But who do you say that I am? 

September 13, 2015

Proper 19B – RCL

Track 1                                                        

Proverbs 1:20-33                                           

Psalm 19
   or Wisdom of Solomon 7:26-8:1                         

James 3:1-12 

Mark 8:27-38                                                      

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked 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.
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
He 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."

But who do you say that I am? 

To put this reading into context Jesus and his hearty band of followers are in a very Roman City.  They are surrounded by reminders of the Roman gods and the imperial proclamation that the Emperor is also god. It is in this setting – with all that is Empire surrounding them that Jesus finally asks the question that everyone else has been asking in the Gospel of Mark.  Jesus asks “Who do people say that I am?” and then asks the disciples “Who do you say that I am?”  The names that “the people” say Jesus is are quite reasonable considering Jesus ministry thus far.  He has preached and healed the sick.  He was acting very much like the prophet and perhaps even his curmudgeonly cousin John the Baptist.  But it is Peter who blurts out “You are the Christ!”  The one who is come to restore the fortunes of Israel.  The one who will throw out the empire.  The one that Israel has been looking forward to coming and setting them free.

I have to admit that I almost always identify with Peter.  Peter – the Rock – who at one-moment “Get’s it” and with the very next breath falls back into a societal expectations.  I like Peter because I can identify with him – sometimes I feel I “get it” and other times I don’t.

  

And what does Jesus do.  He says that this messiah is going to suffer and die. This messiah is going to approach the salvation of Israel and the redemption of the world in a way that the world does not expect.  He is not going to physically throw out the romans and restore the people of Israel to prominence with power.  Jesus says he will show us how to bring God’s dream of a loving creation to this world.  And it is not by violence.

No wonder Peter is upset.  Like the good Jew he is Peter dreams of a day when the occupation is over.  He dreams of a day when God will smite down the oppressors just as God did for his ancestors when they fled from Egypt through the Red Sea.  Instead Jesus says that God’s victory will come looking for all purposes as a failure.  Death is going to happen but it won’t be the occupational forces who die but the messiah.  And Jesus is having none of Peter’s and societies expectations of God forcing his dream of Love on the world through force this time. 

Peter wants the power to suffer and the messiah, the Christ to rule - in an earthly way not God’s way. Jesus tells Peter – Get behind me Satan!  It is not only important to know who Jesus it - the title of Jesus - but it is important for us to see how do our expectations align with our actions. And I think Peter - dear dear Peter - gets the Messiah title and with the title comes all of the hope, the expectation, that Jesus will - at some point - come to his senses and throw off empire – That is why Peter does not want Jesus to suffer.  He sees Messiah in an earthly way and not in the way Jesus has been trying to show him.  Not the messiah that does the opposite of what society thinks will happen.

And then Jesus does more – He tells his disciples then and now “"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?"

Wow!  No wonder we heard in Jon’s Gospel a few weeks ago - during the several weeks of the discourse on “the Bread of Life” - the people say that Jesus’ teaching is hard.  And we read then that many leave Jesus.  His teaching is hard. 

So what does it look like today to take up our cross and follow Jesus?  It is not an easy thing to think about and it is a phrase that is overused in our society.  Most people trivialize this phrase.  We are not taking up our cross when we can’t have our own way.   We are not taking up our cross when our egos are being challenged. 

So what does it mean in 2015 to take up our crosses and follow Jesus? More and more I find it is recognizing the thin places where love breaks in - in spite of the powers that would ignore it.  In spite of the powers that would deny the love.  It is calling out the need for humane treatment of all people.  It is holding the opposite view than the shrill protectionism that we hear all too often in our political discourse.  It is looking and trying to hear where God is calling us to put our energy.  It is in proclaiming that following Christ means doing things that are surprising to our society. It is working to heal the outcasts...to Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  It is proclaiming the countercultural love of God

 And sometimes following Jesus means we also need to say no – not right now.  How do we say no we can’t do this right now when our hearts are there?  When we see the good work that is being done?  Sometimes we need to step back to see what God is asking us to do right now.  Sometimes putting a ministry that has been doing amazing things with a few people on hold is the right thing to do.  It has not been easy for the leaders here to put the social outreach ministries on hold.  But it had to happen. 

