10 Pentecost

 

July 26, 2024

 

2 Kings 4.42-44; John 6.1-21

 

+  The life of a someone who preaches as profession is often a strange one.

 

Certainly, this past “week”---has it been a week? It feel like a month considering all that has been happening in our current political climate—has given preachers a lot to speak about.

 

For me, however, I’m kind of a lazy preacher, I will admit.

 

I don’t usually preach about anything that doesn’t interest me or motivate me.

 

Well, today, I get to preach about something I really LOVE to preach about.

 

I love to preach about the that one event that holds us together here at St. Stephen’s, that sustains us and that, in many ways, defines us.

 

Yes, I am talking about the childless cat ladies of St. Stephen’s!

 

Thank you to all of our childless cat ladies.

 

You are what holds us together here.

 

And we are grateful for you.

 

And for the fact that you, right now, have the ability to change the world for the better.

 

Actually, I am speaking the REAL thing that holds us together, that sustains and defines us: the Holy Eucharist—Holy Communion.

 

I LOVE to preach about and explore and talk about the Mystery that is the Eucharist.

 

I love pondering the beauty of why what we do with bread and wine here at this altar is so important to us, to vital to us.

 

I love thinking about all the ways God works through this meal we share here.

 

But, I also really like the “symbolism” of the Eucharist, and I use that word  “symbol” very carefully.

 

If we were going to look at the Eucharist from the perspective of those first Jewish followers of Jesus, we would see that this bread we share at this meal is essentially the Lamb that was offered on the altar, and this cup is the blood that was shed from that lamb.

 

For those of us who saw the documentary together last spring called Christspiracy, we were confronted with something certainly I hadn’t really thought about:

 

The fact that Jesus’s introduction of the sacrificial bead and wine was a radical alternative to the bloody temple sacrifices of animals to God.

 

Jesus’ use of bread and wine was, it can be argued, a non-violent, bloodless sacrifice to God.

 

This is something I have pondered and prayed about studied deeply since I saw that documentary.

 

 Jesus also saw it as a way for us to remember him.

 

Jesus, as we all know, saw himself as the Lamb that was offered and slain on that altar as a sacrifice.

 

So, what we do today and on every Sunday and Wednesday is a continuation of what was offered by Jesus as a non-violent, bloodless alternative to what was done in the Temple in Jesus’ own day.

 

We tend to forget this important fact in our Christian life.

 

We forget that this is a meal we share with one another.

 

We often come to Communion without really thinking about it.

 

We often think of Communion as a quaint little ritual we do, sort of like a Church-version of a tea party.

 

But when we put the Eucharist in the larger perspective of our history as the people of God, we realize that every time we partake of the bread and wine of the Eucharist, we are joining in at that sacrificial worship that has gone for thousands of years.

 

This is the sacrifice of wine and wheat we hear about in the book of Joel.

 

Now, I know some of you immediately find yourselves bristling when you hear the word “sacrifice” here.

 

Sacrifice and the Mass seem a bit too…Catholic..for some.

 

But it is a sacrifice.

 

What we do here is sacrificial.

 

 

And just to make sure you don’t think this is one of Fr. Jamie’s weird, quirky takes on what we do here, I would like to draw your attention once again to the Book of Common Prayer, in the back, in the Catechism.

 

On page 859

 

The second question under “The Holy Eucharist” is,

Q.	Why is the Eucharist called a sacrifice?
A.	Because the Eucharist, the Church's sacrifice of praise and  thanksgiving, is the way by which the sacrifice of Christ is  made present, and in which he unites us to his one offering  of himself.

So, the Eucharist is this incredible thing really.

 

It is a meal.

 

It is a “symbol” of the sacrifice of Jesus.

 

It is a way to remember Jesus and all he has done.

 

And it is a non-violent, bloodless sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God.

 

All this just goes to show us this wonderful way in which God works through something very basic in our lives to make something deep and meaningful.

 

Namely, I am talking about food.

 

Nothing draws us closer to each other than food.

 

Food is an important way to bond with each other.

 

And food a great reminder of how God truly does provide for us.

 

Our scriptures for today give us some interesting perspectives on food as well.

 

In today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, we find Elisha feeding the people.

 

We hear this wonderful passage, “He set it before them, they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.”

 

It’s a deceptively simple passage from scripture.

 

But there’s a lot of depth to it too if you really ponder it.

 

In our Gospel reading, we find almost the same event.

 

Jesus—in a sense the new Elisha—is feeding miraculously the multitude.

 

And by feeding, by doing a miracle, they recognize him for who he is.

