Elliott Archive

[The sermons that follow were preached at Christ Church before Fr. Jim's+ ordination to the priesthood on Aug. ]21st.]

So, what did y’all do this past week? I know, we all celebrated Easter last Sunday. Whether we were here in the early morning darkness for the Great Vigil or we came to one of our other services or whether we were elsewhere with family and friends, I’m sure that most if not all of us celebrated the resurrection of our Lord in some form or fashion last Sunday. But what did you do in the week following your Easter celebration?

I know that many of us, the Elliotts included, were on spring break this past week. This year, the Elliott family, minus our son Gus who is at the University of Georgia, went on an excursion of sorts for our spring break. Our son Alex is a high school junior and will be deciding in the coming year where he will attend college. So, in an effort to assist Alex in deciding to which schools he will apply, we decided to go on a college road trip for this year’s spring break.

So, on this past Monday morning, we packed the car and Susan, Alex, Carter and I headed out on our college quest. Twelve hundred miles later we arrived home safely on Friday evening, all a little road weary but certainly no worse for the wear. We drove across the better part of Alabama, a goodly portion of Tennessee and made our way home by crossing most of the state of Georgia from north to south.

It was a fun trip and an interesting trip and I think we all learned some things about the colleges we visited. But it wasn’t until we got home that I realized something. I realized that we left home knowing where we were going but not really having any idea what we were looking for.

Certainly, Alex was looking for a college he might like to attend. But what would it be that might be attractive to him about any of these institutions? Susan and I hope he will find a place where he will be happy and have a successful college experience. But what is it about any particular school that brings those hopes to fruition?

Then I realized something else about the trip after we got home Friday evening. I think I knew it all along the way. But it wasn’t until we got home that I was able to put my finger on it. As we drove across Alabama and Tennessee and Georgia, I had this sense that something was missing. I had this sense that something was over or had come to an end or somehow just wasn’t as it should be.

And then it dawned on me! Where was Easter? During all of those miles that we drove, I saw little if any evidence that Easter as we know it is ongoing. To be sure, we drove past dozens of churches, big and small but there was no real evidence of Easter. The world just seemed to go by, oblivious to the reality of the Resurrection.

Of course, there was the occasional country church marquee that still read “Jesus is risen” or the like. But I had the sense that those signs just hadn’t yet been changed to whatever the message of the week might be. This trip ended for me with the foreboding sense that for most of the world through which we traveled, that Easter had come and gone and it was simply on to the next thing.

But we know differently, don’t we? We know that Easter is indeed our very beginning! We know that with the resurrection comes new and unending life for us and for all of the faithful. We know that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega! We have faith that the risen Christ is our beginning and our end – who is and who was and who is to come again.

But how do we, you and I, and all of us, how do we keep Easter alive? How do we keep the inertia of the world from simply taking us on to the next thing, whatever that might be? How do we begin again this resurrection journey not only knowing where we are going but also knowing what we are looking for? The answer, I think, is faith.

I think we have to be like the ten that very first Easter. Even when we are unsure and afraid, as they were, we must rejoice when we hear the voice of Jesus say to us, “Peace be with you.” And when he says to us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” we must go forth into the world in which we live proclaiming the risen Christ as redeemer of all.

And we have to be like Thomas! Yes, all of us are Thomas, aren’t we? Not quite sure. Demanding strict proof, as we lawyers say. Always wanting to be certain. But even Thomas, doubting Thomas, upon hearing the voice of Jesus, exclaimed “My Lord and my God!”

So what’s that mean for us? I think it means when we come to this altar today, and indeed every time we come here, we must know, not just where we are going, but what we expect to find here. In our faith, we know that what we find here at this altar is the body and blood of the risen Christ, the food and drink of new and unending life. We know that what we receive here is the gift of the Holy Spirit – God’s gift to the faithful which strengthens us to do the work he gives us to do.

And so, whether we are driving through central and northern Alabama, across the Cumberland Plateau or from the gold mines of north Georgia to our historic former state capital, or wherever it is that our busy lives take us, let us be ever mindful not only where we are going but what it is that we are looking for.

If we are faithful, it is the risen Christ that we seek, wherever we go. In our faith, we are witnesses to His resurrection, no matter where we are. Through our faith, we hear him say to us “Blessed are you who have not seen and yet have come to believe”. And because of our faith, Jesus says to each of us, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Early yesterday morning, I sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and my laptop computer to check my email. I received a somewhat cryptic message asking for prayers for an old friend from North Georgia because his parents had died. The message was unclear and was especially baffling because it suggested that both of my friend’s parents had died just the day before.

My friend’s folks were prominent people in the sense that they had in years past been in politics and in public service and were quite well known in their community and in the political arena. It was then that I thought that, given their notoriety, surely there would be something in the news about them if they had both died on the same day.

So, I went to the font of all information, Google News, and indeed found a couple of dozen electronic news stories reporting the deaths of these two folks on Friday. All of the articles said essentially the same thing. They said that this seventy-something couple had been found dead in their home in North Georgia on Friday and that law enforcement authorities were investigating the case.

As I considered what I was reading, I recalled some class that I took in high school in which I learned that every good piece of journalism should include the five W’s and should answer the questions “who, what, when, where and why”. And as I thought about these news stories about the death of my friend’s parents, I realized that each of the stories had the who, the what, the when and the where but not one of them included “the why”.

Each story told who these folks were, including names and ages and said something about their “station in life”. All of the stories said something about what had happened, namely that they were no longer in life. Every piece answered the question when by indicating that their deaths had taken place on Friday. And each of the articles told where these things had happened by stating that the couple had been found in their home in North Georgia.

But not a single article answered the question to which I most wanted an answer. Not a single one of them told me why. None of these news stories could tell me or anyone else who read them why these seemingly senseless deaths had occurred. Nowhere in the vast expanse of the information superhighway could I find out why my old friend’s parents had been so senselessly taken from him and his brothers and sister and all of their families. Why? Perhaps we will never know.

As I sat at our kitchen table yesterday in the early morning darkness and thought about my friend and his parents and their death and the senselessness of it all, I couldn’t help but think about Palm Sunday. I couldn’t help but think of the narrative that we would read this morning from Luke’s gospel and wonder whether it really tells us anything about the death of Jesus of Nazareth.

To be sure, Luke’s gospel tells us a great deal about the crucifixion of Jesus but does it answer the question “why”? Does it tell us why Jesus suffered this seemingly senseless and shameful death? Consider this with me if you will. If all we know about the death of Jesus is what we learn from Luke’s passion narrative, then we really cannot know why Jesus died.

Certainly, as Christians we should have some good understanding of why it is that Jesus was crucified. We should all have some understanding of Jesus as the Christ and what that means to us and for us. But think with me for just a few minutes. If all we know about the death of Jesus is what is told to us in this Palm Sunday reading from Luke, then it seems to me that we can’t really know, truly know, why Jesus died.

Knowing the “who, what, when, where” and even the “why” seems easy. Luke tells us. Luke tells us that this Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Celebration of the Passover. There is a festival atmosphere as Jesus rides into town. But the crowd gets ugly, as crowds are wont to do. The crowd gets ugly and this Jesus is accused of blasphemy. Jesus is accused of sin against God – a sin punishable by death! Jesus is given a trial, albeit a trial without any justice – certainly without any justice as we understand it. And Jesus is convicted and sentenced to death and he is executed.

But if all we know is what Luke tells us, like some sort of news story or article, then I don’t think we can truly know why Jesus died. If we really want to know why Jesus died, why he was crucified and suffered a criminal’s death, we have to know more. If we really want to know why all of this happened, we have to know the whole story – “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey might say.

And if we want to know ‘the rest of the story”, the whole story, if you will, we cannot rely exclusively on what it is that this passage of scripture has to say to us this morning. If we really want to know why this happened, why Jesus died this horrible, this unthinkable death, we have to know and to understand, as best we can, the entire story of Jesus.

We have to begin at the beginning. We have to know what John tells us in the prologue to the fourth gospel. We have to know that, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God! We have to know that Jesus was begotten, not made. We have to know that he was born of the Virgin Mary and became flesh and blood and walked among us. We have to know that Jesus taught in the temple and that he did innumerable signs and wonders.

If we are to truly know why Jesus died, we have to know that he healed the sick, that he cured the blind and the deaf and the lame and that he raised the dead. We have to remember that Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus and that he drove the money changers out of the temple.

If we really want to know the answer to the question, “why did Jesus die this horrendous, unspeakable death?”, we have to know and to understand that it is this Jesus who is the great I AM! It is this Jesus who is indeed Emmanuel, God among us.

It is this Jesus who is God incarnate. We have to know that it is this Jesus that is God made man and come into this world, our world to save us from ourselves and from our sins against God and our neighbors.

And so, as we begin this Holy Week, as we approach the Stations of the Cross, as we come to the last supper and have our feet washed on Maundy Thursday, as we relive again the crucifixion of the Christ on Good Friday and remember that Joseph of Arimathea placed the body of our Lord in the tomb on Holy Saturday, let us remember all that we know of our Lord and Savior.

And let each of us know with confidence why he died this tragic, this horrible, this unspeakable death. He died for us! He died for us so we might live – so we might live in Him and for Him.

I know that we are all familiar with phrases, adages or even clichés such as “looks can be deceiving”, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, the ever popular “beauty is only skin deep” or even, “don’t be fooled by outward appearances.” Well, certainly by the time I graduated from high school I had heard all of those sayings and I’m sure some more, that all suggest to us that we not rush to judgment about folks based on outward appearances alone, or perhaps more importantly, on what we think we know about them. In the fall of 1978, after having spent my entire life in the high school football capitol of the world, I left my South Georgia home for college in the piedmont of North Carolina where I enrolled at Davidson College. For those of you not familiar with Davidson, it is a tiny Presbyterian school just north of Charlotte, North Carolina that has long been known as a fine liberal arts college.

When I got to Davidson, not really having thought a whole lot about it, I guess I assumed I would enjoy some small college football games on Saturday afternoons. Notwithstanding the fact that I assumed that both Valdosta High and Lowndes High might well beat little Davidson College on a consistent basis, I thought a little Southern Conference football would be fun to watch.