You see we can’t love our neighbor as ourselves if we are not loving ourselves.  And loving ourselves includes taking time for Sabbath.  Time away to recharge. Time to step back and envision how ministry and love of Neighbor can be sustained.  Time to stop and ask the hard questions. It is time to look and see what God is calling the people of St. Matthew’s and its supporters to do.  The old way of providing service to our community may need to change. And it really is not practical to redesign a plane when you are flying it!

In our Old Testament Lesson we heard that Wisdom is crying in the streets.  She is crying and yearning to be heard.  The Wisdom of God – created before the cosmos is still crying out in the streets yearning to be heard.  But we are frequently so busy that we can’t hear her through the noise of every day life. 

Seeing the Wisdom of God working through the world is hard. Seeing Love is hard work.  We seem to so easily go to death - to destruction.  It is easy to see a pause in the social ministry as a failure.  But Jesus does not call us to work that way.  Jesus calls us to see the thin places where love breaks in.  It is the thin places where we see resurrection... see change.  But it is so easy to look past the love, the change and go to the negative.  Perhaps this is one definition of the “fall” – that we no longer look for the love we look for the bad in all the situations.

Jesus is calling the good people of St. Matthew’s to stop.  To stop and listen and discern where and how God is calling us to serve.  Andrea McMillan – the diocesan Cannon to the Ordinary (the Bishop’s assistant) last week reminded St. Matthew’s leaders that for resurrection to happen there has to be death.  That is what Jesus reminded Peter and the disciples and it is what Jesus reminds us today.  What may look like failure and death in our eyes will be turned to love and resurrection through God.  While it is so easy to look at the suspension of the social service work that St. Matthew’s does as a failure.  It is so easy to beat ourselves up and lead with the “what if” self-criticisms. But God’s economy is different. 

We are being called to stop.  To take a pause.  To allow the voice of Wisdom to enter into our hearts and souls.  Our society does not like to take a pause.  We like to pride ourselves that we are super productive.  But when we are too busy we risk not letting the voice of God break into lives.  When we are busy we risk not letting the voice of Wisdom into our conversations.  Now is a time of rest for St. Matthews.  Now is a time to listen for and to hear where and how God is calling you to show his love.  I invite you to pause.  To listen for the voice of Wisdom.  To find those thin places in our lives where God’s love is daring to break in.

Amen

The Syrophoenician woman Rock Jesus’ World!

Sermon for September 6, 2015

Proper 18B-RCL

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

Psalm 125

James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17

Mark 7:24-37                                                

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go-- the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

If this passage for Mark does not bother you, does not upset you, you did not hear it!  The Jesus we encounter with the Syrophoenician Woman should make the hair on the backs of our necks stand up.  We should be mad!  We should be angry.  But we probably are not.  Our reaction is likely one that we have all too often and that is to tame the reading.  Usually we want to tame the reading because our Incarnate God –this Jesus – is asking us to do things that are out or our comfort zones.  But this time we want to tame the reading because Jesus is not reacting the way we expect. 

We want to treat the encounter between Jesus and this gentile woman like we do between our beloved uncle Frank – who really is racist, or homophobic – and his reaction to black or gay people.  When Uncle Frank says racist things at the family gathering – in front of the black wife of your cousin - We say things like “Oh- that is just Frank.  He really doesn’t mean the things he says.  He really does love everyone.”  We dismiss the words and make excuses. It is how he was raised.  He really doesn’t understand how hurtful the “N-word” can be.  We try to tame the behavior.  After all we are not going to change Uncle Frank.  He just comes from another generation.

We do the same thing with Jesus.  We try to talk away the fact that Jesus encounters a woman in need and responds not with Love.  He responds with an irritated racial epithet.  So what do preachers try to do?  We try to pass it off.  We try to say oh – you know Jesus used the diminutive form for dog.  So it is more like he is using the common derogatory term in a loving way.  Like instead of calling this Gentile Greek woman a dirty dog he is taming the insult.  But that is not the case.  This incarnate Jesus who is both fully human and fully God is testy and he insults her.  It is equivalent to Jesus calling her a little “B-word”.  

