Sermon – Luke 12.49-56, P15, YC, August 14, 2016

17 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Sermons, Uncategorized

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argue, avoid, conflict, conflict management, confront, cross, disagreement, division, family, forgive, honest, Jesus, listen, love, peace, Prince of Peace, rebirth, reconciliation, renewal, restoration, Sermon, transformation

I grew up in a house without conflict. No one ever fought, no one ever yelled, and certainly, no one ever hit. There may have been disagreements, but they were quickly resolved and our house was restored to peace. Given that was my experience growing up, I assumed all family handled conflict in hushed, quiet ways. But then I visited a friend who taught me differently. I was staying with her family for a few days, and on a car ride to dinner, her mother and father started arguing and were quickly yelling at each other in the front seat. My eyes bulged and my whole body tensed up. I immediately thought, “This is the most horrible thing I have ever seen!” I surreptitiously glanced at my friend to see if she was equally horrified, but she just sat there like it was an everyday occurrence. But even more strange than the fight was how the family acted later. There was a bit of quiet after the yelling, but by the time we stopped for dinner, everyone was back to normal. I, however, could not manage to release the tension in my body, and my mind was racing. Are they okay? Is this normal? Will it happen again? How do I act now?

I remember after that visit feeling relieved and almost proud. Clearly my family had the better conflict management system. Clearly we were more in control of our emotions and cared for each other with tenderness and love. I let myself believe that lie until my parent’s divorce. My entire world view about conflict and family and love came apart. Suddenly my quiet house was not simply quiet. My quiet house was a conflict avoidant house. The lack of yelling in my house was not simply a lack of yelling, but was a stuffing of hurt and pain for the sake of pretend peace. Now, do not get me wrong. I am not suggested that you all go home and yell at your loved ones. What I am saying is that no matter what your experience of conflict has been – avoidance, dramatic confrontation, reasoned discussion through disagreement – we have all experienced conflict in our family.

All that is to say that nothing Jesus says about families should be shocking today. Most of us like the loving, caring, gentle Jesus the best. We like Jesus being hailed as the Prince of Peace, not hearing Jesus say, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”[i] That is not the version of Jesus we come to hear about on Sundays. That is not the version of Jesus we want to read about when our best friend is mad at us, our brother won’t talk to us, or our spouse is thinking about leaving. That is not the version of Jesus we want the preacher talking about on the Sunday we decided to bring our friend to church.

And normally, I would be right there with you in protest. I like the Prince of Peace who cares for the poor and downtrodden. I love the Jesus who tells me not to be afraid and not to worry, especially when the lilies of the field are so well tended by God. I adore the Jesus who forgives and unites all kinds of people into one. But all of my protest comes from being someone who used to be pretty conflict avoidant. That is, until I learned another way. I will always say that one of the greatest gifts of my time on Long Island was learning how to not only handle conflict, but to really appreciate conflict for all that conflict can do.

For those of you not familiar with the cultural dynamic of Long Island, several things are at play. First, Long Islanders have a different way of communicating. They are direct, incisive, and honest. For a Southerner, their style of communication can feel rude, but over time, said Southerner realizes that all that directness and ability to dive into conflict means you get everything out on the table. There is no listening for innuendo or passive aggressiveness. There are no cute phrases that sound nice, but really mean something entirely different. Instead, you know where people stand, and you go home quite clear about the varying viewpoints. Of course, that style of communication does not always feel good. If you have sensitive feelings about criticism, your feelings can and will get hurt. If you get uncomfortable with heated arguments, you will be challenged to stay calm. If you prefer niceness over brutal honesty – well, you probably should not live on Long Island.

But here is what I learned and came to love about the beautiful people of Long Island. They taught me how to listen, even if all I wanted to do was flee the room. They taught me how to sit through criticism instead of getting defensive. They taught me how to see conflict not as the ultimate evil, but instead as a critical key to transformation, reconciliation, and restoration.

That is at the heart of Jesus’ message today. Of course Jesus says that he is going to divide fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and in-laws against one another. What Jesus is teaching about is a radical reordering of the world.[ii] We heard that proclamation from his mother’s mouth as she sang out the words of the Magnificat earlier in Luke’s gospel, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”[iii] Mary was not just talking about the enemy Rome. Many of the Israelites themselves were proud, powerful, and rich. We in the modern world are the proud, powerful, and rich. And to us, Jesus shouts, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

The good news is that Jesus is not telling us he wants us to fight. He is not encouraging violence or abuse, or even neglect or pain. Jesus is simply telling us that his message is going to upset the status quo. And as people who benefit from the status quo, we are going to have to face our demons and look at our brothers and sisters who are in need and take real stock of ourselves and our lives. And when we start upsetting the status quo – when we start making women equal to men, when we start treating minorities with dignity and respect, when we start empowering the poor thrive and turn their lives around, we will have friends and family who push back. We will have people who try to convince us to protect our power rather than share our power. We will have family who walk away because they cannot face the truth. All we have to do is look at the church – look at the hundreds of denominations who could not agree on whom could be baptized, what Eucharist means, and whom can be ordained or married. We are a family divided because Jesus’ love is so revolutionary that we will be divided about how to define his love, how to share his love, and how receive his love. Jesus does not want us to fight. But he knows that if we are going to authentically live into the Gospel life, we are going to deal with conflict and we are going to be divided.[iv]

But that is also why Jesus went all the way to the cross. His death was an effort to transform and redeem our conflict and to help us live fully into the people of peace and love we are invited to be in him. Jesus knows that we will have to fight. But he also knows that if we are willing to enter into conflict with an open mind, with listening ears, and a discerning heart, we will become a people who do not avoid conflict, but understand conflict as the purifying fire that burns away the mess of life and leaves behind the fertile ground for creating something new and holy.[v] So yes, Jesus is still the Prince of Peace, who brings peace upon earth. But the path there is not a smooth, straight, simple path. The path there will take us through conflict, tension, and pain. But the peace that awaits on the other side is more glorious than any community that will sit through passive aggressive avoidance just to maintain a false sense of security.

And just in case you are already feeling weary, wondering where you can muster the strength to survive such a rocky path, our letter to the Hebrews today gives us a clue, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…”[vi] That group of people you are going to be in conflict with – whether your biological family, or the crazy family you selected as your church home – is the same group of people who have left us an example of how to work our way through conflict. They have shown us how to survive the race toward peace and reconciliation, reminding us that Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter who gets us there. We will not get there avoiding conflict. But we will get there together, holding hands when we disagree, loving each other when we say helpful but painful truths, and rejoicing when we push through to the side of reconciliation, renewal, and rebirth. Amen.

[i] Luke 12.51.

[ii] Richard P. Carlson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 361.

[iii] Luke 1.51-53.

[iv] Audrey West, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 360, 362.

[v] Elizabeth Palmer, “Living By The Word: August 14, 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time,” Christian Century, July 26, 2016, as found at http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2016-07/august-14-20th-sunday-ordinary-time on August 11, 2016.

[vi] Hebrews 12.1-2a.

Sermon – Luke 12.13-21, P13, YC, July 31, 2016

03 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Sermons, Uncategorized

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accountability, barn, community, financial management, God, greed, Jesus, money, relationship, rich, rich toward God, self-centeredness, Sermon, wealth

One of the last things that happens when you graduate from seminary is the staff from the Church Pension Group comes to talk to you about money management. They help you understand how retirement funds work for clergy, encourage you to make sure you are doing some additional savings and investment planning, and remind you that, like tithing, how you manage your finances is a witness to your congregation for being good stewards. That lesson is reiterated each year, as the priest is encouraged to be a smart investor through email reminders. We even go to a wellness conference a few times over the course of our ministry to make sure we are tending to our financial wellness in addition to vocational, spiritual, and bodily wellness. The lesson to clergy again and again, is to be good stewards of our financial resources.

So imagine my discomfort with the parable from Jesus today. At first glance, this is a story about smart financial investments. A man has a bumper crop – the land produces so abundantly he cannot fit the excess crops into his current barns. Knowing that the land is fickle, maybe even having taken some notes from our ancestor Joseph who prevented a seven-year famine by stockpiling during a seven-year boon, the man decides he will just have to build a bigger barn to hold all the extra crops. Quite frankly, his actions do not sound that far off from what any investment counselor who might tell us to do – store the excess away so that when a rainy day comes, or even when retirement comes, we can still “eat, drink, and be merry.” All in all, his logic sounds pretty spot-on to me.

