King David | Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Pentecost 7 Proper 9B RCL July 8, 2018

Posted on July 8, 2018 by Beth Crane

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

In our first reading today. all the tribes of Israel gather and call David to be their king. This coronation not only makes David their king officially. It also renews the covenant between God and the people. David had many flaws, but he also had a very deep faith in God, and this was the source of his greatness as a leader.

In our epistle for today, we have a passage that is full of meaning. Paul founded the congregation in Corinth. Other teachers and leaders have followed him, and they are saying all kinds of negative things about him, including that he does not have enough mystical experiences.

So Paul tells a story. I know this man, he says, who had a profound mystical experience. He was taken up to the seventh heaven, the highest heaven, and he heard things that humans could never even think to express or repeat. The story is about himself, but he is too humble to say that.

And then, he tells this congregation that has been so difficult and so critical of him that he has a thorn in the flesh. We have no idea what this could be. Many people have written about their theories about this, but responsible scholars make it clear that we have no way of knowing what this weakness is.

Paul makes himself vulnerable to these highly gifted and extraordinarily finicky Corinthians by sharing his greatest weakness! He tells them and us that he prayed three times for God to take this thing away, but that miracle did not happen. Instead, God told Paul something that is at the core of our faith and the center of our life in Christ, and I’m using the Revised Standard translation because I think it makes the point even more clearly: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

What a paradox and what a mystery! We can have a weakness, a disease or a flaw or whatever it is, and through that flaw, God can show God’s power. We have this thing, whatever it is, and we pray and pray, and we do have sincere faith, and the day comes when we realize that God is showing God’s power through helping us to cope with this thorn in our flesh, and through that coping, with God’s grace, our faith deepens and our love of Christ grows stronger and our compassion for others increases.

We can only imagine how many people have read this passage and had their lives changed by it.

In our gospel for today, Jesus returns to his home town of Nazareth. They marvel at his wisdom. but they cannot see who he truly is because he is the son of Jospeh and Mary. He is someone they know. He is the son of the carpenter and why is he not working in the carpenter shop? This may be a possible source of that observation that “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Their preconceptions prevent them from realizing they are meeting their Savior.

Jesus makes a comment that holds a great deal of truth: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” Isn’t it interesting how we hire consultants from outside to give us guidance on what to do? Sometimes that is a good idea, but we also need to realize that we who are living in a community and are members of a parish, have much more knowledge than an outsider can possibly have.

The text tells us that Jesus “Could do no deed of power there.” He had just healed the daughter of Jairus and the woman who had a hemorrhage and many other people, but he couldn’t heal anyone in Nazareth. We have to be open to the power and love and healing of our Lord in order for him to help us.

Let us note that the rejection does not stop him from doing his ministry. He goes around the villages teaching, and he sends the disciples out do their ministry of healing and forgiveness. Many people turn their lives around, and many are healed.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” This is at the heart of our faith. Jesus died on a cross. That is a position of complete and utter weakness in the world’s eyes. He did not muster an army. He did kill those who opposed him. He could have. He had all the power in the world. He took all that hatred and contempt and, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, he “took all the man-made wreckage of the world inside himself and labored with it for almost three days—and he did not let go of it until he could transform it and return it to us as life.” (Taylor, Teaching Sermons on Suffering: God in Pain, p. 118.)

And that is what he can do with our weaknesses and our defeats. He can take the things that make us feel ashamed and discouraged and unworthy and transform them into sources of a faith deeper than we could have imagined. He can turn those weaknesses into strengths that help us to carry out our ministries to others and spread his love.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Loving and gracious Lord, thank you for your grace. Thank you for your power, the power to make us and the creation whole. May we use the gift of your grace to help you build your kingdom. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Corinthians, 2 Samuel, Barbara Brown Taylor, King David, Mark 6, Psalm 58, Teaching Sermons on Suffering: God in Pain | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 6 Proper 8B RCL July 1, 2018

Posted on July 1, 2018 by Beth Crane

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5: 21-43

In our opening reading, Saul and his son Jonathan have been killed in battle. During the reign of Saul, David had spent a great deal of time at the court. As Saul became more and more ill and had trouble sleeping, David used to play the harp and sing to the king. David and Jonathan were close friends.

