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SERMON
ARCHIVE March, 2003 Click on the sermon you wish to read.
Sermons may be printed using the Adobe Acrobat version of the sermon. Click on the "printable format" link. If you do not have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, click on the icon above and follow the simple directions to download it free from the Adobe web site. The Third Sunday
in Lent Exodus 20:1–17 Click
here for printable .pdf format What we have for so long dreaded has finally come to pass. We are now engaged in that most evil and destructive of all human enterprises, war. Lord, have mercy upon us. Regardless of whether a person considers the armed invasion of Iraq and the "shock and awe" fire bombing of Baghdad to be just or not, I must believe that there is not a person of good will anywhere who does not deeply mourn that it has come to this. As I've listened these past days and weeks to you in this parish who are veterans of war and to other veterans of war, you and they have all to a person testified to the horror and insanity of war. If anyone thinks they do not believe in original sin, they need merely look upon war and they will have all the evidence they need that we are in bondage to a sin from which we cannot free ourselves. No one who has been in battle or who has viewed or experienced the long-lasting, devastating, and always unforeseen effects of war can call this war or any war anything but the most tragic testimony to the fallen and sinful nature of humankind. This is the Third Sunday in Lent. By long-standing tradition, this is the Sunday when the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments are proclaimed as a part of the liturgy - and so you have heard them here as our first reading. The Ten Words as they are known in Judaism are a summary of the Torah, the covenant God made through Moses with the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob. The word "Torah" in Hebrew literally means "the finger pointing the way." The Ten Commandments, the Torah in miniature, are a gracious gift from God that point for us the way to live in harmony with God and with one another. As Jesus interprets the commandments for us in his Sermon on the Mount we also learn that in the light of the commandments none of us is righteous. "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not kill'; and 'whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment . . . and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to hell." As one young person said in one of my catechism classes, "Wow. That means we're all killers." Precisely. Jesus goes on: "I
say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the
right cheek, turn the other also . . . Love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you." Mark Hanson, the presiding bishop of our church, has called upon us in this time of war to remember our baptism. In baptism, the old sinful self is crucified with Christ, and a new self arises, a new self whom God sees as clothed with the righteousness of Christ. In baptism, we have died to sin so that we might walk in newness of life. Now the commandments as interpreted by Jesus no longer accuse; now, for us the baptized, they speak of who we truly are as reborn sisters and brothers of Christ. Reborn in Holy Baptism, we are a people who no longer covet material goods, who no longer covet prestige and power, who are no longer consumed with getting and having. Reborn in Holy Baptism, we are no longer people who scheme to deprive others of their goods or means of making an income. We are no longer a people bent on murderous thoughts, words, and deeds. We are no longer people who are jealous of other people's relationships. Now, rather, we are a reborn people who do everything in our power to ensure that our neighbor has meaningful employment and just wages. We are a people who, for the sake of the neighbor, work for honesty and justice in the marketplace. We are a people who strive for a social order in which all people are properly fed, clothed, housed, and educated. We are a people who respect, guard, and support one another's relationships and who remind ourselves and one another that our partners are gifts from God. And we are a people who honor our elders for they tell each new generation of the wonders and promises of God. We are also a people who hear the word of God which tells us that while we live on this shadowed planet we do not have complete free will. Rather, our wills are bound up in webs of greed and injustice, in webs of tyranny and hate - and so we need to be here where we receive the forgiveness of our sins. We need to be in this place where we hear over and over who we truly are as the baptized of God. We need to be here where we receive the true body and blood of Christ which gives us strength to live our baptism, strength we cannot summon up on our own. And we are a people who no longer use the name of God to legitimize or prop up any of our human, worldly orders; we are a people who do not use the name of God to judge or damn others, who do not presume know the mind of God. Rather, we are a people who praise God's name. We are a reborn people who give thanks to God everywhere and at all times. We are a people who call upon God in time of trouble - praying for the peace of the whole world, praying for the women and men in the military and their families, praying for those in harm's way, praying for those who by no choice of their own were born in Baghdad or Palestine or North Korea. Above all, we are a people whose trust is in God alone. We do not put our trust in any of the orders of this world, in governments, constitutions, presidents, kings, prime-ministers, flags, congresses, socialism, capitalism, or any other "ism." Our trust is not in our own strength or our own wisdom, not in war or threats of war; our trust is not in weapons or sanctions; our trust is not even in our own visions of what peace might look like. Our trust is in God alone, the God of Jesus Christ whose way and wisdom is the cross. Our trust is in
God alone who says to us, "I am the Lord your God, and you shall
have no other gods before me, for I alone will be your God when all
else fails. I alone will be your God, your only hope - no matter what
shall befall you. I alone will be your God, your only hope when the
skies rain fire, when the terrorists strike fear, when tyrants rule.