Here is the kicker though: the day the newly enlarged barn is finished is the same day that the man will die. All those plans, hopes, and dreams for a secure retirement are gone. He never gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor. He never gets to retire in comfort. He never gets to eat, drink, and be merry. Our immediate reaction to this tragedy might be to proclaim how life or God is not fair. But into our disappointment, Jesus says, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

In these last words from Jesus, Jesus takes the wind out of our sails. Jesus reminds us that being a good steward of our resources means lots of things: being smart with our money, saving for times of famine, giving to the church, and caring for our neighbor. But most importantly, being a good steward of our resources is not just about sound financial practices. Being a good steward of our resources is also managing our relationship with our money – and more specifically, managing our relationship with God in relation to our money.

Now some of you may be thinking, “Here she goes. She’s going to tell me how I need to give more money to the church to right my relationship with God.” No need to get too anxious today. I do not think Jesus is looking for a specific action today – as if to say, “Do not be like the man with the barns. Give your full ten percent to the church and all will be well.” No, what Jesus is trying to do is help us see that our relationship with money matters. Unlike a polite dinner guest, Jesus never shies away from talking about money. He is constantly warning us about the potential of riches to corrupt our relationship with God. So the answer to what the rich man should do may not be a clear-cut formula, but we get some obvious clues about what Jesus means about being rich toward God.

Going back to the story is particularly helpful. The most obvious thing that we see happening in the parable is that the wealthy man has become completely self-absorbed and ego-centric. Listen again to the words of the parable, “And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” The list is long: What should I do? My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, my soul. All the words of the wealthy man are self-referential.[i] Nowhere does he talk to God. Nowhere does he talk to his family or a trusted friend. Nowhere does he consult his property manager, or the local priest. He never praises God for the abundance. He never acknowledges that the land has provided. He never even considers sharing his abundance. He is self-interested, self-protecting, and self-centered. And all of that focus on the self comes from a relationship with money and with God that is out of whack.

So how do we avoid the slippery slope that leads to self-centeredness and greed, luring us to constantly redefine how much is “enough”? What exactly is being rich toward God? Jesus tells us the answer to our quandary throughout Luke’s gospel. As one scholar explains, “Being rich toward God entails using one’s resources for the benefit of one’s neighbor in need, as the Samaritan did (10:25-37). Being rich toward God includes intentionally listening to Jesus’ word, as Mary did (10:38-42). Being rich toward God consists of prayerfully trusting that God will provide for the needs of life (11:1-13, 12:22-31). Being rich toward God involves selling possessions and giving alms as a means of establishing a lasting treasure in heaven (12:32-34).” In other words, “Life and possessions are a gift of God to be used to advance God’s agenda of care and compassion, precisely for those who lack resources to provide for themselves.”[ii]

Last year, while serving on the board of the Episcopal Ministries of Long Island in New York, we were surprised by a bequest of about 1.3 million dollars. The bequest came from a woman who had seemed to be of little consequence. Each year she had probably given the charitable group about $25 a year. We assumed that was about all she could do. So when the gift came in, we were stunned. After some prayerful discernment, we elected to put one million into our endowment, to ensure that we could keep helping ministries on Long Island. But the three hundred thousand would be for us to try new and innovative ministries – and luckily for us, there was already a proposal on the table that we thought we could not afford: a food truck that would take food around to the homeless in Brooklyn, and maybe even host a social worker and or nurse. I do not know what sort of life this woman led or how she managed her money. But even in death, her richness toward God was obvious to us all.

The challenge of Jesus this week to be rich toward God is not just a challenge for self-centered men of means. Though we may be tempted to finger-point, Jesus and we know that money has the power to corrupt all of our relationships with God. And unfortunately, the consequences are not limited to our relationships with God – our ability to live lives rich toward God impacts our neighbors too. The good news is that we have a community of faith sitting right next to us who can be our support system as we work to turn our hearts and our riches to God. Now I know we all value being respectful dinner guests, but this time, we are going to need to follow Jesus’ lead. In order to really turn our hearts and riches toward God, we are going to need to start talking with our friends about the place of money in our lives and in our relationship with God. We are going to need to talk about our struggles and failures. And we are going to need to celebrate our victories and successes. We are basically going to need to become a giant support group for becoming rich toward God.

I once heard about a “congregation who invited families to not buy any unnecessary new thing for six months in order to break the culturally-induced habit of trying to buy happiness. But they didn’t just invite people to do this, they formed a culture in which they supported each other. They read and talked about a common book on abundant life, they kept in touch via small groups and email, they shared where they were succeeding and struggling and what they were learning. In short, the formed a community so that they could stand against the all-too-human and culturally supported belief that if we just had a little more we’d be happy.”[iii]

I do not know what model or what goals are going to work for each of you. But I do know that just by our very citizenship in this country, we face more temptation toward greed than in probably any other country. If we are going to follow Jesus, to avoid a life of self-centeredness, and claim a life of being rich toward God, we are going to need each other. Whether you want to form a small group or just find a trusted friend, this is the important work Jesus invites us into today. My guess is that building up a community of support that is rich toward God will create much more opportunities to eat, drink, and be merry, than any bigger barn could ever give us. Amen.

[i] Audrey West, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 312.

[ii] Richard P. Carlson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 315.

[iii] David Lose, “What Money Can and Can’t Do,” July 29, 2013, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2668 on July 27, 2016.

Sermon – Luke 11.1-13, P12, YC, July 24, 2016

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

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action, active, disciples, God, goodness, Jesus, Lord's Prayer, Our Father, passive, pray, prayer, profound, relational, relationship, Sermon, tangible

This morning I have a little confession. When I look at the texts for the upcoming Sunday each week, I rarely am excited about what lessons are presented. Invariably, Jesus will say or do something controversial or, like today, the Old Testament lesson will say something super provocative that I do not want to think about addressing in the pulpit. But this week was a bit different. When I read today’s gospel, and heard the disciples asking Jesus to teach them how to pray, I wanted to cry, Yes, yes, Jesus! Tell us what to do. Teach us how to pray. Because lately, my prayers seem hollow. Whether I am praying about the nastiness and disrespect within this year’s political campaigns, whether I am praying about the sinfulness of racism in our country, whether I am praying about the way we dehumanize one another enough to think it is okay to shoot each other, or whether I am praying about someone who is not likely to recover from their illness and is facing the reality of mortality – I need Jesus to teach me how to pray. I need Jesus to teach me how to pray, because I do not feel like my prayers are working. “Lord, teach us to pray,” the disciples beg with a spirit helplessness, hopelessness, and haplessness that we can all identity with this week.

Into that sense of despair and longing, Jesus does two incredible things. First, he gives the disciples something simple and tangible – something to cling to in the most desperate of times. Jesus gives them what we call, “the Lord’s Prayer,” or the “Our Father.” Luke’s version is not the version of this prayer that we are most familiar with – we know Matthew’s version much more familiarly. In fact, even Christians who have been away from church most of their adult life can recall this one prayer. We know the words so well that they become their own prayer beads, each word a talisman that our fingers and souls can cling to when our head and hearts are a jumbly mess. The Lord’s Prayer is one for the ages – telling us what we know about God, what we hope for about the kingdom, and what we need as we go about our earthly lives. Surely those words address all that we are facing right now. Surely, when we have run out of our own words, those are words that we can mutter over and over again. Surely those are the things we need: God to reveal God’s self, to right the world, to sustain us, to forgive us and help us forgive others, and to protect us from ourselves and the enemy. And on days when we do not have words, those are words that we can pray. Jesus is very practical with his gift of a prayer for the ages.

But then Jesus does a second thing. After giving the disciples something tangible, then he tries to teach them something much more profound. He teaches the disciples about what prayer really is. After giving the disciples the “Our Father,” Jesus does what Jesus always does – he sits them down for a little story. Basically, an annoyingly persistent friend comes pounding on the door of a neighboring friend, looking for food to give to an unexpected guest. It’s midnight, and the irritated friend tells him to go home – everyone in his house has finally settled in for the night, and there is no way he is getting up. But the friend “persists, and eventually the poor householder relents, not out of the charities of friendship but simply for the sake of his own peace and quiet.”[i]

The story is not the prettiest, but anyone who has had to put down a toddler for the fortieth time that evening knows how persistent that friend would have to be for the neighbor to risk waking up his children. Jesus’ conclusion about the story of a persistent friend is, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” This is where Jesus’ teaching gets tricky though. Too many of us know that there have been times when we asked and we did not find, it was not given to us, and the door was not opened. Those words from Jesus can seem empty for those of us who have experienced the opposite. But Jesus is not describing the economy of prayer: that you insert a request, and, with persistence, you get what you want. What Jesus is trying to say is that prayer is about relationship. Like the relationship that we have with the buddy who will get up in the middle of the night, our prayer life with God is a reflection of the relationship with have with God. Our prayer life is dynamic, involves conflict, necessitates initiative, and is relational.

