Sunday, May 24, 2009

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on May 24, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV, based on John 17:11b-19:

"Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." (ESV)

Today’s gospel reading is a portion of Jesus’ last recorded prayer before going to Calvary. It is his only recorded extended prayer, his so-called “High Priestly” prayer for himself and his disciples before dying on the cross. This particular section pertains to the church itself and we learn several key things about ourselves as the church that we may summarize in the following statement:

God keeps, sanctifies and unifies his people who live in the world so that they may take the Truth of God to the world without becoming like the world.

Now, regarding the keeping power of God, we observe that in verse 11, Jesus hands his disciples back to God. God has given followers to Jesus and he has guarded and kept them while he was on earth (verse 12). None was lost except Judas, and this was ordained before hand.

This is a team effort in which The Father and The Son work together to birth and protect their creation, the church. Christ has faithfully imparted God’s Word to his disciples, and his desire for them is that they experience the same unity that He himself enjoys with the Father - that his people may have His joy as they live in the world. Jesus also asks God to ‘sanctify’ his people (v.17) – to make them holy or ‘set apart’ so that they may be kept as a unique and ‘otherworldly’ people, even while they are in the world.

Now, let’s ask ourselves a question. Up to this point, what is that the followers of Jesus do or accomplish? …. Nothing. This is a conversation a takes place within the Godhead in the Garden of Gethsemane – while the disciples are mostly sawing logs. (With the exception that someone must have been awake enough to overhear this prayer…). In a couple of sentences Jesus has spoken volumes. He has told us that Salvation is a Gift of God; that God protects His people so that they may continue in the faith, and that Joy is the result of being united to God and to one another. All this is pure Gift, pure Grace.

Salvation comes from God. Perseverance in the faith comes from God. Unity comes from God. Sanctification comes from God. They are all Gifts, which are wonderful in and of themselves but which have a purpose – to enable God’s people to accomplish something ‘in the world’.

Now another question: What is ‘the World’ ? In his commentary on John, William Barclay says the world is “human society organizing itself apart from God”. Again: human society organizing itself apart from God. Perhaps the most famous example of this from the Old Testament is the Tower of Babel story, in which the people take it upon themselves to build a tower ‘reaching to the heavens’ – totally without regard for whether or not God in Heaven wants to be reached by means of a tower – so that they might make a name for themselves and be great. This is what the Greeks would have called Hubris – overweening pride. So then, to be worldly, means that you yourself are in charge of your own life, completely apart from what God desires for you.

From this definition, I hope you can see that the essence of worldliness is not what you eat or drink, not what you wear, whether or not you wear makeup, or put rings on your fingers. The essence of worldliness is the tendency towards self-sufficiency and doing things ‘my way’.

Now having said that, it is also true that having the ‘stuff’ of the world has a tendency to seduce us into thinking that we are in charge of our lives. Having a regular job with a regular income gives me the illusion of control. Being able to buy things whenever I wish can divert me from discomfort so that rather than turning to God for my deepest needs, I settle for some new clothes, a toy or some passing entertainment to dull my pain. Stuff is not bad in itself, but stuff can lure me into thinking there is nothing higher than stuff – and this is worldliness: organizing my life as if God did not exist.

Jesus prays for us to avoid this fate. He wants us to be intimately connected with God, to be like branches on the vine which only bear fruit as they stay connected to the vine. This is holiness, sanctification, dedication to God. It’s the only thing in life that produces True Life. And Jesus wants this for us more than anything.

Our Mission
But while being connected to God is wonderful in itself, we have also been given a job to do – to share that Wonder with others. Verse 18: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” In Matthew 28:18, Jesus expands upon this sending: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Now notice that he didn’t say “Give them informational brochures’ or ‘post a website’ with this information and let it go at that. No. The Commission is deeply personal and labor-intensive: Make disciples. Baptize them. Teach them. Do this for a long time – until the end of the age.

Friends, this is the Work of the Kingdom and every one of us is commissioned and expected to do it. This is what we are to do. And I’ll remind you again that most people come to church because they are invited. They’re invited by someone they know and they come because they know someone. What does this mean for you and I? It means that we have to be out there in the world getting to know people.

