July 4th, 2021, 9B Church and State, Mark 6:1-13, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

9B Church and State July 4, 2021

Mark 6:1-13. St. Mark’s, Little Rock

Here we are in church on the American holiday par excellence, the 4th of July. Today is the Lord’s Day and the Fourth of July.  It happens like this every few years when the sound of firecrackers merges with the tones of the Gloria and the Sanctus.1 There is also something very moving about putting our hand over our heart and singing the national anthem and America the Beautiful.  For the most part, we are proud of our country, birthed to us by the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

“America! America!

God shed his grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea.” 2

 We do live with a healthy tension between our faith in God  whose love transcends all borders and loyalties, and our loyalty to our country.3 If the early Christians had felt that Christianity should be connected to the love of their country, Christ’s message would never have left Israel’s borders.

Chris Keller reminds us that America was born from a religiously divided Christian Europe. Splits among Puritans, Baptists, Anglicans and Catholics are in our nation’s DNA.4 This country’s other DNA strand is the opposite of our religious pluralism. Men and women of different religions and political views come together to form a union of one against an overpowering force. They give up individual power to serve the common good.4   If each religious group or colony had confronted the British singularly, we would not be the United States but a stack of small countries as in Europe. Later, our government does split, with both sides quoting scripture as reasons to do so. Now we are back together, but sometimes only by a thin thread.

When our nation is formed, there is a clear majority of races surrounded by several minorities.5Today we are blessed by having so many races, cultures, religions, categories of people in our country that no longer can one group claim to be the majority. Our ability to live in community as  minorities sharing power and speaking out for the common good is a blessing,/ and a curse.

Can the Episcopal three-legged stool of scripture, tradition, and reason help us find answers?

What can our Christian tradition from the past tell us?

When I was growing up, our country’s darkest enemy is the Soviet Union.1 In grammar school in the fifties, we regularly participate in air raid drills where we hide under our desks anticipating Russia’s impending atomic bomb attack. There is such hope for a new world when the old Soviet regime is torn apart in August 1991, giving way to a new social order with many independent countries struggling to stay that way.  A former Librarian of Congress, James Billington, a student of Russian history, is in Moscow in 1991 giving us an eyewitness account. Boris Yeltsin and a small group of defenders occupies the Russian White House. They successfully manage to face off an enormous number of tanks and troops poised to attack, put down their rebellion, and restore the old guard in the Soviet Union.

A vital role in this successful resistance is played by the Babushkas, the “old women in the church,” and their courageous public Christian witness. These bandana-wearing older women, who keep the Orthodox Christian church alive for years during the Soviet period, are the butt of jokes over the years by Russians and Westerners. No persons seem more powerless or irrelevant than they. These grandmothers are widely regarded as evidence of the inevitable death of religion in the Soviet Union.

And yet, on the critical night of August 20, 1991, martial law is proclaimed. People are told to go home. These women disobey and feed the resisters in a public display of support. Some staff medical stations. Others pray for a miracle. Still, more astoundingly, others climb up onto tanks, peering through the slits at the crew-cut men inside,  saying, “There are new orders from God: Thou shalt not kill.” The young men stop the tanks. “The attack,” says Billington, “never comes off, and by dawn of the third day, the tide has turned.”/

Do you remember the movie, The Pianist, about the Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman who plays Chopin’s “Nocturne in C-sharp Minor” live over Radio Warsaw in its last broadcast in September 1939 as German shells explode all around him?1 He spends the war as a fugitive in hiding. Near the end of the war, he is discovered in the attic of an abandoned Warsaw home by Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, a Christian Austrian German officer.  At great danger, Hosenfeld provides food, clothing, and protection to Szpilman. Earlier, Hosenfeld had helped other Jews, defying orders and risking execution himself. He releases prisoners from concentration camps and spares the lives of Jews slated for execution. Unfortunately, before he is found, he dies in a Russian prisoner of war camp. /

Let’s come closer to home to look for Christians using reason.6 Little Rock, summer of 1958. Governor Faubus invokes a hastily passed state law closing high schools rather than obeying federal orders to integrate after the 1957 Central High crisis.  Three women, Adolphine Fletcher Terry, a prominent “old family” civic leader in her seventies, Vivion Brewer, and Velma Powell, meet while organizing a dinner party to honor Harry Ashmore, the Arkansas Gazette editor and recent recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. In addition,/ they organize the Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC).  Episcopal women are very involved, including the leader, Adolphine Fletcher Terry. Much-loved Episcopalians Virginia Mitchell, Mary Wortham, Naomi May, Babs Penick, and Phyllis Brandon, and Bettie Ahrens, and Betty Rowland from St. Marks are at their first meeting. WEC becomes a highly effective organization that bombards the city with ads, fliers challenging Faubus’s actions. At peak membership, WEC musters 2000. Largely inexperienced in politics, these women become articulate, confident promoters of public schools and the integration of schools.

