The Lord's Prayer and the Great Commission: Parallels of Spirituality and Action

It struck me as I was preparing for this sermon that Jesus’ commission to the twelve parallels the Lord’s prayer. Christ tells us to pray for a thing in the Lord’s prayer and then commissions us to act on it in tonight’s Gospel. 

Pray for God’s kingdom come, Jesus says, and I commission you to proclaim that it has become near.

Recent translations have used the reign of God rather than kingdom since the word kingdom has lost that meaning since the Bible was written. Kingdom in the Bible often refers to the time in which a particular ruler was in power, rather than the land or people who are ruled over.

The Israelites rejected God as their King, asking for a human one. Through Samuel, God warned them how a human king would be: He will send your children to war, make them build his weapons, make them work for him, take your best possessions and give it to his servants, he will take portions of your harvest, and you will become his slaves.

Jesus makes it clear to his disciples that they are not to be rulers. You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.

Jesus, who is now our king, the person of God who has taken on our humanity, who still bears our wounds, tells us over and over that wealth, power and status do not belong in the kingdom of God.

Jesus tells us again and again is that God cares about our suffering. Jesus in fact identifies with the suffering. What you have done for the least you have done for Jesus. Which leads us to…

Pray for God’s will to be done, I commission you to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

God’s will is for us to ease suffering. Theodicy is a whole branch of theology that deals with why an all-powerful all-good God would allow evil and suffering. But I’m not going to get into that, because suffering is here, like it or not, whether it makes theological sense or not. There is suffering and we are called upon to ease it.

And if we are to live like Christ, then we shouldn’t consider if someone deserves suffering or if they brought it on themselves. As Paul reminds us in Romans, “For a good person someone might actually dare to die. God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” 

Pray for God to forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven. You received without payment; give without payment, I commission you to respond to rejection of peace you’ve given, by letting your peace return to you. Shake it off.

Actually to shake the dust from your feet is a rejection back, but I believe letting your peace return to you isn’t. Even as you shake the dust off your sandals, do it with a peaceful heart. Does that sound contradictory? Perhaps but not any more than “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

That reminds me of a story about a traveling sage who comes across a village terrorized by a great serpent. The sage convinces the serpent of the value of peace, and to stop harming the villagers. The sage on his return journey comes across the serpent who has been attacked and wounded by the villagers seeking revenge. The sage tells her, “I said not to harm them; I didn’t say not to hiss at them.” The way of peace is not a way without conflict. It is a way that includes acknowledging you’re capable of doing harm. We are not commissioned to be doormats.

And not all the places you visit will reject you, laborers deserve their food. Pray for God to give us our daily bread, yet like mana from heaven, only what we need today. I commission you to take nothing with you, depend on the hospitality of others. 

I’ve often run into what seems to me a very odd (and I think very American) definition of self-sufficient. Somehow it’s thought that receiving money from employers or clients is somehow self-sufficient, while receiving money from family, the government, or charitable organizations is not. To my mind, all of the above reflects dependence on others. The labor we deem legitimate still puts us in a position of dependence on employers or clients. 

And of course, we’re all dependent on God for our very lives. The air that we breathe, in fact all that sustains us comes from God. I even believe our very strength to endure the trials of this world is strength we receive from God.

Pray for God to not bring us to the time of trial, yet I commission you to be sheep among wolves. This all starts with Jesus having compassion for the harassed and helpless, who are like sheep without a shepherd. The commission is to remind the sheep that the Lord is their shepherd.  But there are wolves. The wolves want sheep to remain helpless and harassed. Suffering benefits the wolves. The wolves will in fact do everything in their power to stop you from tending to them, easing their suffering and reminding them of their Lord.

In tending to the suffering, you will have to endure suffering yourself. Jesus certainly didn’t avoid it. And God can and will give you the strength to endure. And like Jesus, you will be vindicated. And it will be Jesus whose suffering you ease. Whatever you do for the least of these… The mourning will be comforted, the hungry will be filled, and the pure in heart will see God. And there are emotional rewards. Think of those whose suffering you relieve. Many will bubble over with Joy like Sarah did. "God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me." 

• Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7 and Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19  • 
• Romans 5:1-8  • 
• Matthew 9:35-10:23)

Third Sunday in Easter

Were not our hearts burning within us?

Sad to say I know a few people, myself included, that find it much easier to get into the darker emotions of Lent and Good Friday, than to be lifted up by joy in the Easter season. But perhaps that’s because we associate joy too much with the prevalent social pressure to strive to be happy. Burning hearts to me suggests a different tone of joy. More of an eagerness, a desire.

Which is a more intimate thing that exuberance. And despite the initial volley of words- “Are you the only one who doesn’t know?” “Oh you fools” –todays Gospel story is quite intimate. Not as intimate as last week’s fingers inside a wound intimate, but in a way more remarkable in that Jesus appears to disciples rather than apostles, here. Disciples who were not even in the inner circle enough for them to know Simon by the name Peter.

Their hearts burned as they came to understand that their expectations of the messiah were in error. That victory and glory were in identifying with the victim. That freeing Israel was neither a political or military matter. Then in the breaking of the bread, which we know to be his body, they recognize him.

Then, even though the day was nearly over they went back to Jerusalem to tell the 11 and companions what they saw. They had to share this experience with those who would understand. And it is that kind of sharing - talking to people about a wonderful encounter with God – that will be our overarching topic this Eastertide.

Evangelism is usually talked about more in the spirit of Peter’s rhetorical argument - and look how many numbers came to Christ that day! Remember, though, that Peter was saying something brand new at the time.  I swear every time I get handed a Christian pamphlet on the street I think, “Do you seriously believe I’ve never been exposed to these ideas before?” I really don’t think a primer in Christianity is needed anymore. Not in Chicago anyway. Some ideas about Christianity can and should be corrected, but most folks know the basics by now. And it’s sort of insulting to suggest they don’t.

In part because of the very offensive and in your face evangelism that many people have had to endure, to even talk about evangelism at all makes me bit uncomfortable. Yet, that makes me all too often fail to tell people about what Christ has done for me, or about my relationship with God; a relationship that defines so much of my life. It’s very personal to me.

Now by personal relationship with God, I don’t mean an individual relationship to God. My relationship to God is bound up in relation to others. I rather mean personal in an intimate sense. It’s profound and deep and unique, but not solitary. I have had visions and mystical experiences of God, but they happened in the context of scripture and ritual that have been cultivated for 2000 years. And it is only through sharing with others that I came to better understand these experiences.

As I’ve shared these experiences, I’ve discovered that people who are at very similar places in their spiritual journey that I am have gotten there in different ways. This reminds me of the Hindu concept that there are different paths to God for different people. And in reading about that I was reminded of the five love languages in personal relationships.

The five love languages was developed in marriage counseling (though I think it applies to other relationships) to describe how what one person sees as an expression of love, the other person may seem differently. “Why don’t you ever say you love me?” “I do! I give you presents all the time!” “But you never say the words!”

The five languages are: gift giving, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and physical touch. My love languages are physical touch and quality time. This is why mediation and the sacraments – which are physical – are so important to my connection to God. Some folks I know connect with God much more intellectually, which I equate with words of affirmation. For some of my social justice focused friends, acts of service is their Godly love language.

For God is love. Our relationship to God is a loving one, no matter how we express or cultivate it. And so I ask you, “Where and when do you speak of your earthly love relationships?” How do you talk to people about your partner, your children, your family, your beloved friends, you pets? Aren’t those conversations imitate, or an invitation to intimacy?

Would you tell those same people about your loving relationship with God? At the same times? Why or why not? These questions are what we’ll be exploring in the weeks to come.

Contemplate your love relationship to God, pay attention to your heart. What makes your heart burn? What would make you rush to others to share? What inspires you to have genuine mutual love, to love one another deeply from the heart?

Readings: 

• Acts 2:14a, 36-41 
• 1 Peter 1:17-23 
• Luke 24:13-35

Sermon on the Beatitudes.

