An Opportune Time: A Sermon

An Opportune Time

         Good morning class. I’m professor Faust.

         This is Deviling 102: Temptations. If you are here for Torture 206: Advanced Bagpiping, that’s down the hall on the right, I don’t want another mishap like last week.

         Today we’ll be coving the opportune time.

         I hope everyone has read the primary documents in preparation for today’s lecture, the 4^th Chapter of Dr. Luke’s Gospel

         (point) What, you didn’t… Why not?

(wait) you were busy watching the politicians rip one another apart the last few nights… that’s fair—I’ve always said never let schooling get in the way of your education.

         Today we read of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. He’d just been declared Son of God… This was a powerful day for the Enemy, like a coronation or the start of an invasion

         Satan tried to blunt this attack upon our control of the world in a crafty way, by defining the terms

—if we get to define what “Son of God” means, we’re half-way to victory right there.

         The Christian’s Saint Augustine was right in describing our subtlety

—at our best we misuse the good.

Outright evil is rarely useful, instead taking their weapons and turning them around …

a spiritual jujitsu if you will…

that my pupils, that’s where we can draw real blood.

(point)

Why? you ask. Because humans have some sense of propriety, not much mind you, but when confronted by absolute evil, they’ll stand fast, but dealing with misused good? They don’t have a prayer… I say that in the colloquial of course, prayer is, unfortunately, a mighty, if often unused, weapon of the Christian.

…

Where was I? Yes, defining the terms. Satan takes this powerful name, title, vocation, “Son of God” and tries to hack Jesus away from his Father—dismember that divine relationship.

         Unfortunately, Jesus would have none of it.

         Famished though he was, he did not make bread the totality of his relationship with God,

powerless though he was, he did not see power as an end to be sought,

humbled and vulnerable though he was, he did not see safety and glory as his goal.

         Of course, all that is background. It leads us to today’s lesson, Satan departing “until an opportune time.” This is read as the last temptation of Christ, the betrayal, abandoning, and cross—Satan waiting in the wings for “Good” Friday.

            But, I would suggest, dear little Devils, that there are other opportune times that Satan finds, that each of us as we go about the business of temptation, can find, to tempt all those Children of God, offer a misused good in exchange for their Identities as Children of God!

         Let’s step out of the ivory tower for a second and get practical… Satan comes to Jesus when he’s hungry and offers bread… you all are going to be working in New Jersey when you graduate, right… what might they be starved for?

--No, that’s an ugly stereotype about people from New Jersey.

 --Time! I like that… Let’s assume people from New Jersey are starved for time.

         So, go out there and offer it to them.

         Give them all the time they need. Give them minute rice, machines that wash clothing and dishes, shopping and banks done by phone and on the internet. Tell them to go and enjoy it.

-No… no… Not everyone could hear him. He said “You can’t do that! Imagine what they’ll do with all that free time.” He mentioned how Luther prayed for an hour each morning, two if he was busy.

         Don’t worry. They’ll take time, and kill it. They’ll waste it. They’ll find millions of ways to dump it down the drain, all the while afraid that they’re not making the most of it.

-How?

         Well, time management isn’t ultimately, about efficiency, it’s about choices. It is about seizing a goal and going for it. Having a vision, holding onto values and investing time in those things and not in others…

         These humans, they’re rudderless, give them all the time in the world, I’m almost positive they won’t choose their Baptismal Identity as their goal.

         What else was offered up?

-Yes, Power! And not just a little power, but imperial power. Satan offered Jesus authority over all nations. He essentially offered him Roman power. Offered him the ability to topple nations, and actually change the cultures and values of other people. It’s God-like isn’t it?

         Here’s the trick, we can even inject that kind of hubris into nations that see themselves as Christian—in fact, when a nation state makes a religious claim like that, as if any entity can see itself as completely bearing the image of God—the Church, our great enemy, doesn’t even claim that, when they make such claims, they’re ripe for the picking, so self-assured they won’t even notice we’ve turned them! Imagine the sins that can be ignored if you think you’re doing them in the name of God.

