The Stone is Rolled Away!

A Sermon for Resurrection Sunday (the Holy Pascha) 4-24-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2,14-42; Colossians 3:1-4; Matthew 28:1-10

Title:               The Stone is Rolled Away!

Welcome, my dear friends! Welcome, all of you, to this happy morning! Welcome to this season of rejoicing and feasting and splendor and happiness! For Christ has been raised from the dead, never to die again, and we too have been raised with him.

Now our Lenten fasting is over; now is the time only for joy and celebration. Let nothing and no one steal away or interrupt your joy now in the resurrection of our Lord!

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day!  When Mary and the other Mary went to the tomb at the break of day, they met there the angel who had rolled the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. And they received the angel’s message with “fear and great joy”, as the gospel says.

But let’s back up just a moment and focus upon this rolling away of the stone by the angel. Why was the stone rolled away? What was the point of this?

If the risen Lord was able to walk through walls and by-pass the normal limitations of space and time, did he need this stone rolled away? Was it rolled away for Christ? This is what the great archbishop Peter Chrysologus preached about this many years ago back in the early 5^th century:

“[The angel] did not roll back the stone to provide a way of escape for the Lord but to show the world that the Lord has already risen. He rolled back the stone to help his fellow servants believe, not to help the Lord rise from the dead. He rolled back the stone for the sake of faith, because it had been rolled over the tomb for the sake of unbelief.”

“Pray, brothers [and sisters], that the angel would descend now and roll away all the hardness of our hearts and open up our closed senses and declare to our minds that Christ has risen, for just as the heart in which Christ lives and reigns is heaven, so also the heart in which Christ remains dead is a grave.”

There’s something very powerful for me in the imagery of this giant stone rolled in front of the Lord’s tomb in order to seal it closed, then rolled away by the angel at the break of dawn.

Rich Mullins was one of the great Christian musicians of recent decades. He sang these words about that stone and about the longing of our hearts (from his song named Jesus (Demo Version) ):

“Jesus,

They drove the cold nails through Your tired hands

And rolled a stone to seal Your grave

Feels like the Devil's rolled a stone onto my heart

Can You roll that stone away?”

Can you roll that stone away? That’s what I want to know! Can you do it, Jesus? Can you roll the stone away from my heart?

Now, let’s be honest, OK?  There are many days when I am not asking this kind of prayer. Those days, I am feeling confident and competent, like I can conquer the world and can tackle any challenge.

But there are other days when all of my bluster and bravado fade, and other days, when I feel tired and worn down, and days when I can’t seem to make any sense at all out of this life and it feels like things are spinning out of control, and days when I feel as cold as a block of ice, with no compassion, no love, no joy – at those times, I remember and I know that I need help!

And then I ask: Jesus, can You roll that stone away, off of my heart? Can you do it?

Well, today, on this glorious day, let there be no doubt at all that God can indeed roll it away; that God can set our hearts free and can fill them with joy! If we open ourselves to it!

Remember what Peter Chrysologus said: the heart in which Christ remains dead is a grave, but the heart in which Christ lives and reigns is heaven!

And in this matter, it is up to each one of us to make our choice. Will we choose to keep Christ sealed away in the grave, not interfering with the way we want to live our lives? Or will we allow Christ, the risen Lord, to take charge, to live and reign in our hearts, and so will we open ourselves to the joy of his resurrection? 

There have been many different charges made against Christians, and indeed most of us have heard of horrible things done by Christians over the centuries, often in the name of Christ.

Unfortunately, we continue to hear of detestable things done by some Christians today. All of these reports are indictments against the Church, but, to be honest, none of these things surprise me.

To be a Christian does not mean that we become automatically better than anyone else. To be baptized into Christ does not mean that we become automatically better than others. We continue to stumble and fail. We continue to sin. The fact that this happens is unfortunate, but it ought not to surprise anyone. After all , we are sinners saved by grace alone.

