ent III
Sean C. Kim St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 3 March 2024 “Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables” (John 2:15). An angry Jesus is not how we ordinarily picture him in our minds. We prefer the soft and tender images of Jesus – the shepherd with a lamb in his arms, the compassionate healer of the sick and diseased, the lover of children. And yet here he is, driving out people and animals, overturning tables, and shouting, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:16). Known as the cleansing of the temple, this episode in the life and ministry of Jesus is found in all four Gospels. So, what do we make of the angry Jesus? For one thing, it shows us that he is human, experiencing the full range of feelings and emotions. Elsewhere in the Gospels, we see Jesus weeping when his friend Lazarus dies (John 11:1-44). And, although we aren’t actually told this, we can imagine that Jesus smiled and laughed at the feasts and banquets that he attended, which we do read about. In the Gospel of John, in fact, the cleansing of the temple takes place immediately after his first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). I picture a happy Jesus at the wedding feast, surrounded by family and friends, drinking wine. Jesus was God Incarnate, but he was also human like us. Jesus’ anger in the temple was a response to what he perceived to be the greed and desire for profit that was contaminating the sacred grounds of the temple. Biblical scholars also point to the corruption of the temple hierarchy and Roman bureaucracy that benefited from the commercial transactions.[1] In the other Gospels, Jesus accuses the merchants and money changers of turning a house of prayer into a “den of robbers.”[2] So, it was a righteous anger, Jesus’ zeal for the sanctity of His Father’s house (John 2:17). Throughout the history of our faith, there are many instances of those who have been moved by righteous anger and filled with holy zeal to do great things for God. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther was angered by the corruption and worldliness of the medieval church to spark the movement of reform and revival known as the Protestant Reformation, of which we are heirs. In the nineteenth century, William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament, and other abolitionists were angered by the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery to work tirelessly for the emancipation of slaves in the British empire. Today on our church calendar is the Feast of John and Charles Wesley. And I know there are many former Methodists and Nazarenes in our midst. John Wesley was angered by the apathy of the Church of England toward the working classes, so he got up on his horse and traveled the length and breadth of England to preach the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. During his ministry, he traveled a total of 250,000 miles, on horseback; that would be the equivalent of circling the globe ten times. And his brother, Charles Wesley, wrote 6,500 hymns, infusing the Methodist movement with some of the most beautiful hymns ever written, many of which we find in our Hymnbook. As some of you know, my academic training is in church history, in particular, the history of Christianity in Korea. In my research, I come across many instances of righteous anger. When Protestant missionaries first came to Korea in the late 1800s, they were angered by the sight of children abandoned in the streets. So, what did they do? They gathered them into the orphanages that they established. Christians were also angered by the total exclusion of women from education to set up the first schools for women in Korean history. A testament to the powerful legacy of this ministry, the world’s largest women’s university is in Seoul, with a student population of over 20,000, and it was founded by the missionary Mary Scranton. This past Friday was March 1, and it is celebrated as Independence Day in Korea. On March 1, 1919, Korean Christians, angered by the tyranny and injustice of Japanese colonial rule, spearheaded national protests for independence, involving more than a million people. While colonial rule did not come to an immediate end, it did bring about major changes in policy, allowing greater rights and freedoms. There are countless examples from Christian history in which the righteous anger of the faithful have brought about extraordinary transformations in society and politics. In fact, the modern world as we know it is filled with the profound legacies of Christian activism. But our world is still in need of change and reform. We have new problems and issues that arouse our anger. And as followers of Jesus, we are called to channel this anger into a zeal for good works, as our forebears have done throughout the centuries. The Season of Lent is a time of reflection and spiritual growth, a period when we join Our Lord Jesus in the wilderness for forty days. It’s most often associated with giving things up, like wine and chocolate. But it is also a time to do more. As you look around the world today, what makes you angry – gun violence, homelessness, homophobia, racism? The Church provides opportunities for you to do something about these issues, and we have dedicated, hard-working leaders who are moving us forward. As I mentioned last week, Lenette Johnson and Philip Lofflin are working with the diocese to address the issue of gun violence. And if you are interested in reaching out to the homeless and hungry in our city, talk with Raja Reed about our Blessing Bags program or with Dcn. Lynda about volunteering at Cherith Brook. If you are interested in working against homophobia, consider helping out with Pride Weekend, coming up in June. Raja is part of the diocesan committee that is busy at work planning the various activities. During Lent, we also have a book study, led by Dcn. Lynda, examining the church’s complicity in racism. And this coming week, I will be meeting with Dcn. Lynda and parishioners John Simpson and Margaret Akdeniz about reviving our Social Justice Committee. I imagine part of our discussion will be what in our society makes us angry and inspired to work for the greater good. So, there are many opportunities here at the church and in the diocese for you to become involved. In our Anglo-Catholic tradition, we talk a lot about holiness. And holiness consists not just in our commitment to prayer and worship but also good deeds. As we pray in the General Thanksgiving, which is a part of the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer, we show forth God’s praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to his service, and by walking before him in holiness and righteousness all our days.[3] Jesus in his day cleansed the temple to make it holy again. And our good deeds today are part of what makes the church holy. So, dear sisters and brothers in Christ, I pray that during this Season of Lent, your righteous anger at injustice and suffering will move you to action. I pray that this time of prayer and reflection will reveal God’s will for you in the world. I pray that God grant you a Most Holy Lent. [1] Marilyn Salmon, “Commentary on John 2:13-22,” Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-213-22 [2] Mary Hinkle Shore, “Commentary on John 2:13-22,” Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-213-22-4 [3] The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 1979), 58-59. Lent II/Orange Sunday
Sean C. Kim St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 25 February 2024 Today’s Orange Sunday Mass is part of our continuous prayers for peace and healing in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at the Chiefs Super Bowl rally on February 14. This past Wednesday evening, we held a Prayer Vigil. It was beautiful and moving. Each of us lighted candles in memory of those who have suffered from gun violence and in hopes that this scourge on our society will end soon. Lenette Johnson, who is a parishioner and chorister here at St. Mary’s, offered a powerful and eloquent witness during the service. I would like to share some of her mesage with you this morning. Lenette is a retired music teacher from the North Kansas City and Kansas City, Missouri, public school districts. She recalled how life changed for her and her students at school after Sandy Hook in December 2012, when twenty children and adults were killed in the shooting. After Sandy Hook, the active shooter drills began. 1) The first drills, teachers and students were to hide from the shooter. 2) Then a few years later, teachers were told to hide and then flee from the shooter. 