I think the very sentimental and Hallmark nature of the footprints poem can end up disguising an ugly truth. You know the one, in a dream the author is walking with the Lord and looks back over their life, and notices that during the most dire moments of their life, there are only one set of footprints, and they ask the Lord, where were you during those times? Christ says, the times there were only one set of prints I was carrying you. The truth buried in that poem is that God will not protect you from the horrors of this life. God can and will carry you through, and that’s a wonderful thing, but God will not spare you from evil. Now, I know that’s not a very comforting message, which is why I think it’s vital to take the being carried idea out of the sentimentalized gloss we find in the poem. And the beatitudes do this.

It seems important to note at least two ways that the Beatitudes themselves are given a sentimental gloss that renders them useless. One gloss is the message that you are called to suffer in this life (in other words: lie down and take it) and you will get your reward when you die and go to heaven. The text doesn’t support this at all. Notice that while most of what the blessed get is in the future tense EXCEPT for the Kingdom of Heaven, which is in the present! Thiers IS the kingdom of heaven, their reward IS great in heaven. More on that later.

The second gloss is that the Beatitudes are about the poor unfortunates that need Christian charity (in other words: the imperialism of helping.) Now, Christ certainly preached easing the suffering of others, especially the ones who are “othered.” But I really don’t think that’s what the Beatitudes are about. Because Christ isn’t really describing others, He’s describing Himself!

Is Jesus not poor in spirit, mournful, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure of heart, a peacemaker & reviled and persecuted and aren’t all kinds of evil uttered against Him? And aren’t we, as the body of Christ, all these things? Or if we aren’t, shouldn’t we be? 

Now before I end up sounding like one of those brood of vipers who claim they are being persecuted as a *cough* Christian because they can’t freely oppress people, the Christians I see as reviled and persecuted are like the 90-something old dude who keeps getting arrested for feeding the homeless – which is illegal in many cities here in the US. And many more horrific laws that need to be resisted are in the works as we speak. Do not kid yourself we are in the hands of fascists. Fascist we need to resist, but also fascist we as Christians are called to love.

An underlying theme of the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus radicalizing the summary of the law. Love God with EVERYTHING YOU HAVE and love your neighbor as yourself. In our last theology on tap, Larry suggested (and I agree) that loving as described in the sermon, means refraining from dehumanizing anyone. This is particularly hard when we’re confronted by people who want to dehumanize us. It is a very human thing to demonize our enemy. But it is also dehumanizing to diminish ourselves in the face of our enemy, particularly one that is much more powerful than us. And God is bigger than any human.

What good does it do us if God is bigger than our enemies, if God won’t protect us from them? It puts them in perspective - prevents us from dehumanizing them. It raises us back up to human level when confronted by them. As for demonizing them, let me point out that when I say the leader of the free world is a bully and a sexual predator, there are two ways I can say that. I can say it as a matter of fact, as an acknowledgement that something is terribly wrong, or I can say it as an insult, as a way to see him as less-than. As if I’m not a sinner myself. For the Sermon on the Mount does confront us with the impossibility of a sinless life.

God forgives sin, but does not prevent it from happening, just as God will not stop the horrors to come. We can’t rely on God to make it all right. We need to thirst and hunger for righteousness more than ever now. And it’s going to be dire, this is single set of footprints time. So what does it mean to be carried by Christ?

It means we will be comforted, we will be filled, will receive mercy, will be called children of God, will see God. (This is NO SMALL THING to see God.) This happens on a sacramental level. This happens mystically. I can witness to all these things. None of these things stop the bad things from happening. But they can and do strengthen us. They can keep us from despair. Every hair on your head is counted.

And we can count on these things because Christ became one of us, and we are now part of him. We are Christ’s body. And we have entered the Kingdom, a Kingdom that has not come to completion, true. (It’s when the completed Kingdom comes that inheriting the earth refers to. Or in any case, that’s the promise in the Beatitudes I can’t personally witness to.) Despite not being completed the Kingdom has already broken through. And as Christ’s body as members of the Kingdom, we are to comfort each other, fill each other, be merciful to each other and see God in each other. For though God does this on a mystical level, we all have those one footprint moments when we can’t know it or feel it and that especially when we can strengthen each other – which is Christ’s new commandment, to love on each other.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

"Do not be afraid." Doesn't every angel in the Gospels say this as a greeting? Jesus even says it a few times, particularly after his resurrection when he has a body like unto the angels. Then again I think creatures of spirit have a lot less to be afraid of than bodily creatures.

