Sunday, November 26, 2006

The Real Lion King

The following sermon was delivered on Christ the King Sunday,November 26, 2006 at All Saints Anglican Church, Barboursville, WV. It is based on: Daniel 7: 9-14; Jn 18: 33-40


Speaking to the Observer Music Monthly Magazine recently,Sir Elton John said religion lacked compassion and turned people into "hateful lemmings".The PRESS ASSOCIATION reports: In a candid interview for a dedicated Gay issue of the magazine he shared his views on topics as varied as being a pop icon to Tony Blair's stance on the war in Iraq.He said there was a lack of religious leadership, particularly in world politics, and complained that people do not take to the streets to protest any more.Sir Elton said: "I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays."Organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."

"But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion. From my point of view I would ban religion completely. (drudgereport.com: 11/11/2003)

So…Sir Elton shows his compassion by desiring to ban religion and instead he would give us protests in the street and the following philosophy:

“From the day we arrive on the planet, and blinking, step into the sun,
There’s more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done.
There’s far too much to take in here, more to find than can ever be found.
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky keeps great and small on the endless round.

Chorus:
It’s the circle of life. And it move us all , through despair and hope,
Through faith and love, ‘til we find our place
On the path unwinding in the circle, the circle of life.

Some say eat or be eaten, Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give.

Some of us fall by the wayside and some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars.
"The Circle of Life" Lyrics by Tim Rice.

Mix this rich theological formula with a little Hakuna Mattata and you’ve got the stirring life philosophy of Tim Rice and Elton John, composers of the music for Disney movie, the Lion King. (Sir Elton, we should say, who recently has pronounced that churches and religions are dangerous and ought not be allowed to exist!)

Yes, it’s the circle of life – and it goes round and round in an endless cycle of birth and death. There’s no particular reason for it, it just happened to evolve that way by random chance – but nevertheless we have to make sense out of it. We believe that life is sacred, even though we scorn anyone who takes the Sacred seriously – and we know we all have a holy obligation to not take more than we give and to recycle our waste – because after all, we’re all part of the circle of life.

And can you feel the love tonight? It is where we are.
It’s enough for this wide-eyed wanderer That we got this far
And can you feel the love tonight How it’s laid to rest?
It’s enough to make kings and vagabonds Believe the very best.

There’s a time for everyone If they only learn
That the twisting kaleidoscope Moves us all in turn
There’s a rhyme and reason to the wild outdoors
When the heart of this star-crossed voyager Beats in time with yours.
Yes, - it’s enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best.

And that, of course, was the lyric to the life-changing song, “Can you feel the Love tonight?” by the same duo who gave us the previous stirring philosophy.

What a load of happy hogwash! And this from the man who brought you:
His wise pronouncement that religion is dangerous and ought to be abolished!

Friends, our readings for today couldn’t be more opposed to Mr. John’s stress-free philosophy, but they do make for good sermon illustration material. Because we live in a world that has cast off the burdens of belief in a Supreme King and Judge, the inhabitants of planet earth are faced with the unenviable task of trying to figure what the deuce this life is about.

Without a notion of a transcendent God who created all things and who Rules and upholds all things by His power, what we are left with is the current New Agey, goopy, quasi-worship of the Earth, - known as GAIA to the religiously minded. For those who have tossed aside the ‘worn-out’ doctrines of the church with all the talk of Jesus as the King of Kings, blood sacrifices, the end of time, etc, there is little choice left, but going back to the old philosophy of an endless round of seasons, which never culminate in anything, but which must be valued and respected because of their ancient inevitability. Also, without a notion of a Creator God who stands apart from his creation, the world and everything in it becomes the subject of worship.

Again, GAIA is the personification of Earth, our mother. But keep in mind, that GAIA isn’t really understood as a personal being in the same way the YHWH is. She is more like the Greek Gods, who basically personify all human vices writ large. No, the worship of GAIA is more akin to Pantheiem – the belief that all things are God, or perhaps a little more technically Panentheism – the belief that God is IN all things.
This is very akin to what we call ANIMISM – the belief that all things have a spirit and must be respectfully treated because of it.

Disney has done us the great service of illustrating this last belief system in the movie Pocahontas – reminding us that the trees have spirits.

