The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37
It has been much noisier outside my office window lately in the late afternoon. I hear cacophony, yelling, and shrieks…of laughter! Ever since the new playground equipment was installed this new symphony accompanies my afternoon work. If the noise is any indication, the neighborhood children who belong to the after-school program known as The Welcome Place are thoroughly enjoying themselves. The Welcome Place is not a program that this cathedral runs. It is a program of the South Bethlehem Neighborhood Center. We provide the space--the hospitality if you will. It is a large room on the basement level of our parish hall building which opens out onto the play area. This space is about to get much better, inside and out, thanks to the scout projects of two of our teenagers: Carl Kolepp’s Eagle Scout project and Betsy Yale’s Girl Scout Gold Award. The children of our parish enjoy the area too on Sundays or other times; but it is the Welcome Place kids that use it five afternoons a week and all summer long during the summer camp. To hear how much those children enjoy the space delights me to no end. I can’t wait for the interior work to be completed so that the welcome this parish provides for the children is all that it can be. Serving children draws us closer to God.
Again and again, Jesus tries to teach his disciples about just who he is, what kind of messiah he is. They may have gotten the Son of God part of it, but it was the suffering and death part--the servant part, the vulnerable giving-in part--that the disciples just couldn’t get. So once again, as they are walking along, Jesus tells his disciples about his necessary betrayal and murder and resurrection. They just didn’t understand; “they did not understand what he was saying and they were afraid to ask him.” So they travel on, still unclear about how the reign of God will commence and what it will look like. Their conversation turns to other things--well, they talk about greatness. So when they arrive at Capernum Jesus confronts them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” They were silent. But Jesus knows what they were up to. He knows they are confused. Perhaps he sighs at the knowledge that they just don’t get it. So being the good teacher that he is, he tries again. This time with a visual aid.
Imagine the scene. Jesus sat down. He called the twelve. He said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child. He put the child in the midst of them. Then, he took the child in his arms. He said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.” Can you see it?
It would be easy for us to dismiss this picture of Jesus with a child in his arms as a sweet gesture. Think about it. Would you ever characterize Jesus or his ministry as sweet? Cute? Isn’t Jesus the one who confronted authorities, hung out with the poor, exorcized demons, and insisted that he was the messiah who would be betrayal and killed. Didn’t he tell his friend and follower Peter, “Get behind me Satan!” So when he takes a child and places it in the midst of the disciples, it wasn’t about being cute. It was nothing less than the whole of the Gospel message. To be great in the reign of God is to be last of all and servant of all. To be great in the kingdom of God is to love and serve children.
Regardless of whether a culture honors children or dismisses them, regardless of whether they are beloved or not, children have the lowest social standing. They are powerless, dependant, and have few rights. They are least, they are last, and in God’s economy they are signs of the kingdom. In very important ways, children are no different than adults. We all bear the image of God. We are all beloved. We are all limited human beings. Just as it would be a mistake to dismiss Jesus’ encounter with this child as “sweet,” it would also be a mistake to romanticize children as somehow more pure than adults. In trying to explain why Jesus would hold up a child as an example of the reign of God, many people focus on what qualities children have that adults lack. Now we might be tempted to think of children as possessing the good kind of wisdom that we heard about today in the reading from the letter of James. James speaks of two kinds of wisdom: an earthly one full of ambition, and one from above which is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. So we could say that in arguing about greatness the disciples displayed an earthly wisdom full of ambition while children…but honestly the rest doesn’t follow. I may be the only one, but I have experienced four-year-olds who are not pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits or without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
Children are not examples of the kingdom because they are somehow different than adults in nature, but because of their status. They are powerless: easily ignored, mistreated, and overlooked. When Jesus takes that child and places her in the midst of his disciples, he demonstrates that welcoming children is the responsibility of all who would be great in the community. When he picks up that child and holds her, he shows that serving children is part of being kingdom bound. And if his actions are not enough, there are his words, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
The word welcome here means to receive, like to receive guests. It implies offering hospitality-- a hospitality which includes serving those who you welcome into your home. Jesus demonstrates service by taking that child into his arms.
Physician, writer, and child advocate Janusz Korczak was a man before his time. During the early part of the 20th century he dedicated his life to respecting and serving children. Advocating for their rights in his native Poland, he founded orphanages that were models of caring communities. He included the children in decision making. He treated them as full human beings, made in the image of God. When the Nazis invaded Poland during WW II, Korczak and the orphans were forced to move into the Warsaw Ghetto: the doctor and the children were Jewish. A renowned physician, Korczak was offered the chance to escape to safety, but he refused to leave the children.
On an August day in 1942, Dr. Koczak and 200 children were marched from the ghetto, through Warsaw, to the train station to be “relocated.” The loving staff of the orphanage organized the children into rows of four and they walked calmly through the streets, singing as they went, Dr. Korczak carrying one child in his arms and holding another by the hand. When they arrived at the deportation point, again the good doctor was recognized and offered a chance to leave. He refused. He and the children boarded the trains that took them to Treblinka: the death camp where everyone was immediately sent to the gas chambers.
Welcoming children, serving children, is the responsibility of all who would be great in the Kingdom of God. But it is even more than that. Welcoming children is a way of receiving and serving Jesus as well. And if Jesus, then God. Whoever welcomes, whoever receives one such child in my name, receives me. And whoever receives me, receives not me, but the one who sent me. To welcome is to receive with open arms and hearts. Which of us would not want to open our hearts to God? To draw near to God?
