The Collect for the Fifth Sunday in Lent is one of my favorites, full of rich imagery and language. I didn’t preach today because I spent it with our kids. They’ve been learning about the Eucharist and today I talked with them about it during the Liturgy of the Word. At the offertory, we rejoined the main congregation and the children gathered around the altar for the Great Thanksgiving.
All this meant that I really hadn’t spent any time with the propers this week, so the beautiful collect came to me as a wonderful surprise while I was presiding at the early service:
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
It has an interesting history. It derives from early sources (the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries), where it was used in the Easter season. Cranmer appointed it for the Fourth Sunday after Easter. His translation was altered in 1662, introducing the phrase “bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners.” The 1979 Book of Common Prayer moved it to its current location. It seems much more appropriate as a Lenten collect than as an Easter one.
I’m taken by the understanding of human nature expressed in the prayer. The phrase “our unruly wills and affections” certainly implies sin, but doesn’t dwell on human sinfulness. But there is also an appeal to God working in us to effect our salvation, the request to God to give God’s people grace “to love what you command and desire what you promise.”
It then moves out to put us in our context–amid the swift and varied changes of the world and expresses the hope that we might focus our attention not on the constantly changing scenery around us, but on our true hope.
I used to have an intense fear of going blind. I was born with weak eyesight but on top of that I was, to put it in the words of a college friend of mine “wall-eyed.” I had two surgeries as a child in an attempt to correct that. I remember waking after the second of those surgeries when I was about 9 years old. When I couldn’t open my eyes–the lids were sealed by dried excretion–I screamed out in terror. For years after that, I practiced walking around in my house in the darkness, so I would be able to get around if (or more likely when) I went blind. I’m not blind yet, but my eyesight continues to deteriorate. In fact, one of the reasons I’ve taken to using an ipad in services is because I can increase the font size so I can read my sermons and the Book of Common Prayer. Continue reading →
Last night at our Lenten Bible Study, we focused on Mt. 5:13-32. I had hoped to get all the way through chapter 5 but that was not to be. We began by exploring the saying about salt. The scientists among us pointed out that salt can be adulterated but it can’t not be salt. Then we sought to understand the saying about salt via the saying about light. Both seem to be sayings directed at the disciples (Jesus first uses “you” in v. 11: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you”). This seems to suggest that the disciples by definition change the world, that their very presence and manner of life witness to the Reign of God.
Someone offered the parables as comparable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of the seeds…” I find this helpful because Jesus is holding up the disciples as members of the new community he’s calling into existence, a new community that is intended to usher in and witness the Reign of God.
We struggled with Jesus’ language in these verses. What should we understand as metaphorical; what should we take literally? That’s especially true when dealing with passages like vss 29-30: If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; if your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off. But if we are meant to understand this metaphorically, what about other things Jesus says, like love of enemy and turning the other cheek? Might Jesus be talking about our priorities here, what we ought to give up in order to follow him?
Next week, we’ll try to make it through chapter 5 and get into chapter 6.
Like some of you, I have heard and read scripture for most of my life. I also studied it academically and taught it for more than a decade. On top of that, I preach it regularly. While I am not one of those people who has memorized vast swaths of the text and from time to time I encounter stories or ideas that are quite new to me, many of the texts we read on Sundays are as familiar to me as the back of my hand or an old pair of blue jeans.
But that’s not the case for everyone. Even a story as familiar as the story from Genesis 3 that we heard this morning is unknown to many in our society. That basic ignorance of the biblical story came home to me during my last semester of teaching when I made an off-hand reference to Adam and Eve in a Religion class I was teaching and a student asked, “Who are they?” She may not have known the story but she had an advantage over those of us who are familiar with it. She could read it as it appeared on the page without the two thousand years of Christian biblical interpretation and doctrinal development. For the story we know is not the story that appears in the text.
