If It Dies - A Sermon for the 5th Sunday in Lent

A Sermon for the 5^th Sunday in Lent (RCL B) 3-25-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33              

Themes:         sacrificial love, the seed bearing fruit, the days of his flesh

Title:              If It Dies

“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

For centuries, this Sunday in the Church calendar was known as Passion Sunday. It is the last Sunday in Lent before we launch the dramatic events of Holy Week which begin with Palm Sunday.

And so, on this Sunday, we read of the beginning of the Lord’s Passion: his movement toward the cross.

We must remember that this death toward which Jesus walked was not an inevitable one.

We claim that is was chosen, that it was faced voluntarily solely because of love – as an act of self-sacrifice.

Some of you may have joined the rush of the crowd which has gone out to see the new The Hunger Games movie this weekend. My family and I are going out to see it this afternoon. And we are all looking forward to this, because we all listened to it together as a family on audio CD a few years ago. We all appreciated the story and have been excited about the release of this film.

In case you do not know, the star of the story is a 16 year old young woman named Katniss Everdeen.

She was not selected to be part of the Hunger Games. Two names are pulled out of the lot of names each year to go as tributes for the games. In the story, it was the name of Katniss’s younger sister, Primrose, which was selected.

But for years now, since the death of her father in an accident in a coal mine, Katniss has acted as the protector and provider for her sister and her mother. She was not about to sit back and allow her small, young sister to be taken to the Games and there to be killed.  Death is the near-certain outcome, as 23 out of the 24  children in the games each year are killed. There is only one winner.

And so, out of love for her family, out of love for her sister, Katniss offered herself as a living sacrifice to play and to die in the Hunger Games in place of her sister.

This kind of self-sacrifice is rightly to be praised and honored.

And it is right for our families to be the primary place where we share the love of God in Christ.

God has intended for our households to be most basic community where the gospel truth is proclaimed and embraced and incarnated on a daily basis. Each household is a little church; it is the primary Christian community. 

However, this kind of sacrificial love is not enough.

We know that it is instinctual for us to love and protect the members of our own families. This is not Christian morality; it is rather straightforward biology.

Scientists tell us that our common genetic material is constructed in such a way that we will nurture and care for one another within our families. This helps to ensure that our DNA is passed along to the next generation. We are wired in the most fundamental way to make sure that this transmission continues onward into the future.

So, from a Christian perspective, the care and love which we share within the family is vital and important, but it has hardly anything at all to do with the love which we see in Jesus Christ.

For a character like Katniss Everdeen to offer herself as a sacrifice so that her younger sister might live is perhaps noble and admirable, but it is not Christian love. It is simple biology. It is instinct.

By contrast, the gospel of Jesus Christ continually calls us to move against our instinctual natures. Rather than offering our sacrificial love solely on behalf of those within our own families – as good as that is - , the gospel calls us to sacrifice on behalf of those who have no biological claim upon our kindness at all.

Christ calls us to offer ourselves for the sake of those with whom we share nothing in common, except for the fact that we are members of the human family, all made in the image of God.

Our Lord calls us to sacrifice ourselves even for the sake of our enemies.

This is exactly how the apostle Paul describes the Lord’s own sacrifice in his letter to the Romans: “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).  

For more than 2000 years, people have been struck to the heart by the realization that this man, this One we call Jesus, willingly and freely walked forward to death on the cross.

And why? Out of love for you.

You know the words of invitation in the Prayer Book, when I hold up the consecrated bread and wine and invite everyone to the table:

“The gifts of God for the people of God. Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you.”

That Christ died for you. Remember it. Take it to heart.

That remembrance is intended to drive you to your knees in humble gratitude for the sacrifice that Jesus made for you and for me on the cross. 

  

But what comes next? Not in the liturgy, I mean, but in the course of our Christian lives.

What happens once we take this to heart, once we remember and embrace that amazing grace which Jesus gives to us? What then?

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also…

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:26 & 25).

Don’t misunderstand this text. I love my life! And I hope that you love yours! Because it is a gift of grace from our Creator. But, like every gift, it is given in order that we might give it back in service.

What the Lord longs to see is a community of people who have been so touched by his grace and love that they are ready to sacrifice in service to others, even to those who are entirely different and alien.

