May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
This past Thursday all the clergy of this region met here in our parish. Each month when we meet, one of the things we do is celebrate the Eucharist. Instead of a sermon, we all share our thoughts about the readings for the coming Sunday.
Before we started our meeting, I had a pretty good idea what I was going to talk about today. After the meeting? – not so much. In fact, after the meeting, I couldn’t even remember what I had been planning to say. It was just gone.
I was left with lots of ideas swirling around in my head, no clear direction to go in, and a vague recollection of something important that I’d planned to say.
I spent way too much time trying to get back my plan so that I could write my sermon for today. It just wouldn’t come. Finally, last night I just decided to give up on that and write something else. I started over from the beginning. Read the readings again. Looked over my notes about where they came from and what words might mean something different that I would expect. Prayed for direction and sat down in front of my computer.
It wasn’t until I started writing this that I realized this is exactly what our Gospel today is talking about. As long as I was focussed on the past, I had no clue how to move forward.
Our Gospel today is a grim message of hope. Jesus is telling us that there is always a way forward. There is always a path that will lead us closer to the Kingdom of God. No matter how bleak things are, there is always a light shining in the distance.
The problem is that heading toward that light might mean giving up something which we are attached to. Something that gives us comfort or stability. Maybe just something that we are used to. We have to leave these behind in order to get closer to God.
This is a constant struggle in every one of our lives. Change is always happening around us and it would be much more comfortable if everything would just stay the same. Life isn’t like that. Kids grow up and move away from home. The jobs that sustain us disappear. New jobs take their places. New jobs that can’t be done by the same people. We grow older and can’t do what we used to be able to do. It is an endless list.
In the church today this is especially true. Less and less people are coming to church. Many churches in Canada are closing or merging. Many more are struggling to pay their bills and still maintain at least a bit of mission. The old model of church in North America just doesn’t seem to work anymore. Or at least not very well.
Jesus’ message for us today is that there is a way forward. There is a way for us to get closer to the Kingdom of God.
This is very good news. This is a grim reality. In order to move forward, we have to let go of the past. This does not mean we have to forget it or throw out everything that makes us what we are. Our tradition is a great strength. Tradition is like the arc of an arrow flying through the air. It is always moving forward, moving toward its final target. But you can look back along its path and see where it’s been. It doesn’t take any sudden, sideways leaps.
No, to let go of the past, we have to acknowledge that our past got us to where we are. It is from this point that we move forward. Letting go of the past means that we don’t look back to see what we are doing wrong. We don’t look back to see what we could change to make things better. Letting go of the past means that we look forward to find where we need to be next. We look forward to see where our next step should be. We don’t make a sideways leap to become something we have never been or a backwards leap to become something we used to be. We take a small step forward from where we are now. Step by step into the future.
Looking back is deadly. Looking back is indulging in nostalgia: longing for the way things used to be and lamenting the loss. Looking back locks us into pain and despair.
Looking forward we can see the light. It might be dim and way off in the distance, but it is there. Looking forward we can live in hope that things will get better. Looking forward we can take that leap of faith and move step by step toward the Kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Thank God for Flying Pigs
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
And now for something completely different.
Possession. Casting out of demons. Flying pigs drowning themselves in the Sea of Galilee. Oh, my!!!
For those of you who weren’t in the Bible study on Monday, I’ll give you a bit of background for that last one. – The city of Gerasa was about 50 kilometers southeast of the Lake, which we now call the Sea of Galilee. Pigs, which have no sweat glands, would die long before they reached the sea by running. They must have flown down the hill.
So we have possession, casting out of demons and flying pigs all in one short story. This story seems to be completely out of our world view, and for the most part it probably is.
In Jesus’ time, most mental illnesses and some physical illnesses were thought to be caused by demons or unclean spirits. These demons were eternal somethings (the word literally means minor divinities) looking for somewhere to settle down. When they got into somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, for instance a human being, they caused all kinds of problems. Casting them out would instantly fix these problems, but there were very few people who could do this. Jesus was one of them. This particular man was possessed by many spirits, enough so that they called themselves legion (which would make 6,000 of them). Jesus was probably the only one with enough power to cast out that many.
Today we don’t blame sickness on demons, at least not usually. We do still have the rite of exorcism available to us in this diocese in the Anglican tradition. In order to use it however, I have to explain the situation to Bishop Sue and get her permission beforehand. And from historical accounts, some of which are quite recent, exorcism sometimes works.
But as I said, we don’t often blame sickness on demons anymore. So how do we make sense of this reading in our current world view?
Today’s version of this story would be about faith healing. We have our own legion of demons to choose from: cancers of all varieties, depression, cerebral palsy, dementia, addiction. The list goes on and on: diseases and conditions which are difficult or impossible to cure or even to manage with medicine.
We hear story after story about people traveling around the world for treatments which are not medically proven. Some of these people get better. Many don’t. This is a type of faith healing. This healing is sometimes medicine which just hasn’t been proven yet, but more often than not it is healing that happens because people believe so strongly that it the treatment will help. They have faith in the medicine. The power this kind of belief has over our bodies can be awesome and unexplainable. This is not the kind of faith healing that this story is about.
