Old Testament

God’s Love in Tragic Times

Published on by Tina Shippey

Fr. Tim’s sermon for the third week of Lent, March 24th, 2019

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

Click here to access these readings.

            Sometimes, there’s not that much difference between our times and those of Jesus.  This isn’t always the case, of course.  First century Palestine was a very different place and time than 21st century Coquille.  Not only were there no cell phones, but no phones, nor telegraphs, nor even an organized, national postal service.  Life was more focused on the family, centered around farms and small towns.  There were kings, generals, and emperors.  And this is saying nothing of differences in culture or religious worship, everything from how they married and died to how they began a meal.  Jesus was talking to a culture much different from our own, and it’s important to remember that when we try to understand what the Bible is saying.

            But the people of first century Palestine were human, and there are certain things that all humans struggle with.  And one of these common human experiences is tragedy.  What do we do when tragedy strikes?  How do we deal with our sudden grief, our anger, our sudden, arrested hopes?  How do we make sense of the world after a tragedy and, perhaps most importantly, how do we understand God in all of it?  Who is God to us now that we’ve been through such grief?

            And people in Jesus’ time, just like people today, try to make sense of tragedy and, especially, of God’s role in (or God’s absence) from grief.  We hear about a few such instances in our readings this morning, where people reflected on tragedy and asked, “Where is God in all this?”  And just as we might wonder about natural disasters and accidents like the floods in Nebraska, earthquakes in Asia, tsunami in Japan, the people in Jesus’ day were wondering just the same things, here about a building that fell on top of people, killing eighteen of them.  Such sudden accidents and disasters seem to have no reason behind them.  People were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the weather just took a nasty turn, or the earthquake came from a place, and at a time, when no one expected it. 

            And as we reflect, we might wonder, “Why did this happen?”  And there are always reasons: earthquakes come from the movement of tectonic plates; the weather in Nebraska was particularly bad this year, the tower of Siloam’s foundation was weak and old.  Asking these questions can lead us to answers that, hopefully, can prevent or lessen tragedies in the future.  But it is human nature, it seems, to ask not just “Why did this happen?” but “Why did this happen to them?”  Why did this tragedy happen to these people?  We humans want to understand everything, to make even things that are natural occurrences into things that can fit into a nice, neat, rational box.  And so we want to know, “Why them?”

            The people in Jesus’ time, and a generation later in St. Paul’s time, were asking just this question.  And their answer?  Those people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them?  The Galileans who Pilate killed?  Or those people destroyed by serpents?  They must have suffered these tragedies, people were saying, because they deserved it somehow.  They must have done something wrong, people thought, and these tragedies, they must have been some sort of cosmic backlash.  It was their sin, people decided, that had led them into disaster.

            And this line of thinking, as I said, is natural.  We humans love figuring out the reasons for things.  We don’t just want to know “how” but also “why”.  And our faith tells us that God is present in all things, working all Creation to the good.  And if this is true, the thinking goes, then it must mean that God wanted these people to die.  Tragedy occurs only to those who sin, those who “deserve” it.  And so we end up blaming the victims and blaming God.

             But Jesus rejects this way of thinking.  He challenges those who were gossiping about the guilt of those who Pontius Pilate killed, or about those who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them – Jesus challenges, and rejects, the idea that our tragedies have anything to do with our moral worth.  Just as we don’t earn our way into Heaven, but are given salvation as a free gift of grace; so too we don’t earn tragedies and disasters by our sins.  Our sins can hurt others, and hurt ourselves, and sins have a great effect on our community and society, but sins don’t necessarily cause towers to fall down or rivers to flood.