As time went on, Saul became more and more afraid of losing power as king. He thought David was plotting to take the throne and tried to kill David. David had at least one opportunity that we know of to kill Saul, but he spared Saul’s life. When David had to escape out into the wilderness to hide from Saul, Jonathan continued to remain a loyal friend, bringing David food and warning him when Saul was searching for him. Even though Jonathan was Saul’s heir, he remained a good friend to David. He put friendship ahead of his own place as the one next in line to be king.

Of course, we know that God had sent Samuel to anoint David as king. David had many flaws. He gave orders that Uriah be sent to the front lines to die in battle so that he could marry Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. At the same time, David had qualities that endeared him to his people. His poem of praise to both Saul and Jonathan is a beautiful elegy for these two men, and it is also a lament on the waste of war. “How the mighty have fallen” is a phrase that has come into our language. David praises both Saul, who tried to kill him and Jonathan, his loyal friend, calling them “beloved and lovely!” David was able to look beyond the complex and tragic personal aspects of the situation and to pay tribute to Saul, who helped Israel begin the transition from a collection of tribes into a nation-state.

Psalm 130 is a powerful song of faith and hope with which all of us can identify. How many times have we been awake in the night watches agonizing over a situation and praying for God’s help for ourselves and others.

This assurance of God’s love and power is what enables two people to reach out to Jesus for help in our gospel for today.

Jesus is back on the busy side of the Sea of Galilee. The crowds are around him. Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, is so desperate that he comes to this teacher whom the authorities are watching closely. “My daughter is at the point of death, Come lay your hands on her and heal her.” Immediately Jesus follows him to his house.

Things are so hectic and needs are so great that a woman, someone on the other end of the social spectrum, is able to come up and touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, certain that just the power from that contact will heal her of hemorrhages that she has had for twelve years. She has gone to doctors but they have not been able to help. Because of this illness, she is marked by the law as unclean, She is supposed to stay away from people, No rabbi is supposed to be near to or touch someone who is unclean. But somehow she knows that Jesus will not be angry at her. She knows that he will care as much for her as he does for an official of the synagogue. So she reaches out over the abyss of social standing and religious laws and touches his cloak.

Jesus feels energy leaving his body. Herbert O’Driscoll says something very important about this, He notes that healing work has a cost. Every one in this congregation does healing work of one kind or another, and it does have a cost. I want to thank you for carrying out these ministries and for paying the emotional and physical price for your healing work.

Jesus asks, “Who touched me?” We will never know how much that woman might have been tempted to run away, or to melt into the crowd and hide. She had just broken the religious law. But there was something about Jesus. His love and his caring had given her the courage to reach out and touch his garment in the first place, and now she falls on her knees before him just as Jairus had done earlier. Knowing that she had been healed, she told him everything. That’s how Jesus is: we can tell him everything. And he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” He has just made her a part of his big family.

As he is still speaking, people come from Jairus’ house and tell him, “Your daughter is dead. Don’t bother the rabbi any more.” And Jesus says, “Do not fear, only believe.” He takes with him only Peter, James. and John. He firmly escorts all the weeping and wailing people out of the house and takes the girl’s mother and father into her room.

Jesus knows the difference between life and death, between despair and hope. He takes the girl by the hand and says, “Little girl, get up!” As she walks around the room, he tells them to get her something to eat.

“Do not fear, only believe.” There are things happening in our own lives and in the world which can make us worried and afraid. Our Lord is speaking to us and to our fears and worries today when he says, “Do not fear, only believe.” He is calling us to do what he did with these two people. He was not afraid when a religious authority asked his help even when other authorities were watching his every move. He was not afraid when a woman labeled unclean touched his cloak. He was always looking beyond these rules and labels and always moving in faith to bring healing, love and wholeness into the lives of people.

That is what we are called to do—to move beyond the fear and believe that, with God’s help and grace, we can bring love and healing into the world. And that is what you are doing every day. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Corinthians, 2 Samuel, Bathsheba, Herbert O'Driscoll, King David, King Saul, Mark 5, Psalm 130, Uriah | Leave a comment »

Lent 4A March 26, 2017

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Beth Crane

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

Our opening reading today tells the story of how God led Samuel to anoint David as King. David, the youngest, the shepherd, had to be called in from the fields. But he was the one God had called. For me this Lent, the key thought in this passage is, “…for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Our psalm for today is one of the most powerful and inspiring and beloved of all the psalms. Jesus is our Good Shepherd, and he will lead us to still waters and nourishing pastures. We have nothing to fear. He will lead us every step of the way into eternal life.