         Yes, taking the good and turning it to its worst… believe me this place is filled with the souls of self-assured, self-righteous, nations.

         And what was that third temptation? ah yes… Safety and Glory… they might seem dissimilar at first, but once you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

A bloodless Christianity is one where there is no risk involved, nothing on the table, one without sacrifice—total safety…

and at the same time, one that revels in it all, so entranced with itself that it doesn’t notice that God has left the building, one that encourages worshippers to say “Thank God I’m not like that sinner over there!”

Our greatest ally is a people who seek easy answers and miracles when God is calling for martyrs and adventurers. Safety and Glory is nothing short of Sin itself, heads shoved so far into belly buttons that there is no coming back!

         I think my time is about up… the big picture of today’s lecture is this: misusing the good is an excellent way to tempt humans,

Satan’s paradigm of tempting Jesus “Pleasure, Power, Safety/Glory” are excellent tools in your toolbox.

        

         Any questions?

-Yes, this will be on the Exam!

-THE opportune time… Bad Friday, or “Good” Friday as the Christians call it—what they’ll be celebrating in 40 some odd days, well, there is that.

I suppose, in a sense, this is impolitic to say… but, I’ll say it anyway

—I have tenure after all, right

—The Last Temptation makes this degree you are working on worthless…

Yes, ultimately, all our victories here are shallow ones.

Ultimately, we’ve already lost, we’re training you for a job here, that can not be won.

Jesus continued to hold onto that Identity as Child of God, through everything we could throw at him,

He multiplied bread, for others.

Was crowned the servant king.

Showed forth God’s glory on the cross.

Even Death itself could not hold him.

Not only that, he ripped the hinges off our front gate, he defeated and bound Satan

and he clothed all these Christians in that damn Identity of his, Child of God.

         They are clothed in God’s love, rooted in that identity, so that they can face us, and all of our temptations, not in fear, but instead led by a passion for their Lord.

Class Dismissed.

Ash Wednesday Sermon: Why Worship?

          As we enter into this highly ritualized season, this time of extra worship, and very particular worship—whole days dedicated to entry into Jerusalem, foot washing and meal, gathering around the cross, waiting and storytelling, and of course tonight, confession and ashes.

          As we enter into all of this, and as we feel the readings, especially from Isaiah and Matthew, rub against the rituals of worship and the disciplines of Lent

—it is worth asking the very basic question, Why Worship?

Prayer

          When I say “Why Worship?” I’m being rather broad, not just why here in this building, but also I’m talking about our Lenten Disciplines.

Why, for example, participate in prayer partners,

why choose a practice from the Instead of Me Tree,

why collect food for the two Food Pantries we support?

          And there are two answers you might give me. The first, the same answer as Isaiah’s society, the second more inline with Jesus’ description of cultivating treasures in heaven.

          The first is that we worship to discharge a duty,

do a thing so we’re done with it and can forget it forever…

this answer would be a sort of show spirituality, ultimately an act of insincerity.

          Consider Isaiah’s description of a society in which faith is given a lot of lip service

—people play humble, but don’t notice the humiliated,

fast but instead of feeling for those who do not have enough food, they fight and fix the incomes of the poor so they continue to go hungry.

          It’s a society that is outwardly religious, but is in fact faking it,

so self centered the hungry and homeless are hated,

even members of one’s own family forgotten.

It is a society that looks like a spiritual oasis, but once you get up close is a mirage.

          Similarly Jesus hears piety pumped out of a bullhorn.

Alms given to get praise,

prayers said to be seen,

fasts kept to receive commendation.

          I’ve heard tell from friends who get grants from the government  to do good, that when you talk religion to Senator Cory Booker, one of our two senators, he responds:

 “Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people;

before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children;

before you preach to me of your passion for your faith, teach me about it through your compassion for your neighbors.

In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as in how you choose to live and give.” And he’s not wrong.

          If our answer to the question “Why Worship” is:

to be done with it

—to ritually do a good thing so you don’t actually have to go out into the world and face it as it is, and do what you can to better it and live faithfully in it

—then we ought to be ashamed.