Well, it turned out I was wrong. While Davidson had a football team and did indeed play on Saturdays in the fall, nobody seemed to really much care about watching the games or even how they turned out. I quickly came to learn that in North Carolina, basketball was the only true sport.

I confess it took me a while to get used to this. I mean, I had grown up in a culture in which basketball was just what you did to occupy your time between football and baseball seasons. Basketball wasn’t really a sport; it was just something to do in the winter when it was too cold to go fishing. But in North Carolina, football was just something to do to keep in shape until basketball season started in November.

Let’s pause for a moment and put this in “historical” perspective. In 1978, cable TV was a relatively new thing and the “big three” networks were about the only channels most of us had. Headline News, CNN and ESPN had not yet been thought of much less made it on the air. We relied completely on the local television channels and the newspaper for our sports information.

Here in Valdosta in the fall, the Saturday morning paper would be dominated, as it is today, by what happened the night before at Martin Stadium and Cleveland Field. But in North Carolina, while there might be some mention of the high school football scores, the news media abounded with information about what North Carolina and Wake Forest and Duke and even little Davidson would have in store when the basketball season finally rolled around. In a word, football wasn’t just second fiddle to basketball; football didn’t even make the band.

When I was a freshman at basketball crazy Davidson College, there was a senior on the basketball team that gave all outward appearance of having no athletic ability whatsoever. While he was kind of tall, he slouched around campus in disheveled clothes, wore thick glasses and I think he was a philosophy major. And as everyone knows, philosophy majors can’t play basketball. He was the kind of guy that even today would be labeled by all outward appearances as a geek or a nerd and I just couldn’t quite see him on the basketball court, especially against the likes of such schools as Wake Forest, NC State and South Carolina, all of whom we would play that season.

Well, as I best recall it, Davidson was scheduled to play Wake Forest for our home opener and there was much buzz around campus. I went to the game expecting this nerdy philosophy major that was alleged to be a basketball player to get embarrassed by Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouse Wake Forest.

I’ll spare you the details of the game, except to say that this guy scored 27 points – in the second half alone – against one of the premier college basketball programs in the country. And just in case you’re interested, ask me after Church and I’ll tell you who won the game.

Okay – I know you’re probably thinking, that’s a good story but what in the world does it have to do with the scripture we’ve just heard today? Well, I think it has a lot to do with what we can learn from Luke’s gospel lesson.

Let’s think about it for a minute. Jesus is in Nazareth – his own home town – the place where he grew up and where the people think they know him. And Jesus tells them: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” But what’s he talking about?

Well, if we go back to last week’s gospel lesson, we remember that Jesus has come home to Nazareth, apparently after having been away for some time, and he’s teaching in the synagogue. And he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And it’s then that Jesus rolls up the scroll, the scroll of the great prophet Isaiah and he tells his home town folk: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

And they were amazed. Luke says it right out loud – they were amazed at what Jesus said to them! Perhaps shocked might be a better word to describe their reaction. But why was this so amazing, so shocking to them. I mean they had heard all the signs and miracles he had done at Capernaum. They’d heard the news – they knew the reputation that Jesus had attained.

But they were amazed just the same! They were amazed that this Jesus – you know, Joseph and Mary’s boy – that this Jesus who looks so ordinary and so familiar to them – this Jesus that they think they know – they were amazed that this young man could do these things that they’ve heard. And they were amazed, astounded, even shocked that he would say to them, that he was the very fulfillment of the words of their great prophet Isaiah!

And they don’t believe it. They can’t believe it. But Jesus knows their disbelief. Jesus knows their lack of faith. So he confronts them with something they don’t want to hear. He tells them that God’s saving grace isn’t just for them. He tells them that the people of Israel don’t have some sort of monopoly on God’s love.

Jesus reminds them there were many widows in Israel but Elijah went only to the gentile widow. He says to them that Elisha cured only the Syrian leper while there were many lepers in their own land that were passed by. In a word, Jesus shocks his hometown crowd by telling them that the love of God is for all the faithful, regardless of their physical condition or their family genesis or their geographic location.

But these folks remain blind to Jesus’ true identity. They think they know this hometown boy. They think they recognize him as the child of Joseph and Mary. And they just can’t get past what they are sure they know about him based on nothing more than their own limited experience of him.

What they cannot recognize is that this Jesus that they think they know is in fact God incarnate. What they will not accept is that this Jesus isn’t just the child of Joseph and Mary but that he is indeed the Son of God come to redeem the world. And Jesus tells them just as he tells us here today, that the Good News of the Gospel is for all of us. It’s for the poor, the captive, the oppressed and it’s even for you and for me.

And so, on this fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, let’s not fail to recognize the nerdy college kid for the Honorable Mention All American that he is. Let’s not assume based upon outward appearances that some how we’re really any different from one another. Let’s not forget our baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being. And let’s remember what God expects, even commands, of each of us – that we not only love Him with all that we are – but that we likewise love our neighbors as ourselves.

It is through our faith in Christ Jesus that we find our hope for salvation. But let us never forget that it is only by the grace and love of God that Jesus saves us! Indeed, faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.

Many of you know that Susan’s and my boys have long been involved in athletics at Valwood School, the small independent school that each of the boys has attended since the beginning of their school days. We have always felt that participation in athletics (as with many other extra-curricular activities) can, in the right environment, be an important part of the formation of young people into responsible and productive young adults. There are many life lessons to be learned in athletic competition and on the field of play that students simply cannot get in the classroom.

This past Friday night’s Valwood home football game is a wonderful case in point – but it wasn’t just our sons who had a valuable experience out on that field – notwithstanding a 24-6 loss.

A few years ago, I was recruited, if not conscripted, to serve on the “chain gang” for Valwood’s home football games. The “chain gang” keeps the yard and down markers and works with the referee and other officials in keeping track of first downs and the proper “spot” or placement of the ball on the field. But serving on the “chain gang” means that I spend the entire game on the visiting team’s sideline with their players and coaches.

It’s always interesting to see how the other coaches and players conduct themselves, not only among themselves but toward the other team and the officials as well. Susan says that my working on the “chain gang” is a good thing because it keeps me from yelling at the referees.

The team that we played this past Friday was from a school called Solid Rock Christian Academy and they came to Valdosta all the way from Miami, Florida. You’re probably wondering why in the world a bunch of high school kids would come all the way from Miami just to play football. The fact of the matter is that Valdosta and Valwood really had very little if anything to do with them traveling so far for a game.

I had the chance to talk with one of their coaches during a break in the game and he told me that they were a new school and this was their first year playing football. They basically had to go looking for games wherever they could find them because most of the schools within their area already had full schedules. We just happened to have an open week because another school in our area had to cancel their game with us. And not only has this team come to Valdosta, they will be going to Jacksonville, Florida – twice – and to St. Petersburg as well as some other places that are quite far off from Miami.

As that coach and I continued to talk, I complemented him on the good work he and the other coaches were doing with the group of twenty or so young men, especially given that this is their first year together. He went on to tell me that virtually every one of these young men came from within the same sixteen square block area of the inner city of Miami – and that most of them had never left that inner city area – ever – in their entire lives.

These coaches literally plucked these young men from what most of us would call the ghetto, so they could go to school and play football. They extracted these young men, in spite of their challenged environment and are riding hundreds and hundreds of miles on a bus with them in the hope of giving them a chance at life outside the only sixteen square blocks most of them have ever known.

But it’s not just the experiences of those young men leaving the inner city of Miami to play football in South Georgia and other places far from home that should speak to us – I think it’s also the witness of those coaches that we can see as we think about today’s readings.

Today’s gospel lesson gives us two miracle stories – two healing stories that are I think distinctive in their contrast to one another. In the first part of the lesson, Jesus encounters the Gentile woman who begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Interestingly, the woman does not bring the child to Him, but apparently seeks out Jesus alone.

And Jesus at first blush seems to deal with her harshly. He tells her that it’s not fair to give the children’s food to the dogs. The implication just might be that Jesus is telling her that his ministry is to the people of Israel and not to the Gentiles. But the woman is a worthy advocate. Through her faith and her understanding of the healing power of Jesus, she tells him that even the dogs eat the children’s crumbs. She tells Jesus that his life-saving grace is for everyone, even her child.

This woman comes alone to see Jesus to beg for the healing of her sick child. She engages Jesus in debate – and wins. And Jesus heals her child from afar. We might be tempted to see the healing as a kind of reward to the woman for winning the argument. But I think that misses the point. To me, the point seems to be that through the outward demonstration of her faith, her child was healed and restored to good health.

But what of the deaf/mute man? In contrast to the possessed child, he is brought to Jesus for healing. He comes into the physical presence of Jesus. But because he is deaf, surly he cannot know about Jesus. He cannot have heard of the signs and wonders that Jesus has done. He is brought to Jesus by those who had faith that Jesus could heal him. And Jesus lays his hands on him and touches him and opens his ears and gives him speech.

So whether we come to Jesus of our own accord, on our own behalf or on behalf of another or whether we are brought into the presence of Jesus by someone who believes, we can receive the healing touch of Jesus and be healed and renewed and transformed by Him.

But with that healing and that renewal and that transformation come responsibility. The reading from James teaches us that to know Jesus is not enough. To have faith alone just doesn’t cut the mustard as they say.

Jesus calls us to show forth our faith, not just in Him but for Him. The epistle talks of showing forth our faith by doing good works, especially for the poor. But I don’t think, that in thinking of the poor, that we should limit our thinking to material wealth. I don’t think that we should restrict our thoughts to those who are economically disadvantaged.

I think the lesson calls us to be mindful of the poor in spirit. The scripture leads us to reach out to the poor in faith. The poor are those who have no faith. The poor are those who have not experienced the healing, renewing, transforming love of Christ Jesus.

And Proverbs reminds of this – rich or poor – we have one thing in common. The Lord is the maker of us all.

And for me, the witness to that is palpable in the example of those football coaches I met on Friday night. They are truly showing forth their faith. They are bringing the healing, renewing, transforming power of Christ to those young men from the ghetto in Miami – and indeed to all of us in the world around them.

