Church of the Epiphany

Proper 24
Genesis 32
Luke 18

Honestly, how many of you prayed for the Rockies in the last few weeks? I suppose it is a natural thing to do. I think the Broncos need it more. But is prayer really about praying for our sports teams?

Prayer is simple but not simplistic. We are privileged to have 2000 years worth of literature on it. We are privileged to be Prayer Book Christians whose worship is informed by the rich treasures of the Book of Common Prayer. But when it comes down to it, prayer is only valuable when we do it! There are two basic points I want to make about prayer. First, it must be rooted in Scripture and the way of the saints and second, it must be persistent and honest.

First, our prayer must be rooted in Scripture and tradition. I cannot tell you the necessity of holy Scripture at this point in the church’s and our world’s history. Biblical illiteracy is at an all time low. I’m proud that at Epiphany we are doing something about that.

As Paul says to Timothy, all Scripture is inspired by God, it is ‘profitable for–teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’

Scripture is where our prayer life begins and ends.

St. Simeon the New Theologian says, “[the Word of God] is like a blazing fire, because it stirs up zeal in our souls, and makes us disregard all the sorrows of life, consider every trail we encounter a joy, and desire and embrace death, so fearful to others, as life and the means of attaining life.”

The reason why Scripture is so important in our prayer and relationship with God is because it gives us a picture of who God is. It also gives us language for God that we would not normally use. Read the psalms and the wondrous portrayal of God. Read the gospels and find the most accurate portrayal of God–in his Son Jesus Christ.

I mentioned that Tradition is another important way that we encounter God in prayer. Tradition is more than written prayer and trivial history and customs. Tradition is the living, breathing, expression of the Scriptures through the people of God, the saints. The Prayer Book was not written by some committee in New York City. The Prayer Book is a liturgical plagiarizing of Scripture and the prayers of the saints, both known and unknown.

Why do we need to pray this way? Why not just give God the prayers of our own heart? Because to learn to pray we need to learn a vocabulary we don’t normally use. Who normally says, ‘Glory to God in the Highest…?’ Or from the psalms, ‘As the deer longs for the water so my soul longs after thee…?’ Or from St. Augustine, ‘Our souls are restless until they find rest in Thee?’
What is our prayer life usually like? It’s asking for one thing or another. Rarely do we ever go deeper. But prayer is opening ourselves up to the Lord of the Universe. Prayer is allowing God to connect with us. When we gain an understanding of how the ancients prayed and even sometimes use their words, it enriches and matures our own prayer life. One of our best prayers comes from the Good Friday liturgy (and we also use it at ordinations):

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look
favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred
mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry
out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world
see and know that things which were cast down are being
raised up, and things which had grown old are being made
new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus
Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

We just do not naturally speak this way–so we need liturgical prayer to inform and enrich our prayer lives.

But the one danger we have as Episcopalians is to leave our prayer at church. Even though the Prayer Book is rich, it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t pray the other six days of the week. Will Willomon says this, “Instant oatmeal. The three-minute boiled egg. One hour dry cleaning. Twenty minute pizza delivery. An oil change in less than 30 minutes. Excellent health in just 20 minutes a day, only 3 days a week. A sense of well-being after only a weekend in a seminar to gain enlightenment. A relationship with Christ in only an hour a week. Why not?”

Prayer is not a one hour a week thing that we half-heartedly participate in. It is the language of our heart. It is the language of our greatest desires. The second aspect of prayer is that we must do it honestly and persistently.

Part of our rich heritage is prayer like the Hebrews, Jewish prayer. While their prayer was and is liturgical, it also has a life of its own. It is honest and persistent

Jesus says prayer is like a widow looking for justice from an unjust judge. The judge cares nothing for God or for her, but since she will not leave him alone, he will grant her request. Jesus’ point is that we are to be persistent.

In Luke 18, Jesus just got finished speaking of the end of the age and the Kingdom of Heaven.  The widow’s prayer really represents the prayer for God to answer the question why bad things happen to good people. It is the prayer that asks God to make things right in the world. Just like the Lord’s prayer, ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God wants us to ask him to make things right. And unlike the unjust judge in the story, he wants to make things right.

We need an honesty, a transparency and a persistence in our prayer to the Lord. We need to say things like ‘I don’t think that was fair. We’re out of money this month. Where are you? Don’t you care?’ These are not disrespectful prayers, they are simply the honesty of our hearts. He knows what we’re thinking and feeling anyway, why not vocalize it?

