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God is Love; The Holy Trinity: The Community of Love (Trinity Sunday, 6/15/2025)

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Readings

Children’s Sermon

Can you play ping pong or tag by yourself? Tell yourself a joke?
Many of the things that give us the greatest joy, that express our humanity, we need to do together. Loving is another of those things.

What we’re celebrating today, Trinity Sunday, is that that joy and love have been at the heart of reality even before God created anything. God is One. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, an eternal community of joy and love.

And this God calls out to us: come join the party. That’s the invitation we share with our neighbors.

Adults’ Sermon

What I shared with the children is the core of what I’m sharing with you. Love, like telling a joke or playing tag, demands others. What we celebrate on Trinity Sunday is that the statement “God is Love” did not need to wait for creation to be true. And God, rather than putting up a wall around that community, has been calling out to us from the start: Come on in!

Today’s readings offer different ways of exploring this reality.

Our psalm: “you adorn him with glory and honor.” We heard the psalmist spell that out within the psalm’s horizon. Within the horizon of Scripture as a whole the core of that glory and honor is that divine invitation. We heard it a couple weeks ago in Revelation: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” And we heard it in Jesus’ prayer: “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” What is any glory or honor our nations can gin up in comparison to being the recipients of this invitation? (So the Doctrine of the Trinity ends up telling us who we are.)

In the Gospel we heard “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth,” or, as Raymond Brown translates it in his magisterial commentary “he will guide you along the way of all truth.” But here—sorry—we need a brief parenthesis about that word “truth.” We’re used to contrasting it with what’s factually false. But recall its first use in the Gospel to describe Jesus: “full of grace and truth.” We might better translate “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” because John’s citing God’s self-definition at Sinai (Exod. 34:6). That’s who God is; that’s who Jesus is. And the truth in question is as much about being true in relationships (faithful) as being true to the facts.

The Spirit’s work, guiding “along the way of all truth,” is crucial in both senses. Jesus is alive, not dead. The Gentile believers don’t need to be circumcised. But how do the Jewish believers who keep kosher and the Gentile believers who don’t, live faithfully together? That’s equally important, so that the New Testament letters spend a great deal of energy on what truthful/faithful life together means—in the midst of our differences. Turns out there’s nothing automatic about “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13:35).

In today’s epistle we heard “and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Why doesn’t this hope disappoint us? If we asked Paul to unpack this, I suspect that I would have reminded us that all of this is directed to us in community rather than us as isolated individuals. We’ve received the Holy Spirit, who guides us into more faithful relations with each other. We can put our weight on that hope of sharing the glory of God because we’re getting a foretaste of that glory in what the Holy Spirit’s doing in our relationships in the parish.

We pray for this at every Eucharist. Recall the words from Prayer A: “Sanctify [the bread and wine] to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son… Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace.” Make these elements holy; make us holy. We need this holiness to live together in love.

What of wisdom’s words in our reading from Proverbs? They’re probably included because of their historical role in early conversations leading to Doctrine of Trinity. This morning, let’s hear them in context of other readings.

30b and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

What’s surprising about these lines is their contrast with wisdom’s words elsewhere in these first nine chapters. Wisdom has been offering to guide us “along the way of all truth.” But we humans are often a hard—if not hostile—crowd. Nevertheless, wisdom chooses to focus on what brings her delight, so “delighting in the human race.”

(Another quick parenthesis: as the portrait of the accuser—which comes into English as “Satan”—develops in the Old Testament, its core is arguably viewing humanity in the worst possible light: Job’s only serving God from self-interest. Or in the prophet Zechariah the accuser pointing out all the things that are wrong with the high priest. Delighting in or criticizing other folk: regularly choosing the latter—even when it’s more or less justifiable—is satanic.)

