Listening is the fruit of love

A Sermon for February 10, 2013 (Last Epiphany, RCL C)

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for The Church of Saint Mary

Texts:             2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Psalm 99; Luke 9:28-36

Primary Message:              listen to Jesus, the smartest person who ever lived

Call to Action:          take up spiritual disciples, learn to love and listen

Title:               Listening is the Fruit of Love

“Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’” (Luke 9:35).

My dear friends: Who has your attention? To whose voice are you listening?

Have you noticed precisely what it is that the voice of God said at this crucial moment for Jesus and the disciples? At this moment when the full beauty and majesty of the Messiah, the Incarnate One, is on display for his friends to see, as a preparation for the very difficult days just ahead of them, what is it that the divine voice said?

Did God say, This is my Son, my Chosen; worship him? Or follow him? Or keep the commandments? Or be a good person? Or do your duty?

No. That voice emanating out of the cloud was precise and specific: listen to him.

Let’s talk about listening to Jesus. First we’ll talk about the “why”, and then we’ll move on to the “how”.

A book was published a few years ago which chronicled some of the most poignant stories of everyday, ordinary American citizens collected by the StoryCorps project (see www.storycorps.org).  

This project is still on-going, and the book is titled “Listening is an Act of Love.”

Did you hear that? Listening is an Act of Love!

Think about people in your life with whom you just enjoyed sitting and listening to them tell their stories, even if you had heard the same ones time and time again.

Listening is an act of love. From the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, the Chosen; listen to him.”

On Thursday, the Falmouth Ecumenical Clergy group met for our monthly breakfast meeting. I am still new to this group, but it seems mostly to be a social affair. A chance to talk together, to catch up with one another. As the newbie, however, I am eager to talk about new ministry ideas that we might do together. On Thursday, I asked them to consider joining me in supporting the creation of a new Young Life group here at the Falmouth High School.

For those of you who do not know, Young Life is a non-denominational, international outreach ministry to youth. It is highly effective, very specific in its goal, and it relies upon broad, ecumenical support in the community.

I am quite excited about the potential for Young Life here in Falmouth, but a few of the other clergy were not. They shared their frustration about simply trying to get teenagers to show up for confirmation meetings, or to be involved in the church, or to attend Sunday worship. Now, someone asked, are you suggesting that we try to get them out TWICE a week? Once for our own youth group, and then another time for Young Life club!

I understand the frustration, but this, my friends, is flawed thinking. This is getting the cart before the horse.

Let’s step back and reconsider: what is God’s dream for our lives? That we might love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love all people as ourselves.  Right?

If you truly love someone, is it a struggle finding the desire to spend time with that person? When teenagers falls in love, do they or do they not want to spend all of their time together? Do I, as a parent, need to tell my son, “You know, you really should go out tonight and spend some time with your girlfriend. It’s the right thing to do.”

Is that how it works? Of course not! We all know better.

The task for us church leaders, whether we are dealing with youth or children or adults, is not to find creative ways of convincing people to attend all of our wonderful programs and small groups and worship services. It is not to cajole or manipulate or guilt people into showing up.

Our task is to help people fall in love with Jesus.

If listening is an act of love, then we might also say that listening is the fruit of love.

Who here today listens to musicians and speakers and radio stations which you enjoy? Of course you do! You love this style of music, this band, this radio host, this station – whatever it is – you love it, and so you listen.

St. Paul speaks of that fact that we, with unveiled faces, see the glory of the Lord and this leads to our transformation into that very same image.

Think about beholding. We commonly say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To behold signifies deliberate intention, purposeful choosing, a maintained and delighted gaze.

For who, I ask you, chooses to gaze upon and to behold things which they find distasteful? Who? Do we not – all of us – choose to spend our days looking at things that we love to look at?

As far as it is within our control, do we not focus our eyes upon those things which we find delightful? And do we not focus our ears, our oral attention, upon those voices which we find delightful?

So consider this, my friends: who, I ask you, will choose to gaze upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to behold him, to contemplate him regularly in the depths of the heart, if they do not love him? Who will choose to listen to him, to chew upon him words, to savor them and digest them, if they do not love him?

“This is my Son, the Chosen; listen to him.” To listen is the fruit of love.

But we need also to talk briefly about the “how” of listening to Jesus. We are not in the same position as Peter and James and John. We do not have the living and breathing Messiah right in front of us, but we can listen to him.

Now in fact is an especially proper time to discuss this. In 3 days, on Ash Wednesday, we begin our journey known as Lent. And Lent is a time of focused spiritual practice in order to prepare ourselves as a community for the great celebrations of Holy Week and our Paschal Feast.  

Over the last two millennia, a wide range of tried-and-true spiritual practices have developed within the Church which provide each one of us with clear and simple ways to listen to Jesus.

These disciplines include daily Bible reading, meditation, various forms and times of prayer, practicing silence, speaking with a spiritual guide, self-evaluations, taking retreats, fasting, regular giving to those in need, meeting weekly with a small group for support and accountability.

These and all spiritual disciplines are means by which regular Christ-followers have been able to listen to Jesus and to apply his words to their lives.

