Sermon delivered Sunday, June 21, 2015, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN at The Gathering Eucharist (alternative service), 10 a.m., held outside the side courtyard (usually in Otey Hall). 4 Pentecost, Proper 7, Year B (1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49, 2 Cor. 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41)
The loose offering from this service was designated for the Mother Emanuel Hope Fund, to provide support to the families of the victims of the shootings in Charleston, SC.
Afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.
Paul’s list in today’s passage from 2 Corinthians of all he has endured for the sake of the Gospel is not exactly a great selling point for following Jesus. “Come join us, and you too can experience afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger!” Oh goodie, where do I sign up?
Many of us often think that if we are following God and doing all the right things, no harm will come to us, and perhaps it’s not surprising we think this way, since there are many parts of the scriptures that affirm this correlation between good behavior or righteousness and prosperity and safety. Countless times throughout the “wisdom literature” of the Bible, which includes the books of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the psalms, we hear some version of the idea that the righteous will prosper and the wicked will perish, that those who follow God will be rewarded and those who do not will be punished. That certainly sounds like an appealing system, one where our experiences are predictable and directly related to our actions, where people “get what they deserve,” so to speak, where the world is just.
But the reality of life is often quite different. It is easy to claim from an abstract philosophical perspective that we will be rewarded if we do good and punished if we do bad, but often our experiences don’t line up with those beliefs. A pillar of the community who has supported countless people and changed lives receives a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and is dead within six months. A tornado drops out of nowhere and destroys the home of a young, struggling family who had just managed to purchase their first house. A young man from my hometown in South Carolina walks into a church in Charleston and kills nine people while they are gathered for prayer and Bible study.
Our reaction when we encounter such tragedies is often, “Why me?” or “Why them?”– especially if we think we or they were good people who didn’t “deserve” this. We can see this reaction from the disciples in today’s Gospel passage. Despite the fact that they have done everything “right” by following Jesus and doing what he asked in getting into the boat to cross to the other side of the lake, they are indignant with him when they encounter calamity along the way. When a storm threatens to capsize their boat, they wake up Jesus with the accusing statement, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” This is often our reaction to what we see as undeserved suffering. “What did I ever do to you, God? Do you not CARE that we are suffering? Why don’t you do something to stop it?” But our passage from 2 Corinthians offers another approach.
The suffering Paul and his companions experienced is not insignificant. We’re not talking about so-called “first world problems” like getting pickles on their sandwiches when they asked for no pickles, or their houses being so big they had to get two wireless routers. We’re talking some pretty horrific things -- afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger – and yet, he nonetheless proclaims that even in the midst of such suffering, they are truly blessed. No matter how awful their circumstances may appear from the outside, they are able to continue to praise God because they know the paradoxical truth of the Gospel, that through suffering can come new life, that there can be blessings even in the most unspeakable suffering. Although they are punished, they are not killed; although they are sorrowful, they always rejoice even in the midst of it; although they are poor, they are making many rich – maybe not literally, but in the truest sense of the word, through spiritual transformation; although they have nothing by physical standards, they actually possess everything that matters by spiritual standards through their faith in Jesus Christ and the assurance of new life that they have through him. No matter what people may say about them or what suffering they might encounter, their faith is not shaken.
Our passage from the Hebrew Bible today also gives us an example of keeping the faith in the midst of adversity. In the classic story of David and Goliath, David does not cower before a seemingly unconquerable obstacle. Though he is young and small and by all external standards seems a poor match for the giant warrior Goliath, he steps forward and agrees to meet Goliath’s challenge, trusting that God is with him despite his youth and lack of experience in battle.
Paul’s inspiring proclamation of faith and David’s heroism stand in direct contrast to the disciples in the Gospel passage, who panic in the face of the storm, who expect Jesus to keep them from ever suffering, who cannot trust that they will come through the storm with God’s help.