          But, if a simple discharge of duty isn’t our answer to the question “Why Worship?” but instead Worship is about Discipline

If Worship is practice.

If we’re doing these rituals here, to strengthen us our there,

If worship is strength training for the soul by the Holy Spirit

—if we do ritual so we can to do it regularly,

to bring our practice out into the rest of our lives

—if our dismissal causes us to go forth and serve God and neighbor

Then maybe we’re getting somewhere.

          Why Worship? Because it is part of an ongoing cycle of life… the cycle of Practice, Participation, Frustration, and back to Practice,

Participation, Frustration,

Practice, Participation, Frustration!

          Consider this evening right now:

Tonight we practice…

we admit that we are immoral and that we are mortal. We confess together our faults, we receive the reality of our limited nature,

touched with dust.

          And we’re sent out, participating…

living out this reality, more aware of our shortcomings, more aware as well of our neighbor being in that same spot. And we are gentler with one another because of it.

          We’re sent out, the dust and ash imposed on our brow, even long after it has blown away, it is there, and we are there in it, taking more seriously our moments, savoring our time here on earth all the more.

          Eventually though there will be frustration…

these are hard things to bear, especially as the days wear on, as signs of sin and death take hunks out of us…

Think of Paul, afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, dishonor, treated as imposters, punished, sorrowful, poor, impoverished…

that’s gotta wear you down…

It’s like that Springsteen Song says: “In the end what you don't surrender. Well the world just strips away.”

          And that’s why we come back, again, to practice…

gathered and sent, gathered and sent… so that we might endure faithfully.

          Why worship?

          Never to hide, never to stunt our sacred duty to God and neighbor. Never that.

          Why worship?

          That we might endure, that we might follow faithfully, and when we fall, find ourselves held by the Spirit, nurtured, and sent out again.

Amen.

3rd Corinthians (1st Jerseyans)

3^rd Corinthians (1^st Jerseyans)

         Dearest Sisters and Brothers,

         I have heard that those communities I planted so long ago have spread and changed and popped up all across the globe.

         I have heard that they’ve spawned divisions now called denominations, and movements that I would have never imagined.

         When I brought Jesus’ message from Jerusalem to Rome

—I traveled 1434 miles

—that was an unbelievable length.

It was as if my gargantuan effort to bring the Gospel there

—through shipwrecks and beatings and all kinds of disasters…

It was as if that effort which, the Holy Spirit moved me to do, had brought the Gospel to the entire world.

Now the Gospel is firmly entrenched in such far off places as South Plainfield New Jersey in the USA—which is over 4 times farther away from Jerusalem than my impossible journey was from Jerusalem to Rome.

         I suppose, thinking of my image of the Church as the body of Christ, it is as if the child has become an adult

—the Church has matured. What was once small, has grown large.

         But brothers and sisters, let me be clear

—you are still the body of Christ

—each congregation, each denomination, each piece of you, and all of your gifts, is part of a larger whole.

         In your diversity and in your wide reach, this grand stretching out of the body of Christ

—in this you are still members one to another. Some are eyes, others ears or toes, elbows or nose

—Understand me, you are not a horror show, a bunch of disembodied body parts

—not a crime scene, but a church!

         How we are connected one to another, is extremely significant!

How we foster that connection in love, that is of ultimate import!

         And so, it distresses me when I hear of the recent rending of the body of Christ taking place within the Anglican Communion, dividing the Episcopals, the American manifestation of that denomination, from her English and African siblings. Can you not bear with one another? Are not arm and body connected by ligaments?

         At the same time, I am astounded by the speed by which the Roman Catholics and Lutherans are remembering that they are of one body

—re-membering the body,

 membering again,
making what was once dis-membered re-membered!

That the Roman Catholic Pope will commemorate the 500^th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation alongside world Lutheranism

—that is astonishing! It is as if the Ear has heard the Mouth and the Mouth realized the Ear is just a few inches from him!

