Christmas 2004
People of faith live in dangerous times, because God comes to live among us. We live in dangerous times because if we accept God’s invitation, the boundaries of our minds will be forever challenged. We live in dangerous times because all the Caesars, Herods, and Quirinius’ of the world understand God’s new birth on this earth inevitably threatens their power, stability and their definition of reality. We live in dangerous times, but the angels’ message says to people of goodwill “do not fear.”
Sunday, December 5, 2004
John lived in a critically ailing society, a society characterized by flagrant abuse of power, rampant pride, and great inequality of wealth. People by in large were in complete denial of the deep spiritual hunger within them. John preached the urgent necessity for repentance and turning in a radical different direction. No superficial panaceas were going to work. John was straightforward, and named sin for what it was. That is why he was both respected and feared, and eventually imprisoned and killed by the ruling authority.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
In 1927, the first modern research on worker motivation was conducted. After consulting with workers, management installed considerably brighter lighting for workers on the production line. Output and quality dramatically increased. Then after consulting with workers again, management lowered the lighting and productivity again increased. Researchers finally realized that the increased productivity had as much to do with management listening and paying attention to the workers on the actual production line, as the level of lighting.
That is the message of Advent. Pay attention today, and do not give up hope. Refuse to accept terror as an inevitable condition even when we seem to live in a season of unrelenting darkness. Be prepared, not for disappointment, but for something new, unanticipated, something beyond our current horizons, but coming ever closer, ever nearer.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
In our age, the church is no longer a central part of modern society. The outside culture is very ambiguous; sometimes antagonistic, other times indifferent. Only rarely is it mildly supportive. In the midst of this transition, we are called to be faithful to the Gospel while, at the same time, we are not sure what the future structure of the church will be. Yet Christians affirm that God is always lifting up ways to respond. Stewardship involves knowing that God is still calling us and people of faith do not shirk away.
Sunday, November 7, 2004
The saints of times past, who have gone before us, are those who, while thrown into deep and choppy water, learned to float and, as a result, have given inspiration and encouragement to us and generations to come.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
At every home game of the Syracuse Sky Chiefs there is a man selling programs at the top of the stairs of the main stadium entrance. While short in stature, you can't miss him before turning right or left to find your seat. “Get your programs here”, he yells. “You can win a brand new Dodge minivan today.” When the game begins, he goes up and down every aisle among the vendors of hot dogs and cotton candy. “Buy a program and today you can go home with a thousand dollars, or win a brand new minivan”, and again with emphasis as he points his finger at you, “today!” I wish I could have that program vendor of the Syracuse Sky Chiefs hand out bulletins one Sunday here at St. John’s and say to all who enter, “Today, the Good New is offered you. Today, God offers us salvation.” The Gospel knows nothing of the game of baseball, and never alludes to the Red Sox, but the Gospel does offer losers, even those who have been losers for decades, the possibility and hope of new life.
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Community has been on my mind a lot these days, not only as I see the divisiveness surrounding our national election, but also as I take in the news from around the world and continue to see the fear and hatred present in so many lives. Sadly, much of this fear and hatred comes from strongly held opposing religious beliefs. I find myself thinking about community because I wonder what role the church can take to work toward a more united global community. As one Bishop recently said, "Communion is both the very nature of God and God's gift to us." I believe that this gift of communion is something we must always nurture and I think today's reading from Luke has something to say to us about this gift.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
The Bible contains many ancient tales about Israel’s ancestors. Through the centuries these sagas were reinterpreted and revised to give inspiration and renewed courage to people of faith. The story of Jacob and the struggle at Penuel likely was first told around a campfire, as the vast darkness of the desert encroached a few yards away and with the same mystery and suspense as we might tell our children a ghost story. Fords at rivers were always dangerous places. The traveler was busy unloading the animals and carefully picking a way through the water. It was easy to be distracted and not sense robbers waiting to ambush. Because of the danger, river demons were said to inhabit such places. The saga of Jacob’s struggle probably began as a story of an encounter with such a demon and later it became imbued with the weight of Jacob’s struggle with something or someone much greater.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
There are many stories in the Gospels about Jesus offering people significant gifts. Today’s Gospel, however, contains a story of an individual offering Jesus a great gift. Note that the nine lepers who did not return did exactly what Jesus had asked. There was no condition imposed on them to return. Jesus told them to go to the temple for worship and to show themselves to the priest. Jesus repeated the clear Biblical injunction of what one did after one was healed of leprosy. All the disciples would have known it.
