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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, August 28

8/28/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church  
Sunday August 28, 2011 Proper
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Theme: Ruining our Children for the World.  

One of my deep privileges at St. Michael’s over the past five years has been to be involved in the creation of educational or formational experiences for children, youth and adults alike. It has been and will continue to be an extremely demanding task especially amidst our cultural situation with so many choices and so much freedom for our youth generated by the advances in technology and the communication revolution along with the near failure of reliable social structures our youth require. The formation of children and youth is a ministry that I remain passionate about just as I am convinced of its essential importance in the life of any church. So I want to offer some thoughts on a theology of caring for the spiritual life of children and youth and in so doing I hope to illuminate the spiritual path for all us.  

To begin it is worthwhile to consider what we want for our children. I want my children to be followers of Jesus. I want my children to have a defining story that I believe is truthful and leads to a transforming relationship with God in Christ. I want my children to have an openness to the mystery underlying all things, and an ability to live faithfully even in the midst of failure because forgiveness, mercy, redemption, and resurrection is integral to their story. I want them to grow up with a great deal of love, acceptance and security but I want that to be balanced with the awareness and realistic view of their own shortcomings, flaws, harmful tendencies, and destructive habits.

I hope that our children have active imaginations that are kindled by the biblical story. I want them to be able to reflect on the tension between the powerful reality of the Kingdom of God (the world as it should be) and how different it is from the world as it is. I want them to understand that they are participants in creating, reclaiming, offering that beautiful symbol of the Kingdom of God here and now, not just in some distant future. I want them to understand that their faith is not simply a private affair but has a decidedly public dimension. Faith is personal but never private.

There are of course many other things I want for my children:
I want them to have more character rather than more money.
I want them to understand that they are stewards of the many gifts that God has given them: intelligence, energy, skills, finances, the earth, their relationships, the faith community, creativity, their bodies, water, air, and of a truthful story.

But, if I had to sum it all up I would say something like this: I want their life in the church, its liturgies, their classes, their friendships with adults, their involvement in ministry, their participation in service, and their discussion and study with peers and thoughtful adults to ruin them for this world. By God’s grace I hope that my children will somehow in their own time realize that following Jesus is the path to joy even as it makes one very peculiar in the world. By God’s grace I hope that they learn that forgiveness is more important than always being right, that repentance is the way to growth, that compassion rather than greed leads to life, that cooperation is so much richer than endless competition, that looking out for and being with the other, the outcast, the oddball, and the marginal is really the more excellent way.

Now how do we as a community make this possible?  The truth is that every community that wants to last beyond a single generation must concern itself with education. Education has to do with the way we maintenance our community throughout the generations. It is a way of assuring a continuity of vision, values and perception so that the community develops and sustains a self-identity. At the same time the way of doing this must ensure a certain flexibility or freedom so that the community can ReImagine itself in new circumstances and survive changes within the larger culture while still being relevant.

Nurture and incorporation of children into the believing community is a very complex and challenging task.  Our experience with our own children tells us that there is not a single decisive experience or event that will suit all children. This work of nurture and incorporation of our own children requires an on-going conversation, whereby the child-en-route-to-adult begins, a little at a time, at one’s own pace, to affirm and claim the “story” the “good news” which defines and shapes the community.

The conversation I’m talking about having with our children and youth is never done. It goes on and on and thus requires the energy and creativity of a whole community across the generations. It goes on and on because the vitality of this conversation is what actually enlivens the whole community. It is the conversation itself that is important because it leads to conversion for those involved. In the act of listening deeply to our children and youth and of finding creative and engaging ways to offer them a vision of God’s ways, of the world as it should be; we are in fact making provision for our own conversion.

Children and youth are in fact one of the greatest gifts that God showers upon us. Our engagement in attending to their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord as the baptismal covenant instructs is in fact a key ingredient in our own spiritual vitality. In caring for the souls and minds and hearts of those most vulnerable and impressionable among us we find that we are converted, changed, enlivened and made whole in surprising ways.

So I want to make the bold assertion that this work of which I am speaking is the primary work of the faith community. This is one of the main reasons that the community of faith exists to shape the spiritual, intellectual, political, emotional, and relational lives of its youngest members.

The challenge of this ongoing conversation in faith is evident. It cannot be hurried or cut short as growth in faith has its own patient pace. To do it well requires the twin skills of advocacy and receptivity. What I mean by this is that at times our children will need to hear adult testimony, our own risk-taking to speak plainly and clearly about the faith of our heart and our experience in growing into the full-stature of Christ. At other times the conversation requires something far different -- a patient and accepting listening that in itself shapes a place where real inquiry, questioning and exploration of the world can be held in an accepting but covenantal way. There is the tacit understanding that this exploration of faith may or may not end up in membership or commitment to the people of God, it is a free choice and a work of grace that none of us can make happen.

All who have been engaged in the adventure of nurturing children and youth or grandchildren (or adult children or parents who still seem like children) know that it is remarkably difficult to strike a balance between these two essential postures of advocacy and receptivity. For some, advocacy becomes so important that our children experience it as heavy-handed and excessively authoritarian (this of course is what we fear in the militant evangelical example). On the other pole, for some, receptivity becomes all and our children experience us as passive, noncommittal, or cowardly (this of course is the characteristic of communities overly dependent on the “therapeutic model” or to “active listening”).  Of course there is no “right way” to have this conversation and no matter how we handle the conversation with regard to advocacy or receptivity we will in most cases finish the conversation with some regret about our overall approach. By God’s grace our children may experience our advocacy and clear articulation of faith as inspiring and be grateful for our risk to share our own inner life and passions. For some children our deep listening and receptivity to their own exploration of the winding road of faith in God will be experienced as a healing openness and trust in God to meet them in their struggles and personal journey. The truth is that our children’s faith development is a mystery that develops both because of our loving efforts and in spite of us.  

The context in which all of this must take place is an interesting one.

This ongoing conversation with our children and youth must take place in the soil of unconditional love – our children and youth need to know that we are quite literally crazy about them. That we really love them, are there for them and really can’t get enough of them. To be sure sometimes we are driven crazy by them but that too must also be saturated in love. Having adults who are not easily shocked but easily amused who will really listen to young people is a gift of great value to the youth who need a place to puzzle out their lives and God’s place within it.

Our children and youth also need a place where faith is clearly articulated in coherent way. Faith must have a intellectual dimension that is credible and is advanced by interpretive questions and the making of connections of little pieces to the larger context to which the faith community adheres. This of course requires that adults themselves struggle to develop and discern a coherent faith within their own defining community. We cannot impart that which we do not possess.

The final context in which this conversation needs to take place is one that is profoundly and intentionally counter-nurture which of course sounds very strange. The purpose of the conversation is not that our children would become good “Americans” or “Moral people” or “Productive professionals” all of which may or may not be desirable. The purpose of our conversation is that our young would be able to perceive, embrace and put into practice a way of life that is animated and informed by our peculiar memory and vision of faith held out in the gospel community. The point of our conversation is to ruin our children and hopefully ourselves for this world, that we might live out the gospel story in a lively and surprising way amidst the competing stories of violence, greed, destructive competition, dehumanization, accumulation, and unchecked consumption. To put it into the vernacular -- when one meets a Christian it would be refreshing to think of the old Sesame Street song “One of these things is not like the other.”  In a strange and subversive way, the Christian story is meant to make each of us an oddity in the world, odd over against the secular self-indulgence while others go hungry, odd over against the complicit acceptance of violence as an acceptable way to make peace, odd over against the unyielding advance of market individualism.

There is no such thing as your private faith, your private Christianity. It is your living out of the faith, your articulation of what God has done, is doing and hopes to do in and through and with you that will animate and enliven the ongoing conversation with our children and youth. The maturation of my child in the love and knowledge of God does not just depend upon me, it depends upon the whole community. As a parent, I am dependent upon my faith community to model and give voice and example to the kind of faith that I desire for my children.  I need, desire and hope for others who have the skills and sensitivities required for children’s growth to risk being in relationship not only with me, but my children. Without this kind of village or communal enterprise the success of my children growing up as people of a lively and transforming faith becomes more and more unlikely.

The truth is that the young in this community -- in every community -- are at risk. At risk of not knowing a truthful story that will shape them into the kind of faithful people that this world so desperately needs. They are at risk because learning this story is a radical act, a scandalous undertaking that cannot simply be passed on easily. It must be shared in creative and fresh ways in every generation and it takes the combined efforts and innovative approaches of a whole community to undertake such a venture as shaping the young in our midst into faithful men and women. There are, of course, no guarantees -- only the real possibility of fullness of life for those who engage the opportunity, struggle and joy.

In the end, caring for our children and youth -- daring to do the patient and lively work of sharing our transforming story of faith -- is the most important work we can do. It is the surest way to help us to struggle enough with our own faith that we might discover its “newness,” its “radicality” in such a way that not only will we find fullness of life, but we will have that fullness of life to offer our young. And in this way we will know what it means to lose your life in order to save it.

I wish to acknowledge my debt to Walter Brueggeman for his strong ideas about Christian formation ruining us for this world.
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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, August 7

8/7/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church   
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday August 7, 2011 Proper 14A
Text: Matthew 14: 22-33 Jesus Coming to the Disciples on the Water
Theme of Sermon: Wavy Faith
Preacher: Christopher McLaren


There is a story from the Zen Buddhist tradition about a monk who thought he could make more progress in his path of enlightenment by seeking it on his own.  So he bid farewell to his brothers at the monastery, crossed over the river by ferry and went to live in the solitude of a cave high in the hills.  Alone, he meditated non-stop for 25 years. One day he emerged from the cave, looked around, stretched his body out, feasted his eyes on the world and made his way toward the river.

Without even pausing to test the water, he stepped out onto the water and walked across it toward the monastery he had not visited in 25 years. Two brothers who were working at laundry that morning saw the monk coming across the river.  

“Who is that?” one of them asked. The other replied, “That is the old hermit who has spent 25 years meditating in the solitude of a mountain cave. Now look at him! He can walk on water!”

“What a pity,” the first monk said. “The ferry only costs a quarter.”

Like this story the Christian tradition has its own stories about walking on water. Today we encounter one of the most famous of them as Peter risks joining Jesus on the waters of the Galilee.

