August 31, 2003

Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8 + James 1:17-18,21-27 + Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

What we hear today is not so much Jesus speaking to Pharisees as it is the first- and second-generation church reflecting upon it’s internal problems. We hear them seeking in their memory of the words of Jesus a resolution that leads them to fidelity, unity, and holiness in the context of Gospel Morality.

Early Christians of gentile background would have not understood Jewish customs and law. Probably some teachers among that early church insisted on continuing the legalism and rituals of Judaism;

and into that conflict steps Mark with the authority of Jesus, who is for him the Risen One.

Their faith in the Son of Man liberated them from anything that would keep them from the table fellowship.

That was the essential.

So if someone said you may not come to this table because you do not wash your hands exactly as prescribed in the details of the law, that custom had to go.

It is a serious issue that has not been resolved even to this day.

It may not be hand washing that causes dispute over this table and who may come here; but it is always something to do with human behavior. Then it was mostly about washing pots, pans, and hands.

Now it seems to be sexual behavior, and in our recent past it has been a matter of race, language, and ethnic origins that have excluded some from the table.

The point Mark makes is that there is nothing wrong with hand washing, in fact it is probably a good thing for the control of disease,

but it can do nothing to prevent the contamination of human sin.

That contamination is only avoided by sincere soul-searching in the presence of a merciful and forgiving God.

Goodness, uprightness, and lawful behavior begin with being good and loving what is good.

Goodness or “Morality”

come from being personally and profoundly convinced

that goodness and holiness are the only appropriate response

to the God who is goodness personified

and in whose good image we have been made.

Their trouble was simply that they had turned a ritual into a religion. Instead of leading them to purity of heart, it simply gave clean hands.

The point Mark is making is that goodness and morality are not just a matter of keeping the rules.

We run the constant risk of thinking that way.

Without understanding this Markan insight into Gospel Morality,

we begin to think that if no one gets hurt,

or if everyone is doing it, it’s just fine.

The consequences of behavior like that are only considered when one gets caught.

Until then there is no thought about whether or not something is right or wrong, or whether or not our behavior has been good or bad.

We are living with those consequences right now with that kind of morality, and it is just as much a problem for us as the hand washing was for those earliest of Christians.

There is just as much immoral behavior in offices and classrooms as there is in bedrooms. We are living these days with the consequences of lies from the White House to classrooms of this city where cheating and dishonesty is now the way to get what you want, and if you don’t get caught it’s the way to go.

Mark calls all of this thinking into question today. The church formed in the Markan tradition thinks of morality in terms of the good we have failed to do just as much as in terms of what we have done wrong.

Morality is not just avoiding sin.

To be “moral” means to answer the call of God

in all we are, in all we say, in all we do.

Morality is concerned not only with what,

but also with why and with who.

At the center of our lives,

the difference between right and wrong, good and bad

begins to be perceived by those

who choose to be shaped in the way of God’s own image,

who choose to live in the freedom of God’s presence,

a people whose lives, like God, are turned to the needs of others

and are then growing in the way of salvation.

Recognizing, affirming, and joyfully living

in the immediate and loving presence of God-incarnate within us

is what makes us good,

and it makes us holy and blameless in God’s sight.

August 24, 2003

Joshua 24:1,2,15-18 + Ephesians 5:21-32 + John 6:60-69

On this final Sunday with the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel we discover what it’s all about. It is not about food. It is not about bread. It is not about flesh or blood. It is about covenant. Now we can understand why those people listening to Jesus responded as they did: why they walked away returning to their former life, why they shook their heads and murmured, why they found it hard to believe. Jesus is inviting them into a covenant, an intimate relationship with God that brings them to the edge of decision, and that is exactly where Joshua is in the first reading today. “Decide today who you will serve.” Joshua says to the assembly gathered to renew the covenant. The choice to be in covenant with God means rejecting all other gods. Every alliance must give way. Nothing is more important than serving God. Those people who walked away did not do so because they did not like the menu at the heavenly banquet. They returned to their former way because getting to the banquet was going to ask more of them than they were willing to give.

The Sixth Chapter of John’s Gospel is about Covenant. Hear and understand the ancient liturgy we glimpse in the first reading. The Book of Joshua that relates the gradual conquest of Canaan and the assimilation of those who lived there concludes with the ceremony we hear today. Those newly joined to the faith of Israel were incorporated in the ceremony we read today while those who have strayed or lost their resolve are invited to renew the covenant God has offered them. But it will require a single minded commitment to the God of this covenant.

