We are not dead yet

Philippians 1:21-30; September 18, 2011

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen; Trinity Church, Staunton

Why Go to Church?

One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church, to which he replied, "I'm not going."
"Why not?" she asked.
I'll give you two good reasons," he said.

(1), they don't like me, and

(2), I don't like them."
His mother replied, "I'll give you two good reasons why you SHOULD go to church:
(1) You're 39 years old, and (2)  . . . . . .  you're the pastor!" 

So why do we come to church?  Of course, we come to church for a variety of reasons.  If we did a survey at the end of the service we might be surprised at some of the answers.  Some might say, “to worship God”, “to sing”, “to please my wife”, “to see my friends”, “to be an example to my children”; some might even say “it helps my business to know more people” (and who’s to say that God doesn’t work through even motives like these?).  God knows our hearts and minds and whatever the surface reason might be for coming to church, the deeper reason for our gathering together is to pull us up out of our small, individual worlds, to recognize and be a part of something greater than ourselves, to wake us from our slumber, to set our sights on the Holy One, the Divine, to breathe in the new life that the Spirit offers.  We are looking for something that we do not yet have, something that cannot be found on our own, something that can help us grow and breathe fresh air.  Theologian Paul Tillich said, “beyond anything else, the church is simply primarily a group of people who express a new reality by which they have been grasped.”  This new reality is Christ.  We come to church, we are church because Christ has indeed grasped us and calls us together.  And he calls us to fruitful labor through which we can express that new reality.

In our reading from Philippians the apostle Paul speaks an amazing truth of his faith.  He just as soon die as live, which sounds depressing until we see just how profound and exhilarating his faith is.  “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.  If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.  I am hard pressed between the two; my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.”   Paul’s deepest desire is to be with Christ; he is ready to die as he knows that just as we express in our own burial servicewhether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s possession.  And yet, his chief mission on earth is to bring the good news of Christ’s love and redemption to as many people as possible; Paul says, “ to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you”. His mission is for others. He even acknowledges that his stint in prison, from which he writes this letter, has done wonders to bring the gospel to more people. His mission is clear.  So even though his desire is to depart, to die, that he would be with Christ, he is compelled by his mission here on earth: “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.”

Over the course of my ordained ministry I have encountered a few deeply faithful elderly women who have shared with me that they were tired and they were ready to go, ready to die, ready to meet God. Their “golden years” weren’t feeling so golden and they wondered why God wouldn’t take them.  I don’t think we have to be elderly to have wondered this same sentiment at times.  Perhaps as a depressed teenager we have wondered, “Is this really all there is to life? Well I don’t need it.” Or perhaps we have gone through some deep sorrow or string of disappointments that has us shouting, “Just take me now, Lord!” 

But here we are. In the flesh.  Not dead yet. Perhaps we are not yet finished with our “fruitful labor”and it is time to consider, like the apostle Paul, that perhaps we exist not only for ourselves but to proclaim through our lives the goodness of God, the reality of Christ.

Like many of you I attended several concerts at the Staunton Music Festival a few weeks ago.  At a concert that featured Beethoven, I read this in the bulletin, quoting Beethoven himself: “Oh, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me…with joy I hasten towards death.  If it comes before I have had a chance to develop all my artistic capacities, it will still be coming too soon despite my harsh fate…Come when though wilt, I shall meet thee bravely.”  Beethoven had contemplated taking his own life as his deafness developed and yet he knew his “fruitful labor” was not yet over.  As one whose faith in God was experienced through art, this response of continuing to write music in spite of the difficulties was a true act of faith.

So what might be our “fruitful labor” by which we can express the new reality of Christ?  Here we are at the beginning of a new program year at Trinity.   If you look around you there are umpteen opportunities for folks- the music program, foreign mission trips, a prayer ministry, Bible studies, parlor groups, a book group, serving in our multiple outreach programs, all of which point to the reality of Christ.  One day this week we had a deeply troubled sojourner stop by Trinity.  I was carrying a box of Rolling Pin Bakery donuts, (and only feeling a little guilty about it since I was planning to share them), when I came across this bereft young man sitting on the bench by the labyrinth.  Obviously he had already been inside where someone on our staff had given him a Bible; after a conversation with him, I offered him a donut, invited him to stay for the healing service and for noon day lunch before he caught the 1:00 train back to his home.  Once we were in the healing service, the others who attended that service offered him a loving ear, asked what he needed, prayed for him and gave the young man a tour of the church. The reality of Christ was palpable in their respectful and loving attention.  I don’t know what became of the sojourner. I pray that he made it to his destination.  What I do know is that the church, here manifest in this group of caring individuals, offered him their “fruitful labor”and the sojourner offered his own remarkable faith to us.  Each person who encountered the young man gave him what they could give him.  Sometimes we miss the mark. Sometimes what we can give does not seem to be what a person needs but we try anyway and let God handle the results. 

