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No one knew what was going through
Stephen Paddock's mind when out of a 32nd floor window of the Mandalay Bay
Hotel he would gun down 58 people and injuring nearly 850 others. That kind of
episode in our human society leaves a deep wound, perhaps even as deep as what
has happened in the past with other great human catastrophes of violence
against one another. What it really looks like, in a very disturbing and
twisted way, is that when we're at the brink of being pushed to where we can no
longer tolerate or accept anything...we only see, commit death and destruction.
This kind of behavior and this kind of attitude is the antithesis of the
Beatitudes as well as the antithesis of living a cross-shaped life.
This person you could say, was
someone who was truly lost in the wilderness of the world and only saw the
answer as death and destruction. Later this evening there will be a wonderful gathering
of interfaith clergy throughout the Las Vegas area to pray, sing and reflect
upon the one-year anniversary of the October One Harvest Music Festival. I
don't know why the Holy Spirit had me reflect on these connections of these
words harvest and then the anniversary of this tragedy with today's scriptures,
but there is a common thread of both warning and of the Gospel. Jesus’ Gospel
message today is quite biting to his disciples: “…whoever is not against us, is
for us. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones,
who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung
around your neck and you were thrown into the sea...” Jesus continues as you
heard, with the reading of the Gospel, by just laying it out there. What He's
really beginning to try to have the disciples hear is gearing up for or owning
up to the battle of spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare’s battle is between
the Old nature and the New, to be our cross to bear as obedient disciples to
Christ. How He ends this Gospel snippet we have today He says: “… for everyone
will be salted with fire. salt is good, but if salt has lost its saltiness how
can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”
We are hardly or truthfully a people of peace. our peace today is more divisive
and hidden within false pretenses of our need for power as control with agenda
and intolerance.
Truth be told, and I have said this
before in one of my earlier messages probably a couple months back, is I really
am intolerant of the word tolerance because I believe the radical Gospel of
Christ Jesus our Lord, is to be accepting and transforming. The radical Gospel
of Jesus Christ is not only for all people, where all lives matter, but
it is truly about acceptance and transformation. Those two words, acceptance
and transformation, are about leading a cross-shaped life. A cross-shaped life
is where the disciple knows the task at hand and carries the burden willingly
because of the greater goal, the greater journey that Christ needs us to travel
upon. We're not comfortable with preaching that radical edge… proclaiming,
witnessing to that radical edge of the Gospel that we truly need to do, if
indeed, we are truly speaking, bringing the Gospel to all peoples. I have been
once again overdosing this week on reading wonderful chapters in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's
Works Vol 4 on discipleship. That man had a fantastic, beautiful and intense view
of what it means to follow Jesus. What it means to incorporate Grace into the
soul and see that great costly pearl, that great treasure that Christ gave us
to genuinely act upon.
The Psalm we have for today incorporates
a familiar line for some of us here today. A verse from Psalm 104 influence a
line in the Prayer of the Holy Spirit. Every Cursillo I have worked, this is
the prayer that is prayed when you are with other people who've made a Cursillo
weekend and you share your journey together in prayer and conversation. The Via
de Cristo out here sings the prayer of the Holy Spirit. Just like our Lord's
Prayer, when we think about those sentences of what we are saying we are truly
encouraged to tap into them more deeply and allow the Words to transform us.
The prayer of the Holy Spirit goes as such: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts
of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of Your Love. Send forth Your Spirit
and they should be created, and You shall renew the face of the Earth. O God,
who By the Light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful. Grant
that by that same Holy Spirit, we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His
consolations through Christ Our Lord, amen.”
The light of the Holy Spirit has
been trying to instruct our hearts for the last two thousand something years...
Are we really listening? Have we been listening faithfully, truthfully? When we
think of what's going on in the world today it sounds like we're listening to
another spirit and it is certainly not holy. It is certainly a spirit that is
tearing down our foundation of not only who we are as children of God but
tearing down our mission in the world to be blessed, or “blessed to be a
blessing” to others. The ways of the world this gigantic wilderness built by
empty promises and many other things… has been tearing down that cross-shaped
life we are called to be obedient to build up. Yes, I'm using that “Brussel
sprouts” word again, obedience, but I found it fascinating and profound how the
20th Century's Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer continued to use that in
talking about the disciples’ calling, the disciples actively following of
Jesus. My husband would probably enjoy counting the number of times he says
obedience and it's more than a dozen times per chapter. It should make us think
about things it should make us think about what we are grounded in and who we are.
Are we like the Israelites burnt out
on manna, and throwing a gigantic fit of ungratefulness and anger to God for
not giving them meat? And yes, I heard that Pink Floyd song… “…if you don't eat
your meat, you don't get any pudding....” I don't think God would say that, but
it was funny none the less. I guess God's people just couldn't tolerate spider
moss dust as an alternative to starving to death. Poor Moses he sounds like a
pastor who’s long gone over the time to need or have a sabbatical and his
congregation is basically driving him crazy with complaints. So just like human
nature, he starts complaining and belly-aching back to God and says, “Okay God
you can smite me, I'm sorry, but I have to say this!” God however disappointed though,
throws a little Grace again here and He gives wisdom to the elders to help
Moses get the people some quails and get the people to settle down. In our
everyday lives now, we have little things or moments of Grace, we probably
don't even realize take place. Out of tragedy we get to sit back and reflect
for a moment: Why do things come to be this way? For the disciple we can ask
that question, but we should never ask it with an air of judgment upon another.
