Blog – Page 389

Midweek Lent 2013 + Words for the Pilgrimage (a walk with Hebrews)

March 13, 2013 By moadmin

Week 4: “A Great Crowd”

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Wednesday, 13 March 2013; texts: Hebrews 11:1-3; 12:1-2, 12-13; John 17:1a, 6-19

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Last weekend a number of people from Mount Olive were privileged to worship at Great Vespers at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in St. Paul, where our administrator Cha Posz is a member. Some of us arrived an hour early and were able to witness a baptism as well. It was a beautiful evening and the hospitality and welcome of the people of Holy Trinity was gracious and warm.

As in most Orthodox places of worship, the walls and ceiling of the nave and chancel were covered in icons, and the icons at Holy Trinity were almost overwhelmingly beautiful. We spent a little time after Vespers with Fr. Jonathan as he gave an introductory talk about them. The place of the icon in Orthodox liturgy is a topic which requires far more time than we have here today. But I wanted to share one impression that I had throughout the evening, as a Western Christian worshipping for the first time in a place where these faces surrounded us all, faces mostly of Biblical figures, but also some of more recent years. At more than one point in the Vespers, I looked around and was deeply moved by the sense that I was experiencing a little of what the author of Hebrews was describing, that I was “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” These people of faith whose faces, and in some cases, whose words, were before and behind and beside, surrounded our prayer and our song, even encouraged and strengthened our prayer and our song. It was an experience of the holy that I’ll not soon let go.

This might be the best part of this sermon to the Hebrews, the part we’re considering today, the claim by this ancient preacher that we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us as we journey through our lives. One almost gets the image of a great stadium with this author’s language of running “with perseverance the race that is set before us.” It’s as when in the Olympics, the marathon runners run their course with crowds encouraging them from the side of the road all along the way, and then at the end the runners arrive in Olympic stadium to a massive roar from the rest of the spectators who are gathered to cheer the finish. It’s thrilling beyond description to think of our lives as so surrounded, so supported, so encouraged along our road, and to consider the greeting we will find at the finish of our own race. And as we experience that pilgrimage of our lives, at whatever place we now find ourselves, it’s tremendously comforting and a great gift from this author to us.

There are several ways in which this great cloud, or perhaps we could say, great crowd of witnesses are God’s gift of grace to us on our journey.

The first is the witness of faith that those who have gone before us offer us.

The preacher to the Hebrews makes this point movingly in chapter 11, after the opening verses we heard just now. After introducing the topic of faith, Hebrews moves to a great litany of people of faith who are for us models of faith and trust in God’s goodness.

Abel, Enoch, Noah. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Moses, the people of Israel at the Red Sea, Rahab. Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah. David, Samuel, all the prophets. All these people, like those in the icons at Holy Trinity, are offered to us as witnesses of what it is to live in faith.

“Faith,” Hebrews says, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” That’s a little hard to hold some days.

And these witnesses that Hebrews offers us, along with a list we would also add from the New Testament, were we to write this chapter, people like Mary Magdalene, Peter, Thomas, Mary and Martha, Stephen, Paul, these witnesses are our encouragement. Because they are like us and yet lived in faith, we can learn from them and be encouraged and strengthened by their witness and experience.

And we have beyond these biblical witnesses those whom we call saints, some known to us and others known to the world, who are also such models and witnesses.

As I understand it from Cha, in the Orthodox church only those who have formally been called saints are referred to with that term. In the West, we use it more freely to include both those officially recognized by the Church and those whose lives are lived in Christ, even to we ourselves as baptized children of God.

But that means that we in effect each make our own list of witnesses who have helped us. Some are those shared by many, people like Francis, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther, Julian of Norwich, countless saints whose lives have been and continue to be witnesses to us of what it is to live in faith. The Church has an abundance of blessing in the sheer numbers of such witnesses.

But then we all have our more quiet list of those saints who have modeled the faith to us in our lives or to our families, those whom perhaps few others know but without whom we would not believe as we do, would not be able to journey as we do.

And this is the great crowd which shows us a life of faith in the wilderness, which helps us see a path, helps us understand our own faltering steps.

But this preacher doesn’t limit the crowd to those who have witnessed in the past. There is also confidence that we all are companions to each other on this journey, in profoundly important ways.

The gift of the community of faith that Jesus gives is that we do not journey through this wilderness of life alone.

As some of you know, I’ve been in a spiritual direction group with three other pastors and a spiritual director for 14 years. It’s been a tremendous gift of companionship having these four people on my journey of faith and in my ministry. And that has been the metaphor that has best described the experience: these are companions who walk on the same path as I, and they are looking ahead with me. They help me see potholes, catch my arm when I stumble, and help me as I reach a crossroads to discern which path seems best.

