Don't Lose Heart: A Sermon for 4B Pentecost

 

 

After last Sunday...and the week I have had in ministry...you could say that this Sunday's lectionary readings were programmed for me. I have been struggling and at times have wondered if I should just throw in the towel. Even getting myself to sit down and look at the assigned lessons for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost was hard. 

I started out being really taken in by the Epistle lesson, which is Paul's lamenting letter to the church in Corinth. But the more time I spent looking at the line about how "the love of Christ urges us on," I kept getting drawn over to the parable about the mustard seed. 

I felt the amulet of faith that I wear around my neck every day...which includes the verse as it's quoted in Matthew 7. My mother gave me that pendant on my 16th birthday, one of the critical years in my journey through life. Interesting that this parable...captured on the back of mustard seed sealed in lucite given to me 40 years ago...became the link between the world as I'm seeing...the world as Paul was experiencing it...and the message that Mark's Jesus wanted us both to hold onto as we faced the challenges of ministry.

Texts: 1 Sam. 15:34-16:13; 2 Cor. 5: 6-17; Mark 4: 26-34 

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“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

 

That prayer is by the Trappist monk and mystic Thomas Merton. A friend of mine shared it with me during my many years-long fight with God as I wrestled with understanding my call to ordained ministry.

It’s a perfect prayer for anyone trying to work through the maze of life choices.

And for me…making a commitment to trust God and follow a path toward ordination was huge.

I kept asking myself…and by extension…asking God,

“Are you sure?”

“And if you’re so sure…how am I supposed to do this thing that you want?

How do I follow this call?”

In our readings these past few weeks…we’ve been hearing the “call” stories of so many of our biblical ancestors.

We’ve witnessed they’re attempts to listen and then follow where God seemed to be leading them.

From our First Reading…we can tell that Samuel was struggling to tune into what God wanted.

He kept looking on the outward appearances of Jesse’s sons…and letting looks deceive him.

But God’s desire was to lift up the young David…out in the field…minding his father’s sheep.

He certainly wasn’t looking to become the heralded king of Israel.

But when God told Samuel…”This is the one!”  David said, “Yes.”

And his “Yes” was the path that established a lineage for Jesus.

We also heard Paul writing to that irascible church in Corinth.

In the chapters before our reading today…Paul talks of the pain and hurt he has endured from this church.

A person in their midst had been maligning him…so much so that he had to retreat from there and write them this letter.

See: even Paul knows that special pain of “church hurt.”

An ache that cuts deep…especially when one can’t escape that stirring of the Holy Spirit within that will not let you simply walk away.

No matter how frustrating and how daunting the task…that “love of Christ” urges Paul on.

And then we have Jesus telling this parable about the mustard seed.

Anyone who has ever dabbled in cooking Indian food…particularly curries…will be familiar with the ways of a mustard seed.

They’re often dropped into hot oil to pop and add a nutty flavor to a dish.

They add just the right taste to bring out the complexities of the other seasonings that dance on the tongue.

In our Gospel…Jesus uses this image of a mustard seed to his audience of peasant farmers as a way of preaching to them about the kingdom of God.

We hear this parable and I imagine it might recall for some of us pendants on necklaces.

There was a time when it was popular to have one of these amulates of faith…with the mustard seed encased in Lucite.

I actually wear one around my neck.

But while we might have sentimental attachments to mustard seeds…or delight in what they can do to make our meals more delicious…. those farmers listening to Jesus in the First Century would have been shocked to hear him say, “Guess what, y’all: the kingdom is like a mustard seed.”

Mustard seeds….and the great big bushy shrubs they grew into…were an annoyance.

These were invasives….they were the most unwanted weeds.

And yet here’s Jesus saying that this is what the kingdom of God is like?

Answer: Yup!

As much as we might not want to think of God’s kingdom as invasive or annoying…when God injects God’s self into our everyday…things get disrupted.

The Way of Love…the Way of God…does that.

It’s unpredictable.

It’s messy.