In our reading from Ephesians, we are encouraged to live as people of the light.

Once again, I would like to focus on today’s gospel because it has so much to teach us. Jesus is walking along with the disciples, and they meet a man who has been blind from birth. Immediately they ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

It is so human that when something bad happens, we want to find someone to blame. Who sinned, this man or his parents. First of all, there is no way that a baby can sin. Secondly, we live in a fallen creation. Bad things happen to good people. So the disciples are asking the wrong question. Sometimes, in our effort to understand something, we do that. We ask the wrong question. We want to find an answer because that gives us some sense of control. We want to be able to say, “That’s what caused it.”

With the state of science in the time of Jesus, even if there was a cause for this man’s blindness, the people of that time probably would not have been able to find it. Perhaps it was some genetic problem. Perhaps it was something that happened during birth which would have been a tragic accident, but with the state of medicine and surgery at that time, nothing could have been done. Sometimes asking why something tragic has happened can lead us down into a pit of hopeless futility.

As Christians, we are called to focus on the attitude of our Lord. What does he say? Neither the man nor his parents sinned. This is an opportunity for us to work with God and bring light and hope into this man’s life. We are not going to dither and worry about why it happened. We are going to make this man whole.

What does Jesus do? He makes a poultice. He spits on the ground and makes a little mud pie with the dirt and spreads the mud on the man’s eyes. Then he tells him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. The man follows the directions to the letter and comes back able to see.

In times gone by, people would make poultices to heal all kinds of things. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines “poultice” in this way: “A soft, usually heated and sometimes medicated mass, spread on cloth and applied to sores or other lesions.” In the fourteenth century, an anonymous mystic and spiritual guide wrote, “Take the good gracious God just as he is, as plain as a common poultice, and lay him to your sick self just as you are.”

What a wonderful thought—take the Good gracious God and lay God on our human and limited and hurting self like a common poultice.

Jesus puts a poultice on the man and cures him. The man can see. But the people around him are not convinced. They interrogate him. Then they take him to the ultimate authorities, the Pharisees, who interrogate him some more. Then they question his parents. On and on it goes. For this man, it is very simple; he was blind and now he can see. We hear these words in that wonderful hymn, “Amazing Grace” by John Newton, who wrote, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” He left the slave trade, a man transformed. The man in our gospel, who was blind from the day he was born, can now see, thanks to Jesus. But many people do not want to believe this good news. They even accuse Jesus of being a sinner.

All during these interrogations and the continuing harassment from the Pharisees, who are in positions of great power, this unnamed man shows great courage. He never stops stating the facts—“The man put mud on my eyes, then I washed, and now I see.” Finally, after demeaning and insulting him, they actually chase the man out of town.

Jesus hears about this and goes back to see this man he has healed.

They have a conversation. The man realizes that Jesus is the Savior and becomes one of his disciples. This humble and courageous man who has a disability which has put him on the margins of society, can see who Jesus is. But the learned and respected Pharisees, who have so much power, abuse the man and his parents, and fail to see the reality of Jesus.

Once again, our Lord has a healing encounter with a humble and courageous person who is open to Jesus’ transforming power.

Once again, we see the healing and transforming power of Jesus’ love.

“Take the good gracious God, just as he is, as plain as a common poultice and lay him to your sick self, just as you are….Nothing matters now except that you willingly offer to God that blind awareness of your naked being in joyful love, so that grace can bind you and make you spiritually one with the precious being of God, simply as he is in himself.” (The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counseling, Trans. William Johnston, Image Books, p. 153.)

Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: "Amazing Grace", 1 Samuel 16, Ephesians 5, Good Shepard, John Newton, King David, Lent, Pslalm 23, The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling, William Johnston | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 12 Proper 15B RCL August 16, 2015

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Beth Crane

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-55

In our opening reading, King David has died, and his son, Solomon, is the new king. At this point in his life, Solomon is a young man. Scholars tell us he is about twenty. In this passage, Solomon has a dream of an encounter with God. He shows humility, admitting that he does not yet know how to perform the duties of a king, and he asks for the gift of wisdom. In the passage immediately following this one, Solomon does show wisdom when two women come to him claiming to be the mother of the same baby. When Solomon offers to decide the case by cutting the child in half and giving each of them a portion, the real mother, putting the baby’s welfare first, tells him that there is no way that she is going to let him do that, and he should simply give the baby to the other woman. Of course, Solomon gives the baby to her.