The story of Jesus walking on the water is a numinous one for me. It is full of struggle, danger, independence, fear, risk-taking, failure, salvation and hope.   For those of a more skeptical bent there have been attempts to provide more rational explanations for this miracle on water.  Some have proposed that what happened was nothing more than an optical illusion. In the dim light of the early morning hours the person of Jesus, ghost-like and ethereal was seen walking on the water through the shallows of the northern end of the lake.  Perhaps this is a credible explanation but it is improbable that such an experience would have been transformed into the story we are given.  A story based on the disciple’s mistaken vision would not, I venture to say, have been preserved for posterity.  Others have tried to understand this wave-walking story as a displaced resurrection encounter, and while it is a very intriguing approach, it too is ultimately no more than conjecture.  I think the best way forward is to set aside the question of the historicity of the event in question and instead to focus on what the narrative is meant to teach us theologically.  What does this mysterious story offer us in our life of faith?

In the flow of things Jesus and his disciples have just dismissed the crowds after considerable teaching and a miracle of feeding.  Jesus makes the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side of the lake. Jesus seems to be pushing the disciples a bit toward independence, making them do something on their own and giving them time to wonder about the feeding of so many. He on the other hand seeks out his own reflective time on a hike into the hills.  There is of course something here for us in this simple detail. The value of both individual and group reflection is apparent. We all need time to consider where God is at work in our lives, to see the wonder of what God has just done if we can slow down enough to notice the nonchalance of miracle itself all around us.

Jesus himself is a model for the spiritual life as what is necessary for Jesus is necessary for us as well.  Jesus needs to find a rhythm of engagement and detachment in his life. His ministry and work is not possible without his solitude and spiritual renewal.  We too cannot serve our families or reach out in ministry to our youth or community without finding a place and rhythm of spiritual nurture.  Our own frustration, resentment, and at times anger can be the indicators that we are not taking our own need for renewal seriously enough. Jesus was intentional about creating this space for retreat and reflection and we are called to do so as well.

In the early morning light, fog drifting over the surface of the water the disciples are struggling: battered by the waves.. far from land.. the wind against them.  These images describe our lives so well at times.  We all know what it means to be battered or knocked about by our troubles.  We know what it means to have the wind against us.  Where is the wind against you now?   What kinds of waves have been crashing into your plans?

Into the struggle of the disciples, Jesus, like miracle itself, comes walking toward them on the water. I wonder if this has ever happened to you? In the midst of your troubles, a storm in your life: stress, illness, conflict, crisis, loss, or surprising change whatever the struggle, have you seen the face of Christ coming toward you in a friend, a partner, a stranger, a neighbor?  This is the good news of this passage for us this day. In the time of trouble, God has a way of coming toward us in the most unexpected of ways. “Take heart it is I, do not be afraid.” I wish we had time to hear one another tell our own stories of when help arrived just as we needed it, so that we too might feel the message of this passage deep in our hearts.

If you are like me, you love Peter’s response to this whole ordeal. Peter wants to be with Jesus. He wants to do everything Jesus does and so he asks this proof-demanding question. “Lord if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” What a wonderful question full of the struggle between faith and doubt. Peter is surely us in this story, our desire to believe but our thirst for real proof, our willingness to step out in faith but our terrible fear of true risk. If I were painting this scene it is this moment that I would want to capture, this beautiful and terrible moment of risk as Peter, balancing precariously on the edge of the boat’s bow, rocking in the wind tossed waves, steps, steps out toward Christ onto faith’s dangerous waters, away from the disciples cowering in fear and toward the adventure that awaits in Jesus’ invitation, “Come.”

Peter walks toward Jesus and that I believe that this is what is asked of each of us. Do we dare to walk toward Jesus? Peter fresh from Christ’s provision in the wilderness is able to risk getting out of the boat. Can we trusting in God’s goodness walk toward Jesus in the mist of whatever risk we face: the work of a relationship, the healing of a deep wound, the adventure of a new opportunity, the challenge of working for justice? In the end, Peter gets a C- minus in walking on water but he is also the first to experience the saving help of his friend and rabbi Jesus.  Christ’s grace is sufficient for our needs, for God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness (II Cor. 12:9). And this is the freedom that comes from the risk of faith, it allows us to trust not in our own abilities or our own success but to trust that we are truly in God’s hands even when it looks like we might fail or sink into the waves.

Faith is always about risk-taking. It is our daring to say “Yes” to God in tender and vulnerable ways that allow God to show us that we are not alone.  As followers of Jesus we are urged to learn to live with uncertainties and the possibility of failure.  Jesus is the one who recklessly commands us to leave the safety of the boat, to step into the sea, and test the waters with him in front of us.  That’s Jesus, an inveterate risk-taker. He is always calling us to take a chance in the deep water instead of merely splashing around in the shallows. If we want to be close to Jesus, as this story challenges, we need to be willing to venture forth out onto the sea.  We have to be willing to get out of our comfort zone and into a place where our need of God is greater than our need for success. This doesn’t mean that there is no discernment of what risk we are being called to or what yes we are feeling rise within our hearts but it does mean that faith is essentially an action.  

It is helpful to realize that in the gospel writing of John believing or faith is always a verb and never a noun. Faith is not a possession it is an activity. As one theologian said, “It is like a song that disappears when you stop singing.”

This story is numinous because it is so true to life. We are all of us a mixture of fear and faith of doubt and belief. We alternate between cowering in the boat and leaping onto the waves with Jesus. If I am truthful it is my own doubts that keep me wondering and pursuing the life of faith. My doubts move me along and remind me that the world is not as it should be, the world, including me needs God, it needs the vision of the kingdom of God to break in.  But like the epileptic’s father in Mark’s gospel, I am willing to pray, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

Put simply I cannot walk on water. I might be more likely to pay the 25 cents for the ferry. But this God-bearing story calls us into a life that accepts the risk of faith that God places in front of each of us without fail. Only you can know where Christ is calling you into deep trust in God? There are times when what we most need is to leave the safety of the boat and the easy fellowship of our companions and venture out into the unknown waters knowing that it is there in that nexus of faith and fear that we will find Jesus striding toward us ready not only to reach out a hand to help but to pull us deeper into God’s saving embrace where we will come to know more fully who we are and more importantly to whom we belong.
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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher mcLaren, July 3

7/3/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church   
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday July 3, 2011  Proper 9A
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Sermon: The Great Invitation: Come find rest for your souls


In the night prayers of Compline, one of the most beautiful services in our Book of Common Prayer there is a place to choose from among four different readings. One of them, a real crowd pleaser, comes from today’s reading.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.   - Matthew 11:28-30.

In contrast one of the other readings is this show stopper:

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in the faith.  I Peter 5:8-9a.

For some reason one of these readings is chosen over and over again to the almost total neglect and exclusion of the other.  Is it because we don’t want to think about the world and ourselves being contested ground in a cosmic battle? Or is it that beautiful invitations are much preferred to dire warnings? Certainly for Compline’s tuck-you-into-bed moment, one is more helpful in the sweet dreams and slumber department.

The Gospel writer in today’s lesson is struggling to capture the spiritual struggle of his generation.  Human nature is described as children in a market place. “Come on lets play weddings today.” But the other group says, “No we don’t feel like celebrating.”
“Ok then lets play funeral, you can be the priest and you the undertaker” only to hear “No we don’t feel like being sad either.” No matter what is offered the children cannot seem to engage and enjoy the game.

Jesus likens all of this to his ministry and that of his cousin Johnny B.  Johnny B. retreated to the desert, fasted, exposed the hypocrisy of governors and clergy alike, ate from the wild and prophesied from the margins and they called him a madman.  Jesus came, telling stories, mixing with all sorts of people, showing up to parties, forgiving people, including outsiders, rubbing shoulders with all manner of dangerous and disreputable people, and touching people who were unclean and they called him a glutton and drunkard and a man with not enough sense to avoid questionable sorts. So, John’s asceticism was madness and Jesus’ sociability was moral bankruptcy.  

It is as if God gave people two wildly different but beautiful ways to embrace and respond to the divine longing, but we can be like spoiled children who refuse to play no matter what the game. We are masters of the spiritual stiff-arm and the unholy nay-saying, living and breathing a hermeneutic of suspicion and punch drunk on criticism. Recently The Rev. Tom Brackett who visited St. Michael’s invited us into a hermeneutic of curiosity, an embracing of God through deep listening to one another, to the action of the Spirit in our midst and to the God-breathed happenings in our community.

Jesus says at the end of his parable of the children, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” The proof is in the pudding as we say. John may have been an isolated and wild-man-prophet with a gift for offending people but he also was amazing when it came to moving men and women’s hearts toward God through intense truth-telling and rigorous self-examination that both amazed and healed people.  Jesus may have been a socialite unafraid of mixing with riff-raff but in him people found new courage to embrace life, new goodness to share, and a new freedom to be who God was calling them to be.  

The lesson of the parable seems to be that responsiveness to God is everything. God can move us into a deeper spiritual life in a myriad of ways, through madmen or party-animals. The most important thing is to resist our almost automatic critical posture while fostering our willingness to trust that God is at work in us.  All of a sudden the warning to be watchful of the evil one prowling around like a hungry lion seeking someone to devour is not so silly. We are surrounded by a culture that would convince us that God is not at work, that spiritual intimacy is a waste of time, that things are more important than people, and that drifting off into a place of isolation or learned powerlessness is inevitable. Who needs a community of faith and the spiritual journey?

Jesus was deeply concerned about the spiritual well-being of ordinary people. He knew that even the beauty of his own Jewish tradition, the way of Torah, could became spiritually oppressive. Some of us understand religion becoming oppressive. I remember growing up in the warmth and energy of the Pentecostal Charismatic tradition and being sent off to church summer camp.  One of the tenants of this tradition was that the gift of speaking tongues was considered evidence of salvation so there was a great deal of pressure to actually have this experience. I remember attending endless church camp worship services that seemed to have as their primary goal helping children to “get saved” or to have this validating experience of the Spirit. No pressure right? Kids struggled, ached, yearned, despaired and tried like hell to have this experience and in the end it was a terrible spiritual burden that many simply relieved by inventing the movement of the Spirit. It was of course disastrous to any sort of authentic spiritual life and withering to one’s trust in the faith experience. If faith meant being a fake, a fraud, who really needed it? And then there was the expectation that when you came back from camp you would get up in front of the congregation and testify of your experience. Talk about heavy-laden.  This was the kind of burden Jesus was teaching about in our passage today.  The religious elites of his day had taken the beautiful way of Torah and over time, without I think intending to, made it into an oppressive and joyless system.  There was so little room to succeed in one’s faith, there were far too many rules to get it all right, and there was a certain cynicism that set in quite naturally when the bar is just too high. Rather like you or I trying to learn cello from YoYo Ma or play one-on-one with Dwyane Wade.