There is no great mystery here; these are well-worn paths toward spiritual growth, and the wise ones in every generation have walked upon them.

As you know, it is common for folks to think of Lent as a time to “give something up”, to abstain from something as a small act of sacrifice.

May I suggest that - this year - all of us instead consider taking up something new, trying out a spiritual discipline which will enable us to listen deeply and intently to the words of Christ.

After all, these practices are the primary ways in which we behold him, gaze upon him, and so learn to love him.  And this is the goal: in all things, to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

“From the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, the Chosen; listen to him.’”  May we be counted among those who love and who listen. Amen.

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.

Happy Tessaracoste! A sermon for 1 Lent

A Sermon for the 1st Sunday in Lent (RCL A) 3-13-2011, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Matthew 4:1-11

Happy Lent, my friends! Once again, we have circled back to this season in which we prepare ourselves for Holy Week and our celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

The original name for this season of the church calendar is Tessaracoste, which comes from the ancient greek word meaning forty. This season of 40 days has always been intended to correspond to the forty days and nights spent by Jesus out in the wilderness.

As most of you know, the name which we use, Lent, is an Old English word which means “spring.” And so Lent is not meant to be a time for dark foreboding or morbid thinking. It is meant rather to be a time when we deal head-on with reality as it is, and not as we so often want it to be.

Today, we are given two parallel stories which serve as foundations for a biblical view of life. These stories give us a framework for understanding our own lives, and indeed, the experience of all of humanity.

On the one hand, we have Adam, the first human, the proto-type of all humanity, living in a beautiful garden-like paradise where everything needed for life is provided by a gracious and creative God.

Notice, please, the original vocation of the human: placed by God in Eden to till it and to keep it. The second part of this vocation is quite odd: to keep it. The work implies protection: to keep it, to guard it, to protect it, to shelter it, to defend it.

But, protect Eden from what? There was no one else present with Adam! And the cousin animals had no malicious intent. What was the source of any possible danger?

It was, of course, himself. Adam needs to guard and defend Eden from himself, to keep it against the mis-use of his own God-given freedom and power.

In contrast, we have a story about Jesus, who is described by the apostle Paul as the second Adam, the new human being who puts back together that which the first Adam has broken.

Here we have the two sides of humanity, the two sides of every single human being: Adam, who lacked self-control and who was unwilling to accept responsibility for his own behavior.

And Jesus, the second Adam, the one who is able to control and direct himself only toward life-giving and life-serving ends, and who takes responsibility for himself, his actions and his future.

The first Adam remains strong in all of us. We human beings seem to have an infinite ability or self-deception. We are quick to hide from reality, to avert our eyes from our own shortcomings, or to lay the blame for our troubles somewhere else.

We love to play the victim, don’t we? It’s not my fault! I couldn’t help it! Or, if only she had done XXXX, then I would not have done this! If he didn’t cut me off on the road, then I wouldn’t have done that! Excuses, excuses, excuses.

At the end of the day, the only one that we can ever blame for our words and our actions and our attitudes is ourselves.

This, for me, is what Lent is all about. Facing stark reality once again. Taking stock of my life so that I can take full responsibility for myself, for my family, for my community.

You might recall how Adam and Eve responded to God’s questioning about eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam said it was Eve’s fault; Eve said it was the serpent’s fault. God knows that it is humanity’s fault.

But the second Adam, the one who was faithful when tempted by the serpent, this one has restored our original vocation: we are to till and to keep this good earth as God’s representatives on this planet.

When we gather around this Table of the Lord, and when we “do this in remembrance” of Jesus, we are giving ourselves to this work. As in any relationship, there is a give-and-take. In the blessed sacrament, Christ feeds us. We receive much in the way of grace and comfort. But we also come forward and kneel at this altar rail in order to give – to give ourselves away into this amazing task of bringing God’s light and truth and love into the places of darkness, lies and hatred.

We say that we are here because we remember what Jesus Christ has done. To remember comes from the ancient Greek word, anamnesis. It means to put back together something that has come apart.

Think about our English word “re-member”. Members of a group, or of a body, are inherent parts or aspects of the whole.

When we “re-member” Jesus here as the Body of Christ, we do this by ingesting his Word in the scriptures, and by ingesting his Life in the bread and wine.

We “re-member” Christ by putting the body of Christ back together again, by re-creating here in this time and place the true and real Body of Christ.

We are all missionaries when we are baptized into Christ. After baptism with water, each child is anointed on the head with oil. Do you remember what the title of Christ meant in the original Greek? It’s the translation of the Hebrew word, Messiah. They both mean “anointed one”. This refers to the ancient practice of anointing a ruler with oil when they took the throne of authority.

So Jesus is the Messiah because he was anointed with the Holy Spirit after being baptized by John with the water of the Jordan River. We are anointed with oil and the Holy Spirit after being baptized with water. And this is where the name of “Christian” originated. To be a “Christian” is to be a little anointed one, a little Jesus, a little Messiah. Or, if you like, a reproduction of the Messiah in this particular incarnation – in this time and place, with my name, in my family, with all of my skills and gifts and abilities, and among my unique relationships in the human community.