Dr. Korczak wrote, “Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be. The unknown person inside each of them is our hope for the future.” (as quoted in Ten Amazing People by Maura D. Shaw)
The unknown person inside a child is our hope--what are we going to do about it? The unknown person inside the child sitting nearest to you is our hope--what are we going to do about it? The unknown persons inside the children who use our Welcome Place are our hope--what are we going to do about it?
Copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
Pentecost 15: The Way
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
September 17, 2006
Proper 19 ~ Mark 8:27-38
All throughout the land on Monday morning, bells tolled. Slowly, marking each of the four events of September 11th, slowly marking the finality of the deaths that day, slowly marking the reality of that day.
Robert D. McFadden wrote in The New York Times, the next day under the headline "Nation Marks Lives Lost and Signs of Healing":
You can almost hear the bell toll as Jesus spoke his truth, his reality against the messianic hopes and dreams of the people.
This is probably not the last time that a follower of Jesus thinks he has perfect understanding of the life, ministry and way of Jesus. Indeed Christian history and the Christian Church and even this cathedral is peopled with those who have thought we had a clear vision of how God wanted things to be or go.
Bishop Mark Dyer tells the story of his paying for a friend’s dinner. The friend, instead of a simple thank you for the gift, said. “Well I’ll get it next time.” Mark asks, what response can there be to the gift of Jesus on the cross for the redemption of the world? Will it be, “Well Jesus, I’ll get it next time.” The Cost of Messiahship was great. Jesus says the cost of discipleship can be great as well.
It is true that the bell tolls for thee and me. Disciples follow the way of the master. Indeed, since the earliest days of the followers of Jesus following his death and resurrection, we have been called “The Way.”
Peter attempted to pull Jesus away, off the way, out of the way to distract him from the way all in an attempt to save the friend and master he loved so much. But Jesus says to him and to us, “This is the way of the Messiah and this is the way of the disciple, to follow me.”
William Willimon gives this example.*
Do you remember the song from “Paint Your Wagon”, the 1951 musical by Lerner and Loewe?
September 17, 2006
Proper 19 ~ Mark 8:27-38
All throughout the land on Monday morning, bells tolled. Slowly, marking each of the four events of September 11th, slowly marking the finality of the deaths that day, slowly marking the reality of that day.
Robert D. McFadden wrote in The New York Times, the next day under the headline "Nation Marks Lives Lost and Signs of Healing":
Once more the leaden bells tolled in mourning, loved ones recited the names of the dead at ground zero, and a wounded but resilient America paused yesterday to remember the calamitous day when terrorist explosions rumbled like summer thunder and people fell from the sky.There was no escaping the truth, the reality of that day as the bells tolled.
You can almost hear the bell toll as Jesus spoke his truth, his reality against the messianic hopes and dreams of the people.
The Son of Man must suffer. (The bell tolls)Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. But it all goes terribly wrong. Not even Peter, the most devoted disciple can believe it. He pulls Jesus away to tell him it cannot be so. “There is supposed to be a warrior king, a second David, and a mighty revolutionary army, and the world order will be over thrown. It cannot be the way you say.”
And be rejected. (The bell tolls)
And be killed. (The bell tolls)
And then rise again. (The bell tolls)
It’s not like you think. (The bell tolls)
You don’t understand. (The bell tolls)
This is the way. (The bell tolls)
This is the way that will change the world. (The bell tolls)
This is probably not the last time that a follower of Jesus thinks he has perfect understanding of the life, ministry and way of Jesus. Indeed Christian history and the Christian Church and even this cathedral is peopled with those who have thought we had a clear vision of how God wanted things to be or go.
Bishop Mark Dyer tells the story of his paying for a friend’s dinner. The friend, instead of a simple thank you for the gift, said. “Well I’ll get it next time.” Mark asks, what response can there be to the gift of Jesus on the cross for the redemption of the world? Will it be, “Well Jesus, I’ll get it next time.” The Cost of Messiahship was great. Jesus says the cost of discipleship can be great as well.
It is true that the bell tolls for thee and me. Disciples follow the way of the master. Indeed, since the earliest days of the followers of Jesus following his death and resurrection, we have been called “The Way.”
Peter attempted to pull Jesus away, off the way, out of the way to distract him from the way all in an attempt to save the friend and master he loved so much. But Jesus says to him and to us, “This is the way of the Messiah and this is the way of the disciple, to follow me.”
William Willimon gives this example.*
“The doctor spared few words. "Your baby is afflicted with Down’s Syndrome, mongoloidism. I had expected this, but things were too far along before I could say for sure."Disciples follow the Master.
"Is the baby healthy?" she asked.
"That’s what I wanted to discuss with you," the doctor said. "The baby is healthy -- except for the problem. However, it does have a slight, rather common respiratory ailment. My advice is that you let me take it off the respirator -- that might solve things. At least, it’s a possibility."
"It’s not a possibility for us," they said together.
"I know how you feel," responded the doctor. "But you need to think about what you’re doing. You already have two beautiful kids. Statistics show that people who keep these babies risk a higher incidence of marital stress and family problems. Is it fair to do this to the children you already have? Is it right to bring this suffering into your family?"
At the mention of "suffering" I saw her face brighten, as if the doctor were finally making sense.
"Suffering?" she said quietly. "We appreciate your concern, but we’re Christians. God suffered for us, and we will try to suffer for the baby, if we must."
"Pastor, I hope you can do something with them," the doctor whispered to me outside their door as he continued his rounds.
