Wild Grapes and Grafted Olive Branches

        “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard:  My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.  He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.”

Isaiah, inspired by the Holy Spirit, speaks of singing a song.  This passage is known as the Song of the Vineyard.  But this is not a well known hymn sung by a graduating elementary student.  This is a love song sung by God to his chosen people.  This is a sad song, for it speaks of unrequited love.  Much of the prophesy in Isaiah is in poetical form, this passage is no exception.  So the words are very well fitted to be song lyrics.  Three of the Canticles in the Book of Common Prayer, which are songs, come from other passages in Isaiah.  So Isaiah is very well suited to be put to music.  In a similar manner the psalms were written to be sung.  They are the hymnal of the Old Testament.  That is why we chant the psalms.  This morning’s psalm is similar in some ways to our poetical passage from Isaiah.  Both use images of grapes and grapevines.  This is continued in our gospel reading.  Grapes, being an important crop in Israel, are an often used as images throughout the Bible.

Both of these passages are very lovely, and were probably even more so in the original Hebrew.  But there is a contrast in the view of the psalmist and that of God spoken through Isaiah.  In verses 12 and 13 the psalmist claims that God has abandoned them:  “Why hast thou broken down her hedge, that all they who go by pluck off her grapes?  The wild boar of the wood doth root it up and the wild beasts of the field devour it.”  Often times we feel that God has abandoned us.  The only way to get past that feeling is to deal with it honestly.  Psalms like this can be very helpful in doing just that.  The psalmist them pleads for reconciliation:  “Turn thee again, thou God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and visit this vine.”

But God, speaking through Isaiah, says that the real problem is that the people have not been faithful to the covenant he made with them.  In the psalm the people cry, “Behold and visit this vine.”  In Isaiah, God asks:  “What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?  When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?”  It is the people’s unfaithfulness that is the problem; it is not that God has forgotten them.  He will never forget, for he always longs to come to the aid of those who call upon him and are willing to follow in his ways.

In our reading from Matthew, Jesus tells a parable based on Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard from our Old Testament reading.  It begins with very similar wording about setting up a grape vineyard.  In Isaiah, the leaders of Israel who fail to follow God are represented by the wild grapes, which are no good, when it should have yielded good grapes.  But Jesus switches the imagery to make the unfaithful leaders the tenants who refuse to give the owner (God) his share of the harvest.  This allows Jesus to add the element of the prophets represented by the servants who are sent to collect God’s share of the harvest.  More importantly, it adds the element of Jesus himself as the son who is killed by the wicked tenants.

This parable follows right after the parable we heard last week.  Both parables are said in response to the chief priests and elders who confront Jesus in the temple during Holy Week and question his authority.  Even more than last week’s parable, this parable illustrates how the leaders of Israel have misused their authority in the past and continue to do so.  Only now their crimes have escalated.  Throughout the history of Israel the leaders of the country mistreated and even killed the prophets sent by God as his servants.  Now they are rejecting God’s own Son and in a few days they will see to it that he is crucified.  Because God spoke through the prophets and told the people things they did not want to hear, they would not accept the authority of the prophets.  For the same reason, they refuse to accept the authority of Jesus.

In the parable, the wicked tenants think that if they kill the son, they will inherit the vineyard.  In those days, it was common, when there was no heir, to give the property to those who occupied it.  But the tenants are forgetting about the owner of the vineyard just as the leaders of Israel have forgotten about God.  Of course they still attend to their ritualistic duties and no doubt they made a great show of praying to God.  But they have lost touch with God, and so do not recognize his Son when he comes.  It is folly for the tenants to think they will gain the vineyard by killing the owner’s son.  It is folly for the leaders of Israel to think they can go on with business as usual while rejecting God’s Son.

And so Jesus concludes the parable with a question:  When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”  And the unfaithful leaders respond with the only logical answer:  “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Their own words have condemned them, but apparently they can’t quite see it due to their arrogant pride.  So Jesus makes it clear to them by quoting Psalm 118:  “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.’”  This verse comes from the building of the temple.  The cornerstone was sent from quarry to the building site.  The builders couldn’t see what it was for at that point, so they set it aside.  They when they were ready for the cornerstone, they sent a messenger to the quarry to send it over.  The message came back that they had already sent it.  Then they had to make a search and find where they had put the stone that they thought did not fit.  Jesus then tells them what the parable and this verse from psalm 118 means in terms of them personally:  “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.”

What a hard sentence they have brought upon themselves.  As rulers of God’s chosen people they have major responsibilities.  When they refuse to accept the authority of God’s own Son, they are abdicating themselves of this responsibility.  Israel was God’s chosen people, and they still are in many ways.  They are the people to whom God first revealed himself.  They are the people through whom salvation was brought into the world.  They still have a special relationship with him.  But when they failed to accept his Son, they lost the kingdom of God.  It was taken from them as Jesus said.  Of course many Jews, thousands in fact, became believers in Christ.  But the nation as a whole, lead by these unfaithful leaders, would not accept him, and suffered the consequences.  In the year 70, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans and the temple was torn down.