When we talk about Jewish prayer and here’s where our story of Jacob comes in. Here is the perfect picture of persistence and honesty in prayer—Jacob wrestling with God.

You remember from Sunday School the story of Jacob and Esau. They were twins, but Esau was born first. Esau was born red and wild and Jacob was born fair skinned. When the two were born Jacob came out holding on to Esau’s heel. In fact, the name Jacob means, ‘one who holds the heel, or one who supplants.’

Esau became a hunter, a hairy man’s man. Jacob was a man of the tents, a homebody, a mama’s boy. If it were a Native American story, Esau would be the man of the wild and Jacob a man of the water, or a ‘man of the candle’ as they would put it. Esau was the hunter and Jacob was the priest. Esau was dad’s favorite and Jacob was mom’s favorite. Esau, the firstborn, was to receive his father Isaac’s inheritance, called a birthright and his father’s blessing.

One afternoon, Esau came back from hunting while Jacob was preparing a pot of stew. Esau’s hunt was unsuccessful and he was famished. Their exchange went something like this. ‘Hey little bro, give me something to eat, I’m starving.’ ‘Yea, how hungry are you?’ ‘So hungry I could eat a camel.’ ‘Well, I tell you what. You sell me your birthright for a pot of my stew and we’ll be square.’ Not thinking, Esau said, ‘What good is my inheritance if I starve to death. You’ve got a deal.’ And he thought nothing of it from then.

But when Isaac was old and blind, it was time for him to grant his blessing to his oldest son…
Needless to say, Esau was angry and Jacob left town. Jacob’s experience with the angel happens the night before he and Esau will reconcile after years apart.

Jacob’s experience with the angel is telling in terms of what prayer is. His life was never the same. His very name was changed to Israel, or ‘one who wrestles with God’ indicating that he represents the whole of his people. He is more than one man, he represents Israel–constantly striving, wrangling and wrestling with the LORD.

I hope that we learn to be like Jacob. I hope that we constantly strive, wrangle and wrestle with God, not because we are trying to manipulate him, but because this is what his followers do. Doesn’t it take a kind of unheard of amount of guts to wrestle with the Lord like Jacob does? It appears that he wins, until his hip is put out of joint.

Whether this was an angel or some kind of epiphany of the Lord doesn’t make any difference. Jacob wrestles with the Lord, insists on a blessing (which he receives) and commemorates his battle by naming the place, ‘the face of God.’ For he saw the face of God and lived. Jacob’s prayer was a literal fighting with God.

What would it look like if we prayed this way? You want to fix the roof? Worried about Stewardship? You want our barn filled? I have a constant prayer for Epiphany that simply goes, ‘Lord fill this place with those who are hungry for you.’ I feel that this prayer is being answered.

I hope that we can go beyond just punching a clock on Sundays and not think about God during the week. A couple of us gather on Thursday mornings at 8AM to pray for our church, if you feel led, join us. I have heard a desire to have more healing prayer be a part of our worship, either before worship or in the back at the end of our services. If you feel led to be a part of this, let us know.

Your vestry is meeting this weekend for a vestry retreat, who will be praying for us? We need your prayers.

Wrestle with God. Israel represents the people of God in all times and all places. Let’s take our cue from Jacob. Let’s wrestle with the almighty and see what he has for us.

Proper 23
Luke 17:11-19

Let’s review the story. Jesus is ‘walking on the border of Galilee and Samaria’ on his way to Jerusalem. That is important for two reasons. That he was on his way to Jerusalem is important because he was on his way to the Via Dolorosa–the way of the cross. He was on his final journey into the midst of those who were out to take his life. He was on his way to Jerusalem where he was to be betrayed, arrested, tortured, crowned with thorns and nailed to a cross. The ministry of Jesus begins to shift; from preaching, teaching and healing, to his journey to Golgotha.

Secondly, the route he took to Jerusalem is also important. He could have chosen a straight line. But he chose to walk on the borderland between Samaria and Jerusalem. I’ll remind you that the Samaritans were despised by the Jewish people because they were half Assyrian and half Jewish. They represented the compromise between the conquering Assyrians and the conquered northern kingdom of Israel. Based on our study of Amos a couple weeks ago, you remember that the Samaritans were pretty bad before they were conquered, but after they were conquered and even after they were restored to the land, they were forever considered those who mixed with the Goyim and the Goyim’s ways.