This is what Hebrews says we all are for each other. We are given the gift of community in Christ, and this is no small gift. As companions in our journey together, we surround and care for each other and look to the needs and concerns of each other, we “lift drooping hands,” as the writer says, “strengthen weak knees, make straight paths for the feet”. This is Jesus’ gift of the Body that he creates, that others help us as we walk the path of our lives, help us navigate the tricky parts, even help smooth out the rough parts, as Hebrews says. Knowing that we do not walk alone, but are strengthened by our fellow travelers sustains and refreshes us again and again for the journey.

But if you look at these words, this is not only comfort, but exhortation, that we take seriously our role as companions of others on the journey. Hebrews exhorts us all to be this to each other, not simply to bask in receiving it from others.

And at our best, as a community of faith, we both receive and give help on our pilgrimage, because we do it together. And that companionship is also simply the comfort of having fellow travelers, who share our stories, pass the time, laugh with us and cry with us, who make our journey lighter by being with us and we with them.

There is one more element we’ve not considered about this “crowd” of witnesses, and that is the word “cloud” that Hebrews uses.

When the writer says we are surrounded by so great a “cloud” of witnesses, we are given an image which suggests the very real presence of those who have gone before us, the hosts of heaven. This is not simply the role we’ve already considered, that these are past witnesses of faith, either in our lives or the history of the Church and before, the people of Israel. This is something much more.

There is in Hebrews, and subsequently in the theology of the Church these past 2,000 years, a pervasive sense that those who have gone before us are even now surrounding us and encouraging us. This is the role of saints as those who cheer on the sidelines at a marathon. They who have gone before us and who are at the throne of God now surround and cheer us on in our race, our journey.

There is much we don’t know about what it is like to have died and still have the world awaiting Jesus’ return and the full restoration of the kingdom. There are some who pick up on hints in Paul that we simply all sleep, and all are raised at the last day. That may well be.

But there are also these hints, which the Church has deeply rooted into its theology and powerfully in its hymnody, that those who have died and gone before us are not asleep but actively worshipping at the throne of God even now, and as Hebrews suggests, surrounding us.

Hymn after hymn speak of the saints who worship God and who are joining us in prayer and praise. Our Eucharistic prayers frequently invite those who have gone before us to join in our prayer and thanksgiving. And frankly, many of us have experienced a sense of this presence, this surrounding cloud, as comfort and hope in our journey of life.

Therefore, Hebrews says, let us run with perseverance this race set before us.

With such witnesses past and present, models and encouragers, cheerers-on, we now take our turn in the journey, and focus ourselves on our pioneer, the perfecter of our faith, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose death and resurrection we also hope and find life. He is the One who, as we hear in his prayer in John, specifically asked the Father to support us as a community, that we might be together even when he is gone. He is the One who asks this of the Father in order that we, his community, might have his joy completed in ourselves.

This is the joy which sustains us in our race, our pilgrimage, our journey. We are not alone, with Christ ahead of us and all the witnesses around us, and so we move forward with hope and confidence toward the life God is even now making in us all. And best of all, toward that life which we will only know fully when we finally arrive at the stadium and finish our race to the cheers of those who have already finished and are celebrating our arrival.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Always a Welcome

March 10, 2013 By moadmin

In the Prodigal Son we learn our right relationship to God; it is that of parent to child. In this parable, Jesus teaches that our actions never change our relationship to God and in this love we are always welcomed home.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Fourth Sunday in Lent (C); text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32; Psalm 32; II Corinthians 5:16-21

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Pharisees have a big problem with Jesus talking to sinners.

Every time Jesus talks to a tax collector, they call him out. Every time Jesus eats with a Samaritan, they hassle him. Every time Jesus goes for a walk with a Gentile, the Pharisees get all worked up!

Why is that? What’s the big deal? Let’s just let the guy eat his lunch already!!

But for the Pharisees this was a big deal, and they had their reasons why. In the Old Testament, we read the story of a people who were constantly struggling to maintain their relationship with God. One day, the people are being faithful to God, and God is blessing them, and the next day the people are worshiping other gods and sinning in various ways, and God is punishing them.

Over and over again in the Old Testament God tells the people to follow his ways, to remember the laws and commandments. God warns them that there are consequences to breaking the rules. And so the Pharisees learned the rules and they learned them very well. They taught that if the people followed the rules, they would have a good relationship with God.

But then Jesus and his disciples come along, and they don’t follow the rules quite as well. Sometimes on the Sabbath Jesus would heal the sick and his disciples would pick grains of wheat from the fields. And as we find out today, Jesus would eat with people who were sinners; he would eat with people who were breaking a lot of rules.

And for the Pharisees this is a big deal because if our relationship with God is dependent on following the rules, then breaking the rules would mean that God might punish us. To be a Pharisee you had to be very careful about making sure everyone was following all the rules.

So when the Pharisees confront Jesus for spending time with rule breakers, Jesus tells them the parable of the Prodigal Son, the story of a wayward son and his loving father who welcomes him back home.

