Monday, February 29, 2016

“Fig-ure” How Much God Loves You

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA
28 Feb. 2016, Lent 3 Year C: Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

Why does the burning bush Moses encounters not get consumed by the fire?
Why does the fig tree in our Gospel not produce?
"Fig tree” that you are, go figure how far God's extensive love reaches to nourish you so that you produce good fruit.
What patience do we see God exercise in our lives? What patience & hope do we hear Jesus express in our Gospel when he talks about the fig tree that is about to get the ax? What cruelty we hear of Pilate, who later gives the go-ahead to kill Jesus. What harshness we hear in people's response about 18 accident victims deserving to have that tower fall on them.
How often do we share this mindset that
a problem is a person's fault?
Jesus tells us the fig tree story so that we hear God's love in a new, deeper way. God gives the growth. God gives us grace to be more than we are. God sees us – God sees you – as worth the effort that Jesus gives dying on the cross so that we can know God's love fully – up close & personal.
The fig tree can remind us to prune away our unfruitful habits, nourish new habits so that we grow deeper in God's love. As we grow, God's love blossoms in our lives & nourishes us & others.
Remember:
               God loves you. 
                                  No exceptions.
                                                         All are welcome.
Who is this God with such abundance of welcoming love?
In Exodus God tells us: “I AM Who I AM...the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Think what this means: God is the God of people who are deceivers, tricksters, passive sinners:
  • God claims relationship with Abraham: an obedient old man who lied to a king to save his own life, saying his wife was his sister & the king took her as a wife.
  • God claims relationship with Isaac, who is passive as his dad Abraham prepares to sacrifice him, passive at age 40 when a wife is chosen for him1, & is easily tricked into giving his blessing to Jacob instead of his favorite son, Esau, the first-borne of his twin sons.
  • God claims relationship with Jacob the trickster & deceiver, who works with his mom to deceive his dad, Isaac, into giving him the blessing that was to be Esau's.
God loves all sorts of people.
How can you doubt God's love for you?
How can you doubt God's love for that
most annoying person in your life?
What will you do about an unproductive fig tree? Knowing God loves you, how would you respond seeing a burning bush that isn't burning up?
Notice the foreshadowing of the Exodus travels in the wilderness in our 1st lesson: Moses leads his flock beyond the wilderness. They come to the mountain of God. Moses encounters God & responds to God's call – however hesitantly. Remember how inconsistently the people of Israel are in their response to God in the wilderness & beyond.
How consistent are we in our responses to God? How patient are we with people in our lives who have problems, people who drag their feet, who drop the ball, who make a mess of our hard work?
We will not be as patient as God
Perhaps we can be as patient as Thomas Edison
when he was developing the light bulb.
As my favorite children's sermon website says of today's scriptures2: It took Edison & his team 24 hours to create one light bulb. When they finished, Edison gave it to a boy to carry upstairs. Carefully step by step, striving not to drop “this priceless piece of work,” the boy reaches the top & drops it. The team starts over: 24 hours later they have another light bulb. The exhausted Edison gives the bulb to the same boy: He gives the boy a new opportunity to succeed.
If a human inventor can do this, certainly we can do this in our lives. Knowing that God gives us new opportunities to succeed, we can understand something of God's extensive love that reaches out to nourish us – to nourish you – so that you – we – produce good fruit.
One preacher says the “extravagant gardener” Jesus tells us of in today's Gospel3 “...remind[s] us of another gardener...in the beginning, who just couldn’t help it when he picked up some dirt...God just had to form it into a human & breathe life into it. God just had to make it into someone to love, someone who would be free to choose to love in return. Maybe we can hear this gardener at work in our own lives, saying, 'Wait. Give me another year. I’ll do all that I can to nurture this tree.'”4
God has all eternity in which to act.
We do not.
Life is short.
And we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us.
So be quick to love & make haste to be kind.5


Bibliography
Harper’s Bible Dictionary. General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1985.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
The God of the Second Chance ”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/ Accessed: 26 Feb. 2016.
Richter, the Rev. Dr. Amy. “What Did They Do to Deserve That?, Lent 3 (C) – 2016”. Accessed: 26 Feb. 2018. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/02/05/what-did-they-do-to-deserve-that-lent-3-c-2016/
Tenney, Merrill. Handy Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. 1965.