At any rate, (post)modern world is in a fix. Humans know there is actually something that makes them different from animals. Intuitively, they know that Man is Noble and has a unique place of mastery over the world and everything in it. But at the same time, humans also know there is something very wrong with humans. We don’t live in harmony with each other like the animals do. Oh, yes, there is the endless cycle of birth and killing other animals to survive, but this is orderly, instinctual and amoral. Animals obey the Law of the Jungle. There is a Lion King who reigns for a season, and then is deposed when another younger challenger comes along. The whole creation operates in a vast well-ordered cycle in which there is an amazing economy and presesrvation of everything. It’s bloody, true , but predictable and efficient – unlike Man, who wants more than he needs, rapes the land and the forests for what he wants, and doesn’t clean up after himself. I tell you, it’s enough to drive a Mother (Earth) to distraction!

Faced with this dilemma and adrift without any moorings of absolute Truth today’s ‘postmoderns’ are naturally drawn back to more primitive times and places where people seemed to be able to get along better with Nature. Native American Culture, Native African Cultures, the philosophies of the East – all appeal to the inward awareness that Man is out of sorts with himself and with the natural order. If something isn’t done, we will all die from Global Warming! Not that it really matters much, of course. Again, keep in mind that we’re all just random products of chance who stumble through the world vaguely trying to come up with some sort of meaning to hold our lives together. It’s an endless cycle – and really rather depressing when you stop to think about it.

So much so, in fact that the Buddhists and the Hindus are driven to great lengths to try to escape the endless cycle of birth, suffering, death and reincarnation. Cant’t say that I blame them, for in a way they are right: without a Creator who has a Goal or Telos in mind for the universe, Life is essentially meaningless, an endless Circle.

And this is where we part company with Hindus, Buddhists, Earth Worshipping GAIAists, Wiccans, pantheists, panentheists, animists and plain old pleasure seekers. Instead of this random cycle of accidental life, we do in fact believe that God, the Father, the Ancient of Days Created the World and Human beings for a purpose: namely to live in harmony with our creator and all the created things. That’s why postmoderns have such a hankering for order and harmony – it resides with the human heart as a latent aspect of the Image of God within us. Also within us is the terrible knowledge that we have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God; that left to our own devices we will and have destroyed everything good around us through our own greed and ignorance.

Postmoderns have a real sense of guilt about their role in the downfall of the world. That’s why they are so concerned about Global Warming. They know that we are responsible for our own downfall and that we have also taken the physical world down with us. Therefore, we need to do something to redeem and save the world. Enter Earth Day, extreme environmentalism, mandatory saving of resources, and the popular outrage over the unconscionable use of the earth’s resources. It’s an attempt to atone for Original Sin and to restore the physical order to rights.

But that attempt is doomed to failure because it tries to do something that only God can do – to Save the World from itself, to Judge the failures of the Human Race, to bring this whole bloody mess to a conclusion and to recreate the world anew, sinless and pristine, restoring Harmony with other living beings and God again. This is the reason why we talk about Christ as King.

In the Judeo-Christian conception of Reality, God, YHWH is the Ancient of Days. He is Holy or set-apart from the universe. As Creator and Sovereign sustainer of all things, He asserts an ultimate demand of fealty from his subjects. In our rebellion, we seek to shake off his Claim on us and live according to our own whims. This we call ‘Freedom’. But the pursuit of that Freedom leads us away from our Creator and shuts us up in an endless cycle of death, which, despite the croonings of Elton John, is not glorious, but is rather something to be escaped.

Because we are creatures, we don’t have the wherewithal to save ourselves and thus it was necessary for God Himself to prepare and send us a Savior – His own dear Son, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the Lion of Judah, the True Lion King.

Bless our God, for he has not only provided us a means of salvation from our sins, but he provided us the way to end this whole cycle of futility through the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God was something Jesus talked about a lot. But the Kingdom he described was an odd thing, for unlike the kingdoms that we know about , his was not of this world’. His purpose was to usher in the Kingdom of God, but not to rule over the political landscape as we know it. Instead, Jesus asserts that wherever a human being recognizes the Ancient of Days as Lord, and human beings as rebellious enemies in need of saving through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, then the Kingdom of God comes to earth within the soul of that person, and Jesus begins his Kingly reign in the heart of that redeemed person.

Because Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, ‘to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Daniel 7: 14.

Now to be sure, there are those who do not recognize the Lordship of Christ in our time. The Bible is very clear that these unrepentant people are enemies of God who will not escape punishment, perhaps not here, but surely in the great summation of all things when Jesus is presented to the Ancient of Days, the court sits down for judgment, the books are opened and every one comes before God to receive the just punishment or reward for their actions – either to blessedness because of their faith in Christ, or to eternal separation from God because of their rebellion.

