New Sermons Posted

Two recent sermons each by the Rev. David Benedict Hedges, n/BSG and the Rev. Ben Garren have just been posted to our Sermons page. Click on the graphic of each entry to listen. The newly-available sermons are as follows:

Three Kinds of Faith

A Sermon for the Resurrection of the Lord (Easter Day), April 16, 2017
by The Rev. David Benedict Hedges, n/BSG

Prelast and St. Thomas

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 23, 2017
by The Rev. Ben Garren

Our Road to Emmaus

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2017
by The Rev. David Benedict Hedges, n/BSG

Two Kinds of Freedom

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 7, 2017
by The Rev. Ben Garren

Picture credits:

Burnand, Eugène, 1850-1921. Disciples John and Peter on their way to the tomb on Easter morning, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55038 [retrieved May 10, 2017]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BurnandJeanPierre.jpg.

	Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669. Supper at Emmaus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54706 [retrieved May 10, 2017].

Sermon: Put on Christ

Putting on Christ
A Sermon for Sunday, September 7th, 2014
By Father John R. Smith

Readings:
Lesson: Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm: Psalm 149
Epistle: Romans 13:8-14
The Holy Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20

Last week at coffee hour someone said they had trouble understanding my sermon.  (This is not too surprising for me, because I have trouble with my sermons too!) Her question:  What are we to do about the violence in the world?  Are we supposed to sit back and let violent people kill others and us?  Is this what God wants?

I was truly thankful for the questions, and, given the person's discomfort, caused by me, I thought coffee hour was as good a place as any to begin to address them! 

Here goes:  God is Sovereign over all life:  Only God gives life and only God can take life away.  God does not want us to have our lives or the lives of our loved ones taken away by violence, or, for us to do violence to anyone else, including the violent.  Like the Passover story from the Exodus reading today, God loves his chosen people, they have been suffering as slaves at the hands of the Egyptians, so before the final and tenth plague, God gives them directions for a meal of a perfect lamb and the smearing of the blood of that lamb on the door posts and lintels of their homes, so that, when the Angel of Death sweeps over Egypt it will “Passover” the houses of the Israelites and they will live.  Christians have been given a meal where Christ, the Lamb of God, saves us by his Blood.  “Alleluia, Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us.”  God has a plan for saving the world, and is working this plan right this minute, but it helps so much if we choose to seek and follow it.

What is “it?” God has invested one hundred percent of this plan in Jesus, his Son's life, death, and resurrection.  For us, the most operative part is Resurrection.  As St. Paul put it:  If Christ is not raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain.  Period.  When we, as followers of Christ, contemplate death, whether natural, from disease, or from violence, we have to keep the hope of Resurrection foremost in our mind.  This is what I prayed most recently in the dramatic beheading of James and Scott.

With whatever faith we have, even a mustard seed's worth, it will always comes down to this:  Do I believe that Jesus was truly raised from the dead and that I too, believing in him, will be raised from the dead as well?

Coffee hour conversations go all over the place.  But as we pursued this difficult subject of violence I think we both came to the realization that it did all come down to firm belief in the Resurrection.  That Christ rose from the dead, and promised that those who believe in Him will also conquer death, becomes the great equalizer when someone has a gun pointed at your head or a knife on your throat.  “Don't be afraid of those who can kill the body, but can't kill the soul,” scripture says [Matthew 10:28].

Truth is, I said to my friend, if I faced that trial I  probably would be afraid and even XXXX in my pants,  but in that moment of testing, I hope I could persevere in my faith in Jesus and his resurrection.  I hope that I had, like Romans says today, “Put on Christ.”

“Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” [Matthew 18:20]

I don't think it would work if my coffee hour companion and I agreed to ask that we win the lottery and give the money to the church, but what we did ask for:   an ever-deepening faith in Jesus' resurrection and the ability to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” doing no wrong to a neighbor far away or near.  I think the Father will answer that prayer.  Nothing could be clearer in these confusing and violent times than the admonition to “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”  Of course this is Jesus' “agape” love that lays down one's life for another and not the “sweet-nothing” variety.

Let's end these thoughts with a prayer by St. John Chrysostom that often concludes Morning Prayer each day:

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting.

Amen.

Sermon: Blame It On God

Blame it on God
A Sermon for Sunday, August 31st, 2014
By Father John R. Smith

Readings:
Lesson: Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm: Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b
Epistle: Romans 12:9-21
The Holy Gospel: Matthew 16:21-28

Last week in the Gospel Peter got the Gold Star from Jesus, his teacher.  How? In Caesarea Philippi, a royal city in Galilee named after Emperor Caesar and Philip the Tetrarch, Jesus asked Peter “Who do you say that I am?”  And in this city, where, if you asked anyone on the street, “Who is the Son of God?” they would reply, “Why, Caesar is, of course.”  That was one of Caesar’s first and greatest titles:  Caesar was the Son of God.  Peter got the Gold Star because he with full faith in the middle of a society that had a completely different opinion of who was God, he says “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

But Gold Stars can lose their stickiness and fall off pretty easily.  Following directly last week’s Gospel, after Peter’s faith-filled confession, Jesus begins to tell his disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem, be tried at the hands of men, and be put to death.  When Peter objects and protests that this cannot be allowed to happen to his Lord, after all, Jesus is supposed to be doing the punishing of the evildoers, not the other way around.  So, Jesus, in the strongest possible words, calls “Gold Star” Peter, Satan:  “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

(I would like to think that James Foley, as he was kneeling there, about to be beheaded, was setting his mind on divine things, on Jesus, in whom he always believed, who gave his life and was raised from the dead.)

