Pick Up Your Cross

Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected, and killed so that He could rise again, but Peter took Him aside and rebuked Him.

Every parent of a small child knows this scenario, or one like it.  The child is engaged in some kind of risky play… perhaps riding a bike or playing vigorously on a swing set.  One moment everything is fine, the next, disaster strikes.  A fall, a cut, a bump, a bruise… and tears, lots and lots of tears.  You rush to the child, hug, clean the wound, apply a band-aid, more hugs, and then… what?  What do you do next?  What wisdom, what counsel, do you give to the child?

Some parents caution: “Try to be more careful now.”  Some encourage: “Go on back to having fun.”  Some say, “Mommy (or Daddy) is going to be right here with you to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”  Some try to protect: “Let’s not get back on the bike (or the swing set or whatever it was). It is too dangerous for you.” 

Each response sends a distinct and powerful message.  “Try to be more careful,” tells the child that it is safe to engage the world again as long as you learn from the past.  “Go back to having fun,” suggests that bumps and bruises are all a part of life’s natural ebb and flow.  “Mommy is with you,” conveys the message that the presence of a caring adult can and will keep you safe.  It is a promise that can be difficult to deliver, unless you become over-protective.  “Let’s not get back on the bike” sends a message that suffering and pain must be avoided at all costs.  Which message would you want to give to a child?

Here is another way to think about it… if God came to you and said, “I will give you either the ability to keep your child safe from all harm or the ability to comfort and heal your child,” which would you choose?  Based on today’s Gospel reading, I think it is safe to say the Peter would choose safety while Jesus would choose comfort and healing.

What is wrong with Peter’s approach?  Who doesn’t want to avoid pain and suffering and heartache and rejection and (ultimately) death itself?  Why shouldn’t Jesus get out of Dodge, head for the hills, hideout, and not be crucified?  What is wrong with that?  It seems smart.  It seems prudent.  It seems logical.  It feels right.  But, it comes with a huge, hidden cost: the price you pay for shrinking back from life.

Think about that child with the bruised knee or the bloody elbow.  What price does the child pay if he never gets back on the bike or if she never again climbs on the swing set?  Over time the child will become tentative, fearful, and withdrawn.  What happens if parent makes the child’s total safety his or her responsibility and never leaves the child’s side?  Over time it will diminish the child’s natural ability to engage challenges and to recover from setbacks; experiences every child faces on a daily basis.

It is also a struggle we in the adult world engage time and time again in many varied forms and fashions.  Think about what happens in life if you give your heart to another and somewhere down the road that person disappoints or rejects you?  You may regret ever opening up and trusting yourself to that person and you may vow never again to be vulnerable.  That is playing it safe, but it comes at a terrible price, doesn’t it.  You may be safe, but you will also be alone.

What if you take a risk to pursue your passion in life by starting your own business and it goes belly up?  You can chastise yourself for being so foolish and vow never to take another risk.  But which is worse: having your dream turn sour, or going through life with no dream or hope to guide you? 

When Jesus tells His followers that He must suffer, be rejected, and be crucified, he is showing us through his own life the most basic pattern of what human life is all about.  How could Jesus be our model if he led a life of privilege free of pain, suffering, risk, and death?  That was fine for the mythical gods on Mt. Olympus, but it cannot be the way of God incarnate in the fullness of our humanity.

But notice this about the pattern of living that Jesus himself engages.  It does not end with suffering, rejection, pain, and death.  At the end of this pattern there is always an experience of resurrection, of new life.  New life never looks like the child mopping fearfully with head in hands sitting on the porch step.  New life looks like the bruised, but bandaged child running and climbing and riding and swinging and going after life because he or she knows first hand the power of comfort and healing.

Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me because those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose it will save it.”  In this I hear him say that you can’t walk well in life if you are fearful of all that might befall you.  You can’t always walk around the experience of suffering, you can’t always walk above it, and you can’t always walk away from it, if you want to walk in the fullness of life.  If you want to walk in the fullness of life then there are times that you must walk in suffering, with suffering, and even toward suffering. 

Walking this path, which Jesus names ‘picking up your cross,’ will be difficult at times, but it always leads to life… new, abundant, and whole.  Walking away from this life, leaving your cross and shrinking back, leads to fear, to regret, and to a gradual diminishment of what it means to be human.  When Peter suggests that this ‘safe’ path is the one our Lord should take, Jesus responds with the sharpest rebuke in all of scripture: “Get behind me, Satan!  I'll hear none of that!” 