The vineyards has been given to us as followers of Christ.  So we come out the big winners in this parable.  But remember this is true only as long as we do not make the same mistakes as the wicked tenants.  In the parable, the tenants looked wicked indeed, and so they are.  But in real life, they seemed to be holy men even though they were not.  So we must be careful not to make the same mistakes as the unfaithful leaders of Israel.  As long as we continue to work in God’s vineyard, and give him the first fruits, we will have a place in the kingdom of God.  Paul writes about this in his letter to the Romans.  If you read the book of Acts, you discover that on his missionary journeys, Paul would always go to the synagogue first, if he could find one, to proclaim the gospel.  He was appointed by Christ as Apostle to the Gentiles, but he was also called to preach to the “sons of Israel.”  So he always went to the synagogue which was the most likely place to find those Gentiles who were interested in the one true God.  He generally got a very favorably response from the Gentiles he found there.  But the response from the Jews was rather mixed.  Many of them became believers, but many more did not, and some of those who did not stirred up trouble for him.

And when you read Romans you discover the deep pain that Paul feels because so many of his fellow Jews reject Christ.  And he hopes that someday this may change.  We too should have that same hope for our Jewish brothers and sisters.  And Paul, like our psalm and our reading from Isaiah and Jesus’ parable in Matthew, uses an agricultural image to get his point across.  Only instead of grapes, he uses another major crop of Israel – olives.  And he refers to Gentile followers of Christ – that’s you and me – as wild olive branches grafted into the tree whose roots reach as deep as Abraham and whose trunk is Christ Jesus.

And he writes this:  “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles [that’s us].  Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.  For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?  If the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.”

Paul was not willing to give up on the salvation of his people, and neither is God.  But for the unfaithful leaders of Israel, the parable of the wicked tenants spells out their destruction.  But for us, this parable is one of great promise and tremendous responsibility.  The kingdom of God is ours for the asking.  All we must do is be faithful tenants and give God his share of the harvest.  Now that’s a deal!  So let our song not be like the psalm that wonders why God does not act.  And let us not give God cause to sing a lament because of our unfaithfulness as he does in Isaiah.  But let us sing songs of joy and thankfulness for the gracious gift our loving God bestows upon us.  The heart of the message in our psalm is not verses 13 and 13 but 7 and 19 which both say: “Turn US again, Lord God of host show the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole.”

 

Humility and Obedience – Holy Week

“Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Our reading from Philippians and our gospel reading present us with an interesting contrast between the humility of Jesus and the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day.  Only we don’t quite get the full force of the contrast.  We certainly get a clear picture from Paul of Jesus’ humility.  The contrast is in the gospel reading, only from what we heard we don’t quite get the contrast because we are not told that Jesus is telling this parable to the religious leaders.  Of course he is telling it to anyone “with ears to listen” as Jesus often said.  But the parable is told as a result of Jesus being confronted by the chief priests and the elders.

So if we back up five verses prior to where our reading begins, we read this:  “And when [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’”  So we need to ask ourselves, “what are the ‘things’ that the chief priests and elders referring to?”  Well, it says in the verse I just read that Jesus was teaching, but there is more to it than that.

It is Holy Week.  To be precise it is Tuesday of Holy Week.  Two days ago, Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph with the people proclaiming him to be a king.  One day ago he entered the temple and drove out the money changers.  So they are not challenging his authority to teach.  In Jesus time, you did not need a degree or to be ordained in order to be a rabbi and teach people.  All you needed was to have people who want to learn from you.  They were not challenging his authority to teach – although they clearly didn’t want him to teach; they didn’t agree with his teaching.  They were challenging his authority to make changes.  They were challenging his authority to point out what was wrong and do something about.  They were challenging the possibility that he was the Messiah, that he could actually be a king.  They saw him as a threat to their own authority, and they wanted him stopped.

And one way to stop him would be to have him claim that his authority came from God.  That would open him up to a charge of blasphemy.  Eventually, Jesus would state before the Sanhedrin that he was from God and would be charged with blasphemy and condemned to death.  But that was still two days away, and Jesus was not about to cooperate with their plan until the time was right.  So he foiled their plan by turning the tables and challenging them.  And he does it in a very clever way.  He sticks to the issue of authority, but he switches to the person of John the Baptist who the chief priests and elders didn’t like anymore than they do Jesus.  And he asks them if John’s baptism was from heaven or from men.  So he is taking the question they put to him and applying it to John the Baptist.  But behind it all he is questioning their authority.

It is a very interesting the way Jesus puts the question to them, particularly in regard to the chief priests.  Is John’s baptism from heaven or from men?  In other words, was John sent by God, and by implication Jesus as well since John came to prepare the way for Jesus, or did he get his authority from men?  Now the priests and particularly the chief priest should have their authority from God.  God set up the priesthood by his instructions to Moses and the priests were to be from the line of Aaron.  But the priesthood has become corrupted and is no longer in the line of Aaron, and their authority is no longer from God but from men.  That is a large part of why Jesus had to chase out the money changers and cleanse the temple.  That is why the temple fell in the year 70 as Jesus would soon prophesy.  Jesus turns the table on the chief priests and the elders because it is their authority that should be challenged because they are the ones who have not lived up to their responsibilities.  It is Jesus and John the Baptist who have been given the highest authority from God, and they have been faithful.

