The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead us Sunday, January 2, 2022

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, in prayers and offer distribution of communion this Sunday, January 2, 2022.  10am as usual. 

Christmas Eve service, 5pm, Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

Please join us for our 2021 Christmas Eve service at 5pm in Christ Episcopal Church.  The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead the service including distribution of communion.

Suzie Rush, Vicki Sanders, and Lesley Thompson will offer beautiful Christmas music: A gorgeous setting to welcome Christ and the Christmas season.

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman sermon for December 19, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, LA

Mary Mother, Not So Meek & Mild

My grandbabies are about to be born! Yes, you heard correctly: Babies! My daughter-in-law will deliver twins—a boy and a girl—probably by C-section, right after Christmas. I couldn’t be more excited.

I don’t need to tell most of you that becoming a grandparent is fun. And part of the fun of, at least for me, has been watching my son—the kid who wasted untold hours playing video games, who had to be nagged incessantly to make a walking path through the mess in his room, who couldn’t be depended on to take out the garbage until the can was overflowing—that kid! Watching him become a dad before my very eyes has been a delight. He’s a good one already, full of anticipation and love for his “munchkins.”

But he’s had to learn a few lessons along the way, not only about being a dad, but about being husband to the mother of his children. I’ll never forget the day he reported that he couldn’t argue with his pregnant wife about anything anymore. No matter what his complaint or concern, she would say, “I made organs today. What did you do?” 

He laughed ruefully and conceded, “There’s just nothing you can say in response to that.” I would sum up the lesson my son learned as you mess with pregnant women at your own peril.

Today’s Gospel story is about the powerful, spirit-filled meeting of two pregnant women, Mary, the mother of our Lord, and Elizabeth, her cousin and the mother of John the Baptist. We know the story well. The messenger meets the message. John the Unborn leaps in his mother’s womb. He recognizes Mary’s Unborn, just as John the Baptist would later recognize Jesus the Son of God on the banks of the Jordan River. 

There’s a 15th Century English Christmas carol called Mary Mother, Meek and Mild. I was surprised when I searched on YouTube yesterday for a recording of it, that all I found was two versions under the title “Maiden Mother, Meek and Mild.” 

I have no idea what inspired that title change, but if you search via Google for the lyrics, you will find them:

Mary mother, meek and mild,

From shame and sin that ye us shield,

For great on ground ye go with child,

Gabriele nuncio. (Gabriel’s messenger.)

Much art and much popular culture tends to think of Mary in those terms. In most representations, she sits or stands with her head bowed and canted slightly to the side. Dressed in the white of purity with a cloak of calm, serene blue, she is the very picture of submissive, demure womanhood.

She said “yes” to God. Her response to Gabriel, when he tells her she is pregnant, is mild indeed. I cannot image myself—or any woman I know—being quite so calm under the same circumstances. She refers to herself in her song as “lowly servant.” 

So Mary comes by the “meek and mild” description somewhat honestly. She does say “yes” to God, even when it means a tough road ahead, and that’s an important lesson for all of us.

But if we leave it there, we have done Mary a disservice. We have ignored an equally important aspect of this story. We have downplayed the absolutely subversive aspect of what is happening here.

Diana Butler Bass is a prolific author of books to inspire, challenge and support people determined to follow Jesus, come what may. And she is one of a handful of contemporary Christian leaders who skillfully employs social media to counter the negative forces of divisive politics and Christian nationalism.

So yesterday I paused during sermon writing to check my own Twitter feed, and came across her take on today’s Gospel story. “The only Christmas action movie I want to see,” she wrote, “is about two pregnant women plotting to overthrow empire.”

“Plotting to overthrow empire”? Well, yes, if you take Mary’s song seriously!

See, we read the Song of Mary every year—every single year—on Advent 4. It is also a required piece of Evening Prayer. So if you do Evening Prayer with any regularity, you read the Song of Mary often. Suffice it to say, we are familiar with the Song of Mary.

Perhaps too familiar with it. So familiar with it that the words roll off our lips without a thought about the implication of them. So let’s hear them again, but without that disarming bit at the beginning about being a “lowly servant.” Indeed, let’s get to the heart of it. Mary sings,

He has shown the strength of his arm, *

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, *

and the rich he has sent away empty.

Notice that Mary does not put these subversive actions in the future. She does not say, “He will scatter the proud…,” or “He will lift up the lowly…” Rather, she says, with this pregnancy, God has already done these things. And, indeed, that is exactly what Jesus taught and preached and stood for: lifting up the lowly, challenging and rejecting the proud, self-righteous, and powerful.

As for the rich, recall the rich young ruler. When Jesus declined to give him the excuse he was looking for, he went away, sad but empty, for he valued his wealth more than following Jesus.

This story of two pregnant women and a babe leaping in the womb of one of them, in recognition of the Holy One in the womb of the other, is a call to us. It is a call to make space for Jesus the Christ to come alive in our hearts.

But more than that. Brothers and sisters, no matter how hard we try to make the Gospel message an affirmation of the status quo, we cannot. To sing the Song of Mary is to say that the Gospel message resists and rejects the status quo, and the relationships of power and wealth that so dominate human societies.

Yes, we should be good church people. We should come to church, study the Bible, break bread as siblings in Christ, love one another. But that’s the beginning. It was precisely the good church people of his time that Jesus was most critical of and with whom he argued the most.

So be subversive! See Christ in everyone. Love them. Share what you have. Seek the common good. Consider the most powerless, poorest person you know and walk a mile in their shoes.

When you make room in your heart for Jesus the Christ to come alive and leap for joy, you will also know joy. It will change your priorities. It will change how you view your neighbors. You will not be able to help yourself.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

[19 December 2021 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, LA, Year C, Advent 4,Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)]

Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph upcoming services

 The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead us in Holy Communion this Sunday, December 19th at 10am.  Also, Deacon Bette will offer our 2021 Christmas Eve Service beginning at 5pm in Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph.  Please join us and invite others for this wonderful time to gather.

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for November 14, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

As we draw near the end of the church year, our lectionary brings things to a close by having us look at the Gospel of Mark’s use of what are known as “apocalyptic” images.  Now we all know from the use of the term in modern culture, that apocalypse refers to the “end of the world.”  It seems that we go through cycles where we spend a good deal of time waiting, wondering and worrying about the end of time.  

Believe it or not, the first book in the Left Behind series about the end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus was published twenty-six years ago, in 1995.  For a few years there, it seemed that everyone was talking about “The Rapture,” the “tribulation,” and what life would be like as the world prepared for the return of Jesus.  Then we took a break for a while.  Then, about ten years ago, there was much written, and even a movie that purported to show us what it would be like on December 21, 2012, when an unknown planet would crash into the earth – ostensibly as predicted by the Mayan calendar, which was created on Aug 11, 3114, before Jesus was born.  We are all here today, safe and sound.  So clearly there was no apocalypse as some had predicted.  But that didn’t stop the hype for a while.

It seems that every once in a while, people get frightened by the present and have to try to see the future, in order to hopefully prepare for some unseen disaster that is headed our way; so that we can be some of the “elect,” the chosen, who are spared as all others die horribly (or least suffer a lot).

