tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84749999665056314452024-03-13T22:47:40.890-07:00A Parson & His Country CraftFr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-82491289323345665552018-02-08T12:23:00.003-08:002018-02-08T13:06:16.393-08:00Red Bank Unity Walk - Closing Prayer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dear Lord and Father of all mankind, forgive our foolish ways; Save us from violence, discord, malice, and especially in this hour preserve us from complacency and despair. Fashion into one united people those who have come here from many lands and nations. Give a spirit of wisdom and of a sound mind to all in places of authority and keep them mindful of their duty to serve all the people and to strive for the common good. Finally, O Father, fill us with hope, a hope that does not sit idly by but labors for the preservation and renewal of our society, and unto God's gracious mercy and protection I commend you, the Lord bless us and keep us, the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us, the Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace, both now and evermore. Amen.Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-65731108475973439072017-04-20T06:49:00.002-07:002017-04-20T06:49:49.737-07:00Easter Sunday<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.32in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Christ
being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion
over him.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We
usually associate the incarnation—the teaching that the eternal Son
of God through whom all things were created took to himself the
created nature of man—with Christmas or Annunciation, but I would
argue that this doctrine is no where more put to the test than in on
Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. What I mean is that t</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">he
ancient philosophers realized that God, the source of all goodness,
does not change and is not subject to suffering. Furthermore, the Old
Testament affirmed that </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>God
is not a man that he should lie</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
In the man Jesus, we see God joining himself to our broken nature and
undergoing suffering and pain in this flesh. The unchanging and
eternal Son of God takes our human nature </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
experiences change and decay. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This
is a real scandal in the ancient world for Christians to say that God
became man. How can the immutable become mutable?</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
For this reason, Paul says that the message of Christ is foolishness
to Greeks and a </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">stumbling
block</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> to Jews. The
message of Christ speaks of an Immutable God being touched by the
mutability of this world. </span>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">It
makes </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">me</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
think </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">about</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
why did God make a world that changes? One thing dies, and another is
born. There is the cycle of seasons and weather. With age, our bodies
are increasingly out of sync with our will; </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">we
cannot do the things we would</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">All m</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">aterial
things inevitably break </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and
eventually are thrown away or disposed of</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
In the past 15 years, I've lived in five different states, and I've
noticed a saying that repeats itself from state to state, if you
don't like the weather, in whatever state you happen to live, just
wait awhile. Every state seems to </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">think
it has</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> the wildest swings
in weather, but the truth is that this is the way the world is from
the weather to our possessions to our bodies and the bodies of our
loved ones. I would also add that a good deal of the pain, sadness,
and frustration we feel in this life </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">results
f</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">rom </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the
changes t</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">hat are
happening around or within us, and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">again
we come back to this question:</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
why would God put us in this world of change when he knows it will
only give us pain and grief? Now some who have a low-view of God's
love and concern for the world and humanity would see in these
changes a wheel of fortune, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">blind
chance</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> dol</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">ing</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
out pain and change and grief </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">indiscriminately</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
The philosophers would say that it is just a facet of created reality
that it changes, and th</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">ere</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
is some </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">comfort</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
but not a great </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">deal of
it</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> to know that change
should not surprise us because it is, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">if
you will, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">built into the
system. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">As Christians we can say something more. As Christians we
recognize that God is a loving creator and father. That he does not,
in the words of Scripture, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>willingly
afflict the sons of men</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>works all things
for good for those who love him</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
The truth </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">is</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
there is not always an easy explanation for why God allows these
changes to happen—why he allows this person to die prematurely, or
life to be a seemingly unbroken sequence of struggles to manage
finances, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">jobs,</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
or relationships. What we know by faith is that none of it is outside
of his loving providence. And here is something else for you to
consider this morning, perhaps God allows these changes to give us a
desire for him who is unchangeable? In this sense, you could think of us as children and life as a kind of education. The material thing needs to break or be
lost because we have to learn not to trust in the material things of
this world but in God who cannot break or be lost. The death of a
loved one may be God's way of increasing our appetite for heaven
where is no death or dying. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Perhaps
we grow feeble in mind or body in order to loosen our grasp on the
things of this world, and to learn to cling to what is truly lasting?
As a pastor I witness people going through change and see first-hand
the pain and sorrow that go along with it, but I also see the grace
that out of change can bring a renewed sense of purpose and a hope
for heaven. </span>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">And
now we come to the heart of the matter: Christ's resurrection is a
tangible sign that God will raise up all that is good and preserve </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">it</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
forever from change and decay. St. Paul writes in his letter to the
Romans, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>Christ being
raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over
him</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> (Romans 6:9). We
will continue to live in this world of change and decay as the sons
and daughters of </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">adam</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">,
but we are also pilgrims, sons and daughters of the Father and
brethren to the risen Christ, making our way joyfully to that greater
life where there is no change or decay. We are people of hope, and
the resurrection is the gift God gave us in Christ to serve as the
foundation of that hope. Whatever pain or sorrow or frustration you
are enduring right now—and we all have our portion to bear—Christ's
resurrection is an answer to it, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">n</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">ot
as an naïve optimism or an easy way out of our trials, but a promise
of new life through death </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and
change</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">. Let us cling to
this hope on this joyful Easter day, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">as
an anchor to our souls, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">being</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
confident of the one in whom </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">trust
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">that </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">he
will</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> preserve all that </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">is
truly</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> good and noble and
beautiful </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">from</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
the decay, uncertainty and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">mortality</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
of this world</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">. St. John
writes in his Revelation, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>I
heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of
God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his
people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more
pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the
throne said, Behold, I make all things new.</i></span></div>
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-90416371345555451622017-01-31T07:25:00.003-08:002017-01-31T07:25:32.522-08:003rd Sunday after the Epiphany, the Beatitudes<br />
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The pronouncements that form the Gospel this morning are usually called the beatitudes from the Latin word <i>beatus</i>, blessed. It is a portion of Scripture that I never tire of hearing. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Beatitudes are a fixed portion of the Divine Liturgy, and are said every Sunday. This morning I want to think about what these words of Scripture mean. To many these words of Scripture are familiar, but also enigmatic. They seem to turn the world upside down from our usual way of thinking.<br />
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The first thing that needs to be said about the beatitudes is that Jesus is not commending a delusional view of the world. He is not simply saying what is bad is good, what is cold is hot. Contrary to popular misconception, Christians are not be Don Quixote figures who refuse to accept the plain facts under the force of a driving religious impulse. The problem with a lot of schools and educational programs that are called Christian is that they so want to impart the faith that they malign, suppress, or obscure anything that would challenge that faith. I think that this is a spirit that is foreign to true Christianity, which is not afraid to say, as St. Augustine said, all truth is God's truth. Our Lord is not advocating a disposition that would deny worldly realities.<br />
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Rather, in the beatitudes our Lord pronounces a blessing on human weakness and brokenness. He says that in mourning and meekness and poverty are found blessing. Why is this the case? We don't willingly seek to be poor in spirit, or to mourn, or be hungry? What our Lord tells us is that these are the attitudes and dispositions that make us open to the kingdom of God. In our human pride and desire to be self-sufficient, when we are full and happy and feel rich in spirit, we don't think that we need God or spiritual things. This is part of the fallenness of the world, that the material world becomes a distraction from the spiritual realm. When we are satisfied with the good things of this world, we don’t think we need the one from that goodness comes who is goodness itself and our highest good. The truth that the poor, hungry and morning are open to receiving the kingdom of God is illustrated again and again in the Gospels. Witness the people to whom our Lord ministers: he doesn't come to reach out to the powerful, the accomplished or the learned. He comes to restore the deaf, the oppressed, and the outcast. God in Christ was working in the shadows of their lives to bring about new life and redemption.<br />
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But we have to say something more about these beatitudes. Yes, they are about people whom our Lord meets, and they are even about ourselves if we can embrace our inner poverty and hunger for righteousness. But in a very real and tangible sense our Lord spoke these beatitudes, these declarations of blessing, over his own life. He was poor in spirit. He emptied himself, taking upon himself the form of a servant, being found in human likeness. He was hungry, as he wrestled with the devil in the 40 days wilderness temptation, and later tasted the emptiness of sin crying from the cross, I thirst, and, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was mournful and he was meek; the prophets say of the messiah, is there any sorrow like his sorrow? And Isaiah writes of the suffering servant, He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. In short, the blessing of the beatitudes is most clearly seen in our Lord's passion and crucifixion. He is blessed in his sorrow, poverty and hunger, because on the cross, we see the kingdom of God breaking in, as he crucifies sin in the flesh and then rises triumphant over that sin and death in his resurrection. We do not need any more evidence that God works in tragedy and defeat, than to see how God brings redemption through our Lord's innocent suffering. The path to resurrection is through death. We should not, then, be afraid to face that which is painful, difficult or overwhelming. Though we might not always feel it, the proclamation and witness of Jesus Christ is that God is working in those shadows too, and that somehow these shadows are blessed. We are made ready for the kingdom though poverty, mourning, and meekness.<br />
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Our great high priest has gone before us in this poverty of spirit, and mourning, and meekness. He gave himself into the hands of sinful men and conquered the guilt, sin, and anxiety that continually assault our earthly existence. The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth, said this about our high priest who has known our weakness and need.<br />
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It is not merely that He was once "touched with the feeling of our infirmities"; He is so still. It is not merely that He was once tempted as we are ; He is with us and before us, "tempted as we are" (Heb. 4:15). And when it says that "in the days of his flesh ... he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death" (Heb. 5:7), this is more than recollection, for it speaks of His presence here to-day among us in all our confusion, aberration and abandonment, before all our locked prison doors, at all our sick-beds and gravesides. . . in all our genuine or less genuine triumphs. He is still the Friend of publicans and sinners. (CD IV.3 395)Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-9260028234814099112016-11-03T06:29:00.001-07:002016-11-03T06:29:20.496-07:00Reformation Sunday, Celebration of Common Prayer<i><br /></i>
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<i>GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words, which we [will hear] this day with our outward ears, may through thy grace be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honour and praise of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.</i><br />
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This morning, we are using the liturgy for the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion from the English Book of Common Prayer first authorized in 1662 and still the authorized version of the Book of Common Prayer in England today. One of the reasons that this date was settled on to use this liturgy is because it falls on what some Protestant groups call Reformation Sunday. On the 31st of October, 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, and it is this date that is usually remembered as the start of Reformation. In posting those theses, Luther was inviting debate about a host of different church practices which he perceived were at variance with the Bible. In the opening theses, Luther argued that “when our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said 'Repent', He called for the entire life of believers to be one of penitence. The word cannot be properly understood as referring to the sacrament of [confession]. . . [and] the pope himself cannot remit guilt, but only declare and confirm that it has been remitted by God.” Luther was protesting the teaching of the church that forgiveness could only be obtained through making a confession to a priest and that the priest was given power to forgive and remit the sin (or not). Before Luther started to see these inconsistencies between the church's teachings and the Bible, he had been a monk who was very devout, making numerous, almost daily, confessions, and always lacking assurance of his salvation. He was gripped by fear and guilt. In his later theological terminology, the monk Luther was imprisoned by the Law, God's righteous ordinances which invariably found him and find us lacking. What Luther the monk had not heard, and the discovery (or rediscovery) that he would make, that would rock Europe and the established church, was the teaching of St. Paul that what saves us is not works of the law, but faith and trust in our Lord Jesus. The Law reveals us as a sinners—a fact most of us already know, but the Gospel reveals God's gracious will towards law-breakers and sinners. Thus, as Paul says elsewhere, the Gospel is the good news “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” Put directly, God accepts us not for the list of our merits but by his own free-will and grace in Christ. To apply it to the human realm, do you love their children for what they do (or fail to do) or because you have made a choice to love them? The teaching of the late medieval church so clouded this truth that God appeared to be a father who loved us only when good. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus, however, is really about God's gracious love for sinners, and his will to renew and restore them. Luther's rediscovery of Paul burst across Europe like a flash of light: in Geneva, a young lawyer was so struck by this good news that he would change professions and go on to write a systematic theology according to the rediscovered doctrine and a nearly complete commentary on the all the books of the Bible. This lawyer of course was John Calvin. In England, there wasn't a central figure like Martin Luther or John Calvin, but the Reformation took no less of a decisive turn. The archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer undertook to develop a liturgy that took into account this rediscovery of Paul's doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. There were a number of facets to this undertaking: first of all this liturgy would be not just for priests and monks—it was intended for all of the people because all needed to hear the message of forgiveness and new life. Therefore, Cranmer put the prayers and readings in the vernacular. In most cases he didn't start from scratch, but took the Medieval service books, prayers and services from the continental Reformers, and edited them into a single book of services: the Book of Common Prayer. Next to the Authorized King James Bible and Shakespeare, it stands as a touchstone of English literature and the highmark of English piety and religion. The first edition of the Book of Common Prayer came out in 1549 after the death of Henry VIII during the short reign of his son Edward VI. Revising it to conform more thoroughly with the principles of the Reformation, a new more Protestant edition of the Book of Common Prayer came out in 1552. After an interval of its being outlawed under the reign of Mary, popularized as Bloody Mary, it was reintroduced with some slight modifications upon the enthronement of Elizabeth I in 1559, and it was once more slightly edited in 1662 and has been the official Book of Common Prayer in England ever since. The first settlers in America in Virginia used that 1559 Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer, but the 1662 was one that traveled all over the world as the British Empire spread. It became the parent book of all other local adaptations of the Book of Common Prayer in such diverse places as Uganda, America, and Australia. There is a copy of the 1662 prayer book at historic Christ Church in Philadelphia where the references to the English King were crossed out on July 4, 1776, prefiguring the ways in which the prayer book would be adapted as it went from country to country.<br />
