Michael Seiler

Tag: Miracles

  • Alignment

    Just the other day, I went shopping at IKEA, and in the self-serve area, I managed to grab a shopping cart that had one of those wheels that seemed to have a mind of its own. Every time I hit a little seam in the concrete, the cart would dramatically swerve off in the direction of the rut. It ended up being more of a workout than a shopping experience. 

    Now, I suppose that I could have kicked that wheel repeatedly until it fell off, since it was causing my cart to stumble, but in the end, I just kept pulling the cart back into alignment. It was more work, but I was able to keep the cart in one piece that way.

    In the Gospel passage today, we see that John has seen someone casting out a demon in the name of Jesus, and tried to stop him because he did not belong to their little band of disciples. But Jesus tells him that if the person is doing good in the name of Jesus, that he should not stop them, because, “If they are not against us, then they are for us.” In other words, “It doesn’t matter if they are a part of us. If they are not actively opposing us, then they are basically on our team.”

    If the four wheels on my shopping cart were all different people, then I would have said that the only one actively opposed to our mission was the one that kept flopping around, trying to get us to smash into a shelf of glass bowls. But, it’s true that any of the other four wheels could not have cared about where I was trying to go. They weren’t deliberately trying to yank us off course, and so I would never have known where their true allegiances lay, because as far as I was concerned, they were all in alignment.

    What’s interesting in this passage is that Jesus goes from talking about alignment to talking about sin. He goes from talking about the alignment of people to the greater mission of Jesus in this world, to talking about our own alignment with Jesus. If our hand, your foot, your eye, causes you to stumble – that is, to sin – then cut them off and throw them away, because it’s better for you to go about maimed in life, than to set yourself on a course of destruction. Or, to put it into my shopping cart analogy, it is better to pull off the wonky wheel of the shopping cart that is your life, and run around with three wheels than it is to smash your shopping cart into a shelf full of glass. 

    Now, in order to understand that our actions are causing us to stumble, we need a few things. Namely, we need to know what sin is. And to know what sin is, we need knowledge, which comes from reading scripture, and from spending time with others who might teach us. But more than knowledge, what we need is to acknowledge that what we are doing is causing damage to us or to others. That’s called self-awareness. And it might seem like that is an easy thing, but we only ever get self-awareness in two ways: from the Holy Spirit, or from others in community. We might know what sin is, but lack self-awareness that we are embracing it. Remember that saying about a sliver in someone else’s eye, while we ignore the log in our own eye? How are people going to know about the sliver in their eye, unless we tell them? And how are we going to know about the log that is resting in our own eye? Unless we also have the humility to allow others to tell us that, and unless we have the trust built up with others that we give them the permission to point these things out in our lives, then we are just a person with enormous knowledge of the bible, but without the ability to affect much change in our lives, or the lives of others, because we are effectively isolated from each other.

    Well, this is where Jesus’ admonition to acknowledge our sin and take action to change it comes squarely into play with the passage in James today. James was part of the early church in Jerusalem, and here we see how that early community was attempting to live with the reality that each of us can, at times, be a wonky wheel on the shopping cart of life. We cause others to veer off course, to cause themselves and the community damage, and we may not even realize what we are doing.

    “Are any among you suffering? They should pray.” 

    “Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.”

    “Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.”

    “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”

    If you look at these things, you see that the consistent thread is prayer. And the second consistency is community. That is, James and his merry band of believers were attempting to break down the isolation that comes from sin and pride. You see, even when we are aware of the sins in our lives, and acknowledge that they are there, we often do not want to share that with people. And so we live in isolation, and we suffer silently and alone. We are ashamed, and we live with guilt, and yet, we still do not want to confess those things to others, out of fear of rejection.

    And it is here, in this space, this type of thinking that we can become that wonky wheel that throws the whole cart out of whack, that causes damage to ourselves and others, and causes us and the whole community to veer off course. Because we carry too much pride, and too much fear to allow others to care for our souls.

    The prayer, the confession, the sharing and singing for joy that James brings up in this passage are all intended to first and foremost bring the community of believers into alignment. They are intended, not to make sure that everyone conforms to a particular set of beliefs, but that we all at least come to the realization that we are moving toward a larger goal. These calls to prayer and confession in James are intended, at the very least, to get us to quit being actively against our own good, and against the greater good of the community of believers. They are intended to at least make sure that we are not against one another – and therefore, for one another: aligned. Aligned with a common goal, which is to point ourselves, and our community toward God. Because it is in God alone that we are truly aligned, and can find our rest and comfort.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on September 29, 2024.]

  • We Can Do Nothing Else

    Several years ago, I read a book on finances, which talked about the concept of creating multiple streams of income – some of which we would call “side hustles” today –  but included things like investing and real estate. I learned the concepts and told all of my friends about this, because it made sense.

    A few years later, when I had a chance to meet up with one of these friends, I found out that he had taken the concepts that I had shared with him, and had purchased a bar with a restaurant. Outside of his day job as a teacher, he was running a successful bar, even though the extra work was difficult and time-consuming. He thanked me for having shared that information with him, because he felt it made his life better, and allowed him the extra money to engage his goal of traveling the world.

    Several years later, I was on a morning walk with my dad, and told him this story, both about how I had shared the good news with my friend, and how my friend had taken that knowledge and put it into practice. And then, as dads do, my father asked the question: “If this was such wonderful information, why did your friend do this, but you didn’t?” It only took me a moment to respond: “Well, I saw no purpose other than to put a few extra shekels in my coin bag. That’s not really a worthy purpose. While I knew that the information was true, I didn’t believe that the effort was worth the gain.” 

    Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, documented this need for purpose in his book, Man’s Search For Meaning. Even in the horrible treatment they received, the torture that they experienced, Frankl noticed that among his fellow prisoners, those that had a purpose beyond the immediate day to day were the ones who were able to endure torture, suffering and humiliation. He wrote that the greatest courage that a person can have is the courage to suffer. And, as he watched these other prisoners, he came to the realization that “those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’”

    Today’s Gospel is the conclusion of the Bread of Life Discourse. Jesus has fed people with miraculous food, shaken their understanding of the Messiah, and offered them freedom. The people tried to forcibly make Jesus their king, and Jesus ran away, because this is not how God intended to save the world. He offered them eternal life through his own flesh, and told them that they only needed to believe in him and follow his example. He would not become their king, because God had other plans.

    And the people complained, and walked away. They quit being his disciples.

    It is important to realize that they did not reject Jesus because of who Jesus was. After all, they had seen him turn water into wine, walk on water, and feed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish. They had seen him heal people, and restore them to their lives within the community. They had watched him make the claim that he was the Messiah. And then, they tried to force him to become their king. They obviously were pretty excited about Jesus. 

    So what gives?

    We know that from time to time, in this region of the world, religious zealots would arise and amass a following, and the people often believed that these leaders would free them from the oppressive Roman rule. These people would mount an uprising against the Roman overlords – and were routinely defeated. These leaders were the strongest men in the room, those who wanted to bring a hammer to the oppressors, those who wanted to free the oppressed, and restore Israel to its former glory. And so when Jesus comes in, heals people, performs miracles, and feeds a group of people the size of an army, they obviously think: this one is it – this is the right one to make it happen for us. Finally!

    But Jesus tells them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood. That if his body, the temple, is destroyed, he will raise it again in three days. That he will give his life as a salvation for many. That he will offer himself as a sacrifice. And he will do it out of compassion and love for all the people of the world. He would offer them freedom, if they just believed in him, and did as he did.

    And the people said: “Nope! Not going to happen.” And they walked away.

    To put this into Viktor Frank’s framework, they did not reject the “why” of this situation. They did not reject Jesus. They did not reject the “Why” of the Messiah. They did not reject the idea that a Messiah was to come, or the purpose of the Messiah. What they rejected was the “How.” They rejected “how” Jesus would offer the freedom and salvation he promised but not the “why.”

    Or, to put it a different way, they did not believe that the “how” was worth the “why.” They did not believe that the extra effort was worth the gain.

    By rejecting the “how,” these people were really saying, “We want to control how you provide for us, how you offer freedom, and how you save the world. We don’t want it to happen your way, we want it to happen our way.” And because Jesus was unmoving, because Jesus ran away from them when they tried to make him their king by force, because Jesus continued to offer his way, rather than theirs, they rejected his leadership and they left.

    Last week we talked about all the ways in which we consume Jesus, with the ultimate goal being that we take his words and the example of his life as the ultimate model for our own.  But, as one commentator puts it, 

    “The more we realize that faith calls us to consume the body and blood of Christ, to embrace his death and resurrection and to emulate his manner of living and dying for others, the more difficult the journey of faith becomes.”1

    I’ve watched people make religion about rules and regulations. I’ve watched them reduce the entirety of the faith down to the task of upholding those rules. Because rules are easy. Rules tell you where the good stops and the bad starts. Rules tell you where you will find light and where you will find darkness. They make simple the distinctions between right and wrong. 

    And more importantly, the rules are easy to control. And when we can control the rules, we can control people. We can define what it means to follow Christ or deny him, and we can tell people when they are wrong, or welcome them when they are right.

    But life is never that clear. It is a muddy mess. And the path to Jesus is never as clear as “do this and you’ll be right with God. Do that, and God will erase your name from the book of life.” Our lives are a twisted, convoluted mess of “hows” trying to move toward the “why” of Jesus.  And we will never be able to uphold the entirety of any set of rules and regulations just by sheer force of will. And trying to uphold the “how” that we – or others – have set is why so many people look at our religion and say, “This is a difficult teaching. Who can accept it?” And they walk away. Not from God, but from that version of God that would ask them to conform exactly as we define it. Because that is the example we have given. When we choose a religion of rules over the sacrifice, compassion and love of Christ, we have done exactly the same: we have turned to Jesus and said, “This is a difficult teaching. How can we accept it?” and walked away. And people are simply following our example, because we have rejected the example of Christ, and instead have chosen an easy “how.”