            So what, then, does Jesus ask us to do?  We are still human, we still want to know “why”, and not just so that we can prevent tragedies from happening in the future.  Humans are why to the bottom of Creation and back, and if we can’t blame ourselves or God, then what do we do in the face of these tragedies?  Jesus doesn’t say blame, but he says “repent”, which in Greek is “metanoia”, to turn, or RE-turn, to God.  This is the same turning we talked about with the baptismal covenant, where we turn from sin and doubt and hatred to love, joy, and grace in Jesus Christ.  And this is our call, always, as Christians, that when tragedy strikes, whether it is the falling of a tower or a natural disaster, or even if it is something where a person can indeed be blamed, we are to return to God and refound ourselves in his eternal love.  And this is why, on the day we read these stories from Luke’s gospel and St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, when we read about people struggling to make sense of the world, our lectionary also has us read the story of the burning bush and how deeply founded God’s eternal covenant is with us human beings.  Our God is not just so powerful that he can move us around like little pieces on a chessboard, but our God is that great being that is the beating heart of all reality.  God, the source of all love and hope and joy and all good, true, and beautiful things, is where Jesus directs our gaze and the ground in which he firmly plants our wandering feet.

            And yet, we may still ask: sky do tragedies happen?  Why do bad things happen to good people, or, if not just good people, then people simply going about their lives, good or bad, trying so hard to be happy?  Many generations and many cultures have asked this question, and no one has come up with a perfect answer.  But what we do know is this: that Jesus cried at the grave of Lazarus, that God is present with those who are sick, or who mourn, or who grieve, and that after death Heaven shines with a radiant light that knows no sorrow.  When we face tragedy, or death, or despair, Jesus says, do not blame.  Do not seek reasons in the moral worth of others.  Turn to God, for God will not just make your sorrow or doubt disappear, but will plant it firmly in the rich soil of true reality. And there, in the light of Heaven itself, we may find healing, and reconciliation, and hope.

Fr. Tim’s sermon for March 3rd, 2019

Published on by Tina Shippey

Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-43a

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        Okay, it’s time for another field trip in the BCP.  Can you all pick up your red BCP and open up to page 363.  Now, look down at the bottom of the page.  Do you see those two little phrases there, one right next to the other, is two columns.  There’s something interesting that happens here, and it’s always made me smile. 

        Now, this is right after the Eucharistic Prayer.  We’ve heard Jesus’ invitation to us (“Take, eat, this is my Body”), and the priest has consecrated the bread and wine.  We’ve proclaimed the mystery of faith, and we’ve all said the great AMEN.  And here, at the bottom of 363, we have to choose one of these two phrases to say, though they both basically say the same thing.  We here at St. James’ choose the left side and I say, “And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say.” 

        Now, when I was first coming into the Episcopal Church, this phrase always made me smile.  Because it’s rather grand, isn’t it?  This word “bold”; it makes this sound like Star Trek: “to boldly go where no one has gone before.”  And I liked that.  There is a power to the phrase, and a joy.  I felt like the priest was saying to me, “Get ready!  This next thing is gonna be big!  Time to be bold!”

        And what was this phrase preparing us to say?  What’s the next part of the liturgy? [wait for answers].  That’s right, the Lord’s Prayer.  This surprised me.  I wondered, at the time, “What is so bold about the Lord’s Prayer?”  This was my good-night prayer.  My parents taught it to me before I was in elementary school.  I could rattle this thing off without even thinking of the words; what’s so bold about saying the Lord’s Prayer?

        Now, this word “bold” here is important, and that’s one of the reasons we use it here at St. James’.  First of all, here in the liturgy, it’s a sort of marker.  If you flip to the next page, you’ll see two different translations of the Lord’s Prayer, one in traditional language, the other in contemporary language.  And you, the people, know which we’ll use by whether I say “we are bold to say” or “we now pray.”  So “bold” is a sort of liturgical marker to help you all along with a liturgy that can be, at times, complicated.  I use the traditional translation, because I like its theology better, and so I say, “we are bold to say.”