So in the end we are always faced with a choice.  The first is this: We can engage life to the fullest extent possible.  This path, which has many, many rich blessings, is the life Jesus shows us in his life, but it comes at a cost.  It means you will have to know suffering, rejection, hurt, pain, betrayal, and death, but the promise of Jesus is the Easter promise of God’s comfort and healing.  That is one possible choice.  The other is to shrink back by limiting your exposure to hurt and pain.  While this path looks safer, it too comes at a cost.  The price you pay is the dulling of life, the diminishment of the human experience.  And, if Jesus is right, if it is Satan who encourages us to walk this road, then the path of caution leads to something usually not associated with it: it is a choice to experience hell on earth.

Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”

Our World & the Wilderness

Mark tells us that immediately after his baptism Jesus is driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit.  “Driven” is an interesting word.  Given that Jesus had just heard a voice from heaven and then is swept off into a desolate region, if it were a different person and a different circumstance we might wonder what sort of mental illness has gripped him.  But here, I think it is best to understand “driven” as “compelled.”  Jesus has just had a truly life-changing experience, but needs to make sense of what it means.  To do that he withdraws from society to a place that is austere, that is without distractions. 

It is during this time that Jesus comes to realize and internalize the most important truths of life:

• That he comes from God.
• That he belongs to God.
• That he is loved by God.
• That all of life is lived in God.
•  That he is called by God.
•  That one day he will return to God.

These are things he could only come to know in the wilderness.  It becomes that experience where he gains clarity, claims identity, and discerns purpose.

Perhaps no greater task lies before the Church today than to gain clarity, claim identity, and discern purpose: clarity about what is happening in our culture, identity as to how to be God’s people in our times, and purpose as to how to be evangelists of God’s love for our hurting world. 

C.S. Lewis, writing at the outset of World War II, observed “something in the world has changed, you can feel it the air.”  Often it is difficult to figure out what exactly has changed when you are living in the midst of it, but every now and then you get a glimpse.  Here is one: In 1999, a survey asked Americans, “Do you consider yourself spiritual or religious,”  “Spiritual” refers to an experience of faith while “religious” indicates involvement with an institutional organization.  54% identified themselves as being “religious but not spiritual.”  Just ten years later, in 2009, only 9 percent of Americans responded that way.  30% said they are “spiritual but not religious.”  That is a pretty dramatic change in just one decade, isn’t it.  It suggests that fewer and fewer people are interested in doing what we do here every Sunday morning. 

The culture is changing in ways we don’t understand and we in the Church are struggling to figure out how to share the Gospel with people who don’t think we can provide something to satisfy their spiritual hunger.  At least year’s diocesan council, our speaker, Phyllis Tickle, described what is happening through the metaphor of pay phones.  Since the invention of the pay phone, its use increased steadily up until 1989.  At that point the number of people placing phone calls through pay phones plummeted at a staggering rate.  If you looked only at that data you might conclude that people no longer want to be in verbal contact with one another, which, of course, is not the case.  Communication is more important now than ever, but pay phones are no longer where they turn to stay connected.  If we in the Church were in the communication business, you could say that we have built some of the nicest phone booths anyone has ever seen, but we can’t figure out why fewer and fewer people are coming to us to place a call.

I have been ordained for twenty-five years now and for most of that time I have been ministering in phone booths whose patrons are truly wonderful, kind, loving, faithful people.  More and more I sense that the last fifteen years of my active ministry are going to be spent figuring out how to be the Church in a world no longer interested in phone booths or churches, but longing to know kind, loving, faithful people.

Here is another way our culture has changed.  In 1960 only 5% of babies born were delivered by unmarried women.  In 2010 it has risen to 42%, an eight-fold increase.  Today’s children are growing up in very different home environments than the culture of my childhood.

Divorce plays into this as well.  I recently read the story of a twenty-something year old woman by the name of Ashley who was on a cross-country plane trip seated next to a twelve-year-old girl.  The girl’s mom had put her on the plane to visit her father.  She told Ashley that her parents were divorced and her dad had a job in Georgia so she flies there a couple times a year to visit him.  This was her second trip alone on a plane.  The two struck up a conversation that day and when the flight ended the girl said to Ashley, “I think you know me better than anyone else in the world.”  What does that say?

Our children are being born into social settings very different from what most of us here knew growing up.  Often their lives are marked by profound loneliness and they are alienated from the guiding institutions which helped to form and shape us.  How desperately do they need to gain clarity, claim identity, and discern purpose?  The Gospel compels us to minister to those so lost and hurting. 

We could go on, citing statistic after statistic that all point to the same things:

• The world has changed in ways we find difficult to comprehend.
• Organized religion is not nearly as exalted in our society as it once was.
• Those of us who love the Church struggle to understand why others don’t.
• For all that our modern culture can do for people, there is still a gapping hole that only God can fill.
• We in the church have not figured out how to share our faith in a way that resonates with people, speaking to the emptiness of their lives. 