Again, we who name the Name of Jesus as our Savior and King, already enjoy the benefits of the Kingdom of God operative right now. Through the blood of Christ we are cleansed from our sins, adopted into the family of God, given the family Visa card, changed into the family likeness (just like our older brother) and given the promise of spending eternity in unbroken fellowship with that same fearsome Ancient of Days – now transformed into a loving Father through His own atoning work on the Cross.

Pretty Grand stuff I’d say. Lots better than an endless cycle of Elton John songs. Surely that’s evidence for the existence of Hell right there!

So the conclusion is: Make Jesus King of your life as well as Savior. That means bowing your knee to him and submitting everything to Him in worship and praise, and receiving back eternal Life as your reward.

If you can never point to a specific time when you have bowed the knee of your heart to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, I invite you to do so now saying the words of the so-called Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” If you can say those few little words in sincerity, then you have become a citizen of the Kingdom of God, an heir to the Throne and a brother or sister to all believers everywhere. If you’d like prayer or counsel, please write to me at andrewcounts56@msn.com AMEN.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

The Coming of the End

November 19, 2006
All Saints Anglican Church, Barboursville, WV
Mark 13:14-23, Daniel 12: 1-13


Some months ago, I remember loaning a novel to a female friend of mine. I was surprised when she immediately turned to the back of the book and began reading the last page. “What are you doing?!” I exclaimed. “I’m reading the ending so I can tell if I want to read the rest of the book,” she calmly explained.

In an odd sort of way, this story relates to our readings today, and to the coming of Christ - the exception being that while the end of our story with Jesus is pretty clear – namely eternal fellowship and bliss with God in a resurrected body on a new Earth - the path to getting there is doggedly confusing. Indeed, when reading the parts of the story that describe the signs of the end – Daniel, the words of Jesus, Revelation etc. – no less a Saint than Augustine said, in his Summa Theologica: “…it is not easy to know what these signs may be: for the signs of which we read…refer not only to Christ’s coming in judgment, but also to the time of the sack of Jerusalem, and to the coming of Christ in ceaselessly visiting His Church.” (Volume III, Supplemental Question 73).

Our readings today show God to be the author of Literature, layering meaning upon meaning, showing us glimpses of future events in symbolic or representative actions – giving us a sort of puzzle to work out concerning the end of all things.

Specifically, Jesus was asked in the beginning of Mark 13 about his prophecy that the Temple would be destroyed. The disciples wanted to know when these things would come about. Jesus launches into a description of the travails and persecutions his followers could expect: earthquakes, wars, famine, civil strife – and all these things would be just the beginning of the troubles. He encourages them to persevere, but in verse 14, he says something that no doubt puzzled them.

“But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not to be … then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains”. Knowing their own history, the disciples would likely have remembered the reference to Daniel’s prophetic use of the term abomination of desolation and to its eventual fulfillment recorded in the book of I Maccabees – how the wicked ruler Antiochus Epiphanes had, in 168 BC, erected an altar to Zeus in the Jewish temple, thus profaning it.

But the disciples did not know that Jesus was referring to an event that would happen within their lifetimes – the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Roman general Titus. The historian Josephus, in his “Wars of the Jews”, tells us that the city was completely obliterated, and that afterward it appeared ‘never to have been inhabited”. Jesus was warning of this catastrophe, and his warning must have been heeded later, because when the Romans came, the entire Christian community fled en masse, crossing the Jordan river and going up into the mountains to the city of Pella, where they were preserved without loss. (The 144,000 from Revelation?).

But there is more to Jesus’ statements in Mark 13 and the parallel chapter Matthew 24, than just a warning for the Christians to flee the destruction of Jerusalem. No, he repeatedly says things like, “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mk 13:24, 25). This is the part of the Nicene Creed we refer to when we say He will come again in Glory to judge the living and the dead…”

So I’m sure the disciples must have been completely bumfuzzled by this kind of language, and even today we struggle with it.

The Greek word for ‘coming’ is “Parousia”, and the Greek word, ‘Eschaton’ means ‘the end’.

At the Eschaton, the end of all things, Jesus will have his Parousia, and will come again to gather up his saints from the four winds and begin to judge the earth. Associated with this, we are told that there will be a great Tribulation such as the world has never seen.

