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]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for September 12, 2021

Famous Christological theologians, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and James Cone found themselves all at the same time at Caesarea Philippi.  Who should come along but Jesus, and he asked the four men the Christological question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Karl Barth stood up and says: ‘You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trintatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.’

Not prepared for Barth’s brevity, Paul Tillich stuttered: ‘You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of our angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.’

Reinhold Niebuhr gave a cough for effect and said, in one breath: ‘You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”

Finally James Cone got up, and raised his voice: ‘You are my Oppressed One, my soul’s shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.’

And Jesus sat down, and using His finger, wrote in the sand, ‘Huh?’

Is it any wonder that we sometimes have a difficult time understanding what Jesus means by what He says?  This story – humorous though it is meant to be – shows that even the experts on the study of who Jesus is and what His ministry means have a difficult time expressing Jesus in all of His different facets.

On the road to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter answered Him rightly, “You are the Messiah.”  But then Peter immediately showed that he didn’t really understand what that answer meant.  

He understood that Messiah was supposed to be a fierce warrior King in the mold of King David.  So it was undoubtedly confusing for him when Jesus explained that He, the Messiah would have to undergo suffering and death at the hands of the very Romans they thought Messiah was supposed to defeat, in order to fulfill His mission.  A suffering Messiah?  God’s anointed having so little power that he would die at the hands of the hated Romans?  It made no sense.  And then Jesus really confounded them when He said, 

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."

So not only was the Messiah supposed to be so powerless as to get captured, tortured and killed by the enemy; but now Jesus was saying that His followers should be just as impotent as He said He was?  That didn’t make any sense either.  They were right, and so are you if you’ve wondered about this passage.  But I tell you, He did not mean “powerless,” or “impotent” at all.

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves ….”  What Jesus talked about was not His being powerless to stop the suffering and death that were coming His way.  What He meant was that He would voluntarily suffer and die at the hands of the Romans, because He chose to be faithful to the God who called Him to give all He had.

Jesus called the Disciples – and He calls us – to voluntarily deny ourselves and take up the cross.  That does not mean that we stand dejectedly, apprehensively waiting for the heavy weight of the cross to land on our backs.  No, Jesus calls us to voluntarily pick up the cross and follow Him, leaving behind all of the things that would distract us or keep us from living the completely fulfilling life of a disciple.

Jesus called the original disciples to leave their homes and families and live as He lived, a life of constantly being on the move, never having a permanent home, and relying on the grace of God – expressed through the generosity of others – in order to take care of their basic needs.

In first century Palestine, people did not have many possessions.  Life was fairly simple.  The only things people really cared about were their homes, their families and the subsistence work they did to support those homes and families.  So Jesus called His followers to give up all those things – all of the things that were important to them – in order to become true Disciples.  In today’s world, that call translates a little differently.  But I would submit to you that our Lord calls us the same way He called those first Disciples.

We live in a complex society where abundance is the hallmark of success.  And in this country, nothing success like excess.  There are entire television channels dedicated to showing us how to spend our money, and what we absolutely have to have if we’re truly going to be successful.  Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Home Shopping Network and QVC have people bringing out clothing, TVs, computers, garden equipment, tools, cameras, kitchen gadgets – and don’t forget the jewelry that appears every few hours like clockwork.  And HSN and QVC are not alone.  There is a channel that sells knives all day every day and one that is a non-stop jewelry auction.  There is even a channel that runs infomercials 24 hours a day.  And what most of these channels have in common is; what they are selling is rarely a necessity in our lives.  It’s just stuff for us to buy and own.

One of the great – if always profanity laden – social commentators of my generation, George Carlin, had a wonderful routine about our relationship to our “stuff.”  In it, he said:

"[A]ll you need in life, a little place for your stuff.  That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff.  If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house.  You could just walk around all the time.

A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.  You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane.  You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff.  All the little piles of stuff.  And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up.  Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff.  …  That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff! 

Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house.  Why?  No room for your stuff anymore."

Jesus understood the problem that people have with possessions, and the money it takes to obtain and maintain them.  That’s why He told the Disciples to deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow Him.  He understood that until they learned how to deny their need to possess things, they could never truly understand the idea that everything they had belonged to God and not to them.  That’s why He sent them out on a mission trip with nothing but the clothes on their backs.  It helped them understand the freedom that would come from taking up their cross – the freedom that comes from true discipleship; depending upon God in all things.

Now don’t think for a moment that I am claiming immunity from the problem of being controlled by my stuff.  But I tell you this: just like the Disciples, I am “downwardly mobile.”  Those times in which I do allow myself to let go of the need to possess things – the need to feel superior to someone else because of what I have “earned” – I feel the closest to God and the most like a disciple.  

When I choose to lay all of life’s glittering images aside and concentrate on Jesus’ call to discipleship, I can experience the freedom of one who is not weighed down by what he owns.  Freedom comes from seeing that I don’t have to be the owner, I just have to care for (be the steward of) everything God has put in front of me.  That’s a wonderful kind of freedom.   

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

[Proper19B Sermon 091221, Proverbs 1:20-33; Psalm 19 or Wisdom of Solomon 7:26-8:1 or

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 116:1-8, James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield will officiate Holy Communion September 12, 2021

 BREAKING NEWS!  Mrs. Jane Barnett announced via text message yesterday that The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield will lead the congregation in Holy Eucharist at 10am, September 12, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph.  Welcome Canon John back.

From the Forward Day by Day:

WEDNESDAY, September 8                  [The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary]

Philippians 2:4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

On May 12, 2020, Episcopal Relief & Development published a social media graphic that contained this verse: Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. They released this graphic just two months into the COVID-19 pandemic, two months after the killing of Breonna Taylor, twelve days before the death of George Floyd, and twenty-five weeks before the presidential election. I know this because I shared that graphic on Instagram and then made it my Facebook cover, where it remained for the rest of 2020.

Amid all the pain and trauma, I needed to be reminded that I have made a promise to turn away from self-centered motives and to turn toward Jesus and his way of love. I have committed, with God’s help, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving my neighbor as myself, and to strive for justice and peace among all people. In other words, I have committed to live out Philippians 2:4, not just on Sundays but on all days. Even when the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. Even on social media.

MOVING FORWARD: Take an honest appraisal of your social media presence.