Fr. A.J.'s Sermons:
We Have the Power November 6, 2011
All Saints’ Sunday, Year A, 2011; Rev. 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10,22; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12
Theological Truth: As saints of God, we too have the power of Christ within us.
In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
As you may know…the preschoolers have chapel on Mondays and Thursdays. The kids follow a fairly predictable pattern. The line leader for the oldest class rings the bell and carries the cross. We go into chapel singing a song and we process out of chapel singing a song. During the Saints super bowl season we decided to sing, “O When the Saints go marching in” as we processed out. The teachers were all for it, though they openly and stubbornly denied my claim that it was a religious song. Maybe they’ve lived in New Orleans so long that any reference to “saints” must pertain to the local NFL team by that name. Or maybe they’ve never heard it in any context other than with the football team. Whatever the reason, they (and probably most of us) have trouble picturing ourselves as saints of God. We find it difficult to picture saying, “How I want to be in that number” as a reference to the great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
And so I had an idea. At the end of each chapel service, I have started asking, “Who are the saints of God?” Apparently it’s working. Little by little, week by week, the response gets louder and stronger. Who are the saints of God? WE ARE! And then we go out singing, “O when the saints!” It has been said that knowledge is power. And this knowledge has definitely empowered the preschoolers. Let me give you an example.
A couple of Mondays ago, a particularly quiet and reserved 4 year old was about to take his turn carrying the cross. He is a very serious and intense child—seeing everything but saying little. He didn’t say much as he rang the bell and then waited in the front of the line for his classmates to line up. Finally when we were just about ready to begin the walk to church, I handed him the cross. Then, with little notice and no provocation, this little, silent, almost invisible child turns around to the line of kids behind him, lifts the cross up in the air as if he’s parting the Red Sea, and says in a voice that I couldn’t imagine coming from that little body: “I have the power!” I kid you not. [PAUSE] I don’t know what came over him, but he’s absolutely right. He does have the power. He is a saint of God. He is part of that great number. And so are we.
The trouble is that we forget that we are in that number. We lose sight of the fact that we are children of God. (Just like the children baptized here today), we have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. We too have that power—the power that comes from knowing the love that God has for us. John points out that love, “see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” All Saints’ Day isn’t just about the heroic saints of the past, or the beloved saints of our lives (and it’s definitely NOT about the football team). All Saints’ Day is also about our lives here in the present. We too can and should live lives of powerful witness based on the knowledge of what God has given us in Christ Jesus.
That’s what the saints throughout the ages have known. The power of the saints came from the gratitude of knowing how much God loved and cared for them. That’s why we request in the General Thanksgiving, “Give us such an awareness of your mercies that with truly thankful hearts, we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days.” If knowledge is power, then this awareness of God’s mercy—having adopted us and redeemed us—is the knowledge that empowers us as saints to live truly thankful lives—lives that show forth God’s praise, not only with our words, but with our actions. Aware of God’s gifts to us, we in turn give ourselves back to God and walk in holiness and righteousness with Him now and for ever.
This isn’t limited just to the saints of the past. This is the reality for the saints of the now. Who are the saints of God? We are! Who has the power? We do! With that power; with that knowledge; with truly thankful hearts, let us go marching into the world to love and serve the Lord.
Theological Truth: As saints of God, we too have the power of Christ within us.
In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
As you may know…the preschoolers have chapel on Mondays and Thursdays. The kids follow a fairly predictable pattern. The line leader for the oldest class rings the bell and carries the cross. We go into chapel singing a song and we process out of chapel singing a song. During the Saints super bowl season we decided to sing, “O When the Saints go marching in” as we processed out. The teachers were all for it, though they openly and stubbornly denied my claim that it was a religious song. Maybe they’ve lived in New Orleans so long that any reference to “saints” must pertain to the local NFL team by that name. Or maybe they’ve never heard it in any context other than with the football team. Whatever the reason, they (and probably most of us) have trouble picturing ourselves as saints of God. We find it difficult to picture saying, “How I want to be in that number” as a reference to the great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
And so I had an idea. At the end of each chapel service, I have started asking, “Who are the saints of God?” Apparently it’s working. Little by little, week by week, the response gets louder and stronger. Who are the saints of God? WE ARE! And then we go out singing, “O when the saints!” It has been said that knowledge is power. And this knowledge has definitely empowered the preschoolers. Let me give you an example.
A couple of Mondays ago, a particularly quiet and reserved 4 year old was about to take his turn carrying the cross. He is a very serious and intense child—seeing everything but saying little. He didn’t say much as he rang the bell and then waited in the front of the line for his classmates to line up. Finally when we were just about ready to begin the walk to church, I handed him the cross. Then, with little notice and no provocation, this little, silent, almost invisible child turns around to the line of kids behind him, lifts the cross up in the air as if he’s parting the Red Sea, and says in a voice that I couldn’t imagine coming from that little body: “I have the power!” I kid you not. [PAUSE] I don’t know what came over him, but he’s absolutely right. He does have the power. He is a saint of God. He is part of that great number. And so are we.
