21 Pentecost

 

October 17, 2021

 

Isaiah 53:4-12; Mark 10:35-45

 

In the name of God, Creator+ Redeemer and Sustainer.  

 

A few weeks ago, I planned to preach about the recent death of a very influential person in the Church.

 

Sadly, I got sick and didn’t preach about him, although I published that sermon on my blog.

 

But I didn’t want to forget to do so.

 

I’m talking about Bishop John Shelby Spong, the former Bishop of Newark, New Jersey.

 

But he was also a very, very controversial person in the Church as well.

 

Bishop Spong was very much the personification of a “liberal” in the Church.

 

And through his many best-selling books, he laid out some very unorthodox beliefs.

 

He denied such things as a fundamentalist view of the Bible, bodily resurrection, the virgin birth of Jesus, a theistic God, the traditional views of the afterlife, and the traditional concepts of heaven and hell.

 

Now for some of us here at St. Stephen’s these are not all that controversial.

 

And many of us loved Bishop Spong.

 

When I first came to St. Stephen’s, there were a few people here who quoted him often in their sermons on Sunday.

 

One time, one preacher even just read a letter of Spong’s as their sermon.

 

I certainly respected Bishop Spong.

 

I voraciously read every book he published as soon as it came the press.

 

And Bishop Spong in many ways introduced me to the Episcopal Church.

 

I first heard about him when I was in my early 20s.

 

I was working at a United Methodist Church in Arthur, ND.

And the pastor there, Pastor Ray Baker, had a bottom shelf of Bishop Spong’s book on a shelf that were hidden behind the door to the office.

 

I remember borrowing his copy Resurrection: Myth or Reality? And was legitimately shocked.

 

I was floored to hear Bishop Spong say that when Jesus died on the cross, his body was taken down and thrown to the dogs, and that is why there is any empty tomb.

 

I want to be very clear: I do not agree with him on this view.

 

In fact, I never agreed with him on many other theological points he made, which I often felt were sensationalist in certain ways.

 

But what was refreshing about Bishop Spong was that he would’ve respected that opposition.

 

Still, I was encouraged to pursue my interest in the Episcopal Church, knowing that there is a wide spectrum of belief here at that could enclose people to such an extreme as Bishop Spong on one end and conservative thinkers on the other, as well as those like me who were squarely in the center of it all.

 

I can say with all honesty, that I am thankful for Bishop Spong and his voice in the Church.

 

But as you can imagine, someone like Bishop Spong also had a few people who did not agree with him.

 

Actually, there were a lot of people who were downright threatened by what Bishop Spong wrote about.

 

And as a result, he made a lot of enemies.

 

There is a very famous story about one of these people.

 

At the funeral for Bishop Spong’s first wife, Joan, who died in 1988, he was shocked when, during the service, he felt himself being pummeled.

 

He turned around and realized it was an old lady hitting him with her purse.

 

She was finally subdued and escorted out of the church.

 

As she left, she was heard to say, “I wanted to do that to that SOB for years!”

 

No matter what you and I may have thought about him—whether you agreed with him or not—we all have to admit one thing:

 

Bishop John Shelby Spong was a true disciple of Jesus.

 

And in many ways he was needed in the Church.

 

Sometime we need people who can rile us up, who can get under our skins, who can nudge us out of our complacency.

 

Certainly, we find some of this happening in our Gospel reading for today.

 

Today’s Gospel story is one that I think we can all somewhat relate to this story.

 

We have all had our own Jameses and Johns.

 

We’ve all had them as co-workers, or fellow students, or simply fellow parishioners.

 

I’ve definitely known some priests like this.

 

They are the ones who—while we quietly labor, quietly do our duties—they sort of weasel their way up the ladder.

 

They jockey for position.

 

They are the ones who try to get a better place in line by butting in front of everyone else.

 

They are the ones who drive us—who work and sacrifice and try to do the good thing—they drive us crazy.

 

Or maybe…and maybe none of us want to admit it …maybe, they are the ones that we relate to the most in this morning’s Gospel.

 

Maybe we are ourselves at times are the James and the Johns.

 

Maybe we ourselves are the Sons or Daughters of Thunder.

 

Whatever the case may be, the fact is James and John are really missing out.

 

Like some of the other apostles, they just don’t get it.

 

They don’t quite understand what Jesus is getting at when he is talking about the last being first.

 

They don’t understand him when he says that we are called to serve and not be served.

