June 24, 2007
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
1 Kings 19:1-4, 8-15a + Galatians 3:23-29 + Luke 8:26-39
Have you noticed that Jesus’ whole ministry is about bringing?
1. Bringing God’s reign into being,
2. Bringing people into an experience of God’s reign through teaching and praying and witnessing and by being an example of what God’s kingdom is like,
3. Bringing people to one another to show that in God’s reign, God’s kingdom, god’s realm, and God’s way, no one is to be left alone, no one is to be left out, no one has to go through life alone,
4. And bringing people to their rightful place in the kingdom community and to their rightful role – their job, their work, their vocation – in the ministry Jesus shares with all who believe.
In the fanciful gospel lesson this morning, the story of the man possessed by demons – so many demons they were legion and are so named (naming powers in the Mediterranean region was a way of gaining power of over other, demonic powers) – Jesus makes his point: In God’s kingdom there are no outcasts. No one is beyond the pale.
Don’t worry over the details of this story. Not every jot and tittle, not every word of this story is gospel truth, but the story does indeed tell a gospel truth. The telling is an elaborate enhancing of an exorcism story, but the gospel truth is here, real, and important.
In this part of Luke’s telling of the gospel story, Jesus is in the fullness of his ministry, at the heights of his powers, demonstrating what the reign of God can be, should be, and is. He is coming from the experience in the boat where he stilled the waves during the storm.
And so he steps ashore where he is greeted by a man who is deranged. This man has sunk so low he can sink no lower. He is in the most abject form of human estate. He has lost all: family, friends, wealth, home, even membership in human society. He wears no clothes. He has been locked out of the city. He lives among the tombs of the dead, sent away alone to be vulnerable to all the dangers of the wilderness – much as Jesus was sent into the wilderness after his baptism.
But for this man, there was no one ministering to him – no angels, no human being. He is alone, completely at the mercy of the heat and the cold and the rain and the snow, and at the mercy of wild animals, and at the mercy of bandits, and at the mercy of people who just like to torment the likes of him, and at the mercy of the dementia that eventually found him and claimed him. Bound by humans who feared him and bound by demons who possessed him.
He was at the mercy of powers that have no mercy. Cast out and utterly alone.
This story, at its heart, is what it is like to be totally alone and bereft; bereft of friends, colleagues, companions, family, and the love and care of any human being.
And then comes Jesus, bringing with him, the kingdom of God. The translation we use these days, the New Revised Standard Version, tells us that the man was healed by Jesus. A better translation, closer to the truth, is to say that the man was saved by Jesus. He was healed, but he was also saved and restored to the possibility of a full and fruitful life, lived in the midst of the community.
That is the nature of God, that is the nature of Jesus, that is the nature of the community that gathers in His name: to bring into relationship with God, with Jesus and with his community all who seek, all who ask, all who come.
As most of you know I have just returned from a visit to Kajo Keji in Sudan. One, and only one, of the many things that struck me there as it did on my first visit, was what life is like in the villages of southern Sudan. In each village, all are cared for, each person regardless of age, gender, status, health, ability, infirmity, or deformity. All are in and of the community, and have access to the resources, care and compassion of the community. No one is set outside the community.
Those who are crippled or disabled, those who are deformed, those who are deranged, those who are too elderly, those who are too great with child, those who are too young, those who are outrageous in their dress, those who are outrageous in their behavior, those who have left to work or to learn and have returned to live again among their people, those who are desperately ill, and those who are near death – all live inside the village compound and receive the love and care of the community.
It is not because of the primitive nature of their society or their culture, it is because of their being disciples of Jesus Christ living in God’s kingdom. This is how it is in the reign of God! They live in the kingdom of God here on earth, now..
There is another place where I have noticed this interesting, kingdom lifestyle being rather blatantly put into practice, in the community known as the Cathedral Church of the Nativity.
In the lifestyle of the children and youth of this cathedral community there are no outcasts. The kids welcome all kids.
The kids welcome shy kids, they welcome cool kids, they welcome smart kids, they welcome younger kids, they welcome older kids, they welcome new kids, they welcome back former kids, they welcome kids with a disability, they welcome kids who are jocks and kids who aren’t, they welcome quiet kids and they welcome noisy, rowdy kids, they welcome city kids, they welcome suburban kids, they welcome rich kids, they welcome poor kids, they welcome bookish kids, they welcome Ipod kids, they welcome funny kids, they welcome sad kids.
