Sermon: (Gen 32:22-31, Rom 9:1-5, Matt 14:13-21)
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Pent. 7, 7-31-11
This Loaves and Fishes story is perhaps the most well-known of Jesus’ miracles. It is found in all four Gospels, a rarity, and there are two other multiplication accounts in Matt and Mark in which Jesus feeds 4000. In these accounts he feeds 5000. He probably multiplied loaves and fishes twice.
There are good reasons why it is so well-known and often repeated. It is full of symbolism and had great meaning in the early church, a ragtag church which was persecuted. For one thing, the parallel between these accounts and the story of the Last Supper is obvious. In both cases, the ritual is similar. Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and handed it out for food. That’s what He did at the Last Supper and that is what I do when I celebrate the Eucharist here. That’s what thousands of Christian priests and ministers do throughout the world when they celebrate the Eucharist, or serve Holy Communion or say Mass, whatever the terminology may be. As nearly as we can tell the early Christians did exactly the same thing in their little gatherings in homes and the catacombs. They told the stories about Jesus, especially this one about the loaves and fishes, and they would tell the story of the last Supper on their little tables which then became an altar. They broke the bread and distributed it and passed the cup. These became the Body and Blood of Christ, just as they do for us today.
That symbolism of the loaves and fishes, especially the fish, was used as a sign that the Eucharist was being celebrated in some hidden place. The Greek word for fish, IKTHYS stood for Jesus Christ, God’S Son,Savior. The simple outline of a fish can still be seen today on the walls of the catacombs in Rome.
Some doubting scholars over the years have tried to explain the miracles of Jesus as natural occurrences. The healings, for instance, were the result of the peoples’ faith that they would be healed. When He came walking on water He was simply stepping on stones, and when he supposedly feed 5000 or 4000 he encouraged people who had brought along a lunch to share it with the others. That doesn’t quite explain the 12 baskets left over, does it?
Obviously, I don’t agree with the total argument of those people, should we call them the rationalists. But I got to thinking about this multiplication miracle and realized there was an element of self-help involved. In every version Jesus first asks, when told the people were hungry, do we have some food? In today’s version the Apostles come forward with two 5 barley loaves and two fish. In another version they find a boy with some of the same. Jesus then takes what they have and somehow makes it into an abundance. In the Eucharist He takes our gifts and transforms them into spiritual food. This is so different from God’s miracles in the Old Testament. He fed the Hebrew people in the desert for like forty years, with manna and quails asking nothing by way of food from them as starter. Jesus, however, didn’t usually help unless he got participation. He did not heal wholesale. He wanted people to ask, to believe and to repent. This is participatory religion, not magic from on high.
Here’s a modern day story that was told to me as true. A couple of guys named Reb and Jackay had been working hard to open a restaurant in this little North Carolina town. They were waiting for their permit from the health department to open when Hurricane Hugo came 200 miles inland and just about destroyed the town, leaving only three buildings with power. Their restaurant, aptly named "Our Place," was one. They had 300 lbs of bacon and beef in their freezer, plus crates of lettuce tomatoes and bread ready to go, but the Health Inspector couldn’t get into his office and wouldn’t issue the permit to open. So the guys did the obvious thing. They gave it away, especially when they heard another restaurant was scalping people for food. Up went the sign, Free BLT’s and coffee for everyone. People flocked. The radio station picked it up and spread the word even further. Volunteers started helping the guys, waiting tables, doing dishes, cleaning the floor. People started bringing in the food from their freezers. Gonna spoil otherwise. A neighboring town that had not been hit so badly sent over supplies from their restaurants. The guys limited supplies increased to include 500 loaves of bread, cases of mayonnaise, 350 pots of coffee and bushels of produce. Before the day was over 16,000 meals were served. Miracles never cease to happen. And 12 baskets of leftover food were collected. (I just threw that last line in)
By the way, the Daisy Food Pantry at St. Paul’s, which serves the poor and whom we are pledged to support, needs 5 lb bags of flour, and sugar, jelly and spices.
I am going to close with the following prayer: As this broken bread once dispersed over the hills, was brought together and made into one loaf, so may your Church be brought together from the ends of the earth. May we, like this bread, like the Christ, be broken and shared with the world that all may be fed.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Dante's Beatrice
Sermon: (Mt. 13:31-33, 44-52)
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Pent 6, 7-24-11
It’s a fact that Jesus often taught in roundabout ways. He used parables, analogies and similes to get His message across. Today’s gospel selection is a good example of this. It is a series of comparisons: The kingdom of heaven is like…this, that, and the other thing.
