The Food Here is Good

A Sermon for the 4^th Sunday of Pascha/Easter (RCL A) 5-15-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
Themes:         good shepherd Sunday, breaking bread, leading out into green pastures

Today, my friends, is Good Shepherd Sunday. The 4^th Sunday of the Paschal season every single year is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, and the lessons each year on this Sunday focus upon the description of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep.

Let us think for a moment about the role of a shepherd, and what makes a shepherd to be “good”.   

Jesus said that a shepherd goes ahead of his sheep and he leads them out to where they can find pasture.

A good shepherd, then, provides for the needs of the flock, by making sure that the flock has access to food and to water. But a shepherd also protects from the thief and the bandit who come only to steal and kill and destroy.  So a shepherd is good if he providing security from attacks.

Food, drink and safety – this is what a good shepherd provides.

These are the things necessary for sheep to have life. And these are the things that our Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd, provides for us so that we might have life and might have it abundantly.

From the very earliest days of the church’s existence, the followers of Christ have closely associated the care of the Good Shepherd with the sustenance that he provides for his people in the bread and wine of communion.

As we heard today from the Book of Acts, the first community of disciples who gathered after the day of Pentecost devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. These liturgies were certainly not nearly as elaborate as ours today, but they surely seem to have been understood as sacred events where Christ was present in a profound way and where he was nourishing and strengthening his sheep.

If we are to have abundant life as the Gospel says, then obviously we must have nourishment and sustenance for our souls, something that feeds us on the inside. Food, drink, safety – this is what a good shepherd provides, and this is what we need if we are truly to be the people of God.

Week by week you come to the Lord’s table to receive bread and wine which have been transformed by our prayers and by his promise into the body and blood of Christ. What do these things mean to you?

Let me invite you to consider for a moment what the body and blood of Christ have meant for all of the people of God throughout the ages, in all of the different places and situations and circumstances in which the church has existed. From hiding in catacombs and caves during the Roman persecutions, to the communion shared aboard the Apollo mission on the surface of the moon, from the grand cathedrals of Europe, to the communion liturgies in the bush among rural African tribes – everywhere humanity has been, in every circumstance that you can imagine, people have received and embraced the body and blood of Christ as true spiritual nourishment.

The Good Shepherd provides for his sheep. Even when they walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Christ is with them. Christ spreads a table for them even in the presence of their enemies.  

Consider this example, my friends. Dr. Vigen Guroian tells a remarkable true story about a very special Eucharist shared by refugees during the Armenian genocide.  Dr. Guroian is himself of Armenian descent, and he is now a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia.

Around the time of the first World War, the Turkish army undertook extreme measures against the Armenian people, which resulted in the death of one-half of the 3 million Armenians.

In one instance during this genocide, the Armenian villagers from one small village escaped quickly into the countryside, fleeing from Turkish troops. The village priest had fled along with them. As they wandered, the people decided to stop and worship. I do not know whether it was the Lord’s Day, or whether they just felt that it was right to give thanks that they had escaped. But whatever the motivation, the people paused to celebrate the Holy Eucharist.

However there was a major problem: they had no bread and wine at all. They had fled the approaching army without very little time to gather many provisions. So, there in the countryside, they prayed and they celebrated and they gave thanks by blessing bowls of dirt and cups of water as the body and blood of Christ. It was all that they had.
Everyone took a bit of that blessed dirt and ate it, and washed it down with a bit of that blessed water. And God was present with them. "Restoring The Senses" interview from On Being

Even in their extreme suffering and hardship, wandering as refugees, fleeing from a genocidal army, even there the Good Shepherd provided spiritual nourishment for his people.

It may not always look like what we are used to. It may sometimes be rough, a bit sloppy or unpolished. But our Good Shepherd does provide us with food and drink and safety, the only kinds of food and drink and safety which truly matter!

Spiritual sustenance which brings joy and strength. Eternal security which brings peace that the world can never provide. These are the provisions for abundant life from our Lord.

Now, it is often surprising how the Good Shepherd might provide these things for us. Just consider the dirt and water communion of the Armenians. Consider also this personal story told by Julie Krause, a fellow Episcopalian. It is written in a brief poem, but with a bit of imagination, we can flush out the much larger story of her life which is told here.

Ms. Krause’s poem is titled “Homeless Angel” (from Women's Uncommon Prayers) and it speaks of a serendipitous meeting with a homeless man who points her toward the nourishment of the Lord’s Table in her time of need:

Returning from the nursing home, I feel empty.

She who nurtured me no longer knows me.

