Letting God outa' the Box

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

 
Brief Sermon for my Practicum course (aka 'Play Church')
From Lent 5 Year A: Ezekiel 37:1-3,11-14, Psalm 130, John 11:17-44

People get ready
There's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage
you just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesel comin'
Don't need no ticket
you just thank the Lord

These lyrics by Curtis Mayfield kept playing in my mind as I read today’s lessons.

The end of our Lenten time is upon us. The time to look forward to Palm Sunday and Holy Week is at hand. Both Ezekiel and John are preparing us for great things to come.

From Ezekiel, we hear of the wonderful power of our God to raise up even dry lifeless bones.

From John, we hear of our Lord raising up the dead Lazarus from his tomb.

I have noticed that when I hear these stories, childhood images form in my imagination.

From Ezekiel I get images of dancing skeletons who grow muscles, skin and hair…images not unlike the special effects from Science Fiction or horror films…amazing sights that grow out of my imagination.

So too with Lazarus. The mummy emerging from the tomb, staggers in a straight-legged walking motion, wrapped in discolored bandages.

As a kid, such images amazed me. After seeing them, I would play them over and over in my head thinking “wow…wouldn’t it be the coolest thing to see them for real”.

Growing up, my family would go to my Grandparents in Georgia almost every summer. Very close to their house was a train track where freight trains going to and from Atlanta would pass each night. My brother and I would always save pennies to place on the tracks so the wheels would squish them flat. Because the trains ran so late at night, we never saw them. We often lie awake in our bed and here the horn blasting in the distance and await the rumbling we feel and here as the huge train thundered over our pennies. In my mind, I could just picture the enormous diesel locomotive, with its single headlight cutting through the night as I felt my bed quake.

John and Ezekiel are giving us images as a foretaste of the days ahead. They are as the freight train horn blaring in the distance. They are great and wondrous images of God’s power and involvement in our human lives, yet they are also signs of something greater and more wondrous to come.

As we look ahead to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, I invite us to open our minds, and hearts so that we can see the wonder that our Lord has in store for us. Allow God to fill our imagination so that we can see the love and joy our Lord has for us…which is even greater that a child’s joy of finding shiny, freshly flattened pennies by a railroad track.

People get ready
There's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage
you just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesel comin'
Don't need no ticket
you just thank the Lord

Fr. Bill 10:30 AM

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Saturday, April 17, 2004

 
Sermon for Easter 2 year C
John 20:19-31

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For a moment, I want to be Thomas in today’s Gospel. I want to retell the events through his eyes and ears.
For now, think of me as Thomas:

As Thomas, I refuse to believe until I see it for myself!
Jesus came here…resurrected from the dead…at least that is what I keep hearing. But, how can this be? It is beyond human reason…It is beyond my own comprehension that such a thing has happened. I must be the target of some joke.

They say “We have seen our Lord”
As Thomas I think: Yea…right…they are just going to make a fool of me.

They tell me he has forgiven all our sins.
As Thomas I think: Sure…God has forgiven all my sins…yea, right…what do I have to do?

They say “Nothing…He breathed on us and said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’…we did nothing”
As Thomas I think: That can’t be right…surely I need to do something…offer a sacrifice…something

They say, “No all you have to do is forgive. Jesus said ‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’…come on don’t you remember the prayer he taught us? ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we for give those who trespass against us’

As Thomas I think: These guys must really be pulling my leg. Could it be so simple? Can I believe that my Lord gave his life and I am the receiver of the gift of forgiveness for all my past, present and future sins? Can it be true that Jesus was also the full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, now and forever…freeing not only me but you and the whole world from our enslavement by sin?

A week later, Jesus again appeared and I, Thomas, was there. My friends were not kidding me…HE IS RISEN.
As Thomas, Jesus offers his wounds to me to see and touch. At that point, I realize that by His wounds, we are healed. Through His death and resurrection, Christ is inviting us into new life through His forgiveness of our sins.
In sharing in his death we are risen anew, reconciled with God.
As Thomas, my encounter with Jesus is written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that though believing you may have life in his name.

After thinking of myself as Thomas, I, Bill remembered a time, several years ago, when I experienced forgiveness and reconciliation, first hand. It happened with my Dad while we were watching an episode of “Leave It to Beaver”.
During a commercial break, my Dad said he would have liked to be as good of a Dad as Ward Cleaver. I replied that no real Dad could be like Ward Cleaver. He retorted, ‘yeah…but I wanted to be a good father to you and your brother and sister…and I think I could have been better. I replied that I could have been a much better son…made better grades…a better football player…helped out more around the house. He told me that I was always harder on myself than he was on me. He said He did not expect me to be perfect and that he loved me just for who I am. I replied that I loved him also for being himself and just being my Dad…and noted that if he had been like Ward Cleaver, he would have driven us all crazy.

In that silent moment that followed, we actually forgave each other for not being perfect. We both realized that we accepted each other ‘warts and all’, acknowledging the efforts to meet each others expectations and accepting the effort as an act of love.

For me, that was a point where I saw his love for me more than I had ever seen it before. He showed the wounds in his soul. His brokenness in not being the perfect Dad that he had hoped to be. Through my own feelings of brokenness at not being the perfect son, we were able to connect. We opened up our wounds and exposed our sins. Our sins were the ideas and assumptions that we allowed to separate us from each other. They became as infected splinters. Once we allowed the splinters to be removed and accepted each other’s forgiveness, our wounds began to heal and we became reconciled to each other…acting and loving one another for who we really are.

