YEAR B 2024 pentecost 17

Pentecost 17, 2024
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 116:1-8
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

In today’s gospel reading, Peter calls Jesus the Christ, or the Messiah.  You and I just kind of gloss right over this and say, “Well, yeah.  Welcome to the club, Pete.”  But it’s important to see this reading in the scope of Mark’s entire gospel.  In the first chapter of Mark, in the first verse, we read, “The beginning of the good news[ of Jesus [the] Christ, the Son of God.”  Right out of the gate, Mark calls Jesus the Christ.  And then . . . nothing.  All this exciting stuff happens for 8 chapters, healings, and teachings, and feedings, and nowhere is Jesus called the Christ, or the Messiah.  For 8 whole chapters, no mention of Christ or Messiah.

And then, suddenly, we come to today’s reading.  Chapter 8, verse 29, Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, the Christ.  And we would expect Jesus to say, “Exactly!”  But he doesn’t, does he?  Before that, Jesus asks them, who do people say that I am.  And they give that list: John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets.  And then Jesus asks “But who do you say that I am?”  Or, actually, what he asks is more like, “Who are you saying that I am?”  You know, when you talk to people about me, who do you tell them I am?  And Peter answers, we’ve been telling them that you are the Messiah.  The Christ.  By which, Peter means, We tell them that you are the one who has come to take over the world, and destroy Rome, and restore Israel to its rightful place.  And then Jesus sternly orders them not to tell anyone.

Why?  Why doesn’t Jesus yell, “Yeah buddy!” and high five everyone in the group?  I mean, this is the One they’ve been waiting for.  Jesus is the one foretold by the prophets, the one proclaimed in the Psalms, the one who will finally lead God’s people to victory over their oppressors.  And Jesus says, don’t tell anyone?  What kind of PR strategy is this?  And then it gets even stranger, as Jesus starts describing what he is going to endure.  

And after Jesus describes what he must go through, Peter takes him aside and rebukes him.  And then Jesus rebukes Peter.  And then calls him Satan, for setting his mind on human things, rather than divine things.  I mean . . . that escalated quickly!  This story does not go where we would expect it to go, does it?  Instead of heading to the front of the class for having the right answer, Peter gets called Satan and is told that the right answer is the wrong answer.  How did this happen?  Well, we get our answer in what Jesus says after his rebuke  . . . to Peter’s rebuke.

It’s important to keep in mind that Peter has this Hail the Conquering Hero mindset about the Messiah.  And he’s not alone . . . everyone thought that way.  That’s why the Romans feared the Messiah, whenever he might appear.  God’s Messiah was supposed to be a great military leader, riding victorious over God’s enemies, because the only way to beat military strength is through greater military strength.  That’s how the world works.  Remember President Reagan’s slogan, "Peace through Strength?"  Although—fact check—the Roman Emperor Hadrian said, “Peace through strength or, failing that, peace through threat.”  To bring peace, God’s Messiah would need to be a powerful warrior in order to overcome a powerful oppressor.

But Jesus says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake . . . will save it.”  This is not how we think.  You save something by losing it?  You lose something by saving it?  This makes no sense to us.  If you want to win, you have to be strong.  That’s how winning works!

We want to stand strong for God.  Stand up for God.  Be the Christian nation that conquers for God.  Like, we want to be the championship 2016 Cavaliers, not the 2017 one-win Browns.  We want to be winners, but God comes to us in our losses.  We want God to see us standing strong; but we need God in our weakness and pain.  The idea that Jesus prevents suffering is a lie.  (We have all suffered plenty enough in our lives to know this.)  And the idea that Jesus causes suffering is also a lie.  (Jesus spends all his time healing people, and feeding people, and helping people, never hurting them.)  But God preventing suffering and causing suffering are two lies that are hard to shake.  The earliest Christians were tortured and killed.  But in our modern understanding of Christianity, we like to believe that Jesus will keep us safe.  Yet we know that’s not true.  Jesus does not save us from suffering.  Jesus saves us in our suffering.  

So, Jesus says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake . . . will save it.”  This is radical to Peter.  And it is even more radical to us.  Every message we hear is the opposite of this:  Get more, hold tighter, secure the border, protect what’s ours, take from the losers, give to those who have plenty.  The idea of laying down our life for others is radical, foolish, stupid, and even rebuke-able.

We think that more will make us happy.  Jesus says less will.  We say strength gives life.  Jesus says weakness does.  A world where you win by surrender, and gain by giving away?!?  Who wants THAT world?