        But I say “bold” for another reason.  Think about this: God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, who made everything from the Sun in the sky to the tiniest little one celled organism, who sustains our life and leads us to eternal salvation, came down to earth as a human being and taught us how to pray.  And the way he taught us to address God, the Ruler of All Things, basically, was to say, “Daddy.”  There’s a boldness to this.  There’s an audacity to looking up to the Creator of Existence and saying, “Hi.  I’m hungry, and I’m sorry.  Please be with us forever.” 

        Early Christian leaders were in awe of the Lord’s Prayer.  They called it the perfect prayer, and some early writers even considered it one of the Sacraments.  Every single type of prayer, from intercession to thanksgiving, is found in the Lord’s Prayer.  And it was spoken by Jesus Christ himself, our Lord and our Redeemer, the man who joined Heaven and Earth and brought us eternal salvation. 

        When I think about this, when I think about all the history of this prayer, the holy lips that first spoke it, and the eternal Being that I address when I speak it, I feel in awe, and I hesitate.  It seems too much for me, I who am so small, just a single man who is trying his best to be a good Christian.  And I’m not alone in feeling this, because I think it’s something of what Peter felt when he saw Jesus Transfigured on the mountaintop.

        You see, Peter is also struggling to understand the power and the grandeur that’s right in front of him.  Earlier in chapter nine of Luke’s gospel (where we are in our gospel reading this morning) Jesus takes five loaves and two fishes and feeds five thousand people.  He then tells the disciples that his road isn’t to glory, but to death, and a pretty nasty one at that.  And he also tells them that if they really want to follow him, whoever really wants to save their life, they must lose it.  And if that’s not enough, up on a mountaintop, Peter and John and James witness Christ revealed, in all his heavenly splendor.  Their heads must have been spinning.  This guy who they’ve been traveling with, this man who they’ve been eating with, sleeping next to on the dusty ground, trudging under the hot sun with, and probably complaining to, this guy is not just a guy, but God Almighty, here in the flesh.  On the front of your bulletin is an icon of this scene, and in it, one of the disciples is so amazed that he’s fallen on his back with his feet up in the air.  His world has turned upside-down. 

        And Luke doesn’t record it, but I wonder if, after the Transfiguration, after they’ve come down from the mountaintop, the Peter, James, and John gather together and wonder what to do.  “We’ve just seen God, all but face-to-face.  How do we go on?  How can we just sit down next to God himself and eat a bit of bread, or fall asleep around the campfire next to him, or wake up in the morning without constantly falling to our knees and worshipping him”.  I’m not sure if the disciples wondered about this, but I know I would.  Here is a piece of Heaven on earth; how do we go about our normal lives in front of him?  Or, thinking of the Lord’s Prayer, another piece of Heaven on earth, how can we just say it, knowing the holiness from which it came?

        Now, if this worry bothered the disciples, it certainly didn’t bother Jesus.  Because look at what happens after they come down from the mountaintop: Jesus is back with the crowd, back with those who are hungry and scared, sick and in need.  A man comes up to him, shouting, probably not just to be heard but because of the pain in his heart, begging Jesus to heal his son.  And what does Jesus do?  Jesus who just yesterday stood as God on the mountaintop?  He invites them in, and he heals the boy, and gives him back to his father. 

        And, maybe, maybe Peter realized something when he saw this.  Maybe he saw that holiness doesn’t mean falling on your face but opening your arms.  There is a boldness to saying the Lord’s Prayer, surely, but it is a boldness that says, “God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and of all things in the cosmos, whose voice is contentment, and whose presence is balm, our God:  is here.”  Our God is not some distant being, off somewhere beyond all knowledge, checking in on us every once in a while to make sure we’re not ruining the place.  No, our God is with a young boy who is sick, and his father who has nowhere else to turn.  Our God is with poor, the sick, those who mourn, the meek, the peaceful, and the merciful.  As one of our collects at morning prayer says, “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace.”  Holiness is the presence of God in the very fabric of our lives.

