25 South Street, P.O. Box 248, Litchfield, CT 06759

Phone: 860-567-9465

fax:860-567-4820

office@stmichaels-litchfield.org

Menu
Cart

Sermons

4.26.20

April 26, 2020 – Sermon and Service

, , ,

Watch the service here

The Third Sunday of Easter                                                                                 E. bevan Stanley

April 26, 2020/ Year A

Acts 2:14a,36-41
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35

They stood still, looking sad. In the name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

               Two men are walking down South Street, talking about the news. More people are dying. People are out of work. If we let people return to work, the pandemic will last longer and more people will get sick and die. If we continue strict policies of isolation and quarantine, people may lose their homes, or their savings, or their jobs. Suddenly, a third guy is walking with them, keeping six feet apart.

“What are you talking about,” he asks.

“Are you the only one around who doesn’t know what’s going on? Do you have your head buried in the sand? We’re talking about all this bad news.”

“Where is your faith? Where is your hope? Yes, this pandemic is horrible. And it is killing a lot of people. But what does the Bible say? No matter how hard it gets, God is with us. What seems like and end is always the beginning of something new. Every experience is an opportunity to give and receive love.” And he told them story after story from the Bible about God being with people and new beginnings.

Then the stranger stopped and did a strange thing. He pulled plastic bag out of his pocket. From it he took a slice of bread. He looked to the sky and said, “Thank you, Father.” Then he broke it. It was then that the two men noticed the wounds in his hands. He vanished. The two men gaped at each other. “Holy, moly. Did you see that? That was Jesus!”

And what did they do then?

               We are all in the middle of a lot of bad news. Life is harder for some than others. Even spring seems to be having a hard time getting here. And Jesus is here with us. God is here. The Holy Spirit is here. Sometimes we see them briefly; mostly we don’t. We are not alone.

               Here’s a story I read somewhere: Some women in a Bible study came across Malachi 3:3 which says: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” This verse puzzled the women, and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out about the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

               The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot then she thought again about the verse that says: “He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.” She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

               The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?” He smiled at her and answered, “Oh, that’s easy – when I see my image in it.”

               If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has His eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

               Which brings us to the words in the first letter of Peter: Through Jesus you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

               Hope and trust are things we choose. Its not just that we feel hopeful some days and not others. It is not that we feel trusting some days and not others. No. In the midst of this danger and disruption, we choose hope. We choose trust. We choose love. That is our work for now. And as we hope and trust and love, God will be seeing more and more of the divine in our characters.

               So as we endure this time of disease and death, into what new thing is God refining us?

 

4.19.20

April 19, 2020 – Sermon and Service

, ,

Watch the service here

The Second Sunday of Easter                                                                                 E. Bevan Stanley

April 19, 2020
Year A

Acts 2:14a, 22-32
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20: 19-31

 

               Jesus said to Thomas, “Do not doubt, but believe.” In thee Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

               Here we are in the midst of a pandemic. Most of us are doing our best to keep a safe distance from others and to avoid any possibility of encountering the COVID19 virus. Fear is all around. There is the real possibility of being infected by the highly contagious disease. If one is infected, there is the real possibility of dying from it. Nevertheless, medical and emergency personnel continue to go into work in places where the virus is all around. They risk their lives for others. And since we can never know where others have been or how careful they been, anyone who is still working with the public is risking themselves for their neighbors. Everyone of them is a hero. And then there are those who are laid off and cannot work and are facing financial hardship or disaster.  And the rest of us, even if we have luxury of avoiding contact with others still can’t be sure that a loved one, a relative, a friend may not catch the disease. As a species we are hard-wired to come together in a crisis, to help each other. This distancing is counter-intuitive to us and increases our anxiety and our psychic discomfort. This is a hard, frightening, and dangerous time. It does no good to deny it; indeed, it can be dangerous for ourselves and our neighbors.

Despite modern communication technology, we can feel disconnected and isolated. And time! Time has slowed down. I can’t believe it has only been a week since Easter. The snow yesterday makes it feel like mid-March, not mid-April. It appears we have at least another month before we can think about easing the restrictions that are hindering the spread of the virus. I feel like the kid in the car who, after only five minutes into a two hour trip, says, “Are we there yet?”

                              One of the advantages of slowed time is that it gives us the opportunity to slow ourselves and pay more attention to all that fate or God offers to our consciousness. Many of us are enjoying walking outside. Others are taking time to cook or bake more. Others are taking more time to read or pray or write in their journals. Time also helps us absorb new truths. What seems impossible when we first hear of it becomes real over time. Like the COVID19 virus. In January it seemed far fetched that a flue in China would so disrupt our lives here.