This story is often read with one major inaccuracy. The inaccuracy in the story that we often hear is that the father accepts his son because his son repents. We think this because we hear the son practice his confession, so we think that it’s because he repents the father accepts him back as his son. But if we listen more carefully we realize that the father never hears his confession. The father sees his son a long way off and embraces him before he says a word. When the son does repent to his father, the father never even acknowledges his words but clothes him with his finest robe, sandals, and rings.

The reason that the story is sometimes read in this way is because we unintentionally use a lens that says, “Our relationship to God is dependent on what we do and say.”

We do this for a lot of reasons. We tell ourselves that this story is about what the son does to earn his father’s forgiveness because we want to believe that we can redeem ourselves. We want to believe that if we follow all the rules perfectly, God won’t be angry at us.

Here’s the problem. When we read this story the way that Jesus told it, we realize we got the story backwards. We think that it’s what we do that impacts our relationship with God, when in Jesus’ story it’s actually our relationship to God that impacts what we do.

In this story Jesus tells us that our relationship to God isn’t dependent on our actions. God loves us even when we sin. God loves us when we do well. God loves us when we are close by and God loves us when we are far away. Jesus puts this love for us into terms that we can understand. Jesus puts it in terms of a relationship. Jesus says, this is the kind of love a parent gives to a child, and anyone who has had a relationship based on unconditional love knows what this is like.

As some of you know, my birthday was last week. And as happens every year, I got a phone call from my parents. It was during the day so I wasn’t able to answer but my parents left me a message singing Happy Birthday to me. And then after singing Happy Birthday my Mom said something really incredible to me. She said, “Neal we love you. We were there the day you were born, and there is no one else who can say that but your Dad and I.” And I realized that this is the kind of love that we receive from God. This is the relationship a parent gives to a child, the kind of relationship Jesus was talking about.

This is the kind of love that says, I was there for you on the day you were born, and I will always be there. No matter how old you are, no matter what you do, no matter what you say to me, I will always see you as my baby, my child.

This has deep meaning for us. In this parable we discover that we are not objects or pets in God’s eyes. We are God’s children and God wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us. The Psalm today tells us, “Do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding; who must be fitted with bit and bridle, or else they will not stay near you.” In other words, God doesn’t use us as we would use an animal. God doesn’t force us to do God’s will.

Like the younger son, we are given the opportunity to leave whenever we want. We’re given the freedom to take our inheritance and waste it away. We can pollute the Earth and exploit its resources until the land is parched and withered. We can treat our family, friends, and neighbors with contempt until we are alone in this world. We can exchange love, and life, and community for immediate gratification until we’re empty inside.

But from the parable we learn, life is better when we have a relationship with God. And yes, there are rules when we live in God’s house, but our relationship is never dependent on how well we follow those rules. God is always our Parent and we are always God’s children.

But like all children, we think God’s rules are there to get in our way. We think they hinder us. Don’t eat too many sweets, treat your sister nicely, don’t stay out past midnight! Unfortunately, too often it’s not until we get sick from eating too many sweets, or a relationship with a loved one is ruined, or we get in a car accident because we drank too much at the party and decided to drive home that we realize that God made these rules to keep us safe, to give us life more fully. In the context of God’s relationship to us, we realize that the rules don’t define the relationship,
God’s loving relationship to us defines the rules.

The Good News is, as Jesus tells us in our parable today, that even when we do screw up the door to reconciliation and forgiveness, the door to coming home, is always open. When we realize the world and all its charms is not everything it’s cracked up to be, God is there waiting for us like a Parent waiting for their child to come home late at night.

During this time of Lent this is an especially powerful thing to remember because as we confess our sins, as we prepare ourselves to come before the altar we remember that before we ever uttered a word God forgave us. Before we did a thing, Jesus Christ, the living expression of God’s love, died on cross and was resurrected as proof of the length and depth that God goes to have a relationship with us. This relationship that God has with us, changes our very nature.

As St. Paul says, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” In Christ we are new creatures, a new creation. God sees us as he would see a newborn child. And as such, we can do nothing to separate us from this kind of love, this relationship.

When we are in relationship with God, when we treat others as brothers and sisters in Christ, we become as St. Paul says, “ambassadors for Christ,” because we proclaim as Jesus taught us that God is our loving parent who has welcomed us home.

When our neighbors really tick us off, we forgive them because we know that God forgives us. When our children are too much to bear, we endure their childishness because that’s what God does for us. When a brother or sister sins and falls short of God’s will on Earth, we rejoice and celebrate when they come home safe and sound.

And when we screw up, we repent because of the pain and suffering it has caused us and the world, but we never have to fear God abandoning us because in Christ we have a promise that our sins are forgiven, and that our Loving Parent will never leave us. Thanks be to God.

The Olive Branch, 3/8/13

March 8, 2013 By moadmin

Accent on Worship

Ambassadors of Grace

One of the most important facets of the Christian life is the transformation of how we see the world around us in Christ. How we see each other, what we literally see when we look at our neighbor, impacts how we react to the world around us.

