My sermon for August 1

If you go to Trinity, Milton, don't read this!!!

August 1

          If you were here last week, you heard the first part of the story of David and Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite.

          David sees Bathsheba bathing on her roof top—but his is higher—and he is enamored of her. He invites her to his bed and she becomes pregnant.

        (Tip here--watch where you bathe.)

          Problem was, she was Uriah’s wife.

          Then David tells Joab, his general is the war with the Ammonites, to put Uriah on the front line and fall back so he will be killed.

          And as we learn in today’s reading, Uriah was Killed—by the Ammonites…and David….

          That reading last week began with these words: “In the Spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle.”

          Spring, each year, brings me many thoughts—but ‘going to war’ is not one of them.

          Today I want to talk about conflict and ‘The Other’ and what Jesus tells us about all that.

 

          In David’s time, the Middle East was in nearly constant conflict. And the conflict was always against ‘the Other’—someone different ethnically or in language or racially different from you.

The Hittites were ‘other’ from the Jews. There Kingdom was what is now Turkey. But war and conflict make for strange bedfellows. The Hittites hated the Ammonites more than they hated the Jews.

Remember, Russia, now our adversary, was our Allies in World War II against the Germans and Japan, both of which are now our friends!

But conflict always involves “us” against the “other”.

Our own Civil war was between Free States and the ‘Other’—the Slave States.

For the Slave States, it was ‘us’ against the ‘other’—the Free States.

Conflict is always ‘us’ against the ‘other’.

 

After he married Bathsheba and she gave him a son, King David was visited by the Prophet Nathan, sent by God.

(Just a hint—when it comes to the Hebrew Scriptures that a King is confronted by a Prophet—place your bet on the Prophet….)

Nathan tells David a story about a very wealthy man who has many flocks, who when an unexpected visitor comes, steals the only ewe lamb the only possession and ‘like a daughter’ to a poor man to serve his visitor.

          David is enraged. “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die…because he had no pity.”

          Then Nathan drops the bomb: “YOU ARE THE MAN!”

          Then God tells David that he was chosen to be the King over God’s people and you have betrayed me by killing Uriah in secret and I will take all from you and do it in public.

          Pretty dramatic.

          But at least David has the humility and guilt to say to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

 

          Who have been “the Other” in our country?

          I’ll tell you, though it gives me pain, our ‘other’ have been people of color.

          Our great nation was founded on two things—and incredible document called the Constitution and the evil of slavery.

          In that remarkable Constitution, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person in the census.

          The OTHER.

          Our Presiding Bishop and our Bishops have called the churches of the Episcopal Church to be in conversation about “Racial Healing, Justice and Reconciliation”.

          Your Vestry and I, in the near future, will be inviting you into conversation about healing and justice and reconciliation. Those conversations will not be shaming us—they will be calling us to be disciples of Jesus. They will be calling us to look clearly at the history of our nation and to do what we can do to find healing and justice and reconciliation.

          Remember this: Jesus had a very different view of ‘the Other’ than history has had.

          Jesus said, “welcome the stranger.”

          Jesus said, “love your enemy.”

          Jesus said, “let the poor come unto me.”

          Jesus said, “love your neighbor as yourself”, no matter if your neighbor is ‘the Other’.

          In today’s Gospel, Jesus is talking to those he fed in the wilderness about ‘bread’.

          His questioners see bread as something to eat.

          Jesus sees bread as something to ‘do’ and embrace.

          “I am the bread of life”, he tells them

          To receive that eternal bread we must follow him—welcome the stranger, love our enemies, love ‘the other’ in our midst. He calls on us to reflect on all of that and trust in him.

          Not much to ask, really, for eternal bread….Amen and Shalom.

A much better day

I slept really well last night--on and off from 10 p.m. to 9:15 a.m. I got up three times to pee--so I must have been as hydrated as they told me to be. When I woke up I took a shower and my temperature was 98.1.

Ate some breakfast--soft boiled egg and bacon.

Then I went to Trinity, Milton to lead a Bible study on 'reading the gospels side-by-side' and talked with the guy who is their Pastoral Care Counselor. He was a Roman priest until he left to get married and have children. I hear great things about his care of folks in the parish.

