Sermon for the Requiem Mass of Dr. Stuart Phipps

            The language of the burial liturgy is filled with images of immortality and eternal life. Those concepts are as old as human self-consciousness, reflecting our very natural reluctance to let go of our own existence and the presence among us of those we love. The ancient Israelites believed in a time of resurrection when all persons who had died would rise again together. That belief was reinterpreted in Christian teaching. We celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death at Easter and on the occasions when we honor one of the community of his followers who has departed this life.

          It is difficult for us to imagine what this life everlasting might really be.  Allusions to it in the Bible range from the unelaborated mention of those words to the florid descriptions of the Book of Revelation. Some Christians have been taught to believe that it is a reward for right thoughts, beliefs and actions. Others envision it as an ultimate home in the divine where distinctions and differences end, suffering is relieved and all is finally known and understood, the perfection of the bonds of our common humanity.

          Especially at times when a person we love, like Stuart, has departed this life suddenly and unexpectedly we cling to that hope of ultimate reunion. Initially our grief may blind us to the lessons this parting has to teach, but eventually God will make them clear. This experience of poignant loss is a time when we can renew our commitment to do the things that strengthen relationships and build community. Our ordinary way of life glorifies being busy. It pressures us to take on too many commitments and robs us of time to be friends, share experiences and build relationships.

          I did not meet Stuart until he was well into middle age, but he seemed to be a man who discerned his calling early and accurately. Sometimes an early vocation burns bright for a few years but turns to something different later in life. For Stuart, the call to teach seems to have gained depth and complexity and a greater sense of fulfillment for him as time passed. His work as an educator and mentor and the work of all who follow the vocation of teaching may be one of the best metaphors we have for eternal life, more real than walking streets paved with gold or looking out on processions of white-robed witnesses.  In his work, Stuart touched thousands of lives. He modeled what it means to have an inquiring and discerning heart and mind and helped people to cultivate that characteristic within themselves. He taught many of you and through you thousands of others why it’s important to live life with a passion for learning. People who adopt that manner of life pass it on to others. In so doing you assure that the gift given to you lives on. By being your teacher and mentor, Stuart lives on in your work and in the lives of those whom you will teach and advise. It is not the kind of complete or perfect immortality that the scriptures speak of, but it comes closer to it than many of the occupations one might undertake while living in time and space.

          Stuart entered a lifelong relationship with Carlos 36 years ago. As a gay couple, they lived together through decades during which their love was suspect and its legitimacy questioned at very least. At worst it was labeled immoral and contrary to God’s word. Their love for each other was strong enough to withstand cruelty and misunderstanding. It sustained them for nearly four decades and fulfilled them so well as to allow them the generosity to reach out to others and build a rich and extensive network of friends. Their life together was a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world, that helped unity to overcome estrangement, forgiveness to heal guilt, and joy to conquer despair. The reality and truth of their love for each other is another glimpse of the eternity for which we hope and into which Stuart has now entered.

          I’ve seen a wonderful photograph of Stuart in his academic dress at an event at the University of St. Mary taken one week ago, the day before he died. He’s laughing, it’s an ordinary, good day at work. I have heard that he had the gift of a satisfying visit with his family only a short time before his death. The loss we feel at his passing is fresh and sharp. We see a life’s work ended just as it was coming to its greatest fruition, well before we would have said it was completed. We think of questions we had intended to ask, stories we wanted to share. We see a relationship with a life partner cut short and friendships deprived of the joy of his presence. The final lesson Stuart has to teach all of us is that no matter how many years they encompass, our lives are finite. We never know their measure, and our time together is precious. Our God-given gifts of memory, reason and skill are meant for sharing joy, wisdom and love. We are meant to use those gifts fully and generously and the times when we do are glimpses of life complete and perfect in the presence of God. Let us never fail to be thankful for them and for the gift of Stuart’s presence among us.

Let us pray:

Father of all, we pray to you for those we love, but see no
longer: Grant them your peace; let light perpetual shine upon
them; and, in your loving wisdom and almighty power, work
in them the good purpose of your perfect will; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost*

 Amos 8.4-7
Psalm 113
1 Timothy 2.1-7
Luke 16.1-13

      There aren’t many Bible stories that invite you to do the math in order to understand their meaning, but today’s parable from Luke’s gospel is one of them. This story can be baffling because people assume that the master in the story represents God. If you think of it that way, God commends the manager for stealing from him and that doesn’t make sense.  You also get into trouble if you assume that the form of economy that underlies this story is western capitalism. The story comes from the ancient near east and it was created in the first century, before capitalism was invented.

