A Great Cloud of Witnesses

Proverbs 25:6-7

Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence

    or stand in the place of the great;

for it is better to be told, "Come up here,"

    than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

     

Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

               On June 20th my wife and I went with 14 other people on a two-week pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey in the steps of Saint Paul.  We traveled all over Greece.  We saw where Paul first landed in Europe at the ancient port of Neapolis, modern Kevala.  Our group went to Philippi, where Paul established his first congregation and was imprisoned.  We walked on the ancient Egnatian Way, the main Roman road through northern Greece, where Paul walked.  We strolled through bustling Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, where Paul established his second church.  The adventurous ones in our group climbed the slick rock steps of Mar’s Hill where Paul explained the Christian faith to inquisitive Athenians.  There were few takers!  Our pilgrimage took us to the Bema, a large rectangular stone platform, in Corinth, where Paul was put on trial.  I stood on the stone foundation of the pier in Cenchreae, Corinth’s port, where Paul sailed for Ephesus.  We walked through the marble paved streets of ancient Ephesus, one of the largest cities of the Ancient World, and stood in the amphitheater, where almost 2,000 years ago, silversmiths, angry that Paul’s converts to Christianity were hurting their business, rioted shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”    We also visited the house of the Virgin Mary, on Mt. Koressos, outside of ancient Ephesus, where according to tradition, she and the beloved disciple fled Roman persecution.

               In almost all of these sites I felt moved not only thinking about the apostle Paul, the Virgin Mary, and the first Christians but also about the millions of pilgrims who have visited and prayed over the centuries in these places.  Pilgrimage is an ancient Christian practice that has become popular again after years of neglect.  We all remember reading in school some of the Canterbury Tales told by pilgrims on their way to Thomas a Becket’s shrine in Canterbury.

               The Gospel lesson today reminds that we are part of a great tradition, part of a great line of believers, part of a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:2).  In a world that increasingly isolates and alienates us from one another, Jesus tells us that we are not alone.  He reminds us that we stand with faithful brothers and sisters across time and space and that he is always with us through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

               In today’s Gospel, Jesus refers to Proverbs 25:6-7, our first reading for today.  He advises the dinner guests to choose a seat of lower honor.  In the Ancient World, people carefully watched where each person sat and what they ate.  Honored guests sat near the host and ate the best food.  Jesus is giving very practical advice, but he is doing more than advising people how to navigate social situations.  He extolls the Christian theological virtue of humility.  People sometimes mistakenly think humility means to put yourself down.  The Holman Bible Dictionary helpfully defines it as “dependence upon God and respect for others.”[1]

 Greco-Roman society frowned upon humility.  They believed it was a degrading weakness.  New Testament professor Lois Dow writes, “Love of honor was a virtue, leading people to behave in ways that would bring honor from others, and to proclaim their merits publicly so that they would receive the honor due them.”[2]  Ancient Jews though believed humility was a virtue.  The prophet Micah says, “What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8 NRSV).  Psalm 138 says, “For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away” (Psalm 138:6 NRSV).   When Jesus tells guests at the dinner to take a lower seat, he speaks firmly from the Jewish biblical tradition.  Jesus, of course, was a Jew.  He knew the scriptures. 

While Jesus, the Son of God, uniquely reunites a humanity separated from God and one another, he culminates a long string of God’s efforts.  God established a covenant with Abraham to create God’s people; gave the law to Moses to guide the Hebrew people into righteousness; established the nation of Israel to be a light to the world; and sent prophets to call the wayward people back to God’s holy ways.  Finally, God the Father sends the Son of God who willingly gives his body and blood to reunite us to Godself and to one another.  The story, of course, does not end there.  Christ sends the Holy Spirit to guide, to comfort and to strengthen us until he returns at the Second Coming.