The Theological viewpoint reflected by the popular book series, “Left Behind”, is called Pre-Tribulation, Pre-Millenial Rapture. Its basic understanding of the future is that things will continue to get very bad in the world until Christians are suddenly raptured out of the world and the Antichrist appears. Daniel’s term abomination of desolation is widely acknowledged to refer to this same Antichrist. And his cryptic phrase ‘a time, times and a half’ is understood as meaning that there will be a period of apparent peace for the first three and one half years of Antichrist’s reign. After this there will be three and a half years of outright terrible Tribulation. All told, this period will last seven years and is known as the Great Tribulation.

At the end of the seven years, comes the battle of Armageddon in which the enemies of God are defeated, Satan is locked up for 1,000 years while Christ rules with His faithful believers during the “Millenial” Kingdom on earth. After this, Satan is released from prison and defeated in battle again. The earth is destroyed by fire and the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven and all the dead are resurrected, either to blessedness or to eternal damnation. …This is the kind of scope we’re talking about when we say the “coming’ or ‘Parousia’ of Christ.

Now to be sure, there are differing versions of what will happen in the end. Some believe that there is no “Rapture” at all, and that believers will not be caught up in the air with Christ. There are also those who advocate for a Mid-Tribulation, or a Post-tribulation rapture.

Regarding the Millennium, or Thousand Year reign, there are those who don’t believe there will be a Millennium at all, that the events of AD 70 were the culmination of the Judgment Jesus spoke of and that we are now living in a figurative ‘millennial’ period and that the reign of Christ refers to the idea that He reigns ‘wherever loving hearts enthrone him” until the final culmination of all things at the very end.

My own view is that there will indeed be a 1,000 year period of time during which Christ reigns on earth. I hope that Believers will be Raptured before the Tribulation, but based on the history of the world, especially the 20th century, I’m not so sure. It wouldn’t surprise me if believers did indeed go through that Tribulation. They sure didn’t escape the Holocaust.

But if I focused on all of this too much, I think I would find myself distracted and terrified. I think there is another way to live, and that this other way has much to do with another sense of the word “parousia”. For you see, Parousia also means ‘Presence’. And it is precisely the Presence of Christ that we celebrate every time with take Communion.

Although the events of the future may hold terrors for us, we need not fear, for Christ tells us that He is with us always, even to the end of the age. We have his indwelling Parousia (presence) in the form of the Holy Spirit. But we also have the Parousia of Christ in the Bread and Wine of Communion. We feed on this Presence and it strengthens us and fills us with hope. It also leads us to Heaven itself, for in the Eucharist, we “Lift up our hearts” to Heaven, and Heaven comes down to us in a family reunion that foreshadows the great Marriage feast of the Lamb in the New Jerusalem.

Therefore, we don’t need to be overly concerned with the minute events of the future. Rather, our focus can be on the here and now. After all, Jesus tells us that not even He himself knows when His return is scheduled. It’s strictly a need-to-know business.

Having said that, however, there is an important caveat: we must be like good Boy Scouts, practicing Watchfulness in order to “Be Prepared”. We are to live this day without regard for tomorrow, yet realize that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Our deeds here on earth really matter and our future depends upon them. If we acknowledge Him before men, he will acknowledge us. If we deny Him before men, He will deny us. It is because of this awesome knowledge that you and I have launched out into the deep and have separated ourselves from a form of religion that claims to be Christian, but which long ago morphed into something else.

Because we know that Christ will come again, we do acts of kindness and compassion, we fight against injustice and oppression, drug abuse and murder, and we unite to do all the good we can for as long as we can, knowing that we are doing our deeds as unto Christ Himself.

So brothers and sisters, Love God and Love your neighbor. Don’t get too caught up in thinking about the end times, but do realize that it’s very possible we will go through some very, very rough things before Christ comes again. Be ready for Him to come, but in the meantime, enjoy indwelling presence via the Holy Spirit, and His weekly coming in the Eucharist. Feed on Him in your Hearts with faith with Thanksgiving and be Glad. Amen.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Not 'Lucre-ist', Eucharist!

This sermon is based on I Kings 17:8-16 and Mark 12:41-44. It was delivered on November 12, 2006 at All Saints Anglican Church in
Barboursville, West Virginia.