We have to know the purposes of God in whom we believe.

It is not divine violence or wrath that Jesus wants for us who sin, but release from the human violence of this world.  And the only way to be released from that violence is to believe in Him and follow his teaching.

Satan was behind Jesus’ eventual death, so much more so than the fearful leaders at the time.  Peter senses this.  Peter is against Satan’s plan.  You can’t blame him for objecting to Jesus’ desire to face the Cross in Jerusalem.  Peter still doesn’t understand what Jesus is about.  He doesn’t want Jesus, The Messiah, to be identified as a victim or scapegoat. This is all too close for Peter, if anyone is going to be a victim, let them be at a distance from us.  Peter wants Jesus to be a victorious God to crush the enemies of Israel, using violence if necessary.

Peter stands in the long tradition of belief which says that God will punish all evildoers (and, unfortunately, we add:  I’ll help you punish them Lord!) that even persists to this day, helped along by even the best translators of the bible.  People do bad things (We think:  I’m a sinner too, but I don’t do anything “that” bad) and God is the Punisher.  For example, in today’s reading from the Letter to the Romans where it states  “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.  If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

What strikes me about the translation “wrath of God” (and I mentioned this before) is that no place in the Greek text is there “of God” (tou Theou).  It’s not there, nor is it implied in any way.  In other words “wrath” is what human beings do to other human beings, not brought about by God at all.  The weight behind this translation probably stems from reading the Hebrew Bible where “vengeance” from God was called down upon Israel’s enemies.  Sometimes we blame the violence in the world on God as necessary to bring protection and peace.  We feel better when we think in terms of “Sacred Violence,” violence that God sanctions against those we judge as evil, but God is not for anything that disregards the sacredness of life.  If we are going to continue with our notion of Sacred Violence, hurting others in God’s Name, thinking we’re doing God’s will, God lets us, and the “wrath” that ensues is wrath that we humans bring upon ourselves is our own doing.

Why is this, the case?  We should pick it up loud and clear in the question of Moses to the Lord at the burning Bush:  Who shall I tell the people you are?  And God said to Moses, tell them,  “I AM WHO I AM.” God is the verb “to be,” essence, life itself.  God is all about this life, learning to live with others, listening to their needs even if we disagree or have another take on the issue, trying to meet their legitimate needs as we are able.  Giving human beings, who receive their life from God alone, real respect and resist calling them names, refusing to hear them, and cutting off any dialogue that can lead to peace and away from the sin of violence. And, as the Eucharistic Prayer says: When we became subject to evil and death, God, in his mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.  God is Father of all, not just some.

So the Good News is, if we accept it, is that God is one hundred percent into LIFE and, when death enters the picture of our human existence, God had a plan to bring life out of death manifest in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  May we dedicate ourselves to this LIFE and, when we die, be raised up with Jesus. 

Amen!

Sermon: Shiphrah and Puah in Tucson: White Privilege and the Power of One

Shiphrah and Puah in Tucson: White Privilege and the Power of One
A Sermon for Sunday, August 24th, 2014
By Mother Clare Yarborough

Readings:
Lesson: Exodus 1:8-2:10    
Psalm: Psalm 124
Epistle: Romans 12:1-8    
The Holy Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20

1.    The first I heard about the news out of Ferguson was from a cryptic remark on Facebook made by Mike Kinman, dean of Christ Cathedral in St. Louis, Mo on August 10. It said, “Sometimes events happen that compel you to tear up your sermon and start over.  Yesterday’s shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson is one of those events.”

At the time I sort of assumed that this was a local kerfluffle in St. Louis that needed to be addressed but would quickly subside.  Mike cares for his community and he’s in the forefront of trying to make systemic change for the better in St. Louis and its neighboring communities.  (Not surprisingly, he’s a St. Michael’s Eagle.)  So I thought it was natural that, of course, he would tear up his already written sermon to address a local concern—that’s the mark of a good pastor.

It wasn’t until the next day that I realized that the shooting of Michael Brown was not a small local incident, but one more chapter in a much larger story that implicates every one of us in this country. 

Another unarmed black youth shot by a white police officer in the name of self-defense.  His body lay on the street for hours, his mother prevented from going to him as it was a “crime scene”. 

You can imagine the rage that erupted as a result in that mostly black community with the mostly white police force.  You can also imagine the fear in the police force, the defensive reaction to the rage that resulted in the riot gear, the tear gas, the rubber bullets and the sound horns.

This, (of course), produced more rage, then more fear, and even more violence. 

2.    There came a time in Egypt where a king came to power who did not know Joseph.  And he said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

Bring out the riot gear!

At first the fear simply led to enslavement.  Pharaoh needed builders and the Hebrew slaves built, first Pithom and then Ramses.  They became more numerous.  Pharaoh’s fear grew and so he instructed the midwives Shiphrah and Puah: “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.”

The Scripture says that these two women feared God more than Pharaoh, and so they did not do what they were commanded.  They let the boys live and became the first non-violent “conscientious objectors” of Scripture.

When questioned, they adopted a nonchalant shrug: “Oh, it’s those Hebrew women, they aren’t like the Egyptian women, they are vigorous and have their babies before we even arrive!”  Thus, Pharaoh’s fear is intensified—the Hebrews aren’t like us.  The Hebrews are the other. 

3.    Egypt and the Israelites.  Europeans and Native Americans.  Turkey and the Armenians.  The Nazis and the Jews.  The Killing Fields of Cambodia.  Montt and the Ixil Mayans.  The Hutu and Tutsi of Rwanda. 