To point out several obvious points—nowhere is sin mentioned; neither is Satan, nor fall, nor even temptation. Even the decision by the editors of the lectionary to read it today, on the first Sunday of Lent, in conjunction with the gospel story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, contributes to our mis-reading of this foundational story of Judaism, Christianity, and western culture. Is it about original sin? If by original sin, one means the human condition, then yes.
The inclusion of the verses from chapter 2 helps us understand the authors’ perspective on human beings and on creation. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden, the Hebrew literally reads, “to serve it and to guard it.” Human beings were created to be in partnership with the garden, to protect it and preserve it. It’s a very different notion than that which appears in Genesis 1, when God commands the humans to have dominion, lordship, over all the animals and plants. We see here a sense of human beings cooperating with creation, given responsibility to protect it. One more point—there’s no sense here that before the fall, humans were intended to live in idleness, rather, they were placed in the garden for an end and a purpose. Created in the image and likeness of God, God intended them to flourish and to aid in the flourishing of creation.
But something happened. They met a talking serpent who gave them a different way to think about themselves and God. The serpent questioned what God had told them and promised them that by eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would become like God.
Everything the serpent tells them is true, if somewhat one-sided. They did not die after eating of the fruit of the tree and they did gain knowledge. And the fruit was desirable. Eve ate because the fruit was beautiful, good to eat, and would make one wise—all of these are appropriate reasons for her decision. And, I would add, of the two humans, at least the woman showed some agency: “she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.”
What were the consequences? They gained knowledge; most immediately, of their nakedness. They were ashamed. So whatever intimacy the two beings, “bone of bone and flesh of flesh” had had was suddenly gone—they needed protection from each other. And they needed protection from God. Their nakedness and exposure broke the pair’s intimacy with each other; it also broke their intimacy with God. Instead of becoming like God, they becoming frightfully aware of their difference from God. They wanted to escape from God but God wasn’t done with them. God sought them out in their hiding place, and when God located them, God showed continuing care for them by sewing clothes for them from animal skins. Any punishment would come later.
It’s a story of disobedience and rebellion against God. God created the humans for a purpose, for relationship with God and to participate with God in the care of God’s creation. Rejecting that purpose, they chose to aspire to be like God and so spurned their true nature, having been created in the image and likeness of God. It’s the story of humanity; it’s our story. Like Eve and Adam, we grasp for the beauty and knowledge we can see; and in grasping for what we want, we turn away from God and deface the image of God in us. The knowledge we gain is knowledge of our own fallen humanity, knowledge of our shame and embarrassment.
In the story of the temptation of Jesus, Satan asks him, “If you are the Son of God…” This story follows immediately on Jesus’ baptism, when he hears the voice telling him, “This is my Son, my Beloved.” The temptations of Jesus are temptations about what that means to be the Son of God, just as, in the garden, the temptation was about what it means to be human. The temptations of Jesus are temptations about what sort of Son of God Jesus is. Is he the Son of God in the sense that Roman Emperors were sons of God—the most powerful men on earth with all the trappings of power, wealth, and status?
Or is he the Son of God in some other way? Satan tempts him with other ideas about what it means to be the Son of God. He also tempted Jesus to prove he was the Son of God by forcing God to act in a certain way. But Jesus rejected both of them and in the end, was the Son of God who died on the cross.
We are at the beginning of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, many of us heard those words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.” They’re a reminder of our humanity, our frailty, and vulnerability. Today, in the Great Litany, we heard centuries-old language that confronts us with our sins and shortcomings, as individuals and as the human race. Lent confronts us with our humanity; it opens up for our reflection and inspection all of the ways we have fallen short of our human potential, all of the ways we have ruined the image of God in us.
But that’s not all. Lent is also about a God who loves us in spite of the fact that we have turned away from God, in spite of the fact that we have defaced God’s image in us. God loves us even when we hide from God like the man and the woman in the garden. Just as God continued to care for the two who had rebelled against God, sewing clothes for them from animal skins, God continues to love and care for us.