3) A few years later, teachers were asked to hide, flee, and then fight the shooter. Throw whatever was in your classroom at the shooter. In my classroom, it was keyboard instruments!! I was emotionally affected by these experiences, and I could only imagine the trauma that the children were feeling. My daughter went through her entire school life with active shooter drills. And yet the white elephant in the situation, the guns, was never addressed. As I listened to Lenette, I thought about how in the 1950s, schools did so-called duck-and-cover drills in the event of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Remember those? I was too young, but I’ve seen photos and videos of the drills. Now, in our nation, we are doing drills not to prepare for a foreign attack with atom bombs but to protect ourselves from individuals within our own communities who wish to do us harm. What kind of society have we become? As you know, in the recent Chiefs rally shooting, eight children were among the twenty-two people hit by the gunfire. And I just heard on the news yesterday that there was a sixteen-year-old student at Olathe Northwest High School who brought a loaded gun to school just this past Friday. There have been many other similar cases throughout the metro area in recent years. And need I list the examples of school shootings across the country, such as Columbine in 1999 and Uvalde, just a couple of years ago, in 2022, in which so many innocent children have died or been injured and traumatized for life? The active shooter drills are by no means the result of paranoia. Sadly, they are necessary precautions against a very real daily threat. In the Gospel of Matthew, we read about the Massacre of Innocents. King Herod, threatened by the news of the birth of a king, slaughtered all the children under two years of age in and around Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18). Today, in our society, we have our own Massacre of Innocents, as the senseless gun violence claims the lives of innocent children. So, what should be our Christian response to the gun violence? As with other major social and political issues in our society, Christians are divided. Some call for strict controls; others claim the right to bear arms. Gun violence is a complicated and contentious issue both in analyzing the problem and in providing solutions. I know that here at St. Mary’s, we have a broad spectrum of views and opinions on the matter. But on one point, we, as Christians, cannot be divided – our commitment to peace, a society free of gun violence. Whatever may be our analysis of the problem, whatever may be our solutions, we have to come together in working to end the gun violence and creating a peaceful and safe society. After all, we follow a Lord who is the “Prince of Peace.” At his birth, the angels in the heavens sang, “Peace on earth.” Moreover, during Jesus’ life and ministry, children held a special place. In the Gospels, we read of how much Jesus loved and cared for the children. Parents brought their children to Jesus so that he would lay his hands on them and pray. When the disciples tried to chase them away, Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Matthew 19:13-15; Luke 18:15-17). Some of you know that I attended a Community of Christ Church for a brief period. When I was a kid growing up in Independence, Missouri, my siblings and I attended Sunday School at Second Church. Back then, it was called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or RLDS; the name change to Community of Christ came later. The reason why we went there was my parents were good friends with the organist, and the church had a great Sunday School program. At one time, I was deeply immersed in the beliefs and practices of the RLDS Church, but since then, my faith journey has taken me in very different directions. I no longer subscribe to most of what I was taught at Second Church, but one part of the RLDS legacy in my personal life that I will always cherish is their emblem, which can been seen on their buildings and church publications. Picture a small child standing in the middle with a lion lying next to him on his right and a lamb standing to his left. A child, a lion, and a lamb – it is a beautiful and powerful image of the hope for peace. The emblem is based on a passage from the Book of Isaiah: The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child will lead them…They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9). For me, this vision from Isaiah is the goal to which we strive, a world in which former enemies do not hurt or destroy but live in harmony side by side and the little child has nothing to fear. As followers of Christ, we are called to build this world of peace, a world with no active gun drills in our schools. In closing, I would like to share with you the prayer that Lenette offered at the Prayer Vigil: Dear Lord, we whisper NO MORE in our prayers at night as we remember gun violence victims. We say NO MORE as we go through our day as we remember students and staff of gun violence. We shout NO MORE when we are at rallies and remember all those affected by gun violence. Help us to have the strength and courage to do those things that will lessen gun violence in our city and nation. Amen. The Feast of Christ the King
Sean C. Kim St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 26 November 2023 Today, we commemorate the Feast of Christ the King. This is a relatively new feast on the Church Calendar, instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. The historical context in which the pope introduced the feast was the militant nationalism that had been infecting Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and had been one of the major causes of World War I. Pius XI wanted to remind the faithful that as Christians, our highest allegiance – above any nation or government or leader – is to our Lord Jesus Christ, the King above all kings and the King of all Creation. The feast has spread from the Roman Catholic Church to other denominations, including the Anglican Communion. The Feast of Christ the King falls on the last Sunday of the Church Year. This serves to remind us that at the end of time, Christ will come in all his glory and power. As we prayed in the Collect, he will establish his rule as “King of kings and Lord of lords.” We have many examples of the kingship of Christ depicted in Christian art. The iconography usually has Jesus enthroned in glorious majesty and splendor and surrounded by a host of angels and saints. Sometimes, he wears a crown and carries a scepter as symbols of his royal authority. But there is another depiction of Christ the King, one that is ironic but, in fact, more familiar to us than the regal depictions. It is the image of Jesus hanging on the cross. Above his head is the inscription, INRI, the initials representing the Latin words, Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum, “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.” It is the title that the Romans conferred on Jesus in mockery and contempt as they tortured and nailed him to the cross (John 19:19). But, for us, his disciples, this title is an expression of our faith, for Jesus is indeed our King. And whether it is the crucifix that hangs above us during our worship or the crucifix on the rosary in our private devotions, it is this image of Jesus the King that we behold in our daily lives. It is the image of a king who has emptied himself of all his power and glory and given up his very life for the sake of the world. It is the image of the Almighty God who has become one of us, a vulnerable human being, to suffer and die. It is the image of our faith and salvation. And this king who hangs on the cross, this king who has emptied himself of power and glory, calls on us to follow his example. We, too, are called to empty ourselves of power and glory. Last week, I was at an annual academic conference for religious studies. It is always a great pleasure to learn about what other scholars are working on as well as catch up with old colleagues and friends. The part of academic life, however, that I do not care for is the game of status. Scholars don’t make a lot of money, but – perhaps because of that – the competition for status can get pretty fierce. We judge ourselves based on the schools we attended, the number of publications and grants, and so on. I often wonder why we can’t just focus on our love of learning and teaching? Why do we become so full of ourselves? I’m sure this kind of game of status is nothing new to you. Whatever our professions, most of us have to deal with the competition for money, power, and status. It’s the reality of our society. And yet our Christian faith calls us to a different perspective and standard. Christ, through word and example, calls us to empty ourselves of all self-centeredness, to turn our attention away from our desire for money, power, and status, and to focus on others in self-denying love and service. The Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed while he was on earth was based not on power and glory but mercy and compassion. In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Christ calls on the faithful to love and care for those who are the most vulnerable –the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner (Matthew 25:35-45). He tells us that “just as you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). When we serve those in need among us, we are serving Christ in them. In the history of our faith, we have many examples of the saints who have heeded Christ’s call to humble themselves and serve others