Corinthians | Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Ash Wednesday February 22, 2012

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Beth Crane

Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 5: 20b-6:10
Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21

Our first reading today is from the prophet Joel. He is one of the so-called Minor Prophets whose writings are found at the end of the Hebrew Scriptures. We know very little about Joel except that he is the son of Pethuel and his name means “the Lord is God.” Scholars are not sure about the time of his ministry, but their best research at this point says that Joel was a prophet closely acquainted with the temple whose ministry took place sometime after the return from the Babylonian Exile in 539 B.C.

There is some kind of a crisis. It is described in agricultural terms as a plague of locusts and also in terms that suggest the approach of a threatening enemy. In any case, Joel, speaking for God, calls the people to return to God with all our heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. God says to the people, “Rend your hearts, not your clothing.” Apparently the people have drifted away from God, and God is calling them to an inward renewal of the spirit. God is also assuring them of God’s steadfast love and mercy. The whole congregation is called to this “solemn assembly,” from the oldest to the youngest, even infants who are still nursing.

In our epistle, Paul calls us to be reconciled to God. Now is the time for us to focus our attention on growing as close to God as we can and to accept God’s grace as fully as we can. Paul tells us of all the many challenges and calamities he has suffered in his life and ministry, and yet he is still persevering and rejoicing.

In our gospel, Jesus is giving us so much wisdom about our Lenten journey. In his time, there were people who made a big show about their religious practices. He tells us to work on our spiritual discipline quietly, almost secretly, because it is between each of us and our loving God. He tells us not to store up for ourselves treasures on earth, treasures that will not last, but to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. And he says that wonderful thing: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If we recognize that God and our life with God is our great treasure, right up there with our love for our families and friends, and, if we remember that the reason we are committed to this Lenten journey is because we want to respond to God’s love and grace, which have freed us from all that imprisons us, God’s love and grace, which have given us eternal life, we will have something like the proper focus for Lent.

Lent comes from the root word for spring. Lent is a time for growth. It is a time to let go of anything that gets between us and God or between us and other people, in other words, sin. Sin is anything that gets between us and God, between us and other people, or between us and our true self. And Lent is a time to take on any discipline or practice that will help us to get closer to God, closer to other people, and closer to becoming our true self, the person God is calling us to be. Each of us is unique, and each of us is going to be giving up or taking on different things for Lent.

This past Sunday we saw who Jesus really is, and when we came down the mountain we realized that we are going to be walking the way of the cross. Jesus says that, if we really want to follow him, we have to take up our cross and follow him. He also says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Back in Jesus’ time, when a carpenter made a yoke for an ox, the carpenter custom made that yoke to fit every bump and every contour and every little idiosyncratic aspect of that ox’s neck and shoulders. That yoke was carefully fitted so that the ox could do its work. That’s how our Lenten discipline and our daily spiritual discipline needs to be fitted.

And, yes, we are to take up our cross. We are called in some way to take on a discipline that will involve sacrifice. There is no way in which it could possibly be the kind of sacrifice or self-offering that our Lord made. He is divine and we are human. But the idea is to participate in his self-giving on some level.

Our goal is to become more like our Lord. We can keep in mind the need to grow in the cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, and in the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love and to move away from the seven root sins: pride, wrath, envy, greed, gluttony. lust, and sloth. We can remember the very helpful framework of the Ten Commandments. We can focus on our Lord’s summary of the law: “Love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. All of these are tried and true guidelines as we navigate the journey of the spirit.

We are walking with Jesus toward Jerusalem, toward the cross. I would like to share with you some thoughts by Barbara Brown Taylor, from her book God in Pain.

Christianity is the only world religion that confesses a God who suffers. It is not all that popular an idea, even among Christians. We prefer a God who prevents suffering, only that is not the God We have got. What the cross teaches us is that God’s power is not The power to force human choices and end human pain. It is, instead, the power to pick up the shattered pieces and make something holy out of them—not from a distance but right close up.

