Hope for those in exile

 Among the many songs Linda Ronstadt has performed and recorded is the reggae song, “By the rivers of Babylon,” which draws on verses from two Psalms which you may hear this fall in many churches: 

The last verse of Psalm 19, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer,”  and the beginning of Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon…”  which is a sad and angry song about being an exile.

Invocation is often the use of that first phrase:  a preacher will say it before he begins to preach.

But we rarely hear the second because of the anger and even rage that psalm expresses as the words go on from the beginning of the experience of exile. 

Yet many of us do feel in exile or as a stranger in a strange land from time to time even in a familiar place or somewhere far away from home. 

And that is certainly the case with many people who are currently refugees in our world.

Among them are those who have been welcomed to Tucson or people who are waiting in refugee resettlement programs or people who are in a home country where they no longer feel at home or safe. 

And these are among the people we have special care for and special concern about at this time especially considering the recent upheaval and changes in the Middle East and the repercussions we will continue to feel for decades to come. 

After the initial expression of loss, sorrow, and grief from psalm 19, the reggae song takes an interesting turn : moving to the hopeful and prayerful expressions of psalm 19,

In these times it is especially welcome to have those closing words of Psalm 19 so that we don’t immure ourselves in lasting despair or dwell in gratuitous negativity as we discuss these events.

Indeed we are reminded in that psalm 19 from its first words, “the heavens declare the glory of God,”  to its last, “let the words of my mouth be acceptable in thy sight,” that indeed all human beings are part of the creation of God and that the God who created us is the God who redeemed us is the God who will see us through.

So let the words we speak and the meditations at the deepest root of our being be thoughts of praise and words of hope.

A previous version of this essay appeared in the Arizona Daily Star, Keeping the Faith section, September 19th 2021, page E3.

BProper18

In the gospel reading for Sunday 5 September 2012, Jesus releases the tongue of a man with a speech impediment (Mark 7:31-37). Yet next Sunday, September 12th, 2021, we will listen to the admonishments of the letter of James to beware the tongue. And we will hear the apostle Peter both declare Jesus to be the Christ and rebuke him for forecasting the Passion.

Apparently it is not speech only that can be wicked or misleading. And after all as the 19th Psalm sings, “The heavens declare the glory of God!” We are invited to be part of that divine chorus of voices; what shall we do with the voices given us?

whip of cords

Talk about clearing the ground for Lent. Here Jesus drives out the moneychangers and bird-sellers from the Temple precincts, where they were preparing to make a killing on the Passover business opportunity.

But to Jesus, Passover, and to us, Holy Week and Easter, are not about the money. Or the guilt. Or fame.

We prepare our hearts to make him room. If that means driving out avarice, greed, or anxiety and overt piety, so be it. 

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

• Exodus 20:1-17
• 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
• John 2:13-22
• Psalm 19
• https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent3_RCL.html
• Third Sunday in Lent, Year B, RCL

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, ..."

Deuteronomy 30:11-14 Romans 10:8b-18 Matthew 4:18-22 Psalm 19 or 19:1-6 

St Andrew, Apostle

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.” ― Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus 

accessed November 10, 2015. 

 

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Tucson

whip of cords

In many ways my trip to the Holy Land was the simplest of the three pilgrimages I’ve been on: 2002, Celtic Northumbria and Scotland, 2007, Into the West of Ireland, and 2015, Holy Land. The means were straightforward: sign up for a package tour with Bishops Beisner and Rickel. We gathered by the door of Tel Aviv airport where we met our guides and driver. It was a very Christian trip – Episcopalian/Anglican, even liberal non-Evangelical Anglican, to be more specific. There were ecumenical and interfaith encounters certainly. And what we see encompassed all three Abrahamic faiths as well as prehistoric ruins. We largely bypassed what was not on our focus; which was: (1) footsteps of Jesus, (2) current Palestinian predicament, and (3) riding in a bus together.

Of these the first is the reason I went. We began where we could begin.

