B18 Sunday 22 July 2018

Sunday 22 July 2018

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

         LESSON         2 Samuel 7:1-14a

                             or Jeremiah 23:1-6

       CANTICLE               Psalm 89:20-37

                                          or Psalm 23

        EPISTLE                            Ephesians 2:11-22

         GOSPEL                         Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Preaching Text

Mark 6:20-24, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.  When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This Gospel marks the return of the disciples whom Jesus had sent out in his name in mission and ministry.  Now they are eager to tell Jesus about their experiences.  And how does Jesus receive them?  He invites them to come away with him to a deserted place.  What is happening here is that Jesus is setting aside a time of sabbath for the disciples.  They have labored, and now the time has come to rest and to reenergize, for there is more work yet to be done.  But for now, that work can wait.

Jesus’ invitation to the disciples to come away says volumes about Jesus’ views on Sabbath in ways that might surprise us.  At times we may be tempted to believe that there was some truth in the accusations against our Lord that he did not honor the Sabbath.  But when re remember this Gospel, we are confronted with the reality that Jesus honors Sabbath while addressing how it is kept.  His critique is with the letter of the Law associated to the keeping of a day rather than the spirit of the Law that is far more focused on what Sabbath does for us than what we do on Sabbath.  And how we need to be mindful of that distinction.

But why do we need to be mindful of Sabbath?  That is a question for Christians to struggle with and honestly answer.  Some have turned Sabbath-talk into discussions of Sunday activities.  That was certainly my experience as a child in a very strict legalistic Methodist tradition under the umbrella of Protestantism.  And when we turn such discussion of Sunday as Sabbath into merely the expectation that on Sunday we as Christians go to Church, we can with lightning speed sound a lot like the Pharisees who kept Sabbath simply to have something in which to boast in ourselves and how good and holy we are by our Sunday attendance.  Meanwhile other Christians point out rightly that Saturday, not Sunday, is still the Sabbath.  Some of them even remind us that the early Church gathered to worship on both days, with a different focus on each of those days.  Jesus, after all, never replaced the Sabbath.  Unfortunately, some of them believe and will say that Jesus abolished the Sabbath, and that Christians need not pay attention to Sabbath any longer.  And this is simply untrue and unfortunate, for such a view completely misses the beauty of Jesus’ words and actions about Sabbath.

Jesus shows us that Sabbath, on whatever day we heed the Lord’s invitation to come and rest, is a gift.  Sabbath provides us with a break from our daily routine and duties that we might be attentive to God and to the wellness of our souls.  Sabbath is intended to be a benefit that strengthens us.  In today’s Gospel, the disciples needed such a gift.  Jesus knew that!  There are verses omitted from today’s Gospel.  That missing portion contains a moment we will hear in weeks to come when over a period of five Sundays we will read the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.  Jesus feeds a large multitude of persons with a meager amount of food.  And after the leftovers have been gathered, Jesus sends the disciples to the waterfront to get into the boat and go to the other side with the assurance that he will catch up with them.  Then Jesus retires to a private place, withdrawn from all, even from his disciples, that he might spend the night in prayer, in the depths of the bonds of the Most Holy Trinity, to be in Sabbath time as an act of preparation for the continuation of his ministry among the people.  And in the late hours of the night, in those final hours of the darkness of night, Jesus returns from Sabbath, walking on the very waters being crossed by the disciples in the boat, joining them in the boat not long before they reach the shore.  And with the typical speed of Mark’s Gospel in particular, we pick up in our Gospel reading at that moment when the people on the other side immediately recognize Jesus and his disciples, and suddenly mission and ministry are once more engaged in full force.

