Sermons

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is a goodly amount of ancient history in this morning’s sermon, and some of it is revisionist history, so bear with me. It does have a point, but I find the history itself pretty interesting, too.

It is my perhaps unpopular, though I assure you informed, opinion that the Pharisees have a bad rap. As Christians in the twenty-first century, most of us probably only know that they were Jesus’ interlocutors and, as such, generally ended up on the wrong side of the religious issues discussed in the New Testament. A look into the religious landscape of the 1^st Century A.D., however, suggests a more charitable reading may be appropriate. The Pharisees, unlike that other group we hear so much about in the Gospels, the Saducees, believed firmly that God would resurrect the faithful on the day of judgment and strove to live faithfully because they did believe that their actions had eternal consequences. They developed a very compelling form of biblical interpretation called “midrash”, in which the moral and religious issues in one’s own life could serve as a lens through which to read the Old Testament. St. Paul, himself a recovering Pharisee, used this practice extensively in his letters. Most importantly, the Pharisees’ insight that the worship of the God of Israel could be undertaken by the faithful Jew in the absence of a temple in Jerusalem, that all people could pray despite their physical location, was unique among 1^st Century Jews, and it permitted Judaism to continue after the Romans destroyed the temple in A.D. 70.

So, there you have my apology for the Pharisees. Obviously, they didn’t get everything right, though, which is why they got into so many squabbles with Jesus. The primary mistake they made in today’s Gospel, when they shamed Jesus and his disciples for failing to follow what they called “the traditions of the elders” by eating with dirty hands, was the logical consequence of another essential quality of the religion of the Pharisees, called “hedging the Torah”.

The “traditions of the elders” which the Pharisees mention in today’s Gospel were collections of sayings of Pharisee teachers, or rabbis, stretching from the 6^th Century B.C. up through Jesus’ own day. From one such collection, the Perkei Avot, came the following:

Moses received the Law on Sinai and delivered it to Joshua; and Joshua to the Elders; and the Elders to the prophets; and the prophets to the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be not hasty in judgment; Bring up many disciples; and, Make a hedge for the Torah.

To “hedge the Torah”, the laws found in the first five books of the Old Testament, was to build a metaphorical fence around those laws. Like “hedging one’s bets” in a game of cards, “hedging the Torah” made everyone feel safer, because they weren’t getting close enough to the letter of the law to break it. This might be confusing, so here’s an example: the Torah, or Law, forbade one cooking a goat in its own mother’s milk. The precise reason for this law is a little confusing, but it likely comes from a belief in the ancient Near East that doing so would have an emotional effect on the goat’s mother such that she would no longer produce milk or reproduce, leading to a very poor yield in livestock over time. By the time the Pharisees got to the law, however, its initial intent had been forgotten. Nobody really knew why such a law had been made or what precisely it meant. Perhaps there was a deeper, hidden principle underlying the law. In any event, just to be safe, the Pharisees decided that nobody should eat any meat mixed with dairy. Cheeseburgers were, thenceforth, right out. So, they made a very specific prohibition much broader in scope since they didn’t understand it, in order to have assurance that they were above reproach.

It is a similar situation in today’s Gospel. There were certainly laws in the Torah dictating a certain degree of sanitation to the end of what today we would call “public health”, but all of the hand washing and purification of “cups, pots, and bronze kettles” which the Gospel reading mentions were extensions of these laws.

Far from rejecting the law, which he believed to be God-given and salutary, Jesus was being faithful to the command Moses himself gave in today’s Old Testament reading: “You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it.”

Religion, “true religion” as today’s collect calls it, is a good thing, and Jesus knew it. Pardon my apparent stuffiness, but I believe it to be far more salubrious than half-baked philosophies and warm-fuzzy feelings, because it gives us a connection to a way proven by countless generations to worship God and experience His transcendent love and glory. Tradition is a good thing too, for the same reason, so long as the tradition finds its motivating force in the true worship of God.

So Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees was neither anti-nomian (that is, a rejection of the law) nor anti-religious. It was, rather, a call to true religion. It was a perhaps none-too-gentle indictment of what the prophet Isaiah called “teaching human precepts as doctrine”, but it was not a rejection of doctrine.

