That We All May Be One

Reading again the opening chapters of Genesis, I wonder how those who claim to read the Bible “literally” and to believe in the “inerrancy” of Holy Scripture do it? The fantastical ages of people like Methusaleh and the co-mingling of divine and human beings producing the giant “Nephilim” warriors. Do they simply “suspend disbelief” and assume that such things happened in those days, but no longer do? I suppose that’s one way to do it. But how much richer to see those ancient Hebrews, wrestling with their “prehistorical” past and borrowing along the way from similar Babylonian stories and myths from tortured geneologies to some primal memory of a flood which destroyed life in the (then) known world.

And even in the New Testament: how much richer to see the author of Matthew’s Gospel, even in the early chapters, beginning to describe Jesus as a “new Moses” figure by having Herod seek to destroy all the children two years old and under, forcing a “flight to Egypt” so that “out of Egypt” God might call his son (Jesus) just as once this same God called his servant Moses from that same land to become his people’s deliverer and law giver. 

I just find this way of reading, and wrestling with, the Bible so much more interesting and fascinating than seeing it as some kind of strange history book or “how to do it” manual for daily living. In fact, it challenges me to take the Bible seriously as the record of one people’s interaction with God down through the centuries. A record which can be a companion to me as I continue to relate to this one God in my life and in the world today.

So, my New Year’s Resolution this year is to read the Bible through in 2012. The idea came from an article I read recently in The Living Church which suggested that this could be done fairly easily by reading one Psalm, three chapters from the Old Testament, and one from the New each day.

My reason for doing this is not because I think there is something meritorious in having read the Bible from cover to cover. I have not done so in many years and have often cautioned students not to worry about doing that since a good bit of the Bible is repititious and much of it not particularly edifying anyway! Besides, having started off with good intentions and bogging down somewhere in the  middle of Leviticus can be a turn-off to serious Bible study for the best of us!

No, my point is to engage each book of the Bible as a whole and on its own terms and to allow the author(s) to speak in their own voice. Reading lectionary selections — as I have done for forty years praying the Daily Office — makes this harder to do and, even while following the lectionary carefully, entails a certain skipping around from season to season and there are interruptions for holy day lections, etc.

I intend to use the New Oxford Annotated Edition of the New Revised Standard Verson and to include the introductory material and footnotes in my reading. I will begin with the Psalm, since these hymns are also prayers worthy of entering the Divine Presence, proceed with three chapters of the Hebrew Scripture and one of the Christian Testament.

Then, I’ll follow with a brief period of prayer and silence, making this whole endeavor into a kind of lectio divina exercise. I expect I’ll miss praying the Daily Office this year but, with forty years behind me, I expect I’ll survive a year off!

I won’t promise to blog about this every day (for which my vast audience of readers will be gateful!) but comments arising from this process may appear here from time to time. Wish me luck. My past experiences with New Year’s Resolutions have not been pretty.

But this one intrigues me…

It was a joy for Susanne and me to be at the Diocese of Chicago’s Convention last weekend (Dec. 18-19) and to receive a warm welcome as Bishop Jeff Lee announced that I would become Assisting Bishop in Chicago on January 1. This will be a part time position in which I will do two visitations per month and be assigned some other modest responsibilities perhaps in the ecumenical/interfaith arena or with pastoral care of clergy and families.

I intend to remain canonically resident in the Diocese of Iowa and physically resident in Davenport so I’ll be “on the road again” traveling, not only in Western Illinois, but throughout the entire diocese.

As I said on Friday evening this is a “coming home” of sorts since I graduated from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in 1972 and was ordained to the transitional diaconate by Bishop Jim Montgomery that same year in my field work parish, Church of the Advent in Logan Square. We have always loved Chicago and the diocese seems to be a lively place these days. I look forward to being part of the new leadership team, working with Bishop Lee and the faithful across the diocese.

Jeff Lee challenged the Convention (and through them, the wider diocese) to have at least one meaningful conversation with another person about God, their faith, and their lives — evangelism at its simplest and best. Secondly, to engage in some serious Bible study and reflection using one of the many tools out there to assist in this. And finally, to engage in some kind of intentional outreach “striving for justice and peace among all people.”

Three very practical ways to carry out the Diocesan vision — Grow the Church, Form the Faithful, Change the World. Let’s get it on!

Proper 23A.

Three lines most every preacher will try to avoid in this morning’s Lessons:

Exodus 32:11 – “But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?”

Psalm 106:23 – “So he would have destroyed them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath from consuming them.”

