For the healing of the world - A Sermon for 1 Lent

A Sermon for the 1^st Sunday in Lent (RCL B) 2-26-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; Mark 1:9-15

Themes:         the great litany, the rainbow covenant, the desert fast
Title:               For the healing of the world

Welcome to the season of Lent, my friends! If you were not able to join us on Ash Wednesday, well then I say to you: Welcome!

Lent may not be your favorite season of the Christian year. But I hope that doesn’t lead you to under-value it’s importance. Lent is vital for us, if for no other reason than because it forces us to face – once again – the reality and the consequences of sin.

I’m going to venture a guess and say that I am like most of you, in that I would much rather spend all of my time basking in the celebrations of the Lord’s nativity and his rising from the dead. In those times when we can sing out that now-forbidden “A” word!

But this is not how life works. Before the feast comes the hard work of preparation. Before we can rejoice once more in the glory of the new life that we receive because of Christ’s rising from the dead, we have to prepare by going through this process called the Lenten fast.

And we begin today by considering together the far-reaching consequences of sin.

Surely most of you have heard of the scientific principle commonly known as “the butterfly effect”. This principle states that complex processes can lead to vastly different results when the starting conditions vary even in the slightest measure.

It means that, in a dynamic system with many moving parts, any number of different factors might impact the course of events. Since this principle was developed by a meteorologist from MIT, his thesis was that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil may change the atmospheric conditions just enough to allow a deadly tornado to develop in Texas.

My friends: this is how I think of the effects of sin, and this is what our lessons teach us today.

You and I typically think of sin as some personal thought or action that we each have done.

Sin is personal, and it affects us personally. But how often do we think about how our sins – our negative choices – affect the course of events in the lives of those around us, and even in the entire world.  

We are prone to think of sin simply as what goes on inside of me. It is that, of course, but it is not limited there. Our choices have a profound effect upon the entire world, even if we are not able to quite perceive and understand that effect.

Mark’s Gospel states that, after his baptism by John, the Spirit immediately drove our Lord out into the wilderness for forty days where a number of things happened. He was confronted by Satan. He was apparently befriended by wild animals. And he was attended by angels.

Satan. Wildlife. And angels. That’s quite a trinity of dynamic forces at work – both visible and invisible forces! And I have to say, as an aside, that I am quite jealous about the wild animals bit. I love the wilderness and wild animals, but they always seem to stay far away from me, even when I am actively trying to seek them out!

Now, most commentators have seen the presence of the wild beasts as a sign of danger. The Lord is thrust out into the wilderness where he is exposed to the dangerous attacks of Satan and the wild beasts.

So they say. But that’s not the only way to read this, and it’s certainly not how I read it.

 The wilderness here in Mark’s gospel is not at all a wasteland of danger and peril. First, John the Baptizer appeared “in the wilderness” proclaiming his message of baptism and repentance. Here the Lord goes out into the wilderness for his time of struggle against Satan. Later, the Lord retreats to “a deserted place” in order to pray. Further along, he feeds the five thousand out in “a deserted place.” The Greek word in every instance is the same: Eremos. The desert. The wilderness.

Far from being the place of danger and demonic forces, the wilderness is in fact the place where Jesus goes to more deeply connect with the one he calls Abba and where some of his most powerful ministry occurs.  

Why then are the wild beasts with him? Why did Mark’s Gospel alone feel compelled to include the animals? It is a sign of the healing of creation. The animals sense that here is one who seeks to do them no harm, but who upholds and completes the covenant of the rainbow.

The covenant story told here in Genesis takes place soon after the great flood recedes and the ark comes to rest. If you go back and read the story in its entirety, you will notice some interesting features, like God holding each animal accountable for its life. That’s a different way of thinking about judgment day, isn’t it?

But the most important fact is that this covenant, as the text states, is between God and the earth and all living creatures of the earth – human and animals alike. “All flesh that is on the earth.”

