That We All May Be One

First Sunday After Epiphany 2010 Trinity Cathedral.

Each year, there are three main themes which mark the beginning of the Epiphany season – the arrival of the Magi  to greet the child Jesus (which we celebrated last Wednesday night with a beautiful Epiphany Evensong and Children’s Pageant); the Baptism of Christ (which we observe today); and his first miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (which will be our Gospel reading for next Sunday).

Obviously, you and I were baptized because Jesus was! He joined the crowds seeking repentance and a new life under John the Baptist’s teaching at the Jordan River. Although we are not told that the 12 disciples were ever baptized, we do know (from  the Gospel of John and the Book of Acts) that they baptized others – many others! – and it seems strange that they would have done that, and avoided baptism themselves!

Certainly, down through the centuries, the Christian church has seen this “washing with water” as the primary initiation ceremony for new Christians. Our Prayer Book says that “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body, the Church.  The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.” (BCP 299) Cannot be dissolved!

Although the essential action – the washing with water in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit –has remained the same over the years, Baptism has been done in lots of ways: full immersion under the water in rivers or large pools; pouring of water into baptismal fonts; even the “sprinkling” of a tiny bit of water in some cases! (Not my favorite method, I have to admit…but we recognize them all as “valid.”)

The kind of preparation we do for Baptism these days is pretty tame compared to the year-long Catechumenate program of the early Church (although there are attempts today to revive that custom). In The Episcopal Church we have at least sought to restore Baptism to its ancient and primary place in the context of the Eucharist on Sunday mornings so that the whole Community can be involved, rather than “privately” in the back of the church on a Saturday afternoon.

We even encourage Baptisms to be done on special Sundays: for example, this Sunday (when we commemorate Christ’s Baptism); at the Easter Vigil; on the Day of Pentecost; All Saints’ Sunday; and on the occasion of the Bishop’s Visit in order to re-connect Baptism to the ministry of those first Apostles’. So, baptism is offered officially every few months throughout the year.

But I believe the greatest single advance in the recapturing of the ancient centrality of the Sacrament of Baptism has been the restoration of the so-called “Baptismal Covenant” which we will use today in place of the Creed. This question and answer recitation is probably the way our Creeds developed in the first place, as the early Church sought to summarize what Christians were asked to believe, and how they were to behave, once they became part of the Body of Christ through Baptism.

Candidates were first invited to renounce “the world, the flesh, and the devil” (phrased a little differently today: we renounce “the evil powers of this world, Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness, and sinful desires!).  We are then invited to make some positive promises – to accept Jesus Christ as Savior, to put our whole trust in his grace and love, to promise to follow and obey him as Lord.

Then follows the Baptismal Covenant beginning with the earliest Christian Creed – the Apostles’ Creed. This statement of belief (and its successor, the Nicene Creed) attempts to preserve for us what the early Church came to believe about the Triune God and about God’s work of Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification.

The final five questions of the Baptismal Covenant are attempts to summarize the kind of ascetical, moral, and ethical life Christians were being asked to live:

1. To follow the teaching of the apostles, to share in the Eucharist, and to pray.
2. To resist evil but when we do sin, to ask forgiveness and return to God.
3. To share the Gospel of God’s love by our words and our deeds.
4. To love our neighbors as ourselves by looking for Christ in all people.
5. And finally, to work for justice and peace in this world…and to start by, ourselves, respecting the dignity of every, single human being – since all are created in the image of God!

Well, as I say, since the adoption of the 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, these vows and promises (which are really very ancient) have been recited hundreds of thousands of times by Episcopalians across this church. And I think it has transformed the way we see ourselves, and the way many of us look at the Church and the world.

So I want us to use these baptismal vows and promises at least on the five times each year when baptisms are being celebrated across the Church and certainly whenever we have baptisms and confirmations scheduled here. It’s a way of remembering, not only that we are the community of the baptized, but just what we are expected to believe and to practice as part of this community.

And it’s a way of living out what we prayed for in this morning’s Collect:

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit:  Grant that all who are baptized into his name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Advent 3C – Trinity Cathedral.