               The reading from the Gospel of John contains several of these elements. The story begins on the evening of Easter Day. The disciples have locked themselves in a house “for fear of the Jews.” They were afraid that the authorities might come and kill them Just as they had their leader. Jesus “came and stood among them.” It’s not clear if he passed through the door like a ghost or materialized in their midst as if tele-transported in Star Trek. He says, “Peace be with you.” They need not be afraid any longer. He shows them his wounds as a means of identification, as if they wouldn’t recognize him with them. The disciple rejoice when they see the Lord. Jesus repeats his message and adds to it: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then he breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the breath of Jesus. It is the gift of the Spirit that allows us disciples to be sent in the same way that God sent Jesus in to the world. Then he continues, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This implies that the primary task of followers of Jesus is to forgive sins, to reconcile people, to overcome estrangement and alienation. We are putter-togetherers. Which makes it all the more frustrating that we cannot pass the peace. That we must keep our distance from one another.

               Then the story switches to Thomas. He missed the whole scene on the day of the Resurrection. When he heard about it, he said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

He is an empiricist. I think he is say, “I’m not calling you guys liars; I’m just saying I got to see for myself. This is too good to be true.” Then a week later, which would be today, They are gathered again in the same house, and Jesus comes and stands among them again, just as he had a week earlier. Again, he sayd, “Peace be with you.” Ever since that day for nearly two thousand years we disciples have gathered together on the day of the Resurrection so that Jesus can come and stand among us, and give us his peace, and breathe the Holy Spirit into us, and send us out just as God sent him into the world. This time Thomas was there. Jesus invites him to put his finger in the wounds and his hand in his side. “Do not doubt, but believe,” he says. Actually, a more literal translation would be, “Do not become untrusting but trusting.” Thomas is convinced. Indeed, the text does not say that Thomas did put his fingers in the wounds; he just says, “My lord and my God.” As far as we know he is the first to make this affirmation. So it’s a little unfair to call him “Doubting Thomas,” when he is the first to acknowledge Jesus as God. Then Jesus says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is a word to the rest of us. Seeing is not necessary to faith, at least not in this physical way.

               The next couple of lines make it clear that this was the original ending of the Gospel. So this Jesus’ last word to us. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

               Maybe in this time of having time, we can see what we have not seen before. Or we can see with our inner sight as well as with our outer. We may practice seeing with our heart. In this time of peril, we can practice trusting our Lord. In this time of not breathing on each other we can practice breathing the breath of God. In this time of anxiety we can practice receiving the peace of God. In this time of separation from one another we can practice reconnecting by phone, Zoom, or letter. In this time when we are all in this together we can help our neighbors who may be experience financial hardship with generosity in supporting the various efforts to help them. And we can express our appreciation for those who continue to work in jobs that keep our food, utilities, medical care, and other necessities coming to us.

               In the end we practice hope, courage, and love. It’s the Christian thing to do.

Text content

SML 2018 logo horizontal

March 29, 2020 Sermon and Service

,

Watch the service here

The Fifth Sunday in Lent                                                                                      E. Bevan Stanley

March 29, 2020/ Year A

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

                Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

               COVID19 is commanding much of our attention this Lent. Indeed, it almost seems as if protecting ourselves and our loved ones from infection and helping our neighbors in any way we can has become our Lenten discipline. It is frightening disease and we do not how bad it will get or how long it will last. We can never be sure if we have not breathed in the virus and may be carrying it to those we love.

When I read the collect for this Fifth Sunday in Lent I was struck by the phrase, “among the swift and varied changes of the world.” That is certainly where we are: among the swift and varied changes of the world.” Certainly our worlds hare changing swiftly. And what does the collect say we should be seeking? That “our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found.” Many of us are discovering many joys in our forced “distancing” and self-quarantines. We are calling and Skyping and Zooming many more people than usual. We are cooking or taking walks or reading more. Maybe praying more or writing. And of course the truest joys are to be found in God, and that is where we try to fix our hearts. And to achieve that we ask God to give us the grace or gift to love what God commands and to desire what God promises. What does God command? That we love. And what does God promise? That we will live.

               That we will live. This promise is the message of the prophet Ezekiel. In his epic vision of the valley of dry bones, he discovers that death is not the end. That our God is the God of the living. We recall that in Hebrew a single word means wind and breath and Spirit. The prophet calls the wind from the four corners of the earth, and the Holy Spirit comes and breathes new life into the bones. The prophet is explicit that these bones are the whole house of Israel. This is not about how each of us will transcend death. It is about the restoration of the nation that had been defeated by the Babylonians and taken into exile. This is about the renewal of people of God, the return from exile, and a restored community.

