September 23, 2018 Sermon

I think that in our current society and most likely in the entire history of Christianity there has been a question about how Christian we are supposed to be.  What I mean by this is just how much of our life needs to be spent doing recognizably Christian activities and how much can be reserved for other things.  Sometimes, this question is asked out loud and sometimes something of an unconscious consensus is reached, but whatever the case most people have come to some sort of conclusion about just how Christian they personally need to be in order to consider themselves Christian and the answer generally lies somewhere between St Francis of Assisi and Hugh Hefner.  But what is really at the heart of this question is how much of our life do we need to sacrifice to God – is going to Church on Christmas and Easter enough, or is it every Sunday?  Do we need to also throw in a Bible Study and perhaps grace before meals?  If we pray while we are driving does that count for something?  What about if we invite a friend to church or wear a cross necklace?  I admit it is something of an odd question, but I think that most people who call themselves Christian have answered it without really giving it too much thought.  When I was deployed in Qatar we had data on how many people at Al Udeid Air Base identified as Christian.  If I remember right it was at least 80% or somewhere around 8,000 people.  However our average weekly worship attendance generally came in at about 400 or around 5% of the population that considered themselves to be Christian.  Now some people had work schedules that prevented them from coming, but most did not.  Meaning roughly 90% of people on base who claimed to be Christian saw no link between their worship attendance and their understanding of themselves as being Christian.  And so this brings up the question that we should ask ourselves and that is how much Christianity do we have in our lives?  That is what are the actions, beliefs and general way of life that one needs to live in order to be a Christian? 

         Well today’s Gospel has an answer to this question and as you probably guessed it asks a little more of us than putting a plastic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on our lawn during the month of December.  So here we go with this answer: Jesus, “Called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’”  Okay, well obviously there is a lot there and it does not sound very easy, so let’s get started talking about what Jesus expects of us. 

         The first part of being a Christian or follower of Jesus according to Jesus himself is that you are supposed to take up your cross and follow.  Just as a quick side note before we go on, it is interesting that whenever you read about cults they talk about how they lure you in with the nice sounding things and only tell you about the really weird stuff once they are sure that you are fully committed.  That is not the case with Jesus, he puts it right out there – grab a cross and come along.  Now obviously Jesus is not saying that everyone who follows him will end up being crucified, even though we know that some did and some still do.  By using such stark language he does imply that being a follower of him does not mean that life is going to be smooth.  It is interesting that people, myself included, will often have a crisis of faith when there is something that has gone wrong in their lives.  We will ask questions like how can God have allowed something like this to happen.  And it is an understandable question, but we can’t say that Jesus promised us a rose garden.  Jesus seems to explain being a follower of his as someone who should expect some suffering and should be someone who is willing to give everything for the sake of the Gospel proudly proclaiming their love for Jesus. 

         If you were to put everything that is in this verse on a job description I assume that my response would be that they seem to expect a lot.  And so to return to the question I asked at the beginning about just how much Christianity one needed to be Christian it would seem that the answer is quite a bit.  Christianity is not something that is part time; something that we can pick up or put down based on what else it is that we have to do.  Jesus is not asking for part time followers, that is people who sign up in the same way that they may sign up for a bowling league or book club.  It is not something that takes part of our being, but rather all of it.  And I know this may sound frightening.  To me it can conjure up images of guys on street corners waving placards telling us to repent.  Full time Christianity seems to break that most sacred injunction for Episcopalians which is to not be tacky.  But if Christianity is really true and if as Peter said when some were falling away because of the toughness of the message, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  The reason we do any of this really should not be out of preference or convenience but should rather be because it is true – Jesus is the only one that has the words of eternal life. 

         The former chaplain of the United States Senate Dick Halverson once said, “In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next it moved to Europe where it became a culture, and, finally, it moved to America where it became an enterprise.”  As Americans it would seem that we are very comfortable with the enterprise model of Christianity, because it works the way everything else does including the ability to be ignored or taken in under our own terms.  But that is not what Jesus tells us today is the case when we sign up.  Christianity and being Christian is not simply an activity or a pastime but is supposed to occupy who we are.  Today Jesus begins with something of a warning about the possibility of suffering but then goes onto explain that the consuming nature of being a follower of his is like losing your life.  It is a giving up of our whims and desires and submitting them all to Jesus.  Other places this is described as dying to self, that is giving up the ego, giving up that which we put ahead of Jesus and his saving message. 

