RCL Year C (Lent 2) - February 28, 2010

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

RCL Year C (Lent 2) – February 28, 2010
Also written for the Opponents of Christ Series

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35

I don’t want to produce any kind of paranoia by asking this question…
but, have you ever been around anyone that wish you any kind of harm?

Weather it was in a job, or in a group of others in the community… have you ever been in the situation, where you were asked questions, or where you were tested in order to trip you up, or make you say something that you would probably later regret?

It’s a game that politicians sometimes play, as they make their ploy for office… they just lay back waiting on their opponent to make a mistake, so that they can pounce, and point out the opponents shortcomings, trying to make themselves look good… The “muck-slinging” goes on in political speeches and even ads in the media. I for one am so glad that it’s not an election year, so I don’t have to hear such mess.

The Pharisees in today’s gospel are busy doing just that… they are busy following around Jesus, hanging on his every word, asking him questions and trying to trip him up… waiting for Jesus to make a mistake and say something that would enable them to back him into a corner, so that they could once and for all end his sudden rise to popularity among the people and his perceived rise to power – that was surely upsetting the status quo… but this time, they try to look like the good guys, as they warn Jesus of Herod’s murderous wishes…

So we are talking about two groups here… like so many of these types of groups that existed in first century Israel… Jesus and his friends and followers making up the inner group, and Herod and his supporters making up the outer group (of which the Pharisees are definitely a part)…

Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great… Antipas – the one who was chastised by John the Baptist for unlawfully divorcing his wife and then taking his late brother Phillip’s wife for his wife… A political “yes man” when it comes to dealing with the Roman government, that had control of the region at the time, and even worked for them as a client of state.

Herod liked his status and power, but he was paranoid, and scared that someone would take away his throne. So, he feared anyone that stirred things up in the region… Especially a dynamic preacher like Jesus of Nazareth. He had murdered John the Baptist for stirring up things, surely he would be out to kill Jesus… because he saw Jesus as an immediate political threat, upsetting the status quo in the whole region…

But when Jesus is warned by the Pharisees about Herod, his response is somewhat surprising… Not at all phased by what the Pharisees had to say about Herod wanting to kill him… says “go tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work…’”

It sounds almost sarcastic or ‘in your face’ – somewhat different from the Jesus “meek and mild” that we sometimes picture in our heads… but THERE is the teaching point. Jesus is trying to point out that his work is not done yet, and that NO ONE, not even Herod, with whatever power he thought he had, was going to keep him from finishing what he came to this earth to do. And Jesus calls him a fox… Herod the fox… who is Herod Antipas anyway, to threaten Jesus?

Then in a most interesting use of metaphor, in a lament over Jerusalem, Jesus compares himself to a hen that gathers her brood (the children of Jerusalem) under her wings.

Herod – the outsider – the fox – the aggressor

Jesus – the insider – the hen – the protector

The fox and the hen are natural enemies, one depends on the other for food, and the other tries to protect her young, even if it means laying down her life…

Herod, the fox, is a true opponent of Jesus… an enemy, in fear that Jesus is making so much ruckus, that his cushy set-up with the Romans is going to be disturbed. So much in fear that the Pharisees know what measures he will take to safeguard his throne… up to and including murder…

Today there is a fox in the hen house… we need to stop for a minute and think about what that means to Jesus and his ministry… Jesus knew he wasn’t finished, and had places to go and people to see… teaching to do, so that more folks to hear the good news and come to believe the way of life and truth that he was advocating… a life bound to and dependant on the One True Living God.

Jesus was headed toward Jerusalem, where he will ride in on a donkey and be welcomed with palm branches laid at his feet and people shouting, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” but he isn’t there yet because his work is not finished.

I have often said that Lent is a season of self examination. A time when we do some inward looking at who we are and who’s we are, so that we can capture and own our “true identity” as children of God. Part of that “capture” of our true identity, is learning how to be who God made us to be, and develop a genuine personae without any kind of façade. To put away our façades that are based on fears of what we feel other people will think… so that we can be free to do Christ’s work in the world.

