Saints

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

November 4, 2018

All Saints’ Day

          Jeff Cohen is the doctor at Allegheny General Hospital who took care of the alleged shooter at the Tree of Life Synagogue last Saturday.  Robert Bowers had been shot multiple times by police as they tried to take him into custody.  Dr. Cohen is Jewish and is a member of the Tree of Life Synagogue, as is much of the staff that cared for Bowers.  One might reasonably think that the staff would have mixed feelings about saving the life of a man who had just caused unspeakable tragedy in their very own place of worship.  But instead, when asked about treating Bowers, Dr. Cohen said, “My job isn’t to judge him…it’s to care for him.”  After meeting Bowers, the doctor said “Quite honestly, he’s just a guy.  He’s some mother’s son.  And how did he get from that to where he is today?  That’s going to be a large debate that we have to wrestle with as a society.” 

          In a week that has seen so much sadness, anger, fear, and frustration over the Tree of Life Synagogue shootings, as well as the deepening polarization in our country, as well as the challenges we or our loved ones face, the tears in three of our four readings on this All Saints’ Sunday seem to be something of a divine coincidence.  In the reading from Isaiah, we hear of a time when God will swallow up death forever and will wipe away the tears from all eyes. The reading from Revelation gives us a vision of a future in which God will be fully present with us, and will, again, wipe every tear from our eyes.  In the gospel reading, we not only see the tears of those who loved Lazarus, including Jesus, we also hear Mary’s anger: “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  We hear the people’s frustration with Jesus when they say, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”  These are the same tears, anger, and frustrations that we have all experienced, if not this week, then certainly some other week. 

          The tears in these readings are also our own tears as we remember those who, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, “we love, but see no longer.”  We pray for those who have gone ahead of us to live eternally with God, and we take comfort in both the fact that there is no pain or grief in God’s nearer presence and in the promise that one day we will be reunited with those we love.  We look to that future time described in Isaiah and Revelation when we won’t need All Saints’ Day because all the saints will be together every day.  On that day, God will come to dwell fully with us, making for all people a feast of rich food, erasing all mourning and crying and pain, and drying all our tears.  At that time, there will be no further need to remember our loved ones with candles and prayers as death will be swallowed up forever.

          But the story of the raising of Lazarus is different.  John’s gospel begins with the words “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  Then we hear “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  In Jesus, God has broken into the world in a new way and created a new reality here and now.  This morning, Jesus calls us into a new reality in which life is stronger than death as he calls to Lazarus, “Lazarus, come out!”

          Lazarus has been dead for four days.  We can wonder with those who said “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying” and ask why Jesus hasn’t raised our loved ones from the dead as well.  We can be angry along with Mary and say, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”  Or we can see this story for what it is-a present glimpse into the future Isaiah and Revelation describe when the fullness of God’s reign is present on earth.  The story of the raising of Lazarus shows us the power life has over death now.  The story of Lazarus calls us to come out of the tomb of division, hatred, and death and claim the power of unity, love, and life.  The story of Lazarus calls us to be about the work of making God’s future vision a present reality, by using our lives to proclaim that unity is stronger than division, love is stronger than hate, and life is stronger than death. 

          The Saints of God are people who use their lives to do just that.  In the face of division, hate, and death, Dr. Cohen said “My job isn’t to judge him, it’s to care for him” and he saw Robert Bowers not as someone to be despised for the great pain he caused, but as “some mother’s son.”  Dr. Cohen is making God’s future vision a present reality, proclaiming with his life that love is stronger than hate and life is stronger than death.  Just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb and into life, All Saints’ Day calls us out of the tomb and into the world to proclaim with our lives that the final words belong to life and love.

                                                                             Amen. 