  Little Rock 1963. White, African American, Asian American, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish mothers come together and initiate public discussion about diversity. Overcoming fears for their safety, they carry that message to civic groups across the state. They confront public opinion as well as their own stereotypes and perceptions and found “The Little Rock Panel of American Women.” /

Finally, our scripture today from Mark’s gospel reminds us that Christ goes about “among the villages” of Soviet Russia, Poland, Arkansas sending out people to cast out demons and cure the sick.  Today, at this very moment, Christ is visiting the village of St. Mark’s, sending us out beyond these walls to heal the sick and cast out demons by caring for our environment and immigrants, feeding the hungry, visiting  prisoners, the homebound, the sick, and those seeking recovery from addiction.////

When I am growing up, the 4th of July is a family event where my grandmother’s relatives come out of the woodwork, joining us on my grandfather’s farm for a picnic like none other. We churn ice cream freezers until they wouldn’t move and feast on fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, and watermelon/ on picnic tables by the river. Later in my medical practice, the 4th of July becomes the most unpopular holiday to be on call because we are working with new residents and interns just out of medical school. A warning. Do not get sick on July 4th weekend.

Now, as I am aging, I think more of the sacrifices made to form our country and then keep it together as a democracy. I also honor those who spoke out and tried to heal our country. There are ways to do this individually, like Captain Wilm Hosenfeld or in groups like the  Russian grandmothers and the Little Rock women. They are our mentors of how to heal our country when it becomes sick. I know many learned about healing in congregations just like ours./ My prayer on this July 4th is that St. Mark’s will continue to be a sacred space where soldiers, grandmothers, mothers, men, children come to learn about God’s healing love as Jesus sends us out into other villages to make our country a caring community.

Today is the Fourth of July. Today is the Lord’s Day. Enjoy.   

But remember if we want our lives to count as did our ancestors’, we have orders from a commander who sent out so many BEFORE us during the heat of the summer. We carry with us this heritage with only ONE thing, Jesus’ gospel of peace, to cure the sick and cast out demons./

“America! America!

God shed his grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea.”2

 In years to come, when our great-grandchildren sing “America the Beautiful,” will they be as proud of these United States as we are. It all depends on us/ and our ability to love and heal each other.5 /

1Thomas Long, “’ Today is….’ A Sermon for Sunday, July 4” in Journal for Preachers, Vol 27, no 4, Pentecost 2004, pp. 40-46.

2Katherine Lee Bates, Congregationalist, July 5, 1895.

3Samuel T. Lloyd III, “A Humble Patriotism” in Sermons from the National Cathedral (Rowman and Littlefield 2013) pp. 189-193.

4Keller, Christoph III, “July 4, Out of Many, One,” sermon Trinity Cathedral, Little Rock,  July 5, 2015.

5Wade, Francis, “An American Agenda” in Rites of Our Passage (Posterity Press 2002), pp. 82-85.

6Sara Alderman Murphy in Breaking the Silence (University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, 1997).

 Joanna Seibert

Parables and Seeds Scattered 6B, Mark 4:26-34. June 13, 2021 St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

6B Parables and Seeds Scattered, Mark 4:26-34 June 13, 2021, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Little Rock

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.”

This seemingly innocent English nursery rhyme has been given many hidden political and historical interpretations. Ordinary poems have often disguised a point of view allowing people to speak out against an issue/ but not be immediately arrested or killed because of this belief. Is the rhyme about Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Stuart killed by her cousin Elizabeth, or Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I’s sister?  My favorite interpretation is that this is Jesus’ Mary.  The cockle shells are the badges worn by pilgrims who take the Camino Walk to the Shrine of St. James in Spain./ The bells are the Sanctus bells we hear at the Eucharist telling us something holy is happening. The sanctus bells we hear today rest on a cushion made in memory of Cindy Miller which will soon be blessed.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.”