Proverbs’ portrait of wisdom participated in the Early Church’s conversations regarding the Trinity because what wisdom does sounds like what the Son or the Spirit do. In the light of our other readings, we can also observe that the Spirit’s guiding us along the way of all truth, strengthening our capacity to hope, also aligns us with wisdom’s stance so that we might echo wisdom’s words. So Trinity Baraboo might aim at:

We are daily God’s delight,
rejoicing before God always,
rejoicing in God’s inhabited world,
delighting in the human race.

Not a bad way to extend our celebration of Trinity Sunday into the rest of the year!

Renewing–not erasing–the face of the earth (Pentecost, 6/8/2025)

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Readings (Genesis 11, Acts 2, John 14)

As a setup for a story of epic proportions it’s hard to beat that brief interchange between Jesus and his disciples at the beginning of the Book of Acts:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8)

There’s some quiet humor in it. The apostles are ready to kick back, assuming that the ball’s in Jesus’ court. Jesus parries the question, talks about what they’re going to do: receive power, be Jesus’ witnesses “to the ends of the earth.”

Does anyone else think that sounds like a remarkably bad idea? Recall the stories Luke’s told about these apostles:

On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Lk. 9:52b-54)

John [again] “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” (Lk. 9:49)

People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. (Lk. 18:15)

Give this group more power? How’s that going to work?

What’s at stake is captured by that verse in today’s psalm: “You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; / and so you renew the face of the earth.” Renew: how do you renew without erasing? Folk who work at restoring art constantly face this challenge, trying to remove the effects of smoke, dirt, etc. without losing the original creation.

The Day of Pentecost provides one model, in which the Spirit keeps a pretty tight reign on the apostles. “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” How indeed? Perhaps the languages of the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc. came out of the mouths of the apostles. Perhaps—more likely—the Spirit provided simultaneous translation so that the Parthians etc. heard in their own native language. And even if it’s the former, it’s a one-off event.

“My witnesses… to the ends of the earth.” That’s a vision of frequently crossing cultures, of frequently learning. Recall the crash course the Spirit put Peter through so that he could share the Good News at the gentile Cornelius’ home. First that strange repeated vision of the sheet containing clean and unclean animals. “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” Then, when Gentile messengers show up at the door the Spirit says“Look, three men are searching for you. Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” Later, “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word,” and there they are, “speaking in tongues and extolling God.” It’s the conversion of Cornelius and Peter.

Regularly crossing cultures, regularly learning. No passport required, as anyone who’s parented knows: we’re almost constantly learning new languages.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that when Jesus talks about the role of the Spirit in today’s Gospel, the focus is on the Spirit as Teacher: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” And from elsewhere in the same discourse: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (Jn. 16:13).

Heard in isolation “guide you into all the truth” can sound abstract, even esoteric. Heard alongside the rest of the New Testament, it’s about renewing without erasing. Jesus, not the many Roman gods, is Lord. OK: so in the cities in which the meat markets are temples to these other gods, how do the Christians relate to these markets? Paul, writing to the Corinthians, spends a couple chapters on that question.

How do we renew without erasing? Some years ago a cartoon captured this nicely. All the characters are pigs, and they’re in a hospital waiting room. The doctor comes out smiling, saying to the anxious spouse “Your husband is cured.” Unfortunately, he’s carrying the sort of 10 pound shrink-wrapped package you’d find in the meat department.

How do we renew without erasing? Current arguments about how we steward the environment, how we respond to different experiences of sexuality, how we order our economic life suggest that “guide you into all the truth” still belongs on the front burner. And that—God having a stubborn regard for our freedom—the promise isn’t “coerce you into all the truth.”

So how does the Spirit guide? Three suggestions; perhaps they’ll echo your experience.

From one of my favorite theologians, Mark Twain: “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.” Our Acts reading focused on language, so let’s stay with that. I learn a language by making mistakes. If I try to avoid making mistakes I learn much more slowly. I also learn more slowly—or not at all—if I insist that I’m not making mistakes. Feel free to transpose that to other areas of life.

