Nouns and Adverbs

Sermon-Year B-Proper 28 24 Pentecost November 15
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
A couple of deer hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls off the path, down a ravine, to the ground below. His buddy looks down after him. The fallen man doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes have rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator, in a soothing voice, says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: "OK, now what?"
I’m sure you all are already prepared but I thought I would just check to make sure, you know that the world is ending 2012? Right? But not til Dec. 21st 2012 so at least we have over 3 years left. That’s according to the Mayans. This year 7 movies referring to the end of the world have been released, including last Friday’s 2012. Even for Hollywood, seven movies about the end are a lot. Why do you think there are so many? What’s it all mean? One survivalist who has a blog says that his website has tripled in popularity in the last 14 months. Why? Why is the end of the world so popular? (Transformers, G.I. Joe, The Day the Earth Stood Still)
“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning…”
Sound scary? Mark the gospel writer is writing this about 70AD we think. That becomes important later. But first let me tell you a couple of things.
In the early 1500s a man by the name of Melchior Hoffman who was a lay preacher was noted for his teaching that the world would end in his lifetime. In 1526 Hoffman published a detailed pamphlet on the twelfth chapter of Daniel which proclaimed that the world would end in seven years, at Easter of 1533.” “A German bookbinder named Hans Nut said that he was a prophet of God sent by Christ to herald the Second Coming. This would occur exactly three and a half years after the start of the Peasant's War, in 1527.” “Bishop Frederick Nausea predicted that the world would end in 1532 and Martin Luther, the reformer, predicted the end of the world in 300 years or in 1800.
These are just a few of the prophets of the early 1500s! Every era, every century believes that the world will end, that the end is coming. It’s called “the apocalypse”, which means the “unveiling” or “revealing.” If you watch any end of the world movies, read any of this genre, you will hear the word APOCALYPSE. It is very popular. Every year there have been dire predictions, terrible prophecies forecasting the end of the world. There are 4 places in the Bible in which we read about the apocalypse-The Book of Daniel, The Book of Revelation-and the 13th chapter of the gospel of Mark and the 21st chapter of the gospel of Luke). Writers (and movies) love to refer to these books as “predicters” of the future.
One psychologist I was reading said that the more people feel out of control in their personal life, the more they are drawn to apocalyptic teaching. For instance-people losing their homes, people losing their jobs, people without health care or who are told daily that global warming or international terrorism is going to destroy them. People who are losing what will keep them safe are most susceptible to stories about the end. No wonder people are making a lot of money off of predicting the end of the world.
Do you remember last week’s gospel and Dick’s sermon? A poor widow drops two pennies into the collection at the temple. And only Jesus seems to notice and appreciate her sacrifice. The story continues this week with Jesus and his followers walking out of that same temple and taking a place opposite it-and all the disciples want to talk about is how grand the temple is. Jesus obviously is still thinking about the poor widow they just saw giving up everything.
And Jesus says, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." They must have been shocked. This is the center of their faith, and Jesus is telling them that it will end? And of course, within 40 years the Romans tear down the temple, all except a portion of the west wall that we have today. And so Jesus’ prediction comes true. His friends say nothing at the time, but later, in private, they want to know about the end, “WHEN WILL THIS BE??? WHAT ARE THE SIGNS THAT THE IS GOING TO HAPPEN?” TELL US ABOUT THE APOCALYPSE???
A volunteer tutor was asked to visit a nine-year-old in a large city hospital. She took the boy's name and room number and was told by the boy's teacher that they were studying nouns and adverbs in class. It wasn't until the tutor got to the boy's room that she realized the boy was a patient in the hospital's intensive care burn unit. No one had prepared her to find a nine-year-old so horribly burned and in such great pain. She felt she couldn't just turn and leave, so she gathered her courage and entered the room. "Hi, I'm the hospital teacher," she stammered. "Your teacher asked me to help you with nouns and adverbs." And, clumsily, she launched into the lesson. The next morning a nurse called the tutor. "What did you do to that boy?" The tutor immediately began a tearful apology, but the nurse interrupted her. "No, no, no. You don't understand. We've been very worried about him. But since you were here, he's fighting back, he's responding to treatment. It's as though he's decided to live." The boy later explained that he had given up hope, until the tutor came. "I figured they wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a kid who's dying, would they?" ("Hope in the active voice," Connections, Solemnity of Christ the King, Nov. 1998)
Why waste time on someone who is dying? Jesus tells his friends that bad things are going to happen, but that God is constantly trying to build up his kingdom-not tear it down.
We live in scary times. Human beings have always lived in scary times. Buildings get destroyed. Walls are pulled down. People lose jobs and homes, and often, they lose hope. We feel overwhelmed, we feel powerless, we cannot cope with all the stuff going on in our lives. That happens. It always has, and it will continue. So where do we go? How do we act? How do we respond when so many movies, so much of the newscasts, so much of the words coming at us are full of fear?
We sit down and go on with our lives. We live each day. Of course we’re afraid, of course we’re overwhelmed. And often we feel powerless. But you know what? We go on. We continue. We decide to live and fight back. It is not easy. We often don’t know which direction to go, or how to get there.
10 years ago, when the 10-year celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, they were remembering the economic crisis and general chaos the fall of the wall created, while we, over here in the US were celebrating. A woman who'd been behind the iron curtain was quoted in the paper saying that while it was great that they were now free, no one had taught them how to be free. And she was terrified of what came next.
Today’s reading ends with this verse: This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.
Think back over your life, to moments when your life was about to change? At the time do you remember feeling confident and strong? Do you remember feeling sure of yourself, and absolutely clear about what you were supposed to do? When Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was torn down in 70AD, the church was based and centered in Jerusalem. Christianity was forced to leave and scatter throughout the world. It looked like the end of the church. Guess what?-That was the apocalypse, the unveiling for the Christian church and look at it today.
It is so easy, so inviting, when we are powerless, when we are scared, to give in to fear. It is so simple and so appealing when we are overwhelmed to succumb to paralysis. But it is not Christian. Next Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year. This is a time of endings. But for Christians, it is also day of beginnings. This is but the beginnings of the birthpangs. We are often powerless, we are frequently scared. We look at the world and the things that are happening and we get paralyzed with fear. But that’s ok. We know that change always starts this way. With fear and trembling and worry. That’s ok. The future isn’t about the end of the world-it’s about the beginning of God’s kingdom. Sometimes when we are feeling as though we are in the burn unit awaiting death, God comes in to teach us about nouns and adverbs. Amen.
Mark 13:1-8
13:1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!"
13:2 Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
13:3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,
13:4 "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"
13:5 Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray.
13:6 Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray.
13:7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.
13:8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.

