Tag Archives: faith

A Powerful Faith

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a homily for Proper 4C

Text: Luke 7:1-10

[Listen to "A Powerful Faith" here while you read along.]

Making it personal

Man, that Centurion looks good, doesn’t he? Generous? Check. Compassionate? Check. Faithful? Double-check. That guy sure looks good in the end, doesn’t he?

The basics of the story are these: Jesus strolls into Capernaum. A Centurion hears about him, and sends the Jewish elders of the town to convince Jesus to come heal his slave. When they get close, the Centurion sends some friends to Jesus to discourage Jesus from entering his humble home, but perhaps he can heal the slave from a distance.

Jesus’s response to the request is heavy with subtext: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Our focus is instantly driven to the Centurion’s faith.

And this story morphs into a story about a faithful Centurion and Jesus. That the healing of the slave is the means by which that personal faith is first revealed, then rewarded.

The physical matters in the text are obliterated. The fact that Jesus doesn’t physically touch the slave is a significant development in the text. Perhaps more significant is that the Centurion already believes Jesus doesn’t need to be in the same room with the slave. That He doesn’t even need to know the slave’s whereabouts or what he looks like or who he even is! That Jesus can heal without physical knowledge of space and time.

Our focus on the faith allows us to ignore the strange new capacity for Jesus’s ministry in the world.

Solo Jesus Time

We do this, of course, because we’ve decided this is a personal allegory of faith. That, if we have the faith of the Centurion, even the matters of matter are irrelevant to the power of GOD. Our friend, Jesus can heal us where we are, with who we are.

I think we do this easily with a text like this because it seems like a perfect reading for us: 21st Century North Americans. We are much less likely to read this text with an eye toward the literal than other texts. I guess because that line about faith trips the wire in our thinking and sends us into “spiritual” territory, rather than “scientific”.

The problem with this reading of the text, then, is that we impose that same filter onto the text: that, as 21st Century North Americans, we are pursuing a personal relationship with Jesus. That it is a matter of competitive faith. If our faith were better…If we had his faith…If we believed harder….

We get there because we think this is only a story about Jesus and a Centurion. We forget that we never actually meet the Centurion. That Jesus never meets the Centurion. That, as a character, the Centurion, and the slave for that matter, need not exist.

The only characters in this story are Jesus, his followers, the Jewish elders, and the Centurion’s friends.

Taking needs to Jesus

The truly powerful dynamic in the story is that these intermediaries are doing the work of the story. They go to Jesus for the Centurion and vouch for him. They vouch for the slave. They make the request for him. It isn’t the Centurion that Jesus listens to and follows, it is the Jewish elders.

Then when they get close to the home, it is the Centurion’s friends that take his very words to Jesus. His words of humility and faith. They take the audacious request of long-distance healing.

And it strikes me that Jesus’s words of response aren’t to the Centurion. Or not to him personally. They are to them all: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”

Perhaps the faith to which Jesus is speaking isn’t some abstract faithfulness in the heart of the Centurion or even the devoted hearts of his friends, but that this very moment is infused with faith. In this space in which these friends bring before Jesus this audacious request, this inexplicable belief they have that it might work, that they are all doing this as one mighty act—that is the expression of faith that provokes Jesus.

Jesus even calls this faith unrecognizable—that it hasn’t been witnessed in even Israel. It isn’t what they believe that matters, but how. That it is not a silent, solo act of piety, but a communal moment of tremendous faith.

And the kicker in the last line is that it doesn’t say that Jesus healed the slave. It says that when they got back, the slave was already healed.

Seeking Christ Together

What we can’t know from the text is the physics of the healing; the how; the means. We don’t even get the certainty that Jesus Himself is responsible. He doesn’t touch the man. He isn’t caught whispering some incantation.

We get a picture of Jesus encountering a unique act of incredible faith on the behalf of what we can only describe as a blessed community. The Centurion’s friends, bringing his needs to Jesus. And after this, we discover the slave is already healed.

Our challenge in this story is that our North American, rugged individualistic ethos gets in the way of demonstrating such profound faith as community. But this story gives us a way in.

The faithfulness of the community in carrying the needs of another to Jesus is the one truly demonstrable act in the whole story. And it is the one thing we know we need to do. That it isn’t enough to believe in Jesus or love our neighbors, but that we carry their needs to Jesus. Many of us are used to praying for our friends. Praying for their healing; praying in the midst of their pain; praying for comfort or wisdom.

What if we speak those prayers out loud with others? Perhaps our true power, our ability as the blessed community of St. Paul, is made manifest in a moment like that. A moment of true faith together, for others. A moment that might provoke from Jesus, “not even in Israel have I found such faith as in St. Clair.”