By his faithfulness in the wilderness, by his ability to face reality head-on and to deal with the failure of humanity, by the taking of responsibility for our sin, our Lord Jesus Christ has restored our original purpose in the world.

When you take your place within the body of Christ, you are empowered to be who God has always intended and created you to be: little Christs who bring hope and peace and healing grace into a hurting world.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

With Burning Zeal

Sermon for a Gloucester City Ministerium Lenten Unity Service 3/3/10, Offered by Nathan Ferrell at Highland Park United Methodist Church, GC

Texts: Luke 9:1-6


A Collect Appointed for the Feast of blessed John and Charles Wesley

Lord God, who inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls, and endowed them with eloquence in speech and song: Kindle in your Church, we entreat you, such fervor, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; through Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord: let us spend a few minutes tonight meditating together on the good example of John and Charles Wesley, two amazing men of God whom the Lord sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. Let us meditate together on what it means for us to be inspired with burning zeal as they were. This seems to be very appropriate for a number of reasons: first, we are after all gathered here in a Methodist house of prayer, which tradition was founded by John and Charles Wesley in England back in 1740. Also, because the Wesley’s were, for their entire life, devoted members of the Church of England and they encouraged their followers to be likewise. My church is part of that global fellowship of the Church of England which today is called the Anglican Communion, and every year on March 3 we pause to give thanks for and to be inspired by their amazing stories. And lastly, because the life-long ambition of the Wesley’s was to renew the zeal of Christians everywhere, this season of Lent in which we find ourselves now is intended for that very same purpose year after year.

In that Collect appointed for today, we just prayed “that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed.” That those whose faith has cooled may be warmed.

I am willing to venture a suggestion that all of us here are likely to be in that category, wouldn’t you agree? Not at all suggesting that those of us gathered here have lost our faith, that we have somehow found the Lord Jesus to be untrustworthy in our journey. But I do suggest that we have – as a collective whole – lost our edge. For many of us as individuals, the first love that we once felt in our hearts has clearly cooled down, and the burning zeal which inspired the hearts of saints like the Wesley’s has dimmed to something more like a single candlelight in a dark room. The light is still there, but when pressed, we cannot say in honesty that is a burning blaze which gives light to everyone around us.

And so we pray that our cooled-down faith may be warmed, but how does this happen? Well, prayer, of course, is the first step toward renewal. The fire of love which burns spiritually in our hearts is a gift of God alone. We must ask for it, and ask repeatedly that is be given to us. But beyond that, what actions do we need to undertake in order to be warmed up again?

Let’s work with the metaphor here a bit more. If my coffee cools too much, then I stick my mug in the microwave for 30 seconds to be warmed. If my house cools, then I turn up the heat so that it may be warmed. (Actually, I never do that. It’s only my wife who does that! I usually come behind her and turn the thermostat back down again!)

If my heart grows cold and my faith becomes tired and timid, where is the spiritual microwave? Where is the woodstove of faith so that I can through a few more logs on the fire, to stir up the embers?

I am not going to suggest that you and I need to, or can expect to, match the fervor, the blazing warmth of John and Charles Wesley. I am not such a fool as to stand here and demand that we all accomplish the same levels of excellence in ministry as John and Charles. I am a practical man; I understand that we all have different gifts, different roles to play within the Church.

But, if perhaps – just maybe – during this season of Lent, as we confess our failures, and as we move forward and enter into the mystery of our Lord’s Passover from death into life – the Cross and the Resurrection – if perhaps during this holy time, we can become somewhat warmed within us, that will be a good thing. Perhaps we can open our hearts a bit more, let more of the Holy Spirit in, offer ourselves a bit more as a living sacrifice…

Who knows what God could do with us? John Wesley traveled 8000 miles every year by foot and by horse to share the good news. Charles Wesley wrote nearly 6000 hymns to inspire believers in worship. Who knows how far God can go or how much God can do with a heart that is open and warm, on fire with the power of the Holy Spirit?!

But here is the question for us: Why do we settle for cold coffee when the microwave is right there, within our reach, and all we need to do is reach out and use it?

Why do we tolerate a cold house when we have been given all of the energy that we need to heat it up and to keep it warm every day?

Why do we allow our hearts to become cold when the fire of divine love is within our reach every moment of every day?

Perhaps we forget, or we fail to understand what this Christian life is all about.

In 1746, when speaking about his new movement and what they held as the core values of the Christian life, John Wesley had this to say: “Our main doctrines, which include all the rest [that is, all orthodox Christian doctrine], are three: that of repentance, of faith and of holiness. The first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion; the next [as] the door; the third [as] religion itself.”

What Wesley is communicating here is that repentance is the means by which we come to the door of a new life with God. This change of direction brings us back to our native home, back to our original birth-place, our true home with our Creator. The door to enter into this home is faith, which is honest and sincere and heart-felt trust in who God is and what God says. But the life itself, the home itself, the very name of this house which we call true and eternal life, is holiness.