in sacrificial love. Last Sunday, we commemorated the Feast of Saint Margaret of Scotland, one of our patron saints. We have a chapel in the basement dedicated to her. Some of you may noticed that we recently brought up her portrait that used to hang there to Saint George Chapel. In the painting, she is holding a spoon, feeding a small child. The image is based on Margaret’s daily routine of feeding orphans and the poor before she herself ate. And she also washed the feet of the poor, following the example of Jesus. She may have been Queen of Scotland, born to extraordinary wealth, power, and privilege, but in her daily life she was first and foremost a humble disciple of Jesus. None of us here are royalty, though some of you may have royal blood. I know we have a parishioner here who counts Saint Margaret among her ancestors. There may be others of you who’ve done genealogical work and come across some royalty in your family tree. But whether we’re descended from royalty or peasants, whether we’re from privileged or underprivileged backgrounds, whatever the circumstances into which we were born, we share one thing in common. As disciples of Jesus, we are all called to follow his example of self-emptying humility and sacrificial love. We are called to live not for ourselves but for God and for others. So, on this Feast of Christ the King, we proclaim Jesus the Lord of Creation and Lord of our lives. We offer our bodies and souls to his service. May Christ the King reign in our hearts this and every day that we may carry on his work of love in the world. Feats of All Saints
Sean C. Kim St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 5 November 2023 Today, we commemorate the Feast of All Saints, honoring all the saints who have come before us in the faith. The saints are an integral part of our public worship and private devotions. Here, at St. Mary’s, we have our patron saints, whom we name at every Mass – Blessed Luke, Blessed George, Blessed Cecilia, Blessed Therese, Blessed Margaret, and, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And throughout the year, we commemorate the saints on our church calendar during Daily Masses. Today, after the sermon, we will chant the Litany of the Saints. Beginning with Mary, the Litany will present a kind of panoramic history of two millennia of Christian history, calling out the names of holy men and women from many different eras and places. So, you might ask, especially if you’re from a more Protestant background, why all the focus on saints? Why all the services dedicated to the saints? According to today’s Collect, we remember and honor the saints because they present for us models of faith: “Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living.” Follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living. When we think about the saints of old, their extraordinary achievements seem beyond our reach. Most of us will never be called, as Perpetua and Felicity were, to pay the ultimate price and suffer martyrdom. Most of us will never be called, as Columba, Aidan, and Patrick were, to become missionaries and preach the Gospel in hostile, foreign lands. Most of us will never be called, as Francis and Clare of Assisi were, to vows of absolute poverty. But whatever our personal circumstances may be, we are called to the same life of “virtuous and godly living” as followers of the same Lord Jesus Christ. We could spend a lot of time discussing what “virtuous and godly living” means, and we may have different opinions about what is virtuous and godly. Ancient theologians and philosophers used to compile different lists of virtues: the four cardinal virtues, the three theological virtues, the seven capital virtues, and so on. And, of course, there are plenty of lists of vices as well – and they tend to be more interesting. The fact is, we don’t need a long list of virtues to live a “virtuous and godly life.” In last week’s Gospel reading, we read about the Pharisee asking Jesus which of all the commandments is the greatest. Jesus responds with what some call the double love command, also known as the Summary of the Law: love God and love neighbor. All the laws and commandments are rooted in these two. Or to put it another way, all the various virtues emanate from loving God and loving neighbor. To turn again to today’s Collect: “Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys which thou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee…” Unfeignedly love thee. The saints are all about love – loving God and loving neighbor. That’s why among the saints’ names on the Litany, we have Fr. James Stewart-Smith and Fr. Edwin Merrill. Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill were both beloved priests at St. Mary’s. They’re the two priests whose portraits grace the back wall of St. George Chapel. This past Thursday, on All Souls Day, we celebrated Mass at Forest Hill Calvary Cemetery. And we paid our respects to Fr. Merrill and Fr. Stewart-Smith, who are laid side by side in the cemetery. I took a photo between the two tombstones in the hopes that some of their saintliness might rub off. Fr. Stewart-Smith served twenty-three years as rector from 1891 to 1914, and Fr. Edwin Merrill, for 35 years, from 1918 to 1953. Between the two of them, they served St. Mary’s for basically the first half of the twentieth century. But we remember and honor Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill not just for setting records in terms of the length of service but because of their deep and abiding love. They loved God, expressed through their life of prayer and worship. Everything they did was grounded in their profound spirituality. And they loved neighbor, establishing numerous ministries for the poor and needy. One of the tributes to Fr. Stewart-Smith at his death described his life as “a labor of love…walking among the lowly, the poor, the distressed and the fallen as a ministering spirit to relieve comfort and to lift up.”[1] Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill are modern-day, local saints who have bequeathed to us at St. Mary’s a powerful and beautiful legacy of love. Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill, and all the saints that we name on the Litany are long dead and gone. But they are alive to us not just in memory. We are united in Christ as one body. Again, to use the words of today’s Collect, we are “knit together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ our Lord.” We, the living and dead, are all united through faith in Jesus Christ. And we experience this unity with Christ and the saints most fully in the Eucharist. In the sacred mysteries of the Eucharist, the veil between heaven and earth disappears, and we are joined by the saints and all the citizens of heaven. So, dear sisters and brothers, on this happy feast day, we celebrate all the saints. We hold up these models of embodied love to remind and inspire ourselves of what it means to live as followers of Christ Jesus. And as we gather at the altar, we join our voices with those of all the saints in our eternal praise and worship of the Lord our God. [1] W.F. Kuhn, “Tribute to Fr. Stewart Smith,” The Kansas City Free Masonry, August 21, 1915. Pentecost XXII
Matthew 22:34-46 St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Sean C. Kim 29 October 2023 In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, we have what is known as the Summary of the Law: Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ sayeth. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. Sound familiar? Well, you just heard at the beginning of today’s service. The Summary of the Law is an integral part of the Anglican tradition of worship, and here at St. Mary’s, you hear it at every Mass. As with many aspects of our liturgy, it is biblically based. In today’s reading from Matthew. Jesus is in the middle of a confrontation with Jewish leaders, who are out to test him. A lawyer, a Pharisee, asks him, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest” Jesus responds by selecting two passages from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Torah. The first is Deuteronomy 6:5, and it is part of what is known as the shema: “Hear therefore, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The shema is an ancient confession of faith for Jews, and it is still used in worship today. But Jesus doesn’t stop there; he couples the shema with Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Judging from the silence that follows, Jesus passes the test. We are told that from that day on, no one dared to ask him any more questions (Matthew 22:46). The Summary of the Law is a constant reminder of what it means to be a Christian and what we value most in our faith. All the laws and commandments can be boiled down to loving God and loving our neighbor – in Jesus’ words, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Loving God and loving neighbor are not only the two foundational commandments on which our faith rests; they are also inseparable and interrelated. Our love for neighbor flows out of our love for God. We cannot say that we love God if we do not love our