Vending Machine

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 21, 2018

24 Proper B

          One spring break many years ago, the kids and I took a quick trip to Indianapolis where the Children’s Museum had an enormous Lego exhibit.  We spent the night in a hotel with the requisite swimming pool and pizza delivery service then headed out to the museum the next morning.  The Lego exhibit was incredible with huge Lego structures to examine and plenty of Legos available for kids to experiment with on their own.  A huge water exhibit upstairs gave the kids a chance to get soaking wet while experimenting with what floats and what does not.  All in all, the trip to the museum was quite successful.  But, as was often the case with our kids, the highlight of the trip had nothing to do with the incredible displays and experiences at the museum. The highlight of the trip was the vending machine back at the hotel that magically produced hot French fries on demand.  Slocomb and Caldwell were probably 8 and 11 at the time.  They had never seen such a curiosity before, whereas they had seen plenty of Legos and lots of water.  Their young minds were fascinated by this machine which, for dollar and 90 seconds, produced piping hot French fries.  The kids spent hours trying to figure out how the vending machine managed to make hot French fries, and their ideas ranged from magic to incredibly complicated engineering.  The ability to put money in a machine and get hot fries out bordered on the miraculous for them.

          This morning, James and John approach Jesus and say to him “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” and what they want is to sit at the right and left hands of Jesus.  A friend of mine calls this the theology of Jesus the magic vending machine, turning Jesus into a dispenser of divine favors much like the vending machine that fascinated my young sons.  James and John come across self-centered at best, and arrogant at worst.  What makes their request even more mindboggling is that, in the sentences immediately before our gospel reading, Jesus predicts his passion for the third time.  Jesus has just said “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’  Not only do James and John come across as selfish and arrogant, they also seem rather insensitive.  Jesus has just told the disciples about his upcoming suffering and death, and James and John are all about places of honor beside Jesus.

          To think that James and John are selfish and insensitive is to perhaps give them more credit than they are due.  I think perhaps they are more the victims of selective hearing, rather than having heard Jesus and ignored him.  Either way, Jesus is patient with his two disciples.  Jesus says to James and John “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

          “Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”  Earlier in Mark’s gospel, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan.  At Jesus’ baptism, he saw the heavens open and the Spirit of God descending on him like a dove.  Then the voice from heaven said “You are my Son, the beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”  If this is the baptism James and John are thinking about, then no wonder they say “yes” to Jesus’ question.  This baptism, complete with a dove from heaven and affirmation straight from God, fits right in with their desire to sit at Jesus right and left hand in glory.  James and John have hit the baptism jackpot!

          But James and John have not been listening.  The cup that Jesus will drink and the baptism with which he will be baptized are described in those sentences right before the disciples make their audacious request.  No one in their right mind would sign up for being mocked, flogged, spat upon, and killed, and this is certainly not what we have in mind for little Lucy as we baptize her this morning. 

          Had James and John been listening to Jesus, not only would they have heard Jesus describe his upcoming suffering and death, they would also have heard him say “and after three days he will rise again.”  In our baptism service, the prayer over the water includes these words “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism.”  In it we are buried with Christ in his death.  By it we share in his resurrection.”  Baptism is not the promise that nothing bad will ever happen to us.  Baptism recognizes that life will throw us some curve balls.  Hopefully those curve balls will not involve being mocked, flogged, spat upon, and killed, but the curve balls can knock the wind out of our sails and challenge us beyond anything we ever thought possible.  Baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus is the promise that no matter how fast or hard the curve balls hit, life will always have the final word.  And then Jesus tells us that the proper response to being baptized with the Baptism of Jesus is not a victory dance, or places of honor at the table, or power and glory, but to follow the One who came not to be served, but to serve. 

          In a few minutes, we will baptize little Lucy Kosanovich.  Being baptized with the baptism of Jesus is not about getting Jesus to do for us whatever we want, or about special privileges or powers, or about never having another bad day.  Being baptized with the Baptism of Jesus is God’s promise to Lucy that the final word will always belong to life.  Lucy’s gift to God will be to live as a person who believes God’s promise to be true.  

                                                                             Amen.

Identity

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 14, 2018

23 Proper B

          Tiny houses are a source of fascination for me.  I love the idea of a home that is 200 square feet or less and, at least in theory, includes everything one needs for abundant living.  200 square feet is not much space.  Our living room is that size!  Of course, to live in a tiny house, one’s belongings have to consist of the bare minimum of clothing, a few well selected cooking utensils, a couple of pieces of furniture, a cell phone and a laptop.  So, significant downsizing is required.  Hard choices have to be made about what to keep and what to get rid of.  However, tiny house enthusiasts all claim that having less stuff and a small space is actually liberating.  While I find the thought of that kind of radical downsizing completely overwhelming, several years ago I took on a Lenten discipline called 40 bags in 40 days.  The discipline was to fill a bag every day with things I no longer used and donate the bag to charity.  Forty bags did not put a dent in what I needed to get rid of, which was proven one thousand times over the next Lent when we were getting ready to move to Hudson.  But filling a bag a day with things I no longer needed was liberating as closets and drawers became less crowded and I made decisions about what I actually need and use.