From one of my favorite crime novelists, Louise Penny: her protagonist Inspector Gamache says this: “There are four things that lead to wisdom.… They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.…  I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.” Four things that lead to wisdom; four things that makes it easier for the Spirit to guide.

Finally, this concern to renew, not erase. It’s at bottom an expression of love, loving the other enough to recognize the difference between renewing and erasing, loving the other enough to do the hard work of getting to know the other enough to begin to have some sense of what renewal might mean, loving the other enough that Gamache’s four sentences work their way into the core of our vocabulary.

God, so the Gospel tells us, “so loved the world.” The Spirit’s guiding us into all the truth is about being infected by that love. And so, in our best moments, we welcome the Day of Pentecost. Come, Holy Spirit.

About that exorcism in Philippi (7th Sunday of Easter, 6/1/2025)

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Readings

I like a good story as much as anyone, so, perhaps predictably, we’ll spend most of our time in Acts, in one of Luke’s more open-ended stories. At the same time, our lectionary invites us to notice connections. On the one hand, this proud Roman colony of Philippi, on the other our Psalm’s celebration of the Lord’s kingship, Revelation’s repeated invitation to “come,” our Lord’s prayer that we all be one: what happens when these two hands meet?

So, to our first reading. We’re still in Philippi, where in last Sunday’s reading we met Lydia, that dealer in exclusive high-end purple cloth, who believed and was baptized. And what gets the story started is a slave girl with a “spirit of divination” who over “many days” follows Paul and Silas, crying out “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

Luke tells us “But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.” What’s intriguing about the story is Luke’s decision to name Paul’s motivation, and it’s not flattering. Not “Paul, filled with compassion…” or “Paul, recognizing an evangelistic opportunity…” but “Paul, very much annoyed…” That could have been the end of the story, but the slave girl’s owners know how the city operates, and Paul and Silas end up beaten and jailed.

And here’s where Jesus’ prayer that his disciples all be “one,” comes in. In that prison it’s not hard to imagine Silas saying to Paul, “Well done, mate! What were you thinking?” It may have started there, but by about midnight we’re hearing echoes of Jesus’ prayer: Luke: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”

And whatever the Lord thought of Paul’s impromptu exorcism, the Lord at whose presence “the mountains melt like wax” (so today’s Psalm) is not above throwing in an earthquake. The effects of the earthquake are remarkably focused: it’s “so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.” That pretty much invites Paul and Silas to segue into that bit from Isaiah that Jesus read in the Nazareth synagogue: “he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.” But no.

As Luke tells us, “When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here’.”

It looks like Paul has learned from Peter’s experience, and maybe even from the events of the day. A while back Herod had had Peter imprisoned. At night an angel had sprung him, but in the morning, Herod had the guards “examined” and executed (Acts 12:1-19). Thankfully, that’s not repeated; Paul takes the more difficult path: ”Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer also enters into Paul’s calculus, for the jailer is also a recipient of Revelation’s invitation to come and drink.

(Parenthetically, Paul’s response is echoed repeatedly in Martin Luther King Jr’s practice of non-violence. From various speeches: “the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces… the nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding” [A Testament of Hope pp. 8, 12].)

So the story ends, as did last Sunday’s story, with a baptism. Last week, the baptism of Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth, and her household; this Sunday, the baptism of the jailer and his household. Folk near the opposite ends of the social spectrum: Revelation’s invitation to come and drink: Luke’s celebrating that that really is for everyone.

Luke chose to name Paul’s motive in exorcising the slave girl (“very much annoyed”) and that slave girl is the loose end in the story. Exorcised, she’s of less value to her owners, and we would not expect her story to end well. But we don’t know.

Paul’s role in her story is part of that loose end. I wonder about that, what Paul did with that. So I wonder whether, some time later, when Paul encountered the slave Onesimus, he did not recognize the opportunity to do it differently this time. He spent time with Onesimus, discipled him, took the trouble to write to his owner, Philemon, arguing—between the lines—that Philemon’s proper response was to receive Onesimus as a brother, not as a runaway slave.