This week in II Corinthians Paul writes, “we regard no one from a human point of view.” The phrase, “human point of view” comes from the Greek phrase kata sarka, which literally means, “with the flesh.”

Paul explains to his readers in Corinth that we once knew Christ from a human point of view. We knew Christ in the form of flesh and bone, we knew him as a carpenter and the son of Mary and Joseph. But now we see Jesus in a different way. We now see Jesus as Messiah and Lord and as three in one God. We see Jesus through the eyes of faith given to us by the Holy Spirit. And if this Christian faith that we hold transforms the way we see Jesus, Paul says it equally transforms the way we see the world around us.

In other words, in Christ we see people from an entirely new perspective that is outside the flesh, outside of our clothing styles, and outside of our jobs and social status and other identifiable markers. More than just outward appearance, in Christ we begin to see people not as sinful creatures but as a forgiven and loved people whom Christ desperately and urgently seeks to reconcile.

Paul then poses a question for us. What if we became ambassadors of this love that we’ve received? What if we became ambassadors of reconciliation and love instead of judges of the flesh?

Too often Christianity is known for judgment of the outside world. But when we realize we’ve lived in the flesh as the prodigal son did, who spent recklessly to our own detriment, and realize we’ve been embraced by the prodigal father, who recklessly gave us grace, then how can we but look on our neighbors with the same compassion that we were once given?

Therefore, let us not act as judge of sin, but as ambassadors of the grace we have received in Christ Jesus!

– Vicar Neal Cannon

Sunday Readings

March 10, 2013 – Fourth Sunday in Lent
Joshua 5:9-12 + Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 + Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

March 17, 2013 – Fifth Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21 + Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4b-14 + John 12:1-8

Midweek Lenten Worship
Wednesdays in Lent
Noon – Holy Eucharist
7:00 pm – Evening Prayer

This Sunday’s Adult Forum

Sunday, March 10 – “The Exodus,” part 2 of a 2-part series, led by Dr. Earl Schwartz.

Dusting and Polishing Day

The Altar Guild will host a chancel-cleaning event next Saturday, March 16, from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Bring your favorite duster and polishing rags, and help prepare our worship space for Holy Week and Easter. Questions? Contact Beth Gaede: bethgaede [at] comcast [dot] com.

Lenten Bible Study: Practice Faith

There are two weeks left of this six-week Bible study led by Vicar Neal Cannon on Thursday nights from 6-7 pm. It meets in the Chapel Lounge and a light supper is served. All are welcome!

March 14 – Sharing the Gospel
March 21 – Serving our Neighbor

Book Discussion Group

For the March 9 meeting (tomorrow), the Book Discussion group will read Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie. For the April 13 meeting they will discuss In the Company of the Courtesan, by Sarah Dunant. Looking ahead, in May we will discuss Children of God, by Mary Doria Russell. This is the sequel to her novel The Sparrow which we read earlier.

Words for the Pilgrimage

Wednesdays in Lent:
February 20, 27, March 6, 13, 20

• Noon – Holy Eucharist, followed by a soup and bread luncheon

• 6:00 p.m. – Soup, Bread, and Table Talk

• 7:00 p.m. – Evening Prayer

“Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:1b-2a

Christian believers have long likened our life of faith to a journey, a pilgrimage through this world. On our Wednesdays this Lent we will explore words from an ancient sermon written to “the Hebrews.” These are words which use the same image, that of pilgrimage, and which provide guidance, direction, hope, and encouragement for this pilgrimage of life, as well as warnings and exhortations. The book of Hebrews will be our companion on our journey, not a tour guide, but a fellow-traveler with us as we seek to live faithfully in this world as disciples.

At noon, the preaching will be at the Eucharist; in the evening it will be during the soup supper, with conversation to follow.

Vespers at Holy Trinity

Tomorrow evening, March 9, at 5:00 p.m., members and friends of Mount Olive have a unique opportunity to attend Great Vespers at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, 956 Forest Street, St. Paul. Holy Trinity is the home parish of Cha Posz, administrative assistant at Mount Olive, and family.

Father Jonathan Proctor, rector of Holy Trinity, will be available after the liturgy to answer questions we may have and perhaps show us the church’s beautiful icons by Nicholas Papas. We will meet in the back of the sanctuary at 4:45 p.m. If you would like to attend, but would need a ride, please contact Susan Cherwien at scherwien@aol.com or 952-920-9568. A sign-up sheet was posted to get a general idea of how many people will attend, but signing up is not required for attendance. Feel free to come even if you didn’t sign up.

Directions to Holy Trinity: I94 to 35E North; exit Maryland Ave.; go EAST 1.3 mi. to Forest St.; RIGHT on Forest 1/2 mile; Holy Trinity is on lefthand side at the corner of Forest and Case.