A great afternoon there.

Home to talk with the man who is contracting some work we need on our 171 year old house.

Still feeling great.

I think it was the chill and the terrible air yesterday.

I liked today oodles more than yesterday.

 

 

Not a good day

 The AC was on too high last night in our bedroom. I woke up congested and chilly.

It got worse: I had an upset stomach and in the afternoon, diarrhea.

I couldn't eat anything until early afternoon--had one helping of mac and cheese and a bowl of chicken noodle soup for dinner.

I didn't feel well enough to be on more than 45 minutes of my zoom group.

Plus I had to go to Waterbury Hospital to get my Zolaire shots.

My temp there was 90.

My temp is almost always 98.3. The nurse told me to call my doctor.

After an hour nap I did.

"Check your temp. Stay hydrated. Try to relax and eat."

So I did.

My temp just now was 98.6 and I feel a lot better.

But not a good day--I prefer 'good days'!

The good news and the bad news

(I found this in my documents today. I know it's not Lent, I'm a priest, after all. But with polls showing less than 50% of Americans are Christians, it has meaning today.)

 

 

   THE DESERT OF LENT

 

          There is good news and bad news. And both are the same—we are living in the “post-Christian era”.  American culture used to be synonymous with a culturally agreed upon “Christian culture.” That is no longer true. In fact, the Christian church is marginalized in 2012. We live in a “multi-cultural” society. Christianity is no longer the norm. In fact, the Church is now and will be for some extended time, perhaps forever, a remnant in our society. Once again, as in the first and second centuries of the first millennium, we are a “pilgrim people”, the Church lives in the desert—on the edges of society, as a counter-culture.

 

          That is the bad news and the good news.

 

          It is “bad news” because it requires us, as the Church, to give up our arrogance and control of the culture. It is “good news” because it requires us, as the Church, to give up our arrogance and control of the culture.

 

          The GOOD NEWS and BAD NEWS are exactly the same.

 

                                                *

 

          The “desert church” motif is one I appreciate and embrace. The first rule of living in the desert is this: never carry anything you don’t need to survive.  So, here in the desert, the Church has the opportunity to lay down and cast aside much of the flotsam and jetsam that holds us back and pins us down. We have to be a “pilgrim people” who travel light.

 

          At a clergy conference years ago, one of the speakers talked about “the desert church”—the church of the new millennium and this post-Christian era. It is almost like being back in the days before the Council of Nicaea in 325 C. E. (If you had any doubt that we’re in the “post Christian era” notice how the politically correct—like me!—use “C. E.”, meaning “the Common Era”, for dates rather than the good-old “A. D.”,  anno Domini, meaning, “the year of our Lord.”) After 17 centuries of dominating and forming western culture, the church is back in the market place, competing with other faiths, other philosophies, other spiritual systems. It is an exciting and challenging time for the church. I honestly can’t think of a better time to be a Christian. We must live with urgency and passion. We must “travel light”.

 

We have a job to do.

 

Shalom, jim    

 

 

Today

 Went to my first Vestry meeting at Trinity, Milton.

Talkative group. I like that.

My agreement says I will lead Vestry meetings. I haven't done that for years and won't do it there. I like to listen and watch.

It's a great group of people there. Very committed, very dedicated.

I enjoy them a lot.

I'm still struggling to learn names, but the vestry decided today that everyone should wear name tags, even visitors.

That's good for me.

I begin a Bible study on Wednesday.

I hope it will be challenging for people.

It's 'Reading the Gospels side-by-side" and brings into question what people think about the Gospels.

Looking forward to it mightily.

Good day at Trinity, but 3 1/2 hours is about all I can do to talk to people.

Since the pandemic it's just been me and Bern, and though our conversations are rich, they are rare.

I'm talked out and ready for sleep.

Good Night

 I've got to get up at 7:40 in the morning to go to Milton and do church.

I'm very sleepy though it's only 9:42.

I'm going to bed.

I hope you've had a good day.

And I wish you restful sleep and a wondrous day tomorrow.

Good night.

Good night.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