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’. And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come’. And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” That’s our message. Sometimes we do a decent job of sharing it; sometimes not so much. We, too, are quite capable of sharing our annoyance, quite capable of failing to distinguish between the forces of evil and those caught in those forces. So, in the words of the Eucharistic Prayer we’ve been using this Easter season, “Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.” Or, as the Revelation puts it, “And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”

Who is blessed/happy? (6th Sunday after the Epiphany, 2/16/2025)

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Readings

Whether we respond to the readings with “The Word of the Lord” or “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church,” I take the readings to set the agenda for the preacher: what might the Spirit want us to hear today in these words of the Lord? That agenda’s in the form of a question, so most of the time the sermon’s an invitation to reflect together. So let’s dive in.

Words like ‘happy’ or ‘blessed’ appear in three of our texts. ‘Happy’ has a broad range of meanings; what are these texts talking about? Well, it looks like they’re part of a long conversation in the Mediterranean world about what counted as a life well-lived. It’s certainly about something more basic than one’s momentary emotional state. ‘Happy’ is the first word in the Book of Psalms, despite many of the psalms assuming situations that have the speakers crying “Help!” In this sense there’s considerable overlap between ‘happy’ in that psalm and Jeremiah’s ‘blessed.’

Both texts talk about two groups, their behavior and the results of that behavior. The Psalm speaks of the righteous and wicked, the behavior of the righteous captured by “Their delight is in the law of the Lord.” Jeremiah speaks of those who trust and those who don’t trust the Lord. Both use the tree image: those who delight in the law, those who trust: they’re like well-watered trees: they endure; they’re fruitful. They’re the ones who are happy (Psalm 1), blessed (Jeremiah). Trees: the image suggests a rather long timeframe. Fruit, or the effects of drought: these take time. The image is hopeful and can nourish our hope. Droughts: they’re a given; we don’t need to fear them.

So these texts are saying that in this life, this world the righteous prosper and the wicked fail? No, for starters because Jeremiah’s career is the antithesis of ‘prosper.’ They are saying that delighting in the law of the Lord, trusting the Lord are life-giving. Notice the careful language with which Psalm 1 closes (and introduces the entire book): “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, / but the way of the wicked is doomed.”

In other words, whether all this plays out in a satisfactory way in this life, this world is left unanswered. Earlier texts often seem to assume that it does; our latest texts—like Daniel or the Wisdom of Solomon—are sure that it doesn’t. Paul’s words to the Corinthians continue this trajectory: without a resurrection in which each receive their due “we are of all people most to be pitied.”

But returning to Jeremiah and the psalm, notice that while for both of them the Lord’s torah (law, or, more broadly, teaching) is fundamental, neither narrows the focus to obeying or not obeying. Jeremiah understands that the issue is often trust, who or what we put our weight on. The psalmist speaks of delight in the Lord’s law or teaching. That’s an invitation to a life of continual discovery. Paul to the Ephesians: “test everything to see what’s pleasing to the Lord” (5:10 CEB).Cue the music from the various iterations of Star Trek, one contemporary vision of a corporate life well-lived.

Hearing Jesus’ words after Jeremiah and the psalm, we might hear them as encouragement: even if you’re poor, hungry, etc., you’re still in the life-well-lived game. And that wouldn’t be a bad way of hearing them. But there’s more.

Earlier in the Gospel Luke recorded Mary’s song. “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, / and has lifted up the lowly. / He has filled the hungry with good things, / and the rich he has sent away empty.” Growing up with your mother singing songs like that will do things—good things—to your head. Three Sundays ago we heard Jesus reading Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…” and here Jesus is doing just that.

“Whoa, Mary, Jesus! Pretty hard on the rich!” we might think. Well, their words reflect centuries of their people’s experience. Of course riches can be used in good ways, but usually? Sirach nails it: “Wild asses in the wilderness are the prey of lions; / likewise the poor are feeding grounds for the rich” (13:19). We shouldn’t assume that these words match our reality, nor should we assume that they don’t. (And, by the way, the next thing Jesus says—which we’ll hear next Sunday—is “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” So however we read our situation, we’ve been told how to respond.)