We know that Solomon built the great temple in Jerusalem. He also built himself a palace, and, toward the end of his life, he built shrines to the various gods of the many foreign ladies he married. All of this construction required workers, and he forced his subjects to do this labor. He also taxed the people heavily in order to afford all these projects plus the luxurious lifestyle of his large court. In short, he did not show proper respect and concern for the people. He also failed to respect the traditions of Israel. Soon after he died, the country split in two.

It was a good thing to ask God for the gift of wisdom, but Solomon did not follow through on the gift. In the beginning of this lesson, we read that Solomon loved the Lord, yet he worshipped at the high places and had gone to Gibeon to sacrifice to another deity. We have the beginning of a theme here, the conflict between wisdom and foolishness.

Ephesus was a port city, full of all kinds of temples to various gods and goddesses, full of many temptations and worldly distractions. By the time Paul was writing this letter, most followers of Jesus were expecting the Lord to return very soon. They felt that their time was limited. He might come any day. So Paul is calling them and us to make the most of the time we have. The Greek word used here for time is kairos. Kairos is kingdom time, the quality of time that we experience when we are living in the new life, as opposed to chronos, or clock time.

Paul calls us not to be foolish, but to seek the will of the Lord. That is what it means to be in Christ. We ask our Lord what he wants us to be doing. We don’t simply do what we want to do. We let him guide our actions and our thoughts.

We are called not to get drunk on wine. Then as now, people used to get drunk because they thought it let them have a quick way to have an ecstatic experience of God. Obviously, getting drunk is not an experience of God. Paul calls us to allow ourselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That happens from giving every moment of our lives to God, and asking God to lead us and guide us in our choices so that we are living in the Spirit and filled with the Spirit.

We are called to praise God, to sing psalms and hymns to God. When we sing praise to God, especially when we sing and pray together, something happens within us. Praising God allows us to open ourselves to God’s love and grace.

We are called to “thank God at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is a tall order sometimes. Do we thank God that Elizabeth is going to have to have more surgery and chemo and radiation therapy? I find it impossible to do that, but we can thank God for the love and faith of her family and for the skill of her medical team, who are doing everything possible. We can thank God for the gifts of faith and hope, and we can pray for and with everyone who is praying for Elizabeth.

“Be careful then how you live,” Paul writes. Thank God that we know that there is another set of standards that go beyond the values of this world, and that we are trying, with God’s help, to live by those standards and to become new in Christ.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is actually asking us to eat his flesh and to drink his blood. In the early days of the Christian community, some people thought that we Christians were cannibals. As we study this reading, we think of Eucharist. “This is my Body,” our Lord says, “This is my blood.” Jesus is with us. He is the host at this Thanksgiving Dinner. Remember, Eucharist means “thanksgiving.”

No, we are not cannibals, but our Lord is giving us Himself in a way that goes beyond our understanding. Centuries after he walked the earth with healing and love, he is able to be more present at every point on this planet and throughout the universe because he has risen.

Every time we gather, he is here, and he feeds us with food and drink that transforms us into his likeness and welcomes us into a new way of living, a way that is very different from the values of this world. We are not just spectators at this feast. We are participants. We are joined with him in something that can transform us and transform the world.

Once again, the religious authorities are caught in the literal, the earth-bound. Jesus is inviting us into the heavenly realms that transcend those earthly prisons, and thanks be to our Lord we are able to follow him. At the center of our life in Christ is the cross. Living in wisdom and love requires sacrifice and discipline.

When he was young, Solomon asked for wisdom, but he did not have the spiritual stamina to sustain that gift. Paul calls the Ephesians and us to use every day and every moment to choose the way of compassion, maintain the spiritual focus to follow our Lord. Jesus comes to us, having suffered every horror, even the horror Elizabeth and Keith and Sara and Chris and Jack and Teddy are now enduring, and he gives us the food of himself so that we can walk into a new dimension of life and eternal life with him. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Kings 2, Ephesians 5, Eucharist, John 6, King David, Pentecost, Psalm 111 | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 11 Proper 14B RCL August 9, 2015

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Beth Crane

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4: 25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

We remember that last Sunday, the prophet Nathan had the difficult job of confronting David with his sinfulness, and God told David that David would be subjected to serious troubles from within his own family. This morning, we witness a tragic example of these troubles.