I said last Sunday that I believe John the Baptist had a two-fold ministry as he sought to “prepare the way” for Jesus. He was both an evangelist and a prophet. Last week I spoke of John’s evangelism. Today I want to speak of his prophecy. First of all, it may be important to remind you that prophecy in the Bible has little, or nothing, to do with foretelling the future. The Old Testament prophets only predict the future in the sense that they often say “If you do this, thus and so will happen.” Or, “if you do not do this, you can expect the following results!”

So, looking back at it through the lens of history, we can see that consequences often followed certain actions or inactions and it looks as though the prophets were predicting specific results. They weren’t. They were not “foretelling,” they were “forth-telling.” Telling forth, or speaking out, in God’s Name.  And so it is that in today’s Gospel, John the Baptist thunders, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Luke 3).

And even though Luke generalizes the message by addressing it to “the crowds that came out to be baptized by him,” we know from the other Gospels that John’s primary audience were the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the scribes. They were the ones who would have been most likely to say, “Why are you calling us a ‘brood of vipers?’ We’re descendents of Abraham!” John assures them that “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham!”  The point was not whether they were descendents of Abraham, but were they living like descendents of Abraham?

A tree is not judged by its roots, but by its fruit (Caird, St. Luke, page 73) so John says, “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

He then goes on tell them what “good fruit” looks like! To share clothing and food with those who have none. To be honest in your business dealings. Not to be violent. And look who he’s talking to! Tax collectors who, of course, were not IRS agents in those days, but Jews who had sold out to the Roman government and collected exorbitant taxes from their fellow Jews, often pocketing the difference.  The soldiers John addresses are not “regular army,” Roman soldiers. They were paid mercenaries who were body guards for the tax collectors.

It’s so important to remember, when we hear fiery words from the prophets of either Old or New Testaments that these prophets were speaking on behalf of an oppressed people! The Jews had been enslaved in Egypt and, centuries later, carried off into Exile in Babylon! The prophet Zephaniah, in our First Lesson today, was just beginning to see his people return from that Exile and so was able to say, “I will deal with all your oppressors at that time.  And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.” (Zephaniah 3). Yet, by John the Baptist’s time, another oppressor had arisen. Roman armies occupied what we now call The Holy Land, and the Jews were at their mercy.

John the Baptist’s vision was one of world-wide and imminent judgment. The woodsman was ready to raise his axe for the first stroke, the Palestinian farmer ready to toss crushed stalks of wheat into the air with his wooden shovel so that the heavier grain could fall to the ground, while the lighter chaff was blown by the wind, later to be gathered and burned. One mightier than John was coming to inaugurate that judgment with the fire of the Holy Spirit. And John the Baptist knew he was not worthy to untie that one’s sandals. “The coming crisis would see the mighty overthrow of ancient wrong, the settling of accounts on the basis of strict justice.” (Caird, ibid).

With all these harsh words, it may come as something of a shock for us to come to the last line of today’s Gospel, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” Good news? Yes! Not perhaps for the occupying Roman powers-that-be, not for the collaborating tax collectors and the mercenary army. But good news for sure to the poor! To the oppressed! To the last…and the least! For soon, very soon…all would be set right!

So, there are really three themes in John the Baptist’s preaching: fiery prophecy; concern for the poor and the oppressed; and preparing the way for Jesus. I’ve often thought that today’s churches often mirror one or more than one of these theme. Some churches are all about prophetic advocacy – speaking “truth to power” as it is sometimes called, as churches seek to speak out for justice in the marketplace and in the wider community.

Some churches emphasize direct services to the poor. We see examples of this almost daily in our community as the Salvation Army and Churches United and other church-related ministries provide Christmas baskets or Angel tree gifts or provide shelters for the homeless to get out of the cold at night. And some churches major in prayer and praise and in introducing people to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their relationship with him.

I think The Episcopal Church, at its best, tries to balance all three of these emphases, so dear to John the Baptist’s heart. The Lambeth Conference of Bishops, and the General Convention of our church, has adopted the following “Five Marks of Mission” as a way of defining who we are, and of offering a challenge to us all to balance all three of John’s themes. The five marks are:

1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
2. To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
3. To respond to human need by loving service
4. To seek to transform unjust structures of society
5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

In this Advent season, and as we begin together a new year, I would invite you to think about ways we can fulfill all these Marks of Mission together here at Trinity Cathedral.