The history of genocide is a long and bloody one.  Although there are some overall patterns of how a single population is first defined, then marginalized and then systematically persecuted—each genocide seems to leave its own distinctive mark.  Some erupt almost spontaneously, such as Rwanda and Cambodia, others develop gradually over time—moving so slowly that it’s hard to actually identify the Tipping Point into wholescale mass slaughter.

Not every genocide has a Kristallnacht. 
But all usually have a Ferguson, and not just one, many.  There has to be a well-defined other to be feared.

Ferguson is Ferguson because it is not an isolated incident.  Mike Brown is not the only young unarmed black man shot because of being in the wrong place at the
wrong time, mouthing off the
wrong words to the
wrong person. 

This has happened too many times.  Too many times this has been the end result of a situation that could have been resolved in so many other ways.

Except time and time again we have the same end result because that we have a
•    a history of oppression and persecution,
•    A history of threats and intimidation
•    A history of fear that has created a deadly dance of violence between black and white in our country.

4.    We are invited to a different dance. 

Instead of dancing with Pharaoh, we have the opportunity to partner up with Shiphrah and Puah and dance with God.

So how do we join in when it looks as though the dance floor is in another part of the country? 
How do we know in fact whether we are dancing to the right tune when there are conflicting reports about what actually happened at the time of the shooting, and its aftermath?  How do we know we are picking up the right rhythm to this dance?

First, I think we have to realize that whether we realize it or not, we are on the same dance floor regardless of whether we find ourselves in Ferguson or Tucson.  White privilege looks the same across the country.  It’s so embedded in our cultural DNA that most of the time we aren’t even aware of it—
•    We turn on the tv and most of the people will look like us. 
•    We don’t have to scrounge to find toys for our kids that have the same skin color or eye color. 
•    We can walk along the sidewalk without hearing car doors lock as we approach.  Or women nervously cross the street. 
•    We can even pretend that white privilege doesn’t exist because if we choose, we can surround ourselves pretty easily with other white people.

And so we benefit from the same set of circumstances that created a Ferguson.  And we, like it or not, are on the same dance floor.  The first step to doing anything about it is to recognize the privilege and the fact that we did not earn it, we were born with it.  We can feel a little guilty about having something we did nothing to obtain—but quite frankly, guilt is useless if it does not spur us on to action.  So we are obligated to acknowledge the advantage of white privilege and the power it gives us, and then use it to act.

And the first action we can take with this privilege and power is to SHUT UP and LISTEN.  We need to listen to the voices of those who live in other realities.

•    Listen to the mothers who have to tell their sons NOT to run down the sidewalk lest it attract too much attention from the authorities.  Listen when they tell you how their hearts are in the mouths every time they hear of a shooting until they see their own sons come through the door safe and sound.
•    Listen to the youths who all too often are stopped by police just because they look as though they might not have a valid driver’s license. 
•    Listen to the young women who leave history class during a movie on the Civil Rights Movement because the police are turning fire hoses on men who look just like their dads and granddads. 

When we feel their pain and their anger and their fear, then it is easier to replace our fear with compassion and empathy.

Then we are ready to dance with God.  We will be ready to stand up and witness that we human beings are ALWAYS going to have more that unites us rather than divides us.  We will be ready to act on the truth that there is no “other” when we are all children of God.

We do not have to journey to Ferguson to make this point.  There are ample opportunities to witness here in Tucson: ample opportunities to listen to stories of oppression with compassion and empathy! 

5.     Shiphrah and Puah were not exactly considered privileged by the standards of Egypt—not when compared to Pharaoh.  But they were able to make their own moral decisions and act accordingly within the sphere of their influence.  The moment came when their sphere of influence coincided with Pharaoh’s interests.  Where before they had limited power, in the birth room they had all the power.  

They chose compassion over fear.  Life over Death. 

And the boys lived.

None of us know when we will be called to moral action.  We do know for sure is that we have the power to choose: compassion over fear, God over Pharaoh. 

There may be more Fergusons in our future as a nation.  What we can do here is our best to keep our Tucson Compassionate, Kind, and Free of Fear.

We can be the Shiphrah and Puahs of the Old Pueblo—

and do what we can to keep our Michael Browns safe so that they can go home to their mothers at the end of the day.

AMEN.   

Don’t Look Down - a Sermon by Rev. John R. Smith

Don’t Look Down
A Sermon for Sunday, August 10th, 2014
By Father John R. Smith

Readings:
Lesson: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Psalm: Psalm 105, 1-6, 16-22, 45b
Epistle: Romans 10:5-15
The Holy Gospel: Matthew 14:22-33

This past week the Church celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration on Wednesday, August 6. August 6 is also the anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. The Transfiguration commemorates Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up a high mountain where they get a glimpse of Jesus’ luminous glory and divinity. This Gospel is also proclaimed each year on the Last Sunday of Epiphany, so we hear it twice, which underlines its importance.

If you remember, Moses and Elijah appear alongside Jesus in this epiphany to the “Pillars” Peter, James, and John. That these two are included in the vision is understandable: Moses was given the Law and Elijah was foremost of the early prophets of Israel. What they have in common is they both dealt with idolatry.  When Moses comes down the mountain, after his dialogue with God and receiving the Law, he finds his people and the leaders he left in charge dancing around a Golden Calf they made in their impatience. He summarily orders the idols destruction and the execution of all the worshipers of it. And you might remember the Elijah story when he confronted the 600 prophets of Baal and challenged them to a contest to see which God was more powerful and real: the Baal (which means Lord) or the God of Israel. It was a fire contest. The prophets of Baal called down fire from heaven on their wood stack and nothing happened. Elijah has water poured on and soaked into his wood pile and when he calls down fire it ignites instantly to everyone’s amazement! Elijah then orders the 600 prophets of Baal to be put to death.

