14 Pentecost

 

September 6, 2020

 

Romans 13.8-14; Matthew 18. 15-20

 

+ A few Sundays ago I preached about the conversation between Jesus and Peter in that morning’s Gospel reading.

 In Matthew 16: 16, Peter professed his belief that Jesus was the “Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

 In my sermon, I mentioned that there were several different interpretations of what all this meant.

 One of the more popular beliefs was the Roman Catholic belief that Jesus was, in fact, founding the Church on Peter whom they claim to be the first Pope and giving to him and his successors the power to bind and loose.

 And for people who hold that view, the Roman Church and the Pope have full authority to bind and loose.

 Now, although I have respect for the Roman Catholic Church, there is much I disagree with as well.

 I do not believe in any way that what Jesus is establishing that Gospel reading was a Pope.

 But with all of what have heard and learned from our pondering of Matthew 16.16, we now need to tackle our Gospel reading for today.

 In today’s Gospel, we find that the power to bind and loose was not given just to Peter, but to all Jesus’s followers.

 After talking about his followers  who have disagreements with each other and how they should resolve their differences, he goes on to say:

 “Truly I tell you [and he is speaking to all his followers at this time] whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

 He goes on to say: “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

 This is very important to us.

 Because when Jesus gave that power to bind and loose to all his followers, he didn’t just give it those followers who were with him that day.

 He gave that power to all Christians, throughout all time.

 He gave that power to us, as well, here and now.

 And because there are, in fact, more than two or three gathered here this morning, even virtually, Jesus truly is in the midst of us—his Church.

 We, being the Church, have that power to bind and loose and it is quite the power.

 Take a moment and just think about what it is Jesus is giving us authority to do.

 What we bind on earth, will be bound in heaven.

 And what we loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven.

 This is some incredible power.

 We as followers of Jesus have the power, in a very real sense, to control not only what is here on earth, but that control carries over into heaven.

 Still, it’s confusing, this concept of binding and loosing.

 What is it Jesus is talking about when means binding and loosing?

 Probably the best way to try to understand it is to put it in the context of Jesus’s own time.

 For Jewish rabbis in Jesus’s time, "binding" the Law meant they were able to apply it to a particular situation.

 They “loosed” the Law when it was not able to be applied to situation.

 There were some situations that the Law was clear about, and  they could not be loosened.

 But there were also grey areas in life where the Law wasn’t so clear and, as a result, the rabbis had to figure out if the Law could be applied to it.

 They made the decision about whether it was binding and loosening.

 For us, this passage isn’t quite so clear.

 For us, “binding” and “loosening” don’t mean the same things as they did to Jesus’s followers.

 Still, we are able to grasp, in some way, what Jesus is getting at.

 The simple fact is this: what we do here on earth, really does make a difference with God.

 And that, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, what we do has great power.

 Because when we gather together, Jesus is in our midst and what we do together becomes an act of Christ.

 We have been given the power the bind and loose—however we might understand those terms.

 And we can use (or mis-use) a power like this.

 But, there is one motivating factor behind all binding and loosing.

 And we find this motivating factor spoken to us in our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans today.

 There we find the summary of this same Law that binds or loosens.

 The summary of this Law is that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.

 And here we find the truly binding experience of Christianity.

 Our job as Christians is not to nit-pick about what should be bound and what should be loosened.

 Our job as Christians is to make sure that we love each other as we love ourselves.

 Love, after all, is the ultimate experience of binding.

 And Christian love, because Jesus has given us this power to loosen and bind, has a power that few other loves have.

 The love we have as Christians is more than just a love for each other here on earth.

 This love that we have is a love that binds itself even in heaven.

 And this is why we can’t allow anything else other than love in ourselves.

 That’s why we cannot allow feelings like hatred into our lives.

 Just as love is the ultimate binding experience, hatred is the ultimate loosening experience.

 And hatred for others, or for ourselves, loosens us and that loosening experience is also loosened in heaven.

 God does pay attention to what we feel and what we do.

 God does notice when we do not love—when we do not love others, or ourselves.

God is aware in this age of racism and division what is in our hearts.

 And God is not happy with it, as we all know.

 Racism is a sin, plain and simple.

 It has its core in hatred.

 Hatred for another race.

 Hatred for a race other than ours.

 And that is not God’s intent for us.

 God does not want us to feel anything other than love for others, and for ourselves.

 Because in loving each other, in loving ourselves, we are loving God, who is present in our midst—who is present with us and within us.

 And that perfect balance is what gives us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God in our midst.

 The Kingdom of God, as elusive and vague as it might seem at times, is a place of balance.