This is what Jesus offers in John’s sixth chapter. A deliberate faith commitment and a bond of mutual trusting love were required of those who would serve as disciples of Jesus. It does not mean that disciples have an absolute and equivocal grasp of doctrine. It does not mean that all empirical data has been examined and understood. It means that disciples will trust only one to sustain them, to bring them through this life, to provide care and love them. It means a completely different way of looking at one’s self and others. It means a totally new relationship with all others, a relationship that leads to unity. To help us grasp this vision of what Jesus intends, the Church gives us a section of Ephesians: a section that raises eyebrows today just as the words of Jesus raised them before. It is a teaching that may well cause some to turn away, many to murmur, and some to say: “This is hard.”

When that happens, it is because, just like in the Gospel, listeners don’t get the point.

The second reading is about covenant. It is not about marriage. Those who think it is about marriage miss the point just like those who thought talk about flesh and blood was about chewing on meat.

This whole set of readings today, and this whole series for the last five weeks is about unity. The Covenant we are offered in Jesus Christ makes us one with Him and each other. The gift of the covenant of marriage is that two partners become one. Anything that would destroy unity is to be rejected. That means domination, paternalism, abuse, — all destroy unity. There is no hierarchy in  marriage, only equal partners with different gifts and duties. The partners to this kind of covenant commit themselves to live lives and nurture a relationship that strives to reflect and cherish the unity that comes in Christ. That is why Paul insists that husbands and wives are to be subject one to another and imitate Christ in their lives together.

Covenant, whether in marriage or our relationship with God is an invitation to intimacy. But intimacy is a problem for our age because we live in a time that is fearful and uncomfortable with intimacy. To avoid it, the immature escape into sex and pretend that they have found it. To refuse it some simply turn to themselves and never risk trust with another. But intimacy is what God desires to have with us, and the sacrament of this altar is about that intimacy. It is about getting close, so close that you become part of the other.

A covenant is always sealed and celebrated with a feast. Savor today the feast of God’s Word. Hear Joshua’s choice to serve the Lord, and his challenge to decide whom we shall serve. Hear Paul call us to unity as church. And hear John’s Jesus ask us: “Do you also want to leave?” If you choose to stay, If you choose this covenant, If you risk this intimacy with God and unity in this church, then you must forsake all others, set aside anything that divides, and risk losing yourself for the sake of finding Christ the Risen Lord. This food Jesus gives makes us a sacrament: a sign that is effective for salvation, a sign of a promise made and kept for eternal life. For that gift, where else can we go?

August 17, 2003

Proverbs 9:1-6 + Ephesians 5:15-20 + John 6:51-58

If you are visiting us or have been away for more than three weeks, what is now happening may catch you off guard and for a moment make you uneasy and uncertain, wondering if I am mixed up or simply do not know how the sequence of things is supposed to go. For the five weeks we hear the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel I have proposed that we consider the Word of God a “Feast” in itself, and savor every course of the meal with very quiet reflections.  To help with that, especially because the first Old Testament text is so unfamiliar, I am preaching first to provide you some thoughts with which to savor and enjoy the rich fare we are given these five summer weeks.

The first Old Testament text today is from Proverbs. We do not often hear this marvelous piece proclaimed at Liturgy. Today we will hear half of an extended reflection on Wisdom. If at home you read just a little further on, you will hear the other part. The two pieces are a comparison of Wisdom and Folly. Both are personified as women: one a great lady, the other a woman of the street. Each has built a house, prepared a banquet and sent invitations to guests who are urged to come and feast. Both invitations are ironically similar. However, Wisdom’s banquet of dressed meat and mixed wines will result in life for those share them while those who accept Folly’s invitation will be fed only on stolen bread and water and will wind up in the depths of the nether world. And there you see the point and get the lesson. Those who seek wisdom find life. Those content with silliness and folly welcome death. These are the radical alternatives the Word of God puts before us, and as we hear in another place, we are urged to “seek wisdom” and “choose life.”

Once we have been prepared by the Old Testament texts, we hear an Ephesians text that leads us to root our reflection in the context of the Eucharist, and then comes one of the seven great “I AM” passages of John’s Gospel. Hear it with all the power and awesome mystery of the voice in the burning bush. John wanted to do that.