Absalom was an exceedingly handsome young man with a magnificent head of hair which he allowed to grow long. Although King David loved Absalom, he did not discipline his son, and Absalom did whatever he felt like doing. By the time we reach today’s reading, Absalom had murdered his brother Amnon and had burned a field owned by King David’s loyal commander, Joab, because Joab would not do what Absalom wanted him to do.

At this point in the tragic story, Absalom is leading a revolution against his father. Many of the Israelites are following this charismatic young man. A battle is about to take place. If David loses this battle, he will lose his kingdom. But this is not his greatest concern. David does not want anything bad to happen to his beloved son. He tells his commanders that if they come upon Absalom, they should be gentle with him. Absalom is riding on his mule, passes under a huge oak tree, and gets caught in the branches. He is hanging helplessly when Joab’s ten armor bearers come by. They kill Absalom. When David hears this news, he is heartbroken.

This whole chain of events began when David lost his own way and committed adultery and then murdered Uriah to cover up that sin. We might say that David was so busy fighting battles and building up his kingdom that he did not have the time and energy to be a good father to Absalom. Joab, his faithful commander, does what is necessary to protect David and the kingdom. What a sad story of human sin and frailty.

Our reading from Ephesians describes the qualities of a healthy Christian community. We must tell the truth to each other because we are members of each other. We are joined together as hands and feet and eyes and ears and heart and lungs and brain are joined in a body. We must work so that we can help those who have less than we do. We must always be building up, not tearing down. We must put away bitterness and anger and truly love each other as Christ loved us.

This is such a contrast to the story of David and his family, which is so full of struggle and selfishness and major sins, including murder. King David would undoubtedly have given his life if he could have saved his son. But it took a greater King, our Lord Jesus, who was also of the house of David, to lead us out of the mire of our sins and give us new life.

When we live as the Letter to the Ephesians calls us to live, we all grow more and more into Christ, Our gifts are nourished for the good of the body and of the entire human community, We become stronger and stronger because our Lord is leading us. Sometimes quite suddenly, sometimes gradually, our sins fall by the wayside. We are growing into maturity in Christ. We see the Christ in each other and we truly love each other. We love to be together. We support each other on our journeys. Sometimes we are called to speak the truth in love and disagree on some things. We can speak the truth and still love and respect each other. Always, we know that we are being led by the risen Christ, who is in our midst.

I thank God often for the gift of being at Grace, where these qualities of a loving community are lived on a daily basis.

In our gospel for today, Jesus is telling us that he is the bread of life. The religious authorities can’t understand this. They keep focusing on the idea that Jesus is the son of Mary and Joseph, and there is no way that he could have come down from heaven. The idea that God loves us so much that God would actually come and live here as one of us just boggles their minds. When we humans are closed to the amazing depth of the love of God, that’s what happens. We just cannot get our minds around the fact that God loves us so much that God would come among us as a baby, just the way we came into the world. And that God would have a profound understanding of what it means to be human because God has lived on this earth as a fully human being. Jesus is the living bread. Jesus gives us this heavenly food, the food of his very self, his energy, his love, his healing.

Maybe that is why Paul could write so eloquently and powerfully about what it means to be a Christian and how a healthy Christian community looks and functions. Because, on the road to Damascus, as Paul, then named Saul, was fuming with rage on his way to kill more followers of Christ, our Lord broke through Saul’s hate and unbelief when he asked that question which changed everything: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Paul went blind for awhile but he saw the light. And he became the apostle called to share this news with everyone. His mind and heart were opened to this new truth, this new life.

Jesus loves us so much that he does things like that. He breaks into our mental and spiritual prisons and sets us free. All of us are human. We have all made mistakes, and we will make more. But our Lord is with us. He is the light of the world. He is the Good Shepherd, leading us. He is the Bread of Life. We also have a community of loving people who will listen to us, support us, pray for us, and help us along the way. That is what it means to be members of the Body of Christ. Grace, love, and healing are flowing through us every moment. And we are here to share all these gifts with others.