Sunday, October 3, 2004
It is so easy to forget that Jesus' ministry with the original disciples likely lasted no more than three years and was mostly spent in a rural area among very modest-sized communities. The Sea of Galilee is shaped much more like a melon than the elongated shape of Cayuga. Yet while there is greater distance between opposite shores, the Sea of Galilee is only about two-thirds the area of Cayuga, hence the actual shoreline of Cayuga is considerably larger. Trumansburg is twice as large as most of the towns Jesus taught in. Going from places like Jacksonville, Covert, Sheldrake, and crossing over to King Ferry probably would have been a typical itinerary for him and the first disciples.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
The Gospels make it quite clear that to be close to God means being touch with pain, sorrow, anger, and yes, even death. Learning to live as a whole person involves being able to acknowledge the emptiness, the longing, and the incompleteness within our own individual lives. Yet we live in a society conspicuously out of touch with any such emptiness, and which goes to great, if not desperate lengths, to isolate and deny the painful, ambiguous, and longing within.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
The Bible in general and the Gospels in particular offer considerably more comments about the use of wealth than about sex. Why do you think it is that many who declare that they are Christians seem to be preoccupied with matters of sex and usually avoid any discussion of the proper use of money and American culture’s worship of the aggrandizement of wealth? The parable of a resourceful and shrewd steward is really about the use of all our possessions and faculties. This parable offers us no wiggle room, but confronts us with the question: What does it mean to love God with all our heart, and mind, and soul?
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Jesus's stories about a shepherd searching the fields and finding a lost sheep and an old woman sweeping her cottage to find a small coin seem to us rather quaint, and hopelessly dated. Yet, what if in our day. Jesus had phrased the questions: which of you who on the first day of school waited for your young child to return home on the school bus, and when your child did not get off the bus, would not call the bus garage and the school, or wait for the second bus, even if you had to cancel your dental appointment?
Sunday, September 5, 2004
There is a folktale about an old man from the Island of Crete. He so loved his land that he asked to be buried with a handful of Crete’s soil in his hand. He appeared before St. Peter who welcomed him and invited him into heaven. As he was about to go through the gates, St. Peter said, “Please, you must let go of the possessions of your past life, including the handful of earth you are clutching so tightly.” “Never,” snapped the man, “I love my Crete too much.” So the man remained outside.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Three weeks ago my wife, Kluane, and I were worshipping at a 19th century wood clapboard rural church on Prince Edward Island. The priest told a story about a blacksmith who was visited one night by an angel telling him that it was time to enter into God’s greater service in the heavenly new world. “Please,” the blacksmith protested, “There is a widow down the street who needs new hinges for her door. If I do not make them, she will not be able to close her door properly during the long cold winter.” So the angel agreed that he should make the hinges.
Sunday July 25, 2004
Last week in the context of Abraham and Sarah providing hospitality to three strangers, God reiterated that Sarah would have a son and the promise that through Abraham and Sarah all the nations of the earth would receive a blessing, was still operative. God's visit to the tent of Abraham and Sarah signaled the birth of a new future, not only for them, but for larger humanity as well. The conversation between Abraham and God concerning the future of Sodom is a continuation of the story of this remarkable new beginning. Abraham initiates a bold plea to God: "Will you destroy the city even if there are fifty righteous people there?" Note that Abraham does not ask, "Will you save the fifty righteous apart from all the others," but "Will everyone be saved; will the majority be forgiven because of the small minority of righteous?" To make his point Abraham pulls no punches and challenges, "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Abraham pushes God, in effect asking, " Is not God a God primarily of mercy than of punishment? Doesn't God wish to save rather than condemn?"
Sunday July 18, 2004
Last week a lawyer asked Jesus a question about who was his neighbor. This person was not a litigator who argued individual court cases, but rather more accurately was a scholar of the law. He was someone who researched and enjoyed making fine and well reasoned distinctions. In responding to him, Jesus wasn't interested in establishing boundaries or crafting finely honed distinctions between neighbors and non-neighbors. Instead, Jesus told the scholar, let me tell you a story about one who was a neighbor, for what you need for your spiritual growth and welfare is to learn to be a neighbor. In the same way when Peter asked Jesus how often should I forgive someone, Jesus replied in effect, Peter I want you to learn from me, forgiveness, not how to count and analyze the theoretical limits of forgiveness.
Sunday July 11, 2004
The original hearers of Jesus' parables understood very well the circumstances and status of the particular characters. One of the challenges today, especially at the college level, is finding newly minted Ph.D.'s who can teach literature and have an adequate grounding in the Biblical references. Many of our society have no idea where the term good Samaritan comes from other than it means a general sort of good guy. Yet, lacking understanding, even people of faith can get the impression that the great Bible stories are rather bland or not very intellectually challenging. Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is among those with a definitive and sharp edge.