The trouble is that we forget that we are in that number. We lose sight of the fact that we are children of God. (Just like the children baptized here today), we have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. We too have that power—the power that comes from knowing the love that God has for us. John points out that love, “see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” All Saints’ Day isn’t just about the heroic saints of the past, or the beloved saints of our lives (and it’s definitely NOT about the football team). All Saints’ Day is also about our lives here in the present. We too can and should live lives of powerful witness based on the knowledge of what God has given us in Christ Jesus.
That’s what the saints throughout the ages have known. The power of the saints came from the gratitude of knowing how much God loved and cared for them. That’s why we request in the General Thanksgiving, “Give us such an awareness of your mercies that with truly thankful hearts, we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days.” If knowledge is power, then this awareness of God’s mercy—having adopted us and redeemed us—is the knowledge that empowers us as saints to live truly thankful lives—lives that show forth God’s praise, not only with our words, but with our actions. Aware of God’s gifts to us, we in turn give ourselves back to God and walk in holiness and righteousness with Him now and for ever.
This isn’t limited just to the saints of the past. This is the reality for the saints of the now. Who are the saints of God? We are! Who has the power? We do! With that power; with that knowledge; with truly thankful hearts, let us go marching into the world to love and serve the Lord.
Lifted Up To Serve October 30, 2011
Proper 26, Year A, 2011; Joshua 3:7-17; Psalm 107:1-7,33-37; 1 Thess 2:9-13; Matthew 23:1-12
Theological Truth: Those who humble themselves will be exalted.
In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
There are scenes from throughout history where the ruler comes through the crowd lifted up and apart. Think about Cleopatra riding through the throngs of Egyptians, her golden chair resting on the bronzed and burly shoulders of her servants. Or the various monarchs of England, passing through the streets and among the people of London in their gilded coaches. Or even today, politicians and presidents, whisked through the highways of our world, surrounded by throngs of people—both admirers and adversaries. All of them, throughout history, separate and apart from those they rule.
Jesus told his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. It will not be so among you.” (Matthew 20:25a-26a). This isn’t just a strategy—it’s God’s way. The way of God is to be with his people. The way of God is for his people to treat power and authority as not only God-ordained, but as God treats such authority: with humility and care; with forbearance and mercy. This is not a new way reserved for tie-dyed hippies or scriptural revisionists. This is a way seen throughout the Old Testament…and in today’s reading from Joshua.
Joshua, you may recall, is Moses’ successor. He is chosen to lead the people into the settlement of the Promised Land. In a scene similar to the Exodus liberation, where Moses parts the Red Sea so that the Israelites may pass from captivity to freedom, so too does Joshua carry out God’s instructions to part the River Jordan, so that the people can pass into the land that God has promised and prepared for them. But God is more than the agent and the deliverer of the strategy, God is also with them. The Levites carry the Ark of the Covenant—which contained the tablets of the Sinai covenant and was understood as the portable throne of God’s presence—into the waters ahead of the people into the Jordan River. The river stops flowing—the waters upstream building up into a wall and the rest continuing downstream to reveal ground dry enough for crossing. The Ark of the Covenant went before them. The Ark of the Covenant stayed with them in the midst of the Jordan until they all passed—lifted up on the shoulders of the people, but certainly not separate or apart from them. So it is to be with us.
Someone else came and stood in the Jordan River. His name is a derivative of Joshua—his name is Jesus. He stood in the Jordan River to be baptized by John. He stood in the Jordan River so that by him, through him, and with him we too may take possession of that place of promise that is God’s desire for all people. A place John describes in his Revelation when he says, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them” (Rev. 21:3b). Just as the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of the people and stayed in the midst of them, so too has Jesus gone ahead of us while also remaining in the midst of us through the Holy Spirit. In his humility he has been exalted, not to be separate and apart, but so that he may be lifted up to take us to the kingdom that God has prepared for all of us.
This is most manifested in the sacrament of the altar where the body and blood of Christ are lifted up as a reminder that he emptied himself in obedience and complete humility, that he has been exalted, that he is, through the power of the Holy Spirit, still in the midst of us, and that the promised land is now accessible and will be forever, even if it’s not fully here just yet. Like the ark of the covenant wading into the River Jordan, Jesus too has gone before us to usher us into the Kingdom of God and is also still in the middle of us as we continue to make our way.
This way of God—to go ahead and remain in the midst of the people—is to be our way, too, as the body of Christ in the world. We bear the presence of God within us. We wear it on our foreheads as a reminder of the baptism we share with Christ. We carry it in our bodies as recipients of the grace of this Holy Communion. We do not lift up our selves or our holiness or our own righteousness. Rather, we lift up the God of Jesus Christ—the Word made flesh—who is still in the midst of us. Like those Levite priests, we do the work we have been given to do: bearing Christ into the thick of things, into the muddy waters of life—not for our glory, but for God’s. This should be a relief in a way. Sometimes the world can seem so dangerous, hopeless, and complicated that it’s hard to know what is expected of us. How much is required of us as bearers of Christ in the world? This is all that the Lord requires of us: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8b).
