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.]

Friday, December 24, 2010

RCL Year A (Christmas) - December 24, 2010

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

RCL Year A (Christmas) - December 24, 2010

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Psalm 96

One of the things that I like most about this time of year is the wonderful movies that come on Television. I like ALL of them… It’s a Wonderful Life, the Santa Clause 1,2, & 3, A Christmas Carol – all derivations thereof (especially the 1938 version with Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge), Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, Jack Frost, Elf, Home Alone 1, 2, & 3, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (starring non other than the great Bing Crosby), and so many others…

I even like the animated shorts – the cute 30 minute specials like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and everyone’s favorite – the Dr. Seuss Classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

You may now be saying to yourself, “I came to church on Christmas eve at 10:30 to hear Ken talk about Christmas movies? I thought this was a church!” Well, this is church! And if you will bear with me a minute, I will explain WHY I like all these Christmas movies, and why they are worth mentioning, here, tonight!

What I hope you noticed immediately about these movies, is that in all the movies that I listed, the birth of Jesus Christ is not mentioned (with the exception of Charlie Brown). There is not a word that is prophetic or spiritual in any way. No baby in a manger, no travel to Bethlehem, no visiting shepherds, nothing to do with the real reason for Christmas – the Christ Mass.

Christmas… The celebration of the humility of God emptying God’s self completely and becoming incarnate, becoming flesh, becoming one of us, to live among us, and show us how to be with each other… Pure love embodied in the flesh of Jesus Christ…

Not a word… However, what these movies DO have in common is that they are all stories of interactive relationship. Regardless of how fictional they may be, they all tell us much about relationships… relationships with each other… relationships with family, with friends, and even relationships with those whom we may not like very much.

I think Jesus, who spoke profound truths and taught with metaphors and parables, would find these stories delightful in the way that they personify and teach us about relationships. The way they tell the story of relationships… That’s why they are so good… That’s why we watch them…

They let us reflect for a second about how we interact with each other, of how good it really could be for us if we practiced right relationship… if we would only let out heart be warmed a bit and our lives lived out for someone else besides ourselves – even someone that we may not even know.

So, all of these movies are really about relationships and togetherness… Togetherness with strangers, family, friends, and colleagues.

I have often said that God is revealed to us as a God of relationship… Not just the relationship of the trinity, complete within God’s self, as Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, but God as relationship with us and us with God.

God desired to have a relationship with us, in order to teach us about relationship. God became human, born of a woman, born under the law of Moses, born poor – on the fringes of society, to a family of artisans – crafters, who were not anything close to noble. God chose this entry in time and place to teach humanity about relationships, and how to participate fully in the important things of this world that have heavenly eternal rewards.

But, what we need to realize is that the incarnation (God becoming flesh – God becoming human) isn’t complete without us. William Porcher DuBose, the great theologian, said it best when he said that “God in Christ is only half the incarnation. Christ in us is the full other half.” The story of what happened in Bethlehem a little over 2 millennia isn’t finished, isn’t finished until that “Christ” lives in each one of us. “Christ in us” completes the relationship, it completes the incarnation. Then we all become part of the story.

The way we act in relationship with each other shows others who we know God to be. It shows others that we have the light of Christ that burns and lives within us, and the same Christ is born and lives out in our actions.

The shame is… is that we still don’t get it… it doesn’t matter if we completely understand the miraculous story of the birth of Jesus, and know all the details of the scene of the shepherds and the angles. If we don’t live his teachings out in our lives then it’s all for not. The incarnation must be completed as the Christ is born in us and through us to others. In order to experience the incarnation, we must all participate in it.

Those wonderful movies – the secular, fictional, Christmas stories give us a way to reflect on relationships as we are entertained by the story. But, we may never watch them the same way again. The relationships in those movies don’t make any sense to us out of the context of the incarnation of God the Son.

As my wonderful Church History professor, Don Armentrout, always use to say that there are only 2 books in the library… It’s true! When you go to the library, you only find 2 books – you find our Holy Scripture (the Bible) and the rest of it is Church History! No, seriously… what Dr. Armentrout means that everything we experience in our lives, secular or otherwise, is influenced by religion in one way or another. So we can bet, the next time we watch How the Grinch stole Christmas, we can learn something profound about the theology of Dr. Seuss.

