Woolgathering

Just as he is a shepherd and a lamb, so too we sheep become shepherds to each other as we grow up into his likeness.

Easter 4b 2015 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters; he restoreth my soul.... You know the rest!

There is no denying that sheep and shepherds play a huge part in the imagery of Scripture. This is natural given the times and places in which the Scriptures were composed — sheep and shepherds were as central to the economies of those times and places as retail sales are to ours. I suppose we can be thankful for that; otherwise we might be stuck with, “The Lord is my supervisor,” or “He maketh me to shop in the bargain basement.” I don’t think we would want to pray, “The Lord is our Walmart and we are his customers.” And when Jesus said he came not to be served but to serve, I don’t think he was thinking about being as a sales clerk!

No, instead of mercantile imagery, we are blessed with a wealth of pastoral images, of sheep and shepherds; and most importantly of a shepherd who is also himself describe as a lamb — the Lamb of God. In fact, John mixes up all sorts of pastoral imagery in his gospel and his epistles, and this imagery is carried forward into the last book of our Bible, that is also attributed to John: Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; he is the gate of the sheepfold through whom the sheep enter and leave in safety; he is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the flock; and he is, at the end, the Lamb again, with the marks of slaughter upon him, the innocent by whose bloody death the guilty are acquitted and reconciled with God.

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Most of us, I’m willing to guess, have little experience of sheep beyond owning a wool sweater or two — so what are we to make of this flock of images? When we say that the Lord is our shepherd, and when our Lord says that about himself, what do we mean, and what is he getting at.

Well, what we mean is that we belong to him. When we pray the Psalm that says, “We are his people and the sheep of his pasture,” or “The Lord is my shepherd,” we are reaffirming our relationship with God is one of dependence and trust. We belong to God, and if we are wise — or at least as wise as sheep can be, which isn’t much — we will follow our Good Shepherd and put our trust in him.

For that is what we mean when we accept Jesus as our Shepherd — we belong to him and we know that he cares for us. We know his voice, when he calls us each by name. We trust him and we know that he will not lead us astray; or if we do, as sheep will often do, wander off ourselves, we trust that he will seek us out and bring us back, even if it is only one percent of us who wander off and get into trouble — and don’t you wish that only one percent of us were ever in trouble at some point in our lives.

We also know that Jesus is the gate of the sheepfold: our safe passage into the fold for the night, to be kept safely from the wolves and lions of this world; and out through that gate by day to go to those lush, green pastures, to recline beside the still, calm waters, or to be fed on the herbage that nourishes body and soul.

And ultimately, we know that he is the Good Shepherd who will lay down his life to protect us. He doesn’t run away when he sees the wolf coming — even if it means he will die in the process of protecting the sheep from that ravenous danger. For this is no ordinary shepherd — this is one who not only will lay down his life for the sheep. He is one who is able to take it back up again — no one takes it from him, but he lays it down of his own accord, and he receives it back from God his heavenly Father.

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And this is where we leave off our woolgathering and reflecting on sheep and shepherds, and the penny drops and the light-bulb goes on, as we recall, after all, that we are not sheep, and Jesus is not a shepherd. We are human beings, made after God’s image and in God’s likeness, and Jesus is himself that perfect image, the only-begotten Son of God. And yes, even though we are not sheep and he is no shepherd except by way of a parable — still we are his and he is ours: we belong to him, and he did in fact lay down his life for us, and took it up again; he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, but raised from the dead by the power of God. That is the truth, the truth that we affirm every week as we say those words of the Nicene Creed.

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And this truth impels us to do more than merely to believe, merely to say those words week after week, even more than to believe it and to share it. For we are called not merely to follow our shepherd, but to grow up into him — to become shepherds ourselves, shepherds to each other. John gets into some of that mercantile imagery, after all, when he challenges and chastises “anyone who has the world’s goods and yet sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help.” We are called to emulate the greatest love one human being can show for another,

to lay down our lives for each other, just as Jesus laid down his life for all of us — each and every one of us both a sheep and a shepherd, bearing one another’s burdens, as the Apostle Paul would also teach.

John teaches us that it is by these loving actions that we will know that we abide in God, and God in us. This is nothing other than the power of God, who is love, love made real, love come down from heaven, love shared among the sheep of God’s pasture — not sheep after all, but children of God, God present among us by the power of the love we share.

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The Apostles knew this power fresh from God. How many people had passed by that crippled man who sat at the Beautiful Gate — how many of the very members of the high-priestly family before whom Peter and John now stand, accused of doing a good work of healing — how many of them, Annas, Caiaphas, John and Alexander and all their kith and kin, had passed by that crippled man and never given him so much as the time of day. And yet, Peter and John with healing him. Peter and John told him they had no money to help him out — but what they had, they gave him, freely and without any conditions: they gave him the name of Jesus, and the power of that name healed him of his infirmity. No wonder the selfish priests are confounded by this act of generosity; they are hired hands, who had no real love for the sheep;

they were ready to sell out the Lamb of God to the Roman wolves so as to keep their precious peace.

Yet, here, even here as Peter and John stand before them, the grace of God is shown forth and even they — Annas and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all their relatives and colleagues — they are given yet one more chance — and it won’t be the last one! — another chance to repent and believe, as Peter, filled with the boldness of a sheep become a shepherd, confronts them and shames them with the Name of Jesus strong upon his lips.

This, my friends, is what happens when we follow a Good Shepherd, and grow up into his likeness, caring for each other with the sacrificial love that gives and gives and never counts the cost. This is the Paschal mystery, my friends, the mystery of Easter, that it is in giving that we receive, that it is in pardoning that we find pardon, that it is in dying that, behold, we live. Alleluia, Christ is risen; the Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.

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Full Atonement Made

What it means to be at one with God and our neighbors...

Easter 2b 2015 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

In today’s reading from the First Letter of John, we hear not only of his eyewitness testimony but of the mysterious truth of the atonement: how Jesus Christ the righteous is not only our advocate before God, but is also the “atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not of ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” This concept of atonement is not easy to grasp, and I want to spend a few moments today reflecting on what John — and the church after him — are getting at when they use this term atonement.

First of all, it is a term with a great deal of Old Testament baggage, baggage that served the Jewish people well on all their journeys and in all their resting places even on and up to this present day. For it is the word used to describe one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the day on which in ancient Israel the priests made solemn sacrifice to cleanse themselves and the whole people of their sins.

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Secondly, some have packed their own ideas into this already heavy baggage, by giving to the word “atone” a sense of feeling sorry for something you’ve done. But feeling sorry for something you’ve done wrong is really not at the heart of atonement: the heart of atonement lies in making reparations for the wrong that has been done. It’s not enough to feel sorry, or even offer a heartfelt apology; it is not enough to make a tearful confession of a crime — there are reparations to be made, and maybe a fine and court costs to be paid.

The surprising thing — and this goes back to the Day of Atonement — is that this restitution or reparation does not need to be made by the guilty party. On the Day of Atonement in ancient Israel it wasn’t the people who suffered punishment for their sins and failings — it was a bull and a goat who paid the price of sin. They were sacrificed, and their blood was the price, along with another goat on whose head the high priest would place the iniquities of the people — the scapegoat — that would be sent off into the wilderness to only God knows where. This is the bloody image that John develops in his Epistle: that, as he says, “the blood of Jesus… cleanses us from all sins.” Jesus is the “atoning sacrifice” that makes full reparation and reconciliation between humankind and God — for only Jesus Christ, truly human and truly divine, completely free of any sin himself but taking on himself the sin of the whole world, only Jesus Christ could serve as both our advocate before God, and as the atoning sacrifice who reconciles humanity with God.

Reconciliation is at the heart of what atonement means, this in a literal sense: for the word “atone” was created from the two words “at” and “one” — and it used in fact to be pronounce “at-one” instead of “a-tone.” The sacrifice of Yom Kippur “at-oned” the people of Israel with God, restoring what was broken in their relationship, re-joining the two so that they were “at one.”

The problem with this at-oning sacrifice of Yom Kippur was that it was temporary. It reconciled and “at-oned” the people with God only for one year at a time, so the sacrifice was part of the annual round of Temple worship. Every year the Day of Atonement would come around, and the goat and the bull would be sacrificed, and the other goat sent out with the sins on its head into the wilderness. Think of all of those hundreds of bulls and goats, slaughtered or set off into the wilderness as substitutes for the sins of the people, year after year, enough beef to fill a slaughterhouse and goat, Mon, to provide for a curry to end all curries! No shortage of curry there! Yet each and every year the people would accumulate their sins, only to bring them back to the Temple each Day of Atonement.

The sacrifice of Christ is different; it is, as Saint Paul was fond of saying, “once and for all.” We use that phrase casually and so lose how dramatic it is: once — that is, once Christ was crucified, once died and then once on Easter raised triumphant over death; and “for all” — for everyone who, as I reminded us in Lent, would look upon him and put their trust in him. Unlike the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, going through that ritual year after year and only for himself and the people of Israel, Jesus “at-ones” God with all of humanity over that three-day weekend from the cross to the resurrection — once and for all. It is through Jesus — one person, one death, one sacrifice — that, as the hymn puts it, “reconciled are we with God” and that “we” includes all of humanity — as John would say, “the whole world” — made one in him, by him and through him.

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We see the results of this kind of unity, this at-one-ment, in that short passage from the Acts of the Apostles. It describes the behavior of the whole group of believers, who are reported to be “of one heart and soul.” They are “at-one” with God and with each other. And just as atonement for sin isn’t just about feeling sorry (though it includes it), so too this way of life in the newborn church wasn’t just about feeling friendly towards each other (though it included that as well). These disciples took action, and literally put their money where their mouth was. I reminded us in Lent of the truth of the teaching, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Well, we see that principle in action in this short reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

This first community of Christ, this first incarnation of “the church” is of one mind and soul and heart; no one claims private ownership of any possessions, but the community holds everything in common. They have put their money where their mouth is — and there is not a needy person among them, because those with wealth and property liquidate their assets to spread them around for all to benefit. They show that what they truly treasure is each other: that is where their treasure is — in each other. And because of that, you know where their heart is, too: united one to the other and each to all, in a community of faith the like of which is rarely seen on this good, green earth of ours.

And that is the challenge before us, my friends: the challenge of the At-one-ment; to become as filled with love for each other, at-one with each other and with God, that we support each other in good times and in bad, to such an extent that anyone seeing us would be amazed, and say to himself, “Those people at Saint James Fordham must really love God and their neighbors.”

May we so live our commitment, so embrace the at-one-ment purchased for us by Christ our Savior on the cross by his precious blood, so show forth in our lives what we profess with our lips, that our light will shine, as a beacon of hope, to bring others out from the perilous waters of this world, into the safe harbor of Christ’s holy family, the church of God, of which this little building is but one of the many ports. +

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The Signpost Up Ahead

You don't have to go to any Twilight Zone to find a world where things are not the way they should be...

Lent 5b 2015 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Now is the judgment of this world, now is the ruler of this world to be driven out; and I, when I am lifted from the earth, will draw all people to myself.+

There is a 1960s TV show that has remained in reruns ever since. It’s not I Love Lucy, though I’m sure you would instantly recognize it from the music of the opening credits just as easily. Perhaps you know the opening text that the host recites as well as the music. “There is a land between mystery and imagination...” Do you remember? It ends, “There’s the signpost up ahead...” as the title comes shimmering into view, “The Twilight Zone.”

Strange things happen in the Twilight Zone; things in the Twilight Zone are not as they should be. But what I want to say to you today is that right here in this world things are not as they should be, either.

Things are not as they should be when people with mental illness wander the streets because hospitals have been shut down, and the small apartments they could afford to live in have been converted into condos for the one percent. Things are not as they should be where people have to live in cardboard boxes over sidewalk grates to get warm. Things are not as they should be where children go without food — not just in famine-stricken deserts or countries in the midst of war — but right here in this city, one of the wealthiest in the world. Things are not as they should be where the government cuts support for food for the poor because some think they might make a habit of eating. Things are not as they should be where corporations are treated like people, and people like commodities; where politicians of both parties sell their favors to the highest bidder, and are more interested in the next election than in doing the job they were elected for in the first place. Things are not as they should be where people are killed by those who are meant to protect their lives. Things are not as they should be where people are beheaded and burned alive, and raped and murdered and all in the name of religion.

No, my brothers and sisters, things are not as they should be right here amongst the swift and varied chances of this world of ours. You don’t have to go to any Twilight Zone to find a world where things are not as they should be. Things are not as they should be right here and now, and many of us are looking for a signpost up ahead to lead us to a better place.

Sometimes people will look backwards, back to that they like to think of as the “good old days.” But when we look to the past with a careful eye, we will find there’s nothing new in any of the problems we suffer today. Homelessness, hunger, violence, crime and crooked politicians, have been a part of human life almost from the beginning. This world of ours never has been what it should be — except maybe during that first afternoon, in those few precious hours in before Adam and Eve decided on an apple for dinner. Ever since God strolled by in the cool of that first human evening, and asked a terrible question, “Where are you?” — ever since, humanity has been a stranger in a strange land, where things are no longer as they should be. So there is nothing new in homelessness: Adam and Eve were the first homeless to walk the earth, when God kicked them out of Eden.

There is nothing new in hunger. When God led the people out of Egypt’s land, and through the Red Sea, were they grateful? No, they grumbled about the pickles they’d left behind, the delicacies of the Egyptian fleshpots. They complained, when God gave them bread from heaven, they grumbled and asked him, “Where’s the beef?” And so instead of leading them into a promised land, God kept that generation of ungrateful people marching in circles for forty years, until all the grumblers were dead.

There is nothing new in political deceit. Prophets tried and tried again through the history of those naughty sisters Israel and Judah, tried to warn the idolatrous rulers of the error of their ways. But did they listen? One or two, maybe, but the rest just tried to shut the prophets up — burning Jeremiah’s scroll and even tossing him down a well. There is nothing new in political corruption and cover ups — why, one ancient politician just tried to wash his hands of the whole sorry business; and you can find a picture from the photo op right over there in the First Station of the Cross: Pilate washing his hands: “It’s not about me!”

And, Lord knows, there is nothing new in violence. Jesus himself came into the world amidst violence and he left it amidst violence. After his birth, the boys of Bethlehem were massacred, as Herod tried to wipe out the rival child king, in one of the great crimes against humanity. And some thirty years later, we need look no further than to the cross itself to see the horror of human violence done upon another human being.

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But do that: look a week and a half ahead for a moment; look to Good Friday in your mind’s eye, look to the cross where the Savior hangs dying. Could it be that this is — after all — the signpost we’ve been looking for? I mentioned last week that the byway sign on the highway of our Lenten journey — on our “lighten up” Sunday in mid-Lent — pointed us towards Good Friday. The sign at the middle is the same as the sign at the end. The Good Friday cross stands as it has ever has, since that gloomy afternoon of pain and sorrow. Could it be that this is the signpost up ahead that shows us the way to the world where things are the way they should be? Could it be that this is the signpost up ahead that shows us the One who takes this world that God made, this world that started well but fell, and by the power of God begins to make it right? Could that be it?

It is at the heart of our faith to affirm, Yes, it is! The cross is the signpost where the world turns around and the new creation begins, as the world begins to become what it is meant to be. This is no easy transformation. It took the sacrifice of Christ once offered for the sake of the whole world. For that world to be set right, for that world to turn the corner and become what it should have been all along, the world itself would have to perish. Just as a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies and is reborn in the fruit it bears, so this earth would have to suffer judgment. We are still living in the last days of that judgment, the birth pangs of the new world as the old world dies and is reborn. And let me tell you, it doesn’t want to die; it’s a hard death before rebirth comes — as hard as the death of the cross. Jesus told us, “Now is the judgment of this world, now the ruler of this world will be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

He, the homeless one with no place to lay his head, is the signpost up ahead that points the way from homelessness. He leads us to an eternal home with many mansions; but he also teaches us to open our doors to welcome the stranger and the refugee. He challenges us to work and pray and give so that all of God’s children may have decent homes in which to live, in God’s world where things are the way they should be.

