Christmas Eve Sermon: Luke 2:1-20 The Shepherds

To be preached at St. John's on Christmas Eve, God willing.

I began my preparation for this year's Christmas Eve sermon as I begin the preparation for all sermons.  First comes a prayer for God's guidance, then a reading of the text, then some devotional reading from the Church Fathers on the text, and then the more difficult work of examining the text in its original.  A regular companion on this textual study has long been The Rev'd. Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, who was the Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature at Union theological Seminary in New York from 1888 until his retirement.  I was intrigued by his comment on the Shepherds in verse 8 of today's Gospel Lesson from St. Luke chapter two.  "Luke's Gospel is the gospel of the poor and lowly.  This revelation to the shepherds acquires additional meaning as we remember that shepherds, as a class, were under the Rabbinic ban, because of their necessary isolation from religious ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered strict legal observance wellnigh impossible." (Vincent's word Studies in the New Testament Volume I p. 269.)  This statement brought to mind something I had read just a few minutes before from the Venerable Bede's "Homilies on the Gospels 1.7"  "The shepherds did not keep silent about the hidden mysteries that they had come to know by divine influence.  They told whomever they could.  Spiritual shepherds in the church are appointed especially for this, that they may proclaim the mysteries of the Word of God and that they may show to their listeners that the marvels which they have learned in the Scriptures are to be marveled at." (Ancient Christian commentary on Scripture: New Testament III. p. 42.)  Then I began considering Dr. Vincent's regular citing of John Wycliffe's 1395 translation of the New Testament, which he says is noted for its literal rendering of the Latin Vulgate.  Wycliffe translates the angel's (or the "heuenli knyythod) message as "Y preche to you a greet ioye, that schal be to al puple. For a sauyoure is borun to dai to you, that is Crist the Lord, in the citee of Dauid."  And again  "Glorie be in the hiyeste thingis to God, and in erthe pees be to men of good wille." The translator here points out that the Heavenly Army is proclaiming peace to the world.  Already our categories are being turned on their heads.  But a closer examination of Wycliffe's translation is even more astounding.  Instead of our beloved "I bring you good news..." he translates "Y preche to you a greet ioye."  The phrase in Greek is "euangelidzomai humin karan megalain" and literally means "I evangelize to you a great joy."  Is it any wonder that at the end of the day the shepherds made known the saying concerning this child?  Having been evangelized themselves, they were compelled by what they had experienced to share the great joy with others.

Now explore with me the implications of this brief exegesis.  I would submit to you that we are not that different from the shepherds.  We believe in God and seek to serve our Lord faithfully, but like them, our lives seemed filled with realities which prevent us from serving God they way we might like to.  There are probably those who think that we could do a lot better in the spiritual department, and they might well be right.  But for reasons of his own, God dispatched his heavenly Army, his "heavenly knighthood" to bring us to the awareness that Jesus came to us in a way which changed everything, and which refuses to fit into our categories and expectations.  This is not a sentimental message delivered by Victorian angels taken from the cover of a Hallmark card, but a fearful, and yet peace bringing proclamation delivered by heaven's most fearsome warriors.  It says that Messiah is come among us, in a way that we can verify, and that God is glorified as our darkness turns to light and the peace of God is offered to all of us who will seek him in good will.  Surely this is great joy, the kind of joy that none of us can keep to ourselves.  It is the kind of joy that the English Evangelist Rico Tice says causes us to dance in the street and hug strangers.  It drives us to evangelize the world just as it drove those shepherds to tell everyone they met that Christ was come into the world!

At the beginning of this short exegesis, I read a selection from Bede's Homilies on the Gospels.   "The shepherds did not keep silent about the hidden mysteries that they had come to know by divine influence.  They told whomever they could.  Spiritual shepherds in the church are appointed especially for this, that they may proclaim the mysteries of the Word of God and that they may show to their listeners that the marvels which they have learned in the Scriptures are to be marveled at."  Let me take this a bit further now.  Not only are we like the shepherds in our degrees of separation from what we might wish to be, but we are all shepherds, or examples, or guides to someone in this world.  It might be a child, or a student, or a relative, or a friend, or a neighbor.  Whoever it is, someone is there to notice and hear all of us.  As shepherds, we are all called "to proclaim the mysteries of the Word of God..."  We are all called to "evangelize to you a great joy."  It is a good thing, and a Christian thing in this Christmas season to be kind, and to help the poor, and to comfort the afflicted.  But the greater vocation, the primary vocation which God gives to all of us is to share the good news of the coming of Jesus to be our example, and our Saviour, and our Lord.  I hope that all of us might be able to share that good news with the people to whom we are shepherds during this most holy season.  Might I suggest that when you get together with your friends and family between now and the Feast of the Epiphany, or "Auld Christmas" on January 6th, you suggest that as a group you read together the Gospel of Luke, chapter two, verses 1-20.  The sharing of this good news is true evangelism, and it is at the very heart of what God calls us to do.  It is as radical today as it was then, and it still brings peace into our troubled and notoriously busy lives.  It is the first enabling step of our acceptance and healing by God in Christ, and it has already started the transformation of our world.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Question of Art and the Healing of Society: Rector's Rambling- January 2015

December has been a very eclectic month at Briarwood.  In addition to the observance of Advent and the celebration of Christmas, I did a bit of reading in early modern Scottish philosophers and theologians, and have thoroughly enjoyed traditional Christmas events like the Lancaster Chorale Concert and BalletMet's "Nutcracker."  As I sit down to write the first Rector's Rambling of the new year, the ideas are beginning to coalesce into a discernible whole. 

www.balletmet.org/

The BalletMet 2014 production of "Nutcracker" at the Ohio Theatre, and to a slightly lesser degree, the Lancaster Chorale concert at St. Mary's Church, were for me powerful and flowingly beautiful examples of what Homo Sapiens can become by God's grace as we strive by discipline, training, and perseverance to realize the potential God gives us. 

lancasterchorale.org/

Both events brought me to tears, and the ballet even brought my son, the former Marine, to tears.  Both events are almost like human dressage.  They portray us at our best, and call us to rise above those shortcomings which so often characterize our lives together.  But they tend to be reflections of the ideas and experiences of a small, highly educated, relatively prosperous group of people.  To the vast majority of my fellows, this is another world.  In times of alienation or social unrest, such events can become for many people icons of privilege and elitism.  They have in some revolutionary periods become targets of scorn and rejection.  One upshot of such social unrest and division has sometimes been a leveling of expectation and a degrading of all that is good and noble and true in the arts, and in our relations with each other. 