Jesus Verbs

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a homily for Ascension Day

Text: Luke 24:44-53

The Ascension is pretty much the hardest part of the Jesus Event for the post-Enlightenment world to get. It seems as if we can suspend our disbelief only so far. And the Ascension is just too much.

And yet, we might be asking the wrong question.

Listen to the whole thing here: Jesus Verbs

The Right of Way

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photo (11)

Dropping my daughter off at preschool this morning, I almost got hit by a car.

I exaggerated. I did not almost. I could have. Here’s how.

My daughter’s preschool is part of a big Lutheran church. They have a good-sized parking lot. We are pretty early and there are relatively few cars. As I walk back to my car in the second row, a red minivan pulls into the first row, right where I am walking. The driver doesn’t stop…she inches. It is clear that she wants me to move over.

To the empty space on my left.

Now, we have dozens of small interactions like this on a daily basis, and most of the time, we just move over. And I’ve preached enough homilies about the kind of forgiving love that doesn’t pay any mind to this. However,

She pissed me right off.

And I hope to be forgiven for the evil thoughts I had. The most obvious among them was how I imposed my thoughts of her true character: the perceived laziness of needing the front-most spot, to the point of expecting a pedestrian to vacate it. When I get back to the car, I discover my wife has had many run-ins with this woman. Apparently she isn’t friendly. Of course, I feel better about those evil thoughts.

And man, that is so not how that is supposed to go.

What really made me mad, wasn’t what I thought about her character or the stuff I imposed upon her. Not really. That’s all surface stuff. It is that she flouted the rules of social behavior without any real value gained for doing so. She was one spot closer to the door, and I had to move to make that happen. As a pedestrian, and particularly, as one whose direction was established, it is my right of way.

When two people come to a door, it is the first one there, with the momentum, that has the right to go through first. Going down the hall, it is the one going straight, not the one turning that has the right of way. We figure this stuff out really early on in life.

My right of way was violated.

Like my friend, who I visited last night. She was nearly hit by a car. And not in my hyperbolic way. A driver not paying attention. A driver who thought her way was right. Actions that had repercussions for my friend.

I was taught in driver’s ed that pedestrians have the right of way. I always presumed it was both the need for safety of pedestrians and the relative un-nimbleness of a car that meant that cars should be the more cautious ones.

In my life, this understanding was questioned. In part by those seeking to highlight personal responsibility for other people. One experience in particular stands out. A representative of the city came to speak at my liberal arts college about city matters. Many students brought up safety concerns regarding the street that bisected campus, with an interest in a traffic light or some other means of slowing down the traffic and protecting the students crossing the street. He not only balked at the idea but suggested that pedestrians don’t have the right of way. I had a certain clarity of response that only a 19 year-old can have. I realized that the city cared more for the complaints of the “townies” and traffic flow than the safety of the students. They needed to be responsible for themselves while the city could be responsible for the drivers’ welfare.

This wasn’t always the case. Check out this story from 99% Invisible, “The Modern Moloch”. It is a story about how our traffic patterns have been formed, quite differently than we might expect, and for different reasons. If you aren’t a regular listener to the 99% Invisible show or podcast, do yourself a favor and subscribe to it through iTunes. You will be glad you did.

The battle over the right of way is a test of will and an expression of dominance. Even the act of yielding, as in assisting another, may be such an expression. But at its core is the question of how one sees the outside world and everything in it. Are we selfish and aggressive or are we communal and compassionate?

At the risk of sounding selfish, I’m just tired of tragedy and selfishness. I’m worn out from the caring and concern. I can see why the Pharisees love their rules. It is so easy to be selfish. But dammit, we need to be better than this.

Scapegoats, Villains, and American Fear

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Terror

In the wake of the bombings in Boston and the pursuit of the suspects, I’ve been trying to find a way to respond. Something that wasn’t part of the noise. Something that was honest to my experience of needing to watch, but knowing that the coverage would be far too speculative. Studies of the effects of the media on the public narrative have proven how important those first stories are, and how inaccurate reporting becomes a permanent part of the narrative–stories that are untrue, lead to permanent elements of the overarching storyline.

As a Christian, I also was moved to respond with courage and conviction that our response to tragedy is not to encourage the making of more tragedy, but in the seeking of love and compassion.

On Wednesday, Miroslav Volf posted on Facebook something that spoke to my heart:

We cannot love Jesus without loving *both* those killed/maimed in Boston and the prisoners, not charged with a crime and tortured, at Gitmo.