 This much we do know.

 The Kingdom of God in our midst involves catching a glimpse of the balance that comes when we love each other and ourselves.

 Our job as Christians is always, always, always to love.

 Love should always win out over hatred and racism.

 If we love fully, as we are commanded to do by Jesus, we have no place for hatred and racism.

 So, because we, as Episcopalians, believe that Jesus founded the Church not just on the Rock of Peter, but on Peter’s confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,  and because we believe that the power to bind and loose was not only given to the Pope, but to all of us who are Christians, we need to take stock of the words that come out of our mouths and the emotions we feel in our hearts

 We need to let love always win out.

 We need to know that if we bind we must bind in love and if we loosen we must loosen also in love.

 And by doing so, what we do in love on earth, will be done in heaven in love.

 So let us love fully.

 Let us love others and love ourselves as Jesus commands us to love.

 And if we do, we will find the words Jesus said to Peter in that Gospel reading a few weeks ago coming true in us as well.

 The gates of Hades will not prevail against us as followers of Jesus.

 The gates of every ugly, evil thing in this world will have no power over us.

 Rather, with a love like that in us and emanating from us, the powers of darkness and evil will fall flat before us.

 So, let us love fully.

 And let that love that is bound in us be bound in heaven.

 And by doing so, we will be bringing the Kingdom of God into our midst.

 Let us pray.

Holy God, you have given us such amazing power in our following of Jesus, your Son. Let us use these powers as you intend us to use them let us use them in love, so that our love, bound here on earth, will truly be bound within you in heaven. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13 Pentecost

 

August 30, 2020

 Matthew 16.21-28

 

+ Last week, I preached about my strange relationship with the Church—capital C,

 

As I thought about it, it seems that one of the reasons people lose heart in  the Church is that they have a preconceived notion of what the Church is.

 

I think there are a lot of people who think the Church is this sweet, nice place where everyone gets along.

 

As I said last week in my sermon, the Church is not always that place at all.

 

In fact, the Church, as I have always said, is a human-run organization run by fallible human beings.

 

I don’t just mean Bishops and Priests.

 

I know it’s fun for some laity to be anti-clerical.

 

We can blame the clergy for this and that.

 

But it’s false.

 

Lay leaders have also done much to undermine and hurt the Church as well.

 

If you don’t believe me, read a very interesting book called When Sheep Attack.

 

I think people also think that being a Christian means being happy, and joyful all the time with nothing bad happening in our lives.

 

There are people who cannot understand why bad things happen to Christians.

 

Shouldn’t God be protecting us in some special way?

 

In fact, I had an argument with a friend of mine not all that long ago about this very same subject.

 

This friend—a committed Christian— told me that they believed that it was God’s will that we be happy.

 

“It is?” I said. “Really? Find me anywhere in scripture where that is the case!”

 

Of course, he couldn’t.

 

Because it’s nto true.

 

That is simply not the case.

 

It is not God’s will that we be happy in this life.

 

Yes, we should strive for happiness and contentment in our lives.

 

Yes, we should do our best to live fulfilling and meaningful lives.

 

But we are not promised rose gardens in this life (as the old Country song goes).

 

If you want proof that life as a Christian often means living with hardship and pain and suffering, then you need look no farther than the martyrs of the church.

 

At our Wednesday night Mass, we invariably encounter a martyr or two.

 

And their stories are often horrendous and frightening.

 

But martyrs are an essential part of the Church, of our faith.

 

After all, in the early Church, the martyrs were the rock stars of their age.

 

They were loved.

 

They were emulated.

 

They were, in some cases, often disturbingly, imitated.

 

To be murdered for Jesus at that time was a great honor at that time.

 

Even now martyrs are considered great heroes.

We, of course, honor and emulate such martyred leaders of the Church as Martin Luther King or the great Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer or the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum

 

But this discussion of martyrs does cause us to ask some questions of our selves.

 

The big question is: if worse came to worst, would we be willing to die for Jesus?

 

Would we be able to take to heart the words of today’s Gospel, when Jesus says,

 

“those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.”

 

Now, for those of us who were raised in the Roman Catholic faith, some of us heard about the differences between “blood martyrdom” and something called “dry martyrdom.”

 

A “wet” or “blood” martyr is someone like Martin Luther King—someone who died violently.

 

A dry martyr is one has suffered indignity and cruelty for Jesus but has not died violently in the process.

 

For example, Sister Constance and her companions were a group of Episcopal nuns who died while caring for the sick during a Yellow Fever outbreak in Memphis Tennessee in 1878.

 

They are known as the “Martyrs of Memphis,” even though they were not murdered for the faith.

