Proper 17 Year C: The Center Will Hold

Sirach 10:12-18
Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16
Luke 14:1,7-14

September 1, 2019 Abraham Abbey Church

The “Wrath of God” is a common expression. Aunt Esther used it while hitting Fred Sanford on the head with her Bible and purse, Carrie’s mother probably used the term when warning her daughter about having any kind of fun, and many people reading our scriptures this morning would describe what happens to the people who ignore the advice given as the “Wrath of God”. The first reading actually describes some of the bad things that happen to people who “forsake the Lord”.


But there might be a better take on who or what causes all the problems that come about when we sin. Problems do indeed come about when we sin – always. Sometimes it is just not we who experience the problems, or sometimes we do feel the consequences after a long time of thinking we have “gotten away with it”, and of course, sometimes the effects are immediate and land right on our own heads. But sin does always cause problems (“wrath” if you want to call it that). But it just does not seem that the God shown to us by Jesus is someone who sits around waiting to smite people who break the rules he seems to love making so many of. Maybe the reason there are so many rules is because the foundation of the universe is love, and when we do unloving things we are throwing a wrench in our little corner of the cosmos, making it not work properly for us and the people around us. So maybe all the rules are God’s way of reminding us to do everything in love so that we do not cause harm for ourselves and others. In other words, the rules are there to prevent us from making wrath and bringing it upon ourselves and others.


Sin is simply doing unloving things: prideful government (as in our first reading), being inhospitable, adulterous, and greedy (as in our second reading), and giving things with strings attached (as in our gospel reading). Building lives of sin simply means that we are putting ourselves in the center of everything rather than living in the already established truth that God is the center of everything. When we live with God in the center, we and those around us simply fit in the mix and can go about our daily lives with gratitude and joy, knowing full well that we are not the sources of our own existence. When we try to make ourselves the center of our universes and live as if we are the sources of our own existence, things don’t go well, because we cannot hold it together. Things become fouled up and wrath is created. The wrath is our own fault and our own creation.


So, maybe humans should stop blaming God for all the bad consequences we ourselves have been causing ever since we have been around. Jesus is not here to send us to hell; his job is to pull us out of the hell we make for ourselves and those around us. Why not make the job easier by making less wrath? We can do it. The grace of God is all we need to do it, and the grace of God is the surest thing in the world. AMEN

Proper 13 Year C: That’s For Sure

Ecless 1:2, 12-14,2:18-20
Col 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21


August 4, 2019 Abbey Church Abraham

“We came into this life unsheltered and all alone. That’s how we came and for sure that’s how we go out.*” That’s what the great theologian Grace Slick sings, and she’s right. And she’s not being sad about it, and Solomon (the author of our first reading this morning) needs to listen to her and cheer up. Things don’t last. People don’t last. So it is all the more important that we love the things and the people around us while we can, because some day, they will be gone, and we will be gone.

Things are good, because they are made by God. But things aren’t God, so as much as we should love the things and people around us, we should love God even more, because God will last. In fact, God’s being is infinitiely more than our being, so we should love God infinitely more than things. More than that, because God’s being is of such a different order than our being, we should love God in a different way of loving than we love people and things.

The more we love God, the more we realize the goodness of the world God has made, and the more we realize that everything receives its integrity and legitimacy solely from God, never from us. Everything is a gift from God. In the eyes of the universe, we have no rights to anything – everything is a gift. So we take it, love it, take care of it for awhile, and then give it back with joy and gratitude.

There is no need for greed or fear. The world does not need to function the way we insist that is does. We are just riding along the edges of creation along with everything else, swirling around God. When we try to make ourselves the center and have things swirl around us, it only causes dangerous eddies that hurt us and the people around us.