That our love remains persistent and not somehow removable. I am reminded of a quote that chilled me years ago, when the verdict in the Timothy McVeigh trial was read–that he was to be put to death. Outside, the people scratching at the chainlink fence like rabid dogs, invited by a reporter to way in on their feelings that one of the men responsible for the bombing in Oklahoma City was to be executed by the state. This woman, looking straight into the camera, cackling with joy exclaimed:

He gave up his right to live.

I have never been so frightened. Never before or since.

Response

I remember a bit by David Cross from deep in the aftermath of 9/11. He was going on about the coverage and response. That we had “no idea why” al Qaeda and bin Laden would want to attack us. “Well, actually it is because…” and he goes on to list several reasons. Then he says “How do I know? Because he told us!”

We act as if the violence is senseless. That there is no reason. That it’s perpetrators must be sociopaths or crazy. Unlike us. They are the depraved.

Then we sing “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”.

This act of terror was Monday.

On Wednesday, a minority of Senators filibustered all attempts to create safer gun laws. Laws that might prevent future tragedies.

On Thursday, Congress passed CISPA, an act whose purpose is to give immunity to corporations who break contracts with people so that they can hand over any information they gather online to the government. It doesn’t provide new power to prevent terror, but civil immunity to the corporation.

This isn’t politics as usual. This isn’t ideological gridlock. This is purposeful. This is what some people actually want.

It is times of tragedy, like these, that we must look inward, at our own hearts to see ourselves; to recognize our own evil, our own sadistic tendencies; our own wishes for torture upon another person’s soul in the name of “justice”; an obfuscation of our true desire for vengeance and murder.

That we turn, rather from our cultural priorities, to the instruction that we received long ago. That in telling those wandering Hebrews that they are to take an eye for an eye is to restrict retribution to the scale of the crime. It is our heart’s desire to escalate and fantasize the revenge on another, like Jacob’s sons, who murder all the people of the village for one man’s rape of Dinah.

Scapegoats

Sometimes, I wonder if the scapegoat is of value. Whether the culture needs a demon to exorcise. Whether that might be the only way we can deal with the outrage.

Then I recognize that it is the only way we ever have.

We seek out the one who did it. The other. The evil one. The one that comes from somewhere else. We even blame our own actions on him. He is the one. He made me do it. I had no choice.

In the end, it is us. We are responsible. Because we are so afraid of the evil the others do, yet we refuse to even recognize the evil for which we are responsible.

Because this was true from the beginning.

When we look back at our foundational stories, we can see who we really are. Where we came from shows us where we’ve been and where we’re going.

We came from the puritans. They traveled halfway across the world to escape religious persecution. And when they got here, they persecuted others. And each other.

This new start in a new land was a new opportunity to be the abuser. That is why we do what we do.

There is a reason, we are called into baptism. Why we are invited into transformation. So that we may not be a people of murder and selfishness and fear. That we may be co-creators of the Kingdom.

A Kingdom expressed in love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Naked Love

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a Sermon for Easter 3C
Text: John 21:1-19

Why is Peter naked?

The astute observer will notice that each of the gospels handles the resurrection of Jesus differently. Mark, the earliest gospel has no Jesus appearance; Matthew and Luke each have one appearance; while John has three. This morning we get the last one and it is a doozy.

Perhaps nothing is as striking as what Peter is doing. Remember, this is after he has witnessed the empty tomb and was with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them that night in the upper room, encouraging them to touch Him. He was there when Jesus came back so that Thomas might witness the resurrection, too. He had been following Jesus a long time and knew his rabbi well.

So here he is, sitting naked in a boat with a bunch of other disciples.

And when he recognizes Jesus standing on the shore, he throws on his clothes and jumps into the water.

Let that sink in a second. Never has Peter reminded me of John Cleese or Peter Sellers more than here.

Many have written that it would be normal for Peter to be naked and that he naturally would need to put on clothes to honor Jesus. His jumping in the water was eagerness, wanting to swim to shore, leaving his buddies behind.

Others suggest that Peter isn’t totally naked, but is ashamed, covering himself. Putting back on his work clothes.

But the text doesn’t say anything about shame or eagerness. And it doesn’t say that he swam to shore. All it says is that he was naked. He wrapped his outer garment around himself. He jumped into the water.

If we sit for a moment with the oddity of this, we might actually see it. Don’t try to explain it, just observe. Peter is naked. He wraps the clothes around himself. He jumps into the water.

beach

Jesus’s turn to cook breakfast

The other disciples follow Jesus’s fishing instructions and bring in a huge haul of fish. When they get to shore, they find Jesus preparing them breakfast of fish and bread. He asks them to bring in the fish they had caught, and Peter jumps into the boat and brings the fish out.