And from Jesus’ parable in Matthew 22:13 – “Then the king said to the attendants, Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Hard to find a lot of “good news” to proclaim in our Lessons today when the main theme seems to be “the wrath of God!” How are Christians to understand that topic? What are we to make of “the wrath of God?”

Well, a common approach is to say that “the wrath of God” is really an Old Testament concept — That we have the God of wrath in the Old Testament and the God of love in the New. Unfortunately, that just will not bear scrutiny if you simply read the Old and New Testaments. There are plenty of passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that speak of a God of love, and there are nearly two-dozen New Testament passages, from the Gospels through the Epistles to the Book of Revelation, which speak of the “wrath of God.” It’s not an “Old Testament versus New Testament” thing.

So, what is the concept? And how can we reconcile God’s wrath with God’s love? I certainly cannot do justice to this in one sermon, but let me give it a whirl. For some of which follows, I am indebted to an article I read recently on the topic by a Monsignor Charles Pope from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. And he points out several things:

First of all, we need to understand that the biblical idea of God’s wrath is related to God’s passion to set things right again! God has a passion for justice and wants what is best for us. What incurs God’s wrath are all the things that afflict us and get in the way of our living the kind of full life God wants for us.

The Ten Commandments themselves (which we heard in our OT Lesson last week) indicate what some of those things are: not obeying God, putting other things in place of God, not respecting God or worshipping him, neglecting our families, violence and not valuing life, promiscuous or exploitive sex, stealing and cheating and taking advantage of people, lying and greed and jealousy. Those are the kind of things that keep us from living “the good life,” the life God intended all of us to have. And they do indeed incur what the Bible calls “God’s wrath”…his passion for justice and righteousness.

But it’s important to understand as well that God’s wrath is not like our anger. God’s wrath, whatever it is, is not like ours. When you and I get angry we often experience ourselves as out of control, our tempers flare, and we say and do things that are either sinful or excessive. God doesn’t have temper tantrums or fly off the handle! The way God experiences anger is not something we can fully understand, but it is certainly not an out of control emotion.

God is not “moody!” It doesn’t pertain to God to have good and bad days like we do! Good moods and bad moods. God doesn’t change like that. And even though it may sometimes seem to us – as it did to a few of the biblical writers – that God “changes his mind,” the overwhelming witness of Scripture is that God is not variable. St. James is very clear that “…every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17)

Think about this as an example, an image. We have a light in our bedroom with a 100 -watt bulb in it. At night, when we may be reading in bed before going to sleep, we delight in that light. When we’re ready for sleep, we put out the light. Often when we wake up in the morning, it’s still dark outside and we turn on the light again. Now the light seems harsh and we shield ours eyes and don’t like the light so much! I’ve even been known to say bad things about that light!

Of course, the light hasn’t changed one bit. It’s still the same 100- watt bulb it was hours earlier. The light is the same…it is we who have changed. We blame the light and say that it’s harsh, but the light isn’t harsh. It’s just the same as when we were happy with it.

So, when all is said and done, the primary source of what the Bible calls God’s wrath is not in God. It’s in us! We often project on to God our own kind of anger and think of that as what the Bible refers to as God’s wrath. That’s not right!

God’s wrath is the backside of his love and his passion for justice and righteousness and to set things right again for his people. When we’re in tune with God’s passion we experience it as God’s love and God’s justice. When we’re out of synch with God, it may feel more to us like God’s wrath or even his anger.

When that happens, or when your read about it in the Bible, remember that the concept of God’s wrath is his passion for justice and to set things right. Remember that God’s anger –= whatever it is – is not like our anger. Remember that God is not moody and never changes.

It is we who change. And that is what allows us to experience either God’s wrath – or God’s unfailing love.

The choice is, and always has been…ours!

9/11 Remembered

We were just finishing up Morning Prayer in the Chapel of Christ the Lord at The Episcopal Church Center in New York when a staff member I didn’t know pushed open the glass doors. “A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center!” Assuming, like everyone else initially, that this was some terrible accident, we took a moment to pray for those involved and then hopped on to the elevators to get to our various office floors.

My unit had a small TV in a snack room and so six or eight of us gathered around watching the news and the terrible pictures until it dawned on us that it had really happened. And, that this was no accident.

Susanne was at a deacons’ meeting at The General Seminary some twenty blocks closer to what came to be known as “Ground Zero’ than I was and I spent the next hour trying to get in touch with her since cell phones and most other kinds of communications were spotty at best. When I did finally reach her and found out she was OK and in the midst of a caring seminary community, I wandered back into my office. As I looked down on Second Avenue there were vast streams of people just walking aimlessly up the street.