Two days later, the doctor and I watched the couple leave the hospital. They walked slowly, carrying a small bundle; but it seemed a heavy burden to us, a weight on their shoulders. We felt as if we could hear them dragging, clanking it down the front steps of the hospital, moving slowly but deliberately into a cold, gray March morning.
"It will be too much for them," the doctor said. "You ought to have talked them out of it. You should have helped them to understand."
But as they left, I noticed a curious look on their faces; they looked as if the burden were not too heavy at all, as if it were a privilege and a sign. They seemed borne up, as if on another’s shoulders, being carried toward some high place the doctor and I would not be going, following a way we did not understand.”
Do you remember the song from “Paint Your Wagon”, the 1951 musical by Lerner and Loewe?
Where am I goin'?All we can know is that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and Life itself. All we can do is to follow him to have the best chance to save our life, the life of those we love, and maybe even the life of the world.
I don't know.
Where am I headin'?
I ain't certain.
All I know Is
I am on my way.
When will I be there?
I don't know.
When will I get there?
I ain't certain.
All that I know Is
I am on my way.
* William Willimon, The Christian Century, March 2, 1983, pp. 173-174
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Pentecost 14: The Justice of Healing
The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 James 2:1-10, 11-17 Mark 7:24-37
Anniversaries. They are a way we mark time. The word itself comes from the Latin words for year and turn: the turning of the years. To honor an anniversary is to return again to a time, a place of remembrance. At the end of August I attended an annual training event to be recertified and an EFM mentor. It was a return for me as I found myself with the same five people who I had been in a small group with the year before. It wasn’t until we sat down together to begin our work that I was suddenly aware that a year had passed--and what a year it had been. The event gave me a chance to review in a very tangible way where I had been in the past year. Specifically, I became aware of where there had been healing in my life. A year before I had arrived at the training exhausted and overwhelmed and in many ways broken. Now I came full of joy and energy and playfulness. How had that happened? How had the healing taken place with me unaware of it?
I was filled with a powerful sense of God’s care for me and a sudden knowledge that God had worked powerfully in my life in ways that I had been unconscious of. This really shouldn’t surprise me. It is often my experience that while God is working in my life, I am sometimes unconscious of it as an ongoing event. But then I have a moment to reflect, to look back, and I can see how God has been there. I realize how God’s good work has been done in me. It seems I sometimes only recognize God’s healing in retrospect. And then there are times that I actively seek it out.
Where does healing come from? How does healing happen? Healing was a huge part of Jesus’ ministry. He healed poor people and rich people, children, adults, soldiers, and homemakers, He healed Jews, Gentiles, Greeks, and Romans. He cured lifelong afflictions and ordinary fevers, chronic conditions and birth defects. mental and psychological anguish. He exorcised demons and raised people from the dead. Where did his healing come from? And what exactly does a healing ministry have to do with being the Son of God and the messiah?
In the two healing stories we heard today, the healing is sought. The woman comes to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. Friends bring the deaf man to Jesus. Jesus didn’t go looking for them. In fact sometimes he seemed to want to hide from all the needs and hurts of others. When he went to the region of Tyre after his confrontation with the Pharisees (some 35 miles North of Galilee, more than a day’s walk from his home territory), “he entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean sprit immediately heard about him and she came and bowed down at his feet.”
Now this woman lived in Tyre. She was not one of Jesus’ people. She was not the same religion or ethnicity or even from the same country. The text refers to her as Syrophoenician, meaning she was living in Phoenicia but of Syrian descent (like Italtian-American or French-Canadian). She was also a Gentile, or some texts say Greek--clearly not Jewish. When you are exhausted, when you want time to yourself, when you do not want to be found, it is hard enough to have to respond positively to a family member or a friend who seeks you out. You definitely don’t want to have anything to do with an outsider, a stranger who has no claim on you. This woman had no claim on Jesus. He was not her rabbi, not her countryman; he was not her messiah. And when she asks for healing for her daughter, he tells her as much (basically a loose translation of that children and dogs comment would be, “You have no claim on me!”)
Having been put off, she then asks for something else. She asks for justice--and in doing so reminds Jesus, reminds us, who does have a claim on him. See, Jesus is not Israel’s messiah. Jesus is not the savior of the Jews. Jesus is the savior of the world--including the world of a Syrian, non-Jewish woman in Tyre. She demands justice and receives it. And her daughter is healed. What is the relationship between healing and justice?
The region of Tyre is much in the news today. You only have to read the headlines to get a good picture…
Lebanon Prepares Mass Graves in Tyre
Officials say more than 500 Lebanese civilians have been killed since the conflict began, and more mass burials are planned Monday in the southern port city of Tyre
(August 2, 2006, NPR)
Returning Lebanese Rebury the Dead
Lebanese are now back in towns that were the focus of Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, and they're giving proper funerals to loved ones who were buried in mass graves. At the port of Tyre, more than 160 bodies were reburied.