Moses and Elijah provide a great contrast to Jesus. Jesus who goes to the Cross demanding no persons death, forgiving those who will put him to death, and instead will offer himself in death for the sins and idolatry of the world. And the Voice from heaven declares “This is my Son, the Beloved, Listen to Him.  In other words, God is telling the three leaders of the three great Christian communities of the early church:  Be lead by Jesus’ teaching and example. Listen to Him.

For the first few centuries followers of Jesus were focused on Jesus example and words. No Christian would be a part of taking life in any form. And in those times people dealt with the same kind of issues we deal with today, human nature and response being pretty much the same. But over the centuries, mostly due to fear and the “rational” desire to “preserve our way of life,” we’ve accumulated so many arguments for not listening to Jesus or following his example. Or, perhaps more accurately, we prefer to practice a kind of moral religion where we determine good and evil without any real reference to Jesus.  We revert, as Joseph’s brothers did, to jealousy and hatred for our brother. (Granted, Joseph didn’t do himself any good in their eyes by playing up the favor Jacob had for him!) So the brothers try to get rid of Joseph, and as things work out, they end up needing their brother and he ends up, after some intrigue, forgiving them. In this important regard the Joseph story parallels Jesus’ story: both were made scapegoats by their own people and both end up forgiving those who sought to harm them.

I believe that the one thing that will get us through the our own difficult time (Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Sudan, immigration and refugee crisis) is by refocusing on the person of Jesus and his teaching, acknowledging God, as the General Thanksgiving in the Prayer says:  Not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days.

We can learn from today’s Gospel:  We’re all in the boat together, but the wind is blowing and the sea is rough.  It’s easy to be afraid in such a situation. So, when something or someone approaches us. We yell “It’s a ghost!”  We’re ready to defend ourselves. But the One coming toward us is Jesus, who says: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” It’s almost comical, if it wasn’t so serious, but impetuous Peter, the one who would deny the Lord 3 times, recognizes that it’s Jesus, and asks Jesus to command him to walk to him on the water. Jesus says: Come! So Peter, jumps out of the boat, starts walking toward Jesus, but then looks down at the turbulent waves! The moment he takes his eyes off of Jesus he falters and begins to sink crying out: Lord, save me! 

Whatever happens, no matter how afraid we are, we must not support the lashing out at the object of our fear.  Keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus at all costs. And, when we’re tempted to look down, rather than to focus on Jesus, his hand will be there to catch us and hold us up.  We have nothing to fear. Don’t look down! Look up---at Jesus!

A song I sing with the children:  Here Comes Jesus

Here comes Jesus
See him walking on the water
He’ll lift you up
And he’ll help you to stand now
Here comes Jesus
He’s the master of the waves that roll
Here comes Jesus
He’ll make you whole.

Amen!

Eggs and Diapers: The New Fish and Bread - a sermon by Rev. Clare Yarborough

Eggs and Diapers: The New Fish and Bread
A Sermon for Sunday, August 3rd, 2014
By Mother Clare Yarborough

Readings:
Lesson: Genesis 32:22-31    
Psalm: Psalm 17: 1-7, 16
Epistle: Romans 9:1-5    
The Holy Gospel: Matthew 14:13-21

I.    Back from three weeks on the East Coast! 
I ate lobster three times, caught up with old friends, went to church three times (saving the bulletins for future reference), and did my best to avoid newspapers, newscasts and all other conduits of Current Events.

In fact, for three weeks the most earth-shattering news to come my way was the trade of Jon Lester and Johnny Gomes to the Oakland A’s, which pretty much smashes any hopes of a berth on the playoffs. 

So, a good time was had—a time of lazy mornings, cooler temperatures, reconnecting with friends and family.  Thank you for allowing me and Father Smith to have these times away to rest and restore ourselves. 

II.    Jesus wasn’t so lucky in today’s Gospel. 
He tried to get away…but the crowd found out!  So here’s the story again—retold and put into the context of the rest of the bigger story.

In the section immediately before this, we hear about what happened to John the Baptist.  How he was arrested and imprisoned and finally served up on a silver platter to Herod Antipas.  The story is gruesome, even depraved, and must have been hard in the telling and in the hearing.

I can imagine Jesus’ wanting to scurry away and be alone.  How hard it must have been to hear how his mentor, cousin, friend had died!    How sobering to realize that yes indeed, this is what happens to prophets and saints, anyone who dares to speak Truth to Power.  Jesus got in a boat and went to a deserted place, also translated to a lonely place, or an out-of-the-way place…a place to cry, to pray, and to remember.

We’ve all been to these places.  In fact, most of the time you don’t need a boat to find such a place.  Nor a plane.  Nor a car.  Sometimes you don’t even need to leave the room to find that tragedy picks you up and drops you in a lonely and desolate place.

The crowd found Jesus out in that lonely place.  Perhaps he really was such a celebrity that there was nowhere for him to go without the crowd following.  Or perhaps they came for more than just a celebrity sighting.  Perhaps they came because they too were looking for a desolate place to be.   Jesus was not the only one to mourn the passing of John.   John baptized the entire Judean countryside, after all.  They flocked to John to hear his message of repentance.  They eagerly heard the message of preparation.

But they also heard the news of a banquet, a dancing girl, and a head served up on a silver platter.  If Good News travels fast, Bad News travels even faster!

Suddenly, Jesus had company out there in the lonely and desolate place.  With John’s death, the Kingdom of Heaven didn’t look so near.  Another good man extinguished simply because of a silly promise made to a little girl,

and God was silent.