               In the short passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, the apostle makes a sharp distinction between flesh and spirit. This requires some interpretation. The word he uses for flesh is σάρξ  (sarx). He does not use the word σῶμα (soma) which means “body.” Soma is the word used in the phrases “the resurrection of the body” and “the Body of Christ.” The word for “spirit” is πνεῦμα (pneuma), which like the Hebrew means breath and spirit.  Paul is not advocating a dualism that says the spirit is good and the body is bad. This is a heresy that was identified as contrary to Christian belief early on, although it does tend to reappear. It is not the job of religion to take us out of the physical realm into one of pure spirit. No. In Jewish and Christian thinking, one cannot be a human being without both a body and the Spirit. Instead, the distinction Paul is making is between the egoic self, which he calls the flesh and the true self, which he calls the Spirit. The egoic self is the one that tells the story of who I am and what makes me unique. I was born at a certain time into a certain family. I was raised a certain way and I have certain abilities and traits. I have had cert experiences and achievements. This is who I am. The egoic self is frightened of death and will become self-defensive when threatened. This egoic self is not false, but it is different from the true self. The true self is made in the image of God. The true self is made of stardust. The true self breathes with the spirit of God. The true self is united to God and all the rest of the created universe. The true self does not fear death for it cannot die. The true self can give itself away in love in ways the egoic self cannot. Paul says, “To set the mind on the flesh, the egoic self, is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit, the true self, is life.” He goes on “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

               This pandemic we are experiencing now is a chance for us to reflect on the difference between our egoic selves and our true selves. The aim of meditation and contemplative prayer is help us become more conscious of our true selves. To become more aware of our union with God—how we are in God and God is in us. This is the mystery of the Eucharist, that Christ is in us and we in him. The challenge is to connect the reality of the egoic self with the mystery of the true self. To put it another way we are called to have our lives be sacraments of the presence of God in the world.

               This is the point of the story in John of the raising of Lazarus from death. Jesus deliberately stays away when he hears that his friend is ill. Then he goes to Bethany to bring him back to life. When Martha confronts him with, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died,” Jesus responds with, “I am the resurrection and the life.” His life is so intimately connect to the life of God that death has no dominion over him. Jesus passes this connection to divine life on to us. On the evening of the day when Jesus returns from the dead he will breathe on his disciples and say, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This does not mean that they will escape physical death. It means that their lives, our lives, are part of God’s life. It means that we participate in God’s eternal life now and always. It means that we can live this life out of the well spring of life that is our true selves placing our egoic selves in the service of God.

               So here we are trying hard not to breathe on one another. And as our bodies keep six feet between each other, we find we can be united in the Spirit that share. Our true selves can be in touch with each other in new ways. We find God can “bring into order the unruly wills and affections” of our egoic selves. The dry bones of our society, our country, and our world can be revived and brought together. And we will hear Jesus’ words of liberation directed at us when he says, “Unbind him, unbind her, let them go.”

               Pray with me again this wonderful collect: Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

3.1.20

March 1, 2020

, , ,

The First Sunday in Lent     
E. Bevan Stanley

March 1, 2020

Year A
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

               “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

               There are two points I want to make this morning. The first is based on the reading from Genesis. God puts Adam and Eve in the Garden. There are two trees that are worth mentioning: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve are allowed to eat the fruit of every tree in the garden with one exception. They may not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is a puzzle. Why would God not want us to know good and evil? Isn’t the ability to judge between good and evil a good thing? Are we not supposed to make moral judgements? How can we be good human beings if we don’t know what is good and what is bad? Maybe, all God wants is for us not to experience evil and always know only good. As soon as we eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we know evil as well, and a shadow falls on our lives.

               But what if the story isn’t really about moral judgement, but about the tendency of our human minds to set up dichotomies? We divide everything into opposites: good and bad, light and dark, up and down, sacred and profane, sane and crazy, we and they, inside and outside, righteous and unrighteous, high church and low church, democrat and republican, capitalist and socialist. We have analytic minds. The word “analysis” comes from the Greek words “to loose”  and “again.” It means to separate things or divide them. To break them into their parts. The trouble is that we know that reality is never really as simple as our dichotomies. There are spectra where we might find ourselves somewhere between two poles. For example we may feel we are a moderate between liberals and conservatives. There are examples where two different things are held together, such as justice and mercy. Real life is far more wholistic and complicated than our dualistic thinking allows for. Furthermore, analysis involves taking things apart, and when they are apart they are very hard to put back together. The child who takes a watch apart is unlikely to be able to put it together again. The biology student dissecting a frog may learn a lot about the frog, but the frog is dead.