(August 20, 2006, NPR)
Sidon Journal; Wake of War Idles Lebanon's Fleet, and Its Fishermen
Every morning, the fishermen gather at a grimy outdoor cafe overlooking the docks of this ancient port town. It is the height of the fishing season, but their boats sit at the water's edge like abandoned cars, rusting. ''We have been sitting here for 50 days,'' said Muhammad Ibrahim
(August 28, 2006, NYTimes)
Besieged
Things were getting back to normal in Tyre. The bomb craters in the main streets had been filled in with dirt, which slowed traffic but at least made passage possible. Some of the town’s more spectacular ruins were already being shoveled into great heaps of rubble. (September 3, 2006, NYTimes)
And in the midst of that rubble who is in need of justice? Of healing? Of peace? In an online journal reflection on today’s lessons, Jerry Goebel (a minister to at risk youth in WA) writes “In Tyre, this week, a woman still cries out for her daughter. She [is] not part of the hatred and politics that turned southern Lebanon into a disaster zone. Yet, that woman still cannot find a voice in an area torn asunder by religion and politics.” So many Christians in our country are fond of asking WWJD: What Would Jesus Do? What Would Jesus Do in Tyre? “We already know. The same thing he did 2,000 years ago in that ancient city. He would find the most ignored, most forgotten, most desperate person in the city, and he would heal her daughter.”*
When do we receive healing? Where does healing come from? How is it related to justice? What does a Syrophoenician woman have to do with Jesus? What do people in the Middle East have to do with us?
This week we encounter the anniversary of 9/11. We have marked the time for five years. We return again to a time, a place of remembrance. Consciously or unconsciously we revisit a time of horror and tragedy and terrorism. It is hard to enter those waters again. But as I contemplate this anniversary I find I am compelled to take stock in terms of healing. Where has there been healing over the past five years, and where has there been none? Where has there been justice, and where has there been none? Healing and justice, justice and peace.
What about us? Who has a claim on us? What are we called to do? Where does healing come from? In reflecting on this anniversary, Taylor Burton-Edwards, Director of Worship Resources for the United Methodist Church, writes, “Healing comes as we act in love toward those who harmed us, forgive our enemies, and reach out in love toward those who hurt the most — whoever they are, wherever they are. Healing comes as our souls, which need not be destroyed by outward pains, choose love again — not fear, not pain, not hate.” **
Healing and justice go hand in hand. Scripture is clear. In Proverbs we read, “whoever sows injustice will reap calamity.” And in the letter of James, “What good is it if a brother or sister lacks daily food and you say ‘Go in peace: keep warm and eat your fill,’ but do not supply their bodily needs?” And then there are the actions of Jesus.
On Friday evening my children prayed with friends of theirs before they sat down and ate their pizza. This was their prayer:
Bless our food, Dear God we pray,
And bless us too throughout this day.
Keep us safe and close to You,
Keep us just in all we do.
Keep us just in all we do.
Copyright © 2006 Anne E. Kitch
*Jerry Goebel: 2005 © http://onefamilyoutreach.com.
** Taylor Burton-Edwards, Reflections and a Hymn for the Fifth Anniversary of September 11, 2001 http://www.gbod.org/worship
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 James 2:1-10, 11-17 Mark 7:24-37
Anniversaries. They are a way we mark time. The word itself comes from the Latin words for year and turn: the turning of the years. To honor an anniversary is to return again to a time, a place of remembrance. At the end of August I attended an annual training event to be recertified and an EFM mentor. It was a return for me as I found myself with the same five people who I had been in a small group with the year before. It wasn’t until we sat down together to begin our work that I was suddenly aware that a year had passed--and what a year it had been. The event gave me a chance to review in a very tangible way where I had been in the past year. Specifically, I became aware of where there had been healing in my life. A year before I had arrived at the training exhausted and overwhelmed and in many ways broken. Now I came full of joy and energy and playfulness. How had that happened? How had the healing taken place with me unaware of it?
I was filled with a powerful sense of God’s care for me and a sudden knowledge that God had worked powerfully in my life in ways that I had been unconscious of. This really shouldn’t surprise me. It is often my experience that while God is working in my life, I am sometimes unconscious of it as an ongoing event. But then I have a moment to reflect, to look back, and I can see how God has been there. I realize how God’s good work has been done in me. It seems I sometimes only recognize God’s healing in retrospect. And then there are times that I actively seek it out.
Where does healing come from? How does healing happen? Healing was a huge part of Jesus’ ministry. He healed poor people and rich people, children, adults, soldiers, and homemakers, He healed Jews, Gentiles, Greeks, and Romans. He cured lifelong afflictions and ordinary fevers, chronic conditions and birth defects. mental and psychological anguish. He exorcised demons and raised people from the dead. Where did his healing come from? And what exactly does a healing ministry have to do with being the Son of God and the messiah?
In the two healing stories we heard today, the healing is sought. The woman comes to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. Friends bring the deaf man to Jesus. Jesus didn’t go looking for them. In fact sometimes he seemed to want to hide from all the needs and hurts of others. When he went to the region of Tyre after his confrontation with the Pharisees (some 35 miles North of Galilee, more than a day’s walk from his home territory), “he entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean sprit immediately heard about him and she came and bowed down at his feet.”
Now this woman lived in Tyre. She was not one of Jesus’ people. She was not the same religion or ethnicity or even from the same country. The text refers to her as Syrophoenician, meaning she was living in Phoenicia but of Syrian descent (like Italtian-American or French-Canadian). She was also a Gentile, or some texts say Greek--clearly not Jewish. When you are exhausted, when you want time to yourself, when you do not want to be found, it is hard enough to have to respond positively to a family member or a friend who seeks you out. You definitely don’t want to have anything to do with an outsider, a stranger who has no claim on you. This woman had no claim on Jesus. He was not her rabbi, not her countryman; he was not her messiah. And when she asks for healing for her daughter, he tells her as much (basically a loose translation of that children and dogs comment would be, “You have no claim on me!”)