It seems as though all of my life, food has been at the center of almost everything that ever went on in the Elliott household. For as long as I can remember, my family never seemed to have a discussion about much of anything that didn’t include something about the meal we had just eaten, what we might eat at the next meal we would share together or where we would eat if our family activities should keep us away from home around any mealtime sometime soon.

Forgive me if I’ve told this story before but to this day, my mother recalls the years of my youth when the close of each meal would always include an inquiry from my younger brother, Bill. If we were clearing the breakfast dishes from the table, Bill would invariably ask, “What’s for lunch?” If we were finishing a noonday meal and about to disperse to whatever the afternoon held for each of us, Bill always wanted to know, “What’s for supper?” And even at the close of the evening meal, Bill couldn’t leave the table without posing the question, “What’s for breakfast?”

And I must say that this fascination or even preoccupation with food lives on in my family today. Many of you know that I grew up here in Valdosta and that my parents and my older brother and his family live here as well and we frequently gather for meals together to celebrate birthdays or other special occasions or just to spend some time together. And food is always the focus of each and every one of these family gatherings. Whether we gather at our house or at my parents or at my brother’s house, the first question always seems to be, what are we going to eat and who’s going to bring what it is that we are going to eat.

As I have from time to time considered my family’s seemingly ever present thoughts of food and when and what and where we will next eat, I have wondered what it is that causes or makes us behave in such a way. I mean, are we simply individually and collectively preoccupied with food. Do our perpetual thoughts about cuisine go beyond preoccupation to fascination? And does the need for physical, bodily sustenance have anything whatsoever to do with our persistence about what we might eat next?

I believe I’ve come to the conclusion that our behavior as it relates to eating has very little to do with physiology or biology or whatever science it is that covers these things. I suspect that most of us have for most of our lives been blessed with enough food to eat to meet our physical needs. I doubt that very many of us have ever suffered the kind of poverty of literally not knowing where our next meal might come from much less from true hunger to the point of being near starvation.

So, if I’m right about that, then our preoccupation with food, our fascination with food, perhaps even our obsession with food must follow us because, let’s face it, we just like to eat. I’m reminded of Father Peter’s wonderful sermon just last week in which he spoke of the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread and what such things can do to our senses. I have personally witnessed occasions when the Men in Blue cooking team had chicken and ribs on the grill and the flavorful smells wafted through the area to the point that they literally lured people from the streets.

But in case you’re beginning to wonder, is he about to preach to us about the evils of gluttony or over indulgence? No, but there is a point in here . . . I hope!

Last Sunday, I went home after church still thinking about Father Peter and his aromatic bread and I read the Gospel lesson for today. And I saw that for the third Sunday in a row, we would hear a reading from the sixth chapter of John. And for the third Sunday in succession, we would hear something about manna and bread. And I realized that today we would conclude Jesus’ “Bread of Life” discourse as given to us in the Fourth Gospel.

But all of this made we wonder, “Why are we talking about this again . . . for the third Sunday in a row?” But if you will go back and look at last week’s gospel lesson, you will see that the last verse of that lesson is the very same verse as the first verse of what we just heard a few minutes ago. Jesus said. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Then in today’s lesson, Jesus goes on to say, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day . . . .”

So, we’ve gone from talking about Jesus being “living bread” to hearing Him say to us that unless we unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, we will have no life in us. I don’t know about you, but to me the contrast is quite striking if not shocking. But I think it’s supposed to be shocking. I think we are supposed to hear this and understand that Jesus doesn’t just feed us, He saves us. Jesus doesn’t just sustain us by giving us bread to eat and wine to drink. Jesus sacrificed Himself for us and suffered a cruel and violent death on the Cross in order that we might live and live in Him, forever.

So we come to this altar today, and indeed every time we come to God’s altar, not just to eat the bread and to drink the wine. We come to the altar preoccupied that Jesus is indeed the bread of life. We come to the altar fascinated by the mystery of His body and blood. We come to the altar in thanksgiving for His sacrifice for us. We come to receive the body and blood of our Lord and Savior . . . not because we want to or even need to . . . but because our very lives depend upon it!

Allow me a moment of candor or honesty or perhaps even confession. My confession is that I had something of a hard time deciding what it was that I would say to you here this morning. And for me, a lawyer, a courthouse lawyer, who has in the past been accused of being something of a raconteur, a story teller of sorts, it’s not easy to confess that the words I would share with you this morning were hard to find. For those of you who know me well, it is out of the ordinary for me not to have something to say about almost anything.

I was first tempted to go with some sort of horticultural theme or story. I mean that seemed to me to make some sense what with the business of the cedar tree in the first lesson from Ezekiel and the scattered seed and the grain and the mustard seed growing into the great shrub in today’s Gospel lesson. But somehow that just didn’t seem quite right . . . at least for today.

I next spent some time thinking about this Second Letter to the Corinthians that we heard a few moments ago but I admit I was having a hard time getting my head around what Paul has to say. I don’t know about you, but for me, Paul can be at times a bit obtuse and I sometimes have to scratch my head a bit to figure out just what he is getting at.

Well, when I didn’t get anywhere with Paul, I began to ponder where it is that we are in the Church year. What is it that is special or unique to today or to this time of year? Where are we in our collective life together as Christians and especially as Episcopalians? Where are we along the way in that way that we keep track of the annual life cycle of the Church?

In the last several weeks we have celebrated the Great fifty days of Easter after having renewed our baptismal covenant at the celebration of the resurrection of the Christ. We celebrated the Feast of the Ascension when our Lord was raised again into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. We celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, as it were, when the Church received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And just last Sunday, we celebrated Trinity Sunday and the realization of the Trinitarian nature of our God in the three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So what’s special about today? Well, the short answer might just be . . . nothing! Or maybe not! But something certainly seems to have changed. I mean, it seems like we’ve been in an almost constant state of celebration for the last couple of months. So where are we now?

Well, take a look around. The pure white and gold altar hangings and vestments of Easter have been put away as have the flaming red ones of Pentecost. They have given way to green vestments and the green hangings that you see here on the pulpit and on the altar that will stay with us throughout this long time of the year that we often call “ordinary time”. In fact, I even wore a most ordinary green necktie today just to punctuate the point.

Take a look at the insert in your order of worship on which the appointed readings for today are printed. At the top left, you’ll notice that this is the second Sunday after Pentecost and that the readings are for “Proper 6”. We will be reading these so-called “propers” each Sunday from now on during this “green season” we call ordinary time.

This is that long time of each year in our life together as Christians when the feasts and celebrations seem to have come to an end and we go about our everyday, ordinary existence until we begin again in the late fall with Advent.

And you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I know all of that, so what’s your point”?

Well, I think that is just the point. Think about what’s happened to us and where we are now. We’ve witnessed the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah. We’ve renewed our baptismal covenant and have been reminded that we have been washed in the waters of baptism and are redeemed from our sinfulness by the saving grace of God. We have experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost and realized the triune nature of our God.

So what do we do now that the feasts and celebrations are over and things are back to “normal”, whatever that may be for each of us in our everyday, ordinary lives? And I think that’s exactly the collective point of all that we’ve heard today. We don’t go back to “normal.” We can’t go back to ‘ordinary”. We don’t go back to “ordinary” even in this ordinary time of year. We can’t go back to normal or ordinary, whatever that is, because EVERYTHING has changed . . . everything has changed forever!

That’s what Ezekiel is talking about when he says God will plant the sprig and it will become a noble cedar. That’s what we learn from Mark and the scattering of the seed and the coming of the harvest and the aviary of the great shrub. And that’s what we learn from Paul. Now that we have witnessed the resurrection and ascension of our Lord and Savior and experienced the gift of the Holy Spirit, nothing will ever be normal or ordinary . . . nothing will ever be the same.

From now on, we no longer live our lives for ourselves, but for Him who died for us. From now on, we make it our aim to please Him who redeems us. From now on, even in the most ordinary of times, we are no longer ordinary. From now on, my brothers and sisters, because we are in Christ, we are a new creation. For everything old, everything normal, everything ordinary has passed away. Everything has indeed become new!

I must confess that all of this is somewhat overwhelming to me. It’s overwhelming to the point of being almost incomprehensible. Now, you might be thinking, what’s so overwhelming? What’s so incomprehensible? You might be saying to yourself about now, “Don’t we do this every year?”

Isn’t this Palm Sunday just like every Palm Sunday? I mean, don’t we do this every year at about this same time? And the answer is “yes”, we do do this every year but I’d like for us to spend a few minutes thinking about what it is that we do at about this same time every year when Palm Sunday rolls around.

To begin with, we gather on the lawn outside the church – on the lawn outside the bell tower through which we all are so accustomed to moving as we make our way into church. We begin outside – outside the nave where we all are so at home when we come to worship. And we begin outside – outside the sanctuary – this sacred space where we come to hear the Liturgy of the Word and to celebrate the Mass.

And each year on Palm Sunday as we begin outside, we hear the proclamation from one of the four gospels as part of the Liturgy of the Palms. This year we hear Mark’s account of the celebration, the festival, the parade, if you will. We hear about the Blessed One of God, the Christ, as he humbly, yet triumphantly enters into Jerusalem.

We hear about Jesus as he rides into the Holy City of the people of God – not on a horse – but humbly on the colt of a donkey. And the crowds in this festival, this celebration, this parade, shout to Jesus as he passes by “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

And then we, here in this place, we process, as we do every year into this nave and into this sanctuary and we arrive in this Holy, this Sacred space. As we do just as we do each and every Palm Sunday, and as we do most every other Sunday, we arrive in this place, this Jerusalem of sorts for many of us. We arrive in this place where we come to know God and to be in His presence and to worship Him.

And as we always do, we begin with the Liturgy of the Word. We have an Old Testament lesson and then we say together one of the Psalms and then we hear read to us an epistle like today’s lesson from Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

But for me – and maybe for you too, that’s when things change – at least on Palm Sunday. That’s when it gets overwhelming. That’s when almost inexplicably and incomprehensibly, everything changes!!!