The National Lutheran Choir to Present Bach’s Mass in B Minor

Thursday, March 21, 2013 – 7:00pm
Central Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, MN

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B minor (BWV 232) stands as one of the landmark creations in music history. The work was among the last composed by Bach before his death in 1750. Bach’s setting of the Mass was unusual for composers at the time. The Mass was never performed in its totality during Bach’s lifetime and it disappeared for much of the 18th century. Felix Mendelssohn, among others, was responsible for a revived interest in Bach’s work and so there were a number of performances of the entire Mass in the early 19th century.

Soloists Susan Palo Cherwien (soprano), Susan Druck (alto), Matthew Anderson (tenor), Paul Max Tipton (baritone) and many of the region’s finest orchestra musicians will accompany us for this one-night-only performance.

For ticket information, call 612-722-2301 or visit their website: www.nlca.com. Don’t miss it!

Church Library News

Awaiting your perusal is a new display of Lenten books in our church library, including:

Portraits of the Christ (messages for Lent and Easter), by John C. McCollister, editor
The Scandal of Lent (themes for Lenten preaching in the Gospel of John), by Robert Kysar
Take Up Your Cross (program resources for Lent and Easter), compiled by Mark Sedio
The Day Before Easter, by W.A. Poovey
Gospel Dramas (12 plays for worship in Lent and other seasons), by Dean Nadasd
The Crosses of Lent (sermon books, Lenten studies for Ash Wednesday to Easter), by Dale A. Meyer and Hubert F. Beck
The Second Season (Lent, Easter and the Ascension), by Wayne Seffen
The Splendor of Easter (compiled and edited by Floyd Thatcher)
A Cross to Glory (Lenten sermons), by Alton F. Wedel
A Book of Easter (with daily devotions by Paul M. Lindberg
A Time of Hope (family, celebrations and activities for Lent and Easter), compiled by 4 editors and an illustrator.

You are likely aware of the non-profit organization “Little Free Library” which was organized in 2009 and has grown tremendously since then. About 6,000 Little Free Libraries are in the U.S. with about 600 being added each month. They have sprung up all over Minnesota and you may even have one in your neighborhood. The goal is to promote literacy, the love of reading and free book exchanges that help provide communities connection and communication everywhere. Literacy is a gateway to improve learning and broadening children’s understanding of the world. If you haven’t seen a Little Free Library, don’t look for something large, however, they do come in various sizes and shapes but a typical one may only be 19″ x 23″ x 16″. Find locations online at littlefreelibrary.org.

The Little Free Library movement is also associated with two other worthy non-profit organizations — Hooked on Books ( the 8th annual event was held locally at Chanhassen High School in February) and the Books for Africa, helping to coordinate all efforts to extend literacy and good books overseas.

I would like to close with a marvelous quote from the Spring 2013 Friends of the Hennepin County Library newsletter, (although the author was not identified) but it goes like this:
“A library is more than a brick and mortar building filled with delicious books. It is also a community of people who live to invest in our youth, who read for knowledge and fun, and who are ready to include anyone who walks through the door.”

– Leanna Kloempken

Music & Fine Arts Event Date Revision

Please note that the Uptown Brass will appear in concert at Mount Olive on April 21, 4:00 p.m. (not April 14, as previously published!).

This group of five world renowned brass virtuosos are all members of the Minnesota Orchestra and will present an exciting concert of gorgeous brass sonorities featuring great music ranging from Bach to Piazolla.

Every Church A Peace Church

The March Bimonthly Potluck Supper meeting will be on Monday, March 11, 6:30 p.m. at St. Luke Presbyterian Church, 3121 Groveland School Road in Minnetonka. The program begins around 7 pm and will feature Tom White on “The Economics of Militarism: Financial and Spiritual Bankruptcy.”

Tom White is a member of Veterans for Peace and Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers. He will explore how our “Spirituality” must be a key component of our vigorous opposition to the obscene disparity between military spending and all other domestic and humanitarian needs. Tom is a 1957 graduate of St. John’s University in Economics and served as a management consultant after a successful corporate career. He was an International Election Observer in El Salvador in 2000 and 2004.

Midweek Lent 2013 + Words for the Pilgrimage (a walk with Hebrews)

March 6, 2013 By moadmin

Week 3: “A Better Way”

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen; Wednesday, 6 March 2013; texts: Hebrews 4:14 – 5:3, 7-10; 10:19-25; John 14:6-13

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

At the Adult Forum last Sunday, Professor Earl Schwartz reminded us that the name for the Jewish people at the time of Moses and the Exodus, “Hebrews,” comes from a word common in the Ancient Near East, “habiru,” which was used by settled people, city people, to describe wandering, migrant, “passing through” people, people that also weren’t native. But what’s been sticking with me since Sunday is Prof. Schwartz’ assertion that the God of Israel was also “habiru,” a wandering, “passing through” God, with no boundaries to protect and no permanent home. This was a great gift to the Hebrews, it turns out. With no permanent temple (which came later during the monarchy), God could go with and be with the Hebrew people wherever they were. At Sinai, Moses was given instructions to create a tabernacle, a tent, which not only kept the Ark of the Covenant, but in its inner section was believed to be the place where heaven and earth came together, where the presence of God could be found.