It’s easy to hear the language of sin in the Great Litany and throughout Lent as language of condemnation and rejection. It’s easy to recoil from that language, especially in our culture of self-help and self-actualization, our culture of gratification and enjoyment. We often want our religion on similar terms. Lent doesn’t allow that. But that’s not the end of the story or experience of Lent. It’s not the whole story of the Christian faith.
The purpose of our confession of sin, the purpose of our self-reflection in this penitential season is to receive God’s grace and love in all of its fullness. Lent is an opportunity for us to strip off our fig leaves of self-deception and self-protection, to allow others and God to see us as we are, and to let God begin to remake us in God’s image. Lent is an opportunity for forty days to experience briefly what the Christian life should be like 365 days a year, receiving God’s grace as we joyfully are remade in God’s image and fully realize the potential God has created us to become. I pray that all of us experience some of that joy and renewal in these forty days.Re
The liturgical calendar offers different ways to experience and worship through the seasons of the year. Christmas and Epiphany are seasons of celebration; the months after Pentecost, referred to by Roman Catholics as “Ordinary Time,” provide an opportunity to explore what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ in the humdrum of ordinary life. By contrast, Lent is a season of repentance and spiritual discipline. It calls us to take God seriously for a few weeks. Lent asks us to see ourselves in our vulnerable humanity as the words of Ash Wednesday challenge us, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”
I hope that members of Grace (and readers of the blog) will endeavor this Lent to reflect and deepen our spiritual lives. There are many ways of doing this–by reading some work of spiritual significance, adopting spiritual practices like prayer and fasting, or following one or more of the many Lenten resources on the web.
At Grace, we’ll have a bible study on Wednesday evenings (March 12-April 9) focusing on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). You can find out more about it here, including some opportunities for following along on-line. If you can’t join us on Wednesday nights and would like to use the Sermon on the Mount for your own spiritual focus during Lent, I encourage you to get a copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.
Description: Whatever we say about the cross, we are also saying about God. So what does the cross mean? What can it tell us about God? How can it help us approach, understand, and know God better? In Part One of this three-part series, David Lose invites us to consider that the best way to understand the cross is through experience.
Almighty God our heavenly Father, renew in us the gifts of your mercy; increase our faith, strengthen our hope, enlighten our understanding, widen our charity, and make us ready to serve you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Miranda Hassett, Rector of St. Dunstan’s in Madison has a lovely, thoughtful post on her son’s participation in a recent Stations of the Cross. It’s here.
What did G do, while we were going around and reading the Stations? He stood with us -sometimes relatively still, sometimes hopping from foot to foot. Sometimes reading along in his booklet, sometimes flopping his booklet back and forth, sometimes holding his booklet over his face with just his eyes peering over. He wandered off and sat down on a chair, a rocker, the floor. He drew a cross in red marker on one page of the booklet. He gazed at the art. He breathed on the glass of the windows and drew crosses in the water vapor with his finger. He fell over, once. He peered into the faces of the two adults in the room, to try to figure out what we were thinking and feeling. Sometimes he read the responses with us; sometimes he missed them.
And – I know this because I’m his mom, and because at least half my attention was on him the whole time – he was tuned in, listening, taking it in and thinking about it, the whole time. He was wiggly and distracting and all over the place, but he was, in his 7-going-on-8 way, fully present. And, as I started to read Station 7, he said, “I’ll read the next one.” He read Station 8 and Station 10. He declined to read again, but the other adult encouraged him to read the last one, and he did. He read most of it from a seated position astride our (heavy, stone) altar rail.
She goes on to reflect on the inclusion of kids in worship. Read it.
Next Monday (the 25th), there will be a Stations of the Cross as a Witness against Violence (part of a nation-wide effort of the Episcopal Church) at St. Dunstan’s at 6:00 pm. More info here.