 

For them, he is “the Prophet who has come into their midst.”

 

For us, these stories resonate in what we do here at the altar.

 

What we partake of here at this altar is essentially the same event.

 

Here we are fed by God as well.

 

Here there is a miracle.

 

Here, we find God’s chosen one, the “Prophet come to us” Jesus—the new Elisha—feeding us.

 

We come forward and we eat.

 

And there is some left over.

 

The miracle, however, isn’t that there is some left over.

 

The miracle for us is the meal itself.

 

In this meal we share, we are sustained.

 

We our strengthened.

 

We are upheld.

 

We are fed in ways regular food does not feed us.

 

There is something so beautiful in the way God works through the Eucharist.

 

This beautifully basic act—of eating and drinking—is so vital to us as humans.

 

But being sustained spiritually in such a way is beyond beautiful or basic.

 

It is miraculous.

 

And as with any miracle, we find ourselves oftentimes either humbled or blind to its impact in our lives.

 

This simple act is not just a simple act.

 

It is an act of coming forward, of eating and drinking, and then of turning around and going out into the world to feed others.

 

To feed others on what we now embody within ourselves—this living sacrifice to God.

 

And how do we do that?

 

We do that by serving others by example.

 

By being that living Bread to others.

 

The Eucharist not simply a private devotion.

 

Yes, it is a wonderfully intimate experience.

 

But it is so more than that.

 

The Eucharist is what we do together.

 

And the Eucharist is something that doesn’t simply end when we get back to our pews or leave the Church building.

 

The Eucharist is what we carry with us throughout our day-to-day lives as Christians.

 

The Eucharist empowers us to be agents of the Incarnation of God’s Son.

 

We are empowered by this Eucharist to be the Body of Christ to others.

 

Through the Eucharist, we become God’s anointed ones in this world.

 

And that is where this whole act of the Eucharist comes together.

 

It’s where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

 

When we see it from that perspective, we realize that this really is a miracle in our lives—just as miraculous as what Elisha did and certainly as miraculous as what Jesus did in our Gospel reading for today.

 

So, let us be aware of this beauty that comes so miraculously to us each time we gather together here at this altar.

 

The Eucharist is an incredible gift given to us by our God.

 

Let us embody God’s anointed One, the Christ, whom we encounter here in this Bread and Wine.

 

Let us, by being fed so miraculously, be the actual Body of Christ to others.

 

Let us feed those who need to be fed.

 

Let us sustain those who need to be sustained.

 

And let us be mindful of the fact that this food of which we partake has the capabilities to feed more people and to change more lives than we can even begin to imagine.

 

Let us pray.

Holy God, you sustain us. You give us manna from heaven each time we come before your altar—food that sustains our souls, food that makes us what we eat—the Body of your Christ in this world. Help us to go out from here to feed others with this manna, this Bread of heaven you have given us, so that the world may be truly fed. We ask this in the name of Jesus, our true Bread. Amen.

 

 

 

9 Pentecost

 

July 21, 2024

 

Psalm 23

 

+ Isn’t it sometimes strange the things you take for granted?

 

For me, one of the things I have long taken for granted is the 23^rd Psalm.

 

If I had a dollar for every time I have heard the 23^rd Psalm in my life, I would sunning it up right now at my villa in Cap d’Antibes.

 

But, just think for one moment.

 

Think about all the times you have heard, throughout your life, the 23^rd Psalm.

 

Think of all those funerals.

 

Think of all those times when you have heard it and you could recite it by heart.  

 

Or think of all those films you may have watched in which the 23^rd Psalm was recited.

 

I remember well, in the original film of In Cold Blood, how the 23^rd Psalm is read in the powerful closing scene as the murderers are hanged.

 

Or in the film Titanic, how the psalm was recited as the ship went down.

 

Or, in the great Clint Eastwood Western, Pale Rider (a film full of Christian symbolism), how there was a great dialog version of the 23^rd Psalm in which a girl whose dog was killed by marauders recites the psalm, but then responds to the verses with comments like “But I DO want” and “But I AM afraid.”

 

In fact, that dialog version from Pale Rider is what the Psalms are all about.

 

Now as most of you know, I pray the Psalms every day—at least twice a day—when I pray Morning and Evening Prayer from the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer.

 

And there are times ways in which those psalms, or other scriptures speak to where I am in my life just at that moment.

 

When you pray the psalms in such a way, day in and day out, trust me, you often find yourself in a dialog form of prayer with them.

 

We find God speaking to us, sometimes in mysterious ways, in these psalms.

 

For me, that’s the correct way to pray the psalms.