However, though God went with them along the way, that inner sanctum of the tent of tabernacle was protected by a curtain which kept even the priests from entering. Only once a year would the high priest carry the blood of the sacrifice through the curtain and enter the Holy of Holies, the presence of God, for the atonement of the people, the forgiveness of their sins.

After the tabernacle, the Israelites built a temple modeled in the same way, with the same barrier curtain. And in this center section of this sermon to the Hebrews is an extended argument that while this access to God that the first Hebrews enjoyed and that the Israelites also knew in the Temple, was a good thing, a gracious thing, what Jesus has done for us is a better thing. A better way to God. The word sometimes translated “better” appears in Hebrews more times than in all the rest of the New Testament combined.

It’s worth saying again: Hebrews is not arguing that the old way, the old covenant is bad. In fact, core to this argument is that it was a good gift of God. But this is a better gift, a better covenant, a better high priest that we have. Because of who Jesus is and what Jesus does, he is for us the access to God that we never had before. In our pilgrimage of life, we don’t just have a God who wanders with us but stays in the tent. We actually can know and see and be blessed by the fullness of God in our journey.

So Hebrews tells us that we have in Jesus a better covenant, written on our hearts.

In the writing between what we heard read today, Hebrews quotes the familiar words of Jeremiah 31, words we hear each Reformation Day. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.” And as we remember, this is a covenant where God’s laws will be written on our hearts, and we will be God’s people. And all will know the Lord, from the least to the greatest. And best of all, God promises to remember our sins no more.

The covenant made with Israel at Sinai, the old covenant, was their companion in their pilgrimage to the Promised Land. It was based on God’s saving of them from slavery, and upon their following God’s ways, God’s law. But as Jeremiah, now echoed by Hebrews reminds, the people broke this covenant.

For our journey of faith, we have a new covenant, based on God’s Word being implanted in our hearts and God’s forgiveness shaping our lives. And the mediator of this covenant, according to Hebrews, is what guarantees that this is a valid covenant.

But here’s the powerful insight as to that guarantee: Hebrews reads “covenant” to mean the same as “will,” because in Greek the legal sense of the word can mean both. In a will, you don’t get the inheritance until the person who made the will dies.

So for Hebrews, Jesus’ death becomes the guarantee of his promises, the shedding of blood which supersedes and ends all other sacrifice, the death which opens up the will. And that makes him a better high priest than any before him.

Jesus, in sacrificing himself as atonement for us and our sins, permanently opened the curtain to the presence of God. That’s the center of this whole book.

We don’t need to go into all the detail about the way high priests operated here, which the book of Hebrews does, but a simple summary might help.

Human high priests, as we heard in our reading today, made atonement once a year for the sins of the people and for their own. Each year this needed to be repeated, and each year a human being would enter the Holy of Holies and the presence of God to atone for the sins of all the people.

But Jesus, as the eternal Son of God, offered himself as the sacrifice, Hebrews argues, and opened for us a way through the curtain. And at his death, powerfully, the actual curtain before the Holy of Holies was torn in two.

Because he was and is human, he shared our weakness and could come before the throne as our High Priest. But because he was and is the Son of God, it is the Triune God who makes an offering, who is sacrificed, through the death of the Son. And this brings heaven and earth together in Jesus, instead of in a Holy of Holies.

The curtain between us and God is taken down because God became one of us and in dying and rising brought us into complete access to the throne of God’s grace, as Hebrews calls it. Because of Jesus, the Son, we can see the Father, and we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Because of Jesus we understand what Philip and Thomas do not yet understand in the reading from John 14, that if we’ve seen and know Jesus, we’ve seen and know God.

And this is our hope for our pilgrimage: we have access to the grace and presence of God constantly through the work and gift of the Son of God.

So we are exhorted by Hebrews “to approach the throne of grace with boldness.” That’s our gift and our possibility.

There is no curtain hanging in our chancel between us and the altar, with a space only reserved for a high priest to go, and then only once a year. We all come before the altar of God and are fed the body and blood of the Son of God.

That sacrificial language isn’t accidental: as often as we eat of this bread and drink from this cup, we say at the Eucharist, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. We have access to the fullness of the Triune God in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

That’s why this covenant and this high priest are better for us, and for the world. There is no curtain anymore, in here, or anywhere in our lives.

And so Hebrews urges us to approach God’s throne of grace in several ways:

First, “with a true heart in full assurance of faith,” Hebrews says, because we now have access. We can trust fully that the Triune God wishes to be with us and hear us. And will receive us graciously. So we come with true hearts to see God, we don’t stay away.

Second, we approach “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water,” Hebrews says. No more goats and sheep are sacrificed for their blood to be sprinkled on us and on all people to cleanse us. Our hearts have been sprinkled clean and our bodies washed with pure water of Baptism, a gift from the one whose death saved us all, and whose resurrection brings us and the world to life.