Not only that, Samaria as a land was not as fertile or prosperous as Galilee. The border between Samaria and Galilee was not unlike our border between the U.S. and Mexico or, closer to home, a the “border” that East Colfax represents for us. Or Sheridan if your coming from the west. Or Federal. On the border between Galilee and Samaria there was danger. You found things there that you wouldn’t elsewhere, kind of like East Colfax. On the border there was crime, sin and lepers.

Who were Lepers? Lepers were the ultimate outcasts. The disease of leprosy was (and is) a horrible and humiliating disease. Huge nodules grew on people’s bodies; nodules that discharged a foul smelling pus. Your eyebrows fell out, your eyes would glaze over. They lost nerve function and could not feel pain. Lepers were confined to colonies and were separated from the rest of humanity. They were a community of oozing sores, horrible smells and empty hearts. They lived lives of utter despair.

Author Julia Blackburn wrote a book called “Lepers Companion.” Listen to how she describes one woman’s encounter with a leper:
“Perhaps he has no hair…Perhaps he has a hand missing or holes in his body where the flesh has fallen away. He mustn’t touch my baby or he might kill it. He mustn’t speak to me except with the wind blowing against him. He mustn’t look at me because the sickness can jump out from a person’s eyes and catch hold of you” (Leper’s Companion).

But there was something special about this group of ten lepers. You see leprosy tends to make petty human differences irrelevant. For these lepers, the line of Jew/Samaritan was blurred. They were a community of the broken united by there common misery. William Barclay says, ‘here is an example of a great law of life. A common misfortune had broken down the racial and national barriers. In the common tragedy of their leprosy they had forgotten they were Jews and Samaritans and remembered only they were men in need.’

Adversity brings people together. Fr. Anderia tells me that in Sudan, and especially in the south, Christians do not make a big deal about their differences. While the Orthodox, Catholics and the Anglicans still have their differences, they all get together every week to pray together. Why? Because they share adversity and pain and loss together. And they bring it all to Jesus together.

The 10 lepers cried out to Jesus, ‘Jesus, Lord, have mercy on us.’ Here is a prayer that is both concise yet full of profound meaning. We can do no better, when life is filled with adversity and pain, to simply ask for mercy.
Jesus said, ‘Go show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were healed.
It took some faith for these lepers to do what Christ said. I’m sure they expected him to do something dramatic, to touch them or to command the sickness to leave. Instead, they had to take his word for it. Jesus simple word had to be enough.

I wonder what I would have done in such circumstances. Years of suffering and humiliation. Desperate for a touch from Jesus. Desperate for the healing that only he could provide and yet he does not say, ‘come here,’ but ‘go.’
Would we in such circumstances have had the faith simply to ‘take his word for it.’ So much of what we hold as truth as Christians we take on faith. Not that there is not good reason to believe, but when the rubber meets the road, we believe Jesus because we are stepping out in faith. The key challenge is, do we believe him when it is all on the line. Do we believe him when the odd are against us? When we are sick. When relationships are falling apart. When following him means sacrifice? Do we in the circumstances of our own life have the faith to ‘take his word for it?’
The lepers did take his word for it. And there life was restored. They were healed. The priest would confirm to them that they no longer had to live a life of shame. They no longer had to see the look of fear in others eyes whenever they came close to someone. They could once again touch the people they loved–and even better, receive human closeness and contact once again.

We’ll get to why the 9 didn’t come back in a minute. So why did the Samaritan come back? What was special about him? Was he just ‘raised right’ by his momma? Perhaps he remembered the stigma of being a Samaritan. Perhaps he needed more than just physical healing. Perhaps he saw his need for the Healer was just as great as the need for healing. It is often true that the further you are in despair, the more grateful you become. Because this man was a Samaritan, the pain of being a leper was doubled due to his social status–or lack thereof. One writer has said, ‘The idea of a Samaritan leper receiving God’s help was undoubtedly shocking to many, since they had written off the people of either category as being beyond help.’
Since he was ‘beyond help’ in the eyes of the world he was doubly grateful.
He knew that his physical healing was only one piece. He knew that the love of Jesus not only brought healing to his body, it brought healing to his broken soul and heart.