I think that would make John the Baptist…and Jesus…happy!

Advent 2-C. Trinity Cathedral.

 Because the season of Advent is, among other things, a season of preparation for the festival of Jesus’ birth at Christmas, the two middle Sundays focus on John the Baptist whose life and ministry have always been seen as “preparing the way of the Lord.” Luke tells us that John was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah as a “voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God’.” (3:4-6)

 Luke is taking a little liberty with the text here because what Isaiah actually wrote was not “a voice crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way…” but “A voice cries…: ‘in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.’” (Isaiah 40:3)  In other words, the voice is not in the wilderness…the people are! And they are hoping that God will make a straight path for them to return from Exile and be restored to their land and to Jerusalem!

 That’s consistent with our First Lesson today from Baruch who is usually understood to be Jeremiah’s personal secretary and scribe. This portion of his book is also talking about the return from Exile in Babylon and he too is confident that after having been carried “away by their enemies…God will bring the (people of Jerusalem) back…carried in glory, as on a royal throne.  For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.” (Baruch 5:6-7) So this is really about Israel returning from the “wilderness” of Exile in Babylon.  

 But it’s understandable that Luke would focus on a “voice” crying in the wilderness because he knew that’s where John the Baptist lived, and it was from the wilderness that his voice rang out. We don’t know much abut the early life of John. Our canticle today (itself taken from Luke’s Gospel) is the song his father sang in thanksgiving for his birth. It was a hymn of dedication too as Zechariah sings, “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.” (Luke 1:76)

 Some scholars believe that John (and perhaps even Jesus himself) may have spent some time with the Essenes in the monastery near the Dead Sea. They too used ritual cleansing and baptisms of repentance symbolizing the forgiveness of sins, and it may be that John adapted that custom of baptism from them for his own  use.  But prophets and mystics, holy men and holy women, have often sought out the desert, the wilderness, as places of preparation and of prayer.

 I spent part of my sabbatical some fifteen years ago in the desert, taking two courses at St. George’s College in Jerusalem, one of which was called “the Desert Course.” We spent the better part of a week in three jeeps with a Bedouin guide tracing the ancient pilgrim routes across the Sinai, spending some nights in sleeping bags on the desert floor and other nights in Orthodox monasteries. There is something about the desert!  The silence is profound, especially in the middle of the day when no one or no thing is stirring. And the clarity of the night sky – with no artificial lighting and no pollution – is such that you almost feel you could reach up and touch the moon and the stars!  

 The very fact that you know you could die in a matter of hours without adequate water and shade from the sun makes it very clear how utterly dependent we are on God. I remember once scrambling out of the noonday sun, finding shelter under a huge stone jutting out from the side of a hill, and feeling the temperature drop about 20 degrees just getting out of the sun. It gives a whole new meaning to biblical passages describing God as “the Rock of our salvation!” That desert rock felt like my salvation from the heat!

 So, we’re told that “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness; and he went into all the region about the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.” (Luke 3:2-3). That means he lived just east of Jerusalem and north of the Dead Sea. And it was from this place of silence, complete dependence on God, and crystal-clear night skies that he heard the voice of his God, calling him into ministry.

 I think John’s ministry was two-fold really. He was an evangelist and he was a prophet. They’re not the same thing, but they are connected. I want to focus on his role as evangelist this week and perhaps his role as prophet next Sunday.

 John the Baptist was an evangelist because he preached Good News. The good news that God is, that God is in charge, and that God was about to do a new thing – that “all flesh (would soon) see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3:6). He also knew that it was not his role to convert people or to save them. That was up to God. His role was to “prepare the way,” to create an environment in which people could encounter God, and be encountered by God, so that God could do the converting!

 I’ve often thought that this is our task too, as evangelists. We’re not called to convert people. We’re called, as the Church, to “prepare the way,” to create environments in which people today can encounter God, and be encountered by God. So that God can do the converting.