neighbor. Of the two commandments, however, we tend to hear and talk a lot more about loving neighbor than about loving God. Loving neighbor is a favorite topic of sermons. And around Christmas time, which is just around the corner, we hear the message not just in church but in our society at large. Think of all the feel-good movies and TV shows, and the calls for charitable giving during the season. We can never hear enough about loving our neighbor, but, the fact is, we don’t hear as much about loving God, even in church. I think part of the reason is that we don’t always know what loving God means. We believe in it, but we wonder how we go about loving a God who is transcendent, beyond the reach of our five senses. We certainly cannot see or touch God, and we cannot put our arms around God and say “I love you” as we would a person. So how do we love God? Well, the Summary of the Law provides a key. In fact, it lays out a three-fold approach to loving God – with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. To begin with, we love God with all our heart. The Hebrew word for heart has a different sense than in English. We tend to associate the heart with emotions, but in Hebrew the heart has more to do with intention. It is “the center of a person’s willing, choosing, doing.” So, to love God with all our heart means to turn our hearts, our intentions, away from the world and ourselves to God. It is placing God above our personal interests and desires. Second, we love God with all our soul. We pour out what lies deep in our soul to God through prayer. Whether we do so in private or in public worship, prayer is our main line of communication with God. Through prayer, we give thanks as well as present our petitions and intercessions, and we listen to God’s voice and discern God’s will for our lives. Finally, we love God with all our mind. For the Jews, loving God with their mind meant studying God’s Word as revealed in the Torah. For us Christians, it is the Bible. Some of you may be familiar with the daily devotional called Forward Day by Day. We have copies on our welcome desk in the Parish Hall, if you’d like to pick one up after the service, and it’s also available online. Forward Day by Day is published by the Forward Movement, an Episcopal organization, which recently did a survey of Episcopal churches on various topics, and it found, to no great surprise, that we as a denomination don’t read or know our Bible as well as other denominations. Perhaps it’s our focus on liturgy; I know Roman Catholics don’t do too well on biblical literacy either. But for whatever reason, we are not reading God’s Word as we should. If I might share a personal note with you, actually a recommendation, I have found the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer to be a rich resource for both prayer and Bible study. I’ve been an Episcopalian for almost twenty years, but it wasn’t until I began the ordination process a few years ago that I discovered what a treasure the Daily Office was. Praying Morning and Evening Prayer every day is a source of great strength and spiritual growth. I love the rhythm and the discipline that it provides. And the Daily Office takes us into prayer as well as Bible study since both Morning and Evening Prayer have selected readings from the Psalms, the Old Testament, and New Testament. The Daily Office will basically take you through the entire Bible in three years. So, if you are not praying the Daily Office already, I would highly recommend it. Historically and theologically, the Daily Office is the most distinctive aspect of Anglican spirituality. And these days, there are all sorts of Internet programs that make it convenient and easy to pray the Daily Office. Dear friends, as we pray and study Scripture, we are obeying the greatest commandment to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. And grounded in our love of God, we will be able to love our neighbors as ourselves. On these two pillars of love rests our calling as followers of the Lord Jesus. And during this time of war and violence, strife and division, we have a lot of work to do in living out our calling. So, let us pray as never before. Let us immerse ourselves in God’s Word. Let us go forth into the world proclaiming Christ’s Gospel of love. Amen. Feast of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Sean C. Kim St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 1 October 2023 Today, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. She is one of the patron saints of our church, together with Luke, George, Margaret, Cecilia, and, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary. You may have noticed that we have been naming our patron saints at each Mass during the Prayers of the People. At St. Mary’s, we have two relics, one is that of Thérèse, and the other, Cecilia, a second- century martyr. Both are designated as first-class relics. There are three categories of relics. A first-class relic is a body part, such as bone or hair. Both our relics are bone fragments. A second-class relic is a saint’s personal possession, such as clothing or a rosary. A third-class relic is an object that the saint has touched or that has been touched to a first or second-class relic. You didn’t know you were going to get a lecture on relics this morning, did you? After the service, at the end of the Postlude, you are invited, if you would like, to come to the altar rail to venerate the relic of St. Thérèse. It is custom to touch, kiss and/or simply gaze upon the relic. The veneration of relics has a long history and goes back to the days of the early church. For those of you from Protestant backgrounds who may not be familiar with the tradition, please be assured that this is not worship. We are simply expressing our respect and reverence for St. Thérèse, whose life and witness point us to God. Thérèse was a Roman Catholic nun belonging to the Order of Discalced Carmelites. Born in 1873 in France, she lived a brief and tragic life, dying at the young age of 24 after a long struggle with tuberculosis. Together with Francis of Assisi, whose feast we will observe next Sunday, Thérèse is one of the most beloved and popular saints in the Church. But she is a very different kind of saint than most of the ones on the official Church calendar. She was not a martyr. She was not a towering theologian. She was not the founder of a major religious order or movement in the Church. On the contrary, she was quite ordinary, living the life of an obscure monastic in her Carmelite convent in Lisieux, France. It was only after her death that she became famous through the publication of her spiritual autobiography, The Story of a Soul. In the book, she recalls how she once had visions of doing great things for God and Church. Shortly after becoming a nun, she volunteered to become a missionary to Vietnam to help establish the Carmelite order there. She wanted to offer her life for evangelization and even martyrdom. But her poor health prevented her from realizing this or any other dream of achieving a great spiritual feat. So, why has Thérèse become such a beloved saint? In her book, she presents what she calls the “little way.” Limited by the circumstances of her health, she came to the realization that she may not be able to offer God a big sacrifice like dedicating one’s life to spreading the Gospel to distant, foreign lands or dying a martyr’s death. What she can offer, however, are “little” sacrifices of prayer and good deeds every day. She calls these daily offerings, expressing her love for God, her “little flowers.” And the phase has come to be associated with her name. Thérèse is often known as the “Little Flower of Jesus” or the “Little Flower.” It is because Thérèse faithfully lived out the little way in her life, dedicated to prayer and good deeds, that she has become a saint. And she has set a simple and yet powerful model of piety for the rest of us. We, too, have the potential of living holy lives by following the little way of prayer and good deeds. Not many of us will make a big name for ourselves in the annals of church history through momentous accomplishments. But we do have countless opportunities to offer our sacrifices of prayer and good deeds, our little flowers, to God every day. If I might take the liberty of extending Thérèse’s metaphor of the little flower, the flower not only symbolizes love; it is an object of beauty. We pay a lot of attention to beauty in our liturgy – the space in which we worship, our vestments, the incense, the music, the Elizabethan language. A common phrase that you will hear in Anglo-Catholic circles is “the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty.” The solemn, dignified worship is what attracts many people to our tradition. But the beauty of holiness is to be found not only in our liturgy; it is also found in our piety, the other cornerstone of our Anglo-Catholic identity. To put it another way, there is beauty in prayer and good deeds. Here at St. Mary’s, I have constant encounters with the beauty of holiness, or, to borrow Thérèse’s language, little flowers of prayer and good deeds. Just