Saints In A Thousand Pieces

Sermon-All Saints’ Day-Nov. 1, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Ok, I tell you a lot of stories about my friend Mark who is a priest in Binghamton, New York, but it’s because, unlike me, he makes so many mistakes. Three weeks ago he was baptizing a child in his church, so he told this story.
Today we have a baptism, and that's always fun. I'm not sure it would have been quite as much fun to baptize a Viking back in the Dark Ages of Europe. But some Vikings did get baptized. There is a story that the leader of one tribe of Vikings heard the story of Jesus and decided to be baptized. And in his tribe, if HE got baptized, EVERYBODY got baptized. So they all traipsed down to the river, because in those days, you got baptized by being dunked all the way under.
They understood what that baptism was all about. All the warriors, at the command of their tribal leader, walked into the water to get baptized. But all the warriors, including the tribal leader, held their right arms up out of the water during the baptism. They got dunked completely - except for their sword arms.
They knew they were going to continue on using those swords in their Viking-like activities, so they did not want those sword arms baptized.
So Mark told this story, and then he went on to tell the congregation that it was pledge Sunday and they shouldn’t hold their wallets up in the air to exempt that part of their body from Christ.
So at the offering, several men in the congregation held their wallets up in the air, just as he told them not to, to tease him. Only Mark is so blind he didn’t realize that these guys were holding up their wallets making fun of him, he thought they were holding up cell phones taking pictures of the baby he just baptized.

We welcome all you saints today! You may not believe you are a saint. You may not feel like a saint. No one may have told you recently that you are a saint. But do you think saints felt like saints? During the civil and religious strife of the Reformation in England, Protestant Roundheads stormed into cathedrals, destroying all religious “Catholic” symbols, getting rid of anything that they believed stood between people and God. They were the Taliban of Protestant Christianity in the 17th century. In Winchester Cathedral there was a magnificent stained glass window over the west end dominating the whole cathedral that they pulled down, smashing it into a 1000 pieces. The shattered pieces, which once had shaped a Rembrandt-like scene from the Bible, could not be restored to form the original picture. With love and care, the people picked up the pieces of that beautiful scene. Long before the time of abstract art, they leaded the broken glass together with hope and returned it to the round window. Today, 300 years later, the same sun shines through the same beautiful colors of fine stained glass, a kaleidoscope of pieces, rearranged in a different and even more meaningful way. The broken glass tells a more powerful story than the previous window did of a people’s love and faith during a time of oppression.
Today we baptize two children. We call them, our newest Christians, our newest saints. They have done nothing wonderful, nothing holy, nothing sacred. Except be born. And bring joy into their family’s hearts. What more does God want? What more is a saint called to do? There is an old story of a child who was asked what a saint is, and he pointed to the church’s stained glass window and said simply, “a saint is someone the light shines through.” Saints aren’t necessarily the best people, they’re not always the holiest people, they are simply the people who for one brief shining moment show us the light-and lead us towards God.
We do something here at Trinity that is backwards, counterintuitive. In our service, we remember the people who are saints for us-those living and past who have touched us and shown us the way. We will read their names in a few minutes. And then after the 10:30am service we go out to the garden, and we will remember many of the church’s saints, those who showed all Christians the light of Christ. The first list are those who showed us the way-the second list are those who showed everyone the way. Both lists have the same purpose, to be transparent to the light.
Anatole France, the famous French poet, journalist, and novelist and Nobel Prize winner said that when he was a little boy he read the story of the life of St. Simeon Stylites, that strange gentlemen of ancient times who lived for thirty years on top of a sixty-foot pillar in Syria praying, and for some reason Anatole decided he was called to perform a similar act of saintly heroism. So he went into the kitchen, climbed up on the kitchen cabinet, and stayed there all morning. At lunchtime he got down. His mother, who understood what was happening, said: "Now, you mustn’t feel bad about this. You have at least made the attempt, which is more than most people have ever done. But you must remember that it is almost impossible to be a saint in your own kitchen."
But that is what we say today, that the list of saints that we read are the people who are saints for us in our own kitchens. They are the people who have led us to God, and showed us the Beatitudes, and taught us what it is to be blessed. Often the people we mention today were broken into a thousand pieces, and had to be put back together in a new configuration, revealing a whole different person. Often our lives feel like failures, or too damaged to ever be a saint or guide for anyone. How often do we look at our selves and think, “I have wasted so much, I have thrown away so much of my life, I have missed out on so many chances, so many opportunities? Judith Davis, Rector of Christ Church-Washington once preached
“Saints are people who know something profound about love, that suffering is connected with it. They learned the path of sainthood is not one of accolades but accusations.”
We remember all the saints today, those just being born, those who passed decades ago, those who seemed to touch only us, those whose witness touched everyone. Each one was a broken stained glass window scattered on the floor that God put back together to reveal a way.
We are asked to be saints, too. To be good and to let light shine through us. To be born again continually and to bring joy to our families. To stand in our kitchens and practice holiness-even if it’s only in our kitchens. We are never ever good enough. We are never holy enough. No saint is. But that is what God asks, that we be willing to be put back together in new ways, to show something profound about love.
Amen.