Most of them looked dazed but normal. Some still bore the ashes that had fallen out of the sky when first one great Tower, and then the second, collapsed virtually on to their own footprints in that horrible aftermath.

Bishop George Packard, chief of our Armed Forces Chaplains and Federal Ministries had his office next door to mine in those days and he was trying to get through to the Diocese of New York to assist in coordinating our outreach efforts. He posted a sign-up sheet within hours for clergy who worked at the Church Center to volunteer to serve as Chaplains at Ground Zero. In those early hours, or course, we assumed there would be many injured as well as killed….hundreds rushed to hospitals…last rites to administer…many bodies to recover…and many funerals at which to officiate. As it turned out, hospitals sat virtually empty. Only some of the survivors were injured…and many of those injured did not survive. Many were never found.

In the weeks that followed, Susanne and I took our rotation as chaplains in St. Paul’s Chapel, literally a stone’s throw from the site of the World Trade Center. Its building and graveyard were covered with feet of ash but miraculously this 235 year-old structure, a Chapel of Trinity Church, Wall Street (with George Washington’s favorite pew intact) was not structurally damaged.

But it became the primary oasis for first responders, other police and firefighters, and construction workers. Food was served…naps were taken….massages were given. Clergy counseled the traumatized young men and women many of whom (save perhaps the police and firefighters) had never expected to see anything like this. I remember Susanne sitting for a long time with a young African American construction worker who had quite literally “uncovered” the body of an airline stewardess. He would never be the same.

I guess none of us will ever be. Later, I officiated at the funeral of Tim Haviland, the 41 year-old son of one of our priests in this diocese (Doug and Betty Haviland from St. John’s in Ames.) Tim was killed instantly on the 96th floor of the North Tower on that terrible day. One of thousands…

My wife, Susanne, wrote “Prayers of the People” for the 5^th anniversary of the 9/11 attack. They were used all over the country and include petitions like this: “For those who acted selflessly that day; for police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, health care professionals, first responders and construction workers, chaplains, cooks, and for ordinary citizens who were transformed from strangers to friends. For teachers and parents who held our children while in danger and who guide them now into hope…for the perpetrators of violence on that day, and for those who perpetrate violence every day.”

Our Lessons from Scripture today have to do with the children of Israel escaping their Egyptian slave-owners through the Red Sea experience…with St. Paul’s warning not to judge our neighbors…and with Jesus’ stern warning in the Gospel to forgive those who wrong us – not because they deserve it…but because we ourselves have been forgiven.

There would be lots of ways to go in preaching a sermon on those Lessons…on this occasion. And, while I believe personally, that we squandered an enormous opportunity in this country after 9/11 when virtually the whole world was in our corner and grieving right alongside us – I have no idea if we should have, or could have, responded any differently than we did. I judge no one for how they responded or how they felt after that horrendous crime was committed.

But, as I read our First Lesson today from Exodus, I could not help but reflect on the ancient Jewish Midrash on this story. The Rabbis taught that when the Israelites escaped from the Egyptians, their persecutors were drowned in the Red Sea that had temporarily parted to let the children of Israel pass through. Naturally enough, the chosen ones cheered! Miriam gathered the women together, they played their musical instruments and sang “The Song of the Sea”, and everyone danced for joy.

But when the angels in heaven began to join in the celebration, God rebuked them asking why they were rejoicing when God’s creatures were dying? “Are not these Egyptians my children too?” the Ancient of Days said. And, chastened, the angels began to weep alongside the Holy One.

This is not a day for political rhetoric or second-guessing or even congratulatory comments about our finally have “gotten” Osama bin Laden. This is a day to remember…and to weep…and to pray. We pray for victims and perpetrators…families and friends…nations and their leaders…people of all religions and people of none.

Following our service today, at noon, we will toll our tower bells in cooperation with Senate Resolution 237 asking churches to do so in order to STOP AND REMEMBER 9/11 today. In addition, some of us will be part of an Interfaith Commemoration this afternoon at 3 o’clock in Augustana’s Centennial Hall, Rock Island.

People from diverse faith groups and community leaders from the Quad Cities will come together to commemorate this 10^th Anniversary with reflections and prayers. A year-long series of interfaith events in the spirit of promoting bridge-building within our community will be announced.