Jesus, who fasted in the wilderness, who thirsted on the cross, is the signpost up ahead that leads away from hunger. Not only does he give us his Body and Blood, as spiritual food and drink, but he gives us every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God to nourish us as can no earthly food. And he challenges us to share our abundance — for abundant it is even when we think it isn’t, even when all we’ve got is five loaves and two fish — he challenges us to share our rations with those who have less, or nothing at all, so that all may be filled, in God’s world where things are the way they should be.

Jesus, whom the rulers of this world connived to defeat, to find guilty before a crooked court, this Jesus is the signpost up ahead that points the way to justice. He engraves the new covenant on our hearts, the new covenant that asks that we do justice, love righteousness, and walk humbly with our God, following in the way of the cross into God’s world where things are the way they should be.

Jesus, the one born amidst violence and dying amidst violence — he is the signpost up ahead that transforms violence into peace, by taking the very instrument of violence, the cross, and fooling everyone — including our ancient enemy Satan — as he turns that instrument of death into the instrument of peace and life. This was the reason he came to us, this was the hour for which he was born, this was the judgment of the world, the casting out and the casting down of the ruler of this world; this was the hour when Jesus was glorified, lifted up, to draw the whole world to himself, so that it might become at last God’s world of peace where things are the way they should be.

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Good Friday is just a little over a week away. Keep your eyes on the old rugged cross. It is the signpost that leads the way to life everlasting in the kingdom of God, but also to more abundant life here and now, as each of us disciples of Christ takes up our own cross, day by day, to share what seems to be small and weak and little, but which the grace of God can magnify. Keep your eyes on that cross in the midst of homelessness and hunger and injustice and violence — but also, put our hands to work, right here, right now, to help to make it right. Keep your eyes on that cross and God will give you strength to endure and to do your part in turning those wrongs around, to do your part in the redemption of this world. Keep your eyes on that cross, the instrument of death that is become for us the means of life; keep your eyes on the signpost up ahead, glad to suffer shame and loss, if shamed we must be, but willing to lose all for the one thing of worth: the inestimable love of God; revealed to us in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Lift High the Cross

The cross he bore is life and health -- to us -- though shame and death to him.

Lent 4b 2015 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Today we reach the midpoint of our Lenten journey. It marks a turning point and a resting place. I’m sure we’ve all seen the signs on the turnpikes or superhighways alerting us to the service area coming up, or those spots that are set aside for the long-distance truckers to pull off the road when they find themselves getting drowsy. We are also familiar with the sign announcing a scenic view — a spot off the road set aside for people to pull over and appreciate the countryside, the lake, or the mountain view. All of these special spots are indicated by a sign of some kind.

One of the signs that marks this Sunday as special is the color code — we switch from purple to rose for this Fourth Sunday in Lent. We might think of it as the color of a rosy sunset, before we plunge into the deeper evening darkness of the last half of the Lenten season leading up to the terrible events we commemorate on Good Friday, when the sky grows dark and the Son of God breathes his last.

But what points us towards Good Friday is the very sign we are reminded of today: and that is the cross itself. Jesus tells the crowds that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so too the Son of Man will be lifted up. To fill in the background we are treated today to the passage from the Book of Numbers. This passage that gives us the backstory about this serpent that Moses lifts up. The wandering Israelites become inpatient, and complain about the quality of the food that God has provided (notice how foolishly ungrateful and inconsistent they are when they say there is no food — and we hate this food!). God punishes them by sending poisonous serpents to bite them, and when Moses intercedes, God instructs him to make a bronze replica of a poisonous serpent and set it on a pole. And when anyone who has been bitten by one of the real serpents looks at this bronze replica they will be healed and live.

Jesus applies this incident to himself — he promises that the Son of Man will be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him will be saved and have eternal life. He is referring, of course, to the cross upon which he will offer the supreme sacrifice of himself for the sake of the whole world. Why? Because, as probably the most quoted verse of Scripture puts it, “because God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.” This is what Jesus came for, this is what Jesus was born for, and this is why he will die — not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. The world has rejected God’s gifts and been stung by the poisonous serpent of ingratitude, and it is only by looking upon the Son of God, given for us as the greatest gift, that we can be healed. And the sign that marks this gift, this saving gift for the good of the whole world, is the cross.

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Sometimes a sign indicates ownership or possession. Along many a country road you will see signs on the trees saying, “no trespassing.” And you might well wonder, what are they so worried about out here in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the sign of ownership or possession is symbolic and consists in planting a flag — why, there’s even a flag up on the moon; and I can guarantee you there will probably be no more trespassers there than there are in most of those remote country woods.

The sign of the cross fulfills a similar function — especially when we use it in baptism. Every time I baptize a child, I also mark their forehead with holy oil, making the sign of the cross and saying, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” I like to think that when I make that same sign of the cross on people’s foreheads on Ash Wednesday that I am dusting for God’s fingerprint — the cross is already there and those ashes only make it show up so that it can be seen: truly a sign that tells you something about the one who bears it. It tells us who we belong to — the one who bought us with his own precious blood; the one who gave us life by his death, who healed us by his wounds.

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As the old hymn says, “The cross he bore is life and health” — to us — “though shame and death to him.” We were worse than just snake-bitten — and I can tell you from personal experience, a lot worse than cat-bitten! — we were, as Paul told the Ephesians, dead through our trespasses. We had not just pouted and frowned and complained about the food. We were Gentile sinners — by nature children of wrath, as Saint Paul puts it. We were not just occasional lawbreakers but renegades and outlaws, without any hope of salvation or even all that much interest in it.

Yet God, “who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” And this is all by grace, all by a free gift from God to us; not because of anything we did or anything we deserved, but just because God loved us, so loved us that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. And God set up the sign for all who choose to turn towards it to see and behold — — that Good Friday two millennia ago when the Son of Man was lifted from the earth, so that any and all people could behold him in his sorrow and his glory.

Signs do many things. I’m old enough to remember the signs for the fallout shelters when everyone was worried an atomic war might break out any day. There are signs that tell you to stop and there are signs that tell you to yield. There are signs that tell you where to get a good deal on a used car, and there are signs that warn you not to drink the water in the pond because it is deadly poison. A sign can save your life.

The cross is such a sign. It is a shelter from the stormy blast, whether that blast is an atomic bomb or a frigid wind. It is a sign that tells you to stop — to stop your foolishness and look and listen and see and hear that the train is bearing down on you and will wreck you if you don’t get off the tracks. It is a sign that tells you to yield to the one to whom all obedience is due. It is a sign that points you to the best deal you will ever get in your life — salvation for free, without a price to be paid by you because someone else has paid it for you, with his own shame and death.

It is the cross, upon which the Son of Man was lifted up. May we who bear his name as Christians never fear to bear that cross, and trust in it, as the emblem and sign of our redemption and salvation. Lift high the Cross, my friends, lift it high, every day of your life, every way that you can — for in doing so you may call others to this banner, where they too may find shelter, peace, and life.+

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A Fair Exchange

God gives it all and wants it all back.

SJF • Lent 2b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
What will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?+

God often goes to extremes to make a point. But when we read the Bible or hear a Scripture passage in church on Sunday morning, we often miss just how extreme God is, because we know the end of the story. We know that after Christ is betrayed, tried, tortured and crucified — that he will be raised from the dead. We know the happy ending, so we don’t experience this whole story as quite so suspenseful.

In order to get the full impact of the Scripture, put yourself for a moment in the shoes of the Big Fisherman, Peter, so put off by the whole idea, when Jesus says he is going to Jerusalem and will suffer and die there that Peter doesn’t even hear the part about being raised. He is not afraid to rebuke his own Lord; he isn’t about to let him put himself in danger, no siree!

This Gospel carries an almost unbearable message. Not only does Jesus prophesy his own death, but he says that any who choose to follow him must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him. Does the misery of Jesus so crave company that he wants the disciples to be crucified too? Does he want us to be crucified?

The answer, of course, is No. What Jesus is doing to the disciples, and to us, is daring them and us to risk what we love most — those “dearest idols” we sang about in the hymn. Jesus challenges them — and us — to weigh our most precious possessions

against our hope and faith in God. Jesus is defying us to put our money where their mouth is.

We are not quite so dramatically challenged as the disciples were, at least not usually. But there are still places in the world where being a Christian can bring you into serious danger and even death. All you have to do is listen to the news reports of churches burned with worshipers inside, of Christians being beheaded, children kidnapped and murdered. Extremists acting in the name of Islam, from Isis to Boko Haram, will maim, torture and kill anyone who stands up for Jesus against their ferocious and intolerant zeal.

For most of us, in what we like to think of as a more civilized country, we do not usually face attacks for being Christian. But I’m sure the people in London and Paris thought the same, when they were attacked and killed on the streets of their own cities. Most of us, we hope, in our everyday lives will not face such lethal threats or assaults.

But we will find challenges in having to choose between what we know in our hearts God wants for us, and what we feel in our bones we’ve just got to have for ourselves. Maybe it’s the new car; or the new PlayStation or XBox, or that shiny new Blu-Ray player.

Or maybe it’s something less physical? We know God wants us to be faithful in our relationships; to treat others as we know we would ourselves be treated — but then there are those temptations to cheat; and the wandering eye can lead you astray. We know God wants us to be loving parents; but then sometimes the kids are such a chore, such a pain in the you know what — it’s easier to send them out to spend time on their own, to send them out into the streets rather than to spend time with them. We know God wants us to be honest; but it’s so tempting to pad the expense account, or fail to report that little under-the-table cash that comes in on form 1040 that comes around this time of year.

What does God ask of us? Our deaths? No. Not really; does he? No, I think God asks for something simpler, and maybe, like many simple things, harder in the long run. God does not ask for our deaths, but our lives. God asks us for our love — love for him and for each other. It seems simple; but like many simple things it’s hard, really hard. Because we all experience the forces pulling us the other way: possessions, relationships, and the four P’s: position, power, prominence and pride.

Saint Paul knew all about it. He knew from personal experience how these things work in our lives, pulling us away from God. Remember how he said, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do...” Paul knew how hard it was; he knew the downside; he knew the temptation, he knew about the powerlessness in the face of temptation: the wretchedness of knowing what is right but not being able to do it. But Paul also knew the upside! He knew that even if he couldn’t fight it on his own, God could. God could empty him of his sin, and fill him right back up to the brim with grace.

Paul knew that God could raise him up, even if it was God knocked him down in the first place. (Sometimes God puts those he loves through the wringer. Who did he love more than his Son?) And yet Paul laid it out in black and white: Jesus “was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.” “Handed over to death” — not just the cross, which is bad enough — but death upon it: that slow, painful death of hanging, nailed to a tree, for a tired, painful afternoon. Think of that: to die that way, hanging there, bleeding to death and suffocating — not an easy death. And God didn’t do any kind of last minute rescue on Jesus, as had happened with Isaac, when God stopped Abraham’s hand and let him spare Isaac’s life. He was the one promised in God’s covenant, the promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations, and Sarah would be the mother. Now, as you know, the only child this aged couple had was Isaac — yet God challenged Abraham to give up that child of the promise, testing his faithfulness, offering him up to death; testing him, but then rescuing Isaac at the last minute, and stopping Abraham’s hand — and that proved how faithful Abraham was: because he was willing to risk the promise.

But there was no rescue for Jesus, for God’s own Son. There was no army of angels to fly in and knock down the Romans, there was no one to deliver him from the cross. Instead there was that painful death, then after the death prying at the nails — think about that: pulling nails out of someone’s flesh to take him down from the cross, the clumsy lowering down to the ground, and the waiting, weeping mother raising a cry to split the heavens.

And yet, Paul assures us that even if this is how God treated his own son for our sake will he not do more for us, now that the cost has been paid? Yes, Jesus died. But Paul also assures us that he was raised from the dead — why? For us; for our justification. And with Jesus on our side, the risen Jesus who lives for ever, with him on our side who — or what— can keep us from God? That is Paul’s good news, that is his Gospel.

Yes, we suffer temptations; yes, we have desires we can’t control; yes, we fall and we fail. But the grace of God can restore us, can lift us back up again, can raise us up, even as he raised up Christ — “who was handed over to death for our trespasses and yet was raised for our justification.” God took an old man and woman, childless and comfortless, and made of them a multitude of nations, the parents of kings of peoples. God took the lifeless body of his own Son and worked upon it in the silence of the tomb, bringing life from the dead. And so too God will work on us, dead in our sins, or dead in the grave. Gaining the whole world will profit us nothing if we lose eternal life. But if we risk our lives — our lives in the here and now, and lose them for the sake of the gospel, not ashamed to name Jesus as Lord and savior, he will indeed save us, and raise us up on the last day. Nothing can stop the power of God at work in Christ, and in us, through him.

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Though we will never likely face death for our Lord, we will undergo those prosaic trials, those day-to-day temptations, but even — especially in them because that is what is before us — we can call upon the same faith and hope that raised the hearts of Abraham and Paul. That faith included several basic truths of which we sometimes lose sight.

First, everything we are, everything we have comes from God. When God asks for something back, he is only asking us to return something we have received from him. We say “All things come of thee, O God, and of thine own have we given thee” perhaps so often we forget how true it is! All things come from God and it is out of that we give back. And what a radical statement it is! Everything belongs to God! You, the clothes you are wearing now, your car, your Blu-Ray, even your Xbox, your shoes! Everything belongs to God.

Second, God doesn’t ask for everything back right now. He lets you keep the car, he lets you keep the XBox, keep the Blu-Ray. You can keep your shoes on. God doesn’t take it all back — until we die, and as the saying goes, you can’t take it with you. But in the meantime God accepts the part that we offer, even though God could ask for it all right now. Right now, the earth could open up and swallow this church and we’d all be dead and buried. That hasn’t happened in 150-some years; let’s hope it doesn’t happen in another 150! God could do that, right now. But God doesn’t. Instead God asks us to offer something, some part of what we have been given. What God wants is for our hearts to be free so that if we were asked to give everything we would be willing to give it; so that at the end, when in fact it all will fall away and we pass into death, we will be ready to let it all go — returning everything to God, including our selves, our souls and bodies as a reasonable and holy sacrifice given completely to him. What a wonderful feeling that will be, if we’ve learned in the meantime how to let go. This is like training wheels, my friends: learning to let go of part of things as we live, so that at the end, when we die, we will be ready to let go of all of it.

Remember those words from the hymn we sang at the Gospel: “The dearest idol I have known, whate’er that idol be: help me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee.” When we put something else on God’s throne, we have lost sight of God. When we treasure anything more than God, well: he told us where you treasure is, there your heart will be also. And so God asks us for something back, some part of our treasure, just to show that we can let go, and give up, for him — for him, the one who gave us everything.

That is how God lets us see where our hearts are. For if we treasure anything more than God, the pain when we let go of it will let us know. Just as pain is the body’s way of letting us know something is wrong, so too that pinch, that regret when we let go of what we offer lets us know our heart-strings are still tied to it and we haven’t yet learned how to “let go and let God.” God wants us to be free, my friends, free from everything, even everything that he gave us, including our lives. And if we can learn to give up those somethings in the here and now, we will be ready to give up everything when the time comes for us to do so, at the end of our lives.

Everything belongs to God; and God wants it all, but in the mean time we honor God with what we give, when we offer the portion of our gift here at the altar, giving thanks to Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom we know, one day, we shall have to render a full account.+

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Trust and Obey

Obedience is built on the foundation of trust....