And last, Hebrews says, we approach the throne of grace “holding on to our confession of hope without wavering,” gathering together in the presence of God to encourage and support one another “as the Day approaches.” Hebrews urges that we cling to this confession of hope on our pilgrimage, and we do it together. We journey together as the Day of the Lord approaches, encouraging and supporting one another. And that we will focus on more next week.

We have heard from Hebrews that we are on a pilgrimage in life, and we follow a Guide, the Son of God.

This guide leads us through the wilderness of life on paths he’s already walked, and now we discover that he is the source of all our life and joy, the one who opens the way to God for us now and for all time, who makes a new covenant of life between us and God.

As a wandering people, there is no better news: the Triune God is wandering with us, and because of the grace of the Son, is present in our lives, our hearts, our community, our world, giving life and leading us on the way to the new creation that lies ahead.

Thanks be to God.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Different Questions

March 3, 2013 By moadmin

Jesus urges us to ask different questions of God and of life, focusing on the life God offers and to which we are invited to turn, and not on justifying others’ sin or suffering.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, 3 Lent C; texts: Luke 13:1-9; Isaiah 55:1-9; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

On the one hand, what Jesus seems to be saying to the crowds in this episode is very helpful even in our day. He refers to two tragedies unknown to history but clearly known and clearly troubling to his listeners, and emphatically declares that no conclusions about the victims and their sinfulness can or should be drawn. In a world where some people (and let’s be honest, it’s mostly Christians who do this) seem eager to blame the deaths of others, by everything from natural disasters to acts of evil, on the wickedness of the victims, having this clarity of declaration from the Son of God himself is incredibly important. Those who were killed by the governor Pilate as they made their religious sacrifices were no more sinful than those who were not killed. Those who died in a collapse of a tower near the walls of the city were no more sinful than those who escaped death in that tragedy. Period. End of argument. Jesus has spoken.

Would that he would have stopped there, though. Because the other hand of this episode is that after stating there are no causal links between tragedies, both natural and imposed by others, and those who are harmed, Jesus adds twice, “but unless you all repent, you will all perish just as they did.” What’s the point of saying our sins don’t cause natural disasters to kill us or wicked people to kill us and then saying if we don’t stop sinning we’re going to perish like these apparently innocent bystanders did? It seems as if Jesus is contradicting himself.

The lectionary doesn’t help us much, either, by having us hear Paul’s threats to the Corinthians that if they don’t shape up they’ll be destroyed like some of the Israelites in the wilderness were destroyed. It’s part of an important and helpful section of this letter dealing with respect and care for others in the community, but this particular bit, added to Jesus’ statement, seems to add fuel to the fire of warning.

We can’t claim refuge in half of Jesus’ words if we’re going to dodge the other half, sadly enough. But perhaps we don’t have to dodge anything. There’s a lot more going on here than first meets the eye, and Jesus actually is being consistent. He does mean to tell us that we can’t blame victims for tragedy not of their doing, naturally or human caused. But when he asks us to repent or we will perish, he’s not threatening us with tragedy. What Jesus is doing is pointing us to ask different questions about God, our lives, and what it might mean to turn around, to turn to God, to repent, instead of spending our time in judgment on others, and living in death rather than living in life with God.

The context of this section of Luke is a good starting point to our understanding.

Not only is this Gospel reading only found in Luke, where he places it is enlightening to consider. In the chapter immediately preceding this, Jesus is giving a number of warnings about the coming end times. Luke includes several of Jesus’ urgent parables about servants being at work and ready when their master returns, some of Jesus’ apocalyptic warnings, even his belief that families will be divided because of him. That immediately leads to today’s discussion. And recalling that the Transfiguration has already happened, and Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and his death, we hear today’s words with the urgency of last words, dire warnings.

But what happens afterward in this chapter is also important to note. After this, Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath, to great criticism. Then Luke places two parables next, the yeast and the mustard seed, parables Matthew tells as part of the Sermon on the Mount, earlier in Jesus’ ministry. And last, the chapter ends with the lament of Jesus over Jerusalem we heard last week, that he wanted to draw his people to himself as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but they weren’t willing.

Luke seems to be making several points.

First, whatever Jesus is saying about repentance and the deaths of innocents, it’s weighted with the urgency of limited time. He has to get his point across strongly, in other words, before he’s gone.

But second, it’s instructive to note the positive parables that follow, parables that are hard to read as anything other than the grace of God, and also to note the healing Jesus does. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like yeast in flour, or a mustard seed, both which grow and flourish and bear far greater fruit than their tiny size would suggest possible. And the grace of God that Jesus brings breaks Sabbath law, a law of God, to heal a woman in pain and suffering.

And third, the grief of Jesus comparing himself to a mother hen shapes the whole discourse. Jesus is not only short on time, he desperately wants the people to listen to him and turn their lives to God. He doesn’t want their destruction.