Where are you in these stories? Are you cowering with the disciples in the boat or proclaiming faith boldly in the midst of adversity with Paul? Are you like the disciples indignant that trouble has come their way, or like David striding confidently forward with only a few stones to defend himself?
Those of us who have had the good fortune of not experiencing much pain and suffering in this life are more likely to find ourselves cowering and indignant with the disciples in the boat when trouble comes our way. But those of us who have been people of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3) are likely to know something about what it takes to muster up courage and faith in the midst of adversity.
This weekend, the world is watching and mourning with our brothers and sisters in the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, after the horrific shootings there on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters in the black church are no strangers to suffering and grief. Their list of all they have endured over the years in terms of violence and intimidation could rival Paul’s list from 2 Corinthians, especially during the years of slavery and the civil rights movement: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. This list, foreign to so many of us in predominantly white churches, is all too familiar to many of our brothers and sisters in the black churches. And yet, somehow, many of them have managed to draw upon a deep reserve of faith that has seen them through these adversities and kept their hearts from being hardened by resentment and hate. On Friday, at the court hearing of shooter Dylann Roof, family members of those killed gathered to speak to him and told him they forgave him. What kind of faith gives you the strength to look your mother or son’s killer in the eyes and say, “I forgive you, may God have mercy on your soul?” Faith that has been refined through hardship; faith that knows that hate will never drive out hate, only love can do that; faith that knows that God can make a way where there is no way, as the saying goes.
And that’s exactly the kind of faith Paul and David had in our readings for today. They put their trust in God and drew upon the resources they had to find a way when many would have said there was no way.
In the story of David and Goliath, there is one small detail I have always overlooked that I’d like to lift up as a metaphor for our own abilities to overcome adversity. After rejecting Saul’s heavy armor because he wasn’t used to it, David goes to the river and picks out five smooth stones that he carries with them as his only weapons as he goes out to meet Goliath. Rather than putting his trust in the sword and spear and javelin, as his enemies did, David put his trust in God, and walks out completely unprotected, holding only a few stones. But those seemingly ineffective weapons actually give him victory over the giant.
The question in our walk of faith is not if we will suffer, but when. It’s not, “What can we do to avoid suffering?”, but, “How will we deal with suffering when it comes?” What resources will we draw upon to enable us to be able to say with the members of Emmanuel AME and the apostle Paul, “we are punished, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything”? Those resources might be our faith, the scriptures, our friends and families, a good counselor or spiritual director, spiritual practices that ground and center us, a special place we can go that brings us peace and comfort, or any number of other things. Those resources are the “stones” in our arsenal, or in our “toolkit,” if you prefer a less violent metaphor, that we put in our shepherd’s bag to take with us as we walk boldly toward the obstacles and the adversities that come our way.
What are your five smooth stones that you take with you to confront the adversities in your life? What resources help you to defeat the giant enemies in your spiritual walk?
In your bulletins you may have noticed a yellow piece of paper labeled, “My Five Smooth Stones.” If you noticed it, you probably had no idea what that was about, but now it should all be becoming clear to you. I’d like to invite you all to take a few moments to reflect on what your five smooth stones are (it doesn’t have to be exactly five; it could be more or less) that equip you to face adversity with faith and courage. And as you do that, I’ll be passing around this bowl full of candy stones, and ask you to each take a few to remind you of those resources in your lives that keep you strong. And if you’re missing any resources or think of ones you don’t have, make a commitment to reaching out and establishing those support systems for yourselves so you will be ready for the next giant or storm that comes your way.
Showing posts with label blessings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blessings. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Easter Message: God goes beyond what would have been "enough" to lavish abundant blessings on us
Sermon delivered Saturday, April 19, 2014 (The Great Vigil of Easter, Year A) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN.