But what does that have to do with us?  Make no mistake about the fact that we all, even now, need Sabbath time that we might reconnect with God and to be renewed for mission in the world as participants in what our Presiding Bishop has so wonderfully coined “The Jesus Movement.”  How well I know this.  Until recently, for a period of nearly eight years, I was engaged in what is called these days “bi-vocational ministry.”  Monday through Friday, I was engaged in ministry within the hospital as a chaplain.  Saturday and Sunday, I was engaged in parish ministry as the rector of a parish.  My typical work week was seven days a week.  There was precious little Sabbath time for me in these years, and I paid dearly for the lack of this gift.  Life and ministry for me simply became a “rat race” in which I was going through the motions even as my soul was famished and starving.  Years ago I saw a cartoon that said something along the lines of “You know you might be driving too fast if” below the image of a crucifix handing from a rear-view mirror in which Jesus is grasping on to the cross as if he and the cross were in a wind tunnel and the wind was striving to separate one from the other.  In the last year, I no longer laughed at that image.  I felt like it was me and not Jesus, trying with all my might to hold on to my priestly ministry and to my vocations as a husband, a brother, an uncle, and so forth.  I felt like I was loosing my very self and identity.

Thankfully, I no longer feel that way.  I had the blessing of seven weeks in between leaving the hospital and entering full-time parish ministry in two parishes that gave me ample opportunity to engage in Sabbath.  And now, within this new ministry in two parishes, I have that Sabbath time built right in to my schedule.

As I sit with this Gospel, I wonder how many who hear these words feel as I have recently.  I wonder how many of us need Sabbath but feel as if it simply isn’t possible.  Remember that famous definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  Jesus calls us regularly to take Sabbath time to rest and reenergize not in order that we can feel good about ourselves, but rather than Jesus might feed our souls and equip us for work that awaits us when Sabbath ends and mission resumes.  And make no mistake about this fact that the mission of the Gospel in the world belongs to each one of us.  We are called like the disciples to share Jesus with the world, to comfort and heal, to feed and clothe others in the strong name of Jesus.  And if we are to accomplish this mission, we must first be comforted and healed, feed and clothed, by the one who invites us to rest and recover, to embrace Sabbath, that our souls might be strong for the healing of the world.

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Rev’d Timothy Alleman

    Priest-in-Charge

         St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral

              Rector

         The Church of the Holy Cross

B18 Sunday 8 July 2018

Sunday 8 July 2018

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

         LESSON         2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

or Ezekiel 2:1-5

       CANTICLE                     Psalm 48 or

Psalm 123

        EPISTLE                        2 Corinthians 12:2-10

         GOSPEL                                  Mark 6:1-13

Preaching Text

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows.  And I know that such a person — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows — was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.  On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.  But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth.  But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations.  Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.  Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Paul can be so bold!  I’m not simply referring to the traditional definition of that word.  I remember discovering at some point in these last 9 years in which I have lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania that being called “bold” is not a compliment.  In “NEPA terminology,” to be bold is to be just a bit too proud, a bit too arrogant, a bit too impressed with one’s own credentials.  And let’s be honest; Paul is often all these things and more.  The passage that I think of the most when I think of Paul being so bold is in the third chapter of Philippians.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Philippians 3:4b-6

In these verses, Paul is sharing his pedigree as a “cradle Jew” who is a descendent of the favorite son of Jacob whose birth occurred at the time of the death of Jacob’s favorite wife among the two sisters and their servants who were the mothers of the sons of Israel, boasting of his educational background and his great learning and zeal as a student of the Law of God.

In this instance in Philippians, Paul is quick to discredit all these boastings.  All these things, he proclaims, are worthless compared to the knowledge of Jesus Christ who reveals the loving heart of God.  But Paul isn’t always so quick to be so humble.  The place where we find this shown the best is in the Acts of the Apostles when Paul is in the Greek city of Athens.  The Scriptures and countless historians tell us that Athens was a mecca of learning and knowledge.  The Athenians loved to learn new things.  When Paul is invited to engage the Athenians in dialogue, he quickly and comfortably reverts to his scholarly learning as a Pharisee.  He has been trained well for such a moment as this in which he is found in Athens.  And how well did that work out for Paul?  The Scriptures contain letters of Paul to the Church in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, and Thessalonica.  Paul refers in Colossians to a letter he wrote to the faithful in Laodicea.  But never at any point is there a reference to a letter or any enduring presence in Athens.  Simply put, Paul failed in his mission to proclaim the Gospel among the Athenians.  And how ironic that is, for logic would tell us that Paul should have had the greatest success with his talents in that learned city.