By entering into the experience of the cross, God took the man-made wreckage of the world inside himself and labored with it –a long labor, almost three days–and he did not let go of it until he could transform it and return it to us as life. That is the power of a suffering God, not to prevent pain, but to redeem it, by going through it with us. (God in Pain, p. 118)

This passage is extraordinary, I think, because it helps us to begin to understand that when we focus on God, when we walk the way of the cross, when we follow a serious spiritual discipline, we are living into the redemptive work of our Lord. By doing the work of growing closer to God, we are asking God to help us pick up the pieces of our lives so that we can put those pieces in God’s hands and invite God to transform our brokenness into wholeness and life. Lent is a time to move from death to life.

May we have a Lent full of growth and new life.

Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Ash Wednesday, Barbara Brown Taylor, Corinthians, Joel, Lent, Matthew, Psalm 103 | Leave a comment »

Epiphany 6B RCL February 12, 2012

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Beth Crane

2 Kings 5: 1-14
Psalm 30
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1 40-43

In our opening reading, we have the wonderful story of Naaman, a powerful general who has leprosy. Scholars tell us that the word “leprosy” in the Bible does not necessarily mean the horribly disfiguring ailment which we call leprosy, Hansen’s Disease. In biblical times, many different kinds of skin ailments were called leprosy. These diseases all caused great distress for their victims. In Jewish law, anyone with such a disease was considered unclean. More on this later.

Naaman is an excellent general and a very successful and wealthy man. Except for this one problem, his life is perfect. The great preacher and theologian Herbert O’Driscoll says that he wonders why someone in the nineteenth century didn’t make an opera out of the story of Naaman’s healing.After many ups and downs, he finally does wash himself seven times in the Jordan river and is immediately healed, but it is entirely through the efforts of servants and other little people that he finally sees reason and follows Elisha’s simple directions.

Naaman is a foreigner and is not a Jew, yet God still heals him. His money and his power have nothing to do with this happy outcome. It is purely the gift of a loving God.

In our gospel for today, we have another healing of a leper. If you had a skin condition in Jesus’ time, as we noted earlier, you were considered ritually unclean. Biblical scholar Paul Galbreath tells us that anyone with such a condition had to go to the priests who would determine how serious his condition was and would make a treatment plan. If the disease was in an acute stage, the person would be quarantined to determines the severity and infectious nature of the condition. Galbreath says that if the person showed no signs of healing, he could be banished. Herbert O’Driscoll writes that a person with such a skin condition had to stay 150 yards away from any other human being, except another leper. In addition to the physical suffering inflicted by the disease, the isolation and stigma and loneliness were horrendous.

I share this information to allow us to get a sense of the desperation of this man. We wonder how many times this person had tried to approach Jesus. We think what it must have taken for him to get to this point. He calls out to Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Of course Jesus chooses to make this man whole, He reaches out, touches him, and says, “I do choose. Be made clean!”

It is almost impossible for us to understand all the levels of meaning in this. In those days, to be ritually unclean was almost worse than being dead. This is why the priest and the Levite walk by on the other side rather than touching the man who has fallen among thieves in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In order to obey the law, they have to choose allowing someone to die rather than risking becoming ritually unclean.

When Jesus reaches out and touches this leper, he not only takes the risk of getting the man’s disease, he becomes ritually unclean. He tells the man to go to the priest and make the offering required in order for them to declare him clean. That’s what you had to do. The priest had to say that you were well now and you could return to your family and friends, associate with people, talk with people, and generally become human again.

But Jesus can’t go to the priest and be declared clean. From now on, he is going to be fighting this system of ritual purity and impurity. Paul Galbreath writes, “ Thus the point of the healing is to press the issue of injustice with religious leaders who uphold laws in ways that violate God’s mercy for those who are sick and weak. Jesus sends the man to the priest in order that he may provide witness over and against a system that has isolated him from contact with members of his community.” (Galbreath, New Proclamation, Year B 2012, p.94.)