A crowd follows Jesus to the seashore. The gathering is so large that Jesus gets into a boat, sits down, and begins to preach in parables. If people are looking for a lesson in theology this particular morning,/ they are disappointed. But the farmers and gardeners are excited as they hear the kingdom of God is about seeds, crops, and plants. However, this gardener scatters seeds all over the ground, not deeply in parallel rows or in fitted holes in socially distanced rows.  Our gardener and farmer sleep and get up each day,/ but not much happens except this feverish activity. Eventually, out of the darkness,/ rising from the ground,/ the seeds sprout and become plants. No one knows how this happens,/ but at varying times,/ depending on the seeds,/ we see stalks of wheat, corn, an iris, a daffodil, a tulip, a pumpkin, or a watermelon appears./ Jesus seems to say the kingdom of God mysteriously occurs in ordinary things/ in ordinary places in our ordinary lives./

 When Jesus is alone with his disciples, he retells the parables and explains the stories in more detail.

Why this hiddenness and secrecy? Why does Jesus only speak in parables to the crowds? Well, previously, the scribes from Jerusalem declare Jesus as a Satan follower. Jesus’ disciples say he now speaks in these parables to keep out of prison,/ at least for a while. Talking about seeds and dirt should not get him arrested for preaching heresy and treason.1

So, what is Jesus really telling us?/ The seeds in the parable go into the ground and become plants in some mysterious way, unknown to most of us except maybe the botanists! It all happens in the dark. Remember that creation itself occurs in the dark. Jesus’ life story teaches us the miracle of heavenly things happening in darkness in the most significant events of his life: his birth, his arrest, his death, and of course, his resurrection, all in darkness. No one is present to see his resurrection. It happens in the darkness of the tomb, now empty,// as do so many of our own resurrections occur in the dark tombs of our lives.2  /

Amy Jill Levine calls parables Jesus’ short stories. Like a favorite short story or poem, we find different meanings previously missed each time we read it, usually because of our life experiences since our last read.3/

 So, let’s dig deeper into the story itself. Herbert O’Driscoll asks us to consider that we are the ground,/ and the seeds are sown within us. The seeds are words and actions from our experiences with family, friends, or enemies.  Perhaps they are words we hear at this church. Words spoken or sung each Sunday. Words placed there at our baptism, or Vacation Bible School or Camp Mitchell. Actions of love come to us from so many possibilities. Sometimes they are stories told us by friends sharing their Christian journey and faith. These seeds are sown within us in some mysterious way and are also miraculously nurtured within us,/ sometimes for years.4

I would like to share one story of a seed planted here at St. Mark’s many years ago.

My husband is cleaning out our basement and intermittently brings up treasures to decide if I want to give them away, throw away, or keep them. Recently he brought up a book, The Edge of Adventure, by Bruce Larson and Keith Miller. Many may remember Keith Miller, who visited Little Rock several times and wrote about the 12 steps of recovery for everyday living for ordinary people. I remember we studied The Edge of Adventure in a weekly book group led by Dean McMillin at St. Mark’s at the old gift shop called the Bookmark,/ where the youth recently met and will soon be the outreach center. When I read a book, I usually write on the title page the date I begin reading it. There were two dates, 1981 and 1984.

The plot thickens. Pay close attention. Inside The Edge of Adventure is this newsletter, The Postmark. It was what our online Friday Remarks has become.  (Now, don’t get Postmark, Remarks, Bookmark and St. Mark’s confused.) The Postmark is dated September 5, 1984.  Inside are predominately outreach opportunities, reminding us that St. Mark’s has always been a church reaching beyond our walls. Outreach describes this church from its roots.  The other pillar of St. Mark’s besides music and liturgy has been children and adult formation. On the front cover of the newsletter is the list of formation opportunities in the Forum for September, October, and November 1984. On November 18, 1984, in italics is Alcohol Awareness Sunday – a special program in Forum.

I remember this Forum! People in recovery from all walks of life and religions share stories in the old parish hall about their addiction and what life is like now in recovery.  I know one of the women speaking! She is an active member of this church! I identify with her story! I have known for some time that I have a problem. I say in my mind that I am going to meet with her. I write her a letter, even put a stamp on it, /but I never mail it. I often see her at St. Mark’s services and functions but never say anything about my addiction to alcohol. It is not until 1990/, six years later, that I walk into a 12-step recovery room and seek help. Six years later!/

One more mind-boggling thing, or maybe it is Spirit-filled. My sobriety date is November 18th, the exact month and day of this Forum, just six years earlier, November 18th.