We all know someone, perhaps ourselves, who is in spiritual recovery from one form of spiritual trauma or another. Not to put too fine a point on it but the church that is supposed to be dedicated to bringing people closer to God seems at times to be incredibly creative at inventing ways to hinder people in the spiritual journey. There is something incredibly dark about any institution, turning its back on its primary purpose. Oh, I’m sure you’ve experienced it more than once. One cannot be nourished at the communion table for this reason or that. Your marriage cannot be blessed under those circumstances. We can’t baptize your child because of your lifestyle. Or the subtle ways we communicate, “Well you’re simply really not like us and I’m not sure you belong in our cozy monoculture we call the country club, oh, I mean the church.  Or shh..shhh, you really should keep your children absolutely still and quiet in church as it is ruining my worship experience. What are children doing in church anyway?  There are of course various lions prowling about seeking to devour one’s spiritual life and more.

That I believe is where “The Great Invitation” of this passage makes sense.
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. - Matthew 11: 28-30<

The invitation Jesus speaks is deeply attractive to us. We may hear it as a welcome relief from the struggle and demands of modern life. There is so much to do, our tasks are so many, our expectations always expanding. And while it may in fact be an invitation that will relieve some of our day-to-day struggles it is not an invitation to inactivity. This is an invitation into spiritual intimacy with Christ.  It is issued not to the work-burdened or the sin-burdened so much as it is to the spiritually-burdened. It is an invitation that is saying something like this in the words of Eugene Peterson’s The Message (Matthew 11: 28-30)

<em>Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn the live freely and lightly.</em>

Jesus is inviting each of us into a relationship that is meant to be life-giving, life-affirming, freeing and joyful. I wonder if that is how people would describe their life in Christ or the Christians they meet?  My sponsoring priest was fond of saying, “have enough Christianity to make you joyful and not just enough to make you miserable.” I do not believe that Jesus is saying anything goes, just be yourself and exercise your freedom and you will find the kingdom. Rather I believe that Jesus is saying something more like don’t try to make everything so hard on yourself, don’t keep making up reasons you can’t be joyful, start trying to forgive yourself, hear the allure of my beautiful invitation to you. I love you and I want to walk with you through life: the tough things, the losses, the joys, the victories, the tensions, the challenges, the ambiguities, the passionate actions, the cold anger of injustice. I want to be your partner in it all and so does God. You are invited to follow me, to work with me, to be yoked to me, like two oxen working the field together.

The rest that is possible in life is found in the quality of the yoke one accepts. Jesus’ yoke is called easy which is another way of saying kind.  A good yoke or harness is something that is carefully shaped so that there will be a minimum of chafing and discomfort in the work.  I believe that in saying “learn form me” Jesus means not only listen to my teaching but also join me, become yoked to me and learn how to pull your load differently by working beside me and watching how I do it. The heavy labor of your life will seem lighter, more possible when you allow me to help you with it.

For us Jesus is wisdom, the one who shows us the good way, where the restless can find rest for their souls. This good way is not devoid of hard work or obedience for that would not be life at all. John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness demonstrated the life to be had in honesty about one’s need of God and in exposing the powers that be in this world that work against justice and freedom. Jesus demonstrated in his teaching and life the joyful obedience to God rather than a slavish devotion to rules and the exclusion of others. It is the quality of the relationship with Christ that makes our life and work good, the rest for our souls possible, and a sense that one is alive and participating in the emerging way of God.  “Come to me,” is an invitation by a humble and gentle Jesus to follow him into the kingdom of God.

In following Jesus we become part of a people who know that it is not we ourselves who are in control but rather it is this gentle and humble Jesus who holds the future.  Knowing that Christ holds the future we can be patient in the midst of struggle and with ourselves. In the practice of knowing Christ we are drawn into a relationship that teaches us where true freedom lies, not in a nation or an economy or a career but in learning how to live and love, how to forgive and heal, how to give and nurture and how to grow and serve like Jesus who is with us in it all. It is not that the struggles of life, the dangers of the world or the roaring lions cease to exist or affect us, it is rather that we are not alone in the struggle, for we are yoked to the source of life itself in our acceptance of the Great Invitation.  

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, May 29

5/29/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church    
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday May 29, 2011 Easter 6A
Text: John 14: 15-21
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Theme: The Lord the Giver of Life

When I went away to college I was scared. For the first week of school I hid out in my dorm room, ate my meals off-campus, managed to miss the school activity fair and otherwise was rather unsocial. It was a bad situation. I really didn’t know a soul and I had only one piece of advice from an older friend that, by God’s grace, I eventually acted upon. He had said, “Look up InterVarsity Christian fellowship when you get to campus.” Somehow in my misery I managed to call the campus activities office, get the number of the leader and make contact. A few hours later Clyde Ohta the InterVarsity minister, a kind of college chaplain, knocked on the door of a very lonely and isolated freshman and it was the work of the Holy Spirit.

So when Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to send them another advocate so that they will not be orphaned and alone in this world, I remember the moment that smiling, friendly, welcoming person of Clyde Ohta walked through my door and invited me to go get a coffee at the campus Bistro. I didn’t know it at the time but it was a moment of God’s deep provision in my life, a crossing over to safety. For Clyde became a mentor and friend a confidant, counselor, coach, and evangelist in my life, nurturing my faith, thoughtfully nudging me into maturity, listening deeply and challenging me to grow in so many ways.  And through that discipling relationship I discovered a deep community of other Christian students and found my own interest in ministry.

I believe this is what our passage today is actually talking about. Jesus promises his disciples his own continuing presence in the person of the Holy Spirit, who will be with them without fail if they are open and follow in his ways. This advocate is an incredible and intimate gift. Jesus describes the relationship as abiding within us, linked to our very person.  So, if you’ve ever thought you were alone in the world this passage intends to challenge that understanding in a rather mystical way.

Every week we proclaim our faith in the Holy Spirit in the words of the Nicene Creed:

We believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord the giver of life.
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the prophets.

It’s a powerful bit of proclamation but when I look at the 4 lines I’m tempted to say, “It that it?” Is that all we believe about the Holy Spirit? It seems to me that the Spirit might have gotten the gooey end of the stick at the council of Nicea.  Only four lines about the great gift that Jesus promises his followers: The Advocate, The Comforter, The Helper, The Spirit of the living God available to each of us at all times, just four little lines? Perhaps the Holy Spirit needed a better PR agent who would really celebrate his accomplishments and praise his skills? I’m sure the Holy Spirit has a better resume than that.  

I’m not sure if you feel the same way but too often the Holy Spirit seems like the forgotten member of the Trinity: a kind of third wheel that we don’t really pay attention to. As a child I learned that the Greek word for this special helper was Parakletos, from which we get our word Paraclete not to be confused with parakeet. This of course caused me quite a lot of confusion in my childhood, the dove of the spirit and the parakeet, I’m meant they were both birds. We like many Bible translators talked about the Holy Spirit as The Comforter or Helper which is a very attractive job description.  

But I have to confess that Comforter while it is a welcome title also sounds a little mamby pamby, to me.  I’m not sure about you but I’ve been guilty of associating comfort almost entirely with sorrow and helping us to cope with loss and to be sure the Holy Spirit does comfort us in our affliction, but to limit the scope of work to this is a deep misunderstanding.  The Holy Spirit is a gift for all of life. One way to say it is that the Spirit helps us to cope with all of life and to thrive instead of becoming cynical or dispirited or discouraged which are such easy temptations in our world.

The Greek word parakletos is really difficult to translate.  The truth is that the word Comforter that is often used is really not an adequate translation.  Others have translated it as Helper or Advocate. But we need to look more deeply into the meaning of the word to catch a glimpse of what kind of assistance Christ is really promising those who love him.  

Parakletos really means someone who is called in – but it is the reason why the person is called in which gives the word it distinctive associations. The Greeks used this word in a wide variety of ways. Parakletos might be someone called in to give witness in a law court in someone’s favor. One might be an advocate to come in and plead on behalf of one in a serious case; he might be an expert called into give advice in a difficult situation; he might be someone called in to speak and work with a company of soldiers or a team who are depressed, dispirited and perhaps unable to continue, the parakletos was one who could heal and instill bravery within the group again.  

The Greek understanding of the word parakletos had within it not just comfort in times of sorrow but also inspiration, encouragement, the remaking of vision and re-energizing of people for the work or life in front of them. This to me is a much more powerful understanding of the role of the Spirit than a mere comforter in sorrow and gives new meaning to the line of the Creed describing the Spirit as, “The Lord the giver of Life.”

We may not want to admit it, but we often see only what we are prepared to see. I suspect that the reason we do not always recognize the Spirit at work in the world or in our lives is because we have not nurtured the capacity to recognize the Spirit. We’ve allowed the world around us to tell us that God does not care, that God is silent, that God is just watching from a distance. I remember when I took my first architectural history class. I had really hardly noticed the architecture around me. But suddenly I was fitted for noticing it. I had categories for understanding it, talking about it, appreciating it and I began to find the world of buildings so much more interesting and alive. Botanists see a whole different world walking through the open space than we might. It is the same with the Spirit. The friends of Jesus, receive a gift, an awareness, of the Spirit alive and at work in our lives and the world around us.

How do we recognize the Spirit? Our capacity for the Spirit is developed through worship, sharing of faith stories, study of scripture, time in prayer, and our reaching out in love and compassion to those who are in pain or need. What we see and experience is shaped by what we bring to the experience, how we are sighted. And what this Gospel is telling us is that the community around Jesus is infused with the Spirit, gifted with Spirit-sight, Spirit-awareness, Spirit-sensitivity, Spirit-nudging, Spirit-encouraging, Spirit-convicting, Spirit-filledness. All of this is true to the degree that we open ourselves to the Spirit, realizing that to live the Christian life is not to do so under our own steam alone but to be rather gifted, filled, empowered, directed by the very presence of God in our lives.