Suddenly, I need to be taken care of.

The unkempt homeless man on the steps of the church invites me in.

“The food here is good,” he says.

Trained early not to talk to strangers, I think only, “Do I look poor or hungry?

Why should he call me to me?” It’s his soup kitchen, and more his church than mine.

There is a noon Eucharist. How I’ve missed it. Communion,

And the taste of my mother’s kitchen. A meager celebration.

But the bread and wine feed my soul.

Outside, he calls to me again as I walk past.

“Did you get to eat? Did they feed you? Did you get what you needed?”

I glance back over my shoulder. He smiles.

“Yes,” my heart silently shouts.

He nods.

That’s right, my friends. The food here is good! Because it comes from the Good Shepherd who spreads out a table for us and who fills our cups to overflowing!

If we will but come to the feast; if we will join in the celebration, along with all of those around the world who know his voice and follow where he leads. Thanks be to God for the gift of abundant life which we receive through our Lord, the Good Shepherd. May each one of us always know and experience this sustaining and protecting grace which he so lavishly provides. Amen.

NEWS REPORT: Mother Bradley in a good place!

Click on the link below or in the post title to read the article about the good work being done at St. Mark's and All Saints Church in Galloway. Praise be to God for the wisdom of their forebears in creating this new, combined congregation.

Galloway Patch.com article

Red-Shirting of Roman Priests

The long course of inter-actions between the Anglican churches and the Roman Church is a fascinating history to read. Here is a suggestion by a faithful Roman Catholic as a way of addressing the current problem of sexual frustration among Roman priests today:

http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_331_1334.aspx

His idea: use The Episcopal Church (and other Anglican churches, by extension) as a testing ground and first stage of growth for those who wish to become priests AND who wish to be married. Once ordained as an Anglican priest AND married, then that priest can be received into the Roman Church as a married man and continue his vocation there. It's an interesting idea, even though it is DOA, of course, among the Roman hierarchy who seem convinced that they have no problems whatsoever.  

One Who is More Powerful

Sermon for 3 Advent RCL, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

There’s an event every summer out in the hills of Pennsylvania. It’s called the Creation Festival, and it’s run by a pastor from Medford. It’s a multi-day, long weekend Christian festival with an incredible number of Christian bands, daily worship sessions and bible studies, and lots of time for plain old fellowship as thousands of people are all camped camp out on farm fields. It’s primarily a major evangelical event, but youth groups from all kinds of churches attend and participate from all over the East Coast and Midwest.

Tony Campolo, the Baptist professor from Eastern University, of whom I’ve spoken often, has been a part of this festival many times. He tells of a Sunday during a Creation Festival a few years back when he was invited to preach at a local Lutheran church, and a number of young people from the festival followed him there to join in worship and to hear Dr. Campolo preach. Well, it happened at the beginning of the service, that the Lutheran pastor called the people to worship in his typical way, and he began saying: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord…” and, lo and behold, one of the young folks from the festival, sitting up in the balcony responded and called out, “All right!” and they all started clapping and hooting and hollering, and, well, making a joyful noise! It never even occurred to that poor, shocked pastor, or to his congregation, when he called on the people to make a joyful noise for God, that anyone present actually would!

We need sometimes, my friends, to stretch our comfort zones. Sometimes, God pushes us to make us uncomfortable. In fact, we have to stretch and push in order to grow. John the Baptizer, along with all of the prophets, is really good for this. Endowed with the prophetic office, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, John was right up in the face of his people with holy boldness.

I want you to seriously consider this morning how we would do well, at times, to follow the lead of the prophets. There are times when God is calling YOU to stand up with holy boldness and to speak the truth. Yes, you – each and every one of you. Sometimes there is no one else to whom you can pass the buck. There are times when you see evil and wrong right there in front of you, and you need to speak with holy boldness.

There is a right and a wrong in this world, and God calls us to stand up for the right. But what is even more amazing than this is that God gives us the power to do it! What else does it mean, my friends, to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire? John the Baptizer, the prophet, speaks of the One coming after him. “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” This is quite a claim. What do you think this means for you, in your life? Clearly, if we are a people who have been baptized with the Spirit and with fire, touched by this powerful Messiah and Lord, then there surely is no place at all for timidity among us.

2 Timothy 1:7: “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.” Or as The Message version puts it: “God does not want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible.”