Placing that kind of absolute belief in God is transformative. It can sometimes accomplish the same type of physical healing, but that is only a side benefit. The healing that comes from faith in God transforms our lives in other ways.
If we look at the man healed in today’s story we see a man who has been cast out of society in just about every way possible. Jesus comes and the man kneels at his feet, acknowledging his power. Jesus transforms this man. Healing him of his afflictions does not make him just another ordinary citizen of Gerasa. No – he returns to a city which is terrified of him because of the extreme change. He goes back to a city where there is no real Jewish presence, where there are no followers of Jesus. He goes back to that city to proclaim a message which will leave him separated from the rest of society in a different way than before: just as isolated but with a real purpose to his life.
Modern examples of faith healing are everywhere. The most common examples are probably twelve step programs for addiction. A key step in these programs is acknowledging that we can’t do it ourselves. We need help from God. People who are successful in these programs are not cured of their addictions, but their lives are transformed in a way that can only come from God.
Faith healing is like this. Our body may or may not be healed – our souls are. By putting that kind of faith in God we are healed. Our demons are cast out. Even the ones we never realized were there. We all have them. We all have the power to give them to God.
Thanks be to God.
And now for something completely different.
Possession. Casting out of demons. Flying pigs drowning themselves in the Sea of Galilee. Oh, my!!!
For those of you who weren’t in the Bible study on Monday, I’ll give you a bit of background for that last one. – The city of Gerasa was about 50 kilometers southeast of the Lake, which we now call the Sea of Galilee. Pigs, which have no sweat glands, would die long before they reached the sea by running. They must have flown down the hill.
So we have possession, casting out of demons and flying pigs all in one short story. This story seems to be completely out of our world view, and for the most part it probably is.
In Jesus’ time, most mental illnesses and some physical illnesses were thought to be caused by demons or unclean spirits. These demons were eternal somethings (the word literally means minor divinities) looking for somewhere to settle down. When they got into somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, for instance a human being, they caused all kinds of problems. Casting them out would instantly fix these problems, but there were very few people who could do this. Jesus was one of them. This particular man was possessed by many spirits, enough so that they called themselves legion (which would make 6,000 of them). Jesus was probably the only one with enough power to cast out that many.
Today we don’t blame sickness on demons, at least not usually. We do still have the rite of exorcism available to us in this diocese in the Anglican tradition. In order to use it however, I have to explain the situation to Bishop Sue and get her permission beforehand. And from historical accounts, some of which are quite recent, exorcism sometimes works.
But as I said, we don’t often blame sickness on demons anymore. So how do we make sense of this reading in our current world view?
Today’s version of this story would be about faith healing. We have our own legion of demons to choose from: cancers of all varieties, depression, cerebral palsy, dementia, addiction. The list goes on and on: diseases and conditions which are difficult or impossible to cure or even to manage with medicine.
We hear story after story about people traveling around the world for treatments which are not medically proven. Some of these people get better. Many don’t. This is a type of faith healing. This healing is sometimes medicine which just hasn’t been proven yet, but more often than not it is healing that happens because people believe so strongly that it the treatment will help. They have faith in the medicine. The power this kind of belief has over our bodies can be awesome and unexplainable. This is not the kind of faith healing that this story is about.
Placing that kind of absolute belief in God is transformative. It can sometimes accomplish the same type of physical healing, but that is only a side benefit. The healing that comes from faith in God transforms our lives in other ways.
If we look at the man healed in today’s story we see a man who has been cast out of society in just about every way possible. Jesus comes and the man kneels at his feet, acknowledging his power. Jesus transforms this man. Healing him of his afflictions does not make him just another ordinary citizen of Gerasa. No – he returns to a city which is terrified of him because of the extreme change. He goes back to a city where there is no real Jewish presence, where there are no followers of Jesus. He goes back to that city to proclaim a message which will leave him separated from the rest of society in a different way than before: just as isolated but with a real purpose to his life.
Modern examples of faith healing are everywhere. The most common examples are probably twelve step programs for addiction. A key step in these programs is acknowledging that we can’t do it ourselves. We need help from God. People who are successful in these programs are not cured of their addictions, but their lives are transformed in a way that can only come from God.
Faith healing is like this. Our body may or may not be healed – our souls are. By putting that kind of faith in God we are healed. Our demons are cast out. Even the ones we never realized were there. We all have them. We all have the power to give them to God.
Thanks be to God.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Justified by Faith not the Law
May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Whatever is Paul talking about? That is one of his more convoluted arguments. I think it needs a bit of unpacking to have any idea of what he means.
Paul uses a few very key words in our reading today: justified, the law, faith, Christ, and grace.
That first word, justified, means to be made right or proved to be right with God; in other words, to be shown or made to be righteous. Being justified is the core of what Paul is talking about.
How do we become justified with God? … How do we become righteous?