Here we are. In the flesh. We are not dead yet. While we wait, can we offer one another the reality of Christ?

How Do We Forgive?

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Matthew 18:21-35

An audio version of this sermon is available here.

In our Gospel reading today, Peter asks Jesus how often he ought to forgive someone who wrongs him. How much forgiveness is enough? How big should our Christian forgiveness be?

It is a question that is especially poignant for us today, on Sunday September Eleventh, 9/11, the tenth anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks our country has ever known. On this day we look back on the shock, the horror, the anger, the grief we experienced ten years ago, when airplanes were used as bombs, and centers of finance and defense came under attack, and thousands of people were murdered in an act of undeclared, indiscriminate, and immoral war. On this day we reflect on everything that has happened in the ten years since those attacks: war on terror, homeland security, coalitions of the willing, attempts at saber-rattling and attempts at peacemaking, culture wars, atheist denunciations of all religion as inherently violent — a world perhaps more fragile, more fearful, more vulnerable than it’s ever been before. And on this day we ask about the role of forgiveness in all of this: How can we forgive those who did this? Should we forgive those who did this? Is forgiveness even the proper category to invoke when we’re talking about things like terrorism and security and international policy and people who have no apparent interest in living and letting live with us? On this day of all days, we hear Peter ask Jesus “How much forgiveness is enough?”, and the question goes right through our hearts.

And as we struggle with that question, and with Jesus’ answer to it, it is important that we keep in mind just what Jesus means by “forgiveness.” In Jesus’ teaching, forgiveness is something more than just saying “It’s okay” or “No harm done” when someone hurts you; that’s not forgiving, that’s just papering over the hurt, that’s just pretending things are alright without making them alright. In Jesus’ teaching, forgiveness is something more than waiting to see if the other person is willing to make up to you before you’ll be willing to make up with them; that’s not forgiving, that’s emotional hostage-taking. In Jesus’ teaching, forgiveness is nothing less than making a new beginning, so that right relationships of mutual well-being can flourish.

That’s what’s happening in the parable Jesus tells in answer to Peter’s question. There was a king, Jesus says, who had a slave, probably a high official in the king’s court, who had mismanaged the king’s accounts badly, very badly, to the point of losing ten thousand talents, which in Jesus’ time would be an unimaginable, astronomical amount of money. The debt threatens to destroy their relationship — literally, the king is planning to sell the slave, and his wife, and his children, and his possessions — and that will remove him from the royal court, that will end his relationships in the palace household, that will take away the only livelihood he’s ever known. Breaking relationship with the king means pretty much losing everything. So the slave pleads, and, even though they both know it’s impossible, the slave promises the king that over time he will pay back everything he owes. But the king has a better idea: he cancels the debt; he clears the books; he transfers money out of his own treasury to make up for what has been lost by the slave’s mismanagement. In this parable the king acts in an extraordinary way to create a new beginning, to remove and clear away all the mistakes and the errors and the ill-will from the past, and to create anew the conditions required to build up a right relationship of mutual well-being between them. As Jesus teaches it, that is the real meaning of forgiveness.

And new beginnings for right relationship is also supposed to be the meaning of being forgiven. When the forgiven slave goes out and meets a fellow slave who owes him a hundred denarii (chicken feed compared to the slave’s own former debt) he goes ballistic: he grabs him by the throat and demands payment and throws him in prison. What he should have done, Jesus makes clear by implication, is to share his new beginning with his fellow slave, to cancel the debt and clear away the old ill-will, to create anew the conditions for right relationship between them. He should have acted from his own new beginning to create new mutual well-being for them both. The fact that he did not do this shows that he has not really understood what the king has done for him, he has not really accepted his own forgiveness, he has not really taken on the work of living into his new beginning. The king ends up reinstating the debt and demanding it be paid, because the slave never really let go of it in the first place. Forgiving and being forgiven both depend on making a new beginning.

And perhaps that’s the important part for us to hear on the anniversary of 9/11. How can we forgive? What does forgiveness even mean in the aftermath of terrorist attack? It means working to make a new beginning. It means not getting stuck in the loss and the anger and the ill-will of the past, -- not ignoring them, but not getting stuck in them -- but clearing the way so we can move forward. It means reaching into our own resources, our own courage and goodwill and creativity, to begin again where things have been taken from us, to start anew where there has been loss. In means working seriously, and intentionally, and prudently, and generously, to create the conditions required for right relationships of mutual well-being wherever we can reach: in our homes, in our communities, in our nation, in our world; in our finances, in our policies, in our military actions, in our environment; with our allies, with our enemies, with those who are strangers to us, with those who believe differently from us, with those who wish us well, and with those who wish us harm. It means refusing to be terrorized, refusing to give in to fear, no matter what happens, because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, and perfect love casts out all fear. For us, on this tenth anniversary of 9/11, forgiveness means committing ourselves anew to God’s work of making new beginnings in our world.