    But thankfully, that is not the “how” that Jesus envisioned. Jesus did not make a set of rules and tell us we had better – or else.

    Instead, as our eucharistic prayer says:

    “when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

    He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.” (Eucharistic Prayer A)

    Jesus came not to be the strong man, he came to be the lamb. He didn’t come to destroy the world. He didn’t come to conquer, but to sacrifice. All so that he could reconcile the world to God.

    God, through Jesus, defined not only the “why,” but also the “how.” Jesus said that the life that he would give for the salvation of humanity is his own, and his life is all about sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation. 

    This is the model of “how” and this is the way in which we are to approach the world. We are to offer our own lives as a sacrifice for others, we are to show compassion, forgiveness, and seek reconciliation where possible. Our lives are to be a beacon of light in a dark world, and our words, actions and attitudes are to be the bread of life to those around us – through the example of sacrifice that Jesus set for us. Because that example leads to eternal life. But more importantly, that example leads to abundant life, and it leads to peace and joy in this life as well.

    This is what the disciples understood. When Jesus asked if they would leave him too, Peter’s response was less of a “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” and more of a “Now that we see and understand, we can do nothing else but follow you.”

    Let us pray that we too can do nothing else.

    1. Feasting on the Word, Year B, Proper 16, p. 383

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on August 25, 2024.]

  • Cannibal Christians?

    This week’s Gospel reading begins with the last verse in last week’s reading. Namely, that Jesus tells the people that the “bread that [he] will give for the life of the world is [his] flesh.” Now, this is already a statement that makes an outrageous claim, and we see it when the people begin arguing amongst themselves. But more importantly, the Jewish people would have been under strict purity laws that would have even made it taboo for them to eat the flesh or drink the blood of certain animals. To then add in the idea of eating human flesh would have been disgusting. But how would they have felt about this?

    From 1978 to 1991, there was an active serial killer in the United States who would eat the body parts of his victims after he had murdered them. Most of you are old enough to remember this being plastered across the news because one of his intended victims escaped, and then the police began to investigate. When the police entered this man’s home, they found human body parts, wrapped up in butcher paper, and neatly stacked in the refrigerator and the freezer, awaiting a future meal. 

    When asked why he had killed so many people, the man said that he was incredibly lonely. And by killing these people and consuming their flesh, he felt that they would become a part of him. And if they became a part of him, then they would be with him forever.

    Now, I can tell by some of your faces that you find this scenario pretty disgusting, and outrageous. Incomprehensible even. For those of us of sane mind and sound body.

    I want you to remember this feeling.

    The people listening to Jesus would have wanted the gift of eternal life, and the hope that they would never thirst or hunger again. They could see a glimmer of the beauty that Christ offered, but they would have been confused at this outrageous claim that they must eat his body and drink his blood in order to be a part of him. 

    How can this be? How can we eat Jesus’ flesh? But this is unusual. It is gruesome. It is shocking. It is taboo. What does Jesus mean?

    Now, we have the luxury of looking back on Jesus’ words, and we know that Jesus is shifting their minds from the physical and literal into the spiritual and eternal. We know that when we “eat his flesh,” we are partaking in spiritual realities, even though they may also have real world substance.

    But this still begs the question: How do we eat Jesus’ flesh? How do we eat, partake, and consume Jesus?

    Well, there are several ways, all of which are in our corporate worship.

    The first is what we call the Liturgy of the Word, which is just a fancy way of saying that we read the Bible and talk about it. Our lector comes up, and reads scripture from the assigned readings for the day: the Lectionary. It is through the reading of this scripture that we consume the Word of God. And we know, according to John’s Gospel, that “in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This, of course, is referring to Jesus, God’s Word. And Jesus came down so that his spoken words and the example of his life would be a guidepost to us. The more we hear the Word of God read aloud, the more we begin to assimilate these words into our life and attempt to live by them. 

    The sermon interprets those scriptures for us, and helps us to apply them to our daily lives. If you look closely at the words in the liturgy, you will also see how much of the liturgy has been pulled directly from Scriptures, and the inclusion of the Nicene Creed explains in detail what we believe about Jesus, the Son of God. By listening to the reading of Scripture, by listening to the sermon, and by engaging in the liturgy, we are consuming Christ through spoken word. We can also consume Christ in the spoken and written word by reading the bible on our own, or taking part in group bible studies, book studies, and group theological discussions. These ways are pretty straightforward, and they certainly don’t bring up any awkward feelings of cannibalism, but they are, in fact, a way of consuming Christ in our lives.

    The Eucharist is the second way in which we can consume the body of Christ. In the Episcopal church, we believe that the presence of Christ is truly in the elements of bread and wine. And this passage in John is part of where we get this understanding. 

    In the second chapter of John, Jesus told the people that if they destroyed the temple, he would raise it up again in three days. The people thought he was talking about the temple in Jerusalem that took 46 years to build, but Jesus was talking about his body. John’s Gospel then records that after his death and resurrection, his disciples remembered his words, and understood that he had been talking about himself when he said he would raise the temple in three days.

    Like the disciples, we also have the luxury of understanding events after they have transpired. In this passage today, Jesus says that the bread that he will give people for eternal life is his own flesh. And that if people do not eat of this flesh and drink of this blood, they will have no life in him.

    In the other Gospels, at the Last Supper, Jesus uses what we call the Words of Institution when he breaks the bread and prepares the wine – words that we hear every Sunday in the liturgy: “This is my body .. this is my blood … do this in remembrance of me.” 

    At the crucifixion, at the moment that Jesus died, there was a loud sound, as of thunder, and the temple veil that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple was ripped in half, symbolizing that God’s presence was available to the world through the body of Christ that hung on a cross as a forgiveness for our sins. And when he rebuilt the temple – his body – again in three days, he conquered death and brought us eternal life, and it is through this temple, Christ’s Body, that we stand in the presence of God. 

    We do not claim to understand how exactly that works. We instead allow God to maintain that mystery for us, and we accept it on faith that in some manner, these elements of bread and wine become for us the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. And we consume them and thank God that we have been fed with Spiritual Food, as we enter into the eternal promise and wait for Christ’s coming in glory.

    Of course, using words like Flesh and Blood when talking about the Eucharist brings up those awkward feelings of cannibalism. And our ancestors in the faith had to deal with the gossip and persecution that ensued from speaking about eating Christ’s body and blood, because those outside the faith would have been as disgusted at the thought of eating flesh as we were at the thought of human body parts in a freezer.

    A third way that we can consume Christ is through the community of believers.

    When telling kids about the Eucharist, we talk about the presence of God in the bread and wine, and we mention that if they have eaten of this bread and wine, then Christ is inside them. And, through the way that our bodies process food, the body and blood of Jesus becomes a part of them too.

    Then, we ask, what happens if your friend eats of this bread and wine? The kids usually understand very quickly that Jesus becomes a part of their friend too, and that now, after the Eucharist, Christ has become a part of both of them. And, if Jesus is now a part of both of them, then they are both a part of Jesus.

    Last week we read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in which Paul said that “we are all members of one another,” and that we are to put away all bitterness and wrath and to be kind to one another. Paul also said that we should let no evil talk come out of our mouths, but rather, only what is useful for building each other up, so that our words might be grace for those that hear. 

    And this week, Paul continues with that theme. Paul exhorts the people of Ephesus to be wise, for the days are evil. We must be wise, Paul writes, so that we can know the Will of the Father. Together we sing songs, and together we share our gratefulness and thankfulness not only with God, but with each other.

    Both of these passages from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians basically tell us that our words, our actions, our attitudes, are food that help to grow – to build up – one another in Christ. What Paul is saying is that our words are spiritual food for each other. Our words, our actions, and our attitudes toward one another are also The Bread of Life, because they are fueled by the Holy Spirit, by the Presence of God within us.

    It is when we seek God’s wisdom, and when we seek God’s will that we become food for life to one another and that we feed on the Christ that is in each of us. That is, I consume the Christ that is in you, and you consume the Christ that is in me. Because our words come from the place of wisdom that seeks to know God’s will, and to speak kindness, love, gentleness and forgiveness into each other. 

    It is for this reason that Paul tells us to be wise. Our words, our actions, our attitudes – when they stem from the wisdom of knowing the will of God, will build each other up, will build up the community, the body of Christ, because our words will be like food for the soul. 

    But when we seek our own will, and when we fall into the temptation to behave according to what the world holds dear, rather than what God holds dear, then we run the risk of eating each other in order to build up ourselves.

    We become Spiritual Cannibals.

    That feeling of disgust that we had at the idea of body parts wrapped in butcher paper and stored for a future meal in a freezer is the same disgust that we should feel when we watch people gossip about others, when they slander people for their own personal gain, when they call people names and question the other person’s character for political capital. We should be as disgusted at those who belittle others and denigrate them, denying the dignity of their humanity, as we are at those who would eat the flesh of another human, because in the end, it amounts to the same thing: the destruction of another human being. This sort of behavior is not spiritual food that builds up the community of Christ, and it certainly isn’t spiritual food that feeds a hurting world.

    Jesus said, “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

    Christ wants us to consume him so utterly and completely, so that we do not consume each other.

    Christ, the bread of heaven is eternal and infinite, and when we consume Christ so completely in Word, Sacrament, and the life-giving words of a Community, we find that we have an infinite ability to feed others with the Christ that is within us.

    As the phrase goes: We are what we eat. 

    We can choose to eat what the world offers us, or we can choose to consume Christ.

    If we eat of the Word of God, and if we partake of the Eucharist, and if we live together in Community, building each other up in love and sacrifice, then what we will find is that we become ever more like Christ. We become united with him, and each other, and we become Christ’s body.