So much food: fish and bread. Just a few people. Not even all of the disciples. Like a reverse Feeding of the Five Thousand.

It is starting to feel as if Jesus is wrapping things up. These elements feel familiar…but they are different now.

Which Love is Which?

Jesus takes some time with Peter, asking him three times: “do you love me?” Clearly, this is a sort of dance, as Jesus is asking something of Peter that Peter just isn’t quite getting. We would be excused if we, like Peter, are lulled by its pattern:

Jesus: do you love me?
Peter: of course I do!
Jesus: feed my sheep.

But it doesn’t quite work that way.

In the exchange Jesus and Peter use two different words for love. Jesus asks Peter:

“Simon son of John, do you agape me more than these?”

To which Peter replies:

“Yes, Lord; you know that I phile you.”

Jesus: “Feed my lambs.”

“Simon son of John, do you agape me?”

“Yes, Lord; you know that I phile you.”

Jesus: “Tend my sheep.”

“Simon, son of John, do you phile me?”

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I phile you.”

Jesus: “Feed my sheep.”

It seems that most Biblical scholars are not interested in parsing the difference between these two Greek words for love. That they operate closely as synonyms. But this seems deeply important to me. Agape is a sacrificial love, an intimate love, a relational love. It is the very type of love that Jesus is teaching his disciples to share. Phile is an attractive love, as one is drawn to another: charisma.

So when Jesus asks Peter do you agape love me, He is asking if he has sacrificial and intimate love for Him. Peter’s reply is you know that I have phile/attractive love. Then Jesus asks again about agape love and Peter responds with phile love. Jesus, you know the love I feel.

Then Jesus turns, I imagine with compassion and slight sadness, and asks Peter if he has phile love. Peter is hurt. We usually think because of the repetition. But notice the text says “because he said to him the third time, “Do you phile/love me?” Perhaps Peter doesn’t get the difference between the two loves or because Jesus is asking for something he can’t give. But I’m starting to think he is hurt because Jesus changes that third question to mirror Peter’s. He is hurt because he has failed Jesus again. That he can’t love Jesus the way Jesus asks him to. I doubt that Jesus feels failed.

Being Naked

The images in this story, the nakedness and the tying on of the clothes, the fish and the breakfast, the agape and phile love aren’t tests for the disciples or for us. They may have simple comparisons like the triplicate love to the triplicate denials Peter gave during the Passion. But there is something very deep about them. If Peter believes Jesus knows everything about him, why does he put on clothes? Is he not naked before Jesus already? Is he not an open book to the savior?

Even when we are eager and full of faith and love for Jesus, are we not naked regardless? Clothes, those things we use to protect ourselves from the elements and the weapons of the puritans to shame each other, are of no consequence to Jesus. Peter can’t bring himself to be intimate and vulnerable to Jesus, the very one through whom we are promised safety and comfort. Yet Jesus loves him still.

As we continue on in Easter, we are reminded of the type of love Jesus has invited us into: a love of intimacy and vulnerability. A love of relationship and support. A love of sacrifice and generosity. A love that is not reserved only for Jesus but activated by our love for one another. A love that is not based solely on being drawn to Jesus, but giving of ourselves.

May we love, share, give, and open ourselves to the one who comes into this world to liberate us from our prisons and our comfort alike. May that love be so plain upon us that it cannot be hidden or obscured no matter what we wear. And may we dare to be a people living that love.

 

Dude, Stop Being Satan! (Eating Scripture)

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In this week’s piece, we explore the nature of Mark 8:27-38, the story with that great line: “get behind me, Satan!” Ouch! Peter got burned!

The big thing about this story is that it is that turning point. The point where everything really does change because its game day. Yesterday was practice, today we play.

If we dwell for a moment on what Jesus is telling Peter when he calls him Satan, we find something important: self-protection, keeping doing what we’re doing, all that is actually evil. To tread water is to be Satan. Going forward is the way of GOD.

The central question, though is about applied learning: about going, doing, and learning on the job. That seems to be where Jesus is at here. Are you ready? Not that it matters, since He knows you are.

Faith Before Understanding

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a Homily for Proper 16B

Text: John 6:56-69

What is this?

