Online Sermons
16h Sunday in Pentecost (proper 20): September 20, Martha Rogers
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsI have a confession to make. And I ask your forgiveness for this bad habit of mine. What is it that has been confessing to you? Simply this: I have been known to talk too much in church.
Just this week I was told by at least three people that I talk when distributing communion and to their thinking, no other priest talks at the communion rail. Talks to children that is. That’s what I do. I try to talk to the children at the communion rail to let them know, whether they take communion or not, they are welcomed there, to be with us and to know they are loved by Jesus. I’m sorry if it interrupts or bothers some of you. But I just can’t control myself.
And I’m just not ready to give habit of mine up.
What does it mean to welcome others in Jesus' Name?
In today’s Gospel, we are presented with two powerful images: one is our desire (unchanged through the ages) to be first and to be right; and the second is our reluctance to really enter into the shock and sadness of the incarnation, of Jesus being made human.
The passages in the Gospels where Jesus forecasts his own suffering and death are heartbreaking, as is the one today. What did this knowledge of betrayal do to the sensitive heart of the one who felt human pain and betrayal more deeply than anyone else ever has?
I wonder if Jesus doesn’t know what effect his manner of life and his teaching are having on those who do not want to be confronted with their own hardness of heart. He knows that the world has not received kindly those who tell the truth, and I think he is grieving over the impending rejection of his person and message
The other heartbreaking element in these passages is that the disciples simply don't get it. "They did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him." There is heaviness in this passage. Jesus has been with the crowds and has responded to their great needs by offering healing and release to the tormented people who came to him. But now he wants his friends to himself. They pass through Galilee, the Mark tells us, but "He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples. . ." This is a crucial time for Jesus. He is telling his disciples something tragic and inevitable about himself, and they don't understand. He wants to be alone with those he has chosen, to prepare them for the sorrow and shock of his arrest and death; maybe he also longs to receive the human understanding that is so necessary to every person, the assurance that at least these, his best friends, care for what he is showing them about God's kingdom, so that they can carry on his work after his death. But they do not understand.
Anglican author Dorothy L. Sayers cries out, on many different occasions, that the disciples and everyone around them did not know who Jesus was. Listen to a passage from the introduction to The Man Born to Be King where she says: "We judge their behavior as though all of them -- disciples, Pharisees, Romans, and men-in-the-street -- had known with whom they were dealing and what the meaning of all the events actually was. But they did not know. The disciples had only the foggiest inkling of it, and nobody else came anywhere near grasping what it was all about."Instead, they are quarrelling over "who among them is the greatest." At this point we, self-righteous, knowledgeable people of the 21st century, want to shake them: "How can you argue about something so selfish?" we want to shout. But we forget who we really are.
General Convention was held this summer and some of us, once again, are in a time of a passionate and fearful argument in the life of our own church. Some, over the past few years, have left the church, others are working towards split and division in the Episcopal Church, and the secular media reporters are having a great time with us all. But what I don't think we recognize is that most of us argue the way the disciples did. We are so certain we are right that we stand ready to condemn those who disagree with us, no matter which side we are on. We want to be "the greatest." In this kind of argument, love rarely enters, no matter what words we use to the contrary. We are bothered by the most obvious and heated topic -- neglecting our sins of hypocrisy and arrogance. Sex has become the predominant verbal occupation of the day. Whether in sin or under sanctioned blessing, sex has become the central issue of not just the world but of the church. We have become more like the world and of the world than of the divine. This passage in Mark cries out for us to notice the bitter irony, to see that while Jesus is telling us about his death and suffering, we are still arguing.
And, unlike the disciples and those surrounding them in Palestine, we do know. We are privy to the rest of the story. So Jesus, in great sorrow, takes a child into his loving arms (the Greek word means "he hugged the child as a loving mother does") and says to them and to us, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Ah, here is Jesus again going to the heart of the issue; this is the coreof the story: welcoming others in the name of Christ, in the way we welcome children. Welcoming all, instead of arguing our own agendas. The Greek preposition used here in verse 37, is epi, which means "upon." So to welcome in the manner of welcoming a child, we stand upon, we rest upon, our devotion to Christ. We welcome Christ, and in Christ, God.
So how do we welcome people? How do we serve another? Past presiding bishop, Edmond Browning helps us understand when he writes: “To love God with all our hearts, to hold our neighbor’s good with the same urgency with which we hold our own, to give place in love to the brother or sister with whom we vehemently disagree when every competitive fiber of our being aches for the thrill of victory: no easy thing. To yield up our power, the world’s shiniest treasure, becoming a servant instead of a master, a partner instead of a boss: most unnatural behavior, according to the canons which govern the world. We are often tested for the depth of our desire to live together in this way. We all know that it will not be easy; nothing of any real importance ever is. But I can imagine no more potent comfort than the presence of the God who has shown us this difficult love. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” (A Year of Days, 7/2, 1997)
So now we’re at the time where I often imagine someone listening to my preaching and thinking Yada, yada, yada. Cut to the chase. Just like you probably are right now.
The Epistle of James, our 2nd lesson for today, certainly does that--cuts to the chase. It asks us not to worry too much about what to believe but to get on with embodying what we value. The lesson suggests that we value gentleness and wisdom. Not to worry too much about WHAT TO BELIEVE but to get on with living out what we VALUE. What God values.
And then, simply, simply, get on with it., even if you don’t think you get it. Practice drawing near to God. Practice welcoming other. Practice your values. Practice resting upon Christ. And don’t trade the opportunity to do so for anything, no matter what the world tells you to do differently. Amen.
(with the help and inspiration from writings of Katarina Whitley and Anne Staub)