I wonder if I – if we – can hear the baptizing voice of God speaking: “I love you and I have chosen you.”  Are we – am I – willing to pray for God’s Spirit to fall on us and compel us into a wilderness where we might gain clarity, claim identity, and discern purpose?  For years and years we were so good at communicating the Gospel by being a phone booth, but now phone booths are obsolete.  The Gospel, praise God, never goes out of style, even if the way we convey it has a shelf-life and does not last forever. 

One person is on the right track – Ashley.  She stayed in touch with her twelve-year-old friend long after the trip had ended through texts, phone calls, facebook friends… everything the digital age provides to help people connect and build a relationship.  Ashley found a way to share her faith in Christ with a young girl she met briefly on an airplane.  A year later that girl decided she wanted to be a follower of Christ too.  

The good news is that the faith is going to go on.  The ways it gets transmitted from one generation to another is a very different matter.  St. Paul’s is such a rich, wonderful deposit of Christian faith and living and it has so much to offer to those who are lost and alone in this world - and their number is staggering.  What can we do?  Perhaps it is time we got driven into the wilderness in order to gain clarity, claim identity, and discern purpose.

The Path of Treasure–Heart–Self

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

When I was first out of college I worked on the staff of a large Episcopal Church as a Children & Youth Minister.  Jim, the priest who had direct oversight of me, was a nice enough guy - sincere, dedicated, evangelical, but not without his quirks.  We went out to lunch once or twice a week and for the longest time Jim wanted to go to a particular establishment because it had video games and he was deep in the throes of a Pac-Man addiction.  I remember watching him play and listening to him say of the ghosts, “Dang, these guys are really after me today.”  One day in the office I found Jim reading the business section of the newspaper, pouring over the stock report.  It seems that a parishioner who worked for an investment firm encouraged him to buy some stocks and now he was keenly (and I mean keenly) interested to know how they were doing.  A few weeks after this began Jim suggested we go out to lunch.  “How about we go to Wendy’s,” he said.  Well, that was a surprise because we had never eaten at Wendy’s before and, to the best of my knowledge, it did not have video games.  When we got there he enthusiastically encouraged me to order up: “Why don’t you supersize that?” he asked.  “You ought to get a frosty too.”  But then when I got to the condiment bar he began to chastise me, “Do you really need that much ketchup?  Salt isn’t good for you.  You really don’t need a straw with your drink.”  Have you figured out what was going on yet?  Yes, Jim had bought stock in Wendy’s and at some level he believed encouraging me to place a bigger order helped his investment while taking two packets of ketchup diminished it. 

I think of Jim and that episode every time I hear Jesus’ words, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Jim was living out a fundamental truth in life.  He never paid any attention to the stock market and never ate at Wendy’s until he invested some of his treasure there.  There is a stewardship implication to this.  People sometimes ask how much money they should give to church to support God’s work in the world.  My response is this: give at least until it gets your attention!

What we have to invest and where we invest it matters greatly.  We can use it to direct our hearts toward God or we can use it to direct our hearts away from God.  Jesus says it is just that simple.  What do we have to invest?  Well, money of course.  We also have time and how we use it is an investment (ever sit through a terrible movie and at the end say, “well, there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back”?).  We can invest energy, effort, work into something or someone.  We can invest emotion.  The more we invest of ourselves in people or things, the more we care about them.  Given this, Jesus asks a basic question: do the things you invest in and the people you invest in draw you closer to or farther from God?

This is a good question to ponder on Ash Wednesday; on a day we remember our own mortality and recognize that we only have one chance to live life and then ponder are we living it well.  In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes fictional characters who go to heaven only to turn back because it is neither what they want or expect it to be.  They have spent their entire life longing for something other than God and, as a result, when they have the chance to be with God, they turn it down because they long for something else.  I think Lewis discerned a very important truth about this life.  We are free to choose, free to desire, free to invest as we will.  Each choice we make has eternal consequences in that its shapes and forms us either to love God or to love something else.  The choices we make become patterns that become habits that become who we are and God honors who we are by allowing us to receive the blessings or the curses of the choices we make. 

In a few moments we will pray together the Litany of Penitence.  It is a description of some of the choices we make: “pride, hypocrisy, and impatience,” “self-indulgent appetites and ways,” “envy,” “intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts,” and more.  These are things in which we invest ourselves and, true to our nature, our heart follows.  And once your heart gets settled on something that thing becomes you and you become it.

This is a day to make an honest self-assessment.  On what has my heart become settled?  How is it shaping who I am and what I am becoming?  Ponder these questions and doubtless you will discern those places where the path of treasure–heart–self is leading you toward God and a deeper love of your neighbor and doubtless you will also discern where the path is leading you in the other direction, away from love of God and neighbor.