How are we going to do that? In one of our recent small group conversations, we agreed that most of us don’t really know any non-believers. Because of our busy work lives, and our participation in church activities, we don’t spend time with people in the world. We don’t know any Worldlings. Or if we do, we don’t want to spend time with them because their lives are worldly.

Often, churches look to the clergy to be the ‘evangelists’. Some clergy are indeed ‘evangelists by gifting, but certainly not all. Ephesians 4:11,12 gives us this model: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…” The work of the ministry belongs to each one of us. The Great Commission commissions every one of us as believers to do the work.

The work then, involves growing in holiness, being connected to The Vine so that when you go out into the world, the world does not co-opt you, but rather, you have Life to impart to the world.

Our 8th Day Life Groups are meant to help facilitate your growth in the faith and help you as you go out into the world ‘doing the stuff’.

In terms of our personal outreach, each one of us, me included, needs to think about how we meet our unchurched or unsaved neighbors and then how to engage them in an ongoing relationship. Mind you, I’m not just talking about inviting them to church – although that’s fine. But most likely, they won’t come unless they know you. So, logically, you have to get to know them. For the sake of reinforcing one method of doing this, I’d like to reiterate the SHOT Principle:

SHOT Principle for Growth:
Go Somewhere together.
Ask for Help with a ministry.
Share a meal at Our house.
Visit Their house; share Testimony.

I’ve got more of the SHOT card here today if you would like another one. Again, I recommend that you write down on the other side of this card the names of people you will personally pray for and personally engage by means of the SHOT approach.

Do you remember the figure 75,000? Do you recall that more than 80 percent of people in our area do NOT go to church on Sunday morning? And do you remember that 5 out of 10 people who do not go to church DO have some sort of church background?

When you seek the lost, you are not seeking total strangers. They are most likely church people who simply drifted away. These people need to be re-engaged as disciples and it’s our job to do it.

So, my prayer for us all is that God will indeed keep, sanctify and unify us who live in the world so that we may take the Truth of God to the world without becoming like the world. Amen.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mother's Day 2009

A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on May 10, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV.

Last week, as Fr. Mark was preaching about Psalm 23, I had a very pleasant memory flood back into my mind – that of my mother teaching me the 23rd Psalm at night before I went to sleep. This was a regular occurrence at our house between the ages of about 7-11 or so. She would come in and say nighttime prayers with me and teach me various passages of Scripture, say the Lord’s Prayer, etc. It was sort of an informal catechism I suppose.

Growing up, we were Methodists, so Mom also told me about Susannah Wesley - how she taught her children Latin and Greek as well as classical studies, how she influenced her sons John and Charles, and how she became known as the Mother of Methodism. I think I was supposed to put it together that Mom was following in the great Methodist tradition by trying to get me to learn a few psalms and prayers before bedtime. And I guess to some extent I did, because I still remember the things she taught me before bed – evidence for the powerful impact of a mother on her children.

At any rate, today is Mother’s Day, and we want to spend some time lauding Mothers as they so richly deserve. As you likely know, Mother’s Day and West Virginia have a rich history.
According to the Mother’s Day Central web site:

“Anna Reeves Jarvis held the first official celebration of mothers, in her home state of West Virginia in 1858. She instituted Mothers' Work Day to raise awareness about local sanitation issues. During the Civil War, she expanded the scope of Mothers' Work Day to include sanitary conditions on both sides of the battlefield…”

In 1905, Anna Reeves Jarvis passed away and her daughter, Anna Jarvis, took up her mother's torch. Anna swore on her mother's gravesite that she would realize her lifelong dream of creating a national day to honor mothers. In 1907, Anna launched her campaign by handing out white carnations to congregants at her mother's church, St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal, in Grafton, West Virginia. In 1908, her mother's church acquiesced to Anna's request to hold a special Sunday service in honor of mothers - a tradition that spread the very next year to churches in 46 states. In 1909, Anna left her job and dedicated herself to a full-time letter-writing campaign, imploring politicians, clergymen and civic leaders to institute a national day for mothers.

In 1912 …West Virginia adopted an official Mother's Day; two years later, the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, signed by President Wilson, establishing a national Mother's Day emphasizing the role of women in their families …Ever since, Mother's Day has been celebrated by Americans on the second Sunday in May.” (Mother’s Day Central.com).

So, I would like to help us celebrate Motherhood on this second Sunday of May by referencing some mothers who point to three typical characteristics of the godly mother: their capacity to teach, their role as defenders of righteousness, and their power in intercession.

The first characteristic we have already mentioned. Mothers are, of course, natural teachers. From the moment of birth, mothers teach their children intimately through a thousand small interactions – from learning to suck at the first hour of birth, to learning one’s alphabet before going to school – as Susannah Wesley taught her children, mothers are constantly teaching. Their influence is both didactic and moral in that a mother’s godly influence can sometimes carry an entire family.

Cindy’s grandmother was such a woman - someone who was very devout and who would go up on the hill to ‘pray through’ when she had something pressing on her mind. As an example, during World War Two, one of her sons was missing in action. Marthie went up on the hill and prayed loud and long until she finally got the answer she was looking for. She came down off the hill convinced that her son was coming home. – And sure enough – he did come home, being the only soldier from his company to survive because he was taken prisoner of war. Understandably, such as woman shows a formidable profile to her offspring – and even to this day, her faith inspires her extended family. Marthie, through her personal devotion to God, taught her family that God was the source of her being and her provision. He was the one to go to first, and the One to whom the family owed allegiance for providing all good things. She taught her family well and she was a powerful intercessor.

Moses’s mother Jochebed (Ex. 6:20) illustrates an aspect of motherly character - the capacity for fearless political resistance – but it is important to say that this political action is always activated by concern for one’s immediate family. And so there is another characteristic of godly womanhood at play here – the deeply personal nature of morality. While men tend to be consumed with abstract principles, women, and especially mothers seem to know intuitively what is right or wrong – always in the context of the family life. Jochebed knew the decree of Pharaoh that all the male children were to be killed, but she disobeyed this command because her flesh and bone were at stake. Instead she managed to find a way for her son to be adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter – and then given back to her to nurse! Pretty shrewd.

I think we can also see this trait evidenced in the midwives of Moses’ era. They too flaunted the commandment. They did not fear Pharaoh, but I imagine that he was very annoyed by them and may have even feared them as a determined lot. Their political action was based on the immediacy of the personal connection with children, not on some abstract principle.

The career of a mother is tinged by sadness. Her children are always going away from her. Mom gets 9 months to have her child all to herself, and after that it’s one major separation after the other; first birth, then being pulled away to go to school, then off they go to get married, and in some cases – notably Mary the mother of Jesus, her son goes off to be killed. It’s a trajectory of separation – and mothers suffer exquisitely from this constant experience of being separated from their children.

Along this same line, I’d like to mention that although this is a day of celebrating motherhood, this is also a day that is very, very difficult for many women who desire to be mothers, but have not been able to conceive, for those who have lost children due to miscarriage, and for those whose children have died before reaching the age of majority. This was brought home forcibly to me last week, when I sat with a woman who showed me an extensive scrapbook dedicated to her miscarried child.

The scrapbook detailed every step of this woman’s pregnancy, and included several poems describing her emotions along the way. In the book she chronicles her joy in becoming pregnant, her sense of anticipation and then her horror and devastation during the miscarriage and subsequent D&C she had to undergo. She wrote about her anguish and the challenge to her faith, her anger and her pain – but in the end she finds the grace to let go and give the child up to God. Reading through this scrapbook of remembrance was both a privilege and a prod to my own faith. It sensitized me anew to the pain associated with the loss of a child, and helped me realize that Mother’s Day is an occasion to remember and reach out to those who suffer because they have lost a child or yearn to have one.

Now in the Old Testament, Hannah is such a mother. She was, you’ll remember, a woman who had a hard time conceiving a child. Because she was one of two wives, her rival, Penninah tortured Hannah about being childless. Hanna was ashamed of this and decided to devote herself to prayer until she was able to conceive, making a vow to God that if she had a child, she would dedicate him to the Lord. This she did, becoming the mother of Samuel the prophet. Hannah shows us a character that is desperate for God to answer, tenacious in prayer, and steadfast in carrying out her vows to the Lord. In Jewish teaching she is often considered a paradigm of the godly woman.

Then too we think about Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, who was a godly woman, married to a godly man, and who again illustrates the pain of being childless. She and her husband are chosen to come the parents of John the Baptist because of their righteousness before God, and their tenacious faith, even in their advanced years. They are emblematic of faithfulness in the face of a barren condition and thus are teachers to Israel. When Elizabeth conceives, she says, in Luke 1:25: “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” God comes to her as a representative of the Jewish nation. He sees her affliction and her groaning, and he comes to her to take away her reproach. Thus she teaches her nation how to look for Messiah.

Finally, we come to Mary, whom we have already mentioned briefly. Mary was, of course, an upright young woman. When Gabriel comes to her with the announcement of her impending pregnancy, he greets her by saying, “Greetings, (or “hail”) O favored one, the Lord is with you!” a foreshadowing of the child she would bear – Emmanuel – God with us.
I her response to Gabriel, Mary teaches us how to be Christians. “Be it done to me according to your will” she says. This is the response to God that ushers a person into the Kingdom, and it is the same response that keeps us on the path with God throughout our Christian lives. We will never go wrong if we say to God, “Be it done to me according to your will.”

Mary teaches us to be a defender of justice in her song of praise to God. She shows that she has a political consciousness when she says:

“He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;he has brought down the mighty from their thronesand exalted those of humble estate;he has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53)

By participating with God in the birth of Messiah, she becomes a defender of righteousness and an exponent for Justice.

Then too her intercessory capacity is illustrated in a very domestic way when she goes to Jesus at the wedding of Cana (John 2) and says to him, “They have no wine.” I love this simple statement because every son or husband knows immediately what was going on here. That simple statement was no mere observation, it was a demand! Jesus got it right away and he replies, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” He knew that his mother expected him to do something about it.

She was interceding for her friends in that very personal way that only mothers manifest – the request that is no request, but rather an expectation. Her terse instruction to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.” is a wonderfully multi-layered. It is really spoken to Jesus with an implied threat: “You better do something…” It is a statement that conveys a knowledge of Jesus that goes beyond faith and becomes certainty. It’s as if she is saying, “Look, we both know you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Now do something!” Her ‘intercession’ for the newlyweds is based in her certainty about the true identity of Jesus.

And in that simple command, “Do whatever he tells you.” Mary teaches us a wonderfully simple way to follow Jesus. Just listen up and do whatever he tells you!
I hope that in these reflections you can see that our observance of Mother’s Day isn’t just a greeting card holiday, but a profound acknowledgement of a mother’s role in teaching us, in defending righteousness, and in interceding before our God.

I’d like for us to respond by taking our your insert containing the Magnificat. Let’s honor Mary, the mother of our faith, and all other mothers by saying together this powerful song:

Mary's Song of Praise: The Magnificat (Luke 1:47-55)

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Thursday, May 07, 2009

A Prayer for Families

A Prayer delivered to those assembled at the West Virginia State Capitol at noon on the National Day of Prayer, May 7, 2009


Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father: who created us in Your own image and set us in families to reflect your Image and nurture one another in love:

We commend to Your continual care the homes in which our people dwell. We confess before You that in our weakness and foolishness, we have failed to love one another as You loved us and gave Your own dear Son for us.

We have failed to impart to our children the knowledge and love of You, and instead have worshipped idols of our own making, reaping failure and brokenness - exposing our children to lives of futility and debt.

Forgive us Lord in Your mercy. Grant us grace to do your will and truly reflect your image – male and female – that we may raise up a godly heritage, steward your creation faithfully and enjoy Your Presence on earth as it is in Heaven.

For Your name’s sake, Lord, strengthen and revive us. Teach us to love one another. Give us courage to face our challenges, and wisdom to impart to our children. Pour out Your compassion, that we may reach out in love to those who are in trouble, need or affliction – that they may be comforted in their distress and know You as You are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread.

Lord we name before you the lonely, the homeless, the bereaved and the oppressed, those who have lost jobs and are idle, those who have jobs and are too busy, those who struggle and those who rejoice, those who seek companions and those content to be single. Remember and shield them all in your Love.

Lord, guide us and govern us in your grace, that in all the cares and occupations of our lives, we may not forget You but may remember that we are ever walking in Your sight. Hear our supplications Lord, and grant our prayers, not as we ask in our ignorance or , nor as we deserve in our sinfulness, but as you know and love us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Our Response to Christ's Redemption

A Sermon Delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on April 26, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Hospital, Huntington, WV


Our opening collect for today includes the following phrase: “Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work”…

We could ask, “What is all His redeeming work?”, or: “What does Jesus redeem?” and the basic answer is: ‘Everything that was lost in the Fall.”

What was lost in the Fall? First and most tragically, we lost fellowship with God. Human beings, who had been created for loving and covenantal relationship with the most High, fell out of intimacy with God through Sin. They – we – also fell out of fellowship with one another, with the physical environment, and even with our own selves. In short, through the Fall, we are alienated in every aspect of our lives.

But thanks be to God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross, God has redeemed us – all of us. There is a slogan that goes: “God saves wholes not souls” – In other words He saves redeems ALL of life, not just disembodied spirits.

So what does it mean that God has redeemed me as a whole person? And how do I respond?
Well, firstly, through the work of Christ, God redeems our relationship with Him. The blood of Christ takes away sin, not just covers it. Therefore, we now have fellowship with God and this enables us to enter into the Holy of Holies and to freely Worship Him in spirit and in truth. The dividing veil is gone and we enter in as the People of God – his very plan for human beings all along. In Response to Christ’s redemption of our relationship with God, we practice the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; we Worship. This is what defines us Christians: as the people of God, we are a worshipping community.

Then too, Christ redeems us from our own selves. Because we have been reconciled with God, our sins are forgiven and we can be at peace with our selves once more. There is healing for our deepest personal wounds in the blood of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. His plan for us is to look like Jesus – to transform us daily by the renewing of our minds and hearts. (Rom 12:2). In Response, we present ourselves before God in private devotion and in personal Bible study and reflection, as well as with other spiritual disciplines that lead to our transformation into the image of Christ. We practice Formation.

Next, we note that Jesus has redeemed our relationships with others. He came to bind up the wounds of the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom to prisoners and release to captives. (is. 61:1). This applies to the world of interpersonal and societal relations. Jesus redeems our relationships with other people.

In Response we enjoy the fellowship of other believers and we reach out to others with the healing power and Grace of Christ. This is really an overlapping of Community and Mission.

Through our 8th Day Life Groups, and other types of fellowship in the body, we practice Community with the Body of Christ. We eat together and share our lives. We encourage one another personally and in the Lord. We interact as Family, as the people of God, as a Community of believers. We pray for one another and we attempt to build up one another in our faith. We respond to Christ’s redemptive work by practicing Community with one another.

But we also respond by going to our larger Community in Mission, to wherever the world is hurting. We attempt to bring the “those who do not know Christ to the knowledge and love of Him’, as one of our collects for mission states. We respond by noticing the things that hurt in our Community.

For instance, here in the Tri-State region people are suffering horribly through their addictions to drugs and alcohol – which in turn leads to all manner of crimes affecting all manner of people, from the arrest of prominent physicians for drug running, to thefts, to the murder of innocent – and not so innocent people.

Every one who suffers and dies as a result of drug or alcohol involvement is a victim of the Devil. As Christians, we ought not to stand for this, but aggressively take the Gospel to our world and reclaim everything that the Devil tries to claim for his own. Our response to Christ’s redemption of human society is to practice Mission.

Our Mission even extends to the very ground itself.

Last year, when we participated in the Four Corners Blessings, we poured out the Body and Blood of Christ onto the ground, proclaiming healing of the very environment by the sacrifice and life of Christ. We did the same thing at our first Memorial Eucharist at Hope House. We buried the bread and poured out the wine of Christ’s body and blood on the ground to redeem it and take it back from the Devil.

When we did this, we proclaimed Christ’s death and we also proclaimed his transformative life, which renews the very Earth.

Because we responded to Christ’s redemption of sin and death, Hope House is no longer a drug house and place of death, but a place of prayer and life.
This ought to excite us greatly. Death is swallowed up in Life and the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Our Response to Christ’s Redemption of the World then, is to reach out in Mission.

So again, we Respond in the four basic areas because Christ Redeems all of our lives. I remind you of one of the definitions of prayer: Our response to God, whether with words or without words, with deeds or without deeds.

Friends, let’s make our lives a prayer to God by responding to God’s grace and mercy in all our actions. By His Grace, let us live out our calling as the People of God, and as All Saints Anglican Church. AMEN.