Of course, there is nothing new or novel in this teaching. Wesley’s view of the Christian life is consistent with that held by the Church always and everywhere, though at certain times, like his own 18th century, the Church has grown cold and lax in its pursuit of holiness.

To live in this beautiful house called holiness, to participate in full and abundant and eternal life right now, to have hearts which burn with zeal for the love of Christ – this is a matter of the will, of intention and discipline. We know what to do. The Scriptures and the Church have given us all of the tools we need to live this life. John Wesley encouraged his followers to practice constant communion: receiving the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ as often as possible, every day if available! Constant communion, daily Bible reading, real prayer, honest engagement with God in our daily lives, meeting in small groups for Bible study and encouragement: these are the spiritual microwaves of our life, the divine tools to stoke the embers of the fire in our hearts. There is no great mystery here, no magic formula, no special education that we need. This is within the reach of each one of us.

The early Methodist meetings were often led by lay preachers with very limited education. On one occasion, such a preacher took as his text Luke 19:21, "Lord, I feared thee, because thou art an austere man." Not knowing the word "austere," he thought that the text spoke of "an oyster man."


So he spoke about the work of the men in those days who retrieved oysters from the sea-bed. The diver plunges down from the surface, cut off from his natural environment, into bone-chilling water. He gropes in the dark, cutting his hands on the sharp edges of the shells. Now he has the oyster, and kicks back up to the surface, up to the warmth and light and air, clutching in his torn and bleeding hands the object of his search. So Christ descended from the glory of heaven into the squalor of earth, into sinful human society, in order to retrieve humans and bring them back up with Him to the glory of heaven, His torn and bleeding hands a sign of the value He has placed on the object of His quest.

Twelve men were converted that evening. Afterwards, someone complained to Wesley about the inappropriateness of allowing preachers who were too ignorant to know the meaning of the texts they were preaching on. Wesley, simply said, "Never mind, the Lord got a dozen oysters tonight."

This simple, uneducated lay preacher opened his heart to the fire of God’s love and God used him.

The key is to want it, to reach for it! When preaching on this same pursuit of holiness, John Henry Newman summed up the struggle of our willpower in this way: “Grace will not baptize us while we sit at home, slighting the means which God has appointed.”

I’m tired of the cold, and I bet you are as well. Let’s not stay out in the cold any longer. Let us ask for grace, be ready and open for it to come, and then apply ourselves to living lives of holiness, walking daily with our Lord Jesus Christ. Who knows what amazing things might happen in our midst? Amen.

The Good Vs. The Best

Sermon for 1 Lent (C RCL 2/21/2009), Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2,9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

My friends, we have now begun our Lenten journey together, and as always, every year on this first Sunday of Lent we hear about the testing of the Lord in the wilderness immediately after his baptism. It is always fascinating to note that it is the Holy Spirit who led Jesus out into the wilderness to be tested. There is a divine plan at work here.

It seems that Jesus is just beginning to awaken now to the possibilities of his own power. We know very little about how he spent his adult years before his baptism. But it is clear that his baptism by John in the Jordan was a crucial turning point. By this event, the Lord was launched into the public as the Teacher, the Messiah. But before he can begin to use his power in ways that bring healing to the people, he must reject decisively the false use of this power.

Luke positions this story here as something similar to the traditional Greek hero stories with which his readers would have been very familiar. These Greek heroes always had to go through some period of testing and trial before they could begin their heroic quest. And so our Lord is in a similar position here. It seems that these tests are necessary before he can begin his public ministry.

And in these temptations, we see primarily what kind of Messiah Jesus will NOT be. The vision of what kind of Messiah he truly IS comes in the chapters that follow, leading up to his Passion, when he freely suffers on our behalf.

Henri Nouwen has written a masterful little book on the temptations that Jesus faced here in the wilderness and what they mean for Christian leaders. In his work called In the Name of Jesus (Crossroad, New York, 1991), Nouwen has described the three temptations that our Lord faced in the following way:

• The temptation to be relevant (turning stones into bread)

• The temptation to be powerful (ruling over the nations)

• The temptation to be spectacular (jumping off of the temple)

We need to recognize that the true temptations in life are NOT between doing good and doing bad. Anyone who has matured beyond childhood can typically recognize very easily the difference between right and wrong: that causing pain to others is wrong and to be avoided. Rather, the true temptations in life are always between what is perceived to be good and what is in fact the best.

It is good for Jesus to turn stones into bread.

It is good for Jesus to have authority over the nations of the world.

It is good for Jesus to display to the world his divine power and strength.

All of these are good things, but they are not the best. To turn stones into bread, to feed the hungry people of the world, is good, but it is too small, too little, too short-sighted.

The way of Jesus must be deeper than that. Henri Nouwen described the implications in this way: “The task of [future] Christian leaders is not to make a little contribution to the solution of the pains and tribulations of their time, but to identify and announce the ways in which Jesus is leading God’s people out of slavery, through the desert to a new land of freedom” (Nouwen, p. 67).