And so the question becomes, "How can we make the best, the most beautiful and most ennobling things in our culture, to be the property of all people?"  It is for me a serious question, because I believe that God is the ground of all being and is perfect beauty, and perfect harmony, and perfect function.  As a Christian, one of my duties is to attempt to create a society where individual lives, and relationships, and political realities are characterized by a fluidity of motion, by an economy of design and function, by a beauty based on justice and personal responsibility, and by true spiritual and institutional harmony which enables every man and woman to reach their full potential before God.

As a community, we here in Fairfield County and Central Ohio work hard to accomplish these goals.  The Lancaster Festival does a good job of bringing the arts to all of the people (especially children) in an affordable and accessible venue.  The Nutcracker provides scores of young dancers the opportunity to work on stage with accomplished professionals.  Our worship here at St. John's attempts to blend the best of the western musical tradition and sensory apprehension and apply our common experience to the glorification of the Triune God.

Worship at St. John's Lancaster

But as recent current events demonstrate, divisions of class and race and creed are still far too evident in our society.  We manage to "convert" an individual now and then to a deeper understanding of how our art can express our hopes and our experiences, and our faith in a loving heavenly Father.  We occasionally lead a person here or there to understand that true art allows us to express our common humanity at its best as we live together in a fallen world.  But the fine arts are still a distant and foreign thing to far too many people.  The celebrated and addictive brutality of popular film and of some athletic competition still drags far too many of us into the inhumanity which grows from power divorced from our Christian faith.  The sense of violence and alienation which dominates so much modern American literature and popular music has hardened many of us into beings who assume the worst, and arm ourselves to survive at the expense of our neighbors. 

It may seem like a small thing, but I hope in the year to come, all of us might resolve to take someone to a concert, or a gallery, or even to our Easter or Christmas services here at St. John's.  Many of the concerts in our community are free to students and seniors,  and most of us have the means to treat a friend to a concert and dinner.  Our worship services are always free of charge.  I cannot help but believe that the beauty of our lives and our architecture and our music, and of our souls, are all good things.  If we present them with humility and genuine friendship to neighbors made in God the Father's own image, they will come to yearn for his appearing, and will be drawn by the power of the Holy Spirit to join us in the proclamation that Jesus is Lord!  From that glorious and transforming phrase will necessarily flow the transformation of our society into the very image of heaven.

Flaxman's Shield of Achilles 1821 
The Western Artistic Ideal of a purposeful and Harmonious Community
 

Comfort Ye My People: Sermon II Advent

Sermon on Isaiah 40:1-11, Advent 2B Revised Common Lectionary

To be preached at St. John’s on December 7th, God willing.

King Hezekiah had been very sick.  God intervened miraculously and healed him.  Shortly after he was restored, visitors came from a far away land.  They represented Merodach-baladan, the King of Babylon.  They brought gifts and letters of congratulations to the king of Judah.  The emissaries seemed to have good intent, and seemed to express a genuine joy at the King’s restored health.  In what might be called a “fit of generosity,” Hezekiah showed them all that he had.  The Prophet Isaiah saw the guise for exactly what it was.  These ambassadors were scouts for the raiding parties and invasion that were sure to follow.  God employed the Prophet to detail to King Hezekiah what was soon to come when the invaders came back in force.  At the heart of the message was the stark pronouncement, “Not a thing shall be left.”

Against this background of impending doom and desolation, God came again to the prophet in today’s first lesson from Isaiah 40.  Our proper today consists of the first few stanzas of a poem of consolation, one of the most beautiful in the literature of the Hebrews.  “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, says your God.”  Against the stark realities of the darkness of life, Isaiah is commissioned by God to deliver a message of hope and deliverance to the people.  It is a message that they had heard before, but they had always seen it as a message from their history, from their distant past.  It concerns deliverance from captivity across a barren wilderness, and ultimate restoration to a promised land.  But it also points out the weakness and insufficiency of mere human wisdom and provision.  And ultimately, it invokes the image of the “good shepherd” to assure the people of God’s love and provision for them.  With the coming captivity in Babylon, what had been a distant memory of their tribal history became real-time experience.  When we face times of difficulty and hardship today, we join them, and people throughout history in experiencing firsthand this same message from God. So what does it all mean for us today on this second sunday of advent?  I offer a few suggestions.

The first stanza in verses one and two speaks of sin and atonement, and of the punishment which accompanies that atonement.  Hezekiah and the people had sinned against God.  Sometimes it had been blatant sin, like when idols were erected in the temple precincts, or the poor were dispossessed of their property in the great economic upheavals of the eighth century.  At other times, the sin consisted of the adoption of cultural values or popular political agendas which were inconsistent with God’s will, such as when a good king was killed because his sense of duty and commitment to friends caused him to put his trust in horses and soldiers and fight with the Egyptians when the prophet had told him to stand firm and place his trust in God.  And then there were those things such as Hezekiah had done in extending absolute hospitality, a Biblical and cultural imperative, to those who had determined to do him and his people ill.  His misinterpretation of the law of hospitality happened because he was perhaps a bit prideful, or as Isaiah 39:8 and the opening verses of chapter 38 would seem to indicate, that he thought first about himself instead of about the job that God had given him to do.  How often do we in our ignorance willfully misinterpret scripture in a way that  tries to justify our actions or allow us to continue in our character defects and sins?  Our sins, like those of Israel, are very real, whether they be based on a willful rejection of God’s word, on a thoughtless adoption of the cultural values around us, or on a more nuanced attempt to see ourselves justified because our situation is special, or different.  

