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.

Weeds and Wheat

The Gospel is Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

We explore another of Jesus’ parables this week. 

Humans may tend to be compulsive weed-pullers—we want to pull out and get rid of whatever we don’t like. But, as in the parable, “wheat” and “weeds” often are indistinguishable. 

Trying to pull up what we think are “weeds” may harm the whole, and this distracts us from positive activities including serving Christ in one another. He does not tell us to “pull up the weeds,” but rather to love one another.

One of the lessons we can learn from today’s parable is that many of the issues and questions of our lives are complicated, difficult and unclear. It’s not so easy for us to distinguish “true wheat” from “false wheat.” Indeed, our perspective on this may change as we mature.

Jesus Himself didn’t weed out all the “weeds” among those with whom he associated. Many of His close disciples exhibited weed-like behavior, and he did not pull these weeds. And how fortunate for us that Jesus does not pull out the weeds among us, for who among us is pure? 

Let what appears to be wheat, and what appears to be weeds, grow together. The world, if we were to be spiritually honest, isn’t clearcut, even (and especially) in our own lives. There are ambiguities, uncertainties, and plenty of “both/and.” Paradox is rife in reality, requiring us to walk in darkness and in trust, in faith.

We must start with a “yes” of basic acceptance, letting and forgiving, to allow for God and Grace.

God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We don’t have to be bright, pure, or filled with anything. Not only are we save by Grace, we live by it as well.

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.

Sowers, Seeds and Soil

The Gospel is Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Today we explore the first of eight parables in this Gospel. The parables are not straightforward declarations; they initiate the process of changing our consciousness, how we see the world, ourselves, and God. They are transformative.

Rather than explaining the parable, we examine some of the features so that our consciousness may be transformed.

In this parable, the Word is the “seed,” which never loses the potential to sprout and grow. Yet it, like Jesus, is vulnerable to the environment into which it is introduced. The seed is eternally fecund.

God is the sower, who casts the Word out into the world indiscriminately. We are the soil, sometimes receptive and full of love for God and our neighbor, and sometimes like the inhospitable well-trodden, sun-baked path.

This parable opens our eyes to all the ways we resist, diminish and choke the seed of God. It initiates the process of changing our consciousness and laying bare the fertile, vulnerable soil at the center of our being.

We should not be discouraged if the soil of our self is inhospitable. At times the seed grows very slowly, and there is more seed to come.

Remember that we are created in the likeness and image of God, the sower. We too can be indiscriminate, prodigal and spendthrift, like God, in casting the eternally fecund seed.

There’s always the chance that there is an imperceptible crack into which the seed may fall, growing and breaking the harsh inhospitable soil, like the Resurrection breaking the very bonds of death.

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.

We Were Made for This

The Gospel is Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

What does Jesus mean when he says, “I will give you rest"? What is he asking us to do when he invites us to “take my yoke upon you,” and to learn from him?

Rest happens when our true nature is realized, and we live in harmony with ourselves, our neighbors, nature and with God. He’s not inviting us to loaf, but rather to live from our true self, who we are in God.

Our ego self, our surface self, has its place in the first half of life, but it was never who we truly are in God. We can find rest from the constant effort of shoring up our small self.

The yoke, the work He asks us, is not onerous because we are yoked with Him in performing God’s work. We were created for the work He asks us to do, to bring forth God’s Kingdom on earth by loving God and loving our neighbors.

We come to know God by learning from Jesus, watching and imitating Jesus, so we in turn can become Christ for others and continually pour ourselves out for God and neighbor, receiving the same, again and again all in one Divine flow.

We long for this deep, intimate relationship with God and to return to our true self and His purpose of our lives. We were made for this.

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.

Divine Hospitality

The Gospel is Matthew 10:40-42

The Gospel this week concludes the description of Jesus sending out the Apostles. They were to rely entirely on God and the hospitality of those they met.

There are two interconnected messages in today’s text. Do we identify with the Apostles, prospective guests, or the prospective hosts for them?

Do we identify with the message of hospitality to be a good welcoming host, for the Christ within the stranger?

But Jesus would have seen the whole matter of sending out the Apostles who would be needing welcome, as guests. They did not have the privilege of power, to welcome others or not. They were vulnerable. The Apostles had only the power of Christ within them.

Hospitality isn’t intended to change people, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. The space of freedom is where host and guest meet.

Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being a messenger of God. Accepting help is as good as giving help. This is the balance of the “hospitality equation.” Guest and host are both needed, the helper and the one being helped are both needed.

Jesus makes clear that hospitality is an entrance to the Kingdom of God. It is the single most radical and transformative thing we can do in the world today.

Hospitality is the space of acceptance, freedom and love at the heart of God where change can take place. It is the freedom not disturbed by dividing lines, where we are free to be changed into our true Selves, who we are in Christ, Apostles to a bound and hurting world.

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.

Our Calling to Love

The Gospel is Matthew 10:24-39

The Pax Roman wasn’t truly a time of peace, and dissent was brutally suppressed. During this time Jesus taught his path of true peace, maintained by the power of divine love and forgiveness. 

A major theme of Matthew’s Gospel is the clash of kingdoms. Jesus’ nonviolent Kingdom of God was a threat to the worldly culture of that day, resulting in the murder of Jesus. 

Jesus identified the consequences His followers could expect. His statement “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” was not a call to violence. Rather, the commitment He calls for would be like a sword cleaving in two families, systems, and more.

In our time, people doing their jobs and staying true to their understanding of truth receive death threats to themselves and their families. This is the kind of consequence Jesus foretold for those giving themselves to his countercultural path.

We must choose where we will place our loyalty. The future holds more than rejection because of our embrace of Jesus’ countercultural way: we gain a new self that needs to grow and breathe in a natural way, and we may suffer along the way. If we lose the socially-approved but spiritually vacant life, we gain spiritual life.

Faith in God does not bring us safety. Danger still exists. As people of faith, we are invited to respond by loving, and our calling to love displaces fear. 

What does this calling to love look like in our individual lives, and to Christ Church as we face an uncertain future?

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.

Purpose

The Gospel is Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)

One definition of compassion is a deep feeling of sympathy for another’s suffering accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate that suffering. Jesus had compassion for the harassed and helpless crowds.

We’d expect him to take action to alleviate their suffering, but he did not do this. Instead, he commissioned his 12 disciples to do this work. This was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry; he wanted his disciples to participate with Him in the healing and redemption of the world.

At this point, the 12 disciples became “apostles”, which means “those who are sent out.” Their relationship with Jesus changed: they became his commissioned surrogates, His healing and transforming presence in the world. This is our calling also, as exemplified in our christening.

It is not a question of a good man who died 2000 years ago, but that of living man being, Jesus, being born in us as a new “little Christ.”

Thus we need to and learn to stand back from our habitual fussings and frettings, letting Him soak through us, permeate us.

The purpose of the Church is to draw us into Christ, to make us into “little Christs.” Our true selves are waiting for us in Christ, so we can fulfill our purpose and take the Gospel of God’s love and healing to the world.

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.