Power is abandoned by the Lord in favor of the true and deep healing of the human heart. Think about it: in the end, it would make no difference at all if Jesus were to feed all the hungry people of the world, or rule all the nations of the world, or display his power so definitively that everyone would respect his authority – if, after doing all of this, people still created systems where the poor were oppressed and manipulated, where the vulnerable were violated, if people continued to hate others in their hearts, where people lied and manipulated in order to get their way. The change that Jesus seeks to bring into the world begins within each human heart.

What did we hear today from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans? “One believes with the heart and so is justified.” One trusts in Jesus with the heart and so one begins to be made right and good from the inside out.

Here right at the start, Jesus had to make a clear choice about which direction to take with his future. His intention for us is that we learn to make good choices, wise decisions from the heart based upon our commitment to love and serve God and our neighbor.

This is not a popular message. You know how it is. In our culture, we give the greatest honors to the ones who are effective in getting things done; to the competent managers who are able to accomplish the task at hand with efficiency. I understand this point of view. I am a very practical sort of guy, and I have found it helpful to have a simple and realistic view of life.

And in very simple terms, Jesus had the ability and the opportunity to solve the vexing problems of humankind. Feed the hungry world, provide wise government for all people, ot unite humankind around himself.

But he chose a different way, a better way, the best way. It is better to pray than to manage. It is better to listen than to speak. It is better to have a heart that is open to the movement of the Holy Spirit than a mind which is filled with its own good ideas.

Do you see the challenge here? This is an entirely different way of looking at life! The problem is that we become so easily enamored with our own brilliant plans! But true, deep, abundant life as Jesus’ experienced it, and as he opens it up to us, is a life of response. By living within the framework of the kingdom of God as Jesus did, we recognize that all of the initiative of life belongs to God. What we do is to respond to that divine initiative.

It’s a different way of seeing life, this Jesus way. You probably think that you are here in church right now because you want to be here, or because someone else forced you to be here! That’s all well and good, but if we push deeper, if we look at our situation with the eyes of Jesus, we understand that each one of us is here now in this place because God has brought us here. And God has a plan for us.

Someone once offered this bit of pithy advice when it comes to temptation: “Don’t worry too much about avoiding temptation, because as you grow older, it will avoid you!”

Well, I don’t think that applies here, because no matter what age we are, we are always tempted to settle for what is shallow and weak, for what is on the surface only. Jesus made the choice to go deeper, to push through to the heart of the matter. Now, as we walk with him in our Lenten journey, may we also not be content to accept easy solutions, quick fixes, shallow wisdom. Let us push on deeper into our hearts with the Lord, so that there we can discover the Holy Spirit’s healing touch, and be changed from the inside out. Amen.

The Frosting I Deserve

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Lent - Year B (RCL)
Offered by Nathan Ferrell at HS, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville
Texts: Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corin. 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

Where can I get the frosting I deserve?

I love this little question from our Lenten study book which, to me, summarizes the spirit of our age. Where can I get the frosting I deserve? How can I get more stuff to fill the boredom or loneliness or uneasiness of my life? Frosting, of course, represents that which makes us feel better for a bit, before we inevitably become bewildered or frustrated again and need to dip back in and get some more of our frosting fix.

It’s getting a bit harder for many in our land to fill themselves with a constant stream of new stuff or new experiences to numb the uneasiness of life, and – God willing – our financial crisis will hopefully cause many to re-think their lives. For as you and I here in this place both know with certainty, this is what our nation needs most: not a constantly growing GDP and stock market, not more military success around the world, but a chance to stop, to re-think how we are living, and to change our moral and spiritual direction in the light of Christ.

It’s not just about money or material things. We need to re-think how we treat other people. A few weeks ago, when I was getting my hair cut, the young hair-dressers in the shop were having a conversation about one of their co-workers who was just fired. The newly unemployed girl was a negative presence in the group who complained regularly, and when she left the shop for good, she had choice words for the manager, who she called a B-I-T-C-H. My young hairdresser turned back to me and said, “Mmm, man, if that girl said that to me, she would have some big trouble!” “Why? What would you do?” I asked her. Without any hesitation at all, she declared, “I would follow her outside and make sure we were a little bit away from the shop, but trust me – she wouldn’t have any teeth left, that’s for sure!”

Amazing! To lose her honor and her dignity and, ultimately, her freedom, because of a flippant, angry comment from another. My young hairdresser has no rock to stand on, no foundation in her soul to offer her self-control and a bigger perspective on life than reacting to what is immediately before her face. And, of course, in this situation, both of these girls would see themselves as the victim.

We fool ourselves by repeating in our minds 3 myths which we like to believe about ourselves. Our author, Frederica (Matthewes-Green), explains these well, and she is right that these need to be dismantled if we are to grow closer to God. These myths are: 1. We are victims. 2. We’re nice. 3. And we’re better than a lot of other people.
Think about it, and you can see how virtually all of us think this way about ourselves. And this is where much of our spiritual trouble lies. We need to change our way of thinking.