Yet, there is a very obvious shift happening in this chapter at this point. The verses in the previous three weeks have been concerned with identity. “Who is this man?” Now it becomes a matter of:

“What is this man?” And will be settled with his first spoken words in today’s text. Now there is a change in tone and somewhat different language. The emphasis shifts from the identity of the bread of life to the identity of life in the Eucharist. In other words, now that we know what this is, what difference does it make? The radical alternative is put before us. It is focused on our relationship to Jesus, and it is a matter of wisdom or foolishness, of life or death.

The foolish quarrel among themselves over words without asking their meaning.  They want to know “How” instead of “Why”. Listen to them and learn from their folly. The issue in this text is the presence of Jesus which is the reason for the meal. It is ultimately about

the communication of divine sharing and divine self-giving. It all happens in human terms. This is simply about God becoming human

and revealing His Presence in human flesh and blood. This text is about flesh and blood, human flesh and blood, nothing else. There is no mystery, no magic, no play on words, just real and true flesh and blood.

The problem for those who quarreled among themselves is the same problem before us, believing that our flesh and blood can really sustain such a gift that is so far beyond our fondest hopes and greatest needs.

Listen then, and feast on this Word of God, for that Word has taken flesh and God is really and truly among us,never more real than among those who share the feast of this table.

August 15, 2003

Revelation 11:19-12:6 + 1 Corinthians 15:20-27 + Luke 1:39-56

The people who gather on this day in churches throughout this land are a people pregnant with God. Count yourself among them. We are a people filled with life, possibility, and promise. God is acting and living in us. God is anxious and ready to break out and declare that the Kingdom has come. Now is the time.

We are also a people who feel empty sometimes, who know bitterness, aching and longing. There are days when we barely feel God within us, and times when we must simply take it on faith that there really is life and wholeness and forgiveness. Yet today we remember that God has chosen us, sealed us with the sign of the cross and so we are joined to God forever.

Hope, Healing, Service, Forgiveness, Acceptance are ours to give and more besides, because these things have been given to us.

We call this day “Assumption.” We reflect on Mary, the Mother of God, the one the Church has since the fourth century called: “Theotokos.” “God bearer.”

The people who gather on this day in the churches throughout this land know also that this day is about them. For they too are, by her grace, and her acceptance, “God-bearers.” If we do not become so, the work of God will have ceased, and the Kingdom shall never come.

This day unites us to heaven, to heaven’s work, and to heaven’s queen. This day we rejoice and are blessed. For those who gather in this church today remember that God has done great things for them, and Holy is God’s Name.

August 10, 2003

1 Kings 19:4-8 + Ephesians 4:30-5:2 + John 6:41-51

Ahab was the King of Israel: his wife, Jezebel was a princess from Tyre and Sidon. A prenuptial agreement allowed that she continues the worship of her god; and she was enthused to convert her subjects. To accomplish that, she banished the prophets of Israel and brought in her own. Elijah has confronted those imported prophets, and in conflict, they are slaughtered. So, he is in big trouble with the queen, and no one is defending him. He heads to the desert convinced that he is finished, and not just a little discouraged with the God he has defended who now seems to have left him vulnerable and defenseless.

As we sit with the Word of God today, there are many images that sweep over us: especially since last week Exodus put before us the story of a provident God who ignores our murmuring and our hoarding of what perishes only to feed us with a food that lasts forever given at the hands of his own son. Finally at the end of his road, with his own ideas and plans in shambles, Elijah allows himself to be led and fed by God. He becomes strong and perseveres to do even greater things, and at the end of his journey (because he finishes it), he meets God.

The experience of Elijah is the story of anyone who walks through this life doing their best to be faithful to God and do what is right.

The inevitable consequence of that kind of life is clear. You end up under the “broom tree” wishing it were all over. It is the faithful ones who do what is right who lose their jobs, who find themselves alone without a spouse when divorce or death leaves them alone. It is the faithful ones who find cancer in their body or lose a child or have their homes destroyed by storm of fire. It is the faithful who face defeat and find their friends too ashamed or too busy to stand by them and hold them up.

But it is to those faithful ones, the believers, that God still sends an angel. John suggests that the angel is Jesus who comes and says, “Take and eat.” It is the food that sustains the discouraged and restores the faithful. With that food, Elijah makes it to Sinai where he meets God. With that food we who make our way toward God are sustained, strengthened, and nourished, and best of all, we no longer journey alone for our food is our companion, our food is our God. The mystery of it all is that in the eating of this food we are at journey’s end. It is not miracles that sustain us, but the Word of God, the promises of God, the faith of the Church, and the discovery that we are not alone. God indeed is with us.