To put this in perspective - Jesus is in a house that is squarely in gentile territory.  So he should be expecting an encounter with a gentile.  Yes – it says he wanted to get away.  Jesus has been surrounded by people needing healing and teaching and he just wanted to rest.  And – being fully human and a good Jew he perhaps – at that moment – believed that his mission was only to the Jews.  But instead of the compassion we hear in the second half of the reading Jesus insults the women. 

Perhaps to understand the paradox here it is helpful to remember that this is the Jesus who has been explaining the radical openness of the kingdom of God.  Early in Mark we had the “Kingdom of Heave is like” Parables.  The kingdom of God is like a sower who throw seed everywhere with no regard to where it lands.  The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows everywhere and takes over.   This is the Jesus who stills the storm, heals on the Sabbath, and raises the dead.  All with no respect to the religious rules of the time.  This is a Jesus we have interpreted as opening up God’s Kingdom of Love to all people. Regardless of race.  Regardless of sex.  And then a tired Jesus acts all too humanly.

This should rock our world when we hear it.  Hopefully we side with the Syrophoenician woman in this encounter.  After all she is responding to all that she had heard about this great teacher.  She is a mother with a sick child who desperately wanted health for her daughter.  She is what some might call a mama bear! So she does not back off.  She tells truth to power.  She breaks open Jesus to see for himself what he has been preaching.

Another preacher I follow [Caroline Lewis] said this about the encounter, “The Syrophoenician woman tells Jesus, “Guess, what? Jesus. God said yes to me. God said yes to me when God tore open the heavens. God said yes to me when God decided to show up in the wilderness rather than in the temple. God said yes to me when you came here instead of spending all your time in Jerusalem. It’s okay to be me, so get over yourself, Jesus.”

There is really no story like this in the Bible. Well, the one exception might be Moses getting God to change God’s mind. But this woman does more than get Jesus to change his mind -- she rocks Jesus’ world. She gets Jesus to admit for what and whom his ministry is all about. She gets Jesus to see God for what and who God truly is.

The woman tells the truth. And when the truth gets told? Worlds change. Her world changed. Same for Jesus.”[1]

This story should make us examine our souls.  It should cause us to shine a light into our dark places.  I know that I try not to be racist.  I know that I try to see everyone with the spark of Gods creation shining through whatever else is going on.  But it is hard.  It is still too easy to group people into simplified caricatures of who they really are.  It is easy to talk about blacks as a group – not as humans really but as a group.  It is easy to dismiss movements like “Black Lives Matter” with the come back that all lives matter.  And all lives do matter.  But the statistics don’t lie.   In our society blacks are pulled over more often and arrested for minor infractions more often than white people.

Homeless people need to be seen as God’s creation as well.  Not just as a group.  We can’t just feed them sack lunches.  We can’t just write a check to Loaves and Fishes or St. Matthews to support the work they do.  We really do need to say truth to power that has created a world where people who work minimum wage Jobs still cannot afford housing.  We need stand up to politicians who blame the homeless because they “caused” it through their choices – be it drug and alcohol use or some other issues.  When I hear people say – “oh they really want to be homeless.  If they just worked as hard as I do they could get off the street.”  It makes my blood boil.  Where are the treatment centers and education centers for people who have been kicked out of their homes?  Where is the mental health centers for homeless Vets who are suffering from posttraumatic stress disorders?  Where are the safe places for kids thrown from their homes because they are gay, transgendered or just different?

Yes treatment centers and some safe housing exists but not necessarily where the people who need it are living.  Out at St. Matthews they are now hosting a charter adult high school.  Which is fabulous.  People who have not been able to get a high school diploma can learn English and get their GED.  A wonderful service in the right place.  But there are not other needed services for people in that neighborhood.  There is not a good grocery store with reasonably priced healthy foods in that zip code.  There is a food dessert.  You don’t read of a Trader Joes, Whole Foods, or Rally’s going into that neighbor hood.  In my neighborhood yes.  But not in their neighborhood.