Proper 8a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”

Was ever such a commandment so harsh and cruel been given? Was ever a commandment so harsh and cruel ever heard? Was ever a commandment so harsh and cruel ever obeyed?

These are the questions that form in my mind as I hear the truly frightening commandment of God to Abraham in this morning’s continuation of our reading from the book of Genesis. You will recall that just last week Abraham had received another cruel command — the one from his wife Sarah. She had told Abraham to send the woman Hagar and the son she had borne to him out into the wilderness, there to die but for the intervention of God who revealed the well of water in the desert to revive the woman and her child. God had comforted Abraham before he sent Hagar and Ishmael out to the wilderness, promising him that they would survive, and that while the boy would become a great nation, it was to be through Isaac that Abraham would be reckoned as the father of many.

And now, out of the blue, God orders Abraham to that very son Isaac, the very son through whom, just last week, he promised that Abraham’s descendants would be numbered — to take his son Isaac out into the wilderness and to offer him as a sacrifice on the mountain that God would show. So my questions: Was ever such a cruel and harsh commandment ever given, ever heard, or ever obeyed?

For Abraham is ready to obey. He doesn’t argue with God the way he argued with him about the people of the city of Sodom, for whom he showed concern and care when God told him that the whole population of that wicked city would be destroyed. Abraham complained that God should not kill the innocent along with the guilty; and God finally agreed that if Abraham could find just ten innocent people in that wicked city God would spare it.

Yet when God gives this horrifying and cruel command, that Abraham is to kill his own innocent son, Abraham doesn’t blink an eye. He gets up early the next morning, saddles his donkey and takes his son along with two servants — and the firewood, the knife, and the fire! And then throughout the scene that follows, through the questions of his young son, even through to the raising of the knife, Abraham does not hesitate or falter. It is only the angel of the Lord calling to him out of heaven that stops him, and then he finds the ram caught in the thicket to offer in sacrifice instead of his son.

So let us look again at those questions. Was ever such a harsh command ever given? Well, I think we’ve already answered that one if we look at last week’s reading from Genesis. Sarah told Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. This was a harsh command in and of itself, especially considering that it was Sarah who had given Hagar to Abraham to start with, for the very purpose of bearing him this son. So, to look to the second question, how did Abraham receive this hard command about Hagar and Ishmael? He wasn’t happy. The Scripture records that “the matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son.” Sending that woman and small child out into the desert, even with a water bag, is a horrible thing to do. Before God reassured him, Abraham would know there was every chance that they would not survive, they would die of thirst — as indeed they would have had it not been for God’s promise that the boy would survive, and the provision of water in the desert.

And that final detail offers us the beginnings of an answer to the last question, Was ever such a harsh commandment obeyed? Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert because he trusts God to keep the promise that God has made to him — for God had told him that the boy would survive and I will make of him a great nation, too. And so it is as well with the commandment God gives Abraham in this morning’s passage. Because God had promised Abraham — just last week — that his posterity would be numbered through Isaac — God had promised that this son would live and grow to manhood and marry and have children — and that those children would have children, until the descendants of Abraham — through Isaac — would be more numerous than the sand on the seashore or the stars of the heavens. Abraham obeys the commandment of God because he trusts the promise of God. Trust comes first, then obedience; or perhaps it would be better to say that obedience is built on the foundation of trust. Abraham knows that God is faithful, that God keeps the promises that God has made — and in this case, although he doesn’t have the foggiest idea how God is going to do it, he knows that God will do something to allow his son Isaac to survive and grow up and marry and have children whose children shall be numbered as his — Abraham’s — offspring.

Abraham is so sure of this, that notice two things: First, he tells the servants who accompany him to the mountain where God has told him to sacrifice Isaac, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” “And then we will come back to you” — not “I will come back to you” but “we will come back to you.” Second, when the boy Isaac asks where the sacrificial offering is, Abraham responds, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering.” “God himself will provide.” Abraham’s trust is so great that even when they come to the place of sacrifice, even when he reaches out his hand for the knife, he trusts that God will provide — and God does provide.

Abraham trusts God, and that is the basis of his righteousness and his obedience — not his own strength or his own virtue, but his belief, his trust, in the nature of God — who is supremely trustworthy and keeps every promise God has made. After all, Abraham has seen God’s righteousness at work — God offered to spare the wicked city of Sodom if Abraham could find two handfuls of righteous people. God kept the promise that Abraham and Sarah would have a child in their old age — remember, they were in their 90s — but they did. God kept the promise, and she bore him that son, Isaac. Abraham knows that God will not make promises and then take them back. He trusts, and then he obeys.

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And so ought we to do, and for the same reason. We have experienced the blessings of God in our lives; we have heard the voice of God speaking in our hearts and guiding us on the right way; and though we have known times when the command of God was hard, we have also known that the mercy of God is great. More than that, there are many of us here I’m sure, like those Romans to whom Paul the apostle wrote, can look back on parts of our lives when we were not obedient to God but were obedient to the demands of our own lower nature. There were times when instead of raising our eyes to the hills we allowed ourselves to wander through the valley of the shadow of death. Yet even then, and even there, God was with us like a good Shepherd leading us up out of that valley into the light upon the heights.

Somehow even in the depths and darkness a small spark of hope and faith and trust was kindled, and the grace of God helped grow that little spark into a flame, and by its light God led us out. That spark of trust allowed us to realign our obedience from slavery to sin towards service to God — whose service is perfect freedom.

So let us join our voices with that of Abraham, in the sure and certain hope and trust in our Lord, the God of the promise made and the promise kept, the God whom we obey because we know that the Lord has provided, that the Lord provides, and that on the mount of the Lord, the Lord shall provide.+

Light and Peace

Light comes first, then peace...

SJF • Presentation 2013 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all the world to see; a light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.+

Today we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, also known as the Purification, and in the old days Candlemas. It gained that last name because it was the day on which the priest blessed all of the candles that would be used in the church through the rest of the year.

But what about “Purification”? That name is related to an ancient custom — but one that is still with us, though in an altered form. Luke’s Gospel alludes to the ancient law, though he doesn’t go into the details.

I should say, “laws,” because two important Old Testament laws are involved here, involving the mother and the child. First, the purification of the mother: Under the Law of Moses, after giving birth a woman is considered ritually unclean for 40 days if she bears a boy, twice as long if it’s a girl. Now, as I reminded us on the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, ritual “uncleanness” is not about sin, it’s about purity, and has its roots in early efforts at public health. In this case, it is quite logical that a mother should have a period of time to recover from the stress of childbirth, and to bond with her child.

Those of you with long memories will recall that this custom, in terms of the church, is still with us, though it has changed in terminology — much as the name of the feast day itself. Do any of you remember the service called “The Churching of Women” also called “The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth” in the old Prayer Book? That’s what it was called up until 1979, when the church decided to let the fathers join the mothers to give thanks as well, and to give thanks for adoption as well as birth, so they changed the name of the service to “Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child.” It’s in the Book of Common Prayer, page 439. So in today’s Gospel, we read of a tradition with ancient roots going back to the time of the desert wandering, but one whose branches reach right into our church this morning.

But note that the text says, “their purification,” and the law that Luke quotes is not the law from Leviticus about women and childbirth, and how long they have to wait before they are allowed to come to the Temple. Instead this is the law from Exodus about what is to happen regarding each firstborn male child. According to Exodus every such child belongs to God, and is to be redeemed by his parents in order to live. A boy who asks his father why this should be is, according to the Law of Moses, to be told, “The Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn males of the land of Egypt, human and animal. And so I sacrifice to the Lord every firstborn male animal, breaking its neck, but my firstborn son I redeem.” Does that answer your question!? Talk about a Biblical head-trip for a firstborn son! And being a firstborn son I take this very seriously!

My point in spelling all this out is that there is a huge amount of “back-story” in this quiet little incident that Luke records for us. There are literally more than a thousand years leading up to this moment, even before Simeon and Anna open their mouths to raise the pitch on what would normally have been the simple duty of every Jewish family. This little ritual is deeply tied up with ancient traditions of blood, of sacrifice and redemption, of slavery and freedom, of life and death.

As to life — well, we are shown two very long lives responding to the arrival of this couple with their child. Simeon had waited a long time to see a promised light, a light commemorated on this day by the blessing of candles. He and the prophet Anna both had haunted the Temple for years, hoping and hoping as each child was brought in and presented, according to the laws, hoping... These were two long lives lived in hope, yet their hopes were raised and their hopes were dashed time and again, as they looked upon each child brought into the Temple, looking for a sign, but receiving no sign, and perhaps sadly shaking their heads and saying, “No; not this one.”

And yet still they hoped. For Simeon had received a promise, the promise that he would live to see the light of the Messiah with his own eyes. And Anna — well who knows what she knew, or what she had been promised; all we know is that she trusted and she witnessed to the light when it came.

As come it did. Think for a moment of the release that both of these elderly people felt upon the realization of this divine promise, this revelation of a divine light. Think of how you feel after a long deferred task has finally been accomplished. There is such poignancy in Simeon’s song, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace”; such a sense of relief, like the feeling you get after you’ve done a particularly strenuous job that needed doing, perhaps for a long, long time. I’m sure we’ve all felt the kind of tired relief that comes after finally getting around to cleaning out that attic, or ripping up the old linoleum, or painting a room that has been crying out for it for years. You step back after having completed such a job, deeply tired, but also deeply, deeply satisfied. The work is done, and now you can rest.

This is the kind of peace that Simeon felt, though magnified many times over, as what he was waiting for (the revelation of the light of God) is ever so much more important than even the most important attic, floor, or room. This is the peace of completion, of culmination and rest. It reflects the peace and rest of God at the end of the sixth day of creation: All is complete, all is very good; it is sabbath-time; it is time to rest.

Such sabbath peace and sabbath rest are the opposite of lazy peace or rest. That is the kind of rest you get by avoiding the work: just letting the mishmash of odds and ends stay in the attic or basement, and periodically adding something more to the top of the pile; or making do with the scratched linoleum or getting an area rug to throw down on top of it; or just ignoring the peeling paint and mildew. That kind of lazy rest, that kind of lazy peace, is not the peace that follows light and knowledge and hard work; it is a false peace, the false rest of denial and darkness. True peace, true rest, always follows the light.

It has always been that way — and I mean always! In the beginning, God did not rest first, and then create the light as an afterthought, as if it were a night-light to sit on the bedside table for the sabbath. No, the light came first; the very first thing that God made was light, empowering and revealing the rest of creation itself, to light the way to that sabbath rest after that first week of time, after those six days of work were done, and the sabbath came. Light came first, then peace.

So too it was in the great form of blessing that God committed to his priests: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you... and give you peace. First light, then peace.

And so too it was with Simeon and Anna. It was in beholding the light of the Messiah, shining through that small child in Mary’s arms, that they knew they finally could rest; peace had come because the light had shone — light, then peace.

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So it is and so it has always been. Yet how often do we and the world seek the peace instead of the light? How often in giving thanks for the birth of a child do we forget and turn away from the long history of struggle that led to that child’s birth, keeping it in the shadows instead of bringing it to light.

Beloved ones, we dare not seek for God’s peace in the darkness of ignorance, in the darkness of concealment, but only in the light of his truth, light that reveals the long history that brings each moment to our lives. We will never find God’s sabbath peace if we turn our back on God’s light. For the light of God shines to be the glory of God’s people, to be the light to enlighten the nations, a light shining back over a thousand years to the Passover, to the Red Sea, the costly deliverance of a people whom God redeemed at the cost of many a firstborn Egyptian son. This is the light that reveals the truth of Messiah, God’s chosen one, God’s son, his firstborn, the one whose coming — so long in coming — reveals our innermost thoughts, lighting us up, lighting up our fears, our hopes, our dreams, our dreads. He is the one who is set to reveal us, to be the fall and the rise of many.

He is the light of the world, and he is our peace, a costly light, a costly peace. The light he brings, brings peace because it lights up all that past history of woe — of the slavery of the people in Egypt, of the death of those Egyptian firstborn and of the slaughter at the Red Sea — the cost of deliverance was mighty, and God insisted that forever more that cost would be, as Shakespeare says, rememberèd.And so God casts that light even upon and through his own beloved Son — this firstborn redeemed in this little ritual as Mary and Joseph and Anna and Simeon stand by, the redeemer of the world, who is the one who brings salvation and peace, who as the only-begotten son of God will also give life — his own life — as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, washing us in his innocent blood.

Without God’s light we stumble in restless darkness, terrified of the unknown, while lulling ourselves with the false assurance of putting our heads under the covers to save ourselves from the monsters. But with God, and walking in the light of Christ, looking upon his face — whether the face of a month-and-a-week-old child in his mother’s arms, or the wounded face crowned with thorns and battered and bruised by human hatred, or the shining face of the Risen Christ on Easter morning — looking upon the face of the only-begotten Son of God, we behold God’s light, in whom we find our sabbath rest, our completion, our culmination, our peace. To him who is the light and peace of the world, be all honor and glory, henceforth and for evermore.+

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The Ethics of Jesus

A crash course in the history of ethics, and where Jesus fits into it all...

Proper 16c • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
If you refrain from trampling the sabbath... if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord.

The news reports daily inform us of unethical behavior by people who are supposed to be the pillars of society. We hear of judges taking bribes, police abusing or even murdering unarmed citizens, politicians engaged in “sexcapades,” and perhaps worst of all, coverups of clergy sexual misconduct. Sometimes we will hear of an attorney or a politician or a doctor called before a professional ethics board. So what are these “ethics” that people keep talking about — and violating.

Well, ethics is a system of morality — for deciding what is right or wrong. And it should come as no surprise that there are a number of different ethical systems, just as there are many different philosophies and religions. Some ethics are intertwined with specific religions or philosophies, but many of them have impact well beyond the faithful or the philosophers. I’d like to explore a few of these systems, in order better to understand where Jesus and his teaching on ethics fit into this big picture of morality: how do we know if something is good or evil.

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One ethical approach is to take a look at the results of an action, and to decide whether the action was good or bad based on the results, in particular in terms of utility or usefulness: is the result productive or destructive. This is likely the common-sense way that most people think about good and bad. The proof is in the pudding. Of course, it raises two questions: first, results are not always what we intend them to be. We might well be able to say that the results of an action are good or bad, but that will not really tell us whether the person who did those things intended them to be good or bad, and surely the morality must lie in the person. What if there was no intention at all? What about, for instance, an accident? This is precisely how the law courts distinguish between manslaughter and murder — the lethal result is the same, but we don’t judge manslaughter as seriously as we do murder, because the person who did the action didn’t intend it, and is judged less harshly.

The second question raised by a results-oriented ethic goes a bit deeper. How do you measure, apart from gut feelings, if the result of an action is good or evil? A number of philosophers, from Epicurus of ancient Greece on up through Jeremy Bentham of Georgian England, came up with a reasonable way to measure good and evil, based on the amount of happiness or pleasure. This forms part of the many a political or economic system: I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression, “the greatest good for the greatest number,” in terms of well-being or happiness. And any people find this notion easy to understand, and it is very popular. I think if you were to scratch the surface of most people’s thinking, you will find this underlying it: what is best for most is best. The downside, however, is the way in which it becomes too easy to trade off the happiness of the many for the sufferings of the few, or the one. It is a favorite puzzle of ethicists to ask such a question as, “If you could stop a train from going over a cliff and killing 100 people on board by pushing one man in front of the train to stop it, would it be moral to do so?” I know if you were to ask that question, you would see some hands go up, and say, yes! Others would say, no. This ultimately is the ethical question to which Caiaphas answered Yes, he explicitly chose the death of Christ because it was expedient that one should suffer instead of many. So in spite of its common-sense attractiveness this utility ethics falls a bit short of providing trustworthy guidance, and might lead you to do something very bad indeed.

