Author Archives: Fr. Tom McAlpine

Unknown's avatar

About Fr. Tom McAlpine

Fr. Tom is a semi-retired priest in the Episcopal Church living in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

Readings

This morning our second reading from James will receive most of our attention. But, having just heard the Gospel, let’s start there. Jesus heals a girl possessed by a demon and a man both deaf and mute. Jesus was able to meet them in their need; Jesus is able to meet us in our need. That’s the starting point and foundation for everything else our texts want to tell us today.

It would be simpler if our sickness were confined to the body. Unfortunately, our souls are equally vulnerable, and vulnerable specifically to the temptation to be friends with both God and the world, James’ main concern. Let’s see what James has for us this week.

“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” A rich man and a poor man come into the sanctuary: if we treat them differently, we don’t believe in Jesus. For James, as for the rest of the New Testament, believing in Jesus isn’t believing things about Jesus, or even showing up at church every week. Believing in Jesus is following Jesus, doing what he said to do.

Now, my guess is that if James came here he’d like what he saw with respect to the particular issue he raises at the beginning of our reading. The issue underlying that particular issue is an opportunity for growth. That’s the issue of whether when we come together we’re simply mirroring the ways of relating we learned out there—sucking up to the rich and keeping the poor at arm’s length is only an example—or whether we’re learning new ways of relating to each other. Believing in Jesus is letting Jesus make us into the sort of parish whose common life is light and salt to the world around us.

This is why we say that believing in Jesus not something one can do alone, anymore than one can tango alone or play ping-pong alone. If God were out to save isolated souls, that could be done alone. But God’s going for all the marbles, all the human family, and for that God needs parishes that are light and salt.

Let’s return to James, for there are three other items in the text to attend to, the second of which will involve a major detour, and then we’re done.

‘Favoritism’ in the first verse in the Greek text is a direct allusion to Lev 19:15: “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” At multiple points in his letter James works from Moses’ law in general and Leviticus 19 in particular. When he speaks of the “royal law” (v.8) he is probably referring to all the Mosaic law. We tend to assume that after Jesus Moses is of simply historical interest; the New Testament understands that Jesus makes possible a life-giving implementation of Moses –but with some important shifts.

James, emphasizing the folly of favoritism, has some hard things to say about the rich. Since James here too is simply reading his reality through the lenses of the Old Testament, this is where we detour through our first reading from Proverbs, which ended with “Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss.”

What does the Book of Proverbs want to tell us about wealth? This is worth asking, because within the Old Testament Proverbs presents the most detailed analysis, and because the New Testament simply assumes Proverbs. Why reinvent the wheel?

  • Wealth means power: “7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” (See also 17:8; 18:23; 19:7). We could start anywhere; we start here to remind ourselves that Proverbs knows our world.
  • Wealth is the result of diligence. This is often what comes to mind when we think of Proverbs and wealth. (See 10:4; 20:4.) The portraits of the lazy are quite merciless, e.g., “13 The lazy person says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!’”
  • Wealth is God’s reward. “4 The reward for humility and fear of the LORD is riches and honor and life.” (See 10:22; 13:21,22; 22:9). Recall Genesis, which makes the more basic point that all the sources of wealth come from God’s hand, whether the gold underground or the fertility which comes with God’s blessing.

The problem is, when folk think about Proverbs and wealth, this is often about as far as they get. It’s very neat, very tidy, but only half true. Here’s the other half:

  • Wealth tends to dull the senses, so that we easily overestimate the status and security it brings. Proverbs includes “2 The rich and the poor have this in common: the LORD is the maker of them all” because we tend to forget it. (See also 29:13).
  • Wealth can be seized: “The field of the poor may yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice” (13:23). So discernment is necessary. If someone is wealthy we don’t know immediately if it’s the result of honest labor or crime; if someone is poor we don’t know immediately if it’s the result of being robbed or sloth. (Other books in the Bible remind us that other factors come into play.) A careful reading of Proverbs undercuts both the conservative assumption that the rich are probably virtuous and the liberal/populist assumption that the rich are probably vicious.
  • Some things are more valuable than wealth: “Better is a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it” (15:16; see also 15:17; 16:8,19; 17:1). Why does Proverbs want to tell us that? Not because it romanticizes poverty. But because, I think, Proverbs knows that sometimes these are the sorts of choices which need to be made, and wants us prepared also in these situations to choose rightly.
  • Because wealth is from a generous God, it is properly used generously. “26 All day long the wicked covet, but the righteous give and do not hold back” (21:26; see also 11.4,24,26; 14.31; 21.13,21; 28.27). Pragmatically, the best defense against the temptations of wealth is generosity. Theologically, here again ethics are simply a matter of the proper imitation of God. To the avaricious God simply says “What part of ‘I am generous’ don’t you understand?”

James has harsh words for the rich because they’ve forgotten this second half of Proverbs’teaching. The point of including this summary of Proverbs’ teaching on wealth here is to give us all an opportunity to measure our attitudes against Proverbs’.

Faith & Works. Toward the end of our text (v.14) James explicitly contrasts faith and works. He is not changing the subject; he is simply saying in more general terms what he has been saying in specific terms: “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.” “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?”