Tonight we gather for one of the most ancient liturgies in the church. Although celebrating Easter on Sunday morning became the main Easter observance in Western churches after the Reformation, the custom of celebrating Easter with a vigil on Saturday night is much earlier, dating back to at least the 3rd century. When we gather for the Easter Vigil, we are celebrating Christ’s resurrection as some of our most ancient forefathers and foremothers did. As we say their prayers and sing their songs, they become our songs as well, no matter how long ago the texts were written. In the liturgy, time collapses, and no matter how many centuries have passed between the events we remember and our present time, we experience them as if they are happening now. Today, tonight, “this is the night that Christ broke the bonds of death and hell and rose victorious from the grave.”
This custom of retelling the sacred stories of our history as if they were happening now, as if we were participants in the story, is even more ancient than the Easter Vigil service itself. In fact, it’s something we inherited from our Jewish brothers and sisters. Every year on Passover, the Jewish community gathers to remember the story of God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, one of the foundational stories of the Jewish tradition. As they gather around the table for the seder dinner, the traditional liturgy of Passover, the youngest child present has the honor of asking the loaded question: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” This question comes in the middle of the re-telling of the Passover story, which is told as if it happened to the people present. The leader of the seder says, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord our God took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.” [1] Passover is not just about remembering an event that happened to some other people a long, long time ago. It is about reliving that event, experiencing it as if it happened to them, as if it happened this night, so that the ancient story of their ancestors becomes their story, so that they become one with their forefathers and foremothers.
And tonight, in the Easter Vigil, we celebrate our own version of Passover. Jesus died during the time of the Passover in Jerusalem, and his death took on added religious significance to his Jewish followers because it occurred during that most sacred holiday. Although our English word “Easter” bears no resemblance to “Passover,” in most languages the word for “Passover” and the word for “Easter” are linguistically related, if not identical. The Latin word for the holiday we celebrate this weekend is Pascha, and Eastern Orthodox Christians still talk about celebrating “Pascha” rather than “Easter.”
The Passover imagery is vivid and plentiful in our liturgy tonight – we open by declaring that this is “the Passover of the Lord,” in which “our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life” (BCP 285), and the exsultet, that wonderful ancient hymn at the beginning of this service, declares this is both the night that God brought the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt and the night that Christ rose from the dead (BCP 287). Of the nine readings we hear from the Hebrew Bible during the Liturgy of the Word, the only reading that is not optional, that must be included if you are going to do an Easter Vigil service, is the story of the Exodus, of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea – the story of Passover (BCP 288). A clergy colleague of mine who was raised Jewish says that, in essence, the Easter Vigil is our Passover seder! [2]
In this liturgy, we too declare that this night is different from all other nights. We too remember the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. But we add another way this night is different from all other nights: “This is the night that Christ broke the bonds of death and hell and rose victorious from the grave” (BCP 287).
In Jesus’s Resurrection, in his defeat of the powers of our greatest enemy, death, his earliest Jewish followers saw an echo of that ancient Passover story – the deliverance from their enemies at the Red Sea. The early church declared the Easter Vigil to be the most appropriate time for baptisms not only because at Easter we recall the Resurrection and we are joined to Christ’s resurrected life through our baptism, but because baptism symbolizes a movement from slavery to freedom through water – an echo of that ancient Passover story. Just as the Israelites came out of slavery in Egypt into freedom in the Promised Land by passing through the waters of the Red Sea, so the newly baptized move from slavery to sin into freedom in the new life of Christ through the waters of baptism. In baptizing Megan and Anders tonight, we join them to the stream of God’s redemptive work that flows from the Exodus to the Resurrection and on to this day. The layers of meaning enfold over one another as we pour symbols upon symbols in this liturgy, in an attempt to give words to what is ultimately beyond the bounds of human language – the abundant mercy and love of God.
