Erin and Se' in Nigeria!

Erin & Se' meeting the King of Egedi, whose 50th anniversary of his coronation was celebrated during their visit. This King is the one who bestowed upon Erin's grandparents the title of honorary chief, Chief Gbaiyegun, now reserved forever for the McGee line. The McGee's served as pioneering Baptist missionaries in the bush of Yorubaland from 1940 to 1975.



John David McGee, my father-in-law, with Chief Awolokun, his life-long friend and host in Nigeria. This Chief was adopted by Erin's grandparents when he became a Christian. He was dis-owned by his family, and the McGee's supported him through his schooling.







Se' visiting a typical Nigerian primary school. Electricity and plumbing in Nigeria are still rare, and the poverty is evident.



Erin & Se' meeting some Nigerian royalty or chiefs.

Erin in Nigeria, happy as she typically is (unless the house is a mess)!

One New Humanity

Sermon for Proper 11 B (RCL), Offered by Nathan Ferrell at HS, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville

Texts: 2 Sam 7:1-14; Psalm 89:20-37; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

“Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the
blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into
one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us”
(Ephesians 2:14).

My friends, it has been, and always will be, our Lord’s goal to build, to create, one new humanity out of the many tribes of the earth. Within his Body, the Church, He has always brought together people from every language, race and nation to worship together and to feast at the same Table.

This does not mean that it is God’s will for us to speak all the same language, or dress in the same manner, or eat the same foods. But it is God’s will that we learn to live together in a new and different way.

In the Gospel of Mark this morning, we are given a wonderfully clear and concise image of our Lord’s characteristic response to humanity: “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34).

When our Lord sees us flailing about in life, trying to make decisions, his compassion compels him to TEACH us. Oh, he also healed a bunch of people there in the communities around the Sea of Galilee. But it was then, and it is now, the fact of the matter that what we need most is a Teacher who will show us how to live.

And what is it that he has taught us? How is Jesus teaching us to live in this world? With humility.

And so I wish to submit today that humility is in fact the practical tool that Christ the Lord is using to build this new humanity.

St. Augustine had this to say about humility: “Should you ask me: What is the first thing in religion? I should reply: The first, second and third thing therein is humility.”

Let’s think realistically for a minute about hostility and the role of humility.

In any argument, in any disagreement, the battle lines are clearly drawn and each side stands sure of the rightness of their cause. Think about those situations where dividing walls are most commonly built: within families, at work, between groups of people.

The natural man “in the flesh” easily becomes defensive and is quick to play the victim. It is always someone else’s fault.

But the spiritual man, the wise person guided by the Holy Spirit, knows that there are 2 sides to every story, that none of us is ever blameless.

Abbot Pastor, one of the desert fathers, said that “[a person] must breathe humility and the fear of God just as ceaselessly as he inhales and exhales the air.”

Humility is a way of life. It is living with the continual awareness of our faults without being consumed by them, and without thinking of the faults of others. Someone suggested that a new version of the famous Serenity Prayer should go like this:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the PEOPLE I cannot change, the courage to
change the people I can, and the wisdom to know that the only one I can change
is me.”

We must understand humility as active strength, and not passive meekness. To be humble in Christ is not to be weak and timid. It is in fact to be brutally honest with ourselves and with others; to speak the truth in love. To be humble in Christ means that the Holy Spirit gives us the strength to take the first step in every area of conflict, even when that leaves us exposed and vulnerable.

One of the elders in the Egyptian desert was asked to describe humility and he said this: “If you forgive a brother who has injured you before he himself asks [for] pardon” (The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton, p.53.)

Remember that our Lord taught us that before we offer our gift at the altar, we must get up and go to the one estranged from us and be reconciled (Matthew 5:23). It is active humility that seeks harmony, because that can only occur if we do not go seeking to win the argument, but rather seeking to make peace.

Humility allows us to know that mixed in with every one of our good ideas is a few bad ones, and that we can never know the whole truth in any situation. Humility is our Lord’s tool for making peace and creating one new humanity.