Sunday July 4, 2004
The story of Naaman who was cured of leprosy is as fresh and dramatic today as it was when it was written. Naaman is outwardly a very powerful leader. His country counts on him. Yet inside, he is being eaten away and is powerless to stop it. From a very humble, second-hand source, he hears of a possible cure in a foreign land and because he is so desperate, he is willing to pursue it. He takes plenty of money with him. The best medical care has always been expensive and Naaman naturally expects to obtain the very best care money can buy. He arrives and presents himself before the King of Israel. The startled King cannot help but fear what seems to be an impossible request and wonders if the arrival of Naaman is a pretense to invade.
Sunday June 27, 2004
One of the great misconceptions about Jesus is that everything up to the final journey to Jerusalem was clear and easy for him. Ordinary people loved him. Jesus' preaching and signs of healing were so convincing that all but the most obstinate were moved. Jesus successfully deflected all criticism with irresistible charm. A careful reading of the Gospels reveals that Jesus was rejected more than he was accepted. The great signs often did not move the crowds; rather they served to stir up more invective and false rumors again him. Unlike the stories of healing that have served as the Gospel lesson for previous weeks, today's passage marks a definite turning point. The expression that Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem implied preparation for a real conflict ahead. Jesus' rejection in Samaria, a non-Jewish region, parallels his rejection in Nazareth, his hometown. There was no safe district for Jesus; he was challenged everywhere he went. Jesus knew what he was in for.
Sunday June 20, 2004
This week's Gospel continues a series of stories about Jesus' healing the sick as he and the disciples traveled around the shore of Galilee. Today’s Gospel serves to complement last week's story about the woman who barged into the Pharisee’s dinner party. It is a man of the city, rather than a woman, who needs healing and a new life. The setting is not a Jewish town, but a gentile one. Even if one did not recognize the geographical names, the reference to surrounding swineherds would make it obvious. There would be no market at all for swine in Jewish towns.
Sunday June 13, 2004
Luke’s story of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet is noticeably different from all the other Gospels, and it’s very helpful not to conflate it with the others. Yet, it was very likely that Jesus was interrupted and responded in quite similar ways many times, because that was the type of person Jesus was. In Luke, the setting is not close to Jerusalem, but at a dinner party in one of the small towns around Galilee, and is as much a story about the host as it is about the woman. Perhaps Simon invited Jesus more out of curiosity than out of admiration or honor. One would have thought that if Simon really wanted to honor Jesus, he would have had a servant wash and anoint Jesus as he first entered the house, but it is hard to know how much to read into that.
Sunday June 6, 2004
If you have not seen it, I would like to recommend renting the movie Big Fish. The story concerns the relationship between a father who is dying and his estranged son. The father is known as someone who through his entire life told enthralling stories, but the son was embarrassed and alienated by them, only seeing them as gross exaggerations and lies. The movie becomes an intriguing interplay of the stories the father was famous for, how the son interpreted them, and how we the viewer interpret them. Gradually as we begin to understand the underlying truths of the stories, the son also begins to truly understand his father. I won’t give away the rest of the movie except to note that at the end, the stories all connect with reality and illuminate clearly the great legacy of the father. We know about Jesus mainly through stories. Jesus himself loved to tell stories because that is the way people learned and remembered teachings about God. As we read the stories of Luke, Matthew, Mark or John we realize that the Gospel writers told different stores about Jesus from various perspectives and we are all much the richer for their depth. Church history tells us that different people in different places and at different times interpreted even the same stories quite differently. Properly understood that is a great blessing.
Sunday May 30, 2004
The tongues of fire alighting upon the disciples is the traditional symbol of Pentecost and why the miter, the distinctive pointed hat of bishops, is in the shape of two tongues of fire. But I suggest another symbol of Pentecost should be a pair of big ears, a symbol of all people being able to hear God’s voice calling them and of the church’s call to remove the barriers that separate people from hearing that voice. People strengthened by the Holy Spirit become good listeners. That is why there is also a pair of ears printed in your Pentecost bulletin, symbolizing and reminding us of the church’s charge to help make the Good News intelligible to all people.
Sunday May 2, 2004
Most of us will never be actual shepherds or own a flock of sheep. Yet the good shepherd image has the power to expand our responsibility to all those in this community who need goodness and mercy in their lives even when they do everything imaginable to avoid it. It reminds us that God will not be satisfied until every member of humanity is able to lie down and rest in safety with enough to eat. As long as there is terror among peoples in far off lands or here in Ithaca, we cannot pretend that all is well or truly right, until the peace of God covers them, too.
