I Epiphany

 

Baptism of Our Lord

Jan. 9, 2005

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Fargo

 Is. 42.1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10.34-43, Matthew 3.13-17

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy Spirit, as you drove Jesus into the wilderness, when John baptized him and the heavens opened, drive us also to wrestle and reflect so that we may fulfill and live out our baptism, and live your life of victory. In Christ, we pray. Amen.

 

Yesterday was a very special day for me in my relationship with St. Stephen’s.

 

It was ten years ago yesterday that I attended my very first Episcopal service—it just so happened that I do so here at St. Stephen’s.

 

Some of you have heard this story many times, but it is an important story for me.

 

At the time, as you may know, I was a somewhat of an agnostic. I was searching and floundering for some spiritual grounding for my life because of the huge void I felt.

 

After trying the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church and several other churches, including the Unitarians and the Quakers, a Lutheran pastor friend of mine suggested I try the Episcopalians.

 

My friend thought it would be ideal for me—with my poetry background and my love for the liturgy.

 

I went that morning expecting to be disappointed once again, just as I had been disappointed with all the other churches I had attended.

 

What happened to me that morning, however, was better than I ever expected.

 

I was enraptured by the beautiful hymns. I loved using The Book of Common Prayer. I was really impressed that there was a woman priest. But more importantly, I felt what I could only describe as Christ’s real presence here and, especially, in the Eucharist that morning.

 

I came away from that experienced spiritually recharged and, I think, spiritually changed.

 

And it was that experience that has carried me this far.

 

Did I ever imagine that morning, when I came here, that ten years later I would be not only an Episcopalian, but an Episcopal priest of all things? Certainly not!

 

But here I am!

 

I often think about what would have happened if I had not attended Eucharist that morning.

 

What if I had slept in (as I was fond of doing on Sunday mornings in those days—I have come a long way since then, let me tell you!).

 

But when I look at what that day meant to me, I realize it was important to me in much the same way as my baptism is important to me, as my confirmation was important to me, as my ordination to diaconate and the priesthood were important to me.

 

The reason is because God acted in my life that morning.

 

God led me here and from here, helped me find my home in the Episcopal Church.

 

God helped me to find a place and a group of people who would help me fill that gaping void in my life that was fueled by my disturbing agnosticism.

 

Part of the reason for the agnosticism I developed in my late teens and early twenties stemmed from seeing a legalistic, close-minded religion among some of my relatives while I was growing up.

 

When I was a kid, my aunt, who was a member of the First Assemblies of God, would give out terrible little cartoon tracts, little booklets put out by an evangelist by the name of Jack Chick.

 

Jack Chick was the perfect example of a Christian hatemonger. He hated everyone who didn’t accept Jesus Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior.

 

Everyone was going to hell except those who had made one simple confession of faith.

 

All one had to do to gain heaven and glorious eternity, according to Jack Chick, was make this simple statement:

 

I accept you, O Jesus, as my personal Lord and Savior.

 

The rest of us, who didn’t make this statement, were in deep trouble.

 

Catholics, for example, were going to hell because they were being led astray by the Pope, whom Jack Chick saw as the Antichrist on earth.

 

For example he blamed Catholics even for the Assassinations of Abraham Lincoln (he said that was John Wilkes Booth was a Jesuit priest—I guess he never knew that Booth was in fact an Episcopalian).

 

Protestants that belonged to churches other than “Bible-believing,” “Holy spirit-inspired” churches were going to hell because they were being led stray by liberal Bible Scholars who polluted the scriptures with false interpretations.

 

The only interpretation to follow, Jack Chick said, was the KJV and none other. It truly was the inspired and unerring Word of God.

 

He also believed that there were Satanists everywhere, seeking to destroy true Christians. They were in our schools, they were in our seminaries, they were even in the White House.

 

But for the most part, these awful little books would tell the story of some person or another who led a destitute life but who had died without accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.