Peter asked Jesus how much forgiveness is enough; and Jesus answered that forgiveness is not a question of enough, forgiveness is not measured by amounts, forgiveness is opening ourselves to be channels of the creatively transforming grace of God. Let it be our prayer today that we may be channels for God’s creative transformation on this anniversary and always.

Amen.

Ceremonies of Identity

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Exodus 12:1-14
An audio version of this sermon is available here

Sometimes you see something in a scripture story that you’ve never seen before, something that’s been there all along but you’ve never noticed, and it changes the whole way you understand that story. That kind of interpretive discovery can be a great gift from God.

That’s what happened to me as I was looking over our first reading today, the Exodus account of the institution of the Passover meal. This is one of those stories I’ve read dozens of times — even preached on a few times. It is part of our lectionary for Maundy Thursday, so every year during Holy Week I’ve heard and reflected on it again. I thought I knew it pretty well. But in looking over it this time, it occurred to me that this story tells of the first time the people of Israel ever had a ritual, a sacrifice, a ceremonial meal, that they all had in in common, that they all did at the same time and in the same way and for the same reason. To be sure, there are rituals and ceremonies in the scripture stories before this. Noah made a sacrifice to God after the flood. Abraham built altars at places where he had significant encounters with God, and he offered sacrifices on them. Jacob set up a pillar and ceremonially anointed it with oil where God appeared to him at Bethel. There are plenty of rituals in the scriptures before this. But all of those were personal rituals, household ceremonies, sacrifices that marked important moments in the lives of individuals or families, but didn’t really reach any farther than that. The institution of the Passover meal is the first time in the story of the people of Israel that they have a specific ritual, a shared ceremony, that reaches beyond the individual, the household, the clan, the tribe, to unite the whole people in one identity as the people of God.

And that’s important, because shared ceremony is one of the strongest ways to bring people together and give them a shared community. Think about it: before this, what did the people of Israel really have to hold them together? They had stories they could tell, stories of Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah, and Joseph and his brothers, the twelve sons of Israel. But all of those stories were generations old by the time of Moses; they were good stories, but they didn’t give the people much of a sense of what they could do together to be a people. By the time the people had multiplied in Egypt, as we heard in our First Testament reading a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure their sense of tribal bonding from ancient parents had become somewhat attenuated, and the only shared reality they felt was the reality of brutal oppression and hard labor. In fact, some historians suggest that the Hebrew people enslaved in Egypt did not in fact have a common ancestral background at all — that some had stories of their ancestor Abraham, and others had stories of their ancestor Isaac, and still others had stories of their ancestor Jacob, and it was only later editing that put those stories together and made them successive generations — but in Egypt all they really had in common was that they were slaves and they wanted to be free. Some historians argue that this ragtag bunch of West Semitic slaves wasn’t really a people at all, until God acted to make them a people.

However that may be, whether the people really were twelve tribes descended from common parents or whether they were historically distinct ethnic groups, the point is that by the time of Moses the only thing they had in common was being oppressed, the only thing they had in common was their suffering. But God acted to change that. God acted to liberate them. And the first step in that liberation was when God gave the people a new way to think about themselves, a new way of knowing themselves as the people God saves, a new identity, not as slaves, but as God’s own. And the core of that new identity is that they are the people who do the Passover.

Think for a moment about what the Passover ceremony says about the people who do it. They are to celebrate the ceremony in the first month of the year, at the beginning of the calendar — which says that this ceremony is for them a new beginning of time, the beginning of a new time in a new life with God. They are to eat the Passover with their sandals on and their walking sticks in hand, dressed for the road, ready to go at a moment’s notice — which says that they are a people who pay attention to God’s call and will follow God’s lead. They are to take the blood of the Passover lamb and put in over the doors of their houses as a sign — which says that they are a people God saves from death and rescues from destruction. The Passover ceremony unites the people in a ritual way they’ve never been united before; and it tells them something about themselves, about who they are as God’s people, and what that means; and it calls them forward into a new life of freedom and covenant and living God’s mission in the world.