In the Passover seder, there is a famous liturgical poem, a hymn, that is sung after the re-telling of the story of the exodus. It is called, in Hebrew, dayenu, a word that is translated as “it would have been sufficient for us” or “it would have been enough.” One by one, the people recall the various stages of the exodus story, after each one saying that “it would have been enough” if God had stopped there – if God had only brought us out of Egypt, that would had been enough. If God had only split the Red Sea, that would have been enough. If God had only sustained us in the wilderness with manna, that would have been enough. If God had only given us the Torah, the Jewish law, that would have been enough. If God had only led us into the Promised Land, that would have been enough. This hymn emphasizes how abundant God’s mercies are – because even though any one of these great acts of deliverance would have been “enough,” God continually goes beyond what is merely “sufficient” to lavish his love and mercy on us. God wants us not to just survive, but to thrive, to use an old cliché. Or as Jesus says in the Gospel of John, he came that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly (John 10:10).
The clergy colleague I spoke of earlier who was raised Jewish has written a Christian version of the Dayenu, which seems appropriate to share with you at this Easter Vigil, which is in so many ways the liturgical descendant of the Passover seder:
“If only God had come to be with us, it would have been enough.
If only God became human, the Word made flesh. If only through Jesus God entered creation so that by his presence he might bless it, it would have been enough.
If only Jesus taught us and healed us and fulfilled the Law in Love, it would have been enough.
If only he’d died, if only he stretched out his arms of love on the cross, if only Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, it would have been enough.
If only he rose again, if only he left a pile of linens in an empty tomb. If only he denied death the final word and changed forever the life we live here and now, it would have been enough.
If only he sent us the Spirit to be a comforter and advocate and to lead us into all truth, it would have been enough.
If only he ascended, drawing our humanness back to God, leading the way for us, it would have been enough.
If only he made a way for us all to be adopted as daughters and sons, if only he led us all through the waters to be joined to him, our hope and our calling, and to be joined to one another, it would have been enough. Dayenu. It would have been enough.” [3]
For each one of those statements, of course, there is a still more wonderful action of God for us to celebrate, a way in which God went the extra mile, so to speak, to come even closer to us and draw us closer to one another, bringing even more blessings and joy into our lives. And although the litany must stop somewhere, in fact it never really stops. There are always more ways to say “dayenu” – it would have been enough – and to experience gratitude for the abundance in our lives.
So what is your “dayenu” this Easter season? If only God had _______, it would have been enough? In what ways has God gone beyond what would have been “enough” in your life to lavish you with abundant blessings?
In the church, we are pretty good about observing the season of Lent, but we often forget that Easter is not just a day, but an entire season. While we have 40 days of Lent to reflect on our mortality and repent of our sins, we have 50 days of Easter to celebrate the joy of the Resurrection! We’re all familiar with the tradition of taking on a Lenten discipline, but what if we started a new tradition and during the Great 50 Days of Easter, we took on an “Easter joy”? What if we committed to spend the next 50 days – from now until Pentecost, which is on June 8 this year – doing things that that bring us joy, and intentionally bringing to mind all the ways in which we are abundantly blessed, all the ways in which God has gone beyond what would have been enough in our lives?
We just might begin to re-tell the story of Easter as if it had happened to us personally. We might experience the resurrection as if it were happening now. We might live into the story so completely that it would become our story. We might become aware in new ways of our mystical union with Christ’s death and resurrection in our baptism. And in the liturgy each week, we might say with ever-deepening appreciation:
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
(The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
---
[1] English Haggadah Text With Instructional Guide, http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/661624/jewish/English-Haggadah.htm Accessed 14 April 2014.
[2] The Rev. Jenna Faith Strizak, associate rector at Holy Trinity Parish in Decatur, GA.
[3] The Rev. Jenna Faith Strizak, “a sermon for the feast of all saints (year c), with baptisms,” November 3, 2013, Holy Trinity [Episcopal] Parish, Decatur, Ga. http://graceandgrits.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/a-sermon-for-the-feast-of-all-saints-year-c-with-baptisms/ Accessed online 8 April 2014.