“Faith without works is dead.” Two thousand years later, we can also observe that faith without works splinters easily. The works of faith are precisely the works needed to keep sinful men and women around one Table: patience, forgiveness, humility. Where these are lacking, Jesus’ followers splinter. World-wide there are now some 38,000 separate Christian denominations.

We can’t do much about that figure. We can do more about it closer to home. Patience, forgiveness, humility are hard work, particularly with regard to Episcopalians with whom we disagree. These works of faith are even harder with regard to members of the parish with whom we disagree. But James has laid it on the line for us: the test of our faith is the works that enable us to continue to live together and learn from each other.

The danger of this homily is that it sound like a lot of stick and not much carrot. So I’ll end, as I began, with the carrot: we work to stay together because Jesus has assured us that together we’ll continue to encounter him, the one who cast the demon out of the Syrophoenician’s daughter, the one who restored ears and vocal chords to the man from the Decapolis, the one who can name, bear, and finally cure our illnesses. Come, Lord Jesus.

Wondering about Mark 12:18-34

Leave a reply

More wondering occasioned by our parish’s Mark study…

The challenge re paying taxes the Pharisees and Herodians put to Jesus sizzles and perfectly fits the scene Mark’s painted (12:13-17). In contrast, the Sadducees’ question (12:18-27) and the interchange with the scribe (12:28-34) seem anticlimactic. What might be going on?

We know little about the Sadducees, so, guesswork! Not believing in the resurrection, they think that it takes a special kind of stupid for Jesus to set himself on a collision course with the authorities. They express this, indirectly, with the question they pose out of indolent curiosity. But for Jesus and the Markan readers, an existential question: if no resurrection, “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:19). Jesus, answering directly, pulls out all the stops.

The interchange with the scribe. Matthew and Luke see the anticlimax problem, make the scribe an adversary (Mt 22:34-40), with Luke placing the story at an earlier point to segue to the Good Samaritan parable (Lk 10:25-28). Perhaps Mark is using the story to circle back to the challenge Jesus left unanswered (“By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?” 11:28) to give a partial answer: what do the Jews owe to God? Jesus is doing “these things” to love God and neighbor. And, looking ahead, the interchange invites the reader to contemplate the actions of the protagonists in Mark 14-15: who is loving God and neighbor (or not) and what does that love look like?

There’s a possible corollary to this in the scribe’s response (“and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’– this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” 12:33). Readers properly wonder what theological frames Mark might be offering to understand the Passion, and OT sacrifice is often suggested as a or the frame. Are the scribe’s words a nudge to understand the Passion first in terms of love?

Wondering about the Mark 4 Parables

Leave a reply

Wondering occasioned by our parish’s Mark study…

As far as I can see, the parables aren’t announcing any sort of change in what God’s reign is like. All four look like possible ways of understanding segments of the history reflected in the OT—with the spectacular harvest as eschatological a reality in the one Testament as in the other. Where’s the secret/mystery?

What is “the mystery of the kingdom of God” (Mark 4:11)?

And looking again at some commentaries, I doubt that there’s any single answer to this question.

A preliminary answer: Human response matters; nevertheless, the word will bear satisfying and surprising fruit. 

Clarifications: (1) Human response matters, not simply to the particular humans involved (“Will I be in or out?”), but to the overall success of the project. See the Song of the Vineyard (Isa 5:1-7.)

(2) “Nevertheless” not because God is the Author and the story can end however the author wants, but because God is more creative, persistent, committed (e.g., Isa 42:14-17).

(3) This mystery does not represent a change in divine strategy, so these parables are an appropriate lens for rereading the OT.

Corollaries: (1) The Mark 4 parables are a counterpoint to celebrations of the power of the divine word (Isa 55:8-11, Wis 18:14-16, etc.). The celebrations are true enough; also true: the word is vulnerable.
Divine/human agency. I’m intrigued by the ways Mark explores this question, e.g., unbelief as limiting Jesus’ options (6:5-6 in Nazareth), unbelief not necessarily ending the conversation (9:24 the epileptic boy’s father). Isaiah 56-66 seems to keep the two in tension, with some texts highlighting divine agency, e.g., 63:1-6, others, human, e.g., 56:1-2. Divine agency seems to receive more emphasis. From what little I’ve read of Orthodox writers, their notion of divine/human synergy looks promising.

(2) The Mark 4 parables reject readings of the OT that expect a Borg-like divine entrance to set things right (“Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated.”), readings that even the disciples were slow to give up (Fire? Now?)

As an imaginative portrayal, I like Lewis’ The Great Divorce. It’s been too long since I read it, but if I recall correctly Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker has some important observations re how artistic integrity limits the author’s freedom vis à vis the characters.

On a more personal level, st least three days in any given week I wonder if the value God apparently places on human freedom isn’t too costly for God and humanity. I can only conclude that God sees more value, takes more joy, in this creation in its present state, than I do. In any case, the litmus test for any serious hymnal revision is whether it includes Billie Holiday’s “Crazy he calls me” (“The difficult I’ll do right now / The impossible will take a little while”) as a portrait of God the Lover.

(3) Divine omnipotence does not override divine priorities. Human freedom seems to be one such priority. Ironically, some (most?) of the ringing celebrations of omnipotence, e.g., Isa 40:12-26, are prompted by the divine collision with human freedom, e.g., Isa 40:27. If God is omnipotent, God is also often flummoxed (Isa 5:4, Mk 6:6a).