          Today, Jesus seems to be calling the man in the gospel reading to a drastic downsizing. Jesus is not calling the man to simply cull his belongings so he can live in 200 square feet.  Jesus is calling the man to sell everything including the house and follow him.  Jesus did not require that much of Peter, James, and John!  All they had to do was walk away from their boats and their families and follow Jesus.  No interim step was required.  Why is Jesus so hard on the man this morning?

          Here is the hint that Jesus is not really talking about downsizing, even completely and totally, in order to follow him. 

          After the man approaches Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus says to him “You lack one thing.  Go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then, come and follow me.”  Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem at this point in the gospel.  By the time the man goes home, explains all this to his wife, lists all his belongings on the first century equivalent of eBay or Craigslist, sells them, ships them to the new owners, finds a realtor, sells the house, then figures out how to distribute the proceeds among the poor, Jesus will have been arrested, tried, crucified and resurrected.  So, total and complete downsizing is not going to solve this man’s problem.  I wonder if the man went away grieving, not because he was so attached to his possessions, but because of the absolutely overwhelming, impossible task Jesus had set before him. 

          Here is the real problem.  The man asked “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  The man thought he must do something to earn eternal life.  He has kept the commandments since he was a youth, but apparently did not think obedience to the law was enough.  What else must he do?

          The book of Job, from which we also hear this morning, was written to refute the belief that, as my Hebrew Bible professor used to say “Piety pays and perversity punishes.”  In other words, we earn God’s favor by being good, and we earn God’s wrath by our misdeeds.  If we are prospering, that is evidence that we are living faithfully.  If we are suffering, that is evidence that we are living sinfully.  Job, however, is suffering greatly and has not sinned.  He is so angry by the time we get to this morning’s reading that Job wants to put God on trial for the grave injustice of his plight. 

          I believe the man in the gospel lesson was completely overwhelmed by the impossibility of what Jesus requires of him.  I also believe Job is overwhelmed by his suffering and the injustice of his situation.  In the news this week, we saw countless people totally overwhelmed by natural disaster as hurricane Michael blew through and washed away everything but their very lives, and in all too many cases, lives were lost as well.  Clearly people are overwhelmed by the rancor and division in our country, and people we know and love are overwhelmed by the personal battles they fight every day.  How might these two stories help us when we are feeling utterly overwhelmed?

          The man asked Jesus “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  However, inheritance is not about doing something.  Inheritance is about identity.  We inherit because we are the beloved son or daughter or grandchild or church of someone who has died.  We are beloved children of God, and our inheritance, eternal life, is a result of that identity.  Perhaps this is what both the man and Job needed to learn.  Jesus gives the man an impossible task in order to show him that eternal life cannot be earned.  Job will learn that his blessings are a gift from God, nothing he has earned with good behavior or lost because of bad behavior. 

          Jesus looked at the man and loved him.  The importance of this story is underscored that the fact that this is the only time in Mark’s gospel when we are told that Jesus loves someone.   Jesus loves this man and he wants the man to know that God’s love for him is what gives him eternal life.  That’s all.  This is why Jesus says “How hard it will be for those with wealth to enter the Kingdom of God.”  Like the man, we want to earn what is ours.  We know that what we earn belongs to us.  Like the man, we can easily rely on what we earn to give us our identity and forget that our real identity is as a child of God and that identity is a gift.  When the disciples ask “Who, then, can be saved?”  Jesus’ reply is that, for God, all things are possible.  What Jesus is reminding the disciples, and us, is that our status as children of God and our inheritance of eternal life is all God’s action and is a gift because God loves us.

          When we are overwhelmed by whatever life throws at us, Jesus calls us to remember our true identity and the inheritance we have already received.  Jesus calls us to rest in the knowledge that we are beloved children of God, whose inheritance is eternal life.  Nothing, no matter how overwhelming, can change that fact.

