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It's amazing how the Holy Spirit
strikes a chord with you with different verses in the scriptures. The Gospel
this morning definitely speaks of conflict, a very real conflict Jesus would
have once again with the Pharisees. It's bad enough He and the disciples were
caught like teenage boys chewing wheat gum in the field, but that He dared to
heal someone, a man who was suffering, a man who was out of work because of his
hand on the Sabbath day... they plot to kill him afterwards?! The Pharisees
were so self-righteous that they refused to say anything to Jesus, they wanted
their accusation to stand as rigid as the legalism they followed as “righteousness.”
Perhaps it's those last few verses in today's Gospel that struck a chord in my
heart— they were silent, and Jesus was grieving at the hardness of their
hearts, then they plot to kill Him. Remember now this is only chapter 2 of
Mark's Gospel. Already Jesus was too much of a rebel for them to deal with.
The image that the Holy Spirit sent
to me almost immediately after thinking about that verse was a horrible story
that happened at least more than 20 years ago at a hospital where a man was
just outside the emergency room doors basically beginning to collapse from a
heart attack but the hospital in fear of insurance issues, let the man die at
their doorstep. After all that happens of course, the hospital lawyers and
doctors apologized away with legalism how they couldn’t go outside of their
doors to help someone just because. It was a bittersweet justice to recall that
same year that this same hospital would then be closed down and partly
demolished because of such a horrible act of indifference under the guise of
legalized righteousness.
It was delightful the other day to
hang out with one of my new friends out here and talk about our ministries and
he mentioned in passing that yes in some senses the Pharisees died out, but many
of those that were former Pharisees transformed into the rabbis we have today.
So, in some senses you can say there's perhaps a victory of the spirit that
even they acquiesced and began to change. It was a very small change of heart
perhaps, but they did change. One of the things I have mentioned on and off in
different sermons is the substructure to our quote saint sinner selves and this
is greed and indifference. Those are the two great pillars that weigh in
judgement to our justification of our actions either on the side of God or
indirectly against God. Maybe what disturbs me the most about this Gospel and
the Pharisees lack of compassion was that the law became their passion and
justification over compassion to someone else and that in my mind is profound
indifference.
Being indifferent about something or
towards someone is a very ugly sin. It's very easy with the evil one’s help, to
twist into justifying this sin, just because. Today we're so polarized with
condemning judgment lenses. These lenses are either political or catering to a
particular ideology, and agenda that we’ve successfully incorporated into every
aspect of our thought. Some have lost the true focus of loving and serving
neighbor, being a bright light of compassion to others yet alone loving God for
the sake of loving as a response in Grace. The lessons we have this
morning have not been heard in several years. That's the one thing I can
appreciate about the lectionary in how it tries to teach us different things
and it's not the same every three years, it can be completely different. In
fact, the last time we have seen the same strand of lessons hasn’t been since 1994.
Why is that important? Every day is
different, every day is new. Okay so what? I bet you don't really think about
that with each day's passing? It is gone and, in some senses, is a movement in
death... In that very same breath however, it is truly a movement in life. This
wonderful lesson we have this morning from Paul is another little snippet
conversation of his wonderful pastoral patience in trying to teach his wayward
Corinthians, something that is beyond the self. He needed the Corinthians
to step outside of themselves and see what service really means, and what faith
really calls us to DO. We are beginning the season of Pentecost which as
mentioned last week, is one that lasts seemingly forever but there is a
discipleship teaching nugget here with both Paul and our Gospel. We are God's
creation, we are His children… but do we Faithfully live as His children
blessed by grace? Do we keep to His promise and are we faithful to one
another?
I love one of the verses that spoke
out to me in first looking at the Corinthians text. This is let light shine out
of the darkness. we have treasure in clay jars. Only a short time after my
conversion experience that fateful summer of 2003, the little church I was
going to as well as a still attending Bethany used to sing this wonderful
little Canticle in between different elements of the worship. The canticle
sings how we are empty vessels seeking to be filled by the truth and wisdom of
God to transform us and shape us. I tried to google it and look through all of
my resources… but I only have a nugget of my fading memory of that little
Swedish Church and this canticle.
You have to love the message though:
we are empty vessels longing to be
filled. We are impressionable. We know this is a truth of human nature for we
definitely can be tempted or impressionable as well as on that same note, be
inspired and encouraged to do the right thing. Doing the right thing, that uses
the verb do. Years ago, when I was first studying pastoral care in one of my
CPE units, (which CPE means clinical pastoral education), the lead chaplain
there who was a crotchety old man for lack of a better expression, got in my
face and said quit trying, just do! Past the nasty air of hostility that blew
my eyebrows back that day, I learned something about myself in regard to taking
action.