The parable of the prodigal son, the gospel reading we just heard, is probably one of the two or three most familiar of all Jesus’ parables. Most of you have heard the story many times before—in sermons or in Sunday School. It’s so familiar and so beloved because it conveys to us an appealing image of a loving and forgiving God, an image that comforts and reassures us. As familiar as the story is, it is told with drama and detail that draws us in, inviting us to enter into it and to identify with one, or perhaps more, of the characters. So I’m going to invite you to reflect for a moment on which character you most identify with. Turn to your neighbor, introduce yourself if you don’t know each other, and share with each other where you find yourself in this story—does the situation of the older son, younger son, or father most resonate with you at this time of your life? And why is that the case?
This rich parable invites us to do what we’ve just done, to enter into it to put ourselves in it. When we do so, we begin to connect the deep emotions of each character with emotions we’ve experienced in the past, or perhaps are experiencing right now—feelings of repentance, resentment, joy and love. But now I’d like to shift gears a bit, inviting you to hold on to that exploration of your emotions and the emotions of the characters and look at the parable’s larger context.
Luke wants us to read the story in a particular way. The lectionary signals his desire to us by including the very first verses of chapter 15 that tell us about the Pharisees’ complaint that Jesus hangs out with tax collectors and sinners. Luke follows those verses with two other familiar parables before giving us the one we know as “The Prodigal Son.” Those are stories are the one about the shepherd with 100 sheep who loses one, and the woman with ten coins who lost one. So the set up, by the time the reader gets to today’s parable is clear: rejoicing upon finding that which was lost.
The other pieces of information that may help throw light on our parable are a couple of things about ancient culture. First, the idea that a father might give his son part of his inheritance, while not illegal was unheard of. One’s property was disposed of only at death, and for a child to demand his share of it before his father’s death is sort of like telling your father, “You’re dead to me.” Presumably, the property, in this case the land, would have been sold. It’s easy to imagine what both father and elder son thought whenever they passed by the property they had once owned and watched the new owners working it. It would probably also have meant loss of income.
In addition to all that, there’s what happens when the son “comes to himself.” He wastes his inheritance in dissolute living, ends up eating fodder meant for pigs, basically living with the pigs, and finally decides he’s had enough of it. He composes a speech that he hopes will, if not restore him in his father’s good graces, at least ensure him of a better life and half-decent food. He heads home tail between his legs. He is probably ashamed and embarrassed and he expects to be shamed further when he arrives back home.
In her commentary on the text, Alyce McKenzie points out that Roman Palestine village culture was a culture based on honor and shame. By his behavior, the son had brought shame on both himself and his family. Apparently, villages performed a shame ceremony when a villager returned after having left the community for the gentile world, or married a gentile woman. Upon his return, the whole village would gather around him, breaking jars with nuts or other items and declare publicly that he was cut off from the rest of the village. It was an act of public shame and shunning.
But the father’s behavior prevented that ritual of shame. By running out to greet his son, he prevented them from performing that ritual. Even more, he welcomed him back into his own bosom and the bosom of his household. There’s a sense in which the father’s actions are themselves shameful. Respectable men didn’t behave that way in public. They didn’t display affection in that way; they certainly didn’t kiss a son publicly. He’s acting more like a mother than a father, and his behavior is inappropriate. By allowing himself to be humiliated, he stopped the village from humiliating his son.
I’d like to go back to the question I asked you a few minutes ago. Then, it was, “With whom do you most identify in this story?” There are other ways of asking the questions, other questions that the story raises—one is, “with whom ought you identify in the story?” That is to say, where does the story challenge your understanding of yourself and God? It’s easy for us to put ourselves in the role of the younger son. Perhaps we don’t see ourselves as quite as awful a human being as he was. We might not offend our parents as deeply, sin as much, fall into as abject and dissolute life as him. But nonetheless, it’s easy to see something of ourselves in him. Having sinned, we are penitent and seek the forgiveness of a loving God.
But the parable doesn’t let us stay there. It challenges us to see us in those other roles, the roles of elder son or father. If we’re honest with our selves, how often is it the case that we act like the older son? Whether within our own families or at work or school, how often do we resent what seems to be the favored, and undeserved, treatment of someone else? How often do we feel as if we’re the older brother who finds out about the party only after it’s well underway? Do the father’s words offer any consolation to us when we feel slighted or underappreciated?