a couple of days ago, I saw the beauty of holiness in our parishioners who gathered here for Mass to pray for First Responders, Military, and Veterans. Every Sunday and throughout the week, I see the beauty of holiness in our acolytes who faithfully serve at the altar. I see the beauty of holiness in our volunteers who quietly work behind the scenes filling blessing bags for the homeless or cooking in the kitchen for Cherith Brooks. I see the beauty of holiness in our clergy and volunteers who visit the sick and the lonely. These are all examples of our little flowers of various forms and colors, offered in love to God. So, we have quite a garden here at St. Mary’s, a spiritual garden, that is. There are little flowers of prayers and good deeds all around us – beautiful, holy flowers. But there is room for far more. We have yet to reach our full potential as a community. To begin with, we need to pray more. We are the only church in our diocese that offers Daily Mass, but so many of our parishioners have yet to experience it. If you can’t come to Daily Mass, you might make a special effort to come to special Masses on our feast days during the week. Or if you can’t come in person, please join us online. And how is your private prayer life? You might want to try praying the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer. Or praying the rosary? Or come this Saturday morning to Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer. We are called to be a people of prayer. As the Apostle Paul says, “Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17). We also need you in our various ministries. For a small church like us, we do a lot around her. Just look at our weekly newsletter. So, we are always in need of volunteers for liturgy, outreach, as well as all sorts of other jobs, like helping with our weekly reception or decorating the Nave for different seasons. As Advent and Christmas approach, the Church will get even busier, and we need your help. As God called a young girl named Therese more than a hundred years ago, He is calling you to the little way of prayer and good deeds. And as the little flowers that you plant at St. Mary’s proliferate and flourish, may God take delight in the beauty of His garden. Pentecost XVI
Matthew 18: 21-35 St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Sean C. Kim 17, September 2023 The Gospels are filled with difficult passages. And today’s reading from Matthew is one of them. Sometimes, the difficulty lies in trying to understand what Jesus meant. We’re separated from Jesus by more than 2,000 years and vast cultural and social differences, never mind the challenges of translation. But the problem with today’s text isn’t about understanding what Jesus meant; rather, the difficulty lies in following what Jesus tells us to do. And what is that message? Forgive. Peter comes to Jesus with the question: “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus responds: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22). He follows this up with a parable. A king forgives a servant who owes him a huge sum of money, but then that same servant fails to forgive a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller sum of money. The point of the parable is clear and simple: forgive as you have been forgiven. But this is so much easier said than done. Practicing forgiveness is hard, and, at least for me, preaching on forgiveness is also hard. But, fortunately for today, I had some great outside help. The last time I preached on forgiveness, one of our parishioners sent me a kind email that provided a wonderful summary and commentary on my sermon. And, quite frankly, her feedback was more lucid and eloquent than my sermon. So, in preparing today’s sermon, I dug up that email and used it to help organize my thoughts. I don’t want to put that person on the spot, so I won’t mention her name, but thank you for the help! Forgiveness is hard because it runs counter to our nature. When we are wronged, we want to seek revenge and restitution. Think of when we watch a movie or read a novel. There is something deeply satisfying about the villain getting his just desserts at the end of the story. Forgiveness, on the other hand, requires us to abandon the idea of getting even. It requires us to rise above our self-interest and even risk vulnerability and rejection. But, no matter how difficult it is, Jesus commands us to forgive. Moreover, he has personally set the supreme example of forgiveness. As he hung on the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And throughout Christian history, the faithful have turned to Jesus as the example and inspiration for forgiveness. As many of you know, I was born and raised in the Korean Christian tradition. Our family used to attend a small Korean Presbyterian church on the corner of 81st and Holmes in south Kansas City. The Presbyterians don’t commemorate the saints in the same way that Anglo-Catholics do, but they do have their own unofficial saints whom they remember and honor. One of the Korean saints that has left a deep impression on me is Pastor Son Yang-won. Almost every Korean Protestant has probably heard of Pastor Son, and he is remembered by the Church for an act of radical forgiveness. Pastor Son was a Presbyterian minister who lived through the turbulent history of Korea under Japanese colonial rule and then the painful division of the country into North and South Korea. In 1948, a couple of years before the Korean War, a communist insurgency took over his town. The rebels descended on his family, attacking them for their Christian faith. During the persecution, one of the insurgents, a young man named Chae-son, shot and killed two of his sons. When the government restored order in the town a week later, Chae-son was apprehended and found guilty of murder. But before the sentence of execution could be carried out, Pastor Son intervened and pleaded for Chae-son’s life. And he also made a surprising and unusual request. He asked the court for the prisoner’s release so that he could be adopted as his son. The court granted the request. Chae-son was released and adopted by Pastor Son, who cared for him as his own son and taught him the Christian faith. Later in life, Chae-son himself became a Christian minister. Tragically for Pastor Son, he was killed by the communists during the Korean War, becoming one of countless martyrs who died for the faith. Not many of us can practice the kind of radical forgiveness that Pastor Son exemplified. He is remembered precisely because what he did lies beyond the reach of most people. But, even if we don’t attain to the spiritual heights of Pastor Son and other saints, we are still under the same command to forgive. To return to today’s reading from Matthew, at the end of the passage, Jesus tells his disciples to “forgive your brother or sister from your heart (Matthew 18:35). To forgive with our heart is the start of the process of forgiving. When we forgive with our heart, we make the choice to set aside the desire for getting even and commit to restoring the relationship. It involves the intention to follow Christ’s command and example to forgive. What comes next, however, may often be beyond our control. At one of the churches where I’ve previously served, I knew a saintly woman who embodied Christ’s love and was a faithful member of the parish. Kind and compassionate, she gave generously of her time and money to the church and the community. Everyone respected and admired her. I was surprised one day during a small group meeting when she shared that she had been estranged from her son for several years. In spite of her attempts to reconcile, they had not talked for a very long time. And soon others shared their stories of unresolved conflicts in their lives. An idea that we encounter in our culture as well as in church is that once you forgive, everyone lives happily ever after. It’s seen as a kind of on-off switch. Just do it, and everything will be fine. But, of course, life is not that simple. Forgiveness is not that simple. Yes, it involves making the choice to forgive, but in following through, we may encounter struggles and challenges. In fact, there may be situations in which the only thing left to do is to leave it to God and pray for reconciliation. Forgiveness can be a long, messy process. Forgiveness is hard work. But, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, forgiveness is not optional for us. It’s an integral part of our faith commitment. Soon, as we gather at the altar, we will join together in the Lord’s Prayer, in which we pray that God “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, at the Eucharist, or in our private devotions, we are not only reminding ourselves but making the resolve, the intention, to forgive. But, of course, it does not stop there. The hard work of forgiveness takes place in the messiness of our daily lives. Who among us is immune from slights, grudges, and grievances? And confronted with difficult situations, we may not always succeed in our efforts to forgive. But Christ calls us to try over and over again – even if it means seventy-seven times.