Mount Tabor, transfiguration
Tabgha, multiplication; Nazareth, annunciation; Capernaum, Magdala: Galilee
Jericho
Jordan River, baptism
Bethlehem, nativity
Jerusalem, crucifixion
            Settlements, a Palestinian hill town
Jaffa, airport

At Capernaum I got a sense from the ruins of the synagogue (post 1^st Century C.E.) that lie on top of the building Jesus would have known, that it was not a very big place: 300m along the lakeshore – of course that lakeshore, along which Jesus came to call his first disciples…

And so from a building not much bigger than a small church (St. Andrew’s Tucson, e.g.) Jesus and his friends crossed the street to a small house where he healed Peter’s mother-in-law. And the whole town crowded round the door that evening, hoping for more healing – which they got. But in the morning he gathered his team and moved on, announcing in word and deed that the reign of God was beginning. And they moved about that region so the news spread.

Eventually it was time to go up to Jerusalem so they took the Jericho road. And on the way he healed beggars and warned them, and all who would follow him, that it was necessary for him to go – and take his message and its consequences all the way.

This meant appearing at the center of Jewish religion at the tensest, busiest time as all converged on the Temple – where the great feast would be inaugurated. But he would not live to see it – if John’s timing is right.

From the triumphal entry on a colt, a political drama enacting the arrival of God’s anointed – in pointed opposition to Herod and Rome – to his teaching in the Temple, he continues his mission, announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom: now not in a small synagogue but on a big open plaza with the Temple machinery plonk in the middle of it, the possibility of thousands gathering who could hear and see him – and then he does this! [The Cleansing of the Temple] – which may have set the match to the tinder. He drives out the cattle and overthrows the business dealings because that is what the Messiah does when he arrives. So they plot to kill him – or have him removed, as an administrative inconvenience.

Grabbed in the dark outside of town at his encampment among olive trees, he is dragged – lets himself be dragged – to the house of Caiaphas then across town to stand before Pilate. On the common pavement the soldiers mock him, play games with him on their traditional game board (see where they kept score) and load the crosspiece on his back of the engine of his own execution. They march him through the marketplace, indifferent or gawking people brushing past him and they go take him outside the walls, up a little precipice, pound in the upright, and kill him. Rome is done with him – except for the laughter, the relieved chatter, the embarrassed or amused spectator. His body can rot there for all they care – or be case on a dung heap. Rome has no tears to shed.

But a pious Jew (like Tobit) takes the body and gives it proper burial, in a new tomb. It would stay there until the flesh is consumed and the bones collected and put in an ossuary (see examples in Israel Museum including Caiaphas’ and a Jesus son of Joseph) if all went as expected.

Just why did Jesus go up to Jerusalem? What did he hope to accomplish?

Luke 4:18-19

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

   because he has anointed me

     to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

     to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

Mark 1:14-15

Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Did he achieve his purpose? After all?

You can go there – to a place archaeologists say is “very probably” the tomb, and lay your head on the stone – the marble slab where the body lay. Eyes closed. All is dark. Time stops. Then breath returns.

Is the world the same? Or different?

Jesus calls us to true worship

What is that man doing over there? When you go to a house of worship there are certain things you come to expect: in Jerusalem that would include going up to the Temple Mount and in through the Court of the Gentiles. There you could begin to pray – or you could buy a pigeon or two doves or cattle or sheep – everything you need for a sacrifice. You could change your money. A coin with Caesar’s head on it could not be accepted. For temple offerings you need shekels. So that is what you come to expect: a busy market, a marketplace of prayers… perhaps – a marketplace of souls?

But our souls are not for sale. And neither is God’s grace. The Ten Commandments were sure things – but they were not magic strings. They did not compel God to mercy. They were a way of keeping the covenant, of keeping the promise of the relationship with God. That relationship heated up on Sinai with the words Moses heard from God, words we heard today in the first reading.

“I am the Lord your God” – there is no other; I am the One – “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

And in the house of prayer which the Temple was meant to be, this liberation from bondage, the end of slavery, was to be remembered and celebrated. So the commandments were to be observed – pointing beyond themselves to a relationship.

Keeping the commandments was a way of acting out the relationship, of showing with your body what you meant with your mind.

But the day would come, the prophets said, when money would no longer change hands in the courtyard, when birds and beasts would not turn the place into the courtyard of a caravanserai, the common yard of an inn – a fairground of the soul.