I must admit I am not all that comfortable saying these things.  I am a white, educated privileged male.  Yes I am Gay and have faced discrimination.  Yes I have been apprehensive – and at times downright scarred – to be in parts of this country with my Husband.  We have traveled in places where being gay is not accepted and violence is a real threat. And some of those places are here in California.  But we are both white, educated relatively affluent males and can generally “pass”.

When I walk down the street at night and perhaps walk across the street because I see a black man who “looks scary” I am being a racist.  I am not practicing what I preach.  When I choose to stay home after a long day and not go to city council to argue for safe housing and a living wage I am being hypocritical.  When I don’t come to vestry to argue against fencing to keep people away when the church is closed I am not telling the truth to power. 

In a letter to the Church the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies said, “Racial reconciliation through prayer, teaching, engagement and action is a top priority of the Episcopal Church in the upcoming triennium. Participating in “Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday” [today] is just one way that we Episcopalians can undertake this essential work. Our history as a church includes atrocities for which we must repent, saints who show us the way toward the realm of God, and structures that bear witness to unjust centuries of the evils of white privilege, systemic racism, and oppression that are not yet consigned to history. We are grateful for the companionship of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and other partners as we wrestle with our need to repent and be reconciled to one another and to the communities we serve.”[2]

There is good news here.  St. Paul’s does – at many levels – practice what we preach.  We lovingly pass out sack lunches to people when we are open.  And we don’t just hand out lunches.  We sit and listen to people.  We have a dedicated small group of people who feed nutritious lunches to all who walk through the doors on Wednesday and Fridays.  There are members of this congregation who walk to city hall to demand a reasonable affordable housing ordinance be passed.  There are members of this congregation who wash the clothes of some of our homeless members and take them shopping for food and cut their hair.

But does putting up a fence around the parish hall for our safety and comfort pass the test of asking what would the incarnate Jesus do?  That is after the incarnate Jesus’ world was rocked by the Syrophonecian woman! We need to not only focus on our safety but on finding ways where people who have no place can go to find rest.  Our facilities our limited and the are sometimes abused by our guests.  Yes – it is hard to continually have to clean up after people who leave all manner of debris behind – including at times human waste.  But I have to say that it is not just the homeless who pee in the bushes.  It is also the club and bar hoppers who do it.  Have you recently tried to find a restroom in downtown in the evening without paying a cover charge or being a “patron” of the business?  They don’t exist!  Just try to find someplace in downtown/midtown to use a restroom!

Karoline Lewis sums up our call. “Truth-telling is hard to do and hard to hear -- and will be resisted, sometimes only at first, sometimes perpetually and even exponentially. But that is when the truth has to be heard for the sake of empowering the other. I think this is one of the most powerful promises of this text. She tells the truth so that others can then say, so that I can say, “You have just told my story! Thank you!” The truth, in part, has to be told and has to be heard so that you know and others know that you are not alone.

The process of truth-telling is essential in ministry, regardless of any issue we use to divert the promises of God. Those persons called to and entrusted with the privilege of giving voice to God’s love must be held accountable to that which the Gospel in its fullness proclaims. When voices are sidelined, when particular presences are questioned, when presentations of the Gospel are called into question because the source is an outsider, like from Tyre, it is never, ever just about us, but also about God. When our imagination for God’s hope for the church is undermined by our lack of imagination, that is when God becomes less than God. The Syrophoenician woman tells the truth about God and in doing so helps us imagine that truth for ourselves.”[3]

Our church is asking all of us to recognize that racism and scapegoating of the “other” is real.  It is asking us – each and every one of us – to examine our selves and our institutions to see if we are perpetuating the problems or are we working to solve them?  The church is inviting each of us and our institutions to examine our hearts and to shine a light in the dark corners of our souls.  To examine our institutional reactions.  To talk truth to power.  In short we are being called to have our world rocked just as the Syrophienician woman rocked Jesus world.