Pentecost XV
Matthew 18:15-20 St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Sean C. Kim 10, September 2023 As many of you know, the head of our national church, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, is ill. Hospitalized twice this year for internal bleeding, he was scheduled to have surgery this past Friday, September 8, but that has been postponed to September 20. Please keep him in your prayers. Bishop Curry was elected Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church in 2015, the first African American to hold the position. The Presiding Bishop serves as the Chief Pastor, President, and Chief Executive Officer of our denomination for a term of nine years. Since his election, Bishop Curry’s tenure has been marked by one simple message: love. Wherever he has gone, he has preached the Christian faith as the “Way of Love.” He points out that before Christians came to be called “Christians,” the movement that Jesus began was called “the Way,” and that it was “a community of people whose lives were centered on Jesus Christ and committed to living the way of God’s unconditional, unselfish, sacrificial, and redemptive love.”[1] Some of you may have seen Bishop Curry on TV, preaching at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018. I had the privilege of seeing him preach in person right in the middle of the Power and Light District on his Visitation to Kansas City in May of 2017. He is a powerful and inspiring preacher. If you haven’t seen him preach, I would recommend looking him up on YouTube. In addition to his preaching, Bishop Curry has also written books on the subject of love and developed a rule of life centered on the practice of love. Bishop Curry is, in short, a modern apostle of love. In today’s Epistle, we find the Apostle Paul preaching love. We read in Romans: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments…are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10). There are many passages on love in the Gospels and other parts of Scripture, but what I find striking about today’s text is the word “owe”: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” Love is, in other words, an obligation, something we owe others. Paul’s injunction to owe no one anything is, of course, impossible to follow, except perhaps for monastics. For the rest of us, I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally. Our lives are filled with various forms of obligations. We have financial obligations to pay our mortgage on our homes or cars. We have professional obligations at our jobs, tasked with specific responsibilities and duties. We have social obligations. If someone does a favor for us, then the proper thing to do is reciprocate or at least send a thank you note. So, to owe no one anything is unreasonable. And I think Paul here intends it as hyperbole to make the point that love is the ultimate obligation. All other obligations are secondary and unimportant in the light of the supreme obligation to love. Paul’s view of love as an obligation is rooted in Jesus’ command to love. In the Gospel of John, at the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). This verse is the origin of our commemoration of Maundy Thursday during Holy Week. The term “maundy” is Middle English for the Latin word, mandatum, commandment. You may be asking at this point: why do we have to be commanded to love? Why is love an obligation? Shouldn’t love come naturally? Well, love does, of course, come naturally to us for some people, such as family and friends. But Christ commands us to love not just those close to us and those whom we like but everyone, including the stranger and the enemy. Now, that doesn’t come naturally. Throughout the pages of Christian history, Jesus’ command to love everyone has inspired the faithful to extraordinary acts of courage and compassion. On the Episcopal Calendar of Saints, yesterday was the feast day of Constance and Her Companions. Constance was an Episcopal nun, belonging to the Sisterhood of St. Mary. In 1873, she and other sisters in the order went to Memphis, Tennessee to establish a school for girls. The city was soon struck by a yellow fever epidemic. While others fled the city, the sisters remained to care for the sick, and Constance and several of the sisters died from the disease. What motivated them to minister to sick strangers even at the cost of their lives? Jesus’ command to love. On the Roman Catholic calendar, yesterday was the feast of St. Peter Claver, a Jesuit missionary to Latin America in the seventeenth century. Peter ministered in the slave ships that arrived in Colombia. Under the horrific conditions in the slaves ships, he spent most of his waking hours burying the dead, transporting the sick to hospitals, and preaching the Gospel to all who would hear him. When he wasn’t ministering to the slaves, he labored in a nearby leper colony. Why did he do the work that no one else wanted to do? Jesus’ command to love. We may not be called to the same kinds of heroic self-sacrifice that we read about in the annals of the saints. But we are all called to obey the same command to love everyone. So, the next time you see the homeless on the street corner, you might remember Jesus’ command to love. The next time you are cut off on the road by a reckless driver, you might remember Jesus’ command to love. The next time you have to deal with the annoying colleague at work, you might remember Jesus’ command to love. This past week, I came across a shocking statistic. During one of the meetings at church, I learned that sixty percent of nursing home residents do not have outside visitors. And many die alone. A few of us have begun to discuss how we as a church might address this crisis and develop a ministry. We owe the aged and the lonely our love. Jesus commands us. But, the fact is, it’s one thing to have good intentions. To actually carry out Jesus’ command to love all, is no easy task. Our egos and self-interest get in the way. In fact, we cannot fulfill our obligation to love on our own. We need God’s help. At the end of our passage from Romans, Paul addresses this need for outside, divine help. After listing the various ways in which our egos and selfish desires lead us astray, he proposes a solution: “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). In a moment, we will approach the altar for Holy Communion. And it is there that we will not only be reminded but empowered to fulfill our obligation to love. For it is in the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament that we are united with Christ. We die to ourselves and rise to new life in Christ. Or to put it another way, we take off our old clothes, stained by selfish desires, and we put on new clothes, the armor of light that is Christ. When we put on the Lord Jesus Christ, we will find the courage and strength that we need to love. So, dear sisters and brothers, come. Come to the altar to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, our holy food. And, when the service is ended, let us go forth into the world to be Christ to one another and to the world, proclaiming the Way of Love.