So, love deeply and let go gratefully. “We came into this life unsheltered and all alone. That’s how we came and for sure that’s how we go out.” AMEN

* “That’s For Sure” from the 1974 album DRAGONFLY by Jefferson Starship

Proper 9 Year C: Plant Me Two Times


Isaiah 66:10-14
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11


July 7, 2019   Abraham   Abbey Church

Planting and harvesting are both mentioned in two of our readings this morning, but they refer to very different things in each reading. In our Gospel story, Jesus tells the ministers he is commissioning to ask the Lord to send out laborers into his harvest. Jesus does not explain what he means, but since he sends the ministers to proclaim peace, maybe what he means is: “God has planted eternal life into all hearts. It is now your job to let the people know that, and help them wake up to that gift.” Not everyone responds the same way to the good news of God’s grace, but that is ok – the kingdom of God is near to us all.

In the letter to Galatia, Paul talks about planting and harvesting, but this time, it is not about what God has planted, but about what we plant in our own worlds, and the effect of our actions. If we do good, then that good will ripple out and be of benefit to all. If we do bad, then that bad will ripple out and be of detriment to all.

And yet, God’s gift of Love from the gospel story is still in our hearts. The bad we do can not take it away. We can not undo God’s grace, but we sure can hide it under a lot of fear and pride. God’s gift of life and love will eventually win out over all the self-imposed darkness that we all send into the world, but why not just come to our senses and stop trying to hinder grace with our self-inflicted pain? Why not rather add love to Love? It makes the world much better for everyone. We can do it, and we know that we will. But we also know that we will fail, and fall, and sin. That is not ok, but it is not the end. That’s when God’s grace saves us from ourselves.

So now, while the harvest is plentiful, may we, by planting good with our own lives, help awaken the gracious gift of eternal life, love, peace and joy in the lives of those around us. It has already been given by God, we just need to show people how to open up to it. And may we be open to the people around us helping us to awaken to God’s gift in our own lives.   AMEN

Born To Be Mild: All Saints Day 2018

Wisdom 3:1-9
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

November 1, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

God does not call us to be more than ourselves. Being more than ourselves would not make us more than human, it would simply make us not human. Being a Christian means acknowledging that being human is good enough for God, because God chose to become human. And as all humans, Jesus grew. So we must grow. We must become mature and complete in Christ – and that means becoming more truly our unique selves. We often hear, in this church building, the call to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. We can all too easily dwell on the “sacrifice” part of that call while forgetting about the “living” part of that call. We are called to full life as God’s children.

We are called many other things in scripture: the saints of God, a nation of priests, a city on a hill, the light of the world, the temple of God, the salt of the earth, the Rose of Sharon, a new creation, the body of Christ (the fullness of him who fills all things), joint heirs with Christ (and therefore his family). We are also called sinners, and that makes it even more wonderful that God calls us his children. We are not yet perfect, but we are called to perfection – not a perfection based on rules and regulations, but a perfection based on fullness. There is a Chinese proverb which says: “A mature and integrated human is like jade: Its flaws not concealing its beauty, nor its beauty concealing its flaws.” We are called to that kind of perfection, and yet how rarely we live up to it.

We are not there yet; we still have a lot of growing to do, and we always will. We need to admit it to ourselves and also realize that everyone around us has a lot of growing to do. We do not like to be called evil and stupid just because we do wrong things, and so we should never use those words on others. Other people’s sins might be visible to the whole world, but ours are more likely hidden because they are deeper and far worse. If we want mercy and grace to grow then we must give it to others. That does not mean that we excuse wrongdoing, but it does mean that we always respect the wrongdoer as much a child of God as we are. It also does not mean that since we are to grow into our unique selves that we can be so eccentric that it makes life difficult for others.

So, here we are, surrounded by saints: living ones sitting next to us and dead ones sitting in little boxes in a corner of the church and in big boxes in the cemetery. We are also surrounded by the saints in heaven (which I guess means that heaven is surrounding us). We now a lot about some, a little about others, and nothing about most. All we know is they are being brought to perfection by God in ways that God calls perfect, not in ways that we call perfect. They are a great cloud of witnesses. They show us how to live, they watch us, and in ways we can’t understand, they help us to grow. May we do the same for others, and as we gather up here around the altar, let us remember them and each other, and be thankful.   AMEN