The First Sunday
in Lent Genesis 9:8-17 Click here for printable .pdf format These are our desert
days. The winds of war hot and angry swirl and gust about us, tearing
at our hearts and minds. We hear daily of the handiwork of tyrants in
Korea and Iraq. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Palestinians and Israelis
ride a vicious and unending see-saw of attack and reprisal, attack and
reprisal, making the Holy Land anything but. And in our land, the daily
newspapers and weekly newsmagazines regale us each day and week with
stories of the brazen corruption and arrogant fraud that infect the
upper echelons of business and industry. News of the newly unemployed
is an every-other day occurrence, at best. And many wait, wondering
when they will be the next to face a jobless future. Meanwhile our retirement
and pension funds look more and more pathetic each quarter, and the
prospects of a comfortable retirement look less and less likely by the
day. And even though spring is just around the corner, prolonged drought
and empty reservoirs foretell of yet one more season of dried landscapes
and wild mountain fires. Where then shall we find flowers to adorn the
flag-draped coffins of our dead coming home from war? But, then again,
already in the sands of Iraq the flowers are too few and the innocent
dead far too many. But when was it ever not thus? Perhaps our folly was in believing it would be otherwise. When have not people in every age been sorely tried by evils of one sort or another? Consider the early church. Even then the Holy Land was the scene of a most unholy turmoil. Only forty years after Christ, Jerusalem lay in smoldering ruins, not to rise again from the rubble until the 20th century, and its inhabitants dispersed among the nations even until today. The early followers of the Christian way, those whom the Gospels first addressed, lived with the daily and real prospect of arrest, torture, and execution. Those early Christians and the Christians of many times and many places assembled furtively and departed somberly, never knowing who would be the next to face the death squads. When our spiritual ancestors prayed the words that would be better translated into English, "Save us in the time of trial," they prayed them with pounding hearts and shortened breath; the time of trial was more daily than bread. For the early Christians, baptism into Christ's death was not a theological abstraction, rather it was immanent fleshy, bloody reality. We hear in today's second reading, "For Christ also suffered and was put to death in the flesh." For them, baptism was the pledge that their trials and those of Christ were made one. And so too for us. We walk through this, our time of trial with Christ – or better put, Christ walks with us through this time of trial – Christ carries us with himself through these dreaded and dreadful desert days. We have this promise that when we are paralyzed with anxiety and fear and can scarce put one foot in front of the other, we are not left to ourselves. The one who joined himself to us in baptism breathes in us, with us, for us, sustaining us in the time of trial with the promise that we, in him and with him, will be delivered, have already been delivered, from every evil. In today's Gospel we hear that the angels waited on Jesus when he was in the desert. So too do angels, messengers from God, wait upon us in our desert days. Two of these messengers appeared here last Sunday. Close to 11.00 last Sunday, little Christopher (his name means Christ bearer) came trooping into church with little Briana in tow, his little hand, grubby from some Sunday School project, gripping tightly to her little hand. Together they stopped at the font. Christopher stood on his tippy-toes and dunked his free hand into the water and then with great delight and solemn purpose he made the sign of the cross on himself. And wetting his hand again he reached to Briana and made the sign of the cross upon her body. "Trust like these little ones," said Jesus. "That's how you will know the realm of God." These angels carry well the promise proclaimed by our second reading: Baptism now saves you through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him. So turn and hear again in these desert days the promise of God to you: In Holy Baptism you have been joined to Christ. And in this time of trial, you will be sustained by the Christ whose resurrection is already yours, and no authorities or powers can or will have the last word over you. You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ – forever – and against that sign, not even the very powers of hell shall ever prevail. And as you leave here this day, consider stopping at the font and marking yourself with that promise. Who knows, you may very well bump into another angel or two back there – or maybe you'll be one yourself. The Transfiguration