 

If the psalms aren’t used as a kind of dialog—if they don’t become our prayers—then they’re being used incorrectly.

 

But, even for me, for someone who prays the Psalms on a daily basis and has for over twenty-five years, I also have taken the 23^rd Psalm for granted.

 

Oftentimes when something becomes so ingrained into our culture, we don’t even give it a second thought.

 

We find ourselves missing its nuances, it beauties, its depths. 

 

Because it is so popular, because we have heard it so much in our lives, we really do take the 23^rd Psalm for granted.

 

We don’t really think about it and what it means.

 

So, this morning, let’s take a close look at this psalm to which we have paid so little attention.

 

We’re going to do something this morning that we haven’t done in a while, but it’s fun to do on occasion.

 

We are going to take a line-by-line look at Psalm 23.

 

If you want to follow along, you can do so on page 612 in the BCP

 

Of if you want to the traditional KJV of it, you can find that on page 476 in the BCP.

 

(And I apologize for the all masculine language for God in the quote here, but I’m trying to use a version close to that which we are all most familiar)

 

OK. I know you might be inwardly groaning at such a prospect.

 

But bear with me.

 

Sometimes it’s good to have a poet for your priest.

 

Sometimes.

 

So, let us take a good, in-depth look at this psalm.

  

And there’s no better to begin, than the beginning.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 

There’s an interesting choice of words here.

Want.

I shall not be in want.

Why?

Essentially, this line is perfect, really.

Why would I need to want anything, with God as my shepherd, as the One who leads me and guides me and provides for me.

If we are being shepherded, if we are being watched over and cared for, there is no need to want to for anything.

We are provided for by our God.

We are taken care of.

And want is just not something we have.

   [The Lord]  makes me lie down in green pastures;
[you] lead me beside still waters; 
   [you] restore my soul.

So, here we have sort of this idyllic image.

Green pastures.

Still waters.

The sense here is calmness.

For all those funerals at which this psalm has been recited, this image no doubt calls to mind images of heaven.

But, for us, right now, this image is important too.

God’s presence in our lives essentially stills whatever anxieties we might have.

God, who is our shepherd, will only find the choicest places for us, the best places.

Just as we don’t want, just as we are taken care of and cared for, so we  are led to a place of safety and beauty, because God loves us just that much.

And we will be well.

[The Lord] leads me in right paths
   for [your] name’s sake. 

Again, God the Shepherd leads.

And where does God lead?

God leads us on the right path, through the right way.

But then we come across this strange wording,

For God’s name’s sake.

Again, notice at this point how often we have taken this psalm for granted.

How many times have we recited or prayed these words?

But without asking, what does that mean?

“For his name’s sake?”

Well, for us, it shows that God’s reputation is one of goodness and mercy and rightness.

For God’s Name’s sake, in this sense, means that it is God’s will, God’s purpose, God is known for doing good things for us, for leading us on those right paths.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
   I fear no evil;
for you are with me;

Those are iconic lines if there ever were any.

Now, this is not bragging mind, you, but I, for one, know what the valley of the shadow of death is.

I have been there.

I have ventured through it more than once.

I went through it when I was diagnosed with cancer.

I went through it during my various seasons of grief.

But the valley of the shadow of death is different of each us.

I remember well my mother saying that giving birth, for her, was like walking through the shadow of death.

The shadow of death for us is the darkest, most horrendous place we can think of in life.

And for us, we know that even there we are not alone.

God is with us even in that darkness, even that close to death.

And not only with us, vaguely hovering over us.

No.

God is there to support us, to hold us, to guide us forward

Hence,

   your rod and your staff—
   they comfort me. 

God’s strength holds us up and sustains us even then.

But then, we come to this strange verse,

You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies;

Didn’t I just talk about how God only leads us into places of beauty and light?

And now, here we have God preparing a table for us in the presence of our enemies.

At first glance, this seems like something horrible, like a cruel joke.

Why would God put us at a table with our enemies?

But, if you notice, there is a bit of defiance in this verse.

Go ahead and sit with your enemies, God seems to say to us.

You can’t be protected from all harm.

There are dangers out there.

There are bad things in this world.

There is a valley of the shadow of death!

There are people who don’t like us.

Yes, we may very well have real enemies.

But don’t fear, God says in this psalm.

I am with you.

And because I am, you can even sit down at the table with your enemies and you will be fine.

Even there, in the presence of our enemies,

Our heads are anointed with oil—we are blessed and consecrated by our God,

And there, at the table in the presence of our enemies, our cup overflows with God’s goodness.

