Going Deeper With Christ Episcopal Church

What is Our Function?

Matthew 21:33-46

The contours of our lives can be shaped by our desire to know Christ, as we pursue what we know to be the function of our lives—to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection.

We can get so caught up with the form of our lives, of our church, that we forget the function. Outer form may be all important. This was the case of St. Paul until, for Christ’s sake, he suffered the loss of all things.

The outward forms of Paul’s life were not in service to his new function in Christ, and thus he considered them as loss. New wines require new wineskins, new forms.

We now live in what some call “the age of authenticity” in which people look inward to find their truth, with concomitant distrust of inherited institutions.

This is a liminal, threshold moment for Christ Church. We seek to discern God’s calling in our lives together, our function, in the days and years to come.

We will soon have an all parish retreat to discern our function and mission. We have the opportunity to let go of old forms, reckless in our love, so that new life might spring eternal.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

In Hard Times

Matthew 21:23-32

The chief preachers and elders feel threatened by Jesus, for a number of reasons. They challenged his authority. He responded with hard questions.

Unlike the chief preachers and elders, we have Jesus to be with us when we face hard questions. And God provides for us in hard times.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reward of the Vineyard

Matthew 20:1-16

This week’s Gospel is the parable of the householder, landowner, and the day laborers.

We who live out our lives in a market economy might have trouble with this parable. But Jesus begins this parable with “the Kingdom of Heaven is like…”

From the householder’s view, the point is not what you get, but the fact that you work in the “vineyard,” the spiritual reality that permeates our physical, mental and social life.

We are sent into the material world to manifest more and more the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The work itself is the reward, the joy is in the contribution, in joining with the Lord of the Vineyard in creating a new and better world.

Isn’t this the joy for which we yearn? Jesus’ parable tells us that everyone who works in the vineyard receives “our daily bread.” The market/s tit for tat consciousness is replaced with the overflowing generosity consciousness of Jesus, God’s amazing, undeserved, grace.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Forgiveness

Matthew 18:15-20

Houston Smith, the great scholar of religions, said that forgiveness is most characteristic of Christianity.

Two-thirds of the teachings of Jesus are related to forgiveness, says Fr. Richard Rohr. Forgiveness was fundamental for Jesus. He forgave those who had tortured and crucified him.

But payback and its cousins is rampant in our world today. There has even been a popular TV show called “Revenge.” Revenge is seen as a virtue in many societies today.

There are evolutionary, biological bases for our predilection to strike back. But to act on such impulses is not good for us or for other. We can learn to rise above such instinctive responses.

In today’s Gospel, a king extended extravagant mercy, giving a slave and his family a future with freedom, hope and possibility. Yet this slave turned around and refused to forgive the debt of another, taking away the hope and future of the other.

Justice, alone, can take away a hope and a future. These often can only come through love, mercy, grace and forgiveness.

If we refuse to forgive others, this limits the flow of God’s mercy and forgiveness to and through us.

Are we willing to release our need to be right, and our need for retribution? Are we willing to break the cycle of pain, and follow Jesus in forgiveness?

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

True Community

Matthew 18:15-20

Matthew was concerned with community. We all say we want it, and we generally have no idea it is to come by

The framework for reconciliation provided in this week’s Gospel is much harder than talking behind people’s backs. Many of us have no background in resolving conflicts. Walking away is what we know best.

In this week’s Gospel passage, Jesus is teaching a skill for reconciliation and restoration of community. A skill isn’t enough; there must also be humility and love, found in relationship with God.

A history of repentance is helpful in reconciliation. Our egos bend more easily. Prayer practices can prepare us for this.

Our world needs true community. Too often, we settle for a surface level or false community. 

Communities often form around a negative view of an “out group”, and become oppositional groups which are not true communities but rather loose alliances of those with similar grievances.

Our Christ Church motto is “going deeper.” As we do this, we find that true community is not so much something we build, but something we discover in the deeper level of communion among the Trinitarian God.

God pulls us into community. When two or three are gathered to seek agreement, Christ is an active presence drawing them together.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Lose Your Surface Life

Matthew 16:21-28

Jesus rebuked Peter for setting his mind on human things, not Divine things.

Peter’s mind was rooted in the culture and beliefs of his day. We, too, are immersed in our culture and draw on human ways of doing things to solve our problems, not on God’s ways.

