February 22, 2015: Mark 1:9-15

Being Uncomfortable in Lent

Year B, Lent 1                                                          

Today is quite a day at St. John’s.  We have an interesting combination of both Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday of Lent.  If that was not enough, we have the pancake brunch after the 10:30 service with Night’s Welcome training after that.  That is a whole lot of stuff crammed into one morning.   Mark, the author of our Gospel for today was also known for cramming a lot of stuff into a small space.  His Gospel is kind of the like the abridged form of the other Gospels.  It was the first written and I imagine Mark being in a hurry, wanting to get it all done before he forgot the really important stuff.  Matthew and Luke expanded on what Mark wrote and added material from other sources.  Mark’s minimalist approach is well displayed in the Gospel reading for today. There are three big events described in rather sparse detail.

                It starts with Jesus being baptized and the heavens being torn apart.   After that, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Most people have a family gathering or even a small reception after a baptism.  Jesus was pushed into the wilderness by the very same Spirit that descended on him in his baptism.  After 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus returned proclaiming the Good News and thus beginning his public ministry. Mark covered all of that in 6 verses, leaving only 2 verses for Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness.

On the first Sunday of Lent the Gospel reading is always the story of the temptation.  In three years, we cycle through Matthew, Luke and Mark.  Both Matthew and Luke give the preacher a lot more to work with.  Those descriptions of Jesus in the wilderness are 11-13 verses as opposed to 2.  Those Gospel stories are more familiar because they go into detail about the actual temptations that Satan put in front of Jesus.   Mark mentions Satan and the temptation, but that is all he does.  He mentions them. The other Gospels go into a lot of detail about how Satan tempted Jesus, how Jesus resisted that temptation and in doing so proved that he was stronger than Satan.

            There are some other interesting differences in the way the three Gospels tell this story. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is in the desert for 40 days fasting before Satan enters the story.  Mark never says when Satan entered the story. As a result of that omission, many have concluded that Satan was with Jesus throughout the 40 days.  Matthew as well as Mark mentions angels waiting on Jesus.  But Matthew says that they did not come until Jesus has been through the 40 days and conquered Satan.  In Mark, not only was Satan with him the whole time, but so were the angels. 

            In some ways, each Gospel reading provides us a slightly different entry into Lent.  One of the reasons we use these Gospel readings about Jesus’s time in the wilderness to introduce Lent is because of the reference to 40 days.  For that reason, many people have concluded that these 40 days must be a time of suffering and sacrificing.  Yet there is no fast in Mark, not explicitly at least.  What there is, is the wilderness. While some people really like the great outdoors, that is not what the wilderness is referring to.  In other translations of the Bible, the word for wilderness is translated to desert or wasteland.  So it is definitely not the kind of place you vacation or rest.  It is also harkens back to the 40 years that the Hebrew people wandered in the wilderness.  It wasn’t a happy time for them, but it was a necessary time.

            The wilderness represents a time when we are moved out of our comfort zone, when we are asked to do something that makes us uncomfortable but prepares us in some way.  For Jesus, the wilderness time came right after his baptism, right after this profound moment of clarity about his identity.   God had just split heaven apart to tell him that he loved him.   Immediately after that, the same spirit that descended on him as a dove pushed him into the wilderness where he confronted Satan. There is something disconcerting about that kind of abruptness.  There was no transition…no time to adjust.

            Yet isn’t that more true to our experience.  We are taught in school that we should use transitions in our writing; but that is not really how life works.  Life is not always full of smooth transitions.  One moment, all is well in the world.  Our job or school is going well. Our relationships are fulfilling. As a result we feel closer to God.  When things are going well, when things are comfortable, it is always easier to feel close to God. Then something happens and everything changes so rapidly, it’s like emotional whiplash.  We go from our comfy climate controlled home to someplace strange and lonely.  We are in the wilderness and that voice which we heard so clearly a moment ago is gone.  Suffering is upon us.  Pain is upon us and the thing we are missing is God. 

At least that is what it feels like.  Really what we are missing is all that comforted us before.  If we take a step back and look carefully, we might find that while we are still in a difficult place where pain and suffering seems overwhelming…God is still there.  The whole time Jesus was tempted by Satan, the angels waited on him.  They did not wait until after Jesus defeated Satan.  They were with him as he struggled.  Jesus was in the desert, but God never deserted him.  That is what gave him the strength to make it through those 40 days. 