So the context tells us that Jesus desperately needs us to listen while we can, that he’s bringing grace and healing even when it seems inappropriate, and that same grace will flourish in unexpected ways, and that it causes him great sadness when we still won’t turn to God and live.

And lastly, let’s not forget the truly helpful context of the part we also heard read, the parable Luke retells right after this discourse. The urging of patience by the gardener, to let the fruitless tree stand another season, get fertilized and worked on, in hopes that fruit will one day come, is a powerful statement of Jesus’ intent.

For all his urgency, it is that grace we see here and in the rest of this chapter that overrides all. He wants us to turn to God, to bear fruit, and we won’t. But the Holy Spirit, acting as gardener here, says, “let me see if I can do something, get this plant growing and bearing fruit. Give me some time.” Two chapters from now Luke will tell powerful parables of Jesus about the lost being found, about a father who waits for his wayward son and welcomes him home. Such waiting grace is already seen in this story of the fig tree, and becomes our ground for hope.

What the gracious yet serious, the urgent yet patient Jesus is saying today is what he’s been saying all along: “Repent. Turn to God.” But today’s particular emphasis is that we remember that’s what’s really important.

In dealing with the unexplained and frightening tragedies as his framework in the way that he does, Jesus is taking our minds off of the status of others and telling us to focus instead on ourselves, not to be selfish, but because our lives depend upon it. Don’t worry about the reasons for bad things happening to good people or good things happening to bad people, or any combination thereof, he says. You can’t make any inference from what happens to people that will explain why things happen. In fact, he says, I’ll just tell you right out, it’s not related to their sinfulness or behavior.

Instead, he says, you should be thinking about your life with God and whether you have that life or are living in darkness. As Jesus shows grace in this whole chapter by his healing and his parables, by his very life, he says, “this is what God has to offer you. Why won’t you let God surround and embrace you?”

His call to repent in this context is one of re-focusing, and it’s an important one for us. We can spend a lot of time worrying about someone else’s salvation or sin. Jesus says that our time would be better spent considering our own.

He’s also eliminating the “why?” question in favor of the “what can I do?” question. By removing any justification for the innocent deaths in those tragedies, he’s answering the “why” question in something like the way God does in the book of Job: “you wouldn’t understand why if I told you.” He’s saying, quit wasting time trying to find reasons for things you’ll never find reasons for.

Instead, ask yourselves what you will do with your lives now that you know what God is offering you. Will you turn to God and live, or turn from God and die?

Jesus is heading to Jerusalem and the cross for the very reason that we mostly choose to turn from God and not toward God. And he, the Son of God incarnate, will die to transform our hearts by his sacrificial love, that he might rise from the dead to bring us into this life he now is offering his hearers.

Risen from the dead, he still offers open arms, open wings, open love to welcome those who have strayed. And he invites us to see that is where life is and turn to it, rather than perishing, and certainly rather than fretting about reasons for others’ difficulties.

This is exactly what Isaiah is saying to us as well. I told the Tuesday study group that I hoped the Holy Spirit would lead me to Isaiah at some point this week after this hard Gospel and second reading. And that’s just what happened.

Isaiah says what Jesus is saying: why do you run after things that don’t satisfy, eat things that don’t fill you up, seek things that are worthless? He’s not really talking about food here, obviously. Spending time trying to justify why someone else suffered a tragedy has no value or help for us or for them.

Rather, Isaiah says, go after the things of life God is offering. Like Jesus, Isaiah says God is offering spiritual food and drink that will give us life, offering all we need for hearts that are in tune with God and filled with grace, if only we recognize it and turn to it.

Both Jesus and Isaiah are inviting us to find the joy of repentance, the joy of discovering life in the risen Lord who fills us with what we need and shapes our lives into children of God who will transform the world, the children God has hoped for all along.

My thoughts and ways are higher than you can imagine or think, God says through Isaiah, so don’t focus on that. Rather, seek the LORD where he can be found, call upon him while he is near, Isaiah says. And you will find life.

In the end, Jesus says, learn to ask the right questions in life and you’ll find the answers you need.

The One who taught us that when we seek, we certainly will find, tells us today where our questions need to lie and what answers the grace of God provides. He shows us what truly will satisfy the longing of our hearts and lives, and will sustain us in this life, even in a world where people are killed and die in tragic accidents. We need not fear such things because the Son of God has risen from the dead, and we have this same resurrection waiting for us no matter when or how we might die.

But best of all, we need not even wait for God’s redeeming grace to come only at the time of our death, because in this life, Jesus urges us to know, we will have the certain and gracious love of God not only filling us to our depths, but offering forgiveness for our sin and the gracious gardening action of the Holy Spirit helping us bear fruits of Christly love beyond what we thought possible, and that will shape the world.

Let us do what Jesus asks, repent, turn to our God and the life we are being offered. And then we’ll see what well-fertilized lives planted in the grace of God can really do.

In the name of Jesus. Amen