Even there, we will be all right.

Because we are following the right path.

And on that path, there is goodness and mercy following us.

Not just today.

Not just tomorrow.

But all the days of our lives.

This how God rewards those of us who are faithful in our following of God.

And at the very, we know what awaits us.

We know what the ultimate goal is in following God our Shepherd.

We know where God will lead us.

God will lead us to that place in which we dwell in the house of God, our whole life long.

See, this psalm really is amazing!

No wonder this psalm has been so important to so many people over so many years.

This psalm is our psalm.

It is a wonderful microcosm of our faith journey.

And it is a beautiful reminder to us of God’s continued goodness in our lives.

So, when we are at a funeral and we hear the 23^rd Psalm or we hear it being recited in a film, let us truly hear it for what it is.

Let it speak to us anew.

And most importantly, let it be a reminder to us of God’s goodness and mercy, of God’s care for each of us.

God is our shepherd.

God leads us and guards us and guides us.

We have nothing to fear.

And, one day, we will dwell in the house of our God forever.

 

 

 

7 Pentecost

July 7, 2024

 

2 Corinthians 12.2-10; Mark 6.1-13

+ Sometimes, when you engage Scripture on a daily basis, when engagement with scripture is a big part of your job, like it is to me, I sometimes don’t give things a second thought.

 

I’ll give you an example.

 

Prophets.

 

We hear a lot about prophets and prophecy in Scripture.

 

We read from their prophecies, we hear the stories of how prophets were often despised and hated.

 

And we heard about the danger of false prophets.

 

And if we think prophets—legitimate or false—are things of the past, we are happily living in our wonderful Episcopal bubble, because in the world of American Nationalist evangelicalism, there are so-called “prophets” out there right now, claiming lots of prophecies about our country, our country’s leadership and the world.

 

Look them up only for entertainment value.

 

Because it’s pretty easy to see how false prophets are alive and well, here in the United States right now.  

 

But I have always found prophets interesting.

 

I find it fascinating that God chose particular people, to speak to in a very clear and distinct way.

 

And how, as wonderful as that may sound, being a prophet is an inglorious profession.

 

In our Gospel reading for today, we find Jesus coming to his hometown and people taking offense at him because they know he is special, he is different, because he has a special communicative relationship with God.

 

He seems to shrug that off with a simple, “‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house

 

And to a large extent, that is the truth.

 

Legitimate prophecy can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing.

 

It depends on where you end up on the receiving end of prophecy.

 

But we need to be very clear here:

 

Prophets are not some kind of psychics or fortune tellers.

 

Yes, they see things and know things we “normal” people don’t see or know.

 

They are people with vision.

 

They have knowledge the rest of us don’t.

 

But, again, prophets aren’t psychics or fortune tellers.

 

Psychics or fortune tellers tend to be people who believe they have some kind of special power that they were often born with (if we believe in such things)

 

Prophets, as we see in scripture again and again, aren’t born.

 

Prophets are picked by God and instilled with God’s Spirit.

 

God’s Spirit enters them and sets them on their feet.

 

And when they are instilled with God’s Spirit, they don’t just tell us our fortunes.

 

They don’t just do some kind of psychic mumbo jumbo to tell us what our futures are going to be or what kind of wealth we’re going to have or who our true love is.

 

What they tell us isn’t just about us as individuals.

 

Rather, the prophet tells us things about all of us that we might not want to hear.

 

They stir us up, they provoke us, they jar us.

 

Maybe that’s why we find the idea of prophets so uncomfortable.

 

And that’s what we dislike the most about them.

 

We don’t like people who make us uncomfortable.

 

We don’t like people who stir us up, who provoke us, who jar us out of our complacency.

 

Prophets come into our lives like lightning bolts and when they strike, they explode like electric sparks.

 

They shatter our complacency to pieces.

 

They shove us.

 

They push us hard outside the safe box in which we live (and worship) and they leave us bewildered.

 

Prophets, as much as they are like us, are also unlike us as well.

 

The Spirit of God has transformed these normal people into something else.

 

And this is what we need from our prophets.

 

After all, we are certain about our ideas of God, right?

 

We, in our complacency, think we know God—we know what God thinks and wants of us and the world and the Church.

 

Prophets, touched as they are by the Spirit of God in that unique way, frighten us because what they convey to us about God is sometimes something very different than we thought we knew about God.

 

The prophet is not afraid to say to us: “You are wrong. You are wrong in what you think about God and about what you think God is saying to you.”

 

Nothing makes us angrier than someone telling us we’re wrong—especially about our perception of God.

