredible to see the impact that the Second World War had on the planet, and how wide-ranging it's impact was. May we learn from that mistake and avoid further similar conflict, and may we pray for the day when we no longer need to erect memorials such as this amongst graves marked with names and birthdays, as well as those marked "known but to God."
The Schwedagon Pagoda is the holiest Buddhist site in Myanmar. It is said to contain eight hairs of Siddartha Guatama, the Buddha. It's massive and covered in tons of gold leaf. Literally tons. This was the first place we went on our first day after waking up and eating breakfast. It is a beautiful and vibrant center of faith for the people of Myanmar, and it's packed with worshippers, tourists, and souvenir vendors. The main pagoda is surrounded by hundreds of smaller pagodas and shrines, as well as statues of the Buddha, bells, statues for water offerings. Near to the base of the main pagoda there are many small shrines and rail for offering incense or candles. After our day wandering around, we went back at night in order to see it all lit up. It was beautiful.
While we were walking around during the day we learned that it was Myanmar Independence Day! They were celebrating it publicly for the first time, since in all previous years, gatherings of more than 5 people were illegal without a permit. With the day off, people were out in the streets celebrating together in various and sundry ways. One way they were celebrating was by having a contest to climb a shaved, greased, inverted banana stalk. It's harder than you'd imagine, by the looks of it. After watching many people try, a set of three young boys managed to reach the top and grab the flags. That alone would have been cool, but we found out the flags alone were worth 100,000 Kyats! Kyat is pronounced Chats, and 100K is worth about $120, a very large sum over there. We continued to walk down past the Sule Pagoda towards the Irawaddy River. Once there we walked along a dock where there were boats docked, and at the end of the dock, there were the vibrantly colored water taxis to ferry people back and forth across the river.
On Sunday morning, we drove out into the countryside to Mawbi, a small village that has an Anglican church where we worshiped. After the service we went out to villagers homes for thanksgiving services, something nearly everyone does every Sunday. Our hosts were incredibly generous and friendly, and it was wonderful meeting them. It was so humbling to see how honored they were to welcome us as guests. This was the first time we were really floored by the overwhelming, stunning hospitality of the people in Myanmar.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Mission and Myanmar Sermon, Feb 9th, 2012
So I've preached a few times since I posted this last sermon on here. Perhaps I will try and post the few I've skipped, since they aren't too bad (I don't think!) but I really liked this one, and I know many are interested for a taste of what my trip to Myanmar was like, so until I'm able to get the presentation done. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this sermon, and then share it with your friends, or share it elsewhere.
With no further ado, here is my Mission Sunday sermon as written, though not quite as delieverd:
In the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good morning! I’m so happy to be back in Eastern North Carolina and back home in Wilmington after yet another semester away and after another wonderful convention. It has been a little bittersweet, saying goodbye to the Bishop who confirmed me, who first raised me up to leadership positions in the diocese, and for that matter, my first leadership roles ever, and who has encouraged me on my path from the time I was about 13. But I am grateful for his many years of dedicated service to our diocese, and I’m sure his new call will be a wonderful time for him. I have several classmates from the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and they are extremely excited to welcome Bishop Daniel to Philadelphia.
This homecoming is made especially nice because of the distance I have travelled to be here. Less than two weeks ago I was still 9,000 miles away, in Myanmar, where I spent the whole month of January on a missional cultural immersion with 7 other students from Virginia Theological Seminary. It was the trip of a lifetime, and we got to see and do things I’d never have expected to see or do. I helped lead a bible study for clergy and staff in the Diocese of Myitkyina, where I taught about the book of Revelation. I helped coordinate one day of a three day inter-seminary retreat, where we shared, food, fellowship, and song with students from Peku Divinity School, St. Peter’s Bible College, (both in Toungoo), and St. John’s Bible College in Sittwe.
I got to watch sunsets from the tops of temples on the plains of Bagan, I visited the Schwedagon Pagoda, said to contain eight hairs from Siddartha Guatama the Buddah. I visited camps full of internally displaced people, forced from their homes and villages by the civil war raging in the north of the country. I was overwhelmed with hospitality. Perhaps coolest of all, I got to ride an elephant! Needless to say it was an incredibly rewarding, but also an incredibly exhausting month.
Knowing I would be preaching almost as soon as I got back, I was a little worried about what I would preach on, what the text would be, how I would prepare. But as it did throughout Myanmar, God’s grace abounds, and I discovered that today is Mission Sunday. Today churches all around the Episcopal Church, across the United States, Haiti, Europe, and everywhere Episcopalians are found will be talking about mission.
While I had never been on a mission trip before this, mission is something that should run in my blood. My great-aunt served as a missionary in China for nearly 30 years. Many of those she was an “english teacher” who was taking a great risk by helping the church in China. I know my father and stepmother frequently go on mission trips around the United States. Many of my other family members have undertaken this form of service to God as well. But previous to this, I had not, and I had no idea what to expect.
I’d always previously thought of mission work as going and helping. You go to build a house, or to staff a clinic. You help fill a library, or you do work with the mothers union. Maybe you teach children. Whatever your goal was, there was a goal. While planning for this trip, however, it became very apparent, that was not what we were doing.
I didn’t know what to expect when I went, knowing how much of our scheduled time was going to be spent “just meeting people.” But after a few days in, after some serious challenges, my classmates and I were talking and having a discussion. “What is mission?” We asked. “How do we do mission?”
Jonathan Chesney, a fellow student in my year from the Diocese of Alabama, and one of my best friends at the seminary told a story a friend had told him. His friend had left the country to serve in Africa for two years as a missionary. He struggled with these same questions during his time in Africa. He’d planned on going and helping orphans, helping a village, and saving lives. He’d planned on working to help develop a village to improve the quality of life. What he ended up doing was working some in the fields, teaching a little bit, helping here and there where he could, and playing a lot of soccer with the village children.