        In seminary, we were introduced to a bunch of different Sunday school curriculums.  Each of them were good in their own way, but one I really liked.  It instructed kids on how to be Episcopalians, and so it taught a lot about the liturgy, about the sacraments, and the church year.  And, when teaching about the Eucharist, it encouraged the teacher to use the actual vessels that are used in the church service.  You know, the expensive, highly breakable, glass vessels.  At first, I was really anxious about this.  I knew these things were going to break.  The kids would pick them up, and not even by anyone’s fault, they’d drop them and they’d break.  And the instructor said, yeah, sometimes they break, but actually, this is how kids learn about holiness.  They pick up holiness and they turn it in their hands.  And she said, the reverence these kids have for these vessels, and for the Bible, and the altar, and, really, for God, is amazing, because they could touch them, use them, see how we treat them  Letting kids touch these vessels was inviting them into that holiness.

        Nor is this lesson just for children, but for us adults as well.  God has invited us into the holy through Jesus Christ.

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for January 13th, the Baptism of our Lord

Published on by Tina Shippey

Sketch of Jesus being baptized, by Rembrandt

Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Click here to access these readings.

When we come to the world of the gospels, of the world where Jesus was born and lived, we come to a world of expectation.  Now, this isn’t the same kind of expectation that we had in Advent when we were waiting for Christmas.  Then, we knew when Christmas would be.  We knew that Christmas would be on the 25th, and each day we would check off another day on our calendars.  And as the day came closer and closer, we got more excited, maybe a bit more stressed and anxious that all would get finished, but the day of Christmas is set.  It doesn’t move.  It stays the same from year to year, and no matter how much more we have to get done, and no hard it is to wait, the day of Christmas remains the same.

The expectation of Jesus’ time was like this, but it was also different.  It is, perhaps, a little more like waiting for a baby to be born.  The doctors give you some vague day – April 14th…ish.  Or around there.  Maybe.  But you never know.  So when April comes along, even though it’s fourteen days until the due date, you start wondering: what about today?  What about now?  And as the due date gets closer, the doctors start saying, “Sure, but the baby could be late, too.  Or early.  Or on time.”  Helene and I had our bags packed and in the car, but we didn’t know if we’d leave for the hospital on the 12th or the 15th or the 20th.  Would it be morning?  The middle of the night?  During rush hour?  We were expecting a great moment and a great change in our lives and in our family, and we only had a slight inkling of when that change would come. 

The expectation of Jesus’ time was like this, but it was also different.  You see, people in Jesus’ day were sure that the Messiah would come.  Their Scriptures (which we know now as the Old Testament) said a lot about what the Messiah would do and how he would do it, but they didn’t say anything about “when.”  Or, they did, but it wasn’t like with Christmas (“the Messiah will come on December 25th, in the year 2 A.D., at 11:23 p.m.”), nor did they have a rough estimate (“some time in the spring, probably”).  They had this: soon.  The Messiah would come soon.  And that’s all they had to go on.

But there’s another difference, and this difference is important.  I wanted Christmas to come because I love Christmas Eve service, and I love Christmas morning.  I love exchanging gifts with my family and teaching Gwendolyn and Fiona about what giving means.  I love thinking about and, again, teaching what Jesus’ birth into this world means.  And with the births of my children, there was a lot of anxious waiting, but the thing we were waiting for was a new life in our lives.  Their births would be a great change – I knew this – but it was all a lot of joy.  For both, the time of expectation was good, sometimes tough, but overall really good.

But not all waiting is good.  Not all waiting is joyful.  The people of Jesus’ time were waiting, but they were waiting for salvation.  And so it might be better to compare their expectation with that of a person waiting for a donor for a heart transplant.  Or maybe a birth, but a birth with a lot of complications around it.  For these people, waiting isn’t just a bit of anxiety before getting a good thing.  They know something good is coming, but there’s a worry: what if it’s too late?  I’m hurting so much now, how can I live in this pain?  Why can’t God get on with it and give me some help?  Why do I have to wait?