Does this tell you anything or make the hair on the back of your neck stand up? It does for me. I can barely talk about this parable. The God of our understanding, the Holy Spirit,  through so many other people, plants in the innermost ground of our being, tiny seeds like the mustard seed./ These seeds are nurtured particularly by decaying parts of ourselves. The seeds grow and sprout just when they are ready to become edible flowers and plants that produce fruit for ourselves and other people. This fruit of the Spirit allows us and others to become the persons God created us to be. God never, ever, ever gives up on us, even when we stray way off the garden path or out of the field. The seeds are scattered everywhere. /

I have heard some of your stories. I know many of you also have experienced God planting seeds within you when you never realized it.  God just waits for us, often in what seems like the darkness of our darkest times. The Spirit waits for us until we are ready,/ now and throughout all eternity,/ to experience this resurrection in our lives.//

 Mary,/ who we think you are,/ this is one more story,/ one more parable,/ one more poem/ about how your garden grows,/ and grows,/ and grows/ to produce the fruit of the Spirit. Cockle shells and Sanctus bells ringing all over this place. Amen.

1 Barbara Brown Taylor in The Seeds of Heaven (Westminster John Knox Press 2004) p. 24.

2  Sue Monk Kidd in When the Heart Waits, Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions  (HarperSanFrancisco 1990).

3 Amy Jill Levine in Short Stories by Jesus, The Enigmatic Parables of A Controversial Rabbi  (HarperOne 2014).

4 Herbert O’Driscoll in The Word for Today, Reflections on the Readings of the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B Vol. 3,  p. 29.

Easter 5B John 15:1-8, Life on the Vine, St. Mark's Episcopal Church Little Rock May 2, 2021

Life on the Vine

Easter 5B John 15:1-8, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church May 2, 2021

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower, and you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in you.”

What is your image of abiding in Christ, of living on the vine?

Most of us have a pretty specific image of what it is like being in union with Christ.  One common belief is that those connected to the vine never have difficulty speaking their truth if asked what they believe.  In a heartbeat, they can speak eloquently about their faith and walk with Jesus in ways that move and convert others. They are never embarrassed if asked what they believe, and are never shy or reluctant to answer. 1

Let’s see how this sometimes works in practice. Mike and Marty Schaufele share  with us a dear friend, Bob Scott, now a priest in Tulsa.  Bob tells the story of the morning many years ago when he returns from his first Arkansas Cursillo weekend, empowered to reach out to his neighbor and speak about his abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.  He prays in the elevator on the ride up to his office that early Monday morning that God will put someone in need in his life. He walks into his office as a co-worker immediately meets him and asks to speak with him about a spiritual crisis.  Bob looks at him/ and says, “I’m sorry, I have been away for the weekend and am behind in my work. You’ll have to come back later.”

         Barbara Brown Taylor tells us there are more common knowledge false beliefs about real Christians.1 Believers in Christ constantly communicate with God.  They understand what happens to them every day, or at least have the faith to accept whatever comes gracefully. Believers do not have doubts, and  are never afraid. They have absolute confidence that they are in God’s hands and that God will take care of them. When they say their prayers at night, they hear God speaking directly back to them. 1

Another popular belief is that those living on the vine consistently encounter worship as a meaningful experience. They leave church and go out and act on whatever the preacher says. They believe every word of the Nicene Creed. They have a spiritual experience as they receive communion every Sunday.  The faithful are never bored, disagreeable, or feel left out. They have a steadfast sense of belonging to God and to one another. 1

Have we come to your belief about life on the vine yet? What spiritual goal have you placed so high that you can never achieve it? Do you not pray enough, or witness enough, or read and study enough theology? Are you not knowledgeable enough, or enthusiastic enough, or certain enough about what you believe? Whatever it is,/ please stop./ Please stop exiling yourself from the vine, because of your beliefs about what you think it takes to belong to the body of Christ. You are connected to Christ.  You belong on this vine simply because God says you do, not because of what you do or who you are,/ but because you are so loved by God.1

I think you are hearing this message today because you seek an awareness of your presence on this vine.  Chances are the way true believers believe is valiantly on some days, pitifully on others, with faith enough to move mountains on some occasions and not enough to get out of bed on others.  One of my most spiritual friends tells me that she has a deep and abiding faith in God that comes and goes.  Another friend shares with me: “I believe in God frequently.” I have another friend who tells me she sometimes feels she is like the Athenians Paul speaks to in Acts, worshiping an “unknown god.”