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A number of the philosophers of the centuries before the birth of Christ made a similar judgment on using utility as a benchmark. Among the most important of them all was Aristotle, who in later years simply came to be referred to as “The Philosopher.” He was an exponent of what is called virtue ethics. In this system you incorporate the notion of happiness, of well-being, but combine it with the character of the person who is acting, cultivating personal virtue, and righteousness, and uprightness, and most important of all, moderation. as the best guide to doing good.

That too sounds logical, but in a way it is a kind of circular reasoning: good actions are what good people do, much as art is what artists do. But isn’t there bad art? And while it is true that a good tree brings forth good fruit — isn’t it the goodness of the fruit that tells us that the tree is good, and not the other way around? Moreover, relying on such a way of thinking, relying on ones own sense of virtue, that we are good in ourselves, can blind us to our failings. A recent study found that people who reported themselves as the most generous, and could prove it on the basis of what they gave to the church or to charity, were also the ones who were most likely to cheat on other matters; and it is also a sad truth that in spite of their zeal to “defend marriage,” the divorce rate is actually highest among Evangelicals. People who think of themselves as good in their own eyes seem to feel entitled to a “pass” to do the occasional bad thing; much as someone who has stuck to their diet feel they “owe it to themselves” to binge with a quart of ice cream — and so undo any good their diet might have done.

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Dissatisfaction with these forms of ethics led to yet another philosophical answer: the ethics of duty. This is the ethics of law. If you want to know what is right or wrong, look at the law-code and it will tell you — simple as that. This form of ethics is popular precisely because it appears to give clear guidance. It is the ethical form of the Law of Moses, which spells out what is good or bad in black and white, in words ultimately attributed to God’s own hand and voice at Mount Sinai, written on stone and spoken in a voice that terrified its hearers, so that they begged not another word be spoken.

The problem with this approach — as we see in the Gospel — lies in the fact that rules have to be applied to real life, and interpreted and understood. The words spoken by God on Mount Sinai had to be put into practice. Isaiah provides us with a reminder of one of the most important laws: keeping the sabbath holy. Most importantly, no work is to be done on the sabbath, so it became necessary to define — well — “what do you mean by work?” and then to apply those definitions to changing circumstances and technologies. For example, Exodus (35:3) specifies that kindling a fire is a form of work and not to be performed on the sabbath: no lighting of fires. With the advent of electricity — electric stoves and lights — this law came to be applied in modern settings, and observant Orthodox Jews will not turn on a light switch or a stove once the sabbath has begun. If you’ve ever visited an Orthodox Jewish hospital — like the other Mount Sinai right here in New York! — you will have encountered the phenomenon known as the “sabbath elevator” — an elevator that stops on every floor, and the doors open and close on every floor, so no one has to push any buttons, thereby “lighting a fire.”

This is one of the problems with duty ethics — rules provoke even more rules, and very clever ways around them. And although Jesus, as a Jew, respected the spirit of obedience and duty, he also had a bone to pick with those who were more caught up in the letter than the spirit of the law.

And so he advocated, as we see in the gospel passage today, an ethic based on love — and love not just as an emotion but as an action. We know that he taught — from the law — that you should love your neighbor as yourself. But in today’s passage he brings the point home — literally home — even more keenly by saying, essentially, “Forget the neighbor! You should treat this woman at least as well as you would treat your own livestock!” No wonder he is angry, and those who tried to send that poor, sick woman away are ashamed!

Jesus rejects any ethic based on selfishness, pleasure, expediency, usefulness, or a mere list of regulations. He would never think of throwing one person under a train in order to save others from going over a bridge; but he would — and he did — throw himself under the headlong rush of all of our sins, giving his own life so that we might not perish, but have everlasting life.

Ultimately any ethical system must stand the test that Jesus set in the Golden Rule: to do as you would be done by — not just not doing things to other people that you would not want done to yourself. But actively doing for others what you would want done for you. That is whey he said that there is no greater love than to give your life for the life of someone else — to throw yourself down on that hand grenade, killing yourself in the process, but saving all of those around you. There is no greater love than to give yourself for the sake of others, because that is what anyone would want done for them, isn’t it? Don’t we all want to be saved? And aren’t we glad that someone has saved us!

It is one thing to say, do not cheat, do not steal, do not covet; it is quite another, as Isaiah says, to remove the yoke of suffering from those who suffer, to offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted. If we do this, the light indeed will rise in the darkness, and the goodness of God will shine like the noonday, in the never-ending sabbath rest where all is good and all is peace, and all are freed from bondage.+

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Sheep's Clothing

What does it mean to be clothed in the vesture of the Lamb?

Easter 4c • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
One of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

I’m sure you are all familiar with the old phrase describing a villain or other mischief-maker who disguises himself so as to move freely among those whom he hopes to rob or injure: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So disguised, a wolf can move into the midst of a flock, and then attack and slaughter almost at his leisure. So much for a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

But what about a sheep in sheep’s clothing — that is, a sheep in its natural coat of wool, just being a sheep without any pretense of being anything other than a sheep? What does it mean just to be who you are, like one of those actors whose names appear at the end credits of a movie or TV show with the words, “And as himself...” What does it mean to be a sheep in sheep’s clothing?

Well, for one thing, it means to be easily identified as such; and not only easily, but honestly, with no pretense or fraud. Such was the manner in which Jesus came among us — as exactly who he was, as himself, with no pretense, not in disguise — as I noted a few weeks ago, not just as “God in human vesture,” but as an actual, real-live, flesh-and-blood human being — but also God with us, Emmanuel, the Word made Flesh, the Messiah appearing in Messiah’s clothing, exactly as the prophets had foretold, doing just as they said he would.

We behold him this morning in the gospel taking a stroll in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. And the leaders of the people gather around him, demanding that he no longer keep them in suspense but tell them plainly if he is the Messiah. Jesus responds with some exasperation, no doubt, that he isn’t hiding anything, that he has made himself manifest as the Son of God his Father, plainly in his manner and in his works, the Messiah in Messiah’s clothing. And what is more, he tells them that the reason they do not recognize or believe in him is that they are not his sheep. In one sense, he is saying, it takes one to know one. In short, one must be among the flock of his sheep to recognize the Lamb of God. Such are those who belong to the Shepherd who is himself a Lamb; who hear his voice, who know him as he knows them, and who follow him into eternal life from which no wolf or thief — however dressed or disguised — can snatch them.

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We catch two glimpses of some of these sheep in our other Scripture readings this morning. First, in the Acts of the Apostles, we meet Tabitha, also known as Dorcas, the seamstress of Joppa, who made tunics and clothing for the people of her community. This passage is particularly touching for me, as it was used as one of the readings at the funeral of our departed sister-in-Christ Monica Stewart, whose hand was put to work making vestments and paraments for the altar here at Saint James Church. Unlike Monica, who rests in peace and awaits the final resurrection, Tabitha experienced an early raising from the dead, when the apostle Peter called her by name, and the people of Joppa rejoiced and many came to believe in the Lord.

The second glimpse of the flock of Christ is more spectacular, a vision not of the here and now, but of the great there and then of the kingdom of God. And this is not just a single seamstress, or even a select group, but a great multitude that no one can number. It is an international assembly, standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb their Shepherd, robed in white. These are sheep in sheep’s clothing — for they are the ones who are clothed with his clothing, for they have shared with the Lamb in their sacrifice, dressed in robes washed in his blood.

For recall that in John’s vision the Lamb of God is no sweet fluffy stuffed animal. This is a Lamb that has the marks of slaughter upon him; for he is none other than the Christ, who died, and yes, who was raised, still bearing upon him the marks of his passion — the wounded hands and feet and side, and the steady brow marked with the wounds of the crown of thorns, and his back with the marks of the whip and the flail.

This sheep’s clothing is not pretty — as Isaiah had said of the suffering Messiah, he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; without any form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. Such is the appearance of the Lamb of God, the great Shepherd of the sheep — and his sheep are clothed as he is in robes they have washed in his blood, in the blood of the Lamb, the blood of their own martyrdom joined with his.

Saint Paul wrote to the Romans, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (6:5) It is as if to say, if you want to be a sheep of his pasture you need to be dressed as a sheep — and he will then know you and you will know him. Does this mean the blood of martyrdom? No indeed — although we know that the martyrs rejoice in the presence of God because they so perfectly join themselves to the sufferings of their Lord and Savior. But each of us at our baptism is also joined into the death of Christ our Lord — through water if not through blood. As the evangelist John also testified, it was water as well as blood that come from the spear-wound in our Savior’s side, and we are washed in that water, the water of baptism from that wound. It prefigures salvation through baptism into his name, into his death, so that we might rise with him.

Moreover, we have the example of people before us like Tabitha, known as Dorcas, the seamstress of Joppa — a hard-working woman who loved the church and served by making tunics and clothing; and was herself clothed with good works and acts of charity. Perhaps the only blood she shed for the church was when she pricked her finger as she was sewing vestments. And yet she is among the blessèd, even given a foretaste of the resurrection by being called back to life by the apostle Peter. It is not that her good works earn her salvation, but that they reveal she has been saved — she is clothed with the works that show her as she truly is, a sheep of Christ’s flock — wearing not a disguise, but a uniform.

So too may we be clothed with works of generosity and charity, the uniform of the sheep of God’s pasture; let us do God’s will with busy hands and loving hearts. As Jesus was known by the works he did in his Father’s name — works that testified to him being who he was — so too may we be clothed in grace and in the works of generosity, so to be recognized by our Lord as sheep of his flock. By our baptism into his Name, attested by our ministry and work to his honor and glory alone, by our being clothed upon with grace that comes from him, the Lamb of God, who alone makes us worthy to be sheep of his flock; to him be glory for ever and ever. Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.

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Accept or Reject?

Do we accept all that God offers, even when we cannot see how it will be to our good?

Lent 2c • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

All of our Scripture readings today give us powerful examples of acceptance and rejection — and the consequences of those actions. And as the lessons show, those consequences can affect not only the individual but generations to come.

We are presented first with Abram, and God’s promise of a reward. Abram is by no means ungrateful, but he is clearly not content: whatever God gives him will end with him — for he has no heir or descendant. The reward stops with him. And so God makes a promise to go along with the reward — God promises that Abram’s descendants will be more numerous than the stars. Abram believes, but then also seems to step back for a second time and ask God how it is he can be sure of this promise. And there follows a dreamlike passage in which Abram sacrifices a number of animals at God’s instruction and then enters into a deep and terrifying darkness in which he has a vision of smoke and fire passing through the midst of the divided portions of the bloody sacrifice, and a final promise from God: “to your descendants I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates.”

This is a story of multiple acceptances and very little rejection. Abram understandably can hardly believe the blessings that God is ready to pour out on him and his descendants. He’s a bit like one of those folks on The Antiques Road Show who when told their old jug is worth $25,000, say, “No!” But God accepts Abram, and his sacrifice — and Abram responds by accepting God’s promise in that vision of the night, of smoke and blood and flame.

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The reading from Philippians takes a sharp turn towards rejection, however. Paul is lamenting some who have rejected the cross, and even made themselves enemiesof Christ’s cross and salvation. These are people who have made a choice — they have rejected Christ crucified and have chosen earthly things: starting with their own bellies. These are perhaps some of the Greeks for whom the cross, with all its shame, is foolishness, as Paul would say to another Gentile congregation in Corinth. So they reject the way of the cross — reject following in the footsteps of Jesus and taking part in the sufferings that come with such faithfulness, and seek instead a life of comfort and personal satisfaction. Paul contrasts those who reject the way of Christ with himself and those believers who have accepted Christ, who have put their trust in him, even though they might at present be suffering persecutions and humiliations — as did Christ himself. And so Paul counsels them to stand firm in their acceptance of their Lord and Savior, in that cross with all its shame.

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Finally we come to those who not only reject the cross but Christ himself. Jesus personifies this rejection in the city of Jerusalem: the city that rejects the prophets and those who are sent to it. Jesus knows, of course, that the cross lies ahead of him and he will no more swerve aside from it or reject it, than would the faithful of that community at Philippi under the guidance of Saint Paul. For they know the truth, as Jesus knew, that salvation comes through and by means of that suffering. As the coach will say, “No pain, no gain”; or as an even older and more profound saying puts it, “No cross, no crown.”

But Jerusalem, Jerusalem, as the prophets had warned, likes to sit in comfort and safety — it wants the gain without the pain, it wants the crown without the cross — and in doing so forgets its reliance upon the Lord and God who is the only source of its strength. It is so jealous of its comfort and security that, like the Wicked Witch in “The Wiz” — that musical adaptation of the Wizard of Oz — it shouts out, “Don’t be bringing me no bad news!” It doesn’t want to hear the corrective words of the prophets, the words of warning that might save it. And in the long run that proud city rejects not only the prophets, but the Savior himself. And in doing so it loses its gain, and forsakes its crown.

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And what about us? Do we accept the things that come to us from God’s hand, or are we sometimes moved to turn up our noses when what befalls us does not suit our immediate needs? Or even more so, causes us trouble or pain? Do we ever fall into the trap of despair, as Abram almost did — unsure of how God can bring an answer out of all this mess we seem to have gotten into; beginning to doubt, beginning to lose our trust — not in our own abilities (which we are probably wise to doubt) but in the power of God to do all that God has promised for us? Do I? Do you? Do we, as a community, as a congregation, as a church? Do we let our insecurities or mistrust stand in the way of receiving the blessing that God has promised to pour out upon us when we offer that sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God’s holy name? Do we work through our doubts and confusion, facing them and working through them like a dream of smoke and fire and blood — passing through that painful sacrifice to the gainful promise on the other side?

Do we follow the example of Saint Paul, imitating him and living in accordance with the example that he set — working hard even when the reward seems far off; holding fast to the cross for the life-preserver it is in the flood of this mortal life? Do we grasp it — the cross of Christ — as a refuge anchor in the storm and the strife? Or do we let our bellies be our guide — our bodily needs and wants and desires and ambitions, unwilling to suffer any discomfort or inconvenience and so treating the cross of Christ — even his death on the cross — as irrelevant, or at best something to be put on the shelf or the end table, along with the Bible that hasn’t been cracked open in many a day?

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No, my friends, let us not reject the one who is so willing to have us accept him. Let us not be like Jerusalem of old, a city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it; Let us not be like the disobedient children who when called home to safety instead run away to danger and destruction.

Listen, listen, he is calling us still, calling us to come to him, that we might take shelter under his wings. In the storm and the stress, in the smoke and the flame, we may not be able to see him reaching out to save us — we may at most see only the barest outline of his cross before our eyes. But he sees us, my beloved sisters and brothers, he sees us and knows where we are and if we will not reject him he will gather us up into the safety of his loving arms.

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Some years ago there was a terrible house fire in an old three storey frame building. You know these kinds of things happen in the Bronx all the time, especially in hard winter when someone accidentally knocks over one of those kerosene heaters they shouldn’t be using in the first place. Well in this case, the family managed to escape the house — or thought they had, until the father did a quick count of all the children on the sidewalk, and then heard that most horrible sound: his little boy calling to him from the second floor window, as the smoke billowed around him, blinding him so that he could see nothing. The father wanted to rush back into the house, but the crowd held him back, so he ran and stood under the window, calling up to his little son, telling him to jump. The terrified child, his eyes clenched tight against the stinging smoke, yelled out, “But Daddy, I can’t see you.” And his father shouted back, “But I can see you! Jump!”

