In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
Another week, another prediction from Jesus about his death, another meditation on the cross.
Why do we dwell on it so much? It’s because the cross is central to the life of a Christian. It’s at the center of God’s work for the world. And the dying it affords us is what brings new life. That’s where we’re going today in this sermon.
In the gospel today we see some Greeks—some religious outsiders—coming to see Jesus. And by virtue of the outside seeking to be connected to the inside, Jesus knows that the revelation of God is now to be extended out to the whole world. Previously in the gospel we heard from Jesus time and again that his time had not yet come.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our lectionary doesn’t let us off the hook this week. Last week we took a hard look at the Ten Commandments and at Jesus’ overthrowing of the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. This week we consider the work of the cross and our own responsibility to believe in Jesus.
And again this week, we begin with a very interesting excerpt from the Old Testament. We have this little story of the Israelites wandering in the desert, complaining not only about Moses but also against God. This is the last of 5 grumbling episodes reported in the book of Exodus. And we see that God has had enough from these rebellious people—and has visited them with a plague of poisonous snakes to punish them —think of that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”--but a thousand times worse.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In 2005 there was a poll taken among over 2000 Americans selected at random, asking how many of the Ten Commandments they could recite. Believe it or not, less than 10% of those polled could remember more than 4 of the Commandments. “According to the results of the survey, 23% of Americans believe that the Second Commandment, a righteous reminder not to make graven images, is actually the right to bear arms. Thirty-one percent said that the Ninth Commandment, the ban on bearing false witness, was a prohibition against removing Ten Commandments statues from public buildings.” [http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2005/06/poll_few_americ.html]
That’s pretty shocking, isn’t it? Those of us of a certain age remember having to learn them by heart, and then using them as an aid in reviewing the rightness or the wrongness of our behavior. And they’re certainly still operative today. I wish we could stress them even more than we do, actually.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Listen to this story. It comes from this newsletter called Synthesis that’s published as an aide to preachers. Once there was an American woman who took a trip to England. She wasn’t just any American woman—she was a born-again Pentecostal, whose faith in Jesus as her Lord meant everything to her. She “went to a service one Sunday morning at a great Anglican cathedral.
“The music that day was majestic and inspiring. The liturgy progressed flawlessly. The woman was quite taken by the service, but she didn’t think she would hear anything that would remind her of her own revivalist tradition.
“That is, until the sermon began, and the minister began to preach from the Bible. Then the woman really perked up.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I hope that much of this gospel sounded a little familiar to most of us. We’ve actually heard parts of it twice before in the last 2 months. But not all of it.
The Sunday after the Epiphany is always the day we commemorate the baptism of Jesus by John in the River Jordan. So we heard almost all the first column in today’s handout / way back then in early January. Then in late January we heard from the middle of the second column down to the end—the part that speaks of the opening of Jesus’ public ministry in the hilly region of Galilee.
But it’s that middle part that I’d like to explore today.
This past weekend I prepared the rectory for our guest preacher, Martha Hoffman, who was going to spend Saturday night with us. And it was like any other time of preparation—there was first a lot of de-cluttering, and then a lot of cleaning.
And just like I did this work physically last weekend, each of us is called to our own inner housekeeping in Lent. But it’s not just for any old guest. This cleaning is for the greatest guest—even a permanent resident—Jesus.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A New Testament phrase says that Scripture is “living and active.” In other words, the words of the Old and New Testaments are alive, they are relevant, they have old and new truths to teach us—if we only hear them.
Today’s readings show once again that the Word of God IS living and active. These readings are especially appropriate to us right here, right now, at such a time as this, when we end our year-long 275th Anniversary celebration. It gives me goose bumps just realizing how Holy Spirit is speaking to us, once again.
We are now at a pivot point. Last year we looked back and patted ourselves on the back for serving God here in Redding in the Anglican tradition for 275 years.
Did you notice the litany in the bulletin-- (big, long prayer with responses) that will begin in the graveyard?
Which of the saints in the litany did you recognize—which ones do you know about? (Please tell us a bit about them.)
Which ones were new to you? (Marilyn fills in the blanks.)
How about the saints of Redding Ridge, past and present? Who was the first saint of Redding Ridge—the name of the first rector here? John Beach. And others who fought and died in the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War, and all those others who kept this place going for the last 275 years.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Last week at our Harvest Dinner our guest speaker Tom Furrer told the story of how when he was in his late 20’s, his baby daughter was born with a hole in her heart. Looking backward on this tragic situation it’s clear that God was using this episode to make a point. An unmistakable point.
Tom was at the time a stone mason, working at night to finish his college degree. He made a grand total of $11, 000 a year as a builder back then in the 1970’s. And the medical needs of his newborn left them in debt to the tune of $30,000. AND he was going to night school to get his bachelor’s degree, and he was in hock for that, too.
Tom was also at this time in the throes of conversion. He was attending an Episcopal Church in Old Saybrook—that’s Grace Church, the charismatic one. And this baby was prayed for intensively and soon after her baptism that hole in her heart just closed up without the need for further medical intervention.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This past weekend Barry and I met our girls in Quebec City, Canada, for a little R & R. It was a great time away. We stayed in a nice little hotel—really a B & B—in the upper town. Each morning we had breakfast with the other residents in the place, and each morning the conversation touched on politics, which was a natural, as the Canadians as well as the Americans were preparing for an upcoming election. But since we were strangers to each other we started the conversations very carefully and expanded on our views only when we knew it was “safe” so as not to offend the other or enter into territory that could lead to a very difficult conversation. It’s tricky to talk with others about politics. And religion, too, as we all know.