In order to have a relationship with us, God become one of us, born of a pure young woman, so that we might have a restored relationship with God… All we have to do is accept it and participate in it… and we do that through our involvement… involvement in our community and in our family… That’s the true meaning of the Christ Mass, which we have all come to participate in tonight.

We gather around the Lord’s table as a community, as a family and share a relationship as we break bread and share the cup. We receive God in Christ and Christ in us, and we are nourished to go out and share it with the world.

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among all people with whom God is well pleased! Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

RCL Year A (Advent 4) - December 19, 2010

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

RCL Year A (Advent 4) - December 19, 2010

Isaiah 7:10-16
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

As we move further into our advent time of anticipation and preparation, we get more and more of the images that we would all expect to be building up to… The story of how ancient prophecy was fulfilled, and how God became a human being… became incarnate… became flesh and bones…

We are probably all familiar with the pageants that the children put on this time of year. Some of you probably were in one a while back… The pageants act out the story of God’s incarnation, when God became one of us… became human – and was born as a child in a stable in Bethlehem…

I can remember as a child, participating in these pageants either by wearing my bathrobe and one of my Mother’s dish-towels on my head, carrying a staff, being a shepherd, and leading around the other children that were dressed in fluffy white sheep suits.

My sister, whose name just happens to be Angel, was always dressed as an angel - with a white surplice and transparent wings and a coat-hanger with garland and tinsel hallow…

When I was older, I was allowed to play Joseph… which was an honored roll, but it was bit awkward because all I did was just stand there… Most of the time, these wonderful children’s reenactments follow the poetic story from the Gospel according to Luke… “And in came to pass, in those days, a decree went out...” Luke’s gospel we know very well, and it is very detailed… His description of the annunciation to Mary and the holy birth of Jesus is by far one of the most glorious stories of the Christian faith…

However, in Luke’s rendition of the story, Joseph doesn’t get much mention, doesn’t get a whole lot of attention and definitely no speaking parts in the pageant! Matthew’s verses that we hear this morning put the spotlight on Joseph and how that ancient prophecy was indeed fulfilled… The text that we just heard is somewhat brief… it is, however, deeply interlaced with a profound meaning.

Matthew’s readers were part of the early Jewish Christian community. They would understand exactly what he was talking about. This is what we called “high context” language. Meaning that, the intended hearers of the message would understand what Matthew was saying, simply because of their experience and knowledge.

We may have a hard time understanding its richness, because it is not our “normal” way of doing things. So, let me set up the gospel story for you a bit this morning…

At this point, Matthew tells us that Joseph’s family has made a marriage agreement with Mary’s family… They are betrothed, the contract has been signed and the dowry has probably already been paid… Joseph and Mary were not involved in a romantic courtship or engagement like our society would expect today - before the decision was made for them to marry. Unlike we would expect of couples today, they are betrothed and their marriage was one of community, honor, and position.

And though he was an artisan, a carpenter, Joseph was a considered to be a righteous respected member of the community, and Mary’s family saw him as a competent provider, a potential good father and a man of honor.

So, let us reflect again for a second on Joseph’s strange predicament…

This honorable man, this follower of the Torah, the Law of Moses… this good Jew has received some scary news. The young woman, that he has just made a betrothal commitment to, has become pregnant - and the child is not his, because they have never been together.

You can almost feel the gasps in the ancient audience as they heard the story for the first time… What a scandal!!! Pregnant? A young woman who is supposed to “pure” – pregnant???

Joseph was in a real bind… and he has a huge choice to make… the way I see it, he basically has three options. He can choose to follow the letter of the Law of Moses, which says that Mary and her whole family is to be dishonored – publically disgraced – which would ultimately cause Mary to be taken out and stoned to death.

He could dismiss her quietly, retain his honor, and have her face the consequences of being unwed and pregnant, which would also ultimately lead to her public disgrace and death.

Or he can make the choice to listen to the vision he has in a dream and have faith in what an angel of the Lord told him, that the child that she carries is “holy.” The angel even gives him instructions on what to name the child. He is to call him Yahshua (In Hebrew) (or as it was written in our Greek New Testament –Iesous). We best know the name by our Anglicized Greek – Jesus – which means “God saves.”

We all know what Joseph does, or we wouldn’t be here today.