That is what Jesus was doing, proclaiming by his action the end of business as usual in the Temple.

But they asked him for a sign. Where are your credentials? What gives you the right?

And he replied with a riddle: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Are you nuts, buddy? No – he is more than a prophet.

Up till now the Jews worshipped at the Temple. But that time is passing.

A new day is dawning, the day when true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth – when the presence of God is sought not in a place but in a person – the person of Jesus Christ – and when we seek the Lord we will do it by saying we wish to see Jesus.

But where shall we see Jesus now? How shall we seek him out? Seek him where he wills to be found:

Seek him where he wills to be found. Seek him where he reveals himself. Seek him where he said you could see him and serve him. Serve him in the least of these.

Serve him so that when the naked are clothed and the hungry are fed and the sick and in prison are visited and the jubilee year of God is proclaimed, and when we speak up for the captives, saying, FREE THEM, that all will know that God is present in the world, at work through the body of Christ which is his church.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart and the actions of my hands, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. 

Christ is our sanctuary

From the Promenade on Brooklyn Heights, you can look out across New York Harbor. You can see Liberty Island, Governor’s Island, and Staten Island. You can look right across the East River to Manhattan Island. And if you stand in the right spot you can look right up Wall Street to where it ends at Broadway. There’s a church at the end of it, at the west end of Wall Street.

It’s an Episcopal church, the Parish of Trinity Church in the City of New York. If you were to take the subway over there and walk up the hill from the stop near the East River, you would pass a number of large office buildings. On your right you would come to Federal Hall, where Congress met, in early days. On the left, then, down a side street would be the New York Stock Exchange. And still, ahead of you, would be the church.

Scamper across Broadway and through the iron gates that stand open all day. Around you are the graves of the churchyard, an old statue and a memorial to the prisoners of war who died in confinement during the Revolution.

Go into the church. It’s old, a hundred and fifty years old. The parish is twice that age; this is their third building.

What is in it? Cows and ducks? No, there are no ducks. No cows. No sheep. No goats. No pigeons or doves (usually). This is a house of prayer.

It is not a marketplace. Imagine if it were. Imagine if all the bulls of Wall Street and all the bulls of Pamplona were to run in here. Imagine cows, sheep, and pigeons. Imagine a stockyard, in full auction mode. Imagine the noise. Imagine – the mess.

Imagine buying and selling; money changing hands.

Imagine – your disgust.

Picture Jesus – walking into the room.

He is not afraid. He knows what to do.

He drives out the sheep and the cattle, and, turning on the bankers and brokers, he upsets their trading tables. He orders the birds to be taken away. He says:

This is not an auction yard! This is a house of prayer!

In the first century, in the Temple of Herod the Great, this is what Jesus did.

The people there knew what he was doing. He is doing what a prophet out of the Old Testament would do. He acts. He acts in a way that tells you God is present – and active in the world.

What, though, are his credentials? Who is he to play the prophet? Can he show me a sign? I’ll be willing to believe him if he does. Maybe.

He answers with a riddle. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

He will take this – where the presence of God is felt, the ‘thin place’ where human beings could come close to God – and he will restore it from annihilation?

How can that possibly happen? The great temple of Herod had been under construction since before he was born!

And yet – he did it. He did raise up the Temple.

But he raised a new Temple – one not made of human hands.

“If all else fails, read the directions”

In the book of Exodus, chapter 20, we hear the words Moses heard on Sinai: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

God is God. There is no other. There is not another way to approach God or relate to God except as God. He will not settle for anything less; he is the One.

Psalm 19 brings out the bright side of the covenant, the relationship of trust and faithfulness we have with God. The law, like the sun, rejoices the heart, illuminates the mind, and revives the soul. The God who made us has entered into relationship with us.

The law, the promise, is the way of life that works.

It is perfect, it revives the soul; it is sure, it gives wisdom; it is just, it rejoices the heart; it is clear, it gives light; it is clean, it endures forever: it is true and righteous all together.

But the Law points beyond itself – to relationship. And that relationship is fulfilled ultimately in nothing less that the presence of God incarnate in Jesus.