Our minds, hearts and will must be transformed to not be captured by the ways of our world.

How do we lose our surface life? We set our minds on Divine things by intentionally spending time emptying our minds of human things and steeping our minds in Divine things. Being in church is one of the ways we do this.

One hour on Sunday morning isn’t enough in light of the clamor of our culture. So we can spend time daily in prayer, devotions, noticing the presence of God in nature and creatures. We can catch ourselves when negative emotions arise, and ask ourselves if we’re focused on Divine things or human things.

We can learn to more and more live our lives from our deeper self, having lost our surface selves for Jesus’ sake and found our true life in Him.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Being Christ for One Another

Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

Was Jesus human, Divine, or some mixture of the two? Was He born knowing everything, or did He have to learn as all humans do.

Seven times in the Gospels, Jesus is described as “amazed.” If He already knew everything, how could He be amazed?

We’re also told that “Jesus grew in wisdom and maturity.” In other words, Jesus learned. He was truly human.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus not only learned but had His mind radically changed when a woman whom Jesus had insulted by calling her a “dog” responded from the fierce love she held for her daughter. He saw in her the same love He shared with His Heavenly Father. He was stunned, His mind was changed, and he repented. Her daughter was healed instantly.

Even Jesus was susceptible to falling into the trap of in-group superiority, prejudice and tribalism. Jesus models for us how to repent from initial hardheartedness. He allowed her to be Christ to Him, and to bring Him back to His own Christ identity.

Jesus teaches us humility.

Are we able, like Jesus in today’s Gospel, to repent from our culturally-conditioned mindsets, and to find our deeper, truer, identity as a beloved child of God?

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Be Not Afraid

Matthew 14:22-33

The disciples were terrorized when their boat was battered, tormented, by the waves. The wind was like a demonic adversary fighting against them. Their fear of otherworldly beings was heightened by a “ghost” walking across the waves toward them. Then Jesus said, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

Jesus’ earthly life is bracketed by warnings against fear. In our lives, fear can paralyze us, and turn us inward in unhealthy ways.

Peter courageously obeyed the command of Jesus when he sought to walk toward Jesus in the midst of the storm. Yet when his fear grew, threatening to engulf him, Jesus stretched out his hand to save him.

Jesus asked Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” This helped Peter to understand why he sank. His inner focus on the reality of Jesus was replaced by his outer occupation on his outer, threatening, circumstances. This happens with us as well, both individually and in the aggregate (corporately).

The invitation is for us individually, and as member of this church. What are we afraid of? What are we doing here? In whom will we place our trust?

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Whose Transfiguration?

Luke 9:28-36

Humans memorialize great moments, mystical experiences, by building structures such as the church at the site of the Transfiguration. We don’t want to lose the experience of a Divine encounter.

The institutional structure of the Church, the New Testament, and Holy Communion, are efforts to preserve and pass down what originally were mystical experiences with the Divine.

But when the ritual becomes more important than the Living God which they are intended to convey, they can become roadblocks rather than passages to God.

Peter’s intention to outwardly memorialize the Transfiguration by building structures missed the point. In the living God we live, and move and have our being—not in any structure, building, bible, or liturgy.

Buildings, bibles, traditions, music, liturgies, can become objects of worship rather than the living God.

As C.S. Lewis observed, “The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.  If they are not doing that. all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself are simply a waste of time.  God became Man for no other purpose.”

Jesus’ transfiguration must become our transfiguration. We must remember today’s Gospel and its lessons as our congregation discerns what is next after Fr. Mark retires.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reprioritize and Recenter

Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

We explore more of Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, this week.

We might be emotionally and energetically drained by events over which we have no control, like a power outage. Rather than being actors in the drama of our own lives, we might be re-actors.

Instead of being whole, much of the time we might be shattered, in pieces, despite the fundamental groundedness in God at the core of our own beings.

We can grow up into Christ and not be tossed every which way. In Christ we find freedom from the bondage of our outer circumstances, in the Kingdom of Heaven within.

This is the one true treasure, hidden within and buried within the field of ourselves. We can sell the “farm” and put our whole being into the Kingdom of God, desirable and priceless, within.

We can reprioritize all else, which we must do to recenter our lives in the love of God, in the Kingdom of God within.

By forsaking all things as “gods” to be worshipped, we regain them from our personal center in the Kingdom of Heaven within us. Thus we become actors rather than re-actors in the drama of our own lives.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.