          The parable begins with the boss notifying the manager that accusations have been made against him. The manager knows  he’s in trouble. If he is dismissed for poor performance, which seems likely, his options will be limited. He envisions his future as a beggar or a miner. With those choices, he’ll starve or be worked to death in a short time. The false accusation and the man’s desperation reflect the economic and social organization of the society in which Jesus lived and did his work – a true dog eat dog world. Jesus’ original audience for this parable would have understood that in a way that we do not. Their economy did not routinely produce surplus. 98 percent of the society’s wealth was held by 1 or 2 percent of the population. The rest lived in a range of circumstances. If they were skilled and could develop a relationship with a wealthy man, like the manager in this story, they could live in reasonable comfort. The manager is an agent for his employer. He has the authority to conduct business and make decisions concerning his boss’ property and affairs as if he were the boss himself. He’s expected to make the boss a lot of money and he probably adds to his salary by scraping a little off that substantial profit. This relationship with a wealthy man puts him in a very different position from the people at the bottom of the economy who lived somewhere between subsistence and starvation. As this parable begins, the manager is on the verge of a very rapid descent to the bottom. He comes up with a scheme that seems intended to facilitate building a relationship with a new patron.  That will give him some hope of finding a job comparable to the one he has when his current boss dismisses him. In the end, something very different happens.

          The Torah prohibits Jews to charge interest on loans to other Jews. Exodus 22 says: “if you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them.” Deuteronomy 23 says: “You shall not charge interest on loans to another Israelite, interest on money, interest on provisions, interest on anything that is lent. On loans to a foreigner you may charge interest, but on loans to another Israelite, you may not charge interest.”

          Human nature in the first century was not particularly different from what it is now. In order to conduct business, some lending is necessary. People want to make a profit wherever they can, so they find ways around the rules. One way to do that was to charge interest in the form of commodities such as wheat and olive oil rather than as money. The interest payment became indistinguishable within the transaction.  Anticipating his dismissal, the manager goes to two men who owe debts to his master. The first one owes 100 jugs of olive oil and the other 100 bushels of wheat. We can assume that wrapped up in those debts is some interest.

In ancient economic systems there was a range of interest rates. In some Jewish writings there is mention of a standard rate of 20%. In other ancient cultures, rates range from 25% on loans of money to 33%, 100% and 140% on commodities. Interest increased with the perishability of the product. In this parable we hear today, the manager reduces the repayment cost on the olive oil by 50% and on the wheat by 20%. The amounts suggest that he is forgiving the interest owed by his master’s creditors thus bringing his master’s business dealings into conformity with the law. These two men, up to their necks in a merciless economy that exploits everyone and punishes the poor manage to manipulate their way to a condition of moral integrity. Through the most unjust and dishonest circumstances and means God’s will is done. The rich man, restored to a right relationship with God, praises the manager for his shrewdness.

Parables are meant to shock the hearer. This one was originally addressed to an audience made skeptical by  unrelenting poverty and economic exploitation. The story’s message to them is that in the end God establishes justice using the machinery of the system that seeks to grind them down. That should give us hope in a time when our nation’s leaders seem bent on destroying the lives and the hope of the poor.

Today we celebrate the anniversary of our building’s dedication. Faith communities are frequently cautioned not to become slaves to our buildings and this congregation is wise to heed that advice. Devotion to our buildings is sometimes held up as a stumbling block for 21^st century congregations that allow their architectural affection to blind them to the economic realities of caring for an old church. We all know how true that is. Yet this building speaks profoundly to us and to the entire community. For 125 years, St. Mary’s has stood on this corner through the ebb and flow of the city, offering care for those who suffer from poverty and economic injustice. Whether the surroundings have been a lively neighborhood of homes and small businesses or a desolate patch of dirt awaiting the construction of a freeway and new office buildings, St. Mary’s has offered kindness and prayer for those  left behind by progress and wealth. In the harshest circumstances, God’s will is done and this church has a share in that.

Many of those years that this building has stood here, the congregation was scraping to pay off the loans taken on during its construction and for later repairs. Our church’s canons require that a building be paid for before it is dedicated, and the people of St. Mary’s worked for decades, a generation or more, to accomplish that goal. Many who saw the doors open for the first time did not live to see the dedication. This congregation has never been wealthy and has only rarely been financially comfortable. What I believe that has done is give us a sense of empathy for the poor that we might not otherwise have had. God’s will prevails through all times and in all places, even when we cannot imagine how that will happen. We are privileged to be in this place and to have a hand in building the kingdom in our own time.

* The exegesis of Luke 16.1-13 in this sermon draws on the work of Bernard Brandon Scott in his book ReImagine the World

Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 32.7-14

Psalm 51.1-11

1 Timothy 1.12-17

Luke 15.1-10

   

       You may remember a few months ago when Paula Deen publicly acknowledged having engaged in racist behavior in her restaurant. The network that had carried her television show terminated its relationship with her. Her many endorsement contracts were ended and she became a pariah in the media. Her behavior was wrong and the marketplace reacted to the news of it by making her an outcast, not necessarily out of disapproval for what she did, but because the individuals and companies that were associated with her didn’t want to be tainted by the unacceptable behavior she had admitted. Yesterday it was reported on the news that Lance Armstrong has returned the medal that he won at the Olympic games in Sydney, Australia. It’s another episode in a long fall from grace for him: endorsement contracts cancelled, the relationship ended with his charitable foundation and the enthusiastic admiration of millions thoroughly disavowed after his admission of using performance enhancing drugs.