Joseph is called a “righteous” man in the Gospel reading. However, he didn’t follow the letter of the law, and humiliate Mary. He chose to listen to what he understood was a messenger from God that spoke to him in the dream, and let the prophecy be fulfilled through him.

So Joseph took Mary to be his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she gave birth to the holy child – Yahshua… A child called “Immanuel” by the prophet Isaiah - “God with Us”

Joseph is the model for us this morning. He is a model of faith and commitment… of following and listening to God. Joseph stands, at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, as a model of what Matthew hopes for all Jesus disciples — For each reader of the Gospel – as we live in the tension between a prevailing understanding of God’s commandments and the new thing that God is doing in Jesus the Christ.

By Joseph’s decision to obey the shocking and unexpected command of God, he is already living the nature and heart of the law and not its literal meaning. He is already living out the new and higher righteousness of the kingdom of God, that Christ in his ministry calls us to.

In a difficult moral situation, Joseph attends to the voice of God, and he is willing to set aside his previous understanding of God’s will in favor of the word he understands to be from the living and saving God.

We are very much like Joseph, living in the tension of our life… We must make decisions on a daily basis, moral and otherwise, as we journey through this life. Our nature sometimes is to fly by the seat of our pants, trying to steer our way without God, because we think that we have it all under control.

To cope with his tension, Joseph chooses to follow God. Likewise, we should be trying to do the will of God through our hearts, our actions, and our decisions… Living this life, loving one another, breaking bread together, and responding to what we understand to be God’s call on our lives.

As Christmas – the celebration of the birth of Christ creeps around the corner, we should stop here a moment on the 4th Sunday of Advent and reflect… reflect on the presence of the living God in our life. Using Joseph’s response to the living God as our model, let us use what little is left of our Advent time of anticipation and preparation to stop and take a minute to be still amid the craziness… And realize that our God is indeed with us, redeeming us, loving us, and saving us…

Because we so desperately need a loving and living God to be present with us and help us direct ALL of our decisions… We say – Come, Lord Jesus!!... Come Lord Jesus and direct our decisions, and direct our lives…

Sunday, December 12, 2010

RCL Year A (Advent 3) - December 12, 2010

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

RCL Year A (Advent 3) - December 12, 2010

Isaiah 35:1-10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Canticle 15 (Magnificat)

We live in a world that acts like it doesn’t need God...
It’s kind of depressing, especially this time of year when our thoughts and our minds should be focused on the reason for the season. And yet, we are so hung up on the need to have that “Christmas feeling” of “peace” and “joy” we often forget to include the Christ that makes it all possible.

We go on about things and we don’t make God… and we don’t make Christ a priority. And we wonder why our society suffers… and we wonder why evil and greed exists in this world.

We live in a world where it has become all about us… We have become so inward thinking, that we even ask the questions, “what’s in it for me?” “How do we win?” or “What do we have to gain?”

What ever happened to what Jesus taught us… about loving one another, just for the sake of loving? What ever happened to giving just for the sake of giving?

These are not strange and “new” concepts…

In ancient Israel, the people were on the threshold of complete destruction. God’s people had once again turned from God and they were sitting on the edge of total devastation. They stopped trusting God and loving each other, and they relied totally inwardly on themselves. Evil and greed had taking over, because they had lost their focus on what was really important. They had forgotten to love one another and give just to give and not focus on what you get.

Like us, they were living in places subject to their own demise… those wild and wilderness places of darkness (the ones I talked a bit about last week).

So God sent them the prophet Isaiah to remind them (and remind us) that God is God and we are NOT. To remind them, that regardless of how bad it gets God will be there and be the one who redeems them. God will make blossoms bloom abundantly in the desert out of absolutely nothing! And all shall see the majesty of God!

This will be a day of great comfort but it will also be a day of great judgment. Everything that we understand in our conventional wisdom will be redefined.

If we have adequately prepared, all we need to do is be patient. We need to be patient for the coming of the Lord, heed the prophet’s warning and be ready. But we say we don’t want to wait, we don’t like to wait; “we want it all, and we want it ALL RIGHT NOW!”

That’s how the community of James was acting. They knew Jesus was coming back and they had been planting seeds in order to grow the good fruit. But they weren’t patient, they wanted to reap rewards right now. They weren’t willing to wait and be patient. They didn’t understand that things happen in God’s time not ours.