 

Of course, they ended up in hell—usually pictured as a cavernous place full of fire and disgusting devils.

 

The moral of these stories revolved around the main character crying out in anguish:  “If only I had accepted Jesus as my Personal Lord and Savior, I wouldn’t be here.”

 

At the time, as a teenager, these stories made sense to me.

 

It was simple. Christ should turn his back on those who didn’t accept him.

 

And there should be a place where we had to pay for the wrongs we did.

 

We simply can’t sin and expect not to pay for it in some way, right?

 

But as I grew older, as I became an Episcopalian and grew into my relationship with Christ and as I started to look long and hard at everything I had believed (and didn’t believe) up to that point, I realized there was one thing Jack Chick and all those people who believed that way missed.

 

It was one simple little word: Grace.

 

A few weeks ago, Liz recommended a wonderful book to me that really moved me to my core.

 

The book was If Grace Is True, by two Quaker pastors, Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland.

 

That book gave voice to almost everything I believed in my heart.

 

It was also very radical. It gave voice to something akin to Universalism, but at the same time, the book made a lot of sense.

 

As an Episcopalian, it was very easy for me to take what they wrote to heart and to reinterpret it from an Anglican perspective. 

 

The heart of this Anglican belief, lies in our Baptismal service, which echoes, in many ways, what happened to Jesus in today’s Gospel.

 

This story in the Gospel is a difficult one in some ways to understand.

 

In Jesus’ times, baptism was seen as a form of purification.

 

One went for baptism as a rite of purification to make right one’s relationship with God.

 

The problem with this morning’s Gospel is that Jesus, who we are taught was without sin, comes forward to be baptized.

 

What Jesus does by coming forward for baptism, is make this simple rite of purification something much more.

 

It becomes a sacrament and not a rite.

 

It becomes a conduit of God’s presence.

 

 

At our baptisms we (or our parents and sponsors in our stead) affirmed that we are children of God. And, in some ways even more spectacular, we were anointed with oil.

 

After we were baptized, the priest made a comment to us that is really the most important words that could ever be spoken to us.

 

As he or she anointed us with oil, the priest said, “You are sealed as Christ’s own forever.”

 

This is the statement we carry with us wherever we go.

 

It is branded into our hearts and into our souls.

 

It is this belief that motivates us and compels us to live out our Christian faith.

 

We are Christ’s own. Forever.

 

Nothing will break this covenant.

 

Nothing CAN break this covenant.

 

We can’t retract it.

 

We can’t wash it away. Even our own unbelief in this statement can’t undo what was done.

 

Why? It is this one fact—grace—that makes all the difference in the world.

 

It is what makes the difference between eternal life and eternal damnation.

 

Jack Chick and those who believe like him are very quick to say that there is an eternal hell. And if you’re not right with God, they say, that’s exactly where you’re going.

 

The fault in this message is simple: none of us are right with God.

 

As long as we are on this side of the veil, so to speak, we fall short of what God wants for us.

 

We have all sinned and we will all sin again. That’s the fact.

 

But that’s where grace comes in. That’s where the full reality of being Christ’s own forever becomes a real fact.

 

Christ is the trump card.

 

Christ set us free.

 

There is one simple little fact that so many Christians seem to overlook. And this is the biggest realization for me as a Christian:

 

Just because one doesn’t accept Christ doesn’t mean that Christ doesn’t accept us.

 

Christ accepts us.

 

Plain and simple.

 

This is the message of our baptisms. We are Christ’s own forever.

 

Even if we turn our backs on Christ. Even if we do everything in our limited powers to separate ourselves from Christ, the fact of the matter is that nothing can separate from Christ.

 

Christ accepts every single person here this morning—no matter what you believe, or don’t believe, no matter if Christ is some abstract concept to you or a close, personal friend.

 

That’s right, I did say “personal.”

 

Yes, it’s wonderful and beautiful to have a personal relationship with Christ.