So perhaps the worst charge leveled against Christians is the one expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche, the great anti-Christian philosopher of the 19^th century. In Nietzsche’s experience, Christians were the people who were completely devoid of joy. He said that he saw more joy in the bars than in the churches of his hometown! Speaking to a group of Christians, Nietzsche once said: “if your belief makes you blessed then [at least] appear to be blessed! Your faces have always been more injurious to your belief than our [scientific] objections have!”   

Although Nietzsche was clearly an arrogant fool (IMHO), his critique still has merit!

That is, if Christ truly is raised from the dead as the scriptures proclaim and as the church has always confessed, then surely this fact ought to be reflected in the joy clearly evident on our faces for all to see!

Who are we if we are not people of incredible and indescribable joy? Our Lord Jesus, the one we love, the one who offered himself freely on our behalf, the innocent Lamb of God who would stop at nothing to set us free, the Son of God who has redeemed us from our own foolishness and sin and blindness – the Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!

He is alive and well and active in the world. Alive and well and active in his church! Alive and well and active in our lives!

What can we do but rejoice?! Rejoice when we see him here in the gathered body of Christ! Rejoice when we see him in the faces of those in need out in the world! Rejoice when we see him in the beauty of God’s creation! (Rejoice when we see him in Matthew as he is baptized here today!)

For Christ is alive, and we are alive in him. Joy is the key to this life in Christ.

Let it show on our faces today. And by God’s grace may it abide in our hearts for ever. Amen.

Consider how they grow

A Sermon for the 8th Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL A) 2-27-2011
Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Isaiah 49:8-16a; Psalm 131; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34
Title: Consider How They Grow

Throughout this Epiphany season, we have been working our way through the better part of the Lord’s masterful Sermon on the Mount. We will leave this great teaching for a while, until we observe Ash Wednesday and hear once again our Lord’s call to pray and fast in secret, rather than in a way that is intended to impress others.

I hope that you are able to see the impressive structure and composition of this teaching session, this sermon on the mount. It has been intentionally put together in a way that is intended to deliver a compelling vision of life within the realm of God’s presence.

Let us be very clear about what we are given here in this most famous teaching. Jesus is not giving us a series of laws and rules to govern our behavior. These words are descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, they are intended to describe life within the kingdom of God rather than to prescribe the precise way that we can experience it.

And what an amazing vision of life it is that Christ gives us here! It is a simple vision of life organized around one dominant priority, one overriding thought, one prevailing focus. That is, the goodness of God.

“No one can serve two masters.” So the teacher explains to us. This is not a rule that must be followed; it is a very simple and straightforward observation. It simple cannot be done, and besides, God is so much greater and better than wealth, why would anyone wish to serve a lesser master?

“Look at the birds of the air,” he says. “Consider the lilies of the field.”

I tell you, I would like to live in a community where flowers are considered to be far more beautiful than any royal person, and more worthy of our attention than any celebrity on the red carpet.

Who among us does not wish to live in a community where anxiety and worry are foreign concepts, because we all are embraced by an overwhelming sense of goodness and security?

All of this is a matter of orientation, of intentional direction, of perspective and priorities. “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

When Jesus says to strive first for God’s community and the inner goodness which is found in that community, it is implied that there will be other strivings after this.

Of course we need to sweat and labor by the work of our hands to procure food and clothing and housing for ourselves and those we love. But when we mesh our kingdoms with the kingdom of God, then all of these things lose their sense of importance. All of these things are temporary, temporal, short-term items which will fade and ebb away.

But the life of the kingdom, the life lived in conscious dialogue with God our Creator – that is a life which carries on and on into eternity.

At the very heart of Jesus’ vision for human life, there is a child-like simplicity which is vital for us to maintain. The birds of the air and the lilies of the field simply are what they are, and they glorify God. They don’t wring their hands in anxiety over their state of life; now do they fret over whether or not they are doing what God desires. They simply are, and in that simple being, they give praise and honor to God.