And what is true of the individual Christian is also true for the Christian community.

Do you realize that this is also your calling as a Christian community?

Not to guard and protect the life of your parish! No! But rather to give it away in prodigal generosity so that those out there who are lost, who are hopeless, who are hungry, who are oppressed – so that they might experience the grace of God as well!

We might re-word this famous passage from John’s gospel in this way:

“Unless a congregation falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single community; but if it dies in service to others, it bears much fruit. Those congregations that love their special buildings and liturgies – they will lose all of it. But those communities who refuse to be distracted from the gospel, those gathered together in order to become broken bread and poured out wine for the sake of others - they will keep their life intact and in fact will multiply it!” 

This is the relentless missionary impulse of God. It is central to the gospel, like it or not.

Grace is given, not so that we can be at peace and feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but in order that we might give it away!  

When we leave the Table of the Lord today, we will be singing an old song, but a good song.

It’s a reminder that we must not be distracted from the solitary reason for our existence, that we might be part of the grand movement of the gospel as it spreads to touch the life of each and every human being.

It is a stirring call to service, and it goes like this: “Rise up, ye saints of God! Have done with lesser things; give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the King of Kings.”

Will you do it, my friends? Will you follow Jesus in this path of sacrificial love?

Maybe it will mean that you open your home to a foster child who needs a safe place to live.

Maybe you will decide that you do not have to pay an extra $50 a month for HD channels on your TV, and that $50 a month is meant to go to Africa so that a child there can attend school and become educated and have a future.

Maybe it will mean that you spend a few hours a week tutoring elementary school students in Camden in basic spelling and math so that they can move on in school and maybe even graduate one day.

Maybe the sacrificial love of Jesus will inspire you to go out to eat one fewer time each month and then to use that $50 to buy mosquito nets so that we can stop the debilitating spread of malaria in tropical countries.

I do not know precisely how God’s grace will move you personally, and how this grace will inspire you as a community to give your life away, but it will move and inspire – if you open your hearts to Christ.

May it always be so among all of us who are the fruit of his sacrificial love. Amen.   

Our Way of Life - Sermon for 4 Lent

A Sermon for the 4^th Sunday in Lent (RCL B) 3-18-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3,17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

Themes:         complaining, nostalgia, sin, gifts of grace
Title:               Our Way of Life

“You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:1).

This, as the great apostle Paul and all of the Bible tells us, is the story of all of us – all human beings.

Dead. Lost. All of us are like the people of Israel in this very old – and very strange! – story from the Book of Numbers.

We like to complaint, don’t we? Here the people complained against God and against Moses because they missed the food of Egypt. They missed their old life in Egypt! Do you believe that?

Well, that’s how nostalgia works, don’t you know. Our minds only remember certain details from the past and it can become quite easy to gloss over some other inconvenient ones. Such as the dreadful labor demands under which the people suffered. But, hey, at least they had food back in Egypt!

This pattern has been going on for as long as human beings have been around.

Raise your hand if you have ever heard someone older than you talk about how much better things used to be back in the good old days!

Oh yes, this is quite normal. We like to complain, don’t we?

But St. Paul declares that this normal state of life is more than just business as usual.

Just as the complaining people were dying from the bites of the poisonous serpents, so this path of ingratitude and negative complaining which is normal in this world leads us to a state of spiritual death. 

In contrast to that state of spiritual lifelessness, consider the alternative: a new life that is saved by grace.

A life filled with the knowledge that God loves us and saves us from our own blindness and selfishness and foolishness.

This is what we heard read in our midst just a few minutes ago:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:9-10). 

Loved and redeemed and saved so that we might live a life of good works, a life of service to others.

I can talk about my son, Angus, this morning, because he is not here! Angus is a 16 year old young man who is obsessed with the size of his muscles. He is convinced that he must work out in the gym every single day in order to get as big as possible. It’s a competition, you know. He has to keep up with all of his friends, and his wrestling team-mates. 

Of course, I know that this is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But I believe that it will fade in time. And there certainly are worse things about which one can become obsessed, right?!

The one thing that I am trying to continually explain to him, as a way to re-focus his priorities somewhat, is that his strength is a gift of grace, and that with such a gift comes responsibility.