One example of the justifiable fear involved with having a body is made terrifyingly clear when you contemplate that bragging about sexually abusing women is no barrier to being voted leader of the so-called free world.

And that's just one example of the many unchallenged threatening messages our enemies have put out there. Messages that are in fact designed to strike fear in the least of these who Jesus identifies with, who in fact Jesus says, what you do to them you do unto me! So not just our enemies, but Jesus' enemies!

Fear is the enemy's tool. Creating a culture of fear is a political tool used to gain compliance or inhibit resistance, well used throughout history. And so when Jesus or angels tell us not to be afraid or greet us saying peace, it is not just comfort, it is to disarm the enemy.

Now in tonight's scripture, the angel does not simply say to Joseph "Do not be afraid" as greeting, but specifies what Joseph should not be afraid of - taking Mary as his wife.

Now I find it interesting how many people think that before Joseph knows Mary was knocked up by the Holy Spirit, he'd be justified in being angry, jealous or betrayed by Mary. The angel does not say, "don't be angry, however, but rather don't be afraid."

Some commentaries suggest Joseph might be afraid of offending the Lord, of not obeying the law, or of bringing scandal upon himself or his family. Now possibly in part to address the scandal, in the genealogy prior to this, Matthew named three women who were sexual transgressors and yet had God's favor or blessing.

Two of these women sexually transgressed in order to survive in a system that was set against them. Given recent political developments, a system set against women - or even more set against women than it currently is, especially if those women are marginalized in any other way - such a system seems close at hand.

To quote Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, "I pray that the incoming administration will prove to be more humane than its rhetoric and many of its most ardent supporters. I see no evidence that this is the case. None. It is irresponsible folly to act as though we are in a normal transition between administrations. We must prepare to provide sanctuary and resist."

We're going to need Josephs in these coming times. Those who can see and hear God's message - that following the law blindly and fearing scandal play into the enemy's hands. That taking the least of these into your home or heart is the same as taking Jesus there.

Josephs who defy laws and social pressures to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and care for the sick and the imprisoned. Like Arnold Abbott who keeps getting arrested in Ft. Lauderdale Florida for feeding the homeless. Ft. Lauderdale being one of 31 cities in the US where feeding the homeless - feeding Christ! - is illegal.

As I've said previously, it is in resistance that I find Hope. The sanctuary movement, where churches are harboring or are setting up to be able to harbor those who have been threatened with deportation, the folks I'm in touch with who are preparing to take women and other people with wombs to legal and safe clinics in Canada should Roe v Wade be overturned, there are folks advising trans people on how to get their birth certificate changed before it's too late and I'm sure there are those who are planning on resisting the registration of Muslims - I plan on finding them soon.

The discipline of Hope is putting Hope into action. Rather than worry how this situation could have happened, find a way to help those who have been threatened. The response to the enemy's use of fear is not to go into denial, it's to find Hope in some kind of action. Perhaps not all of these precautions will be necessary, perhaps the ones that are necessary won't even succeed. Yet we Hope that working towards helping even one of the least of these is helping Jesus himself.

It is one of the great paradoxes of Christian life that we need Jesus' help in order to help Jesus. As Paul reminds us, we can do all these things, but without love it's all just a bunch of noise. I have personal experience working with the homeless and it's the kind of work that can burn you out quickly if you're not taking care of yourself or getting support.

Part of the charism of the Order of Jesus Christ Reconciler is to be that support. Especially for those who find tending to Jesus through the least of these is resisted within their local church or even in their denomination. As always though, I recommend contemplative prayer and meditation to strengthen your relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me also remind you that in Advent, we look forward not just to honor the incarnation, but also to look forward to the Kingdom of God fully manifested. No one knows the day or hour and it can seem a long way off and it may not even look like what we imagine it will look like. Let us find hope in the idea of it, though. That as much as our efforts to ease the suffering of the least of these may seem like a drop in the ocean, keep faith that we work for a time when all who enter the Kingdom care for each other in the presence of God.

Questions for discussion:
Tonight I've talked a lot about where I find hope in times when despair seems reasonable. In our discussion tonight, I certainly invite your responses to that, but also I'll provide some more personal questions to stimulate discussion.