Now, let’s be clear. Simple is not the same thing as easy. Do we have any golf players here today? (Bart) Golf is a simple game. Hit the little white ball into 18 different holes. Very simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy, right?!

Just a few days ago, the Church remembered the missionary Eric Liddell in our daily round of commemorations (February 22). Do you remember the movie, Chariots of Fire? Eric Liddell was the Olympic runner for the United Kingdom; that movie was based upon his life. Liddell had a God-given talent for running fast, and he gave God the praise and glory for that. The best-known quote from the movie epitomizes his attitude: “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel [God’s] pleasure.” Have you ever watched birds fly in the air? Don’t you get the sense that they too feel God’s pleasure when they fly?

I think that we tend to over-complicate life, and we do the same with our journey of faith in Christ. To live a full life in Jesus Christ is quite simple. It is not complicated, not difficult to understand or to master.

In fact, this is one of the clear ways by which we can avoid being led astray by false teachers. A false prophet is one who comes with a claim to some secret knowledge, some esoteric wisdom, or a special formula by which you can know God, and experience God. But, in fact, there is no special language that we have to learn, no magical formulas that we have to memorize, no secret knowledge that we have to study in order to be close to God.

Did you notice this amazing psalm which we prayed together this morning?

Psalm 131:
O LORD, I am not proud; *I have no haughty looks.
I do not occupy myself with great matters, * or with things that are too hard for me.
But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother's breast; *
my soul is quieted within me.
O Israel, wait upon the LORD, *from this time forth for evermore.

What a testimony to the simple and quiet spirit of one who lives close to God. “I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast; my soul is quieted within me.”

This truly is the very heart of prayer. Just to sit in God’s presence and to soak up the grace of God, like a springtime tulip opens up while basking in the morning light.

In fact, may I propose that this might be a wonderful discipline to consider for your Lenten observance? Just to sit quietly in God’s presence for 10 to 15 minutes every morning, eyes closed, thinking of nothing except for thoughts of gratitude and praise, soaking up the steadfast love of the Lord which never ceases.

This is a very simple discipline, but – once again – this does not mean that it is easy. Distractions, both internal and external ones, make this difficult to maintain.

And so it is, my friends, with where we find ourselves now as the Church in this place. The remedy to our situation of dwindling numbers, shrinking budgets and falling influence is quite simple. Our task is simply to be the church of God: to love one another, to care deeply for the people in this town/city in all of their trials and difficulties, to boldly share the good news of God’s love with them, to worship God with heartfelt devotion, to invite everyone around to experience God’s grace along with us, and by doing all of this, to turn our world upside down, just like the earliest church after the resurrection.

None of this is particularly complicated. In fact, it’s quite simple. But this doesn’t mean that it’s easy! May God give us the grace to maintain our simple priority of focus upon what it means to live as the community of God here and now, seeking first everyday to live in the presence of God and to carry that presence to those we meet. Amen.

This Love and Power to Heal: St. Luke's Day

Sermon for the Feast of St. Luke 10/24/2010, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

 

Texts: 2 Timothy 4:5-11; Psalm 147:1-12; Luke 4:14-21

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”

 

Today, my friends, we are gathered together to remember our beloved ancestor in the faith, blessed and holy Luke. We do not know much about him, of course. Tradition tells us that he was a companion of St. Paul in his travels. It seems clear that he was a well-educated Greek, and thus he became one who wrote down what he heard and saw. Luke has left us with two well-written books: his eponymous Gospel and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles.

 

Both of these books contain Luke’s unique perspective on the ministry of Christ in the world. Our reading today from Luke’s Gospel was given to us as Jesus’ mission statement. It is Luke’s clear and concise statement for Jesus’ mission in the world.

 

If we wished to summarize this mission, we could say that the work of Jesus, the work that God had sent him into the world to do, was to preach, to teach and to heal.