Pentecost XIV
Matthew 16: 21-28 St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Sean C. Kim 3, September 2023 In last Sunday’s Gospel reading, we found the Apostle Peter in an exalted state. He had been blessed by Jesus for his bold confession of faith. While the other disciples were silent, Peter responded to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” with the resounding proclamation: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:13-16). Jesus praised Peter, saying: “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). But in today’s Gospel reading, we find a dramatic turn of events. Ironically for Peter, following the praise comes condemnation. When Jesus foretells of his impending suffering, death, and resurrection, Peter takes him aside and rebukes him: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Jesus turns to Peter and tells him: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Matthew 16:21-23). Peter must have been stunned by this sudden reversal of fortune. One moment he is the rock on which Jesus will build his church. The next moment he is a big obstacle to Jesus, compared with none other than Satan himself. What just happened? Well, it looks like Peter didn’t quite get Jesus’ true identity after all. He seems to be still clinging on to traditional Jewish expectations of the Messiah. Grounded in the historical experience of the Israelites, the Messiah was believed to be the deliverer to come. As Moses led his people out of their bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land and as King David drove out the Philistines and established his kingdom, the Messiah was supposed to deliver the Jews from Roman occupation and oppression, and usher in a new and glorious age for God’s people. But, far from such hope of deliverance and restoration, power and glory, here we have Jesus talking doom and gloom. He informs his followers that he will undergo great suffering, be killed, and on the third day be raised. Although Jesus here mentions the resurrection, Peter and the disciples don’t seem to even notice. What has caught their attention is the part about suffering and death. If we might read a bit into Peter’s psychology, it’s not just concern for Jesus’ well-being that leads to his vehement protest. Peter loves and cares for his Lord, but he must also have been wondering what’s going to happen to him now. Yes, this movement that Jesus started is not about Peter; it’s about Jesus. But Peter didn’t leave everything behind to join Jesus so that the movement would end with the leader’s death and execution. And what would then happen to him and the other disciples? Peter had been hoping to share in the power and glory that would come with being part of Messiah’s inner circle. Imagine becoming Jesus’ lieutenant. Moses’ right-hand man, his lieutenant, was Joshua. And look what happened to him. Joshua succeeded Moses and took charge of the Israelites to carry out the conquest of the Promised Land. He brought himself and the Israelites wealth and power. When Jesus promised Peter that he would be rock on which he would build his church, Peter must have been heady with visions of grandeur of being the Messiah’s right-hand man. But before Peter has had time to fully enjoy his fantasies, Jesus utters something strange and disturbing. He is going to suffer and die soon. We can understand why Peter reacts the way he does: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). What kind of Messiah suffers and dies at the hands of his enemies? Jesus presents a radically different vision of the Messiah than what the Jews had believed. As he explains to Peter, “you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Matthew 16:23). What are these human things with which Peter is preoccupied? Simply put, power and glory.[1] Jesus’ chastisement of Peter finds a parallel with his rebuke of Satan earlier in the Gospel of Matthew during his temptation in the wilderness.[2] Satan takes Jesus to a high mountain and shows him the kingdoms of the world in all their power and glory, and he makes an offer: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus responds: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him’” (Matthew 4:8-10). Jesus’ rebuke of Peter “Get behind me, Satan!” is a direct allusion to “Away with you, Satan!” It isn’t that Peter has actually become Satan; Peter is expressing Satan’s opposition to God’s will. Or to put it another way, Peter would have been happy with Jesus the Messiah taking possession of all the kingdoms in the world. The kingdoms of the world stand on the foundations of power and glory. They rely on mechanisms of domination and coercion, and make war on each other. But the reign of the Messiah, as preached by Jesus, rests on a different foundation. The great theologian Saint Augustine, whose feast day we just commemorated this past Monday, wrote a book in the fifth century titled The City of God. He composed it soon after the city of Rome was overrun and sacked by Germanic tribes in the year 410. In the book Augustine juxtaposes two different visions, an earthly city and the City of God. Here is a brief excerpt: “Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by love of self, even to the contempt of God, the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The earthly city glories in itself, the heavenly city glories in the Lord. . . . In the one, the princes, and the nations it subdues, are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love.”[3] The City of God, for Augustine, is the city based on the love of God and love of one another, in opposition to the earthly city, based on love of self and power and glory. And it is to that City of God that we aspire. To go back to the parallel between Jesus’ rebuke of Satan and his rebuke of Peter, there is one crucial difference. To Satan Jesus says “Away from me!” but to Peter, Jesus says “Get behind me!” In spite of his rebuke, Jesus still wants Peter to follow him. The Greek word here is, in fact, the same one that Jesus used when he first called Peter to be his disciple” – get behind me (Matthew 4:19).[4] Just as Jesus invited Peter to “get behind him,” to follow him, he extends that same invitation of a life of faithful discipleship to us. He calls us away from setting our minds on the human things – power and glory – and to focus on the divine things – self-denying love and service. He invites us to become citizens of the City of God, where love reigns supreme. [1]Audrey West,“Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28,” Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4565. [2] Ibid. [3] Augustine, On the City of God Against the Pagans, Book XIV, Chapter 28. [4] West.