The parade comes to a screeching halt! The celebration comes to an abrupt ending! And the messianic enthusiasm vanishes, seemingly in an instant.

Just as we are here in this Holy, Sacred space – just as we are here in this Jerusalem where we come to worship God – we are confronted with the Passion of our Lord. We come into this place where we, week after week after week, meet our Lord and our Redeemer and we are told:

And that, my brothers and sisters is why I am overwhelmed! We see this righteous man, this suffering servant of God and we must ask ourselves, “How could this happen, how could they do this to Him?” But then, but maybe just then we realize that this isn’t all about the suffering of the Christ just for us, even in our unworthiness. This is about the eternal conflict between good and evil. This is about the victory of our God in the conflict between light and darkness. This is the revelation of the triumph of God over the power of death, even death on a cross.

So it is in that revelation that I invite you to come again. Come again into this sacred space and experience the great Triduum of Holy Week. Come again and experience the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday. Come again and relive the Passion of our Lord on Good Friday. And come again for the Great Easter Vigil so that together, as the Body of Christ in this place, we might comprehend the incomprehensible in the full meaning of the Cross.

Just four days ago, we began this Lenten season for 2009. On Ash Wednesday, many of us came here to this altar rail to have the ashes of Lent imposed upon our foreheads in the sign of the cross and to begin yet again the forty days of Lent. And Father Peter reminded us in his Ash Wednesday homily of God’s wonderful gift to us of these forty days of reflection, meditation and self-examination during which God calls us to amendment of our lives. God gives us this time each year not just so that we might look back at how we have separated ourselves from Him but also in order that we might come to realize our dependence upon Him and restore ourselves to a right relationship with Him.

The scriptures that we read during the six Sundays in Lent (including the Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday), have the overarching purpose of preparing us, as the people of God, for our participation in the celebration of the great paschal feast at Easter. The Old Testament Lenten readings tend to focus on the salvation history of the people of Israel and the saving, indeed redeeming acts of God toward his people.

The New Testament lessons in Lent tend to touch generally on the means of salvation for us by the Cross and through baptism. The gospel lessons in this liturgical year, Year B, begin with Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism and temptation and then move through a series of lessons from Mark and John containing predictions of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus leading us up to the Sunday of the Passion and on to Easter.

So, how do these lessons that we have just heard call us to reflection and self-examination as we prepare for our own participation in the great paschal feast of Easter? The Genesis reading might be viewed as the aftermath, the epilogue, if you will, of the story of Noah and the great flood. But is this really the ending of that well known story or might it be the beginning? More on that in a moment.

The lesson from First Peter is thought by some theologians to be an early Christological hymn, that is to say a hymn about the nature of the Christ and his crucifixion and resurrection for the redemption of the world. This hymn is thought to have been reworked by the writer of First Peter into a homily or sermon or teaching of sorts, on baptism. And of course, the gospel lesson from Mark is the also well known story of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan accompanied by the descent of the Spirit and the heavenly proclamation that Jesus is the Beloved of God. And this is followed by Mark’s brief temptation narrative and Jesus’ call to repentance and his declaration of the coming of the kingdom of God.

So, let’s go back to Noah and the flood for a moment. Is this story about the ending of God’s destruction of the wicked or is this a story about a new beginning? I think this is a story about a new beginning, a new covenant of God with his people. The divine covenant that God made with Noah is properly seen as the outcome of the flood, not the conclusion of it. And this covenant that God made with Noah was different than the other divine covenants of the Old Testament. The other promises made by God found in the Old Testament were made with Israel and Israel alone.

But this covenant is different. God promises Noah that never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. This is not just a promise for Israel alone but is a promise for all of humanity. God makes his promise for all future generations and for all flesh that is on the earth. God brought Noah and all on the ark through the waters of the flood and in so doing makes a new promise, a new covenant not to destroy the world, but to redeem it.

Now, what does the author of First Peter have to say about Noah and the great flood? He tells us that God waited patiently during the building of the ark and that Noah and those on the ark ‘were saved through water”. But what does that mean – “saved through water”? Does it mean that they “escaped” the water? Does it mean that water was something to be feared as hostile and violent and destructive? Does it conjure images of the first creation story of Genesis when God separated the dry land from the chaos of the waters that covered the earth?

Or does “saved through water” mean something altogether different? Does it mean delivered through water? Does it mean that the water was a vehicle that delivered Noah and all on the ark to safety and into the redemptive love of God almighty?

It seems to me that this lesson from First Peter brings to us this morning a kind of a double meaning for the flood and for Noah and all on the ark. The waters of the flood are the waters of baptism – and those on the ark are the children of God, the heirs to his new covenant in his redemption of the whole world.

In our tradition and in our common experience, baptism is a sacrament most frequently administered to infants and small children although I must say that some of the most spirit – filled occasions of my adult life have been the privilege I have enjoyed to be present at the baptism of adults.

But for the early Church, for the first Christians and for centuries that followed, baptism was seen as a sort of appeal to God. Baptism was for mature folk and followed a period of instruction and preparation of the person to be baptized. It followed a period of scrutinization, if you will, of the worthiness of the candidate for baptism.

And only those who came to baptism with a clear conscience, with contrite and penitent hearts and with a sincere faith in Christ Jesus as their savior were considered worthy of being received into the faith. Only those who demonstrated through training and examination that they were indeed in a right relationship with their Lord and Savior were eligible to receive the sacrament of baptism and be cleansed of their sins.

So what does all of this mean for us here today? What is our calling as we begin this Holy season of Lent? It seems to me that we should begin this Lent with the end of it ever in sight and in mind and in heart. We should begin this Lent with the clear understanding that at the Great Vigil of Easter, we will be called upon to renew our baptismal vows. We should, all through this Lent, examine ourselves and our lives being ever mindful that we are saved through the water of baptism and we should end this Lent with the celebration that through the life, death and resurrection of His Beloved Son, God promises us anew that we all are indeed his children.

Do you occasionally have those “ah-ha” moments or experiences? I’m talking about the kind of experience I think we all have from time to time when we realize that something is other than it seems – the kind of experience when we have seen or viewed something in one way only to discover that it has another side to it. The kind of experience when we suddenly realize that whatever it is, has another aspect, another dimension that was not apparent to us at first – the kind of experience when we perhaps even realize that something is altogether different than we had previously thought. And when we have that kind of experience we might be heard to mutter, or even say aloud, “ah-ha”!

I tend to think that’s what this season of Epiphany is really all about. We all have a tendency to think about Epiphany in terms of the Feast of the Epiphany when we celebrate the coming of the Magi to worship the Christ child. But I think this season in our Church year after the Feast of the Epiphany is about looking past the obvious and looking through the seemingly apparent.

I think these days and weeks coming after the Epiphany and moving toward Lent lead us to a closer examination of things that we as Christians think we understand. This time in our liturgical year is about examining those things which seem evident to us, even when that which is evident is also amazing or spectacular. Epiphany sends us in search of the truth held within the message of the gospel in the hope that such a search will result in an “ah-ha” for us.

Indulge me a fish story for a moment. Somehow a good fish story seems appropriate here since it was only two Sundays ago that the fishermen, Simon and Andrew were called from their boats to follow Jesus.

In any case, when I was a teenager in the 1970s, I spent much of my leisure time fishing. I had permission to fish at Ocean Pond near Lake Park, with which I’m sure many of you are familiar.

Ocean Pond is quite large as ponds go in our part of the world. Its edges are lined with aquatic grasses and lily pads that provide excellent cover for fish, especially large mouth bass. One particular afternoon, a buddy and I were in our john boat, anchored within casting distance of the edge as we fished with lures that we hoped would land us one of the trophy large mouth bass for which Ocean Pond was well known.

We had caught a few “keepers”, as they say but the trophy bass we were after had eluded us. As we began to prepare to head for shore, I decided to try one last cast and much to my amazement, I got a bite. But it wasn’t just any bite; the strike was so violent that it almost pulled the fishing rod from my hands. As I pulled up on the rod in hopes of landing what was sure to be the trophy I was after, line began to strip from my reel as my rod almost doubled over and my trophy headed for the depths of the very middle of Ocean Pond.

All I could think was, I will never land this fish. I just knew it would strip all the line from my reel or twist around some under water obstruction and break the line. As it turned out, luck seemed to go my way and after what seemed like an eternity, my quarry began to tire and I began to reel it toward the boat. As it drew near the little john boat, it stayed deep under water and had yet to break the surface. I became increasingly excited to get a first glimpse of this trophy that I already envisioned mounted on my wall. You might imagine my surprise when the trophy bass on the end of my line turned out to be a three-foot alligator.

I had just spent what I am sure was the better part of ten minutes in the firm belief that I had a trophy bass on the end of my line only to discover a what was then very much endangered reptile. After a struggle to free the gator from my hook, it disappeared into the iced tea colored water of Ocean Pond and I went home very much amazed and astounded as well as excited to tell anyone who would listen to my “fish story”.

While I was excited and amazed and astounded, I doubt my experience could compare to those folks in the synagogue at Capernaum about which we heard from Mark in his gospel lesson from last week. If you recall, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue and he performed an exorcism in the casting out of a demon that declared Jesus to be “the Holy One of God”!

Mark tells us that the people in the synagogue were astounded at Jesus’ teaching and amazed by his power in the very public demonstration of the casting out of the demon. Mark goes on to tell us that Jesus’ public demonstration of his authority and his power made him famous throughout Galilee.

This week, we find Jesus in a more private setting in the home of Simon and Andrew along with James and John. Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law of her illness but his fame has followed him there. Mark tells us that all who were sick or possessed by demons were brought to be healed and indeed, the whole city gathered around the door to the dwelling.

Jesus cures the sick and infirmed. He cast out the demons from those who were possessed but he would not let the demons speak because they knew him. What does that mean, he would not let them speak because they knew him? It sounds to me like the lesson from last week when the demon declared him to be “the Holy One of God”!

But what happens next? Jesus leaves under cover of darkness because that’s the only way he can escape the crowds. That’s the only way that he can be alone to pray.

But his disciples follow and they tell him “Everyone is searching for you!” Everyone is searching for Jesus apparently because they think he is there to cure the sick and infirmed. They are searching for Jesus because they think he can mend their bodies and restore them to good health.