            As you experience Lent this year, I ask you to consider what it is that makes you comfortable and what it is that challenges your comfort.  Sometimes those things that challenge our comfort are the same things that bring us closer to God, or at least remind us of how very much we need God. 

            Today, we will go to the pancake brunch with ashes on our forehead.  That’s not the way that it is supposed to be.  Pancakes comes first, then ashes, then the first Sunday of Lent.  Ash Wednesday is supposed to be a day of fasting…after you carbo load on a bunch of pancakes. 

That is not the way it happened this year so we need to look at it from a different perspective. The ashes we receive on Ash Wednesday are also supposed to be reminders of our mortality and our vulnerability.  So this year, instead of focusing on the fasting and sacrificing, what if we focus on the vulnerability and the discomfort? Instead of giving up something that is bad for you just for the sake of sacrificing, what if we do something that will make us a little uncomfortable?  You could volunteer at Night’s Welcome not just for the sake of helping someone less fortunate, but to remind yourself of who the children of God really are.  They are God’s beloved just as much as we are . Or- You could talk to someone about God, even though you don’t normally do that. Or-You could pray aloud with your family…and I am not talking about the quick grace you say before meals. 

If you want to give something up, that is fine too.  But don’t do it because that is what you have always done and you have been trying to lose a few pounds anyways.  That is not what Lent is about.  I guarantee you that it won’t be that hard to find something uncomfortable that also helps you grow. If you can’t think of anything, come talk to me and I can guarantee we can come up with something really quickly.  As we move through the discomfort, remember that the angels wait on you and perhaps in challenging yourself and being a little uncomfortable, you will be an angel for someone who needs one. 

Link to video of Alleluia Sermon

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February 15th Sermon

Feb. 8, 2015: 1 Cor 9:16-23 & Mark 1:29-39

Woe to me

Year B   Epiphany 5                             

 

            I have a band that I absolutely love.  I have been obsessed with them for over 20 years. I have brought dozens of people to their concerts.  I have given many of their cds away as gifts.  I do this for 2 reasons.  The first is that I love them.  I think that anyone who hears them will love them too.  I want to bring other people the joy that I experience when I hear this band. That is the first and most important reason. The other one is that they are local band.  They have been around for awhile, but most people still have not heard of them.  So I want to make sure that the word spreads about them so that the band can continue to be successful.  One day as I was going on and on about the band to someone, I had a rather troublesome realization.  I have introduced more people to this band, than I have to Jesus Christ.            

            In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he wrote: “…woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!”  Paul truly believed that he had been given no choice about proclaiming the gospel.  When he had his conversion experience and was thrown off that donkey, he was marked. He was obligated to spread the word to all people.  His whole life was talking to people about Jesus Christ.  Why did he do this?  He did it because he could not imagine doing anything else with his life. He did it because he loved people so much that he wanted them to know the love of Christ. He believed that the words of Christ would bring people salvation. Because of that it was critical that he spread that message to as many people as possible.

             Paul made some pretty radical statements in this reading for today.   He claimed that he made himself a slave to all, so that he might win more of them. He became all things to all people.  When I first studied this passage, I found these phrases a little peculiar and disturbing.  How can we be all things to all people and maintain the integrity of the Gospel?  Paul was never a person to straddle the fence, so what could he have meant? He did not mean that he was willing to compromise the Gospel.  But he was willing to make certain accommodations for the people who needed it, which was everyone.  When he was with the Jews, he observed Jewish law.  When he was with Gentiles, he ate the food that had already been sacrificed to idols.  He did this so he could meet people where they were-- where they were comfortable.    

            We still struggle with this balancing today.  We often ask ourselves how we can make the Gospel message accessible to as many people as possible while also being true to the Gospel message.  How can we be all things to all people without watering the core message down?  I mean, we know we cannot please everyone.  But that’s not what Paul was saying.  Paul was not talking about pleasing people; he was talking about bringing the message to people where they were—whether they be Gentile or Jew, woman or man.

            That is still a challenge today.  People are all at different places.  Some people like the King James version of the Bible. Some people can’t understand a word you say when you read the King James.  Some people have been to church and know the rhythm of the service.  Some people’s only experience with church is weddings and funerals.  How then, do we know how to talk to these different people about God and the church?

