October 11, 2015

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Pentecost – Proper 23

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Psalm 90: 12-17; Hebrews 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31

THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

When the rich young man approached Jesus and asked Jesus what he needed to do to obtain eternal life, I don’t think he was asking Jesus how to get to heaven. That is the way I have understood the story for years, and that is probably the way you all have understood the story as well.  I was surprised to learn that the words “eternal life” in scripture do not necessarily mean “life after death” or even heaven, as some biblical scholars argue that the idea of heaven or even the concept of life after death was still early in its development during the time of Jesus. If those scholars are correct, then what does the phrase “eternal life” mean?

The phrase “eternal life” as it is used in the New Testament has less to do with the life after death, than it does with the quality of life that we live right now. In other words, perhaps the rich young man was asking Jesus not “what do I have to do to get into heaven” but rather “how can I live the kind of life that you and your disciples live? How do I get in on the joy and the love you guys obviously have so much of?”

The answer that Jesus offers the rich young man is simple – you give. You give to God in faith, trusting that whatever it is you give, God gives back, as God always does. That’s the way Jesus lived his life, and that is the way he encouraged others to live. And there must have been something about that life that the rich young man wanted, this person who had so many things, except what Jesus had.

Some think that what Jesus said to the young man was an impossible demand for any person to consider, young or old. Who can give away all their things and give their money to the poor?  I think it is safe to say that no one here this morning after hearing this Gospel is going to walk out the door, sell all their possessions, and give their money to the poor. If you all did,  we’d have to shut down St. Andrew’s Church because no one would be able to pledge money for our annual stewardship campaign (So perhaps this is not a very good reading for our stewardship season!).

I want to encourage you to think differently about this story. It’s helpful here to look at the language the New Testament was written in – Greek, because what Jesus says in the original Greek is different than what he says in our English version. In the English version, we have Jesus telling the young man to “sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.” That’s different than the original Greek, in which Jesus says “sell what you own, and give to the poor.” Did you catch the difference?  In the original Greek Jesus doesn’t say “sell what you have and give the money to the poor.” He’s not absolute in saying give everything you own away. Instead, he simply says “give.”  

However you choose to interpret this story, the point is simple: when we give, we are being most like God, because giving is a blessing to us and to the person who receives. That’s what Jesus is saying – if you want eternal life, if you most want to be like God?  Give.

I recall an old story of a priest who called a member of his church who had not attended services in several months. The church member told the priest, “I haven’t been coming to church because when I do, all I hear is “give, give, give.” The priest was silent for a moment, and then responded, “Well, I cannot think of a better definition of Christianity than that.” And there isn’t one. As Christians we give, because God gives to us. And my gift to you is that this sermon is over! AMEN

August 2, 2015

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Proper 13

2 Samuel 11: 26 - 12: 13a; PSALM 51: 1 - 12 ; Ephesians 4: 1 - 16; John 6: 24 - 35

THE REV. CARISSA BALDWIN-MCGINNIS

A dear rabbi friend of mine has two children; twins. Several years ago his boy, Noah, got in his dad’s car after attending his first slumber party. The child was animated in his response to his father’s inquiry as to how the party had gone.

“Dad! Dad!!!! DAD!!!!!! Dad, we ate the most amazing thing. It was this bread. It was white and soft.  Dad! It was so delicious. Dad, we HAVE to get some of that bread, Dad. It’s called Wonderful Bread, Dad. Can we get some?”

Now my friends, this rabbinical couple, are my age and eat healthy. I’m sure the twins had eaten only whole-grain bread until the party, because in some circles (including the one I was raised in) feeding your kids white sandwich bread was tantamount to handing them a cigarette. The health food movement missed the exquisite aspects of the highly refined fluffy stuff not to mention the virtues of the delight it bestowed on its youngest consumers. Not to worry. Noah was here to set the record straight and to bring good news of Wonderful Bread to his household.

Much like Noah’s amplification of the glorious and transporting qualities of Wonder Bread, the gospel of John is a major amplification of aspects of Jesus’ spiritual teachings. This gospel takes the truth of Jesus and stylizes it and him as a mythic archetype of divinity and truth. If we did not grasp the spiritual meaning of Jesus’ teachings from the other three gospels, John is going to make it impossible to miss.

The fundamental premise is that Jesus comes from God and that what is holy and divine can also be received by others and by us. In chapter 5 of the gospel Jesus says, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life…Yet you refuse to come to me to have life (5:39-40).” In many other words he makes the point that if we will open ourselves to the Source, then we will receive the transmission of the sacred. We will perceive the Creator’s invisible pulse that pervades the universe in what we Christians refer to as the Holy Spirit. It is a sacred breath that we each take in and that we share. And once we’ve tapped it, we grasp that it is infinite. This is what Jesus conveys to the Samaritan woman from whom he requests a drink of water. “The water that I will give will become in [others] a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”  It will give and it will give. There is no threat of climate change in the metaphysics of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The gospel of John is about how we live in these bones and these guts on this earth and somehow in our very being have sanctity. Esther de Waal, an Anglican teacher of spirituality, puts it very succinctly.  “Christianity does not isolate the sacred from the secular.” Furthermore, de Waal sees the symbol of the cross as the symbol of that reality. She says that Christ on the Cross holds together the vertical which points towards the heavens and the horizontal arms which stretch out to the world.