Jesus does.  

Look.  Nobody said Christianity is easy.  Well, that’s not true.  Everybody says it is.  All the time.  Everyone except Jesus.  Which should tell us something about what we think being a Christian is all about.  We must be careful not to tie Christianity to world domination.  Or winning.  Or defeating our enemies through strength.  In today’s culture, that is easy to do.  The military and the cross are two very different things, literally representing victory and defeat.  To conflate the two brings a rebuke from Jesus.  We are called to take up our cross—not our sword—and follow Jesus.

And let me be clear:  I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a strong national defense, or that protecting us by serving in our country’s armed forces is somehow wrong.  Every country needs to protect its citizens.  I’m just saying that conquering our enemies is not what Christianity is about.  How do I know?  Because Jesus says so.  Right here.

When Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, he is thinking about a righteous military overthrow of the enemy.  He is planning to follow Jesus with a sword into victory.  And Jesus says, yes, follow him.  But carry your cross, not your sword.  Only by walking into death with Jesus will we rise to new life in Jesus.  

This is what baptism is all about, and that is why it is the entry point into the church.  We are drowned in the waters of baptism, and lifted up into new life with Jesus.  In some ways, that dangerous, powerful imagery of the Rite of Baptism gets lost in the gentle sprinkling of drops on a baby’s head.  But the message is still there:  Only by giving up will we gain.  Only in the death of Jesus will we find new life.  Only by dying will we live.  

Jesus came to serve on earth, and now rules in heaven.  Peter got it backwards in today’s gospel.  But it’s easy to see how that happens.  We worship the one who laid down his life for us.  This is a hard teaching.  This is an upside down teaching.  This goes against everything we know and trust about the world.  But it is what Jesus tells us.  And it is what Jesus shows us.

And you can see it most clearly in the Eucharist.  Only by laying down his life can Jesus be present at this Altar.  Only by surrendering can Jesus rise victorious.  The one we gather to worship promises to, somehow, be present in this bread and wine.  He offers himself to us again this morning in a tiny piece of bread and a few drops of wine.  He gives himself to us so that he can live in us, providing healing, and forgiveness, and hope to the broken world outside those doors.  

These mysteries are hard to understand.  Christianity is not easy.  Jesus told us so himself.  And it’s okay that we get it wrong.  But today, may God give to each of us the courage to surrender, the strength to serve, and the will to lay down our life for others.  The way of the cross is the way of life.

Amen.

September 11th, CAK Airport

We come together this day to remember a day that we must never forget.  We are grateful for the first responders, who were willing to do what most of us could not do.  We remember those who were just trying to get to work, or do their work, or make it through the day.  
And especially, in this place, we remember the pilots, and flight attendants, and passengers whose lives were taken in the name of hatred on September 11th.  

But on this day, we will always do well to remember the next day, September 12th.  Because that day represents who we are as a country.  That day reminds us how we came together across politics, and religion, and race to show the world a better way.  
America is an idea.  It has always been just an idea.  And that idea lives on in all of us, every day of our lives.  And the idea of America—at its best—will always bring us together across politics, and religion, and race.  Every day in our country is another chance to say, “Let this idea happen.  Let this beautiful messy country continue to be a place where the brave are respected, where every person is valued, and where what unites us is stronger than what divides us.”  Let us pray . . . 

O Judge of the nations, we remember before you with grateful
hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of
decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy. Grant
that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the
benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines. This
we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God, who created all peoples in your image, we thank you
for the wonderful diversity of races and cultures in this world.
Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of fellowship, and
show us your presence in those who differ most from us, until
our knowledge of your love is made perfect in our love for all
your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

YEAR B 2024 pentecost 16

Pentecost 16, 2024
Isaiah 35:4-7a
Psalm 146
James 2:1-17
Mark 7:24-37

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

This is a really hard gospel text to hear.  And it’s hard to know what to do with it.  Sure, we could take an “all’s well that ends well” approach and ignore what Jesus says, and just emphasize the healing of the woman’s daughter.  Or—as I’ve done in the past—we could say that Jesus is leading the crowd along, by pretending to reject the woman until the big reveal, where he welcomes the one they reject.  But I don’t find either of those approaches to be honest . . . to be honest.

Because we cannot just overlook that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has just flat out called another human being a dog.  No sweeping that under the rug—especially for us Episcopalians, a group of people who promise in our baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being.  We do not call people dogs, or vermin, or cockroaches.  Certainly not if we are being true to our baptismal vows.  And there’s no getting around the fact that Jesus has done just that in this reading.  How do we reconcile this?  How do we explain what we just heard?  Well, let’s back up for a minute and look at the circumstances surrounding this gospel reading.