But Jesus leaves just the same. He leaves to go into neighboring towns to proclaim his message there also. He leaves, to go to proclaim his message because, as Mark tells us, that is what Jesus came to do.

And that is precisely what Jesus came to do! He came to proclaim and to fulfill the good news of the gospel. He rebuked the demon in the synagogue that called him “the Holy One of God” and he silenced the demon at Simon’s home that knew him. He silenced those who would proclaim him as the anointed one on account of his signs and miracles because that would be misleading. To proclaim him as messiah because he could heal the sick and infirmed would entirely miss the point of the message that Jesus came to proclaim.

Noted theologian and New Testament scholar Reginald Fuller tells us that it is only the Centurion at the foot of the cross that can rightly confess Jesus as the Son of God, for the Jesus seen by the Centurion is not a wonderworker but the Crucified One – not a healer of our infirmities but God come into the world to save us from our sins and ourselves.

And so, it is my hope and my fervent prayer that we have a collective “ah-ha” this Epiphany season and that we are amazed and astounded not just by the wondrous signs of the Christ but by the message that he came to proclaim that he is indeed our strength and our redeemer.

This time of year is always fascinating to me. It is Christmas time but we begin to focus on the arrival of a new year. A significant part of Christmas in our culture is about the giving and receiving of gifts. A significant part of every New Year in our culture is about the focusing on our priorities and the setting of goals for the remainder of the year.

As I have grown older, I have become increasingly more interested in seeing what I, and others to whom I am close hold dear. The exchanging of gifts at Christmas each year is always quite revealing. Susan (my wife) has, throughout our married life, received great joy in the doing for and giving to others. My father in law holds nothing quite so dear as a potent cup of Susan’s homemade eggnog each Christmas day. I am intrigued by the treasure that Christmas holds for each of us.

Over the years I have enjoyed watching our boys move from childhood to young adulthood and how that transition has been revealed in their responses to their Christmas gifts. I remember when the box in which a toy came was more fun to play with than was the toy that came in it. I remember the multitude of tricycles and bicycles and footballs and basketballs that came over the years and how excited each one of those gifts made them. And this year, I was particularly struck by their collective appreciation for the gift of some golf balls that came from their now retired favorite history teacher and football coach, Alfred Hiers.

As I reflect on my own childhood and growth through adolescence, I recall having had many of the same experiences as my children. I remember the excitement over the new bicycle or baseball glove. I remember the set of drums that I remain convinced my parents very much regretted having given me. And I remember coming to appreciate the very act of giving and the joy that comes with participating in someone else’s discovery of the new treasure that has been given to them.

I particularly remember how much my grandmother, my father’s mother, liked to take her grandchildren on trips and buy things for us. On one such trip, when I was a small boy, we went to some unremembered large city. I confess I don’t recall whether we were in a department store, a hotel or in some public building. What I do remember is seeing a large indoor fountain that was like a magnet to a six year old boy. You know the kind of fountain I mean – the kind of fountain with water gushing from some sort of sculpture centered in what otherwise appeared to be a large porcelain wading pool – the kind of fountain into which people would throw their spare coins in order to make a wish or in support of some sort of charitable cause – the kind of fountain near which little boys are not to be trusted much less left alone.

To this day, I am not sure how I came to be separated from my grandparents. I don’t know whether I escaped their attention or whether they left me behind thinking I was with them. What I do remember is being “found” by a policeman. Actually, “caught” might be a better word than found. I remember being apprehended just as I was about to go wading into that fountain for the express purpose of collecting as many of those coins as I could get into the pockets of a six year old boy’s pants.

I also remember being completely oblivious to the fact that my grandparents were nowhere in sight. I remember being absolutely unconcerned that they were not with me and that I was all alone in this very busy place. And I remember being frustrated, not about being caught, but because I didn’t get to gather the treasure trove of coins that I had discovered just waiting to be collected at the bottom of that fountain.

Well, my grandparents promptly located me and we went about our business and insofar as I know, there is no record with any law enforcement agency of my apprehension during the commission of the great fountain caper.

Well, that’s enough of my silly childhood story but I think there is something for us to be learned from this in light of Luke’s gospel lesson this second Sunday in Christmas. Each Christmas comes with the expectation of gifts given and received. Each Christmas comes with the anticipation of new treasures. Each Christmas comes with the celebration of God’s greatest gift to us of his only Son. And I think that each Christmas comes with the search for what our Emmanuel, God with us, means to each of us.

Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph (albeit not by name) made an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. Once the celebration had ended, they headed for home. They headed home without Jesus. When they discovered Jesus was not with them, their search began.

But what were they searching for and what did they find? It seems to me that Mary and Joseph were searching for their son – they were searching for their child. Jesus on the other hand was apparently unaware that he was “lost”. Jesus seems to have been unconcerned with his separation from his parents.

Perhaps Jesus was even on a search of his own. As a boy in the temple, Jesus was searching for his place in his Father’s house. Even as a young boy, Jesus recognized God as his Father and seems to have found his own identity.

So I ask you to consider this. Now that the gift giving and receiving is over for this Christmas season and as we enter the New Year with new priorities and new goals, for what do we really search? As the festival has ended and we return to the routine of whatever is “normal” for our lives, what will we look for? Will we look for the shiny coins in the fountain of my childhood or will we find our treasure in God made man who came into the world to redeem us?

It seems to me that Mary and Joseph didn’t quite find what they were looking for. They went in search of their son – but they found the Son of God!

As we go forward into this New Year in search of whatever treasure it may hold for each of us, may we all find God and be found by Him!

Just last week, we heard Matthew’s story of Jesus’ teaching about the two sons, one obedient and one not, who were asked by their father to work in the vineyard.

This week, Matthew has us back in the vineyard again. This text has been called the parable of the “wicked tenants”! Wicked indeed! Recall that Jesus was in the temple and he was teaching. He was talking to the chief priests and the elders in the temple. He was talking to those same folks who were first among his enemies. He was teaching those who feared him most and who would ultimately find cause to have him killed.

So Jesus is in the temple teaching and the chief priests and elders are questioning his authority. And Jesus challenges them. He tells them this parable of the wicked tenants. He talks of the landowner planting a vineyard and leaving it in the care of the tenants. When harvest time comes the owner sends his servants to collect the fruits of the harvest.

But the tenants persecute the owner’s servants two times over to the point that the owner finally sends his son thinking the tenants will honor his son and honor their promise to him. But the tenants see the arrival of the son as an opportunity to take the son’s inheritance for their own. So they kill the son. They kill the son for his property – they kill the son for worldly gain.

So Jesus asks the chief priests and elders, “What do you think the owner will do when he gets back?” And they answer, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death!” He will punish them and he will find good tenants who will work the vineyard and honor their covenant with the owner.

We might just consider this story a lesson in good business. If you hire folks who aren’t doing a good job, you get rid of them and hire someone who will get the work done and get it done right. But clearly, the lesson goes much, much deeper than that.

When I was a young teenager, I was sold, albeit temporarily, into involuntary servitude. A good friend’s father had inherited some farm land and decided to plant it in pecan trees. I was informed, not asked, by my father that I would be spending my Christmas holidays that particular year helping my friend’s family with the work of planting pecan trees.

And so I was to begin my brief career in agriculture the day after Christmas that year. Early on the morning of December 26, well before dawn, I was collected from my home and driven, along with the other involuntary servants, to Ma Groover’s Restaurant for a wonderful breakfast of eggs, grits, bacon and biscuits. We finished breakfast and loaded into vehicles and headed for the would-be pecan orchard.

When we arrived in north Lowndes County early that winter morning, we found bundles of PVC water pipe laid on the ground and heard the diesel engines of tractors cutting trenches into which we would lay the water lines for the pecan orchard. We were given boxes of PVC joints and jars of cement and instructed in the finer points of connecting sections of water line between faucets which were intermittently spaced throughout the property.

We went about the business of cementing the joints connecting the sections of PVC water pipe – hundreds and hundreds of yards of PVC water pipe – and then connecting the now longer sections between the faucets which would be used to keep the orchard irrigated. After connecting the lines and faucets in the manner instructed, we laid the lines in the neatly dug trenches and filled the trenches with the dirt piled alongside each one. It took us the entire week to lay the water lines for the orchard and sometime after dark on Friday, we collected our wages amounting to $2.00 for every hour we had spent toiling in the orchard – less the cost of our daily Ma Groover’s breakfast – or course.

The following Monday, we would return to begin the planting. We arrived at first light to once again hear the diesel engines of tractors. But rather than cutting trenches for water lines, they were now drilling holes with augers three feet in diameter – hundreds of holes – three feet in diameter – in which we would plant hundreds of sapling pecan trees. As each hole was drilled, the auger would leave a perfectly neat rim of fresh earth around hole the likes of which any portly prairie dog would be proud. After receiving instruction for the planting of these sapling pecan trees, we were dispatched in teams of two, shovels in hand, to begin the work of planting the pecan trees – hundreds of pecan trees.

One member of the team would hold the tree in the center of the neatly dug hole, at just the proper depth and the other would circle the hole, shovel in hand, moving the fresh earth into the hole and securing the new pecan tree in its proper place. It took the entire week to plant the trees, but once again, on Friday at dusk, we collected our wages at the rate of $2.00 per hour – less the cost of our Ma Groover’s breakfasts – of course – and I went home with the fervent prayer that my career in agriculture was at its end.

Many years later, I would drive by that orchard from time to time and see the fully mature and productive pecan trees thriving there and would have a sense of having made a small but positive contribution to its very existence. The sweat and toil and work that I and the others there had contributed to a beautiful and fruitful part of God’s creation. We had been given everything we, as young teenagers, needed to do the work that had been given to us to do. We had been given the tools and the instruction and the land and the then young, strong backs to help bring forth fruit from a small part of God’s vineyard here on earth.

But the vineyard in Matthew’s lesson for us today is not about pecans, or grapes or even wine. The vineyard in Jesus’ story is God’s kingdom on earth. The vineyard is the world in which we live and the landlord is the Lord God himself. The tenants in the story are the chief priests and elders in the temple but they may just as well be me and you.