This friend told him that his image, his metaphor for mission was turning swords into plowshares. It seems to be a very odd image for someone who is coming in peace in Christ to think of beating swords into plowshares. But he described it like this: When he went, he had the idea that he was going to swing in and save people in the wild lands of Africa. It was very heroic, swashbuckling even. Like the good guy in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie swinging from one ship to the other and saving his comrades as they are being overtaken. He’d swing into Africa on his airplane, sword and tricorn hat on, ready to go.
What he found when he got there was that it didn’t work. What the people needed was not a savior. They already had that. They needed someone to come and walk with them through the mundane, helping them out as possible, just as they would help him out as they could.
What they all needed was the relationship, the christian love forged between them as they walked together through life, whether for a week, for a few months, or for years. What they needed was for him to beat his swashbuckling sword into a plowshare, and walk alongside them as they plowed their fields, or washed their clothes, or raised their children. They wanted him to walk alongside as they celebrated and mourned. They wanted him to join their community, because Christ didn’t command us to be superheroes. He prayed that we all may be one.
After two particularly arduous days of traveling, and on the heels of a physically and emotionally draining week in Myitkyina, the occupied capital of Kachin state, where we were 15 miles from the front lines of the violent civil conflict that is raging... After all that, we found ourselves arriving in Hpa-an. After we arrived and dropped our things off at the hotel, we were taken to the Bishop’s home at the diocesan compound for dinner. After dinner, while we were having our tea and chatting with Bishop Stylo, our leader mentioned that we should be getting back to the hotel so we could get some sleep as we were all rather tired. The Bishop jokingly asked then how frequently we preached. After someone offered a probably too literal answer, he changed his question. “Do you preach more than you sleep? How do you spend your time?” It was then that I noticed what was printed in clear letters over his door.
“Life Is Mission.” “Life Is Mission.”
While it got a little lost in translation at first (Bp. Stylo being the only Bishop not confident enough of his English to speak without a translator) the Bishop was trying to ask us, in a way both lighthearted and serious, “How are you living your life?” For Bishop Stylo, he finds himself on the mission field every time he steps outside his door. Sure, he’s in a country where only about 6% of the population is Christian. But every time he walks out that door, he knows that his call is to be with those he encounters, to show the love of God to them, and to let them know that they are valued and loved. He knows that there are mouths to be fed, refugees to be relocated, children to be educated, and sick to be cared for. He knows that they need food, and housing, and school, and medicine.
But he also knows that they need the spiritual care that comes from living in a society where poverty is rampant, where the powerful control too much, and where that power is abused to the detriment of the powerless. I think his philosophy may be of some great use outside of Myanmar as well.
After leaving Bishop Stylo’s we spent a week in Toungoo where we shared responsibility for coordinating a three day inter-seminary conference. One of the things we did over the course of the conference was a caneball and volleyball tournament, Caneball for the men, Volleyball for the women. Caneball is a sport that’s wildly popular over there, played by people, especially male, of all ages. It’s like volleyball but with a little ball of woven cane that you can’t hit with your hands. We were all divided up into teams of three, with no team having two players from the same seminary. Caneball is played barefoot. It was some of the most fun I had over there, and, clearly due solely to my superhuman efforts, our team won the tournament!
A little later someone on our trip asked about something we had been doing the whole time we were over there. Shoes are not worn inside most buildings, and they are definitely not worn in church. My colleague and fellow missioner asked “Why don’t they wear shoes in church?” I answered because you take off your shoes when you are standing on holy ground, like Moses at the burning bush.
It was right then that it hit me, like that rickety, poorly maintained, 1940’s train we had taken to Toungoo. We take off our shoes when we are standing on holy ground. We take off our shoes when we encounter God.
We take them off when we enter the house of a parishoner in a remote village who has invited us to lunch, someone so incredibly honored that we would be willing to come into their humble home when we’ve come so far. We take off our shoes when we walk into a church to celebrate the eucharist among people with whom we share no common language apart from our common prayer, our voices rising together toward God, cacophonously beautiful. We take off our shoes when we walk into a library with maybe two thousand books that is the pride and joy of the strongest divinity school in the region, a school that turns out promising and talented students willing to give up their chance to be civic or commercial leaders in a country with a desperate need for them... They give it up so that they can follow Christ, and make $30 a month. We take off our shoes when we step onto a rocky caneball court with fellow students or with our hotel’s staff, where even if we don’t share any language apart from laughter, we can enjoy each other’s company and walk beside one another for a brief time. We take off our shoes when we are standing on holy ground.
Life is mission, Bishop Stylo says. And when we walk out of that door, even if we can’t always go barefoot at work, or on the tennis court, or in the street, it’s important to know that no matter where you are, you are in the mission field; you are on holy ground. Beat your sword into your plowshare and walk beside the people you meet. Show them and tell them about the love of Christ. Show them that when even two or three are together, that you recognize God is in your midst.
As I come down off of my mountain, I think the jet lag from the 12 and a half hour time difference may have taken most of Moses’ shine off of my face, but I can assure you, that in this, my first mission experience, I encountered God. I can assure you just as well, that after the transfiguration I experienced in Myanmar, I had to come back down off of that mountain. But unlike Peter, John, and James, I am not keeping silent. Rather I’m taking this time given to me today, I’m taking this mission Sunday to encourage you to go out on mission yourself. I know many from St. Andrew’s have travelled together on mission, especially to the Dominican Republic but all around our area, our nation and our world, and I’ll bet every one of them came back changed in some way or another as well.
So my charge to you this Mission Sunday, my commission to you and to me, is that we beat our swords, whatever they may be, into plowshares, and that we walk alongside those who need someone to walk with them, and that we, through that, show the love, the redemption, and the life changing power of Christ. And that you remember, once you walk out of these doors you are on the mission field, whether you are in Myanmar or Monkey Junction, in Downtown or the Dominican Republic. And I pray that each and every one of us finds our holy ground, and that we all find ourselves shining with the glory of God.
So “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel.”
Amen.
