Sunday, July 13, 2014

Good Seed Knows the Important vs. the Urgent

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 13 July 2014, Proper 10

Year A RCL: Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-2

 

Today's scriptures share several ideas that I express in haikus:


Twins struggle in womb –  family discord resumes

We war with ourselves

Fleshy cares leave us
famished & so we forfeit
our blessings from God
When we scatter seeds, we leave many untended,
subjected to chance

Our divergent work – together in prayer – brings forth
God's harvest of Love.

Paul tells us in Romans that, although we are fleshy beings, we are spiritual beings. The Holy Spirit dwells in us & guides us away from sin & into grace1 – away from life's fleshy focus, into deeper spiritual relationship with God.
Flesh & spirit are realities that are more than the individual person, as one Bible commentary says. 2 It says: Flesh & spirit demand a “deliberate choice of values & human effort...(in our) relationship to God”: we are either defiant or cooperative.3
As God's beloved children, we know “...freedom in (Jesus) Christ is aimed at the reshaping of human life, both individually & corporately, according to the good that God wills for it,”4 as Paul says in Romans.
Our freedom in Jesus means we can be healthy, growing, productive seeds, nurtured in the good, nourishing soil of Jesus, who tells us today's parable: Healthy soil receives the seeds & feeds the seeds.
When we are planted in God-centered soil, the soil feeds us with Holy nurturing so that we produce an abundant harvest of God's love.
We are healthy & we nourish others because Jesus is our Lord, who has died so that our fleshy selves are renewed to be spiritually mature, centered in God's love.
What a contrast we see between our life centered in God's love & what we read in Genesis of the cares of this world. I wonder how different are the stories of human discord that we read in Genesis when we hear so much discord in our news.
 
Perhaps the differences in the cares of this world are in the customs of our day & those of the Middle Bronze Age (about 22 BC until the 15th or 14th century BC5) when these Genesis stories take place.
Details of life then, of customs such as the 1st son's selling his inheritance rights, are known from sources other than the Bible: archives in places on the Euphrates River, in Mesopotamia & the law code of Hammurabi from 1700 BC.6
So what may seem odd to us is a life-style in a particular time & place. The basic human disconnect between how people live & living in God's love is the same.
  Genesis tells us that Esau & Jacob struggle in the womb. Their clash continues in their lifestyles: Esau is a hunter in the wild; Jacob is a stay-at-home farmer.7
Esau’s name is from a verb meaning “to stuff an animal with food,”8 (rather appropriate for what he asks his brother today). Esau’s other name, Edom, means red, like the red soil of the land that bears his name, like the red blood of animals this hunter kills, like his hot blood that cries out to his brother for help when he comes home from hunting & their clash takes a new twist.
Esau is starving & says: “Let me eat some of that red stuff…” The way he says this in The Jewish Study Bible sounds more urgent: “Give me some of that red stuff to gulp down…I am famished…”9
Esau is focused on the real human, fleshy need for food. Notice: Jacob is just as fleshy as he demands that Esau swear to give up his inheritance right in exchange for food Jacob has cooked.
Esau is so focused on the urgent cares of this world he agrees to this impulsive decision that changes the future.
God-centered timing, God-centered decisions demand a pause, demand the wisdom of knowing the difference between the urgent & the important, as author Stephen R. Covey discusses in First Things First (pp. 32-39).
Jesus teaches us this difference so that when we are sowers of the seed, we don’t scatter seed willy-nilly because that's easier, but intentionally so that we can carefully tend it. The Holy Spirit will guide us to learn & to adjust our lives so that we respond to God’s perspective of what’s urgent, what’s important, what’s fleshy, what’s of the Holy Spirit.

The important often has no urgency,
no deadline, so it’s easy to let slide the really important in life, in God’s work, while we handle the urgent.
There is usually something urgent
to distract us from God’s work.