The holy season of Lent invites us to a period of discipline and self-denial so that we might die to some of the ways that lead us from God and strengthen some of the ways that lead us toward God.  I enjoy listening to people talk about what they will give up for Lent.  Often these conversations betray an intention to avoid Lent by giving up rhubarb or marathon running.  I find those who want to die to self often don’t talk about the specifics of their Lenten devotion because it is too close and too personal share casually with others.  This, I think, is what Jesus was getting at when he taught about practicing your piety in secret. 

The goal of Lent is simple.  It is to shift your treasure from one thing to another; to shift how you invest your time, your money, your energy, and your emotion from some thing or things that lead you away from God to some thing or things that lead you toward God.  The goal of Lent is to die to certain aspects of your self so that by Easter you can rise to newness of life with our Resurrected Savior.  May God be with each of us over the next forty days in this time of disciplined dying to our old self in the certain hope that God will raise us up to something new and holy and glorious and sound.

Intimacy with God

When do you feel close to God? Each of today’s readings invites us to ponder this question. Each touches on the intimate nature of our relationship with The One Beyond and with one another. Elijah draws close to God as the end of his time on earth nears. Elisha draws close to his mentor, not wanting to lose their closeness, even at the very end. Jesus draws near to God on the holy mountain as he communes with Moses and Elijah. Peter, James, and John, Jesus’ closest friends, are welcomed into the experience of a lifetime; one they desire to last forever. Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth that the light of God has shown in our hearts. The Psalmist proclaims God’s invitation, “Gather before me my loyal followers.” Each passage depicts a closeness with God: a physical closeness, or a spiritual closeness, or an emotional closeness. When do you feel close to God?

When I meet with couples in premarital counseling I have them do an exercise to explore the different facets of intimacy. The origins of the word ‘intimate’ tell us that it combines two different meanings into one idea: first, “to take that which is deep seated or most inward” paired with “to make known, announce, or notify.” In other words, intimate situations are those where we feel comfortable allowing what is most deep and personal within us to come out and be known by others. I wonder if when most people hear the word ‘intimacy’ they associate it primarily with its physical/sexual component. While this is a part of intimacy to be sure, it is only one facet of many that work to bring a couple into closeness.

Not too long ago I began to ponder what it means to be intimate with God and wondered if the same exercise I do in premarital counseling might help us to discern the rich and diverse ways we feel close to God. So I put a little thought into it and developed the handout you were given this morning. On it there are ten facets of intimacy along with a brief (incomplete to be sure) description of what this form of closeness with God looks like. I am going to give you some time to read over the form and fill it out. On the left hand side I want you to rank the facets of intimacy from 1 to 10 – one being the most important to you and 10 the least. So you should have one #1, one #2, one #3, and so on. On the right hand side I want you rank how present each form of intimacy with God is in your life - #1 being totally present, #10 being totally absent with numbers in between representing degrees on the continuum. There are no right or wrong answers and no one is going to look at you sheet so take a few minutes and see what you come up with.

 Intimacy with God Exercise

Emotional Intimacy–I sense God knows and cares how I feel and draws close to me at all times.

Intellectual Intimacy–I feel close to God as I read, study, and learn about God and God’s world.

Sexual Intimacy–I sense a oneness with God in every fiber of my being.

Recreational Intimacy–I feel close to God when I am doing activities I enjoy (things like fishing, working out, walking on the beach…)

Work Intimacy–The work I do—either at the job or around the house and yard—draws me close to God.

Communication Intimacy–I feel close to God as I talk with God in prayer and listen to God through meditation.

Aesthetic Intimacy–I feel close to God when I read a book, listen to music, watch a movie, and/or engage in the arts.

Crisis Intimacy–I feel close to God when times are tough, when I face challenges, and when the chips are down.

Commitment Intimacy–I sense God is close when I live the kind of life I promised to live at my baptism.

Conflict Intimacy–I sense God’s closeness as I work through a conflict with another person or group. 

What did you learn from this? What surprised you? I expect that some facets of intimacy with God are more important to you than others and that some are more prevalent than others. That, I think, is OK. Praying may not be your thing or you may dread every aspect of the work you do. There are those in the Christian tradition who can guide you to a closer relationship with God in these or any of the other facets described. This can be difficult, intentional work, but also very rewarding. A good first step for each of us is to recognize those ways we naturally feel close to God and to build on them. If it is through reading, then read more. If it is walking on the beach, then walk on the beach and use the time to allow God into the depths of your being.

 How close do you feel to God? What have you learned about yourself this morning that will help you to feel even closer?