With no further ado, here is my Mission Sunday sermon as written, though not quite as delieverd:
 |
| Young Buddhist Monk and his friend |
In the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good morning! I’m so happy to be back in Eastern North Carolina and back home in Wilmington after yet another semester away and after another wonderful convention. It has been a little bittersweet, saying goodbye to the Bishop who confirmed me, who first raised me up to leadership positions in the diocese, and for that matter, my first leadership roles ever, and who has encouraged me on my path from the time I was about 13. But I am grateful for his many years of dedicated service to our diocese, and I’m sure his new call will be a wonderful time for him. I have several classmates from the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and they are extremely excited to welcome Bishop Daniel to Philadelphia.
This homecoming is made especially nice because of the distance I have travelled to be here. Less than two weeks ago I was still 9,000 miles away, in Myanmar, where I spent the whole month of January on a missional cultural immersion with 7 other students from Virginia Theological Seminary. It was the trip of a lifetime, and we got to see and do things I’d never have expected to see or do. I helped lead a bible study for clergy and staff in the Diocese of Myitkyina, where I taught about the book of Revelation. I helped coordinate one day of a three day inter-seminary retreat, where we shared, food, fellowship, and song with students from Peku Divinity School, St. Peter’s Bible College, (both in Toungoo), and St. John’s Bible College in Sittwe.
I got to watch sunsets from the tops of temples on the plains of Bagan, I visited the Schwedagon Pagoda, said to contain eight hairs from Siddartha Guatama the Buddah. I visited camps full of internally displaced people, forced from their homes and villages by the civil war raging in the north of the country. I was overwhelmed with hospitality. Perhaps coolest of all, I got to ride an elephant! Needless to say it was an incredibly rewarding, but also an incredibly exhausting month.
Knowing I would be preaching almost as soon as I got back, I was a little worried about what I would preach on, what the text would be, how I would prepare. But as it did throughout Myanmar, God’s grace abounds, and I discovered that today is Mission Sunday. Today churches all around the Episcopal Church, across the United States, Haiti, Europe, and everywhere Episcopalians are found will be talking about mission.
While I had never been on a mission trip before this, mission is something that should run in my blood. My great-aunt served as a missionary in China for nearly 30 years. Many of those she was an “english teacher” who was taking a great risk by helping the church in China. I know my father and stepmother frequently go on mission trips around the United States. Many of my other family members have undertaken this form of service to God as well. But previous to this, I had not, and I had no idea what to expect.
I’d always previously thought of mission work as going and helping. You go to build a house, or to staff a clinic. You help fill a library, or you do work with the mothers union. Maybe you teach children. Whatever your goal was, there was a goal. While planning for this trip, however, it became very apparent, that was not what we were doing.
I didn’t know what to expect when I went, knowing how much of our scheduled time was going to be spent “just meeting people.” But after a few days in, after some serious challenges, my classmates and I were talking and having a discussion. “What is mission?” We asked. “How do we do mission?”
Jonathan Chesney, a fellow student in my year from the Diocese of Alabama, and one of my best friends at the seminary told a story a friend had told him. His friend had left the country to serve in Africa for two years as a missionary. He struggled with these same questions during his time in Africa. He’d planned on going and helping orphans, helping a village, and saving lives. He’d planned on working to help develop a village to improve the quality of life. What he ended up doing was working some in the fields, teaching a little bit, helping here and there where he could, and playing a lot of soccer with the village children.
 |
| Child and his grandmother in a camp for Internally Displaced People (IDP) forced from their homes by theviolence outside the city. |
What he found when he got there was that it didn’t work. What the people needed was not a savior. They already had that. They needed someone to come and walk with them through the mundane, helping them out as possible, just as they would help him out as they could.
What they all needed was the relationship, the christian love forged between them as they walked together through life, whether for a week, for a few months, or for years. What they needed was for him to beat his swashbuckling sword into a plowshare, and walk alongside them as they plowed their fields, or washed their clothes, or raised their children. They wanted him to walk alongside as they celebrated and mourned. They wanted him to join their community, because Christ didn’t command us to be superheroes. He prayed that we all may be one.
After two particularly arduous days of traveling, and on the heels of a physically and emotionally draining week in Myitkyina, the occupied capital of Kachin state, where we were 15 miles from the front lines of the violent civil conflict that is raging... After all that, we found ourselves arriving in Hpa-an. After we arrived and dropped our things off at the hotel, we were taken to the Bishop’s home at the diocesan compound for dinner. After dinner, while we were having our tea and chatting with Bishop Stylo, our leader mentioned that we should be getting back to the hotel so we could get some sleep as we were all rather tired. The Bishop jokingly asked then how frequently we preached. After someone offered a probably too literal answer, he changed his question. “Do you preach more than you sleep? How do you spend your time?” It was then that I noticed what was printed in clear letters over his door.
“Life Is Mission.” “Life Is Mission.”
 |
| Sunrise in Hpa-An |
But he also knows that they need the spiritual care that comes from living in a society where poverty is rampant, where the powerful control too much, and where that power is abused to the detriment of the powerless. I think his philosophy may be of some great use outside of Myanmar as well.
After leaving Bishop Stylo’s we spent a week in Toungoo where we shared responsibility for coordinating a three day inter-seminary conference. One of the things we did over the course of the conference was a caneball and volleyball tournament, Caneball for the men, Volleyball for the women. Caneball is a sport that’s wildly popular over there, played by people, especially male, of all ages. It’s like volleyball but with a little ball of woven cane that you can’t hit with your hands. We were all divided up into teams of three, with no team having two players from the same seminary. Caneball is played barefoot. It was some of the most fun I had over there, and, clearly due solely to my superhuman efforts, our team won the tournament!
A little later someone on our trip asked about something we had been doing the whole time we were over there. Shoes are not worn inside most buildings, and they are definitely not worn in church. My colleague and fellow missioner asked “Why don’t they wear shoes in church?” I answered because you take off your shoes when you are standing on holy ground, like Moses at the burning bush.