For us I think that means that the degree to which we are open in prayer and acceptance of God’s movement in our lives it the degree that we like Jesus become Spirit-people.  As one commentator said, “The Holy Spirit gate-crashes no one’s heart.”  The Spirit is always available always ready to be received and this is truly important work for each of us.

The sign of the Spirit at work according to John is very simple, loving obedience. For John the evidence of the Spirit at work in the lives of Jesus’ friends was obedience to God’s ways. Love is shown in being faithful to the ways of forgiveness, compassion, acceptance of others, nurturing the young, caring for the sick and needy, living simply, sharing what you have, giving even when it is difficult, remaining hopeful, speaking truth in love, walking with others through their pain and loss. Love for John is never some cozy sentiment or nice idea it is always an action, a self-giving movement, a way of stretching the soul into a God-like shape.

We all know and experience people who say they love us or their families but they are forever acting in ways that are incredibly hurtful and damaging.  For Jesus the hallmark of love was acting in faithful obedience to the ways of God.  

The Creed also reminds us that the “Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets” giving us Holy Wisdom throughout the ages. Interestingly the figure of wisdom is feminine in scripture. And what is it that the prophets do so well? They remind us of what it means to be faithful. They call us back to our best selves, our core values, our covenant way of life. They remind us that being in relationship with the living God requires our own best efforts and the word of our own deepest self. The prophets were forever reminding the people of God that they had been strangers in the strange land so don’t treat the undocumented in harsh or unloving ways. They reminded them that it is easy to lose everything and become poor or widowed or unemployed, so don’t forget that God loves mercy and cheers for the compassionate, those who can suffer with others.

The Good News in all of this is that we are not alone in trying to please God or attempting to walk in the ways of Christ. No, we have an advocate, a helper, a coach, a prophet, a Holy kick in the pants to do the right thing, to show our love through obedience because in the end it is not just our kind and moral thoughts that matter, it is our actions our Orthopraxis if you will our right living. For too long we’ve allowed Christianity to be defined in our tradition as Orthodoxy – right belief but John’s teaching on the Spirit this day reminds us that without the obedience of love our faith doesn’t really amount to much, our proclamations of faith don’t impress the world, it is our love in action, our Orthopraxis our right action that really changes things that really demonstrates to the world that the Spirit is alive and well and active within each of us holding us in life and offering new life to the world.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, “The Lord the giver of life” who is not only a comfort in our sorrow but wisdom, vision, energy and the urging of God in our life, moving us forward in a Godward direction, into fullness of life. The real question is “Where is the Spirit at work in your life?” for that is Christ’s promise to each of us. 
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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, May 8

5/8/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church  
Albuquerque, NM 87107
Sunday May 8, 2011 Easter 3A
Text: Luke 24: 13-35  Road to Emmaus.
Theme: Jesus Incognito

It is Easter evening and two friends of Jesus are leaving the city.  They are walking the 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and talking among themselves about the tragedy they have just endured. Their beloved leader is gone, killed by Roman soldiers at the request of the mob and temple elites. What will they do now? Their community is in shambles? They are full of questions, of uncertainty, and sadness.

In the midst of their journey a stranger joins them on the road. Unbeknownst to them it is Jesus incognito.  The stranger engages the disciples in conversation showing interest in what they are talking about as they walk. The text tells us that at the strangers’ invitation to share their story, “They stood still, looking sad.” I love this moment. The moment the two disciples get in touch with their pain and decide to pour out their story to the welcome and attentive stranger. “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” The stranger bids them share their story with “What things?” Ah, the power of a good question and a listening ear.

The story of Jesus of Nazareth pours out of the disciples as they journey toward Emmaus. It is full of pain and longing and remembrance, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” The travelers tell the stranger their most important story and of their devastating loss. They expose their shattered dream of a Messiah who would bring about the world as it should be instead of how it is, kicking out the Empire and restoring peace and justice in the Holy City. They speak of Jesus’ mighty deeds of power, his amazing teaching and of how the establishment eliminated their competition. And tenderly they speak of the mystery surrounding his death, that some among them are claiming that somehow Jesus is alive.

At this point the stranger begins to share his story, the story of how their sacred scriptures spoke of the coming “anointed one.” He brings into remembrance the wisdom of their own sacred texts and the strange connections between the life of Jesus and the tradition of the prophets. He uses their own shared story to stir their hearts, to challenge their fears, to awaken their minds and quicken their souls. For this is of course what the scriptures are meant to do, to tease our hearts and minds into activity, to stir our awareness of God’s action, to enliven our imagination to the possibility of God at work in the world in and through us.

As they approach the village of Emmaus, their destination for the night, the friends invite the stranger to stay with them. Their conversation on the road has been lively and stirring and they want to continue it over a meal. “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” “And besides there is a great falafel bar and brewpub in Emmaus.” This warm offer of hospitality toward the stranger makes possible what happens next.

At table the stranger takes bread, blesses it, brakes it, and gives it to the travelers. And at that moment the disciples recognize Jesus at table with them only to have him vanish from before their eyes.  It is an obvious Eucharistic moment. Their friend and now “The Risen One” is revealed to them in the breaking of bread. They have feasted on the stories of the scriptures and broken bread at the table, nurtured by word and sacrament the disciples discover the presence of Christ hidden in their midst.

Their hearts burning within them were telling them the truth. Their friend and teacher is alive just as the women had told them. But Jesus will not stay put and neither do they. Immediately they returned to Jerusalem, traveling at night despite the danger of the road for the news within them was too good not to share.  So a slow and hopeless walk away from Jerusalem toward Emmaus becomes hopeful and hasty return to Jerusalem.

So what are we to make of this mysterious story of the incognito Jesus, his Houdini disappearing act at dinner and the half marathon of the disciples?

I want to suggest something rather unusual as the point of this story. It is in welcoming the stranger in our midst that we discover the face of Christ in front of us. The whole story of Emmaus hinges on the traveling disciples showing hospitality to a stranger. First by including him in their conversation and journey on the road and then by inviting him to share a meal with them.  

This passage teaches us something profound about the nature of Christian community. It is in welcoming the stranger, the newcomer, or the person we do not yet know that we are most open to discovering the hidden presence of Christ in our midst. For we can still catch a glimpse of Jesus in the faces of strangers, foreigners, the gardener, the person warming pew beside us.
The movement of this passage intends to show us a powerful way to deepen our life in community through welcoming one another by simple but radical acts of hospitality.

What is the radical act of hospitality I’m talking about? The whole story of Emmaus begins by engaging in a meaningful conversation. The incognito Jesus joins the disciples on the road and shows interest in them. He’s curious about what they are talking about. He asks questions of them and honors them with the gift of listening to their story. But it is not a one-way conversation because conversations, true conversations never are. A conversation involves a give and take of listening and vulnerability of sharing and showing curiosity. A real conversation is open to the possibility that something that happens within the talking and listening can really change you.

Have you ever been changed by a conversation? Has someone ever asked you a question or observed something about your story that changed how you understood the world, influenced a major decision or helped you to understand yourself better? I will never forget the day a stranger sat down at my lunch table talked and listened to me and ultimately said, “Have you ever considered being an Episcopal priest?”

The conversation that Jesus had with the disciples was a powerful one. One that had their “hearts burning within them.” It involved pouring out their own personal pain but also listening to the way that this stranger understood the scriptures and the ways of God. We are not told what the dinner conversation was like but I’m quite confident that it was just as engaging as the talk on the road to Emmaus.

I want to suggest that that degree to which St. Michael’s becomes a place of hospitality toward strangers and toward one another is the degree to which we will experience the depth of community that results in recognizing Christ right in front of our eyes.

The truth of the matter is that Christ plays in ten thousand places. He is hidden in every child of God waiting for us to discover the playful power of his presence.  The challenge is to engage in conversations with one another that really have the potential for discovering where God is at work in one another, what is important to us, what we are passionate about, what injustices in this world make us angry and ready to act, what searching questions are truly important to us, what stories from our life have really shaped us and made us who we are.

The Road to Emmaus is meant to be more than a delightful story for us as a faith community. It is summons into a way of life, a call to become a community of deep hospitality, a community that dares to talk to one another about things that matter, not just about the weather or how good the coffee is or how many soccer games you sat through this weekend. The Mystery of Emmaus challenges us to dare to engage one another in real and thoughtful ways because the truth is we are mostly strangers to one another. Do you really know who you worship with? Do you know their pains and struggles? Do you know the stories that shaped them into the person in front of you?

The Mystery of Emmaus is that in engaging the stranger in our midst, the person we do not yet know we may discover the presence of Christ in our own lives. For Christ is incognito more than we know and delights in being discovered.

So this day I want to challenge you to dare to talk to one another, to take the risk to be curious about the person you worship beside or in front of and find some time to get to know one another. Last summer our ReImagine group created what we called a Season of Listening in which we trained, encouraged, and challenged ourselves to talk to one another by having intentional 30-minute conversations with people we did not know. Over a three-month period we had over 300 conversations and it was a very powerful experience.

For some it was a life-changing experience to intentionally talk to others in ways that tried not to be shallow and on the surface but honored people by listening, asking questions, and being lovingly curious about each other’s lives. Suddenly the community of St. Michael’s became alive to them in a new way and they began to discover their own story and to discern where God was at work in their own life as well.

As summer approaches the ReImagine team is planning another Season of Listening for there are still many people we do not know, there are still many opportunities to discover the Risen One incognito in our midst and there is still a deepening of community that we desire. So someone may be calling you to ask to have a conversation. Take risk and agree to meet them. We will have a sign-up table on Sundays if you are interested in getting to know others by simply having a conversation.

I believe that this work of radical hospitality, of having intentional conversations with one another and those new to our parish or new to you is the work of our whole community. For in taking the risk to a greater intimacy with one another we build-up a thick network of relationships that create the kind of community we all long for. In welcoming the stranger, which could be anyone we don’t yet know, we create a place of deep hospitality that is capable of transforming our community through sensing the presence of Christ in one another.