And when Jesus questions them about John’s authority, their hypocrisy is exposed.  They most certainly did not think John’s authority came from God.  They would never let themselves think that because John challenged the hypocritical way that they lived.  But Jesus knew that they would not risk saying this in public because John was so well thought of by the average Jew.  And if they lied and said that they believed John’s authority was from God, Jesus would reveal their lie by asking why they didn’t believe him.  And so they say they do not know which is true; they just don’t know.  They think they know, but they are not brave enough to say so.  Their trap has failed.

But Jesus does not let them off the hook quite yet.  In order to further expose their hypocrisy and show that their authority, which should be from God but is no longer from God, he gives us the parable we heard this morning. So let us look at this short parable.  Jesus begins by inviting their comments – “What do you think?”  They will condemn themselves by their own words.  The parable is about a father and two sons, God and two of his children, actually representing two groups of his children.  The father asks each to work in his vineyard.  Each is asked to do God’s will.  The first refuses, but then repents and goes.  The second agrees to go but does not go.  A very short parable.  Then comes the trap as Jesus asks them, “Which of the two did the will of his father?”  Naturally they say the first son.  He is the one who did what the father asked of him.

Which of these two sons do you relate to?  Or perhaps you relate to both of them.  I do.  Sometimes we are like the first son.  We refuse to obey God.  Then eventually, we realize our folly and do our best to obey him, at least for a while.  And sometimes we are like the second son.  We accept God’s call to us with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the way we get distracted from our goal and while we may superficially look like we are still obeying God, we are not.  But even then we still have the option of repenting and once again following God provided pride and hypocrisy do not get in our way.  And that is what Jesus wants the chief priests and elders to do, but they refuse to even consider the fact that they need to repent.

But we could have two more sons in this parable.  We could have one that said yes and then followed through. And we could have another who said no and stubbornly stuck to no.  Of course we could also through in some maybes, but that would really cloud the issues.  And it seems to me that if you ask someone to do something, the yes- yes and the no-no possibilities are the two most likely.  But Jesus isn’t talking about a specific task.  Working in the Father’s vineyard is a lifelong commitment.  It is the proper attitude toward life.

And while some people unfortunately say no their whole life long, none of us can say yes all the time.  There can be only one who fits this category, Jesus Christ our Lord.  There is only one who is always obedient to the Father’s will.  The chief priests and the elders would like to think of themselves in this category.  That is their prideful nature.  And Jesus exposes their hypocrisy when he says, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.  For John came to you in the way of righteousness.”   And here he answers the question of John’s authority that the priests and elders refused to answer.  “John came to you in the way of righteousness,” so his authority is from heaven.  He continues, “And you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him.  And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.”

The chief priests and elders must have been furious when they heard this.  Not only has their plot against Jesus failed, but it has actually backfired as their own authority is by implication clearly declared to be no longer from God but from themselves.  Worst of all, tax collectors and prostitutes, people they would not even look at, let along touch or speak to, are proclaimed more righteous in God’s eyes because they were willing to repent.  Tax collectors and prostitutes are not the kind of people we think of as being obedient to God either.  Jesus tells us there is no obedience without repentance.  We cannot do God’s work while refusing to live by his rules.

What an amazing contrast we have!  Here are the chief priests and the elders think it is they who are obeying God and the prostitutes and tax collectors are being disobedient.  And here is Jesus who says “No, they have repented, they have changed their lives and our now obeying God, but you in your pride have refused to repent and are thus refusing to obey God.”  And in their pride and hypocrisy, the chief priests and elders have the audacity to ask Jesus by what authority he does what he does.  If they had his humility, they would have seen their own need to repent.

This brings us back to the words of Saint Paul and the greatest contrast of all:  “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”  Man puffs himself up, while God humbles himself and comes to our rescue.

What an amazing God we have that he would do this for us.  It is almost beyond belief that the one who could boast far beyond anything any of us has to boast about, reveals himself to us in humility.  That thought is captured quite well in the beginning of one of our collects:  “O God you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.”  Isn’t that amazing?  And it’s true, isn’t it?  He does show his “almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.”  The all-powerful creator of the entire universe from the largest star to the smallest atom shows his almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.  Why?  Because he loves us.  Simply because he loves us.  What better course for us than to follow the example of our amazing God and say yes to working in his vineyard.

Sheep and Wolves – Sermon for June 25th, 2017

(Jeremiah 20:7-13,  Psalm 69:1-16,   Romans 5:15b-19,   Matthew 10:16-33)

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is a classic Christian reference book.  A new addition brings us up to date.  I will read just a few of the entries on the country of Nigeria:  “The period of 2000-2006 was a horrific one for Nigerian Christians.  Muslims – particularly in Nigeria’s Northern and Central States – made frequent raids and attacks on Christian villages.  Many of the attacks during this period occurred in Nigeria’s Plateau State.