 Maybe you don’t think of yourself as an evangelist. But, as Bishop Scarfe suggested here last Monday night, on St. Andrew’s Day, we’d better start taking our responsibilities as evangelists seriously if we don’t want The Episcopal Church, and other Christian communions like us, to disappear in another generation or two. Our researchers tell us that The Episcopal Church, like other mainline denominations, may be in a state of “systemic decline.” A recent report from our office of Congregational Development in New York says,

“It is easy to look at the unadjusted membership trends for The Episcopal Church and say that the sky is falling.  But to do so would be irresponsible and inaccurate. A more sober look at the statistics (membership and attendance) reveals that we have reached a plateau of sorts – from which we can either slide into a new decline or begin growing again.  The problems facing The Episcopal Church are daunting due to the nature of our main constituency. As long as we are a predominantly white denomination with aging, affluent, highly educated members, growth will be increasingly difficult.

 There is hope, however, because The Episcopal Church is attractive to people brought up in other religious traditions and to unchurched seekers, and statistically The Episcopal Church is the healthiest denomination in the mailine. But it will require more than business as usual to expand into other constituencies (such as new immigrants and the unchurched). It will take new churches and a new openness among our existing parishes. It will take having something to offer newcomers that changes lives. Clearly, we need more vibrant healthy churches. But growing as a denomination will require systemic changes, so that the average losses…might turn into…average gains. Even tiny gains across a denomination of 7,300 churches would produce growth of a kind that we have not seen since 1966.”

 Well, I share all that to convince you that we do indeed need to be evangelists like John the Baptist. It begins by inviting people, our families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, to share the life of Trinity Cathedral!  It’s not our job to convert these people. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit!  Our job, as evangelists and as congregations, is to create environments and opportunities for the Holy Spirit to do that work of drawing our sisters and brothers into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ!

 John the Baptist “prepared the way” for Jesus. He made his path a little more level, the crooked road a little straighter, and the rough places a little smoother for Jesus. Can we do that? Can we make Jesus’ path into the minds and hearts of our families, friends, and neighbors a little easier by the kind of community we build here? By the vibrancy of our worship, the quality of our caring for one another, and by the kind of lives we live?

 Advent is a good time to think about things like that. St. Paul told the Christians in Philippi that he was confident…”that the one who began a good work among (them would) bring it to completion.” (Philippians 1:6). John the Baptist had that same confidence in God.

 I wonder, do we?

We’re celebrating the Feast of All Saints’ today. All Saints’ Day is one of the few holy days which can be celebrated on a Sunday, using the Lessons for the feast day instead of the regular ones for this Sunday in the church year. We began with the wonderful Reading from the Wisdom of Solomon, a book in the Apocrypha which we sometimes read at funerals because it is so comforting:

 “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died…but they are at peace…the faithful will abide with (God) in love because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones, and he watches over his elect.” (Wisdom 3)

 Psalm 24 picks up on the same theme: “Who can ascend the hill of the Lord and who can stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart…They shall receive a blessing from the Lord and a just reward from the God of their salvation.”  

 And then the marvelous vision of the kingdom given by St. John the Divine in his book of “Revelation” really sums it all up: “See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21)

 So, why do we need all these images? Why do we need all this comforting? Because – in the final analysis – death is what we fear most! Dying…ceasing to exist…ceasing to “be”…is humankind’s greatest fear, our great enemy. And all religions, as well as many other philosophical systems, try to deal with it. Many secular people fill their lives with ceaseless activity and the accumulation of “things” and “stuff” because they don’t want to think about dying, to think about that day when life, as we know it now, will end.

 Sometimes the Church is accused of having a rather “Pollyanna” attitude about death and dying — an “otherworldly” approach to it all. You know, “Pie in the sky by and by.” Be good on this earth and God will reward you will a perfect existence one day! Don’t worry about suffering now…some day things will get better in heaven!

 Well, I don’t think you can read the Bible and accuse its writers of having a “Pollyanna” view of death…or of denying its reality or its pain. Genesis virtually begins with the murder of one brother by another. The children of Israel slaughter others, and are slaughtered themselves, throughout much of the next five books of the Bible! Job and the other Wisdom writers wrestle with suffering, death and dying philosophically even as they struggle to understand God’s seeming absence in their own lives. And the prophets warn of impending death and destruction on every page of their books!

