Year A - Christmas Eve - December 24, 2019

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN

Year A - Christmas Eve - December 24, 2019

Year C - 6 Epiphany - February 17, 2019

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN

Year C - 6 Epiphany - February 17, 2019

• Jeremiah 17:5-10
• 1 Corinthians 15:12-20
• Luke 6:17-26
• Psalm 1

I’ve always been mesmerized by trees that grow in water. Maybe it’s because I grew up, not far from the great dismal swamp and the Albemarle sound… Those bodies of water are famous for the towering bald cypress trees growing just off of a point of land out in the middle of the water. Thinking of those trees takes me back to the days of fishing and boating as a young boy, trying to cast line between them and not get hung up in the roots.

Jeremiah tells us that if we trust in God, we will be like these wonderful, strong, powerful Cypress trees that send out their roots by the stream. They survive heat, their leaves stay green, and they do not cease to bear fruit, even in the most horrible conditions.

The psalmist also picks up on this tree imagery, pointing out that people that refrain from evil, and stay off of the sinner’s path… Are like trees that are planted by streams of water yielding fruit and having leaves that do not wither…

Trees can teach us a lot about our faith and life with God… See, from what we know about trees, trees are not at all independent… trees depend on other things around them to survive… The conditions around them must provide them with the nourishment and sustenance to survive.

Paraphrasing some words from Thomas Merton, a tree does not all of a sudden, decide that it isn’t comfortable where it is… therefore, it’s going to go over and be in another field for a few weeks. A tree is not in a big rush to flit off with sparrows or people, where ever they might be going. Merton says, that a tree does none of these, a tree gives glory to God by being itself… by being a tree.

Trees are used throughout scripture to describe things… They have become, for us, an image of humanity gone awry. Everything from the tree that bears the fruit of knowledge that we find in the Garden of Eden to the tree that becomes the bearer of our salvation, the tree that Jesus was crucified on found on the Mount Golgotha, just outside of Jerusalem. Jesus was crucified on a tree and considered cursed so that we might be rescued from the curse, and grafted back into the family tree of God’s people.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus is preaching from the level places, and turns the understanding of happiness and blessing upside down… He calls the people to action… he calls the people to a life of discipleship and learning… learning what it means to truly be what God has created us to be. Nothing more, nothing less…

Jesus uses the laundry list of blessings and woes, to point out and challenge us... to ask what it is that we value and what it is that we reject as it relates to faithful Christian living. Jesus calls the hearers of his message to better understand what it is going to be like living in the Kingdom of God.

In the Kingdom of God where the values are different than they are of this world but not only that… But that it’s possible to live those values now as we seek to bring forth the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus is on the level place, and he is not just speaking on the plain, but he is speaking plainly. Blessed are… and you can fill in the blank… Jesus advocates for everything that society has shunned or considers shameful…

Blessed are the poor… blessed are the unemployed, the homeless, the unimpressive or the underrepresented…  blessed are all those on the fringes of society that have not had a fair chance because of prejudice and the assumption of who they are, they don’t deserve a chance. 

Blessed are those who are hungry… blessed are those who don’t know where their next meal is coming from… blessed are those who live in a society and nation of abundance only to find that they can’t scrape enough together on min wage to feed their kids.

Blessed are those who weep... blessed are those who have dealt with loss and brokenness, blessed are those whose tears flow because of the harshness of their experience.

Jesus isn’t saying that they are any more blessed than those who already feel that they have found favor with God. On the contrary… Jesus just simply levels the playing field and reminds those that do not feel blessed, that recompense is coming…

In our modern society and culture, it is commonplace to equate wealth with divine approval. aka "That we are financially rich because of God’s favor." Here, the scripture is telling us exactly the opposite. The shame of poverty in Jesus’ time is very much the same as in ours. Jesus tells the people in so many words, that true strength, purpose and power, doesn’t come from money, feasting, or a feeling of bliss.

A tree draws its strength from what’s around it… the soil, the nutrients, the water, the sunshine… We draw our strength, purpose, and power comes from our communities of lifelong partnerships and family… Communities of faith, communities of Eucharistic partnership, communities that gather to pray and study scripture together... Communities that reach out to serve others and communities that are mutually committed to God’s love.

We can learn a lot from trees about our communal life with God. We can learn how our dependence on each other makes everything work… about how growing in our life together eventually makes us stronger... stronger and more resilient to the forces that wish us harm. Only together can we stand tall against the elements… only together can we discern and understand God’s will.

Together within God’s family tree. Together, empowered, unashamed, resilient, and strong... Together, equal, forgiven, restored, and loved…

Year C - 3 Epiphany - January 27, 2019

The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN

• Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
• Luke 4:14-21
• Psalm 19

It’s often been said that the church can survive heresy, but it can’t survive schism… The break apart and division in Christianity is devastating… You can walk down the main street in downtown Greeneville, and see about 16 different brands of Christianity. Churches large and small… Churches of a different ilk and flavor; some alike, some different, all of them trying to convince folks theirs is the way to worship and practice…

But apart from that, you could walk down that same street, and meet people who have never darkened the door of said churches. Folks that have either been turned off or abused by religion in one way or another… People who are earnestly searching for truth but have never been offered a way that fits with the way they believe. 