 
Some things are important & urgent: being with friends in an emergency, handling the leak in the Parish Hall ceiling & consulting with experts about a new energy-saving air system that will be healthier for God’s creation & for our stewardship of Church finances.
Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can stay focused on God’s work when the cares of this world clamor urgently. The power of the Holy Spirit can assuage our hunger for that red stuff that we want to gulp down.
Prayer is central to our work as the
Body of Christ,
central to our discerning the urgent & the important.
Our worship complements our work,
whether our worship is together as we are now or
“together” as we read Morning Prayer,
Evening Prayer, any of the daily offices
wherever we are.
Wherever we do this, we join with each other, with angels & archangels & all the company of heaven to worship God. Doing so. we positively impact our lives & the lives of others.
This IS important work.
As you do this important work, consider the prayer For Social Justice (Book of Common Prayer p. 823):
Grant, O God, that your holy & life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart & especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, & hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice & peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.10


Bibliography
Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Matthew. Vol. 2. Revised Ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. 1975.
Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible: The Letter to Romans. Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press. 1971.
Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Paulist Press. 1984.
Book of Common Prayer. New York: The Church Hymnal Corp., and The Seabury Press. 1979.
Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday. 1997.
Dios Habla Hoy: La Biblia. New York: American Bible Society. 1983.
Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.
Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters. New York: Doubleday. 2003.
Lectionary Page. http://www.lectionarypage.net/. Accessed: 29 June 2014.
The New American Bible for Catholics. South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
1 Harper’s Bible Commentary. P. 1147.
2 Ibid. Harper's. P. 11151.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. P. 134.
6 Ibid.
7 Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. P. 53.
8 Ibid. Harper's. P. 101.
9 Ibid. Jewish Study Bible.
10 Book of Common Prayer. P. 823.
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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

"He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother"

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 6 July 2014, Proper 9
Year A RCL: Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45:11-18; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
“The road is long, with many a winding turn.”1  

May we travel it together, guided by the Holy Spirit.

You may recall the ballad “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” that tells about the long road that “leads us to who knows where, Who knows when.” The refrain teaches us about today's scriptures: He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. (I have learned that the lyrics of the 1969 ballad by Bobby Scott & Bob Russell are inspired by an earlier story2.)
My brother, my sister “ain’t heavy” because s/he is a gift to me from God, yoked to me with God’s well-fitted yoke.
Jesus says:
 “my yoke is easy & my burden is light.”
The Greek word for “easy” can mean “well-fitted”.3 Bible commentator William Barclay says4 in Jesus’ day the wooden yokes for oxen were custom-made after the ox had been measured. That way the-to-measure yoke fit well.
It makes sense to do this so that your expensive ox can work well & with less injury.
There is legend5 that when Jesus worked as a carpenter, the shop had a sign over the door: “My yokes fit well.”
Think about those times in your life when you have had to work with a heavy, ill-fitting yoke. St. Paul tell us his experience in our lesson from Romans today:
 living with the burden of sin, the yoke of sin,
can make us lose sight of God – who is Love,
whose burden is light, whose yoke is easy.
  When we lose sight of God’s love, we can fall into the grip of fear – that bend in the road that leads us to inaction & a sense of being alone.
Fear tells us we are at a dead end.
Fear lies.
The road we travel with Jesus has no dead end: It has blind curves that the Holy Spirit will guide us safely through. The Holy Spirit may extend the hand of a Brother or Sister in Christ to lead you through the fear, past the blind curve & on to the next stretch on the road of life.
Paul tells us clearly that, although our human nature is to stay mired in fear & sin so that we do the wrong we don’t want to do &
don’t do the good we want to do,
Jesus is our rescuer.
Paul says: “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Jesus is the answer.
Through Jesus & the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can move forward in faith. We can live, trusting God. We can say “Yes” to God.
Notice what an amazing story we have in Genesis of a person saying yes, accepting, trusting a new yoke:
We hear Rebekah say “Yes,” to the call she receives, which our lesson says comes as God guides Abraham’s servant.
Rebekah responds, trusting God
like her future father-in-law Abraham does.
What burden do we see Rebekah take on?
She takes on work when she encounters Abraham’s servant at the spring.
She not only gives him water,
but also she lowers her water jar many times into
that spring &
hauls it up to water those
10 camels with the servant & his assistants.
Rebekah's hospitality is like Abraham's hospitality when the 3 strangers come to where he lives.6 
 Rebekah puts forth extra effort to carry that
 heavy load of water.
She knows:
“He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”

– he’s a fellow human being.
  Rebekah goes the extra mile – literally: She agrees to leave home to journey to a new beginning, trusting God.
 