As Christ says to us in today’s Gospel, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

I guess like Thomas, I had refused to believe until I saw it for myself. It was not until I reconciled with my Dad that I understood what Christ was saying in this passage. Just as I began to see forgiveness and love from my earthly father, I began to understand the forgiveness and love that Christ brought to us from our Heavenly Father.

May we today accept the Holy Spirit, allowing God to forgive us our sins, and truly believe that Christ can remove the splinters from our wounds. May the Holy Spirit guide us into healing and reconciliation with ourselves and all creation.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Fr. Bill 10:48 PM

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Tuesday, April 13, 2004

 


Lord God,
to those who have never had a pet,
this prayer will sound strange,
but to You, Lord of All Life and Creator of All Creatures.
it will be understandable.

My heart is heavy
as I face the loss in death of my beloved Heather
who was so much a part of my life.

This pet made my life more enjoyable
and gave me cause to laugh
and to find joy in her company.

I remember her fidelity and loyalty
and will miss her being with me.
From her, I learned many lesson,
such as the quality of naturalness
and the unembarrassed request for affection.

In caring for her daily needs
I was taken up and out of my own self-needs
and thus learned to service another.

May the death of this creature of Yours
remind me that death comes to all of us,
animal and human,
and that it is the natural passage of all life.

May Heather sleep on
in an eternal slumber in Your godly care
as all creations awaith the fullness of liberation.

Amen +


From Prayers for the Domestic Church by Edward Hays
Fr. Bill 8:07 AM

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Thursday, April 08, 2004

 
The Foolishness of Anglicanism?



Why would anyone choose to juggle authority in theology? Who would try to keep three 'plates', call them scripture, tradition and reason, in balance when they could just pick one and make it the foundation for their faith? Is a triune theology just to logically attractive in describing the mystery of a triune God?

Scripture...the Word of God
Tradition...the history of human's interaction with God
Reason...the "how's" and "why's" of interactions with God
{yep...simplistic and incomplete definitions}

If we are going to persist in such a foolish juggling act, what happens when more 'weight' is give to one plate? or two plates? Will the fight to achieve balance become too great and cause our theology to crash...eventually?

Is it easier in community?




Fr. Bill 9:29 AM

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Monday, April 05, 2004

 
Looking forward to Easter...
Reading The Mystery of Christ & why we don't get it...
Listening to "Without a Net" by the Grateful Dead....

"God thought he'd have a big ole party, and call it planet Earth"
From One More Saturday Night

Easter Vigil...wow, what a party it could be...the realization that our sins are forgiven
God came down to Earth, in the human from of Jesus. We ignored him, abused him, tortured him and hung him on a cross to die....AND HE FORGAVE US! WOOOAAAAA...now that is a reason to celebrate!

We prodigal children...wasteful and foolish...who couldn't find our way home to heaven if we were given a map, are forgiven and given the keys to the Kingdom.

No need to bicker or argue about who did what to whom...FORGIVENESS is the WORD!
God has forgiven us...why can we not for give each other?

Capon argues some tough points...which are counter to the culture of the Christian Religion. Asserting that chief purpose of Christianity is not as a moral guide, but the Good News of complete forgiveness of our sins through the birth, death and ressurrection of God in Christ. The assumption that it is the Good News, rather our belief and total faith in God's forgiveness that will lead us into more a moral life seems to be in his theology...though I have not gotten there with him, yet. From Capon's point of view, we have put the cart before the horse, moral living before full acceptance of God's forgiveness of our sins. Is doing such, merely a side of the incomplete belief that God has forgiven us? Capon also seems to futher my analogy...if the cart is place before the horse, we can not move forward...backward movement may be attainable or even done out of frustration...hmmm...maybe 'that is why I sing the blues'


I went down to the mountain, I was drinking some wine,
Looked up in the heavens Lord I saw a mighty sign,
Writt'n fire across the heaven, plain as black and white;
Get prepared, there's gonna be a party tonight.
{sounds like a Revelation}

Uhuh, Hey! Saturday Night!
Yeh, uhuh one more Saturday night,
Hey Saturday night!
{Easter Vigil}

Everybody's dancin' down the local armory
With a basement full of dynamite and live artillery.
The temperature keeps risin', everybody gittin' high;
Come the rockin' stroke of midnite, the whole place gonna fly.
{Drastic life change!}

Uhuh, Hey! Saturday Night!
Yeh, uhuh one more Saturday night,
Hey Saturday night!

Turn on channel six, the President comes on the news,
Says, "I get no satisfaction, that's why I sing the blues."
His wife say "Don't get crazy, Lord, you know just what to do,
Crank up that old Victrola, put on them rockin' shoes."
{His wife sharing the Good News??}

Uhuh, Hey! Saturday Night!
Yeh, uhuh one more Saturday night,
Hey Saturday night!

Then God way up in heaven, for whatever it was worth,
Thought He'd have a big old party, thought He'd call it planet Earth.
Don't worry about tomorrow, Lord, you'll know it when it comes,
When the rock and roll music meets the risin' sun.
{the Good News...the world will never be the same!}



Fun theological reflecting...I am just compelled to see God where God is not often seen...especially in the lyrics of the Dead...just want to keep my blog name fortified.

{Please note that I am not advocating the 'drug culture' often associated with the Dead, but if you have ever been to a Dead Show, seeing a spiritual presence in the crowd is not a difficult leap}


Fr. Bill 7:19 PM

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