Puzzles: (1) The growing seed and mustard seed parables seem to imply some sort of cumulative progress, a progress not obvious in the histories of Israel and the Church. (Recall the Preacher!) On the other hand, real progress in specific areas (slavery, status of women).

(2) Is the “must” in Mk 8:31 related significantly to these issues of the power/vulnerability of the word (Corollary 1) and the divine priority of human freedom (Corollary 3)?

(3) Also re that “must:” how does the servant’s obedience (Isa 52:13-53:12) relate to the joyful celebrations surrounding it (52:7-10; 54:1-17). Perhaps “Isaiah” is saying as much as he/she knows.

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

Readings (Track 1)

Welcome, again, to John’s account of Jesus’ debrief after the feeding of the multitude. Last week we focused on one of its two primary themes, Jesus as God’s definitive word, and, goosed on by Paul, looked at what that word encouraged us to do (and not do) with our tongues. Today the assigned verses focus on the second theme, Jesus as received in the Holy Eucharist. We’ll start and end there, and in between notice what the other readings do with the theme of wisdom.

In contrast to the other three Gospels, John, as you probably recall, does not narrate Jesus’ introduction of the Holy Eucharist the night of his arrest. In John’s Gospel Jesus’ introduction of the Holy Eucharist is in today’s text. The language is explicit, perhaps too explicit for our translators, for in v.54 Jesus switches from the normal verb ‘to eat’ (esthiō) to trōgō, which in most contexts we’d translate as ‘gnaw’ or ‘chew’. But perhaps the more important observation: this sacrament is fundamentally relational: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” So while there’s some truth to Ignatius’ description of it as “the medicine of immortality”—Ignatius the bishop martyred in the 2nd century—it’s a potentially misleading description if it distracts us from the relationship Jesus is seeking to nurture.

This relational character of the Eucharist dovetails with Jesus’ extended vine/branches metaphor. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit…” If we had only this metaphor, we might think that bearing fruit was an automatic process. But, of course, we have the stories of the disciples, which make it clear that the process is hardly automatic. We need to pay attention to Jesus as God’s definitive word (last week’s theme), acquire—to use the Bible’s language—wisdom. Which brings us to our other readings.

Solomon. Solomon asks for an “understanding mind.” That’s not a bad translation, but misses a lot. A literal translation: “a listening heart.” We often associate wisdom with the mouth, and it’s certainly true that we can show ourselves to be wise or foolish by what we say. But the mouth isn’t the organ through which wisdom is acquired. That, Israel and its neighbors were convinced, is the ear, and they might have something to teach us.

A listening heart. Listening doesn’t come easily to us. Here’s William Stringfellow, who entered into glory March 2, 1985, too recently to be included in our calendar. “Listening is a rare happening among human beings. You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance or impressing the other, or if you are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or if you are debating about whether the word being spoken is true or relevant or agreeable. Such matters may have their place, but only after listening to the word as the word is being uttered. Listening, in other words, is a primitive act of love, in which a person gives self to another’s word, making self accessible and vulnerable to that word.”

A listening heart. The New Testament doesn’t say much about a listening heart, not because it’s not important, but because it’s assumed.

Moving on to Ephesians, there are a couple of things we might observe about its focus on wisdom. The first is found just before today’s reading as well as in v.17:

10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.
17 So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

“Try to find out.” I like what one commentator, Markus Barth, does with this: “a careful examination is carried out: it is not only man’s mind that is engaged in the scrutiny, but also his eyes, his hands and sometimes an instrument.… [it] implies much more than merely an intellectual procedure and achievement; it describes a personal, existential, perhaps critical relationship between him who searches and decides, and the person or object that is scrutinized.” It’s learning by doing, reflected in Jesus’ words “When any man’s will is to do his [God’s] will, he shall learn whether the teaching [of Christ] is from God” (Jn 7:17) (Ephesians 4-6, p.605).

What does that mean? It means that there are important things that I don’t know. There are important things that I don’t know. Let’s try saying that together: There are important things that I don’t know.

There are important things that I know. And there are important things that I don’t know, including important dimensions of “what is pleasing to the Lord,” of—returning to Jesus’ metaphor—bearing fruit.

Speaking of important things I don’t know, there’s v.20: “giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything.” At all times and for everything? If we asked Paul why, I think he’d give us two reasons. First, because it’s in the hardest moments that we learn about ourselves things we wouldn’t learn otherwise, things we need to know. Second, because there’s no moment which cannot be the starting point for God’s love and glory to be experienced. Not that I easily remember either of those answers…

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” So I come with gratitude to the Table, for with Jesus there is life, and my best shot at continuing to learn.

Let’s give the last word to the Fifth Gospel, Isaiah:

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food. (Isa. 55:1-2)

The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

Readings (Track 1)

“Speaking the truth in love…” That was from last week’s reading, and, repeated in today’s, is the thematic thread for these reflections.