 

But the fact is, Christ isn’t the personal savior to any one of us. He saves all of us, equally.

 

That is grace.

 

That is how much God loves us.

 

Now, I’m not being naïve or fluffy here. 

 

I have known despicable people in my life. I have been hurt by some of these people and I have seen others hurt by these people.

 

The world is full of people who are awful and terrible. It always has been. In our day, we have people like Scott Peterson.

 

And not just in our own time either. Look back sixty years, Look at the horrible people that controlled large parts of the world then, such as Hitler and Stalin.

 

Sometimes, those awful people aren’t “out there” at all.

 

Sometimes the most awful and terrible person we know is the one staring back in the mirror.

 

But the fact is, that even when we can’t love them or ourselves, when we can’t do anything else but feel anger and hatred toward them, Christ does love them. Christ has accepted them, just as Christ accepts each of us.

 

Not even their crimes can separate them from Christ’s love. Nothing can separate us from Christ’s love and from Christ’s promise to eternal life.

 

It’s a hard concept for those us who were taught otherwise.

 

It was a hard concept for me to accept.

 

But I do believe it. I believe it because of the personal relationship I have with Christ.

 

The Christ I have come to know and to love and to serve is simply that full of love.

 

So, do I believe we’re all going to heaven when we die?

 

Yes. I do.

 

Why? Because, the love of Christ is just that big. It is just that wonderful and just that all-encompassing. It is just that powerful.

 

If one person is in some metaphysical, eternal hell, then the love of Christ has failed. Something has, in fact, come between that person and Christ.

 

I do not believe that hell or Satan or sin or anything else is big enough to separate us even in a small way from Christ. Not even we, ourselves, can turn our backs on Christ because wherever we turn, Christ is there for us.

 

When I look back at that first Sunday I attended Eucharist in this church, I realize, now with ten years perspective, that I truly was and am Christ’s own forever.

 

It was a beautiful reminder of what was given to me at my baptism, a bond with Christ that can never be broken no matter what I do.

 

If I ever needed proof of that fact, I need only to remind myself of the spiritual reawakening I experienced on that cold January morning in 1995.

 

So, when you are struggling, spiritually, or emotionally, or if you are struggling in your personal relationships, remember the relationship that was formed at your baptism.

 

Remember the fact that you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, and that you are, and always will be, Christ’s own forever.

 

 

 

 

2 Christmas

 

Jan. 2, 2005

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church

Fargo, ND

 

Let us pray.

 Heavenly Father, tender and compassionate, create in us, your family, love so true and deep that in this broken world we may be a sign of unity. In Christ, we pray. Amen.

 “In the beginning…”

 

These are the first words of today’s Gospel reading. And they are appropriate ones if ever there were any.

 

This reading from John is really in effect an echoing of the creation story at the beginning of the Book of Genesis.

 

Both begin the same way, with the same words—in the beginning—and both tell of God’s working in our midst.

 

In effect, they’re the same story, told from two very different perspectives.

 

In Genesis, we hear the story of God creating the earth and eventually the creation of humankind.

 

In John, we hear the story of how God existed at all times and that with God, there existed God’s Word.

 

Now we’ve heard this passage from John so many times that it’s become quite familiar.  It is just as familiar, in many ways, as the creation stories in Genesis or the story of Noah’s ark or any of those familiar stories we know so well from scripture.

 

But the difference between those stories and what we heard this morning is that they were stories in a very real sense.

 

They were basic narratives that are easy to relate to and easy to re-tell over and over again.

 

What we hear at the beginning of John’s Gospel is different because it is, in fact, a hymn. Or at least, a portion of a hymn.

 

It is a hymn explaining the Word and what the Word is and does.

 

The hymn was, like the rest of the New Testament, originally written in Greek.

 

In Greek, the word for “Word” is “Logos.”

 

That word—Logos—means more than just a sound that comes out of our mouths.

 

It means knowledge.