And it’s also liberating and live-affirming.

It disrupts the Way of the Every Day…and counters the societal expectations that tend to limit our ideas and our dreams and rob us of joy.

The audience who heard this Gospel way back when were a people who were definitely in a struggle with their society.

Jesus is talking to a minority group…a people living under the rule of the Roman Empire.

Ched Myers is a biblical scholar whose written a lot about the Gospel of Mark.

He notes that this parable about the mustard seed was also a message to the Markan community who were feeling small and inadequate to the task of discipleship.

By using this example of a mustard seed…it gave them something they could visualize…and relate to. Because in their cultural experience…they felt a little bit like a bunch of mustard seeds.

A tiny minority…looked upon as a nuisance.

For the people of Mark’s community…this parable served as a reminder that while they might be small…and while they might not know where things were headed… if they kept their faith… the Jesus movement…the faith that they had been grounded in… would grow.

The Jesus movement would disrupt the order of Empire.

The Jesus movement…a movement of reinvigorating the people of God…would grow up and be seen and draw others to rest on its branches…like the birds in the parable.

This parable was the ultimate pep talk for them.

And it’s a great one for us as well.

By comparison to other churches… we are a small community of Episcopal believers….which is already a minority among the Christian churches in Valdosta.

We live in a part of the country where just identifying as an Episcopalian may get you looked at funny and questioned about whether we read the Bible.

(For the record, I hope you not only say "Yes" to that question, but I hope you let them know that it’s amazing how well the Bible quotes our Book of Common Prayer!)

Our sanctuary isn’t built to be a corporate, program-sized church…holding four to five hundred people on a Sunday.

We may not be big in numbers…but we can still make a profound difference in people’s lives.

Not by ourselves alone. But by leaning into our faith…and our trust in God.

Allowing ourselves…like St. Paul…to let the faith and belief that Christ lived…died…and rose again…for the benefit of all people be that spark…that tiny seed that urges us on.

We may trip and fall.

The path may not always be clean and clear cut.

But with discernment…with listening…and with trust…we can and will do great things for the good of all people.

I began this sermon with a prayer…and I want to end with this one…it’s my favorite concluding prayer from the Daily Morning Office.

I think it’s a good one as we think about where God is wanting us to grow in our lives:

Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to God from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

"The Hospitality of Barnabas" A Sermon for St. Barnabas Day (transferred)

 We changed the altar hangings. We switched the lectionary readings. We planned a party with hamburgers and hot dogs afterwards. 

We had just over a dozen people come to church.

These are the days when I feel that sense of loneliness that I preached about.

Texts: Is. 42:5-12, Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3; Matthew 10:7-16

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Within the first couple of weeks of arriving here at St. Barnabas…I must have had at least three people come to me and share the story of how our church got its name.

Back in the early 1980s…there was a dream of starting a second Episcopal Church…on the northside of Valdosta…close to Moody Air Force Base.

There was this land…ten acres on Bemiss Road…that was the perfect location.

Bishop Phil Reeves and Dr. Buddy Pitts were walking the property. Bishop Reeves spotted the old barn that was still standing in the field.

And Bishop Reeves said to Dr. Pitts, “Why don’t we call this church Saint BARNabas?”

Get it: Barn. Barnabas.

I can imagine that these two men took great delight at this clever idea.

Certainly, everyone who has shared this story with me thought it was super funny.

And…as it often happens in this life…God is the one who gets the last laugh.

Because in picking what might have been seen as a clever…cute…and humorous name for our church put us on a path of living into the life and legend of the real Saint Barnabas.

A path which fits in with our stated vision of a world that is full of “health, healing, and hope with unconditional love.”

That’s the life that Barnabas is said to have lived.

Born in Cyprus in the First Century to a wealthy family…Joseph the Levite…who the apostles would later rename Barnabas…was a Hellenistic Jew…. meaning he spoke and prayed in Greek, but not Hebrew or Aramaic.

Some scholars believe Barnabas was born not long after Jesus’ birth.

