The Rev. Charlie
Barebo May 17, 2015
John 17:6-19
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Canon Kim - Proper 10B - July 12, 2015
The Rev. Canon Kimberly Reinholz
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
July 12, 2015
Proper 10B
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
July 12, 2015
Proper 10B
Mark 6:14-29
This week some of you on social media may
have seen a Meme (a Meme is a picture with a caption super imposed on it) of an
Inspirational Bible Quote of the day calendar.
This photograph is of a passage of scripture which reads: “If thou
therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine” Luke 4:7. And the caption reads: “Less inspirational if
you know who said it”.
Just in case you were wondering, who said
that quote, it is Satan, when he tempts Jesus in the wilderness. Context is everything.
I forgot that simple statement that context
is everything for about half the week, as I found myself totally wondering what
kind of crazy pills the people who compiled the Revised Common Lectionary were
taking when they chose this Gospel reading.
The first 5 times I read the Gospel this week all I could think was,
really? Why on earth did you include
this story in our Sunday Lectionary? The
whole story seems to focus on the gruesome the death of John the Baptist.
Why does this matter? What good does it do to hear about the drama
between Herod, John and Herodias? What
on earth does murder have to do with the Good News?
Context is everything.
I kvetched a bunch early in the week about
how this Gospel message was un-preach-able.
I’d preach on Ephesians or the Psalm or Samuel. David dancing in front of the arc that’s a
good last sermon to preach here at the cathedral. In one of my many conversations with Andrew
about this Gospel I said, how we are supposed to hear about the Good news, of
Jesus Christ, if Jesus isn’t even mentioned in this passage?
Oh wait, Jesus is mentioned. Briefly, in the first sentence of the
passage. Jesus is the context of the
entire story. This entire account of
John’s demise is told is to explain why it is that that Jesus became known to
Herod because of his exorcisms healings and anointing and Herod feared the
Jesus was John resurrected.
It’s all about the context.
Knowing what happened to John the Baptist
gives us a sense of perspective as to why Herod was afraid. A Roman official with great political power,
and military strength shouldn’t be afraid of a man who is traveling throughout
the countryside healing the sick, casting out demons and anointing those who
come to him for aid. Unless you know
that this seems to be history repeating itself.
Remember what we know about John the
Baptist? He started out in the
wilderness preaching repentance, offering baptism and anointing, promising
healing and that there would be someone who was more powerful than he coming
after him.
If you don’t know that John spoke out against
Herod’s marriage to Herodias, or that Herod was perplexed and challenged by
John’s teachings you might think that Herod has nothing to fear. If you didn’t know that Herod only executed
John the Baptist because he didn’t want to lose face in front of honored
guests, and that he couldn’t deny the wish he promised his daughter then you
might not understand why Jesus possibly being John reincarnate would strike
fear into Herod’s heart.
We know that Jesus isn’t John
reincarnate. We know that John wasn’t
resurrected, but Herod didn’t know that.
Herod therefore has every reason to fear that the man who he had
beheaded at the request of his daughter, the man who proclaimed that his
marriage was unlawful, the man who perplexed him and challenged what he
believed had possibly and even in his mind probably come back to life. After all if this man was in the wilderness
was healing people, casting out demons and preaching about repentance and his
message sounded a lot like the messages John had preached about repentance it
would seem that anything was possible. That’s enough to scare anyone right?
Imagine being in Herod’s shoes. I don’t honestly think that any of you have
done exactly what Herod did, it was pretty horrific but all of us have done
things that we regret. All of us have
hurt someone either intentionally or unintentionally and we’d rather not face
the consequences of these actions.
Think about it. Is there someone you know, someone who you
disagree with, someone who perplexes you, someone who challenges you, someone
who makes you uncomfortable that you have stood in judgement against?
How would you feel if they walked in the room
right now? How would you feel if you saw them in the aisle at the grocery
store? How would you feel if your son or daughter brought them home for
Thanksgiving dinner?
I
doubt you’d welcome that person into your home with open arms. I bet you would be suspicious about their
motivations, you’d probably wonder if they are seeking revenge or if they are
holding judgement against you for the things you have done. I bet you would be carrying some baggage
around whatever it is that you were challenged by, perplexed by or disagreed
with. I know I do.
I know that personally I have a lot of guilt
that I carry for sins that I have committed and sins that have been committed
on my behalf. I cannot forgive myself
for some of my trespasses. I live daily
with the debts I owe to others and more importantly I wrestle with how I might
be able to “pay back” God for all the goodness which has been given to me. Emotionally I struggle with this. I find myself asking, “How can Jesus love me?”