Much of what people “know,” on the subject of the apocalypse, or the Second Coming of Christ, is taken from the Book of Revelation, which I referenced a couple of weeks ago.  “Revelation” is the actual definition of “apocalypse.”  But there are other apocalyptic writings in Scripture.  The Books of the prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Joel, and Zachariah, as well as the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament; Mark 13, and 2 Thessalonians 2 in the New Testament; and several passages in the Apocrypha, are all written in apocalyptic style.  And it is crucial for us to understand apocalyptic literature in order to understand what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel.

When things get bad; when things seem hopeless; when it seems that the present situation is beyond redemption; apocalyptic literature shows us that hope still exists.  No matter what happens in life, there is always hope.  That’s what apocalyptic writings are all about.

Jesus told the disciples that the Temple would be destroyed.  The Temple in Jerusalem took over 40 years to build.  It stood over fifteen modern stories tall and the perimeter was 1,420 yards.  It was built to last forever, out of stones, some of which weighed in excess of 100 tons each.  And Jesus said it would be destroyed.  Not only that, but Jewish theology said that the Temple was literally God’s house.  It was the place where God actually lived.  And Jesus said it would be destroyed.  But look at what He said next.  “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”  In other words, out of absolute desolation and destruction; out of the most irredeemable of circumstances, comes new birth – renewal – new life.  That’s hope!

One of the mistakes we make as modern Christians, is to read apocalyptic literature as being word-for-word, literally accurate.  That is what the Left Behind series – all 16 volumes of it – sought to do in the beginning.  But then as time went on and there was more money to be made from scaring people, the authors embellished more and more until finally they had gone beyond simply misreading Scripture and were selling nothing more than science fiction with bad theology attached to it.

You see, the dualism that is set up by modern apocalyptic writers is not true at all.  Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHay (and all the others of their ilk) would have you believe that the world is split in two.  One part is ruled by Satan and the other part is ruled by God.  And the two are locked in a mighty cosmic struggle.  In point of fact though, Satan is not God’s opposite.  Satan is the opposite of Michael the Archangel.  They were both, at one time, angels in the service of God who is the master of both of them.  And God does not need to have Jesus return bodily to earth in order to redeem the world.  Jesus accomplished that on the cross.  As one writer puts it, “All appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, God reigns.  Purposeful Evil is a creature, a parasite, a lamprey (eel) that lives off life, not the author of life itself.”  

If we are to take all of Scripture seriously – not just a misreading of the Book of Revelation – we must note that God made a covenant with Noah after the flood.  In that covenant, God promised never again to destroy the world in order to start over.  But again, as the Episcopal writer, King Oehmig puts it,

On the other hand, Scripture does maintain that history as we know it will end.  There will come a day, the Lord’s Day, when the architecture of this present age will be supplanted by the rule of God.  Nothing in this dimension is permanent.

We are meant to have hope in the sovereignty of God.  That’s why we should consider the end of time.  Not so that we will be frozen by fear.  Not so that we will cease to care about what is happening in the world around us.  But so that we can know that the postscript that might be written on the end of the Book of Revelation could be, “the world and all that is in it belongs to the God of creation and love!”

When we look around today we see trouble.  It is the way things are.  Trouble appears, no matter how much we would like for it not to.  Bad things happen.  People treat other people horribly because of the color of their skin, or their sexual orientation, or even their political affiliation.  Sick and poor people get ignored by those with the means to help them.  For reasons that may never be fully known, someone guns down a group of strangers.  Bad people act in the world, and in our lives.  Sometimes it seems that no matter which direction we look, someone is after us.  It is at these times that the hope of God in Christ is so important.

In his collection of sermons entitled, Strength to Love, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:

Our capacity to deal creatively with shattered dreams is ultimately determined by our faith in God.  Genuine faith imbues us with the conviction that beyond time is a divine Spirit and beyond life is Life.  However dismal and catastrophic may be the present circumstances, we know we are not alone, for God dwells with us in life's most confining and oppressive cells.  

And even if we die there without having received the earthly promise, he shall lead us down that mysterious road called death and at last to that indescribable city he has prepared for us....

The Christian faith makes it possible for us nobly to accept that which cannot be changed, to meet disappointments and sorrow with an inner poise, and to absorb the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope....

Dr. King understood what it was that Jesus – and all apocalyptic writers – are really trying to tell us through the scary images of the end of it all.  God is with us.  And once we have fully experienced that reality and embraced the love of God in Christ as an actual thing, as a tangible thing, rather than something we read in the Bible and hear about on Sundays, there is no longer any need to be ruled by fear of the future.  Whatever comes, no matter how frightening, we will handle it – with God’s help.

I’ll leave you this morning with something written by a pastor who was facing his own death in a very real and immediate way.  Here is how he expressed the hope that we find in the loving God who gave His only Son to redeem us and whose very real Spirit dwells with us in this moment.

So here I stand, looking at the ground, smelling the faint fragrance of God. Never once did it occur to me that when I found God's trail again, it would ruin my life forever for once you feel the breath of God on your skin, you can never turn back, you can never settle for what was, you can only move on recklessly, with abandon, your heart filled with fear, your ears ringing with the constant whisper, “Fear not.”

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

[Proper 28B Sermon 111421, 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Psalm 16, Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13:1-8]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for November 7, 2021, Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

The story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.  It takes place at the beginning of Elijah’s ministry.  He has declared that there will be a drought in the land, because the Lord is angry with the people – including King Ahab – who are worshipping Baal, the Canaanite god of life and rain.  And the drought comes.  God then tells Elijah to go out to a little stream near the Jordan to hide from King Ahab, who will be very angry with him for bringing the drought, and there God will take care of Elijah.  

In faith, the prophet goes out in the desert and lives for a while, drinking water from a previously dry creek and eating bread and meat that are brought to him twice a day by ravens.  One has to believe that this experience would have sharpened Elijah’s faith somewhat – living where water flows during a drought and being fed twice daily by wild birds of prey, all on the Word of God alone.  In time, the stream dries up and the Lord tells Elijah to go to Zarephath to meet a widow who will feed him and give him drink.  And off he goes.  That’s where we pick up the story this morning.

We don’t know the name of the widow of Zarephath, but we do know a couple of important things.  First, she is not a child of Israel.  She lives in Samaria and refers to God as Elijah’s God, thereby not identifying herself with the God of Israel.  

Second, we know that she is a widow – Bible code for a completely destitute woman.  She has no husband and no way to make a living.  On top of that, there is a drought and nothing in the area is growing, so she can’t even collect the 10% of the crops that God commands the people to leave in their fields for the widows and orphans to live on.  She’s flat broke; nothing coming in and no way to get more.  Just when things can’t get any worse for her, they do.  Along comes Elijah, whom she has never seen nor heard of before, and he asks her to give him some of her precious water – and not just water, but he also wants her to bake bread for him.  