We are the tenants, the occupants, the inhabitants of God’s vineyard, God’s garden, God’s kingdom in this life and in this place. Jesus warns the chief priests and the elders to listen to the servants of God, to listen to the prophets and to listen to him as God’s only Son come into the world. The warning is stark and the consequences of failing to heed it are grave indeed.

Jesus has given us everything we need to bring forth the fruits of the kingdom. He has given us the instruction, he has given us the tools of discerning hearts and minds and most of all he has given us his infinite love.

Jesus is inviting us as his servants, as tenants in his father’s kingdom to hear his call, and to be good stewards of all of the gifts he has given us. He is challenging us as ministers in his name to not let our desires for temporal things blind us from knowing him as the author of our salvation.

The message is clear – the kingdom of God belongs to those that produce the fruits of the kingdom. The kingdom belongs to those who go into the world in the name of our Lord and savior rejoicing in the power of the spirit. The kingdom belongs to those who know Jesus as their Lord and savior and who faithfully do the work he has given us to do – to spread the good news of the Gospel.

What a wonderful, beautiful, fruitful vineyard God has given us. He has given us everything we need to be fruitful in his kingdom here on earth. God has made a promise to us. God has made a contract with us – he has made a covenant with us! For our part, we must go into the world, into God’s vineyard, and do his work by loving and serving him as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. In so doing, we produce the fruits of the vineyard, the wonderful fruits of the kingdom and in return, we inherit the kingdom!

As many of you know, I’ve recently returned from The University of the South – Sewanee - after three weeks of study as part of my work as a postulant for Holy Orders. Some of you know Sewanee and know it well. For those of you unfamiliar with “the Mountain” as it is called by some, Sewanee is an idyllic setting for a small university and seminary which is nestled along the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee on something in excess of 13,000 acres of unspoiled creation far from the distractions of much of our world.

There is adjacent to one edge of the campus a wonderful walking trail called Abbo’s Alley. The trail is named for long time Sewanee English professor Abbot Martin who labored for years with Sewanee undergraduates to build the trail and to transplant the beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs which now adorn the trail and the babbling brook along which it runs.

I discovered this trail last summer and looked forward to sharing it with [my wife] Susan and [our son] Carter when they came to visit me over the July 4^th weekend this year. As Susan and I walked along the trail and caught up with one another after having been apart for a couple of weeks, Carter was busy exploring the trail and all that it had to offer.

As we walked and talked, Carter took a detour from the main part of the trail and disappeared from sight only to call out, “Look what I found!” Susan and I made our way toward the sound of Carter’s voice off the edge of the trail and there he was and there it was. There on a grassy plateau, tucked away from view of anyone except the inquisitive and inquiring mind of a twelve year old who wandered off the beaten path, was a wonderful outdoor labyrinth.

There it was all but hidden from anyone who would walk by without leaving the charted course. There in this pristine place was this sanctuary, this place to be quiet and still and to know that you are in the presence of God.

As I read the parables in Matthew’s gospel lesson for today, I couldn’t help but think about Carter’s discovery of that labyrinth, hidden from plain view, and wonder what might be hidden from our plain view of these teachings of Jesus about the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom of heaven is like . . . . The kingdom of heaven is like what? A mustard seed! I don’t know about you but I have a bit of a hard time getting my head around that one. I would venture a guess that most of us have a jar or bottle of mustard in our kitchen at home. I expect that some of us even have ground mustard or mustard seed in a spice cabinet or rack. But how in the world is the kingdom of heaven like a mustard seed?

Jesus talks about the mustard seed growing into a great tree which provides shelter and haven for the birds of the air but even this is hard to understand. I’m no expert in horticulture, but by all accounts, mustard seeds grow into small garden herbs or bushes, hardly the sort of tree described as providing safe nesting places for the birds of the air.

But there’s more. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast mixed with three measures of flour until all of it is leavened.

We might be tempted to think of this as a parable about the natural development of Christianity as the good news of the gospel is spread throughout the world. Some might see it as a sort of precursor to the great commission but I think that misses the point.

In Jewish tradition, the positive use of yeast, that is, the intentional mixing of leavening with flour was almost always used as a symbol for corruption or contamination. Paul uses this negative yeast imagery in 1 Corinthians and tells the Church at Corinth that it is to be unleavened and in his letter to the Galatians he uses the same sort of imagery. So Jesus’ use of yeast in this parable about the kingdom of heaven is quite perplexing to me.

But what did the woman in the parable do with the yeast? Our translation of the text tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that was “mixed in with” the flour. But both the Revised Standard Version and the King James Version of the Bible translate this Greek verb more accurately as “hid” so that we read that the woman “hid” the yeast in the flour.

But how much flour are we talking about here? Three measures. So what does that tell us? Well it doesn’t tell me much of anything but as it turns out, three measures is about ten gallons! Three measures of flour would make enough bread to feed 150 people, an extravagant, banquet-sized portion of bread.

But what of the field hand who finds the hidden treasure and the merchant who locates the long sought after pearl of great value. The man in the field is going about his business and discovers, much to his great surprise, treasure hidden in the field. The merchant is actually searching for a valuable pearl and discovers one that exceeds his greatest expectations. But both respond to their discovery by trading all that they have for their new found fortune.

So what do these parables mean for us? I think Jesus is asking us to look past the obvious. He is calling us to stretch our minds and our imaginations just as he has stretched the mustard seed into a tree. He is telling us to look for the kingdom in everything from the lowly garden herb to the majestic oak and the towering pine. He is asking us to put aside convention and look for the hidden kingdom that will be revealed to us in the heavenly banquet. He promises us that the kingdom of heaven is there for us to find whether we’re looking for it or not and that it will be worth our very all to us when we find it. Perhaps Jesus is telling us, as one biblical commentator puts it, to look for a king who comes riding a donkey rather than a war horse.

I walked that trail along the brook in Abbo’s Alley and visited that labyrinth several more times in the days after Susan and Carter left the Mountain. And I’ve since reflected on the wonder of God’s creation in that particular sanctuary that Carter discovered for us where it is so easy to be quiet and still and to know that you are in the presence of God. And I am reminded not only by that wonderful trail and labyrinth but also by the parables of Jesus that the kingdom of heaven is all around us, just off the trail, just off the beaten path, just at odds with convention, waiting to be discovered by all of us!

It seems somehow appropriate that we begin our visit this morning with the invocation of the name and the presence of the Triune God on this particular Sunday. After all this is Trinity Sunday. This is the Sunday in our liturgical year on which we are called to focus on the Trinity and what our Trinitarian theology means to us as we live out our lives in Christ Jesus.

As the summer approaches and the end of the school year draws near, I dare say that most of us are planning or have already planned what we will be doing over the summer for some sort of vacation. Most of us, regardless of how busy our lives might be, usually try to find some time over the summer to be away from the rigors of school and work and to escape from the routine responsibilities that go with our busy lives during most of the rest of the year.

I’ve heard it said all of my life that most if not all of us fall in to one of two categories when it comes to the venue in which we prefer to spend our vacation time. Most of us gravitate toward one of two particular sorts of vacation spots. Let’s face it, most of us are either “beach people” or we are “mountain people”.

I confess to being a mountain person. Don’t get me wrong, I love the ocean and the sun and the spray, and I marvel at the wonder of God’s creation in the swarms of living creatures brought forth by the waters of the sea. But the beach of summer vacation is a busy place teeming with activity. There are children, both young and old splashing in the surf and building sand castles. There are folks of every age jogging and bicycling and playing ball. There are families large and small in salty and sandy reunion with one another. And there is my dear wife, absorbing every ray of sunshine available, seemingly oblivious to the hustle and bustle going on around her.

But I am a mountain man, exiled to the flat woods of South Georgia. I find my rest and recreation in the solitude of towering evergreens and the shade of hardwood hammocks. Mountain meadows with drumming Ruffed Grouse, mountain trails with busy chipmunks and mountain streams with trout and salamanders and singing frogs are the sorts of places that give me refreshment.

But whether we are mountain people or beach people, we all have something in common in our search for vacation. We all have something in common in our need to escape the trials and travails of our regular everyday existence. We all share in the need to be refreshed and recreated whether we find that refreshment or recreation at the beach or in the mountains or in some other venue.

Regardless of where we go, we all need to get away. We all need to leave our homes and our jobs and our school work and we all need to focus on something other than those things that we seem to do almost every day of every week of every month of every year. We all need to get away if for no other reason so that we may come back to our homes and our jobs and our school work refreshed and renewed and begin anew to do all of those things that we do day after day in our ordinary, routine and everyday lives.

At this point, some of you are probably thinking, it’s the third week of May, it’s Trinity Sunday, I haven’t even gone on vacation and he’s already talking about coming home from vacation.

But if you think about our year in the life of the church, that really is the point of all of this. We began our year in the life of the church in Advent and moved through Christmas, Epiphany and Lent and the Passion of our Lord.

And then comes Easter, glorious Easter. Then comes the feast, the celebration of the resurrection of the Christ. Then comes the recreation of the world in the risen Lord. And then we have the miraculous Ascension of Jesus to the Father in Heaven. And just last Sunday, we celebrated the birthday of the Christian Church. We celebrated Pentecost and we rejoiced in the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the disciples. We heard Peter’s proclamation that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And we learned from John’s Gospel that Jesus breathed the very breath of God into his disciples giving to them the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Think about it! We all have been on vacation since the Great Vigil of Easter. Since our celebration of the resurrection, we have been on the mountaintop experiencing the recreation and renewal of the world through the risen Lord and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And here we are! Trinity Sunday! And we are still on the Mountain. And we find the disciples; we find the eleven on the Mountain. We find them on the Mountain where Jesus taught them the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. We find them on that very Mountain where Jesus was transfigured before God in the presence of Peter and James and John. We find them and we find ourselves on the Mountain in the presence of the risen Christ.

We are about to begin what we in our Anglo-Catholic tradition call “Ordinary Time”. We are about to begin that long time of the year in the life of the Church when all things return to “business as usual” until we begin again in Advent. The vacation and the celebration are about to end and it is time for us to return to work.