    Let us eat of this bread, so that the Christ that dwells in us might be the bread of life for others.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on August 18, 2024.]

  • The Food That Endures

    If we were to look at today’s Gospel as one episode of a miniseries, we would start out with a tableau of Jesus feeding the five thousand people. We would see the people laughing and patting their bellies because they were so full, more full than they had ever been. … Fade to black … then we come back in, and the people are talking to themselves, “We should make him king!” And then a scene of a horde of people chasing down Jesus, whom we see running off, and hiding. .. Another Fade to Black scene … and then the opening credits for today’s episode.

    And despite this being a new day. The only difference is that instead of running from the crowd of people, Jesus stands up and confronts them.

    You see, when the crowd figured out that Jesus had disappeared, they too got into boats and went searching for Jesus. When they found him, he was in Capernaum. They were still looking to make him their earthly king, and they were still in search of provision, of food, and of securing their future. They had seen the miracles of healing and glories unimaginable – and they were swayed instead, by Jesus feeding them with an abundance of food beyond their capacity to eat it all.

    And Jesus calls them out for this behavior, telling them that they are not looking for him because of the signs – or miracles – that they saw, but because they had eaten their fill of food.

    It’s important to note that in John’s Gospel, the word “signs” is used where other gospels talk about “miracles,” because in John’s Gospel, all the miracles that Jesus does are actually “signs” that are pointing to Jesus’ true nature as the Messiah, the chosen of God, the beginning and the end of God’s purpose and provision.

    So, what Jesus is saying to them here is basically, you are not looking for me because you saw the signs and recognized that I am the Messiah. You are only looking for me because of what I did for you, and what you think I can do for you in the future. You’re not concerned about me as God’s Chosen, you’re concerned about me as your meal ticket, your provider of the miraculous, your servant who does what you want.

    And then Jesus shifts their thinking, from the old way of looking at God’s provision as physical safety and comfort to faith in the Son of Man. He says:

    “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

    And so they ask, “What must we do to perform the works of God?”

    And Jesus says, “This is the work of God: that you believe in him whom God has sent.” In other words, Jesus is saying, I am God’s provision for you; believe in me and what I am and will teach you, and God will provide for you in eternity, because I am the one whom God has sent for your salvation. Or, more bluntly put, I am the Messiah.

    And the people respond: “Well, that obviously can’t be you. If it was you, then you would show us a sign – a miracle – to prove it. Our ancestors gave us manna in the wilderness, Our ancestors gave them bread from heaven to eat. Sure, Jesus, you fed us beyond our capacity, but that’s just not a good enough sign to show us that you’re the Messiah.”

    Have you heard of the concept of a paradigm shift? The idea is that we have lived with one paradigm – one way of looking at the world – for so long, that when another viewpoint comes along we initially throw up our hands and remain skeptical. Skeptical even, to the point of resistance, because the claim seems to be so cataclysmically different than what they have known that the shift simply seems too grandiose and outrageous. 

    One such moment in history came when Nicholas Copernicus published his book arguing that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around. “Heresy!” said the members of the church – both protestant and catholic alike. God created humankind, and because we were God’s chosen, the concept that we were not the center of the universe simply could not be. Oddly enough, the views expressed by Copernicus were not immediately refuted, because Copernicus was actually well known in the Catholic church, and respected. It was when other scientists, less involved with the church, began to build upon the knowledge that Copernicus provided with new ideas that threatened the status quo, that Copernicus’ books were banned, and his ideas placed under quarantine. Change was coming, and it was coming too fast for some people to bear, and so they responded with skepticism and resistance.

    This is essentially what is going on for the people here. They had been looking for a Messiah, and had been looking for signs that would show him to be God’s Chosen, but they were expecting a Messiah of their own making, and not the Messiah that God had actually sent. They were looking for Jesus in the old paradigm, and signs to fit that viewpoint.

    This is the start of their skepticism and resistance, and while they are expressing their disbelief, Jesus confirms exactly what they are thinking:

    It wasn’t your ancestors who fed you with bread from heaven, it was God. God sent that provision, and God also gives you the true bread from heaven. And that bread, that bread alone gives life to the world.

    “Sir,” the people responded, ”give us that bread. And not just now, but always.”

    And Jesus responds: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

    If you thought people were skeptical before, imagine their skepticism now. If there was ever a grandiose claim to be made, this is a paradigm shift of epic grandeur:

    I am God’s provision for you. 
    I am the one whom God has sent to save you and to care for you.
    I am the one who will provide for you for all eternity. 
    I am life, and life abundant.
    Believe in me and you will never hunger, and you will never thirst.

    People wanted a messiah who would work for them according to their desires, who would provide for them as a king would with physical provision and safety. And instead they got a messiah that God sent them, a messiah who would be best for them. They got a messiah that said that for all eternity, they could live a life without hunger or thirst, as long as they believed in what the Son of Man would give them.

    One of the questions that the people listening to Jesus, and therefore the people listening to John’s Gospel would have wondered is this: “How can this man, this Jesus be the bread from heaven? How can he be manna from above? And more to the point, how can he be our provision so that we never again hunger and thirst?”

    Over the centuries, during wartime and famine, Christians have obviously confronted hunger and thirst, and have even died from that hunger or that thirst. So what did Jesus mean when he said, “I am the bread of life?” What did he mean when he said that those who came to him would never hunger and thirst? Well, he meant that he would be God’s provision for them in all situations, but that the provision he spoke of would transcend life and death, time and space. It shifted the paradigm from one in which Jesus would be the salvation of Israel in their lifetime only, to one in which Jesus would be the salvation of the world, for all eternity.

    While Jesus calls himself the bread of life, and is compared to manna from heaven, the fact that Jesus is the bread of life has nothing to do with eating or drinking, and instead, has to do with the identity of Christ himself, and who we consider Jesus to be.

    Years ago, I was struggling with something, and couldn’t keep myself from turning to a particular vice to cope with my frustrations and anger. In a conversation with one of my mentors, he said: “When you are confronted with this issue, ask yourself this question: ‘Why isn’t Jesus enough?’” My initial reaction was confusion, and then anger. The answer to that question is often simply this: “Because Jesus isn’t around right now, and I need an immediate result.” Or, “Because Jesus isn’t here in the flesh, and I cannot ask him for answers directly.” Or, in reality, any number of responses that showed that I wanted Jesus to act according to my own desires and my own paradigm.

    This question, “Why isn’t Jesus enough?” can be applied to any situation in our lives, even though it seems like one that might be applied to matters of the heart more than matters of the body.

    I’m struggling to buy groceries. Why isn’t Jesus enough? Because I’m broke and need immediate help, and I fear I might starve.

    I’ve just lost my job, and am facing eviction from my apartment. Why isn’t Jesus enough? Because I’m running out of money and am frightened for my family’s safety and my own.

    I’ve just been diagnosed with a chronic illness that will eventually leave me broken and bedridden. Why isn’t Jesus enough? Because there is no medical cure, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen a miracle of that sort of magnitude, and I fear the future.

    If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that all the answers to the question of why Jesus is not enough have to do with our fears and our desires. They still have to do with what Jesus can do for us, rather than the presence of God as the provision of our lives. They have to do with Jesus feeding us physically, rather than the food that endures for eternal life. These answers show us that our needs are still at the center of our own universe.

    But the Son of Man does not revolve around us. 

    Rather, it is each of us that revolves around the Son of God, working together to bring about the work of God. In the letter to the Romans, Paul writes that “all things work together for good, for those who are called according to God’s purpose.” It doesn’t say that all things work together for our good. It says that all things work together for good. And the good that is discussed here is God’s work in this world. The work that Christ called each of us to take part in, which is to reconcile the world to God.

    It is a hard pill to swallow to realize that this does not mean that all things will work out well for us, but rather, that all things will work out for the good of God’s purpose in this world. And that means that sometimes, our pain, our suffering, or even our misfortune can be used by God, for God’s greater purpose.

    This is a huge shift in our thinking, for sure. But this is the reason that we commemorate the lives of the saints, especially those who were martyred for their faith. They faced death, and yet their lives inspired multitudes of Christians to go and serve God with all that they had, and despite the hardships they might face.

    Mother Theresa, who worked with the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta, had a moment early in her life in which she felt the presence of Christ incredibly deeply. But after this, she struggled with spiritual darkness and the feeling of God’s absence for the vast majority of her ministry. Rather than lamenting the loss of God’s presence, she embraced it, and continued her work, remembering that foretaste of eternity that she had felt so many years before. Christ had become for her, even in the midst of her own suffering, the bread of life that sustained her in her work and ministry, until the day she entered the heavenly banquet of God’s presence at her death.

    And so it is for us. It is when we can shift our thinking to see the good even in our own suffering that we can begin to understand how Jesus can be God’s provision beyond our earthly needs, how Jesus can be God’s Bread of Life, how Jesus can be the food that endures for eternal life.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on August 4, 2024.]

  • Filled to Fullness

    These past few weeks I’ve had to deal with insurance companies on getting my medication sent to me. It’s incredibly frustrating, irritating, and stressful. In the Gospel today, we see that people had heard that Jesus was out in the wilderness, curing people, and that they rushed after him to find him, so that they could be healed. Now, these people were poor, very likely could not afford their insurance premiums or the doctor’s visit copays. I can tell you, there were moments where I was so frustrated that if I had heard about someone running around in the desert healing people, I would have dropped everything and run off to find this stranger so that I could be cured. Just like these people in the Gospel who were following Jesus everywhere he went.

    The interesting thing about today’s passage is that we know that Jesus knows why these people are running after him and his disciples – they want healing. But what does Jesus do? He turns to his disciples and says, “How are we going to pay for all these people to eat?”