The widow is much more polite to Elijah than most of us would have been.  She gently tells him that there is not even enough for her and her son to eat; that she intends to bake the last of her supply and then she and her son will go off to die of starvation because everything is gone.  Elijah tells her to have faith.  “Don’t be afraid,” he says.  If you do what I ask, “the jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.”  Faithfully she does as she is asked, and miraculously the promise is fulfilled.

There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus thought of this story as He and the disciples watched the widow go up to the Temple in Jerusalem.  They had been watching all of the wealthy folks go up and make a big show of putting their money into the Temple treasury.  When the poor widow came up, she put in two small, copper coins that the NRSV tells us were worth one penny.  Jesus tells the disciples that her offering is worth more than all of the wealthy folks’ offerings.  They gave from abundance, whereas she gave all she had to live on.

Two widows – two different generations of believers – but they share one very important attribute: high risk giving.  Both of the widows in these stories gave recklessly to God, to further the work of God in the world.  Both gave everything they had back to the God from whom all gifts come.  After this story we never hear anything else about the widow with the two copper coins, but we certainly know what happened with widow of Zarephath, her food and water supply were exactly as much as she, her son, and Elijah needed to live on until the drought was over.  There is every reason to believe that the same thing happened to the widow in Mark’s Gospel account; that God provided for her, just as she gave what she had to provide for God’s work.  

But so what?  These are nice Bible stories.  They’re good mythological accounts that are meant to make people reflect on God’s good gifts to us, right?  Wrong.  I believe that these two stories are very real.  Real stories of real people whose lives were really touched by a very real God, simply because they had enough faith to give recklessly, over-abundantly and trust that God would somehow, miraculously provide for them.  And God did just that.

These kinds of stories happen every day.  We all know stories of people who have given over everything to God and have received amazing gifts in return.  Most people chalk them up to luck or coincidence, but make no mistake, high risk giving – done joyfully, faithfully and without overriding ulterior motives – regularly results in amazing returns.  

This is not the prosperity Gospel that you hear televangelists talking about.  I don’t mean to say that if you give a tithe to the church you’ll receive a Rolls Royce out of nowhere.  That is not what God has ever promised us.  God promises us our “daily bread,” that which will sustain us as we carry on The Way.  But more importantly, God promises us the Kingdom of Heaven on earth if we will just trust God enough to give recklessly, dangerously to a God who loves us the same way.

When I entered seminary, I gave up my job as an assistant city attorney in Austin.  Now assistant city attorneys don’t make great money, but they make a heck of a lot more money than seminarians – or most priests do.  While I worked part-time in seminary, the work – like day labor – was sporadic and didn’t always pay well.  As a result, there were often times where there seemed to be very little meal left in the Bedingfield family jar and not much oil either.  But every time we got desperate – and I mean every time we got desperate – someone would send us a little money out of the blue, or we would find a $20.00 bill in the pocket of a coat we hadn’t worn in a year, or someone would invite us over for dinner and send us home with the leftovers.  You can call it luck if you like, but God calls it high risk giving of reckless love to God’s children.

Donna recklessly gave everything she had in order for me to follow my call to ordained ministry.  She gave up the income I had always earned, a house, a lifestyle, friends and extended family, and every bit of certainty that she knew.  And she gave up her own career.  That is high risk giving!  In order for me to follow the call God had started me on, Donna trusted in me, but more importantly, in God, enough to give it all away.  And in return for this high risk giving, God provided our daily bread.  That’s the way it works.  Period.  End of sentence.

This is stewardship season in the Church.  It’s the time when sermons are written to support the congregation’s stewardship programmatic theme.  But as far as I’m aware, y’all are small enough that a formal program typically isn’t done.  So, this Sunday let me just say, Christ Church needs to have a budget for next year.  And what you promise to give makes up the entirety of that budget.  Keep that in mind as you decide what to give the church.

I have no doubt that every one of you has had an experience like those that I described in this sermon.  Look back on your life, at those times, and don’t dismiss them as coincidences.  Recognize God at work in your life.  And remember that that’s always the way God is.  God is a high-risk giver.

God engaged in the ultimate high-risk giving when God gave the only Son to suffer on the cross, so that all who believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  All God asks in return is that we give – everything we have – recklessly, joyously and with the same love God shows us.

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

[Proper 27B November 7, 2021, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 12:38-44]

Breaking News Update for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

Reminder # 1:  

Daylight Savings Time begins this coming weekend.  Be sure to set you clocks BACK one hour Saturday night. Or....be an hour early to church.

Reminder # 2:

Morning Prayer (Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead) will be offered:

Nov 21

Holy Eucharist (Canon John Bedingfield will lead) will be offered:

Nov 7, 14, 28;

Dec 5, 12, 19, 24 (at 5pm), 26 

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for October 31, 2021, Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, LA

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

In the Church, whether you talk about All Souls or All Saints Day, you are talking about the same thing – The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed.  Celebrations of All Souls have traditionally and historically been about remembering the departed – particularly family members.  That is why, in just a little while, we are going to read a list of those who have died, compiled from names submitted to us by members of the congregation.

It is a good thing to remember those who have gone on before.  And at this time of the year, we often get a little misty-eyed when we think back to other times and places when our loved ones were here with us.  But today we do not just think about missing the loved ones who have passed on.  We also pray for these folks because (as our Book of Common Prayer puts it), “(W)e still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God’s presence those who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love, until they see him as he is.” 

There is something very comforting in that statement.  For one thing, it assumes that our loved ones have gone to be with God.  And although there is a huge exegetical and theological discussion we could have about this, in this sermon I will refer to that as heaven.  Now I know that for most of our relatives, their being in heaven is a given.  But face it: you have one or two whose arrival at the pearly gates is not a done deal (at least not in your mind).  But that brings me to a serious question.  Who is going to be in heaven when you get there?  

There is an old joke that goes: 

A man arrived at the gates of heaven.  St. Peter asked, “What is your denomination?”  The man said, “Methodist.”  St. Peter looked down his list, and said, “Go to mansion number 24, but be very quiet as you pass mansion 8.” 

Another man arrives at the gates of heaven.  “Denomination?”

“Lutheran.” 

“Go to mansion 18, but be very quiet as you pass mansion 8.” 

A third man arrived at the gates. “Denomination?” 

Episcopalian 

“Go to mansion 11, but be very quiet as you pass number 8.” 

The man, being an Episcopalian, couldn’t help but ask a question.  He said, “I can understand there being different places for different denominations, but why do I have to be quiet when I pass mansion number 8?” 

St. Peter said, “Well the Baptists are in mansion number 8, and they think they're the only ones here.”

Obviously, that joke will work for every denomination – just some more accurately than others.  And that is because we do not really know much of anything about heaven, not in a scientific proof sort of knowledge anyway.  Unless you are someone who has had a near-death experience and have come back to write a book you almost certainly have no firsthand experience about what heaven is like, or who its inhabitants are.  But fortunately for us, we have St. John and his famous Revelation to fill in some blanks.

The Revelation of John is apocalyptic literature, meaning that it was written to a group of people who were suffering from extreme oppression.  And it was intended to give them hope for the future, even in the midst of their suffering.  The Revelation of John was never intended to be read literally.  So do not ever let anyone tell you that they “know” something about the end of time or Jesus’ Second Coming because they have “studied the Bible.”  