                                                                   Amen.

Connections

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 7, 2018

22 Proper B

          After our father died back in April, my brother, sister, and I needed to figure out how to celebrate his life and that of our mother who died five years earlier.  For those of us who live and breathe in the church world, we have a starting point for that celebration.  We will have a funeral or memorial service.  My family of origin-my parents and siblings-does not have that starting point.  I am the sheep who left the fold in search of other pastures.  So, my siblings and I threw the great memorial cocktail party. We set the date in late June and sent out invitations by email, snail meal, word of mouth, and any other means we could think of.  Our goal was to invite anyone who wanted to come and celebrate the lives of our parents.

          When the day arrived, my brother, sister, and I were bowled over by both the people who came from far and near, and the deep connections we felt with people we had not seen in decades.  George, our babysitter when we were elementary school children, came from California. I’m pretty sure I had not seen George since 1970.  I had not seen Burton, our cousin from Nashville, since our grandmother died in 1988.  Julie was our dad’s friend from elementary school in New York during World War 2, and I hadn’t seen her in at least 40 years.  And 90-year-old Harry was our next door neighbor in New Jersey in the 1980’s.  Despite the time and distance since our last encounters, the deep and lasting connections we had with each other were renewed in a single short afternoon.  Our friends and family span the religious and political spectrum from one end clear to the other.  But our shared stories, laughter, and memories gave us an experience of our common bond and deep connection that I will not soon forget.

          Job, on the other hand, is feeling quite the opposite this morning.  In a story that develops over many chapters and raises more questions than answers, Job finds himself tested by Satan and disconnected from his health, his family and friends, his belongings, and his future.  The story raises disturbing questions about God when we hear God agree to let Satan test Job's faith right up to the limit of taking Job's life.  While the intent of the story is to wrestle with the problem of why bad things happen to good people, the story also points to the fundamental importance of being connected with other people as part of our being connected to God. 

The Pharisees have no interest whatsoever in connections this morning. In fact, their intent is quite the opposite as they arrive to test Jesus.  They ask Jesus "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” This is perhaps one of the most difficult and painful gospel lessons in the lectionary and I know from your faces as the gospel lesson was read that you are wondering what I will do with this text. However, the Pharisees are not really interested in Jesus’ teaching on divorce.  They are interested in trying to trap Jesus in a loose/loose situation.   The Pharisees ask Jesus "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" If Jesus says "no," he will contradict the teaching of Moses, which allowed a man to write his wife a certificate of dismissal and divorce her. He will also be in trouble with the Romans, since just 4 chapters earlier John the Baptist lost his head, literally, for being critical of Herod Antipas who had divorced his wife to marry his brother’s former wife. If Jesus says "yes," he will raise a whole host of legal and theological questions about marriage. Jesus appears to be trapped.

          Our response to this gospel reading often divides us in one of two camps.  For those of us who have never been divorced, we can easily think that finally there is one hard teaching of Jesus does not apply to us.  For those of us who have experienced the pain of divorce, this passage can make us feel judged, alienated, and condemned by the church, if not Jesus.   Whenever we think Jesus is dividing us, however, we should probably read a bit more closely. 

To respond to the Pharisees’ test, Jesus appeals to Scripture as he usually does when being tested. But Jesus does not appeal to the law of Moses, which would give a straight forward answer to the question put to him. Instead Jesus raises the stakes much higher and appeals to the Creation stories which remind us that we are all connected. Jesus’ answer to the question about divorce is really a teaching about all those places where hardness of heart has caused separation and division that is contrary to creation as God intended it.  The rancor, finger pointing, and name calling we have seen over the past weeks on all manner of issues have brought out the worst on all sides of every issue. I believe God’s heart is broken by the way human beings treat each other.  God created us to be connected, even when we disagree.

Jesus is not letting any of us off the hook this morning.  The Pharisees came to test Jesus with a question about divorce. The answer they anticipated would give separation and division the final word. Instead, Jesus reaches all the way back to the creation of humankind to give them and us an answer that applies to all occasions of human brokenness and gives our connection with each other the final word. Then Jesus takes little children into his arms and blesses them. Little children understand that their survival depends on their connection to God and other people.  This morning, Jesus holds before us the deep connections God intended for us in creation and intends for us now and always.