Metanoite is the greek word used by our Lord when he preached to the people: “Repent and believe the good news.” The word means to change your thinking, to re-evaluate your situation, to alter your perspective. If we think it through, we can see how this is the fundamental task that the Gospel demands of us. Just look at our readings for today: in each situation, the recipients of the text are challenged to change their way of thinking.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall make for yourself an idol” (Exodus 20:1-2). This commandment demanded a complete change in thinking for the Israelites! All of the people around them had golden or carved idols that were used in worship. This, and all of the commandments as well, demanded that the people change their way of thinking.

St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians has the same dynamic. To those accustomed to trusting in their own thinking and in the power of their own logic to solve all mysteries, the message of the cross arrives as a foolish story. To enter into the saving power of our Lord’s passion, the wise must change their way of thinking, embrace a new vision for the world, and find life according to an entirely different path.

Today’s Gospel reading does not use the Greek word metanoite (repentance) per se, but the prophetic call to change is written large all over this story. “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” Stop with your incessant selling and buying. Stop and worship. The temple is a house of prayer. Change your focus from looking at what you can get from others, to giving thanks for what God has given you.

Church is not a place for nice people. If there is any place at all where we can all let down our guard, throw away the masks that we create for ourselves, and take down any pretence about who we are, then Church is that place. Here, more so than anyplace else, is where we come face-to-face with the truth about ourselves and about our world.

I would rather be part of a church community full of broken people seeking healing and redemption, than a group of folks who have it all together and are polished and nice. Again, I suggest to you that the 12-step groups are a good model for us. Folks gather at these meetings because they know that they need something from outside of themselves to find the strength and healing that they need. No more playing games. Church is about getting down to business and being real.

What is more: the truth is that we are not better than other people. It’s sad how easily we miss this point, because of our faulty frame of reference. Remember this, please: the dividing line between good and evil runs through every human heart. Each one of us is a corpus permixtum, as Saint Augustine said. A mixed body all jumbled up inside with good and evil. And in a mixture like this, how can I possible separate out the evil and measure its worth? How much mold in a pot of leftover soup is enough to warrant its being thrown away? How much rot in a piece of wood renders it un-usable? How much sin in a human heart before we can call the heart sinful?

Repentance is going to the Physician for a thorough exam. It is not negative or macabre. It is seeking the truth – the truth about ourselves. But of course, the Physician’s diagnosis is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of our healing.

Way back in the deserts of Egypt, one of the desert fathers was asked by a certain soldier whether God forgives a sinner. The wise elder said to him: “Tell me, beloved, if your cloak is torn, will you throw it away?” The soldier answered: “No, I will mend it, and put it back on.” And the elder said: “If you take such good care of your cloak, will not God be merciful to you who are made in His own image?”

God longs for us to live a full and abundant life being shaped and guided by a different perspective. If we truly trust this Doctor, this Physician, then we can open ourselves completely to his loving, healing touch.

St. Augustine had this to say about our healing by the loving hand of God:

“God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple: all you who believe in Christ
and whose belief makes you love him. Real belief in Christ means love of Christ:
it is not the belief of the demons who believed without loving and therefore
despite their belief said: What do you want with us, Son of God? No; let our
belief be full of love for him we believe in, so that instead of saying: What do
you want with us, we may rather say: We belong to you, you have redeemed us.All
who believe in this way are like the living stones which go to build God’s
temple, and like the rot-proof timber used in the framework of the ark which the
flood waters could not submerge. It is in this temple, that is, in ourselves,
that prayer is addressed to God and heard by [God].” –St. Augustine,
Expositions on the Psalms

Our path of repentance during this season of Lent is taking us to the foot of the cross, to a life built upon solid rock, to a house built of rot-proof timber, to a healing that lasts forever. Let us continue to walk this path with honesty and with joy. Amen.

Divine Things

A Sermon offered for the 2nd Sunday of Lent 2009

There’s an old story about a man who was a spiritual seeker. He visited many great teachers and spiritual communities looking for a way to connect with God. He visited a great Sufi master who lived in Persia hundreds of years ago, and after a few more visits in the Sufi community, he was greatly impressed with the sincerity of their life and he wished to join them. But he had one question to ask first. He said, “Before I join your community, I need to know: does your God perform miracles?”

The Sufi master reflected for a moment and then said, “Yes, God does perform miracles. But some think it is a miracle when God does the will of man. We think it is a miracle when man does the will of God.”

I know from personal experience how difficult it is to see life from any other perspective except for my own. We all do tend to be quite self-centered, which is to be expected to some extent. However, when it extends to our relationship with God, that is a major problem. It is al too easy for us to think of God as the solution to our problems, the one who can fix our dilemmas. I hope that the story of Anna and Theodore in our Lenten study book is reminding all of us again that our relationship with God is really all about God! We are on a journey of theosis: allowing Christ to live in us, joining our life in the life of God.

One encouraging fact is that we all need this kind of reminder, and even the apostles lost sight on occasion of the reality right before them. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” So our Lord rebuked Peter.
Here in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus begins to prepare his friends for his impending death. This, of course, is not at all what they had in mind. They wanted to follow a winner, be part of a victorious movement that would restore the honor and dignity of their people.