1 Harper’s Bible Dictionary. General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier.  P. 425.
2 “The God of the Second Chance ”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/ Accessed: 26 Feb. 2016 credits the story to James Newton, Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel and Charles Lindbergh, 1989, p.22.
3 Richter, the Rev. Dr. Amy. “What Did They Do to Deserve That?, Lent 3 (C) – 2016”. Accessed: 26 Feb. 2018. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/02/05/what-did-they-do-to-deserve-that-lent-3-c-2016/
4 Ibid. Richter.

5 Attributed to philosopher and writer Henri Frederic Amiel, 1821-1887. http://www.ststephensorinda.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Life-is-short.pdf Accessed: 27 Feb. 2016.

If, If, If This, Then What?

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA
14 Feb. 2016, Lent 1 Year C: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

"If...If...If..." Satan says to Jesus.
If Jesus does this, then what will happen?
Notice: Satan's understanding of Jesus is “iffy”.
“If you are the Son of God, end your hunger.”
Jesus responds differently than Satan expects of a starving human. When we are starving, food to survive is our focus, notes Katerina Whitney,1 whom some of you recall speaking at our ECW gathering in Tifton a few years ago.
She emphasizes that in the wilderness, Jesus feeds on God's word that dwells within him, words of scripture he learned attending Sabbath worship regularly, as our Gospel three Sundays ago reminded us.
For his next “iffy” proposal, Satan says: “I'll give you great power IF you do what I demand.” How many humans would leap at this offer to be in charge?2 Jesus refuses the power evil offers.
In his last “iffy” effort with Jesus in the wilderness, Satan says literally make a leap of faith to prove yourself: "If you are God's Son, put yourself in harm's way.”
How ironic it is that Satan seeks the Truth.
Notice: Our Gospel says Jesus was tempted during the 40 days. These are not the only temptations. How else has Satan tempted Jesus before today's encounter?
ow subtle has evil been in Jesus' wilderness experience?
Think of the subtle temptation that flirts with you
on the television &
internet ads that pop up on your email, ads that blend with your recent searches & purchases.3
Satan's testing, his prying into how Jesus thinks, is like a hacker trying to get the right code to hack into your inner life & steal what is vital to control your assets.
To each of this wilderness hacker's “iffy” enticements Jesus relies on what he has seen & read in God's word. Notice how the power of evil adapts to this after Jesus' 1st two responses. Evil uses God's words from holy scripture that we read in Psalm 91:11-12 “...he shall give his angels charge over you, * to keep you in all your ways. / They shall bear you in their hands, * lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
Remember: What we hear today are evil's last temptations for the time being. Evil departs from Jesus “until an opportune time”. Think about how Jesus responds to Peter in Matthew 204 when he tells the disciples he has to go to Jerusalem, suffer & die. Peter says: “No way!” Jesus hears the tempter & says: “Go away, Satan!”
Temptations are often subtle.
What do you notice in Jesus' 1st response to Satan's “iffy” offer? Jesus says: “One does not live by bread alone.” This event in Matthew's Gospel includes the rest of this quotation from Deuteronomy 8:3: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord,” as Katerina Whitley notes in her sermon.
This 2nd part of the scripture Jesus quotes points to how vital it is for us to delve into scripture. Delving into scripture helps guide us so that, as Paul says to the Romans: "The word is near you, on your lips & in your heart".
Temptations come & go, AND return.
We know this from experience & from today's Gospel. Studying scripture, knowing scripture strengthens us to recognize & to face down temptations.
Our dedicated adult Bible study group delves into scripture Sunday by Sunday. These beloved children of God offer welcome & a place at the discussion table.
I challenge you in this Holy season of Lent to delve deeper into scripture because temptations are not “iffy”. How we live is not a matter of “if” temptations come but “when” they come. This Lent let us ponder: If This, Then What do I do?
How do we – how do you – respond
when temptation calls every so gently with
its “iffy” proposition?

Bibliography
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Juntos en el camino con Cristo: siete meditaciones bíblicas. Cincinnati:¡Adelante! Forward Movement. 2014.
Whitley, Katerina. “Driven by the Spirit”. Accessed: 10 Feb. 2016. delante http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/01/20/driven-by-the-spirit-lent-1c-2016/

1 Whitley, Katerina. “Driven by the Spirit”. Accessed: 10 Feb. 2016. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/01/20/driven-by-the-spirit-lent-1c-2016/
2 Idea from Ibid.
3 Juntos en el camino con Cristo: siete meditaciones bíblicas. P. 5.

4 Idea stated by Whitley.

God Says: Listen!