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[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3679

[2] http://www.episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/letter-episcopal-church-presiding-bishop-president-house-deputies

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3679

Abide in Me

Sermon for August 23, 2015 Proper 16B-RCL

1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43        

Psalm 84                                                      

Ephesians 6:10-20                                          

John 6:56-69                                                 

Today we come to the end of a series of readings from John on the bread of life. Starting with the feeding of the 5000 and culminating with Jesus teaching in the synagogue and wrapping it by comparing himself to the manna that God fed the ancestors in the wilderness.  Jesus is teaching about the incarnation here.  God has come to earth in the form of Jesus.  A God that – in our reading from the Book of Kings is too big to be contained in the temple – and is there for both the faithful of Israel but also the foreigners.  That same God is sitting in front of the people and telling them that he – this man Jesus - is the incarnate God.  It is scandalous. 

Abide in me said Jesus.  Our readings today all reflect on a call to trust in God.  And Jesus refines it further with the invitation to abide in God.  We probably wonder at the words of the people “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it.”  After all we hear this through a filter that was not available to the people in the story.  We hear it through the filter of Eucharist.  We have – as with so many of our bible stories – tamed it.  We have lost the scandal.   We see this teaching through the lens of Eucharist.  We have turned it into a passage about communion – a wafer – or perhaps a small piece of bread and a sip of wine.  But it is more.  It is about how we are called to enter into the presence of God – and how that presence within us calls us to action.

On some levels the scandal could be about the Jewish dietary laws and the thought about eating flesh and drinking blood – the taking of the metaphor to the extreme that was the problem.  Sure that may have played a role but I don’t think that is all of it.  This comes after Jesus is teaching about Moses and the bread given in the wilderness.  This is about the call of faithfulness and that the people have turned away from that call time and time again. 

Abide in God.  Do the work God would have us do.  In John’s Gospel there is never a question that Jesus is the incarnate God.  The very opening takes Jesus genealogy back to the beginning of creation.  Not to a manger with the animals but to the very beginning of creation. The people are still hoping that Jesus will be the next Moses – or better yet David – and will lead them away from their current exile of occupation.  But instead Jesus offers a path of discipleship.  A hard path that requires us to do the hard work.  Like our reading from Kings we are called to recognize the foreigner – those that we don’t like – also have an “in” to God.  It is hard work.  And this is a hard passage.

Another preacher I read said “But “abiding” with Jesus is difficult. Staying with Jesus and learning from him is a long process. For many, a quick fix would be more attractive. The crowd was initially attracted to Jesus when they saw him as a Moses figure -- one who could work miracles and provide political victories. As they continue with him, they learn that Jesus is not offering an easy victory but the long road of discipleship.”[1]

After the physical feeding of the 5000 and the healings along the way Jesus is saying that it is all about incarnation.  It is all about how the spirit of God – that is bigger than any temple or church – that fully abides in Jesus is calling for us to abide in it.  We are being called by God to be partners in making the dream come true.

So how do we continue to abide in God?  How to we continue to follow the incarnate God who ascended into Heaven?  We abide in God when we work to bring Jesus radical teaching into practice.  It is when we work for peace in the world.  Which is hard.  We are surrounded by news reports of people and groups that see the other – any one who doesn’t look like them – as the enemy and with almost unheard of violence kills that other. It would be easy to look at the self-proclaimed Islamic State and point to a group taking an extreme read on their theology and beheading people and worse.  We easily condemn that violence.

But what about the violence all around us?  What about the multiple shootings inside movie theatres?  That violence is being perpetuated by people just like us. 

What about the incidents that are coming to light more and more that we are far from a colorblind society?  The numerous stories of black people being pulled over for minor offences that led to death.  The xenophobic rhetoric from some of our presidential candidates who stir up fear and brand an entire group of immigrants as “rapists and murderers”. Where is incarnational theology in that?

This teaching of abiding in Jesus is hard.  And it causes as many to walk away today as it did over 2000 years ago.  But the twelve stayed the course. “Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."”  That is why we are here.  To listen – and hear -  week after week the words of eternal life. Words that call us to action.  Not just an easy bit of bread and sip of wine.  If we are truly to follow this Jesus than we have to see the incarnation not only in the ascended Lord but also in each other – and most importantly in those that society would dismiss. 