But why did the entire earth need to be swept clean in the first place? Because of the consequences of human sin. Our sin has global, even cosmic consequences – consequences that affect all of the living creatures of the earth. But so does God’s work to reverse the effects of our sin. So does Christ’s work of healing.    

There’s an old story told about St. Kevin of Glendalough, one of the great celtic saints of Ireland.

St. Kevin took Lent pretty seriously. He would spend all 40 days in a little hut in the woods sleeping on a large gray flagstone, eating no food, drinking only water. Once, while Kevin was lying on that flagstone with his hands stretched out, a blackbird came and hopped into his hand and began to build a nest there. Kevin decided to stay still and to not move at all throughout Lent so that this blackbird could lay her eggs and hatch her brood. It was so taxing that even the angels came and begged Kevin to give up his arduous Lenten discipline, but he was determined to let the blackbird finish her breeding. (Wisdom of the Celtic Saints by Edward Sellner, P. 161).

What do we see here? Just as our sins have consequences that might affect all of creation in ways which we cannot quite understand, so it is true that the saving health of new life which Jesus brings to us also has consequences which affect all of the earth.

Our Lord “was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

Like him, we do not live isolated from the rest of the world, whether from human society or the company of all the living things of the earth or from the company of angels.

Even when you sit at home all alone – perhaps in the evening, and even when it feels as if you are isolated and disconnected, it is never true.

There is more than meets the eye. We live all of our lives in a web of interconnectedness. Our daily actions, our daily choices – for good or for bad – have important consequences for our sisters and brothers around the world and for all living creatures. To remember this, and to take it to heart, is why our Lenten journey is so very important.

May God give us grace always to pay attention, to be aware, and to make choices for good and for the healing of the world. Amen.

Not Insects, but Buffalo! - Sermon for Feb. 19

A Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL B) 2-19-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9

Themes:         transfiguration on the mountain, light shining in darkness, new vision
Title:               Not Insects, but Buffalo!

In the 1950’s, an African Pygmy named Kenge took his first trip out of the dense tropical rainforest that was his home. He was taken out onto the broad savannah plains of Tanzania. Far in the distance across the savannah was a herd of Cape buffalo. They appeared as small black specks against the bright sky. The pygmy man stared at the buffalo in the distance, then turned to the anthropologist accompanying him, and asked, “What kind of insects are those?”

When the anthropologist replied that those were not insects, but rather were buffalo, Kenge roared in laughter and told the anthropologist that he should not tell such stupid lies.

(Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, 2006.)

This western anthropologist was not stupid and he was not lying.

You see, before this moment, this pygmy man Kenge had spent his entire life on the floor of the thick rainforest, where he had never been able to see more than just a few feet in front of him, let alone all the way to the horizon.

His brain had never processed an image of something that was miles away, and so he had no way of perceiving the reality that something as large as a buffalo – an animal 10 feet long and averaging 1600 lbs of muscle - could appear so small due to the diminishing effect of distance.

My dear friends: you and I are African pygmies! No, no, not in the make-up of our bodies. But we are like the African pygmies at least when it comes to our spiritual vision!

But if it makes you feel any better, so were all of the apostles. So were Peter, James and John!  

Like those peasant fishermen, we live our entire lives within the thick jungle of experiences which constitute a normal human life. Dishes and bills and house repairs and dirty diapers and work and school and illnesses and sore feet and headaches.

Our brains have never processed an image of reality from God’s point of view. We don’t even know to see divine things. It’s like Peter up there on the mountain: “OK, Lord, I guess you and Moses and Elijah will need someplace to stay.” And what kind of insects are those?

Peter had no way to process what he was seeing. It was beyond anything that he had ever glimpsed.

This is why, I think, the Lord took his closest friends up on the mountain with him. Until this point, his time with them had been very, very busy. Sailing across the lake, catching fish, feeding thousands of people, being surrounded by huge crowds who all wanted something from Jesus.

It felt a lot like their ordinarily very busy lives. It was different, of course, living with the Messiah, but they were still walking with him through the thick rainforest jungle.

But here they are taken out onto the savannah for the first time in their lives.