Note: After the initial prayer, our acolyte was directed to come forward and get a basket full of dollar bills. The basket was passed around with instructions for everyone to take a dollar out of the basket. When everyone had a dollar, they were admonished:

This bill is life indeed. Take, eat, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

After the laughter died down, the message commenced:

This dollar bill represents the world and all it has to offer. The world tells us that if we will just feed upon its riches that our souls will be full and satisfied. But what do you think? Will your dollar bill taste good as you chew on it? Will it satisfy your hunger and feed your physical body? No? Well, in the same way, neither will the other Stuff in your life feed your soul. Rather, if you attempt to feed yourself on this false food, you will become malnourished and eventually die.

As Christians we have another view on this dollar bill. Again, think of this bill as representing the world and everything in it- all of your life. Before we handed out the dollars you didn’t have a dollar in your hand. In Christian terms, because of the Fall, our life was taken away from us and we did not have true Life, but rather the false appearance of life.

Now, instead of trying to eat that dollar bill, think of yourself receiving as a Gift from God, giving thanks for it, and offering it back to Him. ( Later, we will actually ask you to do this.) Then, imagine God multiplying what you have offered him in ways that none of us can imagine. This is the Christian Gospel – not a “Lucre-istic” feast, but a Eucharistic feast – one which we see symbolized for us in our readings today.

We have stories about two Widows, two marginalized, helpless people, who really had nothing materially. To be a widow in Jewish culture was to be a person who lived hand to mouth. A widow could not engage in a trade per se, could not compete in the marketplace openly, but rather had to rely upon a son to take care of her, or to glean fields, as Ruth and Naomi did. It was a tenuous existence at best.

And in the case of the widow of Zaraphath, we have the additional hardship of drought in the land. Why a drought? Because the prophet Elijah had declared there would be no rain, or even dew for a period of years, until he himself gave the command. Why such a harsh pronouncement? Because King Ahab had plunged the nation into unrighteousness. During his reign, …”he did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him” (I Kings 16:30 ff.) He also set up an altar to worship Baal (a phallic god representing the worship of one’s own genitals), and married Jezebel the wicked. In short, Ahab did the exact opposite of what God required for righteousness. And this in turn was what caused Elijah to make his pronouncements upon the land.

So, as if widows and other helpless people didn’t have it hard enough, now there was a famine in the land and people were dying of starvation. In fact, the widow in our story was getting ready to bake up the last little bit of bread she could make, and after that she fully expected to die. At that very moment, along comes Elijah and asks her to give her a drink and make him a cake to eat! ( Our modern ears can hear echoes of Jesus and the Samaritan woman – “Give me a drink…” Jn. Chapter 4.) Elijah makes the startling prediction that the oil and flour would not run out until the rain returned. Most astonishingly, the woman apparently just accepted this and went to make the bread. I suppose she had heard about Elijah and may have reasoned that anyone who could stop the rain could also conjur up some oil and flour. At any rate, she accepted this provision from Elijah, and she enjoyed the multiplication of these meager resources for the duration of the drought.

But let’s back up a bit and notice that God had commanded Elijah to go to Zaraphath saying, “Behold, I have commanded a widow to there to feed you”. (v. 9). God chose a widow, a marginalized person with no resources, who was about to die…to provide for His prophet! How upside down things are in God’s economy ! Elijah was not sent to a wealthy landowner who could easily have taken care of his needs, but rather to someone who could not possibly provide for him out of her own resources. Elijah obeyed and went to Zaraphath, not questioning God’s rationale; the widow obeyed, not questioning Elijah’s sanity. In both cases, their obedience resulted in Life for many who were affected by their actions. “…she and he and her household ate for many days” (v. 15).

Fast forward now to the widow that Jesus observed giving her offering in the Temple. Everyone else contributed out of their abundance, but Jesus tells us that this widow gave everything she had to live on. In other words, she put in all of her Life as an offering. Perhaps she too was so near death that she decided to give her last little bit and then lay down and die. Or perhaps – she had grasped the reality that “All things come from Thee, and from Thine own have we given Thee”. Perhaps she understood her vocation as a Priest.

Alexander Schmemann, in his book, “For the Life of the World” says, “The first, the basic definition of man is that he is the priest. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God – and by filling the world with this eucharist, he transforms his life, the one that he receives from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him.” (pg. 15).

“All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God.” (pg. 14). If we understand this, then our natural response should be to bless God for the gifts received. We are to Know that all things come from Him, to Name each blessing and to Possess all things as trustees of the Life God has given us. Let’s look at a contemporary version of how a priestly approach to things results in Life for many.