And if we think of the Passover that way, what can it tell us about our Eucharist? Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that Jesus began the Eucharist at a Passover Seder, so of course there is that very deep connection. But beyond just that historical connection, I think these two ceremonial meals do much the same things for us who celebrate them. As the Passover did for the Israelites, so our Eucharist brings us together and unites us in ritual reality, and it tells us something important about who we are as God’s people, and it calls us forward into freedom and covenant and living Christ’s mission in the world. We celebrate our Eucharist on the first day of the week — which says that this great thanksgiving is the beginning, the origin, the reference-point of all our works and days in Christ. We recognize in this ritual meal the Body of Christ, the substantial presence of Jesus with us, and the Blood of Christ, the essential power of Jesus’ life in us — which says that we are people saved from death and empowered to love as Jesus loves and be wise as Jesus is wise and live as Jesus lives. We receive this bread and wine as food for the journey — which says that we know ourselves to be called and sent to bring Christ’s love to all the world. Our Eucharist ceremony, like the Passover in Exodus, is the sign of God’s call to us to be a new people living a new life.

Sometimes you look at something familiar and discover in it something new. May this familiar Eucharist ceremony be a new discovery for us this day — may it be a new gift of God’s saving and creating grace for us all. Amen.

Losing Self, Finding Self

Losing Self, Finding Self, by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Matthew 16:21-28
An audio version of this sermon is available here.

Poor Peter. Sometimes being a disciple is so confusing.

In last week’s Gospel story, Peter was the first ever to recognize and say out loud that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God; and because of that, Jesus told Peter that he was blessed by God and had faith that would be the rock on which Jesus would build his entire church.

Then, in today’s story, Jesus begins to explain to his disciples what being the Messiah, the Son of the living God will mean: he must go to Jerusalem, and confront the chief priests and the Roman government, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again. And when Peter hears this, he takes Jesus aside, privately, and says to him “You shouldn’t say things like that; God forbid that you should die; you shouldn’t disappoint your disciples with such a downer of a message.” But Jesus turns and says to Peter “You’re talking like the enemy; you’re thinking in human terms, not divine terms; you’re a stumbling-block in my way” — and he calls all the disciples together and tells them “If you want to be my follower, you have to learn to deny yourself; the more you try to save your life the more you’ll lose it, but the more you lose your life for me the more you’ll save it.”

So one moment Peter is the Rock, and the next moment he’s a stumbling-block; one moment Peter’s faith is the foundation of the church, the next moment he is the enemy of Jesus’ mission. I can just imagine Peter saying “What’d I do? Was it something I said? What did I do wrong?”

Part of the problem here is that Peter is clinging to Jesus. Peter has just recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and Peter, like most Jews of his day, has some definite ideas of what the Messiah should be. The Messiah should come to vindicate God’s people. The Messiah should bring judgment to God’s enemies and reward to God’s righteous. The Messiah should reign forever in a kingdom of peace and justice, of right relationships in mutual well-being, a kingdom that would never ever ever fade away. Peter has definite expectations of what Jesus’ being Messiah should mean.

But it’s not just Peter’s expectations of Jesus that are at stake — Peter’s expectations for Peter are also on the line. If Jesus is the Messiah and Peter is the Rock, the Messiah’s right-hand-man, then what happens to Jesus will happen to Peter, too. If Peter’s image of Jesus is threatened, then Peter’s image of himself-with-Jesus is threatened. And Peter doesn’t want to think about what his life would be like if Jesus weren’t there: Peter has found in Jesus a teacher, a master, a healer, a friend; Peter has found that his life is more with Jesus in it than it ever had been before; Peter has come to trust that Jesus loves him, and he loves Jesus too, and that friendship, that compassion, that love makes Peter more himself than he ever could be just on his own. If Jesus dies, if Jesus isn’t going to be there anymore, then Peter will lose that self he has become. And that loss frightens Peter, losing himself like that scares Peter — and so Peter wants to cling to Jesus as hard as he can, so that he can cling to himself as hard as he can, and never have to fear losing the joy and security and love he’s come to know in being Jesus’ disciple.

There’s just one problem with that: Peter clings so hard to what is, he is not able to open up to what is yet to be. Peter clings so hard to his expectations for Jesus as a conquering Messiah, he’s not able to see the greater-than-expected promise in Jesus dying and rising again to transform all of life. Peter clings so hard to his image of himself as Jesus’ right-hand-man, he’s not able to imagine the even greater self, the apostle and preacher and teacher and healer, Jesus is inviting him to become. Peter will not let his expectations die, so he cannot be open to the greater possibilities for him God wants to bring to life.

And I think that is what Jesus is getting at when he gathers the rest of the disciples and talks about saving and losing life. The word we translate “life” here can also be translated “self” — and in that translation I think the saying makes even more sense. Jesus says “If you try to hold on to your self, you will lose your self; but if you can let go of the self you think you are now, you can discover in God an even greater self you can yet become.” Jesus’ call in the Gospel today is to be willing to let our expectations of ourselves as we are now die, so that we can be open to the new possibilities for us God wants to bring to life.