Perhaps that failure was in Paul’s mind when he wrote to the Corinthians the words we have heard today in which he speaks of the “thorn in the flesh.”  There are various speculations about what this “thorn” was.  Paul never says what it was.  He simply says that the purpose of this was to keep him from being “too elated.”  Perhaps what he truly meant was that whatever this was, it kept him humble.

We do well to hear what Paul has to say about being humble.  I say that because if we are anything but humble, the final words of our Epistle for today will simply seem to be mere foolishness.  Paul tells us that the power of Christ is made perfect in our weakness and that our strength as followers of Jesus is the greatest when we are the weakest and the most dependent upon the help of God.

Those words remind me of a dear friend of mine who had a “thorn in the flesh.”  Frank was an attorney who had for many years run like Jonah from the call of God to the priesthood.  When at last he submitted to that call and began formation for ordination, he was diagnosed with ALS.  He never made it to ordination.  And yet, in those final years of his life, Frank shared his faith in Christ with such a power amid weakness that amazed countless persons and transformed lives by his witness to the faith and the hope found in him.  As he became weaker physically, the power of the Gospel was abundantly and undeniably clear and present in this man of faith.

There are countless persons whose stories we could share that speak of such power revealed in weakness.  The point of all these stories is not that we would simply praise these persons as exemplary figures of faith.  Their stories remind us of something greater.  When we are humble before God, aware of our weaknesses and limitations, it is then that we can truly embrace the truth that God who has called us – all of us – to share the Gospel with the world.  And remember,  dear friends, that God has done so not because of our credentials but rather out of what God can do with us in spite of us.  God has not called those properly equipped and capable.  Rather, God has equipped us, chosen by grace and not by merit, to be the instruments of grace by which God will remind all persons that the grace of God is always sufficient for every need and the love of God is for all persons without exception.

Dear friends, Christ has called us who are baptized into his death and resurrection to share the love of God found in the Gospel with all whom we encounter in this place and in every place in which we are found.  And how shall we engage that high calling?  If we have a laundry list of credentials to support our ministry and message, we will be like Paul in Athens.  But if we are willing to simply get out of the way, to not merely speak humility but to embrace it and depend on Christ to complete what is lacking in us and use us with all our baggage, all of our weaknesses and shortcomings, we will see powerfully the mercy and love of Jesus transforming the world around us and within us, always and only, in the immortal words of Johan Sebastian Bach, “Soli Deo Gloria” – “to the glory of God alone.”

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Rev’d Timothy Alleman

    Priest-in-Charge

         St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral

              Rector

         The Church of the Holy Cross

B18 Sunday 1 July 2018

Sunday 1 July 2018

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

         LESSON                         2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 or

                                    Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24

       CANTICLE                               Psalm 130 or

                 Lamentations 3:21-33 or Psalm 30

        EPISTLE                          2 Corinthians 8:7-15

         GOSPEL                                Mark 5:21-43

Preaching Text

Mark 5:21-43

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.  Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  So he went with him.  And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.  Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.  She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.  Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”  And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”  He looked all around to see who had done it.  But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.  He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”  While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead.  Why trouble the teacher any further?”  But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”  He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.  When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.  When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep?  The child is not dead but sleeping.”  And they laughed at him.  Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.  He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”  And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age).  At this they were overcome with amazement.  He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

My friend and colleague, Father Ron, has a funny habit of regularly telling his parishioners what “my friend Frank” had to say recently that came to his mind while preaching.  I guess you might say I’m going to pull a “Father Ron” today.  After all, this Gospel reminds me of something said by Frank.  In an interview, he said:

“I see clearly that the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.  I see the Church as a field hospital after battle.”

Frank is none other than Francis, the current Bishop of Rome.  His words, and the words of the Gospel before us this Sunday, remind us that the Church is a hospital, a place to find healing.