God desires that we act boldly with the gifts that we as the church have been given. But this begs the question: Do we truly understand the measure of the gifts that God has given to us? Do we grasp it? My friends, we have been given the gift of God’s self-revelation, the deposit of our faith, here in the Scriptures and in the apostolic teachings of the Church. This deposit is a treasure beyond comprehension. I will spend my entire life digging into this treasure-house and I will only ever be able barely to scratch the surface. And this is not even to mention all of the other gifts that we have inherited as baptized people in this place: the houses of worship for which we are caretakers, the peace and security in which we are free to worship in this country, the blessing of living in a free democracy, and the incredible wealth with which we all live.

We are a people blessed beyond measure, and yet (you know this to be true) far too often we act as though we are poor. We walk out into the streets as though we have nothing of great value to offer to the world around us, as if we act in church out of simple duty alone, carrying forward this tradition because it is nice and it makes us feel good inside.

When we strip away all of the externals, the stark reality is that what we do here together in this place is a matter of life and death. We carry, we sing about, we speak of, we touch holy things. The words we speak in the liturgy are ancient, coming directly from the days of the apostles, those first ones who were touched by the fire of Christ, baptized in the Holy Spirit coming down upon them in tongues of flame.

On a personal level, this connection to the apostles is of great importance. The reason I left the Baptist tradition, in which I was first ordained, in order to return to the Episcopal Church, who had baptized and confirmed me, is because I am convinced of the power of the apostolic tradition. To be an “Episcopal” church means to be centered upon the office of the bishop, and our bishop stands in a direct line from the apostles, from Peter and Paul and Andrew and John. Our worship was not recently created in California. We do not sing songs that some new Christian in Nashville just wrote. Our ship travels in the apostolic river, and there is tremendous power and grace and blessing in these waters. I believe in my heart that the world needs these gifts, and our neighbors long for these gifts, even if they cannot yet express it.

And how then do we act? Do we hide this light under a bushel? Are we afraid to speak the truth in love? God calls us not to be shy with these gifts, but to be bold and loving and sensible. As Paul stated hear in the Epistle for this Sunday with such sublime clarity, “The Lord is near.” And so what flows out of this? What transpires when we recognize that the Lord is near, surrounding us at all times? Therefore…”do not worry about anything.” Christ empowers you to speak with boldness and so without fear or anxiety.

Now, please understand that I recognize this is not easy. We will all go home and have to figure out what to eat for dinner, and how to pay the mortgage, and make a list of what remaining presents we need to buy for Christmas, and think about how to keep the kids from arguing so much. And I recognize that the Church is in a confusing and complex time right now which can make us uncertain about what to say to others about the Church. I understand all of this. I understand the real world, I really do.

But we need to be careful not to use these things as an excuse. We have inherited an awesome treasure which is meant to be shared with others. Life is busy and complex and confusing, but we have a responsibility and we have made a commitment. And even in these busy lives that we lead today, this much remains true: each one of us does what we want in life. Really, search your heart, reflect on your life and you will know it is true. If you look carefully, you will see that we do in fact what we want with the time that is given to us.

Once again, the apostolic wisdom of the Church speaks directly to our need to be energized for action. The Collect for today speaks truth to us: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.” This is exactly what we need: to be ignited with fire by the Holy Spirit, so that worry and fear are banished from our hearts, and nothing but rejoicing and peace and boldness and confidence remain.

So may it be always among us who are so blessed by Christ to find new life in this great tradition of truth and beauty and power. Amen.

Fear and Love

Sermon for the 4th Sunday after the Epiphany (Year B -RCL): Fear and Love

-My sisters and brothers, we are taught in the scriptures that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that those who act in accordance with this fear have a good understanding. Holy and awesome is the name of the Lord. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that our God is a consuming fire. As the Almighty Creator of all things seen and unseen, it is right to serve our God with fear.

-But I ask you this: how do we reconcile this with our love for the Lord? You know the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

-How do we then both love and fear God at the same time? Are these competing commitments that cancel each other out? Let me assure you that this is not the case.
-In fact, the truth is, my friends, that love and fear must always grow together in the life of a Christian.
-There is no true love that is not grounded in fear, and there is no godly fear which is not fulfilled in love.