Lord Jesus, thank you for all these blessings. Lead us and guide us always. In your Name we pray. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Samuel 18, Ephesians 4, John 6, King David, Pentecost 11, Psalm 130 | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 10 Proper 13B RCL August 2, 2015

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Beth Crane

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

In our opening lesson, David has committed adultery with Bathsheba and then has murdered her husband, Uriah the Hittite, who was one of David’s most loyal and valiant soldiers. After the time of mourning, David and Bathsheba are married, and they have a son.

God is not pleased with David’s behavior, so God sends Nathan to confront the king. The job of a prophet is to hold God’s measuring rod up to individuals and society. This is not an easy ministry. And it can be dangerous, Kings do not always like to hear God’s opinion of their less than sterling behavior, and prophets have been beaten, thrown in prison, and even killed.

Let’s pause for a moment. If we were in Nathan’s position, how would we confront David and call him to repent? And an accompanying question: how would we do this and survive?

Nathan is a wise and courageous prophet. He tells a story about a rich man and a poor man. The rich man has everything anyone could want. The poor man has very little, and his most prized possession is his ewe lamb. He treats her like one of his own family. A traveler arrives at the rich man’s house, and the rich man is so stingy that he does not want to kill one of his animals to throw a dinner for the guest. So he takes the poor man’s lamb, kills it, cooks it, and serves it to the guest.

Never does it dawn on David that he is the rich man, Uriah the Hittite is the poor man, and Bathsheba is the ewe lamb. At the end of the story, David is enraged. “That rich man deserves to die,” he yells at the top of his lungs. Then poor Nathan has the courage to say those words we will never forget: “You are the man.” And Nathan tells David that God has given David many gifts and David has done terrible things, and now David is going to have great trouble from within his own family.

David does not kill Nathan. He comes to his senses. He admits his sin. He begins to see and accept the truth of what he has done. We have all had times like this, times when we have done things we ought not to have done or not done things we ought to have done, and there is no health in us. Our psalm, which is also used on Ash Wednesday, is the proper response in these moments. We need to be washed and cleansed of our sin, and we must trust in God’s forgiveness and God’s ability to help us make a new beginning.

In our gospel, Jesus and the disciples have gone across to Capernaum, and the crowd follows them. Jesus calls them to grow into a higher level of spiritual maturity. He tells them that they are following him because of the bread that he gives them, but they need to see him as the bread that feeds them for eternal life.

A young mathematician named Blaise Pascal once wrote that we all have a God-shaped vacuum in us, and we try to fill that vacuum with all kinds of things, but it can only be filled with God. How true that is. We may fill that empty place with power or money or possessions or food or alcohol or drugs. We try to fill that God-shaped empty place with so many things. But our need is for God.

Herbert O’Driscoll notes that all our readings today are about growing into maturity. Our epistle certainly emphasizes that. What are the qualities of Christians and Christian communities? Humility, gentleness, patience, “bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

We are all members of the Body of Christ. We are all part of our Lord, our living, risen Lord. There will be tough times. There will be misunderstandings. We won’t always agree. And we are one in him.

We have been given many different gifts, and all those gifts have been given for the building up of the Body of Christ. One of the things that distressed Paul so much was that the Corinthians were using their God-given gifts to compete. “Oh, I speak in tongues, That’s better than what you do.” That is not true, as Paul tries to teach them. Each gift is as precious as the next. Everyone is essential to the Body, and every gift is necessary.

All the gifts are given “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro by every passing fad and fashion, But, speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

Paul gives us a dynamic picture of each of us growing into maturity and all of us growing together into Christ, and this is how the Body of Christ, the Church, stays healthy. And the whole purpose is to extend his love to the world.

“Speaking the truth in love” is a central and powerful concept for us as Christians. Nathan spoke the truth to David from the loving heart of God. Jesus speaks the truth to the people following him and to us. He could have operated the biggest soup kitchen in the world, but he wants to give us himself, so that we can get beyond our human selfishness and be transformed and live in a new way.

I think Herbert O’Driscoll has a wonderful insight into these lessons when he says that they are about growing into maturity. It’s not easy to face the fact that we have sinned. It may be even harder to do the work, always with God’s help, of getting back on track.

Here we gather, frail and fallible humans who are called to be the Body of Christ in this place, part of his risen Body which fills the whole wide earth. We make mistakes; we stumble and fall; we confess our sins; we receive forgiveness, and we keep growing, growing more like our Lord, growing into maturity in him.