of Our Lord 2 Kings 2:1-12 Click here for printable .pdf format The Transfiguration is a dangerous day in the liturgical calendar of the church. We trot out the white and gold paraments, we sing hymns filled with images of light and glory. The presider is decked out in high holiday vestments. It looks for all the world like a festival of triumph - and of course it is. But with any festival of triumph comes the greatest of temptations - and here in the transfiguration, Simon Peter expertly shows us exactly what this temptation looks like. The whole transfiguration narrative begins six days prior to the Transfiguration itself. Six days earlier, Peter has been told, quite literally, to shut the hell up. It all started when Jesus began to talk about the cross - about his betrayal, his suffering, his death. Peter and the disciples have been told that the Human One must suffer many things - that the Human One will be rejected by the religious authorities and will be killed and after three days rise again. But Peter will have none of it. This is not why Peter signed up for this discipleship gig. And so Jesus cusses him out - though it loses quite a lot when it gets translated into the English, "Get behind me Satan!" And then Jesus tells all his followers that they too will take up the cross, that they too will lose themselves for the sake of others. So now 6 days later Peter and the boys are with Jesus on the mountain top. And something happens. Jesus is somehow – changed. He is metamorphosed as the Greek of the New Testament says - or as one translator suggests, Jesus is remodeled. And there with him are Moses and Elijah - risen - or something - from the dead. Peter can hardly contain himself - this is what it's all about!! Shining glory. Let's build us some shrines to preserve the moment, This wondrous vision proves to Peter that the cross and dying stuff was all a mistake - this is what Peter wants for a Messiah: a wonder-worker, a healer, clad in robes of shining, white glory, safely preserved with Moses and Elijah in mountain top shrines. In a recent interview,
Kenneth Woodward, Newsweek magazine's chief religion writer and editor,
describes some current trends in the American church. One such trend
is for churches to do market surveys to find out what people want -
and then they strive to give it to them. These surveys have discovered
that people want churches with recreational facilities and athletic
programs for the kids. They want big parking lots. They don't want the
liturgies to be too long. They want short sermons that stay away from
depressing topics like disease, poverty, injustice and homelessness.
And some people want condensed Bibles with simplified language so that
everyone can immediately understand them. And that's just what churches
that want to grow give them. Oh Peter, shut up
and listen to Jesus, God's beloved and anointed one. Yes, you have seen
glory here. You have seen Moses and Elijah risen - somehow risen - from
the dead. And you have seen Jesus shining brighter than any brightness
you have ever beheld on earth. Jesus is indeed transfigured - changed on the mountaintop. But the transfigured Jesus that comes down from the mountaintop is an increasingly difficult Jesus - the transfigured Jesus is the who speaks in contradictions - who talks about needing to die in order to live. The transfigured Jesus who comes down from the mountaintop says that only by becoming a servant can one can one take one's place in the realm of God, only by being last will one be first. The Jesus who comes down from the mountain is increasingly irritated that the disciples can't seem to get it through their thick heads that it is only at the cross where they will see the fullness of Jesus. The transfigured Jesus no longer tries to placate the religious authorities - rather, he acts up, violently disrupting church business as usual. There will he no market- driven gimmicks, gymnasiums, or big parking lots to bring the people in and make the church grow. And now the church
leaders are looking for a way to kill him. Make Jesus blonde, blue-eyed,
sweet, and innocuous - that's as good a way as any to kill him. Keep
those crosses gold and do not, by any means put the broken body of Christ
on them - empty and pretty crosses will keep the world safely away from
the transfigured Jesus who comes down from the mountain. And, since every
story of Jesus is a story that implicates us the baptized, this transfiguration
story is about us too. With our baptism into Christ, we too have been
transfigured - we too now shine in the white of resurrection - we have
been promised that we too like Christ shall triumph over death. And
while that is our end, it is also what sets us on the road to the cross
- following the suffering servant wherever we are led - called forward
into lives of self-sacrifice for the sake of the neighbor. And so now we sing yet one more song of glory and triumph. It sings of our end, it sings of our beginning. But it can make no sense unless we follow our Lord Jesus Christ to the cross - his cross - our cross. |
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