The Faith to be Changed

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 20, 2015

20 Proper B

As I walked into a patient's room at the hospital last week, the hospital chaplain was asking her who had been the most influential person in her life.  The patient had a ready answer to that question, with stories to share and obvious gratitude for that person's impact on her life.  She and I continued the conversation after the chaplain left, and when the patients's daughter arrived, she added to the conversation as well.  A thoughtful question had provoked a wonderful conversation, in part because the chaplain was willing to ask a meaningful question and in part because the recipient of the question was willing to engage the question and explore the answer.

Jesus has been asking some good questions lately.  Last week, we heard Jesus ask his disciples "Who do people say that I am?"  The disciples were plenty willing to engage that question.  "John the Baptist, and others, Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets."  But then Jesus asked them "Who do you say that I am?" I imagine there was a deep and awkward silence before Peter said "You are the Messiah."  Jesus takes that conversation to the next level when he explains that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected and be killed, and on the third day rise again.  Peter was appalled at this thought, rebuked Jesus, and Jesus responded with "Get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."  Now Jesus is angry and Peter is embarrassed.  So much for a great conversation!

This morning, Jesus and the disciples are passing through Galilee, and Jesus is once again teaching the disciples that the Son of Man will be betrayed and killed, and after three days rise again.  This time the disciples decide not to engage the conversation, even though they do not have a clue what Jesus is talking about. But they do not ask Jesus to explain, because they are afraid.  No one wants to be called Satan!

Through out Mark's gospel, and the gospels in general for that matter, the opposite of faith is fear.  So when we are told that the disciples do not understand what Jesus is saying, but are afraid to ask, we can infer that they are lacking in faith.  When the disciples and Jesus arrive in Capernaum, Jesus asks another question. "What were you arguing about on the way?"  But the disciples were silent.  They don't want to answer Jesus' question because they had been arguing among themselves about who was the greatest.  If we needed proof that the disciples really, really did not understand Jesus' teaching about suffering, dying, and being raised again, now we know for sure.

I wonder why the disciples were afraid to ask Jesus to explain the teaching they did not understand.  Clearly, the were afraid of appearing stupid, making Jesus mad, and being called Satan as had happened to Peter.  I can't blame them one bit for that.  But I wonder if they were also afraid of the answer.  If they actually heard Jesus say "The Son of Man will be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed he will rise again," that might not be a conversation they wanted to have.  Do they really want to know what that means?  Maybe ignorance is bliss.  What would it mean to be followers of someone who is going to be betrayed and killed?  How would they be changed if they understood what Jesus was talking about?  The disciples are afraid, and their hearts are hardened, but not without reason.

Rather than getting angry with the disciples this time, Jesus tries to open up the conversation by showing them a more appropriate response to his teaching.  Jesus takes a little child in his arms and says to them "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me.  And whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me."  Children in the first century world had no status.  Children were liabilities, not assets.  Some 60% of all children did not reach their 16th birthday, so parents had lots of children in order for some to survive.  If an adult male needed an heir, he adopted another adult male to inherit his wealth. Children ranked below women and above slaves.  So, this is not about Jesus telling us we should cuddle babies, as much as I might like for that to be one of Jesus' commands.  Jesus is telling us that the appropriate response to his teaching about his suffering, death, and ultimate resurrection, is radical hospitality, especially to those on the margins of society.

Radical hospitality is a Biblical value.  The reading from Proverbs, when taken by itself, looks like a hopelessly outdated job description for an overworked and probably exhausted woman.  But the description of the capable wife mirrors the description of Wisdom personified in the second and third chapters of Proverbs, so this is probably not a description of a living, breathing human person.  What does Wisdom personified do?  Wisdom provides hospitality, not only to her family and friends, but to the poor and the needy.  Example after example is given in our reading this morning to show the depth of the hospitality Wisdom offers.  Our reading from James this morning describes a community that is capable of radical hospitality because that community is free from bitter envy and selfish ambition, not worrying about who among them is the greatest, but is peaceable, gentle, and willing to yield, all of which makes for a gracious host.

Jesus is teaching the disciples and us that the appropriate response to his betrayal, death, and resurrection is radical hospitality.  We can easily think, like Peter, that we know what Jesus means.  I wonder, however, what questions we are afraid to ask Jesus because we, like the disciples, either think we know the answer, or are afraid of the conversation.  What do we not ask Jesus because we are afraid?

