Month: February 2024

Second Sunday in Lent, February 25, 2024: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38; Psalm 22:22-30

Today Bishop David Rice joined us, and in his sermon, reflected on the gospel. Today’s gospel from Mark is one of the hard ones, where Jesus tells his disciples that those who wish to follow him must “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”. It’s a reminder that this is a hard road. Or, as the bishop quoted G.K. Chesterton, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” The true gospel, Bishop David suggested, could be summed up by “Love everyone, help everyone”.

So how do we follow this road? I think the other part can be glimpsed from thinking about the readings from Genesis and from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Our reading from Genesis is one where we hear God making a covenant, a promise, to Abraham. Part of that promise is that he will be the ancestor of a multitude of nations: a wild promise to a 99 year old man with no children, whose elderly wife is past menopause! But it’s a promise that comes true.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, reflects on that promise and reminds us that the promise to Abraham is not provisional: it is a result of Abraham’s faith in God’s promise, a faith that ignores the improbability of its fulfillment. Similarly, it is our faith in the risen Christ that offers us salvation.

Why does this matter? Because it is very hard to love everyone, let alone to help everyone. We live in a society that defines itself by opposition: I’m for this and against that, I support these people, I hate those. We are told that the level of polarization in the US today is higher than at any time other than just before the Civil War in 1861. Can we love those whose values are not just different from ours, but opposite to ours? Can we help everyone who needs it? We can try. But it is indeed a cross, a hard road to follow. As Chesterton noted, it is difficult.

We should love everyone and help everyone. That’s the gospel. It’s not a feeling, it’s an action. We try to love and help because of our faith in Jesus. The promise of today’s readings is that when we fail (and we all fail, trust me) it is not the end of the story. Our faith is what saves us.

First Sunday in Lent, February 18, 2024: Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15; Psalm 25:1-9

A few weeks ago, after one of our recent rains, I went outside and saw a rainbow in the sky. I don’t think I’ve ever lived somewhere where I see as many rainbows as I do in Merced: there’s something about how many systems move across the valley that we routinely get rainbows. That, we are told in the story of Noah, is a promise from God, that God will never send a flood “to destroy the earth”.

This promise is an interesting one to be reminded of on the first Sunday of Lent. Mark’s version of the temptation of Jesus is brief, just one sentence. “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

What does God’s covenant with us, symbolized by rainbows, have to do with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness? Why did the organizers of the lectionary put these readings together?

We live in a world surrounded by temptation. The most mundane (and common) for most of us is consumption. In a world of fast fashion and cheap stuff, it is really to convince yourself that some appliance, pair of shoes, or outfit will actually change our lives. One year my Lenten discipline was not to look at any of the many catalogs that regularly arrive in my mailbox, trying to convince me that I need one thing or another: by the end of Lent, I was much clearer on what I did and did not need. Other temptations are more subtle, but reflect the rewards that come from playing up to the powers that be.

Jesus, Mark tells us, was tempted by Satan and was with the wild beasts; but also, angels waited on him. The angels here feel to me like the rainbow, a promise that God has not abandoned you.

As we enter into Lent, it is worth remembering all parts of this: God’s promise in the rainbow, Jesus being tempted, and the angels waiting on him. It is worth asking what temptations we are facing, major or minor, but also where we find angels waiting on us. Who is serving as an angel in our lives?

Last Sunday after Epiphany, February 11, 2024: 2 Kings 2:1-12; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9; Psalm 50:1-6

We end up here every year at the end of Epiphany: up on the mountaintop, with some of the disciples seeing Jesus in glory. The accounts in the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke are largely similar: the disciples are always Peter, James and John. While jesus is praying, his clothes become dazzling white. The disciples see Jesus with Moses and Elijah. Peter always suggests they make dwellings for Jesus, Moses and Elijah; a cloud covers the sky and they hear God’s voice saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”. Then the cloud disappears, and they are alone with Jesus on the mountain. The disciples are terrified. There are more words in Matthew and Luke than in Mark, but it’s the same story. And whether Jesus orders their silence (in Mark and Matthew) or they just don’t tell, it is not talked about afterwards.

What are we to make of this? One way to think about it is that it makes sense that the last Sunday of Epiphany, a season that focuses on Jesus revealing himself, we get a story of his most dramatic revelation, one that links him with Moses and Elijah, who would have been for his disciples important prophets.

This probably meant something different for Jesus than for his disciples. Jesus often went up on mountains to pray, generally either alone or with a few of his followers. For Jesus, we can imagine that this is an experience that confirms his ministry and his path forward: he knows he is going in the right direction.

For his disciples, I imagine it would have been both energizing and terrifying. To see Jesus, their rabbi, with Moses and Elijah would have confirmed to them that they had chosen the right leader. The three dwellings that Peter proposes would have been a permanent representation of Jesus’ place among the great prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. If it was affirming to see Jesus with Moses and Elijah, it was terrifying to hear God’s voice. Matthew tells us (17:6) that “they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear”.

Thinking about this story, it seems to me that we are with the disciples. We know from the message that we have from Jesus that this is a good place to be: following Jesus is good for us and for the world. But it is also terrifying. More than anything, the response of the disciples to the Transfiguration is a reminder that this is not necessarily an easy path. Jesus changes our lives, and that is never easy.

Our reading from the Hebrew scriptures reminds us that the difficulty of following God and serving the Lord has never been easy. Elijah tries to convince Elisha not to come with him. Elisha insists: his final wish from Elijah is to inherit a double share of Elijah’s spirit. Elijah warns it is a hard thing, which Elisha will receive if he sees him as he is taken from him.

Most of the people of Israel were not Elijah or Elisha. Most of those who followed Jesus did not leave everything behind. We draw attention to saints because most of us are not saints. It’s too hard. But it always helps to look, and to think about how we can, even in limited ways, be good disciples.

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, 4 February 2024: Isaiah 40:21-31; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c

Last Monday on X (formerly known as Twitter) Elmo asked a simple question: “How is everybody doing”? At this point, there are 19,000 responses, which range from stories of grief and loss to existential dread. People are clearly not well. I thought of this as I read today’s gospel. Jesus goes to the home of Simon and Andrew, where Simon’s mother-in-law has a fever. He took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her. This made it possible for her to serve her guests. (That’s one of those comments that I always wonder about!)

It turns out it was not just Simon’s mother-in-law who needed help. At sundown (the end of the sabbath) all who were sick and possessed of demons came to be healed. “The whole city” was gathered. People were not well. They needed help. And Jesus cured the sick, and cast out many demons. But the next morning, he went off to a deserted place to pray. When he was joined by his disciples, they wanted him to go back: there were more in need of help. Jesus said no: he needed to move on. He needed to preach in other towns. He knew what road he had to follow.

Jesus is a model for those in the helping professions: he has a clear sense of his mission, and he does not allow himself to get sidetracked by the needs or ideas of others. He has as we say in contemporary parlance, “good boundaries”. Paul also has a clear idea of his mission: it is to spread the gospel. So while Paul’s account of how he changed to meet the Jews, those under the law, and those outside the law may make it look as if he has no center, he does. His center is his mission to spread the gospel. If he has to fit in different worlds to do so, he will.

What road are you on? What road are we on together? How do we stay with that road as life pushes us in one way or another, or when we, like Elmo and Jesus, get overwhelmed with the needs of others? Our readings today do not tell us it will be easy, but Isaiah promises that the Lord “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. We need to always know what our core mission is, what road we are traveling.