Fr. Larry Parrish
August 27, 2023 St. Mary's Episcopal Church Jesus’s disciples had been with him awhile when the story told in our Gospel text begins. They had listened to his teaching and tried to understand what they were hearing. They had witnessed miracles at His hands and tried to understand what they meant, too: miracles of healing, a couple of major miracles involving feeding a rock concert sized crowd using somebody’s lunch and had witnessed him walking across the water of Lake Galilee in a storm and then stilling that storm in an instant. Now their teacher had given them a pop quiz. He suddenly asked them, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” --referring to Himself. The disciples, who had stood in crowds gathered to see Jesus and had been listening to people talk, came quickly back with some answers: “Well, some say John the Baptist; some say Elijah; Some say Jeremiah . . .or one of the prophets.” “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, who had the inclination, that some of us today share, of putting his mouth in gear before his brain was fully engaged, blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Playing with this passage—which by the way is a perfectly acceptable way of studying a story from Scripture—I can see the disciples doing eye rolls—“Ah! Peter just put his foot in his mouth again!” But this time ..Peter was right. Jesus (maybe hugging Peter) exclaims, ”Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, (Greek for “rock—his Jewish name was Simon, which means “rock”) and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” The thing about Scripture is that it is a living document. When Jesus talks to his disciples in a Gospel story we can’t keep him at a 2000 year’s arm reach back in time, he is talking to us who say we belong to His Church today. When Paul writes a letter to the Church at Rome, he is writing to St. Mary’s, 13th and Holmes. Jesus asks us both the question, “Who do others say that I am?” and “Who do YOU say that I am?” The answer matters, and it matters whether or not we answer both of these questions, and how we answer them. The figure of Jesus looms so large in world history and people have been trying to make sense of the impact of his personality and actions, as well as His crucifixion and resurrection for the past two millennia. In fact, He is the reason we talk about two millennia, as it has been said, “He has split our calendar,” so that we talk about B.C. or A.D. Before Christ, or Year of our Lord. Pre-Christian Era and Post-Christian Era. He cannot be easily categorized, and there are some ways He cannot be categorized at all. And even those who claim to be Christian and call Jesus “Lord and God,” cannot truly say just anything they want about him. Throughout history, well-meaning people, and not-well-meaning people have tried to superimpose on Jesus their own ideology and agenda. His Name has been invoked to reinforce the power of leaders of religious cults and personality cults. He and His movement have been invoked to subjugate anyone who isn’t white, straight, and male, justify slavery, and overturn governments with force or chicanery. Throughout recorded history, It has been a human characteristic to define God as an extension of ourselves, and, accordingly, Jesus, as the human face of God, as well. It is not a new phenomena. As a wise priest I know, and am fond of quoting*once said, “God created us in His image, and we have been trying to return the favor ever since!” -Fr. Robert Layne. It was an issue in the early days of the Christian movement, as Paul wrote his letters and mailed them to the new Christian community in Rome. He was reminding them that they might be Roman citizens, but that they weren’t to adopt Roman attitudes, ethics, and religious values as the way of Christ. In the letter read from today, he pleads with them, and us, to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. What we THINK is important. We are to give our bodies, i.e. our hands, feet, talents, abilities, to God so that we might love others as God has loved us, and that includes our minds, our intellects and our discernments, too. We are to THINK, really think—not blindly assume—about who God is and who we are in relationship with Him doing the best we can—“by the mercies—grace—of God” “according to the measure of faith” that God gives us. We are not alone. We are not without resources in doing this. A good many of the resources are at hand every time we gather for worship. The reading of Scripture, the Church’s Book, is one. I think that the Sunday morning study here on the texts for Sunday is very beneficial to those participating. I think you have noticed that we are printing the texts of the readings in the service leaflet now. I like that, even though you can now more easily question me on what I didn’t say or whether you can’t see how I got what I said from what was written! I welcome after-sermon conversations! Every Sunday after the sermon we stand and recite the Nicene Creed. It is a compilation of hard thought and hard fought- -for answers to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am.” It keeps us from reinventing the theological wheel each Sunday. The same wise Episcopal priest I quoted earlier once said, “We say the creed right after the sermon, because no matter what the preacher just said, we still “believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty . . . etc”! It centers us in the faith we proclaim. That doesn’t mean we have to understand every word of it—questioning and honest doubt are part of the thought processes that God has created in us to come to a deeper faith. United Methodist Bishop, Preacher and Teacher of Pastors, (and, I think, closet Episcopalian!) Will Willimon tells the story of a time he invited an Orthodox Catholic bishop to speak to a class on basic Christianity he taught at Duke University. One of his students told the Bishop that he couldn’t recite the creed because he didn’t understand or believe all the parts of it. The Bishop told him, “Young man, it is not YOUR creed. It is the Church’s creed. You keep saying it until you come to understanding and belief!” Then there are the stories and collects we find in our Lesser Feasts and Fasts book told and prayed at the weekday Masses here. We get acquainted with those who knew God and how they lived out of that relationship. In the Mass, our souls are fed and our minds renewed by the Body and Blood of Christ that digests within us and courses through our veins. This is another great mystery that I have given up trying to understand and instead let myself experience. I learned a long time ago that there are some things that are true that can’t be shaken up in a test tube or proved by calculus. This is a good place to mention an Anglican tradition of discerning who God is and who we are in His life: It’s an image of a “Three Legged Stool”. One of the legs is Scripture and another is Tradition. The third one is Reason. We are to apply our reasoning and what we know about what is true in the world, to interpreting both Scripture and Tradition for exploring who God is and who we are. Anglican priest and unintentional founder of Methodist, John Wesley, added a fourth leg, Experience. We use our life experiences and those experiences of God that seem to come from “outside” of our experience and yet manifest themselves “within” us, (Wesley’s “Heart strangely warmed” experience of grace and the love of God, for instance.) That is sometimes called Revelation. Jesus’ response to Peter’s blurted out affirmation was “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven. There is another great resource for continuing to think through, and continuing to affirm who Jesus Christ is for us, and we all sit in the midst of it this morning: In the passage from Paul’s letter this morning, he goes on to describe the community of faith, the Church, as a body, as “one body in Christ and individually we are members one of another,” in which “all members do not have the same function” but each of us have a gift or gifts—abilities or talents—to share with others. Taken in the context of “the renewing of our minds” earlier in the passage, and further in the context of Jesus asking for responses to his question of ALL of his disciples, I see an extension of the usual definition of this image beyond pooling our talents and abilities to make the church “work” for God and others: I see it also as an affirmation that in any gathering of Christians, the members not only have abilities to share, but thoughts, insights, learnings and experiences of how God has become real in their lives, and how they experience what it means to be in Christ. I see this especially true about this church, St. Mary’s KCMO, and all of you who are a part of it. You not only have multiple abilities and gifts to share in the ongoing operation of this church, you also have knowledge and thoughts to share about the nature of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and how you have experienced the reality of His presence and the power of His love in your lives. All of the rest of then, can be gifted with your insights! Who do I say that Jesus is? (Remember, “no matter what the preacher just said” I still believe . . . ! –and all insights need to be tested by Scripture and Tradition). I say that the Jesus of the Gospels is not just the Jesus of History, but God in Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The one who appeared in our shape and form to inhabit our humanity so that we could share in His divinity. As part of His shape and form we are His body, in this location here at 13th and Holmes, (but not limited by this location, this parish, or this denomination), to show forth His love and power, and the reality of His presence in the lives of those of us who proclaim him Lord, to others that are not only still struggling to answer the question, but to those who have yet to hear the question! In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |
The sermons preached at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Kansas City, are posted here!
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To the Glory of God and in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary
St. Mary's is a parish of the Diocese of West Missouri, The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion.
Address1307 Holmes Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64106 |
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