 

We still use the word in this way. We find it such words at zoology—which means, roughly, “words concerning animals” or more correctly “knowledge concerning animals”

—psychology—words or knowledge concerning the mind

—biology—words and knowledge concerning life

and so on.

 

So, what we’re encountering in this Hymn is more than just a word. It is knowledge. But even knowledge doesn’t quite convey what this hymn is trying to say. I think the more correct word would be Wisdom.

 

The Word—the Logos—of God is the Wisdom of God.  

 

What is John talking about here? John is talking about Christ, of course. Christ is the Logos—the Word of God, the knowledge of God. When we hear his words, we are not hearing the words of some brilliant prophet.

 

We are hearing the words of God.

 

Did you ever wonder why, in some copies of the King James version of the Bible, the words of Jesus were in red?

 

This is why. They were in red so that we pay special attention to what he was saying.

 

What came from his mouth, in a sense, came from the mouth of God on high. 

 

See how this is different than those other stories from scripture.  

 

It’s kind of heady stuff we’re dealing with here.

 

It’s not easy to grasp what’s being talked about and it’s not easy to explain to others.

 

However, this concept of the Word—or Logos—of God is really the heart of all Christian theology.

 

Now that sounds wonderful—at least to me. I’m a priest and I like theology. I like systematic thinking about God and Christ. I like examining words in Greek and exploring the full range of their meanings.

 

It’s what I do.

 

But for the rest of us, this passage is a difficult one to wrap our minds around.

 

“The Word was with God and the Word was God.”

 

Those are hard theological concepts—concepts that the Church as a whole has struggled with from almost the very beginning.

 

In the ancient Church, people fought hard to interpret what this meant exactly. Some felt that the Word—Christ—was similar to God, but was not equal to God. Certainly they did not feel that Christ was God.

 

Others truly believed that Christ the Word—the personified Wisdom of God—was God, plain and simple. Just as our words are part of us, just as what we know is a part of us, so is the Word and knowledge of God a part of God.

 

A lot of dirty deeds were done over this simple passage of scripture. People were banished, people were tortured, some were even killed.

 

But no matter what we might believe about Christ’s co-equality with God, this scripture does do a lot in helping us understand who and what Christ is.

 

Let’s take a look at what God is doing in this scripture.

 

God isn’t simply sitting on some throne in some far-off heavenly realm.

 

God is not sitting back and letting creation work itself out.

 

What this passage shows us, more than anything, is that God is busy.

 

God is at work in our lives—in the world around us.

 

God is moving.

 

God is doing something.

 

More than anything what this scripture is telling us is that God is reaching out to us. And not just one or two times in our history.

 

God has always been reaching out to us. From the first day of humankind to this moment, God is reaching out to us. God is calling out to us. He is talking with us and communicating with us.

 

This Word of God that we hear is Christ and Christ, as we learn in this passage, had always existed. Even before Christ came to us in the person of Jesus, Christ always was. And Christ always will be.

 

God, in Christ, is moving toward us, even in moments when it seems like God is distance and non-existent.

 

There’s an excellent book I read a few years ago called the Disappearance of God.

 

In it, the author explained that when we look at the Bible as a whole, we find God slowly disappearing from creation.

 

As the Old Testament progresses, God seems to be pulling back further and further from our lives.

 

God no longer speaks to his prophets as he did to Adam or Abraham or Moses.

 

There were fewer and fewer visions of pillars of fire.

 

There were fewer instance in which God worked miracles in the lives of his people. God no longer went out before the armies of the Israelites and fought their battles for them.

 

By the time we get to the New Testament, God seems to be gradually fading away from the lives of humans.

 

But then we come across the Gospel of John.

 

Here, in a sense, God’s presence is renewed.

 

God comes forward and becomes present among us in a way we could never possibly imagine.

 

God appears to us in the Gospels not cloaked behind pillars of fire or thunderstorms or wind. Instead, God appears before us, as one of us.

 

God’s word, God’s wisdom, became flesh just as we are flesh.