Our first reading from Second Samuel needs a bit of set-up. Last Sunday in Nathan’s oracle following David’s murder of Uriah and taking of Bathsheba, his wife, we heard “Thus says the LORD: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house.” But as the story unfolds it’s clear that the trouble might equally well be the result of David’s choices. It starts with Amnon, a son of David by one wife, and Absalom and Tamar, son and daughter of David by another wife. Amnon desires Tamar. She resists. After forcing himself on her, his desire turns to loathing, and he sends her away. As for David, we’re told “When King David heard of all these things, he became very angry, but he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, for he was his firstborn” (13:21). Let that sink in. The narrator hardly needs to tell us that the atmosphere at court is toxic, and that all the available choices for the protagonists may be bad. (Parenthetically, we’re warned against looking to David as a model for “speaking the truth in love” in this stretch of his career.)

Absalom, Tamar’s brother, bides his time, and when the opportunity presents itself, murders Amnon. A brief exile follows, and on his return, Absalom starts laying the groundwork for a coup. As our reading opens the coup’s well underway, Absalom having won the first sets, but David preparing to take the match. Against David’s express orders, Joab, David’s general, ever the pragmatist, executes Absalom on the battlefield, and David is overtaken with grief.

Had the reading continued a bit further we’d have heard one of the few examples of “speaking the truth in love” in this stretch of David’s story (Nathan’s oracle being the other one that comes to mind). Reading the verses immediately following:

It was told Joab, “The king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.” So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the troops; for the troops heard that day, “The king is grieving for his son.” The troops stole into the city that day as soldiers steal in who are ashamed when they flee in battle. The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!” Then Joab came into the house to the king, and said, “Today you have covered with shame the faces of all your officers who have saved your life today, and the lives of your sons and your daughters, and the lives of your wives and your concubines, for love of those who hate you and for hatred of those who love you. You have made it clear today that commanders and officers are nothing to you; for I perceive that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. So go out at once and speak kindly to your servants; for I swear by the LORD, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night; and this will be worse for you than any disaster that has come upon you from your youth until now.”

Risky for Joab: had anyone piped up about Joab’s personal role in Absalom’s death David might well have demanded Joab’s head. But Joab loved David and said what needed to be said.

Between David’s love for Amnon, David’s love for Absalom, and Joab’s love for David, we could spend the rest of our time wondering about the demands of love. Minimally, it can be more than a little messy, not a bad warning as we move to our other texts!

“I am the bread of life.” Pretty much from the start readers have found it difficult to decide whether the metaphor points to Jesus as God’s definitive word or to the Eucharist. I think it’s likely that the answer is BOTH, with today’s text pointing more toward Jesus as God’s definitive word, and next week’s text (the next chunk of the same chapter in John) pointing more toward Jesus as received in the Eucharist.

I think that’s a really interesting ambiguity. Recall that even today scientists and philosophers have no good answer to how our mental and physical worlds connect. Jesus, Bread of Life, speaks to both halves of that puzzle. Jesus, received in Word and Sacrament. Sadly, Christians have frequently argued about whether it’s Word or Sacrament that’s more important. Jesus’ words here seem to render those arguments pointless. We need to receive Jesus in Word; we need to receive Jesus in Sacrament.

Notice that here the focus is on Jesus as God’s definitive word, rather than on the content of that word. We’ll circle back to Jesus in a bit for one example of the content. Now, over to the second reading.

In the verses immediately prior to our second reading Paul highlights Jesus as God’s definitive word. “That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus.” (4:20-21). And the content of Jesus’ teaching Paul focuses is about how we live together, particularly as our tongues come into play.

“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” What might we observe about this portion of the letter?

First, it’s a remarkably candid—if not brutal—portrait of Paul’s assumed audience. “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths… Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.” He’s not talking about how the pagans act, or how his audience used to act. This is a community in which “kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” are not just optional extras, but essential so the whole thing doesn’t blow apart. It’s the sort of description that might have us heading for the nearest exit—until the penny drops that as long as Jesus is in the business of saving sinners, this can be as good as it gets.

Second, not surprisingly, “speak the truth to our neighbors” comes into clearest focus toward the end of our reading: “and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” “Gave himself up,” not so that we don’t have to, but so that we, powered by the Holy Spirit, can do it as often as necessary for the sake of our neighbors.

So, third, “speak the truth to our neighbors” is the polar opposite of what is often our first impulse: weaponize truth, let ‘em have it right between the eyes. Or, in Paul’s language, “speak the truth to our neighbors” is not to be confused with the over-abundance of “bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander.”

Recall Jesus’ response to the scribes and Pharisees who brought to him the woman “caught in the very act of committing adultery” (John 7:53b-8:11). True enough, but a classic example of weaponizing truth, partial (where was the man?) and seeking to destroy—the woman, and, for that matter, Jesus. Jesus will have none of that: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus, God’s definitive word to us, and the content of that word includes attention to our inclination to weaponize truth.

Fourth—the next-to-the-last point—Paul’s instruction is remarkably optimistic if we compare it with, say, the Letter of James. “…the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue– a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (3:6-8). But by God’s grace with the power of the Spirit, Paul sees the tongue as potentially giving grace to those who hear, the tongue of every member of Christ’s Body as sacramental, giving grace. And James, when he calms down, might even agree.

Fifth, while Paul is speaking in the present tense, these instructions necessarily assume a temporal dimension. Recall Second Samuel. When Nathan and Joab speak hard truths to David, they have some shared history that makes it worth David’s time to listen to them. How we speak now also affects how we can be heard (or not) in the future.