That’s one challenge the parable presents to us. But there’s an even more difficult one. Think of the father again. The story began with his younger son demanding his inheritance, treating him as if he were dead, jeopardizing his family’s financial security. Now he returns after squandering his inheritance, after years of hard living. He returns with a rehearsed speech on his lips, and the father runs to greet him, inviting more of the community’s humiliation. He pays no attention to past grievances or feelings of moral superiority; he embraces, kisses, invites his son back home and rejoices at his return.
If this parable invites us to imagine our selves in the places of its characters, where might we need to find our selves in the role of the father? Where might we need to offer the joy of forgiveness to someone we encounter in our daily life? Who might we encounter who is in as deep need of forgiveness and love as the younger son in this parable? To offer that forgiveness, to offer the joy of God’s love to someone who feels unable to receive it on their own, may be the greatest gift we can give and is certainly one way to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
Our sermon yesterday was preached by Lauren Gallant Cochran, our Christian Formation Director. Here’s what she had to say:
I find deep spiritual comfort in believing that our God is a God of paradox, a God who is the possible version of impossible. I believe God is unchanging, and ‘still speaking’. I believe God is three, and one. I believe God was then, is now, and will be in the future. I think God is unknowable, and yet intensely intimate in my life… everywhere and nowhere all at once. I take comfort in these contradictions because while I will never fully understand everything there is to know about God, God still approves of my questioning and desire to learn and understand. I thank God every day for the opportunities to talk about these paradoxes of God with other people: those who agree with me, and those who do not.
In the Presbyterian Church, every candidate for ordination must write a very concise statement of faith, and I have just read you the opening paragraph of my statement. It seems a bit self-righteous to quote myself, but I want to talk about the paradox present in our scriptures today, which points to the paradox of Lent, and the paradox of our God. I want you to start thinking about all the things in our faith that are opposites but both true and complete all at the same time.
Last week Father Jonathan asked the question “what does Lent mean to people today?” He said traditionally it has been a time for people to focus on an angry God who demands repentance—but noted that that’s not really what it seems to be any more. The lectionary texts- including last week where Jonathan highlighted that God’s covenant with Abram was both terrifying and trustworthy—the lectionary texts of Lent are handing us paradoxes.
Let’s look first to Exodus—to the burning bush.
Moses finds himself in a scary situation. Here he is, peacefully keeping his flocks of sheep when he stumbles across the burning bush. God yells out Moses name and commands him to remove his sandals. The presence of God is so overwhelming that Moses hides his face in fear. Moses knows that this is the same God he has been hiding from after killing a man back in Egypt. But even beyond the wilderness, God has found him and now commands him to return to Egypt and demand that Pharaoh free the Israelites. When Moses musters the courage to respond, he asks “well who should I say sent me?”— God responds “I AM WHO I AM”.
I would be terrified. God in these verses is very powerful, demanding, and frightening. But don’t forget, I want to talk about the paradox in this passage. It was hard for me, at first, to recognize that there is more than a powerful and scary God in these verses… But then I realized that I was thinking about this story with preconceived notions that didn’t have anything to do with the real words of scripture.
It’s even a little embarrassing to admit what these notions were. First, is that when I was 12 years old, the animated movie The Prince of Egypt was released. I loved that movie, and the scene of Moses and the burning bush is what I picture in my head when I read this passage. It is a dramatic point in the movie, of course they chose to make it seem very powerful and slightly scary. Once I found out that the actor Val Kilmer voices the roles of Moses AND God, it seems a bit more comical to me when I picture Val Kilmer talking to himself. But, the point is that an animated movie with dramatic effects was placing a lens over how I read this story.