While we’re on that somewhat tangential topic, recently Donna showed me a Facebook post that she had read in which the writer was trying to convince people that the writer had, indeed “studied” the Bible (the reality of which is, this person has likely read Revelation).  And as a result of this study of Scripture, the writer had a formula for everyone to follow, to ensure that they are not “left behind,” when “the rapture” occurs.  A thorough discussion of the theology behind the rapture is too long for this sermon, but suffice to say that this person knows nothing about the end of time from “studying” St. John’s Apocalypse.  Again, it is apocalyptic literature and therefore none of the images is meant to be literal.  And while there may well be a formula for getting into heaven, it probably will not be what this writer thinks.

The Apocalypse of John uses vivid images to convey to his readers some sense of what the end of time and heaven would be like.  In what we just heard, he says that he, “[L]ooked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”  That does not mean that there will literally be multitudes of people, dressed in white with branches in their hands, standing before a literal throne, on which sits a baby sheep.  The thing that this portion of John’s revelation told him, and something he is trying to tell us, is that we cannot begin to imagine how many people will be dwelling in the nearer presence of God when this world ceases to exist.  And perhaps more importantly, we cannot say who those people will be.

Think for just a minute about who you believe might not be in heaven.  Maybe it is old uncle Merle, who is the textbook definition of “crotchety old man” – the one no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving.  Perhaps you were taught that the majority of people whose skin color differs from your own will never be in heaven.  Or is it those “other people” across the world who do not subscribe to our beliefs?  Maybe it is the people whose sexuality, or political or social doctrines, are opposite from your “correct” views?  No.  Wait.  I know.  It’s those lazy, shiftless, poor people who have such a sense of entitlement.  Those people cannot possibly have earned their way into the same heaven as us, right?  The answer to all of those questions is an emphatic “No!” at least if we believe what the Apostle John tells us.  We are not the judges of anyone else’s fitness for eternal life.  

Jesus died and rose again – one time for all.  Jesus’ sacrifice was wholly sufficient to wipe away the sins of the entire world (past, present, and future), thereby making eternal life a real hope for us all.  When John said all nations, tribes, people, and languages, that was a completely and totally inclusive statement, meant to exclude absolutely no one.

There is a poem that made its way around the internet world a while back.  It is called Heaven’s Surprise, and I believe it was written by a man named Rod Hemphill.  It goes like this.

I was shocked, confused, bewildered as I entered Heaven's door, 

Not by the beauty of it all, nor the lights or its decor.

But it was the folks in Heaven who made me sputter and gasp-- 

The thieves, the liars, the sinners, the alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from seventh grade who swiped my lunch money twice. 

Next to him was my old neighbor who never said anything nice.

Herb, who I always thought was rotting away in hell, 

Was sitting pretty on cloud nine, looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, 'What's the deal? I would love to hear your take. 

How'd all these sinners get up here? God must've made a mistake.

'And why's everyone so quiet, so somber - give me a clue.' 

'Hush, child,' He said, 'they're all in shock. No one thought they'd be seeing you.' 

As we pray for all our beloved relatives who have gone on to the nearer presence of God, let us take some time to pray for all those whom we have never thought would get to heaven.  And then let us pray that those people in heaven are praying for us.

Amen.

[All Saints A Sermon 103121, Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22,1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon from October 17, 2021

    We have been in this cycle of readings from Mark’s Gospel, for the last several weeks where Jesus keeps predicting his own death and telling the Disciples what is expected of them, after he is gone.  Today’s admonition is what my grandma from Forney, Texas used to say: “ Don’t get above your raisn’ boy.”  There is absolutely no doubt that Jesus was using the first century version of that saying in this morning’s reading.

A number of years ago, a friend sent me an email with a link to a new web service called “YouTube.”  I followed the link and found this new video service.  And when I clicked “play,” on the video, a story from Sports Illustrated began to play.  It was about a father and son, Dick and Rick Hoyt.  Rick was born in 1962, with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.  His brain went without oxygen long enough for him to have been born with cerebral palsy.  He has never been able to use his limbs and he cannot speak.  But His mother and father never gave up on Rick.  They didn’t institutionalize him when they were told to.  They eventually took him to Tufts University and convinced the engineering department there to help them find a way for Rick to communicate.  They created a computer whose keyboard is activated by his pushing the side of his head against a single button.  With this giant “mouse,” he could actually type.  

Not long after Rick began to communicate this way, some kids in his high school organized a race to try to raise money for a classmate who had become paralyzed in an accident.  Rick typed out, “I’d like to do that.” and his dad decided to make it happen.  Even though Dick was in very poor, “middle aged man shape,” he loaded Rick into a wheelchair and pushed him in the race.  Rick told his dad, about that day, “when we were running, I felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore.”  And the pattern was set.  After that, they ran in countless races, even qualifying for the prestigious Boston marathon many times.  Their best marathon time in Boston was only 35 minutes slower than the winner of the race.  That led to triathlons, including the grueling Ironman in Hawaii.  They competed in more than 2000 triathlons.  

Rick ultimately graduated from college, went to work and got an apartment on his own, where he is assisted by a caretaker.  He enjoyed competing with his dad.  After Dick suffered a heart attack during a race – which he might not have survived had he not been in such good shape – Rick told the Sports Illustrated writer that the thing he’d like most to give his dad for his birthday was something that would remain a dream.  He said, “what I’d most like would be to let my dad sit in the chair while I push him for once.”  Dick Hoyt was a servant in the truest sense of what Jesus talked about.

Recently there has been a round of stories about a new “space race,” between Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon; Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla; and Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of Virgin Airlines.  These three men, whose combined $400b in wealth – the equivalent of the gross domestic product of the nation of Ireland — puts them in the upper echelon of wealthy and powerful people across the world, have been engaged in a competition to … I really don’t know what it is that they are trying to accomplish.  The news media says that they are trying to get people and cargo into space, cheaper and more reliably.  But the only thoughts that come to my mind in response to that are: Why? And Who asked them to?

No, I really don’t think that any of the three billionaires is called to do this for some noble purpose.  Nor do I think that any of them seriously believes that winning this space race will bring their company increased profits – as if any of the companies needed increased profits.  No.  This is all about ego and prestige.  This is about the world holding these men up and telling them that they’re great.  It is about little boys who dreamed of being astronauts now having enough money to fulfill those dreams.  And it is about the hero worship that comes along with being – or paying for the work of – astronauts.

Our Gospel lesson today has James and John (Jesus’ sibling-disciples) coming to ask that he allow them to sit with him at the head table when he comes into his kingdom –– one at Jesus’ right hand and the other at his left hand.  Jesus and his disciples were headed for Jerusalem, where the disciples thought that Jesus would become king.  When that happened, James and John wanted to sit at the head of the table with Jesus.  They wanted the two most honored seats.