So, I invite you as a whole community to embrace the mystery of Emmaus and to risk a dangerous intimacy in daring to talk to one anther at a depth. It is I believe one the most radical things a community can do and at the same time so very simple.  It is not just a beautiful idea  but an intentional spiritual practice of engaging one another in meaningful conversation, showing interest in people for in doing so we may just recognize Jesus for a moment as the veil is lifted from our eyes.

So as we celebrate the Mystery of Christ in the Risen Season, and as we break bread around this table, my prayer hope is that St. Michael’s, our beloved community, may become more and more a place of deep hospitality through the radical act of listening to one another until our hearts are burning with us and we recognize Christ in our midst anew. May we too discover Christ incognito on our the Emmaus road and may it send us rushing back to our family and friends with good news on our lips and hope renewed in our hearts.
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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, April 24

4/24/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels
Easter Sunday April 24, 2011
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Text: Matthew: 28: 1-10
Theme: Paschal Joke
I wish to acknowledge my debt for the concept and flow of this sermon to Brother Martin Smith whose writing and theology has enriched my life for years.

Historians of the Church inform us that as late as the 18th Century in Germany, preaching on Easter Day held out a peculiar requirement.  Lutheran preachers still felt bound by an ancient custom on this day.  Custom prescribed that the sermon should begin with a joke, known as the risus pachalis, “the paschal joke.”  It is not hard to imagine the solemn pastor fiddling with his preaching tabs nervously in the pulpit, cracking a rare smile and beginning his Easter homily with “Have you heard the one about…? Or, “A funny thing happened on my way to the pub…”

Botanists have managed to grow plants from seeds found wrapped in mummies of Pharaohs, and perhaps this ancient and forgotten custom of the paschal joke still has some life in it as well.  Why a joke on Easter morning?  Why an attempt at humor on this joyous festival day?  For those who have ears to hear, the joke tells us that what follows – the news of the empty tomb and proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus – is a joke God plays on us.  In one way it is impossible to take the resurrection seriously.  It really is laughable, isn’t it?  Or is it?  The question remains, what is the joke and do we get it?

Death is no laughing matter and never has been.  When a human dies and goes into the ground that is that.  We don’t generally wait around for the person to reappear and take up where we left off – not on this side of the grave anyway.  But even so, there is this persistent dream of life beyond the grave.  Our forebears who invented agriculture found that the rhythm of their life as farmers brought them to the edge of solemn mysteries.  If the dry seed could be buried and then burst forth with tender green life and bear fruit, what about a human being, what about the corpses of men and women buried in the earth?  So, they buried their dead with all manner of ceremony and preparations sometimes burying them in boats for the journey through the netherworld or including things they might need on the other side like food, flowers, trinkets of all kinds and weapons.  All of this was done with the blind hope that perhaps the dying and rising of the corn or the new grain was a hint, a clue to the mystery of the universe that there was indeed life beyond the grave and what the eye could see.

The symbol of resurrection found expression in myths of gods who died and came to life, myths and rituals the encompassed the cycles of life and death around the harvest, the funeral rites that mourned short human lives and wove around them dreams of paradise beyond.  By Jesus’ day the lines were already drawn, much as we find them today, between those who condemn the symbol as illusory and deceptive and those who find it compelling and full of hope.  In Jesus’ day it was the Sadducees who were the conservatives about this, expressing their pessimism about it openly and encouraging others to mistrust the whole prospect of life beyond the grave.  The Pharisees on the other hand, held out hope for the resurrection of the dead as a remote prospect happening far into the future at the end of time.  Above all, resurrection was for the more liberal minded Pharisees a requirement for the last judgment – God would have to raise the dead if everyone was going to be present for the Great Trial at the end of time.

Resurrection is a disputed question and has been for ages.  It is for some an ambiguous symbol expressing human ambivalence about the finality of death.  However much we human say we accept death, it seem that we cannot help projecting into some distant, mythic future the possibility of restoration to life, in the symbol of the rising of the body from the grave.  

And on a particular Sunday morning, God did something absurd in the face of all the controversy and solemnity about death.  God took our symbol literally.  God did something scandalous and for some offensive to their sense of propriety and their understanding of the spiritual.  God decided to enter the debate about resurrection in a whole new way, as if to say, “having trouble with that rascally symbol of resurrection?  Well how about this, look at my beloved Jesus.  Now you see him, now you don’t.  One grave empty, the rest to follow, stay tuned.  

The joke is that human beings like their symbols to stay symbolic.  Undoubtedly that is why every year several books are published that endeavor to return the concept of resurrection to the realm of the symbolic and away from this tomfoolery of empty tombs and grave clothes lying about.  The resurrection they say, and have been for years is a “legend.”  The writers of these learned theological books all adopt a rather injured tone.   The resurrection should symbolize the enduring and uplifting effect of Jesus’ teaching in the hearts of believers, or express dramatically that Jesus is now an exalted spiritual leader for many.  These scholars are embarrassed or infuriated its hard to tell which sometimes at the naiveté and stubbornness of those ordinary preachers and faithful Christians who keep celebrating the emptiness of the tomb with rest of the disciples, and the women, especially Mary.  They are incredulous about why we don’t embrace their message – the resurrection is such a beautiful metaphor in and of itself, there is really no reason why we must insist on anything special or unnatural happening to the corpse of Jesus.  

But perhaps they have missed something; perhaps they just don’t get the joke?  Maybe we who believe in the empty tomb are simply captivated by the audacity and boldness of God’s sense of humor.  Who but the God of Jesus would think of such a wild joke to take humanity up on its fascination with resurrection, blowing a hole in the middle of human history and human thought? Resurrection not as a tame and distant symbol but rather as powerful reality, a tear in the fabric of the universe that exposes God’s hidden purposes for all that he has made.  

The story of Christ’s passion, his crucifixion and burial are all about human power over God.  We, yes our sinful humanity took God’s expression of God’s very self, nailed it down, killed it, and buried it.  We took the Son of God and tried to push him out of the world.  But the funny this is, just when we thought we had him contained, entombed and out of the way for good, suddenly the stone was rolled away and …. Nothing, nada, Gone! As Martin Smith says the whole thing is in terribly bad taste, as if God were to play Houdini.  God get free.  He escapes.  His mission impossible is accomplished.  The grave is empty, and the shroud and head cloth are folded neatly.  Martha Stewart would be proud.  The Lord of all creation seems to wink at us, behaving like a thoughtful houseguest who doesn’t leave the bedclothes scattered about the room when he leaves.  

Jesus is free to leave the tomb, and that means that we lost.  We failed to keep God contained or shut him up even by dragging him into our death.  But this is a very strange game after all.  By losing, we win.  The result of it all is that the rules have changed.  The universe is different.  God is free to punch a hole in the fabric of reality with resurrection and what is more he intends for us all to follow Jesus through this opening into his arms open arms.  The hole in the universe has a tremendous gravitational pull drawing us all into the life and being of God.  Jesus says, “I am ascending to my Father, and your Father, to my God and your God.”

By losing we win.  The joke of the resurrection is on us.  God plays this masterful joke on us by taking us up on our dream of resurrection just once for Jesus his beloved.  And you either get the joke or you don’t.   If you get the joke you realize that life can be full of holy laughter.  You begin to realize that those who want to insist that resurrection is merely symbolic and that “Of course the tomb wasn’t actually empty” really are rather humorless and unimaginative sorts.  

Realizing that the joke of the resurrection is on us, makes the Gospel’s playful accounts of the disciples varied encounters with the Risen Lord full of humor and sense of comedy.  In John, Mary mistakes Jesus for the Gardener?  Was he sporting a large floppy sun hat and a pair of pruning sheers strapped to his side?  And what about Jesus cooking breakfast on the beach for his tired disciples, offering the first breakfast of a new creation in the light of the resurrection? Or Jesus as the mystery traveler on the road to Emmaus, and then performing a disappearing act at the dinner table? These are strange and comical stories.  They are stories of people who are lighthearted and feel the wonderful freedom to make the joke they have heard from the mouth of God even funnier in the retelling.  

So laugh this day, don’t be afraid to laugh down in your soul in your very bones.  Feel the laughter of the universe, the hilarity of the hole God has punched in the fabric of time and space with the joke of Jesus resurrection.  Laugh out loud if you want, laugh for joy, laugh at Jesus wearing a funny floppy gardener’s hat, laugh at Jesus minding the BBQ on the beach and eating fish, laugh because you have hope, a wild hope that death is not the end of the story.  Laugh because you get the joke, God’s love is stronger than death.  Laugh as you bath in the hilarious light of the Risen One.  Laugh and dance for the story that seemed a tragedy has become a comedy, for Christ is Alive.  That is the joke and a joke we can keep telling until we find ourselves dancing and laughing will all the saints at the end of time.

I wish to acknowledge my debt for the concept and flow of this Easter sermon which I borrowed liberally from Brother Martin Smith, SSJE whose writing and theology has enriched my life for years. May we all know the Holy Laughter of Christ’s resurrection deep in our bones.
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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, April 10

4/10/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church  
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday April 10, 2011 Lent 5A
Text: John 11: 1-45 Lazarus
Theme: Love’s Procrastination

Jesus is summoned with the words, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” From the very word go this story turns on affection. Love will bring Jesus to Lazarus. Love beckons in the voices of the sisters. But there is also fear in this story. Fear that may send chills down your spine or recall you to difficult memories.  Each of us has a connection with this strange story. We know the fear and the ache of hearing that someone we love has been admitted to the hospital or has been diagnosed with an illness. “The one whom you love is ill.”

From the passage we learn that Jesus loved the whole family, and yet when he received the news of Lazarus’ illness he does not drop everything and hustle off to Bethany. No, Jesus lingers for two more days before setting out for Judea where his friend’s home was. Why this procrastination? Certainly none of us have procrastinating types in our lives? One reason may have been that Jesus was not especially welcome in Judea. The religious authorities were after him and his disciples were worried that he would be arrested and killed if he dared to travel close to Jerusalem. Yet eventually Jesus chooses to go, his love for his friend overcoming the danger of the trip. So Love’s procrastination propels the story forward.

