12.2.18

Advent, the most intentionally “both and” season, begins with the apocalypse. In our anticipation of the celebration of the incarnation, we are at the same time, awaiting the final days before the fulfillment of the Kingdom. And we acknowledge that the coming glory belongs to vulnerable, as our God became a vulnerable baby and ended His mortal life vulnerable on the cross.

In the spirit of vulnerability I’ll confess that one verse from today’s reading troubles me greatly. Essentially Christ says that the end times will come within the lifetime of those present. The reason I think this is something Jesus actually said is that the Gospels were written after Paul’s letters. Paul initially thought the resurrection of all faithful was in process, but eventually explains why it wasn’t happening now even as the faithful that died were remaining dead. If Jesu hadn’t said such a thing, I doubt it would be added by the Gospel writers, especially Luke, who traveled with Paul.

Was Jesus wrong? Was the second coming delayed or cancelled? Did something prevent it? Are there not enough Christians that actually follow his commandments to make it worth his effort? Those saints that Paul said were sleeping have been sleeping a damn long time. Now none of this shakes my faith, since my faith is rooted in the presence of God and not just the words. But it does make me wonder what else Jesus might have gotten wrong.

As I was reading this passage again in preparation for this Sunday, it struck me, didn’t St. Steven, the first martyr, see something like the vision Jesus said the current generation would see? Aquinas calls it the beatific vision, to see God face to face. As Steven was dying, he saw his beloved Lord, God, friend and co-heir there with him. In Steven’s most vulnerable moment, the vulnerable God was with him in love.

We’re a culture that wants to fix things, change things, make things happen, we’re a Martha culture. As a result we’re terribly uncomfortable with vulnerability. Mary, by contrast, quietly anoints Jesus for his upcoming burial, letting him know, without words that she will be there with Him in His death. In those terrifying moments of knowing we can’t stop tragedy from happening, all we can do is sit silently with the suffering ones.

I’ve been very very angry about a great many things of late, and haven’t been terribly good at preventing that anger from coming out sideways at people who don’t deserve it. And much of that anger is about things I can have no effect on. Like the kidnapped children our government is keeping in concentration camps. The Holy Innocents of our time. But that anger is a defense against the pain I feel in solidarity with those kids. This situation hits me where I’m vulnerable.

And love, my friends, is inevitably vulnerable. With the exception of the mama bear moment when you can lift a car to protect your babies, love makes you vulnerable. No one has the knowledge and opportunity to hurt you as much as a loved one.

I had a difficult time earlier this month explaining the whole ‘love your enemies’ thing to a youngster. I think now, it’s about remaining vulnerable in the face of true threat. Not to become a martyr, but rather to be open to God. To be able to hear that small still voice when our instincts are to fight or flight. And then to trust God will let us know what to say or do.

This is all we can really ask of God. God isn’t going to swoop down and protect us in our most vulnerable moments anymore that God rescued Steven. We can ask, and can often receive god’s guidance in how to survive the things that take place. For many surviving the holidays can be hard enough. More importantly though, ask God for guidance on how to love well.

Take time this season to practice loving Jesus, whether in infant form, or crying at the grave of Lazarus, or grieving his cousin John, or being beaten and flogged, or being a wise spiritual teacher, especially to those the scribes would not come near, and in doing this we will now that a loved one is always near and will be with us in the end.     

10.21.18

Some of you are familiar with the priesthood of all believers, an interpretation of the letter Hebrews as saying we all have direct access to God through Christ and priests are no longer needed as intercessors. Christ’s sacrifice was the final sacrifice for all. The Temple is now obsolete, as Christ’s body is now the temple. And so Isaiah is fulfilled, since “When you make his life an offering for sin, through him the will of the LORD shall prosper.”

Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote that, the ‘original’ sin is not primarily that humankind has ‘disobeyed’ God; the sin is that we ceased to be hungry for God and for God alone, ceased to see our whole life depending on the whole world as a sacrament of communion with God. The only real fall is a noneucharistic life in a noneucharistic world.

