Tag Archives: compassion

Networking

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Epiphany 3A
January 26, 2020

Isaiah 9:1-4 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 I appeal to you…that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you.
Matthew 4:12-23 Follow me, and I will make you fish for people….Immediately they left.

Merciful and generous God, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I want to begin by acknowledging that our lesson from Isaiah this morning sounds like it is teeing up the Gospel lesson. It sounds like Isaiah was anticipating Jesus. But Isaiah wasn’t anticipating Jesus any more than Isaiah or Jesus were anticipating what George Frederic Handel might do with this beautiful poetry. Actually, it is exactly the other way around. Matthew was living and growing in the stories of Jesus, at least two generations after Jesus’ death. Matthew was retelling those stories toward the end of the first century of the common era and thinking, “these stories sound so much like the stories that Isaiah told eight hundred years ago!” Isaiah was delivering an oracle of hope to the people of Judah who were in deep distress, danger, and despair.

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Just Mercy

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The Baptism of our Lord (A)
January 12, 2020

Isaiah 42:1-9 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand.
Acts 10:34-43 Anyone who…does what is right is acceptable to [God].
Matthew 3:13-17 The Beloved.

O God, manifest in us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today is the day in the church liturgical calendar called “The Baptism of our Lord.” In the early church, the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord was far more important a celebration than the Feast of the Birth of Our Lord (which we call Christmas). Traditionally, Christians celebrated three feasts of light: Epiphany, which was the story of people wise enough to seek after and find Jesus and then go home by another way; The Baptism of Our Lord by the incredulous John at the River Jordan; and the Wedding Feast at Cana where the story goes that Jesus brightened up a very gloomy situation by changing water into some really good wine. These feasts of light were understood to illuminate the nature of God. They were manifestations or revelations initiated by God and noticed by people. These three feasts demonstrated to Christians who observed them, not only what God is like, but also Who (God) wishes us to be in community – in relationship to one another.

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Come clean!

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Proper 26C
November 3, 2019

Habakkuk 1:1-2:4 Write the vision; make it plain so that a runner can see it.
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4,11-12 The love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.
Luke 19:1-10 The Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.

O God of mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

This morning we are celebrating the Feasts of All Saints’ Day, which was Friday, and All Souls’ Day, which was yesterday, with our music. However, we are observing the 24th Sunday after Pentecost with our readings, because I just couldn’t skip over the readings from Habakkuk and second Thessalonians, or the story of Zacchaeus from the Gospel of Luke.

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Partakers

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Proper 12C
July 28, 2019

Hosea 1:2-10 In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them ‘Children of the living God.
Colossians 2:6-19 Do not let anyone disqualify you.
Luke 11:1-13 Everyone who asks…everyone who searches…everyone who knocks…

O God of everyone, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I want to say some things about our Gospel reading, but first, I want to say something about the First Testament lesson. Hosea – a prophet of Israel – was crying out against his people for breaking the covenant by not worshipping The Holy One alone. Idolatry and whoredom, in ancient Hebrew, are the same word – the very same thing. [1] Fidelity to the Holy One of Israel had been promised and the people have been seeing other gods. They have been engaged in moral defection, fraud and cheating, improper intercourse with other deities. They have been putting their faith in wealth and other forms of power, engaging in dishonorable and undignified behavior, rather than in compassion and regard for both neighbors and aliens. (This could be ripped from today’s headlines.) Hosea charged that economic resources are being exploited to wage war, the government is exploiting poor people. “When the Lord first spoke within Hosea, Hosea heard, ‘find a wife who is seeing other gods – because you’ll not be able to find one who is not seeing other gods – everyone in the land is doing it…Name your children Jezreel, after a place of a brutal massacre; Lo-Ruhamah meaning no compassion; and Lo-Ammi, not my people. Do this,’” Hosea hears God saying, “’because I am not your becoming; I am not your being; I am not your will be.’”

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Resist!

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Proper 11C
July 21, 2019

Amos 8:1-12  A famine…of hearing the words of the Lord.
Colossians 1:15-28  Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Luke 10:38-42  She had a sister named Mary, who [ALSO] sat at the Lord’s feet

O God of mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

  • I have an exercise for you. Choir and altar party, you too.
    If you love the heat of the summer because you can finally get warm, stand on the lectern side of the chapel.
  • If you feel wiped out by the heat, stand on the pulpit side. (and thank you very much for being here, in spite of the heat). Now to the Gospel story we just heard.
  • If you identify as more of a Martha, stand on the pulpit side of the chapel. If you identify as more of a Mary, stand on the lectern side of the chapel.
  • If you sympathize more with Martha, move to the pulpit side of the chapel. If you sympathize more with Mary, stand on the lectern side of the chapel.
  • If you really dislike this story of Jesus with Martha and Mary, stand on the pulpit side of the chapel. If you love this story, stand on the lectern side. How many of you really want to stand in the middle but there’s not enough room? Okay – you can return to your seats.

Thank you – I wanted to see how divided you are when it comes to this Gospel story, which is wedged between the story of the Good Samaritan and the story of Jesus’ teaching about how to pray, and it is trouble with a capital T packed into five short verses. I could have also asked you to stand on one side if you are aware of the divisiveness of this story and on the other side if you, prior to now, have been blissfully unaware of any conflict! This is a story that always reminds me that whenever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, there will be a disagreement! This particular story pits women against each other and invariably fuels resentment and division in groups that study it together, no matter what the participants’ gender identities. And since it is a story about two sisters, through the ages, it has had the powerful effect of stopping and shutting up women – scolding Marthas and making sure Marys stay quiet.