An Invitation to Praise, Understanding, and Action

Today’s gospel reading picks up where last week’s left off. You will recall last week we heard how Jesus taught with authority in the synagogue, to the amazement of all. This week we find him entering a home and learning that one of its residents is ill with a fever. Jesus takes the person by the hand, lifts her up, and she is made well. In fact, she is so healthy, she is able to resume her household chore of serving guests. Word spreads and by nightfall and the front yard of the little house is transformed into the town’s E.R.

The movement from synagogue worship and teaching to addressing real human need is one we do not want to overlook because they are vitally linked in the Church’s mission. Our call is threefold: praise, understanding, and action. We cannot major in one and minor in the other two if we want to live into the fullness God intends for our community of faith.

We might want to pause for a moment and ask some questions about how each in manifested in our midst.

Worship: Does our worship help people to connect with God at a deep level? Is attendance up or down? (A church’s worship life may be spiritual and uplifting, but if its congregation is dwindling it is in trouble). Who plans and leads worship; only a trained, paid professional or various members of the community who are representative of the age, gender, and background diversity of the membership?

Teaching: Thinking about formal programs, who leads and who learns? What is being taught? Who is participating? Thinking about informal settings, what is shared during the pastoral moments in life – births, baptisms, confirmation, marriage, illness, and death? What truths do our actions communicate? This is often very subtle and difficult to see, yet is much more significant than any curriculum. Do people in the congregation feel equipped to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world with God’s message of good news?

Addressing Human Need: Does the church take care of its own: emotionally, spiritually, and materially? Does it have a focus beyond itself? Here is a question that has been around for some time: if the St. Paul’s closed tomorrow, other than our members, who would miss us?

Praise, understanding, and action: we pursue God’s call as a church as we do these things and as we seek to do them better.

Did you know that the largest weekly gathering at St. Paul’s takes place on Friday evenings when A.A. meets here? The second largest gathering takes place at 10:30 on Sunday morning. In terms of numbers, the next largest gathering is Monday night when the Food Pantry is open. Then comes the 8:00 Sunday service. We can round this out in descending order with attendance at Sunday morning education programs, choir rehearsals, altar guild work, and finally two tellers coming together on Monday morning to count the offerings.

Here is some more data: Last year we raised money for the Hope for Haiti project by doing tasks for one another and every $10 earned paid for one brick to rebuild the cathedral in Port-a-Prince. Our approach was recognized nationally, and in the end – coming close to our goal of 300 bricks – we tallied 10% of all that was raised throughout our diocese. In addition, we continue to support The Boys Home and Jackson-Field Girls Home with Christmas gifts for its residents. The Food Pantry ministry is growing by leaps and bounds and its clients gratefully and enthusiastically received our October distribution of shoes, coats, sweaters, blankets, and books. Change the World – our new, low-key initiative – has raised over $500 for various causes.

More data: we continue to offer innovative, imaginative worship experiences at various times during the year. Last year’s Wednesday evening Lenten worship services were deeply moving. Our ribbon project on 9/11 is something we will long remember and proved to be the exact right way to reflect on that auspicious occasion. The Olde James River Jazz Band has become an All Saints’ Sunday fixture (and look for them to stake their claim on Pentecost starting this year!). The Cantata after the fourth Sunday in Advent inspired us all. And Al continues, in an ever so subtle and graceful way, to execute my order to teach us new hymns.

Last data: We continue to build on our unified vision for Christian Education; focusing all our ministries for children and young people around the Baptismal Covenant and the belief that every one us has a role to play in the process of Christian formation. An every-growing number of adults and young people are being prepared for Confirmation on June 3rd. The Women’s Study Group appeals to more and more of our members, while the Men’s Saturday Morning breakfast is in transition. We are blessed by the ministry of Juel Carr and Miko Taylor in the Nursery and are helping to fortify them for what, at least according to the prayer list, looks like a busy couple of years of extending hospitality and care to the youngest members of St. Paul’s.

Praise, understanding, and action; worship, teaching, addressing human need. This is who we are in Christ and this is what we do; following the example our Savior, Lord, and Guide has set. We are doing God’s work here and we are open to doing even more.

Let me point our one subtle feature in today’s reading. Did you pick up on how the people who were sick and needy “were being brought” to Jesus? That means these folks did not come on their own. Someone had to encourage them to see Jesus.

At our Vestry retreat a few weeks ago we spent the better part of Saturday morning discussing our current budget shortfall; looking at why it has happened and what we can do about it. The Vestry’s top priority to address this situation is to grow the parish. Simply put, we need more members if we are going to remain a healthy, dynamic faith community. There are a number of things we can do at a leadership level to make this happen. There is at least one thing you can do… you can invite friends, neighbors, and co-workers to come to a service or event.