Above and beyond and around the crowded busyness of their lives, there was a luminous divine reality that Peter and James and John had never yet glimpsed. They believed in the reality of God’s kingdom, but they had no way to imagine in their minds what the reality of God’s kingdom actually looked like. Until this trip up to the mountain top.

This Gospel reading appointed for today begins with a mistake.

For some reason, those who decide such matters chose to start with verse 2 and to leave out verse one, which is the actual opening of this scene. Verse one says this:

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

And then the text goes on to say that six days after this announcement is when the Lord takes Peter and James and John up the mountain and allows them to see the hidden, powerful reality of the kingdom of God.

What they are allowed to see there upon the mountain is not some isolated, dramatic experience, but it is rather a vision of what the life of Jesus is truly like and of what their lives could be like when they are lived in connection with him.

All of this has to do with sanctifying our imagination. The gospel allows us to see a different future – one that is different from our current reality. When we can see this possibility, we have hope. But what is more astounding is the truth that this good future is already growing even now in our midst! 

Countless scientific studies have shown that we human beings are most likely to imagine the future based upon what we are experiencing in the present. Think about how people felt about real estate values back in 2006 and remember what advice you were hearing then from various financial advisors. Do you think they ever imagined such huge drops in home values in such a short time?

Now consider this: Alexander Graham Bell, the man who invented the first practical working telephone in 1876, once spoke these words to a reporter who was interviewing him: "It may sound cocky of me, Sir, but I foresee the day when there will be a telephone in every town in America!" Do you think he could have ever imagined a time when there was a phone on every person in America?

It is a fact that our imaginations most typically are entirely bound by our past memories and by our present experiences. But God desires us to see, and to imagine, much, much more.  

We’ve seen the limits of our ability to perceive what is beyond our normal experience. Now consider this example of a sanctified imagination.

There’s a story that was told by the southern slaves of former years. In this story, a young slave woman is standing in the hot field, working, harvesting the crop. The overseer is brutally whipping another slave nearby. Already in this woman’s short life, she has seen too much pain.

She breaks down right then. She drops down and cries out, “I can’t take it any more. I can’t take it any more. I wanna die!”

But old man nearby hears her cry out and calls to her and says, “Don’t die, baby. Don’t die. Get dressed up and come with me.”

“So I got dressed up,” she reported, “and I went with him. You shoulda seen me, dressed up in the finest dress! We walked together and we walked right over into hell, and right there I spit on the devil! And then we walked straight into heaven, right before the throne of God! Everyone was there and we was having a grand time, dancing and singing and laughing.”

“But then, all a’sudden, the whip hit my back – CRACK – and I looked up, and there was the master standing over me, ready to whip me some more.”

“But I laughed with secret laughter, because he had the whip, but I had all the advantage!”

 St. Paul wrote that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

But I think that this blindness can afflict all of us, when we see things only as they appear to our eyes, and not with our faith-inspired imaginations.

Look at what we do today in the sacrament of baptism. You can look and see only a baby and some water and oil and a candle, and you can see a pleasant little opportunity for a family to get together and take some nice pictures and have a good memory (something to fill up pages in Luke’s baby book).

Or you can look with the eyes of faith and see something powerful and majestic and eternal – the light of the risen Lord touching the young soul of this baby boy. You can hear vows that are made before the very throne of God. And you can imagine all of the saints and the angels of God – all those beings of radiant goodness – rejoicing that the door of new and abundant life has been opened now for Luke.

What about in your life? Have you been able to glimpse the kingdom of God at work beyond and above and around all of the activities of your daily life? May it always be so that the eyes of your heart are able to see the light of the glory of God as it is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Practice Makes Perfect - Sermon for 6 Epiphany, Feb 12

A Sermon for the 6^th Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL B) 2-12-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45

Themes:         healing of leprosy, athletic training
Title:               Practice makes perfect

“Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize?”