How is it that he was not born with a physical defect or with a disability that would not allow him to exercise like he can now?

Why was he not born into a community like Afghanistan embroiled in war and violence so that he could not work out like he does, but would rather just focus on survival?

The fact of the matter is that he has been given a gift. Every gift that we receive also requires our best efforts. We work cooperatively with God’s grace in order to reach our potential.

But these gifts are always given for one primary purpose: “to do good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

The gift of strength is given in order to serve and protect others, not for the sake of vanity and pride.

We’ve already established the fact that we all generally love to complain. But the truth of the matter is that every one of us here this morning has been given gift upon gift upon gift – all by the grace of God. We have been blessed beyond measure.

If you doubt this, let’s consider together for a minute simply the material facts of our lives as Americans. You probably heard the Occupy movements over the last 6 months speak out about the growing contrast between the wealthy 1% and the 99% of the rest of us who are being left behind as they continue to amass more and more of our nation’s wealth in their own hands.

Well, guess what. On a global level, on the only level of comparison which actually matters – which includes all humanity – when considered on that level, every one of us here is part of the wealthy 1%.

If you live in a household with an annual income of at least $47,500, or at least $913 a week, then you, my friends, are part of the very elite of humanity. The upper echelon of wealth and privilege. The wealthiest 1% of humanity! (BTW, you can look this up for yourself at www.globalrichlist.com ).

Congratulations! That is what you are. That is the truth.

Now, I can complain about my lot in life with the best of you. It comes quite naturally, you know.

But, by the grace of God, when I am able to step back from my own selfishness and foolishness and then look at my place in humanity, then I remember and I know that I am truly blessed.

“For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

You and I, my friends, are wealthy and blessed. Materially blessed indeed.

And even more, if we have come to the Lord Jesus with trust and confidence in his saving love, then we have come into the light, and we have come into a beautiful new life together with Christ – a life which overflows with gratitude for the gifts of God and which puts those gifts to use in the service of others.

 And in case you did not know it, that is the very core of the life story of St. Patrick.

(You didn’t think I could let this weekend pass by without mentioning St. Patrick, did you?)

He was captured by Irish raiders and enslaved by them far from his home. But he trusted in Christ and he prayed and by the grace of God he was delivered from his slavery and allowed to go home.

And how then did St. Patrick use this gift? What did he do with this gift of freedom?

He did not use it for his own selfish ends, but he chose to make himself a servant to the very people who had enslaved him!

Patrick went back to Ireland as a free man, but as one compelled by the love of God to serve the people of Ireland, to bring to them the same freedom and joy and hope which he knew and felt in Jesus Christ.

St. Patrick recognized the gifts that God had given him, and this inspired him to share those gifts with those who needed them the most.

What about you, my friends?

Can you see and recognize and acknowledge how many gifts the Lord has given you?

Does your heart then overflow with praise to God?

Are you then committed to a life of good works, a life of service to others out of gratitude for all that you have received?

May it be so among all of us who have received the gift of eternal life through trust in the Son of God. Amen.

The blessing of St. Patrick’s day upon you!

Beannachta na Faile Padraig oraibh!
(Ban-ock-tee’ na fay’-lah paw’-rig ur’-iv!)

Serve Somebody - Sermon for 3 Lent

A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent (RCL B) 3-11-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:             Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

Themes:         the decalogue, the goodness of the law, true worship, the weakness of God
Title:               You're Gonna Have to Serve Somebody

Frank Sinatra versus Bob Dylan.

Now that sounds like an odd sparing match, doesn’t it?

Well, I for one have no desire to imagine those two duking it out in the boxing ring. I am thinking rather of their music – music representing not only two entirely different genres, but two very different views on reality.

Most of you probably know this as one of Sinatra’s most famous songs. But don’t worry. I will not do you the disservice of trying to sing it for you this morning.

Frank Sinatra, My Way, With Lyrics --BETTER VERSION-- - YouTube

“For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught.

To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows and I did it my way!”

That was Sinatra’s vision of the good life, the happy life, the successful life:

“I faced it all and I stood tall and I did it my way.”

And, you know, there is something noble and admirable about that approach to life, but there is also something quite sinister about it as well. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

Now, for the sake of contrast, consider one of the famous songs by Bob Dylan, after his spiritual awakening in the 1970s. And no, I’m not going to sing this either! But here are some of the words:

You may be a construction worker working on a home.