So, the task before us, then, is determining what is human precept and what is true religion. Unfortunately, this is a very difficult question, and I’m not smart enough to answer it entirely should I have a lifetime to ponder it, much less in the next two minutes. I firmly believe that the Canon of Scripture, and the Creeds, and even the Book of Common Prayer fall into the “true religion” category rather than the “human precept” category, and it’s through the fruit that I’ve seen these texts bear in the hearts of the faithful and in my own life that have led me to that conclusion.

Both St. Paul and St. James write about the good fruit which is borne by the faithful, and I think that to some degree religion can be judged by the same principle. Does one’s religion lead one to hypocrisy and pride, or does it lead to obedience and humility? Does one’s religion lead to spiritual elitism or does it bear fruit in spreading the gospel with love and in “caring for orphans and widows in their distress” to use St. James’ litmus test? Does one’s religion lead one to an obsession with rules, or does it lead to loving one’s neighbour and worshipping one’s God with a pure heart? Are we as individuals bearing good fruit? Is Trinity Church bearing good fruit? Are the Diocese of Ohio and Episcopal Church, USA bearing good fruit? These are a lot of questions, and the answer to each is probably somewhere between an absolute “yes” and an absolute “no”, but I’ll leave it to each of you to ponder them. And as you answer these questions for yourselves, let a little snippet of today’s collect be your refrain: “Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A quick note on today’s liturgy. While the hymn -board says that today is the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, you will have probably realized that the propers we are using are not those appointed and the vestments are not green but white and [if you were at the 10 o’clock service] the hymns are all Marian in theme. That is because today, the 15^th of August is the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and while all but a few feasts which occur on a Sunday are to be transferred to the Monday after there is one of those rubrics buried in the Book of Common Prayer of which I’ve availed myself today: “When desired, however, the Collect, Preface, and one or more of the Lessons appointed for the Feast may be substituted for those of the Sunday,” as long as it is in one of these long “green seasons” after Epiphany and Trinity Sunday. Because we only have the opportunity once every seven years to observe this, the feast of the greatest of Saints, on a Sunday, and (selfishly) because I have a particular devotion to our Lady, I’ve opted for us to observe the feast today. That out of the way, on with the sermon proper.

My dad once told me that when he was a teenager he was particularly affected by the then new Beatles song Let it Be. One day, inspired by the song, he said to my grandmother, “Mom, don’t you think everything would be better if we just let it be?” To which she responded, “what do you think this house would look like if I just let it be?”

Yet those words “let it be”, despite their apparent passivity, are the words by which God’s will is accomplished in this old world. It is by these words, which in the context of our Lady’s utterance of the same are anything but passive, that men and women are brought into the active work of God’s plan of salvation. They are words that to utter imply that their speaker must realize his or her own fallibility and imperfection and God’s own infallibity and perfection. They are words by which the Christian places his or her trust in God’s overwhelming providence rather than human ingenuity. They are, in short, the words by which the world is saved.

And it is one particular utterance of these words by which the seminal and singular event of all human history came to be. St. Luke tells us that an angel appeared to Mary and said “behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name ‘Jesus’. He shall be great, and be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God, shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Our Lady responded by saying fiat. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to word.”

It is only after Our Lady’s full, active submission to her Father’s will rather than her own that she is emboldened to sing the greatest hymn of praise ever sung, which was our Gospel reading for today: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”

It is through Our Lady’s submission that Our Lord was given the chance to live a life of submission himself, a life and death given wholly not to his own will, but that of the Father. This the writer of Hebrews knew well when he wrote that Jesus had said “See, I have come to do your will,” And then explains “[Christ] abolishes the first [covenant] in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

So must we all respond to the call of God. Just so must we—like Mary and like her Son—say fiat to God. So must we pray “thy will be done” and mean it. So must we put aside our pride and pettiness that we, like Mary, may say “he that is mighty hath magnified me; and holy is his name.” It is only through humble submission, by saying fiat, “let it be, O God”, that we come to greatness and to glory. We cannot magnify ourselves, we can only fool ourselves into thinking we have done. God, however, has promised to “exalt the humble and meek.”