          We see something a little bit like the repudiation of Lance and Paula happening in today’s gospel lesson. The Pharisees criticize Jesus for the company he keeps – tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors in territories conquered by the Roman Empire were despised. They were frequently recruited locally, and made responsible for collecting punitive taxes from their own people. The tax collection system invited low-level corruption, making it almost a necessity if the tax collector was to earn anything for his work. The term “sinners” as it is used in this instance is a euphemism for sex workers – prostitutes, procurers, brothel operators and the like. These corrupt, low-level bureaucrats and practitioners of the oldest profession were shunned by the community in Jesus’ time. People who wanted to be identified as upstanding citizens avoided association with these disreputables. They didn’t want to be tainted by socializing with the wrong kind of people – at least not in public. It was not uncommon to insult someone by accusing him of associating with low lifes, and that is what the Pharisees do to Jesus in this text.

The stakeholders in our contemporary marketplace, the ones who manifest their good corporate citizenship by shunning the likes of Paula Deen and Lance Armstrong are doing much the same thing. And the marketplace is not obliged to forgive anyone. The players in it are there to satisfy their needs and desires and to create value for shareholders.  Christians are obliged to forgive people. We are cautioned to be careful about judging others because one day there will be reason for us to be similarly judged. Jesus tells us to forgive others as God forgives us. But more often than not, we are tempted to take on the judgment of the marketplace before we even know what we are doing. Christians often ascribe to God the behavior we observe in the marketplace’s dealings with transgressors like Lance Armstrong and Paula Deen, imagining that God only really loves people who behave the way they think God approves of.

The two parables that Jesus tells in today’s gospel lesson invite us to think about that differently. Parables are quirky stories that challenge the assumptions of the hearer. In the story of the lost sheep, the challenge comes in the first line: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” Good question. Whenever I read this text, I think about Jesus’ first century audience of Galilean peasants. I imagine them hearing him say that and think about the expressions on their faces as it begins to sink it. Which one of them – and which one of us - doesn’t at least wonder if risking the 99 to go find the other one is a very counterproductive move? Jesus goes on to tell his audience how happy the shepherd is when he finds the sheep. He lifts it up to his shoulders and heads back to the flock. Don’t you wonder if he’s even happier to discover that none of them has been eaten by a predator or wandered away when he was off looking for the straggler? What does this story really mean?

The second parable begins with a surprise also. In the ancient world, silver coins were rare and extremely valuable. In the Roman world, only the empire could mint silver coins. 1^st century Jewish coins were all made of bronze and were much less valuable. The value of the nine coins that the woman has in hand is substantial, whether or not she ever finds the tenth one. But finding it missing, she lights a lamp and turns the house upside down until she finds it. And like the man with the lost sheep, she invites her family and friends in to help her rejoice.

For whatever reason this story of the man looking for the lost sheep has come to have a lot of sentimentality associated with it. Churches can put so much energy into finding that individual sheep among their members who seems to be perpetually lost and, incidentally, quite reluctant to be found. In doing so they often lose sight of the needs of the other 99. These parables really aren’t meant to be sentimental at all. They’re meant to invite us to re-imagine the world. Start by asking yourself what the man’s friends and family are going to eat when they come to celebrate with him over finding that lost sheep. I bet it involves roast lamb. Don’t you wonder if the woman who found the lost coin will use it to pay the grocery bill for all that rejoicing she plans? 

These parables invite us to try to see the world from God’s point of view. God doesn’t do cost/benefit analyses. God loves each of us, values each of us infinitely. God’s forgiveness of our failures is as infinite as God’s love. There’s no ledger of transgressions and good deeds. There’s no such thing for God as having enough faithful people that it’s OK to let the rest of them go. We’re meant to give our lives to the work of making room for everyone.  God does not ask if we’re worth the aggravation or if it is detrimental to the divine reputation to have us as God’s people. God loves, forgives and rejoices generously and extravagantly. Jesus calls us to give our lives to learning how to love and forgive as God does.

Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 15.1-6

Psalm 33.12-22

Hebrews 11.1-3, 8-16

Luke 12.32-40

            

Many of us carry around devices that can tell us what’s happening on the other side of the earth, and send pictures, whenever we want to know. You can find out what your bank balance is or how much money you owe with a few taps on the screen. If you’re worried about your health, there are plenty of opportunities to find out what your risk factors are for one disease or another and get advice on what you can do about it. If you’re looking for sources of anxiety, you have an excellent selection at your fingertips and if what you fear seems beyond your control, there’s a whole chorus of voices out there that will explain how you had a hand in it –  maybe by not saving enough, planning ahead or living in a healthy manner. It won’t be long before you’ll have some guilt to go along with the anxiety. If life in time and space is all you see, there will always be something you missed out on or didn’t prepare for. There will always be someone better off. There will always be something to fear.