What kind of presence would you expect the Creator of the universe to have, if God could be present among us? Would it not be wisdom, power and might, all the time and everywhere, unmistakable? But somehow God chooses to show greatness and glory in a way surpassing human categories.

At his weakest and most vulnerable, at his most powerless and foolish, we are meant to see, God is still stronger, surer, mightier, and more full of wisdom, than any human possibility.

God comes to us, to a world in need, not as hero conqueror, a sign maker and wonder worker, a prophet of manifest greatness; God comes to us in a simple, humble man, the son of an ordinary family. And in that apparent weakness is incredible strength.

God comes to us, to a planet in shadow, where truth is less valued than knowledge, expertise than truth, and cleverness than charity; and he comes, simply, astoundingly, to the least of us, and calls him Brother.

And then he will take the extraordinary step – he will allow the Temple of his body to be destroyed. He will give his life for us. He will take on himself all our loss, all our grief, all our sorrow; and he will give us – joy.

What happened to the Temple of Herod? It was destroyed, and razed to the foundation stones. The Romans took care of that, under Vespasian and Titus.

What lived was a Temple of the Holy Spirit, a temple of flesh and breath, of heart and mind and strength. What was raised was Jesus himself. Jesus the Christ himself became the ‘thin place’ where human beings could come close to God. To feel the presence of God, seek Jesus.

Seek him where he wills to be found. Seek him where he reveals himself. Seek him where he said you could see him and serve him. Serve him in the least of these.

Serve him so that when the naked are clothed and the hungry are fed and the sick and in prison are visited and the jubilee year of God is proclaimed, and when we speak up for the captives, saying, FREE THEM, that all will know that God is present in the world, at work through the body of Christ which is his church.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart and the actions of my hands, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. 

today in your hearing

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

When he spoke at the dedication of the new national cemetery on the battleground that was Gettysburg, Stephen Douglas spoke for two hours. He was quite dynamic – but he did not have to follow the Gettysburg Address. Abraham Lincoln spoke second.

Well, I knew that next week I would be following Herbert O’Driscoll. But what I had not figured out was that this week I would be following … Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, the Incarnate Word: the Logos through whom all things came into being.

And here is what he had to say, and what he did. He came home to Nazareth. His fame had begun to spread – because of what he had done at Capernaum. For now, though, he was home – it should be all right. And so as he was used to doing he stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth to read – and somebody handed him Isaiah. Okay. Read it, in Hebrew, and then interpret it into a language the people understand – in this case, Aramaic.

He reads the proclamation of the year of Jubilee, the year when God sets everything right. Everything that had been turned upside down, every inequity, every injustice – all those things would be made right. Everybody is looking at him. They expect an interpretation – along the lines of a translation or a paraphrase: this is what it means. Sort of like the story in the first reading, when Ezra brought the Torah into the assembly. Somebody gives voice to the word of God; somebody interprets it so the people can grasp its meaning.

What does he do? He sits down. Like a teacher. Like a rabbi. He sits down and he tells them what it means, all right. It means this:

It is all true. It is all coming true – right here, right now, as we speak. The good news is being brought to the poor, release is being proclaimed to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind; the year of the Lords’ favor – Jubilee year – is being proclaimed. You heard it was happening all around and now it is happening to you, here – in these very words I speak to you now.

So he begins to teach. And that is a tough act to follow. Following Jesus is always tough.

For he was just like us – disclaimer: except without sin – he was just like us. He could have stepped aside, gone another way. He could have taken any of several opportunities to bail out – but he never did. So to follow him – that is a very big, very tough calling.

And he calls all of us, each of us, to do it.

What we have to do the job with are the gifts he gives us – including the spiritual gifts that help build up the body of Christ, and the members of the body all working together - and what we see are the fruits of that common work, love, joy, peace, patience, forbearance, mercy: all the things that come into being because we follow Jesus.

We all have different gifts, different roles – like different parts of the body, where each member has its function and purpose and its own peculiar beauty. We give differently.

Through each of us the Spirit shows in the world – and all of us are together showing the world what it means to be the body of Christ. Now, now that he is gone from us – ascended into heaven – we are the body of Christ visible to and active in the world.

