Psalm 51 | Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Lent 5B March 21, 2021

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Beth Crane

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

Our opening reading today comes from the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was one of the great prophets of God. Here is what God said to him, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Scholars tell us that Jeremiah was very young, around eighteen years old, when God called him to be a prophet. Jeremiah told God that he was too young to answer this call. Here is how Jeremiah tells the story. Then I said, “Ah, Lord God, truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy.’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand, and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” God calls all of us to our ministries, and God gives each of us the gifts we need to carry out our ministry.

Jeremiah was called at a time when the leaders were corrupt. Jeremiah pronounced God’s judgment on their immoral and unjust behavior, and they responded by persecuting him. Some religious leaders tried to kill him. He was beaten, put into the stocks, and thrown into a cistern. Eventually, the Babylonian Empire conquered Judah and deported the leaders and others to Babylon.

As we know, this was one of the lowest points in the history of God’s people. In the midst of this terrible time, God says about the people, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts….They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” The law will no longer be words written on tablets long ago. The law will be written on their hearts. God will be close to the people, and the people will be close to God. Each person and all the people will have a close relationship with God. And God will forgive the people.

Think of what these words from God meant to these people over twenty-five hundred years ago as they tried to hang on to faith and hope during the exile. Thanks to the love of God and the encouragement of their spiritual leaders, they kept the faith, they gathered to pray and study the scriptures, and they strengthened their community during this time of exile and desolation.

In our gospel for today, the people are gathering for the Passover, and Jesus is preparing for the cross. He says something that has so much truth in it that we can meditate on it for our whole lives and still only scratch the surface of its meaning. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” We can think of ourselves as a little seed, a grain of wheat, self-contained, individual, able to make our own choices, do things our own way. We are sitting on a large rock in a field. Will we jump into the rich loam of God’s love and grace and grow? Or will we remain in our own little world? If we jump into the richness of God’s love and grace, we grow. We love and follow Jesus.

But then our Lord, right in front of us, goes through a dialogue with himself and God. “What shall I say—Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”

In meditating on this gospel, i found my mind and heart turning to thoughts of Brian Sicknick. Brian was 42 years old. In a statement posted on the Capitol Police website on January 7, Brian’s family wrote, “There really aren’t enough kind words in any language to describe how sweet Brian was. He was truly a lovely, humble soul. Everyone who met him adored him. We are missing him terribly. He loved his job with the U. S. Capitol Police….He also had an incredible work ethic. He was very serious about showing up to work on time and refused to call out sick unless absolutely necessary.”

Brian went to work on January 6, faithfully carried out his duties amidst the physical brutality and chaos of the attack, on our Capitol, was sprayed with a powerful chemical substance, became very ill, returned to his division office, collapsed, was taken to the hospital, and died the next evening at 7:30. He was protecting our Capitol. He was doing his job. As you know, a friend of mine has a connection with Brian. She knows someone who is a good friend of the family. From all accounts, Brian walked the Way of love.

There is something about walking the Way of Love. There is something about jumping into the good earth of God’s grace and helping to build God’s shalom of peace and harmony. There is something about surrendering our ego, giving ourselves to something bigger than ourselves, throwing ourselves into the loving arms of God. When we try to save our lives, we lose them. When we lose our lives for Jesus’ sake, we find new meaning in our lives. We enter into eternal life, life in a new dimension.

We are following Jesus. Today and again in the garden we will hear his own struggle about the cross. He knows everything about what it is to be human. And that is everything to us when we have to face our own cross, whether it is a decision we don’t want to have to make, a child or a grandchild going through something horrible, a sacrifice of something that has been very important but, when we finally let it go, we find ourselves on a path to new life. In all of these things, we can follow him because we know that he understands exactly what is being demanded of us because he has gone through it himself. Every time we face our own cross, he is there with us. And that makes it possible for us to take the right course, to follow him, even though we are sure it will lead to some kind of death. And every time it leads to new and light-filled life.