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The legacy of the 1662 prayer book is strongly evident in our 1928 Book of Common Prayer which was the last American prayer book to take its immediate predecessor as a base text. There are a number of deficiencies, in my opinion, in the 1979 prayer book, even while there some significant contributions it has made. Whatever its virtues or deficiencies, there can be little arguing with the fact that 1979 prayer book presents a very different form and content to common prayer than the 1928 or 1662 prayer books, though the '79 can be used in such a way as to reflect the earlier tradition. I hope that many of the prayers we say today we ring a note a familiarity and consonance for you. It's a rich and beautiful tradition from the Collect for Purity, the Comfortable Words, and the Prayer of Humble Access. A secular author, James Wood, writing in a review for The New Yorker for the 350th anniversary of the 1662 prayer book a few years ago had this to say,<br />
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<i>Despite the quality of language that strikes us nowadays as majestic and grandly alienated, the words of the Prayer Book are notable for their simplicity and directness. C. S. Lewis called this quality “pithiness”; I would add “coziness” or “comfortability.” The Prayer Book was a handbook of worship for a people, not for a priesthood, and its job was to replace and improve the ancient collective rites of worship that bound people together in the English Catholic Church.</i><br />
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From the standpoint of faith, we can and should be thankful for the prayer book's simplicity and clarity on the matters of faith: it tells us who are: those who from time to time (or to put it into contemporary idiom again and again) have sinned against the Lord. But it also tells us of God's great and unfailing love for us. Again and again we hear of him whose property is always to have mercy. John Wesley, who is credited with founding Methodism but was actually a loyal son of the Church of England, had this to say about the 1662 prayer book: “I believe there is no Liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.” And might I add, though we're not going to use the 1662 every Sunday, our regular Sunday liturgy resonates with the same or similar prayers, and so let us celebrate and use this heritage of common prayer that it might express the living faith of the dead. We use it not for reasons of nostalgia nor because we are anglo-philes, but because it works!<br />
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<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-57970258499670159902016-10-16T04:42:00.000-07:002016-10-16T04:42:07.282-07:00Baptism Sermon, Abraham Edward<br />
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This morning I have the wonderful privilege to baptism Abraham Edward Williams. Performing the sacrament of Holy Baptism is among the best things a priest gets to do. As the service of Baptism states, in Holy Baptism we are regenerated (born again) and grafted into the body of Christ's Church. Historically baptism has often been called a Christening, which simply refers to the belief that in Holy Baptism a new Christian is made, not of course as a result of any merit that we present to God, but because of God's loving grace poured out in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and given to the baptized person as a free gift.<br />
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In the sixth chapter of his letter to the Romans, Paul asks the question, Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Put simply if you are baptized, as you go under those cleansing waters you die with Christ in his crucifixion, and as you come out of those same waters you rise again with him. Holy Baptism follows the pattern of Christ's death and resurrection. And why, you might ask is this important? It is important because we want to belong to our Lord Jesus whom the Bible speaks of as a new Adam.<br />
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We all know the old Adam, and in a sense we all live like that old Adam. In the opening chapters of Genesis, we hear the account of how man falls away from communion with God, and this comes about because Adam wants to live by his own light rather than the light of God—he will decide what to call good and what to call evil rather than subjecting his will to the Word of God. Adam and Eve's alienation from the Lord is succeeded by a break in the fellowship between brother and brother when Cain slaughters his brother Abel. As I've said many times before, In Adam's sin, man said to God, I do not need you, and in Cain's, man said to his brother, I do not need you. The old Adam's heritage is a heritage of alienation, sin, and death, and we still see these impulses strongly at work today, to say to God, I don't need you, and to say to a fellow-man, I don't need you.<br />
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But the new Adam comes to teach us how to live in the light of God and in fellowship with one another. He tells his Father, even in the midst of the agony of death, that he needs him: into thy hands, I commend my spirit. The one who displays his superiority and moral perfection does not despise fellowship with sinful and broken humans. Rather, he works endlessly to restore them to God and to one another. Even in the difficult things that our Lord says, he is not aiming at abrasion but healing.<br />
By original sin, we belong to the old Adam—we are part of his communion, although this word can only be used equivocally since the lineage of Adam blindly smashes every act of communion and fellowship by sin and selfishness. It is, I am sorry to say, the legacy of old Adam that seems to have won the day in our society today, that is so divided by suspicion, discord, and animosity. Our only real hope is Christ, who can reconcile us to God and to one another. By grace and the sacrament of Baptism, we belong to the new Adam, our Lord Jesus. As St. John reminds us again and again, “truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. . . and if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another” (1 John 1:3,7). As we belong to Christ the new Adam and live in him, we become part of his spiritual family, the communion of saints that will ever grow in charity. As we bring Abraham to these cleansing water we pray that, though the old Adam will undoubtedly still manifest his legacy in his life, it will not hold sway, and the gifts of the new Adam will live and grow in him, the gifts of forgiveness and love and concord.<br />
<br />
In the English 1662 Book of Common Prayer there is a prayer in the service of Baptism that is not found in the later American prayer books and it is truly exquisite. It begins by a recollection of Old Testament figures whom God saved through water, specifically Noah and his family in the ark and the Hebrews who passed through the Red Sea on dry ground. Both of these are figures of Baptism in which God saves us from trial and judgment. The prayer concludes by petitioning God that the infant about to baptized will be placed in the ark of Christ's church and that "being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, [he] may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life." The "waves of this troublesome world." A beautiful and poignant phrase. Isn't that the nature of this life. It is full of waves and tumults. We feel like we are in constant flux and change. As soon as we seem to land on settled ground, all turns to chaos. It has been my observation that most people most of the time are in inner chaos despite the serene front we may put on. If the world and life is like this, then surely we are in need of God's grace from beginning to end, from the first day of our life to our death. Without God's help, we simply cannot tread this world's troublesome waves long enough to reach shore. In the words of a familiar hymn with which we are soon to be reacquainted, our longing must be that "God [would] be at my end and at my departing." We need God's grace every moment of our lives, and this is one reason why it is fitting that infants are baptized.<br />
<br />
You know, Shakespeare got it wrong when he said faithful romantic love is "the star to every wandering bark." The image of course is that of a ship which navigates by the reliable North star. Think about our lives for a moment. I am a wandering bark--we all are wandering ships--tossed by the "waves of this troublesome world." The star, compass and map that guides us home is Jesus and his love and grace. May we all this day be reminded of the grace we have received, signified by our Baptism and given freely to us every moment of our lives, a grace that leads us through "the waves of this troublesome world, so that finally we may come to the land of everlasting life."Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-34889894990347659242016-10-09T04:58:00.003-07:002016-10-09T04:58:57.576-07:0021st Sunday after Pentecost<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>But
the word of God is not fettered</i></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
lessons this morning tie together the theme of the power of God's
word. In the first lesson and the Gospel it is the power of the
prophet's word to bring cleansing for the lepers Naaman and the
Samaritan, both foreigners. The power of the word is illustrated in
these readings, and it is asserted in the profound words of St. Paul
in the Epistle, “the word of God is not fettered.” Paul wrote
these words while he himself was fettered in prison, but he states
that the word, the truth of God, cannot be fettered. Towards the end
of his life, St. Paul spent considerable time in prison for being
what we would call today a disturber of the peace. The Christian
Gospel is a faith that demands the transformation of every aspect of
life, whether it be private, political, or social. As such, true
Christian faith will never be welcome in a society which tries to
relegate religion to the realm of private opinion and private
devotion. Roman society was open to every type of belief, but the
Apostles preached a man who claimed to be the way, the truth and the
life. Caesar could still be king, but the Christians had the audacity
to say that there was a greater lord than the Caesar. It is not
surprising that such talk was unpopular to the powers of the Roman
State. This is why Paul was in prison and would ultimately be killed
for his proclamation. Among the thirteen letters of Paul in the New
Testament there are a handful that were written while Paul was in
prison. They are moving letters. Here is a man enduring trial and
persecution and yet confident of the one in whom he trusts. This
morning's Epistle comes from one of these prison letters, addressed
to a young leader in the church.
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One
wonders what Timothy felt having his spiritual father in prison. I
don't think any of us would fault him if he felt a great deal of
uncertainty about the future of the church. After all, the early
Christians were facing a seemingly all-powerful State which could
tolerate Christianity as long as it marched in step with the rest of
the Roman Empire, which of course it couldn't. Amongst the doubt and
uncertainty that Timothy and the church must have been feeling, Paul
exhorts Timothy to "Remember Jesus Christ" in the opening
words to our lesson. The form of the verb used here for remember
contains the idea of repeated or habitual action. Paul is saying that
Timothy should have Jesus in mind and keep him there. Paul is not
just exhorting him to be pious. He is reminding of Timothy of the
great story of our redemption. Our Lord Jesus was crucified and died.
It seemed like the end for Jesus and his followers. In the days after
his crucifixion, the Gospel accounts relate that the disciples were
in fear, uncertainty and sorrow. In the account in Luke of our Lord
appearing to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we're told that the
disciples did not even recognize the Lord. I think most of their
blindness was due to the fact that they did not expect to see him:
Jesus was dead; end of story. In our Lord's crucifixion, corrupt
religion, power without principle and even death all seem to win the
day. But in our Lord's resurrection, it is demonstrated that nothing
is impossible with God. Not all the powers of State, Religion, or
even Hell can negate God's purposes. In the grim circumstances Paul
and the church are facing, he reminds Timothy that we must follow the
Lord who shows by his death and resurrection that nothing is
impossible for God: Remember Jesus Christ. Paul may be in prison, but
this will not thwart the preaching of the Gospel. Paul reminds
Timothy that the word of God is not fettered. I may be in prison, but
the word can not. The word of the Lord cannot fail because it is
true.
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
I was writing composing this sermon, I couldn't help but think of
those familiar opening words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the
great hymn of the Union during the Civil War:
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.01in; orphans: 0; page-break-before: auto; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mine
eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.01in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He
is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.01in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He
hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.01in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His
truth is marching on.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My
friends, the truth will always march on from the perspective of
eternity. The truth cannot be silenced. This was evident when
Socrates was condemned for being an atheist and disturber of the
peace. No one remembers the names of the judges who gave sentence on
him or the citizens of Athens who agitated for his arrest and
execution. But his name and the pursuit of truth which he inspired
live on. In the same way, injustice that is codified into law can not
stand forever, as the history of slavery in England and America
shows.
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
God has done and declared in our Lord Jesus cannot be undone,
repealed, silenced or rebutted. In our Lord Jesus, our elder brother,
the new Adam, has died on our behalf, canceling the debt of our sins
and drawing us to himself and to his Father. In Christ, God is
reconciling the world to himself that he may be all in all (2
Corinthians 5:19, 1 Corinthians 15:28). Christianity is not like a
secret society in which a central mystery is passed from person to
person and where you might run the risk of the last member dying and
the mystery being lost. Rather, the word of the Lord cannot be bound;
it is not a light hidden under a basket. This means that we do not
need to worry about the ultimate fate of the world or of the church.
That which is true will ultimately triumph and be manifest. The Word
which God sends, like the rain upon the mown grass and the snow from
heaven, shall not return to him void, but will accomplish that for
which he has sent it. That Word, our Lord Jesus, is recreating you
and me in the image of himself, that we might be a new humanity that
lives by humility and grace and love.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<br />
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-62697036177400306202016-10-02T04:49:00.002-07:002016-10-02T04:49:08.314-07:0020th Sunday after Pentecost<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>If
I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. </i></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I
wonder how many of you winced or even revolted at the last verse of
our Psalm this morning. It contains a grisly and unsettling image:
<i>blessed shall he be
that taketh thy children, and throweth them against the stones. </i>I
hope none is more scandalized by these words than by the actual
suffering of children in our time. No matter what your view of
abortion is—whether it is an absolute evil that should be outlawed
or a necessary evil that should be allowed but carefully regulated—I
wonder if we wince more at these words than the approximately 700,000
abortions in the United States every year. I also wonder how much we
wince at the plight of children made refugees by the Syrian civil
war. Many were moved by the recent photograph of a Syrian child
caught in the midst of that civil war, but such tenderness can often
stall at just sympathy and not translate into action. I'm not saying
that you were wrong to wince at the Psalm if
you did—I'll
admit it is a portion of Scripture that in the course of the monthly
reading of the Psalms, I often wince at—I'm just wondering if we
are more sensitive to the words found in the Bible than of the myriad
of actual sufferings in this world? That
is a
question only you as an individual can answer.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But
before
we start getting too upset about the Psalm, we need to ask the who,
what, when, where, and why. Answering these questions will help us
understand the Psalm, which in turn, will help us to understand how
it might relate to us today. The Psalm is set in the period
around the Babylonian exile.
Next to the Exodus, the most important event in the Old Testament is
the Exile which occurred in 586BC. The Babylonians conquered the
rebelling
Jews in Judah. The Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar,
destroyed
the capital
city of Jerusalem,
tore down its walls and razed its temple. Afterward,
many were carried
into exile,
nearly a thousand miles away in Babylon on the banks of the river
Euphrates. The people not only lost their home, they lost their sense
of autonomy with the execution of the their king
and his sons. They
also
felt cut off from God because
God had told them that the one place to worship
was in the temple. The Psalm opens with a statement of the sadness of
the people in exile, <i>By
the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee,
O Sion. </i>Sion
of course is the name of the hill on which the temple had been built
in Jerusalem. Here is a people that is downcast and dejected, and to
compound the matter, the captors, the Babylonians,
wanted them to sing and make music. To put this is more direct terms,
this would be like asking a Southerner to sing the national anthem in
1865 or more a
trivial illustration,
you being asked to attend <i>and
cheer</i>
at a parade for the winner of a sports championship for a team whom
you despise. The exiles <i>hang
up their harps </i>and
ask
themselves, <i>how
shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land</i>?
In the closing verses of the Psalm, we hear
their
sadness well up into anger and a desire for revenge.
First they renounce the Edomites, a neighboring nation to Judah, who
apparently watched with glee the downfall of an old foe. Then comes
the curse on the Babylonians and on their children. In
the
horrible eighteen month siege
of Jerusalem, the Bible reports that some resorted to cannibalism,
and
the
prophet Jeremiah had
warned that
<i>I </i><i>[the
Lord] </i><i>will make
them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one
another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the
enemies who seek their lives</i>
(Jeremiah 19:9). The
speaker in the Psalm merely wants what happened to the Jews to happen
to the Babylonians. That being said, I
would submit to you that the anger and revenge we see evidenced here
is not a noble or godly emotion, but one that reflects a genuine
human
emotion. This is one of the brilliant things about the Psalms in that
it shows the full range of human emotions. One cannot really condone
the anger here, but one can at least understand it after taking
account of
what the what
the people
endured in the siege
of Jerusalem and the
exile
to Babylon.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So,
why, you might be asking, does it matter and what does it have to do
with my life? Well, according to the traditional understanding of the
Psalms, there is an additional layer of meaning. There is the
historical meaning I've been describing, and then there is the
allegorical or typological reading. In this reading, for example,
Jerusalem containing
king and temple for God's people
would be understood as
the
kingdom of God. Hence, St. Paul can talk about the heavenly
Jerusalem, where our true citizenship belongs, and which is, as he
says, the mother of us all. Furthermore, Babylon, the place away from
Jerusalem, would be understood as this world and the time of this
mortal life in
which we long for the life of heaven, for
Jerusalem.