Jesus had three disciples who were the closest to him.  Those three included James and John.  The third member of that favored group was Peter.  In an organization, three is a dangerous number.  When you get three people together, typically two of them will bond and the third will be the outsider.  James and John were brothers, there was a bond there.  Peter was the outsider.  By asking Jesus for the seats at his right and left, James and John were, in essence, trying to push Peter to the side.  Pretty smart, huh?  Only two people could sit next to the boss, so James and John were trying to ensure that they were the two –– and that Peter would have to find a chair somewhere further down the table.

Naturally, Jesus knew exactly what was going on, so he asked James and John a question:  “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”  Jesus was asking James and John if they were able to share his fate.  Showing incredible ego, they answered, “We are able.”  Jesus explained that they would share his fate, but he could not control who would be on his right and left in the Kingdom.

As an aside, do you remember who shared the places at Jesus’ right and left?  It turned out to be two thieves.  That was God’s way of saying that in God's Kingdom, the old rules –– the world’s rules –– won’t apply.  In the Kingdom, there is a whole new set of rules.  Jesus tells the disciples –– and us –– exactly who the great people will be in the Kingdom of God.  “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

Many people spend their lives trying to become rich and famous –– or rich and powerful –– or maybe just rich.  Only a few people get there. They hope and expect the rest of us envy them.  But Jesus tells us that we need not envy them, because God judges by different rules:  

–– God doesn’t honor the people who make the most money, but the people who give the most of themselves.  

God doesn’t admire takers, but givers.

–– God doesn’t honor the people who wield power, but people who love their neighbors and help those who are in need.

–– God doesn’t reward the people who are famous, but rather people with great hearts.

You don't have to be rich or famous to qualify for the honor of sitting at God’s right or left hand.  There are people in this congregation that I expect to see sitting pretty high up at Jesus’ table.  Those people may never be known much farther away than the Tensas Parish line.  Folks like that don't think of themselves as great.

The people in this congregation who give of themselves rather than worrying about being rich and famous, are the people whom God has sent to show the rest of us the way.  The people who give of themselves rather than trying to work toward being on the news – people like Dick Hoyt – those who show up whenever there is a need at the church or elsewhere in the community –– those who lend a hand to their neighbor when needed –– those who help the homeless or the hungry –– those who give generously for disaster relief; they are the people who will have the seats at the head of the table.  And won’t Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson be surprised to find all of “those people” in the seats of honor.

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

[Proper 24B Sermon 101721, Isaiah 53:4-12; Psalm 91,Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for October 10, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

Jesus said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  One of my favorite seminary professors had a saying for times when Jesus spoke this way; “Now you’ve gone past preachin’ and you’ve got to meddlin’.”  And isn’t that exactly the way most of us feel when we get this lesson every third year?

This story appears in all three of the synoptic Gospels.  Each Gospel writer describes the man involved in slightly different terms.  In Matthew, he is young.  In Mark he is rich and in Luke he is a “ruler.”  So, when preachers talk about this, they usually refer to the story of the rich young ruler – sort of a short hand for a story that was obviously pretty important to the Gospel writers.  Let’s take an honest look at an uncomfortable story and see what, if any new things might be there to discover.

The rich young ruler told Jesus that he had followed The Commandments all his life.  Have you followed the Commandments all your life?  Yeah, me either.  But this guy had.  He was pure of heart, honest and forthright.  And Jesus knew it.  So Jesus, knowing all these things about the man, challenged him by saying, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  And when the man heard what Jesus said, “he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”    Then Jesus went on to teach the Disciples about rich people having more trouble getting into heaven than camels have going through the eye of a needle.  

Most of us have taken great comfort when we hear this story, from the fact that we are not like the rich young ruler.  We are not rich like he was.  Therefore, this story could not possibly be aimed at us.  This must be a story that is told so that “rich” people – people like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, people like that – could be corrected by Jesus for their obvious failings.  And unfortunately, many Christian preachers have aided and abetted that approach to this story.  

Well, no more.  Not here.  Not today.  Today we begin to tell the truth and we begin to look at things as they are … as Jesus saw them.

The story of the rich young ruler is a story that is aimed exactly at US, at you and me.  Jesus gave us this story so that it would figuratively, if not literally, slap us right between the eyes.  You see:

We are rich!  You and I are rich.  If you don’t believe it, consider these things:

Do you own a car?  Only about 8 percent of the people in the world have a car.  If 6.5 billion people in the world saw you riding in your car – no matter what make or model it is – they would think you are rich.  Do you have 2 cars?

Will you go out after church and eat lunch?  Or maybe you’ll go home and cook a nice lunch or early Sunday dinner.  Some estimates say that 805 million people on earth are chronically malnourished.  3.1 million children die of starvation every year.  I am overweight.  I am clearly rich by comparison!

Do you have running water in your house?  How about one – or more than one – toilet in your house?  Almost 800 million people lack adequate access to clean drinking water.  Over 2.5 Billion people do not have adequate sanitation.  We are rich!

How much money do you have on you right now?  How much is in your purse or your pocket?  How much change is in the ashtray of your car?  How much is in that jar or tray on your dresser?  56% of the world’s population – over 3 BILLION people live on less than $2.50 per day.  Almost half of those live on less than $1.25 per day.  Who in this room is not rich?

As the contemporary Christian commentator and writer, Rob Bell says, 

Maybe you have this sense, you look around and you have this sense that you don’t have that much, because you see people (who) have even more.  But it’s a dangerous thing when we start to think that ‘our’ world is ‘the’ world.

We in America – we at Christ Church – are rich, just as surely as the rich young ruler was rich.  And we do the same thing he did.  We come to Jesus, either in this church or in our own private prayer lives, and we ask his question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  We all ask Jesus the same questions.  What do we need to do with our lives?  What is it that God wants of us?  

We work more and more and we are less and less satisfied.  What are we called to do, in order to live the lives that Jesus calls all disciples to?  I would submit that Jesus would answer us in exactly the same way He answered in the Gospels, simply this; … follow The Commandments.

Jesus told the rich young ruler not to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie or defraud.  Those are pretty straightforward.  But the Commandments don’t say anything about giving away all your stuff.  Or do they?  The first two Commandments are: 

“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage.  You shall have no other gods but me.  And, 

You shall not make for yourself any idol.”

Jesus knew that those first two Commandments were what was holding the man back.  “I AM the only God,” and “don’t create other gods.” These are stumbling blocks for most of us who are rich.  The more money we have, the more money we want.  The more money we make, the more time and effort we put into making money.  It is as natural for Americans as breathing.  We measure each other by wealth.  And we measure ourselves the same way.  Money is a god and we have even created our own theology to support our beliefs.  

Pop quiz:  How many of you think that “God helps those who help themselves,” comes from the Bible?  You don’t have to raise your hand, it’s OK.  Many American Christians believe that this statement from Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, (quoting Algernon Sydney) actually comes from Scripture.  The Bible actually, consistently, teaches the exact opposite; God helps those who cannot help themselves.

God calls us all to live as Jesus did, with generosity.  In recognition that everything we have and everything we are is a gift from God.  Here’s the real, consistent message of Scripture about how we’re supposed to be with our possessions – with our money, (as set out in the 6th chapter of the 1st letter to Timothy).

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.  They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.  