In her book, Where Wonders Prevail, Joan Webster Anderson tells the story of Bill and Hannah Lords of Stanwood, Washington who, after raising six children, decided to devote themselves to working with the poor. They gave away all their household things and opened a storefront coffeehouse that they called The Refuge. They lived in the back rooms of the storefront and applied Bills’ wages as a truck driver to their work with the homeless of Everett, Washington.

“Our desire was to give one hundred percent of ourselves for the Lord,” said Hannah. And so they did, ministering to everyone who walked through the doors.

One day, a group of young people had come to help out, they were all caught up in a really sweet time of worship as the day began. The prayer continued until noon and they all felt as if they were suspended between heaven and earth. Hannah realized however, that ‘she had left Bill’s lunch on ‘low’ in their rusty oven. By now it would be a dismal dried-up mess: Two small slices of meatloaf and a little scoop of mashed potatoes from last night’s dinner. How could she possibly feed everyone with this little bit?

But she and her daughter, Linda, went ahead and set twelve place settings anyway. Hannah prepared to place a tiny dollop of food on each plate. She hated not to serve everyone, so the little bit would just have to do. But when she dipped into the pan of dried- up meatloaf with her serving spoon, she pulled up two large juicy slices of meatloaf! And the original slices were still in the pan! Astonished, Hannah moved to the next plate, and dipped her spoon again. Two more juicy slices of meatloaf appeared! On and on it went until all twelve place settings held servings.

The same thing happened with the mashed potatoes. She dipped into a dry stiff crust, and pulled up fluffy servings of moist potatoes! Twelve plates full!

Impulsively, Hannah remembered she had some frozen lettuce. As she broke off chunks of the frozen green leaves for a garnish, they turned into fresh crisp leaves on the plates!

Everyone who came to the table was amazed by what happened. They all rejoiced and gave thanks for the remarkable provision of God’s bounty. (I don’t know if there was any mayonnaise to go along with the meal…). Commenting on the experience, Hannah said, “Linda and I hated to leave the praise going on in the outer room, but in serving others we had been given an experience that would cause us to praise Him even more!” (pg. 142).

Remember the feeding of the 5,000? And the similar feeding of the 4,000? Sound familiar? Those episodes were meant to be illustrations of this Eucharistic action we are talking about. At the Last supper, Jesus took, bread and wine, and when he had given thanks over them, he gave them to his disciples and told them to eat; that these elements of food and drink were his very lifeblood given for them and for the life of the world.

So here is the Gospel message: All things were given to mankind in the beginning as gifts for Communing with God, but man rejected God’s instructions for the right use of the world and attempted to make the fruit of the Tree Of Knowledge of Good and Evil to be his food. In so doing the whole human race became a slave to the material world and experienced a true spiritual death. Adam and Eve attempted to eat dollar bills and so had no Life.

Into this situation of despair and death comes Jesus and offering Himself, emptying Himself of all His divine prerogatives ( Phillipians 2:7) and giving of himself to be the Food and Drink of new and unending Life in God. Jesus gave us our Life back. He didn’t give us something extra to make our life better. He gave us Life in all its fullness. Everything in our lives has been redeemed so that we now may enjoy Communnion with God again.

But our right enjoyment and use of the world depends upon understanding this Eucharistic pattern and our priestly role in the world. We are not to be revelers at the world’s “Lucre-istic” orgy, but to be a kingdom of priests who receive everything gratefully from God, give thanks over it and offer it back to God, so that it might be multiplied and become Life for many. Remember this every time you give your offerings and partake of Communion. In Him is Life!

Now hold up your dollar bill. Silently, in your heart give thanks to God for all of your Life and offer this back to God.

In application of our lesson today, I would like for these dollar bills to be offered as the first donation toward the purchase of the house on 1410 Charleston Avenue in Huntington. The house is listed with Fannie Mae for $17,900. We’re going to gather these dollar bills up as a special seed offering, and as we do so I would invite you to add any of your additional dollars to it – only dollar bills now please, of any denomination. And I would challenge us to eventually raise a ten percent down payment - $1790.00 as our initial commitment to creating HOPE House, a place that will memorialize four fallen young people and serve as the headquarters of an organization that will help to reverse a pattern of death and give Life instead.

An offering was taken and consecrated it to the special work saying,

“All things come from Thee O Lord and from Thine do we give unto Thee”. Amen.

Note: The congregation of 22 people offered up $255.00 for this special intention. Thanks be to God!