Jesus has brought the people here through a swirling storm of teachings about faith, understanding, and love. As they arrive to the safety of the synagogue, he takes all of that teaching and he mixes in their likely confusion about literal and metaphorical hearing into one big stew and He says “eat!” For the last month we’ve wrestled with this. And going into this morning, we’ve been sitting with that call to eat what Jesus is offering, even if we aren’t sure we understand how. How we are to eat that offering when it is the body and blood of Jesus.

This is where the gospel pericope’s listeners are, too. They ask how they are to do this when they still aren’t sure what “this” is. They’ve heard a bunch of different things and it sounds like a lot.

So Jesus explains again that their heads are wrong. If you’re having trouble with this eating and this eternal life, then what of focusing on where you are from? What if I were to go back to where I’m from? What about my return to my father who sent me? This isn’t the origin. We don’t start on earth and are then taken to Heaven. We start there and return there. What does that do to your pathetic questions about the now? Because a bunch of you are going to take off; you’re not up to that challenge.

Stuck in the middle with you

It feels as if we’ve once again drawn Jesus the Jerk. In this story, Jesus doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to bring everyone to Himself. He’s pushing most of them away. Including people that are called Jesus’s disciples.

So what about us? Those of us that are His disciples. Are we suffering with this literalist affliction of seeing our physical existence up there and in the future? Are we so afflicted that we see this as finite and that as beyond us? Of course we do. We’ve inherited the Greek’s dualistic philosophy. We understand our origin through the physical world: our earthbound parents produce real-life offspring. Our mothers give birth to us and we inhabit these physical bodies. And it is our hope that some spirit within us is released from an earthly prison when we die. That seems to be what we’re taught. This teaching’s gnostic problems aside, it is one that seems to be a natural response to Jesus as He calls flesh “useless”.

However, Jesus’s challenge to us, then, is that our origin is not here but beyond. When our time here is up, we return home. The power of GOD is then shown through incarnation: in the heavenly being made earthly. As the old song goes “This world is not my home, I’m just passin’ through.”

In other words, this is the middle.

“Hey, um…Jesus, look at the time…”

When Jesus says this, a bunch of followers indeed take off. He’s left with the inner circle. He asks them Do you want to go, too?

Peter’s response sounds like a let down:

Where else are we going to go.

We expect the next line to be

I guess we’re stuck with you.

How surprising then that Peter seems to finally be getting it. He responds by affirming that in following Jesus they become something else. Whether Peter understands it or not is less important than His coming to internalize the relationship.

They follow Jesus then they understand.

This is what that whole swirling storm of ideas was about: follow Jesus and then come to understand. Faith before understanding. And faith is in following.

  1. The Feeding of the Five Thousand—faith in following.
  2. Walking on the Water—lack of faith in leaving Jesus behind, then faith in following Jesus again.
  3. The Bread of Life, Jesus—faith in following.

The question Jesus is asking them isn’t metaphysical. He isn’t asking them to explain where Heaven is, how the world was created, or what GOD looks like. He isn’t looking for them to solve the physical riddle of the cosmos. He’s asking them Are you with me?

Jesus asks a simple question

That’s our question: Are we with Him? Do you believe? Yes! Then let’s go. Notice He isn’t saying Tell me what you believe in 10,000 words or less. He isn’t saying What do you think of my Mom’s virginity? or Do I get to send the Holy Spirit, too, or is it just Dad? He’s simply asking Are you coming with me?

Such a simple question. That is the question He’s asking. And we respond as if He’s asked us to respond to a doctoral thesis. Are you coming, or what? We’ve been fools. We’ve wedded Greek philosophy to Hebrew and fought one another about right belief. We’ve made our children memorize and regurgitate and called it “teaching”. We’ve demanded newcomers swear oaths to rigid sets of beliefs we’ve written about the Trinity. But Jesus knows we can’t hope to understand until after believing. We follow Jesus in faith, come to believe, begin to understand.

I can’t give you a pithy truth and expect to pass it off as a substitute for all of that first work that each of us does by faith and learning to believe. But as a follower, I can help other followers move toward belief. As a believer, I can help other believers toward understanding. And as followers and believers, all of us here are called to learn, to teach, and to proclaim the Good News. Because understanding isn’t the beginning, it’s the ending.

About the Bread

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a Homily for Proper 12B 

Text: John 6:1-21

Focus on the Feeding

 

English: Jesus feeding a crowd with 5 loaves o...

Jesus feeding a crowd with 5 loaves of bread and two fish (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With the Feeding of the Five Thousand, we get one of the most recognizable stories of Jesus in the Bible. To many of us, this is quintessential Jesus. He feeds people. He performs a miracle. He instructs the disciples. He transforms how people are able to see the Almighty. It is iconic. Put up against the other iconic images of Jesus: Baptism, Good Shepherd, Transfiguration, Triumphal Entry, Crucifixion, etc.: this stands near the top.