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That decision to jump is sometimes as hard to make as the decision to follow God’s invitation to trust in him with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. It is hard — but it is the way to salvation. Let us not reject the one who stretches out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, who calls to us to come to him — to run, to walk, to crawl, or even to jump into his loving saving arms — even Jesus Christ our Lord.

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Outside the Walls

So much of significance takes place outside the walls of Jerusalem, in Bethany where a woman makes an offering to be remembered 2014 a sermon for Palm Sunday 2012

SJF • Palm Sunday 2012 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

We have just heard the passion of Christ according to the evangelist Mark, as we do every three years. What is unusual about this year is the fact that this is the first time we have heard the Passion according to the new Revised Common Lectionary — the set of Scripture readings appointed for use in the Episcopal Church since the end of 2010. This is the first year we’ve been reading “Year B” as it is called.

One of the revisions that the editors of this Lectionary made, was the decision to begin the Passion with that passage about the woman who poured ointment on the head of Jesus as he sat at table in the home of Simon the leper, in Bethany. This passage of Scripture has never been included in the Sunday gospel readings of the Episcopal Church. That is all the more ironic given the fact that Jesus says that wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what that woman did for him would be told in remembrance of her.

So it is about time she was remembered, and high time the authorities who determine such things took note of this woman and what Jesus said of her. And so I am glad to have this opportunity, finally, to preach on this important text on a Sunday, and Palm Sunday at that. I’m particularly happy to do so because I believe that as with so much of Mark’s Gospel — the shortest of the four Gospels — everything in his text is significant: Mark doesn’t waste words with irrelevant details and if he tells us something, it is important to record it.

This gospel passage also formed the substance of one of the Bible studies in which I took part in South Africa last fall, and this gives me an opportunity to share something of what I learned from that wonderful experience — breaking open the words of Scripture almost like breaking open that jar of expensive ointment, in honor of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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The first thing to note about this passage is that it takes place in Bethany, a small town a Sabbath’s day journey outside the walls of Jerusalem. Remember that a Sabbath’s day journey is a very short one since you are not supposed to travel very far on the Sabbath. This little town outside of Jerusalem — what was it? The name “Bethany” is thought by some to mean “House of Figs” or “House of Dates” — like the Mount of Olives, also outside the city — that this was a place where fig trees grew, or perhaps date palms. But it is far more likely that it relates to the Aramaic word anyi, “the poor.” “Beth-anyi” “the House of the Poor.” Let’s face it, folks, this was the slums outside of Jerusalem. This is the place where the poor and the outcast lived. If you wanted an image of Bethany look at the shanty-towns in South Africa, or the slums outside of Rio, and you’ll have an idea of what Bethany was. It was a place of the poor.

The other striking detail is that this incident takes place in the home of Simon the leper. Now, we don’t know if this Simon was a leper whom Jesus had cured of his leprosy — or even that he had been cured of his leprosy at all. Cured or not, the fact that he was still known as Simon the leper lets us know something about how people regarded him, and his house. This is the home of someone doubly on the edge of society, not someone at its center — Simon is not a person of power and prestige, but someone known as a leper, and his house, “Simon the leper’s house, in Bethany, the house of the poor.” This is a man shunted off to the side, not someone at the center. Even if healed, he was a side-liner if not an outcast

So Jesus, true to his tendency to seek out the lowliest and the most despised with whom to spend his time, is sitting at table in a leper’s house, in the village of the poor. And into this already unorthodox setting there comes this woman with a jar of expensive ointment which she breaks open and pours on Jesus’s head. We are not told her name; we are not told her station in life. Because this incident is similar to accounts from the other evangelists some have suggested that as in Luke, she is a “woman of the city” — and you know what that means. Others have suggested that this might be Mary, who lived there in Bethany with her sister Martha and brother Lazarus. This could be, they think, a different version of the similar event in John’s gospel, where she is identified.

But Mark gives us none of these details, not even her name, and by choosing not to do so, he invites us to focus on the details he does provide: which is about how expensive this ointment is, and how the woman doesn’t just open the jar and pour the ointment out, but breaks the jar, which means it had to be used up then and there — there was nothing to hold it. This is extravagance, an extravagant offering, broken and poured out and completely given. And the disciples turn on her for and say she is “wasting” it. Jesus immediately places what she has done in the context of his coming passion and death, while also reminding them as the first things he says — and you can imagine again, picturing him sitting where he is sitting: in this shanty-town surrounded by poverty — and when they say, We could have sold this for the poor; he says, “The poor you have with you always” — and all he would have needed do is gesture around him, “What are you talking about, my friends? Where do you think you are now? You will have the poor with you always.”

And so he immediately shifts his attention to his coming death and passion and notes three things in quick succession:

— you will not always have me; I am going away.

— she has done what she could; she gave everything she had in that broken jar; she couldn’t save anything of it in that broken jar once it was given.

— and she has anointed me for in advance of my burial.

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But perhaps the most striking thing for me about this passage is that introductory line about where it takes place, Bethany. For the setting is Bethany is not just the poor-house outside of Jerusalem, this town of outcasts and irregular and unconventional people: Simon the leper, and the household of Lazarus, Mary and Martha; and this unnamed woman. And what struck the Bible study group I was with in South Africa was how little of real importance in the gospel takes place inside the walls of Jerusalem, in the Holy City, and how much of importance takes place outside of those city walls or even further from it — from the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem the city of David, about five miles south of Jerusalem; through his coming death on Golgotha, outside the city walls; and his burial and being raised to life again in the garden, also outside the walls; and even his ascension from Mount Olivet, also outside the city.

All of these crucial events (and I use the word “crucial” with an emphasis on the cross of which it speaks, that cross that stood “outside the city walls” on the “green hill far away”) all of these acts in the drama of salvation take place outside the city walls or even further from it. Only the Last Supper itself takes place in the city — perhaps a way to remind us that it is the priestly act of Christ, joined with his disciples as a new priestly people, in the city whose temple has become corrupted by abuse and misuse. But the acts of salvation themselves, from the incarnation through the ascension — the descent of Godhead into human flesh and the bearing up of the human nature into the transcendent realm of God — all of these things take place outside the walls of the holy city and apart from it — out there with the poor and the outcast. For the holy city has remained content in its own holiness, unwilling to be broken open like that ointment jar, to be poured out, and spent. Remember that those who seek to save their lives, lose, and those who lose their life — who spend them — for his sake, will keep them.

And so it is, is that this unnamed woman performs an emblematic act in breaking open that jar of precious ointment, not only anointing Jesus for his burial but echoing his self-giving emptying of himself for our sake and for our salvation upon the cross, that stood outside the city walls. And this is why her act is so tied up with the good news itself: why else would Jesus say that wherever the good news is proclaimed this will be told in remembrance of her? Her act is emblematic of the good news itself; it is the good news.

It is good news that God did not remain a distant and foreign, benign Creator, looking down upon the earth from a heavenly throne on an earth below; it is good news that God in Christ broke through that great gap fixed between this world and the perfect world of heaven, and entered into the fallen creation, emptying himself of all attributes of majesty, to take upon himself our human likeness, the likeness of one outcast, the likeness of one poor and humble; it is good news that he took on the form of a slave, humbling himself, and becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

We have entered the beginning of this holy week. In a few moments at this altar, and again on Maundy Thursday we will celebrate that Memorial of his passion, which he said to do in remembrance of him, and which he committed to us in that upper room in Jerusalem. But on Good Friday we will also walk again outside those city walls, walking to the place where he was crucified. We will walk with those bearing his body to the tomb, and we will rest through that quiet Sabbath Saturday. Then on Easter... Well, you know what happens then. Let us not rush on to that; let us pause for a moment for that other remembrance: that remembrance of this woman, finally included in our Sunday readings after all these years, remembering what she did in making that offering, giving of herself as an emblem of Jesus’ own giving of him self. Let us make use, over these next days, of the breaking open of God’s word, like precious ointment, valuable not for how much it could be sold for, but for the honor that it shows to the one for whom it is given. Let us give thanks for the action of that anonymous woman, and like her offer all that we have of value to honor our Lord and our God. He will come to us, in our poverty, in our weakness, outside the walls; where we wait in expectation for the day of his coming in might and majesty, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

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Cut to the Heart

The new covenant is not cut in stone, but on the heart -- of God! A sermon for Lent5b.

SJF • Lent 5b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The Lord said, This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.

Throughout this Lent we have been exploring the concept of covenant. Week by week we have looked at a number of covenants that God made with the earth or with his people. We began with the rainbow covenant from the days of Noah, and then took account of the covenant God made with Abraham, sealed with Abraham’s own blood and in his flesh, and in that of his descendants forever. Then we heard an account of the giving of that covenant at Sinai — the covenant which our Scripture today notes that the people broke. And last week we looked at the healing covenant of the bronze serpent, the one that Moses made at God’s direction to heal the people of their snake-bites — and of how Jesus applied this to himself as a sign of his own New Covenant in his flesh and blood, his saving passion and death. The common element we saw in all of these covenants was their two-part nature as both agreement and sign of the agreement.

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Today, as I noted, we step back to that covenant cut in stone — the one given at Mount Sinai, the one that the people broke. The prophet Jeremiah promises that the ever-faithful God will provide the people with an unbreakable covenant. And the crucial difference about this covenant is that it will not take the form of something external and general, but something internal and personal. God will not write this covenant in the sky, as in the days of Noah; nor in the mere external flesh of his people’s men-folk, as in the covenant with Abraham; nor on tablets of stone, as he did in the days of Moses; nor in a token or a totem to ward off the pain of snake-bite, as also in the course of the people’s journey under Moses. No — God will write a new covenant on none of these, but on each and human heart.

The new covenant will be immediate in the strictest sense of that word — direct, with nothing intervening or coming in the way between God and the believer. No intermediary or messenger or teacher will be required to transmit or announce or instruct about this covenant. It will cut straight to the heart.

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Now, it is abundantly clear from the rest of the book of the prophet Jeremiah — and from the records both in Scripture and in secular history — that this miraculous intervention by God into the hearts of the people of Israel did not happen in Jeremiah’s time. The people remained as stubborn, willful and sinful through the time of Jeremiah as they had been in the days of Moses, the judges, the kings and the other prophets; and they would remain just as bad on through the captivity, and the return from Babylon, and the building of the Second Temple. They still turned to idolatry and sinfulness; and even when they turned to the law, it was to that law of Moses and the priestly law of sacrifice and burnt offering, the mechanical and external worship of God.

There were no doubt in Israel those for whom the love of God went beneath the skin, whose hearts were touched by God. There were righteous as well as wicked folks in and before Jeremiah’s time, and in the captivity and beyond. But all that righteousness or wickedness was still measured by compliance or non-compliance with that old law carved in stone.

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Yet Jeremiah had announced, “The days are surely coming” — that’s a prophet’s way of saying, “I cannot tell you when, but some day something wonderful is going to happen: God will act, and the world will be changed.”

And so it was in the days of the Second Temple, during the Roman Occupation of the land, word began to spread about a man who was more than a man. Word spread even far enough for Greeks to hear of him — Greeks who had adopted, or at least admired from afar, the Law of Moses, and came to worship in Jerusalem. And they came to Philip — one of the disciples who happened to have a Greek name! — asking to see the man they’d heard about, this man called Jesus.

The request gets passed along and finally comes to Jesus who responds, in John’s account, with one of those speeches with which John’s gospel is sprinkled— almost a sermon in itself. Perhaps it is the realization that the accomplishment of his great work — to be a light to all the world — is finally in the process of fulfillment. After all, Greeks are coming to him, literally for goodness’ sake!

And so he launches into that rhapsody on his coming sacrifice and its universal effect. It will be like a single grain of wheat that perishes but becomes a fruitful harvest. For a moment his soul is troubled by the implications of this perishing — of dying in order to bear fruit. It is also very close now — his houris approaching, the hour when the New Covenant will be well and truly cut — in his own flesh and blood upon the cross.

And in response to the trouble on his heart, God speaks in a thundering voice — no, not for his sake, but for the sake of all who heard it.

And suddenly, immediately, it is no longer the prophet’s vague promise, “The days are surely coming...” but rather it is now God’s Son’s own “Now!” “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out! And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

It is as if the heart of God himself has been laid bare, and written upon it is the promise and its fulfillment. The New Covenant is now, Christ seems to say, the hour of completion and realization, the time in which the sharp sword of God’s own Spirit will cut to the heart of every human being, drawn to the foot of the cross upon which the Son of God is lifted up — no bronze serpent he, but the Son of God in flesh and blood, revealed in his Paschal suffering, losing his life, perishing, that he may take it up again, and us with it — a plentiful harvest — all of us marked on our foreheads with his cross and on our hearts with his love.

Let us thank God has called us to the foot of that cross, has marked us with that sign, has written his covenant upon our hearts. In Christ we die, like grain once scattered on a hillside, and in him we also rise, and bearing fruit unto eternal life will rejoice with him for ever.+

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Hair of the Dog

The Atonement required something of the very thing that caused the problem in the first place... flesh and blood. A sermon for Lent 4b.

SJF • Lent 4b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Anyone who comes from a culture in which the consumption of alcohol is a common feature will know that in addition to every culture’s favorite strong alcoholic beverage — whether rum or whiskey, bourbon or brandy — each culture also has its own favorite hangover cure. For it follows as the night the day — or more likely the day following the night!— that consumption of too much of any alcoholic beverage will have a definite impact on how you feel the next morning.

Some years ago, there was even a TV show called “Three Sheets” that formed the alcoholic equivalent to National Geographic. A man traveled the world sampling the strongest liquor in every country and getting royally — or democratically — drunk, depending on the country, and then the following morning seeking out each nation’s favorite hangover cure. The first episode of the series began with a search for Belize’s elusive cashew wine, high-power Viper Rum (made with real viper pickled in the bottle) and readily available Belikin Beer; and it ended with a dose of Michelada the morning after. Some of you may be familiar with these very products!

One of the things about many of the hangover cures is that they often include a certain amount of alcohol — including Michelada, which is part beer. The old saying is that you need “a hair of the dog that bit you” if you are to rid yourself of the hangover. And you are probably wondering about now what I may have been up to last night that brings forth this reflection on alcohol and its after-effects; but I assure you last night was not spent in a binge and I did not require a hair or any other part of a dog this morning in my coffee! Even being a quarter Irish I know how to behave on St. Patrick’s Day.

No, I raise this matter of the hair of the dog because of that curious incident from the book of Numbers that we heard this morning. God has Moses create a bronze serpent as a treatment for those suffering from the burning pain of snakebite. This is the same God who on Sinai had ordered Moses not to make any likeness of anything on the earth or under the earth or in the heavens — and yet here God commands Moses to make a bronze serpent; and not only to make it, but to display it before the people as a way to bring them healing from their snake-bites. Now, This is hardly modern medicine, hardly even medicine at all; and it comes from a time and a culture when such almost magical treatments for disease or injury were common. And a major feature of these cures is that they include something similar to, or derived from, the cause of the disease itself. Why, even today you can go to the drugstore and buy what they call “homeopathic medications” many of which contain small amounts of the thing that made you sick in the first place.

Now, this incident might have remained just one of those curious passages from the Hebrew Scriptures explained in a footnote but then quickly passed by if it weren’t for the fact that Jesus not only refers to this incident and applies it to himself — and not just to himself but specifically to his manner of death for our sake and for our salvation. He interprets this ancient incident as a sign: a sign of healing, not just for the snake-bitten few, but for the whole world, enslaved by sin. Originally this sign was just to heal a few people wounded by snakes for their transgressions. But its fulfillment — in Christ on the cross — where he is lifted up — is as a sign of healing for the whole world; for, as the text continues in that biblical quote so famous that it is even held up on signs at football matches — God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him, displayed and lifted up upon the cross. It is not only saving from the pain of snake-bite, but deliverance from the death pangs due to all who have fallen under the sway of the great serpent who connived the fall of our ancient parents in the garden.