They even welcome an archidiaconal kid, along with grand-parent kids, other adult kids. They welcome each and every one who comes along.
They treat each as if all are equal before the throne of God – and so they are, and so are all people – equal before the throne of God and equal in the community of those who follow Jesus as Lord and Savior.
I wonder where they learned that? Could it have been learned here? (He asked rhetorically.) Yes, I have come to know in the last two years that they learned it here. And I think that like their teachers and parents and mentors here, they will live it out in all aspects of their lives.
And so my friends, here is the preacher standing in the pulpit to preach now a heartfelt farewell and thank-you – for all you have shared, all you have done and all you have given, for all you are.
You invited me to come in, and welcomed me, and trusted me to offer my best gifts and love. This time with you has enriched my life beyond measure. My spirit rejoices in you, in your life together and in the work that you do on God’s behalf and the welfare of God’s people. This cathedral family is blessed with people of deep devotion, strong faith, willing spirits, mighty gifts, and wonderful diversity. This cathedral family is blessed with a strong, gifted, creative and loving staff of ministers both lay and ordained. It has been a joy to work with people in leadership ministries in so many areas and to watch them grow in those ministries, taking increasing responsibility for the life, mission and ministry that is in through, of, and from this cathedral.
The man you have called as your new dean is a dear one to me, well known to me and loved by me. I could not be happier for you and Tony Pompa, and his family, that God has brought you together and I look forward to seeing the fruits of the kingdom that together you will bring for God.
And so, not good-by but farewell until another time, and my heartfelt thanks to you and to God for the life and ministry we have shared.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Trinity Sunday
The Right Rev. Paul V. Marshall
Bishop of Bethlehem
June 3, 2007
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 + Romans 5:1-5 + John 16:12-15
Sermons on the Trinity are supposed to be a little dry and incomprehensible, and I will try not to disappoint, although I am distracted from this ritual of obscure preaching by today’s reality.
That is, in a few minutes there will be baptisms, and young lives will be washed “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This would be a good day to ask why. “In the name of” means in ancient languages possession and relationship, sort of like leaving your dry cleaning in the name of Smith, or making reservations in the name of Jones. In baptism we belong to and live in relationship to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Jesus is heard in the gospel passage today saying that it would take a while for his followers to digest everything he taught, and some things they just weren’t ready for. Sure enough, the Spirit led the church through the centuries to digest what it had seen and heard in the story. It took them about 350 years to get to major agreement that what has been revealed to us about God is … a mystery we can only struggle to describe but are invited to contemplate with wonder, love, and praise.
This shouldn’t surprise me, because I don’t know anybody, especially those I love the most, who doesn’t stay far beyond my ability to explain, dissect, or taxonomize. As I grow in relationship to people I learn more about them, but there is nobody whose internal life is completely transparent to me. In fact, to say, “I know all about you,” or worse, “I know what you’re thinking,” is probably the most arrogant thing a person can utter, and is destructive of relationships. It’s like saying that someone is fixed for all time, and that by understanding them I have mounted and stuffed on the wall over my mental fireplace.
We do it all the time. Let’s see, if I know you are a Capricorn, know your race and sex, your Myers-Briggs type, your eneagram, where you were born, your blood type, your political affiliation, your education and income, your neighborhood, and whether you root for the Phillies or Yankees—I don’t know you, but may think I do.
In our history with someone we love, in our most intimate moments with them, in working with them, suffering and rejoicing with them, we come to know them on many levels. From what they reveal and what we experience of them, we get enough hints about them to have a general picture and make a commitment. Certainly we come to understand people we love to some degree, but if you really love somebody, you have to do two things:
- 1 honor their uniqueness (they aren’t part of you), and
- 2 and this is the test, number two, you take great and unspeakable pleasure in just thinking about their mysterious otherness in which you to some degree commune but will never fathom.
If you think you have your beloved all figured out, you are missing a very great deal if life. When they cease to be a mystery, there’s little left to adore…or to attract.