Years ago, when I was a new and unseasoned rector in a church that desperately needed to grow, I announced from the pulpit that I had a foolproof plan to double the average Sunday attendance in just one year. I can still envision the faces in the pews today looking back at me with rapt attention and great anticipation. Here is my plan, I said, each person here needs to get one other person to come and worship with us. And with that I could almost hear the sound a video games makes when the game is over – whaaa, whaaa, whaaa, wha! That was not a plan they wanted to execute.

When word spread around Capernaum that Jesus had encountered a possessed man in the synagogue and cast out the demon, then restored health to a woman with a raging fever, everyone in the area who knew someone in need went to that person and said, “Let me take you to see Jesus.” I find that people in great need typically stay away from church and need a good deal of encouragement to come to a place like this to find solace, strength, and healing. You can be the person who says, “Why don’t you come to church with me this Sunday.”

Those who are ‘healthy’ often don’t sense their deeper need for meaning, direction, and purpose in life. We at St. Paul’s know how participation in the life of this parish feeds us with a spiritual nourishment we desperately need and the world can not provide. Would you be wiling to share this with someone you know who does not go to church? Would you be willing to invite them here?

St. Paul’s is a good parish. We are a place of praise, understanding, and action; of worship, teaching, and addressing human need. We are warm and welcoming, a place of uncommon grace and generosity, combining reverence with joy, giving with receiving, acceptance with the challenge to grow into the full stature of Christ. Who do you know that you would like to invite to be a part of this exceptional experience?

Preaching & Teaching with Authority

“They were astonished at Jesus’ teaching, for he taught them as one having authority.”

I have looked at a lot of Parish Profiles over the years. These are documents carefully researched and crafted by search committees in order to let perspective clergy applicants know what gifts and skills are being sought. None are the same, as no two faith communities are the same, but almost all share in common a desire that the new rector be able to relate the bible to everyday life. The people in the pews understandably hunger to learn how ancient texts from a very foreign culture apply to today’s world. They do not want, but often tolerate, preachers and teachers who babble on in academic language sermons better suited for dusty commentaries. We live in a dynamic world which requires an equally dynamic interpretation of the Scriptures if we are to make sense of God’s desire for the human family.

This, I think, is what was happening in the synagogue at Capernaum when Jesus was teaching. The narrative gives us no hint as to the content of what he presented, but we can surmise it was in keeping with what we find in the Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes and various topics introduced with the phrase, “you have heard it said…, but I say to you.” In these teachings, Jesus addressed such current concerns as anger, lust, divorce, keeping promises, forgiveness as opposed to vengeance, praying for your enemy, the true purpose of devotional acts, and trusting God to provide for your needs. These were real, practical question to which Jesus did not simply parrot old interpretations. He added to each topic his own insight based on a critique of how current religious leaders failed to understand the deeper intent of the Scriptures.

When Jesus taught, it was not just novel nor was it innovative. It was authoritative. It was what the people in the pews longed to hear: the ancient word brought to life in today’s world giving guidance and understanding to those who listened.

It doesn’t always work this way, does it. It never has. I have been reading my way through the Old Testament Book of Job. It is a fascinating piece of literature that has several scholarly challenges; chief of which is the date it was written. Most place it somewhere around 200 years before the birth of Christ, give a generation or two. You may recall that Job was a good man who lost everything – family, health, and wealth. Three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, came to comfort him. Their speeches to Job and his replies are all cast in poetic language. The friends state that Job must have sinned in some way for such terrible things to have befallen him. Job insists throughout that he has not. What is fascinating in the account is how the three friends quote directly from the Psalms to make their attack. They confront Job with boilerplate theology – God prospers the way of the righteous and causes the wicked person to fall. They apply this theology, rooted in psalms written some 300-500 years earlier, without once questioning if it makes sense of the world in which they live. Job, on the other hand, brings one challenge after another to their conventional wisdom. This is just one of many instances where Scripture critiques Scripture.

There is within the very fabric of God’s written word an ongoing process of revelation, prophetic challenge, and new wisdom; what one theologian refers to as disclosure, disruption, and discernment. Take for example the early revelation that God commanded the Israelites to kill all their enemies. Prophets began to criticize this understanding and new thinking emerged on many fronts; including last week’s reading from Jonah where God embraces the people of Nineveh after they repent. The force and thrust of Scripture – of God’s will for this world – moves forward as the world moves forward. Applying Scripture in new ways to new situations is at the foundation of its authority.

Look at today’s New Testament reading. Taken at face value it is absolutely useless to us. When was the last time you were a guest at another’s home and were serve a steak while being told, “Before I grilled this, I offered it as a sacrifice to a pagan deity”? Probably… never. But within this particular, culturally obscure concern there is a treasure trove of godly principles that can and should be applied to our world which is very different from the one where Paul introduced them.