Why did He do this? Some have speculated that he did it because he was operating in a dangerous world. On the one hand, Rome the occupying power, was always sensitive to any threat to their domination. On the other hand, the Jewish religious establishment was also protective of their position and looked suspiciously at prophets who might be critical of their oppressive teachings. So He hid his message in stories and comparisons that would only be apparent to believers. That way He could preach longer before being silenced.
There may be some truth in that view. For our purposes, though, I think this other view is more helpful. God and His ways are vastly beyond the ability of our imagination to comprehend Him and them. He sent His Son to teach us about these spiritual realities that are so beyond our comprehension. He not only sent Him to teach us, but to be the bridge between the human and divine, between Himself and us. And in the process to help us travel the journey back to the Father. One of His descriptive phrases for that journey is the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Since it is all pretty much beyond us, He chose to use the parables and analogies to help us understand. So, today He, as quoted by Matthew, lists all these comparisons. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, like yeast, like a hidden treasure, like a merchant in search of fine pearls,, like a net thrown into the sea. Well, sermons have been preached on each one of these analogies or similes. After awhile we begin to get the picture. The Kingdom of heaven is not just where we go after we die, (where we hope we go, that is.) It is God’s kingdom, His way established already on earth and continuing into eternity. Each one of the similes gives us a glimpse into what God is like and what life with him is like. Not only that, they give us direction into how we can further His kingdom on earth ourselves and ultimately arrive at full knowledge and unity with Him. This fullness is referred to by theologians as the beatific vision.
Others have followed in the attempt to span the distance between God and man and to explain what that journey toward unity is like. One such is Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy. Dante did in the 14th Century for the Italian language what in the 16th century Shakespeare did for English and Cervantes, the Author of Don Quixote, did for Spanish. He established Italian in place of latin as the artistic language of Italy and ultimately the official language.
The Divine Comedy is a classic in whatever language it is read. It is not called a comedy because it is funny, but because it has a happy ending. Shakespeares' plays are classified as tragedies or comedies depending on the happiness or not of the endings. The Divine Comedy a piece of allegorical fiction describing Dante’s own journey through Hell, Purgatory and finally to Heaven. Hence, the happy ending. Along the way Dante teaches about the Christian life, the capital sins that got people into hell and the cardinal virtues that got people into heaven. Through hell and purgatory, the latin poet Virgil, in fictitious form, is his guide. When he gets to heaven a woman named Beatrice is his guide to the higher mountains of the beatific vision, meeting God face to face.
By now you are thinking “What is he talking about?” Why is he talking about Beatrice? Because today we dedicate our beautiful new organ. I am naming her Beatrice, or at least I will be calling her Beatrice myself, because she will lead us to higher and higher levels of God’s beauty. Beatrice is our companion as we journey into the Kingdom of Heaven, starting here on earth.
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Pent 6, 7-24-11
It’s a fact that Jesus often taught in roundabout ways. He used parables, analogies and similes to get His message across. Today’s gospel selection is a good example of this. It is a series of comparisons: The kingdom of heaven is like…this, that, and the other thing.
Why did He do this? Some have speculated that he did it because he was operating in a dangerous world. On the one hand, Rome the occupying power, was always sensitive to any threat to their domination. On the other hand, the Jewish religious establishment was also protective of their position and looked suspiciously at prophets who might be critical of their oppressive teachings. So He hid his message in stories and comparisons that would only be apparent to believers. That way He could preach longer before being silenced.
There may be some truth in that view. For our purposes, though, I think this other view is more helpful. God and His ways are vastly beyond the ability of our imagination to comprehend Him and them. He sent His Son to teach us about these spiritual realities that are so beyond our comprehension. He not only sent Him to teach us, but to be the bridge between the human and divine, between Himself and us. And in the process to help us travel the journey back to the Father. One of His descriptive phrases for that journey is the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Since it is all pretty much beyond us, He chose to use the parables and analogies to help us understand. So, today He, as quoted by Matthew, lists all these comparisons. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, like yeast, like a hidden treasure, like a merchant in search of fine pearls,, like a net thrown into the sea. Well, sermons have been preached on each one of these analogies or similes. After awhile we begin to get the picture. The Kingdom of heaven is not just where we go after we die, (where we hope we go, that is.) It is God’s kingdom, His way established already on earth and continuing into eternity. Each one of the similes gives us a glimpse into what God is like and what life with him is like. Not only that, they give us direction into how we can further His kingdom on earth ourselves and ultimately arrive at full knowledge and unity with Him. This fullness is referred to by theologians as the beatific vision.
Others have followed in the attempt to span the distance between God and man and to explain what that journey toward unity is like. One such is Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy. Dante did in the 14th Century for the Italian language what in the 16th century Shakespeare did for English and Cervantes, the Author of Don Quixote, did for Spanish. He established Italian in place of latin as the artistic language of Italy and ultimately the official language.