“Plateau State is predominantly Christian.  It’s surrounded by Muslim states, and the governor of Plateau, Joshua Daryle, said that the goal of militant Muslims is to wage jihad against the Christians of Plateau to make them Muslim by force.

“Forty Christians died in Fajul, Plateau, in October 2002 when a force of about 2,000 militant Muslims invaded the village.  Homes were burned, women were raped, and seventeen policemen who came to aid villagers were murdered.  Seventeen Christians were killed in a similar attack in the nearby village of Kassa.  Armed mercenaries from the neighboring countries of Chad and Niger joined the jihad against the two villages. …

Saratu Turunda was a Nigerian woman who loved the children she taught in Sunday school.  Despite the bloodshed she declared, “I will not run away.  I am ready to take a stand.”  “She was killed for her faith in Christ by a fanatical Muslim mob.”  Many Christians around the world today are indeed sheep in the midst of wolves.

Two questions come to mind as I read our passage from Matthew.  The first is: why in the world would Jesus send out his followers “as sheep in the midst of wolves”?  It sounds like a death sentence, a rather horrible death sentence.  I’m sure the Supreme Court would rule it cruel and unusual punishment.  But it was all too usual for the early Christians who were slaughtered very much like sheep not in the midst of wolves, but of lions, and all for the amusement of the Romans.

It has been said that the blood of the martyrs has built the Church.  Does God want his followers to suffer?  No, of course not, but there is a battle going on in this world.  It has been going on since the beginning of creation.  It is a battle between good and evil, a battle between God and the devil.  We know that Christ has already won the war.  He won the war on the cross.  But the battle rages on.  The war is over but the battle continues, each side fighting for our souls.

The most notable battle of the War of 1812 was the battle of New Orleans that was fought late in the war.  It was so late in the war, that it actually took place after the peace treaty had been signed.  By the time the word of the treaty was received in New Orleans, the battle was over.  In the case of the war between good and evil, the battle goes on even though we know that God has won.  The devil has been defeated, but the only question that remains is what side each human being will choose.  We can choose Christ and be on the winning side, or we can choose the world and the devil and wind up on the losing side.  It seems like a no-brainer, but it is amazingly easy to choose the wrong side.  

The devil has his way of waging war, and God has a different way.  Christ won the war by giving up his life on the cross.  Now that’s a very different way of waging war.  But in the war for the souls of mankind, it is the only strategy that brings us salvation.  And as followers of Christ, it is our strategy as well.  This does not mean that we will all have to become martyrs.  It does mean that we must give our life to Christ in order to save our life.  Jesus tells us, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

It is in that spirit that Christians are able to face martyrdom with joy knowing that they have the sure promise of eternal life.  That is why Jesus tells us “Fear not, … every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”  If we stand up for Jesus, he will stand up for us.  So we have no reason to be afraid even if the wolves close in on us.

But this brings me to my second question, which is how does all of this apply to us?  Yes, we can easily see how it applies to Christians in Sudan and Nigeria and many other places around the world, BUT how does it apply to us?  For we do not seem to be in the midst of wolves.  There are wolves out there; we all not that.  But we are not flogged in synagogues or elsewhere.  We are not dragged before governors or kings.  And we are not persecuted in Rosamond and forced to flee to Lancaster or visa versa.  So how does this passage apply to us?  What is Jesus saying to us at Saint Andrew’s?

Perhaps it would be easier if we were in the midst of wolves.  At least the choices would be clearer.  Just as the devil failed to defeat Christ, he fails in his battles that produce the martyrs.  Persecution has always caused the Church to grow.  Even as people are dying in Sudan because of their faith, more and more people are taking up their cross and following Christ.  The devil will never succeed by persecuting us.  

In this country and many other so-called Christian countries, he employs a much more successful method.  He lulls us to sleep by convincing us that there is no conflict because there is no persecution.  Because we have religious freedom, we are tempted to embrace all that our culture offers us.  We see that there are good things in our culture and we embrace them.  There is nothing wrong with that as long as we do not make these things our god.  But if we are not careful, we are soon embracing the bad things in our culture and making excuses as to why they are not really so bad after all.  The world is a temptress, and the devil wins more souls through seduction than he could ever win by persecution.

So the reality is that we are very much in the midst of wolves, very clever wolves.  The terrorists are out there, but the wolves we are most in danger from are wolves in sheep clothing.  We are in the midst of wolves that do not seem like wolves.  We are in the midst of wolves who claim to be our friends.  I cannot help but think of the children’s story, “Little Red Riding Hood.”  You recall in the story that Red did not recognize the wolf at first because he was disguised as grandma.  This sounds absurd, but it is not far from how the devil sneaks up on us.  I don’t mean as grandma, but certainly someone like grandma, someone who we can trust.  The devil will fool you that the ways of the world are perfectly alright even when they are not.