 

Suffering for Christ then doesn’t just mean dying for Christ either.

 

There are many people who are living with persecution and other forms of abuse for their faith.

 

Or people who suffer for simply standing up and speaking out for what is right, even if it means they will be persecuted for such a view.

 

And it is a perfectly valid form of martyrdom (martyr of course means “witness”)

 

The point of all this martyr talk is that we need to be reminded that as wonderful as it is being Christian, as spiritually fulfilling as it is to follow Jesus and to have a deeply amazing personal relationship with the God of Jesus, nowhere in scripture or anywhere else are we promised that everything is going to be without struggle.

 

We all must bear crosses in our lives, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel.

 

“If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me.”

 

We all still have our own burdens to bear as followers of Jesus

 

And those burdens are, of course, our crosses.

 

While we might understand losing our lives for Jesus’ sake might be easier for us to grasp, picking up our cross might seem like a vague idea for us.

 

Bearing our crosses for Jesus means essentially that, as wonderful as it is being a Christian, life for us isn’t always a rose garden.

 

Being a Christian means, bearing our cross and following Jesus, means facing bravely the ugly things that life sometimes throws at us.

 

Facing bravely!

 

I don’t think I have to tell anyone here what those ugly things in life are.

 

Each of us has had to deal with our own personal forms of the world’s ugliness.

 

As we ponder those who are “with” us this morning—both virtually or in the Church—most of us here this morning have carried our share of crosses in this life.

 

Most of us have shouldered the difficult and ugly things of this life—whether it be illness, death, loss, despair, disappointment, frustration—you name it.

 

The fact is: these things are going to happen to us whether we are Christians or not.

 

It’s simply our lot as human beings that life is going to be difficult at times.

 

It is a simple fact of life that we are going to have feasts in this life, as well as famines.

 

There will be gloriously wonderful days and horribly, nightmarish days.

We are going to have to endure pandemics, social isolation and fear

 

We are going to have to endure political upheaval.

 

We, as human beings, cannot escape this fact.

 

 But, we, as Christians, are being told this morning by Jesus that we cannot deal with those things like everyone else does.

 

When the bad things of this life happen, our first reaction is often to run away from them.

 

(I don’t know how to run away from a global pandemic).

 

Our instinct is fight or flight—and more likely it’s usually flight.

 

Our first reaction is to numb our emotions, to curl up into a defensive ball and protect ourselves and our emotions.

 

But Jesus is telling us that, as Christians, what we must do in those moments is to embrace those things—to embrace the crosses of this life—to shoulder them and to continue on in our following of Jesus.

 

By facing our crosses, by bearing them, by taking them and following Jesus, we was able to realize that what wins out in the end is God and God’s love, not the cross we are bearing.

 

What triumphs in the end is not any of the other ugly things this life throws at us.

 

Rather, what triumphs is the integrity and the strength we gain from being a Christian.

 

What triumphs is Jesus’ promise that a life unending awaits us.

 

What triumphs is Jesus’ triumph over death and the ugly things of this life.

 

What we judge to be the way we think it should be is sometimes judged differently by God.

 

We don’t see this world from the same perspective God does.

 

And as a result, we are often disappointed.

 

Yes, our burdens are just another form of martyrdom—another albeit a bloodless form of witnessing to Christ.

 

And, like a martyr, in the midst of our toil, in the midst of shouldering our burden and plodding along toward Jesus, we are able to say, “Blessed be the name of God!”

 

That is what it means to be a martyr.

 

That is what it means to deny one’s self, to take up one’s cross and to follow Jesus.

 

 That is what it means to find one’s life, even when everyone else in the world thinks you’ve lost your life.

 

It means in the midst of sadness, suffering and pain, to be able to say, “Blessed be the Name of God!”

 

So, let us take up whatever cross we’re bearing and carry it with strength and purpose.

 

 Let us take our cross up and follow Jesus.

 

Let us say, as we do so, “Blessed be the Name of God!”

 

And, in doing so, we will gain for ourselves the glory of God that Jesus promises to those who do so.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, blessed is your name! we thank you for giving us the strength and purpose to take up our cross and follow your Son, Jesus, along a path that, although uncertain and frightening at times, leads always to you. In Jesus’s Name we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

12 Pentecost

 

August 23, 2020

 

Matthew 16.13-20

 

 

+ This past week I had a very good and long overdue conversation with a priest colleague of mine.

 

She has been a longtime friend of mine and one that I like to hear from because her perspective is always so fresh, if, at times, very different than my own.

 

In addition to be a good friend and listener to me, she is also one of the most liberal clergy people I know.