 

They just don’t understand that simple virtue of humility.

 

Their view of Christianity—their view of where they stand in relation to Jesus—is a constant jockeying for position.

 

And many of us to this day feel the same way in our own lives, in our work and in our faith lives.

 

There are many people who look to the Church in this way.

 

For many people in the Church, the Church  is simply a place that is here to serve them.

 

They feel that Christianity is all about being served by the Church.

 

Guess what?

 

I hate to break the news to you.

 

It is not.

 

The Church is not here to serve those of us who are in the Church.

 

It is our duty as followers of Jesus, as members of the Church, to serve.

 

What today’s Gospel shows us is that Jesus is calling us to something much bigger than we probably fully understand.

 

I think a lot of us—even those of us who come to church every Sunday—sometimes look at Christianity as a somewhat quaint, peace-loving religion.

 

We dress up, we come to church on Sunday, we sing hymns, we hear about God’s love, we receive Body and Blood of Jesus in the Bread and Wine, and then we go home and…and we don’t think about it again until the next week.

 

But the Christianity of Jesus is not soft. It is not just a whitewashed, quaint religion.

 

Bishop Spong certainly believed that with all his heart.

 

 The Christianity of Jesus, as we hopefully have all figured out here at St. Stephen’s, is a radical faith.

 

It is a faith that challenges—that makes us uncomfortable when we get comfortable, that riles us when we have become complacent.

 

It is a faith that works well here in church, on Sunday morning, but also should motivate us to get up from these pews and go out into the world and live out the faith we have learned here by serving others.

 

And it is this fact that many of us might find a bit frightening.

 

Like James and John, we all want to gain heaven.

 

We all want a nice place beside Jesus in that world-to-come.

 

I want that place!

 

But few of us want to live out our faith in all that do and say right now. And even fewer of us are ready to be servants—to be slaves for others.

 

We don’t always want to serve the lowliest among us.

 

We don’t want to suffer like Jesus suffered.

 

We don’t want to taste from the same cup of anguish that Jesus drank from on the night before he was murdered.

 

And we sure don’t want to be humble sometimes.

 

I will admit, I am in that boat a lot.

 

 I sometimes don’t want to be a servant or slave to others.

 

I don’t want to suffer like Jesus suffered.

 

And although I might try—and not always that hard—I am not so good at being humble sometimes.

 

But we all, I think, at least here at St. Stephen’s, are trying.

 

We all making the effort in some way.

 

As followers of Jesus, we are reminded that we are called truly to be servants to each other and especially to those who need to be served.

 

We are asked as followers to do something uncomfortable.

 

We are asked to take a long, hard look at the world around us and to recognize the fact that there are people living in need in our midst.

 

And we are called to serve them.

 

And in those moments when we ourselves may need to be served, many of us have discovered that serving others is sometimes the best antidote for that need.

 

What we cannot do is ignore those in need.

 

When I ignore those in need, when I don’t serve, when I don’t stand up against injustice—I am made very aware that in that moment, I am not following Jesus.

 

If I don’t do those things, but I still stand up here and call myself a Christian, then I have truly become a “Son of Thunder.”

 

And, for most of us, that is exactly what it sounds like when we want the benefits of our faith, without making the sacrifices of our faith.

 

In those instances, we truly do sound like a low, distant thunder.

 

We cannot bulldoze our way into heaven by riding roughshod over those we should be serving along the way.

 

For us, as followers of Jesus, our job is simply to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves—and when we do, in our lives, in our work, in the way we perceive the world around us, then a natural humility will come over us.

 

In those moments, we do recognize that God is in control.

 

Not us.

 

What is more humbling than that realization in our lives?

 

We are not in control of anything ultimately!

 

Again, here is another example of this radical Christianity.

 

It carries through in how we serve each other. Christians are not expected to bring anyone to God through an arrogant attitude.

 

We are not expected to come charging into people’s lives, making them tremble before us in fear.

 

We are not expected to thump our Bibles and wave the Words of Jesus before people in a desperate attempt to win souls for God.

 

We aren’t forcing God on anyone, nor should we.

 

In doing so, we dominate people.

 

We coerce them into believing.

 

But if we simply serve those Jesus calls us to serve, with love and charity and humility, sometimes that says more than any Sunday sermon or curbside rant.

 

Think of the words Jesus could use.

 

He could use, “power” to mean “dominance,” or “oppression” or “force.”