The Divine Comedy is a classic in whatever language it is read. It is not called a comedy because it is funny, but because it has a happy ending. Shakespeares' plays are classified as tragedies or comedies depending on the happiness or not of the endings. The Divine Comedy a piece of allegorical fiction describing Dante’s own journey through Hell, Purgatory and finally to Heaven. Hence, the happy ending. Along the way Dante teaches about the Christian life, the capital sins that got people into hell and the cardinal virtues that got people into heaven. Through hell and purgatory, the latin poet Virgil, in fictitious form, is his guide. When he gets to heaven a woman named Beatrice is his guide to the higher mountains of the beatific vision, meeting God face to face.
By now you are thinking “What is he talking about?” Why is he talking about Beatrice? Because today we dedicate our beautiful new organ. I am naming her Beatrice, or at least I will be calling her Beatrice myself, because she will lead us to higher and higher levels of God’s beauty. Beatrice is our companion as we journey into the Kingdom of Heaven, starting here on earth.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
RoundUp
Sermon: Gen 28:10-19, Rom 8:12-25, Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 7-17-11
Having grown up on a farm I can certainly understand this parable of the wheat and the weeds. My father hated weeds in his corn fields. He hated them so much that he did everything he could to eradicate them. That meant I would be doing it with him. Understand please, those were the days before chemical weed killers, the herbicides, and the days of cheap gasoline. After the grain came up we would cultivate it by plowing with a tractor between the rows in order to do in the weeds. There would always be weeds. In a good year we might do that three times, about the same number of times you hoped to get a cutting of hay from the alfalfa fields. It was boring work, driving down the rows pulling the cultivator behind the tractor. On a hot summer day in western Illinois, especially just after dinner and the noon meal was called dinner, one could get a little drowsy. It did come to my father’s attention on a couple of occasions that I had fallen asleep and ran into the fence at the end of the field.
That was nothing compared with what came next. When the stalks got too tall to pull a cultivator over them there would still be weeds that had survived. It was true, like the gospel parable says, that you couldn’t pull the weeds out without uprooting the corn as well. And then you had defeated the whole purpose of the project. But my father was not to be outdone. He developed an ingenious method. He and I would go down the rows, sometimes on our knees, where there were weeds and cut them off with a knife. That way they were defeated and the corn survived. His corn fields were immaculate. As I said, my father hated weeds. I came to share the sentiment.
But that all changed with the advent of the fertilizers and herbicides and high gas prices. Farmers can’t afford to drive through their fields very many times in a season. They use chemicals to kill the weeds. Too bad I had already left the farm when that happened. I might have made a different career choice. Instead of standing up here preaching I might be a gentleman farmer in Illinoi, sitting on my front porch watching the corn grow without weeds and getting ready for the next cutting of alfalfa.
One of those chemicals is RoundUp. How many of you use RoundUp in your gardens and lawns? Pretty powerful, isn’t it? You have to be really careful with it, don’t you or you will kill the very plants you are trying to nurture. I can remember the first time I used it on my side walk to get the weeds out of the cracks. I wondered a couple of days later why the grass and flowers along the side of the walk were dead along with the weeds in the cracks. I had killed the plants I was trying to save.
So, even in this chemical era of agriculture, the parable still has meaning. The farmer in the parable is saying no, don’t uproot the weeds; you will pull up the wheat or the corn. Let them grow alongside together and at harvest time then you can separate them. I suspect my father didn’t like this parable and he heard it many times.
So, what does this all mean for us? That we should use RoundUp carefully in our gardens? Oh, we’re not getting off that easily.
There are several possible messages here. The popular one with folks is that the wheat are the good guys and the weeds are the bad guys. Of course, I am one of the good guys and see those other people over there. They’re the bad guys. They will burn at harvest time.
But I like this other interpretation. We are the field. In our field, in our lives, is both wheat and weeds. It is my job to cultivate the good crop and eradicate the bad growth. They grow side by side in my life. My calling is to transform myself in such a way that I am less self-centered, more giving, less hating, less lying, less gossiping, more looking out for others, less hurting them. It is a lifelong work. Paul in the reading from Romans is, I believe talking about the same things. He used the distinction between spirit and body, instead of wheat and weeds. We are called into sonship and daughtership with God. We are called to be so close to Him that we call him by the intimate name Abba.