The cup Jesus drank and the baptism of the cross was a shocking and confusing way to bring us to a Eucharistic life. A life where we understand everything is of God and in God and it is our privilege to offer everything back to God; a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the whole of creation.

This reminds me of a story about some student who were worried that their Rabbi had not been seen all day, so finally they went to his room and found him sitting up in bed. The Rabbi told them: "This morning, as every morning, I awoke and immediately said the prayer upon arising: I thank You, living and eternal King, Who has returned my soul into me with compassion – great is Your faithfulness! And then I stopped as the words hit me. I thank God? I…thank…God? Students, do you realize what a privilege this is, to commune with the Almighty? I realized the power of this statement! And I have been sitting here pondering the greatness of this ever since!"

Speaking of greatness, let’s see if we can find wonder in Jesus’ words, the way the Rabbi found wonder in his daily prayer. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” We’re so used to these words, that, like the cross, we can’t understand how truly mid blowing such a statement was. Let’s for a moment, try to forget any interpretations of this you’ve heard in the past. Forget any ways these words have been used to keep people in their place.  Forget the imperialism of helping, the ways in which we help people by assuming what they need rather than finding out what they want.

Let us ponder this like a Koan, a Buddhist form of trying to free your mind. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” is perhaps the most famous. To be great you must be a servant, to be first you must be a slave.  Now a Koan is to be meditated on over time, not to be answered right away, so do please ponder this contradictory puzzle, and see what you find.

The part that isn’t a Koan, though, what Jesus is very clear about, is that we are not to Lord over others or be tyrants. This brings us once again to my dear Saint Ignatius’ Two Standards. Contemplate a battlefield with Satan in one camp and Jesus in another. On Satan’s flag (standard meaning flag in this exercise) are the temptations of Wealth, Prestige and Pride. On Crist’s flag are the defenses against those temptations, Poverty, Contempt for Prestige and Humility. I think the point though, is not to embrace Poverty, Contempt for Prestige and Humility for their own merits, but rather to balance things out. When god created the world, God said it was good. It is we who divided it into good and bad, and so created imbalance.

What if, by perfect, the author of Hebrews meant balanced? What if balanced means waking up stunned by the wonder of a relationship to God? Open to the sacred world God has given us. Might we be ready to live Eucharistic lives in a Eucharistic world? All things come from you O lord, and of your own have we given.

By Ransom, did Paul mean Bride Price?

A sermon for Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Year B (with Ephesians replacing Hebrews)

Genesis 2:18-24

Psalm 8

Ephesians 5:25-33

Mark 10:2-16

Mawwage, Mawwage is what bwings us togethew today…”

Rowan Williamson in his essay, The Body’s Grace, spoke about what sexual sin is. He defines desire for another as including the desire that they desire you. This makes one vulnerable on a tragi-comic level. Sexual sin arises when one tries to control, deny or bypass this vulnerability. One way to do this is to not think of people as human but as sexual objects. We’ve been hearing a lot about in the last few weeks as well as the last few years if we’ve been paying attention.

There’s a way in which Christians fool themselves into thinking that marriage somehow fixes this problem and all sex within marriage is sinless. And while marriage may afford some confidence in mutual desire, it does not guarantee it. Truthfully, marriage for love (read desire) is a very recent thing in the West and does not exist in many places in this world. It certainly wasn’t what marriage was bout in Jesus’ time.

In Jesus time marriage was very different and there are a few things of which we need to take note. While monogamous marriage was common practice, it was not required by Jewish law. There was perhaps social pressure form monogamy being the standard in the Empire as a whole. It was most likely common practice because grooms often could not afford more than on wife. For there was a bride price.