                                                          Amen.

Radical Generosity

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 23, 2018

20 Proper B

          When I was a child, I loved going to church. We did not go to church as a family-rather my mom dropped the three children off at the little Presbyterian Church close to our house and our parents enjoyed some peace and quiet at home by themselves.  Mom always gave each of us 25 cents for the offering plate, because, as she said in 1965, you shouldn’t pay less than a quarter for good babysitting.  That was my first introduction to stewardship, which is theologically suspect, but made perfectly good sense to my mother.

What I loved about church was that the playing field was level there. Church did not require a person to be athletic, which I was not, smart, which I was not, outgoing, which I was not, or any of the other qualities the world thought a person should have. Church was a place where people were happy to see us just because we were there. We could sing in the choir without tryouts, sit in Sunday School and say nothing, and no one chose teams for games of any sort. There were pictures of Jesus, who seemed to like children and sheep; arts and crafts that required more glue than skill; and some nice grown ups to make sure we all shared at snack time. Church was a place where we felt accepted and valued as children of God.

          When my own children were growing up, I valued the same sorts of things for them about church.  At church, the successes and failures they experienced in school or on the playing field were not where they got their identity.  At church, their identity was as a beloved child of God as it is for each of us.  In every church they attended, there were adults who were interested in them as people, asking about their week, or their concerns, teaching their Sunday School classes and arranging to spend time with them outside of church.  When we baptize a child, the whole congregation promises to support the child in his or her new life in Christ.  As a church, we strive to give children the nurture and support they need to grow in their knowledge and love of God.

          So, this morning, when I see Jesus take a little child in his arms and hear him say "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and who ever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me," I am so much happier than last week when we heard Jesus say "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." That sounds hard. Welcoming children is easy.

However, cuddling babies and nurturing children is not what Jesus has in mind. Jesus is not talking about 21st century children. Jesus is talking about 1st century children. In the first century, children were liabilities, not assets. Sixty percent of all children did not make it to their 16th birthday, so parents had many children in order to have a few survive. Children had no rights; no status. If an adult male needed an heir, he adopted another adult to inherit his wealth, not a child. Children ranked below women and only slightly above slaves. So, for Jesus, an adult male, to bring someone from the very margins of society right into his own arms was outrageous. For Jesus to tell the disciples that whoever welcomed one such child in Jesus’ name, welcomed him, and welcomed the God who sent him was shocking. 

The gospel lesson begins with Jesus’ prediction that he will be betrayed into human hands, be killed, and three days after being killed, rise again. We are told that the disciples did not understand what Jesus was saying and they were afraid to ask. Their lack of understanding is emphasized when their immediate response to Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death is to argue among themselves about which one of them is the greatest. Jesus settles their argument by telling them that whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Taking the child into his arms is an object lesson of sorts, to emphasize his point about the last being first. But Jesus is doing much more than simply settling an argument among his disciples and teaching them about true greatness. Jesus is teaching them the appropriate response to his teaching that he will be betrayed, killed and rise again. The appropriate response is not to argue over who will get first class tickets and reserved seating. The faithful response to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is radical generosity. The faithful response is to imitate the radical generosity of God, in which Jesus gives his life for the life of the world, a world that betrayed him, rejected him, and handed him over to death and God’s response is to redeem the world nonetheless.

If the faithful response to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is radical generosity, what does that generosity look like?  The reading from James gives us a clue.  The letter from James describes a generosity that is peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. Conflicts and disputes, we are told, come from selfish ambition, or the opposite of radical generosity. A community that is torn by strife and disagreement is not capable of genuine and radical generosity because they are all about themselves, not others. But a community infused with the wisdom from above, which is pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy, is able to embrace everyone from each other to those who could not be more different, with equal warmth and hospitality, demonstrating the generosity of God.  James’s instructions sound a lot like our theme this fall, which is to live with glad and generous hearts, reflecting for the world and each other the depth of God’s generosity. 

Jesus calls us to make our response to his suffering, death, and resurrection a radical generosity, not arguing over who is the greatest, or who is right, or even who is the most generous, but welcoming and serving all people with the generosity of God.  Jesus calls us to a life of radical generosity, because radical generosity is the faithful response to the gospel. 