Then there is the 9 lepers. What happened? “Were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other 9?” Says Jesus.
Why didn’t the other nine come back? Maybe because they got too busy with their new lives. Maybe it was because they had to make up for lost time. Maybe it was because they were just plain ungrateful.
We, in a world of prosperity wouldn’t know anything about being ungrateful would we? I read in a recent copy of Fortune magazine about a new trend in China. As you know, couples are limited to 2 children by law in China. Therefore, there is a whole generation of only children growing up in China. They are known as “little emperors.” Why? Because in places where there is economic prosperity, there are spoiled, jaded kids raking in their parents money and gobbling up–that’s right—American products. Kids are consuming everything from Nelly (rap music) to MacDonald’s at alarming rates. Many of the products they find online and now American businesses are starting to cater to the ‘little emperors’ of China.
We have a whole country of ‘little emperors,’ whether they be children or adults. And little emperors don’t say ‘thank you.’ Little emperors expect everything without an ounce of gratitude.
I’m not saying this was necessarily the case with these lepers, but it often goes against human nature to have an ‘attitude of gratitude’ towards God.
When we are healed from our sickness, we give credit to medicine or our own efforts, rarely to God. When we get a new job we applaud our interviewing skills, rather than give thanks to God. When we observe the blessings of life we say, ‘boy I sure worked hard,’ rather than ‘thanks be to God.’
In the midst of our stewardship campaign, looking at it very simply, giving is our opportunity to give thanks for what God has done for us in Christ. He has given all to us, we give back to him. Sarah and I are grateful for how Christ has blessed us as for our church family. That’s what is behind our giving. None of us are costumers in church, but members of Christ’s body. It’s not about us, but about what Christ has done for us in bringing us into relationship with God and the Body of Christ. ‘All things come from thee O Lord, and of our own we give to thee.’

Using some speculation, there is a subtle reason why the 9 didn’t return to give thanks. What is one of the primary symptoms of leprosy? The inability to feel pain. Guess what returned when they were healed? Pain. There must have been a sensation of pain while wounds closed and nerves returned to normal. You’ve been numbed in the dentist’s chair, how does it feel after the wisdom teeth have been pulled? For those who have had surgery, how does it feel a few days later?
Perhaps these lepers got more than they bargained for in their healing, pain. Perhaps, this new sensation of pain was too troubling for them to return to Jesus in thanksgiving. Pain often keeps us from God, even if it is his agent for healing. Who wants to give thanks for pain?

I don’t want to say that God always uses pain to heal us, as if he’s some kind of masochist. But often pain is his agent, especially in terms of emotional and spiritual healing. When is the last time you looked over your life and gave thanks for moments of pain? Again, I’m not saying that God arbitrarily uses suffering to teach us some sort of lesson. What I am saying is that sometimes pain is just as much a part of healing as comfort and peace.
Just as in the physical realm, recovery from illness or injury is painful, so in the spiritual realm, becoming more of what Christ calls us to be can be a very difficult process.

God often uses pain as an agent of healing. And no one wants to thank him for that. St. Francis day was October 4th. Before Francis had his dramatic conversion experience, he was spoiled. He looked down on others. Especially lepers. In his spoiled days he was on a journey and he happened upon quite a sight. A leper colony. Horrible stench, and mangled, ugly, pathetic people. Francis wanted to bolt. But another sight caught his eye. A young woman named Clare. Clare was not a leper, in fact she was quite beautiful. But Clare was tending to the lepers, bandaging their wounds and giving them food. Francis ran away, but he never forgot that experience. Later, Francis would be so full of the love of Jesus that he returned to the leper colony. He wanted to love those lepers who he had previously hated. He, like Clare, learned to love that which was unlovely and unlovable. He bound their wounds and gave them water. He even learned to kiss the wounds of lepers. Why? Because the pain of experiencing his own selfishness led him to be healed. Then he could heal others. The love of Christ exposed his sin and he realized that he was in worse shape than the lepers!

There is a definite pain in being a disciple of Jesus. There are the worries and cares of this life. How will I pay the bills? Am I a good enough father or mother or provider?

There is also the pain of realizing how unloving and how selfish we can be. There is also the pain of realizing how we fall short. God uses these realizations not to rub in it, but to heal us.

God often uses pain to heal us. But ultimately, it was his pain that brought the most healing. Isaiah 53 says, ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his wounds we are healed.’