This is where Herod and I find common ground
because where Herod is afraid of Jesus because of the sins he committed against
John. I am afraid of Jesus because of
the sins I know I have committed against God and my neighbor.
It’s part of why I love the Eastern prayer of
the Heart practice, the recitation of the Jesus Prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son
of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It’s
one of the prayers I use when I pray the rosary or walk the labyrinth. I also pray “Lord I am not worthy to receive
you, but only say the word and I shall be healed” When I receive communion. I don’t know how, but I do know that Jesus
loves me.
It’s actually easier for me to accept that
Jesus loves you, than it is for me to accept the love of Jesus for myself.
I blame philosophy because, as a former
philosophy professor I intellectually know how a simple syllogism
works. If premise A is true and premise
B is true, then the conclusion is true.
It’s a matter of definitions usually one example of a syllogism is: If a
bachelor is an unmarried man and Mark is an unmarried man then Mark is a
bachelor. The intellectual part of my
brain understands the following to be true: If Jesus died to forgive all sin, and all
people sin, then because I am a person, Jesus died
for my sin. Even Spock would abide with this argument.
I think this is where Herod and I, and I
think most of you, stand when we hear about Jesus’ miraculous healings, and
exorcisms, and anointing. How can this
be? What is going on here? And what does it mean for me?
For Herod, when he heard about Jesus, and he
connected the dots- incorrectly- he thought this man is following the footsteps
of John, he is preaching repentance, and offering healing and anointing like
John. If he sounds like John and acts
like John he must be John.
The Good News is, that Herod is wrong. Jesus is not John. Jesus is Jesus. One of the most amazing things about Jesus is
that even though Jesus is human, he is also divine and that means that Jesus
doesn’t carry all the junk that we carry with us. Its good news because- we don’t have to be
afraid that Jesus is holding a grudge.
We don’t have to be afraid that something we have done in our past is
going to come back and bite us. We don’t
have to be afraid that our debts, our trespasses or our sins are going to be
held over our head for the rest of our lives.
Jesus isn’t the Ghost of Christmas past come back to haunt us. Jesus isn’t keeping track of our wrong doing
like a calorie counter on our smart phone.
Jesus has already forgiven us.
What we have to do, to keep from falling into
the same patterns as Herod is to remember to forgive ourselves. Because we aren’t really afraid of Jesus are
we? We are afraid of who we think Jesus
might be, rather than accepting at face value the promise of salvation we are
afraid there is a catch, a loop hole, a trap.
We’ve all heard it said that if something seems too good to be true it
probably is. This doubt that Jesus is as
good as he seems; that the forgiveness he proclaims is absolute and infinite;
that our sins are in fact completely and utterly removed from us – as far as
the pole from the pole, as far as the East from the West, because of Jesus’
complete and ultimate sacrifice on the cross for all of us means that our sins
are no more.
Now if we can just remember that …
Context is everything.
Amen
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
The Rev. Canon Kimberly Reinholz - May 10, 2015
The Rev. Canon Kimberly
Reinholz
May 10, 2015
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
May 10, 2015
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
John
15: 9-17
Helen Fisher an
internationally recognized anthropologist who has studied the evolution of
human emotions, especially the notion of romantic love, has recorded a number
of TED talks, and acts as the chief scientific advisor for Match.com. In her 2008 “The brain in love” she concludes
by saying that love is deeply embedded in our brains, but our challenge is
understanding one another.
She hypothesizes that
women and men attain intimacy differently.
Women become intimate from face to face contact. We practice what is called the “anchoring
gaze” when we talk. She believes that it
has developed over millions of years “of holding
that baby in front of your face,
cajoling it, reprimanding it, educating it with words.”
On the other hand men tend to get intimacy from side-by-side interaction. Which she posits comes from millions of years of hiding in wait stalking prey in the bush, looking straight ahead trying to ambush wildlife for food, “for millions of years, men faced their enemies, they sat side-by-side with friends.”
When I first watched Fisher’s Ted Talk, my gut reaction was, well duh. That makes sense, of course men and women process the world differently. That’s nothing new, right? Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.
On the other hand men tend to get intimacy from side-by-side interaction. Which she posits comes from millions of years of hiding in wait stalking prey in the bush, looking straight ahead trying to ambush wildlife for food, “for millions of years, men faced their enemies, they sat side-by-side with friends.”