          In the story of God’s mighty acts in human history it’s very different. People receive blessings they’ve never come close to earning or deserving. Abraham and Sarah, senior citizen parents, become the mother and father of an entire nation of God’s people. All they ever really do is believe that what they do not see or build or control could be true and real because God promises it.

          In today’s gospel lesson Jesus tells his disciples the same thing – it is God’s pleasure to give them the kingdom. Luke writes in the early second century – fifty years after Paul and nearly eighty years after Jesus’ crucifixion. Underlying Paul’s letters is the fervent belief that Jesus’ return was imminent. You can imagine how such a conviction would change the thoughts and actions of a community that held it in common as the most profound element of their identity. Luke’s audience has had decades to consider that the expectations of their forbears have not been realized. The centrality of Jesus to their faith is still very real, but they’ve come to think differently about what it means and how their lives are to reflect it. They still believe that God will self-reveal to the world again in the person of Jesus but they are faced with the challenge of living out that belief in the unspecified interval of time until it becomes reality. That’s a more difficult way to wait than the innocent expectancy of Christian communities half a century earlier. Doubt creeps in, believers are in a position to reply to the skepticism of those outside the community who challenge their faith and seem to live more easily and comfortably unencumbered by it. Jesus tells them do not worry – it is God’s pleasure to give them the kingdom. Live your lives in a manner that reflects what you believe to be true. For Jesus that challenge frequently points toward our relationship with the material aspects of life – wealth and possessions. The things that we are taught to value because they secure our existence and free us from anxiety are the things that Jesus frequently advises his followers to let go. In today’s gospel lesson he advises them to sell what they own and give the money away.

          There are Christians who have done that literally in a time closer to our own. They made vows and lived in religious communities devoting their lives to service and prayer, neither owning nor earning anything for themselves. Even those communities are changing. Nuns go out and get jobs now. Their paychecks go to their communities, frequently to support elderly, retired members. Monastic orders have developed new models in which their members take vows but live, not in cloistered communities, but in their own homes. They follow a rule of life in which prayer and service are emphasized, but they are also obliged to earn a living, and possibly support a family.

          Today’s lessons focus on the importance of faith to our identity – the belief in the truth of what we cannot see and what has not yet been fully realized. Luke’s audience had waited a few decades for God’s great self-revelation. For us, two millennia have passed since the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Luke mediated the culture and sacred literature of the Jews to an audience of gentiles. The symbols and motifs of that culture may have been unknown and a bit odd to the Christians in Thessalonica or Corinth, but in the second century neither Jew nor Greek had seen photographs of the earth taken from space or used the Internet.  We read the sacred literature they adopted and created across a vast distance of time, space and culture. The knowledge gained in the 2,000 years since Luke wrote allows us to think in terms of what that could mean for believers who seek to honor those writings faithfully in very different times and places from the ones in which they were written.  We live in a culture that is averse to risk and devoted to the idea of a proven track record. We are encouraged to go with the sure thing and to protect ourselves against the possibility that our plans and expectations will not be fulfilled. And yet we still gather together to hear the words of Jesus telling us that it is God’s pleasure to give us the kingdom.

          One of the things we have come to believe in the two millennia since those words were written, is that we have a part in building that kingdom. We will not bring about its full realization, but the belief that we have a hand in its creation is central to who we are. Very few people are able literally to sell all they have and live lives devoted to prayer and expectation of Jesus’ return. We could interpret that as a sign of Christianity’s failure or we could re-imagine what it means to live out the kind of hopeful expectation that Jesus commends to his hearers in this gospel lesson. Will we live expectantly in hope or with fearful anxiety? What will we do while we wait?

Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost

Ecclesiastes 1.2, 12-14, 18-23

Psalm 49.1-11

Colossians 3.1-11

Luke 12.13-21

     

 I saw a post this week that I liked a lot – a dark background with no images, only text printed in white – the words “stop the glorification of busy.” It’s a perfect fit with today’s lessons. Many of us like having a lot to do. We interpret it as being important, staying connected and having the products of our labor be valued. But filling all of our hours with doing leaves us with little time to be – to consider who we are and who we are becoming apart from what we accomplish or produce.

          That’s part of the feeling of sorrow and futility expressed by the author of today’s Old Testament lesson . He finds that he has put considerable effort into accomplishing results that the passage of time and his own mortality force him to leave to others. He can do nothing to maintain the integrity of his legacy – someone can come along after him and reinterpret it, distort it or even destroy it. That’s true for all of us. It’s true for the church. We fear that and it motivates us to try to pile up more and more of our selected variety of accomplishments and figure out how to safeguard them, like the character in today’s gospel lesson. Jesus reminds his hearers that human life is finite – that is both blessing and sorrow – but it is true. It will feel more like a blessing if we use our time and talent and the resources that come our way with the knowledge that all of it comes from and ultimately belongs to God.