Such a reading of the Psalm is reflected in the (Offertory/Gospel)
hymn this morning. The second to last stanza reads,
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.3in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.82in;">
Now,
in the meantime, with hearts raised on high,<br />we
for that country must yearn and must sigh,<br />seeking
Jerusalem, dear native land,<br />through
our long exile on Babylon's strand.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.28in; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In
the language of the New Testament, we are living in exile
in
Babylon waiting to be taken back to our true home, Jerusalem. We live
in Babylon, but we don't live in quite the same way as the sons and
daughters of that
city of the world live.
But, my friends, and here is the rub, just like those exiles of long
ago, Christians
can be overwhelmed by anger and revenge for a world that
is broken in so many ways. We can
be angry
because life and society have let us down.
We can
be angry because when we look at the world we see much insanity. The
truth is that
it
is all too easy to get
fed up with the world, and retreat into our own religious or cultural
safe-havens.
I'm here to tell you that it is okay to be frustrated and it is
probably even okay to be angry at the insanity you see in the world,
but we can't let it get the best of us. Our
Lord tells us to bless them that curse you, that you may be children
of your father in heaven.
The Psalmist can't bring himself to sing the Lord's song in a strange
land, but I believe this is precisely what we are supposed to do.
While
we live on
Babylon's
strand waiting to go to Jerusalem our dear native land,
let
us sing the Lord's song in this strange land, a
song of the Lord's goodness and justice and
love.</div>
Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-72417118481807966592016-09-25T04:47:00.003-07:002016-09-25T04:47:34.207-07:0019th Sunday after Pentecost<br />
<br />
<div>
<i>We brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In last week's sermon, I talked about mammon which is a word used in the Bible to encompass material things and money. It is all things of this world of which we claim possession. In the sermon on the mount, our Lord said that we cannot serve God and mammon. Divided loyalty does not work. The parable in the Gospel last week told of the unjust steward who gave away his lord's assets so that he would gain friends and sympathizers to take him in after he was removed from office. Our Lord's admonition is to make for ourselves friends using the mammon of unrighteousness, and I described how William Tyndale the great English reformer argued that this really applies to the poor. To paraphrase Tyndale, use your money to supply the want of the poor. This concrete love for the those in need will be the outward sign of your inward and true faith in God. It is not that money or mammon is evil. Rather our Lord calls it unrighteous mammon because it leads us into temptation. As Paul writes in the Epistle this morning, those who desire to be rich fall into temptation. Notice how he says those who desire to be rich not those who are rich. You see, as Augustine of Hippo pointed out, it is possible to be rich and greedy, but it is also possible to be poor and greedy. In each case, one thinks that money and material possessions will give lasting happiness. Our readings this morning, as I am sure you noticed, all continue this theme of mammon. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The problem with mammon is actually an identity problem with ourselves. In our VBS this summer, we talked about the crux of the story about the Tower of Babel is really an identity struggle. Those who built the tower, we are told, wanted to make a name for themselves. They were building fame and earthly reputation. It is significant I think that in the story that succeeds that of the tower of Babel, the narrative of the patriarch Abraham, God tells him that if he will follow his leading into the land of promise, God will bless him and give him a <i>name</i>. This is the truth that the Bible stresses. It is not we who decide who we truly are—we don't forge our identity through a long voyage of self-discovery. Rather, it is God who tells us who we truly are: he gives us a name; you are his creature; you are made in the image of God so that you are endowed with reason and creativity and the ability to choose right and wrong; you are also a wayward sinner who has run away from your Creator again and again; by adoption and grace you are his dearly beloved child. God reserves the right to show us our name, our identify, because he has created, redeemed and sustained us. Today's readings speak a powerful word to us about our identity: your identity, my identity does not come from mammon. You are not what you own. We live in a society that largely lives by such metrics—there is a reason why they are called status symbols. But the happiness material wealth can give is tenuous at best: the material thing can break, the money can be lost or squandered, and most importantly, inanimate things don't go very far in filling our deepest needs for love, joy and communion with others.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Epistle opens with a common place truism that is all too-easy to forget: we brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of it. Job lost first his family and all he had, and then he lost the most unnerving thing of all: his good health—many ancient commentators made a lot of the fact that Job still had his wife after all that—but Job recognized that all those transitory things—his possessions, family, and health—are just gifts of God, gifts that in this temporal and mortal life must have a termination. After his wife incites Job to curse God and die, he famously says, <i>the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord</i>. To quote a country song from a few years back that makes the same point: I ain't never seen a hearse with a luggage rack. If you believe in that greater life, and you're hope and identity is in things that you can't take out of this world, you are bound to be disappointed and broken by very things you trust so much. Mammon is a god that can seem to give such a quick high, but it will cast you down with blind cruelty.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In reading the Lesson from Amos and the Gospel, I couldn't help but think of our Lord's words in last week's Gospel that in Luke directly precedes today's Gospel. He told his listener's, <i>Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations</i>. Are those who as Amos says, lying on beds of ivory, and who stretch complacently on their couches, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, are these making friends of their poor with their unrighteous mammon, or are they making friends of themselves? They expend what they have in pleasing themselves, while great suffering and pain and injustice pervade the city of Samaria. The same thing could be said of the rich man in the parable of Lazarus. What friends does he have who will testify of his faith from his unrighteous mammon? He certainly does not have a friend in the poor man Lazarus, who has his sores licked by stray dogs. It has often been pointed out that Lazarus is the only named person in any of our Lord's parables. The very person who in real life nobody would know his name is the very person named explicitly by our Lord. Such is the upside down way that God views the world. So, my friends, two questions for you: where is your identity? Is it in the perishing things of this world or is it in the fact that you are child of God, loved completely by the Lord? In addition is there is a person in your life that is nameless, a Lazarus if you will, to whom you extend in the name of the Lord a few crumbs. Maybe it is a kind word, an encouragement or counsel, or just a helping hand that you could offer? Our society might say that people are expendable, but this idea can be given no quarter in the Gospel: Perhaps, my friends, we should start seeing the world “upside down” where those who are nameless are loved and treasured and find a home in the family of God and God's kingdom. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-28315465335602900042016-09-18T04:55:00.005-07:002016-09-18T04:55:43.371-07:0018th Sunday after Pentecost<br />
<div>
<i>And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This morning we have one of the most difficult of our Lord's parables. The most obvious difficulty is that our Lord commends the unjust steward, even though his actions are not only unjust, but unethical and immoral. The steward gave away part of his employer's property without his permission or consent. This morning, I'd like to try and make some sense out of this challenging parable, but first we have to define our terms. Mammon is a word that we don't use much anymore, but it's a helpful one. Mammon is external material goods, principally money though not exclusively so. Mammon is all those things of which our Lord said that life does not consist, that is, the abundance of possessions. He also said that you cannot serve God and mammon. My mentor and rector in Oklahoma City, Fr. Bright, used to talk to me about mammon. On several occasions I came into church bemoaning some calamity that had happened to me—car troubles and a minor flood in the garage come to mind. Whenever I'd start in on this, he would often just say one word: mammon. He said this not so much to chide me for my excessive concern but indirectly pointing out that we live in a world where cars inevitably break and garages flood. This is what mammon does, and it's why we don't serve it as god. I think that is the reason why our Lord calls mammon unrighteous. He is not saying that money or material things are evil. That was a later heresy that was soundly rejected by the church. No, our Lord is saying that too often the human heart is drawn away into the service and worship of mammon—a service that inevitably leads to heartache and sorrow when that money disappears or material thing breaks. In fact, if we listen carefully, our Lord is definitely not saying money is evil because he advises us to make use of unrighteous mammon by gaining friends, that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.</div>
<div>
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This is still quite perplexing though. Who are these friends that we are to make with money? How is that these friends will be the ones to receive us into eternal habitations? I thought it was God who takes us to himself in that greater life? One of the great English Reformers during the reign of Henry VIII was William Tyndale who wrote an entire tract on this particular parable of our Lord's. Tyndale's claim to fame is that he was the first to translate the New Testament into English after the Reformation began. When it was first printed, it had to be done so illegally and smuggled into England where it became hugely popular. A priest once chided Tyndale for his translation efforts, arguing that Tyndale was being disobedient to God, the king and the church. Tyndale famously responded that “If God spares my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than you do.” Writing in short book about the Parable of the Unrighteous Mammon, Tyndale informs his readers that the common interpretation for the parable is his day is that those who had money should to give to the church in honor of some saint. When they did this the saint would be pleased with them—the rich would make a friend of the honored saint--and then no matter what their moral life was like or their faith in God, the saint would receive the person into everlasting habitations. The gist of this interpretation was that you get into heaven by honoring the saints. </div>
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One of the problems with this line of interpretation, as Tyndale noted, is that it places too great an emphasis on the saints as intercessors and intermediaries with God. The saints should be honored for their valiant faith and works of love, but they are no substitute for Christ who is our high priest, our mediator, and our intercessor before his Father. Furthermore, even more problematically is that we could take from this interpretation of the parable that somehow it is our works that get us into heaven. It is impossible for us to keep God's law, as we testify in our liturgy when we respond to the summary of the law with the plea, Lord have mercy. The Law actually convicts us because it reveals the ways in which we've walked apart from God's justice and righteousness. Tyndale and the Reformers sought to recover Paul's teaching that what saves us—what gets us into heaven if you like—is not our good works but the merit of Christ and his shed blood. In his commentary on the parable Tyndale writes, </div>
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<i>When temptation ariseth, and the devil layeth the law and thy deeds against thee, answer him with the promises. . . Remember that he is the God of mercy and of truth, and cannot but fulfil his promises. Also remember, that his Son's blood is stronger than all the sins and wickedness of the whole world ; and therewith quiet thyself, and thereunto commit thyself. At the hour of death, bless thyself with the holy candle of faith in Christ. What does it matter if thou hast a thousand holy candles about thee, a hundred ton of holy water, a ship-full of pardons, a cloth-sack full of friars coats, and all the ceremonies in the world, and all the good works, deservings, and merits of all the men in the world, be they, or were they, never so holy. God s word only lasteth for ever; and that which he hath sworn doth abide, when all other things perish.</i></div>
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One of the frequent responses to this teaching that we are saved by our faith in Christ is what then of good works? Does it not matter what we do? Tyndale and the other reformers again get their answer from Paul: what is supremely important, to paraphrase Paul's word in his letter to the Galatians, is faith showing itself by love. If you have faith in God, trust in his promises and know of his love for you in our Lord's death on this cross, this will change the way you live and think. In fact, the Bible speaks of this new way of living as resurrection. Our good works don't save us. Rather they testify and bear witness of the faith you have within. Tyndale in combating the conventional interpretation on the parable concludes with these remarkable words about what kind of friends we should gain with our mammon. He writes, </div>
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<i>The saying of Christ, "Make you friends," and so forth, "that they may receive you into everlasting tabernacles," pertaineth not unto the saints which are in heaven, but is spoken of the poor and needy which are here present with us on earth : as though he should say, What, buildest thou churches, foundest abbeys, chauntries and colleges, in the honour of saints, to my mother, St Peter, Paul, and saints that be dead, to make of them thy friends ? They need it not. . . Thy friends are the poor, which are now in thy time, and live with thee; thy poor neighbours which need thy help and succour. Them make thy friends with thy unrighteous mammon ; that they may testify of thy faith, and thou mayest know and feel, that thy faith is right, and not feigned. </i></div>
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-27556918831319349782016-09-11T05:42:00.000-07:002016-09-11T05:42:07.611-07:00Commemoration of 9/11<br />
<i>Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and redeemer. </i><br />
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This morning is the 15th anniversary since the 9/11 terror attacks. The attacks killed 2,996 people and injured at least 6,000 others. It has become one of those events—like the assassination of JFK or the first moon landing—that people can recall where they were and what they were doing that grim morning, as the footage started coming in. Sadly for many in this area, it is more than just an important national memory, marred as it is by the death of friends, associates, and family members. In Monmouth County alone there were 147 fatalities from the attacks. The Bible has some sobering things to say about that grim day, and I'd like to point out some of the connections between our lessons and this commemoration.<br />
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First of all, in the Gospel we have the account of what are known as the holy innocents, the children who were barbarously slaughtered by Herod in order to kill the baby Jesus whom he perceived as a threat to his political power. In the Christian tradition, these children are remembered as martyrs. Though they did not consciously or even willingly die for our Lord, yet they lost their lives because they bore the wrath of Herod that had been intended for the baby Jesus. This narrative of the holy innocents puts us in mind of a sad fact in this fallen world that there will always be innocent people who are slaughtered unjustly by the rage of those have a will-to-power or who want to use coercion and fear to change the world into their own vision for it. As people who honor the holy innocents, Christians are called to renounce every slaughter of innocent people and to repudiate the use of fear and coercion as instruments for change. However just (or unjust) the perceived cause may be, no quarter can be given to violence against innocent people.<br />
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In the lesson for the Epistle, we have St. John's vision of heaven. There the saints rest in the Lord, and they rest from the turmoil which they endured: they shall hunger no more, neither thirst; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. The world may say that death is the worst thing that can happen to you, but long ago, the philosophers pointed out that length of life does not equate with a happy life. A short, well-lived life is immeasurably better than a long life that is plagued by vice. Further, as Christians we believe in a greater life. We believe in this life because our Lord Jesus rose triumphant from the dead on Easter morning, and so we too by our baptism and faith in him, will share in that new life, once we have passed through the same gate of death he entered on our behalf. These truths remind us that even if one's life is cut prematurely short, it is decidedly not the worst thing that could happen to you.<br />
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In the Psalm, we hear of the confidence of the psalmist in God's care and love. I particularly like the last verse and often refer to it at funerals: the Lord shall preserve thy going in and thy coming out from this time forth and forevermore. The message here is not only about God's protection—that we need not fear any mortal or created thing, but also about God's timing. The Almighty with his all perceiving eye preserves our entrance into this world, he sees that we cry, as Shakespeare put it, when we are come to this great stage of fools. The Lord is also present at our departure and because the Lord Jesus has sanctified death by his death we need not fear it.<br />
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Now you might be saying to yourself this morning, this is a lot of talk about heaven, but what about this life? Why does God allow horrific things like 9/11 to happen? It's important to remember that God gives us free-will, even to work evil, but the truth is sometimes there are just no easy answers to suffering. Consider the suffering of Job who never got the answer to why, but he did receive the assurance of God's loving providence. Just because we can't always say why horrible tragedies occur, we can still say that they have a redemptive aspect: they teach something we need to learn. Look at the signs of love and care that were poured forth on that grim day fifteen years ago. The love and concern is the way we're supposed to live all the time. We need to remember that love and strive to imitate it. In addition, 9/11 has something to teach about how to live as American and patriots. If no other good can be seen in these events, at the very least it should inspire us to renew our resolve to promote the common wealth of this nation and the liberty of our democracy.<br />
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On November 19, 1863 many gathered together in a small town in Pennsylvania to remember the death of over 7,000 in a grim three-day battle. Although it would be incorrect to say that they were innocent, it might be argued that their blood was shed unnecessarily. On that date, a new cemetery was dedicated for the fallen of Gettysburg, and President Lincoln thought that their memory should be preserved not only to keep in mind the horrors of war, but that their deaths might make everyone better citizens and patriots. In those familiar words he said,<br />
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<i>Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.</i><br />
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<i>Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.</i><br />
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<i>But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.</i><br />
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My friends, we have unfinished work as Christians and Americans to do. On this day of commemoration, let us renew our resolve as people of faith and re-dedicate ourselves to the principles of freedom and justice for which our nation stands. Let not the lives of those who died in 9/11 be lost in vain, as we strive to build a more just society and a more faithful church.<br />