“Speaking the truth in love…” “speak the truth to our neighbors” There’s caution in Paul’s words. Not having left childhood completely behind (recall last week’s reading) we too easily confuse speaking the truth with “bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander.” But there’s hope in Paul’s words, for the same Holy Spirit that empowered Jesus’ ministry has “sealed us for the day of redemption.” The week lies ahead. In fear and trembling let’s discover what the Spirit might do with our tongues.

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

Readings (Track 1)

What a combination of readings! We might title two of them “The Morning after the Night Before,” so let’s start there.

Last week we heard the story of Jesus feeding the large crowd. The starting point there as in the David story is divine generosity. Recall how Nathan’s oracle begins: “I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more.” Now the crowd has followed Jesus, and Jesus tries for a debrief: what was that all about?

Jesus leads with this: “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” That’s an interesting, and an important challenge. Nothing wrong with eating one’s fill, but if the conversation—if the relationship—stays at that level, it doesn’t have much of a future. It’s where many of Jesus’ interactions with folk—then and now—start, with our needs as we define them. And Jesus, being generous, will start there. But if that’s where things stay—my needs as I define them—then there’s about as much future there as in any relationship. Within that model Jesus is at most one of many possible means to fulfill my ends.

Jesus’ statement gives us a way of wondering about how David got so badly off track. “I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house…” David more than got his fill, but did he wonder about what the Lord wanted out of the relationship? Perhaps not often enough. Not often enough for Uriah the Hittite to still be alive. But David chose not to disappear Nathan for his unwelcome words. David chose to repent—recall our psalm. So David ends as a figure of hope, and as a model for the serious acts of repentance most of us need from time to time.

A bit later in the conversation with the crowd: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” ‘Believe’ is a slippery word. In contexts like this it’s more than thinking certain things are true. Here believing is pretty much synonymous with trusting. (Think, parenthetically, about the Creed. It’s not simply a matter of affirming that these things are true, but of trusting the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, putting my weight on these relationships, letting my past, present, and future be defined by these relationships.) Again, believing is more than a hoop I’m supposed to jump through. How easy it is for baptism or confirmation to become hoops! That works about as well as treating marriage as a hoop, rather than as setting the agenda for the rest of one’s life. “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Believing in Jesus, trusting Jesus: paying attention to what Jesus is up to, letting him turn our world upside down and inside out multiple times so that at last we become human.

Become human, or, in Paul’s language, “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” And because God is generous, because, as Paul spells out, God has showered all of us with gifts, this is doable. We’re on a trajectory toward life. Hallelujah? Hallelujah!

Now, in closing, two things to notice about Paul’s vision. First, this life “worthy of the calling” is inescapably corporate. This contrasts with the scripts that reduce the faith to me and Jesus, which in Episcopal circles can translate into “my spirituality is my affair and all I ask of others is that they not make noise.” This life is corporate. The gifts I receive are gifts my neighbor needs and vice versa. Aristotle got it right: the human being is a political animal, an animal of the polis, and it’s worth getting that right. The endgame is a banquet, a celebration, and who wants to party alone?

Second, as many teams are discovering again over in Tokyo, when you’re on the right trajectory, you don’t take your foot off the gas. Notice Paul’s language: “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up.” To shamelessly mix metaphors, we may be on the right trajectory, but we’re not out of the woods. “Grow up,” for our own sake and for the sake of the Uriahs among us. And over the next two Sundays we’ll hear Paul getting pretty specific as to how this growing up happens.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” In the coming week we’ll have multiple opportunities to do that work; may we stay awake enough to recognize them.

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

The Readings (Track 1)

We’re going to give the lion’s share of attention to the Ephesians reading, but, first, a bit of muddling around in the other readings.

Tour guides often have pages like “If you have only one day in New York…” Any equivalent guide to the Old Testament would include our first reading. God’s promise to David of an eternal house (dynasty) is the basis for all the hopes for a coming son of David. It’s the reason ‘Messiah’/’Christ’ (the anointed one) is such a key title. It starts here with Nathan’s words to David.

One element worth noticing in Nathan’s words is the repeated reference to houses of cedar (houses at the high end of the market): “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” “…did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” There is probably some exasperation in God’s response: I don’t need a house of cedar; why do you think you need a house of cedar? Why this question? Consider, a few centuries later, Jeremiah’s words (22:15) to the current Davidic king: “Are you a king because you compete in cedar?” This is the sort of question God directs to many of us from time to time: “Tom, why do you think you need…?” The Book of Proverbs nails it:

7 Two things I ask of you;
do not deny them to me before I die:
8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that I need,
9 or I shall be full, and deny you,
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or I shall be poor, and steal,
and profane the name of my God. (30:7-9)

So Paul, in the other Testament: “for I have learned to be content with whatever I have” (Phil 4:11). That’s a hard sell in this culture, but probably necessary for our sanity and sanctity.

The Gospel. The omitted verses (vv.35-52) mostly narrate the feeding of the five thousand. The lectionary omits these because in the next five weeks we’ll be hearing John’s narrative. That’s fair, but misses Mark’s mischievous juxtaposition of the two feasts: Herod’s, in which John the Baptist loses his head, and Jesus’, in which five thousand are fed. Mark’s suggesting, I think, that we need to choose which feast we end up at, a choice not unrelated to our ability to say “enough.”