How Hard Do You Think It Was

Sermon-year B-Proper 22, October 4, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We begin our stewardship campaign today. I have been asked to start our talks by giving my own testimony. Before I do that, I want to tell you of some great risks that we have taken here at Trinity. Before this church was erected, there was another Episcopal Church in downtown Belleville in the 1890s. Grace Episcopal Church. It closed by the late 1920s. In the 1940s another group of Episcopalians began meeting and started a second church. How hard do you think it was to begin another church in a town when one had already failed?
When I came in the 1980s we started a new youth program. It wasn’t great but it was ok. Within a few years we found out about a program just taking off called Journey to Adulthood. It was exciting. We even hired a part time priest, Rev. Sally because we knew it would take great talent and energy to get it started. That was over 15 years ago. Next weekend for the 6th time a group of our J2A youth will drive to New York City for the weekend in a special program called Nightwatch where they spend a weekend at the largest cathedral in the world-St. John the Divine. Another group, Rite 13, spent last night here learning about hunger throughout the world.
We had an ok program, but we looked at the J2A and we knew that that would be the future for us. We were really scared starting it up, because it was new and different and required a huge commitment from us to get it started. How hard do you think it was to begin a new youth program when we already had one that was working?
A couple of years later, we were at a workshop in Indianapolis and we heard about a new children’s Sunday School program called “Godly Play”. We had a good children’s program here at the time, and great leadership. But when we saw Godly Play we knew it was the future. We were really scared starting it up, because it was new and different and required a huge commitment from us to get it started. How hard do you think it was to begin a new children’s program here when we already had one that was working?
I could describe to you dozens of times, that I know of, when we looked ahead, saw something that looked like wonderful, and we decided to go all in. In the late 1990s we had a building that no longer fit our needs. We talked about it for years. YEARS. Finally, at the annual meeting one year Brenda Coman stood up and said, there’s nothing stopping us from building except ourselves. We have to do it. We were really scared, because it was expensive, and new and different and required a huge commitment from us to get it started. How hard do you think it was to go out on a limb and raise almost a million dollars , invest in a new building when we already had one that was working?
Adopt-a-Child-Size. Cropwalk. Willow Creek ministry. The new prayer book. Putting all our worship in a bulletin. The 4th Sunday special music. Having a youth on the vestry. So many times we have started out on a new venture, taking a risk when we were comfortable where we were, but we saw the future. We believed that God was leading us in a new direction. And we took the leap.
Let me skip gears for a moment. For centuries the church (not just Trinity) had a very powerful way to get people to give. We used guilt and fear. We told people that God wouldn’t love them (or more accurately He would punish them) if they didn’t give, that they wouldn’t get into heaven-or much worse.. Guilt and fear worked well. It wasn’t Christian, but it was effective. People contributed because they thought we had the power to punish them forever. We, the church, has a long history of scaring people so that we would have the resources we wanted.
The last couple of centuries a new technique has been used. We explain what we need, and hope that you will respond. This is a very rational approach. You look at the church as an organization that you think is good. You realize it needs so much to continue. You think to yourself, I can afford this much and the church will make do with what I give it. Very rational. We have used that here at Trinity since we began in the 1940s, and it, too, works. We don’t try to manipulate you through guilt or fear. You look at your bank account and give accordingly. It has worked, and we like it. It treats parishioners with respect, and we don’t feel embarrassed in asking. We could continue using this approach and that would be fine. It still works and we feel comfortable with it.
But this year we started meeting with the diocesan resource, Kristine Miller. She talked to us about taking a new leap. We have always focused on people giving here out of gratitude, but she encouraged us to take the next step. She has talked to us about giving as a life changing experience. What if, she asked us, giving actually changed our lives? What if our faith actually increased because of how we gave to God?
So this year, we have structured our campaign around the idea that giving is a tool to help faith-even more than it helps the church. This has not been easy. We were comfortable with the old way. The old way has worked for us for a long time. Simply explain what our needs are, and people will contribute what they can.
But we tell people that gathering with other Christians, reading the Bible, saying prayers helps and strengthens their faith. What if How we give, a life of giving, Also could strengthen our faith? What if becoming self-conscious stewards could change our lives as Christians-regardless of what it means to the church?
So Kristine told us her ideas. About 45 of us met last January to begin this journey. We talked about who we were, what was important to us, who we wanted to be. We were comfortable with who we were. We didn’t see any need to change. But we saw the future. And we realized that we couldn’t go back.
In the past year groups have been meeting to talk about our future together. The enormous amount of work in the basement improving the youth space, our commitment to BEACON, two new adult ed programs, the Sunday morning Adult Forum, and EFM, all have come out of this new vision. But even more, we are committed to talking about gratitude and thanksgiving as a way of life. The stewardship team worked hard on the statement that we have had in the hall for the last several weeks. They have worked on the ministry budget to be passed out today. They have great plans for the fall. But here is the bottom line, we want your faith to grow. More than our income. More than our programs. We want your faith to become different. All of our plans for this fall are to help increase our faith. We don’t know what the response will be. We don’t know if giving will increase-or drop. We don’t know if your faith will change. We don’t know if we will begin living lives that are different. But we have seen the future. We believe that God is leading us in a new direction. And we are taking the leap. Amen.