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<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-1473166037308959542016-09-06T05:26:00.006-07:002016-09-06T05:26:59.461-07:0016th Sunday after Pentecost<i><br /></i>
<i>Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.</i><br />
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If I had to summarize Christianity in a couple words, I would say, “new life.” What does the Christian Gospel promise to sinners? New life. What does it promise to the weak and elderly? New life. What does it promise to the young and perplexed as well as the mature and disillusioned? Again, new life. All the major feasts of the Church Year have this in common: they commend new life. Take, for example, Christmas. It corresponds to the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. Human society living apart from the Lord and his light turns to darkness, but the eternal Word becomes flesh in the grim midst of human sin and brokenness. At the moment of greatest darkness, the Light appears. Something similar could be said about Easter. On Good Friday we show God the worst we can do. In the crucifixion there is a monumental subversion of justice and a rejection of love freely given. All the ugliness of human sin is on display, and on that day we can understand what the evangelist John meant when he said he came unto his own and his own received him not. There is a sadness and melancholy in these words that have their heart at the cross. We show God our worst, but he shows us his best, his greater love, grace and mercy. On Easter Day, God overcomes sin and death by raising our Lord Jesus from the dead, which becomes for us the promise of new and resurrected life.<br />
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In the Gospel today we have one of what is known as the difficult sayings of Jesus. Customarily preachers are expected to explain these sayings, but the usual result of such attempts is to accommodate Jesus to the comfortable image we have of him. But that is precisely not what our Lord does: he comes to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Furthermore, he doesn't wait until he is with a handful of his unwavering followers to say that they cannot be his disciples unless they hate father, mother, wife and children. On the contrary he makes this devastating statement when he sees that “great multitudes” are with him. This is just the opposite of the way a cult works. In a cult, the strangest doctrines are reserved for those who are so far in they cannot imagine life on the outside. To outsiders, a cult tries to appear as normal and pedestrian as possible. Our Lord's teaching is the farthest thing from being secret in this sense. But why be so abrasive and why say that a man must hate his family? The truth is that it is so easy to become a sleep-walkers or the walking dead. You can go though life thoughtlessly, without attention to the things of eternity, not knowing what you are doing or why you are doing it. Something or someone has to awaken you out of this slumber. Our Lord addresses these words to those who would follow him merely out of a following of the popular religious sentiment or out of an unwholesome religious enthusiasm.<br />
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What our Lord is describing is new life and discipleship. This new life is so radically different that it must involve a death, the death namely of you and me. In fact, if the New Testament is correct, this new life means a total reordering and altering of our current lives. New life is a turning of our world and the world upside down.<br />
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There are two prevailing religious attitudes that cannot receive this message of new life. The first says that religion and church is one part of a well-ordered life. A university student was once asked what goals he had for his life. He thought for a moment and then said, 'well, I'd like to get married and have children, and oh yeah, someday go to heaven.” This attitude says that church is one piece of the pie that is life, with say career, family, hobbies being other pieces. The message of new life says that faith is not a piece of the pie, but rather that it transforms the entire pie. Heaven starts now for those in surrender themselves and live in the joy and grace of the Lord. True faith, new life will touch and transform every aspect of life.<br />
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The second attitude toward religion comes closer to the spirit of true faith, but it too cannot hear or won't receive the message of new life. This attitude says that I need real help but that help is best administered by me. This attitude represents those who treat faith as a form of self-help. People with this attitude come to church in order to cope with the stresses of life. For a person with this attitude the best church is the one that is most therapeutic, the one that makes me feel good. What we actually need, of course, is the truth even when it will be unsettling and difficult to hear and receive. Any attitude that treats religion as self-help misses the point that a makeover of the old you will not suffice. What we need is total transformation and new life. Not a makeover.<br />
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Our Lord Jesus called the multitude to new life, and he is calling us today to new life. He is not calling you to religion or self-help but to resurrection, to complete transformation by his grace. The gate to this new life is through surrender and death, the cross. Our Lord says, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has, he cannot be my disciple. When our Lord speaks of renouncing all that we have I do not think he is referring solely to material possessions. He is also, I believe, speaking to our relationships. In our fallen condition we view the world through the lens of our ego. My spouse exists to comfort me, my children exist to carry on my image, my parents are present to give me my heritage. In such view, those relationships have value because of what they give to you. Now to the world this attitude may be normal, but it is not the Christian love which we are commanded to practice. New life means you love God more than even your family. It also means you love your children for who they are rather than for how much they resemble you. You love your spouse not for what comforts he or she can bring but because you have before God given your solemn vow to this person. You love your parents not for what they can give you but because you've finally been able to see them as they truly are: broken and sinful people whom the Lord loves. Today, the Lord puts before you the way of surrender or the way of self. The way of self is some sense the easy way out; you don't have to work hard to lead self-serving and self-directed lives. On the other hand, it won't be long until you'll be feeling weary and heavy-laden. Our Lord and Master calls us to take on his yoke, a yoke of surrender and new life, and if we will heed his call, he promises rest for your soul.<br />
<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-61381567394880028362016-08-28T08:16:00.000-07:002016-08-28T08:16:02.281-07:0015th Sunday after Pentecost<br />
<i>The beginning of man's pride is to depart from the Lord; his heart has forsaken his Maker.</i><br />
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The concluding verse of our first lesson tells us that “Pride was not created for men” (Ecclesiasticus 12). The question of pride is a confusing one, I think, for many, especially those, like me and other Gen-Xers and Millenials, who had pounded into their heads the idea of self-esteem. This is the age of participation awards and the morality of being nice. As a result, it is easy to get confused by the question of pride. Is it a good thing to be proud of who you are and the talents you have? Or is pride just conceit and vaunting? According to Gregory the Great who formulated the so-called seven deadly sins from a verse in the book of Proverbs, pride is the first and greatest of these sins. Is pride a sin or does it express a positive self-image and self-esteem? This morning I'd like to work through this thorny question.<br />
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So what is the sin of pride as the theologians define it? In his magnum opus, The City of God, Augustine of Hippo gives an extended meditation on Adam, Eve, and the Fall. Now, some of the earlier church fathers contended that the first sin of Adam and Eve was fornication, leading to the erroneous conclusion that sexual sin is the worst kind of sin. Augustine takes a deeper view of the matter. He notes that before Adam and Eve took of the forbidden fruit or broke any commandment, they had a thought, a will inside of them which said that they knew what was good for them better than God. From this premise that they knew better, they could make the decision to break the explicit commandment of a loving Creator and Father. Augustine says that a bad will preceded the transgression, and that bad will was pride. We might summarize, thus, that pride is a willingness to separate oneself from God, to frame one's destiny apart from the lordship and fatherhood of God. It's been pointed out that in the narrative of Genesis up through the fall, it was invariably the Lord who said it is good: and God saw the light, that it was good. In the fall, we are told that the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes. The root of pride is thus to decide what is good and evil according to your own self-directed morality. It's the impulse to live apart from God and to direct our lives apart from his Word and his leading,. If you think you can live apart from God and be your own light and guide, you obviously have an inflated ego. This is the bad, the sinful type of pride, and it has a further ramification: when we say that we do not need God, we soon say that we do not need our fellow human beings, and this also is pride. This resultant pride is illustrated in the story that succeeds the fall, the slaying of Abel by Cain which, as I talked about in last week's sermon, is a grim illustration of innocent and unredeemed suffering. It paints a true but hopeless picture. We've all thought at one time or another that we could better direct our lives than the Lord. We've all known the impulse to write others off, and say to ourselves we do this better without you. Such bad pride is illustrated in this morning's Gospel where our Lord warns us not to disregard the host—God—or the fellow-guests—our fellow-man. In pride we say, I'll take the best for myself without respect to God or care for others. Now our Lord was not trying to teach social etiquette in his parable; rather, the parable shows how we are relate to God as our Father and fellow-man, our brother. You look to the host to tell you where to be seated; you recognize that others may have an equal or greater claim to distinction than you. There is constant need for those in the ministry of the church to be reminded of the fact that the ministry does not depend on man—if you won't be faithful to what the Lord has called you to do, he'll raise up others.<br />
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So if bad pride is wanting to live apart from God and man what is good pride? First of all, it has to be said that the Bible does not use the word pride in a good way; rather, it speaks of the fact that we are, for example, God's children by adoption and grace. To be a Christian, thus, means being able to say not that I am worthless but that God accounted me worthy to send his Son to live and die and rise again for my salvation. Let me back up and cite another lesson from our recent VBS. On the last day, we talked about the Tower of Babel. If you ask why the people wanted to build a tower, the answer you'll get 90% of the time is that they wanted a tower to reach God. But the Bible says something different: And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name for ourselves. Assumably, the building of a tower to reach to heaven is about going up to God, but I think the second phrase is more important: the people wanted to make a name for themselves. They wanted to define their own identity and destiny. Thankfully, as we learned from our VBS, Jesus rescues us from this awful burden, by coming to show us who we truly are. As I told our children, you are a child of God by adoption and grace, you are a son or daughter of the king. True pride then is a well of confidence that springs from the truth that you are loved and treasured by the Lord, not because of anything you've done, but because God freely chooses to love you. Such pride and confidence we need to instill in our children. It's a drum we need to be banging for young adults today who too often are trying to find meaning and identity in careers and shallow materialism, inevitability leading to depression and the sadness that is so endemic among people in their 20s and 30s.<br />
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This true pride also teaches us how to relate to one another. I am a child of God and son of the King, I can also recognize that others are too. The gifts and talents that my God and Father has given me are not tools to stroke my personal vanity. Rather, they are to be used to build up others, just as the gifts of others build me up. You see, the truth is we need one another. We can't do very much apart from one another, and we can do nothing apart from the Lord. But if we'll surrender our lives to the Lord, and give ourselves in loving service to one another, we can do beautiful things for the Lord in this world. The world doesn't need another Babel, but it needs people of faith and good-will to work together for good. There is much negative about in our world today, but we're not called to be cynical and negative. We're called to accept our true identity as children of God, and to go out into the world making it a better place by things like love and joy and forgiveness and beauty.<br />
<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-47439387422735258092016-08-23T06:05:00.002-07:002016-08-23T06:05:21.179-07:0014th Sunday after Pentecost<br />
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In the Epistle this morning, we have the climax of the argument that the author of the epistle has been making throughout his letter. That argument is that the new covenant of Christ is greater than the old covenant of Moses. Throughout the epistle he illustrates this argument. He says that Jesus is superior to Moses, because Moses was just a servant of God while Jesus is a Son—the heir always has greater care for his father's house. The priesthood of Jesus is greater than the priesthood of Aaron, because unlike those Old Testament priests, he doesn't have to make a sacrifice for himself nor offer repeated sacrifices annually. Rather, he has made one complete sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. In chapter twelve from which we heard this morning our author compares Mount Sinai to Mount Zion. Mount Sinai was the location of the giving of the law and the Ten Commandments to Moses. The people were told that they could not touch the mountain nor their cattle or else they would die. At first the people heard directly the voice of God which they found terrifying. Afterward they requested that God speak just to Moses and then Moses could deliver the message. As Christians, the author argues, we have not come to Mount Sinai where we hear the law, a law that convicts us as lawbreakers. Rather, we belong to the heavenly City and have come to its mount, Mount Zion, where we don't hear the law that condemns but the good news that forgives, that our Lord Jesus has made one sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the whole world.<br />
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In the middle of our passage, there is a curious statement that we have come to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. It's an unusual image because we don't usually think of blood as speaking. As readers though we're invited to compare and contrast the murder of Abel with the execution of Jesus, to figure out why the blood of Jesus is a better word than the blood of Abel. Abel and our Lord are both similar in that they are innocent sufferers; they are both killed by brothers—in Abel's case by his brother of nature, in our Lord's case by his brothers of nation and ethnicity. They are also killed for reasons of religious envy: Cain is jealous of the acceptance of Abel's sacrifice; the Pharisees are jealous of our Lord's authority and his claim to have God as his Father. The fruit of envy is a consuming hatred that is evident in both accounts. </div>
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Now, given these similarities, why is it that our author says that the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel? A better initial question would be what word does the blood of Abel speak? This past week at VBS we talked about the key stories in Genesis 1-11. This section contains the primaeval narratives that lead up to the story of the patriarchs, Abraham and his descendants. One of the main purposes of these opening chapters is to explain why the world is the way it is. Why are there multiple languages in the world? The story of the tower of Babel provides an answer to that question. Why is man out of communion with God? The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall answers that question. Another question is why is there is war? Why do brothers and sisters feel malice and hatred for their own kin? Why is a marriage that survives so rare and one which would be described as happy even more rare? Why is friendship so difficult to find and then to maintain? The story of Cain and Abel is an answer to this question, or at least an assertion that the world of Cain and Abel is the same world in which we live, a world where man is at enmity with man. Abel's blood does speak a word, but one that is painful to hear. Despite our desire for poetic justice, the innocent often suffer. Children are the object of abuse and violence. The powerful lord over the powerless, and human beings are treated as expendable for the benefit of political expediency or economic growth. Economies are constructed in such a way to promote oligarchy rather than common wealth. In short, the word of Abel's blood testifies that sin divides and destroys families and communities and nations. Sin has separated us not only from God but from one another. At the heart of all this division between man and man is the assertion I am not my brother's keeper. The word of Abel's blood is a true one—it reflects accurately the disorder and suffering between man and man, brother and brother in the world, but it is a word that offers no hope. It leaves us with the fact of innocent suffering with no remedy for the malice and hatred that engendered this suffering. </div>
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But the blood of Jesus, my friends, speaks a better word. His blood is that of an innocent suffer, but it is a blood that cleanses and makes new. Our Lord does not live in the paradigm of Adam or of Cain. Unlike Adam he consecrates all of his life to God his father, and lives in total obedience and surrender. Unlike Cain, he lives in total love for his brothers and sisters, his fellow man, even when they do not deserve it. All of the injury and violence that has been inflicted in the world calls for justice; this blood cries out from the ground. Our sins are the same way. They call out for justice and satisfaction to God. The blood of Jesus is shed that the unjust might be made righteous and just. He doesn't promise that if you'll be good and just try harder, you'll be considered just before man and God. He doesn't offer an elaborate self-help program. What he offers is forgiveness if we'll turn to him in faith and trust; forgiveness is the only real hope for a world as broken by injustice and sufferings. There will never be marital reconciliation without forgiveness and a surrender of your sense of right and wrong. There will never be reconciliation between family members without forgiveness of past grievances. Society will never be at peace unless forgiveness is extended as a sign of goodwill to all people. You might ask, how can I forgive this person or that group for what they've done? And the answer is in the word of Jesus' blood. The one absolutely innocent person suffered unjustly and yet extends forgiveness: forgive them for they know what they do, he says from the cross. In the cross is found the way that Cain can be reconciled to Abel, and this is why it is the greatest hope for our world. This is a word that we should never tire of hearing and proclaiming, as we live into the call to be ambassadors to the world of this shed blood that indeed speaks a better word. </div>
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-43186063039663647522016-07-05T06:00:00.006-07:002016-07-05T06:00:50.395-07:00Independence Day<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I
have a copy of the English Book of Common Prayer from the 1830s. In
the back of that prayer book can be found several commemorations that
cannot be called strictly religious: there is a set form of prayers
to commemorate the failed Gunpowder Plot which was an effort in 1605
to blow up the English parliament and kill the king, James I, in
order to, among other things, restore the Roman Church in England.