Matthew’s Gospel said that that Jesus had compassion on the crowd.  “Compassion” in English is a rather soft word, in the Greek the word connotes a much stronger response—and a better sense might be a translation that says “When Jesus saw the crowd, he was heartsick.” 

So he healed them to remind them that God was still present.  The Kingdom was still nearby.

“Lord, it’s getting late.  Send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves,” said the disciples.

“You give them something to eat,” was his response. 
“We have nothing,” they responded.  “except for five loaves of bread and two fish.”

He tells them to bring the food to him, organizes the crowd to sit down on the grass, and then takes the food, says a blessing, breaks the bread and tells the disciples to pass it out.  And not only was there SOMETHING rather than NOTHING, there was a LOT of SOMETHING...actually there was an abundance.  There were such an abundance that each disciple had to get out a basket and gather up the extra food.  12 baskets in all. 

Herod’s banquet ends in a death.  Jesus’ banquet?  5,000 well fed men (plus women and children) and enough leftover for another day.  And that’s the story.

III.    My family tries to make a habit of going to Casa Maria every month to help out with the sandwich making frenzy.  I have a pretty good idea of how much goes into making 1,000 egg salad sandwiches.  A lot of bread.  A lot of eggs.  A lot of hands.  I have no idea how two fish and five loaves multiplied into enough for everyone, nor how 12 men managed to serve 5,000 plus people—the logistics alone make my mind boggle. 

But this is what I do know.  It doesn’t matter how it happened.  It doesn’t even matter whether I know that this story happened in exactly the way it’s told in Matthew.  Or Mark.  Or Luke, or John---it occurs in all of them actually. 

Every last evangelist tells this story. 
It is important for us to know this story.
Not because, I think, it’s about Jesus, but because it is about ourselves.

We are the disciples and we need to have this story absolutely seared into our DNA as Christians.  As followers.  As disciples.

Because we are always going to have 5,000 people camped out on our lawn waiting for dinner.  That’s just the world. 

Women and children at the bus station.  Gaza and Israel lobbing rockets at each other.  Western Africa in the midst of a devastating epidemic of Ebola. 

There will always be something absolutely horrible going on in the world and we will never be adequate to the task of fixing it all!

As some disasters disperse, others come to take their place.  Addressing the world’s pain is like playing Whack-a-Mole at the amusement park.  Except that it’s not a recipe for fun,

it’s a recipe for despair.

Especially for disciples who think they have nothing to give, and so want to send the problems away to the closest village. 

But…as Jesus points out—it’s not up to the disciples to judge adequacy of their resources.  So what if there isn’t enough to feed 5,000 men (plus women and children)?  If there’s something—anything—to give, then sit the people down, take the time to thank God you have something to give, and start passing it out. 

What started out as a recipe for despair will turn into a glimpse of God’s Kingdom. 

IV.    There’s a story I found on the internet, and like most good internet stories it’s been passed around so many times that it’s almost impossible to track down where and when it occurred.  But nonetheless I believe it to be a true story much like the feeding of the 5,000 is a true story.  What it teaches is True even if all the circumstances surrounding it are not.  It is supposedly told by a social worker who lived and worked in the Appalachias:

“The Sheldons were a large family in severe financial distress after a series of misfortunes. The help they received was not adequate, yet they managed their meager income with ingenuity – and without complaint.

“One fall day I visited the Sheldons in their ramshackle rented house where they lived at the edge of the woods. Despite a painful physical handicap, Mr. Sheldon had shot and butchered a bear that strayed into their yard once too often. The meat had been processed into all the big canning jars they could find or swap for. There would be meat in their diet even during the worst of the winter when their fuel costs were high.

“Mr Sheldon offered a jar of bear meat to me. I hesitated to accept it, but the giver met my unspoken resistance firmly. “Now you just have to take
this. We want you to have it. We don’t have much, that’s a fact; but we ain’t
poor!”
“I couldn’t resist asking, “What’s the difference?”

His answer proved unforgettable.

“”When you can give something away, even when you don’t have much, then you
ain’t poor. When you don’t feel easy giving something away even if you got
more’n you need, then you’re poor, whether you know it or not.”

V.  Most of us have something to give. 
Eggs for egg salad.  A packet of size 4 diapers.  A car to ferry supplies.  An ear to listen.   Completely inadequate, but nevertheless something.   Therefore we are blessed, blessed by God to have something to give.  Strangely, the more we give—the more we find things TO give.  The richer we become.

The world is large.  The pain is immense.  There are 5,000 men (plus women and children) camped out on our doorsteps with more arriving daily.

It’s time to keep breaking out the bread and the fish, the eggs and the diapers and get busy passing them out.  We’re disciples of Jesus, so that’s our job.

God will take care of the abundance. 
After all, that’s his job.

Amen.

New Sermons Page on St. Michael's Website

The Sermons page on the St. Michael and All Angels website has been fully updated! It now features five recent sermons by Father Smith, with more to follow soon. Each entry includes a list of the day's readings, and at least one picture that relates to the sermon.

Here is the most recent sermon. Click on the link above to read them all!

--Karen

Don’t Weed the Garden
A Sermon for Sunday, July 20th, 2014
By Father John R. Smith

Readings:
Lesson:  Genesis 28: 10 – 19a                                   
Psalm 139: 1-11 / 22-23
Epistle: Romans 8: 12 - 25
The Holy Gospel: Matthew 13: 24 – 30, 36 - 43

When I was a teenager, my mom kept pretty good tabs on me.  When, during the summer, it looked like I was getting bored or antsy with lots of time on my hands, she would say:  “John, go weed the garden.”  Living in the northwest with lots of rain everything grew fast including the weeds.  There were always plenty of weeds in the garden and flower beds.  It had to be done.