It started of course with the division between Jews and Gentiles. That is the context for St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. But there is no reason at all to think that our Lord’s work was ended there. He is still at work today seeking to bring peace in all of the divisions that beset humankind.

The problem is that human pride is so insidious and deceptive. Even those who think that they are pursuing goodness are easily trapped by own pride. Just the other day on an estimate, a customer was telling me about their parish priest. They attend St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Merchantville, and their priest is attempting to bring back the Latin mass and the old Roman ways. He boldly declares to his congregation that he thinks the Second Vatican Council was a mistake and that it led the Church in the wrong direction. She confessed that she finds it a bit odd and feels that the Latin makes it impossible for her to participate.

So I asked her, Mrs. Fischer, the customer, doesn’t your priest teach the importance of obeying the voice of the Church? “Oh yes, he teaches that all the time.” But then, I suggested, isn’t his attitude precisely the very problem he is trying to correct? Did not the Church gather at the second Vatican Council and set forth certain clear guidelines? Isn’t he bound to follow these? And isn’t it the height of hubris for him to think that he knows better than Pope John XXIII and all the cardinals and bishop who gathered at the Council?

This happens all the time in our own church as well, of course. Folks will change the Prayer Book liturgies, adding little things here and there that they think were missed or left out when it was created. But, I ask, isn’t that antithetical to the very nature of the Book of Common Prayer? That is, the liturgy is not my invention, it is the careful creation of the Church gathered together in prayer and worship, and founded upon the most ancient liturgies of the few centuries of the Church. And most of all, who am I to change this, because I think my ideas are better?

This reminds me of the declaration of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indian tribe in the 1870s when his people were dealing with the new settlers from the East:

“We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God, as the
Catholics and Protestants do. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with
men sometimes about things on this earth. But we never quarrel about God. We do
not want to learn that” (Native American Wisdom, ed. Kent Nerburn, p.42).

May God have mercy upon us for our foolishness, pride and arrogance. In his compassion, may the Lord teach us all how to live as fellow members of the household of God, standing firm upon the sure foundation of love and humility in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Who Can Stand in His Holy Place?

Sermon for Proper 10 B (RCL), Offered by Nathan Ferrell at HS, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville

Texts: 2 Sam 6:1-5,12b-19; Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

I’m not a country music fan. Sorry to those of you who are. But recently, I spent the morning on a job with a few of my painters. I was there to install the crown molding, and I had no choice about the music selection. But I have to admit that I heard on WXTU the theme song for my life. It’s a new song by Billy Currington, and the refrain of this song goes like this:

“God is great, beer is good and people are crazy!”

Wow! That is just perfect for me. That might as well be the motto for my life: “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.”

I have no idea what you may think about beer, but I think that those of us gathered here can all agree with the other two phrases: God is great, and people are crazy.

If there are any doubts in your mind about these assertions, well then our Gospel reading today should be of some direct assistance.

If you are tempted to think that people are basically good, and that there is nothing really wrong with the world, then this story of Herod’s birthday might help to cure you of the delusion.

A little context is important to understand what is going on here at Herod’s party.

First, you must understand that Herod is trying to imitate the Greek style and the Romans who are occupying his land. They have recognized Herod as the local king as long as he pays tribute to the Emperor, to Caesar. Herod of course seeks the favor of the imperial authorities. In common parlance in my world, we call this brown-nosing, but people like Herod just call it politics.

Herod gathered a group of powerful men together to celebrate his birthday. Mind you, only men were invited, Roman officials and military leaders and those in the court who flattered Herod enough to be included. Those people are called courtiers. Not even the wife of the king was in attendance. Herodias had to remain in a different room.

These men reclined on pillows around the room and ate and drank as young girls were brought in to dance and entertain them. As we can expect in this kind of setting, the men became drunk and the scene became lewd.

Salome, the daughter of Herodias came and danced, the daughter of an illegal and illegitimate marriage. Herod was drunk and he made a stupid promise. It seems that they were gathered at the same fortress where John the Baptist was being held, supposedly under the king’s protection. Herodias despised John for his gall in criticizing their marriage, and it seems that she could think of little else while gathered there except for her hatred of John. An opportunity presented itself and she went for the kill.