This leads us to ask, why must sin be punished at all?  Couldn’t God just let a few little things pass?  So much of bad decisions and stupid mistakes are rather harmless after all, aren’t they?  Well, not really.  If a person bounces cheques, he should not be surprised when people stop extending him credit or accepting his cheques.  If a woman cheats on her husband, betraying his trust, breaking his heart, and exposing him to disease and social rejection or ridicule, she ought not to be surprised if he divorces her.  If someone drinks too much or drugs and is ineffective in the performance of his job, he shouldn’t blame his employer when he gets sacked.  If a man engages in risky behaviour sexually, or by being a glutton or a heavy smoker, he should not be surprised when he dies young of health issues.  Sin has consequences in this world.  It also has consequences in eternity.  If God is who we say he is, that is, he is holy and good and true, and the essence and origin of those things, then sin and darkness and imperfection cannot exist in his presence.  Imagine that all sin and shortcoming and pain and hurt are a deep darkness.  When the light comes into the darkness, the darkness ceases to be.  So when God comes into our lives, all of those bad things are put away as well.  The time of punishment has ended because we have received from the very hand of God that undeserved gift of atonement which restores us and makes us one with God again.  Our sin is put away as far as the east is from the west, and we are healed.  In this world, God gives us positional holiness and looks upon us as sinless, even though our lives are still characterized by struggles and occasional failures, and by the ongoing consequences of past sin.  But this positional holiness is a foreshadowing of that day when Christ returns and we shall be perfect even as he is perfect.  We have all received punishment for our sins in this life.  But our faith tells us that when Jesus comes again, we shall be completely free, and in the mean time, we see those evidences of coming freedom in our lives every day when we make good decisions and walk away from the destruction of addiction, and selfishness, and bad behaviour, and perverse attitudes.

Isaiah says a voice cries in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Make straight in the desert a highway for our God!” Like many of you, for years I drove the snakelike valley roads of southeastern Ohio, with their steep climbs and treacherous turns when the topography finally runs out.  And then the route 33 bypass was completed between Logan and Nelsonville.  Every valley was filled in, and the mountains were laid low.  What used to take over an hour now just takes a matter of minutes, and I can run 70 miles per hour all the way to my destination.  When the Jews were led out of Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years.  God would have shortened the time, but their faith failed at several critical junctures. He kept loving them, and ultimately he got them to where they were going.  Here is a promise to the people of God.  Whether you are held as a slave in Babylon, or in prescription medicine, or in lust, or in gluttony, or in pride, or in discouragement, or in any other land,  God is still in the delivering business, and he offers us the same deal he offered the Jews the first time.  “Walk with me and I will give you strength and take you to the promised land. I am coming to you again, to lead you out of the wilderness, this one of your own making, into the promised land.  All of your efforts to this point have been ineffective, I know that.  They wither like the grass and fade like a flower, but now I am with you, to make the way .  I come with power and victory, and joy- to gather you into my arms as a shepherd gathers his sheep, I will hold you to my breast and bring you rest.”   That is the hope of Advent and the story of Christmas.  

Have you taken the time in this busy season of preparation to honestly catalogue those bad habits and worse memories and ongoing sinful decisions which defeat you, and make you want to give up?  Have you actually made a list of the things which make you feel distant from God, or unclean, or less than whole?  The God who loves all of us, speaking through Isaiah in today’s first lesson, has promised that when we acknowledge these realities in our lives, he will deliver us in wonderful ways and restore us to spiritual health and purpose as we await the consummation of this age.  We cannot do it ourselves, but he will make for us a highway through the wilderness.  Where we cannot see a way, he will bring us restoration and peace.  Today in this Holy Communion, which is the emblem of his acceptance of us, bring him your list, and receive his healing, and know his peace.  Hear the voice of the joyful messenger, that our God is here!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.  

Deer Season 2014

I lost interest in deer hunting years ago.  It is a sport which is slow even on a good day, and generally accompanied by bad weather and cold.  But, I still try to take at least a couple of days off during the season to pursue deer shooting as I do it.  I sit in relative luxury on the top back porch of our home at Briarwood.  Here I read books and articles with gun at the ready and hot beverages of my choice.  If things get too cold, I can step inside to warm up and do a few chores.  If something manages to stumble in under the apple tree to eat a bit, I have no aversion to putting it into the freezer, but my main purpose is an uninterrupted day away from the phone to read and think.

The view from my "Deer Stand." Note what a great bench rest the bar makes!

A hide fit for a king!

This morning's reading has consisted largely of  "How the Scots Invented the Modern World," by Arthur Herman.  It is a rather predictable romp through Scottish history which spends a lot of time on people like David Hume and Adam Smith, who I consider some of the greatest intellects and greatest wits of western culture.  Consider Smith's description of the University as a "sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection, after they have been hunted out of every other corner of the world."  I guess things haven't changed all that much in the last two hundred and fifty years!.  I would love to be able to write in such vein. 

But I am restrained by a blog article I read last night from Bishop Dan Martins, the Episcopal Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, in which he points out that our position in the church, or arguably in any broader institution, ought to limit our grand philosophical generalizations because of the impact such statements have on the institutions we serve.  (You can read the entire article at http://cariocaconfessions.blogspot.com/2014/11/as-bishop-i-am-quasi-public-figure.html .)  His argument makes absolute sense to me.  We are all part of a broader community of some sort.  When we choose to speak boldly or rashly, even if our motives are the best, we often find that there are unintended consequences to our exhibitions of individual free speech and claims of individual liberty.  I have seen the tragic consequences of such acts in my own faith tradition as many have been pushed out of their congregations by the loud political exhortations of leaders and conventions assembled.  It does not matter whether the opinions expressed are on the left or right, or in the center.  They set us against each other and damage our ability to live together in harmony and prosperity.

And so I guess I will have to wait until I no longer wear a collar or draw my income from a parish to write after the fashion of Hume, Smith, and others.  Perhaps one day that time will come, but until then, I just sit in my deer stand and think.

Sermon for I Advent- My Hope Is In God!

