St. John's Episcopal Church

Sermon for Sunday, June 28, 2009 — Year B, Proper 8

 

Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came, and when he saw [Jesus], fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  (Mark 5:22-23)

 

This morning’s gospel includes reports of two healings: of Jairus’ daughter, and of a woman with a hemorrhage.  In both cases Jesus violates the conventional wisdom of his community in order to bring health and meaning to people in need.

 

No doubt you’ve heard the saying, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”  Among our foremothers and forefathers in the faith, that was considered true — although that saying is not from the Bible.  The laws about purity, found mostly in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, were intended to make Israel a fit partner for God’s covenant with his people.  God had brought his people up from slavery in Egypt, and demanded that his people be holy, as God himself was holy.  Therefore, whatever detracted from this essential holiness was deemed offensive to God.

 

From this perspective, then, uncleanness consisted of any physical, ritual, or moral impurity which might be found in a person, object, or place.  To be unclean meant to be contaminated, in much the same way a piece of cloth may be stained.  Persons could be rendered unclean by contact with something dead, by a discharge of bodily fluids, by eating prohibited foods, or by disease.

 

For example, the Book of Leviticus goes into great detail identifying which animals are clean and therefore suitable for eating, and which, if eaten, will render a person unclean.  Accordingly, pigs, camels, and rabbits are prohibited, but lamb is perfectly acceptable (Lev. 11:4, 6, 7); among the birds, quail is fine, but ravens and sea gulls are not (Lev. 11:15-16); winged insects with jointed legs above their feet are suitable for eating, but other insects are not (Lev. 11:21); and fish with fins and scales are allowed, but oysters, clams, shrimp, and lobsters (some of my favorite foods!) are considered detestable. (Lev. 11:9-10)

 

Moreover, impurity was understood to be contagious.  Thus contact with something unclean — the carcass of a dead animal, for instance — made a person unclean.  Purity, on the other hand, was not contagious.  To have contact with something clean did not render a person clean.  Rather, to be cleansed, a person had to wait a certain period of time — usually one, seven, or more days — and then undergo a cleansing ritual, often involving water.  Finally, the offering of a sacrifice for sin was frequently required.

 

With this as background, perhaps we can understand why these two healings places Jesus at odds with the conventional wisdom of his faith community, for each involves contact with something deemed ritually impure.  For a Jewish rabbi — a teacher — to intentionally have contact with something impure is unthinkable.

 

Consider, first, the woman who steals up behind Jesus as he walks along toward Jairus’ home.  Mark tells us that this woman had suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years.  Ancient peoples, the Jews among them, found all discharge of bodily fluids disturbing, because it seemed so disorderly.  Menstruation — perhaps because it was associated with reproduction — was considered an especially potent source of uncleanness, and a persistent discharge of blood was even worse.  A woman in this state could not touch anything deemed holy, and as we have noted, she could not be touched by any other person without that person becoming ritually impure.  So, from a practical standpoint, this woman is an outcast.  For that reason she sneaks up to Jesus, saying to herself, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  She does so, and her hemorrhage is cured. (Mark 5:25-28)

 

Now note how Jesus responds.  From the standpoint of the law, he has been rendered ritually unclean by this woman’s touch.  Jesus is aware that power had gone forth from him, and asks who touched him.  The woman comes forward “in fear and trembling,” (Mark 5:33) expecting, I suppose, to receive a beating.  Instead, Jesus hears her out and then says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”  (Mark 5:34)  He requires nothing more of her — no waiting period, no water ritual, no sin offering.  Nor, as far as I can see, does he consider himself contaminated.

 

A similar, if more extreme, example is Jairus’ daughter.  While Jesus is dealing with the woman, people from Jairus’ house come and tell the poor man that his daughter has died. (Mark 5:35)  And, indeed, when they arrive at Jairus’ house, people are “weeping and wailing loudly,” already mourning the girl’s death. (Mark 5:38)  Jesus asks, “Why do you make a commotion and weep?  The child is not dead but sleeping.”  The mourners laugh at Jesus — and yet the Greek word Jesus uses may be translated as either sleep or death. (Mark 5:39)  Jesus goes into the house and, with the father and mother and three of his disciples watching, takes the girl’s hand and commands her to rise.  She gets up immediately. (Mark 5:40-42)

 

Here again Jesus has violated the norms of his religious community.  To have contact with anything dead, especially a human corpse, was a major violation of the rules of purity.  We assume that is why in the parable of the Good Samaritan the priest passes by the injured man: he assume the man is dead, and any contact with a dead body would render the priest unclean and unfit for service in the temple. (Luke 10:31)  Yet Jesus has no such qualms.  He takes the little girl’s hand without a second thought.