There are “Herods” in our life that enjoy their cushy positions of perceived power, that threaten the growth of the ministry of Jesus Christ… because it will upset the status quo and disrupt the way it has always been done… but, like Jesus, that shouldn’t keep us from doing what God has called us to do, from being who God has called us to be, and from going about doing the ministry of healing and casting out demons that needs to be done.

It doesn’t mean that we can’t be our real selves and own our true identity as children of the One True Living God.

Today there is a fox in the hen house… but we are blessed enough to be part of the brood… The brood that is gathered under the wings of our comforter, and our protector, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

RCL Year C (Lent 1) - February 21, 2010

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

RCL Year C (Lent 1) - February 21, 2010
Written also for the "Opponents of Christ" series

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

Frederick Buechner, the famous American writer and theologian, in his 1992 publication “Listening to Your Life,” writes: "For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year's days. After being baptized by John in the River Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question of what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves..."

What it means to be themselves…

What does it mean to be ourselves? I mean, really be ourselves…

As we dig down deep during lent and examine the yucky-ness of our lives (cause we all have yucky-ness in our lives) and seek to learn who we truly are, we may root up many demons… you know, those things in our life that cause us NOT to be what God created us to be… it’s a very difficult thing for us to do, but we can’t deal with those demons in our life if we just ignore them… cause they don’t go away.

Our self reflection about the would of, could of, or should of (s) in our life are not so that we can sit idle and morn regret – for something that we did or didn’t do, but we do this “soul searching” so that we can face the outpouring of love and grace from God with a clean conscience. That is what repenting and forgiveness is all about.

That is why we are specifically called in this season of Lent to repent… repent and reflect and repent again… it is a time for the “come to Jesus meetings” in our lives…

I had a person that worked for me… This guy was really good at his job, which was sales… he could sell snow to an Eskimo, and then get them to buy a freezer to keep it in. But, as good as he was, his paperwork was never in order… I would get after him time and time again to clean up his paperwork…

Every time I had to officially council him, we would call it a CTJM – or a “Come to Jesus Meeting”… So lent, for us, is sort of a “come to Jesus meeting,” where we go through the paperwork of our lives and clean house! To purge everything from our lives that draws us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!

Jesus went off in the wilderness right before he stepped out in ministry to “learn who Jesus was” as Buechner says… and there he met his demon, the devil, the tempter, the deceiver, the slanderer, or the traitor…

Now, when we think of the “devil,” some of us think of this manifestation of evil that we learned to think of as Lucifer, or satan who, according to some interpretations was really God’s fallen angel… You remember being taught that the angel, according to Isaiah 14, thought he was just as powerful as God… and was cast out of heaven…

The word Lucifer, is more of the Latin translation of the Hebrew word used in scripture, Helel, which means “to shine brightly.” And word “Helel” was the Hebrew term for “morning star.” But 200 years before Christ, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek called it “Satanos” and then the translation in the 3rd Century after Christ into Latin… Scholars continue to argue… and things seem to be “lost in translation”…

But we need to know, however, that the scripture doesn’t say anything about Jesus being tempted by Lucifer or Satan… it just says “the devil” which comes from the Greek in the New Testament “ho diabolos.”

Now, our society has even perverted the seriousness of it a bit, by making it an anthropomorphic figure of this funny little red guy with horns, a pitchfork and a pointed tail that sits up on your shoulder… telling us what to do and what NOT to do…

But that is NOT what we’re talking about… that’s not what “ho diablos” is…

We are talking about real, serious, earnest temptations here…

Imagine this… you are alone in the wilderness and you are hungry… and you can do anything you want to… you are ALL POWERFUL… wouldn’t your first instinct be to turn rocks into bread?

Jesus’ was… but he knew that he didn’t create the rocks to be bread… and he knew that in order to succeed in the ministry that was before him, that he needed to restrain in order to teach… to teach us that we need to learn to feed each other beyond the physical need to eat, that we need to help each other live our lives to the fullest, and truly reach out and love our neighbor as our self… Really teach us that we cannot live by bread alone, like it says in the Book of Deuteronomy…

And imagine… if the world was running amuck (and is…), and all the people are fighting with each other, and worshiping false gods (or what I like to call mammon), which is money (or wealth), and again you were ALL MIGHTY… wouldn’t your answer be to wave your hand and establish equity and respect among all people, and establish your true dominion over everything? wouldn’t you?