 Our Gospel Reading this morning is the very poignant story of Mary and Martha and their grieving at the death of their brother, Lazarus. They go through the five stages of grief, of death and dying, that Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described decades ago, and Mary is pretty obviously stuck at the Anger stage as our Gospel begins, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

 She’s mad at Jesus! She knows he has the power of life and death. Lazarus was his friend! Why did he let him die? You and I often get angry at God or at life itself when we lose loved ones, and the Bible is telling us it’s OK to feel that anger, even to “ventilate” that anger. God can handle it! 

 This Gospel story doesn’t even shy away from the gruesome realities of death. They resist opening the tomb at Jesus’ instruction because the decomposition of Lazarus’ body will have already begun in that desert heat…and no one wants to see (or smell!) that! And yet Jesus asks them to look squarely into that tomb, to confront the painful reality of death and decay and not to run away from it. Why?

 Because, he says, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” (John 11) In other words, if you trust in God (which is what “believe” really means), if you trust in God you can look straight into the jaws of death itself and see – instead of your worst nightmare – God’s glory!

  Later that same Jesus himself would face his own fear of death (“if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”). He would experience his own despair at the seeming absence of the Divine (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”) But Jesus would finally make that final act of trust just before closing his eyes for the last time (“Into your hands, I commend my spirit).    

 Well, there is a community of people down through the centuries who have taken those words and actions of Jesus at face value. A community of people who have not only believed in the existence of God, but who have put their trust in that God…indeed who have “bet their lives” on that God.  Bet their lives on the belief that the God who made us in the first place loves us enough never to let us go.

 This is the community of the baptized. This is the community which dares to call its members “little Christs” – Christians. This is the community of All the Saints! Peter and Paul and Mary Magdalene, Stephen and Phoebe, Ignatius, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Thomas Cranmer, Evelyn Underhill,  C. S. Lewis, Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther King…

 And you, my sisters and brothers. You who have been washed in Baptism and anointed with the Holy Spirit. You who faithfully each week are nourished by Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. You who put your trust in the love and mercy of God to one day grant you a place at the Table in the heavenly Kingdom. You…the people of St. Paul’s!

 Happy All Saints’ Day!   

We gather, as the church in Synod, on the Feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, an heroic figure in the life of the early Church. He was only the second bishop of Antioch in Syria and had a long episcopate there. But early in the 2^nd century, during the reign of the Emperor Trajan, he was arrested by imperial authorities, condemned to death, and transported to Rome to die in the arena.

 This was a familiar strategy for the Empire. By being tough on the leaders, the government hoped to terrify the rank and file. Instead, Ignatius took the opportunity to encourage his flock, speaking to groups of Christians in every town at which they stopped along the way on his final journey!

 When the prison escort reached the west coast of Asia Minor, it stopped before boarding ship, and delegations from several Asian churches were able to visit Ignatius, to speak with him at length, to assist him with items for his journey, and commend him to the grace of God. In response, he wrote seven letters that have been preserved – five to congregations which greeted him on the road, one to a congregation which would greet him in Rome, and one to St. Polycarp, who was Bishop of Smyrna, and a disciple of the Apostle John.

 It is from these letters that we learn most of what is important to preserve about Ignatius’ legacy – 1) the importance of maintaining Christian unity in love and sound doctrine (he warns them against factionalism in the church and against the heresy of Docetism, which taught that Jesus was not fully human, but only divine; 2) the role of the clergy as a focus of Christian unity, 3) Christian martyrdom as a glorious privilege.

 You and I can probably sign on to, and celebrate, the first two; but have a little problem with the third – martyrdom! I guess that’s why the Church has selected the Readings we heard today from Holy Scripture. Jesus reminding us of the fact that our lives are like that grain of wheat which, if it remains a single, unplanted grain is not worth very much; but, if it “dies,” it bears much fruit. (John 12:23-26) Dying to self in order to live for others!     

 And then St. Paul’s famous testimony, read at virtually all of our funerals, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

 Both Jesus and Paul are reminding us of something Ignatius took for granted – that dying is not the worst thing that can happen to us! Being unfaithful is much worse. And living for something greater than ourselves is what, in many ways, makes life worthwhile! Most all of you know that the word “martyr” does not only mean one who loses one’s life for the Faith, but that it also means “witness” – the kind of witness made by heroes and heroines like Ignatius who were willing to give it all for the sake of the Gospel.