 

In both these cases, Jesus’ concern is for the people who are ill — the woman and the little girl — not for himself, and indeed, not for the fears of the community of which he and they are a part.  Conventional wisdom says he should consider both these people unclean and offensive to God.  Instead, Jesus enacts God’s compassion upon those in need.  His focus is on health and life, not rules and regulations.

 

That, I suggest, is a point of view which ought to inform our current national debate over health care.  It appears to me that Jesus felt that healing — health care, if you will — was not a privilege reserved to the few, but the hope of all, regardless of their station in life.  The woman with the hemorrhage seems to be a member of the lower class.  There is no indication that she has a family, so it is possible that she is a female alone in the world, and sick, too — in that culture the very definition of being marginalized.  In contrast, the young girl is quite possibly a child of privilege.  Jairus is called a leader of the synagogue.  He is most likely a Pharisee and probably a man of some means.  Thus these women appear to come from different social strata, but are alike in their need for a restoration to health.  And Jesus treats them alike, the one receiving no less than the other.

 

Now, I am no expert on health care.  And I freely admit that, by virtue of your kind and generous support of St. John’s Church, I have an excellent health insurance benefit, one which I would not wish to lose.  At the same time, I am aware that there are members of this congregation and of the community in which we live who do not have health insurance, and who therefore — unlike most of us — do not have regular, affordable access to health care services.  That state of affairs is profoundly unjust.  To be without health insurance in the United States today entails greater risk of serious ill health, the likelihood that accident or illness will result in financial ruin, and it also penalizes those who do have insurance.

 

The greater risk of ill health results from not being able to see a doctor when doing so could resolve a health problem at an earlier, more easily treatable stage.  A person without insurance generally doesn’t see a doctor until his or her situation has deteriorated, and getting that person sorted out will be more expensive.  The person also knows that if he or she does seek medical treatment when seriously ill, the cost could force them into bankruptcy.

 

At the same time the uninsured penalize the insured because their clinic-of-choice — or rather, their clinic-of-necessity — is the emergency room.  I contend that the United States already has a national health care program.  It’s the emergency room, where by law you have to be treated.  As health care programs go, it’s about as inefficient and expensive a system as anyone could devise.  To cite just one example, some of you get AARP’s monthly Bulletin, so you may already have seen the report on a study in central Texas which “found that in the last six years, just nine residents accounted for a whopping 2,678 visits [to the emergency room].  One of the nine was in the emergency room more than 100 times a year for four years.”  The AARP articles goes on to note that “[t]he average cost of an emergency room visit in the United States is about $1,000.  At that rate, the nine Texans likely racked up more than $2.7 million in charges.” (AARP Bulletin, June 2009, p. 6)  At least some of this unreimbursed hospital expense gets spread to those who do have insurance, which helps explain why health care costs increase so rapidly.

 

We are told that some 47 million Americans — representing 16% of the population — currently lack health insurance.  With more and more workers losing their jobs, and with employers shedding their health insurance programs or shifting the financial burden to workers, it seems to me that before long, the uninsured could make up 20% or more of the population.  And we already know that when these people or their children fall ill, they will have no alternative except to show up at the ER, regardless of the cost.

 

Faced with such a relentless and increasingly dire reality, I find it difficult to give much credence to the argument that anything we might do to fix health care will be too expensive.  The fact is, everything about health care is expensive, and more so every day!  Just putting the problem aside for another 10 or 20 years is no solution.  Worse, putting the problem aside says, in effect, that those with jobs and income deserve good health care, while those without jobs or income do not.  This morning’s stories from Mark’s gospel — about the unnamed woman with a hemorrhage and the unnamed daughter of Jairus — make that a completely unacceptable alternative.  In his role as health care provider, Jesus treated everyone alike — because the sick are alike in their need for care.