 

God’s voice was no longer a booming voice from the sky, demanding sacrifices.

 

God instead spoke to us as one of us. And this voice is a familiar one. We cannot only understand it, we can embrace it and make it a part of our lives.

 

And even after Christ dies and rises again from the tomb and ascends to heaven, the Word, in a very real sense, remains among us.

 

It continues on in the first followers, who wrote it down.

 

It continues on in what Jesus still says to us today.

 

It continues on in the Spirit of God that dwells within us  and that speaks in us in our lives.

 

The Word is among us.

 

It is spoken every time we carry out what Christ calls us to do.

 

The Word is spoken when we reach out to those in need.

 

Look at what happened a week ago today in Asia. When that tsunami crashed into the shores of those countries and devastated those people’s lives, we all responded.

 

We all reacted to it in some way.

 

We felt dismay. We felt shock and terror. We felt horror. And most importantly, we felt pity for those people.

 

Hopefully, we found ourselves praying for them. Hopefully we tried in some way to help them in their misery, in whatever limited way we could.

 

When we are motivated in such ways by the misery around us—when we pray for them, when we reach out to them in any small way we can—that is the Word speaking.

 

And more than that—that is the Word at work in the world.

 

So let the Word and Knowledge of God be in you and speak through you.

 

Be open to that wonderful reality in your lives.

 

Let your voice be the voice of the Word and Wisdom of God.

 

Let your lives be a loud and proud proclamation of that Word in the world around you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Advent

 

December 5, 2004

Matthew 3:1-12

Let us pray.

Praise and honor to you, living God, for John the Baptist,

and for all those voices crying in the wilderness

who prepare your way.

May we listen when a prophet speaks your word, and obey.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

 

In this morning’s Gospel, we are faced with the formidable figure of John the Baptist. The impression we get from Matthew is of someone we probably wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. He comes across to us through the ages as a man crazed. Certainly it would be difficult for any of us to take the words of a man like this seriously. Especially when he’s saying things like, “prepare, for the Kingdom of heaven draws near” “the axe is being laid to the root of the trees” and “the chaff will be burned in an unquenchable fire. “

 

Somehow, in the way John the Baptist proclaims it, this is not so much hopeful as frightening. It is a message that startles us and jolts us at our very core.

 

But this is the true message of Advent. Like John the Baptist and those who eagerly awaited the Messiah, this time of waiting was almost painful.

 

When we look at it from that perspective, we see that maybe John isn’t being quite as difficult and windy as we initially thought. Rather his message is one of almost excruciating expectation.

 

If you notice in the Prayer Book, the Latin heading for Psalm 40 is Exptans Expectavi. Used within the context of that particular psalm, it can be translated as “I waited and waited for you, O God.”

 

That phrase really suits, in many ways, everything we experience in this season. Like John, we are waiting and waiting for our God to come to us, to appear to us as one of us.

 

Recently I’ve been reading two very fascinating books. One, by an Australian writer, James Cowan, is entitled Desert Father: A Journey in the Wilderness with Saint Anthony. It is story of Anthony of Egypt, one of the first of the desert fathers. The other is a book    called The Forgotten Desert Mothers. Both of these books are about those early Christians who tended to take the words we heard this morning from the Baptist as literally as they could.

 

These desert mothers and fathers have a lot to teach us. Like, us, they lived in an age of uncertainty. Many had suffered dearly during the persecutions against Christians.

 

Others had previously been pagans who lived lives of excess.

 

It was a time when nothing in the world seemed too stable. Governments gave way to stronger governments. Differing religions battled each other for what each perceived to be “the truth.” And so too did many Christians.  

 

It sounds familiar doesn’t it?

 

In the face of all of this uncertainty, these men and women heard the call of the Baptist. “Prepare, for the kingdom of heaven draws near.”

 

In response they did something we might find unusual. We, as modern Christians, are taught that we must not only live out our faith, but also, in some way, must proclaim our faith to those around us.