One of my favorite hymns growing up was “What a friend we have in Jesus.” The hymn is a sweet, simplistic hymn that basically says that we too often try to shoulder our burdens on our own. The hymn argues that if we take our sins and grief, our trails and temptations, our weakness and heavy laden burdens, we will find solace in God. The hymn is comforting, and its simplicity can make us feel good. But as I thought about that hymn this week and our text today, I realized that the hymn tempts us in the same way that this text does. The hymn tempts us into concluding that all we have to do is ask, seek, and knock, and everything will be okay. All we have to do is “take it to the Lord in prayer,” or even say the Lord’s prayer, and everything will be okay.

But I do not think that is what Jesus is saying today. By talking about how prayer is relational between God and us, how prayer is a practice that resembles the relationship of friends, we can come to understand prayer a little differently. Like any healthy relationship, our relationship to God in prayer is going to change us. Our time in prayer with God might lead us to finding, receiving, and having doors opened. But our time in prayer might also lead us to acting, giving, and knocking doors down. Jesus says that the sleeping friend gets up because of his friend’s persistence. That word “persistence” in the Greek is translated alternatively as, “shamelessness.”[ii] In other words, our prayers to God are to be shameless: bold, audacious, and unfailingly confident.

As we think about our prayerful relationship with God, I was struck by a reflection by David Lose. He asks, “How might we act differently this week if our prayers were offered to God confidently, trusting that God will respond so much more generously than any earthly parent?” Perhaps [we] wouldn’t just sit back and wait for God to answer but would start moving, get to work, actually start living into the reality of what [we have] prayed for. So rather than pray for someone who is lonely, maybe [we’d] go visit. Rather than pray for an end to violence, maybe [we’d] campaign against the legality of military-grade semi-automatic weapons, or protest when police use unnecessary force, or go visit the police station to tell officers that [we are] grateful for their service and pray for their safety.[iii] In other words, what if a prayerful relationship with God is not passive, but is active and challenging?

The good news is that despite all the heaviness of the news lately, and despite all the examples of intolerance and degradation, there are also examples percolating of goodness – the fruits of shameless prayer with our God. In Dallas, I saw protestors hugging counter-protestors. In Kansas, I saw police officers and Black Lives Matter protestors not only holding a block party together, but also making time during the party for a real, raw question-and-answer period. In Cleveland, I saw protestors holding hands with a police officer and offering a prayer before the day’s events began. Now, I am not saying that shameless praying with God is going to be easy or even lead to the open doors we want or think we need. Anyone who has long-term friendships knows that friendship is hard. But what I am saying is that prayer is powerful and when tended to, can lead to transformation. So if you do not know where to start this week, start with the Lord’s Prayer. If you are too frustrated or jaded to say those words, then just show up at God’s door. As with any good relationship, showing up is half the battle. Wherever you are in your prayer life, know that our God is a God who will answer – and will use us for goodness. Amen.

[i] Stephanie Frey, “On God’s Case,” Christian Century, vol. 121, no. 14, July 13, 2004, 17.

[ii] James A. Wallace, C.SS.R., “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 291.

[iii] David J. Lose, “Pentecost 10C: Shameless Prayer,” July 19, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/07/pentecost-10-c-shameless-prayer/ on July 20, 2016.

Sermon – Luke 10.1-11, 16-20, 2 Kings 5.1-14, P9, YC, July 3, 2016

07 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Sermons, Uncategorized

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collaboratively, commission, detail, gospel, help, humility, insider, Jesus, joy, mission, Naaman, outsider, power, Sermon, seventy, side effects, story, terrifying, transformation, vulnerable, witness

I remember when I was on maternity leave I ended up watching a fair amount of daytime television – mostly because that was the extent of intellectual stimulation that my sleep-deprived brain could handle. Not being someone who watches a lot of television, I was fascinated by one phenomenon in general: pharmaceutical commercials. There are tons of them and they are all filled with very convincing actors and stories. The story is always the same: the patient was sad, scared, or in pain, struggling with no cure; they or their doctor find a little-known drug; and, bam, they are returned to health and wholeness. Sometimes the actor or narrator will mention a few possible side effects. But in tiny print below the glowingly happy patient is a longer list of side effects that, quite frankly, sound terrifying – maybe even more terrifying than the disease or symptom they are trying to heal. If you are not careful, you can miss the messy stuff altogether because everyone looks so happy: from hair loss, to abdominal pain, partial paralysis, or in rare cases, even death.

That same sort of list of side effects is what our gospel lesson today glosses over too. The severity of the situation is clearly grim when Jesus commissions the seventy to go ahead of him, proclaiming the kingdom and healing people. Jesus is unambiguous. He tells the seventy that they will be like sheep among wolves. He takes away any forms of security: no purse, no bag, no sandals. He warns them that some people will not receive them well, and they will have to dust off their bruised egos and keep going. He advises them to be gracious guests, eating whatever is put before them (even if it is Brussel sprouts). Truly, this has to be the worst ad for a mission ever.

But here is the funny part. The text jumps over the mission of the seventy and simply says, “The seventy returned with joy.” We do not get details of all the side effects they experience. We do not get to hear how hard eating what is put before them is. We do not get to hear how scary traveling with no money or shoes is. We do not even get to hear how many times they have to dust of their feet in protest from ill treatment. No, the commercial just glosses straight to the end, “The seventy returned with joy.” The reading today feels like all the bad stuff is just shoved into fine print so that we do not get a sense of what going out into the mission field really feels like – because, based on what Jesus says, the mission field sounds terrifying.

Feeling frustrated by the lack of detail this week, I found myself wondering how we might get a glimpse into the real experience of following Jesus and sharing the good news. Then I stumbled back into the Naaman story and realized perhaps he is the key. Naaman seems like an unlikely candidate at first blush. He is a foreign national in the time of Elisha. Jesus does not come onto the scene until hundreds of years later. But Naaman has much more in common with the followers of Jesus – in fact, more in common with us – than we might imagine.

You see, Naaman is a mighty army commander. Because of the Lord’s favor, Naaman has led the king’s troops to victory. Naaman is not one of the Israelites, but he is someone with great power – a prowess we are familiar with as modern Americans. In that way, he, us, and the seventy commissioned by Jesus are similar – we are insiders with power. But despite his power, Naaman suffers from leprosy. He has longed for healing and would use his power, influence, and money if he could. But so far that has not led to success. Instead, Naaman has to go another way. As it turns out, Naaman has to go on a journey that is very similar in conditions to what the seventy must do.

In order to find healing and wholeness, Naaman must give up his power, sense of control, and must rely on others – especially those most marginalized in society.[i] Basically, like the seventy, Naaman must give up his purse, his bag, his sandals, and must rely on the hospitality of others. His story starts with a tip from a slave girl from Israel. She learns of the commander’s leprosy and suggests he seek out the Israeli prophet, Elisha for healing. So, Naaman gets a blessing from his king and heads off to the king of Israel. Only, the king of Israel misunderstands Naaman and thinks he is being setup for failure. Elisha, who is clearly not in the king’s court, saves the day, and sends word that he will help. So, Naaman takes his bountiful gifts to this non-ranking prophet seeking help again. But instead of greeting Naaman, Elisha sends out one of his messengers to Naaman with instructions for healing. Instead of dusting his feet off at the apparent insult, Naaman gets angry. But some of Naaman’s unnamed servants gently appeal to him to try the remedy anyway. Naaman eats humble pie again, and is healed.

Naaman gives us a glimpse into the fine print of Jesus’ commissioning of the seventy. Going without a purse, sandals, and relying on the hospitality of others takes a lot of humility. Facing rejection, which Jesus guarantees will come, will take a lot of anger management. Going in Christ’s name will mean accepting help from anyone and everyone – not the easiest of tasks for us, who as Americans prefer to be self-sufficient, independent, strong survivors. We prefer to be people who help instead of people who need help.