         Reread your Bible. Dear friends on this vine, we are all in good company. From Adam and Eve to Jesus and his followers, the Old and New Testaments are a continuous saga about people who have doubts about their relationship to God and what God is calling them to do. Sometimes the best we can do is take C. S. Lewis’s suggestion and act “as if,” as if we are aware of our presence on the vine, and when we do, somehow it becomes true.

Some days we are as firm in our faith as apostles.  Some days we are like tired branches bearing over-ripe fruit.  This means that we belong to the vine not because we are certain of God but because God is certain of us. No one, no action, can take us off of this vine./

Be patient with yourself,/ and while you are at it,/ be patient also with the rest of us on this vine with you. /

What is life like on this vine?  Some years ago, my husband and I spent a week at Kanuga, an Episcopal conference center in North Carolina, learning about life on the vine and living a spiritual life. It was called a Summit on Spirituality, and it was just that.  We listen to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Walter Wink, Thomas Keating, Alan Jones, Phyllis Tickle, Barbara Crafton, and many others, including our own Stuart Hoke.  They share their experience of the spiritual disciplines which keep us aware of our presence on the vine: keeping the daily office, centering prayer, meditation, yoga, scripture, sacraments, corporate worship, journaling, movies, spiritual direction, dream work.

Alan Jones tells us that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.  I should repeat it: the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.  This also is now a favorite quote of Anne Lamott. If you go far enough back, you find it in the writings of Paul Tillich.

Barbara Crafton tells us that when you lose sight of your place on the vine and become spiritually dry, change your spiritual disciplines. That is why there are so many ways to feel and know that connection to the vine, to Christ, and each other.

Finally, this is what we learn about life on the vine from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a genuinely holy man.

We are all so loved by a vinegrower who creates us by the bubbling over of his love.  The vinegrower loves us before we are born, and will love us throughout eternity.  The vinegrower loves us so much that all of us are given a divine connection to the vine,/ Jesus Christ. Each of us is a branch connected to this vine. By this connection, we become a God carrier, a carrier of the love of Christ.

         Insight! A vine does not just work vertically. A vine also connects the branches horizontally to each other. Jesus describes in John a dynamic system of nurture, feedback, growth, groundedness.  Christ is the vine, giving himself to the branches, helping them grow and provide fruit. We are dependent on him. / The vine, Jesus Christ, is also the MEANS of our interdependence, our connection with each other, this community. We are born needing to connect to each other.2 This is why we so longed for each other during the pandemic. God calls us to community on the vine. /Right now, get involved in one of the communities here at St. Mark’s, men’s Bible study, Daughters of the King, a Christ Care group, choir, youth group, food pantry, EfM, Sunday forum, Shrimp Boil, Community of Hope. And so many more.

 We are cared for on this vine by the love of Christ/ and by the love of Christ in each other. Like the centurion’s servant healed by  the faith of his master, and the paralytic healed by the faith of his friends who lowered him through a roof to Jesus, we do the same for each other.

Last insight. There is nothing we can do to lose this connection on the vine. We can do nothing to earn God’s love/ or lose it. But, yes, our lives may be pruned, some times more painfully than at others. Harmful parts of ourselves are discarded when we can no longer bear the pain they have brought to our lives and others. We are pruned of the withering parts of our lives that are not God: our addictions, our need for control, our self-centeredness. But the vine grower, God, never gives up on us throughout all eternity.   Jesus calls us today to be aware and to accept this incredible gift of love and connection to the love of God in Christ and each other.

And so, my dear leafy friends, “as we are connected to this vine, the Risen Christ runs through our blood like sap, nurturing us through community, giving our new and old branches more fruit than we can ever believe possible. In this world that is so hungry, so thirsty, what could be better than to be a living branch abiding on this vine of love, fed and cared for by Christ and each other?” 2

1Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Voice of the Shepherd,” The Preaching Life, pp.  143-144.

2Susan Klein, “Fruitful Connections,” Preaching Through the Year of Matthew, pp. 60-62. 