 

We take seriously the command to go out into the world and proclaim what we believe.

 

Certainly that is what we will do this morning when we recite the creed. It is what we do when we go out to feed the hungry or to tend the sick. We do it when we reach out to others in the name of Christ.

 

These early Christians, however, did the exact opposite. They retreated from society and went off to the desert, in this case usually the deserts of Egypt and Palestine.

 

Oftentimes, coming from wealthy homes and positions of authority, they sold it all, gave the money to the poor and went off to live alone.

 

And we’re not talking about a few individuals here. We’re talking about people leaving in droves.

 

The deserts were literally populated with men and women who tried to leave it all behind. More often than not, they formed loosely-organized communities, usually around a church, in which they lived and prayed alone for most of the time, only coming together to pray the Psalms or celebrate Eucharist.

 

Their lives in the desert weren’t, as you can imagine, comfortable lives by any means.  Some walled themselves up in abandoned tombs. Others lived in caves. One went so far as to crawl stop a tall pillar and live there for years on end, exposed to the elements.

 

Even then they couldn’t completely escape what they left behind.

 

Many of the stories tell of these poor souls being tormented by demons and temptations. It’s not hard to imagine that, yes, alone in a dark tomb or cave, one would be forced to face all the darkest recesses of one’s soul.

 

Part of the process of separating one’s self from the world involved finally wrestling with all those issues one carries into the desert.

 

Few of us in this day and age would view this kind of existence as the ideal Christian life. In fact, most of would probably look on it as a sort of insanity.

 

But at the time, in that place, people began to see this as the ideal. People, I imagine, were tired of the day-to-day grind of working, slaving, fending for themselves in a sometimes unfriendly society. They felt distant from God and they were not able to find God in the society in which they lived.

 

The idea of going off and being alone with God was very appealing.

 

Of course, even this seemingly simple and pure way of living was soon tarnished by another form excess.

 

Some of the people who went off to live in the desert were simply mentally unsound to begin with. Others went insane after years of living alone in a tomb or a cave.

 

They abused their bodies, sometimes to the point of death, by whipping themselves, by chaining themselves to walls, by not taking care of themselves physically, or simply starving themselves to a point close to death.

 

Some even went so far as castrating themselves for the kingdom of heaven.

 

But despite these abuses, the message of the desert mothers and fathers to us is still a valid one.

 

The whole reason they went off like they did was to shed everything that separated them from their waiting for God.

 

They sought to make their very lives a living Advent.

 

They were waiting expectantly and anxiously for Christ. And by mortifying themselves, by chastising their bodies and fasting, they would be prepared for his coming again.

 

Although I hope no one here is called to a life quite that extreme, I think their message speaks to us clearly in these days before Christmas.

 

We should find ways to prepare for the Incarnate God’s coming to us.

 

We should shed some of those things that separate ourselves from God.

 

We should find our own deserts in our lives—those places in which we can go off alone and be with God.

 

A place in which we can wait for God longingly.

 

In Cowan’s book, Desert Father, he relates an interesting story—one I never heard before—about how the early desert monastics used ostrich eggs in their worship.

 

In some of the churches that they built, they hung ostrich eggs from the ceiling as a “symbol of spiritual dedication.”

 

Father Hansel, a visitor to one of the monasteries, wrote later about this practice:

 

When it intends to hatch its egg, the ostrich sits not upon them, as other birds, but the male and female hatches them with their eye only; and only when either of them needs to seek for food, he gives notice to the other by crying; and the other continues to look upon the eggs, till it returns…for if they did but look off for a moment, the eggs will spoil and rot. [1]

 

Whether this is scientifically true or not, this is a perfect illustration of what we, as Christians, are doing during this Advent season and, really, during all of our spiritual lives.

 

Like these ostriches, which gaze almost agonizingly for the hatching of the egg, so too should we be waiting, with held breath, for the realm of heaven to break upon us.