 

His task was to preach: to proclaim to all who would listen the good news of a different and better way to live in connection with God.

 

His purpose was to teach: to reveal the errors of typical human ways of thinking and to show and explain the way that we can obtain this new and better life.

 

But the work of Christ was also to heal: to make God’s desire for wholeness and completeness a visible reality among us human beings.

 

These three – preaching, teaching and healing – are the essential components of Christ’s ministry. And do you know what that means for us? That means that these are also the essential components of our work as well.

 

As the church, our entire reason for existence is simply to carry on the work that Jesus began! Let this then be our lens by which we view and evaluate all that we do in the church. In every decision, and every activity, you can ask yourself these questions:  

• Does this project help to proclaim the possibility that all people can find new life in Christ?
• Does this activity help to teach people how to practically live the abundant and full life that God desires for us?
• Does this meeting provide a way for people to experience God’s healing touch within their lives?

If you can answer yes to any of these, then you can feel confident that this project is indeed faithful to Jesus, and inspired by the Spirit.

 

But if you evaluate any activity within the church and you find that you cannot answer in the affirmative to any of these questions, then we shouldn’t be doing it.

 

It may be a nice activity, but it belongs somewhere else. As the church, we have too much to do to carry on this bold mission of Jesus in our world today. We have too much to do, and we cannot afford  to be distracted in this way.

 

In particular, we have much to do to carry forward the healing ministry of Christ, this work which we remember today in honor of St. Luke the Physician. This is not something with which most of us here are very familiar. When we consider the healing work of Jesus, many of us today can find it difficult to understand this work.

 

How does God heal people? And what kind of healing are we talking about after all? Most of us have seen really bad healing preachers on TV, right?! Those who use manipulation to achieve fantastic displays. This helps them to raise lots of money and buy big houses in southern California!

 

Well, forget all about those false images. What we are talking about is true healing from God, the real work of healing in many different ways, and on many different levels. It is not something to be predicted, not something we can control.

 

Tony Campolo tells a story of a healing that God accomplished through his willing hands.

 

Tony is a Baptist from Philadelphia, a long-time Professor of Sociology at Eastern University. He is not one who regularly experiences works of healing, but, when he is invited to preach, Tony often asks whether there are any who would like to receive the laying on of hands, like we will do here shortly.

 

Once, when Tony was preaching at a church out in Oregon, he did exactly this. He spent nearly an hour talking with each person and praying for them. Nothing obvious happened at that time, but four days later Tony received a phone call. The woman on the other end said, “Tony, on Sunday you prayed for my husband. He had cancer.”

 

When he heard the word “had”, Tony perked up. “Had cancer?” he asked. “Well,” she said, “he’s dead now.”

 

Oh great, thought Tony. She’s probably calling to rip me, to complain about my total lack of healing ability! But she went on and said, “You don’t understand. When my husband and I walked into that church on Sunday, he was angry with God. He had cancer and he knew he was going to be dead soon, and he hated God for letting it happen. He wanted to see his grandchildren grow up more than anything. At night, he would lie in bed and curse God. It was horrible. And the angrier he got toward God, the meaner he was to everyone around him. It was unbearable to be in the same room with him. His nastiness just kept getting worse and worse. But then you laid hands on him on Sunday morning and you prayed for him. When he walked out of church, I knew there was something different. I could feel it. He was a different person. The last four days of our lives have been the best four days we’ve ever had together. We talked and laughed. We even sang hymns with each other. It was a good, good time.”

 

She paused, then added something very profound. She said, “Tony, my husband wasn’t cured, but he was healed.” (Let Me Tell You a Story, p. 34-36)

 

My sisters and brothers, let us be assured that God desires and intends for us to be healed. After all, this is the ministry of Christ, which Luke has recorded for us with suck skill. This healing work is still made effective today by the Holy Spirit, but only when we ask and when we put ourselves in a position to receive this healing grace.

