The Hem of His Garment (proper 8B)

 

The Hem of his Garment
28 June 2015 Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8B)
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2: 23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When I came here to Trinity from Beijing in the Fall of 2011 for interviews for this position, one of the questions I was asked was how I understood Church, and how I saw what we do each week here.  I could only recite the lines of a hymn I had sung as a chorister as a new Episcopalian.  Though the text is by the 19^th century Church of England priest Percy Dearmer, and it shows up in the Presbyterian and Methodist hymnals, it unfortunately is not in the Episcopal hymnal.  For me, it captures the sacramental approach to life and faith we Episcopalians hold dear: 

Draw us in the Spirit’s tether;
For when humbly, in thy name,
Two or three are met together,
Thou art in the midst of them:
Alleluya! Alleluya! Touch we now thy garment’s hem.

As the faithful used to gather
In the name of Christ to sup,
Then with thanks to God the Father
Break the bread and bless the cup,
Alleluya! Alleluya! So knit thou our friendship up.

All our meals and all our living
Make as sacraments of thee,
That by caring, helping, giving,
We may true disciples be.
Alleluya! Alleluya! We will serve thee faithfully.

“Touch we now thy garment’s hem” the image is drawn from today’s Gospel reading.  A woman, desperate after 12 years of bleeding that has consumed all her resources for a cure and made her unclean and an outcast, secretly tries to capture some of Jesus’ healing power for herself by touching the fringe of his robe.  Jesus is on his way to heal the daughter of an important local leader, Jairus.

Touching the hem of his garment, she is instantly healed. Jesus, however, notices that something has happened and turns to ask who touched him.   The disciples are perplexed.  The crowds are pushing in, excited to have heard the news of Jesus’ healings.  According to Mark 6:56, the crowds “begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed.”  So when Jesus turns and asks who touched him, it seems passing strange that he would concern himself with a chance brush by.  But he is adamant—he has felt power go out from him.

The woman with the issue of blood dare not ask Jesus to help her because she is ritually impure.  Her unusual bleeding made her contagiously unclean: she conveyed that uncleanness to anyone who touched her or things she had touched.  Such rules were a central part of the religion that Jesus had been raised in, the varied Judaism of the period of the Second Temple. Just after the rules about dealing with women with unusual flows of blood, we read this in Leviticus 15: “You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.”

The woman is an outcast. She wonders how a religious teacher like Jesus could be expected to pay her any attention, let alone touch her to heal her. So she takes things into her own hands and secretly touches his robe. She is cured, but he feels that some power has gone out of him, and he asks who touched him.

It is the woman’s uncleanness that makes her reluctant to ask for help, or even expect a reply.  But she still reaches for his garment’s hem.  And that is what Jesus praises, saying it is her trust in him that has healed her. 

When Jesus finally arrives at the house of Jairus, the question of ritual impurity again intrudes in this complicated sandwich of a story. Coming neat to or touching a corpse also transmitted ritual uncleanness. When the crowd tells Jairus that his daughter is dead, Jesus persists in going to try to heal her, and tells him, “Don’t be afraid, just believe.”

He is not asking Jairus to sign on to a doctrinal program, or to intellectually assent to a set of propositions about the universe, morals, or society. He is asking Jairus to trust him. Remember that the Latin word credo, "I believe," from which we get the word "creed" originally came from cordem dare, "to give one's heart."

They leave the crowd behind, and come to the house, where professional mourners are already at work, ululating, weeping, and tearing their clothes. Their presence underscores the high social status enjoyed by Jairus. When Jesus announces that the girl is not dead, just asleep, and says he will go and wake her up, the crowd laughs at him. Instead of reaching for his garment’s hem, they laugh. 

Some probably laugh at what they see as Jesus’ stubbornness in not listening to their announcement that the girl is dead. Some laugh at his foolishness in thinking that he can 'heal' a dead person. Most are probably laughing out of nervousness—this guy is not only going to cause a great scene involving a corpse, but is also going to break, right there in public, a great taboo. He would contaminate himself by touching the corpse, and then come out and contaminate them. 

Despite the privileged position the little girl had in life as the daughter of a religious leader, as a corpse she is just another source of ritual contamination, like the woman with the flow of blood earlier in the story.

After Jesus puts the onlookers all out, he takes the child's father and mother and his accompanying disciples, and goes in to where the corpse is. He then takes her by the hand and says, “Little girl, get up!” (Talitha qumi! It is recorded in the words he probably actually used in his own native language, Aramaic.)