        

         Or, there are the latest tales of merger from those two Lutheran Seminaries in Pennsylvania who have been feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys since the American Civil War. Out of two, will come one.

Is that not the story of the body,

of union,

of our hope,

being one together

—the creation of something new,

being reconciled to one another and in so doing showing forth the body of Christ?

         And then, there is the work of Christ done in this particular piece of Central New Jersey

—that five churches would recognize one another for each of their unique gifts, seeing them all as gifts of the Spirit in their particular neighborhoods, and at the same time recognize the connections they have to one another!

It’s like the eyes see that the body’s got feet for walkin’ and the ears hear that the arms are useful for more than just picking out earwax!

         What I’m saying, to shift the metaphor, is that God has rooted each congregation in a particular community, and God is calling these congregations to share the burdens and the joys of ministry with one another… I thank God for that!

        

         As I stated earlier how you live out these connections are significant—if it is done without love, it does not matter.

         If I adhere to all proper doctrine, but do not have love, I am myself excluded.

         If I connect to my brothers and sisters so quickly and fully that every slight either of us ever committed is erased then and there, but do so without love, I have whitewashed myself.

         If I create something new, birth the Christ Child himself, but do so without love, the whole project is stillborn.

         If I dig deeply into a community and the branches of our mutual ministry together reach out and touch the sky, but I have not planted in love, take a chainsaw to me!

         Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

         For at the end of the day, love alone will remain.

When the fire has cleared out the forest floor, the tiny seeds of love will be all that is left.

Purity and Division. Merging, Partnership, Community

—that’s all fine and dandy.

But the one place I hang my hat,

the only ground I can stand on, the only place I can put my trust

—is love.

A+A

Sermon: The Wisemen’s Gifts

The Wisemen’s Gifts

            Today I want to talk with you all about the gifts the wisemen brought.

           

            On one hand, there is the tradition, going back to at least the 600’s—attributed to the Venerable Bede,

we find this tradition in such songs as “We Three Kings”

—this tradition looks at the three gifts, Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, and sees them as Symbols.

            Gold symbolizes the Kingship of Jesus…that he is the Messiah—the King of the Jews—the rightful heir of King David, whose kingdom God has promised shall have no end.

            Frankincense symbolizes the Divinity of Christ, that this baby they’ve come before, is God arrived in the flesh. God is found in the flesh, that the flesh might be found in God.

            Myrrh symbolizes the death to come—that Jesus would die as a sacrifice, acceptable for all.

            Another common way to view these gifts, is in light of certain scriptures about the wealth of the nations flooding into Israel to signal the changing of the age

—make us aware of the Day of the Lord

—a day when justice and mercy would be shown concretely

—the day God would act.

            In fact, we read in the book of Acts and in Paul’s letters, of the collection Paul was taking up from the gentile churches he’d founded

—he was collecting money and other goods from these gentile churches—these non-Jewish churches—to send to the 12 disciples who were back in Jerusalem.

He did this to point out that God was acting in Jesus Christ

—acting, as well in Paul’s mission to the wider world.

The words of Isaiah and the Psalmist were being fulfilled in the actions of the Early Church.

            So too, Matthew’s Wisemen—they bear these gifts to Jesus in order to point to God’s actions in this world

—that the age was changing,

the Day of the Lord was at hand,

Justice and mercy were taking place in the person of Jesus.

            And these are both important gifts the Magi, these wise men, bring.

            But I think there is one more—they bring to us the gift of the seeker.

            The wisemen’s gift is the gift of the seeker.

Let us pray

            The wisemen give the gift of the seeker, the gift of the outsider, the one seeking, not the one who is comfortable with what they’ve already found.

The gift of the seeker—Think of it—the wise men arrive looking for the King of the Jews.

            They come as outsiders, foreigners, gentiles

—and they enter in, and they ask the question “Where is the King of the Jews?”

            They ask, where is the Christ Child.

            And the answer they receive is shocking

—Herod and the religious leaders react with fear and cause a stampede of a whole city

—all of Jerusalem.

