THIS SUNDAY'S SERMON

 Gospel: Mt. 16. 13-20

Who do you say that I am?

 

        Today we find ourselves in the city of Caesarea Philippi.

          Just a short aside about Caesarea Philippi because it is a fascinating place—it is north of the Sea of Galilee, near what is now the border between Israel and Lebanon. Prior to being named “Caesarea Philippi” by the Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Philip (to honor Caesar Augustus and…oh, himself…) the city was known as Banias in Hebrew and “Paneas” in Greek. It was the site of a shrine to Pan, the god of mirth and drink and debauchery (God bless him!). But it didn’t stop there: there were shrines to Persian gods and Roman gods and to Caesar, who was worshipped as a god, and even shrines to the Pre-Greek gods of that region. Caesarea Philippi was a veritable panoply of worship and sacrifice. And besides all that, the water that flows through Banius from Mount Hermon is the headwaters of the River Jordan. So it was a terribly holy place for Jews as well.

          So, in this remarkably holy, sacred place, Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

          I want to go on record as saying that is one of the most audacious, outrageous, daring and vulnerable questions anyone can ask. Who in their right mind would ask it? What rational person would want to know the answer when it came?

 

          Think about it for a moment—WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

          Is that something you really, truly, honestly want to know? From an acquaintance? From a close friend? Even from someone who loves you? Do you really, truly, honestly want to know “who they say you are?”

          Let me talk about me for a moment….I’m not sure I want to risk the pain and disappointment and confusion that hearing “who someone else says I am” would cause me.

          Two examples, if I might.

          First of all, I’ve had any number of people who have come to know me and love me tell me that when they first met me they thought I was “arrogant”. That’s the word they’ve all used—arrogant.

          WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM? I could have asked them when they didn’t know me well.

          YOU ARE VERY ARROGANT, they would have answered.

          Of all the things I think about myself—about WHO I AM—about the last thing would be “arrogant”. I’m always using so much energy trying to please people and make them like me and show them how honorable I am, that I would never imagine they’d think I was arrogant. I’ve spent hours and hours trying to understand why people would think that’s “who I am….”

          And I would have been bereft, deeply pained, stung to the core.

          It is a very risky question to ask: WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

          Who would want to know? Who would be confident enough to hear the response?

          Secondly, I know myself better than anyone knows me. I know all my dark and secret places, all my aching places, all my shame and fear and brokenness. Why would I ask someone WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM? For fear of hearing the “truth” about what I know about me…..

          My greatest fear is that someone will “figure me out” and know what a phony, what a fake, what a hypocrite, what a sham I am.

          So why would I ever ask someone: WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

 

          Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian murdered by the Nazi’s at the end of WW II. One of his books was Letters and Papers from Prison and contained this poem. Listen. Listen carefully…. 

            

WHO AM I?

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a Squire from his country home.

 

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my wardens

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though they were mine to command.

 

Who am I? they also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

 

Am I really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were

Compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

 

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others

And before myself a contemptable, woebegone weaking?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in distain from victory already achieved?

 

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.

 

 

 

 

I had a friend who was a priest in West Virginia with me for five years. He was a great guy, very funny. But he always ran himself down—about his problems and short-comings. We went our different ways—I went to CT and he went west. Then, a dozen or so years later, he was elected Bishop. I went to his consecration. Hearing what people said about him in the reception, when I talked with him I said, “don’t ever run yourself down again—I heard what those people said about Who You Are.

So, maybe who people say we are can challenge us to live into their words.

There were many opinions about ‘who Jesus was’, but Peter nailed it--“you are the Messiah!” Jesus told him, “You are the Rock (petros in Greek) on which I’ll build my church”. Then he told them to tell no one who he was.

There are many voices, both inside our heads and from those around us that have an opinion about who you and I are.

But Bonhoeffer nailed it—whoever we are, we belong to God.

We are God’s beloved children. And what we need to do with that is to live in the world as the hands and hearts and voices and actions of Jesus. We are to be Christ’s Body to this darkling world.

We have to. We just have to.

We must…. We must….We must.  

 

Memory

I'm reading a great book by John Sanford called Masked Prey.

Bern told me I read it already, just a few months ago. I believe her, but I'm 2/3 through and don't remember reading it.

Maybe my memory is slipping away.

That would mean I could get my 7 favorite books and read them over and over again for the first time!

I'd like that, as weird as it sounds. Not having to read books I don't like.

Maybe my memory is improving at this moment.

I think I wrote about this before....

But, of course, I don't remember when....

 

Cancer

 I've had prostate cancer. It was about 12 years ago. I found a woman oncologist in NYC and made an appointment to talk with her. I wanted a woman since she didn't have a prostate and would have a non-biased opinion.

I told her about my problem. She looked at all my medical records. I asked her, "If I were your brother, what would you tell me to do?"

She thought for a minute and said, "yank it out."

She recommended a surgeon in Greenwich who 'yanked my prostate out' at Greenwich hospital (more like a hotel than a hospital!).

Cancer is when ordinary cells began to mutate into something dangerous.

The current president has mutated much of our democracy into something dangerous.

Like my prostate gland, he needs to be 'yanked out' of office.

We can do that on November 3rd if enough of us vote.

He's trying, as best he can, to prevent all of us from voting by trying to destroy the Postal Service.

Congress is trying, oh so hard, in both parties to prevent that.