    Wait? What? Jesus knows they are coming to him for healing from their illnesses, and instead of preparing the disciples to act as medical assistants and get people ordered into a queue for healing, he turns to them and asks how they were going to feed these people. The people come for healing, and Jesus wants to feed them. A curious thing, and one we’ll come back to later. 

    But first, the Gospel tells us that Jesus already knows what he is going to do, and he asks his disciples how to pay to feed all these people in order to test the disciples.

    To test them.

    These responses by the disciples are really examples of how we all often react.

    The first response is by Philip, who looks at the size of the people in the crowd, does a mental calculation, and says, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” Now, it’s true, Jesus might have set him up with the question on how they were going to pay for it all, but Philip takes that question, and runs with the idea that he and the other disciples need to make it happen. That the onus to feed these people is all on them and their resources. And for Philip, it’s about money.

    Now, what’s interesting to note about this passage, is that it has often been used by those who preach the Prosperity Gospel. This message states that God wants all of us to be blessed financially, and that those who sacrifice to God like the young boy in the story that gave up his barley bread and fish lunch for others will receive that blessing. That is, God will multiply what you give, and you will reap the earthly reward of extreme financial blessing. 

    That’s a tempting teaching to follow, isn’t it? If I just give five bucks to the church, God will multiply it, and I will be financially blessed. 

    But notice the mindset. The recipient of the blessing is always me, the one who gives, and gives sacrificially. More to the point, if I am giving to the church in order to receive, then I have to admit that I am using God as a strategy, a means to manipulate God into blessing me with abundance.

    Now, I know we might look at ourselves and say, thankfully, we don’t believe that sort of thing. But how often do we tell ourselves that blessings will come upon us if we just read our bible more? Or go to church more? Or pray more? We may not be thinking of financial blessing, but only of spiritual blessing. But these are all part of the same coin, which is that we think that God’s abundance is somehow dependent upon what we do, rather than on God’s compassion and love for us. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that God makes his sun rise on evil and good, and sends rain to the just and the unjust alike. That is to say, God defines our path, and our state in life is not related to our level of righteousness. In fact, God’s grace and mercy always shine a light on what Jesus did on the cross more than on what we try to do for God.

    And also, here’s the thing: the one who makes the sacrifices in this story is the boy. He gave of his barley bread and his fish, and yet the people who benefit are all the assembled people. Not just this boy. Everyone benefited. God took what was sacrificed, and multiplied it – for the benefit of all the people.

    Now, the second response we get is from Andrew, Peter’s brother. His response to Jesus’ question has nothing to do with money, but has to do with available resources. He’s the one who makes Jesus aware that they do have resources available, but then he immediately admits defeat, and asks, “But what are they among so many?” 

    Andrew’s response is coming from a mindset of scarcity. It proclaims defeat before even beginning. It’s almost as if Andrew is saying, “Well, we do not have enough, so let’s not do anything at all.” 

    Another way that people have tried to rationalize or explain this miracle of feeding the five thousand is this: this boy was willing to make a sacrifice and share his food, and by Jesus drawing attention to that sacrificial giving, everyone in the crowd was driven to share their own food. Food that they apparently had stashed away and were trying to hide from others. In other words, what happened was less a miracle of multiplication, and more of an impromptu potluck.

    The trouble with this interpretation is that it reduces this miracle to nothing more than a moral platitude, a reminder that everything we ever needed to know we learned in kindergarten. It makes the assumption that people are inherently greedy and unwilling to share. It makes the assumption that none of these people were poor, or even going hungry, but rather that they just didn’t want to share any of their own resources. These people were not secretly hiding a stash of food, trying to avoid sharing with others. It was a miracle, and God multiplied what was given to him.

    Now, it’s true. We can all share, and sometimes we do all need to be reminded to share our own blessings with others. After all, that’s why the church takes donations. It is through our sacrificial giving that the church is able to help those who are struggling, both within our church and out in the community. 

    One commentator put it this way:

    “Jesus needs what we bring him. It may not be much but he needs it. It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we will not bring to Jesus what we have and what we are … little is always much in the hands of Christ.” (Barclay, John, V. 1, p. 205)

    But notice again the thread of the above comment. Jesus takes what we give him, and multiplies what little we bring into an abundance. Not to accomplish our goals, but to accomplish God’s goals. Not to bless us only, but to bless all the people of God through miracles and triumphs across the world. It’s just that The People of God includes us as well, so when God takes what we give to accomplish God’s purposes, we benefit as well, along with others; the entire community of believers benefits.

    Now, the third response to Jesus’ question is his own. We were already told that he knew what he was going to do when he tested his disciples with this question about money. But the interesting thing is the turn that Jesus takes in his response. We know that these people had been running through the countryside to find Jesus so that he could heal their physical ailments, to be cured of their sicknesses, to be relieved of the stress and irritation their illnesses might be causing them.

    And what does Jesus do? Rather than line them up for healing, instead, he feeds them. He has them all sit down, and he feeds them food. They came for a miracle of healing, and what they got was a belly full of food. What is going on here? What exactly is Jesus doing with these people?

    One clue is found in the statement at the very beginning of the passage: “Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.” This entire story is set in the context of the Feast of the Passover. And if we remember, the Passover celebrates the Israelites freedom from slavery in Egypt. On the road to the Promised Land, God provided for them with manna from heaven. All of this would have been in the mind of John’s readers and listeners, and a connection would be made between God’s miraculous provision, and the promises of God for God’s people, the people of Israel.

    In the ancient world, one of the easiest ways for kings to manipulate their followers was to control the flow of bread. Or, in other words, to feed the people. It is how they showed mercy, and how they showed power. And so, we have this multitude of people coming for healing, and Jesus feeds them instead. They eat so much that they are exceedingly full, and there is food left over. Jesus took what little was offered, and he multiplied it into an abundance – without trying to control them. Being fed, being provided for, would have made these people compare Jesus to a king, and not just any king, one who was compassionate as well. And it is for this reason that the crowd of people came to try and make him king by force. The listeners of John’s gospel would have recognized this, and would have expected the crowd to behave in this very way. They would have seen that Jesus was being compared to God, the same God who provided for the people through miraculous food as God led them out of slavery in Egypt into freedom.  

    And so they understand when people come by force to make Jesus their king, because that is what they would expect people to do.

    But what does Jesus do?

    He flees into the mountains to get away from the people, because he does not wish to be their king. At least not in the earthly sense. 

    These people had seen the miracle, and had only thought about what Jesus could do for them. They were focused on what they could get from God. They wanted Jesus for what he did for them. They too were hoping to manipulate Jesus into future provision by making him their earthly ruler.

    This is why Jesus ran away.

    Because Jesus had other plans.

    The stark contrast between behaving like an earthly king and providing for people, coupled with Jesus running away when they tried to make him their king would have made the listener’s of John’s Gospel question what was coming next.

    You see, they would have made the connection between Passover, and Jesus miraculously providing for the people as being a precursor to a new type of freedom. That freedom could have meant any number of things to those who were there, or any number of things to those listening to John’s Gospel. 

    And they would have been wondering what that freedom could possibly be.

    The last few weeks, the lectionary has been providing us readings from the Gospel of Mark, but today we switched over to John. This passage from John is the first in a series of readings from John’s Gospel in the lectionary, and it comes just before something called the Bread of Life discourse. This Bread of Life discourse culminates in Jesus’ declaration that “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood will have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (John 6:54). 

    Those listening to John’s Gospel were in for a real treat. They were about to see the shift in God’s purpose for humanity from earthly provision of their needs to one of eternal significance. This feeding of the five thousand anxious souls who wanted only to be healed, and instead were miraculously filled beyond fullness with earthly food, helps to foreshadow the Spiritual Food that is Christ Jesus. They were about to see Jesus laying out the path to a new type of freedom, and a path to abundant life for all people. 

    Those listening would soon understand what Paul meant in his letter to the Ephesians, when he wrote:

    I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

    Ephesians 3:18-19

    That fullness is for all people.

    Because even spiritually, God takes what we give and multiplies it abundantly so that all might live in the Abundant Grace of God.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on July 28, 2024.]

  • Do Not Fear. Only Believe.

    Some of you know that I raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society by doing a bike ride every year in the fall. The goal of these rides is to raise enough money to fund research into a cure for MS.

    At every event, there are riders who have been diagnosed with MS, who wear jerseys that say, “I Ride With MS.” The idea is to raise awareness of how many people in this country live with MS, and to give people an opportunity to meet those who are living with the disease and to learn about their story. In short, these jerseys create an opportunity for conversation and building relationships.

    For almost everyone with MS, the initial diagnosis brings with it an enormous amount of fear, because no one can know if their illness will progress rapidly, or if it will progress slowly. Moreover, most of the people with MS understand the financial burden that is involved with the illness – money that they will be spending on tests, on doctor’s visits, or in lost income because their symptoms make it impossible to work on some days.

    Some people lose a lot of money because they go to all the doctors that they can find that promise some sort of cure – even cures that are not approved by the medical community. And others take part in clinical trials, becoming guinea pigs for untested treatments and medications because they so desperately want to find a cure. Sometimes these trials go well, and other times, their issues are compounded with unexpected side-effects.

    One person living with MS had a story of their own initial fear at their diagnosis, and how they prayed every day for “healing.” When they went to an older and wiser individual to speak about this fear, this person told them, “Usually, when we talk about healing, what we really mean to say is that we want to be ‘cured.’ But, healing often involves a whole lot more than just being ‘cured’ of an illness. It’s just that for most of us, ‘healing’ has become synonymous with being ‘cured.’ Are you willing to accept healing, or just a cure?”

    Obviously, part of the reason that so many of us think of being healed as “being cured” is because of these stories that we find in the Gospel reading today. The entire Gospel is about miraculous cures of illness at the hands of Jesus.