Another commemoration is for the date of the death of Charles I, the
king who was forcibly removed from the throne and eventually killed
or martyred depending on your perspective in 1649. Another celebrates
the restoration of the monarchy a decade later with the crowning of
Charles II which brought an end to the nearly two decades of the
English Civil War. The introduction to that brief service reads in
part: A FORM of PRAYER with THANKSGIVING to Almighty God, For having
put an end to the great Rebellion, by the Restitution of the King and
Royal Family, and the Restoration of the Government after many Years
interruption; which unspeakable Mercies were wonderfully completed
upon the Twenty-ninth of May, in the Year 1660. It is thus entirely
in keeping with Anglican custom to recall political events of the
nation and to see them through the lens of our faith. </span>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">This
is precisely what we are doing this morning, as we celebrate our
nation's Independence, not merely as a civic holiday but one that
should be commemorated in our churches and by all faithful Christians
who are citizens of this nation. I have noticed an alarming trend
among fellow Episcopal clerics. It is commonly taught by many that it
is not a good idea to have patriotic hymns or services in the church.
Many have worked to remove American flags from the interior of the
church. Perhaps you've heard or witnessed something along these lines
in another church? The reasoning behind this move is to a certain
extent compelling. These religious leaders are trying to avoid the
church adopting an uncritical attitude towards the nation in which it
resides. If the mission and promotion of the nation become one with
the mission of the church, social and political disaster is at hand.
Think of the majority of churches in fascist Germany who largely
remained silent and inactive about the Nazi program of world
domination and racial cleansing. When the church enmeshes itself in
politics, the church's proclamation is often corrupted and its people
can begin to think that God is exclusively on their side of a
political or social issue. There is something to be said for this
argument especially if one is residing in a particularly
nationalistic environment. This qualification, however, is the reason
why I don't think it is a wise decision to remove flags from churches
or to discontinue patriotic services. We live in an age of
ambivalence about a great many things. There is ambivalence about
religion—the fastest growing religion according to the demographers
is no religion at all: the so-called nones—n-o-n-e-s—the nones
are those who have no religious affiliation. It's not that the nones
don't believe in God or in an afterlife—the nones are not atheists,
but simply ambivalent about religious institutions. If it is
possible, there is even more ambivalence about politics in our age.
Very few trust the established political institutions and together
with a big dose of ambivalence, most people cannot be bothered with
patriotism. The kind of heroic sacrifices made by so many during the
grim days of World War II when so many were either fighting abroad or
managing their homes with victory gardens and limited rations seems
like a world apart. No, our problem today is not an excess of
nationalistic fervor, but a seeming apathy about our nation and its
future. In one of his books, G.K. Chesterton, the great Catholic
apologist and satirist, offered the helpful insight that most ages
are blind to their own weaknesses and vices. They pick on the vices
of a former age, and congratulate themselves on being so much more
superior, but all the while they are blind to their own faults. I
think we have an excellent example of that in our own time. If in a
former time, some were uncritically loyal to every action of the
nation, and therefore, forfeited some of the prophetic role of the
church, in this age, what we need is not less patriotism but more. </span>
</div>
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<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="__DdeLink__1118_871320377"></a>
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">What
does not it mean to be patriotic? Well, the word patriot is derived
in part from the Latin for father, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>pater</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
To be a patriot is to be loyal to your fatherland, your homeland.
Christians are sometimes accused of being so heavenly minded that
they are of no earthly good. I think this point is overwrought.
Christians should place very high value on life on this world because
it is where we learn to live in the world to come. If you want to be
part of God's family, the communion of love in his eternal kingdom,
then you are going to need to learn how to get along with your own
family, to do your duty to parents, children, siblings, and all those
who might have a claim on your care and responsibility as kin.
Similarly, if you are going to be a part of the Catholic, the
universal Church, the body of all faithful Christians in heaven and
earth, then you will need to learn to be a member of a local
congregation: to offer yourself in loving service and ministry in
whatever way the Lord has gifted you; to overlook the faults and
foibles of others; and to live into the truth that Christianity is
not something to be practiced individually, but as a body, a
community of believers joined together in Christ. Finally, if you are
want to be a citizen of that city above—the heavenly Jerusalem—you
are going to need to learn how to be a good citizen of your city and
state and nation in this world. If you neglect your responsibilities
to these temporal powers, how will you possibly be a faithful citizen
of the City of the Lord Almighty. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>He
that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and
he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
And what are those civic virtues that we need to practice as
patriots? Well, among other things, we might start with honest and
diligent labour and industry, promotion of the common good rather
than our own private good, establishing justice for all, fighting if
necessary for the defense of liberty and the protection of innocents.
St. Paul tells us that our citizenship is in heaven. May we render to
Ceasar his due, even as strive to live as the children of our
heavenly King and Father. </span>
</div>
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-74794737583137730842016-06-22T10:52:00.002-07:002016-06-22T10:52:29.839-07:004th Sunday after Pentecost<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>Then
they found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at
the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were
afraid.</i></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i> </i></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">This
morning's Gospel is one of the most strange accounts in </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">all
of</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
the Gospels. It's also one of my favorites, because I think it offers
a striking representati</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">on</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
of self-destructive humanity which is delivered and renewed </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">by
God in Christ</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
After crossing the sea of Galilee, our Lord and his disciples enter
into a </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">primarily</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
Gentile region—this is evident by the fact that in this county the
people keep herds of pigs which of course then and now are forbidden
food for observant Jews. In this land our Lo</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">r</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">d
and his disciples meet a man who, according to St. Luke, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>had
certain devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any
houses but in the tombs. </i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In
a parallel account in the Gospel of Mark, we are told </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">in
addition</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
that this man </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">used
to</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>cut himself
with stones</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I
cannot help but be struck how suggestive this detail is </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">for</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
our own age. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There
is a small but significant trend among young people—young women in
particular—to cut themselves and practice self-harming. One of the
triggers for this in this intense negativity that young people feel
about themselves and their bodies. I believe that this phenomenon is
not just isolated abnormality of human psychology but actually an
acute manifestation of </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
more pervasive problem of self-loathing. Listen, you probably don't
cut yourself, you may not even loathe yourself, but I bet you know a
lot of people in the world, and maybe young people in your family who
loathe themselves. Look at the staggering number of suicides every
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">year</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
among teens and those in the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">ir</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
twenties. Despite Gen-Xer's and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Millennials</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
being fed a steady diet of self-esteem reinforcement with things like
participation awards, very little of </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">this</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
has seemed to translate into greater confidence and positive
self-image. The world, my friends, has defined what constitutes a
happy life—certain physical looks, popularity, academic and
professional success—and when these don't measure up, as inevitably
they don't because we're human, the living flesh and blood pales with
th</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">is
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">perfect
image, and self-loathing ensues. The demon-</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">afflicted</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
man may seem a world apart from us, but I would suggest that he is
really a </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">representation</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
of our self-loathing society and may be a portrait of us in
self-loathing or self-destructive behavior.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">But
the power of the Gospel is that our Lord comes and he wants to
deliver this demon-afflicted man. There is no personal gain for our
Lord—he just pities this afflicted son of Adam and wants to see him
restored to his right mind. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">What
further</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
illustrate</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">s</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
the vigor of self-destruction in these demons </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">is
that</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
our Lord at </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the
demons'</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
request sends the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">m
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">into
a herd of swine. The demons who make the man cut himself, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>enter
into the swine and the herd r</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>uns</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>
violently down a steep place into the lake and </i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>ar</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>e
choked. </i></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Life,
my friends, is a battle. It is outward battle of trials and
vexations, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">mostly
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">things
out of our control, and it is inward battle as we struggle with sin
and temptation and fight</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
our own inner demons </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">of</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
addiction, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">or
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">self-hatred,
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">or
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">anger,
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">or
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">greed,
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">or
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">malice.
All these kill. These </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">are
the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
demons </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">that
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">cause
the man to cut himself and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">that
move</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
the herd to be cast violently down and drowned. The demonic is
self-destructive, as is sin. We think sin will make us happy or at
least will not harm us, but on another cognitive level we are usually
aware of how unhappy sin makes us and how sin robs us of spiritual
joy. Clinging to that rage will kill you. Ask any doctor, and he will
tell you that the stress of anger increases blood pressure and the
rates of heart attack and stroke. Ask any Christian, and you will be
told that anger roots out joy and peace. And yet in a kind of
insanity we cling to that rage and anger. Addiction to alcohol or
pornography will do the same thing: driving one to self-destruction.
Part of the nature of sin is that it causes self-destruction. St.
Augustine makes a profound statement on this point. In explaining </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the
commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, he points out that
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">implicit
to</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
the command</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">ment</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
is </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
love </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">of
self</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
And so he asks the questions what does it mean to love yourself, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
concludes </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">that
to love yourself is to have compassion on yourself; </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">t</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">o
have compassion on yourself is simply not to sin because sin is that
which kills us. </span>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Our
Lord wills to deliver those who are afflicted by inner demons. In
this miracle, the kingdom of God breaks into human existence. In the
kingdom of God, there is liberation for the captive, freedom for the
possessed, joy for those who are cast down by sorrow and despair.
Listen to this beautiful succession of actions attributed to God in
the Psalms: </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>The
Lord</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i> upholds the
cause of the oppressed, and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets
prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up
those who are bowed down. . . the Lord watches over the foreigner,
and sustains the fatherless and the widow.</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
Our Lord’s ministry is the manifestation of these works of God,
exemplified in this miracle. Our Lord reveals God’s dominion over
every spiritual evil in his kingdom. If our Lord delivers the man who
cuts himself with stones, he will deliver you too from your </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">inner
demons and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">self-destructive
behavior. Your deliverance may not come overnight—the implication
is that the man has been possessed for years—but seek the Lord in
prayer of the heart, gather together in Christian fellowship, study
the Bible to hear God’s word to you—and your deliverance will
come. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">When
we are going through a time of intense internal struggle, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">it
is so easy not to </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">look</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
beyond the present feelings </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and
circumstances</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">,
and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">so
to hand ourselves over to</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
despair. The God whom we worship, revealed perfectly in Jesus Christ,
wants to deliver us from every demon, addiction and sin. We are his
children, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">he
has pity on the </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">afflicted</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
sons and daughters of Adam. </span>
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</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Dear
Lord and Father of mankind,</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Forgive
our foolish ways!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Reclothe
us in our rightful mind,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In
purer lives Thy service find,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In
deeper reverence, praise.</span></div>
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-44411162676995410232016-06-05T09:12:00.003-07:002016-06-05T09:12:49.411-07:003rd Sunday after Pentecost<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>The
Lord loves the righteous, the Lord cares for the stranger; he
sustains the orphan and widow. </i></span></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In
last week's Gospel, we heard the story of the centurion of great
faith, and who sought to have his servant healed by Jesus. There was
an interesting tension in that account: on the one hand, there were
the centurion's friends and sympathizers who said that the centurion
was worthy of having this healing performed even though he was not a
Jew, and on the other hand, you had the centurion himself declaring
that he was not worthy. As I pointed out in my sermon, we do good
things not so that we can present them to God as a kind of resume,
but rather, doing good that we can do, we recognize that before the
Lord we are not worthy because our good is never unalloyed with a
little bad and even the good we do pales in comparison with him who
is goodness itself. What is particularly notable about last week's
Gospel in contrast with today's is that our Lord was asked to come
and perform that healing, while in today's, where he raises the only
son of a widow from the dead, he acts without being implored. As much
as we may have a sense that we are growing in holiness and in the
life of the Spirit, the more profound truth is that at some point we
were like this dead young man. To put it into the words of that
familiar hymn, I once was lost but now am found. At some point our
Lord found you; he came unsolicited and unwanted, by his own
authority and moved by his heart of love, to awake you out of
spiritual slumber. The Lord's greatest work is almost invariably
unsolicited, and this is so because so often we don't even realize
the good things we need or can have from the Lord. Gorging ourselves
on a steady diet of stale biscuits and water, we too often miss the
fact that our Lord has spread a table before us, and by his grace has
called us to partake, all of his own initiative. </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 0.31in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">It
is interesting to put the first and Gospel lessons in conversation
with one another. Both contain stories of raising a widow's only son
from the dead. Luke wants us to think of this scene from the life of
the prophet Elijah because he understands Jesus is a prophet, but of
course, he is even greater. This is evident if read them side by
side. The broken-hearted widow reproaches the prophet Elijah for the
death of her son. The prophet takes the child into an open room, and
beings to pray, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>Lord,
O Lord my God, hast thou brought calamity even upon the widow with
whom I sojourn</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">?