Death at the hands of the chief priests in Jerusalem did not seem to fit this plan. O, he spoke also of rising again in three days, but of course they had no idea what this meant. But this death was no tragic ending to his life. In fact, it was the master stroke, the coup d’état that changed the entire landscape of life on this earth. Our Lord chose the cross of his own free will. He chose to do the will of his Father.

Here we are given the contrast in perfect clarity: Peter, focused upon human things, things of this world, hoping that God will fulfill the long-suffering dreams of his people; and our Lord, focused upon God’s will, freely choosing to lay down his life to fulfill his Father’s dream for the world.

It is a miracle when we do the will of God. The Holy Spirit changed Peter, of course, and he and countless others over the years have in fact done the will of God and have left us a legacy unlike anything else on earth. Sadly, Frederica Matthewes-Green is right about the spiritual amnesia which afflicts most of us western Christians. And it is indeed an affliction, a malady of the soul. We forget who we really are. When I went to college, I became a Baptist through the influence of a pastor there who became a great friend and mentor to me. His church sent me off to the Baptist seminary in Richmond, Virginia, which was a wonderful learning community. But I could not remain a Baptist for this primary reason: they suffer from appalling amnesia. For most Baptist churches, there was John the Baptist and the Apostles, and then came along Billy Graham! With nothing noteworthy in between! How sad! This is an extreme case, of course, but it highlights what is common to most of our churches in this part of the world. We have forgotten who we really are and instead we chase new trends and fads and fashions.

When we get down to it, our faith starts with Abraham, one who walked before God with trust and confidence. Do any of you know that funny old camp song about the descendents of Abraham?

Father Abraham had many sons (children).
Many sons (children) had Father Abraham.
I am one of them, and so are you.
So let’s just praise the Lord!

Perhaps many of us will think of this old-fashioned summer camp song when we hear these lessons about the promise made to Abraham in his old age: “you shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.” The amazing truth is that today we are members of the great progeny of Abraham. Through the waters of baptism, God has adopted us into the covenant as children of Abraham. And this amazing family of God stretches thousands of years from Abraham through the time of the apostles into the age of the Church, and it includes countless thousands who have denied themselves in order to do the will of God.

For us, our journey into life in Christ, our path of theosis, begins with a simple act of free will. God has made a choice to bring us into the family of Abraham, the family of the Church. The introduction to the liturgy of Holy Baptism in The Prayer Book states this fact with outstanding clarity: “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble” (The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p.298). This staggering truth itself is enough to cause us to fall face down in awe and worship before One who chooses to invest so heavily in us.

Of course, God is the same God who made the original choice thousands of years ago to enter into covenant with this wandering Aramean. Abraham could have refused this gracious offer. But Abraham consented to this covenant offer, and for good reason! It would be hard to walk away from such an opportunity. But this covenant also demanded daily choices from Abraham. “Walk before me, and be blameless.” These kinds of right came to Abraham with great responsibility. It is no different with us.

In our life here on earth, we can never separate our faith from our actions, for how we see the world around us has a direct effect upon how we act. Abraham’s trust in God allowed him to act in faithfulness, to walk before God and to be blameless.

It is the same with us, particularly during this our Lenten journey. Our actions and our beliefs are closely intertwined. It may be that, the next time we stand in church to confess the Nicene Creed, we need to seriously ask ourselves the question: do I honestly believe this? Or perhaps our sense of faith is strong, and the problem is that our actions are incongruous with our faith. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves: why do I act the way I do? If I honestly trust in the living God who “calls into existence the things that do not exist”, why then do I fret with worry and anxiety? If I believe that God has chosen me and will never leave me nor forsake me, why then am I jealous at the success of another?

Whatever the “one thing” is that we lack, we can be sure of “the unchangeable truth of [God’s] Word, Jesus Christ”, as our Collect for today describes. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. In Christ, our covenant responsibility before God is accompanied by an even greater promise than that received by Abraham: the promise of the Holy Spirit! Thanks be to God that with our responsibility to walk in holiness comes a never-ending supply of divine grace to transform our lives.

So let us not grow weak in faith when we consider our own frailty and our difficulty in our process of theosis, of living in union with God. During this Lenten season, we must confess our failings, for this covenant relationship with the living God requires complete honesty and transparency. But with the eyes of faith, we know that the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit is ready to fill us, if we choose to walk this path of transformation.

God has made a choice, one which is unchangeable. For that we give thanks. Today, and everyday, it is our turn to choose to do the will of God. Amen.

Time's Up!

A Sermon offered for the 1st Sunday of Lent, at Church of the Holy Spirit in Bellmawr, and St. Luke's Church in Westville, NJ

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” This is the essential message that our Lord came to bring to humanity. This is the Gospel message! Unfortunately, sadly, this message, even to this day, is often misunderstood. But rest assured, my friends, it is my calling to make sure that all of us here in this parish eventually understand its true meaning and impact.