 

If you think I am liberal, you would be shocked by how liberal this friend of mine is.

 

Which actually came up in our conversation.

 

At some point in our conversation, she said to me: “I always admired your ability to startle the liberal and conservative aspects of the church.”

 

I was shocked by that!

 

I don’t think anyone has ever said that about me.

 

And I never saw that I have ever done that in my career as a priest.

 

But she went on to explain that while, yes, I am a very liberal priest on many issues, such as LGBTQ inclusion in the Church and full inclusion of women in ministry, I am also a very spiritual devout and very unapologetic "High Church."

 

Spiritually I tend to be very conservative and maybe even, as my friend point out, “pious.”

I bristle a bit at that word, but I guess there is some truth in it.

 

I am very liberal on the social aspects of the Church, but I am also very traditional  (I prefer that word over the word “conservative” since, like liberal, it now carries a lot of political baggage)  when it comes liturgy or my identity as an Anglican.

 

I am very traditional on these issues.

 

Let’s face it, when the day is done, I am a solidly traditional celibate High Church priest who believes in the full inclusion and acceptance of all people in the Church.

 

You all know that about me.

 

And that, I guess, just makes me the walking, talking conundrum that is your priest.

 

My friend likes to joke with me about the celibate aspect of my life.

 

She says, tongue-in-cheek,  “It must be so hard being married not only to Jesus, but to His Church as well.

 

Well, the Jesus aspect of that isn’t all that hard.

 

But, the Church aspect of that is oftentimes VERY hard.

 

At times, I realize, that being a priest often feels like I’m married to the Church—capital C.

 

And like any marriage, there are good days, and there are not such good days.

 

Well, that’s definitely the way it is with the Church—capital C.

 

Now, I know this is a shock to all of you, but I do not like authority.

 

I do not like being told what to do.

 

As many parishioners and a few bishops over the years have tried (and failed) to do over the years.

 

I do not respond to nagging or unconstructive criticism or complaining.

 

I never have.

 

And I probably never will.

 

I will respect authority.

 

I will follow the rules (within reason)

 

But, let me tell you, I don’t always like it.

 

There are days when I don’t like the Church—capital C, or the authority of the Church or the hypocrisy of the Church.

 

There are days when I really don’t like some bishops, or some fellow clergy, especially when Bishops act pompous and full of themselves and when clergy act like weasels.

 

There are days when I don’t like Church leaders—not just ordained ones but lay leaders too—who try to coerce and manipulate the Church and its ministers.

 

We are seeing it in spades right now in this country.

 

Probably most of us here would say we have felt the somewhat same way about the Church at times.

 

In fact, I know you have.

 

Because that is why you are here at St. Stephen’s.

 

There are days when we all groan when we see or hear other Christians get up and speak on behalf of the rest of us.

 

There are days when we are embarrassed by what some Christians say or do on behalf of Jesus and his Church.

 

There are days when we get frustrated when we hear clergy or other authorities pronounce decrees that, in no way, reflect our own particular views or beliefs.

 

And there are times when we get downright mad at the hypocrisy, the homophobia, the misogyny, the ambivalence, the silence in the face of oppression and evil and war, the downright meanness we sometimes experience from the Church.

 

Most of us—idealistically, naively maybe—wonder:  wait a minute.

 

The Church isn’t supposed to be like this.

 

The Church is supposed to be a place of Love and Compassion and Acceptance and inclusion. 

 

It is supposed to be a place where everyone is welcomed and loved.

 

Knowing that and comparing the ideal view of the Church with its shortcomings only make us feel more helpless, listless, angry, and disgruntled.

 

And that’s all right.

 

I personally think that’s a somewhat healthy way of looking at the Church.

 

Because we have to remind ourselves of one thing: What we find ourselves turning away from and what we are often tempted to run away from is not God.

 

What we are running away from is a human-run, human-led organization.

 

We are running away from a celestially planned treasure that has been run (and very often mis-run) throughout two thousand years of history by fallible human beings.

 

In today’s Gospel, we find this wonderful interchange between Jesus and Peter.

 

Peter, when asked who he thinks Jesus is, replies, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”

 

Yes! That’s definitely the right answer!

 

But, Jesus responds to this confession of faith with surprise.

 

He responds by saying, “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

 

Of course, as you might know, Jesus is playing a little word game here with the words “Peter” and “rock.”

 

The Aramaic word for “rock” is “kepha.”

 

In Jesus’ own language of Aramaic he would have said, “You are Kepha (Peter is also called Cephas at times in the Gospels) and on this kepha (or rock) I will build my church.”