Having been put off, she then asks for something else. She asks for justice--and in doing so reminds Jesus, reminds us, who does have a claim on him. See, Jesus is not Israel’s messiah. Jesus is not the savior of the Jews. Jesus is the savior of the world--including the world of a Syrian, non-Jewish woman in Tyre. She demands justice and receives it. And her daughter is healed. What is the relationship between healing and justice?
The region of Tyre is much in the news today. You only have to read the headlines to get a good picture…
Lebanon Prepares Mass Graves in Tyre
Officials say more than 500 Lebanese civilians have been killed since the conflict began, and more mass burials are planned Monday in the southern port city of Tyre
(August 2, 2006, NPR)
Returning Lebanese Rebury the Dead
Lebanese are now back in towns that were the focus of Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, and they're giving proper funerals to loved ones who were buried in mass graves. At the port of Tyre, more than 160 bodies were reburied.
(August 20, 2006, NPR)
Sidon Journal; Wake of War Idles Lebanon's Fleet, and Its Fishermen
Every morning, the fishermen gather at a grimy outdoor cafe overlooking the docks of this ancient port town. It is the height of the fishing season, but their boats sit at the water's edge like abandoned cars, rusting. ''We have been sitting here for 50 days,'' said Muhammad Ibrahim
(August 28, 2006, NYTimes)
Besieged
Things were getting back to normal in Tyre. The bomb craters in the main streets had been filled in with dirt, which slowed traffic but at least made passage possible. Some of the town’s more spectacular ruins were already being shoveled into great heaps of rubble. (September 3, 2006, NYTimes)
And in the midst of that rubble who is in need of justice? Of healing? Of peace? In an online journal reflection on today’s lessons, Jerry Goebel (a minister to at risk youth in WA) writes “In Tyre, this week, a woman still cries out for her daughter. She [is] not part of the hatred and politics that turned southern Lebanon into a disaster zone. Yet, that woman still cannot find a voice in an area torn asunder by religion and politics.” So many Christians in our country are fond of asking WWJD: What Would Jesus Do? What Would Jesus Do in Tyre? “We already know. The same thing he did 2,000 years ago in that ancient city. He would find the most ignored, most forgotten, most desperate person in the city, and he would heal her daughter.”*
When do we receive healing? Where does healing come from? How is it related to justice? What does a Syrophoenician woman have to do with Jesus? What do people in the Middle East have to do with us?
This week we encounter the anniversary of 9/11. We have marked the time for five years. We return again to a time, a place of remembrance. Consciously or unconsciously we revisit a time of horror and tragedy and terrorism. It is hard to enter those waters again. But as I contemplate this anniversary I find I am compelled to take stock in terms of healing. Where has there been healing over the past five years, and where has there been none? Where has there been justice, and where has there been none? Healing and justice, justice and peace.
What about us? Who has a claim on us? What are we called to do? Where does healing come from? In reflecting on this anniversary, Taylor Burton-Edwards, Director of Worship Resources for the United Methodist Church, writes, “Healing comes as we act in love toward those who harmed us, forgive our enemies, and reach out in love toward those who hurt the most — whoever they are, wherever they are. Healing comes as our souls, which need not be destroyed by outward pains, choose love again — not fear, not pain, not hate.” **
Healing and justice go hand in hand. Scripture is clear. In Proverbs we read, “whoever sows injustice will reap calamity.” And in the letter of James, “What good is it if a brother or sister lacks daily food and you say ‘Go in peace: keep warm and eat your fill,’ but do not supply their bodily needs?” And then there are the actions of Jesus.
On Friday evening my children prayed with friends of theirs before they sat down and ate their pizza. This was their prayer:
Bless our food, Dear God we pray,
And bless us too throughout this day.
Keep us safe and close to You,
Keep us just in all we do.
Keep us just in all we do.
Copyright © 2006 Anne E. Kitch
*Jerry Goebel: 2005 © http://onefamilyoutreach.com.
** Taylor Burton-Edwards, Reflections and a Hymn for the Fifth Anniversary of September 11, 2001 http://www.gbod.org/worship
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Pentecost 13: Don't Blame the Pharisees!
September 3, 2006
The Rev. Cn. Joel Atkinson
Preached at St. Barnabas, Kutztown, PA
After the crucifixion there was not a Christian church!
The earliest followers of the man who died upon that cross at Calvary
were Jews engaged in a Judaism
centered ’round the Temple in Jerusalem.
Those early followers saw no discontinuity
between the teachings of the Torah
and the teachings of the man
whom they had pledged their allegiance to.
It is true there was some discomfort
within the religious establishment of Judaism
and those out of the box thinking Jewish followers of Jesus
and with other developments taking place within the Judaism of their day.
Rather than seeking a middle way,
so typically human,
a game of blame the other came into play.
Another and perhaps better word
for this game is “scapegoating” those who held opposing views.
When we scapegoat we don’t take responsibility
for our contribution to the conflict between them and us.
Then there was Paul
and his zealous evangelism
among the uncircumcised,
that is, all those non-Jews out there.
As a consequence, a split occurred
between the Jewish and the Hellenist wings of our early church
threatening the existence of that early church.
“After all it was Paul’s fault,
that former Pharisee,”
the Jewish Christians said,
“He did it,” and fingers were waggled,
“for introducing Hellenistic views
into our so, so Christian Jewish community.”
Fortunately, a middle way was found
[The first Anglicans were born!]
and our church made it beyond
those raucous infant days.