We read, “Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.”

You see, in both cases, the woman with the unusual flow of blood and Jairus’ young daughter, compassion and service took precedence over a desire to remain pure. 

Purity or compassion, Jesus, which is it?   Love, not purity, is Jesus’ consistent answer.  This really marks just how radical Jesus was. The religion of the day declared, with the full authority of scripture literally cited and interpreted through authoritative tradition, that impurity was contagious. It spread from the unclean to the clean. People who want to please God must avoid it if at all possible, lest they commit sacrilege against the Temple of God. If impurity is inadvertently contracted, they need to purge it away through rituals.

As a Jew, Jesus respected the rituals. But he taught that goodness was different from purity, and far more important. In his view, moral goodness was spread to others by compassion and service. And the need for compassion and service trumped the need to avoid contamination at all times.

The theme is a subtext of almost all of Jesus’ public acts and teaching. He practiced open table fellowship with people that his religion labeled as the worst of the worst. According to the Law, the table where one ate was one of the easiest places to contract impurity. He taught that it was what one said and did, rather than what one ate, that counted. He tended to discount ritual washings as a core issue and said they did not necessarily touch what really mattered—the heart. He told stories of religious men avoiding contamination with what they thought was a corpse in contrast to a heretic and illegitimate man (a Samaritan) who, despite the same religious rules about corpses, still showed compassion and thus made himself the fellow countryman ("the neighbor") of the man who was near death.

In so doing, Jesus was following the very best of the Jewish prophetic tradition, which itself had consistently criticized the religious establishment’s concern with purity rather than justice.

Ultimately, it would be Jesus’ uncompromising insistence on this that so alienated the religious authorities that they conspired to turn him over to the hated Roman occupiers.

We need never think that our uncleanness or impurity is a barrier keeping us from Jesus. We need not fear that a disability we may have can keep us from the love of Jesus. Jesus loves us regardless, and wants to heal us and help us understand that we are forgiven all.

What keeps us from Jesus is our fear itself. Our fear may make us so nervous that we, like the professional mourners outside Jairus' house, end up laughing at God. But the woman with the flow of blood was so desperate that she overcame her fear. Taking things into her own hands she reaches out to touch his robes. We too need to reach out to touch his robes.  

We do that by living in the spirit, by coming together and praying and eating the bread and wine that Jesus shared in open table fellowship.  We do that by serving and loving and showing the same preference for love over purity that Jesus showed.  Draw us in the Spirit’s tether.  Touch we now thy garment’s hem. 

When Jairus learns his daughter is dead, Jesus tells him "Don't be afraid, just trust in me."

Jesus is saying this today, to each of us, "Don't be afraid. Just trust in me."

Let us touch the hem of his garment. 

In the name of God, Amen.

Social Sins (Mid-week Message)

 

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

Social Sins 

June 24, 2015

Today is the feast day commemorating the birth of St. John the Baptist, who took a common repeated Jewish ritual of purification—washing the body by immersion—and made it a symbol of turning around and coming close to God.   Today is chosen for this feast because according to St. Luke, John’s mother became pregnant with him six months before Mary conceived Jesus: today is six months before Christmas Eve. 

John preached a rigorous social ethic of justice and fairness: “the one with two coats should share with the person who has none; the one with food should do likewise… Tax collectors should not line their own pockets by extorting more than the established tax rate; … soldiers should never violently rob anyone or use false accusations to do the same thing, and should be content with their wages” (Luke 3:10-14).  Fairness and compassion were the hallmarks of John’s ethic.   Jesus was so attracted by this preaching that he asked for baptism by John. 

In reaction to last week’s murders at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, a national discussion is heating up in the country about race and what one critic calls (rightly, to my mind) our “worship of Moloch, the demon of gun violence.”   These are sins John would condemn, and we all share in them to the degree that we tolerate them in our common life. 

And so I thought of Malcolm Boyd, whose 1965 Are You Running With Me, Jesus includes the following prayer of repentance: 

God:

Take fire and burn away our guilt and our lying hypocrisies.

Take water and wash away our brothers’ and sisters’ blood which we have caused to be shed.

Take hot sunlight and dry the tears of those we have hurt, and heal their wounded souls, minds, and bodies.