It often happens that people get involved in a community of faith and then after participating for a while realize that the community that they are in is really not the community of saints that they think it should be… A Church is really a hospital for sinners, rather than a community of saints… 

People are broken and hurting, trying to deal with life and all the confusion that life deals out… and the church is made up of that broken mess of our lives… our sometimes messy and confusing, but sometimes beautiful and amazing lives. 

The Episcopal Church has taken the stance to offer God’s grace to everyone in the midst of that brokenness… to show love where other churches have cast judgment… It’s not that we are doing anything different than what we understand Jesus himself did in scripture… Jesus welcomed and healed and advocated for those who were on the fringes of society… those that society that had forgotten those that society had abused hurt… 

The prophet Nehemiah tells us that the people of Israel are gathered together in the square… The people called for the Law of Moses… the Torah to be brought among them and read… Coming back from being separated for so long in exile, coming back to rebuild Jerusalem so, the people wanted so much to rally around the one thing they held in common… The law of Moses, the rudiments of their faith that made life on this planet and the social systems among humanity a bit more palatable. 

The people of Israel had come together to worship and celebrate the abundant grace of God that they felt… and with that feeling of abundance and grace, they understood what they were hearing a little better. The scripture says that they read from the book, from the Torah with interpretation, with understanding. So that the people understood the reading… 

We have to understand that the literacy rate at this time was only about 3%... But they understood so profoundly the law that was read… Maybe it was because they had lived for years in a barbaric society, maybe it was because they had been separated in captivity… But this time they understood what the law was trying to teach them… they understood and they were so moved with compassion that they wept… 

They didn’t gather separately in different groups, they were all gathered together in the square… After they rejoiced, Nehemiah told them to go on their way… go on their way and share their joy with others… To eat the fat and drink sweet wine… and make sure to send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared. 

He reminded them that the joy of the Lord is your strength. Gathered together… one body of people… in need of each other to be whole… recognizing that they are better together than they are apart… 

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus is there, teaching in the synagogue he was gaining some attention and was liked by everyone…He had come to his hometown in Nazareth and was teaching on the Sabbath in the synagogue, and he stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah… He proclaims Isaiah’s words as if they were his own as if he were the great prophet, Isaiah… The words he proclaimed were good news to the poor… release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, the oppressed go free…He proclaimed words of restoration that folks would know and remember… those that know the law of Moses… those that know God’s favor for God’s people. 

The gathering of the church is often referred to as the body of Christ… when we come together to hear the scripture read and proclaimed and celebrate God’s restoration and abundance, we do it together… Together in a body that needs our differences as much as our likeness… together in a body that sometimes disagrees, but does it with grace and forgiveness… 

I said in the beginning, that a church could survive heresy but not schism… This basically means that we may not jive on all the crazy little intricate details of what it means to be faithful… But that’s ok, God loves us anyway. We may have sticking points or confusion about what it means to live out our lives as faithful Christians… So much that when we run up against something that we don’t agree with We are schismatic, and run to another community that appears to be more in line with what we believe… Brothers and sisters, that’s not healthy. 

If we have been nurtured in a community of faith for several years, we must stay and engage, dialogue about what’s causing us grief… We are not going to agree on everything… But the one thing we must agree on is that Jesus Christ is Lord… And in proclaiming that first… we start to come together in so many ways… 

In proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord… it advocates that we are about life and love… a way of a relationship that builds up and doesn’t tear down… In being the body of Christ… we have eyes that need ears and feet that need hands… we have legs that need arms and a head (Jesus Christ) to help guide it all… 

Together, in Christ, we can do so much more than we cannot do on our own… How hard would it have been for one person to drop $8000 to make our outreach at St. James possible? But 70 people coming together, we were ALL able to make that happen. And through that, we are able to advocate for those whom nothing is prepared. We are able to but God’s abundant love and God’s abundant grace into action…. Because in Christ, we come together and we are made whole… We can’t say, I have no need of you because you don’t think like I do… We must say, help me understand, we must say help us understand… 

We don’t engage in discernment and come to understanding by ourselves… we are a body, guided, empowered and driven by the Holy Spirit… We, by ourselves, are lacking. But by Christ, we are made whole… 

Now I call this the IKEA exercise… Has anyone ever shopped at IKEA? You know, the Swedish furniture store that sells things that you have to put together? A simple bookshelf will come to you in about 5000 pieces, and the directions don’t have any words… they just show a stick figure putting this piece in that piece… 

I want you to take a moment and think about that… Think about what things you have in your life which are a ‘whole’ and now think of all the parts they are made from. sometimes the pieces that make up the whole are not useful by themselves… sometimes they are… but sometimes, they function better when they are with the things that make their purpose clear… 

Now think… what other parts could be added to make them better, to make the whole even more capable? Now, translate that thought into people in your life. What groups are the ‘whole’ of your life? They may be groups that challenge you to be more… What can you do to make more of yourself? How can you help and be helped by the whole, whatever that group might be? 

Whether it’s at church, at school, at work, or at home, you can help yourself and others and make life better for everyone, for the whole??? And now, in going forth, knowing that you are the Body of Christ, that you are Beloved of God… What will you commit to doing in the world to show Christ’s love to help yourself and others be more than they are right now?