Sermon for March 11th 2012

Your body is a temple. When I was young that phrase was always used to point out something I was doing wrong; “You’re not eating right. You should brush your teeth. You need to take better care of your body, it’s a temple.” That was it, no further explanation. We will tell you what your obligation to God is without any sense of why or how that obligation existed. Just shut up and do what you are told.

Similar, was the instruction about Lent. You have to give up something for Lent. Why? It’s what you do during Lent, now stop asking questions and pick something you like that we’ll deprive you of. I would not be bringing this all up if I didn’t hear many others share a similar experience. At best, the explanation, “you owe it to God” would be given, but not in any way that communicated what God did for us.

Oh we heard that “Jesus died for our sins,” but only in the context that every time we sin we make Jesus’ suffering worse. The cross loomed heavy in the culture of shame and control that many people experienced as Church. The resurrection was celebrated at Easter, true, but somehow the idea that happened for us as well was never quite clearly expressed.

I never really prayed for things I wanted, that seemed out of the question. I often prayed for God to tell me what the hell God wanted of me. What did God want from me next? Hoping that somehow pleasing this tyrant would bring me a moment of peace. I don’t think I understood at the time that I was trying to figure out how to make God love me; which of course, was tragic, because zie already did.

Jesus saw a different, but related tragedy, when he went inside the Temple in today’s Gospel. He saw a system wherein the authorities and merchants were profiting from people believing they needed to buy God’s favor. It seems Jesus lost his temper.

Now there are many times when Jesus lost his temper, often at his own disciples who seemed to not understand what he’d told them over and over again. He on occasion, curses out the folks in authority. But making a whip out of cords? Turning over tables? This does seem out of character for the man who said, “Turn the other cheek.”

The Gospel doesn’t tell us if the disciples were shocked by this behavior, all it says is that they were reminded of Psalm 69. Let’s look then at this Psalm. And while the Psalm does contain a curse, it is not as much the cry of an angry person as it is a person in great distress. The psalm opens with:

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God… O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

This, by the way, is an excellent metaphor for the experience of sin. Not sin in the paradigm of control and shame. Not a life denying idea or what should or shouldn’t be done, of who you should or shouldn’t be. Rather, the experience of being stuck in our lives; of finding ourselves living in ways that aren’t true to our deepest sense of who we are, unable to change that through our own unaided will.

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. With your faithful help

rescue me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.

The Psalm contains the faithful solution to the problem as well. Our own unaided will is not enough to lift us from the mire, but God can and does rescue us.

Now while the scriptures are clear that Jesus is without sin, it also clearly states he was tempted. Fully human, Jesus was not unaware of the plight people constantly found themselves in. Don’t forget that in another Gospel on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus told his disciples he would likely die there. Peter insisted that should not be allowed to happen. Jesus said, “Get thee behind me Satan,” indicating how tempting he found Peter’s statement. Certainly going to your impending death would distress even Jesus.

Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me, O Lord God of hosts; do not let those who seek you be dishonored because of me, O God of Israel.

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face.

I have become a stranger to my kindred, an alien to my mother’s children.

It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

This is the direct quote that the disciples were reminded of in the Temple. Would not the poor and the least of God’s children be priced out of seeking God in the Temple system? Are the “unclean” not shamed and dishonored? Had not Jesus been reproached for being present to sinners and tax collectors? Have not Gentiles shown more faith in him than his own people? Had not the Temple authorities tried to trap him in arguments?

They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Let their table be a trap for them, a snare for their allies.

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually.

A line that prefigures the crucifixion is said just before the curses in this psalm appear.  Once actually on the cross, Jesus asks for his enemies’ forgiveness. But that is after the agony in the garden, where Jesus wrestles once again with the temptation Peter put before him. Finally surrendering to God’s will, Jesus can bless and not curse his enemies. But now, does Jesus perhaps even trap an enemy or two with an overturned table? If not literally, he’s certainly cost them money. Then again it is the disciples and not Jesus that are thinking of this psalm. They are constantly thinking with the mind of man and not the mind of God.