                                                                   Amen.

Promise

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 16, 2018

19 Proper B

          Several years ago, a friend and I went to England at the request of our bishop to study the ordination process in the church there.  While we spent a good bit of the two weeks working on this project, we also had time for what we affectionately called our “Pew and Pub” tour.   One Sunday afternoon in London, we managed to make Evensong in three different churches and visit several others.  At St. James Church in Piccadilly, we found a remarkable mission statement posted outside the building.  St. James has vibrant outreach, a diverse congregation, and is very engaged in their community, all wonderful attributes in a church.  Their mission statement proclaims their values of inclusivity, the ability to question, and their solidarity with the poor and marginalized, all of which are common in church mission statements.  But what got my attention was the very last sentence.  At the bottom of the mission statement are these words: “We don’t mange this all the time, so we try again.”

          This morning, Peter has managed to give Jesus the correct answer to the question “Who do you say that I am?”   Peter says “You are the Messiah,” which is obviously the right answer.  Peter must be feeling pretty proud of himself.  The problem is that Peter has no idea what his words mean.  When Jesus tells the disciples that he will “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again,” Peter objects.  Messiahs do not suffer and die, and Peter has no clue what “and after three days rise again” could possibly mean.  Peter has not only managed to get his understanding of the Messiah completely wrong; he has completely ticked Jesus off in the process.  “Get behind me Satan,” are words no one wants to hear.

          As hurt as Peter must be by Jesus’ stern rebuke, he does not walk away, nor does Jesus, in his anger, send Peter packing.  Instead, Jesus calls the crowds and the disciples together and begins to teach them, hopefully with some measure of patience, about discipleship.  How does one follow a messiah who will suffer, die, and on the third day rise again?  The answer is very different from the way one would follow a messiah who is successful by the world’s standard.  Jesus says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

          Jesus has given the crowds, the disciples, and us three clear, if not easy steps to being his followers.  Step one: Deny yourself.  In other words, Jesus is saying “It’s not about you.”  Seek and serve Christ in all people.  Respect the dignity of every human being.  We don’t get to pick and choose, because following Jesus is not about us. 

Step two: Take up your cross.  This step gets confused with hoisting all of our burdens onto our shoulders and trudging off to follow Jesus.  This is the same Jesus who says in another gospel “Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”   Jesus is telling us to pick up the cross of Christ, the cross with which we were sealed in baptism and which is now our own cross.  Pick up the cross that proclaims the triumph of light over darkness and life over death. Proclaim the Good News of Christ with our words and our actions. 

Step three: Jesus says “Follow me.”  Being a disciple of Jesus is about following Jesus where Jesus goes, and Jesus goes to the sick, the poor, and those on the margins, working for justice and peace.  Jesus goes to the cross, not around the cross, calling us to follow, knowing that the cross will not have the final word.  Jesus calls us to follow, promising that he will go first, where ever our journey takes us.

          This morning, we will baptize Alexa Scheiferstein.  In baptism, she will be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  Jesus’ cross will become Alexa’s cross.  We will all reaffirm our commitment to follow Jesus with the promises of the baptismal covenant, promising to seek and serve Christ in all people, work for justice and peace, respect the dignity of every human being, and proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Jesus.  As Peter found out this morning, however, following Jesus is not easy.  The first two promises of the baptismal covenant recognize that fact.  First, we promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.  We need each other, and we need the nourishment that comes from worship to be able to follow Jesus.  We cannot follow Jesus alone.  This is also why the congregation will be asked in a few minutes if we will do all in our power to support Alexa in her life in Christ.  She cannot do this by herself.  Secondly, we promise to “persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.”  The Baptismal Covenant assumes that we will not always get this right.  We are called not to walk away, but to try again and again and again.  We promise not to give up.  In the spirit of the St. James, Piccadilly mission statement, we won’t manage to keep all of these promises all the time, so we promise to try again.

          Jesus never said following him would be the easy path, or the most convenient, or the cheapest.  But Jesus does promise that being his follower leads to life.   And being a follower of Jesus means following Jesus.

                                                                             Amen.

