Sunday is the Beginning

Sermon Preached on Sunday, May 24, 2009 at
St. Barnabas by the Bay Episcopal Church (Villas, NJ)
Easter 7B (John 17:6-19)

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In this morning’s gospel, we are given the unique opportunity to eavesdrop on a most intimate prayer – Jesus’ prayer on the night of the last supper. In this prayer, Jesus stands in a between-time place – preparing to depart from the world and, at the same time, preparing to return to the Father who sent him. And as we listen to his words, we learn something about his hopes and expectations for those who will continue to carry the message in his name.
“They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”[1]

Jesus prays for his followers and he sends his followers. The Greek word for those who are sent is “apostle” and so this prayer is, in essence, Jesus’ prayer for the apostles – for the first twelve and, through them, to each and every one of us who proclaim the name of Jesus as Lord, to each and every one of us who are sent by God to proclaim the message of salvation to the world.

John’s gospel was written sometime between 70 and 100 – some 40 to 70 years after the death of Jesus. And so the words of Jesus’ prayer give us some insight into the gospel writer’s concerns for this early Christian community. The so-called Johannine community, for whom the gospel is written, knows something of what happens to those who are sent out – Stephen was martyred in the year 34 or 35. James, the son of Zebedee, was murdered just 10 years later and 20 years after that – around the year 67 – both Peter and Paul are martyred. So, in the late 1st century, this Christian community is staying at home! And can you blame them? . . . It’s a mad world out there! But the gospel writer reminds them, through the words of Jesus’ prayer, that the mad world is, in fact, the world into which they are sent. Jesus knows very well the perils of the world - “the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world. . .” but, nonetheless, he prays, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.”[2] John’s gospel reminds the community that staying in the comfort of one’s home is not living an apostolic life; it is not living life as a faithful follower of Christ.

New Christians or seekers sometimes ask, “How do I read the Bible”? (This question usually comes after they’ve already started at the beginning of Genesis and made it up to the first long genealogy and thought, “e-gad, are you kidding me? I can’t read this whole book!”). I almost always suggest the Gospel of John. When long-time Christians ask the same question, I send them to the same place because, as Leon Morris says in the introduction to his commentary on John,

“John is like a pool, in which a child may wade and an elephant may swim. It is most simple and profound; it is for the beginner in the faith and for the mature Christian. Its appeal is immediate and never-failing.”[3]

But there is another reason to go first to John’s gospel. And that is because of our own tendency to be comfortable Christians, stay at home Christians, or, as David Zersen, former President of Concordia University in Austin, Texas describes us - “couch-potato do-gooders!”[4] Now our reason for being stay at home Christians is not fear of persecution – though there are many countries in the world today where the risk of religious persecution remains a very real threat.[5] Many of us come to church to escape from the harshness – the hardness – of the world. We long for a place where we can forget about the job we have lost, a place where we can seek healing for the cancer recently diagnosed, a place where the abusive and broken centers of our hearts, our homes, our communities, and our world can be set aside for a time, can be forgotten as we lift our voices in song and prayer – extolling the wonder and majesty of our God. And somewhere along the line, we have been taught or have come to believe that the time we spend in church – seeking comfort and solace– that that one or two hours a week is what it means to be a Christian and we forget that being a Christian means being an apostle – being a sent one – one who is sent out into the world – into the heart of the brokenness to share the Christian hope with the world.

Eucharistic Prayer C expressly prays that we not forget our place in the world as Christians:

“Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.”[6]

. . . strength and renewal that we may serve the world in Christ’s name. We gather for worship so that we might be strengthened and renewed for our ongoing mission in the world.

Sunday morning is not the end of our commitment as Christians; it is the beginning! We gather for worship so that we might be sent out once again. We hear this message also in our post-communion prayer: “And now Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.”[7] And, my friends, there are so many ways to love and to serve; so many ways to be active apostles in the 21st century – visiting one of our parishioners in their home or long term care facility, canvassing a neighborhood for donations for our food pantry, hosting guests at The Branches, cleaning up a section of the beach, volunteering at the thrift shop, calling friends you haven’t seen at church for a while, offering to pick up groceries for a neighbor. To quote David Zersen again,

“It would be good for our buns, and our whole body, if we found more active forms of stewardship . . . Many are the ways in which we can be ‘sent ones,’ apostles for the Lord, giving credence to fuller meaning for our Christian community.”[8]

Let this Sunday morning not be the end of our commitment as Christians; let it be just the beginning!