In 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was created to bring electricity to rural America. This energy promised to provide a vastly improved quality of life for farmers. When the lines were installed into new areas and electric power was made available, the people had to make a decision. Very few of them had any personal experience with this electricity. They had heard of it, to be sure, and they heard of all the ways their life would be different because of it. But in order to receive these benefits, they had to believe the message, they had to understand how this worked, and they had to take the necessary steps to become connected to this source of energy. These farmers had to turn away from the life that they had known for so long: a life with kerosene lamps and iceboxes and washboards and pedal-powered sewing machines. A totally new life was right there waiting for them, but they had to connect to it and begin to rely upon it for their everyday existence. It’s hard to imagine now, but some couldn’t make the change, and chose to stay outside of the world of electricity.

In essence, the message delivered by the government to these farmers was this: “The time has come, and the kingdom of electricity is at hand; repent, change your ways and accept this new improved life.”

In our day and time, I like to think about the kingdom of God in the same way as the world of the wireless internet. All around us, at every moment, is a source of information and communication that would have been impossible for our ancestors to have imagined. We can’t see it, but it’s there - all around us. We can choose not to connect, to stay with our old familiar ways. Or we can receive this new power and begin to have our lives transformed.

The analogies may be rough, but they speak truth, I believe, about our Lord’s message to us. “It’s time,” he declared to the people and he says to us today. “It’s time! God’s kingdom is here. Change directions, and trust in this message.”

It’s so easy for us to get mixed up about this, because our western churches have focused so heavily upon the question of eternal judgment and the forgiveness of sins. But this is clearly not the focus of the Gospel!

At the 225th Convention of the Diocese of NJ this past Friday and Saturday, we sang a number of old revival hymns. I learned these while I was in Virginia and my wife Erin knows them all from her Southern Baptist upbringing. One thing they all have in common is this singular focus upon our status after death:

“When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.” They’re fun to sing. But I’m sorry to say that they generally miss the point entirely about the Gospel!

The Holy One of Israel is a God of forgiving love and mercy. All of the Hebrew prophets knew that! Just look at the Psalms which were written hundreds of years before Christ. Today’s Psalm speaks of the “steadfast love and faithfulness” of God. “His mercy endures forever” is the refrain of many of the psalms.

David, and Solomon and Isaiah and the others knew that God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”. (It would be foolish to think that Jesus came to teach us about the love of God.) The problem was that, although the people of Israel knew and heard about the love of God, it made no practical change in their homes and in their communities. Anger, greed, violence, and injustice were just as common in Bethlehem as they were in Rome.

And the sad truth is that they continue to be very common in our world today and even among Christians.

As we read along in The Illumined Heart, we will hear more about the spiritual disciplines of the early Christians. For me, I find the image of the athlete in training as very helpful here. The committed athlete works with the trainer to develop a specific plan to strengthen weak areas in his performance. If the shoulders need to be strengthened for better performance, then military presses and other exercises are planned out and the results are tallied and charted.

If we are committed to growing closer to God and living a fuller, healthier, abundant life, then we follow the same kind of pattern. With assistance from someone who is experienced, we identify our weak areas and then plan out exercises to strengthen that part of our life. If my weakness is that I tend to speak before I think, and often cut people down with negative and hurtful comments, then I take on an intentional practice of saying a brief prayer before speaking, and saying one positive thing before I ever say something negative!

If I really do covet what my neighbor has and greed is a problem in my soul, then I develop a specific plan to change this, perhaps by volunteering once a week to help those less fortunate than me, and perhaps concretely giving something tangible away on a regular basis.

Do you get the idea of how this works? You see, it’s so tempting for us to externalize the Gospel. “The kingdom of God is here, so we need to change that bad government! We need to change those bad laws! We need to build more schools to teach the children!”

But, tell me, what good is it to build schools to teach children if we still go home at night and abuse our children in private?! What good is it to pass civil rights laws if we are still going to cultivate hatred in our households for those who are different?

No, no, no. The struggle is not our there. It’s right here. The dividing line between good and evil runs through every human heart. This (pointing to my heart) is where the true fight for the kingdom of God is taking place, every single day!

Leave behind your old self with its bad habits, and connect now to a source of energy and wisdom that is endless. Learn to live a new life now intimately connected to God.
That’s the message that our Lord brings. And though the task may seem overwhelming, unending grace – divine energy – is made available to us in the Holy Spirit.

It seems that Thomas Cranmer and the English reformers understood this. One of the last requests that we made in the Great Litany this morning is right on target here and we would do well to chew on these words:

“That it may please thee to give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances; and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to thy holy Word.” We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. So may it be. Amen.

The Illumined Heart

Lenten Book Study

At The Church of the Holy Spirit in Bellmawr and at St. Luke's in Westville, we are studying a book during Lent that will be incorporated into my sermons throughout the season. It is called The Illumined Heart (Paraclete Press: 2001) by Frederica Mathewes-Green. The publisher also offers a small study guide to accompany the book. I love the simple, narrative method of introducing contemporary western Christians to the ancient practices of eastern orthodoxy. There is much to learn here about leading a life of prayer in close fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that it will be inspiring and enlightening to many.