Happy those poor, hungry, weeping, hated. Not because these are positives, but because God’s reign is—as Jesus proclaims—at hand. Now, in our text we hear “for surely your reward is great in heaven.” So isn’t this another version of “pie in the sky when you die”? No, first, because the border between heaven and earth is porous, and a reward “great in heaven” is a sight better than having received all the consolation you’re going to get. Second, because of where Luke is taking this. Later in the Gospel we hear “And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life’” (18:29-30; italics mine). So, describing the church in Jerusalem, Luke writes “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:34-35). What is the Church for? It is where the truth of Jesus’ Beatitudes can be experienced.

How might we wrap this up? Already in the Old Testament we have the contours of a life well-lived: a life in which our trust in the Lord is growing, a life in which our delight in the Lord’s teaching is growing. To quibble a little with Gene Roddenberry, for all practical purposes the final frontier is not space, but the week ahead.

And with the power of the Lord Jesus’ Spirit active in our midst, this life well-lived is particularly good news for the poor, the hungry, those weeping, those excluded, reviled, and defamed on account of the Son of Man. As one of our Eucharistic Prayers puts it, “that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, he sent the Holy Spirit, his own first gift for those who believe, to complete his work in the world, and to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all” (BCP 374).

The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

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Lessons (Track 1)

“Does Job fear God for nothing?” asked the accuser, the satan. (‘satan’ is simply the Hebrew word for ‘accuser’.) (The accuser could with equal justice have asked it about James and John, and we’ll get to that later.) God permitted the accuser to find out, and Job lost nearly everything. That was in the first two chapters.

Since then, Job has been demanding action from God, and Job’s friends –I use the term advisedly—have been demanding that Job confess whatever sins have brought on his suffering. The arguments of Job’s friends don’t change much, aside from becoming increasingly vitriolic. God rules justly; if Job is suffering, he must be justly suffering, and the only puzzle is why Job is being so stubborn. What is unnerving is how often we hear these arguments today, how often we either use them or find ourselves tempted to use them. At least part of each of us, I suspect, wishes that Job’s friends were right: a completely just God insuring that each person received exactly what he or she deserved now. Some people believe in reincarnation, and one of the attractions of reincarnation is that it allows one to believe in a universe that is completely just at every moment: I am receiving precisely the mixture of weal and woe that my previous lives merit.

And even within the Old Testament, there are plenty of passages in the law that promise weal for obedience and woe for disobedience, plenty of passages in the prophets that interpret disasters as God’s punishment, plenty of passages in Proverbs that connect righteousness and prosperity, wickedness and ruin. And only a fool would deny the truth in these. But is this the whole truth? Is it the whole truth for Job? Obviously not, despite Job’s friends’ eloquent arguments.

Job’s complaints and demands for divine action do change through the course of the book. Job’s initial speech sounds like a demand that God retroactively snuff him out of existence: better never to have been born than to experience this. But as Job continues to reflect on his suffering, he recognizes that he is one of many who suffer, and his demand for God’s action correspondingly shifts: too many innocents are getting crushed.

Job is clear throughout that his problem is God: “When disaster brings sudden death, / he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. / The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; / he covers the eyes of its judges— /if it is not he, who then is it?” [9.23-24] And here, despite the rough edges, Job is speaking rightly about God. We try to protect God, buffer God from evil. Does God get joy from the suffering of the innocent? Is that his will? No. But does God continue to give breath and strength to the wicked, to keep the nerve endings working as the torturer does his work? Yes. “If it is not he, who then is it?”