            The best way to do that is to be yourself.   But here’s the catch, let them me themselves as well.  Don’t try to make them into your image.  People can tell when you are being genuine and they respond to that authenticity.   They also know when you are trying to change them into someone they are not and no one likes that. 

            Most people respond to enthusiasm.  When you really love someone or something, that comes through.  Sharing the Gospel of Christ is about sharing a part of yourself.  It’s about sharing your love, your passion with the people around you.  But before we can do that, we must first have that spirit within us.  We can’t share passion that we do not have.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get as excited about the Gospel as we do about other things that we love?  Wouldn’t it be great if people cheered after the absolution, or if someone gave a loud woohoo during a hymn?  I am not saying that we should do this, I am just trying to paint a picture.  Just for a minute, let’s imagine a world where people talk as much about the Bible as they do about reality TV, where adults bring as many people to church as they do their favorite restaurant,  sporting event, or  band’s concert? It’s a bit strange that people are more apt to post pictures of the food they eat on facebook or twitter rather than share a Bible passage or prayer.

            A big part of the Gospel reading is about Jesus healing various people.  The reading ends with, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do.”  The disciples wanted Jesus to cure more people, drive more demons out.  That was the real crowd pleaser; that was what appealed to the masses.  Everyone wants to see a good miracle.  But Jesus said no, I came here to proclaim a message, and that is what I am going to do. Jesus did not have any ulterior motives.  He was not raising money.  I doubt that he counted at the end of the day how many people showed up for his talk.  He just wanted to spread a message that he believed in.  In the end, there was only one way for that message to really come alive for people.  That was for him to sacrifice himself for us, the crowds, the masses, the people who needed healing so desperately…the people who needed more than a miracle.     

            “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel.”  You might think, “Sure that is easy for you to say, you are a priest.  You do it every Sunday.”  It’s not quite that easy.  To proclaim, you’ve really got to step outside the confines of the church.  I admit it, I struggle with that.  I am afraid of offending people.  I do not want them to think that I am trying to convert them from their own faith or lack of faith.  In my more courageous moments, I realize that is not what this is about.  God is a huge part of my life, leaving that part out when I talk to someone else is a misrepresentation of who I am.  People will not be offended if what they see in you is sincerity and genuine love.  People will not be offended if what you’re sharing comes from your own joy—your enthusiasm for what you are sharing.   

The first step is to get excited.  You are never too old or too young to be excited about the Gospel of Jesus.  Then share that excitement.  Some people will probably roll their eyes.  But some people will see the spark, the spark that started many years ago with a simple carpenter who set the world on fire.  The fire was set, but it is up to us to fan the flames.  It can go out.  It is tempting to think that if we don’t continue to spread the word, other people will.  But there are adults today who have never heard about God’s unconditional love for humanity.  There are also people who have heard about God, but the stories have been infused with hate and bigotry.  It is up to us to change that.  It is up to us. 

Feb. 1st 2015: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Choosing the Side of Love

Year B, Epiphany 4                                                                           

            Last week I preached about how important it is to consider the Bible as more than an old book about people who lived a very long time ago.  It is a book for us and about us.  We are to read ourselves into the pages of the Bible.  And that worked really well last week when we were talking about how to be disciples of Christ.  It’s a bit more of a stretch when you look at the readings this Sunday.  Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is about eating meat that is sacrificed to idols.  Mark’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus freeing a man from an unclean spirit, essentially an exorcism.  While St. John’s and Hampton are pretty exciting places, I have not once had to tell someone not to sacrifice an animal to another god, nor have I had to do any exorcisms. It’s hard to read ourselves into these stories which seem completely normal in the Bible, but irrelevant for our lives today. 

            Yet, like so much of the Bible, there is much more to these stories than meets the eye.  In fact, I would venture to say that this part of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is probably one of the most relevant things that Paul tells us for our lives today.  To understand why that is true, it might help to know a little about Corinth and the Corinthian people.  At the time when Paul was writing his letter, Corinth was a diverse and cultured urban center.  Most of the people were not Jewish.  Thus when they became followers of Christ, they were converting to a very different way of life. 