Each one of us is a part of this great story of faith.  Each of us is a pilgrim traveling on the faith journey with millions of other believers.  Despite a myriad ways to connect with one another today through cell phones, text messaging, facebook, email, twitter, pinterest and more, at any given moment, 60 million Americans, 20% of our population feels alone.[3]  Feelings of loneliness and isolation are epidemic in our society.  The General Social Survey found that the number of people who believed they had no one with whom they could talk tripled between 1985 and 2004.[4]

Here at this altar we find our connection with God, one another, the saints who gone before us and the heavenly host.  Eucharist Prayer A says that we praise God, “joining our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven.”  The Eucharist is a moment that is in but beyond time.   We are united with God and with one another at the heavenly banquet table when we receive the bread and the wine, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Charles Hocking, the first rector I served at St. Paul’s, Cary in the 1990’s, said that he struggled after his parents died.  He was very sad.  He found consolation when he received the Eucharist because he knew that his parents were there at the altar rail with him.

We join the holy angels, the saints in light, and people of faith throughout the world when we come to this table.  In a world of increasing isolation, it is in the mystery of Christ’s body and blood that we are united with God, with one another, and with the saints who have gone before us in a great cloud of witnesses.

(This sermon was preached September 1, 2013 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Smithfield NC.)

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[1] Gary Hardin, “Humility,” Holman Bible Dictionary, studylight.org, http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T2902

[2] Lois Dow, Review of Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership by John Dickson, McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry, 13 (2011-2012), http://www.mcmaster.ca/mjtm/documents/13MJTMR4Dow_on_Dickson.pdf.

[3] John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 5.

[4] Jaqueline Olds, The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010), 2.

Daughters and Sons of Abraham

Luke 13:10-17

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Last Sunday my wife Cindy and I went to see the children’s movie Planes with our grandson William, and his parents Derek and Joy.  The story is about Dusty Crophopper, who is a crop duster.  Dusty wants to fly in the Wings across the World race.   He appears to be a longshot at best against the sleek racing planes.  His boss Leadbottom and his forklift/mechanic friend Dottie scorn him, but Dusty trains with his fuel truck friend Chug and qualifies after one of his rivals Fonzarreli is disqualified for using a banned fuel additive.   Despite his fear of heights, the dirty tricks of his main rival Ripslinger, and repeatedly being told he was made to be a crop duster rather than a racer, Dusty wins.  His romantic interest, a plane named Ishani, tells him that he was not made to be a crop duster; he was made to be a racing plane.

Dusty Crop Hopper and the crippled woman in today’s Gospel might seem to have little in common, but both must overcome negative stereotypes.  The Gospel reveals that God treasures each person regardless of how others see her or him.  Jesus calls us to treat those on the margins of society with respect.

The story of the crippled woman is found only in Luke’s Gospel.  At first, it seems like another instance of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, but on closer examination the seemingly insignificant parts of the story have greater meaning.  Numbers were important in the Ancient World.  They often had a symbolic meaning.  Jesus chose 12 disciples, for example, to represent the 12 tribes of the new Israel.  According to biblical scholar Alan Culpepper, the number 18 ties the woman’s years of affliction to the 18 killed by the collapse of the Tower of Siloam.[1]   Only a few verses before today’s Gospel, Jesus asks, “Those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them-- do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:4 NRSV).  The implicit connection is that the woman likewise suffered through no fault of her own.

Essential to understanding this lesson is the status of the woman.  Jesus never addresses her by name.  He first simply calls her “woman.”  According to Culpepper, she represents all women.  Later in the story, Jesus compares her to animals – an ox and a donkey.  He bluntly says that they are treated better than the woman.  In the Ancient World, we know women were second class citizens, but Jesus challenges this status when he lays his hands on her and raises her up not only physically but also socially.  Jesus next calls her “daughter of Abraham.”