Ever wonder what archaeologists will dig up from our civilization?  The list might include “McDonald’s signs – Michael Jackson’s Thriller albums – football goalposts – nuclear subs – religious artifacts from the People’s Temple and books like Give Me That Prime Time Religion.  Pornography, alcohol, drugs, music, films – all will show what a crazy generation we are.”  They will show all the things that could potentially lure us away from following Christ.  The wolves in our midst usually seem like friends.  We need to be much more discerning than Miss Riding Hood if we are to stay true to Christ.

We too need to take a stand just like the Nigerian woman who was killed by the fanatical Muslim mob.  The enemy may seem ambiguous, but we know what is right and what is not.  We know what God teaches us in the Bible.  If scripture remains our guide, we will know when and where we need to take a stand.  If we keep doing the things that Jesus tells us to do, the choices become clear.  Our worship is helpful to us, but in the end it is living out our lives that will show us where we truly need to take a stand.  It is out in the world that we must contrast the ways of Christ with the ways of the world.

According to an ancient legend, a monk knelt alone in a bare cell, praying fervently.  Suddenly the room filed with a bright glow.  Lifting his eyes, he saw a vision of Jesus walking through village streets and harvest fields, healing the lame and the blind, blessing children and preaching the word of God to those who pressed around him.  The monk felt overwhelmed with awe and gratitude.  His joy was soon interrupted by a familiar sound.  The chapel bell began calling for him to leave his cell and begin his daily work of feeding the poor, lame, and blind who gathered outside the monastery gates.  He wondered what to do.  Had not Jesus come to grace his cold, narrow cell?  Surely it was better to cling to this glorious sight as long as it beckoned before him.  Yet he kept thinking of the needy waiting at the gates.  Should he stay, or should he go?  Rising from his knees, he took one last longing look at the blessed sight and hurried out to feed the poor.  He worked quickly, placing loaves of bread in trembling hands.  He emptied basket after basket, engulfed by a sea of pleading faces.  At last his work was over and he headed back to his chamber.

Hurrying down the long hallway that led to his room, he threw open the door, and there stood the vision, just as before.  He realized that Jesus had been waiting for him to return.  Rapture filled his heart once more, and he fell to his knees in homage.  As he bowed his head, the vision said, “If you had stayed.  I would have fled.”

Our enemy is not so well disguised as we sometimes make him out to be.  Our enemy is selfishness.  Our enemy is staying when we should be going.  We may not be under physical attack as many Christians are in Nigeria and Sudan and other places around the world.  But we are under attack, a very sneaky backdoor type of attack, but nonetheless under attack.  And the words of Jesus are as true for us as they are for anyone:  “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.  What I tell you in the dark, say in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”  This is our mission.  And if we stay true to our mission, we will acknowledge Christ before the world, and he will acknowledge us before his Father who is in heaven.

 

The Lord of the Harvest Provides – June 18th, 2017

(Exodus 19:1-8,   Psalm 100,    Romans 15:1-11,   Matthew 9:35–10:15)

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send our laborers into his harvest.”  

An out of work man knocked on the door of a house in an affluent suburb.  When the homeowner answered, he said, “Mister, I’m down on my luck, and I need some money for food.  But I’m not asking for a handout.  I’m willing to work for it.  Do you have any odd jobs I could do for you?”  “Well, let’s see,” said the homeowner.  “I do have a porch at the side of the house that needs painting.  Can you do that?”  “Sure,” said the man.  “I can paint.”  “Okay, fine,” said the homeowner.  He went away and returned in a few minutes with a pail of yellow paint and a large brush.  “Here,” he said, “when you’re finished painting the porch, I’ll give you $20.”  “It’s a deal,” said the man.  Then he went around to the side of the house with the paint.  In fifteen minutes, he was back knocking at the front door again.  “What,” the homeowner said, “finished already?”  “Oh, sure,” the worker said.  “It was easy.”  “Well,” said the homeowner, handing him a twenty-dollar bill, “here’s your money.  I’m really amazed.  I never knew anyone who could paint a porch in fifteen minutes.”  “It wasn’t hard,” said the man.  “And by the way, it isn’t a Porsche.  It’s a Mercedes!”

This morning, we heard Jesus make a plea for workers.  He isn’t calling for people to paint a porch or a Porsche; he is calling for workers to do the work of his kingdom: “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  And so he sends out the twelve disciples.  And Matthew employs a very significant change of terms in this passage.  In one verse he tells us, “And he called to him his twelve disciples.”  But in the next verse, as Jesus is getting ready to send them out, he uses the term apostles for the very same twelve men.  Matthew does not explain the shift in terminology, and it is true that the two are sometimes used interchangeably.  Nonetheless, it seems to me that Matthew is deliberately using disciples first and then apostles, because this is the moment when the disciples became apostles.  And this is the only time that Matthew uses the term apostles.

So what’s the difference?  A disciple is one who follows.  For Christians, we follow Jesus.  The twelve disciples followed Jesus all over Israel for three years.  We cannot physically follow Jesus like they did, but we can follow him by living as he asks us to live.  That is what a true disciple does.  He follows his master’s teachings.  The twelve disciples followed Jesus in order to learn from him.