The Bible is full of rules. Two weeks ago we read some of those rules during our service. Does anyone remember which rules we read? … The Ten Commandments. Today we read another set of rules which we call the summary of the law. The Galatians ask Paul if we are made right with God by following all these rules. What do you think he answered? … “No one will be justified by the works of the law.” That’s a pretty emphatic answer. Has anyone here read “The Year of Living Biblically?” A. J. Jacobs did a very good job of showing just how impossible it is to follow all of the laws all of the time. I thank God that this is not the way to be right with God.
Paul even takes it one step further that Jacobs did. Paul reminds us that Christ himself broke the law: “is Christ then a servant of sin?” On several occasions, the Bible makes a point of telling us that Jesus is breaking the rules set down in God’s law. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all talk about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. This is important because it breaks the ritual purity laws. All of the Gospels talk about Jesus breaking the Sabbath. He heals and does other work on the Sabbath and makes the point that the Sabbath (and other laws) are made for us, not the other way around. That is extremely important. The law is given to us. We are not given to the law.
Back to the question: how do we become justified with God?
“And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law.”
This is where grace comes in. Being righteous is about knowing that God loves us and responding to that. It is about faith. All it takes for our relationship with God to be right is for us to truly believe that we have a relationship with God and that God loves us. God became human and walked among us to show us what this relationship looks like and to prove that love to us.
So if the law does not make us right with God, why do we have it? Does it matter at all?
Absolutely! The law is very important. All of those rules show us how people throughout history have felt God’s call. When we look at them either individually or as a whole, they show us what is important to God. There are rules about taking care of ourselves. There are rules about taking care of the poor and the sick. There are rules about respecting each other. There are rules about respecting and honouring God. There are rules that show us where society was going wrong.
All of these rules are important. All of them can teach us something about God. Many of them require us to understand the people who wrote them for them to mean anything to us today, but they are all important.
Jesus told us that of all the laws, if we follow two specific ones, we have understood the heart of the law. I believe those two laws are impossible to break if you are truly living by faith. We read these laws earlier today. We call them the summary of the law.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
God calls us to love. First we are to love God. Next we are to love ourselves and everyone else equally.
If we follow the other rules but break these we are being ruled by the law. If we follow these two rules we are living by faith. If we break any other rule in order to keep the laws of love, we have understood God’s gift of the law to us. We are justified. By the grace of God, we are right with God.
Thanks be to God.
Whatever is Paul talking about? That is one of his more convoluted arguments. I think it needs a bit of unpacking to have any idea of what he means.
Paul uses a few very key words in our reading today: justified, the law, faith, Christ, and grace.
That first word, justified, means to be made right or proved to be right with God; in other words, to be shown or made to be righteous. Being justified is the core of what Paul is talking about.
How do we become justified with God? … How do we become righteous?
The Bible is full of rules. Two weeks ago we read some of those rules during our service. Does anyone remember which rules we read? … The Ten Commandments. Today we read another set of rules which we call the summary of the law. The Galatians ask Paul if we are made right with God by following all these rules. What do you think he answered? … “No one will be justified by the works of the law.” That’s a pretty emphatic answer. Has anyone here read “The Year of Living Biblically?” A. J. Jacobs did a very good job of showing just how impossible it is to follow all of the laws all of the time. I thank God that this is not the way to be right with God.
Paul even takes it one step further that Jacobs did. Paul reminds us that Christ himself broke the law: “is Christ then a servant of sin?” On several occasions, the Bible makes a point of telling us that Jesus is breaking the rules set down in God’s law. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all talk about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. This is important because it breaks the ritual purity laws. All of the Gospels talk about Jesus breaking the Sabbath. He heals and does other work on the Sabbath and makes the point that the Sabbath (and other laws) are made for us, not the other way around. That is extremely important. The law is given to us. We are not given to the law.
Back to the question: how do we become justified with God?
“And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law.”
This is where grace comes in. Being righteous is about knowing that God loves us and responding to that. It is about faith. All it takes for our relationship with God to be right is for us to truly believe that we have a relationship with God and that God loves us. God became human and walked among us to show us what this relationship looks like and to prove that love to us.
So if the law does not make us right with God, why do we have it? Does it matter at all?
Absolutely! The law is very important. All of those rules show us how people throughout history have felt God’s call. When we look at them either individually or as a whole, they show us what is important to God. There are rules about taking care of ourselves. There are rules about taking care of the poor and the sick. There are rules about respecting each other. There are rules about respecting and honouring God. There are rules that show us where society was going wrong.
All of these rules are important. All of them can teach us something about God. Many of them require us to understand the people who wrote them for them to mean anything to us today, but they are all important.
Jesus told us that of all the laws, if we follow two specific ones, we have understood the heart of the law. I believe those two laws are impossible to break if you are truly living by faith. We read these laws earlier today. We call them the summary of the law.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
God calls us to love. First we are to love God. Next we are to love ourselves and everyone else equally.
If we follow the other rules but break these we are being ruled by the law. If we follow these two rules we are living by faith. If we break any other rule in order to keep the laws of love, we have understood God’s gift of the law to us. We are justified. By the grace of God, we are right with God.
Thanks be to God.
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