Jesus surely thought of it in the desert, thinking about all the destruction and deceit in the world that he could make perfect with just one wave… but again did not succumb to the temptation in order that we might learn… in order to teach us… to teach us that even though God’s wonderful abundant grace is free for the asking, we have a responsibility to turn to God and live for God in order to fully accept it… To teach us to only worship Only the Lord Our God and serve only Him, like it says in Exodus…

And imagine… if we were IMMORTAL and could instantly prove our divinity by doing some death defying act that would establish our eternal fortitude… or our inability to die… then wouldn’t it make sense in some perverted way, to jump off of the highest point in the city?

You can better bet that Jesus thought deeply about this “easy way out”… but again, was not driven by temptation so that he might teach us… teach us that life is full of trials… full of “prove its” and “I dare yous” – and it doesn’t make us any greater if we push the envelope and give in to others whims and wishes to put ourselves in stupidity’s way…
But Jesus wanted to teach us what he learned… Do not put the Lord your God to the test…

Then the temptation left Jesus for a time… and we are left with the story of Jesus’ real encounter with the demons of his human life… living his human life as he teaches us to live ours… Jesus never told us that our lives would be easy… we all have trials in this life, trials of our own humanity to deal with… trials that we must go through, not because God is testing us… but, to realize that we are called to go through these things with God’s help…

The temptation is very real, but I doubt very seriously there’s a little red guy with horns sitting up on your shoulder whispering in your ear… so when you make the wrong choice, you can’t claim “the devil made me do it…”

We cannot live though the trials and tribulations of this life without God’s help… that’s why we ascribe in our baptismal vows to “persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord” – with God’s help!

It’s because we can’t do it alone, and thanks be to God, we are not expected to…

In Lent we are expected to go deep, and dig around in the dark places of yuck-ness in our lives and call out the devils… the temptations… and own them… and deal with them… and repent of them and turn to God… so that, as Buechner says, “we can in one way or another ask ourselves what it means to be us…”

So that in the end, we can remember that we are all children of the living God. So, in our digging around for demons, and in our introspective self examination during this lenten season… and as we are discovering what it means to be us…

We need not forget Who we are and Who’s we are!!

RCL Year C (Epiphany 5) - February 7, 2010

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

RCL Year C (Epiphany 5) – February 7, 2010

Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13]
Psalm 138
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

It had been a very long night… Simon and the other fishermen were tired… they had been at it ALL NIGHT LONG… lugging on the nets and reaping no reward for their labors… All they want to do is get things cleaned up, wash out their nets and to go HOME!

Have you ever been on a fishing trip when you didn’t catch anything? I know that I sure have… And I know the blaming that goes on as a result of not catching anything too… things like, we must have gone at the wrong time… we went to the wrong spot… or we brought the wrong bait… but, we can be sure that Simon, James and John knew what they were doing… They were professionals and this was their lively hood… and fishing on Lake Gennesaret south of Capernaum was a thriving business!

Fish was one of the main staples in this area, and was eaten more than any other meat. There were catfish, carp, and panfish… Fish were either eaten fresh, or they could be processed, salted, dried or pickled for export. Fishing was BIG business!!! And we can bet that Simon, James, and John were good at it. But this time their nets were empty, and they were tired…

They tried at night, when most of the fishing was done… we can even assume that they had tried at all the great spots… But their nets were still empty. What was the problem???

So, at this point, they are saying to themselves… Forget it! Lets just get the nets cleaned and get on back to our homes and get some sleep… And along comes Jesus with a great crowd of followers hanging on his every word… right in the middle of all the net cleaning… (kind of like someone coming into a store – right at closing time when the clerk is ready to go home)
Luke says that Jesus borrows a boat so that he can preach to the crowds from just off shore… This would have probably created a wonderful auditorium effect with the sound bouncing off the nearby mountains. And after he preaches, he asks Simon, who had been working all night long, to go out to the deep water and let down his nets…

With a little frustration at first, Simon tries to explain to Jesus, “We have been at this all night!!! and we haven’t caught anything…” (Simon implies - What makes you think we are going to now??) (almost if to say… What do you know, your just a carpenter, leave the fishing to the professionals) Simon, seeming at first like he has something to prove, honors Jesus’ request.