And if we can do that, if we can let go, if we can be willing to lose the selves we think we are, it is amazing what new selves we can become in Christ. I think of the woman I knew who said she had to give up thinking of herself as a hopeless drunk before she could discover a new self as someone in healthy recovery. Or the man whose heart attack made him question the go-go-go, push-push-push, always giving 110% executive he’d always been, and start looking for a new identity as someone who took the time to enjoy the people and the life around him. Or the teenager who went on a high school mission trip and had a profound experience that opened up a whole new way of seeing service to others as a personal career path. Or the family that gave up its high-spending consumer lifestyle to find a new way of living more simply and more genuinely with the earth and with their neighbors and with each other. Or the man who had a religious conversion experience — who never told me exactly what the experience was, but only said it made him feel like a new creation — and who went from just going to church as a matter of habit to really trying to live a Christlike life. Over the years so many people have shared with me stories of how they have been called to give up their self-expectations, how they’ve been put on the line of losing their old selves, and so have found a new self, a new life, living the way of love revealed in Jesus.

Jesus said “If you try to save your self, you will lose your self; but if you lose your self in me, you will find a greater self than you had ever imagined.” Let it be our prayer today that, as we offer ourselves to Christ in this Eucharist, we may each and all grow into the new life Christ offers us. Amen.

Defiant Love

Exodus 1:8-2:10
August 21, 2011


“Then a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”


The Hebrew people have met a huge bump in the road. Here they are in Egypt and the last we heard about them back in Genesis, they were doing very, very well. They had thrived in Egypt under the ruler who had known Joseph. But time has moved on, new generations of people have been born and as Exodus begins a new king sits on the throne, a king who sees the Hebrew people radically differently, a king who did not know Joseph.


What the new king sees is a powerful people, a people who are strong and numerous and mighty. And he feels threatened by their presence. The king is worried that these Hebrew people will rise up against him, fight against him and run away from Egypt. And the new king moves into action the same way so many rulers before and after him have moved. He actively seeks to oppress these people in an effort to subdue them, to let them know who’s boss. Threatened and fearful, the king’s anxiety level increases dramatically which causes him to treat the Hebrew people ruthlessly, unjustly and disdainfully. And for a moment we wonder what will become of them.


Enter the women. When the king sends out word to the midwives Shiphrah and Puah that all baby boys born to the Hebrew women are to be killed, the midwives do not do what the king of Egypt commands them to do and let the boys live, knowing it might cost them their lives. These midwives in their radical devotion to God and maternal instincts seem to show no fear toward the king and use their power to bring forth life. On the other hand the king shows a deep fear of the Hebrews rebelling against him and tries to use his power for death. As the story moves along we see a Hebrew mother who chooses life for her son and a sister who chooses life for her brother as she places him in a basket among the reeds on the Nile. Soon after, Pharoah’s daughter sees this Hebrew baby and has compassion for him. What the king is determined to make bitter, these women make sweet. What the king is determined to divide, the women unify. It is as if there is a silent conspiracy of women, women who all in the face of great danger and at great risk, choose to defy the king, the deadly force, and choose life. And what is behind that choice of life is a defiant love, a divine love.


I remember a friend of mine telling me of a time when he, his wife and very young children were driving down the road in their car; the children were in the back seat. At some point, early in the journey no doubt, the son whined to his father about his sister, “She’s looking out my window!” The young boy had no idea at the time that his statement was so representative of the human condition. What the young boy saw was something rightfully his, his window being invaded and he felt threatened by it. He was already locking into the self-serving life!


The Hebrews’ liberation story is in direct conflict with our story of individual consumerism. The Exodus narrative commands us to switch stories if we have not already, to consider where we see oppression and act upon it, to alleviate suffering, to be bearers of God’s liberating power in the world. That we as individuals and as groups of people can be so easily threatened when we don’t get all that we think we are due often exposes a vulnerability within and a tendency to want to crush the threat, even if by passive means, which can lead to denigrating, oppressing and devaluing people. When we oppress or devalue others we cut ourselves off from our maker and fail to see God’s image in ourselves and in one another. Our world becomes smaller as we cut off life. This text from Exodus is calling us to see those in our midst who are hurting, who are oppressed, who are devalued, to see them the way the women in our story saw and make a way to give life in the midst of oppression, to use our power for good. Just as God acts through the courageous women of this story, God calls each and every one of us to be agents of social transformation, to bear light, to bring freedom and justice to those who have no voice.