We are at a delicate time in our exile, our desert wandering, our fast. There is great hope for freedom, but we have to continue to follow the science and be careful, or we may cause another spike. This may be our most profound challenge yet. Fortunately, blessedly, we are not alone. We are never alone. We have help, the best possible help. Blessed Lord Jesus, thank you for leading and guiding us. Help us to walk the Way of Love with you. In your holy Name, Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Babylon, Brian Sicknick, Hebrews 5, Jeremiah 31, John 12, Psalm 51 | Leave a comment »

Pentecost 11 Proper 13B RCL August 5, 2018

Posted on August 5, 2018 by Beth Crane

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

Last Sunday, we looked on as King David lost his moral compass and spiraled downward, beginning with adultery and going on to murder. These events seem almost unbelievable when we think of David, the beloved hero of his people, the faithful and courageous shepherd-king. But all of these things did happen, and they remind us that we humans are frail and fallible.

Back in Old Testament times, if a king became corrupt or broke the law, a prophet would be the one to confront the king and hold him accountable. In our reading today, Nathan is called to that difficult and dangerous vocation.

When we humans go off the skids and begin to believe that somehow the law does not apply to us, the usual kinds of confrontation from other humans often do not work very well. But Nathan is a prophet called by God, and a wise and courageous man.

He tells a story of a poor and loving and faithful man who has a beloved ewe lamb whom he treats as a member of his family and a ruthless wealthy man who takes the ewe lamb and feeds it to a traveler. King David is outraged at this inhumanity and injustice. And then Nathan tells him that he, King David, is that man.

Nathan also tells David that there will be serious and tragic consequences for his immoral behavior. At this point in the spiritual journey, some people continue to insist that they have done nothing wrong. To David’s credit, he confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nonetheless, strife and tragedy will mark his family life from now on.

Our psalm for today, Psalm 51, is the psalm we recite on Ash Wednesday as we begin our Lenten discipline. This penitential psalm is an appropriate response to the story of David’s actions and to our own awareness and acknowledgment of our sins.

In our gospel today, Jesus and the disciples have fed the large crowd of over five thousand people and have crossed the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum. The people get into boats and follow Jesus to the other side.

Our Lord tells them that they are following him because of the physical food he gives them. He calls them and us to seek the food that leads to eternal life. As his followers, we know that he means the food of his presence. We know that he is talking about the nourishment and energy that comes from spending time with him, time thinking about the scriptures and sharing in the Holy Eucharist, the feast of thanksgiving in which he feeds us with his life and energy so that we can carry out his ministry here on earth as his living and vibrant Body.

And he says something that will always live in our hearts and minds, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Our epistle for today, from the Letter to the Ephesians, is, in my opinion, one of the most important passages in the Bible. Paul is encouraging us to lead lives worthy of our calling as followers of Christ. Our lives are to be marked by humility, gentleness. and patience, and we are to live together as a community of faith in the unity of the Holy Spirit. We may have different ideas about things, different opinions, but we know that we are one in Christ Jesus in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

Then Paul reminds us that we have all received different gifts from the Spirit. Some are apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers and rescuers of dogs and some who help children and young people and some who minister to elders, some who help folks who have the disease of addiction, some who make places more accessible, or pay the bills, or sew, or knit, or clean, or help feed people, and the list goes on and on. All are doing the work of ministry and building up the Body of Christ. And, Paul says so wisely, we are all growing to maturity in Christ.

We are all growing together; we are all knit together as the parts of a body are knit together. We are all called to use our gifts, and we are called to “Grow up in every way into…Christ.” We are called to become as much like our Lord as possible, with his grace, and to work together in harmony. As Paul says, all of this “promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”

The whole purpose of our life together in and with Jesus is to share his love, to be his eyes, looking on people with his compassion, his hands reaching out to welcome and heal.

This passage, Ephesians 4:1-16, and 1 Corinthians 12, are St. Paul’s clear and powerful descriptions of what it means to be the Body of Christ doing his ministry here on earth. Grace Church is doing this, with God’s grace and the help of the Holy Spirit.

There is so much to meditate about in today’s readings. David’s tragic story reminds us that we are all sinners. We all get off track at times. With God’s grace, we acknowledge our sins and get back on the path toward God. Jesus is the true bread from heaven. Every time we gather for Eucharist, he feeds us. When two or three are together in his name, he is with us, He is with all of us at every moment in our lives. This is a gift beyond measure. We can always turn to him and ask him for help.

Paul, a persecutor of the followers of Jesus, met the risen Christ on the Road to Damascus. He was blinded by the light of Christ. When his sight returned, he became the apostle to the Gentiles. As he founded churches around the Mediterranean, Jesus gave him the vision of what a Christian community is called to be, and he shared that vision with us. We thank our Lord Jesus Christ for his life and ministry and for the gift of life together in and with him. May we continue to minister faithfully in his Name. Amen.