    The first story involves Jairus, a leader of the Synagogue, and a very wealthy and important man. He comes to Jesus, falls at his feet, and begs him to come and heal his little daughter. “Come lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”

    And the next sentence is very simple. It says, “So he went with him.” That is, Jesus went with Jairus, walking toward his house, where his little daughter lay sick, simply because Jairus asked him to. And as they were walking, so many people crowded around Jesus that one translation says they “thronged him.” 

    Now, suddenly, Mark interrupts one story to bring us another, so we know that Mark thought this second story was important for his readers and listeners. At this point, he tells us the story of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. It seems that she had endured the ancient equivalent of Clinical Trials at the hands of physicians. She had probably been a guinea pig for all sorts of treatments at the hands of these doctors, and nothing had helped. According to the Jewish purity laws, she would have been considered unclean because of her bleeding. But more importantly, despite this, the real factor that would have made her an outcast was that she was poor. She had spent all of her money on doctors. More so than the purity laws, she would have been looked down on and dismissed for being poor. People would have ostracized her from society for both being sick and being poor. We can see that she was desperate to find a cure so that she could once again become part of the community, and spend time with those she knew.

    She was so desperate that she was willing to break all of these purity laws, pushing in through the crowd of people so that she could “only touch his clothes.” She knew that if she touched his cloak, she would be made well. She risked punishment at the hands of the leaders of the people – in fact, people very much like this very important leader of the Synagogue, Jairus himself – by essentially making all the people she touched on the way to Jesus “ritually unclean.” But she pushed on, touched Jesus’ cloak. 

    And was instantly cured.

    It’s at this moment that Jesus stops suddenly, turns around in the crowd, and says, “Who touched me?”

    I imagine there were at least a few people who immediately jumped back, lifted up their hands and said, “I’m not touching you.” “Not me.” “Huh – uh. I would never.” Even the disciples are completely confused, and practically mock Jesus with their question that amounts to “Lord, you see everyone is pressing in on you, why on earth are you asking ‘Who touched me?’ I mean, everyone is touching you.”

    But the woman knew what was up. She knew that he was speaking about her, because she knew that she had been cured of her bleeding. And so, it says, she came in fear and trembling. That is, she thought that she was going to be punished for what she had done. So she tells him everything that she had done. But instead of punishing her, Jesus says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

    Jesus was on his way to heal the daughter of a wealthy and important leader of the people, a father who had told Jesus that “all I need is for you to lay your hands on her, and my daughter will be healed.” He had stepped out in faith; he would have known what the other leaders of the people were saying about Jesus, and what they really thought about him. But because he knew the mighty works that Jesus was doing, and because he was desperate for the healing of his daughter, he persisted. And this woman, just like the leader of the people, persisted, despite the social norms and purity laws.

    If we were to stop here in the Gospel with these snippets of story, we might have a very fine motivational speech about pushing on, about persisting in the face of doubt and in the face of societal norms or opposition and just having mountains of faith. It’s almost as if you can hear the motivational speakers saying, “If you can believe it, you can achieve it!”

    The trouble with that sort of thinking is that it places all the burden of our own healing squarely upon our own shoulders. That is, if these stories were intended to teach us that being cured of our ailments was only about our faith, it would mean that our God would only heal us if we didn’t waver in our belief.

    Years ago, there were some faith healers who came through a church I used to belong to. These people came in, and prayed for people to be cured of illnesses, of various addictions, and other ailments. Some people were miraculously healed. And others were not. One of the people who had not been healed asked one of these people why she had not been healed, and his response to her was flippant: “You weren’t healed because you didn’t have enough faith.” 

    Obviously she was devastated. It was all her fault. She didn’t believe enough. Jesus didn’t want to heal her because she had not persisted enough, not pressed in enough, not believed enough that she could be cured. It took her months of conversations with other believers for her to finally realize that sometimes God answers prayers – and other times, God simply does not do what we want. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the measure of our faith. This woman, a pillar of faith in our community, had doubted herself, and worse, had doubted the faithful heart of God, because of a careless word by someone who blamed her for God’s failure to act according to what she desired.

    To return to our story, Jesus knew that someone had touched him with a deliberate purpose, with a drive to be cured, and he knew that “power had gone out from him.” The important thing is that he stopped, not to punish the woman, but to build a relationship with her. On his way to heal the daughter of a wealthy man, he stops to spend time with one of his own. He turns to her, and calls this woman, “Daughter.” He wanted to know the story behind her persistence. If Jesus didn’t care, he could have just kept walking to Jairus’ house. But instead, he stops, lets the woman tell him her story, and sends her on her way. Notice that he declared her healed in the middle of the people. That means that not only did he heal her physically, but he also restored her place in society, and restored her as a member of the community. He showed her that he cared for her beyond just her physical well-being. He wanted her to be healed and restored in all aspects of her life, this woman he calls his “Daughter.” 

    If it had been about how we are to have an abundance of faith and persist in our beliefs, then this story would have stopped without Jesus turning to this woman. It would have stopped with her being healed, and the story continued on with Jairus and his daughter without this moment of Jesus speaking with the woman. Ignoring her and her story would have solidified that it is all about our own faith, and about persisting in the face of doubts and societal norms. It would have been all about us, and what we do, rather than about God, and how much God cares for each and every one of us. It would have made God into our servant, into nothing more than a lucky rabbit’s foot, or other magic talisman that one could touch to get miraculous healing. 

    However, on the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus stops to speak to a poor woman, a cast out from society, to hear her story, and restore her to abundant life within her community. That is the nature of Christ. He wants to know us, and he wants what is best for us. It may have started with this woman’s persistence in pushing in toward Jesus to be healed, but it ended with a blessing of peace and reconciliation.

    After this, the story continues on. On their way, people from Jairus’ house come and tell him that his daughter is already dead, and that he shouldn’t bother Jesus any longer. What’s the point after all? How can anything be done for someone who has died? It would have been a perfectly logical conclusion for Jairus to draw regarding his daughter. She’s dead. It didn’t work. There’s no point anymore. Why don’t we just stop now?

    But Jesus, sensing this, tells him, “Do not fear. Only believe.” 

    We, of course, know the rest of the story. How Jesus raises this little girl from the dead. He restores a little girl to life, and restores a family, to the amazement of all that witnessed it.

    Again, however, the miraculous healing is not the only intent of this story. True, the miraculous healing shows us God’s power over sickness and death, but more important are the words that Jesus said: “Do not fear. Only believe.”

    “Do not fear. Only believe.”

    “Do. Not. Fear.”

    This is not just a commandment to Jairus, the father in this story, but a commandment given to us as well. 

    But, in the face of so many things in this world that can cause us to fear, this is a hard task. Our minds often spin out of control with all the possible scenarios that can cause us harm or damage. That can cause us loss of face or social standing. Things that can cause others to ostracize us. Things that can bring us to the brink of death. We fear all of these things. Even though God tells us not to. And tells us only to believe.

    The woman was afraid that she would be punished for her desperate persistence in pushing forward her own agenda. And Jesus stopped to grant her peace, and restore her to health and life within her community. Jairus was afraid that nothing more could be done for his daughter, and Jesus told him not to fear, and then restored his daughter, his family, and all of them to the faithful community. 

    In each case, Jesus was concerned with more than just the physical healing. He wanted them to be healed and restored to an abundant life among the people of their community. He forged a relationship with them, and restored them to a place of relationship with others. They were healed as well as cured.

    To return to the person with MS that I mentioned at the beginning, the one who had received the question, “Are you willing to accept healing, or just a cure?” What was the outcome of that question, I wondered? Their response was, “I still have MS, but I am no longer afraid of the consequences of the disease, nor am I afraid of what might happen. Instead, I count my blessings every day, and praise God for each and every healthy moment. And I thank God for every moment with those I love. God has healed me. It isn’t a cure, but I understand that God is with me, God wants what is best for me, and God is in charge of everything, even in this nasty disease. For that I am forever grateful.”

    This person had indeed been healed.

    Just like the woman in this story, they went from being afraid of the present and the future, to doing as Jesus commanded the woman:

    They went in peace, because their faith had made them well.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on June 23, 2024.]

  • Who Is This Guy?

    Years ago, while I was still living in Alaska, one of my friends and I took some hunters up the river to another town. We left them with a guide, and the next morning, we started the journey home. At the mouth of the river, there is a large lake to cross to get back to our town, and the wind was picking up something fierce. It’s a shallow lake, and so the waves started to grow tall, and develop whitecaps as we started across it.

    The pounding of the waves was relentless. Our boat kept climbing the waves, and then smashing down on the next one, water flying over the bow, and into the boat. The wind was so strong that it seemed like we were not making any progress. But when we looked we had made it at least to the center of the lake, and just needed to power on for a little while longer.

    And then the engine died.

    Howling wind, huge waves, the smell of gas from our dead engine.

    We were slowly being pushed back across the lake because of the strong wind.

    For a while, everything seemed bleak, and hopeless. We were scared. Scared of dying.

    And I can tell you, that if I had seen a man laying down in the bow of the boat sleeping, I would have been very angry. I would have asked, “How can he sleep at a time like this?” I would have questioned his sanity. And I probably would have said some very not nice things.

    During that time in the boat, I certainly didn’t remember this story of Jesus and his disciples on a lake in a storm. But I remembered that I could pray. And pray I did. That God would get us safely to dry land, and get us home. I prayed, because I was afraid.. 

    It is interesting to note, in this story of the disciples and Jesus on a boat, crossing a lake, that Jesus asks the question, “Why are you afraid?” He does not tell his disciples that there is nothing to be afraid of. 

    This world has many things that can terrify us. This world has very real things that can harm us, and things that we really should be frightened of. And then, there are things that we fear that are purely imagined. I’m not talking about things like the boogieman, the chupacabra, bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster. I’m talking about those things that we think might happen. Those things that have not happened, but we treat, in our own minds, as if it were a complete certainty that they were going to happen. Even though in reality, there is no imminent danger, nothing that we can see that is causing a real threat.