The rich young ruler was blessed by God, just as we are.  God gave the man all that he had.  You may say to yourself – as do most Americans – that you earned what you have, by the sweat of your brow, the strength in your arms and the cunning of your brain.  But the children of Israel said the same thing to God when God demanded that they give away part of what they had.  God said, 

You shall generously give … (and) not be grieved when you give … because for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings.  For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land….’

And in the book of Deuteronomy, the children grumbled.  But God went on to say, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you.”  The children of Israel didn’t earn their freedom, God gave it to them out of God’s grace.  We didn’t earn our births; or the lives we’ve led thus far; or those breaths that we all just took.  Just like everything else in our world, they were all gifts from a loving, gracious and generous God.

In closing, think about this: in all of the Gospels, in all of the times that Jesus called people to become disciples – remember Peter and Andrew dropping their nets; James and John leaving their father Zebedee to handle the fishing business alone; and Matthew walking away from the tax booth – in all those times, the story of the rich young ruler – was the ONLY time that someone turned Jesus down.  And he walked away because of money.

Be a cheerful, generous giver – get the god of money out from between you and the real God, the God who gave it ALL to you and made you rich.  I pray that each one of you might prayerfully consider how rich you are and what a good and perfect gift back to God might look like.  

In the name of the God who richly provides us with everything, Amen.

[Proper 23B Sermon 101021, Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15, Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for Oct 3, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, LA

       

 “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  “What God has joined together, let no one separate.”  Words that come directly from Jesus, on a subject that we have to deal with often.  Sounds pretty simple … and pretty unequivocal, doesn’t it?  “Is divorce allowed by the Law?” is the question.  “No” is the answer.  If you divorce and remarry, you are committing adultery.  That’s tough stuff.  Especially for those of us who are not on our first marriage.

          The Canons (or laws) of the Episcopal Church say that if a marriage has “become imperiled by dissension,” the clergy are to counsel the couple to try to save the marriage.  But if saving the marriage is not possible, the Bishop may issue a judgment calling the marriage a nullity and allowing either or both parties to remarry with the blessing of the Church[1].  Is it legal to divorce and remarry?  The Church says a slightly hesitant “yes.” 

What’s going on here?  Hermeneutics.  That’s what’s going on here. 

Hermeneutics comes from a Greek word meaning “interpretation.”  Hermeneutics are, “the rules one uses for searching out the meaning of writings, particularly biblical texts.”[2]  We’ll get back to that in a minute.  But first, let’s look at what Jesus was saying at the time that this passage comes about in Mark’s Gospel.

As you may remember, throughout the Gospels it is the Pharisees who repeatedly challenge Jesus on his knowledge of the Law – particularly the law as set out in the book of Deuteronomy.  Often when this happens, the Pharisees will begin the discussion with something like, “Teacher, tell us, is it lawful …?” to do things like: pluck grain on the Sabbath; eat with tax collectors and sinners; eat without washing one’s hands; pay taxes to the emperor; and my favorite, heal someone on the Sabbath. 

The Pharisees were the keepers of the law.  They were the ones who told everyone else what the “rules” were; what God had OK’d and what had not been OK’d.  When it came to the issue of divorce, there were two very different schools of thought at odds with each other, among the Pharisees.  The “Shemmai” school was the strict and conservative group.  They believed that what Moses meant was, if your wife commits adultery you may divorce her.  Otherwise, no divorce.  The “Hillel,” school though, taught that Moses meant that men could divorce their wives for almost any reason, including that they had found someone they felt to be more suitable.

So the Pharisees came to Jesus to try to trap him, again.  They asked about divorce, knowing that Jesus would have to take one side or the other and then they would have him.  But as usual, Jesus turned their question back on them. 

The Hillel and Shemmai schools of thought in ancient Judaism were both involved in working out their hermeneutics with regard to Moses’ teaching on divorce.  One side said, Moses meant to keep Israel separate from the rest of the people of the world, so our rules must be more stringent than theirs.  While the other, looking at the context of the people around them, said the misery of bad marriages must mean that Moses’ law should be interpreted broadly.  Jesus though, has a third hermeneutic here – the hermeneutic of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ idea of interpreting Moses’ pronouncement was NOT to interpret it, but to tell the people what was behind it.  What CAUSED Moses to write that law was the brokenness of human beings.  Because they could not love each other as God loved them, rules had to be made to tell them how to live together.  And Jesus lets them know just how far they are from the hermeneutic of the Kingdom of God.

So how do we get from there – from Jesus’ pronouncement – to Canon I.19?  Again, it is by way of hermeneutics.

The Roman Catholic Church has always interpreted Jesus’ pronouncement as being absolute.  Jesus said, “what God has joined together let no one separate,” therefore – under a strict hermeneutic – that is the rule.  This unbending interpretation has resulted in innumerable outcomes that were tragic, if not horrific.

A woman stays at home with her group of stair-step children while her husband goes out to work and afterward as he goes out with “the boys” for few beers.  He comes home with lipstick on his collar and the smell of someone else’s perfume on his clothes.  But she must stay with him.  What God has joined together let no one separate.

Another time, he has a few too many at the bar and comes home angry.  She says or does “the wrong thing,” and he lashes out at her.  She has a black eye and some bruises, but she has to stay with him, because, what God has joined together, let no on separate.  And on it goes.  Under this strict construction of the law, even if a father or mother murders the children, the other spouse cannot get a divorce.

But it doesn’t even have to be that horrible or dramatic.  It could be as simple and ordinary as a family that is happy and healthy until one day mom and dad have an argument that is much worse than the usual.  It’s been building for a while, but no one has talked about it.  They don’t speak at dinner.  Because they don’t, neither do the kids.  Then they don’t speak at breakfast.  No one does.  The same with lunch and the next night’s dinner.  After a few days, the pattern is set and there is no more joy in the house.  Laughter is gone.  Love is dead or dying in the house and no one cares enough to try to revive it.  A family has withered on the vine.  Unless mom and dad both change the way things are, without divorce, desolation is the only option.

These are widely differing examples of what lies behind the Episcopal Church’s hermeneutic of divorce.  Jesus said don’t do it.  Paul agreed.  It is clear from a strict biblical perspective that divorce is not “allowed” by our Bible.  But the Episcopal Church, as well as many other Protestant denominations deals with these passages from a hermeneutic of the Kingdom of God, as exemplified by grace, mercy, and love overriding the law. 

Throughout the Gospels, as well as the Epistles of the New Testament, we hear again and again of God’s love for us.  A love that is so deep that God, “gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.[3]”  A love so great that no matter what we do, we can never disappoint God to the point that God would forget about us.  This God who loves us so deeply would never want us to live a life of abject misery in a bad marriage.  Or worse yet, be subjected to physical or sexual abuse in the name of staying faithfully married.  That is the hermeneutic of grace, mercy, and love – the Kingdom of God hermeneutic.

Jesus made some harsh pronouncements in the Gospels.  Ones like the one on divorce that, on their faces, seemed to be quite mean-spirited and legalistic when measured against the needs of the people.  But almost without exception, when He made such statements it was in the context of comparing things with the ways of the Pharisees – the religious leaders of His day – who tried to set themselves up as the ones who judged good from bad and acceptable from unacceptable.  According to a hermeneutic of grace, mercy, and love, the teaching on divorce is not about divorce as much as it is about the hardness of the heart of the religious leaders of Israel. 