So they were challenged to strengthen their hearts and not go about grumbling and complaining, but prepare and be patient. Be patient, for the coming of the lord is near.

And, dear friends, it is nearer to us now than it has ever been. It is even nearer to us now than it was last year. God continues to send messengers, prophets to us to prepare the way, to get people ready to receive the kingdom of God.

Isaiah and John are just two of the prophets that we hear about this morning. One of them (Isaiah) reminds us that God delivers God’s people who remain faithful. The other (John) has been captured because of his conviction and imprisoned as King Herod’s political prisoner.

But even in the darkness of John’s cell, he remains faithful and seeks to learn what Jesus is doing, how Jesus is redeeming the world. John asks the hard question for all of us… the question that we all want to ask at one time or another: “Are you the one who has come, or are we to wait for another?”

He wants to know if Jesus is the “real deal” or not. Is this business of Christ, the messiah, the savior of the world more than just a figment of John’s (or any other prophet’s imagination? Jesus answers John, very much like he answers us. Jesus says that we have to decide for ourselves whether or not he is the “real deal.”

We have to look for the evidence. Jesus tells John’s disciples to go tell John what they hear and see. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

So, when we look for the evidence, what do we hear and what do we see???

I am convinced that regardless of how bad things seem to get, of how this world seems to be focused primarily on selfish desires, there are always glimmers of God grace… God’s grace in Jesus Christ that comes shining through in our relationships with others. When we see this grace, when we witness it, we are more apt to confess our belief in the Lord Jesus. When we see results of his abundant grace and mighty works taking place around us, then our soul can tell out the greatness of the Lord like the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary.

Mary, who must have faced embarrassment and ridicule for her pregnancy, but none the less followed through with the will of God. The will of God for her life that brought salvation to ours.

As we prepare this Advent season, we are called to a place of patience. In these between times, of the already and the not yet we are all called to be pregnant with anticipation for the second coming of Christ. We are called to let Christ grow in us and we are called to make him known to the world, all in preparation for his coming again.

That is our purpose in this world… this world that thinks it doesn’t need God… Our purpose is to know Christ and make Christ known, to be Christ to others and to love and serve others in the name of Christ. We go about this world making disciples for Christ, fellow followers that will proclaim him and love others in his name.

This world may think it doesn’t need God, but this is a world that SO DESPERATELY NEEDS God… and it’s our job to remind others that everything in this world comes from God and exists for God’s glory.

If we want to bring true Christmas joy in our lives; if we want to live a redeemed life, forgiven, restored, and renewed, then we must wait and prepare, and put things in their proper order… prepare and focus on what’s really important… Focusing outward…

Focusing outward and proclaiming the greatness of the Lord by sharing the love and joy that Jesus brings to OUR life and by making His might and His deeds known to others.

Christ is our TRUE hope… and Christ is our TRUE gift…

OUR one true reason for the Season is Jesus Christ our Lord. Go out and know him, and make him known!!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

RCL Year A (Advent 2) - December 5, 2010

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

RCL Year A (Advent 2) - December 5, 2010

Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

As you just heard in today’s reading, John the Baptizer is a bit of a “STRANGE” character… And, I’m not just talking about the way he acted… just look at the way he dresses. He is all dressed up the latest wilderness fashion of the time with his camel's hair and leather, not to mention the “strangeness” of his diet – Locusts and wild honey.

I am wondering what would you think of John if you came upon him today? Would you recognize him as a great prophet of God and then follow him into the wilderness to hear his prophetic message? I doubt it very seriously.

Now, I know that we shouldn’t judge folks by what they wear or what they eat, but I know some folks that tend to get in those little gossip circles with their friends when they run across someone who they feel isn’t dressed right. But somehow, someway, people were intrigued by the strange character of John and his message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” What could he possibly be talking about??? They were all fascinated…

The folks back then knew the ancient scripture of Isaiah and they knew what it said about a voice crying out… (by the way, there was no punctuation in ancient times… so the interpretation of Isaiah is a bit askew) It was either a voice – ‘crying out in the wilderness’ or a voice crying out – ‘in the wilderness...’ None the less, Matthew’s take on it was this… “There’s a voice crying out in the wilderness – prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert, a highway for our God.” They wanted to know more… so they followed John.