Trinity Sunday signals something very important to us. This Trinity Sunday we receive our instructions about our return to work. Jesus gives to the disciples and he gives to us “The Great Commission”. He tells them and he tells us that the vacation is over. Jesus tells the eleven and he tells us that it is time to come down from the mountain and go to work. He tells us that it is time to go into the world to do the work that he has given us to do … to make disciples of all nations. To make disciples of all sorts and conditions of folk. To go forth in the name of the Triune God respecting the dignity of all God’s children and to bring to everyone the Good News of the Gospel.

And as we, you and I, come down from the Mountain, refreshed and recreated and go back to work to make disciples of all of God’s children, I leave you with Paul’s benediction that “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” AMEN!

The Gospel reading for this fifth Sunday in Easter is the beginning of three chapters of John’s Gospel commonly referred to as “The Farewell Discourse”. In this Farewell Discourse, Jesus interprets for his disciples, and for us, his death, resurrection and ascension. Jesus interprets these events before they occur and points his disciples toward the life they will lead after he has been glorified.

Let’s take a moment to examine the context in which Jesus begins his explanation or interpretation of what is to come. If we read the preceding chapter in John we see that Jesus has revealed some very disturbing things to his disciples. He has told them that one among them will betray their Lord. Jesus has told Peter that he will deny him three times. And to top it all off, he has told them, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

Jesus has said to his closest followers that he will be betrayed by one of them, he will be denied to be known by one of them and that he will leave them and that they cannot follow, at least for now!

So, it is against this backdrop that Jesus begins his farewell discourse. I suppose it isn’t any wonder that Jesus begins what is to be an interpretation of what is to come with words of assurance. He tells them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” But Jesus isn’t telling the twelve not to be sad. The Greek verb used here for “troubled” – tarasso – is more properly understood as an exhortation – as an admonition – to be strong – even in the face of things to come.

Jesus charges the twelve to be strong! He tells them to believe! He tells them to have faith! He tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them and reassures them in saying, “I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

And almost as if to remind the disciples of what they already know, Jesus says, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Jesus seems to be punctuating his charge to them by telling them “You know the way!”

But I can’t help but think that Thomas and Philip didn’t hear it quite that way. It seems as though Thomas and Philip didn’t hear an admonition. They didn’t hear a charge. They didn’t hear an exhortation! They didn’t hear, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” I think Thomas and Philip heard it this way: “And you know the way to the place where I am going???”

And Thomas confesses: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going so how could we possibly know the way!” Thomas doesn’t understand that “the way” is not a path. He doesn’t understand that “the way” is not a route. He doesn’t understand that “the way” is not a geographical means of getting from one place to another.

So Jesus says to Thomas: “I am the way! I am the way to the Father. If you know me, you will know my Father. From now on, you know Him and have seen Him!” Jesus says to Thomas “the way” is ME!

But Philip still doesn’t quite understand. Philip still doesn’t quite get it. Philip says to Jesus, “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied – show us the Father so we can understand.” Jesus has been with Philip all this time and he still doesn’t understand so Jesus tells him again, “I am in the Father and he is in me.” Jesus tells Philip and he tells us today that if we know Jesus then we know the Father. Jesus tells us, he calls us, he charges us and he exhorts us to know him so that we may know the Father!

But I don’t think that is the end of the lesson for today. It seems to me Jesus is urging us to examine how we know him. Jesus is asking us to look deep inside and ask ourselves, “How do we know Jesus?”

Of course, we know Jesus in the celebration of the Eucharist. We know him in the breaking of the bread and in the sacraments and in the prayers we lift up to him for ourselves and for others.

We know Jesus when we thank him for a meal that we are about to receive and we know him when we praise him in worship and in song.

But Jesus charges us to know him even when it is hard. He calls us to know him even when we struggle to see his face. He calls us to know him when we are doubtful and unsure and even when we don’t understand as Thomas and Philip didn’t understand. He charges us to go into the world and live and breathe his example by doing his works, works he tells us will be even greater than his because of his perfect sacrifice!

And Jesus assures us that if we truly know him, he is with us always, even in the hardest of times. He assures us that if we ask in his name, our prayers will be answered.

When I think about how I know Jesus, I often think of the many summers of my youth, from grade school to college, that I spent at a wonderful summer camp in the North Georgia Mountains near Tallulah Falls. I frequently reflect on my experiences at Athens Y Camp and realize how important those experiences are to the way in which I know Jesus.

There is a beautiful poem put to music that we know as “The Y Camp Hymn” and I want to share part of it with you:

I think this exemplifies Jesus’ call to us. Jesus calls us to know him as he knows us – to know that he is the way, and the truth and the life – and to live our lives in him and with him and for him. He calls us to love him perfectly as he loves us perfectly and he gives us the blessed assurance that he gave to Thomas and Philip that where he is, we may be also.

Jesus promises us that if we know him as he knows us, we will nevermore walk alone.

What do we know about Samaria and what do we know about the Samaritans about which we have just heard? I have heard the story of the Good Samaritan all of my life as I am sure all of you have. Luke’s story of the Good Samaritan is perhaps the best known example of Jesus’ teaching about who is “our neighbor” whom we are called to love as we love ourselves. But how does this Samaritan, this Samaritan woman figure into what John is trying to get across to us in today’s gospel lesson,

To say that Jews and Samaritans were not fond on one another would be an understatement. The Hatfields and the McCoys were not fond of one another. The Montagues and the Capulets were not fond of one another. The Jews and the Samaritans, on the other hand, had been literally feuding with one another for hundreds of years before the time of Christ. And what had they been fighting about? You guessed it, God! You see, Samaritans held that the first five books of our Bible, the so-called Pentateuch, were the only true scripture while all of Torah was the divinely inspired word of God for the Jews. As important, the Samaritans had built a shrine on Mt. Gerizim and asserted that their shrine was the only proper place to worship Yahweh while the Jews of course believed that the Temple in Jerusalem was the sacred House of God. While it sounds harsh, for the Jews, Samaritans were a heretical people who disavowed God’s law and blasphemously disregarded their sacred Temple in Jerusalem.

Now there is one more thing. This Samaritan in today’s gospel is not just a Samaritan but is a woman as well. It is important for us to remember that women in first century Judea, Samaria and Galilee hardly enjoyed the same status as men. On the contrary, women were regarded largely as property, as chattels, as mere possessions and servants of men. So when Jesus engages this Samaritan woman in conversation, he is in conversation with an anonymous subordinate member of a nation at war with his own people.

So, it is against this backdrop that we turn our attention to John’s message for us today. When I first read this lesson, I wondered what Jesus was doing in Samaria in the first place. So I read a few verses ahead of today’s lesson and learned that Jesus was on his way from Judea to Galilee. And in those verses, John tells us is that Jesus had to go through Samaria. Jesus HAD to go through Samaria. Does this mean that in order to get from Judea to Galilee, it is a geographical impossibility not to go through Samaria? Or does this mean something more theological? We’ll come back to that in a moment.

Jesus finds himself in Samaria and he comes to a well, to Jacob’s well. He comes to the well at midday and he is tired from his travels. He comes to the well tired and thirsty and in need of refreshment. And what does he do? He asks the Samaritan woman for a drink. And she is astonished! She is astonished that this Jew would behave in such a way. She is amazed that this Jew is violating not just one societal convention but two. No Jewish man would start idle conversation with a woman that was a stranger to him and certainly no rabbi, no teacher would engage in any public conversation with any woman.

But just as amazing, just as astonishing was that this Jewish teacher was actually talking to a Samaritan, a heretic, a centuries old enemy of all of Israel. He was asking for a drink from an anonymous Samaritan woman with whom no self respecting Jew would even associate, much less engage publicly in conversation.

The woman was so amazed that she basically says to Jesus, I can’t believe that YOU are asking ME for a drink! And what does Jesus do? He says, if you knew me, you would be asking me for “living water”. But she doesn’t understand him. She is unsure what he means when he says he can give her “living water”. She seems to think Jesus is talking of temporal things – she thinks he is speaking of the cool, clean water that quenches physical thirst. She doesn’t seem to understand what Jesus is offering her.

But regardless of her confusion, Jesus reveals himself to her as the Messiah. Jesus demonstrates to her that he knows her and everything about her. Jesus shows her that he knows her to the very core of her being. And though at first, she is unsure, this Samaritan woman comes to believe. She believes that Jesus is the Messiah and she goes into the community and tells all with ears to hear what has happened to her! She goes into the world in which she lives and calls everyone to come and see the Christ!

And they do come! They come to the well to see Jesus and they believe. They come to see Jesus because of the witness of the Samaritan woman and they believe because of her testimony. They come and they first believe because of her belief. And they mature and grow in there belief because of their own personal experience of Jesus as the Messiah. They come to believe because of the witness of the Samaritan woman but they come to know Jesus as the Savior of the world because they come to the well and they meet Jesus. They come to the well and meet Jesus face to face and hear the good news of the gospel and know for themselves that he is indeed the Christ.

So, what do we have to learn from John and Jesus and the Samaritan woman this third Sunday in Lent? For me, Lent is a time when God calls us to put aside the conventions of our lives. God calls us to strip away all of those things that get in the way of our being one with Christ. Lent is a time to focus on the Cross and to prepare for the passion of our Lord.

And I think that is exactly what John and Jesus and the Samaritan woman have to teach us today. They teach us that Jesus puts aside convention. Jesus puts aside bias and prejudice and culture and religious strife and he goes to the well in search of a witness. He goes to the well in search of the most unlikely of witnesses to the good news of the Gospel.

Jesus goes into the world and calls the marginalized, the despised, even the enemy to be His witness. And the Samaritan woman accepts the call of Christ and goes into the world and proclaims that she has seen the Messiah and because of her witness, many come to believe.

And so for me at least, Jesus didn’t go to Samaria because that was the only way for him to get from Jerusalem to Nazareth. I think Jesus went to Samaria because that is where he would find the marginalized. Jesus went to Samaria because that is where he would find the despised. Jesus went to Samaria because that is where he would find those with whom he disagreed. Jesus went to Samaria because that is where he would find the enemy.