 

So, yes, John’s message in the wilderness is a frightening one at times.

 

But it is also a message of hope and longing. It is a message meant to wake us from our slumbering complacency. His is a voice calling us to sit up and take notice.

 

The kingdom of heaven is near. In fact it’s nearer than we can probably ever hope or imagine.

 

So, be prepared. Watch. Wait.

 

For this anticipation—this expectant longing of ours—is merely a pathway on which the Christ Child can to us as one of us.

 

 

---

[1] Cowan, James. Desert Father: A Journey in the Wilderness with Saint Anthony. 2004. Shambala; Boston. p. 106.

St. Mary the Virgin

 

Sunday, August 15, 2004

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church

Fargo, ND

The Rev. Jamie Parsley

 

Luke 1.46-55

 

Let us pray. God of love,

through your most Holy Spirit,

Mary the Jewish girl conceived your Son;

may his beauty, his humanity,

his all-transforming grace be born in us,

and may we never despise the strange and stirring gentleness

of your almighty power;

in your mercy, we pray. Amen.

 

Good morning. It’s pleasure to be back here again at St. Mark’s. For those who don’t know me, my name is Father Jamie Parsley. I am a priest in the Episcopal Church and I am currently serving as an Assistant Priest at Gethsemane Cathedral here in Fargo. Occasionally, I fill in for Pastor Mark and I enjoy doing it each time.

 

 

Today, as you probably have guessed, we celebrate the feast of Mary the mother of Jesus.

 

Now this is one of those feast days that makes a lot of us non-Roman Catholics a little nervous.

 

My very Lutheran grandmother, who, as many of you know, was a member of this church many years ago, would be somewhat upset I imagine to know that I am in this pulpit this morning preaching about, of all people, the Virgin Mary.

 

Let’s face it, when most of us non-Roman Catholics think of Mary, we think of how the Catholics honor her.

 

Visions of plaster statues in backyards, or on dashboards of cars or on the side altars of Catholic churches no doubt go through our minds.

 

After all, as my grandmother would say, they “worship” Mary.

 

Most Roman Catholics I know deny that they worship Mary, though they certainly do not deny that they honor her greatly and place a quite a bit of importance in her intercession.

 

But I think that stigma of Roman Catholics having the market cornered on the Virgin Mary is still very much a reality in the Christian church.

 

The fact is, all of us who are Christians should honor her and should remember at times how important she is to our faith in Christ.

 

It is a good thing to honor Mary and who she is.

 

And certainly it’s nothing new in the church as a whole.

The honor paid to Mary goes back to the earliest days of the Church.

In fact, it goes back even further.

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear Mary say, "From this time forth, all generations shall call me blessed."

Certainly that prophecy she made on that very momentous day when the Angel came to her and told her she would bear the Son of God has come true.

Mary is by the far the most honored saint in the Christian Church.

But who was Mary?

Well, when we meet Mary, she is a simple Jewish girl. It’s believed that she was about fourteen when she became pregnant and bore Jesus, which, at that time and in that place, would not have been by any means unusual.

Outside of that, not a whole lot is known  about her life.

We know for certain of the words she spoke to the angel Gabriel, to her kinswoman, Elizabeth, when she visited her not long before she gave birth. But outside of the words we heard this morning, there isn’t a whole lot we know she said.

The only other instance in which her words are recorded are at the wedding feast at Cana, when she instructs the servants there, regarding Jesus, to do “whatever he says to you.”

But the story of Mary becomes very interesting in the years following the Gospels. It is here that we see the fulfilling of her prophecy. It is here that we find that she truly does become blessed for all generations.

If we don’t believe that, then let’s take a look at the Creed which we will recite together later this morning.

Besides Jesus, there are only two other people mentioned in it.

The first is Pontius Pilate.

The other is Mary. It specifically says, he was “born of the virgin Mary."

That’s an important phrase.