In this sort of waiting, there’s a lot of doubt and a lot of grief.  And so when we come to Luke’s gospel, and we hear that the people were filled with expectation, we shouldn’t imagine, perhaps, everyone waiting in Times Square in New York City for the ball to drop on New Years Eve, but a man sitting alone in a waiting room praying “How long, O Lord, how long?”  Is there joy in this expectation?  Surely, but it might perhaps be better to call it hope, and a hope long fought for and struggled with. 

For Jesus’ world was in pain.  It was a world that had been ruled by a foreign empire for generations.  It was a world that saw war and famine, disease and heartache.  This world did not just wait for the Messiah – it longed for the Messiah.  It didn’t just call out, “God, save us” but “God, come on and save us already!”  Perhaps we can forgive them for running up to John and demanding, “Are you him, are you him, are you finally him?”

And it is into this expectation that Jesus does, finally, come.  But it is important how he comes.  Does Jesus come in, riding a tall, white horse, with a sword drawn?  Or does he come with a great cape and a magic wand, ready to whisk away pain in an instant?  No.  He doesn’t.  He comes in the midst of them.  He comes where they’re hurting the most.  He comes into their expectation and doubt and longing because he knows that we need that much more than we need a sword or a magic wand.  Jesus comes to be present in our pain.

And this answers a pretty good question we might ask the Bible: why does Jesus need to be baptized?  Baptism is about cleansing our sins, right?  It’s about washing away the dirt and gunk and stains, isn’t it?  And if Jesus is free of sin, then what is he doing in the Jordan river with everyone else being washed?  And we’re in good company in asking this question, because John the Baptist asks it in Matthew’s gospel when he sees Jesus coming into the river.  What are you up to, Lord?  Why come into this dirty river with us when you’re so clean?

But that’s not how Luke sees it.  That’s not how Luke sees Jesus’ baptism.  For he looks at it and says, See, here Jesus is showing us that we don’t just need a bit of care or a nice pill that can take away the symptoms.  No, Jesus shows us that real healing – healing that digs out the root of our pain and our suffering, that answers those longings for help that go to the heart of our souls – that sort of healing is found only in God being born within us.  And to do this, God doesn’t just stand by us in our pain but enters into that pain.  God doesn’t just pat us on the hand and say, “There, there”, but cries with us, cries out with us, sits up all night in expectation with us, and not just with us, but in us.  It’s like how you make sweet tea in the south.  You don’t make tea and then add the sugar in later.  No, you add the sugar in while you’re brewing it, so that it’s not just a little sweet additive that’s sprinkled on top but cooked deep into the tea.  The sugar and the tea become fused together, so that one can’t be taken from the other.

And this is how God asks us to be with the world in our own ministries.  We don’t leave the door of the food bank open with a sign that says, “Take what you need.”  No, we are present in the room, talk to the people, and hand them a bag of food from our own hands.  Or, when new people come into our food ministries here, be it Emmaus Meals or Prayer Breakfast, we don’t give them a plate and shoo them out the door.  No, we invite them to sit with us, to tell us their story, to join in our conversation, and we tell them our story as well.  Doing ministry means getting into people’s lives, living with them, and walking with them. 

We can think of many ways to express this.  We can bring up a lot of different images and ideas and speak till we’re blue in the face.  But at the end of the day, we can just quote Isaiah when he writes, “And God said, ‘I love you.’”

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for November 18th, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

Click here to access these readings.

Today is the last Sunday of Pentecost.  And while it’s the last day of the long season of green, and your bulletin inserts have the same green header as we’ve had since spring, and it says “Last Pentecost” on the top – you’ll notice that our color today is white.  That’s because today is the feast of “Christ the King Sunday.”  This feast is celebrated on the last day of Pentecost, whenever that day falls.  It’s a pretty recent addition to the church year; Roman Catholics started the feast in 1925, and we Anglicans (along with Lutherans and some other Protestants) only adopted it in the 70s.  And while it’s a young feast, I think it’s an important one; it asks us to pause and to think about what kings are.