Yesterday’s Pumpkin Palooza was just such an example of bearing Christ in the midst of the world. Our campus—from front to back, inside and out—was full of people from around the parish, the pre-school, the neighborhood, the city. The agenda was wonderfully simple: share the joy of God’s abundant goodness that we have received. That’s what we lifted up into and among God’s people. We didn’t exalt ourselves. We didn’t take over God’s work. We lifted up God, trusting like Joshua and those Levites that God has gone ahead of us and God is in the midst of us. Let us continue the only work that is required of us: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with the God who walks with us.
Theological Truth: Those who humble themselves will be exalted.
In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
There are scenes from throughout history where the ruler comes through the crowd lifted up and apart. Think about Cleopatra riding through the throngs of Egyptians, her golden chair resting on the bronzed and burly shoulders of her servants. Or the various monarchs of England, passing through the streets and among the people of London in their gilded coaches. Or even today, politicians and presidents, whisked through the highways of our world, surrounded by throngs of people—both admirers and adversaries. All of them, throughout history, separate and apart from those they rule.
Jesus told his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. It will not be so among you.” (Matthew 20:25a-26a). This isn’t just a strategy—it’s God’s way. The way of God is to be with his people. The way of God is for his people to treat power and authority as not only God-ordained, but as God treats such authority: with humility and care; with forbearance and mercy. This is not a new way reserved for tie-dyed hippies or scriptural revisionists. This is a way seen throughout the Old Testament…and in today’s reading from Joshua.
Joshua, you may recall, is Moses’ successor. He is chosen to lead the people into the settlement of the Promised Land. In a scene similar to the Exodus liberation, where Moses parts the Red Sea so that the Israelites may pass from captivity to freedom, so too does Joshua carry out God’s instructions to part the River Jordan, so that the people can pass into the land that God has promised and prepared for them. But God is more than the agent and the deliverer of the strategy, God is also with them. The Levites carry the Ark of the Covenant—which contained the tablets of the Sinai covenant and was understood as the portable throne of God’s presence—into the waters ahead of the people into the Jordan River. The river stops flowing—the waters upstream building up into a wall and the rest continuing downstream to reveal ground dry enough for crossing. The Ark of the Covenant went before them. The Ark of the Covenant stayed with them in the midst of the Jordan until they all passed—lifted up on the shoulders of the people, but certainly not separate or apart from them. So it is to be with us.
Someone else came and stood in the Jordan River. His name is a derivative of Joshua—his name is Jesus. He stood in the Jordan River to be baptized by John. He stood in the Jordan River so that by him, through him, and with him we too may take possession of that place of promise that is God’s desire for all people. A place John describes in his Revelation when he says, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them” (Rev. 21:3b). Just as the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of the people and stayed in the midst of them, so too has Jesus gone ahead of us while also remaining in the midst of us through the Holy Spirit. In his humility he has been exalted, not to be separate and apart, but so that he may be lifted up to take us to the kingdom that God has prepared for all of us.
This is most manifested in the sacrament of the altar where the body and blood of Christ are lifted up as a reminder that he emptied himself in obedience and complete humility, that he has been exalted, that he is, through the power of the Holy Spirit, still in the midst of us, and that the promised land is now accessible and will be forever, even if it’s not fully here just yet. Like the ark of the covenant wading into the River Jordan, Jesus too has gone before us to usher us into the Kingdom of God and is also still in the middle of us as we continue to make our way.
This way of God—to go ahead and remain in the midst of the people—is to be our way, too, as the body of Christ in the world. We bear the presence of God within us. We wear it on our foreheads as a reminder of the baptism we share with Christ. We carry it in our bodies as recipients of the grace of this Holy Communion. We do not lift up our selves or our holiness or our own righteousness. Rather, we lift up the God of Jesus Christ—the Word made flesh—who is still in the midst of us. Like those Levite priests, we do the work we have been given to do: bearing Christ into the thick of things, into the muddy waters of life—not for our glory, but for God’s. This should be a relief in a way. Sometimes the world can seem so dangerous, hopeless, and complicated that it’s hard to know what is expected of us. How much is required of us as bearers of Christ in the world? This is all that the Lord requires of us: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8b).
Yesterday’s Pumpkin Palooza was just such an example of bearing Christ in the midst of the world. Our campus—from front to back, inside and out—was full of people from around the parish, the pre-school, the neighborhood, the city. The agenda was wonderfully simple: share the joy of God’s abundant goodness that we have received. That’s what we lifted up into and among God’s people. We didn’t exalt ourselves. We didn’t take over God’s work. We lifted up God, trusting like Joshua and those Levites that God has gone ahead of us and God is in the midst of us. Let us continue the only work that is required of us: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with the God who walks with us.