Then he lays upon the child three times, and finally </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>the
soul of the child comes into him again</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
It is clear that this raising from the dead is by the power of God
and not by Elijah's power. He is merely the pleader and the
intercessor, the instrument through whom the Lord works. In contrast
when our Lord sees the young man being carried on the bier, thronged
with mourners and processing towards the grave, he sees the sorrowful
mother and has pity on this poor widow. Walking over and touching the
bier, he says, young man, I say unto thee, arise. Here our Lord is
seen not as the pleader and intercessor, but as the one in whom
authority is given to raise from the dead. Like the prophets, our
Lord proclaims the truth of God, but unlike the prophets, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>in
him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">,
to use the words of St. Paul. Our Lord is not only the mouthpiece of
God as a prophet, but the incarnate God. He shows that he has
authority over every sickness and demon, and even over death. </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="__DdeLink__61_352239939"></a>
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">But
someone might ask why didn't our Lord raise all deceased children?
Was his compassion limited just to this widow? I like what George
MacDonald, the great 19</span><span style="color: black;"><sup><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span lang="en-US">th</span></span></span></sup></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
century Scottish divine, had to say about this passage, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>O
mother! mother! wast thou more favoured than other mothers? Or was it
that, for the sake of all mothers as well as thyself, thou wast made
the type of the universal mother with the dead son—the raising of
him but a foretaste of the one universal bliss of mothers with dead
sons? </i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Now
a modern interpreter might argue that widows were often destitute in
the ancient world, so our Lord's raising of the young man had more to
do with providing for her than sympathizing with her grief, but such
a view misses the plain wording of the Scripture: </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>when
the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said unto her, Weep
not</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
It is a horrible, horrible thing for a parent to bury a child. Some
of you may have been through that; others perhaps have seen loved
ones and friends mourn the death of a child. A window in this church
memorializes such a death. The thought of a child cut off in the
flower of youth is horrible to contemplate—lost life and joy
swallowed by the oblivion of death. And yet our Lord comes, he has
compassion; he touches the bier. He did this not just for this widow,
but for all mothers and fathers who mourn the death a child to show
them that he is the Lord even over death and destruction. In his
kingdom, the love between a mother and a son, a parent and a child
will find its reunion and fulfillment because God is love, and that
motherly love was a gift of his. Our Lord touches our sorrows and has
compassion on the those who mourn, and we pray that, to quote the
graveside prayers from the Book of Common Prayer, he would </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>raise
us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.</span></div>
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-85724161331277624342016-05-15T09:31:00.002-07:002016-05-15T09:31:57.879-07:00Pentecost Sermon<i><br /></i>
<i>We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.</i><br />
<br />
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In Augustine of Hippo's great work, The City of God, he reviews the popular philosophies of the time, both popular and academic, and evaluates the kind of happiness they offer. Augustine works from the thesis that no lasting happiness can be established apart from that found in God in the greater life, because in this world, we are subject to so many dangers and trials. Some of these are of our own making—many of them are not, but have to do with living in a transitory world where things wear out and break and human bodies fail and die. One of these evils, Augustine argues, is the diversity of languages in the world that divide human beings. He writes: <i>Man is separated from man by the difference of languages. For if two men, each ignorant of the other's language, meet. . . mute animals, though of different species, would more easily hold intercourse than they, human beings though they be. For their common nature is no help to friendliness when they are prevented by diversity of language from conveying their sentiments to one another.</i> All know what he is talking about if you've have ever been in a foreign country and struggled to communicate with others of a different tongue or simply interacted with a foreigner on your native soil and confronted the intractability of trying to communicate with someone that doesn't speak your language, though they are human. Just a few weeks ago, near the end of evening prayer, a Russian speaking Belorussian wandered into the church. He spoke very little English and trying to explain the Episcopal Church was very challenging—even church of England did not suffice.<br />
<br />
The opening chapters of the book of Genesis have what is known as etiological purpose, that is, these chapters help explain why the world is the way it is: why are humans out of fellowship with God? Because of the human willfulness to break his commandment, as shown in the fall of Adam and Eve; why are humans out of fellowship with each other? Jealousy turns into malice and hatred and finally the murder of brother by brother in the story of Cain and Abel. The account of the Tower of Babel is a narrative that explains the diversity of languages in the world. A simplistic reading of the text would suggest that God feels threatened and so he confounds the languages of those building the tower—they were getting too close to him and might have stolen fire or something else from him. If you ask most people why the people wanted to build the tower, the most common answer will be that they wanted to build a tower to God. However, we need to read carefully. They are building a tower to heaven—this is what they are doing, but the reason why they do it is in order to make a name for themselves. And herein lies the clue to the wickedness of their endeavor and why God so punishes it. Life is decidedly not about making a name for yourself. Many of course are working under this assumption. Some build and put their name on monuments. Sometimes the very geography of the earth is imbued with this pursuit of reputation so that the names of powerful men are given to mountains, rivers and valleys. Thankfully in the United States we've avoided some of this demagoguery by not putting figures on our currency or giving their names to things until after they are dead.<br />
My friends, life is a kind of education; God, our great teacher, uses the uncertainties and evils of life to wake us up and push us towards healthy change. The Bible tells us that, Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18). Often times, as in the case of the those erecting a tower for their name, God lets us fall that he might open the door to the way of humility, the way of his sons and daughters. He confounds their languages they he might teach them a new way of speaking, that he might establish for them a union not based on human power and reputation but on the wonderful works of God.<br />
<br />
And this is really the answer to the seemingly contradictory actions in the first and second lessons. In the first lesson, God confounds the languages of the people, causing disorder and disunity. In the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the account of the day of Pentecost, the Father sends the Spirit and empowers the apostles to speak the languages of the diverse crowds of people who have come to Jerusalem for the temple feast. It's an event of unification that anticipates the great turn in the early church when Gentiles, non-Jews, will be allowed to be included in the body of the faithful. Every tongue and nation, whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, whether slave or free, has a place in this kingdom of heaven by the grace of our Lord Jesus.<br />
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In last week's sermon, I made the point that Jesus as our high priest is the representative of all without distinction. This means that at the heart of the Christian proclamation there is posited a radical equality among all people that flows out of the truth that we all have one high priest, one representative. At the heart of the proclamation of this feast of Pentecost is the truth that by the work of the Holy Spirit, God is bringing all things into unity with himself. Again, it is not a unity based on human endeavor, power, or ambition, but rather, based on what God has done for us in Christ. The multitudes hear the Apostles telling each in their own language the wonderful works of God. The kingdom of God is not something we build so that we can make a name for ourselves, but God's gift to us by the Spirit. It's economy is the giving of love and its light is the Lord. The world may divide men and races and categorize according to party, class, and so forth, but the goal of eternity is that all would be one in the Lord. As we cooperate with the work of the Spirit in our lives this unity is what he nurtures and promotes. Each of us are given a choice, will you be among the common day laborers of the tower of Babel, scrambling for your slice of human fame and accomplishment, or will you be in the army of the Lord whose banner is to fight evil, promote love, and proclaim the new humanity revealed in our Lord Jesus? Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-65258532235774642412016-04-26T08:27:00.006-07:002016-04-26T08:27:59.081-07:004th Sunday after Easter<div class="western" style="line-height: d%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>I
heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling of
God is with men</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
Bible does not have an abundance of things to say about heaven, but
in our first lesson this morning from St. John's Revelation, we have
a beautiful image of what heaven is. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Building
on imagery from the prophet Isaiah, John sees</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
a new heaven and a new earth, and then a new city, descending from
heaven. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Its
descent from heaven is</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
a symbol of its origin in God. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">H</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">e
reports, </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>I
heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling of
God is with men.</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> It
is interesting to talk to geographers who study where cities are
established and why. One major consideration its proximity to water
for a supply of fresh water. In New Mexico all almost all of the
major towns are on the Rio Grande because of the importance of this
water supply in the desert. Before the advent of modern shipping—when
eating grapes from </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">C</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">hile
in the northern hemisphere would have been </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">unimaginable</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">—easy
access to grown food was also important. For provision of housing,
forests and trees that can be harvested </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">are
needed to make shelters.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
These considerations have to do with preserving and perpetuating
human life, seeing that all the members of the </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>polis</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
have food, water and shelter. Cities are also established for
economic reasons. Many of the great cities of the world are on the
ocean or on major bays with access to the ocean in order to expedite
trade. A region</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">'</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">s
natural resources can become a boon for a local economy and see </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">flourishing of new
cities. Many of the cities in Oklahoma and Texas have grown to their
extent because of oil. Cities are places for the preservation of
human life and for commerce, but they are also for communion and
fellowship. A visitor to New York City is invariably impressed by the
number of languages overhead by simply walking the streets or taking
the subway, and yet all these millions of diverse people manage to
live together in relative peace. </span>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">This New Jerusalem shares some
of these considerations in common. For example, we are told that
there is stream in this city. In the following chapter of Revelation,
St. John reports, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>And
he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of
the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree
of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit
every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the
nations. </i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">These fruits
and this stream symbolize the fulfillment of all human longing. No
longer will there be the numbing pain of empty stomachs or parched
throats. The cycle of hunger, hunt, and satiation will have an end
because we will no longer be subject to these bodily needs and will
know the ultimate satiation </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">of</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
joy in the Lord. Similarly, though there will not be in this city the
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">clamor</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
of ambition and greed, there will be a kind of commerce. Again, we
are told that, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>the
gates of the city shall not be shut at all by day. . . And the kings
of the earth shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
There is powerful symbolic value to these images. The glory and honor
of the nations are all the good things that human culture has
produced that </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">are</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
not in opposition to the one true God or his glory. All that is
beautiful, noble and true will find its home and fulfillment in this
city because it is the city of God who is himself, Beautiful, Noble,
and True, the source of all human good, whether artistic or moral.
Finally, this city will be about communion and fellowship. John is
told earlier in Revelation that among the citizens of this city, he
sees </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>a great
multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds,
and people, and tongues. </i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It
is a New York City but with greater diversity and certainly more
peace. But the greatest fellowship of this city will not be with
humans, but rather with God. Of this city, we are told, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>Behold,
the dwelling of God is with men</i></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
The God who is throughout all eternity who does need or want
anything, wills to be in communion with us, and has made a way for us
to share in that communion through the joining of divine and human
natures in the Son, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">our
Lord Jesus Christ</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">.
Mortal human existence has been taken into the godhead to be
transfigured and redeemed. </span>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Today,
this communion </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">with
God and each other</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
is what we celebrate with the baptism of Charlie </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Belle</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
is just a few moments. The Bible relates how in the fall of human
nature, man has sought to live apart from God and from his brothers
and sisters. First Adam and Eve choose to decide what was good and
evil, and to live by their own light rather than the light of God in
an implicit rejection of communion with God. This breakdown in
fellowship was succeeded by its fruit: Cain slays his innocent
brother Abel. The</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">se
are the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
two </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">principal
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">human
lies documented in these opening chapters of Genesis: first the lie
we tell ourselves when we say we don't need God, and the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">n,
the</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
other lie </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">we
tell ourselves when we say </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">that
we don't need our brothers and sisters. If you're looking at your
fellow human being and saying I don't need or want you, this is more
the spirit of Adam than the spirit of the new Adam, our Lord Jesus.