While he was not part of the original twelve disciples…it’s possible that Barnabas may have encountered Jesus while studying under Gamaliel…a Jewish teacher and member of the Sanhedrin who had also mentored Paul.

Jesus’ teachings about the care for the poor…and oppressed…made such an impression on Barnabas that he sold a field that belonged to him and gave all the money to the apostles. This is when they gave him his name…. which means Son of Encouragement.

And he was an encourager.

When Paul had his major conversion moment on the road to Damascus…it was Barnabas who encouraged the apostles to accept Paul into the community despite his prior reputation as a persecutor of the Jesus movement.

When a dispute arose in Jerusalem over whether Gentiles needed to be circumcised in the same that the Jewish followers of Jesus had been…it was Barnabas and Paul who successfully argued to let all these new pagan converts be themselves and not try to become Jewish.

And as we heard in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles… it was thanks to the work of Barnabas and Paul in Antioch…which was one of the most populous cities on the border of Turkey and Syria at the time… that the term “Christian” came into use to describe this emerging movement of Jews and Gentiles who were followers of Jesus’ teachings.

Barnabas and Paul would later have a falling out…with each going their separate ways and continuing to do the work of the Gospel among the Gentile populations. Barnabas went back to Cyprus with his cousin…John Mark…believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark.

It was there…some time about the year 62 C-E that a mob of Greco-Roman pagans stoned Barnabas to death.

John Mark buried him…and would later also bury Paul after his martyrdom in Rome.

Which gets us to this last line of our Gospel from Matthew: “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 9:16).

Barnabas and the other followers of Jesus were living and ministering in a time when they were not part of the in-crowd, or the popular ones.

They were a minority group.

And like anyone who doesn’t enjoy the perks and privileges of being in the majority…they had to be wary…know how to speak their truth in the face of a sometimes hostile audience…expect nothing in return and be ready to move on if necessary.

Minorities in a majority culture can never fully rest unless the majority consents to grant them peace.

The apostles already knew there would be those who didn’t welcome them.

That’s why Jesus uses that line about Sodom and Gomorrah…to remind them that they will encounter people who oppose them…even some who say they are following God.

Despite what some in the Christian church have tried to say about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah…the moral take away from that story out of Genesis Chapter 19 has nothing to do with sex…or sexual orientation.

It was about those two cities…places of means and abundance…who refused to welcome a stranger. Indeed were violent toward those they saw as “outsiders.”

Lack of hospitality…and the failure to show compassion and kindness… were deadly faux pas in the ancient world.

We don’t face quite the same threat of dire destruction in our culture.

But…those places… and particularly…those houses of worship and people of faith who don’t offer respite and the equivalent of a cold cup of water to someone suffering from the heat and exhaustion of the world…are doomed to fail.

That brings us back to our patron saint and namesake…Barnabas.

Because we are the community of Saint Barnabas….we have a special role to play in our larger area of Lowndes County to be a place known for hospitality.

One that all of us can and should put our minds to thinking about.

At our recent vestry retreat…we were looking at trends across the various generations…as well as those things that we see as pressing needs around us.

The vestry members named climate change and affordable housing…especially for seniors…as important issues facing all of us.

And they also identified “Loneliness” as an issue.

In a Harvard Graduate School study shared with the group…in a survey of 950 people…researchers found “serious loneliness” was a big concern.

More than 40-percent of adults over age 55 said they were lonely.

More than 60-percent of the adults ages 18-25 said they had an acute sense of loneliness.

Where does a place such as St. Barnabas fit into the mix to meet people in their loneliness?

How do we make our vision of health…healing…and hope with unconditional love…translate into the type of hospitality that welcomes and helps to connect people?

The young with the old…people of different backgrounds…orientations…races…and abilities…creating a space where they feel included?

How do we build a community that makes even more connections beyond our congregation…so that we continue in that tradition of seeking and serving the Christ in others…loving our neighbors as ourselves?