When I first watched Fisher’s Ted Talk, my gut reaction was, well duh. That makes sense, of course men and women process the world differently. That’s nothing new, right? Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.
But as I read and
re-read the Gospel for this week and considered the Love of God in the light of
the secular observance today of Mother’s Day, I found myself wondering. What if…
What if when we read Genesis we believed it to be true and we lived our lives as if it were true, that God so loved the world that we were created male and female in God’s image. That indeed we are not created as species who are alien to one another, but instead we are masculine and feminine two sides of the same coin and who we are, and how we love is actually a reflection of God’s love for each of us. That we are chosen by God to be beloved, not because of anything we have done, can do, or will do, but because we are.
What if as God’s beloved, we are called to live into a complete intimacy with God.
What if we are invited into a relationship with God as a child to a parent, or a student to a teacher? What if our relationship with God can at times be like that of a child in elementary school—one who absorbs knowledge, and recites it but does not necessarily have a personal relationship with the instructor? What if our face-to-face relationship with God begins with us understanding God as the ultimate authority, a being with whom we have seemingly nothing in common.
We all remember that jarring moment when we saw an elementary school teacher outside of school for the first time and realized that he or she was not only a teacher but a person too. Similarly, when we first encounter God, it is as the all knowing, all seeing, all powerful otherness, and this Other feels completely different than us. It takes a drastic change in circumstances for this relationship to change, to a relationship more like what takes place in say medical school, law school, or an other postgraduate program, an environment where a student who has learned the essentials and is instructed by a professor but is closer to a peer or colleague than a subordinate. This is the kind of relationship which I feel is precipitated by the incarnation of Jesus, because God is no longer completely other we begin to believe that we have a more equal relationship with the divine. We can at once learn from and learn beside the Messiah, our savior.
What if after we experience the resurrection in our own lives we grow in faith and we begin to gain a greater understanding of God’s infinite love for us? We experience the infinite love of the resurrection through the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Who does this in many ways, but chiefly in our tradition, we expect to experience the Holy through our liturgies and sacraments. We experience and profess the promises of our fullest nature as Christians in baptism and confirmation, through communion and reconciliation we return again into relationships from which we have strayed. Through divine action, ultimately grace, we can begin to encounter God not as the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent completely other God, but as some one with whom we can sit side by side, as a friend.
Jesus himself demonstrates through out the Gospels this complete intimacy. The transition from master and servant to friends—is clearly the objective of his teaching today: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know that the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” Prior to the crucifixion and resurrection Jesus loved the disciples as a parent, a teacher, a master. He expects them to follow him, to mirror his actions, to do like he does, to follow the commandments without necessarily embodying them. However, after the resurrection and before the ascension Jesus shifts this feminine face to face instructive intimacy from master to servant to side by side intimacy that of friends. This masculine intimacy allows for the disciples to walk along side Jesus and to inwardly digest the commandment, to interpret what it means for themselves and in turn be able to teach others what observation of the commandments looks like.
In order to live in love, in order to abide in love, we need to not only learn to understand one another, but we need to learn how to be intimate with one another on our own terms, in order for our joy to be complete.
We need both the maternal, feminine, “face-to-face” love, as well as the paternal, masculine, “side-by-side” love, in order to know God’s love. We need to both experience this love, as well as, be agents who share these kinds of love. It is in the balance of the face-to-face and the side-by-side intimacy that we who follow Jesus Christ, we who know him, and we who proclaim him as the savior and redeemer of the world can obey the commandments. It is in the love of God—both Motherly and Fatherly love—that we come to know that we are chosen.
In this life we can only catch glimpses of the love of God through grace and through the intentional observation of the various forms of love which are observed in our culture: the love of a parent to child, a child to a parent, a teacher to a student, a student to a teacher, a pair of friends, a pair of lovers, a pair of enemies. Through out scripture we are told time and time again how to maintain proper relationships through the commandments. The essence of which focuses on the Love of God and the love of one another as the extension of that love.
So beloved, I invite you to love one another head on, as a mother cares for her children gazing into their eyes and helping them to recognize the nurturing love of God. Also beloved, I invite you to love one another as companions on the way, as a father cares for his children sitting along side raising one another up helping them to know the supportive love of God. Finally beloved, I invite you to love one another as God loves you, in whatever way you intimately know that without a doubt you are uniquely loved, you are uniquely created, and you are uniquely chosen. Abide in this love, beloved, live into it, grow into it and know that you have done nothing to earn it, can do nothing to loose it, and all that God asks in return is that you teach others about this infinite merciful and gracious love, and be a companion to one another along the way.