Today, we commit Charlie </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Belle</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
to this communion with God, knowing that today she receives the
greatest gift she will ever receive: the Holy Spirit, communion with
the body of Christ here on earth, and a place in that heavenly city,
New Jerusalem. Thanks be to God. </span>
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-67785837693538434632016-03-30T13:33:00.003-07:002016-03-30T13:34:09.740-07:00Easter Sunday Sermon<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i>
<i>My seed shall serve him : they shall be counted unto the Lord for a generation. </i><i>They shall come, and the heavens shall declare his righteousness : unto a people that shall be born, whom the Lord hath made.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"> - Psalm 22:32-33</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My text for this Easter Sunday is from the 22nd Psalm. In Matthew's and Mark's Gospels, our Lord's last words from the cross are, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me. They are a cry in the agony and torment of physical pain that is involved with execution on a cross, but Our Lord was also bearing the sins of the whole world. I like the illustration of a sin being like a brick—because we all know sin is a burden that weighs down our spirits. Imagine the weight of all of your sins and my sins and the sins of the whole world which our Lord took as his own on the cross. In those last words, Jesus was also quoting the opening verse of Psalm 22, which was read here on Thursday night at our Maundy Thursday service. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It is a Psalm that describes great human suffering as the speaker wrestles with God over the trials he is enduring, but at the end of the Psalm it turns into a song of triumph, as the Psalmist sees the victory of God. He says that, no man hath quickened his own soul—in other words, no one has made himself alive again by his own power. And for Christians, we hear in these words again the voice of our Lord. Jesus did not make himself alive again: he was raised miraculously from death by the power of God and working of the Holy Spirit. The Psalm finally concludes with these words, <i>My seed shall serve him (that is, the Lord): they shall be counted unto the Lord for a generation.</i> The Psalmist has gone through tremendous suffering, and has seen his soul quickened not through his own power, but the Lord's, and now he sees his posterity, those who come after him, will be a generation of people who will serve the Lord in righteousness. We celebrate our Lord's death not because it is an instance of unjust suffering, but because there is something good about Good Friday. Out of the side of the reposing Adam, the Lord God took a rib and made the woman. Out of the wounded side of our Lord flowed both blood and water, and the Church is born about of this wounded side. The church is supposed to be the seed, a generation that serve the Lord in righteousness. We, as Christians and as the Church, are engendered to new life by his passion, death, and resurrection. We are his seed, to use the word of the Psalmist, and we are called to be as a generation of faithful souls to the Lord.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is the idea behind the Epistle this morning. If Christ is truly raised, you are raised with him. Do not focus on earthly externals, but on eternal and abiding truth. We are exhorted by Paul to mortify, to kill, the sin within us that we might live with Christ. And this is what we celebrate this morning. Easter and the resurrection of our Lord is not just remembering an historical event—although it is critical to our faith that we are talking about things that actually happened—but the reason why we gather and celebrate our Lord's resurrection this Sunday and every Sunday is because his resurrection is the power by which our lives can be transformed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">You know, there are a lot of reality shows on television about transformation: someone is going to come in makeover your home, or your physical looks, or even your wardrobe. The problem with these shows, and of our collective appetite for them, is that they are trying to fix internal, spiritual maladies with external changes. The philosophers of long ago observed that simply moving to another place, if you're an unhappy person, won't make you happy; simply changing some external part of your life, won't bring lasting happiness. External changes don't fix internal wounds and maladies.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the same way, Christianity is not just a set of external actions: go to church, do certain religious activities, refrain from this and that. Rather, Christianity proclaims an inward transformation—a transformation not effected by your own strength and effort—no man hath quickened his own soul—but a transformation that is an internal resurrection. God wants to change our attitudes, affections, and desires, which without him are warped, inordinate, and tyrannical. He wants to put into our mind good desires and give us the grace to act on them, to paraphrase the Collect for Easter. So, the question is do you want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection? Are you willing to open the door of your heart so that he might come in and renew and transform you? This isn't self-help and it isn't a makeover of the old you. As Paul writes, ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is your life shall be revealed, ye also shall appear with him in glory.</span><br />
<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-59316371617809759362015-12-22T14:05:00.002-08:002015-12-22T14:05:15.752-08:00Advent 4<br />
<i>Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. </i><br />
<br />
I want to start my remarks with a quotation from the well-known hymn, O God, our help in ages past. The fifth verse opens with these words: time like an ever rolling stream bears all its sons away. Imagine for a moment a swiftly moving river. The current is strong enough that if someone were in the middle of it, it would carry him away. Time according to our hymn writer is like such a river. I think it is helpful metaphor upon which to reflect. In life you see a number of different reactions to the swift current of time.<br />
<br />
One reaction is to attempt to get out of the river by swimming to shore. In a sense you are trying to achieve a certain timelessness, an immortality within time. There are those who, like the builders of the tower of Babel, want to make a name for themselves in this fleeting world. They want to build empires of wealth, status or fame in the worlds of business, industry or entertainment. Most who try to exit the river in this manner will live long enough to realize that the river is still carrying them along—they've outlived their fame and success and maybe have even outlived their desires.<br />
<br />
A second reaction to the current of time is to attempt to swim against the current to go back in time to what is perceived to be a more pristine and better age. I am sometimes accused of being born in the wrong decade, but the truth is I have no romantic notions about an ideal past either in the church or our society. Any student of history knows that making an idol of an epoch quickly comes to ruin the more you learn about that epoch. People then were not that different from people today, either for better or worse. Those who fight against the stream of time generally are unaware or in denial about the world as it truly is. They are like Don Quixote trying to live by a code of honor that has been rendered obsolete, fighting windmills that are imagined to be giants. Old things are good because they are useful. That is why I think traditional liturgy is so valuable. Our use of traditional liturgy should not be a fetish for the past, but a recognition that our Anglican heritage of Common Prayer is not something that should be hung up on the wall as a mere historical specimen.<br />
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Perhaps the most frightening reaction to the river of time would be those who give in; they capitulate the current and are taken under the water. Many cases of suicide are like this, but there is a kind of suicide where biological life continues and we could call this waking death. Waking death occurs when one gives into fear and anxiety, like, for example, when one is always worried for yourself or your loved ones about what lethal ailment is going to strike. One can become so consumed by this fear that very little energy is given to thinking about how to live well with the time that one does have. There are other powerful fears that can strike as well, like the fear that life and one's current circumstances will never get better and that the sadness and loneliness which seem unending are in fact unending. All of these fears and arresting anxieties might be summed in one word: despair; it is a powerful and intoxicating drug, but one that is also lethal.<br />
<br />
Using this metaphor of time as a river, I've suggested a few of the common reactions to this reality of time as a rolling stream: there are those who try to exit time through fame and earthly immortality—a contradiction in terms; those who try to swim against the current in a romanticism of time past; and finally those who despair of the current and stop swimming. There is an alternative to all of these reactions. The attitude of Mary in this morning's Gospel gives a suggestive solution. What if the river of time instead of being totally chaotic and unpredictable was actually under the control of a greater power, the providence of God? The Psalmist writes [the waters] go up as high as the hills, and down to the valleys beneath; * even unto the place which thou hast appointed for them. Thou hast set them their bounds, which they shall not pass. My friends, the Lord is actually the Lord of history, he has set the boundaries of time that it shall not pass. Chaos, uncertainty and coincidence are actually part of the complex tapestry of God's merciful and good providence. Don't misunderstand me: I'm not suggesting from the standpoint of faith that we will always and invariably understand why things happen in this world. But faith does give one eyes to appreciate the Lord's hand in the vicissitudes of life, and trust that though we will not always understand, in the long view of history and the light of eternity, the Lord will always be shown to have been good and just.<br />
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Christians are called to enter this river of time and allow it to carry us wherever it will, knowing that the as we trust in the Lord, he will care for us and do for us whatever is for our good. The period of waiting for the messiah seemed never ending to those who had to endure it. Again and again the prophets declared a time in which the Lord's judgement and mercy would be poured out on the nations. Over centuries, God's people waited in expectation and a degree of uncertainty: when would the Lord act? Were his promises come to an end? But then in the fullness of time, as Paul writes in this letter to the Galatians, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. Mary was willing to stand in the long chain of prophets and priests, saints and sinners who awaited faithfully for the Lord's appearance. Though her commission undoubtedly was unexpected and certainly would have not fit the mental image of a young Jewish girl's expectation for her future, yet in humble obedience she bows to the will of God for her: behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word. She was not trying to make a name for herself: all generations call her blessed because he that is mighty has magnified her. She was not trying to go back in time to a pristine age, but rather by her obedience she because a new Eve for all humankind. She did not despair of her future though she had to sacrifice the normalcy of a quiet domestic life in rural Galilee and forever wear the scarlet letter of having become a mother out of wedlock.<br />
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We too can live by the same kind of trust and surrender as Mary had. We do not have to fear time, to try to escape or swim against it. The Lord is inviting us to lay down our burdens; the overwhelming power of fear and our need to be in control. This is an invitation to live by trust. Its an opportunity to stop trying to escape the stream of time or fight against its currents or despair of its torrents, but to say to the Lord whatever may come, whatever he may call us to do, behold the handmaid, behold the servant of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.<br />
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-30582408426836719602015-12-03T08:40:00.003-08:002015-12-03T08:40:36.790-08:00Advent 1<i><br /></i>
<i>The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. . . for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. </i><br />
<i> - Romans 13</i><br />
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I'd like to start off my remarks today with a question: do you think you need to be saved? Do you honestly and sincerely believe that you need help for your life to endure? The long season of Pentecost has drawn to a close, and the start of Advent puts the necessity of salvation before us. St. Paul poetically describes this reality, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." Now what is salvation? And what is it from which we need to be saved? The Prayer Book identifies our enemies as 'the world, the flesh, and the devil', as we just heard in the Litany. The world is that part of human society that is in rebellion to God's gracious rule, ranging from the mammoth pornography industry to the abuse of the poor to the persecution of Christians in Africa and the Middle East. When the prayer book speaks of the World it doesn't mean the physical geography of our planet; rather, it refers to that part of human society which is in rebellion against the rule and reign of the Father—it is that impulse either collective or individual to live apart from God in our own light The traditional doctrine of the devil is that he is a fallen angel. He and his angels are also in opposition to God's rule, and although we may as materialists be prone to question the existence of the devil, chaos and evil in the world should give one pause: Think of the number of innocents murdered in the 20th century, a century of technological progress and human achievement. When we think about this and other evils, it is not difficult to believe that there are forces of spiritual evil in the world that seek to destroy God's good creation. Finally, the prayer book speaks of the flesh. The prayer book doesn't simply mean the body. It means that part of the human person that is fallen: like when you know the good you ought to do, but you give in to the opposite instead; or when we you are tempted to subject your ideals and morals to a selfish desire. It shouldn't surprise us that we our own enemy sometimes. Suicide is the trap door out of which one may exit life, but lots of other decisions one can make may not cause immediate death but do cause eventual death. These latter types of decisions blossom in addictions, divorces, and all kinds of figurative crashes, the fruits of which are an acute sense of alienation from God and others. The Bible put this stark reality in this way: "The wages of sin is death." Sometimes immediate death, sometimes eventual death.<br />
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The world, the flesh, the devil. These are that from which we need saving. Our prayer book emphasizes life as a battle in which we are under attack from these enemies. That is why there are two invariable collects or prayers for peace in both Morning and Evening Prayer. In these collects, one is not simply praying for the security of the state, since to the world peace often merely denotes the absence of war. Rather, the peace we ask God to give us, the peace we want for our lives is security from the world, the flesh, and the devil, as we try to navigate through these tumultuous waters of life.<br />
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Now one of the problems of progressive theology is that it does not adequately account for the human need for salvation. The existence of the devil is usually denied and explained as merely a facet of human psychology. A theologically progressive church informed first most by the standards and mores of the World decreasing looks like the Christian church and more like a social action committee or even worse, a dying fraternal organization. Progressive theology tends to minimize the reality and costliness of sin--the flesh--and speaks of sin as denying the image of God in ourselves and others. Reinhold Niebuhr, a 20th century Protestant theologian, was formed in the mold of this type of theology, but through his pastoral work in Detroit he come to the conclusion that progressive theology held a naive view of sin and was overly optimistic about the effectiveness of social action. Concerning progressive theology, Niebuhr wrote, "A God without wrath, brought men without sin, into a kingdom without judgment, through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." If we are honest with ourselves, the human situation without God is far more stark. We are in a battle which we cannot win without God's help and we need deliverance from the world, the flesh and the devil.<br />
As we approach the darkest day of the year, we are reminded in this season of Advent of our need for a salvation and a Savior. Will you be like those in the day of Noah did not see the coming storm, but were "eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark?" In other words will you live your life as if it were not a battle against the world, the flesh and the devil and in so doing surrender to the enemy. Or will you be like Noah who heard God's word to him and obeyed, entering the hull of ship while water swept over the face of the earth? The truth is that everyday we need God's help. To borrow a metaphor from Gospel music: the Gospel train is coming, Jesus is the engineer, the conductor is shouting 'All abroad'. Will you get on board?<br />
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Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.<br />
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<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-67107767570752973042015-11-04T13:43:00.002-08:002015-11-04T13:43:30.182-08:00All Saints & Window Rededication<i><br /></i>
<i>And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.</i><br />
<i> - Genesis 28:17</i><br />
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Today we are rededicating our stained glass windows. Last year a specialist in stained glass care and preservation did extensive work on our windows, and many of you helped finance that work and bring it to completion. I am delighted to be a part of and witness to this effort. It is awesome to think that we have preserved these beautiful windows for the next generation. The more I've studied them, the more I am convinced that these windows are a treasure, a treasure that tells a story. These walls and windows tell a story of those that have preceded us in faith. In many historic churches, a graveyard surrounds the church. No one today would think to put a cemetery around a church—the temptation for churches these days is to peddle feel good religion that some thinkers have called therapeutic deism because it has a loose belief in God with the goal of making you feel better. Churches that were built with graveyards surrounding them were not designed to make the worshippers feel better but to put them in mind of the dead who had gone before them. They were faced regularly with the reality of human mortality. An acceptance of our mortality demands that one answer the questions: how shall we then live? How will our pilgrimage end? Will it find us following the good examples of those who have preceded us across Jordan's stream?<br />
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Though Trinity is not surrounded by a graveyard like our parent parish, Christ Church Shrewsbury, yet when we come within these sacred walls we are reminded of the faithful departed of this parish. There is the civil war captain, Samuel T. Sleeper, who was a vestryman of this church and who died on the field at Spotsylvania Courthouse, commemorated in a marble plague on the east wall. Then there is Herbert Tilton, a veteran of World War I commemorated in the window of a kneeling soldier before Christ. The windows records of Herbert that he was, and I quote, “A faithful Sunday School scholar, choir boy, and crucifer in this church until his enlistment in the U.S. army. Christ's faithful soldier and servant until his life's end.” This last line is a quotation from the baptismal service, and can also be seen chiseled into the front of the baptismal font. Herbert was 22 years old when he died on December 18, 1918. It was less than a month after the signing of the armistice the formal end to major combat in the war, which gives rise to speculation that perhaps he died of disease or an injury sustained earlier in the war.<br />
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The lily window near the back of the church tells another story. It was originally given in memory of Eleanor Currey MacKellar. The text in the window succinctly states that she “died July 11th, 1897 in her eleventh year”. It turns out that she was the daughter of the Rev. Robert Mackeller, rector of Trinity from 1892 to 1931, nearly four decades. It is hard for me to imagine how difficult it must have been for him to bury his own child. One might think that text of the window is too succinct, too formal, but to me, the flowers in bloom in the window say everything that needs to be said about a young girl whose life was tragically cut short. The real feeling is not in the words but in the images. Fr. MacKeller is remembered in a number of other windows including the three windows that are on the back wall towards the bell tower, featuring the ascending Lord Jesus and the angels who appeared with him on that occasion. The windows were given by the members of the guild of the golden rule in thanksgiving for the four decades of his ministry.<br />
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The story behind other windows is more elusive. Sometimes all we have are names, and this invites us to imagine what their story might have been, like the husband and wife who are memorialized in the nativity window. The husband died less than a month after his wife. Was he one of those who simply could not go on without his faithful companion and spouse? Similarly, the good shepherd window is given in memory of Mary Garrison Cole by her husband William Cole. Imagine the depth of love and devotion that could move a man to dedicate a window so beautiful and sublime.<br />
