October 14, 2018 Sermon

          So we get to read from the prophet Amos today, which is not all that common.  Or to make an awful joke Amos is not all that famous.  When I was in fourth grade our dear Sunday School teacher Mrs. McConnell (may she rest in peace) decided this would be a good book to study and I have to say that it scared me to death, because there was a whole lot of smiting and wrath.  I am guessing that Amos even scared those who put the lectionary together because they skipped over verses 8 and 9, possibly because they found them too hot to handle.  Those verses say among other things that, “The Lord is his name, who makes destruction flash forth against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress.”  I guess perhaps the lectionary compilers were worried about alienating the fortress owning subculture in the crowd.  But before I move on with my theme for today I should tell you a little about Amos – I mean he only has seven Sundays in the entire three-year cycle of the lectionary so let us at least give him a little Walt Whitman treatment and sing a stanza or two of him.  Amos was one of the twelve Minor Prophets in the Old Testament.  If you are wondering why he is minor and not major it is not a value judgment, but is rather because the book he wrote is relatively short, coming in at 9 chapters.  Compare this to the Major Prophets like the loquacious Isaiah and Jeremiah whose books come in at 66 and 52 chapters respectively.  Or to summarize: long book equals Major Prophet, short book equals Minor Prophet.  Amos was active in the prophet business from around 760 and 755 BC.  By profession he was a fig farmer and did not come from a family who specialized in the prophesying business (which I guess was a thing at the time).  He was from the southern kingdom of Judah but did his prophesying in the northern kingdom of Israel.  His message dealt with among other things the ignoring of Yahweh’s law, religious hypocrisy and the neglect of the poor, which shows up in today’s lesson.  In Amos’ telling these indiscretions are to be dealt with in the context of God’s divine judgment, which we also see today with lines like, “He will break out against the house of Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.”  So the quick overview of Amos is that God does not like those who do bad things, we should not put up with people who do bad things and God will eventually punish those who do bad things in rather nasty ways.  So this raises the question, who are the people doing the bad things and what are those bad things?

          And while this certainly may sound like an easy question to answer I am not sure that it is at least in our day and time.  And the reason I say this is not because God has suddenly gone wobbly and changed up his views on right and wrong I say this because of our inability to see what is right and wrong.  And the reason for this inability to see is because we are all sinful and fall short of the glory of God.  That is we sometimes conflate our will and the will of God, believing the things that we put ahead of God are actually the things of God. 

I generally do not bring politics into sermons largely because of this problem: I am not always sure that my view is always God’s view.  But, having said that, I do want to use an illustration from the recent controversy over Brett Kavanagh’s elevation to the Supreme Court.  I am not on The Facebook, but I do occasionally look at my wife’s account.  On Facebook she is friends with two women who both graduated from Nashotah House and who incidentally came down on opposite sides of the debate over his confirmation.  One was more vicious in her rhetoric but the underlying theme was the same, those on the opposite side of the debate were, to use my very technical term from earlier, doing bad things and were thwarting the will of God.  And I am not exaggerating both had religious overtones built into their opinion.  So again the question is how do we know who are the baddies?  Here we have two Christian women of similar backgrounds convinced that two incompatible positions are the will of God?     

          Before I move on I want to clarify what I am discussing here a little more or at least clarify what I am not discussing.  The conclusion to draw from people having two opposite views is not that there are no correct or right views; rather it is to show the difficulty and danger in explaining your view as also being God’s view.  Because either God is schizophrenic or someone or perhaps both people are wrong.  Meaning that we need to be very careful when we claim to speak for God. 

So what is the solution or put more pithily what would Amos do?  That is how, when we are offering a view that we claim comes from God, be sure that we are actually being like Amos and not simply trying to make our own view seem more important and righteous.  I wish I had a foolproof method and am happy to offer suggestions like praying and conferring with other Christians, but there is one other thing that I have found useful that I would like to suggest.  I wish it had a epigrammatic way of expressing it or at least a cute acronym but I am not that clever.  Basically the suggestion is that if we find God constantly agreeing with us and never challenging anything we do or say, we are very probably not following his will.