Blessed Lord Jesus, help us to keep growing into maturity in you. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Samuel 11, Blaise Pascal, Ephesians 4, John 6, King David, Nathan, Psalm 51 | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 6 Proper 9B July 5, 2015

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Beth Crane

2 Samuel 5:1-5,9-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

In our opening reading, David is crowned King of Israel and Judah. We know that God had sent Samuel to anoint a King from among Jesse’s sons, and that the young shepherd boy, David, turned out to be the chosen one. A bit later, David was crowned King of the Southern Kingdom, Judah, and now the elders of Israel come to crown him as their King as well. David then takes over Jerusalem, which is on the border of the two kingdoms, as the place where the king will dwell. The most important thing is that David is the King that God has chosen and David is called to carry out God’s will. Our opening Hymn, based on Psalm 72, is a song of praise to the king. This hymn lets us know that all leaders are called to adhere to the values of God’s kingdom.

In our epistle, Paul is defending himself against people he calls “super apostles,” teachers and evangelists who have come to the faith community in Corinth and have attacked Paul. They say that Paul says one thing and does another, this mostly because he had planned to visit Corinth and then was not able to do so. They also say that Paul does not have enough mystical experiences. According to these people, a true spiritual leader must gave frequent mystical experiences and then brag about them.

Paul decides to play their game. He has had some powerful mystical experiences, but, when he brags, he brags about his weakness and the power of Christ. As we all know, the cross is at the center of our faith. As he showed what many might see as weakness on the cross, our Lord freed us from all that imprisons us and led us into life in a new dimension. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness,” Paul writes. What a powerful inspiration for us when we feel our own weakness and we need God’s strength.

In our gospel, Jesus goes back to his hometown. As any rabbi would do on the sabbath, he goes to teach in the synagogue. People wonder, “Where did he get all this? How did he become such a wise teacher?” They are really impressed. But then the tide turns. Isn’t this Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s son? And they take offense at him. They think he is putting on airs.

This led me to wonder, what if we lived in Nazareth back then? Here are Mary and Joseph and their family. Here the scriptures are telling us that Jesus had four brothers, James, Joses, Judas, and Simon, and that he also had several sisters, We do not know how many. Joseph was a carpenter, and we can assume that, as was the custom, he trained Jesus in that trade. So Jesus made tables and benches and all kinds of things for his neighbors in Nazareth. He was the carpenter’s son.

At some point, Jesus went away for a while. Some scholars think he studied with the Essenes, a religious community of that time. There, he would have engaged in prayer and study of the scriptures. As we know, he was called to be baptized in the River Jordan by his cousin John, and then his ministry began.

From this account in Mark’s gospel, we can see that Jesus was a wise teacher. How would we have responded to him? The people in the synagogue asked, “What deeds of power are being done by his hands?” I think we can be quite certain that word would have been spreading about Jesus’ ministry. People would have known about his healings.

Would we have assumed that skeptical tone? Would we have thought Jesus was putting on airs?

As most of you know, I grew up in a little village in central Vermont called East Calais. It was and is a community where people worked hard, helped each other out, and were generally down to earth folks. It was a place where you could really make a deal or a contract on a handshake. Many folks had farms, and often the dads would also work a second job to supplement the family income, because these were small farms, nothing like what we see today in Vermont. One dad was a carpenter, another worked in the granite quarries in Barre, and so on. We were all just plain, ordinary people.

When I was in high school, the son of one of our farm families came home to visit, and he was featured in the local paper, the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. He was kind of a celebrity. He had gone to college and then he had decided to work with what we would now call an NGO, and he was spending his life working overseas to help people around the world have better lives.

While he was home, he gave a talk which many of us attended. He described the work he was doing in an extremely down to earth and humble way, and most of us were inspired. For us he was a local hero. He was the only member of his family who had gone to college, and he was doing work that made the world a better place, but nobody thought he was putting on airs. Here’s Don Luce. His Dad is a farmer. All his brothers work on the farm. His Mom is the postmistress. We thought he was an inspiration.

If we had lived in Nazareth or Sheldon or Franklin or Montgomery or Fletcher and Jesus had grown up on a farm and left for awhile and then come back to our church to teach, how would we have reacted?

How would we react if he walked in right now? Would we have some preconceived notions about what a teacher should be, as the Corinthians and the people of Nazareth did?

If Jesus walked in here right now, what would we say to him?