    When I was young, my family was on vacation, and we were staying in someone’s house while they were out of town. It so happened that I woke up one night, completely terrified. Paralyzed with fear. I thought there was something else in the room with me, and I couldn’t move, the fear felt so oppressively dark and heavy. I was so terrified that I could barely get a squeak out of my mouth. And yet, miraculously, my mother heard me, came into the room, and then began praying with me against the power of evil.

    And immediately, I could move again, and talk again, and the oppressive heaviness lifted from my chest, and I was able to sleep again.

    Now, was that imagined? The product of late night pizza and too much soda coupled with the mind of a growing child?

    I may never know. But what I learned that day is that the God my mother prayed to is the King of all Creation, and the Lord of All. Because when we prayed, my fear left me.

    And this is the lesson in this story of Mark. Let me give you a little context about this passage in Mark. Jesus had been teaching people from a boat, and later that day, he said to his disciples, “Let us go across the sea.” The Sea of Galilee is only 8 miles wide, but it is 700 feet below sea level, surrounded by high mountains on three sides. It’s not uncommon that windstorms appear in the evening, because the warm tropical air from the lake rises to meet the colder air from the mountains, and that causes winds that whip up the waves on this lake. The disciples, many of them fishermen, would have been aware of the fickle nature of the Sea of Galilee. And despite that, because he asked them to, they still followed his lead.

    The other thing is that on the other side of the lake is the land of the Gadarenes. This was the first time that Jesus had ventured outside of the land of Israel. This is the first time that Jesus went to the Gentiles. The Gadarenes were not people of Israel. They were outsiders. Others. People different from them, who held different beliefs, who did not think like them, and who worshipped another God. In short, Jesus was taking his disciples with him to those who represented a not a real fear, but merely an imagined one. Because moving outside of their comfort zone, moving into a territory of those they might not completely understand was at least a bit unnerving.

    And then what?

    A very real and present danger appeared to them in the form of a mighty windstorm. And the waves were so large that the water was crashing over the bow and filling the boat with water. The waves crashing, the wind howling, and the disciples struggling to keep the boat afloat. They were terrified. They feared for their lives.

    And Jesus slept.

    And when the disciples could no longer contain their fear, they woke Jesus up and asked him, “Don’t you care that we are dying?” As in, “don’t you care about us enough to help? Are we not worth enough to you, for you to help us out? What kind of a leader are you, that you would let us remain in danger? Do you care only about yourself?”

    And Jesus gets up, turns to the sea, and says, “Peace, be still!” And the winds stop, and the sea is calm, and the danger is gone.

    But even though the immediate and real fear of death is now gone for the disciples, the Gospel passage says that they “feared exceedingly.” That is, they got even more afraid, because now they are wondering, “Who is this guy?” Who is he, that even the wind and the sea obey what he says? They were struck with awe at the power and majesty of Jesus.

    That day, the disciples learned something about the identity of Jesus. They learned more about all aspects of who Jesus is, in the middle of a lake, on the way across it to explore unfamiliar and possibly unsafe lands filled with people who were quite unlike them. They learned aspects of who Jesus was, by calling out to Jesus in the face of fear.

    Jesus did not wake up from his nap on the pillow and tell his disciples, “There is nothing to fear,” because that is not true. There was a very real and present danger in the form of this storm and the waves that were bashing the boat. The question that Jesus asked was, “Why are you afraid?”

    And that question can incorporate all the fears the disciples had. And all the fears that we might have – real or imagined. It is as though Jesus is asking us: Why are you afraid? Am I real to you, or just imagined? Have you figured out who I really am yet, or am I still just a guy you are following because that’s what good people do? Do you trust me, or do you not? 

    And the question that was really on the disciples’ minds was,, “How can we trust you, when we don’t even really know who you are?”

    This is the big question: Why are you afraid? 

    It is not that we are afraid – from real or imagined threats – but the reason for why we are afraid that often helps us to see the face of Jesus in a new light, to experience a new side of Jesus we had never known before. Understanding what we fear, and reaching out to God in prayer for that very fear, is how we get to know Christ in a way that draws him closer to us, and us closer to him. It is often in this middle state between a state of comfort and the presence of the unknown, and the uncertain, that we experience fear. And it is in this state when the grace of God will become most evident to us. When we understand what we fear, that is when God can step in, and rescue us from that danger, whether real or imagined. And God will do that either by softening our hearts with compassion and understanding, or by opening our minds to seeing things God’s way. And what’s difficult to grasp is that often those are exactly the same thing.

    The disciples got on a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee because Jesus asked them to. They knew full well that there was a possibility of danger in the shape of a storm. And they did it anyway. They got into a boat to cross over to the other side, the land of the Gadarenes, a people very unlike them, because Jesus asked them to, despite the fear of the unknown and foreign. And they did it anyway. They left the comfort of their homes and their own country to follow Jesus, and came to know the fear of death on a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.

    And then it was in the face of that fear that Jesus allowed the disciples to know more about him, to see a side of him that they hadn’t seen before. It was in the face of that fear that Jesus was able to display his power as the Lord of all Creation.

    The big question might be, “Why are you afraid?” but an even bigger question is “Who is this guy?” And those questions are for us as much as they are for the disciples in our Gospel today.  

    Jesus displayed his power to the disciples that day, and showed them he commands the universe. And later on, he showed them that not even death can control him, that he has authority even over death. The disciples hadn’t found that out yet. But we know. We have the luxury of looking back and watching as the disciples’ eyes are opened to the truth that we already know. 

    Who is this guy, Jesus?

    As my friend and I sat in that storm on the boat back up in Alaska, I prayed that God would get us home safely. Eventually, through several more engine failures and heavy bashes of the boat against the waves, we made it across the lake. After taking a few minutes on dry land to compose ourselves, we got into the channel that would take us home, and got back safely. I was relieved, and glad that my friend and I had been able to figure out the problems with the engine.

    The next morning, I passed by the boat we had been on, only to see it half submerged on the shore of the lagoon. It turns out that we had blown a rivet on the boat, and had been taking on water in the front compartment the entire time. It was hidden from us, and by the time we realized it, it would have been too late. If we had not gotten the engines working and across the lake, I would likely not be standing here today. 

    It took a day for me to realize just how much God had answered that prayer, and just like the disciples’ in the Gospel today, my eyes were opened to just how much of my life is in God’s control.

    It is part of the human condition that we will face fear in our lives. It is in the face of that fear that Christ reveals himself to us in a new way that draws us closer to him. God might ask us to do things that we find frightening, and we do them simply because we have been asked to, and then experience the fear that comes with stepping outside our comfort zone. Or, we might be experiencing real fear from dangers we are facing, both real and imagined.

    And we ask, “Why am I afraid?” And, “Who is this guy, Jesus?” And then we call upon Jesus in the midst of that fear, so that we can understand ever more the answer to the question of Jesus’ identity. The question then becomes not “Who is this guy,” but “Who is Jesus to me?”

    When we call upon him our eyes might be opened immediately to understand God in a new way, or it may take a day, or two, or a hundred, but eventually we come to realize just exactly how God is King of all Creation, and Lord of All, including the Lord of our lives.

    If you are in the middle of your own storm right now, if you are anxious and scared, or struggling with fears, both real and imagined, remember that Jesus is with you.

    Jesus said to the wind and the waves, “Peace, be still.”

    And he says the same to us.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on June 23, 2024.]

  • A House Divided

    Harold Camping, a Christian Radio personality, predicted that the world would end with a global cataclysm, and that faithful christians would be raptured on May 21, 2011. 

    When the day came and passed, Mr. Camping was so distraught that he ran away from his home and camped out in a motel for the night, because he didn’t want to deal with the questions from his followers. Later on, he apologized for not having the dates – and I quote – “worked out as accurately as I could have.” After some conversations with friends over this difficult weekend of failure, Camping had the sudden realization that May 21 was just supposed to be a “Spiritual Judgement Day” and not the actual rapture. He had miscalculated, you see, and the real end of the world would be happening on October 21, 2011.

    What are we all still doing here, I wonder?

    Something happened though, in those 5 months between May 21, and October 21. Rather than admitting that he was wrong, Camping held on to his belief that he could figure out the day and time that Christ would return. Despite being so terribly wrong, he maintained this deeply held belief that he could calculate his way into knowing God’s return. He didn’t quit believing, he just made up more excuses and expanded the set of ideas that would allow him to keep believing a lie.

    There has been a long history of documenting this sort of behavior in Cults as well. Cults often find their way with people who feel lonely, inadequate, unloved, or unappreciated in some way; people who feel the world is against them, and that they have no chance to correct the wrongs without some outside help. The cults then play up the notions of acceptance, adequacy, and appreciation of everyone’s gifts as a way of enticing the members to come and join in. During the indoctrination phase, members begin to realize that some of what they are now doing or saying does not match up to their deeply held beliefs – beliefs they held before joining this new group in their lives. And this moment where the person realizes that they are behaving or speaking differently from what they have always believed, this moment causes them a great amount of stress and emotional conflict.

    And what do people do when they encounter stress? They attempt to get rid of the stress in the easiest possible way. Most who go through a cult experience distance themselves from friends, family, and other people who are telling them the truth. In order to accept the new belief system the cult is offering them, they need to quiet the voices that disagree with the cult and reframe their previously held beliefs. They change their definition of words to align more closely with what their new family is teaching them, they redefine what good and bad behavior is; they redefine what is criminal, and what is ethical, what is lawful, and what is just.

    This state of flux is called “Cognitive Dissonance,” which is a mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. And while my examples are things you and I are unlikely to encounter, what we need to realize is that we all experience this repeatedly – we also choose to reframe our viewpoints and worldviews to allow us to believe things that are in direct conflict with another deeply held belief. 