 

But he doesn’t.

 

Rather, Jesus uses the words “serve” and “servant”

 

In all of this, Jesus is telling us that we are to be servants—servants not only to God, but to each other as well.

 

I, as a priest, who stands here at this altar at each celebration of the Eucharist —I am not the only one called to be a minister of God.

 

We are all called to be ministers of God.

 

By our very baptism, by the Eucharist we share at this altar each Sunday, we are called by God to serve each other.

 

We are not here on Sunday morning to be served—to be waited upon, to be lavished with gifts.

 

We are here to serve.

 

And it is this sense of service that we must take with us out of here into the world.

 

James and John eventually figured this out.

 

They went on from that day and served Jesus in the world.

 

Eventually , they would both die for Jesus as martyrs—as very witnesses to Christ by their deaths.

 

So, for those of us who get angry at the daughters and sons of thunder in our lives—let us be patient.

 

For those of who recognize ourselves as a son or daughter of thunder—just relax.

 

God always finds a way to break through our barriers—if we let God.

 

It is this breaking through, after all, that makes our Christianity so radical.

 

So, let us serve God.

 

Let us serve each other in whatever ways God leads us to serve.

 

By the very fact that we are baptized and fed with Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we live out our service in the world.

 

And when we do, we just may find that the thunder we hear is the thunder not of arrogance or pride, but rather the thunder of the kingdom of God breaking through into our midst.

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, help us as we seek to quiet ourselves, as we seek to follow Jesus, as we seek to serve and not be served, for in doing so we know that your Kingdom will truly come and your Reign will truly begin. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen

 

20 Pentecost

 

October 10, 2021

 Amos 5:6-7,10-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10.17-31

 

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer,+ and Sustainer.

 

I have to admit.

 

As Episcopalians—as liturgical Christians—we have advantages and disadvantages.

 

Just like anything else in life.

 

And, depending on where you stand, our lectionary—our assigned scripture readings for Sunday morning, is either an advantage or a disadvantage.

 

I as the Priest or anyone who preaches here I do not just get to randomly pick whatever scripture I want on a  given Sunday.

 

There are assigned readings.

 

And we have no real choice in those readings.

 

So, the congregation sometimes has to sit through readings that are sometimes not readings we might want to hear for a particular Sunday morning.

 

And let me tell you, sometimes those scriptures are not easy to preach.

 

Today, we get the full range of scriptures.

 

We first of all get this beautiful poetic gem in our reading from the Hebrew scriptures.

 

I love the prophet Amos.

 

“Seek good and not evil,” he tells us this morning.

that you may live.

And so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you…

hate evil and love good,

and establish justice at the gate…”

 

Beautiful!

 

That could be the motto for us here at St. Stephen’s.

 

Our reading from Hebrews also is just lovely:

 

“Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

 

I could preach a couple sermons just on that one alone.

 

But then…

 

Then!!!!

 

Our Gospel reading for today.

 

Did you listen closely to this morning’s Gospel?

 

Were you uncomfortable with it?

 

I was uncomfortable with it.

 

We should be uncomfortable.

 

We all should be uncomfortable when we hear it.

 

Jesus is, quite simply, telling it like it is.

 

It is a disturbing message—at least, on the surface.

 

I stress that: on the surface.

 

He makes three hard-hitting points.

 

First, he tells the rich man who calls Jesus “good” to sell everything he has and give the money to the poor.

 

Second, he compares wealthy people getting into heaven to a camel going through the eye of a needle—a great image really when you think about it.

 

Finally, he tells his disciples that only those who give up their families and their possessions will gain heaven, summarized in that all-too-famous maxim: “the first will be last and the last will be first.”

 

For those who have—who have possessions, who have loved ones, who have nice cars and houses and bank accounts and investments,--these words of Jesus should disturb us and should make us look long and hard at what we have and, more importantly, why we have them.

 

But…is Jesus really telling us we should give up these things give us security?

 

Does it mean that we should rid ourselves of those things?

 

Should we really sell our cars and our houses, empty out our bank accounts and our savings and give all of that money to the poor?

 

Does it mean, we should turn our backs on our families, on our spouses and partners, on our children and our parents?

 

Does it mean that we should go poor and naked into the world?

 

Well, we need to look at it a little more rationally.

 

We’re Episcopalians, after all. We’re rational!