Jesus transcended the purity code. He reached out and touched everyone you weren’t supposed to associate with. We can ask ourselves, what kinds of folks do we consider impure or not quite up to snuff? People with HIV/Aids, drug addicts, alcoholics, those who have served time in prison, migrant workers, all these groups come to mind. We still have this tendency to say these people are in, but those people are out. As we run the spiritual race, as we develop our askesis, our athletic training of the spirit which Paul described so eloquently, it’s so important for us to remember that, in our Lord’s kingdom, everyone is sitting at the table. Everyone is at the feast.

This past Tuesday, I had the privilege of meeting the Rev. Kim Erno, a native of Swanton who has spent the past ten years in Mexico doing all kinds of creative ministries which we will be hearing more about in coming months. For some time now, Kim has felt a call to return home and work with our Mexican migrant workers here in Franklin County.

Beth and Jan will have the opportunity to meet with Kim on February 16 at a gathering of folks from churches around this area and they will be discussing this new ministry.

This new ministry, called FARM (Franklin Alliance for Rural Ministries) is a wonderful response to today’s gospel. Kim is now working in the areas of Mexico from which most of our farm workers come. He speaks Spanish fluently and, when he returns and begins this ministry, he will be able to make personal connections between our brothers working here and their families in Mexico. He told me that the men working here do not have Spanish as their native language. Their native tongue is Mayan. Their roots go way back. Kim is also creating a network in Canada with people who help migrant workers north of the border, so we have all kinds of borders being crossed, barriers being broken, brothers and sisters becoming part of God’s loving family.

At the end of our visit, Kim and I came up and knelt at the altar rail and prayed together. I would ask that we pray together now.

Loving and gracious God, thank you for making us one in You. We pray for Kim as he prepares to come back home. Fill him with your grace, lead him in your light and guide him in your Spirit. We pray for those who will meeting on February 16, that your Spirit will be with them. And we pray for our migrant workers and those who are ministering and will be ministering to them. May they be surrounded by your love and filled with your grace. In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Corinthians, Herbert O'Driscoll, Kings, Mark, Paul Galbreath, Psalm 30 | Leave a comment »

Epiphany 5B RCL February 5, 2012

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 40: 21=31
Psalm 147: 1-12, 21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1: 29039

Our first reading, from the prophet known as the Second Isaiah, takes us back to the time of the Exile in Babylon. The people are feeling that God has forgotten them. Here they are, far from home, trying to hold on to their faith, but beginning to lose heart. They think that God does not understand their situation. Sometimes we feel that way. We ask, where is God in all of this? Does God care that we are going through this awful situation?

Through the prophet Isaiah, God answers the people. God is the One who created all things. As the text says, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” And God assures us that God does not grow weary, that God “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless …Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.”

There is a deep truth in these passages from Isaiah: that God is with us, that God understands us, that God will never grow weary in helping us, that, as Paul says, “God’s power is made perfect in weakness.” When we feel powerless and admit our powerlessness, God enables us to fly like eagles.

This theme of weakness carries into our epistle today. The congregation in Corinth has some members who feel they have superior knowledge. They are coming from a position of power, and they are attacking Paul. Paul is not saying that he has superior power or knowledge. He is saying that he tries to understand people, to walk in their shoes and have empathy for them so that he can share the good news with them in ways that they can understand. He writes, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some….” He is coming from a place of humility and meets people where they are. He is following the example of our Lord, who said, “I am among you as one who serves.”

In our gospel, Jesus and his disciples leave the synagogue in Capernaum and go to the home of Simon Peter and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. They tell Jesus that she is ill. Jesus goes and takes her by the hand, and lifts her up. Scholars tell us that the Greek word used by Mark for “lifted up” is the same word Mark uses for Jesus’ resurrection. So this word means more than just lifted to a standing position. It means a rising to new life. The fever leaves her and she begins to serve them. The word for “to serve” is diakonia, the root word for deacon. Jesus heals her and calls her into new life and restores her to her ministry. Like the ministries of most of us, it is an ordinary everyday ministry of service—diakonia.