The term “Daughter of Abraham” is only used this one time in the Old and New Testaments.  Nonetheless, it is filled with significance, because it is used in the Apocrypha, the books written between the Old and New Testaments, for Salamonia, who stood steadfastly while the Seleucids tortured and killed her seven sons during the Jewish revolt for independence from 167-160 BC.   4 Maccabees says about Salamonia, “O more noble than males in steadfastness, and more courageous than men in endurance! Just as Noah's ark, carrying the world in the universal flood, stoutly endured the waves, so you, O guardian of the law, overwhelmed from every side by the flood of your emotions and the violent winds, the torture of your sons, endured nobly and withstood the wintry storms that assail religion” (4Ma 15:29-32 NRSV).  4 Maccabees says Salamonia is more noble and courageous than men.  It also calls her a “guardian of the law.”  This is an amazing statement, because in the Temple men were allowed closer to the Holy of Holies than women.  Jesus bestows a high honor when he calls the woman “Daughter of Abraham.”  He raises her from a status below the animals to above men, from the lowest to the highest societal and religious status.

The ruler of the synagogue reacts indignantly.  He is unconcerned about the woman’s suffering.  He wants to uphold the prohibition against work on the Sabbath but he also in so doing implicitly wants to keep the woman subservient – a faceless, nameless cripple.

Jesus constantly over turns the social order in Luke’s Gospel.  He allows Mary to sit at his feet, to take the position of a disciple, at a time when rabbis did not have female disciples.  He extolls the Samaritan, who was a member of a detested people, in the story of the Good Samaritan.  And Jesus says that the poor man Lazarus goes to heaven while the rich man goes to Hades.

We have heard these stories so many times we do not realize how shocking they would have been to someone in the First Century AD.  It would have seemed like the entire social order had been turned upside down.  And indeed it had.  As Mary says in her Magnificat, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52 NRSV).

Today’s Gospel calls on us to value those who are on the margins of our society.  My Dad and I will have lunch today at the Village of Brookwood.  Many of the people who work in dining services have mental or physical challenges.  The former director made a point to hire them, and the residents treat them with respect and affection.

Jesus also tells us today to take heart when we feel limited by others expectations or, perhaps, more difficultly, our own.  I am working part-time at the Cary Family YMCA.  One of the things I enjoy most is giving one on one middle school orientations.  Middle Schoolers may use the cardio and weight machines only after they go through an orientation.  I always ask the young people to calculate the total weight they have moved in their workout.  The other day an eighth grade girl pushed two tons of weight for her whole work out.  When I asked her if she had thought before that she could move that much weight, she replied, “No.”  I told her that there are many things in life that she thinks she can’t do but that she can.

St. Andrew’s is going through an unanticipated time of transition, as I am, and, perhaps, as some of you are.  Such times generate a range of feelings – disappointment, anger, anxiety and more.  Jesus offers us hope during these times.  For Christians, the cross is not the end but the beginning of the resurrection, the beginning of being raised to new life.  I remember when Father Griswold left St. Andrew’s.  Some wondered what the little congregation would do.  In the time since, you are one of the few congregations to receive the Bishop’s Award for your work with those in need.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus does more than raise one woman.  He raises us all!  He frees us from crippling stereotypes.  He straightens us again into the image of God.  He proclaims that each of us is a Daughter and Son of Abraham.

(The sermon was preached at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Haw River NC on August 25, 2013.  St. Andrew's vicar left the Sunday before to become a chaplain at Elon College.)

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[1] R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke: Introduction, Commentary and Reflections,” The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, V. IX (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 273-274.

Interpreting Signs of the End Times

Luke 12:49-56

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son

and son against father,

mother against daughter

and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

        My cats know the signs.  My wife Cindy and I have two cats: Donovan and Coco.  Donovan is a big black cat with a touch of white at the tip of his tail.  Coco is a calico.  We got Donovan at the Parkway Animal Hospital in Cary.  He had been found and given to the vet.  We think that this might be the reason why he goes crazy before meal times.  He runs around madly meowing.  And he knows when it is time to eat.  He knows the time of day, and he knows the signs.  As soon as Cindy clinks her spoon in her empty cereal bowl, Donovan starts meowing for his breakfast.