Jesus went to Samaria because the good news of the gospel is for everyone, not just for you and for me, but for everyone, even the marginalized, even the despised, even the enemy. Jesus went to Samaria because he HAD to.

All of us here this morning travel to one degree or another. We go on trips and vacations. We go to places far and near to visit family and friends. We go on business trips and to church functions. Sometimes we go to other places to shop or just to see the sights. Even a Saturday afternoon jaunt to Wal-Mart can be an expedition of sorts for some of us. But regardless of the purpose of the trip or the ultimate destination, each excursion on which we embark calls for some sort of planning. I expect that most of us, to one degree or another, engage in some planning before we set out on any sort of trip to just about any destination. I would dare say that few if any of us just get in the car or head to the airport without planning the what’s, when’s, where’s, whys and how fars of any trip on which we might go.

Just this past weekend, Susan and I and our three sons went on a trip to Mobile, Alabama to visit dear friends who live there and to enjoy with them some of the annual Mardi Gras revelry for which that city is famous. In thinking about what I might say to you this morning, I began to ponder the planning that went into that trip to Mobile last weekend.

At the outset, we had to plan how to get there. I know, you’re probably thinking, you drive to Tallahassee and get on I-10 and go west until you get to Mobile. But for the Elliotts, it’s never quite that easy. You see, our son Gus had a high school basketball game in Damascus (Georgia, not the apostle Paul’s Damascus) on Friday night and I would venture a guess that not too many of you could give me driving directions to Damascus, Georgia. Next we had to figure out where we would stay on Friday night since the game would end too late for us to drive all the way to Mobile. Once we decided to spend Friday night in Dothan, Alabama, I made a hotel reservation there and then spent some time on the internet figuring out the best route to take from Dothan to Mobile on Saturday morning. We also had to plan how early to leave Dothan in order to arrive in Mobile for the first planned activity of the weekend, not to mention that we had to get directions to our friends’ new home as they had moved since our last visit with them. And I’ll spare you the details of the visits to weather.com to decide what to pack for rain and cold as well the plans for the trip home to insure our arrival in Valdosta in time for basketball practice on Monday afternoon.

I expect you’re wondering at this point, what in the world is the point of all this? Well, at least for me, thinking about all of the details and planning that we do just to get to and from Mobile for a weekend visit with friends brings into sharp focus the contrast of our lives to those of Jesus and his first disciples when he began his preaching ministry in Galilee.

Matthew begins today’s gospel lesson by telling us that Jesus travels to Galilee and then harkens back to Isaiah when he tells us that “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light” and that “light has dawned” for those who sat in the “shadow of death.”

Next, Jesus gives us the seminal proclamation of his preaching ministry. He tells everyone who is there to hear and he tells us to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

And then, Matthew recounts for us how Jesus encountered Simon Peter and his brother Andrew by the Sea of Galilee and Jesus said to them, “Follow me.” And he also sees James, the son of Zebedee and his brother John and he calls them as well.

Let’s go back for just a moment to what Jesus was preaching before he starts calling disciples to follow him. Jesus says “repent”. We are tempted to say we know what that means and go on to the next thing. I suspect that if I asked for a show of hands, many of you would agree that repent means something like saying you’re sorry or expressing remorse for something that you had done wrong. We tend to think of repentance as something we do to solicit God’s forgiveness for our sins.

But I don’t think that’s exactly what Matthew has in mind for us. The Greek word for repent in this context is metanoeo, which literally means “change one’s mind.” The idea of repentance for Israel was a turning or a returning to God. For Matthew, this Greek word for repent connotes a change of direction in one’s life. As one biblical commentator puts it, “Get yourself a new orientation for the way you live, then act on it.” This new orientation is the required response to the kingdom of God having “come near”.

Which brings us to the next question. What does Jesus mean when he tells us that the kingdom of heaven has “come near”? Some folks would suggest that Jesus was telling his listeners, and indeed us today, that the end is near. That he was foretelling the coming of the end of the age. But I’m not so sure that’s what he means at all.

The kingdom that Jesus is talking about is the active rule of God in the world in which we live. I think that Jesus is telling us that He is the kingdom. That He is God come into the world. He is telling us to turn, to return and to reconcile ourselves to God in Him. God has come near to us in Christ Jesus.

Now, let’s get back to Simon Peter and Andrew and James and John for just a moment. Jesus comes near to Peter and Andrew and says “follow me.” It is not a request. Jesus does not ask them a question. It is an imperative. It is a command. And how do they respond? Matthew tells us that they immediately left their nets and followed him. James and John respond likewise. Matthew does not tell us anything other than that Jesus “called them” and immediately, they followed Jesus.

So it is with us here today. God has come near to us in Christ Jesus. God has come into the world to save us from sin and death. Jesus’ call to discipleship was not just to Peter and Andrew and James and John and the others that followed them. Jesus calls us to discipleship here and now and in this place and in the world in which we live.

And what do we do when Jesus calls us to follow him? Do we ask where we are going? Do we ask for directions to Damascus or Dothan or Mobile? Do we make hotel reservations or schedule a time to leave or to return?

Indeed, the kingdom of heaven has come near to us in Christ Jesus. And He calls all of us, as the Body of Christ, to follow Him, immediately! AMEN!

ADVENT 3 YEAR A

December 16, 2007

Isaiah 35:1-10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Psalm 146:4-9

I have a confession. I’m confused! Is anybody else confused or is it just me? Just last week, the second Sunday of Advent, we had lessons from Isaiah and Matthew. And again this week, the third Sunday of Advent, we have lessons from Isaiah and Matthew. And you might ask, what’s so confusing about that?

Well, this is why I’m confused. Last week, the lesson from Isaiah foretold the coming of the Messiah, a messiah who would strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and kill the wicked with the breath of his lips. But this week, Isaiah goes on to prophesy the one who is to come with wonderful poetry. The desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus, it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. . . . Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

With Isaiah, we’ve gone from Advent 2 and the promise of a vengeful Messiah to Advent 3 and the assurance of everlasting joy. But, that’s not all I’m confused about.

Last week, our gospel lesson from Matthew began with John the Baptist preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Matthew tells us that John is the one of whom Isaiah spoke when he said “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Last week we heard John the Baptist call the Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers! We heard him proclaim the coming of the Christ with his winnowing fork in his hand to clear the threshing floor and the promise that he would gather his wheat into the granary; and the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire!

But this week, Matthew tells us that John is in prison. He tells us that John has heard what Jesus was doing. John is in his prison cell and learns the news of the healing ministry of the Messiah.

John the Baptizer questions his faith. He questions his faith to the point that he sends his own disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one. He sends them to ask Jesus if he is the one who is to come. He sends them to ask whether they are to wait for another. John is in his prison cell questioning his own prophesy and wondering if he has been wrong about Jesus all this time.

In one short week, we’ve gone from a promise of the voice of one crying in the wilderness and the warning of a baptism by fire to the healing ministry of Jesus and the confused faith of the very prophet who foretold his coming. So maybe I’m confused because John the Baptist is confused. But it is that very confusion that leads us to try to sort out God’s message to us during this season of Advent.

I think we tend to fall into thinking about Advent as just that time in the church year before Christmas. I think we all tend to experience Advent as just the four weeks before we finally get to celebrate the Nativity of our Lord. And I think we tend to experience Advent as a time of preparation for the arrival the Christ child.

But perhaps we can learn something from the changes that we see in the prophesy of Isaiah and the confusion of John the Baptist as to whether Jesus is the one who is to come or whether we are to wait for another.

The word Advent, from the Latin, actually means “coming”.

But what’s coming? Who’s coming? What are we waiting for? Or perhaps we should ask what or who were Isaiah and John the Baptist waiting for? Who did they believe was coming?

God, for Isaiah and for John the Baptist, was the God of Israel. Their God was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God, for all of Israel, was the God that led them out of bondage in Egypt and would lead them into the land of milk and honey.

So who would be their Messiah? Their Messiah would be their king because they were, after all, God’s chosen people. Their Messiah would be a warrior king, mighty in battle, who would vanquish their enemies and free them from the persecution they had suffered in generations past. Their Messiah would come with vengeance and terrible recompense to burn the chaff of humanity with unquenchable fire.

For John the Baptist, and indeed for all of Israel, the hope was for the one who would come to save them from their enemies and from all of the ills and evils of the world. I don’t think it ever crossed their minds that they needed to be saved from themselves. It never occurred to them that they needed to be saved, as do all of us, from their own sinful nature.

So maybe John’s doubt about Jesus isn’t so confusing. After all, Isaiah tells us that the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; that the lame shall leap like a deer and that the tongue of the speechless shall sing for joy!

And what does John hear from his prison cell? He hears of the compassionate Messiah that was foretold by Isaiah. He hears of the loving, caring deeds of the Christ rather than those of a vengeful warrior king. So John has to ask, “Are you the one who is to come? Or, do we wait for another?”

But Jesus sends John’s disciples to him with the Good News of the Gospel. Jesus gives to John the Good News that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. But Jesus gives to John, and to us, even more Good News. He adds that the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.

But who are the poor who receive the good news? Is Jesus telling us that the good news of the Gospel is only for the impoverished? And if so, who are the poor and impoverished?

I don’t think Jesus is talking about material wealth or a lack of it. In this season of Advent when the world around us is consumed with consuming, Jesus tells John the Baptist and he tells us that the poor in heart have the good news brought to them. He tells John the Baptist, confused about the very nature of the one who is to come, that He is the Messiah, come into the world to save us from ourselves and to give us the assurance of eternal life.

And Jesus tells us the Good News of the Gospel. He tells me and he tells you, when we are weak in our faith, when we are distracted by what the world has done to the feast of the Nativity of our Lord. He tells all of us when we are poor of heart. And he tells us when we are confused, that we need not wait for another. Jesus tells us that He is indeed the one who is to come. He is the one to come into the world as the Christ child and He is the one who will come again in glory to redeem us.

For me the blessing of Advent can be found in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come and save you.”

Thanks be to God! AMEN.