I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify God with thanksgiving.

This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.

Let the oppressed see it and be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.

For the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise God’s own that are in bonds.

Here is the real heart of the matter. Let the oppressed see an alternative to the Temple worship of animal sacrifice. Let God’s own who are in bonds see the example of Christ in the bodily temple of Jesus. Let them see zeal for the Lord that subverts the system which is not grateful for God’s free gift of love. The system that is selling what cannot be sold?

Let heaven and earth praise God, the seas and everything that moves in them.

For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah; and God’s servants shall live there and possess it;

the children of God’s servants shall inherit it, and those who love God’s name shall live in it.

Heaven and earth and all creation does praise the Lord. The heavenly system of God keeps the whole cosmos in motion. God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. God’s plant life makes the kind of air we need to breathe. On this basic level alone we can see our radical dependence on the free gifts of God.

Ah, but we build our walls around the abundant earth. We have armies to defend our claim to this body of water and the air above the land we foolishly believe we own. We claim our sovereignty over this patch of the earth, and demand that God be on our side when we kill for it.

But the kingdom inherited by those who love Jesus’ name is a different kind of kingdom. The rebuilt Jerusalem is not a physical place. It is a kingdom of living out of the freely given love of God. In that kingdom, God’s temple is within ourselves.

And so in Lent, we might think of these 40 days as a time to cleans the temple of God we are and can yet become. There are so many things in the way of freely given love. So many conditions and expectations we want in place first. So many ways we want to protect ourselves. So many ways we get tangled and stuck in the mud. We may even need to shore up the walls and fix the leaky roof.  Indeed there may be an elaborate façade or a cherished addition that needs to be torn down.

These painful renovations may be our agony in the garden. We may come to realize we want God to spare us the cup of transformation. To die to old ways and live into new ways is stressful and distressing. Halfway through these renovations we can forget why we were even doing them in the first place. Why are we putting ourselves through this? Often these renovations contradict the prevailing wisdom of our time. The values of our neighbors are not the values that propelled us into this. I mean, come on, everything is for sale in the US of A! We hear again and again that spending any of our money, time or resources for the benefit of others is pure madness. As Paul reminds us, in many ways it can seem downright foolish!

But it’s foolish to those who are perishing. Who are stuck in the muck and mire of selfishness and greed; who are preserving their life out of fear, and loosing the true life that is of God. The span of their lives may be longer than ours, they may have more physical things, but they are dying inside. They are denying the truth that is evident all around them in the glory of creation. In comparison with a burden and a yoke that denies God’s freely given love, that comes from an every man for himself view of the world, Christ’s yoke is very light indeed.

For in truth, none of us are free of suffering. The question becomes to what end is that suffering for? What kind of suffering do we choose? What meaning do we give to that suffering? Christ our Lord, suffered and transformed for our sake. Because of this, we need not endure our painful transformations on our own. They are done through Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The Readings for this sermon:

Exodus 20:1-17

Then God spoke all these words:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,

but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

John 2:13-22

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.

Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!"

His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me."

The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?"

Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?"

But he was speaking of the temple of his body.

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Sermon for the Baptism of the Lord, 2012

While I was in Divinity School, my chiropractor, while I was on the table, asked me what my definition of sin was. Lying on the chiropractic table is a fairly vulnerable place to be, and the question startled me. I started searching my memory for dogmatic answers, for theological answers, for scriptural answers. Then realized he asked me what MY definition of sin was. In that moment I honestly didn’t know what my personal definition was. I had, however, had enough experience opening my mouth and letting the Spirit guide my words that I gave a stab at just starting to speak. “Sin,” I said, not knowing what was going to come out of my mouth, “is the actions based on the lies we tell ourselves when we forget that we’re divine.”