We need to see God in the black person who has been harassed and is angry.  We need to acknowledge that anger as being just and not dismiss it but try to understand it.  We need to answer the anger with love.  A love that comes from abiding in God and trusting that it will work.  We need to see those whom society has cast off not just as a class.  We need to recognize the individuals who are craving for God’s Love and our love.  Unfortunately some of God’s children have been so abused that they have taken refuge in drugs and alcohol and some become violent. But they are still children of God and, even if we are repulsed by them, we need to try and recognize their divinity too.

You see this spirit that flooded the temple in our reading from the book of Kings is the same spirit that came to earth as Jesus.  It is that same spirit that is God’s gift to the apostles on the first Pentecost.  That spirit is still with us today.  That spirit continues to call us to abide it God.  That Spirit calls us to be partners in bringing God’s dream of healing and feeding love to earth. 

Every time we open our hearts and come forward to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation we are risking letting the spirit into our lives to abide in us and to sustain us.  That is why we are here.  We are here to be fed spiritually.  We are here to be fed physically.  We are here to be healed.  But most importantly we are here to abide in God and let God abide in us. 

But be forewarned.  Put on your seatbelts and crash helmets!  This is a difficult teaching and a difficult road.  The incarnate spirit has a way of breaking open our hearts.  The incarnate spirit has a way of driving us out of this church and seeing people differently.  The incarnate spirit dwelling in us will cause us to feed the hungry and heal the hurting.  When we abide in the spirit we will see the world differently and we will work with God on bringing his love to our hurting world.  Not just sitting back and waiting. We can’t wait for God’s angles to come down and sprinkle love around.    No when we walk down the path of discipleship that Jesus forged we will work to bring justice and love to this earth in our own time.

There is Good News.

The good news is that I see it happening around us.  I saw it Wednesday when we had 25 people scattered throughout this church hungry for the love of God.  I saw it in the 35 or so people provided a nutritious meal in our parish hall after the Wednesday service.  I saw first hand the miracle of the loaves and fishes in a meal prepared with love that fed more than anticipated – and there were even seconds for some of the very hungry. I saw discipleship in the way difficult people where treated with respect and love – even when one person had to be asked to leave.

So you see – it can be done.  We can open our doors and our hearts to those around us who hunger for God.   We can follow the incarnate one.  Not only on this corner but also in ways unimaginable when we work to bring God’s kingdom of love to earth now.   AMEN

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[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2603

A Whole Lot of Healing!

A Whole Lot of Healing!

Sermon for July 19, 2015 – Preached at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church Sacramento

Proper 11B-RCL

2 Samuel 7:1-14a                                                            

Psalm 89:20-37                                                               

Ephesians 2:11-22                                                          

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56                                                       

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

A whole lot of healing is going on!  That is what a friend said in relation to our Gospel reading today!  And she is right.  Oh…One thing you may have noticed – if you looked at the citation from today’s Gospel reading –  there is a big section that is left out.  I had to immediately look to see what it missing – because that is the kind of person I am.  I wanted to know – What did they leave out?  And why?  I also like to see what is going on before and after the assigned text – to put it in context.

So what are we missing?  The big thing that we are missing is the feeding of the 5000. But don’t worry – in the wisdom of those who put the lectionary together we read about the feeding of the 5000 next week – but from John’s gospel. 

This gospel reading takes place just after Jesus has set out the 12 two by two to proclaim the good news and to heal people.  We pick up the story when they get back and are excited by what they were able to do.  They were excited.  And why not?  They got to see a glimpse of God’s dream.  A dream where people are healed and Love reigns.  They got see that it is not just Jesus who is the vehicle for healing but – acting on god’s behalf – they could heal too!  Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus was taking the 12 away to rest because “they had no leisure even to eat.”  But they don’t find rest.  Not is Mark’s gospel.  There is not time to rest!  There are people to heal.

Mark’s gospel can be both easy and hard at the same time.  Mark’s was the first gospel that was written after Jesus’ death and there is much urgency about it.  It seems that every sentence is jam packed with information and we transition quickly from one story to the other.  There is not a lot of set direction or painting of the scenery in Mark.  Instead it is filled with urgency – an urgency to bring God’s kingdom to this earth.  A kingdom filled with love and healing. 