            As you might imagine asking the King… where the King is, could rub a guy the wrong way. In fact, if you keep reading, Herod ends up killing a whole generation of Jesus’ peers, trying to stave off competition.

            Even when the Priests and Scribes tell the wise men where to find Jesus, they don’t go—they don’t follow.

            For Herod, following would finish his kingship, for the Priests and Scribes, it would challenge their positions.

            It is not unlike Dolstoyevski’s famed short story “The Grand Inquisitor.” In it, Jesus returns during the Spanish Inquisition and the story’s namesake The Grand Inquisitor arrests and chases away Jesus rather than allow him to disrupt the Church.

            And the Church today, while not as dreadful as the Inquisition, still has some of those same tendencies, the tendency of the insider, of a Herod, of a Scribe

—to be, at times, too comfortable with the Gospel to hear it.

—To, at times, major in the Minors.

             It’s like we’re listening to Bob Dylan on our Ipod, and don’t realize we’re at a live concert!

            It’s like we’re looking for spare change in our couch, yet we’re holding the winning lottery ticket in our back pocket!

            It’s like we’ve received the whole world and we decide to fight over who gets the last French fry.

            And that’s why I thank God that the Wisemen come, bearing their gifts, the Gift of the Seeker.

            They hear the word and rush to see.

            They follow the star to the King to be!

            They are filled with such Joy at their discovery.

            They present the best they have before him.

            They’re still surprised by this thing God is doing.

            Still stunned by God’s actions for all of us

—Good news for all!

            That’s Matthew’s Gospel in a nutshell, from the Wisemen at the start to the Great Commission at the end—let All Nations Know that Jesus is born for us!

            That’s the gift, the blessing of the Wisemen and every seeker

—the gift to us who know the old old story… we get to tell it again, and experience it again, see it with fresh eyes….

            It’s like a friend of mine—when he was a new father, he got to play hopscotch in the grocery isle with his son—got to experience childhood again and see the world that had become warn and old afresh, see again how unique and special it all is.

            So too for the Church—when seekers come to hear and see, we get to tell of God’s wondrous works!

            They shake us out of our complacency, reminding us of the power of all these things we see as commonplace.

Tell them about how…

            How together as a community we’re the Body of Christ—wow!

            How in Water, Word, Wine and Bread, God comes to us… and not just to us, but to you particularly!—Wow!

            How God’s work of salvation continually expands—Beyond Jerusalem, Beyond Samaria, Beyond Rome, beyond any barrier we build, blossoming before our very surprised eyes! Wow!

            This is why Confirmation classes and new members classes are such a joy to most pastors—we get to tell that old old story again, and in doing so hear it again ourselves!

            Yes, the Church’s gift is to hold this message about God, to hold it and share it, to live it! And the Seeker’s gift is to receive it, and in so doing revive it again for all of us! That we might all be overwhelmed with Joy at what God continues to do among us!

That through the power of God Jesus is King, Divinity, and Sacrifice.

That Justice and Mercy have found us in Jesus, that God has acted and continues to act!

A+A

Today's sermon:Blueprint, Hand, Baptism, Magnifying Glass

Christmas Eve Sermon 2015

In those days,

in those long warn out days,

in a long worn out world

—a world clunking along like an old clock, gears grinding along, but without purpose or consistency.

          In those old days, there was a certain kind of peace.

          The peace of Emperor Caesar Augustus

—Caesar the Revered One.

          Revered, because he was the one who climbed out of the Roman Civil War

—he scrambled over the bodies of:

Lepidus,

Brutus,

Cassius,

Pompey,

Antonius,

Fulvia,

Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

          He’d survived all that, and imposed a steel rule over that what remained. He held the Empire together through Roman Peace

—also known as Peace by Superior Fire Power.

          Caesar Augustus’ peace was essentially a blackmailing of Rome and all she’d conquered.

A strange kidnapping… a letter slid under glass to a bank teller stating, “Stick close to me and no one gets hurt.”

          A rule based on fear, not consent.

          And for that absence of war

—for filling the power vacuum left by Julius Caesar’s death

—he was declared Son of the Divine.