We in the Anglican Communion are inheritors of a faith always willing to engage the world as it moves forward with new innovations, insights, and ideas. We will never be the faith apologizing three hundred years after the fact for persecuting Galileo and his notion that the earth rotated around the sun. Earth-centric teaching was not authoritative in Galileo’s day. It was just old, out-dated, and stodgy. Still, it continued to be propagated by those who could not figure out how to revisit Scripture in order to hear God speak through it after the dawn of new understanding.

In just two weeks our diocese will launch a blogsite dealing with issues, questions, and concerns around the possibility of liturgies for blessing same-gender unions being approved for trial use after this summer’s General Convention. You will recall that the bishop asked me to chair the Task Force that is laying the groundwork for this electronic conversation. It is an emotional issue, to be sure. Some feel strongly it is time for the church to move forward, while others feel equally that blessing same-gender unions is wrong. Here is what is right about what we will do through the blogsite: We, the members of the Diocese of Southern Virginia, will take current questions and rethink Holy Scripture in light of the challenges they pose. Our project’s theme is simple: “One Diocese. Many Voices. Yours Matters.” Each week there will be a new, brief entry addressing a question being asked by many. At the end of each post there will be a question to which every reader will be invited to respond. This could be a rich, diverse, thought-provoking conversation engaged by many, many members of our diocese or it could be a total disaster. Only time will tell. What matters to me is not so much how this particular question gets resolved, but that people like you engage in the process, learn from the conversation, articulate your understanding, and – above all – reengage Scripture.

In the Catechism of the prayer book we find the question, “Why do we call the bible the word of God?” Its answer, “We call the bible the word of God because God inspired its human authors and because God still speaks through it today.” It takes courage to listen for God’s authoritative voice. When Jesus taught in his hometown’s synagogue the people were not amazed at his authority, they were infuriated; so much in fact that they wanted to put him to death by throwing him off a cliff. They preferred the old story told the old way about an old world that no body lived in any more. They wanted boilerplate theology to which they could all nod their heads or nod off and then go home. But Jesus would have none of that. He wanted to talk about here and now and what matters and what puzzles and what it all means. So when he taught, it was relevant and it was authoritative. What he said was risky, it was life-giving, and it changed the world. It is what most of us long to hear.

When Opportunity Knocks... Drop Your Nets!

Jesus saw Simon and his brother Andrew… and he said to them, “Follow me.” As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John… Immediately he called them; and they left their father in the boat and followed him.

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

You have come to St. Paul’s this morning on what truly is a historic day. A day unlike any other in the history of Christendom. A day not likely to happen again. A day not soon to be forgotten. A day, perhaps, one day to be enshrined as a holy day for generations yet unborn to celebrate. You see, on this day, no other than Grier Ferguson personifies the Gospel reading. Now, in and of itself, this may not be untypical. Surely there have been numerous other Sunday’s when Grier was a sermon illustration for, say, one or more of the seven deadly sins – wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony. And surely there are sermons to come where the preacher’s finger will point at him so as to demonstrate to the congregation what sin and sinfulness is all about. But what makes this day so unique is that Grier is lifted up as an exemplar of the life Jesus Christ calls us to and Grier as an exemplar of the Christian life is something that has never (and I mean ever) happened before, and most likely will never happen again. But today, ahhhh, is a day unlike any other day.

So, two weeks ago Grier comes to me and says, “Hey, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to miss the congregation’s Annual Meeting.” He explains that he has an opportunity to go with his son for a long weekend trip to San Francisco. “I’ve never been to there,” he tells me and so I send him off with my blessing. And what does Grier do in the city by the bay? He rides the cable cars. He goes to “check out the scene at Haight-Ashbury.” He and his son take in a professional basketball game. And then, on Sunday, they go to Candlestick Park to watch a playoff game between the 49ers and the New Orleans Saints, which, as it turns out, was one of the most exciting games in NFL history. “Well,” Grier said, “We got our money’s worth!”

Here is what I like about what Grier did: when presented with the opportunity of a lifetime, he took it! That may not seem like a big deal, but it is. The Greek god of Opportunity was said to be covered in hair from head to toe in the front and completely bald in the back. So, as Opportunity approached, you were not quite sure what you were dealing with. And, once he passed, there was nothing you to grab in order to get him back. It is old folk wisdom, but still true. As far back in 43BC, one Pubilus Syrus observed that opportunity is seldom presented and easily lost. Not much has changed in 2000 years.