I have been on a variety of mission trips over the years: medical missions, missions building homes, missions building schools or community centers, and missions meant to build relationships. On almost every mission trip I have joined, the team members came back feeling like they gained more than they gave. This conclusion invariably leads to a discussion about whether money is best spent in direct aid than expensive overseas trips that seem to benefit us more than the people we serve. While that conversation always needs to happen, what that argument fails to see is the power of Christian witness – that even if we do not turn communities around socio-economically, part of what we leave behind is the love and fellowship of Christ – the message that you are not alone in your suffering. In part, being able to host us and show us hospitality gives those we serve more of a sense of worth and honor than being recipients of aid.

But in order for any of that to happen, we have to make ourselves vulnerable.[ii] We have to put ourselves in the position of Naaman to receive aid and healing from the least likely persons. True mission is not about the powerful and wealthy bringing their resources to the poor and downtrodden. True mission is about the powerful and wealthy realizing their own spiritual poverty and creating an environment where rich and poor, healthy and sick can share healing, wholeness, and health in a way that recognizes we all have needs before God – and that God uses us all of us when we work collaboratively for healing and building up the kingdom of God.[iii]

Jesus was right to warn us with the possible side effects of sharing the good news: vulnerability, insecurity, bodily danger, hurt egos, and long days. Though the seventy do not show us what that looks like, Naaman certainly does. He reminds us of the fine print: that the side effects may lead to anger, feelings of abandonment, a loss of self-worth and importance. But the benefits are still the same: healing and wholeness for the whole community, redefining who is in and who is out of the community, and new purpose in the larger world. The good news is that part of our prescription involves partners for the journey: Jesus sends the seventy out two-by-two.[iv] Even Naaman does not go alone, but takes others with him – others who keep him in check and support him in his sense of loss. And the result is the same: healing, transformation, and joy. Those kind of results make the side effects worth it! Amen.

[i] Stephen Reid, “Commentary on 2 Kings 5:1-14,” July 3, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2904 on June 29, 2016.

[ii] David J. Lose, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 219.

[iii] Adriene Thorne, “Moral Leprocy,” July 3, 2016, as found at http://www.onscripture.com/moral-leprosy on June 29, 2016.

[iv] Karoline Lewis, “The Security of Seventy,” June 26, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4683 on June 29, 2016.

Sermon – Lk 9.51-62, Gal 5.1, 13-25, P8, YC, June 26, 2016

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Sermons, Uncategorized

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campaign, Christ, cranky, Elijah, focus, Galatians, God, Jerusalem, Jesus, leader, love, Moses, neighbor, politics, purpose, Sermon, single-mindedness

Whenever we are in an election year, I find myself wondering how Jesus might fare in a political race. I mean, he has a pretty awesome platform: liberation for the poor, forgiveness of debts, healing, even eternal life. But Jesus would be a modern campaign manager’s nightmare. I can imagine the harried manager running around in circles after hearing this week’s text. Just as Jesus is gaining ground and growing his constituency (or as the text calls them, disciples and followers), and just as Jesus is starting to gain prestige with comparisons to other great leaders, like Moses and Elijah, Jesus starts running his campaign into the ground.

We hear the campaign crumbling through four different incidents in our gospel lesson today. First, we hear the story of how Jesus and his crew need shelter. The Samaritans refuse them hospitality, and James and John, remembering how the great Elijah brought down fire on his opponents, ask Jesus if they should do the same thing. Reigning down fire on the enemies would certainly make for great evening news coverage and might even result in a surge in the polls. But Jesus does nothing of the sort. Instead, Jesus just ignores the affront and keeps going. Surely Jesus’ campaign manager would be crushed when his prepared speech about the Samaritans does not see the light of day.

Next, Jesus gets some promising news. On the campaign trail, someone shouts, “I will follow you wherever you go!” The campaign manager must be salivating as he hopes to tweet the comment and post the interchange on Vine or Snapchat. But, then Jesus ruins the whole moment by saying, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Not exactly the best promotional video for Jesus’ campaign. Who wants to follow a guy whose response to “I’ll follow you anywhere!” is basically, “If you follow me, get ready to feel ostracized, abandoned, and alone.”?

The day keeps getting worse for the campaign manager. Two other people are ready to commit their lives to supporting the Jesus campaign. But instead of joyfully receiving them after they have packed their bags and said goodbye to their families, Jesus crankily says, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” and “No one who puts the hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” At least the great Elijah showed a little more patience than Jesus in his leadership. If you remember, when Elijah called Elisha to follow him, he gave him the chance to say goodbye to his family. But not Jesus. A new sheriff is in town and he has no patience for other agendas. I can just imagine the team of writers that the campaign manager would have to assemble to wax Jesus’ words and make them more palatable. Jesus would be a modern political campaign’s worst nightmare.

The way the text reads today, Jesus comes off as heartless and dismissive. But if we are really honest, Jesus can come off as heartless and dismissive through much of the gospels. We like to remember the lovey-dovey stuff about Jesus: the healings, the tender moments of compassion, or the motivational parables. But like any good marriage, with all the love that comes from Jesus, we must also take the hard, uncomfortable stuff too. Yesterday, two of our parishioners got married. The day was a day for love and joy. But the day was also a day for honesty and reflection. You see, the bride and groom had both lost their first spouses to disease and death. Between them, they have enjoyed over 90 years of happy marriages. Though both of them are thrilled to have found love and companionship again, they entered their marriage yesterday with the sobriety that can only come when you really know what you are getting into. I can do all the premarital counseling I want with a young couple getting married for the first time. But eventually they will have to learn for themselves that marriage is hard and love is even harder. Love is not all roses and champagne. Love is working through tough times, making sacrifices, and living with a partner who can sometimes be as cranky as Jesus.

The reason we stay in committed, loving relationships is that we understand the ultimate goal: to love and care for one another for the long run. Jesus is probably cranky in our vignettes today because he too has an ultimate goal: his love for us which leads to the cross. At the beginning of our story today, the text says, “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” This is our cue about Jesus’ seemingly bad mood. Jesus does not have time for teaching and coddling. He does not have energy for a leisurely stroll, where he can tell long parables and then explain their meaning. No, Jesus has turned his face to Jerusalem. We can hear in that one sentence, “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem,” an indicator of Jesus’ demeanor.[i] I am not sure Jesus would have ever made a savvy politician anyway, but he certainly would not have done so at this point in his ministry. Where we are in Luke’s gospel is a turning point – a dramatic shift in the narrative. When Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem, everything else fades away. He takes on a “singlemindedness of purpose that is prompted by God’s profound love for humanity and all the world.”[ii]

In his epistle to the Galatians we read today, Paul has become a bit cranky too. The Galatians are fighting and Paul tells them to “stand firm,” or, in other words, to be single-minded in their love for one another. Paul says, “…through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” As one scholar argues, “Being good at love, …requires a fair share of determination. Loving another is not the easiest of commitments to make. Love, it ought not surprise us, is going to require a little crankiness along the way. Everything that has value does, and love is what has ultimate value for, of course, it is the only thing that lasts. According to Paul and Jesus, it really is the only commandment, the only thing life is really about.”[iii]

Though both Jesus and Paul sound cranky and harsh today, I do not think they are either. Why Paul asserts that the Galatians stand firm and why Jesus condemns those who put their hand to the plow and then look back is because both of them know our tendencies. “Perhaps Jesus recognizes our tendency to put off the moments in time that might actually make a difference in what we say about him. Perhaps Jesus sees that we come with ready excuses to defer our proclamation because we think we need to be in a better place, a better time, a time when the stars align so as to make our experience of the Gospel the perfect it was never meant to be. Perhaps Jesus simply says stop making excuses and start imagining experiences that invite ‘let’s see what happens’ instead of ‘I need all my stuff figured out.’”[iv]

That is what happens when we really love one another. We do not worry how savvy our political campaign is. Instead we worry about what really matters – our call to love one another as Christ loves us. Once we start doing that, party affiliation and grandstanding matter very little. In fact, politics becomes a lot easier when we use the Jesus standard of love. When we single-mindedly focus on love, our actions fall less into one political party or another of this world, but instead fall into focus on the kingdom of God.

Now, like our newlyweds will you tell, loving our neighbor is not easy. Love as a political campaign will be frustrating and at times will make us quite cranky. But by focusing on love, we allow ourselves to let go of all the extraneous stuff of life and focus single-mindedly on God’s purpose for us. Sorting priorities becomes easier, caring for one another becomes more satisfying, and living into our purpose in this life comes more naturally. Perhaps that would be the slogan that Jesus’ campaign manager would eke out of all Jesus’ interactions today: All we need is love. Amen.