Sadly when Jesus nears Bethany he learns that he is too late. His friend Lazarus had died and has been in the tomb for 4 days. Upon his arrival Jesus is met by Martha, one of the sisters, who says “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” There is a quiet confidence in these words. They are not full of anger or bitterness or resentment that Jesus did not drop everything and come immediately. There is a simple acknowledgement that their brother’s death was unexpected and tragic but at the same time she feels that Jesus’ life force and the mysterious power that resided within him would have changed things, if only he had been there.

In the midst of this strange story, the writer of John offers a crucial theological point that is the commentary for this culminating “sign” in John’s Gospel. Jesus engages Martha in discussion about the nature of resurrection, and proclaims one of the I am statements this Gospel is noted for, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
 
Mary’s arrival takes this story out of the head and into the heart of all those involved.  Jesus is himself greatly disturbed and deeply moved by the weeping of Mary and others.  As Jesus begins to seek out the place of Lazarus’ burial he too begins to weep.  Jesus is deeply moved as the text tells us. But the Greek word here is note-worthy as it implies that Jesus was not only moved but angry, full of righteous wrath, and ready to act. Why is Jesus so disturbed? At whom or what is he angry?  
 
We are not given an explanation but perhaps Jesus’ tears were for the whole world. Perhaps his anger was for the cruelty of death, that stalks all, takes some violently, snuffs out lives too soon, leaves such big holes, causes such suffering. To be sure he wept for his friends Martha and Mary in their loss. He wept for his friend Lazarus, decaying in the grave.  But Jesus wept for more than that. He wept for the frailty of life, and the crazy unfair way of death’s dark dealing. Like the granddaughter of one of our members whose life ended last month by an overdose of heroin, or the constant news of bodies pilling up in new global killing fields of Juarez or the incredible loss of life in Japan. More than likely Jesus’ wept because he knew that there was so much more to the story than those in front of him seemed to understand.  There was so much fear in their eyes, such a resignation toward death.  Perhaps he wept because so few seemed to understand what he was about, so few seemed to believe in what they had seen already. Perhaps it was the sadness of abundant life meeting the ordinary limits we humans are all tempted to settle for.
 
But in the midst of his tears and sorrow Jesus found his center and felt the quickening of the Spirit within him.  There was life in him, a wild kind of life that needed to be let loose.  There was a life in him that reached out to say there is more, more than you might believe, more, than you can even hope.
 
Approaching the tomb Jesus commanded that the stone be rolled away despite the protestations of the truly reasonable. Jesus filled the air and bodies around him with prayer until they crackled and buzzed with the glory of God, and uttered the fearsome call, “Lazarus, come out.” There was a trembling of the earth, the sound of wings and rushing air, and cries and moaning from within.
 
His beloved friend, Lazarus, a dead man was walking again, drinking in air, stumbling on weakened limbs, searching for answers to too many questions at once.  People were shouting and crying and shrieking and running and feinting. Jesus’ voice pierced through the noise, “Unbind him and let him go.”   
 
What does one do when one is brought back to life? One of the problems with this story is that we never find out how Lazarus responded to love’s procrastination.  He is the recipient of one of Jesus’ biggest miracles and then he drops out of view.  Lazarus is snatched from the stench of death and is never heard from again.  No one asks him what it was like to be dead? I would have liked to be in on that interview. Or what his plans are now that he is once again alive. We’ll never know, or will we?
 
To be sure things like this don’t happen every day in Albuquerque.  It would be easy to allow our skepticism to ruin this story altogether. We are moderns and miracles just don’t happen, we’ve seen our friends suffer with disease despite our heartfelt prayers. Jesus may be the resurrection and the life but we still fear death like hell.
 
The trouble is that the more you hang around people who are attracted not only to the Jesus of History but to the Christ of faith, the more weird miracle-like things you find happening.  The more new life seems to be the order of the day.  The more resurrection reveals itself in the lives of Christ’s disciples. Oh, to be sure, there is the tendency among the educated faithful to disregard “signs” even when they stand out against the ordinariness of life. Our interpretive machinery begins to whirl and clank and we historicize, or we psychologize, we defend ourselves against the uncanny, the unusual, and the unfamiliar.  What’s dead should stay dead, that is the way the world works.
 
When Jesus shouts, “Unbind him! Let him go!” he is not only shouting to dead Lazarus, he is shouting loud enough to be heard even by us, listening in on the scene.  He is shouting to a dead man but also to every dying person, including us.  Jesus’ words are not just ancient history, they are a promise for us today as well.  
 
We are all of us Lazarus. Oh we may not be dead yet, but we are headed there and some of us are in more of a hurry than others.  What of death binds us, controls us or confines us? What part of our life needs to be made new? The truth is that like the line of a T.S. Elliott poem we are all “living and partly living.”
 
The point of this strange pre-Easter story is that Jesus loves Lazarus enough, loves life enough to call Lazarus back into it.  In essence Jesus is saying, I’m Lord of Life not Lord of Death. The everlasting life that I bring is found where people are willing to embrace life, to choose the path that leads to life. Recently I had a privilege of listening to someone embrace the 5th step in the 12-step spiritual process in which a person takes a comprehensive look at their life and where they have been consistently choosing death. It was an amazing experience for me, but what was more amazing was the sense of new life I sensed in the room, doors were opening in front of the person who was willing to tell the truth about his past, his unhealthy patterns, and his addictions. It was one of the most spiritually affirming life honoring moments I’ve ever been a part of in my life, watching someone choose the path of life right in front of me.
 
For many of us death is an article of faith, functionally we believe: there are no second chances, you can’t teach a old dog new tricks, people don’t change, I had no other options that is all I could do, I like things just the way they are, or I simply cannot face the pain and uncertainty of new life.  We are hooked, addicted, stuck, bound, lost and fearful.   We have all kinds of names for these tombs we inhabit: substance abuse, bad habits, burn-out, cynicism, apathy, egoism, life-long patterns, depression, intellectual pride, abject fear – but these are really the facts of death.  As Lent sharpens into Holy Week, Love’s procrastination in the story of Lazarus offers each of us a way forward into newness of life. Is it possible to pray of ourselves or of our friends, “Lord if you had been here, our brother or sister would not have died?”
 
Into the midst of our lives, into the midst of this community Jesus confidently strides and commands “Come out,”  “Unbind her. Let her go!”  Love’s procrastination is near at hand. It is just waiting for us to admit our need of it.  The truth of the matter is that Jesus is in the resurrection business. He joys in surprising and shocking this dying world with new life.  One does not need to wait for Easter, for Jesus is the Lord of life from the beginning of time.  He comes with resurrection in his fingertips, his heart open, and his eyes alive with compassion.

I wonder if we are willing to allow the ways of Jesus to surprise us into new life? Are we too consumed with our fear of death, our old ways, our known patterns that we can’t allow Love’s procrastination to come in to our lives. Sometimes love has to wait until we really sense that we have faced death, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Love’s procrastination is ready, ready to call us out of our tombs if we can but roll the stone away from the door and expose our need. What are we waiting for? Or is God waiting for us?
 
On the edge of the village, among the tombs, in the midst of St. Michael’s on Montaño Jesus is crying with a loud voice, “Lazarus come out.” The air crackles. The earth trembles…Love’s procrastination is never too late. 
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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, Ash Wednesday

3/9/2011

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Ash Wednesday March 9, 2011
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church   
Albuquerque New Mexico
Preacher: Christopher McLaren

Ash Wednesday has arrived with the March winds and the blessing of snow in the mountains.  We are gathered here in the quiet of this place surrounded by family, brothers and sisters in Christ, old and new, known and unknown to begin our 40 day adventure of Lent. Over the years I’ve found that people love Lent. They look forward to it as an intentional time to become attentive to their own spiritual life. It is a welcome time to become reflective, to take stock of our lives, to slow-down in order to pay attention to the movement of our hearts, to become aware of our souls hunger for God.  

There are classical ways that the faithful have used for centuries to embrace Lent. You can hear them in the distinctive invitation to a Holy Lent that we will hear in just a few minutes.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.
       - The Lenten Invitation from the Book of Common Prayer.

These classic ways of opening ourselves up to God have much to offer.
Self-examination can be a transformative. What would it mean to take stock of your life by evaluating your own physical, mental and spiritual health this Lent?  Or perhaps you sense in the Lent a time to consider where you are in your relational health with your partner or your friends? Are there areas you desire to work on, conversations you need to have, or forgiveness you need to offer? How is it with your soul this day? Perhaps it is time to get your spiritual journal out once again, to make an appointment with your spiritual director or  to finally seek out the counseling you’ve been avoiding?

Repentance. Do you need a fresh start? Are there things that you need to let go of so that you can start moving forward again toward health and wholeness?  The biblical understanding of repentance isn’t about feeling bad about yourself, it is about realizing that you have no reason to be trapped in your past because in God’s steadfast love there are always second chances. Repentance is not dwelling on our past failures but rather about seeing how hopeful the future really is with God.  Perhaps this Lent it would help you to make a confession, to embrace the Sacrament of Reconciliation of a Penitent as a way to move forward through things that you are holding you back from truly embracing the life God has in front of you?

Prayer. Perhaps what you really sense is a desire to be in a deeper conversation with God. Maybe you really want to embrace prayer this Lent, to cultivate a lively conversation with God in your own life. There is really no substitute for time to listen deeply and to share the important stories of your heart with God. The truth is that God wants to know you and be known by you and is looking for ways to cultivate a deeper intimacy.  If you have this sense you are already alive to the loving movement of God toward you. Perhaps you will find a welcome place to explore your own prayer life at the contemplative prayer group on Monday nights or through one of the small groups reading An Altar in the World this Lent.

Fasting, an almost lost discipline in our culture, is an ancient spiritual practice designed to help us get in touch with our own need of God while at the same time recognizing that our bodies are gifts from God and need to be lovingly cared for. The truth is that we have other hungers beyond food and fasting can help us get in touch with our deeper needs.  We have other appetites that need to be fed, most importantly our need for relationship with God. Perhaps exploring this ancient discipline is just what you need to discover your own deep hunger for the things of God in your daily life.  

There are other kinds of fasting as well. Listen to these powerful words from Isaiah we heard today:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. (Isaiah 58)

For weeks now a very dedicated group of people have been up in Santa Fe almost every day advocating for the most vulnerable in our society, children, immigrants, the deaf, the unemployed and this too is a kind of spiritual discipline God calls us into because caring for and defending the most vulnerable is close to the heart of God.