In Jesus time women were beginning to be recognized as persons with their own thoughts and feelings. Jewish marriage practices still reflected the patriarchal view of women as domestic help and the father should be compensating for loosing that labor. Betrothal was the initial financial arrangement between families and usually happened before the bride was old enough to reproduce. A contract was drawn, a tradition still followed to this day. Marriage did not happen in the synagogue or temple, but in the bedroom once the bride was of childbearing age. There was a formal procession to the banquet hall, often at night, think of the wise and foolish virgins parable, the bedroom being a private room near the banquet hall, commonly at the groom’s father’s House.

I think most of us know that divorce in Jesus’ time, left a woman with no means of support. If that were the only reason for Jesus’ words, why would he bring up Genesis? One possibility is that he was suggesting the equality of men and women. Before Eve arrived, Adam was referred to as gender neutral in Hebrew. It was only after they were split that male and female indicators were used. (The word traditionally translated as rib, actually means side or flank.) Two equal halves of one whole. To support this idea, and for other possibilities we need to turn to Paul.

Paul instructs husbands to love their wives as themselves, thereby including women into Jesus’ second commandment, equating women with neighbors. While the equality of women was a powerful statement for the time, it’s still relevant today as recent events reveal. For Paul, however, Genesis as a model for marriage had a much deeper and mystical relevance. It is a model for Christ and the Church.

I recently read an article that suggested when Paul uses the Greek word we translate as ransom, he is metaphorically referring to the bride price for the Church. The Greek word literally means buying back from, re-purchasing what was previously forfeited or lost. I used to think the word itself implied captive or slave, but it doesn't in and of itself. In this light though, the last supper makes a bit more sense. Drinking blood was pretty much forbidden in Jewish custom, however if the blood is the bride price, then it truly seals the new covenant, the wedding contract.

On the cross, Christ paid a bride price for all of us, and we become heirs through marrying the son. Personally I see this as a model of polygamy; we are each one of us brides of Christ. Traditionally, it’s thought to be a model of monogamy, the collective Church seen as one person. Either way you see it, it makes our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving significantly less morbid, possibly even a bit erotic. A true celebration of the most significant relationship there is.

For this is a marriage of love. As a marriage of love, it does find us in a tragi-comic vulnerability. To be honest, as a pastor, I feel an echo of this vulnerability. A desire for us to love one another as Christ loved us. That is but an echo, however, not on the scale of vulnerability when we stand naked before God’s love. Let us now, as we approach the banquet, and drink our bride price, let go of any control, denial or attempts to bypass our vulnerability. Think on the idea that the love marriage between Christ and the Church is perhaps the first one ever. Let no man tear it asunder.    

I came to think of America as the World’s cheerleaders, they were constantly giving out awards and trophies. That is a quote from an essay I read from a visitor to the U.S. I can’t quite remember, but it was by someone who found how people treated them here had changed. It might have been a Persian writing after 911, but I can’t remember for sure.

When I tried to find the quote on Google, the first article that came up was about the problems or dangers of participation trophies. Children will become soft and think it is okay to lose. As if shaming a loser provides any real motivation. I bring it up to highlight how competition is systemized in American Culture.

Even a quick You Tube search on a subject brings up many Top Ten videos. I admit myself that I tend to constantly revise my top ten horror movie list should anyone ask – only one person ever has. Despite all this I’ve heard many people scoff at the disciples arguing over who is the greatest. It seems silly to do that in the presence of Jesus – but we’re always in the presence of Jesus, even when we give out participation trophies.

Everything in Mark is written in the present tense, so it can be easy to assume this dispute among the disciples followed Jesus’ prediction of his death. I like to think Jesus brought up His impending death because this conversation was going on, but that disciples didn’t make the connection. Your Rabbi, the Messiah, is going to die a messy death and you’re talking about greatness as if you know what greatness really is. So Jesus speaks to them plainly about it.