In our first reading house as temple and house as dynasty contrast: David won’t build God a house (temple); God will build David a house (dynasty). But as Ephesians makes clear, God’s option for the dynasty gets God the temple God really wanted: “In him [David’s son, the Messiah] the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.”

“You also.” Throughout the chapter Paul’s focused on the Jew/Gentile division, now abolished through the generous and costly work of the Messiah. In this vision the Jews don’t stop being Jews; the Gentiles don’t stop being Gentiles. But in Jesus these differences no longer divide, no longer fuel enmity. And Jew/Gentile is paradigmatic for the many divisions in our world.

“Built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” Our building projects usually seek homogeneity. It’s simpler that way. “Birds of a feather…” But that’s not Paul’s vision: Jews and Gentiles, male and female, slave and free. One commentator, Marcus Barth, puts it this way: “There is no ideal of a Christian personality applicable to all church members alike, but there are men, women, children who because of their diverse origins, pasts, privileges, hopes, or despairs are by nature inclined to hate one another and God (Rom 5:6-10). Now they are enabled by the work and rule of Christ to contribute in common repentance and common faith their various idiosyncrasies, histories, experiences, and gifts to the peaceful common life of God’s people” (Ephesians 1-3, 311).

“Built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” That word ‘spiritually’ can trip us up. It’s not a synonym for ‘immaterial’. Barth again: “The people of God who are built together and become God’s house—the church—are as material, temporal, spatial, and concrete as sticks and stones” (Ephesians 1-3, 320).

“Spiritually,” because only the transformative power of the Holy Spirit can give this mad project any chance of success. At the beginning when all was waste and void, darkness on the face of the deep, God sent the Spirit. And today the Spirit continues to assist in the heavy lifting.

“Assist.” I use that word cautiously. It’s not as though the Spirit does 50% and we do 50%. It’s that we really need to want this project to succeed, to put our backs into it. Building cross-culturally is hard work. But, recalling the original cross-cultural challenge, men being from Mars and women from Venus, oh the pay-off!

The temple, the meeting point of heaven and earth. God is happy for that to be at the corner of County C and Windsor St [Good Shepherd’s location]; God has no interest in it being only there. The vision is that the temple, the meeting point of heaven and earth, be everywhere we are 24/7, so that there is no place that the glory, mercy, love of God is not visible and tangible. So that we—to pick up Paul’s language from last week’s reading—“might live for the praise of his glory.”

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

Lessons (but reading all of 2 Samuel 6)

You’ve all seen, I’d guess, the Publishers’ Clearinghouse commercials with the reps and cameras rushing to the front door: “You’re the winner.” There’s more than a little of that spirit in the Ephesians reading, an over-the-top celebration of God’s generosity, providence, and glory. With God having covered all the bases we can go on auto-pilot? The second half of the letter gives a clear “no,” but rather than jumping ahead let’s go back to the other readings to see what we can learn about the intersection between divine and human glory. As you see, the theme of glory/honor from last week’s texts is still ringing in my ears!

In Imperial Beijing perhaps the two most important complexes were the Forbidden City, the emperor’s residence/court, and the Temple of Heaven, the primary place of worship. My biggest surprise the one time Elvice and I were in Beijing was that these two complexes are four kilometers apart. That’s an impressive expression of humility on the part of the emperors: they ruled by the mandate of heaven, and that mandate was not under their control.

Over to David. He’s now got his capital. The Ark, the people’s most important religious symbol, has been in Baale-judah ever since being returned by the Philistines, and David wants it in Jerusalem. He puts together an impressive military procession: the thirty thousand (v.1) match the thirty thousand slain when the Philistines captured the Ark. All goes fine until the Ark gets jostled, Uzzah grabs it to steady it, and God strikes Uzzah. It’s a strange story, but prompts David to ask the right question: “How can the ark of God come into my care?” Maybe being God’s patron isn’t as simple as it seemed. Is David God’s patron or is God David’s patron? David hits the pause button and the ark gets parked with Obed-edom the Gittite.

Over the next three months God blesses Obed-edom’s household in ways obvious enough to prompt David to resume the procession, this time in a more pious key. But the question of who’s sponsoring whom remains open: David dresses as a priest, David offers the sacrifices, David blesses the people, David distributes the swag. When the Ark was captured by the Philistines the cry was “The glory has departed from Israel” (1 Sam 4:21). The glory’s back, with David receiving an impressive share.

David’s exuberance is real; it’s also the tipping point for Michal. Michal, Saul’s daughter, had loved David and on at least one occasion saved David’s life when her father’s men came to kill him. But she’d been given to another, and then yanked away at David’s demand to be added to David’s collection of wives and concubines. So there’s a lot of history behind her proud verbal attack. She attacks David’s honor. David, with equal pride, attacks hers and claims the right to define his sexual honor as he pleases, a right demonstrated, sadly, in the affair with Bathsheba.