Hermeneutics.  We all have them.  We all hear these texts and think, “that makes sense to me because of what I’ve experienced of God.”  Or we hear them and say, “that doesn’t square with what I know of God.  I need to read more and talk with other people about it.”  All of that is exercising hermeneutical principles.  Every one of us brings a lifetime of education and experience to our reading of Scripture, and that education and experience informs how we interpret what we’ve read or heard.

My hermeneutics, as you have no doubt been able to tell, run toward the mercy and grace end of the continuum.  Every time I have trouble figuring out what Jesus might mean in a particular passage – at least with regard to how it impacts my life today – I measure it against what I believe to be some of the most important words Jesus spoke.  Again, they came after a question from the Pharisees.  “Teacher, which commandment is the most important?”  Jesus said, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these[4].”  Or, “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets[5].”

If we will simply love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love each other the same way Jesus loves us, everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – else will be taken care of.  The hermeneutics of divorce, or anything else, will fall away and we will be left with a clear vision of the Kingdom of God – exactly as I believe Jesus wanted us to see it.

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

[Proper 22B, Sermon October 3, 2021, Genesis 2:18-24; Psalm 8 or 128, Hebrews 2:(1-8)9-18; Mark 10:2-9 ]

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[1]   See, Constitution & Canons of the Episcopal Church USA, 2003 (Canon I.19)

[2]   McKim, Donald Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, (Westminster, John Knox 1996) p 127.

[3]   John 3:16 (NRSV)

[4]   Mark 12:30-31 (NRSV)

[5]   Mark 12:31 (KJV)

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for September 26, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

Does this morning’s passage from Mark’s Gospel bother you?  Are you a little put out by Jesus’ suggestion that people drown themselves, pluck out eyes and cut off limbs?  How about being tossed into this place where there is always fire and the worm never dies (whatever that means)?  

Frankly, if you’re not somewhat bothered by Jesus’ words this morning, I don’t think you’re paying attention to what’s being said.  Because it seems very unlike the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” to be referring to people maiming themselves or being thrown into the unquenchable fire with some kind of “undead, zombie” worms; all because they led one of the little ones astray.  So, maybe there is something else going on here; something that deserves a closer look.

All of this horrible language comes after some interesting, overlapping stories.  You may remember back in chapter 6 of Mark, Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs to do mission work.  He trained them and gave them authority over unclean spirits.  Then they went out and performed exorcisms, anointed people, and cured them of sicknesses – all with great success.  Now here we are in chapter 9,  And while Jesus, Peter, James, and John were on the mountain for Jesus’ transfiguration, the remaining nine disciples could not cast a demon out of a young boy in the village.  So when Jesus came down the mountain, He had to exorcise the spirit Himself.  Then the disciples – having failed in the work they were trained to do – spent their time on the road arguing with each other about which of them would be greatest when Jesus was gone.  After that, we get this morning’s story where John tells Jesus that some other person was exorcising demons in Jesus’ name (apparently successfully) and the disciples told the man to stop, because “he was not following us.”

What do those stories have to do with Jesus’ hyperbolic discussion about drowning, self-mutilation and burning?  Simply this … Jesus saw a disturbing trend beginning in His group of disciples and He used extremely strong language (what we might call “over the top” language) to get their attention and put an immediate stop to this trend.  

When the disciples saw this unnamed man casting out demons in Jesus’ name, they didn’t talk to the man to see if he too would like to become a disciple of Jesus.  They did not even talk to Jesus about how He would like this situation handled.  Instead, they took it upon themselves to stop this man from performing good works in Jesus’ name, “because he was not following us.”  Notice that John said, “he was not following us.”  Do you remember a single time in the Gospels where Jesus says, “come and follow us?”  He never says anything like that.  He always says, “follow me.”  The disciples elevated themselves way beyond anywhere they should have been.  AND what happened as a result of their actions and attitudes, was that they began to put up barriers that separated faithful followers from other faithful followers.

When the disciples were following Jesus and were in tune with His mission, they were capable of doing deeds of great power and were able to get wonderful results.  But when they began to think too highly of themselves and their ministry, they lost the essence of His ministry – and they began to put up walls between people so that they could protect “their ministry” from what other people were doing.  Jesus wanted them to understand exactly how destructive that attitude was, and how He would not tolerate it.

In America today, there is destructive division everywhere one cares to look.  You folks know me well enough now, to know that this will NOT be a partisan diatribe in which I call out one political party as the “bad guy.”  However, I do see the political climate in our country as emblematic of what Jesus wanted the disciples to avoid.

All over this nation (but particularly on television news channels) there are dividing lines drawn – sometimes over real issues, other times over manufactured ones.  And when these dividing lines are drawn, no one ever says, “I think you are wrong on that issue.  I see it differently.  Let’s discuss it.”  Instead, they yell at each other, or they don’t address the issue at all, but rather call the other person vile names and ascribe horrible motives to that person’s decision making.  Everywhere we look today there is conflict between people.  It’s geopolitical, it’s economic, it’s social, it’s racial, now it is even medical.  

That is the world in which we 21st Century American Christians find ourselves operating.  With conflict surrounding us, Jesus calls us to be united (to be the one Body of Christ), working in a unified way to accomplish the mission God has given us.  But just like the original disciples, we tend to put up barriers that separate us one from another.  If you’ve ever served on any type of ecumenical board, you know what I mean.  

When groups of Christians from different denominations get together, they may share a common goal; they may even have the same basic understanding about the direction they need to take to reach that goal.  But when it comes to the concrete steps to be taken in the project … every denomination has its own ideas about how that looks.  You don’t have to reach across denominational lines to see this behavior though.

It even shows up on Bishop’s committees or Vestries.  What is important in the day-to-day operation of the church can look vastly different from one person to another.  If we lose sight of what we are doing; or if we lose sight of the fact that we all work for Jesus; we can begin to take the same path that the disciples were headed down in the 9th chapter of Mark.

John Winthorp was a Puritan clergyman who sailed to America in 1630.  He was the spiritual leader of a group of like-minded, but in many ways diverse people who felt called together to accomplish a huge mission, on behalf of Jesus.  When their ship was ready to land at the new Massachusetts colony, Winthorp gathered all of the people together for a worship service.  During his sermon, he told them this:

We must strengthen, defend, preserve and comfort each other.  

We must love one another.  

We must bear one another's burdens.  

We must not look only on our things, but also on the things of our brethren.  

We must rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together.

It is this sort of “one-ness,” this sort of idea that we truly are the Body of Christ, all members working together for the good of the whole, that Jesus wanted to get across to the disciples.  And it is a call Jesus tells us to be about today.  

There is more than enough division in the world.  Whether it be political, socio-economic, racial, ethnic, religious, medical, or any of a host of other issues, the world does not need more division.  What the world needs is more of the love of God, as shown forth through the unified Body of Christ.  This gathering of people, in St. Joseph, Louisiana a part of that Body.  WE can begin to bring unity, healing and hope to this divided world, one person & and one situation at a time.  