1) If an angel told you do not be afraid, what fear that you have would come to mind?

2) Can you find a Christian hope that might address that fear, either in how you observe people living out Christian values or in scripture or tradition or in a personal encounter with Christ?

3) What actions do you see as a disciplined way of acting out of that hope?

• First reading
  • Isaiah 7:10-16
• Psalm
  • Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
• Second reading
  • Romans 1:1-7
• Gospel
  • Matthew 1:18-25

Psalm 12

1Help me, Lord, for there is no godly one left;
the faithful have vanished from among us.
2People tell lies to each other;
they use smooth words but speak from a double heart.
3May the Lord cut off all lips that flatter,
and the tongues that speak boastfully
4those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail;
our lips are our own; who is lord over us?”
5“Because the needy are oppressed, and the poor cry out in misery,
I will rise up,” says the Lord, “and give them the help they long for.”
6The words of the Lord are pure,
like silver refined from ore and purified seven times in the fire.
7O Lord, watch over us
and save us from this generation forever.
8The wicked prowl on every side,
and everyone prizes that which is worthless.

Sermon for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.” I like the seeming contradiction seeing God in one’s flesh even after the skin has been destroyed. Job seems to have wrapped his mind around something that doesn’t make sense on the surface.  

 

In similar mind bending matters, tonight Jesus tells us that the children of the resurrection will be like the angels. Paul tells we will obtain the glory of Christ. And of course like a lot of mystical language, it loses something important if you take it too literally. I’m reminded of how often John’s Jesus rolls his eyes at people taking what he says too literally. But there is a profound truth being spoken of, and the clue to it is in the last few words. God is the God of the living. That in Moses’ time, Jesus’ time, and ours, Abraham and Issac and Jacob are alive to God now.

Now honestly, that thought is one to pray on and let wash over you and not pick apart intellectually, because we cannot even begin to fully know the mind of God. Christianity, does not and cannot make sense to us because it tells us about God, who is not only beyond time, but beyond being. Beyond being that is until the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. 

When the apostles saw the resurrected Jesus, they did not recognize him at first. He seemed both corporeal and incorporeal. The resurrected Jesus was different. Through the resurrected Jesus, we get a glimpse of God’s actuality. An actuality breaking into the world, that wasn’t part of this world before. God who was uncreated now shared something with the created world, was in turn took on something of the actuality of the created world through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. 

For now, we see this through a mirror darkly, and quite frankly the mirror has seemed very dark lately. For this actuality breaking in is not just the promised resurrection, but about the manifestation of the Kingdom. And in times like these, the Kingdom can seem very far away. In times like these one can take the long view and think what life was like in the first century versus what life is like now, and that we even know that there’s a lot of injustice now, means some breaking through has happened. But that is trying to see God’s actuality in the world, in the dark mirror itself.

Because look how far we’ve come may be a source of hope, but it doesn’t help at all when you’re sitting with a black mother who is weeping for fear of the danger her son is in just for walking down the street. No, our hope is not in the created world, it is in the actuality Christ revealed to us. 

Hope in the Kingdom, in God’s actuality, takes work though. It’s not something we can measure or verify through experiment or any of the ways we can learn about the created world. It takes prayer and contemplative practices and ritual. Like the ritual we participate in earlier tonight - Joshua’s baptism.

Tonight, Joshua entered the actuality we’ve been talking about, ritually, mystically, sacramentally entered into Jesus’s death and resurrection, and inherited Christ’s Glory. We all renewed our baptism, spoke the words we spoke or were spoken for us, when we entered that actuality. This is where our hope lies, in that we have already entered into God’s actuality.

So I’m putting forth three main points to begin our theme that we’ll be following through into Advent, the theme of hope as virtue and promise. Three of perhaps many reasons why hope is a virtue would be, 1) That it can be hard to find hope in the world, 2) That our hope is in an actuality we cannot fully grasp, and 3) That hope takes time and effort and participation with others who have entered into God’s actuality through Jesus Christ. 

  

• Job 19:23-27a and Psalm 17:1-9  • 
• 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17  • 
• Luke 20:27-38