It was right then that it hit me, like that rickety, poorly maintained, 1940’s train we had taken to Toungoo. We take off our shoes when we are standing on holy ground. We take off our shoes when we encounter God.
We take them off when we enter the house of a parishoner in a remote village who has invited us to lunch, someone so incredibly honored that we would be willing to come into their humble home when we’ve come so far. We take off our shoes when we walk into a church to celebrate the eucharist among people with whom we share no common language apart from our common prayer, our voices rising together toward God, cacophonously beautiful. We take off our shoes when we walk into a library with maybe two thousand books that is the pride and joy of the strongest divinity school in the region, a school that turns out promising and talented students willing to give up their chance to be civic or commercial leaders in a country with a desperate need for them... They give it up so that they can follow Christ, and make $30 a month. We take off our shoes when we step onto a rocky caneball court with fellow students or with our hotel’s staff, where even if we don’t share any language apart from laughter, we can enjoy each other’s company and walk beside one another for a brief time. We take off our shoes when we are standing on holy ground.
 |
| Mother and Child |
As I come down off of my mountain, I think the jet lag from the 12 and a half hour time difference may have taken most of Moses’ shine off of my face, but I can assure you, that in this, my first mission experience, I encountered God. I can assure you just as well, that after the transfiguration I experienced in Myanmar, I had to come back down off of that mountain. But unlike Peter, John, and James, I am not keeping silent. Rather I’m taking this time given to me today, I’m taking this mission Sunday to encourage you to go out on mission yourself. I know many from St. Andrew’s have travelled together on mission, especially to the Dominican Republic but all around our area, our nation and our world, and I’ll bet every one of them came back changed in some way or another as well.
So my charge to you this Mission Sunday, my commission to you and to me, is that we beat our swords, whatever they may be, into plowshares, and that we walk alongside those who need someone to walk with them, and that we, through that, show the love, the redemption, and the life changing power of Christ. And that you remember, once you walk out of these doors you are on the mission field, whether you are in Myanmar or Monkey Junction, in Downtown or the Dominican Republic. And I pray that each and every one of us finds our holy ground, and that we all find ourselves shining with the glory of God.
So “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel.”
Amen.
 |
| Children in an IDP camp, after greeting Virginia Seminarians |
Sunday, September 30, 2012
"Casting Out Demons" Proper 21, Year B.
"Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us."
May I speak to you in the name of one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
CS Lewis tells us "the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There's not one of them which won't make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide."
I'm opening with a CS Lewis quote because I'm trying to soften you all up. CS Lewis is great, and he's popular! Also because I'm stalling before I tell you what my first sermon at St. Mark's is really about...
Demons.
Agents of the dark one. Warriors in the rebellion. Creatures that plague, and vex, and tempt us. Creatures that possess and violate our being, separating us from God.
Demons.
Demons are not a comfortable topic for anyone. In our post-enlightenment age where science and reason reign we tend to fall into one of two major categories: we either tremble in fear as we get together and burn Harry Potter books, or we dismiss the idea that there are real forces of darkness as a quaint relic of a lost age when the sun moved around the earth, illness was caused by the vapors, we threw women into ponds weighted down to see if they could get out, because if they could, they were a witch and we could burn them.
I mean, It's a joke, right? We know that fires are caused by lightning, or by candles left burning, not by messengers of Satan dancing across the thatch. We know that wall collapses are caused by structural defects or poor engineering, not some ethereal supernatural wrecking ball. We know illness is caused by bacteria or viruses, not by a spritely poltergeist aiming to steal away a person's soul. We know eclipses are what happens when a celestial body passes through the umbral shadow of another. We know these things because we have a better understanding of our world and of science than our poor, unenlightened ancestors did.
And yet... Here it is, staring us in the face. It's all over the Gospels, in Mark especially. The words demon or demons are used 11 times in just Mark, the shortest of the Gospels, and that isn't counting the mentions of "unclean spirits." So can we really so easily dismiss the idea of demons, when these creatures played such an important role in the ministry of Jesus Christ? We by-and-large believe in angels and we acknowledge the spiritual realm, so why does our modern society scoff at the existence of demons? You really can't have one without the other.
This bit of Mark, already starting to make us uncomfortable with Jesus and John talking about demons and speaking of outsiders deeds of power just keeps on rolling right off the tracks. The next thing we know, we're being asked to pull an Aaron Ralston, the climber who found himself trapped between a rock and a hard place, and had to cut off his own hand with a pocket knife in order to survive. And we are told not just to remove our hands, but our feet, our eyes. We're told if we don't it would be better for us to have a millstone hung around our neck and then be thrown into the sea.
No, this is not an easy passage for us to go through. I am starting to see why I wound up with this Sunday on the preaching rotation.
But wait... there's more! We still haven't run out of sticky wickets in this passage. The unquenchable fire of hell is mentioned, not once, not twice, but three times. Three times St. Mark talks about being thrown into hell, where neither the worm nor the fire ever dies.
While many do believe in a literal or spiritual lake of fire, there is a significant segment within Christianity that believes hell is less about actual unquenchable fire and more about the distance that we can place between God and ourselves. This apartness from God is awful. No, Sartre was wrong hell is not other people. Hell is nothing. And by that I do not mean it does not exist. I mean that hell is quite literally nothing. It is the destruction and pulling apart of God's creation so that it no longer recognizes the Divine. Hell is the distance we have between our own being and the the holiness of God when we reject God's call to us or we are pulled away by those forces of darkness, by demons. It is that separation from God that causes our souls to burn with anguish, that causes us to freeze in the vacuum of nothingness that destroys God's creation.
So how does this apply to us? We are here. It is Sunday morning and we are in church, the good people of St. Mark's gathered together for prayer and worship. We have certainly not cast ourselves out into the fire, away from God. Why does it matter?