[i] Elaine A. Heath, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 190.

[ii] David J. Lose, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 195.

[iii] Stacy Sauls, “Cranky Jesus,” June 30, 2013, as found at http://day1.org/4897-the_cranky_jesus on June 23, 2016.

[iv] Karoline Lewis, “Every Moment Counts,” June 19, 2016, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4679 on June 22, 2016.

Sermon – I Kings 19.1-15a, P7, YC, June 19, 2016

22 Wednesday Jun 2016

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abandoned, body of Christ, comfort food, desensitized, done, Elijah, fight, food, go, God, healing, life, love, Orlando, peace, sacred, Sermon, serve, shooting, strength, tragedy, tree, wilderness

Last Sunday, after the parish picnic, I found out about the tragedy in Orlando. When the youth and I gathered for Holy Eucharist that night, we lifted up our prayers for the victims and their families. Being able to name the tragedy in the context of Eucharist was comforting, but by the time I got home and poured over news coverage, I found myself bereft. I was not in shock, for this kind of tragedy has honestly become commonplace in our country. I think I wanted to be in shock or at least surprised. But instead, I felt a sense of familiarity and coldness. I realized that my psyche has become desensitized to this sort of tragedy. Instead of feeling sad, I just felt numb. I felt powerless, with nothing to do but be resigned to the fact that this is the way our life is now. Nothing can change. Mass murder is normal – whether by a religious radical, a mentally unstable person, a racist, or a disillusioned teen. Mass death is normal – whether LGBT brothers and sisters, people going to the movies, African-Americans worshiping, or children attending school. All I could comprehend in my numbness was the fight, the outrage, and the compassion draining out of me.

The same thing happens to Elijah in our story today. If you remember, a couple of weeks ago we heard about how Elijah has been putting Ahab’s practices to shame. You see, in an effort to keep the political peace, King Ahab agreed to take a foreign wife, Jezebel, and worship her god, Baal, in addition to Yahweh. The God of Israel is none too pleased, and so Elijah dramatically challenges the prophets of Baal to a duel. Elijah is full of confidence, taunting, and dramatic flair. And when Yahweh wins, Elijah slays the entire lot of Baal’s prophets. But today, Jezebel proclaims she will avenge their deaths, and all of the fight leaves Elijah. He runs into the wilderness until he cannot run any longer. He crumbles under a tree, and proclaims that he is done. He feels that he is all alone. He asks God to take his life.

We all know the feeling that Elijah has. Maybe we or a loved one has been fighting cancer. We go for one last evaluation only to find that things have made a turn for the worse. Or maybe we have been advocating for a particular political issue and the tide seems to be turning. But a court decision is made or a vote is cast and the decision or vote does not go our way. Or we think we have finally seen an addicted friend reach the end of his addictive behavior. We are relieved to see healthy patterns until we get a late night call about how he has gotten into trouble again. The fight leaves us. We no longer feel a sense promise, victory, and confidence. Instead the darkness settles over us like a fog, and we crumble under a tree and say, “Enough. I am done, Lord.”

But something seemingly small happens to Elijah in his moment of despair. The story goes, “Then Elijah lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.” God gives Elijah food. No words of encouragement, no pep talk about how things will get better. God feeds Elijah in the wilderness, in a moment of despair, in a time of darkness.

There is a reason why we have something called “comfort food,” in our culture. In fact, every culture has some version of comfort food. Whether the food is a southern mom’s chicken and dumplings or a Jewish grandmother’s matzah ball soup; whether the food is Burmese mohingar, Vietnamese pho, or a New Mexican posole; or whether the comfort food is North Carolina, Memphis, or Texas barbeque, we all have food that brings us back to ourselves. Somehow the taste of something familiar and rooted in our identity or a fond experience connects to our entire body in a visceral way. The smell of the food, the flavors that are just right, the warmth filling our bellies, and the happy memories that flood our consciousness allows our entire body to relax. Whatever has been ailing us – a sore throat, a homesickness, or a broken heart – can be wiped away by that simple, familiar, healing meal.

But comfort food does not just make you feel good. Comfort food gives you strength: mends your heart, heals your soul, and emboldens your spirit. Elijah does not simply eat the food from God and wallow longer at the tree. Elijah gets up. He journeys for forty days on the strength from that bread. His renewed spirit allows him to have a deep conversation with God, where he eventually finds out that he is in fact not alone.[i] God has not abandoned him. God has enabled other prophets to stand with him. God is not done with Elijah yet. Though God does not expect Elijah to go at it alone, God does expect Elijah to get back in there.[ii]

I am fully aware that we as a community are a diverse group of people with a wide range of political opinions. My guess is that the violence of Orlando brought out a wide variety of responses to the event and the politicking that has happened since then. But no matter how you feel about the shooter, the victims, or the instruments of the victims’ death, a week ago, 49 of our brothers and sisters died. Life is sacred, and that sanctity was snuffed out last week. And this is not the first time this has happened. Though the stories behind the shooters, the motives behind the shootings, and the demographics of the victims are different each time, invariably, more life is desecrated.

We learn from Elijah’s story that God knows we need to mourn. God knows we need to wallow for a time. God knows that we may feel alone, or powerless, or just plain tired. That is why God gives us trees in the wilderness. But eventually, God will send us some comfort food – to soothe our aching heart certainly, but more importantly to strengthen us to continue the journey. Because whether we feel like we have the inner strength or not, God is calling us to step out of the shade of the tree, and get back on the journey.[iii]

What that means for each of us here may be entirely different. Certainly our work is to be grounded in prayer – prayers for the victims and their family members, prayers for the shooter, prayers for our nation as we sort out how we will govern ourselves, and prayers for us as we figure out how to be witnesses for Christ in the midst of the chaos. But prayers are not all we are called to do. We could do that under a tree or in a cave. Instead, God sends us comfort food to heal our broken hearts, soothe our wearied souls, and embolden our spirits.

Today, and every Sunday, our comfort food, like Elijah’s, is also in the form of bread. We call that bread the body of Christ. That bread has power. That bread has power to forgive our sinfulness and complicity with sin. That bread has power to comfort our aches and sorrow. That bread has the power to make us Christ’s body in the world, witnesses to the love that Jesus taught us about. We know that our prayers and our consumption of Christ’s body does that for us because the very last thing we do – the very last thing we say – in our worship service is “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” We do not say, “Have a good week.” Or “Be at peace.” We say “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” How God will use us to love and serve the Lord in the world varies widely. We all have a variety of vocations that take us to varied and sundry places. But wherever we find ourselves, God has work for us to do. Our work is to not only say, “Thanks be to God,” but to mean, “Thanks be to God.” We thank God for our call to love and serve others. We thank God for food for the journey. We thank God for the ways that God does not leave us alone. We thank God the ways that God will empower us and use us to be agents of love in the world. So take a little more time today to pray and to mourn. But then get ready to be sent out into the world to love and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.

[i] Trevor Eppehimer, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 150.

[ii] Haywood Barringer Spangler, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 151.

[iii] Terrance E. Fretheim, “Commentary on 1 Kings 19:1-4[5-7]8-15a,” June 19, 2016 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2876 on June 16, 2016.

Sermon – Luke 7.11-17, I Kings 17.8-24, P5, YC, June 5, 2016

08 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Elijah, eyes, God, heal, Jesus, look, miracles, mundane, see, Sermon, suffering, vision, widow

The scene that day is pretty chaotic. Two parades collide – a parade of life and a parade of death.[i] The parade of life includes Jesus and his disciples, high off the sermon on the plain and the healing of the Centurion’s slave, Jesus’ followers are full of hope and optimism. People are beginning to talk about who this Jesus might be and the enthusiasm is palpable. Meanwhile, another parade is underway – a widow has lost her only son. Widows were already at risk in that day due to their lack of financial stability and support from a husband. Having a child, especially a male child provided a slight assurance that all hope was not lost. Not only would the son be able to provide for his widowed mother, he is also the legal heir of his father’s inheritance. But when he too dies, not only does she mourn his loss, but her safety net is totally gone. She and the mourners with her wail their way to the cemetery.