You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome.
You might own guns and you might even own tanks.
You might be somebody's landlord, you might even own banks.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes

You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
 
Here, my friends, we find a much deeper spiritual insight into the reality of human life.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what the exterior circumstances of your life might be, because you will serve somebody. The only question in life then, is this: whom will you serve?

We began our liturgy this morning with a recitation of the Decalogue and a few minutes after that we heard a reading of this in the original text. It was the pre-supposition of the Hebrew people who recited and recorded these 10 commandments that we all are going to serve someone.

The decisive factor facing the people at Mount Sinai was choosing whom to serve.

“I am the Lord your God…You shall no other gods before me…for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.”

In the biblical worldview, the assumed status of each human being is that every one of us will serve some god or another, and that we each need to choose whom to serve.

So, you see, Bob Dylan got it right!  

And the problem with Frank Sinatra’s vision is that it places himself at the center of the universe – and not himself as he truly is, but as the idealized image of the strong, independent, invincible, unmovable, heroic man. This ideal man is the god who must be served.  

Sinatra is by no means alone in this vision of his. He has a host of compatriots – mostly men! - who share that vision of themselves. But this company does not make his vision any less dangerous.  

In 1984 Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle toward a democratic South Africa free from apartheid. He explains that all Nobel laureates also received a book by Harald Ofstad entitled Our Contempt for Weakness, which had a deep impact on Tutu.  

This book is a thorough examination of the roots and core principles of the Nazi movement in Germany. And this is what Ofstad wrote:

“If we examine ourselves in the mirror of Nazism, we see our own traits – enlarged but so revealing for that very reason. Anti-Semitism is not the essence of Nazism.

Its essence is the doctrine that the ‘strong’ shall rule over the ‘weak’, and that the ‘weak’ are contemptible because they are ‘weak’. Nazism… expresses deeply rooted tendencies, which are constantly alive in and around us.

We admire those who fight their way to the top, and are contemptuous of the loser. We consider ourselves rid of Nazism because we abhor the gas chambers. [But] we forget that they were the ultimate product of a philosophy which despised the ‘weak’ and admired the ‘strong’.”  (God Has A Dream by Desmond Tutu, P. 39)

I do not want to suggest that Frank Sinatra was a supporter of the Nazi ideology, but you can see that the core principle is the same: “I faced it all and I stood tall and I did it my way.”

Why? Because I am strong, and I am not one of those weak losers who have to kneel and ask for forgiveness!

What a contrast this is from the message of the Cross! For what is it that St. Paul said?

“We proclaim Christ crucified.” The Messiah tortured and imprisoned and punished with the capital punishment reserved for criminals and rogues. This is the message we present to the world!

“God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Did you hear that? God’s weakness.

You see, the cross is so common to us now that we completely forget what it meant to those who first wore it! On the surface, it was the sign of failure and weakness.

A story is told of one of the desert fathers in Egypt who was met by a few sons of the pagan Roman Emperor who had come out to Egypt for a hunting expedition. They used enormous nets to round up the wild animals, but it one of their nets they found this desert monk named Abba Milido.

The funny thing is that he had been in the desert so long, he was so wild and hairy now, that these princes couldn’t tell if he was a human or an animal or some kind of ghostly spirit!

So Abba Milido told them, “I am a man and I am a sinner, and I came out here to weep for my sins and to adore the Son of the Living God.”

To which the princes replied, “There is no god but sun and water and fire. Adore these, and sacrifice to them.”

“Oh no I will not!” said the monk. “You should acknowledge the true God who made these things.”

And now the princes laughed and said, “A condemned and crucified criminal is what you call a god!”

And they mocked him. (The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton, p.58).

What a ridiculous thought! These young men of power and wealth – to bow down in homage to a condemned and crucified criminal! How stupid! How foolish it seemed to them!

And how stupid and foolish it still appears to many even today!

We need to be careful not to stumble into this most common pitfall in human thinking – the mistake of celebrating and honoring the strong, the mighty, and the powerful, and of denigrating the weak, the poor, and the needy. Even those of us who wear the cross around our necks often fall into this trap.