Not much to do with cancer but 'yank it out'.

Let's do that.

OK?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94  link to my youtube blog

(These opinions are mine and mine only.)

August in Connecticut???

The last few days have been cool and dry. Not what I've come to expect from my nearly 30 years in CT.

No AC in our room at night and we slept the sleep of the dead.

It's been more humid tonight, but still comfortable.

Tonight, though, AC to sleep with.

But wondrous while it lasted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94 link to my youtube blog 

Days three and four

I was up so late Wednesday and last night, watching the DNC, I haven't found time to write about days 3 and 4.

They were both so great!

Day 3 was Kamala's night. Her acceptance speech told us much about her upbringing and the glass ceilings she has already broken. She has a great and oft-used smile. It lights up the room--even the huge, empty room she spoke from. She is fierce and compassionate and committed.

Great speech.

Day 4 was Joe's night. so many great things happened. Just a few: Tammy Duckworth's speech, which began showing her two artificial legs from having  her helicopter she was piloting in the war shot down. A zoom meeting of most of the people Joe defeated in the primaries. One great moment was when Sen. Booker asked Sen. Sanders, "tell my Bernie, why does my girlfriend like you better than me?" Sanders replied, "because she's smarter than you are."

Then there was Brayden Harrison, a 13 year old who met Joe at one of those hand-shake lines. Joe discovered Brayden stuttered and met with him for an hour to share how he too had a stutter as a child. Brayden talked about how kind and compassionate Joe was to him. Moved me to tears.

(An aside: Joe's stuttering came up in a video about his childhood. A nun in Joe's elementary school mocked his stutter. He went home in tears and his mother took him back to school and told the nun, "if you mistreat my son again, I'll come down here and jerk that bonnet off you head!" Steven Colbert, late last night, live after the convention, (I watched it on you tube this morning), said Joe should work that into his campaign: My Mom Threatened a Nun For Me!)

The women who hosted each session were all lovely and well-spoken. Julia Louis-Dryfus was also hilarious. One of her lines was when she was giving a number to text for information on voting safely. It ended with a number, something like 303033, and Julia commented that would be Trump's golf score if he didn't cheat. Then she added, "I know I shouldn't have said that, but we know he is a cheater, and I'm a nasty, nasty woman." Pretty good, Julia.

What the Democrats did the last 4 nights is something the Republicans can't do. They showed us the faces of America. Every color, ethnic group, religion and background--both in the speakers and in the ordinary people the hosts talked with. Democrats and Joe and Kamala represent the 'whole' of American, not a slice of it.

Come on people--Get out and Vote.

We are "we the people".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94   (link to my you tube blog)

(All opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

 

 

My oh, so odd night

I watched night two of the Democratic Convention. It was all about Joe Biden being The Right One--a healer, open to everybody--a lovely tribute to Joe's friendship with John McCain, being nominated, not by a politician, but by a Black, female elevator operator in the Capital who Joe befriended years ago, Jill's loving speech about her husband...on and on and on.

But when I went to bed I got a searing pain across the middle of my back--excruciating. Nothing worked, so I woke Bern at 2 a.m. to take me to Mid-State Hospital in Meriden.

I could hardly walk when we got to the emergency room. Even at that hour, things moved slowly. Finally a nurse took me into a room and put me on a bed with the head elevated.

While she asked me endless questions, I began to relax some.

By the time she left and told me a doctor would be in 'soon', my pain was gone.

It was like a miracle! 

After waiting 15 minutes, I called her back and told her I wanted to go home.

I asked her how long for the doctor and she said 15 to 20 minutes. That sealed it.

She made me walk up and down several hallways before agreeing to let me leave. I even drove home and got into bed at 4:15!

Slept well. Have had no pain at all today.

Bern's theory was a kidney stone (she's had them) that passed while we were waiting.

I remember her kidney stone like it was yesterday.

It was a Sunday morning and she felt poorly so she and Mimi didn't go up to St. John's. I was in the middle of my sermon when someone, luckily, heard the phone in the vesting room.

They pulled me out of the pulpit to tell me she was on her way to Waterbury hospital. Josh had been an acolyte that day, sitting behind the altar rail. He leaped the altar rail in his robe to come to me.

We beat her to the hospital. Her pain was so bad she called 911 and forgot Mimi was in her room!

A couple from the church went to Cheshire to be with Mimi.

Bern is a tough cookie, but I've never seen her in such pain. They somehow dissolved the stones and we were home by dark.

I hope that wasn't what I had. And I don't want that pain again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94 

(link to my you tube blog)

(these are my opinions and mine only)

 

 

The Democratic Convention--Night One

 It was odd, a Convention without crowds. But as it should be in the days of this virus.

It was quite a lot in a little over two hours: Republican John Kasic in a field where a road had two forks, people from every state and territory singing the national anthem, a lovely hostess asking questions to many ordinary people, Bernie Sanders in front of a year full of wood for the stove, lots of entertainment, and, most, most of all Michelle Obama's moving speech and firm denunciation of the president.

I thought it was done flawlessly in the technology.

How hard that must have been to pull off.

Very up beat--"we the people" was the theme.

Watch it on youtube if you didn't see it.

Lordy, Lordy, upbeat and uniting, just what we need in these strange and dangerous times.

(The opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

(link to my You Tube Blog)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2spGLdMV94