I dreaded hearing my mom’s request for me to pull weeds.  I wish I knew today’s Gospel passage where Jesus says to let the weeds grow and don’t pull them out lest the good plants be uprooted with them (which did happen!) so I could show it to my mother and get out of having to pull weeds all the time!

Actually, Jesus is addressing a problem in his day which we continue to have in our own time:  How do you resist evil without adding the evil of your own violent preventative actions and make things worse than they were?  In other words, Jesus is saying that we will multiply evil when we try to identify evil and weed it out.

Why is this?  Because Jesus knows we are not good at identifying evil because we are sinners too.  Like Pogo says:  We have met the enemy and it is us.  As human beings we tend to put everything into an “us” vs. “them” type of life scenario where real people get hurt or killed.

Conventional human judgment says “Let's get the bad guys and teach them a lesson.”  But we do so without any proportion to our human “justice.”  For example:  After 9/11 there was a lot of comparison to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.  On that tragic day there were 2500+ casualties, mostly sailors and soldiers, but when we dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima we caused over 250,000 casualties, mostly all civilians.  And 9/11’s 3500+ dead led to a war that estimates 350,000 were killed, the majority civilians.  And in the current conflict in Gaza and Israel, Palestinian casualties are over 200 and so far only 1 Israeli has been killed.  We are not good at pulling weeds.  The more we weed the more the landscape is destroyed.

The Million Dollar question is:  How can we oppose evil without creating more evil and bloodshed and becoming evil ourselves in the process?

Jesus lived and taught an alternative to our conventional human wisdom.  When the slaves in the story ask the Master if they should pull up the weeds sown by the enemy, he replies,

“No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.  Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”

The word for “let” in the Greek text is aphiemi which can mean “permit”, “let”, or “allow.”  It’s in the command “do this” form.    But the greatest thing for me is that the word aphiemi is the word in Greek for forgiveness, in the sense of “let off the hook!”

For Jesus, the real enemy is Satan, who attempts to sucker us into conflict and to end up creating more and more woe in the world.  Jesus is saying “Don’t fall into that trap.  Step back from the sadness and look how to bring mercy to the perpetrator who has a complaint against you.  What is the complaint?  How can you answer it and make things better?

All this said, we still have to deal with Jesus’ words about collecting the weeds at harvest and throwing them into the furnace of fire where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Doesn’t sound much like forgiveness, does it?  We can go in a couple of directions on this:  Jesus could be saying “Leave all Judgment and punishment to me and my Father.  Wait till we get our hands on the evildoers,” (Jesus’ listeners might like this best because it gives a nod to the conventional wisdom to eliminate the bad guys) or, Jesus is saying that the Kingdom he and the Angels are trying to bring about on the earth will be unsuccessfully up-rooted like weeds by those looking to get rid of them by putting Jesus (The Weed) to death on the Cross.  Jesus himself will suffer the furnace of fire in his passion and death.  Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were modern day examples of persons willing to suffer violence themselves before they would afflict others with violence.

I wish we could judge rightly, but we are not God.  God is love.  In God there is no darkness at all.  God makes the sun shine on the good and bad alike.  God makes rain to fall on the just and unjust.  God is removed completely from the realm of our human judgment or human morality, our judging or condemning human beings as evil.

So what do we do?  Patiently resist evil, forgive, try not to increase the evil sown in the world by anything we do create even more suffering.  Doing this, we will groan with creation’s labor pains for the Kingdom to finally come.  St Paul shares this groaning experience with us:

We, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  For in hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what is seen?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

This is the experience of the follower of Jesus in the world:  groaning for the Kingdom of peace and justice while being joyful in hope that “Thy Kingdom come” will be a reality in this world.

In sum, I think we can be more useful to God in our patience than in trying to pull up everything we think is a weed.  Don’t we sometimes say:  Is that a weed?  It looks like a flower!  God is the Master Gardener.  Let us cooperate with God’s plan as Jesus teaches us. 

Amen!

Sermon: Whose Voice Is It?

Whose Voice is It? 
A Sermon by Fr. John R. Smith, June 29, 2014.

I have two special joys this week. First joy was Terri and my fourth wedding anniversary Thursday and thankfulness for so many of you who celebrated with us that day four years ago. My second joy is that today is the 39th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood on the feast of SS Peter and Paul June 29th, 1975. I am so thankful for the gift of priesthood and all the people that I've been privileged to minister and who have also ministered to me!

Except when I've been on vacation, or another clergy has taken a turn, for 39 years I've given a sermon almost every week. In recent years the preaching task has taken on a greater urgency. I understand more clearly that the words of Jesus and his example in the Gospel are so vital for us and the world right now. Like today's Gospel: Jesus gives us the basics for reaping a heavenly reward:

• offer a cup of cold water to a child or thirsty person (a man who had come for food asked if he could have a cup of water!);
• welcome a righteous person;
• welcome a prophet;
• welcome one who comes in Jesus’ name.

Doing these things create a new atmosphere in the world and usher in the Kingdom of God (heaven) here and now.

So, most often, my focus in preaching is usually on the Gospel and Jesus' actions. But today I'm led to consider one of the most important texts in the Hebrew Bible that over two billion people (Jews, Muslims, and Christians) look to: The Sacrifice of Isaac. Muslims call it the "Sacrifice of Ishmael." Christians see Jesus pre-figured in this text when, after the climatic part of the scene is over, and the boy Isaac is spared, he asks his father Abraham: "The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Isn't it interesting that we call Jesus "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?"