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

Lent 5B March 18, 2018

Posted on March 18, 2018 by Beth Crane

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

In our opening reading, which dates back to 587 B.C., over twenty-five hundred years ago, God tells the people that God is going to make a “new covenant” with them. Scholars tell us that this is the first time the term “new covenant” is used in the Scriptures.

God speaks these words from a position of deep intimacy. God says that God is the husband of the people. This gives us some sense of the love God has always had for us. And God says something that is almost too difficult to grasp—that God is going to put God’s law within God’s people, within us. God is going to write the law on our hearts.

Webster’s dictionary tells us that a covenant is a “solemn agreement between two parties.” When Moses brought the law down from Mount Sinai, that was a sign of the covenant between God and the people. The law was the glue that bound the people together and bound together God and the people.

For us as Christians, the New Covenant is expressed in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. His life speaks to us. Everything he says and does means something to us. His words and actions, his attitudes and thoughts are like lighthouses guiding us to safety on a stormy sea. They are like springs of water giving us new, fresh lives.

Today, Jesus tells us one of the most important things he has ever said to us. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain: but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” We could meditate on this for the rest of our lives, and, in a sense, that is what we do as Christians. Last Sunday, we were talking a bit about the writer Elizabeth Goudge. Her characters think about this statement of Jesus in many ways and in great depth.

Let’s imagine for a moment. Each of us is like a grain of wheat. Each of us is a little seed, enclosed in our protective capsule, our hard little shell. Imagine each of us, a little, self-enclosed seed wrapped in our secure little shell. Each of us is on a big rock. Far below is God’s fertile, loamy earth.

We’re sitting on our rock, but if we stay here, we will always be alone. We will never be part of anything bigger. On one level, it’s great to be on our rock. We are in total control of our little world up here. We can make our decisions and run things the way we want to. But staying up here is not what we were designed for.

We are being called to give up our control. We are called to jump into the earth. And it’s scary. Very scary. Will we disappear? What will happen to us? There’s something big we are called to do, but we’re going to lose control and give ourselves to something much bigger.

Finally, we take the leap of faith. We jump into God’s wonderful earth and bury ourselves in that good, warm soil and let the sun shine on us and warm us and let the rain come down so that we can sprout, and put down our roots, and reach up toward the sun and break through the earth and reach up and up and up to God and to the sun and grow until we are a part of a beautiful field of wheat.

We look around and see all this golden wheat, waving in the wind. And it is beautiful. This wheat will be gathered and made into bread, perhaps Communion bread. In the words of Richardson Wright, “We make, O Lord, our glorious exchanges: what Thou hast given us, we offer, that we may, in turn, receive Thyself.”

As followers of Christ, we are called to jump into the fertile loam of God’s love. We are called to jump into the stream of goodness in the universe. We are called to take the risk of giving up what we think is so important—our thoughts and plans and theories—and jump into the loving arms of God and grow into the persons God calls us to be.

When we do this, we enter a process of transformation. We are caterpillars that turn into butterflies. We are little grains of wheat that become part of something very, very big and very, very good. We become part of God. We become one with God. The grain of wheat falls into the earth and it bears fruit. That grain has died to self and now lives to God.

The cross was a horrible instrument of torture designed to make people suffer untold pain and cruelty and to humiliate them. And to fill them with fear of the power of the Roman Empire. It was a form of death reserved for the lowest of the low. When Jesus breathed his last on that horrible cross, he was propelled into the arms of God. He fell into the good earth of God’s love. The Apostles’ Creed says that he descended to the dead. He went there to share God’s love with those in the underworld.

Nothing in this universe is untouched by God’s love, not even Hell.

If we are going to bear fruit, we have to give up our little islands of isolation and jump into God’s love.

And then we will bear fruit. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s a lifelong journey, and we’re on that journey.

May we continue to take those leaps of faith. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Elizabeth Goudge, Hebrews 5, Jeremiah 31, John 12, New Covenant, Psalm 51 | 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 »

Lent 5B RCL March 22, 2015

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Beth Crane

Jeremiah 31: 31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

Our first reading, which dates back to 587 B.C. E., over 2,500 years ago, is the first mention of the term “new covenant” and the only mention of that term in the Hebrew scriptures.