Corinth was an epicenter of pagan worship.  You go to Hampton to sail and eat crabs.  You go to Corinth to be in a community of people who worship multiple gods and do it in a fairly big way.  The majority of the people were pagans.  While the Christian community was growing, it was still a small community and one that was fairly new.  There were no cradle Christians yet.  These people were just learning about Jesus.  It was unlikely that there was a central place for Christian discourse.  The various small groups of Christians most likely lived in different parts of the city and then came together once a week for common worship.  The new Christians (and they probably did not even call themselves Christian at this point) were very different from one another. Some were wealthy and well educated.  Some were not. 

            The issue that Paul was addressing was meat that was offered to idols as a sacrifice.  You might wonder how big of an issue this could possibly be.  If you don’t want to eat meat sacrificed to idols, don’t go to the temple.  However, it was not always clear where meat came from.   After an animal was sacrificed, some of it would be burned, but the left overs were often sold in the market.  And unlike our grocery store, there were no packages or signs telling you where the meat was coming from.  It didn’t say: “grass fed”, “organic”, “local” or “sacrificed to idols in the local temple.”  People did not always know where their meat was coming from. 

Some people thought it would be safer to avoid all meat together.  That way they could be sure that they were not inadvertently part of any idol worship, which kind of makes sense.  But there were other people who ate whatever meat they wanted to.  They figured that since these gods weren’t real anyways, what difference did it make if they ate meat offered to these fake gods—these false idols? This created some tension between those who were eating the meat and those who were not and were horrified by those who were.

            It is pretty clear where Paul stood on this issue.  He agreed with the argument that since there was only one God, then it was pointless to worry about what food is or is not sacrificed to those fake gods.  He even complimented the people who had used that argument- for their knowledge and religious understanding.  But he then added that there are some people who simply aren’t there yet. They might not be as educated.  They might not be as worldly, and to them it’s troubling to see the other Christians doing something that is so clearly against the rules.  He concluded by asking, is it really worth it to eat meat if you are going to destroy your sister or brother in Christ?

            Some people read this and think that Paul is warning us not to offend people so as to maintain peace in the community.  A very small part of that is true.  Paul is concerned about the community.  For him, the most important thing is not whether we are right, but how we love one another.  Early on in this reading he said, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”  When he said this, he was not talking about knowledge in general, but the kind of religious knowledge that leads us to judge others who do not have the same knowledge.  “Puffs up” means exactly what it sounds like.  This kind of knowledge inflates our ego, but doesn’t do a lot of good for the people whose lack of knowledge we might be judging.  But love…love builds the community.  It creates stronger relationships in the community so that no one person is superior to others.

            Yes, Paul cares about the health of the community.  Yet he was not worried about offending people.   Paul said all kinds of things that were probably construed as offensive.  That’s not why he was telling people to refrain from meat. He was worried about people being led off the Christian path.  Those who were eating meat might have had a more developed Christian faith, or maybe just another perspective.  But the others for some reason could not see past the fact that this meat was tainted.  Perhaps they still had family and friends who were pagans and they were afraid that if they ate meat, it would lead them back to the temple, back to the place they were before they heard about Jesus.  Their relationship with Jesus might have been a little more fragile. 

Paul was not worried about offending them.  He was worried about destroying them.  He wrote, “For if others see you…eating in the temple of an idol, might they not…be encouraged to eat food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed.” Paul was afraid that the weak believers would be tempted to go back to their old way of life.  They wouldn’t just eat the meat, they would go back to idol worship and in Paul’s eyes, that would be the end of their life. So no, Paul was not worried about merely upsetting people.  In fact, Paul wanted people to discuss things, even the hard things.  That is one of the reasons why he wrote all of these letters.  It was not just so he could share his knowledge, but so people would be encouraged to discuss these things.

            How is this relevant?  There are occasionally times, even today when Christians disagree. There are even times when Episcopalians disagree.  It is usually pretty clear who is right.  We are.  Yet even if we are right, Paul is telling us that being right isn’t always the most important thing.  What is most important is that we love one another and care for one another.  We support one another on our Christian journey.   That does not mean that we shouldn’t talk about the hard things because we do not want to hurt one another.  We talk about the hard things, but we do that with humility.  The church has condoned slavery, segregation, anti-Semitism, and sexism (just to name a few).  We have been wrong in some pretty big ways.  Odds are, we will be wrong again.  Let’s decide now that we won’t let ourselves or our community be defeated by pride.  Let us choose a side, and let that side always be love.