        They’re all over the Bible, and Jesus is the King of Kings, but in our world today, we don’t see many kings.  There are the royals in Britain – Queen Elizabeth II, William and Kate, and the rest.  And while Queen Elizabeth is certainly a queen and in line with all other kings of Britain before her, she doesn’t have much political power.  Then, there are medieval kings we might see in movies or read about in books.  These kings are powerful, have an iron grip on their kingdom, and often do so with an iron fist.  But, in truth (I’m sorry to ruin it), most of the kings we see in movies are more fantasy and romance than reality.  People didn’t run around in full armor all the time.

        Kings are pretty distant to us Americans.  And that is, in a large part, because we threw out our king in the Revolutionary War.  The colonists were being oppressed with heavy taxation by a king who lived a whole lifetime away across the Atlantic Ocean.  Colonists wanted to rule themselves, to have a country of the people, by the people, and for the people.  They wanted to make their own choices when it came to their government, and so they revolted and founded what we now know as the United States.  Thinking of our history, we might rightly wonder whether we need a king at all, even in religion.  Perhaps, we might say, kings were just a good metaphor in Jesus’s time, but now, for us, who know better than to have kings, we should find different metaphor.  Maybe like “Christ the President” or “Christ the Head Hancho” or “Christ the guy in charge.”

        But we have to be cautious, of course, of getting rid of things in the past because they might not speak to us in our modern day.  There are times when turning away from the past is important, both in our communal life and our personal lives.  There are some things that we should, certainly, put behind us and forget about.  Our government does this with diplomacy: although we fought a war against Great Britain, we’ve put that past behind us so we can work for the good of one another and of the world.  Our churches do this too: Anglicans used to really not like Roman Catholics (this is an understatement, to be sure!), but two Sundays ago, we not only gathered together at Holy Name Catholic Church, but with all the other churches in Coquille for an ecumenical service.  We put our past fights behind us so that we could glorify God in some semblance of what the Church should be.

        But there are many things in the past that we shouldn’t forget: things like veterans and the wars they fought in, or difficult times in our country’s history like the Civil Rights movement.  And we remember them not just to lightly smile at and pat ourselves on the back that things are perhaps better now.  No, we remember because in these moments our country and we ourselves learned something and grew.  We gained wisdom in going through those difficult times, and it is good to look back and revisit that wisdom.  Often we’ve forgotten it.

        So, enough of an old history buff’s lesson on why we should love history.  What about this kingship thing?  Why do we still refer to Christ as King?  Why do we talk about Christ’s kingdom instead of use some other image or metaphor?

          We have to remember, though, that when we balk at the idea of a king, when we hear “king” and translate it in our heads to “tyrant”, we’re not alone.  The people of Jesus’s day had seen their fair share of tyrants.  The Jewish people, throughout their whole history from their first king Saul down to the emperor in Rome, had know what it was like to be under the thumb of a tyrant.  This is why, for some, the Messiah was supposed to be a great military leader who came and destroyed all the tyrants.  The Messiah was supposed to come in power and might, and when they looked at Jesus, they probably laughed and said, “Yeah, like this guy can stand up to Rome.  Where’s the real Messiah?”  And they said this not because they had a fanciful image of kings but because they had seen so many kings mess up. 

        So when you think of kings, and of Christ as our king, I want you to think of this image: when we were kids, my neighborhood friends and I used to play a lot of baseball.  We played in my friend’s backyard, and this friend had a dog named Tess.  Now Tess was a sheep-dog, not by training but by breeding.  I don’t think Tess ever saw a sheep in her life, but herding sheep was in her bones.  So, instead of white fluffy animals, she had us kids to tend.  And whenever we played baseball, she would run around the whole field, circling us, nonstop.  The poor dog never stopped running.  And when we hit a ball out of the field, be it into a neighbor’s yard or into the woods, and someone had to go and get it, Tess would follow us and bite at our feet.  She’d shove and push and bite us until we got back into the field with the ball.  Then she’d run around and around us again.