This is where the theme of a covenant comes in, the theme we’ve been exploring these four Sundays in Lent. We started with God’s covenant with the earth sealed in the sign of the rainbow, through the covenant with Abraham sealed in the blood of his flesh, through the Old Covenant chiseled on tablets of stone, we come now specifically to the New Covenant of Christ’s blood shed on the cross, not to condemn the world, but in order that Christ might be lifted up and call the whole world to himself, bringing healing to all who turn to him in faith.

There is an unforgettable line in Saint Julian of Norwich’s reflections on the crucified Christ. From the cross he displays his wounds, and says, “See how I loved you.” It is in his own wounded flesh that healing and salvation lies — in his flesh and in his blood.

And that is the hair of the dog that bit us — for it is in our own flesh and blood that we fell into sin; and it is in our own flesh and blood that we turned from God. In the person of our ancient ancestors Adam and Eve we rejected all that God had planned and intended for us, thinking we could do better on our own. And we have continued to sin, in our own flesh-and-blood, in the wrongs we do towards God and to one another. I would love to say that the church is immune from such ailments, but we need not look very far to see the evidence to the contrary. Our sins cry out like the blood of Abel from the ground. I find myself crying out with Saint Paul, “Who will deliver me from this body of death!”

And the answer Paul found is the answer that rings true still: Only the flesh and blood of one who was truly human — but was also truly God incarnate — could atone for, could heal, the breach and division caused by that ancient wrong, and all our wrongs done since. This is not, as Saint Paul told the Ephesians, our own doing — it is the doing of one who is like us in every way, except only sin. But who is also God. For God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our sins, made us alive together with Christ, when he raised him from the dead. He was wounded for our transgressions, and by his stripes we are healed.

This is the covenant of the atonement — the drawing together of humanity at the foot of the cross to look upon the one whom we have pierced, through our own sins. This is the covenant of grace, of God’s promised forgiveness, healing the wounds that Satan gave us, and the wounds we give each other, by means of his own Son’s giving of himself. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Let us rejoice that God has provided us with the means of our healing and salvation, in Jesus Christ. Let us turn to him, repenting all our failings and our wrongs, toward him who is alone our Savior and our Lord.+

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The Big Ten

God's covenant at Sinai: faith, not religion. A sermon for Lent 3b.

SJF • Lent 3b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG,
God spoke all these words to Moses on Mount Sinai.

This Lent we have been exploring the meaning of the word covenant — in particular by looking at the various covenants that God made with humanity or with the chosen people of Israel. On the first Sunday in Lent we reviewed the covenant God made after the flood, which he signed and sealed with his own name in the rainbow set in the clouds. Last week we looked at God’s covenant with Abraham, the covenant sealed in Abraham’s flesh and that of all of his descendants. And we saw from these two examples, the two sides to every covenant: an agreement and a sign of the agreement.

Today we come to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, the mountain upon which God writes up the terms of his covenant with Israel on tablets of stone, and delivers them to the people with whom he wishes to enter into this covenant, this agreement — he is their God and he has high expectations of them: including right from the beginning the insistence that this is an “exclusive contract.” The people are to have nothing to do with any other god or object of worship — nothing on earth or under the earth or in the heavens is to become the object of their adoration, but only God — who openly admits that he is jealous.

Jealous as well as faithful — that is important to remember; God does not want the people to worship only him because he needs their worship but because he knows that it is good for them to worship one who will be faithful to them and rescue them when they turn out to be less than faithful themselves. As we know from the rest of the story in Exodus the ink was hardly dry — or I should say rather that the chiseled tablets hardly finished — before the people down in the camp, down at the foot of the mountain, under Aaron’s leadership had made a golden calf and begun to worship it — a dead thing — instead of the living God. And indeed God in his jealousy would have wiped them out had not it been for Moses standing between them and God’s very righteous indignation.

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This covenant then, what we call the Ten Commandments, is an agreement to which God wishes to hold his chosen people — these are the conditions of the covenant, spelled out in no uncertain terms. It is a covenant that calls upon them to respect and honor God — but perhaps even more importantly, it calls upon them to respect and honor each other — not just even each other, but everyone — every human being is to be respected. Only the first three of these ten commandments directly involve God, the worship of God, and the sanctity of God’s holy Name. All of the rest of the Commandments — the other seven — in this covenant have to do with people and their dealings with each other. This starts with the commandment to observe the Sabbath — which is not really so much about God as about people. remember what Jesus said about the Sabbath, it was made of us, and not we for it. It is about people, people who aren’t supposed to be worked to death, but to have a day off each week — and this includes everybody, not just your family and your employees — but even the livestock and the aliens with whom you share the country.

As the list of the commandments goes on, you can see that this covenant lays out really much more about how to treat other people — with honor, but without violence, without infidelity, without theft, without slander, and finally, without even envy or greed. This is the covenant that God lays out before his people, and the first of the covenants with which we’ve dealt in which the sign and its contents are one and the same.

The rainbow was meant as a reminder to God not to flood the earth. Circumcision was a sign in the flesh to remind Abraham and his offspring that they were dedicated to God. But the Ten Commandments — those ten laws about how we are to behave toward God and toward out neighbor — those Ten Commandments simply mean what they say and are what the command — a covenant whose sign is also its contents.

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But as with much that God commands, the Ten Commandments are easy to understand — easy to recite as we did this morning at the beginning of our worship — but hard to keep. These moral rules were hard on people — they still are! — people find it all too easy to fall to dishonor or exploitation of others. People are easily prone to violence, betrayal, theft and envy and greed. The people wanted to shift the attention away from these requirements about how they should treat each other, towards something else, something perhaps less clear about how to treat other people, something more mechanical than moral. What they wanted was “religion.”

Now before anyone thinks I’ve gone off the deep end to speak anything ill about “religion” let me immediately clarify that I’m not talking about faith. There is, in practice, a huge difference between religion and faith. The Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels never mention the word religion even once; it does come up a few times in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle of James, but that’s it. What the Scriptures speak of, for the most part, is not religion, but faith. As the theologian Karl Barth has said, “Religion is...a human attempt to anticipate what God in his revelation wills to do and does do. It is the attempted replacement of the divine work by a human manufacture. The divine reality offered and manifested to us in revelation is replaced by a concept of God... evolved by man.” (The Revelation of God.) In short, as I would say, religion can be a form of idolatry — putting something else in the place of God’s revealed will. God inspires faith, but humanity offers religion.

And so it was that turning away from the high moral demands of God, the priests of Aaron’s line developed the rules of sacrifice and offerings which eventually came to form the religion of the temple. This substituted law of sacrifice was more subtle than the substitution of the golden calf — it had all the appearances of honoring God. But as the prophets would later have to say, time and again, but perhaps most succinctly in that wonderful phrase, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” God wants faith, not religion.

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Following in this line of prophecy and bringing it to fulfillment, Jesus casts the money changers out of the temple. They symbolize the mechanical nature of the religion of sacrifice — you pays your money and you takes your choice — thinking that the blood of sheep and goats could wipe away sin. As if, as the Psalmist would say, God needs the blood of sheep and goats. “Are not all the beasts of the hillside mine,” says God. “Do I need you to kill all these animals for me? Do you think I eat meat?”

God wants us, God has always wanted us — God wants us, not just what we do mechanically, not even just what we do morally, but our whole selves devoted to him — serving only him and having no other God before him. And further, out of that devotion, God calls us to serve our sisters and brothers and treat them as we would be treated, with dignity and respect and honor.

Jesus does not just end the cult of sacrifice — he transforms it by himself becoming the ultimate and final sacrifice of God. He becomes the temple that not made with hands, and its most perfect offering. He is the temple, that if they destroy it, will rise in three days — not the 46 years it took to build that temple of stone, but the three days he lay in the tomb, and would then rise, restored, alive again. As Karl Barth also said: “Jesus does not give recipes that show us the way to God as teachers of religion do. Jesus is himself the way.”

At this midpoint of our Lenten journey with him, let us remember that God gave us rules for good conduct, toward both God and each other; but also that God gave us himself, in Christ Jesus our Lord. He gave himself to us and for us; let us give ourselves to him. +

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Cutting a Deal

The covenant sealed in flesh and blood: Abraham's, Christi's, and ours... a sermon for Lent 2b

SJF • Lent 2b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
God said to Abraham, I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.

On this second Sunday in Lent we come to the second great Covenant of the Hebrew Scriptures. Last week we witnessed God’s first covenant — the promise that the he would never again wipe out the world by a flood, and it was sealed with the sign of God’s own name in the heavenly rainbow. I noted last week that a covenant has two parts: an agreement between the parties, and a sign of that agreement, noting that the covenant with Noah was more or less one-sided: God made a promise to Noah and put the rainbow in the sky as a sign of that promise.

In the covenant God made with Abraham, however, we see a covenant in its complete form. God promises Abraham that he will be a father of nations, and promises him the land in which he dwells as a perpetual heritage. And this time around, the covenant is to be signed by Abraham in his own flesh, and the flesh of all of his descendants forever. I’m tempted to say that this time the shoe is on the other foot, but this sign involves an entirely different portion of the anatomy, and the less said about that the better. In fact, the editors of the lectionary were so sensitive and perhaps even squeamish about this that they actually left out all of the verses referring to circumcision, to Abraham’s side of the deal. But I have chosen to include them, however, because I think it is important to see that this covenant has a sign in addition to a promise — and the sign this time was a sign in flesh and blood; literally cutting a deal — which is the way the Hebrew authors consistently refer to making a covenant: a covenant is something you cut — and a cut almost always bleeds.

It is important, however, that we note that more flesh and blood is talked about here than merely that directly connected with sign of circumcision. Remember that the promise that God makes is that Abraham and Sarah, as old and barren as they are, and who are given new names as part of this covenant arrangement, will have flesh and blood descendants, starting with the son promised to Sarah. This couple, childless until their very old age (although Abram had fathered a child through Hagar, Sarai’s servant), would soon have a son of their own, Isaac, through whom the covenant blessing would continue, a sign of the promise revealed in flesh and blood.

There is a great promise here, a promise from God, but it costs Abraham something — it costs him and his descendants forever some pain and some blood, as a sign of the covenant which is to be marked in their flesh forever. It is a covenant that requires some personal sacrifice.

And so it would also be with the covenant that God establishes with us in Christ Jesus. In the Gospel passage today Jesus tries to explain to his disciples just how costly salvation will be — costly to him, as he endures suffering, rejection and death, before he comes to the resurrection in that crowning glory. Peter tries to rebuke him — this is too much for him, too much of a sacrifice, even though it is not he who is making it — but Jesus insists in no uncertain terms that there is a cost to this new covenant, this New Testament in his blood. The cost that he will pay is his life, and he tells Peter and the other disciples that this is the cost to them as well. If they wish to save their lives they must lose their lives for his sake and for the sake of the gospel. They must deny themselves, their very selves — who and what they are in every sense of the word — and take up their own cross and follow him.

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As you know, every time I baptize a child here at this font I also mark them on the forehead with oil blessed by the bishop, saying, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” As the hymn we just sang says, “Each newborn servant of the Crucified bears on the brow the seal of him who died.” The early church regarded this anointing with oil and baptism with water as our Christian version of circumcision — an unbloody circumcision marked not in the flesh but by the Holy Spirit. And so it is that even the youngest infant, baptized into this new life, takes up his or her cross to begin to follow Jesus, even before they can walk, as a sign of their own baptismal covenant.

This should not seem so strange to us who worship as our Lord one who first came among us as an infant in a manger. Just as a child was promised to Abraham and Sarah, a child was promised to us, a son given to us, who lived as one of us and died as one of us, but then rose victorious from the grave; and it is through him that we also share the promise of that rising from the dead. Abraham signed this covenant with his own blood; and God signed this new covenant, this new baptismal covenant through Jesus Christ — God signed this covenant in his own blood, the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We bear the mark of his suffering — his cross — on our foreheads, perhaps invisible as it is marked with holy oil, but it does show up when we are signed with ashes at the beginning of Lent — the minister acting almost like a detective dusting with ashes that reveal God’s fingerprints upon us — each and every one. It is a sign of the covenant we have with God, and God with us, the sign of the cross. That sign is always there, even if you cannot see it, the sign of God’s covenant with you, and you with God, in Christ Jesus our Lord — it is the sign of the saving cross, marked on your own body. Remember it, take it up every day; remember him, and follow him, who is our Lord and our God, who suffered for our salvation and rose from the dead that we might have new life in him. To him be the glory, henceforth and for evermore.

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The Options Market

So many choices, with so much at stake. What does it profit to gain the whole world at the loss of your life? — A sermon for Palm Sunday 2011

SJF • Palm Sunday 2011 • Tobias S Haller BSG
From my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

It has been said that our lives are constituted based on the choices we make. At every point of our lives we are faced with options and choices, alternatives to go one way or the other — and the choices we make determine the shape of our lives, sometimes in dramatic ways, and sometimes more subtly.

This truth is laid out plainly for us to see in Matthew’s account of the Passion. We see the choices that people make all along the way, choices to act or refrain from action, and choices to act in one way or another. So many options for so many lives! And how each of these choices shape the reality of each one’s world — and our world!

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Think of the terrible choice that Judas makes: the choice of betrayal, the choice to accept a handful of silver to betray a man to death, in whose company he could have found eternal life. Instead, he chooses the path of delivering his master and teacher to death, and when stricken with remorse, he chooses death for himself.

Then look at Peter, the unsteady man who totters between heroism and cowardice, pulling out a sword at one point to defend his Lord, and then cowering in the shadows at another, denying that he even knows him. He chooses to deny Jesus, and only the rooster’s crow recalls him to himself, and rebukes him for his choice.

Then there’s the high priest, Caiaphas. Matthew doesn’t supply us with a window into why he acts as he does; for that we have to depend on John’s Gospel, which we will hear on Good Friday. Caiaphas is a practical man — who follows what would later be called the ethics of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” So, John tells us, he advises that, given the danger Jesus creates in the fragile political climate of Jerusalem, it is expedient that one man should suffer instead of many. In making this choice, Caiaphas is going against the teaching of the greatest rabbi in Judaism, Rabbi Hillel. who ended his ministry during Jesus’ childhood. In a powerful statement on the value of human life, Rabbi Hillel had said that to save a single human life is to save an entire world. Caiaphas on the other hand, weighs human life in the shopkeeper’s scale, life against life, and figures the trade-off is reasonable: one life sacrificed to avoid the possible loss of others. And by that choice he sets in course all that follows.

Then we have Pilate, another politician, a man who also weighs his choices carefully. It is easy to sympathize with Pilate — so much is pulling him one way and another — even his wife chimes in to warn him off. And so Pilate makes the interesting choice not to choose. Like many a politician before and since, rather than take a position — he takes a poll. Pilate is one of those leaders who leads from behind, safely insulated from having to take responsibility should things not work out, sheltered from the consequences of his inaction, able to wash his hands of the whole matter — a perfect biblical example of “plausible deniability.”

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All of these choices, all of these lives, swirling in the mix of options and opportunities! And step by step, each one of them choice by choice, each life hardens into reality as each choice is made, all the fuzzy options fading away as each choice becomes concrete, and the path is taken. And amidst this cloud of options, the most important choice, the one that is the eye of the storm around which all of these other possibilities swirl, is the one that Jesus makes, and he keeps right on making it through to the end.

It begins in the garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus appeals to his Father for another option — another way for salvation to be accomplished without his having to drink the cup of suffering set before him. Matthew portrays this scene with only one side of the conversation: it is as if we were witnessing a telephone call — we hear what Jesus says, but not the response.