Proper 20 Year B: Tough Work If You Can Get It, And You Can Get It If You Try

Jeremiah 11:18-20
James3:13-4:3,7,8a
Mark 9:30-37

September 23, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

Jeremiah was given a tough job, and he was rewarded for his efforts by being jailed and ridiculed and eventually dragged off to Egypt – a place where he warned people to not go. His tough job was that of merely telling the truth. He, like almost everyone at that time and location could see that Babylon would soon conquer his nation, as it had conquered all other nations in the area. Even though everyone saw what was happening politically and militarily in the region, many people in power kept their power by assuring others that God would protect their nation, since it was chosen by God. Jeremiah asked the uncomfortable question of why the people in power were praying to false gods rather than the God whom they publicly claimed would help them. He also pointed out the uncomfortable truth that since they had secretly turned their backs on God, God would publicly turn his back on them. We heard a bit of Jeremiah in the first reading this morning talking about his difficult job. He asks to see God’s retribution upon the people who have made his life so hard. Hopefully Jeremiah calmed down later and did the Christian thing by forgiving his persecutors, just like all us Christians here always do.

James (whom we heard in our second reading) was given a tough job, and he has was rewarded for his efforts by having his letter belittled by Martin Luther. His tough job was one of telling people that faith produces works. Most of the bitterness of the Reformation has now settled down, so most people on all sides can see James’s point, but there are still some people either using his letter as a weapon against people with whom they disagree, or trying to explain away the parts of it that don’t agree with their party line. Hopefully the many people from so many different denominations that gather together here won’t ever start a fight: Lutherans with copies of the Letter to the Romans, Catholics with copies of the Letter of James, Anabaptists refusing to join the fight, and Calvinists standing back watching, knowing that the outcome is preordained anyway.

Jesus (whom we heard in our Gospel story) was also given a tough job and he was rewarded for his efforts by being crucified. Jesus was surrounded by disciples who don’t seem to have understood him, but who are we to judge – we still don’t really understand Jesus. The resurrection maybe did compensate for the hard time Jesus had, but we are still making his life rough by doing exactly the same stupid things the disciples did, and worse.

The tough jobs we have talked about this morning involve telling people things that might make them uncomfortable. Many times we find ourselves in the same situation – something needs to be said, and no matter what we say, someone will take it wrongly or as an attack, or misinterpret it. We all sometimes need to do the talking, and we all sometimes need to do the listening, and we all do both jobs well sometimes and badly other times. That’s ok, no one is perfect, and usually we all eventually settle down and get along with each other.

Probably, none of us is ever going to be given the job of saying things of such importance as Jeremiah or James or Jesus. When we do sense the need to say something about something, we need to do it humbly, realizing that we could be wrong, and also realizing that just because we don’t like something, that does not make it wrong or bad or stupid. Most people already know all of our preferences, and they really don’t want to hear about them again. It is also important to remember to listen to other people, because even if we disagree with them, they might be right and we might be wrong. It is especially important to remember to listen to people who have said things in the past with which we disagree, or who come from groups with which we tend to disagree, because sometimes they just might say things that need to be said, even if they say it in harmful or hurtful ways. The Kingdom of God comes to the little child (full of questions), not to the people at the front of the line yelling out answers. So, with Jeremiah and James looking on and joining us, we come to this table to be fed by Jesus. He is the one we really need to listen to, and he does tend to use the unexpected person or event as his mouth.   AMEN

Proper 8 Year B: Exit Finite; Enter Infinite

Wisdom 1:13-15,2:23-24
II Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43

July 1, 2018   Abraham   Abbey Church

The little girl and the woman in our gospel story this morning were both healed by Jesus, but it is a safe assumption that they both eventually died. Humans die. Jesus died. Jesus is fully human, as well as fully God. In some unexplainable way, that means that God had also experienced death. Impossible, but true. But, since Jesus is fully God and fully human, it also means that he not only experienced death, he also experienced fully human eternal life.

In our first reading, Solomon says that we are created as the image of God’s eternity, but we choose death through envy. God creates us for eternal joy, but we desperately want so much less, so we kill our eternal joy and try to fill the void with other things, doing anything we can to fill that infinite space with the finite things around us – even if that means taking them from other people. And so sin and death enter the world.