There are two example of healing that occur in this Gospel.  This passage begins and ends with a focus on a young girl whom we are told was around the age of twelve.  Amid her story, a woman interrupts Jesus’ journey to that young girl in desperation over her chronic bleeding over a period of twelve years that has only become worse as no one was been able to bring resolution to her suffering.

We know how this Gospel ends; that both the young girl and the woman find healing in the touch of Jesus.  But for a moment, allow yourself to sit with the desperation of these moments when healing is needed and desired.  There is a profound need for healing of the body for both.  And for the father of this child, there is more than desperation.  When Jairus is updated while Jesus the Teacher is delayed that his child is now dead, this father enters a state of hopelessness.  I cannot help but wonder also if he was not merely hopeless and helpless at this point but even angry.  If this woman had not delayed Jesus, perhaps Jesus the Healer would have arrived at his daughter’s bedside in time to heal her before death took her away.

And why would this leader of the synagogue be angry at this woman?  Remember that in terms of the Law, this hemorrhaging woman was ritually unclean.  She was not permitted to be in pubic places, amid crowds, for the Law was clear that anyone who touched or was touched by one who was ritually unclean would themselves become unclean.  But here she is, among such a great crowd packed in so tight that Jesus’ disciples laugh at him when he asks, “Who touched me?”  She who was considered spiritually and socially dead, an outcast in society and religion, had contaminated Jesus, and likely countless others, by her presence and touch.  And now the leader of the synagogue had a dilemma.  His child was dead, as unclean as the woman who touched Jesus and contaminated him.  According to the Law, the leader of the synagogue from that moment should have nothing to do with Jesus, with this woman, or even with the deceased body of his daughter.  But when Jesus tells him that she is sleeping, the desperation not of a religious leader but rather of a father drives him to continue the journey to bring Jesus as Teacher and Healer into his home.

The desperation of the woman and of the father are the conditions in which Jesus brings healing as a gift of new life in places and persons where death had taken hold and was believed to be the final word.  And why has this healing happened in impossible circumstances?  It has everything to do with the fact that when the woman and the father sought out Jesus the Teacher and Healer, they were encountered by someone greater than they could imagine or desire.  If Jesus is merely the Healer of the Body, it is logical to presume that he could heal the living.  But Jesus is greater than a Healer of the Body alone.  Remember with me that moment when Jesus first asked the disciples who others said he was and then asked them who they said that he was.  Blessed Peter gave the answer: “You are the Christ.”  Little did Peter realize that his confession identified Jesus as the Healer of Body and Soul, the Giver of Life who is Resurrection.  This Gospel confirms that confession and anticipates a confession yet to come when Blessed Thomas would address Jesus as “My Lord and My God.”

The Church, dear friends, is a hospital for healing simply because in this place, we are encountered again and again by Jesus, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, who is among us to touch us and heal us in ways that go far beyond what we can desire or imagine.  And our role as Christians, as the followers of Jesus, is to bring the suffering, the marginalized, even the dead in spirit or body, to Jesus our Lord and God and cry out in prayer that Jesus the Healer and Lover of souls would reach out and touch what is broken and make it whole, to remind us that the final word in the Kingdom of God is always God’s Word of Life.

There are moments when we see this healing with our eyes.  Those moments are truly wonderful.  There are also moments when we do not see by sight the power of that healing.  How well I know that as just over a week ago I preached a funeral homily for a dear boy about the age of the young girl in today’s Gospel who, like the woman in this Gospel, suffered for twelve long years.  By faith, in those moments when our eyes tell us that all appearances point to death having the final word, Jesus reminds us that there is a healing that awaits us all that cannot be seen presently by any other means than faith.  And in those moments, Jesus invites us to walk on further with him, as he invited the father in this Gospel, assuring us that those whom we love but see no longer are not dead but sleeping.  And as we walk with Jesus, our Lord and God, this very day, let us bring to him all who need his touch, even when human wisdom would tell us that there is no hope.

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Rev’d Timothy Alleman

    Priest-in-Charge

         St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral

              Rector

         The Church of the Holy Cross