 

What is needed now is a good faith effort to find some plan, or combination of plans, which will deliver high quality health care to everyone at a reasonable cost.  I don’t pretend to know what that system will look like, but I do know that if this new plan excludes the poor, the unemployed, and the uninsured as less-than-deserving, then we will be in the same fix we are now — and not by neglect, but by intention.  We can, and must, find a better solution.  Our representatives in Washington must do this for us.  That’s why they were elected.  That’s why they are so well compensated, including, I should note, a gold-plated health insurance program of their own.  In short, the time for excuses is past, the time for decision has come.  Amen.

 

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

 

Readings for Year B, Proper 8: Lesson — Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23-24.  Gradual — Psalm 30.  Epistle — 2 Corinthians 8:7-15.  Gospel — Mark 5:21-43.

 

Collect for Proper 8:

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, June 21, 2009, Pentecost 3 (Year B, Proper 7)

 

But [Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38)

 

For the next few weeks we will be dealing with some of the miracle stories in the gospel of Mark.  These readings take us to a place many contemporary Christians would rather not go.  Many question whether or not the miracle stories in the Bible are historically true, whether or not they present a factual description of what happened.

 

For example, quite a few biblical scholars dismiss the story of the Stilling of the Storm as non-historical.  Randel Helms, retired professor of Bible and literature at Arizona State University contends that this story in Mark is based on the account of the prophet Jonah, because the two stories share similar details.  As you may recall, Jonah attempts to evade the Lord’s call by taking a boat to Tarshish.  God stirs up a great storm, and the frightened sailors ask Jonah, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?”  Jonah suggests that they pitch him overboard, which the sailors promptly do, and the storm is stilled.  Jonah, of course, is saved by a great fish. (Jonah 1:11-16)  Professor Helms further notes that the Jonah story itself is probably built on Psalm 107, which tells of a great storm being “stilled…to a whisper” when those in danger “cried to the Lord.” (Ps. 107:28-29)

 

I suppose there are similarities that would make a skeptic wonder: two boats, two storms, two important passengers, two crews wanting to know how to deal with the problem.  However, if you looked at an inventory of ships lost on the Great Lakes, you would probably find many points of similarity in these accounts, but would not assume that such similarities mean that a particular story of a particular ship is merely an invention.

 

Nevertheless, from our modern, scientific vantage point, it does seem highly improbable, if not impossible, that by merely speaking someone could control a storm, earthquake, or other violent natural event.  Mark reports that Jesus “rebuked the wind” and the storm promptly died.  That is a challenge.

 

Those who take scripture literally will respond that one simply must believe that Jesus stilled the storm, because if this story isn’t true, then nothing in the Bible can be true.  Miracles, they say, are evidence that Jesus is divine.  Those who witnessed the miracles were persuaded that Jesus was Lord.  So we must believe that Jesus stilled the storm, because by doing so our faith will be deepened.

 

But there’s a problem here.  The record in scripture indicates that Jesus’ miracles — his mighty works, as St. John refers to them — don’t seem all that persuasive to those who witnessed them.  For example, in today’s story, after rebuking and silencing the wind, Jesus chides his disciples, saying, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”  Mark goes on to explain that, “…they [the disciples] were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” (Mark 4:40-41)  That’s not a confession of faith.  It’s a confession of confusion!  The disciples, having just witnessed a miracle, don’t know what to think!

 

This happens again and again in Mark’s gospel.  Those who witness the miracles are amazed, but not convinced… astounded, but not converted.  If indeed miracles are supposed to overcome all doubt and leave a person believing without reservation, then the miracles fall flat.  On the contrary, what they expose is the difficulty people had — and continue to have — believing in Jesus and his message.

 

So what do the miracle stories tell us?  In this case — the Stilling of the Storm — we are presented with a picture of Jesus’ friends, together in a boat, traveling at Jesus’ direction to “the other side” of the Sea of Galilee. (Mark 4:35)  This body of water not large, just 13 miles long and 8 miles wide, with a maximum depth of about 140 feet.  If you’ve ever boated or fished on a small, shallow lake in Michigan, then you probably know that when the weather turns, conditions can get very rough very quickly.  That seems to be what happens here.  A storm comes up fast, and the placid lake is suddenly raging.  The boat is in danger of being swamped, but Jesus, in effect the captain of this vessel, is asleep in the stern.  In a panic, his friends wake him and demand to know if he cares whether they live or die. (Mark 4:37-38)

 

Their anxiety is understandable.  They are threatened by forces beyond their control.  Jesus is with them, but apparently unconcerned.  Anxiety gives way to panic, panic exposes doubt, and in their doubt they question if Jesus even cares, let alone plans to do something.