Take love and root it in our hearts, so that community may grow, transforming the dry desert of our prejudices and hatreds.

Take our imperfect prayers and purify them, so that we mean what we pray and are prepared to give ourselves to you along with our words.

Amen

Grace and Peace,   Fr. Tony+

'Til We Have Faces (Proper 7B)

 

The Spire of Emanuel AME Church, Charleston SC

‘Til We have Faces
21 June 2015 Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 7B
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Job 38:1-11, 16-18; Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32; 2 Corinthians 6:1-134-21; Mark 4:35-41

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

What terrible news from South Carolina.  Wednesday night, at a small mid-week prayer meeting and bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, horror struck.  A young white man, obviously marginal and troubled, showed up and asked to join the meeting, where twelve churchgoers were studying the parable of the sower and the soils.  Mid-week prayer and bible study is known to most of us:  apart from the formal ceremony and busyness of Sunday, it is where many Christians connect with small, intimate groups of faith, share their hopes and fears, urge each other on, and try to make the Gospel real, incarnate in our day-to-day lives.  The group of twelve, despite misgivings about this stranger, welcomed him.  That’s what the gospel is all about, after all.  And it’s the troubled and the marginalized Jesus taught us to serve, and showed us to love.  After an hour listening to them, the stranger began to argue with the Pastor, Clementa Pinckney.  He pulled out a .45 caliber handgun from his fanny pack, and aimed it at 87-year old Suzie Jackson, a veteran of the civil rights movement.  Her 26 year old nephew, Tywanza Sanders, tried to talk the gun-wielding stranger down and asked him why he was attacking churchgoers.  The stranger then replied, "I have to do it. You [people] rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."  He said was going to shoot everyone. Sanders dove in front of his elderly aunt and was shot first, his aunt died next.   The stranger then shot the others while shouting racial epithets.  According to the survivors, he said, "Y'all want something to pray about? I'll give you something to pray about."  He reloaded his gun five times. Only three of the church goers survived: two apparently by playing dead and one intentionally left alive by the gunman with the instructions to tell others what had happened.    

The killer was arrested within a day:  a troubled young man with drug problems and a history of white supremacist hatred, including a web page with a manifesto calling for whites to "take back their country". 

 

It is fitting to mention the names of the dead: Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54), a manager for the Charleston County Public Library system, Susie Jackson (87), church choir member, Ethel Lee Lance (70), the church sexton, Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49), a Bible study teacher who worked as an administrator at Southern Wesleyan University, Clementa C. Pinckney (41), the church pastor and a South Carolina state senator, Tywanza Sanders (26), a 2014 graduate of Allen University, Daniel Simmons (74), an assisting minister at the church, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45), an assisting minister at the church who was also a High School speech therapist and track coach, and Myra Thompson (59), a Bible study teacher and retired high school counselor.  

A measure of the faith and devotion of the dead and their families is this:  at the initial hearing after the gunman’s arrest, the families of the dead all expressed their sorrow, grief, and pain, and said they forgave the killer, inviting him to listen to the message of Jesus that he was hearing in the Bible study.

They were following the teaching of Jesus, who said love your enemy and pray for those who spitefully use you.   Jesus, who said as he died, “Father forgive them, for they don’t really know what they are doing.”   

They were following the teaching of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who once preached, 

“Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.”

This is what Christian love, true Christian faith, looks like.

In 1963, Dr. King gave the eulogy at the funeral after four children died in the basement of the black church bombed in Birmingham Alabama by the Ku Klux Klan.  He said:

“The[se] martyred [children] … have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents … hatred and … of racism [or who have hypocritically compromised with evil for political gain]… They say to each of us [to] substitute courage for caution. They say … that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.” 

Though some in our political classes are afraid to say it, this horror in Charleston came from the sin of racism.  It came from the sin of worshiping violence and guns.  These two sins are linked: a major historical reason for the adoption of the second amendment granting the "right" to "bear arms," despite the pretty political propaganda surrounding it, was to ensure white slave owners had weapons to suppress popular uprisings from those they held in chattel servitude.  These sins are the sin of America, of us all.   The troubled killer committed great evil and is responsible; but in a real sense he did not really know what he was doing.  Like us, he was the product of a sick society, and of dysfunction all around him.  These horrible acts are the result of despair, of giving up hope, of turning our backs on God, on what is beautiful, just, and loving. 