What Part Of The Gospel Do You Avoid?

Sermon-year b-Proper 21, Sept. 27, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
They had a poll on the news the other night. A fellow who was mentally ill killed someone with a shovel nine years ago. Did anyone see this story? The fellow had recently been released because the authorities felt that his mental illness was now under control. The poll that the tv station was running was in answer to this question, “how many people would be uncomfortable having an mentally ill murderer move into your neighborhood?” I thought the question was pretty insane, but 18% of the people called in saying that it wouldn’t bother them. 18%. Hmm. The thing was, I can’t remember any other news from that night because that image was so powerful-an insane shovel murderer moving next door, and tv stations asking if that would bother you. Sometimes the drama gets in the way of the real message.
We didn’t hear it in church this year, but in the 9th chapter of Mark, a man brought his son to the disciples for an exorcism-and none of their prayers worked. Ok, it’s a chapter later, and John comes to Jesus and says, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us."
Do you think these two stories are connected? Ok, it’s handraising time, “how many of you hear today’s gospel and only hear the part about cutting off a hand or a foot, or pulling out an eye? It’s hard to get past that isn’t it? It’s like hearing that there’s a shovel murderer living next door. It’s hard to get past that and hear anything else.
The disciples traveling with Jesus went from being called to follow, to being the inner clique. It didn’t take long. Notice John the disciple doesn’t say following Jesus, he says, “following us.” Jesus picks up on this right away. He’s been trying to teach them about serving, and losing one’s life for the good news. And here is John trying to keep people out because they “aren’t one of us.” Believe it or not, everything that follows in this morning’s story is Jesus response to someone NOT being “one of us". Have you ever done that? Told someone that even though what they were doing was right, that they didn’t “qualify” that they didn’t have any right because they weren’t “one of us”? Thank God I haven’t.
A fellow came to me last week and said that he might be ordained to the priesthood. He hadn’t been to seminary like me, hadn’t waited 11 years-like me, hadn’t done all the things that I had done to be ordained like me, he was taking a different route and he asked, “Could you support me for ordination to the priesthood?” And I thought to myself, “My God, you sent him here because of this gospel, didn’t you!”
Today’s gospel continues Jesus teaching on service and inclusion. But nobody hears that. What does everyone hear in today’s gospel? That’s right hands and feet and eyes. Shovel murderers.
Let me tell you a long story, but you’ll enjoy it. It’s from The Rev. Dr. David Galloway an Episcopal priest in Atlanta, Georgia: “I had just finished playing a round of golf with my three best friends in Tyler, Texas. We had stopped into the 19th Hole, for some refreshment following our round. The room was full of people telling lies about their great round of golf, of spectacular shots made and of long putts sunk.
Into that room entered a man I shall call Hugh. Hugh was from central casting as to what a Texas oil man might look like-red-faced, large, and loud. Hugh always wanted you to know that he was in the house. He was a back-slapping, heehawing fellow both on the golf course and in the town. Funny thing was that nobody wanted to play with him because he was so overbearing, so obnoxious. I'll never forgive my friend Dan, who is a much better Christian than I am. He actually felt sorry for Hugh one day and invited him to join our group. For 18 holes, I had to put up with his loud-mouthed antics. It was the most horrible round of golf in my life…the round from hell.
But on this day, Hugh walked into the 19th Hole and was living large, a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other. He came up to my table and started talking loud, the only volume level he had, so loud that the attention of the room naturally turned to him. He bellowed at me, "You Episcopalians don't believe in the Bible, do you?!" Rather than take the bait, I just looked at him and smiled weakly, hoping he would pass on by.
He was referring to a recent decision by the church on some topic that was not to his liking. He went on, "David, I want to go to a church that is Bible-believing. Do you understand me? A place where the preacher is not trying to tippy-toe around the hard lessons of Jesus, a preacher who will lay it on the line, not try to water down the Gospel. I want a preacher who will be bold and put it out there, the full measure of the Bible, not hold back a lick. I want a preacher who will not let sinners slide and will call them out by name. I want the full Gospel. I don't want a preacher to pussy-foot around the message of Jesus."
I do not know where my response came from, but I heard it issuing forth from my lips after taking a long sip from my glass. "You want the full Gospel, Hugh? You mean the part about selling all you have and giving it to the poor?"
A pregnant silence fell over the room, after which Hugh responded, "Well, not that part!"
The room broke up in laughter. Hugh slunk out of the room as quietly as possible. Everyone was high-fiving me for having put Hugh in his place. "Way to go's" from Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Jews. David had slain Goliath once again, and all was right with the world.
I went home that night particularly proud of myself and proceeded to tell the story to my wife. Mary, again a better Christian than I am, laughed at the story with that laugh that I had grown to love over the past 25 years. But then my partner asked the evident but avoided question: "David, what part of the Gospel do you avoid?"
What part of the gospel do I avoid? You see, Jesus tells his “inner circle” starting with John, that “whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.”
Then Jesus goes on to say that anything we do that causes someone else to stumble, to lose the gospel, to lose their faith, it would be better if we cut it off, cut it out. Usually, as Jesus does not point out-it’s not the hand or the foot or the eye-usually the most dangerous part of our body is our tongue. Jesus is so emphatic about how easy it is to offend someone, to drive them away, to distract someone from their faith.
We will do many things in our lives that will drive someone away from the Kingdom of God. Brennan Mannings who wrote the prelude to dc talk's "Jesus Freak" CD, in which he says, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who profess Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him with their lives.”
Jesus doesn’t want people to cut off their hand. Or their foot. Or pluck out their eye. He wants us to stop chasing people away because they aren’t “one of us”. Because they haven’t gone through what we have. Maybe they don’t share the same creeds as us. Maybe they don’t look or act like us. Jesus asks us to be kind and gracious-especially to the most fragile, most vulnerable, the weakest. One last story, this from an anonymous preacher: “I once had a parishioner who complained that I didn't preach about hell enough. I had the presence of mind to ask him why he thought he was going to hell. He looked confused for a moment and then said, "No preacher, those other folks are the ones who need to hear about it!" Those other folks.Jesus says this morning’s teaching this way, “Whoever is not against us is for us.." “What part of the gospel do I avoid?”