Most scholars date Mark’s gospel to around the year 70AD, which is like 40 years or so after the resurrection.  It’s important to know that at the time, Jewish zealots were mounting an insurrection in Jerusalem against their Roman occupiers.  This was an all-out war, which resulted in the complete destruction of the Temple.  This insurrection of the zealots caused widespread oppression across the entire Roman Empire, resulting in a backlash of hatred of the Jews as a whole.  In particular, the historian Josephus notes that there was serious animosity between the Jews and the Gentiles living in the area of Tyre.

And where does Jesus go in today’s gospel?  To Tyre.  For Jews of this time, going into any gentile region is walking into hostile territory.  The Jews and the Tyrians are serious enemies at the time Mark was written.  It’s also worth noting that there is no mention of the disciples being with Jesus in this story.  He’s walking into this scene completely on his own, fully alone, and fully human, as we say in our Creed every Sunday.

And then a note about dogs.  Here in America in 2024, we do not have dogs roaming the streets.  Dogs need licenses.  Dogs need homes.  Stray dogs are not something we are familiar with.  In Jesus’ time—and in many countries today—dogs are not domesticated.  Sure, they might hang around humans, hoping for scraps and the occasional pat on the head.  But in Jesus’ time, people did not have dogs.  And so there is no good construction to put on his calling someone a dog.  A dog is not a faithful black lab going for walks.  A dog is more like a rat in New York City.  A part of life by accident, but not in any way “man’s best friend.”

So, with all that as background, let’s set the scene.  A gentile Lebanese woman comes to the Jewish Jesus when he’s alone in hostile territory and she asks for help.  Everyone present, and everyone hearing this story would know all that background I just laid out.  They would know the hostility between the Jews and the people of Lebanon.  They would know the status of dogs.  They would also know the status of women, and of people thought to be possessed by demons.  And so—to cut to the chase—this cruel belittling response from Jesus would surprise exactly . . . no one.  

The woman asks for help for her daughter.  And Jesus says to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  By which he means, “My healing power should go to the Jews first.  And you, madam enemy, are not my equal; you are not even on the level of a child; you are a dog.”  A dog.

And is there anything in this story to suggest anyone is shocked?  Does anyone object to this harsh language from Jesus?  Nope.  No complaints.  No notes.  No sense of surprise.  AND, no sense of shock from the woman herself!  You notice how she has a response ready to go?  She seems to expect Jesus to treat her this way!  She is ready to be rejected by God in the flesh.  And she is ready with the exact thing to make Jesus stop in his tracks and change course.

On the other hand, as post-resurrection listeners, WE expect Jesus to offer her some comforting words and to show an ounce of compassion.  We expect Jesus to extend the unconditional, unwavering, absolutely complete acceptance from God.  But the Tyrian woman expects no such niceties.  She has seen how Jewish people treat her people.  She knows full well the animosity on both sides.  And she is ready to respond.  And her response . . . changes Jesus.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again.  God.  Can.  Change.  And we can add to that . . . Jesus. Can. Learn.  I know that goes against a lot of what we have heard and thought over the course of our lifetimes.  I know that goes against the theology of much of our hymnody.  But it is not heresy.  It is Biblical.  God can change.  And God does.

Now before you go reporting me to the Bishop for heresy, let me say more.  There are aspects of God that are unchanging.  God’s mercy endures forever.  We say, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  We pray that we may rest in God’s eternal changelessness.  We refer to God as the unmovable mover, and so on.

And yet, back in Exodus, Moses goes up the mountain, the people ask Aaron to make a golden calf.  And God gets angry and decides to kill them all.  But Moses pleads on their behalf, and reminds God of the promises made to Abraham and Isaac.  And then we hear: “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”  An argument from Moses changed God’s mind.  God can change.

In the book of Jonah, God sends Jonah to Nineveh and tells them they need to repent.  And they put on sackcloth and ashes and they repent.  And then we hear:  “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”  The actions of the people of Nineveh changed God’s mind.  God can change.

Jesus says, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  Let me take care of my own people before I help the likes of you.  There’s only so much to go around.  And I have to be careful not to use it all up on the wrong people.  And she says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  This is what we call a mic drop.  She says that . . . and Jesus changes.  Just like in the story of Moses and the golden calf, we could say Jesus changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.  A simple sentence from this woman changed the mind of Jesus.