On one hand, what this phrase says to us is that Jesus was really a human being. He was born of a woman, just like all of us were born of a woman.

He did not simply come down out of heaven like an angel, or like the gods of the Romans or Greeks.

He was born, like any other human being.

On the other hand, the phrase tells us that although he was born like us of a woman, unlike us he wasn’t born in ordinary way. He was born of a virgin. This virgin birth puts a whole new light on who Jesus was and who he claimed to be.

He was like us. He was a human being, like us. But he also was not like us, because he was at the same time God.

So, we can see how important Mary’s role is in our own views of what we believe.

Without her, Jesus would not have been able to come to us. She literally bore Jesus to us.

The Greeks call Mary the Theotokos, or God-bearer. And she really is.

If we believe Jesus was God, then she did, in a very real sense of the word, bear God.

Through her, God came to us in the person of Jesus.

She was the Mother of God, as hard as it might be to wrap our minds around that phrase.

Now most of us here can agree with those statements.

But what about the role Mary has in the Roman Catholic Church.

Although she may have only said a few words in the Gospels, we all hear sorties from time to time about visions some people have of the Virgin Mary, usually bearing some sort of message to the world.

Some of you might remember on old classic movie with Jennifer Jones called The Song of Bernadette, which is of course based on actual event in France of a young girl, Bernadette, who saw and spoke with the Virgin Mary in the 1840s.

The Virgin Mary who appears to Bernadatte did not look a lot like the Virgin Mary we heard proclaiming God’s goodness this morning in the Gospel.

The Virgin who appears to Bernadette in that film is no poor Jewish girl.

She is a beautiful, glowing celestial figure who performed, and some say continues to perform, miracles.

Most of us shrug our shoulders and either choose to believe or disbelieve a story like Bernadette’s.

But the fact remains that Mary needs to be honored by all of us who call ourselves Christians.

So, what do Lutherans believe about the Virgin Mary?

Well, here’s what one very prominent Lutheran said about Mary:

"men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her 'Theotokos'. No one can say anything greater of her or to her, though he had as many tongues as there are leaves on the trees, or grass in the fields, or stars in the sky, or sand by the sea. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God."

 

Do you know who made that comment?

 

That’s right. Martin Luther.

 

I think a lot of good Lutherans would be shocked to know that many of the early founders of the Lutheran church had a deep affection for Mary.

 

For example, in Article XXII of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Lutherans testify that

blessed Mary prays for the church

 

Now listen to that.

 

blessed Mary prays for the church.

 

That’s a present tense verb. She prays. Right now.

 

Those Lutherans truly believed that Mary was in heaven at that particular moment praying for the church.

 

The Apology goes on to state that Mary

 

is worthy of the highest honors

and desires

to have her example considered and followed

 

So, the founders of the Lutheran Church held her in high esteem.

 

They commended her as example.  

Certainly, Lutherans and Roman Catholics will never agree on everything regarding Mary.

There will never be statues of Mary in Lutheran churches and I don’t think praying the Rosary will become a popular pastime among Lutherans in the near future.

But I think that reclaiming Mary’s role in the life of our salvation will become more and more of a part of all Christians, not just Roman Catholics.

After all, she is, without a doubt, a vital person in our Church and in who we are as Christians.

Mary continues to speak to us, not in supernatural visions, but in her words recorded in scripture.

Remember what Mary said at the Wedding in Cana. Those words are just as clear to us today. She is still saying to us,  "Listen to my Son. Do what He tells you."

This is the heart of Mary’s continued role in the church.

She is the example.

Just as Mary said “Yes” to the angel when he brought her his good news, we too can say yes to God and, in saying yes, we can bear God within us, as she did.

Like Mary we can be bearers of God to the world, to those who need God and long for God.

We too can carry Christ into the world and let him be known through us.

As Jesus found in her his first earthly dwelling-place so, following Mary’s example, he can continue to dwell on earth within each and every one of us as well.

 Amen.