Lent 5B, "Sir, We Wish to See Jesus," John 12: 20-33, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, March 21, 2021

Lent 5B Wishing to See Jesus, Greeks, Phillip, Andrew. John 12:20-33, St. Mark’s March 21, 2021

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

No two people encounter Jesus in precisely the same way, writes the late Rachel Held Evans.1(p. 151 Inspired) Nicodemus comes under cover of night. Zacchaeus seeks Jesus from the top of a tree. A 12-year-old girl sees Jesus as he brings her back to life and tells her to get something to eat.  A hemorrhaging woman follows him and touches Jesus’ garment.  A woman without a name comes into a Pharisee’s dinner party from off the street, washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints his feet with an alabaster jar of costly oil (Luke 7:37). A Samaritan woman at the well gives Jesus a drink of water at noon and becomes the first person he tells that he is the Messiah. Next week on Palm Sunday, we will hear a centurion at the foot of Jesus’ cross look up and declare him indeed as God’s Son immediately as Jesus draws his last breath. There is no formula, no blueprint.1

The good news becomes good because it will vary from person to person and community to community. Today we learn that a relationship with Jesus has a different impact on Andrew, Phillip, and now the Greeks. This is what the New Testament is about; the story of encounters with  Jesus as told from multiple perspectives.

Today we once again meet Phillip, a disciple from the Greek-Jewish town of Bethsaida, and Andrew, a disciple who also has a Greek name. We first come-upon Phillip in John’s gospel when Jesus simply sees him and says, “Follow me” (John 1:43). Phillip then invites his friend, Nathanael, from the village of Cana to come to meet Jesus. John Claypool calls Phillip the careful realist.2  Earlier, when Jesus asks Phillip to feed a large group of people, Phillip tells Jesus there is not enough money to buy even a tiny amount of bread for each person. Next week we will hear Phillip still tell Jesus at the last supper the night before Jesus dies to “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Why is Phillip never called “doubting” Phillip? Today we get a glimpse of another side of Phillip.  Herbert  O’Driscoll tells us that perhaps the Greeks first come to Phillip because he has a welcoming face.3 Maybe that is why when Jesus first sees Phillip, he only needs to say, “Follow me.”

So, why does Phillip go to Andrew to decide what to do about this Greek situation? Does Phillip have difficulty making decisions, or more likely he is someone who is not too proud to seek help when he  encounters an unusual or difficult situation,/ unlike Peter, who just barges right in.2 /

Andrew is the next disciple in our story today and is the first disciple called in John’s gospel. He is once a disciple of John the Baptist and is with John around four in the afternoon when the Baptist sees Jesus and says, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.”/  Andrew follows Jesus. Then Jesus asks him, “What are you looking for?” (John 1:35-39).  Practical Andrew responds, “Where are you staying? Jesus answers, “Come and see” (John 1:39). Andrew then has a similar impulse as Phillip to share the good news of Jesus with his brother, Simon Peter. “We have found the Messiah.” Later on, when Jesus is with a crowd and asks Andrew to help feed them, Andrew looks for a solution and goes through the crowd to find a young boy with five barley loaves and two fish”(John 6:9) and brings him to Jesus. A little different from Phillip’s “half empty” response at the hungry gathering crowd.  Today we meet Andrew, who affirms that his ministry has become bringing people to Jesus. He brought his brother, the young boy, with fish and bread, and now the Greeks.4/

“No two people encounter Jesus in exactly the same way.”1//

So, who are “some” Greeks asking politely to get a first-hand view of Jesus with their request, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Why are they in this story? Rachael Held Evans again tells us, “The gospel means that every small story is part of a sweeping story, every ordinary life part of an extraordinary movement” (Inspired 157).  Are these Greek Jews coming to the festival of the Passover/ or are they pagan Greeks who are seeking to learn more about Jesus?4  

I know you remember last Sunday when we heard the famous John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Note the word, the world again.  Jesus came to us for the world, not just to Jews, Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, or even Episcopalians!  That message is now emphasized again today as Greeks come to learn about Jesus. Jesus hints at this earlier as he intermittently goes back and forth across the Sea of Galilee from the land of the Jews to the home of the Gentiles. Remember also how he goes through Samaria to the “unclean” Jews and meets that fascinating woman at the well.  

God loves the whole world, China, England, Russia, all of Africa. Today  Jesus also says, “When I am lifted up (on the cross) I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Not some, but all.

William Willimon tells us this is the Sunday we remember God gives his life for all humanity.  Jesus Christ stretches out his arms on the cross to reach ALL of us, especially those who may seem like a pain in the neck, those on the other side of the aisle, on the other side of the ocean.5 Hopefully, this story teaches us to see those different from ourselves still as children of God./

Let us remember this as we say the prayers of the people that we are praying for all the different people of the world who, like all the characters in the gospels, will each have a unique encounter with Jesus, just as you and I do.   Every one of us has life and world experiences that only we have had. Jesus meets us exactly where we are and where we have been. Treasure that. Treasure this unique gift from Andrew and Phillip, who bring the Greeks to Jesus// and now, in turn, to us. //