Tonight we gather for one of the most ancient liturgies in the church. Although celebrating Easter on Sunday morning became the main Easter observance in Western churches after the Reformation, the custom of celebrating Easter with a vigil on Saturday night is much earlier, dating back to at least the 3rd century. When we gather for the Easter Vigil, we are celebrating Christ’s resurrection as some of our most ancient forefathers and foremothers did. As we say their prayers and sing their songs, they become our songs as well, no matter how long ago the texts were written. In the liturgy, time collapses, and no matter how many centuries have passed between the events we remember and our present time, we experience them as if they are happening now. Today, tonight, “this is the night that Christ broke the bonds of death and hell and rose victorious from the grave.”
This custom of retelling the sacred stories of our history as if they were happening now, as if we were participants in the story, is even more ancient than the Easter Vigil service itself. In fact, it’s something we inherited from our Jewish brothers and sisters. Every year on Passover, the Jewish community gathers to remember the story of God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, one of the foundational stories of the Jewish tradition. As they gather around the table for the seder dinner, the traditional liturgy of Passover, the youngest child present has the honor of asking the loaded question: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” This question comes in the middle of the re-telling of the Passover story, which is told as if it happened to the people present. The leader of the seder says, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord our God took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.” [1] Passover is not just about remembering an event that happened to some other people a long, long time ago. It is about reliving that event, experiencing it as if it happened to them, as if it happened this night, so that the ancient story of their ancestors becomes their story, so that they become one with their forefathers and foremothers.
And tonight, in the Easter Vigil, we celebrate our own version of Passover. Jesus died during the time of the Passover in Jerusalem, and his death took on added religious significance to his Jewish followers because it occurred during that most sacred holiday. Although our English word “Easter” bears no resemblance to “Passover,” in most languages the word for “Passover” and the word for “Easter” are linguistically related, if not identical. The Latin word for the holiday we celebrate this weekend is Pascha, and Eastern Orthodox Christians still talk about celebrating “Pascha” rather than “Easter.”
The Passover imagery is vivid and plentiful in our liturgy tonight – we open by declaring that this is “the Passover of the Lord,” in which “our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life” (BCP 285), and the exsultet, that wonderful ancient hymn at the beginning of this service, declares this is both the night that God brought the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt and the night that Christ rose from the dead (BCP 287). Of the nine readings we hear from the Hebrew Bible during the Liturgy of the Word, the only reading that is not optional, that must be included if you are going to do an Easter Vigil service, is the story of the Exodus, of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea – the story of Passover (BCP 288). A clergy colleague of mine who was raised Jewish says that, in essence, the Easter Vigil is our Passover seder! [2]
In this liturgy, we too declare that this night is different from all other nights. We too remember the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. But we add another way this night is different from all other nights: “This is the night that Christ broke the bonds of death and hell and rose victorious from the grave” (BCP 287).
In Jesus’s Resurrection, in his defeat of the powers of our greatest enemy, death, his earliest Jewish followers saw an echo of that ancient Passover story – the deliverance from their enemies at the Red Sea. The early church declared the Easter Vigil to be the most appropriate time for baptisms not only because at Easter we recall the Resurrection and we are joined to Christ’s resurrected life through our baptism, but because baptism symbolizes a movement from slavery to freedom through water – an echo of that ancient Passover story. Just as the Israelites came out of slavery in Egypt into freedom in the Promised Land by passing through the waters of the Red Sea, so the newly baptized move from slavery to sin into freedom in the new life of Christ through the waters of baptism. In baptizing Megan and Anders tonight, we join them to the stream of God’s redemptive work that flows from the Exodus to the Resurrection and on to this day. The layers of meaning enfold over one another as we pour symbols upon symbols in this liturgy, in an attempt to give words to what is ultimately beyond the bounds of human language – the abundant mercy and love of God.