Our founders chose the name Barnabas.

We now have the opportunity to be those sons and daughters of encouragement God wants us to be.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

 

 

Sabbath Lesson

 

I remember walking with a friend on my seminary campus back in 2018. We were talking about the elections, and the state of our political climate. Being as close to Washington, D.C. as we were, this was a topic of conversation that would get revisited on a regular basis. 

When the insurrection of January 6th happened, it was right in the middle of our General Ordination Exams. Wonderful back drop to have as my classmates and I prepared for the final months of our seminary experience, a reminder that the world we were about to step into as priests was in desperate need of voices that preached about a God of Love and not vengeance. A God of promise, not nihilism. A God of peace not violence. 

This past Thursday, a 12-member jury returned guilty verdicts on 34 felony counts against former Republican President Donald Trump. Prosecutors successfully showed that Trump committed election fraud, interference, and cooked the business books in attempts to silence a porn star from telling the truth about an affair he had with her. All done to make it possible for his successful 2016 presidential campaign. 

This news stirred up a lot of emotions online...including among some members of my congregation. 

Having been thrown to the wolves once before after the election in 2016 when my rector refused to address the elephant and donkey sitting large and looming in the nave the Sunday after that election...I felt it was important for me to get ahead of this one and appeal to everyone's better angels. 

See what you think.

Text: Mark 2:23-3:6

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Well…hello Gospel of Mark, my dear old friend!

I’m happy for us to be reunited with our evangelist Mark after an Easter season with John.

I know lots of people when they’re asked which of the Gospels they like best…many of them will point to John…

He’s the one who has great stories like Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well.

Or maybe they like Luke because he tells us about Jesus’ birth at Christmas …and lots of parables…Prodigal Son…Good Samaritan.

I love all of those things too…

But I am one of those weirdos who really…really loves the Gospel of Mark.

This is the Jesus who feels like the God of the human experience in a raw and rough and tumble way.

All four of our Gospels have a particular viewpoint on the life and teachings of Jesus.

And scholars believe that Mark is the first…the original… of the Gospels.

This telling of the Jesus story doesn’t give us lots of details.

In fact…Jesus is an adult at the very start of the story…so there is no birth narrative of any kind.

Because Mark’s Gospel is so barebones…and bare knuckles in some cases… we’re invited to spend more time with this Jesus…pay even closer attention to this Jewish teacher,

And—this very good Jewish Jesus—challenges us to think about our faith.

So…as we enter into this long season of Sunday upon Sunday of “After Pentecost”… the thinking word of the day is: Sabbath.

Sabbath…or shabbat…is supposed to be a day of rest from the routine…the work of production.

We think about Genesis…in the first creation story…that God rested on the seventh day after creating all that there is in the universe.

God made that day of rest…of Sabbath… holy.

Later…Moses in Deuteronomy tells the people of Israel that everyone…even the animals…are to observe a day of rest from work…from doing any kind of manual labor.

This was the way to observe the Sabbath for centuries.

And now…here comes Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.

His disciples…walking with him through a field…are picking the heads of grain on the sabbath.

From out of nowhere come some Pharisees to raise legal questions about what Jesus and his friends are doing.

(Now…why the Pharisees are out in the field…and popping up like they’re some kind of Candid Camera crew…is a little odd.

This scene comes after Jesus and his disciples have endured criticism for eating with tax collectors…so this story is part of a larger illustration of Jesus as bringing a new way of interpreting things such as the Sabbath.)

So…we’re going to just going to accept that these Pharisees were hanging out in the wheat field.

Jesus justifies the picking of the heads of grain by noting that King David once took and ate the bread of Presence from the Temple and gave it his soldiers who were starving.

It’s not clear that Jesus’ disciples were starving…..especially since they’d just had a meal with tax collectors.

But that’s not the point.…

This is about remembering that there is joy in keeping the Sabbath; that’s why God wants us to not do all our everyday usual things on that day.

The Sabbath is also about being whole…

That’s at play in the next scene with the man with the withered hand.