It is a great sadness to me that as products of the Reformation, even we “the most Catholic of Protestants,” seem uncomfortable with talking much about our Lord’s Mother, except when we trot her out around Christmastime every year. Perhaps it is a latent Catholophobia, or perhaps it is a latent misogyny, or maybe it’s just because we see her example and know that we cannot live up to it.

I am not here suggesting that we must all adopt every Marian dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. In case you’re wondering there are four big ones: that Mary is the Mother of God, that she remained a Virgin, that she was assumed bodily into heaven at the end of her life, and that she was conceived (though naturally of her parents Joaquin and Anna) without the stain of original sin. For what it’s worth, the first of these (that Mary is rightly called “the Mother of God”) is universally accepted by Christians as it was defined by the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in A.D. 431 and confirmed at Chalcedon in A.D. 451. (As an aside, before my friend and great theological rival, whom I’ll not name, moved away I would have relished the opportunity to have an argument at coffee hour about Nestorianism’s status within Christendom based on what I just claimed.) Both the Perpetual Virginity and Assumption of Mary were generally believed by the Fathers of the Church, I personally accept both claims, but as they cannot be proved by Scripture alone, they are not enjoined on the faithful and I may be in the minority of Anglicans in believing them. The Immaculate Conception of Mary (not to be confused with the Virgin Birth of Jesus, which should not be controversial as it is plainly taught in Scripture and the Creeds) is a tough one, it may solve some theological problems while creating others, and I don’t know what I think about it.

Anyway, I’m not saying any of you have to buy any of these dogmas (except the first one, of course). And I’m not saying any of you need to start praying to the Virgin Mary; I do, every day when the church bell rings the Angelus at noon and six, but that’s a matter for personal piety. I am suggesting, though, that it is worth considering the role our lady played in salvation history, honoring her faithfulness, and emulating her fiat,her willingness to say “yes” to God not counting the cost.

From time to time one is asked what one’s favorite verse or passage of scripture is. I used to vacillate between different ones, but for the past several years (perhaps the last decade) I have steadily kept the same verse in my mind and heart. It is from St. John’s passion:

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

What began with Mary’s “yes” found its consummation for the Virgin and for the beloved disciple, John, in Christ’s gift of a community of love and fellowship and prayer. Our Lady, type of the Church, and we the church’s daughters and sons, have been given to each other that we might love that which is lovable, find beauty in that which is beautiful, and find a home with each other, the household of God, in this world and the next. There can be no greater gift than this, and it begins with the love of a mother for her son.

In that vein, I close this morning with a prayer which means a great deal to me. Some of you know that I have a particular devotion to Our Lady under a particular title. I am, as it happens, a priest associate of the Holy House of Our Lady of Walsingham, a shrine dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Norfolk, England where she is said to have appeared in the eleventh century, and to which I’ve made pilgrimage and celebrated the Eucharist- one of the most meaningful moments of my life. This is a prayer to which I’ve returned over and over, presented here in a slightly de-anglified version for our American congregation; I pray it may be even a fraction as lovely and meaningful to you as it has been to me though the years. Let us pray.

O Mary, recall the solemn moment when Jesus, your divine son, dying on the cross, confided us to your maternal care. You are our mother, we desire ever to remain your devout children. Let us therefore feel the effects of your powerful intercession with Jesus Christ. Make your name again glorious in those places once renowned throughout the world by your visits, favours, and many miracles.

Pray, O holy mother of God, for the conversion of this land, restoration of the sick, consolation for the afflicted, repentance of sinners, peace to the departed.

O blessed Mary, mother of God, our Lady of Walsingham, intercede for us. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You might have heard the old cliché, “you should disagree without being disagreeable.” It seems like good advice, but perhaps not as strong as it could be, considering how such an approach has been known to lead people into false friendliness and even duplicity, rather than a frank and charitable conversation about differences of opinion.