“And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.” So the chapter has two deaths, Uzzah, encroaching on God’s honor, and Michal, encroaching on David’s. It’s profoundly sad, foreshadowing the split after Solomon between Saul’s old kingdom (Israel) and David’s old kingdom (Judah). David has a golden opportunity for reconciliation, but the price is David’s sense of honor. It’s a striking vignette on the price of weaponized honor.

And the price of the ambiguity in the coexistence of God’s and David’s honor. Who’s patron of whom? In next week’s reading that issue plays out over houses. David, builder of God’s house (the temple) or God, builder of David’s house (the dynasty)? As it turns out, Solomon builds the house, but, in contrast to the humility of the Chinese emperors, it’s right next to the palace, virtually a royal chapel. Location, location, location.

We can hear today’s Gospel reading in multiple ways. Still wondering about honor, Herod is a case-study of a rudderless man pursuing honor. He wants Herodias, so he takes her. John the Baptist challenges his honor, so he imprisons him, but his fear of him prevents him doing more. He’s swept away by Herodias’ daughter, vows rashly, and in a vain attempt to hold onto honor fulfills the vow—and Herodias gets John’s head. Rudderless.

“How can the ark of God come into my care?” David’s question is not a bad one to keep in mind as we read Ephesians. We are blessed, chosen, destined for adoption, recipients of a staggering inheritance for—the author repeats the phrase— “the praise of [God’s] glory.” The ark of God in our care, Jesus’ body and blood in our bodies. God our Patron or we God’s patron? Whose glory gets priority? Of course we hardly ever ask the question in these blunt terms! But if I’m effectively God’s patron, then my priorities stay intact and I’m free to channel Herod. But if God’s my patron, then at some point I might ask whether God has priorities I might need to pay attention to. And here’s where the Ephesians reading gets interesting, for the God portrayed there has the shirtsleeves rolled way up trying to bring this world to a truly beautiful dénouement.

“How can the ark of God come into my care?” How might “my care” transform my priorities? What might we learn from David?

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

Lessons (Track 1)

Today our readings intersect with the Fourth of July. Which has the preacher wondering: how might the readings inform our celebration? The operative word is ‘wondering’; if these reflections prompt your own reflections, that’s more than enough.

In the collect we prayed “Lord God Almighty, who hast made all peoples of the earth for thy glory…” (BCP 207). That captures the surprising divine hopefulness in our readings, hopefulnesss in the face of profound human ambiguity.

David: throughout his career—most of which the Sunday lectionary necessarily skips over—his enemies have a habit of conveniently dying, David, like Pilate, always having clean hands. The text never accuses David, but it does give us enough information to force us to wonder about those clean hands. In today’s reading those hands are busy taking Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? It gives David a power base independent of the decisions of the tribal elders: it is his city. Equally pragmatically, it, like Washington D.C., is a suitable national capital precisely because it’s not integrated into the tribal territories.

But what God hopes for in Jerusalem is reflected in Psalm 48: a very human city that witnesses to God’s protection, God’s loving-kindness, God’s justice. Humanity in God’s image: despite a very ambiguous human history that is already very long before David takes Jerusalem—Jericho was founded some 8,000 years earlier—God has not given up on human cities imaging God’s character.

And that human ambiguity has been equally on display in Corinth and Galilee. The Corinthian Christians: quite ready to trade in Paul for a newer, shinier model. Galilee: Jesus’ hometown has Jesus amazed at their unbelief. Nevertheless, Paul keeps engaging with the Corinthians, Jesus sends off his disciples to cast out demons, heal, proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom.

God remains hopeful despite the human ambiguities—and that’s perhaps a model for us. God knows, there are enough profound ambiguities in our history, so much so that there are multiple arguments over how sanitized a version to present in our schools. But if the Old and New Testaments are any guide, we do not need to whitewash our past to be hopeful about our future. God, eyes wide open, retains hope, and so might we—also on this July Fourth.

From the Gospel: “So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.” Repentance, absolutely necessary, gets tricky very quickly. We all have our lists ready-to-hand of what our opponents need to repent of. Calls to repent, to wake up, etc. easily become favored weapons in our rhetorical arsenals. But one of the many interesting things about Scripture is that it often treats the content of repentance as something needing discovery. Take Paul’s well-known words from Romans: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God– what is good and acceptable and perfect.” So that you may discern…

As a contribution to that discernment, let’s circle back to Paul. If we wonder why Paul is having problems with the Corinthians, recalling the social context helps. Three elements. First, honor (or glory—one’s reputation) was key in the empire. Honor (glory) is necessarily comparative: if you have more, I have less. So there’s a constant jockeying for honor. Second, honor is closely tied to occupation. Working with the mind is more honorable than working with the hands. Third, the social order was organized by patronage: wherever you were on the social scale, you sought to be a client of a more honorable (powerful) patron. You gave the patron honor, the patron gave you protection. And in Corinth all three of these elements seem to have been on steroids.

Had Paul conformed to this world, he would have become a client to one of the powerful local Christians. This would have meant not having to work, all the skids well-greased. Instead, he refused patronage and worked with his hands. The stench of his profession probably never completely disappeared. So his competitors—at one point he calls them the “super-apostles” (11:4) are eating better, dressing better, don’t stink, and certainly have more time on their hands.