Jesus – even when he is trying to go off and let the disciples find rest and relaxation takes pity on those who hunger for God’s kingdom.  In the rush of Mark’s Gospel there is a whole hot of healing going on.  And that healing is on the move. 

In our reading from the Old Testament Book of Samuel God tells David that he is not to build a permanent home for God.  That God – for the time being – is content to be in the tent.  To be mobile.  Later God will have a home built by David’s son Solomon but for now God tells David that God will build for David a house – a line of ancestors that are to work to bring God’s kingdom to fruition.  A promise that we see through our Christian lenses as being fulfilled in Christ.  That was what Mark saw.  That Jesus’ healing and teaching was fulfilling God’s promise to Israel.  Although in a way that was unexpected.

Jesus did not come as the expected messiah to overturn the powers of this world by violence.  Jesus came to overthrow the powers of this world by healing.  When we read about Jesus healing  it seems like he frequently gets in trouble for it.  Jesus heals on the Sabbath.  Jesus heals in the marketplace – and that word that we translate as marketplace has more of the meaning of a town square.  The place where yes the market was set up to exchange goods and buy food.  But also where the politics of the day happened.  It was the center of society.  And what does Jesus do?  He heals the untouchables.  He does not care if the sick are Jews or gentiles.  He does not care if they are servants or people of power.  He doesn’t care what day of the week it is or even if his disciples are tired and in need of rest.  Jesus heals.

Another preacher I follow, Elizabeth Webb, said “By healing the sick, the weakest and most vulnerable members of a community, in this space, Jesus is subverting the economy of this world through the very inauguration of God's kingdom economy. While the marketplaces of the world belong to the rich and powerful, in the kingdom of God this most political and commercial of spaces is occupied by those with the least. In the age to come, Jesus proclaims, "many who are first will be last, and the last will be first" (Mark 10:31). That age is now breaking into this age; we who seek to live God's kingdom here and now must follow Jesus's subversion of worldly power and wealth.”[1]

Jesus sees a people hungry for the good news.  Hungry for a shepherd that will lead and heal everyone.  Jesus’ healing is a subversive act.  He is on full public display.  He is not hiding in some out of the way place but he is confronting powers – both secular and sacred.  Power that would separate the weak from the powerful – the holy from the unclean – the insiders from the outsiders.  Jesus offers healing to everyone.  That is what we are called to do too.  We are to offer healing in ways and places that our society does not expect – and in many ways society does not want.

We are called as followers of this messiah – this Jesus – to go out and work as his disciples to bring healing to our world.  We are called to go our just like Jesus sent his disciples and to heal.  Church does not just happen on Sundays.  Church does not happen just inside these walls.  I bet I don’t need to tell you, the good people of St. Matthews that!  You do church here on this campus and outside of these walls everyday.  When you feed and clothe someone you are doing church.  When we sit a listen to someone who has no one to hear them – we are doing church.  Yes our churches, these buildings, when they are at their best, are places where we can find God.  But if that is the only place where we find God we are poor.  Because God happens all around us. 

Like the reading from Samuel God does not want to be locked away in a building.  God wants to go out with the people.  God wants to walk about and find ways to heal the individual and to heal our society.  One of my favorite authors and modern day prophets was a African American Episcopalian named Verna Dozier.  A theme that runs through her writing is that God has a dream.  And that dream is to bring to fruition a world ruled and marked with love.  And, she said, our job is to follow that man we call Lord – this Jesus and help bring that kingdom to fruition here – now.  We are not to look out for some future time in some far away heaven.  No.  We are to work at bringing God’s kingdom to earth now. 

You see – when we are partners with God in healing and bringing Love to this earth we are following Jesus.  Jesus empowers us to go out and heal.  Yes.  Each and every one of us are called to show God’s love for this world and to heal.  That is what the church is called to do.  That is what you are called to do.  You don’t have to be ordained or become a health professional to heal people.  Every time you greet one that society would shun you are bringing healing to earth.  Every time we give of our time, talent and treasures to build up rather than tear down – we are working to bring God’s dream of Love a little closer. 

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[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2540