 

Because, when Jesus talks about “riches” and giving up our loved ones, he’s not really talking about what he seems to be talking about.

 

When Jesus talks of these things, he’s not really talking about what we think he talking about.

 

He’s not really talking about the securities we have built up for ourselves.

 

What Jesus is talking in today’s Gospel is about attachments.

 

Or more specifically, unhealthy attachments.

 

Having “things” in and of themselves are, for the most part, fine, as long as we are not attached to them in an unhealthy way.

 

Jesus knew full well that we need certain things to help us live our lives.

 

But being attached to those “things” is a problem.

 

It is our attachments in this life that bind us—that tie us down and prevent us from growing, from moving closer to God and to one another.

 

Unhealthy attachments are what Jesus is getting at here.

 

And this is why we should be disturbed by this reading.

 

Let’s face, at times, we’re all attached to some things we have.

 

We are attached to our cars and our homes.

 

We are attached to our televisions and computers and our telephones.

 

Some of us are attached to our mid-century furniture.

 

And, even in our relationships, we have formed unhealthy attachments as well.

 

Co-dependence in a relationship is a prime example of that unhealthy kind of attachment that develops between people.

 

We see co-dependent relationships that are violent or abusive or manipulative.

 

People, in a sense, become attached to each other and simply cannot see what life can be like outside of that relationship.

 

And as much as we love our children, we all know that there comes a point when we have to let them go.

 

We have to break whatever attachments we have to them so they can live their lives fully.

 

It is seems to be part of our nature to form unhealthy relationships with others and with things at times.

 

Especially in this day and age, we hear so often of people who are afraid to be alone.

 

So many people are out there looking for that “the right one”—as though this one person is going to bring unending happiness and contentment to one’s life.

 

Some people might even be attached to the idea of a relationship, rather than the relationship itself.

 

We’ve all known people like that—people who are afraid because they are getting too old to settle down and still haven’t found that right person in their lives.

 

It seems almost as though their lives revolve around finding this ideal person when, in fact, no one can live up that ideal.

 

See, attachments start taking on the feeling of a heavy baggage after so long.

 

They do get in the way.

 

They weigh us down and they ultimately make our life a burden.

 

And they come between us and our relationship God and our service to others.

 

The question we need to ask ourselves in response to this morning’s Gospel is this: if Jesus came to us today and told us to abandon our attachments—whatever it is in our own lives that might separate us from God—what would it be?

 

And could we do it?

 

Because Jesus is telling us to do that again and again.  

 

What the Gospel for today hopefully shows us that we need to be aware of our attachments.

 

We need to be aware of anything in our lives that separates us from God.

 

Jesus today is preparing us for the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

We cannot enter the Kingdom of God and still be attached to those unhealthy things in our lives.

 

Because as we enter the Kingdom, we will be distracted, looking back over our shoulders.

 

 

The message is clear—don’t allow your unhealthy attachments to come between God and you.

 

Don’t allow anything to come between God and you.

 

If Jesus came to us here and now and asked us to give up those attachments in our lives, most of us couldn’t to do it.

 

I don’t think I could do it.

 

And when we realize that, we suddenly realize how hard it is to gain heaven.

 

It truly is like a camel passing through the eye of the needle.

 

For us, in this moment, this might be a reason to despair.

 

But we really don’t need to.

 

We just need to be honest.

 

Honest with ourselves.

 

And honest with God.

 

Yes, we have attachments.

 

But we need to understand that our attachments are only, in the end, temporary.

 

They will pass away.

 

But our relationship with God is eternal.

 

This is what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel.

 

So, we can enjoy those “things” we have.

 

We can take pleasure in them.

 

But we need to recognize them for what they are.

 

They are only temporary joys.

 

They come into in our lives and they will go out of our lives, like clouds.

 

All those things we hold dear, will pass away from us.

 

Let us cling instead, to God and to the healthy bonds that we’ve formed with God and with our loved ones—with our spouses or partners, our children, our family and our friends.

 

Let us serve those whom we are called to serve.

 

And let us serve them fully and completely, without hindrance.

 

Let make the attempt to see that what we have is temporary.

 

Let us be prepared to shed every attachment we have if we need to.

 

And when the day comes when Jesus calls us by name, we can simply run forward and follow him wherever he leads us.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, we look forward with joy to your kingdom. Help us to shed whatever hindrances present us from entering. Help us break our attachments so we can approach you, face to face, and enjoy your Presence. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.