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA
7 Feb. 2016, Last Sunday of Epiphany Year C:
Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a]; Psalm 99

We've been on whirlwind travels through Jesus' life since Christmas. Today the whirlwind continues & God says:
"This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
On this last Sunday after Epiphany before we change our worship pace in Lent, notice the whirlwind journey we're having with Jesus: his birth, his family fleeing to Egypt, his staying in the Jerusalem temple as a 12-year-old & worrying the daylights out of his parents. We've seen him as an adult emerge from the water of baptism &, while he prays, the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove.
We witnessed his 1st miracle, heard him wow his hometown folk in the synagogue & saw their admiration suddenly change into a whirlwind of murderous rage.
We heard Peter declare Jesus as the Messiah when Jesus prayed alone with the disciples. In today's Gospel, Jesus takes Peter, John & James up the mountain to pray. Notice: prayer is important.
After Jesus sends the disciples to cast out demons, to heal & proclaim the good news, after they return from this mission & see Jesus feed the 5,000, after Jesus tells of his pending death & resurrection, suddenly today they see Jesus in a new light.
Notice what our Gospel says about Jesus' companions on the mountain: they are weighed down with sleep. What weighs us down? How do we manage to stay awake like the disciples so that we see Jesus' glory?
If we are tired & surprised like Peter, we don't know what to say & may blurt out: “Let's take on a building project!”
Notice what they hear God say when the cloud overshadows them: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
How deep does the silence feel when they are
alone together?
 How deep does the silence feel when you are
alone together with friends in God's presence?
God says: listen to Jesus. Interestingly the disciples remain silent. Impulsive Peter stays silent. The disciples say nothing to anyone about the experience. After this whirlwind experience, they come down & immediately face down-to-earth challenges.
From the great crowd, a dad shouts “heal my son” since the disciples not on the mountain can't cast out the demon. How frustrated Jesus sounds: “You faithless & perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you & bear with you?”
However long it takes, Jesus puts up with us. Jesus waits for us to listen to him. Our work of listening enhances our work as Jesus' disciples. As one preacher says of today's Gospel:
In all the world's joys & heartbreaks, all the delight & despair, all we know & can never know, God gently calls us to listen.1
Prayer is central to our relationship with God. Prayer is central to our work as Jesus' loving hands reaching out to our brothers & sisters in the human family. Listening in prayer is central to our relationship with God & our work with God. Listening prepares us for our work in the whirlwind of life's demands. It's hard to hear in a whirlwind. Like practicing any skill, prayer trains us how to listen in the whirlwind.
In his book Bread for the Journey, which the preacher quotes, priest, writer & professor Henri J.M. Nouwen says: To listen is very hard...it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. [True listeners] are free to receive, to welcome, to accept…[Nouwen says:] The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously & discovering their own true selves.
He says: "Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, & even to dare to be silent with you."2
"Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, & even to dare to be silent with you."

Bibliography
Bright Shining Faces”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/ Accessed: 4 Feb. 2016.
Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Jolly, The Rev. Marshall A. “Listening for God, Last Epiphany (C) – 2016”. Accessed: 4 Feb. 2016. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/01/20/listening-for-god-last-epiphany-2016/
Mountaintop Experience”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/mountaintop-experiences.html Accessed: 4 Feb. 2016.
The New American Bible for Catholics. South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.

1 Jolly, The Rev. Marshall A. “Listening for God, Last Epiphany (C) – 2016”. Accessed: 4 Feb. 2016. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/01/20/listening-for-god-last-epiphany-2016/

2 Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith. HarperOne, 1997. Quoted by The Rev. Marshall A. Jolly. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/01/20/listening-for-god-last-epiphany-2016/

LOVE: Live Our Values Enthusiastically

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA
31 Jan. 2016, Epiphany 4 Year C: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