Mark 9:38-50
John said to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." But Jesus said, "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. 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. "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell., And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. "For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."

Humble Tasks As Though They Were Great And Noble

Sermon-year b-Proper 20, Sept. 20, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I knew when I was 19 that I would be a priest some day. It was just so obvious, so clear to me. But I also knew that I wasn’t ready yet. So when I graduated from college, I decided that I needed to do some things to help me prepare, or as I look back on it now, to grow up. I thought I would find humble work and learn about ministry. So I decided to become a hospital orderly. I cleaned up after people, fed people, helped them put their clothes on, brushed their teeth, changed catheters-you name it. I worked20with people who were paralyzed, many from the neck down, and they were totally dependent on me for everything. I figured that I was learning about being a servant. One day, after doing this for 5 years I was talking to one of the patients who was a quadriplegic, explaining why I was doing what I was doing. I told him that I wanted to learn about servanthood and being humble. He told me that If I really wanted to learn about humility, I should become a patient.
If this morning’s gospel sounds familiar it should. We heard a variation on it last week. We will hear it again in a different form in about a month. I told you that Mark, the gospel writer, has Jesus starting a new direction after chapter 8. He continues to heal, to cast out demons, but his real teaching, about who he is and what he is about, has begun. Three times Jesus will tell the disciples that he, the messiah, will have to suffer and die. If they seem a little thick, it’s because Mark the writer does this on purpose. He was writing, 40 years after Jesus’ resurrection, and new Christians STILL weren’t getting it. So Mark wants everyone to see how difficult it is to understand. Jesus 3 times in 3 different chapters gets VERY SPECIFIC with his closest followers about what it means to be one of his. Last week’s gospel, Jesus told them that in order to save their life, they had to lose it. This week, he teaches
"Whoever wants to be first must be last of all " In a month Oct. 18, in chapter 10, Jesus will tell his followers that “whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”
To save our lives we must lose them, the first must be last, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant…
Do you have any doubts about what all this means?
There is an old Sunday School story that has floated around for years. A teacher was trying to explain these gospel stories. So she organized a race, and explained that the winner of the race would win all sorts of prizes. Then she lined the kids up and had them run around the church. When the last child crossed the finish line, all the adults who were watching went wild. They put a blue ribbon on the last place finisher, gave her candy, and had her come up and stand on a platform. All the other children stared in amazement. So then the teacher lined the kids up a second time, told them the stories about the last being first, being servant of all, and told them that the winner would again be honored greatly. The kids all stood there for a long time, no one wanting to actually get ahead. Finally they all joined hands and walked around the church together in a line so everyone finished at exactly the same moment.
Jesus is trying to get through to his friends that to save their life, they must lose it, that the first must be last, and that they were called to be servants of all. Each time, after he teaches this, there is an example in the gospel of someone who is disabled, helpless, or powerless coming to Jesus. Today it’s a child. It’s not because children were more precious, in Jesus’ day. If anything they were much further down on the value scale. Jesus wanted to teach his disciples what an upside down kingdom was like-where those who were the greatest weren’t those with the most power or status or abilities.
Every once in a while you’ll see me serve as an acolyte. It always happens when the person scheduled that day doesn’t show up, and at the last second we can’t find a youth who is prepared, with vestments, and is willing. Let me tell you, lots of adults always come up to me and say, “why didn’t you ask me to serve.” And I always say the same thing, “you don’t know how to do it. The kids make it look easy, but it really does take some skill. And I didn’t want you to be embarrassed.” When we were in the UP 25 years ago we didn’t have any children in one of the churches, an a woman who was 65 came up to me and asked if she could be an acolyte. I said, “Lorraine, why?” And she said that when she was young girls weren’t allowed to carry the cross in church and she always wanted to.
We are a church, and that mea ns that in the world we witness to a different kind of power, the authority of servanthood. The disciples are fighting over who would be the greatest. Instead Jesus wants them to argue over who can be the servant of all. My experience has been, at least in this church, that most of the time, people will work very very hard to be the best servant. I have seen people here fight in order to be the one to do an unpleasant task (I have also seen people back away from unpleasant tasks, but that’s for another sermon). For the most part, I think most of you get it. It is not painless being a Christian. It is not easy being a servant. But I think we realize that that is what Jesus is asking us to do.
Helen Keller, who could not hear, speak, or see once wrote“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.”
Three times in 3 consecutive chapters, Jesus will tell his followers, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.", the first must be last.
It’s a simple teaching-but it is not easy. Ronald Reagan used to keep a sign on his desk that read: "It's surprising what you can accomplish when no one is concerned about who gets the credit ".
We have two choices in life, to be great in the sight of others, or to be great in the sight of God. The world’s criteria is clear, but in the kingdom it is simple- Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."
9:30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;
9:31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again."
9:32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
9:33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?"
9:34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.
9:35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."
9:36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them,
9:37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