    Why? Because it softens the realization that we are living contrary to what we say we believe. We learn to justify things so that we can reduce our stress, because when we have two conflicting beliefs, then one of them needs to go, and that means we will lose something. Reshaping definitions of words, and changing our viewpoints allows us to maintain both beliefs more easily.

    Now, I know some of you are wondering why I’m talking about Doomsday predictions and cult members, when our Gospel message is all about Jesus casting out demons.

    It’s because this tendency to redefine and realign our worldview is far older than the psychology that explains it.

    You see, the leaders of the people, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the temple priests, had a long standing belief that they were the only ones who had it all right. That they were the ones who had the direct line to God, and that they were the ones who were allowed to act on behalf of God and speak in God’s name.

    And then, here comes a carpenter from Nazareth. He is performing miracles and casting out demons, and healing people, and sharing the Good News of God to all who will listen. And these leaders look at each other and say, “Well, this can’t be right. We’re the ones who are allowed to speak and act for God, not this guy.”

    So what do they do?

    They redefine miracles. And realign their beliefs that what they are seeing is not the full story, but that there is something shady going on behind the scenes. They reframe reality with a new theory that allows them to keep believing their own lie about their own importance.

    This man – this Jesus – is casting out demons by the power of Satan!

    If Jesus were acting on behalf of God, then they would lose their long held belief that they were in charge, that they were God’s chosen, that they were the ones who could speak and act for God. 

    They could clearly see that people were being healed, that miracles were being performed, that people were turning to God. But, because it conflicted with their belief that they were the only authorized servants of God, they needed to reframe reality with a lie.

    And Jesus’ response is that if he were indeed casting out demons by the power of Satan, then Satan would be fighting against himself, and a house divided cannot stand.

    The central theme of this passage, based on its structure, is: a house divided. It serves us best to ask ourselves if our house is divided. Are we divided within ourselves? Are we simultaneously holding one belief in one hand, and redefining words, and realigning our minds with falsehoods so that we can maintain a belief we don’t want to give up?

    The Pharisees and other leaders of the people tried to redefine Jesus as being demon possessed because they feared a loss of power, prestige, and reputation that came with their positions. They didn’t want to let go of that power, so they had to redefine and realign themselves with a lie, in order to continue believing a falsehood. And Jesus tells them that those who blaspheme the work of the Holy Spirit would be unforgiven. That is, those who attribute the work of God to the work of Satan, those who reject the work of the Holy Spirit.

    Jesus’ family was more worried about protecting him from the crowds than they were worried about Jesus doing what the Father had commanded him to do. And Jesus told them that his real family was those who listen to God, and do the will of the Father. That is, those who are Christ’s siblings are those who put the work of God before all other concerns.

    The first is a matter of fear, and hardness of heart. The second is a matter of priorities. And both of those things have to do with what we believe to be true, have to do with us simultaneously trying to reconcile two or more things we believe to be true. And when that happens, we choose anything but the will of the Father.

    And what is the will of the Father? To love god, love neighbor. To love mercy and to do justice. To show kindness where others show hate, and to be patient and wait upon the Lord.

    The church, of course, in her infinite wisdom, has prepared for the eventuality that we will be confronted with two belief systems. The church has prepared for the fact that we will choose the path that redefines our desires and realigns our minds to believe the lies. It’s called The Reconciliation of a Penitent. Confession, for short. It is in the act of confession that we can reconcile our conflicting beliefs, and realign ourselves to the Truth. It is in the act of confession that we can take our divided house and become whole again..

    And that is really what this passage is all about. You see, when Jesus is talking about A House Divided, he is talking about sin. He is talking about hardness of heart, he is talking about giving something else in our lives more priority than standing in God’s presence. He is talking about our own hearts and minds divided by conflicting beliefs, and choosing the one more aligned with our own desires rather than God’s. 

    This is why Jesus brings up the unforgivable sin, and then talks about how his real siblings are those that do the will of the Father. It’s to remind us that it is not just the grievous errors that can draw us away from God, but the simple ones; the ones that seem so inconsequential on the surface and yet can eventually lead to grievous error.

    The Apostle Paul was himself a Pharisee. He had such pride in his stature that he called himself A Pharisee among Pharisees. That is, The Best of the Best. After his conversion, he called himself Chief among Sinners, and we can certainly understand why he might say that. Just like the other Pharisees of Jesus’ time, Paul seems to have believed that the work that Jesus’s followers were doing was from anything other than the power of God – that is, blaspheming God and the Holy Spirit. And for this false belief, he persecuted and murdered these early Christians. His heart was hardened, and his mind harbored murderous intent.

    And yet. God stopped him on the road to Damascus, and gave him the opportunity to soften his heart and be reconciled to God, making his mind and his heart whole again. … And from there, he became one of the greatest evangelists the world has ever known.

    The unforgivable sin, according to many scholars, is the continued and repeated rejection of the Holy Spirit’s prompting to soften our hearts. It is not recognizing that we need to be forgiven, or even desiring to be forgiven. It is a permanent dividing of our hearts, our minds, our inner houses, and shutting the door to God.

    It took a literal act of God for Paul’s heart to be softened, and he turned around and walked away from the path that would have led to his eternal separation from God.

    Most cult members eventually realize that they’ve been duped, and are able to walk away from their indoctrination, and find their way back to truth and are reconciled with their true families.  After the October 21, 2011 cataclysm failed to materialize, Camping finally came to realize, in April of the following year, that he had made a grievous mistake, and begged forgiveness from those who had believed him, and begged forgiveness from God. And he too, was reconciled with God and his own followers.

    Our job as Christians is to recognize when our house – our mind – has been divided, and we have chosen to act upon a belief contrary to God’s will. And then, to return to God, to confess our folly, to ascribe to God the honor due God’s name, and to be reconciled to the Truth.

    This is the way to lasting peace.  This is the way to lasting joy. This is the way to wholeness. Because a house divided cannot stand.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on June 9, 2024.]

  • What Are You Looking For?

    Several months ago, I had reason to go looking for my Passport. So I went to the place where I keep it and other important documents and important items. And it wasn’t there! So then I went to the back-up location, expecting to find my passport there. But it wasn’t in that spot either! And I started to get a little worried. So then I went down the line of all the places where I keep things, and as I checked each one of them, and as the passport didn’t show up, I got more and more worried. I started thinking about all the work that I would have to do to renew my passport, and the possible issues I might have to deal with if I really did lose it. I tore up my place looking for it, and spent time trying to remember where I last saw it, the sense of dread picking up as time went on.

    If I had this amount of worry and dread come up for something like a passport, imagine the amount of fear and dread that the disciples would be facing when they realized that Jesus’ body was missing.

    Imagine the questions that must have come through their minds at first with the most obvious one being: Did we come to the right tomb? 

    First they question themselves, and then, in anger, they question others. Mary, no stranger to conspiracy theories, blames the nebulous “they” when asked what she is looking for by the angels at the tomb: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Then she turns around and sees the gardener, and he asks her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” And she accuses him of stealing the body: “Sir, if you have taken him away, please tell me where so I can take him away.”

    And Jesus has to say, “Mary! Come on, now. It’s me!”

    Isn’t that just typical? When we are in the midst of our grief, when we are in the midst of our own thoughts and priorities, when we are engrossed in our own issues, we tend not to see God, even if God is standing right in front of us.

    Up until she recognized Jesus, all that was on Mary’s mind was what she had lost. And not just her, but what all the disciples had lost.

    Mary, and all the disciples had lost a friend. They had lost someone close to them, someone they could confide in, they could trust. Someone with whom they had spent time eating, playing, laughing, and joking. But now he was gone. And their minds were focused on that loss. 

    Mary and the other disciples had lost a courageous leader. Jesus had fearlessly confronted the representatives of the people, spoken truth against their lies, called out their attempts at oppressing the people. He made sure that they knew that he stood against their misuse of the scripture to manipulate the people and control them – all for their own personal gain and amassing of wealth and power. The disciples’ minds were not only filled with the loss of that leadership, but their minds were filled with fear at what their association with Jesus might mean now that he was no longer there to confront the leaders of the people.

    Mary and the other disciples had lost a miracle worker. They had watched as Jesus had done the unimaginable. He had raised Lazarus from the dead, he had fed 5000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish, he had turned water into wine at a wedding, healed a man blind from birth, and had walked on water. They had seen Jesus doing the unimaginable, and now they could not imagine a future without him.

    Mary and the other disciples had lost hope, because they expected Jesus to be the Messiah, the mighty one who would free them from the hands of the oppressive Roman regime, and return them to a country that governed itself. They had expected him to be the messiah, the one who would conquer the world with his mighty hand. And instead, he suffered ridicule, torture, and death on a cross. And their minds were filled with that type of despair that comes only when you lose the hope you have clung to for so long.

    All of this is on Mary’s mind when she stands there at an empty tomb. She’s suffered incredible loss. And now this. Jesus’ body is gone.

    It’s no wonder then, that she looked at the gardener and asked him where he took the body. “Tell me where you moved him.” It’s no wonder she looked at the gardener, and didn’t realize who he really was: Jesus. Risen from the dead.

    To go from this sense of loss to the realization that Jesus was alive would have been an incredible shock. And would have required an enormous amount of change in understanding – who was this Jesus really? How could he be alive? What does it mean that he is not still dead? How can this happen? What does all this – his life, his crucifixion, his death – mean to me now?

    The church year is structured for exactly this. So that we might come to know Jesus, and realize what was lost. From his birth as a bouncing human baby boy, to the death on the cross, and the resurrection, we become intimately aware of who Jesus is: human like us, baptized in the river, where a voice from heaven announces his true identity as the son of God, tempted in every way like us in the desert, transfigured on the mountaintop to display his true identity, working miracles among people who were more interested in the results of those miracles than in understanding who he was, betrayed by a close friend, arrested and tried for blasphemy, tortured and nailed to a cross, and finally, dying in agony, carrying the sin of the world upon his shoulders.