 

And that is the reason we sometimes refuse to recognize the prophet.

 

That is why the prophet is not often accepted in their home town or among their own kin.

 

That is why we resist the prophet, and resist change, and resist looking forward in hope.

 

We reject prophets because they know how to reach deep down within us, to that one sensitive place inside us and they know how to press just the right button that will cause us to react.

 

And the worst prophet we can imagine is not the one who comes to us from some other place.

 

The worst prophet is not the one who comes to us as a stranger.

 

The worst prophet we can imagine is the one who comes to us from our own neighborhood—from the very midst of us.

 

The worst prophet is the one whom we’ve known.

 

Who is one of us.

 

We knew them before the Spirit of God’s prophecy descended upon them.

 

And now, they have been transformed with this knowledge of God.

 

They are different.

 

These people we know, that we saw in their inexperience, are now speaking as a conduit of God’s Voice.

 

When someone we know begins to say and do things they say God tells them to do, we find ourselves becoming very defensive very quickly.

 

Certainly, we can understand why people in Jesus’ hometown had such difficulty in accepting him.

 

We would too.

 

We, rational people that we are, would no doubt try to explain away who he was and what he did.

 

But probably the hardest aspect of Jesus’ message to us is the simple fact that he, in a very real sense, calls us and empowers us to be prophets as well.

 

As Christians, we are called to be a bit different than others.

 

We are transformed in some ways by the presence of God’s Spirit in our lives.

 

In a sense, God empowers us with the Spirit to be conduits of that Spirit to others.

 

If we felt uncomfortable about others being prophets, we’re even more uncomfortable about being prophets ourselves.

 

Being a prophet, just like hearing the prophet, means we must shed our complacency.

 

If our neighbor as the prophet frightens us and irritates us, we ourselves being the prophet is even more frightening and irritating.

 

The Spirit of prophecy we received from God seems a bit unusual to those people around us.

 

Loving God?

 

Loving those who hate us or despise us?

 

Being peaceful—in spirit and action—in the face of overwhelming violence or anger?

 

To side with the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized when it is much easier and more personally pleasing to be with the wealthy and powerful?

 

Or BE the wealthy and powerful!

 

To welcome all people as equals, who deserve the same rights we have, even if we might not really—deep down—think of them as equals?

 

To actually see the Kingdom of God breaking through in instances when others only see failure and defeat?

 

That is what it means to be a prophet.

 

Being a prophet has nothing to do with our own sense of comfort.

 

Being a prophet means seeing and sensing and proclaiming that Kingdom of God—and God’s sense of what is right. 

 

For us, as Christians, that is what we are to do—we are to strive to see and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

 

We are to help bring that Kingdom forth and when it is here, we are to proclaim it in word and in deed.

 

Because when that Spirit of God comes upon us, we become a community of prophets, and when we do, we become the Kingdom of God present here.

 

Being a prophet in our days is more than just preaching doom and gloom to people.

 

And let me tell you; we’re hearing plenty of doom and gloom right now.

 

It’s more than saying to people: “repent, for the kingdom of God is near!”

 

Being a prophet in our day means being able to recognize injustice and oppression in our midst and to speak out about them.

 

And, most importantly, CHANGE those things.

 

Being a prophet means we’re going to press people’s buttons.

 

And when we do, let me tell you by first-hand experience, people are going to react.

 

We need to be prepared to do that, if we are to be prophets in this day and age.

 

But we can’t be afraid to do so.

 

We need to continue to speak out.

 

We need to do the right thing.

 

We need to heed God’s voice speaking to us, and then follow through.

 

And we need to keep looking forward.

 

In hope.

 

 And trusting in our God who leads the way.

 

We need to continue to be the prophets who have visions of how incredible it will be when that Kingdom of God breaks through into our midst and transforms us.

 

We need to keep striving to welcome all people, to strive for the equality and equal rights of all people in this church, in our nation and in the world.

 

So, let us proclaim the Kingdom of God in our midst with the fervor of prophets.

 

Let us proclaim that Kingdom without fear—without the fear of rejection from those who know us.

 

Let us look forward and strive forward and move forward in hope.

 

I don’t know if we can be truly content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, as we heard from Paul’s in his epistle today.

 

But having endured them, we know that none of these things ultimately defeat us.

 

And that is the secret of our resilience in the face of anything life may throw at us.

 

Let us bear these things.

 

With dignity.

 

With honor.

 

Let us be strong and shoulder what needs to be shouldered.

 

Because, we know.

 

In that strange paradoxical way we know that whenever it seems that we are weak, it is then that we are truly strong.