 

Now, to better understand a story in scripture, it’s often helpful to ask what might have been going on in the author’s community when the story was written down.  In this case, I suspect that Mark’s community felt much the same way the disciples felt in their little boat.  Mark was written somewhere between the mid-50s to about the year 70 of the Common Era.  We can’t tell for certain if Mark wrote before or just after the Jewish Revolt, the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the destruction of the temple.  But Mark clearly wrote at a time of grave political and religious turmoil, to a community under stress, when many members of that community probably wondered if their Lord was asleep in the stern, oblivious to those forces which threatened to swamp and sink the new Church and its “crew.”  “[T]heir hearts melted because of their peril,” as the author of Psalm 107 puts it, “”and [they] were at their wit’s end.” (Ps. 107:26-27)  No doubt many of Mark’s original readers wondered if Jesus cared whether they lived or died.

 

If this is so, then what Jesus does with the storm — stilling it with a word — probably mattered far less to Mark than whether the Church’s “crew” had confidence in God’s continuing presence.  In other words, this story is less about Jesus miraculously quieting a storm than about Jesus’ friends having faith that the Lord will (as the Psalmist says) bring us to the harbor we are bound for. (Psalm 107:30)

 

The Church has faced a lot of storms over the years — more storms than we could possibly count.  In our Episcopal neck of the Christian woods, the controversy that gets headlines these days is sexuality.  But there are been other gales over the years: slavery, divorce and remarriage, civil rights, the status of women, the so-called “high church” movement, Prayer Book revision, hymnal revision, bishops proclaiming what some consider heresy — the list goes on and on.  In each case, some Episcopalians have asked why Jesus is napping in the stern instead of standing watch at the helm, his eye on the sail, his hand on the tiller.  Does the Lord not care that our Church is perishing?  But then the wind grows still, the seas are calm again, and the Church limps into harbor, battered but still seaworthy.  We’re typically so happy to have survived that we fail to recognize who guided us to safety.

 

Again, each of us has times in our lives when we may feel overwhelmed by forces beyond our control.  Our boat, caught up in one kind of tempest or another, takes on water and threatens to sink.  And in our distress we wonder why Jesus seems so distant when our need is so immediate.  We ask: Does the Lord not care that I am perishing?  Why doesn’t Jesus fix this relationship, cure this illness, or find me another job to replace the one I lost.  It’s tough being out there all alone, praying to the God who seems not to hear, let alone answer.  We ask for a miracle, because… well, sometimes miracles happen.

 

I wonder: would our faith be made stronger if Jesus did a miracle every time we found ourselves in trouble?  Would we believe more deeply if Jesus wandered in whenever we were in a jam, said a few words in Aramaic, and settled the matter?  Would we follow him more faithfully if he fixed every broken relationship, cured every illness, or found jobs for all the unemployed?  I suspect that we would not.  I suspect we’d just take his intervention for granted, as if somehow it was our due.  Oddly, miracles in abundance might leave us believing less!

 

I would suggest that the message in Mark’s story of the Stilling of the Storm is less about the storm, or Jesus’ power to do miracles, than about Jesus’ presence with us in the midst of danger.  It’s not about divinely-engineered quick fixes, but about God’s commitment to our good, regardless of the circumstances.  This story urges us to recognize this fundamental fact — that God is with us for the long haul — and to trust that we will somehow make it through.

 

Knowing this, let us give thanks to the Lord for his mercy, and for the wonders he does for his children. (Ps. 107:31)  Amen.

 

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

 

Readings for Year B, Proper 7:  Lesson — 1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49; Gradual — Psalm 9:9-20; Epistle — 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Gospel — Mark 4:35-41

 

Collect for Proper 7:

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, June 7, 2009 (Pentecost 1, Trinity Sunday)

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.  He came to Jesus by night…. (John 3:1-2)

Pharisees have gotten a lot of bad press over the years.  My Oxford American Dictionary defines a Pharisee as “a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law”… “a person of the spirit or disposition attributed to the Pharisees in the New Testament”… “a self-righteous person; a hypocrite.”