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Love the one who shows mercy!

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Proper 10C
July 15 2019

Amos 7:7-17 The Lord said to me, ‘Go prophesy to my people Israel.’
Colossians 1:1-14 Grace to you and peace from God.
Luke 10:25-37 But wanting to justify himself.

O God of mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Following my sermon last week about Galatians, I thought I might do some teaching about the letter to the Colossians, but I just couldn’t let the story called “The Good Samaritan” go unaddressed. It’s such an iconic story that one doesn’t have to be a church goer to know it. You don’t have to be a Christian to have heard of it or understand something about it. Hospitals, emergency services, counseling services, rules of law about limits of liability, award programs, all get called Good Samaritan. This parable called “The Good Samaritan,” found only in Luke, might be the most famous parable of them all. And with its fame comes the enormous and crushing weight of Protestant Moral Theology, Sunday School lessons, and a hefty dose of Christian anti-Jewish bias. The preaching challenge for me seems formidable because of what we all think we already know about this story, and the guilt that has been wired into most of us about seeing people in life’s various ditches and not doing enough or not doing anything at all to help. In my time as a priest, this bible story has provoked more confessions and more defensive attempts at self-justification than any other I know.

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Freedom!

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Third Sunday after the Epiphany (C)
January 27, 2019

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 Do not be grieved; the joy of the Lord is your strength.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a We were all made to drink of one spirit.
Luke 4:14-21 Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

O God of freedom, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

The Gospel writers were each very careful about how they began their accounts of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. And, like siblings, each account about where and how it all began is different! Here are four different answers to the question of what was the most important inaugural moment. Mark begins by telling of Jesus exorcising an unclean spirit in the synagogue in Capernaum. Matthew’s first story of Jesus’ ministry is about a large body of teaching that Jesus did in front of crowds on a mountain. John’s story of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry is the water to wine extravaganza at the wedding in Cana. And Luke begins the story of Jesus’ active ministry by telling about Jesus making a visit to his home synagogue in Nazareth.

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Vision & Compassion

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Second Sunday after the Epiphany (C),
January 20, 2019

 

Isaiah 62:1-5 Your land married for the Lord delights in you and your land shall be married.
1 Corinthians 12:1-11 Varieties of gifts…of services…of activities…for the common good.
John 2:1-11 (Though the servants who had drawn the water knew)

 

O God of the servants, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

This morning we have before us a scripture passage from the first testament, that lies at the very heart of the part of Isaiah that gets called “third Isaiah.” Your land shall be married – so shall your God rejoice in you. The land shall be called Beulah – the Hebrew word for “married to” means “properly governed” or “valued and cared about” (they all mean the same – here is a Biblical definition of marriage for you to cite if that ever comes up in your conversations about heteronormative monogamy! Or does that only come up in my conversations?) Beulah Land or properly governed land, or valued and cared about land, here, is about encouraging people to rebuild what has been utterly devastated – in this case, the devastated city of Jerusalem, the city of peace. The people are crying out in fear and pain, feeling utterly forsaken. Isaiah’s message to them is about rebuilding hope and about creating signs or signals of hope for others. And it lies at the very heart of a part of scripture that contains radical proposals for an inclusive community – it’s a treatise written to defend an inclusive and expansive group against the actions of those who wanted to strictly limit the access and benefits of the community. Every three years, when this passage gets read in church, I think, “oh we need to hear this now more than ever.”

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The Seventh Story

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Feast of the Epiphany
January 6, 2019
Isaiah 60:1-6 Arise, shine; for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Ephesians 3:1-12 The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus.
Matthew 2:1-12 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother.

O God of our epiphanies, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today we are observing the Feast of the Epiphany, the beginning of our churchy season of celebrating manifestations, realizations, indications, and expressions of the Holy One in our midst. We start with the story of the magi.  If you’re new to Emmanuel Church, or you’re visiting, buckle up, because the way we engage Holy Scripture here can be a bumpy ride. Here’s what I mean. The word magi (or magoi in Greek) never meant wise, and never meant exclusively men. The word refers to Persian astrologers or sorcerers or magicians, a word that comes from the term magoi.  Furthermore, there’s no mention of how many there were. They brought three gifts, but there’s no telling how many of them it took to pool their resources to offer gold, frankincense and myrrh. Why not think of them as many who included women?

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Revealing the Love of God

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Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (11B), July 22, 2018

2 Samuel 7:1-14a Are you the one to build me a house to live in?
Ephesians 2:11-22 You are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 He had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

O God of compassion, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

If you were in any other church service where the Revised Common Lectionary is used for the appointed Bible readings today, you would have heard a short Gospel lesson about Jesus’ lovely invitation to his disciples to have a little R&R in a deserted place, and the compassion that Jesus had on the crowds that messed up their retreat plans. Then, skipping almost twenty verses, you would have heard that people from all over brought friends and family who were sick to Jesus, hoping to have them touch even the fringe of his cloak because all who came in contact with it were healed. Usually when verses are skipped like that, I mention something about them in my sermon, but this week I really wanted you to hear the whole story for yourselves because the skipped verses are about Jesus’ disciples. When those verses get taken out, the story becomes solely about the power and popularity of Jesus. Of course that matters, but Mark’s Gospel is not so much about how magical Jesus was. What matters much more is that Jesus’ followers fully engage, fully participate in the Rule of Love, which is another name for the Reign of God. [1]
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