Let’s answer God’s call and BE that unified body of Christ. 

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

[Proper 21B Sermon, 9/26/2021, Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29; Psalm 19:7-14 James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for September 19, 2021

We’ve all seen them, those paintings and sculptures of Jesus, surrounded by children.  They have titles like, “Jesus loves the children,” and “Jesus blesses the children.”  And for the most part, they all look pretty much alike.  They have what could be called, the Aryan Jesus (often blond – or brunette with blond highlights – but almost always blue-eyed and with alabaster skin), surrounded by little children who are also, almost always, blond and blue-eyed, sort of chubby and healthy looking, with big, bright-toothed smiles and who are always sparkling clean.  

And we’ve heard sermons that are preached right out of those pictures – sermons that say things like, “Come to Jesus with the innocence of a child and you’ll finally understand the love of God.”  Well … this morning I challenge us all to look at this scene through new eyes – perhaps eyes that will tell us a different story about what Jesus is saying to His disciples and to us.

First, let’s set this scene.  Jesus and the disciples are back at home in Capernaum.  The disciples have been out listening to Jesus teach and watching Him work among the crowds.  They have returned to their home base and are back among friends and family.  The first half of Mark’s Gospel has been about Jesus’ great deeds of healing and miraculous power.  The disciples have seen what He can do.  Now the second half of this Gospel is taken up with Jesus trying to convince the disciples of who He really is – and then equipping them for their ministry after He is gone.  

Jesus has just predicted what will happen to Him in Jerusalem and they’ve argued about that a little bit.  He now inquires of the Disciples as to what they were discussing during the last leg of their journey, as they were headed home.  They finally admit that their conversation centered on who would be the greatest, once Jesus was gone.  Then as we have all heard so many times, Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  And He sets a child among them and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Now the one set amongst them is in all likelihood, not a blond, blue-eyed, beautifully attired little child, who is well behaved and looks adoringly at Jesus.  That is not the point.  This is much more likely to be a dirty, barely dressed, smelly and underfed street urchin.  You see, in ancient Israel, children had no value in society.  It wasn’t just that they were valued less than men – as women were, with their value based upon to whom they belonged.  Instead, children were seen by society as having actually a negative value.  They were a drain on the family resources.  They were neither big enough nor strong enough to work the fields or the shop or to cook for the family.  They simply added nothing to family economics and therefore required only what was necessary for their survival.  In addition, if the father left the family or died, the mother had no way to support the children and they would likely have to leave the house and start to beg to survive.  

All of this is so foreign and unbelievable to 21st century Americans that we have trouble connecting with it.  But it is our society that has elevated children to the status of beloved and cherished beings.  Ancient societies looked at children as commodities at best or, at worst as utterly expendable.  

Jesus’ message to the disciples that day was not, “Be innocent and loveable like this child, then you will get it.”  Rather, the message was, “If you want to truly be great in the Kingdom of God, you must be willing, not to get down there on the lowest rung of society, but to get off the bottom of the societal ladder altogether, and at the bottom serve those who are unwelcome – the way I do.”  

There was very little in society that had less value than a street child, and Jesus used just such a one to make the point that it was all about service to the lowest of the low and the fact that these lowly ones had immeasurable value in the Kingdom.  Jesus told them that the valueless in society had great value to Him – in other words God loves and even glorifies that which you count as nothing.  The disciples were asking each other who would be the greatest, who would be the one who would have power and glory and riches after Jesus left.  Jesus says in response, “the door to the Kingdom is small.  You have to be small, meek, humble – LOWLY enough to enter it or you’ll never get through.”

I’ve never had the privilege of visiting the Holy Land, but I understand that even today there are an inordinate number of street children running around in places begging from tourists.  I read about a woman who was on a tour of Jerusalem when her group was accosted by a large number of dirty children, wanting any coins the tourists would give.  The tour guide was asked why the government couldn’t do something about them so that they wouldn’t bother people that way.  In answer the Arab tour guide said, “This is a poor country.  A few coins is a fortune to these people.  Now you see why your Jesus was crucified merely for saying, ‘let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.’”

Today we cannot fathom children being so lowly as to serve as Jesus’ example in this story.  Today children have great societal value (sometimes even too much value) – but not all children.  There are still those who could be examples we could more easily connect with.

Some of you know our story.  Donna and I adopted Taylor as soon as legally possible after she was born.  We got to upstate New York, where our niece gave birth, as soon as we could after Taylor was born.  Donna arrived when she was only a day old.  We had told our niece that we would adopt her baby several months before the due date, so we were all ready for that.  What we weren’t ready for was the news that she had Down Syndrome and other serious medical problems which required immediate surgery.  We sat in a hospital meeting room and heard from very nice and well-meaning geneticists and social workers.  Genetically (we heard that) because of the type of Down Syndrome she has, any children Taylor might bear in the future will absolutely have Down Syndrome.    The social worker however did not have any such certainty.

She said there were no accurate predictors of Taylor’s success in school, in work or in life itself.  Therefore she understood why Donna and I might change our minds about adoption.  She very plainly told us that we should consider long-term foster care with people who “were equipped” to care for Taylor.  In other words, she could understand how we might conclude that there was not much value to Taylor’s life and therefore, we could deal with her that way.  

It is about just such a one that Jesus speaks this morning.  It is about the facilities full of differently-abled adults around our nation.  At one such facility we visited with our church youth group in Houston, a four year old Taylor ran around and talked (as best she could) with mentally challenged adults who also had trouble communicating.  One of the residents came up to us and asked us if we were Taylor’s parents.  We said we were, and he said, “She’s smart!”  It is about these who are markedly different than we are; these who don’t look like us; these who don’t act like us; these whose behavior we (and they) sometimes cannot control – it is about these that Jesus speaks, not the cherubic, perfect children of oil paintings.

Jesus says this morning, if you want to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven, you’d better understand what you’ve asked for.  The last – the lowliest, the most unclean, the most unacceptable – will be first and those who believe they’re first – the most powerful and well cared for – will be the last.  Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.  Follow me into places where you’re not comfortable; where people make you wince, where people make you draw back; where people make your skin crawl.  That’s where I work.  That’s the congregation I came to serve.”  Jesus says, “I came to show God’s love to the unlovable.  If you’re my disciple, you must do likewise.”

It’s hard work.  It’s constant work.  It’s often uncomfortable work.  But it’s Jesus’ work.  And it’s our work.  That’s how it is for disciples; for cross-bearers like you and me.  We are His disciples in the world today.  We are the ones who come here every week and sit at His feet and learn from Him.  We come here every week and are fed at His table, nourished by His body and blood, strengthened by His sacrifice.  This hard, dirty, difficult work is what He asks in return.  It’s our calling and every week He equips us to handle it.  The question is: “Are we willing to be great in the Kingdom?”

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

[Proper 20B Sermon 091921, Wisdom 1:16-2:1, 12-22; Psalm 1 or Proverbs 31:10-31, Psalm 54, James 3:16-4:3, 7-8a, Mark 9:30-37]