It was fun this past week in San Francisco, observing our eighteen month old granddaughter calling her father “dada.” Abba is the Aramaic equivalent of dada. We are called in Paul’s words, to live the life of the spirit instead of the life of the flesh or in Matthew’s words to cherish the wheat and destroy the weeds. It is not easy. There is no magic spiritual can of RoundUp. Paul compares it to a lifelong birthing process. The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, he says. And not only creation but we ourselves groan inwardly as we wait for adoption, for the redemption of our bodies. And I thought it was painful crawling on the ground cutting those weeds!!
Are there weeds in our fields? Sure, some of our own making; some of others’ making. Some of those we can’t change. We just have to live with our own failings and those of others. But many, should I say most, we can change. We can transform them, can transform ourselves, before the great harvest, the great RoundUp.
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 7-17-11
Having grown up on a farm I can certainly understand this parable of the wheat and the weeds. My father hated weeds in his corn fields. He hated them so much that he did everything he could to eradicate them. That meant I would be doing it with him. Understand please, those were the days before chemical weed killers, the herbicides, and the days of cheap gasoline. After the grain came up we would cultivate it by plowing with a tractor between the rows in order to do in the weeds. There would always be weeds. In a good year we might do that three times, about the same number of times you hoped to get a cutting of hay from the alfalfa fields. It was boring work, driving down the rows pulling the cultivator behind the tractor. On a hot summer day in western Illinois, especially just after dinner and the noon meal was called dinner, one could get a little drowsy. It did come to my father’s attention on a couple of occasions that I had fallen asleep and ran into the fence at the end of the field.
That was nothing compared with what came next. When the stalks got too tall to pull a cultivator over them there would still be weeds that had survived. It was true, like the gospel parable says, that you couldn’t pull the weeds out without uprooting the corn as well. And then you had defeated the whole purpose of the project. But my father was not to be outdone. He developed an ingenious method. He and I would go down the rows, sometimes on our knees, where there were weeds and cut them off with a knife. That way they were defeated and the corn survived. His corn fields were immaculate. As I said, my father hated weeds. I came to share the sentiment.
But that all changed with the advent of the fertilizers and herbicides and high gas prices. Farmers can’t afford to drive through their fields very many times in a season. They use chemicals to kill the weeds. Too bad I had already left the farm when that happened. I might have made a different career choice. Instead of standing up here preaching I might be a gentleman farmer in Illinoi, sitting on my front porch watching the corn grow without weeds and getting ready for the next cutting of alfalfa.
One of those chemicals is RoundUp. How many of you use RoundUp in your gardens and lawns? Pretty powerful, isn’t it? You have to be really careful with it, don’t you or you will kill the very plants you are trying to nurture. I can remember the first time I used it on my side walk to get the weeds out of the cracks. I wondered a couple of days later why the grass and flowers along the side of the walk were dead along with the weeds in the cracks. I had killed the plants I was trying to save.
So, even in this chemical era of agriculture, the parable still has meaning. The farmer in the parable is saying no, don’t uproot the weeds; you will pull up the wheat or the corn. Let them grow alongside together and at harvest time then you can separate them. I suspect my father didn’t like this parable and he heard it many times.
So, what does this all mean for us? That we should use RoundUp carefully in our gardens? Oh, we’re not getting off that easily.
There are several possible messages here. The popular one with folks is that the wheat are the good guys and the weeds are the bad guys. Of course, I am one of the good guys and see those other people over there. They’re the bad guys. They will burn at harvest time.
But I like this other interpretation. We are the field. In our field, in our lives, is both wheat and weeds. It is my job to cultivate the good crop and eradicate the bad growth. They grow side by side in my life. My calling is to transform myself in such a way that I am less self-centered, more giving, less hating, less lying, less gossiping, more looking out for others, less hurting them. It is a lifelong work. Paul in the reading from Romans is, I believe talking about the same things. He used the distinction between spirit and body, instead of wheat and weeds. We are called into sonship and daughtership with God. We are called to be so close to Him that we call him by the intimate name Abba.
It was fun this past week in San Francisco, observing our eighteen month old granddaughter calling her father “dada.” Abba is the Aramaic equivalent of dada. We are called in Paul’s words, to live the life of the spirit instead of the life of the flesh or in Matthew’s words to cherish the wheat and destroy the weeds. It is not easy. There is no magic spiritual can of RoundUp. Paul compares it to a lifelong birthing process. The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, he says. And not only creation but we ourselves groan inwardly as we wait for adoption, for the redemption of our bodies. And I thought it was painful crawling on the ground cutting those weeds!!
Are there weeds in our fields? Sure, some of our own making; some of others’ making. Some of those we can’t change. We just have to live with our own failings and those of others. But many, should I say most, we can change. We can transform them, can transform ourselves, before the great harvest, the great RoundUp.
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