I carry with me a memory of a rather insignificant event from years ago when I was a relatively new uncle. I took my four-year-old niece and three three-year-old nephews to a park with a large, open field. I brought with me a red rubber kickball and got the five of us to stand in a circle about twenty feet from one another. I then encouraged us to kick the ball back and forth. My niece had the first chance, but refused to kick. “Well,” she said, “I don’t think we should do this because the ball might go in the street.” I pointed out the street was a long, long, long way away; so far in fact that it would take at least five kicks for the ball even to get close. “Well,” she said, “it might go in those trees over there” – a good four kicks away. And with those two protests, play came to a halt before it ever got started.

There is any number of things that might keep any one of us from taking advantage of an opportunity. We might not recognize it for what it is. We might let duty or responsibility to other things supercede it. We might think it too costly, too extravagant, or ourselves too unworthy. We simply might be afraid to say yes.

In terms of its narrative description, Mark’s is the leanest of the four gospels. Some of you might still remember how his gospel spawned the “Teen-Speak” Easter Story. In Mark’s telling, things happen quickly without much explanation or description of deeper issues and concerns.

Case in point: today’s reading. All it says is that Jesus approached two different sets of brothers and invited them to follow him. Without apparent hesitation, each put down his nets and left everything. There is no description of how they knew Jesus or how Jesus knew them. There is no information as to why Jesus chose them over others. And there is no detail about how their families reacted to their decisions. Mark’s focus is on the opportunity Jesus presented and how Simon, Andrew, James, and John grabbed it. Given the chance, they kicked the ball as hard as they could. Given the chance, they went to San Francisco for an once-in-a-lifetime weekend with their son.

It strikes me that there are different kinds of opportunities. Some are life-changing – like the one presented to the disciples. Some are memorable – like what Grier did. Some call us to let our hair down and have some fun – like kicking the ball with reckless abandon. True, there are things we label as opportunity that are nothing more than distraction. Forgetting those and focusing on ones that are real, I believe there is something spiritual embedded deep within each opportunity. If it is a the call to discipleship, the spiritual nature is more obvious than when an uncle rolls out a ball, but still each opportunity has a spiritual element. Each offers a way to nourish our soul through change, challenge, exhilaration, and (remember this from last week’s sermon?) taking us to a place we would not get to on our own.

When Grier told me about his trip I truly was happy for him and I found myself wondering what I would do if I was in his place. Would I see past the hair-covered front and all the reasons to get out of its way or would I see only in hindsight that I had missed the chance to be a part of something remarkable? His willingness to go for it is something I admire. It is a witness to me (and perhaps to you too) how Jesus calls us to say yes when opportunity knocks.

Grier is one of twelve members of St. Paul’s who serve on our Vestry. We are just coming off a two-day retreat where we reviewed the past year, considered current opportunities and challenges, and got our selves positioned to move forward. I am keenly aware of how each person on this Vestry had good reason to say no to the call to serve: too busy, too new to the congregation, too old, too unworthy, too whatever. But do you know what, when that hairy creature called on them to step forward, each person said yes. It is a good and godly group and it was a joy to gather with them Friday night and Saturday.

One of the new buzzwords in organizational life is “nimble.” It reflects the desire for a group like, say St. Paul’s, to be flexible enough to respond to opportunity. It is possible to be so weighed down by structure, responsibility, obligation, tradition, inertia, and a host of other things that opportunity would need to come in the form of a wrecking ball in order to make an impact. That, I trust, is not us.

And what about you? If you are like me then you know how to resist most things that are new. You know how to see the street or the woods 400 feet away and worry that you might kick the ball into it. ‘No’ becomes such an easy default response to opportunity. And in a world so crammed full of “opportunities,” saying ‘no’ is a necessary survival response. But what if I asked you, “Would you like to have a deeper, richer, more meaningful prayer life?” You might say ‘yes.’ To which I would respond, “Well, our Christian education program is focusing on prayer right now.” Would you decide to be here at 9:30 on Sunday mornings? It is an opportunity. And what if I asked, “Would you like to make a difference in the lives of people who are living on the margins of society… and in the process be blessed beyond anything else you have ever done?” Would you be interested in that? It is not a fantasy. It is something people here are experiencing every Monday evening when they serve in the Food Pantry. It is another opportunity.

Are you willing to drop your nets and follow Jesus to something you have never done before? Let’s be honest, laying down your nets is no small thing, is it? So much in our culture tells us that all we are and all we are to be involved with is picking up our nets and going to work and getting our kids to the game and keeping up the appearances of success and happiness. Yes, these things are important, but somehow they are hairier on the backside, aren’t they! They have a way of grabbing us and strangling us and making it so difficult – or perhaps an even better word is ‘radical’ – to grab on to an opportunity – any opportunity – that will help us to experience the fullness of life God intends for us.

Jesus said, “Drop your nets and follow me.”