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Loving God and Loving your Neighbor

This sermon was delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on November 5, 2006. It was based on
Mark 12: 28-34

The notable theologian, Mark Twain as once asked, “Mr. Twain, do you have trouble with the parts of the Bible you don’t understand?” Twain answered, “No…I have trouble with the parts of the Bible I do understand!”

Today’s Gospel is an example of something I understand, but have a hard time applying. It’s really very simple, isn’t it? Love God and Love your neighbor. But when we start trying to apply these ideas in our daily lives, somehow things get difficult.

The early Christians proclaimed “Kurios Ieosus”, Jesus is Lord. To them it was a direct contradiction of “Kurios Caesar”, “Caesar is Lord”, or master of my life. It was a life-altering identification with Jesus as Ruler of my life. The consequence for making this proclamation was frequently death. You didn’t say “Jesus is Lord” unless you were prepared to die. That’s a pretty clear picture of putting God first in your life. But what about today, when there are few if any real serious consequences of trying to make God first in your life?

If I love God, shall I read the Bible to the exclusion of every other book- as some have actually done? If I can read some books, which ones, and for how much time during the day? Does this include magazines?

How about movies and TV? Is it OK to watch sports on TV – or even to go to sporting events?

If I love God, should I go to church to the exclusion of all else?

Should I keep a rigid set of rules that will demonstrate to everyone who much I do indeed love God?

And when it comes to loving my neighbor, that means the people who live beside me, right? Even the ones who bother me so much? The ones I can’t stand, or the ones I never see often enough to know who they actually are? Does “neighbor” include the people down the street, across town, in the next town or city, state, country, etc.?

Also, when I think about loving my neighbor as myself, what does that mean? Should I give away everything I own for the benefit of those around me? How much stuff shall I own? How much can I get along without? Should I jump into my neighbor’s business and try to help them fix their problems – or is that beyond the prescription of what Jesus commands?

These are just some of the questions about how to apply the two greatest commands.

In the Old Testament God told the people what to do. First, he gave them Ten Commandments that summarized the entire intent of the Law. That is to say the Ten Commandments have to do with one’s relationship with God and then with those around me.

The detailed instructions about worship and sacrifice, including how to construct the temple, how to conduct sacrifices, how to dress the priests, what to do on the Sabbath, etc are all about how to show one’s devotion to God. But the instructions are a trap – one that the Jewish nation fell into, and one that many people today also fall into. It’s the trap of fulfilling the letter of the Law without observing the Sprit.

You see, the Levitical Law was actually meant to cause people to fail. The Law was meant to show people how difficult it would be to try to live a perfect life, pleasing to God. At the same time, built into the ceremonial law was a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who would fulfill all the ceremonial aspects of temple worship and sacrifice while at the same time fulfilling all the Levitical commands completely.

Jesus did live a perfect life under the Judaic Law, but He was the only one who ever did it. The rest of us Christians are now under a system of grace in which we trust Jesus to be our righteousness before God, the righteous and holy judge. We no longer have to fear the wrath of God as Christians, but we are still tasked with becoming like Christ in all we do. (Romans 8:28,29). Even though we rely on Grace, we still need to apply effort to our faith. So I would suggest to you that there is wisdom in an ancient practice called living according to a Rule of Life.



Loving God through a Rule of Life
For thousands of years now people such as Benedict and Francis have lived according to a Rule of Life. The word Rule come from the Latin “Regula” – straightedge or guide. By contrast, the Latin word for Law is “Lex” as in Lexus, meaning a car that Lawyers drive… But seriously – the Levitcal code was Lex, while a Rule of Life is Regula. There is a fundamental difference.

St. Benedict and St. Frances are two spiritual fathers who wrote down Rules of Life, not because they were trying to accomplish their own righteousness through the Law, but because they understood that it was important to have guidelines that would help them fulfill their quest for personal holiness. A Rule of Life can be flexible. Especially in Benedict, we can see an attitude that says,“ This is the way we always do it, except when we find a need to do it differently…and by the way, if you can figure out a better way to do it, go right ahead.”

Francis took Jesus as his literal model for godliness and simply did everything that Jesus did, including giving other people the shirt off his back and receiving the Stigmata. He initially said that his Rule of Life was nothing more than the Gospel itself. Later on, he was compelled by his followers to write down rules for those wishing to follow him in his radical lifestyle ( First and Second Order monks and nuns), and for those who wished to stay in their secular lives and follow a so-called Third Order Rule.