What does that to us, do you think?

Is it the mystery? The “how’d he do that?”

Is it the majesty of the event? That it happened with five thousand people?

Is it the surprise? Turning five loaves and 2 fish into a feast?

Is it the generosity? That so many were given so much from so little?

Whatever the cause, this iconic message of GOD’s power in Jesus sticks with us. The same can’t be said for the second half of the story. The story of how the disciples went on ahead without Jesus, how Jesus avoided the grip of the crowd looking to crown Him king, how the storm and the walking on water make the disciples fearful. How Jesus hops in the boat and suddenly they reach the shore. For some reason, this part of the story is harder to stick with. Perhaps it sounds too much like other moments of surprising power.

Mark’s version of the story concludes with the daunting line:

And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

I wonder if the reason we focus on the feeding and not on the walking on water is because we don’t understand about the loaves.

The Loaves

On Friday Night, Rose and I ate at this little restaurant in Gladwin. We had the best fried whitefish we had ever had. Our plates were stuffed with two big pieces of fish, at least two handfuls of french fries, and bowl of green beans. The meal also began with a house salad and a roll. We were so stuffed! After eating our salads, we had no hope to finish the food off. We were sunk. Nevertheless, we tried. And our stomachs were over-filled. It was uncomfortable. But it seemed worth it.

From GOD giving the Hebrews manna while wandering in the desert to Jesus feeding these thousands of people, GOD’s focus is on enough. They eat enough. Not sufficient, right? Not the minimum necessary. They eat their fill. They eat enough. And yet too often, we are confused by this. Particularly in our realm of abundance. We eat, not until we are filled, but until we are overfull. And I think there is a difference.

More to the point is that what they are given is bread. In Jesus’s world, bread is your food. Bread is the difference between life and death. Bread gives life. Jesus teaching us about our daily bread, that each of us must have our daily bread, He is making a truly troubling statement. All of us must survive. All must be fed. All must have a meal on our table every day. And not scraps or the trimmings. Some good, fresh bread. It seems as if we do not understand about the bread.

Come to the Table

 

Mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication of ...

Mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves und the Fishes at Tabgha near the Sea of Galilee (Yam Kinneret), Israel. According to the pious legend, in this place Jesus fed 5000 pilgrims with five loaves of bread and two fish. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How this story fits into the wider scope of this gospel is much more than a magic trick, as if this is one more proof of how awesome Jesus is. It is a profound testimony to faith. Faith in GOD’s abundance in a world of scarcity.

The people following Jesus are most interested in the miracles. They have seen great feats of power. They have watched demons get banished, the sick have been healed. They have witnessed a powerful servant who represents to them something more than prophet. But what? They aren’t willing to face the truth.

The disciples are similarly stuck on the tangible issues: how can we get these people to go home and eat dinner with their families, how much will it cost to feed all of them, how might we find food at Jesus’s request, how might we fashion a dinner out of so little? And what Jesus provides isn’t tangibles, but something more. His power exists outside of the tangible world. Where 5 loaves and 2 fish not only feed 5,000 people, but from the abundance, 12 baskets of leftovers are collected. This doesn’t happen in a land of scarcity. This can only happen in a world of abundance.

The disciples leave that world of abundance when they hop in the boat and leave Jesus up the mountain. The storm rages, hope seems to be lost. Last time, they were upset at Jesus for sleeping in the back of the boat, but now? They left him behind! And as he approaches the boat, He announces who He is. He says “I AM, do not be afraid!” He bears the power of GOD, the great I AM. And as he comes to them, they want Him in the boat. Then the chaos ends.

Wanting Jesus In Our Boat

At St. Paul’s it is far too easy to be like the disciples who make two big mistakes: they are fixated on their land of scarcity and they hop in the boat without Jesus. Looking at the Michigan economy, we certainly appear to live in the land of scarcity. Reading our financial reports, we certainly appear to live in the land of scarcity. Trying to put together a budget for next year, using last years numbers and only adjusting for inflation, we certainly appear to live in the land of scarcity. But Jesus brought the disciples to this spot to witness a break from that reality: a glimpse of not another world that lives far away, but a world that is so very near, we could touch it if we wanted. A world of such abundance that even the tiniest mustard seed could grow into a remarkable bush, and a boy’s grocery run suddenly feeds 5,000 people following Jesus plus all of the people they will meet. We aren’t to fixate on the land of scarcity but invest in the world of abundance.