Some background: In the ancient near east child sacrifice was a common practice. The gods required child sacrifice in order to earn their favor and help in all aspects of life. So to see a father taking a young son up the mountain with a knife tied to his waist and a bundle of fire wood would not be surprising at all. It happened often. What would be surprising is to see Abraham and the boy returning to the village! People would ask themselves: Why did God stop him from sacrificing his son?

Rembrandt's depiction of Abraham and Isaac

Now, of course, we are happy God stopped Abraham just in the nick of time. The very thought of child sacrifice turns us off completely, sickens us. Most sermons on this story, even a few of my own, focus on Abraham's faith in willing to go all the way, even sacrificing his son, if necessary, to obey God. But this interpretation begs the question (not mentioned usually) of what kind of God do we worship in Jesus? Do we believe in a God who would ever ask us or expect us to kill another human being? I think not! Or, do we have a God that requires us to pass one test after another, even to being willing to sacrifice our own flesh and blood, and then who says ok, you passed the test? Is faith about one test after test from God after another, or, and this is crucial, does our faith help us to find out who God truly is and what God really wants from us? I think so!

Jesus revealed to us a heavenly Father who would never ask us to kill another person as a test of our faith- to prove our love. But In ancient cultures, 4000 years ago, the world was filled with people who believed in their heart of hearts that God wanted them to kill other people to obey and please God. Didn't God give the word to Abraham in our first reading this morning?

"God tested Abraham. . . and said. . .Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you."

Based on what I've just shared with you, was this the command of the living and true God? A clue is in the Hebrew text. "God" here translates the Hebrew word "elohim" that means God, yes, but is also plural. It can also refer to the "gods of the nations," the gods everyone was afraid of and wanted to appease. What if Abraham, a man of his culture, heard one of these "false gods" commanding him, like so many others of his day, to sacrifice his son? Like I said, child sacrifice to appease the gods was very common. But, when Abraham is ready to thrust the knife into Isaac, at the very last moment, the text says "The angel of the Lord called from heaven" and commanded him to "stop!" The "Lord" in this text is not translated by "elohim="the gods," but rather the word Yahweh, the living and true God who created the heavens and the earth.

So there are two competing "voices" in the text. One "god" voice saying "Take your son Isaac and sacrifice him for me." Or another "God" voice that cries out "Abraham, Abraham!" Don't do it! Stop the killing, stop the bloodshed. Don't sacrifice human beings for the "gods." If you must sacrifice something- take a ram. God has a different plan!

Years later the psalmist of Ps. 40 sings out at vs. 6: Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

It's all about tuning our ears to the true voice of God. Abraham had to learn it and so do we. Think about it. Would the true God ever ask us to sacrifice our sons and daughters? We shouldn't answer to quickly in the negative. As much as we abhor the whole notion of child sacrifice and look back upon ancient, primitive cultures with disdain, we still in our day, practice a very real form of child sacrifice, believing God telling us to send our sons and daughters to be sacrificed for our god-like and god-given freedoms our nation holds dear. We speak in very religious tones about "harm's way." Sacred truths must be defended even if it takes the lives of our sons and daughters.

So whose voice are we listening to? Is it the voice of the "gods" of the nations, or the voice of the Lord God, whose angel stayed Abraham's hand. God got Abraham's attention and stopped the killing. What would it be like if two billion people in this world, who look to Abraham as their father, heard the voice of the true God and stopped killing each other? What kind of world would we have? What would happen? Abraham, at this key point of his life, discerned what kind of God had called him and stopped listening to the false gods. Abraham heard the Voice of the true God who creates life and never sanctions killing. I believe we can do the same, with God's help. Amen.

Father Smith's Sermon: Not Peace, but a Sword 6/22/2014

Not Peace, but a Sword

Last Monday, very late, Terri and I returned from ten days in Guatemala. We enjoyed staying in the beautiful colonial city of Antigua where you can walk everywhere and the people are very friendly. It's a very international city because it brings people from all over the world to study Spanish. The pace of life is very laid-back and we both got some rest. It's always good to get home to your own bed!

We celebrated Pentecost and Trinity Sundays in Antigua in small, but very welcoming Episcopal communities. These two Sundays, one a biblical, the other a doctrinal feast, bring the liturgical year we started back on the first Sunday of Advent, to a kind of crescendo: what more can we say about God's revelation and plan in sending his Son Jesus to redeem us and teach us to usher in the Kingdom of God?

Now we enter upon the "Ordinary" time of the church year or the "green" season. God incarnate in Jesus, who lived among us, was scapegoated for the world's sins and put to death, and raised to life again, sending the Holy Spirit to now be our advocate and helper. During this "green" season of about 26 weeks our task now becomes how to live in such a way that the life and teaching of Jesus means something. When we realize this, there can be no business as usual for us.

It's not as though we haven't been thinking about how to live as baptized followers of Christ as we went through Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost. For the last several months I've shared with you from the scriptures a fundamental call to eschew all violence and the instruments of violence as Jesus did and embrace the effort to forgive and live in reconciliation with everyone, especially those who harm us. In other words, war is never the way to peace; being peace is the way to peace. This is Christ's way of helping us bring about, slowly, yes, but surely, the Kingdom of God.