Unfortunately, between the early Jewish Christians
and what was soon to be a synagogue-centered Judaism
a permanent split took place.
We were a rather aggravating lot!
On the other hand,
perhaps we’d not have become who we are today
if we’d not been booted out.
In all this mess,
those righteous Pharisees got a very bad press.
I use righteous
not intending a negative judgment
as it’s often used when associated with them,
but as actually complimentary
for those who sought to uphold the good order
of their particular religion.
Scapegoating has to have ones to fault
and in this conflict the Pharisees
were convenient targets.
With all the rancor and waggling fingers,
it was easy to ignore the message
of He who had died to set them free,
thus the reminder
in the message
contained in the lessons read today.
Therefore, I will not spend any time
in those ancient arguments
nor any we might have today.
I’ll not do any finger-waggling at the Pharisees!
I wonder how often today
the Good News is not heard
because we enter into such blaming, scapegoating games?
I wonder too how often opportunities
to be more fully God’s people
are not taken
because of our blaming and scapegoating ways?
This is not meant to deny
the conflicts Jesus had
with the religious authorities of his day.
His teachings pushed the edges of their theological thinking
and heaven forbid crowds of the faithful came to listen.
Naturally this led to conflicts
with those in power.
Honestly, folks,
doesn’t this sound familiar,
too often,
like our church today?
Enough is enough
now to the message
we are supposed to hear this day.
[Solomon 2:8-13]
The voice of my beloved! Look, He comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall. Gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
The intent of his metaphor
for us who will listen to these words
is God is the lover who calls
and we the beloved are asked to respond.
God is the one who rushes to us.
God is the one who desires for us to come away with God.
Our time of separation is over
and God calls for us to come away
into a new life only God can give.
What is it that keeps us from arising and going with God?
What is it that keeps us from truly living into all God calls us to be?
What is it that keeps us alienated from our lover?
Can you guess?
It is not those,
who in our opinion,
have replaced
those righteous Pharisees of old
nor is it those
who as Paul
push the edges of our theological understanding.
Rather the answer is our idolatry.
We think so much of ourselves
that we want to be in charge
rather than God!
We want to tell God who to be and what to be and how to be.
We want to box God in.
We want to catalog and categorize God
in order to better define
that which is beyond definition.
We make God into an idol of our creation,
something less than who God really is.
Then we worship our creation
seeking the Life only God can give –
how ironic.
God is beyond the boundaries of the universe
with its billions of galaxies
and the billions of suns within each
of those billions of galaxies.
Yet, in some ineffable way
God is as small as the smallest thing.
In all the enormity of the universe
I’ve described nothing is too small
for God not to be there.
God is with us each today
and into all the time to come.
Yet we constantly defile ourselves
with our idolatrous way.
We defile ourselves
when we blame others [when we scapegoat]
to avoid acknowledging our own sinful ways.
We defile ourselves
with idolatrous ways
when we move ourselves from God’s embrace
so that we might be in control.
God come to us this day.
Come that our eyes might be open to see.
Come that our ears might be open to hear.
Come that our minds might be open to learn.
Come that our hearts might be open to feel.
Open us to our lover’s presence.
Open us to listening to our lovers call.
Let us be open to the God
who comes into our lives
that we might find what it is we are called to do
as loved and forgiven children of God
commissioned to make known God’s love in a world
too often broken and alienated from our lover’s call.
Let us be open to the God who
comes to give us Life.
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
If some day you or I find ourselves drifting from the call of God,
don’t blame the Pharisees
or the Paul’s in our lives
who push the edges of our understanding of God.
Rather let us look to ourselves.
The Rev. Cn. Joel Atkinson
Preached at St. Barnabas, Kutztown, PA
After the crucifixion there was not a Christian church!
The earliest followers of the man who died upon that cross at Calvary
were Jews engaged in a Judaism
centered ’round the Temple in Jerusalem.
Those early followers saw no discontinuity
between the teachings of the Torah
and the teachings of the man
whom they had pledged their allegiance to.
It is true there was some discomfort
within the religious establishment of Judaism
and those out of the box thinking Jewish followers of Jesus
and with other developments taking place within the Judaism of their day.
Rather than seeking a middle way,
so typically human,
a game of blame the other came into play.
Another and perhaps better word
for this game is “scapegoating” those who held opposing views.
When we scapegoat we don’t take responsibility
for our contribution to the conflict between them and us.
Then there was Paul
and his zealous evangelism
among the uncircumcised,
that is, all those non-Jews out there.
As a consequence, a split occurred
between the Jewish and the Hellenist wings of our early church
threatening the existence of that early church.
“After all it was Paul’s fault,
that former Pharisee,”
the Jewish Christians said,
“He did it,” and fingers were waggled,
“for introducing Hellenistic views
into our so, so Christian Jewish community.”
Fortunately, a middle way was found
[The first Anglicans were born!]
and our church made it beyond
those raucous infant days.
Unfortunately, between the early Jewish Christians
and what was soon to be a synagogue-centered Judaism
a permanent split took place.
We were a rather aggravating lot!
On the other hand,
perhaps we’d not have become who we are today
if we’d not been booted out.
In all this mess,
those righteous Pharisees got a very bad press.
I use righteous
not intending a negative judgment
as it’s often used when associated with them,
but as actually complimentary
for those who sought to uphold the good order
of their particular religion.
Scapegoating has to have ones to fault
and in this conflict the Pharisees
were convenient targets.
With all the rancor and waggling fingers,
it was easy to ignore the message
of He who had died to set them free,
thus the reminder
in the message
contained in the lessons read today.