    The church year is structured for exactly this. So that we might come to know Jesus, and understand what was lost. And this is why people were often baptized on easter. And also why we renew our baptismal vows on Easter. Because Easter is the day where we realize just what Jesus’ death on the cross meant, and, even more importantly, what his rising to life again means for not just us, but all people, the whole world over. If Jesus’ death on the cross conquered sin and opened up the Holy of Holies, the sanctuary of God’s presence for us, then the resurrection of Christ conquered death and opened up for us an abundant life, a life of courage in the midst of a world that perpetuates cycles of death, rather than cycles of life.

    The church year is structured for exactly this. So that we might come to know Jesus, and feel that sense of loss that the disciples felt. But more importantly, that we might feel the joy that Mary felt when we see the risen Christ standing in front of us, calling our names, and saying, “Come on, now. Don’t you recognize me? It’s Jesus!”

    In many ways, that question of recognition is more than what it seems. It is not just reciting the facts, or making declarations; it is internalizing the truth of who and what Christ is. It is, in fact, the same question that Jesus asked his disciples just before he was transfigured into glory on the mountain: “Who do you say that I am?”

    If the first half of the church year is structured so that we might come to know the person of Jesus, and realize what was lost when he died on that cross, then the rest of the church year is structured around our response to the question: “Who do we say that Jesus is?” so that we might come to truly understand and internalize what it was that Christ has accomplished for us.

    It might have taken the disciples some time to work through their grief of losing a friend, a teacher, a mentor, and leader, but when they finally put all the pieces together they were able to proclaim loudly from every corner of Jerusalem that Jesus was the messiah, the son of the living God, the one who conquered sin through his death on the cross and who conquered death through his rising again.

    They were transformed, given new life, changed from scared and frightened people into bold proclaimers of truth.

    Where they had previously watched Jesus confronting the powers of the world, speaking truth to evil, calling out injustice, and standing up for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, they now looked to Jesus as an example, and continued the work themselves. From denying Jesus three times, to being the rock on which Jesus built his church, Peter was reborn as a new person. From doubting that Jesus had even been resurrected, to evangelizing an entire continent, Thomas was reborn as a new person. From abandoning Christ when the authorities came to arrest him in the garden, to standing before those same leaders, unafraid and with an authority that came from a higher power, these disciples were transformed, they were reborn as new people. People who carried themselves with the confidence that the Almighty stood behind them.

    Where the disciples had previously watched as Jesus had done the unimaginable, they now began to realize that God was working miracles in their midst. Instead of looking for the miracles as a show of mighty power to prove Jesus’ earthly ministry, the disciples now saw these miracles take place because they were showing the power of God’s eternal ministry.

    Where once they thought that their Messiah had died, they now realized that God’s view of salvation was greater than merely Israel, and included the entire world. “For God so Loved the World.” They went from people who had hope that they might be saved, to people who had a hope and a vision that all the world might see – and feel – the presence of a loving God.

    They went from meek and mild, to bold and brave.

    They were reborn, made new, birthed into a fullness of their calling as disciples of Jesus, because they suddenly realized that death in this life is merely a speed-bump on the road to glory. 

    If they need not fear death, then what on earth would they ever need to fear?

    We are not passive listeners of old stories, we too are disciples of Jesus. A Jesus who is alive, and whose power working in us, can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. A Jesus who looks at us and asks, “Come on, now. Don’t you recognize me?” 

    How much excitement our lives hold depends on how we answer that question.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on March 31, 2024.]

  • Points of View

    Epiphany began with the birth of a child in Bethlehem, and Epiphany always ends with the Transfiguration of Christ. There is a reason for this. Epiphanies are moments where the nature of God is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. The birth of Christ is easier to unpack, because it is “Immanuel,” or “Christ with us.” It identifies Christ with us – as one of us. Human, just as we are.

    So what are we to do with the transfiguration? In the presence of the disciples, Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah, and his clothes begin to shine a dazzling white, so white that no bleach could ever get them so clean. What does this transformation tell us about Jesus, and more importantly, about ourselves? 

    To begin with, we learn about Jesus’ identity. If we read the passages that precede the transfiguration – and we really do need to read the passages immediately preceding this one to truly understand the importance of the transfiguration for Jesus’ disciples – we see that Jesus has been healing people and casting out demons; he healed Jairus’ daughter, and cured a woman’s years-long hemorrhage; he fed a group of five thousand people, and then a group of four thousand people; he calmed a storm with just his words, and he walked on water. 

    He did miracles. Great things.

    So it’s no wonder, just before going up the mountain, that when Jesus asked his disciples “Who do you say that I am?” Peter quickly answered, “You are the Christ.”

    We have the luxury of looking at historical events, but Peter and the other disciples had to see things for themselves for the first time, and make up their minds about Jesus. Was he just another charismatic teacher, or was he truly the Christ?

    When Jesus was joined by Moses – the giver of the law and the liberator of the people of Israel – and also joined by Elijah – the first of the great prophets, and one whose appearance had long been connected with the coming of the messiah – that is when his identity was confirmed to Peter, James and John. … Jesus truly was the Messiah.

    This is the epiphany, the nature and mission of Christ is revealed to those three disciples in this transfiguration on the mountaintop. And it is revealed to those of us hearing the story after the fact. Jesus is the messiah, the chosen one of Israel, the salvation of all humanity. 

    But what does the identity of Jesus of Nazareth as the messiah reveal to us about ourselves? We most definitely are not the messiah, so we are unlikely to be joined by Moses and Elijah and be transfigured on the top of a mountain.  

    As with many of the stories we encounter in the Gospels, Peter’s responses tend to be the example that so many of us can relate to.

    Peter had seen so many miracles and acts of mighty power, that he was able to very easily slip into believing that Jesus was what most people hoped for in the Messiah. He was to be a mighty warrior, a king even. One who would crush the oppressive forces of Rome and others, and liberate Israel once and for all. But, again, in a passage just before the transfiguration, when Jesus begins to talk about how the Son of Man must suffer and die and be raised again on the third day, Peter tells him off. That can’t be! This is not how it’s supposed to happen!

    And Jesus says, “Get behind me satan!” You’re not thinking of the things of God, instead you’re focused on things that humanity wants. You want power and control. You want wealth and prestige. You don’t want what God wants, Peter. 

    How often can we find ourselves thinking the same things? We seek power, control, wealth and prestige. And we value them more than the things of heaven, more than the things of God.

    The second thing that Peter does that we might see in ourselves is that when Jesus is transfigured before them, and is standing in the dazzling light with Moses and Elijah, Peter says, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Mark tells us: He did not know what to say, for they were terrified (Mark 9:5-6).

    Talk about a head scratcher. Why would Peter want to build something?

    Because it’s practical. It’s something he knows how to do. It’s something that would allow him to feel in control of the situation, and focus his mind on something that doesn’t terrify him. It provides a certain level of comfort in a situation that is beyond any perspective he has ever encountered.

    Have we ever done the same? When confronted with things that terrify us, that dig at our hearts and claw their way into those dark recesses of our mind where our little child sits huddled in a corner, have we then reverted to trying to do things ourselves? To take control of the situation in any way that we know how? Have we sought ways to regain power and control in circumstances that call for changing our viewpoint, rather than changing our situation through our own means?

    The voice from heaven that says, “This is my beloved son! Hear him!” is that reminder for Peter that all of those things that Jesus said about the Son of Man needing to suffer, to die, and to be raised again are true and it is meant to reveal both the nature of Jesus, and the mission of Christ in the world. It is meant to let them all know that God will accomplish what God wants, despite our desires and preferences, and that Jesus is showing them a new perspective on the work of the Messiah in this world.

    You really need to admire the beauty of how Mark put these stories together that lead up to the transfiguration. It poses all of these questions of Jesus’ identity in just a few passages; questions that people both then and now still have; questions that even Jesus’ own disciples had to begin with; it poses all these questions in a few small stories just before the nature and mission of Christ are revealed. It starts off with, Who am I? You are the christ. What am I here to do? To destroy the world with mighty power and bring about the salvation of Israel. Wrong! Get behind me satan! The messiah will suffer, die, and be raised again three days later. And if you want to follow me, you will need to lose your life – your identity – because if you give up your life for the sake of the Gospel, you will find your life and who God has truly made you to be! And then … Jesus goes off and gets transfigured, and the disciples freak out.

    And here’s the beauty of what that means to us, and to all the hearers of this gospel that came before us. Those who hear it know about the transformation that took place among Peter and the other disciples – from scared fishermen, to bold, courageous fishers of men, men who changed the world preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ – and then they think: this too can happen to me.

    We too will transform. That is what this passage, the entirety of this Gospel, of all the Gospels, really, the Good News of Jesus the Christ is all about – we will transform, and ever more change into the likeness of God, if we allow God to change our perspective, and see the world as God sees it – one where power, control, wealth and prestige are things to be lost, to be surrendered, for the sake of the Gospel. 

    The words from the collect today, “Grant us that we … be changed into his likeness from glory to glory” come from the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Coritnthians. And what Paul means by that word “glory” is that we will be transformed each time more of the identity of God is revealed to us. That is, each time we have an epiphany and experience a change in our perspective of who God is, and understand just how that perspective of God relates to our own identity, that is when we are transformed more into the likeness of Christ. That is when our lives will take the shape that God has intended for us from before the world began, and when people will see the outward manifestation of our inward change of view.

    This is why the story of the transfiguration comes before Lent. Lent is about detaching ourselves from those things we love more than God. It is about changing our perspective on what we must give up for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of loving God more dearly. Because when we do give these things up, not only is the nature of God revealed to us more clearly, but we begin the journey of our own transformation from Glory to Glory.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on February 11, 2024.]