 Many people today in the Church fear, not so much personal, individual death, but the death of the Church itself, as we have known it and loved it over the years. The Presiding Bishop herself said earlier this month that, on the heels of General Convention, “we are in a paschal moment” in The Episcopal Church today.  But she also went on to ask,

 “Will we discover resurrection or will we stay holed up in the tomb? We have opportunities to be creative and collaborative – we can’t be preservers of turf or maintainers of the status quo. That is, I believe, to remain in the tomb. We can be celebrants of the spirit behind the law, the life-giving, creative law that the Jewish people know as Torah.  We can experience the grace that comes of loving God and our neighbor, and not being afraid.”

 And both Bishop Katharine and the President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, made these observations about the new Executive Council which I believe can equally apply to this Synod meeting, to the annual Convention of the Diocese of Iowa, and other such gatherings taking place around our church this fall:

 “We are together…embarking on a journey to serve God’s people and God’s creation across this planet…The decisions we make as a body will impact the lives of people far beyond this place or this church. I think the biggest question before us is what will occupy us…where will we spend our energy?…We live with a vision of the reign of God, the kingdom of God, which last time I checked had not been fully realized; therefore we have work to do in the name of Jesus.” (Jefferts Schori; Oct. 2009)

 “What if…(this)…Council (this Synod) created a truly spiritually based Christian community together, based on relationship and understanding of each other’s gifts?

What if we understood and embraced the vision of our forebearers, and then took a look at that vision in light of our realities today? What if (we) prayed hard together and were able to discern what we are being called to do at this time in the life of the church? What if we figured that out together and then what if we did it?” said Bonnie Anderson.

 What if we figured it out together? And what if we did it? What if we really embraced the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Faith which St. Ignatius confessed and was willing to die for? What if we figured out how that Faith needs to be lived out today? And what if we did it? (Pause)

 “Be deaf,” Ignatius wrote, “to any talk that ignores Jesus Christ, of David’s lineage, of Mary; who was really born, ate, and drank; was really persecuted under Pontius Pilate; was really crucified and died in the sight of heaven and earth and the underworld; (who) was really raised from the dead.”

 And on another occasion, he wrote, “Try to gather more frequently to celebrate God’s Eucharist and to praise him…break one loaf, which is the medicine of immortality…” And finally he said, “Flee from schism as the source of mischief…Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

 Well, we are gathered as lay persons, bishops, priests and deacons in Synod on this day, my dear friends. And surely Jesus Christ is present – in Word and Prayer and Sacrament…here in the Church Catholic.

 Let us seek to be that spiritually based community, praying hard and trying to discern what we are being called to do at this time in the life of the church, having confidence… with Jesus, Paul, and Ignatius that

 Nothing! No…Thing…will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

  “Some Pharisees came, and to test (Jesus) they asked him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’” (Mark 10:2)

 Well, first of all, the Pharisees did not need Jesus to instruct them about divorce.  The very first verse of the 24^th chapter of Deuteronomy makes it perfectly clear how easy it was for a Jewish male to write a certificate of divorce and put aside his wife. It doesn’t give any instruction about how a woman is to free herself from an abusive relationship or a loveless marriage arranged by her family, but the text is *real* clear about how easy it is for a man to get rid of his wife!

 No, the Pharisees did not need to be instructed by Jesus about divorce laws. They were experts in the Law. There is much more going on in this passage than that!  This is a familiar pattern in the Pharisees’ attacks on Jesus. They confront him publicly with a tough question, such as why he does work on the Sabbath, whether or not one should pay taxes to Caesar, or what he thinks about John the Baptist; and, in doing so, they hope he will make a mistake and give them a legal reason to discredit him, or even worse.

 In this case, the context is clear. The Essene (or Dead Sea Scrolls) community had formulated their opposition to divorce on what the king should do in his own life. They knew that royal marriages and divorces were politically dangerous and so they, like Jesus, appealed to Genesis, to God’s original intention for marriage, to argue against divorce. And John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, who had perhaps spent some time with the Essenes, had been arrested and eventually executed for criticizing the king (Herod Antipas) for divorcing his wife precisely to marry his brother’s wife, Herodias.