Therefore, I will not spend any time
in those ancient arguments
nor any we might have today.
I’ll not do any finger-waggling at the Pharisees!
I wonder how often today
the Good News is not heard
because we enter into such blaming, scapegoating games?
I wonder too how often opportunities
to be more fully God’s people
are not taken
because of our blaming and scapegoating ways?
This is not meant to deny
the conflicts Jesus had
with the religious authorities of his day.
His teachings pushed the edges of their theological thinking
and heaven forbid crowds of the faithful came to listen.
Naturally this led to conflicts
with those in power.
Honestly, folks,
doesn’t this sound familiar,
too often,
like our church today?
Enough is enough
now to the message
we are supposed to hear this day.
[Solomon 2:8-13]
The voice of my beloved! Look, He comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall. Gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
The intent of his metaphor
for us who will listen to these words
is God is the lover who calls
and we the beloved are asked to respond.
God is the one who rushes to us.
God is the one who desires for us to come away with God.
Our time of separation is over
and God calls for us to come away
into a new life only God can give.
What is it that keeps us from arising and going with God?
What is it that keeps us from truly living into all God calls us to be?
What is it that keeps us alienated from our lover?
Can you guess?
It is not those,
who in our opinion,
have replaced
those righteous Pharisees of old
nor is it those
who as Paul
push the edges of our theological understanding.
Rather the answer is our idolatry.
We think so much of ourselves
that we want to be in charge
rather than God!
We want to tell God who to be and what to be and how to be.
We want to box God in.
We want to catalog and categorize God
in order to better define
that which is beyond definition.
We make God into an idol of our creation,
something less than who God really is.
Then we worship our creation
seeking the Life only God can give –
how ironic.
God is beyond the boundaries of the universe
with its billions of galaxies
and the billions of suns within each
of those billions of galaxies.
Yet, in some ineffable way
God is as small as the smallest thing.
In all the enormity of the universe
I’ve described nothing is too small
for God not to be there.
God is with us each today
and into all the time to come.
Yet we constantly defile ourselves
with our idolatrous way.
We defile ourselves
when we blame others [when we scapegoat]
to avoid acknowledging our own sinful ways.
We defile ourselves
with idolatrous ways
when we move ourselves from God’s embrace
so that we might be in control.
God come to us this day.
Come that our eyes might be open to see.
Come that our ears might be open to hear.
Come that our minds might be open to learn.
Come that our hearts might be open to feel.
Open us to our lover’s presence.
Open us to listening to our lovers call.
Let us be open to the God
who comes into our lives
that we might find what it is we are called to do
as loved and forgiven children of God
commissioned to make known God’s love in a world
too often broken and alienated from our lover’s call.
Let us be open to the God who
comes to give us Life.
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
If some day you or I find ourselves drifting from the call of God,
don’t blame the Pharisees
or the Paul’s in our lives
who push the edges of our understanding of God.
Rather let us look to ourselves.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Pentecost 13: The Way of Life
September 3, 2006
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 17 ~ Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-9,21-23 Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
It was Groucho Marx who said when he was refused entrance into a club on Long Island, “I don’t want to belong to a club that would accept someone like me.”
Who’s in? Who’s out? On what basis are they in or out? Who decides?
It’s an age-old game. It’s been around as long as humans have been walking upright, maybe longer. Whenever more than one is gathered together there is an opportunity to play the game. Shall we let them into our circle or shall we not?
Are they the right kind to be in our circle? Do they walk like we do? Talk like we do? Eat what we do? Wear what we do? Like the same things we do? Act like we do? Believe what we do?
What are the signs that they are enough like us to be with us, to be one of us? What are the rules they have to follow to be one of us?
So here we have today two lessons that have to do with the rules and signs of identity and belonging. Moses is preaching a sermon about the importance of Torah, following the Law, the commandments.
Remember that Israel is on the banks of the Jordan River, on the verge of Jordan, ready to enter the long-promised land, and as a gift, as a gift, God gives them, through Moses, a way to live in this new place that will enable them to claim the promise, claim their destiny, claim their heritage, live out their identity as the people of the Lord God Jehovah.
God does not lay upon them a burden of the Law, but rather the gift of what they need to establish their identity as God’s people. By this, they will know that they are God’s people. By this they will show others that they are God’s people.
Not rules to confine, not laws to conform, but a way to live, to establish and claim their identity.
How will they know, how will others know who they are and whose they are? …By how they live.
But, my oh my, how they and we have perverted that gift of life and identity! By the time of Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees have made the law to be a heavy yoke to be borne around the necks of the children of God. Someone counted 613 commandments in the five books of Moses (the Torah).
These laws encompassed nearly every aspect of human life — birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and ethnicity. And the Gentiles were automatically considered impure.
Purity had become more important than prayer; ritual more important than reconciliation; conformity more important than compassion. Rules defined righteousness.
to impose and police the rules, to decide who was pure and who was impure, who was righteous and who was unrighteous, who was a good Jew and who was not a good Jew, and indeed who because of their behavior was not a Jew at all, because they had by their behavior removed themselves outside the circle of the chosen people of God.
As I said earlier, the game has been played ever since and is played to this day. Garrison Keillor speaks of his own Lutheran ancestors coming to this country and to the harsh winters of the northern mid-west. He says his forbearers left their homeland and came “seeking greater restrictions.”
