Sunday, February 19, 2017

Church

Sun, Feb 19, 2017 St. Peter’s

Lectionary

Lev. Reads something like what I would have associated with what a “gentleman” does. My word is my troth. (faithfulness, fidelity, or loyalty: by my troth.)

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (Paul)

like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. (Paul)

love your neighbor, hate enemy? no, rather … (be perfect) cf. Lev. Be holy, because the LORD is holy

The Holy

When was the last time you encountered holiness? Of course I don’t just mean, "When was the last time you sang the sanctus in church. That’s how it goes (in Latin), “Holy, holy, holy.” We first encounter that song in Isaiah 6:3. As if to frame the Bible itself we meet it again in Rev. 4:8.

Did you really get a full blast of holy when you woke up this morning? I got a bit of it yesterday when I saw two ends of a partial rainbow. (in Hawai’i I understood them to be a message of blessing from God and would generally make the sign of the cross)

But the Bible this morning invites us to think of holy as in God is holy. God said to Moses, “This is what I want you to tell all the people, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.’”

And that’s just the beginning. We go on to hear Paul talk about his life’s work as being but the flourish that he is able to put on the actual building that God had laid the foundation for.

And then Jesus talking to us in just crazy and impossible language.

The key today is to wrap our minds, our bodies, our being around this amazing, awesome holiness of the Lord. Isaiah the prophet was transported in a vision to the throne of God with Seraphim surrounding the throne and crying out the song. The writer of the “Apocalypse of John” has just as extraordinary a vision of thrones, and precious stones, flashes of lightning, torches of fire, and 7 spirits of God – all surrounding the throne of God – and 4 “living creatures” who sang this song.

Holy. Mysterium Tremendens it was named by one author. A holiness that is so awesome that we must tremble before it in awesome and majesty.

Epiphany

Epiphany, the season for Jesus to be revealing himself, to those closest, then to those further away, and to the whole world. Revealing who he really is.

Epiphany beginning with a voice from heaven saying that this Jesus is beloved by God. Epiphany ending next week with a voice from heaven (on the mountain) saying that this Jesus is God’s beloved Son.

Epiphany is a season of amazing and awesome sights and sounds. It is in the context of that that we receive these readings today.

Readings

Behavior: Upright as in Lev

Community and collegiality: Imua as in Paul

Jesus continuing the Sermon on the Mount with directions on how to behave, how to act as disciples of the Kingdom. And the words are so beyond comparison with anything we expect that we tend to just tune them out.

Jesus is going above and beyond

award for going above and beyond the call of duty

above and beyond
More than is required. This somewhat redundant expression— above and beyond here both denote excess—often precedes the call of duty , which means exceeding what a particular job requires. Thus Putting in overtime without pay is above and beyond the call of duty .

“above and beyond”. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Houghton Mifflin Company. 18 Feb. 2017. <Dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/above-and-beyond>.

This expression comes from the military, where it was used to talk about soldiers who died while fighting for their country.

Now, the phrase is often used to talk about teachers, social workers, nurses, and other people who work hard to help people. It can also be used to talk about customer service: http://www.phrasemix.com/phrases/go-above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty

He tells us to forget about justice (an eye for an eye) but instead turn the other cheek if someone strikes you. He says give your cloak also if someone demands your coat. He says to give something to every beggar you meet. He says never refuse to loan money to anyone who asks. He says to love your enemies and pray for everybody who persecutes you.

Because, afterall, he is saying, God is holy and we are to be nothing less.

All quite breathtaking.

Sermon on the Mount: Profiles in Courage,

When I was a young teenager I read JFK’s Profiles in Courage. The book was clearly written for personal and political gain. He clearly had help with writing it. But that book as much as anything I can remember motivated me to want to be someone who was willing to go above and beyond the call of the ordinary.

Profiles in Courage is a 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators throughout the Senate’s history. The book profiles senators who defied the opinions of their party and constituents to do what they felt was right and suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity because of their actions. It begins with a quote from Edmund Burke on the courage of the English Statesman, Charles James Fox, in his 1783 attack upon the tyranny of the East India Company in the House of Commons.[1]
The book focuses intensely on mid-19th century antebellum America and the efforts of Senators to delay the Civil War. (Wikipedia)

What stands out for me is that I wanted to be like what he described. I wanted to live my life with integrity and courage, willing to act outside the expectations of everyone else who was important, focused on the “right thing to do.”

I took from that book a dedication, not just to “doing the right thing” but to stepping beyond, going beyond the expectations of everyone else, going above and beyond the call of duty.

Take heart, be of good courage, put our faith in God and not in the winds of opinion

Only later did I discover that Jesus was saying something similar but going above and beyond Profiles in Courage. He was saying, “So you honor the virtue of justice? What I tell you is let justice play second fiddle to mercy.” He was saying, "So you think that everyone should carry their fair share, pay their proper amount? What I say to you is, “Carry you neighbor when he can’t go himself. Your immigrant friend who doesn’t know what is home or whether she’s welcome here, you must give her a bed in your house.”