The verb try can go both ways. You
can start to see the finger of David touching God in Michelangelo’s famous
scene from the Sistine Chapel murals. David’s being very timid and frankly not
that excited to reach out his finger, but he sort of, kind of tries. We sort of
kind of with a lot of different things, don't we? In some circles, people
would say well you just sort of made a half-ass effort. You're only going to go
so far, you're only going to be motivated just to your terms of comfort.
Determination is a gift. It is a gift in spiritually growing in God's Grace to
be motivated to really do something beyond yourself, for a much greater
purpose. That's part of what discipleship school is to bring you. I am to help
you grow as leaders in your faith, who are able to be and do all things through
Christ who strengthens us all.
How all these texts are connected
this morning topically is first talking about the whole of creation, where God
is at the center, to the day of creation and God's day. What we have learned
about God's day or God's day off, is that it has many understandings. The
Pharisees turned it into legalized ritual of you just do what we say, and you
follow this, or else. Jesus is prompting us to see the Sabbath as a gift of
Grace, not of achievement and a time we are to look inward to discover what we
need to do outward as a New creation.
All this introspection, and outward
call to action sounds a lot like a process we are to do as Disciples of Christ.
And yes, it is a process. It is living into that belief, believing and
receiving God's Grace as well as coming to understand and grow. This growth is
incorporating the Word of God, among many other things, the spirit teaches us
to then be truly renewed, living into that renewal. Let's go through this as a
quick visual memory demonstration: believe, receive,
incorporate and share. Looks like I'm doing some light exercising. Take
that process though, into your hearts and minds, spiritually. In many ways we
are recycling. We take the good and bad of all the things that we have been
through in our lives, and we transform that into a new layer of understanding,
one that we can spring off of, in order to do the right thing.
This treasure in clay jars, that
Paul is speaking of is, his reaching out to our humanity. It's just human
nature to always have the battle between absolutes. I said this last week, we
live in a black and white world where striving for the middle it is just too hard
for us a lot of the time. It's easier to have yes-no answers, and let things
fall between the cracks. Falling between the cracks brings us to think about
this poor man with the withered hand. His hand was basically paralyzed. Mark
doesn't go into too many details as you probably have noticed, most of his Gospel
is guilty of this. He's our “just the facts ma'am,” shorthand news reporter Gospel
writer. The Pharisees were so blinded by this legalism and power to keep things
a particular way, that they could not allow any variation. Just like this
Hospital was so afraid of what their lawyers beat them over the head with to do,
they let a man die outside their front door! If Jesus hadn't seen this poor man
and healed his hand, this man would still be suffering unemployment remain an
outcast, suffering hunger and who knows what else… because according to the
Pharisees, they would let him fall between the cracks. They could care less
about this man's well-being!
We're just beginning the season of
midpoint elections. We know what our current culture is fixated upon. It is
polarized and infused with politics. All the mudslinging advertisements are
just starting up and we're probably all sick to death of seeing them already.
Because what's falling through the cracks are what the real issues are, what
are real problems are. Restorative justice is not observed in this country, “really.”
I've said this before, but it's too expensive to do. People don't want to serve
one another on a case-by-case action. We tried to reach out in specialized
roles to meet people where they are. But we still can't even see the God of our
Creation, in our midst, beckoning us to do the right thing. We still let our
decisions fall on one side or the other most often to the detriment of others
that fall between the cracks.
Reaping that new nature is radically
contradictory to our human nature on so many levels. Paul even mentions it
today: we are afflicted in every way, but we're not crushed, we still stand
back up on our feet. We may have lots of questions that never get answered, but
we don't all fall into despair… many of us persevere onward. Persecution is
alive and well against Christians and that's the fact. It may have changed dynamics
and we have different enemies, but Christianity is certainly being persecuted. Why we're still hanging in there is because we
have a God who has come down to us. This is not only the story of the Cross and
the resurrection, but how that Resurrection lives onward through us— getting us
to die and rise anew each and every day. A dying and rising towards being the New
Creation, reaping that New Nature.
There is no sect in Israel today
that calls themselves Pharisees for now there are rabbinic Jews. Took them centuries,
but there was some progress where the focus even of how the temple is viewed
today is very different than it was back then. They started to see a little bit
past the steeple, and more about the people. That's very important for us today.