Where is God in this? God is in hearts and hands and minds. God is in the suffering and in the caring. God is in the generous great deeds and small acts. God is in the beginnings and the ends we create, we make, and we manifest in the world.

What kind of gifts? One may be as simple as generosity or as difficult as peace making.

Once in high school when I was pretty new to the gospels I read in them that if I were taking a gift to offer at the altar but had a dispute with my brother I should set the gift down, go to my brother and settle that dispute, then bring my gift. So I did.

‘Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.’ (Matthew 5:23-24)

There was some quarrel, some problem – and we usually had ended up shouting, in earlier days – but this time I went to him and asked, what’s wrong? And I listened. And there was peace.

The fruit of the spirit that evening was peace. And it continued to grow. I remember that my mother told me she had been worried about me, that I had gone off the deep end, but that now she could see that something good was happening – there in the family.

So my memory of the last few months of high school was that in the end of the evening it was peaceful – the sound I heard as I went to sleep was classical music, as my brother practiced his guitar.

Simple – not easy, but simple: go and talk to him. Be reconciled. Then – come.

The fruits of the Spirit are many and we see them in the small ways – and the great.

There was an earthquake in 1989 – centered near Loma Prieta, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was the end of a busy day, 5:04 P.M. In downtown San Francisco the buildings shook. File cabinets cascaded. Piles of copy paper tottered. The whole place shook – for hundreds of miles up and down the coast. When it stopped, after 17 seconds, there was quiet.

Around our office, a publishing company, various things were happening. In the customer service area, the vice president got manager to a safe place under a sturdy table. She was still shaking. In the marketing department one high-heeled shoe was tipped over in the middle of the hallway. In my memory it was still rocking; its owner had dropped it in a hurry. Back in the reception area, people gathered around the elevator doors.

The phone rang. “I’d like to order a book.”

“I’m sorry, but we have just had a major earthquake. We regret that we cannot you’re your order directly. Perhaps your local bookseller or a regional supplier could help you.”

“It’s just one book!”

Down five flights of stairs – or up two, to check on other folks: they were all right. Soon people were offering co-workers rides home. In those few minutes, I saw different gifts at work – generosity, caring, even humor (that deadpan phone conversation). At home the cats were big-eyed, the lights burning – no power outages. In the morning the channel 2 news crew looked like they’d been up all night. They had. They looked grim. You could sit and watch – and start looking grim yourself, feeling like a victim – or do what my neighbors did: go and volunteer down at the Red Cross. Now, I’m not sure what a theologian and an economist could do down there – probably not run the numbers or expound the poetics of biblical narrative – but they had other gifts to give, and they gave.

What I learned from that was that giving – actively helping – in some small way, makes you part of the solution, part of the power for change. You might “only” be able to do some one seemingly small thing – but in that moment you may give something great.

The kingdom of God is built step-by-step and stone by stone. The steps are the steps of mercy, of grace, of forgiveness, gentleness, mercy, kindness, patience, and peace – the steps are the gifts given and the fruits of the Spirit. The stones are the living stones of the people of God, as they are built up into the living house of God.

As we contemplate what we can do to help the people of Haiti, far away and yet near to our hearts, we know that right now is not the time to get on a plane and go help out – not unless you are trained and experienced in disaster relief work and your agency send you. It is time to give – if you can, what you can – and to pray. It is time also as always to look after the other suffering or needy people in the world, near or far.

And it is time to give the little gifts of kindness and peace, of listening and of care, that go into the building of the house of God. It will always be time for that.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Almighty God, who hast promised to hear the petitions of those who ask in thy Son's Name: We beseech thee mercifully to incline thine ear to us who have now made our prayers and supplications unto thee; and grant that those things which we have faithfully asked according to thy will, may effectually be obtained, to the relief of our necessity, and to the setting forth of thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lord, hear the prayers of your people; and what we have asked faithfully, grant that we may obtain effectually, to the relief of our necessity, and to the shining forth of your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel, in particular relief workers and refugees, Nedi Rivera and Bob Moore as they journey east into retirement, and Herbert and Paula O’Driscoll, as they sail south to us; surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger; and bring them in safety to their journey's end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

JRL+

Saint Alban's Church, Edmonds, Wash.,

the working of thy mercy

In the name of God, source of all being, eternal Word, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

O God for as much as without thee, we are not able to please thee; grant that the working of thy mercy may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace is to direct us. Mercy begets mercy.