Today’s Hebrew Scripture reading is the climax of the Book of Job.  The book tells the story of a man who is “perfect in all his ways,” yet who suffers devastating horror in his life.  His friends, ever willing to defend the justice of God, urge Job to confess and repent of whatever hidden sin he has committed that God is so obviously punishing him for.  Most of the book’s 40 some chapters outline the argument.  And contrary to the proverbial portrayal of the “patience of Job,” Job is not patient.  He complains, bitterly, about the unfairness of it all.  He won’t lie to get God off the hook.  Yet he does not “curse God and die,” as his wife suggests. 

Curse God and die—a colorful phrase for despair.  When we lose heart and fail to pursue our faith, that is despair.  When we grow cynical and believe that there is nothing we can do to change things—that is despair.  When we grow complacent and jaded,  when we let the painful wounds in our heart scar over and seal off all emotion, that is cursing God and dying.  When we give up, and don’t ask any more questions, and disengage—that is despair.  When we lose our passion, our compassion, and even our anger at injustice—that is despair.    

Job does not curse God and die.  He continues the argument, drags out the discussion. Finally, God at long last engages him directly, and in today’s reading speaks to Job from “out of the whirlwind.” But instead of giving Job an answer or some kind of explanation, God himself asks a series of questions:  “Where were you when I created the foundations of the earth?  Do you even know about when the morning stars and the angels shouted for joy in creation?  Where do I keep the snows and frost, and the winds?  Do you even know how I treated the mighty ocean like a baby, and put it in a crib and diapers--the sandy shores and the mists--to  keep it from wiping you out with huge waves that don’t keep their bounds? What about the natural processes of the world?  What about the hippopotamus (behemoth) or the whale (leviathan)? What about the stars and comets (mazaroth)?”  The questions go on for three chapters of beautiful and highly enigmatic poetry.  The point is that Job’s perspective is so different from God’s that he wouldn’t understand any answer God gave him about justice and fairness.

Job humbly says, “I talked out of turn, in ignorance.”  But he still tries one last time to get his question about fairness in.  God replies with more riddles and enigmas.  The difference of perspectives is so overwhelming that all Job can do in the end is put on dust and ashes and bless the name of the Lord.  In so doing, he is not granting his friends’ arguments or giving up on arguing with God.  He is simply mourning the hard, hard, facts of our human condition, and expressing trust for its ultimate resolution by a reliable but mysterious God.   

God does not condemn Job and praise his orthodox friends.  He praises Job for his loyalty, and condemns the friends for presumption:  Job’s asking hard questions and nevertheless sticking with God is wisdom; presuming to speak for God and rationalizing his ways, especially at someone else’s expense, is the real darkening of counsel.  

“Talk to me man to man” says Job to God.  God replies, “Alright then! Stand up, and gird your loins!”  That means “Get ready for a real workout!” “Talk to you face to face? Show me your face so we can get to it!” 

C.S. Lewis once made a profound comment about those who have difficulty with faith because they can’t get God to answer their questions or grant their petitions in prayer.  In his retelling of the myth of Psyche and Eros, the main character says bitterly near the end of the story that the gods cannot speak to us openly, nor answer us, until we ourselves have found a real identity. Lewis writes, “[God] cannot meet us face to face until we have faces.”

Friends, we have hard lives.  We see horror like in Charleston, and wonder.  We see our loved ones and ourselves growing old, getting sick, suffering diminishment and dying.  We might lose heart.  People can break our hearts.  But we must not curse God and die.  We must stay engaged.  We must continuing arguing with Love. 

That’s the only way that we can grow into who we truly are, what God intended when he created us.  Despair and disengagement are death.  Hope and continued asking and questioning are life. 

We must not curse God and die.  We must stay engaged.  We must not “give up the ship.”

That is really what the Gospel story today is about:  a big storm on a big lake in a little boat causes the disciples to give up.  Jesus, sleeping like a baby, wakes to find them despairing.  And he says, gently, come on, guys!  Show some faith here!  And he calms the storm. 

I pray that we can keep on asking the questions, getting angry with the world and sometimes even with God, and have hope and courage to find ourselves.  I pray that we can start addressing some of these grievous sins like racism or violence and gun-worship.  I pray that one day we will have faces, and God will be able to speak to us in terms we understand.  I pray that Jesus will calm the storm. 

In the name of God, Amen.  

Sermon Hymn:  Lift Every Voice and Sing!