The primary source of pain that Jesus uses for our healing is his own. Our healing was found in his beatings. Our healing was found in his scourging. Our healing was found in the nails. Our healing was found in the crown of thorns. Our healing was found in his blood. If you’ve ever felt that you were beyond hope. If you’ve ever felt like you were unloved. Remember the cross. And be grateful. Be thankful. And don’t forget to tell him.

One last thing. After this passage is a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees and his disciples about the coming of the Kingdom and the last days. “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the Kingdom of God is in your midst.” As Jesus was walking along the borderlands he turned his face towards Jerusalem, towards the cross. The cross is a sign, ironically, to the Kingdom of heaven. But there is another sign of the coming Kingdom and it is represented by Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan.

The fact that Jesus was turning his attention to the Gentiles and the unwanted-to those who were not before considered part of the people of God, Samaritans, Gentiles, tax collectors and sinners, this was also a sign of the Kingdom. Jesus says to the Samaritan, ‘your faith has saved you.’ This is more than physical healing he is talking about. He is talking about full restoration.

The Prophets predicted it. Recall this prophecy of Malachi: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered in my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations [the Gentiles], says the LORD of hosts” (Mal. 1:11).

With people like the Samaritans and the Gentiles coming to Jesus, the harvest of disciples begins to grow, which is a sign of the Kingdom. “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the Kingdom of God is in your midst.”

How do you know if the Kingdom is in our midst. I’m taking a chance here by asking you that question. Many churches look to the bottom line: ‘how many butts in the pew and how many bucks in the bank?’ Some days are better than others for us, but I turn to you, how do we know that the Kingdom is in our midst? If it was here, how would we know how to find it?

How will we respond to the harvest?
There are many here who are responding…

Proper 22C
Luke 17:1-10

We’ve mentioned several times how Luke is a book of discipleship.  There are several examples of what a disciple looks like.  A person of humility, one who asks for mercy, not like the arrogant scribes and Pharisees.  Jesus has challenged us, in Luke, to see ourselves in need of God’s mercy and to expose in us the ways that we refuse to show mercy.  The Table of the Lord is full of the humble and the merciful.  Those who are full of themselves and their own righteousness are on the outside looking in.

As in all of New Testament Scripture, Luke is written not to individuals but to the whole community.  So there is depicted a corporate, a communal, discipleship as well as an individual one.  There is a discipleship that is expected of Christ’s Body and not just the individual members. Like Amos calling Israel back from its sin, so does Jesus call us to mutual accountability and discipleship.

We miss the whole of Jesus’ words if we do not include Luke 17:1-10 rather than just 4-10 like the Lectionary has set it up.  Let me read to you the first part of this chapter. “And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

In the first part of Luke 17, Jesus gives four basic teachings on discipleship in the body.  The first is the community of Jesus is not to be a scandal to the world.  The other three are easy to remember.  The community of Jesus is to be a community of: forgiveness, faith and faithfulness.

First, the community is not to be a scandal to the world.  Jesus says that sin is bound to come, but woe to those to whom it comes and woe to the one who ‘causes a little one to sin.’  The word that Jesus uses for ‘causes to sin’ is actually only one word, it is the Greek word skandalon.  Another way we translate it is, ‘stumbling block,’ but it is where we get the word, ‘scandal.’

The community of Jesus has to be a place and a people of accountability.  We are mutually accountable to each other.  As Anglican Christians we believe that it is not just ‘me and Jesus.’  The community is a community of salvation.  We believe in the catholic notion of communion of saints, both the living saints on earth and the living saints who have gone to glory.  What we do effects each other and we are accountable the church that gave us the Faith, we are accountable to the church meets on 1st and Colorado, we are accountable to the church around the world.

The disputes and chaos around our Episcopal Church seem complicated but the matter is really simple.  Somewhere we forgot to be accountable.  We forgot to be accountable to the Church of all times and all ages and we forgot to be accountable to the rest of the Anglican Communion.

I’ve been reading a book by Bishop John Rucyahana of Rwanda.  He talks of his experience as a Tutsi.  He was forced to be a refugee to Uganda in the 70s because of the already festering hatred and tension and killing of Tutsis by the neighbors and friends they grew up with.  He was blessed to be ordained in Uganda when Idi Amin took power.  He was threatened by Amin’s troops and eventually he returned to Rwanda to witness the mass genocide of the 90s.  By the way, the Burundi’s among us, some of them witnessed firsthand the genocide of the Tutsis, for the Hutus and Tutsis make up most of their population.

We say we are in the Anglican Communion.  But how many of us gave one thought to the Anglican Christians slaughtered in 1994?