We got Coco when she was a kitten.  She is not worried whether she’ll get her next meal.  She patiently waits for her food, but Coco likes to give me kisses.  I pet her and she licks my arm.  She especially likes to do this when I have been gone all day.  One day this cool August week, when we had the windows open, Coco was sitting on a chair by the screen door.  When she heard my car, she looked toward the cul-de-sac, where I park.  She then hopped off the chair and walked to the carport door, where I come in the house, and waited for me. Coco knows the sound of my car.  She knows the signs.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the crowds that they know how to interpret the earth and the sky but they do not know how to interpret the present time.  Jesus exhorts them and us to discern how God is at work in our world.  He tells us to learn how to read the signs of God’s guiding hand in our lives.

The context for today’s Gospel is Jesus’ warning about the end times.  A few verses before our lesson from Luke, Jesus says, “You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour" (Luke 12:40 NRSV).

Early Christians believed the end of the world was imminent.  They associated the end of the world with two events – the first and the second coming of Christ.  The first coming of Christ actually is the one that ushered in the end times.  The presider says in Eucharistic Prayer B, “For in these last days you sent [Jesus] to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world.”  The second coming of Christ culminates the end times.

While some people are fixated on determining a date for the second coming, more important is the one who is to return – Jesus.  The challenge for us is to walk in the way of Christ, to be faithful to Christ in a world that is at times indifferent or hostile to faith.  The challenge, as Jesus says, is to discern the present time, which means to discern how God is acting in the world and in our lives, to discern how we can faithfully follow him each day.

As you know from when I was with you before, I am in transition.  I left St. Michael’s, Raleigh in May and am now discerning my next call.   As part of my discernment I recently read Parker Palmer’s book Letting Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.  The phrase “letting your life speak” is a Quaker expression that means discerning your gifts and passions.  God has created each of us uniquely and given each of us unique talents and interests.  Palmer retells an old Hasidic story in his book.  When he was old, Rabbi Zusya said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me why, ‘Why were you not Moses?’  They will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”   Essential to discerning the present time, essential to discerning how God is acting in the world and in our lives, is discerning God’s purpose for our lives.  This is not something imposed on us from without.  It emerges from our very being, from our DNA.  The prophet Isaiah says, “The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me” (Isa 49:1 NRSV).  God created us uniquely for this present time!  He gave us particular gifts for it.  The first step for each of us in interpreting the present time is to discern our God given talents and passions.

The second step is to discern the leading, the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our daily life.  When I was a student at UNC Chapel Hill, one day I was returning from visiting my parents who lived in Mebane.  As I drove my 1972 Carolina Blue Super Beetle on Weaver Dairy Road, I felt led to turn into the retirement community Carol Woods to visit Will Henderson.  Will was an Episcopal priest in his 90s.  He had served as a priest associate in Christ Church, Roanoke, Virginia, where I grew up.  A few moments after I entered his apartment and was talking to his wife, the phone rang.  Will’s car had broken down on Highway 86 outside of town.  I went and brought him back to his apartment.  The apostle Paul said that we live and move and have our being in God.  The Holy Spirit is always with us.  We only need to be attentive to the promptings of the Spirit.  Often these small moments over time lead us in a certain direction.  One prompting leads to another that leads to another.  In time, we can see how God’s hand is at work in our lives.

What are your unique God given talents?  What are your passions?  Where is the Holy Spirit prompting you?  What has God called you to do in your faith community, in your family and in your city or town?  God has given you unique gifts and passions.  God has a purpose for you.  The Holy Spirit is at work in you.  This week I invite you to reflect on your unique talents and passions.  Reflect on where the Spirit might be prompting you.  While it will not always be easy, when we know our God given gifts, when we understand what excites us in life, when we are open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, we can discern how to serve the Lord; we can see God’s hand at work in our lives; we can interpret the present time.

(This sermon was preached at St. John's, Henderson, August 18, 2013.)