 So, behind the Pharisees’ “innocent” question about divorce lurks the mission and ministry of John the Baptist and just what Jesus thought about all that. He would have to answer this question at his own peril!  So Jesus does was he so often does in these verbal battles – he answers the question *with* a question! “What did Moses command you?” They give the correct answer, but Jesus pushes them beyond the legalistic answer back to God’s original intention.

 According to the very first book for the Bible, God intended married people to be permanently joined in marriage so no human tradition can claim authority to override that intention. If indeed married people become “one flesh” as the text says, divorce would be like trying to divide one person into two. And that can’t be God’s desire. But the point is, Jesus comments were not intended to create some kind of new legislation about marriage and divorce!

 Instead, he blasts the Pharisees for cooperating with the hard-hearted, one-sided system of divorce which seems clearly to favor men’s rights over women’s. He could not be accused of breaking the Law because his views coincided with the Essenes, and others, who were stricter in the interpretation than even the Pharisees. On the other hand, he has sided with John the Baptist’s dangerous views of the marriage between King Herod and Herodias!

The point is, Jesus wants to insist that God’s original intentions for human beings take precedence over other provisions in Mosaic Law. He is not intending to create some new legalistic system to deal with the painful realities of marital discord and the fact of divorce.     

Unfortunately, the Church has not always has been as adept as Jesus at avoiding the whole divorce business! Twenty years after this conflict with the Pharisees’ Paul tells the Corinthians that it would be OK for a Christian whose non-Christian spouse had divorced him or her to re-marry. In principle Paul was opposed to divorce, but he was trying to find a pastoral provision, sometimes called “the Pauline privilege!”

 And the Church has been struggling with this ever sense! How to balance the high view of the permanence of marriage taught by Jesus with the painful realities of troubled marriages and the possibility of divorce?  Some churches have created elaborate systems for determining when a marriage may be declared null and void. While some churches today are experimenting with creating rituals for divorce to provide a way for the church to stand with divorcing couples in an attitude of prayer.

 The Episcopal Church has been in a number of places on that continuum, but our canon law today attempts to live in the tension by affirming the life-long intention of marriage, but providing space for a pastoral approach which honors people and allows us to enter into their pain and walk together toward reconciliation when possible, forgiveness and healing when it is not.

 I am absolutely convinced that we are close to the Spirit of Jesus in this approach. That Spirit is so beautifully described in our Second Lesson today from Hebrews: “It was fitting that God…in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering. For the one who sanctifies and those who are (being) sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters…Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God…Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” (Hebrews 2:11ff)

 So, by treating marriage as grounded in God’s love, Jesus removes it from the realm of law. His original hearers, like so many out there today, viewed marriage as a contract. So, like any contract, it could be voided.  Jesus wanted to challenge that casual attitude about marriage but, unlike the Essenes, he did not think new laws or legalistic systems would create the kind of relationships God intended. Legalism is contrary to the Spirit of Jesus.

 Nonetheless, the challenge he lays down for us and the questions he poses about a hard-hearted treatment of divorce, on the one hand, and a casual attitude about marriage, on the other, are still crucial for our reflection today.  Not because we want tough laws, or canons, against divorce, but because we seek to make Christian families today what God yearns for them to be.

It’s pretty ironic that, on the day when we begin our fall Christian Education program here at Trinity Cathedral and commission our teachers and catechists (along with our Pastoral Visitors), our Second Lesson begins with these words: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness!”

 No wonder congregations have trouble recruiting Sunday school teachers every year! Who wants to be judged “with greater strictness?” Actually, the Apostle James doesn’t spend much time in his letter developing that idea, but moves along to write about the importance of guarding our tongues, and pointing out how destructive slanderous speech and partial truths can be. We need only look at some of the recent political outbursts there today to see the truth of those words!

 Actually, I think his only point in saying that ‘not many should become teachers’ is to highlight the importance of that ministry, and to recognize the fact that not everyone can do it. Not everyone has that particular gift …any more than we may have other specific gifts.