So they didn’t come up with an impossible definition of God in order to show that they are theologians to frustrate us, or to subsidize the clover, triangle, or pretzel industry. From what scripture told them and from what they experienced, Ancient creeds (based on baptismal liturgies) express a general picture and made a commitment.
That took about 350 years, and they came down on the side of an explanation of our encounter with the triune God that invites adoration and contemplation rather than theological taxidermy. The Old Testament lesson encourages adoration and contemplation as a kind of joy, and that’s what I was working on in the children’s sermon today.
The complex talk of what developed in the church has several important functions for us. The most important is that it is one and the same God who creates, redeems and vivifies us. The history of the world, OUR HISTORY, is of one piece.
The second is that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, far from being stuffed and mounted like the utterly dependable and never-changing gods of the Greeks and Romans, are in a constant relationship, an eternal community, a kind of dance with each other. In fact a Greek word for “dance” is very close to the word for the constant embrace and community of the persons and has inspired some fruitful thinking..
A big part of what the church confesses about Father, Son, and Spirit is that they stay distinct but are one and live in dynamic community whose mission statement is the life of the world, our life.
To be baptized into that relationship is to be baptized into God’s eternal embrace and God’s eternal working for the life of the world. It is to be in relationship with a God whom we cannot fully understand, yet whom we understand enough to trust as the center of our living.
What does this look like on the ground?
The epistle pushes all this a step beyond and says that life baptized into this God gives peace; Paul’s Jewishness is showing when he uses that word for wholeness, reconciliation, and well-being. He goes on to say it touches glory.
Then he brags about the fact that if you follow the way of this God, you will suffer. Certainly he is right. Just letting the other “persons” in your life be distinct will make you suffer! Being a person of Jesus’s compassion and integrity will make you suffer! Being generous in a world that emphasizes self will make you suffer! Being faithful to your commitments and your standards will make you suffer. Being open to those undefined new ideas that Jesus half-scares us with in the Gospel will make us suffer. Witness to the gospel will make you suffer.
And St. Paul, who understood like nobody else what God had been up to on the cross, says taking that road less traveled, of embracing the very real but usually very small moments of pain that come with being faithful, will change us. Day by day.
Just as the triune God of Christians is not a photograph but a community, a dance, baptism plunges us into a life-long dance, and day by day we grow. If that has stopped in your life, this is one of those moments when your priests are here for you to help you struggle deeper into the baptismal reality.
And what’s in this for us?
St. Paul says that living this life builds character, and character is what makes the difference between people and louts. And character, he says, gives hope. I think that means walking through the world patient with the working of God’s plan, tuned to seeing it develop, and finding the mere consideration of God a blessing. That’s why the last prayer we pray over the newly baptized asks that they (and we) have “joy and wonder in all God’s works.”
Bottom line: Trinity talk is the invitation to live in relation with and adoration of the community that is at the heart of the universe, and to participate in the live of what and who we cannot master but in which we can certainly delight.
I apologize if my obscurity has not been perfect, but you will admit that I’ve tried.
Bishop of Bethlehem
June 3, 2007
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 + Romans 5:1-5 + John 16:12-15
Sermons on the Trinity are supposed to be a little dry and incomprehensible, and I will try not to disappoint, although I am distracted from this ritual of obscure preaching by today’s reality.
That is, in a few minutes there will be baptisms, and young lives will be washed “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This would be a good day to ask why. “In the name of” means in ancient languages possession and relationship, sort of like leaving your dry cleaning in the name of Smith, or making reservations in the name of Jones. In baptism we belong to and live in relationship to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Jesus is heard in the gospel passage today saying that it would take a while for his followers to digest everything he taught, and some things they just weren’t ready for. Sure enough, the Spirit led the church through the centuries to digest what it had seen and heard in the story. It took them about 350 years to get to major agreement that what has been revealed to us about God is … a mystery we can only struggle to describe but are invited to contemplate with wonder, love, and praise.