Advent I, Year B- Mark 13:24-37

To be preached at St. John Lancaster, God willing

Burning buildings in Missouri. Hideous and inhumane executions in Iraq and Syria.  Suicide bombings in Nigeria and Israel.  Long standing social norms questioned and old structures tottering.  I suppose one could make the argument that figuratively at least, the sun is darkened, and the moon does not give her light, and the stars themselves fall from the skies.  If I were so inclined, I suppose I could find several good reasons to be discouraged, and afraid, and even without hope.  But as today’s Gospel lesson points out, our faith does not give me that option.  Jesus often told his followers  not to be afraid.  In today’s lesson he takes the admonition a bit further.  He says that we need to look beyond the troubles of this present age, and remember that at the end, our faith will be vindicated, and he will return to receive us as his own.    

In the days leading up to today’s Gospel narrative, Jesus had been in Jerusalem preparing for the Passover.  He had been attacked by his enemies and questioned and belittled at every turn.  Through false flattery and direct argument and conniving misrepresentation they had attempted to make him mad, or goad him into saying something actionable before the law.  But our Lord kept his head and he did his best to keep the heads of his disciples fixed on the task at hand.  Finally, he answered the questions so many were thinking about and told them that in their lifetime, things were going to get bad- very bad.  And he told them a series of parables which taught them that the people who held to their faith would find a strength beyond themselves  which would ultimately bring them to vindication and deliverance by God himself.  The message holds as true today as it did then, and it is for us the message of Advent, which starts today.  There will be a time in human history, and in each of our lives, when situations will get out of control.  The mess we have made by our bad decisions, bad actions, and omissions, both individually and as a species, will come to haunt all of us,and no real distinction will be made between the innocent and the guilty.  But, says Jesus, look around you and realize that I told you things like this would happen, and that it is the necessary precursor to my Father working in your lives.  Don’t be totally discouraged by difficulty or even by catastrophe.  Rather let those things remind you that I have promised to come again and receive you as my own.  When that happens, we will be together forever, and I will make all things new.

How is your Advent faith today?  Can you look at these “signs of the times” and see in them a call to cling more passionately than ever to the promises of deliverance that Jesus gives to all those who follow him?  As you look upon this font and remember your own baptism, do you sense the witness of the Holy Spirit that indeed you are a child of God, and that he will be with you every day of your life?  As you come and receive Communion today, do you anticipate that miraculous cleansing and sense of belonging that will assure you of the reality of God’s love, and help you to push through your fears and embrace the calling of God in your life?

Some people might say that such a faith is just so much psychological manipulation, and that simple faith is for simple minded people who refuse to acknowledge the realities of the world.  How sad and lonely it must be for them.  Better to face my fears and situations, my doubts and my hardships in the knowledge that Jesus who came once as a baby, born of a virgin in a manger in Bethlehem, will come again to vindicate this faith of mine and yours which may be mocked as childlike, and spurned as simplistic and superstitious.  But we know it on this day to be otherwise than as our detractors would maintain.  Childlike it may be, for our Lord admonished us to come as did the little children in innocence and expectation. Simplistic it may be, for God’s love for us is not a complex formulae that we need advanced degrees to comprehend.  Rather it is a simple proclamation that every man and woman and boy and girl can be called to experience in real time.  Superstitious it may seem to those who have already made up their mind that it is false, but we who have experienced the washing away of our guilt and shame in the waters of baptism; we who have pressed with our teeth the sacrificed  flesh of Jesus Christ and who have drunk the blood of our God,  we know in our hearts the truth of it all, and in that truth we find the strength to press on in the face of every adversity.  ‘Blasoned on our arms is that eternal Name of the Christ, and we cry with our forbearers,  Spes mea in Deo est, my hope is in God!  For as we gaze upon the blessed Name of Jesus, we realize with that Emperor of old, In hoc Signo Vinces,  in this sign, you will conquer!

And so the end of the matter is this.  Never let the difficulties of life cause you to lose sight of the promise of Jesus that he will return to vindicate all things and to receive us as his own.  Things may get worse in our individual lives, or they may get better.  The world will always be filled with inexplicable evil and tragedy.  But we are called to keep our eyes on Jesus, and to face the world without succombing to our fears or to discouragement.  The great fact is that Jesus is coming again.  Hold to that fact.  Remind yourself of it in the jewelry you wear and the artwork with which you decorate your home, and the music you listen to, and the sacraments you receive.  Jesus is true to his promises.  This is a wonderful world, and we are a blessed people to have been placed in it.  Our friends and family are blessings from God, even when they might not seem much like it.  But even with so many good things about us, difficulty still comes into the world, and sometimes it is hard to cope.  When that happens, and it will, might we all remember today’s Good News from St. Mark’s Gospel.  Jesus is coming again, so stay awake, keep doing good, and keep creating beauty, and keep yourself disciplined and committed to demonstrating the reality of our new life in Jesus Christ.  And one day he will come again to make all things right, and to receive us as his own.  

An old story is told of a young squire who faced overwhelming odds when his city was attacked.  Everything seemed to be lost, and as he rushed into the breach he cried out “Spes Mea in Deo est!” (My hope is in God!)  His fellow citizens followed him, and even though he lost his life that day, his example of faith and courage so inspired his fellow citizens that the tide was turned and the city was delivered from those who would destroy it.  The enemy of our souls, Satan, brings many things into our lives which can fill us with fear and discouragement.  This city which we attempt to build for God is threatened by so many different things, by so many realities, and so many fears.  Sometimes it helps us to do something objective which helps us to personify or anthropomorphise the issues we face.  So now I would like you to do something which may seem scandalous, but somehow it seems appropriate, even in a traditional service in the Episcopal Church.  I invite you to assume with me the part of Constans, the young squire.  Stand with me and face the east, towards Jerusalem, where Christ will return.  Imagine in your mind that you are facing those things which make you afraid, or worried, or discouraged. Raise your right hand and at my instruction say with me three times, “My hope is in God!”  Are you ready?  Now, hands up.  Get Ready, Get Set, Go!  “My hope is in God!” “My Hope is in God” “My hope is in God!” You may be seated.  