         

Hearts

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 2, 2018

17 Proper B

When Don and I were first married, we lived in Nashville, Tennessee where Don was in graduate school at Vanderbilt.  In Nashville, there are many Episcopal Churches from which to choose.  We sampled Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Episcopal churches, a historic downtown broad church, friendly churches, decidedly unfriendly churches, and everything in between.  One Sunday we made our way to one of the smaller churches in Nashville, one we really didn't know anything about.  The service was a standard Rite 2 Holy Eucharist, so nothing unfamiliar to us.  But when we went to the altar rail to receive communion, before placing the bread in our hands, the priest looked us in the eye and said, not "The body of Christ the bread of heaven," but "Have you been confirmed?"  Now, before the current prayer book, adopted in January of 1979, the official teaching of the Episcopal Church was that confirmation was admission to communion.  The idea was that a person needed to have made a mature affirmation of faith before receiving the Eucharist.  But this was 1982, and the 1979 prayer book understands that baptism is full initiation into the life of the church and that includes receiving communion.  So I was stunned-not only by the priest's question but at his nerve to ask the question at the altar rail of someone with their hands outstretched waiting to receive Christ in the bread and the wine.  There was no question in my mind that had the answer been "no," we would have been refused.  We had been called out for being strangers and possibly unfit for the sacred meal.  I felt judged, even though I met the requirements.

I wonder how Jesus' disciples felt when they were called out by the religious authorities for eating with defiled hands.  On the one hand, Mark does not portray the disciples as the brightest lights in the building.  They are forever misunderstanding Jesus.  In fact, just prior to the story we heard this morning, we were told that the disciples did not understand the feeding of the 5000, because their hearts were hardened.  But on the other hand, the disciples have given up everything and followed Jesus.  Earlier in Mark's gospel, we are told that the disciples had successfully cast out demons and anointed the sick with oil and cured them.  How many of us can claim success like that?  Had I been one of those disciples, I might have been a tad bit offended when called out for not living according to the tradition of the elders and keeping my hands clean.

On a first reading of the gospel lesson, we might think that Jesus is criticizing the tradition of the elders in favor of good works. Jesus quotes Isaiah who says "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines."  Then Jesus teaches the crowd that evil comes from within; that there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile the human heart.

The reading from James teaches likewise.  We hear these words: "Be doers of the word and not merely hearers."  Like Jesus' quote from the prophet Isaiah, the emphasis seems to be on works.  James writes "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."  Merely hearing the word is not sufficient.  Right action is what is required.

So, what does Jesus want?  The intent of the Jewish ritual was to make all of life holy.  So, what a person ate or drank, or how a person kept clean, or what a person did on the Sabbath, or how a person worshiped mattered. All of life was to be holy and pleasing to God.  But on the other hand, Jesus was clearly concerned with the commandments of God that have to do with our relationships with our fellow human beings.  Everything in Jesus' list of evils has to do with harming other people.  Which does Jesus want?

What Jesus wants is our heart.  Jesus wants ritual that forms our hearts so that the actions that come from our hearts honor God and each other.  Jesus is not an either/or sort of Savior.  Jesus is a both/and Savior. If we come to this place for beautiful worship, and our hearts are not formed to do gospel work, then Jesus has some harsh things to say and our worship is empty.  If we work at our Welcome Table, or Open M, or First Serve, or go about our day to day lives, and we do not see Jesus in the people we encounter, then our actions are empty, too.  In worship, we sing great hymns, pray the ancient prayers of the church, hear the sacred story, break bread, connect with God and each other, then hear the words of the dismissal "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord."  That worship opens our hearts and sends us out into the world to encounter God.   Then our hearts are more open and patient with people who view the world differently than we do, or who have needs we may or may not be able to meet, or who need to hear a bit of Good News and be treated with kindness and respect.  Those encounters drive us back here to worship, pray, and connect.  Which sends us back into the world in an endless cycle of ritual or worship, and works.  On Labor Day Sunday, we offer the Blessing of Hands as part of our worship as a reminder of the connection between what we do with our lives and what we profess with our lips.  Jesus tells us that neither worship nor works are complete without the other because both are needed to form our hearts as people of God. And our hearts are what matter to Jesus.

                                                                          Amen.