You know what I think happened here?  I think Jesus forgot who he was.  In his exhaustion and frustration, Jesus forgot that he came to save all the people.  He lost sight of the expansive nature of love and compassion.  The universal love of God is for everyone, even the outsiders . . . especially the outsiders.  God lifts up the lowly and casts down the mighty.  Jesus came to save sinners.  God cares deeply about the so-called dogs under the table.  And it took this gentile Tyrian woman to remind Jesus of that.  The reminder of inclusion comes from the very one who is excluded.  Take note of that.

And if God can change, if Jesus can learn, that means we can too.  It’s possible that we too can learn to change, and adapt, and give up our prejudices.  Sure, we could stick to our stereotypes, and our bigotry, and our offensive language that we learned from the hostile society within which we were raised.  Like Jesus, we could refer to our enemies as dogs, or vermin, or cockroaches.  And we have plenty of genocides in the world to show us exactly where that kind of language ultimately leads.  We could treat others with racism, and hostility, and cruel put downs.  Or . . .

We could be like Jesus.  We could learn from our mistakes.  We could welcome the outcasts.  We could change our ways and step outside what our culture tells us to do, and step outside how our society tells us to treat others.

I mean, we’ve got an entire book that tells us over and over to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies, to bless those who persecute us, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  This is not new material to any of us.  And I don’t think it was new material to Jesus.  I think Jesus forgot who he was.  Just as I think we sometimes forget who we are.

The message for us today is this:  Let us remember who we are.  Beloved children of God.  Created in the image of God.  Redeemed in the resurrection of Jesus.  There is no one and no thing beyond the redemptive work of God’s healing touch.

After hearing the words “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” Jesus remembers who he is, and who he came to save: the oppressed, the hungry, the stranger, you, and me.  May God constantly remind us who we are:  the redeemed children of God, who promise to respect the dignity of every human being.  All the people who are welcome at this table, where even the crumbs are enough to bring life and healing to all God’s people.  All of us.  No matter what the world outside those doors may tell you.  You are welcome here.

Amen.

YEAR B 2024 pentecost 15

Pentecost 15, 2024
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Psalm 15
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We humans have a thing about food.  And I don’t just lately, or just here in the United States.  Humans have always had a thing about food.  Eating is about much more than just nourishment.  Meals build community.  Eating together breaks down walls and brings us together.  If you think back through your life, many—if not all—of the more significant events involved food in one way or another.  Birthdays, holidays, weddings, funerals, baptisms, confirmations, graduations . . . Life is kind of one long series of significant meals, with the time between marked by less memorable meals.

When someone starts or leaves a job, we have a meal, or at least some cake.  Birthdays we have cake.  Anniversaries, cake.  Because cake is just the more convenient version of a meal.  And people can eat it standing up.  Cake is like short-hand for “meal.”  And with the combination of flour, sugar, and eggs, we can see that most of the major food groups are represented here.  We give someone a cake when a full-on meal is impractical, or impossible.  In other words, though we want to provide a meal to mark an important event in someone’s life, sometimes a cake stands in as substitute for the big sit-down dinner.

Meals are important to us.  We do not just eat to stay alive.  There is a strong connection between food and significant events.  Tomorrow is Labor Day, and I can’t imagine that I’m the only one who is planning to grill.  I have no idea what else I will be doing tomorrow, but the one thing I do know is that there will be grilling.  And the more grilling the better, in my opinion.

So, okay, you got my point by now: food means more than just food to us.  And so we move to the next point: location, location, location.  Do you remember the first time you ate at a friend’s house and they didn’t cook the food right?  I mean “right” as in how you’re used to.  For me, it was a revelation when, as a kid, I slept over at my friend’s house and his dad cooked scrambled eggs with milk in them.  Scrambled eggs were supposed to be yellow, not off-white!  Imagine my horror when I learned that this family boiled their pork chops!  And ate canned vegetables instead of frozen.  These people were making their food wrong, plain and simple.

If they wanted to make their food wrong, that was their problem.  But, if they wanted their food cooked the right way, they would obviously have to come to my house.  Come spend an evening in the Baum house of my childhood and my friend would see that hamburger is supposed to be thinned using oatmeal, and coffee is supposed to look like tea, and pizza is supposed to be made from a mix out of a box called Appian Way.  I mean, that’s the way food was supposed to be made.  Though I’ve outgrown those childhood understandings, the idea remains: You’re welcome to make your own food however you want, but I will not be attending your event if you make it the wrong way.  Location and food are linked.