It matters because the spiritual and the physical world run parallel to one another. They reflect one another, and they brush together occasionally. We get glimpses of this when we find ourselves in the thin places between Heaven and Earth, when a sunrise moves us to tears, when we go to Shrinemont and cherish the joyful fellowship, when we stand in the National Cathedral overwhelmed by an awe inspiring structure that cries out to God, when we come together at this table to break bread, when we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and when we lift our hearts to the Lord's heavenly realm, partaking for a brief time in the worship that is continually offered at the foot of the throne, when we find ourselves saying with our whole being those words... Holy Holy Holy.
When we do this, when we find these places that foreshadow our heavenly reward, we get a taste of what is to come and we mirror it here on earth. Those moments when we are overwhelmed by beauty and love are but shadows of the joys we are to receive, and we should cherish them immensely.
Likewise, when we find ourselves in those less comfortable thin places, when we approach the veil between earth and hell, we begin to see the brokenness and divisiveness of evil bleeding through into our lives... When we find ourselves angry at someone getting promoted ahead of us, for example, when we stew over someone who scammed us that we thought was a friend, and my personal favorite, when we seethe with rage at that incompetent driver who is ruining everything... When we do that we are also foreshadowing and reflecting the spiritual realm. When we dwell in those broken relationships we prefigure the brokenness and separation that becomes our hell.
And when we demonize whole groups of people, we mirror the damage that is caused in both the physical and the spiritual realm, by those evil agents of the darkness.
The easiest way for demons to win is for us to destroy ourselves from within; for them to convince us to allow ourselves to be consumed by hatred and division and separation and destruction. A house divided against itself cannot stand. (Mark 3:25)
Christ tells us "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.".
This was his response to the Apostles when they tell him they tried to stop someone from casting out demons in Jesus' name. They didn't do it because they thought the person didn't believe in the power of Jesus. They didn't do it because they thought the person was evil. They did it because he wasn't following them. Not because he wasn't following Jesus, but because he was not following them.
Demons are evil and destructive and malevolent. Their goal is to lead us astray, to try and drag us off of the narrow path that God calls us to walk in, to destroy that which should belong to God . And though they are out there, and we do encounter them, perhaps we don't see them as often in our times as we did in the time of Christ. But perhaps that is because we do their work for them. The great irony is that we even use their name while we inflict their damage upon ourselves.
We demonize conservatives when we claim that they are nothing but bigots out to oppress people with same gender attraction or people who want to teach evolution. We demonize liberals when we say they are anti-biblical relativists seeking to overthrow the traditions of the church. We frequently struggle to see the good in the other side, or, perhaps more frequently, we... I... sometimes don't even try.
But my stepmom's conservative Christian Church has been on more missions than I can count in the last couple of years; around our home in eastern North Carolina; in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; in Texas, and around the world. Their small church does more good and helps more people than you would ever guess at first glance. Whatever their thoughts on the hot button issue of the day, they are doing the work of Christ. They are feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. And my friend's parish -- the one that makes me squirm with their reluctance to say the creeds or accept the resurrection of Christ) -- they feed hundreds of people a week and protect the homeless, the most disadvantaged in society from the dangers of the street and from the elements, and they treat them with more dignity than many churches offer prospective new members.
"Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward."
When we demonize those with whom we disagree because they are not following us, it may be time to take a second look and see how they are following Christ. It may be time to realize that while we are not walking perfectly in step, we are both moving towards the same end. It is at the times when we are tempted to demonize that we most need to recognize the Christ in our neighbor and the Christ in our supposed enemy.
Because in the end, our breaking of relationship with someone harms us far more than it harms them. Our decision to break our communion with fellow followers of Christ hurts us because it impairs our relationship with the fullness of the body of Christ, and so with God. Our decision to demonize does to us the same thing a demon would: it pulls us away from the path we are called to walk in. In demonizing others, we are really demonizing ourselves.
I believe in Satan, and I believe in demons. But because of God's faithfulness to us, I believe they have no power over us without our acceptance. If we stand firm in our faith and if we seek the Christ in one another, we make the game harder for them.
Our calling as Christians is a call to fellowship and community. We live in hope that we all may be one. And with the threats to our very existence the dark one from time to time poses, with the presence of evil prowling around, seeking someone to pull away, to tear apart, to drag into the nothingness, with a danger like that lurking, there is no need for us to offer the satan any aid or quarter.
We see over and over again a Christ that cast out demons, participating in the spiritual warfare that is being fought over his creation. If we can move past our division, if we can listen and believe that whoever is not against us is for us, then we can vanquish the demons of our own creation, just as Christ vanquishes the demons that have invaded his creation.
Like Lewis said, the most dangerous thing we can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs.". When we follow ourselves and our standards, and cast out those who don't adhere to our doctrine and our ideas, we ignore the possibility that they are also following Christ. And when we set our own wills above his, there is not one of those ideas that will not make us into devils if we set it as our absolute guide, there is not one that will not break apart our relationship with God and with each other, there is not one that will not lead us straight into our hell.
While there are very real spiritual forces of evil out there working tirelessly to destroy creation, we must recognize that they are not the only ones who help the darkness bleed into the physical realm. We must also recognize the evil in ourselves, and the damage that we do, and we must continually turn ourselves back to Christ, for he casts out evil, he shines out in the darkness and is not overcome, and it is in his name powerful works are done. It is Christ drawing all things to himself, and it is Christ leading us into a perfectly restored creation, and it is in Christ that we will be reconciled to one another and to God.
AMEN.
May I speak to you in the name of one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
CS Lewis tells us "the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There's not one of them which won't make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide."
I'm opening with a CS Lewis quote because I'm trying to soften you all up. CS Lewis is great, and he's popular! Also because I'm stalling before I tell you what my first sermon at St. Mark's is really about...
Demons.
Agents of the dark one. Warriors in the rebellion. Creatures that plague, and vex, and tempt us. Creatures that possess and violate our being, separating us from God.
Demons.