Do you feel a little silly?   But do you feel better?  Do you feel like you have experienced a thing which will help you to face those realities that crowd into your life?  Remember that Jesus is always with you, and that he is coming again.  Claim his promises as your own.  Face the issues that are so real, with him by your side.  And may this Advent be for you a time of healing, and strength, and assurance that God is with you always.  AMEN.

A Perfect Day

Federal Valley Pheasant Farm in Amesville, Ohio in warmer weather.
http://www.federalvalleyhuntingpreservellc.com/

Chuck and I took Leo the Lab and Oscar the Cocker Spaniel to Federal Valley today for a pheasant shoot.  We harvested 13 birds, and both dogs were magnificent.  Even my shooting was not a complete embarrassment!  Switching to shooting left handed has truly paid off.  I should have done it years ago.  Young Oscar was in his element, and did a great job both hunting and retrieving.


Oscar after a water workout earlier this fall
he was bred and trained at
http://www.flushingstar.com/index.htm

  He bounces through the high grass, a spaniel trait, and is the very definition of joy.  On the way home, we stopped and shared birds with two elderly friends.  For dinner tonight, I cooked pheasant, brown rice, candied yams, asparagus, and seasoned mushrooms, served with chardonnay.  For dessert, we had peppermint ice cream with hot fudge.  Every day should be so wonderful: spent with friends, with opportunities to share God's bounty, and to create what is beautiful and delicious.


Me with Oscar after a squirrel hunt at our farm a couple of weeks ago

Sermon for Christ the King Sunday: St Matthew 25:31-46

The Division at the Judgment
detail from a larger mosaic in Ravenna

Today's Gospel is not a picture of the simple Galilean carpenter and itinerant Rabbi.  Rather it is the prophesy of the return of the King to judge the nations.  Everyone will be there, everyone who has ever lived, and the Son of Man will be revealed as the King of Glory.  The angels will be with him, and he will be seated on his throne, and we shall all stand before him to hear his righteous judgment. Even as the Son of Man and King of Glory, he remains the great and Good Shepherd, and on that day he will divide us who pasture together into two groups, characterized in today's Gospel as sheep and goats.

Now sheep, particularly in the ancient world, were very useful animals.  They provided meat and wool, and even milk.  They were a staple of the economy, and their fertility, their relative domesticity,  and ability to graze in some of the harshest conditions insured the economic viability of the community.  Goats on the other hand were another story. Goats, while still of some value, were far less profitable, and there were other issues as well.  Their stubbornness, evil odor, and lustful aggression has long made them the very emblem of evil in the world.  They may look amazingly cute at the fair, cleaned and penned- but let me assure you that a Billy  at breeding time is a disturbing and disgusting sight to behold.  And yes, I speak from experience. 

But what is the meaning of this division?  Commentators ancient and modern agree.  Here our Lord and rightful Sovereign Jesus Christ sets forth love as the ultimate test of  true discipleship.  This love is not merely a sentiment, but a series of measurable actions which grow out of an heart which shows forth the holiness and concern for others that are evident in God's gift of Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world.  Judgment at the end of the age will consider whether or not we have treated others as Christ treated us.  It is a serious basis for comparison, and a high standard indeed.  The language itself allows us no escape from the reality that is the love of God.  We are not given the luxury of redefining words or parsing grammar in a way that lessens our responsibility.  We are called to a common humanity that exhibits the very character of God.  The words generally translated "you welcomed me," actually mean "you welcomed me into your home, into the bosom of your family."  There is not much wiggle room there.  How are we doing?  Is it uncomfortable yet?  Now, a strict reading of the grammar would seem to imply that the people in whom we serve Jesus are Christians in need, but the blessed Fathers are of one mind and voice when they say that as Jesus lives in the needs of his church, his church lives in the needs of all people, whether or not they are at the time of their need named as members of his one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

We are all  made in the image of God, and he expects us all to exhibit that basic humanity which Charles Dickens calls, "the milk of human kindness."  It is not optional, and no excuses will be allowed at the great judgment.  Granted, Christians may occasionally differ about the best way to show this common humanity.  There will be honest disagreement about what constitutes actual acts of mercy and what constitutes the enabling of bad behavior, but whatever political or philosophical disagreements we Christians may have about how best to accomplish the love of God in the world, the requirement remains that we cannot ignore basic human need around us.  If we do, we are ignoring the presence of our true King.  If we ignore him in this world, we will be rejected as unfit in the world to come, and will go away into eternal punishment, into that place of eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.   But if we truly model love by our attitudes and our actions here in this world, our discipleship will be vindicated and proved true, and we will inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Com'on Dad, Let's Hunt!

Rector's Rambling, December 2014

Oscar Doing What He Was Bred and Trained To Do!

Cold brings out the best in dogs of all kinds, and Oscar is no exception.  The woods were magical today, and the game was running.  The temperature hung somewhere in the mid teens in the early afternoon, and I was due a break after the responsibilities of last week's Diocesan Convention- so, I think everyone who knows me knows where I was and what I was doing, with faithful Oscar out front all the way. 

Winter has always been my favorite season, and I do love the snow.  But as CS Lewis points out in "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe," winter without Christmas just wouldn't be the same.  For those of us who grew up in northern climes, the snow means that our celebration of the Birth of Jesus is just around the corner, and I for one can't wait.  When my world was characterized by barrenness and cold and bone chilling hardship, God sent his only Son into the world to bring me life, and warmth, and plenty.  In short, he saved me and named me as his own, and then Jesus wrapped his arms around me and called me his brother and his friend. 

When we were walking through the woods today, the branches hung low with the burden of the snow, and as I moved through the tangle, a gallon or two of snow fell from the trees and went right down my back.  It was invigorating to say the least, but when we finally got back to the house, the warmth and wetness was almost comforting in a primal sort of way.  I could not help but think of the warming love of God which over the years has melted my icy heart and helped me to be so  much more than I could ever have been on my own.

I hope that all of you, my friends, have a blessed Christmas this year.  Remember that our Christmas Eve services are at 4  & 10:30, and on Christmas Day we will gather at 11AM.  I look forward to seeing you there, and to celebrating together the coming of Jesus into the world to bring us warmth, and healing, and salvation.