Barbara Brown Taylor imagines that when Jesus hears that the Greeks have come to be with him, he knows it is time. It is finished. The future has arrived. The foreigners have come to take the gospel from Judea and plant it everywhere else in their own language. Jesus is now assured that God’s message of love will be heard throughout the universe.6 /

 Do you see yourself in this story?/ This story is about us./ We are in the story./ Imagine Jesus looks with wonder at his Greek visitors and sees beyond them/ to the host of those far from Judea and Galilee/ to all over the world,/ who will now be drawn to the Father/ for centuries to come./ Among them are you and me,/ coming to worship at St. Mark’s today, who “wish to see Jesus.3”

1Rachael Held Evans in Inspired (Nelson Books 2018).

2 John Claypool in The First to Follow, “Phillip” Morehouse 2008).

3Herbert O’Driscoll, The Word Today, Year B Volume 2 (Anglican Book Center 2001)pp. 37-38.

4 John Claypool in The First to Follow, “Andrew,” (Morehouse 2008).

5 William Willimon in “5th Sunday in Lent, Drawing All to Himself,” Pulpit Resources (March 22, 2015) pp. 50-52.

6Barbara Brown Taylor in Always a Guest (Westminster John Knox Press 2020) p. 216.

 Joanna Seibert joannaseibert@me.com

Lent 1B And Angels Waited on Him. St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas, February 21, 2021

Lent 1B And Angels waited on Him

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, February 21, 2021

“At once, the same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. For forty  wilderness days and nights, he was tested by Satan; Wild animals were his companions and angels took care of him.”1

They hid behind several desert shrubs, but their overpowering presence cannot be contained so easily. They are still overwhelmed by this recent assignment by the Spirit to reveal to Jesus the slightest hint of their presence. The dust of the wilderness is now holy ground in his presence. The awe of his holiness fills the slightest breeze that passes by his stilled body.

The angels feel like intruders in the presence of their God known as the Word, now an exhausted person who has been tempted by all the evil the world can muster. This holy one had taught the angels that Love is the way,/ the unconditional love that enfolds and reaches out from God the Father, God, the Spirit, and God, the Word.

The Angels attempt to whisper a plan among themselves but cannot utter a word. They are motionless with their wings folded as close to their bodies as possible. This is their God, but they have never seen the God of Love so up close in this form. They instinctively take off their white sandals and  kneel as their white robes and bare feet dust the ground. He lies motionless with an occasional shallow breath, raising the thin woven garment over his chest ever so slightly. His unkept black hair is matted and wringing wet with sweat. His head rests on a nearby flat rock, and his body lies lifeless, extended on the cold ground.  He is not yet aware of their presence.

 The Angels have observed his forty day fast from afar. They remember other spiritual leaders, Elijah, Moses, Esther, who fast before great struggles. The Angels hold their breath each time the devil tempts him, to turn stone into bread, jump from a pinnacle and rely on them to catch him, and finally to worship Satan so that the whole world would be his realm.  They hang on his every answer. “It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady nourishment of God’s love. God’s Love is the way;” “What good does it do to keep testing the love of  God. We know love is the way;”/ and finally “Leave me, Satan! We are called to worship only the God of love.  God’s unconditional love moves us to serve God.  Love is the Way.” 3 The Angels also hear his inner voice echoing, “Bread is necessary, but the word and love of God is more basic to our lives. There is nothing wrong with  miracles, but we must not make them into spectacular events, and forget the real presence of God in them. Serving the God of love is why we are born. Love is the way.”/

The angels’ proximity to the physical presence of the holy in human form continues to render them paralyzed.  They have served  this God of love since time began. Now their God is in great distress after an unbelievable ordeal carrying all humanity to his appointment with all the world’s evil, not just their personal temptations of the flesh but a  confrontation with the collective economic, religious and political realities who claim godlike powers.4 Their holy one, now human, has collapsed after this physical, mental, and spiritual ordeal. The animals, the lion, the leopard, the foxes are still beside him, keeping him warm as the desert temperature dramatically drops as night approaches.