Not very positive, is it?  The Pharisees, along with the scribes, Sadducees, and Romans, are the “bad guys” in the New Testament.  Jesus’ opponents seem to be lurking behind every shrub and palm tree, spying on our Lord and his disciples, trying to bring Jesus to a sticky end.  As we encounter the Pharisees in the New Testament they are, for the most part, overly pious, self-righteous, and hung up on issues of purity.  But is this portrayal fair?  Is this what the Pharisees were really like? 

The problem we have in assessing the Pharisees in Jesus’ time is that everything we know comes from Christian writers.  Information from non-Christian sources dates only to about the year 200 of the Common Era, several generations after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  During the period when the gospels were being written — roughly from the year 50 to about 110 — relations between Christians and Pharisees were seriously strained.  It was during this period that Christianity and Judaism parted company.  Christianity had started as a sect within Judaism, but now the Christians were ejected from the synagogue, which was dominated by the Pharisee party.  Did hard feelings engendered by this split color the portrayal of the Pharisees in the four gospels?

Perhaps here a little history may be helpful.  Before the exile in Babylon, the center of Jewish life was the temple in Jerusalem and the continuous animal sacrifices presided over by the priesthood.  When the Babylonians carried the people off into exile, the Jews were able to take the Book of the Law with them.  During the exile, the Law of Moses became the center of Jewish life.  Some 70 years later the Jews returned to Jerusalem, the temple was rebuilt, and the priests once again offered sacrifice.  The high priest and his assistants again claimed to be the final authority in matters of law and religion.  But their power was not undisputed.  The law remained the soul of the nation, and its custodians were a body of “lawyers,” called scribes, who like the priests were drawn from the aristocratic class.  In time, there emerged from these scribes a group of lay interpreters of the law, called Pharisees, whose name means “separated” — perhaps a reference to separation from both the scribes and priesthood.  These Pharisees gradually became a party within Judaism, with their power base in the local synagogue.  Here they came to dominate the task of interpreting the law.

All this took place during the post-exilic period, roughly from the restoration of the temple in 515 BCE to the arrival of the Romans in 63, some three-quarters of a century before the birth of Jesus.  This was a chaotic time both politically and culturally, and is far too complex to describe in a sermon.  Suffice it to say that by the time of Jesus the Pharisees were well-established in Judaism.  Although the gospel writers lump them together with the Sadducees (the priestly party) and the scribes, in fact the Pharisees came from all classes of society and espoused a theology quite different from that the Sadducees.

It is not easy to tease out exactly what the Pharisees believed, because the historical record is so thin.  In general we can say that the Pharisees believed that history was divinely controlled, whereas the Sadducees emphasized individual freedom to control historical developments.  The Pharisees believed in angels as spiritual servants of God.  The Sadducees did not.  The Pharisees believed in resurrection and an afterlife where people are rewarded for their deeds in this life, whereas the Sadducees held to the traditional notion of Sheol as the abode of the dead.  The Pharisees believed that in time God would draw this present age to an end and establish an earthly paradise in which the pious dead (Pharisees included) would rise to share the glories of the new age.  The Sadducees did not.  Finally, the Pharisees believed that in due course God would send his Messiah, the Anointed, the son of David, who would overthrow the power of the Gentiles, drive them from Jerusalem and Israel, and restore the Jewish state to the glory it enjoyed under King David.  The Sadducees had their doubts.

Does all this sound a bit familiar?  Divine intervention in human history?  Angels and demons?  A resurrection and afterlife?  God bringing to a close the present age, with the pious dead rising to their just reward?  The coming of a Messiah, a king who is the son of David?  If it does, then you’ve been paying attention in church!  In truth, there are many points at which the doctrines of the Pharisees and the teachings of Jesus coincide.