Trinity tolled its bell nine times before each Sunday service this week instead of pealing the bell, in memory of the Charleston dead.  There will be a community gathering on the Ashland Plaza this evening at 9 pm for a candlelight vigil, songs, and prayers in solidarity with what people in Charleston call "Mother Emanuel."  

   

Two Prayers

The Steeple of Emanuel AME Church, Charleston SC 

Loving God, have mercy on all those directly affected by the murders in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston South Carolina.  Take those killed into the arms of your mercy, and sooth the suffering of their families and friends.  Help our nation to end the scourge of racial hatred and prejudice.  Help us to turn our backs on the idols of violence and guns.  Heal our civic fabric, and help us to honestly amend and address these our grievous misdoings.    Through Jesus Christ our Savior,  Amen. 

 

Altar of the Church of the Multiplication, Tabgha Galilee, with 4th century mosaic and the rock traditionally said to have been the place where Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish. 

Lord Jesus, you gave us food and more than enough from five loaves and two fish, and taught us to expect rejection and persecution if we follow you.  Help the religious communities in charge of the Church at Tabgha Galilee, burned by arson this week, that commemorates your feeding of the multitude.  Sustain them and help them rebuild.  Help all people in that Holy Land to turn away from the seductions of religious fanaticism, identity politics, and intolerance, and instead learn mutual respect and honor, for your mercy’s sake, we pray.  Amen.   

Priest inspects arsonists' graffiti "false idols will be cut down" on wall of burned outer courtyards and buildings of the Church of the Multiplication (courtesy of Times of Israel). 

Our Parent (Mid-week Message)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Our Parent

June 17, 2015

A few months ago for the Ashland Youth Collective, I gave a class on praying in our own language and ideas.  One of the exercises was a reflection on the Lord’s Prayer, and how it would sound if Jesus had given it to us in our own language and ideas today. 

What I came up with was this:

Loving parent above,

May all give honor and value to everything you are.

May you be fully in charge, right here, right now.

May what you want be what happens

Here on earth just as it happens in heaven.

Give us enough food for today, and then some. 

Forgive us what we owe you

  Just as we forgive what others owe us. 

Please don’t put us to the test,

   But keep us safe from bad. 

Amen. 

When Jesus says “your kingdom come,” he asks that God be in charge here and now.  When he asks for “daily bread” he uses a word that means “for today and then a little bit more,” whether for the morrow or something beyond mere bread made from grains.  He asks for forgiveness of debts, what we owe and haven’t paid, whether monetary, moral, or social.  “Lead us not into temptation” is better translated as “put us not to the test.”  The final doxology “for thine is the kingdom, the power, etc.” is not part of the original text of the prayer, having been inserted into the text by a scribe who remembered the liturgical line that came after the prayer in the Eucharistic canon.  (That is why it is technically called the ‘embolism' of , i.e.,  ‘insertion into,’ the Lord’s Prayer.)

Grace and peace,

Fr. Tony+

The Harp of the Holy Spirit (Midweek Message)

The Harp of the Holy Spirit

Ephrem of Edessa 

10 June 373

Today is the feast day of Ephrem of Edessa, a fourth century deacon, hymn-writer, teacher, poet, orator, and defender of the Faith.   He was from Edessa (now Urfa), a city in what is now Turkey about 100 kilometers from Antioch (now Antakya).  Edessa was a an early center for the spread of Christian teaching in the East.

Edessa was a commercial center.  The main language in use there was Syriac, a late form of the Aramaic language written in its own script, whose early cursive form was later adapted by the Arabs.  Aramaic had been the lingua franca of the Southwest and Central Asian areas for centuries just as Greek was the lingua franca farther West.  Aramaic, you may remember, was the native tongue of Jesus of Nazareth.   Edessa in the early Christian era was the home of one of the greatest theological schools of the age, along with Constantinople and Alexandria Egypt.  It was later to become a center for the Diaphysite Christians (labelled "Nestorians" by their detractors) who rejected the Council of Chalcedon.  Edessa thus was in some ways the source from which flowed the Great "Church of the East" that proselytized and set up schools, churches, and monasteries throughout the entire South, Central, and East Asian area, including Tang, Yuan, and Ming dynasty China.