 

We can’t control it; we can’t predict it, but this healing grace is at work today, and we all have access to it today because of Jesus our Savior. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rejoice with Me!

Sermon for Proper 19 C RCL 9/12/2010, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry


Texts: Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

O God, make us masters of ourselves so that we might become the servants of others. Take our minds and think through them; take our lips and speak through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

My dear friends in Christ: What does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be found? “I once was lost, but now am found.” What is it that you think of, that you imagine, when you consider that God has saved you? Saved you from what?

Here in the Gospel of Luke, we have this fantastic collection of parables that speak of God going out and finding that which was lost. Here, Jesus asks us to consider that God is a shepherd seeking after a lost sheep; that God is a woman who sweeps the house in search of her lost coin. This series of parables ends with the prodigal son and the patiently waiting father, but this is saved for another Sunday.

Let us give thanks that God is the one who seeks after us with such diligence and persistence. But what do these parables say about us as the lost sheep and the lost coin?

What does it mean for me to admit to myself that I am lost? Do you know the first of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous? If you don’t know it now, I suggest that you learn it. It goes like this:

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

If you were to visit a group of Overeaters Anonymous, you would hear the group admit that they “were powerless over food.”

Whatever it is that is your particular stumbling block, whatever it is that keeps you from experiencing life as God intended it, you can insert that right in. “I admit that I am powerless over ___X___ - and that my life has become unmanageable.”

It is true that we have to recognize that we are “lost”, before we will accept that God has found us. God is not an enhancement for our lives, something we add to make our lives better. We must admit it: without God, our lives are unmanageable and we are lost.

But even then, even after we can admit this fact, and when we are found and recovered and restored to our rightful place, when we become conscious of God in our everyday lives, that sensation of being lost never completely fades away. Look at the testimony of the apostle Paul in his letter today. Even at this stage when he is an older man giving guidance to his younger protégé.

“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15).

I appreciate the way that this passage is translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message. Listen to this colloquial translation:

“Here's a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I'm proof—Public Sinner Number One—of someone who could never have made it apart from sheer mercy. And now he shows me off—evidence of his endless patience—to those who are right on the edge of trusting him forever” (1 Timothy 1:15-16, The Message).

In order to be found, we have to realize deep within that we are lost. And this is a process that never completely ends. In a real sense, God is always finding us, over and over again throughout our lives.

But, back to our original question: From what are we saved? What happens when we are found? What change happens when we are saved by Christ?

Brian McLaren tells the story of friends of his who came across a snapping turtle crossing the road somewhere in South Jersey. You know snapping turtles? Big, ugly things that look like the cousins of dinosaurs! Slimy, with powerful jaws that snap your finger off if you’re not careful! They can grow up to 30 pounds in ideal conditions. Well, this turtle they found had a problem. It seems that, when it was a hatchling, the turtle came across a plastic ring from the top of a milk jug or some other plastic container. Someone must have littered and thrown this into the water, and now this ring became lodged around the center of the turtle’s body. It wasn’t a big problem when the turtle was young, but when these folks found it, the turtle was likely around 9 pounds and about a foot long. About one-third of the way to its full size potential. This plastic ring has seriously deformed it, so that now the turtle was shaped like a figure eight!


McLaren’s friends astutely realized that the turtle could never continue to grow and survive if this plastic ring was left in place. So (very, very carefully of course!) they snipped that ring and took it off.

And what happened then? Nothing! Nothing at all happened. The turtle continued crossing the road. It still looked like a bizarre figure eight. It didn’t suddenly, magically, revert back to the normal shape for snapping turtles.

What changed then when these folks cut that ring off of the turtle? One crucial thing changed. At that very moment, suddenly, that turtle had a future! It was lost, on its way to a painful death, but now it was found by someone who saw its predicament and who cared enough to do something! Now it was saved. Now it was rescued.

St. Paul frames the truth of our situation with absolute clarity today: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).