-The summer after I finished seminary, we went to live with Erin’s grandfather in the mountains of North Carolina. Her grandparents were pioneering Southern Baptist missionaries in Nigeria, Africa, and they had come back to North Carolina to retire. Erin adored her grandparents, and for good reason. They were amazing people – the kind of folks that are rarely seen in this world today. Their love for others was tremendous, and their generosity was known by all around them. But they were good Baptists, and drinking was one thing that they knew to be wrong. (By the way, you do know why…)
-Well, while we were living there that summer, I found a job as a finish carpenter in a new housing development – hanging doors and installing trim. And after a hot day of working with my hands, you know that all I wanted was to sit and enjoy a cold beer. I am a straight-up, blue collar Jersey boy, and I was raised to drink some beer. But I couldn’t do it.
- I pleaded with Erin. I said, “Maybe I could hide a six-pack in the back of the fridge that was in the garage?!” But it wasn’t going to be. Ice tea would have to do. Neither Erin nor I agreed with him. We did not believe that alcohol was absolutely bad. But out of her deep love and respect for her grandfather, Erin would not do anything that would sow seeds of confusion and misunderstanding in her grandfather’s mind.

-This is the same principle that Paul is teaching in his letter to the Corinthians. The context here is very different – eating meals in temples dedicated to greek gods.
-But the principle is the same. The church is to be the community which embodies the love of God. And if the members truly love one another, then they will be careful not to harm each other. Even if one member does not believe that the meat sacrificed to idols is polluted, out of love and respect for the others, that one is to abstain in order not to sow seeds of confusion and doubt.

-Here we see a practical example of how godly love and fear are so closely intertwined.

-True love and fear are always intertwined. You cannot truly love another if you do not also fear the other. This is true in any relationship in our lives.

-To love someone means to cherish them, to honor them. If I truly love my wife, Erin, then I hold her in a sacred kind of awe, careful never to do anything that might cause her harm.
-If I simply say that I love her, but then if in my actions I consistently hurt her – emotionally or physically – then I am a liar and the truth is not in me.
-True love for her causes me to treat her as if she were the most precious, fragile treasure in my world. This is the kind of fear which is intertwined with love.
-It is not that I am afraid of her – though sometimes I am, because she’s a hot headed Irish girl! But that’s not what I mean here! I mean that I fear the great harm that I, in my blindness and my foolishness, could easily cause her if I am careless.

-For those of you with children, this is like the feelings that are brought about by the birth of your first child. I don’t know about you, but for us, the birth of our first-born son gave us an entirely new understanding of what love really is.
-We never knew that we could love someone so dearly, and at the same time be so terribly afraid all of the time.
-For me, before we had children, my emotions could range about this far (hands held up and close together). But after our children came, my emotions are stretched out about this far (hands far out)!
-Now, after the birth of our children, the depth of my love is so much greater now, but so also is my capacity for fear! The more we love another, the more we fear the harm that could befall them. True love and godly fear always grow together in the heart of a Christian.

-In his book, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis has an amazing passage in which he describes the kind of awe and respect that we rightly should have toward others if we see clearly.

"It is a serious thing," wrote Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and
goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk
to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly
tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if
at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each
other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these
overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to
them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships,
all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have
never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these
are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals
whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or
[else] everlasting splendours.”

-When we see clearly with the light of Christ, we stand in awe of the people around us. There are no ordinary people, and no ordinary days.

-All of this is, of course, even more true when it comes to our relationship with God!
-God is to loved and adored. We love God because God first loved us. Forgiveness, healing power, mercy, grace are freely given to us through Jesus Christ.
-But God is also to be feared. Not the groveling kind of fear where we are afraid to be struck by lightning if we happen to spill the blessed wine of the sacrament. God is not capricious in this way, smacking us when we mess up.
-No, it is the loving fear of reverence and awe that develops in our heart when we truly encounter the living God.
-In America, we tend to act pretty chummy toward Jesus, like he’s our best friend, our buddy who hangs out with us at the ball game.
-And in a way, this kind of familiarity is good, I suppose.
-But we tend to forget that this is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. This is the one who speaks with authority, the One who went around tearing evil spirits out of people.
-Those around him were amazed and I can promise you that typically he made them feel very, very uncomfortable.
-We would do well to recover a bit of reverent fear and awe when we speak or think about God. During the Great Thanksgiving, when we sing the Sanctus, it is ancient custom to bow in recognition that we are joining in with something that is way over our heads. The heavenly beings, and all the saints, in some mysterious and profound way are living now in the presence of our Creator and singing this song of praise endlessly. It is our privilege to be allowed to join in for a brief moment.

-By the grace of God, may we be strengthened to grow in true love and godly fear, and may these be expressed in all of our relationships to those around us, and most especially in our relationship with the almighty and everlasting Lord. Amen.

The Church of the Presidents

It'amazing that our Episcopal Church, so statistically small, is so influential because of the course of history. This morning, before Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President, he and his family joined in worship using the Book of Common Prayer, at St. John's Church in Lafayette Square. That's amazing! We have a great tradition to uphold, thanks be to God.