Demons are not a comfortable topic for anyone. In our post-enlightenment age where science and reason reign we tend to fall into one of two major categories: we either tremble in fear as we get together and burn Harry Potter books, or we dismiss the idea that there are real forces of darkness as a quaint relic of a lost age when the sun moved around the earth, illness was caused by the vapors, we threw women into ponds weighted down to see if they could get out, because if they could, they were a witch and we could burn them.
I mean, It's a joke, right? We know that fires are caused by lightning, or by candles left burning, not by messengers of Satan dancing across the thatch. We know that wall collapses are caused by structural defects or poor engineering, not some ethereal supernatural wrecking ball. We know illness is caused by bacteria or viruses, not by a spritely poltergeist aiming to steal away a person's soul. We know eclipses are what happens when a celestial body passes through the umbral shadow of another. We know these things because we have a better understanding of our world and of science than our poor, unenlightened ancestors did.
And yet... Here it is, staring us in the face. It's all over the Gospels, in Mark especially. The words demon or demons are used 11 times in just Mark, the shortest of the Gospels, and that isn't counting the mentions of "unclean spirits." So can we really so easily dismiss the idea of demons, when these creatures played such an important role in the ministry of Jesus Christ? We by-and-large believe in angels and we acknowledge the spiritual realm, so why does our modern society scoff at the existence of demons? You really can't have one without the other.
This bit of Mark, already starting to make us uncomfortable with Jesus and John talking about demons and speaking of outsiders deeds of power just keeps on rolling right off the tracks. The next thing we know, we're being asked to pull an Aaron Ralston, the climber who found himself trapped between a rock and a hard place, and had to cut off his own hand with a pocket knife in order to survive. And we are told not just to remove our hands, but our feet, our eyes. We're told if we don't it would be better for us to have a millstone hung around our neck and then be thrown into the sea.
No, this is not an easy passage for us to go through. I am starting to see why I wound up with this Sunday on the preaching rotation.
But wait... there's more! We still haven't run out of sticky wickets in this passage. The unquenchable fire of hell is mentioned, not once, not twice, but three times. Three times St. Mark talks about being thrown into hell, where neither the worm nor the fire ever dies.
While many do believe in a literal or spiritual lake of fire, there is a significant segment within Christianity that believes hell is less about actual unquenchable fire and more about the distance that we can place between God and ourselves. This apartness from God is awful. No, Sartre was wrong hell is not other people. Hell is nothing. And by that I do not mean it does not exist. I mean that hell is quite literally nothing. It is the destruction and pulling apart of God's creation so that it no longer recognizes the Divine. Hell is the distance we have between our own being and the the holiness of God when we reject God's call to us or we are pulled away by those forces of darkness, by demons. It is that separation from God that causes our souls to burn with anguish, that causes us to freeze in the vacuum of nothingness that destroys God's creation.
So how does this apply to us? We are here. It is Sunday morning and we are in church, the good people of St. Mark's gathered together for prayer and worship. We have certainly not cast ourselves out into the fire, away from God. Why does it matter?
It matters because the spiritual and the physical world run parallel to one another. They reflect one another, and they brush together occasionally. We get glimpses of this when we find ourselves in the thin places between Heaven and Earth, when a sunrise moves us to tears, when we go to Shrinemont and cherish the joyful fellowship, when we stand in the National Cathedral overwhelmed by an awe inspiring structure that cries out to God, when we come together at this table to break bread, when we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and when we lift our hearts to the Lord's heavenly realm, partaking for a brief time in the worship that is continually offered at the foot of the throne, when we find ourselves saying with our whole being those words... Holy Holy Holy.
When we do this, when we find these places that foreshadow our heavenly reward, we get a taste of what is to come and we mirror it here on earth. Those moments when we are overwhelmed by beauty and love are but shadows of the joys we are to receive, and we should cherish them immensely.
Likewise, when we find ourselves in those less comfortable thin places, when we approach the veil between earth and hell, we begin to see the brokenness and divisiveness of evil bleeding through into our lives... When we find ourselves angry at someone getting promoted ahead of us, for example, when we stew over someone who scammed us that we thought was a friend, and my personal favorite, when we seethe with rage at that incompetent driver who is ruining everything... When we do that we are also foreshadowing and reflecting the spiritual realm. When we dwell in those broken relationships we prefigure the brokenness and separation that becomes our hell.
And when we demonize whole groups of people, we mirror the damage that is caused in both the physical and the spiritual realm, by those evil agents of the darkness.
The easiest way for demons to win is for us to destroy ourselves from within; for them to convince us to allow ourselves to be consumed by hatred and division and separation and destruction. A house divided against itself cannot stand. (Mark 3:25)
Christ tells us "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.".
This was his response to the Apostles when they tell him they tried to stop someone from casting out demons in Jesus' name. They didn't do it because they thought the person didn't believe in the power of Jesus. They didn't do it because they thought the person was evil. They did it because he wasn't following them. Not because he wasn't following Jesus, but because he was not following them.
Demons are evil and destructive and malevolent. Their goal is to lead us astray, to try and drag us off of the narrow path that God calls us to walk in, to destroy that which should belong to God . And though they are out there, and we do encounter them, perhaps we don't see them as often in our times as we did in the time of Christ. But perhaps that is because we do their work for them. The great irony is that we even use their name while we inflict their damage upon ourselves.
We demonize conservatives when we claim that they are nothing but bigots out to oppress people with same gender attraction or people who want to teach evolution. We demonize liberals when we say they are anti-biblical relativists seeking to overthrow the traditions of the church. We frequently struggle to see the good in the other side, or, perhaps more frequently, we... I... sometimes don't even try.
But my stepmom's conservative Christian Church has been on more missions than I can count in the last couple of years; around our home in eastern North Carolina; in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; in Texas, and around the world. Their small church does more good and helps more people than you would ever guess at first glance. Whatever their thoughts on the hot button issue of the day, they are doing the work of Christ. They are feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. And my friend's parish -- the one that makes me squirm with their reluctance to say the creeds or accept the resurrection of Christ) -- they feed hundreds of people a week and protect the homeless, the most disadvantaged in society from the dangers of the street and from the elements, and they treat them with more dignity than many churches offer prospective new members.
"Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward."
When we demonize those with whom we disagree because they are not following us, it may be time to take a second look and see how they are following Christ. It may be time to realize that while we are not walking perfectly in step, we are both moving towards the same end. It is at the times when we are tempted to demonize that we most need to recognize the Christ in our neighbor and the Christ in our supposed enemy.
Because in the end, our breaking of relationship with someone harms us far more than it harms them. Our decision to break our communion with fellow followers of Christ hurts us because it impairs our relationship with the fullness of the body of Christ, and so with God. Our decision to demonize does to us the same thing a demon would: it pulls us away from the path we are called to walk in. In demonizing others, we are really demonizing ourselves.
I believe in Satan, and I believe in demons. But because of God's faithfulness to us, I believe they have no power over us without our acceptance. If we stand firm in our faith and if we seek the Christ in one another, we make the game harder for them.
Our calling as Christians is a call to fellowship and community. We live in hope that we all may be one. And with the threats to our very existence the dark one from time to time poses, with the presence of evil prowling around, seeking someone to pull away, to tear apart, to drag into the nothingness, with a danger like that lurking, there is no need for us to offer the satan any aid or quarter.
We see over and over again a Christ that cast out demons, participating in the spiritual warfare that is being fought over his creation. If we can move past our division, if we can listen and believe that whoever is not against us is for us, then we can vanquish the demons of our own creation, just as Christ vanquishes the demons that have invaded his creation.
Like Lewis said, the most dangerous thing we can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs.". When we follow ourselves and our standards, and cast out those who don't adhere to our doctrine and our ideas, we ignore the possibility that they are also following Christ. And when we set our own wills above his, there is not one of those ideas that will not make us into devils if we set it as our absolute guide, there is not one that will not break apart our relationship with God and with each other, there is not one that will not lead us straight into our hell.
While there are very real spiritual forces of evil out there working tirelessly to destroy creation, we must recognize that they are not the only ones who help the darkness bleed into the physical realm. We must also recognize the evil in ourselves, and the damage that we do, and we must continually turn ourselves back to Christ, for he casts out evil, he shines out in the darkness and is not overcome, and it is in his name powerful works are done. It is Christ drawing all things to himself, and it is Christ leading us into a perfectly restored creation, and it is in Christ that we will be reconciled to one another and to God.
AMEN.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Seminarian Sermons, Part 1.
So I went back home for Diocesan Convention this past weekend and my sponsoring parish asked me to preach our three Sunday Services after convention was over. Here's the text and hopefully there will be video to follow!
Lectionary readings for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany
May I speak to you in the name of one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hallelujah!
How good it is to sing praises to our God!
how pleasant it is to honor him with praise
The Psalmist makes it seem so easy, doesn’t he, at least when he’s not wishing for his enemies’ teeth to be broken. He’s not wrong, though. It is good, and pleasant to sing praises to God! We gather together every Sunday (and even sometimes during the week, as we have these past two days at Diocesan Convention); We gather and we have a grand time, offering praise to God, singing beautiful hymns together, enjoying fellowship with fellow christians and giving our thanks. And we should. One might even say it is a good and joyful thing to do. When we gather like this we’re doing what Christians have done for two millennia, we’re doing what Christ commanded us to do. In fact, for many of us, myself especially, this is where we come to encounter God. We come to the table and break bread, and share wine, and we marvel at the holy mystery of the incarnation of Christ; at God made man; at his redemption of our broken nature; and at the sheer wonder of creation. And in the repetition of our liturgy and our prayers, in the familiarity of the faces and buildings around us, we find solace, we find peace, and we find comfort.
When I was growing up I was, in what is undoubtedly a complete and total shock to everyone who has ever known me, a rather nerdy kid. Middle school is tough as it is, but as a short underweight, self-professed geek.... Well, let’s just say that middle school went pretty much exactly the way you would expect. Luckily, I had somewhere to go. From a young age, I got involved in the diocesan youth programs, and took advantage of nearly everything the diocese had to offer. These events were an incredibly welcome break from the slings and arrows of the social minefield that is middle school. Having a place where everyone was kind was fantastic. To a moody, hormonal 7th grader these events were a mountaintop experience to rival Peter’s. It was the one place where we could all be around our peers and still be safe, still be welcomed, and still be comfortable.
But in our Gospel today, Mark is calling us into a space that can be quite uncomfortable. And he is not only calling us into that place, he is calling us into that place urgently, even dragging us kicking and screaming into that space. If we were 29 verses into Matthew’s Gospel, we would still be learning about Jesus’ Great-Great-Great uncle or something, but this is Mark, and Mark is in a hurry. Jesus already has a few apostles, has started preaching and he has exorcised a demon who had publicly outed him as the Holy One of God -- in case the sky being torn open and the great booming theophany at his baptism hadn’t given it away.
The fact that that this has all happened so quickly, so immediately is important. It’s important because what we’re being asked to do by this passage is so urgent and uncomfortable. There’s a quote attributed to St. Francis that I love, and that I think most Episcopalians love: “Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary use words.” I agree with Francis, I really do. It’s important to spread the good news with our actions as well as our words. But the point Mark is making here seems to be that it is not enough to just do good works. We’re being compelled to go out and talk about this good news. Simon hunts down Jesus and tells him “Everyone is searching for you.”
“EVERYONE is searching for you.”
I’m not going to really get too much into the Greek, mostly because I’m absolutely horrible at Greek, but the word used here for searching is a really aggressive word; it means more than just tracking down. It’s quite forceful. He pursued him, he hunted him, he rooted him out. He grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him and said “Hey! What are you doing out here in this deserted place? EVERYONE is looking for you!” Now I’m not using Greek to show you that y’all are getting a good return on your investment in sending me up to that fine seminary in Virginia; I’m using it because this wasn’t just Simon playing hide-and-seek with the Christ. Simon was pushed, was driven, was compelled to come find Christ, and then pushed, drove, and compelled Christ to go out preaching to everyone.