Jesus hugging a child in the presence of his disciples is reported in all three synoptic Gospels, which indicates to me it was something memorable and significant in the way remembering the woman who anointed Jesus was. Because of mortality rates, children under seven in the ancient world were not objects of affection.  In fact the earliest depictions of Mary and baby Jesus depicted Jesus looking like a tiny adult sitting on Mary’s lap and facing outward.  It was centuries before Jesus was painted as an infant with Mary being tender toward Him.

The Greek word for child in tonight’s Gospel is without doubt a word for children under seven (perhaps even under two as it’s the same word Herod uses when he orders the slaughter of the innocents. ) In researching this word, one definition I came across was child in training. We’re not even calling this a child yet. That definition, to my mind, makes Jesus’ point stronger.

My favorite definition of humility is to remain teachable. We’re not done yet, we’re still (and constantly) in training. And so Jesus, in addressing the disciples’ lack of humility, hugs a child and says here! Here is the greatest among you! The one who is still being taught. So rather than chiding them over not understanding the prediction of His death (A death whose significance theologians are still arguing about) He tells them to acknowledge how little they do know about it, and to remain open to the world changing event of His resurrection.

Yes, plenty of other times, Jesus gets cranky about what they haven’t learned yet, but perhaps that’s all the more reason for him being so dramatic at this time.

 As I pointed out a few weeks ago quoting John’s second letter, and as is evident in the letter of James today, the early Christians found it very difficult to let go of the desire to be, or the desire to show preference to, the wealthy, the powerful and those with status. These are the temptations of the perishing. Those of us called to lives of resurrection, called by the God who died, the messiah that did not wage war, the loser by the standards of the perishing, continue to learn through Wisdom from above.

Wisdom from above proclaims Jesus the winner. He didn’t win this victory for us because we deserved it. He did it out of love for us while we were still sinners. He did it for the soft and the strong, though he identified with the soft. All we did was say yes to His invitation to humility. The most any of us can claim for our salvation is a participation trophy.

The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you."

Tonight’s Gospel passage is part of a long sermon given to the 5000 that just ate of the loaves and fishes; or at least as many as followed in boats across the lake that Jesus walked on to cross. Why did Jesus walk on water? To get to the other side.

This sermon is so long that it’s broken up over several Sundays. It’s John’s version of the institution of the Eucharist, which John omits from the last supper. Tonight we get to the point where he says the bread from heaven is his flesh. Next week, he gets even more specific by saying unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood; you have no life in you.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

There was a time when Christians were accused of cannibalism. While not literally true, the Eucharist is a form of ritual cannibalism. I suppose you could argue that it’s not even ritual cannibalism because we’re eating God’s flesh and not a human’s; however God wouldn’t have flesh at all if it wasn’t for the human Jesus. As I’ve said before, we know God now has flesh since the resurrected Christ still retained Jesus’ wounds, sharing in our wounds.

Back to our Gospel, I’d like to unpack the meaning of the bread of life, and in doing so unpack an aspect of the Eucharist. As Kate often says, we can interpret the Bible though the Bible, and so I’ll look at tonight’s Gospel through the lens of the first Letter of John.

The letter opens with a similar hymn to the one in John’s Gospel. In it John refers to the Word of life, for it was through the Word that God created life. He emphasizes life again when instead of saying the word was made flesh he says LIFE was made visible. Christ Jesus IS life itself; and further life was made by Love. For God, the first person of the trinity is love.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whatever it exactly means to love is the topic of a whole other sermon, probably on First Corinthians, but I bring it up now, because so often when we talk theological matters we forget to mention love.

In fact John in his letter lets us know that the promised eternal life is love. For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another.  If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made us: eternal life.

We’ve talked a lot this last year about living as if you’re already dead and risen into the Kingdom. I’ve mentioned that I see this as a form of Christian detachment from the ways of the world; the ways of mankind, really, because creation itself is beautiful.  You see the Western mind often confuses detachment with heartlessness. I’m talking about a detachment that allows us to truly love.