We have to trust God to get on with life or we will get worn down, bearing all its pressures alone. Then we lose imagination & joy. Then we are like children who refuse to play – who refuse to be in relationship with others, to work together, play together, to live in the fullness of life God intends for us.
God makes us for relationships, for unity.
God makes us in God’s image: the Holy Trinity,
which loves us – loves you!
  Rebekah values relationships. Her name can mean bound7 or a team of horses8. Like a team of oxen, a team of horses works tied together.
Yoked together, the team works in unity.
Oxen & horses show us that by working together, the yoke is easy & the burden is light.
 
You are smarter than any horse, any ox.

Through the Grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you:
You know he ain’t heavy,
he’s your brother,
she’s your sister
& all the rest of us know:
 You ain't heavy!
You're our brother, you're our sister.
As the song by Scott & Russell says9:
The road is long,

With many a winding turn,

that leads us to who knows where,

Who knows when.
I paraphrase, But you're – we're strong – strong enough to carry….So on we go… 

gaining strength for this journey…

If I'm laden at all, I'm laden with sadness,

That everyone's heart Isn't filled with the
 gladness
 Of love for one another.

My Sisters & Brothers, WE have work to do to
 
fill empty hearts with the gladnes of love for one another 

– to fill those empty jars so they overflow.


Bibliography
Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Matthew. Vol. 2. Revised Ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. 1975.
Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Paulist Press. 1984.
Book of Common Prayer. New York: The Church Hymnal Corp., and The Seabury Press. 1979.
Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination. 2nd Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2001.
Davidson, Baruch S. “What Does the Name Rebecca Mean?” Accessed 5 July 2014.
Dios Habla Hoy: La Biblia. New York: American Bible Society. 1983.
Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.
Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Lectionary Page. http://www.lectionarypage.net/. Accessed: 29 June 2014.
The New American Bible for Catholics. South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
1 Note: Lyrics by Bobby Scott, Bob Russell. Accessed: 5 July 2014. http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_hollies/he_aint_heavy_hes_my_brother.html.
2 Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Matthew. Vol. 2. Revised Ed. P. 18.
3 Ibid. P. 17.
4 Ibid. 17
5 Ibid. 17.
6 Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. P. 49.
8 Davidson, Baruch S. “What Does the Name Rebecca Mean?” Accessed: 7/5/14. http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/651535/jewish/What-Does-the-Name-Rebecca-Mean.htm
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Friday, July 4, 2014

Happy 4th of July!

The Church's national observance of Independence Day was 1st proposed for our Book of Common Prayer what year? 1928? 1778? 1786?
When did it make it into the BCP? 1786? 1928? 1979?


(See Lesser Feasts & Fasts 2003. P. 290.) Here are some of the facts: Proposed for Prayer Book 1786.
Deleted by Gen. Convention 1789.
 Made it into 1928 BCP revision!
 
American Revolution supporter Bishop William White worked to remove it from proposed 1786 book because its observance was required & most of our clergy had remained loyal to the British crown.
Reading White's stance reminds me of the
 grace St. Paul expresses in 1 Cor. 8:1-13, 

when he says to refrain from doing what

would be a stumbling block for fellow 

Believers for whom Jesus died.

On July 4th we can celebrate our freedom to worship God in this country & its many other freedoms, gifts & opportunities, because of God's love expressed through the courage, strength, dedication, & sacrifice of many.
Our Episcopal Church colors of red, white & blue can remind us of the human blood Jesus sacrifices for us, dying on the cross to save us. Red is like the fiery tongues on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes to the Church in a new way.
White can remind us of God's holiness, the Holy Trinity, in whose image we are made, & our celebrating our new relationship with God that Jesus' sacrifice makes possible.
 Blue is the color of the heavens that surround this blue earth, our island home, set in motion by God's love that fills God's Creation, of which we are a part & for which we are entrusted with special work of stewardship.
 
I pray that our love may overflow more & more with knowledge & full insight to help us determine what is best.
 Philippians 1:9 (paraphrase)
 Bibliography
Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2003. New York: Church Publishing. 2003.
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