Two groups full of noise and energy, but their energy could not be more different. Into this chaotic scene of wails and cheers, people struggling to carry the lifeless body of promise, and people struggling to lay claim on the messenger of hope something tremendous happens. The text says, “…the Lord saw her.” That simple phrase may not sound like much. The Lord saw her. But surrounded by a growing crowd of faithful, Jesus could have been distracted by the hype. On a long journey of travel, Jesus could have seen the coming commotion and steered another way. Or Jesus could have been in deep thought about the next phases of his own journey. But in the middle of the chaos, as if in a movie that screeches into slow motion, we see Jesus’ eyes lock on the grieving widow and mother. The noise of the surroundings disappears and all that is important in this moment is that Jesus sees her.

On Memorial Day, my family and I went out for lunch. We were managing our own little bubble of chaos: multiple orders; hungry, cranky children; and the looming, necessary nap time. As I stepped out of our bubble to throw away a pile of trash, I noticed a veteran sitting by himself at the table beside us. He was silently sitting with his meal, seemingly in moment of deep quiet. Seeing him almost made me stumble into halted motion. I wondered what his story was. I wondered if he was remembering those who had died by his side while he fought for our country. I wondered if he was one of the veterans who managed to have reentered after war relatively unscathed or whether he was struggling to get by. I wondered if Memorial Day meant something more to him than Memorial Day meant to me. But my seeing him and wondering about him was not the same as Jesus. You see, I was looking at him, but I was not seeing him – not with the same eyes as Jesus. I couldn’t even get up the nerve to talk to him that day.

That is what is so profound to me about this story in our gospel lesson today: Jesus’ ability to see the childless widow. We actually get two very similar stories about widows in our readings today. But despite the similarities, the contrasts are more informative about what is powerful about Jesus’ encounter.[ii] In the lesson from first Kings, the widow of Zarephath also loses her only son. Her son is also revived by Elijah, but the encounters with the widows have a lot of differences. First, the encounter between the widow and Elijah is passionate. The widow in that story accuses Elijah of being at fault for her son’s death. She is outraged and Elijah panics, pleading with God to save the boy and the family from whom he has taken so much. But the widow in our gospel lesson and Jesus have no such encounter. The gospel widow does not talk to Jesus and does not plead her case. She does not blame others around her – in fact, she does not speak at all in the story. Were it not for Jesus seeing her and stopping the procession, we can only presume this woman would have slipped into dangerous oblivion.

Next, in the Elijah story, Elijah knows the son who dies. The three have already bonded over the miracle of food. So Elijah is intimately familiar with how precarious the family’s situation is. But Jesus does not encounter the widow in his story until her son is already dead and being processed for burial. Jesus’ saving action then comes not from relationship, but from seeing the grave nature of the widow’s loss. No one introduces Jesus to the widow, no one whispers to Jesus that the grieving woman is a widow in addition to being a grieving mother – Jesus manages to see all of the complexity of this woman’s life in one glance.

The final contrast to the Elijah story is the healing itself. Elijah has to stretch himself over the boy three times and cry out to the Lord for help. His healing requires great effort and exertion. Meanwhile Jesus simply touches the funeral bier and commands the young man to arise. The immediate response of the boy sitting up and speaking demonstrates the extent of Jesus’ power. Healing comes not by a request from God but from Jesus himself. Jesus is not simply a prophet through whom God speaks – he is the long awaited one who is to come – the Messiah.[iii]

The differences between Elijah and Jesus teach us something about God. Jesus’ teaches us that God sees us – sees us when we are most vulnerable, without us ever having to speak or ask for help, and is actively compassionate toward us. Now that reality may leave us wondering today, “Well then why doesn’t Jesus see my suffering and offer me compassion? I wanted things to go differently for me and they did not.” That is why I find those words so powerful today. “Jesus saw her.” I do not think the story of the widow today is about how Jesus rescues us from our deepest pain and suffering. This story is about how Jesus sees us when we are suffering and invites us into a similar vision.

“While we wish for signs and wonders, for the parting of the seas, for the lightning bolt of a Damascus road conversion, we risk missing the miracle of the mundane, says Thomas Lynch. We miss seeing our friends and family who show up when we need them, ‘the ones who have known us all along.’ [Like those friends of the paralytic who lowered their paralyzed friend down to Jesus], or the widow who helped Elijah, these ordinary, obscure, and unsung people…, ‘do their parts to get us where we need to go, within earshot and arm’s reach of our healing, the earthbound, everyday miracle of forbearance and forgiveness, the help in dark times to light the way; the ones who show up when there is trouble to save us from our hobbled, heart-wrecked selves.’”[iv] Today’s lessons about healing are not meant to make us question why we cannot receive similar healing. Today’s lessons encourage us to see God in all the tiny miracles around us every day – the miracles that come in less dazzling forms.[v] To see as Jesus sees.

When we attempt to see with the eyes of Jesus, something shifts dramatically for us. What is so powerful about seeing as Jesus sees is that Jesus does not see without action. When Jesus sees he also acts. Once we have honed our better sense of vision, Jesus’ invitation to us is not just to see with the eyes of compassion, but to use those compassionate eyes for the service of God. I have already begun to see the ways in which Hickory Neck is a place where that kind of active vision is in place. You already see that the homeless man does not simply need food or money – you throw in a pair of socks because you know how hard life is without the decency of clean socks. You already see the indignity of prison and see how a homemade cookie, while seemingly trivial, provides that miraculous glimpse into the tender care of Christ. You already see how unexpected medical costs can push a struggling family over the edge and how free, compassionate, quality healthcare gives more dignity than we can imagine. That is our invitation today: to see the mundane miracles around us every day and to be reinvigorated to see as Jesus sees – with the eyes of compassion and insight that offer tangible, sometimes small acts of compassion to our brothers and sisters who struggle. My guess is that when we offer that compassion to others, we will see more clearly how we receive that same compassion from Christ every day in similarly small, mundane, and yet profound ways. Amen.

[i] Gregory Anderson Love, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 120

[ii] Steven J. Kraftchick, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 117, 119.

[iii] Kraftchick, 121.

[iv] Dan Clendenin, “The Miracle of the Mundane,” May 29, 2016, as found at http://journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay on June 2, 2016.

[v] M. Jan Holton, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 120.

Sermon – 1 Kings 18.20-39, Galatians 1.1-12, Luke 7.1-10, P4, YC, May 29, 2016

01 Wednesday Jun 2016

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comfort, confession, discomfort, faithful, friend, God, Jesus, need, Sermon, Spirit, temptation, truth, witness

The older I have become, the more solid my support system has become. Over time, I have figured out in which friendships to invest my time, and which friendships, while fun, are not necessarily nourishing. I know which friend to call when I need fashion advice and which friend to call when I need major life decision advice. I have learned which friend to find when I want to be comforted, and which friend to find when I need to be discomforted. The discomforting friend is probably the most valuable one any of us has. That is the friend who will tell you the brutal, ugly, harsh truth – not to be mean to you but to save you from going down a dark path, to snap you out of a rut, or to help you get your act together. Of course, sometimes we avoid that friend like the plague because we are not ready to hear the truth. But when we feel ourselves slipping away, when we feel drawn in by temptation, or when we simply feel incapable of doing the right thing, we know we can trust that friend to hold us accountable to being the best version of ourselves – the version God created us to be.

This morning, the lectionary seems to be filled with discomforting friends. In First Kings, we hear about the ultimate showdown with the prophets of Baal and Elijah, the prophet of the Lord. The story is dramatic, with Baal’s prophets comically trying to rain down fire to prove Baal’s power, and Elijah showing them up by demonstrating the Lord’s triumph. But we quickly learn that Elijah is one of those discomforting friends when he says to the people of God, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”[i] Desperate for rain in a three-year drought, the people of God have begun to hedge their bets. They figure they can worship both Baal and the Lord. But Elijah will not let them be so divided. Either they trust in the Lord their God, or they do not.

If Elijah sounds harsh, you should hear Paul this morning. Paul starts his letter to the Galatians with a traditional greeting, but we can tell from his lack of thanksgiving for the community, that some harsh words are about to come.[ii] After a quick introduction, Paul cuts to the chase, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel…”[iii] At the heart of the issue is whether Gentile converts must adhere to Jewish laws. The Galatians want to narrow the wideness of the gospel, while Paul wants to expand the reach of the gospel. So angry and defiant is Paul that he practically shouts, “If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”[iv] In other words, Paul has no interest in soothing feelings in Galatia. He is only interested in correcting behavior and preserving the abundance of the gospel.[v]

And if Elijah and Paul were not harsh enough this morning, Jesus rounds us out with a scathing indictment of the faithful. A centurion, a Roman solider, and sometimes enemy of the people of God, sends a message to Jesus. Despite the fact that he is not Jewish, he sends word to Jesus twice – first, asking Jesus to heal his sick slave, and second, insisting that Jesus not make the journey, but only speak a word of healing from afar. The text tells us that Jesus, who is very rarely reactive, is “amazed,” and criticizes the faithful of God by saying, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”[vi] If we think about who is gathered around Jesus, we are not just talking about some delinquent followers. Jesus says in front of disciples and everyone that none of them has had the same dedication and faith in Jesus as this outsider. Jesus has no problem being brutally honest about the people’s lack of faith and trust in Jesus.