Is God truly silent? Is this the beginning of the terrible silence of God that will lead Jesus to cry out from the cross those words of agony: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We do not know. What we do know is that Jesus has a choice, there in the garden, and throughout the rest of the suffering that would follow. There in the garden it is perhaps clearest: even though Judas and the guards are on their way, it is still not too late for Jesus to escape, to leave the city and head on back to the safety of Bethany, to flee to far-off Galilee. But he doesn’t.

That same choice is available to Jesus right on up to the end. When they bring him before Caiaphas, he could choose to deny himself and his mission as God’s holy one, the Messiah. But he doesn’t. When brought before Pilate, he could play on Pilate’s weakness, and work out a deal. But he doesn’t. Even when they nail him to the cross, he could indeed — as the taunters say — choose to come down now from the cross. But he doesn’t.

For he knows at any one of these steps that for him to do so would be to disobey his heavenly Father, to deny the very purpose for which he was born. To choose not to die on the cross — that is the most tempting option, but it is one that he refuses.

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In his novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, author Nikos Kazantzakis explores what it might have been like if Jesus had given in to this last temptation, this option to refuse God’s will: to be a disobedient son and cast it all aside; to refuse the cup of suffering. In a flash, as he hangs on the cross, Jesus envisions what it would mean to come down from the cross. He sees himself return to Galilee as an ordinary man, to get married, to run his carpenter shop — and to leave the world unredeemed.

But he doesn’t. Jesus doesn’t do this, in the novel or the Gospel. He rejects that dreamlike fantasy of an untroubled, ordinary life; he doesn’t give in to that tempting choice, that seductive option to live instead of dying. He gives himself to death on the cross, knowing that in the options market of Calvary, all of the conniving deals and bartering in human souls are turned upside down. He lays down his life because he knows that this is the only investment that will bring a return — and what a return it will be! What had he said? “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world at the cost of his life?” Jesus took that risk, as only he could do. His gift of himself, his one sacrifice of himself once offered, would bring redemption to the whole world. His act of obedience unto death, even death on the cross, will lead to his exaltation above all earthly things, and the sanctification of all things, in him.

This is the path the Son of God chose on our behalf, for our salvation. It meant pain and suffering and death for him — but life for us. At the cost of his life he gained the whole world.

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We are offered a similar choice each day of our lives: we too are offered the option to take up our cross day by day, and follow him? Or will we follow Judas’ choice to betray, Peter’s choice to deny, Caiaphas’ choice to victimize, or Pilate’s choice to abdicate?

Will we bend our knee at the name of Jesus, or bow to other earthly gods of wealth and comfort, or act like we don’t know who he is, or take advantage of our sisters and brothers, or act as if this all has nothing to do with us? Sisters and brothers, how we choose each day of our lives, how we play the stakes in this options market, will determine our fate for all eternity. As we sow, so shall we reap.

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You may remember that line from Charles’ Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” when Scrooge asks Marley’s ghost about the heavy chain that binds him. The unhappy ghost responds: “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link... I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas’s ago, and you have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain!”

Such are the choices we make, my friends, day by day: the things we do and refuse to do — “things done and left undone.” The life and death of our Savior is set before us to show us how to free ourselves from the ponderous chain of self-interest that binds us to betrayal, and victimization, fear, and evasion of responsibility.

God is calling us to follow him, my sisters and brothers, and he will give us the strength to do so. So let us choose then, and choose wisely, to follow him, through whom alone we find the way to eternal life.+

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Not As We Deserve

We might get the idea that God hates us when we treat God so badly.

SJF • Lent3a 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.+

There was once a man who hated his boss. That in itself is probably not all that rare or unusual a circumstance. But this man really hated his boss. I mean, he couldn’t stand the sight of him. He hated him so much he could taste it; literally: if he caught sight of him — or even worse had to deal with him in a meeting or work session — his stomach would churn and he would throw up a little bit in his mouth. It was that bad. This was hatred he could taste, anger and resentment that would bubble up inside and churn over.

And he didn’t keep this feeling to himself. Although he wouldn’t insult his boss in public, or confront him directly, he wasn’t at all shy about letting his distaste and contempt for his boss be made known amongst the other workers. He assumed, probably rightly, that word of this had gotten back to his boss, but he didn’t care. He said to himself and to his friends and co-workers, “As long as he doesn’t fire me, I don’t care if he hates me as much as I hate him. He probably does, but it makes no difference as long as I do my job, and do it well. He has no cause to get rid of me other than the fact that he hates my guts as much as I hate his. Let him just try to fire me and I’ll take it to the review board and the union.”

This went on for a number of years, and nothing would or could change it. The man did his job but went right on hating his boss and thinking that the boss hated him just as much, in spite of his good annual reviews — with which he always managed to find some fault, some oversight or underestimation of his performance which he attributed to the boss’s malice.

Still the pot boiled. At the company picnics the man could always be found in a circle of other employees, clustered in a group far away from the boss, bad-mouthing him and complaining about him.

Then one day something terrible happened. I should say, one night. For in the middle of the night an old frayed extension cord under a carpet in the man’s house sparked a fire. The flames spread quickly through the whole house — fortunately the man and his family escaped with their lives but the house was a total loss. They stood out on the street in their pyjamas and the overcoats they had hastily grabbed as they ran through the front hallway, watching the firefighters attempt to quell the flames. As the man stood there transfixed by the disaster unfolding before him, his home slowly collapsing in ruins, almost too numb to feel anything, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He turned to see who it was. It was his boss. Still numb from the emotional weight of the disaster that had overtaken him, he was too surprised to recoil or withdraw. He just opened his mouth and his eyes wide, but no words came out. His boss nodded sympathetically and broke the silence.

“I was listening to the late news and I heard about the fire. When the reporter mentioned the address, I knew it was your house.” In the man’s mind a thought flashed briefly, “He knew my address?” But before he could say a word his boss continued, “I had to come and tell you how devastating it is for me for something like this to happen to one of my employees, especially one of my best and hardest workers.” With his other hand he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. “I know that your insurance will cover a most of your expenses, but I’m sure there will be some things they just won’t pay for; so I want you to have this.”

The man, still unable to speak, took the proffered envelope and opened it just enough to see that it was a personal check for $5,000. If he could have spoken earlier he certainly couldn’t anymore. His boss nodded and waved his hand understandingly. “It’s o.k. Don’t say anything; it’s the least I could do for someone in such a state. And here you are out on the street with no where to go... what am I thinking! Let me arrange a place for you at the motel up on the highway until things are sorted out.” The boss pulled out his cell phone, stepped a few paces aside and busied himself with the call.

The firefighters had finally finished their work, put away their hoses and other equipment, and were prepared to head back to the station. The remains of the house, now a pitiful low pile of wreckage and waterlogged ashes, still steamed slightly, and the air was full of a smell of chlorine mixed with charcoal, of burnt plaster and wood and paint and the bitter tang of burnt asphalt shingles.

The man looked to his wife, still unable to speak. She’d heard all the stories, too, time and again — oh my had she heard them — and she was just as amazed as her husband. She shrugged and shook her head. Finally the boss came back and said, “It’s all set. Let me drop you off at the motel.” With that the man finally found his tongue: “I...I thought you hated me!”

The boss looked at him in amazement. “Hated you? Why would you think that? You’re one of my best workers; been with the company for years! I know we haven’t always gotten along, and I know you haven’t always agreed with some of my decisions or policies, or my work style — yes, word does get around — but hated you?” He shook his head. “It never crossed my mind. Now, please, it’s getting chilly — please let’s get you and your family into the car so I can take you to the motel!”

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Saint Paul the Apostle wrote, “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” As the Collect for Ash Wednesday reminds us, God hates nothing he has made — and that includes us. God loves us, and always has and always will, even though we have not always returned God’s love. Look at those crabby, thirsty Israelites in today’s Old Testament reading — carping and complaining at Massah and Meribah! And as Saint Paul reminds us, God is hard on us sometimes as a loving parent must be firm with a young child — and the child may not find the discipline enjoyable. But hatred! — hatred for us never crossed God’s mind even when we failed to mind his cross!

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It is on that cross that God shows us just how much he loves us. From that cross, even from that pain and unspeakable death, Jesus the Son of God spoke words of forgiveness. We did not earn God’s forgiveness and grace — that’s why it’s grace, by the way — something we didn’t deserve. We rebelled against God so much and so strongly that we came to think he must hate us for how we’ve acted towards him. But he doesn’t hate us, my friends. He loves us, not because of what we do, or have failed to do, but in spite of what we do, and because of who we are — we belong to God, who created us and redeemed us; God so loved the world. The fact that fallen humanity has disobeyed and badmouthed our creator — the clay talking back to the potter — means nothing to God, so great is God’s love.

And how much more, as Saint Paul says, now that God has come in Christ and reconciled and justified us by his faithful obedience — the unjust justified by the king of justice himself, the seemingly irreconcilable differences reconciled by the one who keeps the books of life and death — how much more then ought we to understand and rejoice and give thanks for this great gift. It is so much more than a check for $5,000, or even a few weeks at a motel while our house is being rebuilt. The house being built for us in heaven is eternal and everlasting, and the builder is God, who prepares such a dwelling-place for us. God in Christ has reconciled us to himself — has wiped the slate clean and set us on our feet again.

As we continue our journey through Lent, on up to Good Friday when we stand to face the cross of Christ, and kneel in silent wonder at the foot of that cross, and remember what he did for us, let us not be dumbstruck or astonished at this wondrous love: that the King of Bliss should set aside his crown for our souls, but let us sing out in rejoicing, singing on and singing on through all eternity, Blessed be our God who has loved us so much, who has saved us from our sins, and made us heirs of everlasting life!+

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Saint in the Background

Christmas 2a 2011 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ.+

Around this time every year our attention is drawn naturally to the Holy Family, because of the large role they play in the story of Christ’s birth. This is especially true of one member of the Holy Family, who apart from the events immediately preceding and following Christmas, receives virtually no attention in the rest of Scripture. Even during the Christmas season, the dominant image on religious Christmas cards, even on such secular things as postage stamps, is the Madonna and Child. But here is another figure, hidden in the background, tucked a bit out of the way, usually hanging his head a little, although often with his hand outstretched in protection towards Mary and Jesus. He is somewhat in awe at the mystery unfolding around him, this other figure, this other member of the Holy Family. Today’s Gospel asks him to step forward into the light, perhaps to take a little bow — for without him the wonderful work of Christmas and what followed would not have happened. I am talking, of course, about Joseph, the husband-to-be of Mary, the foster father of Jesus.

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Matthew tells us more about Joseph than any of the other evangelists: that Joseph was a good man, an honest man, a sensitive and caring man. He also tells us he was a dreamer. When he found his bride-to-be was pregnant, he could have had her hauled into court he possibly could have had her stoned to death; instead, Joseph decided to settle the whole matter quietly. But then came a dream: an angel warned him in a dream not to take offense. The angel instructed him to take Mary as his wife, and to accept the child that would be born as his own. This was a risk, but Joseph took it; he risked the wagging tongues, that could count to nine and new his marriage had not lasted a full nine months before the child was born. He treated Mary as his wife, and the child as his son.

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In today’s Gospel, Joseph again serves as God’s agent for deliverance. And like his namesake from the Old Testament, Joseph the son of Jacob, this Joseph is one who is a dreamer, who hears the voice of God in his dreams. Joseph’s first dream told him not to fear to take Mary as his wife, and in today’s Gospel there are three more dreams that bring Joseph God’s instructions. And like his namesake from the age of the patriarchs — Joseph the son of Jacob, who called his family into Egypt to escape the famine that came upon all the world when he was Pharaoh’s viceroy — like him, this Joseph son of David brought his family into Egypt to preserve their lives, escaping the horrible plot of King Herod. And that’s the first dream out of the set of three in our Gospel today.

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But let me say a word about Herod. Herod is one of the great villains of history, a mass-murderer of children. When the wise men told Herod of the birth of the new king, he set out to ensure that no new king would ever come from Bethlehem to take his place. I’m sure you recall the story, though our reading today leaves out those verses, just reporting that Herod died. It leaves out the part about how Herod ordered all of the boy-children up to two years of age to be slaughtered: that horrible night of holocaust when the soldiers ran through the streets killing any child they saw.

But what you may not know is that this Herod was so selfishly protective of his throne that not only did he kill off all of these children in Bethlehem, but he had is own sons killed as well, when they began to act as if they were ready to take over the reins of the kingdom. Herod is a man with the blood of innocents on his hands, and the blood of his own family, a man who placed himself before all others, including his own children.

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What a contrast: Herod and Joseph. Both of them fathers — but what a difference between them! One father risked everything — his reputation, his livelihood, his home — for the sake of a child who was not even his by blood, his foster son. The other father sacrificed the lives of innocent children, and took the lives even of his own flesh and blood in order to preserve his last shreds of power — power which must eventually pass away when he died, as all men die.

And who survived, after all? After Herod died, who came back? Who but the sweet dreamer Joseph, the loving foster-father Joseph, the man who gave up everything: who gave up security and a settled life at the prompting of God’s angel in a dream. After Herod died in misery, Joseph came out of Egypt (in response to dream #2) and settled in the north country, by the Sea of Galilee (in response to dream #3). Herod, the man who sought to save his life, to protect himself from all who might seize his throne, lost his life; while Joseph, the man who risked everything, preserved himself and his family.

And what a family it was: a wife who was not his wife after the manner of the flesh; a son who was not his son except by adoption. This is the Holy Family — not your typical nuclear family by any means — not the family of the “family values” spouting from the lips of politicians, hypocrites and demagogues. Joseph, and Mary, and Jesus represent the true family values, the truly human values that reflect what God values: sacrifice, forgiveness, trust, choosing life for another at risk to yourself, in doing what Jesus would later assure us is the greatest act of love: to risk your life for someone else.

For flesh and blood are not the stuff virtue is made from. Herod despised his own flesh and blood, and the flesh and blood of countless innocents; while Joseph loved Mary and Jesus as if they were his own dear wife and own dear son far better than many husbands and fathers love or have loved their wives or children. Flesh and blood is no guarantee of love, earthly or heavenly. Saint Paul told the church at Corinth that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”(1 Cor 15.50). And when it comes to blood as the binder of love, who can forget those words from the very beginning of human history, from Genesis, when the brothers — brothers in blood and flesh — one killed the other. And what happened? What did God say? “Cain, your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” No blood is no guarantee of love, my friends; I wish it were. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. Flesh and blood are no guarantee of living heavenly values even here on earth! Only the imperishable and heavenly can support the weight of the greatest virtues, the strongest goods, the most precious grace. Love, the greatest love, is present only and whenever self-sacrifice is present, in flesh and blood families as well as in spiritual families — of which the church is the prime example.

The saying goes that blood is thicker than water, but I assure you that there is a water that is thicker than the cold blood of a Herod. There is a water that is as thick as the warmest blood of the most loving family. And that is the water of Baptism. For through the water of Baptism we all have become part of a new spiritual family, blessed, as Saint Paul says, with every blessing in the heavenly places. Through the waters of Baptism we have all, all been adopted, each and all of us have been adopted as God’s children through Jesus Christ, adopted into a family defined by faith in him, and in love toward the saints — the other members of God’s great extended, adopted family. This is the family whose kinship is neither bounded nor defined by flesh and blood, by race or nation or clan. This is the great extended family begotten, as John’s Gospel says, not by blood or by the will of the flesh or by the will of man, but by God. It is God who has called us together, as surely as God called together the lost children of Israel, called them home from wherever they had been scattered to the farthest parts of the earth. And he who calls us children will not forsake us.