Like Simon, we are all hunting for Christ. Like Simon, we are trying to find him for our own reasons. We’re hunting for him because we want Christ to do what we want him to do. But, like Simon, we can’t be hunting for JUST ourselves. When we find Christ, we have to carry him back out into the world, carry him back out to everyone.
Underscoring the Gospel message today, Paul makes clear that carrying this message out isn’t ground for boasting, but rather is an obligation laid upon us, Just as Simon laid it upon Christ. “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel” says Paul, and with his long habit of making us uncomfortable he continues by not really giving us an option. We are not doing this of our own will. We are doing it because we have a commission. We have a commandment. “Go ye into all the world preaching the Gospel.”
But Paul’s message isn’t totally without nuance. Paul tells us we have to go out and spread the Gospel, but he isn't telling us we have to throw on a signboard and stand on a street corner shouting at passers-by. Paul is telling us to meet people where they are. He has made himself all things to all people.
Now, we aren’t Paul, and I know I can’t do that. But what we can do is be there each day with someone in need. Be with someone who is broken, who is hurting, who is struggling, who is just having a bad day; be with them, and help them carry their load. Be with them, and let them know that they are loved, not only by us as friends, but as a unique, and precious child of God.
I know that this can be hard. Sharing our faith with people is not something that comes naturally. Having conversations about our faith with strangers can be really, really awkward. Believe me, I know.
We learn from a young age it’s impolite to talk about politics or religion.
And for us as Episcopalians it can especially difficult. It may be even harder for us to speak in the language of evangelism. It can be difficult at times to even use terms like evangelical, and I know I can hardly say “I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior” without stumbling over my words, not because I don’t mean it, I absolutely do, but because that’s just not how we usually say and do things in the Episcopal Church.
So yes, It’s awkward. Yes, it’s unpleasant. Yes, it’s uneasy. Yes, it’s uncomfortable.
But it was absolutely terrifying to Isaiah when the pivots on the threshold of the temple shook and the seraphim came crashing through the roof and he found himself surrounded by the hem of the robes of God, overwhelmed by his Glory. It was terrifying to Paul, when he was struck blind on the highway and the risen Lord himself appeared and said “Saul, why are persecuting me?” And it can be terrifying and uncomfortable to us when we encounter God and the risen Christ in our lives.
But when God asked “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah responded, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.” And Paul obeyed, and he carried the Good News to the Gentiles.
So when we consider what we face; a sky torn open, a man healing and exorcising and preaching in the name of God, not just a man, but God himself, God incarnate, God stooping to dwell here with us; what else are we to do?
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth... he who brings princes and rulers to naught.” It is the Holy One of God. And if there is something for which it is worth putting ourselves out there, something worth taking a risk for, something worth getting uncomfortable for, something worth laying ourselves bare for, something worth sacrificing for, then surely it is this Christ that has saved us.
So when we are sent from this building to do the work which we have been given, let us all make a point this week of sharing why it is we do what we do, why it is we come together in this place to break bread, to wonder at the holy mystery and encounter God, why it is that we live and move and have our being.
Have a conversation about your faith with someone you normally wouldn’t, invite a friend to church who hasn’t been before. Do not be afraid, say the angels. Go out into our town, proudly and joyfully proclaiming the incredible, remarkable, disconcerting, earth-shaking, life changing Gospel of Christ.
Because everyone is searching for him.
Everyone is searching for him.
Amen
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Rhythm's Gonna Get You
A week or so into the semester and a rhythm is finally starting to develop. After an incredibly hectic August term and a fairly hectic start to the semester things seem finally to be falling into a pattern and it's becoming easier to feel as if I know what I'm supposed to be doing and when I'm supposed to be doing it. Just as importantly my class continues to be fantastic and growing together into our new role.
Most significantly, I spent yesterday afternoon in southeast Washington DC doing homework with kids from the Potomac Gardens housing project. Life in this project is one of abject poverty, with the average family income being about $8,000 a year In spite of this, the kids we're working with are resilient, bright, capable, and surprisingly hopeful in spite of all they've seen. It was an absolute pleasure working with them and I'm really excited about spending the next five Tuesday evenings with them. The joy the children have in spite of all the challenges facing them is a truly inspirational thing.
Most significantly, I spent yesterday afternoon in southeast Washington DC doing homework with kids from the Potomac Gardens housing project. Life in this project is one of abject poverty, with the average family income being about $8,000 a year In spite of this, the kids we're working with are resilient, bright, capable, and surprisingly hopeful in spite of all they've seen. It was an absolute pleasure working with them and I'm really excited about spending the next five Tuesday evenings with them. The joy the children have in spite of all the challenges facing them is a truly inspirational thing.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Oh My Sweet Carolina...
Greek is done. Alleluia.
For now at least.
August term and orientation are now officially over, and thus I have taken a trip to ensure that the wonderful state of North Carolina is still around and to visit with my girlfriend. NC is still here, Sarah is great, and both of those things make me happy.
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| Proof of NC's existence: an old photo of the Governors Mansion. |
August term is a pretty brutal way to start Seminary. We spend almost all morning in Greek Class, then eat lunch, then have either a writing workshop or orientation in the afternoon. Following classes we have a short break before dinner, then about 4 or so hours of Greek homework and studying. Needless to say three weeks of that is pretty exhausting.
On the upside I can now (with great effort, a little time, and a few tables to help with declensions) translate some pretty basic Koine Greek. I have gotten to know my class pretty well, and it is a truly fantastic class. I have learned how to get around Alexandria reasonably well and have figured out where the essentials are. I am very much looking forward to getting into a more regular rhythm when our more normal schedule picks up on Tuesday, but for the next few days, I'll just enjoy relaxing, being back in NC, and getting too spend a bit of quality time with someone who is usually entirely too far away.
Happy Labor Day!
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