Perhaps this is one way to move forward with even greater strength and deeper understanding of each other. Pray that it may be so…

Maundy Thursday. If we had to come up with a caption, or a summary, for the events we are commemorating here tonight, it might be “a freedom meal for servants.” That may sound like an oxymoron so let me unpack what I mean.

Most scholars believe that the Last Supper Jesus ate with his disciples was a Passover Seder. They were observant Jews and would have taken special care to celebrate the Passover together every year. Tonight’s reading from Exodus tells us of the origins of that sacred meal: Moses and his people are preparing to pack up and escape the bonds of their slavery in Egypt after a long struggle with Pharaoh and the ruling authorities there.

Just before they go, Moses experiences God telling him to transform an ancient sheep-herder’s spring festival into a new “freedom meal.” The meal was called “pesah” which we usually translate “Passover” because of the story of the angel of death “passing over” the homes of the Jewish people that night. But it more likely means “have compassion on” or “protect.”

Just as God had “compassion on” and “protected” the early, nomadic Hebrew shepherds, now he was to have compassion on and protect the whole people of Israel from the Egyptians’ fury. So, just as in those earlier meals, they slaughter the spring lambs and share the meal among families. But this time, there are some changes to “the liturgy.” They spread the lambs’ blood over their doors to identify the children of Israel, and they eat the meal in haste – with their “loins girded, sandals on their feet, and staffs in their hands” – because their mad dash to freedom was about to begin!

The Jewish people have celebrated that Meal annually from that day until this in accordance with the Lord’s commandment: “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” (Exodus 12:14)

And it was this that the Psalmist was singing about in tonight’s Psalm: “How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people…O Lord, I am your servant and the child of your handmaid; you have freed me from my bonds. I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving…” (Psalm 116 passim)

It was that meal too that Jesus was presiding over when he “changed the liturgy” once again! When he “lifted up the cup of salvation” he said, “This cup is the NEW covenant in MY blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” When he lifted up the unleavened bread and broke it in order to share it with his friends, he said, “This is MY body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (I Corinthians 11:23-26 passim)

No longer was it the lamb’s blood spread over the doors that spoke of God’s “compassion.” Now, it was Jesus’ blood – the sacrifice of his life – that showed how much he loved them. No longer was it the unblemished lamb that provided spiritual food. Now, it was Jesus’ own Body, which he was prepared to offer for their protection…and for their liberation.

So, the Passover Seder is the freedom meal for the Jews. The Holy Eucharist is the freedom meal for Christians.

But just what kind of Christians are we called to be – we who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb?  Well, “during supper Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet…” (John 13:3-4)

I’ve always thought it so interesting that Christians follow Jesus’ command to “Do this in remembrance of me” every Sunday in countless churches around the world. We follow his example to wash one another’s feet only once a year – if that – on Maundy Thursday. I’m proud of Trinity Cathedral for being willing to share also in this ritual – a tradition of the Church for 2,000 years!

A freedom meal for servants!

St. Paul once wrote, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1). God created us to be free, but we abused that freedom. God led the children of Israel out of slavery into freedom time and time again, but they often abused that freedom as well.

Jesus Christ came with a message of freedom and was prepared to lay down his life rather than compromise that message. But we have often compromised it. What we never seem to “get” is this: Freedom is not doing anything we want to do. That’s “license” not freedom. Real freedom is about “service” – serving God and serving one another.

There is a prayer which I say almost every day in the service of Morning Prayer, and it begins like this; “O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom…” If you really want to be free…start serving God.

This is the message of Maundy Thursday. The message Jesus was preparing himself to die for when he broke the Bread, shared the Cup, and washed his disciples’ feet. He knew that knowing God IS eternal life and that serving God is perfect freedom.

For freedom Christ has set us free, dear friends!

Welcome to this “freedom meal…for servants.”

Since taking early retirement from my position as the Presiding Bishop’s Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations at the Church Center and signing on for two years as Interim Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in my former Diocese of Iowa, I have not been back to a House of Bishops’ meeting. I think retired bishops should stay retired. I certainly think retired bishops should refrain from voting which I will surely do.

However, the current Bishop of Iowa, Alan Scarfe, is on sabbatical and I have been doing some informal, “back up” episcopal ministry since the first of the year. Both Alan and I thought it was important for this diocese of have a pair of eyes and ears (two each!) at the Spring meeting of the House, so I agreed to go. It will be good to see old friends and to spend a few days at the Kanuga Conference Center, near Asheville/Hendersonville, NC. It’s always a pretty time of year up there.