Apostle means one who is sent.  The word apostle is found seventy-nine times in the New Testament.”  Only once in Matthew, but seventy-nine times in all of the New Testament.  It is only found once in Mark and not at all in John.  It is found six times in Luke, but do you know which New Testament books has by far the most uses of the word Apostle?  Acts.  In fact the full name of Acts is the Acts of the Apostles.  In the gospels, Jesus trains the disciples to be Apostles. .In Acts, the disciples becomes apostles.  Apostle means one who is sent.   

So this is a big moment for the twelve.  They are not graduating, for they have a lot more to learn.  They are having their first taste of what it will be like to truly be apostles; to be sent out to spread the kingdom.  They are still disciples.  You cannot be an apostle if you are not a disciple.  You cannot be a messenger of Jesus if you are not following his teachings.  But this is definitely the next step, a higher step.  This is what he has been training them for, and it is what they will primarily be doing after he returns to heaven.

They are rookies.  They have been watching and listening to Jesus, and now it is their turn.  Our reading begins with a brief summary of what Jesus has been doing as the disciples were watching him:  “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity.”  This is what he sends them out to do, to do as he has been doing.  

But what about us?  Jesus is sending us out as well.  We follow in the tradition of the apostles.  We too began as disciples, and as we learned more and more, we began to see that we too are supposed to be sent out to carry the message of the kingdom wherever we go and whatever we do.  We think of the apostles as special people, and so they are.  While we may not be apostles in the same sense as Peter and Paul, we too are sent out by Christ to do his work.  Saint Paul often referred to all the members of a church as “the saints.”  And so it is often said that we are all saints with a small s as opposed to the canonized saints who are saints with a capitol S.  The same is true of apostles although you rarely hear it stated in those terms.  But it is natural progression of a disciple of Jesus to be sent out to do the work of the kingdom.  It should be looked at as the blossoming of our discipleship.  As disciples we really have no other choice because Jesus teaches us to be sent out to do his work.  So if you are a disciple of Jesus, you should have a sense of being sent into the world to do his work.

Jesus sends out the apostles with some interesting instructions.  First of all he says, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Please remember that this is their first mission.  After the resurrection, Jesus would drastically widen their scope to the “end of the earth,” but for now, on this first mission it is only to the lost sheep of Israel.  That is more than enough to keep them busy.  

We should learn from this that our natural starting point is where we are.  If you can’t bring the good news across the street, heaven help you if you try to take it half way around the world.  But God will give you the things you need wherever he sends you.

And Jesus does this for the twelve apostles.  After Jesus called the twelve, Matthew informs us that he, “gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity.”  That is quite a lot.  What physician wouldn’t love to be able to say that he could “heal every disease and every infirmity”?  Jesus is essentially giving them healing powers equal to his own.  

With such powers and after having watched and listened to Jesus for some time, what is it that the disciples are sent out to do?  Jesus instructs them to “proclaim as you go saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, [and] cast out demons.”  Now, that’s a pretty tall order.  No wonder Jesus gives them such strong power.  You might expect that he would also be generous in giving them physical aids, but not so.  They are not to take much else than the clothes on their back.  Jesus tells them, “You received without paying, give without pay.  Acquire no gold, or silver, or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for the laborer deserves his food.  They are to take no money, no change of clothes, and not even a staff for minimal protection.  We I go on a trip, I take a large suitcase full of clothes and a wallet full of money plus my credit card.  I am usually leave my staff at home, unless I am going to a hostile area.  Besides it might not clear security.  But could you image leaving on a journey with as little as the apostles are taking?  No way.

Why did Jesus require them to take so little with them?  Was there budget cuts?  Did some people get mad and withdraw their pledge?  No, that’s not it at all.  I can joke about pledges because the people of Saint Andrew’s are so faithful and generous in their pledges.  If the priest of some churches joked like that, everyone would look at each other and wonder “who’s he talking about?”  Happily, that’s not the case with us.  But it was NOT a problem of funding that causes Jesus to send the apostles out with so little in the way of physical provisions.  After all, all things belong to God, and Jesus had only to ask and his Father would have given him anything.  But it was a matter of the apostles relying on God alone to provide what they needed.  If they were given it to begin with, they would not have had the sense of relying on God that Jesus wanted them, and us, to base their work on.  They have been provided with tremendous spiritual assets.  They need to respond with faith that their physical needs would be provided for when the time came.  We need to respond the very same way.

A young naval ensign was completing his first overseas cruise and was given the opportunity to display his capabilities at getting the ship underway in a timely manner.  With a stream of commands he had the decks buzzing with sailors, and in very little time the ship was steaming out of the channel.

His efficiency established a new record for getting a ship underway, and he was not surprised when a seaman approached him with a message from the captain.  He was a bit surprised, however, to find that it was a radio message and even more surprised to read this:  “My personal congratulations upon completing your underway preparations exercise according to the book and with amazing speed.  In your haste, however, you have overlooked one of the unwritten rules of the sea – make sure the captain is aboard before you leave port.”

Jesus is our captain.  We need to have him onboard, or all our efforts will be in vain.  We may set records and look quite splendid in the eyes of the world, but it is all for nothing without our captain, Jesus.