Although he lived all those centuries ago, the prophet Jeremiah had a life that could be made into a miniseries. He was the son of Hilkiah, a priest who lived in Anathoth, two miles outside of Jerusalem. Scholars tell us that living just that short distance outside the center of power made Jeremiah an outsider. When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet, God said, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” This is true of all of us. God has known us from the beginning, and God has called us.

Jeremiah is young, and he tells God that he does not feel that he should be a prophet because he is only a boy. But God says, “I have put my words in your mouth.”

As I thought about this sermon, I began to realize that Jeremiah, like so many of the prophets, reminds me of our Lord. Jeremiah’s ministry was anything but easy. During much of his ministry, the king, the priests, and the official prophets were corrupt. Jeremiah tried to call them back to God;s ways, but they just strayed farther and farther from God.

Jeremiah also had the extremely difficult job of telling those in power that they were going to be conquered by the Babylonian Empire. For that, he was placed under arrest.

Our reading for today is God’s revolutionary proclamation through Jeremiah of a new covenant. This happens after the Babylonian Empire has conquered Judah, leveled the temple in Jerusalem and deported the people to Babylon. It happens in the midst of the deepest possible pain and defeat and suffering, a time when the worst possible disaster has occurred.

It is clear that the people have fallen away from God. but that does not stop God from reaching out in love and mercy. Some of the most significant moments in the life of God’s people and in our lives happen in the midst of crisis and suffering.

God is going to write this new covenant on their—and our—hearts. Everyone is going to have the opportunity to be close to God. Barriers such as social status, occupation, and education, melt away. Everyone will be equal in the sight of God. There will be no need for experts or teachers. Everyone will be able to be as close to God as we are to each other right now. This is the covenant that God offered to God’s people 2,500 years ago. They had erred and strayed like lost sheep. yet God was ready to forgive all of it and begin anew.

God was saying that the spiritual life is not a matter of following rules. It is about interior transformation which leads to changed attitudes and behaviors. In our hearts, we finally realize how much God loves us, and that love touches and transforms us and our lives.

The great Episcopal theologian Urban Holmes talks about how many people still believe that the spiritual journey is about following rules. If we follow the ten commandments and do everything right, our lives will be happy and we will avoid suffering. But that is not what our faith teaches.

Following Jesus does not make us successful in the world’s terms. Following Jesus does not protect us from suffering and disaster and heartbreak and brokenness. In fact, as we see from his own life and the lives of many saints, following Jesus often takes us to a cross of one sort or another.

Sometimes you and I have to undergo suffering. It is not something that God sends upon us. It is part of living in a fallen creation. This world is not as God would want it to be. There is much brokenness that would not be God’s intention. God’s vision for the creation is a vision of wholeness and harmony. But we are not there yet.

The suffering that comes into our lives may be a family situation which is tragic and complicated. We struggle through it with God’s help. We can’t fix it; It is way too complicated, but we ask God’s help and we do the best we can one day at a time.

It may be a point of decision in our own lives. We agonize over it and seek God’s guidance, but nothing is coming clear. It may be a diagnosis that changes our lives. It may be a setback to ourselves or someone dear to us. Sometimes we may grieve deeply and cry. Sometimes we may be angry about it and have to ask God’s help to deal with that. As we look around our world and see the suffering of so many people, we suffer with them.

We are following our Lord to the cross. Our Lord is the embodiment of the new covenant. Life in Christ is not a matter of following the rules as a matter of duty. The love of Christ is engraved in the center of our being. Christ is in us and we are in him.

In 1373, Julian of Norwich, in an England ravaged by plague and war, had fifteen visions of Our Lord on the cross. She wrote, “Do you want to understand the Lord’s meaning in this experience? Understand it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. …Thus it was that I learned that Love was our Lord’s meaning.”

That Love has come into our hearts and into our lives. He has suffered the worst. He is with us in our sufferings, and, because we know how much he loves us, we can fall into his loving arms as a seed falls into the ground. Then wholeness comes out of brokenness. Life comes out of death. Because he has suffered and won the victory, we no longer have to fear suffering. We no longer have to fear death. We no longer have to live in fear of any kind. Instead, we can live in faith.

Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Babylon, Hebrews 5, Jeremiah 31, John 12, Julian of Norwich, Lent, Psalm 51 | Leave a comment »

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