Secondly, every time I read this scripture—as silly as it may sound—the capitol letters “I AM WHO I AM” always make me think that God is yelling those words. Scholarship tells me that the use of capital letters signifies that God’s name cannot be clearly translated, so in order to get all of this fictional yelling out of my head, I decided to read the passage to myself in the most calm and loving tone that I could.
I imagined God as a mother speaking to her son who is wandering beyond the wilderness, trying to bring him back to help him and their family. “Moses… Moses… “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey”.
This presents a completely different picture of God– now it should be also noted that nowhere in this conversation does God ask Moses to repent for his sins. Nowhere are there any conditions for Moses to change—Moses sins aren’t even mentioned. In this light, the passage is not an angry God looking for repentance of sins.
Here is our first paradox. God in this passage IS all powerful, and certainly makes a point to Moses about God’s power to free the Israelites—and Moses is scared. Moses hides his face. But God is also reaching out to Moses, God has compassion for the chosen people serving as slaves in Egypt. God is the shepherd reaching out to a lost sheep from his flock. God is I AM WHO I AM, and I am who I am. God is showing Moses that this task will not be easy, but with the power of God it will be done.
And so we come to the paradox of a parable from Luke.
For our youngest children here at Grace, the Godly Play curriculum (loosely based on the Montessori System) shares the Bible in a story telling format, including the parables of Jesus. All the parables are stored on their own shelf, and each is kept in a special white box. Gwen, their wonderful teacher, patiently shares each story with them, but before they begin she reads these words about the parable they are about to experience.
“The box is closed. There is a lid. Maybe there is a parable inside. Sometimes, even if we are ready, we can’t enter a parable. Parables are like that. Sometimes they stay closed. This box looks like a present. Parables were given to you long ago as a present. Even if you don’t know what a parable is, the parable is already yours.”
I think these words can give us comfort as well when faced with a parable such as this. These verses also show a powerful God in a frightening way. God has the power to remove us from the vineyard not only because we might do something wrong, but also because we have not done anything at all. And then we are left with a cliff hanger ending. I don’t think a more terrifying literary tactic exists- we are left wondering about the fate of the fig tree, about our fate if we lead unfruitful lives. Don’t forget that immediately before the parable, Jesus left us with the words “unless you repent you will all perish”.
Because Jesus was a man who frequently used agricultural metaphors in his parables, he probably knew that it can take up to five years before a fig tree bears fruit, much longer than the 3 years the owner of the tree has come looking for figs. The point is clear, we must be fruitful and we cannot wait to do it, otherwise we are wasting the precious soil in the garden.
So this parable shows us a powerful vengeful God, who demands active fruitfulness. But there is a character that I have not mentioned yet. The gardener. If the parable portrays God as the owner of the garden and the fig tree as you and me… then who is the Gardener? The first time I heard a sermon that suggested the idea that Jesus is the gardener, I thought… Whoa… That changes everything!! Here is Jesus! Interceding on our behalf. But who is Jesus other than God himself? Thus we arrive at the second paradox. God is expecting great things and threatening to throw us out, while still giving us another chance, giving us the nutrients we need to make it happen—fighting for us to stay.
As I shared with you at the beginning of this sermon, I find comfort in believing that God is a God of paradox, that God can be many things at once. Both the owner and the gardener of a vineyard, both a powerful burning bush and a loving mother calling out into the wilderness, both terrifying and trustworthy.
Our reading from first Corinthians reveals that Paul felt the same way. “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure.”
It is not a coincidence that our scriptures confront us with so many paradoxes during the season of Lent. Lent is a time to repent, but also a time to take joy in our forgiving God. Lent is a time to prepare for the death that we know is coming on Good Friday, but also a time to prepare for the resurrection that comes on that mighty Easter Sunday. There is talk of darkness and light, ashes and life, our pasts that sometimes haunt us and the future of the kingdom to come. Lent is a paradox in itself, leading us to the moment of Easter, preparing us to entertain the notion of an empty tomb. Lent is preparing us to experience the paradox of a God who dies, and rises… for us.
Preaching Grace on the Square 