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This morning we are adding a new layer of meaning to our church building by the installation of the memorial plagues and the re-dedication of the windows. Memorialized in many of the windows are deceased parents, and in a few cases spouses of current members and friends of the congregation. Though these people still feel close to us, yet I imagine that those who come after us will know them simply by a name. Just as for many memorialized around our church, the story has been lost and all that is left is a name. Yet, in God, the story is never lost and the dead we memorialize we pray have their names written in the Lamb's book of life. This past Wednesday we commemorated the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude. Simon and Jude were two of the twelve apostles, but we know virtually nothing about them. Yet, their witness to the crucified and risen Lord mattered, and we know that it mattered because the church on earth was built and began to grow and continues to this day. Our own part and the part of those who have faithfully passed through these doors from week to week is not all that different. Posterity may only remember us as a name, but our faithful work in serving our Lord and building up this church will not be forgotten because this house will a visible testament of our faithfulness or, God-forbid, our faithlessness. The bricks and the mortar, the windows and the walls, will all tell that there were saints (who were also sinners) who faithfully said their prayers in this place and because it was the place where they said their prayers and worshipped the Almighty, they gave towards its upkeep. On this All Saints day, let us be thankful for the witness of all the saints who have gone before us, and especially those members of Trinity who have worshipped, prayed and adored their Lord in this place and so preserved this house of prayer. Let us pray that our Lord would give his Spirit that we might continue this labor to his greater glory and the building up of his kingdom, until we all come to that heavenly city, the city of light, in which there is no temple because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-80380252277893187012015-10-27T12:57:00.003-07:002015-10-27T12:57:33.132-07:00St. Luke the Evangelist<br />
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<i>Heal the sick and say unto them, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.</i><br />
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Today, October 18, is the day in which St. Luke is commemorated in the calendar of saints in the Anglican tradition. Luke is remembered as the Evangelist, the author of the Gospel that bears his name, as well as the sequel to that book, the Acts of the Apostles. We do not know a great deal about Luke. According to tradition he was a physician and a disciple of Paul—in Paul's letters there are a couple of references to Luke but little information beyond a name and occupation. The argument is often made that Luke's training as a physician gave him special skills in attention to detail that characterize the books attributed to him. Another noteworthy quality of the Luke's Gospel and the book of Acts is his ability to depict a remarkable sympathy for a variety of people—there is a kind of humanism in Luke's portrayals. Noteworthy for his time, Luke has a special concern for women, Gentiles, the poor, and non-practicing Jews—called in the idiom of the day—sinners. In addition, some of the most moving parables are only found in his Gospel: the parables of the prodigal son, the Rich man and Lazarus, and the parable of the good Samaritan. Also only found in Luke's Gospel are the account of Mary's humble obedience to Gabriel's report that she will bear God's son, the encounter of our Lord Jesus with the tax collector Zacchaeus, and the realistic portrait of the two sisters Martha and Mary, the one who works tirelessly to host Jesus and the other who simply wants to sit and enjoy his presence. Luke reminds one of the sheer variety and diversity of people in the world.<br />
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Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying that the only certainties of life are death and taxes. During their lifetime, most will labor under a sickness of the body. Might we also add that to a certain extent sickness is a certainty of life. I would submit that virtually all of us labor under sicknesses of the soul, and that these sicknesses are much more intractable that diseases of the body. The Collect for the feast of St. Luke reminds us that Luke became Physician of the soul by virtue of writing his Gospel which leads us to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus who is the wholesome medicine for what ails us. <br />
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Now a sickness of the soul might sound rather vague so I'd like to offer a suggestive illustration of what I mean by such diseases. In the classic children's book The Little Prince—a book I've been quoted as saying that it is second only to the Bible—a little prince who is an inhabitant of outer space decides to leave his tiny planet and journey to earth. He principle motivation in leaving seems to be a kind of wanderlust—he is looking for something, but he doesn't quite know what. On his journey to earth he encounters a number of fanciful and humorous inhabitants of other planets. First, the Little Prince meets the absolute monarch whose planet has no inhabitant but himself. This king insists that he rules over the stars and galaxies, though the real extent of power is pretty much over himself. The Little Prince quickly leaves the king's planet, remarking to himself, “grown-ups are so strange.”<br />
On the next planet, the Little Prince meets a very vain man, who insists on believing that the Little Prince has to come to his planet as an admirer. The vain man wants the Little Prince to clap for him so he can tip his hat “in modest acknowledge.” On a further planet the Little Prince meets a drunkard who tells the Little Prince that he drinks in order to forget his shame about the fact that he drinks. The Little Prince is perplexed by this circular thinking. The next planet is inhabited by a businessman who gives his whole and continuous attention to adding up a list of the stars he claims he owns. When the Little Prince tries to ask him a question, the businessman distractedly says “I have so much work to do! I'm a serious man” and quickly goes back to his counting. Then the Little Prince asks him what he does with his stars, the serious man says, “nothing. I own them. . . I manage them. I count them and then count them again. . . It's difficult work. But I'm a serious person!”<br />
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Collectively these portraits are a satire on how trite human existence can become when it is disconnected from imagination, joy and friendship. The king is working under the delusion of control and power; the vain man is trying to get a sense of self from the praise of others; the drunkard throws himself into a cycle of self-destructive behaviour that has no reason or purpose but to destroy; and the businessman thinks that his wealth is the reason for his existence. Each of these are a kind of disease of the soul that, I would argue, we encounter everyday and may even be afflicted with. If you've ever acted like you were the absolute monarch of your own life or if you've ever tried to gain a sense of self-worth from other people, if you've ever put yourself in a cycle of self-destructive behaviour, or if you've ever behaved as if the purpose of your life was to accumulate more goods or more wealth, then you too have a sickness of the soul. The bad news is that nearly all of us have one. The good news is that we have a Physician of the soul in St. Luke and the healing of our Lord Jesus.<br />
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Our Lord, by his word and actions, gives the healing medicine that to be human is not to live by power and control, like the absolute monarch, but to be human is to live by the laws of surrender, service and love. He tells the disciples that, I come as one that serveth. To those who lack self-worth and have to feed on the praise of men to gain a sense of self, like the very vain man, our Lord comes that he might teach us to call God, our Father, so that as we learn to know God as our Father, we will know that we are his children and don't need to gain a sense of self outside that reality. Our Lord tells us that there is grace for those who are living in self-destructive behaviors, like the drunkard. One of the highlights of Luke's Gospel is the parable of the prodigal son who wastes his inheritance in riotous living and decides to return to his father as a servant only to be welcomed as a son by the father who runs to meet him. The father doesn't wait for the son to come to him but runs to meet him. Finally, our Lord comes to teach us that life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. Money is not an end in itself, like the businessman thought. We are made to eat and enjoy the good things which the Lord serves us at his table, but our final happiness is in God alone.<br />
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Just like if you have a physical ailment, the smartest thing to do, as my wife has to remind me from time to time, is to go to the doctor. So we, whole have diseases of the soul need to go the Physician of our souls, who can make us whole. We need to turn to him in faith and repentance and trust, and say, precious Lord, take my hand.<br />
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<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-36933619633689498852015-09-01T07:53:00.005-07:002015-09-01T07:53:49.399-07:0014th Sunday after Pentecost<i><br /></i>
<i>There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him. </i><br />
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In last week's Epistle, we heard St. Paul describe the armor of God. I noted how what Paul describes is mostly defensive gear, though there is a sword, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. I suggested that the most important battles we fight are internal battles in the heart. In fact, most people spend an inordinate amount of time trying to fix the external circumstances of their lives, and imagining that if they could only change this one external thing, then they would have lasting happiness. They say, if I only had a better job, or lived in a different place or had a better spouse, then I would be truly happy. The problem with spending a lot of time on externals is that they change: material things break or decay; jobs are lost or eliminated; circumstances require a move elsewhere, and finally, the biggest insult of all to our sense of control, people die.<br />
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As we talked about at our Vacation Bible School for the fourth day of creation—the day in which sun, moon and stars are created—we live in a world of change, and this is what he heavenly bodies teach us because they are in perpetual motion. I read to the young people that famous passage from Ecclesiastes. You'll indulge me, and let me read it.<br />
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<i>To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. (3:1-8)</i><br />
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Now, I remember as a young person being very perplexed by this passage. Was it really saying that I should hate, and make war and lose things, and even kill?? One day it dawned on me: this passage is descriptive not prescriptive. In other words, it is not telling you this is how to live your life—you've done a little loving, now it's time for some hate. Rather, it is telling us that we cannot prevent life from being this way: there will be times of gain, and there will be times of loss. There will be times of war and there will be times of peace. And much of this, even most of it, will be out of our control. If you're sitting around waiting to be happy until your externals of your life are perfectly arranged, you may have a long wait, and if those stars finally align in perfect coordination, it probably won't last.<br />
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This is why the Bible tells us that happiness does not lie in external things. Since we live in a world of change, our Christian faith tells us that true happiness is found in that which does not change, in truth, and joy, and love, and most of all in God. In this morning's Epistle, St. James writes of God as the one in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In other words, if you put your full trust, hope and happiness, in the one who created you—the unique yet human creature that you are—if you let go of your sense of control and trust the one who calls you by name, has a plan for your life, and has redeemed you for his glory—if you can surrender in these ways, you will find lasting happiness in Him who does not change, and who will never disappoint or let you down. This may sound esoteric, but it comes, as the author of Ecclesiastes relates, from sustained reflection on the way the world is. Trust him who does not change, not the things that by nature change.<br />
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In the Gospel this morning, our Lord was confronting an institutional religion that had become obsessively concerned with externals. The Pharisees acted as if it were more important to wash your hands than to have a clean and pure heart. Our Lord instructs his disciples that the change needed in our life cannot and will not be effected by simply following more exactly a set of religious rituals. The problem, our Lord tells us, is within, in our hearts. Your biggest problem is not with the government or institutions, or your boss or that family member with whom you can't seem to get along: your main battle is in the heart. The ancient Chinese philosopher and statesman Confucius understood this. Five centuries before the time of our Lord he wrote that if you want to regulate the State, you have to order your family, and if you want to order your family, you have to look to yourself, and to look to yourself, you have to rectify the heart. What Confucius missed is that in our fallen condition, this fight to change the heart is a losing battle. Our basic instinct without God is to be selfish rather than sacrifice, to seek pleasure rather than the virtues of temperance and justice. At about the same time Confucius was writing, the prophet Jeremiah wrote, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?<br />
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So here is one of the great mysteries of our faith: if we cannot blame our problems on outsiders or external circumstances, but have to look to our own hearts, and yet the Bible also says essentially that alone we are powerless to change the heart, how can the heart be changed? The Apostle Paul stated the problem in this way, I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.<br />
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The real answer to this mystery is that we, of our power, are not able to cleanse our hearts, but the Lord can. In answer to the prophet Jeremiah's question, who can know the human heart, the Lord answers, I the LORD search the heart. And the prophets also speak about God taking out of us the heart of stone within, and putting within a heart of flesh. You don't need to try harder to affect this. You don't need to follow a set of rigorous religious disciplines. The one thing needful is to die to self and selfishness, to surrender your life, your heart to God. To say to the Lord, take this hard heart of me, with all its uncleanness and make it new. This morning, as we celebrate the making of a new Christian in Holy Baptism, we begin this journey for Mahkalah. We will pray that she will die to sin and selfishness and be raised to new life by the power of God; that her will not be spent in idle pursuit of control over things that she have no power to change, but it will be spent in finding those heavenly treasures that cannot perish like joy, love, gratitude and peace. You too can join again in offering yourself and your life to God. By this surrender, the darkness of the human heart will be put in the light of God. By this surrender, the uncleanness in the heart which our Lord describes will be washed and carried away by the water of the Spirit.<br />
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Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8474999966505631445.post-63448924673997946812015-07-05T08:10:00.000-07:002015-07-05T08:10:00.658-07:00Independence Day Sermon<br />
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This morning, we remember as a body of Christians the birthday of our nation, and we give thanks to Almighty God for its founding and continuance. I want you to ask yourself a question this morning, am I a patriot? We live in a time that is very distrustful of such ideas, and many younger people have become disillusioned about politics and many other institutions. What I want to suggest this morning is that part of being a Christian is being a patriot. Now first I have clear away some misunderstandings about being a patriot. For example, I don't believe that being a patriot means that you have to blindly follow our elected leaders or be uncritical of their decisions. On the contrary, part of living in a democracy is the responsibility to be educated and informed about what is going on in our nation. We need to be reasonably informed about national, state and local governments and be able to name some of the key figures in those levels of government. It should also be said that to be a patriot does not mean that you have to hate every other nation that isn't ours. I happen to think that we live in a great nation, but it is also far from being infallible both historically and at present. To be patriot doesn't mean you have to blind to these things, but it does mean you have to open your eyes to its virtues, that are evident, for example, in the founding documents of this nation.<br />
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Consider for a moment the word patriot. Like many words in English it is derived from a Latin word <i>pater</i>, which means quite simply father. So you can began to understand what it means to be a patriot in that it is someone who recognizes and honors his fatherland. To put this in terms that might have more immediacy, consider the parent-child relationship. It is by definition a one-sided relationship because the parent cares for the child when the child has no ability to care for itself and certainly not to love the parent in return. A parent meets those physical needs for food and shelter and is responsible for the rearing of the child and so has to see that the child is educated and directed towards a vocation. In addition, the parent has to warn the child of all the lurking dangers that can ensnare us, and parents have the unenviable task to try to communicate this wisdom to young people who are naturally bent on thinking that they already know everything. All of these things result in the truth that children have a debt to their parents, and this is why the 10 Commandments enjoin that we honor our mother and father. We have a debt to them for all that they have done for us. The debt is not reduced or canceled even when we come to that maturity where we can recognize the faults and shortcomings of our parents.<br />
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Similarly, we owe a debt, albeit a different one, to the country into which we were born. If you enjoy the freedom to worship as your conscience directs you, and the freedom to move geographically and to advance your private welfare through hard work and healthy ambition, if you enjoy the benefits of public education or public services, like parks and roads, then your response should be a sense of gratitude which manifests itself in being a responsible citizen who takes an active part in civic life.<br />
Perhaps the biggest reason Christians need to be patriots is that being a patriot of your earthly nation, teaches you how to be a good citizen of heaven. St. Paul tells us that our citizenship is in heaven. The Bible begins in a garden in a communion between God and a husband and wife. It concludes with a vision of anew city where the city itself is a temple. The citizens of this city are the redeemed offspring of that first couple. If we're going to learn how to be citizens of heaven, there is no better place to learn than in being good citizens, patriots, of our nation. God gives us this school in order that we may learn the virtues of tolerance and patience and love.<br />
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One of the concrete ways we can participate in this school of how to become a good citizen is by practicing civic virtues like industry, thriftiness and justice. Those ideas may sound hopelessly old fashioned, but I think they sound old fashioned because we've neglected them so much that they sound foreign, as if they belonged to our grandparents or great grandparents but couldn't possibly belong to us. We need to rediscover these virtues as a basis of our common life and part of the foundation for a good life.<br />
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There is a beautiful prayer in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, entitled a prayer for every man in his work. Among other things, the prayer asks for God to “<i>Deliver us. . . in our several callings, from the service of mammon, that we may do the work which thou givest us to do, in truth, in beauty, and in righteousness, with singleness of heart as thy servants, and to the benefit of our fellow men.</i>” There is a beautiful vision here that we've neglected or forgotten in the perpetual temptation to worship at the altar of mammon, the material wealth of this world. We can get caught up in the frenzy for utility and expediency and forget that we belong to a commonwealth where the welfare of all is to be sought. We can accept in a spirit of resignation the prevailing attitude to treat people as a means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves. As a society, we are tempted again and again to be entertained to death. But lest we despair, wisdom calls us as individuals to cultivate and return to those civic virtues which are the true source for the renewal of civilization in every generation. Today, let us pray for our nation. Let us repent of the ways in which we have put our own private good ahead of the common wealth. Let us pray that the Lord would renew our civilization in our time by the practice of civic virtues and that by perpetually practicing them, we may become fit and made ready to be citizens of that heavenly city.<br />
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<br />Fr. John Mason Lockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18094234809425571650noreply@blogger.com0