Who Do You Think Jesus Is?

Sermon-year b-Proper 19, Sept. 13, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When my father died, someone asked me if I was going to change my name. I am John Hagan, Jr. Supposedly it is the only time that a man ever changes his name. You can drop the junior. I don’t know if it’s true, but that is what I have heard. So I thought long and hard about that. Did I want to drop this last piece of my name, since senior was no longer alive. I could see the value in that. But then I thought, “that would somehow be disloyal to my dad-it would be like saying he didn’t exist.” So, I decided that I will be junior up to my grave. I was afraid that by changing my name, somehow, dropping the junior, I would be saying that my dad never existed. I know how silly that sounds. But these little things, what we call people, what names we use, can mean a lot. Last week I was in Georgia for a couple of days. Kyle, my stepson and I went to a lot of places together. He had to introduce me to a lot of people. Sometimes he would say , “this is my dad”, sometimes he would say, “this is my stepfather.” I have been in Kyle’s life since he was 9. His father is still very much alive and is also very much a part of Kyle’s life, so I know this has to make him pause about what to call me. His father and I for much of his life, have both acted as a parent. And I know he doesn’t want to be disloyal to his father, whom he loves very much. We ve never talked about it, it’s just understood. It’s hard sometimes knowing what name to use for people-we don’t want them to misunderstand.
Names are important. Titles are important. They define us. They say to us-and to the world, what we believe about life, about ourselves. It is not by accident that the first two weeks of our Adult Forum are devoted to the topic, “What Episcopalians Believe”. How we think of ourselves, how we describe ourselves, what we call ourselves, can mean everything.
In today’s gospel Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi-a Roman town named after the emperor in the region of Galilee. He turns to his followers and asks them,
"Who do people say that I am?". I don’t know if you remember, but 2 months ago, in chapter 6 of Mark, Herod the king was asked the same question. Hearing about Jesus Herod wanted to know who he was. 6:14 King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. Some were saying, "John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him."6:15 But others said, "It is Elijah." And others said, "It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old."6:16 But when Herod heard of it, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised."
So here is Jesus asking the disciples, “ And they answered him (much like the people around Herod), "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.". All these were great men in Israel’s life, and the disciples were guessing that maybe Jesus was one of these legendary heroes that they ha d heard about. Jesus doesn’t answer, or deny, he simply asks his follower’s leader, Peter, "But who do you say that I am?" And that is the question. Who do we think Jesus is? One commentator that I was reading said that our answer says a lot more about us, than it does about Jesus. So who do we think we are? Herod, out of guilt and fear at killing the prophet replied that Jesus was John the Baptist come back from the dead to haunt him, Peter-out of hope and excitement in this Roman occupied city, comes back with “you are the anointed one who will rescue Israel from its oppressors”. Our answers tend to say a lot more about us, than they do about Jesus.
So who do you say Jesus is? A comforter? A rescuer? Someone who makes us feel guilty about your life, or ashamed of your choices? Someone who constantly forgives you, or lifts you, or holds you? Who do you say Jesus is? What does your answer say20about you?
This chapter marks the turning point in the gospel of Mark, from here on out, Jesus will begin teaching about who he is. And about who a follower will be. Up till now, Jesus has been healing, chasing demons, helping folks in misery, “fixing” people and their lives. But beginning with this story, things will change. It’s as if he has been exceeding everyone’s expectations up til now. But from here on out-he disappoints and offends. Now he begins a new journey. The powerful, strong, commanding Jesus starts to disappear. A new Jesus emerges-and beginning with Peter-people don’t always approve. Peter, as always, is the first. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. A more accurate way to understand this verse is, And Peter took him aside and began to cast out the demon in Jesus.” Jesus tells Peter that he the true messiah must suffer and die. And this wasn’t what Peter wanted in a messiah. And on a lot of days, Jesus isn’t what I want, either. He doesn’t do what I want, he doesn’t always rescue and protect, he doesn’t give me all that I hope for. Have you ever disappointed your family, your friends? Have you ever been in a place where the people who are closest to you come up and told you that you let them down? Or maybe even failed them? It is a terrible place to be.
There is a story told about the great psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. After giving an address in Melbourne, Australia he was given a boomerang as a gift. He commented that the boomerang reminded him of our human existence. People assume that the function of the boomerang is to return to the thrower, he said. But the real function of the boomerang to hit the target and to return to the thrower only if it misses the target.
The boomerang, the toy we all grew up playing with, only comes back if it fails.
Who do people say you are? Ask someone today. Think about it. Think back in your life-what have people said about you. Who do people say you are?
Peter probably never met John the Baptist, certainly never knew Elijah, or had met any of the Old Testament prophets. He had only heard of them. But he knew Jesus. He had watched him, and listened to him, walked with him, and learned from him. Every title people tried to come up with about Jesus seemed to come up short, because they were based on what they thought great people were like. But Peter knew Jesus. And he realized that the only title that really fit-was savior, messiah. It is ironic that Peter gets the name right, but when the rubber hits the road, all Peter can say is, “you’re not doing it right.” That is what we will hear for the next several weeks-Jesus trying to help people understand what his name means, who he really is, what he is about. It’s all about names. No, it’s more than that, it’s all about understanding-and recognition. It’s about throwing the boomerang and seeing if we hit something-or if it comes back.
When we call someone a name, sometimes it says more about us, than it does about them. Perhaps the name we choose, tells us more about who we are than who the other person is.
A monk rode an ox into town and came to a group of people. The people asked him, “What are you looking for, monk?” He said, “I am looking for an ox.” They all laughed. He rode his ox to the next group of people. They asked him, “What are you looking for, monk?” He said, “I am looking for an ox.” They all laughed.&nb sp; He rode his ox to a third group of people. They asked him, “What are you looking for, monk?” He said, “I am looking for an ox.” They said, “This is ridiculous. You are a man riding an ox looking for an ox.” The monk said, “So it is with you looking for God.” (John Shea, The Legend of the Bells and Other Tales: Stories of the Human Spirit [Chicago: ACTA Publications, 1996], 111-12).
We are at a turning point in the gospel of Mark. From here on out Jesus will frustrate people more and more because he tries to get people to see the ox that they are riding. Who do you say that Jesus is?

