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]

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.

The Rev. Deacon Rita Jefferson's homily for August 1, 2021

People hunger for all kinds of things. We hunger for food, water, companionship, joy, personal fulfillment, and answers to prayers to name a few examples. We hunger for spiritual connection and spiritual presence. It is probably the most important need we have, and one that we find ourselves seeking at difficult times in our lives. If we don’t fill it with the proper things, we find that we fill it with things of this world, sometimes things that are harmful to us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The hunger is normal to us all; we choose what to fill it with.

In today’s gospel from John, Jesus has just fed the 5000 people the day before with a few fish and loaves of bread. He has satisfied their physical hunger, and many have followed him on boats looking for more. Jesus tells them not to work for food that perishes, but for food that endures. 

So, they ask Jesus, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” and he tells them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” They aren’t convinced, and want him to perform a sign, something that will prove that he is the one. They refer to their ancestors who ate manna from heaven in the wilderness and Jesus quickly tells them that it is his Father that gives them the true bread from heaven, not Moses. God gives them his son Jesus Christ. His son who came down from heaven and gives life to the world. Jesus tells them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” No truer words have ever been spoken.

Many of you knew my husband Lee who passed away in May. We journeyed together thru our discernment processes and helped each other feed on God’s word and follow where we were being led. We prayed the Daily Office every day together and talked about what we thought God was saying to us in the readings. Most of the time we agreed completely, sometimes not. But we both grew in our faith by this practice. We fed each other as God was feeding us. Little did we know that part of our journey would be his cancer diagnosis and subsequent death. 

I tell you this because I know from experience how important it still is for me to feed on Jesus. I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences in your lives where you drew your strength from God and his holy word. I’m not sure how I would have faired without it, but I do know that everyday during all the ups and downs on that road, and there were many, that I could always see God working in all of it to bring comfort and strength. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t hard, but his presence was real, and Lee and I both could feel it.

We all have a need to fill our spiritual hunger. When we fill it with the Bread of Life, Jesus, we find peace and comfort. Jesus is telling us that we need to follow him, and he will feed us with food that endures. 

So how do we get this food? We follow Jesus. He has given us a perfect example of how to do God’s will. We are called to follow him not only on Sunday mornings, but all the time. We cannot separate one part of Jesus’s life from the next, and we should hold ourselves to the same standard. Everything Jesus did was part of God’s revelation of himself to us. We feed on him by reading and studying his word, and of course by taking part in our communion meal with other believers. It is there for our taking, freely given, we just have to open our hearts and our minds to let him in so that we can be fed.

As followers of Jesus, it is our responsibility to nourish our soul on his word, and there are many ways we can do this. The  Book of Common Prayer is full of prayers and meditations, and is one way we can read scripture daily and meditate on the word of God. I talked about the Daily Office earlier, and it suggests special readings for each day. It helps us fill our spiritual hunger with good things, things that build upon each other, and that we then can go out into the world and share with others. 

To be in communion with others is another way to fill our spiritual hunger. We feed off each other in our lives and our knowledge and we grow in our love of God and scripture when we have discussions with others about our beliefs and our questions about those beliefs. 

We feed each other literally when we help in soup kitchens or some other form of helping with personal needs of others. We too should not separate our lives between Sunday mornings and the rest of our lives.

We come to worship every Sunday morning to be fed. We come to this safe place to put the worries of the world behind us even if for just one hour. We all know that when we leave this place today, we will go back to the real world, and have to face our real problems. Feeding on the word of Jesus gives us the strength to do that. It nourishes us with food that endures, that feeds our souls and our hearts. It doesn’t take our cares away but gives us the strength to get through them because we know Jesus is with us. We are refreshed and fed and nourished spiritually to face the world outside of these walls.

This is real food. This is food that endures. Let us go forth today nourished with God’s love and strength, and may we share his love and strength to all that we encounter. We are sent out from this place to love and serve the Lord. In doing so we share the love of Christ, the food that endures, with others.

AMEN

[Pentecost 10, August 1, 2021, Proper 13 (B)

RCL: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Psalm 51:1-13; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35]