This shouldn’t surprise me, because I don’t know anybody, especially those I love the most, who doesn’t stay far beyond my ability to explain, dissect, or taxonomize. As I grow in relationship to people I learn more about them, but there is nobody whose internal life is completely transparent to me. In fact, to say, “I know all about you,” or worse, “I know what you’re thinking,” is probably the most arrogant thing a person can utter, and is destructive of relationships. It’s like saying that someone is fixed for all time, and that by understanding them I have mounted and stuffed on the wall over my mental fireplace.
We do it all the time. Let’s see, if I know you are a Capricorn, know your race and sex, your Myers-Briggs type, your eneagram, where you were born, your blood type, your political affiliation, your education and income, your neighborhood, and whether you root for the Phillies or Yankees—I don’t know you, but may think I do.
In our history with someone we love, in our most intimate moments with them, in working with them, suffering and rejoicing with them, we come to know them on many levels. From what they reveal and what we experience of them, we get enough hints about them to have a general picture and make a commitment. Certainly we come to understand people we love to some degree, but if you really love somebody, you have to do two things:
- 1 honor their uniqueness (they aren’t part of you), and
- 2 and this is the test, number two, you take great and unspeakable pleasure in just thinking about their mysterious otherness in which you to some degree commune but will never fathom.
If you think you have your beloved all figured out, you are missing a very great deal if life. When they cease to be a mystery, there’s little left to adore…or to attract.
So they didn’t come up with an impossible definition of God in order to show that they are theologians to frustrate us, or to subsidize the clover, triangle, or pretzel industry. From what scripture told them and from what they experienced, Ancient creeds (based on baptismal liturgies) express a general picture and made a commitment.
That took about 350 years, and they came down on the side of an explanation of our encounter with the triune God that invites adoration and contemplation rather than theological taxidermy. The Old Testament lesson encourages adoration and contemplation as a kind of joy, and that’s what I was working on in the children’s sermon today.
The complex talk of what developed in the church has several important functions for us. The most important is that it is one and the same God who creates, redeems and vivifies us. The history of the world, OUR HISTORY, is of one piece.
The second is that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, far from being stuffed and mounted like the utterly dependable and never-changing gods of the Greeks and Romans, are in a constant relationship, an eternal community, a kind of dance with each other. In fact a Greek word for “dance” is very close to the word for the constant embrace and community of the persons and has inspired some fruitful thinking..
A big part of what the church confesses about Father, Son, and Spirit is that they stay distinct but are one and live in dynamic community whose mission statement is the life of the world, our life.
To be baptized into that relationship is to be baptized into God’s eternal embrace and God’s eternal working for the life of the world. It is to be in relationship with a God whom we cannot fully understand, yet whom we understand enough to trust as the center of our living.
What does this look like on the ground?
The epistle pushes all this a step beyond and says that life baptized into this God gives peace; Paul’s Jewishness is showing when he uses that word for wholeness, reconciliation, and well-being. He goes on to say it touches glory.
Then he brags about the fact that if you follow the way of this God, you will suffer. Certainly he is right. Just letting the other “persons” in your life be distinct will make you suffer! Being a person of Jesus’s compassion and integrity will make you suffer! Being generous in a world that emphasizes self will make you suffer! Being faithful to your commitments and your standards will make you suffer. Being open to those undefined new ideas that Jesus half-scares us with in the Gospel will make us suffer. Witness to the gospel will make you suffer.
And St. Paul, who understood like nobody else what God had been up to on the cross, says taking that road less traveled, of embracing the very real but usually very small moments of pain that come with being faithful, will change us. Day by day.
Just as the triune God of Christians is not a photograph but a community, a dance, baptism plunges us into a life-long dance, and day by day we grow. If that has stopped in your life, this is one of those moments when your priests are here for you to help you struggle deeper into the baptismal reality.
And what’s in this for us?
St. Paul says that living this life builds character, and character is what makes the difference between people and louts. And character, he says, gives hope. I think that means walking through the world patient with the working of God’s plan, tuned to seeing it develop, and finding the mere consideration of God a blessing. That’s why the last prayer we pray over the newly baptized asks that they (and we) have “joy and wonder in all God’s works.”
Bottom line: Trinity talk is the invitation to live in relation with and adoration of the community that is at the heart of the universe, and to participate in the live of what and who we cannot master but in which we can certainly delight.
I apologize if my obscurity has not been perfect, but you will admit that I’ve tried.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)