How is it that we can maintain some sense of the vertical, the divine, in the midst of the complexities of our horizontal life? How is it that we can maintain hope or a sense of self when, for example, we are paralyzed with fear? Perhaps we are a child, vomiting with a case of mortal nerves on standardized testing day. Maybe we are an adult worker heading to the office after the morning news reported that our employer had announced layoffs. How are we, for example, to maintain any internal composure when we are shamed by an infidelity inside a friendship or marriage or trusted institution? Is it possible to hold ourselves in spiritual esteem when someone else points out rightly an errant way of our own?  How are we supposed to feel divine, good or when we get laid out flat along the horizontal axis of our reality?

Either we have already tasted what God offers and we and trust it, or

God’s provision springs up in the midst of our hell.

My mother had a colleague whose adult son suffered from chronic depression. Oddly, one day while the two were walking the path alongside town lake in Austin, Texas, the man was struck by lightening. After whatever necessary medical interventions took place, and the woman’s son recovered, it became clear that his depression had subsided. He felt hope and anticipation for the future.

Victor Frankl, a Viennese psychiatrist, who survived Nazi death camps including Auschwitz, tells a story about a young woman prisoner who was days from death and conscious of her fate. When he talked with her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. “I am grateful that fate has hit me this hard.  In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.” She went on to say that the only friend she had in her isolation and proximity to death was the single branch of a chestnut tree that was visible from were she lay. “I often talk to the tree,” she said to Frankl. He asked if the tree spoke back. “Yes,” she replied. “It said to me, I am here - I am here – I am life, eternal life.”

The gospel of John says we learn the wonderful and dependable ways of the divine by revelation (tree branch) and lived experience (lightening strikes) more so than by logic or by way of someone else’s truth.  The promise is that in our living – including our dying – we can find meaning and we can know God.

“I am the bread of life.” Hear this not only as a decisive messianic claim by Jesus, but as an invitation.  Can you hear it as Jesus saying, “Come. I have taste the Bread of Life.  I have drunk from the water from the spring.  I am one with the Holy Spirit. I know the secret to the Wonderful Bread. I have tasted it so many times that I have become the miracle.  Come experience what I have, what I am, and what I know to be true. Eat, drink and find for yourself that which is infinitely available and infinitely exquisite. I am here - I am here – I am life, eternal life.

March 29, 2015

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The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

Isaiah 50: 4-9a; Psalm 31: 9-16; Philippians 2: 5-11; Mark 14:1 – 15:47

THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Several years ago, I went to the YMCA off of Augusta Boulevard, which was close to where our family used to live.  As I approached the front door of the YMCA, I noticed a man sitting in a chair inside the building and I could tell, by the YMCA shirt he was wearing, that he either worked or volunteered there. When the man saw me approach the door, immediately he got out of his chair, and walked to the door. I could see that he was clearly limping.

It was obvious to me that this man had some sort of physical disability that made walking for him very difficult.  In spite of his difficulty, he made it to the door before I did, and then proceeded to open the door for me. I could again see here that whatever physical disability this man had in his legs he also had in his arms and hands. It was not easy for him to extend his arm to open the door, and yet he did so with grace and beauty.

As I walked through the door, he welcomed me, and said “have a good workout, sir.”  It was evident to me that speech also was something of a challenge for him.  At this moment, a swirly of emotions went through me.  In one sense I felt guilty – he shouldn’t be opening the door for me – I should be opening the door for him.  But I also felt a sense of humility.  Here was a man who in spite of his physical limitations did something of great hospitality – he made me feel welcome, and in his voice I neither detected resentment or anger.  Later on I remember feeling in that moment I was standing before Jesus – in the form of a man disabled in body, but mighty in spirit.  He blessed me.  

It is out of that experience and others similar to it that I am reminded that all of us have a disability of some sort.  Some may be better at hiding it than others, but we all have something that makes us weak. Part of becoming an adult, regrettably, seems to be about hiding our weakness, our disability, from others if we are able. Our society simply does not seem to reward weakness as much as it does strength.

This is a tragedy, because the paradox of disability is that it takes tremendous courage and strength to shine a light on our weakness.  And in honoring our weakness, we become truly strong.

Today is Palm Sunday, a day when we hear the story of Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem in an act of great humility. He enters Jerusalem not upon a tall and powerful horse, as  powerful Roman officials did at the time, but rather positioned upon a simple donkey, proclaiming for all to see that his authority came not from strength, military, or political, might; but rather from his humility.

Jesus was a master who understood that humility is the path toward salvation. And on Palm Sunday, it literally is. Today Jesus begins the journey that culminates in our redemption Easter morning.

Years before Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, Alexander the Great rode into the cities he conquered in magisterial parades upon his strong horse Bucephalus. Some would argue that Alexander’s parades were about appeasing his ego, while Jesus’ was a parade of humility; a reminder to us that whatever is strong, God makes weak, and whatever is weak, God makes strong.

So I am grateful for the man who opened the door for me that night at the YMCA. He was a great teacher, reminding me of the old lesson of how God often acts in seemingly small ways which yield mighty outcomes. An opened door.  A small procession into an ancient, gated city.  

Perhaps it is a mystery that God enacts heaven upon earth through the door of vulnerability. Perhaps when we honor and bring to light our weakness – our disability – we in fact do the same.