There is often a question in Christian circles about when the Church will return to the prominence that it had in years past.And, honestly, I do not know the answer to that question but the thing I do know is that we who call ourselves Christian might want to spend more time on actually being Christian, on dying to self and being born anew filled with the love of God.When the question is answered to how Christian do we need to be the answer really is 100%.We are not to

September 16, 2018 Sermon

I think that in our current society and most likely in the entire history of Christianity there has been a question about how Christian we are supposed to be.  What I mean by this is just how much of our life needs to be spent doing recognizably Christian activities and how much can be reserved for other things.  Sometimes, this question is asked out loud and sometimes something of an unconscious consensus is reached, but whatever the case most people have come to some sort of conclusion about just how Christian they personally need to be in order to consider themselves Christian and the answer generally lies somewhere between St Francis of Assisi and Hugh Hefner.  But what is really at the heart of this question is how much of our life do we need to sacrifice to God – is going to Church on Christmas and Easter enough, or is it every Sunday?  Do we need to also throw in a Bible Study and perhaps grace before meals?  If we pray while we are driving does that count for something?  What about if we invite a friend to church or wear a cross necklace?  I admit it is something of an odd question, but I think that most people who call themselves Christian have answered it without really giving it too much thought.  When I was deployed in Qatar we had data on how many people at Al Udeid Air Base identified as Christian.  If I remember right it was at least 80% or somewhere around 8,000 people.  However our average weekly worship attendance generally came in at about 400 or around 5% of the population that considered themselves to be Christian.  Now some people had work schedules that prevented them from coming, but most did not.  Meaning roughly 90% of people on base who claimed to be Christian saw no link between their worship attendance and their understanding of themselves as being Christian.  And so this brings up the question that we should ask ourselves and that is how much Christianity do we have in our lives?  That is what are the actions, beliefs and general way of life that one needs to live in order to be a Christian? 

         Well today’s Gospel has an answer to this question and as you probably guessed it asks a little more of us than putting a plastic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on our lawn during the month of December.  So here we go with this answer: Jesus, “Called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’”  Okay, well obviously there is a lot there and it does not sound very easy, so let’s get started talking about what Jesus expects of us. 

         The first part of being a Christian or follower of Jesus according to Jesus himself is that you are supposed to take up your cross and follow.  Just as a quick side note before we go on, it is interesting that whenever you read about cults they talk about how they lure you in with the nice sounding things and only tell you about the really weird stuff once they are sure that you are fully committed.  That is not the case with Jesus, he puts it right out there – grab a cross and come along.  Now obviously Jesus is not saying that everyone who follows him will end up being crucified, even though we know that some did and some still do.  By using such stark language he does imply that being a follower of him does not mean that life is going to be smooth.  It is interesting that people, myself included, will often have a crisis of faith when there is something that has gone wrong in their lives.  We will ask questions like how can God have allowed something like this to happen.  And it is an understandable question, but we can’t say that Jesus promised us a rose garden.  Jesus seems to explain being a follower of his as someone who should expect some suffering and should be someone who is willing to give everything for the sake of the Gospel proudly proclaiming their love for Jesus. 

         If you were to put everything that is in this verse on a job description I assume that my response would be that they seem to expect a lot.  And so to return to the question I asked at the beginning about just how much Christianity one needed to be Christian it would seem that the answer is quite a bit.  Christianity is not something that is part time; something that we can pick up or put down based on what else it is that we have to do.  Jesus is not asking for part time followers, that is people who sign up in the same way that they may sign up for a bowling league or book club.  It is not something that takes part of our being, but rather all of it.  And I know this may sound frightening.  To me it can conjure up images of guys on street corners waving placards telling us to repent.  Full time Christianity seems to break that most sacred injunction for Episcopalians which is to not be tacky.  But if Christianity is really true and if as Peter said when some were falling away because of the toughness of the message, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  The reason we do any of this really should not be out of preference or convenience but should rather be because it is true – Jesus is the only one that has the words of eternal life. 

         The former chaplain of the United States Senate Dick Halverson once said, “In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next it moved to Europe where it became a culture, and, finally, it moved to America where it became an enterprise.”  As Americans it would seem that we are very comfortable with the enterprise model of Christianity, because it works the way everything else does including the ability to be ignored or taken in under our own terms.  But that is not what Jesus tells us today is the case when we sign up.  Christianity and being Christian is not simply an activity or a pastime but is supposed to occupy who we are.  Today Jesus begins with something of a warning about the possibility of suffering but then goes onto explain that the consuming nature of being a follower of his is like losing your life.  It is a giving up of our whims and desires and submitting them all to Jesus.  Other places this is described as dying to self, that is giving up the ego, giving up that which we put ahead of Jesus and his saving message. 

There is often a question in Christian circles about when the Church will return to the prominence that it had in years past.And, honestly, I do not know the answer to that question but the thing I do know is that we who call ourselves Christian might want to spend more time on actually being Christian, on dying to self and being born anew filled with the love of God.When the question is answered to how Christian do we need to be the answer really is 100%.We are not to

Sermon (Fr. Cunningham) August 12, 2018

A number of years ago there was a bumper sticker that was popular with a certain set which read, “If you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.”  Now I am always a bit skeptical of bumper stickers that tell me how I should be feeling or for that matter any bumper sticker that tells me to do anything.  If I were ranking all of the ways in which people can effectively communicate information, I would put the bumper sticker somewhere around bathroom walls, fortune cookies and Facebook posts.  And while none of these methods seem to be instruments for furthering the erudition of our society, I do want to spend a few moments on this particular bumper sticker and point out its rather unique reasoning.  First the bumper sticker found anger to be the only logical conclusion for the state of our society and therefore those who were not angry had something seriously wrong with their moral being.  Anger in and of itself was what was needed to be fully self-actualized.  The other thing I found interesting about this bumper sticker was that it seemed to suggest that there was not enough anger in the world and that we needed to add a little more to the special sauce to get our society really working the way that it ought.  Obviously, I would tend to disagree with such an assessment, but more than that I would like to briefly look at anger and what we, as Christians, should think about it.  Is anger something to be avoided or are there times and places where it might be not only needed but also virtuous?  

         In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today he states, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”  This assessment certainly suggest that there is the possibility of anger being acceptable, but not the type that is sinful.  Which all seems reasonable enough, however I am not sure if it clarifies the ways in which we are able to or should be angry.  If I folded up my tent right now having told you to only participate in the non-sinful type of anger I don’t know that you would leave here knowing what to do, so let’s explore this idea a little more. 

         As is always the case when you don’t know what to do, it is always good to start with St. Augustine, largely because he was very smart and he wrote about a lot of stuff.  And as I had hoped he wrote a bit about anger.  St Augustine said this, “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”  Now I realize that the first daughter sounds a little like the bumper sticker that I just spent the past few moments mocking, but notice that that Augustine does not end there.  Hope does not have only one child, but rather two children and as Augustine would have certainly said if he was familiar with the works of Frank Sinatra, “You can’t have one without the other.”  He introduces anger but then states that it can only be part of hope if your anger is translated into changing things.  Anger is only useful when it is not an end unto itself, but rather when it is used as the launching point for improving things.  I am, however, afraid that is not where we stand these days as a country – being angry or making other people angry seems to be where most of our debates play themselves out.  And in many ways for all of the complaining about it, I think a lot of people kind of like it, because simply being angry asks very little of us.  I can sit around in my underwear in front of the TV and be angry, in fact I probably have, but I am also aware that it did nothing besides maybe making me feel self-important. But actually changing things, actually making our family, our community or even our country a better place is not so easy, however that is what is asked of us if we are going to go down the path of anger.     

         I think what taking both St. Paul’s and St. Augustine’s comments together suggests is that there is a place for anger but that it requires something more than just getting angry.  I know for myself getting annoyed or upset is something is quite easy.  I can watch the news and get upset by people I don’t know or drive on the freeway and get annoyed with any number of people with Illinois license plates, but ultimately it does not do a whole lot. Anger if not used the way God intended can become simply a perverse sort of pleasure - a poor man’s version of joy. 

         I now and then ponder why we are so angry these days.  I mean by most objective measures things are pretty good – we are not involved in a major war, the economy is doing pretty well, there are no frightening viruses spreading and the reported ABBA reunion seems to have fizzled.  Yet to listen to people you would think that there has never been a time worse than this. And I think part of the explanation for this is that people have forgotten how to be angry.  They have forgotten to not sin in their anger and think that it is simply enough to be very cross all of the time.  The anger we find so much these days is entirely outwardly focused; it is about how wrong that other group of people is, but in that it forgets the need to help others and more importantly it forgets the shared bond of our common humanity.  

         One of the major heretical struggles that Christianity has always had is that of Gnosticism.  It has many characteristics which I do not really want to get into, but one thing that it allows for that true Christianity does not is dualism.  Dualism essentially posits that there is good and bad and by extension there are good and bad people.  This differs from Christianity, which says that we all have the potential for both good and evil.  How this works out in practical terms is when we think in dualistic terms we can divide the world into good and bad people, based on whatever criteria we want. These days politics seems to be the main criteria – people who have different views on the way health care should be distributed or how much corporations should be taxed are not seen simply as people with different views but as evil people.  And obviously this dualistic distinction is not just something found in Christianity, but a large swath of society has adapted this position happily hating whoever may disagree with them.  Into such an environment when anger is introduced it is incredibly hard for it to be the non-sinful type, because we have already supposed that the things with which we disagree cannot be rehabilitated.  We are under no obligation to work for the change that Augustine’s second daughter, who represented the courage part, because of the belief that people cannot be changed.

         The other day we remembered St Dominic – he was the founder of the Dominican Order (but not the Dominican Republic even though it is named after him).   One of the things he is remembered for in his life is his work with a group of Albigensian heretics – which is just as exciting as it sounds, maybe more.  I don’t want to go too much into the heresy, but the quick version is they taught that suicide through self-starvation was a good thing.  Dominic was not the first to go to them, a group of Cistercians went, but it turns out they were fairly pompous in their approach and the Albigensians weren’t buying it.  But Dominic and his companion Diego were austere by comparison and this austerity and personal self-discipline appealed to many of the heretics.  We know that they did not convert everyone, but they converted more than the previous group and I think part of the reason for their success was their humility.  Certainly they did not like the perversion of Christianity, they were probably even angry about it, but they never forgot the mercy shown to us in the coming of Jesus Christ and so they never looked as others as lessor or other than them.  

         Yes we can be angry at how things are, but we must never use this anger to elevate ourselves above our fellow humans because we are all sinners in need of a savior.  Anger like saffron in a paella can be helpful, but cannot be used too liberally or it risks overwhelming that which we are trying to help.  We may be angry, but not sinful so that we can be God’s own both now and forevermo