This week at Trinity, many have been God’s agents of justice and love. One member has been writing her congressmen and even the President to express concerns about justice; your rector has been planning a 9/11 Commemoration service, which will include praying for all of us to be peacemakers; one member has begun organizing a fundraiser for our friends at a church in Honduras when he saw the need and heard that they would like to replace their dirt floor with a tile floor but lack the funds; just this week parishioners and friends from the community served over 150 meals to friends in our midst who cannot afford lunch right now; many parishioners in their work as teachers, nurses or just plain people reached out to the hurting to sweeten that which was bitter, to unify that which was divided and to lift up those who have been torn down.


It is a dangerous thing to allow ourselves to be God’s loving hands in the world. He won’t give us all the answers, sometimes He won’t let us even see the results, sometimes we don’t get a pat on the back, worse yet sometimes we suffer because we love! He requires a radical devotion for us to be his agents for love and justice in this world. And we do it because even though it seems mad at times, it is through the giving of ourselves that we become fully human. It is in giving of ourselves that we become our true selves. Jesus knew and understood this fully. He reached out to the loved and the unloved but seemed to have had a special eye for those who had no power, no voice and was willing to give his very life for all that we might all be redeemed through that love. Look and see and do what Jesus did..love!


Hadewijch of Antwerp, 13th c. poet and mystic:


The madness of love
is a blessed fate;
and if we understood this
we would seek no other:
it brings into unity
what was divided,
and this is the truth:
bitterness it makes sweet,
it makes the stranger a neighbor,
and what was lowly it raises on high.


Love is madness? Maybe. Love anyway. With every act of love, God’s salvation is at hand.


Amen.

God on the Waters

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Matthew 14:22-33
An audio version of this sermon can be found here

Our Gospel reading this morning follows immediately upon the Gospel we read last week: after feeding more than 5000 people starting with only five loaves and two fish, Jesus sends the crowd away, sends the disciples in the boat across the Lake of Galilee, and goes up by himself on the mountain to pray all night long. And in the darkness a storm comes up, the disciples’ boat is blown off course, and just before dawn Jesus comes to them, walking on the water. It’s a remarkable display of supernatural power — but for that very reason it also raises some interpretive questions. In a way, this miracle is very uncharacteristic of Jesus: most of Jesus’ miracles are very personal, very one-on-one, very much about making contact with someone, as when Jesus heals a person, or frees them from bondage to an unclean spirit, or enlightens their mind with divine wisdom. Most of Jesus’ miracles are gestures we can recognize as bringing the love of God to bear in an immediate way in a person’s concrete life. But this miracle seems different: walking on water seems more impersonal, more supernatural, less about making contact with someone than about showing off sheer power — this miracle seems more like a magic trick than a sign from God. And that’s why it’s important for us modern readers to know that this gesture of walking in the waters does in fact have a very specific biblical meaning.

You see, Jesus here is acting out in human terms, on a human scale, the traditional biblical image of God’s command over the sea. In ancient Hebrew thought, the sea often symbolized the powers of chaos and destructiveness, and God’s command of the sea signified creativity and wholeness and the order needed for right relationships. So the Creation story in Genesis begins with a watery chaos that is waste and void until God commands the ordered relationships of light and dark, night and day, dry land and ocean. And the Creation poem in Psalm 104 tells how God commanded a law for the sea, and set boundaries it could not pass, so that Creation would not be re-dissolved in chaos. And the Book of Exodus tells of God’s victory at the Red Sea, when God commanded the sea to open up and create a dry path for the Israelites to walk, while the Egyptian army was swamped and overwhelmed. And the Book of Joshua tells how God commanded the waters of the River Jordan to stop flowing so that the Israelites could end their wilderness wandering by walking across the river into the land of promise. And the prophet Isaiah even identifies God as the One “who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters.” Time and again in the First Testament, commanding a way in the chaos of the sea is how God reveals himself to be God — so when Jesus commands the sea and walks a way on the stormy waters, he is revealing that he comes in the power and authority and creativity of God. Walking on the water isn’t  just a magic trick, it isn’t just a gratuitous display of supernatural power — it is a sign that God is present and active and creating and redeeming in the human life and work of Jesus.

And the really fascinating thing about this story is that Jesus not only reveals God’s power when he walks on the water, but he shares God’s power as well. Peter, afraid that he is seeing Jesus’ ghost, calls out to the apparition — in one of those marvelous moments that Peter has, when he blurts something out without stopping to think about it, when he opens his mouth and inserts his foot and pulls out faith — Peter calls out, “Lord, if it really is you, call me to come to you, and I will trust you.” And Jesus calls to Peter, and Peter — in an act of courage and trust far greater than many of us would be able to muster — Peter steps out of the boat and begins to walk across the water toward Jesus. In that moment, the creating and sustaining power of God made manifest in commanding the sea, the creating and sustaining power of God made manifest in Jesus, that same creating and sustaining power of God is made manifest in Peter. Peter, with all his flaws and all his foibles; Peter, with all his human shortcomings and all his human accomplishments; Peter becomes the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual creating grace of God.