I remember the first Spring meeting we had there after the melt-down General Convention in Phoenix when Ed Browning decided we needed to meet more regularly as bishops, to work on our common life, and to find venues in which to pray and talk and relate to one another, free from the highly-charged “political” atmosphere of General Convention or even the traditional Fall meetings of the House.

I think these meetings have served us well and one doesn’t here the “d” word –“dysfunctional” — thrown around quite so much any more describing the House of Bishops. These Spring meetings used to have more of a ‘retreat’ atmosphere which I always appreciated. I think some of that has gone by the wayside over the years, but the conference/retreat center setting of Kanuga still lends itself to a different feeling for the meeting.

This time we’ll talk about proclamation of the Gospel to teenagers and young adults, spend some time on interfaith matters particularly Christianity and Islam, talk about the proposed Anglican Covenant, and explore the recruitment, selection, and formation of young leaders. I hope to share anything interesting that may come out of these discussions on this blog.

Anyone still out there?

Christmas 2 – Trinity Cathedral.  As we begin to live into this New Year 2011 let me remind you that the new “church” year began on Advent Sunday. We are in Year A of our lectionary cycle, which determines the Scripture readings for Sunday mornings. And this is the Year of Matthew. Most of our Sunday morning Gospel readings will come from Matthew this year.

Each of the Gospel writers, as you know, has their own perspective in telling the story of Jesus. Mark was the earliest such writer and his Gospel is short and fast-paced and full of urgency. Luke was a Gentile physician and emphasizes healing and Jesus’ concern for the poor and the marginalized, including women. John’s much-later Gospel is highly structured and theologically sophisticated.

Matthew is very interested in the Jewish heritage and background of Jesus and indeed of the Christian faith itself. He traces Jesus’ genealogy from Abraham rather than from Adam as Luke did. He writes of fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the exile of the Jewish people in Babylon, and fourteen generations from the Exile to the birth of Jesus (whom he designates, early on, as the Messiah.) All this is intended to remind us that Jesus was a Jew and that the Christian faith makes no sense at all apart from its Jewish roots.

Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in our Gospel passage for today. The slaughter of innocent children by Herod the Great is not recorded in secular annals of the time, but it is perfectly consistent with the kind of thing this ruthless king regularly did, and which are recorded. He butchered members of the Sanhedrin when he first came to the throne. He once cut down some 300 officers of the court. He even killed his own wife and son. The massacre of the holy innocents was likely one among many such atrocities and barely attracted the attention of his cowed subjects.

But no good Jew reading this account in Matthew’s Gospel could possibly miss the parallel with Moses, and with the history of Israel. After all, hadn’t Moses too narrowly escaped being slaughtered among the “holy innocents” of his time by being placed in a basket of bulrushes and hidden among reeds on the bank of the river, only to be discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter? (Exodus 2)  Jesus’ similar experience of nearly being killed before he really began to live starts to define him as the “new Moses,” a comparison we will see all the way through Matthew’s Gospel.

And where did Joseph take the child and his mother to escape a terrible fate? To Egypt – exactly where Moses and the children of Israel had started their long pilgrimage to freedom. When Matthew quotes the prophet Hosea (11:1) in today’s Gospel: “Out of Egypt I have called my son,” he knew that text originally referred not to Jesus, but to the people of Israel themselves – called by God out of slavery into freedom. But his point is that Jesus is reliving, in his own early life, the history of Israel – rescued from merciless tyrants, both the Jewish people and Jesus himself come forth from Egypt and begin a journey to freedom and to a new life…a new home.

[At this time of year, when most of us think about the holidays, we think about going home and being surrounded by family and friends, don’t we? Even if we aren’t able to do that physically, we remember such times in the past. The holidays are a time to feel grounded and grateful.  That’s the payoff for all the craziness that often surrounds this time of year, complicated this year by the weather challenges so many of us faced.

But as we think of the people of Israel, and even Jesus himself, as “refugees” and even as “asylum seekers”, we need to remember the countless numbers of men, women and children who still find themselves in that situation today. “Refugees” are defined as “exiles who flee for their safety.” And, whether they are living in camps overseas or undergoing the difficult adjustments needed to start over again in the United States or elsewhere, the sense of comfort and security you and I enjoy must seem very far away indeed.

And yet, with amazing grace and perseverance, refugees resettled in various parts of the world do find a sense of home. They create it for themselves, with the help of open-hearted people who are willing to embrace them. You may not be aware of it, but a ministry of our church is something called Episcopal Migration Ministries and one of the real joys I experienced while working at our Church Center in New York was seeing The Episcopal Church at work with such uprooted people and seeing churches and communities all around the country extending welcome and understanding to these newcomers to the United States.