A Rule of Life addresses all the things that are important to help us live the way Jesus lived and become the kind of person that Jesus was. Thus it includes such things as what kind of prayer we practice, and how often we will pray. How often I will worship. How much exercise and food I will consume. How much money I will spend on myself and give to others. In short, it becomes a blueprint for how I will live my life. But it’s important to note that a Rule of Life is something that an individual develops themselves on a voluntary basis, according to their own life circumstances.

For instance, I drive about 45 minutes to work each day. What will I do with that time? For me it has become a time when I can sing the daily offices and memorize Psalms. Sometimes I just keep silence and sometimes I listen to a program of particular interest to me. However, I almost never listen to the news as I drive along. I find it all very negative and biased anyway. So my drive time becomes something I actually accept and even look forward to at times.

When we complete our time and talent sheets, this is a sort of exercise in writing a limited Rule of Life. What will I do specifically for All Saints Anglican Church to help it fulfill the ministry that God has called it to? And so it goes. We develop guidelines for ourselves that will assist us to live out what we think is important, and those things that will help us to become more Christ-like

In our church life we are going to try to encourage both love of God and ones’s neighbor. We would like for every person in our church to love God with a deeply personal devotion that puts Him and His will first in our lives. We would like to be a “peculiar’ people who live differently from those of the world, who are merely selfish. To do this, we will encourage you to read your Bible and talk to God daily. We will ask you to learn to listen to God, and to become skilled at discerning His will – both through His written word and through the circumstances and people he brings into our lives.

We will ask you to refrain from Sin – those things that directly displease God and which humans are not really designed to do anyway. During Lent and Advent, we take on specific disciplines such as increased Bible reading, prayer or fasting in order to help us grow in our Love of God and our Neighbor. All these are aspects of one’s Rule of Life.


On to our Neighbors:
The first thing we need to do is to acknowledge the Painfully Obvious: My Neighbor is my neighbor. This includes those who live in close proximity to me, those who live in my town and state. In fact, every other person is really my neighbor, but especially those who lives are closely linked with ours, as the BCP puts it. How can we actively love these folks as our own selves?
How about Sharing the Good News with them or inviting them to come to church? Consider the following Stats:

Nationally 17.5% of the population goes to church
WV: 16.4% go to Church
Cabell County 20.7% go to church
Population of Cabell County: 94,031. 29,464 go to church. 74,943 stay home! Source: Dave Olson, 2005 study.’

We’ve got a potential population of 75,000 who could become Christians and start coming to church in one county alone!

How People Come to Christ:

Special Needs: 1-2%
Walk-in 2-3%
Pastor : 5-6%
Visitation 1-2%
Mass Evangelism 4-5%
Church Program 2-3%
Friend/Relative 75-90%
Source: The Master Plan for Making Disciples by Win Arn And Charles Arn.

The majority of people who make professions of faith in Christ do so because of the influence of a friend or family member. People who come to church do so because someone invited them personally. The greatest thing you can do for a friend is to help them come into a saving relationship with Christ.

Application: Write down on a sheet of paper: Oikos ( my circle of acquaintances or household). Who do you know? It would be really cool if so and so became a Christian. Pray for them. Invite them to church or to small groups

Small Groups can be the vehicle of inviting people to church and to Christ. Begin meeting in mid November : Friday the 10 or 17. Need a home to meet in.

Kids in the Kingdom
There are 75,000 people in Cabell County that aren’t going to church right now. Consider the following:

Probability of embracing Christ as savior:
32% for those between ages 5 and 12
4% for those between 13-18
6% for those 19 or older. Source: George Barna, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions: Why Children should be your Church’s #1 Priority.
The clear message is that Children are where it’s at for the Church. Tie in to 1410 Charleston Avenue and the HOPE mentoring project. Go where the children are and be part of influencing them towards Christ!

Other Opportunities to Love and serve our Neighbors:

The Barboursville Veteran’s Home Thanksgiving/Christmas project.
Thanksgiving Sunday take gifts and do music after church?

What can you come up with? There are a thousand ways to serve God and love your neighbor. The above illustrations are only meant to be illustrative, and by no means exhaustive. As we go along, we will discover together what the Lord has for us to do. We’ll spend more time thinking about how to Love our God day by day, and how to love those around us who desperately need him as well.

So, here’s to understanding a few difficult things and then doing them.
AMEN.