Word spreads fast. A healing has happened. By evening the whole city is at the door bringing people who need healing. Jesus ministers to them, but then, in the early morning, he goes off to pray. We all need to do that. We have times when we go to be with God and be recharged and renewed.

The disciples go to find Jesus and he tells them to go to the neighboring towns to share the good news and to make people whole.

What are these readings saying to us? First, at times when we feel that God is far away, times when we think there is no hope, times when we feel weak and unable to put one foot in front of another, God speaks to us and says, “I am the Creator of the vast galaxies, and I am also your loving God who will never leave you. I am always with you, to help you and guide you.”

Secondly, Jesus came as one of us, and Paul models that awareness in his ministry. He becomes the people he is called to serve, as Jesus became one of us. When we do our ministry we are called to become one with the people we are called to serve, to come from a place of empathy and servanthood, rather that a place of superiority and power. As Paul said, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Third, Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, and she goes right back to serving them. He lifts her up, he makes her whole. He welcomes her to new life, and then she serves a meal. Not very exciting, we could say.

Most of our ministries are ordinary, everyday ministries of service. Nothing very dramatic. But because our Lord has called us and walks with us every step of the way, we do these ordinary things in a different way. Because he is with us, we listen to a troubled person in a different way, with his concern, with his love. Because he is with us, we may be writing a grant or working on a budget, or cleaning someone’s teeth, or doing laundry for a traumatized kid, or baking, or doing carpentry, or making a building more accessible, but we are doing it in a different way. We are carrying the presence and grace of our Lord to those we meet.

The fourth century theologian and bishop Cyril of Jerusalem wrote, “Everywhere the Savior becomes ‘all things to all men.’ To the hungry, bread; to the thirsty, water; to the dead, resurrection; to the sick, a physician; to sinners, redemption.” (New Proclamation Year B 2012, p. 91.)

Loving and gracious God, thank you for coming among us and leading us into newness of life. Thank you for calling us to minister to others in your Name. Give us grace, we pray, that we may be aware of your presence and help in the smallest and most ordinary of tasks and that we may share your love and healing as we serve our brothers and sisters, who, like us, are your beloved children. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Filed under: Sermons | Tagged: Corinthians, Cyril of Jerusalem, Isaiah, Mark, Paul, Psalm 147 | Leave a comment »

Epiphany 4B RCL January 29, 2012

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Beth Crane

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8: 1-13
Mark 1: 21-28

In our first reading, God’s people are on the border of Canaan, poised to go into the promised land. God is assuring them that God will raise up prophets like Moses to guide the people. There is a long line of prophets such as Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, and many others who held God’s measuring rod up to their societies and called people to follow God’s ways.

More recently, we have prophetic people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyl, who has led the struggle for democracy in Burma, also called Myanmar, and Professor Wangari Maathai, the tree lady of Kenya, founder of the Green Belt movement to plant trees and combat deforestation. The Green Belt Movement has also promoted social justice and democracy. God is constantly calling forth prophets.

Our reading from 1 Corinthians asks the question: Is it all right to eat food that has been sacrificed to idols? This may not be a burning question for us, but there are other issues which can divide us. Paul offers a profound insight. He says, “Knowledge puffs up but love builds up.” As we are working through decisions and issues in the Body of Christ, it is important to treat each other with respect and to exercise humility. Freedom and license are two different things. Our behavior affects the lives of others in the community.

In today’s gospel, Jesus and the disciples go to Capernaum, a large town located on the northern end of the Sea of Galilee. When the Sabbath comes, they go into the synagogue. In those days, the local synagogue was a place for teaching, praying, and studying the scriptures together. The Temple in Jerusalem was the place where worship and sacrifice took place.