The disciples did not question Jesus because they were afraid.  A community of radical hospitality, a community that, as the reading from James says, if full of people who have no bitter envy or selfish ambition, but are peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, is a community that is not afraid of the question or the answer, and has the faith to be changed by the conversation.
Amen.

Letting Jesus Lead

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 13, 2015

19 Proper B

Several weeks ago now, we had the Blessing of Teachers and Students at Christ Church to mark the beginning of the new school year.  At the 10 o'clock service, typically at least half of the congregation comes forward for that blessings.  We are a congregation with a lot of educators.  Today, churches all over the country are beginning the Christian Education year.  Sunday School teachers have been recruited.  Classrooms have been prepared.  Goals have been set.  Curriculum has been chosen.  The teachers have spent hours preparing.  A lot of effort goes into Christian Education at Christ Church and in most churches.  Between our commitment to Christian Education, the work so many of us do in the field of education, and the value we as a congregation put on education, I have to say I was somewhat dismayed when I read the passage from James this morning.  "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness."  Those are daunting words as we begin the new program year!

In addition to these somewhat discouraging words from the book of James, we hear these words from Jesus this morning: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it."  Those are hard words that don't exactly make me want to jump out of my chair and follow Jesus.

But Christian Education, whether Sunday School or Pub Theology or Bible Study, is actually about learning what it means to follow Jesus.  What does Jesus mean when he says "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me?" The temptation is to think of our cross as all the burdens we shoulder either ourselves or on behalf of others~the burden of unemployment, concerns about children, whether our own or the children of Springfield, refugees, sickness, homelessness, inadequate health care, the list seems endless and picking all that up is makes following Jesus seems like a burden in itself.  But I do not think that is the cross Jesus calls us to carry.  In baptism, we are each marked with oil in the form of the cross, and these words are said "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever."  The cross that we are called to carry is not the sum total of all of our challenges and the challenges of the world around us.  There is nothing distinctively Christian about that.  In another place, Jesus says "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will refresh you.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  I wonder if perhaps we are called to let Jesus carry all of our burdens so that we have the strength to carry the cross of Christ, which is the ultimate triumph of life over death.  But what, exactly, might that mean?

When Jesus asks the disciples "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answers with great confidence "You are the Messiah."  Peter's answer, of course, is correct.  But Peter wants to define the Messiah on his own terms, following a Messiah of his own creation.  When Jesus describes what will happen to the Messiah, that he will be rejected, suffer, die, and rise again, Peter is aghast.  Obviously these things do not happen to the Messiah!   Jesus' rebuke is severe because Peter is denying the very cross of Christ that is the triumph of life over death and defining the Messiah on his own terms.  Peter must have been mortified when Jesus said "Get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things."

Peter is not wanting to follow Jesus.  Peter is wanting Jesus to follow him-to go where Peter wants to go and do what Peter wants him to do.  Jesus has just healed a sick girl, given hearing to a deaf man, and turned a small amount of bread and fish into a feast for the masses.  Peter wants to follow that person.  Jesus, on the other hand, is talking about pouring out his life.  Jesus calls the disciples to follow him as the journey takes him through the cross, not around it, giving his life away rather than holding on until his knuckles turn white.  Jesus calls the disciples to give up their own itinerary-their own ideas about where this journey will take them, get rid of their road map, quit limiting their possibilities, and live fully by picking up the cross of Christ and following Jesus into new life.

In a week when we marked the 14th anniversary of 9/11, followed the refugees fleeing their homeland for safety in Europe, and tended to the various stumbling blocks in our own lives, we can easily wonder about this journey we are on with Jesus.  We did not choose journeys such as these and quite frankly, sometimes we find ourselves on a journey we did not sign up for.  On bad days, we can wonder why, if we are putting ourselves out for Jesus, Jesus does not do a better job of taking care of us or our loved ones, or people we have never met but we know to be enduring unimaginable horrors. All we see are the burdens we and others have to carry, and the part of discipleship we want is the part where Jesus carries our burdens and takes them away.