It seemed like a pretty good definition off the cuff, and after checking it out with trusted spiritual friends it did seem to be an inspired definition. It certainly fit my own experience of harmful behavior; which was always rooted in self-deception and amnesia of lessons learned. I specify harmful behavior because the word sin is a difficult word for some, because it’s been misused to shame people for being who they are.  I think it’s worthwhile to mention here, that tax collectors, who usually get lumped in with sinners in the New Testament, were not asked by John to give up tax collecting when he baptized them. When, in the Gospel of Luke, the tax collectors asked John what they should do, he answered them, "Stop collecting more than what is prescribed."

Our readings today make a clear distinction between John’s baptism and baptism in Christ. John’s baptism is one of repentance. Repentance is a translation of metanoia which means a change of mind. This is less about a remorseful; groveling which is what the word often connotates today, than it is about seeing things differently. For example; waking up to self-deception and spiritual amnesia. Wallowing in shame and self-disgust rarely changes anyone’s behavior in my experience. Change in behavior takes a shift in perspective. That shift in perspective seems to be what is offered in the John’s baptism of water. And our readings clearly state that baptism in Christ offers much more. It offers the Holy Spirit.

Christ’s baptism seems to actually offer God. It’s tempting to talk about theology and debates about the Holy Spirit and grace and who and what can dispense grace and the scriptural evidence pro and con for the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father or Christ, but let’s not distract ourselves with that. Rather let us look at what today’s readings can tell us about the experiences of God as the Holy Spirit.

We begin with the wind sweeping over the face of the waters. So begins creation in our tradition. Christ is the Logos, the spoken word, but the Spirit is there in the beginning as well. Later in the creation story, life itself begins with the spirit breathed into clay. Wind, air, breathing, breath… these are the origins of the concept of spirit as well as the concept of the soul. This is true in the experience of many religions. Though techniques of breathing are prayerful practices in many traditions; breathing is the one thing we can’t really fast from. How long can you hold your breath? As in so many traditions breath or spirit is experienced as the mystery of the animating force, what keeps us alive; the divine spark within us.

The Ephesians did not even know there was a Holy Spirit.  They were ignorant of that aspect of God. When I mentioned spiritual amnesia earlier, to some degree I was talking about truth forgotten. However, one might suggest that part of the human condition itself is ignorance of our spiritual connectedness, our spiritual interdependence. We may not have even been able to conceive of ourselves as children of God. Through John’s baptism, the Ephesians had become open to a new perspective. They became open to receiving or perhaps one could say recognizing the Holy Spirit. Many of Jesus’ parables were mind teasers designed to get us to question our assumptions, to open ourselves to new perspectives. In our tradition we still baptize with water, like the water of John’s new perspective, like the water that the Spirit first swept over.

And then they spoke in tongues and prophesied. Sounds awesome and grandiose, doesn’t it? And certainly some people have experienced it this way. Some have had life changing vivid visions. But I also think this passage points to an experience of the Holy Spirit that all people have, though they may not recognize it as such. Some might call it intuition, some may call it channeling, and some call it the still small voice. In spiritual direction it’s called listening for the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Discerning those promptings from our more base promptings, or the promptings of the lies and falsehoods that are symptoms of our amnesia of God and our divinity, is not a task to be done alone. We are baptized into a body; a holy and universal church, a communion of the spiritually wise. This is the body of Christ.

Jesus was with a community, the community of John’s when the Spirit descended on him at his baptism; declaring that he is the beloved of God. I think many people’s experience of being loved by God only becomes possible when they experience God’s love through other people. This could be at the root of Jesus’ commandment to love one another. Jesus tells us time and again in so many ways that we can have a direct intimate relationship with God. We love, because God first loved us.

Readings for this sermon:

Genesis 1:1-5

1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,

1:2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

1:3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

1:4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Acts 19:1-7

19:1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples.

19:2 He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."

19:3 Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism."

19:4 Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus."

19:5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

19:6 When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied--

19:7 altogether there were about twelve of them.

Mark 1:4-11

1:4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

1:5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

1:6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

1:7 He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.

1:8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

1:9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

1:10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.

1:11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."