Why do I say that? Why am I very passionate about that? I recently witnessed
something of an injustice in regard to how spiritual formation as a culture is
observed with different Christian groups. Religious Orders are definitely very different
than they were hundreds of years ago. Religious orders were a very strong
culture of faith.
The best image for the church, in my
mind, is to think of striving to be a hub where you gather and then scatter.
This Hub should be a culture in itself where many things are being shared are
being reflected upon and you grow from. My task as your pastor is to lead and
feed you with the Gospel, the Good News. That's a very biblical way of thinking
about being and doing church. It's a part of our culture, of being and doing
Church. This is very similar to sects and orders. In the postmodern
world, a religious order cannot be or recreate true monastic life. Many of us
can't live in a monastery. We have families, a home and jobs and other
different things. This is a part of our environment these days. It doesn't mean
however, that there can't be a way of observing some of that culture and having
it be spiritually edifying.
As some of you know for my own
personal relationship of growing with God in faith, I like to be involved in
the culture of a religious order. In fact, for a brief time I started in a
Franciscan order. It was all too brief because the man who ran it got mad at
somebody else in the church body and kicked everyone out making his order for
Catholics only. Ecumenism, I have heard from many of friend, is believed to be “dead
or extinct.” Just like that old CPE director yelling, I hear myself saying
that's not true, you're not trying hard enough to be welcoming and inclusive to
everyone in your practices. You're not really choosing to do the right thing,
because because it's not easy to do. Life is a series of challenges.
If you can't accept that, you're going to sink rather than learn how to
swim.
On that same note, our hearts can be
transformed and encouraged by God's Word to truly want to DO, BE the change in
the world, in a great way. It can be naive and perhaps overwhelming. There's
too much on all of our plates these days. I was thinking the other day of
starting an order of my own open to all Protestants who appreciate the
Franciscan culture of spiritual formation. it's a lovely thought, but unless I
get two more clones of myself, I don't know how on Earth I can really start
doing something like that. But I'm grateful to God to even have had a thought
like that pop in my mind. This is especially when I see indifference and
politics and other injustices going on in our work together to be and do Church,
in the world.
John Lennon said it best: “… you may
think that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one….” His song, ‘Imagine,’ went
on to become a very famous song of peace.
This was a song hoping for peace and truly one that spoke of our
struggle to live towards the center of where God needs us to be. We know John
Lennon's words got him into a lot of trouble at different points of his life,
but when you really look at the whole story of who he was, and where he was, we
could say that perhaps he was an agnostic person. He really didn't have someone
hold his hand and lead him straight to God he had to dissent and argue with God
during the trials and traumas of his life. And we have to do that
ourselves, we have to become a bold people that questions why things are,
the way they are… And we shouldn't just try to do something, we need to just do
it!
At the beginning Journey of the
ancient Israelites breaking free from bonds of Egypt and even later dealing
with exile… you could say that they had an identity crisis. They needed to have
some kind of control. Human Nature created lots of laws for them to be an
Earthly guide. We also know Yahweh was their Heavenly guide. YHWH was their Heavenly
parent often encouraging them to truly grow. By the time of Jesus, we
know that those laws that once helped to shape their identity and promise of
wanting to be God's Chosen people, was changed into legalism and ritual. You
could say in some senses, that they were recycling things. These were things
that they learned from, and now once again were challenged by God to
change. The sooner we realize that change is truly a matter of life and
death, the sooner we realize the joy and treasure we have within ourselves to
reap for God's glory.
We are empty vessels that have been filled
with many things. Many things that need to be recycled as points of learning
and many things that we need to see a new. All around us this morning, is our New
physical Church. Within us as I speak to you is the more important church, that
God needs us to allow the Holy Spirit to work in, the heart. God is
knocking upon the doors of the Tabernacle of your hearts, are you going to let Him
in? Believe in the words you have heard this morning. Receive God's
word in your heart, as blessing. Incorporate everything you have learned from
then to now. Renew and DO what is right!
Let us pray,
Gracious and loving Lord Jesus,
Help our hearts to be founts of
compassion.
Help us to DO over trying to BE.
May we be a people of faith and
service
Not ones of legalism and politics.
Help us to be the loving creation
You have made
May we live into the promise of
change
By being the change in the world, You
seek
AMEN
June
3rd, 2018; Second Sunday after Pentecost; Year B; Proper 4; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
81:1-10; Deuteronomy 5:12-15; 2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church:
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