In the readings today the Word of God challenges our thinking.

Proverbs tells us of the Wisdom of God, showing us how the Mind of God, the Holy Spirit, calls us into obedience to its teachings. It shows us the fruits of the folly of the life ‘in the flesh’, of thinking with the worldly mind of man – and calls us to release ourselves into the knowledge of the loving God. This knowledge it calls the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord, the keeping of God’s law, which is the law of love, revives the soul, gives wisdom to those innocent as doves, rejoices our hearts and enlightens our vision.

His judgment is not condemnation – it is redemption. Obedience to his way is the road to perfect freedom.

To be rooted in, to rest in, the knowledge and love of God, is to be bathed in the sunrays of the glory of God. Everything points to joy, for God is the source of joy, the root of being, the giver of life. Our guiding principle is love – the love shown to us in Jesus Christ.

James shows us how bad it can be, if we follow our own desires, our lower nature – our selfish selves. The tongue, that mighty little instrument, can tell out our joy, or tell us off. A world of iniquity in a mouthful, a stain that spreads across our whole bodies, a match that lights a flame, that gives us our own perfect self-made hell. This is what the tongue can do. The words come out of our mouths and take on a life of their own. Like a forest fire set by a prankster, they gather speed and demolish – and like the prankster eventually we are caught in our own folly.

Or we can use this gift properly, if we do not keep it for our own use: we can praise and encourage and welcome and rejoice in God.


There is a story of a man in Eastern Europe who lived in a little house in a poor village. He had a dream one night, that there was a treasure hidden under a bridge in a town far away. He got up and traveled day and night until he reached that faraway town and saw the bridge. He came up to it, but there was a guard patrolling the bridge. How would he get to the treasure? He hung around, hoping for his moment, when he could slip in, spot it, gather it up and get away. He hung around all day, until the guard collared him. Okay, buddy, what’s your game? The man confessed. I dreamed there is a treasure under this bridge. The guard laughed at him. A dream! I had a dream too, that there was a treasure buried in a little house in a poor village far away from here. The man hurried home and began to dig.

The grace of God that we seek is not far from us. It is quite near. The holy spirit of God is close at hand. His kingdom is nigh. The grace of God indeed dwells with us, in us, if we are open to its presence. If we are open to his grace, and open our lives and eyes and hearts to the word, we find his blessings are hidden within us. He is that close. God is with us. We have only to dig. We have only – only! – to set aside our own ideas and plans and desires and follow him. Go with him, on his way.

We have only to – live in Christ. And he will live in us.

But how are we to go with him on his way? This is the hard part of the good news.

If you would be a follower of the way of Christ, you must follow the way of the Cross: you must deny your self – your pleasures, your loneliness, your pain, your plans – and take up your cross, and follow him.

In other words to be with him you must follow him – and that means following him all the way through suffering, rejection, death, … and then! resurrection.

New life. Having gone through giving up yourself and gone through life with him beside you and you beside him at last you receive the golden prize of eternal life.

And yet that golden prize is yours now: because he is beside you, guiding you through the presence of the spirit, and to be with him is the obedience that is perfect freedom.

Pick up your cross and follow. To live in Christ we meet at the foot of the cross. And it is there at the foot of the cross, in the presence of him who died for us, that we lay down the burdens we bear with us, that we carry as our own personal baggage, and all that we as a people drag along as our corporate baggage train.

Our baggage – our attitudes, that reflect what we have already left in the past, our nostalgia; our ego-laid plans, our close-held desires for the future: our ambition; our behavior now, that reveals what we hold so dear that we cannot let go of it even to receive the blessing of God: our sins.

You remember the story of the monkey and the hazelnuts? Aesop told it. A monkey got his hand into a jar of filberts – hazelnuts – but he could not get it out. He had grabbed a hold of a big handful and now his fist was too fat to get through the mouth of the jar. He had to let them all go, to receive his own life, liberty, and freedom.