Remember Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz repeating
“There's no place like home”?
How likely is Jesus thinking of home from Dorothy's perspective in today's Gospel?1
We are told: “Home is where the heart is.”2 Home is a place to teach us love. Love teaches us why we have each other. The letters of LOVE tell us to Live Our Values Enthusiastically.
“Enthusastically is from Greek words that mean “inspired of God”.3
Notice how the people in our Gospel sense that Jesus' words are “inspired of God”. Notice the rapid change as the congregation starts over thinking & quickly turns into a murderous mob. How quickly do our emotions change?
Our emotions can change quickly when we are too close to a situation & our perspective is challenged. When facts get in our way, anger lurks. Think of the resistance people gave these facts: Explorers started saying the world is round not flat. People claimed Christopher Columbus discovered America & then learned Leif Erickson discovered it more than 4 centuries earlier. Truth can challenge us. Challenge can anger us. Anger can block the gift of Love, the gift that lives on when we will no longer need the other gifts from the Holy Spirit, which Paul discusses in his letter to the Corinthians.
We see the gift of Love blocked in our Gospel after Jesus reads the portion of Isaiah we read last Sunday & proclaims the prophecy is fulfilled.  Jesus identifies himself as a prophet like Jeremiah, who speaks to people outside the chosen people4. This angers Jesus' hearers.
Notice how bravely Jesus handles the situation. Notice Jeremiah's reluctance to handle the work God gives him. God assures young Jeremiah that God will be with him. How reluctant are we, how reluctant are you, to take on the work God gives us/you to do?
God calls each of us to speak the Good News as only each of us can. The Holy Spirit will be with you in this work. You can depend on this. Although we may resist being dependent, we are wise to remember the Godly quality of dependence, which we hear in Celtic Praise5: As a baby, Jesus depended on human love. As he taught & ministered, he depended on human love. Each of us depends on human love. “To depend on others is to imitate Christ”.
Jesus is with us as we face challenges. Think of the challenges Jeremiah faced serving God in his time & place:
the destruction of Jerusalem & its Temple,
the beginning of the Babylonian exile6 [a refugee crisis].
In a crisis, it is hard to see clearly. In our reading from Corinthians, Paul speaks of the difficulty of seeing clearly. His mirror imagery spoke clearly to the Corinthians: their looking glass industry produced polished metal mirrors that reflected dim, distorted images.7
How clearly do we see in a mirror? Do we see the beloved child of God that God sees? Do we see a ghost of ourselves like the cat sees in the book, The Autobiography of Foundini M. Cat8?
After watching the cat in the mirror, she goes to animal friend, flops down &, licking her paws, complains: “What a boring cat is that ghost cat [in the mirror]...She spends hours licking her stupid paws...”
How hard it can be to see ourselves as God sees us: Beloved.
How hard it can be to see each other as God sees us: Beloved & of value.
Like a mirror with a candle in front of it, each of you reflects the Light of Christ. You carry the Light inside you. Your Vestry shines this inner Light & lets Love lead our work.
Your Vestry practices love by sharing ideas. Once an idea is offered, it is OUR idea instead of So-And-So's idea. We explore it together, which reduces irritability. This enhances our oneness as this happening community where we live God's love.
We hear the test of oneness in Celtic Praise's “Test of Brotherhood”9:
“People have always argued & disagreed.
On every matter there have been two sides.
Christ urged us to love & be united.
On every matter he wanted perfect harmony.
Christians have continued to argue & disagree.
On matters of doctrine there have been two sides.
Can we argue & remain united?
Can we disagree & remain in harmony?
That is the true test of brotherhood.”

Bibliography
Bates, The Rev. Dr. J. Barrington. “Living Eucharistically, Epiphany 4(C) – 2016”. Accessed: 28 Jan. 2016. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2016/01/20/living-eucharistically-epiphany-4c-2016/.
Benhase, Bp.Scott A. “Church Growth & Parish Clergy, Part 1.” eCrozier #287. 29 Jan. 2016.
Behind the Name”. http://www.behindthename.com/name/jeremiah Accessed: 29 Jan. 2016.
Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
The New American Bible for Catholics. South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
Only a Carpenter's Son”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/only_a_carpenters_son.htm. Accessed: 29 Jan. 2016.
Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg. The Autobiography of Foundini M. Cat. New York: Alfred A. Knofp. 1987.
There's No Place Like Home”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/ Accessed:29 Jan. 2016.
Van de Weyer, Robert. Celtic Praise: A Book of Celtic Devotion, Daily Prayers and Blessings. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1998.


1 Idea of home inspired by: “There's No Place Like Home”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/ Accessed:29 Jan. 2016.
2 Ibid. Quotation attributed to Pliny the Elder.
4 Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. P. 609.
5 Van de Weyer, Robert. Celtic Praise: A Book of Celtic Devotion, Daily Prayers and Blessings. P. 29.
6 Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. P. 917.
7 Ibid. Harper's. P. 1185.
8 Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg. The Autobiography of Foundini M. Cat. New York: Alfred A. Knofp. 1987. Pp. 104-107.

9 Ibid. Van de Weyer. P. 23