The Onion Is Ours

Sermon-Year B Proper 17-August 30, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I hate to say this, but Jesus was wrong. It doesn’t happen very often, and I usually try to overlook it, but in this case-Jesus made a mistake. We should wash our hands before we eat. Is this so wrong? Of course not! My grandmother said it, my mother said it, and my wife says it-and that means that Jesus was wrong. The Pharisees tell Jesus that they caught his followers eating without washing their hands first. Why is that so upsetting to Jesus? What parent in their right mind would take Jesus’ side in this debate?
First of all, have you ever heard of the Washington Generals? That’s the team that plays the Harlem Globetrotters at all of their exhibitions. The Generals had a record of 6 wins and 13,000 losses over a 40 year period. THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO LOSE. The Pharisees are the Washington Generals of the gospels. So why is Jesus arguing with the Pharisees over something so mundane, so insignificant as hand washing? Doesn’t this seem a little, um, small and petty to you? When Gulliver traveled to Lilliput you know what the Lilliputians were fighting over? Whether you should crack your eggs at the small end or the big end. Seems rather, “small and petty” doesn’t it? So here is Jesus fighting with the Pharisees over something so minor, so trivial like cracking their eggs-and clearly Jesus is picking the wrong end of the egg.
When the Jewish people were taken into exile in 587BC by the Babylonians , they were not just defeated, they were destroyed. There was almost nothing of their culture, their history, their life, left. So when they returned to Israel 70 years later they had to work very very hard to hold on to their identity-and the primary way they did this, was by holding on to ancient rituals and traditions-things they had taken for granted- before they were taken into exile. Out of this group a reform movement developed called, the Pharisees. The Pharisees worked very very hard at keeping their Jewish identity. They believed that the best way to hold on to their Jewishness, to be faithful to God, was to keep the laws. Does this sound so wrong? Of course not. We applaud cultures who strive to keep their identity, we approve of keeping the law, right?. For the Pharisees, their goal was to maintain the separateness and uniqueness of Judaism. The Pharisees and their party represented about 5% of the Jewish people, but they were the good 5%, the powerful 5%, the religious 5%. The word Pharisee means “separate ones”. That was what Pharisees tried to do, to make their faith and practice better, to encourage people to obey God’s commandments, to push people to be more holy-is that so wrong? Of course not.
I have said this to you many times, the Pharisees didn’t think that Jesus was religious enough. He, or his disciples (which is how they could argue with Jesus), didn’t always keep all the religious rules and practices. This morning’s story wasn’t so much about not washing before they ate, it was about not treating things as holy. It was about not staying connected to the traditions. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not.
But for Jesus it opened up a whole can of worms. What is the purpose of tradition? Why do we have rituals? What’s the point? And Jesus unleashes a torrent of teaching on the Pharisees, these Washington Generals. First he calls them a name, “you hypocrites” he calls them. Do you remember what a hypocrite was? They were actors in Greek plays. So he’s saying that they are playing a role-not being honest.
Then he says, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition”. Harsh words. He’s telling them that they’re holding people down, using the letter instead of the spirit of the law. They’re using the law to inhibit the Spirit. Harsh words. And he says, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." You know what Jesus is saying. It isn’t the law that gets us in trouble, it’s what’s in our hearts. It’s what we mean, what we intend, what is behind the actions. It is why we do something, even more than what we do. It isn’t breaking the laws and rituals that is the problem, it’s closing off our hearts to God. The Rev. Steve Kelsey recounts the story told in Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, of the stingy old woman who sought, from the misery of hell, the lake of fire where she found herself after she had died, to be raised to the comforts and joys of heaven. “I wasn’t all THAT bad!” she asserts to an angel passing by. “What about the time when the poor beggar came to my door and I gave him an onion?” The angel swoops down and hovers just above the old woman, as together they look back upon that scene from her life. The woman had resentfully come to the back door of her grand mansion to try to shoo the beggar away, complaining loudly about the filthiness of his hands and face. “You don’t even wash before you come to beg?” Nonetheless, the woman had reached down into the bottom of her larder and produced a rotting onion that she handed over to the beggar.