Reflection on II Timothy 1:12b

To be delivered at St. John's on November 9th, God willing.

St. Paul writing (perhaps to Timothy?)
probably by Valentin de Boulogne, 17th century

One of the great formative influences in my early life was singing what I believed.  Sometimes those songs still ring in my ears, and I find myself singing along.  One of my favorites was always “I Know Whom I Have Believed” by Daniel W. Whittle, published in1883.  It goes in part something like this:

I know not why God’s wondrous grace

To me He hath made known,

Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love

Redeemed me for His own.   

• But “I know Whom I have believed,
• And am persuaded that He is able
• To keep that which I’ve committed
• Unto Him against that day.”

I know not when my Lord may come,

At night or noonday fair,

Nor if I walk the vale with Him,

Or meet Him in the air.

• But “I know Whom I have believed,
• And am persuaded that He is able
• To keep that which I’ve committed
• Unto Him against that day.”

I’m sure some of you noticed that this is a quote  from the Authorized Version of the Bible,  The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy, Chapter one, verse 12b.

I have come to the conclusion that one of the reasons this particular song, and this particular verse of Scripture has been so ubiquitous this week is because of an article entitled “Evangelicals’ Favorite Heresies” in the November 2014 Issue of “Christianity Today.”  The good news is that more than 9 in 10 believe that Jesus rose from the dead and that heaven and hell are real.  I doubt that Main Line Protestant samplings would fare so well.  Some of the more disturbing findings about Evangelical Christians are: 27% either agree or couldn’t deny for sure that Jesus, while the first of creation, is a created being.  58% consider the Holy Spirit to be a force, and not a personal being.  A whopping 77% believe that people seek God first, and then God responds with grace.   A smaller, but still significant 24% are willing to believe that the Book of Mormon might be a revelation from God.  

Another issue that has had doctrine and the methodology by which it is discovered and developed on my mind this week is our own upcoming Diocesan Convention in Chillicothe.  The third resolution proposes that  our Diocesan Convention memorialize the General Convention to modify the marriage ceremony in the Book of Common Prayer in a way that replaces the words “husband and wife” or “man and woman” with the phrase “these two persons.”  Whatever one’s opinion might be on the issue, and whether or not it passes,  The proposal would be a major change in the historic position of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and of how the Church has always interpreted the Bible.  But for the purposes of today’s line of thought, I would ask you to temporarily set aside the issue of same sex union in the Episcopal or any other Church.  Rather I would ask you to think about the ecclesiology, that is the belief about what the church is, which gives rise to such a resolution as resolution three, or for that matter, which allows so many of our Evangelical brethren and sisters to deny the received understandings about our Lord, about the Trinity, about Salvation, and about Revelation.  

Resolution three arises from the commonly held belief that a simple majority vote in constitutional process, taken in a relatively small denomination in one time and place, is sufficient justification for making a major change in the patrimony of the church.  Without consultation with our Roman Catholic, or Protestant, or Orthodox, or Coptic fellow believers, we are willing to declare that what belongs to all of us is ours to modify at will.  That is a dangerous position to take, because it points out the falseness of our membership in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church by rending the fabric of the broader Christian community, which is the body of Christ, and which we claim to be a part of every time we say the Creed.  It is virtually the same position assumed by that individual Evangelical Believer who affirmed to the pollsters that Jesus Was a created Being or that our desires rather than God’s love initiates and enables our reconciliation with God.  We live in a world where individuals and small groups feel very free to place their own feelings and thoughts and impulses above those of the broader Christian community, with little regard for unintended consequences.  Anyone can say that they are a part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  To submit to the Church and actually be so is another thing entirely.

This brings us back to Second Timothy 1:12.  Archbishop Paul is writing to admonish and instruct young Bishop Timothy.  The Apostle claims his authority from Jesus with confidence, and continues his statement of Creedal Orthodoxy from the First Letter, in which he had addressed many specific organizational and moral and relational implications of the faith Jesus left to the Apostles.  Two phrases stand out to me in this particular verse which seem to have bearing on our present situation.  First, he says “I know whom I have believed.”  His faith is grounded in the sure and living relationship that he shares with God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.  God’s grace had been manifest in his education and upbringing, in the example of blessed Stephen, the protomartyr, in the loving example of Barnabas and the congregation in Antioch who welcomed him into the Faith he had persecuted.  Then there was the blessed time apart, and so many other things which had caused his certainty of the reality of God to grow and deepen.  And now he called his young protege to share in that same certainty.  It is that certainty of faith to which we are called.  It is based on a knowable and personal ever growing faith in the one who saved us and who calls us brother, or sister, and friend.  It is based on evidence, and is definable in rational terms which are consistent with God’s own character, of which reason is a part.  The second phrase to which I alluded earlier is “I am persuaded.”  Those three words say volumes about this rationality of God’s Character which Apostle and Archbishop Paul strives to employ in his own life.  Rene Descartes, the great French philosopher, is famous for saying that we should methodologically doubt every proposition to prove its validity, or conversely, its invalidity.  Paul cautions Bishop Timothy to make sound and logical decisions, based on his relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the Church’s Husband, remembering that he- Timothy- is a Bishop of the Church, which is Christ’s Bride.  You see, whatever current societal attitudes may say or teach, we as Christians are called to make our decisions rationally and in a conciliar manner which includes all of the great branches of Christianity, based on the relationship which Jesus Christ offers us through his Church.  Our decisions are never our own, nor do they belong to a committee.  They ought always to be taken within the broader historic Christian community in which we live, and in the shadow of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Now what does this mean practically?