          The Vestry met yesterday in its annual retreat. Right now this parish has one of the most committed, talented and generous teams of lay leaders that I have every worked with. In their charge are the temporal affairs of this congregation. We talked a lot yesterday about the big challenges: getting the taxes paid every year on time; completing the repairs to the building and parking lot that still need to be done; discerning what our congregation’s mission is on an ongoing basis; constantly building community within and reaching out effectively beyond the walls of this building.  There are differences of opinion about priorities, goals and how to go about accomplishing them. We agreed to take initial steps and continue the conversation. When I reflected last night on the meeting, I was not sure how I would characterize what we accomplished yesterday. I know we’re in no danger of feeling like we have to pull down our barns and build new ones in order to store our possessions. I feel like we began to take a look at the work that we do as a congregation with the careful eye of discernment – to be sure that we know the difference between being busy and building God’s kingdom.

          As a small congregation living on a shoestring with an expensive building we live daily with the reality that it could all be taken from us. One of my less sensitive colleagues once suggested in a public meeting that St. Mary’s building would make a great brew pub and its selling price give a nice boost to the diocesan coffers. With a 150 year old legacy preceding us, we feel a sense of urgency that it not be lost and particularly that we not be the ones to let it slip away. But that danger overshadows all of human life and endeavor.

          People of faith spend their lives discerning the balance between our temporal responsibilities and our ultimate home in God. We are called to build the kingdom as we are able in time and space, knowing that our efforts will never complete it. We struggle with competing claims upon our time and energy, to make good decisions about how to use the resources that God provides.  The truth we return to is embodied in the prayer with which we began this morning – our dependence upon God’s protection and direction. To know and feel what it means to be protected and directed by God, we have to stop glorifying “busy” and let our selves be silent and empty. God fits most easily into empty time and space. In today’s lessons we are reminded of the human inclination to fill up empty spaces – the work of the spirit is to keep them empty and open for God.  

Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 18.1-10a
Psalm 15
Colosians 1.15-28
Luke 10.38-42

Luke’s gospel has more than its share of memorable and beloved stories. Today’s lesson – the story of Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary and Martha is among them. It is a story that has launched a thousand metaphors and admonitions to overstressed hostesses. During my years at seminary it was the initial inspiration for a short-lived plan to publish a Bible cookbook. This large format, full-color volume was to accompany each recipe with the Bible story that inspired it and a beautiful color photograph of somewhere near where the story takes place. The recipe for Mary and Martha’s Favorite Company Casserole (whose ingredients were never actually specified) was to have a place in the main course section this book. Along with it in the salad section would be the recipe for the Seven Wise Maidens’ Red Wine Vinaigrette. In the baking section, readers would find that culinary classic on a grand scale - Whole Grain Flatbread for five thousand. The group of friends who dreamed up this volume thought it might be a way to pay off our student loans.  Twenty years later I am resigned to the reality of sending that giant payment every month to American Education Services because the book never got off the ground.

          One of the commentators whose work I read for background on this text noted that it is a foundational narrative of Christian feminism. No doubt it is one of the texts that inspired the expression “Jesus was a feminist.”  It’s really unlikely that he was in any sense that we would recognize, but this story and that expression are good examples of why it’s important to know how and why we use biblical text the way we do.

          Interpretations traditionally contrast the roles of the two sisters: Martha is overwhelmed with the work of a householder offering her guest a proper welcome. She complains to Jesus that her sister isn’t helping. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet in a manner characteristic of one learning from a master or teacher.  Jesus’ willingness to teach a woman, to encourage her to assume the manner of a disciple rather than ordering her to join her sister in the kitchen has been interpreted as his having a sense of respect for women and allowing them a greater range of accepted behavior than other men of his time. Women, rightfully challenging the limitations placed for centuries upon their participation in the life of the church, found this interpretation to be inspiring and empowering. Arguably the Bible should inspire and empower believers to live out the lives and ministries to which God calls each of us. But the ability of this one text or any text to give us a definitive understanding of who and how Jesus was as a person and whether he was ahead of his time in the way he interacted with women is very limited.

          We are inclined to assume that Jesus was enlightened as we understand that word. We want to believe that he was perfectly kind and thoughtful. We imagine that he must have understood all sides of every question and drawn conclusions that were always beyond reproach. Church tradition that developed around the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection characterizes him as being without sin and thus the perfect offering to redeem the sins of all humanity. That is our tradition and we’re more or less sticking to it, but we should understand it. The tradition of Jesus’ sinlessness has led his followers, as we grow farther removed from the culture in which the gospels were created, to attribute to him personality characteristics and opinions that are judged favorably in our culture. Those attributions are frequently the result of interpreting a biblical story beyond the information that it actually provides about its characters.

          There’s nothing terribly wrong with that. Believers long before us have pulled and stretched sacred literature beyond its original boundaries. There’s plenty of evidence to indicate that biblical books were edited centuries after their original creation to take into account important events that occurred later in time. This kind of use demonstrates their importance over time and the respect they were accorded by later generations.  Generation after generation of believers have allowed their imaginations to move beyond the boundaries of biblical story in order to deepen and enrich their understanding of it or to apply it to new situations. The cultural gulf that lies between us and the creators of any biblical book is immense. I doubt that it was particularly less so for believers five hundred or a thousand years ago.  It is not surprising that we in the 21^st century who are not satisfied with interpreting the Bible literally have our work cut out for us when we attempt to weave it into the fabric of our daily lives.