The things around us are not bad; they are good. They are just not God. Anything that is not God is less than God. So, we should take Paul’s advice from our second reading this morning. He is writing to people who have more than they need, asking them to give to people who have less than they need. They are not forced to do so; it is voluntary – giving must be voluntary in order to negate lifekilling envy. Giving is what God does.

It is not easy on the surface, but in terms of eternal joy, it is worth it. Letting go of our finite resource of things, time, and energy opens us up so that the infinite joy of God can fill us. We don’t always freely give of ourselves all the time, and we all know it. That does not mean we are evil. It means we are tired and worried. Jesus knows that; he was also tired and worried, and so doesn’t mind it sometimes when we just give up and have to let Jesus give through us (but even doing that is a form of giving: giving up our self-righteousness). It takes time and work, but mostly it takes grace. So it is a good thing that God is gracious and that God gives. God gives eternal life, and every time we refuse it, God offers it again.   AMEN

Proper 4 Year B: Have Fun With It

Deuteronomy 5:12-15
II Corinthians 4: 5-12
Mark 2:23-3:6

June 3, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

Our scripture readings this morning speak of creation and Sabbath (or in other words: “work and rest”). Sometimes, people say that Christians should meet for prayer on Saturdays rather than on Sundays, because Moses says that people are supposed to meet for prayer on Saturdays. They are wrong – Moses says to rest on Saturday – we just heard that. Prayer can and should be any day including the Sabbath. Christians meet on Sunday to remember and proclaim the resurrection of Jesus. Most Christians also do not work on Saturday (depending on what one classifies as work). And if Christians do work on Saturdays, they are not disobeying Moses, because Moses was giving God’s law to a specific group of people for life in a specific place. Maybe a Jewish Christian currently living in Palestine should be obliged to observe the Sabbath, but there are hints in the New Testament that they are not obligated to do so.

Having said all that, Christians should both pray and rest from work. Both things show our total dependence on God alone. Resting from work reminds us that everything comes from God – no matter how hard we work, we can not guarantee any material gain. Prayer reminds us that everything comes from God – no matter how hard we work, we can not guarantee anything. All is gift.

Yes, we should work. Yes, we should pray. And yes, we should at times rest from work. We really shouldn’t rest from prayer, but we should realize that resting from both work and intentional prayer in order to simply enjoy the universe around us is itself a form of prayer (gratefully having fun in the beautiful creation of God.)   AMEN

Here, There, And Everywhere: Ascension Day 2018

Acts 1:1-11
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:49-53

May 10, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

The ascension of Jesus (no matter if it occurred on the evening after the Resurrection or forty days later, and no matter if he went up, or out, or wherever) brings about the close of one era while preparing the beginning of another era. In one way, the works of Jesus are now over, but in another way, the works of Jesus are just beginning with the works of the church. One body of Christ was taken from the earth and replaced with another one. We are given the job of being the body of Christ: “the fullness of Him who fills all in all”, as Paul puts it in our second reading this morning.

It seems difficult to fill our own little corner of the planet with grace and love, much less the entire expanding universe. Paul prays that his readers might understand a little of this when he asks that their minds might be enlightened to see the glory they will inherit – the glory of a world in harmony under Christ and in Christ. Honestly, being enlightened that much seems more than anyone could really handle. Jesus, being fully human, knows that we could never endure such enlightenment on our own, or do his work by ourselves, so he tells his disciples to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit before they attempted any of it.

The gift of the Holy Spirit that the disciples were to wait for is often a puzzle to Christians, or should be. The readings today do not clear up many of those questions, but it does seem clear that the Holy Spirit is a gift who enables us to spread the gospel. Often it seems that the Holy Spirit is more of a burden than a gift – when we want to spread the gospel our way instead of God’s way. Many times we are like the disciples and we want to know “when the kingdom will be restored to Israel?”, or in our words: “when will justice and peace flourish?”. Jesus says that’s not for us to know – we are instead to wait for the Holy Spirit. So, maybe the Spirit is a gift who lets us know and do what we need to know and do.