          In those days, it was etched on rock, “Praise Augustus a Savior who has made war to cease and who shall put everything in peaceful order.”

         

          And in these old days it is important that we don’t judge those old days.

After all, filling power vacuums with non-violent, or at least non-chaotic, forces…

The absence of war, even if it’s not peace…

Security even if it means a certain amount of tyranny…

It is easy to want to settle for that…

But, we know even instinctually, that it is a fear driven kind of peace…

For that matter, sometimes just getting through another day feels like an acceptable end in and of itself…

But such a limited life may not even deserve the name.

          In those days, Augustus brought the kind of peace that fears so fully that it sends heavily pregnant women across borders…

Fear that forces a woman to deliver her child while traveling…

Fear that finds a father unable to provide even a guest room for his wife…

Not even a crib for his newborn child.

          And out there,

outside the gates of Bethlehem,

a people often left outside the gates…

          A people associated with animals and the outdoors

—a people who saw everything and everyone coming into the gates, and so were great gossips, to be believed but not to be associated with…

          The Shepherds…

          Now, what is a Shepherd? Well, I always remember the bumper sticker on my parents cooler—it said:

 “If you can’t trust a Biker, who can you trust?”

That’s kinda what we’re talking about here:

“If you can’t trust a Shepherd, who can you trust?”

          Those shepherds got to be witness to the greatest bit of gossip the world has ever known—the first to hear the gospel!

The first to hear a new thing in this old world,

The first to be a bridge between those old days to this day, this new day!

          Angels come to them…

Think about that!

 Angels! What are they doing out there?

          The Angels of heaven arrive on earth—imagine the weirdness of that

Their arrival indicates that heaven is down, the universe has upended itself, and this is an invasion!

          It’s like a scene from a movie

—the camera focuses tightly on an angel’s wing and the sky

—the stars all up there, only to flip around and rightsize at the last moment, revealing the angel is not flying, up there in the sky, but instead standing, right here, right here on earth!

The holy is not up there, but right here, right here on earth!

          In the book “Ender’s Game” the characters play an elaborate laser tag/capture the flag game in zero-gravity,

and the main character realizes spatial orientation doesn’t matter in zero-gravity,

that if you re-think where you are in the room, and see your opponent’s goal as down then the game, instead of being about dodging and hiding, is about falling well, landing in your enemy’s goal.

          So too, the orientation of earth has shifted, heaven is on earth, God has arrived here

—everything else is just an elaborate falling into His arms.

          Yes, with the arrival of angels heaven has come down, and the tired promises of those days are eclipsed with the true promises of this day!

          No more the worn out promises of safety by blackmail, a Caesar crowned atop the bodies of those he brutalized and beat, the peace he keeps by keeping a lid on it all.

          Instead the one who is Savior, Messiah, Lord…

is a baby bound in bands of cloth,

set in a slop trough.

          A tiny child

—a small human,

filled with God,

filled with all those proud promises made by Caesar,

but backed up by blessing instead of force.

          The host of angels is an army

—an angelic invasion of Caesar’s world,

our world

An invasion on behalf of this little child…

—an invasion like no other, (other than maybe The Beatles)

an invasion by a song,

an invasion that woos the world,

singing a better song than

all our false saviors,

all our controlling kings,

all our armies of interests and security and tyranny,

all that squared off against a song

Caesar’s song of fear…

Our song of fear…

Faces off against one of praise and pondering, and fear doesn’t have a chance!

No chance against:

--A song to shepherds outside the gates

--A song these shepherds sing to Mary and Joseph there a long way from Nazareth,

--A song there before little Jesus in the lowly manger.

--A song reverberating in Mary’s heart.

A song Jesus later sings to the crowds.

A song sung to Samaritans and Sabbath breakers,

Sung to the lost and the least.

A song sung for his whole life long

Sung there on the cross for us,

Wooing us at whatever the cost

And sung again on the other side of the grave.

Sung to you and to me,

…Sung by you and by me, as well

“Glory to God in the highest of heavens

And peace to God’s people here on earth!”

A+A