 But teaching our Faith to others is important and that’s why we’ll be praying for those catechists and teachers  “God of all wisdom and knowledge, give your blessing and guidance to all who teach in your Church, that by word and example they may lead those whom they teach to the knowledge and love of you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Occasional Services, page 186)

 Sometimes people hesitate to teach because they don’t think they “know enough” about the Christian faith to teach it. But notice what the prayer says: “…that by word and example they may lead those whom they teach to the knowledge and love of you…”

We want our teachers to lead our young people and adults “by word and example” to know and to love God!

 I don’t want to minimize the content of our Christian education courses and experiences, but I have to say that – of all the many years I spent in Sunday school – I can’t remember much content, but I can remember the faces and the voices, and the love and the faith of Nelson Glass who taught the boys’ Sunday school in Junior High.

 And Barbara Kane who taught the co-ed Senior High School class (and who just happened to be the mother of the girl I was desperately and hopelessly in love with in those days). I remember knowing – even then – that these adults “knew and loved” God…even as they “knew and loved” me! That’s what teachers (and Pastoral Visitors) are supposed to convey.

 In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples are journeying through the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and he asks them “Who do people say that I am?” In others words, what are people saying out there? How am I being received? How is my message being understood? And the disciples give a variety of answers – presumably different things they’ve heard in their travels – because there was still a lot of confusion about just who this new rabbi was!

 Well, some say that you’re really John the Baptist; others that you may be the “Elijah” written about in the Prophets; others that you may actually be another prophet, they say. 

And then Jesus gets specific: “But who do you say that I am?” It was apparently important for Jesus to get some kind of reading about what people were saying about him, about what the general population was thinking at this point in his ministry. Doing his own “opinion polling,” if you will.

 But what he was really interested in was what his closest followers thought! Who did they think he was? Because, in the final analysis, it wasn’t going to be what popular opinion happened to be that was going to preserve his message. It was going to be what the disciples, later known as “apostles,” thought that would come down to us through the ages! They were the ones who were going to preserve, carry on, and even in some sense enlarge upon, his teaching.

 Well, Peter gets it right – at least initially – and speaks up: “You are the Messiah.” In other words, you are God’s Anointed One, the one we’ve been waiting for, the one who is finally going to deliver us from this endless oppression by the Roman government, and set us free!

 So, he was on the right track but as Jesus began to sketch out how all that was going to happen, and that it was not going to be by starting a war, but rather by undergoing great suffering and rejection and even death, Peter loses the thread and suffers a pretty severe rebuke himself from the One he has just called “Messiah!”

 But even that blunder gives Jesus the opportunity to teach the disciples some important lessons; lessons about self denial, about taking up their own crosses, and about what following him really meant. About the “cost of discipleship” And, finally, he leaves them with the insight that it’s not really about “getting it right.” It’s not about “perfection.” It’s about…being “faithful.”

 “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed…” Conversely, if we’re not ashamed of him, he won’t be ashamed of us! So, it’s not so much about getting it right about me, Jesus is saying. It’s about not being ashamed of me. It’s about being willing to share the “knowledge and love” you have of me with those to whom I send you.

 That’s what we are entrusting our teachers and catechists, and our Pastoral Visitors, with here this morning at Trinity Cathedral. With conveying the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ to those in their classrooms (if they are teachers), to those at home and in hospitals and nursing homes (if they are Visitors).

 And, by the way, it’s what all of us are called to do…in the various callings and in the ministries we all have – in our homes and families, in our neighborhoods and communities, in the businesses and institutions and schools where we spend our time. We are to share the knowledge and love of God with those to whom we are sent.   

 There’s a line in today’s Psalm which originally referred to “the heavens” themselves, and the silent witness they bear to God’s glory and faithfulness. But for centuries Christians have applied these lines to ministers and evangelists:

 “Although they have no words or language, and their voices are not heard,

Their sound has gone out into all lands, and their message to the ends of the earth.” (Psalm 19:3-4)

 That’s what God asks of us too, dear friends. Whether we are teachers or visitors or ordinary Christians. Whether we feel that we have the right “words or language” or not.

 By word and example our sound is to go out into all lands…and our message about Jesus…to the ends of the earth!