1. If something you desire to do, some change you would like to make, is contradictory to what the Church has always believed to be a part of the received body of teaching which characterizes the Scriptures, and the Fathers, and the Councils, and the Doctors, and the Schoolmen, and the Reformers, and all the rest; you are probably making a mistake and should revisit your thought process and the  teaching of the Church over the last 2,000 years before moving ahead.
2. You should concentrate on verifiable knowledge and formal logical inference, rather than on  feelings.  Feelings are very real things, and they more often than not lead to justification of things which have terrible unintended consequences.  The words “I feel” usually introduce very bad theology which has serious negative consequences, unintended and otherwise.
3. Because we all live in our own little worlds, it is important that we consult with others, especially other believers of different denominational traditions and from different countries, and with the teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church if we are to honestly think through the implications of our beliefs and their moral and practical implications for us and for others.  
4. And finally, we should all resist the destructive teachings of this age that there is no ultimate truth based in God’s self revelation of his own character, and that we as individuals are and ought to be the final arbiters of truth in our own lives.  The societal results of such beliefs are anarchy, selfishness, and irresponsibility.  The end of such a story is always tragic, even though none of the players really meant for anyone to get hurt.

And that is all I have today.  It is amazing what can flow out of one little song.  So keep singing, and serve God faithfully, and think about what you do.  Amen.

Sermon: Knowing and Following God- Exodus 33:12-22- RCL 24A

Moses in the cleft of the rock (Exodus 33:22)

The Jews were a stiffnecked people.  That is the conclusion drawn in the run up to today's Old Testament lesson.  My guess is that is one of the reasons God called them and set them apart- so that the rest of us could identify with them.  Today's lesson is part of a much longer Old Testament narrative which lies at the very heart of the Jewish, and the Christian experience.  It is a tale of bad decisions, and lost opportunities, and forgiveness, and more bad decisions, and exile, and really spicy personal details, and outright rebellion, and selfless love, and judgment, and grace, and oh, did I say forgiveness?  At the beginning of the major section of which today's lesson is a small but important part,  Moses had gone up into the mountain to meet with God.  It was a wonderful meeting, in which God communed with Moses and gave him the ten commandments and detailed directions about how the people should worship and order their community. Moses was there for a while.  The people got restless and began to doubt whether he would ever come back.  In the midst of the uncertainty which seemed to be all around them, their memories of life in Egypt began to look pretty good.  They forgot the bondage and the slavery, and remembered the varied diet, the comfortable homes that were not tents, and the nice things that such a settled life  allowed them to accumulate.  They went to Aaron the Levite, the priest and the brother of Moses, and implored him to make them a god, He called for donations of gold and made them a statue of a calf, and they worshipped it with highly sexualized fertility rites, perhaps like those they had seen in Egypt, or among their Canaanitish neighbors.  Now the Lord looked down and saw what was going on, and he said to Moses, these people have corrupted themselves, and I am going to destroy them, but I will make you a great people.  And Moses prayed from the bottom of his heart that God would have mercy on the people, and God decided not to destroy them.  Now Joshua was up on the mountain trail waiting for Moses, where he had been the entire time.  He met Moses on the path, and as the two of them came into view of the camp, they saw what was going on.  Moses was so angry that he threw down the tablets with the commandments on them and they shattered.  And he took the golden calf and ordered it ground to dust, and scattered in in the water and made all the people drink it.  Considering the biology of it all, I think that is a pretty effective way of saying what you think of a false god.  Then he turned on his brother, the priest, and said, "How could you do such a thing?"  And Aaron was very nuanced- that is to say he lied and blamed it all on someone else, and he minimized his part in the whole affair.  Shame on him and on any priest who does such a thing in every age.  And then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and rallied the faithful, and they stopped the orgy that day by killing three thousand of their neighbors with the sword.  And for their faithfulness to the Lord that day, the Levites, who had refused to defile themselves, were blessed as the keepers of the holy things of God in perpetuity.  And then Moses prayed for the people as he had never prayed before.  As his Lord Jesus and his brother Paul would pray some thirteen hundred years in the future, he offered himself for the sins of the people he loved when he said "O Lord, forgive their sins- and if not then blot me out of the book of life!"  In the passion of his prayer that day, we begin to see the depths of  God's love manifested to us and to all who believe in Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  And then a plague came upon the people, because every action has consequences, and even when we are forgiven by God we must live with the consequences of our actions.  And then God reaffirmed the promise, the covenant which he had made to Abraham, and had renewed with the other patriarchs of Israel. And God called Moses to enter the tabernacle of Israel that day, and as he did so, the cloud of God's glory, the shekinah, descended upon the holy place to confirm that this was of God.  And Joshua went in with his master, and the people, having learned their lesson for the time being, "rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door."  And that story brings us to today's Old Testament lesson.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (Exodus 33:11)  Moses  asked God to show him the way of the Lord, and shared with him his own fears and insecurities.  And the Lord did speak with him as with a friend. And when God assured Moses of his support and direction and providence, Moses asked to see the very glory of God. And it was a wonderful thing, and God answered his prayer, and the Bible says that the face of Moses shone with the light of the glory of God.  And then the Lord answered Moses' first question, the one about knowing the way of the Lord.  There was another set of tablets made for the commandments, and God gave some very specific guidelines for how the tribes were to honor their relationship with him when they entered the promised land.  And the rest of the book of Exodus is about how the people responded to God's love by obeying him and accomplishing the things he called them to do.

 This brings us to the application of today's text to our lives.  The great drawback to all lectionaries is that they tend to isolate portions of Scripture from their context, that is why the reformers insisted on serial reading of the Bible.  Today you have heard the context of the lesson.  And so you are in a better position to understand it more perfectly.  If I were to read today's lesson from Exodus 33:12-23 apart from its context, I might draw the conclusion that God does communicate directly and passionately with his people, and that he on occasion allows us the  personal experience of his glory.  Now both of those things are true.  But the passage assumes a very different intensity and tone if I realize the complex moral failures which preceded the assigned lesson.  And then when I consider the willingness of Moses to give up his own life for the people, and his anger, and his strong leadership, and all of those other things which are a part of the story- the emotional intensity of God's determination to share with us the experience of his presence and glory are all the more amazing.  My heart cries out with the song writer who said, "And can it be, that I should gain, an interest in my Saviour's love?  Died he for me, who caused him pain, for me who him to death persued?  Amazing love, how can it be, that thou, my God, woulds't die for me?"  I am overcome with emotion and thanksgiving that even after it all, he still accepts us and forgives us and desires intimate fellowship- with us. 