          Here is what I mean by that or at least an example of it.  Some of you may be familiar with the sordid story of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster.   It happened between February of 1534 and ended in June of 1535.  It is a very fascinating story and is worth more attention then my brief synopsis.  The quick version is that a group of Anabaptists (this was a group who among other things were opposed to infant baptism and whose descendants include the Mennonites) decided that Munster in northwest Germany was the site of the New Jerusalem and like Belinda Carlisle set out to make heaven a place on earth.  It all started off well enough with some Godly things taking place like the poor being looked after but soon the leadership started having visions with God telling them very specific things and rather unorthodox things.  For example God told the leadership of this New Jerusalem that every woman of marrying age needed to be married and since there were more women than men that meant that some men had to take on a few extra wives.  The main leader of this group, Jan van Leiden, really went overboard in his magnanimity and took 16 wives.  Incidentally, he had one beheaded because she criticized his God-sanctioned opulent lifestyle.  But, of course, in Jan’s telling God disapproved of such criticism and to show just how much God approved of Jan he had this wife beheaded and then danced around her beheaded corpse singing and praising God.  The city would ultimately fall to forces of the Bishop and Jan and his companions were executed and hung in cages in the tower of St Lambert’s Church (the cages are still there if you are interested in seeing them).  What I always found amazing in this story was not only the ridiculousness of the prophecies but also that so many people went along with it.  At some point Jan convinced himself that his will and God’s will were the same and that there was no need for outside consultation.  But in retrospect we can all tell that Jan was being an idiot at best.  And so to use some theological terminology we should not be idiots and pretend that God approves.  Now for a little positive reinforcement let’s look at another event in Germany.  In 1939 a young German theologian by the name of Dietrich Bonheoffer came to New York to teach.  He had been very active in Germany in his opposition to the Nazi regime up to this time, doing things such as establishing underground seminaries that went against the collaborative version of Protestantism that was going on at the time.    From the safety of New York he began to regret his decision and ultimately decided to return to Germany saying, "I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security."  Bonheoffer would ultimately be hanged at Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9, 1945.  Doing the will of God cost him his life, but his life also served and does serve as a light to the faithful to do God’s will even in the most difficult of circumstances.  He is remembered because he truly proclaimed God’s will.  Jan van Leiden is only remembered because the empty cages that still hang in St Lambert’s Munster as a testimony to the vanity of man.  May we strive to truly do God’s will and not our own both now and forevermore. 

October 7, 2018 Sermon

So this past Thursday was St. Francis Day, but we remember it today with the blessing of the animals because, as we all know, St. Francis really liked animals and they really liked him.  However, the readings for today are not actually the reading for St Francis day but commemorate that most holy and exciting of occasions Pentecost 20 – I hope that everyone remembered to get out their Pentecost 20 decorations.  So while the readings and the blessing of the animals are in no way related it does seem that, if I were conspiratorial in nature, the readings are telling the animals not to get too uppity.  I mean just listen to this bit from Hebrews, “‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them?  You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.’  Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control.”  So remember that you animals; you may be coming here for a blessing, but in reality you are really under our feet.   [Hopefully there are no animals here with low self-esteem who will now have to spend the next nine months in some sort of Canine version of Jungian therapy in order to once again feel balanced and whole.] But with that out of the way I do want to look a bit at what the author of Hebrews is getting at and humanity’s special role and relationship in the cosmos. 

         So let’s start with the subjecting part.  As you might imagine this understanding has been somewhat controversial as of late with certain environmental and animal rights types.  The criticism that gets levied is that built into the DNA of Christianity is a sort of conquer and defeat mentality which doesn’t, to quote Frank Sinatra, “Care a feather or a fig” about the rest of creation because we are the ascendant creature in creation.  But I don’t think that is what it really means.  In fact if those critical of it took some time to really understand it they might agree with the sentiment.  For it is not a call to disregard or trample creation but rather it is a way of explaining the special role and honor that God has given us.  And that special distinction and honor is that we are to be in charge and to act towards the world in the same way that God acts towards the world.  So what does that mean?