But there are also points of friction.  This has to do more with practice than doctrine, more with living out one’s faith than with what one believes.  For example, Moses said that one must keep the Sabbath holy.  The obvious question is, “How?”  How does a person refrain from working on the Sabbath when children must be fed, animals must be looked after, and so on.  In the Judaism of our Lord’s day, it was the Pharisees who were the interpreters of the law in terms of day-to-day life and therefore responsible for answering such questions.  They followed an oral tradition —interpretations handed down, as they said, from the elders — which defined in exhaustive detail the correct practice of the law.  Those Jews who could not follow the Pharisaic program were considered “sinners.”  Unfortunately, what the Pharisees apparently advocated was a rigorous — and for most people an impossibly rigorous — form of piety.  Combined with economic exploitation by both the Romans and the Jewish aristocracy, the vast majority of the Jewish population were used, abused, and spiritually marginalized.  Jesus found this deeply offensive.

Thus, in today’s gospel reading, we find Jesus trying to explain to the Pharisee Nicodemus how one may be reborn by the Holy Spirit — how, by the action of the Spirit, a person may experience a new and deeper relationship with God.  Nicodemus confuses spiritual birth with physical birth.  He can’t figure out what Jesus is saying.  There is no Pharisaic “case law” to cover it.  Jesus, in sadness rather than anger, responds, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” (John 3:10)  How, our Lord asks, can one teach others how to follow God, yet himself have so little spiritual understanding?

It is fair to say, then, that the picture of the Pharisees in the gospels was strongly influenced by these controversies between Jesus and his opponents over what constitutes a righteous relationship with God and the impact of religious practice on real people.  Decades after these debates, when the new Church and Judaism went their separate ways, this negative opinion of the Pharisees became fixed, like a fly in amber.  Moreover, in time this attitude was unfairly generalized to all Jews who, Christians said, bore corporate responsibility for the death of God’s Son.  In turn, this led to centuries of oppression of Jews in Europe, Russia, and America.  The Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s was the natural and horrifying result.

Now, for Christians in the 21st century, this ought to be a reminder of how easy it is to form a negative attitude toward one small group and then generalize that attitude to a whole body of people.  In recent years, for example, it has become commonplace to speak of Islamic terrorists.  Those who favor this term of reference point to the 9/11 attack and other outrages and say, “These people are terrorists, these people are Muslims, so why should anyone object to the term Islamic terrorist?”  From my perspective, the problem isn’t the word terrorist.  Terrorism, in one form or another, has been with us throughout history.  Rather, the problem consists of linking terrorism with Islam in such a way that many people fail to see any distinction between the two.  Cartoons of bearded men in Muslim headgear, with dynamite strapped to their waists, simply reinforce the idea that Islam, as a religion, is by nature violent.

However, history makes clear that every religion has its violent fringe groups.  So consider, if you will, how you might feel if you turned on the TV every morning to hear yet another story about Christian terrorists — for example, a story headlined, “Christian Terrorist Guns Down Doctor in Church.”  That headline may be factually correct — last Sunday Dr. George Tiller was killed by a Christian in what I consider an act of terrorism — but to refer to Dr. Tiller’s murderer as a Christian terrorist would implicitly, if not explicitly, suggest that all Christians are terrorists.  That is simply untrue.  And if it is untrue of Christians, it is equally untrue of Muslims.  

For this reason I was happy that President Obama avoided use of the term Islamic terrorism in his speech at Cairo this past week.  This was not political correctness.  To successfully oppose the terrorists who use religion as an excuse for violence, we need the active cooperation of the vast and non-violent majority of Muslims.

We should be equally careful in how we characterize other groups.  We tend to blame the current economic crisis on bankers when, in fact, most bankers are completely blameless.  Many ascribe the problems in the auto industry to unions while forgetting that it takes two to make a contract.  Generalizing negative attitudes is, in the end, unfair, unhelpful, and sloppy.

Among our baptismal vows is the obligation to respect the dignity of every human being.  I take this to mean that we should avoid our age old tendency to generalize about whole groups of people — be they Jews, Muslims, Christians, or Buddhists; be they Catholics, Evangelicals, or, yes, even Episcopalians; be they African-Americans, Chinese, or Latinos; be they well- or poorly-educated; be they employed or unemployed.  Jesus dealt with people as individuals, each beloved of God, each of irreplaceable value in the divine economy.  Difficult as it may be sometimes, we are called to do likewise.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Pentecost 1 (Trinity Sunday):  Lesson — Isaiah 6:1-8; Gradual — Psalm 29; Epistle — Romans 8:12-17; Gospel — John 3:1-17.