To be sure, Peter has his moment of doubt and fear, his confidence wavers, and he begins to sink, until Jesus takes him by the hand and lifts him up. But as long as Peter is focused on Jesus, as long as Peter puts even his fear and his doubt and the powers of chaos in the larger context of trusting in Jesus, then Peter walks on the water, then Peter shares in Jesus’ sharing in the creating and sustaining power of God.

And that, I think, is the real point of this whole miracle story. It’s not just that Jesus does something remarkable, but that Jesus empowers Peter to do something remarkable. And that makes this entire Gospel story one big invitation to disciples — an invitation to us — to be like Peter: it’s an invitation to    us to remember that, as flawed and foibled as we are, we can focus our vision on Jesus, we can put our trust in the creating and sustaining power of God revealed in Jesus, and therefore we can step out of the boat, we can step out in faith. This story is an invitation to us to let God’s creating and sustaining power be revealed in us, so that we can stand firm in the midst of storm and confusion, so that we can be strong against the powers of chaos and destructiveness, so that we can bring forth the new possibilities, the new right-relationships, the new hope, the new love, the new life, that God wants to bring forth in us. This Gospel is not just a story of a miracle of Jesus; it’s a promise of a miracle of God empowering creating grace in us.

And when God’s miracle of creating grace is in us, then we can be empowered to make a way in the chaos in all sorts of situations. We can be empowered to make a way to forgive each other and heal old hurts and reconcile relationships, just as God forgives and heals and reconciles us. We can be empowered to make a way to care for the environment, to work for the well-being of the forests and the mountains and the rivers and the sky, just as God cares for all creation. We can be empowered to make a way to bring forth all our best gifts, all our best abilities, all our capacity for love and joy and generosity and creativity — we can be empowered to grow into the whole people God wants us to be, just as we pray Derek will grow as we baptize him here today. We can be empowered to make a way to go forth into the world — into our community and our state and our nation and all the nations — we can be empowered to go forth even in the midst of credit downgrades and governmental gridlock and societal confusion everywhere — we can be empowered to go forth into the world to speak and vote and make economic decisions and use our influence and act and to make ways that build up peace and bring about justice and promote the common good of every human being as a child of God. In this miracle story God promises to empower us, so that we, with Jesus, can act out in human terms, on a human scale, God’s own creating and redeeming work for the world.

All we have to do is get out of the boat.

Multiplication of Love

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Matthew 14:13-21
Listen to an audio version of this sermon here

Our Gospel reading this morning tells the story of one of the best-known of all Jesus’ miracles: it’s a story often called “The Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves,” and it’s a story that is told, in one form or another, in all four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all have their own versions of this miracle story — Mark and Matthew even have two versions apiece. It’s one of those stories from the Gospel we know so well, we might be tempted to think we know it all.

But there are some interesting interpretive questions we can raise about this miracle story. If we pay really close attention to the text and the context, we can do some very interesting things by asking “Just who does this miracle?” and “Just what sort of miracle is it?”

Here's the scene: Jesus and his disciples, after a long period of teaching and preaching to big crowds, are attempting to withdraw into a quiet place, so they can pray and meditate and recharge their batteries. So they get into a boat and push out into Lake Galilee to look for a quiet spot; but the crowd sees them going, and they rush around the shore on foot and get there ahead of the boat; so that when Jesus and the disciples arrive, the crowd is already there. And Jesus has compassion on them, and he heals their sick, and he teaches them all day long.

And at the end of the day, when everyone is tired and hungry, the disciples come to Jesus and say, “It’s getting late, and we’re out in the middle of nowhere, and we haven’t got any food; it’s time to send the crowd away, so that they can walk back to those villages they passed through and buy some bread or some falafel or something.” The disciples are genuinely concerned about the crowd, they really don’t want the people to become weak with hunger or exhausted with long walking. But the disciple’s concern only goes so deep; they apparently don’t stop to think that sending the crowd on a long walk home when it’s getting dark will create hardships of its own. And the disciples are probably also thinking about themselves, at least as much or more than their thinking about the crowd: they’re tired, they’re hungry, they’d just as soon not be doing crowd-control anymore, they want to settle down for some quiet time of their own with Jesus. But Jesus’ care for the crowd goes deeper than that: “They don’t need to go away,” Jesus says; “this is a good place for them to be, where I can teach them and heal them and show them God’s love. You give them something to eat.”