Ephrem in 325 is said to have accompanied his bishop, James of Nisibis, to the Council of Nicea.   His writings are an eloquent defense of the Nicene faith in the Deity of Jesus Christ.   He countered the Gnostics' use of popular songs to spread their message by composing Christian songs and hymns of his own, with great effect. He is known to the Syrian church as "the harp of the Holy Spirit."  The Syriac of his poems is powerful, energetic, and robust. 

Of his writings there remain 72 hymns, commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, and numerous sermons.

One of his hymns appears as number 443 in our Episcopal 1982 Hymnal:

From God Christ's deity came forth,
   his manhood from humanity;
 his priesthood from Melchizedek,
   his royalty from David's tree:
 praised be his Oneness.

 He joined with guests at wedding feast,
   yet in the wilderness did fast;
 he taught within the temple's gates;
   his people saw him die at last:
 praised be his teaching.

 The dissolute he did not scorn,
   nor turn from those who were in sin;
 he for the righteous did rejoice
   but bade the fallen to come in:
 praised be his mercy.

 He did not disregard the sick;
   to simple ones his word was given;
 and he descended to the earth
   and, his work done, went up to heaven:
 praised be his coming.

 Who then, my Lord, compares to you?
   The Watcher slept, the Great was small,
 the Pure baptized, the Life who died,
   the King abased to honor all:
 praised be your glory.

(Tr. John Howard Rhys, adapted by F Bland Tucker)
 
Here is another one, a favorite of mine, a hymn on the Holy Eucharist:

(Hymn from the Madroshe on Faith)

Lord, your robe’s the well from which our healing flows.
Just behind this outer layer hides your power.
Spittle from your mouth creates a miracle of light within its clay.

In your bread there blows what no mouth can devour.
In your wine there smoulders what no lips can drink.
Gale and Blaze in bread and wine: unparalleled the miracle we taste.

Coming down to earth, where human beings die,
God created these anew, like Wide-eyed Ones,
mingling Blaze and Gale and making these the mystic content of their dust.

Did the Seraph’s fingers touch the white-hot coal?
Did the Prophet’s mouth do more than touch the same?
No, they grasped it not and he consumed it not. To us are granted both.

Abram offered body-food to spirit-guests.
Angels swallowed meat. The newest proof of power
is that bodies eat and drink the Fire and Wind provided by our Lord.
                                                 (tr. Geoffrey Rowell) 

Grace and Peace, 
Fr. Tony+

 

Riddles (Proper 5B Gospel)

Riddles
7 June 2015 Second Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 5B

Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-25

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen. 

We just got back from Portland, where Elena had deep brain stimulation surgery to help manage her Parkinson’s Disease.  We go back later this week for a final procedure to install generators for the implants, kind of like a pacemaker for the brain.   The surgery went well. We were a bit overwhelmed and are very thankful for all your prayers, good thoughts, and wishes.  And we are thankful to God that all has gone well so far in this very invasive procedure.  We are cautiously hopeful. 

A couple of days before we went for the surgery, we were having dinner on our deck.  I was wondering about God’s care for us.  And I realized I was wondering in both senses of the word—I was in awe and wonder at the gracious blessings we receive each day.  But I also was doubting, wondering in the negative sense, about the idea of God hearing and answering prayers.  What does this idea say and not say about God: is he out there somehow, only intervening when he can be convinced to do so?  Or is God beneath and behind everything, always tending things toward good?   Does he pick and choose when to bless and when to curse by refusing blessing?  Or is it more like the intention to bless is always there, but not always able to manifest itself right now, given that the space and time of the created universe must by definition stand apart from the goodness and love creating it and lying behind it?

I mentioned my wondering—being in awe and doubting—to some friends.  Some told me, trust don’t doubt.  But what was strange is this:  the awe and fear were all wrapped up into a single emotion and a single word—wonder.   It made me thankful that one of the things I learned in training to be a Godly Play storyteller was to welcome wonder and questioning.  “I wonder what Jesus must have meant.” “I wonder what you would do in that situation…” I wonder…   I wonder…

Jesus too focused on wonder in both senses.  The Beatitudes are basically seeing God where we have come to learn to least expect seeing him.  And the parables—well, the parables most have an edge or even a punch line that would not work if not for that double meaning of the idea “wonder.” 

Today’s Gospel says that Jesus, hearing accusations that he worked healings by being in league with the Devil, replied with parables.  In this context, a better translation might be “riddles”: the riddle of the divided house and the riddle of how to rob a strong man. 