We can see more and more that the values of this world are not loving at all. There’s only one love allowed in an austerity world where people are reduced to economic units (capitalism and communism both do this.) Pop song and Soap Opera love, a slavish love that keeps women in their place. Christ tells us to even love our enemies, and that can only be done with a certain amount of detachment. We need to remove the way we think and relate to people from the corrupting values of this world. Especially when we rightfully condemn those values, we need to recognize that God loves even those that act on them-just as god loves us when we sin.

I’m not saying this should replace romantic love or love of friends and family, Jesus had his inner circle of close friends too. I’m saying that when we find people that are hard to love, it’s important to remember that God loves both you and them. Even more, contrary to the values of humankind, we need to love ourselves, otherwise we sin against Jesus’ summary of the law, love your neighbor as yourself. For some of us, that may take a similar detachment, to see ourselves as a loving God does, not as we judge ourselves.

All of this is hard, very very hard. But very soon we’ll be doing as Jesus asks, eating His flesh and drinking his blood. We will nourish ourselves with life made manifest and we will abide in God’s love. "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you."

Who will listen to me?

I’ve asked this as a priest whose very sanity is not respected in most Christian denominations, much less my ordination. It’s also a question for a queer Christian or even a left leaning Christian talking to a conservative family. Or for that matter - a queer Christian talking to the queer community – for different reasons of course, reasons in this case profoundly important. It has to do with power.

And our texts today basically say, it isn’t about whether they listen or not. It’s about being a prophet anyway. That’s plainly stated in Ezekiel. It’s a bit more oblique in Paul, but it’s there. It’s in our weakness that God perfects power. I’ve heard more than one argument that Paul’s weakness was homosexuality.  None of those arguments are terribly compelling. I also will not frame queerness as weakness. Like it or not, though, others will. Chances are, though, the ones who will frame queerness as weakness are the ones who have rebelled against God. This also applies to those who see poverty as weakness or the feminine as weakness or bleeding hearts as weakness, etc.

Jesus could do not works of power in his home town, because the people there would not accept power could be found in the ordinary, in the familiar, much less in weakness. So Jesus went elsewhere. There are even many stories in the Gospels where the gentiles see the power in Jesus when the Israelites do not.  The unclean woman who spent all her money and found no cure drew power from Jesus, in a crowd full of the clean and healthy. Almost all the prophets had something that could be held against them; Moses’ stutter, Jonah’s resentment, etc. The powerful in this world do not need God’s power, nor can they understand it.

It’s absolutely true that a prophet speaks truth to power, whether they listen or not. However, I think we miss the other side of the coin, to speak power to those the powerful deem weak. There’s a very brief and poignant moment in Jesus Christ Superstar that has always struck me as the truest moment in the whole musical:

 Neither you, Simon, nor the fifty thousand

Nor the Romans, nor the Jews

Nor Judas, nor the twelve, nor the Priests, nor the scribes

Nor doomed Jerusalem itself

Understand what power is

Understand what glory is

Understand at all

Understand at all

I know I often fail to understand. I often burn with the passion to speak truth to power, to tell them what’s for – as Jesus spoke to the Pharisees. My perceived weakness, however, pretty much guarantees results like Jesus got in his hometown. In fact I’ve posted in online threads about LGBT inclusion only to be completely ignored by the straight people arguing about it.

What I don’t have, and need to pray for, is a similar burning passion to get past my “Who will listen to me?” fears within queer circles. That is where results are more probable. Again, not that it’s about results, but who actually needs and deserves God’s power in these messy times; those who are suffering or who will suffer before long.  In Ohio a bill was recently introduced to prevent custody being taken away from parents who want to send their kids to queer conversion facilities. 

I know that there are things in my life I could never have done without God’s power. In these times, telling those who are powerless or soon to be powerless in the eyes of the law need to be shown that God’s power is for them. We need to be sharing god’s power with each other more than ever.