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[1] John 17:16-18.
[2] John 17:14b, 15.
[3] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans (1985)), p. 3.
[4] David Zersen, in “That They May Be One,” Synthesis (May 24, 2009).
[5] For example, Christians in India live in fear of some of their more extreme Hindu neighbors and The Standard Report reports that Christians are serving prison sentences for their beliefs in more than 40 countries around the world (Dale Linder-Altman, “Religious Persecution in the 21st Century,” July 17, 2007 available online).
[6] Book of Common Prayer, p. 372.
[7] Book of Common Prayer, p. 366.
[8] Zersen, ibid.

Open to the possibility of Easter life

Sermon Preached at St. Barnabas by the Bay Episcopal Church
15 March 2009
Lent 3B (John 2:13-22)

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A lot of people describe the difference between the Old and New Testaments of our Bible as the difference between an angry God and a loving God. The Old Testament, I often hear, is filled with stories of a God who threatens to strike people dead and, in some cases, actually does so! But the New Testament, that’s all about love – Jesus loves the little children, Jesus healing the sick, Jesus telling us that the greatest commandment of all is to love our neighbor’s as ourselves. But if we ever need a reminder that this assessment of the Old and New Testaments is an oversimplification of reality, we get it in today’s Scripture readings: Jesus storms into the temple, makes a whip of cords and drives all of the animals out of the temple, overturns the money changers tables and orders them all to “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”[1]

This is a far-cry from the loving Jesus most of us heard about in Sunday School, continue to hear about on Sunday mornings, and are, as a result, quite comfortable with. Those of you who attended last Monday’s Lenten program at The Branches may recall Amy-Jill Levine’s comment about our understanding of Jesus:

[Jesus usually has] really good hair and a long white dress and you know that that can’t possibly be historical. He’s gentle Jesus, meek and mild, and what’s not to like? [But,] a Jesus who’s gentle and meek and mild and everybody loves him cannot possibly be historical. Again, he’s got to be edgy enough for people to want to kill him. . . [2]

Well, today we get edgy, don’t we? And, to be honest, it makes some of us a little uncomfortable. And, if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, then I hope, at the very least, it will end any thoughts you may still be carrying with you that the God of the New Testament is all about love and the God of the Old Testament is all about anger; because, my friends, this Jesus overthrowing tables in the temple, is an angry Jesus!

But, Jesus’ anger is not the point of this temple scene in John’s gospel. Gail O’Day, in her commentary on this passage, writes, “The scandal . . . is not Jesus’ anger . . . but the authority this human being claims for himself through his words and actions.” She continues:

“Jesus, a complete outsider to the power structure of the Temple, issues a challenge to the authority of the Temple that quite literally shakes its foundations. Jesus throws the mechanics of temple worship into chaos, disrupting the temple system during one of the most significant feasts of the year [the Jewish Passover] so that neither sacrifices nor tithes could be offered that day. . . . Jesus challenges a religious system so embedded in its own rules and practices that it is no longer open to a fresh revelation from God, a temptation that exists for contemporary Christianity as well as for the Judaism of Jesus’ day.”[3]

Jesus’ actions that day in the temple were, in effect, an attempt to bring Jews back to the roots of their Judaism, to bring them back to the place where God – not the temple - is the focal point of worship.

As we hear this passage today, it is our invitation to reflect on our own worship practices: What has become the center of our worship?

• Is it this building?
• Is it the music?
• Is it the preacher? the organist? the Sunday School program?
• Who is at the center of our worship?
• If Jesus were to walk through these red doors today, what practices would he see in place that have nothing to do with God and everything to do with the institution of the church?

Jesus’ anger in the temple in Jerusalem was a wake-up call to the Jews in the 1st century and it should be a wake-up call to you and to me in the 21st century because if we are not being challenged and transformed by God’s revelation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus then we have missed the point of our worship.

During Lent, Bishop Councell has been keeping a blog on the Diocese of New Jersey website. Yesterday’s blog contained this nugget: “Someone once said that we human beings have two great needs: to be held and to be held accountable. We need both.”[4] We do need both and we frequently hear reminders of the many ways in which God holds us. For example, in next week’s Gospel reading, we’ll hear: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”[5] We also have frequent reminders of how we are invited to hold one another – by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, caring for the sick, and visiting those in prison.[6] These are words we are comfortable hearing and they are words of good news, Gospel words. But we also need to be held accountable and those are the words of today’s Scripture – “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”[7] – stop confusing the building and the rituals for our God – theses words are less comfortable to hear as they call us to task, but they too are words of good news, Gospel words – words that invite us to be open to the possibility of new life, open to the possibility of resurrected life – dare I say it? – open to the possibility of Easter life.

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[1] John 2:13-22.
[2] Amy-Jill Levine, “Teachings of Jesus: Wisdom Tradition,” Saving Jesus (Living the Questions, 2006).
[3] Gail R. O’Day, “John 2:13-22 Reflections,” The Gospel of John in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume IX, p. 545.
[4] The Rt. Rev. George Councell, “From Ashes to Easter,” (Day 16 of Lent: 14 March 2009).
[5] John 3:16.
[6] Matthew 25:31-46
[7] John 2:13-22.