Self-denial, it sounds like so much fun. I had a college professor who claimed he gave up self-denial every year for Lent. I never quite bought it. Why do we discipline our own appetites, refuse to satisfy all our own desires or needs? For many reasons but chiefly to help us focus on what is really important in our lives, to simplify or do without helps us to consider what we really need, what is really important, what will really satisfy our souls. It also helps us to understand how blessed we are to realize how much we can really do without, how simple life can become, or how much we can actually give away of our selves and our possessions.  Life is really not about us, it is about being God’s person in the world and self-denial can help us discover this.

The Lenten invitation offers us a rich array of choices to pursue a deeper and more honest spiritual life. It is not about pretending to be holy or trying to fool ourselves. It really is about getting real with God, not being afraid to admit that we actually belong to Christ. In baptism we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. It is the same powerful gesture that Lent offers us this day.

I think that there is a lot of confusion around the ashes imposed on this day. What are these ashes a symbol of?  To be sure they are a symbol of our mortality but is that all? Are the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” meant to be as one theologian put it a kind of “sacrament of death” (as if such a thing were possible).  Not at all. To be sure the ashes connect us to the earth to which our bodies will return eventually. But that is not what Ash Wednesday is about.

The cross with which the ashes are traced upon us, is the sign of Christ’s victory over death. It is not a symbol of death but rather of new life. The cross is the place of God’s ultimate victory. The cross, in all of its pain and suffering, is the place where we discover that God is indeed the lover of our souls and is willing to sacrifice anything to draw us back to himself. So this day is not about our coming death but rather about the new life offered to us in realizing that we belong to God. As we face our own mortality on Ash Wednesday we do so in the sure and certain hope that we belong to God, A God whose love is more powerful than death, more powerful than our failures, more powerful than our egos, more powerful than our brokenness, more powerful than our hilarious attempts at being perfect.

Ash Wednesday is a simple but profound reminder that even in our finitude we belong to God. The ashen cross we take upon our bodies this day is nothing less than a reminder that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercy never comes to an end. You never cease to belong to God, not even death can change that. This is good news of Ash Wednesday. This is the meaning of that holy smudge on your forehead.  You belong to God and always will.

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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, February 27

2/27/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church   
Sunday February 27, 2011 8 Epiphany
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Text: Matthew 6: 24- 34
Theme: You Gotta Serve Somebody


When I was in college I had a good friend named Earl Todd Twist. He was a tall, tough, smart boy from Montana.  He had a very ordered mind and was quite thoughtful. One day in the midst of a Bible study Earl Todd Twist made this observation. “You know it seems that in our world people love things and exploit people in order to get things, when really its supposed to be the other way round, we are called to love people and exploit things to serve that purpose.” It is probably one of the best and shortest sermons I’ve ever heard. I’ve never forgotten it. I should probably stop right now. But I’m not as smart as Earl Todd Twist. And besides preachers get paid by the word.

In essence I believe that this is what Jesus is saying in our Gospel reading from the Sermon on the Mount today. “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matt. 6:24)

The word for wealth that many Bible’s still use is mammon which is the Aramaic word meaning “money” or “possessions.” In itself it is a neutral word. There was no pagan God called Mammon but using the word in this passage is rather like our cultural idiom of saying you cannot be devoted to God and to the “The Almighty Dollar.” In this passage Jesus is confronting our deep human tendency to allow our thirst for possessions to control us, to set our hearts on them in subtle but destructive ways.  

In the Veggie Tales cartoon series there is an episode which features a store called StuffMart. You’ve probably been to a StuffMart. In one episode three salesmen try to work their retail magic on a newcomer to their neighborhood and they sing a little song for her that has these lyrics.

Salesmen: We represent the Stuff Mart
Salesman #2: An enormous land of goodies
Salesman #1: Would you mind if we stepped in, please?
Salesmen: And as associates of the Stuff Mart
Salesman #1: It looks like you could use some stuff!....

Salesman #1: If you need a rubber hose
Salesman #2 and #3: We got those!
Salesman #1: A rhododendron tree
Salesman #2 and #3: We got three!
Salesman #1: A wrap-around deck
Salesman #2 and #3: Gotta check!
But if you need a window scraper
And a gross of toilet paper
Or a rachet set and pliers
And surround sound amplifiers
And a solar turkey chopper
Or a padded gopher bopper
Flannel shirts for looking grungy
And some rope for goin' bunji
Bunji! Bunji! Bunji-wun-gee-fun-gee!
Here we go, bunji! Come on!
Salesman #1: What we've mentioned are only just some
Salesman #2: Of the wonderful things yet to come
Salesman #1: These pictures you keep are so ... nice
Salesman #3: But you really should take our advice
Salesman #1: Happiness waits at the Stuff Mart!
Salesmen: All you need is lots ... more ... stuff!
Salesman #2 and #3: You really, really ought to!
Madame: How could I afford not to?
Salesman #1: Happiness waits at the Stuff Mart!
Salesmen: All you need is lots ... more ... stuff!

It is a clever and dead-on satire pointing out American’s incredible appetite for stuff. Our materialistic culture ought to be well aware of the incredible power of money and possessions on our lives, but acquisitiveness has become so much a part of the air we breathe that we seem to lack the critical distance to really see the story of our possessions. Isn’t it interesting how our quest for material possessions has a way of starting out as a means to enrich our lives but eventually they end up taking on a life of their own, becoming a kind of beast to be fed, a little less than a god. Too easily our possessions become not our helpful servant but our demanding master.

Oh, yes we all know the right answer to the contest between God and mammon. We faithfully say that we have chosen to serve God, not mammon, but too often in our daily life it is mammon that sets our priorities and determines our choices.  We would like to show more generosity toward the less fortunate but we cannot because there are so many things we need from the StuffMart …..  We truly intend to be more charitable in the future but for right now there are just too many things we need to buy ourselves.

You know the dilemmas yourself. Many families work multiple jobs to make ends meet, especially in this time of recession, giving up time with their children because there is so much they want to get for them, so many opportunities they want to provide.  We all know people who struggle to pay off consumer debt while they drive a new car and have closets full of great clothes and shoes we wish we had.  We all know people, they may in fact be us, who are literally working themselves to death, abandoning their families and marriages to give themselves to work often with what seem the best intentions and sanctioned by our achievement sick society. The other day a student asked me to hold her cell phone while she played with her friends. She handed me her new iphone and I realized that I was having phone envy with an 8 year old. Since when does an 8 year old need a new iphone?  StuffMart….

I’m not sure if it has ever happened to you but once in a while I look around at all the stuff in my house or garage or office and think, “Where did all this stuff come from? Do I really need all this stuff?” I’m amazed at times that just 6 years after losing almost everything in Hurricane Katrina that once again I am surrounded by things.  The truth is that it is not just empty nesters or retirees that need to think about simplifying or downsizing. We all are steeping in a culture of acquisition, of more is better, upsized meals, Costco-sized living. You know there is something wrong when Grande means medium and we have to invent some new word for large, Vente? And what does it mean that the word ginormous has become standard English.

Into our super-sized lives, Jesus strides with his first-century wisdom that seems so contemporary.  “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in an steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

What does it mean to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven? Instead of assessing our worth and that of others in terms of acquired treasures, cars, houses, art, which makes one so vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life, Jesus’ followers are instructed to look for invulnerable treasures, to build up treasures that cannot be taken away. What are these treasures? My guess is that you know these treasures, you’ve tasted them many times. They are the simple treasures of kindness for its own sake, kindness performed in myriad ways, everyday kindness that can make all the difference in someone else’s life but more importantly in yours. They are acts of friendship when you realize that the person in front of you is really needing someone to talk with and listen. The challenging effort it sometimes takes to be a true friend. The treasure is the real difference between being a friend and wanting to have friends. It is the treasure that no one can take away from you of realizing that the gifts and resources you have are gifts from God and you can use them to care for people, you can hold them loosely enough to be used in ways that bring glory to God.

Storing up treasures in heaven seems to mean beginning to see the world like God sees it. Oh, I realize that is tricky business but it is the business that our spiritual health depends upon. Valuing people over things. Valuing building relationships over building status. Valuing the welfare of the many over the wealth of a few. Investing ourselves in the care and development of children and youth instead of thinking that they are too much trouble or we’ve done our time. Daring to take a conversation into the depth of the spiritual when we are so tempted to remain aloof and shallow talking about the weather or the news of the day. Becoming people to who talk about things that matter to people on the inside, about what moves them in a God-ward direction. Sitting quietly to listen to God’s still small voice instead of running around desperately trying to fill our emptiness. Seeking treasure in heaven is a way of opening yourself up to the movement of God’s Spirit in a way that no amount of purchasing power could ever accomplish. It is in the end a way of finding the freedom that exists in God, for in serving God is perfect freedom.

Bob Dylan said it well in his song, “Gotta serve somebody.”
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
        But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Bob Dylan’s music, Jesus’ words, Matthew’s Gospel all point to a spiritual truth. Our lives are lived in service to what we believe is most important. In fact, what we choose to serve becomes the shape of our spiritual life: the way we order our loves, the way we deploy our resources for good or ill, the way we invest ourselves in people, our 401K’s, our children’s future, our community’s long-term health.  

Sermons rarely give you all the answers you need. But hopefully they invite you into living the questions upon which your life truly depends. These words of Jesus really do call us into a time of reflection and prayer. I want to call you into a time of prayerful consideration about how you are spending your life, what are you investing your life in? Is it something you would call treasure in heaven that thief or rest or moth or a crashed hard drive or a fall in the market can’t take away? Have you by your life and love and compassion and care and money helped someone on their path toward knowing and loving God?

What do you possess that you just couldn’t live without? How has your life slipped off the edge, lost focus and become serving mammon instead of serving God? How have you invested your life in a way that really says that people are more important than things? How have you used things to value people to help them become more human, more fully alive, more open to God? What is a your money for? Is it a gift from God to be used for the kingdom? Or is it your own private possession that is beginning to possess you?

We know what is important. I’m not for a minute going to tell you that I think that this is an easy spiritual task, very few spiritual tasks actually are easy.  The point is that this is the way that leads to life. This is the way that will fill your whole body with light. This is the path that leads to true freedom, to the everlasting life that Jesus is always talking about and is so deeply attractive.