Collect for Trinity Sunday:

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, May 31, 2009 (The Day of Pentecost)

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  And… the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard [the apostles] speaking in the native language of each. (Acts 2:5-6)

We will never know for certain what happened in the upper room on that first Pentecost.  First there was a strange sound — “like the rush of a violent wind” — and then those “divided tongues, as of fire” (whatever that means) resting on each person’s head.  Clearly, it was for Jesus’ friends an ecstatic experience, a moment of self-transcendence caused by this sudden, overpowering gift of the Holy Spirit.  Their first impulse was to rush out into the street and begin proclaiming the Good News to anyone who would listen.  And they did so in a multitude of languages.

Quite a few people were in the street to hear them.  The Holy City was filled with Jews and proselytes from every corner of the Diaspora, from Egypt and Rome in the west to Mesopotamia in the east.  When the passersby heard these Galilean apostles speaking in so many languages, they are  “amazed and astonished” and assume Jesus’ friends must be drunk.

Peter immediately speaks up.  “Indeed, these [men] are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.”  In other words, the bars aren’t open yet!  No, Peter says, what you hear today fulfills what God declared through the prophet Joel: “…I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”  Even my slaves… shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18)

Well, if we can’t be sure exactly what happened, we know that something powerful did happen, because from this moment forward the Church begins to grow.  Luke tells us that some three thousand converts were made that day. (Acts 3:41)  Perhaps that’s something of an exaggeration.  But the point is that these friends of Jesus were transformed by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the results of that transformation were immediate and impressive.

This transformation was long overdue.  Remember that the Twelve spent several years with our Lord, crisscrossing the Galilee and neighboring territories, listening to all Jesus had to say, watching him perform signs and wonders — and yet they just didn’t get it.  They heard Peter confess that Jesus was the Messiah — and yet they just didn’t get it.  They accompanied Jesus to Jerusalem, joined the crowd in proclaiming him king of the Jews, saw him cleanse the temple, were present as he instituted the Holy Eucharist, and shared his bitter hour of prayer in the garden — and yet they just didn’t get it.  When Jesus was arrested, they fled in fear, hid out during the crucifixion, and wrote off the first report of the resurrection as an idle tale.  They just didn’t get it.

There’s a temptation here — one to which I occasionally yield — to describe these guys as spiritually dull and to wonder what in heaven’s name Jesus was thinking when he called this group.  And then I remember that they are me.  It’s me, all too often, who just doesn’t get it!  Remember, if we are to fully understand the gospels, we have to appropriate this story for ourselves, and place ourselves in the midst of the action.  If we do that — if we leave aside the role of disinterested observer and imagine ourselves to be one of the Twelve, sharing those three years on the road, and that final week in Jerusalem — we may achieve a somewhat different perspective on Jesus, and on ourselves.  We may find that we, like the disciples, are often spiritually dead in the water, and in profound need of transformation.  

From this perspective, then, Pentecost doesn’t seem quite so weird.  In fact, it seems essential.  Jesus’ disciples — ourselves included — need to be transformed.  The gift of the Holy Spirit does just that.

Here, then, is the challenge posed by this Day of Pentecost: Do you and I really want to be transformed?  Do we want to see people, and issues, and the world around us differently?  Or do we simply want the Lord to leave us alone?  This is the problem we will address in the weeks and months to come during the season after Pentecost.  Will we live in the Spirit, or keep the Spirit at arm’s length?

As an interim priest, as one who is here at St. John’s just for a season, this is a most important question.  Before long your new Search Committee will be talking with candidates for the position of Rector.  How should the Search Committee present this parish and the work your new Rector will be expected to do?  Do you want your new Rector to lead you somewhere, or just leave you where you are today?  Do you want your new Rector to assist you in being spiritually transformed, or not?

The prophet Joel said that God will pour out the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.  I pray that the Lord will help you discern God’s will for this parish, and seek a new clergy leader who will help you become the people God calls you to be.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for the Day of Pentecost:  Lesson — Acts 2:1-21  |  Gradual — Psalm 104:25-35, 37  |  Epistle — Romans 8:22-27  |  Gospel — John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Collect for the Day of Pentecost:

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.