The other mistake we can make is that we forget Jesus is up that mountain. We take off from the shore, certain Jesus has gone on ahead of us or that He’ll meet up with us later. It is a strange moment in the text, really. But there is something to it. Something to that idea that we move ahead without Jesus, without the One Whom We Follow. Perhaps our storms are so big and scary because they are created by Jesus’s absence, or by our failure to allow Him to participate in our plans. Maybe we take off without Him.

This morning we worship. We worship God in praise and prayer. We will gather around an abundant Table, sharing in the Common Meal. Then we will gather out in the Fellowship Hall for our Semi-Annual Meeting. May we learn from the mistakes of the disciples. May we see the abundance and know GOD’s work is enough. May we want Jesus in the boat with us. And may we be filled with bread; the very substance of life.

Deliver us from the presumption of pardon and not renewal

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a Homily for Proper 11B
Text: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

[Sunday I preached without a script. This is an approximation of what I preached.]

Sabbath

Coming back from vacation, it is appropriate to get this gospel pericope about rest. Or lack there of it.

It was just two weeks ago when we covered the story of Jesus sending the disciples out with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They came home to find Jesus. They wanted to tell him all about it. No doubt they were exhausted and ready to fall down and get some rest. Jesus reassures them, saying “Let’s all go to some deserted place. We’ll rest. Get something to eat.”

But they don’t. Because they get into that boat and the crowd sees it, and beats them to the other side. I’ve got to say that by this time, if I were the disciples, I’d be saying

“Enough with the boat! Remember the last time you promised us rest, the crowd swamped us. The last time we crossed the water, the storms raged. No! No more boats!”

Remember how they returned to Jesus’s home only to get mobbed? They were hungry then and couldn’t eat. They couldn’t relax and rest. No rest for the weary.

This gets to what we know about Sabbath. That in the 7-Day Creation story, we get the world created in 6 days and on the seventh, GOD rests. This idea of Sabbath as rest from work was canonized by the Ten Commandments. But these disciples never seem to get any rest. There is always more to do.

No Rest For the Weary

On the way home from up north, Rose looked at me and said

“I’m not sure I should say this…”

which perked up my ears. Which also means now she had no choice but to say it.

“I love the time we had, but I didn’t get a vacation.”

Her work didn’t stop. She had extra arms to hold the kids and extra minds to distract them. But they were still around. She was never off duty for more than a few hours at a time. Mom was always on.

This is a lot like the way we see our work as Christians. No matter how much we want to take a Sunday off or punch the time card, hide in a closet, and complain about the SoB that is screwing everything up, we can’t. As followers of Christ, we are always following. No vacations. No rest. Always on. This isn’t some full-time job where we can go home at the end of the day and put our feet up. It is an always job. On 24 hours, 7 days. Always.

And lets be honest with each other. It is tiring. Being good all the time. Loving the unlovables. It wears us out.

That Desert Place

There is something in the way Jesus brings these disciples along. His use of these words deserted and rest. When he gets to the shore and sees these people, he sees them as sheep without a shepherd and so he teaches them. He is worn out and looking for respite, but he teaches some more. He is always teaching. And it makes me think we have got this idea all wrong. That this going to the deserted place isn’t a trip into solitude so that they all might relax and put their feet up, but to head off into the metaphorical desert.

Remember, right after his baptism, Jesus went into the desert. This was a traditional practice in the time that would do two important things for you. First it would cleanse you. Both physically and spiritually. Something about the heat, the perspiration and the drinking of water that pulls the stuff out of your system. Something about the sand as an exfoliating agent. Something about the solitude. Going into the desert cleans you up, just as it makes your feet all dirty.

The second important thing is that it is time away from the world, but it isn’t time away from work—GOD’s work. It is about ridding oneself of the cultural noise so that one might hear and experience GOD. This also happens to be the purpose of Sabbath.

So Jesus, taking the disciples away to a “deserted place” to “rest” isn’t about vacation or putting feet up and thinking about nothing. It was a trip into the desert to hear and experience GOD. So what happens when they get there? Jesus teaches.

We also get a big doughnut hole in our reading as the teaching goes on for hours and then moves right into the Feeding of the Five Thousand, which we cover next week in John’s telling. So the teaching and the feeding are Sabbath to the disciples.

Getting Better

In Eucharistic Prayer C on page 372 in the Book of Common Prayer, we have this wonderful part that covers this very idea. It is speaking specifically about the table and Holy Communion, but hear these same ideas:

Lord God of our Fathers; God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and nor 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.