Last year, Episcopal Migration Ministries assisted 934 refugees with the support of parishes and community volunteers across the many dioceses of our church – 88 people from Africa, 249 from East Asia, 40 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 551 from the Near-East and South Asia, 6 from Europe. There may be no better time of year than this to be mindful of the gifts and potential that such refugees bring, and to be thankful that we live in a country where it’s always possible to find your way home.] (Above cited from EMM website)

The people of Israel finally did. Jesus finally did. Your ancestors and mine finally did – right here in this beautiful land…and so did those 934 others The Episcopal Church assisted this year. I’m proud to be associated with Episcopal Migration Ministries, proud that our church continues to reach out in this way and that by our tithes and offerings through this diocese and beyond, we share in this ministry in some small way. In the words of today’s Epistle: “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” (Ephesians 1)…Happy New Year!

The problem with “religious people” – like us – is that we can become judgmental. We value our belief in and relationship with God. We treasure the forms of worship and service which we believe have nurtured that relationship. And we just can’t understand why those “other people” don’t join us in all that.

Now that’s OK as long as it simply becomes a motivation to share our faith with others and even seek to persuade them that there is something unique in the Christian faith which might be good for them and make their lives richer and fuller and help them face the difficulties of living (and dying) with greater courage and comfort.

The problem is, our zeal can become judgmental, if we are not careful. And we can pretty quickly turn into people like those Pharisees and scribes in today’s Gospel who criticize Jesus for hanging around with some of those “other people” by saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and (even) eats with them!” (Luke 15)

Or we can find ourselves – like the Psalmist today – calling those “other people” who do not share our faith names. “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’”—says today’s Psalm…”Everyone has proved faithless; all alike have turned bad; there is none who does good; no, not one!” (Psalm 14).  Well, that’s seems a little strong! EVERY ONE is faithless? NO ONE does good? Come now!

Jeremiah can even find a way to put words like that on God’s lips in our First Lesson today. “For my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding.” (Jeremiah 4)  Does that sound like the God you have come to know in Jesus Christ?  I don’t think so. And here’s why:

Because Jesus answers those judgmental Pharisees and scribes by telling a little story: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost,’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

No judgmentalism there, is there? Not even any apparent anger or frustration about that little lamb which wandered off and probably endangered the others when the shepherd went off to look for him. Just joy that what had been lost was now found!

Well, we know at least one person in the earliest days of the Church’s life who knew just exactly how that little lamb must have felt. His name was Saul. And he had been chief among the Pharisees and the scribes and the “holier than thou” religious types so quick to find fault with those who disagreed with him.

So ready was he to condemn the outcasts and sinners with whom Jesus ate that he held the coats of the men who stoned Stephen to death for trying to follow this same Jesus.  So quick was Saul to agree with the Psalmist that those who didn’t seem to believe in God the way he did were “fools” that he dragged Christians out of their house churches and had them arrested.

So ready was he to assume these new Christians were “stupid children” who had no understanding that he was riding toward the city of Damascus to continue his murderous rampage when he was knocked off his horse by a vision of the Risen Christ who said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? He asked ‘who are you, Lord’ and the reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:4-6)

Decades later, this same man, now known as Paul was given credit for these words, “I am (so) grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.”

“ But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost.  But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, make me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.” (I Timothy1:12 ff)

Dear friends, that is the attitude, the perspective, the self-image Christians are to have! Not to criticize others. Not to call them names and assume the worst in them. Not to be so sure that we are absolutely right and they are absolutely wrong in everything. But – like Paul – to be “grateful.” Grateful that God cared enough about us to leave the ninety-nine, to find us, and to bring us home!

Grateful that he has called us – no matter who we are, or what we may have done in this life – to be disciples and to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.  Grateful that even though we are sinners (perhaps even, in the words of Paul, “foremost among them”) God is merciful…and patient…and infinitely forgiving. Because “gratitude” is the strongest motivator in the world for a life of genuine commitment and perfect service to the God we have come to know in Jesus Christ.

And just in case you’re having a hard time today thinking of anything to be grateful for, I’d like to close with one of my favorite contemporary prayers right out of our Book of Common Prayer. In fact, I’d like to have you pray it with me. Please turn to page 836 in the Prayer Book…stand…and let’s pray together

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us.  We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.