        Now as kids, we thought this was annoying.  Tess would mess up our shoes and, often, really hurt us when she bit us.  But what was she doing?  She was protecting us, she thought, from wolves.  For shepherds, like sheep dogs, are there to protect their sheep, to guide them through difficult terrain, to go out and seek those who are lost and alone.  And a king isn’t supposed to do this just for sheep, but for his people: to guide them through tough times, to teach them and nurture them, and every once in a while give them a firm look to let them know they’re serious.

        And isn’t this what Christ does for us?  We who are so scattered and wayward, hasn’t Christ gone out into the wild of the world and gathered us all together, too?  Hasn’t Christ brought us out of the hazardous lands of Sin and Death and given us New Life in his flock that we call the Church?  And doesn’t Christ continue to teach and to guide us, to run around us like a sheep dog, to protect us; and, when we err, to come and seek us out so that we may rejoin his people? 

        And for these reasons, and many many others, we give him honor and praise and our loyalty.  We turn to Christ not because he commands authority like some tyrant, but because to him, and to him alone, should we train our hearts.  Christ is a king, though a king that is also a shepherd, a sheepdog, a lamb, a Son, and a brother.  Christ is the king of our lives, of our journey in this world, of our relationships and our communities, of our hearts, and of all our deepest loves.  In all things we turn to Christ who gives us the rule of faith.  And his throne is the cross.  And his decrees are love and hope and joy in God.  And his kingdom is life, life everlasting.

        Christ is a king – no other metaphors will do.  For in God’s kingdom are all our hopes.  In God’s hands is all our love, in a great world of joy that has no end.

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for 18 November 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey

Painting by Jeff Watkins

Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

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            We are, at last, in the final weeks of the season of Pentecost.  We have only this week and next week, and next week is something special.  This week is the last “normal”, green week of Pentecost.  Soon we’ll be in the thick of purple for Advent.  We’ll switch from reading the gospel of Mark each week and start reading the gospel of Luke.  Then it will be the Christmas, then Epiphany, Lent, and Easter: those seasons where we live with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But for now, the season of Pentecost, which is the season of the Church, is almost over.

            I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but our readings over the past few weeks have been settling into this feeling of “being over.”  We’ve been hearing the promises of the Old Testament and of Revelation, of some great End that may come with grief and anguish, but which will lead to a new beginning.  We read in Hebrews this week of a change, how priests used to sacrifice every day for the people, now have given away to Christ, whose sacrifice is once and for all.  The need for sacrifices is over, for Christ died on the Cross and Rose again.  And this sense of “ending”, of “being over”, is mirrored in the seasons of the world, so that as the days get darker and the year draws to an end, we read from the Bible of anticipation, of waiting, and of things that are finished. 

            We Christians are a people of ends, but also of new beginnings.  We are called to die to our sins daily, to reflect on how we have lived in the past, and to bear our own cross.  Yet we are also called to new life in Christ.  We are called to nurture the seeds of God within us, to pray in the Spirit, and to live lives of fullness and hope and love.  We are to die, and we are to be reborn.  And through these deaths and resurrections in our lives, which we experience each and every day, we are led deeper into the life of God in Jesus Christ.  This is the Christian life.  Our prayers nurture the Spirit within us; in the Sacraments we meet and are healed by God; and we encourage one another, in the Spirit, to a life of ministry to the sick, the lonely, and the needy of the world.  And although we still sin, and sin daily, our Christian lives lead us closer and closer to God, until that last day and that final death, when Death and Sin are at last left behind and we enter into the fullness of God.

            But not yet.  We live in an odd sort of paradox, we Christians.  Death and Sin are defeated, but we are still affected by them.  As the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes, “Christ offered himself for our sins once, in a single sacrifice, for all time.”  And yet, even with Sin and Death defeated, even with Christ’s great victory, we still sin.  To put it another way, we Christians are an “already, but not yet” people.  We are already forgiven, but we are not yet in the fullness of God.  Christ has died for our sins, but we not yet free of the muck and the shadows of this world.  We are an “already, but not yet” people.