Then suddenly a synapse, a whisper, a sticky note on one side of their brains uniformly brings them back to the reality of why they are now in this wild desert. They are to minister to him, revive his body,/ heart,/ and soul. For a last moment, however, they remember the holiness of their God of love becoming human and tested almost to the point of death. Also, they remember the privilege of being called by the Spirit to care for him./

Jesus slowly turns his head in the direction of  the Angels, and they intuitively rush with fluttering wings to his side carrying all the nourishment and herbs and spices and balms known to heaven. They surround his body with their wings, protecting him from any more harm. But the greatest healing power comes in the  unconditional love from the multitude of  these Angels who take turns caring for Jesus./ The more usual circumstance is his ministering to them. Love is the way. ///  

On the first Sunday in Lent, we always take an outward-bound wilderness excursion like a national guard preparedness weekend. We are called to honor the God who created us and remember the unbelievable depth of God’s reckless love where God becomes one of us so that God might know all our trials and temptations.  How else can God relate to us unless God walks in our shoes. Our creator loves us beyond our comprehension and is reckless with the generosity of his love even when we treat that love with rejection.

 The Angels ministering to Jesus in the wilderness are icons showing us the holiness of this event. They also are messengers reminding us that the Spirit will likewise send angels to minister to us whenever we encounter suffering./

Martin Luther King Jr. preaches that Jesus in this Lenten story also gives us a new norm of greatness. Jesus models what it is like to be a servant minister, keeping a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.5  Servant leaders differ from the smartest, the  greatest, or those needing to control or looking for admiration from others. Servant leaders build up others, not polish the system or the leader’s self-importance.6//

We will learn more during Lent about this love and servant leadership and Angels’ presence in our suffering in the forum as we study Bishop Michael Curry’s book, Love is the Way7. Bishop Curry teaches us about God’s love in his journey from childhood to becoming the presiding bishop.   He, like Jesus and dare say all of us, struggles and suffers but is always ministered by angels whose nourishment is God’s love. There is Josie Robbins, who stops by his father’s church to drop off a neighbor’s children before she goes to her own Baptist church. (12-13).  When Bishop Curry’s mother has a stroke and his father is overwhelmed as an Episcopal priest, Josie steps in and becomes Michael’s surrogate mother. Cousin Bill takes a teaching job in Buffalo to help care for Bishop Curry and his sister.(31) A local dentist and his wife care for the children during the week whenever Bishop Curry’s  maternal grandmother from Yonkers cannot come. (32) Erna Clark, the Sunday School superintendent, picks the children up from school every day and later helps Bishop Curry decide on colleges.(32) Curry’s seminary encourages him to preach in the style of his grandfathers’ instead of teaching him that emotional preaching is a sign of inferior intelligence.(107-108). Others teach Curry how to receive anger without giving it back. (181).

The book goes on and on about better angels in Curry’s life deeply rooted in his church community. Perhaps this can explain why our presiding bishop knows so much about God’s love is the way. 

Bishop Curry teaches us a Jewish proverb, “before every person, there marches an angel proclaiming, ‘behold the image of God.’”(95-96).

I dare say each of us can remember more angels who drop or march into our lives at difficult times. Give thanks for these angels this Lent./ If they are still alive, call or write./

Always remember how Curry becomes an Episcopalian. His father comes from a long line of Baptist ministers. His mother becomes a devout Episcopalian when she is at the University of Chicago. When the couple becomes engaged in the 1940s, she takes his father to an Episcopal church outside racially segregated Dayton, Ohio. When Curry’s black parents are offered the common communion cup along with the whites in the congregation at the Eucharist, his father knows this is where angels live. (34). Imagine the difference in our lives if his parents had gone to an Episcopal church where the cup was segregated!/

At his mother’s funeral when he is 14, Michael Curry is surrounded by all these angels who wipe the tears from his eyes and remind him of St. Paul’s words, “Love never dies.”8 Love builds,/ hate destroys. (89) “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”9

Bishop Curry writes about that day. “Community is love…… And so, at fourteen years old, I did not conclude that the world is a broken, bitter, and ruthless place. I am not abandoned—I am loved.” (43).

  “The way of Love will show us the right thing to do every time.” (27).

Love is the way.

Joanna Seibert

1 Eugene Peterson in  The Message Study Bible, Mark 1: 12-13.

2 Stephen Mitchell in Parables and Portraits,  p. 34.

3 Eugene Peterson in The Message study Bible,  Matthew 4:1-11.

4 Kris, Rocke and Joel Van Dyke in Geography of Grace in InwardOutward February 2, 2021.

5 Martin Luther King Jr in “Drum Major Instinct,” sermon, Atlanta, February 4, 1968.

6 Bennett Sims in Servanthood, Leadership for the Third Millennium.

7 Bishop Curry in Love is the Way (Avery 2020).

8 I Corinthians 13:8.

9 Martin Luther King in A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from Great sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.