“Well,” said the angel, “that should be enough to open the doors of heaven for you.” The angel lowers to her a rope with that very onion tied to its end. The woman grabs on, but as the rope is lifted, others in the lake of fire climb on, hoping to be pulled out as well. The old woman, alarmed by this, cries out, “Let go! Let go! It’s not you who are being pulled out! It’s me! It’s not your onion! It’s mine.” And just when she says, “It’s mine,” the onion snaps in two, falls out of the rope, and she falls back into the lake of fire. The angel weeps, as she flies away. If only the old woman had had it in her heart to say, “The onion is ours,” surely the onion would have been strong enough to have pulled all of them out together.
Rituals and traditions are important-and have an aim-to help our hearts. When they no longer do that, they no longer serve their purpose. Jesus is calling the Pharisees, and then the crowds-and now us- to see what is our purpose, what is our mission. Laws are good. Rituals and traditions are good. Routine practices and disciplines are good-as long as they serve the purpose of strengthening our hearts. The temptation is always to forget their goal, why we have them in the first place.
The Pharisees wanted to make sure that the good people, the right people, the ones who kept the laws, were separate. They forget the purpose of the law wasn’t to isolate Jews, to keep only the Jews holy, to separate them from the unholy- but to have them serve as a witness to the world of a loving, caring, merciful God. A God of Love. They… forgot.
We all forget. We get lazy. We take wrong turns. We separate ourselves. We make mistakes. Rituals, traditions, help us. But they are not the goal. They are the tools that we have to help us hold on to the truths.
A couple of years ago Deborah and I were on our way to dinner. We were stopped at an intersection and a car with pizza delivery flag on top of it blew through a stop sign , turned a corner and raced ahead of us. I followed the car into the parking lot of the pizza place and asked to talk to the manager. When he came out, I told him what his employee had done and how she had put people in danger with her reckless driving. He said he would take care of it. As I walked out, another customer turns to me and says, “when you pulled in just now you almost hit me-I think you should worry more about your own driving.”
In the opening of Fiddler On the Roof to introduce the idea, Tevye at one point says: “And why do we do this?(meaning keep all the customs) I'll tell you (long pause) I don't know. But it’s tradition!”
Some theologians call Jesus the most anti religious person to ever lead a religion. Anthony deMello tells this story: there was an Indian guru who would have meditation services every evening and his cat would always run into the temple through the middle of the meditators. So every evening before the service, the guru would tie the cat to the tree outside. Then the guru died and the new guru also had the cat tied to the tree every evening in the same way. When the cat died, the new guru had an assistant immediately go out and buy a new cat to tie to the tree in the same way. The new guru even wrote a manual on the correct way to tie the cat to the tree before meditation services. What are the cats that we are still tying to trees?
What are the ways traditions gets in the way of the heart? What are our blockages that clog the arteries to our hearts? Are the traditions in our lives helping us-or separating us? Did Jesus come into our lives, to improve our traditions, and rituals? Or to change our hearts? Today’s gospel isn’t about the washing of hands. It isn’t about cracking eggs at the right end. It isn’t about tying cats to trees or stopping reckless drivers. It’s about giving onions to beggars. It’s about keeping the main thing, the main thing. Today’s gospel is about having a religion of the heart, and about letting traditions serve that religion-and not the other way around.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
7:1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,
7:2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.
7:3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;
7:4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)
7:5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"
7:6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
7:7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
7:8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
7:14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand:
7:15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
7:21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,
7:22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.
7:23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."