We need to leave all this behind us at the foot of the cross. Then we are free to follow him, as individuals and as a people of God. When we stop taking it all for ourselves then we can make room for Jesus, to live in our hearts forever, and for us to live in his.

God lives in the world, dwells in the world. God is with us. God lives right in our own dwelling place. He lives in our hearts, if we let go of sin and let him in.

If we seek him he comes, filling our hearts with his love, so there is no room for false witness, slander, malice, gossip, envy, and jealousy – but there is room for gentleness, mercy, compassion, and wisdom.

Jettison the cargo of selfishness and there is room for the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God.

The way of the Lord, as we have seen in the first half of the gospel of Mark, as Jesus traveled through Galilee, begins as the way through the wilderness. Then, at this moment of Peter’s confession and the hard teachings with which Jesus responds to him, we learn that the way of the Lord is the way to Jerusalem, the way of the cross. Jesus travels from the edge of the Jewish world right to its center, from the far north – the villages of Caesarea Philippi – south to Jericho and up the long mountain road to the city of David.

He goes there not to triumph, not the way Peter planned it, but to bear first his cross – and then to carry through to the end.

Peter refused to hear it, to accept the fate Jesus foretold for himself. This is not the Messiah we expected! But Jesus is asking, who do you say that I am? Here is what it truly takes to be my disciple, to live. The way leads through the cross to resurrection.

The revolution, the coming of the Messiah, the in-breaking of the reign of God into our world, begins within our hearts, at the core of our being.

The long march, the long pilgrimage, to Jerusalem, begins at this moment. The Messiah is shown to be the Son of Man, the Human One of Daniel and the suffering servant of Isaiah, who is despised and rejected of men. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.

Do not fear the powers of the world to harm you. You are by my side. I will be with you, always, to the end of this age.

In short, who is Jesus? He is the Messiah, the Son of Man.

But the way to glory is a hard road. The powers of this world get their hands on him.

He must suffer under Pontius Pilate, be rejected at the hands of the scornful priests and scribes of the Temple, be crucified by the Romans. He is dead and buried, and then, wrenched away comes the door of the tomb – and he is set free by the one who is really in charge here: God raises him from the dead.

Peter: NO!
Jesus: Get away from me with your sinful thoughts— it must be!
Divine things – redemption, glorification – are what count now.

To become his followers, Peter, you and I, followers of the way of Christ, is to follow the way of the Cross, all the way through Good Friday, the grim silence of holy Saturday, and then Easter morning.

Deny themselves, take up their cross, follow me – on the Via Dolorosa – to glory.

Either I preserve mine, my own life, my goals and plans and dreams for my personal happiness, what I grasp to myself, to make my own identity, and then find I have lost LIFE itself, or —

I give up MINE, my precious, my birthday gift to myself, my pride and folly, let go, be relieved of that burden, set it at Jesus’ feet, and join him on the way of the cross – and then receive LIFE.

Freedom and Liberty – choose LIFE.

What you grasp, what you hoard, will not save you. Remember whom you follow: the one who did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, a status to be cherished, but emptied himself and became one of us, and suffered death, even death on a cross, to lead us to true LIFE – life in the presence, life in the abundance, of God.

For what does it profit anyone to gain the whole world if you lose your life in the process? You cannot buy it back with anything. There is nothing you can redeem it with once you pawn your life.

There is a treasure – true life and true freedom – that you cannot have by grasping; it is the free gift of life in God, of mercy, joy and grace.

That treasure is abundant life, true life, the grace that just comes, comes from God – and it is closer than you think, as close as your own heart.

Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust can consume it and thieves break in and steal it; lay up treasure in heaven, free gift let go from your hand and given to God, and you will receive again LIFE itself, life eternal, life in joy and glory.

When we realize our true identity in the source of all being, God the creator, when we open our ears to the joyful news of the eternal Word, and when we invite Jesus in, to live in our hearts forever, then we truly begin to live.

We breathe in, the Spirit — breath of God, and we breathe out, JOY.

All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.

Amen.

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 13, 2009
Saint Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, Washington.


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