Sunday April 25, 2004
There is an arresting quote from Transforming Congregational Culture, p.78, by Anthony B. Robinson: “You can’t raise live chicks under dead hens.” The Gospel won’t be incubated or hatched by passive bystanders. If we aren’t willing to learn and grow, we can’t expect our children to learn and grow. If we can’t practice forgiveness and welcome dramatic change of heart, neither will those who come after us, nor will our neighbors. If we expect to always stay the same, if will be very difficult to recognize the risen Lord calling us into the future. “You can’t raise live chicks under dead hens.”
Sunday April 18, 2004
Easter is for people who have to continue to work hard to figure things out; who struggle to do the tasks which threaten to overwhelm them; who have more difficult questions than pat answers. Easter is for people who face death; who are apprehensive, and who live in real life. There is no genuine Easter without the signs of the scars of Good Friday. Long-term discipleship is never an easy sweet existence without significant sacrifice.
Sunday April 11, 2004
Easter hymns are neither dirges to the dead or lullabies to ease us into a peaceful garden walled away from the disturbing noises of the world. Easter hymns don't say that Jesus was raised, long ago, in some far off land. Easter hymns proclaim, Jesus is risen, and that the power of the resurrection is alive and working among us right now. Easter challenges, shakes up, and disturbs the complacency of the world. Easter never, never gives to the world what it expects or offers to us what we deserve. Easter gives us so much more than we deserve. Easter is about new life and a vision for humanity that will not be buried with cynicism, deception, or worldly misuse of power. Easter sends us out into the world to discover the love of God let loose from our limited and petty expectations. Easter continually smashes apart the chains of the world’s bondage.
Sunday, April 4, 2004
The passion story has many layers and it should be no surprise that it is difficult to process and interpret it in one, neat, easily wrapped package. That is why, as we read it year after year, it always invites us to hear it differently. If we ever think we have it all together, with no paradoxes, wonderment, and irony, tied neatly with bindings of our own certainty, we’ve got it wrong and need to listen again. It is a story of confusion, terror, and unrelenting fear. Yet the passion is also a part of the wonderful story of God’s love overcoming and casting out all fear, and if we fail to tell that story, of perfect love casting out all fear (cf. 1 John 4:18), even the stones underneath our feet along the road will protest and give witness.
Sunday, March 28, 2004
The example Jesus sets before the hardest days of his earthly life is one of thankfully receiving. It is no accident that John places this in the house of Martha, the doer, the one who is always busy, giving and serving, or that Judas is cast as the tempter, much like the devil who tempted Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. Yes, there is glory in having everything desirable, in wanting people to appreciate and to worship you and be dependent on your magnificence. Judas in effect was tempting Jesus to be part of such a feel-good admiration culture over which every emperor and dictator wishes to preside . The world likes superheroes, playing to pride and self-confidence, exhibiting a sense of arrogance and importance like a body builder displays those amazing, flexing muscles. Jesus does not choose to enter Jerusalem or die on the cross like a world superhero. The anointing of Jesus at Bethany is such an appropriate lesson as we approach Holy Week, for it shows us that appreciation of the gifts of others is a vital part of love, and that the ability to openly and joyfully receive is as much a part of a grace filled life as the ability to share and give.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
The story in today's Gospel has been called the parable of the prodigal or lost or the wasteful son. It has also been called the story of the forgiving father. Rarely is it called the parable of the found son, or the parable of the jealous or resentful son, even though they, too, could apply. The titles, however, never seem to do justice to the depth of Jesus' story about two brothers and their father.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
The Gospel begins with people asking Jesus about a senseless act of violence and a random tragedy, but ends on a hopeful note. The Holy Spirit does not work among us to separate or classify us into groups, between saved and unsaved, blessed and cursed, lucky and unlucky, distancing ourselves from the rest of humanity. God is also more patent with us that we usually are with others. We are continually called to repentance because we continually need it and God waits for our emergence from our encrusted shell of selfishness and narrow prison of indulgence. There is still time to repent and change. God has not given up on any of us. That is part of the Good News for today.