And then in the midst of my wonder and joy, I remember that first question of Moses.  "If I have found favour in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people." (Exodus 33:13)    I realize with a new sense of urgency that God's grace is given not just that I might feel wonderful or find self-actualization or enhanced self esteem.  God's grace is given that I might be transformed into the image of his grace and mercy, and that I might reflect his holiness by walking in accordance with his attitudes and his standards of personal and corporate behavior all the days of my life.  Certainly there is forgiveness and even rapture in serving our God.  And there is also duty to live a life of personal holiness according to the moral law of God proclaimed to us in the scriptures. 

Some of you may be thinking, "Pursley is a crazy fundamentalist!  The next thing you know he will be calling for the institution of some sort of Christian Sharia law!"  Well, I am a sort of a fundamentalist, if fundamentalism is defined in its original pre-Scopes trial sense of "one who holds the tenets of the creeds absolutely without redefinition and who seeks to accept the faith received from Jesus and the Apostles as understood by the holy fathers."  But I would remind you that Paul clearly states that legalism and works righteousness have no place in our faith.  Obedience however, does.  And I would refer you to page 869 of the Book of Common Prayer, Article VII - Of the Old Testament.  Our Church has always taught that the ceremonial law of the Jews was a prophetic declaration of the character of God and of the coming of Christ.  That is why we do not sacrifice animals or celebrate Seders, even though the Old Testament commands both.  We also teach that the civil law of Israel fulfills those same purposes, and that the code of punishments need not "to be received in any commonwealth." Hence we do not stone people caught in adultery or stone unruly and rebellious young men, even though both were the law in ancient Israel.  "Yet not withstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free form the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral."  God's moral behavioural expectations touching our relationship to him and to each other  is the same for Athens and for Jerusalem, now and forever.  As blessed John says in I John chapters one and two,  We have all sinned, and yet Jesus takes care of our sins, and those of all the world.  The evidence that we have been redeemed is that we keep his commandments as written in the word of God, and as we keep those commandments, we are perfected in love, and we truly learn to love each other.

So the end of the matter is this. We are a lot like the ancient Jews, a stiffnecked people.  We have fallen and done some pretty horrible things.  But God loves us and in Jesus Christ he has forgiven us.  He communes with us not as mere subjects or servants, but as friends, and we are given the opportunity to experience him in a way that will transform our outlooks and our behavior as surely as it transformed Moses' visage and caused him to glow with a heavenly light.  Let us now claim our inheritance as the sons and daughters of God.  Let us experience his love and his glory, and his transformation.  And by our commitment to obey his moral law, and by our love for all people and for all he has made, let us proclaim the wonders of his glory to everyone, so that in the end, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Giving Back to God: Rector's Rambling- November, 2014

November opens with All Saints' Day and closes with the first Sunday of Advent.  There are so many important things happening in the Church in November.  But for any local parish, perhaps the most important thing, practically speaking, is the annual parish stewardship drive.  It is the engine which drives the parish program and budget for the ensuing year.  Without it, plans are almost impossible to make, and difficult decisions must be made about which programs are the most important, and which ones cannot be sustained.  On the eve of our annual parish pledge request, I thought it would be a good thing to offer a few thoughts about Christian stewardship. 

Stewardship must always be honest.  The reality is that ours, like most of the parishes in the Episcopal Church, is greying and shrinking.  This is not to say that we do not have some wonderful and active young families, or that our older individuals and families do not come and do good and commendable things in this place.  But it is to acknowledge a statistical reality that there are fewer people to pay the bills and to staff the ministries at St. John's than there were a few years ago.  It is also to acknowledge that several of our loved ones who were able to support the church very generously now serve Jesus in a different way and in another place (some of them in heaven.)  It is incumbent on those of us who worship here now to clarify our vision of what God would have our parish to do, and what he would have us to be, and to fund and staff that holy vocation to the glory of God, to the building up of his people, and to the extension of his kingdom.

Stewardship must always be creative.  There are many wonderful traditions in our parish, and we are a traditional denomination.  And there are many things which worked very well in the past which are not so effective today.  Where resources are limited, it is our responsibility to deploy those resources in ways which honor and maintain continuity with our heritage.  It is also our duty to make adaptations where necessity demands that we might be as effective as possible in kingdom work.  Our vestry system of government is an effective tool in evaluating and implementing modifications and improvements in ways that meet our goals and preserve our identity as the people of God called Anglicans.

Stewardship must always reach out to others.  One of the most important acts of stewardship any of us can accomplish is to invite someone to church, and to introduce them to the grace of God the Father, through Jesus Christ the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Think about who you might invite to a church service, or a parish breakfast, or a Christmas or Easter service, or a Lenten or choir presentation. Be sure to sit with them and invite them out for hospitality following the service or event.

Stewardship must always be sacrificial.  Jesus gave his life to pay for our sins that we might find new life and purpose and healing and joy (and everlasting life!)  All of the Apostles were tortured or killed for refusing to deny the good news that God reconciled us to himself through the sacrifice of Jesus.  Sacrifice is a part of the heritage of the Church.  We are called to go beyond what we can do, or what is comfortable for us to do, in the service of God and in our attempts to share the Gospel with our town.  This sacrifice should push us to offer our time and talents, and should inform our financial decisions about how much we should give to the parish and to other works which proclaim and implement God's plan for all people.

Stewardship must always be motivated by love.  The Bible tells us that "God loves a cheerful giver."  Our giving is most effective in bringing us closer to God when it is motivated by our love for him, for his kingdom, and for our parish home.  To give because we want to is an expression of how we believe and how we feel about our Lord and the people with whom we worship.  Even though I may not agree with every decision or everything which takes place, I love this place because so many times I have met God here.  I love the people and the building, and the garden, and the music, and even the big tree out front.   I wish to share that experience of meeting and knowing him in this particular Anglican Christian way with others- and so I give for the joy of it- for the love of it.  I hope you will do the same.

I humbly entreat all of you, my friends, to prayerfully consider how you would support St. John's in 2015.  Together, we can continue to make a real difference in this place, and bring glory to God, as is our whole duty as his sons and daughters.