Now, at this point I imagine the disciples are just about having kittens. They’re thinking: What? Us feed all those people? With what? They say to Jesus, “All we have are five little loaves of bread and a couple of small dried fish. You want us to feed all these people with this?” The mere thought of having to do so much with so little is kind of terrifying.

But Jesus says, “Bring your food here to me.” And the disciples have to give up their five loaves and two fish. Even though it clearly won’t be enough, and even though it will leave the disciples themselves without food, they have to be willing to give to Jesus even what little they have. And Jesus takes it, and blesses it, and breaks it — and then Jesus gives it back to the disciples to give to the crowd. And it’s when that happens, it’s while the disciples are distributing bread and fish to the crowd, that they realize something remarkable is going on: no matter how much they give, they are not running out; even though there isn’t enough food, everybody is getting something, and nobody is getting left out. The miracle happens not so much when Jesus breaks the bread, but when the disciples are sharing the bread. From one point of view, the miracle in the story is not so much that Jesus feeds five thousand people, but the miracle is that Jesus empowers the disciples to feed five thousand people. If we ask “Who does this miracle?”, it isn’t just Jesus, but Jesus and the disciples.

And that in turn raises the question “What sort of miracle is this?” One interpretation is that it is a physical, supernatural miracle, in which the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy is superseded, and the bread and the fish physically multiply.

But there is another interpretation of this story, which has been in circulation in the church for nearly two hundred years, that suggests a miracle of a different sort. Historians say that it was common practice in Jesus' day for anyone who was going away from home for more that a couple of hours to pack some little bit of food with them: some bread or some lentils or some salted fish, carried in a little pouch on their belt. In those days people got around mostly by walking; so if you left home to run a bunch of errands or go to the next village to visit someone, you couldn’t be sure just when you’d get home again; it might be well after mealtime, you might get pretty hungry. And there weren’t fast food joints in strip malls on every other corner on the roads of Galilee; so if you weren’t sure you’d be home at mealtime, you couldn’t be sure you could buy food anywhere at mealtime, either. If you were going to leave home for a while, it was just prudent to take some food with you. So it is likely that everyone in that crowd had some food; but they were all afraid that if they took out their food, other people would want it, and they’d be forced to share it, and then there wouldn’t be enough left for them. It was the peoples’ own fear and greed that kept them hiding and hoarding their food for themselves. But when the crowd sees the disciples beginning to distribute five loaves and two fish that everyone knows won’t be enough, when they see the disciples being willing to do at least that much, they are all moved by this generosity, and they are all inspired to bring out their food and share it too. In this reading, the disciples keep passing out food and never running out, because everyone else is passing out food, too.

If we read the story this way, what happens is not so much a physical miracle as it is a moral miracle. It is a miracle of the heart rather than a miracle of matter and energy. It’s not just a miracle of multiplication of loaves, but a miracle of multiplication of love. Who does this miracle, and what sort of miracle is it? — Jesus and the disciples and the crowd do this miracle together, and it is a miracle of compassion and sharing and creating right-relationships and love.

And what makes that miracle Good News is that that is precisely the sort of miracle we can do with Jesus, and Jesus can do with us, too. The Spirit of Christ can inspire us, like the disciples, like the crowd, so that we bring forth what little we have — even when it is clear that what we have is not enough — and when we share what we have in the Name of Christ, then God’s grace will make it enough, God’s grace will make us enough, so that together we may do the gracious, compassionate, loving will of God.

And some of that miracle is happening right here, right now, in this Eucharist. In this celebration of the Holy Communion, each one of us brings some little thing of what we have, and when we share it in the Name of Christ, God’s grace makes it enough to nourish us in the Body and Blood of Christ, to nourish us to be the Body of Christ for the world. We bring a voice to sing, a little bit of bread and wine carried up to the altar, a pledge check or a gift in support of the church given in the offering, a prayer or a thanksgiving or an intercession for someone we know and care about who’s in need of help, a heart and a mind and a spirit yearning to know God’s love — we bring what little we have, and we give it to Jesus, and on this altar Jesus takes it and blesses it and breaks it and gives it back to us, so that we can turn and give it again to those around us — and together Jesus and we and the world make the miracle, so that the hungry can be fed, and the suffering can be comforted, and the oppressed can be set free, and the lonely can be welcomed, and the angry can be reconciled, and the lost can be found, and the joyous can redouble their joy.

That is the miracle of the multiplication of love narrated in our Gospel today. That is the miracle of the multiplication of love we can live in Christ’s Name every day. Amen.