Jesus teaches the people. They are astounded because he teaches with a personal authority and immediacy that is magnetic. They can tell that he has a close personal relationship with God. He is not just mouthing things he has learned in a scholarly setting. Jesus is not a Scribe, one of the people who are the official teachers of the law. His authority comes directly from God.

Then we move into the next part of this gospel. There is a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue.

Scholars tell us that, in the first-century Mediterranean world, people believed that everything was caused by personal forces. God was at the top, followed by “other gods,” sons of gods, and archangels. Then came angels, spirits, and demons. Then came humans with our own layers of social status.

Demons resisted any attempt to dislodge them from their host. In this gospel, the demons try to protect themselves by using Jesus’ name and recognizing his authority. If the demons admit Jesus’ power, maybe he will leave them alone. Theologian Nancy Koester writes, “After all, why should the Holy One of God care about a bunch of unclean spirits inhabiting some worthless human being—especially if these unclean spirits know and confess who is boss? But Jesus will have none of it. For Jesus, authority is not merely the right to wield power over those of lesser rank, but it keeps in view the ends for which that power is used. Jesus does not make little compromises with evil. He has the authority to deliver, heal, convict, forgive, cleanse, and raise from the dead. He aims to defeat evil so that we can be set free.” (New Proclamation Year B, 1999-2000, p. 111.)

People believed that demons (the Greek term) or unclean spirits (the Semitic term) could control human behavior. Demons were seen as a force causing people to behave in unacceptable ways that separated them from the community. To set someone free from the demons not only cured them but also restored them to the community.

Normally when Jesus encounters unclean spirits or demons in the gospel, I talk about how diseases were in those days attributed to demon possession. But this gospel is focusing on Jesus’ ability to confront and defeat the forces of darkness. Very early in his gospel, Mark is putting Jesus’ ministry in a cosmic framework. He cares about even the most humble and insignificant person, and he has the power to defeat any and all forces that would rob us of God’s intended wholeness.

Jesus has authentic authority. Remember that the word “authority” comes from the Latin auctoritas, authorship, creativity, that which sets us free. If we go back to our epistle for today, we would say that true authority builds up, does not tear down. True authority is always working toward health and wholeness. The opposite of authority is the Latin imperium, that which imprisons, confines, controls.

In this scientific age, we do not often think in terms of forces which may control us. But they exist even if we don’t want to name them or face them. Greed, materialism, self-serving ambition, violence as entertainment, all forms of addiction including substance abuse, gambling, internet addiction, and the list goes on. All of these imprison people.

We also don’t like to acknowledge the existence of evil in this world. But it is there. Many times it comes from our own misuse of God’s gift of free will. Whenever we think we are facing the forces of darkness, it is a good idea to look within and see what we are doing to create this or contribute to it. But there are times when it is clear that there is a powerful and palpable force of darkness. C. S, Lewis, in his classic The Screwtape Letters, cautioned us neither to deny the existence of evil nor to give it too much power.

I am an Associate of a religious order for women in the Episcopal Church called the Order of St. Helena. I had the privilege of working with a wonderful spiritual guide who was a member of the Order. Her name was Sister Rachel Hosmer. Sister Rachel worked for many years in Africa. The people she worked with had beliefs similar to those of Jesus’ time. Their world was full of spirits and they practiced voodoo. People actually died from curses and other practices. Once, when I was having some encounters with the forces of darkness, Sister Rachel told me something like this: “When you are being assailed by these forces, they seem huge and endlessly powerful, so dark that they block your view, but just remember that, in the face of the light of Christ, they are but a little speck.” Sister Rachel’s comment is a perfect summary of our gospel for today. Amen.

Filed under: Sermons | Tagged: C.S. Lewis, Corinthians, Deuteronomy, Mark, Psalm 111 | Leave a comment »

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Ash Wednesday February 22, 2012

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