We do not suffer unless God consents to our suffering. The New Testament assumes this, although notice that Paul adds “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

And Job pushes the limits of language, logic, and faith by appealing to God against God. “For I know that my Redeemer lives, / and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; / and after my skin has been thus destroyed, / then in my flesh I shall see God, / whom I shall see on my side, / and my eyes shall behold, / and not another.” [19:25-27]

Jesus on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The problem is not Judas, not the Jewish leaders, not Pilate: it’s God. And precisely in knowing that God’s the problem, Jesus appeals…to God. And so may we. So must we.

Well, that brings us up to the beginning of God’s response to Job in today’s lesson. Read it during the week if you can: Job 38-41. God responds to Job’s questions with God’s own questions, pointing Job to the ostrich, the war stallion, Behemoth, Leviathan, and to the challenge of mounting any useful response to the wicked.

What all that comes to we’ll wonder about next week. What I’ve focused on today is, I think, the necessary prequel to all that: Job’s insistence that God is the issue, and that only from God will come Job’s salvation, that, confronted with suffering, what we want is not explanation, but action.

This last point is, by the way, two-edged, as captured in a dialogue between two characters in a cartoon a few years back.
–Sometimes I’d like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice when he could do something about it.
–What’s stopping you?
–I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.

Our prayers for God’s intervention need to be matched by the interventions that are within our power. So, for example, as you work through your Christmas gift list, look at the Episcopal Relief and Development Christmas Catalogue. For that person who’s hard to buy gifts for or pretty much has what they need, you could give—in their name—a mosquito net, a goat, or even a cow.

Perhaps the next time through our lectionary cycle I’ll be able to give more attention to Hebrews. For the moment, simply notice that Hebrews’ portrait of Jesus looks surprisingly like Job: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death.” This Jesus is clearly one with whom we can be honest about our struggles.

So we turn to the Gospel—and yes, I remember that the Packers-Bears game is one of the early games. I don’t think I need to belabor our solidarity with James and John. At least from the pre-school playground all of us have been honing our skills at claiming and defending turf. It may be large, it may be small, but it’s ours and it’s for a Good Cause. And it is so easy to assume that when we are baptized, initiated into the Great Cause, the Kingdom of God, that the business of claiming and defending turf don’t change.

So Jesus has to keep reminding us: “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

The other James, Jesus’ brother and author of the letter, got it right: there are two kingdoms: this world, a zero-sum game in which claiming and defending turf is the only game in town, and the Kingdom of God, in which God’s generosity means that I can relax and serve.

But the text doesn’t end there, but with this final curious verse: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

We choose which kingdom we live in, and that’s true. But that’s not the whole truth. Something closer to the whole truth is that we start out enslaved to the kingdom of this world, the habits of claiming and defending turf embedded deep in us. But Jesus gave his life a ransom for many, for James and John, who on the road to Jerusalem still didn’t get it, for the Roman soldiers awaiting him in Jerusalem, for you and for me. Because Jesus has ransomed us we can choose. The gates are open; we can leave the darkness for the light.

Learning to live in the Kingdom of God is something that takes a lifetime, particularly this business of lording it over others verses serving others. And we learn it –if we learn it—in the midst of our conflicts. So think of the people –family members, colleagues, neighbors—with whom you’ve disagreed in the past and will probably disagree in the future. God can use these relationships to teach us stuff we can’t learn any other way. And here Job and Jesus do not have a monopoly on “prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears.”

Does Job serve God for nothing? Do James and John serve God for nothing, for that matter, or serve only when it helps them to claim and defend their turf? Do we? In God’s severe mercy we don’t have to answer that in the abstract, but as we find ourselves in conflict. In the words of the collect: “Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name.”

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

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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.

Re the Daily Office Readings September 30 Anno Domini 2020

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The Lessons: Hosea 4:11-19; Acts 21:15-26; Luke 5:27-39

“No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

Perhaps these are simply parables in the spirit of Ecclesiastes 3:1 (“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”); both fasting and feasting have their place. But once uttered, they’re, well, ominous. Jesus and the Pharisees, Paul and the Jerusalem leaders: studies in pouring new wine into old wineskins? “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). Perhaps it’s like that poor camel and the needle’s eye: “”For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). Or perhaps the tearing of the cloth/wineskins turns out to redemptive? “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:19b-20).