 

Now, depending on who you are, depending on your own personal spiritual leanings, this reading could take on many meanings.

 

If you’re more Catholic minded—and especially if you’re more Roman Catholic minded—it certainly does seem that Jesus is establishing the Church on the Rock of Peter—and of course in that tradition Peter at this moment becomes essentially the first Bishop of the Church and in R.C. tradition, the first Pope.  

 

I actually don’t hold to that view, personally.

 

On this one, I’m a very traditionally Anglican.

 

For people like me, it could be said that the Church is being established not on Peter himself, but on the rock of Peter’s confession of faith.

 

Either way, Jesus is commending the Church to Peter and to his other followers.

 

And this is important, especially when we examine who Peter is.

 

Jesus commends his Church to one of the most impetuous, impulsive, stubborn, cowardly human beings he could find.

 

Peter, as we all know, is not, on first glance, a wonderful example for us of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

 

He is the one who walks on water and then loses heart, grows frightened and ends up sinking into that water.

 

He’s the one who, when Jesus needs him the most, runs off and denies him not just once, not twice, but three times, and even then cannot bring himself to come near Jesus as he hangs dying on the cross.

 

But…you know, Peter is maybe a better example of what followers of Jesus truly are than we maybe care to admit.

 

Yes, he is a weak, impetuous, cowardly, impulsive human.

 

But who among us isn’t?

 

Who among us isn’t finding someone very much like Peter staring back at us from our own mirrors?

 

And the thing we always have to remember is that, for all the bad things the Church has been blamed for—and there are a lot of them—there are also so many wonderful and beautiful things about the Church that always, always, always outweigh the bad.

 

Obviously most everyone here this morning must feel that same way as well to some extent.

 

If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here this morning.

 

Most of us are able to recognize that the Church is not perfect.

 

And I think that, when Jesus commended his Church to people like Peter, he knew that, as long as we are here, struggling on this “side of the veil,” so to speak, it would never be perfect.

 

But that, even despite its imperfection, we still all struggle on.

 

Together.

 

I love the Church and I love the people who are in the Church with me, sometimes even the ones who drive me crazy.

 

And I sometimes even love the ones with whom I do not agree or who lash out at me for their own personal issues.

 

Why? Because that’s what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

 

That is what it means to be the Church.

 

I am here in the Church because I really want to be in the Church.

 

I am here because the Church is my home.

 

It is my family.

 

It is made up of my friends and Jesus’ friends.

 

I am here because I—imperfect, impetuous human being that I am because I love my fellow Christians, and I don’t just mean that I love Desmond Tutu and all those Christians who are easy to love.

 

I love those who are hard to love too.

 

I love them because, let’s face it, sometimes we are those same people too.

 

Sometimes we are the ones who drive people from the Church as well.

 

And sometimes we ourselves drive our own selves away from the Church.

 

But as long as we’re here, as long as we believe in the renewal that comes again and again in recognizing and confessing our shortcomings and in professing and believing in what it means to be a baptized Christian, then we know it’s not all a loss.

 

As long as I struggle to not be the person who drives people from the Church, but works again and again in my life to be the person who welcomes everyone—no matter who they are and where they stand on the issues—into this Church, then I’m doing all right.

 

Because the Church Jesus founded was a Church founded solidly on the rock of love.

 

The Church’s foundation is the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God and the message to us as followers of this Son of the Living God, the Messiah—the bringer of freedom and peace—is that we must love God and love each other as we love ourselves.

 

If we are the Church truly built on a love like that then, without doubt, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

 

And as long as I’m here, and you’re here—“here” in a virtual sense—we are going to make the Church a better place.

 

We need to be the Church from which no one wants to leave.

 

So, let us be the Church we want the Church to be—because that is the Church that Jesus founded.

 

Let us be the Church that Jesus commended to that imperfect human being, Peter.

 

In those moments when we find ourselves hating the Church, let’s not let hatred win out.

 

Let love—that perfect, flawless love that Jesus preached and practiced—eventually win out.

 

We are the Church.

 

We are the Church to those people in our lives.

 

We are the Church to everyone we encounter.

 

We are the reflection of the Church to the people we serve alongside.

 

So let us be the Church, and if we are, we will find ourselves in the midst of that wonderful vision Jesus imagined for his Church.

 

And it will truly be an incredible place.

 

It will truly be the Kingdom of God in our midst.

 

Let us pray.

 

Living God, we believe that Jesus is your Son, the Messiah, who has come to us in our time of need; help us to follow him, to be a Church of love and acceptance and inclusion, and in doing so, a place wherein your living Presence dwells. We ask this in his most holy Name. Amen.