Full-bellied crowds, staring at their toothpicks, idly asking Jesus for some sign that would validate his claims to be the Bread of Life

dismiss both Jesus and his teaching because they thought they knew him. In their unteachable, unreachable state, they could not recognize, appreciate, or be nourished by the Bread of Life. Faith in Jesus is not simply a human choice, but a unique cooperation of divine initiative and human fee will. Those who refused to come to faith in Jesus were refusing the promptings of God. Faith requires that the believer look beyond the bread to see Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Listen today to the Word of God like never before. When you hear of Elijah’s discouragement, remember your own. When you hear of his pain, recognize your pain. When you hear the angel speak, hear the voice of God. When you think you can’t go another day or take another step,

remember the Words of Jesus and the Promise of God.

We have food here come down from heaven, Jesus Christ

who feeds those who hunger with the bread of his teaching and the bread of his very self in the Eucharist. This is the food that prompts our faith and empowers our service. This is the food that enables us to follow the way of love proposed to us in Ephesians. This is the food for all our life’s journey. Feast now on the Word of God: as the angel says: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you.”

August 3, 2003

Exodus 16:2-4,12-15 + Ephesians 4:17-20-24 + John 6:24-35

We move into our second week with John’s sixth chapter. Last week, Elijah opened our hearts for the Words of Jesus, and this week we turn to a familiar story from Exodus that prepares us to reap the harvest of John’s Gospel. Again, as I said I would through this series, I want to speak first and let God have the last word! Remember the vision the apostles had at the Transfiguration.

Jesus Elijah and Moses talking together. Today we complete the triptych we began last week now adding Moses to our reflection.

Last week it was Elisha and Elijah. This week it is Moses and Aaron. and these next verses of John 6 are heard in compliment with Exodus.

Manna and quail are common substances and are a simple phenomenon of nature. An insect secretion forms at night and falls in flakes from the leaves of the tamarisk thickets in the early morning. The heat of the sun melts them, and they are gone by late morning. It tastes sweet but cannot be preserved. It perishes.

Quail migrate twice a year. They make a long over water flight to and from northeastern Europe and Africa. Exhausted from the long over water flight they land in the Sinai Peninsula exhausted and are easily caught. These are delicacies.

People of faith see in ordinary natural things the providence of a loving God. People without faith are simply entertained by the wonder itself and they want more. Today John shows us this crowd. They want free food. They like the signs and wonders and have little interest in what this wonderworker has to say – they just want more entertainment. They are running all over the place looking for Him, not because of who he is, but because of what he can do for them. They are yet to ask: “What is this?” They stop short – they fail to see through the sign to the one who provides. This is the issue in the desert. These people Moses leads have yet to learn reliance on God that will enable them to face and overcome their struggles.

The demand for a sign comes from an Old Testament expectation that a prophet like Moses would come in the last days to work again the Exodus wonders. Now this is the heart of the message coming from a prophet like Moses who is Jesus. In John’s Gospel, if one stops short, captivated by the wonder, then one fails to understand the reason for the action: the gracious activity of the Father through the Son.

The people in the desert asked: “What is this?” They struggled with the identity of this bread. Their struggle defined their identity. Perishable food makes perishable people. Food that lasts forever makes people who live forever. The people of John’s Gospel struggled with the identity of Jesus. We who feast on this Word of God today may either stand back and wonder about this sign wanting more for ourselves, or we can enter into the struggle over what they mean and where they lead us. That struggle is called “discipleship”, and it is the work of God. Our discipleship demands that we continue to look at what God provides and ask the question: “What is this?” Look at our jobs, our homes, our possessions, and our relationships – look at it all and ask: “What is this?” If we do not see past these things and perceive the one who provides them, we cling to what is perishable and we shall perish along with it all. Moses and Jesus confront a lack of faith today. Moses and Jesus along with Elijah last week tease us with food. Gandhi once said: “With so much hunger in this world, can God come in any form except bread?”

It is time now to be fed at Wisdom’s table,  to examine the signs and wonders that are all around us, to quietly ask ourselves what it is we really need and who it is we are becoming; to recall that manna evaporated in the heat of day, and ponder the presence of Jesus who comes with food that will not perish. Whether it is manna shared in the desert or barley loaves on a grassy hillside overlooking the Sea, those who eat together are bonded together. What we shall come to understand in the weeks to come is that it is Christ who eats with us not only as the one who provides, but also as the food that is provided. Be attentive now to the Word of God.