Abide in love brothers and sisters, because by living into an equal and intimate relationship with God our joy will be complete.
What if when we read Genesis we believed it to be true and we lived our lives as if it were true, that God so loved the world that we were created male and female in God’s image. That indeed we are not created as species who are alien to one another, but instead we are masculine and feminine two sides of the same coin and who we are, and how we love is actually a reflection of God’s love for each of us. That we are chosen by God to be beloved, not because of anything we have done, can do, or will do, but because we are.
What if as God’s beloved, we are called to live into a complete intimacy with God.
What if we are invited into a relationship with God as a child to a parent, or a student to a teacher? What if our relationship with God can at times be like that of a child in elementary school—one who absorbs knowledge, and recites it but does not necessarily have a personal relationship with the instructor? What if our face-to-face relationship with God begins with us understanding God as the ultimate authority, a being with whom we have seemingly nothing in common.
We all remember that jarring moment when we saw an elementary school teacher outside of school for the first time and realized that he or she was not only a teacher but a person too. Similarly, when we first encounter God, it is as the all knowing, all seeing, all powerful otherness, and this Other feels completely different than us. It takes a drastic change in circumstances for this relationship to change, to a relationship more like what takes place in say medical school, law school, or an other postgraduate program, an environment where a student who has learned the essentials and is instructed by a professor but is closer to a peer or colleague than a subordinate. This is the kind of relationship which I feel is precipitated by the incarnation of Jesus, because God is no longer completely other we begin to believe that we have a more equal relationship with the divine. We can at once learn from and learn beside the Messiah, our savior.
What if after we experience the resurrection in our own lives we grow in faith and we begin to gain a greater understanding of God’s infinite love for us? We experience the infinite love of the resurrection through the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Who does this in many ways, but chiefly in our tradition, we expect to experience the Holy through our liturgies and sacraments. We experience and profess the promises of our fullest nature as Christians in baptism and confirmation, through communion and reconciliation we return again into relationships from which we have strayed. Through divine action, ultimately grace, we can begin to encounter God not as the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent completely other God, but as some one with whom we can sit side by side, as a friend.
Jesus himself demonstrates through out the Gospels this complete intimacy. The transition from master and servant to friends—is clearly the objective of his teaching today: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know that the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” Prior to the crucifixion and resurrection Jesus loved the disciples as a parent, a teacher, a master. He expects them to follow him, to mirror his actions, to do like he does, to follow the commandments without necessarily embodying them. However, after the resurrection and before the ascension Jesus shifts this feminine face to face instructive intimacy from master to servant to side by side intimacy that of friends. This masculine intimacy allows for the disciples to walk along side Jesus and to inwardly digest the commandment, to interpret what it means for themselves and in turn be able to teach others what observation of the commandments looks like.
In order to live in love, in order to abide in love, we need to not only learn to understand one another, but we need to learn how to be intimate with one another on our own terms, in order for our joy to be complete.
We need both the maternal, feminine, “face-to-face” love, as well as the paternal, masculine, “side-by-side” love, in order to know God’s love. We need to both experience this love, as well as, be agents who share these kinds of love. It is in the balance of the face-to-face and the side-by-side intimacy that we who follow Jesus Christ, we who know him, and we who proclaim him as the savior and redeemer of the world can obey the commandments. It is in the love of God—both Motherly and Fatherly love—that we come to know that we are chosen.
In this life we can only catch glimpses of the love of God through grace and through the intentional observation of the various forms of love which are observed in our culture: the love of a parent to child, a child to a parent, a teacher to a student, a student to a teacher, a pair of friends, a pair of lovers, a pair of enemies. Through out scripture we are told time and time again how to maintain proper relationships through the commandments. The essence of which focuses on the Love of God and the love of one another as the extension of that love.
So beloved, I invite you to love one another head on, as a mother cares for her children gazing into their eyes and helping them to recognize the nurturing love of God. Also beloved, I invite you to love one another as companions on the way, as a father cares for his children sitting along side raising one another up helping them to know the supportive love of God. Finally beloved, I invite you to love one another as God loves you, in whatever way you intimately know that without a doubt you are uniquely loved, you are uniquely created, and you are uniquely chosen. Abide in this love, beloved, live into it, grow into it and know that you have done nothing to earn it, can do nothing to loose it, and all that God asks in return is that you teach others about this infinite merciful and gracious love, and be a companion to one another along the way.
Abide in love brothers and sisters, because by living into an equal and intimate relationship with God our joy will be complete.
Amen
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