This is our hope, a hope to which we have been called, an inheritance which we possess as heirs through adoption, through the immeasurable greatness of God’s abundant power. It is an inheritance that it would be a shame to waste.

As we go through this new year, times will get rough — last year was rough enough! — and demands may come to seem unreasonable; should we feel as if our family is asking too much of us, a husband not being considerate enough, a wife demanding too much of our time; our children not paying attention to us, our parents seeming unreasonable; or if our church family should seem to be making too many demands, our time being eaten up by church work and responsibilities — if those feelings should come our way, let us pause for a moment and think about the sweet dreamer Joseph. Let us recall the patient foster-father, the loving, giving spouse; the patron of the church. Let us pause and recall how blessed we are in the opportunity to set self aside for the sake of others; how blessed we are to dream what Archbishop Desmod Tutu calls “God’s dream” — that all, all, all, are children of God, and that through Christ we can be all that it means to be a child of God.+

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What have you got to live on?

SJF • Proper 27b 2009 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
All of them have contributed from their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had.+

Those of you who attended the Investiture ceremony yesterday at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, probably know that it took more than two pennies to build it! It stands today in large part as testimony to the lavish gifts of some of the wealthiest families in 19th and 20th century New York: the Fiskes, the Vanderbilts and the Astors among others. Close to home, we can say the same about our own church building, especially its beautiful windows. And you might also note that it is relatively easy for the wealthy to be generous.

Now, I’m not about to criticize the wealthy — at least no more than Jesus did. Jesus honored the wealthy when they gave openly in generosity. But in today’s Gospel Jesus is critical of the wealthy, on two counts. First, he condemns those whose wealth comes from “devouring widows’ houses” — the slumlords of the ancient Middle East, whose wealth came from squeezing money from the poor. Secondly, he is critical of those whose giving is out of proportion to their wealth. He criticizes those whose contributions, while presented with great fanfare, are only a tiny fraction of their assets, only a small part of what they could give if they were truly generous.

You’re probably thinking, this could turn into a stewardship sermon! As you know, I believe in proportional giving: giving a percentage, a tithe, of my income to the church’s work for the world and for God, rather than a fixed amount. This helps me keep my giving proportionate with the gifts with which God has blessed me. Otherwise I might get stuck at what I gave as a child, when I thought, reasoned, and contributed as a child, being so proud of what I put in the plate in Sunday School! And believe me, a quarter went a lot further back then! But that’s another sermon for another time. For though I suspect that those who chose this Gospel did so to coincide with stewardship drives — as important as stewardship is, this Gospel is about something much, much more.

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The key to that lies in the example of the widow. This widow doesn’t just pledge; she doesn’t just give proportionately, she doesn’t just tithe. She puts everything she has into the basket, everything she has to live on. When old Mother Hubbard got home, the cupboard was bare indeed! You might well say, that’s crazy! How would she pay her rent when the landlord showed up on the first of the month? If she put in everything she had to live on, where would her next meal come from?

To find the answer we need to look to that other widow we heard about today: that widow from Zarephath, down to her last handful of flour, her last few teaspoons of oil. In the midst of a famine, she has just enough to cook one last meal before she and her son starve to death. And along comes Elijah, and what does he ask from this starving woman? He asks for something to eat!

At first she shows understandable reluctance to share her last meal with this wild-eyed prophet. But for some reason she believes him, and does as he says: first feeding him, then making something for herself and her son. And she discovers that however much flour she takes from the jar, however much oil she pours from the jug, there is always more left! Though it looks like there’s only enough for two small cakes, every time she goes to the jar there is enough for three — enough for Elijah, for her, and for her son — and always a little left over.

It’s important to note the exact nature of this miracle. God does not grant that the woman would go to her cupboard and find it full of sacks of flour. God does not surprise her with a tub of oil in the corner of her kitchen. No, every day it is from the same old flour-jar and the same old oil-jug — each of which looks like it’s just about empty — that she is able to find just what is needed for the day — that daily bread — to receive it, and to give it, and to share it. She discovers in her need, just what she needs, and still she gives it up and shares it. Out of her poverty, out of her faith, generosity is called forth without end, an unending supply of johnny-cake in the midst of a famine — and that is more than enough and to live on!

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In the same way another widow walked up one day to the offering box in Jerusalem, and she put into it all she had. Though all she had was two small copper coins, she put them into the treasury, knowing and trusting that the Lord and God who had brought her that far would not abandon her — for in God was her trust, risking everything of value for the one who alone can give us anything of value — including life itself.

This Wednesday is the feast day of an early saint of the church, and his story is also one of generosity in the risky way of these two widows. Martin was a Roman soldier, and his feast coincides with Veterans’ Day. He lived not very long after the Emperor had first issued that edict permitting Christianity. The memory of persecutions was still vivid: so people were looked at very carefully before being admitted into the church. Preparation for baptism took many months, and candidates were literally scrutinized. Martin applied himself to becoming a Christian, working towards the day when he would be baptized at the Great Vigil of Easter.

One cold winter day a poor beggar called out to him, as Martin was riding through town. Martin looked down from his horse at this poor skinny man, threadbare and shivering. The problem was that Martin had no money to give the poor man. What could he do? Suddenly he had an idea. Perhaps he remembered the story he’d learned in his catechism class about Saint Peter and the man who begged at the Beautiful Gate in Jerusalem — it’s portrayed right there in the stained glass window at the south of our sanctuary. So, echoing Peter, Martin said, “I have no money to give you, but I will share with you what I have.” And with that, he took off his big military cloak and pulled out his sword. and neatly cut his that cloak in two, and half was more than enough to cover the skinny beggar. He draped the other half over his own broad shoulders, and rode on his way, wondering how he was going to explain this violation of the military code to his centurion!

Later that night, as Martin lay in the barracks wrapped in half of his cloak against the cold, he had a dream. Heaven opened to him, and he saw angels gathered around a figure he couldn’t quite make out. Then, as if aware of his presence, the angels turned to see him, and then stepped aside to reveal who it was in their midst. It was Jesus, wearing half of a Roman soldier’s cloak. And Jesus said to the angels, “This is my servant Martin, who while not yet even baptized, gave me this to wear.”

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When we give what we have with that kind of trust, with that kind of risk, without counting the cost, we come close to the kingdom of heaven. Giving that costs us nothing, that risks nothing, isn’t really giving at all. Selfless, loving self-sacrifice, giving that risks losing what you have to live on, finds renewal and replenishment, and abundant life itself.

And I want to close, if you will bear with me, with one last story, an example closer to home, and it relates to that stained glass window I mentioned a just moment ago, the one that portrays Saint Peter healing the man who begged at the Beautiful Gate. For that window commemorates both healing and generosity.

It was given in memory of Doctor George Cammann. He was a New York City physician who at the end of a long life of service retired here to the Bronx, and became an active member of Saint James Church, in its original modest wood frame building; he died a year before work on this building began.

He was famous in his day as the inventor of the first practical modern stethoscope, the one that connects to both ears. That binaural experience gave him the ability to hear things doctors had never heard before and he wrote the first instruction manual on diagnosing diseases of the heart and lungs based on what could be heard with this marvelous new invention.

Now, you might wonder why I’m mentioning him in this context of giving what you have to live on. It is because of a choice that Dr. Cammann made based in part on the kind of man he was and also what he knew; for, you see, he had used his new invention on himself. He had accurately diagnosed his own condition, and knew that he didn’t have long to live due to a calcified valve in his heart. He knew that every evening as he lay down to sleep, he might die in the night, and he lived each day in the consciousness of that fact.

The choice he made concerned his invention, too: he could have ended his few remaining years in far greater luxury and passed along a vast fortune to his children if he had patented his invention. But he listened to his heart and his heart told him what to do. He gave the stethoscope as a gift to the world, a gift of healing from which he refused to make a fortune. Because of that most people know the name Tiemann (the manufacturer) rather than Cammann (the inventor). Tiemann’s still in business — believe me. As I said last week, though, God knows — and that’s what counts.

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Each of us is called to give from what we have — not from what we wish we had. And when all is said and done, God doesn’t need our money, our flour, our oil; God doesn’t need our warm coats; God doesn’t need a stethoscope. We need these things, the church needs these things, the world needs these things, Elijah and the widow and her son needed these things; Martin needed these things, the beggar needed these things; sick and suffering people all over the world need these things — and it is because of human need that we humans need to be generous towards each other. It is only by giving up what we have, that we show ourselves to be truly generous. It is by giving up what we have to live on that we show our lives are worth living.

If we cannot give of what we have, of what we value, of what we need, how can we expect to give of our selves? For ultimately that is what God wants, not the money, not the time, talent and treasure, that you hear about in stewardship sermons that stop short of the kingdom of heaven. What God wants is us, our souls and bodies as a reasonable and holy offering. What God wants is us — our hearts most especially. Our wealth and our work are needed here on earth for the spread of God’s realm and the welfare of humanity, and God wants that realm spread, and humanity well cared for — you better believe it! God wants our hands to be at work to build up the world God loved so much that the Son of God himself came to save it; God wants us to lift up our brothers and sisters when they fall, to be generous in giving to the church and to each other; but most importantly God wants our hearts, and believe you me, God needs no stethoscope to hear the rhythm by which they beat, and knows the number of beats allotted to each!

When we have given away all we can to each other, everything we have to live on so that all might live; all the flour and oil, all the cloaks and medical equipment, all the millions in philanthropy, all the small copper coins thrown into the treasury — only when we have given away all of what we think belongs to us and discover thereby that it really all belongs to all of us — only then can we be free to hand ourselves, heart, body and soul, over to God as a final offering, and know the pure and unadulterated grace of God that has sustained us thus far, sustains us now, and carries us forth into the life of the world to come, through Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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Where Love Abides

SJF • Easter 6b 2009 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.+

For as long as I can remember, at least since I was four or five years old, I have had a great love for dinosaurs. I know I am not alone in this, and there are probably more than a few people here who as children staged dinosaur combats with diminutive molded plastic figures of those ancient giants. One of my earliest church memories — I couldn’t have been much older than six — is about arguing with the Sunday School teacher about which day of creation God made the dinosaurs. (I could be a very annoying child!) There was a time I could rattle off the names, terrible-sounding polysyllables worthy of these mysterious monsters from the dawn of time. I’ve forgotten most of the names I knew, and they’ve added so many new ones as discoveries continue, that I can’t keep up. But my fascination and interest still remains.

So a few years ago, when I first saw the previews for the Disney film called simply Dinosaur, I knew I would have to see it. Well, it lived up to all of my expectations, as well of those of a theater full of attentive viewers, most of whom were much, much younger than me!

And lest you find it odd that I am talking about a dinosaur movie in the context of a sermon, I do so because a major theme of the film — and actually a major theme of just about every movie Disney or his successors ever made — is also a major theme of our Scripture readings today. For the primary message of the film is the difference between conflict and cooperation.

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This theme is echoed in our readings as the difference between self-giving love and self-centered fear. We are called to love one another, and even more, we are commanded to love one another by our Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that we are called and commanded reveals a simple truth: love is not natural, it is something we have to be reminded to do, called to do, commanded to do. If love came naturally, the world would be a very different place, and people wouldn’t be singing about “what the world needs now” — because we’d already have it without having to sing for it.

The history of life on earth, including the dinosaurs — and this is where the Disney movie departs from reality and heads off for fantasy land — life without the call and command of God is not loving. Life without the call and command of God is survival of the fittest, every man — or dinosaur — for himself, and the devil — or the Tyrannosaurus — take the hindmost. Nature without love is, as Tennyson observed, “red in tooth and claw” and natural life — as Thomas Hobbes put it — is “nasty, brutish, and short,” though Hobbes thought the answer was good government rather than the love of God.

But to get back to Disney’s fable: in the real world of the Jurassic age there was no enlightened dinosaur to teach that cooperation is better than competition, that the way to survival is not to be found through victory over the weak, but through charity. Real dinosaurs are not charitable! Love does not come natural, and love does not come easy

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Yet love does come. Even more important, love did come. Love came down in the person of Jesus Christ, the only Son of the God, God who is love — in person. God is the love that fills the universe with his desire for unity and wholeness, love that draws together things that are flying apart by spreading out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, to draw it all back together again, love that lifts up things that have been cast down, by stooping to the very depths to get under the weight of a fallen world and hoist it up on his shoulders.

Love came down to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and love called us and gave us a commandment: “Love one another; abide in my love.” This is the love that is greater than any other, the love that lays down its own life for the sake of the beloved; the love that puts others ahead of itself.

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This is the love we are called to; this is the love we are commanded to have for one another. This love is not just affection or warm feelings, but the gift of your very self for the sake of the ones you love. This is the love that marked the first Christian communities, such as the one that Barnabas gathered in Antioch, to which he called Saul, and in which those who believed in Jesus Christ were first called “Christians.” They must have been a particularly loving community — after all, they are one of the few to which Saint Paul did not have to write a letter of admonishment!

Somehow it seems they got it right, and the Scripture witnesses to their generosity and love in response to the prophetic warning that a world-wide famine was coming. Instead of hoarding their own resources, as well they might have done in the face of the terrible news, instead of looking out for themselves they took up a relief collection and sent it to Judea at the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

Think about that for a moment. For the ancient Christians of Antioch it wasn’t “every man for himself” but everyone for somebody else. The Christians of Antioch, were filled with the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of love. They didn’t fear for their own survival but risked all they could, to take up a collection to help the faithful three hundred miles away. God’s love, at work in their hearts, cast out the fear that urged them towards self-preservation, the fear that would have them concentrate on their own survival. God’s love transformed them into generous and memorable souls who were the first to be worthy of that old hymn refrain, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” And so it was in Antioch, that the believers were for the first time known by the name “Christian.”

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And this is still true. People will know we are Christians by our love. We will gain that name, that identity, not because we’ve got it printed on I.D. cards in our pockets, or name-tags round our necks; not because there’s a sign on the door or a cross on the roof. Anybody can get an I.D. card these days; anybody can put a sign on their door or a cross on their roof. Anybody can plaster a bumper sticker on their car, proudly asking you to honk if you love Jesus. Well, I can tell you, Jesus did not command us to honk; he commanded us to love each other as he has loved us! Anybody can slap a WWJD bracelet on their wrist — you know, the one that asks What Would Jesus Do? Well in response to WWJD, I say H C Y D W J W D I Y D K W H D: How Can You Do What Jesus Would Do If You Don’t Know What He Did? There are plenty of folks who call Jesus their Lord without the least interest in doing what he did, or even in doing what he said. What Jesus said is, “Love one another, Abide in my love,” and what he did was to lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus commanded us to love one another because he knew it takes a divine commandment to override the built-in natural drive to self-preservation that all of God’s creatures have carried in their brains and bodies from before the dinosaurs to today. Love is unnatural: natural selection is based on the survival of the fittest, not the love of the most generous. “Love comes from God,” as John the Beloved Disciple wrote, “We love because he first loved us.”

Love comes from God, for God is love. Love isn’t something we thought up, it is something God gives us. The love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is given to us. It takes the grace of God to turn away from the biological imperative to preserve oneself, to favor oneself, it takes the grace of God to embrace the call of God to sacrifice oneself for others, to place others first. It takes God’s call and command to think first about the misfortune and need of another before you tend to yourself; to take up the collection for people you’ve never met when you hear they are facing famine, even when you yourself may not know where your next meal is coming from.

But this is what our loving God through Christ commands us to do, and this is what loving God through the Spirit empowers us to do. And when we do, we too will be known to be Christians as were the first believers in Antioch. We too will be known to be Christians by our love. Not because of the sign on the door, or the cross on the roof, the i.d. card in our pocket, the name-tag round our necks, the bumper sticker on our cars, or the bracelet on our wrist. But because the love of God dwells in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us, in Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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