I think we would want to thank him for all he has done for us, for giving us new life, for leading and guiding us each day, for protecting us and strengthening us in our weakness, and for giving us his amazing grace. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Corinthans 12, 2 Samuel 5, King David, Mark 6, Psalm 48 | Leave a comment »

Advent 4B RCL December 21, 2014

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Beth Crane

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Canticle 15
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38

In our first lesson today, King David tells the prophet Nathan that he wants to build God a house, a temple. Nathan supports the idea. But then God lets Nathan know that God has done just fine without a house all these years, traveling with flexibility in tent and tabernacle, and, in fact, God called David when he was just a shepherd boy and made David a king. God says that God is going to make God’s own house, and that is going to be the House of David, that is, the kingship of David and his descendants.

Out of respect for God, we make houses for God, and this is a good thing. But Herbert O’Driscoll writes, “In our Western culture we have certainly moved God out of anything resembling a tent into countless great houses. Are we paying a price for this, now that we once again need to be freed up to discover new ways of communicating Christian faith and of forming Christian community?”

He goes on to say, “Sometimes small groups work quietly with a low profile. Could we call this the ‘tent mode’ of doing God’s work? Sometimes the whole church becomes involved, acting publicly or even politically. Could we call this the ‘temple mode’ of doing God’s work. This is not an ‘either-or’ but a ‘both-and’ situation.”

As we know from history, David’s son, Solomon, did build God a temple in Jerusalem.

Once again, we say the Song of Mary, this week in the contemporary version. The shalom of God turns the world upside down.

Then, in our epistle, Paul is concluding the Letter to the Romans with a call to the obedience of faith in Christ Jesus.

In our gospel, we have one of the most powerful role models for obedience, Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Here is this very young woman, engaged to an older man, Joseph, a carpenter, a men of deep faith. An intelligent, intuitive, and courageous man. Here is Mary going about her life, maybe doing the washing or the cooking, and the angel Gabriel comes to visit her! She is not an Important Personage. She lives in a little out of the way place called Nazareth, in that borderline region called Galilee, definitely not a center of any kind of political or other power. In the Bible, angels are not as they are on TV and in movies. They don’t look that human. I think of them as huge beings pulsating with light and power, but I owe that concept to Madeleine L’Engle. The point is, Biblical angels are scary.

Gabriel’s greeting is positive, “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you! Just imagine Mary. An angel, one of the chief angels at that, is coming to tell her the Lord is with her? Most people would faint. Mary doesn’t. And we are not surprised, for we know that the steel within her enabled her to stand at the foot of the cross later on

The angel tells Mary that she is going to give birth to the Savior. This is like an angel going to some very out of the way place and telling a young hotel maid that she is going to be president. It is mind-boggling. Mary remains centered. Her mind does not go out the window. In this situation,most of us would be numb. We would not be able to think clearly. But Mary does not lose concentration. In fact, she is actually able to ask a logical question: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel tells her that the Holy Spirit is going to do this. Furthermore, Gabriel tells Mary that her cousin Elizabeth has conceived in her old age.

God’s creative and saving Spirit is breaking in. Miracles are happening all over the place. “Nothing will be impossible with God,” says our gospel.

And Mary, still completely centered, replies, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” “Here am I,” the same words Abraham uses when God calls him to pull up stakes and start w hole new life in the land of Canaan. The same words all faithful servants of God use to say, “Yes, Lord, I am here. I have faith in you. I will do your work.”

Right after this, Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She is a wise person. We know this from the unwavering faith and determination she shows throughout her life. She goes to visit her kinswoman, her sister in the faith. They are both having similar experiences. They will be able to support each other. Mary knows that we should never make the journey of faith alone. We should always seek wise people who can understand our experiences because their journeys are similar to ours.

God is on the move. God choses the most unlikely people and places to do miracles. God loves the little people and the little places. God exalts the humble and meek.

Christmas Eve is coming. We will gather to celebrate the birth of our Lord, who knows exactly what it is like to be human because he was and is one of us, and he is also the Son of God, He is fully human and fully divine.

God is still doing miracles. Don’t be surprised if an angel drops by to visit you. Don’t be surprised if God calls you to do something you would never have dreamed of. God is full of surprises. God is full of miracles. “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 2 Samuel 7, Canticle 15, House of David, King David, Luke 1, Mary and Elizabeth, obedience, Romans 16, Song of Mary, the prophet Nathan | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page

Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Content

Pages

Upcoming Events