Have you ever been lost in the wilderness? The desert or the forest… (It’s probably easier for us to associate wilderness with forest…) I mean really lost - deep in the woods? It can be a very scary experience. You look right and left and everything looks the same. After an hour, it is hard to tell one tree from another. You get more and more frustrated by the second, and cannot find your way out. I am sure that most of you can understand that feeling.

Now put that on top of going into the woods with a man as different – as “strange” as John… it’s not a very comfortable feeling. And it probably shouldn’t be! The wilderness is a scary place! In the ancient world, any kind of travel was dangerous… especially through the wilderness. You only traveled through wilderness places for specific reasons (for family, for feasts, or for business)… So traveling TO the wilderness was definitely unheard of.

The wilderness was considered the home of demons and a very unlikely “destination” for anyone. So, why the wilderness, and why with John?

All four of the Gospels tell us something about John. The evangelist, Matthew, spends a few lines this morning telling us what John is wearing… I think that his manner of dress might be a clue for us… Please understand that the coarse camel’s hair and leather were not the preferred ancient Palestinian dress. It was extremely different and definitely worth mentioning. But not only worth mentioning… I think that it is significant to who John is and the message he has…

This isn’t the first time we have heard of this “outfit.” Some of you may remember in the first chapter of the second book of Kings where it describes a prophet of God who is “A hairy man, with a leather belt around his waist” – sitting on the top of the mountain… He made fire come down from heaven and consumed 2 kings armies before going down with the third to meet the king – Only to tell the king that he is going to die.

This was Elijah the Tishbite. The great prophet of the living God of Israel that shook up the Hebrew scriptures. Now, if I were a good Jew, for me – that would be enough reason right there to follow John anywhere. The folks back then were actually thinking that John might be Elijah that had come back to give them a message.

But John wasn’t giving just any old message. He was telling them to get ready for something. He is here to shake them up – and give them a reality check! He was telling them to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

So, to the Jews, John was Elijah the Tishbite who had come to prepare the people of Israel for “the great and terrible day of the Lord.” This excites the Pharisees and the Sadducees so they come out to John to be baptized…

You remember the Pharisees and the Sadducees… The Pharisees (the pompous religious elite – and the Sadducees, the non-believers in the resurrection) But John ridicules the Pharisees and the Sadducees and compares them to snakes running scared from the judgment that is coming. He challenges them to change their hearts, “repent” of their sins, prepare, and make their selves worthy.

Last Sunday, we were reminded again that Advent was a time of preparation and anticipation. We learned that we are the keepers of the watch, and are to keep awake and live honorably… to make ourselves worthy.

Those themes continue this week with today’s text – And John is here to show us the way… and to shake us up a bit and give us a reality check. In Advent, we are called to search down deep… Deep down into the dark wilderness places of our lives… Deep into those desolate places where our demons dwell… Places we don’t like to go… Places that are strange and different from us… We go to these places to prepare and examine ourselves… to see if these “trees” that we are growing in our life are truly bearing the good fruit?

This process of examination, discernment, and repentance can be a difficult one. It requires us to have an open mind wanting to be changed and a heart wanting to be warmed. It requires us to be ready to admit that to ourselves that we DO need change and guidance, even when we think we don’t.

John is here this morning to help us take that journey to those wilderness places, and the strange and different John gives us a message… The message of hope that something great is coming and we are to get ready.

But the narrative that we are given today in the third chapter of Matthew doesn’t really identify the one who is coming…. (now, we know the rest of the story, and we know that John is talking about Jesus the Christ) But, today it’s not revealed to us… All we know now is – that John says that the person is very powerful and he is not worthy to even carry his sandals. The lectionary leaves the rest a mystery careful not to reveal the story too soon - of the awesome glory of God that is just around the corner.

So we are called by the text this morning to exercise a little restraint… and not get too terribly anxious… We are called to spend some time in active anticipation, looking inward at the fruit we are bearing, in hopes that we are bearing the true ripe sweet fruit that our God expects of us.

Because the rest of the story will unfold to us in due time and ALL will be revealed… All we can do today is sit here in our advent anticipation and examine ourselves… and repent, for the kingdom of God has come near! We sit here today and hope that when whoever comes… we are truly ready!