What does it mean to be a sinner saved by grace? What does it mean for you to place your trust in Christ, to be found by him?

It means that we have been set free from “a ring of selfishness, greed, injustice, fear, prejudice, arrogance, apathy, chauvinism, and ignorance” (McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, P.98). You know, it probably took months, or perhaps even years, for that turtle to regain its true and natural shape once again. The same is typically true of us as well. Once we recognize that we are lost on our own, once we allow Christ to find us, it may take months or even years for our hearts and our souls to regain their true and natural shapes once again. But now we have the chance! Because of the mercy and patience and grace and love of God in Jesus, now we have a future in which we can grow and become the radiantly full and free human being that God has created us to be!

About 1900 years ago, St. Irenaeus wrote that “The glory of God is a human being who is fully alive.” Yes! Yes! Yes! God has cut the ring around you that has held you back. You picked it up somewhere when you were just a hatchling. We all pick up garbage and litter and baggage along the way. But God saw our predicament and cared enough to do something! Of course, the struggle is not over. It will take our full attention and effort to stretch back into our natural, God-given shape.

But now, praise be to God, we have the chance!

This work of seeking and saving and finding and restoring is God’s work. God is the shepherd who goes searching for the lost sheep. God is the woman who seeks after her lost coin. And what does God do after finding the lost sheep and the lost coin? God throws a party, of course! “Rejoice with me!” That is God’s invitation to join in the party and celebrate that we have been found. Will you join in the celebration?

The Fruit of the Spirit

Sermon for Proper 8 C RCL 6/27/2010, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

My friends: during the last few weeks, we have been reading through Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians in the Sunday lectionary. Next Sunday we will finish with this letter and move on to another. But I cannot leave it this morning without exploring in more detail with you the absolutely stunning pronouncements made by the apostle in this remarkable text.

This entire letter from Paul to the church in Galatia is a spirited and angry defense of his vision for an entirely different kind of religion, one which the world had never before seen. It is not that Paul’s Gospel is a competitive one. He does NOT argue how much better following Christ is than obeying the commands of other gods or the law of Moses. Rather, Paul contends that living in Christ is as vastly different from other ways of living as the sea is from land, as death is from life, as slavery is from freedom. There is no competition here in Paul’s vision, but rather there is an entirely new model for human life.

Law versus grace is how he words it, but be careful not to assume too quickly that you know what he means by these words. Both of those words here actually symbolize an attitude, an approach, a culture – if you will – which stand in sharp contrast with each other.

For Paul, the law stands not only for the Law of Moses but for all of the various human forms of religion that are restrictive and prescriptive. For Paul, these forms are in fact destructive to God’s will and intention for humanity.

I am certain that all of you have seen the damaging effects that religion can have upon people. Surely you’ve known someone who has been psychologically or emotionally damaged by the teachings and practices of certain law-based forms of religion.

Unfortunately, it’s all too common even in the church. This damage comes because here in church we are tapping into forces with enormous power: power in the spiritual world, and power within the human psyche. The religious impulse is so deeply embedded with human beings and it is so easily abused or misused. It is very common for me to speak with folks who have grown up under Roman Catholicism and who have felt crushed by it. They say things to me like, “You know, I don’t understand why I HAVE to confess my sins to some man.”

Then I have to apologize to them for the failures of the church over the years, and explain that these kinds of requirements are in fact contrary to the entire spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “For freedom Christ has set us free.” In Christ, we are free from these kind of requirements to offer sacrifice or to meet the divine demands. This kind of religion is what Paul denounces as the yoke of slavery. What Christ offers us is something entirely different.