It is bad enough that none of the nations of the world and members of the United Nations security council (that is the US, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China) did nothing (other than evacuate) but the scandal is that the rest of the Christians in the world were not even paying attention.

Right now Anglican Christians suffer in Pakistan, Nigeria, Sudan and many other places throughout the world.  The scandal as Episcopalians not only that we do not feel accountable to them in our own actions and decisions, the scandal is that we do not care about the suffering of Christians around the world.  Especially if their skin is darker than ours.

We don’t have to be a scandal.  We don’t have to be a stumbling block.  We can be a community of accountability.  Accountable to the Scriptures and the Church who has gone before us, accountable to each other, and accountable to the rest of the church throughout the world.  Accountable to and for the children of this world who share our church tradition!  Accountable to the displaced Anglicans and other Christians who are strangers in our land.  What we do and what we do not do effects the rest of the body.  What our relationships look like and don’t look like effects the rest of the body.

The other three points Jesus mentions are no less important.  Forgiveness, faith and faithfulness.

Jesus says that his people forgive each other whenever there is repentance.   When we offend others and sin against others there is to be forgiveness and restoration.  Seven times a day, says Jesus if the one who sins asks for forgiveness.  Sounds like marriage!  How many times do you say your sorry gents?

Seven times a day.  And seven is the number of completion.  Jesus is not saying that it is limited to seven but that forgiveness is limitless as long as there is repentance.  I would encourage all of us married couples to put up a forgiveness chart on your refrigerators.  Now I’m talking everyday stuff by the way, not abuse or adultery, that would involve intervention from a third party.  What I mean is the everyday offenses.  Put up a forgiveness chart and see if you get to seven per day.  Most of the difficulties in marriage arise when we want to win or lose something, or if we are just plain selfish.

Seven times a day.  Forgive seven times per day.  What happens in churches when there is conflict or when someone sins against someone else?  No one ever acknowledges sin or repents or clears the air.  What usually happens?  ‘Well, if that is what is going on there, I’m outta here!’  Then there are e-mail wars or phone calls or parking lot meetings and it festers and festers and festers until you’ve got a real problem.

Scientists created an island outside of Alaska called ‘rat island.’  It started as a way of observing rat behavior but it has turned out to be frightening situation in which no other specie can co-exist with rats.  Rats even eat birds.  They feed on their eyes and their brains and they leave the rest to rot.  So the island becomes a place of disease and filth.  And you can’t drown a rat.  Did you know that when there is a ship wreck near land, scientists are more worried about a rat spill than an oil spill?  Oil is less of a problem for the ecosystem than rats.

This is what the lack of forgiveness and repentance in a community is like.  Gossip, backbiting, withholding forgiveness, these things are worse for this church than if we had a fire and the whole building burned down–assuming the building were empty of course.

Seven times per day.

Next, the community of Jesus is a community of faith.  Jesus says that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can say to a mulberry tree, ‘be uprooted and planted into the sea’ and it will be uprooted.  Wow.  Little boys when they are small want to be Superman or Spiderman or Batman.  I wanted to be what many in my generation wanted to be.  A jedi like Luke Skywalker.  (By the way, Luke is named after Luke the evangelist, but there is a secondary meaning).

What does a jedi do?  They move stuff with jedi mind tricks.  You can pick things up with the move of a hand.  You can even crush tracheas if you are so inclined.  Is this what Jesus had in mind?  Now there are Christian saints of the past who had certain charisms like ability to see the future and such.  But does Jesus say that faith is like jedi power?

Whenever Jesus gives teachings such as these, we must put them in context.  In isolation this text has caused problems among people who think being a Christian means super powers or science of the mind kind of healing powers.  God can heal and God does heal.  God can bring miracles and God does bring miracles.  But God does it, sometimes through us, but these things never come from our hands.

What Jesus is getting at is the ability to believe that the community of Christ can be the kind of people he is describing.  Accountability, repentance, forgiveness, these things are actually possible.  Faith that believes that the gospel has power to change lives.  How do you know when lives are changed?  When there is forgiveness, repentance and accountability among Christians.

I love the subtitle of Bishop Racyahana’s book.  The book is called The Bishop of Rwanda and the subtitle is Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones.  It takes an extra measure of grace to go there doesn’t it?  It’s faith that can say there is forgiveness amidst genocide.  It is faith that believes the power of the gospel is more powerful than all the world’s hatreds put together.  It’s the kind of faith that can move mountains.