Richard Fairchild looks at this passage and sets it in the larger context of Christ’s redeeming work – from the Incarnation to the atonement.  This is what he writes:  “God takes flesh in Christ Jesus – and he dies for us upon the cross so that we might be set right with God – and invites us to follow in his path, assisted by his presence – so that we might indeed be whole – and the world with us.  And we respond by placing our trust in him – by being baptized into his death and resurrection.

“Gift, blessing, call – and always it is a call to be blessed and to be a blessing – always it is a call to walk in harmony with God and God’s family.  But notice the order of things.  Gift, blessing, call.  Freely says Jesus, you have received, Freely give.  Gift, blessing, call.

“After these initial steps that start the process of liberation, they are required to follow through with steps that will turn their lives around.  They are in covenant and need to live up to their responsibilities.

“But consider it all.  God takes us as we are.  God loves us and promises to make a great nation of us, to make us a nation of priests, a people through whom God touches the world.”

 

Sermon for Trinity Sunday (June 11th, 2017)

(Genesis:1:1–2:3,   Psalm 150,   2 Corinthians 13:5-14,  Matthew 28:16-20)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.  And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  So God made man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day when we contemplate the identity of God as three distinct persons in perfect unity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  We find it in the final blessing in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  And we heard it in our gospel reading where Jesus sets the formula for Christian baptism:  “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  But most of all we see the three persons of the Trinity working together in perfect unity creating all that is in our physical world.

Colonel Robert Ingersoll was a well-known agnostic.  He once visited Ward Beecher, a well-known Christian minister.  During the visit Ingersoll noticed a beautiful globe which pictured the stars and constellations in the heavens.  “This is an exquisite thing,” said the agnostic admiringly, “Who made it?”  “Who made it?” the minister replied with pretended surprise, “Why, Colonel, nobody made it.  It just happened.”  

Creation didn’t just happen.  It was created by the Trinity working together in perfect unity.  That is what our reading from Genesis is all about.  And if you think our reading was too long, consider the reporter who wired his editor with news of a major exclusive story.  The editor replied, “Send six hundred words.”  The reporter wired back, “Too important, can’t be told in less than twelve hundred words.”  The editor responded, “Story of creation of world told in six-hundred words.  Try it!”

And in hearing of the creation in those six hundred words, we not only learn something most important about God, we learn something important about our own identity as well.  We are created in God’s image.  Such a wondrous and special phrase.  But what does it mean?  It’s is not very specific, and probably intended to be that way.  It reminds me of our standard for conviction in a criminal trial – guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  A good standard, I think, for human justice, but it is also unspecific.  What is reasonable to one person may not be reasonable to another.  

What the Hebrew indicates a likeness or similarity, not an exact duplicate.  We occupy a higher place in the created order because we alone are created in God’s image.  Psalm 8 says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out?  You have made him but little lower than the angels; you adorn him with glory and honor.”  God created us in his image for a reason.  

We need to be careful that we do not take this too far.  Being created in God’s image can be a pitfall because in our pride we confuse being like God with being God.  Mystery writer Nevada Barr suffered from this confusion for many years until she returned to faith.  She concluded, “It was a number of years of crashing and burning before I made the discovery that I was not God.  Finally I realized that though I was not God, I was of God.”

We also are of God but not God.  There are many lessons for us to learn in Genesis one, but above all we are to learn who we are, who God is, and what are relationship with him should be.  Thus Scripture reveals to us that we are created in God’s image.  What can we learn from this?  Dick Staub finds six important truths in this passage to tell us who we are:  

“First, the truth about you is that you are creative because God is creative: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1). We know that God is creative. Every human makes things. Artists make things with paint. Poets, writers, philosophers and lawyers make things with ideas and the compelling use of words. Doctors make people healthier; consultants make organizations better. Manufacturers make things with raw materials; chefs make things with fruits, vegetables, meats and spices. Every human has the capacity to make things, to create, because we are all made in the image of a creative God.

“The second truth about you is that you are spiritual because God is Spirit: “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2). Every human possesses spiritual aptitudes and capacities. We are more than the sum of our physical parts. Our spiritual nature, though unseen, is as real as our physical nature. Nurturing our spirit is as important as eating, drinking and exercising are to our physical body. 

“A third truth about you is that you communicate because God communicates: “God said, ‘Let there be light'” (Genesis 1:3).”  Seven times in our passage, we read “God said.”  God said and it was so each time.  Staub continues:  “Anthropologists agree that the emergence of symbolic language—first spoken, then written—represents the sharpest break between animals and humans. The human ability to think and reason, to use language, symbols and art, far surpasses the abilities of any animals. This gift was bestowed when the image of our communicative God was imprinted on us.

“A fourth truth about you is that you are intelligent because God is intelligent: “In the beginning was the Word [logos, a Greek word meaning reason, or logic] and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Logical sequential thought flows from the orderliness of God’s mind. As a result, though we are not all intellectuals, we each possess a mind and a way of thinking and learning, so Jesus commanded us to love God with our minds (as well as our hearts and all our strength). Because of God’s intelligent image imprinted on our lives, though we possess different kinds of intelligence, each of us is to develop our mental capacities to their fullest.