Sunday, March 7, 2004
In every school classroom, large and small, there used to be attached above the front blackboard, a large wooden frame containing long rolls of world maps. The maps were printed on a dusty light brown canvas of undetermined age, and with descending type, the continents, oceans, countries, regions, and even major cities would be listed and somehow squeezed in. When one was rolled down, it would silently announce that, despite what you might think, the world was a much larger place than where you lived. Look at all the strange names printed here. You are not the center of the universe; you are not even the center of the world. The oceans are larger than any land. Despite what your horizons appear to be, most of the world lies beyond them. Jesus often taught the people as they sat on hillsides. As he talked perhaps they gained some sense of a larger perspective beyond their own village, seeing the lake of Galilee stretching to the horizon, the Jordan River winding in innumerable ox bows through the valley, or the Golan Heights rising across the water. Jesus wanted people to have vision rather than mere sight. Jesus reminded people that there was always more to reality than the popular assumptions of how things always must be.
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Joan Chittister, the Benedictine nun whose extensive writings some of you are familiar with, once wrote:
"How does a person seek union with God?", a seeker asked. "The harder you seek," the teacher said, "the more distance you create between God and you." "So what does one do about the distance?" "Understand that it isn't there," the teacher said. "Does that mean that God and I are one?" the seeker said. "Not one. Not two." "How is that possible?" the seeker asked. "The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and the song. Not one. Not two."
These words leapt into my mind and wouldn't leave, when I read today's lesson from Paul's letter to the Romans: beginning "The Word is near you, on your lips, and in your heart..."
Sunday, February 22, 2004
The Biblical tradition suggests that it is usually the call of the devil, the siren song of easy but disreputable choices that make things seem so clear and unambiguous. We should be more than a little suspicious of a too comfortable and effortless vision of deliverance. In contrast, revelations and wisdom from God are no easy options, rather they tend to be complex, subtle, and take some time to process. They occur as clouds and fog settle in, and when despair and discouragement is rampant. True revelation does not insure against future failure or struggle. Revelations teach us that it is both OK to walk through clouds and it is no shame to admit we don't understand everything about what our journey of faith entails.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
The Gospel passage for this morning is known as the beatitudes and is found in both Matthew and Luke. In the Gospel of Matthew it is called the Sermon on the Mount, for Jesus gives it on top of a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. From it Jesus becomes the new Moses who reveals the Gospel, the news of the new covenant, just as Moses revealed the law to Israel from Mount Sinai.
In the Gospel of Luke, however, Jesus is on a plain, level with the people and teaches from among the crowd. Luke emphasizes that people from North and South, Jewish and gentile villages, suffering all sorts of illness and disorders were all there together to receive a word of healing. Jesus taught the people on the plain, not by a list of hypothetical examples or rules of do's and don’t's. Jesus introduced the Gospel by describing how God's vision of living was different from what they knew in the world.
Sunday, February 8, 2004
I have remarked to many of you over this past week that St. John's has been put in Ithaca not to be in the membership business, but in the disciple making and disciple strengthening business. That is a lot like taking a plunge into the unknown cold waters of our culture; not knowing if we will sink to the bottom, not knowing if we are able to adjust and not knowing if we might fail.
I think I understand how Peter felt standing in the shallow waters of a cove of the lake of Galilee many years ago, for I remember an early summer's day long ago in Maine standing on the edge of a similar cove. I also remember shouts of my cabin mates urging me, “Come on in, get wet all over, it will be OK.” In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter, “Do not fear, but follow me.”
Sunday, January 25, 2004
This morning's lessons are a warning about those who want to debate without listening; who want to win their case, not search for larger truth; and who want to kick out or suffocate voices that oppose their own opinions. In some way the Gospel is always stretching us, always inviting us to move forward. That is why the prophetic word may annoy, disturb, or unsettle us, but is so necessary and needs to be honored, if we are to truly follow Christ today.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
In one sense the ministry God gives us is a lot like mining. Mining is a messy business. You dig and dig and bring out of the ground mounds of dirt and rock. There are these piles of tailings all around you and you must move, sort, or sift through tons of rocks for an ounce of gold or a few carets of diamonds or even a truck full of coal. Yet God isn't in the business of becoming discouraged because of the time it takes or at the piles of dirt that need to be sifted. God isn't in the business of racing against the clock or weighing piles of dirt, but wants to uncover and reveal to us our true selves and what great potential humanity has. God asks us to help free the gold from the mud, to uncover the diamonds trapped in tombs and to unleash the energy from within a shell of rocks. We are like geologists who look at the ground differently in the light of Jesus’ birth and revelation.
Sunday, January 11, 2004
The magi's legacy to us reminds us that often the treasure of God’s presence is often in humble, everyday circumstances, not in the world’s prestigious palaces. While many things have the power to distract us, the magi give us the example of soul searching, of changing direction, of going new ways, especially when detours and roadblocks seem to spring up before us. On this Sunday, hundreds of years after the first epiphany to these gentile seekers, what the poet W. H. Auden said about the magi continues to applies to us: