The Good News!

Welcome! I am the Rev. Ken Saunders. I serve as the rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Greeneville, Tennessee (since May 2018). These sermons here were delivered in the context of worship at the various places I have served.

[NOTE: Sermons (or Homilies) are commentaries that follow the scripture lessons, and are specifically designed to be heard. They are "written for the ear" and may contain sentence fragments and be difficult to read. They are NOT intended to be academic papers.]

Sunday, August 29, 2010

RCL Year C (Proper 17) - August 29, 2010

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Proper 17) - August 29, 2010

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

As most of you know, I grew up in Southern Virginia. I was very blessed to have known both sets of my grandparents, who lived very close to us.

On Sunday afternoon, after church, we would gather at my grandparents house for a proper “southern” Sunday dinner… complete with homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and my grandmothers famous homemade rolls.

My dad’s whole side of the family would be there… His older sister, her husband, and their 4 boys… My uncle (dad’s twin brother) and his wife… and us 4 (Mom, Dad, my sister and I). At any given time, there would be 14 to 21 of us that would eat Sunday dinner there.

At my grandparent’s home, as I would imagine in most houses, seating for that many people was a problem. They were fortunate enough to have a long rectangle table in the dining room. I can remember that my grandfather would always sit at the “head” of the table with my grand mother to his right. Likewise, my father, being the oldest male of the 3, would sit at the other “head” of the table, with my mother to his right. Everyone then would sit in their “proper” place… My aunt would sit to my grandfathers left and my dad’s brother would sit to my fathers left. The youngest folks at the table were my older teen cousins.

My sister, younger cousin and I would sit at the “kids’” table in the kitchen. It was considered an honor in my family to sit at the adult table… and I didn’t get to move there until I was in high school! This arrangement isn’t strange to us. Some of you may have experienced the same kinds of things whether it was in your own families or your jobs.

I know that I have experienced this type of hierarchical “seating chart” most of my life. Throughout military school and college, formal business dinners and functions, and other formal gala affairs, it was always the same… Folks always sat in positions of honor, depending on who you were and how important people thought that you were.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus is invited to the house of the leader of the Pharisees for a dinner on the Sabbath… The Pharisees, you know, were the religious elite, (the important folks) and they are very interested in Jesus’ eating habits. After all, Jesus had been known and often accused of eating with tax collectors, outcasts, and sinners. Upon arrival at the home for dinner, Jesus immediately notices how the guest choose their places of honor. Once again, Jesus takes the opportunity to upset the traditional order of things and stand society right on its ear.

Who sat where at a meal during the time of Jesus, as in some cases today, was a critical statement of social standing. Dinners were important social occasions, and they were often used for political gain. Who you ate with, and who you associated with defined who you were and how important your position was to the society.

So, the folks invited to this dinner, scramble around the table to be the first to get to the “good seats” (the places of honor) so they might be seen and have a chance to “hob-knob” with the right people… they strived to be the ones sitting in the positions of power and authority.

But Jesus sees this and teaches them, he says, if you are invited to eat with someone, do not sit in a place of honor, but go sit in the lowest place… because, all who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there with his teaching on the “seating chart” he goes on to teach them about their guest list of “who should have been invited.” He says, don’t invite the rich and famous, so that they may invite you in return… but invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be repaid on the day of resurrection.

Now, if we see Jesus’ teaching simply as a lesson in social etiquette for dinner parties – of how to arrange our seating chart and our guest list, we are completely missing the point… Jesus is speaking to us in a much larger context. He wants us to understand how powerful it is to share a meal equally with someone. To eat with someone is to engage them intimately, to share God’s generosity with them either as a host (as God is our’s) or as a guest (as we are God’s) …

We are at our best, as Christian people, when we share a meal… Some folk would like to think that Christianity in a nutshell revolves simply around a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” A personal relationship is necessary, but Christianity is a very social concept, and we connect with God and experience God through our relationships… our interactions with each other as part of the body of Christ.

Eating together in fellowship with one another is one of the best ways that we can accomplish this. So, it shouldn’t be strange to us that the central act of Christian worship (since the beginning) includes table fellowship at the celebration of Holy Eucharist.

Through the Eucharist, the spiritual grace that comes from being united with one another in Christ is imparted to us. That is why we sometimes call it communion... It is a gathering of the community in union with each other and with God… in one great fellowship of love. We know through scripture that Jesus desires to have that close fellowship with us. That’s why he told us to share a specific meal when we gather… Jesus wants to connect with us intimately as our host.

It is only Christ Jesus who frees us from the constant competition of our culture’s struggles for power and esteem. Jesus frees us from hierarchical relationships and the attitudes, and barriers that they create, so that we can be free to create community with each other and enjoy the security that only comes from God’s grace in our lives.

In the middle ages, the myth about King Arthur and the knights of the round table help us understand today’s lesson. The legend is that King Arthur was a humble king, as was his father, and he understood his place as the first among equals.

They used a round table because a “round table” doesn’t have any position of power or privilege… It has no “head.” It was said that Merlin, Arthur’s trusted magician, built this table copying Joseph of Aremethia’s “Grail Table,” or the table supposedly used by Christ and his disciples at the last supper. A table where all who sit at it are considered equal…

Jesus teaches us this morning that we should cultivate and practice humility in our lives, and uses something as common as sharing a meal to show us how simple it can be.

In that practice of humility the standards and practices of discrimination and prejudice are overthrown. The outcasts, repentant sinners, and yes – even the tax collectors, will be accepted as equals in the kingdom of God. They will all be with us at the table of Christ!

Jesus is inviting us into that kind of fellowship with him, to eat at his table, and experience the foretaste of that great heavenly banquet that we will experience at the resurrection of the righteous…

There is no hierarchy at the table of Christ, there is no prejudice, no class, and no race… There is just us… us in the company of all faithful believers, sitting with Jesus at his table. And what an incredible honor it is for us to even be invited.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

RCL Year C (Proper 16) - August 22, 2010

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Proper 16) - August 22, 2010

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

What bends us out of shape??? Why is it, when we don’t get our way, our first instinct is to act like kindergarten children and get bent all out of shape? Bent out of shape because we don’t want to do something, or we don’t think that we need to do something… we contort ourselves and grimace at the mere thought of doing something that we don’t agree with.

Why is it so hard for us to un bend from the old “norms” – the way things have always been done, and bend in ways that help give new life and vitality into our community.

We get all bent out of shape at the most unlikely sources… but as we know, it’s not God that twists, it’s us that do the twisting… it’s not God who destroys, it is us that are self destructive. Our God saves… no matter how bent out of shape we feel, no matter how shaken we get, when we reach out, God is right there to make it right… to heal us, to restore us and to give us new life.

Last week, we heard the passage of Jesus, longing to bring fire to the earth, and “getting things cooking.”

I have often used the idiom in vestry meetings and other forums, that I “shake” the snow globe. If we think about it, that’s one way to keep things going.

I had a snow globe as a child, you know, one of those glass balls with a winter scene inside and water and flecks of white that looked like snow. I would keep it on my night stand, and before I went to bed, I would shake it! And if I woke up in the middle of the night, I would shake it again!

It was my way of keeping it going… of keeping the snow falling… So the snow would fall, and then make the scene in the globe complete.

We are all part of that scene…

The scene that God created for us… And I will admit… I do things in order to “shake” the snow globe sometimes, to keep the things going that Jesus started. To make us feel a bit uncomfortable with the way things are, and make us think about the way things could be.

Shaking the snow globe is a wonderful process of examination and reexamination… of shaking up and loosening the insecurities that we hold on to that are of this world… After the shaking we see the solid eternal things that are of God that remain.

What remains is that grounded and steady truth of God… the root of the power of relationships and community… the love of God that binds us all together. The problems is, whoever is doing the shaking… that sometimes we don’t like the way the snow globe has been shaken, and we get upset for one reason or another. This feeling can cause us to get all bent out of shape.

Jesus is teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. And the scripture says that a woman with a crippling spirit has been bent over and not able to stand up straight for 18 long years… Without her asking, in one word and a laying on of hands, Jesus heals her from her ailment and restores her to perfect health…

She immediately stands up straight and begins praising God. But in doing that one profound act of healing and mercy, Jesus shakes the snow globe of society and disrupts the status quo.

The leader of the synagogue then gets all bent out of shape and accuses Jesus of breaking the law because he healed on the Sabbath. But, like people so often who get bent out of shape, he doesn’t come to Jesus and confront him directly, he keeps saying to the crowd – accusing Jesus – sort of like going behind Jesus’ back. But Jesus sets it right, comparing his actions to simply giving water to a donkey or ox. He restores dignity and gives new life to the woman, setting her free from her disorder, from the demons that torment her.

When we get bent out of shape about something, our tendency is to grimace, and contort our faces to show people that we are not happy, we talk behind backs and accuse wrongly, especially if we think that our way of life is being challenged or disrupted… especially if we think our snow globe is being shaken.

When this happens, there is only one answer… to let the eternal love of our Lord Jesus Christ reach out to us and heal us… to help us loose our grip from whatever demon it is that we are so gravely holding onto and allow Jesus to show us a way of trust in God and the eternal solid things that should be the focus of our attention.

It is our only way that we keep things going… Jesus “got things cooking” by bring the consuming fire to the earth last week. Now, it’s up to us to keep things going.

The way I see it, we have 2 choices: we either act like the crippled woman and let ourselves be healed and restored stand up straight, and praise God… Or we can be like the Synagogue leader and get all bent out of shape, accuse, talk behind peoples backs, and complain about others and the way things are…

It is when and only when we surrender ourselves to Christ's Lordship, and completely give ourselves over, and live for Him that we begin to see the things that bend us out of shape are meaningless.

So, will we accept Christ as he attempts to mold us and form us into his image, restoring us and making us whole? Or will we reject Christ and think we have it all figured out by ourselves and continue to walk around all bent out of shape?

Sunday, August 15, 2010

RCL Year C (Proper 15) - August 15, 2010

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Proper 15) - August 15, 2010

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

I have talked before about us living in a world of paradox. In the stress and tension of everything, we live in paradox. Life as we know it is a paradox: Good and Evil, War and Peace, “Normal” and “Not Normal.”

We could even carry it further: Rich and Poor, the “Haves” and the “Have Nots,” Heretic and Orthodox, Straw and Wheat, Heaven and Earth, Truth and Lies… Our contemporary culture defines paradox as a riddle without an answer; a problem without a solution; or a tension that cannot be relieved.

We all live in this tension of a paradox – and it is extremely difficult. Within the paradox, we must make decisions to govern our lives; who to follow, how to act, and even what to believe. We long for everything to be spelled out for us and we wish that someone would just hand us an instruction book that we could follow.

Even with all the knowledge, skills, and abilities that we have acquired through social developments, new discoveries, and even technological advances, we often make mistakes living within the paradox…

But, we DO need to give ourselves credit sometimes… because sometimes we make the right choices and get it right. But we know that sometimes we just fail! No matter how hard we try, sometimes we just lay a big ole’ egg…

When we get into a real mess, we wish that we could prophesy and tell the future, thinking that if we somehow know the outcome, that it will be that much better for us. But we can’t – so we have to live within the mess that we have made for ourselves.

The word paradox even makes us uncomfortable until we realize that even the Holy Scriptures, (the New Testament in particular), is full of paradox.

Jesus has been teaching us a lot these past few weeks, in the season following Pentecost, the time when Jesus is on his journey of ministry, on his way to Jerusalem… We have learned about how to be a better disciple, we have been sent out into the muck of our lives to try to live the good news of our salvation. We have been taught to greet others with hospitality and love them – thereby being Christ to them. We have even been called to show greater commitment to eternal things by giving, sharing and living in our community and growing in our common life in our relationship to one another.

This morning, it seems like, all of a sudden, Jesus changes gears on us and throws us into sort of his own paradox. We go from Jesus calling for intense following, loyal devotion, and urgent mission - to Jesus speaking of fire, division, and prophecy. These word are scary and hard to hear, especially after last week’s message of “don’t be afraid little flock.”

Jesus doesn’t use his normal tone that we have been getting used to over the past few weeks. It isn’t the faithful following, mission, and hospitality that we have been hearing about. Where are the comfortable words that Jesus has been giving us in the previous 42 verses of Luke’s Gospel?
Therefore we have the paradox that Luke presents us with this morning. And we need to look for the answers in the tension of the paradox between what we have been learning (about what it means to follow Jesus as Lord and savior) and what we are presented with this morning.

Jesus says that he came to bring fire to the earth and he wishes that it were already kindled. To us today, this seems harsh, like Jesus is wanting to impose some kind of harsh judgment. A judgment like we would expect in the end of times when the whole world is to be judged.

However, if we read this passage with the same urgency of mission that Jesus has been presenting to us all along, we can put some of the language that he uses in its proper context. We can start to understand that Jesus is actually teaching us in the way he has been teaching us all along.

In Jesus’ time, the word they used for their outdoor oven was the same word that they used for earth. So, when he says he came to bring “fire” to the “earth.” It is an idiom for getting things started or as we would probably say today, “let’s get cooking!” So, Jesus wanted to “get things started” and Jesus knows that getting things fired up with any kind of urgency is going to cause some real social problems for his followers…

This was a REAL problem… Family and social status was all they had, it was their source of livelihood, and most often the difference between their life and their death. Back then, you were alienated from your family or clan by associating with what was considered to be an inappropriate social relationship (the folks on the “other side” of the tracks, the wrong crowd that your mamma warned you about)… in this case, it was Jesus!

You are putting everything at risk: your wealth, inheritance, your social status… everything that meant anything! You would move very quickly from being a “have” to being a “have not.” The consequence of that kind of involvement would be enough to cause so much tension and stress that it would pit family against family, son against father and mother against daughter and divide the household completely.

We cannot make a commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and savior without it affecting the way we relate to each other, the way we relate to our friends or even to our family members. As we have learned over the past weeks, our commitment to Christ shapes our values, our priorities, our goals, and our behaviors. It causes us to change the old patterns of our lives and makes us face difficult choices in our commitment to the gospel.

And our decision to follow Jesus sometimes is faced with opposition from others. So, we opt to live into the tension of the paradox in the choices we must make. When we set out to follow Christ, and do what we perceive to be the good, moral, and right, we are doing something counter-cultural… The theologian, H. Richard Niebuhr, calls this dilemma Christ and Culture in paradox.

Jesus himself knew the devastating consequences that the choice to follow Him could have. So, he warned his followers to be prepared to encounter the same hardships. As followers of Jesus Christ, we must look at our own lives, through the lens of the paradox,

What do we pay close attention to… and to what do we turn a blind eye? What claims our closest attention? Fluctuations in the stock market? Evidence of our social standing? Our grade point average? Opportunities to look good before our superiors at work? What things do we watch with the same close attention that the Palestinian farmer paid to changes in the weather? Jesus’ sayings this morning challenge us to examine the paradox and the tension that exists between what gets our attention and what is neglected in our own lives.

We should consider whether the inconsistencies in our lives reveal a pattern of prioritizing “insignificant” things while jeopardizing those things that could have the greatest value and importance.

We could ask the questions of ourselves… Have we given as much attention to the health of our church as we have to our retirement plans? or Have we given as much attention to the maintenance of our spiritual disciplines as to the maintenance schedule for our car? Where in the scale of our attention to detail does our devotion to the teachings of our Lord rank?

Jesus says that we may be able to interpret the weather by looking at the dark clouds in the sky! (channel 14 could probably learn something here…), but why do we remain blind to what really is going on in our lives??

As we approach the holy table this morning, and partake of the bread and wine which is the bond of communion that we share with each other… It is our unity, it is what unites us… and our belief that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior…

We receive it and are nourished with the spiritual food that is his alone to give… In our community of faith, we have made the conscience decision to continue the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The question for us this morning is what are we doing to “get things cooking?”

Are we doing what he commanded as we live through the struggles of discerning our path together? We live in the paradox, so let us remain focused on why we are here and what we are doing… That way, and only that way, we can make the effort to move forward in the mission of our Lord together.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

RCL Year C (Proper 14) - August 8, 2010

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Church - Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Proper 14) - August 8, 2010

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

Last week, we talked a bit about priorities, and setting the priorities for our lives in order to live into the kingdom of God… About how our priorities become messed up, and skewed all out of whack, as we pursue the devices and desires of our own hearts.

In the gospel text from Luke this morning, Jesus continues that message, but he basically says, "Don't be afraid. I will give you the Kingdom of God. Use the gifts that God gives you so that you have permanent benefits – and – then you will be happy – if you are ready for my return."

Or, we could even paraphrase it in a more simple way, don't be afraid, enjoy your stuff and be happy. This sounds like a wonderful, simple, easy lesson! But there is one problem - None of us can do this!

Most of our lives are spent on a never-ending journey, running around in circles with one foot nailed to the floor… searching for something that can give us hope and meaning to our lives.

We surround ourselves with all kinds of “if only” promises to ourselves – holding onto a false idea of hope…

• if only we had enough time… then we would be more involved…
• if only we made enough money… then we could give more to the church…
• if only we had a full time priest… then the pews would be full and our programs would be busting at the seams.
• if only we had things exactly the way they were when I was a child in this parish – back when times were good… then we would be just fine…
• if only we were able to keep this building exactly the way it was when it was built in 1827… then somehow we wouldn’t need to go out and invite our neighbors to church, they would just want to come.
• if only we had enough money in our plate… then we could give 10% to the diocese

In this mornings lesson, we find out that Jesus came to earth to take the "if only" phrases out of our lives. So, let’s examine the gifts promised to us in today's Gospel lesson and look at how he eliminates the "if only" phrases from our lives.

"Don't be afraid."

To live into the Kingdom of God is to live in a realm without fear. Jesus said in our lesson that we are not to fear! - because it is God's pleasure to give us the kingdom. The absence of fear is achieved only when we are filled with love. By being filled with the love of God is the door we open to enter the Kingdom where there is no fear. This is good news! But it is scary.

Perhaps this is the reason that the first thing that ALL of the angels say when they appear in a passage of scripture is “don’t be afraid!”

"don't be afraid." Now, there is some irony in all of this. Living without fear because we are filled with the love of God… This can be a scary concept!

The next promise from Jesus in this text is that we should enjoy our stuff forever. We have all heard the phrase that “we reap what we sow.” We can have an “eternal” purse. There is that text that says we are to "lay up treasure in heaven."

But - the treasure of heaven, or the stuff in an eternal purse, is not money at all. There is no divine Swiss bank account! Just like I said last week… You can’t take it with you! The treasure of heaven is the relationships that we build here on earth.

I don’t think that we completely understand the consequences of giving to God and what it means for the work of God to be done in this world. We are not just talking about money here… Part of that work is sharing the good news about Jesus by the way you live your life... When this good news is shared people are drawn to God. They are led to claim Jesus as Savior and submit to his authority. Then the ultimate reward is to enter that realm of love we call the kingdom of God… and that kingdom is eternal!!

We are the treasures of heaven for each other! Jesus ' invitation is deep… we are to send our treasures on ahead of us in the form of relationships grounded in the love of God.

The final promise of Jesus in this morning’s lesson is happiness. So far, we are called to live unafraid after giving away all our stuff. Now we are told that this is the way to happiness…

The word "blessed" in this passage is most appropriately translated as happy. The text calls "blessed" or "happy" those who are ready for the Lord's return. So, how can we be ready for the Lord's return? Some interpret this question in a very moralistic way.

But, as we know – being ready for Jesus' return is a little more complicated than that. The readiness we are dealing with this morning has very little to do with morality. Though morality and virtue are good in and of themselves. They need no justification.

In reality, none of us is ready for the Jesus’ return just because we are good – regardless of how good we think we are, readiness for Jesus' return is grounded in the quality of the “relationships” that we have with each other and with Him. This readiness is a result of the love we have for each other and for Jesus…

Our “if-onlys” can be turned into true hope if only we can discover how to live without our "if onlys" by learning through the relationships on our journey together. Everything that we are seeking in life are ultimately discovered by being with each other and seeking it out together.

The Christian life that Jesus is promising in this text is very much like this. In relationship with Jesus and through learning about him together… we grow into the promises of today's Gospel lesson. As we grow in love and community with each other, we grow less and less in fearful…

As we grow in love and community with each other, we become more and more focused on eternal relationships… As we grow in love and community with each other, we await Jesus' coming not with dread, but with joy.

Perhaps it is scary to think about living this way, but remember the first thing that angels says, "don't be afraid!"