You gotta serve somebody, that’s for sure, but who or what you choose to serve makes all the difference. For in serving Christ is perfect freedom.

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Sermon, The Rev. Christopher McLaren, February 13

2/13/2011

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St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday February 13, 2011 Epiphany 6
Text: Matthew 5: (17-20) 21- 37
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Theme: Living Torah


“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  

Matthew’s gospel places these powerful words in the mouth of Jesus. They remind us that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi. He was a teacher of his time and spoke to spiritual issues important to his people.

Jesus taught with a peculiar kind of authority, which not only gained him notoriety but also fueled belief in his divine nature.  When Jesus taught on Torah, Jewish scripture, he taught as one who sounded more like God to his listeners than the kind of teaching they were used to hearing from God’s authorized sources like the scribes and the Pharisees and rascally preachers like myself. The truth is that Jesus’ approach to the Torah was fresh in ways that made people take notice. It was at times strong and traditional “not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law” and often innovative and surprising, “you have heard it said, but I say to you.” Jesus rarely let people off the hook from the demands of the law. It was no message of Free Love, Hooka bars and Galileean Hip Hop. Rather at times Jesus surprised people by intensifying the law, deepening the prohibition against murder to include anger and the one against adultery to include lust. Jesus thrived on raising the bar of what it meant to be righteous.  His teaching served to deepen the relational field in which all of the law or Torah was to be understood.

In debating Torah, Rabbi’s rarely used the phrase, “but I say to you.” They were more likely to quote one of their favorite Rabbi’s in building an argument. But Jesus had a deep confidence in his ability to interpret Torah. He spoke from his heart, and often, it seemed like the heart of God. It made some stir with loyalty and decide to follow him, it left others in disbelief and puzzlement, and to be frank it infuriated the religious elites of the day who ultimately excluded him from the synagogue and colluded in his arrest and execution.

Jesus was a Jew and he loved the Torah. For Jews then and now, the Torah is the way of life, granted by God within a covenant of pure grace. Torah for the Jews is the incarnation of God’s love for human kind.  And it is, for those who have experienced it at a depth, a beautiful and profound invitation to become holy as God is holy. The way of Torah is understood as a gift that leads to life, the paradigm for all of life. Torah was the center of identity and practice for all of Jewish life and therefore led to lively discussion. The Sadduces, The Pharisees, the Essenes, the Zealots and other Jewish sects including the Jesus movement, disagreed profoundly and loudly at times about how various passages should be interpreted and applied but all agreed on thing, the importance and centrality of Torah, a living word through which God still spoke to his people.

Truth be told, what Jesus had to say about the Torah was innovative and edgy going beyond and around the established Torah of God at times. Jesus said disturbingly new things about enemies, the importance of families, Sabbath observance, wealth, judgment, and radical inclusion that quite frankly set his interpretation of Torah apart. In the end the Jewish synagogues were faced with a difficult choice: stay with the Torah, the word of God given through Moses or trust that God was indeed speaking a new word through Jesus.  We know how this difficult choice was made and the two sister faiths of Judaism and Christianity that were created. The majority of Jews stayed with the Torah of Moses while the followers of Jesus went on to bring the good news of God to the Gentiles in messianic form.

Now both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians had to understand what was required of them to be faithful to God in a changed context. Did Jews need to be baptized? Did Gentiles need to observe Torah? What were the minimum requirements and how did this Jewish Christianity work for the thousands of Gentiles entering the faith?

In an interesting way the New Testament writings are all attempting to answer these questions. How does this new way work? In Matthew’s answer to that question, he emphasizes a peculiarly Jewish aspect by having Jesus say that he has come not to abolish Torah but to fulfill it. Matthew strengthens his argument by pointing to Jesus’ insistence upon the practice of righteousness. “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew’s gospel has a strongly Jewish tone. For one thing, the gospel writer believed that Jesus never really intended to break with Judaism. Matthew saw Jesus’ life and ministry as consistent with the way of Torah, and as a renewal of it. Far from abandoning the Torah, Jesus was encouraging his followers to become the most righteous Jews the world had ever seen.

I realize that righteousness is a real churchy word. Many of us may not be sure of what it means. Basically righteousness means goodness.  It is good conduct, but also compassion, generosity, and justice.  In short, righteousness is being right with God, as the psalmist says walking in God’s ways.

I love how Frederick Buechner’s definition of righteousness gets at the concept:

You haven’t got it right!” says the exasperated piano teacher.  Junior is holding his hands the way he’s been told.  His fingering is unexceptionable.  He has memorized the piece perfectly.  He has hit all the proper notes with deadly accuracy.  But his heart’s not in it, only his fingers.  What he’s playing is a sort of music but nothing that will start voices singing or feet tapping.  He has succeeded in boring everybody to death, including himself.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.”  (Matthew 5:20)  The scribes and Pharisees were playing it by the book.  They didn’t slip up on a single do or don’t.  But they were getting it all wrong.  Righteousness is getting it all right.  If you play it the way it’s supposed to be played, there shouldn’t be a still foot in the house. (Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC)


In Matthew’s gospel Jesus invites his followers into the toe-tapping music of righteousness. It is not that Jesus’ followers must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees quantitatively. The difference really is meant to be qualitatively. Our obedience is to be in the Spirit of Torah as revealed in the person of Jesus. No amount of scrupulosity in following of rules will get it, you must have your heart and soul in it to get it right. To make beautiful music with God and to get the toes of people around you interested and tapping, must have your heart and soul in it. Soulless technique no matter how perfect will never do.

Like other Jewish teachers of his time, Jesus applied the interpretive principle of “light and heavy” to the biblical commands. For Jesus the weightier matters of the law were justice, mercy and faith. When obeying a light law got in the way of obeying a heavy law, then the light law needed to yield to the heavy so that God’ will might be fulfilled. For example which was heavier, ritual cleanliness or open table fellowship? For Jesus it was, open table fellowship hands down. Which was heavier, Sabbath observance or healing? Healing of course. Which was heavier avoiding the unclean or welcoming the strange? Welcoming the stranger.

And of course this is what Matthew meant by writing that Jesus did not come to abolish the law and prophets but to fulfill them. Jesus fulfilled the law and prophets not by slavishly doing everything written on the page or trying to follow every little rule just right. Jesus brought Torah to life. The way he lived pointed to God and his living made people realize that he was God’s beloved. Jesus did not just recite Torah or interpret Torah. He was Torah. He fulfilled Torah in his personhood before God. In his words and deeds he was the incarnation of Torah, the living justice and mercy and love of God in the flesh.  And what is more he promised those who followed him that they too could and would fulfill Torah.  (Taylor, Seeds of Heaven)

Perhaps you are sitting in this Christian church thinking “Is this priest crazy?Are you are really challenging us to be living Torah just as Jesus was.”  Well, yes! There is a crazy lie in our bulletin each and every week. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it. We list our readings separately as Old Testament and New Testament. For nearly 2,000 years we’ve separated out our scriptures Old and New as if one had really replaced the other or one is obsolete and the other new and improved. I once had a seminary professor who insisted in class, and this was quite difficult, that we refer to these parts of the sacred scriptures as the Older and the Newer Testaments to help us see that they are in fact of a piece, they are intimately connected. The newer testament is rooted in the gracious gift of the Torah, or older testament. We would never have the newer testament without the older testament. For Jesus our teacher and savior this was simply the truth. His life was a living out of the only scripture he had available and that was the Torah, which many came to understand as pointing to him as the living example of Torah itself.

Jesus by his life and example taught his followers that there would be time when fulfillment of Torah would move people dangerously beyond the Torah on the page. As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “There would be times when the deepest possible obedience to God would look like disobedience to the keepers of the traditions of the elders, and that no amount of arguing would settle the dispute about which commands were weighty and which were light.” We in the Episcopal Church can certainly understand this idea as we struggle for the full inclusion of women and our GLBT brothers and sisters in the church and in our society over the past decades. We have been arguing over which is heavy and which is light for years.

When we live Torah off-the-page, the Torah revealed by the Spirit of Christ speaking within us, it is often the source of our deepest conflicts in the church. Jesus’ way of looking deep within Torah for its life-giving source has at times been the fuel for conflict as Christians continue to try to live faithfully in a world that is so changed and changing. It is never easy or comfortable to challenge the traditions of the elders, to questions the established institution, or to insist that there is a more excellent way if only we could see the numinous depth of Torah.  However, that is what we are sometimes called to do. We are not to abolish the way but to deepen the way, to fulfill it by living Torah, by living compassion, living justice, and living love in the midst of a culture that has lost its sense of values, lost its moral strength. It is the living Torah of Jesus that continues to animate each of us who call ourselves Christians because we have decided to follow the dangerous and life-giving way of living Torah ourselves.

When I think of the many difficult decisions going on in our country and state legislatures across the country, I am reminded of our need for living Torah. The biblical prophets, the Torah prophets make clear that a nation’s righteousness is ultimately determined not by its GNP or military might, or our military budgets, -- but by how it treats its most vulnerable people. Jesus says our love for him will be demonstrated by how we treat the “least of these.” There is a deep need for the living Torah of Jesus today.

Despite our separation from our Jewish brothers and sisters long ago in the faith, we do share something very powerful in common, our call to deep righteousness. In the best of both of our traditions righteousness has never been a matter of slavishly following the rules, but rather of honoring relationships with family as well as immigrants or strangers, enemies as well as allies, insiders as well as outsiders.  The Torah of Moses and the torah of Jesus both agree on these key things. When we serve our neighbors – gay, straight, documented, undocumented, educated, or everyday, hearing or deaf, rich or poor, when we love them as ourselves we are fulfilling the law and the prophets, we are living the gospel of Christ, and we like Jesus are living Torah. Amen

I wish to acknowledge my deep debt to the writing of Barabar Brown Taylor on the subject of the torah of Jesus in her sermon “Exceeding Righteousness” in her book The Seeds of Heaven which I have quoted from and been inspired by. I am also grateful for Frederick Beuchner’s help in understanding the concept of righteousness in his book Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. The concept of quantitative vs qualitative righteousness is from the commentary writing of Douglas R.A. Hare. in the Interpretations series commentary by Westminster/ John Knox  Richard B. Hays.






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