In seeking to understand this matter, it is helpful to turn to the great Martin Luther. His commentary on the Letter to the Galatians remains a standard text in church libraries, even though it was written 500 years ago! As a monk and a priest and a professor of theology, Luther struggled for years as he tried to please God with fasting, confessions, and all kinds of penance. But the more he did, the more he felt that he was falling short, and the more he feared the wrath of God. Luther was slaving away under the law, the yoke of slavery, until finally, after much study of the New Testament, his eyes were opened. Listen to how he stated it: “…a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.” An entirely new world of grace was opened to him by the Holy Spirit and he began to understand what it means to receive and to live by the Spirit.

Now we must be careful to understand that this freedom of grace in Christ is not the same thing as the radical individualism that has marked our American society since the days of the Colonies. But what then is it? How do we balance the freedom of will and choice that we have in Christ with the imperative to be the servant of others? As Paul says, through love we are to be slaves to one another.

Luther dealt with this question at length in his work titled, “The Freedom on the Christian.” His opening sentence of this work is a classic; it sets the paradox of the Christian life in perfect context. This is what Luther wrote:

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to no one. [AND] A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

Let me repeat that for you so that you can try to wrap your minds around it…It is a paradox, without question. Two opposites which exist together, side-by-side, neither one canceling the other. But, you see, it is BECAUSE we are finally free in the grace of God that we can choose to be a servant of others. We choose to follow Christ; we choose to live within the fellowship of the church; we choose to give ourselves away as the servants of others.

Luther expressed his understanding of this freedom when he said: “God has taken care of my salvation. I am therefore free to take care of my neighbor… [And] My neighbor is every person, especially those who need my help.”

What we have here in this Letter to the Galatians is really quite radical, and it remains difficult for us human beings to grasp it and to accept it. Do you see how drastic Paul is here with his insight? He is suggesting that the requirements of Judaism, which the Galatians seem to be embracing when Paul writes to them because of these rival Missionaries from Jerusalem, is the same kind of slavery as their pagan religious past, with its various required sacrifices and rituals. He is saying that pagan religion and orthodox Judaism both, in essence, represent the same attitude, the same approach, the same mindset toward life and toward God, and that both of these stand in stark contrast to the Gospel.

This is remarkable, coming from Paul, who was himself an orthodox Jew, a Pharisee, one who spent his entire life, before his conversion, seeking to live in faithful obedience to the law. But in Christ, all such striving ends and an entirely different kind of life, springing from a different source, begins and continues for ever.

This reading from Galatians ends with a famous passage about the fruit of the Spirit. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is no law against such things” (Galatians 5:22-23).

This passage is beautiful, and if you have not put it firmly in your memory, let me encourage you to do so. Memorize it; it will help you. But remember, please, that this is descriptive, not prescriptive. Like the Beatitudes, this passage describes the reality of your life in Christ; it does not provide a list of requirements that you must meet. Rather, it describes the natural outcome of a life led by the Spirit.

One way that this passage has helped me for years now is, in the mornings as I leave my home and go out into the world, as a reminder of who I am. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” As I recite the list, it reminds me that this describes accurately who I am because of the FACT that Christ lives in me. Use it to remind yourself of who you are because Christ lives in you. It makes no difference whether we FEEL like these things or not. We belong to Christ. The Spirit abides in us. We have only to embrace the reality of this new life and live into it, to make it real in our daily lives.

May the Holy Spirit continue to guide us as we live into the newness of this life of grace in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I Am What I Am

Sermon for 5 Epiphany C RCL 2/7/2010, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Isaiah 6:1-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

God must have a sense of humor. When we look at how things work in the divine economy, how God chooses to interact with the world, there is a remarkable sense of irony in life. It’s just plain odd how things tend to work out.

Look at St. Paul. He himself states his position most clearly: “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

It’s remarkable that Paul was the one whom God chose to lead the explosive growth of the church among the gentiles. Paul, who was not even one of the twelve; who never met the Lord while he was still on earth; who encouraged the persecution of the disciples and the murder of the first martyr, Stephen; who was so proud of his perfect Jewish heritage.