The Anglican Communion today is in the full game-mode of deciding who is in and who is out, who is conforming and who is not. Are you Anglican enough, traditional enough, evangelical enough, scriptural enough, liberal enough, catholic enough, orthodox enough, pure enough?
And so the stage is set for the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. The law has become, not the gift of a way of life, but instead has become the yoke of oppression and the means of exclusion.
And Jesus says, “Enough!” Do not lay upon this, my people the burden of the laws. Let them live their lives out of their love for God and God’s ways.
The first verse of Psalm 15 poses the question, “Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle and who may abide on your holy hill?” The Pharisees would say, “only those who have completed all the ritual acts of purity.” But through the psalmist God replies in verse 2, “Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.”
From his heart, Jesus touched and healed a man with leprosy, a woman with a hemorrhage, the dead body of his friend Lazarus -- violations of every purity law. Jesus the Jew ignored the Sabbath laws relating to diet and activity. He consorted with sinners, and immediately after this week's story he healed two Gentiles.
Marcus Borg wrote that “the new community that Jesus announced is characterized by interior compassion for everyone, not external compliance to a purity code, by radical inclusivity rather than by hierarchical exclusivity, and by inward transformation rather than outward ritual. In place of the Leviticus injunction to ‘be holy, for I am holy’ (Lev. 19:2), Jesus deliberately substituted the call to "be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36).”
I want to belong to that community. I want my life to be a sign of that understanding. I want my heart to follow that path. I want to base my life on that truth. I want to live my life that according to that rule. I want to spend my time on those things. I want to bet my life on that God. I want to follow that way, the way of Jesus.
How about you?
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 17 ~ Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-9,21-23 Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
It was Groucho Marx who said when he was refused entrance into a club on Long Island, “I don’t want to belong to a club that would accept someone like me.”
Who’s in? Who’s out? On what basis are they in or out? Who decides?
It’s an age-old game. It’s been around as long as humans have been walking upright, maybe longer. Whenever more than one is gathered together there is an opportunity to play the game. Shall we let them into our circle or shall we not?
Are they the right kind to be in our circle? Do they walk like we do? Talk like we do? Eat what we do? Wear what we do? Like the same things we do? Act like we do? Believe what we do?
What are the signs that they are enough like us to be with us, to be one of us? What are the rules they have to follow to be one of us?
So here we have today two lessons that have to do with the rules and signs of identity and belonging. Moses is preaching a sermon about the importance of Torah, following the Law, the commandments.
Remember that Israel is on the banks of the Jordan River, on the verge of Jordan, ready to enter the long-promised land, and as a gift, as a gift, God gives them, through Moses, a way to live in this new place that will enable them to claim the promise, claim their destiny, claim their heritage, live out their identity as the people of the Lord God Jehovah.
God does not lay upon them a burden of the Law, but rather the gift of what they need to establish their identity as God’s people. By this, they will know that they are God’s people. By this they will show others that they are God’s people.
Not rules to confine, not laws to conform, but a way to live, to establish and claim their identity.
How will they know, how will others know who they are and whose they are? …By how they live.
But, my oh my, how they and we have perverted that gift of life and identity! By the time of Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees have made the law to be a heavy yoke to be borne around the necks of the children of God. Someone counted 613 commandments in the five books of Moses (the Torah).
These laws encompassed nearly every aspect of human life — birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and ethnicity. And the Gentiles were automatically considered impure.
Purity had become more important than prayer; ritual more important than reconciliation; conformity more important than compassion. Rules defined righteousness.
to impose and police the rules, to decide who was pure and who was impure, who was righteous and who was unrighteous, who was a good Jew and who was not a good Jew, and indeed who because of their behavior was not a Jew at all, because they had by their behavior removed themselves outside the circle of the chosen people of God.
As I said earlier, the game has been played ever since and is played to this day. Garrison Keillor speaks of his own Lutheran ancestors coming to this country and to the harsh winters of the northern mid-west. He says his forbearers left their homeland and came “seeking greater restrictions.”
The Anglican Communion today is in the full game-mode of deciding who is in and who is out, who is conforming and who is not. Are you Anglican enough, traditional enough, evangelical enough, scriptural enough, liberal enough, catholic enough, orthodox enough, pure enough?
And so the stage is set for the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. The law has become, not the gift of a way of life, but instead has become the yoke of oppression and the means of exclusion.
And Jesus says, “Enough!” Do not lay upon this, my people the burden of the laws. Let them live their lives out of their love for God and God’s ways.
The first verse of Psalm 15 poses the question, “Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle and who may abide on your holy hill?” The Pharisees would say, “only those who have completed all the ritual acts of purity.” But through the psalmist God replies in verse 2, “Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.”
From his heart, Jesus touched and healed a man with leprosy, a woman with a hemorrhage, the dead body of his friend Lazarus -- violations of every purity law. Jesus the Jew ignored the Sabbath laws relating to diet and activity. He consorted with sinners, and immediately after this week's story he healed two Gentiles.
Marcus Borg wrote that “the new community that Jesus announced is characterized by interior compassion for everyone, not external compliance to a purity code, by radical inclusivity rather than by hierarchical exclusivity, and by inward transformation rather than outward ritual. In place of the Leviticus injunction to ‘be holy, for I am holy’ (Lev. 19:2), Jesus deliberately substituted the call to "be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36).”
I want to belong to that community. I want my life to be a sign of that understanding. I want my heart to follow that path. I want to base my life on that truth. I want to live my life that according to that rule. I want to spend my time on those things. I want to bet my life on that God. I want to follow that way, the way of Jesus.
How about you?
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