“A fifth truth about you is that you are relational because God is relational.”  In our reading God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.  In chapter two he says, “It is not good for man to be alone,” and then he created woman. “The phrase, ‘Let us make man in our image’ reveals an “us-ness” in the very nature of God. The very essence of God is relational.”  The relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the focus of our worship this very special day.  God is relational.  Staub contends, “That essential quality has been imprinted on humans. This capacity for a relationship with God extends to humans, which is why the Genesis story declares that God created Eve for Adam because ‘it is not good for man to be alone.’”  We are all relational.  Even hermits are relational.  They may deny themselves relationships, but they suffer for it.  Some of us sometimes need to be alone for extended periods because of our broken nature.  But the purpose of such times should be to improve our relationships.  

The largest church in our diocese, by far, is Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Hispanic church.  It has been pointed out that their growth is largely because the Hispanic cultural is much more relational than the European culture.  In Africa, Christianity has exploded for the very same reason.  I don’t mean to classify all Africans, or all Hispanics for that matter, in one nice little group.  Africa is a huge continent with many diverse cultures, but generally speaking they are all much more relational than we are.  

I once took a seminary class where we spent two weeks in Los Angles, and visited many churches and parachurch ministries.  A professor from Fuller Seminary, a native African, gave a lecture one day, and she was explaining to us the difference between Africans and Americans in terms of how we are relational.  She told us of how an African woman was sick and her friends took her to the doctor and told the doctor, “We are sick.”  Now that’s relational.  It reminds me of what Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus, “Why are you persecuting me?”  The Africans related to the sick woman like Christ relates to his Church.  This is how we are meant to be.

“A sixth truth about you is that you are morally responsible because God is a moral being. “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die’” (Genesis 2:16-17). Just as there are natural laws that govern the universe, universal moral laws govern human behavior. The Bible teaches that these laws are written on human hearts and are universal.”  Of all the creatures God created, man alones knows right from wrong.

In all these areas we fall short of God.  We were not created to be gods.  We were created in his image to be like him.  God had a plan to compensate for our shortcomings.  He sent his Son to die for our sins.  When we accept what Christ has done for us; when we repent and strive with all our being to be like our creator, we become the people he created us to be.  

“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” Second Sunday of Advent

Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent:  Isaiah 11: 1-10 ; Psalm 72; 1-15; Romans 15:1-13 and Matthew 3:1-12.

In Father David’s sermon today, he speaks about our need for repentance.  He states that in most cases, we don’t see the need in ourselves to repent, but God does.  How easy it is for us to take medicine prescribed by a trusted doctor to help us be healthier physically and in some cases the medicine may be life saving.  We trust our doctors and do exactly what they tell us to do.. to save our health. But, what John the Baptist prescribes and for that matter, Jesus Christ prescribes for our spiritual health is to repent!   We trust the doctor to give us medicine and we follow the instructions exactly and in some cases the treatment is difficult, but we do it.  How much more should we trust God to cure us from our spiritual disease (sin) if we would just repent and turn to God?  Why is that so difficult? Why doesn’t that hold the same urgency as taking a pill that the doctor prescribes for our treatment?  Repentance is necessary.  We cannot be a part of God’s kingdom without repentance.  God wants us to turn to him, ask for forgiveness, and repent of our sins.  Repentance brings about change… change that can only come when we surrender our life to Christ.  Change that will bare fruit and change that will motivate us to draw closer to God because of his love for us.  I pray that we can come to the cross daily, repenting of our sins, and giving up of our lives to Jesus Christ.  Let us pray the Collect for today: “Blessed Lord, who caused holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, for ever and ever. Amen”

Season of Advent – A Time of Preparation for the coming of the Lord.

Today’s readings for the First Sunday of Advent were Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14 and the Gospel of Matthew 24:36-44.  Advent is a time of preparation – as was mentioned in today’s message from Fr. David… a time to “be on our toes”.  And in today’s Collect, we are reminded to be “on our toes” – to be prepared and “cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light” as we await the second coming of Christ:    “Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. ”   For me, it’s a reminder to be in great expectation… a sense of excitement, a feeling of wonder and of joy.

Also during this time, we chant the Trisagion… “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One have mercy upon us.”  As we await the second coming of Jesus, we are to be respectfully in fear of the Lord  out of our love for Him.  I love chanting these prayers as it connects me to ancient times and the ancient church.  I can feel a part of the greater church who was, who is, and who will come again when Jesus brings his church back with him it victory and triumphed glory.  That excites me and thus I wait in great expectation.  And we respond:  “Amen – Come Lord Jesus Come!”  Speaking from the heart… by Annie Curtier

 

Praying for America

November 8th, Monday – Join us for a Prayer Vigil to take place on the front lawn of the Lancaster City Council at 6:30PM.  44933 Fern Avenue, Lancaster, CA 93534.  We’ll be praying for the Presidential Elections and all elections, our country and it’s leaders, and for Christians everywhere!

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people-for kings and all those in authority” (I Timothy 2:1-2, NIV)