We are part of a parish that has great opportunity to believe.  I’m not a power of positive thinking guy because I believe we need to see what and who we are not before we can see what we can become.  But I do believe that the power of the gospel is more powerful than anything.  And I believe that God can do anything when his people look to him.

I believe there is enough resources in our pockets to make this parish what it ought to be.  We can renew and renovate our plant and also be a light to the darkness of the world.  We can even be a place of forgiveness and healing, something that we have always tried to realize.

Lastly, Jesus wants his disciples, his people to be a people of faithfulness.  Jesus compares his disciples as servants, slaves who do what we do because that is what we are supposed to do.  There is nothing sexy about this message.  Jesus even uses Episcopalians’ favorite word: duty.  We do what we are supposed to do because we are supposed to do it.

Giving is a lot like that.  We begin our stewardship campaign this year next week.  In the Episcopal Church there are two categories of churches: missions and parishes.  A parish is a church that is self-sustaining, one that exists relatively autonomously.  There are also missions, those churches that rely on the financial support of the diocese.  A parish has a ‘rector’ and a mission has a ‘vicar’ which means he serves ‘in the place of’ the bishop.  In a parish, the vestry belongs to the church, in a mission the vestry is called the ‘bishop’s council’ and belongs to the bishop.

What do you think we are?  We are a parish.  I am your rector.  The vestry belongs to you.  This means we are 100% self-sustaining.  We pay all of our own bills for maintaining the facility and paying salaries and doing ministry.  We depend on no one else but our people to sustain the church.  To be faithful is to support the church.  Call it duty or whatever.  There are those in our parish who are struggling, but like everything we have talked about today, there is a mutuality to all of this. What we want this year is 100% participation from young and old.

I have to admit some failures on your leadership’s part. Where we have failed as the leadership of this church is that we have not asked for enough.  We have been minimalists and so you have been minimalists.  We’ve asked for little and we’ve received little.  It is time for us to have faith and to be faithful.

I am so excited at what this church has become.  We have been through so much.  It is time to stop getting by and start being what God wants us to be.

But there is more to faithfulness than writing checks.  We are all:
-responsible for the building
-responsible for the ministry of this church
-the face of Christ in this corner

Jesus primary way of making himself known is through his people!

Proper 21
Amos 6:1-7

I’d like to spend one more week on Amos. A reminder about the history during Amos’ time.
Before I introduce you to the prophet Amos, you must get to know the history a little bit. You know that after the death of King Solomon, Israel was divided into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom called Israel, whose capital was Samaria and Judah, the southern kingdom called Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem.

Amos lived in the southern kingdom in a small village called Tekoa, just ten miles from Jerusalem. During this time king Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II was king of Israel. He was not a prophet nor the son of a prophet. He was a manager of shepherds and a grower of figs. He made a good living. Amos was asked by God to go to the north and prophesy judgment. He was to critique their reliance on the state and their reliance on politics and their reliance on the comfort and security they were enjoying.

The prophet Amos was skilled at not allowing the people of Israel to ignore the moral issues of idolatry or the issue of misusing the poor and needy. We could make a contrast to our politically charged environment, it is one or the other. Moral issues or caring for the poor.

But we must have a biblical, Christian approach to life because we are the people of God. The church is herself a polis, a laos, a people. We are a Christian before we are a Republican. We are a Christian before we are a Democrat. In this country we have ‘religious freedom.’ That means we are free to exercise our religion. But Christianity is not a democracy. The people of God do not operate in a democratic system. Regardless of what the culture around us do, we are members of a kingdom, and we have a Lord and King, Jesus Christ. We are a people unto ourselves, baptized and grafted into Jesus. We are a Body.

This is where Amos wanted to bring the children of Israel back to. They needed to remember where their allegiance was to lie and they needed to look at their situation from the perspective of the people of God, not as citizens of a political Israel.

Amos’ message this morning is to take to task those who have defined themselves by the secular state–by the secular idea of success. And he continues to bring mind the idolatry of Israel, as well as, again, the treatment of the poor. Listen to the verses just preceding our passage:

“I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god—your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts” (Amos 5:21-27 ESV).

Their feasts and sacrifices are unwanted because their hands are dirty. Idolatry and mistreatment of the poor make religious duty abhorrent to the LORD. What Amos wanted was justice and righteousness.