St. Paul writes here to the disciples in the city of Corinth, where the famous Isthmian and Imperial Games had been held for hundreds of years. Athletic competitions were well known and understood by the Greeks, and Paul uses this as a metaphor for his on-going discussion about eating meat from pagan temples.

“Athletes exercise self-control in all things.” I think all of us understand this basic reality of discipline and practice. And we all know the old saying: Practice makes perfect. It’s true, of course.  

If you want to learn to speak in a new language, you have to say the words over and over again hundreds of times so that, when you are in a real conversation, you are ready to speak and the words will come naturally.

If you are a basketball player and your free-throw percentage is low (can anyone here say, Andre Iguadala of the 76ers?), if you have trouble making free throws in a game, then what do you do?

You go every day and shoot a few hundred free throws so that, when it is game time, you are ready to shoot those free throws and make them. It may take thousands and thousands of practice shots, but eventually – if you put in enough effort – then your percentage will improve.

What did St. Paul say? “Athletes exercise self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.”

If athletes and others are willing to pour so much energy into disciplining their bodies so that they can win a game, why are we generally so UN-willing to pour even MORE energy into disciplining our bodies and souls so that, when the moment of decision arrives, we are ready to practice goodness, patience, generosity, kindness, humility, love?

The great abbas and ammas (the spiritual fathers and mothers) of the Egyptian desert in the 4^th century are still the standard-bearers for the hard work of practice within the Church. They have set the bar which has never yet been surpassed in the hard work of practicing spiritual transformation.

There was once a wise man in the desert who struggled with controlling his tongue. It seems that he was one who was quick to speak and this often made him say things that he later regretted. So it was said of this Abba Agathon that for three years he walked around every day with a stone in his mouth until he learned to be silent.

Another of these wise men, Abba Ammonas, once told his friends that he had spent the last fourteen years pleading with God night and day to grant him the victory over his anger.

Now, I would never recommend that you carry a stone around in your mouth for a few days, even less for a few years! But that’s not the point. The point is this: practice makes perfect!

These men and women in the desert did not know what to do, but they knew that they had to do SOMETHING in order to change the habitual patterns of their lives. And the point is that they were willing to keep trying until their efforts and the energy of the Holy Spirit worked together to achieve true and lasting change.

What are we willing to try? How long are we willing to practice and pound on that door until it finally opens for us?

This brings us to one of the great paradoxes of our life in Christ. We all know that grace if free. We all know that God loves us no matter what. We all know that there is nothing that we can do to make God love us any more, and there is nothing we could ever do that would make God love us any less.

God’s love is complete, total, final, unwavering, unchangeable.

Our efforts toward transformation have nothing to do with earning anything from God, with achieving a different level of status in God’s judgment.

You see, our motivation for spiritual growth comes from an entirely different source.

Bear with me, please, as I continue along with the basketball analogy.

And let’s say that the calling of God placed upon you in your baptism is analogous to you being selected as a member of the United States national Olympic basketball team! And the coach of this team is none other than Michael Jordan himself!

Jordan calls you on the telephone and says that you have been carefully selected to represent your country in the Olympic games as a member of the basketball team expected to win the gold medal!

What an honor! What a privilege! And you are elated, until you realize that you really are not any good at basketball after all!

You do not want to embarrass your country! You do not want to embarrass yourself and your family and all of your friends who will be watching every game on television! And you do not want to disappoint your coach and all of those who selected you for this honor.

So what do you do? You start practicing! You pick up a basketball and practice your dribbling and passing and shooting until you fall down in exhaustion! And then you do it again the next day! And the day after that! Because you were chosen for this task! Because, more than anything else, you want to be ready, and you want to do your best!

In our baptism, you and I received that phone call from the coach! We have been selected as part of the team to represent the best, the highest good, the Lord of all, the King of the world!

I’m not just making this up. Please pick up your Prayer Book and let’s look at the Catechism together for a minute. Please turn to page 855 in the Prayer Book and look at the first question there and please respond by saying the answers in unison.