There are so many aspects of this story that are disturbing and loathsome to God: The sexism of the hierarchy that used women as entertainment; the vanity of Herod who sought only wealth and power; the anger of Herodias who carried about murder in her heart until the time came for her evil deed; the pride of Herod, who would rather protect his foolish pride than do what he knew was right. What about the manipulation of the daughter, using her as a pawn in a wicked and evil game? What about the conscience of the guests at the party who did not protest the killing on an innocent man and a prophet? And what about the soldier who carried out the order to kill a man who everyone around knew to be a prophet of the Lord, a righteous and holy man? Did this soldier have a heart, a conscience?

This, my friends, is what happens when wealth and power and pride and greed and revelry become mixed all together in an intoxicating stew. This is a nasty concoction which gives birth to all kinds of evil.

Contrast this with the celebration given by King David when the ark of the covenant was brought up into Jerusalem. Here too there was dancing, but this time it was done by the king himself! Dancing with shame, without any conceited pride before all the people.

Herod’s party brought death and shame; David’s celebration brought blessing and joy.

Both King David and King Herod were involved with a woman with whom they had no right to be: Bathsheba and Herodias.

Both kings had a prophet in their life who called them to repentance and who challenged them to follow God’s commandments: Nathan and John .

Both David and Herod made a series of very bad decisions that resulted in the blood of an innocent man on their hands: Uzziah and the prophet John.

Here in these lessons, 2 earthly kings are brought before us, and two very different kinds of celebrations are recorded. Both have many similarities, but there is a crucial difference.

David, in fact, did repent. David did seek after God and God’s will, returning to the Lord. David did not allow his pride and greed to blind him to the truth.

Herod was like most of those seeking wealth and fame and power in this life: when the prophet spoke, he could hear the truth like a faint knock on the door, but it was inconvenient and cumbersome, and he chose to ignore it.

And here we sit, thousands of years later, and nothing has changed at all. These stories continue to be played out again and again. We all have the choice to be like King David: to listen to the truth, to repent, to allow our lives in this way to be a blessing to others. Or we can follow after the way of King Herod: to seek after fortune and influence and power, to ignore the obvious truth, to push aside those who stand in our way.

I will be honest with you: it is distressing to me to see how our leaders consistently follow the path of Herod. King David is a rarity among human leaders. If you ever doubt that, just take a quick glance at the list of major corporate donors to the political parties and cross-reference that with the list of those who have received billions of our dollars in bailouts.

But even in the midst of all of this turmoil, the apostle Paul reminds us that God has a plan for this crazy human race. Listen to these glorious words of hope:

“In Christ, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and
had believed in him, [you] were marked with the seal of the promised Holy
Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own
people, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:14).

We have an inheritance which no king or politician can take away, which no bank failure or economic recession can diminish. God is great, and we rejoice in the truth that David discovered for himself and passed on to us:

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and all who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). Amen.

Not Without Honor

Sermon for Proper 9 B (RCL), Offered by Nathan Ferrell at Holy Spirit, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville
Texts: 2 Sam 5:1-5,9-10; Psalm 48; 2 Cor 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the state of health care in our nation. I like to listen to talk radio and news radio as I drive around, and there have been a number of different proposals offered to address the twin problems of the rising cost of health care and the rising number of those who are un-insured.

If you stop and think about how we use our health-care, how we tend to use medicine, you will quickly see that there is most typically a disconnect between how we handle the symptoms and the cause of disease.

If you go to the doctor because you have some pain which is affecting the quality of your life, will you be content if the doctor discerns the root cause, fixes the underlying problem, but yet your symptoms – your pain – remains?

We Americans consume vast amounts of pharmaceuticals, far more, I believe, per capita than any other nation. Of course, we are not taking these pills to fix our root problems. We take them to tame whatever symptoms we have so that we can get back to work, back to our busy lives.