Jesus says "If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will loose it and those who loose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it."   Following Jesus means not avoiding hard questions or difficult situations, but trusting that God is present and trying seeing life in the midst of death.  Following Jesus is to trust that there is no place we can find ourselves where the Risen Christ cannot be found, not necessarily to fix the situation but to go first through the challenge and let us follow.  Following Jesus means we may not always be able to see where we are going because we are not first in line, but trusting that Jesus is first in line and does see.  What it means to pick up the cross of Christ is to trust that life has the final word and Jesus will get us there.  What it means to follow Jesus is to actually let Jesus lead the way.

                                                                           Amen.

Making the Kingdom of God Come Near

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 6, 2015

Proper 18 B

What are we to make of an incredibly rude Jesus this morning?  We know that Jesus got angry and chased the money changers from the temple.  We know that Jesus was sad when he wept at Lazarus' grave.  But rude? Really?  In the reading from Proverbs, we hear "Do not rob the poor because they are poor.  Do not crush the afflicted at the gate." In the reading from James, we hear the words "Has God not chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love them?"  Jesus seems quite unaware of these teachings this morning when he is so rude to the Syrophonecian woman who wants nothing other than healing for her little daughter.  Jesus actually says "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."  Jesus is not taking about household pets here.  Jesus is talking about mangy, scraggly dogs that roam the streets in search of food.  Jesus is placing the woman beyond the margins of human society which hardly sounds like Jesus at all.

At the end of the story, in which Jesus does actually heal the Syrophonecian woman's daughter and the deaf man with a speech impediment, I am left with two basic questions.  For the first question, the matter of Jesus' rudeness, there appears to be no satisfactory answer.  The commentaries suggest things like Jesus was testing the woman, or that Jesus suddenly realized in the midst of the encounter that he was sent to both the Jews and the Gentiles.  I find neither of those explanations to be adequate or helpful, and quite frankly, I think we just have to let that question go.  Jesus was rude, as we all are on occasion, but in the end, he did heal the young girl.

The second question is the more pressing and pertinent question.  What are we to take from this story in which Jesus does heal both the daughter and the deaf man with a speech impediment?  Because in the end, despite his rudeness, Jesus' actions do demonstrate what the reading from James calls "the royal law according to Scripture" which is to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Through out the gospels, along with the prophet Isaiah, the sign that the reign of God has come near is that the deaf hear, the lame walk, the sick are healed and the oppressed go free.  Those who previously had to eat whatever crumbs were thrown under the table for them are now given seats at the table.  Jesus began his ministry by saying "The Kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the Good News."  Jesus' actions this morning are the very actions that tell us that the Kingdom of God is near.  Jesus made the Kingdom come near by healing the sick, making the deaf hear, feeding the hungry, and giving the marginalized a place at the table.

The real question we are left with this morning is not "Why was Jesus so rude?" The real question is "What can we do to further Jesus' work to make the Kingdom of God come near?"  The news this week has been filled with haunting photos and stories of people fleeing from Syria, refugees who are not just seeking a better life.  They are seeking to live, period.  We can easily think there is nothing we can do to help in an almost unimaginable situation occurring far away from here involving literally millions of people. But the world is small, and there are things we can do.  First, we can allow ourselves to be moved by the stories and images coming out of Syria, and Hungary, Austria, Germany and other places as people try to get to safety.  We can support the work being done by Doctors without Borders, or UNICEF, or the Mennonite Central Committee.  And there are ways to sponsor refugees either here or in Europe.

Closer to home, this week, our Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies sent out a letter commending today as a day for Confession, Repentance, and a Commitment to end Racism.  While the information came out too late for us to incorporate the suggested prayers into our service today, we are all called to work for justice and peace among all people, both in the way that we treat people in our every day lives, day in and day out, and in the ways that, together, we work to end systemic racism in our community and our country.  The Kingdom of God is no where close when people are victimized for the color of their skin, or their ethnicity.  Our call as Christians is to make the Kingdom of God draw near.

On this Labor Day Sunday, we ask God's blessing upon all of our labor, on all that we do with our lives.  In a few minutes, we will pray a litany for our labor and you will be invited forward for the anointing of your hands.  All of our labor, whatever we do and where ever we do it, can be work that makes the Kingdom of God come near, whether here at home, in our country as we work to end racism and other forms of injustice and oppression, or around the world as we open our hearts to make the Kingdom come near for those who flee violence and oppression. Jesus' work was to make the Kingdom of God come near.  Jesus calls us to do the likewise.

Amen.