If you were hoping for a nice, affirming set of lessons today, a time set apart with that friend who always encourages and affirms you, you picked the wrong Sunday. We might have guessed the brutal honesty was coming when we prayed our collect today. The collect says, “O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us…”[vii] In other words, we prayed God would not be that comforting friend today – but would be the discomforting friend that we need.

Now you may be sitting here wondering what kind of discomfort I will be dishing out today. Or you may be wondering on what issue I think we need work. The good news is that I do not have such a charge today. I suspect that you already know where you need discomfort. Your discomfort may need to be from Elijah, who warns about putting idols before God – putting your trust and hope in places and things that will not satisfy. Or maybe your discomfort needs to come from Paul, who warns about putting restrictions on the wideness of God’s mercy. Or maybe your discomfort needs to come from Jesus, who can point to non-believers who seem to trust God more than you. You alone know how the Spirit is speaking to your need for discomfort.

However, even though you alone know how the Spirit is speaking to your need for discomfort, you are not alone in needing that discomfort. One of my favorite parts of our liturgy is the confession. One, I find the confession immensely centering because every week, one phrase or part of the confession jumps out at me – whether something I have done or left undone is nagging me; whether I have sinned against God or my neighbor; or whether I have just strayed that week. Even though we say the confession every week, the confession never ceases to unsettle me. Two, I find the confession comforting because of all the voices that join me in the confession. I love hearing young and old voices, male and female voices, and voices with every accent imaginable confessing the same failings that I confess. The power of that communal act is always humbling and comforting.

Now I know I told you that you should not have come to church today if you were looking for comfort. But the truth is, I find all the discomfort today wildly comforting. Whether we are pushed by our discomforting witnesses in scripture, whether we are jolted by something in our communal confession, or whether we realize that we need to call our best discomforting friend immediately after church, I find the reminder that I am not the only one who needs discomfort comforting today. I am comforted because I know after the discomfort comes, something akin to a fire is lit inside me. The discomfort is usually just what I need to reinvigorate my walk with Christ and sharply focus on where God is calling me to be. If that is not good news, I do not know what is. Amen.

[i] 1 Kings 18.21.

[ii] Audrey West, “Commentary on Galatians 1:1-12,” May 29, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2882 on May 25, 2016.

[iii] Galatians 1.6.

[iv] Galatians 1.10.

[v] Dan Clendenin, “No Other Gospel,” May 22, 2016, as found at http://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/977-no-other-gospel on May 26, 2016.

[vi] Luke 7.9.

[vii] BCP, 229.

Sermon – Romans 5.1-5, John 16.12-15, TS, YC, May 22, 2016

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Sermons, Uncategorized

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activity, attention, community, disciples, doctrine, faith, God, grace, grow, guide, heresy, Holy Spirit, Jesus, learn, love, seminary, Sermon, suffering, theology, Trinity, Trinity Sunday, world

In seminary one of my favorite professors was our theology professor. I did not like her because of the subject she taught. In fact, her class was one of the classes that gave me the most headaches as I struggled to understand theological arguments. Instead, what I liked about her was the way that she taught. She had a dizzying intellect, and yet she had the ability to gently make you feel like you were not an idiot. Someone in class would ask a question, trying to get their head around a theological concept. Her soft response would be, “Oh, yes, yes, I could see how you might get to that conclusion. So-and-so also argued that heresy in the fourth century.” Or she might answer, “Oh yes, that heresy is one of the church’s favorite,” and then go on to explain how the church struggled to counter the heresy. What I loved about her responses was she let you know that although you clearly did not understand the theological concept, you were not the first person to struggle to understand and you will not be the last. Struggling to understand and articulate a cogent theological concept without slipping into a heretical argument is a basic part of being a Christian.

What I loved about the pastoral nature of my professor’s responses was she understood that being able to articulate a definition of God is incredibly difficult. More important to her than you getting that articulation correct was your engagement with the concept. Perhaps she understood that theologians for centuries have tried to do the same thing – define who God is and what God means. That may be why she never seemed bothered by our heresies – because she knew that her role, and in fact the role of the church, is to be involved in the ongoing endeavor of naming God’s activity in our world.[i] That is the same work that we do every year on the feast of Trinity Sunday – embracing the endeavor of naming God’s activity in our world.

To help us in that endeavor, we get two great pieces of scripture today. In our gospel lesson from John, Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit will guide the disciples into all truth. Jesus’ promise to the disciples tells us those closest to Jesus, those who have been sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning truth from the source, are still going to need help. The disciples, who will be commissioned to go out into the world to share the Good News, will not do that work alone. The Spirit will go with them, helping them to continue to learn and grow into the fullness of faith.

I was recently invited to come to Sunday School for a little round of “stump the priest.” I laughed at the title, but inside I was thinking, “What if they ask a question that really does stump me?!?” Luckily, a cooler head prevailed. The truth is they probably will stump me – several times over. But that will give us a chance to talk about how the Spirit guides us into all truth – in childhood, in young adulthood, and into our older years. But more importantly, I hope that we get the chance to talk about how the community of faith is a vital part of that learning of all truth. We are certainly dependent on the Spirit, but we are also dependent on each other, because the Spirit so often speaks to us through people and the words of those around us.[ii]

That is one of the things I love most about being in the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church has always been a place where ambiguity is okay. As David Lose explains, “…being part of being a Trinitarian community [means] striving to be a place that knows it doesn’t have all the answers, and so consequently makes space for conversation and values those who bring different voices and experiences into its midst. Conversation, valuing difference, being inclusive – these things aren’t easy, but genuine community, while challenging, is also creative, productive, and enriching.”[iii]

The other great piece of learning today comes from our reading in Romans. On the surface, this piece of scripture has always troubled me. Paul’s claim that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, has always sounded a little dismissive about suffering. But I do not think Paul meant for this formula of suffering leading to hope was not meant to be prescriptive, but descriptive.[iv] In other words, he is not saying those who are suffering should be grateful. What he is saying is those who are suffering have the opportunity to not waste the pain. Peter Steinke says, “We ‘waste’ suffering if we gloss over, deny, avoid, or neglect its message…. If, however, we can learn from pain, [pain] is not wasted but a source of life and health.”[v] My suspicion is that Paul is trying to capture what we learn from our gospel lesson today. Even in the midst of suffering the Holy Spirit and the community of faith can guide us into all truth.

I have been a part of parishes that have a communal component to their premarital counseling. In addition to meeting with the priest, each engaged couple is partnered with a married couple in the parish for mentoring. One would think that the married couple’s job is to tell the engaged couple how to do everything and give them advice. But more often, the couples end up talking about how hard marriage is, what struggles they have dealt with, and how they got through the suffering. The relationships between the mentors and the mentees often last well beyond the wedding. When done with honesty, vulnerability, and compassion, the couples realize that they gain strength from one another and find a place where they can go when they are looking for truth and guidance.

Our gospel and epistle lessons today weave together an understanding of the Trinity that is both vertical and horizontal.[vi] Vertically, we learn that our understanding of God is ever changing and dynamic – much like God is ever changing and dynamic. I think that is why my professor was so open to us stepping into and out of heresies and doctrine. She knew that every Christian had to take that journey of steps and missteps. But I think she also understood that truth was ever evolving and that the Spirit was with us in that journey. She was not worried about us because, “…a critical characteristic of faith is an ever-striving and dynamic making sense of God. The Trinity [cannot] be the only way to get God. [That theology] is as limited and finite as our humanity. [The theology of the Trinity] is one attempt of the church to articulate the being of God in a particular time and place.”[vii] We will continue to walk toward truth in our own time and place too.