Oh it's this person's fault or it's this groups fault… Why can't it ever be the
circumstances of things that perhaps we directly or indirectly had a great part
in happening?
In another variation of that prayer
of the Holy Spirit, that I know by heart, it says: “Lord, by the Light of the
Holy Spirit, You have taught the hearts of Your faithful, in that same Spirit
help us to relish what is right.” In that same Spirit, what do we hold as true
righteousness? True righteousness doesn't come from worldly thinking and
worldly materials or gain. Our extra-large bale full of straw this morning has
James beginning right off by talking about the stumbling block we have of the
world, of worldliness over what should be our true purpose and goal with the
gospel. Greed and indifference are the two systemic sins that we continue to
justify and judge others by we have in some senses taken this into the Twilight
Zone of the wilderness almost to the brink of no return. For everyone has a
judgement on them by someone who feels they know better and their opinion is always
right, period. It is almost as if we are in a culture currently that does not
allow freedom of belief, yet alone opinion.
Becoming a person of opinions, we
could say has been humanity's way of being seasoned tested with fire. Our Lives
have had a lot of seasoning. We all have been through many harvests and many
droughts... The music we heard this afternoon is that old 1960s Byrds classic, ‘Turn,
Turn, Turn,’ which of all things uses an Old Testament wisdom writing from
Ecclesiastes. It's not only a lovely song of talking about the beauty of
creation, but it actually talking about that “yin-yang, half glass full/ half
glass empty reality of how we face every day of our journey in the world,
struggling through the wilderness of the world. We are no longer “Pollyanna's
or hippies.” Many perhaps feel over-seasoned by life these days, where some of
us are beginning to feel as if we know too much and our hope has been greatly
challenged.
For some people, their hope has been
challenged enough to the point of committing violence, even murder. All
the boundaries between good and evil have been torn down, and a person commits
the unthinkable. We have heard that before in thinking about how someone has
lost their bearings and can no longer withstand the pressures of life. The
pressures become so great that evil becomes justified and the weeds of the wilderness
are fed with more empty promises, violence, destruction and divisiveness.
Those nearly 900 people were gathered for a Harvest of music. It has been said
that song originally developed as a form of worship and in some ways, though in
our secular culture, it has become more for entertainment. There is still
something about lifting voices and sharing those gifts of voice and instrument
that God encouraged us to develop even without our knowing it.
Even without our knowing it... was
what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was up against in helping the confessing Evangelical
German Church to enact nonviolent resistance against Hitler and his forces. As
We Know Bonhoeffer's was not successful, since he was found out and he was
condemned to death by hanging in 1945. He was trying to get the German Church
to see the true vision of what it means to follow Christ, and for him he saw
the Beatitudes in a very radical way. he saw that tension that we have a hard
time with accepting as disciples of Christ. A lot of things that he was saying
and reflecting upon in these chapters I read this week, are hard to hear… but
then the things we heard in today's lessons are hard to hear. We have a hard
time with dealing with our breaking points as frail human creatures. It's much
easier to justify when we blur those boundaries between good and evil because
we don't want to deal with something or choose not to deal with something.
This kind of lawlessness does not
bear any fruit except destruction. It's like we don't know how to persevere or
be patient anymore with anything. We see it in the world around us right now,
the quiet murmurs of civil war hidden with agenda and divisiveness at all costs
of breaking another. We definitely do not see loving neighbor, yet alone, being
accepting and open to neighbor. We certainly do not think or hear God's
instruction as that Light of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, to be faithful, to
be truly wise and rejoice yes, in what Christ has given us, the Manna of his
Word. This Manna of Christ is Grace, given and poured upon us to live in our
hearts, to live through our voices, hands and feet as a restorative justice, a
true righteousness.
Being a “doer of the Word,” which
we've heard this not only from James, but from the Gospel itself, needs us to
persevere that fire. Doing the “Do’s” of the Gospel needs us to be well
seasoned for the challenges of stumbling through the wilderness that we will go
through our whole lives. Being a “doer of the Word,” is standing up for what is
truly right. I thought it was sad, and I'll leave you with this last thought,
that one of the hotel chains here in town, as a “precaution…” is actively suing
the victims of the Harvest One Festival. Talk about a convoluted evil,
justifying their own interests upon the backs of those still suffering from
this tragedy. We've not been hearing much from the secular world's ethics
or justice to do or react against this effort of this hotel chain to do that.
What's been more important, it seems, is pointing fingers and condemning one
side or the other. When is the world ever going to stop being the world,
and live beyond itself in true selflessness, love, peace and forgiveness? Will
we here today, never see that reality? I can only hope not.
Let us pray—
Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus,
May Your Holy Spirit truly season
our hearts with Your Love and Grace
May we find a way, and a path to be
transforming and renewing Your Creation with Your Gospel.
Help us find the wisdom we need to
love one another, to be a people of peace
And rejoice in all that You have
given us
In Your most Holy and Blessed Name,
we lift this prayer to You
AMEN
September
30th, 2018; 19th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B; Proper
21; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
104:27-35; Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; James 5:1-20; Mark 9:38-50
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub at 12:30PM
https://youtu.be/pZq04tbKFqg