But the weakness of God seen in this cross is stronger than any human strength! 

And it reminds us over and over again that we must choose.
We must always choose - which path we will take, which god we will serve.

You see, Dylan was right! And he sang it with wisdom and insight:

“You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.”

May we all have the grace to choose to serve the Son of the Living God, the One condemned and crucified in weakness, but raised to new life in the power of the Spirit. Amen.

Through the Hole in the Door

A Youth Sermon for the 2^nd Sunday in Lent (RCL B) 3-4-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Genesis 17:1-7,15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Mark 8:31-38

Themes:         sacrifice
Title:               The Hole in the Door

Good morning, my friends! I need your help this morning to tell a really good story. And, look, I have this board and these swords here to help us to tell this story together. OK?

But first, listen again to what we just heard Jesus say. It’s really important.

He turned to his good friend, Peter, and said: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. …For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

What does it mean to lose your life for Jesus’s sake? I think this story might help. It’s a true story, too!

In the very same year that Columbus landed here in the Americas – in 1492, there was a long fight that was settled in Ireland. There was a dispute between two leading noble families in medieval Ireland, the Butlers and the FitzGeralds.

The leader of the Butlers was a fellow named Black James.

In 1492, he and his soldiers were running from a groups of Fitzgerald’s who were chasing them.

So they ran into St. Patrick's Cathedral there in Dublin, into the parish house, where they hoped that they would be safe.

So let’s act this out. I will be Gearoid Fitzgerald, the leader of the Fitzgerald’s, one of the most important earls of Ireland at that time. And I need someone to be Black James, and I need someone to hold the door. Black James and I are fighting with our swords, and, since I am winning – of course! – he goes and hides behind the big wooden door at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Imagine that this is a huge, thick solid oak cathedral door, which is locked and bolted shut.  

Now, Sir Fitzgerald had them surrounded. Black James and his Butler men could not escape now!

But, Fitzgerald knew that this fighting was not a good thing, and he wanted to stop all of this fighting between these two families. So guess what he did! Does anyone know?

He yelled through the door for a long time asking Black James to make peace. “Let’s end this feud, Black James!” But Black James of the Butlers always said no. Finally, after a long stand off, Sir Fitzgerald decided to do something risky.

He ordered his soldiers to cut a small hole in the door. Black James was really scared then!

Then, once again, Sir Fitzgerald explained to Black James and the Butler soldiers inside that he wanted to make peace between their families and to end this stupid fighting.

What do you do when you make up with a friend? How do you show that you have made peace after a fight? You shake hands, right?

Sir Fitzgerald wanted to prove that he was serious about making peace. So what did he do? He stuck his arm through the hole in the door. It was the right hand of friendship. Just like we shake hands when we share the peace of the Lord with each other, he was offering the hand of peace and friendship.

But what did Black James do then? He and all of his soldiers could have easily taken their swords and cut off his arm in an instant! It was very risky to do this.

But, thanks be to God, Black James knew then that Fitzgerald was telling the truth, because he was willing to risk his own arm. So he shook his hand and opened the door and the two families dropped their swords and shared peace and their fighting stopped.

If you go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral today, I hear that you can see this door with the hole cut in it. It’s called the Door of Reconciliation.

Jesus wants us to share peace with each other, not to fight and hurt each other.

The human way of thinking is to win the fight, not to stop it; to protect yourself, not to risk yourself; to hurt your enemy, not to let them hurt you.

But God’s way of thinking is to lose yourself for the sake of peace. Fitzgerald was willing to lose his arm, and maybe his life, in order to make peace. “Those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” 

Sir Fitzgerald risked himself in order to make peace and to save the lives of many others who would be killed if the fighting continued.

That is God’s way. That is the way of the gospel. Jesus gave his life so that we could be at peace with God and with one another. And he wants us to stick our arm through the hole in the door – to take the risk in order to make peace, to reconcile with those who hate us.

Will you do that? Promise me that you will always follow Jesus by making peace.

Excellent! Now please bow your heads and let’s pray together:

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for loving us so much that you were willing to lose your life so that we could have peace. Please help us to follow you, to not protect ourselves, but to risk ourselves in order to make peace everywhere in the world. Thank you for showing us the way. Amen.