God sent HIM to bring the good news to the gentiles? It’s quite ironic, but this seems to the way in which God works. In theological terms, we call this the divine economy: God’s ways of keeping and directing the human household.

When I was away last weekend in New Hampshire, I had a wonderful opportunity to read a book. I don’t get to do that normally, but that’s what vacation time is for! I read an excellent biography of St. Patrick and the real story of his life.

When you move beyond all of the legends and myths and tall tales about St. Patrick, you find that there is a very interesting historical figure there. Like St. Paul, Patrick had a dramatic and momentous turning point in his life. And out of this turn of events, he was given a passion for his mission which could not be quenched. God chose Patrick to accomplish a mission which seemed quite beyond his abilities and strength.

Here is Patrick speaking in his Confession, which is his letter to the Bishops in Britain who had accused him of misconduct. He writes to defend the legitimacy of his mission. “So listen to me well, all of you,…: God chose foolish little me from among all of you who seem so wise and so expert in the law and so powerful in your eloquence. He picked ignorant Patrick ahead of all of you – even though I am not worthy – he picked me to go forth with fear and reverence – and without any of you complaining at the time – to serve the Irish faithfully. The love of Christ carried me here to be a help to these people for the rest of my life, if I may be worthy, and to work for them with humility and in sincerity” (St. Patrick of Ireland, Freeman, P. 179).

A little more context is needed also, I think, to better understand the irony here. Patrick was brought up as a wealthy Roman citizen in Britain, but he was kidnapped by the Irish while still a teenager. He was sold into slavery in Ireland and for years he tended sheep for his master. Finally, after 6 long years, God led Patrick to freedom and he returned to his parents and home in Britain. But almost immediately, God spoke to Patrick in two dreams and called him to return to Ireland as a missionary. HIM?! Why would God call him to return to that dreadful place? And to serve those people who had destroyed his childhood; who had taken away his chance to be educated, his birthright to have a good career and a prosperous future among the Roman nobility?

And yet, for reasons beyond our limited human understanding, this is how God works. Our lessons today make it so very clear.

God takes Isaiah, an unclean man, one is painfully aware of his own sinfulness, and God gives him a vision of the Triune God in holiness and sends him out to speak the word of God.

God takes Paul, the least of the apostles, one who never fit the standard mold, and God sends him on a mission which accomplished far more than all of the other apostles combined!

God calls Peter, a sinful man who so often misunderstood the Lord, and God appoints him as a catcher of people, and he becomes the rock, the leader of the apostles upon whom the foundation of the church rests.

God calls Patrick, an uneducated, broken young man who was just so glad to be back home again, and God sends him away from his home, never to return again, to serve the very people who had so badly hurt him.

This is the irony of how God chooses to operate, the Lord’s modus operandi. Martin Luther famously described God’s method in this way: God rides the lame horse and carves the rotten wood.

But the crucial point is this: the lame horse that is chosen is one which WANTS to be ridden by God, which is not content with being lame but rather WANTS to be whole and strong and swift.

The point for us to take away is not that only those who first misunderstood the Lord, or who first spent time deep in notorious sins, are the ones whom God uses to spread the Gospel. That is the wrong conclusion to draw here.

The point, I believe, is that it’s extremely rare for any of God’s servants to ever feel up to the task before them.

This is the divine economy, the way that God chooses to guide and direct our lives, and indeed this entire human experiment.

There is real encouragement here for us.
St. Paul said it so well: By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. God has made us who we are, and there are times when God calls us to a specific task and duty. If you do not feel worthy or ready or adequate for this task, then know that you are in good company, in fact the best company of all.

Our job is simply to make sure that the grace of God has not been given to us in vain. Do your best, follow your conscience, ask for help, give your best effort to God, and then allow the Lord Jesus to do with it as he sees fit.

Grace is what we receive; faithfulness is what we offer. And God takes care of the rest. After all, this is God’s work, God’s mission, God’s plan. We are privileged to have some role to play in it. Amen.