          One of the most profound distinctions between Christians in the last five centuries is in how we understand the role of the Bible in our faith, particularly how we understand it in relation to the traditions of the church. Historically the Episcopal Church has understood scripture and tradition in balance with each other and human reason. But there are Episcopalians and Anglicans and other Christians who privilege scripture beyond those other two elements of our faith. Wherever any individual believer may fall on that continuum is the place to which God has led him or her at this point in a long journey of faith.

What I think is really important is that we don’t allow the complexity of the Bible and its cultural distance from the world we live in to cause us to hold it at arm’s length or to constrain it by oversimplification.  One of my hopes for St. Mary’s over the next few years is that our adult educational offerings will increase in depth and frequency. The geography and culture of this parish are such that bringing people in early on a Sunday morning or asking them to come to the church for a mid-week class over an extended period of time may not be right. But I really want to develop a greater range of learning opportunities for parishioners, among them, the opportunity to study the Bible in greater depth.

For some things that are very old and very precious, we demonstrate our understanding of their value by observing them from afar, not touching them, not using them. Happily, the Bible is not fragile in the way that art works and artifacts are. We can touch it, use it, dig deeply into it and understand it and in doing so show our love and respect for it.

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

Isaiah 66.10-14
Psalm 66.1-8
Galatians 6.1-16
Luke 10.1-11, 16-20

This week the secular and religious media are reporting an interesting statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Archbishop Welby addressed the General Synod of the Church of England – the counterpart to our General Convention, describing his recent experience as a commentator on the same sex marriage initiative before the House of Lords. This official statement by the Church of England was not supportive of the measure, the vote on which failed to affirm marriage equality. Welby’s comments to the gathered representatives of the church are cautionary rather than triumphant. He warned them that the world is passing the church by on this issue and that the church’s position is a source of growing hostility. Although he is not advising the General Synod to take action on the issue immediately, he has called them to consider seriously how the church will be perceived and what the implications of that perception will be. No doubt there will be Christians who believe criticism or ill feeling by the world outside it are a badge of honor – suffering for the sake of the cross. But is it really?

Today’s gospel lesson is interesting for how it describes Jesus equipping his disciples for ministry through lack of equipment.  He instructs them to take nothing with them – no extra clothing, no money, no food. They are forced to interact with those to whom they bring their message in order to survive.  They will not have the means to set themselves apart and avoid making connections with those outside their own circle. Jesus warns them that not everyone will be friendly toward them – they are lambs among wolves -  but he calls on them to enter into unfamiliar territory with determination not fear. If they are accepted they are to stay there, teach and heal and form relationships. If they are not accepted, they try again elsewhere.

Luke portrays the church in a very positive light. He writes an encouraging word for gentile Christians who come to the faith in the face of hostility  from Jewish Christians and those who practice the civic and nature religions common in the gentile world. Luke seeks to demonstrate and teach knowledge of  Jewish tradition to gentiles. And he hopes to portray the church in a positive light to those in secular authority who have the power to persecute it or leave it in peace. As with the story of Pentecost at the beginning of Acts, today’s gospel lesson portrays the disciples as having a miraculous success rate with their mission to spread the gospel. He depicts Jesus as drawing a stark line between those who accept his teachings and those who do not. Those who reject him are rejecting God. In the gospels it’s frequently difficult to tell the author’s agenda apart from the tradition handed on by those who knew and interacted with Jesus first hand. The gospels are not eyewitness accounts.  Paul’s letters are the oldest documents in the New Testament. The oldest of them is commonly dated at about two decades after Jesus death.  Mark’s gospel was created in written form a decade or so after the letters.   The oldest actual copies of the gospel books come from the second century and the majority of them are fragments not complete documents. To further complicate the issue, the gospels don’t agree on their depiction of events, timelines or personalities. At best we get glimpses or shadows of who and how Jesus was as a person.

Christians themselves began to shape perceptions of Jesus’ teachings early on. That is what we know as tradition – the aggregate thought and practice of Christians through the ages.  There are elements within the church who would argue that tradition is meant to be timeless, that it never changes. But the most casual observation would tell you that is not true.  Through the last 2000 plus years, the church has adapted skillfully to newcomers and incorporated them and the traditions and practices of their previous religions into its own. Whatever resistance there may have been to it, incorporating newcomers and their cultural baggage, has been a time- honored method of growing the church.

Paul gets at that in today’s epistle lesson from Galatians. Paul traveled through Greece and the area that is modern Turkey, preaching the gospel to gentiles. That, in and of itself, was not especially unusual. There were synagogue communities that had made room for gentiles. If you recall reading or hearing the term “God fearers” in the New Testament,  that was the name for gentiles who participated in the worship of the synagogue but stopped short of conversion. These people admired the ethics of the Jewish faith and found its worship and community compelling, but they were reluctant for a variety of reasons to enter fully into it. Such a transition would have had a profound impact on social position and professional standing.