         We obviously know that God is more powerful than we are and we also know that God loves us and in the most central act of the Christian faith sent his Son to die for us.  As Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “[Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”  This is the way God deals with those things that are subject to him, he loves them at tremendous cost to himself.  What this mean by extension is that this is the way that we are to deal with things that are subject to us.  But the question that should naturally come up is what is meant by this?  Are we supposed to sacrifice our lives so that our pet turtle might live?  I will let you decide the answer to that one, for as with many things, it is not always meant to be taken literally but encompasses a mentality and a way of looking at the world.  

         Since we do sort of remember St. Francis today I want to think for a moment about his example in terms of our relationship to creation.  The quick outline of his story was that he came from a rather affluent family but decided that he wanted to give up everything to follow God’s will.  We all know the stories about his life, how he supposedly gave his father his clothes and walked off naked or how he preached sermons to the animals, with birds perched on his shoulder.  St. Francis in some ways took the line from Philippians concerning Jesus, which states, “Though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,” and adapted it to his circumstances.  What I mean by this is that while Jesus certainly performed miracles and walked on the water, his day to day living was just like that of the disciples.  He walked places, got hungry, tired, dirty and all of the other things associated with being human.  He didn’t become human and then live in this world in a way that showed him being above the world.  St Francis similarly decided to live in the world in such a way as to be in harmony with it.  Just as Jesus did not separate himself from the normal workings of the world neither did Francis.  And so what I think we are to take from this in context with our dominion over creation is that we are not to use this ability to control creation as a way to separate ourselves from the rest of creation.  Francis maybe went further than most by being in harmony with all of nature, but the starting point is not alienating ourselves from nature in such a way that it also alienates us from the rest of humanity. 

         The example I came up with to explain this is either brilliant or idiotic, I have not decided yet, but it has to do with a kidney transplant.  When someone gets a kidney transplant there is, according to the Columbia School of Medicine, a 10-20 % chance of a patient experiencing an episode of rejection.  What this means is that the body can perceive the new kidney as a foreign object and seek to protect the body by attacking it.  Interestingly I found in my reading about kidney rejection that such an episode does not mean the transplant was a failure because there are ways of making it work out, but back to my example.  It seems that when we insert ourselves into the world we need to be like the kidney that the host does not reject.  In other words we need to function in the world in a way, like the transplanted kidney, that make the whole better.  We need to live harmoniously with nature and that is part of having dominion over it.

In the book we are reading for Sunday School there is a story of a wise old abbot who is visited by four obnoxious young men.Also present in this visit is a theology teacher.After the abbot has patiently dealt with these young men and they go on their way the theology professor asks the abbot how he was able to tolerate such obnoxiousness to which the abbot replies, “Have you ever wondered how God could tolerate you?”That is what God’s dominion looks like and what we are called to do when we have dominion.We do not push away or separate ourselves from nature and from one another.We as part of creation are supposed to be in harmony with it, which includes not just nature but our fellow humanity.I think it is best summed up in 1 Corinthians when Paul describes the attributes of love saying, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”May we have dominion over the earth and the coming new earth in this way, which is the same way that God has dominion over us, both now and forevermore.

September 30, 2018 Sermon

            Sometimes when I read through the lessons for a given Sunday there is a theme that jumps out at me and today was just such one of those days because the overarching theme seems to be that people are idiots.  In the Old Testament we have the Israelites, who if you recall have escaped slavery in Egypt, now wishing that they could go back into slavery because they had really awesome melons and leaks - I may be enslaved but at least I had a nice piece of cantaloupe to go with with my morning egg and toast.  In the Gospel it is the disciples turn to shine.  They boast to Jesus about how they had found an unsanctioned demon caster outer and made him stop casting out demons because as we all know people would rather be possessed by demons than have non-union employees help them out of their fix.  In our other lesson, the one from James, people do get off a little easier, but even there James has to remind people that they should pray.  Which is, of course a good reminder, but you would think that it would be something that a Christian would remember to do.  It seems to be like reminding a bricklayer that they need to mix up some mortar - it sort of goes along with the job.  And while it would be nice to say that this is just a sort of historical anomaly and that we have somehow eliminated stupidity from the gene pool in my experience stupidity seems to be alive and well.  I mean the other day I saw a story about a guy who burned down his house because he was trying to bake cookies on a George Forman grill (yes that did happen in Florida and he had finished two bottles of vodka). 