Then, in one of the greatest miracles in scripture, Jesus causes them to catch enough fish to make their nets start to break and their boats begin to sink… This was a lot of fish… these boats were about 26’ long 7’ feet wide and 4’ deep, and they were taking on water!!! Simon, James and John were so amazed… After they returned to shore they left everything, and at Jesus request, followed him to ‘catch people.’

It is so often that this passage in Luke is simply seen as a metaphor for God’s wonderful abundance that God provides to those who are obedient… While this is true, I think that we should go a step further (a little deeper – if you will)… and figure out why it is meaningful for us today.

Today has been set aside by the Episcopal Church in the United States as “Theological Education Sunday.” And that has caused me to look at our Gospel story today a bit differently…
I kept saying to myself… How do we go deeper? How do we go deeper??

Have you ever been in deep water? I mean really deep water in a small boat… I can testify that it can be a pretty scary experience! So, how do we row OUR boats out into the deep waters and let down our nets?

Considering the importance of Theological Education in our Christian lives together, this passage makes us realize that it isn’t about catching fish any more… To me, this story is much more about going deeper… It’s about responding to our thirst to learn more about God and how God acts in our lives…

It is about going out deeper and letting down our nets into the waters of the unknown… and when that it’s done… It’s about going out and catching people… telling others about what you have learned and sharing our exciting experience, so that THEY might also turn to the truth in Christ Jesus… But, It has been a long NIGHT!... and we are tired, so how do we do this???

It takes a deliberate act… making sure that we create and seek opportunities to be formed (informed, and transformed) into the image of Christ…

It takes commitment… a commitment to stick with the program and see it through. A commitment to taking away something and applying it to our Christian walk.

And it takes consistency… Christian formation and education is a continuous process that just doesn’t happen over-night. It is a consistent process of continuous and consistant formation and discernment…

Most often, this is the Sunday that seminaries send seminarians and theological students use the as an opportunity to show off their wares… However, I take a different approach to it… I see it as an opportunity here / today to reinforce what we are doing within our community to grow in our faith, and hopefully challenge ourselves to take it a step further (to go deeper)…

At this point in my life have been through 3 academic years of formal “Theological Education.” and I have been an ordained parish priest for about just as long… I know that I have been through a lot… but I also know that I am not done yet… I know that God isn’t finished with me yet… I understand that my theological education did not end with graduation from seminary… nor does it in with a certain number of years of ordination or of baptism!!

Because, it is my prayer that our living God will continue to form, inform, and transform my life. It’s a process… I also pray the same for all of you sitting here today.

It takes deliberate action to put together quality Christian Education opportunities. An example of these would be the Lenten series on the “Opponents of Christ” that is coming up, and the prayer book class on Sunday mornings, Bible studies and interactive discussions with groups in the community such as the youth and the Episcopal Church Women.

With a commitment to them and some consistency, opportunities like these are great ways to learn and grow in your faith… And if you mix them in, and possibly supplement them, with some of resources available through the greater church (the church’s major programs such as “Education for Ministry” and “Disciples of Christ in Community,”) then you have an abundance of resources that will bust your net!

It all started with 3 simple fisher-folk who after a very long labor intensive, unproductive night decided to go deeper at Jesus’ request… They ended up being so amazed by what happened, that they followed Jesus wanting to know more… wanting their lives to be continuously enriched and their nets to be filled… They were rewarded with so much more than an abundance of fish that almost sunk two boats.

As we approach the holy table today to partake of the bread and wine that we know to be the body and blood of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ… We can ask ourselves how we can learn more about what it is that we are doing? How do we learn more, so that we can continue to be filled?...

Jesus asked the fisherman to go deeper and let down their nets after they were tired and ready to give up… and Jesus calls each one of us to do the same… So, go deeper, learn and grow in your faith and be committed in your worship, and in your study… engage and commit to the opportunities before you to learn… and then let your nets bust with God’s great abundance…