When our Lord returned to his hometown of Nazareth, the people liked to hear him teach, to see him heal a few sick people, but they were not about to allow this home-grown prophet to change them. They would not accept a call to repentance from this man. They could tolerate Jesus as long as he stayed on the surface-level, but when he probed deeper, they resisted.

St. John Chrysostom, the great preacher of the 4th century, and one of the greatest preachers who ever lived, understood the basic stumbling block over which we human beings always seem to stumble: our distaste for dealing with the root causes of problems. Listen to these striking words from one of his sermons:

“The truth is, a person goes to the doctor for relief of the symptoms of
disease, not disease itself. The doctor, on the other hand, knows that the
symptoms cannot be relieved unless their cause is overcome. Similarly, when we
declare ourselves to be disciples of Christ, we claim that we want him to cure
our spiritual and moral disease. Yet in truth, we want him to relieve the
symptoms, such as misery, discontent, despair, and so on. Jesus, by contrast,
knows that he cannot relieve these symptoms unless he overcomes their deep,
inner cause. And this is where the problems arise. While we would like to be rid
of the symptoms, we stubbornly resist the efforts of Jesus to penetrate our
souls. We do not want our deep-set feelings and attitudes to be changed. But
only when we truly open our souls to the transforming grace of God will the
symptoms of spiritual disease begin to disappear” (On Living Simply: The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom, p. 75).

Today we have the joy and privilege of welcoming Kimberly Louise Baker into the family of God. Today, Kimberly takes her place within the body of Christ. Today (through baptism) she is grafted onto the root, the vine which is Jesus Christ.

The Church has always viewed baptism as addressing the root cause of the human dilemma. At our core, our quandary is the fact that we have separated ourselves from our Creator through willful disobedience, through selfishness, through sin. Baptism is the means of applying the fix. Baptism is provided as a means of re-creating a new humanity, a new human body, connected to our head, Jesus the Messiah.

Unfortunately, after baptism, our sin continues as we learn to grow into our inheritance, as we take on the full measure of our new life in Christ. But the root cause of our distress is relieved, because our life now grows and is built up on a different foundation. And that foundation is solid rock. That foundation for the life of the baptized people of God is Jesus, the powerful Master, the wise Teacher. As long as we continue to truly open our souls to his grace, as St. John Chrysostom preached, then his healing touch will continue to work in our lives and we will experience more and more abundant life in his love.

Now, there are many areas of life where we can see this classic human struggle between addressing root causes of problems or dealing only with surface-level symptoms. Yesterday was Independence Day, and I think it is clear to say that the founders of our nation sought to create a new community, an ideal experiment, a new possibility where the root causes of basic societal ills might be addressed. The means of addressing these root causes was through the right of self-determination, the ability and the right of free peoples to make decisions for their own lives.

We all know the words they left us. They changed the course of human history. They cannot be mistaken for a superficial treatment of a passing situation. They cut to the core of humanity, going to the root of what it means to live together as human beings.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It is an unfortunate truth that this experiment is under constant threat from those who gain power and who seek to use that power, not for the benefit of the nation, but for their own personal benefit. Yesterday I read a disturbing article about federal employees using our tax dollars to pay for such things as laser eye surgery, first-class trips to Hawaii, tickets to concerts, dinners at Gentlemen’s Clubs. Problems such as this need to be addressed, but they are only symptoms of what is wrong in human society. For the cure, we must be willing to go deeper, to have the courage to cut to the root of our dilemma.

The Founding Fathers of our nation found the courage to do just this, to go beyond mere circumstances, and to envision a bold new reality in these American states.

May God grant us the grace as a nation to continue to push deeper, to not settle for an easy fix to our problems, but to stay firmly on the path of freedom and responsibility.

May God grant us grace as the baptized people of Jesus Christ to be bold and brave in opening our souls to the great Physician, so that he may apply his healing power to those things deep within us which we would rather keep hidden.

And may God grant grace to Kimberly Louise Baker, and to all those being baptized around the world this day, to learn to live as a disciple of the Master, to sit at his feet, to learn from him how to live this human life, free and joyful and fruitful. Amen.