Jesus asks the question: “is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?”

Jews…both back then and now…know the answer to that question.

If someone’s life is at stake…yes, of course, do whatever it takes to save them…even on the Sabbath.

They aren’t gonna say, “Oh, sorry, you’re having a heart attack on the Sabbath? Please wait until sundown and we’ll save your life then.”

But when Jesus asks this question…do good or harm…save a life or kill…the silence that follows is deafening.

And it’s unsettling, too, if we fast-forward from our Gospel and place this question in our own laps here in the 21^st Century.

Here we are…on our Sabbath Day.

As we sit here…Jesus is still asking us…on this day…will we do good or harm to one another?

Will we save life or kill?

We’re living in a time when there are so many harms that have been done and keep being done.

Social media has both brought us closer together in some ways…and is driving us further apart in others.

Strangers…and worse…friends and family members… take swipes at each other over politics and religion…and--during this month—they also don’t like rainbows.

There is so much rage…being stoked by those who know how to push our buttons over and over.

Even driving on city streets is becoming a harrowing experience.

I have a massage client…a lawyer… who not only hires me to help relieve her aching back… I have become her de facto priest and confessor…as she works through the pains in her spirit as well.

 I was loading my massage table back in my car as the big news of Thursday broke.

She rushed out of her house to tell me.

And then she asked:

“Do you think we’re headed for a civil war?”

The little D deaths of common decency she has been witnessing and experiencing from watching the news and scrolling on her computer has her that worried about her neighbors.

What lurks in the hearts of everyone around her?

Do they want a world of love and peace…or a world of fear and violence?

Her question about civil war made me think of another story we have in Scripture…one that we don’t read very often but is an important one…I think…and fits with Jesus’s difficult question of today.

The story of Cain and Abel.

We know that Cain kills Abel…the first murder that happens in the Bible.

Cain resented that God showed favor to Abel’s sheep offering and rejected what Cain had brought to give God from the ground that he had worked.

One of the critical moments in that story is the words that God speaks to Cain as he sat with his bitter disappointment.

God warns Cain to not let this momentary let down get the better of him and his heart.

“Sin is lurking at the door,” God warns, “but you must master it.”

It’s the one of the difficulties about the human heart.  

On the one hand…it is the most magnificent organ…sending blood to our lungs for oxygen before pumping it out into our bodies.

It is a source of life…and the symbol of love.

But…it also holds toxins.

A malfunction of a valve on the right side of the heart…could send poison into the left side.

 And…as we heard in our Gospel…the heart can become dimmed by jealousy…and anger…becoming hard when it feels threatened.

We must guard against the temptation to let our hearts grow hard and cold toward others.

Because it is so easy to become invested in feeding our hurts and slights that the sweetness of our spirit becomes sour and bitter.

And bitterness leads to indifference.

And indifference kills community.

The question Jesus puts to the crowd in the synagogue…and to us in our church this morning…is whether our hearts have become so hard to each other that we are no longer are seeing one another as beloved children of God.

The guy who has a bum hand was sitting there among them in the synagogue.

Did anyone think to ask how this man was able to work and feed himself and his family with such a deformity?

Did they care?

Jesus didn’t touch this man with a withered hand…so technically…Jesus didn’t violate the sabbath rule of resting from work on a holy day.

Instead… he invited him to stretch out his hand…reach out toward Jesus.

By making that reach in a Godward direction…this man’s deformed extremity became whole.

That metaphor of reaching out stands for us as well today.

With all that is going on around us…now is the time for us… all of us…in our various diversities of ourselves and opinions… to reach out to one another in love. 

Remember that we are all made in the image of our beloved Creator…and to let that be our focus…the place from which we live and move and have our being.

On this…our Sabbath Day…this is the day that we need to take a rest from those little D deaths that threaten to split us apart and divide up the Body of Christ.

Come to this table…gather around this rail…and be the one body.... in one faith… adopted through the one baptism in Christ.

This is the day that the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.