               One way of understanding the teaching of Jesus and his conflict with the Pharisees is that he rejected the dualistic thinking of the Pharisees. In effect Jesus says, forget the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil; I am interested in the fruit of the Tree of Life. There are two trees in the Garden; on Golgotha there is only the Tree of Life.

               This brings us to the second point I want to make this morning. If this about the two trees is all sound, then it offers us a way to understand the story of Jesus’ temptations in the desert. In our dualist thinking, we see temptations as a choice between a good thing and a bad thing. If we know good and evil, then we can choose. What makes it a temptation rather than just a choice is that it is framed as a dualist choice between good and bad. What if a temptation is an opportunity for us to examine more closely how we feel about an issue and how God is present with us in our decisions? Take the first temptation. Jesus has just been told by God at his baptism that he is God’s son and beloved by God. So the tempter challenges that fact: “If you are the son of God. . .”  The temptation is not primarily about Jesus being hungry; it is about what it means to be a human being and the son of God. He was told forty days ago that he is the Son of God, but now he is pretty hungry and a piece of bread would be lovely. By turning a rock into a loaf of bread he could affirm his divinity, but he would abandoning his humanity. And to whom does he need to prove his divinity anyway? Maybe the question is more about how is it to be a human who trusts in God’s love even when circumstances seem really difficult. The second temptation, to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple to have angels protect, him is similar. The final temptation is to take a shortcut to the dominion that Jesus is to have over the world in the end. If he bows down to Satan, he can avoid all the pain and messiness of dying and get to the same end that is his destiny anyway. But like the first temptation, the issue is not about avoiding hunger or death, the issue is how to remain in the present moment with the presence of God.

               I met with my spiritual director this week, and we were talking about disciplines or practices for Lent. He pointed out that whatever practice I might pick, the opportunity for growth will be in observing my feelings and thoughts when I either do or fail to perform the practice. And what will be the conversation I have with God about it? Say I decide to avoid chocolate for Lent. (I haven’t; this is a hypothetical.) At the end of the day, if I have successfully avoided chocolate, I can pat myself on the back and feel virtuous. And I can have a conversation with Jesus along the lines of, “Thank you Jesus for helping me keep my practice.” Jesus replies, “That’s nice. How much did I or the Holy Spirit help you and how much was just raw will power? If we did help you, why are you feeling so good about it? And what was it like at the moment you saw the candy on Karen’s desk and you chose not to take any? Were you letting go of your desire and giving it to God? Or were you being a hero and doing a hard thing? What role was your ego playing in this? How much was it a reflection of your true self? How much do you rely on and trust me?”

               And if I did have a piece of chocolate from Karen’s bowl, the conversation might go: “I feel bad that I couldn’t even make it through one day. I am so weak.” And Jesus says, “It’s just a piece of chocolate. Do you remember what you were feeling or thinking when you took it? Maybe you took it out of habit and did not really make a decision. Maybe you were being willful and just deciding to have your own way. Maybe you had just finished a piece of work and were feeling the need for a reward. What kinds of rewards do you need? How can you experience God’s love for you? Does it always have to be chocolate?”

               The point is that the practice and the temptation not to practice it are part of a whole complicated life in relationship to Jesus, yourself, the people around us and the planet. It is about life and living, not about good and bad. It is about loving and being loved, not because of what we do, but because of who we are and who we are becoming. Ultimately, most of my spiritual issues have to do with being open and honest with myself, with the people around me, and with God. I have come to know that I can do some pretty cool things with God’s help. Without God’s help I either really mess it up, or I get puffed up about my accomplishment, and it goes sour. Lent is not about being better or stopping bad stuff, it’s about living simply with God. It’s not eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; it is eating the fruit of the tree of life.

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. Amen.

2.23.20

February 23, 2020

,

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany      
E. Bevan Stanley

February 23, 2020

Year A

               From the Gospel: Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

               When Jesus was baptized, there was a voice from heaven that said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. He had not yet done anything yet, and God was already pleased with Jesus. Now, three years later, Jesus takes his three closest disciples up a mountain. There the disciples are given a vision of Jesus in his divine glory. Then the voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” This will mark the start of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, where he will fulfill his earthly destiny. On both of these occasions, the declaration of God’s love empowers Jesus to carry out his mission. It is like a mother saying to her second grade child on a Tuesday morning, “I love you; go and make me proud.” It is love that empowers the performance.