Horizontally, our lessons teach us that we find our way to that truth the Spirit is showing us through the vehicle of those around us – both those in the church, and those outside our walls. I cannot count the number of times I have learned something profound about God by someone who never harkens the door a church. Our job is to pay attention: pay attention to the way that God is using others to show us more about God; pay attention to the ways God invites us to interpret our sufferings with others; pay attention to those who are struggling toward truth along with us. We will surely step into heresy now and then. But we will also step into God’s love and grace through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and those around us. Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, “Trinity Talk,” May 15, 2016, as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4648 on May 18, 2016.

[ii] David Lose, “Trinity C: Don’t Mention the Trinity,” May 17, 2016, as found on http://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/trinity-c-shh-dont-mention-the-trinity/ on May 18, 2016.

[iii] Lose.

[iv] Richard L. Sheffield, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 39.

[v][v] Sheffield, 41.

[vi] Lose.

[vii] Lewis.

Sermon – Acts 2.1-21, Pentecost, YC, May 15, 2016

18 Wednesday May 2016

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Babel, church, context, culture, Episcopal, hearing, Holy Spirit, languages, love, Pentecost, pentecostal, Sermon, tongues, understanding, wind

Though I often share with people that I grew up in the Methodist Church, what that story fails to capture is my earliest experiences in church. You see, before my father became a United Methodist minister, he, my mother, and I worshiped at a Pentecostal church. So my first memories of church are quite different from my current experiences in church. I remember the pastor putting his hand on a person’s forehead and the person crumbling to the ground, presumably slain in the spirit or healed of a malady. I remember sitting in the pew once with a friend of my parents’ when the woman leaned over to me and whispered, “I’ll be right back.” She then proceeded to run up and down the aisle, her hands waving in the air. I do not remember anyone speaking in tongues, but I would not be surprised if that happened.

I have always found the fact that Episcopalians like Pentecost so much fascinating because we are about as far from Pentecostal as any church could get. I have yet to find an Episcopal Church that encourages running up and down aisles, speaking in tongues, and being slain in the spirit. That does not mean we do not move. In fact, we stand, kneel, sit, cross ourselves, bow, and sometimes even genuflect. You might find a few of us lift our hands in praise, but most of us keep our hands tightly to our sides. You might find a few of us who will say an unprompted “Amen!” aloud, but they will likely get a few glares. We are likely to, rather proudly, wear red on Pentecost. But that is the extent of most Episcopalians “Pentecostalism.” We like things much more ordered, predictable, and civilized. In other words, if we are really being honest, Episcopalians are not all that big on Pentecost.

Our aversion to Pentecostal experiences are not all that unfounded. All one has to do is look at the first Pentecost that we read about in Acts today. The day the Holy Spirit comes down from heaven is a pretty disorderly, unpredictable, uncivilized day. Wind whips through people’s hair, fire bursts into flames on people’s heads, and a cacophony of noise ensues that both makes no sense at all, and yet makes perfect sense to each person there. Although that chaos may sound very similar to anyone with small children in the house, that chaos is not exactly what we have come to expect as civil Episcopalians.

But if we are to get our heads around Pentecost, we have to understand what was really happening on this feast of Pentecost. The feast of Pentecost was known to most Jews as the feast of Weeks, or Shavuot. Shavuot is the third of the three great festivals of Judaism. Shavuot was a joyful celebration, in which the first fruits of the harvest were offered to God.[i] But Shavuot was not simply an agricultural festival. Shavuot, or Pentecost, was fifty days after the Passover. At Passover, the Jews celebrated the saving of the Israelites from the death that came upon the firstborn of the Egyptians. Fifty days after that dramatic event, the Israelites arrived at Mt. Sinai to receive the law from Moses. And so, in addition to thanking God for the first fruits of the harvest, praying that the rest of the harvest might be equally bountiful, Pentecost was also “about God giving to [God’s] redeemed people the way of life by which they must now carry out [God’s] purposes.”[ii]

The parallels in and of themselves are uncanny. At the Passover, the people of God are saved as death passed over their homes. In Christ, the people of God are saved once again as Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. At Shavuot, the people of God are given the new way of life, specifically through the vehicle of Torah, or the Ten Commandments. At Pentecost this day, we are reminded of the New Commandment given through Jesus that we love the Lord our God and love our neighbors as ourselves.[iii]

So if this day is all about us being given the way of life that we must now live, what do we learn in this chaotic, uncivilized day? Most remarkably, we see people speaking in tongues they do not know, and yet, all understanding in their native tongues. That does not mean that all the languages suddenly became one – like making English the official language of Christianity. Instead, “Pentecost gives power to the band of Jesus followers to speak the languages of the world, to tell the gospel in every language. The early church [is] to bear witness to the ends of the earth in the languages of the people of the world.”[iv]

I have been thinking a lot about speaking other people’s languages this past week. Having just moved from Long Island to Williamsburg, I have been keenly aware of language differences over the last month. Of course, some of our differences in language are more about dialect than anything else – our vowels sound different, or r’s are sometimes dropped. But a more poignant difference in our language is around culture. On Long Island, communication is usually concise and incisive. That may sound rather appealing, but the first time someone tells you how they really feel about you, and the way that they feel is pretty negative, the language can feel like a slap in the face. Of course, that is not to say Southerners have the market on ideal communication. I remember many a time growing up when someone said, “Bless your heart,” and their words had nothing to do with a blessing.

As I have been ruminating on those differences this week, I wondered whether those differences go beyond region and perhaps are at the root of many of our challenges today. I have wondered if part of our country’s problem in communicating with one another is rooted in the fact that we are not speaking the same language. Of course, most of us can speak English in this country, but even though we speak the same language, we do not speak from the same cultural reality. There are experiences that I have as a woman that my male brothers will never fully understand. There are experiences that my African-American brothers and sisters experience that I will never fully understand. There are experiences that our young adults are having through technology that us older folks will never fully understand. In some ways, I wonder if in America, we have become more like the people of Babel than the people of Pentecost.

Luckily, we are not beyond God’s power to make our Babel-like ways right. There are all sorts of tangible ways we can work toward understanding others’ languages. We have a pretty incredible collection of young adults in this parish. Being a part of community means that we can reach out to our young people to hear their stories and trials – just as they can learn about our own stories and trials. Being a part of community means that we can join any number of the outreach ministries of Hickory Neck and learn quite quickly what language and cultural context poverty creates. Being a part of a community means that we can read authors whose cultural contexts are completely different from ours and learn more clearly why movements like “Black Lives Matter,” might have arisen in the first place.

That is the true invitation of Pentecost: to step boldly into the chaos of differing languages, knowing that the Holy Spirit will bring about true understanding. Of course, stepping into that cacophony is scary. As N.T. Wright says, stepping into the cacophony means getting “out there in the wind, letting it sweep through your life, your heart, your imagination, your powers of speech, and transform you from a listless or lifeless believer into someone whose heart is on fire with the love of God.”[v] That kind of transformation may not sound like what you were hoping by wearing red today. But that kind of transformation offers the promise not of calming the cacophony of language all around us, but helping us hear in the midst of the chaos. God, whose very existence in the form of the Trinity is three distinct persons, yet one, invites us to live as a community differentiated in persons, but untied in love.[vi] That Pentecostal community will be loud, messy, and hard. But that community will be life-giving, renewing, and beautiful. Our invitation today is to step into the wind of the Spirit. Amen.

[i] Margaret P. Aymer, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 15.

[ii] N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 1, Chapters 1-12 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 21.

[iii] Aymer, 17.

[iv] Aymer, 17.

[v] Wright, 22.

[vi] Michael Jinkins, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 18.

Seeking and Serving

~ seek and serve Christ in all persons

Tag Archives: Sermon

Sermon – Luke 12.49-56, P15, YC, August 14, 2016

Sermon – Luke 12.13-21, P13, YC, July 31, 2016

Sermon – Luke 11.1-13, P12, YC, July 24, 2016

Sermon – Luke 10.1-11, 16-20, 2 Kings 5.1-14, P9, YC, July 3, 2016

Sermon – Lk 9.51-62, Gal 5.1, 13-25, P8, YC, June 26, 2016

Sermon – I Kings 19.1-15a, P7, YC, June 19, 2016

Sermon – Luke 7.11-17, I Kings 17.8-24, P5, YC, June 5, 2016

Sermon – 1 Kings 18.20-39, Galatians 1.1-12, Luke 7.1-10, P4, YC, May 29, 2016

Sermon – Romans 5.1-5, John 16.12-15, TS, YC, May 22, 2016

Sermon – Acts 2.1-21, Pentecost, YC, May 15, 2016