That’s the trade-off Paul faced. Accept patronage, and any number of doors open easily. But accepting patronage in that context meant exempting society’s glory game from criticism, a game that placed too many in the category of poor, foolish, weak, and expendable, a game in which “Blessed are the poor” is absurd.

And that’s the trade-off Paul couldn’t make. He’d come to Corinth proclaiming “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). If that’s the starting point for envisioning God’s glory, then it’s our notions of glory that need revision. So Paul talks of having “this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us” (2 Cor 4:7). And in today’s reading “whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

God’s glory and our notions of glory: oil and water. So Jesus in the Gospel of John: “How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? (5:44)

That’s a trade-off that we constantly face. Satan is, I suspect, quite happy for us to focus on inner peace and how-do-I-get-to-heaven-when-I-die if that leaves untouched the ways honor/glory are allocated here. Satan would have been quite happy for Jesus to have a long and peaceful career had Jesus been willing to leave the current honor/glory arrangements unchallenged:

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” (4:8-10)

That’s the hard part about that prayer “who hast made all peoples of the earth for thy glory:” God meddles with our assumptions about God’s glory, about what glory looks like. ‘Meddles’ is maybe too weak a word. “Blessed are the poor;” “whenever I am weak, then I am strong:” what habits does the Spirit need to nurture among us to make these self-evident?

So, repentance. Our July Fourth celebrations typically celebrate the new thing that this nation claims to be. Perhaps repentance means wondering if we’ve taken “new” seriously enough. Perhaps there’s no road to something genuinely new that doesn’t pass through encountering Christ crucified as the starting point for our notions of glory and where to look for it. Otherwise, same old, same old. Been there, done that. Isn’t it time for something new? Let’s give July Fourth the celebration it deserves!

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

Leave a reply

Lessons (Track 1, 1st set)

What a combination of texts! Let’s start with David and Goliath.

“The battle is the Lord’s.” That’s probably the take-away. Goliath, for all his high-tech armaments and rhetoric, is not a serious threat. Truth—but not the whole truth. We’re early in Israel’s national history, and even God, apparently, is unable to tackle all the relevant issues at once. David’s trusting speech to Saul (“Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them.”) dehumanizes Goliath as effectively as any modern government propaganda office. With more self-understanding and humility, this from the Wisdom of Solomon, one of the latest of the Old Testament books:

21 For it is always in your power to show great strength,
and who can withstand the might of your arm?
22 Because the whole world before you is like a speck that tips the scales,
and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the ground.
23 But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things,
and you overlook people’s sins, so that they may repent.
24 For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made,
for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.
25 How would anything have endured if you had not willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?
26 You spare all things, for they are yours,
O Lord, you who love the living. (11:21-26)

That text may be unfamiliar—it didn’t make it into the Sunday lectionary, although it is the inspiration for one of the collects that closes the Prayers of the People (“for you are gracious, O lover of souls”).

The Lord who loves the living loves David…and Goliath. We celebrate “the battle is the Lord’s”—our God is lacking neither power nor awareness. We might recognize that David-and-Goliath is a poor script for our encounters with our enemies.

“You who love the living.” I don’t think we ever get our heads fully around this. Among many other things, it explains God not saving at arm’s length, but ending up in situations like this very small boat in a very large storm. But, as with David, “the battle is the Lord’s.” With only the wind and waves in play, not a serious threat. If there’s a threat, it’s the disciples’ lack of trust.

If we want serious threat, there’s our reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. The Sunday lectionary has us in this letter for eight weeks. The letter makes for painful reading: Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians is badly strained, and Paul is working way outside his comfort zone to set things right. “We urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.” At some point most readers probably ask why Paul didn’t simply cut his losses and walk away. Perhaps part of the answer is in a portion of last week’s reading:

14 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. (2 Cor. 5:14-16)

“The love of Christ urges us on” –seen also in Paul’s listing of the ways he and his coworkers have commended themselves (“through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities” etc., vv.4-10). It’s a further example of that cross-shaped combination of death and life I noticed last week, a combination that reworks expectations regarding what it is to see glory.

There are at least two ways we might hear this Corinthians text:

First, Paul’s choices mirror Jesus’ choices. Listen to the last part of that list: Paul could equally well be describing his or Jesus’ choices: “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see– we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” And as a mirror image, the following verses are a direct challenge to our too-often restricted hearts. (“our heart is wide open to you…open wide your hearts also.”) We tend to be a cautious, distrustful bunch, tending to hold God and God’s projects at arm’s length until everything makes sense to us. What more does this God who loves the living have to do to get through to us? There are not a few moments in which that’s not a bad question for the preacher.

Second, Paul’s choices might serve as a model for how we do reconciliation. If we think about reconciliation—and we often don’t, given the current wealth of Goliath wannabes—often the starting point is “I’ll meet you half way.” Well, when I find myself starting there, I might wonder just how deeply “you who love the living” has penetrated my grey matter. Paul working way outside his comfort zone is a model we might pay attention to. Back in his first letter to the Corinthians, love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Here we watch that love with its sleeves rolled up, and are invited to notice where our sleeves are.

Let’s give Solomon the last word:

23 But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things,
and you overlook people’s sins, so that they may repent.
24 For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made,
for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.
25 How would anything have endured if you had not willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?
26 You spare all things, for they are yours,
O Lord, you who love the living. (11:21-26)