               Now let’s go back and look at the whole story. Six days earlier, Jesus had asked his disciples who they thought he was. Peter blurted out that he was the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus commends Peter for having this insight, and declares it to be a revelation from God. Now Jesus takes Peter and James and John up a mountain. On top he is transfigured. The Greek is “metamorphosed.” It means his form was changed. The text says,  “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” That is, in this new form he is revealed in his divine glory. This is another epiphany or manifestation of God in the human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Then Moses and Elijah appear and speak with Jesus. They represent respectively the Law and the Prophets. It is important for us to remember that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is rooted in the religion of Israel. We cannot understand Jesus if we do not grasp that Jesus is a Jew. Then comes the heavenly voice. “This is my Son; listen to him.” Jesus is more that either the Moses the law giver or Elijah the prophet; he transcends the Law and the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets express God’s word; Jesus is God’s word. God tells us to listen to him. On hearing the voice of God, the disciples are terrified and fall prostrate to the ground. Then the text says, “But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.”

What are we to make of this story? First there is the vision of Jesus in his

divinity and the voice of God. This paralyzes the disciples with terror and awe. They are incapacitated by the revelation. They cover their faces. Now Jesus comes to them, tender and comforting. He touches them. He tells them, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  As they raise their heads and look around, they see him alone and restored to his normal mortal form. Moses and Elijah are gone. The radiance is gone. They have their friend back. Only now they know more clearly who he really is.

               Finally, as the four are descending the mountain, Jesus tells them to tell no one until after he dies and is resurrected.

               On this the last day before Lent begins, the Church invites us to an experience of awe. We see Jesus in his divine glory. This very building is built to remind us of the glory of God and invite us to worship. We come not get something we need, as if we were going to the Stop and Shop. We do not come to find some peace and quiet. No. We come to worship God Almighty. We come to praise God for being God. We come to be awed and overwhelmed by the majesty and beauty and love of God. Only then might we feel the touch on our shoulder or the whisper in our heart that says. It’s OK. It’s me, Jesus. Get up and do not be afraid.

               This is what we will need for our journey toward Jerusalem and the terrible and wonderful events that we will experience there. We need to know we are children of God. We need to know that we are loved. We need to get up and not be afraid. We need to walk with Jesus on this path without fear, knowing we are loved, and that the most ordinary things and people in our lives are disguises for the glory of God.

               In the words of Second Peter: We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

               This is our mountain top. Now we follow Jesus to Jerusalem. We will not speak of his glory until Easter, when he is risen from the dead. Now Jesus comes to us, tender and comforting. He touches us and tells us, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 

2.16.20

February 16, 2020

, ,

February 16, 2020

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany                                                             E. Bevan Stanley

February 16, 2020

Year A

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37

 

Moses said, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life . . .” In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

Moses offers us a choice: life or death, blessing or curse. “Choose life!” he exhorts. The Book of Deuteronomy is Moses giving his last lecture. He has come to the end of  his life and wants to summarize all the lessons taught by God in the forty years since the Israelites left Egypt. Most of his audience was not present when God rescued the Israelites from Pharoah. They were not there when Moses came down from the fires and darkness of Sinai with the stone tablets of the Law. Moses is summarizing all of the lessons of forty years in the wilderness. “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.” All we have to do is observe God’s commandments, decrees, and ordinances. All you have to do is . . . It’s not so easy to do all those things in the Law. Most of us don’t even know what they are.

               Then Jesus comes along and makes it simple. All you have to know is that there are two commandments: Love God, and love your neighbor. I don’t have to keep killing sheep and goats. I don’t have to go to the temple three times a year. This sounds like a much better deal. Then we get these sayings from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He is taking the law and making it much harder. Most of us manage to avoid murdering people, but now Jesus says we can’t even be angry at them. Most of us avoid adultery, but Jesus says we should not objectify another. The Law says we should keep the oaths we make. Jesus says that every word we utter should be trustworthy whether it is an oath or not. He is not modifying the Law to make it easier to live with. He is raising the bar so that the keeping it will bring us life. And as Jesus will demonstrate later, what brings life often feels like dying.

Last week we heard him say that he did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Last week’s reading ended with him saying that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Now he tells what it takes for our righteousness to be greater. We not only have to do the right things, we have to think and feel the right things. We not only have to refrain from killing people, we have to not want to kill them.