It seems to me that Paul has something to say about this in today’s epistle? “Putting away all falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors.” Hatefulness, with a saccharin candy-coating of sweetness is not the Christian response to discord, because it doesn’t take into account that, as Christians, “we are members of one another.” We’re in this together, whether we like each other or not. We’re part of the same family, but not just of the same family, but of the same body, and the only way for a body to function is organically, each member in harmony with the other.

And yet, we don’t always do this. We are told by the Apostle only to do and say “what is useful for building up [the body]” yet the history of the Church and of society is riddled with stories of discord and political intrigue and schism. We still have trouble as a society getting over grudges and loving our neighbor, whether we respond aggressively or passive-aggressively. We all have tremendous trouble following Paul’s very practical advice: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”

“Do not leave room for the devil.” There is nothing more diabolical, more devilish, than division in Christ’s Church. That is precisely the work that sin does; it tears brothers and sisters apart from each other, and ultimately it attempts to break apart the very body Christ. We can hide the effects of such evil by being disingenuously sweet to our brother or sister, but that only means that the diabolical program of division is the more insidious.

Now, I have to temper all of this scary stuff with a fact which has been a great encouragement to me and I hope to you who care deeply about the life of the Church. While the story on the national and international levels may be one of division between between political ideologies and religions and races and classes, and while this spirit of divisiveness can and often does infect the church as much as the larger society, I have been so impressed by what I’ve experienced in a handful of congregations I’ve been a part of including this parish. The degree of mutual love and regard with which the members of this parish seem to treat each other is remarkable. The work that we are able to accomplish and the healthiness of our church here is a real gift, it’s more rare than you might think, and it’s largely because there are so many mature people here that seem to genuinely love each other. I don’t think this is a naïve assessment, because I’ve also seen plenty of churches with profound dysfunction. Of course, no group of fallible people is without its internal squabbles, and my spectacles aren’t so rose-tinted that I don’t recognize where some of those are, even among us. Even so, I feel truly blessed to be a part of a congregation that has in many ways already learned to “put away falsehood”, to “be angry but not sin”, to “live in love as Christ loved us.” In a world where people can’t seem to conscientiously disagree with each other while retaining mutual respect and appreciation of each other, the church has, believe it or not, been doing a better job of modeling Christian unity to the larger culture than it has in certain periods of histpry and that we can be the most powerful witness of reconciliation in the world precisely because of our disagreements.

But if I just said “keep up the good work”, that would not be a very compelling charge with which to end a sermon, and it wouldn’t be entirely honest, because each of us has moments in which we need to work at truly loving our neighbor. Many of us have trouble with anger, and do let the sun set on it. Paul said “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you,” but O how much more easily is this said than done. C.S. Lewis said that the way to get there, to start truly loving one’s neighbor, is to act as if one does. “Fake it until you make it.”

It seems to me that the solution is more difficult and requires more reflection, though. I think we need to meditate more carefully and more intentionally on the fact that we have all been baptized into one body, that we are all one family whether we like it or not. Just like a family, our life together as fellow Christians means that we get close enough to see each others’ blemishes; but just like a family we are called to recognize that God has put us all together for a reason. God has thrown us together because God is known in relationship.

In fact, in a sense, God is relationship. God is not a lone person, but three persons living in unity. And even though God has a profound, mystical relationship within the Godhead, he has expanded his love such that we can be in relationship with him too. And even more than that, God has given us gifts like the Sacrament of Marriage so that two people can create a community of love like that between the persons of the Godhead. And even more than that, God has given us the Church, so that all people everywhere may have the opportunity to live in that same love. Ultimately, the Church is not a tool for self-improvement, but a means by which God’s love can be shared. It is a gift, and like any gift it must be cherished. And in recognizing what a great gift it is, I think we can ultimately come to realize our own responsibility in nurturing the life of the Church by truly, genuinely loving each of our brothers and sisters and then leading lives which express that love. In doing so, Paul tells, we become “imitators of God”. God is love, and a godly life is one lived in love. In doing so, in becoming more grateful, faithful, loving people we may like Christ himself, present our own lives as “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.