         But of course stupidity is not the sole possession of residents of the state of Florida.  I find that we as Christians have a pretty fair amount of our own unique stupidity and that we can often be the worst impediment for bringing people to the faith because we do so many things that repel people.  Now please do not think that I am singling out any of you, I am just as guilty or perhaps more guilty of being a bad advertisement for Christianity.  But here is the thing, at the end of the Gospel of Matthew Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  So this is why stupidity or more appropriately lack of stupidity is so important.  Jesus is telling us to go and make disciples, that is part of what we sign up for when we become Christian and as a result we not only need to do it we need to be somewhat good at it and part of being somewhat good is not repelling people.  That is not making people less interested in Christianity than they were when we first started talking with them.

         And while I don’t really want to make this sermon entirely about not being an idiot.  I do, however, think we do need to take stock of ourselves and see if we engage in behaviors that might make people wonder why they would even consider being a Christian.  The more important bit, though, is to act in ways that not only do not repel but actually attract, that actually bring people to Christ.  But one more thing before I go on.  I want to make sure that people are clear that I am not suggesting that not being an idiot or trying to attract people to Christ is some sort of marketing technique or tricks we employ to lure people to Christ, but is rather the way God has called us to live.  Let me explain. 

         This past week I was at a retreat for the Armed Forces Bishop and our keynote speaker was our presiding bishop Michael Curry.  He told a story, and just as a quick aside if you have ever heard him speak you also know that he told the story much better than I am about to tell it, but here it goes.  He said that he was visiting a diocese and had done his usual bit and that there was a reception afterwards where various people were working there way through a reception line to greet him.  He said he noticed, as he was shaking hands and having pictures snapped of him, that waiting in the line was a very large white man with a long beard wearing a sport coat and overalls.  He said that he was acting a bit different from the rest of the crowd which made him feel a bit concerned, but he continued on with the receiving line until this man made his way to the front.  Much to his relief the man shook his hand, thanked him for being the presiding bishop and then went into his story.  The quick version of his story was that he grew up in a family that was quite racist - his father and grandfather were both very high up in the Ku Klux Klan and that he had taken their views on with very little questioning.  He said that part of the Klan worldview was that they had their own version of Christianity, a view as you might suspect that fit quite well with their half baked racial theories.  It was a Christianity of exclusion and for lack of a better term, hatred.  The man said that he then went to college where he found a group of like minded individuals and then eventually became a teacher in a small town in Arkansas.  He said that one day he was passing a church and thought he should probably go there sometime and eventually did.  It was an Episcopal Church something which he said that he had never heard of, but sort of assumed that the would be Christian in the same way that he was brought up to understand that term.  But once he got in there he saw something much different.  He saw the love of Christ, he saw people that loved him and who eventually loved him into repudiating his former beliefs.  He saw that Christ died for all so that all may come within his saving embrace.  And because of his background this was the reason he was so happy to see Bishop Curry as presiding Bishop.  By the way I assume that all of you know, but just in case you don’t and this story makes know sense to you Bishop Curry is African American.

         The thing that struck me so much about this story was the way that his conversion took place.  It was not by being lectured or harangued about his beliefs - he was not told that his racist kind were not wanted in the Church.  Rather, he changed because he saw a reflection of the love of Christ.  He was not shamed into it, but rather was drawn towards it.  That is the real trick of Christianity isn’t it?  Getting ourselves out of the way so that people can see the love of Christ.  Or put another more pleasant and aspirational way, being so filled with the love of Christ that when people see us they see Jesus.

         Interestingly, the greatest draw and greatest hindrance to bringing people to Christ is the people in the Church.  If we get it right we see stories like the one Bishop Curry told.  If we get it wrong we see ungrateful whiners like those in the Old Testament or the squelching of God’s will like we see in the Gospel.  The great thing is that we have control over this.  We may not have control over how other people act or what happens in the world, but we do have control over how we act and how we chose to share the love of Christ.  My hope is for myself and for this parish that we would be that shining city on the hill that draws people to it with the irresistible glow of Christ’s love so that we may be his both now and forevermore.