If we see these sayings of Jesus as a new set of do’s and don’ts, this will not seem like good news. It’s just plain too hard. But maybe Jesus is not giving us a new law, but a new teaching. Maybe this is part of the blessings with which he started the sermon. Here is Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor:

“What if the beatitudes aren’t about a list of conditions we should try and meet to be blessed. What if these are not virtues we should aspire to but what if Jesus saying blessed are the meek is not instructive– what if it’s performative? …meaning the pronouncement of blessing is actually what confers the blessing itself. Maybe the sermon on the mount is all about Jesus’ seemingly lavish blessing of the world around him especially that which society doesn’t seem to have much time for, people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance. So maybe Jesus is actually just blessing people, especially the people who never seem to receive blessings otherwise. I mean, come on, doesn’t that just sound like something Jesus would do? Extravagantly throwing around blessings as though they grew on trees?”[1]

Jesus’ re-interpretation of the commandments is not just an add-on, it is a whole new way of thinking about them. Let’s start with the last one about not swearing oaths. I went to a Quaker high school and a little of that wonderful tradition rubbed off on me. One thing that makes the Society of Friends different many other Christians is that they take this scripture literally. They will not take an oath. When called to testify in court, at least in Pennsylvania, they are allowed to “affirm” what they say rather than to take an oath on the Bible. What is all this fuss about oaths? Jesus says that a person’s word should be sufficient on its own. If you need to add an oath, it means that your word by itself is not trustworthy. If your word is trustworthy, then no oath is going to make it more so. “Anything more comes from evil,” he says. Only evil will create the need for oaths. Be true, transparent, and trustworthy and life is a lot simpler. Make your words and your thoughts match. Make your insides and your outsides match. Have integrity. The other examples he gives are the same, make your thoughts as peaceful as your actions. Think of people as persons not bodies.

If we live our lives in this simple way, we will be blessed, we will be a blessing to others, and we will live in a world of blessing.

Now a disclaimer. I shouldn’t be preaching this sermon. My life is not so integrated much of the time. I’m working on it. But I have had glimpses of what this life can be like. In the meantime, as I work on myself, I find I have growing compassion for everyone else. For we all are not as good as we should be in our choices and actions. And we are all made far better than we know by a God who loves us and never makes junk. If Pastor Bolz-Weber is right, and this Sermon on the Mount is not about more rules but about pronouncing a blessing, then our judgment of ourselves and others vanishes. Here is a story from the Desert Fathers of the fourth century Egypt.

A brother in Scete happened to commit a fault, and the elders assembled, and sent for Abba Moses to join them. He, however, did not want to come. The priest sent the Abba a message, saying, ‘Come, the community is waiting for you.’ So he arose and started off. And taking with him a very old basket full of holes, he filled it with sand and carried it behind him. The elders came out to meet the Abbot and said: ‘What is this, Father?’ The Abbot replied: ‘My sins are running out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I come to judge the sins of another! They, hearing, this, said nothing to the brother but pardoned him.

This is the kind of world Jesus is pointing to. We will not be concerned about another’s sins while we are still working on our own. We are not going to be angry at someone while we are still working on our own frailties. We will not see another’s outside without understanding there is an inside that we cannot see. We will find our best selves and best blessings within the commitments to which God has called us. There will be little joy in fleeing from them. We will not artificially prop up our words with oaths. Our word will have to be as true or as untrustworthy as we are.

We will choose life and blessing for ourselves and for our world.

 

 

2.9.20

February 9, 2020

,

February 9, 2020

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany 
E. Bevan Stanley

February 9, 2020
Year A

Isaiah 58:1-12
1 Corinthians 2:1-16
Matthew 5:13-20

               Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth . . . you are light of the world.” In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

               Well, that’s a nice thing for Jesus to say about us. Then come the implications. We cannot lose our flavor. We have to shine for the world. He goes on to say that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets; he came to fulfill them. Fulfilling both the law and the prophets is a tricky thing, for there is a tension between the commandments and the prophets who bring the word of God to the people of God. The passage from Isaiah is a good case in point.

               It starts with a word of judgment: Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. The judgment of God is not condemnation so much as it is telling the truth to our faces. If the truth is that we have not been living up to our call to be holy and loving, then God hopes that when we hear the truth, we will be moved to change our behavior. The prophet pictures the people as observing the religious traditions. They complain to God: Why do we fast and you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?  God responds: Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. . . Such fasting as you do today will not make your voce heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sack cloth and ashes? Will you call his a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Do you think that going to church on Sunday or getting ashes on Ash Wednesday impresses God? That’s a rhetorical question.

Then God goes on: Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Who in our society are afflicted with the bonds of injustice, burdened with a yoke they did not choose? There are many, of course, but this Black History Month, which might suggest one such group. Next Sunday we will show the movie “Traces of the Trade” that points to the complicity that northern traders had in the lucrative trade in slaves. Even today, any black person who is stopped by a policeman is facing a real possibility of being shot. And what about workers who are paid only one three hundredth as much as their bosses? Workers whose real pay adjusted for inflation has not increased in fifty years, while the executives’ pay has skyrocketed? Can you think of other cases in our country where people are oppressed?

                Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? We do a little better in this regard. Our food pantry is a success. It only operates one day in thirty, but it is a help. Nevertheless, we have the technology and land to feed every person on earth, yet many die of starvation every day. That means that our politics and priorities are at fault. We do not have the will to do what it takes to keep people from dying when we throw away vast amounts of food in this country. But if we did, then our light would break forth like the dawn, and our healing would spring up quickly; our vindicator would go before us, the glory of the LORD would be our rear guard. Then we would call, and the LORD would answer; we would cry for help, and he would say, Here I am. Ah, life in the subjunctive!

               In case we didn’t get the point, the Prophet continues: If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

               Then your light shall rise in the darkness. This is how we are to be lights of the world.

It is not enough for each of us to be a good person. The Prophet says we are to be engaged in public life. It is our job as a people, as the people of God working together, to be the light of the world and to confront oppression. We are to take on systemic evil; we are struggle against the principalities and powers of this world. Democrat and Republican don’t matter. What matters is are we going to work for freedom? Will we work to remove the yoke of oppression from those who are oppressed? Nor does it matter if we feel we ourselves are oppressed, or if we find ourselves among the privileged and see that others around us are oppressed  (and most of us have a foot in both camps). It’s still our job to end it. And if we say, this is too much, these problems are too great, then we can consider how we find the power in cooperation, in organizing resources, in working together to take on these challenges. Then you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

               As our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is fond of pointing out, Christianity is both counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. While it is inappropriate for the preacher to advocate a particular candidate over another, we are called by our Lord to be active in public life. We are called to engage in politics with a small “p”. How we are to do this is another huge question. What is not in question is that our country and our world have way too much oppression in them. We Christians need to be working to lessen it.

               Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot  . You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Jesus said, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth_” In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen. ~ 10.20.19

November 10, 2019

, , ,

November 10, 2019

The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost                                             E. Bevan Stanley

November 10, 2019

Proper 27, Year C, RCL

Haggai 1:15b-2:9
Psalm 17:1-9
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Luke 20:27-38

Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to God all of them are alive. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

OK. So the Gospel reading we just heard has got to be one of the most puzzling ones there is. Let’s take a closer look and see what we can find that’s useful in it.

We will begin with the Sadducees. They are a group within the Judaism of Jesus’ day that focused their attention on the cultic practices of sacrifice in the Temple. They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead or in an afterlife. They come to Jesus to challenge him and propose a hypothetical case in an attempt to show how silly this idea of resurrection is. There is in the Mosaic Law the requirement that if a man dies without an heir, his brother is to marry the widow and produce heirs for the deceased. This had to do with managing the land allotments assigned to each family and at the same time made provision for the welfare of the widow who would otherwise be destitute. So the Sadducees make up this improbable case of a man with six brothers, who all die in sequence with the widow becoming the wife of each in turn. “So Jesus, in this resurrection you talk about whose wife will she be?” It is not a real question, but a rhetorical one to show that no one can be expected to believe in the resurrection.

Jesus responds in two different ways. First he states that marriage is a phenomenon of this world not the next. In the resurrection no one marries. “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Marriage in Jesus’ day and culture was a social construct in which the woman was regarded almost as property. This social construct was designed to make the inheritance of property tidy and orderly. It was not primarily about a live-giving and nurturing personal relationship. When the next world comes, or when we enter the next life, such social constructs will no longer be in effect nor be useful. In fact, since in the resurrection, no one dies, the question of inheritance or of passing on widows to brothers will not arise.

This response offer us a line of thought that can be challenging. If the institution of marriage is not important in the next life, what other institutions, allegiances, and duties may not matter either? What structures that we value for the stability and security they give us will we be asked to let go of in the next life? What Patterns and commitments that undergird our sense of identity  will be irrelevant in the next life. In fact, who will I be when I be in that life when my family, career, and nationality no longer matter? Who will I be when I stand before God without all these marks of who I am? Who will I be when I stand before all the other people in the Kingdom, those beloved of me, those known, those unknown?

The second response is more to the point, for now Jesus, having parried the Sadducees attack, now ripostes with his own thrust. He now offers a text to show that the dead are raised. When God identifies Godself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, God is referring to people who are alive, for God is the “God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

Now you may find this use of the scriptural proof text a little weak. Still the point Jesus is making is important. The direction of the causality is significant here. We are not in a relationship with God because we are alive, and then if we die, we lose that relationship. Rather, we are alive because we are in a relationship with God, and because that relationship will never fail, death cannot hold us. “For to God all of them are alive.” To God all of us are alive.