Jesus’ earliest followers were Jews. They modified synagogue worship gradually to incorporate the teachings and practices associated with Jesus.  Among them was a strong sense that one had to be a Jew first in order to be a Christian, either by birth or by conversion. Paul thought differently and in the letter to the Galatians, he urges members of that church to ignore the demand that they convert. Paul argued that gentiles need not be Jews first to be Christians. Living as we do in a time when the church IS a gentile institution, this argument seems strange, but in the fifth and sixth decades of the first century, it was a hot topic.

It’s said often enough now to be a cliché, and yet in many ways we still haven’t heard it: the church ministers now in an environment that has more in common with that of the first century than the twentieth. What does that mean? For one thing, the institutional aspect of the church’s identity does not get the respect that it did fifty or one hundred years ago. The slow, careful and deliberate apparatus of synods, councils and general conventions meeting face to face every three years is at odds with a culture in which information flows at lightning speed – one which favors experimentation and innovation. In many instances the church has seen fit to stonewall cultural change. You’ve seen it in the fight over marriage equality, the secrecy surrounding the sexual abuse of children by clergy and the absurd charge of obstruction of religious freedom by employers who refuse to provide health insurance for contraceptives. In an arena in which all positions – not just that of the church – are heard there is as Archbishop Welby put it “noticeable hostility” to the view of the church.  Among people who engage regularly in spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation, but who claim no religious affiliation, one of the most prominent reasons for non-involvement with the church is its emphasis on rules that are at odds with life as it really is.

Diana Butler Bass, a sociologist and historian of religion, suggests that in the 21^st century discernment will be among the church’s most important tasks. That word is a part of the traditional language of the church and we use it frequently but it can be one of those churchy code words that no one really understands. If you look it up in the thesaurus you get words like judgment, acumen, discrimination, perspicacity, and shrewdness. The dictionary defines it as the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure. Within the church discernment is a deliberate and prayerful approach to effective decision-making on important issues.  We use it, for example, to describe the process by which members of the church are identified and prepared to become ordained leaders. Discernment may proceed at a more deliberate pace than popular culture allows for, but that is because it seeks to include a variety of voices and opinions in the decision-making process, particularly the voice of God. The best discernment processes incorporate the results of trial and experiment rather than expecting that life will grind to a halt until the decision is made. They observe the environment in which the church does its work, questioning whether the needs of the world have moved beyond the church’s traditional position. It understands the authority of the faith community but also its role as servant.

Discernment requires interaction and engagement as Jesus requires it of his disciples in today’s gospel lesson. It requires openness and fearlessness in unfamiliar territory as Paul describes in today’s epistle lesson. Both of these texts depict first-century situations. New leaders emerge from an ancient faith community with ideas that challenge some of it’s most basic assumptions. They identify opportunities to move that community beyond its time-honored boundaries in a way that redefines its identity and what it means to be a member of it. The process of deciding where to go and how to get there is exhausting and frustrating for those who are inclined to get it over with. It requires far more listening than talking. It is messy because it must take into account experiments and challenges to established authority like Paul’s mission to the gentiles or the ordination of eleven women to the priesthood without permission or precedent nearly 30 years ago. It must also take into account the fear and anger generated by such experiments. Discernment has to try to do all these things and avoid becoming obstructionism.

Some of the church’s greatest opportunities in the 21^st century will be found in serving persons who, right now, may perceive it as strange and foreign territory – a place where they do not belong - not unlike Paul’s gentile converts. In those situations, it will be important for us to keep our boundaries open and fluid – to feel confident enough in God’s love that we are able to reach out fearlessly in generosity and hope. In his speech to the general synod, Archbishop Welby challenged the church to find a way to move forward saying “there is here assembled, in weakness or confidence, in all sorts of fear and lack of trust, people with the faith and wisdom who in grace will seek the way to the greater glory of God.”

Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

2 Samuel 11.26-12.10, 13-15

Psalm 32

Galatians 2.15-21

Luke 7:36-8.3

            If you read your way through the Old Testament you’ll see the evolution of the motif of prophet and king that we find in today’s lesson from the book of Second Samuel. What eventually becomes the nation of Israel begins with a covenant between God and an elderly, childless man and his wife, Abraham and Sarah.  God’s part of the promise is that their children and their heirs will become as numerous as grains of sand on the earth. Eventually it all comes about as God promises. This people of God work their way through a few nomadic generations, acquiring the name Israel along the way. Their leaders are appointed by God, often through odd turns of events and their organization is tribal. Eventually famine drives them into Egypt, where Joseph, having been sold by his brothers as a slave, has risen to power as an advisor to Pharaoh. He brings his own family to settle in Egypt where they survive the famine. A generation later, they and all the Israelites become enslaved. Another great prophetic leader emerges, also through a remarkable turn of events. Through his mother’s effort to save his life, Moses becomes the ward of Pharaoh’s daughter.  God calls him to lead his people out of slavery. They escape from Egypt and wander in the desert for another generation or two until God’s promise to Moses is realized. It is of the order of the promise made to Abraham. Israel is finally to have a land of its own, no longer to wander, but to be identified with a particular place. Moses sees the land from a distance, but he dies before the people enter into it. That is another early hint of a central divergence of roles that is more fully expressed in the encounter between David and Nathan.