Q.        What is the mission of the Church?

A.         The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

Further down the page, you will see this question:

Q.        What is the ministry of the laity?

A.         The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship and governance of the Church.

And it’s the same with all the other orders within the Church: bishops, presbyters, deacons. We are all called to represent Christ and his Church. We all have received that call!

But do you know what? None of us are naturally very good at this. Some have more natural talent than others. But all of us must get into the gym – the spiritual gym – and practice and practice and practice, until we are ready for prime time.

We are not trying to earn a place on the team – we’ve already got that!

But we are trying to do the best that we possibly can! And to be the best that we possibly can.

We expend a great amount of energy with prayers for healing and strength when illness strikes those close to us. This is right and good, because the abundant life which God desires for us includes our physical health. But we all know that this is only a partial good, because all physical healing is necessarily temporary.

Naaman, the Syrian commander, and the unnamed leper healed by Jesus – both of them became ill again later in life. Both of their bodies eventually broke down and decayed and ceased to function.

The healing that matters far more than any healing of the body is the healing of the soul, the transformation of our habits and our attitudes and patterns of thinking that result in a person who will not be disqualified when it’s game time.

This is what we and God get out of this training ground, this gymnasium of spiritual exercise which we call planet earth – the quality of the soul which we create together. Us and God together – creating a life of value – eternal, lasting value.

It takes a lot of work, my friends. It requires commitment and dogged persistence, a no-quit attitude.

But the reward, the gold medal at the end, is one that lasts forever. Amen.

Children's Homily for February 5

A Youth Homily for the 5^th Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL B) 2-5-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39

Themes:         prayer, spiritual energy, solitude in prayer
Title:               Recharging the batteries

Good morning, my friends! How are you this morning?

We just heard a report of what our Lord Jesus did when he was out in the cities and towns of Galilee.

He was surrounded by a huge crowd of people who all wanted and needed something from him.

How do you think that made him feel?

Tired, I imagine! Really tired. So what did he do to get his energy back?

This is what the Gospel of Mark says: “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

You see, he probably fell asleep the night before, exhausted from all of the day’s activity.

But then he woke up before anyone else so that he could find a place all by himself where he could pray.

And this is how our Lord, our Savior Jesus recharged his batteries.

Do you know what that means to “recharge the batteries”?

Do any of you have toys that use batteries in order to work?

Well, here is one of my favorite battery-powered toys! It’s called a drill, and I use it all the time for lots of different projects.

Watch what happens when I pull the trigger with a battery that is empty.

Now, I will switch the battery and put in one that is full of power. It looks the same on the outside, right? But, on the inside, it’s entirely different. See? Now, the drill works the way that it is supposed to work.

This is how it was for our Lord Jesus, and this is how it is for each one of us.

We re-charge our batteries when we pray.

But I do not mean just asking God for things. I mean spending time with God.

Jesus went out and found someplace where he could be alone in order to spend time with our heavenly Father. And that time spent alone re-charged his batteries; it gave him new energy to carry on his work.

I also need to spend time alone with God in prayer, and so do your parents, and so do you!

Now, when we pray, we do ask for things, of course, but that’s not how we begin.

Do you remember how the Lord’s Prayer begins?

“Our Father, who are in heaven.” First, we recognize who we are with, to whom we are speaking. Our Father, the God who made us and loves us.

What comes next in the Lord’s Prayer?

“Hallowed be your name.” May you be honored and praised and worshiped in all the world.

And then we go on and ask for help and grace in our lives and in the lives of others.

But it is being alone with God, focusing upon who God is and how wonderful God is – that is how we re-charge our batteries, how we regain our strength.

I have a gift here for each one of you to help you to pray. Do you promise me that you will use this to pray, maybe when you are alone just before going to bed, or when you first wake up in the morning?

These are prayer cubes. They have 6 different prayers on them – one on each side. You can roll the dice to pick a prayer, or you can use all 6.

Will you use these to spend time with God, to re-charge your batteries, to get your strength from the Holy Spirit?

Thank you! May your whole life be strengthened by your time spent with God in prayer. Amen.