So what will take home from these texts today? It is not that somehow we must crank up our conviction that the resurrection is true, that we have to believe a particular clause in the Creed. No. I think what Jesus is implying, is that if we have a vibrant personal relationship with God, then we will simply know that we shall see God, that we shall experience that life that is so rich and deep and full that we call it eternal, that we shall enter that mode of existence in which all artificial structures of relationship will be removed so that we can give and receive love as universally as God does.

Yesterday Alinda and I attended the memorial service of my uncle, Stan Davies. The service consisted mostly of remembrances given by ten of his children and grandchildren. They were all beautifully done and under three minutes. One of them comes to mind in this context. One of the grandsons recalled a time when he was visiting his grandparents in the summer at their farm. As they were sitting on the patio, the young man asked his grandfather what was the secret to a long and happy marriage. The older man did not answer. Then the lad’s grandmother appeared with a tray of iced tea. The grandfather looked up and saw his wife. He smiled and said to his grandson, “Pick the right girl.” So what is the secret to eternal life filled with love and joy? Pick the right God.

As is so often the case in life, it’s not about information, it’s about the relationship.

Amen.

Jesus said, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth_” In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen. ~ 10.20.19

October 20, 2019

,

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost,  E. Bevan Stanley

October 20, 2019, Proper 24, Year C

Jeremiah 31:27-34
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

Jesus said, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

The parable in today’s Gospel is a good example of Jesus’ wry sense of humor. God is like an unjust judge. Ok, he doesn’t quite say that, but pretty close. The argument goes, if an unjust judge, who cares nothing for justice, is willing to respond to someone who is persistent in his asking, how much more will a just and loving God respond to those who pray without giving up. The narrator does something very unusual in recounting this incident in that the interpretation is given before the story. “Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”

We all have had the experience of asking God for something and having our request granted. We all have had the experience of asking God for something and not having it granted. Even Jesus had God say “No” when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane. When our request is granted, sometimes it is soon, and sometimes it takes a long time. If God is going to do what God wants to do anyway, why bother praying?

One answer is that our prayer engages us with God in a personal way. We lay out our desires and fears before God, and God responds. There is also some experimental evidence that when a number of people pray for healing for a person, it often improves the outcome. Yet we also know that sometimes it feels as if God is very far away. Or that God is silent or not listening.

Jeremiah offers an interesting perspective:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

First, the prophet likens the covenant between the Children of Israel and God to the covenant of marriage. The People of God break the covenant in two ways—they worship other Gods, and the fail to provide justice and help to the poor and needy. They fail to obey the law of Moses. God’s solution is to make a new covenant. No longer will the law be written on stone tablets, an external rule that they must obey. In the new covenant the law will be written on their hearts. It won’t make sense to tell each other to know God, because God will already been in their hearts. That is, in the new covenant of which Jeremiah is speaking, God will have an intimate and individual relationship with each of the people of God. In fact, since God is always a subject and never an object, as we open ourselves to God and speak with God in prayer or meditation or however we do it, we will find that God’s thoughts become our thoughts, God’s desires our desires, God’s compassion our compassion, and so on.

The point of Jesus’ exhortation “to pray always and not to lose heart” is that prayer is how we access the will of God written on our hearts. We no longer approach God as a petitioner hoping that God will give us what we want. Instead, we share our hopes, fears, dreams, and needs with a companion and friend that is already inside our mind and heart.

The pathos of Jesus’ question at the end of the story, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” yields to a more hopeful answer. Reminding you that “faith” in the New Testament almost always means “trust,” we start to see another picture. The original idea we had was that if we pray long enough and hard enough, we will get justice. (Of course, wee may not be wanting justice.) And Jesus seems to have some doubts about whether he will find any faith on earth when he returns at the end of time. One implication of this is that if we don’t get what we are asking for, then it must be that our prayer or our faith is inadequate.

Now we have a new picture of God being in us and writing God’s word in our hearts and breathing it into us in the most intimate way in subject to subject relationship, We pray constantly because God is already in us constantly. Our desires become more and more aligned with God’s. Our trust is in this God that is already inside us rather than in some external and far away being that may or may not deign to listen to our pleading. And, yes, Jesus will find trust  on earth when he returns, because Jeremiah’s prophecy has come to pass, and we have God in our hearts. I have read it before from this pulpit, but here again is the poem “Last Night” by Antonio Machado:

 

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my oId failures.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!—
that it was God
I had here inside my heart.