Before he sends them back to Jerusalem, Jesus tells the disciples that they are witnesses to what he has said and done. We need to continue that witness – bringing to the world the Jesus that we know, not the Jesus that we don’t know. We also need to stop staring into the sky and instead wait for the Spirit to tell us what to do.

So, Jesus is gone, but also still very much here. He is Lord and head of the church, he is beyond time and space, yet fills time and space. His power is limitless, and he is in us. The one who holds all things together is now as close to us as we are to each other, and as close as he was to Joseph and Mary growing up, and to John as he leaned against his breast, and to Mary and Martha as they sat around the house. As we wait for the Holy Spirit to tell us what to do, Jesus is still with us, and he will be with us as we do his work, guided by his Holy Spirit.   AMEN

Easter III Year B: See It, Be It

Acts 3:12-19
I John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48

April 15, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

 

There is a phrase in our second reading this morning that always catches me, either when I hear it or read it.: “…when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” I used to think that maybe the words had been transposed in some ancient manuscripts so long ago that we now just assumed that the order in our current Bibles is the correct version. I really thought John should have said: “…when he is revealed, we will see him as he is, because we will be like him.”, because God’s job is to make us holy, and then when we are holy enough, we will see everything, including God, as it really is – without the bias and filter of our own sinful greed and fear.

Yes, it is God’s job to make us holy – it’s all grace. And yes, the holier God makes us, the more we see things as they really are (always about God, never about us). But, the holier God makes us, the more we are expected to grow and cultivate the growth – actively doing things to receive the holiness that God is pouring upon us. It’s all grace, but faith and works are also part of the picture.

So, we need to work on seeing God as God really is, and dong that involves also seeing creation as it really is. We need to see everything in its true relationship with God, rather than in its false relationship to us. And of course by “seeing” it is implied that we start living in the truth and treating everything as it truly is in relationship to God, not as it might affect us. There are many ways to do that, and the classical Christian disciplines of fasting, prayer, scripture reading, going to church, etc. are helpful for many people. Other people might need to try something else, but the important thing is that we start seeing things and living life as it really is: without us as the center, but rather with God as the center. Freeing ourselves from the center of the universe is indeed liberating.

So, as we start to see God as God really is and ourselves as we really are and the rest of creation as it really is, what we are doing is actually becoming like God in at least one aspect, because God always sees the truth. It’s all grace, so eventually God will give us a glimpse of Godself as God really is, but God knows that we just can’t handle the truth yet. God is waiting for us to grow to the point that God can safely show us the truth without completely shattering us. At some point in eternity (which encompasses all points), God will be revealed to us, and “we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is”.   AMEN

Baptism Of Our Lord Year B (First Sunday After Epiphany): We Don’t Understand And That’s OK

Baptism Year B (first Sunday after Epiphany)
Genesis 1:1-5
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:1-4

January 7, 2018   Abbey Church   Abraham

No matter how it is described, we really don’t understand the creation of the world. The Biblical account that we just heard in our first reading is beautiful and true, but we still can’t ever fully comprehend it: God spoke, and everything was made. The current scientific account is also beautiful and true, but we still can’t ever fully comprehend it: dark energy and the quantum foam that permeates the universe causes things to constantly pop in and out of existence.

The two baptisms described in our second reading this morning are also things we can’t ever fully understand: how can water be a channel of God’s grace?

The Baptism of Jesus we heard about in our gospel story this morning is also something we don’t understand: why does God in the flesh need to be baptized and have the Holy Spirit come to him?

We don’t understand these things, and maybe we can’t understand these things, but that is ok. We can still try to live in the mystery of these things. We can be thankful for, and wisely use and protect the wonderful universe that God has created. We can realize that we need to change our lives from self-centeredness to God-centeredness, and that we need the grace of God and the Holy Spirit in and around us in order to change and keep changing. We can follow Jesus into and through baptism, even if we do not understand everything about his own baptism. Then, we can follow Jesus in the rest of his life, and even if it does not include crucifixion, it will include death – and only then can we also follow Him in resurrection.

We don’t understand all these things, but that’s ok – we live by faith, not by sight.   AMEN