          Israel lives on and rubs elbows with its neighbors. A difference of opinion emerges. Some of the people begin to think that Israel needs a king. Other nations have kings. They are powerful, purposeful and clearly directed. Others disagree. God is meant to be Israel’s king. Only if that is true, will its people maintain the faith that has brought them this far. It might seem that the conflict has been resolved when God calls Saul to be Israel’s first king and he is ceremonially inducted into that office by the prophet Samuel.  But Saul’s reign comes to a disastrous end in a battle against the Philistines. He and his three sons are killed. His son in law David eventually inherits his throne. David’s genius for the role of king is legendary. If anyone might have set aside Israel’s ambivalence about the idea of monarchy, surely he is the one who could do it. But it persists throughout the Old Testament in repeated encounters in which the prophet calls the king to account. Today we hear one of the most famous of those interactions.

          You know the story of David and Bathsheba. He sees her from a distance, admires her beauty and wants her as his wife. Her husband, Uriah, is an officer in the army. David arranges for him to be killed in battle and takes Bathsheba, now a widow, as his own wife, apparently having no sense of the harm that he has done. This is the literature of the ancient world, so Bathsheba is portrayed as property, albeit, highly valued property, of both of the two men who have claimed her.  And the harm done is described entirely in terms of its impact on Uriah. What Bathsheba might want or care about is not relevant. Nathan tells David the story of the wrong he has done in allegorical form. David readily understands the injustice and immediately passes harsh judgment on the one who has done wrong. Nathan springs the trap on him and David realizes with great remorse what a terrible thing he has done. Nathan assures David that God has forgiven him, but his punishment will be harsh. His own child, the son of Bathsheba will die, and he will never be free of the threat and reality of warfare.

          The tension between prophet and king lives on, well past the lifetime of David. It is a constant in the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. We see it throughout history, at least in the west. Among its clearest manifestations in the modern era are the movement to abolish enslavement and slave trafficking in the British Empire and the United States and in the civil rights movement a century later. Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King Jr.and many others are its prophets.

          The tradition of prophetic witness has never been entirely absent from the church. Its full expression ebbs and flows with history. The relationship between church and government in various times and places has had an impact on the tension between those two roles as well. In the United States, where clear and specific legal lines are drawn between them, the relationship still exists in the political and social realm. In the 19^th century, some Christians justified the enslavement of human beings with reference to Paul’s letters and other biblical texts as passionately as their brothers and sisters in Christ opposed slavery. Throughout the 20^th century religion had a part in justifying warfare and religious affiliation was a factor in the election of candidates for office. The alignment of religion and politics has grown over the last three decades, so much so, that religion’s political overtones are one of the primary reasons given by persons who claim no religious affiliation for having made that choice.

          Episcopal Churches are note likely to invite candidates for office in to preach on Sunday mornings. As a group we tend to value and respect a distinct line drawn between religion and government. Our church does see a clear role for religion in the formation of public policy and its inspiration is the same tension between king and prophet that underlies this encounter between David and Nathan. Sometimes the prophet must stand in opposition to the desires of the one who holds authority. Traditionally that authority resides in government, but in the 21^st century, increasingly government is in the hands of those who hold economic power. Regardless of the circumstances, at different times, in different ways, we are all called upon to stand in that prophetic role.

          In the last year or two at St. Mary’s the Vestry has made an intentional choice to keep Sunday worship as a time of prayer. I don’t believe that has had a negative impact on our ability as a community to act prophetically. On some issues, prophetic witness is so deeply engrained in the fabric of this congregation that we almost don’t need to talk about it. But that is not true of everything. On more than one occasion we have offered opportunities to learn about ballot issues with moral and social justice implications or to sign a petition during coffee hour. What is important to understand is that in offering that opportunity, or in taking a public stand on an issue, the church is not simply entering into the political realm because a particular priest or parishioner has an opinion on an issue. Rather, the church is taking on the role of prophet – offering moral commentary on the world we live in based on the Christian principles of love and justice. To act in that role is a call from God as old as our ancestors in the faith.

          Today we will be sending forth one of our own members who has heard a prophetic call. Lydia Nebel has been involved for some time in the movement to end human trafficking. She will be leaving us after this week for a three-month residence in Amsterdam to do that very important work. We will offer prayers for her later this morning. Our admiration for Lydia’s effort and commitment  should not overshadow the reality that God will call us all, in some way, to embody the same wisdom and courage that she and all the others who have gone before her, show to us.