And that brings us to today’s gospel reading.  You remember what we just heard?  Well, what I should say is, do you remember the beginning of what we just heard?  Since that reading ends with what sounds like a lot of bad news and condemnation, you might have forgotten how it began.  The Pharisees and Scribes gather around Jesus.  These are like, the hard-core religious people.  They stand there shaking their heads and tisk tisking.  And they ask Jesus, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"

Now, of course, the reason they ask this might actually be that they want to help Jesus bring his disciples in line with doing things the way they’re supposed to be done.  Jesus is Jewish, and a teacher of the Law, and he would want to be living up to the Law.  At which point, we need to step outside the story for a second and talk about the Law.

For faithful Jews, the Torah is the basis of everything.  That’s the first five books of our Bible.  Genesis through Deuteronomy.  According to Jewish tradition, all five of these books were given by God directly to Moses.  They are the basis of Jewish community.  The rules from God, given in the Torah, are sometimes called the Law of Moses.  From God’s lips to Moses’ pen, therefore the most sacred rules for living.  So sacred, in fact, that they need a barrier, what is called “a hedge.”  There is a longstanding tradition of building a hedge around the Torah, for the people’s own good.  The idea is that, in order to prevent a person from breaking the Law, we add layers of security to lessen the chance they will accidentally break the law.

Here’s an example:  According to Torah, men and women are not allowed to be intimate with one another during  . . . certain times of the month.  So, a hedge is placed around that rule, saying that the couple also must not hold hands, or kiss, or even pass a plate across the table, lest one thing lead to another.  Keep the Law safe by preventing our getting too close to it.

The point here is, there are rules about food in the Torah, but all this stuff about washing the pots and pans and hands is a ritual hedge that was added over the years by Rabbis.  That’s why, as Mark says, the Pharisees are following the “tradition of the elders.”  It is not the Law of Moses the disciples are violating; it is the tradition of the elders, the “hedge” around the Torah.  And Jesus tells them, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human practice.”  In other words, you ignore the beautiful Torah itself, and spend your time glorifying the hedge.

So, back to the hedge around food.  All these laws about washing pots and pans and stuff would mean something very specific when it came to sharing meals with others.  And here’s where location matters.  Because I could invite someone to my house (where all the pans were meticulously washed according to the tradition of the elders), but I could not risk going to your house if you didn’t follow those same traditions.  You could have dinner with me, but I could not have dinner with you.  And that means, you could come and celebrate the big events in my life, but I could not come and celebrate yours.  You can be there for me, but I cannot be there for you.  The hedge is so high that it distorts relationships

That’s not the intent of the hedge, right?  The intent is to prevent people from violating the Law of Moses.  But the result is throwing one another under the bus called the “hedge.”

People get sacrificed to the tradition of the elders rather than being guided by the love of God.  The Laws given on Mt. Sinai—the 10 Commandments, as we call them—are considered a gift from God by the Hebrew people.  The Law of Moses is seen as a sacred bond between God and God’s people.  So sacred that a hedge has to be built, a hedge that can become so thick that we can no longer see the gift that is hidden inside.

In a sense, Jesus is pointing out to the Scribes and Pharisees that they’re missing out on the gift because they’re focused on the gift wrap.  They’ve become distracted from the beauty God intends because all their attention is focused on the system that was built to protect that priceless gift.  It’s like walking through a jewelry store and only seeing the security cameras.

Now, we could draw a lot of conclusions from today’s Gospel from Mark.  We could focus on the list of things that comes after that conversation.  About how evil comes from within rather than without.  We could talk about the evil things that people do and then talk about the need for redemption that can only be found in Jesus.  But for today, I would like for us just to focus on the food.

I would like for us to go back to my first point.  That we mark our  significant days with meals together.  We share meals with one another to make those moments holy in some way.  And the more people we welcome into those celebrations, the more holy those moments become.  Because the more people we include, the more our celebrations begin to look like the kingdom of God:  The place where all are welcome . . . Regardless.

When we allow the hedge to become too thick, if the rules we set up to protect what we love turn out to be too high for others to see over . . . Well, it is our loss, my friends.  We will have missed the beautiful gifts of God, because we are all standing outside the hedge, not inside.

May we always keep our hedges low, and may St. Timothy’s Church continue to be a beacon for those who are seeking to celebrate the most precious meal of all:  The Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Salvation.

Amen.