While in Antigua, I read on the internet the tragic story of the young priest that was killed in Phoenix. I could relate to the story because I lived in a rectory with another priest, my pastor, when I was a young priest. I was on the second floor and he was on the third. We could hear each others movements and any commotion. So the story of a guy with a criminal and prison record making noise on church property and one of us coming out to see what was going on was pretty normal. The door of the rectory open, the bad guy beats the priest pastor who, with his hand hurt, runs into the rectory, and is able to retrieve his very powerful gun, a 357 Magnum. The experienced criminal disarms the priest (probably easily) and when the young 29 year old associate pastor rushes to the aid of his pastor, he gets shot and the bad guy flees, and the pastor comes to and gives Absolution and Last Rites to his young associate- now a martyr.

What is learned from this? Is it, go get your gun and shoot the bad guy, or, confront the bad guy and see what he wants or needs? He's probably needs money, food, or a place to stay. Especially when they let you of of prison you have next to nothing. Interjecting an instrument of violence (most police carry a lesser weapon than a 357 Magnum), brings about unneccesary and tragic death. Priest, and all followers of Jesus, are better at dialogue than shooting. Even if the priest would never have pulled the trigger and just wanted the bad guy to back off and leave, it's probably not the way to go.

So at the beginning of this "not so ordinary" season where the goal is learning how to live as Christ would have us, maybe the first teaching about eschewing all violence and instruments of violence is a place to begin. To not use violence ourselves, in word or action, or support others to do so on any level. Violence can never achieve a good end. It just doesn't, will not, work!

The main reason Central American parents are paying good money to have their children guided across our borders in huge numbers is because of violence and kidnapping in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. They'll pay any price to get their children out of there and into our governments hands and eventually to families of relatives already living in the United States.

But, with these thoughts in mind, isn't it ironic that in today's Gospel, Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." Not Peace, but a sword? This is probably one of the most misunderstood sayings of Jesus ever! Jesus isn't talking about taking up the sword against our enemies. The sword Jesus is talking about in this gospel (full of difficult sayings) is the sword which draws a line in the sand and you have to decide how you are going to live your life: will you choose Jesus' way or not. And, sorry, if you choose Jesus' way you will cause division. Your decision will not be popular. People, your family, the closest ones to you, will disagree and line up against you, but God has your back, God has a count of the hairs on your head. Because of your decision there will be a little less violence in the world because you are not going to support it or add to it.

Someone recently asked: Does God have a plan "B"? Isaac is the son of Sarah, the Promise, plan "A". Ishmael, the son of Hagar the slave is not (interesting, Ishmael is looked upon by Islam as their connection to Abraham). The story ends with God consoling Hagar and the story saying that "God was with the boy." I'm telling you that I grew up and was mostly trained as a plan "A" guy, or maybe an "only one Plan" guy. But I'm discovering that God does have a plan "B" after all. God leaves no one behind. Grace is greater than all sin as St. Paul talks about in Romans. Each of us, baptized in Christ, must (not should) consider ourselves dead to sin (all violence and use of violence) and alive to God in Christ Jesus!

As we take a moment of quiet after the sermon this morning let us ask ourselves the question: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? . . . so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Christ has brought a sword. The line is drawn in the sand. Will we follow Christ or not?

New Sermons Posted

The Rev. Angela Emerson
"God always calls us home"
One of Angela's last sermons before leaving for Vermont and her new job.

MP3 File

The Rev. John Smith, Rector
"A Boring Parable"

MP3 File

After months of delay due to technical difficulties, many of the sermons recorded between September 2007 and February 2008 are now available as podcasts on the Sermons page. There's a block in the middle of that date range yet to be uploaded, but we'll get there. Old sermons from 2006 (mostly in text form) have been moved to a 2006 sermons archive page, and can be reached from the bottom of the current page.

Also: I've revived the long-neglected St. Michael's arts blog, and posted a few recent entries of my own, along with selected repostings from my personal blog from 2007. But it's the partish's blog, not mine, and I'd love to get someone else's contributions in there as well! If you have photos, art, a story, a prayer, a reminiscence, or an opinion piece that might be appropriate to a church's blog, please submit them to me at mavarin @ aol.com, or catch me after the 10 AM mass. Thanks!

Karen

New Sermon Podcasts

Father Smith has been hard at work uploading sermons via Hipcast.com. Here are the links!

	The True Church Sermon by the Rev. John Smith MP3 File
	The Church as a School of Faith Sermon by the Rev. John Smith MP3 File
	Role Models and the Cloud of Witnesses Sermon by the Rev. Angela Emerson MP3 File
	Radical Religions Sermon by the Rev. John Smith MP3 File
	The Dangers of Busyness Sermon by the Rev. Angela Emerson MP3 File
	Inheriting Wisdom Sermon by the Rev. John Smith MP3 File

Double-click to play on your default audio player (RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Liquid Audio, Quicktime, etc.)

Lots and Lots of Sermons Posted at Last

Father Smith has been hard at work uploading sermons via Hipcast.com. Here are the links!

	Father Smith: "The Kingdom of God is Near" Sermon Proper 9C MP3 File
	The Rev. Angela Emerson "Who Do You Say I Am - Learning How to Be a Church" Sermon Proper 8C MP3 File
	The Rev. Angela Emerson "Head or Heart?" MP3 File
	Father Smith: "The Church: Hospital for Sinners" Sermon on June 17, 2007 MP3 File
	Rev. Angela Emerson: "Let's Dance" MP3 File
	Father Ireland: "A Pastor and a Son" Sermon on Mother's Day 2007 MP3 File
	Father Smith: "Pentecost: Fire for God" Sermon Pentecost Sunday 2007 MP3 File
	Father Smith: "Trinity: God's Circle Dance" Sermon Trinity Sunday 2007 MP3 File

Double-click to play on your default audio player (RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Liquid Audio, Quicktime, etc.)