I particularly love that line that says

“Deliver us from the presumption
of coming [here]…
for pardon only, and not for renewal.”

We don’t come together to recharge our batteries. It is something more. We often think of life as a NASCAR or Indy race. We race around the track so fast, trying so hard to win; to beat everybody else. But the race is long and eventually we will run out of fuel or our tires will go bald. So we stop in the pit and the crew rushes out to fill up the tank or change the tires. And as they finish, our foot is on the gas again and we tear out of the pit so that we can drive really fast again.

Then we realize we need to strategize, so we refuel and change tires at the same time. It doesn’t matter if the tires are bald or if we still have half of a tank of gas. We do it at the same time to maximize our time out racing.

This is how we treat our lives and our faith. But it is nothing like what Jesus is talking about. There’s no race. No winning. No pits or pit crews. We aren’t refilling the fuel tank.

He sends us out with everything we need.

And when we come back, we do so, not when we’re empty, but when we need to be filled with what we can’t get anywhere else. We aren’t recharged, we are made better. Better parents, friends, lovers, children, leaders, followers.

Because here is where we learn to love. Always learning anew how and why to love.

In the Boat

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a Homily for Proper 7B  -   Text: Mark 4: 35-41

Getting to the boat

Andrew and Simon were fishing in the Sea of Galilee. They were casting nets into the water. As fishermen, this was their work. A stranger approaches them and says:

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

This strange statement elicited a stranger response in them. They did it. They dropped the net in the water and left everything behind.

From that moment on the sea, Jesus has been pulling people from where they are to then go where He is going.

When the crowd gets too big to travel by land, Jesus and the disciples travel by boat. The crowd still follows. When they get to Jesus’s hometown, they surround them and demand more. Then Jesus and the disciples file back into the boat and Jesus teaches the crowd about faith and the Kingdom of God from the boat. Then setting off on their own, Jesus gives the disciples special instructions.

It all builds to this moment in the boat.

Faith and Fear

Jesus with his disciples on the Sea of Galilee...

Jesus with his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, Ernst Georg Bartsch, 1967 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We know that Jesus is talking about faith and this gospel pericope is clearly about faith, but we have trouble with why. Why is Jesus sleeping? Why isn’t He jumping up and helping them? Why does He condemn the disciples for waking Him?

We ask these questions because we know what it’s like to be afraid. Those waves beating against the side of the boat, the storm threatening to sink the boat and drown its passengers, the chaotic moment and the sheer terror of what they see as the likeliest scenario.

We know what it’s like to be afraid.

We fear for our safety, our health, our church’s health. We fear for our children and our friends. And we hear these statements about faith in the midst of the storm and we want to shout back “What do you know?” when we really want to cry “Why aren’t you helping me?”

In our lives, today, we’re afraid Jesus is sleeping in the back of the boat; not up here where we are. As the storm around us rages, He is sleeping.

Living Faith

That special instruction the disciples received was about faith in the midst of fear. I’m sure of it. It was everything they needed to overcome adversity – intellectually. They still needed to experience it. To try it.

They learned about faith, they understood it, and they committed to it. Now, they need to do it. So they set out for the other shore, facing great adversity. But the adversity was much more than they expected. And they thought the faith itself would overcome it. That faith as an abstract and intellectual thing would save them. When that doesn’t work, they rouse Jesus, for He must have some answer. And in this truly defining moment, Jesus is transformed from teacher to savior, bringing even greater fear from His disciples than the storm does.

The confusing chastisement: calling his disciples cowards: is not about volume of faith, as in not enough faith (remember the mustard seed last week?) but the placement of their faith. It is about the response to fear, not the fear or faith in abstract. It is not the teaching or the belief system or sense of certainty that Jesus is looking for. It is faith in a powerful Kingdom born only from us.

Overcoming our Fear

Our greatest fears today aren’t the ones we speak about like the church, our children, and society. And it isn’t even death, though we definitely fear that. Our fear is that this thing we do on Sunday, this gathering as the community in the name of St. Paul, that this means something more than ritual or symbol. That it is something powerful and that Jesus invites us to cross the sea in that boat from our safe, intellectual place to the other side, where faith and action are integrated. That our love for God and neighbor are one. Where no one is left out ever in our midst and every person is made healthy and whole by being in community. Where there is no me and you, only we.

Where we are already the Kingdom of God.

[NOTE: The sermon ended here at the 8:00 service. At the later service, I invited us to move straight into the Prayers of the People, holding hands, and collecting our prayers together. This is captured in the audio above. The audio, beginning shortly before minute 9, has the prayers, the creed, and the blessing (though quiet).]