            I think we kinda get what this means in our daily life.  Think of Christmas Eve: one of the great joys of being a parent is setting up on Christmas Eve.  The gifts are out, the stockings filled, the decorations tidy and finished.  Tomorrow will be Christmas, and all the gifts will be opening, and there will be joy and family and laughing, but tonight, on Christmas Eve, there is silence and stillness.  The whole house is set up, ready for the kids, but not yet, not until the morning.  Already, but not yet.

Or, here’s another image.  A friend of mine recently posted on facebook a video of a plant growing.  All the dirt was pushed up against a glass, and the seed, too, so you could see each moment.  The video was in fast-forward, so you could watch as the roots stretch out into the rich soil, first one, then another, then one would split and both would reach outwards.  Then the seed broke fully and the plant rose above the soil.  Two little leaves sprung out and wobbled as they grew larger and larger.  And at each moment, the seed was growing, and it’s growth was alive and fully, but it wasn’t yet an adult plant, not until that last moment of the video.  It was already alive, but not yet fully itself.  And my friend’s comment on the video was that this seemed like a good image to have stored away somewhere in the depth of one’s being.

            These images, I think, do a decent job of describing the idea of “already, but not yet.”  But there’s another that works better, and that’s marriage.  Helene and I were married in 2010 at a really beautiful ceremony out on the Jersey coast.  The wedding itself was right on the beach, facing inland, out under the sky, and all our favorite people were there.  It was a truly beautiful day.  Helene and I said our vows, we exchanged rings, the pastor blessed the union, and we were, in all ways, “married.”  We even had this nice, complicated document from the county to prove it.  And I thought, cool, I’m married now.  I’m a husband.  Helene is my wife.  We are “married.”

            And so we were.  We were husband and wife that summer day in 2010 on the shores of New Jersey.  But marriage both is and isn’t a one time thing.  Marriage isn’t something you do and are done with, like opening a present, or baking a pie, or tying your shoes.  Marriage is something you live into.  Marriage is a life that challenges us, tests us, encourages us, and leads us into deeper and deeper parts of ourselves, our spouses, and, truly, God.  I am married because I said “I do” to Helene (and she said it back) in a ceremony by the shore, but each day I am growing and being grown in this marriage, so that, each day, I feel more and more “married.”  And, I hope, I will continue to grow in our marriage until the day I die.  Will I ever be “fully” married?  Will there ever come a day when I say, “Okay, I got this.  Helene and I are perfect and our lives together are perfect.  I’m finished.  Time to put my feet up and reap the benefits of perfection.”  No, there won’t be.  Even with this ring, even with the words “I do,” we still have room to grow together.  Already, but not yet. 

            This is an image of the Christian life.  Like all the other sacraments, marriage is an image of our relationship with God.  Christ died for our sins, once and for all, and he defeated death, once and for all – but we Christians must live into that reality.  Christ has given us a most precious gift, but we must not only unwrap it but use it, live it, and grow with it.  As I said, this is the same for all the sacraments.  In Baptism, we are joined with God in a bond that can never be broken, but even still, we must live into that baptism and allow it to nurture and grow us into Children of God.  This is why we take the Eucharist each and every week.  This is why we gather together as a Church, and this is why we not only love one another but seek to nurture Christ in each and every person we meet.  The work of Christ is not finished and accomplished, once and for all, so that it can be done for us, like finding some kid in school who will do your homework for a dollar, or hiring someone to clean your house so you can relax when you get home. 

The work of Christ was complete, and it was fully complete, but we small little people need to enter into that fullness, to grow within it, like a little sapling in the rain and sunshine.  Christ gave us a gift, and that gift is a life lived, more and more fully, to God.