What an honest person would do. Not so easy in today’s world. But to go over and above, beyond what could be expected? To risk it all for the most hopeless on death row – well that’s the task of a citizen of the kingdom. Sr. Helen Prejean showed us how.

Love one’s enemy. When asked to give a little – give a lot. Love our neighbors? Yes, but love our enemies even more. Pray for them. To stand up for these things is to go against the tide of opinion and requires courage and integrity.

I sometimes think that the world we now live in has gone crazy. But I find reassurance that Jesus’ words are the craziest of all.

Jesus is telling us we don’t win by being king of the mountain. We get to live with the king when we walk hand in hand with the least, when we respond with insane generosity to those who would take advantage of us.

It turns out that the craziest thing of all is the gospel imperative to be holy as God is holy, to love with extravagance, and to walk humbly with our God.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

feb-5-epiphany-5.md

Feb. 5, 2017

5th Sunday after Epiphany

lectionary

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him” (cf. Isaiah 64:4)

The lessons from Scripture today speak to me in the hushed tones of mystery and speak of what is sometimes beyond language can say.

I heard that mystery speaking to me earlier last week in a short reading from a prayer book I use every night before I turn out the light.

From Celtic Prayer Book of the Northumbria Community

Once you’ve heard a child cry out to heaven for help,
and go unanswered,
nothing’s ever the same again.
Nothing.
Even God changes.

But there is a healing hand at work
that cannot be deflected from its purpose.
I just can’t make sense of it, other than to cry.
Those tears are part of what it is to be a monk.

Out there, in the world, it can be very cold.
It seems to be about luck, good and bad,
and the distribution is absurd.

We have to be candles, burning between hope and despair,
faith and doubt, life and death,
all the opposites.

William Brodrick

Metaphors

In my classes I frequently have to spend some time talking about “metaphors”. The students mostly all remember lessons from grade school English classes. I even remember my own. "Similes are comparisons using the words like or as. Metaphors use the word is or to be.

The reason I place such importance on metaphor is because of the conviction I gradually arrived at years ago that all religious language, everything we can say about God and our relationship to God and God’s impact on us and our lives in service to God – all of that – is essentially metaphor.

When I say that “God is love,” at best I am saying that the Lord of all Creation, in so far as I understand and have experienced (him) is something like what I know of as love. And after all, I have spent my 60+ years trying to learn what love is and how I can approximate it in my own life. How is it that I could make some great declaration about God’s love.

Religious language is essentially poetic. Metaphorical.

Metaphor (poetry) as religious language. The only way to get at who or what God is. “Father” is but a metaphor. “God” the ultimate metaphor?

In today’s Gospel continuation of the Sermon on the Mount that we first heard from last week, Jesus teaches us (his disciples) by means of several obvious metaphors. “Be salty” he says. For after all “what good is salt that has lost its taste?” And “shine, like a city on a hill. Nobody lights a light and then hides it.”

Obviously we are not literally salt – except when we sweat and exercise a lot. We are not literally a light.

Metaphors are powerful

We bought a bottle of salt last year. It was labeled “Himalayan Salt” – somehow harvested from that mountain range. (Strange, I thought). But you know what? It’s the best salt I’ve ever tasted!

That’s the kind of salt Jesus meant. That’s the kind of light Jesus meant.

The very language of Jesus’ metaphors in today’s reading from Matthew have been used by political leaders in our nation, stretching all the way back to its origins.

At one time our nation was imagined as a shining city on a hill. (coined by John Winthrop)

The passengers of the Arbella who left England in 1630 with their new charter had a great vision. They were to be an example for the rest of the world in rightful living. Future governor JOHN WINTHROP stated their purpose quite clearly: “We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” (http://www.ushistory.org/us/3c.asp)

Since then utilized by JFK, Ronald Reagan, Bush & Obama among others. These metaphors from the Sermon on the Mt. are versatile and quite powerful.

It turns out that metaphors are powerful when used for political purposes as well as with religious language.

Metaphors of the Kingdom

So Jesus taught with metaphors and our political leaders teach with the metaphors of this passage. What are we to make of the metaphors? Be salty! Be a light!

I used to think that it had to do with trying harder, speaking louder, being more effective than the next guy or gal.

The church seemed to drum into me as one of the leaders that like any organization in our society, if we weren’t growing then we were likely dying. Bigger and better was the mantra.

I have heard the same kind of message from our political leaders. Bigger. Best. Model for the rest of the world.

I now believe that such an emphasis is to take these metaphors out of the context in which they appear. The Beatitudes are not about bigger, louder, better than anybody else. Quite the opposite in fact.

To be salty, to be a light on a hill, to be worthy of the kingdom of heaven – for Jesus – is to take one’s model for behavior and life from the Beatitudes. It has to do with humility. With standing with those who mourn. It has to do with standing for peace not for victory.

Metaphors lived

We are to be a light for a world where all too often the children we have hurt cry out to God and what do they hear? All too often, I am reminded, there is no response, no salt, no light.

That’s where we’re supposed to be. In a world where bigger and better is always best and where coming in 2nd or 3rd is as good as coming in last. Not to be best is to be last.