The result of Israel’s complacency, the result of Israel’s idolatry, the result of their security in their state, their riches and their military instead of their security in God–the result of all of this is that they will first. That is the first to be exiled. Amos says, in 6:1 ‘Woe to you who are at ease…the notable men of the first of the nations..’ and in 6:7, ‘Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile…’

What can we take for our reflection?
How many of us are secure in our possessions or our comfort, or our jobs, or whatever and do not consider that God is really the one we need to be attentive to? How many of us are too secure in this world and in its ideas of success and failure?

How many of us struggle with old fashioned idolatry? We don’t call it that, but we have plenty of temples ourselves. You remember that in Amos’ time, King Jeroboam II fashioned a Temple in Bethel to Yahweh, Baal and the golden calf, ‘who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt.’

What do our Temples look like? Park Meadows? The golden arches? Shotgun Willies? Invesco? Maybe our temple is the temple of public opinion, or a political party, or the approval of the culture?

In Amos’ Israel they were eating choice meat. In the ancient world, meat was a delicacy and was a rare (no pun intended) treat–yet here they are eating the best meat in ease. Wine was also a delicacy in the ancient world, a drink reserved for feast days and weddings–yet here they were drinking wine out of punchbowls.

For us, feasting is the norm and fasting is rare. One of our Muslim friends from Sudan is observing Ramadan. During Ramadan Muslims fast from sun up to sundown. Our friend told me that none of the Christians he has ever met fasts–yet it is an expectation of Jesus that his followers would fast.

Our idols are subtle, but real nonetheless. But let’s meddle a bit. What is our biggest idol among us? I’m sure all of us are lured by the comforts and pleasures of the culture, but our idol is more nuanced.

I would say our most prized idol as Episcopalians on 1st and Colorado is the STATUS QUO.
Now we would never put an idol to the status quo up on the altar. But I would say that Episcopalians are notorious for not wanting to be messed with. Kind of ironic while our denomination crumbles, but lets get back to us.

Let me tell you what status quo is not. It is not having a faith and worship to hang your hat on. Christianity is at its best when we take our Tradition seriously. The Creeds, the Scripture, the liturgy, these are all part of our identity as Christians. Without these things we are no longer Christian. But there is a difference between Tradition and traditionalism. As Jarslov Pelikan has said, “Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes, the whole enterprise will crumble.”

As Anglican Christians, our biggest struggle is to turn the status quo into our god. Not Tradition but traditionalism. Tradition says, ‘Jesus is Lord.’ Episcopal Traditionalism says, ‘yea but let’s not talk about that outside of these walls.’ Tradition says that the Kingdom is for Jews, and Gentiles alike and for every tribe and nation. Traditionalism says, ‘they have their churches, we have ours.’ Everyone who can trace their heritage to Great Britain, raise your hands. I guess we’re not as British as we thought! Tradition says, ‘the church is a movement in the world.’ Traditionalism says, ‘church is a building, a monument, a museum of a time long gone.’ Tradition says, ‘go into the world and preach the gospel.’ Traditionalism says, ‘we built it, I like it and I hope they won’t come.’ Tradition says, ‘they all heard the praises of God in their own language.’ Traditionalism says, ‘hegemony grows churches.’

The status quo. But God has brought us to this time in this place at this moment in history. The world has changed and we have the biggest opportunity to share the gospel than we ever have. And we must take the challenge. It is not something to be afraid of, but something to be excited about. Listen to what Erwin McManus has written,

‘God chooses not only the places but also the times in which we live. He has privileged us to live not only in the greatest expansion of human population but also with the greatest opportunity for the spread of the gospel. No previous generation, even maximizing its potential, could ever have considered reaching six billion people for Christ. If the church a hundred years ago had reached everyone on the face of the earth, they wouldn’t even have begun to touch the possibilities facing us. I am convinced and inspired that God would not allow us to live in a time of such great opportunity if he did not have on his heart the desire to pour out the greatest movement of his Spirit in human history.’

Do you believe that the faith in which you hold can change the world? Do you believe the gospel you believe has the power to light the world on fire?

Or are we stuck in the status quo? The traditionalism that actually militates against the Christian Tradition.

We need a mental shift. The Scriptures would say we need to repent–to change our direction and our mind set.

Do you think Jesus had in mind that we live a life of status quo? Do you think he believed his people were a movement or a monument?

What are the possibilities for us?