And then just when the parables might be coming into focus, that last bit: “And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’” So it’s not a matter of old=bad, new=good. And even the tension between old and new may not be the last word.  Perhaps relevant: the brief interchange (unique to Matthew) at the end of a long series of parables: “’Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes’. And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’” (Matt. 13:51-52).

Re the Daily Office Readings September 29 Anno Domini 2020

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Holy Michael & All Angels

Quino

The Lessons: Job 38:1-7; Hebrews 1:1-14

2020 does focus the question of how to celebrate this feast. The temptation is to head directly to Ps 91:11-13 (“For he will command his angels concerning you…”), despite its role in Jesus’ temptation. And if we don’t highlight their protection? Here’s one of Mary Calvert’s prayers (from Pocket Celtic Prayers):

May the saints and angels be with me
From the top of my head
To the soles of my feet.

In the company of your saints
I would live this day;
As they lived their lives for you
So may I live this day.

With them to you I bring
My morning praise;
Heavenly chorus I would echo
In my morning praise.

Where they for ever dwell
There would I be;
In heaven to live with you
There may I be.

Or this from St. Patrick’s Breastplate:

I bind unto myself the power
of the great love of cherubim;
the sweet “Well done” in judgment hour;
the service of the seraphim;
confessors’ faith, apostles’ word,
the patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls;
all good deeds done unto the Lord,
and purity of virgin souls.

Re the Daily Office Readings September 28 Anno Domini 2020

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The Lessons: Hosea 2:14-23; Acts 20:17-38; Luke 5:1-11

Hosea and Luke resonate together nicely. The presenting issue in Hosea’s oracle was Israel’s misunderstanding/misuse of the Lord’s gifts of fertility. The Lord’s endgame: a restoration of abundant fertility (“On that day I will answer, says the LORD, / I will answer the heavens / and they shall answer the earth; / and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil…”). So Jesus shows up at the lake, and “speak tenderly” turns out to include “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Fertility. I do wonder what happened to all those fish. Perhaps Elijah’s calling of Elisha provided the template: “So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ Then Elijah said to him, ‘Go back again; for what have I done to you?’ He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant” (1 Ki. 19:19-21).

Acts. Luke Johnson notices the multiple ways in which Paul’s speech follows the conventions of the Farewell Discourse, the point of which, broadly, is exhortation. More animals: not oxen (Elijah & Elisha), not fish (Jesus & Simon), but sheep and wolves. There’s a strong sense of menace (Paul, after all, recapitulating Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem). So: “Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock” (Paul channeling Michael Conrad’s Sgt. Phil Esterhaus).

Re the Daily Office Readings September 27 Anno Domini 2020

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The Lessons: Hosea 2:2-14; James 3:1-13; Matt. 13:44-52

“Catch it if you can. The present is an invisible electron; its lightning path traced faintly on a blackened screen is fleet, and fleeing, and gone” (from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek).

James speaks of the “gentleness born of wisdom;” our combination of readings perhaps highlights a related expression of wisdom: paying attention, not getting distracted.

“She did not know / that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, / and who lavished upon her silver / and gold that they used for Baal.” Hosea’s 8th century Israel is a case study in not paying attention, but perhaps not as extreme as that, say, of our stock markets, whose traders imagine that their wealth comes from their cunning and Baal, rather than from God’s generous earth. And then, as now, multiple forms of folly ensue.

Paying attention, not getting distracted particularly by that little organ so close to the brains in which we take so much pride: “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.” [Election year addendum on Not Getting Distracted: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).]

Paying attention: Jesus’ parables highlight the payoff: the encountered treasure, the encountered pearl. And here’s where the dangers start: “As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature” (Lk. 8:14). “But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her’” (Lk. 10:41-42).

“Catch it if you can.”