It might seem at first glance that the argument here is as simple as this:  “You say I am in league with the devil and am casting out demons by demonic power.  But since a house divided against itself cannot stand, that must mean that devils are not divided against each other, and that I am working only for God.”  But the riddle here is deeper, and is suggested by Jesus’ use of the word Satan instead of the name Beelzebul that Jesus’ accusers threw at him.   Beelzebul was a common name for demonic power in Jesus’ day, originally being the name of a Canaanite deity Baal-zebul, or Lord of the House, who ran competition with Israel’s God, Yahweh, whose house was in Jerusalem.  Baalzebul was so offensive to most Jewish scriptural writers that they regularly distorted the name to Baal-zebub, or Lord of the flies, to suggest that this Canaanite god was just a pile of, well, whatever it is that best attracts flies.   

But Jesus here replies using the name Satan instead of Beelzebul.   Shaytan means “the accuser,” or “the one in opposition.”  By definition, Satan is at odds, seeks scapegoats, accuses and blames others instead of addressing real problems and failings.    Satan’s house by nature is divided against itself: it defines itself by division, accusation, and casting blame elsewhere.  It only appears to be unified. 

Note that the first reaction of Adam in this morning’s Hebrew Scripture lesson, upon being found naked and being aware of it, is to blame the woman, and then, subtly, God, since Adam volunteers, “the woman, whom you gave me, made me eat it.”  The woman, for her part, blames in kind: "It was the snake!"  Such is the effect of the accuser:  desire for what other’s have, the zero-sum game and the violence provoked by shortage, and the blame game that helps us live with ourselves in a violent, hopeless world.   

When Jesus throws the riddle of the house divided at his accusers, he is appealing to the logic of their own perceptions—when you seek blame in others, when you accuse and set yourself in contradistinction from the reviled other, you seek to create a façade of unity, an appearance of solidarity.   And solidarity and unity cannot be beaten, supposedly.  But here, as in all his other parables, his punch line deconstructs expectations, and undermines the normal, logical, and respectable world. 

He throws in a second riddle to explain—the riddle of robbing a strong man.  It is only by sneaking in while he is sleeping and tying him up before he wakes that the weakling can steal the strong man’s wealth. 

I am that weakling crook, says Jesus.  I am the sneak thief.  What I am doing will surprise you once you wake up, because the house of wealth, the house of blame, the house of accusation will fall to my subversive little actions.    I am not in league with, but am opposed to the accuser, to the one who controls wealth and power in this world. 

When Jesus says the Reign of God is already here, he is saying that the way of the world—the logical and reasonable, revered and respectable, tried and true way of the world is being undermined at this very moment.  The way that seeks to fix things through violence and force, affirms strength and denies weakness, and shifts blame to others and then goes after them instead of accepting one’s own responsibility—Jesus says that this way is already getting ready to collapse.    His preaching of God at work where we least expect is part of this subversive movement.  His riddles about the seed growing secretly and of the tiny seed growing into the greatest of shrubs are part of it.  His healing of illness, paralysis and palsy, of mental illness blamed on demons and bad religion or no religion at all, are part of it.  He is overthrowing the reign of the accuser, the reign of sickness, the reign of division.  He is the sneak thief tying the old monster up. 

In today’s Gospel, the family of Jesus thinks he has gone crazy.  He has seen through the sham of this world’s reason and respectability, and looks crazy to all about him.  When they press the matter after his riddles, he says that only those who also see through this sham are his family.  He invites us all to join him.  He bids us to follow him.   And he says that stubbornly sticking with the lie is the only thing that is really irredeemable.   Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, seeing again and again God and right and love breaking into the world of sham, shame, blame, and violence and then persisting in calling it evil, well, Jesus says, this is the one course of action in which there lies no hope at all. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that when Christ calls any of us to follow him, he bids us to come and die.  The illusion of the unified and strong and rich reign of accusation and violence must end.  We must lose our false selves, our smart and respectable selves, and become crazy like Jesus.  We must risk all like Jesus.  It is part and parcel of being in awe and wonder at a loving, kind Abba or Papa in whom there is no deception, no accusation, no blaming, no violence, no division or faction. 

Jesus call us to follow him, see through the sham, and be his family. Jesus bids us all to go crazy like him, and die to this sick world.

I wonder if we can heed his call.  I wonder how we can.  I wonder. I wonder. 

In the name of God, Amen.