At the Cross-Road

Sermon Preached at St. Barnabas (Villas, NJ)
March 8, 2009 - Lent 2B

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.[1]

I don’t read a lot of poetry, and yet, whenever it snows, this poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” always comes to mind. And yes, I do know that the poem is actually about the woods in autumn! In any event, it’s hard to believe that just a few days ago, I was thinking of this poem as I walked my dog, Gabby, through the back yard and looked out through the snow-covered woods. And yet, there it is: one day the ground is covered with new-fallen snow, parents are pulling their children down the street on sleds, and the sound of shovels scraping walkways echoes up and down the street and seemingly, a moment later, the snow is gone, crocus can be seen bravely peeping out of the ground and yesterday, I even saw my first robin – the true harbinger of spring.

Sudden transitions often catch us off guard – boots, hat, scarf, and mittens on Tuesday; tennis shoes and a t-shirt on Saturday. I imagine Peter was quite caught of guard by his conversation with Jesus which we heard in this morning’s Gospel. To set the stage for what we heard read, we need to back up a few more verses in the gospel. Jesus begins the conversation by asking his disciples,

‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.”[2]

Why does he order them not to tell anyone? Because Peter has answered the question correctly – Jesus is the Messiah! In Matthew’s version of the story, Jesus responds to Peter saying, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!”[3] With or without the blessing of Jesus, Peter must have been feeling pretty good to have gotten the answer right. In the first place, the disciples are notorious for their repeated misunderstandings of Jesus’ intentions so to finally get one right – that’s got to feel pretty good. But, even more than that, if Jesus is the Messiah, the Lord, then this group of disciples is about to become pretty important. Why? Because in the 1st century, there was only one person who used the title “Lord” and that was Emperor Augustus. Coins which bore Augustus’ likeness were imprinted with the words “Savior of the world.”[4] So, if Jesus claims to be the Messiah, the Lord; surely he must be planning to overthrow the Roman Emperor and, if he is successful, wouldn’t you want to be one of his close friends – one of his disciples?

So imagine Peter’s shock when Jesus begins to talk about the “great suffering” he will undergo, when he talks about being “rejected by the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes,” when he talks about being killed. Of course, Peter rebukes him! Can’t you just hear him?

“Jesus, look, you just said you are the Messiah . . . the Lord, the next Emperor. Augustus didn’t become Emperor by being killed; so, let’s forget all this talk about suffering, rejection, and death. We need to raise an army – maybe some of those 4000 people you fed will join us – and let’s prepare for war!”

At which point, Jesus turns on him and shouts, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Peter’s head must be spinning. “Two roads diverged in a wood” and the disciples are at the crossroads. The Rev. Scott Hoezee, Director of the Center for Preaching Excellence at Calvin College, writes, “[the disciples] want to stick with Jesus and be his followers while at the same time insisting that Jesus follow them down the path they want to take.”[5] They want Jesus to follow them down the path of power, of status, of wealth. But Jesus has other plans – he insists on taking the road less travelled - the path to the cross. And what a crisis for these disciples! They want to follow Jesus, they want to stick with him, they want to remain his devoted disciples and they will do anything for him, go anywhere with him . . . except there.

And is that so difficult for us to understand? Don’t we all want to follow a charismatic leader who promises new hope and new life? Don’t we all want to stick close to just that sort of person? But when that person starts saying things like, “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.”[6] How many of us might start to back away . . . wait a minute, I thought this was about new hope, new life, salvation. What’s all this talk about cross-bearing and losing my life? I’m not so sure about this anymore.

My brothers and sisters, we stand with Peter at this crossroad every day. This cross-road – the road to the cross - is the Christian life. On Ash Wednesday, we were invited “to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”[7] Examining the crossroad, choosing the road to the cross, involves a great deal of prayer and self-examination. And, as we learn from Peter in today’s reading, it also can involve some costly mistakes. And so, as we began our worship this morning, I invite us to pray again,

"O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”[8]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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[1] Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd edition, eds. Alexander W. Allison, Herbert Barrows, et. al. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1983), p. 913.
[2] Mark 8:27b-30.
[3] Matthew 16:17.
[4] “Introduction: Jesus through the Ages,” Saving Jesus: A Revolutionary Exploration of Jesus Christ for the 3rd Millennium (Living the Questions, 2006).
[5] Scott Hoezee, “This Week at the Center for Excellence in Preaching: March 8, 2009,” Calvin Theological Seminary.
[6] Mark 8:34b-35.
[7] Book of Common Prayer, p. 265.
[8] Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent, Book of Common Prayer, p. 218