In the Passover seder, there is a famous liturgical poem, a hymn, that is sung after the re-telling of the story of the exodus. It is called, in Hebrew, dayenu, a word that is translated as “it would have been sufficient for us” or “it would have been enough.” One by one, the people recall the various stages of the exodus story, after each one saying that “it would have been enough” if God had stopped there – if God had only brought us out of Egypt, that would had been enough. If God had only split the Red Sea, that would have been enough. If God had only sustained us in the wilderness with manna, that would have been enough. If God had only given us the Torah, the Jewish law, that would have been enough. If God had only led us into the Promised Land, that would have been enough. This hymn emphasizes how abundant God’s mercies are – because even though any one of these great acts of deliverance would have been “enough,” God continually goes beyond what is merely “sufficient” to lavish his love and mercy on us. God wants us not to just survive, but to thrive, to use an old cliché. Or as Jesus says in the Gospel of John, he came that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly (John 10:10).
The clergy colleague I spoke of earlier who was raised Jewish has written a Christian version of the Dayenu, which seems appropriate to share with you at this Easter Vigil, which is in so many ways the liturgical descendant of the Passover seder:
“If only God had come to be with us, it would have been enough.
If only God became human, the Word made flesh. If only through Jesus God entered creation so that by his presence he might bless it, it would have been enough.
If only Jesus taught us and healed us and fulfilled the Law in Love, it would have been enough.
If only he’d died, if only he stretched out his arms of love on the cross, if only Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, it would have been enough.
If only he rose again, if only he left a pile of linens in an empty tomb. If only he denied death the final word and changed forever the life we live here and now, it would have been enough.
If only he sent us the Spirit to be a comforter and advocate and to lead us into all truth, it would have been enough.
If only he ascended, drawing our humanness back to God, leading the way for us, it would have been enough.
If only he made a way for us all to be adopted as daughters and sons, if only he led us all through the waters to be joined to him, our hope and our calling, and to be joined to one another, it would have been enough. Dayenu. It would have been enough.” [3]
For each one of those statements, of course, there is a still more wonderful action of God for us to celebrate, a way in which God went the extra mile, so to speak, to come even closer to us and draw us closer to one another, bringing even more blessings and joy into our lives. And although the litany must stop somewhere, in fact it never really stops. There are always more ways to say “dayenu” – it would have been enough – and to experience gratitude for the abundance in our lives.
So what is your “dayenu” this Easter season? If only God had _______, it would have been enough? In what ways has God gone beyond what would have been “enough” in your life to lavish you with abundant blessings?
In the church, we are pretty good about observing the season of Lent, but we often forget that Easter is not just a day, but an entire season. While we have 40 days of Lent to reflect on our mortality and repent of our sins, we have 50 days of Easter to celebrate the joy of the Resurrection! We’re all familiar with the tradition of taking on a Lenten discipline, but what if we started a new tradition and during the Great 50 Days of Easter, we took on an “Easter joy”? What if we committed to spend the next 50 days – from now until Pentecost, which is on June 8 this year – doing things that that bring us joy, and intentionally bringing to mind all the ways in which we are abundantly blessed, all the ways in which God has gone beyond what would have been enough in our lives?
We just might begin to re-tell the story of Easter as if it had happened to us personally. We might experience the resurrection as if it were happening now. We might live into the story so completely that it would become our story. We might become aware in new ways of our mystical union with Christ’s death and resurrection in our baptism. And in the liturgy each week, we might say with ever-deepening appreciation:
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
(The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
---
[1] English Haggadah Text With Instructional Guide, http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/661624/jewish/English-Haggadah.htm Accessed 14 April 2014.
[2] The Rev. Jenna Faith Strizak, associate rector at Holy Trinity Parish in Decatur, GA.
[3] The Rev. Jenna Faith Strizak, “a sermon for the feast of all saints (year c), with baptisms,” November 3, 2013, Holy Trinity [Episcopal] Parish, Decatur, Ga. http://graceandgrits.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/a-sermon-for-the-feast-of-all-saints-year-c-with-baptisms/ Accessed online 8 April 2014.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)